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Neoconservatism Bulletin, 2019

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[Jun 23, 2020] Identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ( soft neoliberals ) to counter the defection of trade union members from the party

Highly recommended!
divide and conquer 1. To gain or maintain power by generating tension among others, especially those less powerful, so that they cannot unite in opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... In its most general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal, but I'm hoping I can say something new. ..."
"... The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy. ..."
"... Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity. ..."
"... If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members, who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump. ..."
Dec 28, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

likbez 12.27.19 at 10:21 pm

John,

I've been thinking about the various versions of and critiques of identity politics that are around at the moment. In its most general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal, but I'm hoping I can say something new.

You missed one important line of critique -- identity politics as a dirty political strategy of soft neoliberals.

See discussion of this issue by Professor Ganesh Sitaraman in his recent article (based on his excellent book The Great Democracy ) https://newrepublic.com/article/155970/collapse-neoliberalism

To be sure, race, gender, culture, and other aspects of social life have always been important to politics. But neoliberalism's radical individualism has increasingly raised two interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into identity groups can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity. Self-government requires uniting through our commonalities and aspiring to achieve a shared future.

When individuals fall back onto clans, tribes, and us-versus-them identities, the political community gets fragmented. It becomes harder for people to see each other as part of that same shared future.

Demagogues [more correctly neoliberals -- likbez] rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and religious antagonism, which only further fuels the divisions within society. Neoliberalism's war on "society," by pushing toward the privatization and marketization of everything, thus indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism that further undermines the preconditions for a free and democratic society.

The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy.

Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity.

Of course, the result is to leave in place political and economic structures that harm the very groups that inclusionary neoliberals claim to support. The foreign policy adventures of the neoconservatives and liberal internationalists haven't fared much better than economic policy or cultural politics. The U.S. and its coalition partners have been bogged down in the war in Afghanistan for 18 years and counting. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is a liberal democracy, nor did the attempt to establish democracy in Iraq lead to a domino effect that swept the Middle East and reformed its governments for the better. Instead, power in Iraq has shifted from American occupiers to sectarian militias, to the Iraqi government, to Islamic State terrorists, and back to the Iraqi government -- and more than 100,000 Iraqis are dead.

Or take the liberal internationalist 2011 intervention in Libya. The result was not a peaceful transition to stable democracy but instead civil war and instability, with thousands dead as the country splintered and portions were overrun by terrorist groups. On the grounds of democracy promotion, it is hard to say these interventions were a success. And for those motivated to expand human rights around the world, it is hard to justify these wars as humanitarian victories -- on the civilian death count alone.

Indeed, the central anchoring assumptions of the American foreign policy establishment have been proven wrong. Foreign policymakers largely assumed that all good things would go together -- democracy, markets, and human rights -- and so they thought opening China to trade would inexorably lead to it becoming a liberal democracy. They were wrong. They thought Russia would become liberal through swift democratization and privatization. They were wrong.

They thought globalization was inevitable and that ever-expanding trade liberalization was desirable even if the political system never corrected for trade's winners and losers. They were wrong. These aren't minor mistakes. And to be clear, Donald Trump had nothing to do with them. All of these failures were evident prior to the 2016 election.

If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members, who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump.

Initially Clinton calculation was that trade union voters has nowhere to go anyways, and it was correct for first decade or so of his betrayal. But gradually trade union members and lower middle class started to leave Dems in droves (Demexit, compare with Brexit) and that where identity politics was invented to compensate for this loss.

So in addition to issues that you mention we also need to view the role of identity politics as the political strategy of the "soft neoliberals " directed at discrediting and the suppression of nationalism.

The resurgence of nationalism is the inevitable byproduct of the dominance of neoliberalism, resurgence which I think is capable to bury neoliberalism as it lost popular support (which now is limited to financial oligarchy and high income professional groups, such as we can find in corporate and military brass, (shrinking) IT sector, upper strata of academy, upper strata of medical professionals, etc)

That means that the structure of the current system isn't just flawed which imply that most problems are relatively minor and can be fixed by making some tweaks. It is unfixable, because the "Identity wars" reflect a deep moral contradictions within neoliberal ideology. And they can't be solved within this framework.

[Jun 03, 2020] The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable

Highly recommended!
Jun 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent hate groups target the powerless and diverse.

Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.

[Jun 03, 2020] The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable

Highly recommended!
Jun 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent hate groups target the powerless and diverse.

Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.

[Dec 31, 2019] The US is now openly dismissive as a matter of law any ally or partner who engages in economic activity it disapproves by Tom Luongo

Dec 26, 2019 | astutenews.com

Europe is willing to defy the U.S. on Nordstream to the point of forcing the U.S. to openly and nakedly destroy its reputation with European contractors and governments to stop one pipeline in a place where multiple gas pipelines will be needed for future growth.

This is the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option. And the neocons in the Senate just pushed the button. Europe understands what this is really about, the U.S. retaining its imperial position as the policy setter for all the world. If it can set energy policy for Europe then it can set everything else.

And it's clear that the leadership in Europe is done with that status quo. The Trump administration from the beginning has used NATO as an excuse to mask its real intentions towards Europe, which is continued domination of its policies. Trump complains that the U.S. pays into NATO to protect Europe from Russia but then Europe buys its energy from Russia. That's unfair, Donald complains, like a little bitch, frankly, even though he right on the surface. But if the recent NATO summit is any indication, Europe is no longer interested in NATO performing that function. French President Emmanuel Macron wants NATO re-purposed to fight global terror, a terrible idea. NATO should just be ended.

But you'll notice how Trump doesn't talk about that anymore. He wants more billions pumped into NATO while the U.S. still sets its policies. This is not a boondoggle for the MIC as much as it's a Sword of Damocles to hold over Europe's head. The U.S.'s involvement in should be ended immediately, the troops brought home and the billions of dollars spent here as opposed to occupying most of Europe to point missiles at a Russia wholly uninterested in imperial ambitions no less harboring any of them.

And Trump also knows this but thinks stopping Nordstream 2 is the price Europe has to pay him for this privilege. It's insane. The time has come for Europe to act independently from the U.S. As much as I despise the EU, to untangle it from the U.S. on energy policy is the means by which for it to then deal with its problems internally. It can't do that while the U.S. is threatening it. Circling the wagons against the immediate threat, as it were.

And that means protecting its companies and citizens from the economic depredations of power-mad neoconservatives in the U.S. Senate like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham.

Allseas, the Swiss company laying the pipe for Nordstream 2, has halted construction for now , awaiting instructions from the U.S. Gazprom will likely step in to finish the job and Germany will green light any of the necessary permits to get the pipeline done. Those people will be put out of work just in time for Christmas, turning thousands of people against the U.S. Commerce drives people together, politics drives them apart.

But, at the same time, the urgency to finish Nordstream 2 on time is wholly irrelevant now because Ukraine and Russia came to terms on a new five-year gas transit contract. This ensures Gazprom can meet its contractual deliveries to Europe that no one thought could be done on time. But when the Nazi threat to Zelensky meeting with Merkel, Macron and Putin in Paris failed to materialize, a gas deal was on the horizon.

And, guess what? U.S. LNG will still not have the marginal lever over Europe's energy policy because of that. Putin and Zelensky outmaneuvered Cruz, Graham and Trump on this. Because that's what this boils down to. By keeping Russian gas out of Europe, it was supposed to constrain not only Russia's growth but also Europe's. Because then the U.S. government can control who and how much energy can make it into European markets at critical junctures politically.

That was the Bolton Doctrine to National Security. And that doctrine brought nothing but misery to millions.

And if you look back over the past five years of U.S./EU relations you will see this gambit clearly for what it was, a way to continue European vassalage at the hands of the U.S. by forcing market share of U.S. providers into European markets.

Again, it gets back to Trump's ideas about Emergy Dominance and becoming the supplier of the marginal erg of energy to important economies around the world.

The smart play for the EU now that the gas transit deal is in place is to threaten counter-sanctions against the U.S. and bar all LNG shipments into Europe. Gas prices are at historic lows, gas supplies are overflowing thanks to fears of a deal not being in place.

So, a three to six month embargo of U.S. LNG into Europe to bleed off excess supply while Nordstream 2 is completed would be the right play politically.

But, in reality, they won't need to, because the U.S. won't be able to import much into Europe under current prices and market conditions. And once Nordstream 2 is complete, LNG sales to Europe should crater.

In the end, I guess it's too bad for Ted Cruz that economics and basic human ingenuity are more powerful than legislatures. Because Nordstream 2 will be completed. Turkstream's other trains into Europe will be built. Venezuela will continue rebuilding its energy sector with Russian and Chinese help.

There is no place for U.S. LNG in Europe outside of the Poles literally burning money virtue signaling their Russophobia. Nordstream 2 was a response to the revolt in Ukraine, to replace any potential losses in market share to Europe. Now Russia will have what it had before passing through Ukraine along with Nordstream 2. By 2024 there will be at least two trains from Turkstream coming into Europe.

Iran will keep expanding exports, settling its oil and gas trade through Russian banks. And the U.S. will continue to fulminate and make itself even more irrelevant over time. What men like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump refuse to understand is that when you go nuclear you can't ever go back. If you threaten the nuclear option, there's no fall back position.

And when those that you threaten with annihilation survive they are made all the stronger for passing through the eye of the needle. Looking at Gazprom's balance sheet right now, that's my take.


By Tom Luongo. Source: Gold Goats 'n Guns

[Dec 31, 2019] Turkey's Gunboat Gambit In The Mediterranean by Burak Bekdil

Dec 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

Turkey, since 2011, has been waging a pro-Sunni proxy war in Syria, in the hope of one day establishing in Damascus a pro-Turkey, Islamist regime. This ambition has failed, costing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey violent political turmoil on both sides of Turkey's 911-km border with Syria and billions of dollars spent on more than 4 million Syrian refugees scattered across the Turkish soil.

In Egypt, in 2011-2012, Erdoğan aggressively supported the failed Muslim Brotherhood government and deeply antagonized the incumbent -- then-general but now president -- Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Since Erdoğan's efforts in Syria and Egypt failed, his Sunni Islamist ambitions have found a new proxy-war theater: Libya.

On December 10, Erdoğan said he could deploy troops in Libya if the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli (which Turkey supports) requested it. Erdoğan's talks with GNA's head, Fayez al-Sarraj, who is fighting a war against the Libyan National Army (LNA) of General Khalifa Haftar, produced two ostensibly strategic agreements: a memorandum of understanding on providing the GNA with arms, military training and personnel; and a maritime agreement delineating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean waters.

Greece and Egypt protested immediately while the European Council unequivocally condemned the controversial accords. Meanwhile, the deals apparently escalated a proxy competition between Turkey's old (Greece) and new (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) rivals.

With the al-Sarraj handshake, Erdoğan is apparently aiming to:

All that ambition requires military hardware as well as diplomatic software. Since 2011, a year after the Mavi Marmara incident ruptured relations with Israel, Turkey has been investing billions of dollars in naval technologies, in an apparent effort to build up the hardware it would one day require.

In the eight years since then, Turkey has built four Ada-class corvettes; two Landing Ship Tank (LST) vessels; eight fast Landing Craft Tank (LCT) vessels; 16 military patrol ships; two deep-sea rescue ships; one submarine rescue ship; and four assault boats.

The jewel in the naval treasury box is a $1 billion Landing Platform Dock (LPD), now being built under license from Spain's Navantia shipyards, to be operational in 2021. The TCG Anadolu , Turkey's first amphibious assault ship, will carry a battalion-sized unit of 1,200 troops and personnel, eight utility helicopters and three unmanned aerial vehicles; it also will transport 150 vehicles, including battle tanks. It also may be able to deploy short takeoff and vertical landing STOVL F-35 fighter jets. Turkey will be the third operator in the world of this ship type, after Spain and Australia.

Erdoğan's naval ambitions, however, are not limited just to an emerging fleet of conventional vessels. In 2016, he said that the LPD program would hopefully be the first step toward producing a "most elite" aircraft carrier. He also said he "sees it as a major deficiency that we still do not have a nuclear vessel."

On December 22, Turkey's first Type 214 class submarine, the TCG Piri Reis , hit the seas with a ceremony attended by Erdoğan. "Today," he said , "we gathered here for the docking of Piri Reis . As of 2020, a submarine will go into service each year. By 2027, all six of our submarines will be at our seas for service."

Unsurprisingly the docking ceremony reminded Erdoğan of his Libyan gambit: "We will evaluate every opportunity in land, sea and air. If needed, we will increase military support in Libya."

Erdoğan seems to think that his best defense in the Mediterranean power game is an offense. On December 15, Turkish Naval Forces intercepted an Israeli research ship, the Bat Galim , in Cypriot waters and escorted it away, as tension over natural resource exploration continued to rise in the region.

On December 16, Turkey dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus. A week before the drone deployment, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Ankara could use its military forces to halt gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own.

Libya is another risky proxy war theater for Turkey. Its deals with the al-Sarraj government over troop deployment and maritime borders will become null and void if the Libyan civil war, begun in 2014, ends with Gen. Haftar's victory. The chief of staff of the LNA, Farag Al-Mahdawi, announced that his forces would sink any Turkish ship approaching the Libyan coast. "I have an order; as soon as the Turkish research vessels arrive, I will have a solution. I will sink them myself," Al-Mahdawi warned, noting that the order was coming from Haftar. On December 21, Haftar's forces seized a Grenada-flagged ship with Turkish crew aboard, on the suspicion that it was carrying arms. The ship was later released.

The European Union is another factor why Erdoğan, once again, is probably betting on the wrong horse. Technically speaking, Turkey is a candidate for full EU membership, but it is an open secret that accession talks have not moved an inch during the past several years, and with no prospects of progress in sight. Making membership prospects even gloomier, EU foreign ministers in November agreed on economic sanctions for Ankara for violating Cyprus' maritime economic zone by drilling off the island.

The Mediterranean chess game leaves Turkey in alliance with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet and one of the warring factions in Libya, versus a strategic grouping of Greece, Cyprus, Egypt (and the UAE), Israel, and the other warring Libyan group.

One emerging power in Libya, however, is not a Western state actor. After controlling Syria in favor of President Bashar al-Assad and establishing permanent military bases inside and off the coast of the country, Russia has the potential to step into the Libyan theater with a bigger proxy and direct force, to establish its second permanent Mediterranean military presence. As in Syria, where divergent interests did not stop Turkey from becoming a remote-controlled Russian player, Moscow can once again make use of the Turkish card to undermine Western interests in Libya.

Also as in Syria, Turkey's Islamist agenda will probably fail in Libya, but by the time Erdoğan understands that, it might be too late to get out of Moscow's orbit.

[Dec 31, 2019] Iraq attack as another example how spineless Trump is about trying to assert his will over that of the neocon bureaucracies, civilian and military

Dec 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Russ , Dec 30 2019 8:34 utc | 1

Instead of finding the real culprits - ISIS remnants, disgruntled locals, Kurds who want to regain control over Kirkuk - the U.S. decided that Kata'ib Hizbullah was the group guilty of the attack....

Yesterday's attacks guarantee that all U.S. troops will have to leave Iraq and will thereby also lose their supply lines to Syria.

One wonders if that was the real intend of those strikes.

Just like with 9/11 and Iraq where the US government immediately pushed its pre-existing agenda, so the US doesn't care who really launches attacks on US and US-client positions in Iraq and Syria but automatically assigns them to Hezbollah and thus to Iran, in accord with the pre-existing neocon wet dream of provoking a full-scale war with Iran.

If that's the US intent, to escalate against Iran, and if conversely the Iraq government is serious about kicking out the US military, we'll have the confrontation discussed in the open thread.

As for the idea that Trump was briar-patching here, wanting a good legalistic pretext to withdraw troops from Iraq (which would then trigger the practical supply-based pretext to withdraw them from Syria and not "take the oil" after all), well even if he had such confused thoughts, we've already seen how spineless he is about trying to assert his will over that of the neocon bureaucracies, civilian and military. Do we really expect them to agree to vacate Iraq merely because the legally constituted supposedly sovereign government told them to? It seems more likely they'll tell the government they're not going anywhere and demand that the government help them suppress non-governmental resistance to their ongoing presence, or else. (I don't know if there's yet been a formal order to leave from the Iraqi government, or just rhetoric in an attempt to save face.)

[Dec 30, 2019] Sanders probably understands the situation but still is pandering to MIC, while Warren sounds like a regular neocon, another Kagan

Notable quotes:
"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
Dec 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or neoprogressivism for short.

Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot ones too.

Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American and Western European progressive values.

"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win."

A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis" which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally -- is at stake."

Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."

The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped as an "authoritarian Internationale."

Cold War Calling

Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and middle classes.

"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use" policy.

And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world."

Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."

The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."

Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and supporter."

Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared xenophobia."

Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."

The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."

Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.

Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.

By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another.

Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align with the West."

George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy.

True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little sense.

Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake.

Echoes of Neoconservatism

The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S., according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and refuge."

Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake the world in the American self-image.

"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."

Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for Trump.

Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among six-in-ten Americans in 2016.

Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11 failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S. foreign policy.

But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.

One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids can't afford to go to college?"

The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?

FDR's Good Neighbor Policy

The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And stability requires balance.

In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root. This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.

It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."

Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security interests are at stake."

A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy," said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a World of neighbors."

What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in the domestic affairs of neighboring states."

These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.

James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.

[Dec 29, 2019] There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history. But probably only until Trump find a replacement

Dec 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The other possible replacements include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Deputy Secretary of State Biegun, U.S. ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, Trump's Iran envoy Brian Hook, and two hard-liners from the Senate, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Most of these names inspire some mixture of loathing and dread, and of the seven men being considered Biegun is the only one remotely qualified to take the job. Hook has disqualified himself , and he shouldn't even be working at the State Department right now much less running it. Grenell functions as little more than an international troll , and he has done a terrible job representing the U.S. in Berlin, so promoting him would be an equally terrible mistake.

Rubio and Cotton are fanatics with the most toxic foreign policy views, and they would also likely be very poor managers of the department. In that respect, they are very much like Pompeo. Mnuchin would likely have great difficulty getting confirmed, and replacing one sanctions-happy Secretary with the Treasury Secretary who has been enforcing those sanctions is no improvement at all. As for O'Brien, he was a bad choice for National Security Advisor , he has done nothing since he took over from Bolton to suggest otherwise, and so it makes absolutely no sense to promote him. Biegun clearly has the confidence of the Senate following his overwhelming confirmation vote to be Deputy Secretary, so having him take over the department for whatever time is left in Trump's term seems the best available choice.

It is a measure of how chaotic and unsuccessful Trump's foreign policy is that we are talking about the possible nomination of a third Secretary of State in less than three years. Pompeo has outlasted many of his administration colleagues to become one of the longest-serving Cabinet officials under this president, and his tenure is not even two years old. It is no wonder that the list of likely replacements is so weak. Who would want to join a scandal-ridden administration with a failed foreign policy?

Pompeo's departure will be good news for the State Department, and the sooner it comes the better. There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history. Considering the damage that Pompeo has done along with the harm done by Tillerson, the next Secretary of State will have a lot of work to do to rebuild and not much time to do it in. Pompeo should clear the way for the next Secretary and resign as soon as possible.

[Dec 29, 2019] Iran arrests more than 100 Christians in growing crackdown on ...

Dec 29, 2019 | telegraph.co.uk

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/10/iran-arrests-100-christians-growing-crackdown-minority/

Dec 10, 2018 Iran has arrested more than 100 Christians in the last week, charities report, amid a growing crackdown by the Islamic Republic. play_arrow play_arrow 3 Reply Report CTG_Sweden 19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy But so far they haven´t been kicked out of Iran, like a considerable portion of the Palestinian Christians in Palestine/Israel back in 1947-48. 30 % of the Palestinians who were driven out from Israel were Christians. Nor have they been starved to death like the Christians who owned farmland in Russia/Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s when Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Stalin´s "brother in law" Kaganovych ruled over Russian/Ukrainian farmers. But I agree that Europe still is a better place for Christians than Iran. But does a person like Barbara Lerner-Spectre want to keep it that way? Well, I´m not so sure about that. CTG_Sweden 17 minutes ago remove Share link Copy

falconflight:

"christians, and btw Yazidies have been destroyed in those two nations."

My comments:

... by ISIS and Al-Qaeda which indirectly were supported by the West which also wished to topple Assad. Israel even treated wounded ISIS fighters in Golan (which they had conquered from Syria in 1967). TeraByte 1 hour ago remove Share link Copy Israel is too arrogant to be able to recognize the current altered terror balance in ME, even when this is confirmed by their own military analysts. The country will experience a very hard awakening, if attacking neighbour nations. How is it possible these Choosenites swearing God chose them to reign over other people and their Holy Talmud telling "the Universe was created for the fulfillment of the destiny of the Jewish people" now simultaneously can claim they have a cool rational of their real position on real time. These lunatics´ religious arguments simply do not add up.

[Dec 29, 2019] People you are voting for actually serve as representatives of MIC, not you: House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria

Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

yaridanjo , 21 minutes ago link

Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!

Reality_checkers , 18 minutes ago link

MIGA!

yaridanjo , 11 minutes ago link

You can find here who the warmongers in congress are:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/116-2019/h560

the warmongers voted 'yea' to get their bribes from the Rothschild Banking Cartel!

[Dec 29, 2019] There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history. But probably only until Trump find a replacement

Dec 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The other possible replacements include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Deputy Secretary of State Biegun, U.S. ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, Trump's Iran envoy Brian Hook, and two hard-liners from the Senate, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Most of these names inspire some mixture of loathing and dread, and of the seven men being considered Biegun is the only one remotely qualified to take the job. Hook has disqualified himself , and he shouldn't even be working at the State Department right now much less running it. Grenell functions as little more than an international troll , and he has done a terrible job representing the U.S. in Berlin, so promoting him would be an equally terrible mistake.

Rubio and Cotton are fanatics with the most toxic foreign policy views, and they would also likely be very poor managers of the department. In that respect, they are very much like Pompeo. Mnuchin would likely have great difficulty getting confirmed, and replacing one sanctions-happy Secretary with the Treasury Secretary who has been enforcing those sanctions is no improvement at all. As for O'Brien, he was a bad choice for National Security Advisor , he has done nothing since he took over from Bolton to suggest otherwise, and so it makes absolutely no sense to promote him. Biegun clearly has the confidence of the Senate following his overwhelming confirmation vote to be Deputy Secretary, so having him take over the department for whatever time is left in Trump's term seems the best available choice.

It is a measure of how chaotic and unsuccessful Trump's foreign policy is that we are talking about the possible nomination of a third Secretary of State in less than three years. Pompeo has outlasted many of his administration colleagues to become one of the longest-serving Cabinet officials under this president, and his tenure is not even two years old. It is no wonder that the list of likely replacements is so weak. Who would want to join a scandal-ridden administration with a failed foreign policy?

Pompeo's departure will be good news for the State Department, and the sooner it comes the better. There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history. Considering the damage that Pompeo has done along with the harm done by Tillerson, the next Secretary of State will have a lot of work to do to rebuild and not much time to do it in. Pompeo should clear the way for the next Secretary and resign as soon as possible.

[Dec 29, 2019] I can think of a couple of reasons for Erdogan's Libyan adventure. First, he'd rather have those battle tested jihadis in Libya than on his border or in his country.

Dec 29, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Lyttennburgh , 28 December 2019 at 04:10 PM

Re: Idlibian "moderate rebels"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMynmroXUAYTexQ.jpg
^Judking by the patches, we have a "jihadi bingo" man here!

Off-topic

TTG, any comments about Erdogan's apparent desire to channel part of *his* Idlibian murtads-sahavats to Lybia in support of *his* clients?

The Twisted Genius -> Lyttennburgh... , 28 December 2019 at 07:59 PM
Lyttennburgh, I can think of a couple of reasons for Erdogan's Libyan adventure. First, he'd rather have those battle tested jihadis in Libya than on his border or in his country. Second, he may have his eyes on Mediterranean oil. Lastly, he may see a friendly Libyan government as an ally or province of his Ottoman Empire dream. No matter what the reason, he's setting himself up for another confrontation with Russia.

[Dec 29, 2019] Russian Adventurism in Libya by Stephen Lendman

Dec 29, 2019 | stephenlendman.org

Russian Adventurism in Libya?

by Stephen Lendman ( stephenlendman.orgHome – Stephen Lendman )

Combating the scourge of US-supported terrorists in Syria at the behest of its government aside, Russia's involvement elsewhere is diplomatic, including in Libya.

Obama regime-led aggression in 2011 transformed Africa's most developed nation into a charnel house, a dystopian failed state, endless war raging with no resolution in prospect.

Wherever wars rage, chances are US dirty hands are involved, clearly the case in multiple countries, including Libya.

Russia is not involved in the country militarily. Claims otherwise are fabricated. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov strongly denied them, saying:

"I categorically refute speculations of this kind. We are acting in the interest of the Libyan settlement," adding:

"We are supporting the existing effort, including through the United Nations. We maintain a dialogue with those who somehow influence the situation."

"We do not think that there is any grounds for such statements, such fiction, but this is not the first time that US media spread different speculations, wicked rumors, falsehoods targeting us."

"We have already gotten used to this, and we take it in stride. However, I have to acknowledge that recurrent hoaxes of this kind exercise a negative influence on the sentiment of the US domestic public, and the general atmosphere in the United States."

"Unfortunately it does not promote normalization of our ties, although we strive for it."

A November NYT propaganda piece falsely accused Russia of involvement militarily in Libya -- instead of focusing on how the Obama regime raped and destroyed the country.

Trump hardliners support warlord Khalifa Haftar, a longtime CIA asset, a former US resident, commander of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) -- waging war on the UN-backed Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

Since US-led aggression toppled Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011 and sodomized him to death, the US continued to wage secret drone war on the country, conducting hundreds of strikes, continuing since Trump took office.

The Times falsely claimed "Russian mercenaries (and) snipers" are involved in Libya -- no evidence cited proving what's not so, adding:

Hundreds of "Russian fighters (are) part of a broad campaign by the Kremlin to reassert its influence across the Middle East and Africa (sic)."

"It has introduced advanced Sukhoi jets, coordinated missile strikes, and precision-guided artillery, as well as the snipers -- the same playbook that made Moscow a kingmaker in the Syrian civil war (sic)."

There's nothing remotely "civil" about US aggression in Syria. No evidence suggests Russia is involved militarily in Libya with heavy or other weapons.

The Kremlin didn't intervene in the country on behalf of anyone. Its involvement is diplomatic to try resolving the mess US aggression created -- what the Times and other establishment media cheerled.

Days earlier, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed false claims about Kremlin involvement in Libya militarily, saying:

Moscow officials maintain diplomatic contact "with all current Libyan political forces," adding:

Congressional hardliners drafted the so-called Libya Stabilization Act -- imposing sanctions on Russia for its "imaginary military presence in" the country.

The measure falsely accuses Moscow of "military intervention," blaming what doesn't exist on destabilizing the country, ignoring how US-led NATO smashed Libya, massacring countless thousands, displacing many more, destroying their livelihoods and well-being

"I wonder how US lawmakers describe the illegal US armed forces presence in Syria or the reckless actions of the (Obama regime) in Libya to their voters," Zakharova stressed.

The Times propaganda piece barely acknowledged Trump regime support for Haftar, mentioning it buried well into its article, ignoring its April 2019 piece, headlined:

"Trump Endorses an Aspiring Libyan Strongman, Reversing Policy" -- supporting Haftar.

Endless wars and chaos serve US imperial interests. Peace and stability defeat its aims.

Trump regime hardliners and the Times are likely concerned that Russian diplomatic involvement in Libya might resolve endless war.

Even at peace, it could take a generation to undo the wreckage US-led aggression caused.

For survivors with lost loved ones, there's no way to undo their loss.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org ( Home – Stephen Lendman ). Contact at [email protected] .

[Dec 28, 2019] Senior OPCW Official Busted Leaked Email Exposes Orders To Delete All Traces Of Dissent On Douma

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power. ..."
"... This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids. ..."
"... Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets. ..."
"... Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. ..."
"... Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us. ..."
"... If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press. ..."
"... Instead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup? ..."
"... The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense. ..."
"... And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal. ..."
"... According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this." ..."
"... New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded. ..."
Dec 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Senior OPCW Official Busted: Leaked Email Exposes Orders To "Delete All Traces" Of Dissent On Douma by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/28/2019 - 10:30 0 SHARES

Via AlMasdarNews.com,

Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation, revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the fact-finding mission.

RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk

-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019

"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:

" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"

According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than dropped.

"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.

It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018 over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.

AP file image.

Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the minutes).

Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQN

-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019

The purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims."

More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."

According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure ."

The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".

* * *

See full details at Wikileaks.org


JohnFrodo , 28 minutes ago link

pity the human pawns at the center of this mess.

africoman , 38 minutes ago link

There has been a Newsweek reporter who quite over editorial block of this OPCW case here also another interview by Grayzone

https://youtu.be/qqK8KgxuCPI

The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed except being a misdirected na

ponyboy99 , 40 minutes ago link

If you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar drinking Blatz.

ponyboy99 , 47 minutes ago link

If you go thru life assuming every single thing is a farce and a lie (Roddy Piper) these events can not only be explained, they can be predicted.

Ace006 , 57 minutes ago link

SOMEbody's got to ensure the intergrity of the Documents Registry Archive

Weihan , 58 minutes ago link

The globalist deep-state's reach is legendary.

Nothing , 1 hour ago link

yes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?

Greed is King , 36 minutes ago link

That`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.

And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.

africoman , 16 minutes ago link

It's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks

I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on false flag

I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as retribution etc

Thordoom , 1 hour ago link

This organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.

British elite is the worst of all.

DCFusor , 1 hour ago link

Your military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).

They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite some time.

I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the clown in chief's tie is.

St. TwinkleToes , 1 hour ago link

Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.

This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.

veritas semper vinces , 2 hours ago link

Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.

holgerdanske , 1 hour ago link

It was May that insisted on this attack. Remember the "poison" attack and the evil Russians?

lwilland1012 , 3 hours ago link

Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is being set, we might as well not have any.

ken , 1 hour ago link

Well, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going forward....?

WorkingClassMan , 3 hours ago link

Everybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on behalf of Isn'treal.

The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.

turkey george palmer , 3 hours ago link

Only official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain

adonisdemilo , 3 hours ago link

Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us.

johnnycanuck , 3 hours ago link

It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW. In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".

Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.

And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep secret from the world.

If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press.

https://johnmenadue.com/robert-fisk-the-evidence-we-were-never-meant-to-see-about-the-douma-gas-attack-counterpunch-27-may-2019/

5fingerdiscount , 3 hours ago link

Instead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup?

Helg Saracen , 3 hours ago link

The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.

And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.

carbonmutant , 4 hours ago link

You gotta wonder how much the deep state has deleted about their interference in Trump's administration...

dogbert8 , 4 hours ago link

Pretty much everyone with a brain realizes this all was a lie; only the M5M and the DC swamp continue to pretend it wasn't.

Joiningupthedots , 4 hours ago link

Who really made the order though?

ClickNLook , 3 hours ago link

Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW needs to be interrogated to find out.

Condor_0000 , 4 hours ago link

Newsweek Reporter Quits After Editors Block Coverage of OPCW Syria Scandal

December 19, 2019

Aaron Mate

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/19/newsweek-reporter-quits-after-editors-block-coverage-of-opcw-syria-scandal/

According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this."

New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded.

This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure, suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.

[Dec 28, 2019] Foreign Fighter 'Rat Line' In Reverse Turkey Sends Syrian 'Rebels' To Libya

So Turkey goes against Uncle Sam and Egypt. Interesting...
Notable quotes:
"... Erdogan's eyes set on defeating Benghazi-based General Khalifa Haftar, it appears this arms and jihadist rat line has conveniently been reversed . ..."
"... In a deepening proxy war, Turkey aims to send its Navy to protect Tripoli, while its troops train and coordinate forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, according to a senior Turkish official. Turkey recently signed a critical maritime deal with oil-rich Libya that serves energy interests of both countries and aims to salvage billions of dollars of business contracts thrown into limbo by the conflict . ..."
"... Remember when the CIA thought it was a good idea to train and fund jihadists in Syria to topple Assad? ..."
"... The conflict in Syria has become a rallying point for jihadists from around the world. More than 20,000 foreign fighters are fighting or have fought in Syria, and most are part of jihadist groups, including Jubhat al Nusra (JAN) and Islamic State (IS). North Africa has provided a large portion of these foreign fighters, from countries as diverse as Morocco and Libya. ..."
Dec 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Bloomberg has confirmed on Friday the prior rumors that Turkey will be sending mercenaries to Libya -- where it is propping up the UN-backed government in Tripoli (the GNA) -- are true. "Turkey is preparing to deploy troops and naval forces to support the internationally-recognized Libyan government, joining a planned push by Ankara-backed Syrian rebels to defeat strongman Khalifa Haftar," reports Bloomberg .

Though Ankara has yet to confirm or deny the new reports, Erdogan's Turkey has for years overseen a Libya-to-Turkey-to-Syria arms "rat line" which saw both heavy weaponry and jihadists fighters transported for the purpose of toppling Assad. But now with Erdogan's eyes set on defeating Benghazi-based General Khalifa Haftar, it appears this arms and jihadist rat line has conveniently been reversed .

Jihadists of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, via DPA/PA Images.

This also as President Erdogan in a speech on Thursday presented plans to send Turkish national troops bolster Tripoli as well .

Possibly thousands from among the so-called Turkish Free Syrian Army (formerly the FSA), with most of its fighters currently attacking Syrian Kurds in the ongoing 'Operation Peace Spring', will now be sent into Libya.

There are reports suggesting Turkey is ready to pay $2,000 a month for each Syrian 'rebel' willing to go to Libya .

TFSA source told me Turkey will be offering fighters from all TFSA factions $2,000/month to go to Libya.

-- Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) December 24, 2019

And akin to the current proxy war which has seen both the US, Kurds, and Sunni Islamists backed by Turkey wrangle over Syria's oil rich eastern region, Libya is heating up to be the latest 'oil and gas prize' -- but with immensely more at stake. As Bloomberg notes:

In a deepening proxy war, Turkey aims to send its Navy to protect Tripoli, while its troops train and coordinate forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, according to a senior Turkish official. Turkey recently signed a critical maritime deal with oil-rich Libya that serves energy interests of both countries and aims to salvage billions of dollars of business contracts thrown into limbo by the conflict .

As we predicted earlier , Libya and the southern Mediterranean is on its way to becoming the next big Middle East conflict of 2020 , also with Egypt and even Russia warning of further involvement to block Turkey's increasing role on the ground.

And as the mainstream media finally stops ignoring the looming catastrophe for north Africa and the region (still in denial as to the fruits of US-NATO "liberated" Libya after Gaddafi was overthrown and killed), it must be remembered that in another ironic plot twist, the CIA trained the very FSA 'rebel' fighters now on their way to Libya .

Gee who would have ever predicted? It's the foreign fighter 'rat line' in reverse.

Remember when the CIA thought it was a good idea to train and fund jihadists in Syria to topple Assad? Via a 2015 military study :

The conflict in Syria has become a rallying point for jihadists from around the world. More than 20,000 foreign fighters are fighting or have fought in Syria, and most are part of jihadist groups, including Jubhat al Nusra (JAN) and Islamic State (IS). North Africa has provided a large portion of these foreign fighters, from countries as diverse as Morocco and Libya. Who are these North African fighters, and why are they going to Syria? What do they hope to accomplish there, and do they want to return to their home countries?

Considering the tens of thousands of foreign fighters which poured into Syria starting in 2011 and 2012 in the first place, many of them from Libya, perhaps many are now simply headed "home" -- ready to further the proxy war chaos at Erdogan's bidding.


teolawki , 6 hours ago link

Turkey has no business being part of NATO. None. Expel the wannabe caliphate now!

Whopper Goldberg , 6 hours ago link

NATO should be disbanned its a terrrorist organisation led by the USSA.

Protect racket scam just like the Mafia

ddiduck , 5 hours ago link

NATO IS NOTHING more than an extension of George Soros' arm as it is also an extension of the Rothschild arm! Most should have gleaned this by now, particularly recognizing the radical Wahhabism that was included in this band of merry global thugs (Saudi Arabia) to do the bidding of the globalist satanic cabal. Kind of sad hearing this kind of neive responses from the gallery...sorry Mr. teolawki but you missed the forest for the trees.

teolawki , 5 hours ago link

What is naive is not understanding that Turkey is the current NATO nations gateway for all manner of illicit and illegitimat activity to foment and perpetuate the forever wars in the ME. This has been going on since well before Benghazi and has only gotten worse under Erdogan.

If you have a way to snap your fingers and solve every problem simultaneously, then please do so. Otherwise it must be undertaken one step at a time. Closing that Turkish gateway permanently is an excellent start.

[Dec 26, 2019] Due to their adherence to the "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine Congress and the White House compete in year-end stupidity sweepstakes...

Dec 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Unz Review,

At the end of the nineteenth century, Lord Palmerston stated what he thought was obvious, that "England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests." Palmerston was saying that national interests should drive the relationships with foreigners. A nation will have amicable relations most of the time with some countries and difficult relations with some others, but the bottom line should always be what is beneficial for one's own country and people.

If Palmerston were alive today and observing the relationship of the United States of America with the rest of the world, he might well find Washington to be an exception to his rule. The U.S., to be sure, has been adept at turning adversaries into enemies and disappointing friends, and it is all done with a glib assurance that doing so will somehow bring democracy and freedom to all. Indeed, either neoliberal democracy promotion or the neoconservative version of the same have been seen as an overriding and compelling interest during the past twenty years even though the policies themselves have been disastrous and have only damaged the real interests of the American people.

The U.S. relationship with Israel is, for example, driven by a powerful and wealthy domestic lobby rather than by any common interests at all yet it is regularly falsely touted as being between two "close allies" and "best friends." It has cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for the Jewish state and Israeli influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East region has led to catastrophic military interventions in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Mogadishu and Libya. Currently, Israel is agitating for U.S. action against the nonexistent Iranian "threat" while also unleashing its lobby in the United States to make illegal criticism of any of its war crimes, effectively curtailing freedom of speech and association for all Americans.

Far more dangerous is the continued excoriation of the Kremlin over the largely mythical Russiagate narrative. Congress has recently approved a bill that would give to Ukraine $300 million in supplementary military assistance to use against Russia. The money and authorization appear in the House of Representatives version of the national defense authorization act (NDAA) that passed last week.

The bill is a renewal of the controversial Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative that Donald Trump allegedly manipulated to bring about an investigation of Joe Biden's son Hunter. The new version expands on the former assistance package to include coastal defense cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles as offensive weapons that are acceptable for export to Kiev. It also authorizes an additional $50 million in military assistance on top of the $250 million congress had granted in last year's bill, "of which $100 million would be available only for lethal assistance."

Ukraine sought the money and arms to counter Russian naval dominance in the Black Sea through its base at Sevastopol in the Crimea. One year ago the Russian navy captured three Ukrainian warships and Kiev was unable to push back against Moscow because it lacked weapons designed to attack ships. Now it will have them and presumably it will use them. How Russia will react is unknowable.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, has been in Washington lobbying for the additional military assistance. He has had considerable success, particularly as there is bipartisan support in Congress for aid to Kiev and also because the Trump Departments of Defense and State as well as the National Security Council are all on board in countering the "Russian threat" in the Black Sea. President Trump signed the NDAA last week, which completed the process.

Far more ominously, Kuleba and his interlocutors in the administration and congress have been revisiting a proposal first surfaced under Bill Clinton, that Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted to the NATO alliance. Like the $300 million in military aid, there appears to be considerable bipartisan support for such a move. NATO already has a major presence on the Black Sea with Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey all members. Adding Ukraine and Georgia would completely isolate the Russian presence and Moscow would undoubtedly see it as an existential threat.

The NDAA also provides seed money to initiate the so-called Space Force , which President Trump inaugurated by describing it as "the world's newest war-fighting domain. Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital. We're leading, but we're not leading by enough, but very shortly we'll be leading by a lot. The Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground."

If that isn't bad enough, the new defense budget ominously also requires the Trump administration to impose sanctions "with respect to provision of certain vessels for the construction of certain Russian energy export pipelines." Last week the House of Representatives and Senate approved specific sanctions relating to the companies and governments that are collaborating on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will cross the Baltic Sea from Vyborg to Greifswald to connect Germany with Russian natural gas. President Trump has signed off on the legislation.

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The United States has opposed the project ever since it was first mooted, claiming that it will make Europe "hostage" to Russian energy, will enrich the Russian government, and will also empower Russian President Vladimir Putin to be more aggressive. Engineering companies that will be providing services such as pipe-laying will be targeted by Washington as the Trump administration tries to halt the completion of the $10.5 billion project.

Now that the NDAA has been signed, the Trump administration has 60 days to identify companies, individuals and even foreign governments that have in some way provided services or assistance to the pipeline project. Sanctions would block individuals from travel to the United States and would freeze bank accounts and other tangible property that would be identified by the U.S. Treasury. One company that will definitely be targeted for sanctions is the Switzerland-based Allseas, which has been contracted with by Russia's Gazprom to build the offshore section of pipeline. It has suspended work on the project while it examines the implications of the sanctions.

Bear in mind that Nord Stream 2 is a peaceful commercial project between two countries that have friendly relations, making the threats implicit in the U.S. reaction more than somewhat inappropriate. Increased U.S. sanctions against Russia itself are also believed to be a possibility and there has even been some suggestion that the German government and its energy ministry might be sanctioned. This has predictably resulted in pushback from Germany, normally a country that is inclined to go along with any and all American initiatives. Last week German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas asked Congress not to meddle in European energy policy, saying "We think this is unacceptable, because it is ultimately a move to influence autonomous decisions that are made in Europe. European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S."

German Bundestag member Andreas Nick warned that "It's an issue of national sovereignty, and it is potentially a liability for trans-Atlantic relations." That Trump is needlessly alienating important countries like Germany that are genuine allies, unlike Israel and Saudi Arabia, over an issue that is not an actual American interest is unfortunate. It makes one think that the wheels have definitely come off the cart in Washington.

The point is that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Mike Esper (admittedly too many Mikes) wouldn't know a national interest if it hit them in the face. Their politicization of policy to "win in 2020" promoting apocalyptic nonsense like war in space has also reinforced an existing tunnel vision on what Russia under Vladimir Putin is all about that is extremely dangerous. Admittedly, Team Trump throws out sanctions in all directions with reckless abandon, mostly aimed at Russia, Iran, North Korea and, the current favorite, Venezuela. No one is immune. But the escalation going from sanctions to arming the Kremlin's enemies is both reckless and pointless. Russia will definitely strike back if it is attacked, make no mistake about that, and war could easily escalate with tragic consequences for all of us. That war is perhaps becoming thinkable is in itself deplorable, with Business Insider running a recent piece on surviving a nuclear attack. New homes in target America will likely soon come equipped with bomb shelters, just like in the 1950s. Tags Politics

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[Dec 25, 2019] The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing, when faced with the awesome might of the Exceptional Nation.

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile December 24, 2019 at 1:20 am

S&P Global Platts does not seem to be in the same jubilatory mood as is the troll in his belief that Nord Stream 2 has been well and truly fucked by the mighty Empire:

Nord Stream 2 pipelayer Allseas suspends operations on US sanctions

The move by Allseas will certainly mean new delays to the completion of the 55 Bcm/year pipeline, which had originally been scheduled to start operations at the end of 2019.

Delays to the completion of the pipeline?

Delays????

Are you serious Platts?

The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing , when faced with the awesome might of the Exceptional Nation.

Nord Stream – 2 is totally fucked, I tell ya!

[Dec 25, 2019] A remarkably disingenuous article from BBC (what you can expect?) I would say. Russia sanctioned and sanctioned again with threats of being kicked out of SWIFT and isolated in every way takes minimal precautions against an internet collapse and is criticized

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
thern Star December 24, 2019 at 12:02 pm https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50902496
I guess we know this is being contemplated here (USA).

Patient Observer December 24, 2019 at 1:03 pm

A remarkably disingenuous article I would say. Russia sanctioned and sanctioned again with threats of being kicked out of SWIFT and isolated in every way takes minimal precautions against an internet collapse and is criticized. For example, DNS resolution function which I believe resides in various western countries could be denied rendering much of the Russian internet useless.

https://myopswork.com/how-does-my-browser-find-the-right-website-8b156037c3eb

US cellphones and computer OS have more back doors than a bordello and Russia is criticized for developing their own OS.

Mr. Putin – Build the Wall!

[Dec 25, 2019] Escobar You Say You Want A (Russian) Revolution by Pepe Escobar

Dec 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,

O nce in a blue moon an indispensable book comes out making a clear case for sanity in what is now a post-MAD world. That's the responsibility carried by " The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs ," by Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press), arguably the most important book of 2019.

Martyanov is the total package -- and he comes with extra special attributes as a top-flight Russian military analyst, born in Baku in those Back in the U.S.S.R. days, living and working in the U.S., and writing and blogging in English.

Right from the start, Martyanov wastes no time destroying not only Fukuyama's and Huntington's ravings but especially Graham Allison's childish and meaningless Thucydides Trap argument -- as if the power equation between the U.S. and China in the 21stcentury could be easily interpreted in parallel to Athens and Sparta slouching towards the Peloponnesian War over 2,400 years ago. What next? Xi Jinping as the new Genghis Khan?

(By the way, the best current essay on Thucydides is in Italian, by Luciano Canfora (" Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L'Esilio" ). No Trap. Martyanov visibly relishes defining the Trap as a "figment of the imagination" of people who "have a very vague understanding of real warfare in the 21st century." No wonder Xi explicitly said the Trap does not exist.)

Martyanov had already detailed in his splendid, previous book, "Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning," how "American lack of historic experience with continental warfare" ended up "planting the seeds of the ultimate destruction of the American military mythology of the 20thand 21stcenturies which is foundational to the American decline, due to hubris and detachment of reality." Throughout the book, he unceasingly provides solid evidence about the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a possible, future war against real armies (not the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's), air forces, air defenses and naval power.

Do the Math

One of the key takeaways is the failure of U.S. mathematical models: and readers of the book do need to digest quite a few mathematical equations. The key point is that this failure led the U.S. "on a continuous downward spiral of diminishing military capabilities against the nation [Russia] she thought she defeated in the Cold War."

In the U.S., Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) was introduced by the late Andrew Marshall, a.k.a. Yoda, the former head of Net Assessment at the Pentagon and the de facto inventor of the "pivot to Asia" concept. Yet Martyanov tells us that RMA actually started as MTR (Military-Technological Revolution), introduced by Soviet military theoreticians back in the 1970s.

One of the staples of RMA concerns nations capable of producing land-attack cruise missiles, a.k.a. TLAMs. As it stands, only the U.S., Russia, China and France can do it. And there are only two global systems providing satellite guidance to cruise missiles: the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. Neither China's BeiDou nor the European Galileo qualify – yet – as global GPS systems.

Then there's Net-Centric Warfare (NCW). The term itself was coined by the late Admiral Arthur Cebrowski in 1998 in an article he co-wrote with John Garstka's titled, "Network-Centric Warfare – Its Origin and Future."

Deploying his mathematical equations, Martyanov soon tells us that "the era of subsonic anti-shipping missiles is over." NATO, that brain-dead organism (copyright Emmanuel Macron) now has to face the supersonic Russian P-800 Onyx and the Kalibr-class M54 in a "highly hostile Electronic Warfare environment." Every developed modern military today applies Net-Centric Warfare (NCW), developed by the Pentagon in the 1990s.

Rendering of a future combat systems network. (soldiersmediacenter/Flickr, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Martyanov mentions in his new book something that I learned on my visit to Donbass in March 2015: how NCW principles, "based on Russia's C4ISR capabilities made available by the Russian military to numerically inferior armed forces of the Donbass Republics (LDNR), were used to devastating effect both at the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo, when attacking the cumbersome Soviet-era Ukrainian Armed Forces military."

No Escape From the Kinzhal

Martyanov provides ample information on Russia's latest missile – the hypersonic Mach-10 aero-ballistic Kinzhal, recently tested in the Arctic.

Crucially, as he explains, "no existing anti-missile defense in the U.S. Navy is capable of shooting [it] down even in the case of the detection of this missile." Kinzhal has a range of 2,000 km, which leaves its carriers, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M, "invulnerable to the only defense a U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount – carrier fighter aircraft." These fighters simply don't have the range.

The Kinzhal was one of the weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin's game-changing March 1, 2018 speech at the Federal Assembly. That's the day, Martyanov stresses, when the real RMA arrived, and "changed completely the face of peer-peer warfare, competition and global power balance dramatically."

Top Pentagon officials such as General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have admitted on the record there are "no existing countermeasures" against, for instance, the hypersonic, Mach 27 glide vehicle Avangard (which renders anti-ballistic missile systems useless), telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee the only way out would be "a nuclear deterrent." There are also no existing counter-measures against anti-shipping missiles such as the Zircon and Kinzhal.

Any military analyst knows very well how the Kinzhal destroyed a land target the size of a Toyota Corolla in Syria after being launched 1,000 km away in adverse weather conditions. The corollary is the stuff of NATO nightmares: NATO's command and control installations in Europe are de facto indefensible.

Martyanov gets straight to the point: "The introduction of hypersonic weapons surely pours some serious cold water on the American obsession with securing the North American continent from retaliatory strikes."

Kh-47M2 Kinzhal; 2018 Moscow Victory Day Parade. (Kremilin via Wikimedia Commons)

Martyanov is thus unforgiving on U.S. policymakers who "lack the necessary tool-kit for grasping the unfolding geostrategic reality in which the real revolution in military affairs had dramatically downgraded the always inflated American military capabilities and continues to redefine U.S. geopolitical status away from its self-declared hegemony."

And it gets worse: "Such weapons ensure a guaranteed retaliation [Martyanov's italics] on the U.S. proper." Even the existing Russian nuclear deterrents – and to a lesser degree Chinese, as paraded recently -- "are capable of overcoming the existing U.S. anti-ballistic systems and destroying the United States," no matter what crude propaganda the Pentagon is peddling.

In February 2019, Moscow announced the completion of tests of a nuclear-powered engine for the Petrel cruise missile. This is a subsonic cruise missile with nuclear propulsion that can remain in air for quite a long time, covering intercontinental distances, and able to attack from the most unexpected directions. Martyanov mischievously characterizes the Petrel as "a vengeance weapon in case some among American decision-makers who may help precipitate a new world war might try to hide from the effects of what they have unleashed in the relative safety of the Southern Hemisphere."

Hybrid War Gone Berserk

A section of the book expands on China's military progress, and the fruits of the Russia-China strategic partnership, such as Beijing buying $3 billion-worth of S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missiles -- "ideally suited to deal with the exact type of strike assets the United States would use in case of a conventional conflict with China."

Beijing parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic, October 2019. (YouTube screenshot)

Because of the timing, the analysis does not even take into consideration the arsenal presented in early October at the Beijing parade celebrating the 70thanniversary of the People's Republic.

That includes, among other things, the "carrier-killer" DF-21D, designed to hit warships at sea at a range of up to 1,500 km; the intermediate range "Guam Killer" DF-26; the DF-17 hypersonic missile; and the long-range submarine-launched and ship-launched YJ-18A anti-ship cruise missiles. Not to mention the DF-41 ICBM – the backbone of China's nuclear deterrent, capable of reaching the U.S. mainland carrying multiple warheads.

Martyanov could not escape addressing the RAND Corporation, whose reason to exist is to relentlessly push for more money for the Pentagon – blaming Russia for "hybrid war" (an American invention) even as it moans about the U.S.'s incapacity of defeating Russia in each and every war game. RAND's war games pitting the U.S. and allies against Russia and China invariably ended in a "catastrophe" for the "finest fighting force in the world."

Martyanov also addresses the S-500s, capable of reaching AWACS planes and possibly even capable of intercepting hypersonic non-ballistic targets. The S-500 and its latest middle-range state of the art air-defense system S-350 Vityaz will be operational in 2020.

His key takeway: "There is no parity between Russia and the United States in such fields as air-defense, hypersonic weapons and, in general, missile development, to name just a few fields – the United States lags behind in these fields, not just in years but in generations [italics mine]."

All across the Global South, scores of nations are very much aware that the U.S. economic "order" – rather disorder – is on the brink of collapse. In contrast, a cooperative, connected, rule-based, foreign relations between sovereign nations model is being advanced in Eurasia – symbolized by the merging of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the NDB (the BRICS bank).

The key guarantors of the new model are Russia and China. And Beijing and Moscow harbor no illusion whatsoever about the toxic dynamics in Washington. My recent conversations with top analysts in Kazakhstan last month and in Moscow last week once again stressed the futility of negotiating with people described – with overlapping shades of sarcasm – as exceptionalist fanatics. Russia, China and many corners of Eurasia have figured out there are no possible, meaningful deals with a nation bent on breaking every deal.

Indispensable? No: Vulnerable

Martyanov cannot but evoke Putin's speech to the Federal Assembly in February 2019, after the unilateral Washington abandonment of the INF treaty, clearing the way for U.S. deployment of intermediate and close range missiles stationed in Europe and pointed at Russia:

"Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons against those regions from where we will face a direct threat, but also against those regions hosting the centers where decisions are taken on using those missile systems threatening us."

Translation: American Invulnerability is over – for good.

In the short term, things can always get worse. At his traditional, year-end presser in Moscow, lasting almost four and a half hours, Putin stated that Russia is more than ready to "simply renew the existing New START agreement", which is bound to expire in early 2021: "They [the U.S.] can send us the agreement tomorrow, or we can sign and send it to Washington." And yet, "so far our proposals have been left unanswered. If the New START ceases to exist, nothing in the world will hold back an arms race. I believe this is bad."

"Bad" is quite the euphemism. Martyanov prefers to stress how "most of the American elites, at least for now, still reside in a state of Orwellian cognitive dissonance" even as the real RMA "blew the myth of American conventional invincibility out of the water."

Martyanov is one of the very few analysts – always from different parts of Eurasia -- who have warned about the danger of the U.S. "accidentally stumbling" into a war against Russia, China, or both which is impossible to be won conventionally, "let alone through the nightmare of a global nuclear catastrophe."

Is that enough to instill at least a modicum of sense into those who lord over that massive cash cow, the industrial-military-security complex? Don't count on it.

* * *

Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is " 2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .

[Dec 25, 2019] Trump military Keynesianism

Notable quotes:
"... My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country ..."
"... Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down. ..."
Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen December 23, 2019 at 8:12 pm

My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country .

Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ba63OVl1MHw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines that sustain life and communities.

Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 9:50 pm
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts. Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.
yalensis December 24, 2019 at 4:33 am
Many American communities also depend on the Military-Industrial Complex to educate their children. I personally know several families who had children enlist in the military in order to get a free college education; one that their families could otherwise not afford. The parents put their kids in the army and navy, and then just cross their fingers and hope they won't be deployed to a war zone.
The system is actually perfect. The odds of any one of these young people actually getting killed in a war, is actually quite low. The vast majority get a good education with lots of perks, all expenses paid including housing, they do their time, and never see a bullet. All at the taxpayers expense.

[Dec 25, 2019] Full Spectrum Dominance was the USA stated goal since 1942

Notable quotes:
"... Overwhelming Power was the stated war goal in 1942. When that failed because of the Soviets, the Red Victories, and the Red bomb, it become essential to create a false reality where "Everything the American Public believes is false (Casey/Honegger) ..."
Dec 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Walter , Dec 24 2019 14:07 utc | 96

Overwhelming Power was the stated war goal in 1942. When that failed because of the Soviets, the Red Victories, and the Red bomb, it become essential to create a false reality where "Everything the American Public believes is false (Casey/Honegger)

Stimson said in '42>

"We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming power on the other." (Capra Why We Fight")

If Power is overwhelming, then Power defines freedom. Stimson's rhetoric presents a false equality. A deception. Essentially a lie.

The "Reds" are onto this, however, see VVP's informal disquisition at

http://en [dot] kremlin [dot]ru/events/president [stroke] news/62376

He plans, they say, a formal essay. It's a long read...but worth copying out and spending a holiday time reading.

Best wishes from your "troll" Walter.

[Dec 25, 2019] Who is a military hero and how is not

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 5:19 pm

"Dan Crenshaw did not serve his country. Dan Crenshaw is not a hero. Dan Crenshaw participated in a military occupation that after 18 years and counting has claimed tens of thousands of lives for no benefit to any ordinary American at all. All he served during his time in that country was the geostrategic imperialist agendas of unaccountable government agencies and the profit margins of war plutocrats, yet upon returning home he's been able to convert his stint as a glorified hired thug into social collateral which got him elected to the US House of Representatives and secured him a punditry platform from which he can spout war propaganda. All because people agree to play along with the completely nonsensical narrative that US war veterans are heroes."

("glorified hired thug" LOL!!!)

"I'm not saying to be mean to veterans, and I'm not saying veterans are bad people, in fact, one of the most heinous injustices about these corporate wars is that they turn many of our finest and bravest young people toward the very most toxic and pernicious ends possible. Many of them sincerely enlisted due to an impulse to help make the world a better place; it's the same impulse which led Julian Assange to set up a leaking outlet to help expose unaccountable power structures, the only difference is that Assange saw clearly through the fog of propaganda and they did not. But the reverence and fairy tales have got to go.
There are no war heroes. There are only war victims. It's time to grow up and stop pretending otherwise."

Damn!!!! Caitlin is Spot F'n On !!!

BTW Notice how these war 'heroes' seem to bear a striking family resemblance.
Who does that pix of Crenshaw bring to mind??? LOL!!! Weird huh!!!

So we go to THEIR homeland as if they had come here to our homeland-which they haven't.

Maybe that's what Dan would have said if he were a straightforward truthful kinda guy which of course he isn't.

https://www.checkpointasia.net/stop-telling-veterans-that-they-are-heroes/

Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:32 pm
Be careful. Playing upon her military service is a big part of Tulsi Gabbard's gravitas and authenticity. It's quite true that she uses it to argue against regime-change wars, but a position that military records only mean you served as a dupe for war profiteers and enabled their plundering will not do her any good at all, and Caitlin has set it up so there is little wiggle room for intentions.

[Dec 25, 2019] The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing, when faced with the awesome might of the Exceptional Nation.

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile December 24, 2019 at 1:20 am

S&P Global Platts does not seem to be in the same jubilatory mood as is the troll in his belief that Nord Stream 2 has been well and truly fucked by the mighty Empire:

Nord Stream 2 pipelayer Allseas suspends operations on US sanctions

The move by Allseas will certainly mean new delays to the completion of the 55 Bcm/year pipeline, which had originally been scheduled to start operations at the end of 2019.

Delays to the completion of the pipeline?

Delays????

Are you serious Platts?

The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing , when faced with the awesome might of the Exceptional Nation.

Nord Stream – 2 is totally fucked, I tell ya!

[Dec 25, 2019] More USAAF Eighth Air Force men were killed over Europe than the total number of USMC men killed in the Pacific.

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star December 24, 2019 at 2:01 am

No video games here

More USAAF Eighth Air Force men were killed over Europe than the total number of USMC men killed in the Pacific.

The footage is grim. Particularly the concluding encounter between a Bf-110 and a B-17. The former was equipped with 20 or 30mm cannon besides machine guns. It would have been miraculous if that B-17 somehow made it back to England

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0yMT0H8qe9k?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

[Dec 25, 2019] The USSR was no workers' paradise. For all its formal allegiance to Marx and Engels, it was a militantly hierarchical class society ruled by a tyrannical state

Dec 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

John Doe , Dec 24 2019 12:47 utc | 93

The USSR was no workers' paradise. For all its formal allegiance to Marx and Engels, it was a militantly hierarchical class society ruled by a tyrannical state. After World War Two, it held brutal military power over Eastern Europe and East Germany. Still, Soviet-era Russia created an urban and industrialized society with real civilizational accomplishments (including cradle-to-grave health-care, housing, and food security and an impressive educational system and cultural apparatus) outside capitalism. It pursued an independent path to modernity without a capitalist class, devoid of a bourgeoisie, in the name of socialism. It therefore posed a political and ideological challenge to U.S-led Western capitalism – and to Washington's related plans for the Third World periphery, which was supposed to subordinate its developmental path to the needs of the rich nations (the U.S., Western Europe, and honorarily white Japan) of the world-capitalist core.

Honest U.S. Cold Warriors knew that it was the political threat of "communism" – its appeal to poor nations and people (including the lower and working classes within rich/core states) – and not any serious military danger that constituted the true "Soviet menace." Contrary to U.S. "containment" doctrine after World War II, the ruling Soviet bureaucracy was concerned above all with keeping an iron grip on its internal and regional empire, not global expansion and "world revolution." It did, however "deter the worst of Western violence" (Noam Chomsky) by providing military and other assistance to Third World targets of U.S. and Western attack (including China, Korea, Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos). Along the way, it provided an example of independent development outside and against the capitalist world system advanced by the superpower headquartered in Washington.

To make matters worse from Washington's "Open Door" perspective, the Soviet Empire kept a vast swath of the world's natural and human resources walled off from profitable exploitation by global capital.

All of this was more than enough to mark the Soviet Union as global public enemy number one for the post-WWII U.S. power elite, which had truly planet-wide imperial ambitions, unlike Moscow.

The Soviet deterrent and alternative to U.S.-led capitalism-imperialism collapsed once and for all in the early 1990s. Washington celebrated with unchallenged invasions of Panama and Iraq. The blood-drenched U.S. President George H.W. Bush exulted that "what we say goes" in a newly unipolar, post-Soviet world. Russia reverted to not-so "free market" capitalism under U.S.-led Western financial supervision and in accord with the savage austerity and inequality imposed by the neoliberal "Washington consensus." Chomsky got it right in 1991. "With the collapse of Soviet tyranny," he wrote, "much of the region can be expected to return to its traditional [subordinate] status, with the former high echelons of the bureaucracy playing the role of the Third World elites that enrich themselves while serving the interests of foreign investors." The consequences were disastrous for many millions of ordinary Russians.

Source:

How Russia Became "Our Adversary" Again
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/19/how-russia-became-our-adversary-again/


Joost , Dec 24 2019 13:22 utc | 94

@Kevin #18
"Can anyone recommend a good book on the privatization of state assets of the former USSR? Particularly one that focuses on how mid-level technocrats, often of a persecuted minority, were able to get the capital to purchase these assets."

PUTIN from Chris Hutchins is a good read that also describes the rise of the oligarchs and how Putin dealt with them. Like one oligarch made a small fortune selling the first western cars in the country and how they bought up cheap shares from the Yeltsin privatisation scheme. Privatized companies changed ownership under threats or even at gunpoint. The oligarchs were simple mobsters at the time. That is about what i vaguely remember reading the book a few years back but there is a lot more detail.

Madderhatter67 , Dec 24 2019 14:35 utc | 100
TG #29
Replacement level fertility" is the total fertility rate -- the average number of children born per woman -- at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration. This rate is roughly 2.1 children per woman for most countries, although it may modestly vary with mortality rates'

Russia 1.61 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Canada 1.6 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Japan 1.42 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Italy 1.45 children born/woman (2018 est.)
France 2.06 children born/woman (2018 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/356.html

c1ue , Dec 24 2019 15:50 utc | 104
@Kevin #18
I would suggest looking at articles in the Exile: www.exile.ru
Unfortunately, these are no longer free.
The short story: the most successful "privatizations" involved getting control of a bank, then using the bank's deposits to buy up companies.
The most successful scheme was getting control of a bank which was partly used by the Russian government for payments; I recall one example where one bank was used to clear funds paid for state enterprises - so the "privatizers" were literally pushing money out for assets and getting them back.
Further down the scale - there was all manner of chicanery including kidnapping, extortion, murder and what not.
The problem with books published in English is that you're almost guaranteed to run into thinly disguised agitprop ranging from the usual American and British academics taking the national security dime, to Khodorkovsky and the other O.G. Jewish oligarchs attempting to whitewash history: Gusinski, Berezofsky, etc.
pogohere , Dec 24 2019 18:17 utc | 107
Kevin @ 18

Try this: Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia – May 15, 2017

by Thane Gustafson


A review @ Amazon:

Thane masterfully succeeded in uncovering the fundamental drivers of the Russian oil industry and its interdependency with the political complex through a comprehensive and convincing historical analysis, with plenty of meaningful insights and endearing anecdotes. Rooted in Soviet legacy and having gone through the 90s bust-boom roller coaster and 2000s state reconsolidation the industry is a unique globally isolated eco system, and, with Russia as a whole, is at a crossroads. A must read for any decision maker in the O&G business.

I've read it and this review is a good summary.

[Dec 25, 2019] Gorbachev actions were a betrayal of Russian values and a historical mistake of immense proportions. Russia is learning to how to minimize the core values of the West greed, deception and narcissism.

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer December 24, 2019 at 4:41 am

Just a quick take, the separation of the Russian government/ruling elites from Russian culture suggests foreign influence as in Russia's elites looking to the West and aping Western ideas – think of Peter the Great or Gorbachev. That was a betrayal of Russian values and a historical mistake of immense proportions. Russia is learning to how to minimize the core values of the West – greed, deception and narcissism.

China has done a better job than Russia in that regard but on the other hand it has a vastly different history and enjoyed more isolation from Western meddling if not outright invasions.

yalensis December 24, 2019 at 10:44 am
I would make a distinction here. Mastering Western technology is not necessarily the same thing as "aping Western ideas". Also would distinguish between Peter the Great who won some remarkable geopolitical victories for Russia (think Poltava); vs Gorbachov, who completely betrayed Russia. To the extent he even left Russia vulnerable to American nuclear attack for a window of 2 whole hours, or more.
As I showed in this old post .

Gorby in phone conversation to George W. Bush Daddy:
"And now concerning Russia – this is the second most important theme of our conversations. In front of me, on the table, lies the Decree of the President of the USSR, concerning my resignation. I am hereby also relieving myself of the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and handing over my responsibilities for employing nuclear weapons , to the President of the Russian Federation. In other words, I continue to manage these affairs right up until the completion of the constitutional process. I can assure you, that everything is under strict control. The moment I announce my resignation, these orders will become effective. There will not be any kind of dispute about this. You can spend your Christmas evening in complete peace of mind."

In other words, Gorby not only left the Soviet Union completely vulnerable to nuclear attack for a period of 2 hours or so; but even announced that fact to their greatest enemy. What kind of national leader does something like that? The only reason any Russians are even around today, is because George Bush Daddy was either too kind, or too dull-witted to take advantage of that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

[Dec 25, 2019] Khruschov's granddaugher turned to be a regular neocon prostitute and bash Russia on pages on NYT

Notable quotes:
"... To use Krushchev's granddaugher as a source was also a very low blow: she's herself an op-ed "journalist" coopted by the western MSM (I remember reading her pieces when she worked for the Asia Times, and she's for sure not a specialist/expert). ..."
"... It's also false when the NYT stated Russia is some kind of last refuge for oligarchs, mafiosos and terrorists in the world. No, this refuge's name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ..."
"... The USA is also the last refuge of Latin American dictators. More than 3,000 enemies of the State from Latin American countries live in Florida under officially recognized political asylum. Many of them are ex-generals and bankers. ..."
"... There's also a macabre message in the headline of the NYT article: that it is weird, from the American point of view, that Russia was somehow able to survive the absolute destruction that should have happened with its Shock Therapy during the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The author indeed seems genuinely puzzled as to why didn't Russia degenerate to a Third World banana republic after the capitalist charge on the newly founded nation sponsored by the USA; after all, it worked in Latin America and many other countries. I've already discussed it here many times, and I stand by my hypothesis: Russia is still able to rest on the laurels of the good ol' Soviet Union. That windfall will soon end, so Putin must think a viable succession scheme and viabilize the five-year plans. ..."
Dec 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Dec 23 2019 18:08 utc | 25

The worst thing about the NYT piece is that it is not in the "Opinion" section, but right in the Front Page, as if it were genuine investigative journalism.

To use Krushchev's granddaugher as a source was also a very low blow: she's herself an op-ed "journalist" coopted by the western MSM (I remember reading her pieces when she worked for the Asia Times, and she's for sure not a specialist/expert).

I disagree with b about the "hidden economy" thing. Every capitalist country has a hidden economy; the USA, for example, has by far the largest shadow banking system in the world, which could easily rise its GDP by 50%. Italy recently considered including the mafia business in the GDP calculation so they could officially get out of recession. Having 20-30% of your economy "hidden", therefore, is not an excuse for the Russian Federation for the dire state of its own people.

The NYT is also wrong when it infers Yeltsin was "fixing" the Soviet economy by making it take the bitter pill. The Soviet economy begun to unravel precisely because of Gorbachev's Perestroika - which was the policy designed precisely to reform the system in the first place. Yeltsin made things even worse - far worse than a linear extrapolation even from the Gorbachev era. Indeed, that's why he was toppled in the first place.

It's also false when the NYT stated Russia is some kind of last refuge for oligarchs, mafiosos and terrorists in the world. No, this refuge's name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Thanks to its inumerous tax havens (of which the Cayman Islands are, by far, the largest), many traffickers, terrorists and oligarchs are able to roam freely around the world, with their money laundered. Many of them even buy residence in London and a British Green Card, so they can also enjoy the protections the Crown gives to its subjects. In their free time, they also buy some English football clubs, but that's another story. Switzerland also enjoy many of the perks of being a tax haven.

The USA is also the last refuge of Latin American dictators. More than 3,000 enemies of the State from Latin American countries live in Florida under officially recognized political asylum. Many of them are ex-generals and bankers.

Indeed, Russia is considered a "not free" nation precisely because this kind of financial promiscuity doesn't exist on a systemic-cultural level. Freedom, for the liberals, is nothing more nothing less than being able to freely purchase and use the commodities you bought on the free market with a certain amount of money. Russia (but mainly China) doesn't allow the western oligarchs to do that, so it is kind of a disappointment to the "vital center".

There's also a macabre message in the headline of the NYT article: that it is weird, from the American point of view, that Russia was somehow able to survive the absolute destruction that should have happened with its Shock Therapy during the Yeltsin era.

The author indeed seems genuinely puzzled as to why didn't Russia degenerate to a Third World banana republic after the capitalist charge on the newly founded nation sponsored by the USA; after all, it worked in Latin America and many other countries. I've already discussed it here many times, and I stand by my hypothesis: Russia is still able to rest on the laurels of the good ol' Soviet Union. That windfall will soon end, so Putin must think a viable succession scheme and viabilize the five-year plans.


casey , Dec 23 2019 18:12 utc | 28

@FSD:
Agreed, but I think we are seeing a strange form of mass psychogenic illness in the West ( https://quillette.com/2018/11/02/trigger-warnings-and-mass-psychogenic-illness/), and in the EU and US in particular. I strongly suspect that the farther an farther the mass media push the willingly ignorant bulk of people out into a fictional and counterfactual mental reservation, the more and more people crave distraction that, like a junkie's fix, needs to always get bigger to reach the same effect. I turned on the TV the other day and happened on a show called Masked Singer, which struck me as so insanely manic in its subject and its presentation -- loud music, flashing lights, cartoonish hosts, junkie-like pacing -- that I wondered that anyone can function anymore inside this pin-ball machine world. It's like the entire West is having, especially in its so-called cultural nodes, a collective manic episode with very real danger of self-harm.
TG , Dec 23 2019 18:21 utc | 29
Indeed. But here is yet another angle:

Because Russia's population is relatively stable, every small uptick in economic growth is pure profit. With a stable population, even 1% annual growth, compounded every year, can result in substantial prosperity before too long.

But in the United States, with open-borders cheap-labor immigration pushing the population ever higher, the numbers are different. When a population ir forced upwards, the economic demands are even higher than the population growth itself. That's because you need to not just grow the ongoing population, but provide massive investments in new infrastructure. Russia is like a person who's paid off his mortgage, and can devote all income to living and making progress. The United States is like a homeowner with a massive mortgage and who also has to pay massive taxes to pay for more sewers and roads and energy conservation etc.

So 1% annual sustained economic growth in Russia means Russia is making progress, while even 3% annual economic growth in the United States means it is falling behind.

Don't believe me? From 1950 to the present, immigration increased California's population from 10 million to about 40 million. On paper the economy boomed, but the average person is much worse off, the quality of life has tanked, roads are choked, rents are sky-high while wages are stagnant, air quality is down even with massive spending on pollution controls, poverty is the worst in the nation, homelessness is booming, etc.

joetv , Dec 23 2019 18:46 utc | 31

It's my guess Putin doesn't waste time reading the NYTs. Why should he, and for that matter why should anyone? The Times and the other Oligarch rags should be ignored by all. Break the chains. Focusing on God and family a young couple may try homesteading. Ignore the rest.

ak74 , Dec 24 2019 4:19 utc | 78
The imperial lie machine sure is disgruntled that the 1990s attempt to economically and biologically crush Russia once and for all was a failure and Russia has since been reasserting itself. It wasn't "the end of history" after all.

That was the source of the underlying current of Russia Derangement among the US elite classes (political, economic, media, academia, professional etc.), the many provocations, and then the total meltdown beginning in late 2016.

Since it really seems to be a collective mental illness (I mean that literally) afflicting a power group which is already psychotic and violent, and since it coincides with the accelerating erosion of the US imperial position, it's looking more and more likely that this must eventually lead to all-out war. I just can't imagine the US stepping back, any more than I could imagine Hitler doing so.

America's obsessive bashing of Russia (and now China) is suggestive of a deep psychological disorder.

Though the Americans and their allied apologists will insist that it is sincerely motivated by a humanitarian concern for Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights(TM), that is quite laughable given America's concentration camps for undocumented immigrants; its incarceration of immigrant children in cages; or the US Prison Industrial Complex in general, which has been called America's new Jim Crow in that it imprisons millions of African Americans and other minorities and relegates them to a new racist caste system.

No, cut through the barrage of American Moral Supremacism and other delusions, the United States is enraged that, despite its attempt to economically rape Russia in the 1990s through American-promoted Free Market reforms and Neoliberal "shock therapy," Russia is still standing and indeed resurgent.

THAT is what enrages the Americans and triggers them in rug-chewing fits of frenzy.

[Dec 25, 2019] Professor Stephen Cohen on impeachment

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star December 24, 2019 at 5:20 pm

Cohen on impeachment

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pQK7M7_GMDc?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

[Dec 25, 2019] Freedom gas

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al December 24, 2019 at 2:35 am

Euractiv: How a EURACTIV journalist inadvertently coined the 'Worst Phrase of the Year' 2019
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/how-a-euractiv-journalist-inadvertently-coined-the-worst-phrase-of-the-year-2019/

It's official: "Freedom gas" is the Worst Phrase of the Year, according to the Plain English Foundation. But where does the expression come from? EURACTIV did not have to look far to get the answer

So where does the whole story come from?

On 1 May, EURACTIV's energy and climate reporter Frédéric Simon attended a briefing with US energy secretary Rick Perry in Brussels. He recalls the events below.

The four journalists in the room had spent about an hour asking Perry a basic question: why would Europeans choose to pay for expensive LNG imported from the US when they have access to cheap Russian gas?

"But my surprise soon turned to dismay when Perry suddenly took a grave face and started talking about the Normandy landings during WWII for which commemorations were planned days after."

Here's what Perry went on to say: Seventy-five years after liberating Europe from Nazi Germany occupation, "the United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent," the US energy secretary told reporters that day.

"And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it's in the form of liquefied natural gas," he added. "So yes, I think you may be correct in your observation," he said in reference to Fred's suggestion about 'Freedom gas' .
####

Quite instructive about the mindset (f/king nuts) they are over in the States. They really do live in their own universe where no-one picks up their dogs' (and their own) crap. They neither notice the smell nor link to the slipperyness underfoot to their own actions. They don't care either.

Moscow Exile December 24, 2019 at 4:35 am
They like to talk about the European "blood-debt" to the USA.

I don't know what they think a large number of unfortunate young men were doing on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches in June, 1944, or indeed that there were such beaches. Even moreso, they are apparently unaware of the over 22 million Soviet citizens who died 1941-1945 during what is known as "The Great Patriotic War for the Fatherland, 1941-1945"..

The what???

[Dec 25, 2019] Analysts have identified a way to increase the export of Gazprom to bypass the Ukraine The Eugal pipeline built to deliver gas from "Nord Stream-2 " to end users, will be operating in 2020, despite US sanctions

Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile December 24, 2019 at 10:47 am Аналитики назвали способ нарастить экспорт "Газпрома" в обход Украины

Analysts have identified a way to increase the export of Gazprom to bypass the Ukraine The Eugal pipeline built to deliver gas from "Nord Stream-2 " to end users, will be operating in 2020, despite US sanctions. "Gazprom" will redirect gas to this pipeline from "Northern stream-1", experts say

The capacity of the Eugal onshore gas pipeline, built specifically for delivering gas from the Nord Stream-2 offshore gas pipeline to end users, may allow Gazprom to increase supplies to Europe bypassing the Ukraine, despite the fact that the United States has imposed sanctions against laying the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline. , said experts interviewed by RBC.

The Gascade Gastransport operator, controlled by Gazprom and the German Wintershall Dea , will commission the first of two Eugal pipelines with a capacity of 30.9 billion cubic metres per year from January 1, 2020 (total pipe capacity should be 55 billion cubic metres), which will go from German Greifswald on the Baltic Sea to the south to the border with the Czech Republic, the Eugal press service said on December 20. And the next day it became known that the European pipe-laying company Allseas had suspended the construction of Nord Stream-2 (which should pump 55 billion cubic meters per year) in the Baltic Sea.

Eugal will lay another 36 billion cubic metre capacity OPAL landline, built to pump gas from the first Baltic gas pipeline of Gazprom and partners, Nord Stream-1, which achieved at full capacity 55 billion cubic metres per year back in October 2012. Since 2013, Gazprom could only use 50% of OPAL capacity because of restrictions, and in 2016, the company received permission to connect to 90% of the pipeline capacity. However, in September 2019, Gazprom was forced to reduce gas pumping through OPAL, and then through Nord Stream-1, because of a decision of the European Court of Justice, which, in lawsuit filed by Poland, limited supply by almost half – from 90 to 50% of capacity , or up to 18 billion cubic metres per year.

"The launch of Eugal will ensure a full load of Nord Stream-1. About 20 billion cubic metres of gas per year can be delivered via a new land gas pipeline, which volume was lost because of restrictions imposed as a result of Poland's victory in court", said Mikhail Korchemkin, director of East European Gas Analysis, to RBC. The remaining 17–20 billion cubic metre Gazprom can pump through a second branch from the offshore gas pipeline NEL , which runs only through Germany to the west of Greifswald, so Poland could not achieve restrictions on its capacity.

At the peak of capacity, OPAL pumped up to 103 million cubic metres of gas per day owing to a decision of the European Court to decrease transit to 50 million cubic metre. Last week, it fell to 12 million cubic metres per day. This is due to an increase of 115 million cubic metres per day in supplies to the NEL gas pipeline, as well as an increase in transit to Europe through the territory of the Ukraine, Korchemkin points out.

"Now most of the gas from Nord Stream-1, which continues to operate at its design capacity, is sent to the markets of northwestern Europe through NEL, that is, the limitation of the use of OPAL by the decision of the European Court has practically had no affect on the load of Nord Stream", added Deputy General Director of the National Energy Policy Fund, Alexey Grivach. According to him, after the introduction of Eugal, part of the gas can go to Central Europe through a new onshore gas pipeline, depending on the current market needs and the optimization of Gazprom's export portfolio.

Despite the impending U.S. sanctions, the possibility of using Eugal to pump Gazprom's gas was recognized in November by Arno Bux, chief commercial officer of gas transmission operator Fluxys, which is a minority shareholder in Gascade. According to him, since 2020, from 80 to 90% of the Eugal capacity has already been booked for 20 years at auctions. "Since the transportation facilities are reserved on a ship-or-pay basis (" transport or pay "), the potential delays of the Nord Stream-2 project do not affect Eugal's revenues", he told Interfax, noting that the flows from the gas pipeline Nord Stream 1 can be routed through Eugal.

"We cannot predict the volumes that will be transported through Eugal, because it depends on requests from transport customers", Gascade spokesman Georg Wustner told RBC on December 23, declining to specify whether gas supplies from Nord Stream-1 will begin on January 1 through a new onshore pipeline. A representative of Gazprom Export declined to comment; the press service of Nord Stream AG (operator of the Nord Stream-1 project) did not respond to a request from RBC.

[Dec 25, 2019] Germans angry at US for Nord Stream meddling

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star December 24, 2019 at 4:43 pm

An excellent show from last week. However still relevant with some reminders from the 80s that are quintessential irony. Sanchez's journalistic delivery is impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6nSAhjsYx-w?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

[Dec 25, 2019] Rapoza in his review for Forbesof the Russia/Ukraine gas deal suggests that Russia did not really have to give up very much, it would be to Ukraine's advantage to stop fucking around and concentrate now on the issues,

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:11 pm

Rapoza's latest effort, for Forbes, is his review of the Russia/Ukraine gas deal that everyone is talking about. His take, in summary, is that Russia did not really have to give up very much, it would be to Ukraine's advantage to stop fucking around and concentrate now on the issues, that Ukraine dropped a very large amount in claims in return for not very much money (although he does not say how likely Ukraine would have been to win them in court, and my personal opinion is not very), that Nord Stream II will be completed with not a significant amount of delay, and that Russia can implement the same no-gas-through-Ukraine in five years if it does not like the way things are going.

[Dec 25, 2019] In return for that $3 billion, which will be pocketed by many Yukitard bastards, I am sure, Gazprom's never ending altercations with the Yukie gas outfit over compensation and claims and counter-claims have had a line drawn under them.

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 10:12 pm

I linked a Russian newspaper article above which analysed the deal and in which it was pointed out that the $3 billion that Gazprom coughed up is 1% of the annual turnover of that company. And another thing that the article pointed out was that the deal is between Gazprom and Naftogaz not Russia and the Ukraine. In return for that $3 billion, which will be pocketed by many Yukitard bastards, I am sure, Gazprom's never ending altercations with the Yukie gas outfit over compensation and claims and counter-claims have had a line drawn under them. I suppose that's really why the Porky bloc in the rada is taking action against the deal: they fear that their nice little earner is being stifled, in that penalties imposed by arbitration courts against Gazprom have seemingly ended.
Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 10:40 pm
$3 billion that Gazprom coughed up is 1% of the annual turnover of that company.

No!

The source that I linked to previously: The Gas War Has Retreated, but the Most Interesting Thing Is Yet to Come .

To reiterate:

All talk about a Ukrainian victory or a Russian victory should be left to politicians for domestic consumption, although, to be fair, it is worth noting: Ukrainian functionaries immediately claimed it is a victory for Ukraine. This sounded against the background of the absence of fanfare in Russia, which, in the face of the most difficult negotiations, would be extremely inappropriate.

Why?

Because Gazprom is Gazprom, not Russia. Confusion in concepts is a very characteristic phenomenon for immature structures and individuals on both sides. So talk of Russia allegedly forgiving Ukraine $3 billion in credit has nothing to do with the topic at all. There is no word in the document about this, which is natural, because, I will repeat: Russia is not Gazprom.

However, the Naftogaz fanfare coming from Vitrenko's mouth is also understandable on the other hand: the [Naftogaz] board (8 people) will not have to return millions of dollars already distributed to their pockets as part of the prize according to the results of the Stockholm Arbitration. Moreover, now, if Gazprom pays the claim amount, the premium will increase significantly.

As for the amount Gazprom has pledged to pay – about $3 billion – it is less than 1% of the assets of the Russian gas giant (not to be confused with capitalisation). Few will notice this drop in the ocean. And for Naftogaz? In the absence of up-to-date information about the assets of this structure, I believe that the figure is comparable to all assets, especially since, according to the current reform, the Ukrainian gas transit system, the market value of which is no more than $1.5 billion (according to the Chairman of the Board Kobolev), leaves from under Naftogaz in general.

Conclusion: tactically Naftogaz and its board benefited from a contract with Gazprom. Strategically, as it seems, Gazprom at least did not lose, firstly, significantly reducing the term of the contract and the volume of pumping on the gas transit system of Ukraine, taking into account the forthcoming and inevitable implementation of "Nord Stream-2" and, secondly, leaving itself the right to disagree with transit tariffs, which remain the subject of negotiations

My stress.

[Dec 24, 2019] Boeing's problems go far deeper than the CEO. The Boeing Starliner capsule test did not go well either. Time will tell.

Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 10:54 am

Boeing's problems go far deeper than the CEO. The Boeing Starliner capsule test did not go well either. Time will tell.

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Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 12:47 pm
I agree; it's not Muilenberg's fault, or not entirely. But firing the CEO is about as far from American corporate tradition as you can get – it is much more customary to identify 'a few bad apples' from the lower echelons, fire them and announce the company has undergone a purge and is now 'all better'. And they had to have had it in for the engineers who shot off their mouths. 'They' being the investors and the board of Boeing. Letting Muilenberg take the fall might have something to do with his very early admission of company responsibility. Mind you, he was also the CEO when Boeing fought so hard against grounding the type, and only did it when pretty much everyone else had already done so for aircraft under their own control.

[Dec 24, 2019] After Blowing $3 Trillion On Lies In Afghanistan, Congress Just Authorized A Trillion More For 2020

Dec 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

It's rare that I read something on the Washington Post that I don't find highly biased, even repugnant. But with their recent article on the Afghanistan Papers, they truly knocked the ball out of the park.

The facts they shared should have every American protesting in the streets.

Trillions of dollars have been spent on a war that the Pentagon knew was unwinnable all along. More than 2300 American soldiers died there and more than 20,000 have been injured. More than 150,000 Afghanis were killed, many of them civilians, including women and children.

And they lied to us constantly.

Congress just proved that the truth doesn't matter, though. A mere 22 hours after the release of this document, the new National Defense Authorization Act that breezed through the House and Senate was signed by the President. That bill authorized $738 billion in military spending for 2020 , actually increasing the budget by $22 billion over previous years.

So, how is your representation in Washington, DC working out for you?

What are the Afghanistan Papers?

The Afghanistan Papers are a brilliant piece of investigative journalism published by the Washington Post and the article is very much worth your time to read. I know, I know – WaPo. But believe me when I tell you this is something all Americans need to see.

This was an article that took three years of legal battles to bring to light. WaPo acquired the documents using the Freedom of Information Act and got more than 2000 pages of insider interviews with "people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials." These documents were originally part of a federal investigation into the "root failures" of the longest conflict in US history – more than 18 years now.

Three presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have been involved in this ongoing war. It turns out that officials knew the entire time this war was "unwinnable" yet they kept throwing American lives and American money at it.

Here's an excerpt from WaPo's report. Anything that is underlined is taken verbatim from the papers themselves – you can click on them to read the documents.

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.

With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

"We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan -- we didn't know what we were doing," Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House's Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: "What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."

"If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost," Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. "Who will say this was in vain? " ( source )

The important thing to note about these interviews is that the interviewees never expected their words to become public. They weren't "blowing the whistle." They were answering questions for a federal investigation. So they didn't hold back. These aren't "soundbites." It's what the real witnesses are saying.

The U.S. government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has spent on the war in Afghanistan, but the costs are staggering.

Since 2001, the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have spent or appropriated between $934 billion and $978 billion, according to an inflation-adjusted estimate calculated by Neta Crawford, a political science professor and co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University.

Those figures do not include money spent by other agencies such as the CIA and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is responsible for medical care for wounded veterans.

"What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?" Jeffrey Eggers, a retired Navy SEAL and White House staffer for Bush and Obama, told government interviewers. He added, "After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan." ( source )

The US government deliberately misled the American people.

What's more, if you officials, up to and including three presidents, knew they were throwing money at something that could never be achieved. They did it anyway and they lied to our faces about it.

The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.

Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul -- and at the White House -- to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.

Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible," Bob Crowley, an Army colonel who served as a senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers. "Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone . ( source )

It's been an epic 18-year-long exercise in CYA. (Cover Your A$$). I don't see how anyone could fail to be outraged by this. And what I've cited here is just the crap icing on the maggot cupcake. It's a festering mess and I urge you, if you really want to know the truth, to read this article on WaPo and click on these links.

How was all this money spent?

A lot of it went to building infrastructure in Afghanistan. It was flagrantly and frivolously used there while we live in a place where people are going bankrupt at best and dying at worst because they can't afford medical care and there are places in our country without clean running water or toilets.

One unnamed executive with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) guessed that 90 percent of what they spent was overkill: "We lost objectivity. We were given money, told to spend it and we did, without reason."

One unidentified contractor told government interviewers he was expected to dole out $3 million daily for projects in a single Afghan district roughly the size of a U.S. county. He once asked a visiting congressman whether the lawmaker could responsibly spend that kind of money back home: "He said hell no. 'Well, sir, that's what you just obligated us to spend and I'm doing it for communities that live in mud huts with no windows.'  " ( source )

Aren't you angry about this? Don't you feel betrayed as more Americans struggle to pay their bills and eat food and keep a roof over their heads each month?

Who benefits from this?

As usual, follow the money.

The defense industry certainly reaped rewards and it's highly likely a lot of people who had the power to allow it to go on made some "wise investments" that have paid off for them. But for the rest of us, this conflict has done nothing except ensure that our tax dollars are not here improving our infrastructure or helping Americans lead better and more productive lives.

Dr. Ron Paul refers to this as the crime of the century.

It is not only members of the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations who are guilty of this massive fraud. Falsely selling the Afghanistan war as a great success was a bipartisan activity on Capitol Hill. In the dozens of hearings I attended in the House International Relations Committee, I do not recall a single "expert" witness called who told us the truth. Instead, both Republican and Democrat-controlled Congresses called a steady stream of neocon war cheerleaders to lie to us about how wonderfully the war was going. Victory was just around the corner, they all promised. Just a few more massive appropriations and we'd be celebrating the end of the war.

Congress and especially Congressional leadership of both parties are all as guilty as the three lying Administrations. They were part of the big lie, falsely presenting to the American people as "expert" witnesses only those bought-and-paid-for Beltway neocon think tankers.

What is even more shocking than the release of this "smoking gun" evidence that the US government wasted two trillion dollars and killed more than three thousand Americans and more than 150,000 Afghans while lying through its teeth about the war is that you could hear a pin drop in the mainstream media about it. Aside from the initial publication in the Washington Post, which has itself been a major cheerleader for the war in Afghanistan, the mainstream media has shown literally no interest in what should be the story of the century. ( source )

And it's most likely that nobody will ever face punishment for this deception. If this is not the very definition of the term "war crimes" I can hardly imagine what is. Dr. Paul continues:

We've wasted at least half a year on the Donald Trump impeachment charade – a conviction desperately in search of a crime. Meanwhile one of the greatest crimes in US history will go unpunished. Not one of the liars in the "Afghanistan Papers" will ever be brought to justice for their crimes. None of the three presidents involved will be brought to trial for these actual high crimes. Rumsfeld and Lute and the others will never have to fear justice. Because both parties are in on it. There is no justice . ( source )

The response? Silence and a budget increase.

The people in government don't care that we know about all this. Sure, it's mildly inconvenient but "whatever."

How do I know this?

Simple. Less than a full day after the story broke, the new NDAA ended up on President Trump's desk and was signed, authorizing an additional 22 billion dollars for next year's defense spending. And all anyone can talk about is, "Oooohhhh Space Force!!!"

Government: "Merry Christmas. We're going to blow through more of your tax money and you won't get a damned thing for it."

I couldn't make this up if I tried. In a notable, must-read op-ed , Darius Shahtahmasebi cited some horrific incidents and concluded:

We can't let this recent publication obscure itself into nothingness. The recent reaction from Congress is a giant middle finger designed to tell you that (a) there will never be anything you can do about it and (b) they simply don't care how you feel. Democracy at its finest from the world's leading propagator of democratic values. ( source )

When is enough going to be enough? Why are we not enraged en masse? Why haven't we recalled these treasonous bastards and taken our country and our budget back?

For a country that is ready to take up arms and waste countless hours "impeaching" Trump over something he said on a phone call, it sure says a lot about those same people ignoring 18 years of treasonous behavior by three separate administrations.

Why isn't the media raising hell over this? Why aren't these lives important? Why isn't sending trillions of our dollars to be frittered away an outrage?

People love to say "America First" and "impeach Trump for treason" and all that jazz. They love to call anti-war people "un-American" and recommend a quick, one-way trip to Somalia if we don't "support our troops." However, I think is far more evidence of supporting our troops to want out of there, not risking their lives based on a castle of lies that further enriches powerful and wealthy people who have nothing to lose.

Most people love to be outraged about frivolous matters. But when a report like this and its following insult are met with resounding silence, it's pretty obvious that hardly anybody is really paying attention.

[Dec 24, 2019] Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" applied to how neoliberals run prisons

Dec 24, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

flora , December 23, 2019 at 1:44 pm

The second link is interesting for making Unions look inhuman and part of the problem. Let's roll this story back about 3 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/datablog/2016/nov/18/fewer-prison-officers-and-more-assaults-how-uk-prison-staffing-has-changed

So, cut funding for prisons; cut necessary levels, to insure safety, prison guard staffing; watch as prison violence escalates; then print a story where the Union leader, trying to protect his remaining too small workforce from the rising violence, sounds like an inhuman bad guy in the story. Neolibs gotta love that angle.

I'm seeing the same thing in my US state over the past several years. The politicians' answer is not to increase staffing of unionized prison guards or spend more on safety for state prisons, but to outsource prisoner housing to the private sector. Neolibs love that angle.

flora , December 23, 2019 at 1:50 pm

Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" applied to govt funded and run prisons.

[Dec 24, 2019] December 23, 2019 at 12:28 pm

Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Lengthy But Martin and Low-key draw interesting parallels between the situations on both sides of the 'pond' as they call it. Apparently Pompeo stated that if Corbyn were to win, extraordinary measures would be taken to neutralize the problem. (Dallas option ??) This together with some in the military
warning a coup would result from a Corbyn win. Sound familiar? Did you know that it was not until 1928 that Brits who are not property could vote for members of Parliament!! I sure didn't realize that!!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2cdxjYW_g_E?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Like Like Reply


Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 12:43 pm

You mean British voters who were not owners of property were disenfranchised until 1928?

Not true! It was only women who had no property that were not allowed to vote until 1928, so no big deal!

In 1832, the Great Reform Act broadened the spectrum of voters to include the likes of landowners and shopkeepers as part of the property criteria. Householders paying more than £10 in annual rent were also given the vote.

The act still defined voters as 'male persons', however, and continued to exclude swathes of working class workers from elections. Subsequent reforms in 1867 and 1884 increased the electorate further with broader property and rental criteria. They also continued to make voting boundaries more fair, but failed to make any changes for women.

In February 1918, the Representation of the People Act made two major changes to voting criteria – it removed practically all property requirements for men over 21 and allowed women over 30 to vote. Property qualifications were kept in place when giving women over 30 the vote, however.

With Equal Franchise Act, 1928, women were at last given voting equality to men. In 1928, the Equal Franchise Act gave all women over 21 the right to vote, removing property requirements completely. Some 15 million women were eligible to vote in the following 1929 General Election.

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Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 1:20 pm
I stand corrected. But I nevertheless learned something!
Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:11 pm
Rapoza's latest effort, for Forbes, is his review of the Russia/Ukraine gas deal that everyone is talking about. His take, in summary, is that Russia did not really have to give up very much, it would be to Ukraine's advantage to stop fucking around and concentrate now on the issues, that Ukraine dropped a very large amount in claims in return for not very much money (although he does not say how likely Ukraine would have been to win them in court, and my personal opinion is not very), that Nord Stream II will be completed with not a significant amount of delay, and that Russia can implement the same no-gas-through-Ukraine in five years if it does not like the way things are going.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/12/23/ukraine-and-russia-together-again/#48e1ac18376b

Riffing a bit on the theme that Russia did not really have to give up very much, he highlights an angle all other western coverage has missed; adding Ukraine's transit volumes to all other pipelines running flat out (which he says pipelines hardly ever do and cannot sustain for long periods) actually increases Russia's pipeline export capacity to 230 BcM. That seems like a lot, but Gazprom announces it expects to export 200 BcM to Europe in 2020. That's not far off. Groningen, the world's tenth-largest gas field, is shutting down production altogether in 2022, owing to the increased danger of earthquakes. Production from Groningen has already dropped from annual volumes of 42 BcM in 2014 to only 17 BcM today.

That could mean an additional annual export sale of 20 BcM for Gazprom if it plays its cards right, over and above the record volumes it expects to export this coming year. No wonder the US State Department is rattling Poroshenko's chain. Perhaps it is beginning to dawn on them what they actually achieved by pressuring Russia into a continued transit deal with Ukraine.

If ever there was the time for a good poker face, Mr. Putin, it's now. And start thinking seriously about your successor, because the expansion of Gazprom's export capacity is going to outlive the Putin presidency. The USA's efforts to put a stick through the spokes of a chosen successor will outstrip all its regime-change efforts to date, because if Russia gets what is essentially a younger Putin in charge, that's it.

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Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 5:27 pm
Too lazy to confirm but IIRC, the guaranteed minimum volume is 40 BcM of which Ukraine would typically consume 20 BcM leaving a net 20 BcM as transit gas. Russia only pays transit fees for the transit volume. Moreover, any gas entering the pipeline that does not make it out of the other end is automatically assumed to have been consumed by Ukraine putting an end to gas theft. This implies flow meters at each international crossing that will be used to enforce the foregoing agreement. To me, that is a big deal.

The agreement does allow Ukraine to use reverse flow gas purchasing which may mean that gas Ukraine purchase from a 3rd country would including transit fees plus whatever profit the 3rd party wishes to make.

The above agreement also suggests the end of Ukraine's past shenanigans of blocking gas transit while blaming the Russians and pocketing billions of dollars of free gas.

The more we know about the deal, the better it sounds for Russia and Europe.

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Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:33 pm
Yes, that's correct; 65 BcM minimum the first year, followed by four years at 40 BcM minimums.

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Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 5:33 pm
The Russia that will exist in 2024 when Putin retires ought to be richer, stronger and more secure than ever. Although that is good, it is also dangerous in that the temptation to take down one's guard and to trust the West could cloud good judgement.

On the other hand, the US could be a true economic basket case by then greatly diminishing its ability to bully and coerce beyond its borders.

My hope is that the US can have a soft landing, learn to live within its means and redirect its defense spending to rebuilding the country.

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Jen December 23, 2019 at 8:12 pm
My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country. Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ba63OVl1MHw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines that sustain life and communities.

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Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 9:50 pm
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts. Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.

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[Dec 24, 2019] NorthStream II sanctions means more gas for China: Pride goeth before a fall. Washington is proud of itself, but a day will come when it will count the cost, and mutter, "What the fuck was I thinking?

The USA government acts as a gangster and should expect that other power will behave equally bad toward the USA. That's a very bad, disastrous calculation, even in view of the current USA technological superiority (which might shrink in the future)
Dec 21, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman December 21, 2019 at 8:12 pm

Pride goeth before a fall. Washington is proud of itself, but a day will come when it will count the cost, and mutter, "What the fuck was I thinking?" It was not ever going to actually interrupt, and then seize for itself, Russia's share of the European gas market – that was just another example of its addled belief in exceptionalism and its ability to overcome any and all limiting factors, including distance and capacity.

What it HAS done is reveal itself as a petulant global child who will break anything that does not please it, and therefore a dangerous and unpredictable business partner.

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Northern Star December 21, 2019 at 9:30 pm
Ummm Mark
You , other people (or nations) shouldn't think 'bad thoughts' about 'Murica!
Northern Star December 21, 2019 at 6:19 pm
https://jimmydorecomedy.com/
Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 1:40 am
Thus spake the official Washington arsehole in Germany:

The American Ambassador in Berlin Richard Grenell, about whom it has already been requested in Germany that he be recognized as persona non grata because of his repeated attacks against the German leadership, has said that the sanctions imposed by Washington against the pipeline "Nord Stream-2" had been introduced in the interests of the EU and many countries of Europe are grateful for them.

"Seriously: from 15 European countries, the European Commission and the European Parliament have all expressed their concerns about the project. We have long heard from our European partners that the United States should support their efforts. Therefore, sanctions represent a very Pro-European solution", said Grenell to the publication Bild am Sonntag . [A German arsewipe publication of the first magnitude -- ME]

According to him, European diplomats have allegedly already repeatedly expressed their gratitude for the measures taken by Washington.

Recall that the United States, which from time to time has opposed the emergence in Europe of a strong competitor for its gas, imposed sanctions against the pipelines "Nord Stream-2" and "Turkish Stream", requiring that the companies involved in their laying immediately stop construction. In response, the German government has said it "rejects such extraterritorial sanctions" directed "against German and European companies.

source

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Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 2:02 am
Just found the RT take on the above:

Oh, really? US envoy to Germany says Nord Stream 2 sanctions 'EXTREMELY PRO-EUROPEAN' despite Berlin & EU criticism
22 Dec, 2019 07:31

Seems like Grenell has his head so far up his own arse, or someone else's, that he has lost all sense of reality.

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Northern Star December 22, 2019 at 3:44 am
Your link didn't seem to work

https://www.rt.com/news/476586-nordstream-germany-grenell-sanctions/

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Northern Star December 22, 2019 at 3:50 am
LOL!
Same problem with my link!

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Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 2:18 am
About Russia's New Gas Transit Agreement with Ukraine
December 21, 2019
Stalker Zone
Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 7:31 am
Just two events that occurred during Saturday night have turned into one of the main news stories in recent months and years: Russia, the Ukraine and the European Commission signed a trilateral agreement on the transit of gas over the coming years from Russia to the EU via the Ukrainian GTS, and President Trump signed a law on the defence budget, in which US parliamentarians have written separate clauses concerning sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the pipeline "Nord stream – 2″

If anyone has forgotten, allow me to remind you that Vladimir Putin has never talked about the categorical refusal as regards the transit to Europe via the Ukraine of Russian gas. Always, he has only stressed that it is a question exclusively of a commercial nature, without any political overtones, and that such transit be carried out on favourable terms. Vice-Premier of the Russian government Dmitry Kozak has said about the new contract to be signed before the New Year that he parties had agreed on favourable terms. In addition to this, the Ukrainian side said that "Gazprom" had agreed to pay "Naftogaz" $3 billion, according to the decision of the Stockholm arbitration. So, can the Ukraine celebrate a "victory"?

So far, only Kiev has stated this figure of $3 billion. On the Russian side, there has been no confirmation of this yet, but even if the Kiev figure is correct, I do not see much reason to celebrate "victory", for if Russia has paid this money to the Ukraine ($2.6 billion + penalties), then the Ukraine is obliged to return $4.5 billion to Russia (3 billion Eurobonds + penalties). The balance is not in favour of Kiev. In addition, the Ukraine has pledged to stop all legal disputes on gas issues. Yes, in one case there is a dispute between economic entities, and in a second case there is a dispute about sovereign debt. However, since both Naftogaz and Gazprom are budget-forming state companies, to a certain extent this difference in debt statuses is leveled.

Now on transit. There is no denying that for Russia it is not only important but necessary to transit gas through the Ukraine at the moment, since under long-term contracts with Europe, Gazprom is obliged to supply the volumes of gas stipulated in them, regardless of the circumstances. Otherwise, the Russian company would have to pay heavy fines and penalties. By concluding the contract, Gazprom has once again proved its reliability as a supplier, which, by the way, was has already been emphasized by the European Commission following the negotiations.

The only thing currently known about the transit contract is that it has been concluded not for 10 years as Kiev had wanted, but for 5 years. Apparently, a longer term is not relevant, chiefly because of complete uncertainty about the future of the Ukraine -- by the way, in the next few days Kiev is likely to start an active struggle against the agreements already reached, and if something threatens them at the moment, it is only Ukrainian instability. According to data received from the Russian company, the volume of transit through the Ukraine next year will be about 65 billion cubic metres. This is certainly a very significant figure, but it is significantly less than the 90 billion cubic metres pumped through the Ukrainian GTS in 2017. In 2021-2024, the annual transit volume will drop to 40 billion cubic metres. This volume allows the Ukrainian GTS to operate at a plus rather than a minus, but Kiev will not receive any significant financial gain through it.

By the way, a certain demand for Ukrainian transit will remain after the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline has reached its design capacity, as European gas demand grows annually and a number of fields operated in the EU countries are decommissioned in the coming years. As for NS-2 itself, by the time the sanctions are imposed, less than 50 kilometres will have been left on one pipeline and about 70 kilometres on the other. Even if the Swiss company gathers up its belongings, Russian pipe-laying ships will finish the job, and even though they lay pipes 3 times slower, they have absolute immunity from American sanctions. One of them is now located in the area of Indonesia, and the second pipe-laying ship, "Fortuna", which, by the way, has already participated in the implementation of "NS-2", is in a German port and is ready to start working within a few days. [My stress! See that Finnish troll? -- ME]

So, by and large, the question is only one of time. But in any case "SP-2" will be completed in terms of installation, testing and commissioning, and can be put into operation, at most, at the end of the first half of 2020.

Patient Observer December 22, 2019 at 2:27 pm
I really really doubt that the US military will attack overtly or covertly. The US already announced that it will sanction other Russian energy projects if North Stream is placed in operation.
Mark Chapman December 22, 2019 at 5:12 pm
I don't imagine that will be necessary. Be pretty hard to argue then that they were not acting solely in their own interests, wouldn't it? It would make a hell of a thriller novel, though – the pipeline is on the seabed, so any American efforts to tamper with it would probably have to be from underwater. A submarine has no business being there, so its mission would have to be super-secret and plausibly deniable. And in that scenario, if it simply disappeared, the Americans would have to just proceed as if it never existed. There you go, Karl; a great book idea, you should write it. But I want 20%; 30% if I have to proofread it before publication to take out all the rhapsodizing about freedom and democracy, and rewrite the ending where the Americans blow up the pipeline and miraculously escape, sailing home to a ticker-tape parade and leaving Putin with angry tears running down his face.

Bulgaria is an instructive example here. Remember when it stopped South Stream in its tracks, and was the hero of America and the EU? And Bulgaria strutted and swaggered, and was pretty proud of itself while it waited for the rewards of its bravery. And then the USA built them a Middle School or a new fence or something, I forget, and there were lots of 'well done, old chap!' compliments, and and then that was it. Bulgaria did not become everyone's preferred business partner and the destination of enormous foreign investment. And then, gradually, everybody stopped talking about what a great and brave thing Bulgaria did, and it just sort of sat there with its mouth half-open, trying to take in how skillfully it had been creampied, and evidently all for nothing.

And eventually, Bulgaria repented, and went back to Russia and Putin, cap in hand. And Russia received it warmly, like a brother who fell in with a bad crowd but was not really, at heart, bad himself. It did not say that Bulgaria must prove itself by repudiating its former friends. It seemed willing to let bygones be just that.

https://www.memri.org/reports/russia-world-%E2%80%93-russia-bulgaria-reconciliation-%E2%80%93-bulgarias-president-radev-no-sanctions-are

It is not even too much of a stretch to imagine that might one day be Ukraine as well, although it certainly could not be under the current conditions. The nationalists would have to be purged, hard. And there would have to be a completely new political administration. But there's time, and lots of it. The west is not going to make a prosperous paradise of Ukraine, it is only interested in stripping it of anything of value, and in the meantime it will go down and down, because nobody wants to put any money into it. Except, ahem; Russia.

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Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 11:49 am
And as predicted above:

by the way, in the next few days Kiev is likely to start an active struggle against the agreements already reached

Партия Порошенко инициирует санкции против поставок газа из России
22.12.2019 | 22:12

Party Poroshenko initiates sanctions against the supply of gas from Russia

The faction of "European solidarity" in the Ukrainian Parliament initiates sanctions against the Russian gas supplies directly, reports RIA "Novosti".

As stated by the ex-President and leader of the faction of Petro Poroshenko, the political force will require the convening of the national security Council on this issue, and "implementation of sanctions" against the gas supplies from Russia

In the best interests of Banderastan?

Or of the Exceptional Nation?

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Mark Chapman December 22, 2019 at 6:47 pm
I thought Poroshenko was facing a corruption investigation. Shouldn't he be keeping his head down?

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Jen December 22, 2019 at 8:20 pm
The only place where Porky will keep his head down is in a trough full of truffles paid for by North American and European taxpayers through the IMF.
yalensis December 23, 2019 at 4:05 am
The people who elected Zelensky expected him to put Porky behind bars. But, surprise surprise, Zel is a wimp who couldn't bring himself to buck his American overlords.
Said Overlords like Porky and want to keep him around, as the new leader of the Opps, with hope he gets back into power some day.
Porky is the Ukrainian version of Saakashvili, there is simply no getting rid of him!
karl1haushofer December 22, 2019 at 7:47 am
"German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said Berlin "firmly rejects" U.S. sanctions but would not retaliate."

How surprising.

Mark Chapman December 22, 2019 at 5:53 pm
What if Germany, angered by American high-handedness, decided to move away from the US dollar. Could that happen?

It could. Analysts caution that it would be unwise for Washington to laugh at efforts by nations to make themselves less dependent on the dollar, because it also makes those nations less susceptible to American sanctions. The world outside America is getting fed up with the USA's sanctions-happy punishments, which have mushroomed from 5 targeted countries at the start of the George W. Bush administration to 22 targeted countries at the end of 2018.

https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/28418/ofac-sanctions-and-the-new-dollar-diplomacy

One of the ways Russia has hardened its economy against American tampering is in increasing its use and accumulation of gold as a hedge, which is immune to 'freezing' by the USA, so long as the gold is held in Russian vaults. That's the key, and momentum is slowly gathering in other countries. Hungary repatriated all its gold from the Bank of England in October of this year, and increased its holdings tenfold as well. Romania has submitted a bill to parliament which mandates that only 5% of the country's gold can be stored abroad. Currently about 60% of its 103 tonnes is stored at the Bank of England. In 2017 Germany repatriated around $31 Billion worth of gold which had been stored in New York and Paris. This week, Poland and Slovakia called for a return of their gold, which is being held by, you guessed it, the Bank of England. The lesson of Venezuela's stolen gold was not lost on anyone, and the less foreign gold the Bank of England has in its vaults, the less useful it is to Washington and its 'freeze' orders.

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1576513102.php

Germany was chafing at US bullying back in 2018, and talking up policies to pull away from the US dollar. Would this latest example of American meddling make them more, or less inclined to pursue financial policies which did not include the United States as a partner, do you think?

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/05/europe-seeks-alternative-to-us-financial-system-germany-france-sanctions/

Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 11:05 am
AKADEMIK CHERSKIY

Oh look! Under Russian flag. So is the USN navy thinking of sinking it?

Position Received: 2019-12-22 18:31 UTC
10 minutes ago

42.79881° / 132.8823°

Near Vladivostok

Incapable of laying 50 kms of pipeline?

If the Swiss Allseas, which owns Pioneering Spirit and Solitare, decides to stop work on Nord stream-2 in connection with U.S. sanctions, the work to be completed TUBES Fortuna

Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 9:00 pm
The Gas War Has Retreated, but the Most Interesting Thing Is Yet to Come
December 22, 2019
Stalker Zone

"Russia" is weeeeeeeak!!!!

Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 2:51 am
Meanwhile

Nord Stream 2 will be operational in 2nd half of 2020 despite US sanctions setting project timing back – top German official

23 Dec, 2019 09:17 / Updated 1 hour ago

karl1haushofer December 23, 2019 at 4:23 am
More potential trouble for NS2: https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/122119-nord-stream-2-pipelayer-allseas-suspends-operations-on-us-sanctions

"According to S&P Global Platts Analytics, Nord Stream 2 would have to seek alternative vessels and contractors to complete the remaining section of pipe in Danish waters if the sanctions are enacted.

"While the most challenging parts of Nord Stream 2 have been laid in water depths of around 200 meters, the remaining section in Danish waters at 90 meters depth remains complicated," it said.

Russian companies operate capable offshore pipe-lay vessels, which have completed projects in challenging Arctic conditions, including the MRTS Defender, which worked on the offshore stretch of the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta pipeline.

Platts Analytics believes MRTS Fortuna could be used to complete Nord Stream 2, but is capable of laying just 1 km/d.

A further obstacle, according to Platts Analytics, is that the Danish permit application states that it is assumed that the vessels used to complete the Danish section will have dynamic positioning capabilities (such as those of the Allseas vessels) which are not present on MRTS Fortuna.

A Russian pipelaying vessel that already has dynamic positioning capabilities, Akademik Cherskiy, could be used, but it would take up to two months to arrive to Danish waters as it is currently stationed in Russia's Far East."

karl1haushofer December 23, 2019 at 4:27 am
It is surprising that the Gazprom management didn't prepare for this situation! If this article is correct the only Russian vessel that can be used to finish the project is currently stationed in Vladivostok, and it will take about two months for it to arrive to Danish waters.

The sanction threat has been looming for months, but it seems that Gazprom did not prepare for it in any meaningful way.

I would be pleasantly surprised if this project is finished in 2020.

Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 4:42 am
Karl, this is no attitude for the Christmas season – don't be so dour and pessimistic. It takes two years to build a specialized ship, at a minimum, and that's just a regular design like an LNG tanker – should Gazprom have built two or three, only to have the Americans laugh and not impose sanctions? Then you would have chuckled ruefully over how foolish Gazprom was to waste its money; there's no pleasing you. Only two days ago you were moaning over how the entirety of the funds spent so far would be wasted; the pipeline could not be completed, America is just too strong. You can go back and look. Now it looks as if it can be completed, just the remainder will be done at about a third the speed it could have been. But the money which would have gone to Allseas will be saved, and really there's no hurry now; they have 5 years if they need it. In 2 months the worst of the winter weather should be over, and any further slowdowns between now and completion can be blamed on the Americans, whose fault of course it is. It would have been done now but for American pressure on Denmark to hold out.

I wouldn't say it couldn't have turned out better, but all things considered the results are not that bad for Russia and not very good for the USA, which has incurred a lot of resentment and ill-will in exchange for really nothing. It is not going to stop the pipeline from completing, but it has made a lot of enemies, and even the Poles have stopped yapping and do not appear to be celebrating too loudly, lest they anger other Europeans.

Trond December 23, 2019 at 10:46 am
""While the most challenging parts of Nord Stream 2 have been laid in water depths of around 200 meters, the remaining section in Danish waters at 90 meters depth remains complicated," it said."

Norwegian divers welded pipelines at 900 meters depth (And, yes they had some problems).

90 meters is now a problem?

Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 2:31 pm
Let me guess – the United States has threatened to confiscate the assets in the USA of any company which sells dynamic-positioning systems to the Soviets (oops! I mean the Russians!), and so now they will have to develop the technology themselves. Why not just threaten to slap sanctions on anyone giving 'aid and comfort' to the Russians? I mean, they're the enemy, right? Right?? So nobody sell them boots or warm clothes, or anything. See how they like laying pipe in their skivvies, barefoot.

Say, I'll bet that attitude is good for market share for the remaining American businesses still operating in Russia. And speaking of that, here's another example – gosh, there are so many – of America's love affair with sanctions; CAATSA, the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. According to an analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, it's a failure , because it did not prevent Turkey from buying the S-400 system from Russia when they were supposed to buy the Patriot from the USA, or prevent Egypt from buying the Sukhoi S-35 from Russia when they were meant to buy the F-35. Oh, but they were frustrated in that because Israel did not want them to have it. Washington never misses an opportunity to show Israel it still loves it despite all the actions Israel makes it take against its own best interests.

"Egypt turned to Moscow for the Su-35 aircraft after being frustrated in repeated attempts to get a foothold in the F-35 program, a move closely watched in Israel, which remains the only country in the region to receive the fifth-generation aircraft."

America threatened Egypt with – you guessed it – sanctions if it continued with plans to buy Russian fighters worth $2 Billion in sales, but Egypt basically ignored them, only not laughing because it would be impolite to laugh.

"The Egyptian leadership views the US threats as not credible, based on a long history of Egyptian/US relations where the US has made threats and even withheld assistance, but in the end has always capitulated," said Andrew Miller, who was director for Egypt and Israel military issues in the Obama administration's National Security Council."

Egypt also bought the two MISTRAL class light assault carriers that Washington made France cancel the sale of when Russia had already paid a security deposit, which had to be returned. Egypt quickly purchased helicopters from Russia to outfit its new ships.

In fact, America seems to be losing its grip on the Middle East and Africa. And its newly-discovered and somewhat childlike faith in sanctions as a cure-all is ruining its traditional alliances and eroding its global reach. Much less-powerful countries now routinely ignore its threats to impose sanctions and more sanctions. The fewer foreign businesses interested in locating significant assets in the United States – so as to prevent their being seized in a fit of pique – the less influence Washington can bring to bear through sanctions. Its most loyal toady, the UK, will soon no longer be a part of the EU, while nations jostle one another in eagerness to get their gold back from the Bank of England where the United States cannot slap a 'hold' order on it through its devoted proxies.

Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 4:27 am
Russian dolts just don't have the technology, isn't that right ?

From the Finnish naysayer:

In retrospect the biggest mistake Russia did was to start the Nord Stream 2 project without possessing the technology to complete the project and relying on the Western technology. This made Nord Stream 2 and Russia vulnerable for the sanctions and this vulnerability was exploited.

Will Russia learn and not start any major project in the future without having the means to complete the project itself without relying on the West? I doubt it.

Russia has ships to complete Nord Stream 2 pipeline without European help
23 Dec, 2019 11:27 / Updated 41 minutes ago

Yes, they hired the biggest and probably best pipelayer to do the job: who could blame them for that?

But they dropped a right bollock in choosing such shit, lily-livered firm ashas Allseas turned out to be.

Who in their right minds would hire Allseas now?

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Cortes December 23, 2019 at 5:51 am
As mentioned earlier, commercial contracts normally include provisions for frustration – supervening illegality can prevent performance of obligations contracted under different circumstances and no one would expect a company to commit suicide. It's just a business problem. But a business problem which, as Mark states, leaves the instigator – the USA – diminished by its own actions.
Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 6:18 am
Every contract has Force Majeure provisions to address factors beyond the control of the supplier. The list includes of acts of God (weather, for example), civil unrest, labor disputes, etc. "US sanctions" need to be added.
Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 5:38 am
According to ME they were within 50 kilometers of landfall. According to Karl the replacement vessel can lay pipe at a 1km/day rate. The resulting calculation isn't rocket science mathematics. Ribbons will be cut and valves will be turned on in a few months to the clink of vodka and champagne glasses.
Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 5:54 am
Peskov did not say a fuckin' thing about "hope" that the pipeline will be completed. He stated that the sanctions will NOT work to bring about substantial delay.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-nord-stream-kremlin-idUSKBN1YR0RU

Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 6:17 am
Two pipelines are being laid in parallel. One line , if I rightly recall, has 50 kms left to be laid, the other 75 kms. The Russian pipelayers, again if I rightly recall, lay at one third of the speed as did the Allseas vessel. The Russians are also aware of the geopositioning requirement that the Danes may impose. Only one Russian pipelayer, the one at present in the Far East, has this capability. from here

"Pioneering Spirit" and" Solitaire" crossed the border of Swedish and Danish waters on 27 and 28 November, respectively, since which time the former has covered 89 km, the latter -- a little less than 70 km, i.e. they move at a speed of 3.5–4.5 km per day. This means that they should be able to complete the construction within a month. But maintaining this momentum depends on the weather conditions.

There was only 1 month's worth of laying left when Allseas fucked off.

The Russians are seemingly, from the troll's point of view, faced with such insurmountable odds that he is coming in his pants. They'll never finish the job.

Like when they said they would never finish that bridge, across the petersburg-Simferopol train crosses for the first time this coming Christmas Day?

Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 12:11 pm
From same source as above, namely Moskovskiy Komsomolets :

According to a representative of one of the contractors involved in the creation of the offshore section of "Nord Stream – 2", Gazprom began to insure against sanctions against companies involved in laying the pipeline in October. The Fortuna pipe-laying barge, built in 2010 at a Russian shipyard and later upgraded at Chinese shipyards, has been used. This vessel has been based for about two months in the German port of Mukran, where the pipes required for the gas pipeline construction are shipped.

According to an MK interlocutor who wished to remain anonymous, despite the fact that Fortuna is the most powerful domestic vessel in its class, it is unlikely that it can fully replace Allseas pipelayers. "Fortuna" is able to do such works, but the speed of the project will be slowed down. "Fortuna specializes in laying infield and linear pipelines on land, while Gazprom charters vessels with foreign registration for offshore sections.

At the same time, Fortuna has experience working in deep water areas. As part of the Sakhalin-3 project, the barge was deploying an underwater production facility in the Kirinskoye field at a depth of 100 meters. The depth of the sea in the Danish section of the NS-2, which remains to be completed by Gazprom, does not exceed this mark, while Fortuna has a depth limit of 200 meters", explains the MK interlocutor.

Yeah, according to the Troll:

it is surprising that the Gazprom management didn't prepare for this situation! If this article is correct the only Russian vessel that can be used to finish the project is currently stationed in Vladivostok, and it will take about two months for it to arrive to Danish waters.

The sanction threat has been looming for months, but it seems that Gazprom did not prepare for it in any meaningful way.

I would be pleasantly surprised if this project is finished in 2020.

For "pleasantly surprised" above, read: "bitterly disappointed".

[Dec 23, 2019] When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable by Daniel R. DePetris

Notable quotes:
"... Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal. ..."
Dec 23, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable?

Even after the release of the Afghanistan Papers, our elites are still determined to escape without blame. CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 06: Chairman of the KKR Global Institute David Howell Petraeus attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)

Almost two weeks after the Washington Post 's Craig Whitlock published his six-part series on the trials, tribulations, and blunders of Washington's 19-year-long social science experiment in Afghanistan, those involved in the war effort are desperately pointing fingers as to who is to blame. An alternative narrative has emerged among this crop of elite policymakers, military officers, and advisers that while American policy in Afghanistan has been horrible, the people responsible for it really did believe it would all work out in the end. Call it the "we were stupid" defense.

There were no lies or myths propagated by senior U.S. officials, we are told, just honest assessments that later proved to be wrong. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, who has advised U.S. commanders on Afghanistan war policy, wrote that "no, there has not been a campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal." Former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who led CENTCOM during part of the war effort, called the Post 's reporting "not really news" and was mystified that the unpublished interviews from the U.S. special inspector general were generating such shock. Others have faulted the Post for publishing the material to begin with, claiming that public disclosure would scare future witnesses from cooperating and threaten other fact-finding inquiries (the fact that the newspaper was legally permitted to publish the transcripts after winning a court case against the government is apparently irrelevant in the minds of those making this argument).

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

All of these claims and counter-claims should be seen for what they truly are: the flailings of a policymaking class so arrogant and unaccountable that it can't see straight. That they're blaming the outrage engendered by the Afghanistan Papers on anything other than themselves is Exhibit A that our narcissistic policy elite is cocooned in their own reality.

Analysts have been pouring over the Afghanistan interview transcripts for over a week in order to determine how the war went wrong. Some of the main lessons learned have long been evident. The decision to impose a top-down democratic political order on a country that operated on a system of patronage and tribal systems from the bottom-up was bound to be problematic. Throwing tens of billions of dollars of reconstruction assistance into a nation that had no experience managing that kind of money -- or spending it properly -- helped fuel the very nationwide corruption Washington would come to regret. Paying off warlords to fight the Taliban and keep order while pressuring those very same warlords into following the rules was contradictory. The mistakes go on and on and on: as Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said, "We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."

One of the most salient findings about this ghastly two-decade-long misadventure surfaced after the Afghanistan Papers were released: the commentariat will stop at nothing to absolve themselves of the slightest responsibility for the disaster they supported. The outright refusal of the pundit class to own up to its errors is as disturbing as it is infuriating. And even when they do acknowledge that errors were committed, they tend to minimize their own role in those mistakes, explaining them away as unfortunate consequences of fixed withdrawal deadlines, inter-agency tussling, Afghanistan's poor foundational state, or the inability of the Afghans to capitalize on the opportunities Washington provided them. Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal.

It's always somebody else's fault.

Whether out of arrogance, ego, or fear of not being taken seriously in Washington's foreign policy discussions, the architects of the war refuse to admit even the most obvious mistakes. Instead they duck and weave like a quarterback escaping a full-on defensive rush, attempting yet again to fool the American public.

But the public has nothing to apologize for. It is those who are making excuses who have exercised disastrous judgment on Afghanistan. And they owe the country an apology.

Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a contributor to The American Conservative.

[Dec 23, 2019] Vladimir Pozner How the United States Created Vladimir Putin

Oct 02, 2018 | www.youtube.com

On September 27, 2018, Yale's Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Poynter Fellowship for Journalism hosted Vladimir Pozner, the acclaimed Russian-American journalist and broadcaster. Pozner spoke on the impact of US foreign policy towards Russia after the Soviet Union has been disbanded, and shared his opinions on a range of issues raised by the audience, from the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, to Skripal poisoning, to the state of independent media in Russia and the US.

[Dec 22, 2019] We Live In Hysteric Times What Trump's Impeachment Really Means by James George Jatras

Uneven, but pretty biting satire...
Notable quotes:
"... It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees. ..."
"... Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." ..."
"... The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there! ..."
"... Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. ..."
Dec 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

"America is a corpse being consumed by maggots. Liberals are rooting for the maggots. Conservatives are rooting for the corpse."

- @Vendee_Rising

For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that "Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump impeachment hysteria.

Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.) Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)

None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim – and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal slide.

With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid. Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!

Even though Trump has not turned out to be the transformative and restorative president that many of his supporters might have hoped for, he certainly will be (assuming he survives impeachment, which he probably will) the lesser of evils in November 2020 compared to whoever ends up as the Maggot Party nominee. Worse from his opponents' point of view, he remains a toxic avatar of the old America they thought would be well and truly laid to rest for ever and ever, amen, when Hillary Clinton came into her kingdom. That having misfired in 2016, partisans of that legacy America's marginalization, displacement, and eventual extinction can't breathe easy while Trump remains in office lest he, however unlikely in view of his failures of performance, serve as a catalyst for revival of the historic American nation facing loss of its birthright : an organic, uncontrived, living ethnos characterized by European, mainly British origin (a/k/a, "white"); Christian, mainly Protestant; and English-speaking, as augmented by members of other groups who have totally or partially assimilated to it. The certified victim classes standing on the threshold of the permanent, total power that eluded them three years ago are haunted by the knowledge that there's still lots of them Muricans in red MAGA hats rallying to Trump out there in Flyover Country .

In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into the Corpse Party's deplorable base.

With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World :

" What do you mean 'we,' white man? "

As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo ," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's instructive to glance at the members of the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus a bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950 – and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in 1789.

In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language, religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential election, though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and their posterity.

Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.

Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than heroic.

While the bipartisan leadership has not yet taken up the helpful suggestion that barcodes be affixed to legislators' foreheads so that interested persons and organizations can conveniently scan prices and self-checkout , they have provided a helpful guide to what are called " Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs )," also called coalitions, study groups, task forces, or working groups. Memberships in many but not all CMOs serve as virtual barcodes for potential (mostly legal) campaign donors, including, in the case of "friends of" this or that foreign country, contributions from ethnic compatriots who are US citizens, or at least are supposed to be. Here's a partial selection:

Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus, Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus, Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus, Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus, Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus

Recalling Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no "American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."

Russia! Russia! Russia!

In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good – is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and attachments against which the Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :

"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."

In his closing statement before the impeachment vote House Judiciary Chairmaggot Adam "Captain Ahab" Schiff , in his frenzied hunt for the Great Orange Whale , provided a textbook example of what Washington feared:

"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."

Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason , which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions constitute (under Article III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this? Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )

It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.

Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant. The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there!

Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to go.")

Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. Why wouldn't the assembled Maggotrats jump at the chance to grill him under oath? Because he'd dole out the real dirt on Ukraine and its legendary corruption that would make a Nigerian prince blush. For the same reason, Corpsublicans won't want to hear from him either, any more than they're interested in whether the "sub-sources" of the Steele Dossier – whose identity the US Justice Department knows and who were available to the IG's investigators – really had anything to do with the Russian government . We wouldn't want to debunk all that yammering about " fake Kremlin dirt ," would we.

Meanwhile, back in what remains of America, regardless of how impeachment turns out, the lines of irreconcilable division deepen . Whether or not Trump is reelected (the politics look good for him, the demographics don't ) he will eventually be gone, whether in 2020, 2021, or 2025. He will almost certainly be the last Republican president, depending on when Texas goes the way of Virginia . One way or the other, we'll soon see whether the corpse has any fight left in it .

[Dec 22, 2019] It turns out that the US military hires more shills and clowns and runs more "news" worldwide than all the real news agencies, combined

Dec 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Roger Casement , 2 hours ago link

It turns out that the US military hires more shills and clowns and runs more "news" worldwide than all the real news agencies, combined.

For Soetoro to turn this $hit loose on us exposes his truly sinister intent. Here you all are, thinking the bull$hit on TV is remotely relevant other than exposing the gangsters who direct it and rob us to pay for it against our will.

All these High Crimes on Pelosi and Schumer's watch.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/employee-speech-and-whistleblowers/military-may-be-engaged-illegal-psychological

https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness was shut down in 2003 by Congress after dinosaur exposed mass surveillance abuses establishing "Total Information Awareness" over all US citizens. The program was continued in overt defiance of Congress through Trillions in black funding.

https://epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/

https://fas.org/irp/crs/RL31730.pdf

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/u-s-never-really-ended-creepy-total-information-awareness-program/

https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Total-Information-Awareness

https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-total-informatio-awareness/

https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_Foreign_Propaganda_and_Disinformation_Act

hoffstetter , 2 hours ago link

Or you could just point to the massive expansion of debt and reduction of freedoms signed by Trump last night while the whole government was telling you "nothing up my sleeve!"

[Dec 22, 2019] A Decade of Liberal Delusion and Failure The New Republic

Notable quotes:
"... The problem with an unseen stimulus is that no one thinks it's helping them. Obama provided tax relief for nearly every working American, but instead of sending citizens a check, as George W. Bush had done, his economists decided to structure it as a payroll tax cut, subtly increasing the size of everyone's paycheck. The administration then intentionally did not advertise the fact that it had given nearly every working American a tax cut , in the hopes that people would be nudged into spending, rather than saving, that extra cash. Predictably, in 2010, one poll showed that only 12 percent of Americans believed they'd received a tax cut; 24 percent thought Obama had raised their taxes. ..."
"... A program that was supposed to help underwater homeowners turned down 70 percent of those applying for permanent loan modifications , even as over six million families lost their homes. The point of the program was never actually to help people stay in their homes, of course; it was to preserve the finance industry by spacing out foreclosures. In the end, it achieved its aim: The banks today are as profitable as ever, while more households are renting than in 50 years . ..."
"... The individual mandate, similarly designed to force the healthiest young invincibles to enter the market to bring down costs, is equally dead. And a decade into the ACA, it has become more apparent than ever that the best way to reduce America's absurd health care costs would simply be a single-payer program. ..."
"... The political scientist Suzanne Mettler coined the term "the submerged state" in 2010 to refer to the jungle of hidden government "programs" designed not to call attention to themselves, often perpetuated not because they are still helping the neediest, but because they are lucrative to the finance, insurance, and/or real estate industries. ..."
Dec 20, 2019 | newrepublic.com
Welcome to The Decade From Hell , our look back at an arbitrary 10-year period that began with a great outpouring of hope and ended in a cavalcade of despair.

As 2009 ended, the editors of this magazine at the time took their measure of the first year of Barack Obama's presidency and declared it, with some reservations, a modest success. "All of this might not exactly place him in the pantheon next to Franklin Roosevelt," they said of his major domestic achievements (the stimulus package, primarily, as the Affordable Care Act had not yet been signed). "But it's not a bad start, given all the constraints of the political system (and global order) in which he works."

That was the broad consensus of American liberals at the time, ranging from nearly the most progressive to nearly the most neoliberal. Over the ensuing years, that consensus would crack and eventually shatter under the weight of one disappointment after another. The story of American politics over the past decade is that of a political party on the cusp of enduring power and world-historical social reform, and how these once imaginable outcomes were methodically squandered.

The bulk of that unsigned New Republic editorial in 2009 was dedicated to Obama's foreign policy, specifically the question of whether he was waging enough war. The conclusion: He was. The editors praised "the escalation of the war in Afghanistan" as "the most consequential action of the first year of his presidency," even though it

offended the base of his party and possibly injured his future political prospects. On strategic grounds, we believe he made the right choice. But the thoroughness and logic of the process by which he arrived at this decision double our confidence in that choice. The is exactly the type of pragmatism and non-ideological policymaking that sentient humans have craved after the Bush years.

(Sure, escalate the endless wars -- but for God's sake, please do it non-ideologically .)

In December of this year, The Washington Post obtained thousands of pages of documents from a government oversight project called "Lessons Learned," which included interviews with more than 600 people involved in the war in Afghanistan at some point over its 18-year history. An interview with a National Security Council official described, according to the Post , "constant pressure from the Obama White House and Pentagon to produce figures to show the troop surge of 2009 to 2011 was working, despite hard evidence to the contrary." Nearly every piece of data used over the last decade to try to convince Americans that the war was going well, or even going according to any sort of coherent logic or reason, was phony or meaningless.

"I don't want to be going to Walter Reed for another eight years," Obama reportedly said in 2009 , as he struggled with the decision to escalate the war. The president and his closest advisers were determined to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam. Since then, overwhelmed by billions in U.S. "aid," the country has sunk into kleptocracy. Last year, according to the United Nations, was the single deadliest year of the war for Afghan civilians. Today, around 13,000 American service members remain in Afghanistan. The Trump administration is attempting to negotiate a peace with the Taliban that would leave it in charge of the country, just as it was prior to America's invasion. The war in Afghanistan may finally end, but not before the close of this decade that began with that oh-so-carefully considered decision to escalate it.


"We Are All Socialists Now," Newsweek declared on its cover in early 2009, when it was still part of the prestige press (it is currently run by a different sort of cult ). Editor Jon Meacham, evincing the usual historical and political amnesia of airport bookstore historians, justified the claim by writing that "for the foreseeable future Americans will be more engaged with questions about how to manage a mixed economy than about whether we should have one." A mixed economy run according to Keynesian principles was, you may recall from reading slightly more rigorous historians, the primary alternative to socialism on offer in the West throughout the twentieth century. The stimulus had been large (if not large enough ), but with $288 billion of it dedicated to tax credits and incentives for individuals and businesses, it scarcely resembled socialism. Indeed, rather than giving Americans a greater hand in managing the economy, much of it was designed to be almost invisible. This was intentional. In the May 6, 2009, issue of The New Republic , Franklin Foer and Noam Scheiber described Obama's "Nudge-ocracy," a belief, inspired by behavioral economics, that the best way for the government to create good outcomes for the people was not through "heavy-handed market interventions" but via technocratic attempts to change the behavior of individuals and the incentives of market actors.

The problem with an unseen stimulus is that no one thinks it's helping them. Obama provided tax relief for nearly every working American, but instead of sending citizens a check, as George W. Bush had done, his economists decided to structure it as a payroll tax cut, subtly increasing the size of everyone's paycheck. The administration then intentionally did not advertise the fact that it had given nearly every working American a tax cut , in the hopes that people would be nudged into spending, rather than saving, that extra cash. Predictably, in 2010, one poll showed that only 12 percent of Americans believed they'd received a tax cut; 24 percent thought Obama had raised their taxes.

The flaw in this strategy was apparent to another author at this magazine. In late 2009, John B. Judis foresaw a presidency in serious political trouble, because Obama's fortunes were tied not just to the state of the economy, or even economic trends, but to people's perceptions of the state of the economy. Noting how Roosevelt "dramatized the New Deal's contribution to the economy" by creating "colorful new agencies," thereby "ensuring that Roosevelt was given credit for the rise in employment," Judis called on Obama to "introduce programs that provide jobs and capture the public's imagination." He also suggested the president

turn a deaf ear to those who are calling for fiscal responsibility. He should keep pouring money into jobs and into the pockets of people who will spend until the unemployment rate begins going down and wages begin going up.... And, whatever he does to try to mend the economy, Obama should never stop loudly trumpeting his efforts -- so that he is able to reap the credit when improvements occur.

Roosevelt liked to wrestle his enemies in public, and Team Obama preferred to be above it all.

What Judis didn't consider, though, was that Obama didn't want to do any of those things. The president, along with economists who worked for him such as Austan Goolsbee and Tim Geithner, all pointedly rejected comparisons to Roosevelt , based in part on a seemingly inaccurate understanding of the history of his first term but also seemingly based on aesthetics: Roosevelt liked to wrestle his enemies in public, and Team Obama preferred to be above it all. It's hard to remember now how wise everyone made it sound that the president and his team intentionally avoided doing things they worried would be too popular, but there would not be another New Deal. Indeed, instead of ostentatious acts of helping people, the administration almost preferred being seen standing athwart attempts to provide relief. A program that was supposed to help underwater homeowners turned down 70 percent of those applying for permanent loan modifications , even as over six million families lost their homes. The point of the program was never actually to help people stay in their homes, of course; it was to preserve the finance industry by spacing out foreclosures. In the end, it achieved its aim: The banks today are as profitable as ever, while more households are renting than in 50 years .

By far the most effective part of the Affordable Care Act, in terms of helping Americans get care, was simply expanding Medicaid. But what many Democrats and liberals were most excited about was the bill's many experimental and technocratic attempts to "bend the cost curve" -- reduce costs without price controls -- and "improve quality," mainly by encouraging insurers, with incentives, to strive for outcomes that market forces alone weren't incentivizing them to aim for. The signature example of this may be the "Cadillac tax," which was designed to nudge companies to force employees onto cheaper insurance plans with greater cost sharing -- a tax built on the belief that one of the primary drivers of health care cost inflation was people taking advantage of their too-generous employers and greedily consuming more health care than they needed. The tax never went into effect.

The individual mandate, similarly designed to force the healthiest young invincibles to enter the market to bring down costs, is equally dead. And a decade into the ACA, it has become more apparent than ever that the best way to reduce America's absurd health care costs would simply be a single-payer program.

That is not to say that the ACA did not end up having the significant long-term political ramifications its drafters promised it would. The primary non-Medicaid structure of the ACA, with its means-tested subsidies to purchase private insurance, had the predictable effect of convincing some of its beneficiaries that Obama and the Democratic Party had nothing to do with the government assistance they weren't sure they were getting. Then, as costs rose and rose over the decade, that structure also had the predictable effect of making people who receive partially subsidized private care resentful of those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.

Much of the decade we have just endured has shown how the Democratic addiction to dispensing benefits through the tax code in complicated, indirect ways -- combined with the usual insufficiency of these benefits -- was nearly perfectly designed to foment mass resentment of others, imagined or not, who might secretly be getting the Good Benefits.

The political scientist Suzanne Mettler coined the term "the submerged state" in 2010 to refer to the jungle of hidden government "programs" designed not to call attention to themselves, often perpetuated not because they are still helping the neediest, but because they are lucrative to the finance, insurance, and/or real estate industries.

One of her illustrations of the effect of the submerged state is a graph showing how many people who used particular government programs admitted so only after first telling researchers they'd received no assistance. That nearly 40 percent of people on Medicare claimed this is likely attributable to ideology (and the fact that Medicare, like Social Security, was designed to make retirees feel like they had "paid into it").

But when 60 percent of people who used tax-advantaged higher education savings accounts claim they received no government benefits, as they did in Mettler's study, it's probably because tax-advantaged savings accounts are wholly inadequate to the problem of higher education costs. Now combine this with a persistent belief (memorably described by Ashley C. Ford a few years ago) that minorities -- black kids in particular -- get to go to college for free by default, and stir in the rise of tuition costs and other expenses due to cutbacks in state investment in education. The result of this cocktail of ignorant biases and inadequate solutions might look something like the year 2019.

[Dec 22, 2019] We Live In Hysteric Times What Trump's Impeachment Really Means by James George Jatras

Uneven, but pretty biting satire...
Notable quotes:
"... It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees. ..."
"... Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." ..."
"... The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there! ..."
"... Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. ..."
Dec 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

"America is a corpse being consumed by maggots. Liberals are rooting for the maggots. Conservatives are rooting for the corpse."

- @Vendee_Rising

For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that "Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump impeachment hysteria.

Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.) Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)

None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim – and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal slide.

With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid. Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!

Even though Trump has not turned out to be the transformative and restorative president that many of his supporters might have hoped for, he certainly will be (assuming he survives impeachment, which he probably will) the lesser of evils in November 2020 compared to whoever ends up as the Maggot Party nominee. Worse from his opponents' point of view, he remains a toxic avatar of the old America they thought would be well and truly laid to rest for ever and ever, amen, when Hillary Clinton came into her kingdom. That having misfired in 2016, partisans of that legacy America's marginalization, displacement, and eventual extinction can't breathe easy while Trump remains in office lest he, however unlikely in view of his failures of performance, serve as a catalyst for revival of the historic American nation facing loss of its birthright : an organic, uncontrived, living ethnos characterized by European, mainly British origin (a/k/a, "white"); Christian, mainly Protestant; and English-speaking, as augmented by members of other groups who have totally or partially assimilated to it. The certified victim classes standing on the threshold of the permanent, total power that eluded them three years ago are haunted by the knowledge that there's still lots of them Muricans in red MAGA hats rallying to Trump out there in Flyover Country .

In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into the Corpse Party's deplorable base.

With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World :

" What do you mean 'we,' white man? "

As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo ," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's instructive to glance at the members of the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus a bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950 – and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in 1789.

In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language, religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential election, though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and their posterity.

Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.

Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than heroic.

While the bipartisan leadership has not yet taken up the helpful suggestion that barcodes be affixed to legislators' foreheads so that interested persons and organizations can conveniently scan prices and self-checkout , they have provided a helpful guide to what are called " Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs )," also called coalitions, study groups, task forces, or working groups. Memberships in many but not all CMOs serve as virtual barcodes for potential (mostly legal) campaign donors, including, in the case of "friends of" this or that foreign country, contributions from ethnic compatriots who are US citizens, or at least are supposed to be. Here's a partial selection:

Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus, Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus, Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus, Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus, Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus

Recalling Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no "American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."

Russia! Russia! Russia!

In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good – is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and attachments against which the Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :

"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."

In his closing statement before the impeachment vote House Judiciary Chairmaggot Adam "Captain Ahab" Schiff , in his frenzied hunt for the Great Orange Whale , provided a textbook example of what Washington feared:

"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."

Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason , which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions constitute (under Article III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this? Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )

It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.

Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant. The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there!

Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to go.")

Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. Why wouldn't the assembled Maggotrats jump at the chance to grill him under oath? Because he'd dole out the real dirt on Ukraine and its legendary corruption that would make a Nigerian prince blush. For the same reason, Corpsublicans won't want to hear from him either, any more than they're interested in whether the "sub-sources" of the Steele Dossier – whose identity the US Justice Department knows and who were available to the IG's investigators – really had anything to do with the Russian government . We wouldn't want to debunk all that yammering about " fake Kremlin dirt ," would we.

Meanwhile, back in what remains of America, regardless of how impeachment turns out, the lines of irreconcilable division deepen . Whether or not Trump is reelected (the politics look good for him, the demographics don't ) he will eventually be gone, whether in 2020, 2021, or 2025. He will almost certainly be the last Republican president, depending on when Texas goes the way of Virginia . One way or the other, we'll soon see whether the corpse has any fight left in it .

[Dec 21, 2019] Trump administration sanction companies involved in laying the remaining pipe, and also companies involved in the infrastructure around the arrival point.

Highly recommended!
Dec 21, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

Watcher x Ignored says: 12/13/2019 at 6:27 am

The new US defense bill, agreed on by both parties, includes sanctions on executives of companies involved in the completion of Nordstream 2. This is companies involved in laying the remaining pipe, and also companies involved in the infrastructure around the arrival point.

This could include arrest of the executives of those companies, who might travel to the United States. One of the companies is Royal Dutch Shell, who have 80,000 employees in the United States.

Hightrekker x Ignored says: 12/13/2019 at 12:28 pm
So much for the "Free Market".
Hickory x Ignored says: 12/12/2019 at 11:28 pm
Some people believe 'the market' for crude oil is a fair and effective arbiter of the industry supply and demand. But if we step back an inch or two, we all can see it has been a severely broken mechanism during this up phase in oil. For example, there has been long lags between market signals of shortage or surplus.

Disruptive policies and mechanisms such as tariffs, embargo's, and sanctions, trade bloc quotas, military coups and popular revolutions, socialist agendas, industry lobbying, multinational corporate McCarthyism, and massively obese debt financing, are all examples of forces that have trumped an efficient and transparent oil market.

And yet, the problems with the oil market during this time of upslope will look placid in retrospect, as we enter the time beyond peak.
I see no reason why it won't turn into a mad chaotic scramble.
We had a small hint of what this can look like in the last mid-century. The USA responded to military expansionism of Japan by enacting an oil embargo against them. The response was Pearl Harbor. This is just one example of many.
How long before Iran lashes out in response to their restricted access to the market?
People generally don't respond very calmly to involuntary restriction on food, or energy, or access to the markets for these things.

[Dec 21, 2019] Lessons of the past: all changed in 1999 with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal' mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore. ..."
"... Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning, the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a series of impossible demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar not long ago ..."
"... Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. ..."
"... Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia. ..."
"... Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way. ..."
"... False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army. On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media ..."
Apr 23, 2019 | off-guardian.org

As a history student years ago I remember our teacher explaining how past events are linked to what happens in the future. He told us human behaviour always dictates that events will repeat in a similar way as before. I remember we studied 20th century history and discussed World War I and the links to World War II. At this time, we were in the middle of the Cold War and in unchartered waters and I couldn't really link past events to what was likely to happen next. Back then I guess like many I considered US presidents more as statesman. They talked tough on the Soviet Union but they talked peace too. So, the threat to humanity was very different then to now. Dangerous but perhaps a stable kind of dangerous. After the break up of the Soviet Union we then went through a phase of disorderly change in the world. In the early 1990s the war in the Former Yugoslavia erupted and spread from republic to republic. Up until the mid-to-late nineties I didn't necessarily sense that NATO and the West were the new threat to humanity. While there was a clear bias to events in Yugoslavia there was still some even-handedness or fairness. Or so I thought. This all changed in 1999 with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges and so on. But my wake-up call was the daily NATO briefings on the war. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative.

When the peace agreement was reached, out of 300 Serbian tanks which had entered Kosovo at the start of the conflict, over 285 were counted going back into Serbia proper which was confirmation he had been lying .

From this conflict onwards I started to see clear parallels with events of the past and some striking similarities with the lead up to previous world wars. This all hit home when observing events in Syria and more recently Venezuala. But looking around seeing people absorbed in their phones you wouldn't think the world is on the brink of war. For most of us with little time to watch world events there are distractions which have obscured the picture historians and geopolitical experts see more clearly.

Recent and current western leaders haven't been short people in military uniform shouting. That would be far too obvious. It's still military conflict and mass murder but in smart suits with liberal sound-bites and high-fives. Then the uncool, uncouth conservative Trump came along and muddied the waters.

Briefly it seemed there might be hope that these wars would stop. But there can be little doubt he's been put under pressure to comply with the regime change culture embedded in the Deep State. Today, through their incendiary language we see US leaders morphing into the open style dictators of the past. The only thing missing are the military uniforms and hats.

Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal' mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore.

Let's look at some of these:

1) Military build up, alliances and proxy wars – for all the chaos and mass murder pursued by the Obama Administration he did achieve limited successes in signing agreements with Iran and Cuba. But rather than reverse the endless wars as promised Trump cancels the agreements leaving the grand sum of zilch foreign policy achievements. NATO has been around for 70 years, but in the last 20 or so has become obsessed with military build up. Nowadays it has hundreds of bases around the world but keeps destablising non-aligned states, partly to isolate Russia and China. And Syria sums up the dangers of the regime change model used today. With over a dozen states involved in the proxy war there is a still high risk of conflict breaking out between US and Russia. The motives for military build up are many. First there are powerful people in the arms industry and media who benefit financially from perpetual war. The US while powerful in military terms are a declining power which will continue, new powers emerging. The only return on their money they can see is through military build up. Also there are many in government, intelligence services and media who can see that if the current order continues to crumble they are likely to be prosecuted for various crimes. All this explains the threatening language and the doubling-down on those who challenge them. In 1914, Europe had two backward thinking military alliance blocks and Sarajevo showed how one event could trigger an unstoppable escalation dragging in many states. And empires such as Austro-Hungary were crumbling from within as they are now. So a similar mentality prevails today where the powerful in these empires under threat favour conflict to peace. For these individuals it's a last throw of the dice and a gamble with all our lives.

2) Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning, the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a series of impossible demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar not long ago .

3) Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. In addition we face a situation of highly unpredictable, ideological regional leaders in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Most worrying of all, the language, threats and actions of Trump, Pompeo and Bolton suggests there are psychopathic tendencies in play. Behind this is a Deep State and Democrat Party pushing even harder for conflict. The level of paranoia is discouraging any notion of peace. 30 years ago Russia and US would sit down at a summit and reach a consensus. Today a US leader or diplomat seen talking to a Russian official is accused of collusion. When there are limited channels to talk in a crisis, you know we are in trouble. In Germany in the 1930s, ideology, propaganda and creating enemies were key in getting the population on side for war. The leaders within the Nazi clique, Hitler, Goring and Himmler look disturbingly similar to the Trump, Pompeo, Bolton line up.

4) Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia. The terms and words; regime change, mass murder and terrorist have all been substituted by the media with 'humanitarian intervention', 'limited airstrikes' and 'moderate rebels' to fool a distracted public that the victims of the aggression are the bad guys. Western funded 'fact checking' sites such as Bellingcat have appeared pushing the misdirections to a surreal new level. Obama was portayed in the media as a cool guy and a little 'soft' on foreign policy. This despite the carnage in Libya, Syria and his drones. Sentiments of equal rights and diversity fill the home affairs sections in the liberal press, while callous indifference and ethno-centrism towards the Middle East and Russia dominate foreign affairs pages. In the press generally, BREXIT, non-existent anti-Semitism and nonsense about the 'ISIS bride' continues unabated. This media circus seeks to distract from important matters, using these topics to create pointless divisions, causing hostility towards Muslims and Jews in the process. The majority of a distracted public have still not twigged largely because the propaganda is more subtle nowadays and presented under a false humanitarian cloak. A small but vocal group of experts and journalists challenging these narratives are regularly smeared as Putin or Assad "apologists" . UK journalists are regularly caught out lying and some long standing hoaxes such as Russiagate exposed. Following this and Iraq WMDs more people are starting to see a pattern here. Yet each time the media in the belief they've bamboozled enough move on to the next big lie. This a sign of a controlled media which has reached the point of being unaccountable and untouchable, deeply embedded within the establishment apparatus. In the lead up to World War II the Nazis ran an effective media propaganda campaign which indoctrinated the population. The media in Germany also reached the point their blindingly obvious lies were rarely questioned. The classic tactic was to blame others for the problems in Germany and the world and project their crimes on to their victims. There are some differences as things have evolved. The Nazis created the media and state apparatus to pursue war. Nowadays this is the opposite way around. Instead the state apparatus is already in place so whoever is leader whether they describe themself as liberal or conservative, is merely a figurehead required to continue the same pro-war policies. Put a fresh-looking president in a shiny suit and intoduce him to the Queen and you wouldn't think he's the biggest mass murderer since Hitler. Although there are some differences in the propaganda techniques, all the signs are that today's media are on a similar war-footing as Germany's was just prior to the outbreak of World War II.

5) Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way.

6) False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army. On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media. The next flashpoint in Syria is Idlib, where it's highly likely a new chemical fabrication will be attempted this Spring. In the 1930s the Nazis were believed to use false flags with increasing frequency to discredit and close down internal opposition. Summary – We now live in a society where exposing warmongering is a more serious crime than committing it. Prisons hold many people who have bravely exposed war crimes – yet most criminals continue to walk free and hold positions of power. And when the media is pushing for Julian Assange to be extradicted you know this is beyond simple envy of a man who has almost single-handedly done the job they've collectively failed to do. They are equally complicit in warmongering hence why they see Assange and others as a threat. For those not fooled by the smart suits, liberal platitudes and media distraction techniques, the parallels with Germany in the 1930s in particular are now fairly obvious. The blundering military alliances of 1914 and the pure evil of 1939 – with the ignorance, indifference and narcissism described above make for a destructive mix. Unless something changes soon our days on this planet are likely be numbered. Depressing but one encouraging thing is that the indisputable truth is now in plain sight for anyone with internet access to see and false narratives have collapsed before. It's still conceivable that something may create a whole chain of events which sweep these dangerous parasites from power. So anything can happen. In the meantime we should keep positive and continue to spread the message.

Kevin Smith is a British citizen living and working in London. He researches and writes down his thoughts on the foreign wars promoted by Western governments and media. In the highly controlled and dumbed down UK media environment, he's keen on exploring ways of discouraging ideology and tribalism in favour of free thinking.

comite espartaco says Apr, 24, 2019

2- 'Israel and its US relationship'. The 'hands off' policy of the Western powers, guarantees that Syria cannot even be a trigger to any 'global conflict', supposing that a 'global conflict' was on the cards, especially when Russia is just a crumbling shadow of the USSR and China a giant with feet of clay, heavily dependent on Western oligarchic goodwill, to maintain its economy and its technological progress.

In 1914, the Serbian crisis was just trigger of WWI and not a true cause. It is not even clear if it was Germany that dragged Austria-Hungary into the war or Russia. Although there was a possibility (only a possibility), that a swift and 'illegal' attack by Austria-Hungary (without an ultimatum), would have localised and contained the conflict.

There is no similarity whatsoever between the 1914 'diktats' and modern US policy, as the US is the sole Superpower and its acts are not opposed by a balancing and corresponding alliance. Save in the Chinese colony of North Korea, where the US is restrained by a tacit alliance of the North Eastern Asiatic powers: China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, that oppose any military action and so promote and protect North Korean bullying. Qatar, on the other hand, is one of the most radical supporters of the Syrian opposition and terrorist groups around the muslim world, even more than Saudi Arabia and there are powerful reasons for the confrontation of the Gulf rivals.

olavleivar says Apr, 24, 2019
You should go back in Time and STUDY what really happened .. that means going back to the Creation of the socalled British Empire ..the Bank of England , the British East Indian Company , the Opium Wars and the Opium Trafficing , the Boer Wars for Gold and Diamonds , the US Civil War and its aftermath , the manipulations of Gold and Silver by socalled british Financial Interests , The US Spanish Wars , the Japanese Russian War , the failed Coup against Czar Russia 1905 , the Young Turk Coup against the Ottoman Empire 1908, the Armenian Genocide , the Creation of the Federal Reserve 1913 , the Multitude of Assinations and other Terror Attacks in the period from 1900 and upwards , WHO were the perpetraders ? , , WW 1 and its originators , the Bolshevik Coup 1917 , the Treaty of Versailles and the Actors in that Treaty ,the Plunder of Germany , the dissolution of Austria Hungary , the Bolshevik Coup attempts all over Europe , and then the run up to WW 2 , the Actions of Poland agianst Germans and Czechs .. Hitler , Musolini and finally WW 2 .the post war period , the Nuernberg Trials , the Holocaust Mythology , the Creation of Israel , Gladio , the Fall of the Sovjet Empire and the Warshav Pact , the Wars in the Middle East , the endless Terror Actions , the murder of Kennedy and a mass of False Flag Terrorist Attacks since then , the destruction of the Balkans and the Middle east THERE IS PLENTY of EXCELLENT LITERATURE and ANALYSIS on all subjects .
comite espartaco says Apr, 23, 2019
1- Military buildup, alliances and proxy wars.

It was your Obama that 'persecuted' Mr Assange !!!

Syria demonstrates that there has NOT been a Western strategy for regime change (specially after the 'defeats' in Iraq and Afghanistan), let alone a proxy war, but, on the contrary, an effort to keep the tyranny of Assad in power, in a weaker state, to avoid any strong, 'revolutionary' rival near Israel. Russia has been given a free hand in Syria, otherwise, if the West had properly armed the resistance groups, it would have been a catastrophe for the Russian forces, like it was in Afghanistan during the Soviet intervention.

Trump's policy of 'equal' (proportional) contributions for all members of NATO and other allies, gives the lie to the US military return 'argument' and should be understood as part of his war on unfair competition by other powers.

The 'military' and diplomatic alliances of 1914 were FORWARD thinking, so much so that they 'repeated' themselves during WWII, with slight changes. But it is very doubtful that the Empires, like the Austro-Hungarian o the Russian ones, would have 'crumbled' without the outbreak of WWI. They were never under threat, as their military power during the war showed. Only a World War of cataclysmic character could destroy them. A war, triggered, but not created, by the 'conflict seeking mentality' of the powerful in the small countries of the Balkans.

Shardlake says Apr, 23, 2019
Generally attributed to Senator Hiram Warren Johnson in 1918 that 'when war comes the first casualty is truth' is as much a truism now as it was then.

I'm more inclined to support hauptmanngurski's proposition that the members of the armed forces, from both sides, who return from conflicts with life-changing injuries or even in flag-draped caskets defended only the freedom of multinational enterprises and conglomerates to make and continue to make vast profits for the privileged few at the population's expense.

As Kevin Smith makes abundantly clear we are all subject to the downright lies and truth-stretching from our government aided and abetted by a compliant main stream media as exemplified in the Skripal poisoning affair, which goes far beyond the counting of Serbian tanks supposedly destroyed during the Balkans conflict. The Skripals' are now God knows where either as willing participants or as detainees and our government shows no signs of clarifying the matter, so who would believe what it put out anyway in view of its track record of misinformation ? The nation doesn't know what to believe.

Sadly, I believe this has always been the way of things and I cannot even speculate on how long it will be before this nation will realise it is being deliberately mis-led.

[Dec 21, 2019] Trump comes clean from world s policeman to thug running a global protection racket by Finian Cunningham

Highly recommended!
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
Dec 27, 2018 | www.rt.com

President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded back in 2003.

Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.

In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.

Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia and Iran.

'We're no longer suckers of the world!' Trump says US is respected as nation AGAIN (VIDEO)

Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to" the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.

However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.

Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:

"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous." He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."

Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.

As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.

"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.

'We give them $4.5bn a year': Israel will still be 'good' after US withdrawal from Syria – Trump

This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight" in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has berated the Saudis and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.

Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly $4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter jets and missile systems.

The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.

Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's mythical role as guarantor of global security.

Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.

But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.

Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only superficially.

This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.

'With almost $22 trillion of debt, the US is in no position to attack Iran'

This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he said : "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas night was reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.

What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.

Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.

During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."

Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."

But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."

Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.

It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something virtuous.

Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.

dnm1136

Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world, the US is feared but generally not respected.

My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.

William Smith

Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for "pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites for "civilising" them.

Phoebe S,

"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."

That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.

ProRussiaPole

None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything, and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.

Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole

i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.

Truthbetold69

It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've always been getting.'

[Dec 21, 2019] Time to Terminate Washington's Defense Welfare

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation". ..."
"... Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ? ..."
"... Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place. ..."
Sep 01, 2017 | nationalinterest.org

opaw , August 30, 2017 8:29 PM

While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation".

I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow Koreans.

Try Harder , August 31, 2017 2:45 AM

Very good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....

Try Harder Guest , August 31, 2017 4:16 PM

Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ?

Zsari Maxim Guest , August 31, 2017 11:50 AM

Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place.

Thomas Fung , August 31, 2017 5:04 PM

In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar. Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.

In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state of Israel.

[Dec 21, 2019] The Pentagon s New Map War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor and messianic in its language. ..."
"... At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem," yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways. ..."
"... Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory is built. ..."
"... Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet. ..."
"... I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department. ..."
"... I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization, which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely. Neither is guaranteed. ..."
"... "Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened. ..."
"... Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire, ..."
"... We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem, or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or .... ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'. ..."
"... "If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but a Global Empire only posing as your former country." ..."
Aug 26, 2017 | www.amazon.com

Azblue on July 31, 2006

Global cop

Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor and messianic in its language.

The foundation upon which Barnett builds his binary view of the world is heavily dependant upon the continued advancement of globalization - almost exclusively so. However, advancing globalization is not pre-ordained. Barnett himself makes the case that globalization is a fragile undertaking similar to an interconnected chain in which any broken link destroys the whole. Globalization could indeed be like the biblical statue whose feet are made of clay. Globalization, and therefore the integration of the Gap, may even stop or recede - just as the globalization of the early 20th century ended abruptly with the onset of WW I and a global depression. Moreover, Barnett's contention that the United States has an exceptional duty and moral responsibility for "remaking the world in America's image" might be seen by many as misguided and perhaps even dangerous.

The divide between the `Functioning Core' and the `Non-Integrating Gap' differs from the gulf between rich and poor in a subtle yet direct way. State governments make a conscious decision to become connected vs. disconnected to advancing globalization. States and their leaders can provide the infrastructure and the opening of large global markets to their citizens in ways that individuals cannot. An example can serve to illustrate the point: You can be rich and disconnected in Nigeria or poor and disconnected in North Korea. In each case the country you live in has decided to be disconnected. Citizens in this case have a limited likelihood of staying rich and unlimited prospects of staying poor. But by becoming part of the functioning Core, the enlightened state allows all citizens a running start at becoming part of a worldwide economic system and thus provide prospects for a better future because global jobs and markets are opened up to them. A connected economy such as India's, for example, enables citizens who once had no prospects for a better life to find well-paying jobs, such as computer-related employment. Prospects for a better Indian life are directly the result of the Indian government's conscious decision to become connected to the world economy, a.k.a. embracing globalization.

After placing his theory of the Core/Gap and preemptive war strategy firmly into the church of globalization, Barnett next places his theory squarely upon the alter of rule sets. Few would argue that the world is an anarchic place and Barnett tells us that rule sets are needed to define `good' and `evil' behavior of actors in this chaotic international system. An example of such a rule set is the desire of the Core to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorist organizations. Other examples are the promulgation of human rights and the need to stop genocide. Barnett also uses rule sets to define `system' rules that govern and shape the actions, and even the psychology, of international actors. An example that Barnett gives of a system-wide rule set is the creation of the `rule' defined by the United States during the Cold War called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Barnett claims that this rule set effectively ended the possibility of war for all time amongst nuclear-capable great powers. Barnett states that the U.S. now should export a brand new rule set called `preemptive war,' which aims to fight actors in the lawless Gap in order to end international terrorism for all time. Barnett makes it clear that the Core's enemy is neither a religion (Islam) nor a place (Middle East), but a condition (disconnectedness).

Next, Barnett points out that system-wide competition has moved into the economic arena and that military conflict, when it occurs, has moved away from the system-wide (Cold War), to inter-state war, ending up today with primarily state conflict vs. individuals (Core vs. bin Laden, Core vs. Kim, etc.). In other words, "we are moving progressively away from warfare against states or even blocs of states and toward a new era of warfare against individuals." Rephrased, we've moved from confrontations with evil empires, to evil states, to evil leaders. An example of this phenomenon is the fact that China dropped off the radar of many government hawks after 9/11 only to be replaced by terrorist groups and other dangerous NGOs "with global reach."

Barnett also points out that the idea of `connectivity' is central to the success of globalization. Without it, everything else fails. Connectivity is the glue that holds states together and helps prevent war between states. For example, the US is not likely to start a war with `connected' France, but America could more likely instigate a war with `disconnected' North Korea, Syria or Iran.

Barnett then examines the dangers associated with his definition of `disconnectedness.' He cleverly describes globalization as a condition defined by mutually assured dependence (MAD) and advises us that `Big Men', royal families, raw materials, theocracies and just bad luck can conspire to impede connectedness in the world. This is one of few places in his book that Barnett briefly discusses impediments to globalization - however, this short list looks at existing roadblocks to connectedness but not to future, system-wide dangers to globalization.

At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem," yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways.

Barnett then takes us on a pilgrimage to the Ten Commandments of globalization. Tellingly, this list is set up to be more like links in a chain than commandments. Each item in the list is connected to the next - meaning that each step is dependent upon its predecessor. If any of the links are broken or incomplete, the whole is destroyed. For example, Barnett warns us that if there is no security in the Gap, there can be no rules in the Gap. Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory is built.

What else could kill globalization? Barnett himself tells us: "Labor, energy, money and security all need to flow as freely as possible from those places in the world where they are plentiful to those regions where they are scarce." Here he is implying that an interruption of any or all of these basic necessities can doom globalization. Barnett states clearly: "...(these are) the four massive flows I believe are essential to protect if Globalization III is going to advance." Simply put, any combination of American isolationism or closing of borders to immigration, a global energy crisis, a global financial crisis or rampant global insecurity could adversely affect "connectedness," a.k.a. globalization. These plausible future events, unnerving as they are, leave the inexorable advancement of globalization in doubt and we haven't yet explored other problems with Barnett's reliance on globalization to make the world peaceful, free and safe for democracy.

Barnett goes on to tell us that Operation Iraqi Freedom was an "overt attempt to create a "System Perturbation" centered in the Persian Gulf to trigger a Big Bang." His definition of a Big Bang in the Middle East is the democratization of the many totalitarian states in the region. He also claims that the Big Bang has targeted Iran's "sullen majority."

Barnett claims that our problem with shrinking the Gap is not our "motive or our means, but our inability to describe the enemies worth killing, the battles worth winning, and the future worth creating." Managing the global campaign to democratize the world is no easy task. Barnett admits that in a worst-case scenario we may be stuck in the "mother of all intifadas" in Iraq. Critics claim this is something that we should have planned for - that the insurgency should not have been a surprise, and that it should have been part of the "peacemaking" planning. Barnett blithely states that things will get better "...when America internationalizes the occupation." Barnett should not engage in wishful thinking here, as he also does when he predicted that Iraqis would be put in charge of their own country 18 months after the fall of Baghdad. It would be more accurate if he claimed this would happen 18 months after the cessation of hostilities. Some critics claim that Iraq is an example that we are an "empire in a hurry" (Michael Ignatieff), which then results in: 1) allocating insufficient resources to non-military aspects of the project and 2) attempting economic and political transformation in an unrealistically short time frame.

The final basic premise of Barnett's theory of the Core and the Gap is the concept of what he calls the "global transaction strategy." Barnett explains it best: "America's essential transaction with the outside world is one of our exporting security in return for the world's financing a lifestyle we could far more readily afford without all that defense spending." Barnett claims that America pays the most for global stability because we enjoy it the most. But what about the other 80 countries in the Core?

Why is America, like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world's security and stabilization on its shoulders?

Barnett claims that historical analogies are useless today and point us in the wrong direction. I disagree. James Madison cautioned us not to go abroad to seek monsters to destroy. We can learn from his simple and profound statement that there are simply too many state (and individual) monsters in today's world for the U.S. to destroy unilaterally or preemptively. We must also avoid overstretching our resources and power. Thucydides reminds us that the great democracy of Athens was brought to its knees by the ill-advised Sicilian expedition - which resulted in the destruction of everything the Athenians held dear. Do not ignore history as Barnett councils; heed it.

Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet. Therefore, America needs to stay engaged in the affairs of the world, but Barnett has not offered conclusive evidence that the U.S. needs to become the world's single Leviathan that must extinguish all global hot wars. Barnett also has not proved that America needs to be, as he writes, "the one willing to rush in when everyone else is running away." People like Barnett in academia and leaders in government may proclaim and ordain the U.S. to be a global Leviathan, but it is a conscious choice that should be thoroughly debated by the American people. After all, it is upon the backs of the American people that such a global Leviathan must ride. Where is the debate? The American people, upon reflection, may decide upon other courses of action.

I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department.

It seems to be well researched - having 35 pages of notes. Many of Barnett's citations come from the Washington Post and the New York Times, which some may see as a liberal bias, but I see the sources as simply newspapers of record.

I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization, which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely. Neither is guaranteed.

Alan H. Macdonald on April 1, 2013
A misused book waiting for redemption

I don't think poorly of Thomas Barnett himself. He's very bright and, I think, good hearted, BUT his well thought-out, well argued pride and joy (and positive intellectual pursuit) is being badly distorted ---- which happens to all 'tools' that Empire gets its hands on.

For those who like predictions, I would predict that Barnett will wind up going through an epiphany much like Francis Fukuyama (but a decade later) and for much the same reason, that his life's work gets misused and abused so greatly that he works to reverse and correct its misuse. Fukuyama, also brilliant, wrote "The End of History" in 1992 (which was misused by the neocons to engender war), and now he's working just as hard to reverse a misuse that he may feel some guilt of his work supporting, and is writing "The Future of History" as a force for good --- and I suspect (and hope) that Barnett will, in even less time, be counter-thinking and developing the strategy and book to reverse the misuse of his 2004 book before the Global Empire pulls down the curtain.

"Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened.

Best luck and love to the fast expanding 'Occupy the Empire' educational and revolutionary movement against this deceitful, guileful, disguised EMPIRE, which can't so easily be identified as wearing Red Coats, Red Stars, nor funny looking Nazi helmets ---- quite yet!

Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem, or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or .... ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'.

"If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but a Global Empire only posing as your former country."

[Dec 21, 2019] We are all Palestinians: possible connection between neocons and Pentagon

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003. ..."
"... If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents. ..."
Aug 25, 2017 | www.unz.com

schrub , August 25, 2017 at 7:18 pm GMT

People who seem to think that Trump's generals will somehow go along and support his original vision are sadly mistaken.

Since 2003, Israel has had an increasingly strong hand in the vetting who gets promoted to upper positions in the American armed forces. All of the generals Trump has at his side went through a vetting procedure which definitely involved a very close look at their opinions about Israel.

Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003.

Officers who openly oppose the dictates of the Israel Lobby will see their prospects for advancement simply vanish like a whiff of smoke.. Those who support Israel's machinations are rewarded with promotions, the more fervent the support the more rapid the promotion especially if this knowledge is made known to their congressman or senator..

Generals who support Israel already know that this support will be heavily rewarded after their retirements by being given lucrative six figure positions on company boards of directors or positions in equally lucrative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institution or the Hoover Institute. They will receive hefty speaking fees. as well. They learned early that their retirements could be truly glorious if they only "went" along with The Lobby. They will be able to then live the good life in expensive places like Washington, New York or San Francisco, often invited to glitzy parties with unlimited amount of free prawns "the size of your hand".

On the other hand, upper officers who somehow get then get "bad" reputations for their negative views about Israel ( like Karen U. Kwiatkowski for instance) will end up, once retired, having to depend on just their often scanty pensions This requires getting an often demeaning second jobs to get by in some place where "their dollar goes further". No bright lights in big cities for them. No speaking fees, no college jobs. Once their fate becomes known, their still active duty contemporaries suddenly decide to "go along".

If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents.

Face it, we live in a country under occupation by a hostile power that we willingly pay large amounts monetary tribute to. Our government does whatever benefits Israel regardless of how negatively this effects the USA. We are increasing troop strength in Afghanistan because, somehow, this benefits Israel. If our presence in Afghanistan (or the Mideast in general) didn't benefit Israel, our troops would simply not be there.

We are all Palestinians.

[Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts to threaten their global domination.

Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct wars. They use today other, various methods like brutal proxy wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.

Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya

After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.

In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without the presence of the US.

Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.

Evidence from WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources. The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that the Western hypocrites were using him according to their interests .

Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.

Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone

It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster in Middle East and Libya.

Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy. The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the Treuhand Operation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in Ireland , Italy and Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed in an open financial coup against Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.

Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the second eurozone economy, France, rushed to impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.

Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.

The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the NSA interceptions scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a transatlantic economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.

Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.

Economic Wars, Constitutional Coups, Provocative Operations – Argentina/Brazil/Venezuela

A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally, the constitutional coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the usual actions of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.

Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.

The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.

The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.

The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth, with a big overdose of exaggeration. The establishment parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.

Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's happening right now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.

'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine

The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.

The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership, through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.

Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A video , for example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress. This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.

The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments in Venezuela and other countries.

Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination (like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans to join Russia.

The war will become wilder

The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic expansionism.

Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.

We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.

[Dec 21, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives

Highly recommended!
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam, Lebanon,Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending wars are expensive was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

KC February 15, 2019 at 11:16 pm

The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives, create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class in US politics and culture.

Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.

Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell

Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.

[Dec 21, 2019] Government Warmongering Criminals Where Are They Now

Notable quotes:
"... The American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington? ..."
"... A friend of mine recently commented that honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. ..."
"... If the marketplace is anything to go by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01. ..."
"... The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act, writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." ..."
"... "Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." ..."
"... senior government officials and politicians routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds ..."
"... One thing for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry. ..."
Jul 08, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

The United States already has by far the per capita largest prison population of any developed country but I am probably one of the few Americans who on this Independence Day would like to see a lot more people in prison, mostly drawn from politicians and senior bureaucrats who have long believed that their status makes them untouchable, giving them license to steal and even to kill. The sad fact is that while whistleblowers have been imprisoned for revealing government criminality, no one in the federal bureaucracy has ever actually been punished for the crimes of torture, kidnapping and assassination committed during the George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama presidencies.

Why is accountability important? After the Second World War, the victorious allies believed it was important to establish responsibility for the crimes that had been committed by officials of the Axis powers. The judges at the Nuremberg Trials called the initiation of a war of aggression the ultimate war crime because it inevitably unleashed so many other evils. Ten leading Nazis were executed at Nuremberg and ninety-three Japanese officials at similar trials staged in Asia, including several guilty of waterboarding. Those who were not executed for being complicit in the actual launching of war were tried for torture of both military personnel and civilians and crimes against humanity, including the mass killing of civilians as well as of soldiers who had surrendered or been captured.

No matter how one tries to avoid making comparisons between 1939 and 2015, the American invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression, precisely the type of conflict that the framework of accountability provided by Nuremberg was supposed to prevent in the years after 1946. High level US government officials knew that Iraq represented no threat to the United States but they nevertheless described an imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein in the most graphic terms, replete with weapons of mass destruction, armed drones flying across the Atlantic, terrorists being unleashed against the homeland, and mushroom clouds on the horizon. The precedent of Iraq, even though it was an abject failure, has led to further military action against Libya and Syria to bring about "regime change" as well as a continuing conflict in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the US has been waging a largely secret "long war" against terrorists employing torture and secret prisons. The American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington?

Many Americans would now consider the leading figures in the Bush Administration aided and abetted by many enablers in congress from both political parties to be unindicted war criminals. Together they ignited a global conflict that is still running strong fourteen years later with a tally of more than 7,000 dead Americans and a minimum of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Somalis and Syrians.

War breeds more war, due largely to the fact that guilty parties in Washington who piggyback on the prevailing narrative move onward and upward, rewarded in this life even if not necessarily so in the hereafter. A friend of mine recently commented that honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. Though not 100% accurate as I know at least a couple of honorable former senior officials who wound up teaching, it would seem to be a generalization that has considerable validity. The implication is that many senior government officials ascend to their positions based on being accommodating and "political" rather than being honest and they continue to do the same when they switch over to corporate America or the equally corrupted world of academia.

I thought of my friend's comment when I turned on the television a week ago to be confronted by the serious, somewhat intense gaze of Michael Morell, warning about the danger that ISIS will strike the US over the Fourth of July weekend. Morell, a former senior CIA official, is in the terror business. He had no evidence whatsoever that terrorists were planning an attack and should have realized that maneuvering the United States into constantly going on alert based on empty threats is precisely what militant groups tend to do.

When not fronting as a handsomely paid national security consultant for the CBS television network Morell is employed by Beacon Global Strategies as a Senior Counselor, presumably warning well-heeled clients to watch out for terrorists. His lifestyle and substantial emoluments depend on people being afraid of terrorism so they will turn to an expert like him and ask serious questions that he will answer in a serious way suggesting that Islamic militants could potentially bring about some kind of global apocalypse.

Morell, a torture apologist, also has a book out that he wants to sell, positing somewhat ridiculously that he and his former employer had been fighting The Great War of Our Time against Islamic terrorists, something comparable to the World Wars of the past century, hence the title. Morell needs to take some valium and relax. He would also benefit from a little introspection regarding the bad guys versus good guys narrative that he is peddling. His credentials as a warrior are somewhat suspect in any event as he never did any military service and his combat in the world of intelligence consisted largely of sitting behind a desk in Washington and providing briefings to George W. Bush and Barack Obama in which he presumably told them what they wanted to hear.

Morell is one of a host of pundits who are successful in selling the military-industrial-lobbyist-congressional-intelligence community line of BS on the war on terror. Throw in the neocons as the in-your-face agents provocateurs who provide instant intellectual and media credibility for developments and you have large groups of engaged individuals with good access who are on the receiving end of the seemingly unending cash pipeline that began with 9/11. Frances Townsend, who was the Bush Homeland Security adviser and who is now a consultant with CNN, is another such creature as is Michael Chertoff, formerly Director of the Department of Homeland Security, who has successfully marketed his defective airport scanners to his former employer.

But the guys and gals who are out feathering their own nests are at least comprehensible given our predatory capitalist system of government. More to the point, the gang that ordered or carried out torture and assassination are the ones who should be doing some hard time in the slammer but instead they too are riding the gravy train and cashing in. To name only a few of those who knew about the torture and ordered it carried out I would cite George Tenet, James Pavitt, Cofer Black and Jose Rodriguez from the intelligence community. The assassination program meanwhile is accredited to John Brennan, currently CIA Director, during his tenure as Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor. And then there are Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon together with John Yoo at Justice and Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice at the White House, all of whom outright lied, dissimulated and conspired their way to bring about a war of aggression against Iraq.

There are plenty of nameless others who were "only carrying out orders" and who should be included in any reckoning of America's crimes over the past fifteen years, particularly if one also considers the illegal NSA spying program headed by Michael Hayden, who defended the practice and has also referred to those who oppose enhanced interrogation torture as "interrogation deniers." And then there are Presidents Bush and Obama who certainly knew what was going on in the name of the American people as well as John Brennan, who was involved in both the torture and renditions programs as well as the more recent assassinations by drone.

So where are they now? Living in obscurity ashamed of what they did? Hardly. Not only have they not been vilified or marginalized, they have, in most cases, been rewarded. George W. Bush lives in Dallas near his Presidential Library and eponymous Think (sic) Tank. Cheney lives in semi-retirement in McLean Virginia with a multi-million dollar waterfront weekend retreat in St. Michaels Maryland, not too far from Donald Rumsfeld's similar digs.

George Tenet, the CIA Director notorious for his "slam-dunk" comment, a man who cooked the intelligence to make the Iraq war possible to curry favor with the White House, has generously remunerated positions on the boards of Allen & Company merchant bank, QinetiQ, and L-1 Identity Solutions. He sold his memoir At the Center of the Storm, which has been described as a "self-justifying apologia," in 2007 for a reported advance of $4 million. His book, ironically, admits that the US invaded Iraq for no good reason.

James Pavitt, who was the point man responsible for the "enhanced interrogation" program as Tenet's Deputy Director for Operations, is currently a principal with The Scowcroft Group and also serves on several boards. Cofer Black, who headed the Counter-Terrorism Center, which actually carried out renditions and "enhanced interrogations," was vice chairman of Blackwater Worldwide (now called Xe) and chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions, a Blackwater spin-off. He is now vice president of Blackbird Technologies, a defense and intelligence contractor. Rodriguez, who succeeded Black and in 2005 illegally destroyed video tapes made of Agency interrogations to avoid possible repercussions, is a senior vice president with Edge Consulting, a defense contractor currently owned by IBM that is located in Virginia.

John Yoo is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley while Condoleezza Rice, who spoke of mushroom clouds and is widely regarded as the worst National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in history, has returned to Stanford University. She is a professor at the Graduate School of Business and a director of its Global Center for Business and the Economy as well as a fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is occasionally spoken of as either a possible GOP presidential candidate or as a future Commissioner of the National Football League. Her interaction with students is limited, but when challenged on her record she has responded that it was a difficult situation post 9/11, something that everyone understands, though few would have come to her conclusion that attacking Iraq might be a good way to destroy al-Qaeda.

Paul Wolfowitz, the Bush Deputy Secretary of Defense, is seen by many as the "intellectual" driving force behind the invasion of Iraq. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and advises Jeb Bush on foreign policy. A bid to reward Wolfie for his zeal by giving him a huge golden parachute as President of the World Bank at a salary of $391,000 tax free failed when, after 23 months in the position, he was ousted over promoting a subordinate with whom he was having an affair. His chief deputy at the Pentagon Doug Feith left the Defense Department to take up a visiting professorship at the school of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, which was subsequently not renewed. He is reported to be again practicing law and thinking deep thoughts about his hero Edmund Burke, who no doubt would have been appalled to make Feith's acquaintance. Feith is a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute and the Director of the Center for National Security Strategies. His memoir War and Decision did not make the best seller list and is now available used on Amazon for $.01 plus shipping. If the marketplace is anything to go by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01.

The over-rewarding of former officials who have in reality done great harm to the United States and its interests might well seem inexplicable, but it is all part of a style of bureaucracy that cannot admit failure and truly believes that all its actions are ipso facto legitimate because the executive and its minions can do no wrong. It is also a symptom of the classic American character flaw that all things are of necessity measured by money. Does anyone remember the ancient Roman symbol of republican virtue Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm after being named Dictator in order to defeat Rome's enemies? He then handed power back to the Senate before returning to his plowing after the job was done. The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act, writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." George Washington was America's Cincinnatus and it is not a coincidence that officers of the continental army founded the Cincinnati Society, the nation's oldest patriotic organization, in 1783. It is also reported that Edward Snowden used the alias "Cincinnatus."

Lord Acton once observed that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." More recently essayist Edward Abbey put it in an American context, noting "Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." That senior government officials and politicians routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds is a fault that is perhaps not unique to the United States but it is nevertheless unacceptable. Handing out a couple of exemplary prison sentences for the caste that believes itself untouchable would be a good place to start. An opportunity was missed with David Petraeus, who was fined and avoided jail time, and it will be interesting to see how the Dennis Hastert case develops. Hastert will no doubt be slapped on the wrist for the crime of moving around his own money while the corruption that was the source of that money, both as a legislator and lobbyist, will be ignored. As will his molestation of at least one and possibly several young boys. One thing for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry.

Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.

[Dec 21, 2019] Bill Clinton began humanitarian wars but it was Bush II and Obama who turned resource wars into routine practice and the USA into malignant overlords who decided when it is time to take it all.

Notable quotes:
"... oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all. ..."
www.nakedcapitalism.com

rg the lg | Oct 22, 2016 8:25:27 PM | 33

http://empireexposed.blogspot.com/

Long ago (1968) after returning from Vietnam with a bullet hole in my leg (my 90 wonder, post-ROTC officer shot me when he panicked) I wondered off to a down-at-the-heel cow college. There I took a class and C Wright Mills 'The Power Elite' was required reading.

I had just finished 'War is a fraud' and read an article by Paul Ehrlich an then 'The Population Bomb' shortly thereafter. The three books created an interesting fusion in my mind:

  1. More or less after the year 2000 the world would be plagued by resource wars;
  2. The primary role of the military is to enforce what capitalists want; and
  3. Behind the alleged scenes of our form of government hovered oligarchs who would demand more and more.

I recently found a paper I had written long ago. It wasn't very well written, but even then the handwriting was on the wall: oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all.

I guess the point of all of this is (except for the details) Ehrlich, Mills and Butler warned us. As did Huxley and Orwell ... we were just too damned dumb (or distracted) to see it.

Maybe with the Queen of Chaos, the above will result in either annihilation or in a severe reduction in the numbers of people ... (hopefully including all of the oligarchic class) and the chance to start over?

Nah ... we'll just fuck it up again ... as a species we refuse to learn. Sigh ...

[Dec 21, 2019] War is a force that gives us meaning

Notable quotes:
"... Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false) meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress should declare war. And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941. ..."
Dec 02, 2019 | bracingviews.com

Doug Barr December 1, 2019 at 7:24 PM

I just read your article in TD. In my opinion you buried the reason for never ending wars. You mention exceptionalism. I call that concept preeminence. With it is one of the few ways we try to fill the void, or as you said in fewer words, try to give meaning to life. There can be no doubt our lives are becoming increasingly meaningless so we double down and double down again with what we know despite the self-destruction. https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2015/6/25/life-a-reaction-to-the-void

Like Like

wjastore December 1, 2019 at 7:46 PM
Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false) meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress should declare war. And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941.

Like Like

greglaxer December 2, 2019 at 12:13 AM
Doug Barr–It appears to me you are trying to blur some lines, or perhaps you are confused about, what one might call general human psychology and the official policies of a specific government, that of the USA. [As a student of Anthropology, I point out that though our primate ancestors are prone to outbursts of violence, there is no evidence that making war, especially in the contemporary phase of human society, fulfills an innate "need."] Yes, the US seeks to be "pre-eminent"–or to be blunter, DOMINANT–over the rest of the globe. Where "exceptionalism"–which I have designated the American Disease–enters the picture is the attempt to justify military aggression by suggesting (some are less subtle and openly assert) that the US somehow has been granted a "right" to do this by "a higher power." (Apparently God Himself revealed to George W. Bush that he was born to be "a war president" and the genius Rick Perry asserted recently that Donald Trump was put in the presidency by direct Divine action.) A "right" to send assassin drones anywhere, anytime, to target anyone who's been designated a Bad Guy. This is absurd, if not insane, on the face of it. (In olden times, Rudyard Kipling called it "the white man's burden" to bring civilization to less "enlightened" peoples.) If there was an international court that had some teeth, the US would be vigorously swatted down, ordered to cease and desist. But one of the greatest tragedies of our time is that there is no power on Earth that could stand up to this Monster (as John Kay and his band Steppenwolf rightly identified the US 50 years ago) even if it could find the backbone to make the attempt.

[Dec 21, 2019] Why can't the US learn from its foreign policy failures?

Because they are not foreign policy failure. All of them were huge wins for MIC, which controls the USA foreign policy
Sep 23, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , September 22, 2019 at 05:05 PM

Why can't the US learn from its foreign policy failures?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/09/22/why-can-learn-from-its-foreign-policy-failures/QSyAglf85iK9XuGT1RKK1J/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe

H.D.S. Greenway - September 22

After more than 17 years of the United States pouring blood and treasure into the effort to build an Afghan army and government, why is it that the Kabul government continues to lose ground against the Taliban? Further, why were we unsuccessful creating an Iraqi army that could stand on its own against the Islamic State?

Before that, of course, came Vietnam.

Nor was that the start of the failure of American-backed armies. I was a teenager in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek's American-backed Nationalist army lost to the Communist forces of Mao Zedong in China. The American secretary of state, Dean Acheson, having conducted a study on why our side lost, declared: "The Nationalist armies did not have to be defeated; they disintegrated. History has proved again and again that a regime without faith in itself, and an army without morale, cannot survive the test of battle."

Forty-four years ago, the American-trained and American-supplied army of South Vietnam simply melted away before the less-well-equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam. In 1975, I watched South Vietnamese soldiers taking off their uniforms and running away in their underwear as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.

Five years ago, the world watched another American-trained and American-equipped Iraqi army bolt and run when the better motivated Islamic State forces overran Mosul in Northern Iraq.

Why, over and over again, does the side America has backed in these civil wars end up defeated? Four threads connect these lost wars of the last 70 years: corruption, patriotic nationalism, a misplaced belief in American exceptionalism, and self-deception.

I saw corruption on a grand scale in Saigon. Generals and government officials were funneling America's tax dollars into bank accounts abroad, fielding ghost armies in which there were fewer soldiers on the ground than on the official payrolls. In Baghdad during the American occupation, I learned that billions of American taxpayer dollars were bleeding out to the Persian Gulf and Jordan, causing a laundered money real estate boom in the Jordanian capital. In Afghanistan I learned that Afghan officers and soldiers routinely robbed the villages they were sent to protect. Corruption sapped the people's belief in their US-backed government in all four wars. Soldiers saw no reason to die for corrupt officials.

A second thread is that our side always appeared to be fighting on the side of foreigners, while the Communists in China and Vietnam, as well as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, always had a better grip on patriotic nationalism and resistance to foreigners. The anti-colonial struggle was more important than the threat of Communism in most of the post-World War II world, and the Islamist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan knew how to exploit the traditional resistance to foreign rule. The Taliban could appeal to patriotism while trying to expel the infidel forces of the United States, just as their fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers had resisted the Russians and the British before that in the name of jihad.

A third thread is a curiously American trait of willfully ignoring other people's history and cultures. I remember asking an American officer in Vietnam if he had read anything of the French experience in Vietnam. His answer: "No, why should I? They lost, didn't they?" Robert McNamara, defense secretary and an architect of our Vietnam War, said in later life that Americans had never understood the Vietnamese. There were plenty of people who could have helped him understand, but he wasn't interested. We were Americans -- exceptional, and therefore not susceptible to the same forces that thwarted other efforts.

I met Americans in the Green Zone in Baghdad who knew nothing about the great schism between Sunnis and Shia Muslims that was tearing the country apart. American-style democracy was the answer to all ills, they felt. In Afghanistan I met Americans who thought purple ink on the fingers of Afghans who had voted was the answer to a thousand years of tribal and ethnic rivalries.

The fourth thread is self-deception. In Saigon, in Baghdad, and in Kabul I attended briefings in which progress was always being made, the trend lines were always favorable, and we were always winning wars we were actually losing. Wishful thinking is no substitute for reality. Americans can train and assist the armies of those whom we want to support in the civil wars of others, but we cannot supply the motivation and morale that is necessary to survive the test of battle.

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , September 22, 2019 at 05:09 PM
Related:

The 'forever war' that began on 9/11
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/09/10/the-forever-war-that-began/ONoP7zmI9uaxiBD3clIkDL/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe

Stephen Kinzer - September 10

As we observe another anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that shattered American life 18 years ago, its full impact is still unfolding. Those who planned it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The airborne assaults that took nearly 3,000 lives on that day may now be seen as the most diabolically successful terror attack in history. That attack not only wreaked carnage at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania. It wound up dragging the United States into an endless state of war that has drained our treasury, poisoned our politics, created waves of new terrorism, and made us the enemy of millions around the world.

The apparent chief perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, Osama bin Laden, presumably cackled with joy when he heard news of his success on that stunning day. He lived for another 10 years, long enough to cackle with even greater glee at Washington's self-defeating response to the attack. Using the 9/11 attack as a pretext, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Bin Laden died knowing that he had lured us into the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history.

It is a truism that our lives are shaped not by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens to us. The same applies to nations. Devastating as the death toll was on Sept. 11, 2001, it turned out to be only a taste of what was to come. The United States has been at war ever since. Thousands of Americans have died. So have hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Middle East and beyond. This nearly two-decade-long spasm of attacking, bombing, and occupying countries has decisively shaped the United States and its image in the world. Every day that our "forever war" continues is a triumph for bin Laden. So is every wounded veteran who returns home, every newly minted terrorist infuriated by an American attack, every citizen of the world who recoils at what US forces are being sent to do. We did not simply fall into bin Laden's trap, we raced in at full speed. Even now, we show little will to extricate ourselves.

America's determination to strike back with devastating force after 9/11 was understandable given our shared sense of ravaged innocence. We might have launched a concentrated strike against the gang of several hundred criminals whose leaders attacked the United States, and then come home. Instead we have used the 9/11 attack to justify wars and military deployments around the world.

On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed an "authorization for the use of military force" against the perpetrators of that week's attack and against their "associated forces." Three presidents have used that authorization to deploy troops across the Middle East and in countries from Kenya to Georgia to the Philippines. Every call for US withdrawal from Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria is met by warnings that ending wars could produce "another 9/11." This has become the paralyzing mantra that prevents us from halting the hydra-headed military campaign we have been waging for 18 years. We also use it to justify atrocities at prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Bin Laden has succeeded even in colonizing our minds.

Soon after passing its highly elastic authorization for military action against "associated forces," Congress approved another, even more sweeping law: the Patriot Act. It gave the government broad new power to monitor people and businesses, and has become a foundation stone of our emerging "surveillance state." The 9/11 attack led us to distort not only our approach to the world, but also the balance between freedom and security at home.

Another pernicious aftereffect of the terror attack has been the deepening of our national us-against-them narrative. This began with President George W. Bush's assertion that every country in the world had to be "either with us or against us." Crusader rhetoric posits the United States as the indispensable guardian of civilization, entitled to act as it chooses in order to fend off a threatening tide of barbarism. Now this approach has leaked back into the United States. Racist attacks that tear at our social fabric are the domestic reflection of foreign policies that see the rest of the world as a hostile "other" bent on destroying our way of life.

Last month it was announced that the five surviving alleged plotters of the 9/11 attack will finally be brought to trial in 2021. If they are aware of what is happening in the world, they will arrive in court with a deep sense of satisfaction. Their great triumph was not the attack. It was the damage the United States has since inflicted upon itself.

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , September 22, 2019 at 05:28 PM
Acheson is parroting Napoleon: "In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to 1."

He is wrong in the matter of "faith", unless the Chiang's army lost faith in Chiang's moral poverty, what he stood for.

A better quote about Chiang losing is written by George C. Marshall, who went over and came back sure Chiang was done for.

He said: "The US would not be dragged through the mud by those reactionaries". Meaning Chiang was not the moral power in China.

Same for Vietnam US puppets were not and had no moral power/authority.

In Afghanistan same!

Iraq is split in moral authority, the areas populated by Shi'a are okay as long as the central government does not pander to the Sunni 1/3 (Baathists were suppressing Shi'a).

I do not agree with quoting Acheson when there is plenty of professional soldier writings that say it more clearly.

After Korea the professional soldiers were no longer expressive when it cme to propping thugs, with no moral power in their own borders (granted many of the borders surround fictional counties).

US has stood with thugs for most of its quagmire experience.......

This week US is looking for a way to start a new quagmire with Iran for royal murderers' sharing their oil company!

[Dec 21, 2019] Extortion (noun) The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats

May 05, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Realist , April 30, 2019 at 14:20

Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire planet.

Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India, Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.

America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.

The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."

No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.

Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08

"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."

"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."

I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.

That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's forums on this blog.

Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which, unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny, even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.

[Dec 21, 2019] America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil.

Notable quotes:
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Apr 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM | link

Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:

American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors, generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.

To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."

The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest. That is why we go to war.

Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic, not humanitarian, reasons.

  • Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
  • Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
  • Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.

Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy.

America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.

Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never.

Mike Gravel

[Dec 21, 2019] A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990 2016 by David North

New book by David North A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
Jul 11, 2016 | www.wsws.org

We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North. The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both softcover and hardcover .

***

"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than in the period of boom."

-- Leon Trotsky, 1928

"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."

-- Leon Trotsky, 1934

This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism. Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of its occurrence.

Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list of monsters requiring destruction.

The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign policy of the United States.

First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:

It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated. In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [ 1 ]

This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."

In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:

If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [ 2 ]

On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.

Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."

Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."

During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found his wars "maddeningly hard to end."

The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr. Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.

But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.

The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [ 3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military restraint.

It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power, amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later, V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow the bourgeois Provisional Government.

Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:

For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war, and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [ 4 ]

Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge, in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political, and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P. Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [ 5 ]

Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:

The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent. And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [ 6 ]

In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.

It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.

The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [ 7 ]

In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.

The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.

There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum. Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:

No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom. The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [ 8 ]

The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected. The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:

Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [ 9 ]

In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [ 10 ]

The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.

Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises; (2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford, who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.

The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.

The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength, of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense military power.

The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions of US imperialism:

There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor. [ 11 ]

The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999 bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.

The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa. They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign policy.

The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed 9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision. The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.

The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.

In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States. Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.

The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.

The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.

It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany. The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:

As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held its ground. . . .

Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]

In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism -- for any nation." [ 13 ]

The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the "War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.

One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely. A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:

Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [ 14 ]

Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.

On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct. Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.

The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system. If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program, and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics, in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [ 15 ]

In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.

There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.

... ... ...

solerso2 years ago
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
Steve Naidamast2 years ago
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."

Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"...

peatstack3 years ago
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia" by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
fds peatstack3 years ago
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution. Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
OL peatstack3 years ago
On Kronstadt : https://www.marxists.org/ar... I never found an attempt at refuting these that was more than hot air.

I can imagine that the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919, etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).

iv_int OL3 years ago
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
Larka3 years ago
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
Carolyn Zaremba Larka3 years ago
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.

After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.

Robert Seaborne Carolyn Zaremba3 years ago
thank you Carolyn Zaremba,

for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.

FireintheHead3 years ago
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.

As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated to the realms of Greatness.

As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....

Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .

Eric3 years ago
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies - which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
iv_int3 years ago
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.

[Dec 21, 2019] Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type of war crime-free unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US military Rules of Engagement modus operandi

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

ChuckOrloski says:

March 12, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."

Hi AnonfromTN.

Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli "dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.

They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.

What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.

Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!

Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland" law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.

AnonFromTN , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski I can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery. As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally, desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and severely punish those who expose these crimes.

I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash. Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.

[Dec 21, 2019] Syria Accuses US Of Stealing Over 40 Tons Of Its Gold by Eric Zuesse

Mar 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2019 - 23:55 240 SHARES Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, "Gold deal between United States and Daesh" (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,

Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.

The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].

Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.

Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."

ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold. Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.

The US Government claims to be anti-ISIS, but actually didn't even once bomb ISIS in Syria until Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, and the US had actually been secretly arming ISIS there so as to help ISIS and especially Al Qaeda (and the US was strongly protecting Al Qaeda in Syria ) to overthrow Syria's secular and non-sectarian Government. Thus, whereas Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, America (having become embarrassed) started bombing ISIS in Syria on 16 November 2015 . The US Government's excuse was "This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike." They pretended it was out of compassion -- not in order to extend for as long as possible ISIS's success in taking over territory in Syria. (And, under Trump, on the night of 2 March 2019, the US rained down upon ISIS in northeast Syria the excruciating and internationally banned white phosphorous to burn ISIS and its hostages alive, which Trump's predecessor Barack Obama had routinely done to burn alive the residents in Donetsk and other parts of eastern former Ukraine where voters had voted more than 90% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama's coup in Ukraine had replaced . It was a way to eliminate some of the most-undesired voters -- people who must never again be voting in a Ukrainian national election, not even if that region subsequently does become conquered by the post-coup, US-imposed, regime. The land there is wanted; its residents certainly are not wanted by the Obama-imposed regime.) America's line was: Russia just isn't as 'compassionate' as America. Zero Hedge aptly headlined "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" . Nobody exceeds the United States Government in sheer hypocrisy.

The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful that approach turns out to be.

Indeed, on 28 November 2012, Syria News headlined "Emir of Qatar & Prime Minister of Turkey Steal Syrian Oil Machinery in Broad Daylight" and presented video allegedly showing it (but unfortunately providing no authentication of the date and locale of that video).

Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined "Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015, "Ideology and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which was protected by the US

In September 2016 a UK official "FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's Government.

On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US military website "Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined "WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry, shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015, "Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.

On 30 November 2015 Israel's business-news daily Globes News Service bannered "Israel has become the main buyer for oil from ISIS controlled territory, report" , and reported:

An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.

After all, Israel too wants to overthrow Syria's secular, non-sectarian Government, which would be replaced by rulers selected by the Saud family , who are the US Government's main international ally .

On 9 November 2014, when Turkey was still a crucial US ally trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government (and this was before the failed 15 July 2016 US-backed coup-attempt to overthrow and replace Turkey's Government so as to impose an outright US stooge), Turkey was perhaps ISIS's most crucial international backer . Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's leader, had received no diploma beyond k-12, and all of that schooling was in Sunni schools and based on the Quran . (He pretended, however, to have a university diploma.) On 15 July 2015, AWD News headlined "Turkish President's daughter heads a covert medical corps to help ISIS injured members" . On 2 December 2015, a Russian news-site headlined "Defense Ministry: Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal supply of oil" ; so, the Erdogan family itself was religiously committed to ISIS's fighters against Syria, and they were key to the success of the US operation against Syrians -- theft from Syrians. The great investigative journalist Christof Lehmann, who was personally acquainted with many of the leading political figures in Africa and the Middle East, headlined on 22 June 2014, "US Embassy in Ankara Headquarter for ISIS War on Iraq – Hariri Insider" , and he reported that the NATO-front the Atlantic Council had held a meeting in Turkey during 22-23 of November 2013 at which high officials of the US and allied governments agreed that they were going to take over Syria's oil, and that they even were threatening Iraq's Government for its not complying with their demands to cooperate on overthrowing Syria's Government. So, behind the scenes, this conquest of Syria was the clear aim by the US and all of its allies.

The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by a brutal coup in February 2014 : It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport" near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, "Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked, "A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland ( Obama's detail-person overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-American ploy.

On 14 November 2014, a Russian youtube headlined "In Ukraine, there is no more gold and currency reserves" and reported that there is "virtually no gold. There is a small amount of gold bars, but it's just 1%" of before the coup. Four days later, bannered "Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: 'There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault'" . From actually 42.3 tons just before the coup, it was now far less than one ton.

The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists. As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :

"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."

The US had acquired weapons from around the world, and shipped them (and Gaytandzhieva's report even displayed the transit-documents) through a network of its embassies, into Syria, for Nusra-led forces inside Syria. Almost certainly, the US Government's central command center for the entire arms-smuggling operation was the world's largest embassy, which is America's embassy in Baghdad.

Furthermore, On 8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."

Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled "Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking their lives to fight against those jihadists.

In December 2017, CAR headlined "Weapons of the Islamic State" and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.

That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining "Russian TV Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action, "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?

So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.

This is today's form of imperialism.

Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland. That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world." For example, as RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd, about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them. Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors' many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on the take.

The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries, and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.

On March 4th, the Jerusalem Post bannered "IRAN AND TURKEY MEDIA PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT US, ISIS: Claims pushed by Syrian regime media assert that US gave ISIS safe passage out of Baghuz in return for gold, a conspiracy picked up in Tehran and Ankara" , and simply assumed that it's false -- but provided no evidence to back their speculation up -- and they closed by asserting "The conspiracies, which are manufactured in Damascus, are disseminated to Iraq and Turkey, both of whom oppose US policy in eastern Syria." Why do people even subscribe to such 'news'-sources as that? The key facts are hidden, the speculation that's based on their own prejudices replaces whatever facts exist. Do the subscribers, to that, simply want to be deceived? Are most people that stupid?

Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined "Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).

[Dec 21, 2019] The USA lost in Syria in a sense that the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn t be faced off successfully.

Feb 26, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Noirette , Feb 25, 2019 1:03:07 PM | link

The USA 'lost' in Syria, the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn't be faced off successfully.

Destroying Afgh., Iraq, Lybia, - all 'failures' in the sense of not garnering 'advantage' for the USA as a territory, a Federated Nation, its citizens, its trade, boosting hopeful expansion, etc. One aim rarely mentioned is keeping allies on board, e.g. Sarkozy's France, to invade Lybia. In France many say it was Sark I who did DE-ss-troy! Lybia.

The word *failure* is based on the acceptance of a stated aim reminiscent of old-style-colonialism: grab resources, exploit super-cheap labor, control the natives, mine, exploit, shunt the goods / profits to home base.

If the aim is to stop rivals breathing, blast them back to the Stone Age, the success is good but relative. (see Iraq.) Private GloboCorps (e.g. Glencore.. ) are in charge behind the curtain, many Gvmts are just stooges for them in the sense of unawoved partnerships, the one feeding into the other, in a kind of desperado death spiral.

I have always been struck by the fact that Oil Projects / Management in Iraq, even wiki gives lists that shows major movers and profiteers are not USA oil cos. / interests, but China, Malaysia, many others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq

So, after multiple failures in one region, time to turn closer to home, the backyard, S. America...

[Dec 21, 2019] The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom

Notable quotes:
"... Erster General-Quartiermeister ..."
"... The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. ..."
"... Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ..."
Jun 13, 2018 | www.unz.com

In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term, but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.

Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called defense contractors, and the " emergency men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits, promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course, that's part of the problem.

Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this: in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation, they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and departing after a couple years to make way for someone else to give it a try.

... ... ...

Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white, that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.

Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity. No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.


Anon [323] Disclaimer , June 7, 2018 at 9:57 pm GMT

"The United States of Amnesia."

That's actually a universal condition.

unseated , June 7, 2018 at 11:00 pm GMT
@Andrei Martyanov

1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified, especially relative to population.

2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2.

c matt , June 8, 2018 at 1:18 pm GMT
"Enough! Stop this madness!"

The only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the JFK treatment, who knows.

No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people get what they want, good and hard.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , June 8, 2018 at 2:08 pm GMT
@c matt

Yes.

I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to until the Empire collapses.

Carlton Meyer , Website June 8, 2018 at 4:02 pm GMT
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of governments:

Controversy

On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.

In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in 1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]

In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.

In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.

In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until 1970.[18]

At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]

Mike P , June 8, 2018 at 4:33 pm GMT

No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.

I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public, always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what is wrong with the U.S. today.

As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving – they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia. Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.

TG , June 8, 2018 at 7:44 pm GMT
An interesting and thoughtful piece.

I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence."

This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.

So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't like the status quo.

After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.

No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are simply being ignored.

Left Gatekeeper Dispatch , June 8, 2018 at 9:10 pm GMT
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap? You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/tribute-to-the-last-honorable-us-senator-the-story-of-paul-wellstones-suspected-assassination-2/5643200

Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge. CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison CIA SIS or GTFO.

James Kabala , June 9, 2018 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Since Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene may be the best final scene in the history of movies.

exiled off mainstreet , June 10, 2018 at 1:15 am GMT
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the yankee system of permanent war.
smellyoilandgas , June 13, 2018 at 4:48 am GMT
@TG

While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.

Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.

I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and Pharaohs because they are global.

Mr. Anon , June 13, 2018 at 4:49 am GMT
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit today.

I've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.

MarkinPNW , June 13, 2018 at 5:49 am GMT
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human, and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.

Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.

But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.

animalogic , June 13, 2018 at 8:14 am GMT
@Mike P

Good points Mike P.

Author says: "strategy has ceased to exist".

In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals, within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive – ie it's not a "good" strategy)

The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan, at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq: Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya: who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate them regardless.

Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the 1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right" people)

Tom Welsh , June 13, 2018 at 10:05 am GMT
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception'.

- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)

annamaria , June 13, 2018 at 2:06 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer

European politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so they are likely to stick with Washington .

Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar world."

The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.

[Dec 21, 2019] If America Wasn't America, the United States Would Be Bombing It by Darius Shahtahmasebi

Notable quotes:
"... Reprinted with permission from The Anti-Media . ..."
Feb 13, 2018 | ronpaulinstitute.org

February 13, 2018

On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for Foreign Policy titled "It's Time to Bomb North Korea."

Luttwak's thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of humanity.

However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.

In August of 1945, this rogue nation dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets, not military targets, completely obliterating between 135,000 and 300,000 Japanese civilians in just these two acts alone. Prior to this event, this country killed even more civilians in the infamous firebombing of Tokyo and other areas of Japan, dropping close to 500,000 cylinders of napalm and petroleum jelly on some of Japan's most densely populated areas.

Recently, historians have become more open to the possibility that dropping the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not actually necessary to end World War II. This has also been confirmed by those who actually took part in it. As the Nation explained:

Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated in a public address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings that 'the atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan ' Adm. William "Bull" Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946 that 'the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . It was a mistake to ever drop it . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it
A few months' prior, this rogue country's invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa also claimed at least one quarter of Okinawa's population. The Okinawan people have been protesting this country's military presence ever since. The most recent ongoing protest has lasted well over 5,000 days in a row.

This nation's bloodlust continued well after the end of World War II. Barely half a decade later, this country bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories, 5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and eventually killing off as much as 20 percent of the country's population. As the Asia Pacific Journal has noted, the assaulting country dropped so many bombs that they eventually ran out of targets to hit, turning to bomb the irrigation systems, instead:

By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans."
This was just the beginning. Having successfully destroyed the future North Korean state, this country moved on to the rest of East Asia and Indo-China, too. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has explained :
We [this loose cannon of a nation] dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win 'hearts and minds' that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease – including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of view, of course.
This mass murder led to the deaths of between 1.5 million and 3.8 million people, according to the Washington Post. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were unleashed during the entire conflict in World War II . While this was going on, this same country was also secretly bombing Laos and Cambodia, too, where there are over 80 million unexploded bombs still killing people to this day.

This country also decided to bomb Yugoslavia , Panama , and Grenada before invading Iraq in the early 1990s. Having successfully bombed Iraqi infrastructure, this country then punished Iraq's entire civilian population with brutal sanctions. At the time, the U.N. estimated that approximately 1.7 million Iraqis had died as a result, including 500,000 to 600,000 children . Some years later, a prominent medical journal attempted to absolve the cause of this infamous history by refuting the statistics involved despite the fact that, when interviewed during the sanctions-era, Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, intimated that to this rogue government, the deaths of half a million children were "worth it" as the "price" Iraq needed to pay. In other words, whether half a million children died or not was irrelevant to this bloodthirsty nation, which barely blinked while carrying out this murderous policy.

This almighty superpower then invaded Iraq again in 2003 and plunged the entire region into chaos . At the end of May 2017, the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) released a study concluding that the death toll from this violent nation's 2003 invasion of Iraq had led to over one million deaths and that at least one-third of them were caused directly by the invading force.

Not to mention this country also invaded Afghanistan prior to the invasion of Iraq (even though the militants plaguing Afghanistan were originally trained and financed by this warmongering nation). It then went on to bomb Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and the Philippines .

Libya famously had one of the highest standards of living in the region. It had state-assisted healthcare, education, transport, and affordable housing. It is now a lawless war-zone rife with extremism where slaves are openly traded like commodities amid the power vacuum created as a direct result of the 2011 invasion.

In 2017, the commander-in-chief of this violent nation took the monumental death and destruction to a new a level by removing the restrictions on delivering airstrikes, which resulted in thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths. Before that, in the first six months of 2017, this country dropped over 20,650 bombs , a monumental increase from the year that preceded it.

Despite these statistics, all of the above conquests are mere child's play to this nation. The real prize lies in some of the more defiant and more powerful states, which this country has already unleashed a containment strategy upon. This country has deployed its own troops all across the border with Russia even though it promised in the early 1990s it would do no such thing. It also has a specific policy of containing Russia's close ally, China, all the while threatening China's borders with talks of direct strikes on North Korea (again, remember it already did so in the 1950s).

This country also elected a president who not only believes it is okay to embrace this rampantly violent militarism but who openly calls other countries "shitholes" – the very same term that aptly describes the way this country has treated the rest of the world for decades on end. This same president also reportedly once asked three times in a meeting , "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" and shortly after proposed a policy to remove the constraints protecting the world from his dangerous supply of advanced nuclear weaponry.

When it isn't directly bombing a country, it is also arming radical insurgent groups , creating instability, and directly overthrowing governments through its covert operatives on the ground.

If we have any empathy for humanity, it is clear that this country must be stopped. It cannot continue to act like this to the detriment of the rest of the planet and the safety and security of the rest of us. This country openly talks about using its nuclear weapons, has used them before, and has continued to use all manner of weapons unabated in the years since while threatening to expand the use of these weapons to other countries.

Seriously, if North Korea seems like a threat, imagine how the rest of the world feels while watching one country violently take on the rest of the planet single-handedly, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake and promising nothing less than a nuclear holocaust in the years to come.

There is only one country that has done and that continues to do the very things North Korea is being accused of doing.

Take as much time as you need for that to resonate.

Reprinted with permission from The Anti-Media .

[Dec 21, 2019] A walk down memory lane

Oct 30, 2017 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Patient Observer , October 28, 2017 at 2:29 pm

A walk down memory lane:
http://theduran.com/5-discarded-anniversaries-of-western-led-aggression/
And here is the list:

1 The Korean War ends (1953
2 President Kennedy invades South Vietnam (1962)
3 The US overthrows Allende in Chile (1973)
4 The West installs Iranian dictator the Shah (1953)
5 The US-led Iraq invasion (2003)

Many honorable mentions including:
– NATO bombing of Serbia
– Libya
– Afghanistan
– Syria (support of ISIS and its predecessors and spinoffs)

The US body count is simply staggering – many millions killed, millions more wounded or poisoned (Vietnam – agent orange and other chemical agents) and tens of millions of lives forever damaged.

USA! USA! USA! (its elites that rule us of course!)

Cortes , October 29, 2017 at 6:23 pm
And no mention of

Indonesia.

Just the 1m plus deaths.

[Dec 21, 2019] Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state

Notable quotes:
"... In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its "exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in Vietnam. ..."
"... The cynical fabrication of "false flags" that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official documents, notably the Pentagon Papers ..."
"... Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this." ..."
"... Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941. ..."
Sep 24, 2017 | www.unz.com

In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its "exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in Vietnam.

Burns says he is grateful to "the entire Bank of America family" which "has long supported our country's veterans". Bank of America was a corporate prop to an invasion that killed perhaps as many as four million Vietnamese and ravaged and poisoned a once bountiful land. More than 58,000 American soldiers were killed, and around the same number are estimated to have taken their own lives.

I watched the first episode in New York. It leaves you in no doubt of its intentions right from the start. The narrator says the war "was begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War misunderstandings".

The dishonesty of this statement is not surprising. The cynical fabrication of "false flags" that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official documents, notably the Pentagon Papers , which the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg released in 1971.

There was no good faith. The faith was rotten and cancerous. For me – as it must be for many Americans ! it is difficult to watch the film's jumble of "red peril" maps, unexplained interviewees, ineptly cut archive and maudlin American battlefield sequences.

... ... ...

The sheer energy and moral persistence of these great movements largely succeeded; by 1987 Reagan had negotiated with Mikhail Gorbachev an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) that effectively ended the Cold War.

Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this."

But not in America. The thousands who turned out for Senator Bernie Sanders' "revolution" in last year's presidential campaign are collectively mute on these dangers. That most of America's violence across the world has been perpetrated not by Republicans, or mutants like Trump, but by liberal Democrats, remains a taboo.

Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941.

[Dec 21, 2019] All The Countries America Has Invaded... In One Map

Notable quotes:
"... Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies professor from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team created an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014. ..."
"... " Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions. ..."
Aug 27, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
Tyler Durden Aug 26, 2017 9:15 PM 0 SHARES US has had a military presence across the world , from almost day one of its independence. For those who have ever wanted a clearer picture of the true reach of the United States military - both historically and currently - but shied away due to the sheer volume of research required to find an answer, The Anti Media points out that a crew at the Independent just made things a whole lot simpler.

Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies professor from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team created an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014.

To avoid confusion, indy100 laid out its prerequisites for what constitutes an invasion:

" Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions.

But indy100 didn't stop there. To put all that history into context, using data from the Department of Defense (DOD), the team also put together a map to display all the countries in which nearly 200,000 active members of the U.S. military are now stationed.

For more details, click on the country:

[Dec 21, 2019] War is the health of the state, but death of empires

Notable quotes:
"... As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits? ..."
Aug 25, 2017 | www.unz.com

Sean , August 25, 2017 at 6:42 pm GMT

As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits?

You start by assuming that the absence of war is the ultimate good, but none can say what a world without war would be like, or how long it would last.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/wars-john-gray-conflict-peace
Has the world seen moral progress? The answer should not depend on whether one has a sunny or a morose temperament. Everyone agrees that life is better than death, health better than sickness, prosperity better than privation, freedom better than tyranny, peace better than war. All of these can be measured, and the results plotted over time. If they go up, that's progress.

For John Gray, this is a big problem. As a part of his campaign against reason, science and Enlightenment humanism, he insists that the strivings of humanity over the centuries have left us no better off. This dyspepsia was hard enough to sustain when Gray first expressed it in the teeth of obvious counterexamples such as the abolition of human sacrifice, chattel slavery and public torture-executions. But as scholars have increasingly measured human flourishing, they have found that Gray is not just wrong but howlingly, flat-earth, couldn't-be-more-wrong wrong. The numbers show that after millennia of near-universal poverty and despotism, a steadily growing proportion of humankind is surviving infancy and childbirth, going to school, voting in democracies, living free of disease, enjoying the necessities of modern life and surviving to old age.

And more people are living in peace. In the 1980s several military scholars noticed to their astonishment that the most destructive form of armed conflict – wars among great powers and developed states – had effectively ceased to exist. At the time this "long peace" could have been dismissed as a random lull, but it has held firm for an additional three decades.

In my opinion Gray, though wrong that violence is not decreasing, is onto something about the future being bleak because of the rise of meliorist assumptions, because perpetual peace will be humanity's tomb.

While many suggest a danger for our world along the lines of Brian Cox's explanation for the Fermi Paradox (ie intelligent life forms cross grainedly bring on self-annihilation through unlimited war) I take a different view.

Given that Pinker appears substantially correct that serious war (ie wars among great powers and developed states) have effectively ceased to exist, the trend is for peace and cooperation. Martin Nowak in his book The Supercoperators shows cooperation, not fighting, to be the defining human trait (and indeed the most cooperative groups won their wars in history, whereby nation states such the US are the result of not just individuals but familial tribal regional , and virtually continental groupings coming together for mutual advantage and defence .

The future is going to be global integration pursuit of economic objectives, and I think this exponential moral progress bill begat technological advances beyond imagining.. An escape from the war trap is almost complete and the Singularity becomes. The most likely culprit in the paradox is a technological black hole event horizon created by unlimited peace and progress.

Cross-grained though it may be to say that the good war hallows every cause, I think it not so bad in comparison with the alternative.

[Dec 21, 2019] War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror

Aug 22, 2017 | warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

JWalters , August 18, 2017 at 7:02 pm

Well put. These people are like the "nobles" of medieval times. They care not a whit about the "peasants" they trample. They are wealth bigots, compounded by some ethnic bigotry or other, in this case Jewish supremacism. America has an oligarchy problem. At the center of that oligarchy is a Jewish mafia controlling the banks, and thereby the big corporations, and thereby the media and the government. This oligarchy sees America as a big, dumb military machine that it can manipulate to generate war profits.

"War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror" . http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

[Dec 21, 2019] There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK military forces thinking

Notable quotes:
"... There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris. ..."
Aug 10, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org

Anonymous | Aug 4, 2017 7:00:33 PM | 37

Enrico Malatesta @13

The Russians were there in Yugoslavia but they were not following NATO's script. There was an incident where Russian forces took control of a key airport to the total surprise of NATO. The US overall commander ordered the UK to go in and kick the Russians out. The UK ground commander wisely said he was not prepared to start WW III over Russian control of an airfield.

There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris.

[Dec 21, 2019] Michael Brenner - The Linear Mindset In US Foreign Policy

According to some commenters at MoA the US neocons can be viewed as a flavor of political psychopaths: "Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe."
and " the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time. "
Notable quotes:
"... Provided the gross flaws of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying. ..."
"... Barack CIA 0bama. ..."
"... It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. ..."
"... Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit? ..."
"... Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives. ..."
"... you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals? ..."
"... it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion. ..."
"... the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him. ..."
"... Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP. ..."
"... There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade. ..."
"... My only gripe with his work is that he always describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc. ..."
"... Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe. ..."
"... the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told, break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed. ..."
"... Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but who cares, the cash keeps flowing. ..."
"... It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end - but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that. ..."
"... Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them! ..."
"... Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic damage. ..."
"... America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road to destruction. ..."
"... the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time. ..."
"... The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression. ..."
"... Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization is the embodiment of that propaganda. ..."
"... The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored. The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated. The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story. ..."
"... Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is often quite noticeable in comments at SST. ..."
"... The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality. The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane. If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it. ..."
Aug 04, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org

virgile | Aug 4, 2017 11:18:14 AM | 1

"linear"?, I would say amateurish and often stupid! It seems that the USA cannot see far enough as it's submitted to regime changes every 5 years and decisions are finally left to powerful lobbies that have a better continuity.

Provided the gross flaws of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying.

Sid2 | Aug 4, 2017 11:24:08 AM | 2
Moqtada had a million man army 10 years ago. He may still have it, in the "things do go astray" department.
Sid2 | Aug 4, 2017 11:28:23 AM | 3
"Linear" and all that is the mushy feel-good stuff on top of your arrogance. Kleptocracy only NOW putting down its roots? Come on. Let's get back to the 90's where it started. Vengeance for 9/11? Cover?
somebody | Aug 4, 2017 11:32:33 AM | 4
I think it is because US business is ruled by the quarter .

So there may be long term plans and goals but the emphasis for everybody is always short-term.

Emily | Aug 4, 2017 11:36:18 AM | 5
Second paragraph.

'There are features of how the United States makes and executes foreign policy'

There was no need for the rest. The United States makes and executes foreign policy on the direction of Tel Aviv and to meet the demands of the MIC.

Nuff said - surely.

JSonofa | Aug 4, 2017 11:43:23 AM | 6
You lost me at Walt Whitman or Barack CIA 0bama.
Skip | Aug 4, 2017 11:44:16 AM | 7
It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. All's well in the world with them as long as the USSA is grinding away on some near helpless ME country. Drugs and other natural resources flow from and death and destruction flow to the unsuspecting Muslim targets.

With America, you're our friend, (or at least we tolerate you) until you're not (or we don't), then God help you and your innocent hoards.

The organized and well scripted chaos has been just one act in the larger play of destroying western civilization with throngs of Muslims now flooding western Europe and to a lesser degree, USA. Of course, the Deep State had felt confident in allowing Latinos to destroy America...Trump has put a large crimp in the pipeline--one of the reasons he is hated so badly by the destructive PTB.

Simplyamazed | Aug 4, 2017 12:15:58 PM | 8
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.

It is entirely possible that the underlying objective of, for instance, invading Iraq was to win a war and bring democracy. Subsequent behaviour in Iraq (and Afghanistan) indicates that there might be (likely is) a hidden but central other objective. I do not want to state that I know what that is because I am not "in the know". However, much that you attribute to failure from linear thinking just as easily can be explained by the complexity of realizing a "hidden agenda".

Perhaps we can learn from history. Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit?

Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives.

aniteleya | Aug 4, 2017 12:33:51 PM | 9
Russia learnt a huge lesson from their experience in Afghanistan. There they retreated in the face of a violent Wahabist insurgency and paid the price. The Soviet union collapsed and became vulnerable to western free-market gangsterism as well as suffering the blowback of terrorism in Chechnya, where they decided to play it very differently. A bit more like how Assad senior dealt with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980's.

Russia knew that if ISIS and friends were allowed to destroy Syria like the Mujahadeen had done in Afghanistan, then it would only be a matter of time before blowback would come again to Russia.

Russia's involvement is entirely rational and in their national interest. It should never have come as a surprise to the US, and the US should shake off their cold war propaganda and be grateful that people are willing to put their lives on the line to defeat Wahabist terrorism. Russia has played a focused line with integrity. Many Syrians love them for this, and many more in the Middle East will likewise adopt a similar line.

john | Aug 4, 2017 1:14:02 PM | 10
In other words, the linear mindset blocks out all non-conforming realities in the present and those contingent elements which might arise in the future

you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals?

i kinda skimmed this piece, but it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion.

Jackrabbit | Aug 4, 2017 1:26:29 PM | 11
Brenner: Washington never really had a plan in Syria.

Really? Firstly, the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him.

Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP.

The bleach in Brenner's white-washing is delivered with the statement that Washington never really had a plan in Syria. Seymour Hersh described the planning in his "The Redirection" back in 2007(!):

The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January [2007], Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is "a new strategic alignment in the Middle East," separating "reformers" and "extremists"; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were "on the other side of that divide."

Lastly, Brenner's complaint that Obama has been "scape-goated" as having created ISIS conveniently ignores Obama's allowing ISIS to grow by down-playing the threat that it represented. Obama's called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" and senior intelligence analysts dutifully distorted intelligence to down-play the threat (see below). This was one of many deceptions that Obama took part in - if not orchestrated (others: "moderate rebels", Benghazi, the "Fiscal Cliff", bank bailouts).

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

House GOP task force: Military leaders distorted ISIS intel to downplay threat

After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States Central Command's most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command's intelligence products to downplay the threat from ISIS in Iraq" . . .

The Joint Task Force can find no justifiable reason why operational reporting was repeatedly used as a rationale to change the analytic product, particularly when the changes only appeared to be made in a more optimistic direction . . .

jsn | Aug 4, 2017 1:31:06 PM | 12
The US is playing checkers, the Russians Chess. We shall sanction them until they learn to play checkers.
Enrico Malatesta | Aug 4, 2017 1:31:39 PM | 13
aniteleya | Aug 4, 2017 12:33:51 PM | 9

There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade.

Russia has also benefited through the non-linear analysis of US diplomacy failures of the last two decades. Russia has created a coalition backing up their military entry into the Middle East that allows achievement of tangible objectives at a sustainable cost.

But b's article is about the US's dismal diplomacy that is exacerbating its rapid empire decline and it does very well to help explain the rigid lack of thought that hastens the deterioration of US influence.

Duncan Kinder | Aug 4, 2017 1:33:14 PM | 14
This article makes a lot of good points, but I didn't really grasp exactly what "linear" thinking is. OK. Venezuela very well may be turning into a situation. What is the "linear" approach? What, instead, would be the "non-linear" approach? This article cites many "linear" failures. It would be helpful also to learn of some non-linear successes. If not by the United States then by somebody else.
Duncan Kinder | Aug 4, 2017 1:38:51 PM | 15
Let me clarify my prior posting. This article seems to be asserting that the United States has attempted to pound the square peg of its policy objectives into the round hole of the Middle East. I pretty much agree with that idea. But how is this "linear," as opposed to "bull-headed"? How does being "non-linear" help with the pounding? Would not adapting our policies to pound a round peg instead be just as "linear" but more clever?
PavewayIV | Aug 4, 2017 1:46:40 PM | 16
Thanks for posting these great observations by Michael Brenner, b.

The link to his bio on University of Pitsburg site is broken and the page is gone, but it still exists for now in Google's cache from Aug. 1st here . His bio can also be found under this ">https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-common-man-forgotten-by-elites/">this article from The Globalist

Everything I've read of Dr. Brenner that I've stumbled across is brilliant. My only gripe with his work is that he always describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc.

While he is quite accurate in describing the symptoms, one is left with the impression that they are the things to be fixed. Linear thinking in a U.S. foreign policy of aggression? Absolutely, but it's pointless to 'fix' that without understanding the cause.

Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe.

Does anyone in Washington REALLY want to 'save' the Persians and 'rebuild' Iran as they imagine America did post WWII to German and Japan? Or is the more overriding intent to punish and destroy a leadership that will not submit to the political and commercial interests in the US? Of course the U.S. fails to deliver any benefits to the 'little people' after destroying their country and government - they are incapable of understanding what the 'little people' want (same goes for domestic issues in the U.S.).

The U.S. government and leadership do not need lessons to modify their techniques or 'thinking' - they are incapable of doing so. You can't 'talk a psychopath into having empathy' any more than you can talk them out of having smallpox. 'The law' and voting were intentionally broken in the U.S. to make them all but useless to fix Washington, yet a zombified American public will continue to use the religiously (or sit back and watch others use them religiously) with little result. Because we're a democracy and a nation of laws - the government will fix anything broken with those tools.

In a certain sense, I'm glad Brennan does NOT go on about psychopathy in his articles. He would sound as tedious and nutty as I do here and would never be allowed near Washington. I'll just be grateful for his thorough illustration of the symptoms for now.

nonsense factory | Aug 4, 2017 2:00:27 PM | 17
@8 simply amazed, on this:
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.

First, this is more an analysis of military failure to "do the job" that Washington "strategic thinkers" tell them to do, and the reasons why it's such a futile game. In our system of government, the military does tactics, not strategy. And the above article, which should be passed out to every politician in this country, isn't really about "the objective".

For example, the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told, break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed.

Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but who cares, the cash keeps flowing.

And if you want to know why the Borg State got firmly behind Hillary Clinton, it's because they could see her supporting this agenda wholeheartedly, especially after Libya. Here's a comment she wrote to Podesta on 2014-08-19, a long 'strategy piece' ending with this note:

Note: It is important to keep in mind that as a result of this policy there probably will be concern in the Sunni regions of Iraq and the Central Government regarding the possible expansion of KRG controlled territory. With advisors in the Peshmerga command we can reassure the concerned parties that, in return for increase autonomy, the KRG will not exclude the Iraqi Government from participation in the management of the oil fields around Kirkuk, and the Mosel Dam hydroelectric facility. At the same time we will be able to work with the Peshmerga as they pursue ISIL into disputed areas of Eastern Syria, coordinating with FSA troops who can move against ISIL from the North. This will make certain Basher al Assad does not gain an advantage from these operations. Finally, as it now appears the U.S. is considering a plan to offer contractors as advisors to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, we will be in a position to coordinate more effectively between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army.

It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end - but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that.

Regardless, it looks like end times for the American empire, very similar to how the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s, and the last days of the French and British empires in the 1950s. And good riddance, it's become a dead weight dragging down the standard of living for most American citizens who aren't on that gravy train.

Makutwa Omutiti | Aug 4, 2017 2:13:20 PM | 18
Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them!

Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic damage.

America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road to destruction.

Justin Glyn | Aug 4, 2017 2:51:51 PM | 20
There's a lot in both this piece and the comments. In a sense, I wonder if the core issue behind the Neocon/Imperial mindset isn't a complete inability to see the other side's point of view. Psychopathy, short-termism (a common fault in businesspeople), divorce from reality and hubris are likely a good part of it, as somebody, Paveway IV, Makutwa and nonsense factory put it, but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time.
Piotr Berman | Aug 4, 2017 3:13:05 PM | 21
I would paraphrase critics of b that he (she?) has fallen into linearity trap: one point is the resources spent by USA on wars of 21-st century (a lot), the second points are positive results (hardly any), and an intellectual charge proceeds from A to B.

However between A and B there can be diversity of problems. We can stock enough gasoline, run out of potable water. And indeed, you can encounter pesky terrain. I recall a family vacation trip where we visited Natural Bridges National Monument and we proceeded to Arizona on an extremely straight highway through pretty flat plateau. Then the pavement end, and the acrophobic designated driver has to negotiate several 180* hairpins to get down on a cliff flanking Monument Valley. After second inspection, the map had tiny letters "switchbacks" and a tiny fragment of the road not marked with the pavement. Still better than discovering "bridge out" annotation on your map only when you gaze at the water flowing between two bridge heads. (If I recall, during late 20-th century Balkan intervention, US military needed a lot of time to cross Danube river that unexpectedly had no functioning bridge where they wanted to operate. Landscape changes during a war.)

That said, military usually has an appreciation for terrain. But there are also humans. On domestic side, the number of experts on those distant societies is small, and qualified experts, minuscule. Because the qualified ones were disproportionally naysayers, the mere whiff if expertise was treated as treason, and we had a purge of "Arabists". And it was of course worse in the lands to charm and conquer. Effective rule requires local hands to follow our wishes, people who can be trusted. And, preferably, not intensely hated by the locals they are supposed to administer. And like with gasoline, water, food, etc. on a vacation trip (who forgot mosquito repellent!), the list of needed traits is surprisingly long. Like viewing collaboration with Israel supporting infidels as a mortal sin that can be perpetrated to spare the family from starvation (you can recruit them, success!), but it has to be atoned through backstabbing (local cadres are disappointing).

Geoff | Aug 4, 2017 3:36:33 PM | 22
Great analysis! This is an excellent example for why I read MOA at least once a day and most of the comments! There's something of a sad irony that Trump has made at least some kind of effort to thwart the neocons and their relentless rush toward armageddon, seeing as how lacking in any real intellectual capcity they all seem and with Trump at the helm?

Mostly tptb, our political class, and the pundits for the masses, seem all to exhibit an astonishingly dull witted lack of true concern or humanity for anybody anywhere, and in my years on earth so far, at least in America, they have inculcated in the population very dubious ethical chioces, which you would think were tragic, and decisions, which you would believe were doomed, from the wars being waged, to the lifestyles of the citizenry especially toward the top of the economic ladder, and I don't know about others here but I for one have been confronting and dealing with these problems both in family and aquaintances for my entire adult life! Like the battle at Kurushetra. At least they say they "have a plan," scoffingly.

Where is chipnik to weigh in on this with his poetic observations, or I think long ago it was "slthrop" who may have been bannned for foul language as he or she raged on at the absurdities that keep heaping up exponentially? I do miss them!

Oh well, life is relatively short and we will all be gone at some point and our presense here will be one and all less than an iota. An awareness of this one fact and its implications you would think would pierce the consciousness of every human being well before drawing their final breath, but I guess every McCain fails to realize until too late that the jig is up?

PavewayIV | Aug 4, 2017 3:41:38 PM | 23
Justin Glyn@20 "but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda."

The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression.

Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization is the embodiment of that propaganda.

The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored. The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated. The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story.

Peter AU | Aug 4, 2017 3:46:58 PM | 24
Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is often quite noticeable in comments at SST.

That it why the US in its arrogance has failed in Syria, and Russia with its tiny force has been so successful.

Makutwa Omutiti | Aug 4, 2017 3:51:17 PM | 25
The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality. The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane. If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it.

[Dec 21, 2019] William Astore on War as Art and Advertising – Antiwar.com Blog

Notable quotes:
"... A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it. ..."
"... My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us. ..."
"... Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again. ..."
Jul 12, 2017 | www.antiwar.com

Consider this article a work of speculation; a jumble of ideas thrown at a blank canvas.

A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it.

For example, America's overseas wars today are both abstractions and distractions. They're also somewhat surreal to most Americans, living as we do in comparative safety and material luxury (when compared to most other peoples of the world). Abstraction and surrealism: two art styles that may say something vital about America's wars.

If some aspects of America's wars are surreal and others abstract, if reports of those wars are often impressionistic and often blurred beyond recognition, this points to, I think, the highly stylized representations of war that are submitted for our consideration. What we don't get very often is realism. Recall how the Bush/Cheney administration forbade photos of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of all the war reporting you've seen on U.S. TV and Cable networks, and ask how many times you saw severed American limbs and dead bodies on a battlefield. (On occasion, dead bodies of the enemy are shown, usually briefly and abstractly, with no human backstory.)

Of course, there's no "real" way to showcase the brutal reality of war, short of bringing a person to the front and having them face fire in combat -- a level of "participatory" art that sane people would likely seek to avoid. What we get, as spectators (which is what we're told to remain in America), is an impression of combat. Here and there, a surreal report. An abstract news clip. Blown up buildings become exercises in neo-Cubism; melted buildings and weapons become Daliesque displays. Severed limbs (of the enemy) are exercises in the grotesque. For the vast majority of Americans, what's lacking is raw immediacy and gut-wrenching reality.

Again, we are spectators, not participants. And our responses are often as stylized and limited as the representations are. As Rebecca Gordon put it from a different angle at TomDispatch.com , when it comes to America's wars, are we participating in reality or merely watching reality TV? And why are so many so prone to confuse or conflate the two?

Art, of course, isn't the only lens through which we can see and interpret America's wars. Advertising, especially hyperbole, is also quite revealing. Thus the US military has been sold, whether by George W. Bush or Barack Obama, as "the world's finest military in history" or WFMH, an acronym I just made up, and which should perhaps come with a copyright or trademark symbol after it. It's classic advertising hyperbole. It's salesmanship in place of reality.

So, when other peoples beat our WFMH, we should do what Americans do best: sue them for copyright infringement. Our legions of lawyers will most certainly beat their cadres of counsels. After all, under Bush/Cheney, our lawyers tortured logic and the law to support torture itself. Talk about surrealism!

My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us.

As I said, this is me throwing ideas at the canvas of my computer screen. Do they make any sense to you? Feel free to pick up your own brush and compose away in the comments section.

P.S. Danger, Will Robinson. I've never taken an art theory class or studied advertising closely.

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.

Jim Savell , 19 hours ago

Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again.

[Dec 21, 2019] Since the turn of the century, the US has dumped trillions of dollars into wars

Notable quotes:
"... It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. ..."
Apr 06, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc, April 05, 2017 at 10:16 AM
"Dimon Warns 'Something Is Wrong' With the U.S."

Do you agree with Jamie Dimon assessment of the USA?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/dimon-still-optimistic-warns-something-is-wrong-with-u-s

"Dimon Warns 'Something Is Wrong' With the U.S."

by Laura J Keller...April 4, 2017

"JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has two big pronouncements as the Trump administration starts reshaping the government: "The United States of America is truly an exceptional country," and "it is clear that something is wrong."

Dimon, leader of world's most valuable bank and a counselor to the new president, used his 45-page annual letter to shareholders on Tuesday to list ways America is stronger than ever -- before jumping into a much longer list of self-inflicted problems that he said was "upsetting" to write.

Here's the start: Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has dumped trillions of dollars into wars, piled huge debt onto students, forced legions of foreigners to leave after getting advanced degrees, driven millions of Americans out of the workplace with felonies for sometimes minor offenses and hobbled the housing market with hastily crafted layers of rules.

Dimon, who sits on Donald Trump's business forum aimed at boosting job growth, is renowned for his optimism and has been voicing support this year for parts of the president's business agenda. In February, Dimon predicted the U.S. would have a bright economic future if the new administration carries out plans to overhaul taxes, rein in rules and boost infrastructure investment. In an interview last month, he credited Trump with boosting consumer and business confidence in growth, and reawakening "animal spirits."

But on Tuesday, reasons for concern kept coming. Labor market participation is low, Dimon wrote. Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive.

" It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. "...

pgl -> im1dc... , April 05, 2017 at 10:16 AM
I meant my last comment to be a reply. No - there is a lot that Dimon said that I cannot agree with.
pgl , April 05, 2017 at 10:49 AM
"Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive."

Let's unpack his list. The 4th (last) sentence is his hope that his bank can back to the unregulated regime that brought us the Great Recession. His 3rd sentence is a call for more tax cuts for the rich.

We may like his first 2 sentences here but who is going to pay for this? Not Jamie Dimon. See sentence #3.

DrDick -> pgl... , April 05, 2017 at 11:18 AM
He also seems to falsely imply that the people associated with capital actually have functioning brains.

[Dec 21, 2019] In places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the United States is deepening its involvement in wars while diplomacy becomes largely an afterthought

Mar 31, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
anne , March 30, 2017 at 12:47 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/world/middleeast/us-war-footprint-grows-in-middle-east.html

March 29, 2017

U.S. War Footprint Grows, With No Endgame in Sight
By BEN HUBBARD and MICHAEL R. GORDON

In places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the United States is deepening its involvement in wars while diplomacy becomes largely an afterthought.

ilsm -> anne... , March 30, 2017 at 01:51 PM
14 years as if US were going strong on Hanoi in '79!

Putin is a Tibetan Buddhist compared to Obama and so forth

mulp -> anne... , March 30, 2017 at 04:30 PM
Well, sending US troops is a US jobs program.

Why would you object to government creating more demand for labor? Over time, wages will rise and higher wages will fund more demand for labor produced goods.

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

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

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

More

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

[Dec 21, 2019] Washington's Proposed New Sanctions Against Turkey also Aimed Against Russia by Paul Antonopoulos

Notable quotes:
"... Although the bill has not said which specific Russians, the nature of the bill means that there will be inevitable sanctions against Russia as it is a top weapon exporter to Syria, which will unlikely change despite of the new sanctions. Those in the eventual sanction list will face an American blacklist, which means a ban on entry, freezing of assets in the United States, a ban on doing business with this person for American citizens or companies. At the same time, the bill allows that the US President can consider each case separately and refuse to impose sanctions. ..."
"... Washington is frustrated that European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S., which calls into question the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe. It is a very risky measure and Europe would need to have a blunt attitude of rejection of these measures imposed by the U.S., because its own economy is at risk. ..."
"... Effectively, the "Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act," which strangely targets Russia who had a greater role than the U.S. in defeating ISIS terrorists, is just another way for Washington to warn other countries not to buy the S-400 or Russian military equipment or engage in energy diplomacy with Moscow. It is unlikely that this will deter states from conducting arms and energy deals with Russia as Moscow has been pioneering anti-sanction measures to protect financial transactions without punishment, and rather it demonstrates a Washington that is becoming increasingly desperate in the Era of Multipolarity. ..."
Dec 21, 2019 | astutenews.com

Washington's Proposed New Sanctions Against Turkey also Aimed Against Russia December 18, 2019 A Opinion Leave a comment With the world fixated on Turkish actions against Syria, Greece and Libya at the moment, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate of the United States Congress approved a bill, "Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act," spearheaded and thoroughly promoted by staunch anti-Syria/Venezuela/Iran/Russia Democratic Senator Robert Menendez who celebrated the bills passing on his Twitter . The Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 18-4 to send the bill for a vote in the full Senate.

The approval of the bill was widely reported in the mainstream media as an "anti-Turkey bill." Senator Jim Risch, the panel's Republican chairman, a fellow endorser of the bill with Menendez, said that the approval of this bill is because of the "drift by this country, Turkey, to go in an entirely different direction than what they have in the past. They've thumbed their nose at us, and they've thumbed their nose at their other NATO allies."

According to the draft bill , the Turkish acquisition of the powerful S-400 missile defense system gives grounds to impose sanctions against this country, under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). In particular, the document restricts the sale of U.S. weapons to Turkey and imposes sanctions on Turkish officials responsible for supplying weapons towards their illegal military operation in Syria.

Turkey signed in December 2017 the first contract with Russia for the purchase of the S-400 for a value of $2.5 billion, which caused tension in relations between Ankara and Washington. The U.S. demanded that Ankara renounce that transaction and buy U.S. Patriot systems, and threatened to delay or cancel the sale of the F-35 fighters to Turkey. Ankara refused to make concessions and assured that its purpose of acquiring Russian systems remains firm.

What was missed, perhaps intentionally by the majority of the mainstream media is that this bill has a heavy anti-Russian/Syrian component to it. Although not as detailed and expansive as the Turkish section of the bill, it claims that "the Russian Federation and Iran continue to exploit a security vacuum in Syria and continue to pose a threat to vital United States national security interests," without explaining what these security interests are, exactly as we have become accustomed to.

According to the bill, there will be a

"list of each Russian person that, on or after such date of enactment, knowingly exports, transfers, or otherwise provides to Syria significant financial, material, or technological support that contributes materially to the ability of the Government of Syria to acquire defense articles, defense services, and related information."

Although the bill has not said which specific Russians, the nature of the bill means that there will be inevitable sanctions against Russia as it is a top weapon exporter to Syria, which will unlikely change despite of the new sanctions. Those in the eventual sanction list will face an American blacklist, which means a ban on entry, freezing of assets in the United States, a ban on doing business with this person for American citizens or companies. At the same time, the bill allows that the US President can consider each case separately and refuse to impose sanctions.

These proposed new sanctions that will have to pass the House of Representatives, which passed its own anti-Turkish sanctions bill by an overwhelming 403-16 vote in October, is part of a wider effort for the U.S. to keep pressurizing Russia's economy. On December 9, the committees of both chambers of the U.S. Congress previously agreed on the military budget for 2020, which includes restrictions against the Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream pipelines to bring Russian energy to Europe, infrastructures designed to raise Europe's energy security. The U.S. bill that provides sanctions against companies participating in the laying of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline aims to obtain unilateral advantages in the gas area to the detriment of the interests of the countries of Europe. This prompted the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Russian-German Foreign Chamber of Commerce, Matthias Schepp, to explain that the new measures against Nord Stream 2 affect not only Russia, but, above all, European companies and Germany's energy interests.

Washington is frustrated that European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S., which calls into question the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe. It is a very risky measure and Europe would need to have a blunt attitude of rejection of these measures imposed by the U.S., because its own economy is at risk.

Effectively, the "Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act," which strangely targets Russia who had a greater role than the U.S. in defeating ISIS terrorists, is just another way for Washington to warn other countries not to buy the S-400 or Russian military equipment or engage in energy diplomacy with Moscow. It is unlikely that this will deter states from conducting arms and energy deals with Russia as Moscow has been pioneering anti-sanction measures to protect financial transactions without punishment, and rather it demonstrates a Washington that is becoming increasingly desperate in the Era of Multipolarity.


By Paul Antonopoulos
Source: Infobrics

[Dec 21, 2019] Why can't the US learn from its foreign policy failures?

Because they are not foreign policy failure. All of them were huge wins for MIC, which controls the USA foreign policy
Sep 23, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , September 22, 2019 at 05:05 PM

Why can't the US learn from its foreign policy failures?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/09/22/why-can-learn-from-its-foreign-policy-failures/QSyAglf85iK9XuGT1RKK1J/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe

H.D.S. Greenway - September 22

After more than 17 years of the United States pouring blood and treasure into the effort to build an Afghan army and government, why is it that the Kabul government continues to lose ground against the Taliban? Further, why were we unsuccessful creating an Iraqi army that could stand on its own against the Islamic State?

Before that, of course, came Vietnam.

Nor was that the start of the failure of American-backed armies. I was a teenager in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek's American-backed Nationalist army lost to the Communist forces of Mao Zedong in China. The American secretary of state, Dean Acheson, having conducted a study on why our side lost, declared: "The Nationalist armies did not have to be defeated; they disintegrated. History has proved again and again that a regime without faith in itself, and an army without morale, cannot survive the test of battle."

Forty-four years ago, the American-trained and American-supplied army of South Vietnam simply melted away before the less-well-equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam. In 1975, I watched South Vietnamese soldiers taking off their uniforms and running away in their underwear as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.

Five years ago, the world watched another American-trained and American-equipped Iraqi army bolt and run when the better motivated Islamic State forces overran Mosul in Northern Iraq.

Why, over and over again, does the side America has backed in these civil wars end up defeated? Four threads connect these lost wars of the last 70 years: corruption, patriotic nationalism, a misplaced belief in American exceptionalism, and self-deception.

I saw corruption on a grand scale in Saigon. Generals and government officials were funneling America's tax dollars into bank accounts abroad, fielding ghost armies in which there were fewer soldiers on the ground than on the official payrolls. In Baghdad during the American occupation, I learned that billions of American taxpayer dollars were bleeding out to the Persian Gulf and Jordan, causing a laundered money real estate boom in the Jordanian capital. In Afghanistan I learned that Afghan officers and soldiers routinely robbed the villages they were sent to protect. Corruption sapped the people's belief in their US-backed government in all four wars. Soldiers saw no reason to die for corrupt officials.

A second thread is that our side always appeared to be fighting on the side of foreigners, while the Communists in China and Vietnam, as well as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, always had a better grip on patriotic nationalism and resistance to foreigners. The anti-colonial struggle was more important than the threat of Communism in most of the post-World War II world, and the Islamist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan knew how to exploit the traditional resistance to foreign rule. The Taliban could appeal to patriotism while trying to expel the infidel forces of the United States, just as their fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers had resisted the Russians and the British before that in the name of jihad.

A third thread is a curiously American trait of willfully ignoring other people's history and cultures. I remember asking an American officer in Vietnam if he had read anything of the French experience in Vietnam. His answer: "No, why should I? They lost, didn't they?" Robert McNamara, defense secretary and an architect of our Vietnam War, said in later life that Americans had never understood the Vietnamese. There were plenty of people who could have helped him understand, but he wasn't interested. We were Americans -- exceptional, and therefore not susceptible to the same forces that thwarted other efforts.

I met Americans in the Green Zone in Baghdad who knew nothing about the great schism between Sunnis and Shia Muslims that was tearing the country apart. American-style democracy was the answer to all ills, they felt. In Afghanistan I met Americans who thought purple ink on the fingers of Afghans who had voted was the answer to a thousand years of tribal and ethnic rivalries.

The fourth thread is self-deception. In Saigon, in Baghdad, and in Kabul I attended briefings in which progress was always being made, the trend lines were always favorable, and we were always winning wars we were actually losing. Wishful thinking is no substitute for reality. Americans can train and assist the armies of those whom we want to support in the civil wars of others, but we cannot supply the motivation and morale that is necessary to survive the test of battle.

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , September 22, 2019 at 05:09 PM
Related:

The 'forever war' that began on 9/11
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/09/10/the-forever-war-that-began/ONoP7zmI9uaxiBD3clIkDL/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe

Stephen Kinzer - September 10

As we observe another anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that shattered American life 18 years ago, its full impact is still unfolding. Those who planned it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The airborne assaults that took nearly 3,000 lives on that day may now be seen as the most diabolically successful terror attack in history. That attack not only wreaked carnage at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania. It wound up dragging the United States into an endless state of war that has drained our treasury, poisoned our politics, created waves of new terrorism, and made us the enemy of millions around the world.

The apparent chief perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, Osama bin Laden, presumably cackled with joy when he heard news of his success on that stunning day. He lived for another 10 years, long enough to cackle with even greater glee at Washington's self-defeating response to the attack. Using the 9/11 attack as a pretext, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Bin Laden died knowing that he had lured us into the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history.

It is a truism that our lives are shaped not by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens to us. The same applies to nations. Devastating as the death toll was on Sept. 11, 2001, it turned out to be only a taste of what was to come. The United States has been at war ever since. Thousands of Americans have died. So have hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Middle East and beyond. This nearly two-decade-long spasm of attacking, bombing, and occupying countries has decisively shaped the United States and its image in the world. Every day that our "forever war" continues is a triumph for bin Laden. So is every wounded veteran who returns home, every newly minted terrorist infuriated by an American attack, every citizen of the world who recoils at what US forces are being sent to do. We did not simply fall into bin Laden's trap, we raced in at full speed. Even now, we show little will to extricate ourselves.

America's determination to strike back with devastating force after 9/11 was understandable given our shared sense of ravaged innocence. We might have launched a concentrated strike against the gang of several hundred criminals whose leaders attacked the United States, and then come home. Instead we have used the 9/11 attack to justify wars and military deployments around the world.

On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed an "authorization for the use of military force" against the perpetrators of that week's attack and against their "associated forces." Three presidents have used that authorization to deploy troops across the Middle East and in countries from Kenya to Georgia to the Philippines. Every call for US withdrawal from Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria is met by warnings that ending wars could produce "another 9/11." This has become the paralyzing mantra that prevents us from halting the hydra-headed military campaign we have been waging for 18 years. We also use it to justify atrocities at prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Bin Laden has succeeded even in colonizing our minds.

Soon after passing its highly elastic authorization for military action against "associated forces," Congress approved another, even more sweeping law: the Patriot Act. It gave the government broad new power to monitor people and businesses, and has become a foundation stone of our emerging "surveillance state." The 9/11 attack led us to distort not only our approach to the world, but also the balance between freedom and security at home.

Another pernicious aftereffect of the terror attack has been the deepening of our national us-against-them narrative. This began with President George W. Bush's assertion that every country in the world had to be "either with us or against us." Crusader rhetoric posits the United States as the indispensable guardian of civilization, entitled to act as it chooses in order to fend off a threatening tide of barbarism. Now this approach has leaked back into the United States. Racist attacks that tear at our social fabric are the domestic reflection of foreign policies that see the rest of the world as a hostile "other" bent on destroying our way of life.

Last month it was announced that the five surviving alleged plotters of the 9/11 attack will finally be brought to trial in 2021. If they are aware of what is happening in the world, they will arrive in court with a deep sense of satisfaction. Their great triumph was not the attack. It was the damage the United States has since inflicted upon itself.

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , September 22, 2019 at 05:28 PM
Acheson is parroting Napoleon: "In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to 1."

He is wrong in the matter of "faith", unless the Chiang's army lost faith in Chiang's moral poverty, what he stood for.

A better quote about Chiang losing is written by George C. Marshall, who went over and came back sure Chiang was done for.

He said: "The US would not be dragged through the mud by those reactionaries". Meaning Chiang was not the moral power in China.

Same for Vietnam US puppets were not and had no moral power/authority.

In Afghanistan same!

Iraq is split in moral authority, the areas populated by Shi'a are okay as long as the central government does not pander to the Sunni 1/3 (Baathists were suppressing Shi'a).

I do not agree with quoting Acheson when there is plenty of professional soldier writings that say it more clearly.

After Korea the professional soldiers were no longer expressive when it cme to propping thugs, with no moral power in their own borders (granted many of the borders surround fictional counties).

US has stood with thugs for most of its quagmire experience.......

This week US is looking for a way to start a new quagmire with Iran for royal murderers' sharing their oil company!

[Dec 21, 2019] Extortion (noun) The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats

May 05, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Realist , April 30, 2019 at 14:20

Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire planet.

Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India, Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.

America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.

The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."

No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.

Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08

"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."

"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."

I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.

That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's forums on this blog.

Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which, unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny, even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.

[Dec 21, 2019] America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil.

Notable quotes:
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Apr 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM | link

Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:

American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors, generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.

To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."

The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest. That is why we go to war.

Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic, not humanitarian, reasons.

  • Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
  • Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
  • Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.

Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy.

America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.

Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never.

Mike Gravel

[Dec 21, 2019] A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990 2016 by David North

New book by David North A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
Jul 11, 2016 | www.wsws.org

We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North. The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both softcover and hardcover .

***

"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than in the period of boom."

-- Leon Trotsky, 1928

"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."

-- Leon Trotsky, 1934

This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism. Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of its occurrence.

Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list of monsters requiring destruction.

The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign policy of the United States.

First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:

It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated. In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [ 1 ]

This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."

In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:

If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [ 2 ]

On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.

Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."

Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."

During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found his wars "maddeningly hard to end."

The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr. Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.

But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.

The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [ 3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military restraint.

It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power, amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later, V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow the bourgeois Provisional Government.

Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:

For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war, and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [ 4 ]

Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge, in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political, and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P. Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [ 5 ]

Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:

The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent. And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [ 6 ]

In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.

It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.

The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [ 7 ]

In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.

The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.

There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum. Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:

No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom. The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [ 8 ]

The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected. The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:

Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [ 9 ]

In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [ 10 ]

The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.

Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises; (2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford, who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.

The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.

The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength, of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense military power.

The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions of US imperialism:

There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor. [ 11 ]

The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999 bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.

The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa. They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign policy.

The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed 9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision. The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.

The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.

In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States. Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.

The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.

The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.

It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany. The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:

As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held its ground. . . .

Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]

In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism -- for any nation." [ 13 ]

The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the "War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.

One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely. A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:

Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [ 14 ]

Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.

On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct. Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.

The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system. If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program, and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics, in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [ 15 ]

In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.

There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.

... ... ...

solerso2 years ago
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
Steve Naidamast2 years ago
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."

Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"...

peatstack3 years ago
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia" by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
fds peatstack3 years ago
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution. Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
OL peatstack3 years ago
On Kronstadt : https://www.marxists.org/ar... I never found an attempt at refuting these that was more than hot air.

I can imagine that the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919, etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).

iv_int OL3 years ago
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
Larka3 years ago
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
Carolyn Zaremba Larka3 years ago
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.

After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.

Robert Seaborne Carolyn Zaremba3 years ago
thank you Carolyn Zaremba,

for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.

FireintheHead3 years ago
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.

As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated to the realms of Greatness.

As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....

Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .

Eric3 years ago
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies - which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
iv_int3 years ago
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.

[Dec 21, 2019] Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type of war crime-free unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US military Rules of Engagement modus operandi

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

ChuckOrloski says:

March 12, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."

Hi AnonfromTN.

Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli "dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.

They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.

What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.

Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!

Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland" law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.

AnonFromTN , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski I can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery. As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally, desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and severely punish those who expose these crimes.

I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash. Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.

[Dec 21, 2019] Syria Accuses US Of Stealing Over 40 Tons Of Its Gold by Eric Zuesse

Mar 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2019 - 23:55 240 SHARES Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, "Gold deal between United States and Daesh" (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,

Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.

The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].

Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.

Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."

ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold. Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.

The US Government claims to be anti-ISIS, but actually didn't even once bomb ISIS in Syria until Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, and the US had actually been secretly arming ISIS there so as to help ISIS and especially Al Qaeda (and the US was strongly protecting Al Qaeda in Syria ) to overthrow Syria's secular and non-sectarian Government. Thus, whereas Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, America (having become embarrassed) started bombing ISIS in Syria on 16 November 2015 . The US Government's excuse was "This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike." They pretended it was out of compassion -- not in order to extend for as long as possible ISIS's success in taking over territory in Syria. (And, under Trump, on the night of 2 March 2019, the US rained down upon ISIS in northeast Syria the excruciating and internationally banned white phosphorous to burn ISIS and its hostages alive, which Trump's predecessor Barack Obama had routinely done to burn alive the residents in Donetsk and other parts of eastern former Ukraine where voters had voted more than 90% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama's coup in Ukraine had replaced . It was a way to eliminate some of the most-undesired voters -- people who must never again be voting in a Ukrainian national election, not even if that region subsequently does become conquered by the post-coup, US-imposed, regime. The land there is wanted; its residents certainly are not wanted by the Obama-imposed regime.) America's line was: Russia just isn't as 'compassionate' as America. Zero Hedge aptly headlined "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" . Nobody exceeds the United States Government in sheer hypocrisy.

The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful that approach turns out to be.

Indeed, on 28 November 2012, Syria News headlined "Emir of Qatar & Prime Minister of Turkey Steal Syrian Oil Machinery in Broad Daylight" and presented video allegedly showing it (but unfortunately providing no authentication of the date and locale of that video).

Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined "Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015, "Ideology and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which was protected by the US

In September 2016 a UK official "FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's Government.

On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US military website "Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined "WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry, shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015, "Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.

On 30 November 2015 Israel's business-news daily Globes News Service bannered "Israel has become the main buyer for oil from ISIS controlled territory, report" , and reported:

An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.

After all, Israel too wants to overthrow Syria's secular, non-sectarian Government, which would be replaced by rulers selected by the Saud family , who are the US Government's main international ally .

On 9 November 2014, when Turkey was still a crucial US ally trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government (and this was before the failed 15 July 2016 US-backed coup-attempt to overthrow and replace Turkey's Government so as to impose an outright US stooge), Turkey was perhaps ISIS's most crucial international backer . Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's leader, had received no diploma beyond k-12, and all of that schooling was in Sunni schools and based on the Quran . (He pretended, however, to have a university diploma.) On 15 July 2015, AWD News headlined "Turkish President's daughter heads a covert medical corps to help ISIS injured members" . On 2 December 2015, a Russian news-site headlined "Defense Ministry: Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal supply of oil" ; so, the Erdogan family itself was religiously committed to ISIS's fighters against Syria, and they were key to the success of the US operation against Syrians -- theft from Syrians. The great investigative journalist Christof Lehmann, who was personally acquainted with many of the leading political figures in Africa and the Middle East, headlined on 22 June 2014, "US Embassy in Ankara Headquarter for ISIS War on Iraq – Hariri Insider" , and he reported that the NATO-front the Atlantic Council had held a meeting in Turkey during 22-23 of November 2013 at which high officials of the US and allied governments agreed that they were going to take over Syria's oil, and that they even were threatening Iraq's Government for its not complying with their demands to cooperate on overthrowing Syria's Government. So, behind the scenes, this conquest of Syria was the clear aim by the US and all of its allies.

The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by a brutal coup in February 2014 : It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport" near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, "Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked, "A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland ( Obama's detail-person overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-American ploy.

On 14 November 2014, a Russian youtube headlined "In Ukraine, there is no more gold and currency reserves" and reported that there is "virtually no gold. There is a small amount of gold bars, but it's just 1%" of before the coup. Four days later, bannered "Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: 'There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault'" . From actually 42.3 tons just before the coup, it was now far less than one ton.

The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists. As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :

"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."

The US had acquired weapons from around the world, and shipped them (and Gaytandzhieva's report even displayed the transit-documents) through a network of its embassies, into Syria, for Nusra-led forces inside Syria. Almost certainly, the US Government's central command center for the entire arms-smuggling operation was the world's largest embassy, which is America's embassy in Baghdad.

Furthermore, On 8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."

Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled "Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking their lives to fight against those jihadists.

In December 2017, CAR headlined "Weapons of the Islamic State" and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.

That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining "Russian TV Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action, "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?

So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.

This is today's form of imperialism.

Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland. That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world." For example, as RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd, about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them. Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors' many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on the take.

The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries, and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.

On March 4th, the Jerusalem Post bannered "IRAN AND TURKEY MEDIA PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT US, ISIS: Claims pushed by Syrian regime media assert that US gave ISIS safe passage out of Baghuz in return for gold, a conspiracy picked up in Tehran and Ankara" , and simply assumed that it's false -- but provided no evidence to back their speculation up -- and they closed by asserting "The conspiracies, which are manufactured in Damascus, are disseminated to Iraq and Turkey, both of whom oppose US policy in eastern Syria." Why do people even subscribe to such 'news'-sources as that? The key facts are hidden, the speculation that's based on their own prejudices replaces whatever facts exist. Do the subscribers, to that, simply want to be deceived? Are most people that stupid?

Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined "Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).

[Dec 21, 2019] The USA lost in Syria in a sense that the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn t be faced off successfully.

Feb 26, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Noirette , Feb 25, 2019 1:03:07 PM | link

The USA 'lost' in Syria, the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn't be faced off successfully.

Destroying Afgh., Iraq, Lybia, - all 'failures' in the sense of not garnering 'advantage' for the USA as a territory, a Federated Nation, its citizens, its trade, boosting hopeful expansion, etc. One aim rarely mentioned is keeping allies on board, e.g. Sarkozy's France, to invade Lybia. In France many say it was Sark I who did DE-ss-troy! Lybia.

The word *failure* is based on the acceptance of a stated aim reminiscent of old-style-colonialism: grab resources, exploit super-cheap labor, control the natives, mine, exploit, shunt the goods / profits to home base.

If the aim is to stop rivals breathing, blast them back to the Stone Age, the success is good but relative. (see Iraq.) Private GloboCorps (e.g. Glencore.. ) are in charge behind the curtain, many Gvmts are just stooges for them in the sense of unawoved partnerships, the one feeding into the other, in a kind of desperado death spiral.

I have always been struck by the fact that Oil Projects / Management in Iraq, even wiki gives lists that shows major movers and profiteers are not USA oil cos. / interests, but China, Malaysia, many others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq

So, after multiple failures in one region, time to turn closer to home, the backyard, S. America...

[Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts to threaten their global domination.

Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct wars. They use today other, various methods like brutal proxy wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.

Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya

After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.

In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without the presence of the US.

Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.

Evidence from WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources. The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that the Western hypocrites were using him according to their interests .

Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.

Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone

It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster in Middle East and Libya.

Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy. The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the Treuhand Operation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in Ireland , Italy and Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed in an open financial coup against Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.

Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the second eurozone economy, France, rushed to impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.

Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.

The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the NSA interceptions scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a transatlantic economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.

Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.

Economic Wars, Constitutional Coups, Provocative Operations – Argentina/Brazil/Venezuela

A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally, the constitutional coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the usual actions of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.

Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.

The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.

The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.

The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth, with a big overdose of exaggeration. The establishment parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.

Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's happening right now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.

'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine

The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.

The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership, through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.

Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A video , for example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress. This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.

The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments in Venezuela and other countries.

Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination (like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans to join Russia.

The war will become wilder

The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic expansionism.

Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.

We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.

[Dec 20, 2019] War Denialism and Endless War by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries: ..."
"... The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare. ..."
"... The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. ..."
"... When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else. ..."
Dec 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:

Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE #Syria under heading of "endless war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war. Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw

-- Robert Satloff (@robsatloff) December 15, 2019

War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts have started rejecting endless war, the war's defenders have often chosen to pretend that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.

The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. I made this point back in the spring of 2016 :

Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.

The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else.


chris chuba3 days ago

It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.

We were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to use the Saudis against Iran.

It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.

SilverSpoon3 days ago
"War is the health of the State"

And our state has been very healthy indeed in recent decades.

Ray Joseph Cormier3 days ago • edited
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired 58 years ago.
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development.
Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

http://rayjc.com/2011/09/04...

Lee Green3 days ago
The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or "drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?

Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well, the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.

[Dec 20, 2019] Angry Bear " The oncoming generational UK and US political tsunamis

Dec 20, 2019 | angrybearblog.com
  1. likbez , December 20, 2019 5:20 pm

    > alliances like NATO, and ultimately the loss of our democracy

    Changes might be coming, but Republicans and Clinton faction of Dems are now fully prepared to resist those changes tooth and nail.

    Neoliberal Dems just invented the template for deposing or, at least, paralyzing any future antiwar president. Via vote of non-confidence mechanism, which essentially what House impeachment "investigation" was about.

    You can always find another Fiona Hill, or Alexander Vindman or a half-dozen State Department neocon hawks (where in some cases it was unclear who is their real employee ) , or find another jingoistic and complexly detached from reality professor like Karlan, to support this action. Neocons feed from threat inflation. And money from MIC doesn't smell.

    The problems with the current impeachment goes far deeper then Trump. It is a change of the constitutional system converting it closer to the UK model.

[Dec 20, 2019] Canadian news is de facto controlled by an American New York Jewish hedge fund

Notable quotes:
"... [Too much totally off-topic crackpottery. Stop this or most of your future comments may get trashed.] ..."
Dec 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jimmy1969 says: December 19, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT 200 Words Golden Tree Asset Management bought up Post Media in Canada at a fire sale years ago from the bankrupt Asper family. Post Media is a conglomerate that controls dozens and dozens of media outlets in all of Canada including 95% of all the major Newspapers in every large city. Therefore Canadian news is de facto controlled by an American New York Jewish hedge fund. That fact has been known for years and is joked about on all of the bar stools in Canada where reporters hang out .but not in the Press. No one writes about it none of the Nationalistic Professors, Journalists, Members of Parliament no one. One fact is certain you will never ever see a single bad word in any of their papers critical of Israel, or any actions of Israelis. Any comment critical of Israel or Zionist power, no matter how objective or moderate is immediately deleted. And sadly this is no joke. The world should take note of how Canada is strangled. Read More Replies: @bike-anarkist

Replies: @the grand wazoo , @eah Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments


I'm Tyrone , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT

@silviosilver Paying what you owe is perfectly fine and moral. Paying double of what you owe on account of inflated fees and interest is blood sucking. Doing this to developing nations is downright cruel.

Let's say Congo owes $10 billion. A finance firm buys that debt for $8 billion, collects the full $10 billion (which already includes interest) and make a $2 billion profit. That's not too terrible.

But to buy the debt for $8 billion and then force Congo to pay $60 billion is Jewish. Playing the victim while accusing Congo of financial mismanagement and forcing them to close their schools and hospitals – very Jewish. Evading the ethical implications of one's actions and seeking cover behind legalism like a coward –> Jew level – Godlike

What say AaronB? Do you concur chief?

BannedHipster , says: Website December 19, 2019 at 2:21 pm GMT
It's a simple ingroup/outgroup distinction.

Jews see themselves as the ingroup, and the "goyim" as the outgroup. Since Whites are the "outgroup" it's not just acceptable, but praiseworthy, to exploit them. To "beat" them at war.

The problem is that Whites wrongly do not see Jews as an outgroup – something that Jews themselves take great pains to discourage via their various front groups like the ADL.

There is no "technical" fix, there is no objective "system" that can change this dynamic. There is no "level playing field."

Whites need to ostracize Jews at all levels. Boycott, Divest and Sanction – not just their apartheid regime of Jew bigotry in Zionist-occupied Palestine, but at every level of society, business, civil institutions, etc.

Realist , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
@Ghali

Jews are destroying the world. Everywhere they go, they leave behind nations in ruins. Look at Europe, Africa and the Americas, Jews have left their ugly footprints. Corruption, prostitution, drugs and human trafficking are their trade.

Greed from all races is the problem.

DaveE , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:30 pm GMT
Reading the (obvious) Jews commenting here on their various financial swindle-systems is a lot like reading zionists defending Israel. The basic tactics are always the same:

1.) Focus on some small aspects or most recent events and make a comparison to Gentiles or other events with similar micro-narratives. "See? Everyone else does it! Why single out us poor, persecuted Jews?"

2.) Use these minute distractions to drown out the overall issues, underlying concepts, long history or guiding ideology in noise and minutiae.

3.) Never start at the beginning of the story and follow the trajectory though; always start in the middle and focus on some trivial detail, use it to defend the (never stated) sicko ideology that started the problem in the first place. Completely ignore any timelines or larger perspectives.

David Icke calls it (or used to call it -- - back when his backbone was healthy) the Reptilian Brain. The ability to manipulate trivial minutiae while never addressing underlying concepts or timelines.

I just call it Jew Noise.

BannedHipster , says: Website December 19, 2019 at 2:31 pm GMT
@Just passing through

It is hard to feel sorry for WASPs, they struck a deal with the Jews centuries ago

Catholic political powers have been "striking deals with Jews" for two thousand years. There is a synagogue in Rome right next to the Vatican which has been legally privileged since the days of Christ. As E. Michael Jones detailed in his book, Jewish Revolutionary Spirit , the Catholic Church itself defended Jews from the angry mobs time and time again throughout their history, to the point bishops and priests would harbor Jews in the cathedrals and lock the doors before the peasants could arrest them.

Indeed, the infighting among Whites promoted by the likes of Jones is yet again another assist from Catholic powers to their partners, the Jews.

The popular "neo-reactionary/NRx" movement, started by the Ashkenazi Curtis Yarvin, is yet another "right-wing" fad that blames Calvinists for all the problems in the world. Jews are blameless, yet again another White ethnicity/religion is at fault.

No wonder Jews get away with what they do. Whites are too busy infighting over false history demonizing various rival cults.

Really No Shit , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:35 pm GMT
So, the "vultures" flew out to the West after devouring the Russian empire and now with the help of the likes of the homeboy or more like a two bit whore, Ben Sasse, they've descended on America and have started gutting it out.

Where will they fly next? White Christians don't want them and black/brown Muslims can't stand them but perhaps China is their next destination being that they have shipped most of the jobs out there and the whole lot of them are marrying "Chinese-American" women in droves for good measure.

In the coming battle of the titans, the one who's name can't be pronounced, viz. Yahweh, hopefully has better guns than Jehovah and Allah, for it sure is gonna need it when the latter two gang up on it maybe Buddha will give it a helping hand being that they're practically in-laws now!

Arnieus , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT
Don't think the US will fair better than Puerto Rico when the fake money dries up and there is no way to keep paying the trillions in debt.
Just passing through , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:48 pm GMT
@Father O'Hara

My question is how do entities like Puerto Rico get so far in debt in the first place?

For the same reason individuals get into debt, financial incompetence and sometimes a bit of bad luck.

I've personally never understood how people can take out loans from companies like Wonga or QuickQuid (both Jewish owned incidentally) seeing as they quite clearly advertise their exorbitant interest rates.

Look up income by ethnic group in the UK and US, you will find that Indians and Chinese (South Asians) are the richest in both countries (except for Jews of course).

What I have found is that these two groups come from a debt-averse culture, their kids actually live with their parents until they have saved enough money for a house and other such things required to start a family.

Whites meanwhile are WAY to trusting of these faceless financial institutions, they get into debt very easily and thus become slaves, if you have kids, the first thing you should educate them about is finance and debt, don't throw them out to the dogs either, it's tragic to see some getting into debt and then having other problems like drugs and alcohol addictions.

UncommonGround , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
@Anon

I came out of that book with the utmost admiration for Bill Browder.

You don't seem to be serious, if I understood what you want to say. Even Der Spiegel has published a critical article in English about Browder, Browder is the one who pushed for sanctions against Russia because of the case Magnitsky:

Questions Cloud Story Behind U.S. Sanctions

The story of Sergei Magnitsky has come to symbolize the brutal persecution of whistleblowers in Russia. Ten years after his death, inconsistencies in Magnitsky's story suggest he may not have been the hero many people -- and Western governments -- believed him to be.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-case-of-sergei-magnitsky-anti-corruption-champion-or-corrupt-anti-hero-a-1297796.html

Boone , says: December 19, 2019 at 2:52 pm GMT
@Anonymous Sure, but you're talking utopia. The reality is that public entities issue bonds to finance special projects or even their operations. Somebody then buys the bonds and expects to be paid back.
Just passing through , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:03 pm GMT
@Realist There is something especially deficient with Whites when it comes to money matter, how can such a large number of Whites take short-term loans from companies like Wonga and QuickQuid, when the nature of their business (usury) is very clearly advertised. I was around 10 years old when I was astounded at the 5000% APR loans advertised on TV, and wondered if I understood interest right.

Parents, especially White ones, really need to educate their children on personal finance and debt, it seems a lot of Whites these days do not actually own anything and all their flashy gadgets and whatnot are being loaned out (buying Iphone on contract for example), these people are the hardest hit as they can't scrape together even a couple of hundred pounds/dollars/euros when hard times come. Its farcical albeit tragic.

Satan Became President , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:03 pm GMT
Wow what a confused mess. Here's a summary: Vulture capitalism is bad for no particular reason but only an evil anti-Semite (like you) would dare criticize capitalism.
Really No Shit , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
And they want the island of Puerto Rico for themselves, save a few thousand able bodies to serve as maids and gardeners. But what about the triple-raced residents of the island itself? Well, that's easy! Dump them in states like Florida and New York and let the suckers pay for it. After all, it's not like they are going to vote for the other side we get to eat the cake and keep it too!
Bookish1 , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT
@sally You can separate jews from Zionists but you cant separate zionist from jews. They are the same animal.
Just passing through , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:10 pm GMT
@J.W. https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/angrif03.htm

An article that appeared in Goebbels newspaper, Der Angriff (The Attack) titled "The Jew", a short excerpt that is relevant to your comment;

The Jew is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: "I've been found out."

Mulegino1 , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:14 pm GMT
I think the term "vulture capitalism" is calumnious to vultures, who, as carrion birds, perform a useful and purifying function in nature.

The Jews as a collective, i.e., the Jews who identify as such, concur in the death sentence of Christ handed down by their Sanhedrin and espouse the Talmudic mitzvah of killing the best of the gentiles (which naturally implies elevating the worst of the gentiles to power and prominence) are more to be likened to plague bearing rodents. Unlike vultures, rats feast on corruption and putrescence, spread disease and also kill the living.

We embrace the finance capitalist worldview at our peril. In its essence, it is nothing but the worship of money making and profiteering as the supreme aspiration of life, irregardless of its horrible effects on our compatriots and fellow humans. In doing so, we become Jews at heart.

There is nothing wrong with industry and the profit motive per se. Predatory finance contributes nothing to the well being of a nation and the needs of the physical economy- it is supremely toxic and corrosive of both. It must be expunged and its champions expropriated and exiled. People like the odious Peter Singer have no place in a moral world; they ought to be first expropriated, then exiled as far away from their host societies as possible.

Happy Tapir , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT
I was personally wounded by the anti gay rhetoric peppered across this article. I can't help making the association that Paul singer's son came out as gay and that this must be the source of the author's animus against him and the others. Shakespeare, who was also homosexual, described this state of mind as "a green eyed monster," i.e. jealousy. I'm mortified that other members of the commentariat have not taken issue with this. Maybe we would be more compassionate to the denizens of middle America if they allowed our most basic civil rights.
Bookish1 , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:19 pm GMT
@J Adelman Oh those kind jews have always been for the working class? But there is a white working class and jews want them extinct from the face of the earth. Read 'Abolishing whiteness has never been more urgent.' By Mark Levine
Jimmy1969 , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:23 pm GMT
@Arnieus China will then try to take us and Israel will make a deal with the winner.
jack daniels , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
@silviosilver You make several good points but you don't address the issue of capitalists manipulating the politicians with campaign contributions. If a fund gets paid off by public money due to politicians putting the fund owners ahead of the taxpayers, that's corrupt. What happened to the 'creative destruction' principle by which large IBs like Goldman would have been allowed to collapse and their principals carried off in leg-irons in 2008? Oh -- they are "too big to fail and too big to jail." So much for the free market myth.

Moreover, most Jews support endless free money for "victim groups" to be forcibly extracted from the middle-class. Never mind if Mr. Jones has a lengthy criminal record, let's pay for him to go to college, let's pay his rent, let's pay his medical bills, etc. Why then take such a hard line on people who foolishly get into debt?

Moreover, the economic downturn that caused many mortgagors to default was CAUSED BY the big Wall Street firms' irresponsible behavior.

Also, most people do tend to temper economic contracts with a degree of compassion. Gentile capitalism does not exist in a vacuum.

I recall reading about a young female environmentalist who was refusing to leave a venerable redwood tree that was scheduled to be cut down. The WASP businessman who owned the tree was extremely patient with the girl, tried to win her over, threw her food and drinks, and so on. The land with the tree was then sold to some Jewish firm. At that point the article left off. The tree was cut down with no further negotiation.

Desert Fox , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
The greatest jewish vulture fund is the zionist privately owned feral reserve aka the FED , is creates money out of thin air and feeds this money to the otherwise bankrupt zionist banks and not just here in the ZUS but in Europe, and the BIS is the vulture fund of vulture funds owned by the zionists, the biggest scam in the history of the world.

By the way, Tucker Carlson said that 911 truthers were nuts, that says it all about him.

Vaterland , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
@J Adelman

Jewish people have always stood against

And here it comes:

tyranny against the working class,

Bolshevishm, Trotzkism and the Red Terror

the poor

Cultural Marxism

and other people of color.

Mass immigration for cheap labor, the weaponization of the grievance industry against white majority/European nations and the use for the production of anti-white race baiting media.

Much great work!! Very impressed. Would recommend to Moses himself.

But I agree, you should have a debate with Joyce.

Ian Smith , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:49 pm GMT
@Colin Wright I remember seeing a clip where Jared Taylor was on some talk show. He was calmly citing statistics on how blacks are over represented among violent criminals. A sassy black women broken in with "Jeffrey Dahmer Ted Bundy they were all white!" Not her exact words but something to that effect. Naxalt, in other words.

I don't think Joyce is suggesting that all unscrupulous capitalists are Jews, or vice versa. It is true that gentiles can be scumbags (the Enron boys.)

Now most Muslims are not terrorists, and many terrorists are not Muslims.

And yet it seems like there are many people who will notice patterns among other groups, rightfully roll their eyes when they hear PC arguments in favor of those groups, and then pull out the naxalt and what-about-isms when you notice patterns in Jewish behavior.

Colin Wright , says: Website December 19, 2019 at 3:55 pm GMT
@Happy Tapir ' Maybe we would be more compassionate to the denizens of middle America if they allowed our most basic civil rights.'

Then again, maybe you wouldn't. It'd be nice if it were otherwise, but in my experience, the world doesn't work that way.

anarchyst , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy Your statement: "maximizing shareholder is the holy grail of all capitalist enterprises" statement is spot on.

I've been saying that for decades.

Labor is never given value, but is a commodity-a "necessary evil" according to the Wall Street types and is to be minimized and marginalized at all costs.

Adolph Hitler's Germany monetized labor and gave it value. THAT is the reason that the jews went after Germany. Post WW1 Germany was successful in its economy due to throwing off the shackles (and shekels) of the internationalist banksters.

Henry Ford CREATED a market which had not existed when he paid his employees $5.00 per day when the average wage of the day was around $1.25 per day. His premise was not entirely altruistic as assembly line work was monotonous; a way had to be found to retain employees as well.

Of course, the wall street types and the banksters howled that Ford's wage rates would destroy capitalism (as they knew it-those at the top reap all of the benefits while the proles are forced to live on a bare subsistence wage, due to the machinations of those at the top).

Guess what??

The OPPOSITE happened. Henry Ford knew one of the basic tenets of a truly free, capitalistic society, that a well-paid work force would be able to participate and contribute to a strong economy, unlike what is taught in business schools today-that wages must be kept to a bare minimum and that the stockholder is king.

Our "free trade" politicians have assisted the greedy wall street types and banksters in depressing wages on the promise of cheap foreign labor and products.

A good example of this is the negative criticism that Costco receives for paying its employees well above market wages. These same wall street types praise Wal-Mart for paying its employees barely subsistence wages while assisting them in filling out their public assistance (welfare) forms.

Any sane person KNOWS that in order for capitalism to work, employees need to make an adequate wage. Unfortunately, this premise does not exist in today's business climate.

Henry Ford openly criticized those of the "tribe" for manipulating wall street and banksters to their own advantage, and was roundly (and unjustly) criticized for pointing out the TRUTH.

Catholic priest, Father Coughlin did the same thing and was punished by the Catholic church, despite his popularity and exposing the TRUTH of the American economy and the outsider internationalists that ran it . . . and STILL run it.

Our race to the bottom will not be without consequences. A great realignment is necessary (and is coming) . .

Ian Smith , says: December 19, 2019 at 3:58 pm GMT
@lavoisier I'm not sure I'd put Buffett in that category. For example, in one of the companies he bought, he kept a factory with declining profits open as long as he could to avoid throwing a large chunk of people out of work overnight. He has mostly made his money by avoiding dopey fads and a disciplined buy-and-hold approach to stocks.
Colin Wright , says: Website December 19, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
@J Adelman ' Jewish people have always stood against tyranny against the working class, the poor and other people of color." '

Right. I'd say Jews actually collaborated extensively in the imposition of tyranny on the working class in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1991. That'd be one counter-example. Should we explore others? The role of Jews in the medieval slave trade? After all, somebody had to castrate all those Christian boys who were to serve as harem guards.

No reason to dredge up ancient history -- except here you are, making a blatantly false claim about it. 'Always stood against ', my ass.

Really No Shit , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:08 pm GMT
They are gunning for India now who do you think that brought in the Turks who ruled as the Moguls to exploit the Hindu wealth and later on who did in the Muslims?

Disraeli and his ilk always knew that India was poor but their temples were rich with gold and it's that they are after one can't build one's own "Third Temple" without it.

Why are the black cohens being promoted (South Brahmins the most pliable ones) at Google, Microsoft and Pepsi etc.? Because the waterboys, and girls, will help rope in what's left of the Indian carcass for thirty pieces of silver!

Colin Wright , says: Website December 19, 2019 at 4:09 pm GMT
@sally 'There are many venture capitalist that are not Jewish '

Could you list them?. Name them and add them -- rank them in the list Joyce provides.

I'm perfectly willing to believe you -- but you've got to provide the data. After all, I can hardly go looking for unnamed venture capitalist firms.

Rebel0007 , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:19 pm GMT
Vulture corporatism = U.S. corporations consuming consumers.
J Adleman , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:20 pm GMT
@secondElijah You are probably the most antisemitic troll I have ever met online.
So, when did Epstein and Weinstein become the standard bearers of the Jewish community?
It is your jealousy of the Jewish people that makes you spew such vile hatred here.
Smug, obnoxious white people like you who have always considered this country their private preserve are an endangered species. The demographic trends cannot be denied.
In less than 25 years white folks will become a minority in this country. So enjoy it while you can, Bubba, your days of driving the bus are numbered.
You and other whites here are like the bad guys in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass -- even if it takes four sequels to make it happen -- but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time. Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends. Our ankles survive.
YOU DO NOT.
Wally , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:24 pm GMT
@Just passing through – What "WASP looting" was that?

– And what "deal" was supposedly struck?

Y0u have no clue.

Rev. Spooner , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT
@Saguaro The soup has boiled over, the horse has bolted and the barn has burnt down and yet you Yankees haven't woken up.Your politicians are whores who cannot function without funding from the jews. And Jeffery got them all for Mossad. Enjoy
Just passing through , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:29 pm GMT
@Vaterland The "standing up for People of Color" schtick is particularly disingenous, as all the Jews have really done isuse their disproportionate control of the media to peddle false narratives and distort history. One good example of this is the case of then president of the Atlanda chapter of B'nai B'rith, Leo Frank. Frank had raped and murdered 13 year-old Mary Phagan and when he was found out, he used his connection with New York Jews to get lots of money and hire the best defence lawyers, his lawyer then launched vicious racial attacks on a Black semi-literate janitor who worked in the factory that Frank was in charge of (and where Phagan worked) to try and convict him of the horrible crime.

Jews will be friends of POC when it suits them. The funny thing about the Frank case is that the Jewish media has made it out that Frank was innocent and wrongly lynched (only after his death sentence had been commuted by a judge who was suspected to have been bribed by powerful New York Jews), and that the Black janitor was the guilty one. This is absurd seeing as the racist Southern jury would never favour a "White" man over a Black man (anti-semtism wasn't that big in the South, and especially so considering this was before the Bolsheviks took control of Russia), and that if Frank had truly been White, this case would be a landmark case in which the evil rich White man was tried and the Black man was given justice.

Blacks are slowly wising up though.

Richard B , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@Anon Bravo!

Hands down one of the best comments on Jewish Supremacy Inc.'s psychopathy, lack of accountablity and corresponding projection.

Of course, you thought you were doing something else.

Wally , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@BannedHipster True desperation:

– One questionable, alleged example in Rome, hardly "WASP", which you consider to be a trend.

– Then you site a contemporary fringe Jew, born after WWII, who you count on to explain things.

And finally, your hasbarist dead give away:
" Jews are blameless, yet again another White ethnicity/religion is at fault. "

World Citizen , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:37 pm GMT
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!"




Islam stands in their way of usury-ripping of mankind of their resources and defrauding mankind via bank thefts.

Bring on the Shariah Law. I would much rather live under Shariah, God's Constitution than under Euoropean/Western diabolic, satanic, fraudulent monies, homosexual, thievery, false flag hoaxes, WMD's, bogus wars, Unprovoked oppression, tel-LIE-vision, Santa Claus lies, Disney hocus pocus , hollywood, illuminati, free mason, monarchy, oligarchy, millitary industrial complex, life time congressman/senators, upto the eye balls taxation, IRS thievery, Fraudulent federal reserve, Rothchild/Rockerfeller/Queens and Kings city of London satanic cabal, opec petro$$$ thievery, ISISraHELL's, al-CIA-da hoaxes, Communist, Atheist, Idol worshippers, Fear Monger's, Drugged and Drunken's oxy crystal coccaine meth psychopath, child pedeophilia, gambler's, Pathological and diabolical liars, Hypocrites, sodomites ..I can't think of any right now, because my mind is exploding with rage because of these troubling central banker's satanic hegemony!

Quran Chapter 30

39. The usury you practice, seeking thereby to multiply people's wealth, will not multiply with God. But what you give in charity, desiring God's approval -- these are the multipliers.
40. God is He who created you, then provides for you, then makes you die, then brings you back to life. Can any of your idols do any of that? Glorified is He, and Exalted above what they associate.
41. Corruption has appeared on land and sea, because of what people's hands have earned, in order to make them taste some of what they have done, so that they might return.

http://www.clearquran.com

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QlunSNY5B48?feature=oembed

Just passing through , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:38 pm GMT
@Really No Shit Jews are doing to White countries what Whites and Jews did to India, no honour amongst thieves, the ones with the higher verbal IQ wins.

Also it is important to note that the reason India came under the sway of Anglo-Zionist banking cartels so easily was because how divided it was, I reckon that is why they are promoting mass immigration. Import lots of different groups, then run lots of race-baiting stories to distract the plebs from their financial machinations.

This is why Jews are well represented in non-antisemitic White Nationalist organisations like Jared Taylor's AmRen, they are great at playing both sides.

Realist , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:41 pm GMT
@Adrian

And he funded the building of the Peace Palace ("Vredespaleis") in The Hague, presently the seat of the International Court of Justice, an institution not held in high esteem in the home country of the generous donor.

That wasn't his intent.

Just passing through , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:44 pm GMT
@Wally You can act confused all you want, you know exactly what I am talking about, the fact of the matter is Whites like you and Joyce would be laughing it up at countries/territories like Puerto Rico, Congo, Vietnam etc etc being carved up and financially enslaved if Whites were also allowed a piece of the pie along with Jews (as was the case in the days of the British Empire when WASP's and Jews worked together), but now that the low-IQ countries have been looted, the Jews have turned on the Whites and the latter are now crying that their criminal comrades have now betrayed them.

You quite clearly have a clue, you are just terrified and trying to divert because I am right, the Jews will do to the White nations what the White nations and Jews did to the non-White nations. All I can say is that you WASPs should have kept to youselves like Eastern Europeans and Eastern Asians, they didn't really engage in lofty ambitons to dominate the world and as such are intact at the moment and seem like they will remain that way for a long time, they are the true conservatives, WASPs have always had a Jewish streak within their corrupt souls and are now paying the price for engaging with a criminal race.

Why do you think Epstein has all these Gentiles in his pocket? You think do-gooding gentiles just randomly decided to get into bed with Epstein and Co.? How many East Asians and Eastern Euros do you see terrified of being outed as paedophiles.

Don't deceive yourselves, all debts are paid in the end, especially when the creditors are Jews.

Germanicus , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:48 pm GMT
@Adrian They are a function of Empire in Hague, who protect empire criminals, and assume a non existent legitimacy and jurisdiction as a private entity to take down empire opponents.
It is the very same kangaroo court as the IMT or Tokio show trials.
Richard B , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:48 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

Of course that Joyce is peddling his own obsessions

Psycho-babble explains nothing.

It's a shame you include that remark in an otherwise on target comment.

Richard B , says: December 19, 2019 at 4:58 pm GMT
@J Adleman When you're called an antisemite in the first line you know you've hit a nerve.

Treason Against Jewish Supremacy Inc. Is Loyalty To Humanity!

Oh, it's ok for Noel Ignatiev to not only say

Treason Against Whiteness* Is Loyalty To Humanity,

but to actually "teach" it at Harvard.

And then protect himself and his ilk with accusations of "Hate Speech."

No wonder he died of colon cancer. He was always full of shit.

*typical of JSI to indulge in verbal weasling; by "Whiteness" he means Whites.

By the way, accusations of antisemitism don't work anymore.

It means nothing to us.

If anything, Supremacists like you make it a badge of honor.

Since you use at the drop of a hat.

Common sense Giuseppe , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT
In the book "Heaven is for real" a 4 year old boy who supposedly is dead for a short period, but actually visits heaven; when he returns, is asked : what is the meaning, the purpose of life on earth?

His response is so simple, that it could only be true. And it could only come from knowing

"It's a contest between good and evil"

Evil

Germanicus , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:05 pm GMT
@Just passing through

Don't deceive yourselves, all debts are paid in the end, especially when the creditors are Jews.

It is a mathematical impossibility due to interest. The FED probably goes negative interest like ECB mafia.
Chances are higher they do a reset and start anew with an electronic ponzi scheme.
No one seriously plans to pay these "debts", they can't be paid, and are actually a nothing burger, pure fiction.

aandrews , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm GMT
" it is truly remarkable that vulture funds like Singer's escaped major media attention prior to this ."

Not really. The Jew's grip is starting to slip now, though. More and more people are becoming aware that they are virulent parasites and always have been.

DaveE , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:08 pm GMT
@Mulegino1 Real capitalism is the competition of ideas, innovation, efficient manufacturing and quality products made and produced by honest companies. That competition can, in theory at least, make people (and companies) "try harder". But only when a company's success is determined by the strength of its products, not by the "deals" it cuts with Jewish financial, advertising, "marketing" and swindling rackets, designed to line the pockets of the Jew while destroying honest competition by Gentiles who struggle to play fair and innovate.

Jewish vulture "capitalism" contributes NOTHING of value to any company or any culture. It never has and never will.

Mulegino1 , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:08 pm GMT
@J Adleman

You and other whites here are like the bad guys in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass -- even if it takes four sequels to make it happen -- but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time. Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends. Our ankles survive.
YOU DO NOT.

Talk about deflection. Any nation, empire, culture or civilization wherein the Jewish collective gains critical mass and ultimately absolute power turns into a real horror, not a movie. The Jews may be said to be the true prototype of the "bad guys in every horror movie", since they can only be gotten rid of by very rigorous means taken in the healthiest and most vigorous cultures and societies. Indeed, antisemitism itself is the healthy immunological reaction of a flourishing culture, and its lack thereof the pathology of a moribund one.

Woke Christians of European provenance have nothing to envy the Jew (the archetypal Jew) over. We realize that the true measure of success is not primarily monetary or the fulfillment of cheap ambitions, but a spiritual and cultural one. On the contrary, the Jewish hatred against Christian Europe and the civilization that it constructed is engendered out of sheer envy and malice, because Jewry understands that is would never be capable of constructing anything similar, and never has. In all of the arts, Jewry has produced nothing of note.
This is not to say that individual Jews have not made contributions to the arts and sciences, but they have done so only by participation in gentile culture, not qua Jews. Jewry only tears down and deconstructs; it is not creative in the sense of high art, and can thrive only in the swamp of gentile decadence and moral putrefaction. Whatever Jewry touches, it turns to merde.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
@Anon

Intelligence

European Jewish IQ has only gone 1/2 a standard deviation above the white norm in the last 100 years. Interesting to know why, but the belief Jews have always been more intelligent is just lack of data.

bias for co-operation

Nazis did this too – they worked reaaally well with each other. The issue was how they thought of and treated others.

That aside, I think we daily meet plenty of individuals who'd sell their mothers, and maybe kill lives, for pennies. They are like machines not even conscious of what they are doing.

Your 1 data point aside, are you saying all humans act in identical ways, regardless of how the ideologies they embrace ask them to act?

Take the ideology of Islam – it does not allow for aggressive war, surprise attacks, the killing of women or children (unless they take up arms)..

Judaism allows for aggressive war, surprise attack, and demands the killing of all when a state of war is declared.

Do you believe these declarations lead to identical actions by their practitioners? (in other words – people act how they would wish to act, and don't really engage in any belief systems beyond what pulls their own selves?)

So, it's the usual with Joyce (and not only Joyce of course). You take something that is human, talk of Jews, point to that something in Jews, and pretend, trusting that your readers will pretend the same, that it's a Jewish-specific something.

Yes, correct – no ideology is perfect at taming human action, and corruption is a human action, not a Jewish action. But we could still engage in comparative ideology, and this is what Joyce (and not only Joyce, of course) engage in.

Saying 'well, all peoples engage in force and deceit, so is there any actual difference between them and their beliefs?' is absurdism. In such a world, I will build a nation of priests, fashioned along the lines of the Aztek priesthood. Give me your children so I can rip out their hearts and make it rain – after all 'we are all the same'!!

The argument is that, for the proportion of the population, the fraction of monopoly power in Western economies that is taken up by Jewish power is much disproportional to other nations/belief systems.

It is fair to ask whether people who engage in other belief systems have the same level of desire for monopoly, just less skill to get it due to their belief systems.. I would say yes, they have the same level of desire (we are all human after all (not that if you read chapter 1 of the Tanya, you will be offered that point of view)) – but that their belief systems specifically push them away from materialism and desire for money and power, even at the expense of others. That is the exact point of religion (self-improvement) btw, so the next question is – is the Jewish religion effective?

At which point, the Jewish ideology becomes the wolf in the hen house – because it fails to tame the human away from such materialistic desire (as it btw claims it does best).

Should the hens be allowed to point out what they see as a wolf? Yes.

That the supposed wolf then obfuscates and justifies their actions by pointing to others, mostly, betrays that it is, in fact, a wolf.

Rebel0007 , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
I have become totally disenchanted with the SEC. Stupid, Evil, Crazy! It would not surprise me if they are the ones that have been terrorizing me, with stupid, evil, crazy chants through appliances after illegallly implaced RFIDs, microchips, or sensors illegally implanted in my ears and nose that started after my first phone was hacked in 2017! Can't expect stupid people not to be stupid, evil people not to be evil, and crazy people not to be crazy! They were just born that way!
9/11 Inside job , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
@J Adleman brookings.edu : "The US will become minority white in 2045 Census projects " :
"During that year [2045] whites will comprise 49.7 per cent of the population in contrast to 24.6 per cent for Hispanics , 13.1 per cent for Blacks , 7.9 per cent for Asians and 3.8 per cent for multi-racial populations " Are these projections good or bad for the "Jewish people " ?
Agent76 , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMT
Jan 28, 2010 The Creature From Jekyll Island (by G. Edward Griffin)

A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lu_VqX6J93k?feature=oembed

Nov 22, 2013 Thomas DiLorenzo – The Revolution Of 1913

From the Tom Woods show Loyola economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo discusses three events from 1913 that greatly escalated the transmogrification of America from the founder's vision (limited government) to its current state (unlimited government).

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fj4HyL8pOy0?feature=oembed

Wyatt , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:38 pm GMT
@silviosilver Yes, and just because you can doesn't mean you should. And if there's a predilection among jewish men to engage in predatory lending and collecting tactics that is disproportionate to their of the population, there's something about their genes or their culture that shapes them to be this way.

Also, notice how you left out the part where they jack up the interest rates and debtor's fees to grossly inflate their income. Is there a reason to do this other than as a quick way to make money off already impoverished people? It's kind of like opening up a rent to own place in a low income place. The people who do that shit know exactly why they should set up among poor people; low wealth and bad decision making abound.

And yes, it does seem to be particularly jewish given how many jews are involved in its practice and given that it used to be frowned upon in Christian Europe. Hell, God himself (as Jesus) went and beat the shit out of a bunch of jews for their money lending in the temple. That's the best part of the Bible, frankly. God gets so sick of the his own chosen people that he sends himself to chastise and whip them for their greed and hubris. No lesson was learned.

And then they killed him. And they lost their homeland for 2000 years. And then were kicked out of a hundred plus kingdoms, cities and countries. And then a miserable liberal shows how vile and stupid their children are:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1e_dbsVQrk4?feature=oembed

You know, maybe instead of making excuses, you can just acknowledge the wrongdoing and acknowledge that some jews are particularly malicious. Cuz eventually, people are gonna get sick of the shit jews pull and see jewish (or gentile zionist) people defending their obvious misdeeds and get pissed at them as well. Remember, the well is open to everyone.

Robjil , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:39 pm GMT
@Onebornfree Freedom of speech would solve the problem. That is step one.

The next step to stop this menace is Usury control.

On 12.23.1913 FED – Jewish banksters took over the western world through the control of the US money supply.

The first century of Zion began that day. It was the most murderous century of all : WWI for the Balfour, WWII for Israel.

The second century of Zion rule began on 12. 23. 5761, Jewish calendar for 9.11.2001. It just as murderous as the first Zion century.

If we had a free press that calls out the Jewish Zion Mafia that in itself would solve the problem.

This Zion Mafia is destroying our planet faster than any Climate Change or any pollution.

Yet, we can not speak about it. It is anti-S to speak about what the Big Js do.

Onebornfree, the J mafia roams the world without being bound to any nation. A nation-less world would not stop their menace.

The best way to stop this world wide menace is free speech to talk about it. Usury control is the next step to end this menace to our planet.

More R1b, Less H1B , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMT
@Lot

Besides being retardedly wrong, the broader point is likewise retarded: when English-speaking Jews name their businesses they shouldn't use English words. Naming a company "Oaktree" should be limited to those of purely English blood! Jews must name their companies "Cosmopolitan Capital" or RosenMoses Chutzpah Advisors."

Telling that you go with hyperbole here: the only two options must be Albion Whyteman Capital or Foreskin-Chewing Pornographers Incorporated!

There are two interesting things about the onomastics of the prepuce-free business world. One is that far fewer sons of Abraham name their businesses after themselves (I'm sure this will insincerely be attributed to some fear of native kulaks' repressed urge-to-pogrom, even in Finland or Japan.) The other is an observation made by an associate of a famous Austrian landscapist: even merely remarking on their origins causes these guys mental distress.

Here in the melting pot, the difference couldn't be any starker. You can make small talk with any flavor of goy based on it: that's a Polish name, isn't it? Yeah, how did you know! Try this one with Levy or Nussbaum down at The Smith Group or The Jones Foundation and watch them plotz.

Mefobills , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:51 pm GMT
Jews have always weaponized usury. Long before Christianity, Jews operated the East/West mechanism on donkey caravan trade routes. Silver would drain from the West, and Gold would drain from the east, while Jewish caravaneers would take usury on exchange rate differences. This operated for thousands of years.

Haibaru donkey bones have been discovered outside of Sumer. The Aiparu/Haibaru (Hebrew) tribes were formed as merchants operating between city states. In those days, psychopaths and criminals would be excommunicated from civilized city states, and would take up with the wandering merchant tribe.

Why do you think the Jew is always interested in owing the money power? Why do you think the Jew perpetually stands outside the walls of the city state, plotting its destruction?

History tells us things, and we had better listen. That is – real history, not what you learned in (((public skool))). There are two ways to deal with the Jew: 1) Remove him from your country. 2) Limit him.

Limiting was done by Byzantium under Justinian. The Jew was limited FROM money counting/banking; limited from participation in government; limited from access to pervert young minds – especially as school teachers and professors.

It takes a King or Tsar who cares about his population, and is willing to eject or filter out toxins from the body politic. (((Democracy))) is a failed form of government, whereby monied Oligarchs control the polity by compromat and pulling strings.

You are not going to be able to vote your way out of the Jew problem.

Digital Samizdat , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Echoing words once supposedly used by Hermann Goering: whenever I here the word 'philanthropist' these days, I instinctively reach for my revolver!
Agent76 , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:03 pm GMT
Jan 23, 2012 Why the Constitution Had to Be Destroyed | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Archived from the live Mises tv broadcast, this lecture was presented by Tom DiLorenzo at the Mises Circle in Houston on 14 January 2012.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wDyDxgJuaDY?feature=oembed

Mefobills , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:07 pm GMT
@Ilya G Poimandres

Take the ideology of Islam – it does not allow for aggressive war, surprise attacks, the killing of women or children (unless they take up arms)..

Ilya,

There is deception in Islam. Sorry. You cannot make claims about Islam not allowing for aggressive war and surprise attacks.

These concepts even have names and doctrine that support them. Wahabbi/Salafist Islam is exactly in alignment with Islamic teachings, especially when using abrogation techniques.

Taqiyya is lying with intent to deceive. The analog in Judaism is the Kol-Niedre, which allows one pre-forgiveness for lying, cheating, even murder of Goyim.

Hudnas is are used to lay in wait, build up strength, to then attack the enemy.

Islam has derogatory terms to demean e.g. Kaffirs, which is similar to Goyim.

There is also deception in Christianity, but this deception is OUT OF ALIGNMENT WITH DOCTRINE. The doctrine of super-session means the old testament is superseded, completed, a historical record.

In Islam the doctrine of Abrogation means that the more pacific Meccan verses are abrogated (made less relevant) that post Medina. Ergo, Wahabbi Islam and the Takfiri's are doctrinaly correct, while Judaizer Christians (those that worship the old testament) are out of alignment and heretics.

Judaism is actually a new religion that came into being after 73 AD, when the verbal tradition (Caballa) became written down into Talmud.

Our Jewish friends have always been practicing usury, going back to since forever.

Our Jewish friends, I count as worse that Islamics. However two wrongs don't make a right. Islam badly needs reform or to be expunged. Talmudic Judaism is by far the worst religion on the planet, and its adherents must malfunction by definition.

Robjil , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:18 pm GMT
@9/11 Inside job Jewish bigwigs think that the world will be their oyster if there are less White Euros in the world.

Yet, Jewish Advisors have been at the top of white Euro nations for centuries as their oyster to pillage the planet.

Non-White Euro people may not be so welcoming to Jewish Advisors at the top telling to them to go to war or pillage their fellow non-White Euros.

I don't think that the big Jews at the top thought this out too much.

Mefobills , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:20 pm GMT
@Onebornfree

o ..kill all the Jewish, er, "vulture capitalists" , right? Or should we go "easy" on them all and merely ship them all off to special "re-education" camps? Or am I missing something here ?

You are missing something because you are unwilling to adapt and learn with new information. This makes you an ideologue.

Lolbertarianism IS A JEWISH CONSTRUCT.

There are no such things as free markets. Money's true nature is law, not gold. Money didn't come into being with barter and other nonsense lolbertarians believe.

Most of the luminaries that came up with "libertarian" economics are Jews, and it is a doctrine of deception. The idea is to confuse the goyim with thoughts and ideas that make them easy pickings.

A determined in-group of predators operating in unison, will take down an "individual" every-time.

Rebel0007 , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:30 pm GMT
Don't expect anything to improve with Jay Clayton as SEC Chair, and his wife and her father Gretchen Butler Clayton who was CEO of CSC and mysterious WMB Holdings which share the same address in addition to many Goldman Sachs divisions. Gretchen was employed by Goldman Sachs as an attorney from 1999-2017. Many companies affiliated with the Panama Papers share the same address as well.

Secrecy has expanded under Clayton.

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2018/01/wall-streets-top-cop-cant-shake-money-ties-to-mysterious-firm/

alex in San Jose AKA digital Detroit , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT
Jewish people have treated me better than my own White Euro family.

Jews are tribal, gee what a surprise after 1000's of years of people trying to wipe them out . and so their charity is within the tribe, but there is no charity within the tribe among Whites.

Jews, along with Asians and at least some Africans, believe in not just climbing the ladder, but in actually helping others – at least family – up it also. Whites believe in climbing the ladder and then pulling it up after them.

I was explaining to a friend recently: My (relative) has proven that if I showed up at their door, starving, they'd not give me a cheese sandwich, while in my experience, strangers have been overall a fairly kind lot and a stranger, 50/50, might. Therefore, while I find the idea of robbing or burning down the house of a stranger abhorrent, I don't mind the idea so much when it involves a person who's proven to be cold and evil.

For more on this, see the book Angela's Ashes. The Irish family could have stayed in New York where they were being befriended by a Jewish family. There was a ray of hope. The Irish kids, at least, would have been fed, steered into decent schooling, etc. But foolishly they went back to Ireland, to be treated like utter dogshit by their fellow White family and "people".

Most of the predation going on in the US and worldwide is being done by WASPS who are using Jews as a convenient scapegoat.

Digital Samizdat , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:36 pm GMT
@tono bungay Feel free to offer us some counter-examples, tono. How many such funds to you know of that aren't disproportionately Jewish? We're all ears!
Robjil , says: December 19, 2019 at 6:56 pm GMT
@Robjil This is an example of what I was saying. Less Euro whites in the world is not going to be a good world for Big Js. Non-Euros believe in freedom of speech.

https://www.abeldanger.org/vulture-lord-paul-singer-postmodern/

Jewish Bigwigs can't get control of businesses in East Asia. They have been trying. Paul Singer tried and failed. In Argentina he got lots of "success". Why? Lots of descendants of Europeans there went along with "decisions" laid out by New York Jews.

Little Paulie tried to get control of Samsung. No such luck for him in Korea. In Korea there are many family monopolies, chaebols. A Korean chaebol stopped him. Jewish Daniel Loeb tried to get a board seat on Sony. He was rebuffed.

I was moved to reflect on the universality of this theme recently when surveying media coverage on Korean and Argentinian responses to the activities of Paul Singer and his co-ethnic shareholders at Elliott Associates, an arm of Singer's Elliott Management hedge fund. The Korean story has its origins in the efforts of Samsung's holding company, Cheil Industries, to buy Samsung C&T, the engineering and construction arm of the wider Samsung family of businesses. The move can be seen as part of an effort to reinforce control of the conglomerate by the founding Lee family and its heir apparent, Lee Jae-yong. Trouble emerged when Singer's company, which holds a 7.12% stake in Samsung C&T and is itself attempting to expand its influence and control over Far East tech companies, objected to the move. The story is fairly typical of Jewish difficulties in penetrating business cultures in the Far East, where impenetrable family monopolies, known in Korea as chaebols, are common. This new story reminded me very strongly of last year's efforts by Jewish financier Daniel Loeb to obtain a board seat at Sony. Loeb was repeatedly rebuffed by COO Kazuo Hirai, eventually selling his stake in Sony Corp. in frustration.

Here is how the Koreans fought off Paul Singer.

The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliott Associates has a wealth of self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer's firm were forced into several tactical measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits. When those failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests, starting a Korean-language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and, unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer's interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund's other ventures.

Cartoons were drawn of Singer being a vulture.

Other cartoons appearing at the same time represented Elliott, literally, as humanoid vultures, with captions referring to the well-known history of the fund. In the above cartoon, the vulture offers assistance to a needy and destitute figure, but conceals an axe with which to later bludgeon the unsuspecting pauper.

ADL got all worked about this. The Koreans did not care. It is reality. Freedom of speech works on these vultures. The west should try some real freedom of speech.

After the cartoons appeared, Singer and other influential Jews, including Abraham Foxman, cried anti-Semitism. This was despite the fact the cartoons contain no reference whatsoever to Judaism – unless of course one defines savage economic predation as a Jewish trait. Samsung denied the cartoons were anti-Semitic and took them off the website, but the uproar over the cartoons only seemed to spur on even more discussion about Jewish influence in South Korea than was previously the case. In a piece published a fortnight ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed "Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless." Last week, the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco, Park Jae-seon, expressed his concern about the influence of Jews in finance when he said, "The scary thing about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies. Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination." The next day, cable news channel YTN aired similar comments by local journalist Park Seong-ho, who stated on air that "it is a fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are born." It goes without saying that comments like these are unambiguously similar to complaints about Jewish economic practices in Europe over the course of centuries. The only common denominator between the context of fourteenth-century France and the context of twenty-first-century South Korea is, you guessed it, Jewish economic practices.

The Koreans won. Paulie lost. Good win for humanity. The Argentines were not so lucky. They don't have freedom speech like the Koreans and East Asians have.

In the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative nature of Elliott Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder vote on the Lee's planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am said: "We should score a victory by a big margin in the first battle, in order to take the upper hand in a looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term gains in the domestic market." When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving Elliott licking its wounds and complaining about the "patriotic marketing" of those behind the merger.

jack daniels , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:00 pm GMT
@jack daniels Now that I think about it, it was unfair to make an anecdotal judgment that Jewish lenders are less forgiving. There are plenty of examples, I'm sure, of compassionate Jews and flinty gentiles.
Digital Samizdat , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:01 pm GMT
Finally! An intelligent criticism of Trump for a change. So tired of the brainless Democrat/MSM impeachment circus. They make me feel like a reflexive MAGAtard just for defending the constitution, logic, etc., from their never-ending stream of inanities. Meanwhile, the real problem with Trump is not that he's Hitler; it's that he's not Hitler enough!

I am also so tired of Zionist-loving cucks bleeting on about the evils of the CRA without ever considering the role played by the (((profiteers))) who lobbied such policies into law in the first place. Realize that what Paul Singer does for a living used to be illegal in this country up until recently. That's right: US bankruptcy law used to forbid investors from buying up debt second-hand at a discount and then trying to reclaim the entire face value from the debtor. But I see all kinds of people even on this thread blaming the victim instead -- 'Damn goyishe deadbeats!' Whatever

What Singer and the other Jewish vultures engage in is not productive, and isn't even any recognisable form of work or business. It is greed-motivated parasitism carried out on a perversely extravagant and highly nepotistic scale. In truth, it is Singer and his co-ethnics who believe that money can be printed on the backs of productive workers, and who ultimately believe they have a right to be "showered by free stuff promised by politicians."

Nuff said?

Rebel0007 , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:04 pm GMT
Dr. John R. Hall of ICAACT.org says that approximately 300,000 Americans have had micro-chips illegally implanted in people.

Do you think that it is a coincidence that there are approximately 300,000 names associated with the Panama Papers?

Desert Fox , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:06 pm GMT
@Robjil Agree.
renfro , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
@anon

To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being a result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit?

The last Gentleman on WS was not a Jew. Bring back the WASP. You can maintain your honor, and manners and still succeed. Jews take the easy low road of deception and cheating. WASP take the higher road of harder work and ethical business practice.

WALL STREET'S LAST GENTLEMAN, Richard Jenrette

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/18/business/wall-street-s-last-gentleman-richard-jenrette-forging-the-equitable-connection.html

[MORE]
The courtly Mr. Jenrette, who has been dubbed "the last gentleman on Wall Street" earned this sobriquet largely for his reputation of being particularly sensitive to the human dimension in an industry where such matters often get sidestepped. Nonetheless, despite Mr. Jenrette's modest demeanor, he's risen to the top in an often cutthroat business. He remained with Donaldson Lufkin through good times and bad, guiding it after its two other founding partners departed for other ventures and, next month, he will step down as the chairman of the Securities Industry Association, the brokerage trade group.
"Dick has been the one who carried the firm from its original promise through to closure," said Samuel Hayes 3d, an investment banking professor at the Harvard Business School.
"Dick's more in tune with human values and that's not frequently found on Wall Street."

Richard Jenrette, 89, Wall Street power, Raleigh native, dies
https://www.wral.com › richard-jenrette-89-wall-street-power-and-preserva
Apr 23, 2018 – A courtly, soft-spoken North Carolina native whom The New York Times once called the "last gentleman on Wall Street," Jenrette (pronounced

Wall Street's 'last gentleman' left behind these 24 lessons about life and success: At the time of his death late last month due to complications from lymphoma, these couple dozen rules to live by were left on his desk.
Stay in the game. That's often all you need to do -- don't quit. Stick around! Don't be a quitter!
•Don't burn bridges (behind you)
•Remember -- Life has no blessing like a good friend!
•You can't get enough of them
•Don't leave old friends behind -- you may need them
•Try to be nice and say "thank you" a lot!
•Stay informed/KEEP LEARNING!
•Study -- Stay Educated. Do Your Home Work!! Keep learning!
•Cultivate friends of all ages -- especially younger
•Run Scared -- over-prepare
•Be proud -- no Uriah Heep for you! But not conceited. Know your own worth.
•Plan ahead but be prepared to allow when opportunity presents itself.
•Turn Problems into Opportunities. Very often it can be done. Problems create opportunities for change -- people willing to consider change when there are problems.
•Present yourself well. Clean, clean-shaven, dress "classically" to age. Beware style, trends. Look for charm. Good grammar. Don't swear so much -- it's not cute.
•But be open to change -- don't be stuck in mud. Be willing to consider what's new but don't blindly follow it. USE YOUR HEAD -- COMMON SENSE.
•Have some fun -- but not all the time!
•Be on the side of the Angels. Wear the White Hat.
•Have a fall-back position. Heir and the spare. Don't leave all your money in one place.
•Learn a foreign language.
•Travel a lot -- around the world, if possible.
•Don't criticize someone in front of others.
•Don't forget to praise a job well done (but don't praise a poor job)
•I don't like to lose -- but don't be a poor loser if you do.
•It helps to have someone to love who loves you (not just sex).
•Keep your standards high in all you do.
•Look for the big picture but don't forget the small details.

the grand wazoo , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:19 pm GMT
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I" care not who makes its laws"
That is what Mayer Amschel Rothchild said in the 1750s. Now, is it a stretch of my imagination to believe the Central Banks of the West, all Jewish controlled, would unfairly favor their 'own' when issueing or disbursing the money they are permitted to create.
We are not allowed to audit the Federal Reserve, so we know not what they do with it beyond what they tell us. In 2016 it was discovered that between the year 1999 and 2016 well over $23 trillions had been stolen from just 2 departments of our government, the DoD and HUD. (Someone should look at NASA). Is it possible the seed money, for not only Venture capitalists schemes but also buying governments and law makers, has been diverted, shoveled out of the back door of these corrupt central banks and into the hands of their fellow jews?
Anyway, the more exposure articles like this get the closer we get to ending their reign.
Robjil , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:23 pm GMT
This Paul Singer is a true world wide criminal. His firm started in 1977, all his four partners where fellow Jews.

https://www.abeldanger.org/vulture-lord-paul-singer-postmodern/

As I noted in my previous examination of contemporary Jewish usury, Jews have been at the forefront of innovation in debt for many centuries, and remain its most adroit auteurs. Although obviously rooted in centuries of Jewish financial practice, Singer and his co-ethnics (all four equity partners of Elliott are Jewish, and its COO is the charmingly-named Zion Shohet) pioneered the finer points of the vulture-fund concept. The firm was born in 1977 when Singer pooled $1.3 million from family and friends,

His firm's first big "win" was the pillage of Panama in 1995.

but it only really took off in October 1995, when Elliott Associates L.P. purchased $28.7 million of Panamanian sovereign debt for the discounted price of $17.5 million. The banks holding those bonds, a group that included heavy hitters like Citi and Credit Suisse, had given up on repayment from Panama. To cut their losses, they sold their holdings to Elliott which, like a medieval tax farmer, went in with a heavy hand. When Panama's government asked for a restructuring of its foreign debt in 1995, the vast majority of its bondholders agreed – apart from Elliott. In July 1996, Elliott Associates, represented by one of the world's most high-profile securities law firms, filed a lawsuit against Panama in a New York district court, seeking full repayment of the original $28.7 million – plus interest and fees. The case made its way from a district court in Manhattan to the New York State Supreme Court, which sided with Elliott. In the end, Panama's government had to pay the Jewish group over $57 million, with an additional $14 million going to other creditors. Overnight, Singer's group made $40 million, and the people of Panama found their original sovereign debt had more than doubled.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:28 pm GMT
@Mefobills If you could point to a verse in the Quran that allows for aggressive war, it would help me learn – when I read it I saw an explosive self defence at any infringment on the Ummah, but not much beyond that.

Of course the origination story of the faith is one of fighting, and without any wise men to guide the laypeople, the faith has an issue in that it is easy for people to not follow what it teaches.

The lying, I agree – Majjhima Nikaya 61 https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.061.than.html is a major reason why I embrace Dhamma over other faiths.

Islam has been assaulted for a millennium, and so the self defence aspect of its faith has become more active than the rest.. it needs reform I agree (and not in the direction the Salafists have taken it), but more so there is a need for the Ummah to have a few generations of non-aggression from the outside world.. without it the pressure will only be towards violence – for any nation or faith!

Judaism has monopolized for millennia though, and still acts as a victim. Different kettle of fish.

Also, you can debate the positives and negatives of Islam with a Muslim (not as a rabid ignoramus of course – you must be polite, and have learnt something, as well as be open to learning more). Almost every debate with a Jew about Judaism has started with, continued with, and ended with name calling for me however.

Judaism fails as a religion because it does not encourage the practitioner to look at themselves when confronted with error, Islam still does imo.

Colin Wright , says: Website December 19, 2019 at 7:31 pm GMT
So I scanned through the posts quickly -- probably too quickly.

How many specific, gentile vulture capitalists currently prominent in the field have been named so far?

When you list them, please respond to my post so that I will be notified.

Anon [515] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:33 pm GMT
Does anyone here remember how John Leibowitz aka John Stewart spent months ripping Mitt Romney to shreds? Remember? Evil white man vulture capitalism at Bain? Remember? Romney was Adolf Hitler, and look he put his golden retriever on the roof once?

Say. How come that Mr Leibowitz never talked about the Jews who basically destroyed yes the entire Rust belt by acquisition and outsource?

That Mr Johnny Leibovitz sure did hate the goy a lot and all. He never talked about his own people. What a fair fellow Mr Johnny Leibovitz was. He even changed his name. Why change the name?

Remember. Bain Capital and that kind of merger pump and dumps is all done by Mormons goyim.

anarchyst , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:34 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Your statement: "Jews actually collaborated extensively in the imposition of tyranny on the working class in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1991" not only applies to Europe, but the united States of America as well.

It's the JEWS it's always the JEWS

[MORE]
Our present situation and the devolving into the morass of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" is no accident. The jewish talmud and that jewish invention-communism has "rules" for the debasement of (white) civil society.

The following statements are a result of personal experiences–your mileage may vary

I came of age during the first so-called "civil-rights" movement and saw for myself the underhanded dealings, the demonization of decent, law-abiding whites, and in general, the deterioration of civil society.

Almost all of the "civil-rights" workers and demonstration "handlers" were of one persuasion–New York based leftist communist jews. They cared not one wit about true "civil rights", but were there to create hate and discontent among their black charges (who were too stupid or naive to see that they were being used to suborn and destroy legitimate government and society–a favorite communist tactic).

These New York-based "carpetbaggers" fomented their hate and discontent, only to become future "civil-rights" attorneys, race-hustlers, and America-hating leftist communists and the ADL and $PLC being invented.

Those of us whites who were in the middle of this "civil-rights" revolution had a saying: " Behind every negro, there is a jew ". No truer words were spoken.

Let's not forget their infestation of the nation's education and entertainment systems, (which continues to the present day), in which they can spread their jewish supremacist poison.

The so-called "non-violent civil-rights demonstrations" were anything but "non-violent". Robberies, rapes, and other criminal acts were common, but never reported, as even the "mainstream media" was "in on the game" and conveniently turned off their cameras during the acts of violence. You see, even then,"creating crises" was a part of the agenda.

The "beginning of the end" of America was the use of federal troops against white Americans, which, in itself was a violation of "posse comitatus"–the prohibition on the use of federal troops for domestic "law enforcement" purposes. As most whites were (and still are) law-abiding, they (we) were "steamrollered" by the use of federal troops to crush honest dissent. We never recovered from those unconstitutional actions. It was all downhill from there

The next step may be "civil-war" in which us whites will have to take back our birthright by force.

Robjil , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:40 pm GMT
@Robjil This decision in Panama was "ground breaking". A nation state can be sued in regular courts.

https://www.abeldanger.org/vulture-lord-paul-singer-postmodern/

"Foreign Policy described the court's decision as "a groundbreaking moment in the modern history of finance." By taking the case to a New York district court, Elliott broke with long-standing international law and custom, according to which sovereign governments are not sued in regular courts meant to deal with questions internal to a nation state. Further, the presiding judge accepted the case – another break with custom. It set the stage for two decades of similar parasitism on struggling countries by Elliott Associates, a practice that has reaped billions for Jewish financiers. "

A year later after the ground breaking decision. Paulie tries this scam on another nation, Peru.

Just one year after the Panama decision, Singer spent about $11 million on government-backed Peruvian bank debt in 1996. After Singer took Peru to court in the U.S., U.K., Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and Canada, the struggling nation finally agreed in 2000 to pay him $58 million. That meant he got better than a 400 percent return.

In 2001, the victim was Argentina.

In 2001, Elliott Associates purchased an Argentinian default for $48 million; the face value of that debt today is $630 million. The fund wants repayment for the full value of the debt to all of Argentina's creditors, as it did in 1995 with Panama. This amounts to $1.5 billion, which could rise to $3 billion including, again, that all-important interest and fees.

Another victim was the Congo in 2002-03.

..specific activities of Elliott Associates in Congo, where it originally bought $32.6 million in sovereign debt incurred by that country for the knockdown price of under $20 million. In 2002 and 2003, a British court (tactically chosen) forced the Congolese government to settle for an estimated $90 million, which included that all-important interest and fees. Elliott Associates rapidly became known as the quintessential "vulture fund."

Mark Hunter , says: Website December 19, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT
1. Re Sidney, Nebraska: Maybe I'm missing something but wasn't it Cabela's owners, for example co-founder and chairman Jim Cabela, who sold Cabela, not Elliot Management (Singer et al)? I gather Elliot Management owned only 11% of the company. Was that enough to force them to sell?

2. The article confuses honest straightforward loans with tax farming and government corruption. Loans can be very useful, e.g. for a car to get to a job, or for a house so you build up equity instead of paying rent.

Digital Samizdat , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:46 pm GMT
@Hapalong Cassidy Bain's not much of an exception to Joyce's pattern: although Mitt, like the other three founders, was a goy, there were plenty of Chosen Ones associated with the company right from the start:

In addition to the three founding partners, the early team included Fraser Bullock, Robert F. White, Joshua Bekenstein, Adam Kirsch, and Geoffrey S. Rehnert Early investors included Boston real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman and Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots football team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_Capital#1984_founding_and_early_history

Digital Samizdat , says: December 19, 2019 at 7:55 pm GMT
@BannedHipster According to the Talmud, we goyim are not the descendants of Adam and Eve, like the Jews. No, we are the bastard progeny of Adam's first wife, Lilleth, who eloped with the demon Samael. So we goyim are really all half-demons and therefore we are an abomination in the sight of Jew-hova, and we get what we deserve at the hands of his 'chosen people'.

All clear now?

traducteur , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:02 pm GMT
improving the quality of life and access to opportunities for all Israeli citizens so that they may benefit from the country's prosperity

Read 'all Jewish Israeli citizens'. I doubt they're going to do any life-enhancing or make opportunities available to any of the grunting subhuman goyim .

Art , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:03 pm GMT
@Colin Wright

It's important not to get carried away with this. Figures such as Andrew Carnegie, while impeccably gentile, were hardly paragons of scrupulous ethics and disinterested virtue.

Andrew Carnegie built something that made life better for people. Making steel is a beneficial thing.

These evil vulture Jews build nothing – they make people poorer. They suck the wealth out of people who have little. They know 100% what they are doing.

Jesus expressed anger against the money changers on the temple steps.

It is OK for you to have natural human feelings and be angry at these Jew bastards.

Do No Harm

Art , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
Major Kudos to these three heroes – Ron Unz, Tucker Carlson, and Andrew Joyce – for this article and discussion.
renfro , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
@Anon Romney is a Mormon, one of the church officials. The Mormons are closer to the Jews pattern of worshiping money and using charity donation for business investments.
Mormons arent considered Protestants .

"Although the church has not released church-wide financial statements since 1959, in 1997, Time magazine called it one of the world's wealthiest churches per capita.[147] In a June 2011 cover story, Newsweek stated that the LDS Church "resembles a sanctified multinational corporation -- the General Electric of American religion, with global ambitions and an estimated net worth of $30 billion." A whistle blower within the church reported them to the IRS for using their status as a non taxable religious groups to invest in business ventures instead of charities.

tomo , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:16 pm GMT
@anon Maybe I can answer your question.
I studied and befriended many jews as a student (Imperial College, London etc) – none were above average intelligent, and although they were very geeky, they only got average grades.
When I moved to LA – most of my friends were jews and again, none were very bright (even though a few were famous). Most of these LA jewish friends were probably psychopaths – thinking back – very manipulative, exploitative and they lied a lot.
I think it's mostly through their cultural nepotism – they work on their own unity (they help promote each other) while at the same time they work on destroying unity in their host and everyone else.
Many have changed their Eastern European names.
And they go out of the way to help other jews (only) – a Serbian friend in Toronto looks very jewish (but is not religious) told me several times here in Toronto, other Jews (his boss etc) just offered to help him for no reason ("Is there anything I can do for you?" etc). He did not understand why they did that – then I realized he actually looks like a Jewish stereotype (as does his twin brother). So he thought he was helping his own tribe.
When I went to Cuba with a Jewish 'friend' from LA – he was actively looking for anything jewish (and nothign else – he did not want to see anything famous like a beautiful cemetery in Havana etc) – only synagogs etc – where he gave some money to jews he never even met. I was there with him and saw it. He was even angry if I suggested we see something nice , historical and not-jewish. We met a NY jew there and we gave his a ride in the car we rented – they immediately teamed up against me – for no reason – I regretted going with him on this trip. It was an awful experience – consistent with all the books I read on psychopaths and also that book Jewish History, Jewish Religion, the weight of 3000 years
Another very wealthy American mother of a friend asked her South African friends (also jews) to help her book trips in South Africa (and they of course recommended only their Jewish friends) – it's their son who told me this.
So a lot of backstabbing, cultural nepotism and actively (but in a hidden way as most psychopaths like to do) they do at wakening and isolating their host. That's their only advantage – not intelligence (at least in my experience )
Alden , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:18 pm GMT
Off topic

I recently learned that from about 1790 to 1967 the USState department refused to issue US passports to people who held foreign passports. State also didn't hire any dual citizens for any job from cafeteria dishwasher to ambassador.

Then in the mid sixties, an Israeli immigrant who became a US citizen applied for a US passport. State refused to issue the US passport. So the Israeli immigrant practiced lawfare. In 1967 the Supreme Court issued one of its usual detrimental and dangerous rulings. State was ordered to start issuing US passports to dual citizens.

Soon there were numerous applications to State depot jobs from Israeli citizens residing in the US. Knowing lawsuits loomed, State caved.

And that children is how and why State, commerce, DOJ CIA treasury, top security civilian departments in the Pentagon and other federal agencies became flooded with dual American Israeli citizens who divert money to Israel. Plus they work for Israel instead of the US. Mysterious how the only Whites who manage to make it past affirmative action barriers are jews.
Maybe there's a special affirmative action quota for Israelis residing in America.

the grand wazoo , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:21 pm GMT
@J Adelman Adelman, be careful what you wish for, as in a debate you will be drowned.
Being labeled an ANTISEMITE is the new badge of honor and courage.
Central banks and their fiat fractional reserve banking system is slowly collapsing, as more and more nations avoid using the BIS. Joyce's article fully explains why Russia is being promoted as some type of arch-enemy.
Alden , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:22 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat I thought we are just 2 legged animals intelligent enough to invent everything and do all the necessary useful work.
Old and grumpy , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:22 pm GMT
@DaveE I don't even know what capitalism means anymore. It doesn't seem like it's an actual free market system. Seems like it is slavery for the little guy, and parasitism for the rich. Maybe we should ditch the word capitalism for usuryism.
EliteCommInc. , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:25 pm GMT
"'It was very gratifying to see Tucker Carlson's recent attack on the activities of Paul Singer's vulture fund, Elliot Associates '"

I am going to avoid the Jew is bad mantra here. I read that article. But it was not an expose' of hedgefunds, at least not at the level i was expecting. They merged two companies and sold off or closed that which was least profitable.

In that article there was no clear discussion – about what could have prevented the closure. So it was hard to respond positively in favor of not closing. I am advocate of keeping work in the US, but I don't think it is unreasonable that companies be sustainable. I would have liked that exposure, that the hedge had no intention of exploring possible profit making alternatives.

And that is where Mr. Carlson lost me. He did not link the companies as you have. Nor provide the examples you bring to the fore.

the grand wazoo , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:27 pm GMT
@Realist No, not stupid whites, they're not to blame. It's the greedy corrupt politician: white, black, or white jew, who are to blame.
Mefobills , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:31 pm GMT
@Ilya G Poimandres Ilya,

What distresses me about Islam is that the pacific practitioners, e.g. Suffi's, many Shias and Sunnis are out of alignment, and hence are subject to violence from their coreligionists. I happen to believe there are many wonderful people within the religion what I am saying is that there is an elephant in the room, and it has a name: abrogation.

I'm going to use a smoke there is fire analogy using data.

If a religion launches repeated attacks against civilizations, then there is something "in" the religion that is used for justification of said aggression. I'm of the opinion that data matters, and you have to adjust your position to come into accord with real world data.

http://cspipublishing.com/statistical/jihad.html

Between 632 and 1922, Islam launched 548 offensive battles against classical civilization

These attacks were often brutal, especially with rapes being used to "convert women" rapidly.

In Islam (as in other religions as well) the Imam can turn knobs and get an output. This means that abrogation is used to pick and choose verses depending on situation, to maneuver the sheeple in the direction Imam's or political authority want them to go – including offensive war. I used the term political authority on purpose, because Islam is more than just a religion, it is a political-theocratic construct that is all-encompassing.

There may not be a specific verse allowing aggressive violence, but there is something going on based on the data. (I admit to being a lay-man and not an expert on minutia of Islam. I don't want to go there based on what I already know to be true.)

In Christianity, if there are calls for aggressive violence it is OUT OF ALIGNMENT because of super-session. Christian adherents who do this are Judaizers, and have to use the old testament for justification.

Old and grumpy , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:31 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat Who the heck is Lillith? Where did she come from? Adam's apple? At least Samael is a step up from a talking snake. Talk about rewrite. Almost on par to the silly ones on the daytime soaps. Oh wait . probably same writers.
annamaria , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
@Rebel0007 "This won't end well."
-- They cannot help themselves. Two components make it impossible for the tribe to behave in a preservation mode:
1. the victimhood complex, despite all the recently displayed data about Jewish murderous ways in the host countries
2. the disproportionate number of psychopaths who are approved by tribal epos and mentality

Perhaps the only solution is to make the aggressive Jews become confined to their Jewish country. Like an infectious disease that needs to be quarantined. Otherwise, the Jewish psychopaths will continue leaching and destroying.
Not only the vulture bankers but a complete set of ziocons-infested stink-tanks should be relocated (with their immediate families) to the Jewish State and prohibited from crossing the Jewish State borders. Plus the limitations on their involvement in international commerce and banking. Let the Jews be finally in Jerusalem today, not "next year." Let them enjoy the company of other Jews.

Charles Pewitt , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:36 pm GMT
Jew billionaire globalizer money-grubber Paul Singer has bought and paid for politician puppet whore Marco Rubio.

JEWS ORGANIZED GLOBALLY(JOG) -- of which Paul Singer is a shady participant -- have plans for after Trump and they involve the US Senators Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton and others.

Paul Singer pushes mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration. Paul Singer wants to continue to use mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration as demographic weapons to attack and destroy the historic American nation.

Paul Singer wants to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight endless wars on behalf of Israel.

I wrote this in February of 2019:

I just got reminded that Marco Rubio won a lot of the GOP billionaire Jew donor money away from Jebby Bush in the 2016 GOP presidential primary because the Jew billionaires -- Paul Singer in particular -- were not too thrilled with Jebby Bush's connection to James Baker. James Baker was a factor in the Jew billionaire decision to back Marco Rubio.

George W Bush had dragged the American Empire into a war in Iraq on behalf of Israel and the GOP Jew billionaire donors were still not convinced of Jebby Bush's slavish devotion to Israel.

Marco Rubio signalled his willing whoredom to the ISRAEL FIRST foreign policy of endless war on behalf of Israel in a way that left nothing to chance for the GOP Jew billionaire donors.

Marco Rubio is nothing more than a filthy politician whore for the GOP Jew billionaire donors who want to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel.

New York Times article:

Mr. Rubio has aggressively embraced the cause of wealthy pro-Israel donors like Mr. [Sheldon] Adelson, whom the senator is said to call frequently, and Mr. Singer, who both serve on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, an umbrella group for Republican Jewish donors and officials. Mr. Bush has been less attentive, in the view of some of these donors: Last spring, he refused to freeze out his longtime family friend James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, after Mr. Baker spoke at the conference of a liberal Jewish group.

The lobbying of Mr. Singer intensified in recent weeks as Mr. Bush's debate stumbles and declining poll numbers drove many donors to consider Mr. Rubio anew. Last week, Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Danny Diaz, and senior adviser, Sally Bradshaw, flew to New York to make personal appeals on Mr. Bush's behalf, in the hopes of heading off an endorsement of Mr. Rubio, according to two people close to the former governor's campaign.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/politics/paul-singer-influential-billionaire-throws-support-to-marco-rubio-for-president.html?mabReward=A1&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article&_r=0

Tweet from 2015:

GOP Billionaire Shyster Rat Paul Singer endorses Marco Rubio -- RUBIO PUSHES MASS IMMIGRATION https://t.co/B86Lp18Y6P #nhpolitics @vdare

-- Charles Pewitt (@CharlesPewitt) November 1, 2015

Anonymous [211] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:38 pm GMT
This is a timely article for me as I have been pondering the relationship between Jews and neoliberalism for some time now.

At university I studied under a brilliant Neo-Marxist professor who showed me some theory and arguments that went a long way towards explaining how to make sense of the global power structure. (Just a quick not for those who recoil at the mere mention of Neo-Marxist: the academics that use a marxist lens as a tool to criticize the powerful are not all the cuckold communist SJW types – some of these individuals are extremely intelligent and they make very powerful arguments backed by loads of data.) One of the theories I was introduced to was the notion of the Transnational Capitalist Class in this article called Towards A Global Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class: http://media.library.ku.edu.tr/reserve/respring18/Intl313_ZOnis/3_Historical_Structuralism.pdf

The authors write the following:

Sklair's work goes the furthest in conceiving of the capitalist class as no longer
tied to territoriality
Inherent in the international concept is a system of nation-states that mediates relations between classes and groups, including the notion of national capitals and national bourgeoisi. Transnational, by contrast, denotes economic and related social, political, and cultural processes – including class formation that supersede nation-states
What distinguishes the TCC from national or local capitalists is that it is involved
in globalized production and manages globalized circuits of accumulation that give it an objective class existence and identity spatially and politically in the global system above any local territories and polities.

Since reading your (Dr Joyce) work on the JQ I began to see the connection between age old complaints of Jews, and what Ford referred to as "The International Jew". In fact, replace the term "transnational capitalist class" from my passages quoted above (and many others) and what you have is perfect mirror image of the argument.

This question has come up often lately, synchronistically (or maybe not). I'm somewhat new to the JQ, having consumed many hours of work (including much of your own) after being sent down the rabbit hole by the ongoing Epstein case. I was pondering that perhaps, Jews take the blame for what the predatory capitalists are doing. Not even a week later you addressed this precise question in your piece about Slavoj Ziszek and now with "vulture capitalism" it is coming up yet again in Carlson's segment followed by the article right here. It also came up on the "other side" in the blog I follow of a professor of globalization in this article: https://zeroanthropology.net/2019/11/27/global-giants-american-empire-and-transnational-capital/

The link above is a review of the book Giants: The Global Power Elite . The review provides a summary of the book which once again could be a text about Jews if one were to replace the term "transnational capitalist class" with "Jews". Why I mention it, though, is the following: "Chapter 2, "The Global Financial Giants: The Central Core of Global Capitalism," identifies the 17 global financial giants -- money management firms that control more than one trillion dollars in capital. As these firms invest in each other, and many smaller firms, the interlocked capital that they manage surpasses $41 trillion (which amounts to about 16% of the world's total wealth). The 17 global financial giants are led by 199 directors. This chapter details how these financial giants have pushed for global privatization of virtually everything, in order to stimulate growth to absorb excess capital. The financial giants are supported by a wide array of institutions: "governments, intelligence services, policymakers, universities, police forces, militaries, and corporate media all work in support of their vital interests" (p. 60).
Chapter 3, "Managers: The Global Power Elite of the Financial Giants," largely consists of the detailed profiles of the 199 financial managers just mentioned.

This caught my eye because I immediately wondered how many of those 199 directors are Jewish. It also pertains directly to this exact article because I am confident that the vulture capitalists you targeted here are profiled in the book, probably with many others.

Now, I am not in the business of writing about the JQ, so I wanted to suggest to anyone out there that is that if they were to obtain a copy of this book and determine how many of the 199 directors are jews. What this could accomplish is a marriage of the major two theories of the "anti-semites" (for lack of a better word) and the "Neo-Marxists". I would argue that perhaps both sides would learn they are coming at the same thing from two different angles. Most would ignore it, but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much needed electric shock if they were to see the JQ framed in marxist terms. Perhaps some alliances could be forged across the cultural divide in this struggle. Personally I believe that both angles are perfectly valid, and that understanding one without the other will leaves far too much to be desired when studying the powerful.

Father O'Hara , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:39 pm GMT
@UncommonGround Without the Jews we'd be far better off.
Sean , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:41 pm GMT
@the grand wazoo Reagan relaxed the laws on takeovers and as a result what Galbraith called the technostructure (modern corporation in which the business was run by not with an eye on shareholder value but in the interests of everyone involved) was ripped apart.

However the technostructure had come about in the 30s when the Depression led to mass lay offs, which had began to cause social unrest. The Chinese are have already cutting a swath through Western productive capacity, and now they are coming for the rest to the extent that the European Union is tightening the limits of foreign direct investment and takeovers. Trump is calling for negative interest rates, which were not adopted even during the 1930s when one-quarter of the labor force was idle.

Prospects for severe economic pain being imposed on ordinary working people and the consequent (eventual) establishment of a new technostructure are excellent. I hate to sound like an accelerationist, but Jews like Singer are bringing that day closer.

annamaria , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:43 pm GMT
@Ghali 'Everywhere they go, they leave behind nations in ruins. "

-- They always find the willing local collaborators ready to make a big profit. Who can forget Dick Cheney, the Enemy of Humanity? The same kind of unrestricted criminality and amorality lives on in Tony Blair the Pious. The fact that this Catholic weasel and major criminal Tony Blair is still not excommunicated tells all we need to know about the Vatican.
Assange is rotting in a prison, while Tony Blair and Ghislaine Maxwell are roaming free. The Jewish connections pay off.

Anon [271] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 8:59 pm GMT
@J Adelman https://www.truetorahjews.org/

I know some Torah Jews who are angry that Mischlings have no right of return to Israel, and apparently now aren't part of the ruling American Jewish nation, or American, or have anywhere to go now. They're also angry at what they see as a repeat of the cycle of international Jewish action and inevitable reaction they will have to bear the brunt of.

They referred me to this website: The Institute for Historical Review where they apparently contribute.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n6p13_Michaels.html

" Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish," the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27. )"

So that was the context of who owned capital in Russia, what was the effect?

" According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era ."

But how is that possible? Swashbuckling international capitalists like Bill Browder were bringing their Ivy League MBA's to more efficiently manage all those assets. And he said how much he wanted to save the Polish Train-yards.

What happened? A Putin arose. He took the capital from the Jews, and the Jews were dispatched to the United States. Putin also aligned himself with a different Jewish faction less virulently dismissive of the needs of the people they ruled.

What do they do in the United States? Something similar as the economy careens towards another financial crisis and living standards, mortality rates, and the middle class plummet.

"Jewish power in Russia, Galushin continues, has resulted in millions of homeless children, widespread tuberculosis and cholera, a shortage of medicines, cheating retirees of their pensions, suicide in the armed forces, and the death of science. What do the Gusinskys, the Berezovskys, the Chubais, the Nemtsovs, the Kiriyenkos, the Smolenskys, the Livshits, and the Gaidars say about this? Millions of Russians have perished under their rule. Are the Russian people ready to judge these scoundrels for their crimes, Galushin ask",

Robert Maxwell was a Chezch Jew – he also robbed hundreds of millions worth of pensions. How is it possible that all these Jewish capitalists can be linked to readily to Jeffrey Epstein?

How did Robert Maxwell get his seed money?

Here is a letter sent to Boris Berezovsky nee Abramovich.

"In sharp contrast to the intense feelings expressed by such Russian writers over the catastrophic situation in their country today is the seeming indifference of American and German taxpayers who have unwittingly channeled billions of dollars and marks to the oligarchs -- who in turn have transferred this largesse to secret Swiss accounts. Who monitors the distribution of these billions through the World Bank, the IMF, the financial houses, and various banks? Who is responsible for this terrible injustice?"

That's really strange, because isn't that what the Russians accused Browder of doing? They say that he channelled billions of dollars out of Russia into the United States. Then we had the great Russian menace that is still ongoing in the media, and failing.

But Browder said that the Russian collusion story that was created by Fusion GPS, and then the FISA court warrants issued on the basis of the fabricated Steele 'pissgate' dossier and media stories was 100% true.

And Steele worked for the Russia desk of British Intelligence, and was being paid by the Democrats.

Even the proto-Shabbos goys at the National Review had to distance themselves from it. They showed that the date the FBI and Justice said it was verified it couldn't possibly have been verified.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/the-steele-dossier-and-the-verified-application-that-wasnt/

So why did so many Jewish capitalists like Browder support it?

And why aren't the Russians being permitted to trace Russian monies into Cyprus if Bill Browder and now Jewish captialist ever has every done a thing that is wrong?

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-20/luongo-bill-browder-behind-anti-russia-interpol-propaganda

And now they accuse Browder himself of being involved in 5 assassinations.

Which would seem wild. Except, one of the first rules of Saul Alinsky is to accuse your opponents of what you are doing.

Why is this entire affair around the impeachment of Donald Trump and the depersoning of Russia and Putin so incredibly Kosher?

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/corrupt_senators_took_ukraine_cash.html

Because literally to the letter what is said about Donald Trump, the Democrats were actually doing.

"" It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine's prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as "strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine," the Democratic senators declared, "We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump," before demanding Lutsenko "reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation ."

And yet Trump pulls the Jews ever closer. A ruling race of ubermenschen now.

'No reason'.

Can you imagine what American Blacks and savage Hispanics let alone whites are going to do if the US economy craters like the Russian economy, and everything is transferred to the banks?

DaveE , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:00 pm GMT
@Old and grumpy Yeah . fine idea. I've always maintained there are two uses of the word "capitalism" industrial capitalism or competition of ideas vs. financial capitalism, the Darwinian struggle for the most ruthless bankster to rig the "markets" most efficiently.

Whether we give it new terminology I don't care much . but I sure wish people would understand the difference, one way of another !

Charles Pewitt , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:04 pm GMT
Trump and the Republican Party puppets are nothing more than nasty politician whores for billionaire Jews such as Seth Klarman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson and Les Wexner and Bernie Marcus and many other money-grubber Jew donors.

The Republican Party Jew donors want to continue to flood the USA with mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration and the Jew donors want to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight unnecessary wars and endless wars on behalf of Israel.

The Republican Party Jew donors also want to have all their shady money-grubber scams protected by the Republican Party politician whores.

I wrote this in October of 2017 about Seth Klarman and Puerto Rican government debt:

Puerto Rico must be allowed to go belly up. The bond owners who own Puerto Rican debt must go tits up. The US government must not bail out the investors who purchased Puerto Rican government debt, or any debt whatsoever connected to Puerto Rico. Seth Klarman has been revealed as a person who has bought Puerto Rican bonds in hopes of cashing out big.

SETH KLARMAN must be given a salt shaker to sprinkle salt on his worthless Puerto Rican bonds before he eats them. Klarman must lose 100 cents on the dollar for his greedy purchase of Puerto Rican debt. Klarman has loads of loot, and the Puerto Rican government debt was purchased for one of his funds. I am sure his investors won't mind getting soaked by Seth for a bit of money -- it is not even a whole billion dollars, only close to it.

David Dayen says:

Klarman, who has been described as the Oracle of Boston, has a history of buying unpopular or distressed assets on the cheap in hopes of a payday. Baupost manages over $30 billion in assets. He is known as the top campaign contributor in New England and has been a major donor in Republican politics in Massachusetts, including largely secret support for 2016's Question 2, an ultimately unsuccessful effort to lift a state cap on charter schools. Klarman supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling Donald Trump "completely unqualified for the highest office in the land."

Klarman's involvement in Puerto Rican debt will surely come as a surprise to activists in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico, who have never mentioned him among the "vultures" who are causing undue pain for the island's U.S. citizens.

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/03/we-can-finally-identify-one-of-the-largest-holders-of-puerto-rican-debt/

NO BAILOUT FOR PUERTO RICO BOND INVESTORS

Mefobills , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:05 pm GMT
@alex in San Jose AKA digital Detroit Alex,

You make some important points.

Jewish people have treated me better than my own White Euro family.

White Euro people are/were evolved for small tribes. They were hunter gatherers, and evolved concurrently with dogs. In my opinion the pathological altrusim of whites has to do with the close relations to dogs, pets and later livestock. The whole "good shepherd" is more of a Western Construct of Cro-Magnon white people, than the insular goat-herding types of the middle east.

For example, in Scandinavia and most white countries, a 'baby sitter' can be a neighbor, while in middle eastern cultures, a baby sitter can only be from a family member.

In other words, white people extend trust to one another, while middle-eastern ethos is more familal then tribal. Ice age evolution, especially the fourth ice ages, selected for pathological altruism is whites; which is why whites extend their grace to foreigners, brown people, and are easily duped by Jews.

All you can do is try to rise above your own families failings. White people have to think it through intellectually, as it does not come naturally.

Jews are tribal, gee what a surprise after 1000's of years of people trying to wipe them out . and so their charity is within the tribe, but there is no charity within the tribe among Whites.

Yes, but what is being debated here is how Jews use their ethnocentrism and in-group methods to practice usury against out-groups. Euro-whites are a perfect host for the parasite. The parasitical methods EVOLVED over millenia to operate the usury mechanism, to take rents and unearned income. This is why they have been kicked out of 109 countries, because what they do is seen as immoral and against the common good. (Euro whites eventually smarten up and it always takes a King to eject the Jews.)

For more on this, see the book Angela's Ashes. The Irish family could have stayed in New York where they were being befriended by a Jewish family.

Let's not get cause and effect reversed. The potato famine in Ireland was devastating because high-value crops were being exported to England to pay for wait for it . usury on debts the Irish owed the English. The English in turn were operating the state sponsored usury system of the Bank of England, which came into being in 1694. The BOE in turn was JEWISH in construct, being maneuvered into place by Sephardic Jews from Amsterdam.

The Irish, being trusting souls, fell into the usury trap and could not keep up with the exponential debts.

A general statement: White people can build high trust civilizations that benefit all of their people, but are easily subverted when the wrong type of predators infiltrate. If your family was extended, and had aunts and uncles and cousins, who lived in the general area for centuries, then there would be a network to fall back on.

See slaughter of the cities by Jones:

And yes, the FIRE sector and impetus behind the destruction of your extended family was JEWISH. The breakdown of neighborhoods and ethnics was on purpose.

The Jew is anti-logos, and whatever he touches he destroys. (There are exceptions of course – but these people no longer possess a negative Jewish spirit.)

Sorry your family was destroyed. When whites become un-moored they don't know how to act.

Father O'Hara , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:06 pm GMT
@J Adleman Quite bizarre post. First,he makes a half ass defense of Jew character.(Weinstein,Epstein don't represent jews! Well,they kind of do. Any jew who is called to accounts for his crimes automatically does not represent jews!
You are a used condom. Do you represent the jews? Id day yes.)
Your diatribe sounds like an alt righter's view of jews. Are you real?
Antares , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:06 pm GMT
@Anon

if you think it's wrong to buy or try to collect on defaulted debt, what is the alternative set of laws and behavior you are recommending? If debts can simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function.

Capitalism includes money. You can't separate the risks in lending from other risks. Bad investors should be punished and good investors rewarded. Resources should be well allocated. Otherwise it's not capitalism.

Happy Tapir , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:12 pm GMT
@Rebel0007 I looked at his book on amazon. Do you believe all that stuff? Are these people with psychoses or delusional disorders?
Anon [271] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:12 pm GMT
https://www.trunews.com/stream/jew-coup-seditious-jews-orchestrating-trump-impeachment-lynching

These insane Boomers seem to think that there is a Jewish coup underway to remove Trump because of all the things that Jews are saying in Jewish publications and every single person involved being Jewish and stuff.

Adrian , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:20 pm GMT
@Germanicus About the Carnegie donated "Peace Palace" in The Hague, presently the seat of the In ternational Court of Justice:

Germanicus claims:

They are a function of Empire in Hague, who protect empire criminals, and assume a non existent legitimacy and jurisdiction as a private entity to take down empire opponents.

Such as this ruling for instance:

Guardian 3 Oct.2018:

International court of justice orders US to lift new Iran sanctions

Mike Pompeo indicates US will ignore ruling, after judges in The Hague find unanimously in favour of Iran

Informed Reader , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:21 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Colin Wright: Tel Aviv University's Medical School is called the "Sackler Faculty of Medicine." Does that help answer your question?
annamaria , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:24 pm GMT
@silviosilver "What Joyce regards as a defect of "vulture" funds, others might regard as an benefit. "

-- Of course. I hope you did not miss the fact that the Jewish vulture funds -- ruthless, unethical, and leaching on goyim -- contribute to the Jewish Holocaust Museum.
Is not it touching that the same bloody destroyers of nations demand from the same nations a very special reverence -- out of ethical considerations, of course -- towards the Jewish victims of WWII? But only Jewish victims. All others were not victims but casualties. See Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine. See the unlimited hatred of ziocons towards Russia.

utu , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:25 pm GMT
@Anonymous " but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much needed electric shock if they were to see the JQ framed in marxist terms " – I would not count on the effect of the electric shock on the leftist thinkers. The role of Jewish Bolsheviks in the Cheka, NKVD, GULAGs, genocides by famine has been known from the very beginning and yet it left no impact on the leftist thinkers.
Anon [271] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:33 pm GMT
Browder's case is really interesting.


http://www.ihr.org /jhr/v17/v17n6p13_Michaels.html

"According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era."

"Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish," the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27.)"

It's interesting how the appeal of Eduard Topol to Jews in Russia is now starting to echo Jewish calls in the United States for Jews to stop the path they are currently on.

Here is the complete text of Topol's extraordinary "Open Letter to Berezovksy, Gusinsky, Smolensky, Khodorkovsky and other Oligarchs," translated for the Journal by Daniel Michaels from the text published in the respected Moscow paper Argumenty i Fakty ("Arguments and Facts"), No. 38, September 1998:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-21/guardians-magnitsky-myth-will-real-bill-browder-please-step-forward

Magnitsky and Bill Browder is also really interesting.

It turns out that a large measure of the Russiagate story arose because Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who traveled to America to challenge Browder's account, arranged a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign advisers in June 2016 to present this other side of the story.

Apparently that's collusion.

But this isn't collusion.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/08/left-red-scare-democrats-suddenly-hate-russia/

Remember when Obama literally said he would sell out US defence interests to the Russians on a hot mic?

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/corrupt_senators_took_ukraine_cash.html

Then we had Democrats actually literally word for word doing what they accuse Trump of doing in Ukraine.

"It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine's prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as "strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine," the Democratic senators declared, "We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump," before demanding Lutsenko "reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation."

What's the first rule of Communist and Satanist Saul Alinsky? Always accuse your opponents of what you are doing.

Imagine having a Grandfather as the literal Chairman of the American Communist Party, and all the amazing lessons you would learn about political maneuvering and ideology.

And it's amazing.

Browder's story is that Russian officials stole his companies seals and then fraudulently formulated a tax avoidance scheme with a complete paper trail that they fabricated against him in totem. Precisely matching the amount of money he was trying to remove from their country, like those other Jewish Oligarchs who imposed conditions that were multiples worse then even the American depression.

When under oath it turns out that Magnitsky wasn't even a lawyer at all, and didn't go to law school. Why did the media owned by Mormons of course keep saying that Magnitsky was Browder's lawyer?

Why did the Russians fraudulently fabricate a paper-trail for another Jewish Oligarch to steal money out of Russia? Just like they colluded with Trump when a Russian lawyer sought to explain what happened. Because that totally happened.

Maybe the problem isn't Capitalism. Maybe, when even the ur-Shabbos goys at National Review are shaking their head and washing their hands like Pilate, maybe it's a different problem.

Yet Trump holds these people ever close to his beating heart.

And then there are all these connections to Jeffrey Epstein that are like an explosion linking all these people.

Poor old Russia. Even Putin isn't worse then what came before.

renfro , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT
@Anonymous

The link above is a review of the book Giants: The Global Power Elite. The review provides a summary of the book which once again could be a text about Jews if one were to replace the term "transnational capitalist class" with "Jews". Why I mention it, though, is the following: "Chapter 2, "The Global Financial Giants: The Central Core of Global Capitalism," identifies the 17 global financial giants -- money management firms that control more than one trillion dollars in capital.

From the review .

"Robinson's claim that nation-states have become, "little more than population containment zones," while "the real power lies with the decision makers who control global capital" (p. 26). Both propositions are unconvincing: first, populations are clearly not being contained; second, if states matter so little, and the real decision-makers are global capitalists, then why do the latter need states

That is such stupid reasoning it blows the mind. He is trying to shift the global problem to institutions .. instead of the people who head those institutions

Institutions, agencies , financial firms, etc .are ALL run by PEOPLE .who make the policies,laws, take the actions.

Why does the 'transnational capitalist class' need states? well duh because people/labor/consumers are indeed "contained' in states subject to the states laws and system. The transnational capitalist class created the institutions he speaks of 'from within' those states thru their control of its system and their same goal partners who do the same from within their respective states.

That the capitalist class is not tied to any territory has been observable since 1960.
I don't have time now to look up how many of 199 directors are Jews . but I know enough of the economic history of various countries to know that Jews were the first business and finance globe trotters,,,,.from Spain to Amsterdam, France to Africa , etc.etc. Jew were first hired as reps and facilitators by the gentile business owners especially because of their breather tribal contacts in many countries ..that was their stepping stone to becoming transnational capitalist themselves.

Understanding our global capitalist ruling elite and who they are is not rocket science

Anon [421] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:53 pm GMT
Buy your loans from another lender,
change the terms (add fees, penalties, underhanded stuff),
reposses your collatteral.

Outta be illegal.

White Gentiles, you must infiltrate and take over big business and big finance to help protect your people from predation .and to give all peoples principled, fair financial services. To help our society, and even others. Paul Singer doesnt seem to care about most of his fellow men. We could do better, and help the world be a better place.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMT
Yet more evidence is piling up that Donald J Trump is the Great Betrayer.
A man who had the biggest mandate in post war history to clean up the Swamp that is D.C., reform Immigration to save America and reform the economy for American workers.
He has squandered all of it while pandering to Jews.

When the Donald is revealed as the Great Betrayer where will Jews run? Yes, they have several back up plans. Patagonia, Ukraine and Israel.

Imagine that. They have their own country and 2 back up plans. It is really tough being a hated, oppressed minority.

Digital Samizdat , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:55 pm GMT
@Anonymous Thanks for your comment. You've come to the right place. Unz is an ideal hangout for left/right fusionists who don't fit in perfectly with either side, but are interested in hearing from both. In addition, if you're looking for other good right-wing sites that aren't libertarian, Zionist or overly Christian, I can also heartily recommend Dr. Kevin MacDonald's Occidental Observer , where Dr. Joyce himself usually posts.

What this could accomplish is a marriage of the major two theories of the "anti-semites" (for lack of a better word) and the "Neo-Marxists". I would argue that perhaps both sides would learn they are coming at the same thing from two different angles. Most would ignore it, but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much needed electric shock if they were to see the JQ framed in marxist terms.

Or, more correctly, it would be a re -marriage of anti-Semitism and Marxism. If you have a background in Marxism yourself, maybe you recall reading or hearing about Karl Marx's pre-Kapital classic, On the Jewish Question , where he basically identifies finance-capitalism as a Jewish phenomenon in essence and origin. Money quote :

"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew but the everyday Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities . The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange . The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.[ ] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews. [ ] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism."

Marx himself, of course, came from a family of rich conversos, so he knew whereof he spoke.

Perhaps some alliances could be forged across the cultural divide in this struggle. Personally I believe that both angles are perfectly valid, and that understanding one without the other will leaves far too much to be desired when studying the powerful.

As a third-way national socialist, I hope so, too. Libertarianism/capitalism and mainline socialism are dead-ends, having both been thoroughly co-opted (founded?) by the Jews. Both fail to address the pink elephant in the corner; both put some hopelessly abstract ideology before the welfare of my people–while benefiting another. And so, as the original NS used to say: 'Neither godless Bolshevism nor soulless capitalism!'

Bardon Kaldian , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:58 pm GMT
@Ian Smith

A sassy black women broken in with "Jeffrey Dahmer Ted Bundy they were all white!"

She was wrong even with that category. Blacks are over-represented as serial killers: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-myths-about-serial-killers-and-why-they-persist-excerpt/

Myth #2: All Serial Killers Are Caucasian.

Reality: Contrary to popular mythology, not all serial killers are white. Serial killers span all racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. The racial diversity of serial killers generally mirrors that of the overall U.S. population. There are well documented cases of African-American, Latino and Asian-American serial killers. African-Americans comprise the largest racial minority group among serial killers, representing approximately 20 percent of the total. Significantly, however, only white, and normally male, serial killers such as Ted Bundy become popular culture icons.

JUSA , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:59 pm GMT
@Lot Your defense of bond holders do not hold water. They agreed to take the risk at the given price. If the debtor can't pay back, they have the eat the losses, period. Usury law needs to be put in place to outlaw these vulture funds. Then the bond funds will adjust by demanding better terms that truly reflects the risk from the get go, and the debtors will adjust by being much more cautious in their borrowing since the borrowing cost is so high.

Instead, this current arrangement basically uses bond funds to put up a false front, telling a debtor they can borrow at 2% when the real rate should be at 20% given the known risks, then the debtor goes crazy borrowing because it's so cheap to borrow, and when they can't pay back, the bond gets sold to the vultures who come collecting at 20% or they seize assets. This is no different than the subprime mortgage crap, except now that is regulated so they go after sovereign debt and corporate debt instead. These vultures need to go die period.

Art , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT

Trump is now essentially funded by three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together accounting for over $250 million in pro-Trump political money. In return, they want war with Iran.

Hmm -- The day after Trump in inaugurated for his second term -- will Iran be in his crosshairs?

We need to think very seriously about that!

bike-anarkist , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:16 pm GMT
@Jimmy1969 This is a great, concise overview of Canadian media influence by the "silent" Jewish overlords via Golden Tree.

I tried copy/paste of your comment on CBC, but it did NOT last 2minutes before being suspended!!

I am sorry to have used your comment without your permission, but I am going to "misspell" some words to defeat the algorithm to get your message across.

Anon [112] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:27 pm GMT
@Lot For points 1 and 2, I think that you would learn a lot from reading his previous article ( https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/08/01/paul-singer-and-universality-of-anti-semitism/ ) on vulture capitalism. It is not just that they are recovering assets from defaults. These vulture groups will use the courts to increase the size of the debts and sue for extra "fees" on top, even when all other lenders are against it. They typically manage to get US courts in NYC to try these cases, which also is apparently abnormal (apparently it would be more normal to use international courts). This is what Joyce refers to here:

"This type of predation is so pernicious and morally perverse that both the Belgian and UK governments have taken steps to ban these Jewish firms from using their court systems to sue for distressed debt owed by poor nations. "

These funds do not do something that normal investors do, especially not to the bonds of governments of struggling third-world countries.

As for 3, you are misunderstanding. Joyce never demanded that they name their charities anything in particular, but it is obviously the case that your typical normie thinks that "white males," presumably golf-playing Episcopalians or something, are the ones running finance, and these golfy-sounding names (Elliot, Monarch, GoldTree, OakTree, Canyon, Tilden Park) fit the perception. We whites receive the society's hate for the wealth disparities created by high finance.

4. No, it is not difficult to do finance differently. Every other investor has higher patience for poor countries in Central America and Africa, and they all look at Elliot with confused scorn.

And, things would probably run fine without hyper-aggressive multi-billionaires in pushing the courts to f- over those who default on debts they owe to the maximum degree. Japan and Norway do quite fine with businesses that are run by gentle and humble goys who feel ashamed at the thought of getting "too rich."

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:27 pm GMT
@J Adleman You will be thrown out.
You will have to choose between Israel, Ukraine and Patagonia. No one else will take you.
You have destroyed our politics, media and economy.
You are not respected.
You buy compliance with money.
You have bankrupted the U.S. dollar with debt pursuing Israel's enemies.

You should pack.
Real Soon.
Good Riddance.

Anon [112] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT
@Just passing through I accept the guilt for what whites have done in the past.

But whites have become incredibly generous and gentle with the Other. We have turned in the opposite direction, we are not the same.

Great Britain gave up many of its colonies with no fight. Kenya was given up before there was even an anti-colonial movement in Kenya!

We whites are fair-players, and we respect the right of other peoples to self-determination. We haven't in the past, but we have learned.

ANZ , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:32 pm GMT
@mark green Mark, you called out Lot like Joyce called out Singer, et.al. Strong, unequivocal and straight for the jugular.

I like your style here. That was a verbal beat down.

Anon [271] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:33 pm GMT
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-01/hillary's-latest-headache-skolkovo

Do any of you goys remember when the Jewish funded Democrats through the US State department gave Russia one third of the US strategic uranium reserve and also funnelled military tech to Russia's Skolkovo Valley? At a time when they were working on the Hypersonic ballistic missile engine?

It's almost like there was this plan for people to move back into Russia, just like China, but for some reason the Russians and Chinese didn't cooperate.

Remember when David Spengler wrote about this a few years back hence?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html

Do you think disloyal Jews had anything to do with 18 American CIA assets getting captured and murdered by the Chinese Intelligence services through 2010 to 2012?

Could it be that there were loyal Americans who were interfering with Chinese pay for play with the Jewish nation in the United States? Or might have come upon it?

Imagine being an American military service member knowing that your Jewish commanders and Jewish senior officers have got your back.

It's amazing isn't it.

Clinton was receiving tens of millions of dollars from Skolkovo Valley Syndicate owners in Russia, and in exchange all she gave them were military secrets that may have given Russia for example it's lead in hypersonic military technology.

And then we're told China had a duplicate version of her emails in China, in exchange for what?

US Taxpayer money funded the Russian weapons program.

How much China tech was also funded by US taxpayers?

And then these people accused Trump of collusion with Russia, because the Russians were telling the Trump family that the Magnitsky Act was unjust because the Russians were trying to secure their assets against the kind of predatory practices that lowered Russian mortality to where it's headed in the Midwest. Right now. For the same reasons.

Yeah – this trend is absolutely going to be permitted to continue.

The American nation forewarned and forearmed is simply going to allow itself to go the way of the Russian Slav under a century of Jewish and proto-Jewish (the man who was made to call himself Stalin) leadership.

Maybe, just maybe, an American President might consider a Magnitsky Act the subjects of which were different. Maybe Trump is the last civic-nationalist President, maybe.

Look at how loyal the ruling nation in the United States is to their fellow Americans.

There aren't enough hours in the day to trace the labyrinthine set of Jewish betrayals and asset transferrals – remember the Panama Papers? Remember the Samson Option?

Why won't Browder let the Russians investigate Cyprus?

Maybe good old fashioned local corruption with noblesse oblige is preferable to this international corruption.

The Jews got out-leveraged by the Russians, and now, finally, the Empire might be able to take back Korriban from the Jewdi.

Of course that's impossible. You have to trade one for the other. Just one set for the other set.

If you want to find a list of these capitalists – you just look at who attends the World Jewish Congress Galas.

https://www.henrymakow.com/2019/11/putting-a-face-on-the-illumkinati.html

Here are a few:

" Ira Rennert (net worth $3 billion, previously, $6 billion, investor, known as a "junk bond billionaire," found guilty of corruption in 2015, placed a mill in Baltimore's outer harbor into bankruptcy, causing more than 2,000 workers to lose their jobs, owes Baltimore $8 million in unpaid city water bills, allegedly used money he looted from his business to build a 29-room mansion & compound – a garage holds 100 cars)
Dick Parsons (former Time Warner CEO, CBS chair, & Citibank chair; in 2012 shareholders filed a lawsuit against Parsons and some other executives for "stuffing their pockets while running the bank into the ground")
Ben Ashkenazy (net worth $4 billion, Israeli American real estate tycoon, a benefactor of the 2015 AIPAC Real Estate Luncheon at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel)
Jack Chehebar (real estate mogul, sued for alleged breach of contract, accused of beating his son)
Ray Kelly (longest serving commissioner in the history of the New York City Police Department, for a period was an Interpol vice president, charged by Muslim groups of discrimination: "The commissioner oversaw a spying program that targeted Muslims based solely on their religion, showed poor judgment by participating in a virulently anti-Islamic film, and approved a report on terrorism that equated innocuous behavior such as quitting smoking with signs of radicalization."

What did God say once?

In Genesis 18:32 He said he would spare Sodom and Gamorrah if Abraham could find just 10 honourable men. He couldn't find them. Only the family of Lot.

There isn't much time left. It might simply be the case that the rot goes too deep and too dark.

Valhalla is a worthy place. I think there might be some Russians there, along with the souls of those 18 Americans who were tortured and murdered in China for reasons unknown.

Mefobills , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
@Antares

Capitalism includes money. You can't separate the risks in lending from other risks. Bad investors should be punished and good investors rewarded. Resources should be well allocated. Otherwise it's not capitalism.

There are different kinds of capitalism. It is part of today's hypnotism that people don't know the different types.

For example, there is finance capitalism, industrial capitalism, and what Andrew Joyce calls vulture capitalism.

Vulture capitalism is a subset of finance capitalism.

Industrial capitalism was invented in the American colonies, especially Massachusetts bay. The American system of economy (industrial capitalism with mixed economy and sovereign money) has since been lost to America, as it imported Jewish/British finance capitalism as the operating construct after 1913.

You can separate risks in lending. That is more hypnosis that you have been imbibing on. The entire corpus of Classical economics goes about trying to separate unearned from earned income, how to tax properly, what is site value, and it also is able to separate risk types.

The fact that you do not know these things is not surprising, as most of western man is living inside of a Jewish inverted reality bubble. The agents of mammon won, and classical economics is not even taught in university.

Just passing through , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:45 pm GMT
@Anon I agree about your opinion on Ehits
bike-anarkist , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:47 pm GMT
@Happy Tapir Shakespeare was bisexual.

Homosexuality is present in our society, but doesn't register much in demographics and as such, I am happy to call gays as homosexuals. Tackling animus towards homosexuals requires NOT trying to enforce new nomenclature of gender etc., otherwise an unexpected nasty backlash can occur. Within your "ingroup", you can say what you like, but do not try and force ingroup dynamics on the majority that are not interested.
Otherwise, you are behaving by identity politics, just like the Jews force their identity upon the majority.

Johan , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:56 pm GMT
@sally " Time after time I have asked my Jewish friends are you are Zionist, and most say they do not really know what Zionism is? "

Zionism is a name which is more well known as an identifier by the critical (among the Goy), carrying by now negative connotations. Broadly it is not an ism which is well known to the man in the street. It could well be that among Jews, the name Zionism is only handled by certain groups.
The question should have been rephrased asking what position these Jewish friends take with regard to Israel. It comes down roughly to the same thing.

To not know of Zionism might be strategically a good thing, it refers to convergent interests, actually a power block, you don't want to throw around such things, it could make people aware Keep it diluted, diversity, obfuscation.

thotmonger , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:02 pm GMT
Ben Franklin and the American revolution was almost put in a similar pinch by the Amsterdam banker Jean DeNeufville. In a letter to John Adams, 14 December 1781*, Franklin explained that DeNeufville wanted as security for a loan "all the lands, cities, territories, and possessions of the said Thirteen States, which they may have or possess at present, and which they may have or possess in the future, with all their income, revenue, and produce, until the entire payment of this loan and the interests due thereon."

Franklin considered that "extravagant" but Newhouse rejoined, "this was usual in all loans and that the money could not otherwise be obtained". Franklin retold in this lengthy letter, "Besides this, I was led to understand that it would be very agreeable to these gentlemen if, in acknowledgment of their zeal for our cause and great services in procuring this loan, they would be made by some law of Congress the general consignee of America, to receive and sell upon commission, by themselves and correspondents in the different ports and nations, all the produce of America that should be sent by our merchants to Europe."

Talk about shooting the moon

While Wikipedia says DeNeufville was Mennonite, Franklin concluded with this colorful -- and bitter -- remark , "By this time, I fancy, your Excellency is satisfied that I was wrong in supposing John de Neufville as much a Jew as any in Jerusalem, since Jacob was not content with any per cents, but took the whole of his brother Esau's birthright, and his posterity did the same by the Canaanites, and cut their throats into the bargain; which, in my conscience, I do not think Mr. John de Neufville has the least inclination to do by us while he can get any thing by our being alive. I am, with the greatest esteem, etc., ✪ B. Franklin."

Perhaps it was just an expression based on an earlier stereotype?

*Bigelow, 1904. The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 9 Letters and Misc. Writings

Mefobills , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:08 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen Adrian Salbuchi, an economist from Argentina, does a good job of exposing Zionist plans in Patagonia.

If you google his name along with Patagonia then it will come up with links in Spanish.

Here is a Rense translation:

https://rense.com/general95/pata.htm

What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections, killing dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to see with their own eyes.

Zion had the opportunity to go to Uganda and Ugandans were willing, but NO Zion had to have Palestine, and they got it through war, deception, and murder. It was funded by usury, as stolen purchasing power from the Goyim.

The fake country of Israel, is not the biblical Israel, and it came into being by maneuverings of satanic men determined to get their way no matter what, and is supported by continuous deception. Even today's Hebrew is resurrected from a dead language, and is fake. Many fake Jews (who have no blood lineage to Abraham), a fake country, and fake language. These fakers, usurers, and thieves do indeed have their eyes set on Patagonia, what they call the practical country.

Anonymous [147] Disclaimer , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:08 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat

Unz is an ideal hangout for left/right fusionists who don't fit in perfectly with either side, but are interested in hearing from both

You just described me to a tee. I defy categorization, especially ideological ones (although I half jokingly refer to myself as a free-thinkist), and I feel this makes me weird.

I've been to TOO. However I can't bring myself to start commenting on a white nationalist website. I will admit I am unable to articulate this discomfort presently.

As to your point about Marx – I actually forgot about his work on the JQ. The Saker, who is a columnist on this site, referenced Marx's essay on the JQ some time ago. I must have not read the whole thing or I'd have remembered it. I didn't know that Marxism originated with anti-Semitism, but that is fascinating. I have encountered some Marxists in my time and they focus exclusively (predictably) on the cis-white-male patriarchy, or whatever occupies their brainwashed minds after an Introduction to Gender Studies class.

Johan , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:15 pm GMT
@Anon "If debts can simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function."

Is this children's capitalist theory class time? throwing around some simple slogans for a susceptible congregation of future believers?

Should be quite obvious that people, groups of people, if not whole nations , can be forced and or seduced into depths by means of certain practices. There are a thousand ways of such trickery and thievery, these are not in the theory books though. In these books things all match and work out wonderfully rationally

Then capitalism cannot function? Unfortunately it has become already dysfunctional, if not a big rotten cancer.

secondElijah , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:18 pm GMT
@J Adleman Your God must be anti-Semitic as well?

Isaiah 1:4 4 Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.
Ezekiel 21:25 25 'Now to you, O profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose iniquity shall end
Jeremiah 5:9 Shall I not punish them for these things?" says the LORD. "And shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

As Jesus said which of the prophets have you not killed or persecuted? The truth hurts. As for me I do not hate Jews ..I feel terribly sad for a people that are capable of greatness and squandered the gifts given to them by God. Are you a holy nation? Don't make me laugh. Repent. Your time is coming. No more running and hiding. Deception will no longer save you only acceptance of the Messiah.

tomo , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMT
@Father O'Hara he can't be bargained with,he can't reasoned with,he doesn't feel pity,remorse,or fear "

In other words – a 'culture' as a PSYCHOPATH
it's a well-oiled psychopath support group

utu , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:29 pm GMT
@Mefobills " classical economics is not even taught in university." – Could you recommend some books?
Clutch these pearls, sqrt, sqrt, sqrt , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:36 pm GMT
Hey! Don't mention anything a Jew ever did, especially usury, or else the entire cult will go up in a holocaustal mushroom cloud of emo nasal whining. In Judaism you've got a fanatical sect that systematically selects and brainwashes its members to inculcate extreme values of two Big Five personality axes: high neuroticism and low intellect (where intellect means open-mindedness.) Note the existential crisis triggered by a straightforward lecture from The Society for the Study of Unbelievably Obvious Shit.

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/295595/pride-and-prejudice-at-fieldston

Of course Israel is holocausting the Palestinians. This is what happens when the founding myth of a nation is, We wiped em all out and then they wiped us almost all out so now we gotta wipe em all out etc., etc., etc.

Fuck Israel. Fuck the Jewish State.

tomo , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMT
@J.W. "Relationships with narcissists are no fun"

Well, the only difference between a narcissist and a psychopath is that the former need people to like them whereas psychopaths genuinely could not care less (although they learn early that acting as if they do can be very helpful , as can always trying to elicit sympathy etc).
As I noticed while reading a few books on psychopathy (I was inspired to after reading Steve Job's biography) – their whole 'culture' is structured as a (collective ) PSYCHOPATH.
It seems that (collectively) they cannot care about others even if they wanted to. Due to their sickness

I am not saying they are all that way – but overall their 'culture' seems to be that way

Tusk , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:49 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat Indeed I cannot agree more. I quote from a 1923 interview of Hitler:

"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"

"Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.

"Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.

And so we see the truth of the matter revealed.

Skeptikal , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT
@Colin Wright The Sacklers occupy a hoity-toity rung in the philanthropy universe, as they have given enough $$$ to Harvard for H to paste their name on its museum housing I believe its whole Asian art collection. Students have now protested Harvard's high-profile gift of probity and cultural status to the Sacklers via, literally, an "Aushangerschild" on a major university museum. Harvard protests back: Jeez, if we don't take the Sacklers' dough we might be obliged to stop taking the dough from Exxon, etc.
Skeptikal , says: December 19, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT
@Colin Wright "Lot had a go. Anyone else care to offer a rebuttal?"

You sound like a self-appointed moderator/sheepdog.

tomo , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:04 am GMT
@Anon you are right about repaying the loan
but Banksters have managed over decades I think starting with Clinton to remove protection laws (which were stating how much interest was the maximum a bankster could charge his pray etc). They also removed the rules of how much was the maximum they could lend (according to how much their victim makes a year etc).
So even though you are right that loans should be repaid – it is immoral to allow a well connected mafia to change all the laws and remove protections while pushing up prices of everything because it suits the lender (who has a licence to print).
They basically lend money that does not exist and get interest for that. So the more sheeple are tricked into borrowing the better for them, but the worse for everyone else
They should not be allowed to bribe politicians to remove all the protection that was there since 1920s I think.
It's a marriage from hell: easy to bribe Anglosheep meets the masters of predatory bribing who own the printing press
MarkinLA , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:14 am GMT
@silviosilver https://qz.com/1001650/hedge-fund-billionaire-paul-singers-ruthless-strategies-include-bullying-ceos-suing-governments-and-seizing-their-navys-ships/

Yes, but the Argentine bond situation was particulary crappy and not what happens when a typical bondhoder is forced to take a hit.

lavoisier , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 12:22 am GMT
@anon

That stupid cuck Trump just got impeached by the House. Thats a good lesson to everybody how much good Jew-ass kissing does for you .you get stabbed in the back anyway lol

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving and treacherous scumbag!

But he should have been impeached for his treachery to the constitution and to the American people for his slavish devotion to all things Jewish!

PCA , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:24 am GMT
@mark green The singular is PHENOMENON for God's sake. Phenomena is plural.

Have Americans always been this illiterate?

BannedHipster , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT
@Digital Samizdat True, but irrelevant. The Jews that matter don't read the Talmud or believe in "Adam and Eve."

It's 2020. The Jewish religion is "The Holocaust" and we're all "Nazis."

Frankly, it's these traditional religious notions of "anti-semitism" that get in the way of understanding what is, at the core, an ethnic issue. It's Sheldon Adelson, the Zionist entity in Palestine, and the ADL that are the problem, not some looney-tunes rabbi living in Brooklyn.

Daniel Rich , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:31 am GMT
@Digital Samizdat

But I see all kinds of people even on this thread blaming the victim instead -- 'Damn goyishe deadbeats!' Whatever

The number of families who're unable to pay an $500 emergency bill is staggering as is the number of families being 1 paycheck away from bankruptcy.

Yes, some people are totally irresponsible and burn through their money faster than it can be printed, but not all 55,000,000 of 'em.

utu , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:45 am GMT
@Mefobills Market Forces and Santa Claus
Rafael Martorell , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:47 am GMT
The other side of the expalnation is the laking of reaction of the victim,the american people.
The least that the people that loot the world trough and with the USA power should do, is ,at least ,let us,the american people, a free ride.
Milesglorious , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:50 am GMT
@anarchyst And when it comes, vae victis.
Frank Frivilous , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:51 am GMT
Well, DynCorp has a particularly insidious reputation beyond your run of the mill Usury.

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/wikileaks-reveals-american-contractors-involvement-in-afghan-pedophile-ring/

Not illegal in the Talmud either but most certainly illegal in all of the countries that DynCorp was caught profiting from this type of business. For some reason they never seem to suffer for their exposure suggesting that they may be wielding the same influence that Epstein had over our elected officials.

Rafael Martorell , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:59 am GMT
We dont have to get back to the Singer of this world but to our own politicians ,that allowed them to do this to us,and to the world.In this kind of abusive realtionship the 2 sides are to blame.
Thomasina , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:14 am GMT
@Just passing through "Look up income by ethnic group in the UK and US, you will find that Indians and Chinese (South Asians) are the richest in both countries (except for Jews of course)."

And why is that? Think about it. These are members of the Indian and Chinese elite who the multinational corporations are doing business with.

In order to do business in China, the Chinese stipulated that the western corporations had to give one of the members of the Chinese elite half ownership in the company. They were also required to turn over the western technology to the China-based company. Western technology, western money, cheap Chinese slave labor, ability to pollute to your heart's content. For both sides, it was a win-win. The Chinese elite got filthy rich and then moved over to the West with their newfound gains, buying up properties, forcing prices up for the natives. The western corporations not only wanted cheap products to export back to the U.S., but they were also developing a whole new market – Chinese consumers who would buy their products as well. Double plus good!

And once in the West, the Chinese and the Indians stick to their groups. They hire their own, promote their own, do business together. A lot of corruption, money laundering, cheating, taking advantage of and bending laws. Rule of law? Code of ethics? Morals? Do unto others? They never learned it. Opportunistic dual citizens.

Isthatright , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:23 am GMT
@Colin Wright Tucker is smart. He never uses the J word. Great article.
Fayez chergui , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:31 am GMT
The only path to understand the spirit of jews to money is to read the Old Testament : clear and sharp.
lavoisier , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
@utu

I would not count on the effect of the electric shock on the leftist thinkers. The role of Jewish Bolsheviks in the Cheka, NKVD, GULAGs, genocides by famine has been known from the very beginning and yet it left no impact on the leftist thinkers.

It unfortunately has not had much of an effect on a lot of people in the West, who remain ignorant or in denial of the role played by Jewish Bolsheviks in historic mass murders and totalitarian repression.

Waiting for the Hollywood movie to tell the story.

Rebel0007 , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
[Too much totally off-topic crackpottery. Stop this or most of your future comments may get trashed.]
Mefobills , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:02 am GMT
@utu Utu,

I recommend starting with Zarlinga and "The Lost Science of Money."

https://www.monetary.org/buy-the-book

This is an expensive, weighty, and important book, which will take some time to digest.

Classical economists re-learn the science of money, starting with Prodhoun and even Marx in Das Kapital volume 3. (Leftists are often correct about money, but wrong on social issues.)

The jew Marx does do some deception in volume 3 with a sneaky equation that does not compound interest, but otherwise he is pretty accurate. Marx was probably beholden to his finance masters.

This is why you need to start with Zarlinga, as there is no BS to lead you astray. Hudson tends to drill the bulls-eye too. There is so much deception in the field of money and economy, that it is easy to get caught up in false narratives, like one-born free libertarianism. Usury flows fund the deception, even to the point of leaving out critical passages in translations, such as in Aristotle's works. Or, important works are bought up and burned.

Michael Hudson is the leading economist resurrecting Classical Economics. Reading all of Hudson and Zarlinga will take some time and effort, but it is good to take a first step.

9/11 Inside job , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:10 am GMT
@Anon I respectfully disagree that "Kenya was given up [by Great Britain] before there was even an anti-colonial movement in Kenya ."
According to Wikipedia : " The armed rebellion of the Mau Mau was the culminating response to Colonial rule . Although there had been previous instances of violent resistance to colonialism , the Mau Mau revolt was the most prolonged and violent anti-colonial warfare in the British Colonial colony. From the start the land was the primary British interest in Kenya ."
Just as the Kenyans suffered the consequences of British colonialism , the "Palestinians will suffer
the consequences of Zionist colonialism until Israel's original sin is boldly confronted and justly remedied " foreignpolicyjournal.com
Realist , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:17 am GMT
@the grand wazoo

No, not stupid whites, they're not to blame. It's the greedy corrupt politician: white, black, or white jew, who are to blame.

Who votes these greedy corrupt politicians into office? Hint: It is Whites who are the majority.

Citizen of a Silly Country , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:20 am GMT
@anon A particular distinction of Jewish investors versus gentile investors – on average, of course – is their use of bribery to get the force of government behind them. Rather than taking a bet about some group being able to pay back some bonds and letting the chips fall where they may, Jews start bribing or influencing politicians to force that group to pay back the bonds.

Buy some bonds, charge outrageous fees, bribe officials in some form or other, get govt to force the payment of bonds and outrageous fees. Rinse and repeat. Jews have been doing this in some form aor another for 1500 years. It's why the peasants get a tad angry at both the Jews and their bribed politicians/nobility.

Thomasina , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:22 am GMT
@lavoisier "But he should have been impeached for his treachery to the constitution and to the American people for his slavish devotion to all things Jewish!"

A purely political impeachment, right down party lines. I hear Schiff has got his hands full of Ukrainian-Jewish oligarchic money. Dear me, wait until that comes out.

Trump is in league with the Jews? Yeah, who isn't? Obama's lips are still sore from kissing Jewish Wall Street bankers' asses (notice that none of them went to jail). Same with the Clinton's.

You can get politicians to pass all sorts of laws in your favor if you've got enough dirt on them. After all, your side owns the media, Hollywood, academia, the courts, the banks.

If dirt doesn't work, you can always threaten to impeach them in order to get what you want.

But Trump is also revealing every last dirty one of them (accidentally or on purpose). People see them now.

Robert Dolan , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:37 am GMT
The jews suck.

Trump sucks.

All decent people should stand up and fight against these scumbags.

They can't play whack a mole with all of us.

Colin Wright , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 2:49 am GMT
@Informed Reader 'Colin Wright: Tel Aviv University's Medical School is called the "Sackler Faculty of Medicine." Does that help answer your question?'

That sort of thing is what led me to ask the question.

tomo , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:50 am GMT
@Father O'Hara I now use therm 'Weinsteined' to mean 'raped' (by jewish banksters, investors etc)
Also Jewish , says: December 20, 2019 at 2:52 am GMT
@J Adelman J Adelman comes out swinging. He's such a tough guy. But does he make sense? Does he care if he makes sense? The writer is talking about those Jews who are vulture capitalists. He's not talking about every Jew. Isn't it a little odd that nearly all of these funds are run by Jews? Can your corrupt mind accept that fact and address the question? Or are you going to bore us with your religion and by that I mean your obsession with anti-semitism, which is your religion.
tomo , says: December 20, 2019 at 3:00 am GMT
@bike-anarkist I posted the same comment on the Facebook a few hours ago and it's still there
Colin Wright , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 3:04 am GMT
@Art 'Hmm -- The day after Trump in inaugurated for his second term -- will Iran be in his crosshairs?

We need to think very seriously about that!

My guess is Iran is in the crosshairs.

Trump probably promised he'd start the war as soon as he was elected the first time -- but he putzed around, and now it's almost 2020.

Adelson et al are pissed -- but Trump's got a point. If he starts the war now the unknown Democrat will win -- and do you trust their word instead?

They just gotta trust Trump. Let him get reelected -- then he'll come through.

This is one of those cases where I'll be happy to be proved wrong -- but such is my suspicion.

Longfisher , says: December 20, 2019 at 3:13 am GMT
No surprise here. They're Jews aren't they. Utterly predictable.
mark green , says: December 20, 2019 at 3:23 am GMT
@PCA Stop splitting hairs. Is this the best you can do? Are you one of Lot's cronies? I don't normally address petty matters of this kind but Joyce is describing a multitude of sins and misconduct orchestrated by various Jewish financiers around the globe. It is not merely one phenomenon; thus, 'phenomena' fits. Go troll someone else.
anon [125] Disclaimer , says: December 20, 2019 at 3:44 am GMT
Lobelog ran some articles in Singer, Argentina, Iran Israel and the attorney from Argentina who died mysteriously . Singer is a loan shark. Argentinian paid dearly .

Google search –

NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors – LobeLog

https://lobelog.com/nyts-argentina-op-ed-fails-to-disclose-authors-financial-conflict-of-interest/
Dec 13, 2017 Between 2007 and 2011, hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer contributed $3.6 million to FDD. That coincided with his battle to force Argentina to

Following Paul Singer's Money, Argentina, and Iran – LobeLog

https://lobelog.com/following-paul-singers-money-argentina-and-iran-continued/
May 8, 2015 As Jim and Charles noted, linking Singer to AIPAC and FDD doesn't between Paul Singer's money and those critical of Argentina, Sen.

Paul Singer – LobeLog

https://lobelog.com/tag/paul-singer/
Paul Singer NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors' Financial Conflict of Interest by Eli Clifton On Tuesday, Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz, two executives at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), took

The Right-Wing Americans Who Made a Doc About Argentina

https://lobelog.com/the-right-wing-americans-who-made-a-doc-about-argentina/
Oct 7, 2015 One might wonder why a movie about Argentina, in Spanish and . of Nisman's and thought highly of the prosecutor's work, told LobeLog, FDD, for its part, has been an outspoken critic of Kirchner but has From 2008 to 2011, Paul Singer was the group's second-largest donor, contributing $3.6 million.

NYT Failed to Note Op-Ed Authors' Funder Has $2 Billion

https://fair.org/home/nyt-failed-to-note-op-ed-authors-funder-has-2-billion-motive-for-attacking-argentina/
Dec 16, 2017 Paul Singer FDD has been eager to promote Nisman's work. Singer embarked on a 15-year legal battle to collect on Argentina's debt payments by This alert orginally appeared as a blog post on LobeLog (12/13/17).

mcohen , says: December 20, 2019 at 3:54 am GMT
@mark green Mark green the queen of self rightousness.

There are many non jews runny vulture funds worldwide with at least 100 in china alone.

The list joyce provided is selective and politically motivated.There are many more non jews who are guilty of financial crimes.The jails are full of them.

The vulture funds are a product of a system that punishes failure.Do not blame the funds,blame the system.

This story and like many that appear here is designed to pressure israel to change politically.Israels future lies in the hands of God not some mutt with a serious case of mutters.

Daniel Rich , says: December 20, 2019 at 4:02 am GMT

It is not merely one phenomenon; thus, 'phenomena' fits.

You're absolutely correct.

On the upside, these trolls happily turn 'Vertebra' into Vertebron' just to p *** someone off :o]

sally , says: December 20, 2019 at 4:07 am GMT
@Lot venture capital funds are only made necessary because we have a federal reserve.. which is a private bank and private banks want to earn interest.

consider the difference between when a private lender makes loans to the USA (treasury)
on the books of the feds is the following

due from the USA $11,000
new cash printed and given to dumb clucks at the USA $10,000
profit on the loan $ 1,000
what happened here is the fed printed $10,000 in new bills.
Assume the loan made at 10% interest and it is due in 1 year.

Ok so what is the loan on the USA books
cash $10,000
amount payable to the Federal Reserve $11,000
loss on the deal $ 1,000

this loan becomes the loan on the local bank books
the government gives the bank its loan and its obligation to repay the principal plus interest

If there were no interest (that is the government printed its own money and made
venture loans to entrepreneurs at 0% interest the entries would look like this )
Amount due in one year from venture borrower $10,000
new cash printed and loaned to venture $10,000

so if the venture guy spent the $10,000 and then went broke the treasury would still gets its money back in taxes from those who earned profit the money the venture paid.. no one has to beat somebody to pay the interest (the economy does not have the extra $1000 dollars in interest so somebody has to lose)

When interest must be paid its like musical chairs.. each time the music stops there are not enough chairs to go around, someone is left standing ( its like that in money lending, the debtors dance until the music stops, but because the private bank only put the principal amount $10,000 in circulation the guy needs $11,000 to pay the loan back where does he get the extra $1,000? <=If ten $10,000 loans are made, and 1 guy goes broke, there will be enough cash in the system for the 9 others to pay the interest they each owe and enough for the local private bank and lawyers to get paid for handling the bankruptcy. . <= we started with 10 loans, one loan went broke the 9 remaining borrowers each pay $11,000 to retire the debt , there are 9 loans "$99,000 to repay them and $1000 to pay debt service costs and legal fees.

if there were no interest on the loans, the bankruptcy would not matter.

What makes the venture capitalist have a business at all is the Federal reserve is a private profit making bank. Lending printed money from the Federal reserve requires interest to be paid, and that requirement of interest makes the economy horde its capital and the economic players playing king of the mountain to get the extra money they need to pay the interest . ..

Zionism brought private banking to the USA and the USA wrote a tax law to collect the money from the Americans it governs to pay the interest on the debt.

this is a really simplistic description of what is happening to our economy so don't rely on it but instead use its simplistic idea to model the impact of having interest on the national debt is having each year. If our government reversed what it privatized to the Federal Reserve, we could make the economy run more or less as we please. \we could eliminate the national debt and with it income tax es.

redmudhooch , says: December 20, 2019 at 4:13 am GMT
Typical Jew baiting article. Mitt Romney isn't a "Jew" Ashish Masih isn't. Many more examples of gentiles taking advantage of their brothers. May as well consider the Walton family of Wal-Mart to be vultures as well since they benefit the most from this system, they're so called Christians, not Jews. The problem is capitalism. Author seems to suggest that a moral economic system has been corrupted. The system was designed in an era of widespread slavery folks. Its an immoral system that requires theft, slavery, war, immigration, all the things you hate, to survive. The system is working exactly as it is designed to work. Exploit workers, the environment and resources, shift all the profits from workers to the owners of capital, period. Welcome to the late stage, it eats and destroys itself

From the days of the colonists slaughtering the Injuns and stealing their land. The days of importing African slaves, and indentured servants. The days of child labor and factory owners hiring Pinkertons to gun down workers who protested shitty wages and working conditions. The good ol days of the gilded age. Now the age of offshoring to China or some other lower wage nation. Overthrowing leaders not willing to let their resources and people be plundered and enslaved, driving refugees to our borders fleeing violence and poverty. Importing H1B workers to drive down wages. It was always a corrupt system of exploitation/theft/slavery. This is nothing new and doesn't require "Jews" to be immoral.

And all these so called "Christians" like Pastor Pence approve. Usury and capitalism run amok. I'm sure Jesus is smiling down on all these Bible toting demons who allow their fellow man to be exploited by the parasites. Sad!

Good for Tucker. He has his moments I'd watch his show if he wasn't a partisan hack. But that will never happen working for Fox or any other corporate media.

Thomasina , says: December 20, 2019 at 5:31 am GMT
@Anon You've read "Red Notice", but that is only Browder's side. To get the other side, read these articles from Consortium News:

https://consortiumnews.com/tag/william-browder/

Thomasina , says: December 20, 2019 at 6:18 am GMT
@Colin Wright I doubt Trump promised to go to war with Iran before he was elected. In his Inauguration Speech, Trump said he wanted to bring the troops home and stop the wars. He didn't have to say these things, he had already won the election, but he said them anyway.

One of the few times the media has laid off Trump was when he sent some missiles into Syria (after he gave them hours of warning ahead of time that the missiles were coming). If Hillary had been elected, Syria would have been leveled by now and flying an Israeli flag.

Obama brought us the destruction of Libya and the murder of Gaddafi, the coup in Ukraine, and through ISIS, which the U.S. armed, trained and paid for, tried to destroy Syria.

I don't really blame Obama or Bush Jr. or Clinton. They were all puppets who did as they were told. If they hadn't, in the words of Chuckie Schemer, there would have been "six ways from Sunday of getting back at them".

If you don't do what they want, you're impeached, some of your dirty laundry is aired, or they purposely crash the stock market on you. If you still don't get the message, maybe you're just assassinated.

Trump loves his daughter and she is married to a Jew. If they're not getting their way, I could see them telling Trump: "Sad what happened at the Pittsburgh synagogue, isn't it? Sure hope nothing like that happens to your daughter."

I don't envy Trump. He not only is up against the Democrats, but he is also fighting the globalist neocons in his own party. Both parties want open borders and more war, something Trump does not believe in. As far as I can see, he's throwing them bones in order to shut them up. If he gets elected again, which I think he will, we might see a different Trump. Who knows.

Wally , says: December 20, 2019 at 6:55 am GMT
@Just passing through IOW, you can't answer my questions:

– What "WASP looting" was that?

– And what "deal" was supposedly struck?

– You then desperately change "WASPS" to 'whites' and still flounder.

– Unproductive, lazy Puerto Rico? It has received much more than it deserved.
'It's so bad for them', yet they always vote against independence. Oops!

– Vietnam & Congo can choose as they wish, it is they who vote for their leaders.
In fact, Congo was better off with colonialism.

– Then you change the subject to Epstein. Pathetic.

Wally , says: December 20, 2019 at 7:01 am GMT
@Robert Dolan Of those running for US President, who then do you prefer?

And why?

A. Benjamine Moser , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 8:15 am GMT
@Jimmy1969 I think this deal has already taken place. Israel has given away to China for 99 years the hall commercial incomming This deal has taken place 2 or 3 years ago
Thomasina , says: December 20, 2019 at 8:52 am GMT
Andrew Joyce – that was an incredibly well-written and informative article. Thank you very much.
Laurent Guyénot , says: December 20, 2019 at 9:11 am GMT
Don't blame it on the Talmud. These Jews act in accordance to their Torah: "If Yahweh your God blesses you as he has promised, you will be creditors to many nations but debtors to none; you will rule over many nations, and be ruled by none" (Deuteronomy 15:6). "feeding on the wealth of the nations" (Isaiah 61:5) is Israel's destiny according to Yahweh.
NoseytheDuke , says: December 20, 2019 at 9:12 am GMT
@mcohen I took a squint at both your own and Mark Green's comment history. Your comment history cannot even begin to compare in value, but I should have already guessed that from the name-calling in the first line of your comment. Just weak, extremely weak.
ivan , says: December 20, 2019 at 9:38 am GMT
Rather amusing to read our resident Jewish apologists carrying on about the absolute sanctity of the necessity of collecting debts to the functioning of the capitalistic system. These nations and corporate entities that are now in thrall of the Wall Street Jews , were herded into debt by that other faction of the capitalist system, the dealers in easy money. Snookering the rubes into lifelong debt, telling them that money is on the tap, promoting unsustainable spending habits and then let the guillotine come down, for the vultures to feed on. They are two sides of the same coin.

Its damned funny that the rich Jews nowadays are absolutely addicted to usury, rentier activities, and debt collection, when the Bible itself condemns such activities. But they are our elder brothers in faith according to some.

PaddyWhack , says: December 20, 2019 at 9:58 am GMT
@Colin Wright Carnegie was a Protestant. The Protestant cancer serves it's Jewish masters. Read 'The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit' by E. Michael Jones. There is definitely a revolutionary nature to the international Jew just as there is to their Protestant dupes. Jewish nature is to subvert the natural order and the west was built by the guidance of LOGOS. The Catholic Faith created by God guided the creation of the west. These Jewish exploits are a result of the Wests rejection of its nature and its enslavement
Calvin Simms , says: December 20, 2019 at 10:12 am GMT
Amazing article from the ever insightful Andrew Joyce. The usual apologists are sputtering to try to mitigate the damage, but the game is almost up.
anno nimus , says: December 20, 2019 at 10:38 am GMT
1. rich or poor, creditor or debtor, in the final analysis, ultimately, all will become equal in the grave. the filthy rich might decide to lay their corpses in coffins made of gold, but it will be in vain. the sorrows and the joys of this fleeting world shall quickly pass like the shadow.
2. talmudics feel the need to accumulate money in order to have sense of security since they were stateless for two millennia. paradoxically, amount of wealth is indirectly proportional to a sense of security, provoking backlash from aggrieved host people.
3. establishment of State of Israel did not reduce the need for the accumulation but has only heightened it since now talmudics feel the need to support it so that she could maintain military superiority over neighbouring threats.
4. as long as Palestinians are not free and Israel does not make peace, talmudics will continue to meddle in American politics. if you don't want to save the Palestinians for the sake of humanity and truth or justice, at least you should do it for your own sake.
5. loan sharking, vulture whatever, etc., is the ugliness of big capitalism with capital C, what is beyond sickening is the promotion of sodomy. if one becomes poor or homeless, it's a pity. to go against nature is an abomination.
6. by using such words as "homosexual" you have accepted the paradigm of the social engineers and corruptors, and are therefore collaborating with them. words have consequences since that is how we convey ideas unless you own Hollywood and can produce your own moving pictures too.
7. talmudics is a better word than as a great American scholar says, since people who promote sodomy are absolutely opposed to the Torah (O.T.). those who still struggle to follow it couldn't care less what happens to benighted goyim, only becoming reinforced in pride of their own purity as opposed to disgraced nations. thus, practically, they too are talmudics, alien to the spirit of the ancient holy fathers and prophets of Israel. the word "Orthodox" has been stolen and now has lost all meaning or it means the exact opposite of what it originally meant.
8. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
Wizard of Oz , says: December 20, 2019 at 10:38 am GMT
@Colin Wright Well there's nothing wrong in principle about specialists in valuing distressed debt and managing it nuying such debt and using the previously established mechanisms for getting value out of their investment. So the problem is how they go about enforcing their rights and the lack of regulation to mitigate hardship in hard cases.

Still it is notable that it should, overwhelmingly be a Jewish business and such a powerful medium for enriching Jewish causes and communities at the expense of poor Americans.

eah , says: December 20, 2019 at 10:57 am GMT
@Realist Turnout in the 2018 midterms was only 50% , and that was the highest for a midterm election since 1914 -- normally turnout in midterms is < 40% -- even in the 2016 presidential election, which at least on the surface was fairly polarizing (largely due to Trump's rhetoric, which in the end was little more than just rhetoric), turnout was < 60%.

While Whites theoretically still have the numbers to affect/determine the outcome of elections, a majority of Whites usually stay home because they are tired of the 'evil of two lessers' choice they are offered -- even voting for Trump got them little/nothing.

PetrOldSack , says: December 20, 2019 at 11:02 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian Change the sýstemics of society and the Jewish question will disappear. No less.
9/11 Inside job , says: December 20, 2019 at 11:30 am GMT
@Colin Wright George Bush needed Tony Blair's support to attack Iraq , Donald Trump now has the support of Boris Johnson to attack Iran : "Boris Johnson refuses to rule out military intervention on Iran ." metro.co.uk
It is said that the "deep state " removed Theresa May from office as she was "too soft" on Iran . As you suggest the attack will not happen until Trump's second term unless, in the meantime , there is a false flag attack like 9/11 which can be blamed on the Iranians .
Robjil , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
East Asians have freedom of speech. That is all that is needed to end Jewish Mafia vulture capitalism. If it was Italian Mafia vulture capitalism, the west would end it a few seconds. When one is in a "no see, no say, no hear" tribal group one can get away with everything. East Asians don't believe in hiding reality.

Here is more on how Samsung fought back against little Paulie.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3164975/Pictured-offensive-Samsung-cartoons-Jewish-U-S-hedge-fund-boss-sparked-anti-Semitism-row-South-Korea.htm

This is a summary of the article.

Samsung published controversial sketches in response to row over merger
Jewish U.S. hedge fund boss Paul Singer was trying to stop a Samsung business deal
In response the firm released cartoons on its website depicting Singer as a vulture
A row has broken out in South Korea with media there describing Jews as 'ruthless' with money
Merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was approved today

This is how Paulie's row with Samsung started.

These are the extraordinary cartoons Samsung posted on its website which reportedly depict a Jewish hedge fund boss as a money-grabbing vulture.

The row between Samsung and one of its major shareholders, Paul Singer, has sparked an anti-Semitism row in South Korea.

Harvard-educated Mr Singer, 70, whose hedge fund Elliott Management owns a seven per cent stake in Samsung C&T fell out with the company after he objected to a merger deal.

Cartoons shown what Paul's company did to the Congo, just one of many nations he pillaged.

In response Samsung posted a number of inflammatory cartoons on its website showing Mr Singer as a long-beaked vulture, which have since been taken down.

In one of the sketches a poor-looking man goes, cap in hand, to the vulture who has an axe hidden behind his back.

The caption reads: 'Elliott Management's representative method of earning money is, first of all, to buy the national debt of a struggling country cheaply, then insist on taking control as an investor and start a legal suit'

In another people appear to be dying in the desert from dehydration. Underneath is the caption: 'Because of it, Congo suffered even more hardship'.

This is believed to refer to Elliott Management's business dealings in the Congo.

Samsung wanted to keep their company in the Lee family. They did not want a Jewish Mafia tribal group take over.

The bitter fall out came because Samsung Group's founding family wanted to complete a merger with its holding company Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T to shore up its control of the firm as its chairman, Lee Kun-hee's health is in decline.

In the End, Samsung won. Paul lost.

The Lee family, who control Samsung, owns 43 per cent of Cheil Industries. The controversial merger was finally approved today.

South Koreans are not shy to express reality as it is. The west has to learn the value of freedom of speech before it too late for the west.

But the row has sparked an outpouring of anti-Semitism in South Korea.

One columnist described Jewish money as 'ruthless and merciless'.

And on Tuesday the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco Park Jae-seon expressed his concern about the influence of Jews in finance.

In an extraordianry outburst he said: 'The scary thing about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies.

'Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination,' Park added.

The next day, cable news channel YTN aired similar comments by local journalist Park Seong-ho.

'It is a fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are born,' he said.

Neither Park Jae-seon and Park Seong-ho were available for comment.

In a piece published a fortnight ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed 'Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless'.

Realist , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT
@eah

While Whites theoretically still have the numbers to affect/determine the outcome of elections, a majority of Whites usually stay home because they are tired of the 'evil of two lessers' choice they are offered -- even voting for Trump got them little/nothing.

I said nothing of an electoral solution to America's problems the problems will not be solved that way.

Digital Samizdat , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
@Art That scary thought has crossed my mind, too, Art. I've even started wondering if this whole impeachment circus is really part of an elaborate plot to guarantee Trump's re-election. I mean, would Pelosi's insane actions make the slightest sense otherwise? And everyone has noted how this is such a 'Jew coup,' haven't they? It all looks so suspicious
Digital Samizdat , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT
@Mefobills

What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections, killing dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to see with their own eyes.

Yup. And don't forget that ongoing Zionist psy-op known as the AMIA bombing: https://thesaker.is/hezbollah-didnt-do-argentine-bombing-updated/

Digital Samizdat , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT
@BannedHipster

True, but irrelevant. The Jews that matter don't read the Talmud or believe in "Adam and Eve."

Whether they believe it or not, they act as though they do. That shows it is an ancient and essential part of their ethnic subculture. Who knows? Maybe Kevin MacDonald is right and it's actually genetic .

It's 2020. The Jewish religion is "The Holocaust" and we're all "Nazis."

The holo-hoax is just their modern version of 'chosenness'. Pretending to be the biggest victims evah! is just another way of making themselves appear collectively as morally superior to the rest of mankind–even the darkies:

https://hooktube.com/watch?v=fbuNOzrxLqw

But whether it's being wielded by the Zionists or the lefty Social Jewish Warriors, it's really just a power play down deep. It's really just another way of reminding us goyim–white and colored–that we are all just half-demons (so to speak) compared to The Chosen.

Just passing through , says: December 20, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT
@Wally It is rather entertaining watching you kvetch, Jewish colonialism over WASP nations will be glorious.

Vietnam & Congo can choose as they wish, it is they who vote for their leaders.
In fact, Congo was better off with colonialism.

America voted for Zion Don, he is now receving hundreds of millions of dollars from Jews to do their bidding. It is hilarious that you can't see the irony of your comments.

In fact, it is even more funny what the Jews will do to WASP nations, enjoy your future of transexualism and fast food, WASPs totally deserve everything that is coming at them.

Then you change the subject to Epstein. Pathetic.

If you had an IQ above room temperature, you would realise my segue into the Epstein affair was a response to your question of "What deal was supposedly struck".

Robjil , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:12 pm GMT
@Just passing through Congo can not be independent. Just like Libya, Syria, Iraq, Bolivia, Honduras and so many other nations who tried to do so.

Patrice Lumumba tried to create an independent Congo after "independence" in 1960.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/brussels-sets-straight-historical-wrong-over-patrice-lumumba-killing-1.3554088

You killed Lumumba," she roared at the Belgian officials on the platform, before being escorted away by the police. The music and speeches resumed.

She was right: they did. Belgium was heavily implicated in the 1961 killing of the radical, first prime minister of an independent Congo, now the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1975 a US inquiry also pointed conclusively to CIA involvement in the execution carried out by a Katangan police unit under a Belgian officer.

Paul Singer, a Jewish Mafia vulture capitalist did some "work" on the Congo too.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/oct/17/debt.law

He also bought some of Congo's debt for $10m and sued for $127m. The Congolese government was found to be corrupt and under US racketeering law, Singer may be able to claim triple damages, reaping as much as $400m.

anno nimus , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:21 pm GMT
@anno nimus
anno nimus , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:22 pm GMT
and blessed are the peace makers.
geokat62 , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:24 pm GMT
@Thomasina

If he gets elected again, which I think he will, we might see a different Trump. Who knows.

"I'm HARDCORE Zionist and so is president Trump!" – Roger Stone

What more do we need to know?

Anon [515] Disclaimer , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
@J Adleman https://m.theepochtimes.com/nsa-director-rogers-disclosed-fisa-abuse-days-after-carter-page-fisa-was-issued_2692033.html

Look at what the disloyal Jews have been doing.

On March 9, 2016, Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight personnel learned that the FBI had been employing outside contractors who had access to raw Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was completed.

This information was disclosed in a 99-page FISA court ruling on April 26, 2017, that was declassified by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

That wasn't an isolated incident and the improper access granted to outside contractors "seems to have been the result of deliberate decisionmaking" (footnote – page 87).

The FISA court noted the "FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules" and questioned "whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

"This is bigger than Watergate + 9/11 + the Bay of Pigs + almost every other conspiracy theory you can name combined. It is also why you're seeing definite signs of panic and desperation everywhere from the House of Representatives to the mainstream media to the boardrooms of the Fortune 500. This reaches from the heart of the Swamp in Washington DC to Silicon Valley and Seattle, Washington. In East Germany, it came out after the Wall fell that one-fifth of the population was involved in the surveillance of the other four-fifths of the population; now keep in mind that due to the mathematical reach of the FISA warrants, the 825 million surveillance orders issued actually exceeds the 320 million population of the USA.

Now we know how and why Google and Amazon and Facebook got so big, so fast. They were the corporate arm of the surveillance state."

You disloyal Jews used government resources and private contractors to surveil the entire country.

I wonder what's going to happen next?

Also why haven't you responded to any of the comments about what the Jews did in Russia?

eah , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMT
@Realist I said nothing of an electoral solution to America's problems

And I said nothing about an "electoral solution", or any other kind of "solution", to "America's problems" -- I said/implied that blaming Whites, or the way they vote, more or less exclusively, as you did, for the way things are, was not exactly a genius take -- there is literally no one for a race conscious white person, eg a WN, to vote (affirmatively) for at the moment -- and it is hard to imagine anyone emerging in the near future.

For the record: I (also) do not think just voting, especially in the current one two party system with the usual 'evil of two lessers' choices offered, will do anything for Whites.

Colin Wright , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 2:17 pm GMT
@mcohen ' There are many non jews runny vulture funds worldwide with at least 100 in china alone '

List them. Please. I'm giving you the opportunity.

Colin Wright , says: Website December 20, 2019 at 2:19 pm GMT
@Thomasina It would be wonderful if you were proved right.
Skeptikal , says: December 20, 2019 at 3:14 pm GMT
@Daniel Rich What Mark Green actually said was "this phenomena."
Thomasina , says: December 20, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
@geokat62 "'I'm HARDCORE Zionist and so is president Trump!' – Roger Stone"

If Trump was hardcore Zionist, they wouldn't have been going after him since the day he announced he would run for President.

No, they see him as an absolute threat to their existence.

As they twist to fight him, they are all exposing themselves.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: December 20, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
@Mefobills

What We abrogate (of) a sign or [We] cause it to be forgotten, We bring better than it or similar (to) it. Do not you know that Allah over every thing (is) All-Powerful?

2:106

The verses on abrogation read as to only allow Allah to abrogate, so any human action on this is stepping over the line imo.. maybe other than when 100% of the Ummah agree on something, I read that could remove a surah of the Quran, like a voice of God. That rhymes nicely imo.

Of course how to judge which ruling to use? I agree, it brings in a casuistry into the faith that generally helps to confuse.. I don't know much about it though yet.

I think Islam preaches a decent message, but the average practitioner is open to misinterpret it quite a bit. This is a failing of the teaching.. but I think Mohammed's message was corrupted like Christ's message pretty much straight after his death. Gospel of Thomas and Tolstoy's rewrites all the way for something closer imo.

Desert Fox , says: December 20, 2019 at 4:48 pm GMT
@Thomasina Trump is a hardcore zionist and the impeachment is another zionist scam to divide the American people, read The Protocols of Zion.
Mefobills , says: December 20, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT
@sally

venture capital funds are only made necessary because we have a federal reserve.. which is a private bank and private banks want to earn interest.

Sentiments are correct and you are hovering over the target, but some details are needed.

The federal reserve is the tail on the dog, not the dog. The Fed was created as a part of the corporate banking money trust. Before Fed the reserve loops of banks were not tied together, and they had to use treasuries (T bills or Lincoln Green-backs) to balance their ledgers.

Banksters wanted to extend their money power beyond their region. In the days before federal reserve bank money power would fall off the further you got away from the bank. Banks hypothecate new bank credit, and the credit has to swim home to the debt instrument. This "swimming home" is done easily when the ledgers are all connected through reserve loops (also called the overnight market).

After Federal Reserve (1913) and before Wright Pattman, the Federal Reserve was recycling its profits made on public debt back to its stock owners and member banks. The member banks especially, were guaranteed profits no matter how the economy did. After Wright Pattman (mid 60's) Fed has to rebate to treasury they couldn't face up to the allegations they were stealing from the commons, which they were.

Today, the FED rebates interest on TBills and public debt back to Treasury. The private banks within the system continue to hypothecate new money at interest, as that is their business model. This business model does not include morality, nor does it work in the public interest. It works to enrich finance at the expense of the working/laboring economy.

So, central banks are not profit centers, but instead they ensure profit lower down – within the private banking system. Central banks are backstops to prevent instability within the already unstable debt money system.

Recent Example: The Repo Crises, whereby FED is monetizing repurchase agreements. Non bank actors such as hedge funds, REIT's and others have been given access to the overnight market (where reserves are supposed to be traded). The FED now swaps new keyboard dollars for various finance paper to keep the non bank actors in the repo market liquid.

This action is artificial and props up the finance sector at the expense of the normal working economy, and hence it is usurious.

Usury is a word that has been normed out of our language. Why? Because our (((friends))) are agents of mammon, and they cannot help themselves. It may be genetic.

Usury is a power relation, where you steal from others because you can. Laws are changed to enable the thefts.

In the case of the FED it was taking 6 percent from the people on public debts. Public debts were funded by taxpayers. This money was then funneling backwards from FED into their crony banks and paid off sycophants.

We don't know what the FED is doing today because the bad guys won't allow an audit. The general statement is that private corporate banking is usurious, and was born in iniquity, and that is where your eye should gaze, not necessarily at the FED or any central bank.

The debt money system and finance capitalism is state sponsored usury, and is a Jewish construct.

Vulture capitalism is simply vultures buying up or creating distressed assets and then changing the law, or using force to then collect face value of the debt instrument or other so called asset. Vultures will use hook or crook to force down what they are buying, and hook or crook to force up what they are selling. God's special people can do this because when they look in the mirror, they are god, and are sanctioned to do so.

Trinity , says: December 20, 2019 at 5:05 pm GMT
Maybe the vulture should replace the bald eagle as America's favorite bird since our dear shabbos goy President Trump and cohorts are undermining the First Amendment and trying to make it a crime to criticize Jews and/or Israel. Oh and don't think I am promoting the other Zionist and their shabbos goy on the demshevik side. The Jew CONTROLS both sides and "our" two party system has become Jew vs. Jew, not republican vs. democrat. Lenin said that the best way to control the opposition was to lead it and (((they))) are at it AGAIN.
Mefobills , says: December 20, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
@Ilya G Poimandres

I think Islam preaches a decent message, but the average practitioner is open to misinterpret it quite a bit. This is a failing of the teaching.. but I think Mohammed's message was corrupted like Christ's message pretty much straight after his death. Gospel of Thomas and Tolstoy's rewrites all the way for something closer imo.

The line of good and evil runs down the middle of each person's heart, and they have to decide.

My line of attack on Judaism, Islam, Christianity, or whatever, has to answer the question: "Is it good narrative for high civilization." Does the narrative make people malfunction?

There are branches of Islam that are good narrative – where people choose the better side of Islam.

The point is that these good branches, say the Suffi's, have to keep the crazy aunt in the basement.

Abrogation allows what comes later, to gain power over what comes earlier. And what comes earlier is the best part of Islam.

Christianity has the same problem, it does not do a good job of policing its crazies, who twist scripture. Judaism, especially Talmudic Judaism is Kabala and utterances of the sages, and it morphs and changes over time. For example, after Sabatai Sevi, the Kol-Neidre was weaponized, and this construct is used by today's Zionists to wreak havoc. Before Sabatai, there was Hillel, who weaponized usury.

Yes, I agree about Christianity changing quite a bit. In the first 300 years it was much different than today, especially after the Arien controversy was settled by Constantine's maneuvering of Bishops at council of Nicea. For example, before; reincarnation was part of Christian doctrine, and after; reincarnation was excluded.

Truth3 , says: December 20, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMT
Trump should be impeached and convicted. But not for the reasons in the two Articles passes by the House.

He should be for

Violating the Symington and Glenn amended 1961 Foreign Assistance Act to ban any aid to clandestine nuclear powers that were not NPT signatories. Trump increased aid to Israel.

Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem in violation of numerous UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.

The abuse of Office via Nepotism in having totally unqualified Jared and Ivanka Kushner serve as US Government respresentatives.

Executive Order classifying Jews as a Nationality protected from Free Speech criticism of them, in violation of the First Amendment.

Of course those in Congress, that facilitated and cheered on the Israeli centric Trump acts, should all be voted out forever.

Desert Fox , says: December 20, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT
@Trinity Agree completely.
Digital Samizdat , says: December 20, 2019 at 5:31 pm GMT
@utu Great clip! I always loved Fry & Laurie.

I have long maintained that libertarianism/capitalism is really like a kind of Calvinism for atheists. Calvinists used to assume that, since whatever happened was God's will and God's will was invariable good, then whatever happened was good. Likewise, many modern cucks seem to have just substituted The Market for God. Morally speaking, it all lets man off the hook for anything that results–especially when those men happen to be Jewish financiers!

No, boys and girls, The Market is not inherently good. It requires that a moral system be superimposed on top of it in order to make it moral.

likbez , says: December 20, 2019 at 5:50 pm GMT
@Anon After reading the book of this MI6 asset (and potential killer) who tried to fleece Russia, you probably can benefit from watching a movie by Nekrasov about him. See references in:

http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Fighting_russophobia/Propaganda_as_creation_of_artificial_reality/Browder/index.shtml

It looks like it was Browder who killed Magnitsky, so that he can't spill the beans. And then in an act of ultimate chutzpah played the victim and promoted Magnitsky act.

[Dec 20, 2019] Imperial Tool Pelosi Falsely Links Russia to Ukrainegate by Stephen Lendman

The fact that the 'whistleblower' is a CIA officer who has since returned to active duty at the agency isn't lost on Mr. Trump's supporters.
"The CIA was the central protagonist in Russiagate. The origins of the New Cold War are found in Bill Clinton's first term, when administration neo-cons looted, plundered and moved NATO against a prostrate Russia in contradiction to explicit guarantees not to do so made by the George H.W. Bush administration. Vladimir Putin's apparent crime was to oust the Clintonites from Russia and restore Russian sovereignty." CounterPunch.org
"Russiagate was a declaration of war by the 'intelligence community' against a duly elected President. As argued below, the CIA's motive is to move its own foreign policy agenda forward without even the illusion of democratic consent." CounterPunch.org
Notable quotes:
"... Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution. ..."
Sep 29, 2019 | stephenlendman.org

by Stephen Lendman ( stephenlendman.orgHome – Stephen Lendman )

Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution.

Her long disturbing congressional record shows she exclusively serves wealth and power interests at the expense of the vast majority of Americans she disdains, proving it time and again.

Her deplorable voting record speaks for itself, backing:

  1. the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Blily Act repeal of Glass-Steagall, permitting some of the most egregious financial abuses in the modern era;
  2. the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), permitting endless wars of aggression in multiple theaters, raging endlessly;
  3. annual National Defense Authorization Acts and US wars of aggression;
  4. Obama's neoliberal harshness, continuing under Trump, along with tax cuts for the rich, benefitting her and her husband enormously, without admitting it;
  5. increasingly unaffordable marketplace medicine, ripping off consumers for profit, leaving millions uninsured, most Americans way underinsured;
  6. the USA Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and other police state law;
  7. the 9/11 whitewash Commission Recommendation Act;
  8. the FISA Amendments Act -- permitting warrantless spying post-9/11, Big Brother watching everyone;
  9. NAFTA and other anti-consumer/corporate coup d'etat trade bills;
  10. the repressive US gulag prison system, the world's largest by far; incarcerating millions by federal, state, and local authorities, it includes global torture prisons;
  11. unapologetic support for Israeli apartheid viciousness;
  12. fierce opposition to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and other nonbelligerent sovereign states threatening no one;
  13. the Russiagate witch hunt and Ukrainegate scams.

Calling exploitive/predatory "free market (capitalism) our greatest asset" shows her contempt for equity and justice.

Her support for the military, industrial, security, media complex is all about backing endless wars of aggression against invented enemies. No real ones exist.

Pelosi represents what belligerent, plutocratic, oligarchic, increasingly totalitarian rule is all about, notably contemptuous of nations on the US target list for regime change -- Russia, China and Iran topping the list.

On Friday, she falsely accused Russia of involvement in Ukrainegate, a failed Russiagate scam spinoff with no legitimacy, supported by undemocratic Dems and their echo-chamber media.

Repeating the long ago debunked Russian US election meddling Big Lie that won't die, she falsely accused Moscow of "ha(ving) a hand in this."

Referring to the Ukrainegate scam, she offered no evidence backing her accusation because none exists.

During a Friday press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Sergey Lavrov slammed Pelosi's Big Lie, saying:

"Russia's been accused of all the deadly sins, and then some. It's paranoia, and I think it's obvious to everyone."

It's unacceptable anti-Russia hate-mongering, what goes on endlessly, Cold War 2.0 raging.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following on her facebook page:

"Speaker of the lower house of Congress Nancy Pelosi believes that Russia is involved in the scandal over July telephone conversation between us and Ukraine Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky."

"This (baseless) assumption was made on Friday Pelosi (not) explaining what it means, and without providing evidence of her words."

"Considering that it was Nancy Pelosi who caused the 'Scandal around the telephone conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine,' then, according to the speaker's logic, Russia attached the hand to her."

What's going on is continuation of the most shameful political chapter in US history, ongoing since Trump took office, along with railroading Richard Nixon.

Both episodes represent McCarthyism on steroids – supported by establishment media, furious about Trump's triumph over Hillary, targeting him largely for the wrong reasons, ignoring plenty of right ones.

Mueller's probe ended with a whimper, not the bang Dems wanted, Ukrainegate their second bite of the apple to try discrediting Trump for political advantage ahead of November 2020 elections.

That's what Russiagate and Ukrainegate are all about.

These actions by undemocratic Dems and their media press agents are further clear proof that Washington's deeply corrupted political system to its rotten core is far too debauched to fix.

VISIT MY NEW WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org ( Home – Stephen Lendman ). Contact at [email protected] .

[Dec 19, 2019] Fiona Hill reveals herself as primitive and greedy neocon hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly to sustain her own well being as a rabid warmonger for MIC

Notable quotes:
"... Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones. ..."
"... In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word and certainly not the definitive narrative. ..."
Dec 19, 2019 | www.amazon.com

karenann , August 8, 2015

A deeply biased book

Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999 manifesto on his millenial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.

As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:

"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."

For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II. To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy. Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.

I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. But in ignoring what Cohen has to say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.

The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy.

Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers' books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.

Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.

karenann, 2 years ago (Edited)

Kissinger has had the good sense to state that the best hope for peace in the region is to have Ukraine as a totally neutral country, similar to Finland before the USSR collapsed. The Budapest Memorandum of NATO calls for the full military integration of Ukraine and Georgia.

As a thought experiment, what if the Soviets undermined the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia, and then wanted to include these governments in the Warsaw Pact? What do you think the reaction of the US would be?

R. L. Huff , April 23, 2015
OK but blinkered

- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table. Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia. Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.

Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same.

The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us - our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the "misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the "Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part of a geo-political manouver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians, exactly as in the Baltic states.

His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving, it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.

In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word and certainly not the definitive narrative.

Anon II, 4 years ago (Edited)

It is refreshing to read something on Russia written by a reviewer who knows what he is talking about. This book is full of data, but the authors lack any intellectual basis on which to organize it. They are trying to publish a book in which there will be reader interest, but they really have nothing to say. If you are eager to make an enemy of Russia, this book will be useful to you. If you are simply trying to understand what is happening, it won't be.

D.B.4 years ago

Thank you for an excellent countervailing perspective!

[Dec 19, 2019] MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels

Highly recommended!
Dec 19, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

likbez, December 19, 2019 6:58 pm

Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.

This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.

Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out like a garbage.

"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept. of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.

Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984. Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced by Rachel Maddow show ;-)

Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.

One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels."

[Dec 19, 2019] A the core of color revolution against Trump is Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics. ..."
Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Lk , Dec 18 2019 22:19 utc | 26

The House impeachment is driven by several factors:
  1. After Russiagate, when Trump began to investigate its fraudulent origins, the Dems feared the exposure of Obama-era corruption if not high crimes. Hence Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics.
  2. The investigation into Russiagate led right to Ukraine, and thus to Biden. In the context of Sanders' campaign, Ukrainegate became an imperative for the factions of the capitalist class that dominates the DNC. If Biden falls on Ukraine issues, then Sanders is inevitable; an anathema to Wall Street and Big Tech DNC donors.
  3. 3. While 1 and 2 dominate DNC machinations, foreign policy is also a factor. The foreign policy establishment is absolutely against any hesitation with respect to confronting Russia as part of a regional and global strategy for primacy. Trump's limited prevarications on Russia might threaten the long established strategy to expand Nato to Ukraine and thereby to encircle Russia and maintain US dominance over Europe. So, even though Trump names great power rivalry as the name of the game today, his inclination for making nice with Putin threatens to weaken the US hold over Europe, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.

    It is with these points that the strategic differences become apparent: Trump is raising a realist, neo-mercantalist strategy against ALL potential competitors; the DNC and the deep state hold a strategy of liberal hegemony: globalization and US primacy through dominating regional alliances, and impregnating US hegemony INSIDE the vassal States of the empire.

All of this, however, is bound to fail for the DNC, and down the road for Trump himself.

The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones.

[Dec 19, 2019] Senate hearings give impression that the whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself

Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

evilempire , Dec 18 2019 22:32 utc | 28

If anyone was watching The Horowitz hearing in the senate today it would be hard to conclude that RussiaGate and Ukrainegate will not have serious consequences going forward.

The whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself, and indictments are sure to follow. I don't see how anyone could think that this will not be catastrophic for the democratic party.

[Dec 19, 2019] The Afghanistan Fiasco and the Decline and Fall of the American Military by Philip Giraldi

Dec 17, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

The Washington Post, through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, has published a long investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400 testimonies from American diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that reports about Afghanistan were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the ground.

After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly discomfit those who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State Department and international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.

There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the OPCW, as I wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and the al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely justifying a responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and France. In such circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the OPCW) is commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the corporate-controlled mainstream media.

In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported by the Pentagon who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in Syria and Iraq in the last 6 years.

False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.

The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception, the data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability of the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military planning and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the Post's real purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the Pentagon's efforts to continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding inconvenient truths.

The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as to weaken Iran's main regional ally.

The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as well as the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties are not interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their only goal is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other powers from being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist preeminence.

The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from Russia.

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.

The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban, the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its impact.

The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say, admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of "diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.

The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of the United States.

In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to bring the whole facade crashing down.

Philip Giraldi Ph.D., Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest

[Dec 19, 2019] Chemical Weapons Watchdog Is Just an American Lap Dog -- Strategic Culture

Notable quotes:
"... The FFM was headed by Malik Ellahi , who served as head of the OPCW's government relations and political affairs branch. The appointment of someone lacking both technical and operational experience suggests that Ellahi's primary role was political. Under his leadership, the FFM established a close working relationship with the anti-Assad Syrian opposition, including the White Helmets and SAMS. ..."
"... Once the FFM wrapped up its investigation in Douma, however, it became apparent to Fairweather that it had a problem. There were serious questions about whether chlorine had, in fact, been used as a weapon. The solution, brokered by Fairweather, was to release an interim report that ruled out sarin altogether, but left the door open regarding chlorine. ..."
"... Braha did this by dispatching OPCW inspectors to Turkey in September 2018 to interview new witnesses identified by the White Helmets, and by commissioning new engineering studies that better explained the presence of the two chlorine cannisters found in Douma. By March, Braha had assembled enough information to enable the technical directorate to issue its final report. Almost immediately, dissent appeared in the ranks of the OPCW. An engineering report that contradicted the findings published by Braha was leaked , setting off a firestorm of controversy derived from its conclusion that the chlorine cannisters found in Douma had most likely been staged by the White Helmets. ..."
"... The OPCW, while eventually acknowledging that the leaked report was genuine, explained its exclusion from the final report on the grounds that it attributed blame, something the FFM was not mandated to do. According to the OPCW , the engineering report in question had been submitted to the investigation and identification team, a newly created body within the OPCW mandated to make such determinations. Moreover, Director General Arias stood by the report's conclusion that it had "reasonable grounds" to believe "that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018." ..."
"... The OPCW's credibility as an investigative body has been brought into question through these leaks, as has its independent character. If an organization like the OPCW can be used at will by the U.S., the United Kingdom and France to trigger military attacks intended to support regime-change activities in member states, then it no longer serves a useful purpose to the international community it ostensibly serves. ..."
Dec 19, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Scott RITTER

A spate of leaks from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons ( OPCW ), the international inspectorate created for the purpose of implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, has raised serious questions about the institution's integrity, objectivity and credibility. The leaks address issues pertaining to the OPCW investigation into allegations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons to attack civilians in the Damascus suburb of Douma on April 7, 2018. These allegations, which originated from such anti-Assad organizations as the Syrian Civil Defense (the so-called White Helmets ) and the Syrian American Medical Society ( SAMS ), were immediately embraced as credible by the OPCW, and were used by the United States, France and the United Kingdom to justify punitive military strikes against facilities inside Syria assessed by these nations as having been involved in chemical weapons-related activities before the OPCW initiated any on-site investigation.

The Douma incident was initially described by the White Helmets, SAMS and the U.S., U.K. and French governments as involving both sarin nerve agent and chlorine gas. However, this narrative was altered when OPCW inspectors released, on July 6, 2018, interim findings of their investigation that found no evidence of the use of sarin. The focus of the investigation quickly shifted to a pair of chlorine cylinders claimed by the White Helmets to have been dropped onto apartment buildings in Douma by the Syrian Air Force, resulting in the release of a cloud of chlorine gas that killed dozens of Syrian civilians. In March, the OPCW released its final report on the Douma incident , noting that it had "reasonable grounds" to believe "that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018," that "this toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine" and that "the toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine."

Much has been written about the OPCW inspection process in Syria, and particularly the methodology used by the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), an inspection body created by the OPCW in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic." The FFM was created under the direction of Ahmet Üzümcü , a career Turkish diplomat with extensive experience in multinational organizations, including service as Turkey's ambassador to NATO. Üzümcü was the OPCW's third director general, having been selected from a field of seven candidates by its executive council to replace Argentine diplomat Rogelio Pfirter. Pfirter had held the position since being nominated to replace the OPCW's first director general, José Maurício Bustani. Bustani's tenure was marred by controversy that saw the OPCW transition away from its intended role as an independent implementor of the Chemical Weapons Convention to that of a tool of unilateral U.S. policy, a role that continues to mar the OPCW's work in Syria today, especially when it comes to its investigation of the alleged use by the Syrian government of chemical weapons against civilians in Douma in April 2018.

Bustani was removed from his position in 2002, following an unprecedented campaign led by John Bolton, who at the time was serving as the undersecretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs in the U.S. State Department. What was Bustani's crime? In 2001, he had dared to enter negotiations with the government of Iraq to secure that nation's entry into the OPCW, thereby setting the stage for OPCW inspectors to visit Iraq and bring its chemical weapons capability under OPCW control. As director general, there was nothing untoward about Bustani's action. But Iraq circa 2001 was not a typical recruitment target. In the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, the U.N. Security Council had passed a resolution under Chapter VII requiring Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including its chemical weapons capability, to be "removed, destroyed or rendered harmless" under the supervision of inspectors working on behalf of the United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM.

The pursuit of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction led to a series of confrontations with Iraq that culminated in inspectors being ordered out of the country by the U.S. in 1998, prior to a 72-hour aerial attack -- Operation Desert Fox. Iraq refused to allow UNSCOM inspectors to return, rightfully claiming that the U.S. had infiltrated the ranks of the inspectors and was using the inspection process to spy on Iraqi leadership for the purposes of facilitating regime change. The lack of inspectors in Iraq allowed the U.S. and others to engage in wild speculation regarding Iraqi rearmament activities, including in the field of chemical weapons. This speculation was used to fuel a call for military action against Iraq, citing the threat of a reconstituted WMD capability as the justification. Bustani sought to defuse this situation by bringing Iraq into the OPCW, an act that, if completed, would have derailed the U.S. case for military intervention in Iraq. Bolton's intervention included threats to Bustani and his family, as well as threats to withhold U.S. dues to the OPCW accounting for some 22% of that organization's budget; had the latter threat been implemented, it would have resulted in OPCW's disbandment.

Bustani's departure marked the end of the OPCW as an independent organization. Pfirter, Bolton's hand-picked replacement, vowed to keep the OPCW out of Iraq. In an interview with U.S. media shortly after his appointment, Pfirter noted that while all nations should be encouraged to join the OPCW, "We should be very aware that there are United Nations resolutions in effect" that precluded Iraqi membership "at the expense" of its obligations to the Security Council. Under the threat of military action, Iraq allowed UNMOVIC inspectors to return in 2002; by February 2003, no WMD had been found , a result that did not meet with U.S. satisfaction. In March 2003, UNMOVIC inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq under orders of the U.S., paving the way for the subsequent invasion and occupation of that nation that same month (the CIA later concluded that Iraq had been disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction by the summer of 1991).

Under Pfirter's leadership, the OPCW became a compliant tool of U.S. foreign policy objectives. By completely subordinating OPCW operations through the constant threat of fiscal ruin, the U.S. engaged in a continuous quid pro quo arrangement, trading the financial solvency of an ostensible multilateral organization for complicity in operating as a de facto extension of American unilateral policy. Bolton's actions in 2002 put the OPCW and its employees on notice: Cross the U.S., and you will pay a terminal price.

When Üzümcü took over the OPCW's reins in 2010, the organization was very much the model of multinational consensus, which, in the case of any multilateral organization in which the U.S. plays a critical role, meant that nothing transpired without the express approval of the U.S. and its European NATO allies, in particular the United Kingdom and France. Shortly after he took office, Üzümcü was joined by Robert Fairweather , a career British diplomat who served as Üzümcü's chief of Cabinet. (While Üzümcü was the ostensible head of the OPCW, the daily task of managing the functioning of the OPCW was that of the chief of Cabinet. In short, nothing transpired within the OPCW without Fairweather's knowledge and concurrence.)

Üzümcü and Fairweather's tenure at the OPCW was dominated by Syria, where, since 2011, the government of President Bashar Assad had been engaged in a full-scale conflict with a foreign-funded and -equipped insurgency whose purpose was regime change. By 2013, allegations emerged from both the Syrian government and rebel forces concerning the use of chemical weapons by the other side. In August 2013, the OPCW dispatched an inspection team into Syria as part of a U.N.-led effort, which included specialists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. itself, to investigate allegations that sarin had been used in attack on civilians in the town of Ghouta. While the mission found conclusive evidence that sarin nerve agent had been used , it did not assign blame for the attack.

Despite the lack of causality, the U.S. and its NATO allies quickly assigned blame for the sarin attacks on the Syrian government. To forestall U.S. military action against Syria, the Russian government helped broker a deal whereby the U.S. agreed to refrain from undertaking military action if the Syrian government joined the OPCW and subjected the totality of its chemical weapons stockpile to elimination. In October 2013, the OPCW-U.N. Joint Mission , created under the authority of U.N. Security Council resolution 2118 (2103), began the process of identifying, cataloging, removing and destroying Syria's chemical weapons. This process was completed in September 2014 (in December 2013, the OPCW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its disarmament work in Syria).

If the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons was an example of the OPCW at its best, what followed was a case study of just the opposite. In May 2014, the OPCW created the Fact-Finding Mission, or FFM , charged with establishing "facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic." The FFM was headed by Malik Ellahi , who served as head of the OPCW's government relations and political affairs branch. The appointment of someone lacking both technical and operational experience suggests that Ellahi's primary role was political. Under his leadership, the FFM established a close working relationship with the anti-Assad Syrian opposition, including the White Helmets and SAMS.

In 2015, responsibility for coordinating the work of the FFM with the anti-Assad opposition was transferred to a British inspector named Len Phillips (another element of the FFM, led by a different inspector, was responsible for coordinating with the Syrian government). Phillips developed a close working relationship with the White Helmets and SAMS and played a key role in OPCW's investigation of the April 2017 chemical incident in Khan Shaykhun. By April 2018, the FFM had undergone a leadership transition, with Phillips replaced by a Tunisian inspector named Sami Barrek . It was Barrek who led the FFM into Syria in April 2018 to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use at Douma. Like Phillips, Barrek maintained a close working relationship with the White Helmets and SAMS.

Once the FFM wrapped up its investigation in Douma, however, it became apparent to Fairweather that it had a problem. There were serious questions about whether chlorine had, in fact, been used as a weapon. The solution, brokered by Fairweather, was to release an interim report that ruled out sarin altogether, but left the door open regarding chlorine. This report was released on July 6, 2018. Later that month, both Üzümcü and Fairweather were gone, replaced by a Spaniard named Fernando Arias and a French diplomat named Sébastien Braha . It would be up to them to clean up the Douma situation.

The situation Braha inherited from Fairweather was unenviable. According to an unnamed OPCW official who spoke with the media after the fact, two days prior to the publication of the interim report, on July 4, 2018, Fairweather had been paid a visit by a trio of U.S. officials, who indicated to Fairweather and the members of the FFM responsible for writing the report that it was the U.S. position that the chlorine cannisters in question had been used to dispense chlorine gas at Douma, an assertion that could not be backed up by the evidence. Despite this, the message that Fairweather left with the OPCW personnel was that there had to be a "smoking gun." It was now Braha's job to manufacture one.

Braha did this by dispatching OPCW inspectors to Turkey in September 2018 to interview new witnesses identified by the White Helmets, and by commissioning new engineering studies that better explained the presence of the two chlorine cannisters found in Douma. By March, Braha had assembled enough information to enable the technical directorate to issue its final report. Almost immediately, dissent appeared in the ranks of the OPCW. An engineering report that contradicted the findings published by Braha was leaked , setting off a firestorm of controversy derived from its conclusion that the chlorine cannisters found in Douma had most likely been staged by the White Helmets.

The OPCW, while eventually acknowledging that the leaked report was genuine, explained its exclusion from the final report on the grounds that it attributed blame, something the FFM was not mandated to do. According to the OPCW , the engineering report in question had been submitted to the investigation and identification team, a newly created body within the OPCW mandated to make such determinations. Moreover, Director General Arias stood by the report's conclusion that it had "reasonable grounds" to believe "that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018."

Arias' explanation came under attack in November, when WikiLeaks published an email sent by a member of the FFM team that had participated in the Douma investigation. In this email, which was sent on June 22, 2018, and addressed to Robert Fairweather, the author noted that, when it came to the Douma incident, "[p]urposely singling out chlorine gas as one of the possibilities is disingenuous." The author of the email, who had participated in drafting the original interim report, noted that the original text had emphasized that there was insufficient evidence to support this conclusion, and that the new text represented "a major deviation from the original report." Moreover, the author took umbrage at the new report's conclusions, which claimed to be "based on the high levels of various chlorinated organic derivatives detected in environmental samples." According to email's author "They were, in most cases, present only in parts per billion range, as low as 1-2 ppb, which is essentially trace quantities." In short, the OPCW had cooked the books, manufacturing evidence from thin air that it then used to draw conclusions that sustained the U.S. position that chlorine gas had been used by the Syrian government at Douma.

Arias, while not addressing the specifics of the allegations set forth in the leaked email, recently declared that it is "the nature of any thorough inquiry for individuals in a team to express subjective views," noting that "I stand by the independent, professional conclusion" presented by the OPCW about the Douma incident. This explanation, however, does not fly in the face of the evidence.

The OPCW's credibility as an investigative body has been brought into question through these leaks, as has its independent character. If an organization like the OPCW can be used at will by the U.S., the United Kingdom and France to trigger military attacks intended to support regime-change activities in member states, then it no longer serves a useful purpose to the international community it ostensibly serves.

To survive as a credible entity, the OPCW must open itself to a full-scale audit of its activities in Syria by an independent authority with inspector general-like investigatory powers. Anything short of this leaves the OPCW, an organization that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions to world peace, permanently stained by the reality that it is little more than a lap dog of the United States, used to promote the very conflicts it was designed to prevent.

truthdig.com The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. Tags: Chemical Weapons Mass Media OPCW Syria White Helmets

[Dec 19, 2019] Never Trust a Failing Empire by Federico Pieraccini

Dec 17, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

The Washington Post , through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, has published a long investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400 testimonies from American diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that reports about Afghanistan were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the ground.

After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly discomfit those who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State Department and international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.

There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the OPCW, as I wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and the al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely justifying a responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and France. In such circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the OPCW) is commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the corporate-controlled mainstream media.

In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported by the Pentagon who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in Syria and Iraq in the last 6 years.

False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.

The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception, the data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability of the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military planning and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the Post's real purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the Pentagon's efforts to continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding inconvenient truths.

The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as to weaken Iran's main regional ally.

The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as well as the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties are not interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their only goal is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other powers from being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist preeminence.

The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from Russia.

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.

The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban, the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its impact.

The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post , is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say, admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of "diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.

The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of the United States.

In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to bring the whole facade crashing down.

[Dec 18, 2019] With impeachment imminent, Kushner has pushed out his enemies, installed allies, and taken control of the campaign and large swaths of policy -- only Kellyanne Conway is still pushing back.

Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: December 18, 2019 at 2:39 am GMT

"Jared Treats Mick Like the Help": It's Jared's White House Now (Trump's Just Living in It)

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/12/with-impeachment-imminent-jared-kushner-white-house-takeover-finally-complete

"With impeachment imminent, Kushner has pushed out his enemies, installed allies, and taken control of the campaign and large swaths of policy -- only Kellyanne Conway is still pushing back.

Inside the West Wing, Kushner has both eliminated opponents and installed acquiescent officials. "Jared was very frustrated with [Reince] Priebus and John Kelly," a Republican close to the White House, said. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney "was Jared's pick," the source said, and has allowed Kushner to function as de facto chief of staff. "Mick has decided not to be in control," a former West Wing official said. "Jared treats Mick like the help. There's no pushback," a prominent Republican said. John Bolton, who recently mocked Kushner in a private speech, has been replaced by Robert O'Brien, a Kushner ally. Sources say that Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers don't challenge Kushner after a string of leaks that Kushner wanted to replace Pence on the ticket with Nikki Haley. "Pence people look at Jared apprehensively. Pence treats Jared as a peer," said former Trump aide Sam Nunberg. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)"

Jared the Jew Prince is the number one reason not to reelect Trump.

[Dec 18, 2019] Trump Creates a New Nation by Philip Giraldi

Looks like Trump lost many votes of independents.
Notable quotes:
"... The Jerusalem Post ..."
Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

The pandering by Donald Trump and those around him to Israel and to some conservative American Jews is apparently endless. Last Wednesday the president signed an executive order that is intended to address alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses by cutting off funds to those universities that do not prevent criticism of Israel. To provide a legal basis to defund, the administration is relying on title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Since the Act does not include religion, Trump's order is declaring ipso facto that henceforth "Jewishness" is a nationality.

The executive order does not mention Israel by name, but it does state that its assumptions are based on "the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities'; and (ii) the 'Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism' identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent."

The IHRA "contemporary examples" supplementing the basic description are important. They considerably broaden the definition of anti-Semitism, to include "Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations" and "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." The examples also included holding Israel to a higher standard than other nations when criticizing it, and IHRA offers no possible mitigation even if the accusations are, in the case of the behavior of some Jews and of Israel, accurate.

Those who are confused because in the past expressions like "Italian" or "Irish" or "British" meant actual countries should recognize that Trump-speak never respects any connection with reality when there is political advantage just sitting out there waiting to be snatched and exploited. And that imperative is considerably multiplied when one is referring to either the state of Israel or of Jews in general, particularly as seen by the Trump White House, which clearly and repeatedly sends the message that it reveres both. Trump's order will in effect constitute a government-promoted argument that Jews are a people or a race with a collective national origin, like Italian or Polish Americans, an assertion that clearly is untrue.

In fact, suppressing criticism of Israel on college campuses using a "weaponized" claim of anti-Semitism has long been a major foreign policy objective of the Israeli government even though nonviolent assembly and free speech are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Congress has several times considered a comprehensive Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, though it has not passed due to legitimate free speech concerns. The nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (B.D.S.), which is very active on American campuses, has been particularly targeted and criticism of it is frequent in the media and from Congress while also emanating from the White House. As most accredited colleges receive federal funding, which can be considerable at a major research university, the executive order will create a major dilemma over how to respond, particularly for those schools that have Middle East study programs.

Work on the presidential executive order was initiated in the summer inside the White House by a team led by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, together with his close aide special assistant to the president Avi Berkowitz. They sought to develop a formula whereby government policy would equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and Donald Trump both agreed with that assessment and followed through on it. On December 8 th he promised to take action against B.D.S. and other critics in a speech delivered before the Israeli-American Council. The speech is worth reading in full by anyone who is concerned that the United States now has a government that favors one already privileged, wealthy and powerful constituency in particular and is not committed to upholding the civil liberties of all Americans.

Israel is an apartheid state. Covering up for its crimes against humanity as well as its war crimes is something of a growth industry in the United States, with Zionist billionaire oligarchs launching new foundations on a regular basis. Jewish power in the U.S. means that Israel always has been given a pass, even when it deliberately attacked and sought to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American Naval vessel in international waters in 1967. Thirty-four crewman died in the assault. The subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed by the president, secretary of state and the Navy department while the survivors were threatened with imprisonment if they revealed what had occurred. That is how a powerful and ruthless Israel acting through its traitorous domestic proxies operates and it illustrates how feeble the Establishment is in standing up to it.

This latest outrage, in which free speech and association will be denied to benefit one group on the basis of its claimed perpetual victimhood, had its genesis earlier this year when the federal government's Education Department ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to reorganize the Consortium for Middle East Studies program run jointly by the two colleges in part based on their failure to include enough "positive" content relating to Judaism. The demand came with a threat to suspend federal funding of Title VI Higher Education Act international studies and foreign language grants to the two schools if the curriculum were not changed.

The Education Department was particularly irate over a conference in March called "Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities." A Republican congressman was outraged by the development and asked Secretary DeVos to investigate because the gathering was full of "radical anti-Israel bias."

Coverage of the story revealed that "Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has become increasingly aggressive in going after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education." Her deputy who has served as a focal point for the effort to root out anti-Israel sentiment is Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, who might reasonably be described as "a career pro-Israel advocate," the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which he has used to exclusively defend the rights of Jewish groups and individuals against BDS and other manifestations of Palestinian pushback against the Israeli occupation of their country. He has not hesitated to call opponents anti-Semites and has worked with Jewish students to file civil rights complaints against college administrations, including schools in Wisconsin and California. In an op-ed that appeared, not surprisingly, in The Jerusalem Post , he observed that even when student complaints were rejected, they created major problems for the institutions involved. "If a university shows a failure to treat initial complaints seriously, it hurts them with donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students."

Last year Kenneth Marcus reopened an investigation into alleged anti-Jewish bias at Rutgers University that the Obama Administration had closed after finding that the charges were baseless. Marcus indicated that the re-examination was called for as his office in the Education Department would henceforth be using the IHRA-derived State Department definition of anti-Semitism that also includes "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination," making virtually all criticism of Israel a civil rights violation or even a hate crime.

Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish , are uncomfortable with being placed by government into one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination illegal. And they also note that the law was never intended to protect individuals whose feelings were hurt or who claim to be unwelcome or even threatened by someone saying something that they disapprove of. Since such protection is clearly the intention of the executive order, it is undeniable that the Trump's latest ploy is little more than a mechanism to pressure colleges into effectively banning B.D.S. and other groups critical of Israel.

And the order itself raises at least one unpleasant thought: if "Jewishness" is a nation even though it is demonstrably not one, what is the alleged Jewish nationality all about? Is this just one more example of the politics of Jewish identity or is it really some form of dual loyalty, with American Jews divided between those who are loyal to the U.S. and those who are loyal to some supra-nationality or allegiance? The fact is, that Donald Trump himself has several times expressed the view that American Jews, particularly those who are politically liberal, should be more loyal to Israel.

Trump's maneuver is unfortunately part of a well-funded and highly coordinated federal and state campaign to pass laws to criminalize critics of Israel . And the issue has also surfaced within the Democratic Party among those campaigning for the presidential nomination . Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced Representative Ilhan Omar to apologize after she criticized proposed anti-boycott legislation. More recently Bernie Sanders is being smeared as an anti-Semite even though he is Jewish because he associates with critics of Israel and has spoken out in favor of defending free speech while also supporting Palestinian rights.

There is a certain irony in all of this political theater, that the wealthiest and most powerful identifiable group in the United States should yet again be playing the victim is in itself astonishing. And making it a crime to deny Israel legitimacy while at the same time denying the same thing to Palestinians should give anyone pause.

And there is also considerable hypocrisy in that pro-Israel groups on campus have been if anything better funded and more aggressive in promoting their point of view than B.D.S. has been without any consequences. Canary Mission , for example, claims to "document people and groups that promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses" by posting their names, photos and personal information on its website. Israeli-American real estate investor and billionaire Adam Milstein is reported to be its principal funder while the site's listings have been allegedly used by the Israeli border security officials to deny entry to pro-B.D.S. American citizens and also with potential employers to deny applicants jobs.

The Lawfare Project's Campus Civil Rights Project meanwhile helps aggrieved Zionist students to "take legal action to ensure that schools live up to their legal obligations to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, and discrimination."

So here we are again. Special privileges for the perpetual victims. And no one in the media is willing to tell it like it is, while the handful of meek voices in congress have been effectively silenced. So sad, particularly as an election year is coming up and there will undoubtedly be much more of this. When the Israelis occupy nearly all of the West Bank with Donald Trump's approval and start "relocating" the existing population, who will be around to speak up? No one, as by that time saying nay to Israel will be a full-fledged hate crime and you can go to jail for doing so.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Rebel0007 , says: December 17, 2019 at 2:39 am GMT

This is a case of extreme 1st amendment rights abuse, not solely for violating freedom of speech, the press, the right to assemble, and redress the government with greivances, but it is also making both an establishment of religion, and prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

If this anti-Semetic definition is to be claimed to allow for the free exercise of Judaism, then it would only be fitting that it is anti-Islamic to Boycott, Sanction, and Divest from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which again, proves that this has made Judaism the established religion in America, where most Americans are Christians.

There are no equal protection laws passed for Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Seiks, or any other religion.

This is totally insane! I know that Ivanka converted to Judaism, and Trump loves his daughter, but this is disgusting!

geokat62 , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:04 am GMT
With this incredible speech, Pastor Chuck Baldwin gives Rick Wiles of TruNews a run for his money.

Chuck Baldwin Exposes Donald Trump's
Tyrannical Executive Order

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LPby6C6BSrU?feature=oembed

Description:

Donald Trump's so-called "antisemitism" Executive Order Is abominable, reprehensible & downright tyrannical. It is a blatant attack against the First Amendment protection of free speech and for all intents and purposes elevates all things Jewish to royalty status in America -- being granted official government protection against any kind of criticism.
In this video, Chuck Baldwin exposes the fact that not only is Donald Trump a hack for Zionism; he is also a wanna-be tyrant -- and this Executive Order proves it.

Here's the full transcript:

[MORE]

Donald Trump's Executive Order this past week will empower the federal Department of Education to withhold funding to campuses that do not squash anti-Israel rhetoric. In other words, it is now official government policy to deny college students and faculty members their natural and constitutional right to criticize, especially and primarily, if they criticize any and all things Israel. This will also, doubtless, include speech that supports Palestinian rights. Trump also declared that the religion of Judaism is a nationality or ethnicity, and is beyond criticism. Can you imagine the outcry if he had declared Christianity to be a nationality. Plus, by issuing this Executive Order, Donald Trump has made every Christian and non-Jew in the United States a second class citizen. But don't expect Robert Jeffress and his gaggle of Christian Zionists to figure that out. I have said repeatedly that Donald Trump is America's first Zionist president. And Trump's actions continue to prove that statement right. Trump's latest attack against the constitution – specifically the First Amendment – is just his latest sellout to Israel. I'll say it straight out: Donald Trump is not trying to make America great. He's trying to make Israel great. By the way, I'm glad to see the rabid Jewish Zionist, Mark Levin, agree with me. At the signing ceremony of this draconian Executive Order, Levin called Trump "America's first Jewish president." Even casual research will easily discover that Trump's family is dominated by Jewish Zionists, as is his circle of friends and business associates. What a coincidence! Trump says his EO is protecting free speech on college campuses. That's a lie. His EO is squashing free speech specifically, speech that criticizes Israel or Zionism. Donald Trump is a pathetic puppet of the likes of the ultra Zionist billionaire, Sheldon Adelson. Even worse is the fact that the Christian Zionist preachers and churches in this country are as much Adelson's puppet as is Trump, which is why they love Trump so much. And all of this hypnotic support for faux Israel can be traced directly to the false teachings of John Darby and CI Scofield and the thousands of Christian Zionist churches and scores of Christian Zionist colleges that those two men created. Now, the Zionist, Donald Trump, is trying to prohibit colleges from criticizing Zionism. If you were looking for an impeachable offence, this blatant abridgement of the First Amendment by the president of United States is it. But, don't expect Democrats in Congress to challenge Trump's unconscionable EO that officially elevates Jewishness to royalty status. Because the same Israeli Lobby that controls the Republicans in Washington DC also controls the Democrats. Trump's EO will deny funding for colleges and universities unless they prohibit the right of faculty and students to exercise their First Amendment freedom of speech to criticize Israel. How long will it be before Donald Trump decides to criminalize anyone who criticizes Israel? Donald Trump is not only a Zionist hack, he is a wannabe tyrant, and this Executive Order proves it! [loud applause]

Colin Wright , says: Website December 17, 2019 at 5:18 am GMT
@Bragadocious 'Obama considered something similar to this. He also signed two major international trade agreements with anti-BDS language. Giraldi said nothing about this; I checked. He did mention the trade agreements but forgot the punchline: Obama signed them into law! Why one standard for President Zero, another for Orange man?'

We'll have to revisit this if Obama becomes president again.

Colin Wright , says: Website December 17, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT
@Robert Dolan 'Trump has lost his mind.

I sort of wish they would impeach the stupid cuck bastard.'

They very well may. Unless you can explain how the Senate would convict, it means nothing.

Truth , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT
@Robert Dolan Bro, 2 years ago you were wearing a MIGA hat (Israel).
22pp22 , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
Silly on the part of Jews. If they are counted separately, it becomes even harder to hide that they are absurdly overrepresented in all the desirable professions.
Yaakov , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
The Enemy is now in plain sight
One Tribe , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:39 am GMT
Thank you again for your courageous reporting, Mr. Giraldi.

This is a very interesting situation!

I am seeing it with a double-vision.

If this so, and passed into law?!
Then, what possible legal excuse still exists for not declaring AIPAC, and all of the other 'special interest extra-governmental agencies', foreign agents of a foreign 'nation'?

We shall see.

Z-man , says: December 17, 2019 at 6:33 am GMT
@geokat62 Thank you for the clip geokat62 . Chuck Baldwin simply speaks the truth.
But here is where I diverge from the conclusions of the good pastor. Trump has now stated the obvious, Jews are a race and a religious cult. Besides this truth he is, hopefully, forming an irreparable wedge between secular and Zionist Jews. This only helps the majority in this nation. Unfortunately this majority also includes Christian Zionists, a heretic group even more revolting than Zionist Jews.
I still believe that Trump is cynically doing this to protect his flanks from the rabid Zionists, who with the rest of that Jew Cabal, who hate him more than anything, would all attack Trump and make him a one term POTUS.
Because, believe it or not, Trump is still better than any of the Demo'krat candidates out there for, as the 'good pastor' said, both political parties are owned .
As far as the exec. order itself it is unconstitutional and will be shot down in the courts. But if this power isn't checked and destroyed now it will become a crime to even think anti I z rael thoughts (Orwell, Huxley et al).
A pox on that most artificial of nation states, BDS now but in a conflict 4 more years of Donald because I can see him going to war with the NEOCONS over Russia and other Satanic goals of the Cabal. Time will tell and hopefuly Trump will do the right thing.
Rebel0007 , says: December 17, 2019 at 6:44 am GMT
@Anon

What you stayed is not equal protection. The law prohibits the criticism and boycott of a Jewish state. The government has a double standard. It is a rock solid case of an establishment of Judaism as the religion of America.

The government has boycotted, sanctioned, and divested from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is an Islamic state, but not the terrorist group, and in fact the adversary of the terrorist group IS.

The Israeli government has waged war on every religion, and so has our own government by refusing Christians and Muslims to criticize the barbaric racial holocaust, precisely as Hitler refused to allow Catholics and Protestants to criticize his racist policies, the Nazis raided the Catholic and Protestant churche, seized assets, and placed clergy in concentration camps.

This anti-Semetic law is an affront to all religions because it has nothing to due with the Jewish religion and everything to do with the Israeli government. It has nothing to do with Jewish people and everything to do with the Israeli government.

This is simply an effort to silence any criticism of murderous regimes and the holocaust against Islam, precisely as Hitler had done in Germany towards those who criticized his insane racist policies and barbaric holocausts.

thotmonger , says: December 17, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT
How would it fly if Trump's EO instead forbade criticism of Russia in schools and colleges in USA?

Very strange that something like this could ever be written and signed. A fast budding and explicit "Judeo lese majetse" is unfolding before our eyes. And if it is meant to protect Jews as a race and nation, then that will naturally induce people to see them as exactly that: a separate nation. Will this quell concern about loyalty or raise more doubt?

p.s. In 2018, Israeli army expert snipers made a turkey shoot of Palestinians marching on the 70th anniversary of their people being ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland. A "shoot to cripple" policy only murdered several score but, with high speed dum dum bullets, they blasted bloody wreckage through the flesh and bones of many thousands of unarmed people. You may not see them on your porno channels and game shows, but a large number will be crippled for the rest of their lives.

This is a good example of a very recent state sponsored atrocity on a large scale. Students in our schools and colleges might want to examine this in a variety of ways. The history, legality, ethics, demographic dilemmas etc. Sure, it might roll over into some criticism and activism, e.g. DBS Israel, but is that to be prohibited by our government? What sort of citizens are our schools and colleges supposed to be cultivating if students are not permitted to exercise their freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience?

https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/palestine/2297-israel-shoot-to-cripple-policy-in-gaza.html

Miro23 , says: December 17, 2019 at 7:27 am GMT

Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish, are uncomfortable with being placed by government into one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination illegal.

A positive side of this is that even the most dopey university students now understand the situation

EliteCommInc. , says: December 17, 2019 at 9:42 am GMT
executive order:

"Combating Anti-Semitism

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. My Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on university and college campuses.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq., prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title VI does not cover discrimination based on religion, individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common religious practices. Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when the discrimination is based on an individual's race, color, or national origin.

It shall be the policy of the executive branch to enforce Title VI against prohibited forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as against all other forms of discrimination prohibited by Title VI.

Sec. 2. Ensuring Robust Enforcement of Title VI. (a) In enforcing Title VI, and identifying evidence of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, all executive departments and agencies (agencies) charged with enforcing Title VI shall consider the following:

(i) the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities"; and

(ii) the "Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism" identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.

(b) In considering the materials described in subsections (a)(i) and (a)(ii) of this section, agencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment. As with all other Title VI complaints, the inquiry into whether a particular act constitutes discrimination prohibited by Title VI will require a detailed analysis of the allegations.

Sec. 3. Additional Authorities Prohibiting Anti-Semitic Discrimination. Within 120 days of the date of this order, the head of each agency charged with enforcing Title VI shall submit a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, identifying additional nondiscrimination authorities within its enforcement authority with respect to which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism could be considered.

Sec. 4. Rule of Construction. Nothing in this order shall be construed to alter the evidentiary requirements pursuant to which an agency makes a determination that conduct, including harassment, amounts to actionable Start Printed Page 68780discrimination, or to diminish or infringe upon the rights protected under any other provision of law.

Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person."

9/11 Inside job , says: December 17, 2019 at 11:25 am GMT
theguardian.com : "Believe it or not , Barack Obama had Israel's best interests at heart " By Avi Shlaim :
"Obama's actual record during his eight years in office make him one of the most pro-Israeli American presidents since Harry S. Truman . Obama has given Israel considerably more money and arms than any of his predecessors ."

[Dec 18, 2019] Saudi Aramco team arrive in Syria's oil fields

Dec 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Thinking123 , 16 minutes ago link

Saudi Aramco team arrive in Syria's oil fields: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191217-saudi-aramco-team-arrive-in-syrias-oil-fields/

It is believed that the investments will be made through contracts signed between Aramco and the US government, whose armed forces have steadily been increasing their military presence in terms of manpower and equipment around the oil fields. Despite initially claiming to scale back troops from Syria, US President Donald Trump announced in October that America had " secured " and taken control of the oil in the Middle East.

uhland62 , 1 hour ago link

It's up to us now to expose the mendacity, although Pompeo admitted to lying, which gives us a bit more credibility.

I have been stung and yes, I expose as much mendacity as possible. Whether it makes a difference, I don't know but some seeds have taken roots.

Arising , 1 hour ago link

Russia should just grow a pair of balls and say 'NO'

No more attacks on Syria from NATO because last time you lied.

No more sanctions, or we will block black sea to NATO terrorists.

No more terrorist attacks from the occupiers of Palestine.

No more wrongly accusing other nations of doing what NATO specialises in- Terrorism.

No more standing on the sidelines and watching the U.S-Zio regime steam roll into a war with Iran.

'NO'

DarthVaderMentor , 1 hour ago link

The sad reality is that the Washington Post, New York Times and most of the mainstream TV and radio media are worse liars and better propagandists for the US Military-Industrial Complex than Pravda was for the Soviet Communist Party. There is no and never was an fair and balanced journalism. There's even no professional journalism!

My Russian opponents and Latin friends now laugh that I don't believe anything coming from US media today and I'm hoarding hard and untraceable assets just like they do in the Eastern Bloc, Middle East and Cuba. The 21st Century might yet be the century of dictators and their storm troopers who learned their lessons from Hitler and Stalin.

If populism and Trump don't survive the coup it'll be pretty grim times for the non-elites in America. The revenge from the weirdos and the leftist globalist Marxists will definitely start US Civil War 2.

Giant Meteor , 2 hours ago link

Yes and thank you for stating fundamental and obvious truths ..

on the other hand ,

"The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of the United States."

The Washington Compost May well have an ax to grind with and motive for publishing newfound truthiness, it's a miracle ! I fail to see however, just how Trump takes credit in the bull **** fog, of the longest running war, motivations department.

other than that ...

And so in closing, I would be more inclined to believe sir, propagandizing, the propaganda, with such an opinion, is just another kin to, let's say, the impeachment farce in example. Or in the words of "The father of modern day marketing", an obvious attempt at further shaping public opinion, for the masses, an opinion that grows more weary, more suspicious, more distrustful, and divergent from government and their various mouth pieces, by the day.

Stating obvious points such as you have, and blowing it with flawed analysis, is not a good look ..

Washington Compost, has a much more simple, damaging ,and nefarious agenda.

Truth is being revealed, regarding the mountain of year on year lies, spoon fed to the bewildered, inflamed, dispassionate, and cowed citizenry, as the bull **** gets harder to peddle, more impossible to digest whole.

And is happening with or without the post, and likewise, various other "main stream" mouth pieces and government hacks (in the interests of national security, of course.)

*Note. Lots of editing, this comment.

Xscream , 2 hours ago link

Very similar to the Pentagon papers revealing the truth about Vietnam policy. We never learn as a nation. Wars never go as expected.

[Dec 17, 2019] Neocons like car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking credibility because ther profession is to lie in order to sell weapons to the publin, much like used car saleme lie to sell cars

Highly recommended!
Dec 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Dec 16 2019 20:51 utc | 22

Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"

The underlying critical point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to regain their credibility.

The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.

Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is credibility.

[Dec 17, 2019] Did The Supreme Court Just Pull The Rug Out From Under Article Of Impeachment by Alan Dershowitz

Notable quotes:
"... House Democrats should seriously consider dropping this second article in light of the recent Supreme Court action. In fairness, this development involving the high court occurred after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee made up their minds to include obstruction of Congress as an impeachment article. Yet the new circumstances give some Democratic members of Congress, who may end up paying an electoral price if they support the House Judiciary Committee recommendation, meaningful reason for voting against at least one of the articles of impeachment. ..."
"... The first article goes too far in authorizing impeachment based on the vague criterion of abuse of power. But it is the second article that truly endangers our system of checks and balances and the important role of the courts as the umpires between the legislative and executive branches under the Constitution. It would serve the national interest for thoughtful and independent minded Democrats to join Republicans in voting against the second article of impeachment, even if they wrongly vote for the first. ..."
Dec 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Alan Dershowitz, op-ed via The Hill,

The decision by the Supreme Court to review the lower court rulings involving congressional and prosecution subpoenas directed toward President Trump undercuts the second article of impeachment that passed the House Judiciary Committee along party lines last week.

That second article of impeachment charges President Trump with obstruction of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas in the absence of a final court order. In so charging him, the House Judiciary Committee has arrogated to itself the power to decide the validity of its subpoenas, as well as the power to determine whether claims of executive privilege must be recognized, both powers that properly belong with the judicial branch of our government, not the legislative branch. The House of Representatives will do likewise, if it votes to approve the articles, as is expected to occur on Wednesday.

President Trump has asserted that the executive branch, of which he is the head, need not comply with congressional subpoenas requiring the production of privileged executive material, unless there is a final court order compelling such production. He has argued, appropriately, that the judicial branch is the ultimate arbiter of conflicts between the legislative and executive branches. Therefore, the Supreme Court decision to review these three cases, in which lower courts ruled against President Trump, provides support for his constitutional arguments in the investigation.

The cases that are being reviewed are not identical to the challenged subpoenas that form the basis for the second article of impeachment. One involves authority of the New York district attorney to subpoena the financial records of a sitting president, as part of any potential criminal investigation. The others involve authority of legislative committees to subpoena records as part of any ongoing congressional investigations.

But they are close enough. Even if the high court were eventually to rule against the claims by President Trump, the fact that the justices decided to hear them, in effect, supports his constitutional contention that he had the right to challenge congressional subpoenas in court, or to demand that those issuing the subpoenas seek to enforce them through court.

It undercuts the contention by House Democrats that President Trump committed an impeachable offense by insisting on a court order before sending possibly privileged material to Congress. Even before the justices granted review of these cases, the two articles of impeachment had no basis in the Constitution. They were a reflection of the comparative voting power of the two parties, precisely what one of the founders, Alexander Hamilton, warned would be the "greatest danger" of an impeachment.

House Democrats should seriously consider dropping this second article in light of the recent Supreme Court action. In fairness, this development involving the high court occurred after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee made up their minds to include obstruction of Congress as an impeachment article. Yet the new circumstances give some Democratic members of Congress, who may end up paying an electoral price if they support the House Judiciary Committee recommendation, meaningful reason for voting against at least one of the articles of impeachment.

It would be a smart way out for those Democrats. More important, it would be the right thing for them to do. It would be smart and right because, as matters now stand, the entire process smacks of partisanship, with little concern for the precedential impact which these articles could have on future impeachments. If a few more Democrats voted in a way that would demonstrate greater nuanced recognition that, at the least, the second article of impeachment represents an overreach based on current law, it would lend an aura of some nonpartisan legitimacy to the proceedings.

The first article goes too far in authorizing impeachment based on the vague criterion of abuse of power. But it is the second article that truly endangers our system of checks and balances and the important role of the courts as the umpires between the legislative and executive branches under the Constitution. It would serve the national interest for thoughtful and independent minded Democrats to join Republicans in voting against the second article of impeachment, even if they wrongly vote for the first.

[Dec 17, 2019] The Israel Lobby's Hidden Hand in the Theft of Iraqi and Syrian Oil by Agha Hussain and Whitney Webb

Notable quotes:
"... The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years ..."
"... This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government. ..."
"... The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior. ..."
Dec 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.

Kirkuk, Iraq -- "We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like oil. We're keeping the oil."

Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Though Trump himself received all of the credit -- and the scorn -- for this controversial new policy, what has been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and closed-door deals with major regional implications.

Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated both U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that continue to unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.

After the occupation of Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military's retreat and, amidst the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June 12. Their claim to the city was supported by both the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS. This gave the KRG control, not only of Iraq's export pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq's largest oil fields.

Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.

In retrospect, and following revelations from Wikileaks and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been revealed that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario intimately involved the United States' powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.' Israel lobby to manipulate U.S. foreign policy in order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit can instead be seen as a pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.

"Keep the oil" for Israel

After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have controversially been kept in Syria to " keep the oil ," with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was "a subset of the counter-ISIS mission." However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper later claimed that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to prevent the extraction and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or Russia.

One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to "keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria and worked closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and later special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition.

Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration.

David Satterfield, left, arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood, May 7, 2019. Mandel Ngan | AP

In 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as having illegally passed classified information to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the Israeli government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing. Subsequent media reports from the New York Times and other outlets revealed that this government official was none other than David Satterfield, who was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs.

Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, were dropped in 2009 and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had "acted within his authority" in leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a foreign government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with a long history of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere, has since claimed that he was one of Satterfield's main defenders in conversations with the FBI during this time when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.

The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, was not so lucky and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield, instead of being censured for his role in leaking sensitive information to a foreign government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq and Senior Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has a longstanding relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial spin-off of AIPAC also known by its acronym WINEP. WINEP's website has long listed Satterfield as one of its experts and Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several after his involvement with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However, despite his longstanding and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield's current relationship with some elements of that lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is complicated at best.

While Satterfield's role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has largely escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel lobby and Syrian "rebel" groups has also been ignored by the media, despite his outsized role in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel's benefit.

US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds

Earlier this year, well before Trump's new Syria policy of "keeping the oil" had officially taken shape, another individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. An official document issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based company, founded and run by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai "Motti" Kahana, was given control of the oil in territory held by the SDC.

Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana's company -- Global Development Corporation (GDC) -- to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC "the right to explore and develop oil that is located in areas we govern."

The SDC's formal acceptance of Global Development Corporation's offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source | Al-Akhbar

The document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas was 125,000 barrels per day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000 barrels per day and that this oil is considered a foreign asset under the control of the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar , the SDC claimed that it was a forgery, even though Kahana had separately confirmed its contents and shared the letter itself to the Los Angeles Times as recently as a few weeks ago. Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom in July that he had made the offer to the SDC as means to prevent the "Assad regime" of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of Syrian oil.

The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic Forces. The overwhelming majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don't want this oil reaching Iran, or the Assad regime."

At the time, Kahana also stated that "the moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can begin to export this oil at fair prices."

Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC's oil business shortly after Trump's adoption of the controversial "keep the oil policy," it seems plausible that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his company to export the oil on behalf of the SDC. Several media reports have speculated that, if Kahana's efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to Israel.

However, considering Turkey's aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the PKK-SDF – there are considerable obstacles to Kahana's plans. While the SDF -- along with assistance from U.S. troops -- still controls several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not even the Iraqi Kurds are a candidate, considering Baghdad's firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG's weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.

Regardless, Kahana's involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First, Kahana has been a key player in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has even been caught hiring so-called "rebels" to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against their will. It was Kahana, for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met with Syrian "rebels" including Khalid al-Hamad – a "moderate" rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the heart of a Syrian Army soldier went viral online . McCain had also admitted meeting with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip to Syria.

In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the "Caesar" controversy, whereby a Syrian using the pseudonym "Caesar" was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly committed by the Assad-led government Syria, claims which were later discredited by independent analysts. He was also very involved in Israel's failed efforts to establish a "safe zone" in Southern Syria as a means of covertly expanding Israel's territory from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.

Notably, Kahana has deep ties -- not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government -- but also to U.S. Israel lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance, Kahana was a key player in a 2013 symposium organized by WINEP along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called "rebels." One of the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of the "Syrian Emergency Task Force" who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013. Moustafa was listed as a WINEP expert on the organization's website but was later mysteriously deleted.

Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel lobby organization, as a team member of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by Adam Milstein , a multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs, Birthright and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC's top donors is Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican Party.

Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to manipulate the flow of Syria's hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit may seem shocking to some, this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the Kurds to illegally sell a country's oil to Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the individuals responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby organizations as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are not an isolated event, but a pattern.

War against ISIS is a war for oil

In an email dated June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S. Special Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush administration advisor then working at the government-funded United States Institute of Peace, his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk's oil production. The plan, as Jeffery described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export of oil via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country's Kurdish region along with its regional government's bid for autonomy.

Jeffrey, whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria are well-known , mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.' main negotiator between Baghdad and the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities in Iraq under both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would be made the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked closely with David Satterfield.

James Jeffrey, left, meets with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, April 8, 2011, at an airport in Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | AP

Jeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as a non-governmental channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey's behind-the-scenes activities with regards to the KRG's oil exports were done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a prominent arm of the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby.

At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving as a distinguished fellow (2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers that had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations against the organization that were related to some of its members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is the largest registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US (albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would be more suitable), and, in addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP's creation, has had members indicted for espionage against the U.S. on Israel's behalf.

WINEP's launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Barbara Weinberg, who is its founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed 'Barbi', she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who was President of AIPAC from 1976-81 and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book Jewish Power, referred to as one of a select few individuals who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership. Co-founder alongside Weinberg was Martin Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99), led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to escape the aforementioned investigations.

WINEP has historically received funding from donors who donate to causes of special interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as Charles and Edgar Bronfman and the Chernicks . Its membership remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli interests in the U.S.

WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its research director famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in 2012, statements well-aligned with longstanding attempts by the Israel Lobby to bring about such a war.

A worthy partner in crime

Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his covert dealings discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.

During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with neoconservatives in their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government of the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.

Hadley also worked with then-Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Lewis Libby -- a neoconservative and former lawyer for the Mossad-agent and billionaire Marc Rich -- to discredit a CIA investigation into claims of Iraq purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger. That claim famously appeared in Bush's State of the Union address in 2002.

What this particular claim had in common with the 'Iraq meets Atta in Prague' disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.

The distribution network of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act a veritable Israeli fifth column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy objectives as being in the interest of the United States. In this, Hadley played his part by helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been promoted by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle -- an advisor to WINEP -- who had been promoting regime change in Iraq for Israel's explicit benefit for decades.

In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if pitched to the government for implementation as policy, Hadley's resume was impressive.

Israeli interests pursued through covert channels

Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey's intent to advise the KRG to sustain Kirkuk's oil production despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000 barrels per day pass through ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.

Jeffrey's email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS would not disturb the KRG as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline, facilitating its export and later sale to Israel.

Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia paramilitaries, ISIS kept the refinery running and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.

In July 2014, the KRG began confidently supplying Kurdish areas with Kirkuk's oil per the plan laid out by Jeffrey in the aforementioned email. Baghdad soon became aware of the arrangement and lashed out at Israel and Turkey, whose banks were used by the KRG to receive the oil revenue from Israel.

One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a beneficiary of the ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power with strategic ties to ISIS used its close ties to the KRG and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a credible guarantee that ISIS would 'cooperate' and that a boom in production and exports was in the cards.

This foreign power -- acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the illegal oil economy, represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq's government -- was quite clearly Israel.

Israel established considerable financial support as well as the provision of armaments to other extremist terrorist groups active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria in 2011. At least four of these extremist groups were led by individuals with direct ties to Israeli intelligence . These same groups, sometimes promoted as 'moderates' by some media, were actively fighting Syria's government – an enemy of Israel and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and eagerly partnered with ISIS when it expanded its campaign into Syria.

Furthermore, Israeli officials have publicly admitted maintaining regular communication with ISIS cells in Southern Syria and have publicly expressed their desire that ISIS not be defeated in the country. In Libya, Israeli Mossad operatives have been found embedded within ISIS , suggesting that Israel has covert but definite ties with the group outside of Syria as well.

Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having provided Iraq's Kurds with weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers as far back as the 1960s . More recently, Israel was the only state to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its futility, hinting at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq's government subsequently militarily defeated the KRG's push for statehood and reclaimed Kirkuk's oil fields with assistance from the Shia paramilitaries which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.

A 2014 map shows the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source | Telegraph

This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government.

WINEP's close association with AIPAC, which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence, combined with Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel's total oil imports during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk.

The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.

Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior.

Agha Hussain is an independent researcher based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He specialized in Middle Eastern affairs and history and is an editorial contributor to Eurasia Future, Regional Rapport and other news outlets.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

[Dec 17, 2019] "My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the Jewish people," Trump declared. Does this means that ordinary Americans are now second class citizens and he will tolete those abuses for them?

Notable quotes:
"... He screwed up when he didn't disown Ivanka. ..."
Dec 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Art_Vandelay , 1 hour ago link

"My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the Jewish people," Trump declared at the ceremony, which doubled as a Hanukkah party.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-order-combat-anti-semitism-131527480.html

rent slave , 8 minutes ago link

He screwed up when he didn't disown Ivanka.

[Dec 17, 2019] EU is bound to fail in three generations

Dec 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Factotum said in reply to walrus... , 14 December 2019 at 06:41 PM

EU is bound to fail in three generations. Just like the Soviet Union and Mao's China. Can't fight family or tribalism.
Seamus Padraig said in reply to Factotum... , 15 December 2019 at 07:07 AM
Maybe sooner, as they lack an army with which to crush popular revolts.
Babak Makkinejad said in reply to Factotum... , 15 December 2019 at 03:13 PM
USSR, Yugoslavia, US, EU, and the Indian Union are predicated on the ideas of the Enlightenment Tradition. So far, USSR and FRY have disintegrated. If EU fails, could US and EU be too far behind. In US, we have the political ascendancy of foolish Protestantism, in India that of Hindu masses.

Can any states, predicated on secularism of the Enlightenment Tradition survive the rise of religious politics?

[Dec 17, 2019] Turkeys military alliance against the Russians helps contain Russia, helps reduce their influence in the middle east, and helps shield Israel, and the gulf from the Russians.

Dec 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

LightBulb18 , 1 hour ago link

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/273193

From my understanding the west's relationship with the Turks is strategic. Having western armies in Turkey, as well as nukes, and Turkeys military alliance against the Russians helps contain Russia, helps reduce their influence in the middle east, and helps shield Israel, and the gulf from the Russians.

For America to recognize that any major Muslim nation has inflicted a mass murder on non Muslims like the Armenians and Christians throughout the middle east, and south eastern Europe would open up A floodgate of knowledge, and end the censorship of the media perpetually pretending that muslims cannot be racist, and allow Israel to better defend itself with the truth about Muslim intentions and treatment of Jews in the present, and allow the Europeans to defend themselves from conquest, and allow the Americans the possibility of avoiding much of the hardship of having a large Muslim minority in the first place. Even the Gulf Nations would have the opportunity to defend themselves with the truth about Islam if they wanted to.

It is difficult to measure the strategic value of things like containing the Russians, and the price of losing influence over the gulf's oil business. But I believe in general, that the opportunities opened by knowledge are far more valuable than some improved situation on the grand chessboard. By definition the loss of wealth from even the gulf oil would translate into less than the potential value of knowledge.

There is the possibility of peoples free will. They make take freedom to discuss non white racism, hatred of whites, discrimination in general in society against whites and Jews, and they may throw it away, and cower in fear some more. But I do not think that is the situation. Israelis are not able to give speeches on college campuses in Europe, Canada and even most of America. The white women of the west have been poisoned by this knowledge of inequality and fear of the violence and ostracization they will face for standing for their own people, or far less, and being accused of being A racist. The price for their biological emotions is counted in millions of unformed families.

Frankly, its to hard a test for most white women, who get pressured into dating non whites, in order to prove they're not racist, with all of its consequences, and its years of abuse. If white men remain tall and strong, white women, both Jewish and gentile will still be conquered by the schools, and cut down in massive numbers.

Far better to die on some battlefield by the millions, then in the bedrooms by the hundreds of millions.

The legitimacy of the schools and the universities are destroyed, the official reason to go, is to signal that you are A traitor to your people. The police, and courts are on life support, the military is directionless, the politicians have nothing meaningful to say.

I consider it a blessing that Trump has the option of exposing the Armenian massacre at the hands of the Muslims. I hope its effect is as far reaching as I imagine and hope. I believe it is overwhelmingly in the best interests of both our people, and according to the discourse I believe its time has come. I may be mistaken, even though I am not clear how. What additional knowledge could be attained in these matters? I pray for the wisdom of our leaders, and to the awesome power of G-d. In Him I trust.

[Dec 17, 2019] How We Became Israel by Andrew J. Bacevich

Notable quotes:
"... A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States. ..."
"... Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell. ..."
Sep 10, 2012 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.

In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation's reigning definition of peace shapes its proclivity to use force. A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ force as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view. Or beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere, it at least pretended to do so.

A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States.

Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell.

Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect longstanding Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute and assured. Security thus defined requires not simply military advantage but military supremacy .

From Israel's perspective, threats to supremacy require anticipatory action , the earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one especially instructive example. Israel's destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 provides a second.

Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because the blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a big Israeli pay-off. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed. In the second, they hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences.

For decades, Israel relied on a powerful combination of tanks and fighter-bombers as its preferred instrument of preemption. In more recent times, however, it has deemphasized its swift sword in favor of the shiv between the ribs. Why deploy lumbering armored columns when a missile launched from an Apache attack helicopter or a bomb fixed to an Iranian scientist's car can do the job more cheaply and with less risk? Thus has targeted assassination eclipsed conventional military methods as the hallmark of the Israeli way of war.

Whether using tanks to conquer or assassins to liquidate, adherence to this knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the approach has thus far succeeded in preserving and even expanding the Jewish state: more than 60 years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept has succeeded. Okay, it's nasty: but so far at least, it's worked.

What's hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel's path. Yet over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, that's precisely what we've done. The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste for assassination -- all justified as essential to self-defense. That pretty much describes ourpresent-day MO.

Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. Ours is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy, unless you count the Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Dictators, within several thousand miles. We have choices that Israel does not. Yet in disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled willy-nilly into an Israeli-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic expectations of adversaries and would-be adversaries acquiescing in Washington's will.

Israelification got its kick-start with George H.W. Bush's Operation Desert Storm, a triumphal Hundred-Hour War likened at the time to Israel's triumphal Six-Day War. Victory over the "fourth largest army in the world" fostered illusions of the United States exercising perpetually and on a global scale military primacy akin to what Israel has exercised regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that henceforth it would settle for nothing less than "Full Spectrum Dominance."

Bill Clinton's contribution to the process was to normalize the use of force. During the several decades of the Cold War, the U.S. had resorted to overt armed intervention only occasionally. Although difficult today to recall, back then whole years might pass without U.S. troops being sent into harm's way. Over the course of Clinton's two terms in office, however, intervention became commonplace.

The average Israeli had long since become inured to reports of IDF incursions into southern Lebanon or Gaza. Now the average American has become accustomed to reports of U.S. troops battling Somali warlords, supervising regime change in Haiti, or occupying the Balkans. Yet the real signature of the Clinton years came in the form of airstrikes. Blasting targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, and Sudan, but above all in Iraq, became the functional equivalent of Israel's reliance on airpower to punish "terrorists" from standoff ranges.

In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush, a true believer in Full Spectrum Dominance, set out to liberate or pacify (take your pick) the Islamic world. The United States followed Israel in assigning itself the prerogative of waging preventive war. Although it depicted Saddam Hussein as an existential threat, the Bush administration also viewed Iraq as an opportunity: here the United States would signal to other recalcitrants the fate awaiting them should they mess with Uncle Sam.

More subtly, in going after Saddam, Bush was tacitly embracing a longstanding Israeli conception of deterrence. During the Cold War, deterrence had meant conveying a credible threat to dissuade your opponent from hostile action. Israel had never subscribed to that view. Influencing the behavior of potential adversaries required more than signaling what Israel might do if sufficiently aggravated; influence was exerted by punitive action, ideally delivered on a disproportionate scale. Hit the other guy first, if possible; failing that, whack him several times harder than he hit you: not the biblical injunction of an eye for an eye, but both eyes, an ear, and several teeth, with a kick in the nuts thrown in for good measure. The aim was to send a message: screw with us and this will happen to you. This is the message Bush intended to convey when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Unfortunately, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched with all the confidence that had informed Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel's equally ill-advised 1982 incursion into Lebanon, landed the United States in an equivalent mess. Or perhaps a different comparison applies: the U.S. occupation of Iraq triggered violent resistance akin to what the IDF faced as a consequence of Israel occupying the West Bank. Two successive Intifadas had given the Israeli army fits. The insurgency in Iraq (along with its Afghan sibling) gave the American army fits. Neither the Israeli nor the American reputation for martial invincibility survived the encounter.

By the time Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, most Americans -- like most Israelis -- had lost their appetite for invading and occupying countries. Obama's response? Hew ever more closely to the evolving Israeli way of doing things. "Obama wants to be known for winding down long wars," writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. "But he has shown no hesitance when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone militarist."

Just so: with his affinity for missile-firing drones, Obama has established targeted assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. national-security policy. With his affinity for commandos, he has expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which now maintains an active presence in more than 70 countries. In Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and the frontier regions of Pakistan -- and who knows how many other far-flung places -- Obama seemingly shares Prime Minister Netanyahu's expectations: keep whacking and a positive outcome will eventually ensue.

The government of Israel, along with ardently pro-Israel Americans like Michael Gerson, may view the convergence of U.S. and Israeli national-security practices with some satisfaction. The prevailing U.S. definition of self-defense -- a self-assigned mandate to target anyone anywhere thought to endanger U.S. security -- is exceedingly elastic. As such, it provides a certain cover for equivalent Israeli inclinations. And to the extent that our roster of enemies overlaps with theirs -- did someone say Iran? -- military action ordered by Washington just might shorten Jerusalem's "to do" list.

Yet where does this all lead? "We don't have enough drones," writes the columnist David Ignatius, "to kill all the enemies we will make if we turn the world into a free-fire zone." And if Delta Force, the Green Berets, army rangers, Navy SEALs, and the like constitute (in the words of one SEAL) "the dark matter the force that orders the universe but can't be seen," we probably don't have enough of them either. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems willing to test both propositions.

The process of aligning U.S. national-security practice with Israeli precedents is now essentially complete. Their habits are ours. Reversing that process would require stores of courage and imagination that may no longer exist in Washington. Given the reigning domestic political climate, those holding or seeking positions of power find it easier -- and less risky -- to stay the course, vainly nursing the hope that by killing enough "terrorists" peace on terms of our choosing will result. Here too the United States has succumbed to Israeli illusions.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame.

[Dec 15, 2019] The infinity war - The Washington Post by Samuel Moyn, Stephen Wertheim

Highly recommended!
Dec 15, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
The infinity war We say we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? The infinity war We say we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? Sam Ward (For The Washington Post) By Samuel Moyn and Stephen Wertheim December 13, 2019 Add to list On my list

Now we know, thanks to The Afghanistan Papers published in The Washington Post this past week, that U.S. policymakers doubted almost from the start that the two-decade-long Afghanistan war could ever succeed. Officials didn't know who the enemy was and had little sense of what an achievable "victory" might look like. "We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking," said Douglas Lute, the Army three-star general who oversaw the conflict from the White House during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

And yet the war ground on, as if on autopilot. Obama inherited a conflict of which Bush had grown weary, and victory drew no closer after Obama's troop "surge" than when Bush pursued a small-footprint conflict. But while the Pentagon Papers, published in 1971 during the Vietnam War, led a generation to appreciate the perils of warmaking, a new generation may squander this opportunity to set things right. There is a reason the quagmire in Afghanistan, despite costing thousands of lives and $2 trillion , has failed to shock Americans into action: The United States for decades has made peace look unimaginable or unobtainable. We have normalized war.

President Trump sometimes disrupts the pattern by vowing to end America's "endless wars." But he has extended and escalated them at every turn, offering nakedly punitive and exploitative rationales. In September, on the cusp of a peace deal with the Taliban, he discarded an agreement negotiated by his administration and pummeled Afghanistan harder than ever (now he's back to wanting to talk). In Syria, his promised military withdrawal has morphed into a grotesque redeployment to "secure" the country's oil .

It is clearer than ever that the problem of American military intervention goes well beyond the proclivities of the current president, or the previous one, or the next. The United States has slowly slid away from any plausible claim of standing for peace in the world. The ideal of peace was one that America long promoted, enshrining it in law and institutions, and the end of the Cold War offered an unparalleled opportunity to advance the cause. But U.S. leaders from both parties chose another path. War -- from drone strikes and Special Operations raids to protracted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has come to seem inevitable and eternal, in practice and even in aspiration.

Given World War II, Korea, Vietnam and many smaller conflicts throughout the Western Hemisphere, no one has ever mistaken the United States for Switzerland. Still, the pursuit of peace is an authentic American tradition that has shaped U.S. conduct and the international order. At its founding, the United States resolved to steer clear of the system of war in Europe and build a "new world" free of violent rivalry, as Alexander Hamilton put it .

Indeed, Americans shrank from playing a fully global role until 1941 in part because they saw themselves as emissaries of peace (even as the United States conquered Native American land, policed its hemisphere and took Pacific colonies). U.S. leaders sought either to remake international politics along peaceful lines -- as Woodrow Wilson proposed after World War I -- or to avoid getting entangled in the squabbles of a fallen world. And when America embraced global leadership after World War II, it felt compelled to establish the United Nations to halt the "scourge of war," as the U.N. Charter says right at the start. At America's urging, the organization outlawed the use of force, except where authorized by its Security Council or used in self-defense.

[ I owe my new life to my Marine husband's hideous death. I pay the price every day. ]

Even when the United States dishonored that ideal in the years that followed, peace remained potent as a guiding principle. Vietnam provoked a broad-based antiwar movement. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution (WPR) to tame the imperial presidency. Such opposition to war is scarcely to be found today. (The Iraq War inspired massive protests, but they are a distant memory.) Consider that the United States has undertaken more armed interventions since the end of the Cold War than during it. According to the Congressional Research Service, more than 80 percent of all of the country's adventures abroad since 1946 came after 1989. Congress, whether under Democratic or Republican control, has allowed commanders in chief to claim the right to begin wars and continue them in perpetuity.

Legal constraints on U.S. warmaking -- including international obligations, domestic statutes and constitutional duties -- ought to have returned to the fore after the Cold War, the rationale for America's vast mobilization in the second half of the 20th century. Instead, they have eroded to dust. At the outset of the 1990s, as President George H.W. Bush promised a "peace dividend" for Americans and a "peaceful international order" for all, the United States did rely more faithfully than before on Security Council approval for military operations. The Persian Gulf War, blessed by the United Nations to repel Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was legal under international law. But enthralled by its exorbitant primacy in world affairs, the United States turned away from international prohibitions on war, finding the rules too restricting.

The next two presidents, attracted to liberal internationalist and neoconservative creeds that embraced armed force, treated international law cavalierly. Bill Clinton abused U.N. resolutions meant to control Saddam Hussein's weaponry to justify new attacks, including the bombing of Iraq in December 1998. The next year, the U.S.-led NATO operations in Kosovo suggested that America would unleash its military for ostensibly noble causes -- in this case to prevent heart-rending atrocity -- even without the pretense of legality. Despite failing to obtain U.N. approval, the Clinton administration said the intervention should not be treated as a precedent (though it became one). Others excused it as "illegal but legitimate," with self-professed moral intentions permissibly trumping law. "For the purpose of stopping genocide," commented the New Republic's Leon Wieseltier, "the use of force is not a last resort; it is a first resort."

Once such arguments gained currency, their authors lost control of them. Conservative hawks found that a law-optional approach suited their agenda as well, and their liberal counterparts, if they disagreed at all, did so mostly as a matter of tactics, not principle. George W. Bush benefited from this permissive context when he launched the Iraq War, whose illegality was flagrant and catalytic, since it was unauthorized by the United Nations and relied on the administration's dangerous claim that "anticipatory self-defense" justifies invasion. The world took notice. Russia, in particular, seized on the new U.S. position as a spectacular excuse to make incursions of its own in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014.

Obama won election in part because he ran against the Iraq War. In office, however, he cemented more than reversed America's disregard of international constraints on warmaking. While failing to end the war in Afghanistan, his administration exceeded the Security Council's authorization by working to overthrow Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, converting a permission slip to avert atrocity into a blank check for regime change. Then, to punish the Islamic State, Obama bombed Syria on a contrived rationale -- one that allowed attacks against nations unwilling or unable to control terrorists on their territory. When he nearly struck again in response to Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons, Obama laid the legal foundation for Trump to strike the Syrian government, again without a U.N. sign-off. Once highly valued, then defied only with controversy, international law now scarcely figures in U.S. decisions of war and peace.

Like international law, U.S. domestic law enshrines an expectation of peace, setting a high bar for the resort to war. If war is to be waged, the Constitution requires Congress to declare it -- a purposeful grant of authority to the branch of government that best reflects the diverse interests of the people and therefore should be harder to rouse to conflict than one commander in chief. Yet the nation has drifted from that tradition, too. After defaulting on its constitutional obligation during the Cold War (partly on the grounds that the speed of a potential nuclear strike required a president who could respond quickly), Congress declined to reassert its authority after the Soviet threat passed.

[ How Veterans Affairs denies care to many of the people it's supposed to serve ]

In the 1990s, Congress might at least have kept faith with the WPR, which it passed in 1973 to rein in future presidents. The resolution calls for Congress to authorize "hostilities" within 60 days of their start; otherwise U.S. forces must withdraw. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, members of the House of Representatives brought presidents to court for taking military action in violation of the statute -- in El Salvador , the Persian Gulf War and Kosovo , for example. But advocates of the strategy all but gave up, and Congress itself increasingly deferred to presidential wars in the age of terrorism. By the time Obama intervened in Libya, the WPR lay in tatters. In a final indignity during the Libya operation, one administration lawyer explained that "hostilities" was an " ambiguous term of art " that might exclude aerial bombardment, so Congress did not need to approve a war that toppled a regime.

This deference has proved costly, allowing Trump to pose as an antiwar candidate against the mainstream of two political parties, a somnolent Congress and inactive courts. Once in power, this wildly unpredictable chief executive finally clarified the danger of entrusting the world's mightiest military to one man's whims. Congress has begun to stir. In voting this year to end U.S. involvement in Yemen's civil war, it invoked the WPR for the first time while forces were active in battle.


President Trump speaks to U.S. troops at Bagram air base in Afghanistan last month.
though he has pledged to end America's "endless wars,"
Trump, like past presidents, has instead extended them. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)

Ultimately, elevating peace as a priority will require not merely changing legal norms but overturning the militarized concept of America's world role that permeates Washington. Somehow, despite waging near-perpetual war, the leaders of the most powerful country on Earth have convinced themselves that America is always on the brink of turning "isolationist," a peril against which every president since Ronald Reagan has warned as their terms wound down. Trump is likely to deviate from that rhetorical tradition, but the rest of the establishment carries on and doubles down. Today, it is military withdrawals, not destructive deployments, that freak out pundits and spur Cabinet members to resign, as Jim Mattis did last year over Trump's vow to pull troops from Syria. Abandoning the Kurds there this fall was Trump's " great betrayal ," lamented Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, who did not appear to lose sleep over our past military incursions.

Under Trump, who applies "maximum pressure" to all foes foreign and domestic, American militarism is more perilous than ever. It is also more undeniable. That is one reason the current moment is surprisingly hopeful. The call to end "endless war" continues to rise on the flanks of both parties, even as it is flouted by leaders of each. More and more Americans insist that, whatever interests are served by endless war, their own are not. More than twice as many Americans prefer to lower than raise military spending, according to a 2019 Eurasia Group Foundation survey. Veterans support Trump's pledge to bring Middle East wars to a close: A majority of vets deem the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria not to have been worth fighting. The Afghanistan Papers ought to strengthen the consensus. Americans deserve a president who will act accordingly.

The United States would find partners far and wide, in nations great and small, if it put peace first. It could make clear that while spreading democracy or human rights remains worthwhile, values cannot come at the point of a gun or serve as a pretext for war -- and that international peace is, in fact, a condition for human flourishing. Every time Washington searches for a monster to destroy, it shows the world's despots how to abuse the rules and hands demagogues a phantom to inflate. The alternative is not "isolationism" but something closer to the opposite: peaceful, lawful international cooperation against the major threats to humanity, including climate change, pandemic disease and widespread deprivation. Those are the enemies worth fighting, and bombs and bullets will not defeat them.

Samuel Moyn is Henry R. Luce professor of jurisprudence and professor of history at Yale University and a fellow of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Stephen Wertheim is deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is also a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University Follow @samuelmoyn and @stephenwertheim

[Dec 15, 2019] DEEP BLACK LIES - Project Hammer - Big Government Cover-Up The Whole Truth

Dec 15, 2019 | the-wholetruth.us

(Note from the Editor – Over 20 years ago, I was working for a company while endeavoring to build a church in California [preachers need to work many times] and in the process we worked on a transaction of enormous size – $26.5 Trillion Dollars and it was deeply involved with the CIA and our Government. It was under code name "Project Hammer" and the actual code word for the project was "EFG Jacobi." After the deal closed the US Government froze the money. Many people don't realize that they have two sets of books, one for the public and one for their clandestine operations around the world. We never got paid. I met Ambassador Lee Wanta ( http://eagleonetowanta.com ) about this time and since we had similar experiences with the Government theft of funds meant for the American People, I have stayed in touch with him for many years. This article is from http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/projecthammerreload/titlepage1.htm written by David Guyatt who has intimate knowledge of these matters as the article will show. I kept a daily log on this for 8 years until we felt it would never pay out. Ambassador Wanta has a Court Order to release his money but powers are still refusing to do so. We are attempting to arrange a meetingh with him and President Trump so the new Treasury Secretary can seize the funds he has [$32.5 Trillion] which will pay off the national debt and finance the infrastructure for this country. There is a desperate attempt in the ESTABLISHMENT, the Democrat Party, some Republicans, and the Main Streem Media to divert our attention from the true story that you can read here and on the website of the Ambassador.)

[Please view the list of links exposing the GLOBAL BANKING SYSTEM which is fighting to keep control – http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalbanking.htm#menu ]

[More links to depositions, documents and more regarding this global deception – http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_fed05a.htm#inicio ]

Project Hammer Reloaded – Part 1

BACKGROUND ON "COLLATERAL TRADING"


Beginning in 1988 and lasting until approximately 1992, " Project Hammer " was the latest in a series of highly secretive banking practices – known as "collateral trading" programs – that are used to create, as if by magic, huge amounts of unaccountable funds for use in specific projects.

These vast pools of unvouchered slush funds are applied to finance a wide variety of clandestine activities that include:

It is also whispered that, in the case of the Project Hammer program at least, a percentage of the proceeds generated from this secretive activity found its way into the pockets of VIPs and well-known politicians.

Names associated with such corrupt behavior are carried on the wind; but if one listens attentively, the names George Bush, Sr , and Jim Baker III are just discernible to the trained ear.

An example of the type of project on which these funds are expended is the trading programme known as "EFG Jacobi" – a predecessor of Hammer – that I understand was used largely to finance military facilities and related operations at the top-secret US base located at Pine Gap near Alice Springs in central Australia.

In order to maintain the secrecy that surrounds genuine activity, these trading programmes are routinely said not to exist. Enquiries about them are deflected and attention is instead focused on the warnings issued by government agencies about fake programmes. This, when combined with the numerous prosecutions that occur every year over fraudulent High Yield Investment Programme transactions, serves to create the impression that authorized programmes do not occur.

The reasons for this deflection are many, but not least is the fact that the asset bases on which these programmes usually operate are also said not to exist – at least in the quantities that they actually do. The assets in question are large volumes of gold and lesser amounts of platinum plundered by the Nazis and Japanese during World War II.

The fact that gold has been the one stable commodity used to back and support the issuance of currency over the decades means that it has been subject to considerable government and central bank secrecy. It was only in 1997 that the Bank of England decided to lift this veil of secrecy and allow the London bullion market a degree of openness. But that openness did not include coming clean about the true amount of gold in existence, which is far larger than official figures allow.

Because of this and the extremely covert nature of related trading programmes, comprehensive details of the programmes' operations and the financing techniques employed have remained hidden from public view. At least this was the case prior to the publication of part one of this series, The Project Hammer File . 1 This essay is the result of further examination of the techniques and activity of Project Hammer, and now places additional important material into the public domain.

Project Hammer 2 (Reloaded ) remains a high-level state secret in a number of countries including the USA. This was confirmed de facto by the CIA in its refusal to release any relevant information following my Freedom of Information Act request in February 2001. The exemption used by the CIA to reject my request was that relevant material is "properly classified pursuant to an Executive Order in the interest of national defense or foreign policy". 2

Project Hammer also stands out because proceeds from the trading activity were illegally diverted by major banks. Confirmation of this is provided by Brigadier-General Erle Cocke in his April 2000 affidavit . In this, General Cocke was asked about the involvement of former US Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who was retained to investigate what had happened to (and also to recover) the missing funds.

Asked if Bentsen "had the government's interest in closing this whole problem" and if he had "ever had a discussion" with Bentsen, Cocke replied:

Many hours just trying to find out whether any agency, any group, Federal Reserve, Treasury, CIA, FBI, security agencies, and so forth, all of them put together, whether any of which would really like to finish. And, quite frankly, nobody stepped up to the plate.

Cocke was then asked if "they would like to finish it", and he responded:

I think they would like to finish it, but they all back away. It is not my cup of tea, or they have spent enough time with it and are not going to realize anything, and therefore they just quit. They don't confirm, they don't deny, they just stop.

One can conclude that the banks that diverted this money were too powerful for any agency of the US government to tackle. It also helped that suitable and substantial "incentives" were provided to former high-level Bush (Sr) Administration figures to bring their influence to bear quietly to ensure that action against the banks was not taken.

Although not part of the sanctioned plan for Project Hammer – which was to generate funds to pay off debts on bullion certificates issued by certain metal trusts – the funds were siphoned off surreptitiously in order to rescue numerous major US and other banks that by the latter half of the 1980s were tottering on the brink of bankruptcy. 3

The banks only had themselves to blame for their imminent collapse. Reckless lending to Third World nations for over a decade or more, combined with the raw greed of senior bank executives, had caused unparalleled damage to the world's banking system. The inability of indebted Third World nations to repay their massive debts could have been – in fact, was – foreseen, but was ignored.

The spiral of gluttony had taken prisoner the faculty of prudence and reason as bank executives, seeking their next bonus and promotion, pleaded with sovereign nations to take loans they did not need and ultimately could not repay. Nor was it unusual for some of the funds on loan to find their way into the private bank accounts of corrupt state officials – "diversions" that were known about in the boardrooms of the top banks, but ignored as "business as usual".

By the end of the 1980s, big banks including Citibank, Chase Manhattan, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), England's Midland Bank and many, many others were in dire straits. In all but name, they were bankrupt. The possibility of a prolonged series of collapses of the world's top banks – a sort of "domino theory" of finance – was regarded in some quarters with palpable fear. The entire Western banking system was rocking when it should have been rolling along nicely.

Somewhere, someone – nobody knows who (or at least no one is saying) – took the decision to bail out the banks and save the banking system by diverting Project Hammer funds for this purpose. Those banking executives who caused the problem in the first place weren't confronted by their mistakes or held to account by their shareholders but, instead, continued to collect their million-dollar pay cheques, boost their bonus payments and profit shares, flick ash off their Cuban cigars, quaff bottles of expensive Cheval Blanc and slap each other on the back in delighted relief.

One of those sighing relief was almost certainly Citibank's John Reed. Another one quite likely to have been cultivating a quiet exhalation was Hongkong and Shanghai Bank boss Sir William Purvis.

Meanwhile, many investors who had placed their money into Project Hammer in return for an agreed profit, as well as all those middle-men who had worked hard for their promised commission, were relieved of their money in a twisted version of the well-known axiom, "One man's loss is another banker's gain".

STEALING FROM THIEVES


The sanctioned purpose of Project Hammer was of a macro-economic nature, which is a nice way of saying that it was all to do with "repatriating" the assets stolen earlier by someone else – except that when nations steal valuable assets during wartime, it's called "plunder"; but when the victors in that war grab those same assets, they call it "recovery".

The assets in question were a vast horde of gold and lesser quantities of platinum plus not inconsiderable amounts of loose gemstones which had been grabbed by the Nazis and the Japanese during World War II.

A large volume of this loot found its way to the Philippines where it was hidden in numerous treasure sites by the Japanese occupiers, who planned to recover it after the war.

But it didn't quite work out the way the Japanese had planned. They lost the war, along with the Philippines – which, it seems, they had been fairly confident of being allowed to keep in a negotiated truce with the Allies.

In their place, the OSS – the wartime forerunner of America's spy agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – began recovering the bullion plundered from a dozen or so nations. This bullion formed what became known as the "Black Eagle" fund, which was part of a secret agreement eclipsed behind the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement.

Consequently, the metal was placed under the care of OSS (and later CIA) operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana, who put it under the control of numerous corporate entities he formed for the purpose. These entities, in turn, proceeded to establish 176 bank accounts in 42 different countries in which to deposit these assets under private treaty agreement.

Confirmation of this came from General Cocke, after this was put to him:

"I have been advised that a chunk of the Hammer Project funds that were used to trade, to invest and reinvest, came from a large block of assets that CIA put into the bank [Citibank]." Cocke replied: "And they pulled that several times from several sources. Nobody is going to confirm it." 4

Santa Romana died in 1974, and following his death his former attorney and trustee was able to "acquire" considerable portions of Santa Romana's estate by illicit means.

The lawyer was Ferdinand Marcos, who went on to become President of the Philippines and a favorite friend of the United States until his overthrow in 1986. The acquisition of these assets helped give rise to stories of "Marcos gold" – a legend that was supplemented by additional later recoveries of WWII gold and other loot using a Filipino Army battalion under the overall command of Marcos henchman General Fabian Ver.

But Marcos was not the sole illegitimate beneficiary of war loot once controlled by Santa Romana.

Another was the late Baron Krupp who, I have been told, also gained access to some of these assets. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that Santa Romana, prior to his death, was apparently associated with former US President and head of the CIA, George H. W. Bush , and "had some contact" with Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida.

In any event, this bullion has collectively given rise to a whole class of gold and platinum certificates issued over the decades, mainly by top-drawer European banks.

(See the history of the Global Collateral Accounts HERE )

The certificates bear the names of prominent, and in some cases infamous, individuals – usually heads of state – as beneficiaries. However, these named owners were and are not the legal beneficiaries but, rather, were cat's-paws used to muddy the waters concerning the true origin of the bullion. Nor did the banks that held the assets own them, but they could and did use them in support of their off-balance sheet activity – to the point of irresponsibility.

It should not be forgotten that this gold and platinum hoard was stolen and that, under international law, every effort should have been made to return it to its rightful owners – rather than secretly stash it in bank vaults for use in Cold War covert operations. And although it can reasonably be argued that the true owners could never be traced – since the greater quantity of the bullion was privately owned (rather than being central bank bullion) – it is clear that the ends dictated the means.

And even though numerous nations around the world were to benefit from post-war reconstruction based on the use and application of this war booty, the price of this apparent largesse was for these nations to be moulded into Uncle Sam's image. As they say in America's boardrooms, "There's no such thing as a free lunch".

In examining the techniques employed in setting up Project Hammer, one is struck not just by the complexity of it but also by the way the banks and intelligence agencies involved structured things to shield themselves from responsibility (and lawsuits, no doubt) by utilizing subterranean networks, each working at "arm's length".

Piecing these techniques and networks together has been an arduous, painstaking task, but the process has further unveiled a shadow world of parallel finance usually only known to those initiated into it.

THE EMPIRE STATE CONNECTION

During his April 2000 deposition, just days before his death from cancer, Brigadier-General Erle Cocke, when asked about the overall objective of Project Hammer, replied:

Well, it was mainly to bring back monies to the United States from all types of activities, both legitimately and illegitimately. Not that they were in the smuggling business per se, but they were all in the arms business, they were all retracing dollars of one description or another that had accumulated all through the '40s and '50s, really. And that probably is as broad a definition as I can give you

General Cocke then added that involvement in Project Hammer extended to:

the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agencies of all types, Pentagon in the broad sense of it and as such, the Treasury, Federal Reserve. Nobody got out of the act, everybody wanted to get in on the act." 5

Cocke's involvement with clandestine CIA activities dates back many years. At the very least, he is known to have been involved with the CIA's Nugan Hand Bank. For example, US Treasury records obtained by veteran journalist and author Jonathan Kwitny show Cocke as the registered "person in charge" of Nugan Hand's Washington office. 6

Cocke also indicated in his affidavit that he was regularly contacted by the CIA for expert assistance over the years and was usually debriefed by them following overseas travel. Despite this, a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA made on behalf of this writer was dismissed with the statement that "no records responsive to your request were located" – which is not entirely the same thing as saying that no records exist. 7

It also appears that the CIA is not the only one that cares to deny knowledge of General Cocke. Another is former Citibank CEO and Chairman John Reed, who, in a sworn affidavit dated 5 December 2000, stated he had "no knowledge of any persons named Erle Cocke, Jr, or Barrie D. Wamboldt". Both the CIA and Citibank's John Reed hold at least one major advantage over General Cocke: they are alive and he is dead; and while it is true that the dead can't lie, it is also true that they can't rebut anyone's testimony–sworn or otherwise. 8

In his deposition, Cocke states that although he had never "met" John Reed, he had attempted on numerous occasions to speak with him, but was continually rejected:

We did our best to make the normal approaches, but I can see the President of the United States with no trouble. I cannot see Reed. 9

The "we" Cocke was referring to, besides himself, was Paul Green, a "long-time real estate lawyer in New York" with "50 years practice", who "had done most of his real estate dealings through Citibank". 10

Green also did some of his banking business with Citibank at its Fifth Avenue, New York, branch under account FOCUS #946 963 94.

According to Cocke, Paul Green was an outside counsel for Citibank and went back,

"30-odd years with large transactions through that bank, buying and selling big buildings. He was very much involved buying and selling the Empire State Building one time." 11

Asked if Green was involved in the purchase and sale of collateral instruments, Cocke replied:

Probably not as an individual. But he represented the clients that certainly wanted to do the same thing. 12

News in late March 2003 revealed that the Empire State Building had just been sold by casino king Donald Trump and the heirs of shady Japanese billionaire Hideki Yokoi for US$57.5 million.

Yokoi (who, at the time, was serving a prison sentence and had secretly negotiated the transaction through a middleman) and his partner Trump had gained ownership of the building in 1991 for US$42 million. Little is known about Yokoi's World War II activities.

The building last changed hands four decades earlier in 1961, when it was acquired by real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley from the Prudential Insurance Company in a sale-leaseback deal. The world-renowned skyscraper was built on land owned by the Astor family and sold to the DuPonts in 1929.

Construction of the Empire State Building began in 1930. John Jacob Astor was one of the first Americans to become involved in the opium trade, from which his later fortune derived. This he invested in Manhattan real estate. The architects of the Empire State Building were Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates – designers of One Bankers Trust Plaza, the HQ of Bankers Trust, together with the Credit Lyonnais building in New York City.

It is of more than passing interest that one law firm represents many of the "actors" who appear in this story. That firm is White & Case. Amongst numerous notable achievements listed on its website background/history is its representation of the DuPont Group in its sale of the Empire State Building in 1954 for the princely sum of US$51.5 million.

As we noted earlier, almost 40 years later, in 1991, the building sold for the less than princely sum of US$42 million. I am not certain how the real estate investors define investment performance over the years, but an aggregate loss of US$9.5 million over the course of 37 years doesn't usually constitute an investment accomplishment by any standard I know. 13

Meanwhile, a brief review of White & Case's client list tell us that they also represented,

But White & Case's most "enduring" client is Bankers Trust Company, a J. P. Morgan-controlled bank which the law firm was "centrally involved" in forming back in 1903.

The ancestor of all trust companies is England's Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, which dates back to 1868 and was conceived by one of the foremost legal minds of the day, Lord Westbury. The current Lord Westbury, Richard Bethell, will appear later in this story.

But first, let's step through the looking glass and examine one of the early Hammer deals, which General Cocke believed:

It was one of the very early transactions, as far as I am concerned, with Hammer. I think he [Dan Hughes] is the one who expanded Hammer in the sense that we moved from one hundred million [dollars] to a billion-type movement, and now we are doubling, about a trillion. He is the one who enhanced it, is the best way of saying.

THE HUGHES PORTAL


Dan Hughes , Jr , the nephew of US Representative William J. Hughes from New Jersey, made a considerable fortune in the construction business in Florida during his early working life.

By the mid-1980s, with paper assets nearing US$100 million, he became involved in collateral trading and by late 1989 entered the realm of Project Hammer.

During the autumn of 1989, Hughes was approached by Peter Seaman, the President and Chairman of a small investment bank called Nantucket Holding Company. Seaman had developed an arrangement with Ecoban Limited, a small merchant bank with offices in London and New York City that specialized in emerging market-debt and the A'forfait market. 16

Seaman, using Nantucket Holding Company , concluded an agreement by which Ecoban would purchase US$100 million worth of documentary letters of credit issued by the head offices of Citibank NA and the Chase Manhattan Bank NA. Hughes had access to these bank credits via a US$50 billion "commitment" extended to him by the Bankers Trust Company.

To fund the purchase, Ecoban needed the support of a bank and turned to Midland Bank Aval Limited (MidAval), the forfaiting subsidiary of Midland Bank Group International Trade Services (MiBGITS).

MidAval, once wholly owned by Midland Bank, had, shortly before commencing with the Hammer transaction, concluded a private agreement with Sir William Purvis, Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation , wherein HSBC purchased a controlling equity stake in MidAval. This meant that MidAval was 60% owned by HSBC and 40% owned by Midland Bank. 17

Accordingly, on 12 October 1989, MidAval issued a letter agreeing to purchase "$100 million with rolls until funds are exhausted of documentary letters of credit" 18

An earlier MidAval letter (dated 25 September 1989) stated that they,

"irrevocably commit to purchase the above letters of credit and pay the amount agreed between you and Ecoban Limited ('the purchase price') to Citibank NA, Lugano".

The reference to "Lugano" was deleted in later letters at the specific request of Nantucket's Peter Seaman, as detailed in his 11 October 1989, letter to Brian Fitzpatrick, the Managing Director of Ecoban Limited. Lugano was of some considerable importance – as we shall see later – but not least because it was at Union Bank of Switzerland in Lugano where, according to Dan Hughes, the actual trading of the Hammer programme took place.

Meanwhile, MidAval's letter was addressed to Jardine, Emett & Chandler, New England, Inc., in Boston, USA, which acted as an agent for MidAval. On the strength of MidAval's signed and authorized letter, Jardine, Emett & Chandler issued its own "Request for collateral instruments" under its letterhead. This letter, dated 12 October 1989, bore the reference "Midland Bank Aval Limited for Ecoban Limited".

To close the circle, Dan Hughes had earlier instructed his attorney, Oswald (Ozzie) Howe, Jr, of the Miami law firm Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole , to cause to be issued a sight draft, dated 6 October 1989, drawn on the Southeast Bank NA, Miami, and payable to Bankers Trust Company, for the sum of US$50,000. A further sight draft was issued in the amount of US$25,000, at the request of Bankers Trust.

Following this sequence of events, nothing happened and no draws were made against the sight drafts issued by Southeast Bank in favour of Bankers Trust.

But on 18 October 1989, Hughes received a time and sequence confirmation from Joan Johnson, Vice President and Operations Manager of the Security Pacific bank in Los Angeles, which Hughes believes activated his transaction through a "back door" arrangement which would cut him out of his commission. 19 Thereafter, Peter Seaman point-blank and inexplicably refused to speak with Hughes again.

General Cocke was an experienced banker from a long line of bankers and was a former full-time US representative at the World Bank.

Intimately familiar with the operational techniques of trading programmes, he was asked:

"Can you explain in a general way how it [Hammer] functioned, that it was a trade programme, for those of us that are not familiar?"

The stock way all big banks, all central banks, change within themselves and curtail their balances, build up their peaks and then sell it.

He went on to explain that "most of it is done in a four-week program to be technically correct" and involved the trading of banking instruments – usually known as "collateral" – that are heavily discounted and then sold off.

MAPPING THE COVERT CONNECTIONS


To appreciate the subtleties of how the diversion of this particular "portal" into Project Hammer may have occurred, it is instructive to look at the connections and associations of the principal players. 20

Ecoban:

In addition to Ecob an Limited in London, there was the affiliated Ecoban Finance Limited that conducted business out of an address on Third Avenue in New York City.

A one-time President and CEO of Ecoban Finance Limited in New York was Jim Demitrieus, who more recently was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Ixnet/IPC, which was acquired by Global Crossing in June 2000.

Global Crossing was one of the US firms that recently suffered a spectacular collapse together with Worldcom, Enron and the accountancy firm Arthur Andersen. All were subjected to a welter of media attention for what was believed to have been unparalleled insider trading activities by senior executives.

Earlier in his career, Demitrieus,

"served as senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Commodity Division of Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc., responsible for the precious metals, energy products, foreign exchange trading subsidiary and institutional brokerage division".

Of interest here is the little known fact that Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, New York , was a recipient of gold bullion from Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in January 1984.

It is not clear from Mr Demitrieus's available vitae if this was the same time period he was the Senior Vice President of Drexel's bullion business, but I am informed this is probably the case. Before that, Demitrieus "held senior-level financial positions with Freeport-McMoRan, ITT and Arthur Andersen". 21

Significantly, Freeport-McMoRan, back when it was Freeport Sulphur , positively heaved with CIA and elite heavy-hitters – not to mention persistent whispers of its involvement in the recovery of plundered gold stashed in Indonesia, where Freeport had the world's largest copper mining operation.

Over the years, the Freeport senior management has included such luminaries as Augustus "Gus" Long, Chairman of Texaco, who did "prodigious volunteer work for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital" – which has been described as a "hotbed of CIA activity". 22

Another director was Robert Lovett, who has been described as a "Cold War architect" and was once an executive at the old Wall Street bank of Brown Brothers Harriman. He also served as an Under Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of War and Secretary of Defense. He was a best friend of Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman (and Warren Commission member) John J. McCloy.

The Chase Manhattan and Citibank connection to Freeport was further enhanced by the board appointment of Godfrey Rockefeller, brother of James Stillman Rockefeller who was appointed Chairman of Citibank (then known as First National City Bank, or FNCB for short) in 1959. (Note, too, that Chase Manhattan and Citibank are the exact same two banks that were to issue the Project Hammer documentary letters of credit.)

Godfrey Rockefeller was a one-time trustee of the Fairfield Foundation that financed a variety of CIA "fronts". Meanwhile, Stillman's cousin, David Rockefeller , was Chairman of Chase Manhattan and regarded as the "goliath of American banking". 23

By a strange coincidence of fate, it was Robert Lovett and John J. McCloy who, together with Robert B. Anderson, formed Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's team of financial experts concerned with tracking WWII gold looted by the Axis powers.

Indeed, Lovett and McCloy were responsible for negotiating the secret agreement hidden behind the Bretton Woods Agreement concerning the establishment of the Black Eagle trust that was to make use of plundered WWII bullion in the postwar years. 24

Midland Bank:

When looking at MidAval's parent, Midland Bank Group International Trade Services (MiBGITS), one could do worse than read the very informative book by former arms company chairman Gerald James, entitled In the Public Interest. James recounts numerous chilling accounts of Her Majesty's intelligence service MI6's deep involvement with the MiBGITS special defense unit.

Included are details of Stephan Kock, who James claims to have been a former head of the Foreign Office's so-called assassination squad, Group 13.

Another intelligence-connected individual named in James's book is Sir John Cuckney, who was a non-executive director of Midland Bank from 1978 until 1988 and was responsible for having formed the defense unit in the first place.

Gerald James and his munitions company Astra also had dealings with, and a private account at, MidAval. 25

Kock's boss at Midland was Comte Herve de Carmoy, a Frenchman and a leading light on the Trilateral Commission . He left Midland in 1988 to take up the position as the most senior executive of Belgium's massive transnational company, Société Générale.

portrait serre

He was replaced as head of Midland International by John Louden, a multilinguist who had an unfortunate speech impediment – leading wags in the bank to say of him that he could stutter in seven languages. De Carmoy's departure was followed by that of both Cuckney and Kock, after what Gerald James describes as "funny practices" relating to a loss of £100 million involving all three men. 26

Although a similar amount to the MidAval's Project Hammer transaction, this sum of £100 million cannot have been the same money for two reasons. Firstly, the Hammer amount was in dollars and not pounds, and was discounted at approximately 4% over the prevailing one-year interest rate (LIBOR–the London Interbank Borrowing Rate).

For US banks of the standing of Chase and Citibank, at that time a market rate of perhaps one quarter of 1% – or, at most, one half of 1% – was applicable. Four per cent was unheard of by a very long shot indeed. Secondly, at least a year separated the two movements of money.

Even so, there are notable connections between the MidAval CEO Ian Guild and Herve de Carmoy (who was known in the bank as "Herve the Swerve").

Following the takeover of Midland Bank by HSBC, MidAval had its name changed to HSBC Forfaiting Limited. It was dissolved in February 2000. Former staff had long since scattered with the four winds. IndoSuez Aval Limited is likewise now defunct.


Note

Documents and other exhibits in support of this story are available HERE .

Endnotes

1. Available HERE .

2. See Project Hammer part one, "The Project Hammer File", HERE

3. Information about Project Hammer has been garnered from numerous sources. Those sources that I am able to name are named in the text. The remainder remain confidential.

4. Page 51 of General Cocke's affidavit. One of the CIA "sources" was the slush fund controlled by Japanese Liberal Democrat Party bosses and known as the "M-fund", after General MacArthur's economic supremo in Tokyo, General Marquat.

5. General Cocke's 67-page affidavit can be seen in Project Hammer

6. See Jonathan Kwitny's excellent book, The Crimes of Patriots (Touchstone Books, New York, 1987), for a detailed background on the Nugan Hand Bank affair.

7. See http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/cocke-news.html for a copy of the CIA's letter.

8. See http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/cocke-news.html for a copy of the cover sheet of John Reed's affidavit.

9. See page 43 of Cocke's deposition at lines 11, 12 and 13.

10. From Cocke's affidavit.

11. See pages 40 and 41 of Cocke's deposition at lines 19 through 21 and 1 through 6.

12. ibid., page 41 at lines 9 and 10.

13. If one includes the inflationary effect over this time period, it would reveal that the sale price is, in fact, a great deal less now than it was almost 50 years ago, which is more than curious. Nor does the leasing agreement over this same period seem especially lucrative.

14. It is not clear from the banking records I have viewed online, but it looks as though the Astor Trust Company was absorbed into an entity that formed part of the Bankers Trust Company.

15. See Dope, Inc . (EIR, 1992).

16. Forfaiting is the discounting of bank-guaranteed receivables (Aval) on a non-recourse basis.

17. I use the term "private agreement" under advice–following a recent telephone conversation with a representative of Companies House, who told me that no change of ownership notification had been made for MidAval at that time. MidAval had first been registered as a limited company under the shelf registration name of "Diplema Twenty Nine Limited" in June 1983. A change of name to Midland Bank Aval Limited was formally notified to Companies House in April 1996–although the firm had been trading in the name of Midland Bank Aval Limited from day one. Following the full buy-out of Midland Bank PLC by the HSBC Group, MidAval had its name changed to HSBC Forfaiting Limited. The company was dissolved in February 2000.

18. Italics are mine.

19. Sworn and notarized affidavit of Dan Hughes, dated December 31, 1990.

20. There are believed to have been numerous different "portals" providing access into Project Hammer over the period of its life. The Dan Hughes transaction was one of these–albeit a significant and "early" one, according to the testimony of General Erle Cocke.

21. Demitrieus's vitae is drawn from that published on the Global Crossing website.

22. For details concerning the Freeport Board of Directors, see Internet report entitled "Freeport Sulphur's Powerful Board of Directors".

23. See Phillip Zweig's massive book, Wriston (Crown Publishers, New York, 1995) for comprehensive background on Citibank and Chase.

24. For details of these three gentlemen's involvement in the Black Eagle Trust, see Seagrave's self-published book, Gold Warriors; details are available on my website, under the heading of " The Seagrave Affair "

25. I know much of the inner workings of MidAval for the simple reason that I was the Treasurer and an Associate Director of that firm until 1991. However, I knew nothing of the Project Hammer deal that was strictly handled by the three principal executive directors.

26. See details on page 164 of Gerald James's book, In the Public Interest (Warner Books/Little, Brown, London, 1996).

Project Hammer Reloaded – Part 2

Part 2

MAPPING THE COVERT CONNECTIONS

Peter Seaman:

In addition to being the President and Chairman of Nantucket Holding Company, Peter Seaman was a successful businessman and involved in a number of other enterprises. These included an entity called Harbor Fuel Holdings Co., Inc. of Westchester County, in which Seaman was a partner with attorney Stuart Root.

Both Root and Seaman were clients of attorney Kenneth C. Ellis. Root was a director of another firm called Bowery Advisors Subsidiary Corporation, which was registered in Florida with a principal mailing address of Kenneth C. Ellis "care of" the Southeast First National Bank building, located at Biscayne Boulevard, Miami. Seaman had a residence in Greenwich, Connecticut, where, by another odd coincidence, his next-door neighbor was Citibank's John Reed.

Following his close association with Dan Hughes in setting up the MidAval Hammer deal in October 1989, Seaman thereafter refused to speak with Hughes ever again. Whether it was guilt for diverting Hughes's commission or some other factor that caused this extraordinary vow of silence, we shall never know. Peter Seaman died, taking all his secrets with him.

Oswald Howe, Jr:

Dan Hughes's attorney throughout the Hammer deal and the subsequent years of investigation was Oswald (Ozzie) Howe, Jr, of the Miami law firm of Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole, whose offices were located in the Southeast Bank building at the Southeast Financial Center.

According to Dan Hughes, it was Howe who introduced him to Southeast Bank, and Howe did a lot of real estate work for the bank. Hughes also feels that his ongoing law case would be a great deal more effective if several vital documents had not mysteriously disappeared from Howe's office. In any event, Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole is now defunct, and Howe practices law and is the senior partner for Howe, Robinson & Watkins LLP in Miami.

Southeast Bank:

Southeast Bank NA was declared insolvent on 19 September 1991; it exists no more. Over the years it could boast some famous, if not infamous, clients – but one suspects that such boasting was the last thing the bank's board of directors had in mind. One such account "holder" was Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who used his henchman and former law school classmate Roberto Benedicto to front for him.

In addition to being appointed by Marcos as the Philippines Ambassador to Japan, Benedicto was a signatory to Marcos's Credit Suisse accounts and was clearly content to be used by Marcos as a cat's-paw to hide his money and gold bullion. 27 Benedicto died in May 2000, following a heart attack.

Other illustrious clients of Southeast Bank over the years have included such criminal luminaries as Licio Gelli and Michele Sindona, named by author Luigi DiFonzo in his book, St Peter's Banker . DiFonzo reveals that US$34 million of the "lost" money of Robert Calvi's collapsed bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, was traced to that bank's subsidiary in Nassau, where it was withdrawn and smuggled to two Miami banks, one of these being the Southeast First National Bank (of Miami)–where it was deposited in account number 18221465. 28

Bankers Trust:

Bankers Trust International, a subsidiary of Bankers Trust, was the other Miami bank named in St Peter's Banker as having funds stolen from Banco Ambrosiano deposited with it. According to DiFonzo, these funds were deposited into account number 001050018, which was also controlled by Licio Gelli and Michel Sindons (i.e., Michele Sindona).

In 1982, Ferdinand Marcos arranged via his right-hand man, General Fabian Ver, to transfer 50 tonnes of gold bullion to Switzerland via two chartered 747 aircraft. These were arranged by an individual using the name Ron Lusk, who had been retained by Ver to deliver the gold to Bankers Trust, Zurich. 29

Bankers Trust is of considerable interest for other reasons, too. Firstly, readers will recall that Dan Hughes caused two sight drafts to be issued in favour of Bankers Trust for the collateral commitment relative to the Chase and Citibank debenture instruments – an activity which, as we have already seen, caused General Erle Cocke to believe kicked off the Project Hammer programme in a big way.

Secondly, the lawyers and investigators who were building a lawsuit for Dan Hughes and other clients cheated out of their money were quietly negotiating with the Central Intelligence Agency in an attempt to settle privately and quietly out of court. According to Dan Hughes, these negotiations were taking place with the office of Buzzy Krongard, the then No. 3 man in the CIA hierarchy.

By profession, Krongard is a banker and formerly was the Chairman and CEO of investment bank Alex. Brown, Inc. In September 1997, Krongard engineered the merger of Alex. Brown with Bankers Trust and became the Vice Chairman of the board of directors of Bankers Trust. A few months later, in January 1998, he was recruited as a "counsellor" to CIA boss George Tenet. In March 2001, he was promoted to Executive Director, making him the No. 2 man of the spy agency.

But the strange coincidences don't end there. South African intelligence operatives Rolf van Rooyen and Riaan Stander, 30 who are both deeply enmeshed in the Project Hammer ( 1 and 2 ) story, were working closely with Gregory Serras, the President/CEO of the San Diego brokerage firm, Vanguard Capital.

This involved discussions for Vanguard to act on their behalf in the private placement of Argentinian government-approved debenture instruments that formed part of a trading programme that van Rooyen and Stander had been working on. In a signed letter, Serras – acting on behalf of his bank, Morgan Stanley & Co. – requested confirmation that the debentures in question were "legal securities authorized and approved by the government of Argentina"

Vanguard appears to change its banking relationships from time to time. In the period that Serras was in contact with van Rooyen, its relationship was with Morgan Stanley & Co. Today it is with the Bank of New York, Inc. – itself no stranger to front-page scandals, such as those involving money-laundering activities for Russian crime syndicates and political figures. 31 Of interest is the fact that Vanguard was earlier affiliated with Buzzy Krongard's old firm, Alex. Brown, which, following the takeover of Bankers Trust by Germany's Deutsche Bank, changed its name to Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, Inc.

The fact is that when it comes to the fraternity of banking, one can often disregard the supposed rivalry that is said to exist, because incestuous relationships are commonplace. In the past, at least, the big banks owned significant chunks of each other's stock, whereas nowadays they just tend to merge. Take, for example, the Bank of America, whose second-largest stockholder was J. P. Morgan. In third place was Citibank.

Meanwhile, Citibank's largest stockholder was J. P. Morgan, which in December 2000 merged with Chase Manhattan to form the all-powerful J. P. Morgan Chase. 32 Bankers Trust was a J. P. Morgan creation from day one.

White & Case:

No doubt by sheer coincidence alone, the Marcos account held by Roberto Benedicto at Southeast Bank was a White & Case Trust account (number 018-410191).

It may also have been mere coincidence that Peter Seaman's and Stuart Root's attorney, Kenneth C. Ellis – who was the registered addressee at Southeast Bank building for the Bowery Advisors Subsidiary Corporation – is also listed on the White & Case website as a partner of that firm, who specializes in financial matters and who now works out of its Singapore office.

UBS, Lugano:

One of the more flamboyant financiers of recent decades undoubtedly is the Italian, Florio Fiorini, the former finance director of the Italian state-owned oil company, ENI. Fiorini is best known for his failed attempt to rescue Roberto Calvi's bankrupt private bank, Banco Ambrosiano – an affair that also involved Mafia financier Michele Sindona and, of course, Licio Gelli, the Grandmaster of the secret masonic lodge, P2, that was a parallel de facto government of Italy.

Unlike others, Fiorini spilled the beans, and he did so in two books that he wrote while in Champ-Dollon prison, Switzerland, for "fraudulent bankruptcy". Of the many secrets he revealed, one of the most explosive was the now infamous conto protezione (protection account), used to launder profits derived from myriad insider-dealing activities by some of the largest and most prestigious banks and transnational corporations in Europe.

A significant slice of the profits was paid to what Fiorini amusingly described as "the starving of the parties". In plain words, these allocations were kickbacks paid to the various political parties.

The administrator of the secret kickback account (number 633369) was a member of P2 and also a former Minister of Justice of disgraced Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who went by the name of Claudius Hammerings – and if one deletes the last four letters of his name, coincidence throws up the word "Hammer". 33 Readers will by now have guessed that the account was held at UBS, Lugano.

Fiorini's name also appears prominently in the story of the looting of MGM, the famous Hollywood film studio, by Italian Mafia "thug" Giancarlo Paretti. The MGM affair was an event that almost brought France's state-owned bank, Credit Lyonnais, crashing to its knees. Without intervention and an infusion of considerable sums of money from the French taxpayer, France's once proud bank would have folded.

This is not the place to recount the MGM/Credit Lyonnais story, but it is of passing interest only to note that Credit Lyonnais recruited attorney Charles Meeker to join MGM as president, to handle negotiations with Paretti. Prior to joining MGM, Meeker was with the law firm of White & Case. 34 Following a warrant issued by France, Paretti was eventually arrested and cuffed by US federal agents in a conference room in the downtown Los Angeles office of White & Case.

Credit Lyonnais has also been deeply involved in Black Eagle gold transactions. In one transaction I am familiar with, a large block of bullion was to be purchased by a representative operating on behalf of Credit Lyonnais Rouse Limited, London, the precious metals trading arm of the bank. 35

It is also interesting to note that UBS, Lugano, was not only the bank of choice for those running the secret insider trading protection account; it was also the bank of choice for former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The numerous confidential accounts he had at that bank have been dubbed the "Mother" money-laundering account for the Marcos family by Marcos gold investigator Reiner Jacobi. 36

But the UBS connections don't end there. The Honorary Chairman of UBS (now part of the Swiss Bank Corporation Group) is Nicholaus Senn, who was also the Chairman of the enormous transnational corporation, Compagnie Financière Richemont AG , until his retirement in September 2002. Senn was also the senior partner of the Swiss-based international law and consultancy firm of Senn, Christians and Letemeyer , which, coincidentally, acted for the late Baron Arndt Krupp.

In particular, Carl Letemeyer and Nicholaus Senn worked hard on behalf of the Krupp Estate in regard to the Krupp Heritage & World Peace Foundation (Singapore), which received a legacy of US$97 billion from Baron Krupp . This was a cash gift. According to documents I have in my possession, Krupp's "secret" properties and businesses did not form part of this legacy. However, the most interesting fact is that, prior to his death, Baron Arndt Krupp controlled some of the Santa Romana "Black Eagle" fund assets. Of the $97 billion gifted, $47 billion was on deposit in account number 4 77 22 P with the Trust Department of the Standard & Chartered Bank, London.

Indosuez:

This is one of those banks which are barely visible but consistently circle the waters of black gold and Project Hammer – like a prowling shark with just the tip of its dorsel fin showing. For example, in one bullion transaction being negotiated by Dr A. Konig, the Swiss representative of Rolf van Rooyen's Eastcorp Syndicate, the nominated closing bank for the transaction was Indosuez, Lugano – where Eastcorp Holdings maintained an account.

This is in addition to the migration of some MidAval staff to Indosuez following their involvement in the Project Hammer trading programme, as outlined earlier. With the closure of Indosuez Aval, a rump of former MidAval employees (now unfortunately ex-Indosuez Aval as well), including MidAval's former CEO, found a new berth for their abilities. This was at Standard & Chartered Bank in London. Standard Bank Nominees, meanwhile, is the second largest shareholder of Oppenheimer's Anglo American, with a stake of 11.74 per cent. 37

While knowledge of the hidden connections of the Hughes "portal" into Project Hammer is vital for an understanding of how the world of parallel finance operates, there are still deeper "rhythms" at work. An examination of these "rhythms" leads to the companies, people and intelligence assets that sit at the heart of the so-called Anglo-American relationship.

THE KESWICK-JARDINE CONNECTION


A few days after I published part one of Project Hammer in late October 2001, I was alerted to an anonymous posting at the Cryptome.org website of a document produced by the South African National Intelligence Agency in 1998.

The document describes plans, then alleged to be in preparation, for a coup to occur during the 1999 South African general election. Whilst the coup did not happen, the document is of significance because it describes members of – and entities aligned with – the group who wished to disrupt the ruling African National Congress (ANC) political party. 38

A large part of this document outlines the alleged involvement of Executive Outcomes (EO), the British-based private security company that is part of the Palace Group of companies. A few days prior to this document being made available, I had published charts showing the "network" of the Palace Group that formed the London end of the associated South African intelligence group known as the Eastcorp Syndicate.

This group was headed by Rolf van Rooyen and Riaan Stander – both South African intelligence operatives who were deeply involved in Project Hammer. Not only were the London and South African networks closely aligned, but in some cases they also shared the same executives. 39

One of the entities appearing on the Cryptome.org document as a member of the London network/Palace Group is Jardine Fleming of Hong Kong, listed under "Banking and Investments". Two lines beneath appears the name Defense Systems Ltd – a division of the arms manufacturer, Vickers.

Jardine Fleming is also listed in the same document as a "role player", a few lines beneath the name of Tony Buckingham – the high-profile head of Executive Outcomes. In an accompanying financial report it is revealed that EO used account number 600774426 at Jardine Fleming Bank Limited, located at Port Moresby, Hong Kong. The account, rendered as at 15 May 1998, held a balance of US$36 million, and included Tony Buckingham among those authorized to sign cheques on the account.

Jardine Fleming Bank Limited was established in 1970 as a joint venture between the huge transnational company, Jardine Matheson Limited, and British merchant bank, Robert Fleming. Jardine's 50% stake in this Hong Kong bank was exchanged in 1999 for a direct 18% stake in Robert Fleming, which in April 2000 was sold to the Chase Manhattan Corporation – the holding company of what is now the huge US bank of J. P. Morgan Chase.

But a year later, in May 2001, the magicians' musical chairs were in use again when it was announced that Jardine Fleming Bank was to be sold by J. P. Morgan Chase to Standard Bank. The transfer of ownership occurred on 3 July 2001, with the renaming of Jardine Fleming Bank to Standard Bank Asia Limited, but trading was under the new name of Standard Jardine Fleming Bank Limited.

Of considerable significance is the fact that, at the time that Jardine, Emett & Chandler – the firm of Boston insurance brokers mentioned earlier – issued its letter on behalf of MidAval, seeking collateral instruments, it was owned by Jardine Matheson Limited. Meanwhile, Jardine Resources Limited, with an address in the Isle of Man, was a business entity used by Rolf van Rooyen for collateral trading programme and other activities. The Isle of Man also boasted a branch of Jardine Fleming Bank Limited.

Jardine Matheson Limited, originally formed over 170 years ago, created a fortune from the China opium business. Since that time it has diversified enormously and remains the family fiefdom of the Keswick family, descendants of the firm's co-founder, William Jardine.

The Keswick clan, in addition to having had family members awarded the chairmanship or directorship of such notable international companies as Hongkong & Shanghai Bank , Rio Tinto Zinc and Samuel Montagu (the London merchant bank that was part of the Midland Bank Group, itself now owned by HSBC), is also able to boast having had family members as the head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and decades-long membership of the Court of the Bank of England.

Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) was founded in 1873 by Hugh Matheson, the co-founder of Jardine Matheson. In 1995, RTZ acquired a minority ownership in Freeport McMoRan. Anglo American (which has long had very close ties with RTZ), together with De Beers, is the fiefdom of the Oppenheimer family, which owns a significant piece of Lonrho. These three intertwined conglomerates dominate the precious metals and mining world – amongst achieving other notable accomplishments. For example, the Oppenheimers' Minorco holding company is believed to be the single largest investor in the United States.

Minorco, founded in 1981, was quick to obtain an interest in America's then biggest bank, Citibank, whose CEO, Walter Wriston, together with Citibank's principal attorney, Robert Clare, a partner of the powerful law firm of Shearson & Sterling, both accepted invitations to sit on the Minorco board. 40

According to the authors of the book Dope, Inc ., the Keswick family controls a substantial part of the world's narcotics trade and uses HSBC, the bank it is said to control, to "provide centralized rediscounting facilities for the financing of the drugs trade". 41

How true this is remains unknown to this writer, but it is known that Li Ka-shing – the Chinese billionaire who owns a 3% stake in Jardine Matheson Limited and has sat on the board of HSBC – has been accused of being a member of Chinese intelligence as well as being associated with the narcotics trade. 42

Indeed, the latter allegation arose repeatedly during my investigation of Project Hammer, while the use of HSBC as an "authorized six-point laundry" was also mentioned. Meanwhile, the description of "centralized rediscounting facilities" referenced by the authors of Dope, Inc . is suggestive, to this writer at least, of collateral trading techniques.

Such connections are almost endless, it seems. Take, for example, the rise to fortune of Peter Munk, Chairman of Barrick Gold which was formed in Toronto, Canada, in 1983, with the majority stake being held by the Saudi royal family middleman and arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi. Khashoggi had long been associated with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and the so-called Marcos gold.

Indeed, so trusted was he that Marcos had him fronting for two "eclipsed" Marcos accounts – one in the name of Etablissement Mabari with the private Swiss bank of Lombard Odier & Cie, and the other in the name of Etablissement Gladiator at COGES Corraterie Gestion SA , Geneva.

Of interest, too, is the fact that Sir Henry Keswick is reported to have been responsible for "lifting" Munk to a new career, although he also received patronage from Australia's now-deceased multi-billionaire businessman Sir Peter Abeles. 43

Sir Peter received considerable attention in Jonathan Kwitny's excellent book, The Crimes of Patriots , because of his alleged Mafia connections and close association with Bernie Houghton and Michael Hand in the CIA drug smuggling laundry, the Nugan Hand Bank – which also arranged to ship gold bullion surreptitiously for Marcos.

At this point, it is worth reminding readers that Brigadier-General Erle Cocke – whom I referenced earlier concerning his affidavit detailing his knowledge and involvement in Project Hammer – was reported by Kwitny to be a key player in the Nugan Hand Bank.

And Project Hammer is said to be a general continuation of Nugan Hand Bank activity.


MARITIME FINANCING


The ties that bind are kept hidden from public view.

Activities such as the one we have been discussing are made to operate on an "arms length" basis to confuse and also to ensure deniability.

Following these subterranean and diverse threads can easily perplex the investigator, and patience and persistence are required to arrive at the reality that is hidden behind all the smoke and mirrors. The story of Puffin Investments is a case in point.

During a number of extensive telephone interviews with the Canadian, Barrie Wamboldt, it was hinted that it would be worthwhile to look into the activities of an Alan Shepherd and a firm of his called Puffin Investments. Readers will remember that Barrie Wamboldt was involved with Project Hammer and had worked with General Cocke and Paul Green to recover Project Hammer funds.

Puffin Investment Company Limited, a Bahamas company, was owned by Old Harrovian Alan Shepherd, who had connections to the British royal family resulting from generous donations he made to the Royal Windsor Horse Show, of which he was vice president.

In March 2001, Shepherd and Puffin Investments were involved in a High Court action initiated by the Financial Services Authority – the government watchdog – for enticing investors to put up money for a "sham" investment trading programme. According to the Sunday Express newspaper, reporting on the court case, up-front fees paid by investors on the promise of massive returns were not repaid. 44

A week later, on 1 April 2001, the Sunday Express carried a further report detailing a lawsuit against Alan Shepherd, his American wife Sherry and previous Conservative Party "grandee" Sir Edward du Cann, who was the former Chairman of City merchant bank Keyser Ullman.

Sir Edward was earlier involved in Tradeswind, an arms trading company in which he was a director with Tiny Rowland of Lonrho fame and the Egyptian, Ashraf Marwan – known as "Dr Death". Earlier in his career, du Cann served as Chairman of Lonrho, thus working alongside board directors such as British MI6 luminary Nicholas Elliot. 45

Shepherd, his wife Sherry and du Cann were being sued for £1.25 million in a dispute involving the search for "one of the world's most fabulous buried treasures". The treasure in question was "30 tons of gold statues, bullion, doubloons and precious stones", stolen by Scottish pirate Captain William Thompson. The treasure was currently valued at £500 million.

The lawsuit was brought by Richard Bethell of the Bermuda-based Hart Group , who alleged that Shepherd and du Cann were guilty of "misrepresentations" over an agreement for the provision of various "services" to Shepherd's planned treasure hunt.

One cannot help but be reminded of stories that have circulated in the past concerning gold plundered by the Japanese during WWII and hidden in the Philippines – later to be recovered and "laundered" as treasure retrieved from Spanish galleons that had sunk while traveling from Peru to Spain. A variation of this story is the recovery of lost "pirate treasure" – otherwise known as gold – on the Cocos Islands.

Richard Bethell – elevated to Lord Westbury following the recent death of his father – is a former SAS and Scots Guards officer and, like Alan Shepherd, an Old Harrovian. The Hart Group, of which he is the Chief Executive Officer, is one of a number of companies that form the Global Marine Security Systems Company (GMSSCO).

A distinct cynic – as this writer has become – would easily conclude that a marked similarity in structure exists between GMSSCO and Rolf van Rooyen's South African Eastcorp Syndicate that was closely allied with the London network of Executive Outcomes.

For example, companies belonging to the Eastcorp Syndicate also had a maritime and security theme.


APARTHEID'S MISSING BILLIONS


But the similarity doesn't end there.

Lord Westbury is currently serving as Chief Executive Officer of Defense Systems Limited (DSL), which, as we have already seen, is an integral member of the London network of the Palace Group (named so because of its close proximity to the royal family's official London residence, Buckingham Palace). 46

Moreover, Executive Outcomes has been described as "the advance guard for major business interests engaged in a latter-day scramble for the mineral wealth of Africa". 47

This is a particularly incisive description, and readers of the first part of this series will recall that one aspect of Project Hammer apparently involved the disappearance of substantial quantities of gold reserves, as well as stocks of De Beers diamonds, just prior to the takeover of the Republic of South Africa in 1994 by Nelson Mandela and the ANC. This theft has become known as "apartheid's missing billions".

Defense Systems Limited has a client list that comes straight from the top drawer and includes oil and gas companies like British Petroleum, Shell and British Gas of the UK and Amoco, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil and Texaco of the United States. Major mining and mineral extraction companies such as Canada's Cambior and De Beers and Anglo American of South Africa also feature, as does the giant US construction firm, Bechtel.

Another client is Canadian-based Ranger Oil, which by happy coincidence is the same name as an entity that forms part of the Palace Group and which is run by arms trader Mick Ranger.

By miraculous good fortune, Mick Ranger was also a board member of Bridge SA – one of the entities formed and run by Rolf van Rooyen and Riaan Stander. Meanwhile, Sandline, which many knowledgeable insiders believe is Executive Outcomes by another name, has a client base that includes Rio Tinto Zinc.

DSL is now owned by Armor Holdings, Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida, but is still headquartered in London. This affiliation seems, on the face of it, to be a particularly binding one, for Armor Holdings is said to have its very own US spook-type "network". 48

The senior executives of Armor Holdings are predominantly bankers of one strain or another. Take, for example, Thomas W. Strauss, formerly a Vice Chairman of Salomon Brothers, the Wall Street investment bank that was once minority owned by the Oppenheimers' Anglo American and De Beers strategic holding company, Minorco. 49

Until 1993, Salomons owned the controlling interest in the Bank of New York, which, as you will recall, is the current affiliated clearing bank of Gregory Serras's Vanguard Capital. Today, Salomons is owned by Citigroup. 50

We might also mention Armor Holdings director Burtt R. Ehrlich, whose family securities firm, Ehrlich and Boger , is owned by Cater Allen Bank of the Channel Islands, which specializes in "offshore finance"; likewise, Nicholas Sokolow, formerly a partner in the Wall Street firm of Coudert Brothers , and Warren B. Canders, a former Senior Vice President of Orion Bank Ltd , a merchant bank owned by the Royal Bank of Canada.

A subsidiary of Armor Holdings is the very shadowy United States Defense Systems, Inc. (USDS), which on paper is based in Chantilly, Virginia, although its real operating headquarters are in Manassas, Virginia.

Staff recruited by USDS are usually former military types or specialists with criminal intelligence backgrounds and possessing surveillance skills. They are usually told they will be working in support of Department of Defense programmes and will require a DoD security clearance.

Operations in the past have included surveillance of US citizens during Fourth of July events at Capitol Mall in DC. 51

BIN LADEN AND SAUDI ARABIAN LINKS


A Google Internet search using the search term "Armor Holdings, Inc." revealed a curious message dated September 2001 from an aggrieved investor:

"I'm horrified to find one of my investments is in a company with links to bin Laden. Apparently it is common knowledge in London that a senior figure in Armor, Ambrose Cary, has familial ties to bin Laden and uses those in his work.

How can it be allowed that a US company providing security to US companies, embassies and airports round the world can deal simultaneously with this type of person? Does anyone else have further information on this?"

Unsurprisingly, no answer to the question has been posted. 52

Had this been the first bin Laden connection, it is likely I would have ignored it. However, the name had already arisen during a deposition given by Rolf van Rooyen to German police in 1995, following his detention and questioning. At that time, he admitted to being "involved" with a Jean Ruiz, of Saudi Finance. 53

Saudi Finance (Saudifin), headquartered in Geneva, owned a controlling interest in Banque Al Saoudi via the Paris-based holding company, Saudi Arab Finance Corporation . Banque Al Saoudi was, according to a 1999 PBS Online Frontline story, one of the principal international financing vehicles for the bin Laden family.

Interestingly, in 1989 – in the early stages of Project Hammer's timeline – Banque Al Saoudi would have collapsed in bankruptcy had it not been for the timely intervention of the French central bank, the Banque de France, which shored it up prior to a partial takeover by none other than Banque Indosuez, which decided to change its name to Banque Française pour l'Orient.

A year later, the bank merged with the Mediterranée Group. Of note is the fact that a subsidiary, Saudifin SA, was active in Panama until 1997, when it was dissolved. 54

Moreover, the Frontline story revealed that both Banque Al Saoudi and Banque Indosuez were "instrumental" in financing a portion of Middle East weapons contracts during the 1970s and 1980s.

Meanwhile, those who are familiar with the story of black gold will recall that Dr Ole Bay was the controller on behalf of the CIA and US Treasury in the YAB/42 bullion transaction that involved then President Marcos of the Philippines. This transaction was structured to use cut-outs including Navegocian Global SA and DuPont , along with other CIA conduits, to make it ostensibly a private, non-government transaction.

The transaction code YAB/42 is also instructive. Not only does "YAB" spelled backwards yield the name "BAY" but, altogether, 42 "major trusts were tapped to help fund" the deal. Coincidentally, 42 is also the number of countries in which Santa Romana gold was deposited in the immediate post-WWII years to form the Black Eagle fund, discussed earlier. 55

One of the more salient facts about the Puffin Investments fiasco is that Alan Shepherd's American wife, Sherry, is the daughter of Dr Ole Bay. Dr Bay is known to have been the "Master Wizard" who arranged and ran the Project Hammer trading programme.

According to one former intelligence source familiar with the inner workings of Project Hammer, Dr Bay had told him that the ultimate responsibility for Hammer lay with the CIA and the US Treasury, and that Robert Rubin – who later became US Treasury Secretary – acted as Dr Bay's "gofer" on the project. Robert Rubin is now a director and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Citigroup.

If one had to choose a word to describe these apparently diverse connections, that word would surely have to be "incestuous".

Currently, Li Ka-shing (whom we mentioned earlier) is bidding to purchase control of the global communication network giant, Global Crossing (which was also mentioned earlier), via a joint venture of Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa and Singapore Technologies Telemedia . Representing Ka-Shing's bid to take control of Global Crossing was the powerful neo-conservative attorney, Richard Perle, who sought a nod of approval from the Pentagon for the deal.

Perle, who is one of the present Bush Administration "think-masters", is close to Bush Senior, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and to others on the Defense Policy Board , which he chaired. A recent story by legendary investigative reporter Sy Hersh revealed that Perle had furtively met with a leading Saudi investor in Marseille, France, on 3 January 2003, in what was seen as an attempt to gain private financial advantage from the planned war on Iraq.

A furious Perle responded to the report by calling Hersh a "terrorist". The meeting was arranged on Perle's behalf by none other than Adnan Khashoggi (whom we mentioned earlier). Khashoggi also attended the meeting.

Khashoggi, a trusted adviser to the Saudi royal family, is one of the "high net worth individuals" whose past investments have been handled by Mayo Shattuck, formerly head of Alex. Brown (also mentioned earlier). It is of passing interest that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz took a 10% stake in Citigroup (also mentioned earlier) back in 1991, following a cash "infusion" of US$400 million, which was eclipsed from view by The Carlyle Group which acted as the facilitator for the investment.

In 1997, Mayo Shattuck was made Trustee of the Bronfman (also mentioned earlier) family fortune. He resigned as CEO of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown on 12 September 2001, the day following the tragic events in New York City and Washington, DC – the day that has come to be known as "9-11". 56

On 13 September 2001, news reports began circulating of suspicious stock market transactions that suggested prior knowledge of the events that were to take place on 9-11 .

Short sales of airline and insurance stocks that sharply fell in price in the wake of the 9-11 tragedy were later traced back to Alex. Brown.


Author's Note

Documents and other exhibits in support of this story are available HERE .

Endnotes

27. See http//www.marcosbillions.com for some additional background on Roberto Benedicto and his willingness to front for Marcos. Additionally, I have a two-page Marcos document listing details of the numerous bank accounts he controlled either directly or through others.

28. See Luigi DiFonzo's St Peter's Banker (Franklin Watts, New York, 1983).

29. See William Scott Malone's Golden Fleece (Regardies, October 1988).

30. See " The Project Hammer File " part one for background on van Rooyen and Stander's involvement in Project Hammer.

31. See news reports circa 2000 of BoNY involvement in illegal money laundering activities with IMF funds on behalf of Russian criminal and political figures.

32. See Everybody's Business: An Almanac – The Irreverent Guide to Corporate America, edited by Milton Moskowitz, Michael Katz and Robert Levering (Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1980).

33. Although this may, of course, just be pure coincidence, it is worth noting.

34. For a comprehensive account of the MGM/Credit Lyonnais affair, see David McClintick and Anne Faircloth's informative "Predator", which is freely available on the Internet.

35. See Peter Johnston's story in, " The Secret Gold Treaty File "

36. See http://www.marcosbillions.com for further details, and also "The Valentine's Day Caper", published at http://www.FinanceAsia.com .

37. This is according to the Anglo American website as at November 1998.

38. See http://www.cryptome.org/za-disrupt.htm .

39. See " The Project Hammer File " part one for further details.

40. See Dope, Inc . (EIR, 1992), page 101.

41. For a detailed background on the Keswick family and related associations, see Dope, Inc., page 115, for the cited reference.

42. See Alejandro Reyes's article, "The Superman of Hong Kong", in AsiaWeek magazine, published in 2001.

43. See Anton Chaitkin's "Inside Story: the Bush Gang and Barrick Gold Corporation", at http://www.afrocentricnews.com .

44. See Sunday Express, March 25, 2001, for details of this story.

45. For du Cann's connection to Lonrho, see Linda Minor's "Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Part 4 – From Harvard to Enron", at http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lm4,30,02,harvardtoenronpt4.htm .

46. Their offices are, in fact, right next door to Buckingham Palace.

47. See Christopher Wrigley's "The Privatisation of Violence – New Mercenaries and the State", March 1999, at http://www.caat.org.uk/information/issues/mercenaries-1999.php .

48. For further details, see "Rent-a-Spy, Inc.", at http://www.tijuanaimc.org/news/2002/11/79.php .

49. Minorco held a 14% stake in Salomon Brothers. Anglo American held a 39% stake in Minorco, while De Beers held another 21%.

50. For background on Minorco, see "Anglo American Corporation: A Pillar of Apartheid", published by Multinational Monitor, September 1988, at http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1988/09/mm0988_08.html .

51. See "Rent-a-Spy, Inc." for referenced details.

52. See http://forums.investorbbs.com/myforums.pl?u=&B=113 .

53. See the van Rooyen deposition to German police that forms part of the exhibits of The Project Hammer File (part 1).

54. Board directors of Banque Al Saoudi included Sheik Salem bin Laden.

55. For a more detailed background on YAB/42, see " The Secret Gold Treaty File " appendix headed "Aquino WWII Gold ".

56. My thanks go to Lois Battuello for providing research material on this aspect of the story and for her generous assistance over the years.

[Dec 15, 2019] Haftar's "eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, France, Russia and Turkey".

Dec 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Dec 13 2019 18:31 utc | 83

@ Posted by: Clueless Joe | Dec 13 2019 18:09 utc | 80

I agree.

But that doesn't change the fact that the UK is a degenerating former empire in denial about its condition.

--//--

Now, on a more important subject:

Haftar announces 'decisive battle' to take Libyan capital

The interesting info here is that the article states Haftar's "eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, France, Russia and Turkey".

karlof1 , Dec 13 2019 18:11 utc | 81

The NATO rift between Turkey and its other members has escalated with the Evil Outlaw US Empire's Senate voting to recognize the Armenian Genocide and Greece to help the LNA (Bengazi gov't) defend against Turkish shipments of militia/terrorists and weapons to the besieged GNA in Tripoli. This site is very helpful and up-to-date regarding what's occurring. And this PDF Briefing Paper is very good and quite detailed.

All of the above's added to the tense situation around Cyprus, Turkey's threat to close Incirlik, and Greek offers to house those NATO facilities. It increasingly looks like the Turkish S-400s are aimed at Greece and NATO.

/div>

Viking guy at 40
"Today we are not members of the EU, but all the "regulations" are forced upon us anyway. The EU is a non-democratic nightmare that must be demolished."
Absolutely. The EU is the 2nd biggest imperialist asshole on the block, benefitting from the fact that 1st place is taken by the USA, which is far more blatant, in-your-face and universally obnoxious when at it, and doing it even to the EU. The EU not being the ultimate superpower, it can't bully the US or China and only does it when dealing with lesser powers. That's why it's practically impossible for anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually notice and be aware of the typical EU behaviour: to crush any lesser country and to force it to abide by its very own rules, whether independent countries want it or not.
That the EU is that bad should have been clear and obvious to all during the Greek crisis, but most Europhiles prefer to think this was just an accident, due to some bad apples, and that "If only the Czar knew", this wouldn't happen. Well, UK is going to get hit badly with the future deal, because an imperalist neo-liberal power like the EU - just like the US, but most of the time without the military part of it - can only crush any opposition and make an example out of it.
If the EU were a truly democratic endeavour, they would allow at least popular referendum at EU-wide level, and possibly even initiatives, for starter. The way it works, the people have no checks on it. Not a bit surprise though, most of its core members function this un-democratic way.

Viking guy at 40
"Today we are not members of the EU, but all the "regulations" are forced upon us anyway. The EU is a non-democratic nightmare that must be demolished."
Absolutely. The EU is the 2nd biggest imperialist asshole on the block, benefitting from the fact that 1st place is taken by the USA, which is far more blatant, in-your-face and universally obnoxious when at it, and doing it even to the EU. The EU not being the ultimate superpower, it can't bully the US or China and only does it when dealing with lesser powers. That's why it's practically impossible for anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually notice and be aware of the typical EU behaviour: to crush any lesser country and to force it to abide by its very own rules, whether independent countries want it or not.
That the EU is that bad should have been clear and obvious to all during the Greek crisis, but most Europhiles prefer to think this was just an accident, due to some bad apples, and that "If only the Czar knew", this wouldn't happen. Well, UK is going to get hit badly with the future deal, because an imperalist neo-liberal power like the EU - just like the US, but most of the time without the military part of it - can only crush any opposition and make an example out of it.
If the EU were a truly democratic endeavour, they would allow at least popular referendum at EU-wide level, and possibly even initiatives, for starter. The way it works, the people have no checks on it. Not a bit surprise though, most of its core members function this un-democratic way.

[Dec 15, 2019] Calling Afghanistan a military failure is a bit like calling 9/11 an intelligence failure

Dec 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Paul Damascene , Dec 16 2019 0:29 utc | 17

Shaun @ 2:
Another article by Kit Knightly at the Off-Guardian goes to the heart of the point I see you making:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/15/the-afghanistan-papers-deep-state-narrative-management/

It's a bit like calling 9/11 an intelligence failure. First, identify the actual measure of success against which this outcome should really be judged...

An excerpt:

"Here's the real "secret history" of the Afganistan war: It wasn't a failure, it was a success. In every facet, on every front, Afghanistan is exactly what America needed it to be. They dripfeed in the blood of young Americans, they destroy 100,000s of Afghan lives, and they reap the rewards they always intended to reap:
The permanent slow-simmer conflict gives them an excuse to keep thousands of US military personnel in a country which borders Iran, Pakistan AND China. (Not to mention a host of ex-Soviet states).

It keeps military expenditure nice and high, so Congressman, ex-generals and everyone else on the boards of Boeing or Lockheed Martin get great big bonuses every year.

They have sole access to the rare-Earth elements and other vital metals in the Afghan mountains. Lithium, most importantly of all.

They have control of the world's opium industry. A vital cog in the relations of the US intelligence agencies, and organised crime. It's essentially reverse money-laundering – turning tax-payer funds into dark money that can be spent hiring mercenaries, organising assassinations, arranging coups or simply be stolen.

They have access to all the "radicalised" young men they could ever want. A little Jihadi farm, where "terrorists" can be named, trained and sent off to fight proxy wars in Syria, or spread fear and chaos in the West."

[Dec 14, 2019] Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation

Highly recommended!
Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview: done in "bad faith" = SEDITION !!!! Deep State operatives...ie, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Stork, Lisa, McCabe, should be held accountable. Obama should probably be impeached.
The hard fact is, that the top of the FBI knew, in advance, that the "dossier" was just bs invented by Russian liars, for money, to be used as political lies for kilary's campaign. It Wasn't evidence and Comey knew far in advance of crossfire hurricane. I can't see less than 20 years in comey's future. That same includes barak, brennan and clapper, who were all informed, willing accomplices in this crime.
10:30 Whoever in FBI that intentionally misled the court using the Steele dossier knowing that the dossier was "total rubbish" as Barr states, needs to be inditing immediately. Why we are continuing to investigate instead of inditimg while continuing to investigate. Until these people are held accountable I don't think our country will begin to heal and media and others apologize to the country for the damage they have done.
7:49 - "Comey refused to sign back up for his security clearance, and therefore couldn't be questioned about classified matters." Well now, isn't that interesting. Haven't heard that one before.
Dec 14, 2019 | www.youtube.com

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News' Pete Williams about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the Russia investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.


grabir01 , 3 days ago

It appears that none of AG Barr's answers were what Pete Williams wanted to hear.

Gary Ellis , 2 days ago

I sincerely hope that the Durham investigation brings people to justice for what they have done to our country.

greg j , 2 days ago

The man just admitted "this may be the biggest conspiracy in U.S Political History." Ouch!

Jeremy Elice , 3 days ago

Shame we didn't get to see Pete William's face during Barr's answer accusing "an irresponsible press of fanning the flames."

JOHN DRUMHELLER , 2 days ago

Here's the adult in the room. Look out children.

Hart , 1 day ago

This is like if Watergate was on steroids and then some. Everyone involved should be prosecuted including the person who bought the dossier

Russell McAfee , 1 day ago (edited)

The FBI never got the actual DNC server. Crowdstrike has it. The FBI got a 'forensic copy'

Richard McLeod , 1 day ago

The FBI has now been proven to be corrupt at its' highest levels.

King Eris , 1 day ago

I could listen to AG Barr talk for hours. He's so calm and professional.

Noble Victory , 1 day ago

Barr is so intelligent and just. He's smoothe like the way he plays the Bagpipes. Pretty amazing! 🇺🇸👍

Nolan Gleason , 3 days ago

Death to the swamp

ctafrance , 1 day ago

The press is hopelessly corrupt. If we didn't know it already, this interview proves it.

Roman King , 1 day ago (edited)

I'm So glade we have a competent attorney General pushing back on the massive disinformation narrative that comes from Giant News outlets of which are used to being unchallenged, unchecked by today's "journalistic standards"

Clarion Call , 2 days ago

I so respect and admire this man's brain and logical thinking. His vocabulary is great as well.

wkcw1 , 2 days ago

NBC realizing they need to take a bath on this whole thing. Probably a bit too late now.

barbandrob1 , 1 day ago

Barr just basically clarified and justified Fox news reporting over the last 2 years.. Thanks NBC

Faris Hamarneh , 3 days ago

I love Barr's nonchalant style. But this is real big and heads are going to roll

Craig Bigelow , 2 days ago

Obama spied on Trump. Obama should have known about the FISA warrant!

Luis Santiago , 1 day ago

so this guy really asked Bahr"why not open an investigation even with little evidence?" because is a violation of civil liberties to invade the privacy of law abiding citizens. You need compelling evidence for something so huge

macfan128 , 1 day ago

17:44 "Why should the Attorney General care that the FBI was spying on a presidential candidate?" LOLOLOLOL Our media is a jooooooooke.

David , 3 days ago

NBC did a straight up interview??? This is shocking. Who told them that they could start doing journalism again?

Bill the Cat , 2 days ago

Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview.

Alan Sullivan , 1 day ago

Horowitz should be instructed to edit or update his Report to discuss The Question of Bias and Evidence of Bias. He has clearly misguided Americans with his choice of words and has omitted important facts underpinning bias.

MegaTrucker65 , 1 day ago

I haven't looked into Ukraine YET.

Gamer John3:18 , 1 day ago

AG Barr is an outstanding role model, a man of integrity and wisdom, calm in a raging political storm. I have full confidence he will make those who fabricated evidence and hid exculpatory evidence finally face justice. AG Barr for President 2024!

Yo Mama , 2 days ago

Barr is a straight shooter and I love it. It sounds like we will get to the real truth eventually through Durhams investigation I just hope it doesnt take another year to get to the prosecutions.


Direbear Coat , 1 day ago

So, I watched the interview... The video is called, "Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation." Not once did I hear him criticize the I.G.'s report. In fact, A.G. Barr clarified that the I.G.'s report was limited in scope because of the limitations put on the I.G. He said that the report was appropriate.

Wolverines Fight , 1 day ago

It's scary to see how powerful the corruption of the Democratic Party has grown. It represents a serious threat to all our personal freedom. The Democratic Party has to be stopped.

Benny .Burmeister Jørgensen , 3 days ago

Ok after watching this interview its quite clear that Barr and Durham is going after these criminals and people are going to jail. Maybe there is hope for US yet becuase this dane consider US atm a banana republic. Spying on political candidates? Forging documents? You FBI behaving like Stalins secret police. Lets see what happen.

Mike Dorsey , 1 day ago

God Bless Bill Barr. I'm glad there's still some adults in government that will speak their mind intelligently, rationally and unabashedly.

protochris , 1 day ago

This guy is brilliant; he's clearly exposing the FBI and the barking dogs on the alphabet networks.

Dan Kuo , 1 day ago

Amazing for the AG to go in deep into enemy territory at the heart of the opposition media to lay out a case for the criminal activities that undermined our country prior to and after the 2016 election. The deep state is trembling at the prospect of being held accountable after all the facts are laid out to the american people that these activities cannot be brushed aside or swept under the carpet if we are to continue as a country.

Jbyrd Texas , 2 days ago

The corrupt media is trying to act like they have not been involved in this treasonous scam since the beginning working directly with the treasonous cabal. The media has been lying and pushing fake news for 3 years calling Trump a Russia agent and called him treasonous. I knew the whole time that they were lying there was evidence from day one that this was all lies and if I can see that from the public then they can definitely see that from the inside they are purposefully lying.

Stephan Coutts , 1 day ago

I dare anyone on here to research Barr's History back to his involvement in the assignation of JFK, the cover up, defending Nixon, Epstein, and many other illegal and immoral activities. After reviewing the evidence, I walked away believing that Barr is trying to cover up his tracks so he does do jail time. No need to reply. Either take my dare or not. God Bless America and ALL her people, Stephan

Worlds Best Metal Detectorist , 2 days ago

The public are sick of waiting . I find myself skipping through a half hour news show in 5 minutes flat looking for arrests ,whereas before I was rivited to every minute of the half hour show but it goes on and on and at the there is Nothiing .The Democrats are the masters , it's obvious . If they break the law they get off scott free . If you are republican wave bye bye , you will be in jail for years . America is not the free and fair country it is all cracked up to be . It is corrupted by the democrats who have peoiple in high places that thwart real justice.

Right Thinking , 3 days ago

Mifsud approached George! Who was Mifsud working for (western asset) and why did he approach George? He’s the one who offered George dirt on Hill. Then invited him to meet the fake “niece”, of Putin, in England! What about this information? Someone set George up to make this happen outside the US, because of EO 12333. It had to happen outside the US so they could go to the fisa court!

dethtrk Jones , 3 days ago

I dont trust Christopher Wrey. He keeps slow-walking all the FBI documents and declassifications. He also fights judicial watch and judges that rule in their favor and continue not giving over what is ordered! This last judge was ready to hold him in contempt for refusing to cooperate with court ordered documents.

Brad Brown , 2 days ago

Why did the FBI continue to investigate Trump after January when the case collapsed? To try and find a way to impeach Trump. Remember the Washington Post headlined article right after the inauguration "The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already underway." The FBI "insurance" policy was essential!

[Dec 14, 2019] Warmongeing is the national sport for the neoliberal elite in the USA

As Tony Kevin reported (watch-v=dJiS3nFzsWg) at one small fundraiser Bill Clinton made an interesting remark. He said that the USA should always have enemies. That's absolutely true, this this is a way to unite such a society as we have in the USA. probably the only way. And Russia simply fits the bill. Very convenient bogeyman.
Notable quotes:
"... The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium. ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Twolfe , 10 Dec 2019 16:30

One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.

The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.

It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.

During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.

The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.

[Dec 14, 2019] Trump's Monroe Doctrine 2.0 -- Strategic Culture

Notable quotes:
"... Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, recently freed from prison after his trial and conviction were deemed by the Supreme Court to have been a right-wing ruse, is vowing to challenge neo-Nazi president Jair Bolsonaro in the next presidential election. ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Wayne Madsen December 10, 2019 © Photo: Wikipedia Donald John Trump has turned back the clock in the Western Hemisphere to an era that saw coups and political unrest as the order of the day. Trump and his administration of far-right anti-socialists and pro-fascists have already overthrown the democratically-elected government of President Evo Morales of Bolivia. Trump has announced a policy of turning up the heat on President Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela by ratcheting up the economic blockade of Cuba, a Venezuelan ally.

Trump's reinvigoration of the 19 th century imperialist Monroe Doctrine, which Washington uses as a political lever to prevent the Western Hemisphere from adopting its own foreign and domestic policies, has, once again, cast the United States in the light of an oppressive overlord over the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Trump regime has returned to a Cold War playbook of color-coding Western Hemisphere nations with red or pink for "socialist" and "communist." Falling into the "red" category are Venezuela, which is suffering from crippling US-led economic, diplomatic, and trade sanctions, and Nicaragua and Cuba, which are also subject to sanctions. Color-coded "pink" are Mexico and Argentina, led by progressive presidents and which have shifted from their heretofore pro-US stances. Argentina elected progressive leftist Alberto Fernández as president and, as vice president, former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The Peronista left ticket defeated incumbent right-wing president Mauricio Macri, a one-time real estate business crony of Trump and someone who had abused the nation's security services in a failed attempt to dig up dirt to target former President Kirchner in a bogus corruption court case. The same CIA-backed "lawfare" operation was used to impeach and remove from office Brazilian leftist president Dilma Rousseff and imprison her predecessor, the wildly popular Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, recently freed from prison after his trial and conviction were deemed by the Supreme Court to have been a right-wing ruse, is vowing to challenge neo-Nazi president Jair Bolsonaro in the next presidential election.

Trump and his Central Intelligence Agency's aggressive stance toward progressive hemispheric governments have seen more transitions from the "red/pink" bloc to the fascistic and pro-US bloc than the other direction. Ecuador has moved from the red/pink bloc to the blue as a result of the pro-US policies of President Lenin Moreno, who served as vice president under the leftist president Rafael Correa from 2007 to 2013. Moreno's threats against his predecessor forced Correa to flee to political exile in Belgium. The recent right-wing coup in Bolivia was supported by fascist leaders of Brazil and Colombia. Bolivia's democratically-elected president Evo Morales was forced to flee to Mexico, which granted him political asylum.

The revanchist imperialism of the Trump administration has witnessed Moreno and Morales being forced to flee the fascist "thugocracy" policies of their respective nations, which rely on abusing the legal system to stifle dissent and imprison opposition politicians. The governments of Chile and Peru have also firmly lined up with Washington and have engaged in anti-opposition policies that, in the case of Chile, has led to bloodshed in the streets as a result of brutal police actions.

A recent addition to the blue bloc from the pink/red coalition is Uruguay. After fifteen years of rule by the left-wing Broad Front, the right-wing National Party's presidential candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou, declared a razor-thin victory over Broad Front candidate Daniel Martinez. One of Lacalle Pou's first decisions was to recognize the opposition Venezuelan regime of the CIA puppet, Juan Guaido. Lacalle Pou also decided to align Uruguay with the Lima Group, a bloc of US lackey regimes dedicated to overthrowing the Maduro government of Venezuela. Lacalle Pou has also signaled his willingness to develop closer ties with the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil and distance Uruguay from the Fernandez- Kirchner government of Argentina. It is not secret that Argentina's Alberto Fernández supported the Broad Front's Daniel Martinez for president.

Of special concern to progressive Uruguayans is the role that Lacalle Pou's coalition partner, the Cabildo Abierto party of far-right winger Guido Manini Ríos, will play in his government. If the CIA's lawfare operations in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia are any indication, the Cabildo Abierto elements in Lacalle Pou's government, all supporters of the former military junta's war against leftists in the 1970s, may seek the arrest of former leftist presidents Jose Mujica, a leader of the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas in the 1970s, and Tabaré Vázquez. The Latin American fascist acolytes of Trump, from Bolsonaro and Bolivian politician Luis Fernando Camacho – known as the "Bolivian Bolsonaro" – to Manini Ríos and Colombian President Ivan Duque, all share in common a desire to imprison and even torture and execute the leftist opposition of their respective nations.

If the fascistic foreign policy power levers of the Trump White House, CIA, and State Department have their way, another leftist leader in South America will face prison or worse. Suriname's leftist president Desi Bouterse was recently convicted by a military court of the extrajudicial executions of 15 political opponents in 1982, while he served as the military leader of the former Dutch colony.

The death of the 15 opposition leaders may have been the work of the CIA, which launched a coup attempt against Bouterse in 1982. In December 1982, the CIA worked closely with Dutch intelligence to establish contacts with Bouterse's opposition in Suriname, including politicians, businessmen, and journalists. The Dutch provided assistance to former President Henck Chin a Sen and his Amsterdam-based opposition forces. The CIA plan included landing Surinamese rebels in Paramaribo, the Suriname capital, and seize power. There were also reports that the CIA planned to assassinate Bouterse during the coup, a direct violation of a White House executive order banning assassinations of foreign leaders. The CIA's chief in-country liaison for the coup was US ambassador to Suriname Robert Duemling.

A CIA dispatch from Suriname, dated March 12, 1982, describes the CIA's hands-on involvement in the coup against Bouterse: "Dissident military officers opposing the leftist trend of the military leadership launched a coup yesterday, but forces loyal to the government are still resisting. The group, calling itself the Army of National Liberation, is led by two officers who have been associated with conservative elements of the Surinamese society . . . Although the rebels have control of the Army's main barracks and ammunition depot in Paramaribo, government strongman Army Commander Bouterse and troops loyal to him apparently have taken up a defensive position in the capital's police camp some 6 kilometers away. Fighting subsided somewhat last night, with both sides claiming to be in control and appealing for support from military troops and citizenry. A large number of rank-and-file military, who had objected to Bouterse's leftist policies several months ago, probably will join the dissidents if Bouterse's position weakens further." If anyone is responsible for the deaths of the opposition figures in 1982, one does not need to look beyond CIA headquarters in Langley and its interlocutors with the Ford Foundation in New York.

Suriname's third largest ethnic group is Javanese, people who originally were settled by the Dutch colonizers from Indonesia. In 1982, Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who spoke fluent Javanese, was already well-entrenched with CIA programs in Java through her employment with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ford Foundation. Dunham, who used her Indonesian last name, re-spelled Sutoro from Soetoro, was a valuable asset for the CIA's program to destabilize Suriname through its business-oriented and very anti-Bouterse Javanese minority. Curiously, Ann Sutoro's employment contract with the Ford Foundation ended in December 1982, the same month that the CIA attempted to oust Bouterse. During her 1981-1982 contract with the Ford Foundation, Dunham Sutoro spent much of her time liaising with the Ford Foundation's headquarters in New York, a city that was also a base for the CIA-backed Surinamese opposition.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Bouterse was on a state visit to China when the court delivered its guilty verdict, along with a 20-year prison sentence. Bouterse seized power in 1980 during an era that saw leftist leaders like Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas, Panamanian President Omar Torrijos, Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldos, Bolivian President Hernán Siles Zuazo, Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley, and Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop all buck Washington's influence in the hemisphere. Bouterse became a destabilization target of the Ronald Reagan-George H. W. Bush administration. After stepping down from power in 1987, Bouterse and his National Democratic Party returned to power when Bouterse was elected president in 2010 and re-elected in 2015. In 2012, the National Assembly passed a bill that granted Bouterse immunity from prosecution. It was later overturned by a court in another blatant display of Washington-orchestrated lawfare. In 1999, the Dutch weighed in against Bouterse by being convicted by a Netherlands court of drug-trafficking. Bouterse denies all the claims against him and remains popular among the primarily Afro-Surinamese population.

The legal action against Bouterse appears to be part of the Trump administration's program to curb China's international "Belt and Road Initiative," particularly in Latin America. Trump has countered with his own contrivance, called the "Growth in the Americas" program. Peru has signaled that it will join Argentina, Chile, Jamaica, and Panama in supporting the American anti-Chinese bloc. It is clear that if Washington is able to depose Bouterse from power in Suriname, it can prevent China from establishing a foothold in the country.

The Trump regime is attempting to move its chess pieces around on the Western hemisphere's political chessboard. Increasingly, it will be up to exiled progressives like Correa and Morales, as well as the recently-liberated Lula, to counter the march to fascist rule from Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Grande.

[Dec 14, 2019] Why Do They Hate Us? by Jacob G. Hornberger

Dec 10, 2019 | www.fff.org

The recent shootings of three U.S. soldiers in Florida at the hands of a Saudi citizen raises a standard question in the U.S. government's perpetual "war on terrorism": "Why do they hate us?"

Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the official mantra began being issued: The terrorists just hate us for our "freedom and values." No other explanation for motive was to be considered. If anyone suggested an alternative motive -- such as "They are retaliating for U.S. governmental killings over there" -- U.S. officials and interventionists would immediately go on the attack, heaping a mountain of calumny on that person, accusing him of treason, hating America, loving the terrorists, and justifying their attacks.

It happened to me and other libertarians who dared to challenge the official motive behind the 9/11 attacks. Shortly after the attacks, I spoke at a freedom conference in Arizona consisting of both libertarians and conservatives. When I pointed out that the attacks were the predictable consequence of a foreign policy that kills people over there, another of the speakers was filled with anger and rage over such an "unpatriotic" suggestion. Then, a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, FFF published an article by me entitled, " Is This the Wrong Time to Question Foreign Policy? " in which I pointed out the role that U.S. interventionism had played in the attacks. FFF was hit with the most nasty and angry attacks I have ever seen.

Eighteen years later, the evidence is virtually conclusive that the reason that the United States has been suffering a constant, never-ending threat of terrorism is because U.S. military and CIA forces have been killing people in the Middle East and Afghanistan since at least the end of the Cold War, and even before.

After all, if the terrorists hate us for our "freedom and values," why haven't they been attacking the Swiss? They have pretty much the same freedom and values that Americans have. And they are much closer geographically to Middle East terrorists than the United States is. Why haven't the terrorists been attacking them?

The answer is simple: the Swiss government, unlike the U.S. government, hasn't been killing, maiming, and injuring people and hasn't been bombing and destroying countries in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

A long history of U.S. interventionism

U.S. interventions in the Middle East began, of course, long before the 9/11 attacks. There was the 1953 CIA coup that destroyed Iran's experiment with democracy with a coup that replaced the democratically elected prime minister of the country with a tyrannical pro-U.S. dictator. Not surprisingly, that produced the violent Iranian revolution almost 25 years later. The Iranian revolutionaries didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America for the U.S. government's installation, training, and support of the tyrannical regime against which they revolted.

In the 1980s, there was the sending of U.S. troops into Lebanon as interventionist "peacekeepers." The terrorists ended up blowing up a Marine barracks, killing 241 U.S. soldiers. The terrorists didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America for the federal government's interventionism into Lebanon. As soon as all U.S. troops were withdrawn from Lebanon, which was the right thing to do, there were obviously no more deaths of U.S. soldiers in that country.

It was after the Pentagon and the CIA lost their official Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia), that they proceeded headlong into the Middle East and began killing multitudes of people. There was the Persian Gulf War, waged without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, where thousands of Iraqis were killed or injured. That was followed by a decade of brutal sanctions against Iraq, which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

Thus, when Ramzi Yousef, one of the terrorists who tried to bring down the World Trade Center with a bomb in 1993, appeared before a federal judge for sentencing, he angrily told the judge that it was U.S. officials who were the butchers, for killing multitudes of innocent children in Iraq.

As those Iraqi children were dying, there were retaliatory terrorist strikes on the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in East Africa. Once again, however, U.S. officials continued to steadfastly maintain that was all about hatred for America's "freedom and values" and had nothing to do with the deadly and destructive U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.

Then came Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States, in which he expressly cited U.S. interventionism in the Middle East as his motivating factor. That was followed by the 9/11 attacks, along with other terrorist attacks both here and abroad. Through it all, U.S. officials and interventionists have blindly maintained that the terrorists hate us for our "freedom and values," not because the U.S. government kills, maims, injures, and destroys people over there.

The recent Florida killings

And now we have the latest killing spree, this one at the hands of a Saudi citizen in Florida. According to a story in yesterday's Washington Post about the killing of three U.S. soldiers, the killer, Ahmed Mohammed al-Shamrani was described as "strange" and "angry." "He looked like he was angry at the world," said one person who knew him. Another said that he looked at people in an "angry, challenging" way.

The article says that "the FBI has not yet determined a motive for the mass shooting."

Well, of course it hasn't. That's undoubtedly because the FBI hasn't yet found any statements in which the killer states that he hates America for its "freedom and values."

But the Post article does point out something quite interesting. The article states: "The gunman, who was shot dead by a sheriff's deputy responding to the shooting, is thought to have written a 'will' that was posted to the account a few hours before the rampage. In it, he blasts U.S. policies in Muslim countries."

Well, isn't that interesting! Unfortunately, the Post didn't provide a verbatim transcript of the killer's "will" in which he "blasts U.S. policies in the Muslim countries." The Post does point out though that "the writer says he does not dislike Americans per se -- 'I don't hate you because of your freedoms,' he begins -- but that he hates U.S. policies that he views as anti-Muslim and 'evil.'"

I n an article at antiwar.com entitled, " Pensacola: Blowback Terrorism ," Scott Horton provides a verbatim transcript of the killer's "will," in which the killer states in part:

I'm not against you for just being American, I don't hate you for your freedom, I hate you because every day you supporting, funding, and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity. I am against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil. What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie, I see invasion of many countries by it's troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.

Now, if one goes back to Ramzi Yousef's sentencing hearing in 1995 -- some 24 years ago -- one will see that Yousef angrily said much the same thing to the federal judge who was getting ready to sentence him to jail for his 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Americans have a choice:

One, continue the U.S. government's decades-long killing spree in the Middle East, in which case America will continue to experience never-ending terrorist retaliation, the perpetual "war on terrorism, and the ongoing destruction of our liberty and privacy at the hands of our government, which is purportedly protecting us from the terrorist threats that it produces with its foreign interventionism.

Or, two, stop U.S. forces from killing any more people, bring them all home and discharge them, which would help get America back on the right track, one toward liberty, peace, prosperity, morality, normality, and harmony with the world.

This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch . View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context . Send him email .

[Dec 14, 2019] Donald Trump and Israel When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security

Dec 12, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
The White House In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an ally.

Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has declared astonishingly that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly denounced any reduction in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer has identified himself as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.

Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.

Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.

Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu have recently been discussing a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly considering the value of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be higher.

But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.

Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America, saying that "We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."

There was considerable pushback almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to the United States. In August he said that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to power.

For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.

But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is 29% among Jewish voters nationwide , according to a Gallup poll while only 17% of Jews voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic president might have noticed the large number of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.

Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.

Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president didn't go far enough in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start slowly by getting them to like America?" Philip Giraldi December 12, 2019 | Featured Story Donald Trump and Israel: When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security? In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an ally.

Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has declared astonishingly that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly denounced any reduction in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer has identified himself as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.

Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.

Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.

Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu have recently been discussing a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly considering the value of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be higher.

But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.

Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America, saying that "We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."

There was considerable pushback almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to the United States. In August he said that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to power.

For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.

But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is 29% among Jewish voters nationwide , according to a Gallup poll while only 17% of Jews voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic president might have noticed the large number of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.

Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.

Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president didn't go far enough in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start slowly by getting them to like America?"

© 2010 - 2019 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org . The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an ally.

Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has declared astonishingly that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly denounced any reduction in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer has identified himself as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.

Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.

Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.

Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu have recently been discussing a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly considering the value of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be higher.

But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.

Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America, saying that "We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."

There was considerable pushback almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to the United States. In August he said that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to power.

For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.

But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is 29% among Jewish voters nationwide , according to a Gallup poll while only 17% of Jews voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic president might have noticed the large number of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.

Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.

Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president didn't go far enough in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start slowly by getting them to like America?"

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

[Dec 14, 2019] Spotlight on defense authorization bill: Saudi Arabia wins big with assist from Kushner

Dec 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

barrisj , December 13, 2019 at 3:35 pm

From al-Monitor's ME lobbying update note:

Spotlight on defense authorization bill: Saudi Arabia wins big with assist from Kushner

The White House secured a major reprieve for Saudi Arabia this week by convincing Congress to drop several provisions from its annual defense bill before the House passed it on Wednesday. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week. Gone are sanctions on key Saudi officials for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and restrictions on US support for Riyadh's campaign in Yemen. The New York Times reports that President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner – who reportedly maintains a direct WhatsApp line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – played a key role in the negotiations.

The United Arab Emirates also came out ahead as the final bill removes language taking aim at the $8 billion in emergency arms sales to Gulf countries that Trump authorized in May citing the threat of Iran. The UAE had lobbied against these provisions and also opposed calls for a report detailing the "military activities" of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other international actors in Libya. . The final bill no longer singles out specific countries but still requires "a detailed description of the military activities of external actors" in the country.

https://linkst.al-monitor.com/view/5d1841f924c17c7feec17e30b8vfs.u9/46c21583

We always stick by our friends, through thick and thin and murder, and war crimes, and terrorism, and well, all of it. After all, what are friends for?

[Dec 14, 2019] I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it by Kenneth Stern

Notable quotes:
"... Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". I'm a Zionist. But on a college campus, where the purpose is to explore ideas, anti-Zionists have a right to free expression.

I suspect that if Kushner or I had been born into a Palestinian family displaced in 1948, we might have a different view of Zionism, and that need not be because we vilify Jews or think they conspire to harm humanity. Further, there's a debate inside the Jewish community whether being Jewish requires one to be a Zionist. I don't know if this question can be resolved, but it should frighten all Jews that the government is essentially defining the answer for us.

The real purpose of the executive order isn't to tip the scales in a few title VI cases, but rather the chilling effect. ZOA and other groups will hunt political speech with which they disagree, and threaten to bring legal cases. I'm worried administrators will now have a strong motivation to suppress, or at least condemn, political speech for fear of litigation. I'm worried that faculty, who can just as easily teach about Jewish life in 19th-century Poland or about modern Israel, will probably choose the former as safer. I'm worried that pro-Israel Jewish students and groups, who rightly complain when an occasional pro-Israel speaker is heckled, will get the reputation for using instruments of state to suppress their political opponents.

Antisemitism is a real issue, but too often people, both on the political right and political left, give it a pass if a person has the "right" view on Israel. Historically, antisemitism thrives best when leaders stoke the human capacity to define an "us" and a "them", and where the integrity of democratic institutions and norms (such as free speech) are under assault.

... ... ...

Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, and the author of the forthcoming The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate

[Dec 14, 2019] In a 1969 interview, Zahir Shah said that he is "not a capitalist. But I also don't want socialism. I don't want socialism that would bring about the kind of situation [that exists] in Czechoslovakia. I don't want us to become the servants of Russia or China or the servant of any other place

Dec 14, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

angie11 -> ID3119269 , 10 Dec 2019 16:05

"I wish that people would realize that to interfere, in any way shape or form in wars that occur in Islamic States is pissing into the wind.

We simply cannot and do not understand the religious/tribal and feudal component of these societies.

It is better that we just let them go at each other. Sooner or later one despot will end up being top dog - so be it."

Hmm. Do you know the history of colonialism in MENA? I did not think so.

My guess is that your 'knowledge' of Afghanistan and its history is based on your obvious xenophobia aka Islamophobia and lofty Western superiority complex. Don't feel alone, that's what folks use to make themselves feel better and able to sleep at night. Check this out:

"Despite close relations to the Axis powers, Zahir Shah refused to take sides during World War II and Afghanistan remained one of the few countries in the world to remain neutral. In 1944 and 1945, Afghanistan experienced a series of revolts by various tribes.[13] After the end of the Second World War, Zahir Shah recognised the need for the modernisation of Afghanistan and recruited a number of foreign advisers to assist with the process.[14] During this period Afghanistan's first modern university was founded.[14] During his reign a number of potential advances and reforms were derailed as a result of factionalism and political infighting.[15] He also requested financial aid from both the United States and the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan was one of few countries in the world to receive aid from both the Cold War enemies.[16] In a 1969 interview, Zahir Shah said that he is "not a capitalist. But I also don't want socialism. I don't want socialism that would bring about the kind of situation [that exists] in Czechoslovakia. I don't want us to become the servants of Russia or China or the servant of any other place."[17]

Zahir Shah was able to govern on his own during 1963[9] and despite the factionalism and political infighting a new constitution was introduced during 1964 which made Afghanistan a modern democratic state by introducing free elections, a parliament, civil rights, women's rights and universal suffrage.[14]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Zahir_Shah

[Dec 14, 2019] Warmongeing is the national sport for the neoliberal elite in the USA

As Tony Kevin reported (watch-v=dJiS3nFzsWg) at one small fundraiser Bill Clinton made an interesting remark. He said that the USA should always have enemies. That's absolutely true, this this is a way to unite such a society as we have in the USA. probably the only way. And Russia simply fits the bill. Very convenient bogeyman.
Notable quotes:
"... The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium. ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Twolfe , 10 Dec 2019 16:30

One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.

The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.

It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.

During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.

The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.

[Dec 13, 2019] The Afghan war is 18 years old now. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place

Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Chiropolos , 10 Dec 2019 15:56

This war is 18 years old. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place. Afghanistan will figure it out. Once we withdraw to allow Afghanistan to return to self-governance.

[Dec 13, 2019] The Inspector General's Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the U.S. Media by Glenn Greenwald

Notable quotes:
"... a single American ..."
Dec 12, 2019 | theintercept.com
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds .

Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power – its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.

If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.

In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.

[Dec 13, 2019] Savages, indeed. Zero accountability and Britain still playing faithful lap dog.

Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

cephalus , 10 Dec 2019 12:11

The US lied about the Gulf of Tonkin in order to justify attacking North Vietnam, it then proceeded to lie about the conduct of the war and the terrible genocide it was committing. No lesson learned because in a heartbeat the US was lying about Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Nicaragua and El Salvador, committing a wide range of atrocities in each.

Add Somalia, Libya, proxy wars in Angola and Yemen, efforts to destabilize Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, illegal wars in the Lebanon and Syria, the annihilation of Afghanistan in retaliation for what was actually a Saudi terrorist act, the destruction of modern Iraq and her people using trumped up claims, to say nothing of Clinton's cheery disregard for the welfare of Balkan residents when the US rained (illegal) uranium bombs down on the hapless inhabitants.

And now the WP and Congress are worked up over spending a trillion dollars when plainly they could care less about the Afghan casualties and American war crimes. Heck this goes back to Theodore Roosevelt seizing Cuba claiming he was saving it from the ravages of Spain or even further back to government backed settler land grabs "saving their white women from the savages". Savages, indeed. Zero accountability and Britain still playing faithful lap dog.

Irascible45 , 10 Dec 2019 12:08
My take on this is that the American Department of Defense war machine remained in a state of perpetual excitement after their successes in WW11.. almost as if they had to continuously invent an enemy in order to maintain their war time budget.. (and therefore demonstrate their ongoing prowess etc etc) in a cycle of wars starting with Korea and bringing us up to date with Afghanistan.. so that's nearly 70 years worth of international hubris on display.


All on the excuse of spreading their version of democracy.. is money talks!!

UnrepentantPunk -> NadaZero , 10 Dec 2019 11:57

It wasn't a mistake. It was a deliberate decision from a bunch of warmongers

The last patriotic Republican, President Dwight D Eisenhower, warned US against the military-industrial complex in his farewell address .

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

DoctorWibble , 10 Dec 2019 11:55
That both the Afghan war and the invasion of Iraq could happen at all tells us that the UN Security Council is not fit for purpose. These wars also told us that British pretense at being the voice of reason or the steadying hand that prevents US foreign policy being subsumed by the visceral and synthesised reactions of a US public is no more than empty cant.

If the US is unable to prevent foreign and defence policy being captured by money interests and remains inclined to deliver revenge to its public on demand howsoever it might be misdirected then the US should not be on the UN Security Council at all. They are fast becoming the number one major rogue state. And the outlook suggests this is more likely to get worse than improve. Whatever happens to Trump One more (and likely smarter) Trumps are coming down the track. More Dick Cheneys too. More Bushes, more Rumsfelds, more Nixons, Boltons, Kissingers, Johnsons and a host of others we'd all much rather were one offs. The US is the biggest extant threat to world peace. It is too powerful and far too easily played by warmongers and terrorists of every stripe and every persuasion. And by those seeking to profit from war.

BaronVonAmericano , 10 Dec 2019 11:54
To call war profiteering and murder a geopolitical "mistake" is to EXCUSE criminal activity.

Anyone responding to this latest revelation of military dishonest as a "mistake" is actually part of the crime. They are aiding the abettors. Everyone in Congress knows what everyone in this comments section knows: our military and its global actions are, first and foremost, a financial fraud.

thedisciple516 -> sijacks , 10 Dec 2019 11:50
But not American oil companies which were basically shut out outside of a few minor service and procurement contracts. Looks like all the "Blood for Oil" poster were BS.

The Iraq War was only partly, however, about big profits for Anglo-American oil conglomerates - that would be a bonus (one which in the end has failed to materialise - not for want of trying though).

- Nafeez Ahmen Guardian 2014

thedisciple516 -> Boltedhorse01 , 10 Dec 2019 11:42
Yes, and it made no conclusion as to whether the war was legal or not.

" The inquiry did not reach a view on the legality of the war , saying this could only be assessed by a "properly constituted and internationally recognised court", but did make a damning assessment of how the decision was made."

- Guardian 2016

Cronus Titan , 10 Dec 2019 11:40
Just think - the USA spends more on its military then the combined amount of the next 10 nations in the list (incl. China/Russia/India). That is a major major spend commitment. A small percentage of that could be used for US citizens to fund their healthcare - but I suppose they prefer to spend it to threaten and bomb other nations to their will.

Just to think - a similar report was produced post Vietnam and in the 50's even Eisenhower was worried about the US military backed by private companies becoming a perpetual spending machine.

capatriot , 10 Dec 2019 11:39

But there's one big question the Post report raises but does not address: why? Why did so many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to state department and National Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about how the war in Afghanistan was going?

Because "how the war is going" is not the operating question. Because it does not matter if the war is just or unjust, whether it's winnable or not winnable, nor whether it's supported in the "homeland" or not. No, the operating principle is that there is a war. By its existence, the war creates funding and jobs and profits for the people that matter, the people the author mentions, from the Security/Military complex corporations all the way to careerists in the Pentagon and State.

So, it is NOT a waste of $1 trillion dollars ... it is just as it was supposed to be. That is why the war president (W), the peace president (Obama), and the swamp drainer (Trump) have all supported it. The war is doing what it's supposed to do.

GraphiteCommando , 10 Dec 2019 11:36
In time, the US national debt will force them to rein in their military spending. By lowering taxes while continuing to spend like drunken sailors on military adventures the national debt is ballooning. US government debt is currently rated AA whereas Canada is AAA. US debt to GDP is significantly higher than Canada's. (and that's just Canada vs the US). Trump is trying to create a mafia style protection racket to force other countries to subsidize reckless US military spending. "Pay up or who knows what might happen?" It is high time US taxpayers ask why the US can't lower its' out of control military spending rather than pressuring others to match their profligate ways? Some US citizens say they pay low taxes but it seems they get nothing in return; no health care, no equal access to education, decaying public infrastructure, etc. The rest feel overtaxed when they realize they get nothing in return but don't question the elephant in the room. If other countries maintain responsible levels of military spending the US will dig itself deeper into debt until the debt markets force them to see sense.
DenryMachin , 10 Dec 2019 11:22
Military spending is a fine way to transfer wealth from the general population to the rich. War has always been a fabulous business opportunity, but what has never been so very clear is how, even for the winning side, it represents a major defeat as wealth is transferred from the common good into the hands of the rich.

In such matters always consider 'Who will prosper'.
Follow the money...

kropotkinsf , 10 Dec 2019 11:09
Considering the United States has been involved in one war or another, directly or indirectly, for all but about 20 years of its existence, this latest revelation shouldn't shock anyone. We're a violent country with a violent history and never more so than now, with our built-on-conflict empire losing steam. We point fingers ("It's the Russians!" "It's the Chinese!" It's the Iranians!") to deceive ourselves and others, but we're the real threat to peace. Us. The United States.
CTanner52 , 10 Dec 2019 11:09
Every time I see a person on the street nobly collecting 50ps or the odd fiver for a good cause like Cancer Research or some other charity, I wonder why they have to do this when the US has spent over a USD$1 trillion on the Afghan war and other militaries continue to soak up massive amounts of funding. How much more could we have achieved by now for the real good of humanity if these funds were focused on research and real human need?
damientrollope , 10 Dec 2019 11:09
Te US military has been practicing genocide around the world since WW2, millions have been murdered and still are. But hey, they are the leaders of the free world, the corruption in the US government, corporations, and military has no bounds. Their own poorer members of this society are dying in their thousands for lack of medical care, innocent black people are murdered by police, yet the greed must go on nothing else matters. The only question now being, which country will they invade next, which government will they plot to overthrow. How many will be murdered in the process, not that it matters, greed cannot be measured in dead people.
BaronVonAmericano , 10 Dec 2019 11:09
For crying out loud, it was never a mistake.

World peace and the safety of the American public has never been a priority. Entirely the opposite. Standard procedure: foment fear to wage immoral, endless, profitable war.

This isn't conjecture or "conspiracy theory"; it's as obvious as the sun rising. Anyone casting this in any other way is either behind the curve or dangerously soft pedaling -- or lying to stave off actual accountability.

Please stop pretending that our "leaders" are mistaken. They aren't They're doing the jobs for which they were paid.

manoftheworld , 10 Dec 2019 11:00
It's worse even than a crime... it's insanity to keep excusing a failed 18 year strategy costing a trillion dollars, resulting in the death of more than 100,000, and the country ending up worse than when they started. The military, politicians and the media are all to blame. The military for being too frightened and too stupid to admit they were losing and had no idea how to correct it.. the politicians for being too frightened to call out their beloved but incompetent military, and for not "getting it" after more than a trillion dollars had already been spent; the press and media for being embedded (sometimes literally) with the military and acting as no more than unquestioning cheerleaders for a self-evidently failed strategy. It is a terrible indictment of the US on so many levels... where were the public anti-war protests or activists? Couldn't they see or didn't they care? Either way it's pathetic.

Almost every year US generals stood before the media and politicians, jutting jaws and feeble minds, to say that this year was going to be decisive against the Taliban. The fact is, after Al Qaeda was scattered in 2001, the US picked on the Taliban pointlessly. They stayed pretending they were engaged in countering the return of al Qaeda (that was never going to happen) but actually made a new enemy of the Taliban by picking the wrong side in what was a civil war. The US never understood what it was trying to do so it lied and lied out of fear of being found out. I find it sickening that this country -the US - pretends it is a force for good in the world when they are quite prepared to keep killing innocent people in order to mask the generals' cowardice about facing the truth of their own incompetence.

tenientesnafu , 10 Dec 2019 10:55
A terrible but interesting dichotomy. You have Governments and a broad part of the public fiercely opposed to public spending and any kind of redistribution. It is all about the individual.

Yet they sport and actually worship an institution where the individual counts for naught. In the military it always is about the collective. They throw huge swaths of money to the military. Which is the only place in the US where dreaded universal healthcare, pensions and free education exists. Not only that, even the army shops sell goods as subsidised prices, something unthinkable outside the barracks.

lalaeuro -> GeraldLobOn , 10 Dec 2019 10:53
Entirely intentional according the PNAC document Rebuilding America's Defences, Orwellian for we're going to make a lot of pointless weapons with huge mark-ups for profit by bombing the shit out of foreigners.
kapsiolaaaaa , 10 Dec 2019 10:37
I was listening to NPR about how Veterans turned against the Vietnam war. The people of south Vietnam would collect shells and explosives that did not detonate and gave to US troops for a small financial reward. In one such case - the shell exploded killing few kids and injuring a girl. That girl was refused treatment from US medics because she was one of them. That soldier involved later joined the anti war movement.
All the veterans were surprised with the image that soldiers coming back from war were spat at and disrespected by the anti war protesters - this could not have been further from truth.

Back in Vietnam you were taught how to destroy a village, poison drinking water sources etc. And understandably many GIs fought back.

There are similar stories out of Afghanistan - the naked prisoners with soldiers acting as if they are engaging in a sexual act and many such shameless incidents. These soldiers were acquitted which is another way of saying - An Afghan and his life and honor are below us. It has de-stabilized the region for many decades.

There is a bright side to Donny and his conmen - maybe there will be less intervention and more introspection - which can only be good for the World.

[Dec 13, 2019] The process of waging war is lucrative - positive outcomes (gas and oil) are a bonus.

Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

NickStanford , 10 Dec 2019 12:24

I think it should have been seen as a thirty year campaign and the same with Iraq and Libya. The northern Ireland campaign took 30 years and many people are as bitter as they ever were much of it secondhand from younger people who weren't even alive during the conflict. The idea of a quick war is a very big mistake I think and flawed short-term thinking.
Piet Pompies -> MrMopp , 10 Dec 2019 12:24
Most decorated Marine officer ever? I thought that was Chesty Puller?
sammer -> tenientesnafu , 10 Dec 2019 12:24
That was very well put. Thank you for being so succinct.
easterman -> MrMopp , 10 Dec 2019 12:23
The process of waging war is lucrative - positive outcomes (gas and oil) are a bonus.
MyViewsOnThis , 10 Dec 2019 12:22
The West and the USA in particular have always taken the stand that their ideology is the only right one. That they have a right to interfere in the interns, affairs of other countries but their own internal affairs are sacrosanct.

So - USA, with UK support decided that Saddam Hussein had to be removed. They moved in to do so - they killed Saddam but had no plan to return the country to a functioning nation. Instead they facilitated the unleashing of internal wars and have now left the citizens of that country in utter turmoil.

& then went and repeated the exercise n Libya.

Decades ago, Britain decided that Palestinians could be thrown out of their homes to make way for the creation of Israel and laid the foundation for the Middle-East turmoil that has caused untold misery and suffering. They followed that up with throwing out the Chagosians out of their homes and making them homeless. Invited Caribbean's to the 'Mother Country' to serve their erstwhile lords, ladies, masters and mistresses only to then drive to despair the children and grandchildren of the invitees who had contributed to the 'Mother Country' for decades.

easterman , 10 Dec 2019 12:21
Lest we forget Cheney salivating over the gas in the Caspian Basin http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm
Piet Pompies -> cephalus , 10 Dec 2019 12:19
Yep, biggest terrorist state in the world, ever.
KoreyD , 10 Dec 2019 12:19
We are 18 years into an illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. We are the invaders, the terrorists. The Taliban are fighting for their country, they may use brutal methods but so did the French, Dutch, Russian freedom fighters during the Nazi invasions. America's puppet regime in Afghanistan is reminiscent of the Quislings of WW2. And to use drones to kill Afghans and to say it is progress that there is more transparency is the height of hubris. All it does is show the corrosive effect of unfettered power in America and it's military. Why do we tolerate this inhuman action on another country's society? America is by far the greatest contributor to the rise in terrorism in the world and if not somehow stopped the greatest threat to world peace. It keeps on invading country after country with it's MSM propaganda machine claiming it is spreading Democracy throughout the globe. Thank you America !

[Dec 13, 2019] On Rogues and Rogue States by Fred Reed

Dec 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Guide to the Supervision of... Blogview Fred Reed Archive Blogview Fred Reed Archive On Rogues and Rogue States Old, New, and Improved Fred Reed December 10, 2019 1,600 Words 76 Comments Reply Listen ॥ ■ ► RSS

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I have just finished reading William Shirer's Berlin Diary . (This may not fascinate you, but I am coming to something.) I first encountered it in high school. It is of course Shirer's account as a correspondent in Germany of the rise of the Nazis. Most of it is well known to the educated. The Nazis, who had control over the domestic press, convinced the German population that the Poles were threatening Germany, as plausible as Guatemala threatening the United States. The Poles were said to be committing atrocities against Germans.

Then the Reich, with no justification whatever, having absolute air superiority, attacked Poland, bombing undefended cities and killing huge numbers of people. It was a German pattern several times repeated. Many reporters told of the smell of rotting bodies, of refugees dying of hunger and thirst. Today the Reich is endlessly remembered as a paragon of evil. It was.

How did Nazi Germany differ from the United States today? There is the same lying. Washington insisted that Iraq was about to get nuclear weapons, biological agents, that it had poisonous gas. None of this was true. The government, unimpeded by the media, persuaded over half of the American population that Iraq was responsible for Nine-Eleven. Now it says that Iran works to get nuclear weapons, and of course that the Russians are coming. The American press, informally but strictly controlled, carefully doesn't challenge any of this.

Having prepped the American public as the Nazis prepped theirs, Washington unleashed a savage attack against Iraq, deliberately destroying infrastructure, leaving the country without power or purified water. The slaughter was godawful. But, said America, the war was to rid the Iraqi people of an evil dictator, to bring them democracy, freedom, and human rights. (The oil was entirely incidental. The oil is always incidental.)

Fallujah, Iraq, after the American military brought it democracy, human rights, and freedom. Guernica, after the visit of the Kondor Legion. For the historically challenged, this was the Spanish city bombed during the Spánish Civil War by the Germans in support of the Falangists.

Washington never sleeps in its campaigns to improve the lives of people whose most fervent wish is that America stop improving their lives. To give the Afghans democracy, human rights, and American values, the US has for eighteen years been bombing, bombing, bombing a largely illiterate population in a nation where America has no business. It is a coward's war with warplanes butchering peasants who have no defenses. The pilots and drone operators who do this deserve contempt, as does the country that sends them. How many more years? For what purpose? And how were the German Nazis different?

The German Gestapo perpetrated sickening torture in hidden basements. America does the same, mainltaining torture prisons around the world. In these, men, and no doubt women, are hung by their wrists for days, naked in very cold rooms, kept awake and periodically beaten (exactly as described by survivors of Soviet torture. Nazis, whether American, Russian, or German, are Nazis.)

Photos of Iraqis at the American torture operation at Abu Ghraib showed prisoners, almost naked, lying in pools of blood. Tell me, please, how this differs from what was done by the Reich? (The bloodier photos are no longer online. Many that remain seem to have been edited.)

Abu Ghraib. A happy American girl soldier. Note rubber gloves. The US military used many female soldiers for this duty. They apparently were kinky, as they seemed to get a kick out of it. A female general ran the operation.

Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, is a sadist who tortured Moslem prisoners, reminiscent of Ilse Koch, the notorious Nazi torturess, who also worked in prisons. It is easy to find victims there, I suppose.

An Abu Ghraib pic apparently no longer online. I found it on an ancient memory stick. Are we having fun yet?

President Trump has just pardoned several American war criminals, saying he wanted to give US soldiers the "confidence to fight." This amounts to blanket permission to commit atrocities. A purpose of military training being to extirpate human decency and mercifulness, the obscene barbarism is not surprising. Atrocities are what soldiers do, and will do as long as the wars go on, being furiously denied by the government. (When I covered Force Recon, the Marine Corps Special Forces, the motto on the wall was "Crush Their Skulls and Eat Their Faces.")

Perhaps the best known example of implied approval was Nixon's pardon of Lt. Calley, who ordered the murder of Vietnamese villagers, for which he received three years of house arrest.

The Germans wanted empire, lebensraum, and resources, in particular oil. Americans want empire and oil, control of which allows control of the world They go about getting them by invasion and intimidation. Thus America wants to bring democracy and human rights to Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria, which have lots of oil, while it has occupation troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Mideast. What part of Syria is Trump occupying? Surprise, surprise! The part with the oil. Oil for the Americans, land for the Germans.

As Shirer points out, the German public was not enthusiastic about the war, at least not through 1940, as neither is the American public today. Neither public showed any concern about the hideousness its government inflicted around the world. What is the difference?

The parallels with the Reich are not complete. Washington does not essay genocide against Jews or blacks or any other internal population, being content with killing whoever its bombs fall upon. Trump cannot reasonably be likened to Hitler. He lacks the vision, the backbone, and apparently the viciousness. Hitler was a very smart, very evil man who knew exactly what he was doing, at least politically. This cannot be said of Trump. However, Hitler was, and Trump is, surrounded by freak-show curiosities of great bellicosity. Adolf had Goering, Goebbels, Himler, Rheinhardt Heydrich, Julius Streicher, Eichman. Trump has John Bolton, as amoral and pathologically aggressive as any in the Fuehrer's entourage, or under a log. Pompeo, a bloated toad of a man, bears an uncanny resemblance to Goering. Both he and Pence are Christian heretics, Evangelicals, who believe they are connected to God on broadband. O'Brien sounds like Bolton. All want war with Iran and perhaps with China and Russia. Sieg heil, and run like hell.

My Lai, after Lt. Calley of the SS Totenkopf Div excuse me, the Americal Division, I meant to say, brought human rights, freedom, and the American way.

Wikipedia: "Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated as were children as young as 12.")

For this Calley got three years house arrest, less than the sentence for a bag of methamphetamine, until pardoned by Nixon. Many Americans said, and many still say, that he should not have been punished at all, that we needed to take the gloves off, let the troops fight. Again, this is what Trump said.

The German Nazis worshiped Blood and Soil, the land of Germany and the Teutonic race, which they believed to be genetically superior to all others. Americans can't easily worship race. Instead they think themselves Exceptional, Indispensable, a Shining City on a Hill, the greatest civilization the world has known. Same narcissism and arrogance, slightly different foundation.

Nazi Germany was, like Nazi America, intensely militaristic. The US has hundreds of bases around the world (China has one overseas base, in Djibouti), spends appallingly on the military despite the lack of a credible military enemy. It currently buys new missile submarines (the Columbia class), aircraft carriers (the Ford class), intercontinental nuclear bombers (the B21), and fighter planes (the F-35).

Nazi Germany attacked Poland, Norway, Belgium, France, Russia, America, and England. America? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, supports a brutal proxy war against Yemen (Yemen is a grave threat to America), threatens Venezuela, China, and Iran with attack, embargoes Cuba. These are recent. Going back a bit, we have Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, the intervention in Panama, on and on. Millions and millions killed.

The Third Reich was, and America is, the chief threat to peace on the planet, a truly rogue state.

Is this something to be proud of?

Other stuff

La FIL, Feria Internacional de Libros , International Book Fair, Guadalajara, an annual event. I post the photo with the joyous sense of mischief of an eleven-year-old poking a nest of wasps. It will infuriate the Dissident Right, or Alt Right, or Race Realists. Their leaders excepted, most of these are ill-tempered naifs who insist, and seem to hope desperately, that Latin Americans are illiterate. I occasionally have conservative friends down and they are astonished to find that Guadalajara, a large international city, has the sorts of bookstores had by large international cities. Duh. (If interested, here are a couple of dozen.)

Another and cherished conceit of the Dissident Right is that Latin Americans who can read must be white. Well, I guess. Why, you could easily mistake the crowd above for Norwegians. Their ancestors probably arrived with Leif Erikson.

Merry Christmas to all! Happy "Winter Holidays" to none.

Write Fred at [email protected] . Put the letters "pdq" anywhere in the subject line to avoid autodeletion. All read, reply not guaranteed due to volume.

This meritorious and beneficial column will go into hibernation until after New Year, after which it will likely return.

[Dec 13, 2019] It's almost a century since Smedley Butler wrote his incisive pamphlet War is a Racket

Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

MrMopp , 10 Dec 2019 12:18

It's almost a century since Smedley Butler wrote his incisive pamphlet War is a Racket.

If you've never read it, it takes about 15-20 minutes to do so. It will astound, anger and depress you that the only thing that's changed is the number or zeroes on the eye waterering profits. Oh, and the players. What is it exactly that makes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia untouchable? (Answers on a postcard C/O Beelzebub.)

Smedley Butler knew of what he lectured about, being the most decorated officer in the history of the Marine Corps.

A brief insight into this insightful all American action man man Hollywood seems to have overlooked:

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street.

"The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

There's been a century of endless war and profits since then with this century shaping up nicely for the racketeers, whose finest day might well have been September 11th, 2001.

Anyway, here's a link to a pdf file of War is a Racket if you're interested.

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

[Dec 13, 2019] But Mr. Trump, Is Israel Lovable? by Sheldon Richman

Dec 12, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
Speaking before Sheldon Adelson's Israeli-American Council the other day, Trump took a shot at Jewish Americans who he says don't "love Israel enough."

"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more," Trump said . "We have to get them to love Israel more because you have people that are Jewish people, that are great people – they don't love Israel enough. You know that."

Typical of Trump, this is scatter-brained. He begins by talking about "the people of our country," which sounds like everyone, but ends up focusing on Jews who "don't love Israel enough." In either case, Trump talks rubbish.

First off, observe that although Trump stands accused of fomenting anti-Semitism by such remarks, he actually turns the loyalty issue upside-down. He doesn't say that some Jewish Americans are too loyal to Israel (presumably at the expense of America), which is what a classic anti-Semite would say, but that they are not loyal enough. Recall that he previously labeled Jews who vote for Democrats "disloyal." Disloyal to whom? Disloyal to Israel! We know this because he's criticized the Democratic Party for "defending [Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who sympathize with the Palestinians] over the State of Israel." Trump's critics seem to overlook this twist because it doesn't fit their stock narrative.

But turning to the matter at hand, Trump now entitles us to ask: what's so lovable about Israel anyway? The modern state was founded through a campaign of ethnic cleansing – violent expulsion of Arabs, that is, non-Jews, from their long-held properties – and outright massacres and terrorism. For the next couple of decades it subjected those who avoided expulsion to martial law. Then in 1967 it conquered the remainder of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, creating new refugees. Since then Israel has denied the inhabitants of those territories all rights while the Israeli occupiers built privileged Jewish-only settlements and otherwise usurped the land it acquired through aggressive force – contrary to morality and international law. The West Bank today resembles apartheid South Africa. But things are even worse in Gaza, a small, crowded piece of land under blockade that dissenting Israelis call a concentration camp and others euphemistically refer to as merely the world's largest open-air prison. Gaza consists largely of refugees from the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing and their families.

So, I ask again, what's lovable about Israel? Is it because Israel calls itself the nation-state of the Jewish people (whether or not they live or want to live there) and Jews were treated horribly by Christian Europe, culminating in the monstrous Nazi Judeocide? That doesn't make Israel lovable. It is accountable for its crimes against humanity in Palestine regardless of the atrocities Jews suffered elsewhere. Israel is not exempt from moral judgment.

As for Jewish Americans in particular not loving Israel enough, Trump has again stuffed his foot in his mouth, something so commonplace that most people don't notice it. Like other Americans, Jewish Americans are not obligated to love Israel. How could they be? They are not part of a supposed Jewish national people – they are Americans with a particular private religious faith (unless they are secular). If they wanted to become Israelis, they would have done so.

Israel, despite what it claims, cannot be the nation-state of all Jews everywhere (even atheists with Jewish mothers); it is the state only of its own Jewish citizens/nationals. The 25 percent of non-Jewish Israeli citizens unfortunately are out of luck, but then it shouldn't call itself a democracy. Jewish Americans have roots in many countries, yet no one would say they are obliged to love those places.

We may ask: what does today's state of Israel have to do with the Jewish creed, especially the universalism of the prophets? Little, really: Zionism was a secular movement that disparaged traditional and secularized Jews in Europe and America. Theodor Herzl et al. promised a new Jew in his own state, strong and hardy farmers and soldiers, unlike the frail bookish scholars and rootless "parasitic" financiers of the so-called "diaspora." (It wasn't a diaspora since the Judeans were not exiled by the Romans in 70 CE.) That's one reason Zionism was a minority movement for a long time.

No one is clear about what it means to be a Jewish state. True, you have to be a properly credentialed Jew to get the benefits the Israeli state offers, but that only means having a Jewish mother or being converted by an approved Orthdox rabbi. (Conservative and Reform converts need not apply.) Jews and non-Jews may not marry each other, but that is not a religious injunction for Israelis; rather it's a matter of secular (pseudo-)ethnic purity. It's feared that Israeli children of interfaith marriages are less likely than other children to identify as Jewish – but then what would happen to the "Jewish people's" state?

In fact, no Jewish national ethnicity exists to be kept pure, but many Israelis (who do constitute an Israeli ethnicity) don't accept that. Nevertheless, Jews worldwide are of virtually every ethnicity, culture, language group, and color, and despite what Israel's apologists say today, Hitler was wrong: there is no Jewish race (or gene or blood). Most Jews descend from the converts of many ethnicities -- Judaism was a wide-ranging proselytizing religion roughly from 200 BCE to 200 CE (and later) -- and most ancient Israelites, Judahites, Yehudis, and Judeans never left their homes, although many of their offspring converted to Christianity or Islam.

For the record, ancient kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Yehud, and Judea, according to the Old Testament, were no more lovable bastions of enlightenment than any other kingdom in the vicinity, what with their authoritarian monarchies, military conquests, genocides, Hebrew and gentile slave labor, animal and occasional human sacrifice, forced conversion of gentiles, suppression of religious pluralism among the Hebrews, and persecution and even capital punishment of sundry peaceful nonconformists, such as homosexuals and dissenters.

Moreover – and I wouldn't expect Trump to know this – there is a long and honorable tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism . It goes back to the days of Herzl, though his idea of a "return" to Canaan originated earlier with non-Jews for perhaps less-than-honorable reasons. On different grounds, Orthodox and Reform Jews vehemently opposed Herzl's movement. (See details on this and other matters discussed here in my book Coming to Palestine .) The Orthodox regarded the Zionists as charlatans because a "return" was not to occur until the Messiah appeared in order to redeem the sinful Jews; the Orthodox anti-Zionists did not regard any of the atheists running the Zionist movement as Messiahs – even if they had Jewish mothers.

The Reform shared that disdain for the Zionists and Zionism but on different grounds. First, they rejected the premise that the people around the world who profess Judaism constitute an exiled national people, race, or ethnicity. Judaism is just a religion, they said. Second, they objected to a country that would proclaim itself the nation-state of all the "Jewish people," including Jews who don't and won't live there. This, they said, would harm the Jewish citizens of other countries and the non-Jewish residents of Israel. Third, they knew that Palestine was not a "land without a people," and so they rejected the land theft and expulsion they knew would be required to make a Jewish state there. I would say the Reform were right. (The remnant of this movement resides at the American Council for Judaism .)

So, Mr. Trump, I can't see how Jewish Americans, who when surveyed rank justice high on their list social concerns, have an obligation to love Israel – or how this admonition from you, an enthusiast for Palestinian oppression, could possibly be taken seriously.

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute , senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society , and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com . He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies, former editor of The Freeman , published by the Foundation for Economic Education , and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation . His latest book is Coming to Palestine .

[Dec 13, 2019] Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does.

Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Richard Thorton , 10 Dec 2019 15:03

Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does. The main points of what war does:

1. Transfers wealth from social services to the military industrial complex. Americans don't have education, infrastructure, or healthcare, but they do have a generation of soldiers with PTSD, national debt, worldwide hatred, and an ever increasing sense of exceptionalism.

2. Traps Americans in a cycle of fear and persecution. Americans don't need a bogeyman, but our corporate overlords do, its how they monetize the populace. Find some disparate population of brown people who want self autonomy, send in the CIA to fuck them up, and when they retaliate tell Americans that people who live in a 3rd world land locked country several thousands of miles away are a threat to their very existence and way of life because they don't like God and Walmart.


CourgetteDream , 10 Dec 2019 14:36

Sadly the US uses the MIC to keep a large chunk of its population under control, as well as providing a convenient coverup of the actual numbers of people who are unemployable or would be unemployed if it were'nt for the taxpayer funding humungous spending in the so-called defence sector, which needs a a constant supply of conflict to keep going. The frankly moronic 'thank you for your service' soundbite drives me insane but it shows how much the American public has been brainwashed.
jimbomatic -> Michael Knoth , 10 Dec 2019 14:36
For years my home state of Washington had a New Deal Democrat Senator named Henry Jackson, AKA the Senator from Boeing.
He did good things for the state & was hugely popular here. One reason being that because he brought the Federal pork back home.
IMO the things Gen. Butler wrote about in the 1920s are still the modus operandi of US foreign policy.
Rikyboy , 10 Dec 2019 14:11
If the Afghanistan war ends, the USA will go to war with someone else. You cannot spend so much on military & not be at war. America must have an enemy. And, don’t forget, they always have “God on our side!”
Mauryan , 10 Dec 2019 13:05
The neocons in power during 2001 were hell bent on taking out Saddam Hussein. When 9/11 happened, they were looking for avenues to blame Iraq so that they could launch the war on that nation. Since things could not be put together, and all evidence pointed to Afghanistan, they took a detour in their war plan with a half hearted approach.

In fact Afghanistan was never the problem - It was Pakistan that held Afghanistan on the string and managed all terror related activities. Everything related to 9/11 and beyond pointed directly at Pakistan. Whatever threat Bush and his cronies projected about Iraq was true in the case of Pakistan. The war was lost when they made Pakistan an ally on the war on terror. It is like allying with Al Capone to crack down on the mafia.

Pakistan bilked the gullible American war planners, protected its assets and deflected all the rage on to the barren lands of Afghanistan. They hid all key Al Qaeda operatives and handed off the ones that did not align with their strategic interests to the US, while getting reward for it. War in Iraq happened in a hurry because the Bush family had scores to settle in Iraq. Pressure was lifted on Afghanistan. This is when the war reached a dead end.

The Taliban knew time was on their hands and waited it out. Obama did understand the situation and tried to put Af-Pak together and tightened the grip on Pakistan. He got the troops out of Iraq. Pakistan is almost bankrupt now for its deep investment on terror infrastructure. The US has drained billions of dollars and lives in Afghanistan due to misdirected goals. I am surprised Bush and Cheney have not been sent to jail on lies to launch the Iraq war and botching the real war on terror.

[Dec 13, 2019] The Afghanistan war is more than a $1 trillion mistake. It's a travesty Ben Armbruster Opinion The Guardian

Dec 13, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

he American people have known that the war in Afghanistan was a lost cause for quite some time. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans' views of the war started to go south right around the end of 2011, until eventually a majority started seeing the writing on the wall about two years later.

That's why the Washington Post report this week on the so-called "Afghanistan Papers", detailing how US officials "deliberately mislead the public" on the war's progress, is almost sort of unremarkable. If the piece took away any shred of innocence left from this ghastly enterprise, it's that perhaps some of us thought our leaders, while failing miserably at building a nation thousands of miles away, were at least acting in good faith.

At the same time, the Post report is rage inducing, not just because of the sheer stupidity of American leaders continuing to fight a war they knew they could not win, but also how their unwillingness to take responsibility for a failed policy caused so much death, destruction and heartbreak, particularly among those American families who have admirably dedicated their lives to serving their country, and the countless number of Afghan civilians trapped in a cycle of endless war they have nothing to do with.

Of course, the "Afghanistan Papers" immediately recalled memories of the Pentagon variety leaked to the New York Times nearly a half century ago because they too were government documents outlining how numerous American administrations had lied to the public about Vietnam – another long, costly and unnecessary war with no military solution.

But there's one major difference: the war in Afghanistan doesn't have as direct an impact on the lives of everyday Americans as the Vietnam war did, when the military draft meant that everyone had to deal with the cold war proxy conflict in south-east Asia one way or another . Therefore, it's entirely possible, likely even, that this major and important report from the Post will drift into the wilderness just like the dozens of Trump-era stories that would have, for example , taken down any other US president in "normal times".

But there's one big question the Post report raises but does not address: why? Why did so many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to state department and National Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about how the war in Afghanistan was going?

The easy answer is that there's a long tradition in Washington, particularly among the foreign policy establishment, that self-reflection, taking responsibility and admitting failure is a big no-no. Heck, you can get convicted of lying to Congress about illegal arms sales, and cover up brutal atrocities and still get a job at the state department . Did you torture anyone? No problem .

While DC's culture of no culpability certainly plays a role in this case, the more compelling answer lies somewhere near the fact that once the American war machine kicks into gear, no amount of facts undermining its very existence is going to get in the way.

Indeed, the United States has so far doled out nearly one trillion dollars for the war in Afghanistan (the true cost of the war will be trillions more ) and everyone's on the take: from defense industry executives, lobbyists and US political campaign coffers to Afghan government officials and poppy farmers to anyone and anything in between.

What's more is that this military-industrial-congressional complex is largely insulated from public accountability, so what's the incentive to change course? The Pentagon's entire budget operates in much the same way: unprecedented amounts in unnecessary appropriations resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. Yet Congress continues to throw more and more money at the defense department every year without ever requiring it to account for how it spends the money. In fact, the war in Afghanistan is small potatoes by comparison.

The bottom line is that the Afghanistan Papers clearly show that a lot of people were killed, injured and subject to years, if not lifetimes, of psychological trauma and financial hardship because a bunch of men – yes, mostly men – in Washington didn't want to admit publicly what they knew privately all along. If we don't start holding these people to account – and it's not just about Afghanistan – the DC foreign policy establishment will continue to act with impunity, meaning that it's probably more likely than not that in 50 years there'll be another batch of "papers" revealing once again that we've failed to learn obvious lessons from the past.

Ben Armbruster is the managing editor of ResponsibleStatecraft.org , the news and analysis publishing platform of the Quincy Institute

[Dec 13, 2019] The Afghan war is 18 years old now. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place

Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Chiropolos , 10 Dec 2019 15:56

This war is 18 years old. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place. Afghanistan will figure it out. Once we withdraw to allow Afghanistan to return to self-governance.

[Dec 13, 2019] Why did so many people -- from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to state department and National Security Council officials -- feel the need to lie about the wars the USA is engaged?

Notable quotes:
"... This is because it's easy cash cow for the old boys club by sending working class kids to be killed in a far off land. ..."
Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

yemrajesh , 10 Dec 2019 16:54

Why did so many people -- from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to state department and National Security Council officials -- feel the need to lie about how the war in Afghanistan was going?

This is because it's easy cash cow for the old boys club by sending working class kids to be killed in a far off land.

The pentagon with the full cooperation of MSM will sell it as we are defending our ways of life by fighting a country 10,000 kms away. This show the poor literacy, poor analytical thinking of US population constantly brain washed by MSM, holy men, clergy, other neo con organisations like National rifle club etc.

sorrymess , 10 Dec 2019 15:00

i been to Cambodia a few years ago.

I never knew USA dropped 2.7 millions tons of bombs and now so many left unexploded and its same in Vietnam, Cambodia as neutral,
but i met so many injured kids etc from the bombs,.

the total MADNESS OF USA IS NAZI SM AT ITS BEST,.NO SHAME OR COMPASSION FOR THE VICTIMS.

I cannot comprehend the money it cost USA,. AN ALSO PROFITS FOR SOME,.

Heisham , 10 Dec 2019 14:10
With the exceptions of two attacks on American soil-Pearl Harbor and 911- the American people and for the most part their legislative representatives in Congress- will always remain cluless what the United States Government does overseas.

This country runs on its own drum beats. The ordinary man on the street needs to take care of his economic needs. The Big Boys always take care of themselves. That includes the military establishment, that is always entitled to an absurd amounts of monies, fueled by an empire building machinery, pushed by the elites that control the fate of economic might, and political orchestra that feeds its ego and prestige.
Time and again, our American sociopaths in power have a strangle hold on us, regardless of the destruction and animosity they heap on distant peoples and lands the world over in the name of national security and the democratic spiel, as they like to tell us ....
Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson- Vietnam and the South East Asian countries of Laos , Cambodia, are an example .
Years later, the establishment manufactures blatant cover-ups with lies upon lies to accuse on record, as general Powell eloquently presented at the United Nations: That Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and needs to be held accountable.And now, this report on Afghanistan with all this pathological violence.

Is it reasonable to conclude that our democracy and its pathological actors in government and big business will always purchase it by demagoguery and self vested interest, because the ordinary man whose vote should count will never have the ultimate say when it comes to war and destruction!

[Dec 12, 2019] Trump Signs Order Interpreting Judaism as a Nationality and Race

the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-Semitism the official guideline for Title VI is as following "Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." So this hatred against certain ethnic category. Much like Russophobia. Looks pretty reasonable to me. For example, claiming that Paul Singer is a criminal financial racketeer is not anti-Semitism, because Romney is not that different.
The Washington Free Beacon, funded by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer, was the original funder of Fusion GPS’ research project that attempted to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump — a project that would later be funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Paul Singer-Funded Washington Free Beacon Behind Initial Fusion GPS Trump Effort
Notable quotes:
"... The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students. ..."
"... But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing, and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." ..."
Dec 12, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

With his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner hovering inches behind him, President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that interprets Judaism as a nationality or race and religion so that the federal government can threaten to withhold funds from schools deemed to be fostering anti-semitism in school activities, programs, curricula and classrooms. What it really will do is put a chill on speech, as skittish administrations shut down protests, screen speakers, and monitor classrooms for unsanctioned criticisms against Israel.

"It is a game changer," said Trump legal advisor Alan Dershowitz who along with Kushner promoted the plan to Trump. "One of the most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism."

12/11/19, 11:42 A.M.: President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that will effectively put a chill on BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanction) campaigns or any other campus protests against Israel's treatment of Palestinians, illegal settlements, or U.S.-Israel foreign policy.

As The New York Times reported last night:

The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students.

Currently, Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin. By declaring Judaism a nationality rather than religion, it puts it under the rubric of federal protection, unlocking all sorts of tools for the school to shut down speech. As of this writing, however, Jewish Insider claims to have a copy of the executive order and says, contra to the NYT, there is no mention of national origin in it.

Nevertheless, the order as being reported will allow the federal government to force schools to restrict protests and monitor speech and curriculum in the classroom. For example, if there is an active BDS organization on campus or ongoing protest against the lockdown of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it might be deemed anti-Semitic and the Department of Education could threaten a withdrawal of financial assistance to the school. This goes, perhaps more importantly, to courses and professors that are accused of being "anti-Semitic." We can see where this is going. From the Jerusalem Post :

A senior administration official said on Tuesday that antisemitism on campuses is often hidden in an anti-Israel agenda. If campuses that receive money from the government adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism in cases of discrimination, students who will feel that they are being bullied on college campuses would be able to complain to their institution's administration, who will then need to decide if the incident is considered antisemitic.

Trump's order would make the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-Semitism the official guideline for Title VI.

But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing, and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."

The White House's latest move, if fulfilled, is a huge victory for pro-Israel organizations here in the United States that, according to Forward magazine has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into combating constitutionally protected boycotts on school campuses and in American states.

Not only well-funded by groups like AIPAC, according to Forward, these pro-Israel campaigns use social media bird-dogging and rapid response strikes against student governments and planned demonstrations and other measures to cast the pro-Palestinian protests as anti-Semitic. In the states, they've convinced lawmakers and governments to pass laws that would require any companies and individuals working for the government to sign "contracts" or other affidavits declaring that they would never boycott Israeli companies or be denied work. These laws have been overturned by multiple courts as unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, afraid of the "anti-Semitic" taint, federal and state elected officials have not only continued to pass these laws, but have proposed criminal charges against offenders. The issue has riven the Democratic party, with pro-Palestinian and free speech proponents on one side, and pro-Israeli advocates (joining all but a few Republicans) on the other. The often raucous BDS debate has quieted down from earlier this year, when Rep. Ilhan Omar was forced to apologize for her own comments when criticizing the anti-boycott laws, but Trump is sure to re-invigorate things now.

Meanwhile, a slow-burn smear campaign has begun against 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, and who has also spoken out against what he calls are attacks against BDS and free speech. In this outrageous Federalist piece yesterday, Melissa Langsam Braunstein, "a former U.S. Department of State speechwriter," suggests Sanders is "associating with antisemites," ignoring "far-left" and "Islamist" anti-Semitism, and employing secret anti-Semites on his staff. Again, criticism of Israel's Palestinian policies and supporting people who support the boycotts seem to be the core definition of Bernie's burgeoning anti-Semitism here.

This is should be an alarming sign for anyone, but it may be worse for Bernie. He is up in the polls, which makes him a target. He is also an avowed socialist who has been openly against the anti-boycott movement on Capitol Hill. In addition, he could suffer the same slings and arrows that his compatriot Jeremy Corbyn is taking across the pond. The Labor Party leader and candidate for prime minister has been accused of being personally anti-Semitic for his criticism of Israel and his entire party criticized for fostering a "culture of anti-Semitism" and not taking serious various formal complaints against it. Read this whole Atlantic piece for the details, but the money passage for our purposes is here:

Disproportionate hatred of Israel is one strand of left-wing anti-Semitism. The other is the conspiracist turn, turbocharged by social media, which gains succor from attacks on "the elite," "the 1 percent," "the mainstream media," and "billionaires." Corbyn has made such attacks a key part of Labour's appeal, adopting the slogan "For the many, not the few." The trouble is that while all of these are superficially innocent phrases -- as well as useful ways of describing a world in which wealth and opportunities are unequally distributed -- it is clear that some supporters hear them as a dog whistle

This is Sanders' platform, too. Heck it is a critical part of Elizabeth Warren's and President Trump's appeal. If this kind of populism–and to be sure I am not talking about the Reddit "turbo charged" racist conspiracy driven memes that we all know are out there -- is to be deemed "a dog whistle," we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done.


Phil Jester 15 hours ago

It's wonderful when people hold onto their culture and heritage. The idea of "melting pot" wasn't some kind of blast furnace that stripped immigrants of their past, but rather a blending of the many different cultures that created something uniquely American.

To be an American doesn't mean abandoning caring about your homeland - but it does mean that you should prioritize the success and prosperity of your fellow Americans more than you do the success and prosperity of those in the land you left behind.

The implication of labeling Judaism a nationality (and the implicit tying that to Zionism) is that American Jews owe their first loyalty not to fellow Americans ... but to Judaism, and by the associative property, to Israeli Jews.

A very dangerous path for American Jews to trod, as history has shown repeatedly.

The ironic thing here is that Trump is managing to play to three different bases here
- to the most conservative Zionist Jews in America
- to Evangelical Christians who are happy to have a cudgel to use in their battle against those who don't embrace the idea of a Judeo-Christian America, and
- to White Nationalists who themselves don't consider Jews to be part of "White Culture" and will enjoy referring to a Federal declaration of Jewish otherness

Steve Naidamast Phil Jester 12 hours ago
As one writer succinctly put it, a lot of these endeavors are indicators that the influence and power of the Jewish elite is slowly and irreversibly diminishing.

The Orange Moron can do anything he wants in this vein but it will most likely only speed up what is already in motion...

pensword 12 hours ago
we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done

When an American vessel in neutral waters was deliberately attacked by Israel in 1967, all subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed and the survivors threatened with imprisonment. Nothing has been done to restore the dignity of the veterans.

When the late Paul Findley compiled copious evidence of Israel's stranglehold on institutions of government and education, using a fringe publishing house to present his findings, which enjoyed 9 weeks on the Washington Post 's bestseller list, nothing was done to forestall the Lobby's influence.

When the FBI held tens of Israeli nationals engaged in suspicious activity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, subjecting them to polygraph tests which some failed, Richard Armitage and Alan Dershowitz applied
political pressure to free them and send them packing to Israel. Nothing more was done.

When professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer provided a thoroughly documented analysis of Israel's headlock on American foreign policy, proving that it was Israel who drew us into the current Middle Eastern quagmire, nothing was done to forestall the Lobby's influence.

And now Israel, applying its usual pressure in Washington, wants Americans to fight yet another war on its behalf, this time against Iran, who has done nothing to America since the 1970s.

If you discuss these plain-as-day, readily available facts, you're called an "anti-Semite" and a "Nazi." If you want to discuss them on YouTube, you risk being demonetized or deplatformed. If you raise the topics in the public square, you're certain to confront censure, if not unemployment.

And, however much one may naively regard some claims as "conspiratorial," these phenomena are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

You had better get used to it. Free speech isn't free and there's one group in America that's more interested in eliminating it than any other.

Of course, mentioning this is "anti-Semitic" as well.

cka2nd 11 hours ago
I was just telling a friend that the "Bernie is a self-hating Jew" meme was right around the corner, and Kelly has just confirmed it.
Zgler 10 hours ago
Trump is first and foremost pandering to his evangelical Christian supporters and a few rich Jewish donors here. He doesn't care that he feeds into anti-semitism by implying that Jewish Americans identify with Israel rather than the U.S. Most Jewish Americans won't vote for him (he has almost a 70% dis-approval rating with Jews in the U.S.). He's also toadying to Netanyahu, who he identifies with. Netanyahu is continually under investigation for corruption.
AlmostNormalTexan 10 hours ago
College students are free to protest the behavior of Russia without being labeled anti-Russian; they can protest the People's Republic of China without being accused of sinophobia.

Why does Israel need a special dispensation from this? If the argument is that any criticism of Israel for any reason is antisemitic, then you are essentially saying that Israel should be uniquely immune from criticism that every other country on earth is subject to.

Doug Wallis 10 hours ago
It started in Europe with creating a class of people protected from free speech, then the envelope widened to include immigrants and then muslims then leftists use it to prevent a discussion on immigration and then you get 10+ years of pedophile and female muslim rape gangs patrolling streets and having the entire crime known by police and covered up for fear of hate speech toward a group even though its specific groups that engage in honor killings, terrorist attacks, knifing s, grooming gangs, rape gangs, etc.
Name Doug Wallis 7 hours ago
You actually believe the Garbage you just posted?
Name 7 hours ago
If Judaism is a nationality, then what nationality do American Secular Jews belong to?

[Dec 12, 2019] The Skripals residing on US territory would definitely indicate that the US has been the senior partner in the "Skripal operation"

Notable quotes:
"... The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with. ..."
"... The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors. ..."
Dec 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with.

The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors.

Michael Droy , Dec 11 2019 18:42 utc | 16
Great stuff as ever. How useful is it that Skripal is Unavailable but not Dead? For example does it affect redaction of material linked to him?
JR , Dec 11 2019 19:41 utc | 20
By now Steele's credibility is zero. Time to revisit Steele's involvement with the debunked "Russia bought the soccer World Champion games", the Litvinenko polonium poisening and the Skripal novichok poisening. The timing of the Skripal matter deserves some scrutiny in relation to Skripal possibly being Steele's source for the infamous Trump dossier. There might be a motive hidden there.
Jen , Dec 11 2019 22:27 utc | 42
I know on a recemt MoA Open Thread comments forum that there was a link to this recent John Helmer / Dances With Bears article mentioning that Sergei and Julia Skripal were being held at an airbase in Gloucestershire being used by the United States Air Force (USAF) at the time that Julia Skripal was interviewed by a Reuters representative in May last year. I consider that link and the news worth mentioning again in this comments thread as some commenters have already mentioned Sergei Skripal in connection with Christopher Steele's dossier.

As early as August 2018 , there had been speculation that the Skripals were being held at USAF Fairford airbase, based on audiovisual evidence in the background garden scene where the interview took place. Helmer's sources (they requested anonymity) spotted a chicken coop in the background which they say is a crow ladder trap. This is one indication that the garden scene was located near a runway. Background noises included the roar of jet engines.

If Helmer's information is correct, then we can now understand why the British government never gave Russian embassy staff access to the Skripals: London was in no position to do so, the Skripals were on US territory.

One implication of this new information is that the Skripals may no longer be in Britain and may now be living in North America somewhere with new identities. Should something happen to them (or have happened to them already), they will not be missed by their new neighbours. The Skripals will never be allowed to return to Russia and Sergei Skripal will never see or be allowed to communicate with his elderly mother again.

It really does look as if Sergei Skripal may have had something to do with that Orbis dossier after all, even if as a minor source or as a reference rather than the primary source of disinformation about Donald Trump's past activities in Moscow. What other work has Skripal done for his American masters?

Jen , Dec 11 2019 22:44 utc | 47
JR @ 20:

It looks as if Sergei Skripal may not be the primary source of the disinformation in Christopher Steele's dossier. Perhaps the person who is the primary source is not a Russian at all.

RJPJR , Dec 11 2019 23:56 utc | 50
JR | Dec 11 2019 19:41 utc | 20 brings up a revisiting of the Litvinenko polonium poisoning.

It is worth mentioning that a tiny but crucial and virtually never mentioned detail of the official inquiry (considered the last word on the matter) is that those conducting the official inquiry were never allowed access to the autopsy report -- which should have been (which would have been, in any honest effort at inquiry) the bedrock starting point. The report has right along been sequestered by Scotland Yard in the interests of... you guessed it: national security. Go figure...

bevin , Dec 12 2019 1:46 utc | 53
It strikes me that the best explanation of the attack on the Skripals is not that he was responsible for the Steele Dossier in any way, but that he could easily prove that it was a fantasy. And was planning to do so.

He knew better, though, than to say so in the UK which suggests that he was on his way home with his daughter when MI6 caught up with him and poisoned them both.

Steele, Pablo Miller and Skripal were old partners in crime.

I'm wondering whether the mistake Sergei made was not to leave the house -- probably worth lotsa rubles -- behind and just go. On the other hand he was almost certainly under constant surveillance.

@50 The Official Report to which you refer was also very careful to enter extensive caveats regarding its conclusions for which there was almost no real evidence.

Cynica , Dec 12 2019 1:48 utc | 54

@Jackrabbit #12, @karlof1 #15

It seems important to note that Mr. Lavrov refers to administrations in his comments, not presidents per se. As there are many staff in presidential administrations, it seems entirely possible that 1) the requests from the Russians never reached Obama or Trump personally, and 2) either or both presidents were therefore not even aware of the requests. In the case of Trump, that would be consistent with the fact that many members of his administration have been revealed to have operated contrary to his wishes.

@Jen #42

The Skripals residing on US territory would definitely indicate that the US has been the senior partner in the "Skripal operation". This seems to be part of a general pattern.

@Jackrabbit #48

For the Steele dossier to be intentional bullshit (meaning its creator(s) knew it was false when they created it) doesn't seem all that surprising. Intelligence agencies promote disinformation all the time. That in no way means that Trump is in on the game.

pretzelattack , Dec 12 2019 2:04 utc | 55
by this point i don't know if either Skripal is still alive. Why keep them alive if they could debunk the oh so precious propaganda?
karlof1 , Dec 12 2019 3:20 utc | 58
Cynica @54--

Both Putin and Lavrov have stated that they talked directly with Obama and Trump about the issues involved with their relations, so there's no excuses or obfuscation possible is this case.

[Dec 10, 2019] Donald Trump Is Bad for the Jews: There are things more important than your tax rate by Paul Krugman

Highly recommended!
He is bad for Jewish programmers, nurses, etc. He is certainly good for Jewish financial oligarchs like Adelson and singer as well as Zionists like natuanuahoo.
Notable quotes:
"... I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm. ..."
"... An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad ..."
Dec 10, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

On Saturday Donald Trump gave a speech to the Israeli American Council in which he asserted that many in his audience were "not nice people at all," but that "you have to vote for me" because Democrats would raise their taxes.

Was he peddling an anti-Semitic stereotype, portraying Jews as money-grubbing types who care only about their wealth? Of course he was. You might possibly make excuses for his remarks if they were an isolated instance, but in fact Trump has done this sort of thing many times, for example asserting in 2015 that Jews weren't supporting him because he wasn't accepting their money and "you want to control your politicians."

Well, it's not news that Trump's bigotry isn't restricted to blacks and immigrants. What is interesting, however, is that this particular anti-Semitic cliché -- that Jews are greedy, and that their political behavior is especially driven by their financial interests -- is empirically dead wrong. In fact, American Jews are much more liberal than you might expect given their economic situation.

... ... ...

In other words, American Jews aren't the uniquely greedy, self-interested characters anti-Semites imagine them to be. But it would be foolish to make the opposite mistake and imagine that Jews are especially public-spirited; they're just people, with the same virtues and vices as everyone else. I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm.

An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad

MikeBoma

MikeBoma VA 8m ago

Excellent column to which I would add only that Trump is not pro-Israel. Rather, he is pro-Netanyahu because he identifies with individuals he identifies as apparent "strong men" and believes that making "deals" with Netanyahu and others of his ilk will be mutually and personally beneficial. Trump has no concern with national policy or the best interests of the U.S. It's all about his power and wealth and he is open to deals with others who share his principal concern with self-benefit above all else. Any action taken by Trump that may seem pro-Israel in reality is merely a means to a self-serving and perhaps corrupt end. Birds of a feather...
esthermiriam DC 43m ago
Surprised Paul didn't mention the main sponsor of the group that invited Trump to speak, the Israeli American Council, is Sheldon Adelson, whose politics are of the minority in the Jewish community but very close to Trump (and Bibi's). Which actually makes the speech rather even uglier, perhaps.
NorthernVirginia Falls Church, VA 43m ago
Difficult to appreciate why the US, or Krugman for that matter, would support a religion-based Apartheid country, much less associate with that country's chief lobbying arm. Say what you will about our founding fathers, but George Washington was absolutely prescient and correct in his farewell address when he advised against "a passionate attachment of one nation for another"; the "variety of evils" he warned of regularly manifest themselves.
Bonku Madison 50m ago
The question is not who is Trump bad for. The question is- who is he good for! He is not so great for his own die-hard supporters, or even his own long term interest. In fact, he sabotaged his own presidency and basically got himself into this impeachment affair. Almost everyone is suffering under this guy. Vast majority realized that as soon as he became the President. Many realized it little later. Hopefully the remaining tiny few will understand in near future.
Mark New York 1h ago
Dear Professor K, weaponizing religion is nothing new. What's most amazing is that people were cheering him while being marginalized as stereotypes. The God of Mamon won the evening. This is the only religion Trump adheres to. Apparently it's popular among other religions too.
RLJ Manhattan 1h ago
Trump is supported by the Chabad sect which is ultra-orthodox and ultra-right wing. And his go-between is Jared Kushner.
RLJ Manhattan 1h ago
Trump is supported by the Chabad sect which is ultra-orthodox and ultra-right wing. And his go-between is Jared Kushner.
Sue Brooklyn 1h ago
Please don't conflate my Judaism with support for Israel. Israel would not support me, a secular Jew. Brooklyn is my homeland. Next year in Flatbush.
JayK CT 1h ago
In my first 59 years, I'd never felt concern for my physical safety as a Jew in this country until this man became president. I knew exactly where this was all headed at the moment Sean Spicer took to the podium and lied to the country about the inauguration crowd size in his first official act for Trump. It made me sick to my stomach, and I couldn't believe that most people were laughing it off as no big deal. Any Jew who trust this administration is a fool, and although there a few more "precise" Yiddish words for these members of my tribe, I'll refrain from using them as I'm sure you can fill in the blanks just fine.
Ilya Los Angeles 1h ago
A good reference to this opinion column, which was written and probably edited by highly intelligent people- The Stupidity of Intelligence: What Happened to Common Sense? Every sentence could be easily argued and overturned based upon some simple facts.
Bruce Rozenblit Kansas City, MO 2h ago
Trump and his minions try to buy Jewish support by backing right wing Israelis in their goal of a greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. In fact, when asked if Trump is anti-Semitic, one his strongest supporters, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, gave the standard response, "Trump supports Israel". Supporting Israel is a political position. All the while, Trump has about as much use for Jews as Archie Bunker had for the Jews in his fictional law firm, Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz. Then they often mention that his son-in-law is Jewish, like he had a choice in the matter. Simultaneously, Trump derives strong support from white nationalists that would be perfectly happy to send all American Jews to Israel. Those two motivations are inexorably linked. Because of this linkage, I can't understand for one minute how American Jews can support Trump. Is the money that good? Do they think that their money can protect them? Others have made that mistake before.
Luchino Brooklyn, New York 2h ago
Among Trump's lies is that he is far more friendly to Israel than Obama was. Sadly, some Jews take this lie as fact and, because of this, overlook everything else Trump does or says, supporting him without wavering, no matter what.
john connell columbia md 2h ago
The difference is intelligence. My college psychology textbook said that Russian Jewish immigrants had the highest IQs of all identified ethnicities. Number two was all other Jews. Of course they voted for Hillary.
Greg Cincinnati 2h ago
The attachment the wealthy have for the Republican Party goes beyond just a lower tax rate. It is power and deference. The wealthy want an unquestioned dominance that not only protects and expands their wealth, but celebrates them not only for their wealth as symbol of personal success but of their moral superiority. Obama certainly did not threaten their wealth, and, in fact, pursued policies that protected them from the worst of the Great Recession. Yet, the masters of wealth whined endlessly about Obama not respecting them and that his language toward them was disrespectful and not sufficiently deferential. Trump's "policies" threaten long term economic health, and the wealth creation that keeps concentrating wealth at the top. His trade gyrations, his dismantling of the environmental regulatory regime to favor fossil fuels, and his reward and punishment of private corporations based on politics are doing the damage that no Democrat would ever inflict. Yet, nary a corporate executive will said a word, and far too many are happy to be props at events for Trump's endless glorification of himself. Because they, like Trump, believe themselves heroes and geniuses whose domination should never be questioned. So they and Trump wind up all being pretty comfortable with each other. The neo-liberal promise of free market economics producing rational economic actors free from political motives and protecting all of us from political abuse rings pretty hollow.
James F Traynor Punta Gorda, FL 2h ago
"I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm." Considering my age, and extrapolating therefrom, I think Einstein beat your friend to it. Pondering the moral weight given to Jewish thought at the time, Einstein thought political power was behind it, Jews simply had not the opportunity. As not unusual, Einstein's theory has been supported by experiment.
Plato CT 2h ago
Prof. Krugman, I loved this statement " An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad" Please make sure that your colleague Bret Stephens get this memo.
Alan Kaplan Morristown, NJ 2h ago
I loved Trump's conclusion that people who are not nice vote for him. This is almost certainly true, we need to all be nice and vote the clown out.
Mike kelly nyc 2h ago
The audience at the Israeli American Council cheered Trump enthusiastically through out his whole speech. They cheered when he said he learned his tricks from Sheldon Adelson. They cheered when he said that maybe he should stay for eight more years. They hardly thought he was anti-Semitic. He has done exactly what he promised his big donors starting with the embassy in Jerusalem. His shutting down of any opposition to the Netanyahu administration especially the BDS movement . He seems to know his audience very well and they were loving it.
C. Bernard Florida 2h ago
Trump is not just saying "look at the taxes you are saving", he's saying "look what I've done for Israel!" I don't understand why the media persists on calling him a white nationalist. His daughter and son in law are strict Jews, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he's given them the Golan Heights and has listened to their advice on Iran (bad idea). He's not after Jewish votes necessarily, because there are only about 2 million Jews in the U.S . But being more "affluent on average" he's more likely after some big campaign contributions.
Guesser San Francisco 2h ago
Everyone in my Jewish family votes Democratic, although we have all done well financially. I remember growing up that my Dad would say that he personally would benefit financially from a Republican administration, but that it would not be good for the nation as a whole. I believe that it is not just self-interest and fear of anti-Semitism that has led Jews to favor the Democratic party, but also Jewish values, including wanting to make the world a better place.
Watah Oakland, CA 2h ago
Trump is our Nero for the 21st century. United States and the Republicans who support him will define the decline of our status in the world stage.
JUHallCLU San Francisco Bay Area, CA 3h ago
An argument can also be made that Netanyahu (extreme Right) has been excessively partisan to the degree that it has divided both Israel and diaspora Jews. Israel might be bettered by negotiating with all of its territorial stakeholders. Land is at issue. Palestinians will not vanish or evaporate. The West Bank must be addressed. The Trump rubber stamp of a Jarusalem Embassy does not solve much.
Alan J. Shaw Bayside, NY 2h ago
@Justice Support for Israel may mean many things, at its most basic it's a belief that Israel had and still has a right to exist among the nations of the world. If one believes that at its inception it was and continues to be nothing more than an "ethnoreligious state," that imay not be support , though Krugman distinguises between the former and criticism of the current Israeli administration. I suppose the commenter would also find theocratic states like Saudi Arabia or Iran "deeply problematic " One thing for sure is that most Jews will not suport the supposedly Zionist Trump when he says that Jews who vote Democratic are either uninformed or disloyal.
Skip Moreland Baldwinsville 2h ago
@Justice My own take is that american jews support having a home for jews, esp in the land they came from. But the government of Israel is conservative while most american jews are more liberal. There are many liberal jews in Israel. I support the idea of a homeland for the jews, just not how that has been accomplished. Real democracy is fragile and far too many countries are moving from democracy to more authoritarian governments.
Eben Spinoza 5h ago
I'm told that many Israelis who were enthusiastic about Trump got a wakeup call when he abandoned the Kurds. They now better understand that he regards everyone as disposable, and can't imagine that anyone could be motivated by something other than pure-self interest.
edwardc San Francisco Bay Area 4h ago
@Eben Sadly, Donald is not the first president to abandon the Kurds. In the words of Henry Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Yes, this could conceivably at some time in the future be relevant to Israel. Even if not under Donald.
Election Inspector Seattle 3h ago
@edwardc - Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Our current problem is that the "interests" being pursued are solely those of Donald Trump personally -- appeasing his secret Russian lenders; doing the bidding of "tough" guy dictators like Turkey's so he can feel tough himself and build hotels in their capitals; exercising his long held bigotry about people of color in this country. Our allies the Kurds, on the other hand, helped with an actual, important US national interest: beating ISIS and holding it back from growing again to where it can resume attacking us. But since that doesn't put money in Trump's pocket he abandons the cause.
Concerned Citizen Anywheresville 2h ago
@Eben : I have great empathy for the Kurdish people, but does "support for the Kurds" mean we must stay in Iraq and Afghanistan literally forever? we've already been there going on 17 years -- at the cost of trillions of dollars spent and thousands of American lives.
Jacquie Iowa 5h ago
"In last year's midterms, 52 percent of voters with incomes over $200,000 voted Republican, compared with only 38 percent of voters with incomes under $50,000. The rightward tilt is especially strong at the very top; although there are a few high-profile liberal billionaires, most of the extremely wealthy are also extremely right-wing." And that group will vote for Trump for re-election even if he is impeached unfortunately.
Gone Coastal NorCal 5h ago
Israel does not seem to understand the long term damage being done to its country. The U.S. has always been its number one defender, but there is a whole generation of Americans that think Israel is bad, that it is mistreating the Palestinians. Demographics are working against it. Israel can always look to Europe, but I don't know how that is going to work out in the long run.
dr scott Kailua Kona 4h ago
@Gone Coastal Trump is all about the sugar high you get from immediate gratification of the baser impulses. His influence will end soon enough, perhaps another five years but the potential destruction of the Repulican party and the reaction against Trumpism could last for decades. Its a big danger to Israel if Israel is just seen as the last gasp of European colonialism and a part of the Western white world : a European imposition on the middle east. Roosevelt tried to create institutions that would lead to peace though out the life times of the people who lived when he was president. Sadly Trump is making strides to destroy the institutions initiated by Roosevelt, leaving a world where small countries are more easily bullied by their larger neighbors.

[Dec 10, 2019] Former Ukrainian Prosecutor Exposes Yovanovich Perjury, George Kent's Motive To Impeach Trump by Sundance

Notable quotes:
"... Ms. Rion spoke with Ukrainian former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who outlines how former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself before Congress . ..."
"... What is outlined in this interview is a problem for all DC politicians across both parties. The obviously corrupt influence efforts by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as outlined by Lutsenko were not done independently. ..."
"... Senators from both parties participated in the influence process and part of those influence priorities was exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously protecting Joe Biden and his family. This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch. ..."
Dec 10, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Former Ukrainian Prosecutor Exposes Yovanovich Perjury, George Kent's Motive To Impeach Trump by Tyler Durden Mon, 12/09/2019 - 19:40 0 SHARES

Authored by Sundance via the Conservative Treehouse

In a fantastic display of true investigative journalism, One America News journalist Chanel Rion tracked down Ukrainian witnesses as part of an exclusive OAN investigative series. The evidence being discovered dismantles the baseless Adam Schiff impeachment hoax and highlights many corrupt motives for U.S. politicians.

Ms. Rion spoke with Ukrainian former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who outlines how former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself before Congress .

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KgKGjoIkaXU

What is outlined in this interview is a problem for all DC politicians across both parties. The obviously corrupt influence efforts by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as outlined by Lutsenko were not done independently.

Senators from both parties participated in the influence process and part of those influence priorities was exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously protecting Joe Biden and his family. This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch.

Imagine what would happen if all of the background information was to reach the general public? Thus the motive for Lindsey Graham currently working to bury it.

You might remember George Kent and Bill Taylor testified together.

It was evident months ago that U.S. chargé d'affaires to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, was one of the current participants in the coup effort against President Trump. It was Taylor who engaged in carefully planned text messages with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland to set-up a narrative helpful to Adam Schiff's political coup effort.

Bill Taylor was formerly U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine ('06-'09) and later helped the Obama administration to design the laundry operation providing taxpayer financing to Ukraine in exchange for back-channel payments to U.S. politicians and their families.

In November Rudy Giuliani released a letter he sent to Senator Lindsey Graham outlining how Bill Taylor blocked VISA's for Ukrainian 'whistle-blowers' who are willing to testify to the corrupt financial scheme.

Unfortunately, as we are now witnessing, Senator Lindsey Graham, along with dozens of U.S. Senators currently serving, may very well have been recipients for money through the aforementioned laundry process. The VISA's are unlikely to get approval for congressional testimony, or Senate impeachment trial witness testimony.

U.S. senators write foreign aid policy, rules and regulations thereby creating the financing mechanisms to transmit U.S. funds. Those same senators then received a portion of the laundered funds back through their various "institutes" and business connections to the foreign government offices; in this example Ukraine. [ex. Burisma to Biden]

The U.S. State Dept. serves as a distribution network for the authorization of the money laundering by granting conflict waivers , approvals for financing (think Clinton Global Initiative), and permission slips for the payment of foreign money. The officials within the State Dept. take a cut of the overall payments through a system of "indulgence fees", junkets, gifts and expense payments to those with political oversight.

If anyone gets too close to revealing the process, writ large, they become a target of the entire apparatus. President Trump was considered an existential threat to this entire process. Hence our current political status with the ongoing coup.

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain meeting with corrupt Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko in December 2016.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out , because, well, in reality all of the U.S. Senators (both parties) are participating in the process for receiving taxpayer money and contributions from foreign governments.

A "Codel" is a congressional delegation that takes trips to work out the payments terms/conditions of any changes in graft financing. This is why Senators spend $20 million on a campaign to earn a job paying $350k/year. The "institutes" is where the real foreign money comes in; billions paid by governments like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Ukraine, etc. etc. There are trillions at stake.

[SIDEBAR: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds the power over these members (and the members of the Senate Intel Committee), because McConnell decides who sits on what committee. As soon as a Senator starts taking the bribes lobbying funds, McConnell then has full control over that Senator. This is how the system works.]

The McCain Institute is one of the obvious examples of the financing network. And that is the primary reason why Cindy McCain is such an outspoken critic of President Trump. In essence President Trump is standing between her and her next diamond necklace; a dangerous place to be.

So when we think about a Senate Impeachment Trial; and we consider which senators will vote to impeach President Trump, it's not just a matter of Democrats -vs- Republican. We need to look at the game of leverage, and the stand-off between those bribed Senators who would prefer President Trump did not interfere in their process.

McConnell has been advising President Trump which Senators are most likely to need their sensibilities eased. As an example President Trump met with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in November. Senator Murkowski rakes in millions from the multinational Oil and Gas industry; and she ain't about to allow horrible Trump to lessen her bank account any more than Cindy McCain will give up her frequent shopper discounts at Tiffanys.

Senator Lindsey Graham announcing today that he will not request or facilitate any impeachment testimony that touches on the DC laundry system for personal financial benefit (ie. Ukraine example), is specifically motivated by the need for all DC politicians to keep prying eyes away from the swamps' financial endeavors. WATCH:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HnMb1R1XsyM

This open-secret system of "Affluence and Influence" is how the intelligence apparatus gains such power. All of the DC participants are essentially beholden to the various U.S. intelligence services who are well aware of their endeavors.

There's a ton of exposure here (blackmail/leverage) which allows the unelected officials within the CIA, FBI and DOJ to hold power over the DC politicians. Hold this type of leverage long enough and the Intelligence Community then absorbs that power to enhance their self-belief of being more important than the system.

Perhaps this corrupt sense of grandiosity is what we are seeing play out in how the intelligence apparatus views President Donald J Trump as a risk to their importance.


bhakta , 48 minutes ago link

It is all about cash. Nothing else matters to these people in DC.

Helg Saracen , 42 minutes ago link

Everyone loves money. I like money. The only question is how to earn them. Neither I, nor you, nor many of us will cross a certain moral and ethical line (border), but there are people without morality, without ethical standards, without conscience. We all look the same outwardly, but we are all completely different inside.

Colonel Klinks Ghost , 59 minutes ago link

Jesus Christ I'm glad McStain is gone. So many other corrupt officials need a good brain cancer.

Helg Saracen , 47 minutes ago link

You are an evil person. It was a tragedy. Surgeons failed to save the unfortunate tumor from McCain. ;)

Helg Saracen , 1 hour ago link

Ukraine is Obama's **** , this is not Trump's ****. Trump's stupidity was only one - he got into this ****. I wrote, but I repeat - USA acted as the best friend in relation to Russia, having taken off a leech from Russia and hanging it on itself. Do you know such an estate of Rothschilds - called Israel and its role in the life of USA?

So, Ukraine was for the Russians the same Israel in terms of meaningless spending. Look at Vlad, in 2014 he looked like a fox who was eating a chicken, and on January 1, 2020 he will look like a fox who eating a whole brood of chickens. I think he has portraits of Obama and Trump in his bedroom.

Cat Daddy , 4 hours ago link

Yes, indeed. Lindsey will bury the story, he is on the take. Your tax dollars at work. By the way, the Fed picked up all of the Ukies gold for safekeeping at 33 Liberty St. NY, with Yats permission, of course.... https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-18/ukraine-admits-its-gold-gone

hanekhw , 4 hours ago link

A glimpse into how elected officials accumulate millions, retire wealthy, pampered and privileged....and I'm not talking pensions I'm talking corruption. Obama, Biden, Hillary, Kerry, Holder, Rice and ALL the senior Obama Administration officials knew of each other's corrupt sinecures.

Soloamber , 4 hours ago link

I am willing to give Graham the benefit of doubt because the alternative means some serious **** is coming .

The politicians have gotten comfortable that people will do nothing . BIG mistake .

Biden seems see oblivious to what he's done and perhaps this explains it . It's ******* routine .

Lets see their financial records from the day they were elected to the present .

SoDamnMad , 20 minutes ago link

You will find very little information. City of London offshore trusts cover their tracks.

Dumpster Elite , 4 hours ago link

The author actually seems to know what's going on behind the curtain, and not just blindly speculating.

docloxvio , 2 hours ago link

Well, it is based on a OAN story. Believe it or not, they actually sent a reporter to Ukraine to talk to people with knowledge of the matter and look what they came up with. Kind of makes you wonder why other well funded news organizations never thought to do something like that.

peippe , 2 hours ago link

it's been known for at least weeks that the embassy Kunt withheld travel visas for Ukraine State attorneys.

so this in endemic,

till Trump. I love this.

Soloamber , 4 hours ago link

How does Obama buy a $ 11+ million water front estate ?

Book sales ? Nah don't think so .

You know what it costs to operate a house and property that big each year plus all the other trappings ?

He ain't driving a 64 Cricket automatic .

Gore left politics with what $2 million and now has over $200 million .

Saving the planet pays big doesn't ?

If Lindsey Graham is part of this where does it end ?

The politicians and central bankers are bankrupting the country , dumping $trillions in debt on kids that can't vote

and now we find out they are taking massive bribes ?

Really not sure if Trump can fix the broken system by himself .

If this is true the Senate will vote him out .

Serrano , 4 hours ago link

Sen. Graham tells Maria Bartiromo he will end impeachment quickly: 1 min. 27 sec.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DZDDzoG-SI

Birdbob , 5 hours ago link

Shocker Lindsay Graham willing to betray public trust for Dollars? That is what we deserve.

Lord Raglan , 4 hours ago link

I don't know that we deserve this. We are all working people, with families to raise, taxes to pay and the Dems and Commies have been working against us 24/7. And most of them get paid to do so from government jobs that pay them 8 hours a day when many work 1 hour a day, all the while scheming against us.

If Trump wins a second term, he is gonna **** these people up good.

PrideOfMammon , 3 hours ago link

No he isnt. He IS these people.

teolawki , 5 hours ago link

Now that I've read the article, I'm both shocked and appalled at learning that Ukraine is a money laundering operation for the politically connected. (They provide many other 'perks' as well.)

I've warned about light in the loafers Lindsey as well as McConnell before and more than once. Sessions should also be denied a re-admission into the swamp. There are others.

[Dec 10, 2019] The key factor in USSR's demise was that it couldn't sustain the competition with the West and wasn't able to develop, "progress", "grow" at the rate the West was showing off. US and USSR levels were far closer back in 1950 than in 1980, and the discrepancy was only growing

Dec 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Clueless Joe , Dec 9 2019 16:28 utc | 100

John Brewster - 90
Did you by chance confuse Russia with Italy? Because Russia has close to 150M people, not 65M, significantly more than Germany. Granted, less than USSR back in 1939, but militarily more powerful compared to Germany - and possibly with more exploited resources.

vk - 79
I tend to agree with the view that the key factor in USSR's demise was that it couldn't sustain the competition with the Kapital and wasn't able to develop, "progress", "grow" at the rate the West was showing off. US and USSR levels were far closer back in 1950 than in 1980, and the discrepancy was only growing. Reagan fanboys might argue that he sped up the decaying process, but troubles and upheavals were going to happen, no matter what. Now, why this rate of progress was so different is another matter, and probably the most important one - both for 20th century history and for the fate of the West in this century.
It's also painfully obvious that the only path outside downright servitude for Europe is to distance itself from the USA and seek if not a direct alliance at least a clear partnership with Russia and a "detente" with clear rules on their borders and a common declaration of neutrality over Ukraine - as in: no side will try to annex the whole country, which either would be split up or ideally would have a heavy dose of decentralization and localism. But it is of vital importance for the actual survival of Europe that atlanticists and Russiaphobes be hunted down and expelled from any position of power or influence - be it from economy, media, politics.

[Dec 10, 2019] Those geriatric crazies like Pelosi, or Hillary, or completly corrupt, bought by lobbies politicos like Schumer or Schiff, and their stooges like "linguist" Ciaramella, "politruk", master of arts in Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian studies Vindman, or Soros-connected rabid neocon Fiona Hill do not know what seven minutes on launch means

They poisoned with the USA with Russophobia for decades to come, and that really increases the risk of nuclear confrontation, which would wipe out all this jerks, but also mass of innocent people.
Notable quotes:
"... The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5. Not holding my breath I am afraid. ..."
"... Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better distractions). ..."
Dec 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS , says: December 10, 2019 at 8:07 pm GMT

O.K.

I was, actually, thinking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pershing_II#Protests Or, just follow this trend of "who has a bigger dick" as it is.

Sooner or later you'll have this, IMHO: Reaction time 7 minutes . You know, decision-making time to say "launch" or not. The decision-maker in the White House, Downing Street and Elysees Palace either a geriatric or one of this new multiracial breed. Just think about those people

Add to that the level of overall expertise by the crews manning those systems, its maintenance etc. Add increased automation of some parts of the launch process with hardware/software as it's produced now (you know, quality control etc.).

It will take a miracle not to have that launch sooner or later. Not big, say .80 KT. What happens after that is anybody's guess. Mine, taking the second point from the fourth paragraph .a big bang.

The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5.
Not holding my breath I am afraid.

My 2 cents, anyway.

Anon [138] Disclaimer , says: December 10, 2019 at 9:30 pm GMT
@peterAUS The rational actor false supposition has it that the biologics can't be used because they don't recognize friend from foe.

Rational actors? Where? Anthrax via the US mail.

One rational actor point of view is that you have to be able to respond to anything. Anything. In a measured or escalating response. Of course biologics are being actively pursued to the hilt. Just like you point out about Marburg.

But, the view from above is that general panic in the population cannot be allowed, and so all biologics have to be down played. "of course we would never do anything like that, it would be insane to endanger all of humanity". Just like nukes. So professors pontificate misdirection, and pundits punt.

So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis. "We only want the fear that results in more appropriations. Not the fear that sinks programs." Don't generate new Church commissions. Hence the fine line. some fear yes, other fears, no.

peterAUS , says: December 10, 2019 at 10:23 pm GMT
@Anon

Rational actors? Where?

Well Washington D.C.
Hahahahaha sorry, couldn't resist.

So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis.

I don't.

But I also probably forgot more about nuclear war than most of readers here will ever know. And chemical, when you think about it; had a kit with atropine on me all the time in all exercises. We didn't practice much that "biologics" stuff, though. We knew why, then. Same reason for today. Call it a "stoic option" to own inevitable demise.

Now, there is a big difference between the age of those protests I mentioned and today. The Internet. The access to information people, then, simply didn't have.

Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better distractions).

Well, they will care, I am sure. For about ..say in the USA ..several hours, on average.

We here where I am typing from will care for "how to survive the aftermath" .. for two months.Tops.

[Dec 09, 2019] The Interagency Isn t Supposed to Rule in Foreign Policy

Notable quotes:
"... I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense. ..."
"... He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign. ..."
"... When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress. ..."
"... Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over. ..."
Dec 09, 2019 | www.wsj.com

Enthusiasm over entrepreneurship is now found in every corner of society -- even, apparently, within the federal bureaucracy. Witness after witness in last month's House impeachment inquiry hearings referred to "the interagency," an off-the-books informal government organization that we now know has enormous power to set and execute American foreign policy.

The first to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, State Department official George Kent, seemed to conceive of the interagency as the definitive source of foreign-policy consensus. That Mr. Trump's alleged decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine deviated from that consensus was, for Mr. Kent, prima facie evidence that it was misguided.

Next up, Ambassador William Taylor told the committee that it was the "unanimous opinion of every level of interagency discussion" that the aid should be resumed without delay. Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, gave the game away by admitting how upset she was that Gordon Sondland, President Trump's ambassador to the European Union, had established an "alternative" approach to helping Kyiv. "We have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine," she said.

What is the interagency, and why should its views guide the conduct of American diplomatic and national-security professionals? The Constitution grants the president the power to set defense and diplomatic policy. Where did this interagency come from?

I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense.

How Did Adam Schiff Get Devin Nunes's Phone Records? How did Adam Schiff get Devin Nunes's phone records? bb0282a3-e4cb-42ba-9988-2f3df57fd912@1.00x Created with sketchtool.

He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign.

Interagency cooperative agreements have been around for decades. The Justice Department, for example, has opioid-interdiction programs that require it to work with the Department of Homeland Security. Today a dictionary of more than 12,500 official terms exists to guide bureaucrats in writing interagency contracts that repurpose federal funds appropriated to various executive departments. Often these interdepartmental initiatives devised by bureaucrats are unknown to Congress. It's hard to imagine that the legislative branch wouldn't object to these arrangements, if only it were aware of them.

When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress.

Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over.

The impeachment hearings will have served a useful purpose if all they do is demonstrate that a cabal of unelected officials are fashioning profound aspects of U.S. foreign policy on their own motion. No statutes anticipate that the president or Congress will delegate such authority to a secret working group formed largely at the initiation of entrepreneurial bureaucrats, notwithstanding that they may be area experts, experienced in diplomatic and military affairs, and motivated by what they see as the best interests of the country.

However the impeachment drama plays out, Congress has cause to enact comprehensive legislation akin to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which created more-efficient structures and transparent processes in the Defense Department. Americans deserve to know who really is responsible for making the nation's foreign policy. The interagency, if it is to exist, should have a chairman appointed by the president, and its decisions, much like the once-secret minutes of the Federal Reserve, should be published, with limited and necessary exceptions, for all to see.

Mr. Schramm is a university professor at Syracuse. His most recent book is "Burn the Business Plan."

[Dec 09, 2019] Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree?

Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

john brewster , Dec 8 2019 18:34 utc | 18

This comment follows onto earlier comments about Ukrainian influence and media censorship.

I have always tried to keep politics out of science, in order to be able to focus clearly on the study of nature, instead of the opinions of people. Admittedly, some areas of science are completely political, such as climate change, ecology, and nuclear power. I also recognize that the so-called prestige press for science - journals such as Nature (UK) and Science (US) - are going to reflect the conventional, if not the corporate perspective.

Nevertheless, a book review in this week's (5 DEC 2019) issue of Nature really pissed me off. The book is about natural gas pipelines and their ability to overcome political differences:

The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe
by Thane Gustafson

Of course, such a topic is completely political and the author is a political scientist. Gustafson is Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University and Senior Director of Russian and Caspian Energy for HIS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, whose chairman and founder is Dr. Daniel Yergin, author of many best-selling books on the oil industry.

The offensive review is by Andrew Moracsik, whom I had never heard of. But, after a little googling, I discover that his wife is the appropriately named, Anne-Marie Slaughter. She of bomb Libya fame. (NOTE 1.) Andrew himself has quite the pedigree: educated at Stanford and Johns Hopkins (Nitze SAIS), professor at Harvard and Princeton. He is a prominent scholar of the EU and of Eastern Europe, and an editor at the journal Foreign Affairs.

Now to the review. Dr. Moracsik admits up front that:

(the book) offers a readable, intelligent, even-handed historical interpretation of this relationship.

In other words, he can't fault the book for inaccuracy. But his purpose is really to bring the non-stop villification of Russia to the pages of a scientific journal. Here are the unfounded, false, and weasel-worded assertions he makes:

Russia also provoked a series of interventions and conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, Syria, and Ukraine. The West responded by imposing sanctions...More recently, Russia has become involved in the disruption of elections in the West, and in cyberwarfare.

Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, and director of the EU Program, at Princeton University in New Jersey.

-----

Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree? Well, the obvious answer is that that is the pedigree that gets you into the club of Russia hatred and gets you a free pass from criticism about bias. In an earlier comment at MoA, I mentioned how the fascist Ukrainian spy network of Reinhard Gehlen became the lens through which all CIA (and therefore US) foreign policy was seen.

In Moravcsik's case the pedigree runs through his father, Michael Julius Moracsik. Michael was a refugee from Hungary in 1948, who subsequently got a Ph.D in physics from Cornell. He eventually became a scientific fellow at NATO. (NOTE 2.)

Just to round out the players' pedigrees, the author, Dr. Gustafson has given papers at the Danyliw Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine, which describes itself as

"A unique forum for researchers from Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere open to all social science and humanities research topics touching on Ukraine."

(Ah, Canada, whose deputy prime minister is Chrystia Freeland, an unrepentant defender of her Banderite Ukrainian grandfather.) So, clearly Gustafson is a member of the club and hence, the acknowledgement of factual correctness by Moravscik.

-------

This book review in this journal has driven home to me how complete the propaganda bubble is in the Five Eyes countries. How does one have an impact in the face of such overwhelming institutionalized propaganda? We have certainly reached the point described by Hannah Arendt:

Equality of condition among their subjects is not sufficient for totalitarian rule because it leaves more or less intact certain nonpolitical communal bonds between subjects, such as family ties and common cultural interests. If totalitarianism takes its own claim seriously, it must come to the point where it has "to finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess," that is, with the autonomous existence of any activity whatsoever. The lovers of "chess for the sake of chess", aptly compared by their liquidator with the lovers of "art for art's sake", are not yet absolutely atomized elements in a mass society whose completely homogeneous uniformity is one of the primary conditions for totalitarianism. From the point of view of totalitarian rulers, a society devoted to chess for the sake of chess is only in degree different and less dangerous than a class of farmers for the sake of farming.

-p 322

So, I continue to read and post at MoA, but I have no expectation that it amounts to anything more than German's listening to the BBC in WW2 did. What I do expect is that, sooner or later, MoA will be blacklisted for simply relating true facts.


----


NOTE 1

Slaughter served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School from 1989–1994

On 23 January 2009, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced the appointment of Slaughter as the new Director of Policy Planning under the Obama administration.

In July 2005, Slaughter wrote in the American Journal of International Law about the responsibility to protect (R2P).

Slaughter wrote a strong endorsement of Western military intervention in Libya. In this op-ed, Slaughter challenged the skeptics who questioned the NATO use of force in Libya,

On 25 August 2011, she was roundly criticized by Matt Welch, who sorted through many of Slaughter's prior op-eds and concluded that she was a "situational constitutionalist".

Clifford May on 15 October 2014 wrote a piece in which he drew a straight line between Annan and Slaughter's R2P "norm", and the failure in Libya. May noted that President Obama had cited the R2P norm as his primary justification for using military force with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had threatened to attack the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

In an 11 November 2014 piece entitled What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones?, Glenn Greenwald denounced her and her policies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne-Marie_Slaughter


NOTE 2:

Michael Julius Moravcsik - Hungarian, American physics professor.
Recipient Derek de Solla Price memorial medal;
Scientists and Engineers for Economic Development grant, 1974,
Senior fellow in Science, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1974.

Background

Moravcsik, Michael Julius was born on June 25, 1928 in Budapest, Hungary.
Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1954.

Education

Student, University Budapest, 1946 -- 1948.
AB cum laude, Harvard University, 1951.
Doctor of Philosophy, Cornell University, 1956.

https://prabook.com/web/michael_julius.moravcsik/797937


John Gilberts , Dec 8 2019 16:43 utc | 10

Banderite lobby (Ukrainian World Congress) seeks to sabotage upcoming Normandy Four summit:

https://mailchi.mp/ukrainianworldcongress/uwc-expresses-condolences-on-death-of-osce-monitor-741073

"Ahead of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris, I once again highlight the key priorities of the Ukrainian World Congress position in support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. We ask that Ukrainian communities around the world maintain and call upon their national leaders to maintain a clear and unequivocal position, specifically that..."

james , Dec 8 2019 20:27 utc | 34
@29 john brewster... here - let me ''react''.. you gave a few really great examples.. i don't know that anyone here would dispute how insipid all these russophobic articles are, or worse, that they all follow a constant theme running out of the 5 eyes central offices..

it is entirely predictable at this point and you're absolutely correct - 110% propaganda... y

ou've given another good example here with the treatment of stephen cohen... what i find shocking is the lack of embarrassment towards all of this..

people in the west seem to be devoid of any type of response to it all, other then us commenting on moa about it.. i don't know how any of it is going to change..

it seems to me the desire to protest all this is really low here in the west..

i admire the french for the protests they have been engaged in the past few months, which get very little msm coverage.. i wish we could protest about all the propaganda we are subject to here in canada or the usa, but we haven't reached a critical point in it all yet it seems..

jayc , Dec 8 2019 23:27 utc | 51

james #27 - " the drivel chris brown - regular columist for cbc posts.. and typically his drivel is not open to comments.. here is his latest bs - In an obliterated landscape, war-weary Ukrainians hope peace summit ends fighting for an insight into completely lopsided reporting"

Is it my fading memory, or was the CBC once a relatively professional source of international reporting? This piece is notably bad - not just from the skewed account of 2014's events, or the insistence on describing Donbass as "separatist", or the map which includes Crimea as part of Ukraine. How is it that the Minsk Accords no longer seem to exist in the corporate media, or the upcoming meeting in Paris properly described as a continuation of that process (alleged failure to "live up" to said accords was used as a stick against Putin for several years, and now their possible realization is vaguely referred to as something bad). Why does a Chatham House spokesperson get to define Ukraine's supposed "red lines", which are in reality the political position of the badly defeated former government? Why is Zelensky's oft stated policy position presented here as Russian-induced capitulation? Brown interviews four women of whom he says "none would tell us their last name out of fear of repercussions from local authorities" except they allowed for their photos to be taken and published. All of these story points result from conscious decisions, not sloppy errors.

[Dec 09, 2019] NATO Seeking To Dominate The World Eliminate Competitors Russia's Lavrov

Notable quotes:
"... Image via AFP ..."
"... Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under the guise of NATO as well. ..."
"... "Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ." ..."
"... NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in search of new official enemies. ..."
"... I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces. ..."
"... What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO. ..."
"... Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this. ..."
"... LOL. The NATO ONLY serves US interests. It has the same function as always. Keep the US in, Russia out and Germany down. ..."
"... The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon the myth of American exceptionalism. ..."
"... US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed. ..."
"... Technocratic sociopaths, doing a CYA for their incompetence. ..."
"... ZATO cries out in pain as it strikes you. ..."
Dec 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

NATO Seeking To "Dominate The World" & Eliminate Competitors: Russia's Lavrov by Tyler Durden Mon, 12/09/2019 - 02:45 0 SHARES

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has charged NATO with wanting to "dominate the world" a day after 70th anniversary events of the alliance concluded in London.

"We absolutely understand that NATO wants to dominate the world and wants to eliminate any competitors, including resorting to an information war, trying to unbalance us and China," Lavrov said from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, while attending the 26th Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

He seized upon NATO leaders' comments this week, specifically Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, naming China as a new enemy alongside Russia . Stoltenberg declared at the summit that NATO has to "tackle the issue" of China's growing capabilities.

Image via AFP

Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under the guise of NATO as well.

The new accusation of 'world domination' comes at a crisis moment of growing and deep divisions over the future of the Cold War era military alliance, including back-and-forth comments on Macron's "brain death" remarks, and looming questions over Turkey's fitness to remain in NATO, and the ongoing debate over cost sharing burdens and the scope of the mission.

"Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ."

A consistent theme of Lavrov's has been to call for a "post-West world order" but that NATO has "remained a Cold War institution" hindering balance in global relations where countries can pursue their own national interests.

NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in search of new official enemies.


beemasters , 7 minutes ago link

Remember the last Bilderberg meeting. Russia and China were not invited. The globalists have planned this, and apparently, Russia has better intelligence to know what's going on, and they will take the necessary precautions, along with China. Let's just hope it's not going to lead us to WW3.

45North1 , 34 minutes ago link

I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces.

Helg Saracen , 49 minutes ago link

NATO is not trying to dominate, NATO is trying to extend its profit from frightened European donkeys who still believe that the USSR exists, and Uncle Joe sits in the Kremlin and eats a Christian baby in garlic sauce for lunch.

Helg Saracen , 42 minutes ago link

What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO.

So there will be a big "raspathosovka" with shooting and explosions, do not even doubt it.. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO. So there will be a big **** with shooting and explosions, do not even doubt it.

I'll just repeat the erased: NATO - lovers of freebies and they don't refuse this freebie voluntarily. Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this.

SnatchnGrab , 2 hours ago link

NATO is obsolete. The organization no longer serves US interests, and quite frankly, hasn't for some time. I respectfully suggest the USA move all forces out of Germany on day 1, and station them at Fort Trump in Poland.

Day 2, the US forms a new "mutual defense pact" with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. (Former Eastern Bloc nations)

Russia and Germany can duke it out, just not where our guys are hanging out. Hades, Germany and France can limp wrist at each other as they have done in the past so many times. But insofar as US troops leaving continental Europe forever? Sorry Sergei, that ain't happening, no matter how much propaganda you shove up western europe's (willing) ***.

schroedingersrat , 2 hours ago link

NATO is obsolete. The organization no longer serves US interests,

LOL. The NATO ONLY serves US interests. It has the same function as always. Keep the US in, Russia out and Germany down.

BritBob , 2 hours ago link

Meanwhile Vlad makes new friends around the world... Last year Putin signed accords with President Macri of Argentina which included Russia recognizing Argentina's Falklands claim. (La Voz, 23 Jan 2018).

An Argentinian claim based upon 'usurpation' – meaningless in the 18th century and inheritance from Spain just like Mexico inherited California and Texas.

Falklands – Argentina's Inheritance Problem (1 pg): https://www.academia.edu/35194694/Falklands_Argentinas_Inheritance_Problem

Noob678 , 3 hours ago link

NATO, ISIS, US military, muslim terror groups, all 5Eyes+1 are all Zionist proxy armies.

BobPaulson , 2 hours ago link

The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety. As it stands, I am not excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing. People have been predicting that for a while and for the moment, I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate. The US is a crooked gangster, but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big league.

Shemp 4 Victory , 1 hour ago link

The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety.

The NATO disadvantage right now is of the "sitting with pants full of **** and asking others who farted" variety.

As it stands, I am not excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing.

The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon the myth of American exceptionalism.

I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate.

US imperial decline is reminiscent of Casey at the Bat.

but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big league.

Or they've decided the US game is not worth playing.

khnum , 4 hours ago link

Since 2013 I have followed Russian foreign policy and actions in the middle east and elsewhere,thanks to statesmen like Lavrov they have crossed every t and dotted every i following international law and convention, true history will be a lot kinder to Russia than N ot A nother T errorist O rganisation

Luau , 3 hours ago link

What is happening to Europe is the same as what's happening to Russia, only Russia didn't ask for it. Nevertheless, Azeris and Tatars are on the rise demographically, and Russians are on the decline.

Arising , 4 hours ago link

Come on Mr Lavrov, how dare you use diplomacy to state the obvious?

iuyyyyui , 4 hours ago link

I don't think Russia ... or China for that matter ... need to worry much. The West is imploding and NATO will implode along with it. The West can't even depend on its technical superiority anymore ( see Boeing 737MAX ); it sure can't depend on (most of) its people to do any real fighting.

Conscious Reviver , 42 minutes ago link

I'm sure as Rome collapsed, there were half-wits back then, swearing it wasn't happening too.

Thom Paine , 4 hours ago link

NATO is fading and becoming a contradictory mess. China and Russia will be the foe, with possibly India, and far more effective, economically and militarily. Europe doesn't stand a chance against these no matter how they posture, their slope is downward.

US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed.

HRClinton , 4 hours ago link

Technocratic sociopaths, doing a CYA for their incompetence.

HRClinton , 4 hours ago link

IBID:

"The problem is ZATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only ZATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ."

FIFY, Lavrov

ZATO cries out in pain as it strikes you.

[Dec 09, 2019] One of the best indicators of imperial violence is displaced persons

Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Russ , Dec 9 2019 9:32 utc | 77

A User , Dec 9 2019 7:13 utc | 72

One of things which concerns me most about this site and most others inhabited by contrarian blokes of a certain age is the way that topics discussed are most often the same topics as those fed to the mugs via corporate media.

Sure the opinions are vastly different, but the subjects are not. So much energy and time wasted on pointless topics like the amerikan prez when we all know that it really doesn't matter who jags that gig nothing meaningful will alter for amerikans or the people outside amerika oppressed by empire.

Now the prez thing is a bit of a troll since so many amerikans have been intensely indoctrinated right through their lives to believe that all the prezdency guff is meaningful when it so obviously isn't. That in reality the odds of any amerikan suddenly having an epiphany about the pointlessness of DC kibuki from reading this, or something similar written by someone else, are negligible.

So we have to accept, to a degree, that Washington Housewives and Days of Our Lives DC will continue to feature at MoA.

But what happens when the corporate media chooses not to consider much larger, more pernicious forms of imperialism than is currently occurring in the ME because that imperialism is nascent, awful things are being done to humans western populations who have not been sufficiently propagandised against, so may not greet the tales of murder and mayhem generated by the actions of french foreign legionaires, english SAS or amerikan special forces with sufficient approval?

Easy, we just don't talk about it except when told to or where there is no choice because some action by the imperial thugs for hire has attracted too much attention. In that case the barest of details make it into the news and we will be told that whoever it was who had their families butchered belonged to an organisation which 'western intelligence' said was 'associated with ISIS'. No specificity, not details at all apart from the one unsubstantiated claim, which lets face it says any village of humans anywhere that contains a single resident which western intelligence believes is somehow associated with ISIS, is worthy of being genocided out of existence.

I reckon one of the best indicators of imperial violence is displaced persons. We saw in the ME that various forms of ethnic cleansing were practised to persuade people to move off their traditional lands in order to either exploit the natural resources in the area (see Saudi Amerika driving tribes from the newly discovered hydrocarbon prospects in North Yemen), or to create lebensraum for another group of humans currently held in favour by the empire (see the shifting of arabs and Turkamen from North Syria to give ready made villages to Kurds which only lasted for as long as the Kurds were needed by empire).

So many people were displaced in the ME during the first half of the teens that shock, horror some european countries felt obliged to allow a few of those whose lives had been destroyed into their communities.

That was then, yet we still all talk about the ME as though it is where the empire is committing its most egregious harm, but that is no longer the case.

If you check this Pew Center article you will see The total number of people living in sub-Saharan Africa who were forced to leave their homes due to conflict reached a new high of 18.4 million in 2017, up sharply from 14.1 million in 2016 -- the largest regional increase of forcibly displaced people in the world" .

If one checks the chart Pew has provided we can see that the numbers of decent humans in the ME who have been displaced from their land is alleged to currently be 21.5 million while the number of persons displaced in sub-Sahara Africa is about 3 million less at 18.4 million.

See so more action in the ME still. No, firstly the ME curve has flattened right out over the years since 2016 meaning that new displacements are relatively low unless of course it is your whanau that has been displaced in which case it wouldn't feel nearly as benign.
Secondly if you look at the fine-print on that chart you will see the 21.5 million line is labelled "Middle East-North Africa".

Libya is an African state which happens to have a proportion of arabic speaking people in its population, it also contains Berbers (e.g. Muammar Ghadaffi) and what the chart calls "sub-Saharan Africans when they want say negro but the unfortunate connotations associated with that term (99% the result of horrific whitefella behaviour) means that negro is no longer a la mode in whitefella land.

Not enough to rape, steal & steal from black Africans, now we also remove the means to identify them as a distinct group.

The Libya africa/ME issue matters a great deal because prior to the fukusi rape of Libya, that nation acted as a bulwark for all the supra-saharan nations, some Saharan eg Niger and that was just as likely a reason for amerika to destroy Libya setting loose the ethno-centrists of Misratah to kill black africans, standover Berbers & Turks to ensure that only Arab speaking semites can get control. This is the deal the empire struck. Not to enable italy to get some of that sweet sweet crude at the sort of bargain basement prices Italy hadn't enjoyed since Mussolini invaded Libya - that was purely a minor side benefit, now the good colonel was no more, fukus became the only game in town.
There was no longer any white knight determined to protect his/her neigbours from the outright theft, extortion, bribery, rape & murder which are the empire's stock in trade.

It began with aa team of US military nuclear experts in Niger .

It is foolish and counterproductive to ignore the horrors that a US-led fukus mission which runs across the entire African continent has created in the name of more billions to the already rich.
Do it if you want, but all you are really achieving is enabling the arseholes.

There is a scarcity of relevant links for the usual reasons. Not only are you more likely to put faith in info from sources you already know & trust, getting there will help you comprehend this crime far better than something easily digestible from a user, and most importantly the final paras were done long after the sun rose over the yardarm here.

@ A User 72

All very true. I would place the de jure war onslaughts within the overall context of globalization and in particular the imperialistic assault of corporate industrial agriculture upon Africa, the last great semi-frontier which wasn't fully assimilated by the first "Green Revolution" onslaught. A main goal as the global empire faces decline or collapse is to seize control of all land and drive the people OUT.

Globalization acts to destroy all local production and distribution. It destroys this outright or seizes control of it in order to force it into the global commodity framework. It seizes control of indigenous land and resources. It dumps subsidized Western goods. It destroys any functional politics and democracy. It imposes the control of multinational corporations over every part of life it can. It does this purely in the power interests of Western elites. Any benefits it lets trickle down to locals are purely calculated payouts to accomplices. Much of the global South has been crushed under the corporate boot this way, and Africa has already been subject to the IMF and World Bank’s debt indenture shock treatment (“structural adjustment”).

All this has been accompanied by the systematic ravaging of African ecosystems, culminating in the rising climate chaos driven by the patterns of energy consumption, waste, and ecological destruction practiced and imposed by Western industrialized productionism and consumerism. Climate change is caused by these actions. Since corporate state elites and their supporters have long known this and in spite of lots of lip service have refused to do anything to avert the worst of it, it’s long been true that climate change is an intentional campaign of aggression against the Earth and all vulnerable peoples. Thus climate change takes its place as the most extreme and far-reaching of the corporate campaigns designed to cause disaster, destruction, and chaos. According to this pattern of disaster capitalism the corporations then proceed to use the crises they intentionally generate as further opportunities for aggression and profit. All corporate sectors practice this, and corporate agriculture is the most aggressive and destructive practitioner of all. Today Africa is its primary new target.

Corporate control of agriculture and food has always been at the core of the globalization onslaught. In accordance with its food weapon the US government systematically has waged economic, political, chemical, biological (both of the former in the form of poison-based agriculture and other pretexts for systemic and systematic environmental poisoning), and often literal shooting warfare. Throughout this history of war and sublimated war, corporate agriculture has been a constant weapon and battleground as well as its aggrandizement being a constant goal.

[Dec 09, 2019] Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree?

Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

john brewster , Dec 8 2019 18:34 utc | 18

This comment follows onto earlier comments about Ukrainian influence and media censorship.

I have always tried to keep politics out of science, in order to be able to focus clearly on the study of nature, instead of the opinions of people. Admittedly, some areas of science are completely political, such as climate change, ecology, and nuclear power. I also recognize that the so-called prestige press for science - journals such as Nature (UK) and Science (US) - are going to reflect the conventional, if not the corporate perspective.

Nevertheless, a book review in this week's (5 DEC 2019) issue of Nature really pissed me off. The book is about natural gas pipelines and their ability to overcome political differences:

The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe
by Thane Gustafson

Of course, such a topic is completely political and the author is a political scientist. Gustafson is Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University and Senior Director of Russian and Caspian Energy for HIS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, whose chairman and founder is Dr. Daniel Yergin, author of many best-selling books on the oil industry.

The offensive review is by Andrew Moracsik, whom I had never heard of. But, after a little googling, I discover that his wife is the appropriately named, Anne-Marie Slaughter. She of bomb Libya fame. (NOTE 1.) Andrew himself has quite the pedigree: educated at Stanford and Johns Hopkins (Nitze SAIS), professor at Harvard and Princeton. He is a prominent scholar of the EU and of Eastern Europe, and an editor at the journal Foreign Affairs.

Now to the review. Dr. Moracsik admits up front that:

(the book) offers a readable, intelligent, even-handed historical interpretation of this relationship.

In other words, he can't fault the book for inaccuracy. But his purpose is really to bring the non-stop villification of Russia to the pages of a scientific journal. Here are the unfounded, false, and weasel-worded assertions he makes:

Russia also provoked a series of interventions and conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, Syria, and Ukraine. The West responded by imposing sanctions...More recently, Russia has become involved in the disruption of elections in the West, and in cyberwarfare.

Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, and director of the EU Program, at Princeton University in New Jersey.

-----

Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree? Well, the obvious answer is that that is the pedigree that gets you into the club of Russia hatred and gets you a free pass from criticism about bias. In an earlier comment at MoA, I mentioned how the fascist Ukrainian spy network of Reinhard Gehlen became the lens through which all CIA (and therefore US) foreign policy was seen.

In Moravcsik's case the pedigree runs through his father, Michael Julius Moracsik. Michael was a refugee from Hungary in 1948, who subsequently got a Ph.D in physics from Cornell. He eventually became a scientific fellow at NATO. (NOTE 2.)

Just to round out the players' pedigrees, the author, Dr. Gustafson has given papers at the Danyliw Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine, which describes itself as

"A unique forum for researchers from Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere open to all social science and humanities research topics touching on Ukraine."

(Ah, Canada, whose deputy prime minister is Chrystia Freeland, an unrepentant defender of her Banderite Ukrainian grandfather.) So, clearly Gustafson is a member of the club and hence, the acknowledgement of factual correctness by Moravscik.

-------

This book review in this journal has driven home to me how complete the propaganda bubble is in the Five Eyes countries. How does one have an impact in the face of such overwhelming institutionalized propaganda? We have certainly reached the point described by Hannah Arendt:

Equality of condition among their subjects is not sufficient for totalitarian rule because it leaves more or less intact certain nonpolitical communal bonds between subjects, such as family ties and common cultural interests. If totalitarianism takes its own claim seriously, it must come to the point where it has "to finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess," that is, with the autonomous existence of any activity whatsoever. The lovers of "chess for the sake of chess", aptly compared by their liquidator with the lovers of "art for art's sake", are not yet absolutely atomized elements in a mass society whose completely homogeneous uniformity is one of the primary conditions for totalitarianism. From the point of view of totalitarian rulers, a society devoted to chess for the sake of chess is only in degree different and less dangerous than a class of farmers for the sake of farming.

-p 322

So, I continue to read and post at MoA, but I have no expectation that it amounts to anything more than German's listening to the BBC in WW2 did. What I do expect is that, sooner or later, MoA will be blacklisted for simply relating true facts.


----


NOTE 1

Slaughter served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School from 1989–1994

On 23 January 2009, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced the appointment of Slaughter as the new Director of Policy Planning under the Obama administration.

In July 2005, Slaughter wrote in the American Journal of International Law about the responsibility to protect (R2P).

Slaughter wrote a strong endorsement of Western military intervention in Libya. In this op-ed, Slaughter challenged the skeptics who questioned the NATO use of force in Libya,

On 25 August 2011, she was roundly criticized by Matt Welch, who sorted through many of Slaughter's prior op-eds and concluded that she was a "situational constitutionalist".

Clifford May on 15 October 2014 wrote a piece in which he drew a straight line between Annan and Slaughter's R2P "norm", and the failure in Libya. May noted that President Obama had cited the R2P norm as his primary justification for using military force with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had threatened to attack the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

In an 11 November 2014 piece entitled What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones?, Glenn Greenwald denounced her and her policies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne-Marie_Slaughter


NOTE 2:

Michael Julius Moravcsik - Hungarian, American physics professor.
Recipient Derek de Solla Price memorial medal;
Scientists and Engineers for Economic Development grant, 1974,
Senior fellow in Science, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1974.

Background

Moravcsik, Michael Julius was born on June 25, 1928 in Budapest, Hungary.
Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1954.

Education

Student, University Budapest, 1946 -- 1948.
AB cum laude, Harvard University, 1951.
Doctor of Philosophy, Cornell University, 1956.

https://prabook.com/web/michael_julius.moravcsik/797937


John Gilberts , Dec 8 2019 16:43 utc | 10

Banderite lobby (Ukrainian World Congress) seeks to sabotage upcoming Normandy Four summit:

https://mailchi.mp/ukrainianworldcongress/uwc-expresses-condolences-on-death-of-osce-monitor-741073

"Ahead of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris, I once again highlight the key priorities of the Ukrainian World Congress position in support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. We ask that Ukrainian communities around the world maintain and call upon their national leaders to maintain a clear and unequivocal position, specifically that..."

james , Dec 8 2019 20:27 utc | 34
@29 john brewster... here - let me ''react''.. you gave a few really great examples.. i don't know that anyone here would dispute how insipid all these russophobic articles are, or worse, that they all follow a constant theme running out of the 5 eyes central offices..

it is entirely predictable at this point and you're absolutely correct - 110% propaganda... y

ou've given another good example here with the treatment of stephen cohen... what i find shocking is the lack of embarrassment towards all of this..

people in the west seem to be devoid of any type of response to it all, other then us commenting on moa about it.. i don't know how any of it is going to change..

it seems to me the desire to protest all this is really low here in the west..

i admire the french for the protests they have been engaged in the past few months, which get very little msm coverage.. i wish we could protest about all the propaganda we are subject to here in canada or the usa, but we haven't reached a critical point in it all yet it seems..

jayc , Dec 8 2019 23:27 utc | 51

james #27 - " the drivel chris brown - regular columist for cbc posts.. and typically his drivel is not open to comments.. here is his latest bs - In an obliterated landscape, war-weary Ukrainians hope peace summit ends fighting for an insight into completely lopsided reporting"

Is it my fading memory, or was the CBC once a relatively professional source of international reporting? This piece is notably bad - not just from the skewed account of 2014's events, or the insistence on describing Donbass as "separatist", or the map which includes Crimea as part of Ukraine. How is it that the Minsk Accords no longer seem to exist in the corporate media, or the upcoming meeting in Paris properly described as a continuation of that process (alleged failure to "live up" to said accords was used as a stick against Putin for several years, and now their possible realization is vaguely referred to as something bad). Why does a Chatham House spokesperson get to define Ukraine's supposed "red lines", which are in reality the political position of the badly defeated former government? Why is Zelensky's oft stated policy position presented here as Russian-induced capitulation? Brown interviews four women of whom he says "none would tell us their last name out of fear of repercussions from local authorities" except they allowed for their photos to be taken and published. All of these story points result from conscious decisions, not sloppy errors.

[Dec 09, 2019] The Interagency Isn t Supposed to Rule in Foreign Policy

Notable quotes:
"... I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense. ..."
"... He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign. ..."
"... When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress. ..."
"... Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over. ..."
Dec 09, 2019 | www.wsj.com

Enthusiasm over entrepreneurship is now found in every corner of society -- even, apparently, within the federal bureaucracy. Witness after witness in last month's House impeachment inquiry hearings referred to "the interagency," an off-the-books informal government organization that we now know has enormous power to set and execute American foreign policy.

The first to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, State Department official George Kent, seemed to conceive of the interagency as the definitive source of foreign-policy consensus. That Mr. Trump's alleged decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine deviated from that consensus was, for Mr. Kent, prima facie evidence that it was misguided.

Next up, Ambassador William Taylor told the committee that it was the "unanimous opinion of every level of interagency discussion" that the aid should be resumed without delay. Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, gave the game away by admitting how upset she was that Gordon Sondland, President Trump's ambassador to the European Union, had established an "alternative" approach to helping Kyiv. "We have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine," she said.

What is the interagency, and why should its views guide the conduct of American diplomatic and national-security professionals? The Constitution grants the president the power to set defense and diplomatic policy. Where did this interagency come from?

I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense.

How Did Adam Schiff Get Devin Nunes's Phone Records? How did Adam Schiff get Devin Nunes's phone records? bb0282a3-e4cb-42ba-9988-2f3df57fd912@1.00x Created with sketchtool.

He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign.

Interagency cooperative agreements have been around for decades. The Justice Department, for example, has opioid-interdiction programs that require it to work with the Department of Homeland Security. Today a dictionary of more than 12,500 official terms exists to guide bureaucrats in writing interagency contracts that repurpose federal funds appropriated to various executive departments. Often these interdepartmental initiatives devised by bureaucrats are unknown to Congress. It's hard to imagine that the legislative branch wouldn't object to these arrangements, if only it were aware of them.

When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress.

Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over.

The impeachment hearings will have served a useful purpose if all they do is demonstrate that a cabal of unelected officials are fashioning profound aspects of U.S. foreign policy on their own motion. No statutes anticipate that the president or Congress will delegate such authority to a secret working group formed largely at the initiation of entrepreneurial bureaucrats, notwithstanding that they may be area experts, experienced in diplomatic and military affairs, and motivated by what they see as the best interests of the country.

However the impeachment drama plays out, Congress has cause to enact comprehensive legislation akin to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which created more-efficient structures and transparent processes in the Defense Department. Americans deserve to know who really is responsible for making the nation's foreign policy. The interagency, if it is to exist, should have a chairman appointed by the president, and its decisions, much like the once-secret minutes of the Federal Reserve, should be published, with limited and necessary exceptions, for all to see.

Mr. Schramm is a university professor at Syracuse. His most recent book is "Burn the Business Plan."

[Dec 09, 2019] Our Lying Military, Our Lying Government by Rod Dreher

Dec 09, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Everybody's talking about the FBI report today, but as far as I'm concerned, this long piece in the Washington Post is the real news. Here's how it begins:

The documents include transcripts of interviews with soldiers, diplomats, and others with direct experience in the war effort. Excerpts:

"We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan -- we didn't know what we were doing," Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House's Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: "What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."

"If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost," Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. "Who will say this was in vain?"

More:

"What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?" Jeffrey Eggers, a retired Navy SEAL and White House staffer for Bush and Obama, told government interviewers. He added, "After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan."

The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.

Look at this:

Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul -- and at the White House -- to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.

"Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible," Bob Crowley, an Army colonel who served as a senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers. "Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone."

One more:

As commanders in chief, Bush, Obama and Trump all promised the public the same thing. They would avoid falling into the trap of "nation-building" in Afghanistan.

On that score, the presidents failed miserably. The United States has allocated more than $133 billion to build up Afghanistan -- more than it spent, adjusted for inflation, to revive the whole of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II.

The Lessons Learned interviews show the grandiose nation-building project was marred from the start.

Read it all.

If you can get through it all, good for you. I got so mad that I had to quit reading not long after the paragraph above. We have lost about 2,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, and sustained about 21,000 casualties of war. (Not to mention all the dead innocent Afghan civilians, and the dead and wounded troops of our NATO allies.) We have spent altogether almost $1 trillion on that country. The Afghan officials stole a fortune from us. We never knew what to do there. And every one of our leaders lied about it. Lied! All those brave American soldiers, dead or maimed for life, for a war that our leaders knew that we could not win, but in defense of which they lied.

It's the Pentagon Papers all over again. You know this, right.

Trump is negotiating now with the Taliban over the possibility of US withdrawal. The story says US officials fought the Post in court over these documents, and have said most recently that publishing them would undermine the administration's negotiating position. I don't care. Tell the truth, for once. Let's cut our losses and go before more Americans die in this lost cause. Poor Afghanistan is going to fall under the tyrannical rule of the mullahs. But if, after 18 years, a trillion dollars, and all those dead and wounded Americans, we couldn't establish a stable and decent Afghan regime, it's not going to happen.

If any of my children want to join the US military, I'm going to go to the mat to talk them out of it. I do not want them, or anybody's sons or daughters, sent overseas to die in hopeless countries in wars that we cannot win, and shouldn't have fought, but kept doing because of bipartisan Establishment foreign policy delusions. To be clear, we should have bombed the hell out of Afghanistan after 9/11. The Taliban government gave shelter to Al Qaeda, and brought retribution upon itself. But the Bush Administration's nation-building insanity was never going to work. Eight years of Obama did not fix this. Nor, so far, has three years of Trump, though maybe he will be the one to stop the bleeding. If he does withdraw, I hope he blasts the hell out of his two predecessors and the military leadership for what they've done here.

I've been writing lately in this space, and in the book I'm working on, about the parallels between late-imperial Russia and our own time and place. And I've been writing about what Hannah Arendt had to say about the origins of totalitarianism. Arendt says that one precursor of totalitarianism is a widespread loss of faith in a society's and a government's institutions. According to a 2019 Gallup poll, the US military is one of the few institutions that enjoys broad confidence. How can anybody possibly believe them after this? How can we believe our Commanders-in-Chief? According to the secret documents, the men in the field have been were their commanders for a long time that this Afghan thing was not working, and wasn't ever going to work. But they kept sending them back in.

Why? Pride? Too full of themselves to admit that it was a failure? As soldier John Kerry turned antiwar activist said back in the 1970s, about Vietnam, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" No more American dying in and for Afghanistan. Bring the troops home. They did not fail. Their superiors did.

How do you convince young people to join an institution whose leadership -- civilian as well as military -- is prepared to sacrifice them for a lost cause, and then lie, and lie, and lie about it? How do you convince mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters with confidence to that military? How do you convince taxpayers to support throwing more money into the sh*thole that is the Pentagon's budget?

The questions that are going to come up sooner than most of us think, and, in some version, from both the Left and the Right: just what kind of order do we have in America anyway? Why do I owe it my loyalty? What does it mean to be a patriot when you cannot trust the nation's leaders and institutions?

These are the kinds of questions that, depending on how they are answered, can lead to the unraveling, and even the overthrow, of a regime. It has been said that the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was a prime mover in the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet system. We are not the Soviet Union -- but I wouldn't be so quick to take comfort in that, if I were a political or military leader.

We learned nothing from Vietnam, did we? Not a damn thing. It is beyond infuriating. It is beyond demoralizing. And you know, the only thing more infuriating and more demoralizing than this will be if there are no consequences for it, or if people fall back into partisan positions. The report makes clear that this is a disaster that was launched by a Republican administration, continued under a Democratic administration, and has been overseen by another Republican administration.

One of the reasons Donald Trump is president today, and not some other Republican, is he was the one Republican primary candidate who denounced the wars. If he can't get us out of Afghanistan, what good is he?

UPDATE: I was just thinking about something a military friend told me almost 15 years ago, based on his direct personal knowledge of the situation: that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was lying to the nation about how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were going. And if Rumsfeld was lying, so was the administration. My friend was deeply discouraged. Rumsfeld left office in 2006 -- but the habit remained with our leadership.


Sid Finster 29 minutes ago • edited

The only thing that surprised me in the WaPo article was that it was published in the CIA's house organ.

EDIT: I should have added that the squandering of blood and treasure, fighting a pointless war that benefits nobody but the financiers, contractors, arms manufacturers and generals, all while the politicians and generals proclaim that victory is just at hand, we can't turn back now, - all this reminds me of nothing so much as a smaller scale WWI.

Tony55398 13 minutes ago
Trump wants us out of Afghanistan, but Iran is a different story. He's sending more troupes to Saudi Arabia to defend the Saudi's from Iran, how is that disentangling from the ME. I think the Saudi's Wahhabism, basically the same as ISIS practices, is the most dangerous religion in the word today and they are busy exporting it to the rest of the world. I really think Trump is a false prophet, a lying prophet, who serves first himself.
disqus_nocmkvBMwY 10 minutes ago
Didn't vote for Trump - but: He has attempted to stand up to the elite establishment intelligence-military-arms manufacturing complex and start cutting back the forever wars. Everyone attacks him for this--establishment Republicans, Democrats, State Department, Military, Intelligence, Media--everybody. The attacks are immediate and intense. He is almost always forced to pull back. He seems determined to keep trying, but, as is evident, they will do anything it takes to stop him.

[Dec 09, 2019] When it became clear the USSR wouldn't be able to keep up technologically with the USA, Gorbachev then decided (without knowing it) it would be preferrable for The USSR to disappear than to continue to exist as a non-superpower.

Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Dec 9 2019 12:08 utc | 79

More on "Western imbecilization":

A (Grudging) Defense of the $120,000 Banana

These are the successors of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso, etc. etc.

--//--

This is Brazil's "God's Army":

'Soldiers of Jesus': Armed neo-Pentecostals torment Brazil's religious minorities

First Worlders commenting here seem to have the illusion Christianism is the good brother of the three Abrahamic religions. Although I understand the pro-Christian bias coming from the Europeans (since Christianism is an inextricable aspect of European identity), this opinion is a myth: we have already tasted this in the Bolivian coup, but it's also a Latin American phenomenon.

Christians are wolves under sheep skins.

--//--

@ Posted by: pogohere | Dec 9 2019 1:25 utc | 57

The USSR had a relatively backwards transportation system (specially railways), that still used disproportional quantities of petroil to function, but that wasn't an existential threat to the nation per se , it could be modernized.

Of all the theses I've read about the collapse of the USSR, the one that most convinced me was Angelo Segrillo's "Decline of the USSR" - which I think only exists in Portuguese right now. Segrillo covers all the arguments of the time used to explain the fall of the USSR and refutes them all empirically before he lays out that the main cause of the fall of the USSR was its structural inability to implement the Third Industrial Revolution ("toyotism").

When it became clear the USSR wouldn't be able to keep up technologically with the USA, Gorbachev then decided (without knowing it) it would be preferrable for the USSR to disappear than to continue to exist as a non-superpower.

In that sense, yes, the Soviet then relatively inneficient energy use was a symptom of the underlying cause - but it wasn't the cause.

--//--

@ Posted by: bevin | Dec 9 2019 3:03 utc | 62

The problem with Europe is its geography: it is a tiny, depleted peninsula. In the 17th Century, it was an advantage, since the lack of natural resources impelled it to aggressively exploit other continents, giving birth to capitalism.

But capitalism is a global system, not a regional system. When it reached maturity, Europe slowly, but inexorably, begun to lose its competitive advantages over purely capitalist formations - the greatest of them all being the USA. Then what was an advantage became a disadvantage.

This gordian knot was cut with WWI and WWII (both were only one war, in two parts) - a last desperate attempt by British capitalism to preserve its imperialist status.

But History is unasailable: it is the saga of class struggle, of the contradictions between the modes of production and the relations of production. The result couldn't be any different: Western Europe was on its knees after WWII. The British Empire had just sold all its assets to the Americans and German men were literally prostituting themselves to American soldiers for on cigarette (and German children, for one chocolate bar). The USA was the undisputed sovereign of the European Peninsula from 1945 on.

The last leverage the European Peninsula had, in that scenario, was the USSR itself: it could ask the USA for good treatment and some dignity in exchange of not doing socialist revolutions backed up by the Soviets. The result was the Marshall Plan and a permission to revive their previous industrial parks.

That situation resulted in the rise of Atlanticism, the ideology that the USA is the legitimate heir of Western Civilization. Andy Warhol was the successor to Michelangelo.

--//--

@ Posted by: john brewster | Dec 9 2019 4:35 utc | 65

The USSR stagnated during the period that spanned from the oil crisis of 1975 until its fall in 1991.

But it only had a recession in two years of its history: the year after the Perestroika and its last year of existence. Both were very mild recessions (by capitalist standards).

Even during the infamous "Brezhnev stagnation", growth was 1-3% per year - comparable to the developed capitalist nations since the 1990s.

But the problem is that its successor states are doing objectively worse: Russia will grown a little more than 1% this year; other ex-Soviet states are more or less in the same situation (with Ukraine doing outright worse). The mircle promised to the Russians didn't come: Putin's boom of the early 2000s was not comparable to the Soviet boom. Russia's status today are completely dependent on China (which, ironically, has the Soviet system of government) and the modernization from the old Soviet weapons and know-how it already had.

[Dec 09, 2019] A Determined Effort to Undermine Russia

Notable quotes:
"... The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation" campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders and Russiagate. ..."
"... Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States. It is now so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured. ..."
"... It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first. Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then, it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of nuclear deterrence doctrine – annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation is. ..."
"... Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov (Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the neo-Nazis of western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the Donbass). The Donbass fighters are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile the support for the neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the Ukrainian military, thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency). ..."
"... Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they agreed they were defeated. The US merely assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said any such thing. ..."
"... I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!) ..."
"... "From 1922 onwards the strategic purpose of the Soviet Union was to defend the Soviet Union not global domination, whereas the purpose of the "West" has always been global domination. " ..."
"... "At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause." ..."
Dec 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, in conversation with former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, says the West is unnecessarily determined to undermine Russia. A t an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause.

When Kevin said he returned to Russia after more than 40 years in 2016 he realized he "had to take sides" in the U.S.-Russia standoff when all Nato countries boycotted the Moscow celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

"I had to take a moral position that it is not right for the West to be ganging up on Russia," Kevin says in his conversation with the former Australian foreign minister.

The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation" campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders and Russiagate.

Watch the hour-long in depth discussion which was filmed and produced by Consortium News' CN Live! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/dJiS3nFzsWg?feature=oembed


ElderD , December 9, 2019 at 15:03

Tony's (especially!) and Bob's sane and sensible view of this dangerous and destructive state of affairs deserve the widest possible distribution and attention.

George McGlynn , December 9, 2019 at 13:27

A quarter century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union, and little has changed. Cold War patterns of thinking about Russia show no sign of weakening in America. The further we distance ourselves from the end of the Cold War, the closer we come to its revival. Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States. It is now so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured.

peter mcloughlin , December 9, 2019 at 10:45

It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first. Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then, it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of nuclear deterrence doctrine – annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation is.

AnneR , December 9, 2019 at 07:48

The latest efforts at attacking Russia via smear, allegation and Doublespeak have been, are via that US supported supposed oversight committee, WADA which has done what the US-UK wanted: banned Russia for four years from international sporting events including the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and World Cup (Football – soccer to Americans).

Then there were allegations – of those "highly likely" (therefore one knows to be untrue and unadulterated propaganda to increase Russophobia) sort – about Russian hackers (always giving the impression that the "Kremlin" is behind itl) being the Labour Party's source of the Tory party's US-UK trade deal which would/will deliberately and finally destroy the NHS and replace it with (of course) US "health" insurance company profiteering.

(Always the Tory intention from the NHS's initiation in May of 1948; only its popularity among many Tory party supporters among the working and lower middle classes prevented them from a full-frontal killing off the NHS; the Snatcher's government began the undermining, via installing a top-heavy bureaucratization, siphoning off a sizable proportion of the funds that would otherwise have gone to medical care, demanding that hospitals not "lose" money – a concept completely beyond the remit of the NHS as originally conceived and constructed and like exactions.)

Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov (Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the neo-Nazis of western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the Donbass). The Donbass fighters are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile the support for the neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the Ukrainian military, thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency).

Someone even suggested that President Putin needed to be diplomatic. Really? From what I've read the man is the most diplomatic and intelligent politician (not just political leader) along with Xi Jinping and the Iranian government that exist on the world stage. None of them are hubristic, solipsistic, eager beaver killers of peoples in other countries. Unlike their western "world" political counterparts.

Jeff Harrison , December 8, 2019 at 18:30

Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they agreed they were defeated. The US merely assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said any such thing.

St. Ronnie's whole thing back in the 80's was to outspend Russia militarily and it worked well. We're trying to do it again but Russia isn't playing the same game this time and now it is the US that has a mountain of debt and Russia that doesn't. SIPIRI tags US military spending at $650B and Russian military spending at $62B. But we know that the $650B number is bogus because it doesn't include our in-violation-of-the-NNPT nuclear program which is in the energy department or our veteran's expenses which are in HHS. I don't know what's missing from Russia's $62B but I'll bet they can sustain that a whole lot better than we can sustain our $650B and rising bill.

Antonio Costa , December 9, 2019 at 13:17

Good point regarding Russia's downsizing the Soviet Union. From Gorbachev to Putin there was NEVER a surrender, intended in any way. The intent has been multilateral partnerships. For Russia the US/West won nothing at all except the opportunity to live and work in peace. (By the way this policy has a long Russian history.)

They gave up the Warsaw Pact and America with our worthless "word" expanded NATO.

The US foreign policy has lost even the semblance of sanity. Our naked aggression is clear as never before, a mad man throwing a global fit armed with megaton nuclear projectiles on trigger first strike alert. What could go wrong?

nondimenticare , December 8, 2019 at 15:56

If, magically, Consortium News/CN Live! were a mass-distribution network/magazine (hence universally consulted), allowing the light in for the mass of the viewing and listening public, it could change the world – both an exalting and despairing thought.

Lily , December 8, 2019 at 09:52

It is a great joy to listen to this conversation!

I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!)

I wish people would have the courage to break away from the group pressure originated by a nation which has been started by killing more than 90% of the indigenous people in their country and since then has turned the worl into a very insecure place.

Chapeau, Tony Kevin! Thanks to Bob Carr and Consortiums News.

Lily , December 9, 2019 at 01:18

It seems that some facts are beginning to be realized in the military department.

www(dot)zerohedge(dot)com/geopolitical/pentagon-alarmed-russia-gaining-sympathy-among-us-troops

Bob Van Noy , December 8, 2019 at 09:22

Simply, wonderful

OlyaPola , December 8, 2019 at 07:43

Words are catalysts of connotations and connotations are functions of expectations/framing..

Some conflate cause with purpose thereby limiting perception of cause and purpose.

Some understand that causation is interactive and in any lateral system the genesis of causation is difficult to determine.

Some understand that evaluation is a function of purpose and that purpose can be evaluated through such portals into wonderlands such as "What is the "United States of America" and how is it facilitated?"

As thumb-nailed in the comments section of the article Capitalism's suicidal trajectory – OlyaPola
December 6, 2019 at 07:46

"From 1922 onwards the strategic purpose of the Soviet Union was to defend the Soviet Union not global domination, whereas the purpose of the "West" has always been global domination. "

From 1922 onwards various tactics have been attempted by the "West" to facilitate their purpose, including attempts at "Orange revolution" in many areas which catalysed many lateral trajectories including the process of transcendence of the "Soviet Union" by the Russian Federation in the period from 1991 to 2005.

Consequently Mr. Suslov's observation re war of "The United States of America" can be extended into present times and hence no "New cold war" exists.

""What is the "United States of America"

An initial step through the portal is that "The United States of America" is – a regime of social relations to facilitate its purpose – the social relations not being restricted to the "nation state" presently self designated "The United States of America" but including classes in other "nation states".

Consequently alternative purposes and social relations pose an existential threat to "The United States of America"; this being perceived of lesser significance in regard to "The Soviet Union" and greater in regard to the Russian Federation.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , December 8, 2019 at 07:30

"At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause."

The American establishment's problem with Russia is simply that Russia is the only country on earth capable of obliterating the United States. Not even China has yet reached that capacity.

"Carthago delenda est"

Skip Scott , December 9, 2019 at 06:13

There is "cause." Russia was our latest vassal under Yeltsin. Putin stopped the looting, and worked to benefit average Russian citizens. Just watch "The Magnitsky Act, behind the scenes" to know the "cause".

Bruno DP , December 8, 2019 at 02:34

The West is ganging up on Russia? Replace "West" by "United States of America", and I will agree.

Much of the West (i.e. Germany) has been dragged by force into damage control mode. The Magnitsky Act monster, the election interference hysteria, are just 2 crying examples met with shock and disbelief across the pond. The Fiona Hill testimony was a very telling moment for the inner workings of a self perpetuating logic.

Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.

But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined.

Martin Schuchert , December 8, 2019 at 17:33

I'm German, living in the US, and I agree with your comment. I especially love the last two sentences:

"Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined."

[Dec 08, 2019] Tim Morrison as yet another neocon hawk

So a republican staffer, a neocon without any diplomatic experience was the NSC senior director of European and Russian affairs, the successor of Fiona Hill.
Dec 08, 2019 | www.cbsnews.com
Washington -- A top National Security Council official who listened to President Trump's July call with the president of Ukraine told lawmakers he "promptly" told White House lawyers he was concerned details of the call would become public, but did not think "anything illegal was discussed" during the conversation.

Tim Morrison, the outgoing senior director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council and a deputy assistant to the president, is testifying before committees leading the impeachment inquiry on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He has emerged as a central witness to the events at the center of the inquiry, particularly the administration's policy toward Ukraine.

CBS News learned the substance of his opening statement to the committees, which ran six pages and appears below. Morrison said the summary released by the White House of the call between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accurately reflects his memory and understanding of the call, but he said he had three concerns in the event the summary became public.

Trending News

"[F]irst, how it would play out in Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship," Morrison, who was in the Situation Room for the call, told lawmakers. "I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed."

However, he also corroborated a central allegation in the Democratic case against the president: that a U.S. ambassador told a high-ranking Ukrainian official that the release of military aid was contingent on an investigation into the Bidens.

Tim Morrison arrives for a deposition at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on October 31, 2019. SAUL LOEB / AF

Morrison said his predecessor, Fiona Hill, told him about "concerns about two Ukraine processes that were occurring": one led by traditional U.S. diplomatic entities, and one led by the U.S. Ambassador the E.U. Gordon Sondland and Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer. He said Hill told him about their efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that had employed Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden's son.

"At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed," Morrison said. "After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was on its board."

Morrison said he spoke frequently with Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the embassy in Kiev. Taylor testified before the committees last week and described his misgivings about efforts to pressure Ukraine to open investigations into the president's rivals. Morrison, in his statement, confirmed the substance of Taylor's account, but said he remembered two details differently.

Taylor testified that Morrison told him Sondland had demanded the Ukrainian president announce an investigation into Burisma, while Morrison said he remembered Sondland saying an announcement by the country's top prosecutor would suffice. Taylor also indicated Morrison met with the Ukrainian national security adviser in his hotel room, while Morrison said it was in the hotel's business center.

Morrison said he learned about a delay in military aid to Ukraine shortly after assuming his post, and was tasked with coordinating with various agencies to demonstrate why the aid was needed.

"I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could convince President Trump to release the aid," he said.

Morrison testified he had "no reason to believe" the Ukrainians knew of a delay in military aid until August 28, and said he was unaware the aid may have been tied to the demand for an investigation into Burisma until he spoke to Sondland on September 1.

Morrison arrived on Capitol Hill before 8 a.m. Thursday for his deposition after Democrats issued a subpoena for his testimony. A spokesman for House Intelligence Committee chairman declined to comment on his opening statement. Morrison appeared on the same day the House approved a resolution greenlighting the rules for impeachment proceedings moving forward.

On Wednesday, officials said Morrison would be leaving his White House post. He said in his statement he has yet to submit his resignation "because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending departure."

"I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish," he said.

Read Morrison's full statement

Opening Statement of Timothy Morrison

Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform

October 31, 2019

Chairman Schiff and Members of the Committees, I appear today under subpoena to answer your questions about my time as Senior Director for European Affairs at the White House and the National Security Council ("NSC"). I will give you the most complete information I can, consistent with my obligations to the President and the protection of classified information. I do not know who the whistleblower is, nor do I intend to speculate as to who it may be.

Before joining the NSC in 2018, I spent 17 years as a Republican staffer, serving in a variety of roles in both houses of Congress. My last position was Policy Director for the then-Majority Staff of the House Armed Services Committee.

I. The Role of the National Security Council

From July 9, 2018 to July 15, 2019, I served as a Special Assistant to the President for National Security and as the NSC Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense. In that role, I had limited exposure to Ukraine, focusing primarily on foreign military sales and arms control. On July 15, 2019, I became Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security. In this role, I serve as the lead interagency coordinator for national security issues involving Europe and Russia.

It is important to start with the role of the NSC. Since its creation by Congress in 1947, the NSC has appropriately evolved in shape and size to suit the needs of the President and the National Security Advisor it serves at the time. But its mission and core function has fundamentally remained the same: to coordinate across departments and agencies of the Executive Branch to ensure the President has the policy options he needs to accomplish his objectives and to see that his decisions are implemented. The NSC staff does not make policy. NSC staff are most effective when we are neutral arbiters, helping the relevant Executive Branch agencies develop options for the President and implement his direction.

In my current position, I understood our primary U.S. policy objective in Ukraine was to take advantage of the once-in-a-generation opportunity that resulted from the election of President Zelensky and the clear majority he had gained in the Ukrainian Rada to see real anti-corruption reform take root. The Administration's policy was that the best way for the United States to show its support for President Zelensky's reform efforts was to make sure the United States' longstanding bipartisan commitment to strengthen Ukraine's security remained unaltered, it is easy to forget here in Washington, but impossible in Kyiv, that Ukraine is still under armed assault by Russia, a nuclear-armed state. We also tend to forget that the United States had helped convince Ukraine to give up Soviet nuclear weapons in 1994. United States security sector assistance (from the Departments of Defense and State) is, therefore, essential to Ukraine. Also essential is a strong and positive relationship with Ukraine at the highest levels of our respective governments.

In my role as Senior Director for European Affairs, I reported directly to former Deputy National Security Advisor, Dr. Charles Kupperman, and former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton. I kept them fully informed on matters that I believed merited their awareness or when I felt I needed some direction. During the time relevant to this inquiry, I never briefed the President or Vice President on matters related to Ukrainian security. It was my job to coordinate with the U.S. Embassy Chief of Mission to Ukraine William Taylor, Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, and other interagency stakeholders in the Departments of Defense and State of Ukrainian matters.

My primary responsibility has been to ensure federal agencies had consistent messaging and policy guidance on national security issues involving European and Russian affairs. As Dr. Fiona Hill and I prepared for me to succeed her, one of the areas we discussed was Ukraine. In that discussion, she informed me of her concerns about two Ukraine processes that were occurring: the normal interagency process led by the NSC with the typical department and agency participation and a separate process that involved chiefly the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. Dr. Hill told me that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were trying to get President Zelensky to reopen Ukrainian investigations into Burisma. At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed. After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was on its board. I also did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly-appointed Chief of Mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.

My most frequent conversations were with Ambassador Taylor because he was the U.S. Chief of Mission in Ukraine and I was his chief conduit for information related to White House deliberations, including security sector assistance and potential head-of-state meetings. This is a normal part of the coordination process.

II. Review of Open Source Documents in Preparation for Testimony

In preparation for my appearance today, I reviewed the statement Ambassador Taylor provided this inquiry on October 22, 2019. I can confirm that the substance of his statement, as it relates to conversations he and I had, is accurate. My recollections differ on two of the details, however. I have a slightly different recollection of my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. On page 10 of Ambassador Taylor's statement, he recounts a conversation I relayed to him regarding Ambassador Sondland's conversation with Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Yermak. Ambassador Taylor wrote: "Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation." My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland's proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general -- not President Zelensky -- would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation. I also would like to clarify that I did not meet with the Ukrainian National Security Advisor in his hotel room, as Ambassador Taylor indicated on page 11 of his statement. Instead, an NSC aide and I met with Mr. Danyliuk in the hotel's business center.

I also reviewed the Memorandum of Conversation ("MemCont') of the July 25 phone call that was released by the White House. I listened to the call as it occurred from the Situation Room. To the best of my recollection, the MemCon accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call. I also recall that I did not see anyone from the NSC Legal Advisor's Office in the room during the call. After the call, I promptly asked the NSC Legal Advisor and his Deputy to review it. I had three concerns about a potential leak of the MemCon: first, how it would play out in Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed.

III. White House Hold on Security Sector Assistance

I was not aware that the White House was holding up the security sector assistance passed by Congress until my superior, Dr. Charles Kupperman, told me soon after I succeeded Dr. Hill. I was aware that the President thought Ukraine had a corruption problem, as did many others familiar with Ukraine. I was also aware that the President believed that Europe did not contribute enough assistance to Ukraine. I was directed by Dr. Kupperman to coordinate with the interagency stakeholders to put together a policy process to demonstrate that the interagency supported security sector assistance to Ukraine. I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could convince President Trump to release the aid because President Zelensky and the reform-oriented Rada were genuinely invested in their anti-corruption agenda.

Ambassador Taylor and I were concerned that the longer the money was withheld, the more questions the Zelensky administration would ask about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine. Our initial hope was that the money would be released before the hold became public because we did not want the newly constituted Ukrainian government to question U.S. support.

I have no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the review until August 28, 2019. Ambassador Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland's strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders in the Administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.

I am pleased our process gave the President the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector assistance. My regret is that Ukraine ever learned of the review and that, with this impeachment inquiry, Ukraine has become subsumed in the U.S. political process.

IV. Conclusion

After 19 years of government service, I have decided to leave the NSC. I have not submitted a formal resignation at this time because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending departure. I plan to finalize my transition from the NSC after my testimony is complete.

During my time in public service, I have worked with some of the smartest and most self-sacrificing people in this country. Serving at the White House in this time of unprecedented global change has been the opportunity of a lifetime. I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish.

[Dec 08, 2019] The sooner the EU Europe generally either discard NATO or create its own defence force in parallel with NATO, the better.

Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Alistair says: December 7, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT

Trump is right about the NATO members inadequate military spending; the US expects NATO members to spend 2% of their GDP on their own defence, the US however, does not require them to purchase American made weapons, they can produce their own weapons, like French do, or buy from each other like Germans -- they just have to make their military up and ready in case of emergency, that's not an unreasonable expectation.

Among the NATO members however, Canada's case is unique; due to its closeness and joint high command (NORAD) with the US -- and direct threat from Russian claim on the Canadian Arctic, Canada needs and must increase its military spending significantly, Canada should purchase modern Air force fleet, Advanced Surveillance equipment, Warships and Submarines for the defence of the Arctic; F-35, F-22, AH-64 Apache, Nuclear powered Icebreaker and Submarines etc. because all these equipment will we be partially built in Canada which bring many high tech jobs and economic growth to the Canadian communities.

Trump is right, NATO and Canada should spend much more on their own defence, and buying American advanced weapons is the best strategic choice for the Canadians forces, there shouldn't be any doubt about that.

Jmaie , says: December 7, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT

LOL to the first comment, Russia is *zero* threat to Canada ** . Russia is zero threat to the US or Europe either. NATO has long outlived its purpose and needs to die.

** I suppose Russia could claim the north pole, and threaten to hold Santa hostage.

Alistair , says: December 7, 2019 at 8:26 pm GMT
@Jmaie Russian annexation of Crimea was a blatant assault on the International Law, yet it went off without serious consequences to Russia -- it's not a secret that Russia has claims on Canadian Arctic seabed, Russia has already planted its flag on the Arctic seabed; here is a Link that you should want to see:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/02/russia.arctic
joe2.5 , says: December 7, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT
@Alistair Alistair @ 3

I'd really be interested to understand how on earth the reintegration, by overwhelming majority in a plebiscite acknowledged by all sides as free and unconstrained, of Crimea, a Russian province for 300+ years, and a majority-Russian area for quite a long time, is "a blatant assault on the International Law".

The "International Law" you quote must be a newcomer.

voicum , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 2:46 am GMT
@Alistair

Are you insane ? This is where your money and my money should be spent ?

likbez , says: December 8, 2019 at 4:00 am GMT
@joe2.5 @4.joe2.5

"I'd really be interested to understand how on earth "

It is very easy to understand. As Upton Sinclair observed "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Alistair repeats typical neocon viewpoint. Nothing original here. Neocons make their living off threat inflation and this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact.

Fiona Hill is a shining recent example here -- this intellectual prostitute of MIC is a member of Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council and other MIC lobbing organization that promote Cold War 2 and neoliberal globalization.

The real question is "Why we should believe any of these chickenhawks?" They has been proven liars so many times that they deserve the rotten tomatoes to be thrown at them on any of their public appearances or, which is sadly impossible, at their Internet posts

But again money do not smell: unless neocons start facing very real and very personal consequences, nothing will change. And like with any sect there is small number of intellectually deficient people who still believe them.

See Stephen M. Walt https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2019/12/04/a-manifesto-for-restrainers/

3. Restrainers Want Realistic Foreign Policy Goal s. Instead of engaging in costly and futile efforts to remake the world in our image, restrainers want U.S. foreign policy to pursue more feasible objectives. The U.S. military must be strong enough to deter attacks on the U.S. homeland, a task that is relatively easy to accomplish. When necessary, the United States can also help other states uphold the balance of power and deter war in a few key strategic areas outside the Western Hemisphere. America's economic clout will also give Washington considerable influence over the institutions that manage trade, investment and other beneficial forms of international cooperation, and it should use that influence to ensure these institutions are working properly. But the United States has neither the need, the capacity, nor the wisdom to conduct massive social engineering projects ("nation-building") in deeply divided and conflict prone societies, and it should cease trying.

4. Restrainers Want Credible Foreign Commitments . The United States keeps taking on new security obligations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but it rarely debates their wisdom or value. Americans are now formally committed to defending more countries around the world than at any time in U.S. history, even though some of these states are hard to defend, have little strategic importance for the United States, and sometimes act in ways that damage U.S. interests. Washington is also engaged in less visible military activities in dozens of other countries, some of them shrouded in secrecy. Yet anytime U.S. leaders contemplate trimming these obligations, alarmists warn that the slightest reduction in America's global presence will undermine U.S. credibility, embolden rivals, and lead to catastrophe. Having allowed itself to become overextended, the United States ends up fighting endless wars in places with no strategic value in order to convince allies and adversaries that it will still fight in places of greater importance.

animalogic , December 8, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT • 100 Words

The sooner the EU & Europe generally either discard NATO or create its own defence force in parallel with NATO, the better.

Europe MUST take control of its own destiny. It can not have an external nation, the US, with different, if not opposing interests, dictating European policy & action.

The “Russia” situation is a perfect example of this divergence of interests. Europe’s future clearly lies with greater Eurasian integration. Energy, primary products, & mercantile trade all lie to the East, through Russia to China, Vietnam etc. Notably, some countries such as Italy are already pulling away from official EU policy & turning East.

Unfortunately, The US has bribed & threatened (many) EU leaders, leaders who couldn’t even imagine a change to the status quo. Thankfully, though, it seems that many average Europeans are sick to their back-teeth with the status quo & Europe’s “evermore” subservience to US imperialism.

The Alarmist , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 10:31 am GMT

German tax-payers, like most other Europeans, see no need to spend billions of hard-earned euros against a non-existent threat from the East.

They don’t even want to spend their money turning back the actual threats spilling across their borders, but climate change is way up there on the agenda. De-industrialised Europe chock-full of third-world denizens is going to be heaven on earth.

[Dec 08, 2019] WSJ Article Runs Through The Greatest Hits of a Dysfunctional Foreign Policy Debate

Notable quotes:
"... Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force. ..."
"... These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved. ..."
"... September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it. ..."
"... For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific." ..."
"... The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. ..."
"... This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com . ..."
Dec 08, 2019 | responsiblestatecraft.org

The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or what's known as "primacy," has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years and has faced few intellectual and political challenges. The result has been stagnant ideas, poor logic, and an ineffective foreign policy. As global security challenges have evolved, our foreign policy debate has remained in favor of primacy, repeatedly relying on a select few, poorly conceived ideas and arguments. Primacy's greatest hits arguments are played on repeat throughout the policy and journalism worlds and its latest presentation is in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, written by its chief foreign policy correspondent, titled, "America Can't Escape the Middle East." The piece provides a case study in how stagnant these ideas have become, and how different actors throughout the system present them without serious thought or contemplation.

Hyping the threat of withdrawal

The WSJ piece trotted out one of the most well-worn cases for unending American military deployments in the region. "The 2003 invasion of Iraq proved to be a debacle," it rightly notes. However, there's always a "but":[B]ut subsequent attempts to pivot away from the region or ignore it altogether have contributed to humanitarian catastrophes, terrorist outrages and geopolitical setbacks, further eroding America's standing in the world."

Primacists often warn of the dire security threats that will result from leaving Middle East conflict zones. The reality is that the threats they cite are actually caused by the unnecessary use of force by the United States in the first place. For example, the U.S. sends military assets to deter Iran, only to have Iran increase attacks or provocations in response. The U.S. then beefs up its military presence to protect the forces that are already there. Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force.

These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved.

Terrorism safe havens

And how many times have we heard that we must defend some undefined geographical space to prevent extremists from plotting attacks? "In the past, jihadists used havens in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to plot more ambitious and deadly attacks, including 9/11," the WSJ piece says. "Though Islamic State's self-styled 'caliphate' has been dismantled, the extremist movement still hasn't been eliminated -- and can bounce back."

The myth of the terrorism safe havens enabling transnational attacks on the United States has persisted despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and significant scholarly research that contradicts it. The myth persists because it provides a simple and comforting narrative that's easy to understand. September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it.

Terrorists don't need safe havens to operate, and only gain marginal increases in capabilities by having access to them. Organizations engage in terrorism because they have such weak capabilities in the first place. These movements are designed to operate underground with the constant threat of arrest and execution. The Weatherman Underground in the United States successfully carried out bombings while operating within the United States itself. The Earth Liberation Front did the same by organizing into cells where no cell knew anything about the other cells to prevent the identification of other members if members of one cell were arrested. Organizations that engage in terrorism can operate with or without safe havens.

Although safe havens don't add significantly to a terrorist groups' capabilities, governing your own territory is something completely different. ISIS is a commonly used, and misused, example for why wars should be fought to deny safe havens. A safe haven is a country or region in which a terrorist group is free from harassment or persecution. This is different from what ISIS created in 2014. What ISIS had when it swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014 was a proto-state. This gave them access to a tax base, oil revenues, and governing resources. Safe havens don't provide any of this, at least not at substantial levels. The Islamic State's construction of a proto-state in Syria and Iraq did give them operational capabilities they wouldn't have had otherwise, but this isn't the same as the possible safe havens that would be gained from a military withdrawal from Middle Eastern conflicts. The conditions of ISIS's rise in 2014 don't exist today and the fears of an ISIS resurgence like their initial rise are unfounded .

Credibility doesn't work how you think it works

For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific."

Most commentators have made this claim without recognition of their own contradictions that abandoning the Kurds in Syria would damage American credibility. They then list all the other times we've abandoned the Kurds. Each of these betrayals didn't stop them from working with the United States again, and this latest iteration will be the same. People don't work with the United States because they trust or respect us, they do it because we have a common interest and the United States has the capability to get things done. As we were abandoning the Kurds this time to be attacked by the Turks, Kurdish officials were continuing to share intelligence with U.S. officials to facilitate the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because both the United States and the Kurds wanted Baghdadi eliminated and only the United States had the capability to get it done.

Similarly, the idea that pulling out militarily in one region results in a direct chain of events where our adversaries move into countries or areas in a completely different region is quite a stretch of the imagination. Russia moved into Crimea because it's a strategic asset and it was taking advantage of what it saw as an opportunity: instability and chaos in Kiev. Even if we left troops in every conflict country we've ever been in, Russia would have correctly assessed that Ukraine just wasn't important enough to spark a U.S. invasion. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, did the United States invade Cuba? What alliance did the Soviets or Chinese abandon before the United States entered the Korean War? Assessments of credibility , especially in times of crisis (like that in Ukraine), are made based on what leaders think the other country's interests are and the capabilities they have to pursue those interests. There is no evidence to support -- in fact there is a lot of evidence that contradicts -- the idea that withdrawing militarily from one region or ending an alliance has any impact on assessments of a country's reliability or credibility.

Not all interests are created equal

Threat inflation isn't just common from those who promote a primacy-based foreign policy, it's necessary. Indeed, as the WSJ piece claimed, "There is no avoiding the fact that the Middle East still matters a great deal to U.S. interests."

The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. Vital interests are those that directly impact the survival of the United States. The only thing that can threaten the survival of the United States is another powerful state consolidating complete control of either Europe or East Asia. This would give them the capabilities and freedom to strike directly at the territorial United States. This is why the United States stayed in Europe after WWII, to prevent the consolidation of Europe by the Soviets. Addressing the rise of China -- which will require some combination of cooperation and competition -- is America's vital interest today and keeping troops in Afghanistan to prevent a terrorism safe haven barely registers as a peripheral interest. There are U.S. interests in the Middle East, but these interests are not important enough to sacrifice American soldiers for and can't easily be secured through military force anyway.

Consequences

Most of these myths and arguments can be summarized by the claim that any disengagement of any kind by the United States from the Middle East comes with consequences. This isn't entirely wrong, but it isn't really relevant either unless compared with the consequences of continuing engagement at current levels. We currently have 67,000 troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan and those troops are targets of adversaries, contribute to instability, empower hardliners in Iran, and provide continuing legitimacy to insurgent and terrorist organizations fighting against a foreign occupation. One article in The Atlantic argued that the problem with a progressive foreign policy is that restraint comes with costs, almost ironically ignoring the fact that the U.S.'s current foreign policy also comes with, arguably greater, costs. A military withdrawal, or even drawdown, from the Middle East does come with consequences, but it's only believable that these costs are higher than staying through the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions that inflate such risks and costs. No wonder then that these myths have become the greatest hits of a foreign policy that's stuck in the past.

This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com .

[Dec 08, 2019] The Delusions Of The Impeachment Witnesses Point To A Larger Problem

Notable quotes:
"... For one the Ukraine is not fighting "the Russians". The Kiev government is fighting against east-Ukrainians who disagree with the Nazi controlled regime which the U.S. installed after it instigated the unconstitutional Maidan coup. Russia supplies the east-Ukrainians and there were a few Russian volunteers fighting on their side but no Russian military units entered the Ukraine. ..."
"... But aside from that how can anyone truly believe that the Ukraine "fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"? Is Russia on the verge of invading the United States? Where? How? And most importantly: What for? How would that be in Russia's interest? ..."
"... And how is it in U.S. interest to give the Ukraine U.S. taxpayer money to buy U.S. weapons? The sole motive behind that idea was greed and corruption , not national interest: ..."
"... To claim that it hurt U.S. national interests is nonsense. ..."
"... It is really no wonder that U.S. foreign policy continuously produces chaos when its practitioners get taught by people like Karlan. In the Middle East as well as elsewhere Russian foreign policy runs circles around U.S. attempts to control the outcome. One reason it can do that is the serious lack of knowledge and realism in U.S. foreign policy thinking. It is itself the outcome of an educational crisis. U.S. 'political science' studies implement a mindset that is unable to objectively recognize the facts and fails to respond to them with realistic concepts. ..."
"... In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities. ..."
"... The same bs argument about "not fighting the Russians here" was used a couple of weeks ago by another witness, Tim Morrison. This shows you that the hysteria is bipartisan... ..."
"... I don't believe that the so called "Professor's View" is normative for the educated class of Americans. It is the normative view of the Ivy League pseudoeducated individuals that have been placed in leadership positions in the US Goverment and Politics but they are not EDUCATED in any way. Karlan is almost certainly a Jew. She is without a doubt a whore who will do anything for her John as directed by her pimp. ..."
"... Being a brain dead feminist helps her with that role in life. I had an ex wife who fought me post divorce for 10 years trying to destroy me in any way she could. She finally stopped with the Breast Cancer she had for 7 of those years finally killed her. I see the same psychotic, sociopathic and off scall narcissitic behavior in every one of these women in politics and academics today. So don't think that something will get better without a terminal solution. ..."
"... Americans are entranced by the kayfabe (mock combat). Just as in wrestling it is designed to look 'real' but just keeps people engrossed in the action, unable to think of what they are NOT being told. ..."
"... Her delusions are a prerequisite for teaching at an academic level. ..."
"... The military industrial complex is in the people of usa's interest.. they think they benefit from the rayatheons, lockheed martins, boeings and etc - as they have relatives working at these places... the usa is one sick puppy, and Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor is just further proof of this... sorry if someone else said what i did, as i didn't read the comments yet.. ..."
"... The fact that the "papers of record" have become mouthpieces for the CIA/deep state has played a huge role in the brainwashing of academia and the rise of neoliberalism. The false narratives these "trusted sources" of information have been serving up create a very real Matrix, a false reality that is ingrained into those who rely upon them for their daily "news". Karlan is merely repeating what she accepts as truth, garnered from the NY Times and Wash Post, CNN, NPR, etc. ..."
"... The US is dysfunctional on purpose to keep the masses under control and dumbed down/brainwashed ..."
"... BTW, it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make Ukraine strong (wouldn't we all love to see strong Ukraine?) while wrecking its economy by encouraging policies like spending 5% of GDP on the military, switching to more expensive energy sources, cutting itself from traditional markets and supplies, replacing with rather worthless "cooperation" agreement with a trading block that is neither particularly interested in trading with Ukraine (Ukraine strongest exports are in surplus within EU) nor inclined to subsidize it (budgets are tights and plenty of recent EU members are in dire needs already) ..."
"... Unfortunately this is endemic in the western world. 'Democracy' seems to consist of dumbing down the population as much as possible, and telling them what they have to think so the self-anointed leaders of society can have their way (both those in front, and behind the scenes). I'm far from certain this is a recipe for success. ..."
"... Russians and Chinese in particular, and BRICS/SCO in general, are showing the way. The countries involved have very different political systems, but they understand that co-operation is much more beneficial than constant conflict. ..."
"... This is a typical example of the stupidity and often dementia of most of the highly educated. Especially those in academia, who exist in a funhouse hall of propagandist and ideological mirrors. But it's true of the educated in the general. I personally know plenty of highly educated people who make themselves more stupid and mentally ill by the day by uncritically reading the NYT and watching CNN. ..."
"... So it's no wonder that an elite Stanford law professor is in practice the exact same stupid, ignorant, deranged yahoo as you could easily find in a trailer park, just with better manners and diction. ..."
"... After all, Karlan's Russia comment would receive enthusiastic thumbs up from at least Biden, Obama, W. Clinton, H. Clinton, Rubio, Klobuchar, Pelosi, Warren, Graham, Buttigieg, Romney, the late McCain, Pompeo, Bolton, Mattis...the list goes on and on. ..."
"... It's even worse than that. The economy will never recover while oligarchs have a stranglehold on economic activity and government. And USA's capitalist dementia ensures that will never change. (The West as a whole is headed in the direction of unabashed oligarchic rule.) ..."
"... Many of the dumbest people I met were university students or graduates. They are thought to absorb information as given, reproduce once, forget. They are not trained to question anything, they follow a narrative. Some even denounced everything they ever learned and became a follower of some religion, which is just another narrative. ..."
"... I've seen Jonathan Turley on TV a number of times. He always seemed to be a person of integrity. One needs to add courage to the list after testifying against impeachment on the presented "evidence". I will be very surprised to see him on PBS or CBS ever again. Their news readers are nearly giddy with excitement about impeachment. They never consider what could happen if Trump is convicted but refuses to leave the White House. Then what? ..."
"... Karlan type of academics is scattered all over the US universities. They are the Academia´s gatekeepers, watching over & "spotting" of our future leaders. the majority of them are claptraps selling jingoism to our youth in order to fulfill the Judeo-Zionist agenda. ..."
"... You hit the nail on the head. Karlan's loyalty is to her tribe, not this nation. That's the crux of almost every major problem and injustice we're suffering from in this country, from private prisons to Wall Street looting to endless foreign wars to censorship. There is one group of people behind it with a very bad track record in terms of how they treat their host nations. I wonder when we will finally get our act together and become the 110th country to expel them. ..."
"... IF Trump is removed from office then the war on Lebanon and Iran would be accelerated. Israel will likely go for all the marbles and annex the last remaining Palestinian holdings. Some here believe this couldn't happen but we all live in bizarro world now. ..."
"... it was obvious (on the video) that Karlan really thought she was (wait for it! It's on the way) landing a very clever bon mot! ..."
"... It is a small thing, yet it speaks volumes about the spirit of this clearly clueless human being (and others of her ilk), and her handlers, who must have cleared this little gotcha for prime time. Been up on the podium too long, bleating to students who can't/don't bleat back! No common sense. ..."
"... As the great wise man, Frank Zappa proclaimed about the USA: "Politics/government is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial Government." American politics makes much greater sense (and is a hell of a lot more entertaining) if you understand this truism. ..."
Dec 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

During yesterday's impeachment hearing at the House House Judiciary Committee one of the Democrats' witnesses made some rather crazy statements. Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor, first proved to have bought into neo-conservative delusions about the U.S. role in the world:

America is not just 'the last best hope,' as Mr. Jefferies said, but it's also the shining city on a hill. We can't be the shining city on a hill and promote democracy around the world if we're not promoting it here at home.

As people in Bolivia and elsewhere can attest the United States does not promote democracy. It promotes rightwing regimes and rogue capitalism. The U.S. is itself not a democracy but a functional oligarchy as a major Harvard study found:

Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

But worse than Karlan's pseudo-patriotic propaganda claptrap were her remarks on the Ukraine and Russia:

This is not just about our national interests to protect elections or make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here , but it's in our national interest to promote democracy worldwide.

That was not an joke. From the video it certainly seems that the woman believes that nonsense.

For one the Ukraine is not fighting "the Russians". The Kiev government is fighting against east-Ukrainians who disagree with the Nazi controlled regime which the U.S. installed after it instigated the unconstitutional Maidan coup. Russia supplies the east-Ukrainians and there were a few Russian volunteers fighting on their side but no Russian military units entered the Ukraine.

But aside from that how can anyone truly believe that the Ukraine "fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"? Is Russia on the verge of invading the United States? Where? How? And most importantly: What for? How would that be in Russia's interest?

One must be seriously disturbed to believe such nonsense. How can it be that Karlan is teaching at an academic level when she has such delusions?

And how is it in U.S. interest to give the Ukraine U.S. taxpayer money to buy U.S. weapons? The sole motive behind that idea was greed and corruption , not national interest:

[U.S. special envoy to Ukraine] Volker started his job at the State Department in 2017 in an unusual part-time arrangement that allowed him to continue consulting at BGR, a powerful lobbying firm that represents Ukraine and the U.S.-based defense firm Raytheon. During his tenure, Volker advocated for the United States to send Raytheon-manufactured antitank Javelin missiles to Ukraine -- a decision that made Raytheon millions of dollars.

The missiles are useless in the conflict . They are kept near the western border of Ukraine under U.S. control. The U.S. fears that Russia would hit back elsewhere should the Javelin reach the frontline in the east and get used against the east-Ukrainians. That Trump shortly held back on some of the money that would have allowed the Ukrainians to buy more of those missiles thus surely made no difference.

To claim that it hurt U.S. national interests is nonsense.

It is really no wonder that U.S. foreign policy continuously produces chaos when its practitioners get taught by people like Karlan. In the Middle East as well as elsewhere Russian foreign policy runs circles around U.S. attempts to control the outcome. One reason it can do that is the serious lack of knowledge and realism in U.S. foreign policy thinking. It is itself the outcome of an educational crisis. U.S. 'political science' studies implement a mindset that is unable to objectively recognize the facts and fails to respond to them with realistic concepts.

The Democrats are doing themselves no favor by producing delusional and partisan witnesses who repeat Reaganesque claptrap. They only prove that the whole affair is just an unserious show trial.

In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities.

Do the Democrats really believe that their voters will not notice this?

Posted by b on December 5, 2019 at 15:40 UTC | Permalink


Mischi , Dec 5 2019 15:45 utc | 1

next page " never underestimate the stupidity of people. Even professors.
bevin , Dec 5 2019 15:56 utc | 2
This is the woman that Common Dreams describes as a leading legal scholar. And maybe she is, it would certainly help explain the current state of the US Judiciary and the legal system, which reflects internally the utter contempt for law and custom which characterises US behaviour in international affairs.
DG , Dec 5 2019 15:56 utc | 3
The same bs argument about "not fighting the Russians here" was used a couple of weeks ago by another witness, Tim Morrison. This shows you that the hysteria is bipartisan...
Duncan Idaho , Dec 5 2019 16:00 utc | 4
History is not a strong point for the Dims., as it conflicts with ideology. The Repugs just loot and plunder, with little regard for history.
oldhippie , Dec 5 2019 16:00 utc | 5
There is a large cohort of Americans who believe every word the professor spoke. Whatever you and I may think about it the professor's view of the world is normative for the educated class in America.
rednest , Dec 5 2019 16:02 utc | 6
Regarding those food stamps, it is actually just a small rule change lowering the unemployment rate to 6% (from 10%) above which a state can waive the existing work requirement for single, non-disabled recipients aged 18-49. States can still also waive it if they deem that job availability is low.
Likklemore , Dec 5 2019 16:13 utc | 7
Attributed to Mark Twain. Perhaps the learned professor karlan may affirm: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

AND Ukraine wishing to join NATO: well, not so fast for Hungary. Hungary says it will block Ukraine from joining NATO over controversial language law

Budapest has signaled that it will not support Ukraine's bid to join NATO until Kiev reverses a law that places language restrictions on ethnic Hungarians and other minorities living in the country.

Legislation that limits the use of Hungarian, Russian, Romanian, and other minority languages in Ukraine must be repealed before Hungary backs Ukraine's NATO membership, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.

"We ask for no extra rights to Hungarians in Transcarpathia, only those rights they had before," Szijjarto told Hungarian state media at a NATO summit in London. He alleged that 150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in the region have been "seriously violated" by Ukraine.[.]

In February, Ukraine's parliament ratified amendments to the constitution which made NATO membership a key foreign policy objective. However, a number of hurdles still remain before its membership is likely to be seriously considered. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker predicted in 2016 that it would be 20-25 years before Ukraine would be able to join NATO and the EU.

Tick Tock , Dec 5 2019 16:18 utc | 8
I don't believe that the so called "Professor's View" is normative for the educated class of Americans. It is the normative view of the Ivy League pseudoeducated individuals that have been placed in leadership positions in the US Goverment and Politics but they are not EDUCATED in any way. Karlan is almost certainly a Jew. She is without a doubt a whore who will do anything for her John as directed by her pimp.

Being a brain dead feminist helps her with that role in life. I had an ex wife who fought me post divorce for 10 years trying to destroy me in any way she could. She finally stopped with the Breast Cancer she had for 7 of those years finally killed her. I see the same psychotic, sociopathic and off scall narcissitic behavior in every one of these women in politics and academics today. So don't think that something will get better without a terminal solution.

Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 16:18 utc | 9
Americans are entranced by the kayfabe (mock combat). Just as in wrestling it is designed to look 'real' but just keeps people engrossed in the action, unable to think of what they are NOT being told.

People must free themselves of partisan affiliations that are just levers used to manipulate them.

The establishment uses Democracy Works! propaganda to give you a false sense of power and security. But the people are an afterthought in US/Western politics. The politicians and their Parties work for the money. Much of that money comes from AIPAC, MIC, and other EMPIRE FIRST organizations that are leading us to WAR.

Lazy Americans must get off the couch and form protest Movements. Movements that the establishment works hard to prevent. This is what it takes: France Paralyzed By Largest General Strike In Decades .

It's messy and inconvenient but power only responds to power.

The stoopid cult-thinking must stop. This is where it leads: Buffalo Bishop Resigns Over Sex Abuse Cover-Up . Why do people cling to a corrupt Catholic Church? It's NOT just a few bad apples!! The pedophilia and cover-ups have been worldwide and reach into the highest levels of the Church.

This Buffalo Bishop, like dozens of other Bishops in the last decades, lied to cover for pedophiles and then used the power of his position to remain in his position. His wasn't for the children or any higher morality but for himself. He will get a nice, peaceful retirement - paid for by the deluded Catholic flock.

!!

vk , Dec 5 2019 16:19 utc | 10
In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it.

The reason for that if very simple: the Democrats agree with Trump on this.It's the same question many ask when studying Roman History for the first time: where were the legions when the Goths invaded? The answer is that the Goths were the legions, there was no invasion.

The same logic applies to the Right-Left political spectrum in modern Western Democracies. "Where are the lefties?" is the modern question the first worlders ask themselves since 2008.

--//--

As for the Pamela Karlan thing, it's an issue I've been commenting on here for some time now, so I won't repeat everything.

I'll just say again that imbecilization is a completely normal historical phenomenon in declining empires: the earlier example we have is the Christianization of the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius' death. The rise of Christianity was the messenger of the Crisis of the Third Century, the historic episode which ended the Roman Empire by giving birth to its demented form after the Diocletian Reforms.

Empires tend to have a very plastic conception of truth, that is, they believe they can fabricate reality for the simple reason they are geopolitically dominant.

It's easy to visualize this. The greatest philosopher of the end of the 18th Century and beginning of the 19th Century was a German, not a British. While Hegel wrote his proto-revolutionary works which would pave the way to Karl Marx, in UK we had the likes of Mackinder and Mahan dominating British philosophical thinking. And even then they weren't the dominant intellectual figures: the UK was the land of accountants and economists, not philosophers. The reason for this is that neither Hegel nor Marx had any ships to do gunboat diplomacy in Asia, as the British did.

Empires tend to think and rationalize the world in a much more plastic/practical way than the periphery. As the old saying goes: the stronger side doesn't need to think before it acts.

Bart Hansen , Dec 5 2019 16:21 utc | 11
"...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"

Is this 2019 or 2003?

Bill H , Dec 5 2019 16:32 utc | 12
"In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it."

Bill Clinton took millions off of welfare support and was applauded for it.

Likklemore , Dec 5 2019 16:37 utc | 13
Scroll down the page @ Steven Cheung {VID} on Twitter to watch this exchange where the RATS are told they are the ones who have abused power. Professor Jonathan Turley, a lawyer's go-to-Constitutional Expert:

"The Record does not establish corruption in this case - no bribery, no extortion, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power."

Trump should include Prof. Turley on his legal team. The RATS have not thought this through to what will unfold in the Senate. A real court trial; No hearsay and no! no! no! "I was made aware" And the Bidens, Schiff, and Pelosi under cross-examination. And the Whistleblower!!!

Year 2025 it is.

Mischi , Dec 5 2019 16:39 utc | 14
I used to think that stupid was a characteristic of the American right. It took Donald Trump getting elected to see that stupid knows no political borders. Seriously. I thought that education and progressive thinking also led to a clarity of thought. Boy, was I wrong. The most pro-war people in the USA seem to be Democrats. Bizarro world.
Vonu , Dec 5 2019 16:40 utc | 15
Her delusions are a prerequisite for teaching at an academic level.
Chevrus , Dec 5 2019 16:47 utc | 16
To "...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"

This predates 2003 and stems from the red menace days when it was the communist legions would behave like a set of dominoes and eventually we (USA) would be fighting them in the streets of New York etc. Thus it was imperative that they defeat the commies in French Indo-China despite the fact that they could easily have simply bought the nation by supporting Uncle Ho who had been working for the OSS during WW2. But no, they had to win brownie points with the French by bankrolling their effort to retake the nation and when that didn't work a little "false flag" event employed to keep the ball rolling. I use quotations because while being false, the Tonkin Gulf event wasn't much of a flag.....

At any rate the fact that both Demublicans AND Republocrats are falling back on such antiquated rhetoric is bitterly laughable! It can also be seen as an indicator of just how dumbed down the USAn populace has become. As noted above article, how could anyone think that the RF would plan much less attempt an attack on the continental US?! A closer look at recent history has the US and it's poodles surrounding the RF with missile bases, sanctioning and embargoing the fhaak out it, and generally trying to destroy the nation as a whole with whatever clandestine methods are available. But hey, take a page from the book of Cheney: deny everything and make counter accusations.....

james , Dec 5 2019 16:52 utc | 17
thanks b... propaganda is the usa's education... see your breakdown of the nyt articles... most people don't get this...

The military industrial complex is in the people of usa's interest.. they think they benefit from the rayatheons, lockheed martins, boeings and etc - as they have relatives working at these places... the usa is one sick puppy, and Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor is just further proof of this... sorry if someone else said what i did, as i didn't read the comments yet..

james , Dec 5 2019 16:55 utc | 18
wikipedia on pamela karlan.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_S._Karlan

"Throughout her career, Karlan has been an advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court.[10] She was mentioned as a potential candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter when he retired in 2009.[11]

Personal life

Karlan told Politico in 2009, "It's no secret at all that I'm counted among the LGBT crowd".[12] She has described herself as an example of a "snarky, bisexual, Jewish women".[13] Her partner is writer Viola Canales.[14]

she is not an American women apparently.. she is a Jewish women.. oh well, lol...

Perimetr , Dec 5 2019 16:56 utc | 19
The fact that the "papers of record" have become mouthpieces for the CIA/deep state has played a huge role in the brainwashing of academia and the rise of neoliberalism. The false narratives these "trusted sources" of information have been serving up create a very real Matrix, a false reality that is ingrained into those who rely upon them for their daily "news". Karlan is merely repeating what she accepts as truth, garnered from the NY Times and Wash Post, CNN, NPR, etc.

Believe me, even here in the red states, you won't find a hell of a lot of faculty members at large universities who are Trump supporters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ

Lorenz , Dec 5 2019 16:56 utc | 20

What I find absent in most discussions about impeachment of Trump is the 800 pound gorilla - what will happen to the US if against all odds, Trump gets impeached. Could the US survive that cataclysmic event or would it rip the empire apart? What contingency plans does everybody make for that unlikely, but not impossible singularity?
Dave , Dec 5 2019 17:00 utc | 21
"In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities."

That's why it's called bread and circus. The loot and pillage party's two separate funding arms get their funding and privilege from the same sociopath/psychopaths who operate the mass murder for profit economy we now live in.

They will continue the slaughter until the enforcers within society finally understand they work for criminally insane cultists who will never have enough money, power, and prestige.

Piotr Berman , Dec 5 2019 17:02 utc | 22
I see that distrust to everything that is good and decent is extended to law professors. Stanford is a short (if sometimes slow) ride from Berkeley that has a more famous professor in its own law school (Wiki):[you know

John Choon Yoo (born July 10, 1967)[4] is a Korean-American attorney, law professor, former government official, and author. Yoo is currently the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.[1] Previously, he served as the Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice, during the George W. Bush administration.

He is best known for his opinions concerning the Geneva Conventions that attempted to legitimize the Bush administration's War on Terror. He also authored the so-called Torture Memos, which provided a legal rationale for so-called [you know what] =====

First, they torture logic... The ignorants who could not tell tollens from a toilet brush would not even know what to twist, hence the need for professors.

psychohistorian , Dec 5 2019 17:15 utc | 23
@ b who wrote

"The U.S. is itself not a democracy but a functional oligarchy as a major Harvard study found:"

My only quibble with another great post is the assertion that the US is functional. Functional would mean it had supportive infrastructure but instead we have homeless shitting in the street because they are driven out of the parks to do so and they must be bad people that don't deserve public toilets.

Functional would mean, as Jackrabbit linked to above, and a I i did a few hours ago in the Weekly Open Thread, that there wouldn't be 117 sexually abusive Catholic priests in the Buffalo NY area doing the same thing as Epstein was doing to his clients.

Functional would mean we would not have the blatant hypocrisy Chervus quoted from the posting above

"To "...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"

I agree with Chervus that this is same BS that got us the Iron Curtain with Russia after WWII because they wanted Godless communism instead of global private finance. And also, as I ranted recently in the Open Thread, this gave us the 1950's change to the US Motto to In God We Trust which gets back to the control of the obfuscatory/hypocrisy narrative telling us that the private finance cult are doing God's work and that "competition is good/sharing is bad"

The US is dysfunctional on purpose to keep the masses under control and dumbed down/brainwashed

Piotr Berman , Dec 5 2019 17:15 utc | 24
Ha! More connections to Stanford: "Ancient Logic: Forerunners of Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

BTW, it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make Ukraine strong (wouldn't we all love to see strong Ukraine?) while wrecking its economy by encouraging policies like spending 5% of GDP on the military, switching to more expensive energy sources, cutting itself from traditional markets and supplies, replacing with rather worthless "cooperation" agreement with a trading block that is neither particularly interested in trading with Ukraine (Ukraine strongest exports are in surplus within EU) nor inclined to subsidize it (budgets are tights and plenty of recent EU members are in dire needs already)

Ant. , Dec 5 2019 17:17 utc | 25
I think it's tragic that that creatures like Karlan are not simply seen as the blatant bigots and Nazi's that they are. You have to be wearing a large set of blinkers not to be able to see that.

Unfortunately this is endemic in the western world. 'Democracy' seems to consist of dumbing down the population as much as possible, and telling them what they have to think so the self-anointed leaders of society can have their way (both those in front, and behind the scenes). I'm far from certain this is a recipe for success.

The biggest tragedy is that Americans seem to think that the only way to succeed is to tear down any other country that isn't essentially a puppet government, necessarily defining them as 'enemies', and therefore someone/thing that must be hated and destroyed, by any means, fair or foul.

Russians and Chinese in particular, and BRICS/SCO in general, are showing the way. The countries involved have very different political systems, but they understand that co-operation is much more beneficial than constant conflict. Unless, of course, a quarter of your government tax income is dedicated to supporting an amazingly corrupt Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex.

steven t johnson , Dec 5 2019 17:27 utc | 26
Trump supporters approve of cutting food stamps. The majority of Democratic Party politicians approve of cutting food stamps. Both parties agree times are good and the future is rosy. The only thing they disagree on is foreign policy. The guy who couldn't even win the election (and merely fluked in on a technicality that undermines all progress since 1788,) refuses to play by the rules on foreign policy. And he is not justified by success, not in any terms, not in making peace, not in winning, not in anything. The only people who are upset about impeaching Trump are Trump lovers and cranks who think being president is like being elected God and no one but sinners can defy Him.

The Trump supporters were going to turn out for him anyway, barring an economic crisis even they couldn't ignore. Impeachment has no downside so long as it is from the right, and doesn't rile up the rich people. Except the rich donors are leaving the Democratic Party anyway. The strategy for a nicey-nice campaign that leaves enough Trump voters soothed enough to sit it out has one enormous defect: Trump was not elected by the people anyhow.

But the Democratic Party politicians are anti-Communist, which means pro-Fascist, so yes, they do see this as (im)moral principles to die for, though they hope to politically kill for it. Their problem is, Trump is also anti-Communist and pro-Fascist, which everyone knows, which means Trump was merely his office for campaigning. That may be hypocritical and a violation of campaign laws. But in the eyes even of the anti-Communist/pro-Fascist population missiles for Ukrainian fascists with strings or without strings is merely a tactical disagreement. Even worse, the president breaking laws is perceived as strong leadership, smashing the machine, getting rid of those awful politicians and their oppressive government.

Russ , Dec 5 2019 17:37 utc | 27
This is a typical example of the stupidity and often dementia of most of the highly educated. Especially those in academia, who exist in a funhouse hall of propagandist and ideological mirrors. But it's true of the educated in the general. I personally know plenty of highly educated people who make themselves more stupid and mentally ill by the day by uncritically reading the NYT and watching CNN.

I don't know why anyone would expect anything different. All system schooling at whatever level boils down to the same two goals:

  1. Instill the basic literacy necessary for a given cog position within the hierarchy.
  2. Instill obedience to authority, including indoctrination into its ideology.

From kindergarten to grad school these are the same; whether one's being trained to pump gas or to assume a high position in the corporate world/government/academia these are the same.

So it's no wonder that an elite Stanford law professor is in practice the exact same stupid, ignorant, deranged yahoo as you could easily find in a trailer park, just with better manners and diction.

That's the American system.

mrr52 , Dec 5 2019 17:42 utc | 28
"One must be seriously disturbed to believe such nonsense. How can it be that Karlan is teaching at an academic level when she has such delusions?"

I assume this question was meant rhetorically. After all, Karlan's Russia comment would receive enthusiastic thumbs up from at least Biden, Obama, W. Clinton, H. Clinton, Rubio, Klobuchar, Pelosi, Warren, Graham, Buttigieg, Romney, the late McCain, Pompeo, Bolton, Mattis...the list goes on and on.

For a related, institutionalized, revolting example packaging multiple instances of such delusional thought, see "russias-dead-end-diplomacy-syria" . Have a pail nearby to catch the spew.

Russ , Dec 5 2019 17:46 utc | 29
steven t johnson 26

"The guy who couldn't even win the election (and merely fluked in on a technicality that undermines all progress since 1788,)"

I don't think you ever answered when I asked you last time: Are you saying you think Hillary was so stupid she didn't know about the electoral college, and that it was electoral votes she had to fight for, not popular ones? Because if you're not saying that, then nothing is changed: Trump beat Hillary in the electoral fight they were both trying to win. It's pure nonsense to babble about "technicalities".

And if any significant Democrat faction was saying throughout 2016, and not just after the election, that the election should NOT be about electoral votes, please direct me to where and when they were saying that, because I don't recall ever hearing it. And I think the reason I never heard it was because the Dems were so smugly sure of electoral college victory. And if Hillary had won, we never would've heard a word from you or anyone else about the electoral college.

Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 17:47 utc | 30
Piotr Berman @24:
it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make Ukraine strong while wrecking its economy
It's even worse than that. The economy will never recover while oligarchs have a stranglehold on economic activity and government. And USA's capitalist dementia ensures that will never change. (The West as a whole is headed in the direction of unabashed oligarchic rule.)

Why would anyone invest in Ukraine? Sometimes I think Putin was happy for the Western coup to succeed and simply planned to keep the best parts.

!!

casey , Dec 5 2019 17:48 utc | 31
But do they really believe what they (the mid-level elites) say or is it all some kind of theater of the increasingly absurd? I am never clear on who among the narrative managers is sincere and who is simply acting sincere. Are people like this woman or the Bellingcat narrative managers or any of their numerous colleagues in their mid-level narrative management positions occupying their positions simply due to their acting abilities? They seem to be both delusional and ill-informed. When these people get together at their conferences and dinner parties, does the mask come off?
juannie , Dec 5 2019 17:49 utc | 32
Mischi #1
never underestimate the stupidity of people. Even professors.

Or as I think it was Einstein that reportedly said: (I paraphrase from memory)

To truly understand the infinite, just contemplate human stupidity.
vk , Dec 5 2019 18:02 utc | 33
Related news (on the subject of "American delusion"):

NATO Is Full of Freeloaders. But It's How We Defend the Free World. -- Europe without American protection is a continental disaster waiting to happen.

Well, mr. Stephens kind of tells the truth on the headline. But at least he could be more polite.

Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 18:03 utc | 34
casey @31: When these people get together ... does the mask come off?

I doubt it. They have convinced themselves that they are right and/or are following the wishes of people who are right-thinking. In USA, most people are brainwashed to assume that people with lots of money are right-thinking (as in: they must be doing something right!).

Upton Sinclair:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

!!

Really?? , Dec 5 2019 18:25 utc | 36
Wasn't the "so we won't be fighting them here" meme used also to justify the Iraq invasion and the War on Terror?
karlof1 , Dec 5 2019 18:31 utc | 38
Upton Sinclair self-published a book in 1922 about education in America entitled Goose Step . Predating the infamous era of the Nazi/Fascist Goose Stepping thugs then armies, I read a preview and found an inexpensive copy. The subject as might be assumed was about the use of school systems to indoctrinate young Americans at all educational levels and nationwide to conform to the views of the rather few wealthy people who sat on interlocking boards that controlled curriculum--sort of like the oligarchic control over media today.

And as we've seen with the study of political-economy, the ability to erase rather recent developments and personages and inserting false doctrines and their priests was done rather easily and with little noted protest. And so it's gone on down through the decades until today--just look at the War Criminals hired by Stanford and other universities for proof of its being an ongoing problem.

That ideological blinders are omnipresent is easily proven by the various defense planning documents referenced here over the last several years, all of which relate to the unilateral, might makes right mindset that's one of the Evil Outlaw US Empire's longstanding traits that predates the 20th Century. Too many will never learn humility and the reality accompanying it until it's enforced. But there's a wiser group residing within the Empire, some of us present at this bar ready to deal with the mess once humpty-dumpty falls from its perch upon which it's currently tottering.

Beibdnn , Dec 5 2019 18:40 utc | 42
I just looked up Pamala Karlan. Apparently there is a story that when she was a baby she was so ugly her parents had to put shutters on her pram. She claims to have a partner? There's no accounting for taste I suppose but even for a U.S. citizen there must be a red line. Somewhere? someone! As to her intellectual prowess, in my limited understanding, intellect depends on the platform it rests upon. Put a Jaguar engine into a Mobility scooter and see how well that performs. Plenty of power but no means of utilising it. Logical mechanisms such as law require as little emotion as possible. People like her just bring the demise of a great nation into action sooner rather than later. I suppose we should be grateful such fools consider Russia an adversary, it's makes predicting what comes next much more clear and succinct action can be instigated. Professor Pamela Karlan. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
james , Dec 5 2019 18:58 utc | 44
@29 russ...steven is making himself look like a fool regularly with that crap.. oh well..

@36 really? yes, indeed.. same faulty logic one would expect from a stanford law prof.. as @22 piotr rightly notes - john yoo, the freak who could make torture in abu graib okay is another one cut from the very same cloth..

i see one of Pamela Karlans comments got the ire of melania trump.. article here..

"The Constitution states that there can be no titles of nobility. So while the president can name his son Barron, he can't MAKE him a baron." Pamela S. Karlan

"A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it." -- Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 4, 2019

Karlan apologized for her remark as the hearing continued late Wednesday. "It was wrong of me to do that,'' she said, according to the Associated Press. "I do regret it."

nwwoods , Dec 5 2019 19:19 utc | 45
Universally accepted fact among the devoted is that "America is fighting Russia in the Ukraine", though there are exactly zero confirmed reports of Russian troops in the region in the past five years.
Joost , Dec 5 2019 19:22 utc | 46
Many of the dumbest people I met were university students or graduates. They are thought to absorb information as given, reproduce once, forget. They are not trained to question anything, they follow a narrative. Some even denounced everything they ever learned and became a follower of some religion, which is just another narrative.

I remember one student dorm in particular. Someone came in and decided it was too warm. Put the central heating thermostat on "arctic winter", opened all doors and windows while it was freezing outside. Then someone else came in and decided it was cold, closed all doors and windows, put the thermostat on "incinerate". Repeat 24/7. The few times I tried to explain how a thermostat works, I felt like being rubbed out of existence. Only one guy understood that you set a room thermostat at a comfortable level and it would regulate to desired temperature. He was an alcoholic, always stoned up to his eyeballs, not a student except for the 3 or 4 studies he briefly tried and failed, and had given up on life in general. He was also the only one there who questioned things.

!!

Yevgeny , Dec 5 2019 19:36 utc | 51
Why assume that democracy was not always a trick? Pax Romana anyone?

Also there are some pretty nasty comments on here about the confused professor that say a whole lot more about the hangups of the poster.

Trailer Trash , Dec 5 2019 19:39 utc | 52
I've seen Jonathan Turley on TV a number of times. He always seemed to be a person of integrity. One needs to add courage to the list after testifying against impeachment on the presented "evidence". I will be very surprised to see him on PBS or CBS ever again. Their news readers are nearly giddy with excitement about impeachment. They never consider what could happen if Trump is convicted but refuses to leave the White House. Then what?

--------- The food stamp program changes will kill people. As intended. One of the most affected groups will be people who are too sick or otherwise too impaired to work, and maybe unable to even leave their home, but still can't get social support. The system says there is no problem because desperate people can get a free meal on Thanksgiving and Christmas. For the other 363 days a year, go find a dumpster to dive in.

Almost all Social Security Disability applicants are denied on the initial application. There are no interim payments or support of any kind. Many give up, as intended. The rest file appeals and wait years for a hearing before an "administrative law judge", who is not a "real" judge, but just some lawyer with fancy title.

ALJ decisions tend to be rather arbitrary, so a favorable decision depends on which ALJ hears a case. Sure there are more levels to appeal, and many more years of no social support, if an applicant can find a way to survive for years on zero income, all the while being sick with probably no medical care.

Social Security and disability lawyers have colluded to keep lawyers in business. Social Security requires the use of a standard contract that gives the lawyer a fixed percentage of the retroactive benefits. "Retroactive benefits" are the regular monthly benefits that accrue from the officially determined "date of disability". So if it takes three years to get benefits, the lawyer gets a nice chunk of change for a few hours work writing a brief and showing up for the hearing.

The lawyer who signed my contract did nothing to help my case, and he even hired someone else to write the brief and attend the hearing. One wonders if ALJs get some benefit from lawyers to encourage long wait times, since long wait times increase lawyer profits at zero cost.

The US system really is that cruel and barbaric. It would be kinder to take us out back and shoot us, but that's too obvious. Much better to let people die slowly in the shadows so the rest of society doesn't have to see us.

And I'm one of the fortunates who managed to hang on, despite bankruptcy, a civil suit, the disability benefits process (only took six years), and state attempts to revoke Medicaid, all at the same time. I know it sounds melodramatic, made up, or at least exaggerated. That's understandable, because it seems that way to me, too!

About 1000 people a week kill themselves in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Does anyone wonder why, or even notice? The reason for many of these deaths is the lack of social supports. In Uncle Sam Land, social apoptosis is a feature, not a bug.

chet380 , Dec 5 2019 20:07 utc | 54
Did anyone really expect the Dems to appoint unbiased legal scholars to advise them on the finer legal points of the Articles of Impeachment?
Kooshy , Dec 5 2019 20:10 utc | 55
This fucking shining city on the hill, is so f*ing shiny that it's flames is burning the world.
steven t johnson , Dec 5 2019 20:11 utc | 56
Russ@29 forgot the comments where I've reviewed exactly how everybody rejected the Electoral College, holding legitimacy came from winning the real election. Until Gore, every time the EC violated the expectation that it was a technical way of recording the popular vote, there was justified outrage. Bush's camp in 2000 had plans to contest an EC loss, until that shoe turned out to be on the other foot. If Trump had won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College, he would no more accept the results. Only liars take refuge in the simplistic legalisms. And only Trump ass-lickers are so contemptible as to pretend Trump was the stable genius who outplayed Clinton in the real game. Trump had no more idea how to win the EC without winning the popular vote than anyone else. Further, by the witless pretended principles of Russ' ilk, a presidential candidate who managed to win faithless electors who ignored even their own states' pluralities* would still be the legitimate president! Every single defender of Trump the one legitimate president is witless and worthless.

But very likely the real objection to the response is the insistence that Trump isn't magically guaranteed re-election because...well, the real reason is slavish devotion to a God named Trump. Even with the advantage of incumbency this time around, with even more support from the wealthy (the people who have really turned away from the Democratic Party to favor political gangsterism,) Trump is likely to lose the election again. If I were in Congress I would offer a compromise, where the Republicans were assured Trump would not be investigated any more, much less impeached, for abolition of the Electoral College. But I think Trump would say no, because he knows deep down he's a loser.

steven t johnson , Dec 5 2019 20:13 utc | 57
*US politicians rarely win majorities of the electorate. Politicians of all stripes have agreed that non-voting is always to be deemed as "Satisfied" with either choice instead of "Alienated, with no choice." Decent people suspect otherwise.
goldhoarder , Dec 5 2019 20:23 utc | 58
@38 Karloff1 You can still Read the late John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education online. He did a great job highlighting the history and purpose of copying the Prussian style of education to replace the one room school houses and instill the "martial spirit" in the American public. I have to hand it to the Oligarchs of old too. They were very effective in their implementation.

[malformed/wrong link deleted - b.]

nietzsche1510 , Dec 5 2019 20:31 utc | 60
Karlan type of academics is scattered all over the US universities. They are the Academia´s gatekeepers, watching over & "spotting" of our future leaders. the majority of them are claptraps selling jingoism to our youth in order to fulfill the Judeo-Zionist agenda.
Trailer Trash , Dec 5 2019 20:39 utc | 61
I knew that name sounded familiar...
John Taylor Gatto, former New York City and New York State teacher of the year, stated:

The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders; and John Holt concluded, School is a place where children learn to be stupid . . . Children come to school curious; within a few years most of that curiosity is dead, or at least silent.

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/john_gatto.html

Jen , Dec 5 2019 21:15 utc | 66
I recall when I was a student at the University of Technology, Sydney, way back in the Mesozoic era (1980s), the economics dept there had a lecturer there with a Harvard University background so the staff made him head of the department. Just because he had a Harvard University PhD. He was hardly a great administrator and the subjects he taught (compared with other lecturers' subjects) were much less structured. Of course this meant the courses he taught were easier on students' time and energy, though if you made use of the opportunity a less structured course gave, you could turn in an end-of-term essay with impressive research equivalent to the level required of a post-grad.

The university also had an exchange program with the University of Oregon, and most of the Oregon students who came to UTS (usually in their second or third year) found the UTS coursework very heavy-going and difficult.

In those days, UTS was only supposed to be a second-tier university in Australia.

ac , Dec 5 2019 21:34 utc | 68
This hearing is a theatre performance (kabuki -- hey, I learned a new word, thanks) and PK's lines are an invocation of the official US myth (the shinning city on the hill, the exceptional, indispensible nation). No one in the room took that seriously or literally (especially PK herself) and IMHO these national myths are not really anything to freak out about - every nation has got its myth, and this is an arrogant one, but compared to a few others it's almost likeable.

Of course it is at odds with historical records and the reality, but all of them are, because, frankly, the truth, being descendants of genocidal, religious nutters and slavers, is apparently very motivational -- in the KSA...

The RU/UK lines are slightly more worrisome, but that's just a matching background for her story - the fluff. She doesn't have to belive it - it's just a performance, an elegant one but meaningless in the end.

A lot of the visitors comment about the deep state, most of the time mentioning three letter agencies. Here comes a piece about a four letters one, acting more or less in the plain sight: OIRA, E.O. 12866

A group of virtually anonymous, unaccountable people wields quite considerable power over both legislative and executive. A very interesting construction...

information_agent , Dec 5 2019 22:08 utc | 70
Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Dec 5 2019 21:03 utc | 65

You hit the nail on the head. Karlan's loyalty is to her tribe, not this nation. That's the crux of almost every major problem and injustice we're suffering from in this country, from private prisons to Wall Street looting to endless foreign wars to censorship. There is one group of people behind it with a very bad track record in terms of how they treat their host nations. I wonder when we will finally get our act together and become the 110th country to expel them.

And Goldhoarder, while you may not mind how your posts look, you've managed to damage this comment thread and until b deletes your poorly structured post, we all suffer for it.

psychohistorian , Dec 5 2019 22:31 utc | 71
@ Posted by: Lochearn | Dec 5 2019 21:51 utc | 72 who seems to disagree with my concept "dysfunctional on purpose" and wants to use decadence instead and wrote: " Surely there must be some functionality to be able to keep the masses dumbed down/brainwashed; it implies some sort of thought out strategy. How do we get the same narrative trotted out in media in exactly the same format from LA to Warsaw, from Lima to Bangalore if it's all so dysfunctional? "

I posit that strategy of "dysfunctional on purpose" is control of the narrative and language and it is purposefully used.

Consider the current seeming understanding of the terms, socialism and capitalism by many of your fellow barflies. Many of our fellow barflies would have one believe that China is socialist and the West is capitalist...exclusively. I and a few others keep trying to point out that both China and the West are, to varying degrees mixed economies, including aspects of both socialism and capitalism

Consider the implicit definition of government if you will. Is government, as compared to dictatorships, not explicitly socialistic? Are not the provision of water, sewage treatment and in many case electricity explicitly socialistic by definition? Is it not dumbing down and brainwashing that many don't understand reality but spout the words and concepts they are fed by those in control of the narrative and media pushing it?

And, not to make too fine a point of it, does all of the West not live under the dictatorship of global private finance at this time? So how much more would I get ignored if I beat that drum as part of my comments here?

Ian2 , Dec 5 2019 23:07 utc | 75
Lorenz | Dec 5 2019 16:56 utc | 20:

IF Trump is removed from office then the war on Lebanon and Iran would be accelerated. Israel will likely go for all the marbles and annex the last remaining Palestinian holdings. Some here believe this couldn't happen but we all live in bizarro world now.

Also, don't expect the Electoral College to oust Pence after the general election since he's more pro-war; even the electors from Democrat controlled states would support him. IMHO, the US would continue on; business as usual.

However, if the Democrats are crazy enough to follow through, the Republican dominated Senate would reject it. Basically a repeat of what happened to Clinton. In the end, nothing changed.

Really?? , Dec 5 2019 23:07 utc | 76
James #44

""It was wrong of me to do that,'' she said, according to the Associated Press. "I do regret it.""

Ya but . . .as Tucker Carlson spot-on reacted, that comment sure looked as though it had been rehearsed in front of the bathroom mirror. It was sooooo lame!!! I mean, it was obvious (on the video) that Karlan really thought she was (wait for it! It's on the way) landing a very clever bon mot!

It is a small thing, yet it speaks volumes about the spirit of this clearly clueless human being (and others of her ilk), and her handlers, who must have cleared this little gotcha for prime time. Been up on the podium too long, bleating to students who can't/don't bleat back! No common sense.

Never a connection with a child, I'll bet, or she could never have said such a thing. Painful to look at the pinched little face, decent hairdo missing in action, with the rant coming out of the tight little mouth. A pathetic individual.

Ditto Noah Feldman from the Felix Frankfurter Dept of the Harvard Law School: Pure bloviation with skin like a baby's bottom. Better coiffed, actually, than Karlan. Quels types!!!

Jen , Dec 5 2019 23:21 utc | 80
Jackrabbit @ 68:

My comment @ 67 was actually just to highlight the (most undeserved) reputations that places like Harvard and Stanford have among certain faculties in Australian universities. In those days Stanford, Harvard and MIT were the holiest of holy shrines to do business studies / economics degrees. Years later I read a book by someone who actually did do a Stanford MBA and the scales fell from my eyes then. The work was similar to what I'd done as an undergraduate (albeit collapsed in the space of 18 months; I had the luxury of doing part-time and then going full-time as a student).

I should have added that the Harvard PhD guy who taught me comparative economics was a lousy teacher as well as a lousy administrator. I visited his office once and it looked as if a tornado had just hit it. To be fair though, he really wasn't cut out to be a lecturer, he was much better at research and analysis.

Before he became a lecturer, he worked at the CIA as a researcher. He knew next to no German (he was of Polish background) so he was assigned to the section to read East German newspapers. A fellow he knew who could speak and read German but no Bulgarian was assigned to the ... Bulgarian section. That experience must account for my lecturer's sloppy personal style.

But now that you draw my attention to the link, yes you are right that the study was done at Princeton University.

oldhippie , Dec 6 2019 0:18 utc | 87
@81

Why do you assume a technical illiterate could read those instructions? I can't even begin to do anything with that. It is never simple enough for those who have not been initiated.

HTML works by magic. Your instructions do not convince me otherwise.

Better solution is to forgo links altogether if not competent. Or spell out the link and force the really interested to transcribe. Of course no one is going to go to effort of spelling out a link as long as that one above. Which would be a good thing.

Jen , Dec 6 2019 0:27 utc | 88
She's been gone some time now (she died in April 2018) but Karen Dawisha , a so-called expert on Russian and post-Soviet politics who obtained a higher degree at the London School of Economics, was another deluded academic twat who wrote the book "Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?"

The 1-star, 2-star and 3-star reviews on Amazon.com of the book refer to the tabloid quality of many of the claims in the book, poor sourcing, cherry-picking of facts and the author's inability to write at a level that would attract a readership outside the academic community.

The least we can say for her is that she is no longer in a position to, erm, "advise" the US and UK governments on issues and help formulate policy that would backfire on Washington and London anyway.

ak74 , Dec 6 2019 2:14 utc | 98
As the great wise man, Frank Zappa proclaimed about the USA: "Politics/government is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial Government." American politics makes much greater sense (and is a hell of a lot more entertaining) if you understand this truism.

US Presidential Debates and impeachment hearings are a swell occasion for drinking games. Every time a political hack, media shill, or academic invokes some variant of American Exceptionalism, take a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage. You will be drunk within half an hour--guaranteed!

Gal , Dec 6 2019 2:19 utc | 99
I'd say unbelievable but I know that is only wishful thinking on my part. What's scary is that these people populate the "educational" system which explains why we're as screwed as we are.

[Dec 08, 2019] Karlan, US neocons and "The Russians Are Coming!" scare

Notable quotes:
"... When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that. ..."
"... Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business. ..."
Dec 08, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Here is a congealing conventional wisdom around sending military assistance to Ukraine that is as absurd as can be, and it cropped up again this morning:

"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" was extremely stupid when applied to terrorism. It is much more stupid when applied to Russia, and shows how impoverished the FP thinking of even bright, engaged Americans is. My goodness.

-- Justin Logan (@JustinTLogan) December 4, 2019

It is discouraging to see that one of the dumbest talking points from the Bush era has returned. "Fight them there" was always a silly justification for waging unnecessary wars in other countries, and now it is being repurposed to justify the questionable policy of throwing weapons at a conflict in Europe. When it was used in the context of Bush-era wars, it was an attempt to make what were clearly wars of choice seem as though they were unavoidable. When a government needs to defend a bad policy, it will usually claim that they have no choice but to do what they are doing.

When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that.

I have written many times why I think it is a mistake to arm Ukraine. It just encourages escalation at worst and the prolongation of the conflict at best. Until recently, the arguments in favor of doing this have not been very compelling, but at least they weren't quite so mindless. Needless to say, Russia's conflict with Ukraine is a local one, and the U.S. doesn't have much at stake in that conflict. Ukrainians aren't fighting Russia and its proxies on our behalf or to prevent them from attacking someone else, but for the sake of their own country.

If Russia hawks insist on providing Ukraine with weapons and other assistance, they should at least be able to acknowledge that this is a peripheral interest of the United States. Exaggerating the importance of this policy to U.S. security just calls attention to how little it matters to U.S. security.

Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business.

[Dec 08, 2019] The real threat of the Rome Statute to the USA is the universal obligation to prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.

Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bailiff, Whack his Peepee , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT

There's one additional revolutionary factor:

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/12/05/612858/international-criminal-court-investigation-US-war-crimes-Afghanistan?jwsource=cl

The threat to US official impunity panics the regime more than any number of Russian Sarmats or nuclear ramjets. The ICC is one very new judicial forum, and its halting efforts to get its institutional footing panicked the US into imposing illegal sanctions on accredited diplomats. The real threat of the Rome Statute is the universal obligation to prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.

An increasing number of the most influential US functionaries will be unable to travel freely. This is, in effect, pariah-state status more abject than North Korea's. This has been a mounting challenge for years – GW Bush fled Switzerland, scared off by a war crimes accusation from a single legislator.

And international criminal law is one jaw of a pincer. It complements the doctrine of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. State responsibility provides the civil equivalent of international criminal law, with the potential to impose restitution, reparation, satisfaction, and compensation with interest. Satisfaction articulates directly with international criminal law by providing for prosecution of designated criminals. The US faces insupportable liabilities for its internationally wrongful acts, and US functionaries know that any one of them could be sacrificed to get the regime off the hook.

Russian policy is to enforce this law at gunpoint. Iranian policy is to make its case in independent international courts. China is vocal about upholding rule of law, and as its deterrent improves, it will be increasingly active in applying it. The G-192 – 96% of the world's population – pitches in by withholding the "waterfall" of G-5 privileges. The UK recently got pushed off the ICJ bench for the first time ever for its lawless conduct. The US is next.

The US is an underdeveloped country ineffectually waving second-rate weapons. The world is leaving it behind.

[Dec 08, 2019] US Militarism Promotes More Turmoil Than Stability In The Middle East by Rami G. Khouri

Dec 06, 2019 | responsiblestatecraft.org

For the past two centuries and, particularly the last three decades, direct foreign military intervention in the affairs of ostensibly sovereign and independent states has been perhaps the most consistent and destructive common denominator that shapes our region's worsening condition. Direct warfare by foreign powers almost always paves the way for decades, if not centuries, of continuing instability -- whether in the cases of Napoleon in 1798, the Soviet Union and the United States in Afghanistan in the decades after 1979, the U.S. in Iraq in 2003, or Russia, Iran, and seemingly half the world in Syria since 2015.

Direct foreign military attacks or other "security" activities inside Middle East lands inevitably create traumatic local power imbalances that portend chronic local ideological conflicts, and spark resentments and resistance to the foreign invader or to the invader's local ruling ally. Foreign invaders also create local authority vacuums that open the door for other states to intervene (see Iraq, Syria, and Libya), and also create the ideal spawning ground for radical, militant, resistance, or terrorist movements of all stripes. Israel repeatedly encountered this instinctive local resistance to its predatory militarism in Lebanon and Gaza, as did the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the U.S. and its allies in Iraq.

Almost nothing good emerges from direct foreign militarism in the Middle East, and even when the fighting stops surreptitious foreign support to local warring parties also perpetuates tensions and clashes, which only spur economic waste, corruption, collapse, and widespread poverty and suffering among the citizenry.

It is clear now that foreign militarism plays a destructive and sustained role in the two biggest problems that now tear apart much of the Arab region (and also touch on non-Arab Mideast states like Iran, Turkey and Israel). The first is mass pauperization that now sees over two-thirds of all Arab citizens living in poverty or vulnerability, in states that have reached or approach bankruptcy and allow citizens no meaningful political rights. This will get much worse because all prevailing economic trends that could counter it are flat or negative (trade, tourism, direct investment, remittances, job creation).

The second problematic big regional trend -- very much states' reactions to their citizens' helpless pauperization -- is the growing militarization and securitization of governance. This is evident in bloated military and security budgets that are controlled by a handful of unelected, unaccountable leaders, and expanded use of anti-terrorism laws since September 2011 to deter or imprison domestic political foes, or prevent any independent political expression by the public (see Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain). Foreign militarism since the 1940s has inevitably promoted local military rule within Arab states. The incompetence, autocracy, and corruption of Arab military rulers since the 1970s have driven economies into the ground, and sparked the nonstop street uprisings we witness today across the region.

The centuries of cumulative interventions by foreign powers inside Arab states reached a new peak in the past eight years in Syria, where dozens of foreign and regional actors that joined the fray inside the country charted new ground in the historical legacy that had mostly seen big power, usually Western and colonial, interventions in the region's affairs.

Of course Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Persian, and other imperial dominance in the region across time all played a role in defining the Middle East as a frontline battlefield in the recurring waves of global imperial dominance and cultural influence. Starting in the 19th Century, however, as imperial powers started to come to terms with their imminent historical demise, the British and the French mostly wrote the book on the ugly heritage of battling for strategic supremacy in our region. The 20th Century saw foreign powers fight at will in the Middle East, and also provide indirect political and "security" support to their favorite local partners, allies, surrogates, and stooges, who kept fighting it out inside Arab countries that proved to be only nominally sovereign and independent states.

The civil war in Syria that started in 2011 was the logical outcome of this legacy. It mirrors other states where authority and legitimacy collapsed in the eyes of their own people, and the sovereign control of their lands and resources succumbed to the many foreign actors that came in to save the dying beast or bite off pieces of its carcass. Syria offers one of the most important examples of this, given the wide variety of warring parties that joined its several overlapping local, regional, and global wars.

The fighters in Syria included dozens of Arab states and non-state armed groups, local militias and tribal forces, regional non-Arab powers like Iran, Turkey, Israel, and Hezbollah and their clients, wannabe regional powers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, leading global powers like the U.S. and Russia, second-tier powers like the U.K. and France, and a few smaller countries around the world that joined directly or provided mercenaries mostly to win credits with bigger Arab or foreign powers.

The eight-year war in Syria is at once a consequence and a high-water mark of sustained foreign military interventions in the Arab region, and a harbinger of how such foreign and local militarism will operate there for years to come. We can already see in Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and scattered other corners of our troubled region several noteworthy legacies of today's foreign militarism in Syria and its antecedents since Napoleon.

Regional and foreign powers' rolling interventions in Syria have redefined how such powers engage across the region, where two opposing loose alliances, loosely allied with Saudi Arabia or Iran, now face off -- each comprises Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global powers, and local non-state actors. The sheer number and variety of foreign forces that directly or indirectly fought in Syria portend badly for fragile states whose illusory sovereignty can collapse at any moment in the face of dozens of armed actors that pounce like wolves circling a dazed gazelle. The "international community" that actively joined and fueled the fighting also responded weakly to the alleged and real war crimes on both sides This suggests that the "international community" is something of a fiction, but also that, whatever it represents, it can live with the Middle East's continuing authoritarian, lawlessness, and violent political systems -- as long as the violence, refugees, terrorists, and turmoil remain in the Middle East.

Indeed, global and regional powers actively engage in cross-border militarism and neo-colonialism that we can see in several arenas: Washington's support for Israeli settlements expansion and annexations of occupied Arab lands, and its lingering presence in Syria and Iraq; Russian and American support for Turkish incursions into northern Syria; Saudi Arabian and Emirati moves to control parts of the south of Yemen for their own strategic aims; British and American direct involvement in the war on Yemen; and, French, Emirati, Russian, and Egyptian support for the rebel forces of Khalifa Haftar in Libya, to mention only the most obvious.

These are only the most current but ongoing consequences of over two centuries of non-stop foreign military and political interference that our region has experienced, with devastating long-term impacts. Internal and regional wars, in a climate of very high Arab military spending, continue to propel countries back into dilapidated or vulnerable conditions every few decades. The Arab examples of this only increase, including Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Jordan. Non-Arab Iran, Turkey, and Israel face their own challenges, as they simultaneously suffer the damages of external militarism and also engage in it themselves around the region.

It is time for all foreign and regional powers to start learning the hard lessons of these historical trends and instead seek non-violent diplomatic solutions to challenges they now mostly address with their guns blazing. A regional population of half a billion poor and powerless people held in check by hundreds of billions of dollars of military spending linked to foreign troops who enter our countries at will is probably a far greater real threat to their wellbeing than anything they can imagine today.

[Dec 08, 2019] Tim Morrison as yet another neocon hawk

So a republican staffer, a neocon without any diplomatic experience was the NSC senior director of European and Russian affairs, the successor of Fiona Hill.
Dec 08, 2019 | www.cbsnews.com
Washington -- A top National Security Council official who listened to President Trump's July call with the president of Ukraine told lawmakers he "promptly" told White House lawyers he was concerned details of the call would become public, but did not think "anything illegal was discussed" during the conversation.

Tim Morrison, the outgoing senior director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council and a deputy assistant to the president, is testifying before committees leading the impeachment inquiry on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He has emerged as a central witness to the events at the center of the inquiry, particularly the administration's policy toward Ukraine.

CBS News learned the substance of his opening statement to the committees, which ran six pages and appears below. Morrison said the summary released by the White House of the call between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accurately reflects his memory and understanding of the call, but he said he had three concerns in the event the summary became public.

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"[F]irst, how it would play out in Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship," Morrison, who was in the Situation Room for the call, told lawmakers. "I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed."

However, he also corroborated a central allegation in the Democratic case against the president: that a U.S. ambassador told a high-ranking Ukrainian official that the release of military aid was contingent on an investigation into the Bidens.

Tim Morrison arrives for a deposition at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on October 31, 2019. SAUL LOEB / AF

Morrison said his predecessor, Fiona Hill, told him about "concerns about two Ukraine processes that were occurring": one led by traditional U.S. diplomatic entities, and one led by the U.S. Ambassador the E.U. Gordon Sondland and Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer. He said Hill told him about their efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that had employed Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden's son.

"At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed," Morrison said. "After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was on its board."

Morrison said he spoke frequently with Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the embassy in Kiev. Taylor testified before the committees last week and described his misgivings about efforts to pressure Ukraine to open investigations into the president's rivals. Morrison, in his statement, confirmed the substance of Taylor's account, but said he remembered two details differently.

Taylor testified that Morrison told him Sondland had demanded the Ukrainian president announce an investigation into Burisma, while Morrison said he remembered Sondland saying an announcement by the country's top prosecutor would suffice. Taylor also indicated Morrison met with the Ukrainian national security adviser in his hotel room, while Morrison said it was in the hotel's business center.

Morrison said he learned about a delay in military aid to Ukraine shortly after assuming his post, and was tasked with coordinating with various agencies to demonstrate why the aid was needed.

"I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could convince President Trump to release the aid," he said.

Morrison testified he had "no reason to believe" the Ukrainians knew of a delay in military aid until August 28, and said he was unaware the aid may have been tied to the demand for an investigation into Burisma until he spoke to Sondland on September 1.

Morrison arrived on Capitol Hill before 8 a.m. Thursday for his deposition after Democrats issued a subpoena for his testimony. A spokesman for House Intelligence Committee chairman declined to comment on his opening statement. Morrison appeared on the same day the House approved a resolution greenlighting the rules for impeachment proceedings moving forward.

On Wednesday, officials said Morrison would be leaving his White House post. He said in his statement he has yet to submit his resignation "because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending departure."

"I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish," he said.

Read Morrison's full statement

Opening Statement of Timothy Morrison

Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform

October 31, 2019

Chairman Schiff and Members of the Committees, I appear today under subpoena to answer your questions about my time as Senior Director for European Affairs at the White House and the National Security Council ("NSC"). I will give you the most complete information I can, consistent with my obligations to the President and the protection of classified information. I do not know who the whistleblower is, nor do I intend to speculate as to who it may be.

Before joining the NSC in 2018, I spent 17 years as a Republican staffer, serving in a variety of roles in both houses of Congress. My last position was Policy Director for the then-Majority Staff of the House Armed Services Committee.

I. The Role of the National Security Council

From July 9, 2018 to July 15, 2019, I served as a Special Assistant to the President for National Security and as the NSC Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense. In that role, I had limited exposure to Ukraine, focusing primarily on foreign military sales and arms control. On July 15, 2019, I became Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security. In this role, I serve as the lead interagency coordinator for national security issues involving Europe and Russia.

It is important to start with the role of the NSC. Since its creation by Congress in 1947, the NSC has appropriately evolved in shape and size to suit the needs of the President and the National Security Advisor it serves at the time. But its mission and core function has fundamentally remained the same: to coordinate across departments and agencies of the Executive Branch to ensure the President has the policy options he needs to accomplish his objectives and to see that his decisions are implemented. The NSC staff does not make policy. NSC staff are most effective when we are neutral arbiters, helping the relevant Executive Branch agencies develop options for the President and implement his direction.

In my current position, I understood our primary U.S. policy objective in Ukraine was to take advantage of the once-in-a-generation opportunity that resulted from the election of President Zelensky and the clear majority he had gained in the Ukrainian Rada to see real anti-corruption reform take root. The Administration's policy was that the best way for the United States to show its support for President Zelensky's reform efforts was to make sure the United States' longstanding bipartisan commitment to strengthen Ukraine's security remained unaltered, it is easy to forget here in Washington, but impossible in Kyiv, that Ukraine is still under armed assault by Russia, a nuclear-armed state. We also tend to forget that the United States had helped convince Ukraine to give up Soviet nuclear weapons in 1994. United States security sector assistance (from the Departments of Defense and State) is, therefore, essential to Ukraine. Also essential is a strong and positive relationship with Ukraine at the highest levels of our respective governments.

In my role as Senior Director for European Affairs, I reported directly to former Deputy National Security Advisor, Dr. Charles Kupperman, and former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton. I kept them fully informed on matters that I believed merited their awareness or when I felt I needed some direction. During the time relevant to this inquiry, I never briefed the President or Vice President on matters related to Ukrainian security. It was my job to coordinate with the U.S. Embassy Chief of Mission to Ukraine William Taylor, Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, and other interagency stakeholders in the Departments of Defense and State of Ukrainian matters.

My primary responsibility has been to ensure federal agencies had consistent messaging and policy guidance on national security issues involving European and Russian affairs. As Dr. Fiona Hill and I prepared for me to succeed her, one of the areas we discussed was Ukraine. In that discussion, she informed me of her concerns about two Ukraine processes that were occurring: the normal interagency process led by the NSC with the typical department and agency participation and a separate process that involved chiefly the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. Dr. Hill told me that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were trying to get President Zelensky to reopen Ukrainian investigations into Burisma. At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed. After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was on its board. I also did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly-appointed Chief of Mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.

My most frequent conversations were with Ambassador Taylor because he was the U.S. Chief of Mission in Ukraine and I was his chief conduit for information related to White House deliberations, including security sector assistance and potential head-of-state meetings. This is a normal part of the coordination process.

II. Review of Open Source Documents in Preparation for Testimony

In preparation for my appearance today, I reviewed the statement Ambassador Taylor provided this inquiry on October 22, 2019. I can confirm that the substance of his statement, as it relates to conversations he and I had, is accurate. My recollections differ on two of the details, however. I have a slightly different recollection of my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. On page 10 of Ambassador Taylor's statement, he recounts a conversation I relayed to him regarding Ambassador Sondland's conversation with Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Yermak. Ambassador Taylor wrote: "Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation." My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland's proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general -- not President Zelensky -- would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation. I also would like to clarify that I did not meet with the Ukrainian National Security Advisor in his hotel room, as Ambassador Taylor indicated on page 11 of his statement. Instead, an NSC aide and I met with Mr. Danyliuk in the hotel's business center.

I also reviewed the Memorandum of Conversation ("MemCont') of the July 25 phone call that was released by the White House. I listened to the call as it occurred from the Situation Room. To the best of my recollection, the MemCon accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call. I also recall that I did not see anyone from the NSC Legal Advisor's Office in the room during the call. After the call, I promptly asked the NSC Legal Advisor and his Deputy to review it. I had three concerns about a potential leak of the MemCon: first, how it would play out in Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed.

III. White House Hold on Security Sector Assistance

I was not aware that the White House was holding up the security sector assistance passed by Congress until my superior, Dr. Charles Kupperman, told me soon after I succeeded Dr. Hill. I was aware that the President thought Ukraine had a corruption problem, as did many others familiar with Ukraine. I was also aware that the President believed that Europe did not contribute enough assistance to Ukraine. I was directed by Dr. Kupperman to coordinate with the interagency stakeholders to put together a policy process to demonstrate that the interagency supported security sector assistance to Ukraine. I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could convince President Trump to release the aid because President Zelensky and the reform-oriented Rada were genuinely invested in their anti-corruption agenda.

Ambassador Taylor and I were concerned that the longer the money was withheld, the more questions the Zelensky administration would ask about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine. Our initial hope was that the money would be released before the hold became public because we did not want the newly constituted Ukrainian government to question U.S. support.

I have no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the review until August 28, 2019. Ambassador Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland's strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders in the Administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.

I am pleased our process gave the President the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector assistance. My regret is that Ukraine ever learned of the review and that, with this impeachment inquiry, Ukraine has become subsumed in the U.S. political process.

IV. Conclusion

After 19 years of government service, I have decided to leave the NSC. I have not submitted a formal resignation at this time because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending departure. I plan to finalize my transition from the NSC after my testimony is complete.

During my time in public service, I have worked with some of the smartest and most self-sacrificing people in this country. Serving at the White House in this time of unprecedented global change has been the opportunity of a lifetime. I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish.

[Dec 08, 2019] What is our strength? by Andrey Bezrukov

Redacted Google translation...
This is the net result of Clinton policies and neocon dominance in the USA foreign policy. And it is not a pretty picture. It might difficult to win Russia back as an ally after those Russiagate nonsense. They feel really offended by it and might overreact as is evident from the test below.
I'll just say again that imbecilization is a completely normal historical phenomenon in declining empires, Empires also tend to have a very flexible conception of truth, that is, they believe they can fabricate reality for the simple reason they are geopolitically dominant.
The fact that the MSM have become mouthpieces for the CIA/deep state has played a huge role in the brainwashing of academia and the rise of neoliberalism. The false narratives these "trusted sources" of information have been serving up create a very real Matrix, a false reality that is ingrained into those who rely upon them for their daily "news".
May 04, 2018 | vz.ru

It feels like the world has gone crazy. They push someone's wallet in our pocket, and then shout "catch the thief!". We try to debunt this false flag, show surveillance footage, which clearly shows the setup. But the continue shout in chorus - " thief, thief, thief!". Acquaintances turn away, hide their eyes. Those "Western partners" iare numerous and they silence our weak attempts to protest. We were driven into a corner... They try to strangulate us with sanctions.

Unfortunately, this is our new reality. For the next decade. The question is "Why?" Because we are a force in international arena again. We're ruining their racketeering business. We are a vivid example that it is possible to escape the system of the global racket of which they feed, That there is an alternative.

So now there is a player who does not wan to pay the racketeers, And he is still alive. This means that others may not pay either. They hate such a situation, because other players may refuse to pay, and that also means that sooner or later they might be force to live within this own meanss. It has been a long time since they live within their means, and they completely lost the habit of doing so. So they want to "solve" the problem with us now ones and forever, while others are still afraid of them.

Plus they have a new gang leader. Like all newbies, he wants to be the toughest. And raises the stakes.

Let's face the truth. They won't let us go easily. It's pointless to explain. We will be hunted, subjected to the array of false flags, persecuted and sanctioned to death. And if they feel the slack – they will beta us to the death, much more thoroughly then they did in 1990th. The question of whether this can be avoided is no longer worth asking. Today we have one question – how to survive the next two decades?

We need finally exhale and turn on the brain... The key to victory, as Sun Tzu wrote – is in knowing the enemy and knowing yourself.

What is their strength?

First, there are many. And they have money. They can buy everything, including witnesses and judges. We'll be blamed for for anything; they will attack and we will be framed as the attacker.

Second, they scream loudly. In chorus. That control world mass communications. And their propaganda works. It is useless to argue otherwise. All our arguments are useless. They will fall of death ear and will be ignored. Nobody will question their validity -- they will be simply swipe under the carpet. No matter how ridiculous is their "version of events" is (Skripals, Russiagate, Ukrainegate) the label "the guilty party" is already put on us like a yellow patch on the Jews in Nazi Germany. Before any investigation or God forbid judicial process. And most people on the planet still take their word for it.

What is their weakness?

As opponents these guys, I mean their neoliberal elites are the second grade; they belong to the "grey zone", the zone of mediocrity. Too greedy, too arrogant, and too lazy. Sometime semi-senile. Their previous generation was much stronger. They respected us. And we them.

We do not respect this new neoliberal elite and they feel that. And we don't respect them because such mediocrities do not deserve our respect, and are not trustworthily partner. They generally can be classified as "Unable to adhere to any legal treaties" (Nedogovorosposobnie") . And that scares us, almost to death, because you need to deal with completely unpredictable, bizarre partner for whom treaties and agreements are not worth the paper they were printed on. But they will avoid open fight, unless the success guaranteed. We need to ensure that such situation never occur.

Their nervousness, their fidgeting, their second-rateness now is staring to be felt by other countries who would prefer to hedge their bet and join only a sure winner. They see that the outcome of the USA quest for Full Spectrum Dominance is not yet decided.

In addition, our opponents are now engaged in brutal showdown with each other. Western Europe recovered and became competitor of the USA. They also are openly laughing over their new chief. Half of the major Europium countries leadership probably hates him. For how long he can stay in power is completely unclear. But this is a new and unexpected development. .

And those in the second row, the stooges, are generally ready to escape from this virtual battlefield. It became too expensive to catch hot potatoes for Uncle Sam as the amount of loot for partners shrunk dramatically. And problems with neoliberalism at home mounted. Neoliberal chickens start coming to roost. They were promised money and a share of loot, not a beating in a real fight with a strong determined opponent.

What is our strength?

First of all we no longer have any illusions about the the USA or West in general, illusions that cost us so dearly in 1990th. They are predators who want to colonize, fleece and dismember our nation. An having no illusions means that they can't repeat economic rape they committed in 1990th. Now we know what awaits us if we give up. They'll devour us completely. Those gangsters will kick the lying opponent with feet until he is dead. They won't let us survive a second time.

We also have a grenade as the last resort. They know it, and they're terrified we'll pull the pin.

They don't understand how we can be defeated, so they try new ways to make us surrender without a fight. Looking for a weak spot.

What is our weakness?

Our first problem is that we are alone. We are a big and clumsy country with a lot of internal problems and convoluted history. Which refuse to became the USA vassal. We were a difficult neighbor in the past. Some people are afraid of us because or our past.

Our second and main problem is the lack of money for economic reconstruction. We don't have enough money for the restoration of the economy and the standard of living of our people after 1990th rape to the level we deserve as the major European country. Say the level the Germany managed to achieve, despite being defeated in WWII. And nobody is going to help us, at least on acceptable conditions. They will try to slow down our economic development by all mean possible. that's why they already imposed sanctions under bogus pretext. They will impose more to slow down the process. They will manipulate oil prices and engage us in "gas wars." If we can solve this problem and restore the economy and the standard of living of people after 1990 collapse other problems will be easier to take on.

Also a nice thing about having money is that you instantly have a lot of fiends ;-) At once.

Now some panoramic view on the situation like in oil painting.

First of all out willingness to fight back is a guarantee that they will not get into a real fight. We need to hold out for the next ten-twenty years or so. I think this is what we can expect for neoliberalism to last before the collapse.

But that doesn't solve all our problems. We need that they stop punching us with new sanctions. Better forever but, at least for the next twenty years. Until their racket finally falls apart.

So the second goal is to earn to earn money need to reconstruction of the economy and creating first class infrastructure. Which will allow us to grow. and we need to do this while there is time. That probably means that invest our money in growth and stop saving "for a rainy day" in US treasures and Western banks. Otherwise, this rainy day may come in a very unexpected fashion and way too soon: money will simply be confiscated as long as they can do it with impunity.

Andrey Bezrukov is the associate Professor of the chair of applied analysis of international problems, MGIMO

[Dec 08, 2019] Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.

Notable quotes:
"... Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider. ..."
Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mulegino1 , says: December 5, 2019 at 5:58 pm GMT

US political "elites" are generally appallingly incompetent in matters of war and are "educated" mostly through Hollywood and Clansiesque "literature". I am not even sure that they comprehend what Congressional Research Service prepares for them as compressed briefings. Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.

Very true, especially the part about "Hollywood and Clansiesque 'literature.'" I used to read Clancy's books and, while entertaining, in retrospect they appear ridiculous, even childish. But they probably capture the popular notion of American military invincibility better than any other.

Most of Hollywood's output is garbage anyway, and its grasp of real war and military matters appears to be that of a not so precocious third grader.

Arioch , says: December 5, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMT
@joe tentpeg

> USSR Katyn forrest massacre (Poland), Afghanistan.

Katyn, whoever did it, was much before Cold War and before even first relatively small nuclear blast.

And if you want to go that far – why not remember crisis over West Berlin, where tank armees were watching one another, but no one pulled trigger?

Afghanistan was attacking one's own ally. Same as Prague 1968 and Hungary 1956. If you want to compare – that is like USA invading Panama to remove their no longer reliable puppet Norriega. Did American attack on their own Panama risk USSR going ballistic? Hardly so. There was no Soviet invasion into Pakistan nor there was Chinese/American invasion into India.

And looking away from purely military events, there was no attempt to arrest the whole embassy stuff them, neither in Moscow nor in DC. No killing Soviet ambassadors in NATO states during official events.

Those dirty games had red lines, both sides maintained. Today? Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider.

> deploying conventional anti-ballistic missile defenses around their most important cities.

No, by then effective treaty both USSR and USA had only ONE region they were allowed to protect. Those were some nuclear launchpads in USA i guess, and one single city (Moscow) in USSR. No more.

> deterrence [did not] worked
> See the last phrase in bullet 2.

You suppose USSR killed itself trying to keep deterrence working. That does not show it did not work, already. That shows it worked so well (at least from Soviet perspective) that they gambled all they had on the futile effort of keeping that deterrence working into the future.

[Dec 07, 2019] Why the foreign policy establishment consensus is neocon by default.

Highly recommended!
Dec 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. -- John Turner, 1922

[Dec 07, 2019] Obama vs Bill Clinton

Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 01, 2019 at 05:51 AM

Obama is Bill Clinton with fewer skeletons.

[Dec 07, 2019] Enough is enough. Viva Tulsi. Down with neocons. List of wars involving the United States

Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , December 01, 2019 at 08:16 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

List of wars involving the United States

[Only the listed war names and dates copied without all the references and details.]

  1. American Revolutionary War - (1775–1783)
  2. Cherokee–American wars - (1776–1795)
  3. Northwest Indian War - (1785–1793)
  4. Shays' Rebellion - (1786–1787)
  5. Whiskey Rebellion - (1791–1794)
  6. Quasi-War - (1798–1800)
  7. Fries Rebellion - (1799–1800)
  8. First Barbary War - (1801–1805)
  9. 1811 German Coast Uprising - (1811)
  10. Tecumseh's War - (1811)
  11. War of 1812 - (1812–1815)
  12. Creek War - (1813–1814)
  13. Second Barbary War - (1815)
  14. First Seminole War - (1817–1818)
  15. Texas–Indian Wars - (1820–1875)
  16. Arikara War - (1823)
  17. Aegean Sea Anti-Piracy Operations of the United States - (1825–1828)
  18. Winnebago War - (1827)
  19. First Sumatran expedition - (1832)
  20. Black Hawk War - (1832)
  21. Texas Revolution - (1835–1836)
  22. Second Seminole War - (1835–1842)
  23. Second Sumatran expedition - (1838)
  24. Aroostook War - (1838)
  25. Ivory Coast expedition - (1842)
  26. Mexican–American War - (1846–1848)
  27. Cayuse War - (1847–1855)
  28. Apache Wars - (1851–1900)
  29. Bleeding Kansas - (1854–1861)
  30. Puget Sound War - (1855–1856)
  31. First Fiji expedition - (1855)
  32. Rogue River Wars - (1855–1856)
  33. Third Seminole War - (1855–1858)
  34. Yakima War - (1855–1858)
  35. Second Opium War - (1856–1859)
  36. Utah War - (1857–1858)
  37. Navajo Wars - (1858–1866)
  38. Second Fiji expedition - (1859)
  39. John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry - (1859)
  40. First and Second Cortina War - (1859–1861)
  41. Paiute War - (1860)
  42. American Civil War - (1861–1865)
  43. Yavapai War - (1861–1875)
  44. Dakota War of 1862 - (1862)
  45. Colorado War - (1863–1865)
  46. Shimonoseki War - (1863–1864)
  47. Snake War - (1864–1868)
  48. Powder River War - (1865)
  49. Red Cloud's War - (1866–1868)
  50. Formosa expedition - (1867)
  51. Comanche Campaign - (1867–1875)
  52. Korea expedition - (1871)
  53. Modoc War - (1872–1873)
  54. Red River War - (1874–1875)
  55. Las Cuevas War - (1875)
  56. Great Sioux War of 1876 - (1876–1877)
  57. Buffalo Hunters' War - (1876–1877)
  58. Nez Perce War - (1877)
  59. Bannock War - (1878)
  60. Cheyenne War - (1878–1879)
  61. Sheepeater Indian War - (1879)
  62. White River War - (1879–1880)
  63. Pine Ridge Campaign - (1890–1891)
  64. Garza Revolution - (1891–1893)
  65. Yaqui Wars - (1896–1918)
  66. Second Samoan Civil War - (1898–1899)
  67. Spanish–American War - (1898)
  68. Philippine–American War - (1899–1902)
  69. Moro Rebellion - (1899–1913)
  70. Boxer Rebellion - (1899–1901)
  71. Crazy Snake Rebellion - (1909)
  72. Border War - (1910–1919)
  73. Negro Rebellion - (1912)
  74. Occupation of Nicaragua - (1912–1933)
  75. Bluff War - (1914–1915)
  76. Occupation of Veracruz - (1914)
  77. Occupation of Haiti - (1915–1934)
  78. Occupation of the Dominican Republic - (1916–1924)
  79. World War I - (1914–1918)
  80. Russian Civil War - (1918–1920)
  81. Last Indian Uprising - (1923)
  82. World War II - (1939–1945)
  83. Korean War - (1950–1953)
  84. Laotian Civil War - (1953–1975)
  85. Lebanon Crisis - (1958)
  86. Bay of Pigs Invasion - (1961)
  87. Simba rebellion, Operation Dragon Rouge - (1964)
  88. Vietnam War - (1955–1964[a], 1965–1973[b], 1974–1975[c])
  89. Communist insurgency in Thailand - (1965–1983)
  90. Korean DMZ Conflict - (1966–1969)
  91. Dominican Civil War - (1965–1966)
  92. Insurgency in Bolivia - (1966–1967)
  93. Cambodian Civil War - (1967–1975)
  94. War in South Zaire - (1978)
  95. Gulf of Sidra encounter - (1981)
  96. Multinational Intervention in Lebanon - (1982–1984)
  97. Invasion of Grenada - (1983)
  98. Action in the Gulf of Sidra - (1986)
  99. Bombing of Libya - (1986)
  100. Tanker War - (1987–1988)
  101. Tobruk encounter - (1989)
  102. Invasion of Panama - (1989–1990)
  103. Gulf War - (1990–1991)
  104. Iraqi No-Fly Zone Enforcement Operations - (1991–2003)
  105. First U.S. Intervention in the Somali Civil War - (1992–1995)
  106. Bosnian War - (1992–1995)
  107. Intervention in Haiti - (1994–1995)
  108. Kosovo War - (1998–1999)
  109. Operation Infinite Reach - (1998)
  110. War in Afghanistan - (2001–present)
  111. 2003 invasion of Iraq - (2003)
  112. Iraq War - (2003–2011)
  113. War in North-West Pakistan - (2004–present)
  114. Second U.S. Intervention in the Somali Civil War - (2007–present)
  115. Operation Ocean Shield - (2009–2016)
  116. International intervention in Libya - (2011)
  117. Operation Observant Compass - (2011–2017)
  118. American-led intervention in Iraq - (2014–present)
  119. American-led intervention in Syria - (2014–present)
  120. Yemeni Civil War - (2015–present)
  121. American intervention in Libya - (2015–present)

{ finis }

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:25 AM
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of stone age natives to steal their land.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:45 AM
Neoconservatives in this context are traditionalists rather than some aberration of modern political thought.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:50 AM
OTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men claiming that they despise war.
ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 03, 2019 at 05:14 AM
Rome martyred Christians bc up to Constantine they were all "draft dodgers".
ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 03, 2019 at 05:20 AM
Pacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot was also nuclear related.
JohnH -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 02, 2019 at 07:59 AM
One of the first things that happened after Trump announced his withdrawal [not!] from Syria is that Pelosi hopped on a plane to Jordan:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of American lawmakers on a surprise visit to Jordan to discuss "the deepening crisis" in Syria amid a shaky U.S.-brokered cease-fire."
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/20/nancy-pelosi-goes-to-jordan-for-vital-discussions-about-syria-crisis.html

I mean, what's with that?

It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire, even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further evidence.

Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been almost none.

Team Pelosi has gone rogue as has Trump.

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to JohnH... , December 02, 2019 at 12:30 PM
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who knew?
kurt -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 02, 2019 at 05:02 PM
Outside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.
ilsm -> kurt... , December 03, 2019 at 05:12 AM
Huh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress, disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.

See the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.

ilsm -> JohnH... , December 03, 2019 at 05:08 AM
Team Pelosi like the faux liberals are sponsored by the same owners of the swamp!

Never attribute to Trump derangement what can be explained by a criminal conspiracy.

JohnH -> EMichael... , December 05, 2019 at 05:13 PM
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.

Sure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.

As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's perfectly acceptable when his party does it.

kurt -> EMichael... , December 06, 2019 at 11:18 AM
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways. Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil. The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can mass murder if the want.

[Dec 07, 2019] I wasn't sure how to characterize McMaster and Kelly. My sense was that they represented the foreign policy establishment consensus, ergo neocon by default.

Notable quotes:
"... It may be as simple as Trump does not really know what he's doing. He doesn't seem to understand the complexity and dynamics of foreign policy. The way he handled Israel is an example as well as some of the bombs he ordered dropped on Afghanistan and Syria. Was he behind that or was someone else? ..."
"... After Bolton came onboard, and then Eliot Abrams, the 24/7 Russia-gate suddenly stopped. That was also around the time USA was fomenting a Venezuelan coup. Was obvious that Russia-Gate was designed to control Trump. ..."
"... The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination. ..."
"... If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar. ..."
Dec 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

gsjackson , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 3:44 am GMT

@Z-man I wasn't sure how to characterize McMaster and Kelly. My sense was that they represented the foreign policy establishment consensus, ergo neocon by default.

I share your optimism about Trump -- because it's the only strand of hope out there, and his enemies are so impeccably loathsome -- but am fully prepared to be proved wrong.

TellTheTruth-2 , says: Website Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 3:50 am GMT
The neocon communist warmongers have Trump all tied up. Trumping Trump: A Gulliver Strategy (right click) https://medium.com/everyvote/trumping-trump-a-gulliver-strategy-3fc96e4d5d93
renfro , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT

"How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate such appointees."

It started before Bolton came on board.

Believe Trump when he says "Loyalty to me first". And that begins with his son in law Jared .his former personal attorney Jason Greenblatt .his former bankruptcy attorney David Friedman and his largest donor Sheldon Adelson .

Trump is too stupid to see that his Zios have no loyalty to him. Trump doesn't appoint anyone, doesn't even know anyone to appoint to national security or foreign policy. He never had any associations or confidents in his business life in NY except the above Jews .

Ask yourself how a 29 year old Jewish boy (now gone) with zero experience got brought onto the WH NSC. He was recommended by Gen. Flynn who did it as a favor to Zio Frank Gaffney of Iraq fame, and Jared because he was a friend of Jared and Gaffney was a friend Ezra's family. ..getting the picture?

All Trumps appointments look like a chain letter started by Kushner and his Zio connections.

freedom-cat , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 5:51 am GMT
It may be as simple as Trump does not really know what he's doing. He doesn't seem to understand the complexity and dynamics of foreign policy. The way he handled Israel is an example as well as some of the bombs he ordered dropped on Afghanistan and Syria. Was he behind that or was someone else?

He's a walking contradiction.

After Bolton came onboard, and then Eliot Abrams, the 24/7 Russia-gate suddenly stopped. That was also around the time USA was fomenting a Venezuelan coup. Was obvious that Russia-Gate was designed to control Trump.

There was a lull in the attacks on Trump between the time they stopped the 24/7 Russia-gate garbage and start of Impeachment inquiry.

He did something else to tick them all off, so now impeachment is on front burner.

Erebus , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 10:34 am GMT
@FB

the 'permanent foreign policy establishment'

AKA, the Imperial Staff.

In the days of Kissinger, Baker, et al the Imperial Staff were well coached in the Calculus of Power, knew the limits to Empire and thrived within them. Since the end of history, and the apparent end of limits, policy makers had no more need of realists and their confusing calculations and analyses.

The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination.

In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think

I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental.

The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its embarrassment.

If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar.

Fascinating.

Pandour , says: Website Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 1:37 pm GMT
Decades old rhetorical question and answer-the indolent, indoctrinated and illiterate masses who only care about the Super Bowl and other sports,Disneyland and burgers. Twelve per cent of Americans have never heard of the Vice President Mike Pence - that is 30,870,000 American adults.
Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT
Who Is Making US Foreign Policy?

It is the same people who have been making it since the creation of central banks in America (all three of them).

Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. – John Turner, 1922

[Dec 07, 2019] We've turned our attention to Latin America again. That's bad for Latin America.

Notable quotes:
"... As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy" and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were "standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin America again. That's bad news for Latin America. ..."
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , December 01, 2019 at 07:12 AM

We've turned our attention to Latin America again. That's bad for Latin America.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/11/27/opinion/weve-turned-our-attention-latin-america-again-thats-bad-latin-america/?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe

Stephen Kinzer - November 27

As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy" and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were "standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin America again. That's bad news for Latin America.

The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago are sometimes described as wars in which everyone lost. In an odd way, though, Latin America won those wars. For more than a decade, the US government focused so obsessively on the Middle East that it forgot about Latin America. Free of intervention from Washington, voters in several countries elected progressive or leftist leaders whom the United States would never have tolerated in an earlier era. That cycle is now ending. The United States is returning to its traditional role in Latin America, embracing retrograde regimes just as we did during the dark days of military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.

In Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, the military deposed President Evo Morales on Nov. 10 after opponents charged that he had used fraud to secure his re-election three weeks earlier. Morales was Bolivia's first indigenous president and an outspoken socialist. He had nationalized the oil and gas industries. Some feared that he was preparing to limit foreign exploitation of his country's rich lithium deposits. His indigenous identity was a permanent affront to the white ruling class. The little-known politician who has installed herself as provisional president, Jeanine Añez, once tweeted: "I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals."

Morales may have -- manipulated election laws to give himself an extra presidential term. But in its first days, the new regime has shown little democratic impulse. Morales has been forced to flee the country. Senior members of his party have been attacked or arrested. If his masses of indigenous followers are pushed back into political isolation despite constituting the country's majority, many will feel disenfranchised and angry.

Their cousins in Honduras would know the feeling. Late one night in 2009, the elected Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, who like Morales had alienated both the United States and his own ruling elite, was pulled out of bed and put on a plane out of the country while still in his pajamas. In the decade since then, the new regime in Honduras has eagerly handed out mining and hydroelectric contracts to foreign corporations. It has abolished term limits for presidents -- the very sin for which we denounced President Morales in Bolivia. Mass protests have been harshly suppressed. Environmental activists are killed with impunity.

Last month in a New York court, the brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was convicted on charges of large-scale drug trafficking. A witness testified that the drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman had contributed $1 million to Hernandez's presidential campaign. Yet just a couple of days after the trial ended, the senior American diplomat in Honduras was photographed partying with President Hernandez. Hondurans who saw those pictures could hardly miss the message: the United States happily supports a Latin American government that holds power unconstitutionally, allows political killers to rampage freely, and is widely reported to be infiltrated by drug traffickers -- as long as it is friendly to the United States. How has Honduras showed that friendship? By keeping leftists out of power and agreeing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The other Latin American country in which the United States is most assiduously wrecking prospects for democracy is Guatemala. Like neighboring Honduras, it has long been dominated by a clique of lavishly corrupt oligarchs. But over the last decade, a force has emerged that for the first time mounted a serious challenge to drug traffickers, larcenous politicians, organized-crime kingpins, and death squad leaders. In 2006, the government invited a squad of investigators and prosecutors assembled by the United Nations to come to Guatemala and build cases against powerful criminals. Since then the squad, known by the Spanish acronym CICIG, has secured more than 400 convictions and deeply shaken the political elite. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama recognized that this process might help stabilize Guatemala, and provided moral support and funding for CICIG.

This year, at the request of senior Guatemalan officials who seemed likely to be indicted for corruption, the State Department agreed to stop backing CICIG. That crippled the first serious effort in generations to confront the violent corruption that throttles civic life in Guatemala. What did President Trump ask in return? That Guatemala open an embassy in Jerusalem and agree to serve as a "safe haven" for Honduran and Salvadoran immigrants the United States doesn't want to accept -- a sick joke considering that Guatemala is plagued by violence and has one of the world's highest murder rates.

Bashing leftists in Latin America and embracing their quasi-fascist enemies is one of Washington's oldest habits. It feels good and pays electoral dividends in Florida. Bolivians, Hondurans, and Guatemalans might be forgiven for wishing that United States would once again plunge into all-consuming war somewhere far away. That might allow them to try shaping their societies as they see fit.

anne -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 01, 2019 at 09:51 AM
Important and appreciated post.
Paine -> anne... , December 01, 2019 at 06:25 PM
Wait

The uncle LA policy
has nothing but continuity

Going back to 1979

Review moves made under Barry

joe , December 01, 2019 at 09:24 AM
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-25/boise-homeless-encampment-amicus-brief-supreme-court-appeal-cities

In addition to L.A., others in California submitting briefs include Sacramento, San Diego, Fresno, Riverside and Orange counties, as well as a slew of cities, including Sacramento, Fullerton, Torrance and Newport Beach. Several states including Idaho, Texas and Alaska have as well. Their reasons for doing so vary.

"We're saying that we agree with the central tenet of Boise that no one should be susceptible to punishment for sleeping on a sidewalk at night if there's no alternative shelter at that point," said Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer. "But the rationale sweeps too broadly ... It makes the opinion unclear and, therefore, the opinion raises more issues than are resolved. And so it leaves jurisdictions like us without the certainty that we need."
---
The ninth curt ruling specified that without enough shelters, public camping cannot be banned.

LA is spewing horse manure, claiming they want a humane solution, but they are filing to have the ruling overturned. LA wants to ban homeless camping and they make up a bunch of irrational horse manure because they had already invited the homeless to California with promises of shelter that does not exits. They re caught in a contradiction and end up talking out of the side of their mouth.

And no, more national debt to promise apartments for everyone just make inequality worse because we end up doing bad deals with the primary dealers. The evidence is in on that. Our ten year experiment of the '50 little hoovers' crowd has been proven fraudulent.

[Dec 07, 2019] Obama vs Bill Clinton

Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 01, 2019 at 05:51 AM

Obama is Bill Clinton with fewer skeletons.

[Dec 07, 2019] The average demorat, aside from worshipping Ba'al and hating the constitution, is depraved, been such since crooked Hillary forgot that the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world.

Notable quotes:
"... Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way. ..."
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> JohnH... , November 29, 2019 at 09:05 AM

The average demorat, aside from worshipping Ba'al and hating the constitution, is depraved, been such since crooked Hillary forgot that the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 11:56 AM
"...the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world."

[Who says that they do not? Certainly, it is close enough to that for government work. Besides, in the end corporations and the interests of the donor class dictate the rules of engagement for both illiberal and unconservative politicians. How the dogs of politics fight over scraps thrown out for them should be of less interest to the wage class than who is throwing out the scraps to them.]

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 12:04 PM
Of course a former Air Force military hardware procurements officer likely knows no more about present day life among the wage class than a banker. That would be like thinking that a kid raised in poverty by the welfare state knew how to farm. Still, it is possible for either one to be haunted by guilt late in life.
ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 06:26 AM
I stand correct the closet cultural Marxists running with wall st centered on the left coasts forgot to fix the electoral college.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , December 01, 2019 at 06:35 AM
You are bound with your adversaries in ways known only to God, not a religious testimonial but merely a proxy for the abstraction of omniscience. Some things can be seen as clear as day and remain a complete mystery, to me at least.
ilsm -> EMichael... , November 29, 2019 at 09:08 AM
" Ethical military decision-making does not make us weak; it makes us strong. "

How does Obama busting up Libya, drone assassinating US citizens and arming up al Qaeda to give them Syria fit?

Trump has committed lesser war crimes than hios predecessors, and that gets hiom in trouble with the establishment....

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 12:15 PM
At the very least Trump is guilty of being Trump. So, if you believe the charges against Trump are Trumped up, then what else would you expect?

Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way.

The US Constitution was written and then rewritten repeatedly in blood going all the way back to Apr 19, 1775. That is what it means to be an American, son, my Cherokee ancestors notwithstanding.

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 12:16 PM
We are all brethren, fellow sons of a bloody mother...

[Dec 06, 2019] Who Is Making US Foreign Policy by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive. ..."
"... The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain. ..."
"... Listen to the podcast here ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
"... The John Batchelor Show ..."
"... Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline! ..."
"... You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills. ..."
"... It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy. ..."
"... CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it. ..."
"... We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them. ..."
"... Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise. ..."
"... Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards. ..."
"... Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as . ..."
"... Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board. ..."
"... There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value. ..."
"... In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination ..."
"... Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The ' heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice. ..."
"... To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.) ..."
"... or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric? ..."
"... The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid. ..."
"... "TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ". Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ? ..."
"... Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad. ..."
"... Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things. ..."
Dec 06, 2019 | www.unz.com
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where, he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente ("cooperation") with Moscow.

And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not share his views and indeed were opposed to them. Certainly, this was true of Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Both of them seemed prepared for a highly risky confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, though whether retroactively because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.

Similarly, Trump was slow in withdrawing Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer appointed by President Obama as ambassador to Kiev, who had made clear, despite her official position in Kiev, that she did not share the new American president's thinking about Ukraine or Russia. In short, the president was surrounded in his own administration, even in the White House, by opponents of his foreign policy and presumably not only in regard to Ukraine.

How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate such appointees.

A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive.

The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain.

Listen to the podcast here . Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book, War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate , is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show , now in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .


Curmudgeon , says: December 5, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT

because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.

In an otherwise decent overview, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be helpful to stop using the word annexation. While correct in a technical sense – that Crimea was added to the Russian Federation – the word comes with all kinds of connotations, that imply illegality and or force. Given Crimea was given special status when gifted to Ukraine for administration by the USSR, one could just as easily apply "annexation" of Crimea to Ukraine. After Ukraine voted to "leave" the USSR, Crimea voted to join Ukraine. Obviously the "Ukrainian" vote did not include Crimea. Even after voting to join Ukraine, Crimea had special status within Ukraine, and was semi autonomous. If you can vote to join, you can vote to leave. Either you have the right to self determination, or you don't.

Rebel0007 , says: December 5, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
This is what is so infuriating, Stephen! These silent coups of the executive branch have been taking place for my entire life! Both parties are guilty of refusing to appoint cabinet members that the elected presidents would have chosen for themselves, because both parties are more interested in making the president of the opposing party look bad, make him ineffective, and incapable of carrying out policies that he was elected to carry out. That is the very definition of treason!

Things are a disaster. The JCPOA is at the heart of the issue and Trump and his advisors stubborn refusal to capitulate on this issue very well may cause Trump to lose the 2020 election. Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline!

The anti-Iranian fever has created so much havoc not only with Iran, but with every country on earth other than Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Germany announced that it is seeking to unite with Russia, not only for Gazprom, but is now considering purchasing defense systems from Russia, and Germany is dictating EU policy, by and large. Germany has said that Europe must be able to defend itself independent of America and is requesting an EU military and Italy is on board with this idea, seeking to create jobs and weapons for its economy and defense.

The EU is fed up with the economic sanctions placed on countries that the U.S. has black-listed, particularly Russia and Iran, and China as well for Huwaei 5G.

Nobody in their right mind could ever claim this to be the free market capitalism that Larry Kudlow espouses!

National Institute for Study of the O... , says: December 5, 2019 at 11:00 pm GMT
You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills.

It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy.

CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it.

follyofwar , says: December 5, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon Pat Buchanan also uses the word "annexation" all the time.
Rebel0007 , says: December 6, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT
National Institute for the study of the obvious,

The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.

It is a political game between to competing kleptocratic cults. The DNC and RNC are whores and will do what ever their donors tell them to do. That is also treason. This country is just a total wasteland.

Everyone has pledged allegiance to fraud.

Too big to fail, like the Titanic and the Hindenberg.

We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them.

Haxo Angmark , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 6:01 am GMT
Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise.
Monty Ahwazi , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:03 am GMT
What kind of stupid question is this? You mean you don't know or asking us for confirmation? If you really don't know then why are you writing an article about it? If you do know then why are you asking the UNZ readers?
animalogic , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:21 am GMT
Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards.
EdNels , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:49 am GMT
@Rebel0007

It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.

That's ok but it's a bit unfair to Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths After all most of the country is Hedonistic as hell, it sells commercials or wtf. Satanic is philosophical and way over the heads of these clowns, though if the be a Satan, then they are in the plan for sure, and right on the mark. As for psychopaths, those are criminals who are insane, but they can have remorse and be their own worst enemies, often they just go off and go psycho and bad things happen, but can be unplanned off the wall stuff, not diabolic.

Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as .

So, once upon a time, a people got so hedonistic and they didn't watch the game and theier leaders were low quality (especially religeous/morals ) and long story short Satan unleashed the Socio's , Things seem to be heading disastrously, so will bit coin save the day? Green nudeal?

Jon Baptist , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:54 am GMT
The simple questions that beg to be asked are who are the accusers and what media agencies are providing the amplification to transmit these accusations?
https://forward.com/news/national/434664/impeachment-trump-democrats-jewish/
https://www.jta.org/2019/11/15/politics/the-tell-the-jewish-players-in-impeachment

There is also this link courtesy of Haass' CFR – https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/russia-trump-and-2016-us-election

While massive attention is directed towards Russia and the Ukraine, the majority of the public are shown the slight of hand and their attention is never brought near to the real perpetrators of subverting American and British foreign policy.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876
http://joshdlindsay.com/2019/04/the-israel-lobby-in-the-u-s-al-jazeera-documentary/
The Truth Archive
2K subscribers
The Israeli Lobby in the United States of America (2017) – Full Documentary HD

polistra , says: December 6, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
Doesn't matter if he's surrounded. A president CAN make foreign policy, and a president CAN fire people who disagree with his policy. Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board.
sally , says: December 6, 2019 at 8:51 am GMT
@Rebel0007

The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.

--
first off the supreme law of the land maybe the Constitution and to oppose it may be Treason, but the Law that is supreme to the Law of the land is Human rights law.. it is far superior to, and it is the TLD of all laws of the land of all of the Nation States that mankind has allowed the greedy among its masses, to impose.

There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value.

If you note the USA constitution has seven articles..

Article 1 is about 525 elected members of congress and their very limited powers to control
foreign activities. Each qualified to vote member of the governed (a citizen so to speak) is allowed to
vote for only 3 of the 525 persons. so basically there is no real national election anywhere .

Article II grants the electoral college the power to appoint two persons full control of the assets,
resources and manpower of America to conquer the entire world or to make peace in the entire world.
Either way: the governed are not allowed to vote for either; the EC vote determines the P or VP.

Article III allows the Article II person to appoint yes men to the judiciary

Where exist the power of the governed to deny USA governors the ability to the use the powers the constitution claims the governors are to have, against the governed? <==No where I can find? Theoretically, the governed are protected from abuse for as long as it takes to conduct due process?

One person, the Article II person, is basically the king when in comes to constitutional authority to establish, conduct, prosecute or defend USA involvement in foreign affairs.

No where does the constitution of the USA deny its President the use of American resources or USA military power, to make and use diplomat appointments, or to use the USA to use the wealth of America and the hegemonic powers of the USA to make a private or public profit in a foreign land. <= d/n matter if the profit is personal to the President or if it assigned by appointment (like the feudal powers granted by the feudal kings to the feudal lords) to corporate feudal lords or oligarch personal interest.

AFAICT, the president can USE the USA to conduct war, invade or otherwise infringe on, even destroy, the territory, or a private or public interest, within a foreign sovereign more or less at will. So if the President wants to command a private or secret Army like the CIA, he can as far as I can tell, obviously this president does, because he could with his pen alone shut it down.

Seems to me the "NO" from Wilson's four points

  1. no more secret diplomacy peace settlement must not lead the way to new wars
  2. no retribution, unjust claims, and huge fines <basically indemnities paid by the losers to the winners.
  3. no more war; includes controls on armaments and arming of nations.
  4. no more Trade Barriers so the nations of the world would become more interdependent.

have been made the essence of nation state operations world wide.

IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.

Beckow , says: December 6, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
@Curmudgeon all of that, plus the Kosovo precedent.

In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination

Beckow , says: December 6, 2019 at 9:52 am GMT
Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The 'heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice.

To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.)

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: December 6, 2019 at 10:47 am GMT
https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/majority-germans-wants-less-reliance-us-more-engagement-russia/ri27985

Macron said that NATO is " brain dead " :

https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/11/07/emmanuel-macron-warns-europe-nato-is-becoming-brain-dead

The more the US sanctions so many countries around the world , the more the US generate an anti US reaction around the world .

gotmituns , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:09 am GMT
Who Is Making US Foreign Policy?
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Could it be israel?
DrWatson , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:20 am GMT
Trump should have kept Steve Bannon as his advisor and should have fired instead his son-in-law. Perhaps "they" are blackmailing Trump with photos like here: https://www.pinterest.com/richarddesjarla/creepy/

That would explain why Trump is so ineffective at making a reality anything he campaigned for.

Marshall Lentini , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:28 am GMT
@melpol Betas in power -- an underappreciated dimension of this morass.
propagandist hacker , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 11:29 am GMT
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
Realist , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:52 am GMT

An anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.

The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid.

Realist , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:00 pm GMT
@sally

IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.

The CIA sees it differently; and they are part of the Deep State.

Realist , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMT
@propagandist hacker

or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?

That is my contention.

Sean , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT
MICHAEL CARPENTER Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia from 2015 to 2017.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2019-11-26/oligarchs-who-lost-ukraine-and-won-washington

Halfway around the world from Washington's halls of power, Ukraine sits along a civilizational and geopolitical fault line. To Ukraine's west are the liberal democracies of Europe, governed by rule of law and democratic principles. To its east are Russia and its client states in Eurasia, almost all of which are corrupt oligarchies. [ ] In this war on democratic movements and democratic principles, Russia's biggest prize and chief adversary has always been the United States. Until now, however, Russia has always had to contend with bipartisan resolve to counter

No mention of China, and this is the problem with the whole foreign policy establishment not just the neocons. Russia is more of an annoyance than anything, but they are still operating assumptions on what is the Geographical Pivot of History , so they want to talk about Russia. Like an Edwardian sea cadet we are supposed to care about Russia getting (back) a water port in Crimea. Mahan's definition of sea power included a strong commercial fleet. After tearing their own environment apart like a car in a wrecking yard and heating up the planet China has taken time out from deforestation and colonising Tibet, to send huge container vessels full of cheap goods through the melting Arctic round the top of Russia all the better to get to Europe and deindustrialise it.

Western elites have sold out to China, seen as the future, so we hear about Russia rather than the three million Uyghurs in concentration camps complete with constantly smoking crematoria, and harvesting of organs for rich foreigners.

Who poses a greater threat to the West: China or Russia?
By the time the West finds itself in open conflict with Beijing, we will have lost our relative advantage. Brendan Simms and K.C. Lin [ ] The concept of China being a threat is harder to comprehend. In what way? Yes, its hacking and intellectual property theft is a headache. But is it worse than what Russia is up to? And don't we need Chinese investment, so does it really matter if China builds our 5G mobile networks? In London, ministers agonise over these issues -- not knowing whether to pity China (we still send foreign aid there), beg for its money and contracts (with prime ministerial trade trips), or treat it as a potential antagonist.

Aid ! They sent robots to the far side of the Moon

Beijing has been the beneficiary of liberal revulsion at the Trump presidency: if the Donald is against the Chinese, who cannot be for them? As a result, Trump's efforts to address China's unfair trade practices have so far missed the mark with the domestic and international audience. As Trump declares war on free trade, China -- one of the most protectionist economies in the world -- is now celebrated at Davos as the avatar of free trade. Later this month, China's Vice-President is likely to be in attendance at Davos -- and there is even talk of him meeting with Trump. Similarly, the messiness of American politics has made China's one-party state an apparent poster boy of political stability and governability.

9/11 Inside job , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:14 pm GMT
911endofdays.blogspot.com : "Sackcloth&Ashes – The 16th Trump of Arcana " :

"TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ".
Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ?

JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT

Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad.

The military/intelligence imperial establishment definitely see Israel as a kind of American colony in the Mideast, and they make sure that it's well provided for. That's what the Neocon Wars have been about. Paving over large parts of Israel's noisy neighborhood. And that includes matters like keeping Syria off-balance with occupation in its northeast. And constantly threatening Iran.

Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things.

By the way, the last President who tried seriously to make foreign policy as the elected head of government left half of his head splattered on thec streets of Dallas.

Sick of Orcs , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT
@propagandist hacker Or he was fooled, tricked, bribed, coerced by The HoloNose.

Don't get me wrong, the Orange Sellout is to blame regardless.

9/11 Inside job , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMT
@Jon Baptist We have all been brainwashed by the propaganda screened by the massmedia ,whether it be FOX , MSNBC , CBS ,etc.. SeptemberClues.info has a good article entitled "The central role of the news media on 9/11 " :

"The 9/11 psyop relied foremostly on that weakspot of ours .We all fell for the images we saw on TV at the time we can only wonder why so many never questioned the absurd TV coverage proposed by all the major networks The 9/11 TV imagery of the crucial morning events was just a computer-animated, pre-fabricated movie."

Was "The Harley Guy" a crisis actor ?

geokat62 , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@National Institute for Study of the Obvious

So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who.

Close. You got 4 of the correct letters, AIPAC. You were just missing the P.

CIA runs your country.

No, Jewish Supremacist oligarchs run America.

Herald , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:05 pm GMT
@follyofwar Pat inhabits a strange Hollywood type world, where the US is always the good guy. He believes that, although the US may make foreign policy mistakes, its aims and ambitions are nevertheless noble and well intentioned.

In Pat's world it's still circa 1955, but even then, his take on US foreign policy would have been hopelessly unrealistic.

[Dec 06, 2019] Th ey think they are the people who set national policy and the president is this figurehead who is guided by all these people around him who agree on everything," he said. "The president doesn't need to use the State Department at all to conduct foreign policy

24 November 2019
Dec 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Punch foresaw The Borg

Punch

"Foreign Policy"

"This was a debate over policy. Trump's critics may not have liked the policy he was pushing. But as former Defense Intelligence Agency official Pat Lang noted on his blog last week, the statute in question applies only to "intelligence activities" but "does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters."

That's what this fight is about, said Lang . Speaker after speaker at the hearings asserted that Trump's views did not comport with official national policy. But the president sets that policy, Lang said, not the diplomats.

"They think they are the people who set national policy and the president is this figurehead who is guided by all these people around him who agree on everything," he said. "The president doesn't need to use the State Department at all to conduct foreign policy." ' Paul Mulshine

-------------

Actually, I was too minimal in speaking of "diplomats." Vindman is not a diplomat and there are many other actors in this drama of Borgist angst (foreign policy establishment ) who are not diplomats.

For one thing a large percentage of the Drones at the State Department are civil service employees rather than Foreign Service Officers, and although they do not play well together they agree on the ultimate authority of the Supremacy Clause (non-existent) in the US Constitution that gives the State Department dominion over all the Lord created. A career ambassador's wife once lectured me that the US Army should change the cap badge that officers wear because it looks too much like the Great Seal of the United States which in the State Department can only be displayed by Ambassadors. I told her that she should petition the Secretary of the Army in this matter.

Various departments of government, media, academia, thinktankeries, etc., all have heavy infestations of folks who went to graduate school together in poly sci in all its branches, or who wish to be thought worthy of such attendance. They specialize in group think, conformity, and conformism, even to the solemn dress they affect. The four in hand tie knot is pretty much mandatory for serious consideration for inclusion in the Borg. It indicates a certain preppy insouciance and faux disregard for details of dress.

Trump's casual disregard for all that enrages the Borg who thought they had "won it all" long ago and that they would have a Borgist neocon to deal with in Hillary.

Hell hath no fury like The Borg scorned. pl

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/11/the-trump-impeachment-hearing-whistle-blower-blew-up-a-non-story-mulshine.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_(magazine)

Posted at 12:28 PM in As The Borg Turns , Current Affairs , Media , Mulshine | Permalink

Reblog (0) Comments


J , 24 November 2019 at 12:56 PM

Hillary's Foundation has lost millions recently, which has Hillary pursing her lips like she's been using a lemon for her lipstick. I mean, worse than fish-lips, Hillary's pursing expression.

Too bad that we can't form some cement shoes for the Borg and toss them into the east river AKA the Atlantic, or send them back to hell from where they originated!

Hank H. , 24 November 2019 at 06:44 PM
OT:
This afternoon my wife and I turned on the TV to watch football. We were flipping through channels and came upon some local ABC affiliate (WMUR) which had on a documentary which mentioned the Medal of Honor and a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam. Needless to say we stayed on that channel. Long story short, it was one of the most powerful things we've ever watched. We were both in tears by the end (nb: I don't cry easily) and we were changed from having watched it. We immediately went online to purchase copies for family members. It was recently released.
The Field Afar: The Life of Fr. Vincent Capodanno

https://www.amazon.com/Field-Afar-Life-Vincent-Capodanno/dp/B081KPTT3R/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=A+field+afar&qid=1574638098&sr=8-1

JMH , 25 November 2019 at 04:22 AM
As the Borg like to say "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own." They have done this with the four in hand tie knot which was previously worn by giants like George Kennon and Chip Bohlen. Yet now, the midgetry prevails.
Ghost Ship , 25 November 2019 at 11:34 AM
The four in hand tie knot is pretty much mandatory for serious consideration for inclusion in the Borg.
I'm surprised, given some of the more outlandish claims about the British Royal Family, that the Windsor knot isn't mandatory.
Jim Ticehurst , 25 November 2019 at 07:21 PM
Colonel...This is another Reason why I appreciate your levels of Experience and knowledge with SST..Thank you for doing that...I always come away with New Insight..and Understanding of Real Dynamics..what has Progressively Developed inside the State.Department.with its Influence On so Much POLICY...and .is as You say...The BORG..and Their Own Culture.your Article put that all into a Big Picture for Me..(Connecting the Data..) .It.as you aptly Described. is a Universal.Sect..and...At The National Level...They are Cyber Borgs..Shciff Shapers..and that Whole Colony has Been Exposed.,,, Bad Products and All....
J , 26 November 2019 at 08:08 PM
Colonel,

Fiona Hill appears to be part of the Borg, not really sure which part she's affiliated. Some have called her a 'sleeper agent', but a sleeper for whom? British Intelligence agent of influence? Or an Israeli agent of influence, or maybe a Daniel Pipes trained NEOCON agent of influence? Any way one spins it, Fiona Hill has been undermining POTUS Trump while she was part of his NSC and his advisory team. Why her intense hatred of Putin? Does he happen to know through his nation's intelligence exactly who she is and whom she may be working on behalf of? The Skripal incident showed just how much that the British Government and Crown hate Russia. But why the intense British hatred of Russia, why?

Questions, so many questions regarding Ms. Hill and who she really works for.


[Dec 06, 2019] Endless War Degrades the Military

Dec 06, 2019 | www.shutterstock.com

krill_makarov/Shutterstock

December 5, 2019

|

12:44 pm

Daniel Larison TAC contributor Gil Barndollar calls attention to the damage that endless war is doing to the military:

The president has been rightly excoriated for these pardons, which dishonor the U.S. military and may degrade good order and discipline. But amid this uproar, Americans should note the bigger lesson: Endless wars, especially endless counterinsurgency or counterterrorism wars, slowly chip away at both a military's ethics and its critical war-fighting skills.

These wars are particularly corrosive because they cannot be conclusively won, and for every enemy that is destroyed it seems as if two or three more appear to replace it. Futile, open-ended wars contribute to breakdowns in discipline. Barndollar continues:

However, keeping their honor clean becomes harder and harder the longer these wars drag on. Wars among the people, as all our endless wars now are, are inherently dirty. When even senior members of the foreign policy establishment concede that we are not seeking victory in Afghanistan, it becomes harder for soldiers to make hollow mission accomplishment a higher priority than self-preservation. Treating U.S. soldiers like victims, as Trump implicitly does, also becomes more common.

When a war cannot be won, the rational thing to do would be to stop fighting it, but instead of doing that our political and military leaders treat endless war as a new normal that must not be questioned. It is bad enough when a government sends its soldiers to fight and die for a cause that it pretends can still be won when that isn't possible, but to keep sending them over and over again into war zones to fight a war they admit is futile has to be discouraging and frustrating. This also has to widen the division between the military and the civilian population. While military personnel are called on to go on multiple tours in pointless conflicts, most people back home mouth empty platitudes about supporting the troops and do nothing to bring the wars to an end. The public's failure to hold our political and military leaders accountable for these failed and unnecessary wars is bound to have corrosive effects as well.

At the same time, these wars degrade the military's ability to fight other adversaries:

Even more serious for American national security is the fact that endless small wars degrade a military's ability to fight and win big wars -- wars that have real consequences for our security and way of life.

Our endless wars have been enormously costly. It is estimated that all of the wars of the last twenty years will end up costing at least $6.4 trillion, and beyond that they have consumed our government's attention and resources to the detriment of everything else. Our political and military leaders perpetuate these wars, and the public has allowed them to do this, because they are still laboring under the faulty assumption that the U.S. is being made more secure in the process. The reality is that endless wars are undermining our security, weakening the military, and creating more enemies. They should be ended responsibly, but they must end. about the author Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .

[Dec 06, 2019] Th ey think they are the people who set national policy and the president is this figurehead who is guided by all these people around him who agree on everything," he said. "The president doesn't need to use the State Department at all to conduct foreign policy

24 November 2019
Dec 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Punch foresaw The Borg

Punch

"Foreign Policy"

"This was a debate over policy. Trump's critics may not have liked the policy he was pushing. But as former Defense Intelligence Agency official Pat Lang noted on his blog last week, the statute in question applies only to "intelligence activities" but "does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters."

That's what this fight is about, said Lang . Speaker after speaker at the hearings asserted that Trump's views did not comport with official national policy. But the president sets that policy, Lang said, not the diplomats.

"They think they are the people who set national policy and the president is this figurehead who is guided by all these people around him who agree on everything," he said. "The president doesn't need to use the State Department at all to conduct foreign policy." ' Paul Mulshine

-------------

Actually, I was too minimal in speaking of "diplomats." Vindman is not a diplomat and there are many other actors in this drama of Borgist angst (foreign policy establishment ) who are not diplomats.

For one thing a large percentage of the Drones at the State Department are civil service employees rather than Foreign Service Officers, and although they do not play well together they agree on the ultimate authority of the Supremacy Clause (non-existent) in the US Constitution that gives the State Department dominion over all the Lord created. A career ambassador's wife once lectured me that the US Army should change the cap badge that officers wear because it looks too much like the Great Seal of the United States which in the State Department can only be displayed by Ambassadors. I told her that she should petition the Secretary of the Army in this matter.

Various departments of government, media, academia, thinktankeries, etc., all have heavy infestations of folks who went to graduate school together in poly sci in all its branches, or who wish to be thought worthy of such attendance. They specialize in group think, conformity, and conformism, even to the solemn dress they affect. The four in hand tie knot is pretty much mandatory for serious consideration for inclusion in the Borg. It indicates a certain preppy insouciance and faux disregard for details of dress.

Trump's casual disregard for all that enrages the Borg who thought they had "won it all" long ago and that they would have a Borgist neocon to deal with in Hillary.

Hell hath no fury like The Borg scorned. pl

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/11/the-trump-impeachment-hearing-whistle-blower-blew-up-a-non-story-mulshine.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_(magazine)

Posted at 12:28 PM in As The Borg Turns , Current Affairs , Media , Mulshine | Permalink

Reblog (0) Comments


J , 24 November 2019 at 12:56 PM

Hillary's Foundation has lost millions recently, which has Hillary pursing her lips like she's been using a lemon for her lipstick. I mean, worse than fish-lips, Hillary's pursing expression.

Too bad that we can't form some cement shoes for the Borg and toss them into the east river AKA the Atlantic, or send them back to hell from where they originated!

Hank H. , 24 November 2019 at 06:44 PM
OT:
This afternoon my wife and I turned on the TV to watch football. We were flipping through channels and came upon some local ABC affiliate (WMUR) which had on a documentary which mentioned the Medal of Honor and a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam. Needless to say we stayed on that channel. Long story short, it was one of the most powerful things we've ever watched. We were both in tears by the end (nb: I don't cry easily) and we were changed from having watched it. We immediately went online to purchase copies for family members. It was recently released.
The Field Afar: The Life of Fr. Vincent Capodanno

https://www.amazon.com/Field-Afar-Life-Vincent-Capodanno/dp/B081KPTT3R/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=A+field+afar&qid=1574638098&sr=8-1

JMH , 25 November 2019 at 04:22 AM
As the Borg like to say "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own." They have done this with the four in hand tie knot which was previously worn by giants like George Kennon and Chip Bohlen. Yet now, the midgetry prevails.
Ghost Ship , 25 November 2019 at 11:34 AM
The four in hand tie knot is pretty much mandatory for serious consideration for inclusion in the Borg.
I'm surprised, given some of the more outlandish claims about the British Royal Family, that the Windsor knot isn't mandatory.
Jim Ticehurst , 25 November 2019 at 07:21 PM
Colonel...This is another Reason why I appreciate your levels of Experience and knowledge with SST..Thank you for doing that...I always come away with New Insight..and Understanding of Real Dynamics..what has Progressively Developed inside the State.Department.with its Influence On so Much POLICY...and .is as You say...The BORG..and Their Own Culture.your Article put that all into a Big Picture for Me..(Connecting the Data..) .It.as you aptly Described. is a Universal.Sect..and...At The National Level...They are Cyber Borgs..Shciff Shapers..and that Whole Colony has Been Exposed.,,, Bad Products and All....
J , 26 November 2019 at 08:08 PM
Colonel,

Fiona Hill appears to be part of the Borg, not really sure which part she's affiliated. Some have called her a 'sleeper agent', but a sleeper for whom? British Intelligence agent of influence? Or an Israeli agent of influence, or maybe a Daniel Pipes trained NEOCON agent of influence? Any way one spins it, Fiona Hill has been undermining POTUS Trump while she was part of his NSC and his advisory team. Why her intense hatred of Putin? Does he happen to know through his nation's intelligence exactly who she is and whom she may be working on behalf of? The Skripal incident showed just how much that the British Government and Crown hate Russia. But why the intense British hatred of Russia, why?

Questions, so many questions regarding Ms. Hill and who she really works for.


[Dec 06, 2019] So now when a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense? Really?

Notable quotes:
"... Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 … ..."
"... So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17? ..."
Dec 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"'Our Democracy Is at Stake.' Pelosi Orders Democrats to Draft Articles of Impeachment Against Trump" [ Time ]. With autoplay video. ""The President abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival." • So now when a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense? Really? Yasha Levine quotes Democrat impeachment witness Karlan (see below) but the point is the same:

Yasha Levine ✔ @yashalevine

Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024

So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17?

"Read opening statements from witnesses at the House Judiciary hearing" [ Politico ]. "Democrats' impeachment witnesses at Wednesday's judiciary committee hearing plan to say in their prepared remarks that President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine were the worst examples of misconduct in presidential history." • So again, it's all about Ukraine. I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension. Aaron Maté comments:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/GkQDrYr4EZs

My very subjective impression: I've skimmed three, and read Turley. Karlan, in particular, is simply not a serious effort. Turley may be wrong -- a ton of tribal dunking on Twitter -- but at least he's making a serious effort. I'm gonna have to wait to see if somebody, say at Lawfare, does a serious effort on Turley. Everything I've read hitherto is and posturing and preaching to the choir. (Sad that Larry Tribe has so completely discredited himself, but that's where we are.)

While on Turley, see this from his testimony:

Hat tip to alert reader David in Santa Cruz for his early call on "inchoate":

Lambert, while Trump was unable to complete his attempt to extort the President of Ukraine, as someone who practiced the criminal law for 34 years, let me be the first to clue you in to the concept in the criminal law of the inchoate offense . This is criminal law, not contract law.

An inchoate offense includes an attempt, a conspiracy, and the solicitation of a crime. All focus on the state of mind of the perpetrator, and none require that the offense be completed -- only that a person or persons having the required criminal intent took material steps toward completing the crime. Such a person becomes a principal in the contemplated crime, and in the eyes of the law is just as guilty as if he or she had completed the attempted offense.

(The details of Trump's offense differ from what David in Santa Cruz said they would be.) "Inchoate" appears only in Turley's piece, indicating, to me, that his was the only serious effort.

[Dec 04, 2019] Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon Reports

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here . ..."
"... Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here . ..."
"... Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here . ..."
"... Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning." You can read her testimony here . ..."
"... Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality. ..."
"... Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here . Kent testified he signed the letter here . ..."
"... Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here . ..."
"... Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
"... Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
Dec 04, 2019 | johnsolomonreports.com

honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's service to his country. He's a hero. I also respect his decision to testify at the impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimony was easy.

But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought on the battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate in America, one that can't be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.

So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman about the testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress, he asserted all the factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, except maybe my grammar

Here are his exact words:

"I think all the key elements were false," Vindman testified.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. "Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?"

"All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false . Were there more items in there, frankly, congressman? I don't recall. I haven't looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right."

Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.

And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.

Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradicts any of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make it publicly available. Your testimony did not.

If you don't have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.

[Dec 04, 2019] America's War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet by William Astore

Highly recommended!
Our leaders like to say we value human rights around the world, but what they really manifest is greed. It all makes sense in a Gekko- or Machiavellian kind of way.
Highly recommended !
Notable quotes:
"... Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is? ..."
"... A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right. ..."
"... If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life. ..."
"... I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too. ..."
"... Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it. ..."
"... they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism. ..."
"... Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower. ..."
"... The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources. ..."
"... Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.) ..."
"... The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep! ..."
Dec 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His personal blog is Bracing Views . Originally published at TomDispatch

Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch , I've been arguing against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan , Iraq , or elsewhere . Unfortunately, it's no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined . And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?

Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.

So why do America's disastrous wars persist ? I can think of many reasons , some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end " endless wars " but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet.

The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace . And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration he's sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes , something about which he openly boasts .

War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China , is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases , when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection, when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion ) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?

Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is?

If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's many uses in American life and culture.

War, Its Uses (and Abuses)

A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.

As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it , war is a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the world's sole superpower.

And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality , using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.

In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."

What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it , which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:

The delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts -- see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with several more years, or even generations , to go -- continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren't. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully resisted the Pentagon's siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off. American society's almost complete isolation from war's deadly effects: We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure , thanks in part to the cost of those overseas wars). It's nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the media or elsewhere, this country's never-ending war-making gets here. Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don't know about? Learning its lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows! -- but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden, pursued and indicted for sharing honest details about the calamitous Iraq War and America's invasive and intrusive surveillance state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be truth-tellers. An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress ceded to the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite recent attempts to end America's arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden by Donald Trump's veto power), America's duly elected representatives generally don't represent the people when it comes to this country's disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly, largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech ( thank you , Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in Congress than you and I ever will. \ America's persistent empathy gap. Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. Even our globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas," complete with familiar stores, fast food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives, these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.

All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang of a " peace train " that was "soundin' louder" in America. Today, that peace train's been derailed and replaced by an armed and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war -- and that train is indeed soundin' louder to the great peril of us all.

War on Spaceship Earth

Here's the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change , not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials can't express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might. Assuming we don't annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war we're waging against Planet Earth.

The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only wants to grow more so, but what's welfare for the military brass isn't wellness for the planet.

There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.

In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.

Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the existence of significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures to rise even as food and other resources dwindle . Under the circumstances, what's the best strategy for survival: killing each other while ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?

Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as we've seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President Trump's recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria to steal that country's oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule percentage of the world's petroleum.

If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.

Despite all of war's uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it's time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience "our" wars firsthand and that's precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.

We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.

likbez December 2, 2019 at 3:17 AM

I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too.

They preach “Full Spectrum Dominance” (Wolfowitz doctrine) and are not shy to unleash the wars to enhance the USA strategic position in particular region (color revolution can be used instead of war, like they in 2014 did in Ukraine). Of course, being chichenhawks, neither they nor members of their families fight in those wars.

For some reason despite his election platform Trump also populated his administration with neoconservatives. So it might be that maintaining the USA centered global neoliberal empire is the real reason and the leitmotiv of the USA foreign policy. that’s why it does not change with the change of Administration: any government that does not play well with the neoliberal empire gets in the hairlines.

Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it.

wjastore says: December 2, 2019 at 8:09 AM
Good point. But why the rise of the neocons? Why did they prosper? I'd say because of the military-industrial complex. Or you might say they feed each other, but the Complex came first. And of course the Complex is a dominant part of the Deep State. How could it not be? Add in 17 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, the Energy Dept's nukes, and you have a dominant DoD that swallows up more than half of federal discretionary spending each year.
likbez December 2, 2019 at 12:09 PM
I agree, but it is a little bit more complex. You need an ideology to promote the interests of MIC. You can't just say -- let's spend more than a half of federal discretionary spending each year..

That's where neo-conservatism comes into play. So they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism.

wjastore December 2, 2019 at 12:25 PM

Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower.

The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources.

Think about how no one was punished for the colossal intelligence failure of 9/11. Instead, all the intel agencies were rewarded with more money and authority via the PATRIOT Act.

The Afghan war is an ongoing disaster, the Iraq war a huge misstep, Libya a total failure, yet the Complex has even more Teflon than Ronald Reagan. All failures slide off of it.

greglaxer , December 2, 2019 at 4:12 PM

There is a still bigger picture to consider in all this. I don't want to open the door to conspiracy theory–personally, I find the claim that explosives were placed inside the World Trade Center prior to the strikes by aircraft on 9/11 risible–but it certainly was convenient for the Regime Change Gang that the Saudi operatives were able to get away with what they did on that day, and in preparations leading up to it.

Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.)

Once the great majority of folks in Africa have cellphones and subscriptions to Netflix whither capitalism? Trump denies the severity of the climate crisis because that is part of the ideology/theology of the GOP.

The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep!

[Dec 04, 2019] Operation Condor 2.0: After Bolivia Coup, Trump Dubs Nicaragua to be National Security Threat And Targets Mexico by Ben Norton

Dec 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Ben Norton via TheGrayZone.com,

After presiding over a far-right coup in Bolivia, the US dubbed Nicaragua a "national security threat" and announced new sanctions, while Trump designated drug cartels in Mexico as "terrorists" and refused to rule out military intervention.

One successful coup against a democratically elected socialist president is not enough, it seems.

Immediately after overseeing a far-right military coup in Bolivia on November 10, the Trump administration set its sights once again on Nicaragua, whose democratically elected Sandinista government defeated a violent right-wing coup attempt in 2018 .

Washington dubbed Nicaragua a threat to US national security, and announced that it will be expanding its suffocating sanctions on the tiny Central American nation.

Trump is also turning up the heat on Mexico, baselessly linking the country to terrorism and even hinting at potential military intervention. The moves come as the country's left-leaning President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns of right-wing attempts at a coup.

As Washington's rightist allies in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador are desperately beating back massive grassroots uprisings against neoliberal austerity policies and yawning inequality gaps, the United States is ramping up its aggression against the region's few remaining progressive governments.

These moves have led left-wing forces in Latin America to warn of a 21st-century revival of Operation Condor, the Cold War era campaign of violent subterfuge and US support for right-wing dictatorships across the region.

Trump admin declares Nicaragua a 'national security threat'

A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington's target list: "These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua ," Trump declared.

On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing Nicaragua as an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring a state of "national emergency" on the Central American country.

Trump's 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing coup attempt in Nicaragua . The US government has funded and supported many of the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.

The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In December the US Congress approved the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business with Managua.

Trump's new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its democratically elected government -- which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by Washington -- as a supposedly violent and corrupt "regime."

This executive order is similar to one made by President Barack Obama in 2015, which designated Venezuela as a threat to US national security.

Both orders were used to justify the unilateral imposition of suffocating economic sanctions. And Trump's renewal of the order paves the way for an escalated economic attack on Nicaragua.

The extension received negligible coverage in mainstream English-language corporate media, but right-wing Spanish-language outlets in Latin America heavily amplified it.

And opposition activists are gleefully cheering on the intensification of Washington's hybrid warfare against Managua.

More aggressive US sanctions against Nicaragua

Voice of America (VOA), the US government's main foreign broadcasting service, noted that the extension of the executive order will be followed with more economic attacks.

Washington's ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, told VOA, "The pressure against Nicaragua is going to continue."

The OAS representative added that Trump will be announcing new sanctions against the Nicaraguan government in the coming weeks.

VOA stated clearly that "Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic pressure on to bring about regime change."

This is not just rhetoric. The US Department of the Treasury updated the Nicaragua-related sanctions section of its website as recently as November 8.

And in September, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a " more comprehensive set of regulations ," strengthening the existing sanctions on Nicaragua.

Voice of America's report quoted several right-wing Nicaraguans who openly called for more US pressure against their country.

Bianca Jagger, a celebrity opposition activist formerly married to Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, called on the US to impose sanctions on Nicaragua's military in particular.

"The Nicaraguan military has not been touched because they [US officials] are hoping that the military will like act the military in Bolivia," Jagger said, referring to the military officials who violently overthrew Bolivia's democratically elected president.

Many of these military leaders had been trained at the US government's School of the Americas , a notorious base of subversion dating back to Operation Condor. Latin American media has been filled in recent days with reports that Bolivian soldiers were paid $50,000 and generals were paid up to $1 million to carry out the putsch.

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VOA added that "in the case of the Central American government [of Nicaragua], the effect that sanctions can have can be greater because it is a more economically vulnerable country."

VOA quoted Roberto Courtney, a prominent exiled right-wing activist and executive director of the opposition group Ethics and Transparency, which monitors elections in Nicaragua and is supported by the US government's regime-change arm , the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Courtney, who claims to be a human rights activist, salivated over the prospects of US economic war on his country, telling VOA, "There is a bit of a difference [between Nicaragua and Bolivia] the economic vulnerability makes it more likely that the sanctions will have an effect."

Courtney, who was described by VOA as an "expert on the electoral process," added, "If there is a stick, there must also be a carrot." He said the OAS could help apply diplomatic and political pressure against Nicaragua's government.

These unilateral American sanctions are illegal under international law, and considered an act of war. Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif , has characterized US economic warfare "financial terrorism," explaining that it disproportionately targets civilians in order to turn them against their government.

Top right-wing Nicaraguan opposition groups applauded Trump for extending the executive order and for pledging new sanctions against their country.

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The Nicaraguan Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, an opposition front group that brings together numerous opposition groups , several of which are also funded by the US government's NED , welcomed the order.

Trump dubs drug cartels in Mexico "terrorists," refuses to rule out drone strikes

While the US targeting of Nicaragua and Venezuela's governments is nothing new, Donald Trump is setting his sights on a longtime US ally in Mexico.

In 2018, Mexican voters made history when they elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president in a landslide. López Obrador, who is often referred to by his initials AMLO, is Mexico's first left-wing president in more than five decades. He ran on a progressive campaign pledging to boost social spending, cut poverty, combat corruption, and even decriminalize drugs.

AMLO is wildly popular in Mexico. In February, he had a record-breaking 86 percent approval rating . And he has earned this widespread support by pledging to combat neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.

"The neoliberal economic model has been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," AMLO has declared. "The child of neoliberalism is corruption."

When he unveiled his multibillion-dollar National Development Plan, López Obrador announced the end to "the long night of neoliberalism."

AMLO's left-wing policies have caused shockwaves in Washington, which has long relied on neoliberal Mexican leaders ensuring a steady cheap exploitable labor base and maintaining a reliable market for US goods and open borders for US capital and corporations.

On November 27 -- a day after declaring Nicaragua a "national security threat" -- Trump announced that the US government will be designating Mexican drug cartels as " terrorist organizations ."

Such a designation could pave the way for direct US military intervention in Mexico.

Trump revealed this new policy in an interview with right-wing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. "Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them with drones and things like that?" O'Reilly asked.

The US president refused to rule out drone strikes or other military action against drug cartels in Mexico.

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Trump's announcement seemed to surprise the Mexican government, which immediately called for a meeting with the US State Department.

The designation was particularly ironic considering some top drug cartel leaders in Mexico have long-standing ties to the US government. The leaders of the notoriously brutal cartel the Zetas, for instance, were originally trained in counter-insurgency tactics by the US military.

Throughout the Cold War, the US government armed, trained, and funded right-wing death squads throughout Latin America, many of which were involved in drug trafficking. The CIA also used drug money to fund far-right counter-insurgency paramilitary groups in Central America.

These tactics were also employed in the Middle East and South Asia. The United States armed, trained, and funded far-right Islamist extremists in Afghanistan in the 1980s in order to fight the Soviet Union. These same US-backed Salafi-jihadists then founded al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

This strategy was later repeated in the US wars on Libya and Syria. ISIS commander Omar al-Shishani , to take one example, had been trained by the US military and enjoyed direct support from Washington when he was fighting against Russia.

The Barack Obama administration also oversaw a campaign called Project Gunrunne r and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US government helped send thousands of guns to cartels in Mexico.

Mexican journalist Alina Duarte explained that, with the Trump administration's designation of cartels as terrorists, "They are creating the idea that Mexico represents a threat to their national security ."

"Should we start talking about the possibility of a coup against Lopez Obrador in Mexico?" Duarte asked.

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She noted that the US corporate media has embarked on an increasingly ferocious campaign to demonize AMLO , portraying the democratically elected president as a power-hungry aspiring dictator who is supposedly wrecking Mexico's economy.

Duarte discussed the issue of US interference in Mexican politics in an interview with The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, on their podcast Moderate Rebels:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OJyCHjxCEs

Now, a whisper campaign over fears that the right-wing opposition may try to overthrow President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is spreading across Mexico.

AMLO himself has publicly addressed the rumors, making it clear that he will not tolerate any discussion of coups.

"How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are," López Obrador tweeted on November 2. Referencing the 1913 assassination of progressive President Francisco Madero, who had been a leader of the Mexican Revolution, AMLO wrote, "Now is different."

"Another coup d'état will now be allowed," he declared.

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In recent months, as fears of a coup intensify, López Obrador has swung even further to the left, directly challenging the US government and asserting an independent foreign policy that contrasts starkly to the subservience of his predecessors.

AMLO's government has rejected US efforts to delegitimize Venezuela's leftist government, throwing a wrench in Washington's efforts to impose right-wing activist Juan Guaidó as coup leader.

AMLO has welcomed Ecuador's ousted socialist leader Rafael Correa and hosted Argentina's left-leaning Alberto Fernández for his first foreign trip after winning the presidency.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4T0zbASfbA

In October, López Obrador even welcomed Cuban President Díaz-Canel to Mexico for a historic visit.

Trump's Operation Condor 2.0

For Washington, an independent and left-wing Mexico is intolerable.

In a speech for right-wing, MAGA hat-wearing Venezuelans in Miami , Florida in February, Trump ranted against socialism for nearly an hour, threatened the remaining leftist countries in Latin America with regime change.

"The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua and in Cuba as well," he declared, adding that socialism would never be allowed to take root in heart of capitalism in the United States.

While Trump has claimed he seeks to withdraw from wars in the Middle East (when he is not occupying its oil fields ), he has ramped up aggressive US intervention in Latin America.

Though the neoconservative war hawk John Bolton is no longer overseeing US foreign policy , Elliott Abrams remains firmly embedded in the State Department, dusting off his Iran-Contra playbook to decimate socialism in Latin America all over again.

During the height of the Cold War, Operation Condor thousands of dissidents were murdered, and hundreds of thousands more were disappeared, tortured, or imprisoned with the assistance of the US intelligence apparatus.

Today, as Latin America is increasingly viewed through the lens of a new Cold War, Operation Condor is being reignited with new mechanisms of sabotage and subversion in play. The mayhem has only begun.

[Dec 04, 2019] A Warning

Looks like a sequel to Wolff book
Dec 04, 2019 | www.amazon.com

linda galella , November 19, 2019

"This may be our last chance to act to hold the man accountable..."

Well, that was "A Warning", for sure! The anonymous author of this tell all, Trump outter, goes on to proclaim "we must look deeper at the roots of the present disorder, which is why I have written this book."

Based on his/hers opening salvo, I proceeded with an open mind and hoped a first hand accounting of events would give me something more, something new, something unbiased...after reading every single word, I'm not sure what to think any more.

"A Warning", by Anonymous, is a well written political volume that speaks clearly, and authoritatively concerning the events that take place in the White House and with our president, Donald J. Trump. They have avoided all the histrionics that fill the tomes offered by most of the media members. There's plenty of passion and urgency behind what's being said it's just not crazed which for me, lends it an air of veracity. I'm settled for 60% of the discourse.

By chapter 5 my opinion of the author's recanting about the details of the POTUS's daily events has begun to become suspect and I'm starting to get that feeling that something is "off". I read on trying to keep my open mind, feelings at bay. It's not easy because the stories being told are starting to take on a schoolyard tenor such as: listing snippets of twitter tweets (only the "bad"parts), highlighting his inadequacies as a statesman/politician (DJT never claimed to be more than a businessman). It's not wrong to mention these things, it's the spirit in how it's done and the vacuum.

This is about the time that anonymous' logic becomes unfounded, for me; a Venn diagraming dilemma of if-then, WHAT?

Positing that POTUS has such a weakness for strong men that he would make egregious blunders of national security, as well as waffle on business and finance issues just doesn't make sense. Sorry. If for no other reason than his sheer business acumen, I'm rejecting this premise. Yes, he blunders on with lack of finesse in the deportment and statesman columns but...nope.

"A Warning" continues on pretty much in this manner, more and more juvenile until we end up firmly in the land of snark with chapter seven and "The Apologists" where the author in his anonymity proclaims how we can identify the various flavors of apologists, all they think and feel and all they need to do-to get , be and do better; presumptuous, IMHO. I'm sure snark wasn't the intended goal but it's how I arrived, for me.

All things considered, the writing and publishing are excellent. For the first half of the book, I was impressed with the author's ability to detail the story, taking the high road. The road got lonely along the way and anonymous veered to the access road, never joining yellow journalism highway to deliver "A Warning" 📚

Menkaure , November 21, 2019
Half-Hearted Epiphany

A lot of reviewers are saying "It's nothing we didn't already know," and at first, that was my conclusion as well: there's no bombshells here. But upon reflection, there actually is something that we didn't know. It answered a mystery that has perplexed me for the better part of 3 years, albeit I don't think the author knows it themselves. The million dollar question: how could anyone with any morality, dignity, patriotism, or merely a sense of self-preservation work in the Trump administration? 'A Warning' is not any kind of explosive insider expose on the workings of the current White House. It's far too vague and generalized, avoiding specifics on nearly every topic to the point of exasperation. What this book is, is an attempt by the author to justify their bad, and it must be said, weak choices. It's both a sub-conscious excuse and apology for what's clear the author has still not fully come to terms with themselves. Between the lines, you can almost see him/her trying to work it out, never quite grasping his/her own moral weakness in enabling a man they know to be dangerously incompetent. Everybody, anybody, who has ever worked for somebody else has faced this dilemma at some point in their career: when the boss is bad; you either stay for self-serving reasons (like your finances) or you make a stand before the boss damages the whole enterprise. The author is trying to make a stand, and failing at it. The alarming aspect in this instance, is the stakes are so much higher, the highest, in fact. This is a book written by somebody deep in denial, attempting to work it out but not quite willing, yet, to look themselves directly in the mirror. Chapter 7, "Apologists," is the most telling. The author is not just explaining the motivations of his/her co-participants, but is unwittingly addressing their self as well. Perhaps the most important question here, is WHO does Anonymous think they are "Warning?" at this point? For the Never-Trumpers this is all old news. For the Ever-Trumpers, they're never going to read anything unapproved by their Dear Leader. For those on the fence (if there are any) they're comatose and aren't capable of comprehension. This wasn't written for anybody but the author's own conscience, and even at that, it hedges, dances around itself, and avoids mirrors.

Amazon Customer , November 19, 2019
Discusses what is already known about Trump with little in the way of solutions.

The book tells readers what is already known and readily apparent about Donald Trump: his lack of empathy and curiousity, his volatility and impetuousness, his vengeful nature, the long-lasting damage he is doing to the country's institutions and norms.

The book does not delve into much, if any, new territory that has not been previously reported. Mentions of specific administration members and their individual actions are sparing and go little beyond general notions that many intitially thought Trump would turn his behavior around, are continually dumbfounded by him, try behind the scenes to keep the wheels of government on the road and fail due to his ADD, vanity, and pettiness, and that all know they are expendible to him.

The author devotes quite a bit of time discussing historical Greek democratic philosophy and examples to compare to the current situation. While interesting, it only serves to put Trump's personality and failings into yet another historical context which would surprise nobody who has paid any attention to this administration, government, politics, law, or history.

One of the largest problems with the author's arguments and solutions is that it ultimately lack individual courage. The author takes time to discuss the passengers aboard Flight 93 that fought back against the hijackers on 9/11. He/she even ends the book with the famous last words of one of the passengers who fought back: " Let's roll." While we do not know the identity of the author, his or her actions in publishing this book are not the same. The actions of passengers deciding to fight back against hijackers was not anonymous. They did not fail to show their faces. They met the danger head-on and with full knowledge of the consequences of failure. They did not try to leave it to others. The author gives the coda that the general public needs to wake up and do something, but then does not get in the aisle with the rest of the passengers to fight back. While the author's explanation of remaining anonymous is logical (that the message is more important than the messenger), the author ultimately falls prey to one of the flaws of everyone else who serves Trump: that he/she is not willing to speak truth directly to power regardless of the horrific consequences of not doing so. Former Senator Jeff Flake and Representative Justin Amash have made many of the same philosophical and logical points as the author regarding Trump's damaging actions publicly, to their own political demise. The reader cannot help but wonder if the author is still in the administration taking daily part in the passivity of those who know better but will not say it to Trump's face.

The book offers much in the way of problems but little in the way of solutions. The author suggests Americans be engaged in civics and politics at local and state levels. The author suggests that we find the political middle and return to civility. The author does not posit how the reader should, given such a dire warning, convince the many people to change course, who: 1) see what Trump really is and actually like it, 2) have been completely fooled about who Trump really is but will not respond to facts, logic, and/or self-interest, and 3) hold power to do something about Trump (i.e.: 53 Republican Senators) but remain passive due to a variety of personal, social, political, or economic factors.

Ultimately, the book puts forth an important analysis of Trump, the sycophants that surround him, and the damage he continues to do. But it doesn't come with the gravity of someone who is willing to risk his/her own skin in order to try to save the country that he/she seems to hold so dear. The message would mean more if the author was willing to risk all like the passengers of Flight 93.

joel wing , November 22, 2019
Disappointing Repeats major faults w/Trump without adding any new details

A Warning by Anonymous who claims to be a senior Trump administration official comes on the heal of previous tell all books such as Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury and Bob Woodward's Fear. Unfortunately, if one read those books or has paid attention to the news there is nothing really new in A Warning, which outlines the argument against the Trump presidency.

Anonymous' argument is that Trump is unfit for the presidency and most be voted out of office in the next election. The author's complaints are well known. The president knows nothing about how the government, the economy or foreign policy works which leads to endless problems as he makes pronouncements, Tweets, or asks his staff to do things that can't be done, and sometimes might even be illegal. He contemplated telling the National Guard that was deployed to the border with Mexico to shoot people trying to enter illegally as a deterrent. Trump isn't inquisitive, doesn't read, and is an avid consumer of conspiracy theories. Trump for example is so adverse to reading and has such a short attention span that his staff has been reduced to briefing him with just one graphic or one slide that represents one main issue, and to repeat that point over and over in the hopes that it will sink in with the chief executive. Many times that fails. Instead, Trump's main sources of information are cable news and a variety of conspiracy theories he hears or makes up himself. The president's language is divisive. Trump revels in smack talking, and one of his favorite times is to go to rallies where he can unleash a new line against his opponents. He enjoys being a rabble rouser and inciting his followers. The president came into office with a diverse cabinet of generals, politicians, and businessmen, but most of them have left. Not only that, but some of them were willing to stand up to the president and tell him things he didn't want to hear. The author considers himself part of this group. Now Trump is surrounded by people that only tell him what he wants to hear. All together that has led the White House into one crisis after another. Trump Tweets he wanted out of Syria without telling any of his staff beforehand. The White House had outlined a $2 trillion infrastructure bill with the Democrats, but then Trump got mad watching cable TV before a planned meeting and walked away from the deal. The author has one great characterization at an end of a chapter where he says the government is like one of Trump's companies. It's badly managed, a sociopath is at its head, there is infighting, lawsuits, debt, shady deals, and everything is focused upon the owner rather than the customers.

Anonymous does make one new argument you rarely hear, and that is Trump is not a conservative. He starts off with the fact that Trump has changed his party affiliation several times. He also has violated many of the hall marks of conservatism such as free trade, fiscal responsibility, and cutting the size of the federal government. Trump for example, has created a huge budget deficit with his tax cuts while continuing to increase public spending.

Again, the problem with the book isn't the message, it's just that his has all been said before. I was at least expecting some interesting stories to go along with this laundry list of faults, but was disappointed by the lack of them. In the end, if this is the first book you're thinking of reading about Trump you will get the main arguments against his presidency. If you've been following Trump and his faults, then there's little to see here.

E.M. Tennessen , November 21, 2019
Familiar info in a new package

"A Warning" confirms with additional anecdotes what we already know--useful if you don't want to go all over the web for "all the news" about the White House's inner workings and the President's behavior. It's well-written but would have been more compelling if the op-eds, snark and name-calling had been edited out. Clearly, not written (but possibly edited) by someone with a journalism background. The chapter on "character" was the most valuable as it serves as a reminder of what we are looking for in a leader of our country, or any leader, in fact--someone with integrity, honesty, service-minded, respectful of others, clear-thinking, etc. It's clear from what's written here that if the President is re-elected, it says more about our nation than it does about a 73-year-old man who clearly has attention deficit disorder, possibly a reading disability, and absolutely no experience with statecraft. (Nor does he care. I don't know what's worse.) I'm sure this book will become a part of our interesting historical record!

DalkasChris , November 22, 2019
Don't Bother

I purchased this book (against my better judgment) because I thought maybe the insights in this book would be enlightening. But I wish I hadn't spent the money. First, most of what was related in these pages, other than the opinion parts, were already well known through media, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as other other media outlets.

Second, anyone paying attention would have anticipated Trump's actions. What made me want to vomit after finishing this book was the realization that the Republican party doesn't care and will continue to support Trump, regardless of the evidence that he is not fit to serve and the author despite issuing this "warning", doesn't have the guts or the patriotism to come out of the shadows.

I also take issue with the author's portrayal of "never Trumpers" as crazed haters. That's the farthest from the truth. Many of us recognized early on that Trump is agrifter and a liar and an unscrupulous opportunist. We are not crazed; we are sounding the alarm! We are sensible patriots who love our country and our Constitution, who do not want to see our discourse redown into tribal factions and, possibly, into civil war (hopefully, if such does occur it will be cyber rather than armed conflict).

Every single day we are asked to ignore what our eyes can clearly see and what our ears can clearly hear and our brains can easily deduce in order to allow Trump's reality to proceed unquestioned. He doesn't understand he is not a monarch and his children are not heirs to the throne. The lies are non-stop and getting worse and the people surrounding him, including the author, are doing NOTHING to reign him in.

Last, we are in the midst of an impeachment inquiry. I've read every deposition that has been released and watched every minute of direct testimony during the hearings. It is without contest that Trump attempted to extort and bribe Ukraine in order to have the newly inaugurated president of Ukraine announce an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden's involvement with Burisma. Sondland made it abundantly clear that no such actual investigation would be necessary, just the announcement of an investigation to tarnish Joe Biden's reputation and electoral standing. Trump's act was sleazy and wrong and illegal (check the statute about soliciting foreign involvement in domestic elections).

I'm infuriated by the author's insinuation that we who oppose such actions by any president are somehow deranged. The writer seems to think that impeachment and removal from office for such dirty tricks involving a foreign government should be somehow, beyond the pale for a civilized society. NO! Trump has obviously abused his office and put an ally in danger by withholding funding HE WAS NOT AUTHORIZED TO WITHHOLD, according to our Constitution. The author seems to think we should just cover our eyes to these transgressions and wait until the next election to vote Trump out.

What about all of the damage Trump can perpetrate on our democracy and on our foreign policy. He has done so much damage alrready, how can we allow him another year and keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't get worse? Also, since Trump was obviously trying to influence our upcoming elections with his dirty dealings, how can we allow him to remain in office knowing that he will do anything to cheat to win?

We anti-Trumpers (not never-Trumpers) are constantly accused of trying to perpetuate a "coup" by trying to remove Trump from office via either impeachment or through the 25th. That would only be true if Hilllary Clinton was installed in Trump's place. But If Trump leaves office before his first term is up, Mike Pence will assume the duties of president, not HRC. -- certainly not a "coup" to anyone who has half a brain and understands how our system works. It would still be a Republican administration and there would still be a Republican Senate. Certainly NOT a coup, just a Constitutional succession of the next in.line.

With regard to restoring a "climate of truth", that is impossible so long as alternative media (including FOX) exists. We Americans used to share a truth courtesy of the likes of Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and others. Now, there's "left" media and a "right" media and they both exist in their own realities. We no longer share the same reality. If we no.longer share the same immutable facts and truths, then how can we work out our differences and our needs so we can all come to a consensus?

This book left me feeling angry and afraid for the future of my country, especially because people like the "anomynous" author doesn't take his citizenship and patriotism a step forward and tell what he knows on the record.

Don't waste your money. The author is a coward and should never profit from his lack of courage.

World Traveller , November 22, 2019
Should Have Remained an Op Ed

This is not a very good book . I say this even though I was so looking forward to it , even buying it in pre-publication. On the publication date, I woke up early and started to read it, only to find it repetitious and general in nature.
Trump is described as amoral, indifferent, inattentive and impulsive – repeatedly. But with little background. The author is afraid of being identified as such so he deletes specific information that may later identify him. High ranking officials are identified as "high ranking officials". Important meetings are identified as "important meetings".
I did not read the original article that led to the book but It feels like the author took the article and padded it into a book. Disappointing: a waste of time; a waste of money.

Uh How How How , November 22, 2019
Self-aggrandizing, short on new info, long on whining written by a coward

I am a critic of this Administration.

First off, I really enjoyed the author's listing of every sleazy thing Trump has ever done (none of which are new or even greatly detailed), followed by snarky quips about Democrats taking power with too much zeal to investigate. That's the kind of 'logic' we are looking at here. The argument is that there is a lawless criminal in the White House but it's better to whine about him in print than do anything about it.

Secondly, there is no new information in this book. There is nothing here I have not heard before. There are no damning conversations or dramatic revelations. This book packages up the reporting of every news agency to date and just vomits it out at us. We've heard this all before. We had the author's level of indignation three years ago. We came to these conclusions three years ago. It is insulting that the author presents this material with a 'ta-daaa!' It's a scam.

Thirdly, Trump does what he does because weasels like the author of this 'book' let him. No matter what justifications this guy has for himself, he is still nothing but an enabler, and is complicit in the actions of this Administration. The author spends most of the book whining about the things Trump has done, takes no responsibility for anything, and does a LOT of "CYA." (cover your butt).

This is a 'nothing-burger.'

[Dec 04, 2019] There Has Been No Retrenchment Under Trump

Notable quotes:
"... A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters. ..."
"... The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them. ..."
Dec 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:

But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S. allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the contrary be damned.

MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over "withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.

The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with this:

A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters.

Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.

[Dec 04, 2019] American Pravda the Nature of Anti-Semitism by Ron Unz

Notable quotes:
"... Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious. ..."
"... It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians. ..."
Aug 05, 2018 | www.unz.com

I recently published a couple of long essays, and although they primarily focused on other matters, the subject of anti-Semitism was a strong secondary theme. In that regard, I mentioned my shock at discovering a dozen or more years ago that several of the most self-evidently absurd elements of anti-Semitic lunacy, which I had always dismissed without consideration, were probably correct. It does seem likely that a significant number of traditionally-religious Jews did indeed occasionally commit the ritual murder of Christian children in order to use their blood in certain religious ceremonies, and also that powerful Jewish international bankers did play a large role in financing the establishment of Bolshevik Russia .

When one discovers that matters of such enormous moment not only apparently occurred but that they had been successfully excluded from nearly all of our histories and media coverage for most of the last one hundred years, the implications take some time to properly digest. If the most extreme "anti-Semitic canards" were probably true, then surely the whole notion of anti-Semitism warrants a careful reexamination.

All of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we discover from our own personal experiences and the direct evidence of our senses, but most information comes to us via external sources such as books and the media, and a crisis may develop when we discover that these two pathways are in sharp conflict. The official media of the old USSR used to endlessly trumpet the tremendous achievements of its collectivized agricultural system, but when citizens noticed that there was never any meat in their shops, "Pravda" became a watchword for "Lies" rather than "Truth."

Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious.

Indeed, over the years some of my own research has uncovered a sharp contrast between image and reality. As recently as the late 1990s, leading mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times were still denouncing a top Ivy League school such as Princeton for the supposed anti-Semitism of its college admissions policy, but a few years ago when I carefully investigated that issue in quantitative terms for my lengthy Meritocracy analysis I was very surprised to reach a polar-opposite conclusion. According to the best available evidence, white Gentiles were over 90% less likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the other Ivies than were Jews of similar academic performance, a truly remarkable finding. If the situation had been reversed and Jews were 90% less likely to be found at Harvard than seemed warranted by their test scores, surely that fact would be endlessly cited as the absolute smoking-gun proof of horrendous anti-Semitism in present-day America.

It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians.

One plausible explanation of the strange contrast between media coverage and reality might be that anti-Semitism once did loom very large in real life, but dissipated many decades ago, while the organizations and activists focused on detecting and combating that pernicious problem have remained in place, generating public attention based on smaller and smaller issues, with the zealous Jewish activists of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) representing a perfect example of this situation. As an even more striking illustration, the Second World War ended over seventy years ago, but what historian Norman Finkelstein has so aptly labeled "the Holocaust Industry" has grown ever larger and more entrenched in our academic and media worlds so that scarcely a day passes without one or more articles relating to that topic appearing in my major morning newspapers. Given this situation, a serious exploration of the true nature of anti-Semitism should probably avoid the mere media phantoms of today and focus on the past, when the condition might still have been widespread in daily life.

Many observers have pointed to the aftermath of the Second World War as marking a huge watershed in the public acceptability of anti-Semitism both in America and Europe, so perhaps a proper appraisal of that cultural phenomenon should focus on the years before that global conflict. However, the overwhelming role of Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution and other bloody Communist seizures of power quite naturally made them objects of considerable fear and hatred throughout the inter-war years, so the safest course might be to push that boundary back a little further and confine our attention to the period prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Dreyfus Affair in France, and the lynching of Leo Frank in the American South come to mind as some of the most famous examples from that period.

Lindemann's discussion of the often difficult relations between Russia's restive Jewish minority and its huge Slavic majority is also quite interesting, and he provides numerous instances in which major incidents, supposedly demonstrating the enormously strong appeal of vicious anti-Semitism, were quite different than has been suggested by the legend. The famous Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was obviously the result of severe ethnic tension in that city, but contrary to the regular accusations of later writers, there seems absolutely no evidence of high-level government involvement, and the widespread claims of 700 dead that so horrified the entire world were grossly exaggerated, with only 45 killed in the urban rioting. Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, later promoted the story that he himself and some other brave Jewish souls had personally defended their people with revolvers in hand even as they saw the mutilated bodies of 80 Jewish victims. This account was totally fictional since Weizmann happened to have been be hundreds of miles away when the riots occurred.

Although a tendency to lie and exaggerate was hardly unique to the political partisans of Russian Jewry, the existence of a powerful international network of Jewish journalists and Jewish-influenced media outlets ensured that such concocted propaganda stories might receive enormous worldwide distribution, while the truth followed far behind, if at all.

For related reasons, international outrage was often focused on the legal confinement of most of Russia's Jews to the "Pale of Settlement," suggesting some sort of tight imprisonment; but that area was the traditional home of the Jewish population and encompassed a landmass almost as large as France and Spain combined. The growing impoverishment of Eastern European Jews during that era was often assumed to be a consequence of hostile government policy, but the obvious explanation was extraordinary Jewish fecundity, which far outstripped that of their Slavic fellow countrymen, and quickly led them to outgrow the available spots in any of their traditional "middleman" occupations, a situation worsened by their total disinclination to engage in agriculture or other primary-producer activities. Jewish communities expressed horror at the risk of losing their sons to the Czarist military draft, but this was simply the flip-side of the full Russian citizenship they had been granted, and no different from what was faced by their non-Jewish neighbors.

Certainly the Jews of Russia suffered greatly from widespread riots and mob attacks in the generation prior to World War I, and these did sometimes have substantial government encouragement, especially in the aftermath of the very heavy Jewish role in the 1905 Revolution. But we should keep in mind that a Jewish plotter had been implicated in the killing of Czar Alexander II, and Jewish assassins had also struck down several top Russian ministers and numerous other government officials. If the last decade or two had seen American Muslims assassinate a sitting U.S. President, various leading Cabinet members, and a host of our other elected and appointed officials, surely the position of Muslims in this country would have become a very uncomfortable one.

As Lindemann candidly describes the tension between Russia's very rapidly growing Jewish population and its governing authorities, he cannot avoid mentioning the notorious Jewish reputation for bribery, corruption, and general dishonesty, with numerous figures of all political backgrounds noting that the remarkable Jewish propensity to commit perjury in the courtroom led to severe problems in the effective administration of justice. The eminent American sociologist E.A. Ross, writing in 1913, characterized the regular behavior of Eastern European Jews in very similar terms .

Lindemann also allocates a short chapter to discussing the 1911 Beilis Affair, in which a Ukrainian Jew was accused of the ritual murder of a young Gentile boy, an incident that generated a great deal of international attention and controversy. Based on the evidence presented, the defendant seems likely to have been innocent, although the obvious lies he repeatedly told police interrogators hardly helped foster that impression, and "the system worked" in that he was ultimately found innocent by the jurors at his trial. However, a few pages are also given to a much less well-known ritual murder case in late 19th century Hungary, in which the evidence of Jewish guilt seemed far stronger, though the author hardly accepted the possible reality of such an outlandish crime. Such reticence was quite understandable since the publication of Ariel Toaff's remarkable volume on the subject was still a dozen years in the future.

Lindemann subsequently expanded his examination of historical anti-Semitism into a much broader treatment, Esau's Tears , which appeared in 1997. In this volume, he added comparative studies of the social landscape in Germany, Britain, Italy, and several other European countries, and demonstrated that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews varied greatly across different locations and time periods. But although I found his analysis quite useful and interesting, the extraordinarily harsh attacks his text provoked from some outraged Jewish academics seemed even more intriguing.

For example, Judith Laikin Elkin opened her discussion in The American Historical Review by describing the book as a "545-page polemic" a strange characterization of a book so remarkably even-handed and factually-based in its scholarship. Writing in Commentary , Robert Wistrich was even harsher, stating that merely reading the book had been a painful experience for him, and his review seemed filled with spittle-flecked rage. Unless these individuals had somehow gotten copies of a different book, I found their attitudes simply astonishing.

I was not alone in such a reaction. Richard S. Levy of the University of Illinois, a noted scholar of anti-Semitism, expressed amazement at Wistrich's seemingly irrational outburst, while Paul Gottfried, writing in Chronicles , mildly suggested that Lindemann had "touched raw nerves." Indeed, Gottfried's own evaluation quite reasonably criticized Lindemann for perhaps being a little too even-handed, sometimes presenting numerous conflicting analyzes without choosing between them. For those interested, a good discussion of the book by Alan Steinweis, a younger scholar specializing in the same topic, is conveniently available online .

The remarkable ferocity with which some Jewish writers attacked Lindemann's meticulous attempt to provide an accurate history of anti-Semitism may carry more significance than merely an exchange of angry words in low-circulation academic publications. If our mainstream media shapes our reality, scholarly books and articles based upon them tend to set the contours of that media coverage. And the ability of a relatively small number of agitated and energetic Jews to police the acceptable boundaries of historical narratives may have enormous consequences for our larger society, deterring scholars from objectively reporting historical facts and preventing students from discovering them.

The undeniable truth is that for many centuries Jews usually constituted a wealthy and privileged segment of the population in nearly all the European countries in which they resided, and quite frequently they based their livelihood upon the heavy exploitation of a downtrodden peasantry. Even without any differences in ethnicity, language, or religion, such conditions almost invariably provoke hostility. The victory of Mao's Communist forces in China was quickly followed by the brutal massacre of a million or more Han Chinese landlords by the Han Chinese poor peasants who regarded them as cruel oppressors, with William Hinton's classic Fanshen describing the unfortunate history that unfolded in one particular village. When similar circumstances led to violent clashes in Eastern Europe between Slavs and Jews, does it really make logical sense to employ a specialized term such as "anti-Semitism" to describe that situation?

Furthermore, some of the material presented in Lindemann's rather innocuous text might also lead to potentially threatening ideas. Consider, for example, the notorious Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion , almost certainly fictional, but hugely popular and influential during the years following World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The fall of so many longstanding Gentile dynasties and their replacement by new regimes such as Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, which were heavily dominated by their tiny Jewish minorities, quite naturally fed suspicions of a worldwide Jewish plot, as did the widely discussed role of Jewish international bankers in producing those political outcomes.

Over the decades, there has been much speculation about the possible inspiration for the Protocols , but although Lindemann makes absolutely no reference to that document, he does provide a very intriguing possible candidate. Jewish-born British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli certainly ranked as one of the most influential figures of the late 19th century, and in his novel Coningsby , he has the character representing Lord Lionel Rothschild boast about the existence of a vast and secret network of powerful international Jews , who stand near the head of almost every major nation, quietly controlling their governments from behind the scenes. If one of the world's most politically well-connected Jews eagerly promoted such notions, was Henry Ford really so unreasonable in doing the same?

Lindemann also notes Disraeli's focus on the extreme importance of race and racial origins, a central aspect of traditional Jewish religious doctrine. He reasonably suggests that this must surely have had a huge influence upon the rise of those political ideas, given that Disraeli's public profile and stature were so much greater than the mere writers or activists whom our history books usually place at center stage. In fact, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a leading racial theorist, actually cited Disraeli as a key source for his ideas. Jewish intellectuals such as Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso are already widely recognized as leading figures in the rise of the racial science of that era, but Disraeli's under-appreciated role may have actually been far greater. The deep Jewish roots of European racialist movements are hardly something that many present-day Jews would want widely known.

One of the harsh Jewish critics of Esau's Tears denounced Cambridge University Press for even allowing the book to appear in print, and although that major work is easily available in English, there are numerous other cases where an important but discordant version of historical reality has been successfully blocked from publication. For decades most Americans would have ranked Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn as among the world's greatest literary figures, and his Gulag Archipelago alone sold over 10 million copies. But his last work was a massive two-volume account of the tragic 200 years of shared history between Russians and Jews, and despite its 2002 release in Russian and numerous other world languages, there has yet to be an authorized English translation, though various partial editions have circulated on the Internet in samizdat form.

ORDER IT NOW

At one point, a full English version was briefly available for sale at Amazon.com and I purchased it. Glancing through a few sections, the work seemed quite even-handed and innocuous to me, but it seemed to provide a far more detailed and uncensored account than anything else previously available, which obviously was the problem. The Bolshevik Revolution resulted in the deaths of many tens of millions of people worldwide, and the overwhelming Jewish role in its leadership would become more difficult to erase from historical memory if Solzhenitsyn's work were easily available. Also, his candid discussion of the economic and political behavior of Russian Jewry in pre-revolutionary times directly conflicted with the hagiography widely promoted by Hollywood and the popular media. Historian Yuri Slezkine's award-winning 2004 book The Jewish Century provided many similar facts, but his treatment was far more cursory and his public stature not remotely the same.

Near the end of his life, Solzhenitsyn gave his political blessing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russia's leaders honored him upon his death, while his Gulag volumes are now enshrined as mandatory reading in the standard high school curriculum of today's overwhelmingly Christian Russia. But even as his star rose again in his own homeland, it seems to have sharply fallen in our own country, and his trajectory may eventually relegate him to nearly un-person status.

A couple of years after the release of Solzhenitsyn's controversial final book, an American writer named Anne Applebaum published a thick history bearing the same title Gulag , and her work received enormously favorable media coverage and won her a Pulitzer Prize; I have even heard claims that her book has been steadily replacing that earlier Gulag on many college reading lists. But although Jews constituted a huge fraction of the top leadership of the Soviet Gulag system during its early decades, as well as that of the dreaded NKVD which supplied the inmates, nearly her entire focus on her own ethnic group during Soviet times is that of victims rather than victimizers. And by a remarkable irony of fate, she shares a last name with one of the top Bolshevik leaders, Hirsch Apfelbaum, who concealed his own ethnic identity by calling himself Grigory Zinoviev.

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The striking decline in Solzhenitsyn's literary status in the West came just a decade or two after an even more precipitous collapse in the reputation of David Irving , and for much the same reason. Irving probably ranked as the most internationally successful British historian of the last one hundred years and a renowned scholar of World War II, but his extensive reliance on primary source documentary evidence posed an obvious threat to the official narrative promoted by Hollywood and wartime propaganda. When he published his magisterial Hitler's War , this conflict between myth and reality came into the open, and an enormous wave of attacks and vilification was unleashed, gradually leading to his purge from respectability and eventually even his imprisonment.

These important examples may help to explain the puzzling contrast between the behavior of Jews in the aggregate and Jews as individuals. Observers have noticed that even fairly small Jewish minorities may often have a major impact upon the far larger societies that host them. But on the other hand, in my experience at least, a large majority of individual Jews do not seem all that different in their personalities or behavior than their non-Jewish counterparts. So how does a community whose individual mean is not so unusual generate what seems to be such a striking difference in collective behavior? I think the answer may involve the existence of information choke-points, and the ability of relatively small numbers of particularly zealous and agitated Jews in influencing and controlling these.

We live our lives constantly immersed in media narratives, and these allow us to decide the rights and wrongs of a situation. The vast majority of people, Jew and Gentile alike, are far more likely to take strong action if they are convinced that their cause is a just one. This is obviously the basis for war-time propaganda.

Now suppose that a relatively small number of zealous Jewish partisans are known to always attack and denounce journalists or authors who accurately describe Jewish misbehavior. Over time, this ongoing campaign of intimidation may cause many important facts to be left on the cutting-room floor, or even gradually expel from mainstream respectability those writers who refuse to conform to such pressures. Meanwhile, similar small numbers of Jewish partisans frequently exaggerate the misdeeds committed against Jews, sometimes piling their exaggerations upon past exaggerations already produced by a previous round of such zealots.

Eventually, these two combined trends may take a complex and possibly very mixed historical record and transform it into a simple morality-play, with innocent Jews tremendously injured by vicious Jew-haters. And as this morality-play becomes established it deepens the subsequent intensity of other Jewish-activists, who redouble their demands that the media "stop vilifying Jews" and covering up the supposed evils inflicted upon them. An unfortunate circle of distortion following exaggeration following distortion can eventually produce a widely accepted historical account that bears little resemblance to the reality of what actually happened.

So as a result, the vast majority of quite ordinary Jews, who would normally behave in quite ordinary ways, are misled by this largely fictional history, and rather understandably become greatly outraged at all the horrible things that had been done to their suffering people, some of which are true and some of which are not, while remaining completely ignorant of the other side of the ledger.

Furthermore, this situation is exacerbated by the common tendency of Jews to "cluster" together, perhaps respresenting just one or two percent of the total population, but often constituting 20% or 40% or 60% of their immediate peer-group, especially in certain professions. Under such conditions, the ideas or emotional agitation of some Jews probably permeates others around them, often provoking additional waves of indignation.

As a rough analogy, a small quantity of uranium is relatively inert and harmless, and entirely so if distributed within low-density ore. But if a significant quantity of weapons-grade uranium is sufficiently compressed, then the neutrons released by fissioning atoms will quickly cause additional atoms to undergo fission, with the ultimate result of that critical chain-reaction being a nuclear explosion. In similar fashion, even a highly agitated Jew may have no negative impact, but if the collection of such agitated Jews becomes too numerous and clusters together too closely, they may work each other into a terrible frenzy, perhaps with disastrous consequences both for themselves and for their larger society. This is especially true if those agitated Jews begin to dominate certain key nodes of top-level control, such as the central political or media organs of a society.

Whereas most living organizations exist solely in physical reality, human beings also occupy an ideational space, with the interaction of human consciousness and perceived reality playing a major role in shaping behavior. Just as the pheromones released by mammals or insects can drastically affect the reactions of their family members or nest-mates, the ideas secreted by individuals or the media-emitters of a society can have an enormous impact upon their fellows.

A cohesive, organized group generally possesses huge advantages over a teeming mass of atomized individuals, just as a Macedonian Phalanx could easily defeat a vastly larger body of disorganized infantry. Many years ago, on some website somewhere I came across a very insightful comment regarding the obvious connection between "anti-Semitism" and "racism," which our mainstream media organs identify as two of the world's greatest evils. Under this analysis, "anti-Semitism" represents the tendency to criticize or resist Jewish social cohesion, while "racism" represents the attempt of white Gentiles to maintain a similar social cohesion of their own. To the extent that the ideological emanations from our centralized media organs serve to strengthen and protect Jewish cohesion while attacking and dissolving any similar cohesion on the part of their Gentile counterparts, the former will obviously gain enormous advantages in resource-competition against the latter.

Religion obviously constitutes an important unifying factor in human social groups and we cannot ignore the role of Judaism in this regard. Traditional Jewish religious doctrine seems to consider Jews as being in a state of permanent hostility with all non-Jews , and the use of dishonest propaganda is an almost inevitable aspect of such conflict. Furthermore, since Jews have invariably been a small political minority, maintaining such controversial tenets required the employment of a massive framework of subterfuge and dissimulation in order to conceal their nature from the larger society surrounding them. It has often been said that truth is the first casualty in war, and surely the cultural influences of over a thousand years of such intense religious hostility may continue to quietly influence the thinking of many modern Jews, even those who have largely abandoned their religious beliefs.

The notorious Jewish tendency to shamelessly lie or wildly exaggerate has sometimes had horrifying human consequences. I very recently discovered a fascinating passage in Peter Moreira's 2014 book The Jew Who Defeated Hitler: Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR, and How We Won the War , focused on the important political role of that powerful Secretary of the Treasury.

A turning point in Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s relationship with the Jewish community came in November 1942, when Rabbi Stephen Wise came to the corner office to tell the secretary what was happening in Europe. Morgenthau knew of the millions of deaths and the lampshades made from victims' skin, and he asked Wise not to go into excessive details. But Wise went on to tell of the barbarity of the Nazis, how they were making soap out of Jewish flesh. Morgenthau, turning paler, implored him, "Please, Stephen, don't give me the gory details." Wise went on with his list of horrors and Morgenthau repeated his plea over and over again. Henrietta Klotz was afraid her boss would keel over. Morgenthau later said the meeting changed his life.

It is easy to imagine that Morgenthau's gullible acceptance of such obviously ridiculous war-time atrocity stories played a major role when he later lent his name and support to remarkably brutal American occupation policies that probably led to the postwar deaths of many millions of innocent German civilians .

[Dec 04, 2019] Looks like the Blob and Ds are concerned that their narrative on Ukraine is being undermined by Solomon's reporting.

Dec 04, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

integer , December 3, 2019 at 11:26 pm

Looks like the Blob and Ds are concerned that their narrative on Ukraine is being undermined by Solomon's reporting.

Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon

Perhaps you could point out any inaccuracies in the comprehensively-sourced article above oh, wait you won't read it lol.

Lambert Strether Post author , December 4, 2019 at 7:13 am

The fraction of RussiaGate/UkraineGate that can be taken seriously is quite small. An enormous amount of it is "it's ok when we do it"-level material. Difficult to sort without presenting a range encompassing all factions.

It's possible I'm too jaded, but "reporters presents material derived from his political faction" isn't all that exciting, since I don't belong to either of the factions engaged in this battle. I remember the Lewinsky Matter, WMDs, and (see today's Links), being smeared by Prop0rNot, and UkraineGate just a little too well.

[Dec 04, 2019] A Warning A manifesto of the pro-war "Resistance" in the American state by Andre Damon

Notable quotes:
"... The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track presidency." ..."
"... The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically mused, "the swirl continues. ..."
"... If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral," "impetuous," "petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional means. ..."
"... We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning , but the themes of the National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book. ..."
"... A Warning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial interests against Russia and China. ..."
"... A Warning argues that "America's dominant role on the international stage is at risk today," but Trump is "not positioning us to strengthen our empire of liberty." It continues: "Instead, he's left the empire's flank vulnerable to power-hungry competitors" with his "isolationist, what's-in-it-for-me attitude toward the world." ..."
"... Politically, the author appears to be an anti-Trump Republican. He urges his "fellow Republicans" to vote for a centrist Democrat if one is nominated--as long as the candidate is not a "socialist." ..."
"... The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have nothing to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is totally aligned with his pro-war agenda. ..."
Dec 04, 2019 | www.wsws.org

On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed by a "senior official" in the White House, entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."

The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track presidency."

In that op-ed, he revealed that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president."

In other words, members of the executive branch had discussed a coup to remove a sitting president, which they pulled back from only because "no one wanted" a "constitutional crisis."

One year later, the same unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times , has published a book elaborating on themes elucidated in the editorial. A Warning is currently #1 on the New York Times ' nonfiction bestseller list.

The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically mused, "the swirl continues."

If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral," "impetuous," "petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional means.

Notably, Snodgrass claims to be the author of perhaps the most important military document produced under the Trump administration, the unclassified summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which declared that "Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security."

We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning , but the themes of the National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book.

A Warning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial interests against Russia and China.

Cmdr. Guy M. Snodgrass is shown in this Defense Department photograph in Japan in 2016. MATTHEW C. DUNCKER/U.S. NAVY

A Warning argues that "America's dominant role on the international stage is at risk today," but Trump is "not positioning us to strengthen our empire of liberty." It continues: "Instead, he's left the empire's flank vulnerable to power-hungry competitors" with his "isolationist, what's-in-it-for-me attitude toward the world."

The allegations continue:

The president lacks a cogent agenda for dealing with these rivals because he doesn't recognize them as long-term threats. He only sees near-term deals. "Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically But that doesn't mean they are bad," the president said in one interview

What he doesn't see, especially with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, is that their governments are programmed to oppose us

The United States is taking its eye off the ball with China, and our national response has been ad hoc and indecisive under President Trump. We have no serious plan to safeguard our "empire of liberty" against China's rise. There is only the ever-changing negotiating positions of a grifter in chief, which will not be enough to win what is fast becoming the next Cold War. President Trump is myopically focused on trade with China, which is only part of the picture

In a July 2018 interview, the president was asked to name America's biggest global adversary. He didn't lead the list with China, which is stealing American innovation at a scale never before seen in history, or Russia, which is working to tear our country apart.

And on and on.

In response to such concerns, the writer makes clear that sections of this staff were contemplating an extra-constitutional coup to replace Trump by declaring the American president mad and therefore "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," in the words of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which outlines presidential succession in the case of a presidential disability.

A back-of-the-envelope "whip count" was conducted of officials who were most concerned about the deteriorating situation. Names of cabinet-level officials were placed on a mental list. These were folks who, in the worst case scenario, would be amenable to huddling discreetly in order to assess how bad the situation was getting I froze when I first heard someone suggest that we might be getting into "Twenty-fifth territory."

Among the figures noted in the press as possibly amenable to such an endeavor were former Defense Secretary Mattis, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and former National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster.

The writer describes what the removal of the president via the 25th Amendment would look like:

Removal of the president by his own cabinet would be perceived as a coup. The end result would be unrest in the United States the likes of which we haven't seen since maybe the Civil War. Millions would not accept the outcome, perhaps including the president himself, and many would take to the streets on both sides. Violence would be almost inevitable.

If Trump is "removed from office and he refuses to go He will not exit quietly -- or easily It is why at many turns he suggests 'coups' are afoot and a 'civil war' is in the offing."

One does not know whether the author has really had a change of heart about overthrowing the American government in a coup, or, if he is a military person, he fears a court martial for treason. In any event, he concludes, "In a democracy we don't overthrow our leaders when they're underperforming. That's for third-rate banana republics and police states."

How reassuring

After only three paragraphs weighing in on the merits of the impeachment proceeding, the author concludes, "One option -- and one option only -- stands above the rest as the ultimate way to hold Trump accountable" -- to unseat him in the 2020 election.

Politically, the author appears to be an anti-Trump Republican. He urges his "fellow Republicans" to vote for a centrist Democrat if one is nominated--as long as the candidate is not a "socialist."

Two "warnings" are to be drawn from this book:

First is the enormous crisis of democracy in the United States, which has degenerated to the point where cabinet officials, most of whom are or were military officers, abetted by the media, discuss a coup as a legitimate means to resolve policy differences. The president, meanwhile, repeatedly threatens to say in office past the two-term constitutional limit, and effectively asserts unlimited and dictatorial executive powers.

While the threat posed by Trump to democratic rights is immense, no one who opposes war and attacks on democratic rights can have anything to do with the aims and intentions of the author of this book. Behind his pilfered, cobbled-together quotations -- he calls Plato an American historian -- and his ridiculous attempt at gravitas, he is a bloodthirsty advocate of imperialist war.

The Democrats, who have upheld this man and people like him as the "adults in the room" and the antipode to Trump, are infected with the same poison.

The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have nothing to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is totally aligned with his pro-war agenda.

[Dec 04, 2019] The author of the book A Warning looks like the same author as the author of the NYT Resistance Manifesto. The books author has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis.

Dec 04, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

'A Warning: A manifesto of the pro-war "Resistance" in the American state ' Andre Damon, 4 December 2019 , wsws.org

On September 5, 2018 , the New York Times published an op-ed by a "senior official" in the White House, entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."

The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track presidency."

In that op-ed, he revealed that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president."

..........................................

One year later , the same unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times, has published a book elaborating on themes elucidated in the editorial. A Warning is currently #1 on the New York Times ' nonfiction bestseller list.

The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically mused, "the swirl continues."

If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral," "impetuous," "petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional means.
Notably, Snodgrass claims to be the author of perhaps the most important military document produced under the Trump administration, the unclassified summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which declared that "Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security."

We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning, but the themes of the National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book.
A Warning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial interests against Russia and China."
.......................................................
The Democrats, who have upheld this man and people like him as the "adults in the room" and the antipode to Trump, are infected with the same poison.
The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have nothing to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is totally aligned with his pro-war agenda."

and another 20 inches of text. you'll also remember that the NYT published a whispered rumor last year that 'military insiders' were saying privately that DT really meant to leave NATO, which was nonsense. that rumor led to the infamous 'defense of NATO act', which every senator vote for, and almost all of the house (3 didn't vote, conveniently.)

[Dec 03, 2019] Something about Bellingcat credibility

Dec 03, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014, he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.

[Dec 03, 2019] Ukrainegate hysteria in neoliberal MSM repeats in minute details the neoliberal MSM hysteria about Trump meeting with Putin

In his foreign policy Trump looks like a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy is a Deep State controlled republican. Why is the Deep State is attacking him is completely unclear. May be they just do not like unpredictable, inpulsive politicians
Despite his surrender "Neocon crazies from the basement" still attack his exactly the same way as they attacked him for pretty mundane meeting with Putin and other fake "misdeeds" like Ukrainegate
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans and former Sanders supporters, who voted for him in 2016 to block Hillary election.
And in no way he is an economic nationalist. He is "national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on treaties and prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties. And his "fight" with the Deep state resemble so closely to complete and unconditional surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two. Most of his appointees are rabid neocons. Just look at Pompeo, Bolton, Fiona Hill. That that extends far beyond those obvious crazies.
Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in Helsinki last summer.

"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."

"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.

The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."

"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I do it with all countries." - Politico

In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans. "The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."

Trump went on an epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!"

[Dec 03, 2019] Few clues on casualties at site of huge U.S. bomb in Afghanistan .

Apr 23, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org

susan_sunflower | Apr 23, 2017 4:10:34 PM | 85

Off-topic, kind of, a Reuters report from the site of the MOAB deployment

Reuters: 04/23/2017: Few clues on casualties at site of huge U.S. bomb in Afghanistan .

The remote site in eastern Afghanistan where the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat earlier this month bears signs of the weapon's power, but little evidence of how much material and human damage it inflicted.

Reuters photos and video footage - some of the first images from journalists allowed to get close to the site - reveal a scarred mountainside, burned trees and some ruined mud-brick structures.

They did not offer any clues as to the number of casualties or their identities.

Since the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb was dropped on a fortified tunnel complex used by suspected Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar province, access to the site has been controlled by U.S. forces who are battling the militant group alongside Afghan troops.

The U.S. military has said that ongoing fighting had prevented media or independent investigators from visiting the site, and Afghan soldiers said special forces from both countries were still engaging the enemy in the area.

A Reuters witness viewed the site from several hundred yards (meters) away, because of what troops he was accompanying said were continued threats in the area. (snip)

Within a few hundred feet of the apparent blast site, leaves remained intact on trees, belying initial expectations that the explosion may have sent a destructive blast wave for up to a mile.

[Dec 03, 2019] Something about Bellingcat credibility

Dec 03, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014, he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.

[Dec 02, 2019] The cost of militarism cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq." ..."
"... " 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' " ..."
www.theamericanconservative.com

Michael N. Moore , says: at 12:13 pm

In my opinion the most under-reported event of the Iraq war was the suicide of military Ethicist Colonel Ted Westhusing. It was reported at the end of a Frank Rich column that appeared in the NY Times of 10-21-2007:

"The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq."

"Colonel Westhusing's death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered by contractors fearing a whistle-blower, according to T. Christian Miller, the Los Angeles Times reporter who documents the case in his book "Blood Money."

Either way, the angry four-page letter the officer left behind for General Petraeus and his other commander, Gen. Joseph Fil, is as much an epitaph for America's engagement in Iraq as a suicide note."

" 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' "

Michael N. Moore , says: February 13, 2013 at 2:46 pm
As per the request of James Canning for more information on Col. Ted Westhusing, please see:

http://www.correntewire.com/a_disturbing_suicide_note_from_iraq

Or the book "Blood Money" by T. Christian Miller

thefatefullightning , says: June 4, 2013 at 1:09 pm
"The tiny pink candies at the bottom of the urinals are reserved for Field Grade and Above." --sign over the urinals in the "O" Club at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, 1965.

Now that sentiment, is Officer-on-Officer. The same dynamic tension exists throughout all Branches and ranks.

My background includes a Combat Infantry Badge and a record of having made Spec Four , two times. If you don't know what that means, stop reading here.

I feel that no one should be promoted E-5 or O-4, if they are to command men in battle, unless they have had that life experience themselves. It becomes virgins instructing on sexual etiquette.

Within the ranks, there exists a disdain for officers, in general. Some officers overcome this by their actions, but the vast majority cement that assessment the same way.
What makes the thing run is the few officers who are superior human beings, and the NCOs who are of that same tribe. And there is a love there, from top to bottom and bottom to top, a brotherhood of warriors which the civilian population will forever try to discern, parse and examine to their lasting frustration and ignorance.

It is the spirit of this nation [Liberty, e pluribus unum and In God We Trust ] that is the binding filament of it all. The civilians responsible for the welfare of the armed services need to be more fully aware of that spirit and they need to bring it into the air-conditioned offices they inhabit when they make decisions about men who know sacrifice.

Terrence Zehrer , says: July 15, 2013 at 12:48 pm
But the Pentagon is excellent at what it does – extort money from the US taxpayer. I call it treason.

"Massive military budgets erode the economic foundation on which true national security is dependent."

– Dwight Eisenhower

[Dec 02, 2019] A Think Tank Dedicated to Peace and Restraint

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Jul 01, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Stephen Kinzer comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and non-interventionism:

Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy based on that live-and-let-live principle.

The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been waging war without end , there couldn't be a better time for this.

TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:

The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors -- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway. Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.

"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."

Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my posts here . Their involvement is a very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck.


chris chuba 9 hours ago
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies and his clones.

Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information. I generally do not see those guests ever again.

The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest. It is all about us.

Jonathan Dillard Lester 17 hours ago
Might be a few kindred souls put off by the Soros money, but nothing wrong with taking it!
SFBay1949 20 hours ago
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth. It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Paul a day ago
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function. Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
SteveM a day ago
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."

So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.

I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will change.

Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander General General Kenneth McKenzie:

https://bit.ly/2Lyel6p

Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.

BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.

Taras77 a day ago
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.

Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing"

[Dec 02, 2019] A bunch of neocons in key positions in Trump administration really represents a huge threat to world peace

Notable quotes:
"... No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia. ..."
Oct 28, 2016 | crookedtimber.org
Howard Frank in this blog provides a good example of Vichy left thinking...

Howard Frant 10.26.16 at 6:19 am 73

Stephen @58

Howard Frant 10.26.16 at 6:19 am ( )

Stephen @58

Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest. That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.

phenomenal cat @64

So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do.

Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them. Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)

phenomenal cat 10.26.16 at 6:55 pm 84

"So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"

No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia.

"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."

Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.

"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great."

If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance sociopathy.

"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."

There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows. No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.

[Dec 02, 2019] The Vichy left – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their own prosperity

Notable quotes:
"... Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect it, everybody else be damned. ..."
"... Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class". ..."
"... Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch". ..."
Oct 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

Sanjait -> Sandwichman ... October 24, 2016 at 10:35 AM

Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.

Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.

Sandwichman -> Sanjait... , October 24, 2016 at 10:42 AM

I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations.
likbez -> Sandwichman ...
"I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."

Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect it, everybody else be damned.

Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".

Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".

[Dec 02, 2019] Looks like Brown Noser Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcrap organisation may have finally met their match in a real investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva

Dec 02, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen December 1, 2019 at 3:38 am

Looks like Brown Noser Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcrap organisation may have finally met their match in a real investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who (some of us may recall) has done sterling work in tracing movements of weapons from the Balkan countries to Turkey and Azerbaijan with their ultimate destination being Syria to be used by ISIS jihadis, and for which she was sacked by her newspaper employer in Bulgaria.

"Exposed: Bellingcat fabricate evidence, deliberately hide documents in new 'Russian spy plot'"
https://armswatch.com/exposed-bellingcat-fabricate-evidence-deliberately-hide-documents-in-new-russian-spy-plot/

Does anyone imagine that the Brown Noser will have the courage and fortitude to respond to legal action brought against him and Bellingcrap? Will his Atlantic Council employers support him or has he passed his use-by date and become a liability?

[Dec 02, 2019] Hitchens If Bodies Like OPCW Cannot Be Trusted... World War 3 Could Be Started By A Falsehood

Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Mail On Sunday blog, ..."
"... I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure. ..."
"... In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks ..."
"... But I've never seen one like this. It scared me. ..."
"... If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood. ..."
Dec 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Mail On Sunday blog,

I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure.

I had travelled a long distance by train to an address I had been given over an encrypted email.

I was nervous that the meeting might be some sort of trap. Leaks from inside arms verification organisations are very sensitive matters. Powerful people mind about them.

I wasn't sure whether to be afraid of being followed, or to be worried about who might be waiting behind the anonymous door on a dark afternoon, far from home. I took all the amateurish precautions that I could think of.

As it happened, it was not a trap. Now, on carefully selected neutral ground, I was to meet a person who would confirm suspicions that had been growing in my mind over several years – that there is something rotten in the way that chemical weapons inspections are being conducted and reported. And that the world could be hurried into war on the basis of such inspections.

Inside the safe house, I was greeted by a serious, patient expert, a non-political scientist whose priority had until now always been to do the hard, gritty work of verification – travelling to the scenes of alleged horrors, sifting and searching for hard evidence of what had really happened. But this entirely honourable occupation had slowly turned sour.

The whiff of political interference had begun as a faint unpleasant smell in the air and grown until it was an intolerable stench. Formerly easy-going superiors had turned into tricky bureaucrats.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had become so important that it could no longer be allowed to do its job properly.

Too many of the big powers that sponsor and finance it were breathing down its neck, wanting certain results, whether the facts justified them or not.

My source calmly showed me various pieces of evidence that they were who they said they were, and knew what they claimed to know, making it clear that they worked for the OPCW and knew its inner workings. They then revealed a document to me.

This was the email of protest, sent to senior OPCW officials, saying that a report on the alleged Syrian poison gas attack in Douma, in April 2018, had been savagely censored so as to alter its meaning.

In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks : leaks over luxurious, expensive lunches with Cabinet Ministers, anonymous leaks that just turned up in envelopes, leaks from union officials and employers, diplomats and academics.

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But I've never seen one like this. It scared me. If it was true, then something hugely dishonest and dangerous was going on, in a place where absolute integrity was vital.

If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood.

Last week I reported on the first episode in this story. Within days the OPCW had confirmed that the email I leaked was authentic.

Nobody followed me home or threatened me. A few silly people on social media told blatant lies about me, insinuating that I was somehow a Russian patsy or a defender of the disgusting Syrian regime that I have been attacking in print for nearly 20 years. That was what I had expected.

But there is much more to come. And, as it grows harder for everyone to ignore this enormous, dangerous story, I suspect I shall be looking over my shoulder rather more than usual.

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[Dec 02, 2019] The Smearing of Tulsi Gabbard by W.J. Astore

Notable quotes:
"... Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her. Recently, Hillary Clinton smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset, and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested (with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their priorities ..."
Dec 02, 2019 | bracingviews.com

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a compelling choice for president in 2020. She's principled, she's against America's disastrous regimen of regime-change wars, and she's got the guts to criticize her own party for being too closely aligned with rich and powerful interests. She's also a military veteran who enlisted in the Army National Guard in Hawaii after the 9/11 attacks (she currently serves as a major and deployed overseas to Iraq during that war).

What's not to like about a female veteran who oozes intelligence and independence, a woman who represents diversity (she's a practicing Hindu and a Samoan-American), an early supporter of Bernie Sanders who called out the DNC for its favoritism toward Hillary Clinton

Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her. Recently, Hillary Clinton smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset, and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested (with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Think about that. Hillary Clinton and much of the mainstream media are accusing a serving major in the U.S. military of being an asset to a foreign power. It's an accusation bordering on a charge of treason -- a charge that is libelous and recklessly irresponsible.

A reminder: Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the military to serve her country in the aftermath of 9/11. What did Hillary Clinton do? Can you imagine Hillary going through basic training as a private, or serving in the military in a war zone? (Hillary did falsely claim that she came under sniper fire in Bosnia , but that's a story for another day.)

Tulsi Gabbard is her own person. She's willing to buck the system and has shown compassion and commitment on the campaign trail. She may be a long shot, but she deserves a long look for the presidency, especially when you consider the (low) quality of the enemies she's made. Reply


wjastore November 26, 2019 at 1:10 PM

Whenever I post anything remotely positive about Tulsi Gabbard on Facebook, the same few people come out to denounce her. My response is below, though I know you can't reason with haters:

That Tulsi has been on Fox News is an argument in her favor, i.e. her crossover appeal and her willingness to engage with the "other side." That Tulsi met with Assad is, in my view, reasonable; true leaders are always willing to meet with "bad" people, even ruthless dictators, in the cause of averting war. My main point is how she's being smeared as some kind of traitor, or at least a useful idiot. She's neither. Also, I've read the piece on Tulsi in Jacobin, and I've heard about alleged cults. Is this really the best the media can do? Guilt by association?

Some of our readers may have concerns about Tulsi, e.g. alleged Islamophobia, alleged cults, etc. The main point is this: Does she deserve to be smeared as a Putin puppet? What does this say about our media? And why are they doing this? I can tell you why. Trillions of dollars are spent on wars and weapons, and Tulsi is calling for an end to regime-change wars and a return to diplomacy. She also, like Bernie, is willing to call out the DNC as being against the interests of ordinary Americans -- and she's right about this. She has a lot in her favor. I'm a Bernie fan myself, but I'll take Tulsi over all those phony "centrists" like Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris, and Biden.

rs November 26, 2019 at 1:52 PM
This was published when she was accused of being a Russian asset! https://www.thenation.com/article/tulsi-russia-clinton/

On the other hand, her connection to extreme right RSS and BJP ( of India ) though diaspora are troubling .. https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/russia-accusations-a-distraction-from-tulsi-gabbards-actual-troubling-ties/

wjastore November 26, 2019 at 2:09 PM
I can't speak to the RSS/BJP connection; I've read about it, but I admit to ignorance on the matter. Of course, every candidate has multiple connections, positions, donors, etc. All politicians carry baggage. So far, from what I've read, Tulsi is more principled and more courageous than most of her peers.

I'm still a Bernie fan -- his long record of helping the poor and vulnerable speaks for itself. Of course, he once went to Moscow oh no! Run away! 🙂

Joseph Mirzoeff November 26, 2019 at 3:24 PM
Tulsi has now done four courageous, unusual, and very positive things while merely a candidate:
1) Tulsi effectively took down a leading contender and DNC favorite, by demonstrating that Senator Harris had been a corrupt prosecutor.
2) Tulsi defended democracy as she sued Google for at least $50 million, for playing favorites in search-routing of candidates.
3) Tulsi called out Hillary Clinton for the monster she is.
4) Tulsi supported a process toward 911 truth by supporting 911-victims' families' right to see FBI documents that have been denied to them.

Tulsi is the anti-war candidate. Tulsi Gabbard should be Commander-in-Chief. Yang should be VP and in charge of the economy. Read his book. UBI is the way to go. Tulsi needs someone she can trust as VP.

Michael Murry November 26, 2019 at 4:46 PM
To your list of courageous Tulsi Gabbard positions, I would add the following, Joseph:

Tulsi Gabbard Says She Would Drop Julian Assange Charges and Pardon Edward Snowden , by Jason Murdock, Newsweek (5/15/19 at 5:22 AM EDT).

I consider the vicious persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning -- both languishing in prison for having committed no crime whatsoever -- along with the exile of Edward Snowden, among the greatest travesties of justice ever committed by the U.S. and U.K. (dishonorable mention goes to Sweden and the latest Ecuadorian government, as well). I had hoped for this subject to come up in the "debates," giving Tulsi yet another opportunity to shine relative to her competitors, most of whom would soil their undergarments in panic at the thought of "crossing" the absurdly named "intelligence community" and its entirely co-opted corporate media outlets.

If Tulsi Gabbard had done no other principled thing than this, I would have considered her heads and shoulders above anyone else campaigning for a position in the U.S. government today.

Michael Murry November 26, 2019 at 4:59 PM
I ought to dedicate this one to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for her principled defense of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden (and no-doubt Chelsea Manning, as well):

Star Chamber, Incorporated

Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
Jailed as twin examples for the proles:
"Look what happens if you publish secrets:
More totalitarian controls."

In Chinese: "Kill the Chicken scare the Monkey."
Rat-out your colleagues. Do not Power tempt.
Or otherwise the judges and grand juries
Will hold you in what lawyers call "contempt."

A strange word-choice, indeed, by Power's minions
Who spend careers perfecting rank abuse.
For them I'd have to feel respect much greater
Before that is the word that I would use.

I've nothing good to say for prosecutors.
Some say I wish to "damn them with faint praise."
But I reply: "You praise with faint damnation.
So which of us has coined the the better phrase?"

Despicable, the treatment of these heroes.
The US and UK have sunk so low.
Still, Julian and Chelsea have together
More balls than these two governments can grow.

No matter, they have passed into the ages.
Already they have earned a fair renown.
Each day they live defiant, undefeated,
They rise as jailers try to put them down.

As JFK once said of his elite class:
"The ship of state leaks mainly from the top."
But if some lowly, powerless, poor person
Tries that, they'll feel the lash. No truth. Now stop!

To scare a monkey, kill another monkey.
If not, the monkeys learn impunity.
While eating KFC they ask, obtusely:
"What has a chicken got to do with me?"

And so the Corporation-State must silence
Reports of its incompetence and crime.
If citizens knew what it did they'd order
Its dissolution. Now. And just in time.

Historically, they called it the Star Chamber
A secret court designed to thwart the king.
But power then perverted it to serve him.
Grand juries in the US, same damn thing.

They now indict ham sandwiches routinely
With no protection for the innocents.
Presumed as guilty, evidence not needed.
Conviction guaranteed. No court repents.

A judge may do whatever he determines
He can. So levy fines. Coerce. Demand
On penalty of prison, testimony
Against oneself, alone upon the stand.

"Democracy" is just a euphemism
If citizens allow this to proceed.
Orwellian: first Hate then Fear of Goldstein.
Two Minutes, daily. Really, all you need.

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2019

Joseph Mirzoeff November 26, 2019 at 4:20 PM
Please don't fall for Bernie. He is neither Presidential nor trustworthy. Consider this: https://www.sentinelsource.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/what-did-bernie-know-about-these-conspiracies-by-joseph-mirzoeff/article_f7b43e69-6639-526a-823d-c4ca3778b5a1.html
Felix_47 November 27, 2019 at 12:21 PM
This is a good commentary. military experience is a good thing especially when we are dealing with the fact that over half of the national budget is devoted to the military.
wjastore November 27, 2019 at 5:19 PM
A good short clip on Tulsi Gabbard and smears against herL https://www.youtube.com/embed/OcCOtOCZ_qY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
rs November 29, 2019 at 9:34 AM
Tulsi Gabbard KNOWS it i. e. Cost of Wars!
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-is-tulsi-the-only-democrat-who-cares-about-our-wars/
Monotonous Languor November 29, 2019 at 10:03 AM
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a thoughtful article on playing it safe, running out the clock, prevent defense, etc., on your opponent as it would apply to politics.

Jabbar writes: Almost every poll showed her with a respectable lead over Trump just days before the election. So, the Clinton campaign tried to run out the clock by not campaigning much in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota, all of which turned much redder than in the previous presidential election.

The tactic of trying to pick a "safe" candidate who can beat Trump by appealing to their ideas about Middle America sends the wrong message to all of America. No team devise a game strategy based on fear: they emphasize their strengths and exploit their opponents' weaknesses. The Democratic candidate shouldn't be the least objectionable, but the one who boldly forges ahead with clear and detailed plans for Making America America Again.

Democrats can't pander to voters by denigrating Trump but then promising them Trump-lite with a wink. Promote progressive policies and plans worthy of a party that wants to lead this country without fear of being called "socialists" or "the radical left" or whatever else your opposing team chants.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/15/how-sports-tactics-can-help-the-democrats-beat-donald-trump-in-2020
===================================
Jabbar is correct. The Corporate Democrats among them Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg are fighting desperately to preserve a perceived lead aided and abetted by the McMega-Media.

Chicago Alderman, Paddy Bauler (1890-1977) said in 1955 on the election of Daley the Elder, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet", or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor".

Today, the pundits employed by Corporate America, along with various Democratic Party stooges for Wall Street tell us America ain't ready for Reform.

bmcks November 29, 2019 at 4:21 PM
Yes, ML, so goes American 'Exceptionalism', after WW2 Victory. Today, so goes a Great American City in violence, all so shortsighted. I'm still confused with our never-ending wars overseas, as our cities rot in crime & violence, my main concern. I didn't grow up – or party! -later on in today's disaster areas of Baltimore or Philadelphia, etc.It was GREAT!

But somethings going on I don't know about, when the WORST cities have black Congresspeople (Maxime Waters?) living in 6.5$Mil mansions as their "districts" die.
I have NO PROBLEM with black people! Such a smear an insult. But it's worth investigating why these characters who have ruined their cities are supporters of Dems, & Billary! Oh! They spend & vote lavishly on more money for our wars, but nothing for their own cities!

Finally starting to figure it out: They're traitors to their own race, for their personal benefit. They make Dems "look proud", vs "REP's!" Yes, they too re dreadful maybe that's why I feel: TULCI GO! She's neither dreadful party!

wjastore November 29, 2019 at 5:32 PM
A long but interesting podcast with Tulsi Gabbard on the Joe Rogan show

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PdYud9re7-Q?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Eddie S November 29, 2019 at 7:05 PM
ML: Good citation of KA-J -- - although I've seen the same-sort of criticism of the Dems elsewhere, Kareem's sports analogy is very helpful in understanding the concept.

(I have to say that I got sick of the Dems milquetoast approach to politics. Maybe it was an understandable response to a frustrating right-wing zeitgeist, but DAMN, did they have to be SO passive against the Reps?? Even when they briefly held majorities in Congress under Obama, the wouldn't introduce/push bills that weren't 'filibuster-proof'!?!? I for one might still be voting Dem POTUS IF they had pushed those progressive bills., then let the Reps filibuster for weeks or months, meantime the Dems & Obama could've gone in front of the public daily and said something like "We're trying to help you by passing Bill X, but the Reps are filibustering and stopping Congress from getting any work done!" Let the government shut-down for a few weeks because of it and keep hammering away at the Reps for being the BLOCKERS, etc. Call their bluff, and use it against them during elections. Instead they tried to be overly accommodating & conciliatory BEFORE debate had even begun!)

Michael Murry November 29, 2019 at 7:46 PM
Yes. Eddie. The Democratic Party not only gets its ass kicked for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but it seems to have developed something of a masochistic taste for the Republican abuse. Hence two of my verse compositions essentially agreeing with your observations:

(1) From eight years ago. From "Hope" and "Change" to despair and the status quo. And with a Nobel Peace Prize for Endless War, too.

Congenital Stockholm Syndrome

He started by giving up quickly,
Surrendering early his case.
He offered to kiss their asses.
Replying, they pissed in his face.

Their urine, he thought, tasted strangely;
Yet not at all bad to his taste.
He'd gotten so used to it, plainly.
Why let such a drink go to waste?

The people who voted in favor
Of him and his promise of "change"
Now see in his many betrayals
A poodle afflicted with mange.

Each time that the surly and crazy
Republicans out for his skin
Condemn him for living and breathing,
He graciously helps them to win.

He'll turn on his base in an instant
With threats and disdain and neglect
While bombing some Muslims so Cheney
Might thrill to the lives that he's wrecked.

A black man in love with apartheid
He offers his stalwart support
To Zionists and their extortion
With "More, please!" his only retort.

A masochist begging for beatings
Obama takes joy in abuse
Receiving just what he has asked for
Which makes him of no earthly use

The little brown men that he's murdered
In homes far away from our land
Bring profits obscene to his backers
Who give him the back of their hand.

Obama seeks praise from the vicious
Republicans, no matter what.
He suffers, apparently, nothing
So much as his need to kiss butt.

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2011

(2) From twelve years ago and on the Congressional side of the Surrender Monkey Syndrome:

Nancy the Negotiator

Nancy the Negotiator
Gives up first; surrenders later;
Takes her cards from off the table,
Then recites her loser fable:

"We don't have the votes we need,"
Nancy says, in tones that bleed:
"Mean Republicans will whine
If we do not toe their line."

Nancy bows to George and Dick
While her skinny ass they kick;
Writes them checks both blank and rubber,
Then proceeds to lamely blubber:

"We don't like what Dubya's doing.
Still, we quite enjoy the screwing.
Masochism's what we offer,
Helping crooks to loot the coffer"

"Sure, the squandered blood and treasure
Goes to those we will not measure.
Still, we promise you'll adore us
If you mark your ballot for us."

"Choices you don't have assail you,
Leaving only us who fail you.
Nonetheless, we've gotten fatter.
Why, then, should we think you matter?"

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2007

After six years in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club (the last eighteen months of that in the now-defunct Republic of South Vietnam) it didn't take me long to realize that the Republicans get paid a lavish salary to do what the fabulously wealthy demand, while the Democrats get a comparatively meager allowance to do what the Republicans tell them to do, also on behalf of the fabulously wealthy: namely, betray their own working-class anti-war base so that the Republicans will not have anything even remotely "leftist" to worry about. In truth, the Democratic party crawled up its own ass and died so many years ago that I think I've lost count.

Like Like

wjastore November 30, 2019 at 9:06 AM
Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their priorities

[Dec 02, 2019] What a miserable person Obama is. A con man of the first order

Dec 02, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

A con man of the first order. Fewer and fewer are seeing him as a decent man. Just another neoliberal. When he was in his in first term and said to a bunch of reporters in a hamburger stand that he was the same as a 1960's moderate Republican, I couldn't believe that people gave him a pass.

It was so obvious. I never made the mistake of voting for him again. I'm glad it's finally getting through to people what a phony, greedy person he is.

He and his neoliberal ilk are why this country is declining rapidly into economic and social disaster and why South America and Europe are now on fire with right-wing coups and massive demonstrations.

With the power structures combining to purposely decimate the world population, I see nothing but historic calamity facing all of us. I just hope the 1% have to pay the piper as well.

rs November 26, 2019 at 9:11 PM
Now THIS! https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/26/obama-privately-considered-leading-stop-bernie-campaign-combat-sanders-2020-surge
wjastore November 26, 2019 at 9:18 PM
Thanks. Will share. He's now the agent of no hope, no change. Much like his presidency.
greglaxer November 26, 2019 at 10:57 PM
Take a mild-mannered Constitutional Law professor, wave a magic wand and utter "Abracadabra!" and you get a full-blown apologist for US Imperialism! "We are the Indispensable Nation We are the Indispensable Nation We are the Indispensable Nation " Stop the world, I want to get off!
butsudanbill November 27, 2019 at 1:09 AM
Who's for starting a pool to guess the month and week Barack Obama announces – with reluctance – that for "the good of the Nation and Party" he would accept the nomination, were it to be offered?
Barack vs Hillary, Round 2: Better than "The Thrilla in Manilla" or "The Rumble in the Jungle."
Follow-up: Will the Democratic Party survive the campaign and convention?

Like Like

[Dec 02, 2019] Yuri Gararisn the the USA tecnological superiority

Dec 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Dec 1 2019 16:45 utc | 3

From Michael Roberts Blog's Facebook:
Chile - it's not just the level of inequality and austerity in the country that triggered the social uprising against the elite. On the OECD's 'better life' index, Chile scores very badly even compared to other Latin American countries.

Chile's insurgency and the end of neoliberalism

The OECD index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.

OECD Better Life Index

--

The Indian economy is heading into trouble - to all intent, in recession. The second-largest country in the world by population grew only 4.5 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2019, below 5 percent in the previous period and market expectations of 4.7 percent. That's the weakest pace since the first three months of 2013, mainly due to a fall in factory output and exports and a slowdown in investment.

Investment, sluggish for nearly a decade, grew a mere 1 per cent year-on-year, down from 4 per cent in the previous quarter. Manufacturing output contracted 1 per cent. Infrastructure investment has collapsed.

The government has announced several measures to boost growth including a reduction in corporate taxes, concessions on vehicle purchases, bank recapitalisation. Meanwhile, the central bank has already cut borrowing cost 5 times this year and is seen lowering rates again next week.

See my post of last May on India:

India: another China or another Brazil?

--//--

This is a very interesting example of how Western (i.e. libera, capitalist) propaganda works, and also a very illustrative example of how capitalism declined from the point of view of a person who benefitted the most from it when it was at its apex:

Perhaps it's time to remember Yuri Gagarin

The shock in the US was that the Russians were not only competitive, but had embarrassed US science and engineering by being first. In 1958, President Eisenhower signed into law the National Defense Education Act, and this enabled talented students to flow into science and engineering. The shock waves were felt throughout the entire educational system, from top to bottom. Mathematics was more important than football.

He's right in the abovementioned paragraph. If you interviewed people who were 12-14 years old between 1958 and 1963, and asked about what would be the future of the USA in the year 2000, most of them would have more or less the same answer: that the future of America was scientific, bright, of high technology; a nation where scientists and engineers would be more more venerated than tv celebrities and football/baseball players. It would be the world of the infamous "flying cars" and space exploration and colonization.

Nobody in 1963 would imagine that the USA of the 2000s would be the USA of finance, of Wall Street ; of football players, of the anti-vaxxers, of the flat earthers and of the Kardashians.

But they should've. The reason this degeneration happened is the fact that the USA is a capitalist society. In capitalism, scientific progress is accidental. What matters in the capitalist system is the valorization process, not the process of use value creation. Like any other societal formations, capitalism has a revolutionary period, an apex period, a decline period and a collapse period. In my opinion, world capitalism has just exited its apex phase and is now entering its decline phase.

Here's the propaganda part of the article:

As demonstrated by the USSR, socialism does not prohibit scientific prowess. There is a difference, of course. Socialism's success in the USSR came at the expense of millions of lives, the slave labor of millions more, and a lower standard of living. Nevertheless, the fact is that Yuri Gagarin was the first person to orbit the earth. In comparison to the US today, Soviet universities were not plagued by whining children – nor are today's Chinese universities. The Soviets thought it wiser that their young study calculus and physics.

This paragraph encapsulates all the elements of Cold War propaganda about the USSR. When I read it, it felt like a blast from the past.

First, the image of the USSR as essentially a slavery society is a Western chimera. They come from Weber -- who once theorized the USSR as a "modern Ancient Egypt" -- and the propaganda from Solzhenitsyn, who hugely exagerated the number of prisoners in the USSR.

In fact, even at the height of the GULAG era, the USSR's jailed population never went beyond 1.5% of its overall population (as we know now from Soviet official archives). That's well within the world's average. If only 1.5% of the population is able to sustain the other 98.5%, then even I want to know how the Soviets operated such an economic miracle.

Besides, the USSR obviously didn't kill "millions of people" in order to send someone to space. That's obviously absurd by any metric, logic included. First of all because this would never gather political consensus among the population, second because it is impossible to do rocket science with slave labor.

The quick rise of the Third Reich gave birth to the myth in the West that slave labor can operate miracles. Nothing is further from the truth. In Ancient times, both the Greeks and the Romans already knew slave labor was only economically viable in very basic and simple tasks, such as agriculture, mining and other domestic services. Athens achieved naval supremacy over Greece by using wage labor for its rowing and sailor crews, so that they could be professionals with high morale in the battlefield. The reason for this is that maneuvering triremes was an extremely complex art, too complex and valuable for the Athenians to trust to slaves. They also had, by the nature and complexity of the task, a naturally high degree of freedom from their "bosses". Either way, the task was simply too complex for a slave to phisically learn, since a slave was kept into his/her place through physical deprivation and domination, and a sailor had to be always fit physically and mentally to wage wars at sea. The Spartans didn't slave their coastal colonies, giving them a much larger degree of freedom (perioikoi), probably in exchange for a supply of sailors, ships. The Romans also did the same: when a slave became specialized enough in the family business (such as acting as a middle man in the paterfamilias' businesses in some coastal city), he usually "gifted" him with his freedom.

In sum: even the ancients knew that, for more complex tasks, free people were a must. Slavery was only economically viable for very simple and denigrating tasks (specially, agriculture and mining).

As for the "lower quality of living", that's highly debatable. Surely, on average, the USSR certainly didn't enjoy the same life quality than the top of the capitalist chain of the time. But inequality was much, much lower (almost negligible) except for the rural-urban divide, and there was no deprivation.

On average, life quality in the USSR was much better than the vast majority of the capitalist nations with the benefit inequality was negligible (so the average approached the median). Sure, it was no post-1980s Norway or Finland -- but those are microscopic capitalist nations, with negligible population.

Paora , Dec 1 2019 20:04 utc | 5

vk @ 3

Thanks vk. The Soviet achievements in space were the achievements of a free people who had to make superhuman sacrifices in order to preserve their freedom. Here's Boris Chertok, a remarkable Soviet space designer whose experiences stretched from the crowds of 1917 and Lenin's funeral to the construction of the international Space Station:

"I am part of the generation that suffered irredeemable losses, to whose lot in 20th century fell the most arduous of tests. From childhood, a sense of duty was inculcated in this generation - a duty to the people, to the Motherland, to our parents, to future generations, and even to all humanity.

...

Currently ... it is ideological collapse that threatens the objective recounting of [Soviet] science and technology ... motivated by the fact that its origins date back to the Stalin epoch or to the period of the 'Brezhnev Stagnation'"

[Dec 02, 2019] A Think Tank Dedicated to Peace and Restraint

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Jul 01, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Stephen Kinzer comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and non-interventionism:

Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy based on that live-and-let-live principle.

The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been waging war without end , there couldn't be a better time for this.

TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:

The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors -- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway. Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.

"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."

Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my posts here . Their involvement is a very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck.


chris chuba 9 hours ago
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies and his clones.

Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information. I generally do not see those guests ever again.

The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest. It is all about us.

Jonathan Dillard Lester 17 hours ago
Might be a few kindred souls put off by the Soros money, but nothing wrong with taking it!
SFBay1949 20 hours ago
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth. It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Paul a day ago
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function. Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
SteveM a day ago
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."

So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.

I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will change.

Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander General General Kenneth McKenzie:

https://bit.ly/2Lyel6p

Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.

BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.

Taras77 a day ago
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.

Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing"

[Dec 01, 2019] As long as US centered neoliberal empire exists, regime change efforts by the USA, not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015, will continue

Dec 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Dec 1 2019 22:45 utc | 20

Eric Zuesse's "Why a Second American Revolution Is Necessary for the Entire World" cites b's "Lessons To Learn From The Coup In Bolivia," which he describes as "very disturbing but clearly true." He then follows with what I thought was a jaw dropper:

" That anonymous author (a German intelligence analyst) documented the evilness of the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the threat now clearly posed to the world by the US regime -- a spreading cancer of expansionist fascism, led from Washington. But, even more than this, he indicated that unless the individuals who are responsible for the advancing fascism are executed, there won't be any real hope for democracy anywhere in the world. Either this impunity will stop, or else the spread of the US international dictatorship -- not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-, -- will continue and will engulf in misery ultimately the entire world . He makes clear the complicity of US 'news'-media in the lies that 'justify' this coup (and 'justified' those invasions)." [My Emphasis]

IMO, that's a very broad interpretation of b's summation, but I cannot argue against the section I bolded--as some may have noticed, my appellation for the USA has evolved to better reflect its nature: the Evil Outlaw US Empire. There are numerous reasons that prompted me to do so, one I mentioned in my reply @14 to S--tact is no longer employed in diplomacy by the Evil Outlaw US Empire, and that's a very bad sign, IMO. Zuesse continues on calling out the crimes of BigLie Media, echoing my accusation that the writers and editors are all committing the crimes of Goebbels and ought to mimic his actions when his end was nigh.

Zueese ends his very authentic rant with the following prescription which was clearly needed prior to 911:

"Unfortunately, the only global solution would be a second American Revolution, but, this time, the news-media are far less honest, and so almost no support exists amongst the US population for doing that. Consequently, the outlook for the future, worldwide, is grim. If the warning (hidden by the media as it is), this time from Bolivia, is not heeded, how can this cancer ever be stopped from engulfing the entire world?"

It's curious that an impending Civil War within the Evil Outlaw US Empire is posited but seldom a 2nd Revolution, although the latter's been discussed at the bar by myself and others off and on over the past several years. I wrote the following in a reply to psychohistorian on the previous open thread:

"I appears that the prerequisite to obtaining freedom and democracy is public ownership of the vast majority of financial levers. Without public capture of that essential domain, only some form of penury is possible for the vast majority of commonfolk, leaving only a select hierarchy free, democracy reserved only for their use. Pretty well sums up the current situation within the Evil Outlaw US Empire I'd say."

Sasha , Dec 1 2019 22:56 utc | 22

The Civil Arm of the coup: one of the best-funded NGOs in Bolivia during 2017 and 2018 was the International Republican Institute (IRI). http://bit.ly/37HYnit

The destabilization of Ukraine and Tunisia are the main achievements of this American organization.

https://twitter.com/Mision_Verdad/status/1200929250762788865

NGO networks: the "civil" arm of the US Empire that defined the coup in Bolivia

[Dec 01, 2019] Ilhan Omar deposition text also names Sarsour and Kushner as Qatari assets by DONNA RACHEL

Notable quotes:
"... Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts ..."
"... Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. ..."
"... the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied. ..."
"... American officials are the cheapest to recruit. "British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them accept $50,000." ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.jpost.com

"We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but that's not good enough. We want to rule the White House," the Qataris allegedly said. E

... ... ...

"Everything [Alan Bender] said in the deposition about me has happened," Imam Tawhidi told The Post . "I believe in the deposition and await an investigation. All I want is to be treated fairly," he added. However, Omar was not the only prominent American named in the Bender testimony.

"They [the Qataris] said: 'We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but that's not good enough. We want to rule the White House.' So they will," he told the court. Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close. Explaining that Qatar uses western companies to effectively launder the money they paid to American citizens, Bender cited a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested heavily in.

Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts. "Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms. Castenda, asked. "Too risky," Bender replied. "Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it.

And Kushner is happy with them because, according to them, I don't know Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.

The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off, but told Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House, we have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender clarified. The Jerusalem Post has reached out to Mr Kushner's office for a response. However, no comment has been received as of yet.

Among other claims made by Mr. Bender were that: - The real power in Qatar is Mohammed Al-Masnad, known as 'the CEO.' "After a couple of hours, I was convinced that the Emir of Qatar does not run the show and Mohammed Al-Masnad is in charge of everything. He is also the Emir's uncle. [...] And the Emir's mother is the real king of Qatar." - The second most powerful man in Qatar is a Palestinian, Azmi Bishara. - That Jamal Khashoggi was set up by Qatar to be killed by the Saudis after he was found to have been "playing both sides." "Jamal Khashoggi and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal were very close friends," Bender said. "[Khashoggi] would receive sensitive secrets ... and he leaks them to the Qataris. The Qataris would leak them to media outlets ... and he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I got that confirmation from the Qatari officials." - that "they [Qatar] finance almost 99 percent of Saudi dissidents in the US and the UK. They pay them."

Bender named Ghanem al-Dosari, a well known YouTuber, as one such individual. - Three Italians, known as 'the engineers' were paid by Qatar to hack the accounts of Saudi Arabian and the United Arab Emirates's citizens. "E-mails, text messages, regular phone calls, laptops. Anything you can think of. They hacked into all that."

American officials are the cheapest to recruit. "British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them accept $50,000." - The Qataris refer to Trump as "the orange man," and to Kushner as the "descendant of pigs and apes," because he is Jewish.

"And they refer to other American Senators and Congressmen who are Christians as 'Crusaders'."

[Dec 01, 2019] Bush Doctrine still in play

US Empire's Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell gets irked that more nations are joining the INSTEX mechanism for commerce with Iran as shown by his Tweet:
Dec 01, 2019 | sputniknews.com

"cc: @TreasurySpox @USTreasury sounds to me like all these people and groups should be added to the US Sanctions list. We should ensure that they don't get to work in the US market. Iran or the US -- they decide. But not both ." [My Emphasis]

The nations saying we're not with you are Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden--what might be termed the more enlightened Europeans.

And here we have Germany's CDU acting in a manner reflecting the Bush Doctrine as it debated Germany's 5G rollout :

"The moderates, represented by Merkel, believe that Germany should not rule out any company over political issues, but focus more on objective factors such as whether its technological security and standards meet German requirements. However, some hard-liners make it an ideological issue and believe Huawei should be excluded. The reason they provided is ' no Chinese company is an independent company,' adding that Huawei's involvement is principally "an imminent question of national security .

"After decades of following the US, Germany has somewhat lost the ability to independently decide its development and destiny. But in recent years, the US has been pursuing unilateralism. The export-oriented German economy is affected by not only China-US trade conflicts, but also US threat of imposing tariffs on German products. Thus, it is time for Berlin to stop its fear of threats from Washington and make choices that are in line with its own interests." [My Emphasis]

Every Evil Outlaw US Empire chartered corporation in the tech realm is not an "independent company" since they work hand in glove with CIA, NSA, FBI, other government organizations, and are also funded by the government. The same is likely true of every Western tech company. A double standard excuse in service of continuing the Bush Doctrine.

To paraphrase Grenell, Now is most certainly the time to declare your independence and reclaim your sovereignty and cease acting in the service of another nation.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 2 2019 2:10 utc | 28

[Dec 01, 2019] Naftogaz can consider waiving $12.2 bln claims against Gazprom

Dec 01, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile November 30, 2019 at 9:09 am

Is this what could be described as "playing silly buggers"?

30 NOV, 00:54
Naftogaz can consider waiving $12.2 bln claims against Gazprom
Ukraine is ready to do so on condition of compensation

Like Like

Mark Chapman November 30, 2019 at 5:32 pm
The Ukies imagine they are so clever! They will waive a claim they have pretty much no chance of ever being awarded, in return for a lesser amount of guaranteed cold, hard cash plus a transit deal which will commit Russia to giving them at least another $20 Billion in transit fees over 10 years. Russia should pretend to consider it, just to wind them up, and run out the clock on the signing of a new contract. Then say, "I've decided not to after all, old chap".

[Dec 01, 2019] Stephen Cohen (one of the few pundits who actually knows something about Russia) about false narrative that persist in the Democratic Party

Dec 01, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

JohnH -> anne... , November 28, 2019 at 03:46 PM

Stephen Cohen (one of the few pundits who actually knows something about Russia:)

"Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things about Donald Trump's life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true. But in the process, we have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic Party establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following:

The Democratic establishment is deeply and widely imbued with rancid Russophobic attitudes. Most telling was (and remains) a core "Russiagate" allegation that "Russia attacked American democracy during the 2016 presidential election" on Trump's behalf -- an "attack" so nefarious it has often been equated with Pearl Harbor. But there was no "attack" in 2016, only, as I have previously explained, ritualistic "meddling" of the kind that both Russia and America have undertaken in the other's elections for decades. Little can be more phobic than the allegation or belief that one has been "attacked by a hostile" entity. And yet this myth and its false narrative persist in the Democratic Party's discourse, campaigning, and fund-raising.

We have also learned that the heads of America's intelligence agencies under President Obama, especially John Brennan of the CIA and James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, felt themselves entitled to try to undermine an American presidential candidacy and subsequent presidency, that of Donald Trump. Early on, I termed this operation "Intelgate," and it has since been well documented by other writers, including Lee Smith in his new book. Intel officials did so in tacit alliance with certain leading, and equally Russophobic, members of the Democratic Party, which had once opposed such transgressions. This may be the most alarming revelation of the Trump years: Trump will leave power, but these self-aggrandizing intelligence agencies will remain.

We also learned that, contrary to Democratic dogma, the mainstream "free press" cannot be fully trusted to readily expose such abuses of power. Indeed, what the mainstream media -- leading national newspapers and two cable news networks, in particular -- chose to cover and report, and chose not to cover and report, made the abuses and consequences of Russiagate allegations possible. Even now, exceedingly influential publications such as The New York Times seem eager to delegitimize the investigation by Attorney General William Barr and his appointed special investigator John Durham into the origins of Russiagate. Barr's critics accuse him of fabricating a "conspiracy theory" on behalf of Trump. But the real, or grandest, conspiracy theory was the Russiagate allegation of "collusion" between Trump and the Kremlin, an accusation that was -- or should have been -- discredited by the Robert Mueller report.

And we have learned, or should have learned, that for all the talk by Democrats about Trump as a danger to US national security, it is their Russiagate allegations that truly endanger it. Consider two examples. Russia's new "hyper-sonic" missiles, which can elude US missile-defense systems, make new nuclear arms negotiations with Moscow imperative and urgent. If only for the sake of his legacy, Trump is likely to want to do so. But even if he is able to, will Trump be entrusted enough to conduct negotiations as successfully as did his predecessors in the White House, given the "Putin puppet" and "Kremlin stooge" accusations still being directed at him?"

https://www.thenation.com/article/inconvenient-truths-2/

ilsm -> JohnH... , November 29, 2019 at 09:19 AM
The Russia thingie/falsehoods are part of corrupt demrats assault on the US constitution. They are even now predicting their loss in 2020 due to "interference" and people wanting to know how corrupt the DNC [front running] select has been!

Demrat allies in the shadow revolving door government of neocon humbug factories are denouncing Trump for his ignoring their war mongering imperial objects.

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 08:31 AM
"...assault on the US constitution..."

[Adding assault to injury? The US Constitution was damning enough on its own. What are they thinking inside the deep state apparatus? Don't they know that power and privilege is reserved for holders of wealth by the US Constitution? Who do they think that they are really working for?]

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to JohnH... , November 30, 2019 at 08:26 AM
Friend ilsm may be less nuts than it appears, but friend ilsm is not less incomprehensible than it appears. Would it be out of place to thank you for ilsm's sake?

Our two-party system was largely useless after FDR, but our two-party system has been largely destructive since 1968. Let me know if anything really changes.

JohnH -> anne... , November 28, 2019 at 03:54 PM
Aaron Maté: "Impeachment Non-Bombshells Endanger Democrats in 2020

Unmerited hype about Gordon Sondland's testimony has overshadowed the potential damage that the impeachment saga poses for the presidential election."
https://www.thenation.com/article/impeachment-sondland-democrats/

Have I ever said how pathetic the Democratic establishment is? As for Pelosi's vaunted tactical skills? What BS!

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to JohnH... , November 30, 2019 at 06:25 AM
Pelosi has been wagged by her party's tail.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 06:29 AM
not that I would be ordinarily predisposed to defend her. The problem with delusions is that they can easily become self-perpetuating, even easier with the right hand on the tiller.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 06:34 AM
Sail Away

Pearls Before Swine

I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
This is not a story I was told
When all the people are made out of wood
They build their houses of bones

Sail away, Oh sail away
The edge of the world is near
Sail away, Oh sail away from here

I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
All the cigarettes are hand rolled
Nothing is bought and nobody is sold
And everything's made of gold

I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
There a man with wounds I did see
Said: I do not want to escape from reality
I want reality to escape from me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBn9Ytr9o-c

Pearls Before Swine - Sail away

[Nov 30, 2019] Obama Takes the Field and Hillary May Be Around the Corner by Stephen J. Sniegoski

Notable quotes:
"... However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her." According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren. ..."
Nov 30, 2019 | www.unz.com

In November, Barack Obama, who had avoided commenting on the Democratic presidential primary, came out forcefully in opposition to the extreme positions taken by some leading progressive contenders, positions that could cause the Democrats to be beaten by Trump in the 2020 election. Obama was a very popular president among Democrats, and what he has to say carries considerable weight with them. While this may not be his intent, Obama's position could open the field for Hillary Clinton to enter the fray and quite possibly become the Democrats' nominee, given the lackluster performance of leading "moderate" Joe Biden, whose weaknesses have been brought out by the mainstream media, despite their animosity toward Trump.

Now many in the Democratic Party leadership, as well as wealthy Democratic donors, have been concerned for some time about the radical nature of some of the economic policies advocated by the leading progressive Democratic contenders. They fear that instead of the 2020 election revolving around Trump with his low approval ratings, and very likely his impeachment, which would seem to be a slam-dunk victory for Democrats, it would focus on those radical economic proposals. Many voters are skeptical about how free college for all, free health care for all, high-paying jobs in "green energy" -- after greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels, free childcare for all, just to name some of the "free" things that have been promised, would really work. Instead of raising taxes on the middle class, most of these free things would purportedly be paid for by the super-wealthy, which would exclude mere millionaires such as Bernie Sanders (estimated wealth $2 million) and Elizabeth Warren (estimated wealth $12 million) who are the leading progressive contenders.

Obama began stressing his concern about the danger of radicalism in an October speech at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. And he did this not by dealing with presidential candidates but with youth who think they can immediately change society. "This idea of purity and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama lectured. "The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."

It was at a gathering of Democratic donors in Washington, D.C., in November that Obama cautioned Democratic candidates not to go too far to the left since that would antagonize many voters who would otherwise support the Democratic candidate. "Even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in reality ," Obama asserted. "The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it." Although Obama did not specify particular Democratic candidates, his warning was widely interpreted as being directed at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Currently, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, according to national polls, is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate. But Biden has a number of problems. He continues to make gaffes while speaking, and during his long career in the Senate took positions that are antithetical to the Democratic Party of today. Moreover, he lacks the charisma to attract large crowds to his events. Thus, it is questionable that he has the capability to attract large numbers of Democratic voters to the polls in November 2020.

According to Politico Magazine , Obama was recently discussing election tactics with an unnamed current candidate and "pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an intimate bond with the electorate" and he is quoted as adding, "And you know who really doesn't have it ? Joe Biden."

Biden's appeal already seems to be waning. For example, in November, a Marquette Law School poll, which is considered the gold-standard survey in swing state Wisconsin, which the Democrats need to win the 2020 election, shows Trump leading Biden 47 percent to 44 percent. In October, Trump had trailed Biden by 6 points (44 percent to 50 percent), and in August, Trump trailed Biden by 9 points (42 percent to 51 percent). In short, Biden is losing support. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by a slender margin of 0.77 percent, with 47.22 percent of the total votes over the 46.45 percent for Hillary Clinton.

Another problem Biden faces is the corrupt activities of his son Hunter and brother James, who have taken advantage of their connection with him. The mainstream media has so far largely kept this mostly under wraps, but this tactic won't be successful as the election approaches. In fact, the progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders are likely to bring this up in a desperate effort to be nominated. And already these issues are being mentioned by the alternative media. For instance, there is an article in the non-partisan, anti-government Intercept titled, "Joe Biden's Family Has Been Cashing in on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to Acknowledge That," and comparable articles in the conservative Washington Examiner such as, "Hunter Biden-linked company r eceived $130M in special federal loans while Joe Biden was vice president," and "Hunter Biden has 99 problems , and Burisma is only one."

David Axelrod, Democratic strategist and longtime aide to Barack Obama, said concerns about Biden's electability clearly influenced multi-billionaire (estimated $53 billion) and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrance into the contest for the Democratic nominee for president. "There's no question that Bloomberg's calculus was that Biden was occupying a space, and the fact that he's getting in is a clear indication that he's not convinced Biden has the wherewithal to carry that torch," Axelrod said. "So yeah, I don't think this is a positive development for Joe Biden."

Similarly, Democratic strategist Brad Bannon contended that "centrist Democrats and wealthy donors have lost confidence in Biden's ability to stop Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination." Bannon added that with Bloomberg entering the Democratic presidential race, "Biden's fundraising will get even shakier than it already is. There's only room for one moderate in this race and Bloomberg threatens Biden's status as the centrist standard-bearer."

Bloomberg's "stop and frisk" policy as mayor , which largely targeted blacks and Hispanics, should make it virtually impossible that he could be the Democratic nominee, despite his recent apology. Unless he has become senile in his late 70s, Bloomberg should well understand this since he did not make his billions by being stupid. It could be that he intends to serve as a stalking horse to draw Hillary Clinton into the contest by showing the weakness of Biden. Then like Superwoman, Hillary can enter the fray, appearing not to act for her own sake but to save the country from a likely second term for President Trump.

Similarly, Mark Penn, who was chief strategist for Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, said Bloomberg's entrance could cause Clinton to consider to run and decide there's "still a political logic there for her."

As Biden's support slips away, Clinton's should rise. Clinton has been recently promoting a book she co-wrote with her daughter, Chelsea, in Britain. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live , Clinton said "many, many, many people" are pressuring her to jump into the 2020 presidential race and that she thinks about this "all the time." Clinton told the host that she is under "enormous pressure" but said it is not in her plans, though she cryptically added that she would "never say never."

Dick Morris, who was once a close confidant of the Clintons during Bill Clinton's time as Arkansas governor and U.S. president recently said in a radio interview that Hillary Clinton likely wants to run for the presidency in 2020. "My feeling is that she wants to ," Morris said. "She feels entitled to do it. She feels compelled to do it. She feels that God put her on the Earth to do it. But she's hesitant because she realizes the timing is bad."

However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her." According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren.

Morris has not been in touch with the Clintons for many years, and has become strongly critical of them, so his claim might be questionable. Nonetheless, his portrayal of Hillary's current thinking seems quite reasonable.

A Fox News poll included Clinton along with the active Democratic candidates in a hypothetical election with Trump, and Hillary came out ahead of him by two percentage points. While some actual candidates did somewhat better than Hillary, she did quite well for someone who is not currently running for office.

Furthermore, a Harris Harvard poll in late October asked the question, "Suppose Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and John Kerry decides [sic] to enter the race, who would you support as a candidate for President?" Joe Biden received the support of 19 percent of Democrat respondents while Clinton was a close second with 18 percent. Elizabeth Warren came in third at 13 percent, John Kerry was at 8 percent, and Bloomberg was at 6. Again, Clinton does quite well for someone who is not actually running for president.

One might think that if references to family members' corruption damaged Biden, then Clinton would be subject to worse damage in that area, since she and her husband Bill were connected with far more corrupt activities -- Whitewater, Travelgate, the Lewinsky affair, the Paula Jones affair, t the death of Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, her private server, and so on. But these issues are already known and are presumably already taken into account by the voters, whereas the Biden family's corrupt activities are so far largely unknown.

It should be pointed out that Clinton has a number of positives as a presidential candidate. Although losing in the Electoral College in 2016, Clinton had garnered 3 million more votes more than Trump. The election was decided by a total of 80,000 votes in three states. It is highly unlikely that such a fluke could be duplicated.

Clinton's staff had been overconfident assuming victory, which was based on their polling of various states, and as a result began to focus on competing in states well beyond those Clinton needed for victory.

Moreover, one key event outside the control of Clinton's staff was FBI Director James Comey's investigation of Clinton's use of a personal email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Most crucial were his July 2016 public statement terminating the investigation, with a lengthy comment about what Clinton did wrong, and his October 28 reopening the inquiry into newly discovered emails and then closing it two days before the election, stating that the emails had not provided any new information. The October 28 letter, however, probably played a key role in the outcome of the election. As statistician Nate Silver maintains: "Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had 'learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton's lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College.'"

[Silver's organization FiveThirtyEight had projected a much higher chance (29 percent) of Donald Trump winning the presidency than most other pollsters]

Clinton has also helped to convince many Democrats and members of the mainstream media that the 2016 election was stolen from her by Russian agents If this were really true – which is very doubtful – then Hillary should be the Democrats' candidate for 2020 since Russian intervention should not be as successful as it allegedly was in 2016.

In endorsing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, Obama stated. "I don't think that there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office." He has yet to make such an endorsement for Biden and privately, as mentioned earlier, said he is a poor choice for a nominee. He might ultimately endorse Biden, but he certainly would not renege on what he said four years ago about Clinton if she became the Democrats' standard-bearer.

Should Clinton opt to run, she would have no trouble raising money since she set a record in 2016 of $1.4 billion and wealthy donors want a moderate to be the Democratic nominee. It would seem likely that she would enter the contest if Biden has serious trouble. She would miss some state primaries since it would be too late to register in them but given the crowded field of candidates, there is a likelihood that there will be a brokered convention, that is, the convention will go past the first ballot. Since the superdelegates would be allowed to vote in all rounds after the first, they could determine the winner, which would probably mean the selection of a candidate who would be seen to have the greatest chance of winning, and that would likely be Hillary Clinton, if she has entered the fray.

I discussed the merits of Pete Buttigieg in a previous article in Unz Review, and what I write here might seem to conflict with that. However, while Buttigieg is doing quite well in the polls, he still does not get much support from blacks and Latinos, which is essential to become the Democrats nominee for president. Buttigieg could, however, be nominated for vice president or, more likely, given an important cabinet position since the vice-presidential slot would probably be reserved for a black or Latino if a white person were picked as the presidential nominee, which currently seems likely.

But because of Buttigieg's relatively hardline foreign policy , which largely meshes with that of Clinton's, and his wide knowledge and language ability, Buttigieg would fit well in the all-important position of secretary of state in a Clinton administration. Moreover, Buttigieg, whose tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will end in January 2020, would almost certainly be willing to take such a position, which could serve as a jumping-off point for the presidency in the future.

[Nov 30, 2019] The Transparent Cabal The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel Stephen J. Snie

Notable quotes:
"... Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies. ..."
"... No informed American can afford to not know the names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. > ..."
"... Hersh hoped that future historians would document the fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved the takeover. ..."
"... The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket. ..."
"... In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent. ..."
"... That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book. Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters. ..."
"... Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state. However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and often place American interests second to that of the lobby. ..."
Nov 30, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy, but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East. Showing that the neocon movement has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote the flow of oil. Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives, including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as ready after 9/11 for retaliation


Concerned Citizen , July 13, 2014

How and Why Israel Promoted the U.S. Invasion of Iraq

Every American should read this superb book about the intimate connection between the state of Israel and the Americans who planned and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (and who still influence U.S. policy in the Middle East). This very well-researched and well-argued book will enlighten Americans who want to understand how the Jewish State of Israel powerfully shapes U.S. Middle East policy.

Stephen Sniegowski provides a detailed look at the network of die-hard pro-Israel Neoconservatives who have worked in the U.S. government, in think tanks, and in the news media to shape American foreign policy to serve the needs of Israel at the expense of the U.S. From media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose 175 newspapers around the world ALL editorialized in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, to Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and later Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, to Vice President Dick Cheney, to the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, the neoconservatives successfully persuaded President George W. Bush to invade Iraq to promote Israel's foreign policy interests.

Sniegowski describes how the Neocons promoted lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction and his supposed ties to al-Qaeda terrorists from a network of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Middle East Media Research Institute, Hudson Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Center for Security Policy, and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).

He also traces the influence of Israeli Zionist Oded Yinon on the American Neoconservatives. Yinon wrote an article in 1982 entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s" that called for Israel to bring about the dissolution of many of the Arab states and their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. This is basically what is happening to Iraq and Syria today. He also called for Israelis to accelerate the emigration of Palestinians from Israel, whose border he believed should extend to the Jordan River and beyond it.

Yinon's article influenced a paper written for the Israeli Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 by American neoconservatives Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This paper stated that Netanyahu should "make a clean break" with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel's claim to the West Bank and Gaza. Like Yinon's article, it also called for the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the weakening of Syria to promote Israel's interests. It was written five years BEFORE the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These same three men - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser - who advised Netanyahu's Israeli government on issues of national security would later advise President George W. Bush to pursue virtually the same policies regarding the Middle East.

If you want to understand how and why powerful pro-Israel neoconservatives in the U.S. misled Americans and convinced President George W. Bush to order the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and how they persuaded the U.S. Congress to give Bush the authority to order the invasion, read this outstanding book.

Baraniecki Mark Stuart , March 13, 2010
The Failure of American Government

Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies.

The policy was adopted by the Israeli pro-settler right wing and Jewish activists in and around the Clinton and Bush administrations such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser (who all helped produce the original document). They identified as targets Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and were handed a golden opportunity after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre. Iraq was falsely presented as an Al Qaeda base and the media planted with stories about an imminent attack on the United States using WMD. Despite the CIA knowing all along that the WMD didn't exist, the US still invaded Iraq and the story was quietly and unbelievably changed to "building democracy".

As Sniegoski points out, the war has exceeded the cost of Vietnam and the same activists, now working through Hillary Clinton are looking for "incidents" in Iraq to trigger the next phase of the plan which is a US attack on Iran.

UPDATE October 2014:

And it gets worse: The 911 story itself keeps morphing. Google "Building 7", YouTube "911 Missing Links" or check the article at http://911speakout.org/7TOCPJ.pdf. >

Severo , May 16, 2016
A cornerstone in the quest for understanding the current Middle East Crisis.

Important book for those trying understand the chaos that is currently reigning in the Middle East. From the lies based NEOCON attack on Iraq trumpeted by the mainstream USA media as a fight to save Western Civilization, to the rise of ISIL.

This books will make those connections clear. No informed American can afford to not know the names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. >

Paul Sheldon Foote , January 26, 2010
The Neoconservative Cult and the Fragility of American Democracy

On January 27, 2005, [...] posted the remarks of Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker contributor) at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York that a neoconservative cult had taken over the American government.

Hersh hoped that future historians would document the fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved the takeover.

Other books have stressed how the neoconservative ideology is contrary to traditional American values: Reclaiming the American Right (Justin Raimondo), America the Virtuous (Claes Ryn), Where the Right Went Wrong (Patrick Buchanan).

"Memoirs of a Trotskyist" in Neo-conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (Irving Kristol) provided a neoconservative account of the origins of neo-conservatism. Sniegoski noted correctly that the term neoconservative originated with leftists critical of their former comrades for attempting to infiltrate the Democratic and Republican parties. Thanks to leftists who call neoconservatives the ultra-right and to conservative dupes who think that anyone using a conservative label is a conservative, the neoconservative cancer has spread through the fragile American political body.

The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket.

Unlike earlier secret plots to take over the American government, Sniegoski explained how it was possible for the neoconservatives to operate as a relatively transparent cabal. However, he observed that the neoconservatives used a Trojan horse technique to take over the American conservative movement. The goal of the neoconservatives is to promote endless wars regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power.

The neoconservatives do not represent a popular mass movement in America. Instead, the neoconservatives rely upon the co-operation of other groups. Sniegoski provided extensive documentation of which groups enabled the neoconservatives. For example, the Christian Zionists duped their followers into sacrificing money and soldiers. Zionism originated with the writings of Moses Hess (who helped Karl Marx write The Communist Manifesto, was nicknamed the Communist Rabbi, and who is buried in Israel). In 1862, Moses Hess published Rome and Jerusalem. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (Shlomo Avineri) provided a detailed explanation of the relationship between Communism and Zionism.

The reason for the fragility of American democracy is the failure of many Americans to understand the most basic aspects of the American political system and of their religions.

The Transparent Cabal is an important starting point for understanding how a neoconservative cult opposed to traditional American political and religious values is able to destroy America with endless wars.

New Age of Barbarism , October 14, 2008
A Brilliant Account of the Neoconservative War Agenda.

_The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, And the National Interest of Israel_, published in 2008 by Enigma Editions of IHS Press, by scholar Stephen J. Sniegoski is a thorough examination of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing for war in the Middle East (beginning with the war in Iraq and pushing onwards towards Iran) in order to protect the national interests of Israel. Sniegoski makes the claim that the neoconservatives have been the fundamental force behind the war efforts of the United States and have played a particularly prominent role in the Bush administration. While these claims have now become common knowledge, Sniegoski makes an important contribution by tracing the history of the neoconservative movement and its links to prominent pro-Jewish and pro-Israel groups. In particular, Sniegoski claims that neoconservativism is a tool of Zionism and the Likudniks of Israel. Sniegoski traces out how following the attacks of September 11, the neoconservative war hawks had a profound influence on the thinking of President Bush and offered him a ready made solution to his foreign policy agenda. In this book, Sniegoski also considers and refutes other theories as to the root causes behind America's intervention in Iraq (such as the role of oil and war profiteering) but explains how these theories lack the validity of that which lays the blame on the neoconservatives and their goals for Israeli dominance in the Middle East.

In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent.

This book begins with a Foreword by Congressman Paul Findley (famous author of _They Dare to Speak Out_ and longtime opponent of the Israeli Lobby) in which he explains the importance of Sniegoski's book and deflects the spurious charge of anti-Semitism. Following this, appears an Introduction by noted paleoconservative Paul Gottfried who explains his admiration for Sniegoski's book, offers some comparisons between Sniegoski's claims and those of other individuals, and contrasts the old non-interventionist limited government form of conservativism with that of the neoconservatives.

The first chapter of Sniegoski's book is entitled "The Transparent Cabal" and notes the disastrous consequences that have followed upon the Iraq war spurred on by the neoconservatives. The author explains what he means in calling the neoconservatives a "transparent cabal" and notes the importance of their Middle East, pro-Israeli agenda. The author explains how following the events of September 11, they came to take on a prominent role in influencing the thinking of the president (who had previously shown little interest in the Middle East).

The second chapter is entitled "The "Neocon-Israel" Claim: Bits and Pieces" and exposes the role of Israel's Likudnik party behind the neoconservatives. The author deflects claims of "anti-Semitism" which are frequently hurled at those who make these charges by showing that even many prominent Jews agree with this. Following this appears a chapter entitled "Who are the Neocons?" which shows how the neocons emigrated from their original home in the Democratic party of the McGovernite left into the Republican party as the New Left began to voice criticisms of Israel. The author shows that many of the neocons are actually socialists and Trotskyites parading under the label of "conservative". Further, the author shows the role of various intellectuals centering around New York City in creating the neoconservative movement.

Next, appears a chapter entitled "The Israeli Origins of the Middle East War Agenda" which shows how the goal of Middle East war to further the interests of Israel has been supported extensively by hawkish groups in Israel. The author explains how these groups came to have such a prominent role in influencing the policy of the United States and in suppressing the native population of Palestinians in Israel. Following, appears a chapter entitled "Stability and the Gulf War of 1991: Prefigurement and Prelude to the 2003 Iraq War" in which the author explains the importance of the first Gulf War of Bush I in prefiguring the Iraq War of Bush II. After this, appears a chapter entitled "During the Clinton Years" in which the author shows the continuing role of the neocons during the Clinton years.

Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Serbian Interlude and the 2000 Elections" in which the author explains how the war in Yugoslavia paved the way for the coming Iraq War of President Bush. This also explains the split that occurred among conservatives between those traditional conservatives who opposed the war and the neocons who firmly supported it. Following this appears a chapter entitled "George W. Bush Administration: The Beginning" in which the author explains the role that the neocons came to take in the Bush administration mentioning in particular the role of such figures as Wolfowitz and Cheney and the role of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Following this appears a chapter entitled "September 11", showing how the events of Sept. 11 allowed the neocon agenda to gain prominence in the mind of President Bush.

Next, appears a chapter entitled "Move to War" explaining how the neocons pushed for war against Sadaam Hussein presenting their case to the American people by claiming that Hussein was in possession of WMDs which could be used against America. Following this appears a chapter entitled "World War IV" explaining how the conflict in the Middle East came to be dubbed World War IV by certain intellectuals among the neocons.

Next, appears a chapter entitled "Democracy for the Middle East" showing the role of the neocons in foisting "democracy" onto various nations and their goal of global democratic revolution. The author also explains the role of the thinking of political philosopher Leo Strauss behind many of the neocons and his profoundly anti-democratic philosophy. Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Neocons' Post-Invasion Difficulties" showing how the invasion of Iraq turned out to be more serious and difficult than originally anticipated by the neocons. Next, appears a chapter entitled "Beginning of the Second Administration" showing the continuing role of the neocons under the second Bush administration.

Then, appears a chapter entitled "Israel, Lebanon, and the 2006 Election" showing the role of Lebanon and Syria in relationship to Israel and that of the 2006 election.

Next, appears a chapter entitled "2007: On to Iran" showing how the neocons continued to press for further wars in particular against Iran by alleging among other things that Ahmedinejad was a mad man with possible access to nuclear weapons. Following, appears a chapter entitled "The Supporting Cast for War" noting the role of Christian Zionists (which includes the beliefs of President Bush, although not his father), former Cold Warriors, and even prominent establishment liberals in supporting the Iraq war. The author notes however that the traditional foreign policy establishment elites and many in the intelligence agencies did not support the war, but were disregarded to further the neocon agenda. The author also contrasts the difference between the liberal elites who frequently were pro-war and the popular anti-war movement which had very little power.

Following this, the author turns to a chapter entitled "Oil and Other Arguments" in which the author considers the claims that the war was fought to obtain access to oil or for the interests of war profiteers and shows that while both groups certainly benefited they are not the real reason for the war. The book ends with a "Conclusion" in which the author expounds upon the continuing role of the neocons in influencing American foreign policy and a "Postscript" in which the author notes that no matter who wins the 2008 election that the neocon agenda will likely continue and is not likely to go away anytime soon.

This book offers a fascinating history and account of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing the United States into war. The author makes clear the influence of the Israeli Likudnik party behind the neocons and their goal of strengthening the position of Israel in the Middle East. It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the foreign policy elites who have been pushing us into war against Iraq and now with eyes towards Iran.

Honest Observer , December 30, 2009
CRITICISM OF ISRAEL IS NOT ANTI-SEMITISM

That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book. Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters.

Let's put aside these negative and nasty characterizations and look at the facts.

Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state. However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and often place American interests second to that of the lobby.

To suggest that there is such a lobby and that it is powerful is hardly anti-semitic. Nor is the author. He is simply stating verifible facts which any student of politics is free to do. He may be mistaken in his conclusions but that hardly makes him anti-semitic. And he may not be mistaken at all. He is not the first to suggest that our leaders are fearful of the Israeli lobby and do its bidding and often to the detriment of American interests .

Dennis R. Jugan , August 28, 2008
History will always link the Iraq War with the term 'neoconservative'

Stephen Sniegoski, a diplomatic historian, is uniquely qualified to write about the neoconservatives' involvement in the prolonged Iraq War originating in 2003. He accurately predicted their activities and allegiance in this entanglement in 1998, three years before the acts of 9-11 and two additional years before a traumatized nation yielded to a nescient, misdirected President, his Vice President/administration, and an ostensibly compliant bi-partisan House and Senate.

The author presents a tight outline which he cogently expands in intelligible detail, maintaining that the origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the adoption of a war agenda whose basic structure was conceived in Israel to advance Israel's interests. The pro-Israel neoconservatives and a powerful Israel lobby in the United States fervently pushed its agenda. Ironically, he extracts his most persuasive evidence from an extensive neoconservative paper trail that's been clearly recognized by a discreet cadre of vigilant Americans for years. Thus the title, "The Transparent Cabal."

Dr. Sniegoski asks the appropriate question: "Who are the neoconservatives?" He provides insightful answers on their pertinent activities since 1972, those who shaped and mentored them, their immediate family/interconnected family networks, their prominent periodical publications, their past and present leadership, non-Jewish minority members, their persistent rise to positions of political influence and authority, their embrace of Christian Zionists, and their close ties to the extremely conservative Likud Party in Israel. He reveals their tactical affiliations with key, heavily endowed influential think tanks, and a vast number of powerful Israel-centric lobbying organizations that reactively finance and nurture their continued success.

Many readers will recognize his references to writers of previous books, articles and columns -- many of Jewish heritage -- who bravely fight against well financed, mainstream media-dominant opponents and their psychological surrogates active on the Internet. These opponents perniciously engage in personal attacks and retribution, indiscriminately applying irrelevant anti-semitic labels. They persist at attempting to sway public discourse by spreading misinformation, disinformation, and mostly NO RELEVANT INFORMATION to the public.

In various places throughout the book, the author notes curious relationships with current and former elected and appointed officials. He writes about the ongoing 2008 presidential campaign in a postscript, citing past and existing direct influences on specific candidates by the neoconservatives, the Israel Lobby and its supporters.

The book concludes with a summary of the paucity of benefits compared to the predictable losses of the American people over recent years. These are the real consequences of the Israel-inspired plan to "drain the swamp" (a euphemism for destabilizing perceived enemies then establishing precarious nominal democracies) that began with our misadventure in Iraq and was to proceed with subsequent U.S. military interventions in Iran and Syria. The few meager benefits and the enormous losses to the United States are compared to the strategic advantages that the State of Israel derives directly from our five-year induced military involvement in Iraq and our concomitant departure from past, longstanding policies of diplomacy and stability in the Middle East.

Sniegoski counsels, "it is hardly controversial to propose that elites, rather than the people as a whole, determine government policies, even in democracies."

Yet this war has a supporting cast of middle Americans. Many of them were traumatized by the events of 9-11 and reactively saw an act of patriotism in supporting retaliation against a falsely perceived enemy in Iraq. It's time to reconsider false arguments preceding the Iraq War that have only been cosmetically modified until the present day. It's time to dismiss incongruous ideas formed in the cauldron of confusion after 9-11.

Given today's realities, it DOES take patriotism and courage to insist on formally normalizing an entangled, unreciprocated military alliance with an Israeli government that burdens the taxpayers of the United States, promotes angst among its people, and imperils its military forces worldwide.

Know and embrace Thomas Jefferson's ideal of 'eternal vigilance' as citizens of the United States.
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Facts in this book are reinforced in adjacent paragraphs and referenced in nearly 50 pages of notes. Readers are encouraged to read:

James B. Pate , June 12, 2019
The Transparent Cabal

Stephen J. Sniegoski has a doctorate from the University of Maryland and studied American diplomatic history. My review here will refer to him as "S," for short.

This book is about the American neoconservative movement. S goes from its founding through its influential role in getting the U.S. into the Iraq War, then he discusses the War's aftermath. S's argument is that the neoconservative agenda regarding the Middle East is designed to serve the interests of the state of Israel, as those interests are articulated by the right-wing Likud party there. This agenda supports weakening Arab nations surrounding Israel so that they cannot pose a threat to her. According to S, the neoconservatives supported such an agenda since their beginning as a movement, but 9/11 created an opportunity for this agenda to become the foreign policy of the United States during much of the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Here are some thoughts:

A. Looking broadly at the book itself, it is a standard narration of the events surrounding and including the Iraq War. Like a lot of people, I lived through that, so the sweeping narrative of the book was not particularly new to me. The story is essentially that the U.S. went into Iraq expecting to find weapons of mass destruction after 9/11, bombed the country and found that were no WMDs, and traveled the difficult road of trying to rebuild the country, amidst ethnic division, turmoil, and opposition from Iraqis.

B. That said, there were some things that I learned from this book. First, while neoconservatism is said to believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, it is not necessarily committed to democracy, per se. Initially, it supported a new government of Iraq that would be led by the traditional, pre-Saddam tribal authorities, who were not democratic. Second, S seems to imply that even the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was unnecessary, since the Taliban initially appeared cooperative in offering to help the U.S. to bring al-Qaeda to justice. Third, there are neoconservatives who have supported undermining even America's allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The different groups in Saudi Arabia was also interesting, for, as S notes, Shiites hold a significant amount of control over Saudi oil, even though the political establishment is Sunni. Fourth, S argues rigorously against the idea that the U.S. launched the Iraq War to get more oil. Saddam was offering U.S. oil companies opportunities to drill in Iraq, plus oil companies did not want the oil infrastructure of the country to be disrupted or shattered by war.

C. There were also things in the book that I was interested to learn more about, even though I had a rudimentary understanding of them before. For one, S chronicles George W. Bush's changing views on foreign policy, as he went from rejecting nation-building, while retaining a tough stance, to embracing nation building. In the early days of the Bush II Administration, long before the Iraq War, Condi Rice even explained on news shows why regime change in Iraq would be a mistake at that point. Second, S discusses the coalition that emerged to support the war in Iraq. The neocons wanted to protect Israel, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the Iraq War as a way to showcase the effectiveness of a lean military. Meanwhile, many Americans, frightened after 9/11, supported the Iraq War as a way to keep the U.S. safe. And Christian conservatives embraced the good vs. evil, pro-Israel stance of neoconservative policy. Third, S strategically evaluates moves that the U.S. made; for S, for example, the surge did not actually work, but more stability emerged in Iraq as different ethnic factions became separated from each other.

D. According to S, the Iraq War was a disaster. It stretched America's military, taking away resources that could have been used to find Osama bin-Laden. Yet, Israel got something that it wanted as a result: disarray among her Arab neighbors. An argument that S did not really engage, as far as I can recall, is that the Iraq War placed Israel even more in peril, since it increased the power of Iran by allowing Iraq to serve as a proxy for Iranian interests.

E. For S, neoconservatism is concerned about the security of Israel. Even its staunch Cold War policy is rooted in that concern, since the U.S.S.R. tended to support Arabs over the Israelis. S acknowledges, though, that there is more to neoconservatism that that. Neoconservatives supported a strong U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia during the Clinton Administration, and neoconservatism also maintains stances on domestic issues, such as welfare.

F. S is sensitive to any charges of anti-Semitism that may be launched against his book. He emphatically denies that he is saying there was a Jewish conspiracy to get the U.S. into Iraq, for he observes that many Jews opposed the Iraq War. Moreover, S does not exactly present the U.S. government as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), for the neoconservatives were long on the margins prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Even under Bush II, the traditional national security and intelligence apparatus was critical of the Iraq War, preferring more multilateralism and a focus on stability in the Middle East. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), long a bogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists, also had reservations about the Iraq War.

G. S largely depicts the Likud party in Israel, and neoconservatives, as supporting Israel's security as a nation, her protection, if you will. At the same time, S argues that Israel in 2006 was acting aggressively rather than defensively in its invasion of Lebanon, for Lebanon had coveted water-supplies.

H. Near the end of the Iraq War, S demonstrates, neoconservatives were calling on the U.S. to take an aggressive stance against Iran, going so far as to bomb the country. That, of course, is an issue that remains relevant today. S probably regards such a move as a mistake. At the same time, he can understand why Israel would be apprehensive about a nuclear-armed Iran. He thinks that Ahmadinejad has been incorrectly understood to say that Israel should be wiped off the map, but S still acknowledges that a powerful Iran could provide more support to the Palestinians, which would trouble Israel. Although S understands this, he seems to scorn the idea that Israel should get everything she wants and have hegemony.

I. S is open to the possibility that neoconservatives believe that their support for Israel is perfectly consistent with America's well-being. As S observes, the U.S. government since its founding has had people who believe that partisanship towards a certain nation -- -Britain or France -- -is not only good for its own sake but serves the interests of the United States. S disputes, however, that neoconservative policy is the only way to help the U.S. Could not one argue, after all, that the U.S. would want to be on the Arabs' good side, with all the oil the Arabs have? This analysis may be a little dated, since the U.S. now has some alternative sources of energy (fracking), but S makes this point in evaluating the historical stance of neoconservatism.

Philip Collier , September 10, 2014
silence is deafening by Philip Collier

I was interested to see the reviews of this book. Usually if any book suggests that Israel is less than perfect a group of Zionist fanatics surface with several reviews telling us that there nothing wrong Israel or American support of it.

Remarkably there is only one negative review of this book which has to be seen to be believed. This reviewer "yoda" from Israel charges in all seriousness that Sniegoski does not provide evidence that the neoconservatives are "predominantly Jewish " and are " strongly aligned with Israel". Asking the author to provide evidence for such
assertions is like asking him to give evidence that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow .

This is I believe the real reason that that there are relatively few attacks on this book.The author does not engage in shrill denunciations of Israel or of the neoconservatives . What he does do is quote at length what neocoservstives say and provide careful documentation for any factual claims. For the most part the reader is allowed to draw his own conclusions. Should the US continue to finance Israeli repression of Palestinians and perhaps go to war against Iran or anyone else who might object to Israeli policie?

Instead of denouncing Sniegoski "Yoda" should consider the sane Israelis in his own country . For example former Mossad chief Meir Dagan who said that a war with Iran was the "stupidest idea he had ever heard of." Also moviemaker Emmanuel Dror who interviewed virtually all the former directors of the Shin Bett ( Israel's internal security service ) who all called for disengaging from the occupied territories .

perhaps we all would be better off listening to these Isaelis rather than follow the neoconservatives into another disastrous war on the other side of the world.

T. Marsh , November 1, 2009
Fantastic Horror story, wait. This is real

This is going to be a very strange review coming from me. You see, I wrote a novel called "Other Nations" and well, people that liked it a lot, liked it, but then those that really disliked it disliked it because my "aliens among humans" were nice people, likeable people, even charismatic people, everyday suburban types even, living that kind of life. Among us. Next door, in the next city over. They wanted instead to see the aliens among us portrayed as well, pick your favorite genocidal maniac or mind-controlling dictator or creature so dementedly alien that no sense can be made of it. Well!

There are many types of true horror. The kind that passes itself off as my aliens among us are portrayed, well, I guess some people GET IT - and they liked it.

But I'm not here to push my book. I'm here to push THIS BOOK - because my god, this is REAL, not fantasy, it's REAL, not science fiction. And yes, they are among us with well -

BUY THIS BOOK. If you are too broke to buy it, get it from the library - and by all means - READ IT.

Just hope to whatever god you choose that neocons are removed from governmental influence and that their Amen corner is ignored. Hope to god, because if they suceed in doing the INSANITY they want to do - America will be FINISHED - if it's not finished already due to what these Fifth Columnists have done during the 8 years of Twilight Zone (GWB Rule).

And for those Jewish critics on here that might want to compare these neocon FACTS and the other FACTS openly available to all (which is WHY the book is called the TRANSPARENT cabal) - compare it to the Protocols - they better think twice about that. Becauase, you see, what's in here is real, real facts, provably real facts - and if Jews themselves compare this to the Procols? Some folks might get the idea that maybe that is real too. Perhaps George Soros (who is Jewish) needs to speak LOUDER against the neocons. They are, indeed, crazies, as Colin Powell called them. Crazies.

junglejuice , July 17, 2017
Israel's interests revealed

If you want to have an eye opener then read and see who were those Jewish players working and influencing everything in the Bush Admin.promoting war with Iraq, then this is your book of truth. The cabal of Jewish players come out of the woodwork in Stephen Sniegoski's great work. When step by step the plan was a clear war map laid out for the U.S. in detail and after you realize just who was working for whom in this criminal cabal of the American government.

When you have Jewish control of the main stream media and Jewish control in Washington, D.C., don't wonder why the facts were omitted to make all the right connections for the public to see in this lead up to a war from lies.

[Nov 30, 2019] Video How the U.S. Caused the Breakup of the Soviet Union - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalizat

Nov 30, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Video: How the U.S. Caused the Breakup of the Soviet Union Sean Gervasi 1992 Lecture By Sean Gervasi and Dennis Riches Global Research, November 30, 2019 Region: Russia and FSU , USA Theme: History

We bring to the attention of Global Research readers the text of an unpublished Lecture delivered in 1992 by the late Sean Gervasi on the history of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the US Strategy formulated during World War II to bring down the USSR.

The full transcript and video of Sean Gervasi's presentation is preceded by Dennis Riches Introduction

Scroll down for the Video

Introduction

We defeated totalitarianism and won a war in the Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously We worked together in a completely bipartisan way to bring down communism So now we have to use our political processes in our democracy, and then decide to act together to solve those problems. But we have to have a different perspective on this one. It [global warming] is different from any problem we have ever faced before [i] – Al Gore

These words above were spoken by former US vice-president Al Gore in 2007 in his film An Inconvenient Truth . Because audiences at the time were in rapt awe of him, treating him as a savior in the campaign to solve the global warming crisis, they never seemed to reflect on the outrageous assumptions underlying his comments about "defeating totalitarianism" and "bringing down communism." These are worth examining for what they say about perceptions of world history among the American political class, and they even hint at how the errors in these perceptions led Mr. Gore to being self-deceived about what would be necessary to solve the problem he has devoted himself to since he has been out of power.

Although the United States played a crucial role in WWII, it was slow to get involved and it let the Soviet Union do much of the heavy lifting and suffer the heaviest losses. The United States had a lot of help in achieving the victory Mr. Gore claims for America, and we could assume he knows this, so the way he chose to describe historical events is telling.

Perhaps acknowledging the reality would have detracted from his second point about "bringing down communism." Everyone knows that what he is referring to so proudly is the destabilization and destruction of the USSR, the Warsaw bloc nations, and Yugoslavia, not the abstract notion of communism. He is referring to a "victory" which precipitated civil wars and a disastrous collapse of the economy and social welfare systems in these countries, one that killed and impoverished millions. In China, Cuba and the DPRK, contrary to what he stated, these nations' versions of socialism haven't been brought down at all. [1992]

Explicitly describing the "bringing down of communism" as America's deliberate actions to dismantle the USSR might run the risk of reminding the audience about the illegality of interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, and it might have reminded people of what a betrayal this was of America's WWII ally and partner in the détente of the 1970s. The inconvenient truth is that the USSR was the WWII ally that played a crucial role in the victory that Mr. Gore claimed solely for America.

Nonetheless, the comment about "bringing down communism" is refreshingly, and maybe accidentally, very honest. Most descriptions of the Soviet collapse, even those done by historians specializing in this field, pay little attention to American efforts to undermine the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. The political class always denied that America had a plan to dismantle the USSR, and denied having any significant influence on events which they claim arose from domestic causes. If America's influence is addressed at all, it is considered as a matter of speculation, a mystery hardly worth thinking about when one can more easily look at the dramatic events that occurred on the surface within the Soviet Union in the last decade of its existence. The following transcript of the lecture by Sean Gervasi, delivered in 1992, shortly after the collapse, is unique and valuable for what it reveals about the significant, and perhaps decisive, American role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In his conclusion, Mr. Gervasi came to this judgment:

The Soviet Union today, in the absence of this extraordinarily crafty, well-thought-out, extremely costly strategy deployed by the Reagan administration, would be a society struggling through great difficulties. It would still be a socialist society, at least of the kind that it was. It would be far from perfect, but it would still be there, and I think, therefore, that Western intervention made a crucial difference in this situation."

The journey to how he came to this conclusion is well worth the reader's time.

A final comment about Mr. Gore's remarks: He is oblivious to the inconvenient solution that has been staring him in the face all these years: that the necessary reduction of carbon emissions will require severe constraints on capitalism, a thesis developed by Jason W. Moore in Capitalism in the Web of Life .[ii] Mr. Gore should know that a radical solution is needed. In his recent sequel to An Inconvenient Truth he complains about the undue influence of "money in politics" that has gotten so much worse over the last ten years, but that's as deep as the class analysis and ideological exploration can go in America. He evinces no awareness of the historical figures who developed answers to the problem of unaccountable private control of a nation's government, resources and productive capacities. Gore is still proud of having actively worked against a revolution in human affairs that aimed to curtail the savage capitalism that led to the present ecological catastrophe.

In spite of the flaws one might see in what the Soviet Union actually became, flaws that arose to a great extent because it had to fight against external threats throughout its existence, the goals of the revolution of 1917 are still relevant to the crises of the 21st century, and this is what makes Sean Gervasi's research so valuable now, after a quarter century in which America doubled down on its "winning ways" and worsened the crises that were evident long ago in 1992.

About Sean Gervasi

Sean Gervasi (1933-1996) spent the latter part of his career exposing the role of the United States and Western powers in the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia. He was working on a book,Balkan Roulette, at the time of his death.

Gervasi was an economist trained at the University of Geneva, Oxford and Cornell. His political career began when he took a post as an economic adviser in the Kennedy administration. He resigned in protest after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

After his resignation, Gervasi was never able to get work again in the United States as an economist, despite his impressive academic credentials. He became a lecturer at the London School of Economics after leaving Washington. Notwithstanding his great popularity, the school refused to renew his contract in 1965.

During the 1970s and 1980s he was an adviser to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East, helping them navigate the hostile and predatory world of transnational corporations and megabanks. He also worked for the UN Committee on Apartheid and the UN Commission on Namibia.

In addition, Gervasi was a journalist, contributing to a wide range of publications, from the New York Amsterdam News to Le Monde Diplomatique . He was a frequent commentator on the listener-supported Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York. In 1976, Gervasi broke the story of how the U.S. government was secretly arming the apartheid regime in South Africa.

In the late 1980s, Gervasi began to focus on the Cold War and what he called the "full court press," a basketball term for a highly aggressive "all in" strategy. In an article published in the Covert Action Information Bulletin in early 1991[iii], when the breakup of the USSR was imminent, Gervasi showed how the Reagan administration's strategy of economic isolation, a gargantuan arms buildup with the threat of a nuclear attack, overt funding of internal dissent, and CIA-directed sabotage had been decisive in bringing down the USSR. Gervasi backed up his analysis with careful scholarship and documentation.

Gervasi was widely respected as a leading independent figure in the left, but his views were contrary to the fashionable dogma that attributed the USSR's collapse almost exclusively to such things as failures of leadership, centralization of the economy, the black market, Chernobyl, or independence movements, and not to external hostility. These are the subjects which he addressed in the following lecture given to a small audience in January 1992. The lecture can still be found on internet video sites, but the thesis of this lecture still remains marginal and obscure two decades later, even though it is highly pertinent to the Cold War replay that is underway in the second decade of the 21st century -- one in which Russia stands accused of turning the tables and doing a comparatively very tame version of the propaganda war waged on the USSR in the 1980s.

After 1992, Gervasi focused his attention on the breakup of Yugoslavia, which he discovered was a replay of the strategy used to break up the Soviet Union. He became active in exposing the role of external powers, particularly the U.S. and German governments, in fomenting the civil war in the Balkans. His view that the war in Bosnia was sparked by the aggressive machinations these nations, and not age-old ethnic rivalries, alienated Gervasi from much of the liberal and progressive movement. Journals to which he had once regularly contributed would no longer print his articles. He had great difficulty finding a publisher for his book on the Balkans, but some of his research on this topic can be found in the article "Why Is NATO In Yugoslavia?"[iv] published by Global Research in 2001.[v]

Dennis Riches, November 2017

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VIDEO

Scroll down for the full Transcript

https://www.youtube.com/embed/b9_aYcpxClA

Byline of the video:

Propaganda expert reveals details in 1992 of RAND Think Tank plan under Reagan to bring down USSR, the major socialist challenge to capitalism in crisis, called Operation Full Court Press when announced at a Reagan limited invitee press conference upon its launch. It involved targeting mid-level Soviet bureaucrats with publications and Air America broadcasts pointing to problems they were facing having better outcomes in the US, military provocations when they were considering their budget in order to spend them into bankruptcy, luring them into Afghanistan followed by arming the Mujahadeen with surface to air missiles and such; and fanning flames of ethnic rivalries within the Soviet Union, like by sending publication equipment to Baltic ethnic groups.

In first 20 minutes Sean prophetically lays out the impending crisis of capitalism that drives their urgency to stamp out socialist competition. Sean died under mysterious circumstances in Belgrad where he had set up shop pointing out a PR effort in the US Congress by Ruder Finn hired by Croats and Kosovo Albanians to start a US war against Yugoslavia for their secession.

Event January 26, 1992 arranged by Connie Hogarth of WESPAC, Camera: Beth Lamont

Transcript

(edited by Dennis Riches)

Introduction

I've been speaking in the last year or so about developments in the Soviet Union from the perspective of a person who follows the workings of the Western intelligence agencies, something in which I was tutored while I was working at the United Nations, and was on the receiving end of quite a lot of that activity.

That is an important theme that one needs to look at: the role of the West in developments which have taken place in the Soviet Union, and it's one that I've been focusing on, but of course the wider and more important issue is: how shall we understand the meaning of events in the Soviet Union in the last five, six, ten years? That's really the critical question.

As you know, the developments, particularly the end or collapse of communist rule in the Soviet Union, and finally the breakup of the Soviet Union itself, have been presented in our media insistently and incessantly as evidence that socialism or social democracy, or what-have-you, which we'll discuss, is unworkable. And this, of course, in tandem with the theme which has been disseminated so energetically by these same people in the last decade, that capitalism:

  1. a) is more or less the same thing as democracy, and
  2. b) must be seen as the core and triumphant achievement of Western civilization

Hence the thesis that this is the end of history, that we have achieved everything that there is to achieve, that the present system of institutions in which we live in the West represents the pinnacle of human capacities, intellectually and organizationally, and is the best of all possible worlds.

That's the thesis, or those are the twin theses which surround us and which have been, I think, creating an enormous amount of confusion and consternation because I think people sense there is something wrong with this idea, and the effort to close off all discussion about alternatives to, what I would term, our "regime" in the United States today, and possibly in Western Europe, which is a moving backward from the more enlightened and liberal capitalism, liberal democracy and capitalism, which evolved after the Second World War in Western Europe and the United States.

We are today, I think, living in an irrational and savage capitalism of the 19th-century variety, which for particular reasons, people who have power in this society either have acceded to or have energetically worked to institute.

Part 1 The Crisis in the United States

The question is whether this great wave of propaganda makes any sense, and so I think we should examine whether the idea that socialism and alternatives to raw capitalism are impossible, undesirable, and unworkable. I think we have to look at that in two ways. First of all, we have to examine our own situation in the United States, historically, and we have to also, I think, look at what has happened in the Soviet Union because what has happened in the Soviet Union is really very different from what we are told by the mass media. We have not merely witnessed a collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. We have seen something really very different, but it has been systematically misrepresented in the Western media.

I would start then with examining the basic proposition. I would start by examining our situation in the United States today, and I'd frankly start with Charles Beard's interpretation of the American Constitution .

There's a great deal of misunderstanding about the kind of society that American democracy really represents, and that misunderstanding is both historical and contemporary. There is a tremendous tension which we are all aware of in our society. It is a tension between egalitarianism and inequality. It is a tension born of the evolution in the in the 16th, 17th and 18th century in England, and the transfer of a particular kind of society onto American soil through British political traditions, notwithstanding our rebellion as colonists at the end of the 18th century. And that is the particular set of institutions known as liberal democracy. Liberal democracy is a combination of parliamentary government and capitalism, and liberal democracy inevitably, therefore, contains some very serious tensions because the progressive development of parliamentary democracy has tended to give greater and greater scope to the principle of equality in human life and politics. That's why in the course of British 19th century political development there was a progressive expansion of the franchise. And that's why in the United States there was also an expansion of the franchise. The United States did not have the same encumbering property qualifications in the beginning, although we did have property qualifications in the 18th century in the United States, but eventually we had the full franchise extended to all adults, and we've been redefining adults most recently. We've dropped the level of political maturity or political enfranchisement to 18 years.

Capitalism, on the contrary, is a system of economic and social institutions based on the principle of inequality, and there's a rationale for that inequality which also comes from the 18th century, but the idea, essentially, is that it makes sense from the point of view of efficiency, and indeed equity, given all the considerations that one must take into account, to have a society based on the unequal distribution of property organized around that institution, to have an economy based on private property because, in the final analysis, it is most efficient, and in the long run holds the greatest promise of continuous progress. By the way, that's an argument that Marx made at a certain point -- that at a certain stage of history a capitalist society is extremely progressive, that it gathers the technical capacities of mankind, personkind, and develops them and accumulates and accumulates until it creates something new, which we won't talk about just now.

But historically and currently in the United States we very strongly sense this tension so that we go back and forth between periods when we have enormous pressures to give predominance to the principle of inequality, to pay attention to the rights of property, and periods when egalitarian tendencies have been very strong. For instance, as in the turn of the century during the expansive phase of American populism and during the antitrust of the great popular movements that sought -- not just popular -- but that sought to contain the power of the cartels and the trusts in the United States. And today we sense that too. We passed the law in 1946 that's called the Employment Act. By the way, it's not called the Full Employment Act. You have to remember that legislation. And yet we realize that our adherence to the principle of full employment was tenuous even in the 25 years which followed the Second World War, and completely spurious today. Why is that? It's because of this tremendous tension between the realities of power under capitalism and the rather fragile hold which democratic principles and institutions have on that power.

Let's go back to the Constitution and the Philadelphia Convention. I've been rereading Beard and I'm very impressed by his grasp of who predominates really in this delicate balance in liberal democracy between the principles of egalitarianism, the principles of parliamentary democracy and the enormous concentration of power, which even then was inherent in the dominance of the institutions of private property. Beard's argument essentially is that in the final analysis a small group of men, whom he refers to as one-sixth of the adult male population -- the only people who ratified the Constitution, the participants in the ratifying conventions who voted positively for the Constitution -- represented one-sixth of the adult male population. That is to say 8% of the adult population in today's terms. Against our values that represents 8% of today's population -- the equivalent.

Now, what was obtained in that framing of the Constitution? What was obtained was a system of political science, a system of government which was so structured as to ensure the dominance of private property, the power of private property in any contention between the forces of democracy and the forces of private property, and the forces of inequality, if you like, so that the structure which constitutes, at the founding of this republic, which constitutes the framework within which we operate today, is one which ensures that predominance.

I know that Beard has been attacked by many people, and it's perfectly understandable when you read Beard carefully, but it seems to me that today Beard becomes more illuminating. Why? I say I pay attention to the Constitution, to the Philadelphia Convention, to its ratification, to the numbers who ratified it and to the purposes which they saw themselves as furthering by their framing and ratification of this constitution because that is the framework within which the United States experienced the most successful and untrammeled Industrial Revolution in the history of mankind. Untrammeled. We had a straight run of industrialization which was the first to transform the condition of man in human society, by which I mean something very, very specific. And here I speak to things which were said by people like [ John Maynard] Keynes , by people like [ Joseph Alois] Schumpeter , but really ignored because they're extremely uncomfortable.

The rationalization for inequality in the institution of private property, in the thinking of eighteenth century philosophers, was that property had to be shared unequally and income had to be unequal because this inequality provided incentives which would constitute a constant assurance of the drive to the expansion of production. That was the rationalization, but in the 20th century, according to the economic historians and according to people like Keynes, countries like the United States and Great Britain began to end, began to transform the historical situation within which these institutions were conceived. How? By developing such a capacity to produce that gradually more and more numbers were lifted out of anything which could be historically or comparatively called poverty so that scarcity, which dominates the reasoning of economists, was really beginning to end in many respects. And Joseph Schumpeter was able to say, for instance, in 1928, that if economic growth continued in the United States for another 50 years we would see in 1978 the end of anything that could reasonably be called poverty.

Now that didn't quite happen. That didn't quite happen because of the enormous influence of inequality in the distribution of this productive abundance. But what it did transform was the lives of many, many people, and it transformed everyday life and the historical condition. Look between 1870 and 1970 at how the number of hours that the average American works falls. In the period between 1945 and 1970, per capita production trebled, just in that period, and we already had a huge industrial base at that time, so I would argue [agree], with Galbraith, who -- because he was right was vilified and ignored by the economist profession and studiously made little of by the mass media -- that indeed America began to be transformed with the success of its enormous industrial revolution by the end of the period after 1865, when really heavy industrialization began to take place. And indeed I would argue that the reason for the Great Depression was that the United States had lost the ability to continue to absorb everything that it could produce in an adequate way, given the institutions of the time.

So what happened then was that within this framework, which is the same framework conceived by the James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. To further the purposes of property and to insure against what Madison called "the leveling attacks of democracy," we have industrialization enhance the expansion of an enormous power, which is the power that controls the machinery and the resources of that productive system. That is to say large corporations. The largest 500 corporations in the United States today, plus the largest 500 banks and the largest 50 financial corporations control more resources than the Soviet planners ever dreamed of controlling. The control of those resources, which is made invisible by the clever workings of economists, inheres in the ability to make investment decisions. Investment decisions are the key decisions in any economic system. The power to make those decisions is the power to continuously transform and to determine the terms of everyday life among human beings in any society. That power is not only invisible in our system of thought, carefully hidden by the descendants of the 18th century philosophers, but it is also totally unaccountable.

Now maybe you could say, and we did say this between 1945 and 1975:

"OK this is a contradiction of democracy. This is the inheritance from the Philadelphia Convention, the Constitution in its ratification and the dominance of this one-sixth of the male adult population in 1789, but this system is so productive that we can alleviate the resulting social and political tensions by raising the standard of living of ordinary folks."

And that was the whole philosophy of the sophisticated American leadership in the first generation after the Second World War. That was the philosophy of the Rockefellers when they talked about the new enlightened capitalism of 20th century. Capitalism could deliver the goods and hence people would be content, despite the fact that the realities of power born at the end of the 18th century, and essentially enhanced by the enormous accumulation of power represented by industrialization and the growth of large corporations and their concentrated power in the economy. We could live with that because the United States economy was so productive.

Now, that's our history, and the tremendous tension of our situation today as contrasted with the post-war period because one thing is very clear today: that for 20 years in the United States this system has not been working. There has been a systematic retreat from full employment, high wages, advancing standards of living, security in one's job, and the advance of the welfare state. We have systematically been retreating from those things so that we have higher and higher official and real unemployment, which of course is about double the official unemployment -- and the statisticians work very hard to hide the realities of life.

Sean Gervasi

Between 1977 and 1992, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 70% of American families have seen their after-tax income fall. 70%! In the lower ranges of the income distribution those falls are quite sharp. Purchasing power falls by twenty 20.8% for the poorest fifth, by something like 12% for the next fifth, by something like 11% for the third fifth, and by smaller amounts for those in the middle of the income distribution system. So I would say that that represents, and people are increasingly becoming aware of it, a collapse of the American standard of living. And this collapse of the American standard of living is related to a gradual economic decline which is causing the post-war system, as we have known it in the United States between 1945 and 1970, to begin to disintegrate. And I think this is the reality of what is happening so that today even according to Wall Street forecasters like the Levies, attached to Bard College up here in the county, we are facing what they call a contained depression, which may be worse than the kind of depression we saw in the 1930s because the stabilizing role of the government makes it possible not to avoid some of the awful horrors that occurred in the depression, but to diminish them to a degree which makes them almost invisible.

So we have a very tense situation. I ask you to reflect on that when we confront the enormous economic difficulties from which there follow all kinds of social problems in our society today which we face. These are connected to, and, if you like, made possible by the arrangements conceived by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton . If this crisis which we have been living in for 20 years, and have become more acutely aware of in the last 10, is intractable, it is, above all, intractable because of this invisible concentrated power which exists today after industrial growth -- the rise of the large corporations in the framework conceived by Madison, Hamilton and the other Federalists.

So if you want to argue today that we need to reconsider this framework, you run into very fundamental problems. You run into the problem that the Constitution is treated like an icon, that people are unaware that the preamble to the Declaration of Independence is not the law of the United States, that people are unaware of the fact that the Bill of Rights, which is supposed to compensate for some of the failings of our constitutional system, has been systematically shredded by the two most recent administrations. Witness William Kunstler and his remarkable talks on what has happened to the Bill of Rights in the last ten years.

Part 2 The Crisis in the Soviet Union

Now, let's get to the Soviet Union, keeping in mind always that it is against this background of crisis and the intractability of crisis, and it's rooting in the historical origins of the Constitution that we are asked, that we are invited -- without anybody saying that that's the background -- that we are invited to ponder the proposition that there is no alternative to the kind of capitalism that we have, and that this capitalism is the quintessence of democracy.

Now let us look at that proposition against a second set of data, if you like, which is supposed to prove the case that there was socialism in the Soviet Union, that the Soviet Union then, along with its Eastern European partners, collapsed in chaos owing to the essential unworkability of this kind of a system. Let's look at that.

When the Reagan administration came into office we all became aware rather quickly that something new was happening. We should have known that something new was happening because, in fact, the arrival of the Reagan administration in power had been preceded by a very careful build-up which was, in part, visible in the American polity, and that was the emergence of the development and the elaboration of the power of a group which we now call the new right -- people who 20 years ago, 28 years ago in 1964, after Goldwater lost the Republican National Convention. Rockefeller took command of the party that had been relegated to what every major political commentator at the time called the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. These were the people who, particularly in California, were coming out of the walls in the late 1970s, creating foundations, buying chairs of economics at universities. Look at it: the Coors , the Mises , with all of their contacts. These were the people who were building a new group, and the purpose of this group was to put a stop to the kind of systematic democratic entrenchment which they thought had been going on in the 1960s and the 1970s.

In the 1960s and the 1970s, there were three movements: (1) the movement for workers' rights, for unionization, the expansion of unionization, particularly among city employees and for raising wages, and the tremendous industrial disruption that attended the 1960s and the early 1970s in the industrial sector, (2) the civil rights movement, which preceded that, beginning in the late 1950s, and (3) the movement against the war in Vietnam, the war in Vietnam being one of the ways in which this society managed to utilize, in a profitable fashion, its enormous productive capacity without giving it to ordinary folks, without giving its fruits to ordinary folks.

The new right was determined to do something quite new. One of the new things that it did, and Reagan really was not its spokesman because that implies a degree of activity which I think he's incapable of. You can always program a spokesman. I don't think he had the wheels to do that.

Reagan launched, as you know, a massive, serious, intense, ugly confrontation with the Soviet Union, ideologically. At the same time we became aware that there was a significant drive on to re-arm the United States, to throw enormous resources -- ultimately it was in excess of 1.7 trillion dollars during the 1980s -- to throw enormous resources into the military sector, to throw enormous resources into shifting the technology of the military sector to war in space, SDI [Space Defense Initiative], etc. All of those things were on the agenda, but many of us at the time puzzled about this. I remember asking myself, "What is it with these folks? Do these fellows really want a world war? Can they not see that this can be the outcome?"

And I remember those discussions, and I remember when many of you and I on June 12, 1982 were at the demonstration of 750,000 to 1 million people in the center of New York City, which was an expression of the alarm that people felt at this enormous aggressive policy which was coming out of the Reagan administration, which threatened to shred US-Soviet relations.

But in fact, retrospectively, we can see that there was something else behind it, that it was not just irrational madness. There was a bit of that, but there was a rationality to what was being done, and in fact, to understand that, it's important to see that it is connected to every single major line of innovative policy that the Reagan administration developed. It was extremely well thought-out, extremely shrewd. And [it involved] the military buildup and the aggressive rhetoric towards the Soviet Union, the deliberate effort to create difficulties in the relationships between the Soviet Union and the European powers. You remember that in 1982 the United States tried to force the European powers not to accept natural gas from the Soviet Union, to deny shipments of technology to the Soviet Union which would make it possible for the Soviet Union to exploit that natural gas, to earn foreign exchange, etc. It was all part of a very complex strategy, but it was a very clear strategy.

Let me say, though, that many of us, at least I at the time, missed that. We didn't quite comprehend what was going on, but we had in the back our mind flickers that something was wrong. There were people who were saying or hinting clearly at what was happening, and shrewd people, intelligent people who did begin to grasp what was happening.

Let me quote from one or two. Writing in 1982, Joe Fromm , who was then the editor of the United States' US News and World Report , said,

"There was something behind," I'm quoting him, "the shift to a harder line in foreign policy." The US, in fact, seemed to be "waging limited economic warfare against Russia to force the Soviets to reform their political system." That suggests that's a nice journalist, a reasonably liberal journalist at US News and World Report , but Joe then quoted a State Department official saying (actually, a National Security Council official), "The Soviet Union is in deep, deep economic and financial trouble. By squeezing wherever we can, our purpose is to induce the Soviets to reform their system. I think we will see results over the next several years." That's in 1982.

Robert Scheer wrote a book in 1982 called With Enough Shovels: Reagan and Bush and Nuclear War . I think I've got the title almost right. This is a very interesting book in which Scheer saw that there was something behind this enormously aggressive foreign policy, foreign and military policy, that the Reagan administration was deploying. And he saw that the United States was not simply playing nuclear chicken with the Soviet Union, as he put it, but that it was embarked on a policy designed to create such pressure for the Soviet Union as to force changes within the Soviet Union.

Now of course it had always been the case that the Cold War consisted of moves designed to affect the behavior of others. The Cold War, from the point of view of the West, had always aimed at modifying, as the State Department cookie pushers liked to put it in their delicate prose, the behavior of our antagonist. But this, I think you will see, went beyond that because, in fact, the Reagan administration embarked on a policy of many dimensions which included pressure around the world on countries with close ties to the Soviet Union. Insurgencies were initiated in Mozambique, Angola, Cambodia against Vietnam, Nicaragua, and, quite a lot, Afghanistan.

I don't want to get into too many complicated discussions of Afghanistan, but I think anybody who reflects upon the United States' response to the Soviet entry into Afghanistan in 1979 must realize that the United States did not want the Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan, and in fact the purpose of these insurgencies around the world, which as you know, had expended billions of dollars, was to pin the Soviet Union down, and to inflict economic costs upon the Soviet Union. The purpose of the remilitarization in the West was to force the Soviet Union, at the risk of exposing itself to the pressure of escalation, to meet our resource commitments, to defend itself, or to place itself in a position to resist our pressure.

The purpose of escalating the technology of nuclear warfare, again, was to impose costs upon the Soviet Union. [This was ] the purpose of every principled measure, such as withholding advanced technology from the Soviet Union, foreign assistance programs aimed not at assisting countries on the basis of their needs, but on assisting countries on the basis of the contribution they would make to putting pressure on the Soviet Union. All of these things were part of a systematic strategy designed to create havoc in the Soviet Union.

Now I'll say a little bit more about what the purpose of that was, but first let me point out that this is a systematic strategy consisting of a number of pieces, and that it did pose enormous economic and other costs upon the Soviet Union.

But who is Gervasi [the speaker] to say that this is so, beyond quoting Joseph Fromm? Well, let me tell you a little bit about an interesting experience I had. I had lunch one day with a friend who was passing through the United States, who had been in jail in South Africa for eight years, and had just got out. He had been engaged in planning one of the principal sabotage operations against the South African nuclear installations, and he was very happy to be out of jail. We sat at lunch and he said to me -- we talked about many things, mostly about Africa which he and I had worked on together -- and he said to me,

"What's going on in the Soviet Union?" I said to him, "Well, you know, I really can't figure this out. I can't figure out what's going on." He said, "It seems to me that the Soviet Union is being destabilized." "My goodness," I say to myself quietly.

The thought had never passed my mind, but when my friend, Christie, said this I thought I should look into this, and I did.

The first thing I found was I spent a little bit of time on a computer and some things came up, and I said that looks very interesting. Within a very short time I had discovered reams of material being generated at the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s by organizations like the RAND Corporation. You know what the RAND Corporation is. It's an Air Force/CIA contracting agency in Southern California, very large, very powerful, very influential in the so-called intellectual defense community, the military industrial complex, and in Washington. People go back and forth from the CIA, from the DIA to the State Department to the RAND Corporation. And what were the chaps at the RAND Corporation doing? Well, they were producing very interesting studies with titles like Economic Factors Affecting Soviet Foreign and Defense Policy : A Summary Outline , The Costs of the Soviet Empire , Sitting on Bayonets: the Soviet Defense Burden and Moscow's Economic Dilemma: The Burden of Soviet Defense , Exploiting Fault Lines in the Soviet Empire: Economic Relations with the USSR .

Anyway, I started reading the stuff. First of all, I started collecting it and I started reading this stuff, and I found out something very interesting: that these fellows at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s were clearly fashioning a plan in which we began to see the pieces of in the emerging parts of foreign and military policy, foreign and military and economic policy under the Reagan administration. And the basic reasoning of this plan -- I'll give it to you -- is as follows: the Soviet Union was in a dual crisis. They knew what was going on in Soviet Union. Economic growth in the Soviet Union had begun to slow down. It had been very rapid, by the way, in the period from 1950 to the early 1970s. Between 1960 and 1984 per capita income and per capita production in the Soviet Union trebled, so it wasn't slow. That was a 4 or 5% rate of growth, very rapid considering that we're growing at about 1.5 which, is about, by the way, equivalent to the rate of growth on average during the decade of the 1930s in the United States.

Now, what I found out was that they also understood there was a leadership crisis in the Soviet Union. The old line of principal Soviet leaders born in the early stages of Soviet redevelopment after the Revolution, formed in the Second World War -- that leadership was dying out, as we all knew. And in fact Mikhail Gorbachev , selected by Andrei Gromyko , was the first representative of a new generation of Soviet leaders, but in the late 70s and early 80s, people were dying. The major figures Andropov, Chernenko and Brezhnev, were dying, and there was a very great confusion about succession. So the country was in a kind of crisis. The CIA calls it a dual crisis, a leadership crisis, not knowing to which new people of a new generation the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet Union should pass, and at the same time a beginning of faltering of economic growth, which was serious because since the Soviet Union had to always, like any country, choose between investing, competing in the arms race, and raising the standard of living of its population. The fact that economic growth fell off made that more difficult.

Now the next step in the reasoning of the RAND Corporation, gentlemen and ladies from the RAND Corporation, was that the United States and its allies could take various actions which would force the Soviet Union to increase its defense spending and its military assistance to allies and friends. They could take measures to deny the Soviet Union credits, which they did, and to deny it technology. They could also take measures which would reduce the overall volume of resources available to the Soviet Union and hold back the growth of productivity, which would exacerbate the problem, or force them to shift resources from consumers to investment. And [they knew] that all of these effects would (to quote them) "aggravate the difficulties confronting the Soviet leadership in a stagnant economy. So, a combination of these measures to impose costs on the Soviet Union could be expected to lead to falling investment and/or living standards, and such measures consequently might generate pressures within the Soviet Union for withdrawing from the world stage, and for political reform."

So the purpose of this operation, which I will try to define more clearly in a moment, was to impose, in a variety of ways, enormous costs on the Soviet Union, or to reduce the resources available to them in such a way as to exacerbate their economic difficulties. Let me quote from Abraham Becker , one of the shrewder Rand analysts:

Thus the Reagan administration seized Soviet economic troubles as an opportunity to complicate further their resource allocation difficulties dilemma, in the hope that additional pressures would result in a reallocation of resources away from defense, or would push the economy in the directions of economic and political reform.

The purpose of this new aggressive multi-dimensional strategy was to force reform upon the Soviet Union. What that reform was to be is a later chapter. Now, it's one thing to say that these plans exist, and I'll talk about other plans. For instance, I managed to pull together a collection of documents from the National Endowment for Democracy, which as you know, is supposed to be a quasi-government institution. It's not a quasi-government institution. It's funded by Congress. It's a government institution funded by Congress, which sees it to be its business to "promote democracy outside the United States" in the rest of the world, where by "democracy" one means essentially, and when you come down to it it's clear now in the Soviet Union, "capitalism" and "liberal democracy," if you like [the latter term].

Now, it's one thing of course to talk about all this planning, to try on your own to reason that all of these things fit together, but in fact we began to get official indications and documentation, as early as the spring of 1982, that the government had signed on to this strategy, that this was not the wild thinking of a few eager folks in a few think tanks, that it was policy and that it was policy which the American public knew very little of, did not understand the purposes and consequences of, but would nonetheless be required to pay for to the tune of several trillion dollars, which did indeed help to create the situation in which we presently find ourselves at home, locked in the Philadelphia Convention.

In the spring of 1982 I had spoken to two of the participants in this little meeting. A senior National Security Council official charged with responsibility for Soviet affairs called a number of influential Washington correspondents and asked them to come to the National Security Council for a briefing. Two of them told me that they left this briefing extremely shaken. They didn't want to say too much about it, but they gave me to understand that they thought that this was an extremely aggressive, dangerous, and highly risky strategy which the administration was describing and stating that it was about to embark upon.

Helen Thomas of UPI was one of the people who was in that meeting, and she described the results of the briefing -- this briefing on the Soviet Union -- in the following manner:

A senior White House official said Reagan has approved an eight-page National Security document that undertakes a campaign aimed at internal reform in the Soviet Union and the shrinkage of the Soviet empire. He affirmed that it could be called a full-court press against the Soviet Union.[vi]

A little later, just a few days later, in fact, further evidence, this time quoting official documentation, not hearsay from a briefer at the National Security Council, but quoting official documentation: Richard Halloran, the defense correspondent of The New York Times published an article in that paper on May the 30th of 1982, just a few days really after Helen Thomas sent out her UPI dispatch. Halloran quoted from the fiscal years 1984-1988 Defense Guidance, of which The Times stated that it had a copy.[vii] The Secretary's Guidance Document recommended what Halloran called "a major escalation in the nuclear arms race." Apart from that it indicated that a number of other measures were being taken "to impose costs on the Soviet Union." Note the language is the language of the RAND planners. Some of the same people probably wrote the document. I quote from Halloran's direct quote from the National Guidance document of the Secretary of Defense:

"As a peacetime complement to military strategy, the Guidance Document asserts that the United States and its allies should, in effect, declare economic and technical war on the Soviet Union."

This is interesting. "And so I think," it went on. They wrote,

"to put as much pressure as possible on the Soviet economy already burdened with military expenditure, they should develop weapons that are difficult for the Soviets to counter, impose disproportionate costs, open up new areas of major military competition, and obsolesce," (Nice English. I've put sic in my article) "precious Soviet investments."

So I think it's safe to say, and a number of people prove it to us a little later on, that this policy was instituted. Let me just race ahead to one of the more recent proofs. David Ignatius , who is a correspondent at The Washington Post, published a very remarkable article about "spyless coups" not long ago, in October, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps it was September. Ignatius is a correspondent with very close ties to the intelligence community, to be very polite about it. I quote from his article: "Preparing the ground " This is immediately after the Yeltsin double event of August 1991 in which Mr. Gorbachev was seemingly threatened by a coup and in which Mr. Yeltsin did not seem to take power but did. He described the event in this way:

Preparing the ground for last month's triumph was a network of overt operatives who, during the last ten years, have quietly been changing the rules of international politics. They have been doing in public what the CIA used to do in private, providing money and moral support for pro-democracy groups, training resistance fighters, working to subvert communist rule.[viii]

Could he have written that in The Washington Post in 1982? It's difficult, I would have thought. It might not have passed muster. Some people might have noticed, but in 1991, evidently, it was all right to say that this is what we were doing.[ix]

If you look very carefully you can find many traces by officials stating that the United States had embarked upon a strategy which, retrospectively, it is very clear, was nothing more and nothing less than a strategy to destabilize the Soviet Union. Mr. Casey's magnificent and expansive imagination had carried covert operations beyond the narrow confines of Third World countries and aimed them at the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. If you go back and look at the history of these events in this perspective, reading some of the documents, you'll see things very differently

Judd Clark [name indistinct, spelling uncertain], for instance, speaking at a private seminar at Georgetown University, again around 1982, said,

"We must force our principle adversary, the Soviet Union, to bear the brunt of its economic shortcomings."

Well, that's slightly veiled language that means the same sort of thing that everybody else was saying. It wasn't, though, until 1985, that the redoubtable and incomparable Jeane Kirkpatrick appeared on the stage with the full text of the play in hand, and she gave a speech, not surprisingly in front of the Heritage Foundation, at a conference room on Capitol Hill in which she said, "The Reagan doctrine, as I understand it, is about our relations with the Soviet Union," and she then described every principal element of the strategy which Helen Thomas in 1982 called, repeating the NSC briefer's statement, "a full-court press against the Soviet Union."

If you read her speech to the Heritage Foundation, which everybody should read because it was 1985, she was saying that the United States is bent upon a strategy aimed at overthrowing the Soviet Union through internal and external pressures. She principally described the external pressure.

I want to say a little bit about the debate over the internal pressure. Again, in 1982, there was a nasty little debate between some members of Congress and the then-Secretary of State General Alexander Haig . Mr. Haig was very anxious that the United States should embark upon the program which Ronald Reagan was going to describe before the British Parliament in June 1982, at just about the time most of us were going to be in the streets of New York to protest some of the things that he was doing. And Hague said in the debate over the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, which the Congress had insisted should not spill over into efforts to meddle in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, Mr. Haig said,

"Just as the Soviet Union gives active support to Marxist-Leninist forces in the West and the [Global] South " [ironic commentary:] (because it owns Newsweek , for instance and it manipulates the Columbia Broadcasting Company such enormous power the Soviet Union has in the West) " we must give vigorous support to democratic forces wherever they are located, including countries which are now communist. We should not hesitate to promote our own values, knowing that the freedom and dignity of man are the ideals that motivate the quest for social justice. A free press, free trade unions, free political parties, freedom to travel, and freedom to create are the ingredients of the democratic revolution of the future, not the status quo of a failed past."

The founder of the Central Intelligence Agency said that propaganda is the first arrow of battle. A statement by Alexander Haig in 1982 to the Congress signals what the United States would attempt to do with the National Endowment for Democracy, that it would try to create and participate in the creation of [a false narrative of ] a failed past in the Soviet Union. And, in fact, as you know, all that went ahead.

Now, let's look at that for a second. I know that it's very difficult to believe this. I ask you to look at the second of the articles which I read, or to search for what I've written. You can read it and search for some of the documentation easily available. You will find that the mission statement of the National Endowment for Democracy, which functions as a kind of consortium bringing many of the pressures of the US government to bear inside the Soviet Union.

Destabilization requires external pressure and a manipulation of the internal situation to move political developments in the direction you desire. That's what targeting a country for destabilization involves. We deprive Cuba of sugar, of medicines etc. and that creates internal pressure, and utilizing the internal pressure, you insert yourself, create groups, diffuse ideas which are inconsistent with those prevailing and suitable to power, and you begin to work on that discontent. If the discontent deepens and spreads, you get better and better odds, and because the Soviet Union was already in a kind of crisis, which, as Abraham Becker said,

"the United States then systematically sought to intensify and exacerbate."

The National Endowment for Democracy and literally dozens and dozens of pseudo-private foundations, which I'll talk about in a second, went into the Soviet Union under the new umbrella of glasnost, created academic presses, created newspapers, created radio stations, and began to mobilize and to work upon the natural dissent and discontent that existed in the Soviet Union, not only because of the historical past but also because of the difficulties of the present as exacerbated by the United States and its Western partners.

If you look at how much money I'll just give you an idea of some of the projects that were involved, and this is just one agency. You have to recognize that if this was going on in the National Endowment for Democracy that there were many, many other channels of finance and influence into the Soviet Union that were working on this.

For instance, in 1984 the NED gave $50,000 to a book exhibit in the Soviet Union: America through American Eyes. At the book fair in 1985 (I mean I'm just selecting [a few]): $70,000 via the Free Trade Union Institute, which is part of the National Endowment, to Soviet Labor Review for research in publications on Soviet trade union and worker rights.

In 1986, $84,000 to Freedom House to expand the operations of two Russian language journals published in the US and distributed in the higher levels of the Soviet bureaucracy and intelligentsia, already an arresting description. Imagine the Soviet Union publishing two English-language journals in the Soviet Union during the 1980s and having them distributed and eagerly read in the highest levels of the United States bureaucracy and intelligentsia. I don't think that would have stuck very well in the United States.

In 1987, Freedom House, for the Athenaeum Press, rushed $55,000 for a Russian-language publication house in Paris to publish unofficial research conducted in the USSR by established scholars writing under pseudonyms. Now what does that mean? If you get down to 1989, we're talking already in the $200,000 category.

For instance, the Center for Democracy, which is related to the National Endowment for Democracy, began to create a center for assistance to independent and nationalist groups, including the Crimean Tatar movement for human and national rights. In other words, they began to finance ethnic and nationalist separatism, began to finance separate trade unions, began to finance their own academics etc., except this is open, but it's very large-scale, very large-scale.

I've done a little calculation and I can tell you that very large amounts of money were being spent, probably on the order of, by all the Western allies, minimum, inside the Soviet Union in the period from the mid to the late 1980s, one hundred million dollars a year -- a hundred million dollars a year to finance organizations which might begin like WESPAC but would then grow, develop, have outreach, which would become extraordinary with that kind of funding, and did finally change things.

If you look at perestroika in the Soviet Union, [we know it started when] Mr. Gorbachev became the Soviet leader. This is the background to the two stages in which we must understand perestroika. In the first stage it was clear that the Soviet leadership was desperate to find a way to renew socialism, that Mr. Gorbachev was bent upon the reformation of the notion of socialism, and that he had widespread support inside the Soviet Union.

There were genuine economic improvements which took place between 1986 and, sort of, let's say, the end of 1988, in the Soviet Union, as a result of those efforts, but the principal question we have to ask ourselves, since today we confront a fragmented, or, if you like, disassembled Soviet Union, the supremacy of nationalism, ethnic conflict, and Mr. Yeltsin -- who represents an extremely right-wing constituency at the present moment -- and the supremacy of capitalism. And a capitalist society is now being created in the Soviet Union, ending Mr. Gorbachev's experiment the crucial question to ask ourselves is a very simple one: how is it that between 1985 and 1990 a movement which began as an attempt to transform and renew socialism in the Soviet Union was supplanted by a right-wing movement aiming at the creation of a capitalist society in the Soviet Union? That is the key question. That is the key question because that's what's happened, and it's strange.

That's why many of us were puzzled about the contradictory evidence coming out of the Khrushchev [ sic ? Brezhnev?] era. It was very difficult to understand. At first, it seemed very positive, and then from the end of 1988, the fall of 1988, it became increasingly clear that things were going to pieces, that Mr. Gorbachev was either not able to control the forces which he had unleashed or that indeed he was bent upon creating, as I heard on the French radio in 1988 for the first time stated very clearly -- it arrested my attention: the purpose, said Mr. [name indistinct], on the radio in his not-bad French, was to create a regulated market economy. That was the purpose of perestroika, not when it began, but somehow something had happened.

In fact there's a lot of very interesting information out there now on the whole process. There was clearly a large dissatisfied set of strata in the Soviet intelligentsia. What has happened in the Soviet Union is more complex than the collapse through its own internal contradictions of the system of socialism in the Soviet Union. I really don't want to talk very much about whether the Soviet Union was a socialist society. There are people who say it was and people who say it wasn't. It's a long discussion between Trotsky and Stalin etc., but for my part I would say this: that the Soviet Union began as a genuine attempt to establish socialism. There were always in the Soviet Union people genuinely seeking to further socialism, and people who didn't give a damn. On balance, the thing we have to ask ourselves is whether the existence of the Soviet Union, as an apparently perceived socialist society, was a positive thing in the world equation at this particular time of history. I, on balance, having spent years in the United Nations, seeing that under the attacks of the Western countries, which in many cases were very ugly, most of the Third World countries which emerged in the late 1950s and 60s and early 70s were really only barely saved by the few sources of support which they got in the socialist world. And when the Soviet Union went down, they went down too; [for example] Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua.

So in many respects I would have thought that the Soviet Union, for all its defects, stood as a positive development in history, with all of the horrors that took place. The United States has had its horrors. The question is this: did the Soviet Union collapse because socialism is unworkable and central planning doesn't work? No, it didn't. There was a crisis in the Soviet Union. I would argue that in the absence of the kind of pressure [that was applied], it's very difficult to weigh the balance. How important were the internal forces? How important were the difficulties experienced internally, and how important was the external pressure and the externally intervening force? How important that balance was is very difficult to get. We have to read through all a lot of intelligence to understand that, to begin to get a grasp of things, but that's our duty as people who are living history, or who seek to understand history. We have to try to do that, and my basic conclusion still at this moment is this: the Soviet Union today, in the absence of this extraordinarily crafty, well-thought-out, extremely costly strategy deployed by the Reagan administration, would be a society struggling through great difficulties. It would still be a socialist society, at least of the kind that it was. It would be far from perfect, but it would still be there, and I think, therefore, that Western intervention made a crucial difference in this situation. That's a judgment.

Conclusion

All right. Now, there is a question irrespective of that: what does it mean that the Soviet Union now has disappeared as a result of the kind of process that I'm talking about, a combination of internal difficulties and external pressure and intervention? Does it mean that socialism doesn't work? Does it mean that [there is no alternative to] the kind of capitalism that we live in today, which I think increasingly of as a return to irrational and savage 19th century capitalism? If you walk through the Bronx and Brooklyn and Harlem, how can you not conclude that we are living in an irrational and savage capitalism in which the leveling attacks of democracy have been dealt with, in which the possibility of remedying that situation by the constitutional means which exist in the normal political channels of our government are very small, that electoral changes, in other words, are not going to be very significant, until there's a mass mobilization of American people to make something happen.

If this is so, then the fact that what has happened in the Soviet Union has happened as it happened has no bearing whatsoever on our problems, and we should not be confused or pushed into consternation by it. Why? Primarily, for a very simple reason: The Soviet Union was conceived at a time when, in Marxist terms, it was not ready. The Soviet Union did not have the material base of abundance which would make it possible to create a society at once egalitarian and democratic because the struggle to create that base would require a degree of repression and authoritarianism, particularly heightened by external intervention and attack, which inevitably would distort the nature of socialism.

I sympathize with Isaac [name indistinct], but I think it's too simple when he says socialism in a backward country is backwards socialism. But the critical fact for us is this: the Soviet Union was a society conceived as a socialist society prior to the creation of the economic base which would permit the creation of a socialist society with ease. We live in a society whose capacity to produce, whose potential abundance is so great that the inability to make use of it is literally tearing this society apart.

We live in a society which is ready, and when I say that, I want to go back to the terms of the discussion on the constitutional conventions. Well, why can't we have economic democracy? What does economic democracy mean? Economic democracy inevitably would mean a number of these things: the accountability of the enormous concentrated power which exists in our society today to public democratic institutions. The planned rational use of resources at the public level, with democratic participation in the same manner that that planned rational use is conceived within the framework of the corporations, where the exercise of those decisions is not accountable. So it seems to me that in our day, when our society is riven by its contradictions, unable to use its abundance, unable to use its productive capacity in a rational, humane and democratic manner, that what is on the agenda today is the democratization of economic power, the rendering accountable of the enormous economic potential and power that exists in our society to make this a better and decent and democratic world.

Voilà.

End of lecture

Question Period

Well, dear friends, first of all, we have to have this serious debate because the real terms of the debate are rendered invisible by the absurd rhetoric and the absurd way in which we speak about ourselves, and by the mass media whose power and determination is to keep the real terms of the debate invisible. The real terms of the debate are: why is this society collapsing? Why does this economic machine not work? Who is responsible? If the people who are responsible are not going to do something about it, let them get the hell out.

Moderator : I know there have got to be lots of questions. We'll allot a certain amount of time. We'll try to recognize everyone.

Question : You've analyzed this quite well, but what does one do to change [the situation]?

Well, I think part of the problem I don't mean to be repetitious but I think that people are clearly immobilized and confused at the moment. I think one of the reasons that people are immobilized and confused is that the proper debate is not out there. It's not possible for people to express what they know from their experience to be true, to assert its truth. The public debate rejects our experience and understanding because the public debate is designed to contain us, to make us accept and even to believe in the superiority of this situation. I think people know what needs to be done out there. In a sense the quintessential problem confronting our country is the enormous concentrated power to shape people's lives, to define discourse, as [name indistinct] pointed out, which is accountable to no one. The democratization of that power means, I think, certainly radical changes in the structure of our society, but ones for which in many respects people are ready and which indeed are supported by most of the values that this society has lived by historically and attests to.

It seems to me it's really quite simple. We don't have democracy in the sense in which we normally understand ourselves to have democracy in which people often speak of us as having. We don't have that. Why do we not have it? Because of this eternal and now much more intensive, much more intense tension that has existed from the beginning between property and democracy, between popular majorities as the Federalists called them, disdainingly, and the rights of property. This now has become an enormous incubus on American society. We have enormous concentrated power for which nobody is accountable, and this is not acceptable. Roger and Me [the documentary film] is a reflection of a sensitivity that says, "We've got to talk about this, Roger. You're responsible for this." So I really think by not knowing these things, not changing the discourse of our lives, and the discourse in the public arena, coming to agreements amongst one another by hard work, by hard discussion, how can we know it's true?

And by the way, I don't think this can be done in the absence of action. That is to say, in a haltingly naive phase of my recent existence, I tried to convince some people in the Congress that we were headed into a really horrible situation, and they didn't want to know. They didn't. They don't want to believe what is uncomfortable for them to believe, so my decision was that you have to go into the trenches, that you have to work on projects that are going to materialize these ideas, that you have to work against plant closings, that you have to work for measures that alleviate the social burdens that exist in a city like New York, that you have to work for things while articulating these ideas because it seems to me it's only in the combination of action and debate of ideas that people will begin to understand the relevance and the necessity of a new discussion. You can't have in that sense -- I cede your point -- you can't have a drawing-room discussion which will prevail.

Certainly the people in the National Endowment for Democracy believe that. They don't just sit back and spend millions of dollars on printing books and making radio tapes and television shows. No. They created new political institutions. They then created new political parties, financing people like Arkady Murashev, the Inter-Regional Group in the Soviet Parliament, until recently. It doesn't exist anymore. The Inter-Regional Group was the group of pseudo-democrats, pro-capitalists, speaking, in many respects for the interests represented in the agglomeration of black market operations in the Soviet Union. Arkady Murashev was systematically cosseted, financed and trained by an organization in Washington very closely tied to certain agencies whose names we don't want to pronounce in the present circumstances. Murashev was a liaison man between Washington and Yeltsin. The National Endowment for Democracy gave $40,000 just for the faxes, and the printing machines and the telephones in the Initiatives Foundation, which was the organization that the Inter-Regional Group used to put out its messages, get itself organized, make contacts, etc. The United States was financing that operation. Arkady Murashev is now the chief of police of the city of Moscow.

This is heavy stuff. I mean, really, it's incredibly dramatic, but we mustn't go on in this vein because there are questions to be answered.

Question : Does every country have to go through this period of savage capitalism to become socialist?

No. I don't believe that. No.

Question: Bush seemed to like Gorbachev. Was Gorbachev foolish? Was he taken for a ride?

These are the great mysteries. There are, as you know, there are a different views. There are different theories about that. One of them is that Gorbachev was a mole, that Gorbachev was a deep-cover or Western intelligence agent. I believe that's exaggerated. I believe that's off the wall, but I do believe that there's an element here that's important to understand.

There was in the Soviet Union, as a result of the very success of the industrialization of the Soviet Union, an enormous alienated set of strata amongst the educated population because the Soviet elite absorbed people at a very small rate. It didn't reach out to large numbers of people. They were educating enormous numbers of people, professional scientific workers, managers, and these people were mostly urban people. They were the fruit, in many respects, of industrialization. At the same time, being urban people, they found themselves trapped in the most difficult conditions in the Soviet Union because in its industrialization the Soviet Union really ignored a lot of problems. Theyfound themselves, in many respects, in a similar situation as the United States, where the decay of urban areas, the lack of equipment, the lack of infrastructure, the lack of adequate facilities for health or education etc. became a real problem. They didn't have the resources to industrialize, to raise the standard of living in the really poor republics of the Soviet Union, and to deal with the urban problem, as we call it in the United States.

So these people were imagine all educated people earning this education and looking upon themselves as deserving of the advantages and prerogatives of their Western counterparts, living in the equivalent of New York City, but earning the wages of a skilled worker. They didn't like it. They felt shut out. They were angry, and it's those people that the neoliberals were recruiting, not just the American neoliberals but their own neoliberals. There were neoliberals in the Soviet Union. There were reactionary people in the Soviet Union this [name indistinct] operation out in Siberia, the so-called sociological think tank. There are people who, I don't know why Perhaps when you become very isolated from the world and separated from reality you conjure up the most amazing dreams in your mind. I think Marx called it idealism. In any case, these people were very much Western idealists and they came, frankly, into Moscow and Leningrad fervent believers in the need to embrace Western institutions because of their frustration, because of their understanding of their own past. Whether it was distorted or not, it's not for me to say. It's because of the way they viewed and felt about their past, because of their own personal frustration, because of the problems which were very real that they experienced by the Soviet leadership, by the Soviet economy and society. They were alienated, and that's where there was recruitment. When economic growth slowed down it made it much worse, and it spread the basis of recruitment very effectively.

There is a collection of essays which I think is quite remarkable and valuable, which gives you some background about the incredible contradictions in the Soviet Union, and how the Soviet Union, in fact, more than a decade and even two decades ago, was in fact being prepared for what is happening. It was ripening for some big bull shaking the tree, which is eventually what happened. That's the collection that The Monthly Review has published recently, After the Fall, something like that. After the Fall of the Soviet Union is really a very valuable collection of essays on the Soviet Union, or whatever it is after communism. Very useful stuff.

Question : Could you talk about Third World countries?

That's a really hard question. I've worked in Third World countries which were socialist countries and which were under attack. I worked in Mozambique in the beginning of the 1980s when the South African-Western-CIA operations were really beginning to [take a toll], and people were dying by the tens of thousands because the roads had been cut, and the supplies had been cut, and the health stations blown up, and I think that it was very hard for them to survive that. Socialism proved very frail in Mozambique, even though the leaders of the revolution had been born in armed struggle, formed by armed struggle, were dedicated to armed struggle, but the society just couldn't withstand that kind of pressure.

In some ways I think that's true of the Soviet Union. There was a war in the shadows waged against the Soviet Union on a massive scale, and what these events prove is the Soviet Union was insufficiently strong to stand up to those pressures, and I think this is all the more true in the Third World. I don't know, but I don't want to say that I know the answer, whether they should try to make that jump or not. I think that will depend on what happens in the Western world. I don't see any reason why the jump couldn't be made if the West, Western Europe and the United States, in particular North America saw [supported] significant transformation of the present system of power. Then it's not a problem, but with this massive opposition coming from the West, it's very difficult to survive.

Question (apparently edited from video recording): __________________

These same people today, and we're talking about within a few months, within the end of the year there being not 50,000 but between six and eight million unemployed people in Russia, 130 million people, labor force of 65 or 70 million, and I saw this same thing happening in East Germany.

I was very briefly in Humboldt University in 1989 or 1990, I can't remember which now. The whole situation was in upheaval, and I saw many intellectuals genuinely enraged by the arrogance of the Honecker regime, and at the same time, unfortunately, completely unaware of what would happen if that regime went down, taking everything, "really existing socialism," with it. And my question would be, OK, it's a question. You know the old version of this question used to be what about Stalin, but it's a little different now.

My problem is this: let's look at it in human terms, OK? Just forget ideology. What has happened as a result of the materialization of the dreams of the so-called reformers and democrats in the Soviet Union? What has happened is what has happened in Poland, and worse: that the standard of living of ordinary people is going to collapse, that old people will be destitute, that children will be without health care, that the transportation system is collapsing, that there will be no food distribution by spring, that people will starve, that there is continuous ethnic conflict. Now, the Soviet system of prices and of raw material supplies were such that enormous quantities that the supply system worked in a way which led to the waste of vast quantities of raw materials and semi-finished products. I mean vast quantities.

So the idea was to go in to work at the enterprise level to create incentives to create better accounting, a system of prices which would reflect the real value of these raw materials and not the fact that they could be replaced anytime you wanted because all you have to do is put an order in. It didn't matter what you did with them. It [the reform] was focused on the enterprise, on profit incentives, and this loosening of the tight bonds on the enterprise, really did lead to a recrudescence of output. For instance, between 1986 and 88 there was a 17% increase in housing production in the Soviet Union. There was a 30% increase in overall production. The production, the economy, accelerated in the period 1986-88. In those three years the economy accelerated, but as I said, there were two stages of perestroika. There was a stage of perestroika where the effects were quite beneficial, where it was clear that perestroika and glasnost were aiming to energize and develop andfree and move forward the Soviet Union.

As a friend of mine said, the only way to ensure the social development of the Soviet Union is to undertake these reforms, but there was another stage, a second stage beginning in late 1988 to, obviously, the end of 1991, where the forces that were unleashed utilized the reform program to destroy socialism, clearly to destroy socialism, and Mr. Gorbachev was either helpless before that or a willing apprentice of that process. I could not pretend to pronounce which of those was the case. It's very difficult to say.

On the other hand, I really don't know how anybody in his right mind could have conceived of the notion that the way forward for the Soviet Union -- and this was the quintessential statement of perestroika by the principle Soviet leaders in the mid-1980s -- the way for the Soviet Union was to integrate the Soviet Union into the world economy. I mean to an economist with any degree of sophistication and critical approach, that is sheer unadulterated madness. It's like saying that the North American free trade agreement will lead to real economic development in Mexico. It's absurd. I mean we know what those processes are. How can a much weaker, less industrialized Soviet Union hope to stand up against the economic forces arrayed against it and capable of penetrating it, once it declares its intention to integrate itself into the world economy? When I heard that, I said, "It's all over, boys. These people don't know that they're doing," and indeed, listening to Soviet economists as I did when I was still teaching in Paris, and meeting with some of these people, until 1989, I got the impression of two things: they had not the least actual understanding of what was going on in the West, and that their theoretical conceptions were taken out of a handbook by Voltaire making fun of the French aristocracy.

Transcript produced by Youtube "auto-caption" speech recognition software, corrected and edited by blog author, Dennis Riches.

Notes

[i] Davis Guggenheim (Director), Al Gore (Writer), "An Inconvenient Truth," Paramount Classics , 2006.

[ii] Jason W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life (Verso, 2015), 267-268. "What is really needed is proper planning of available resources globally, plus a drive, through public investment, to develop new technologies that could work and, of course, a shift out of fossil fuels into renewables. Also, it is not just a problem of carbon and other gas emissions, but of cleaning up the environment, which is already damaged. All these tasks require public control and ownership of the energy and transport industries and public investment in the environment for the public good."

[iii] Sean Gervasi, " Western Intervention in the USSR ," Covert Action Information Bulletin No. 39, Winter 1991-92, 4-9.

[iv] Sean Gervasi, " Why Is NATO In Yugoslavia? " Global Research , September 9, 2001, https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-is-nato-in-yugoslavia/21008 . This paper was presented by Sean Gervasi at The Conference on the Enlargement of NATO in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean , Prague, January 13-14, 1996.

[v] Gary Wilson, " Economist Exposed U.S.-German Role in Balkans ," Workers World News Service , Aug. 29, 1996, https://www.workers.org/ww/1997/gervasi.html . The short biography written here borrowed some wording and information from this obituary published by Workers World News Service .

[vi] Helen Thomas, " Reagan approves tough strategy with Soviets ," United Press International (UPI) , May 21, 1982, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/05/21/Reagan-approves-tough-strategy-with-Soviets/7761390801600/ .

[vii] Richard Halloran, " Pentagon Draws up First Strategy for Fighting a Long Nuclear War ," The New York Times , May 5, 1982, http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/30/world/pentagon-draws-up-first-strategy-for-fighting-a-long-nuclear-war.html?pagewanted=all .

The reference appears to be to this article. The dates 1984-1988 may appear to be an error because the report referred to was written in 1982. However, the Defense Guidelines were focused on plans for the future, fiscal years of 1984-1988.

[viii] David Ignatius, " Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups ," The Washington Post , September 22, 1991, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/09/22/innocence-abroad-the-new-world-of-spyless-coups/92bb989a-de6e-4bb8-99b9-462c76b59a16/?utm_term=.e9976e81e6d1 .

[ix] As we know from the perspective of 2017, the normalization of such interventions continued shamelessly, going from a bad habit to a deranged addiction. The political establishment in America now resorts to economic warfare, violence and military intervention as the solutions for every problem in international relations.

All images, except the featured, in this article are from the author.

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Sean Gervasi and Dennis Riches , Global Research, 2019

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[Nov 30, 2019] Eric Ciaramella, Brennan protege, more coup plotter than "whistleblower"

Notable quotes:
"... Ciaramella invited Chalupa to meetings and events at the Obama White House. She also visits the Obama White House with Ukrainian lobbyists seeking aid from Obama. Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017, " ..."
"... According to Fox News, the complaint alleges that the DNC specifically "tasked Chalupa with obtaining incriminating or derogatory information about Donald Trump [and] Paul Manfort," ..."
"... Remarkably, despite his clear connections to Rice and Brennan, he was brought back into the inner circle of the Trump NSC by HR McMaster. McMaster appointed him to be his personal aide. ..."
"... He was fired in June of 2017 after being directly implicated in a series of serious national security leaks from the White House calculated to be damaging to President Trump. ..."
"... Vindman also leaked the classified information about the President's call with a foreign head of state to a number of other people. These unauthorized leaks are criminal. Both illegal, unethical and unconscionable. ..."
"... Ciaramella worked with both Grace and Misko in the NSC at the Obama White House. Misko and Grace joined Schiff's committee in early August of 2019, just in time to coordinate the "whistleblower" complaint. ..."
"... Both Vindman and Ciaramella do not qualify for "whistleblower" status. They were reporting on a diplomatic conversation, not an intelligence matter. They were not reporting on a member of the Intelligence committee. ..."
"... IC IG Michael Atkinson surreptitiously changed the rules for whistleblower complaints to allow second-hand testimony in September of 2019. He then backdated the changes to allow the Ciaramella complaint, initially filed in early August, to be included under the new "interpretive" guidelines. ..."
"... The playbook is the same as the Mueller Inquisition and the Russia Hoax, the same as the Kavanaugh smear campaign. With the same co-conspirators of the left-wing mainstream media. Not only carrying water for the coup plotters but being actual participants in the scheme. Paid mouthpieces for the Deep State. ..."
"... Sperry's devastating expose makes clear that Ciaramella is another cog in the Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, Obama conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. As Chuck Schumer said in January of 2017, ..."
"... Ciaramella helped generate the "Putin fired Comey" narrative. Sperry reports, "In the days after Comey's firing, this presidential action was used to further political and media calls for the standup of the special counsel to investigate 'Russia collusion.'" ..."
Nov 03, 2019 | www.greanvillepost.com
WASHINGTON, DC : Adam Schiff "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella has been exposed as a John Brennan ally. An ally who actively worked to defame, target, and destroy President Donald Trump during both the Obama and Trump administrations. He was fired from the Trump White House for leaking confidential if not classified information detrimental to the President. ( The Pajama Boy Whistleblower Revealed – Rush Limbaugh )

The 33-year-old Ciaramella, a former Susan Rice protege, currently works for the CIA as an analyst.

Eric Ciaramella: The Deep State non-whistleblower

During his time in the Obama White House, NSC Ciaramella worked under both Vice President Joe Biden and CIA director John Brennan. He reported directly to NSC advisor Susan Rice through his immediate boss, Charles Kupchan. Kupchan had extensive ties with Clinton crony Sydney Blumenthal. Large portions of Blumenthal's disinformation from Ukrainian sources in 2016 was used in the nefarious Steele Dossier.


Eric Ciaramella, Schiff's "whistleblower", has ties to Susan Rice and Joe Biden

Ciaramella also worked extensively with DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa. Chalupa led the effort at the DNC to fabricate a link between the Trump Campaign to Vladimir Putin and Russia. According to Politico, Chalupa "met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia."


The DNC paid Chalupa $412,000 between 2004 and 2016.

DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa: Ciaramella co-conspirator

Chalupa shared her findings with both the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Politico reporting ( Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire – Politico – 01/11/2017)

"Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, 'I felt there was a Russia connection.'"

Apparently without any evidence. So she set out to concoct it.

Chalupa (left) also says that the Ukrainian embassy was working directly with reporters digging for Trump-Russia ties. How convenient, and unethical.

Ciaramella invited Chalupa to meetings and events at the Obama White House. She also visits the Obama White House with Ukrainian lobbyists seeking aid from Obama. Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017, "

"Chalupa's actions appear to show that she was simultaneously working on behalf of a foreign government, Ukraine, and on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign, in an effort to influence not only the U.S voting population but U.S. government officials."
The FEC complaint against the DNC and Chalupa

In September 2019 a complaint was filed with the Federal Elections Commission against the DNC naming Alexandra Chalupa. The complaint alleges that Chalupa acted "improperly to gather information on Paul Manafort and Donald Trump in the 2016 election".


Joe Biden's Corruption: Ukraine, bribery, and Burisma Holdings

According to Fox News, the complaint alleges that the DNC specifically "tasked Chalupa with obtaining incriminating or derogatory information about Donald Trump [and] Paul Manfort,"

Fox News reporting, that Chalupa allegedly

"Pushed for Ukrainian officials to publicly mention Manafort's financial and political ties to" Ukraine and "sought to have the Ukrainian government provide her information about Manafort's work in the country."
John Solomon and Wikileaks both expose Chalupa as DNC operative

Wikileaks also exposed Chalupa's role in digging up dirt in Ukraine on Manafort and Trump. One email stated that Chalupa was "digging into Manafort". "A lot more coming down the pipe," the email to then DNC Comms Director Luis Miranda states. ( Former Obama official Luis Miranda is latest casualty of DNC email scandal – Fox News – August 3, 2016 )

John Solomon of The Hill reporting:

"Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort's dealings inside the country. Chalupa later tried to arrange for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to comment on Manafort's Russian ties on a U.S. visit during the 2016 campaign."
Ciaramella's connection with John Brennan and Susan Rice

Eric Ciaramella had been working with John Brennan, Susan Rice, the Obama White House, and Alexandra Chalupa to target and destroy Donald Trump well before he was elected. He was initially brought into the NSC and the White House inner circle by John Brennan himself.


Schiff witness Taylor has ties to Burisma think tank, Soros, McCain leaker

Remarkably, despite his clear connections to Rice and Brennan, he was brought back into the inner circle of the Trump NSC by HR McMaster. McMaster appointed him to be his personal aide.

He was fired in June of 2017 after being directly implicated in a series of serious national security leaks from the White House calculated to be damaging to President Trump.

Ciaramella and Alexander Vindman: the second "whistleblower"

Ciaramella's title at the White House was NSC Director for Ukraine. That position is now held by the newest Schiff star witness and Trump hater Lt. Col Alexander Vindman. Vindman is apparently the "2nd whistleblower" to leak his concerns about the call between Trump and President Zelensky to Ciaramella.

Vindman also leaked the classified information about the President's call with a foreign head of state to a number of other people. These unauthorized leaks are criminal. Both illegal, unethical and unconscionable.

Violating clear national security guidelines for classified information.

Republicans, on cross-examination of Vindman was asked by Republicans cross-examining him during the closed-door secret police hearings conducted by Adam Schiff, asking who Vindman had contact with. Schiff cut off the questioning, coaching the witness while refusing to let him answer the questions.

Schiff coordinated with Ciaramella and Vindman

It is now clear that Ciaramella and Vindman coordinated the entire whistleblower affair with Schiff and his staff in violation of the "whistleblower" statute. That Ciaramella has been coordinating his complaint with Schiff committee staffers Abigail Grace and Sean Misko.


Durham opens criminal probe, IG report due, Brennan, Clapper lawyer up

Ciaramella worked with both Grace and Misko in the NSC at the Obama White House. Misko and Grace joined Schiff's committee in early August of 2019, just in time to coordinate the "whistleblower" complaint.

Both Vindman and Ciaramella do not qualify for "whistleblower" status. They were reporting on a diplomatic conversation, not an intelligence matter. They were not reporting on a member of the Intelligence committee.

The suspicious case of IC IG Michael Atkinson

IC IG Michael Atkinson surreptitiously changed the rules for whistleblower complaints to allow second-hand testimony in September of 2019. He then backdated the changes to allow the Ciaramella complaint, initially filed in early August, to be included under the new "interpretive" guidelines.

The level of subterfuge and coordination between Schiff, Ciaramella, Vindman, Abigail Grace, Sean Misko, and IG Atkinson is more than suspicious. It reeks of yet another episode of a Deep State coordinated coup attempt.


Pelosi Star Chamber impeachment farce blows up in Adam Schiff's face

The whole impeachment affair is a brazen sequel to the Russia Hoax involving many of the same key players. Susan Rice, John Brennan, Adam Schiff. Designed to target, destroy, and in this case, fabricate grounds for the impeachment of the President.

The playbook is the same as the Mueller Inquisition and the Russia Hoax, the same as the Kavanaugh smear campaign. With the same co-conspirators of the left-wing mainstream media. Not only carrying water for the coup plotters but being actual participants in the scheme. Paid mouthpieces for the Deep State.

Paul Sperry and Real Clear Investigations

The most comprehensive expose on Ciaramella, that has forced even the mainstream media to take notice, was the Real Clear Investigations reporting of Paul Sperry. Only Sperry, the Federalist, and CDN have exposed the whistleblowers' identity. But his name and transparent partisan actions are the worst kept secret in Washington.

As CIA analyst Fred Fleitz has said:

"Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is."

Sperry's devastating expose makes clear that Ciaramella is another cog in the Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, Obama conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. As Chuck Schumer said in January of 2017,

"If you take on the intelligence community, they have nines ways to Sunday of getting back at you."
The never-ending coup attempt against Trump

The reality is that Trump was targeted by the Obama White House well before he was President. The ongoing coup against him started as soon as he was elected. It morphed into the Mueller Weissman inquisition and the Peter Strzok insurance policy.


Obama WH corruption: Rampant pay to play by Clinton, Kerry, and Biden

When that fizzled into oblivion it was time for plan B, or in this case plan C or D. The Deep State and their paid minions in the left-wing press have been unrelenting in their ongoing anti-constitutional putsch against the President.

The impeachment farce, with its calculated rollout reminiscent of the Kavanaugh smear campaign, is yet another extension of a never-ending East German Stassi coup (sic) attempt against the constitution, the Republic, and the people of the United States.

Sperry lays out the trail of evidence against Ciaramella

Paul Sperry's excellent investigative reporting makes clear that Ciaramella "previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan. (He) left his National Security Council posting in the White House's West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media." As Sperry reports, "He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump," said a former NSC official.

Sperry reports that "a handful of former colleagues have compiled a roughly 40-page research dossier on him. A classified version of the document is circulating on Capitol Hill". The dossier documents Ciaramella's bias against Trump. His relationships with Brennan, Rice, the Obama White House, and DNC operative Chalupa. As well as his coordination with Vindman, Schiff and his committee staff.

Chuck Schumer: "Eight ways to Sunday of getting back at you"

It questions both Ciaramella's and Vindman's veracity as a legitimate whistleblower. It makes clear that Ciaramella and his co-conspirators are part of a Deep State coup attempt. A calculated, coordinated, illegal, seditious, and illegitimate putsch.


"Whistleblower" Hoax: Ties to Biden, Deep State ICIG, rogue Ambassador

As CIA analyst Fred Fleitz makes clear, " They're hiding him ." Fleitz was emphatic, " They're hiding him because of his political bias."

Ciaramella helped generate the "Putin fired Comey" narrative. Sperry reports, "In the days after Comey's firing, this presidential action was used to further political and media calls for the standup of the special counsel to investigate 'Russia collusion.'"

How IC Inspector General Atkinson found the whistleblower complaint "credible" and "urgent" at the same time he was backdating the change in regulations to allow the complaint to be filed is more than highly suspicious. How the 'whistleblower" coordinated with Schiff, Grace, Misko, and Atkinson to stager the start of impeachment farce is criminal.

Adam Schiff: Constantly lying while moving the goalposts

... ... ...

Schiff: Outstanding scoundrel in a cesspit filled to the brim with similar criminals.

Now Eric Ciaramella is apparently backing away from testifying. Schiff says he no longer needs his testimony. But Ciaramella should be subpoenaed and called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He should not be allowed to escape accountability for his role in this calculated charade of a conspiracy.


The Russia Hoax: James Clapper throws Barack Obama under the bus

He would then have to testify to his coordination with Schiff and the committee staff. He would have to expose how Vindmann leaked national security information illegally. How the entire 'whistleblower" farce was a calculated effort to again derail the Trump Presidency.

A lot has come out about Eric Ciaramella, the Adam Schiff 'Whistleblower", in recent days. It is the tip of the iceberg. Any legitimate investigation of the circumstances surrounding the entire Ukraine affair will reveal the extensive criminality of the Obama White House and the coup plotters.

Exposing the dark underbelly of the Obama White House

It stretches back to the Steele Dossier and the clear efforts of the DNC and the Deep State to use to a foreign power to interfere in the 2016 election. He exposes the corruption of Vice President Biden to enrich his family at the expense of the American taxpayer. Details the $6 million dollar bribery scheme of Hunter and Joe Biden by Burisma Holdings.

Lays out the corrupt dealings of Ambassador Yovanovich.

It will lay open the devious underbelly of all the so-called hero witnesses of the Schiff impeachment Star Chamber inquisition. Of the criminal actions of the coup plotters. Of Ambassador Yovanovich, Ambassador Taylor, Alexandra Chalupa, and Alexander Vindman.

As well as the so-called whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella.

Calling the Fourth Estate back

It is the tip of the iceberg that only a truly free and independent press will have to take the reins to fearlessly expose. Like brilliant investigative reporter Paul Sperry at Real Clear Investigations. Like the Federalist, NOQ Report, and here at CommDigiNews, who broke the Ciaramella story a full two days before Real Clear Investigations.

No one else in the corrupt media establishment seems willing to rise to the challenge.

[Nov 30, 2019] Max Blumenthal on how corporate media manufactures consent for war and regime change - YouTube

Nov 30, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Alyson Mc Vitty , 1 week ago

i'm an old woman now and when i listen to the grayzone i feel encouraged that sanity will prevail. long life max. you're great.

James Kelman , 1 week ago

Max is one of the greatest journalists of our time ! Thank You , but take care because their are many that are threatened by truth and integrity ! RESPECT !

b unangst , 1 week ago

The msm is full of CIA swamp lobbyist liars. Max is just objectively reporting substantiated data points that counter lies that are meant to sell taxpayers war.

[Nov 30, 2019] Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR

Nov 30, 2019 | debatewise.org

Perestroika put the final nails in the USSR's economy One of the first main policies Gorbachev adopted was Perestroika – reform of the economy. Hoarding and reciprocal favours (blat) had been a means of survival in the Soviet Union, thieving to 'moonlight' was also common and this cost the regime a lot. The 'command-administrative' system had become obsolete in the Post-Industrial era and was curtailing economic development 1. To solve this, Gorbachev wanted to give enterprise managers control over contracts and introduce aspects of the market economy, to make it managers' responsibility to gain contracts and to make sure the enterprise makes a profit. However, in practice the way the enterprises operated remained unchanged except in terms – ministries rephrased their commands as contracts 2. Private enterprise was also permitted, which seemed to contradict Gorbachev's claim to be committed to Marxist-Leninist thought which was vehemently opposed to capitalism which Marxist's argue exploit the proleteriat – so to actually create a class of capitalists who (according to Marxist doctrine) would exploit the workers who were supposed to be living in socialist – i.e. 'classless society' seemed contradictory to the very ideological concept the regime's power was based upon. A small amount of private enterprise emerged, but the profiteering was very much resented by the general population – goods and services were sold for four or five times their subsidized price due to shortages. Another aspect of Perestroika was entry into the market economy – many of the social benefits given by the enterprises had to be done away with, as they could not make a profit and afford to maintain the benefits, resulting in a stagnant economy occuring simultaneously with a collapsing social welfare system. Gorbachev's reforms did not work and only succeeded in hastening the economic collapse that was inevitable.

1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because... Glasnost facilitated Opposition to Concentrate against the Regime Allowing freedom of thought from the 'mono-ideological controls' that existed for decades and allowing pluralist thought and leadership meant a weakening of power for the Communist Party – it had to convert into a proper parliamentary party to survive. Furthermore, in a regime based on oppression and propaganda, when these are removed and freedom of speech and freedom of the media are introduced, nasty elements about the system in the past are going to be revealed, and when there is 70 years of repression being reported all at once, it is inevitable there will be extreme hostility toward those responsible – the Party 1, this especially fuelled the anger of the nationalities who had been oppressed and triggered a nationalist movement.

The population were dissatisfied with the dire state of affairs and could voice their discontent openly with glasnost, which led to Gorbachev becoming very unpopular by 1991, in which year the economy had contracted by 18% 2, people were also very concerned over the incompetence of the command-administrative system and irresponsibility of the leadership with regards to the 1986 Chernobyl power station disaster 3.

In a state committed to one ideology, the removal of mono-ideological controls, and the ability of other ideological persuasions to come to power meant the Party had lost its RIGHT to govern the people unless the people themselves WANTED the Party to rule. Thus, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had to win the support of the people in order to govern effectively. However, in a society that was becoming increasingly liberal and 'bourgeois' (the USSR was largely middle class, private property was protected and capitalism was legalised), the people had to believe in socialist ideology – which would have been almost impossible to achieve.

Gorbachev's reforms themselves undermined some of the principle features of socialist rule in the USSR, e.g. atheism, mono-ideological control, one-party state, economic monopoly and the suspendability of law. Gorbachev's ideology itself – his focus on 'all-human values' instead of the class struggle, the rule of law, international peace and proper parliamentary representation have more resonance with John Stuart Mill than Karl Marx 4 – Gorbachev was subconsciously moving the USSR in this ideological direction.

With democratization and pluralist thought permitted, Gorbachev found himself operating within an increasingly wide political spectrum – with the reformist 'democrats' on one side and the conservative Communist Party members on the other. There was a constant power struggle between the two and Gorbachev dealt with this by constantly playing one side against the other and compromising. One of Gorbachev's critics at the time said this was like trying to marry a hare to a hedgehog. The two sides were very much irreconcilable and instead of trying to defeat one side, Gorbachev sat on the fence and as a result his policies were constantly inconsistent – you cannot mix radical reforms with conservatism 5. The dangers of this were apparent when Shevardnadze, Foreign Minister at the time, resigned because he warned a dictatorship was approaching, Gorbachev ignored this threat and dismissed this claim with overconfidence 6.

1 Kagarlitsky, B. Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: neo-liberal autocracy, London: Pluto 2002

2 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997

3 Haynes, M., Russia: Class and Power, 1917-2000, London: Bookmarks 2002

4 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997

5 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991

6 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991 No because... Regional Nationalism and Independence Movements These original flaws in the system were largely responsible for its own downfall – in particular the nationalities issue – the decision to maintain the Empire without granting real power to the nationalities whilst simultaneously repressing them left most of the nationalities feeling bitter when glasnost revealed the truth about how they had been treated in the past and democratisation gave them the power to chose representatives who would really represent people's interests (the nationalist movement) whilst at the same time being given by Gorbachev an appetite for power – a fatal combination.

The wealthier regions wanted a separation from the USSR because of the feeling they were being milked from the centre and many other regions wanted to become independent because they did not want to be part of an economic disaster area which became apparent when the Donbass miners who had no commitment to nationalism thought their future would be safer if the Ukraine wasn't part of the USSR 1.

The nationalist movement emerged when freedom of speech, media and association along with democratisation and the loss of fear of repression allowed people to voice pride in their nation and resentment at past repressions as well as the ongoing special treatment of Russians in the Regions, who had access to better housing and other special privileges the locals did not.

Certain Republics felt nationalism more strongly than others, most notably the Baltic States who felt a strong cultural attachment to the West and felt they were being unfairly occupied. Gorbachev's mistake here was to downplay the importance of nationalism and not treat the Baltic States as a special case 2. After all, most of the population of the USSR wished to preserve the Union – 76% voted to preserve the Union in March 1991 (except the Baltic States, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia who did not conduct the referendum) 3. After the failed coup, most states declared their independence, even if they did so with reluctance, as there was a general feeling there was no alternative. Gorbachev tried to persuade the Republics not to become fully independent. However, in early December, the Ukraine held a referendum where the population voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, even after Gorbachev stated "there can be no Union without Ukraine", on 8th December, Yeltsin met with the Ukrainian and Bielorussian leader and declared a formal end to the USSR and the establishment of the Confederation of Independent States which they invited the other states to join.

There was nothing left Gorbachev could do, democratisation had brought about the means for independence and Gorbachev didn't feel he could argue with people's wishes carried out through democratic means and, on 25th December he resigned with regret.

1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

2 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996

3 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996 Yeltsin Factor Boris Yeltsin emerged as the true hero and strong leader for the fearlessness to condemn the coup – in a press conference afterwards Yeltsin ordered Gorbachev around undermining his position, then used his institutional powers derived from democratization to appoint Egor Gaidar, an economist dedicated to laissez-faire economics, as his Finance Minister and suspension of the CPSU pending an investigation into the coup. Gorbachev half heartedly argued against this but it was no use – he was seen as a weaker leader along with discontent over his policies, whilst Yeltsin's radicalism was keeping pace with developments and his popularity at an all-time high, Gorbachev's position was also much less weaker without the Communist Party. Also, the Soviet Union really could not exist without the Communist Party arguably as they had political and economic monopoly on society and the Communist Party went from controlling these aspects of society to ceasing to exist, the Soviet Union could not function and the economy spiralled out of control. Yes because...

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... August 1991 Coup Counter Productive, Bringing About What It Sought To Prevent - The End of the Soviet Union By August 1991 Gorbachev's popularity was at an all-time low both in the Party and outside it. Despite being advised by some of his staff to sign the Treaty agreement granting the republics real autonomy before going on holiday and some suspicious circumstances he should have been more questioning about, he planned on signing the agreement when he returned. This was a big mistake and allowed the conservatives to stage a coup. The Emergency Committee made no reference whatsoever to Marxism-Leninism or the class struggle in their speech, meaning it was a coup in the hope of returning the Soviet Union to 'normal' i.e. an Empire controlled from Moscow and putting the final nails in the coffin of socialism in the USSR 1.

The failed coup triggered the very thing it sought to prevent – the break-up of the Soviet Union 2.

1 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

2 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

Yes because... Report this ad

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... The System Needed to Change in Order to Survive in the Longer Term; That Mikhail Gorbachev's Reforms Failed Showed that the USSR Could Not be Saved By the Gorbachev era, all hopes of fulfilling the original Marxist-Leninist dream were gone and most did not feel passionately about communism, even within the Party. There was a general acknowledgement that the USSR could not continue in the same way as before – Andropov, Gorbachev's predecessor also realised this and set about changing society through repressive measures such as harsh labour discipline enforced by cutting payments from workers for work deemed poor quality and restrictions on the sale of alcohol and prohibition of alcohol on official occasions was felt overly repressive and for many – Gorbachev was seen as a positive, energetic leader who would overcome the USSR's problems in a less repressive manner. With economic stagnation and an economy dependent on the exportation of natural resources to survive 1, an unsuccessful war (Afghanistan) and an ageing Party Membership to combat, Gorbachev was the candidate for those who wanted change or at least realised change could no longer be postponed 2.

Autocracies survive due to repressing their people to the extent that they are not given the freedoms required to change their government, rather than because the people want them to stay in power. Mikhail Gorbachev's conscience and sense of responsibility for his population dictated that the system could no longer be propped up like this, and that the people needed and deserved the freedoms and basic human rights they had been denied for decades. That the system could not encorporate such freedoms meant that the system morally should not be allowed to perpetuate itself, and thus the Soviet Union fell apart because it was unrepresentative and did not support the population's human rights means the fall of the USSR should be applauded, not mourned for its' population.

1 Volkogonov, D.A. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: political leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev, edited and translated by M. Shukman, London: HarperCollins 1998

2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... War with Afghanistan Drained USSR of Patriotic Morale The war in Afghanistan was a key contributing factor to the breakup of the USSR. Reuveny and Prakash argue that the Soviet-Afghan war contributed to undermining the Soviet Union in many ways. First, it discredited the Red Army, and impacted negatively upon the image of the Red Army as a strong, almost invincible force, which gave nationalist movements in the Republics hope that they might succeed in attaining independence after all. Second, it impacted upon leadership perception on the usefulness of utilising the military to keep the union intact and as a force for foreign intervention. Third, it created new forms of political participation, which had begun to impact upon media reporting even before glasnost, and began the first calls for glasnost, as it created a number of war veterans, who went on to form organisations which weakened the total authority of the CPSU 1.

1 Reuveny, Rafael, and Prakash, Aseem, 'The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union', Review of International Studies (1999), 25:693-708 Yes because... Report this ad

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... It was dead from the time Stalin took control Gorbachev finished it off, but Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc. really killed it. Lenin had nothing to do with that, he was a socialist-marxist, not a communist. You obviously don't know the difference. Learn it before you blindly yell your opinion into the dark of the internet.

[Nov 30, 2019] Gorbachev Called Coward, Traitor by Former Comrade - Los Angeles Times

Nov 30, 2019 | www.latimes.com

Advertisement Gorbachev Called Coward, Traitor by Former Comrade By VIKTOR K. GREBENSHIKOV May 28, 1992 12 AM

Share Close extra sharing options SPECIAL TO THE TIMES MOSCOW -- Yegor K. Ligachev, once the second-most-powerful man in the Kremlin, on Wednesday called his former boss and comrade, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a coward and a traitor.

"I met many Communists who spent decades in labor camps in the permafrost zone but retained their faith in the party," the erstwhile Politburo hard-liner said. "I fail to understand its general secretary who spent three days in the best health resort the country has by the warm sea, then called for its dissolution."

Ligachev, as straight-talking and opinionated as ever, met with journalists to present his book "The Gorbachev Riddle," a personal chronicle of the perestroika years he helped to shape before the Soviet president and party leader gave him the boot in August, 1990.

The book presentation, attended by a standing-room-only audience in the Moscow House of Journalists, served as a forum for Ligachev, 71, to reiterate his views and credo.

Advertisement

"When life proved me wrong, I did change my perceptions," he said with quiet dignity, "but I never changed my principles. Unlike Gorbachev, I still adhere to socialism, and I still think this is the future for my country." The white-haired native of Siberia said his only desire is to reunite the nation, introduce peace and stability and build a "new, refurbished Soviet Union."

A foe of both Gorbachev and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Ligachev contended that his country is in danger of becoming a "raw materials supplier and semi-colony" for the capitalist world as the Russian leadership presses on with its economic reforms.

"The ban on the Communist Party, an organization uniting about 20 million members, cannot but diminish the chances for a peaceful resolution of the country's current political, economic and social crisis," Ligachev said, referring to a ban that Yeltsin ordered last Nov. 6.

Few questions during the presentation ceremony concerned Ligachev's 303-page book itself; instead, many people sought out his view of recent political developments. Advertisement The most persistent question put to Ligachev was why none of the former leaders of the Communist Party had volunteered to defend it at hearings on its record ordered for July by the Constitutional Court of Russia.

Asserting that it is Gorbachev who is legally obligated to take on this task, Ligachev said that the party "had been betrayed by its general secretary" and that it is now up to "ordinary Communists" to defend the party's 73-year record in leading the Soviet Union.

Ligachev, who became a voting, or full, member of the ruling party Politburo in 1985, the same year Gorbachev came to power, remains the only publicly active figure from the defunct body who voices support for his old principles.

Others, such as former Vice President Gennady I. Yanayev, are now in prison for their roles in last August's unsuccessful attempt at overthrowing Gorbachev when he was on vacation at a Crimean beach resort.

[Nov 30, 2019] Victoria Nuland, Alexandra Chalupa, Ukrainian Ties the Steele Dossier by Jeff Carlson

Notable quotes:
"... Nuland's comment came in response to news that that there would be a second phase of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' investigation into Russian interference – this time focusing on the State Department. Nunes sent a questionnaire to about two dozen current and former intelligence, law enforcement and State Department officials. My guess is Nuland was one of them. Former Secretary of State John Kerry may have been another. ..."
"... Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. When Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well. ..."
Mar 09, 2018 | themarketswork.com
On February 4, 2018, Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama Administration went on Face the Nation and made the following comment :

During the Ukraine crisis in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them. Chris had a friend [Jonathan Winer] at the State Department and he offered us that reporting free so that we could also benefit from it. It was one of, you know, hundreds of sources that we were using to try to understand what was going on.

Then, in the middle of July, when he was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate.

Nuland said the State Department received the Dossier directly from Steele in mid-July 2016, whereupon the State Department turned it over to the FBI (segmented video here ).

Which is right around the time Susan Rice began showing increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material – including "unmasked" Americans' identities. From a Circa article :

Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rice's interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans' identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump's election in November launched a transition that continued through January.

Nuland's comment came in response to news that that there would be a second phase of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' investigation into Russian interference – this time focusing on the State Department. Nunes sent a questionnaire to about two dozen current and former intelligence, law enforcement and State Department officials. My guess is Nuland was one of them. Former Secretary of State John Kerry may have been another.

The New York Times had earlier reported that the FBI received the Steele Dossier directly from Christopher Steele on July 5, 2016 – the same day as Comey's infamous exoneration of Hillary Clinton during a news conference:

The reports came from a former British intelligence agent named Christopher Steele, who was working as a private investigator hired by a firm working for a Trump opponent. He provided the documents to an F.B.I. contact in Europe on the same day as Mr. Comey's news conference about Mrs. Clinton. It took weeks for this information to land with Mr. Strzok and his team.

This claim was recently repeated in a lengthy article in the New Yorker . In this version, the Steele Dossier was given to the FBI on July 5, 2016. By ~July 20, 2016, Comey had seen it and Strzok had the Dossier in his possession.

There is a third version of events, provided by Jonathan Winer in a Washington Post Op-Ed :

In 2009, I met and became friends with Steele, after he retired from British government service focusing on Russia. Steele was providing business intelligence on the same kinds of issues I worked on at the time. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it.

I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful.

In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state [John Kerry] needed to be made aware of this material.

In this third version, Nuland and the State Department received the Dossier in September 2016.

Nuland made her comments on February 4, 2018. Winer wrote his Op-Ed on February 8, 2018.

Winer has known Steele since 2009. Nuland has known Steele since 2014 – during the Ukraine crisis.

Victoria Nuland is famous for an interesting conversation with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt on or before February 4, 2014 (transcript here ):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WV9J6sxCs5k?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

During the call, which was intercepted and leaked, the two appear to be discussing replacing Ukrainian President Yanukovych with opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Some excerpts:

PYATT: I think we're in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here.

NULAND: Good. I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it's a good idea.

PYATT: Yeah. I guess in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together.

NULAND: I think Yats [opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk] is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside.

PYATT: The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.

NULAND: Sullivan's come back to me VFR, saying you need [Vice President] Biden and I said probably tomorrow. So Biden's willing.

Here's what actually happened:

On or before February 4 2014 – Call between Pyatt and Nuland.

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

That Ukrainian-American was DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa.

Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee.

The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

Some actions taken by Chalupa (sources from Politico article unless otherwise linked):

January 3 2014 – Leaders representing more than a dozen Ukrainian-American organizations, including the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, met at the White House with President Obama's senior national security staff to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.

The non-partisan meeting held on January 3 was initiated by the co-chairs of Ukrainian-Americans for Obama, Julian Kulas, Andrew Fedynsky and Ulana Mazurkevich, as well Alexandra Chalupa , co-convener of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee.

This was approximately one month prior to Nuland's call with Pyatt regarding the installation of Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister of Ukraine.

2014 (undetermined) -Chalupa begins to investigate Paul Manafort.

Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party.

Late 2015 – Chalupa expands her opposition research into Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia.

Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. When Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well.

She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign

January 2016 – Chalupa informs a senior DNC official that she feels there is a Russia connection with the Trump Campaign.

Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, "I felt there was a Russia connection," Chalupa recalled. "And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election," said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was "Putin's political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."

March 25 2016 – Chalupa shared her concerns with the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S.

She said she shared her concern with Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn't particularly concerned about the operative's ties to Trump.

March 29 2016 – Chalupa briefs DNC Communication staff.

The day after Manafort's hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC's communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation.

A former DNC staffer and the operative familiar with the situation agreed that with the DNC's encouragement, Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort's ties to Yanukovych.

While the embassy declined that request, officials there became "helpful" in Chalupa's efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them.

Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions.

April 4 – April 12 2016 – Ukrainian Parliamentarian Olga Bielkov has four meetings – with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Dept) and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

Doug Schoen files FARA documents that show he was paid $40,000 a month by Ukrainian Billionaire Victor Pinchuk (page 5) to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempts to arrange another 72 meetings with Congressmen and media (page 10). It is unknown how many meetings took place.

April 6 2016 – Chalupa holds a meeting with an assistant of Representative Marcy Kaptur.

Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort's hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.

April 26 2016 – Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff publishes story on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

April 28 2016 – Chalupa appears on a panel to discuss her research on Manafort with a group of 68 Ukrainian investigative journalists gathered at the Library of Congress for a program sponsored by a U.S. congressional agency called the Open World Leadership Center.

From a Wikileaks email sent by Chalupa to Luis Miranda, Communications Director of the DNC:

I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the Library of Congress – the Open World Society's forum – they put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians.

Two points.

Open World is a supposedly non-partisan Congressional agency.

Michael Isikoff is the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016:

The Carter Page FISA application extensively cited a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focused on Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow. This information was used to corroborate the Steele Dossier.

Steele leaked to Isikoff who wrote the article for Yahoo News. The Isikoff article was then used to help obtain a Title I FISA grant to gather information on Page. This search was then leaked by Steele to David Corn at Mother Jones.

Isikoff accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the Library of Congress event.

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May 3 2016 – Chalupa emails Luis Miranda, Communications Director of the DNC (same email referenced above).

A lot more coming down the pipe More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of.

Late July 2016 – Chalupa leaves the DNC to work full-time on her research into Manafort.

Chalupa left the DNC after the Democratic convention in late July to focus full-time on her research into Manafort, Trump and Russia . She said she provided off-the-record information and guidance to "a lot of journalists" working on stories related to Manafort and Trump's Russia connections.

August 4 2016 – Ukrainian ambassador to U.S. writes op-ed against Trump.

August 15 2016 – CNN reports that Manafort is named in a Ukrainian probe over potentially illegal payments received from Ukraine's pro-Russian ruling party.

August 19 2016 – CNN reports the FBI is conducting an inquiry into Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort's payments from pro-Russia interests in Ukraine in 2007 and 2009.

August 19 2016 – Ukrainian parliament member Sergii Leshchenko holds news conference to draw attention to Paul Manafort and Trump's "pro-Russia" ties.

September 19 2016 – At UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Ukrainian President Poroshenko meets with Hillary Clinton.

November 28 2016 – McCain associate David Kramer flies to London to meet Christopher Steele for a briefing on the Dossier. Upon Kramer's return, Fusion GPS provided McCain with a copy of the Dossier.

July 24 2017 – Senator Charles Grassley sends a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein regarding the actions taken by Chalupa.

According to news reports, during the 2016 presidential election, "Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump" and did so by "disseminat[ing] documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter.

At the center of this plan was Alexandra Chalupa, described by reports as a Ukrainian-American operative "who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee" and reportedly met with Ukrainian officials during the presidential election for the express purpose of exposing alleged ties between then-candidate Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia.

Chalupa's actions appear to show that she was simultaneously working on behalf of a foreign government, Ukraine, and on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign, in an effort to influence not only the U.S voting population but U.S. government officials.

Aside from the apparent evidence of collusion between the DNC, Clinton campaign, and Ukrainian government, Chalupa's actions implicate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Chalupa reportedly worked directly with Ukrainian government officials to benefit Ukraine, lobbying Congress on behalf of Ukraine, and worked to undermine the Trump campaign on behalf of Ukraine and the Clinton campaign.

The January 4, 2018 Grassley Memo – made public on February 6, 2018, made clear that both the State Department and the Clinton Campaign directly contributed information used by Steele in the formation of his Dossier.

I'm curious if Chalupa met directly with Christopher Steele. It's clear her research was funneled by the DNC to Steele's Dossier.

Former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland must have known about all of this. People above her had to know as well.

On March 6, 2018, Sara Carter reported that the House Intelligence Committee is now investigating former Secretary of State John Kerry:

The House Select Committee on Intelligence is now investigating former Secretary of State John F. Kerry's possible role into the unverified dossier paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton Campaign.

The climb up the Obama Administration hierarchy appears to have finally begun.

newer post Victor Pinchuk, the Clintons & Endless Connections

older post Tariffs as a Tool Towards Broader Free Trade

[Nov 29, 2019] Customer reviews Mr. Putin Operative in the Kremlin (Geopolitics in the 21st Century)

Fiona Hill books does not worth even 5% of any book written by Professor Stephen Cohen. In other words they are pathetic junk. Of the class that in UK(ream MI6) writes Luke Harding. may be they both have the same handlers. She is just a regular MIC prostitute, like all neocons.
And Putin is a KGB thug is a terrible. simplistic argument. Pure propaganda. This isn't about either Putin (or Trump) really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred.
Notable quotes:
"... As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors ..."
"... "The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare." ..."
"... For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. ..."
"... I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. ..."
"... The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy. ..."
"... Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same. ..."
"... I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones. ..."
"... A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass it around as Bible ..."
Nov 29, 2019 | www.amazon.com

karenann , August 8, 2015

A deeply biased book

Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999 manifesto on his millennial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.

As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:

"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."

For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II.

To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy. Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.

I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days.

But in ignoring what Cohen has to say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.

The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy.

Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers' books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.

Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.

corkpuller , July 22, 2018
Unprofessional writing, a high school level polemic, sad to say

Unprofessional writing, a profound disappointment. Reads like a high school essay - one that repeats a single thought over and over, even re-using the same phrases - than a proper biography. The content feels like it has been skimmed only from public sources. There is no sign of insight among the authors, nor even a curiosity as to what makes this important figure unique. One wonders where the interests lie in those who wrote laudative reviews. I am sad to say that this book is nothing more than a polemic, and moreover one that is repetitive and boring.

R. L. Huff , April 23, 2015
OK but blinkered

- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table. Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia. Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.

Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same.

The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us - our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the "misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the "Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part of a geo-political maneuver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians, exactly as in the Baltic states.

His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving, it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.

In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp

WooDog , November 22, 2019
PROPOGANDA , CIA DRIVEL,

A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass it around as Bible

Kindle Customer , April 28, 2017
The motto of the respected authors is "Russia is devil, West are angels". Conclusions made in the book are easy to predict.

The book gives advices what the US officials should say about Russia to advocate their (US's) dishonest and aggressive policy. See examples of such policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lybia.

Alexey Tuzikov , July 16, 2017
poor

The book has absolutely no connection to reality. The authors use their sick propaganda fantasies to maintain oppression of Russia.

X. Z. , August 8, 2015
"Putin is a thug and we are great! "

More facts than your usual MSM, but along the same line: "Putin is a thug and we are great!"

[Nov 29, 2019] Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S. missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The OPCW is an accessory, both before and after the fact to the crime of mass murder.

Notable quotes:
"... The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria. ..."
Nov 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Petri Krohn , Nov 29 2019 23:16 utc | 21

TAKE THEM TO THE HAGUE!

Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S. missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The OPCW is an accessory , both before and after the fact to the crime of mass murder.

It should now be clear to everyone that Syrian "rebels" gassed thousands of hostages in cellars, most likely with chlorine gas, and then paraded the victims in White Helmets snuff videos. OPCW conspired in this crime in both encouraging the terrorists to more murder and by protecting them afterward by assigning blame to Assad and the Syrian government.

The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria.

We have been documenting these crimes and hoaxes at A Closer Look On Syria from December 2012. OPCW was used from the beginning to manufacture consent for war. See for example:


karlof1 , Nov 29 2019 23:52 utc | 24

Petri Krohn @21--

Of course, the OPCW is already there! I highly suggest Caitlin Johnstone's article b linked be read, which can be found here .

We should expand on Petri's number of people involved in this crime to include all the paid disinformation artists noted in Caitlin's essay at minimum. What becomes very clear in all this is the total collusion with OPCW upper level management--those whom the whistleblowers and their allies within OPCW petitioned--in these crimes as Petri contends. Until they are visibly replaced, nothing issued by OPCW has any credence.

Canthama , Nov 30 2019 0:21 utc | 26
OPCW has shown to be a pure political entity, used at will by few regimes in the UN to promote their agenda, b has done a tremendous job to humanity to bring the truth to the public worldwide. Syrians have paid the price for UN leaders support to global terrorism for too long. It must stop now.
iv>

/div

[Nov 29, 2019] Gorbachev Might as Well Have Been Working for the CIA by Olga Zinovieva

Notable quotes:
"... In 1979 at one of my public speeches ("How to kill an elephant with a needle"), I was asked what in my opinion was the most vulnerable point in the Soviet system. I replied: the one that is considered the most reliable, namely, the apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, within it - the Central Committee, and within the latter - the General Secretary. ..."
"... The reader should not think that I gave that idea to Cold War strategists. They realized that without me. One of the employees of the Intelligence Service told me that soon they (i.e. forces of the West) would put their man on "the soviet throne". ..."
"... What distinguishes this Cold War operation is that the method of "killing an elephant with a needle" was applied against a less powerful, yet mighty opponent, to obviate the possibility of a "hot war" becoming dangerous to the point where the advantages of the West could disappear, as happened in the war of Germany versus the Soviet Union in 1941-1945. ..."
"... The method in question made it possible to avoid risk and losses, save time and win by proxy. The method invented by the weak to fight stronger opponents was adopted by the most powerful forces on the planet in their war for domination over the entire human race. ..."
Nov 17, 2015 | russia-insider.com

More than anyone else, he was responsible for handing the US and UK their greatest strategic victory ever Alexander Zinoviev Tue, | 1300 words 8,718 31 MORE: History


This post first appeared on Russia Insider
RI continues with a series of articles about the life and works of the brilliant postwar Russian philosopher, author, and dissident, Alexander Zinoviev.

This time, his famous essay on how the West destroyed the USSR is introduced by his widow Olga, chairwoman of the Zinoviev Club at Rossiya Sevodnya, a major Russian news agency.

How different US-Russia relations were back then...

Zinoviev often said that judging from Gorbachev's behavior, one cannot exclude the possibility that he was working for the West, but that at the end of the day, it didn't really matter, because what he did served the West's interests exactly.

lllustrations are by Zinoviev himself, provided to RI by his family.

Previous articles in the series are: The End of Communism in Russia Meant the End of Democracy in the West and Zinoviev to Yeltsin in 1990: "The West Applauds You for Destroying Our Country" , This Great Satirist Gloried in the Absurdities of the USSR (Alexander Zinoviev)

Translated from Russian especially for RI by Sergei Malygin


Introduction

Before you, dear readers, you have one of the seven chapters of Zinoviev's famous essay 'How to Kill an Elephant With a Needle', written in 2005, a year before the author's death.

The material for it derived from recollections of the numerous meetings Alexander Zinoviev had with representatives of the West's political elite who were responsible for the formation of policy with respect to the USSR.

1016196444.jpg
Olga Zinovieva - an active voice in contemporary Russia
The idea underlying little episodes, including historical examples, is as elementary and limpid as spring water: how to work out the weak spot of the enemy, adversary, scoundrel or opponent, irrespective of their number and armaments, both literally and metaphorically.

With graphic clarity, as if it were a lesson, he provides a whole series of examples, beginning with his own example involving a compass but then using classical examples from history, such as the episode with Francisco Pizarro, the conquistador conqueror of Mexico, who demonstrated extraordinary quick-wittedness in his detection of the adversary's weak spot (the Indians).

Astonished by the attack of a handful of Pizarro's warriors on their leader, whom they regarded as a god and who in their conception was invulnerable and untouchable, the Indians capitulated without a fight. "Pizarro", wrote Alexander Zinoviev, "had divined the enemy army's weak spot, its Achilles heel".

In this essay he writes about how the Soviet Union's weak spot turned out to be the top echelons of the leadership.

Zinoviev was often called a dissident, but he never thought of himself as such. He was a critic of the Soviet system, but he was not its enemy.

In his later years he often repeated that, if he had known what a dreadful fate awaited the USSR, he would not have written a single critical book or article about it.

Olga Zinovieva


How to kill an elephant with a needle

I was exiled to the West in 1978, when the thirty-year course of the Cold War hit a radical turning point.

Cold War leaders have studied Soviet society since the beginning. The new science of Sovietology has been developed employing thousands of experts and involving hundreds of research centers.

Within it, a separate branch of Kremlinology has appeared. It pedantically studied the structure of the Soviet State, the party apparatus, the central party apparatus, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Politburo and employees of the government apparatus individually.

But for a long time (perhaps until the end of the 1970s) the main focus was on the ideological and psychological manipulation of the general population, the creation of pro-Western masses of Soviet citizens who in actuality would play the role of the West's "fifth column" and (intentionally or unintentionally) working on the ideological and moral disintegration of the Soviet population (not to mention other functions). Thus the dissident movement was created.

In short, the main work was carried out through the destruction of Soviet society "from below". Important achievements had been made that became factors in the future counterrevolution. But they were not significant enough to bring the Soviet society to its collapse.

By the end of the 1970s, the Western Cold War leaders understood that. They realized that the government system formed the basis of Soviet communism and the party apparatus was at its core. Having thoroughly studied the party apparatus, the nature of relations between its members, their psychology and qualifications, selection methods and its other characteristics, Cold War leaders concluded that Soviet society could be destroyed only from the top, by destroying its system of government.

To destroy the latter it was necessary and sufficient to destroy the party apparatus, starting from its top level - the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. So they shifted their main efforts in that direction.

They found the most vulnerable place in the Soviet social structure. It was not difficult for me to guess this shift, because I had an opportunity to observe and study that hidden part of the Cold War.

In 1979 at one of my public speeches ("How to kill an elephant with a needle"), I was asked what in my opinion was the most vulnerable point in the Soviet system. I replied: the one that is considered the most reliable, namely, the apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, within it - the Central Committee, and within the latter - the General Secretary.

To Homeric laughter in the audience, I said that "if you put your man in that position he will ruin the party apparatus, thus starting a chain reaction resulting in the breakdown of the entire government system and administration. The consequence will be the breakdown of the entire society". I referred to the precedent of Pizarro.

The reader should not think that I gave that idea to Cold War strategists. They realized that without me. One of the employees of the Intelligence Service told me that soon they (i.e. forces of the West) would put their man on "the soviet throne".

At that time I did not believe that was possible. I spoke hypothetically of the General Secretary as the West's "needle". But Western strategists already considered that to be a realistic proposition. They developed a plan for winning the war: take the supreme power in the Soviet Union under their control by promoting "their" man to the position of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, force him to destroy the CPSU apparatus, implement an overhaul ("perestroika") that would start a chain reaction and consequent breakdown of the entire Soviet society.

Such a plan was realistic then because the crisis at the top level of Soviet power was already evident, due to the senescence of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Soon "their" man in the role of the Western "needle" appeared (if he was not "prepared" in advance). Admittedly, the plan worked well.

What distinguishes this Cold War operation is that the method of "killing an elephant with a needle" was applied against a less powerful, yet mighty opponent, to obviate the possibility of a "hot war" becoming dangerous to the point where the advantages of the West could disappear, as happened in the war of Germany versus the Soviet Union in 1941-1945.

The method in question made it possible to avoid risk and losses, save time and win by proxy. The method invented by the weak to fight stronger opponents was adopted by the most powerful forces on the planet in their war for domination over the entire human race.


Serge Krieger 4 years ago ,

That would be too smart for them and plainly impossible.

Zinoviev was wrong about it.

There is Russian saying that a fool is more dangerous than an enemy. it is what happened.

Constantine Serge Krieger 4 years ago ,

You put it pretty well. I also think that Gorby wasn't a conscious traitor, but he was not capable to handle the necessary tasks for the reform of the USSR. He botched it badly.

Yeltsin, on the other hand, was exactly that: a traitor. And he proved it time and again.

A final note: Pizarro conquered Peru, not Mexico.

Serge Krieger Constantine 4 years ago ,

Did not notice that about Pizarro, Kortez conquered Mexico.
Gorby was not fit and did not have what it takes to be Central Secretary and he had no idea about how power is used. In times of restructuring and reforms power cannot be diffused and undermined which is what he did, but must be concentrated. Making quite a few heads roll would cause the rest to fall in line including Yeltsin, who was a typical opportunist who smelt weakness and rot at the top and used it.
Note that after Lenin death and until, Stalin by brutal measures concentrated power in his hands, there was a lot of talk but little deeds. Just like in US Congress. Same happened under Gorby, everybody started talking, then everybody started smearing face with feces and glorifying the West until they undermined any chance for positive change. What should have been done is to make heads indeed roll at the top especially in Central Asia and Caucasus republics where corruption was running amok and local intelligencia born by USSR own efforts started thinking too much of themselves. Then when everybody would see there is the Boss in Kremlin, things could have been started to move .
In China Deng had to deal with Hua Guo Feng and others before he started reforms after concentrating power in own hands.
Gorby, well, was not cut for the role. Every few months new ideas, busy body and not very straight talker. He was too soft and lacked abilities to be leader of such a country and had none in his surrounding to shore his deficiencies up.

hoss2013 Serge Krieger 4 years ago ,

Interesting and logical. Did Putin do this (heads roll) to concentrate power?

Serge Krieger hoss2013 4 years ago ,

He did , but me think not enough. also, it is not exactly the way it used to be. I think Putin knew what he was doing. Unlike Gorby who had all of the power in his hands and could do things we are talking about, Putin had to maneuver. His position was not unassailable when he came to power and much later. He had to be more of a fox. He is also not a cruel man, like Stalin was.

chavez Serge Krieger 4 years ago ,

It wouldn't be impossible, even today there are some questionable characters in very high Kremlin positions, and if any of them manage come to power they will undermine Russia's interests as has happened in the not so distant past.

I agree that in the case of Gorby he was more of a fool than a Western agent. The Westerners knew how to charm, flatter and entertain him and he was only too willing to please them and lap up their manipulation and false promises.

Serge Krieger chavez 4 years ago ,

It would be impossible. They do not and did not understand how things work in Russia and they almost always are wrong. Gorby stupidity was all the required, Yeltsin was a dark horse and Coup leaders should have studied more of Lenin how to make coups.

Jack Bluebird Serge Krieger 4 years ago • edited ,

1:23 and 6:54 Play Hide

Jack Bluebird Serge Krieger 4 years ago ,

You underestimate greatly the power of western cunningness and persuading.

Serge Krieger Jack Bluebird 4 years ago ,

With Gorby no cunning was necessary. The guy was plain sucker and not fit for the office. Looks like he got picked for 2 qualities. Youth and good health and having no enemies.

In those years we had new General secretary every year.

Jack Bluebird Serge Krieger 4 years ago ,

I am so sad that the great Soviet Union for which so many many millions of brave and honest people gave everything they had and their life in the end got ripped apart due to this corrupted idiot. Furthermore I am surprised beyond any belief that no one from KGB or Soviet Army arranged for this fool to get smoked when they saw what was about to commence. Today it is still the biggest mystery to me. I am aware that USSR had some problems but those were truly nothing compared to what Russia and all the other post Soviet countries faced after USSR got destroyed by that cock sucker. 300 000 000 people more or less got their future crippled and robbed because of 1 ( one ) western puppy. I just still today cannot believe that happened. Looks like of course he had some KGB staff on his payroll but in the end I just cannot believe that no one took him to Siberia and burried him over there on time.

What is even more sad is that today this idiot is prancing freely across Russia even after almost everyone today sees that because of him they got Yeltsin and his mobsters that stole their future.

I do admire Russian people and respect them for everything they wnt through their past but some things are just not logical for a 12 year old child and definitely not for a nation that gave the most chess masters and champions to the world.

I would definitely like your comment on this if you are a citizen of ex USSR.

Vtran 4 years ago ,

lets look at it a different way ... Who was Gorbachev not Working FOR !
-
Gorbachev Was not Working For the USSR, Gorbachev Was not working for the People of the USSR ...
-
now it is easier to see who Gorbachev the Traitor was Working For / and Where Gorbachev Loyalties Were !

Boris Jaruselski 4 years ago ,

An emotional summary, ...NOT a intelligent one!

Mihail Sergeyevitch is a Russian patriot, just as good as many more millions of Russians are! But Mihail Sergeyevitch fallen for the pretence of honesty, so skilfully played by the west, as he presupposed the existence of GENTLEMEN being in power in the west! ...and he wasn't the only one of the Russian politicians, ...Dimitry Anatolyevitch fallen for the same, ...when the agreed for a no-fly zone to be established over Libya!

There are NO gentlemen in western politics! ZIPPO, ZILCH, NADA! There are O N L Y BASTARDS, one worse then the next!

teddyfromcd Boris Jaruselski 4 years ago ,

i think gorbachev can in a sense be called traitorious to the RUSSIAN nation -- whether it was under the USSR or not...

but precisely because he allowed himself to be ''open'' in ways that the west needed for the leadership to be open -- at the exact time when russia at the core of the USSR NEEDED someone to REFUSE to be ''open'' in exactly the way the USA wanted -- in order to get rid of the 'perception' of a 'failing, geriatric ussr" - and thus , be ''welcomed" by the ''world" which to gorbachev WAS the west...

to the nearly complete ignoring of THE MAJORITY of other nations (such as we see PUTIN achieve differently) -

he became the instrument of what was to follow -- yeltsin and the collapse of not just the USSR -- but RUSSIA'S governance itself

which further opened russia to the pillaging through the oligarchic collaborators with their western masters...

i think GORBACHEV LOVES RUSSIA -- i really do -- i think he is as russia in his soul and heart as can be...

but he was simply

WRONG in his putting FAITH and confidence, just as BORIS correctly argues,

in having GENTLEMEN AS COUNTERPARTS from the west. -- reagan the ACTOR?

excuse me -- THAT IS ALL that gorbacheV should HAVE KEPT IN MIND. to know that the USA was and IS NOT A ''partner"

as the russians, including putin -- like to say out of POLITENESS.

he should have realized that the WEST ARE NOT -- nd never have been 'THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN"

but EXTRAORDINARILY DECEITFUL plunderers and pillagers.

AND it has been like that since the beginning of the USA - TODAY -- and WILL continue to be so.

it is in its DNA

just as TRUE compassion -- faith, ethics, morality, a sense of TRUE justice and brotherhood of all humanity

IS IN THE DNA Of the RUSSIAN SOUL.

in other words -- the MISTAKE of gorbachev -- and yeltsin -- who were RIVALS --
was to believe or WISH to believe THAT THE AMERICANS and west --

were and are EQUALS AS PEOPLE GUIDED BY ETHICS ABOVE politics, economics, personal glory, even nationality --

tht the west -- reagan etc -- were actually MEN OF HONOR.

THAT WAS HIS -- and ANY russian leaderships; GREATEST mistake.

perhaps gorbachev did not HAVE to 'work for the CIA" -- AND THE author is probably correct -- he didn'/t HAVE to - DIRECTLY \\\

it was enough that gorbachev suffered from ''infatuation" with the west....

and so -- whatever HIS intentions or beliefs were -- his ACTS -- in themselves BECAME acts of treason to his great country and people.
for what he did was -- to try to present THEM -- IN HIS ''glasnost and perestroika"

some of the 'freedom of the west" -- that the russian people REALLY did NOT need -- but could have a freedom of THEIR very own

INDEPENDENT of ''copying or emulating" the west...

because IN RUSSIA AND AMONG the russian people

was ALL THE STRENGTH of their own freedom and choice and prosperity they WOULD EVER NEED!

WE SEE THAT TODAY.

bartmaeus 4 years ago ,

Gorby was in cahoots with the Council of 300, so it is alleged by Dr. John Coleman, former MI6.

Jack Bluebird bartmaeus 4 years ago • edited ,

I do agree with that. He was and still is a mason.

Prole Center 4 years ago ,

Hearing on U.S. Security Strategy Post-9/11
Testimony before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
November 6, 2007
( http://www.hks.harvard.edu/...

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage:

Well, indeed. I think we probably didn't get off to the
right foot in the Cold War. But, you know, we did apply smart power.

And let me give you an example -- I was being facetious about the
Chou En-lai French Revolution comment. But one of the advisers to
Gorbachev was a fellow by the name of Yakovlev -- he's the fellow who
came up with the term perestroika.

He actually, back in the bad days of the Cold War, when we were
tightly constraining the number of Soviet citizens who might come here,
he actually studied at Columbia. And he studied under a professor who
taught him about pluralism.

And Yakovlev went back to the then-Soviet Union with an idea that pluralism could work.

And 20 years later, he was the adviser. So it took a while to realize that investment, but we realized that investment.

Prole Center 4 years ago ,

I called this out as a real possibility 2 years ago! I actually think that Gorbachev was just a naive fool and the real CIA agent was his top adviser, Yakovlev. Here is what I wrote back then:

". . . after extensive research by the Prole Center research team, it has come to light that Alexander Yakovlev, Gorbachev's chief advisor on glasnost
and perestroika, was very likely a CIA penetration agent – an agent of influence. He could have been either a witting or unwitting asset of U.S. intelligence."

This information was included as part of a brief book review I did. Here is the link to the full article:

https://prolecenter.wordpre...

Jack Bluebird 4 years ago • edited ,

I still cannot believe how many naive people live today in Russia. There are STILL plenty of people who believe that gorbachev was just a "clumsy" person in charge of the "task too big to handle".

I would like to remind you that even after 2 "sudden" deaths of Soviet leaders ( Andropov and Chernenko ) before this traitor USSR was just in a period of economic stagnation and certainly not a deep recession. Several independent prominent western economists have also collaborated that.

What happened is just so obvious to me that it really cannot get any simpler.

Gorbachev was a very weak minded person who even wasnt a true believer in Soviet principles and even less so even less capable manager and organizer. He was a bureaucrat whos wife was terminally ill and who was just a simpleton who allowed himself to be seduced by the western propaganda and few full stores even though he obviously knew nothing of the background principles of how world economy functioned even then.

Apparently he was way out of his league when meeting with Reagan who was a smart brave and a cunning man I do have to admit that.
Gorbachev did what he only knew he could do. He betrayed the 70 years or hard work of Soviet people and building of different world because he thought that world will admire this moron and traitor if he arranges the collapse of USSR and the "end of the Cold War".

Of course there is another side of this coin.

What the actually did was "below the table" arrangement with the US that he would be able to send his wife to a treatment abroad if he made the USSR disappear and that he would be obviously well compensated for this evil deed. Even today he is being funded by the western government through his "charity funds" Green Cross and Gorbachev foundation.

This guy made the dissolution of USSR on purpose make no mistake about it. It was organized to make it seem as it happened "accidentally" and as a part of "democratic process" so less question would be asked. Apparently even that idiotic strategy worked which seems rather incredible for a country that provided so many smart people and was a leading chess nation for decades. Even Albania would be skeptical about it.

Of course there is a silver lining to this. He could not do this all by himself. He had powerful friends in KGB and army who helped him in his deeds. Why? Because they were greedy people who lost faith in CP. With the help of these people Gorbachev introduced extremely vile version of capitalism to the 300 000 000 people while he and his "comrades" extracted currency reserves from the sabotaged USSR and hid them in western banks and off shore companies.

To corroborate my point I will point out few facts:

1. only when gorbachev came to power Chernobyl catastrophe happened
2. he is the person who sent top Soviet military commanders AND THEIR WHOLE FAMILIES to move from East Germany to the PLAINS of Ukraine and live like dogs for months until their poor quality appartements were finished while being given nothing in exchange from Helmut Kohl but a "Danke schon". No sane 6 year old would do that and certainly not a reasonable and intelligent but honest Soviet leader.
3. He was the person who forced the Energia rocket with Polyus payload to be rushed beyond all reason and that is what caused its demised and failure to put first ever weapon system into orbit.
4. He allowed for the Berlin wall to fall like a brick overnight and did nothing to stop that
5. He DIRECTLY NEGLECTED results of referendum of Soviet people in 1991. who with 72% of votes wanted to preserve USSR
6. He arranged for NATO not to move eastward ORALLY WITHOUT ANY KIND OF AGREEMENT!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??! WHO DOES THIS!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!? BUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
7. He himself made the USSR formally and willingly the thing of past in the end of 1991.

No one sane can believe that USSR dissolved itself in the time when there was no war had a stable economy and strong army. This guy did it with the help of corrupt highly positioned KGB and military personnel and of course CIA who helped them to transfer 50 000 000 000 US dollars ( 1991. value ) out of USSR for their own benefit.

To conclude: Gorbachev is a person of poor intellect, no love for Soviet or Russian principles or state, but also a very sane traitor of USSR and Russia as well and also a member of masonic clan who sold it for his personal interest. Just because he was playing dumb doesnt mean he is not the biggest criminal in Soviet history. Make no mistake about it. Even the dumbest person in Russia cannot believe that all this factors fell in place "like chips". The probability for that is exactly 0 ( zero ).

FreeDilfin 4 years ago ,

Oh come on, this is not news. This was pretty evident. Initially he was not cooperating with CIA. But CIA offered him something he couldn't resists. Nobel peace price, enormous wealth, safe passage to US etc. Health care etc.

greensquare • 4 years ago ,

Wasn't Gorbachev from Russia's frontier lands (sometimes called Ukraine)? Not only that, but from a place which joined the Nazis in their atrocities? I've also heard he took big US money to step down. Bad source on that one though.

Veri1138 greensquare 4 years ago ,

Just look where Gorbachev set up his institute... The Presidio.

Yeltsin was a true puppet of The West.

Antonis Chatzoulis 2 years ago ,

My gut Feeling: he was a spy with inside support.

In the US a President like this would have been stopped (by a crazy loner?! :-)

So who helped the needle from inside?

Btw: after his career Gorby held well payed talks in the West as Obama, Clinton and the like.

william beeby 4 years ago ,

Gorby begat Yeltsin which was his ultimate sin .

musosnoop 4 years ago • edited ,

I disagree with this. Gorbachev had the right intentions. He just didn't bank on the treachery of the wests big biz and various vested interests. Both Gorby and Reagan were both honorable in their intentions and they did achieve much. To me it was Yeltsin who did the utmost damage to Russia making it look like a 3rd world anarchic country as he allowed Oligarchs to strip the countries assets.

MidnightDancer musosnoop 2 years ago ,

It's difficult for me to believe that Gorbachev was simply a naive fool. Anyone educated in Marxist theory know about the predatory nature of capitalism/imperialism. Anyone, particularly a Soviet politician, who'd been observing the behavior of the US after WW2 should have known that the Yanks are masters of treachery.

Andreas Seneca 4 years ago • edited ,

This same words could be written by Gorbachov ' if he had known what a dreadful fate awaited the USSR, he would not have written a single critical book or article about it." , I think Alexander Zinoviev also worked and even work for the CIA after his dead publishing his books.

Otto Tomasch 4 years ago • edited ,

To me, Gorbachev is no traitor. He is a Russian patriot who honestly wanted to improve Soviet Communism and adapt it to his time. Was he naïve? Yes, very much so. After all, he started the stones rolling and should have known what could happen if other people got their hands on them. He probably knew that if one takes one single stone from the monolithic structure of communism the whole structure would collapse. So he just tried to embellish some of the corner stones of communism without pulling them entirely out from its structure, and called this 'perestroika' and 'glasnost'. Other people in his government, oblivious of the danger of completely pulling corner stones from its structure, didn't think embellishing stones in-situ was enough, and pulled them completely from the structure, with the intend to put them back once the dust that had settled on them over time had been thoroughly scratched off, with a wire brush. But by doing so the corner stones changed their form and didn't fit anymore into the places they had been taken from, communism. Thus, the Primal Sin was committed, and Soviet Communism collapsed. And so did Roman Catholicism in Europe for similar reasons.

Jack Bluebird Otto Tomasch 4 years ago ,

Wrong. He had a lot of collaborators much of them are tycoons today.

Sinbad2 4 years ago ,

Look at the picture, Gorbachev is smiling, but his arms are crossed. He is rejecting everything the halfwit President is saying.

Jack Bluebird Sinbad2 4 years ago ,

Reagan was a nuclear physicist when compared to this corrupt and dumb traitor.

[Nov 29, 2019] Russian MPs say Mikhail Gorbachev should be prosecuted for treason

Notable quotes:
"... Ivan Nikitchuk, a Communist party deputy, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular have led five MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask the prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, to examine Gorbachev, 83. ..."
"... "The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen," said Nikitchuk. ..."
The Guardian

A group of Russian MPs have formally requested prosecutors to investigate former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for treason over the breakup of the Soviet Union, a lawmaker said on Thursday.

Ivan Nikitchuk, a Communist party deputy, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular have led five MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask the prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, to examine Gorbachev, 83.

"We asked to prosecute him and those who helped him destroy the Soviet Union for treason of national interests," said Nikitchuk, adding that Soviet citizens in 1991 were against the country's breakup.

Seeking to create a more open and prosperous Soviet Union through glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev ended up unleashing forces that swept away the country he had sought to preserve and himself from power.

"The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen," said Nikitchuk.

He added that this included not only Ukraine but other former Soviet countries over the past two decades.

In February, a popular pro-Western uprising in Ukraine ousted pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych, who has since taken refuge in Russia .

The Kremlin responded by sending troops to Ukraine's Russian-speaking peninsula of Crimea and annexing it as part of Russia last month.

"What is happening in Ukraine can happen in Russia, too," said Nikitchuk. "This pushed us to write to the prosecutor general, so that professional lawyers rather than historians can investigate the events of 1991."

He added that lawmakers were also concerned about internal enemies stirring unrest.

"The fifth column in our country has been formed and works in the open, funded by foreign money," he said.

In a landmark speech marking Russia's takeover of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin called Russians disagreeing with his policies, such as his decision to occupy Crimea, a fifth column.

There have been previous attempts by the Communist party to have Gorbachev prosecuted but these have led nowhere.

Nikitchuk said he hoped that the current political climate makes for a more favourable moment and that prosecutors would launch the investigation this time.

Unlike the previous cases, the current request is backed by lawmakers from the ruling party, United Russia.

Gorbachev said the lawmakers' initiative was "poorly thought out and groundless from a historical point of view".

"Such calls only show that some lawmakers want publicity," he told the Interfax news agency. A spokeswoman at the prosecutor's office declined to comment.

The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist in December 1991 after Russia, Belarus and Ukraine signed the Belavezha accords dissolving the USSR. Gorbachev resigned two weeks later.

[Nov 29, 2019] Gorbachev the Traitor by Boris Kagarlitsky

Nov 29, 2019 | www.themoscowtimes.com

The Soviet Union did not disappear because of a great flood or a major earthquake. Somebody was at the helm making decisions and setting a political course. Politicians should be responsible for their actions. But do politicians alone bear responsibility?

In fact, Gorbachev's problem is inseparably linked with the unstated problem of the low self-esteem and rationalization of the millions of people who lived through the drama of 1991. Some justify Gorbachev's actions in an attempt to justify their own complicity in events. For the same reasons, others try to shift blame from themselves by holding Gorbachev solely responsible. "He ruined everything," they say. "We are not to blame."

Unfortunately, the Soviet people bear responsibility for what happened to their country. That does not lift responsibility from any one individual, even if that person was part of the leadership -- those whom we naturally call on the carpet first for anything that happens. We the people are to blame for not mounting any resistance to that course of action, or at least for not fighting it hard enough.

In truth, the only people with the moral right to criticize Gorbachev today are the ones who had the courage in the 1980s and 1990s to point out how destructive his policies were, to go against the flow, and to condemn the path followed not only by Gorbachev, but also by his main political rival, former President Boris Yeltsin.

Gorbachev's rule contrasts favorably with the leaders who came both before and after him, and he is not remembered for having committed any particularly egregious wrongdoings. According to that thinking, Gorbachev did not "destroy" the Soviet Union, he "only" betrayed the country he led.

Gorbachev took office with a pledge to serve and defend the state. He cannot be blamed for the fact that a catastrophe that had been brewing for two decades erupted during his reign. But as the captain, he was obligated to "go down with the ship" and share the same political fate as the country he governed. The problem is not that Gorbachev could have prevented the collapse and didn't -- he couldn't have under any circumstances -- but that when the troubles came, he snuck away from the battlefield and went home to have dinner.

The people might sometimes excuse or even justify the deeds of malefactors, but it never forgives a traitor.

Boris Kagarlitsky is the director of the Institute of Globalization Studies.

[Nov 29, 2019] Could Mikhail Gorbachev Have Saved the Soviet Union?

Nov 29, 2019 | foreignpolicy.com

But by his death in 1997, Deng's decision appeared vindicated, as world opinion had turned decisively in his favor. Deng had seen enough of Russia's tumultuous politics to know where he stood: sacrifice political liberalization for stability's sake, because the alternative was chaos and collapse. Chinese analysts of Soviet politics continue to fault Gorbachev for abandoning central planning too rapidly and in a disorganized fashion. Rather than liberalizing politics, they argue, Gorbachev should have focused on the economy.

Today, top Chinese leaders cite the Soviet Union as an example of why China's Communist Party must keep its fist clenched on power, even as it casts off the last remaining vestiges of the Maoist economy. Jiang Zemin, who succeeded Deng as China's leader, argued in 1990 that the Soviet Union's main problem was that Gorbachev was a traitor like Leon Trotsky, the Soviet revolutionary who was found guilty of betraying Marxism-Leninism by then-leader Joseph Stalin.

That was an ironic charge coming from the official who first formally welcomed China's business classes into the supposedly communist ruling party. Yet in December 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping echoed this analysis. "Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate?" he asked a group of Communist Party members. "Their ideals and convictions wavered," he explained. "Finally, all it took was one quiet word from Gorbachev to declare the dissolution of the Soviet Communist Party, and a great party was gone." Yet it is Deng's logic that has come to dominate most interpretations of the Soviet Union's collapse. "My father," reported Deng's youngest son, "thinks Gorbachev is an idiot."

In Russia, many agree. Russians regularly rate Gorbachev as one of their worst leaders of the 20th century. A 2013 poll found that only 22 percent of Russians perceive Gorbachev positively or slightly positively, while 66 percent have a negative impression. By contrast, Leonid Brezhnev, who presided over two decades of stagnation, is viewed positively by 56 percent of Russians. Even Stalin, who managed a murderous reign of terror, gets positive marks from half of Russians. It is not surprising, then, that Deng's reputation in Russia has risen. Many Russians see China as a model of what their country should have done during the 1980s and 1990s. Liberal politics cause chaos and economic distress, many Russians have concluded, and only a strong hand can deliver economic growth.

... ... ...

... Deng managed to compromise with other elites, letting them retain their authority in exchange for their support in pursuing economic reforms that allowed China to grow. But in the Soviet Union, economic reform meant destroying the power base of the special interest groups, leaving a potential military coup lurking in the background and hanging over Gorbachev's head. That was a threat Deng never faced.

The reason why Gorbachev lost out is not because the Soviet economy was unreformable. China's example proved that the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy was possible. Rather, the Soviet Union collapsed because vast political power was entrusted to groups that had every reason to sabotage the efforts to resolve the country's decades-long financial dilemmas.

In the end, the political clout of these interest groups proved far greater than Gorbachev anticipated. In his quest to reform his country and steer it away from calamity, Gorbachev brought about the very process that would eventually lead to the Soviet Union's collapse.

This article is adapted from Chris Miller's new book, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR .

[Nov 29, 2019] Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR - DebateWise

Nov 29, 2019 | debatewise.org

Perestroika put the final nails in the USSR's economy One of the first main policies Gorbachev adopted was Perestroika – reform of the economy. Hoarding and reciprocal favours (blat) had been a means of survival in the Soviet Union, thieving to 'moonlight' was also common and this cost the regime a lot. The 'command-administrative' system had become obsolete in the Post-Industrial era and was curtailing economic development 1. To solve this, Gorbachev wanted to give enterprise managers control over contracts and introduce aspects of the market economy, to make it managers' responsibility to gain contracts and to make sure the enterprise makes a profit. However, in practice the way the enterprises operated remained unchanged except in terms – ministries rephrased their commands as contracts 2. Private enterprise was also permitted, which seemed to contradict Gorbachev's claim to be committed to Marxist-Leninist thought which was vehemently opposed to capitalism which Marxist's argue exploit the proleteriat – so to actually create a class of capitalists who (according to Marxist doctrine) would exploit the workers who were supposed to be living in socialist – i.e. 'classless society' seemed contradictory to the very ideological concept the regime's power was based upon. A small amount of private enterprise emerged, but the profiteering was very much resented by the general population – goods and services were sold for four or five times their subsidized price due to shortages. Another aspect of Perestroika was entry into the market economy – many of the social benefits given by the enterprises had to be done away with, as they could not make a profit and afford to maintain the benefits, resulting in a stagnant economy occuring simultaneously with a collapsing social welfare system. Gorbachev's reforms did not work and only succeeded in hastening the economic collapse that was inevitable.

1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because... Glasnost facilitated Opposition to Concentrate against the Regime Allowing freedom of thought from the 'mono-ideological controls' that existed for decades and allowing pluralist thought and leadership meant a weakening of power for the Communist Party – it had to convert into a proper parliamentary party to survive. Furthermore, in a regime based on oppression and propaganda, when these are removed and freedom of speech and freedom of the media are introduced, nasty elements about the system in the past are going to be revealed, and when there is 70 years of repression being reported all at once, it is inevitable there will be extreme hostility toward those responsible – the Party 1, this especially fuelled the anger of the nationalities who had been oppressed and triggered a nationalist movement.

The population were dissatisfied with the dire state of affairs and could voice their discontent openly with glasnost, which led to Gorbachev becoming very unpopular by 1991, in which year the economy had contracted by 18% 2, people were also very concerned over the incompetence of the command-administrative system and irresponsibility of the leadership with regards to the 1986 Chernobyl power station disaster 3.

In a state committed to one ideology, the removal of mono-ideological controls, and the ability of other ideological persuasions to come to power meant the Party had lost its RIGHT to govern the people unless the people themselves WANTED the Party to rule. Thus, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had to win the support of the people in order to govern effectively. However, in a society that was becoming increasingly liberal and 'bourgeois' (the USSR was largely middle class, private property was protected and capitalism was legalised), the people had to believe in socialist ideology – which would have been almost impossible to achieve.

Gorbachev's reforms themselves undermined some of the principle features of socialist rule in the USSR, e.g. atheism, mono-ideological control, one-party state, economic monopoly and the suspendability of law. Gorbachev's ideology itself – his focus on 'all-human values' instead of the class struggle, the rule of law, international peace and proper parliamentary representation have more resonance with John Stuart Mill than Karl Marx 4 – Gorbachev was subconsciously moving the USSR in this ideological direction.

With democratization and pluralist thought permitted, Gorbachev found himself operating within an increasingly wide political spectrum – with the reformist 'democrats' on one side and the conservative Communist Party members on the other. There was a constant power struggle between the two and Gorbachev dealt with this by constantly playing one side against the other and compromising. One of Gorbachev's critics at the time said this was like trying to marry a hare to a hedgehog. The two sides were very much irreconcilable and instead of trying to defeat one side, Gorbachev sat on the fence and as a result his policies were constantly inconsistent – you cannot mix radical reforms with conservatism 5. The dangers of this were apparent when Shevardnadze, Foreign Minister at the time, resigned because he warned a dictatorship was approaching, Gorbachev ignored this threat and dismissed this claim with overconfidence 6.

1 Kagarlitsky, B. Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: neo-liberal autocracy, London: Pluto 2002

2 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997

3 Haynes, M., Russia: Class and Power, 1917-2000, London: Bookmarks 2002

4 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997

5 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991

6 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991 No because... Regional Nationalism and Independence Movements These original flaws in the system were largely responsible for its own downfall – in particular the nationalities issue – the decision to maintain the Empire without granting real power to the nationalities whilst simultaneously repressing them left most of the nationalities feeling bitter when glasnost revealed the truth about how they had been treated in the past and democratisation gave them the power to chose representatives who would really represent people's interests (the nationalist movement) whilst at the same time being given by Gorbachev an appetite for power – a fatal combination.

The wealthier regions wanted a separation from the USSR because of the feeling they were being milked from the centre and many other regions wanted to become independent because they did not want to be part of an economic disaster area which became apparent when the Donbass miners who had no commitment to nationalism thought their future would be safer if the Ukraine wasn't part of the USSR 1.

The nationalist movement emerged when freedom of speech, media and association along with democratisation and the loss of fear of repression allowed people to voice pride in their nation and resentment at past repressions as well as the ongoing special treatment of Russians in the Regions, who had access to better housing and other special privileges the locals did not.

Certain Republics felt nationalism more strongly than others, most notably the Baltic States who felt a strong cultural attachment to the West and felt they were being unfairly occupied. Gorbachev's mistake here was to downplay the importance of nationalism and not treat the Baltic States as a special case 2. After all, most of the population of the USSR wished to preserve the Union – 76% voted to preserve the Union in March 1991 (except the Baltic States, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia who did not conduct the referendum) 3. After the failed coup, most states declared their independence, even if they did so with reluctance, as there was a general feeling there was no alternative. Gorbachev tried to persuade the Republics not to become fully independent. However, in early December, the Ukraine held a referendum where the population voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, even after Gorbachev stated "there can be no Union without Ukraine", on 8th December, Yeltsin met with the Ukrainian and Bielorussian leader and declared a formal end to the USSR and the establishment of the Confederation of Independent States which they invited the other states to join.

There was nothing left Gorbachev could do, democratisation had brought about the means for independence and Gorbachev didn't feel he could argue with people's wishes carried out through democratic means and, on 25th December he resigned with regret.

1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

2 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996

3 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996 Yeltsin Factor Boris Yeltsin emerged as the true hero and strong leader for the fearlessness to condemn the coup – in a press conference afterwards Yeltsin ordered Gorbachev around undermining his position, then used his institutional powers derived from democratization to appoint Egor Gaidar, an economist dedicated to laissez-faire economics, as his Finance Minister and suspension of the CPSU pending an investigation into the coup. Gorbachev half heartedly argued against this but it was no use – he was seen as a weaker leader along with discontent over his policies, whilst Yeltsin's radicalism was keeping pace with developments and his popularity at an all-time high, Gorbachev's position was also much less weaker without the Communist Party. Also, the Soviet Union really could not exist without the Communist Party arguably as they had political and economic monopoly on society and the Communist Party went from controlling these aspects of society to ceasing to exist, the Soviet Union could not function and the economy spiralled out of control. Yes because...

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... August 1991 Coup Counter Productive, Bringing About What It Sought To Prevent - The End of the Soviet Union By August 1991 Gorbachev's popularity was at an all-time low both in the Party and outside it. Despite being advised by some of his staff to sign the Treaty agreement granting the republics real autonomy before going on holiday and some suspicious circumstances he should have been more questioning about, he planned on signing the agreement when he returned. This was a big mistake and allowed the conservatives to stage a coup. The Emergency Committee made no reference whatsoever to Marxism-Leninism or the class struggle in their speech, meaning it was a coup in the hope of returning the Soviet Union to 'normal' i.e. an Empire controlled from Moscow and putting the final nails in the coffin of socialism in the USSR 1.

The failed coup triggered the very thing it sought to prevent – the break-up of the Soviet Union 2.

1 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

2 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992

Yes because... Report this ad

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... The System Needed to Change in Order to Survive in the Longer Term; That Mikhail Gorbachev's Reforms Failed Showed that the USSR Could Not be Saved By the Gorbachev era, all hopes of fulfilling the original Marxist-Leninist dream were gone and most did not feel passionately about communism, even within the Party. There was a general acknowledgement that the USSR could not continue in the same way as before – Andropov, Gorbachev's predecessor also realised this and set about changing society through repressive measures such as harsh labour discipline enforced by cutting payments from workers for work deemed poor quality and restrictions on the sale of alcohol and prohibition of alcohol on official occasions was felt overly repressive and for many – Gorbachev was seen as a positive, energetic leader who would overcome the USSR's problems in a less repressive manner. With economic stagnation and an economy dependent on the exportation of natural resources to survive 1, an unsuccessful war (Afghanistan) and an ageing Party Membership to combat, Gorbachev was the candidate for those who wanted change or at least realised change could no longer be postponed 2.

Autocracies survive due to repressing their people to the extent that they are not given the freedoms required to change their government, rather than because the people want them to stay in power. Mikhail Gorbachev's conscience and sense of responsibility for his population dictated that the system could no longer be propped up like this, and that the people needed and deserved the freedoms and basic human rights they had been denied for decades. That the system could not encorporate such freedoms meant that the system morally should not be allowed to perpetuate itself, and thus the Soviet Union fell apart because it was unrepresentative and did not support the population's human rights means the fall of the USSR should be applauded, not mourned for its' population.

1 Volkogonov, D.A. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: political leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev, edited and translated by M. Shukman, London: HarperCollins 1998

2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... War with Afghanistan Drained USSR of Patriotic Morale The war in Afghanistan was a key contributing factor to the breakup of the USSR. Reuveny and Prakash argue that the Soviet-Afghan war contributed to undermining the Soviet Union in many ways. First, it discredited the Red Army, and impacted negatively upon the image of the Red Army as a strong, almost invincible force, which gave nationalist movements in the Republics hope that they might succeed in attaining independence after all. Second, it impacted upon leadership perception on the usefulness of utilising the military to keep the union intact and as a force for foreign intervention. Third, it created new forms of political participation, which had begun to impact upon media reporting even before glasnost, and began the first calls for glasnost, as it created a number of war veterans, who went on to form organisations which weakened the total authority of the CPSU 1.

1 Reuveny, Rafael, and Prakash, Aseem, 'The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union', Review of International Studies (1999), 25:693-708 Yes because... Report this ad

Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... It was dead from the time Stalin took control Gorbachev finished it off, but Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc. really killed it. Lenin had nothing to do with that, he was a socialist-marxist, not a communist. You obviously don't know the difference. Learn it before you blindly yell your opinion into the dark of the internet.

[Nov 29, 2019] Was Mikhail Gorbachev an incompetent leader or a stooge of the West - Quora

Nov 29, 2019 | www.quora.com

Joe Venetos , history, European Union and politics, int'l relations Answered Aug 22 2017 · Author has 485 answers and 325k answer views

Neither.

The USSR as it was was not sustainable, and the writing was all over the wall.

The reason it wasn't sustainable, however, is widely misunderstood.

The Soviet Union could have switched to a market or hybrid economy and still remained a unified state. However, it was made up of 15 very different essentially nation-states from Estonia to Uzbekistan, and separatist movements were tearing the Union apart.

Unlike other multi-national European empires that met their day earlier in the 20th century, such as the British, French, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, or Ottoman Empires, the Russian Empi...

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Neither.

The USSR as it was was not sustainable, and the writing was all over the wall.

The reason it wasn't sustainable, however, is widely misunderstood.

The Soviet Union could have switched to a market or hybrid economy and still remained a unified state. However, it was made up of 15 very different essentially nation-states from Estonia to Uzbekistan, and separatist movements were tearing the Union apart.

Unlike other multi-national European empires that met their day earlier in the 20th century, such as the British, French, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, or Ottoman Empires, the Russian Empire never had the chance to disband; the can was simply kicked down the road by the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet era. Restrictions on free speech and press, followed by a gradual economic downturn that began in the 1970s, brewed anti-Union and separatist sentiments among sizeable sections of society. It's important to note, however, that not everyone wanted the disband the USSR, and not everyone in the Russian republic wanted to keep it together (the Central Asian states were the most reluctant to secede). There was, actually, a referendum on whether or not to keep the Union together, and a slight majority voted in favor (something Gorbachev points out to this day), but the vote was also boycotted by quite a few people, especially in the Baltic republics. So, we know that the citizens had mixed feelings and the reasons for the USSR's end were far more complex than just "communism failed".

By the summer of 1991, there was nothing Gorbachev could do. The hardliners saw him as incompetent to save the Union, but too many citizens and military personnel had defected to the politicians of the constituent republics (rather than the Union's leadership), including Russia itself, that were increasingly pursuing their independence since the first multiparty elections across the Union in 1989. By December 1991, Union-level political bodies agreed to disband. So, Gorbachev had no choice but to admit that the USSR no longer existed.

Gorbachev could have ruled with an iron fist, and he could have done so from the 1985 without ever implementing glasnost and perestroika, but that could have been a disaster. We don't really know, actually, but in my opinion, an oligarchy -which is what the USSR was in its later years, not an authoritarian state like it was under Stalin- still needs some level of public consent to continue governing, like China (which is also a diverse society, but far more homogenous than the USSR was). If you have all this economic and separatist malaise brewing, it's not going to work out.

In the long run, Russia is much better off. They now have a state where ethnic Russians make up 80% of the population (a good balance), from what was, I think 50% in the USSR.

While some Russians regret that the USSR ended, others don't care or were ready to call themselves "Russian" rather than "Soviet". It's no different to French public opinion turning against the Algerian war in the 1960s and supporting Algerian independence, or British public opinion starting to support the independence of India yet some people from those countries, may look back fondly. Also, Russia went through a tough economic period in the 1990s, which strengthened Soviet nostalgia, understandably, thinking back to a time when the state guaranteed everyone with housing and a job. While some sentiments still exist today in the Russian Federation that may appear pro-Soviet, it's important to point out that that doesn't necessarily mean these folks would like to recreate the Soviet Union as it was . Many just simply miss the heaftier influence the USSR had, versus what they perceive to be weakness or disrespect for Russia today. The communist party today gets few votes in Russian elections; and many Russians now were not adults prior to 1991, and thus don't quite remember the era too well; many others may be old enough to remember the economic downturn of the 80s, and not the economic good times of the 60s.

One final point, regarding Gorbachev being a "stooge of the West": that gives far too much credit to America under Reagan for taking down the USSR. The "West" had nothing to do with it. In the longer run, as we may be seeing slowly unravel since the Bush Jr administration, America pretty much screwed itself with the massive military spending that started in the 80s and continues upward, with supporting the mujahedeen to lure the USSR into Afghanistan in 1979 (a war that lasted until 1989), with opposing any secular regime in the Middle East friendly to Moscow in the 70s and 80s, and so on we all know how these events started playing out for the US much later, from 9/11 to the current Trump mess.

[Nov 29, 2019] In many ways, Obama's presidency was the biggest lie in the history of an empire built on grand lies of democracy, liberty, and freedom.

Nov 29, 2019 | blackagendareport.com

The U.S.' counterinsurgency war against the communist and Black self-determinationist movements of the 20th century ensured that the period of U.S. imperial decline beginning in the 1970s would embolden the rich to eviscerate any and all gains made by workers in the decades prior. Neoliberal austerity, privatization, and monopolization drowned the United States in a sea of counterrevolutionary political ideology. "Call out culture" commodified movement culture and channeled activists into profitable modes of expression that promoted individual recognition, academic prestige, and careerism rather than the plight of the poor, especially the Black poor.

... ... ...

"Corporate political operatives like Obama seek to 'diversify' a violent empire."

As I wrote for Black Agenda Report in 2016, Obama's legacy is in large part shaped by a mastery of counterinsurgency warfare. His recent slandering of millennial activists fits snugly within this legacy. While appearing to castigate the very political environment that elevated him beyond criticism for eight years, Obama was really taking aim at the increasingly left posture of millennials. The "Bernie or bust" movement is worrisome to a ruling class that has utilized the counterinsurgency skills of Barack Obama to engineer massive profits from endless war and austerity. "Wokeness" and "purity" must be shot down by Obama because it threatens the legitimacy of political class actors like him who expect to be praised for their intelligent leadership over the great race to the bottom.

Barack Obama takes great pride in his impurity. Obama was elected in 2008 to bring "hope" and "change" to the masses, only to escalate and add to every single ill of end-stage U.S. imperialism. Under his administration, whistleblowers were prosecuted under the Espionage Act in record numbers, Black wealth plummeted, bankers ran away with trillions worth in bailout rescue funds, and the military industrial complex expanded its special operations to engulf 70 percent of the world's nations in a regime of endless chaos. In many ways, Obama's presidency was the biggest lie in the history of an empire built on grand lies of democracy, liberty, and freedom. As he successfully posed as the "lesser evil," Obama was hard at work instituting a permanent private healthcare system ( the Affordable Care Act ), murdering thousands of people by way of drone strike , and militarizing the African continent through AFRICOM to ensure the instability required for Western corporations to plunder the continent of its vast wealth.

"'Wokeness' and 'purity' must be shot down by Obama because it threatens the legitimacy of political class actors like him."

While Obama succeeded in ramming through the ruling class' agenda, he also helped engineer the political crisis which paved the way for the rise of Bernie Sanders. Millennials have mobilized in the millions to elect a president that will bring them Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and living wages. They are no longer interested in politicians like Obama who claim to be a "lesser evil" choice to the Republicans only to implement a more effective Wall Street agenda that renders ninety percent of all new jobs low-wage or temporary. The "purity" of the Sandernista's principles is a sign to Obama and his class that Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg are unlikely to garner any support from Sanders' large millennial base. It should come as no surprise, then, that Obama feels compelled to condemn the political leanings of young people as an affront to his sordid legacy.

Obama benefitted from the proliferation of call out culture so much that he has no shame in telling its most loyal adherents to "shut up and dribble" into the embrace of the Democratic Party. Neither Obama nor the rest of the corporate Democratic Party has anything to offer except the so-called civility and respectability that characterizes their approach to imperial rule. Obama is aware of who he works for and what will keep him well-paid now that his presidential career has ended. Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has quickly become a pundit for Wall Street and its paid killers in the war machine. His most recent comments offer further evidence of the desperate need for a mass exit from the Democratic Party. Of course, no mass exodus from the Democratic Party is possible prior to a popular repudiation of Obama's legacy and all the imperial arrogance and destruction that comes with it.

Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto Sirvent are co-authors of the book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News--From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror ( Skyhorse Publishing). He can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @spiritofho, and on Youtube at The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong

[Nov 28, 2019] Soros girl Fiona Hill continues to amaze and astound; one of her latest wheezes is that the Russians fed disinformation to a naive Christopher Steele

Female neocon are more aggressive and bloodthirsty than man neocons. That's happens in animal world too.
Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman November 23, 2019 at 11:44 pm

Fiona Hill continues to amaze and astound; one of her latest wheezes is that the Russians fed disinformation to a naive Christopher Steele so that they could frame themselves for interfering in the 2016 American presidential election.

https://www.checkpointasia.net/russia-framed-itself-for-russiagate-former-top-russia-expert-at-the-white-house/

As the subheading suggests: yeah – that makes sense.

Moscow Exile November 24, 2019 at 1:21 am
Yeah, the Russian expert Fiona, daughter of a Durham coalfield miner, whose expertise here was acquired whilst studying in the USSR for 1 academic year in 1987 on a Russian studies degree course. And, curiously enough, as an undergraduate here, she interned for NBC News.

Now how did she manage to do that, I wonder?

By a strange parallel, I too arrived in the USSR at the same time in order to study Russian, and furthermore, until 1985 I had been a Lancashire coal miner.

After having graduated, however, I came back here in 1993 and stayed; she, on the other hand, having graduated from St. Andrew's University, Scotland, on the advice of an American academic, applied for a postgraduate course of studies at Harvard, where, in 1991, she got a master's in Russian and history.

After that, it seems the world has been her lobster as regards getting paid for her expertise on matters Russian.

Now, where did I go wrong?


above: Hill, seated to the left of Scumbag Bolton at a meeting with "Vlad", Leader of the Orcs, June 27, 2018, Mordor..

[Nov 28, 2019] Sherlock, super hearing' Holmes 'Russia Did It' Hill testimony reveals deep state panic

Notable quotes:
"... While their testimony was unable to prove a quid pro quo or machiavellian Trump bribery, it did reveal the extent to which the Democrat party and the Deep State are in panic mode, as Obama White House corruption investigations into loans provided to Ukraine ramp up, and Ukraine election meddling in 2016 have now taken center stage. ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Warren November 25, 2019 at 11:56 am

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nqb7l2wICBE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

'Sherlock, super hearing' Holmes & 'Russia Did It' Hill testimony reveals deep state panic
24 Nov 2019

The Duran

The Duran Quick Take: Episode 382.

The Duran's Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss Adam Schiff's decision to call up a super hearing, lip-reading David Holmes and Russia hating bureaucrat Fiona Hill to close out the impeachment inquiry clown show.

While their testimony was unable to prove a quid pro quo or machiavellian Trump bribery, it did reveal the extent to which the Democrat party and the Deep State are in panic mode, as Obama White House corruption investigations into loans provided to Ukraine ramp up, and Ukraine election meddling in 2016 have now taken center stage.

[Nov 28, 2019] Like in Ukraine the goal of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to 'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet while Anez gets settled in, selects a cabinet and forms her organization

Notable quotes:
"... The aim of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to 'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet while Anez gets settled in and selects a cabinet and forms her organization. After that, it'll just be the new reality, and everyone will have to get used to it. ..."
"... Frankly, it's almost a pity there wasn't a mercenary army for hire by victims of western-sponsored coups such as Ukraine and Bolivia. The military has remained mostly loyal to Maduro in Venezuela, so I did not include it. ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Warren November 25, 2019 at 10:02 am

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7aCfjUCndRI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Inside Bolivia's murderous post-coup regime – with Wyatt Reed
25 Nov 2019

Moderate Rebels

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with journalist Wyatt Reed, who is reporting on the ground in Bolivia after a US-backed far-right military coup against democratically elected leftist President Evo Morales. He describes the bloody repression of Indigenous protesters and the state of resistance.

Mark Chapman November 25, 2019 at 4:23 pm
The aim of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to 'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet while Anez gets settled in and selects a cabinet and forms her organization. After that, it'll just be the new reality, and everyone will have to get used to it.

Frankly, it's almost a pity there wasn't a mercenary army for hire by victims of western-sponsored coups such as Ukraine and Bolivia. The military has remained mostly loyal to Maduro in Venezuela, so I did not include it.

This army could be used to fight the disloyal police and military and restore order. But that'd be the wrong way to go, because it would quickly escalate and you can be sure the hired peacekeepers would be referred to as invaders rather than 'moderate rebels', so Washington would consider itself invited in militarily to 'protect democracy'.

[Nov 28, 2019] America Doesn t Need Another Weakling NATO Ally by Doug Bandow

Notable quotes:
"... In contrast, the transatlantic alliance should advance American and European security. Absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, thereby pushing the alliance up to the Russian Federation's border, proved to be a foolish move because it violated assurances made to Russian leaders. Despite being former KGB, Vladimir Putin never appeared to be ideologically antagonistic toward America. However, when he perceived Washington's behavior as threatening -- including dismembering Serbia, backing revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, and promising to include both nations in NATO -- it encouraged him to respond violently. ..."
"... Admitting new members is never costless. Aid will be necessary to improve their militaries. Moreover, newer members sometimes become the most demanding, like the Baltics and Poland, which insist that they are entitled to American bases and garrisons. ..."
"... Continuing expansion also reinforces the message that NATO is hostile toward Russia. That's the only country allies are joining to oppose, after all. Obviously, there are plenty of other reasons Moscow should distrust the United States, but reinforcing negative perceptions for no benefit at all is bad policy. ..."
Jul 19, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com

America Doesn't Need Another Weakling NATO Ally Macedonia is the latest nation invited into the alliance, but how does that enhance America's (or Europe's) security?July 19, 2018

Utenriksdept / cc At last week's NATO summit, President Donald Trump denounced the allies for taking advantage of American taxpayers. Then he approved their latest subsidies. He even agreed to invite a military weakling, Macedonia, to join NATO, which will add yet another nation to our military dole.

When George Washington warned Americans against forming a "passionate attachment" to other countries, he might have been thinking of the Balkans. Indeed, a couple decades later, John Quincy Adams criticized proposals to aid Greece against the Ottoman Empire, which then ruled that region. America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy," he intoned.

On into the 20th century, the Balkans were in turmoil. Germany's "Iron Chancellor," Otto von Bismarck, warned that "the great European War would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans." That's exactly what happened in 1914.

It took decades and two world wars for the Balkans to stabilize. But after the Cold War ended, Yugoslavia, which had emerged from Europe's previous convulsions, broke apart. One of the smaller pieces was Macedonia.

The battles among the Serbians, Croatians, and Bosnians were bloody and brutal. In contrast, Macedonia provided comic relief. The small, mountainous, landlocked nation of two million people won its independence without a fight in 1991, though Athens launched a verbal and economic war against Skopje over the latter's use of the name "Macedonia."

Perhaps modern Greeks feared that a resurrected Alexander the Great would lead the newly freed Macedonian hordes south and conquer Greece. Skopje entered the United Nations under the provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM. In June, after only 27 years, the two governments agreed that Macedonia/FYROM would be called the Republic of North Macedonia -- though the decision must still be ratified by the Macedonian people in a referendum.

More serious was the insurgency launched by ethnic Albanians who made up about a quarter of the nation's population. The battle two decades ago over Kosovo inflamed ethnic relations in Macedonia, eventually resulting in a short-lived insurgency. Although the fighters disarmed, Skopje's politics remained nationalist and difficult. Last year, a more liberal administration took over, but the country's democratic institutions remain fragile.

Indeed, Freedom House only rates the nation "partly free." The group cites voter intimidation, political patronage networks, violent protests, and problems with judicial impartiality and due process. Particularly serious were the threats against press freedom, which led to a rating of "not free" in that area. While NATO's newer members tend to score lower than "Old Europe," as Donald Rumsfeld once referred to the original allies, Macedonia is a step further down. Only Turkey, an incipient dictatorship, is worse: it almost certainly would not be considered for membership today.

None of this mattered last week, however. After suffering Trump's many slings and arrows, alliance members approved an invitation for Skopje to join NATO. Macedonian lawmaker Artan Grubi called it "our dream coming true. We have been in the waiting hall for too long."

That's because Macedonia had hoped for an invite back in 2008 at the Bucharest summit, but was blocked by Athens over the name dispute, and has wanted to join ever since. Macedonia's Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska said, "With NATO membership, Macedonia becomes part of the most powerful alliance. That enhances both our security and economic prosperity." Money and status are expected to follow.

But how would this benefit the United States and other NATO members? James Ker-Lindsay at the London School of Economics made the astonishing claim that "opening the way for the country to join NATO would be a big win for the organization at a crucial time when concerns over Russian influence in the Western Balkans are growing in many capitals." As Skopje goes, so goes Europe? Not likely. If Washington and Moscow are engaged in a new "great game," it is not a battle for Macedonia.

In fact, Macedonia is a security irrelevancy, destined to require American aid to create the pretense that its military is fit for the transatlantic alliance. Skopje spent just $112 million on its armed forces last year, ahead of only one NATO member, Montenegro. That was barely 1 percent of its GDP, putting Macedonia near the back of the NATO pack.

With an 8,000-man military, one is tempted to ask, why bother? But then one could similarly pose that query to several other NATO members. Skopje's military is roughly the same size as Albania's, slightly bigger than Slovenia's, and about four times the size of Montenegro's. None will be of much use in a conflict with the only conceivable threat, Russia.

So why bring Macedonia into NATO?

Some American policymakers see alliance membership as a means to socialize nations like Macedonia, helping them move towards democracy. However, the European Union, which sets standards governing a range of domestic policies, has always been better suited to this task, and EU membership imposes no security obligations on Washington. With the name controversy tentatively resolved, Skopje could begin the EU accession process -- if the Europeans are willing. That is properly their -- not Washington's -- responsibility.

In contrast, the transatlantic alliance should advance American and European security. Absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, thereby pushing the alliance up to the Russian Federation's border, proved to be a foolish move because it violated assurances made to Russian leaders. Despite being former KGB, Vladimir Putin never appeared to be ideologically antagonistic toward America. However, when he perceived Washington's behavior as threatening -- including dismembering Serbia, backing revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, and promising to include both nations in NATO -- it encouraged him to respond violently.

The Balkans are peripheral even to Europe and matter little to America's defense. The states and peoples there tend to be more disruptive and less democratic than their neighbors, reflecting the region's unstable history. (North) Macedonia's 8,000 troops aren't likely to be reborn as the Spartan 300 and hold off invading Russians. So why should America threaten war on Skopje's behalf?

Admitting new members is never costless. Aid will be necessary to improve their militaries. Moreover, newer members sometimes become the most demanding, like the Baltics and Poland, which insist that they are entitled to American bases and garrisons.

Expansion also complicates alliance decision-making. No doubt, Washington wishes its European allies would do what they're told: spend more, shut up, and deploy where America wants them. That doesn't work out very well in practice, alas, as Trump has discovered in Europe (though nations with smaller militaries are more likely to acquiesce than nations with bigger ones). An organization of 30 members, which NATO will become if Macedonia is added, is a more complex and less agile creature than one of 16, the number that existed before NATO raced east.

Continuing expansion also reinforces the message that NATO is hostile toward Russia. That's the only country allies are joining to oppose, after all. Obviously, there are plenty of other reasons Moscow should distrust the United States, but reinforcing negative perceptions for no benefit at all is bad policy.

Finally, expanding the alliance is nonsensical in light of the president's criticisms of the Europeans. Hiking U.S. military spending, increasing manpower and materiel deployments in Europe, and adding new members all contradict his demand that the allies do more and signal that the president is not serious in his demands. That leaves the Europeans with little incentive to act, especially since most of their peoples perceive few if any security threats.

Yet again President Trump has been exposed as a thoughtless blowhard. His rabid supporters have likely enjoyed his confrontational rhetoric, but he has done nothing to turn it into policy. The Europeans need only wait for his attacks to ebb and then they can proceed much the same as before. The status quo will continue to reign, impervious to change.

Montenegro always resembled the Duchy of Grand Fenwick from the delightful novel The Mouse that Roared . Macedonia is the Duchy of North Grand Fenwick, a slightly larger neighboring state with similar features but additional problems. Neither is remotely relevant to American security. America doesn't need yet another security black hole as an alliance partner.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .

[Nov 28, 2019] Kushner's Apparent Extortion of Qatar is an interesting gem

Nov 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

dltravers , Nov 28 2019 20:51 utc | 44

Kushner's Apparent Extortion of Qatar is an interesting gem. If you remember Rex Tillerson quitting, Saudi Arabia and the UAE almost going to war with Qatar and then Brookstone Partners, financed by Qatar paying, 1.4 billion for Kushers failed 666 building in NY where they were hemorrhaging money.

All this happened so Kushner could shake down Qatar to pay for his families losses? This came out of a recent deposition in Florida concerning the royal family of Qatar. Read Ilhan Omar deposition text also names Sarsour and Kushner as Qatari assets

Quoting...

Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close.

Explaining that Qatar uses western companies to effectively launder the money they paid to American citizens, Bender cited a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested heavily in.

Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts.
"Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms. Castenda, asked.
"Too risky," Bender replied.

"Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified.

"Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. And Kushner is happy with them because, according to them, I don't know Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'"
"The dogs being who?" she asked.

"Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.

The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off, but told Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House, we have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender clarified.

Did we really expect anything less than this?

[Nov 28, 2019] Ukraine vs Iraq

Nov 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bemildred , Nov 28 2019 17:10 utc | 23

Giraldi brings up again the stupidity of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the predictable and predicted results:

Iran May Be the Only Winner in Iraq

[Nov 28, 2019] Tulsi is capable of being a good president the first in decades in my opinion

Notable quotes:
"... Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like "Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package. ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star November 25, 2019 at 11:52 am

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ktOunMSzzw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

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Patient Observer November 25, 2019 at 3:47 pm
Did she say she would not vote for impeachment? Up to recently, I thought that, while she was the best of a bunch of fakers, clowns and idiots, her lack of experience and toughness were fatal flaws..

However, her ongoing performances suggests to me that she is capable of being a good president – the first in decades in my opinion.

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Mark Chapman November 25, 2019 at 5:18 pm
Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like "Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package.

Hillary did her a huge favour by taking her on.

[Nov 28, 2019] The cultural shift at Boeing from an engineer-centric agency to an executive-dominated moneymaker, just before the production of the Dreamliner.

Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman November 27, 2019 at 12:44 pm

A fairly recent update on the Boeing situation. This is a lengthy and very comprehensive article which delves into the cultural shift at Boeing from an engineer-centric agency to an executive-dominated moneymaker, just before the production of the Dreamliner.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/the-case-against-boeing?utm_source=pocket-newtab

"In December, 1996, Boeing announced that it was buying a struggling rival, McDonnell Douglas, for thirteen billion dollars. Sorscher is one of many Boeing employees who have identified the merger as the moment when Boeing went from being led by engineers to being led by business executives driven by stock performance.

Sorscher recalled a labor-management breakfast, shortly before the merger, at which a top Boeing executive said that the company would reduce spending on a program that employed engineers to find improvements in the process of making planes. Sorscher, a member of the union's bargaining unit at the time, pointed out how much money process improvement was saving the company."

" The executive tipped his head back, as if thinking how best to explain basic economics to a clueless scientist. Finally, as Sorscher recalled, the executive said, "The decisions I make have more influence over outcomes than all the decisions you make." Sorscher told me, "It was: 'I can't help but make a billion dollars every time I pick up the phone. You people do things that save four hundred thousand dollars, that take one shift out of flow time -- who gives a crap?' "

Three years later, the engineers' union went on strike over bonus pay and cuts in health coverage. James Dagnon, another Boeing executive, said that engineers had to accept that they were no longer the center of the universe. "We laughed," Sorscher recalled. "This is an engineering company -- these are complex, heavily engineered products. Of course we're the center of the universe. But he wasn't kidding. We didn't get it. Who is the center of the universe? It's the executives."

A fascinating read. The Dreamliner, the first project built under the new culture, was rolled out three years late and tens of billions over budget. The following year, persistent battery fires grounded the model for three months.

And that's not even making a dent in the arrogance of the company aristocracy – the previous CEO made $80 million in salary and bonuses in his final three years in the post – and the determination to stick with the corporate-economic model despite clear warnings that it was on a sled bound for hell. If you read the whole thing, you'll have a much better understanding why we have not yet seen the triumphant return of the Max 8 to the air.

[Nov 28, 2019] Yes, Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election

Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al November 25, 2019 at 4:43 am

The Greyzone: Yes, Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/23/yes-ukraine-interference-in-the-2016-presidential-election/

Meddling in the 2016 US presidential election by Ukrainian politicians and government agencies did indeed happen. No amount of denial is going to change that.

By Yasha Levine ####

Vis Fiona Hill (as ME & Mark referenced earlier), does she really think everyone else is stupid?

Anyway, it's not what the partisan media reports that matters but what the American voter thinks. If it's 'A pox on both your houses', then there will be plenty more shocks to the body politik to come and hopefully, real change.

Mark Chapman November 25, 2019 at 8:20 am
Thus the fierce struggle for regulation over the internet, and the flap about 'fake news' and how critical it is that you cede control over what you can see so that you can be 'protected' – it's all 'for your own safety'. A narrative can really only be driven home when the audience is not exposed to conflicting stories or evidence which does not fit the establishment tale.

[Nov 28, 2019] A Norwegian reporter exposes how Zelensky had the husband of a Rada delegate arrested, to try to intimidate her into voting "the right way" on his Randite project to sell off Ukrainian land.

Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

yalensis November 25, 2019 at 3:16 am

Dear Stooges: My latest , which is about the Ukrainian Land Privatization. A Norwegian reporter exposes how Zelensky had the husband of a Rada delegate arrested, to try to intimidate her into voting "the right way" on his Randite project to sell off Ukrainian land.

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yalensis November 25, 2019 at 3:17 am
Oops, sorry, forgot to close HTML link, but it still works, here it is again, though, just in case:

https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2019/11/25/zelensky-uses-police-tactics-to-force-land-grab/

[Nov 28, 2019] The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in late July to pass a bill on sanctions against Nord Stream 2. It was prepared by Republican Senator Ted Cruise and Democrat Gene Shahin, and, in particular, involves a ban on the entry into the United States and the freezing of US assets under the jurisdiction of persons involved in the "sale, lease, provision or assistance in providing" ships for laying at sea Russian pipelines at a depth of 30 metres.

Notable quotes:
"... the United States' high-handedness is taking it dangerously close to making an enemy of Europe. ..."
"... There is nothing remotely fair about carving out markets for your product by eliminating all other choices. I realize Washington will say it is only trying to stop Nord Stream II so that Russia will be forced to transit gas across Ukraine and pay it exorbitant transit fees, and that it is doing Ukraine a favour while not restricting Europe from getting pipeline gas. ..."
"... American strategy is always all about getting everyone else by the balls so that they have no choice but to accept American control and orders. That's called American Global Leadership, which they figure is good for the world because it's certainly good for American investors. ..."
Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile November 23, 2019 at 9:33 pm

В сенате США рассказали о способе заблокировать "Северный поток -- 2"
06:37 24.11.2019 (обновлено: 06:54 24.11.2019)

In the U.S. Senate, they have spoken about how to block "Nord stream -- 2"
06:37 24.11.2019 (updated: 06:54 24.11.2019)

MOSCOW, 24 Nov – RIA Novosti. The U.S. Congress intends to include sanctions against the Russian gas pipeline "Nord stream -- 2" in the 2020 defence budget, says Jim Risch, head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, in the latest edition of "Defense News".

Sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the pipeline have been included in a draft law "On National Defense for 2020", said Rish. "The reason for this step is that the window of opportunity is closings. Most of "Nord stream" has already been constructed", said the Senator. However, he expressed the opinion that the sanctions "will convince" the construction company to stop work on the project because the American restrictions "will cost them dearly".

If sanctions are included in the US defence budget, companies involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 will close, and Russia will, supposedly, have to look for other contractors, says Riesch.
However, he noted that the House of Representatives and the Senate have not yet reached a final agreement on the bill as a whole.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in late July to pass a bill on sanctions against Nord Stream 2. It was prepared by Republican Senator Ted Cruise and Democrat Gene Shahin, and, in particular, involves a ban on the entry into the United States and the freezing of US assets under the jurisdiction of persons involved in the "sale, lease, provision or assistance in providing" ships for laying at sea Russian pipelines at a depth of 30 metres.

For the bill to enter into force, it must be approved by the House of Representatives and the US Senate, as well as US President Donald Trump.

Let the Liberty Bell ring out loud! -- albeit that it is cracked and was never rung on 4th July, 1776, but, as usual, bullshit baffles brains!

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Mark Chapman November 23, 2019 at 11:19 pm
And that'd be Jean Shaheen; the translation managed to get both her name and her gender wrong.

As I have said before now, the United States' high-handedness is taking it dangerously close to making an enemy of Europe. It has made it clear it is trying to restrict Europe's energy choices to American LNG or American LNG.

There is nothing remotely fair about carving out markets for your product by eliminating all other choices. I realize Washington will say it is only trying to stop Nord Stream II so that Russia will be forced to transit gas across Ukraine and pay it exorbitant transit fees, and that it is doing Ukraine a favour while not restricting Europe from getting pipeline gas.

But Washington still aims to control Ukraine and use it as a bastion against Russia, and if it can arrange things so that Russian gas must pass across Ukraine under American control, why, it can conjure stoppages and interruptions of service at its pleasure, as well as helping Ukraine to jack up transit fees so that Russia must either raise its gas prices until American LNG is competitive, or sell at a loss.

American strategy is always all about getting everyone else by the balls so that they have no choice but to accept American control and orders. That's called American Global Leadership, which they figure is good for the world because it's certainly good for American investors.

Moscow Exile November 24, 2019 at 9:35 am

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Mark Chapman November 24, 2019 at 11:32 am
Time is running out for the US to be its usual dick self, and block another country's aspirations in order to advance its own interests.
Mark Chapman November 24, 2019 at 11:41 am
Except when he says "we all", he is talking about less than ten thousand people in a country of 147 million. Yes, few Russians get to breathe the rarefied air of true mental clarity.

So far as I am aware, the latest offer on the table is still for a one-year extension of the current contract, although Russia did agree to drop legal claims and counter-claims between itself and Ukraine, in which Russia claimed Ukraine underpaid/did not pay at all for gas it received. Ukraine has thus far not replied.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2019-11-18/gazprom-proposes-one-year-gas-deal-with-ukraine

Moscow has made some concessions, but there has been no movement at all toward a long-term contract that I have seen. I maintain that a cold winter of frozen bums in Europe would offer a salutary effect. Russia is actually better-placed to deliver LNG by vessel than the USA, as well, as it is much closer.

There must be a limit to European loyalty to the USA in the face of conditions so markedly against its interests, a limit to how much shit it will smear on its own face to keep its partner happy and amused.

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et Al November 25, 2019 at 1:47 am
Apparently U-ropean gas storage networks are full, not to mention that there has been heavy investment in the Austrian Baumgarten storage network, Germany, France, infact just about everywhere except the UK (coz the French will store it for them and sell the gas back at a nice mark up)

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Mark Chapman November 25, 2019 at 12:06 pm
Ukraine has already stated publicly that although its own gas storage bunkers are full, that amount will not likely carry it through the winter if there is an interruption owing to non-renewal of the gas contract, and if the winter is cold and harsh as usual. I imagine Europe is the same; storage facilities are not so extensive that they could take the entire region through a cold winter.
karl1haushofer November 24, 2019 at 1:33 pm
Not surprising that Navalny and his ilk oppose Nord Stream. They oppose anything that is good for Russia. They don't seem to be interested in developing russia into a better place, but tear it apart and ruin it from within. It is rather odd that Russia has these types of people as "opposition politicians". People who hate their own country and don't even pretend to hide their hatred.
I don't see them that dangerous though because they seem to lack wider support and Russia is not currently facing any troubles that would turn people against the current rulers.
And I'm not saying that Russia is ruled by a very competent government currently. The economy should be growing a lot faster than it has been growing for the past ten years. But the current government is still 100x better than Navalny would be. He would probably bring down Russia even worse than Yeltsin did.

[Nov 28, 2019] On January 1st at 10 am Moscow time Gazprom has no reason to keep the gas flowing in the direction of the Ukraine

Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile November 28, 2019 at 12:13 am

The finger pointing by Banderastan has started!

"Нафтогаз" пообещал не перекрывать газовый вентиль
03:01 28.11.2019

"Naftogaz" has promised turn off the gas valve
03:01 28.11.2019 (updated: 10:45 28.11.2019)

KIEV, November 28 – RIA Novosti. The Ukraine does not intend to shut off the gas valve, even if Russia fails to sign a new contract on gas transportation, Executive Director of "Naftogaz of the Ukraine", Yuriy Vitrenko, has said in an interview with Deutsche Welle. In his opinion, the valve will be turned off by Gazprom, not Naftogaz.

"But I remind you, that in a letter sent by Gazprom to Naftogaz, in black and white [it states] that on January 1st at 10 am Moscow time Gazprom has no reason to keep the gas flowing in the direction of the Ukraine", he said.

So you Russia is going to hold Europe to ransom, not the Ukraine, right?

Has everyone got that message?

Did hear that EU, USA etc., etc?

Mark Chapman November 28, 2019 at 1:06 am

What happened to all the leverage Ukraine gained by its blinding victory in Swiss arbitration? They should be able to lead Moscow around by the nose now.

[Nov 28, 2019] The appeal court in Sweden has refused to satisfy the appeal of "Gazprom" in a dispute with the Ukrainian concern "Naftogaz", according to Tass. Executive Director of "Naftogaz of Ukraine" Yuriy Vitrenko on "Facebook" called the decision a "complete victory".

Notable quotes:
"... Gazprom sent about 200 BcM to Europe last year, of which 70 BcM went via Ukraine. If Ukraine is completely cut out now, Gazprom could manage about 195 BcM, with every other available pipeline to Europe straining at the rivets. But you need a 'technical reserve' capability, which would take Russia's requirement to 230 BcM. Obviously, the intent is that they should commit to sending this amount through Ukraine, forever. ..."
"... The other interesting figure is included in the claim that 'Ukraine's economy is growing nicely, but loss of transit income would shave 4% off of GDP.' When the initial threat that eventually transit would be stopped was floated, Ukraine squealed that it would bilk it of 2% of GDP. But now somehow that loss would be double but the economy is 'growing nicely'? Ummm .how do you figure? ..."
Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile November 27, 2019 at 4:23 am

Well blow me down!

The appeal court in Sweden has refused to satisfy the appeal of "Gazprom" in a dispute with the Ukrainian concern "Naftogaz", according to Tass. Executive Director of "Naftogaz of Ukraine" Yuriy Vitrenko on "Facebook" called the decision a "complete victory".

"Complete victory, Ukraine wins again! We won the appeal at the first complaint of "Gazprom" the decision of the Stockholm arbitration!" said his statement.

It is anticipated that decisions in two other cases in court between the same parties will be taken in 2020.

The Stockholm arbitration court in December 2017 and February 2018 issued decisions on disputes between Gazprom and Naftogaz in respect of contracts for supply and transit of gas, obliging as a result, Russian the Ukrainian company to pay more than $ 2.5 billion. Gazprom appealed against the decision in March 2018, and in May demanded the complete abolition of the "transient" solution.

See: Суд Швеции отказал по апелляции "Газпрома" в споре с "Нафтогазом"
27 ноября 2019, 13:26

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Mark Chapman November 27, 2019 at 11:27 am
What will that mean for the gas deal? Only 16 days remain.

https://www.intellinews.com/ukraine-has-16-days-left-to-do-a-transit-deal-with-gazprom-172367/?source=russia

Ukraine allegedly offered to do a deal in which they would not drop their claim of being owed $2.5 Billion by Gazprom, but would take it in free gas. They say they have not had a reply yet. The same article suggests Russia would be perfectly happy to just run out the clock. Even happier now, I would think.

A few interesting figures are included in the article. For one, the author claims that in order to completely circumvent Ukraine for gas delivery to Europe, it would need pipeline capacity of 230 BcM. Here's how it breaks down – Gazprom sent about 200 BcM to Europe last year, of which 70 BcM went via Ukraine. If Ukraine is completely cut out now, Gazprom could manage about 195 BcM, with every other available pipeline to Europe straining at the rivets. But you need a 'technical reserve' capability, which would take Russia's requirement to 230 BcM. Obviously, the intent is that they should commit to sending this amount through Ukraine, forever.

The other interesting figure is included in the claim that 'Ukraine's economy is growing nicely, but loss of transit income would shave 4% off of GDP.' When the initial threat that eventually transit would be stopped was floated, Ukraine squealed that it would bilk it of 2% of GDP. But now somehow that loss would be double but the economy is 'growing nicely'? Ummm .how do you figure?

The way I see it, Russia has a couple of options; it can just let the clock run out, carry on with Nord Stream II, and pump everything it can right to capacity, without any going through Ukraine. That would leave it about 5 BcM short, obviously with no reserve capability. The USA could be invited to make that shortfall up with its Molecules of Freedom. But that relies on Merkel not suddenly deciding to slap more restrictions on Nord Stream II so that it could not pump to its full capacity – she has apparently said all along that Nord Stream II will not be allowed unless some gas continues to go through Ukraine – the obvious clash of wills is that Russia is trying to ensure that amount is as small as possible, while the west and Ukraine are trying to ensure that amount is as large as possible.

Another option is for Russia to speed up and intensify its own LNG-export capability, and perhaps it can make up the shortfall with its own LNG carriers. Either way, it is plain the Ukies think they have Russia by the balls, and can dictate terms as they like – perhaps they will even add the return of Crimea to their demands for a gas deal, they seem to feel so confident. Let's see how it plays out; only a couple of weeks remain to get a deal done, and it's everyone against Russia.

The look on Vitrenko's face will be priceless if the Russians just close up their briefcases and go home. Not to mention the look on Sefcovic's face. Not to mention the jump in gas prices in Europe.

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[Nov 28, 2019] List of non-prosecuted Ukrainians made by America was published

The list contains some (but not all) of the key participants of the 2014 coup d'état against President Yanukovich. There are 13 names in the list: MPs Serhiy Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayem, Svitlana Zalishchuk, Serhiy Berezenko, Serhiy Pashynsky; ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk; ex-Head of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriya Hontareva; ex-First Deputy of the National Security and Defense Council Oleg Hladkovsky; judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Makar Pasenyuk; candidate for presidency Anatoly Hrytsenko; singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk; journalist Dmytro Hordon and ex-Head of the Presidential Administration Borys Lozhkin.
Pashynsky was involved in Snipergate. Yatsenyuk was the marionette chosen by Nuland to head the Provisional government after Yanukovich will be overthrown.
Nov 28, 2019 | 112.international
Related: Atlantic Council representative withdrew his statement about Lutsenko and Yovanovitch

Almost all of these people from the list were involved in various sort of scandals during the last five years. Particularly, Oleg Hladkovsky was recently dismissed from his post due to the corruption scandal in the defense sphere. Serhiy Leshchenko became known for the purchase of the flat for $275,253 and the number of information attacks at well-known politicians and businessmen. Serhy Pashynsky was tied to the hostile takeover of a confectionary factory in Zhytomyr.

Earlier, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko stated that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch passed him a do not prosecute list . Lutsenko's Press Secretary Larysa Sarhan in a commentary for BBC Ukraine specified that this list contained names of the Ukrainian MPs.

Related: Anti-Corruption Bureau to open probe against Ukraine's Prosecutor General Lutsenko

In its turn, the U.S. Department of State stated that the words of Lutsenko are not true and aims to tarnish the reputation of Ambassador Yovanovitch. Thus, there are certain concerns that the actual list might be fake.

[Nov 28, 2019] Ex-US Ambassador Denies Giving Ukraine 'Do Not Prosecute List' in Impeachment Inquiry

Nov 28, 2019 | sputniknews.com

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The House is holding its second public hearing with former US envoy to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch centring around her ouster which, according to her, is pertinent to the impeachment probe against Trump. Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch flatly denied allegations that she circulated a list of potential corruption targets in Ukraine that the United States did not want prosecuted, according to testimony at the opening of hearings in the House impeachment probe of President Donald Trump on Friday.

"I want to reiterate first that the allegation that I disseminated a do not prosecute list was a fabrication", Yovanovitch said. "Mr Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian prosecutor general who made that allegation, has acknowledged that the list never existed. I did not tell Mr Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials who they should or should not prosecute. Instead I advocated the US position that rule of law should prevail."

US President Donald Trump in a series of tweets on Friday criticised former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's performance while she was testifying in the impeachment hearing against him. He defended his decision to replace Yovanovitch - appointed by his predecessor Barak Obama - as the US ambassador to Ukraine, where she served from August 2016 until May 2019.

....They call it "serving at the pleasure of the President." The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O.

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019

[Nov 28, 2019] Glenn Beck Marie Yovanovitch committed 'perjury' when she LIED under oath about 'do not prosecute list'

Nov 28, 2019 | www.theblaze.com

During Friday's Democrat-led impeachment inquiry hearing, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified under oath that she did not give former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko a "do not prosecute list" in 2017. Yovanovitch also doubled-down on left-wing disinformation saying that Lutsenko "acknowledged that the list never existed" in April.

Ditch the fake news ==> Click here to get news you can trust sent right to your inbox. It's free!

"I want to reiterate first that the allegation that I disseminated a "Do Not Prosecute" list was a fabrication," Yovanovitch told the House Intelligence Committee . "Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian prosecutor general who made that allegation, has acknowledged that the list never existed. I did not tell Mr. Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials who they should or should not prosecute."

"That is such a lie," Glenn Beck said on Friday's show. "She should be held for perjury."

During a three-part BlazeTV exposé on the Democrats' corruption in Ukraine, Glenn debunked what he called "the most misleading fabrication I've ever seen by the mainstream media."

Earlier this year, award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon reported Lutsenko's claim that then-Ambassador Yovanovitch gave him a list of "people whom we should not prosecute" during a meeting in 2016. Shortly after Solomon's article was released, several news sources, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, reported that Lutsenko retracted his statement.

But Glenn's research revealed that the mainstream media got their erroneous information from a Ukrainian news site called Unian, which misleadingly headlined a story " Ukraine Prosecutor General Lutsenko admits U.S. ambassador didn't give him a do not prosecute list ," based on a misinterpretation of what Lutsenko told another Ukrainian publication, TheBabel .

When Lutsenko said Yovanovitch "gave" him a list, he did not mean she actually handed him anything in writing, but verbally conveyed the names of people he shouldn't prosecute.

"They never mentioned the fact that it was verbally dictated and he wrote the list down himself -- are you kidding me?" Glenn exclaimed. "This is how the media is fact-checking and debunking. They are playing with our republic and Ukraine's republic. They are planting dynamite all around everything that we hold dear. How do they sleep at night? Everyone that reads their stories actually thinks that there was a retraction of one of the most damning parts of this entire case."

Watch the video below to get the details:

https://www.facebook.com/v2.5/plugins/video.php?allowfullscreen=true&app_id=1446069888755293&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter.php%3Fversion%3D44%23cb%3Dfc6a4d6bf34ec3%26domain%3Dwww.theblaze.com%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.theblaze.com%252Ff1202de92fa5ac%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=575&href=https%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com%2FTheBlaze%2Fvideos%2F365169550954458%2F&locale=en_US&sdk=joey

You can find Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 of the Ukraine scandal series on BlazeTV or YouTube .

If you like what you see, use promo code GB20OFF to get $20 off a full year of BlazeTV . With a BlazeTV subscription, you're not just paying to watch great pro-free speech, pro-America TV. Your subscription funds the intensive investigations that let BlazeTV tell the stories the liberal media wants to keep in the dark, giving you the unvarnished truth, showing you what the media doesn't want you to see. Read More

[Nov 28, 2019] Ambassador Yovanovitch "do not prosecute" list

Nov 28, 2019 | truthout.org

‎3‎/‎20‎/‎2019

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told Hill.TV's John Solomon in an interview that aired Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch gave him a do not prosecute list during their first meeting.

"Unfortunately, from the first meeting with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, [Yovanovitch] gave me a list of people whom we should not prosecute," Lutsenko, who took his post in 2016, told Hill.TV last week.

"My response of that is it is inadmissible. Nobody in this country, neither our president nor our parliament nor our ambassador, will stop me from prosecuting whether there is a crime," he continued.

The State Department called Lutsenko's claim of receiving a do not prosecute list, "an outright fabrication."

"We have seen reports of the allegations," a department spokesperson told Hill.TV. "The United States is not currently providing any assistance to the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO), but did previously attempt to support fundamental justice sector reform, including in the PGO, in the aftermath of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. When the political will for genuine reform by successive Prosecutors General proved lacking, we exercised our fiduciary responsibility to the American taxpayer and redirected assistance to more productive projects."

Hill.TV has reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine for comment.

Lutsenko also said that he has not received funds amounting to nearly $4 million that the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine was supposed to allocate to his office, saying that "the situation was actually rather strange" and pointing to the fact that the funds were designated, but "never received."

"At that time we had a case for the embezzlement of the U.S. government technical assistance worth 4 million U.S. dollars, and in that regard, we had this dialogue," he said. " At that time, [Yovanovitch] thought that our interviews of Ukrainian citizens, of Ukrainian civil servants, who were frequent visitors of the U.S. Embassy put a shadow on that anti-corruption policy."

"Actually, we got the letter from the U.S. Embassy, from the ambassador, that the money that we are speaking about [was] under full control of the U.S. Embassy, and that the U.S. Embassy did not require our legal assessment of these facts," he said. "The situation was actually rather strange because the funds we are talking about were designated for the prosecutor general's office also and we told [them] we have never seen those, and the U.S. Embassy replied there was no problem."

"The portion of the funds namely 4.4 million U.S. dollars were designated and were foreseen for the recipient Prosecutor General's office. But we have never received it," he said.

Yovanovitch previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Armenia under former presidents Obama and George W. Bush, as well as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan under Bush. She also served as ambassador to Ukraine under Obama.

[Nov 27, 2019] Obama Admits He Would Speak Up Only To Stop Bernie Sanders Nomination

Highly recommended!
The question is who will listed to Obama after his "change we can believe in" betrayal. Also is not he a war criminal? Obama election was probably the most slick false flag operation even conducted by intelligence agencies. Somebody created for him complexly fake but still plausible legend.
That Obama desire to interfere in 2020 election also shows gain that that he a regular completely corrupt Clinton neoliberal. The worst king of neoliberals, wolfs in sheep's clothing.
And the fact that CIA democrats dominates the Democratic Party actually is another reason from "Demexit" from the Democratic party of workers and lower middle class. The sad fact that the USA Corporate Dems recently became the second pro-war militarist party, and learned to love intelligence agencies; two things unimaginable in 60th and 70th.
Notable quotes:
"... Image source: Getty ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

As we noted earlier, a bombshell admission from Politico today exploring Obama's substantial behind the scenes influence as Democratic kingmaker : included in the lengthy profile on the day-to-day of the former president's personal office in the West End of Washington D.C. and his meeting with the field of Democratic candidates, is the following gem :

"Obama said privately that if Bernie were running away with the nomination, Obama would speak up to stop him."

Image source: Getty

And crucially, when asked about that prior statement reported in Politico, an Obama spokesperson did not deny that he said it.

The frank admission underscores what many independent analysts, not to mention prior damning WikiLeaks DNC disclosures , have pointed out for years: that the establishment controlling the Democratic party has continuously sought to rig the system against Bernie.

"Since losing 2016, Dem elites have waged a prolonged effort to stop Bernie. Bernie is the obvious answer to the neoliberal Clinton-Obama legacy voters rejected..." journalist Aaron Maté observed of the Politico quote.

Here's the stunning and deeply revealing section in full, which began by outlining Obama's 'advice-giving' throughout meetings with Democrat contenders including Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and others :

Publicly, he has been clear that he won't intervene in the primary for or against a candidate , unless he believed there was some egregious attack. "I can't even imagine with this field how bad it would have to be for him to say something," said a close adviser. Instead, he sees his role as providing guardrails to keep the process from getting too ugly and to unite the party when the nominee is clear.

There is one potential exception: Back when Sanders seemed like more of a threat than he does now, Obama said privately that if Bernie were running away with the nomination, Obama would speak up to stop him. (Asked about that, a spokesperson for Obama pointed out that Obama recently said he would support and campaign for whoever the Democratic nominee is.)

And a further deeply revealing but more laughable quote comes later as follows: "Obama designed his post-presidency in 2016, at a time when he believed Hillary Clinton would win and Biden would be out of politics." So the reality is... far from the idea that the Dem elites would back the actual nominee the party puts forward, clearly the die has already been cast against Bernie just like the last time around against Hillary in 2016.

Politico author Ryan Lizza later in the story quotes a "close family friend," who described that Obama's "politics are not strong left of center."

"I mean it's left, but he's nowhere near where some of the candidates are currently sitting, at least when he got himself elected," the source claimed.

This means in the mind of Obama and other top party influencers and kingmakers, Bernie and other popular outliers like Tulsi Gabbard have already long been sidelined. Tulsi, it should also be noted, is one of the couple of candidates who did not bother to stop by Obama's D.C. office for a 'blessing' and advice.

[Nov 27, 2019] Could your county use some extra money?

Highly recommended!
Nov 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

catherine , 26 November 2019 at 05:16 PM

Could your county use some extra money?

According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.

If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.

While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.

Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?

[Nov 27, 2019] The influence of some Eastern European émigrés on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious

Notable quotes:
"... Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. ..."
"... Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics ..."
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
Nov 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) , 06 November 2019 at 04:07 PM

Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins.

Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable -- those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort.

Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.

English Outsider -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 09:19 AM
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it had been an American Admiral. I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.

"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."

Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an outside observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.

Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.

Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious. And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.

It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes with neighbors.

That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States - because that is a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe.

In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen for half a century and more. But there was a price few noticed. The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a most destructive freight.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
David Habakkuk -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:15 PM
Andrei and EO,

I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to change what I had written.

When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was impossible to interest any of my old television colleagues in the idea that one might go to Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my editor, Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister.

As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating anecdote about what one of his fellow members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which of his country's two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.

Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article Brzezinski published in the 'Financial Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a real democracy.'

(See https://www.ft.com/content/5ac2df1e-6103-11e3-b7f1-00144feabdc0 .)

Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's fundamental belief that after all those years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment -- to use Victoria Nuland's term -- it would finally 'knuckle under', and become a quiescent satellite of the West.

An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site -- which actually has some very useful material on matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language -- headlined 'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series -- Part I -- Renowned Russian Academic Sergey Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'

Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new thinkers', linked to it on his own website, clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and informed discussion of his ideas.

(See http://karaganov.ru/en/news/534 )

There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are essential features of an argument can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.

It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few years -- doubly interesting, because his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant section of the Russian foreign policy élite -- may be illuminated in this way.

So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central contentions of his writings might be put as follows:

'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in 1989. But if in practice "by the people" means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"

'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us 'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes" running Western policy, a "real democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like Brzezinski clearly always wanted us to be.

'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political systems, are actually "Eurasian": a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.

'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples have to reckon, this gives us a very real potential advantage over people in the West, who, like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one path along which all of humanity must -- and can -- go.'

At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:

'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European -- simply that we cannot simply come to Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.

'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well realise that their future does not lie in an alliance with a coalition of people like Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".

'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism" -- and, in relation to some of the SJC and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism gone bonkers" -- which Putin criticized in his interview with the "Financial Times" back in June.

(This is also behind a subscription wall, but is available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60836 . It is well worth reading in full.)

An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental Europeans see sense, then the coalition of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalized, and indeed, on the 'dustbin of history' to which Trotsky once referred.

Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite wrong.

But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was working in the 'Analysis' office, back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to Britain and the United States.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:33 PM
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with Putin and Lavrov being personally present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact screams, volumes. You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia Studies field in the West which was primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing a caricature. They succeeded and Russia had it with the West.
Vig -> David Habakkuk ... , 08 November 2019 at 08:45 AM
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.

Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)

Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as should be expected, maybe. They were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out of the door the next second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words, hard to read or to predict. Guess one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?

Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as opportunist.

That said, would you please explain why

Petrel -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 11:03 AM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:06 PM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia

Well, that explains a lot. Not all of it, but a lot.

David Habakkuk -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:25 PM
Petrel,

I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not had time to do any serious searches.

What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?

And, if they do, what are these?

I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins are Polish.

But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista' Ukrainians?

It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to incorporate Galicia into the empire he was creating.

Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles -- as also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg -- could have gone back to their old habits of assassinating Polish policemen.

Petrel -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 05:50 PM
Andrei Martyanov & David Habakuk:

I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is a land run by Galician zombies " -- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security positions such as ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks, the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.

[Nov 27, 2019] Diaspora Communities Influencing US Foreign Policy by Thomas Ambrosio & Yossi Shain

Notable quotes:
"... These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways. ..."
"... First, by framing the issues "they help set the terms of debate" or "put items on the country's agenda." ..."
"... Second, they are a source of information and analysis that provide a great deal of information to members of Congress and serve as a resource for other branches of government and non-governmental organizations, and shaping general perspectives. ..."
"... Finally, ethnic group lobbies provide policy oversight. "They examine the policies of the U.S. government, propose policies, write letters and [are] involved in electioneering activities." ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.wilsoncenter.org

Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor of Political Science, North Dakota State University and Yossi Shain, Professor of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics, Georgetown University

In an age marked by the greater ease of communication and travel, recent research on ethnic groups and conflict has begun to examine the influence of diaspora groups. Of particular interest are their efforts to affect political environments in their "home" and host countries through their remittance of funds, lobbying and the dissemination of information. Dr. Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor at North Dakota University presented material from his recent edited volume Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy. Commentary was provided by Yossi Shain, Professor at Georgetown and Tel Aviv Universities, author of "Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and their Homelands" and a contributor to Ambrosio's book. The meeting marked what moderator Carla Koppell, Interim Director of the Wilson Center's Conflict Prevention Project called, "a relatively new area of analysis and dialogue for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars."

Ambrosio, stated that as we seek to understand diaspora groups and their influence on U.S. foreign policy, the question is not should ethnic groups influence foreign policy but how they effect foreign policy, what are their goals and why do they mobilize. He began his presentation by defining ethnic identity groups as "politically relevant social divisions based on a shared sense of cultural distinctiveness." This would include racial, religious, national and ethnic identities. Ethnic identity groups often form institutions that effect U.S. foreign policy or ethnic communities abroad, most commonly in the form of ethnic lobbies.

These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways.

Ambrosio cautioned, that we must not believe that the effort by "ethnic groups to influence U.S. foreign policy is new." It has a long history but "has become increasingly active in recent years." To illustrate, he presented five periods of ethnic lobbying in the United States--Pre-WWI, WWI, Cold War, post-Cold war, and post-September 11.

Since before WWI, there has been a "steady rise in the number of ethnic groups in the U.S. mobilizing to influence the foreign policy process." Both the WWI and Cold War periods saw an explosion in the number of interest groups affecting domestic and foreign policy. According to Ambrosio, however, it was the post-Cold War period that gave way to a real increase in American multiculturalism. U.S. interests during this period were not clearly defined, and the Congress had more influence than the Executive Branch over policy-making. That balance of power according to Ambrosio allowed ethnic lobbying groups greater access to policy-makers and potential influence in policy formation. Since September 11 quite the opposite is true; there is a re-centralization of foreign policy in the White House. That re-centralization is restricting influence over policy.

Ambrosio concluded by suggesting several areas for future research. First, the question of the legitimacy of ethnic group influence on foreign policy deserves some attention. Second, more case study analysis is need. In Ambrosio's view, we need to look at specific groups, and why or how they influence policy. In particular, greater attention should be paid to the case of Muslim Americans. Third, is the need to examine the relationship between ethnic and non-ethnic interest groups. For instance, Ambrosio suggested that a comparison of the influence of "the Oil lobby versus the Armenian lobbies over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan" could provide some interesting insights. Fourth, the reliance on natives for intelligence information should be examined more closely. In the case of Iraq, there is the question of "how Iraq exiles influence U.S. foreign policy." Finally, the export of American values must be better understood. Further research could help the U.S. government mobilize diaspora groups in the United States to deal with growing anti-Americanism throughout the world.

Shain, began by commenting that while the topic of diaspora group influence on U.S. foreign policy is important, "it is perhaps an overblown topic." He agreed with Ambrosio that the idea of transnational influence on U.S. foreign policy is not new. However, Shain contends that people have always been wary of such influences. The topic, according to Shain, became more salient in the 1990's with the end of the Cold War when the "us versus them posture was no longer in existence." It was also a time when more people began "shuttling back and forth," retaining greater ties to their home country. According to Professor Shain, the question is "who really speaks [in U.S. foreign policy]?" This was the period of increasing American multiculturalism; the identity of the U.S. itself was changing. As a result, attention to issues reflected the makeup of the U.S. For instance, before September 11, relations between the United States and Mexico in the age of NAFTA, had center stage.

Shain suggested that while ethnic Americans mobilize to influence U.S. foreign policy, their ability to do so is quite limited. Ethnic lobbies have more often been used to market American ideals in their home countries or to "democratize their countries of origin." When they do have influence, it has generally been at the electoral level in connection with a domestic issue, or when an issue is of little importance to the administration. Professor Shain continued contending that the influence of ethnic lobbies relies on their ability to advance a message that resonates with the American values and ideals. This is one reason he believes Arab-Americans have had difficulty influencing U.S. foreign policy; there is a perception that they are attempting to influence policy in ways that would be contrary to American values. When issues promoted by an ethnic lobby are priorities, and are in line with the administration, ethnic lobbies have the greatest influence in policy oversight.

According to Shain there are several issues that warrant future research and understanding. The first is to understand the explosion of Islam in the United States; rather than lobbying for national country interests, there is greater mobilization around religious beliefs. According to Shain, this has little to do with ethnic lobbies; rather it is a question of who is mobilizing communities. This is a difficult question to examine because, depending on the time period, different people will speak for a community. Another issue for further study involves tracking and better understanding economic influence. For example, donations for Israel at the same time support local organizations and Jewish-American issues; financial support drives diaspora politics. At the same time, many country economies depend on money sent from abroad; this gives diasporas a greater say in their "home" countries. "When you do any politics in Haiti, there is the 10th department... the 10th department is here. This is the community that can mobilize and has money."

The final issue for further study according to Shain is the concept of identity in America. While there is identity as an American, many still "retain some affinity and memories" of their home country. This is particularly galvanizing where there is still instability in the country of origin. Shain concluded that the subject of the influence of diaspora communities in the U.S. was most important in regard to identity in America. "Identity is critical for America because the American makeup has always been changing." "The market, democracy and human rights are much more on the minds of ethnic groups as they relate to their country of origin," concluded Shain.

Carla Koppell, Conflict Prevention Project, Interim Director, 202-691-4083
Drafted by Channa Threat

[Nov 27, 2019] The influence of some Eastern European émigrés on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious

Notable quotes:
"... Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. ..."
"... Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics ..."
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
Nov 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) , 06 November 2019 at 04:07 PM

Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins.

Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable -- those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort.

Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.

English Outsider -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 09:19 AM
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it had been an American Admiral. I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.

"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."

Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an outside observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.

Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.

Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious. And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.

It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes with neighbors.

That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States - because that is a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe.

In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen for half a century and more. But there was a price few noticed. The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a most destructive freight.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
David Habakkuk -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:15 PM
Andrei and EO,

I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to change what I had written.

When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was impossible to interest any of my old television colleagues in the idea that one might go to Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my editor, Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister.

As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating anecdote about what one of his fellow members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which of his country's two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.

Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article Brzezinski published in the 'Financial Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a real democracy.'

(See https://www.ft.com/content/5ac2df1e-6103-11e3-b7f1-00144feabdc0 .)

Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's fundamental belief that after all those years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment -- to use Victoria Nuland's term -- it would finally 'knuckle under', and become a quiescent satellite of the West.

An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site -- which actually has some very useful material on matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language -- headlined 'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series -- Part I -- Renowned Russian Academic Sergey Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'

Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new thinkers', linked to it on his own website, clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and informed discussion of his ideas.

(See http://karaganov.ru/en/news/534 )

There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are essential features of an argument can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.

It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few years -- doubly interesting, because his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant section of the Russian foreign policy élite -- may be illuminated in this way.

So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central contentions of his writings might be put as follows:

'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in 1989. But if in practice "by the people" means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"

'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us 'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes" running Western policy, a "real democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like Brzezinski clearly always wanted us to be.

'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political systems, are actually "Eurasian": a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.

'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples have to reckon, this gives us a very real potential advantage over people in the West, who, like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one path along which all of humanity must -- and can -- go.'

At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:

'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European -- simply that we cannot simply come to Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.

'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well realise that their future does not lie in an alliance with a coalition of people like Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".

'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism" -- and, in relation to some of the SJC and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism gone bonkers" -- which Putin criticized in his interview with the "Financial Times" back in June.

(This is also behind a subscription wall, but is available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60836 . It is well worth reading in full.)

An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental Europeans see sense, then the coalition of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalized, and indeed, on the 'dustbin of history' to which Trotsky once referred.

Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite wrong.

But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was working in the 'Analysis' office, back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to Britain and the United States.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:33 PM
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with Putin and Lavrov being personally present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact screams, volumes. You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia Studies field in the West which was primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing a caricature. They succeeded and Russia had it with the West.
Vig -> David Habakkuk ... , 08 November 2019 at 08:45 AM
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.

Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)

Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as should be expected, maybe. They were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out of the door the next second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words, hard to read or to predict. Guess one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?

Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as opportunist.

That said, would you please explain why

Petrel -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 11:03 AM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:06 PM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia

Well, that explains a lot. Not all of it, but a lot.

David Habakkuk -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:25 PM
Petrel,

I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not had time to do any serious searches.

What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?

And, if they do, what are these?

I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins are Polish.

But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista' Ukrainians?

It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to incorporate Galicia into the empire he was creating.

Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles -- as also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg -- could have gone back to their old habits of assassinating Polish policemen.

Petrel -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 05:50 PM
Andrei Martyanov & David Habakuk:

I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is a land run by Galician zombies " -- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security positions such as ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks, the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.

[Nov 27, 2019] Diaspora Communities Influencing US Foreign Policy by Thomas Ambrosio & Yossi Shain

Notable quotes:
"... These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways. ..."
"... First, by framing the issues "they help set the terms of debate" or "put items on the country's agenda." ..."
"... Second, they are a source of information and analysis that provide a great deal of information to members of Congress and serve as a resource for other branches of government and non-governmental organizations, and shaping general perspectives. ..."
"... Finally, ethnic group lobbies provide policy oversight. "They examine the policies of the U.S. government, propose policies, write letters and [are] involved in electioneering activities." ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.wilsoncenter.org

Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor of Political Science, North Dakota State University and Yossi Shain, Professor of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics, Georgetown University

In an age marked by the greater ease of communication and travel, recent research on ethnic groups and conflict has begun to examine the influence of diaspora groups. Of particular interest are their efforts to affect political environments in their "home" and host countries through their remittance of funds, lobbying and the dissemination of information. Dr. Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor at North Dakota University presented material from his recent edited volume Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy. Commentary was provided by Yossi Shain, Professor at Georgetown and Tel Aviv Universities, author of "Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and their Homelands" and a contributor to Ambrosio's book. The meeting marked what moderator Carla Koppell, Interim Director of the Wilson Center's Conflict Prevention Project called, "a relatively new area of analysis and dialogue for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars."

Ambrosio, stated that as we seek to understand diaspora groups and their influence on U.S. foreign policy, the question is not should ethnic groups influence foreign policy but how they effect foreign policy, what are their goals and why do they mobilize. He began his presentation by defining ethnic identity groups as "politically relevant social divisions based on a shared sense of cultural distinctiveness." This would include racial, religious, national and ethnic identities. Ethnic identity groups often form institutions that effect U.S. foreign policy or ethnic communities abroad, most commonly in the form of ethnic lobbies.

These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways.

Ambrosio cautioned, that we must not believe that the effort by "ethnic groups to influence U.S. foreign policy is new." It has a long history but "has become increasingly active in recent years." To illustrate, he presented five periods of ethnic lobbying in the United States--Pre-WWI, WWI, Cold War, post-Cold war, and post-September 11.

Since before WWI, there has been a "steady rise in the number of ethnic groups in the U.S. mobilizing to influence the foreign policy process." Both the WWI and Cold War periods saw an explosion in the number of interest groups affecting domestic and foreign policy. According to Ambrosio, however, it was the post-Cold War period that gave way to a real increase in American multiculturalism. U.S. interests during this period were not clearly defined, and the Congress had more influence than the Executive Branch over policy-making. That balance of power according to Ambrosio allowed ethnic lobbying groups greater access to policy-makers and potential influence in policy formation. Since September 11 quite the opposite is true; there is a re-centralization of foreign policy in the White House. That re-centralization is restricting influence over policy.

Ambrosio concluded by suggesting several areas for future research. First, the question of the legitimacy of ethnic group influence on foreign policy deserves some attention. Second, more case study analysis is need. In Ambrosio's view, we need to look at specific groups, and why or how they influence policy. In particular, greater attention should be paid to the case of Muslim Americans. Third, is the need to examine the relationship between ethnic and non-ethnic interest groups. For instance, Ambrosio suggested that a comparison of the influence of "the Oil lobby versus the Armenian lobbies over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan" could provide some interesting insights. Fourth, the reliance on natives for intelligence information should be examined more closely. In the case of Iraq, there is the question of "how Iraq exiles influence U.S. foreign policy." Finally, the export of American values must be better understood. Further research could help the U.S. government mobilize diaspora groups in the United States to deal with growing anti-Americanism throughout the world.

Shain, began by commenting that while the topic of diaspora group influence on U.S. foreign policy is important, "it is perhaps an overblown topic." He agreed with Ambrosio that the idea of transnational influence on U.S. foreign policy is not new. However, Shain contends that people have always been wary of such influences. The topic, according to Shain, became more salient in the 1990's with the end of the Cold War when the "us versus them posture was no longer in existence." It was also a time when more people began "shuttling back and forth," retaining greater ties to their home country. According to Professor Shain, the question is "who really speaks [in U.S. foreign policy]?" This was the period of increasing American multiculturalism; the identity of the U.S. itself was changing. As a result, attention to issues reflected the makeup of the U.S. For instance, before September 11, relations between the United States and Mexico in the age of NAFTA, had center stage.

Shain suggested that while ethnic Americans mobilize to influence U.S. foreign policy, their ability to do so is quite limited. Ethnic lobbies have more often been used to market American ideals in their home countries or to "democratize their countries of origin." When they do have influence, it has generally been at the electoral level in connection with a domestic issue, or when an issue is of little importance to the administration. Professor Shain continued contending that the influence of ethnic lobbies relies on their ability to advance a message that resonates with the American values and ideals. This is one reason he believes Arab-Americans have had difficulty influencing U.S. foreign policy; there is a perception that they are attempting to influence policy in ways that would be contrary to American values. When issues promoted by an ethnic lobby are priorities, and are in line with the administration, ethnic lobbies have the greatest influence in policy oversight.

According to Shain there are several issues that warrant future research and understanding. The first is to understand the explosion of Islam in the United States; rather than lobbying for national country interests, there is greater mobilization around religious beliefs. According to Shain, this has little to do with ethnic lobbies; rather it is a question of who is mobilizing communities. This is a difficult question to examine because, depending on the time period, different people will speak for a community. Another issue for further study involves tracking and better understanding economic influence. For example, donations for Israel at the same time support local organizations and Jewish-American issues; financial support drives diaspora politics. At the same time, many country economies depend on money sent from abroad; this gives diasporas a greater say in their "home" countries. "When you do any politics in Haiti, there is the 10th department... the 10th department is here. This is the community that can mobilize and has money."

The final issue for further study according to Shain is the concept of identity in America. While there is identity as an American, many still "retain some affinity and memories" of their home country. This is particularly galvanizing where there is still instability in the country of origin. Shain concluded that the subject of the influence of diaspora communities in the U.S. was most important in regard to identity in America. "Identity is critical for America because the American makeup has always been changing." "The market, democracy and human rights are much more on the minds of ethnic groups as they relate to their country of origin," concluded Shain.

Carla Koppell, Conflict Prevention Project, Interim Director, 202-691-4083
Drafted by Channa Threat

[Nov 27, 2019] A Man Kills His Parents and Begs for Mercy Because He Is an Orphan

Nov 27, 2019 | wallwritings.me

July 7, 2009 by wallwritings By James M. Wall Barrier in Bethany

Since its creation in 1948, the modern state of Israel has steadily stolen Palestinian land and driven Palestinians from their homes, cities and villages.

Nothing has been done to halt Israel's steady march to tighten its absolute control of the Palestinian people with the obvious goal of ethnic cleansing, an historic fact well documented by Israeli scholar Ilan Pappe .

Under the protection of a security-obsessed military occupation, fully supported and underwritten by U.S. tax payers, Israel denies it has broken any laws. Israel makes its own self-preservation laws. It listens to no higher authority.

Israel has destroyed olive tree orchards and smothered stolen farmlands and pastures with modern malls where U.S. firms like Ace Hardware and Burger King enrich stock holders who don't know, or don't care, that they are taking part in the ugly crime of ethnic cleansing.

(The first time I saw an Ace Hardware store in a Ma'ale Adumim mall, I started my own personal boycott of Ace, an action unfair to employees of my local Ace outlet, but one that has increased the receipts of my small neighborhood hardware store.)

Those poor benighted U.S. media readers/viewers who are unaware of this reality live in a bubble of ignorance, protected by AIPAC and its political, media and religious allies .

The narrative of Israeli governments heeding no call but their own, has been with us all along, but U.S. media readers/viewers have avoided having to think about it, or do anything about it.

They live comfortably within their bubble of ignorance which is created and sustained for them by their newspapers, news magazines, television outlets, radio broadcasts, government leaders and, alas, their religious leaders.

It does not have to be this way. During the last decade, the narrative of settlements like Ma'ale Adumim has been available on the internet in reports like this one from Electronic Intafada , which begins :

It is only a fifteen minute bus ride from Jerusalem to the Ma'ale Adumim settlement. After entering through guarded gates, one's first impression is of a Miami-style suburb. The town at noon seems almost abandoned because the major part of Ma'ale Adumim residents head off to work in Jerusalem during the day. . . .

As soon as Barack Obama demanded from Israel the simple act of "freezing" its settlement expansion , Israel trotted out Public Relations Plan A for distribution to the media: Have a heart, settlement residents need room for their families to grow.

Israel operates on the logic of the man found guilty of killing his parents. The guilty man begged for mercy on the grounds that he was now an orphan.

To tell you about the Israeli settlers' plea for mercy, the Los Angeles Times (July 6) delivered its version of the orphan story: "Israel's settlements in West Bank present a major hurdle."

The opening paragraphs of the Times story set the tone for the plea with weasel words (Lobby talking points) used by writer Edmund Sanders:

Reporting from Ma'ale Adumim, West Bank -- This sprawling, well-manicured Israeli settlement -- with its rows of red-tile roofs, palm trees and air-conditioned shopping mall -- could almost pass for Orange County. Except the guards in this gated community sometimes pack automatic weapons.

Settlements such as the city-sized Ma'ale Adumim, about four miles east of Jerusalem in the West Bank, are viewed by much of the world as illegal because they are built on land seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. Many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of their country.

Now let us review the weasel words.

The reference to the illegality of Ma'ale Adumim is softened by the qualifying rhetorical device, "viewed by much of the world as illegal". The phase "viewed by" suggests that the issue at hand is open to debate among reasonable people.

Reasonable, as, for example, as a story that might have appeared in a Birmingham, Alabama, newspaper, circa 1939, reporting that "segregation is viewed by many in the South as as a way to maintain harmony between the races and preserve our Southern Way of Life."

Should such an analysis have been open to debate? No, certainly not in the minds of a small number of courageous Southern liberals, and an increasingly impatient black population.

It required two more decades of U.S. racial oppression for that "debate"–for and against segregation–to reach a definitive conclusion with "all deliberate speed".

Now we have a 21st century debate. The Times' Monday story includes the phrase: "many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of their country." Do they, indeed? How many Israelis?

Most polls suggest that sentiment is largely confined to the pro-settler community, while "security-minded" government leaders continue to demand the inclusion of Ma'ale Adumimin a future Israeli state

To other more fair-minded Israelis the phrase "many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of their country", unpleasantly evokes the case of the parent-killer who begs for mercy because he is an orphan.

The Time s story continues:

Now the long-simmering dispute over this and other fast-growing settlements has become a major obstacle to restarting peace talks.

Settlement building is not a long-simmering dispute. It is part of decades of immoral and illegal actions by Israel and is much more than a "major obstacle" to peace talks. It is an indisputable violation of international law, which, if allowed to stand, will block any successful peace talks.

The parent-killer should mourn his Mom and Dad from his jail cell, not while sitting in the sun in his well-watered grass covered private backyard, shaded from the hot summer sun by a picnic umbrella purchased from a nearby Ace Hardware.

The LA Times reserves most of its early sympathy for the illegal settlers of an illegal city with these touching "facts":

"Why is President Obama interfering with our lives, telling us how many children we can have and whether we can get married?" asked Benny Kashriel, longtime mayor of Ma'ale Adumim. . . .

Talk about a possible freeze has many here worried.

"You can't freeze a city," Kashriel said. "If you freeze, you go backwards. Every month we are not building and people are not coming, it affects the economic situation of the city. . . . It's punishing."

A freeze, officials say, would threaten the opening of four new synagogues and seven sorely needed schools. Class sizes are already near the legal limit of 40 students per room.

An additional 400 units of housing in various stages of construction might also be shut down, leaving homeowners -- many of whom have already taken out mortgages up to $300,000 -- with monthly payments and no place to live.

The Times knew American readers would identify with those folks holding mortgages of up to $300,000 with monthly payments and no place to live. And those same readers can also identify with parents whose children are in schools "near the legal limit of 40 students per room".

Further down in the story, the Times reports on the Arab village of Aziriyeh, (in biblical times, the village of Bethany), where Lazarus was called from his grave by Jesus. (Or as the Times writes, carefully avoiding any validation of a religious belief, "where the biblical Lazarus is said to have risen from the dead").

The comparison of Aziriyeh (Bethany) with Ma'ale Adumim is fact-filled. The comparison also strains for a "balance" that is impossible to achieve between occupiers and the occupied.

Since 1967, the story reports, the village of Aziriyeh has had three-fourths of its land stolen to enlarge Ma'ale Adumim. Its mayor, Issam Faroun, makes a comparison between his citizens and those of the illegal citizens of Ma'ale Adumim. The facts are presented fairly. The comparative use of water is an example.

Mayor Faroun said:

. . . that as Ma'ale Adumim frets about the fate of its landscaped grounds or swimming pools, Azariyah residents receive water only once a week. The town gateway has turned into a junkyard of trash, scrap metal and old appliances. Schools have 45 students per class and unemployment is 50%, in part because the barrier prevents workers from reaching Jerusalem.

With no room to expand horizontally, families are adding second and third stories to their homes as children grow up and marry. Bassem abu Roomy, 31, still lives in his parents' house, sharing two rooms with his pregnant wife and two children. His younger brothers are not so lucky.

"We can't add any more stories because the foundation of the house can't support it," he said. "So they can't get married."

When did the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis in Aziriyeh (Bethany) and Ma'ale Adumim go wrong? When that first brick was laid in Maale Adumim soon after 1967? When Ma'ale Adumim gobbled up three fourths of Aziriyeh's farmland for its own use? Name your own moment in recent memory.

The LA Times wants us to look back no further than two decades when the biblical village of Lazarus and the modern Israeli city of Ma'ale Adumim had, as the Times describes it, their harmonious relations "strained".

A decade ago, the two communities lived somewhat harmoniously. Israelis shopped in Azariyah [Bethany] and Palestinians worked on housing projects in the settlement. But during the last Palestinian uprising, in 2000, two settlers were shot in the village and relations have been strained since.

The competing needs of these two communities have become part of the international debate.

So there you have it. Everything was fine until two Israeli settlers were shot. This is a case study on why the Israeli Lobby and the U.S. Congress are so grateful for news stories like this one that appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

For Sanders and the Times , the Arab village of Azariyah and the modern illegal city of Maale Adumim are merely playing a role in an "international debate".

No wonder that parent-killer failed to get any respect with his request for mercy because he was now an orphan. He did not have the support of his own personal lobby making a case for orphans who have killed their parents.

The picture above is of a barrier in the Arab village of Azariyah (Bethany). The break in the barrier has been covered by barbed wire. The wire is removed and replaced on a regular basis by Israeli authorities, who built the barrier in the first place. This photo is from the website of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.

[Nov 27, 2019] Pompeo Gives Away the Palestinian West Bank, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review

From comments: "After all, Pompeo might as well announce hippos can fly. The settlements are illegal. That's a matter of fact -- not opinion."
Notable quotes:
"... If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated, we stole." ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

A story has been circulating suggesting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon be resigning because he needs to focus on planning for his campaign to become a Senator from Kansas in 2020. This is good news for the United States, as Senator Lindsey Graham has had no one he is able to talk to about exporting democracy by blowing up the planet since Joe Lieberman retired and John McCain died. And the tale even has a bit of palace intrigue built into it, with an interesting back story as Pompeo is apparently considering his move because he fears that staying in harness with Donald Trump for too long might damage his reputation. There are also reports that he has been traveling to Kansas frequently on the State Department's dime to test the waters, a violation of the Hatch Act which prohibits most government officials from engaging in self-promotional political activities unrelated to their actual jobs.

If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated, we stole."

Mike Pompeo's latest concession to the war criminals in charge of Israel, clearly intended to boost the electoral chances of Benjamin Netanyahu, is only the most recent dose of the Secretary of State's falsehood piled on fiction. It is generally assumed that the move to help Bibi by interfering in Israeli politics has been made in an effort to have Tel Aviv reciprocate by putting pressure on its many American fellow travelers in the media and congress to go easier on Trump in the impeachment saga. And Trump would also expect additional reciprocity when he runs again in 2020. Even though Netanyahu, who has been indicted over bribery and fraud, will not be able to shift many liberal Jewish votes, he will be able to get allies like mega billionaire Sheldon Adelson to pony up tens of millions of dollars to support the GOP campaign.

The Trump Administration's gifts to Israel are unprecedented, including moving the capital to Jerusalem and acknowledging the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Pompeo, driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs, has been the point man on many of those moves, ably assisted by a U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, ex-bankruptcy lawyer, who has served as a consistent advocate and apologist for Israel with little or no concern for actual American interests. One might also observe that if Pompeo is truly interested in running for the Senate a little help and cash from Israel and its many friends might be very welcome.

The Pompeo gift to Bibi was announced early last week. He said that the Trump Administration is now rejecting the 1978 State Department Hansell Memorandum legal opinion that the creation of civilian settlements in occupied territories is indeed "inconsistent with international law." In a sense, he was giving something away to Israel that neither he nor the Israelis legally possess. He said that he was "accepting realities on the ground" and elaborated on his view that the White House believes legal questions about settlements should be dealt with in Israeli courts, meaning that the hapless Palestinians would have no voice in developments that would deprive them of their homes.

Per Pompeo, "Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace. The hard truth is that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace."

Pompeo's latest statement, consistent with many of his earlier ones, is completely contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention framework of international law governing behavior by occupying military powers that was established after the Second World War. It ignores the fact that the status quo of expanding settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do anything about it. The State Department's new interpretation completely embraces arguments being made by hard-line politicians in Israel and opens the door to endorsement by the White House of a total de facto or even de jure annexation of the West Bank by the Jewish state.

Pompeo was talking about the nearly 700,000 illegal exclusively Jewish settlers currently on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Palestinians, in many areas under a brutal regime of martial law enforced by the Jewish state's army and police, have virtually no rights and are subject to increasing violent attacks by the settlers. Not surprisingly, Pompeo's statement was rejected by everyone but the Israelis and the usual crowd in the U.S. Congress and media, but even some leading Democratic candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, found the decision troubling. The 28 member European Union declared that "All settlement activity is illegal under international law and it erodes the viability of the two-state solution and the prospects for a lasting peace. The E.U. calls on Israel to end all settlement activity, in line with its obligations as an occupying power."

And, of course, there are potential consequences when a government does something stupid. Shortly after Pompeo's announcement, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem put out a security advisory warning Americans traveling in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, stating, "Individuals and groups opposed to [the Pompeo] announcement may target U.S. government facilities, U.S. private interests, and U.S. citizens." It suggested that visitors ought "to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness in light of the current environment."

There is inevitably considerable discussion in some circles regarding what the new situation on the West Bank actually means. To be sure, the number and size of settlements will increase, but some knowledgeable critics like Gilad Atzmon suggest that the move will backfire on the Israelis, who, by taking control of the land, will eventually have to accept some kind of one state solution, giving the Palestinians considerable rights in a not-completely-denominational state. He observes how " inadvertently, Trump has finally committed the U.S.A. to the One State Solution. It is hard to deny that the area between the 'River and the Sea' is a single piece of land. It shares one electric grid, one pre-dial code (+972) and one sewage system. At present, the land is ruled over by a racist, tribal and discriminatory ideology through an apparatus that calls itself 'The Jewish State' and declares itself home for every Jew around the world; yet, is abusive, lethal and some would say genocidal toward the indigenous people of the land Pompeo's declaration provides an explicit and necessary message to the Palestinians in general and in the West Bank in particular. The conflict is not progressing toward a peaceful resolution. Those amongst the Palestinians who advocated the 'Two States Solution' will have to hide now. Pompeo has affirmed that there is one Holy Land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. From now on the battle over this disputed land is whether it will be subject to the racist discriminatory ideology implied by the notion of 'The Jewish State' and its ' National Bill ,' or if it will transform itself into a 'State of its Citizens' as is inherent in the notion of One Palestine."

Tom Suarez posits similarly at Mondoweiss, observing that any form of annexation of the West Bank without giving Palestinians equal rights would basically make Israeli apartheid so visible and unacceptable to world opinion that the Jewish state would become a complete pariah internationally and would be forced to adopt some kind of one state formula.

Nevertheless, even if a one state solution with equal citizenship status for everyone would appear to be both desirable and compliant with modern notions of human rights, it is not necessarily inevitable. The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or even genocide on a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also later after it occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have repeatedly asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually Palestine. They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by destroying their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their infrastructure, killing them if they resist, that they emigrate. Christians in Palestine, the original followers of Jesus Christ, constituted close to 8 percent of the population in 1946 but now number less than 2 percent. Most have chosen to leave rather than submit to Israel.

There is no reason to doubt that the Israelis could continue their creeping annexation of the West Bank for ten more years or so while also deliberately driving the remaining Arabs out. I have little doubt that that is precisely what they will do and they will be empowered to do so by the United States, which will never develop either the integrity or the courage to push back against "America's closest ally and best friend in the entire world."

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Anon [154] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 3:01 am GMT

Well, what the heck, why not? It's not like the Palestinians were doing anything with the West Bank. They might as well pass it on off to a more ambitious property developer. Call it the Middle East's version of Eminent Domain. If you can't develop it, it's going to end up in the hands of someone who will, and they'll gentrify it in the process. The Palestinians will be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the Palestinians are more hoods than neighbors, good riddance.
Anonymous [362] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:25 am GMT
@Anon "Why not? It's not like Jews were doing anything with Lebensraum in the first place. They might as well pass it to more ambitious Reich developers. Call it 'Adolfian Domain'! If you can't develop it, Shlomo, give it to those who will. In any case, Juden will be rothlined out of their old shtetls. And since the Tribe is filled with hoods, not good neighbors, the world will say, 'Good auschwitzriddance'!"
Colin Wright , says: Website November 26, 2019 at 5:27 am GMT
@Anon ' The Palestinians will be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the Palestinians are more hoods than neighbors, good riddance.'

More or less what Hitler said about inferior races.

Great minds think alike.

chris , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:52 am GMT
@Colin Wright Yeah, we certainly have reached 'peak grovel,' however, there's a long way down to the nadir, because Israel is not done digesting its pray, nor with expanding its territory.

As in their attack of southern Lebanon in 2006, where they were stopped by Hesbollah, that expansion is still in the plans. All the ME wars we've been involved with since 911 have had as a strategic goal to destroy Iran in order to weaken Hesbollah, in order to, among other things, take southern Lebanon.

We're being lowered into hell in a hand-basket and are probably only 1/3 of the way down, so we're going to reach many more 'peak grovel' milestones on the way to John McCain's resting place.

mark green , says: November 26, 2019 at 6:17 am GMT

"[Pompeo's latest statement] ignores the fact that the status quo of expanding [Jewish] settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do anything about it."

Actually, it's even worse than that, Philip.

The US–as a deeply-compromised, long-term 'peace broker' between Israel and the Palestinians–has in fact been an active and willing partner with the Jewish State vis-a-vis it's race-centered, biblically-inspired objective of acquiring East Jerusalem, Syria's Golan Heights, conquering Gaza, and colonizing the West Bank.

With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts to incremental warfare.

Despite these facts, every Israeli transgression has been followed up by the delivery of billions more in US aid to Israel along with additional billions in state-of-the-art US weaponry. This is an extremely sweet deal. And it is incredibly one-sided.

At the UN, Zio-Washington has also provided diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state every time Israel has violated international law or UN protocols since LBJ.

Over the past 50 years, scores of UN resolutions that sought to censure Israel for its lawlessness have been vetoed by top US officials. These actions are unparalleled.

Despite the feeble attempt of a few US Presidents to push back (Ford and Bush Sr.) Zio-Washington has never decisively withheld aid to the Jewish state, no matter what–(this acquiescence by Washington even includes the 'unfortunate accident' that occurred in 1967 in international waters involving US-made Israeli fighter jets and one American intelligence-gathering vessel.)

What kind of a 'relationship' is this?

Not only is American aid to the Zionist state more lavish than the amount of aid received by any other country in US history, it is also awarded to Israel unconditionally.

Actual US states don't have a relationship this deliciously one-sided with our Federal government.

This one-way 'relationship' renders Zio-Washington a working (junior) partner in Israel's slow-motion genocide of its native gentiles.

Ironically, modern Israel has displaced a culture in Palestine that was relatively peaceful, tolerant, and integrated.

Stranger still: secular, 'multicultural' America has unwittingly signed on to this colonial, supremacist agenda with nary a peep of protest.

It's quiet out there. Too quiet.

Greg Bacon , says: Website November 26, 2019 at 8:25 am GMT
Some breathed a sigh of relief when Nutty Nikki Haley left that spot, only to be replaced by someone just as deluded, if not crazier.
I'm sure President Jared will find another clueless and irrational, Israeli-Firster to appoint to that position, one who has been blessed by Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban.
Paul , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:28 am GMT
Donald Trump's groveling before the Israel Lobby is not going to get rid of Jewish support for ending his presidency. It is a sign of weakness.
anon [282] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:31 am GMT
Where is Europe on all of this? Can't they sanction the United States to prevent this? Or maybe openly endorse sanctions on Israel? It's time for the world to step up and act.
AnonStarter , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:59 am GMT
Israel is headed for difficult times. The BDS movement is gaining steam at a pace that's outstripped that of the anti-apartheid movement, and anti-BDS legislation in America is collapsing in the courts. Demographically, Israel's military service-resistant Haredim will soon become their largest constituency and Arabs on both sides of the wire will outnumber Jews throughout the region.

It won't happen overnight, but it isn't too far away.

Anonymous [671] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 10:28 am GMT
Nasty bit of work, that Trump. I think it's a shame that nationalists all across the Western world see him as their figurehead because it doesn't look good at all.
lavoisier , says: Website November 26, 2019 at 12:08 pm GMT
@Colin Wright We are a servile nation in thrall to a genocidal regime.

Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

The crimes of our government have turned all of us into criminals.

Auld Alliance , says: November 26, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT

Pompeo, driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs,

I`m always wary of trying to get into people`s heads and declaring what they think

How about :-

Pompeo, who claims to be driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs,

Or something like that instead?

After all, I`m sure Pompeo would prefer to claim "I`m doing this due to my (perhaps a bit wacky) beliefs, and I am also clearly a Christian" rather than say "I`m doing this for Israeli Benjamins and not just the Netanyahu type."

SolontoCroesus , says: November 26, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT
Truman: "I am Cyrus!"

Pompeo: "I am Balfour!"

Factoid: Balfour had buyer's remorse very shortly after having been cornered into giving to Jews that which they did not have. His remorse was heightened by Jewish terrorists who killed the British soldiers and diplomats who secured Palestine for Jews.

His preference was for Britain to wash its hands of 'the Jewish state,' as the British ultimately did.
"The sins of the father are visited on their children."

Mr. A. J. Balfour to the Secretary of State
Washington, January 13, 1922
.

My Dear Mr. Hughes: You will remember that some days ago I mentioned my great anxiety to get the agreements in regard to the Mandate for Palestine advanced a stage in order that the Council of the League of Nations might give it their blessing at the meeting which is now, I think, going on at Geneva. . . .

The task which the British Government have undertaken in Palestine is one of extreme difficulty and delicacy. At Paris I always warmly advocated that it should be undertaken, not by Britain, but by the U.S.A. ; and though subsequent events have shewn me that such a policy would never have commended itself to the American people I still think that, so far as the Middle East is concerned, it would have been the best.

ChuckOrloski , says: November 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
@mark green Wisely, and I place emphasis on the word "possible," Mark Green wrote: "With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US administration and Congress since 1967."

Hey Mark!

As you know, President Carter brokered the 1979 Camp David Agreement with Begin and Sadat. Such is considered the former president's greatest achievement.

A question. Who do you think most benefited from this agreement?

As reminder, in October 1981, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by presumably the Muslim Brotherhood, and the murder soon elevated the authoritarian & ruthless Hosni Mubarak as Egypt president. Of course, Israel and the US were comfortable with Mubarak.

If no response comment, Mark, I understand. Thank you.

Johnny Walker Read , says: November 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
Christian Zionism – The gift that keeps on giving(((for a certain few))). You can't fix stupid!!
Richard B , says: November 26, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@mark green I go into detail here folks, and will offer a justification as to why. So, kindly bear with me.

What kind of a 'relationship' is this?

Master/Slave.

Or, since many of the same people are the purveyors of porn,

Sado-Masochistic.

Their Master/Sadism can be seen, quoting from Mark's comment,

expanding [Jewish] settlements

race-centered colonizing

Israeli confiscation of land

deliberate incremental warfare

Israeli transgression

the rogue Zionist state violated international law

Israel lawlessness

colonial, supremacist

deliciously one-sided

one-way 'relationship'

incredibly one-sided

The last three work both ways, of course, and provide a nice segue into the Slave/Masochist role played by the US (and not just the US).

The US–deeply-compromised

an active and willing partner

US aid to Israel

diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state

feeble attempt to push back

acquiescence – no matter what

unconditionally

There's a reason many sites have dropped their comment sections. As the comment section at TUR, and not just TUR, has made perfectly clear, commenters can help amplify and extend the ideas covered in any article, thereby driving the point home.

The point here is that human beings have but one task – to adapt to their environment, which is the same thing as saying, to adapt the environment to themselves.

Humans have the power to manipulate the environment to their advantage. But, they also have the power to manipulate the environment to their disadvantage, if they're stupid enough, as they must necessarily be, since they can see the environment only under the pressure of their needs.

The more people do this, the more the single-mindedness of purpose emerges, the less flexibility they demonstrate, the more Either/Or (Master/Slave, S & M) the world becomes, the more psychotic the behavior, the more the crazy comes out.

When enough people can see this to form a critical mass, then a culture crisis inevitably breaks out.

And that is the position we're in today.

No wonder they're cracking down on the Internet.

If there's one thing psychotics fear above all else, it's exposure.

Jewish Supremacy Inc. has rendered the USA powerless and reduced it to the status of a domesticated animal, a pet. And therein lies their stupidity and the world's dilema.

JSI routinely violates that which it is dependent on. By killing its Proxy, it kills itself.

And there's no question that the USA is dying. But then, so to is JSI.

That's what is really going on. What we're witnessing is The Pyrrhic Victory of JSI.

This explains why, now that they've sucked all of the blood out of the West in general and the USA in particular, they're currently engaged in a Fire Sale, where everything must go, and with only one buyer – China.

All Master/Slave, S & M relations are a degrading Dance of Death, which is how it ends, for both.

Osama , says: November 26, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
1. According to our Bible, it was Jews who were responsible for falsely accusing Jesus (pbuh), deceiving the masses about his true mission and causing him to be crucified by the Romans. It is also true that in the Bible Jesus called Jews murderers, children of the devil, vipers, liars and other vile things. Jesus did not pull any punches in describing them. I guess in today's world he would have been arrested for Antisemitism. He realized the truth and exposed them for what they really were. You Christian Zionists and far right Christians should go study your Bible. You may either learn something or come back denouncing Jesus as an anti-Semite.
2. According to many respected WW1 historians it was Jews who tricked Britain into agreeing to give them Palestine in exchange for getting the U.S. into WW1. Benjamin Freedman, a friend of some of the major leaders in our time and who is also a Jew, admitted this during a major speech given to patriots in 1961. The Neturei Karta, a devoutly Jewish religious group also admits the same. There are numerous scholars, historians and Jews who describe in detail how WW1 was started and fought with one of the main goals being securing Palestine for Jews. Here is a link to more information about that:
A Jewish Defector Warns America
3. It was Jews who caused the pogroms of their own people in Russia around the 1890s, so that the world will hate the regime of the Czar and cause millions of Jews to flee to the U.S. for political gain. Under the orders of Jacob Schiff in New York and the Rothschilds, they massacred hundreds of fellow Jews to have Russians blamed for this act and cause the immigration of thousands of other Jews to the US. Among other things, this resulted in world opinion turned against the Czar and his government and set up the bloody overthrow of his regime by the Bolsheviks.
The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations
4. As admitted to by many historians and even by the ultra Israeli religious group, the Neturei Karta, WW2 was engineered by Jews and the leadership of the Jews made an alliance with Hitler causing thousands of German Jews to be killed so that others will flee en mass to Israel. They also forced the U.S. president Roosevelt to get into WW2 by embargoing Japanese oil causing them to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt went along with this plan, all the while knowing ahead of time about the Japanese attack and the murder of thousands of Americans. See the following for more:
Stranger Than Fiction

5. The Iraqi Jew Naeem Giladi wrote a book detailing how Israelis performed terrorist actions and caused the deaths of many Jewish Iraqis during the 1950s so that Arab Iraqis can be blamed for it. The purpose of these terrorist actions was to cause Jews to migrate to Israel from Iraq. All but 6,000 of the 125,000 Jews in Iraq fled to Israel.
http://www.savethemales.ca/030203.html
6. A few years after the end of World War II, the Zionist plan to establish the nation of Israel in Palestine was finally realized. But not before the British protectors of Palestine were chased out by acts of terror carried out by ungrateful Zionist terrorists. It was British troops who unwittingly sacrificed their lives in order to steal Palestine away from Arab control and allowed the Jews of Europe to immigrate there. But with Great Britain left weakened and in debt from World War II, the ungrateful Zionists saw their opportunity to now chase the British out of Palestine by committing acts of terrorism against them. The most notorious of the Zionist terror groups was the Irgun, whose leader Menachem Begin would one day go on to become the Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
On the morning of July 22, 1946, a group of 15-20 Irgun terrorists dressed as Arabs entered the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. They unloaded 225 kilograms of explosives hidden in milk churns. The King David Hotel housed the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine. When a British officer became suspicious, a shootout took place and the Irgun lit the fuses and fled. The explosion destroyed part of the hotel and killed 91 people. Most of the victims were British but 15 innocent Jews also died. Menachem Begin was not merely suspected of being behind these murderous deeds. Begin admitted that the Irgun committed these acts and that they were necessary for the establishment of a Jewish state.
Stranger Than Fiction
7. In 1956, as reported by the Times Of London, during one of Israel's perpetual wars with its neighbors, the Israeli Mossad tried to trick the United States into siding with Israel against Egypt by blowing up a US facility in Cairo and blaming the Egyptians for it. The plot was wrecked when the operatives were caught and confessed, creating a huge scandal. This event was referred to as the Lavon Affair named after the Israeli Defense Minister, Pinhas Lavon, at that time.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6854
http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/mossad/lavon_affair.htm
8. According to Victor Ostrovski, a defector from the Israeli Mossad, the US was tricked into bombing Libya when the Israeli Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Tripoli which sent out fake orders to "terrorists" which the US could intercept. The faked orders caused Libya to be blamed for a German disco bombing. As a result of this fake transmission, Reagan used it as evidence to bomb Libya killing 30 innocent people including Qaddhafi's baby daughter.
http://100777.com/node/101
9. On June 8, 1967 Israel used unmarked fighters and torpedo boats to launch an hour and one-half long attack on the American Navy ship the USS Liberty, costing 34 American sailors their lives and 171 wounded. The Israelis first attacked the Liberty's radio towers in an attempt to stop the Sixth Fleet from learning that the Israelis were the attackers. After unmarked Israeli fighters horrendously bombed and strafed the Liberty, Israel sent in torpedo boats to finish the job. They even machine gunned the deployed life rafts in an effort to ensure that there would be no survivors (witnesses) who could expose them. Just as in the Lavon Affair, Israel hoped to blame this act of war on their enemy, the Egyptians. This time, only the courage and resourcefulness of the Liberty's crew prevented a further compounding of the travesty.
http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/
9. It was Israelis who were armed with 9mm pistols, nine grenades, explosives, three detonators and 58 bullets and caught in Mexico in an attempt to blow the Mexican Congress up on October 10, 2001, one month after 9/11. Curiously these Israelis were found not with Israeli passports in their possession but with Pakistani passports. The Israelis were booked for conspiracy to destroy a building by means of an explosive by the Mexican police. If they were successful in blowing up the Mexican Congress, then like 9/11, it would have been blamed on Muslim terrorists, especially if Pakistani passports were found at the scene of the crime. They got caught red-handed here and only God knows how many other incidents that innocent Muslims are being blamed for that was really done by Israelis. See the following link for more on this:

"America's only ally in the Middle East, Israel, has been responsible for more acts of terror, sabotage, and murder of American citizens than the Muslims ever were. By her duplicity, she has put Americans in more danger than they have ever known or will know. She has bombed hotels, American government buildings, deliberately allowed hundreds of US Marines to be killed in their barracks in Lebanon, assaulted a US intelligence gathering ship, the USS Liberty (for the purposes of blaming the Arabs and thus drawing America into her war against them) stole and then sold America's most sensitive nuclear weapons technology to her enemies, (Russia and China) and by all indicators most certainly was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Whether it was the testimony given by the Israeli pilots who bombed and machine gunned the USS Liberty (killing 34 American sailors and wounding almost 200 more) or whether it was the Israeli intelligence officers who were arrested on 9/11 (while videotaping the destruction and cheering for a job well done) so much evidence exists which leaves no doubt as to who America's real enemy is, and yet short of one individual's conviction and prison sentence, Jonathon Pollard, nothing has been done with Israel with respect to justice or the interests of America's security. By contrast, year after year she is rewarded with more and more money and even more in terms of immunity and insulation from public scrutiny. The American people, supposedly a Christian people, have displayed not an ounce of the same concern for this obvious danger against their physical well-being which they attempt to display now over the supposed danger posed by Islamic extremism. Through the eyes of a Muslim therefore, the picture of the modern day Western Christian is one of an intellectually compliant, politically and religiously complacent individual who cannot think for himself or act in his own best interests outside of the programming which he receives from his Zionist puppet masters. Even today, as the headlines are blaring out the obvious vindication of this image by virtue of the fact that the war in Iraq was fought on completely false pretenses, the average conservative Christian in America who has adopted this irrational fear of Islam has taken no note of this nor does he appear to have been affected in the least."
Through the Eyes of a Muslim

Sean , says: November 26, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT
@Richard B

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank
The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Diffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and administration by Jordan, which subsequently annexed it in 1950. This annexation was considered illegal and was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan .[14] The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "east bank" of this river

America never recognised Jordan as having sovereignty over the West Bank, so when it lost it the position was not obviously the same as one country occupying another's territory. There was a legal opinion of how international law applied, that is all.

Durruti , says: November 26, 2019 at 2:33 pm GMT

The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or even genocide on a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also later after it occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have repeatedly asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually Palestine. They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by destroying their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their infrastructure, killing them if they resist,

The above is the Heart of Giraldi's article. Add to that, one of today's headlines, below, where the leader of Britain's Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn , is routinely attacked in the Zionist owned American and British Mainstream Media. In the Zionist diatribe, there is not a mention of the complaints of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. Not an ounce of honesty is allowed by the Zionist New World Order's propaganda machine. If you oppose them, they will assassinate you, one way, or another.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/uk-chief-rabbi-says-corbyns-labour-is-poisoned-against-jews/ar-BBXkozX?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp

The Zionist Financial Oligarchs are omnipotent, but no one loves them.

Durruti

Rich , says: November 26, 2019 at 4:08 pm GMT
The Turkish flag still flies over Constantinople, after having killed millions and forcefully converting or mistreating the Christians who lived there. In fact, the now Muslim countries of N Africa as well as Lebanon and Syria were also Christian lands. The tortures and degradations suffered by the formerly Christian people in this region are well documented. Where is the outrage? When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to the original Christians who lived in this region?

The Israelis aren't leaving. The Palestinians, as a defeated peaple, have to find a way to make peace with their conqueror. Their Muslim ancestors were much less kind to the Christians who lived there, than the Israelis have been to them.

tradecraft46 , says: November 26, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
As the World Court has ruled, Israel holds the land by "Right of Conquest", by winning a defensive war.

If you live by the sword you die by the sword, so you have no complaint if you lose.

Israel may not be very good, but you have to be obey the law.

Personally, being a WASP, I think Muslims deserve what they get, but so do the Jews, Fiat Ludi!

Baaw , says: November 26, 2019 at 4:56 pm GMT
Pompeo was clearly rotated through the DCI billet just long enough to get him briefed for his focal point job at CIA's Foggy Bottom site. A rare non-tendentious question: What was the line he was getting on Israel policy? "International law has not advanced the cause of peace" is CIA boilerplate for everyplace. Is it CIA's stated policy to repudiate international law for the benefit of Israel? Or did Pompeo go off the reservation?
ChuckOrloski , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:29 pm GMT
The ZUS Executive Branch and cohort Knesset Congress West gave the West Bank to Israel. Pompeo merely conveyed the done-deal to Amerikans.

Fyi, as the Crusades have become topical on this article thread, it's good to recall how ZUS "War President" G.W. Bush slipped up (as usual ) and announced his administration's Crusade.

Curmudgeon , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:51 pm GMT
@Durruti I agree with your comment overall, but would like to point out the flaw in your Giraldi quote that no one addresses.
If the Jews claim Jordan is the real Palestine, then why do the Jews want Jerusalem as their capital, and claim the Golan Heights, West Bank and the rest of "Israel"?
The Balfour Declaration supported the resettlement of Jews in Palestine therefore Jordan, not all of the other territory they claim. As poster Sean has observed, the West Bank is not universally recognized as part of Jordan. Neither the Golan Heights nor Jerusalem have ever been part of Palestine – Jordan.
While it may piss off the King of Jordan, perhaps the question needs to be put to the Zionists, suggesting strongly that the Balfour Declaration has been misinterpreted, and the US recognition of Israel was wrong and will be withdrawn.
9/11 Inside job , says: November 26, 2019 at 6:02 pm GMT
Jeremy Hammond : "Why Israel has no right to exist " writing in the Foreign Policy Journal :
" There is a popular belief that Israel was founded through some kind of legitimate political process . This is absurd .when they declared Israel's independence Jews owned less than 7% of the land of Palestine The Zionist leadership relied on the UN's Resolution 181 for their claim of legitimate authority . The truth is that the resolution did no such thing . The UN General Assembly had no authority to partition the land against the will of the majority of its inhabitants . Nor did it claim to ."
Curmudgeon , says: November 26, 2019 at 6:03 pm GMT
The "problem" with Trump, is that his thought processes were developed for different circumstances. His statements are often confusing, giving opposite affirmatives or negatives. They are likely perfect for the business world. I think it is too soon to discard his sometimes bizarre actions.
He has stated many times that he's the best thing ever for Israel. He has made decisions regarding Israel that have been ridiculed at home and abroad. In Trump's drain the undefined swamp world, Israel could well be part of his swamp. There is an old adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
His seemingly bizarre actions have made more people than ever acutely aware of the poisonous effects of the Israeli lobby. The attack on his Presidency is dominated by Jews, and the public sees that.
"If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."

― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

AnonStarter , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:08 pm GMT
@Rich /When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to the original Christians who lived in this region?/

Don't like what Mr. Giraldi has to say, eh?

There are an astounding number of blogs throughout cyberspace devoted to your perspective. You're more than welcome to part company with us and join your fellow hasbaraites there.

On your way out the door, a little perspective for you, courtesy of Moshe Sharett:

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/attacking-churches-in-palestine-an-israeli-policy-since-1948/

Israeli documents have revealed that the Israeli army deliberately adopted a policy based on the destruction, vandalism and harm of the sanctity of churches in Palestine, during and after the 1948 war. An Israeli book, which will be published next month, explains how the Israeli army carried out seizure and destruction operations against churches located in the Palestinian cities, towns and villages the army took control off after expelling their people.

According to the protocol, Sharett described the army's violations of the church saying, "the officers and soldiers deliberately harmed the Christian sanctities; their behaviour is that of beasts, not human beings." Sharett also said, "The attacks suffered by the churches at the hands of the soldiers and officers are a shameful page in Israel's history."

This book also revealed that Sharett compared Israel, which allowed such acts, to "an evil and brutal Caesar that promotes nothing but destruction." He added: "The soldiers and officers turned the churches to toilets where they would tend to their needs." The book also goes on to reveal that Sharett told members of the Mapai party, in a meeting in July 1949, that Israel deliberately declared the areas containing churches as military zones in order to justify its refusal to allow foreign visitors and tourists to enter these areas and churches in an attempt to prevent them from witnessing the army's heinous violations.

Sharett also said that the soldiers stole a very valuable crown made of precious stones from one of the churches. He also noted another incident where the soldiers broke the hand off a sculpture of Jesus in one of the churches in order to steal the gold bracelets that were on it, as an example of the systematic looting and stealing from the churches which lasted for months. He stressed that the Israeli officers and soldiers also intentionally harmed the sanctity of the churches and tore holy books, mentioning that the acts of destruction committed against the churches were not only committed by the officers and soldiers, but also by many settlers, especially those who newly immigrated.

Herald , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus So Balfour announced his sordid scheme, and then expected someone else to get their hands dirty by putting it into effect. It took a little time though, but effectively that is just what has happened. Much of the filth has now washed off Britain's grubby hands and has floated its way across the North Atlantic, where it now seems very much at home. Balfour would be well pleased.
DeepThought , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:17 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Dual citizenship has killed loyalty to America.
Truth3 , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:31 pm GMT

Orthodox leaders say they've embraced Trump because of his pro-Israel policies, including voiding the Iran nuclear deal. Some pointed to Trump's commuting of Hasidic meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money laundering in 2017.

Trump has always been a shabbos goy just like his Dad and Brother.

His wives and kids are all Jews, so you see, he was never one to care about the goyim.

He was faking all along.

Miggle , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:44 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX

It is worse than that, they attacked the USS Liberty and the WTC on 911, they have free rein to do anything , they are the untouchables, killers and wreckers of nations including America.

It is worse than that. Today the whole world hates the USA. Until the Jews went on their genocidal rampage in 1948 the whole world loved the USA. Even the Iranians loved the USA then, but not for long, not after the USA, the worst enemy of Democracy the world has ever known, turned their constitutional monarch into a particularly vicious, obedient dictator.

So that's Israel's (and the CIA's) greatest achievement, making everyone in the whole world hate the USA, making the final demise of the USA a total certainty.

Yet it would be so, so easy for the USA to make the whole world love it again. Step one, force an immediate One State Solution, with equal rights for all, on Israel.

Robert Dolan , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon The Greater Israel Plan means that israel is going to steal massive tracts of arab land, and white

Christian soldiers are going to die in the effort.

Anonymouse , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT
@anarchyst Montesquiou pointed out that every nation is founded on a crime. A known truth for historical times, and a likely supposition about pre-historical change of rulership. True of the US, Canada, NZ, Australia in recent times.

The jews are merely the most recent example of that principle. Most of the Arab inhabitants of Israel's slice of Palestine were driven into exile, into the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon.

The jews have no right to their territory, no more than any other nation. They hold their territory by force of arms. Selective arm-chair moralizing about injustice to the Palestinians may be judged to be nothing more than hot air plus an atavistic hatred, possibly religiously based, of the jews.

The 75 year long existence of Israel has culminated in a high-class civilization, materially and professionally impressive, socially unified by majority army conscription, with efficient governance chosen democratically.

Their Ungluck is to have colonized in the wrong area surrounded by religiously based enemies. The Spartans in antiquity is an approximate parallel.

They prevailed over their enemies for centuries until they didn't. Why? One possible explanation is that their fertility rate dwindled with a concommitant loss of military supremacy. Happily, the Israeli birthrate is extremely high among the 20% religious and among the secular as well.

According to Wikipedia, "With an average of three children per woman, Israel also has the highest fertility rate in the OECD by a considerable margin and much higher than the OECD average of 1.7."

Anastasia , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:42 pm GMT
Well trumps campaign promise was to get rid of NATO and while it looks like he reneged on that promise his actions in forcing nato countries to pay their fair share is effectively dismantling nato. Maybe in his recognition of things in Israel which he has no authority to recognize is causing Israel to act in a way to create the one state scenario as the author suggests. Maybe trump is not as dumb as he looks or maybe someone above has his hand on the throttle
mark green , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:47 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Hi Chuck. Who benefited most from the Camp David? As you may recall, there were a series of agreements and accords that began with Camp David (which was primarily just an overrated peace deal between Israel and Egypt) but it set the stage (allegedly) for a comprehensive peace settlement involving the Palestinians as well as the larger Arab world.

But this vaunted peace process finally failed. The 'two state' solution has been dumped. Israel is now in conquest mode.

As for Camp David, Israel got Egypt to accept Greater Israel and to break away from the rest of the Arab League. This marked one of the first significant cracks in the Arab wall of anti-Zionist solidarity. It looks as if this was Israel's game plan all along. Jewish Henry Kissinger made this happen. Very clever. Very duplicitous.

The crypto-Israelis among us continue to dominate this multi-decade chess match, with Washington still carrying their bags. So we're left with this:

The expanding Jewish state continues to gain more territory while bringing its divided foes to heel.

US aid to nuclear Israel remains unconditional.

Israel's native non-Jews are still being crushed.

Looking back, the US squandered vast amounts of time, money and prestige on a peace process that went nowhere. The Palestinians continue to suffer and die. And Israel isn't done yet.

The Zions want 'regime change' in Iran and the alliance between Russia, Assad's Syria and Iran smashed. More conflict ahead.

Amerimutt Golems , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:43 pm GMT
@mark green

With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts to incremental warfare.

Carter is no saint. He covered up Israel's nuclear test just to preserve his legacy as international peacemaker.

The Vela Incident: South Atlantic Mystery Flash in September 1979 Raised Questions about Nuclear Test
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-12-06/vela-incident-south-atlantic-mystery-flash-september-1979-raised-questions-about-nuclear-test

[Nov 26, 2019] John Solomon Everything Changes In The Ukraine Scandal If Trump Releases These Documents

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Authored by John Solomon via JohnSolomonReports.com, ..."
"... Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship with oligarchs and other key figures. ..."
"... State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. ..."
"... The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to January 2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine. ..."
"... All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue a joint project with Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016. ..."
"... All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. ..."
"... All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social media activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence on the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts to publicize allegations against Paul Manafort. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. ..."
Nov 26, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by John Solomon via JohnSolomonReports.com,

There are still wide swaths of documentation kept under wraps inside government agencies like the State Department that could substantially alter the public's understanding of what has happened in the U.S.-Ukraine relationships now at the heart of the impeachment probe.

As House Democrats mull whether to pursue impeachment articles and the GOP-led Senate braces for a possible trial, here are 12 tranches of government documents that could benefit the public if President Trump ordered them released, and the questions these memos might answer.

  1. Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship with oligarchs and other key figures. What was the CIA, FBI and U.S. Treasury Department telling Trump and other agencies about Zelensky's ties to oligarchs like Igor Kolomoisky, the former head of Privatbank, and any concerns the International Monetary Fund might have? Did any of these concerns reach the president's daily brief (PDB) or come up in the debate around resolving Ukraine corruption and U.S. foreign aid? CNBC , Reuters and The Wall Street Journal all have done recent reporting suggesting there might have been intelligence and IMF concerns that have not been fully considered during the impeachment proceedings.
  2. State Department memos detailing conversations between former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko . He says Yovanovitch raised the names of Ukrainians she did not want to see prosecuted during their first meeting in 2016. She calls Lutsenko's account fiction. But State Department officials admit the U.S. embassy in Kiev did pressure Ukrainian prosecutors not to target certain activists. Are there contemporaneous State Department memos detailing these conversations and might they illuminate the dispute between Lutsenko and Yovanovitch that has become key to the impeachment hearings?
  3. State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. There is documentary evidence that State provided funding to this group, that Ukrainian prosecutor sought to investigate whether that aid was spent properly and that the U.S. embassy pressured Ukraine to stand down on that investigation. How much total did State give to this group? Why was a federal agency giving money to a Soros-backed group? What did taxpayers get for their money and were they any audits to ensure the money was spent properly? Were any of Ukrainian prosecutors' concerns legitimate?
  4. The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to January 2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Did Burisma or Hunter Biden ever come up in the calls? What did Biden say when he urged Ukraine to fire the prosecutor overseeing an investigation of Burisma? Did any Ukrainian officials ever comment on Hunter Biden's role at the company? Was any official assessment done by U.S. agencies to justify Biden's threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid if Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin wasn't fired?
  5. All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine. The U.S. government's main whistleblower office is investigating allegations from a U.S Energy Department worker of possible wrongdoing in U.S.-supported Ukrainian energy business. Who benefited in the United States and Ukraine from this alleged activity? Did Burisma gain any benefits from the conduct described by the whistleblower? OSC has concluded there is a "substantial likelihood of wrongdoing" involved in these activities.
  6. All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings. What did the U.S. know about allegations of corruption at the Ukrainian gas company and the efforts by the Ukrainian prosecutors to investigate? Did U.S., Latvian, Cypriot or European financial authorities flag any suspicious transactions involving Burisma or Americans during the time that Hunter Biden served on its board? Were any U.S. agencies monitoring, assisting or blocking the various investigations? When Ukraine reopened the Burisma investigations in March 2019, what did U.S. officials do?
  7. All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue a joint project with Burisma Holdings. State official George Kent has testified he stopped this joint project because of concerns about Burisma's corruption reputation. Did Hunter Biden or his American business partner Devon Archer have anything to do with seeking the project? What caused its abrupt end? What issues did Kent identify as concerns and who did he alert in the White House, State or other agencies?
  8. All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016. We now know that Ukrainian authorities escalated their investigation of Burisma Holdings in February 2016 by raiding the home of the company's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Soon after, Burisma's American representatives were pressing the State Department to help end the corruption allegations against the gas firm, specifically invoking Hunter Biden's name. What did State officials do after being pressured by Burisma? Did the U.S. embassy in Kiev assist Burisma's efforts to settle the corruption case against it? Who else in the U.S. government was being kept apprised?
  9. All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. We now know that multiple State Department officials believed Hunter Biden's association with Burisma created the appearance of a conflict of interest for the vice president, and at least one official tried to contact Joe Biden's office to raise those concerns. What, if anything, did these Cabinet agencies tell Joe Biden's office about the appearance concerns or the state of the various Ukrainian investigations into Burisma?
  10. All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social media activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. Did any such monitoring occur? Was it requested by the American embassy in Kiev? Who ordered it? Why did it stop? Were any legal concerns raised?
  11. All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence on the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts to publicize allegations against Paul Manafort. What did U.S. officials know about these efforts in 2016, and how did they react? What were these federal agencies' reactions to a Ukrainian court decision in December 2018 suggesting some Ukrainian officials had improperly meddled in the 2016 election?
  12. All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. Did anyone in these U.S. government agencies interview or have contact with Chalupa during the time the Ukraine embassy in Washington says she was seeking dirt in 2016 on Trump and Manafort?

[Nov 26, 2019] Democrats Empower a Pack of Paranoid Neocon Morons both in State Department and Pentagon by David Stockman

Images removes. See the original via provided link. Images removes. See the original via provided link.
They are not morons. They are lackeys (or in more uncharitable terms, political prostitutes) of the military industrial complex
Nov 22, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
Part 1

Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade, and Tuesday's testimony before Adam's Schiff Show by former NSC official Tim Morrison is just such an occasion. In spades!

In his opening statement, this paranoid moron uttered the following lunacy, and it's all you need to know about what is really going on down in the Imperial City.

"I continue to believe Ukraine is on the front lines of a strategic competition between the West and Vladimir Putin's revanchist Russia. Russia is a failing power, but it is still a dangerous one. The United States aids Ukraine and her people so they can fight Russia over there and we don't have to fight Russia here.

Folks, that just plain whacko. The Trump-hating Dems are so feverishly set on a POTUS kill that they have enlisted a veritable posse of Russophobic, right-wing neocon cretins – Morrison, Taylor, Kent, Vindman, among others – to finish off the Donald.

But in so doing they have made official Washington's real beef against Trump crystal clear; and it's not about the rule of law or abuse of presidential power or an impeachable dereliction of duty.

To be sure, foolish politicians like Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and the Clintonista apparatus at the center of the Dem party are so overcome with inconsolable grief and anger about losing the 2016 election to Trump that their sole purpose in life is to drive the Donald from office. But that just makes them "useful idiots" or compliant handmaids of the Deep State, which has a far more encompassing and consequential motivation.

To wit, whether out of naiveté, contrariness or just plain common sense, the Donald has declined to embrace the War Party's Russian bogeyman and demonization of Putin. He thereby threatens the Empire's raison d'être to the very core.

Indeed, that's the real reason for the whole concerted attack on Trump from the Russian Collusion hoax, through the Mueller Investigation farce to the present UkraineGate and impeachment inquisition. The Deep State deeply and profoundly fears that if Trump remains in office – and especially if he is elected with a new mandate in 2020 – he might actually make peace with Russia and Putin.

So in Part 1 we advert to the basics. Without the demonization of Russia, Ukraine would be the no count failed state and cesspool of corruption it actually is, and not a purported "front line" buffer against Russian aggression.

Likewise, it would not have been a recipient of vast US and western military and economic aid – a condition that turned it into a honeypot for the kind of Washington influence peddling which ensnared the Bidens, induced its officials to meddle in the 2016 US election, and, in return, incited Trump's justifiable quest to get to the bottom of the malignancy that has ensued.

So the starting point is to identify Russia for what it actually is: Namely, a kleptocratic state sitting atop an aging, Vodka-chugging population and third-rate economy with virtually zero capacity to project 21st century offensive military power beyond its own borders.

That truth, of course, shatters the whole foundation of the Warfare State. It renders NATO an obsolete relic and eviscerates the case for America's absurd $900 billion defense and national security budget. And with the latter's demise, the fairest part of Washington's imperial self-importance and unseemly national security spending-based prosperity would also crumble.

But in their frenzied pursuit of the Donald's political scalp, the Dems may be inadvertently sabotaging their Deep State masters. That's because the neocon knuckleheads they are dragging out of the NSC and State Department woodwork are such bellicose simpletons – just maybe their utterly preposterous testimony about the Russkie threat and Ukrainian "front line" will wake up the somnolent American public to the absurdity of the entire Cold War 2.0 campaign.

Indeed, you almost have to ask whether the bit about fighting the Russkies in the Donbas rather than on the shores of New Jersey from Morrison's opening statement quoted above was reprinted in the New York Times or The Onion ?

The fact is, the fearsome Russian bogeyman cited by Morrison yesterday – and Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Lt. Colonel Vindman previously – is a complete chimera; and the notion that the cesspool of corruption in Ukraine is a strategic buffer against Russian aggression is just plain idiocy.

Russia is actually an economic and industrial midget transformed beyond recognition by relentless Warfare State propaganda. It is actually no more threatening to America's homeland security than the Siberian land mass that Sarah Palin once espied from her front porch in Alaska a decade ago.

After all, how could it be? The GDP of the New York City metro area alone is about $1.8 trillion, which is well more than Russia's 2018 GDP of $1.66 trillion. And that, in turn, is just 8% of America's total GDP of $21.5 trillion.

Moreover, Russia' dwarf economy is composed largely of a vast oil and gas patch; a multitude of nickel, copper, bauxite and vanadium mines; and some very large swatches of wheat fields. That's not exactly the kind of high tech industrial platform on which a war machine capable of threatening the good folks in Lincoln NE or Worchester MA is likely to be erected.

And especially not when the Russian economy has been heading sharply south in dollar purchasing terms for several years running.

GDP of Russia In Millions of USD

Indeed, in terms of manufacturing output, the comparison is just as stark. Russia's annual manufacturing value added is currently about $200 billion compared to $2.2 trillion for the US economy.

And that's not the half of it. Not only are Russia's vast hydrocarbon deposits and mines likely to give out in the years ahead, but so are the livers of its Vodka-chugging work force. That's a problem because according to a recent Brookings study, Russia's working age population – even supplemented by substantial in-migration and guest worker programs – is heading south as far into the future as the eye can see.

Even in the Brookings medium case projection shown below, Russia's working age population will be nearly 20% smaller than today by 2050. Yet today's figure of about 85 million is already just a fraction of the US working age population of 255 million.

Russia's Shrinking Work Force

Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military establishment anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion of military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current $750 billion of expenditures for defense.

Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland security in America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.

That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a continuation of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got through 45-years of cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy committed to a hostile ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth via a forced-draft allocation of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to the military.

By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian "stans" among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the self-evidently calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to go mad, defy MAD and trigger a nuclear Armageddon?

Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is laughable. Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is the extent of what he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force to the North American continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere between nichts and nothing.

For example, in today's world you do not invade any foreign continent without massive sea power projection capacity in the form of aircraft carrier strike groups. These units consist of an armada of lethal escort ships, a fleet of aircraft, massive suites of electronics warfare capability and the ability to launch hundreds of cruise missiles and other smart weapons.

Each US aircraft carrier based strike group, in fact, is composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, at least one cruiser, a squadron of destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also sometimes includes submarines and attached logistics ships.

The US has eleven such carrier strike groups. Russia has zero modern carrier strike groups and one beat-up, smoky old (diesel) aircraft carrier that the Israeli paper, Haaretz, described as follows when it recently entered the Mediterranean:

Russia's only aircraft carrier, a leftover from the days of Soviet power, carries a long history of mishaps, at sea and in port, and diesel engines which were built for Russia's cold waters – as shown by the column of black smoke raising above it. It needs frequent refueling and resupplies and has never been operationally tested.

Indeed, from our 19th floor apartment on the East River in NYC, even we could see this smoke belcher coming up Long Island Sound with an unaided eye – with no help needed at all from the high tech spyware of the nation's $80 billion intelligence apparatus.

Yet Morrison had the audacity to say before a committee of the U.S. House that we are aiding Ukraine so we don't have to fight Russians on the banks of the East River or the Potomac!

For want of doubt, just compare the above image of the Admiral Kuznetsov belching smoke in the Mediterranean with that of the Gerald R. Ford CVN 48 next below.

The latter is the US Navy's new $13 billion aircraft carrier and is the most technologically advanced warship ever built.

The contrast shown below serves as a proxy for the vastly inferior capability of the limited number of ships and planes in Russia's conventional force. What it does have numerical superiority in is tanks – but alas they are not amphibious nor ocean-capable!

Likewise, nobody invades anybody without massive airpower and the ability to project it across thousands of miles of oceans via vast logistics and air-refueling capabilities.

On that score, the US has 6,100 helicopters to Russia's 1,200 and 6,000 fixed wing fighter and attack aircraft versus Russia's 2,100. More importantly, the US has 5,700 transport and airlift aircraft compared to just 1,100 for Russia.

In short, the idea that Russia is a military threat to the US homeland is ludicrous. Russia is essentially a landlocked military shadow of the former Soviet war machine. Indeed, for the world's only globe-spanning imperial power to remonstrate about an aggressive threat from Moscow is a prime facie case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Moreover, the canard that Washington's massive conventional armada is needed to defend Europe is risible nonsense. Europe can and should take care of its own security and relationship with its neighbor on the Eurasian continent.

After all, the GDP of NATO Europe is $18 trillion or 12X greater than that of Russia, and the current military budgets of European NATO members total about $280 billion or 4X more than that of Russia.

More importantly, the European nations and people really do not have any quarrel with Putin's Russia, nor is their security and safety threatened by the latter. All of the tensions that do exist and have come to a head since the illegal coup in Kiev in February 2014 were fomented by Imperial Washington and its European subalterns in the NATO machinery.

Then again, the latter is absolutely the most useless, obsolete, wasteful and dangerous multilateral institution in the present world. But like the proverbial clothes-less emperor, NATO doesn't dare risk having the purportedly "uninformed" amateur in the Oval Office pointing out its buck naked behind.

So the NATO subservient think tanks and establishment policy apparatchiks are harrumphing up a storm, but for crying out loud most of Europe's elected politicians are in on the joke. They are fiscally swamped paying for their Welfare States and are not about to squeeze their budgets or taxpayers to fund military muscle against a nonexistent threat.

As the late, great Justin Raimondo aptly noted ,

Finally an American president has woken up to the fact that World War II, not to mention the cold war, is over: there's no need for US troops to occupy Germany. Vladimir Putin isn't going to march into Berlin in a reenactment of the Red Army taking the Fuehrer-bunker – but even if he were so inclined, why won't Germany defend itself?

Exactly. If their history proves anything, Germans are not a nation of pacifists, meekly willing to bend-over in the face of real aggressors. Yet they spent the paltry sum of $43 billion on defense during 2018, or barely 1.1% of Germany's $4.0 trillion GDP, which happens to be roughly three times bigger than Russia's.

In short, the policy action of the German government tells you they don't think Putin is about to invade the Rhineland or retake the Brandenburg Gate.

And this live action testimonial also trumps, as it were, all of the risible alarms that have emanated from the beltway think tanks and the 4,000 NATO bureaucrats talking their own book in behalf of their plush Brussels sinecures.

And as we will outline in Part 2, that's what Washington's Ukraine intervention is all about, and why the Donald's efforts to get to the bottom of that cesspool has brought on the final Deep State assault against his presidency.

Part 2

In Part 1 we dispatched UkraineGater Tim Morrison's preposterous suggestion that Washington is helping Kiev subdue the Donbas so we won't have Russkies coming up the East River.

Yet his related claim that Ukraine is a victim of Russian aggression is even more ludicrous. The actual aggression in that godforsaken corner of the planet came from Washington when it instigated, funded, engineered and recognized the putsch on the streets of Kiev during February 2014, which illegally overthrew the duly elected President of Ukraine on the grounds that he was too friendly with Moscow.

Thus, Morrison risibly asserted that,

Support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been a bipartisan objective since Russia's military invasion in 2014. It must continue to be.

The fact is, when the Maidan uprising occurred in February that year there were no uninvited Russian troops anywhere in Ukraine. Putin was actually sitting in his box on the viewing stand, presiding over the Winter Olympics in Sochi and basking in the limelight of global attention that they commanded .

It was only weeks later – when the Washington-installed ultra-nationalist government with its neo-Nazi vanguard threatened the Russian-speaking populations of Crimea and the Donbas – that Putin moved to defend Russian interests on his own doorstep. And those interests included Russia's primary national security asset – the naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea which had been the homeport of the Russian Black Sea Fleet for centuries under czars and commissars alike, and on which Russia had a long-term lease.

We untangle the truth of the crucial events which surrounded the Kiev putsch in greater detail below, but suffice it here to note the whole gang of neocon apparatchiks which have been paraded before the Schiff Show have proffered the same Big Lie as did Morrison in the "invasion" quote cited above.

As the ever perspicacious Robert Merry observed regarding the previous testimony of Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, the Washington rendition of the Maidan coup and its aftermath amounts to a blatant falsehood:

The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood.

As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine.

"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment] controversy that we are discussing today."

Taylor's right that this narrative is at the center of UkraineGate, but there is not a shred of truth to it. Nevertheless, defense of this false narrative, and the inappropriate military and economic aid to Ukraine which flowed from it, is the real reason this posse of neocon stooges took exception to the Donald's legitimate interest in investigating the Bidens and the events of 2016.

As Morrison put it Tuesday and Vindman said last week, their interest was in protecting not the constitution and the rule of law, but the bipartisan political consensus on Capitol Hill in favor of their proxy war on Putin and the Ukraine aid package through which it was being prosecuted.

As I stated during my deposition, I feared at the time of the call on July 25 how its disclosure would play in Washington's political climate. My fears have been realized.

Not surprisingly, the entire Washington establishment has been sucked into this scam. For instance, the insufferably sanctimonious Peggy Noonan used her Wall Street Journal platform to idolize these liars.

As she portrayed it, bow-tie bedecked George P. Kent appeared to be the very picture of the old-school American foreign service official. And West Pointer Bill Taylor – with a military career going back to (dubious) Vietnam heroism – was redolent of the blunt-spoken American military men who won WW II and the cold war which followed.

As Robert Merry further noted,

She saw them as "the old America reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."

Oh, puleeze!

What they evinced was nothing more than the self-serving groupthink that has turned Ukraine into a beltway goldmine. That is, a cornucopia of funding for all the think tanks, NGOs, foreign policy experts, national security contractors and Warfare State agencies – from DOD through the State Department, AID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Board for International Broadcasting and countless more – which ply their trade in the Imperial City.

But Robert Merry got it right. These cats are not noble public servants and heroes; they're apparatchiks and payrollers aggrandizing their own power and pelf – even as they lead the nation to the brink of disaster:

But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue to them, since it is the same geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy establishment, of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing America towards a very possible disaster.

Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither gave even a nod to the long, complex relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance or the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in what for centuries has been part of Russia's sphere of influence.

They obviously didn't get it, but we must. So let us summarize the true Ukraine story, starting with the utterly stupid and historically ignorant reason for Washington's February 2014 coup.

Namely, it objected to the decision of Ukraine's prior government in late 2013 to align itself economically and politically with its historic hegemon in Moscow rather than the European Union and NATO. Yet the fairly elected and constitutionally legitimate government of Ukraine then led by Viktor Yanukovych had gone that route mainly because it got a better deal from Moscow than was being demanded by the fiscal torture artists of the IMF.

Needless to say, the ensuing US sponsored putsch arising from the mobs on the street of Kiev reopened deep national wounds. Ukraine's bitter divide between Russian-speakers in the east and Ukrainian nationalists elsewhere dates back to Stalin's brutal rein in Ukraine during the 1930s and Ukrainian collusion with Hitler's Wehrmacht on its way to Stalingrad and back during the 1940s.

It was the memory of the latter nightmare, in fact, which triggered the fear-driven outbreak of Russian separatism in the Donbas and the 96% referendum vote in Crimea in March 2014 to formally re-affiliate with Mother Russia.

In this context, even a passing familiarity with Russian history and geography would remind that Ukraine and Crimea are Moscow's business, not Washington's.

In the first place, there is nothing at stake in the Ukraine that matters. During the last 800 years it has been a meandering set of borders in search of a country.

In fact, the intervals in which the Ukraine existed as an independent nation have been few and far between. Invariably, its rulers, petty potentates and corrupt politicians made deals with or surrendered to every outside power that came along.

These included the Lithuanians, Poles, Ruthenians (eastern Slavs), Tartars, Turks, Muscovites, Austrians and Czars, among manifold others.

At the beginning of the 16th century, for instance, the territory of today's Ukraine was scattered largely among the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia (light brown area), the Kingdom of Poland (dark brown area), Muscovy (bright yellow area) the Crimean Khanate (light yellow area).

The latter was the entity which emerged when some clans of the Golden Horde (Tartars) ceased their nomadic life on the Asian steppes and occupied the light yellow stripped areas of the map north of the Black Sea as their Yurt (homeland).

From that cold start, the tiny Cossack principality of Ukraine (blue area below), which had emerged by 1654, grew significantly over the subsequent three centuries. But as the map also makes clear, this did not reflect the organic congealment of a nation of kindred volk sharing common linguistic and ethnic roots, but the machinations of Czars and Commissars for the administrative convenience of efficiently ruling their conquests and vassals.

Thus, much of modern Ukraine was incorporated by the Russian Czars between 1654 and 1917 per the yellow area of the map and functioned as vassal states. These territories were amalgamated by absolute monarchs who ruled by the mandate of God and the often brutal sword of their own armies.

In particular, much of the purple area was known as "Novo Russia" (Novorossiya) during the 18th and 19th century owing to the Czarist policy of relocating Russian populations to the north of the Black Sea as a bulwark against the Ottomans. But after Lenin seized power in St. Petersburg in November 1917 amidst the wreckage of Czarist Russia, an ensuing civil war between the so-called White Russians and the Red Bolsheviks raged for several years in these territories and elsewhere in the chaotic regions of the former western Russian Empire.

At length, Lenin won the civil war as the French, British, Polish and American contingents vacated the postwar struggle for power in Russia. Accordingly, in 1922 the new Communist rulers proclaimed the Union of Soviet Social Republics (USSR) and incorporated Novo Russia into one of its four constituent units as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) – along with the Russian, Belarus and Transcaucasian SSRs.

Thereafter the border and political status of Ukraine remained unchanged until the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Pursuant thereto the Red Army and Nazi Germany invaded and dismembered Poland, with Stalin getting the blue areas (Volhynia and parts of Galicia) as consolation prizes, which where then incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR.

Finally, when Uncle Joe Stalin died and Nikita Khrushchev won the bloody succession struggle in 1954, he transferred Crimea (red area) to the Ukraine SSR as a reward to his supporters in Kiev. That, of course, was the arbitrary writ of the Soviet Presidium, given that precious few Ukrainians actually lived in what had been a integral part of Czarist Russia after it was purchased by Catherine the Great from the Turks in 1783.

In a word, the borders of modern Ukraine are the handiwork of Czarist emperors and Communist butchers. The so-called international rule of law had absolutely nothing to do with its gestation and upbringing.

It's a pity, therefore, that none of the so-called conservative Republicans attending Adam's Schiff Show saw fit to ask young Tim Morrison the obvious question.

To wit, exactly why is he (and most of the Washington foreign policy establishment) so keen on expending American treasure, weapons and even blood in behalf of the "territorial integrity and sovereignty" of this happenstance amalgamation of people subdued by some of history's most despicable tyrants?

Needless to say, owing to this very history, the linguistic/ethnic composition of today's Ukraine does not reflect the congealment of a "nation" in the historic sense.

To the contrary, central and western Ukraine is populated by ethnic Ukrainians who speak Ukrainian (dark red area), whereas the two parts of the country allegedly the victim of Russian aggression and occupation – Crimea (brown area) and the eastern Donbas region (yellow area with brown strips) – are comprised of ethnic Russians who speak Russian and ethnic Ukrainians who predominately speak-Russian, respectively.

And much of the rest of the territory consists of admixtures and various Romanian, Moldovan, Hungarian and Bulgarian minorities.

Did the Washington neocons – led by Senator McCain and Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland – who triggered the Ukrainian civil war with their coup on the streets of Kiev in February 2014 consider the implications of the map below and its embedded, and often bloody, history?

Quite surely, they did not.

Nor did they consider the rest of the map. That is, the enveloping Russian state all around to which the parts and pieces of Ukraine – especially the Donbas and Crimea – have been intimately connected for centuries. Robert Merry thus further noted,

As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the US Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles up against the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's population and industrial capacity at risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries share strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No Russian leader of any stripe would survive as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.

And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to gin up pro-Western sentiment there, according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who spearheaded much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign nation – and a nation residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.

Indeed, Ukraine is a tragically divided country and fissured simulacrum of a nation. Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct cultures" causing Robert Merry to rightly observe that,

Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in Crimea, the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what they consider their Russian heritage. The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear that the national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded to avoid a violent national confrontation.) In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."

In short, in modern times Ukraine largely functioned as an integral part of Mother Russia, serving as its breadbasket and iron and steel crucible under czars and commissars alike. Given this history, the idea that Ukraine should be actively and aggressively induced to join NATO was just plain nuts, as we will amplify further in Part 3 (to come).

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Nov 26, 2019] Why Pompeo Gives Away the Palestinian West Bank

Nov 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

BannedHipster , says: November 26, 2019 at 3:21 pm GMT

Trump must be doing some really terrible stuff on all those Ghislaine Maxwell/Jeffrey Epstein tapes.

[Nov 26, 2019] The Real Reason the Navy Stood Up to Trump

Nov 26, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

=marco01= 13 hours ago • edited

"The difficulty here is that Trump thinks he's defending the military, when he's not"

No, this is not about Trump defending the military. What this is about is how Trump thinks war should be fought, "tough" in his words. What he means by this is troops should be utterly ruthless. They should murder and kill civilians, as this strikes fear into the enemy and shows them how "tough" we are. Plus of course Trump likes vengeance. No one should be surprised by this as Trump has voiced strong support for war crimes, he wants "strong" torture, he wants the families of terrorists, women, children, elderly murdered to punish the terrorists. Sad thing is, I've heard lots of support for this kind of warfighting among conservatives.

Trump has the mentality of an authoritarian dictator, thankfully he's not that smart.

SirMagpieDeCrow1 13 hours ago
Army Col. Keven Benson suggests Trump may have overplayed his hand, considering all the wreckage he wrought playing to his base at the possible cost of his legitimacy among those in uniform. Benson charges, too, that the president's decision to reverse the directives of senior Navy officers in disciplining one of their own might lose him support not only among senior officers, but among the rank and file -- a constituency that voted overwhelmingly to put him in the White House.

"You know, these guys, these three knuckleheads -- Lorance, Golsteyn and Gallagher -- might be welcome on Fox News," Benson says, "but they wouldn't be welcome in my platoon."

Damn.

If it is all the same to everyone, I think we shouldn't indulge in the kind of permissiveness that makes incidents like the My Lai Massacre or the Abu Graib prisoner abuse scandal possible.

George Hoffman 11 hours ago
I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968). That is to be blunt, I served as an enlisted man which is equivalent to a working class peon in civilian life or an Indentured servant who didn't have the money to pay his passage to the American colony but promised to serve an extended period of apprenticeship to pay it off. In American society at that time an indentured servant was one rung above being a slave. So I am no fan of the brass. And I have never been a big fan of our Commander-in-Chief "Bone Spurs" given what I saw during my tour of duty in Vietnam.

But on his decision to deny the brass javing their way and giving them the fickle finger of fate, i.e. the middle finger if you don't get my drift, I support President Trump wholeheartedly. Anyone who can piss off the brass and make them whine like melting snowflakes must be doing something right. Also does Mr. Perry remember when President Richard Nixon pardoned Lt. William Calley after being convicted for the infamous My Lai Massacre?

The American people overwhelmingly supported Nixon's pardon.They will again support President Trump's decision. They do not read the TAC. Nor do they read any other high-falutin' journal of political opinion. But they are still patriots in their minds. But being populists they are not necessarily patriots when it comes to the brass who in their thinking are the equivalent of the 1% in civilian life.

It's historical class warfare that fuels populism even though these populists have probably never read Karl Marx. So the brass can disagree vehemently with Trump, They can also resign like Richard Spencer did and join the private sector. But they may be in for a rude awakening when they try to give an order to average civilians and are instead given fickle fingers of fate. And besides, let's be real about this latest crisis du jour, there are plenty more brass where these whiners came from. I bet you at the Pentagon the brass are literally bumping into each other just walking down the halls.

But they swore allegiance to our Constitution. The president gives orders to them as commander-in-chief. Not the other way around. Mr. Perry doesn't get how our country has changed since Trump won the election. I assume reading this essay, and if I am wrong I apologize here, he probably has never broken bread with the great unwashed given how he identifies with military authority. Trump was elected president surfing on a wave of populism. He played his populist cards in this tempest in a teapot. He gets it. He is playing to his base. He wants to get re-elected.

But I have one question for Mr. Perry. Why didn't the brass resign en masse against the Iraq War or all these useless Forever Wars we have been fighting?

Moe H 10 hours ago
These same people stood by and watched our military be socially engineered and gender normed to the point of incompetence. These are Obama sycophants pure and simple.
polistra24 10 hours ago
A "crisis" in Special Ops is good. Anything that weakens Deepstate is good. Trump didn't make his decision on this basis; he only needed to assuage his ego; but nevertheless he accidentally did the right thing.
Wally 9 hours ago
I don't much care about this since I consider most all US military to be war criminals. I suppose I just note the cosmic justice which punishes many of them with PTSD, drug addiction, and suicide. Now... let's get on with privatizing the VA.
tz1 8 hours ago
The desk jockey keyboard warrior officers in the Pentagon want to make examples even if they have to use prosecutorial misconduct to do it and that will help morale and discipline?

Trump should get rid of all the swamp Generals and Admirals. I'm sure they will enjoy retirement making millions at Lockheed and Raytheon. Trump supports the Troops, not the Bureaucrats.

Bob K. 7 hours ago
One gets the impression that the "Rules of Engagement" seem to have been the issue in the case discussed here but they were forgotten in the bureaucratic squabble between the military and the White House.
chris chuba 5 hours ago
People like Pete Hegseth call Chief Gallagher's service exemplary and repeat that he was acquitted of 'alleged war crimes'.

He was acquitted because a medic testified that after he and Gallagher stabilized a wounded, sedated prisoner after 20 minutes, Gallagher inexplicably stabbed him (non-fatally) below the collar bone, stormed off, and then the medic suffocated him before Iraqi security forces could torture him. Later Gallagher posed with his corpse.

This is not the sign of a well man or one who was making a snap, life or death decision. I'm not interested in punishing Gallagher but this hero worship of our military and failure to acknowledge that these long deployments are breaking down our military is self-deception. But I won't be surprised if I see a trifecta of Trump, Hegseth, and Gallagher at a campaign stop.

If we are being honest, I bet the IRGC has a better reputation than us in the M.E.

Bigfrog 5 hours ago
Julius Caesar was able to march on Rome because the soldiers gave their fealty to him over Rome. I find Trump's pardoning of soldiers accused of war crimes deeply disturbing.
gdpbull 5 hours ago • edited
The first and foremost principle that must be maintained is that the President has complete authority over the military. Its one of the central constructs of our republic. The most egregious offence was for Spencer to defy Trump's order. Regardless of what one's opinion on the state of the special forces is, we can't go down that road. To say that Trump is destroying the commanders authorities is bass ackwards. The US military, like it or not, MUST have civilians over and above them.

Having said that, I completely agree that there is something very bad wrong with the special forces and especially the Navy Seals. My experience with Green Berets in the Vietnam era is that they were very effective in working with indigenous populations, to include recruiting fighters to our side, spoke their language, were highly competent, tough as nails, and very humble. Out of uniform, one would not even know they were Green Berets. Likewise almost all Army Rangers are equally humble. Green Berets are recruited from the Rangers.

I never had any personal experiences with Navy Seals, but over the last decade or so at least, its obvious that a large percent of them are a bunch of braggadocios chest thumpers. There is something seriously wrong with the Navy Seal recruitment program or training or both. They have a very bad reputation of making their missions public, making jokes out of their security clearances and never seem to be held accountable for such violations.

Mother124 5 hours ago
That this president conducts Policy By Tweet is beyond ridiculous. The presidency is becoming a laughingstock.
thelastindependentYankee 4 hours ago
The regular military has always distrusted the SOF for the very reasons cited in this article. The Pentagon forbade the beret until JFK overruled the brass in 1963.

The Founding CO of that vaunted Tier 1 unit Seal team 6 was convicted of federal crimes and spent time in prison in the 1980s.

The Green Beret affair in 1965 resulted in the murder of a allied civilian in Vietnam. The military grew these units beyond reasonable levels and has misused and overused them since 9/11,

appleDwight 4 hours ago
One is left to wonder whether the president has really overplayed his hand or these naval officers are simply Trump-haters as is all too often the case these days. I'd have to go with let the Navy be the Navy and handle it's own business. But one has to question whether these officers would've objected as strongly had it been Obama giving the orders?
OrthoAnabaptist 4 hours ago
What a disgrace... I'm a dovish, pacifist peacenik, but even I understand maintaining organizational order, respect for authority, chain-of-command... (and have respect for many in the military for their desire and attempts to play by international rules and by-the-book procedures.)

Trump & Gallagher (who strikes me as a sadist) are a disgrace and Fox News is especially beyond the pale, giving Gallagher a platform to impugn his commanding officer! in public! Where has anyone ever gotten away with that before?... unbelievable.

I guess you could hope for some silver lining that this might undermine the DoD's global empire tendencies... but I'm not sure this is a good way to get that done (ie leaving or promoting arrogant, cruel men like Gallagher, with the stench of by-gone barbarism clinging to him, in the services:)

EliteCommInc. 3 hours ago
If I were one of this president's advisers, I would make one thing clear.

Don't tweet instructs to any department or department member because it is neither a proper channel for official communique's nor is it conducive to to effectively, management and more times than not creates more trouble that it solves.

After listing the reasons why "twitter" is an inappropriate forum. i would of course be fired. But I am deeply concerned that the president is conducting official business in open forums such as twitter.

The official in question was certainly being reasonable to request the order either direct communique or in riding. Given the nature of twitter, it was a reasonable expectation.

Laugh: I think there are plenty of issues with the military justice system. But that is another matter best left out of twitter feeds.

anon 2 hours ago
Why didn't anyone mention what the effect of these democracy wars are having on our soldiers considering they aren't actually protecting the country but helping the Muslims move over to it, not just here but to Europe as well.

Most of the terrorist fighters are coming and going from other countries and travel freely oh and besides in Syria we're really not fighting terrorists but over-throwing a government.

To top it all off these actions are helping to bankrupt our nation. I wonder how this plays for morale of our soldiers? I'm sure many don't care, the majority of people indluding those just coming in ro the country seem to hate the country anyway so why would anyone want to fight for them and then maybe there is another side who sees it all and cares, cares that they are losing their nation. What about the "fight them over there but love them and bow down to their diverstity"? What happens when you realize that you're not the savior you thought you would be and no one is greatful to have you around, they are fighting you endlessly and ruthlessly while you're ttying to be a gentle invader, not fighting to win but to install democracy and can't figure out why no one wants your gift of gentrification.
I'm not so sure I could take his rank from him either, maybe just give him a break from the war on the ground and the two sides of the war in his head.

Fran Macadam 2 hours ago
On the other hand we increasingly see an unwillingness by the military and Deep State to be ruled over by civilian government, and instead of a commander in chief, to make of elected Presidents mere puppets for their consensus.
3Monkeys 2 hours ago
I disagree with Lt.Col Milburns (Ret.) The UCMJ is military law and military law is part of federal law. The president has the right to pardon anyone convicted under the UCMJ but his authority stops where the law is concerned. The president isn't above the law, he can countermand the conviction but he can't force the military to withdraw the A@D given by the individual services. That remains the prerogative of the commanders. Discipline must be maintained and the commanders are responsible and accountable for that discipline.

CIC is a title conferred on a civilian president, he states that they are responsible for the strategic decisions used to justify the use of our military forces, the Presidents actions with regard to anything other than the pardon does not meet the criteria of a strategic decision.

And if water isn't involved in the mission then there really isn't need for SEALS to be there. Mission creep on the part of the Navy to increase Spec Ops budgets.

Not Kent 2 hours ago
Just another case of the stable genius not knowing what is good for the Armed Forces and trying to improve his reelection chances.
ScienceABC123 2 hours ago
Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion...
ketahburat 2 hours ago
Rank has their privilege and as far as I know, PDJT is the CiC. So either you - the un-elected bureaucrat, shut up and follow the order or put up and resign your commission.

[Nov 26, 2019] Why Pompeo Gives Away the Palestinian West Bank

Nov 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

BannedHipster , says: November 26, 2019 at 3:21 pm GMT

Trump must be doing some really terrible stuff on all those Ghislaine Maxwell/Jeffrey Epstein tapes.

[Nov 26, 2019] Support for Restraint Is on the Rise by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... 38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall. ..."
"... The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention: ..."
"... With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons ..."
"... There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening. ..."
Nov 26, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he Eurasia Group Foundation's new survey of public opinion on U.S. foreign policy finds that support for greater restraint continues to rise:

Americans favor a less aggressive foreign policy. The findings are consistent across a number of foreign policy issues, and across generations and party lines.

The 2019 survey results show that most Americans support a more restrained foreign policy, and it also shows an increase in that support since last year. There is very little support for continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, there is virtually no appetite for war with Iran, and there is a decline in support for a hawkish sort of American exceptionalism. There is still very little support for unilateral U.S. intervention for ostensibly humanitarian reasons, and support for non-intervention has increased slightly:

In 2018, 45 percent of Americans chose restraint as their first choice. In 2019, that has increased to 47 percent. Only 19 percent opt for a U.S.-led military response and 34 percent favor a multilateral, UN-led approach to stop humanitarian abuses overseas.

38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall.

The report's working definition of American exceptionalism is a useful one: "American exceptionalism is the belief that the foreign policy of the United States should be unconstrained by the parochial interests or international rules which govern other countries." This is not the only definition one might use, but it gets at the heart of what a lot of hawks really mean when they use this phrase. While most Americans still say they subscribe to American exceptionalism either because of what the U.S. represents or what it has done, there is less support for these views than before. Among the youngest respondents (age 18-29), there is now a clear majority that rejects this idea.

The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention:

A strong majority of both Republicans and Democrats continue to seek a diplomatic resolution involving either sanctions or the resumption of nuclear negotiations. This year, there was an increase in the number of respondents across party lines who would want negotiations to resume even if Iran is a nuclear power in the short term, and a bipartisan increase in those who believe outright that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to defend itself. So while Republicans might be more likely than Democrats to believe Iran threatens peace in the Middle East, voters in neither party are eager to take a belligerent stand against it.

With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons, and it isn't doing that. It may be that the failure of the "maximum pressure" campaign has also weakened support for sanctions. Support for the sanctions option dropped by almost 10 points overall and plunged by more than 20 points among Republicans. In 2018, respondents were evenly split between war and sanctions on one side or negotiations and non-intervention on the other. This year, support for diplomacy and non-intervention in response to this imaginary nuclear weapons program has grown to make up almost 60% of the total. If most Americans favor diplomacy and non-intervention in this improbable scenario, it is safe to assume that there is even more support for those options with the real Iranian government that isn't pursuing nuclear weapons.

There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening.

[Nov 26, 2019] There is a division in the US, whether this is genuine or not I do not know, but the US seems divided between the warmongers team and the 'let get this clean up' team

Nov 15, 2019 | www.syrianperspective.com

karlof1 | Nov 15 2019 2:28 utc | 141

"There is a division in the US, whether this is genuine or not I do not know, but the US seems divided between the warmongers team and the 'let get this clean up' team, I understand the Dem party, CIA and part of the Pentagon favor more conflict with Syria, and clearly there is anther group trying to get out of this mess, I see Trump playing all sides, but he is trying, once more, to leave. The oil thing is BS, the US is pumping very low amount fo oil, Russia said USD 30MM and recently the US says USD 40MM, which most of it is sold to the Syrian Gov thru the SDC, the US is clearly trying to keep the SDC with some sort of money, a way for them to pay the US for goods shipped to them weapons, it is that simple."

So, the looted oil is used to pay for weapons that were once freely provided it appears, and then goes to the Syrian government. What a convoluted mess. Do please visit the site to read all of Canthama's news and commentary!

[Nov 26, 2019] The Illiberal World Order

Notable quotes:
"... Despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary, such people now enthusiastically whitewash the decades preceding Trump to turn it into a paragon of human liberty, justice and economic wonder. You don't have to look deep to understand that resistance liberals are now actually conservatives, brimming with nostalgia for the days before significant numbers of people became wise to what's been happening all along. ..."
"... Lying to yourself about history is one of the most dangerous things you can do. If you can't accept where we've been, and that Trump's election is a symptom of decades of rot as opposed to year zero of a dangerous new world, you'll never come to any useful conclusions ..."
"... Irrespective of what you think of Bernie Sanders and his policies, you can at least appreciate the fact his supporters focus on policy and real issues ..."
"... An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy, hybrid regime or guided democracy, is a governing system in which although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an "open society". There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as 'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes". This may be because a constitution limiting government powers exists, but those in power ignore its liberties, or because an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties does not exist. ..."
Nov 26, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Illiberal World Order by Tyler Durden Mon, 11/25/2019 - 21:45 0 SHARES

Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

From a big picture perspective, the largest rift in American politics is between those willing to admit reality and those clinging to a dishonest perception of a past that never actually existed. Ironically, those who most frequently use "post-truth" to describe our current era tend to be those with the most distorted view of what was really happening during the Clinton/Bush/Obama reign.

Despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary, such people now enthusiastically whitewash the decades preceding Trump to turn it into a paragon of human liberty, justice and economic wonder. You don't have to look deep to understand that resistance liberals are now actually conservatives, brimming with nostalgia for the days before significant numbers of people became wise to what's been happening all along.

They want to forget about the bipartisan coverup of Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9/11, all the wars based on lies, and the indisputable imperial crimes disclosed by Wikileaks, Snowden and others. They want to pretend Wall Street crooks weren't bailed out and made even more powerful by the Bush/Obama tag team, despite ostensible ideological differences between the two. They want to forget Epstein Didn't Kill Himself.

Lying to yourself about history is one of the most dangerous things you can do. If you can't accept where we've been, and that Trump's election is a symptom of decades of rot as opposed to year zero of a dangerous new world, you'll never come to any useful conclusions. As such, the most meaningful fracture in American society today is between those who've accepted that we've been lied to for a very long time, and those who think everything was perfectly fine before Trump. There's no real room for a productive discussion between such groups because one of them just wants to get rid of orange man, while the other is focused on what's to come. One side actually believes a liberal world order existed in the recent past, while the other fundamentally recognizes this was mostly propaganda based on myth.

Irrespective of what you think of Bernie Sanders and his policies, you can at least appreciate the fact his supporters focus on policy and real issues. In contrast, resistance liberals just desperately scramble to put up whoever they think can take us back to a make-believe world of the recent past. This distinction is actually everything. It's the difference between people who've at least rejected the status quo and those who want to rewind history and perform a do-over of the past forty years.

A meaningful understanding that unites populists across the ideological spectrum is the basic acceptance that the status quo is pernicious and unsalvageable, while the status quo-promoting opposition focuses on Trump the man while conveniently ignoring the worst of his policies because they're essentially just a continuation of Bush/Clinton/Obama. It's the most shortsighted and destructive response to Trump imaginable. It's also why the Trump-era alliance of corporate, imperialist Democrats and rightwing Bush-era neoconservatives makes perfect sense, as twisted and deranged as it might seem at first. With some minor distinctions, these people share nostalgia for the same thing.

This sort of political environment is extremely unhealthy because it places an intentional and enormous pressure on everyone to choose between dedicating every fiber of your being to removing Trump at all costs or supporting him. This anti-intellectualism promotes an ends justifies the means attitude on all sides. In other words, it turns more and more people into rhinoceroses.

Eugène Ionesco's masterpiece, Rhinoceros, is about a central European town where the citizens turn, one by one, into rhinoceroses. Once changed, they do what rhinoceroses do, which is rampage through the town, destroying everything in their path. People are a little puzzled at first, what with their fellow citizens just turning into rampaging rhinos out of the blue, but even that slight puzzlement fades quickly enough. Soon it's just the New Normal. Soon it's just the way things are a good thing, even. Only one man resists the siren call of rhinocerosness, and that choice brings nothing but pain and existential doubt, as he is utterly profoundly alone.

– Ben Hunt, The Long Now, Pt. 2 – Make, Protect, Teach

A political environment where you're pressured to choose between some ridiculous binary of "we must remove Trump at all costs" or go gung-ho MAGA, is a rhinoceros generating machine. The only thing that happens when you channel your inner rhinoceros to defeat rhinoceroses, is you get more rhinoceroses. And that's exactly what's happening.

The truth of the matter is the U.S. is an illiberal democracy in practice, despite various myths to the contrary.

An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy, hybrid regime or guided democracy, is a governing system in which although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an "open society". There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as 'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes". This may be because a constitution limiting government powers exists, but those in power ignore its liberties, or because an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties does not exist.

It's not a new thing by any means, but it's getting worse by the day. Though many of us remain in denial, the American response to various crises throughout the 21st century was completely illiberal. As devastating as they were, the attacks of September 11, 2001 did limited damage compared to the destruction caused by our insane response to them. Similarly, any direct damage caused by the election and policies of Donald Trump pales in comparison to the damage being done by the intelligence agency-led "resistance" to him.

So are we all rhinoceroses now?

We don't have to be. Turning into a rhinoceros happens easily if you're unaware of what's happening and not grounded in principles, but ultimately it is a choice. The decision to discard ethics and embrace dishonesty in order to achieve political ends is always a choice. As such, the most daunting challenge we face now and in the chaotic years ahead is to become better as others become worse. A new world is undoubtably on the horizon, but we don't yet know what sort of world it'll be. It's either going to be a major improvement, or it'll go the other way, but one thing's for certain -- it can't stay the way it is much longer.

If we embrace an ends justifies the means philosophy, it's going to be game over for a generation. The moment you accept this tactic is the moment you stoop down to the level of your adversaries and become just like them. It then becomes a free-for-all for tyrants where everything is suddenly on the table and no deed is beyond the pale. It's happened many times before and it can happen again. It's what happens when everyone turns into rhinoceroses.

* * *

If you enjoyed this, I suggest you check out the following 2017 posts. It's never been more important to stay conscious and maintain a strong ethical framework.

Do Ends Justify the Means?

[Nov 26, 2019] Democrats Empower a Pack of Paranoid Neocon Morons both in State Department and Pentagon by David Stockman

Images removes. See the original via provided link. Images removes. See the original via provided link.
They are not morons. They are lackeys (or in more uncharitable terms, political prostitutes) of the military industrial complex
Nov 22, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
Part 1

Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade, and Tuesday's testimony before Adam's Schiff Show by former NSC official Tim Morrison is just such an occasion. In spades!

In his opening statement, this paranoid moron uttered the following lunacy, and it's all you need to know about what is really going on down in the Imperial City.

"I continue to believe Ukraine is on the front lines of a strategic competition between the West and Vladimir Putin's revanchist Russia. Russia is a failing power, but it is still a dangerous one. The United States aids Ukraine and her people so they can fight Russia over there and we don't have to fight Russia here.

Folks, that just plain whacko. The Trump-hating Dems are so feverishly set on a POTUS kill that they have enlisted a veritable posse of Russophobic, right-wing neocon cretins – Morrison, Taylor, Kent, Vindman, among others – to finish off the Donald.

But in so doing they have made official Washington's real beef against Trump crystal clear; and it's not about the rule of law or abuse of presidential power or an impeachable dereliction of duty.

To be sure, foolish politicians like Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and the Clintonista apparatus at the center of the Dem party are so overcome with inconsolable grief and anger about losing the 2016 election to Trump that their sole purpose in life is to drive the Donald from office. But that just makes them "useful idiots" or compliant handmaids of the Deep State, which has a far more encompassing and consequential motivation.

To wit, whether out of naiveté, contrariness or just plain common sense, the Donald has declined to embrace the War Party's Russian bogeyman and demonization of Putin. He thereby threatens the Empire's raison d'être to the very core.

Indeed, that's the real reason for the whole concerted attack on Trump from the Russian Collusion hoax, through the Mueller Investigation farce to the present UkraineGate and impeachment inquisition. The Deep State deeply and profoundly fears that if Trump remains in office – and especially if he is elected with a new mandate in 2020 – he might actually make peace with Russia and Putin.

So in Part 1 we advert to the basics. Without the demonization of Russia, Ukraine would be the no count failed state and cesspool of corruption it actually is, and not a purported "front line" buffer against Russian aggression.

Likewise, it would not have been a recipient of vast US and western military and economic aid – a condition that turned it into a honeypot for the kind of Washington influence peddling which ensnared the Bidens, induced its officials to meddle in the 2016 US election, and, in return, incited Trump's justifiable quest to get to the bottom of the malignancy that has ensued.

So the starting point is to identify Russia for what it actually is: Namely, a kleptocratic state sitting atop an aging, Vodka-chugging population and third-rate economy with virtually zero capacity to project 21st century offensive military power beyond its own borders.

That truth, of course, shatters the whole foundation of the Warfare State. It renders NATO an obsolete relic and eviscerates the case for America's absurd $900 billion defense and national security budget. And with the latter's demise, the fairest part of Washington's imperial self-importance and unseemly national security spending-based prosperity would also crumble.

But in their frenzied pursuit of the Donald's political scalp, the Dems may be inadvertently sabotaging their Deep State masters. That's because the neocon knuckleheads they are dragging out of the NSC and State Department woodwork are such bellicose simpletons – just maybe their utterly preposterous testimony about the Russkie threat and Ukrainian "front line" will wake up the somnolent American public to the absurdity of the entire Cold War 2.0 campaign.

Indeed, you almost have to ask whether the bit about fighting the Russkies in the Donbas rather than on the shores of New Jersey from Morrison's opening statement quoted above was reprinted in the New York Times or The Onion ?

The fact is, the fearsome Russian bogeyman cited by Morrison yesterday – and Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Lt. Colonel Vindman previously – is a complete chimera; and the notion that the cesspool of corruption in Ukraine is a strategic buffer against Russian aggression is just plain idiocy.

Russia is actually an economic and industrial midget transformed beyond recognition by relentless Warfare State propaganda. It is actually no more threatening to America's homeland security than the Siberian land mass that Sarah Palin once espied from her front porch in Alaska a decade ago.

After all, how could it be? The GDP of the New York City metro area alone is about $1.8 trillion, which is well more than Russia's 2018 GDP of $1.66 trillion. And that, in turn, is just 8% of America's total GDP of $21.5 trillion.

Moreover, Russia' dwarf economy is composed largely of a vast oil and gas patch; a multitude of nickel, copper, bauxite and vanadium mines; and some very large swatches of wheat fields. That's not exactly the kind of high tech industrial platform on which a war machine capable of threatening the good folks in Lincoln NE or Worchester MA is likely to be erected.

And especially not when the Russian economy has been heading sharply south in dollar purchasing terms for several years running.

GDP of Russia In Millions of USD

Indeed, in terms of manufacturing output, the comparison is just as stark. Russia's annual manufacturing value added is currently about $200 billion compared to $2.2 trillion for the US economy.

And that's not the half of it. Not only are Russia's vast hydrocarbon deposits and mines likely to give out in the years ahead, but so are the livers of its Vodka-chugging work force. That's a problem because according to a recent Brookings study, Russia's working age population – even supplemented by substantial in-migration and guest worker programs – is heading south as far into the future as the eye can see.

Even in the Brookings medium case projection shown below, Russia's working age population will be nearly 20% smaller than today by 2050. Yet today's figure of about 85 million is already just a fraction of the US working age population of 255 million.

Russia's Shrinking Work Force

Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military establishment anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion of military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current $750 billion of expenditures for defense.

Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland security in America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.

That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a continuation of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got through 45-years of cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy committed to a hostile ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth via a forced-draft allocation of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to the military.

By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian "stans" among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the self-evidently calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to go mad, defy MAD and trigger a nuclear Armageddon?

Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is laughable. Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is the extent of what he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force to the North American continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere between nichts and nothing.

For example, in today's world you do not invade any foreign continent without massive sea power projection capacity in the form of aircraft carrier strike groups. These units consist of an armada of lethal escort ships, a fleet of aircraft, massive suites of electronics warfare capability and the ability to launch hundreds of cruise missiles and other smart weapons.

Each US aircraft carrier based strike group, in fact, is composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, at least one cruiser, a squadron of destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also sometimes includes submarines and attached logistics ships.

The US has eleven such carrier strike groups. Russia has zero modern carrier strike groups and one beat-up, smoky old (diesel) aircraft carrier that the Israeli paper, Haaretz, described as follows when it recently entered the Mediterranean:

Russia's only aircraft carrier, a leftover from the days of Soviet power, carries a long history of mishaps, at sea and in port, and diesel engines which were built for Russia's cold waters – as shown by the column of black smoke raising above it. It needs frequent refueling and resupplies and has never been operationally tested.

Indeed, from our 19th floor apartment on the East River in NYC, even we could see this smoke belcher coming up Long Island Sound with an unaided eye – with no help needed at all from the high tech spyware of the nation's $80 billion intelligence apparatus.

Yet Morrison had the audacity to say before a committee of the U.S. House that we are aiding Ukraine so we don't have to fight Russians on the banks of the East River or the Potomac!

For want of doubt, just compare the above image of the Admiral Kuznetsov belching smoke in the Mediterranean with that of the Gerald R. Ford CVN 48 next below.

The latter is the US Navy's new $13 billion aircraft carrier and is the most technologically advanced warship ever built.

The contrast shown below serves as a proxy for the vastly inferior capability of the limited number of ships and planes in Russia's conventional force. What it does have numerical superiority in is tanks – but alas they are not amphibious nor ocean-capable!

Likewise, nobody invades anybody without massive airpower and the ability to project it across thousands of miles of oceans via vast logistics and air-refueling capabilities.

On that score, the US has 6,100 helicopters to Russia's 1,200 and 6,000 fixed wing fighter and attack aircraft versus Russia's 2,100. More importantly, the US has 5,700 transport and airlift aircraft compared to just 1,100 for Russia.

In short, the idea that Russia is a military threat to the US homeland is ludicrous. Russia is essentially a landlocked military shadow of the former Soviet war machine. Indeed, for the world's only globe-spanning imperial power to remonstrate about an aggressive threat from Moscow is a prime facie case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Moreover, the canard that Washington's massive conventional armada is needed to defend Europe is risible nonsense. Europe can and should take care of its own security and relationship with its neighbor on the Eurasian continent.

After all, the GDP of NATO Europe is $18 trillion or 12X greater than that of Russia, and the current military budgets of European NATO members total about $280 billion or 4X more than that of Russia.

More importantly, the European nations and people really do not have any quarrel with Putin's Russia, nor is their security and safety threatened by the latter. All of the tensions that do exist and have come to a head since the illegal coup in Kiev in February 2014 were fomented by Imperial Washington and its European subalterns in the NATO machinery.

Then again, the latter is absolutely the most useless, obsolete, wasteful and dangerous multilateral institution in the present world. But like the proverbial clothes-less emperor, NATO doesn't dare risk having the purportedly "uninformed" amateur in the Oval Office pointing out its buck naked behind.

So the NATO subservient think tanks and establishment policy apparatchiks are harrumphing up a storm, but for crying out loud most of Europe's elected politicians are in on the joke. They are fiscally swamped paying for their Welfare States and are not about to squeeze their budgets or taxpayers to fund military muscle against a nonexistent threat.

As the late, great Justin Raimondo aptly noted ,

Finally an American president has woken up to the fact that World War II, not to mention the cold war, is over: there's no need for US troops to occupy Germany. Vladimir Putin isn't going to march into Berlin in a reenactment of the Red Army taking the Fuehrer-bunker – but even if he were so inclined, why won't Germany defend itself?

Exactly. If their history proves anything, Germans are not a nation of pacifists, meekly willing to bend-over in the face of real aggressors. Yet they spent the paltry sum of $43 billion on defense during 2018, or barely 1.1% of Germany's $4.0 trillion GDP, which happens to be roughly three times bigger than Russia's.

In short, the policy action of the German government tells you they don't think Putin is about to invade the Rhineland or retake the Brandenburg Gate.

And this live action testimonial also trumps, as it were, all of the risible alarms that have emanated from the beltway think tanks and the 4,000 NATO bureaucrats talking their own book in behalf of their plush Brussels sinecures.

And as we will outline in Part 2, that's what Washington's Ukraine intervention is all about, and why the Donald's efforts to get to the bottom of that cesspool has brought on the final Deep State assault against his presidency.

Part 2

In Part 1 we dispatched UkraineGater Tim Morrison's preposterous suggestion that Washington is helping Kiev subdue the Donbas so we won't have Russkies coming up the East River.

Yet his related claim that Ukraine is a victim of Russian aggression is even more ludicrous. The actual aggression in that godforsaken corner of the planet came from Washington when it instigated, funded, engineered and recognized the putsch on the streets of Kiev during February 2014, which illegally overthrew the duly elected President of Ukraine on the grounds that he was too friendly with Moscow.

Thus, Morrison risibly asserted that,

Support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been a bipartisan objective since Russia's military invasion in 2014. It must continue to be.

The fact is, when the Maidan uprising occurred in February that year there were no uninvited Russian troops anywhere in Ukraine. Putin was actually sitting in his box on the viewing stand, presiding over the Winter Olympics in Sochi and basking in the limelight of global attention that they commanded .

It was only weeks later – when the Washington-installed ultra-nationalist government with its neo-Nazi vanguard threatened the Russian-speaking populations of Crimea and the Donbas – that Putin moved to defend Russian interests on his own doorstep. And those interests included Russia's primary national security asset – the naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea which had been the homeport of the Russian Black Sea Fleet for centuries under czars and commissars alike, and on which Russia had a long-term lease.

We untangle the truth of the crucial events which surrounded the Kiev putsch in greater detail below, but suffice it here to note the whole gang of neocon apparatchiks which have been paraded before the Schiff Show have proffered the same Big Lie as did Morrison in the "invasion" quote cited above.

As the ever perspicacious Robert Merry observed regarding the previous testimony of Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, the Washington rendition of the Maidan coup and its aftermath amounts to a blatant falsehood:

The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood.

As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine.

"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment] controversy that we are discussing today."

Taylor's right that this narrative is at the center of UkraineGate, but there is not a shred of truth to it. Nevertheless, defense of this false narrative, and the inappropriate military and economic aid to Ukraine which flowed from it, is the real reason this posse of neocon stooges took exception to the Donald's legitimate interest in investigating the Bidens and the events of 2016.

As Morrison put it Tuesday and Vindman said last week, their interest was in protecting not the constitution and the rule of law, but the bipartisan political consensus on Capitol Hill in favor of their proxy war on Putin and the Ukraine aid package through which it was being prosecuted.

As I stated during my deposition, I feared at the time of the call on July 25 how its disclosure would play in Washington's political climate. My fears have been realized.

Not surprisingly, the entire Washington establishment has been sucked into this scam. For instance, the insufferably sanctimonious Peggy Noonan used her Wall Street Journal platform to idolize these liars.

As she portrayed it, bow-tie bedecked George P. Kent appeared to be the very picture of the old-school American foreign service official. And West Pointer Bill Taylor – with a military career going back to (dubious) Vietnam heroism – was redolent of the blunt-spoken American military men who won WW II and the cold war which followed.

As Robert Merry further noted,

She saw them as "the old America reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."

Oh, puleeze!

What they evinced was nothing more than the self-serving groupthink that has turned Ukraine into a beltway goldmine. That is, a cornucopia of funding for all the think tanks, NGOs, foreign policy experts, national security contractors and Warfare State agencies – from DOD through the State Department, AID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Board for International Broadcasting and countless more – which ply their trade in the Imperial City.

But Robert Merry got it right. These cats are not noble public servants and heroes; they're apparatchiks and payrollers aggrandizing their own power and pelf – even as they lead the nation to the brink of disaster:

But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue to them, since it is the same geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy establishment, of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing America towards a very possible disaster.

Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither gave even a nod to the long, complex relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance or the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in what for centuries has been part of Russia's sphere of influence.

They obviously didn't get it, but we must. So let us summarize the true Ukraine story, starting with the utterly stupid and historically ignorant reason for Washington's February 2014 coup.

Namely, it objected to the decision of Ukraine's prior government in late 2013 to align itself economically and politically with its historic hegemon in Moscow rather than the European Union and NATO. Yet the fairly elected and constitutionally legitimate government of Ukraine then led by Viktor Yanukovych had gone that route mainly because it got a better deal from Moscow than was being demanded by the fiscal torture artists of the IMF.

Needless to say, the ensuing US sponsored putsch arising from the mobs on the street of Kiev reopened deep national wounds. Ukraine's bitter divide between Russian-speakers in the east and Ukrainian nationalists elsewhere dates back to Stalin's brutal rein in Ukraine during the 1930s and Ukrainian collusion with Hitler's Wehrmacht on its way to Stalingrad and back during the 1940s.

It was the memory of the latter nightmare, in fact, which triggered the fear-driven outbreak of Russian separatism in the Donbas and the 96% referendum vote in Crimea in March 2014 to formally re-affiliate with Mother Russia.

In this context, even a passing familiarity with Russian history and geography would remind that Ukraine and Crimea are Moscow's business, not Washington's.

In the first place, there is nothing at stake in the Ukraine that matters. During the last 800 years it has been a meandering set of borders in search of a country.

In fact, the intervals in which the Ukraine existed as an independent nation have been few and far between. Invariably, its rulers, petty potentates and corrupt politicians made deals with or surrendered to every outside power that came along.

These included the Lithuanians, Poles, Ruthenians (eastern Slavs), Tartars, Turks, Muscovites, Austrians and Czars, among manifold others.

At the beginning of the 16th century, for instance, the territory of today's Ukraine was scattered largely among the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia (light brown area), the Kingdom of Poland (dark brown area), Muscovy (bright yellow area) the Crimean Khanate (light yellow area).

The latter was the entity which emerged when some clans of the Golden Horde (Tartars) ceased their nomadic life on the Asian steppes and occupied the light yellow stripped areas of the map north of the Black Sea as their Yurt (homeland).

From that cold start, the tiny Cossack principality of Ukraine (blue area below), which had emerged by 1654, grew significantly over the subsequent three centuries. But as the map also makes clear, this did not reflect the organic congealment of a nation of kindred volk sharing common linguistic and ethnic roots, but the machinations of Czars and Commissars for the administrative convenience of efficiently ruling their conquests and vassals.

Thus, much of modern Ukraine was incorporated by the Russian Czars between 1654 and 1917 per the yellow area of the map and functioned as vassal states. These territories were amalgamated by absolute monarchs who ruled by the mandate of God and the often brutal sword of their own armies.

In particular, much of the purple area was known as "Novo Russia" (Novorossiya) during the 18th and 19th century owing to the Czarist policy of relocating Russian populations to the north of the Black Sea as a bulwark against the Ottomans. But after Lenin seized power in St. Petersburg in November 1917 amidst the wreckage of Czarist Russia, an ensuing civil war between the so-called White Russians and the Red Bolsheviks raged for several years in these territories and elsewhere in the chaotic regions of the former western Russian Empire.

At length, Lenin won the civil war as the French, British, Polish and American contingents vacated the postwar struggle for power in Russia. Accordingly, in 1922 the new Communist rulers proclaimed the Union of Soviet Social Republics (USSR) and incorporated Novo Russia into one of its four constituent units as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) – along with the Russian, Belarus and Transcaucasian SSRs.

Thereafter the border and political status of Ukraine remained unchanged until the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Pursuant thereto the Red Army and Nazi Germany invaded and dismembered Poland, with Stalin getting the blue areas (Volhynia and parts of Galicia) as consolation prizes, which where then incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR.

Finally, when Uncle Joe Stalin died and Nikita Khrushchev won the bloody succession struggle in 1954, he transferred Crimea (red area) to the Ukraine SSR as a reward to his supporters in Kiev. That, of course, was the arbitrary writ of the Soviet Presidium, given that precious few Ukrainians actually lived in what had been a integral part of Czarist Russia after it was purchased by Catherine the Great from the Turks in 1783.

In a word, the borders of modern Ukraine are the handiwork of Czarist emperors and Communist butchers. The so-called international rule of law had absolutely nothing to do with its gestation and upbringing.

It's a pity, therefore, that none of the so-called conservative Republicans attending Adam's Schiff Show saw fit to ask young Tim Morrison the obvious question.

To wit, exactly why is he (and most of the Washington foreign policy establishment) so keen on expending American treasure, weapons and even blood in behalf of the "territorial integrity and sovereignty" of this happenstance amalgamation of people subdued by some of history's most despicable tyrants?

Needless to say, owing to this very history, the linguistic/ethnic composition of today's Ukraine does not reflect the congealment of a "nation" in the historic sense.

To the contrary, central and western Ukraine is populated by ethnic Ukrainians who speak Ukrainian (dark red area), whereas the two parts of the country allegedly the victim of Russian aggression and occupation – Crimea (brown area) and the eastern Donbas region (yellow area with brown strips) – are comprised of ethnic Russians who speak Russian and ethnic Ukrainians who predominately speak-Russian, respectively.

And much of the rest of the territory consists of admixtures and various Romanian, Moldovan, Hungarian and Bulgarian minorities.

Did the Washington neocons – led by Senator McCain and Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland – who triggered the Ukrainian civil war with their coup on the streets of Kiev in February 2014 consider the implications of the map below and its embedded, and often bloody, history?

Quite surely, they did not.

Nor did they consider the rest of the map. That is, the enveloping Russian state all around to which the parts and pieces of Ukraine – especially the Donbas and Crimea – have been intimately connected for centuries. Robert Merry thus further noted,

As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the US Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles up against the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's population and industrial capacity at risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries share strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No Russian leader of any stripe would survive as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.

And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to gin up pro-Western sentiment there, according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who spearheaded much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign nation – and a nation residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.

Indeed, Ukraine is a tragically divided country and fissured simulacrum of a nation. Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct cultures" causing Robert Merry to rightly observe that,

Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in Crimea, the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what they consider their Russian heritage. The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear that the national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded to avoid a violent national confrontation.) In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."

In short, in modern times Ukraine largely functioned as an integral part of Mother Russia, serving as its breadbasket and iron and steel crucible under czars and commissars alike. Given this history, the idea that Ukraine should be actively and aggressively induced to join NATO was just plain nuts, as we will amplify further in Part 3 (to come).

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Nov 26, 2019] Who debunked the Biden conspiracy theories by Colonel Lang

Notable quotes:
"... "US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed? Hah! Is it not clear that The Borg (foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure him? ..."
"... "Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?" Trickery in the press is the real truth , trickery intended to protect the only viable candidate in the Democratic Party field. ..."
"... Lutsenko has had a pretty sketchy career, including charges of abuse of power, forgery and embezzlement among other things. https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/yuriy-lutsenko/ It's telling that Democrats and the mainstream media choose to cite such a character as their primary source for evidence that the Bidens did nothing wrong. Reminds me of Mark Twains old adage: "An honest politician is one who, once he's been bought, stays bought." More recently it seems that his loyalties have shifted, accusing Yovanovitch of giving him a list of people who should be protected. ..."
"... It's not really that complicated an inquiry to decide whether there is a need to go further; two questions: what did Hunter Biden do for the money; and Joe, did you get the Ukrainian prosecutor fired as you bragged you did, and why? Maybe throw in a third if the answer is "I did", what or who made you think that you could do that? ..."
Nov 26, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Two quotes:

"Graham's conspiracy theory-based investigation is rooted in the baseless allegation that Biden pressured Ukraine to remove a corrupt prosecutor in 2016 as a way to protect Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, against a corruption probe. Biden's son Hunter was previously a board member with Burisma until April this year.

There is no evidence to support allegations that Biden acted improperly in calling for the prosecutor general in charge of the Burisma probe to be ousted, and both Ukrainian and U.S. officials have said there is no merit to the claim. As many have since noted, the Burisma investigation was in fact dormant when the prosecutor general was forced out on accusations he was slow-walking corruption probes, among other things.

Trump brought up that debunked conspiracy during a July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asking the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden as well as a baseless conspiracy involving the Democratic National Committee servers."

~American Independent

*******

"Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much debate in epistemology centers on four areas:

(1) the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth , belief , and justification , [1] [2]

(2) various problems of skepticism ,

(3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and

(4) the criteria for knowledge and justification.

Epistemology addresses such questions as: "What makes justified beliefs justified?" " What does it mean to say that we know something? ", and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"

~ wiki on epistemology

-------------

As in the example above from the "American Independent," the MSM and online projects like the American Independent incessantly insist that the simple fact that Hunter Biden and his dear old dad, a "Union Man," solicited money in Ukraine and in China for services not rendered proves nothing, that nothing has been proven against them and that any mention of these occurrences is evidence of harsh partisan rhetoric based on fantasy and equivalent to belief in the Loch Ness Monster.

Well, pilgrims I want to know who and what investigation or investigations cleared the Bidens of anything.

It is obvious that Hunter is qualified for employment as a bag man and not much else. He has a law degree? So what? As in the matter of the qualifications of doctors, not all learn much in medical or law school.

"US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed? Hah! Is it not clear that The Borg (foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure him?

"Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?" Trickery in the press is the real truth , trickery intended to protect the only viable candidate in the Democratic Party field.

Posted at 01:13 PM in As The Borg Turns , government , Media , Politics | Permalink


Mark McCarty , 25 November 2019 at 01:44 PM

The article highlighted here, typically, is a lie. As documented in Moon of Alabama's timeline ( https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/11/a-timeline-of-joe-bidens-intervention-against-the-prosecutor-general-of-ukraine.html), Shokin was actively investigating Zlochevsky in February 2016, when Shokin seized his luxury car. Barely two weeks later, Biden was on the phone to Poroshenko demanding Shokin's firing. While this doesn't prove that Biden was motivated primarily by a desire to protect his son's employer, it is certainly consistent with that possibility.
Keith Harbaugh , 25 November 2019 at 01:48 PM
John Solomon has been very much in the lead on reporting from Ukraine which furthers what the MSM calls "conspiracy theories". While he earlier reported, or opined, from The Hill, now he evidently has been bumped (my opinion) from that perch, and now has own blog John Solomon Report : https://johnsolomonreports.com/

He has been roundly attacked in the media for opposing the party line on Ukraine, see especially this Paul Farhi (normally a balanced voice, but not in this case) column: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-a-conservative-columnist-helped-push-a-flawed-ukraine-narrative/2019/09/26/1654026e-dee7-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html

In any case, here are some recent columns where Solomon fires back at the MSM and the party line:

2019-11-22 https://johnsolomonreports.com/responding-to-lt-col-vindman-about-my-ukraine-columns-with-the-facts/
2019-11-20 https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-ukraine-scandal-timeline-democrats-and-their-media-allies-dont-want-america-to-see/
2019-11-20 https://johnsolomonreports.com/impeachment-surprise-how-adam-schiff-validated-my-reporting-on-ukraine/
2019-11-15 https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-15-essential-questions-for-marie-yovanovitch-americas-former-ambassador-to-ukraine/
2019-11-13 https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-real-ukraine-controversy-an-activist-u-s-embassy-and-its-adherence-to-the-geneva-convention/

2019-10-31 https://johnsolomonreports.com/debunking-some-of-the-ukraine-scandal-myths-about-biden-and-election-interference/

This last link is especially worthwhile.

It is tragic, IMO, how the MSM ignores the facts that Solomon documents in his columns.
It is possible that JS is a mouthpiece for corrupt elements in Ukraine,
but I think his points deserve more attention than they have been getting.
There are two sides to this story, not only one as Col. Lang pointed out in his root piece.

prawnik , 25 November 2019 at 01:57 PM
I recall that the Russiagate conspiracy theory was "proven" factual as well, and by many of the same people who claim that Biden's corruption has been "debunked". Even though it was absurd on its face and had been debunked numerous times, many people in fact continue to insist otherwise.
catherine , 25 November 2019 at 02:00 PM
Seriously....who would think Biden's son taking a highly paid position with a company in a foreign country that Biden was representing the US in wasn't a conflict of interest? Even the 'appearance' of a conflict of interest should be avoided in such situations.
I find Biden and his political 'career', greased by his 'good old Joe act' disgusting in so many ways it would take too long to describe them here.

It should be investigated but I doubt it will.

plantman , 25 November 2019 at 02:29 PM
The media really seems to be testing the limits of disinformation. More and more, the media wants to convince people that black is white and up is down. Fortunately, I don't think their plan is working all that well.

In the case of Hunter Biden, we are told that "There is no evidence to support allegations that Biden acted improperly".

Okay, that's one way to look at things, but I have found that even among my liberal friends, the fetid smell of corruption emitting from this case, is overpowering. And while most people might have a hard time sinking their teeth into a "quid pro quo", they do have a pretty good grasp of old fashioned influence peddling, which is what we are talking about.

So why has the media chosen to defend the crooked goings-on of public officials who were obviously up to no good? Don't they care about their credibility at all?

Seamus Padraig said in reply to plantman... , 25 November 2019 at 07:09 PM
Quid Pro Joe Biden.
JohnH , 25 November 2019 at 02:41 PM
Was the American Independent quote lifted from The NY Times? It sure sounds like it!

For some time I've been wondering how exactly Biden got cleared. Was there any formal investigation? Who conducted it? And how reliable are the facts when they come from a place like Ukraine, where anything, including the 'truth,' can be laundered?

What's become painfully obvious is how eagerly America's major news outlets, including the journals of record, participate in the laundering of truth.

Of course, that should have been obvious from the yellow journalism preceding the war in Iraq.

What's really scary are reports that "intelligence" services get most of their 'facts' from the very same truth laundering sources.

oldman22 , 25 November 2019 at 03:15 PM
too much to summarize, includes original government documents, read all for yourself please

State Department Releases Detailed Accounts Of Biden-Ukraine Corruption

by Tyler Durden

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/state-department-releases-detailed-accounts-biden-ukraine-corruption

Factotum , 25 November 2019 at 04:08 PM
I always got the impression the "wild, debunked conspiracy theory pushed by right wing nuts" was always referring to the Crowdstrike DNC computer investigation hoax that Trump tried to re-open.

They would never specifically refer to the Crowdstrike favor Trump specifically asked for in the phone call, instead they would substitute Trump asked about some "debunked, wild right wing conspiracy".

So they never explained how the Crowdstrike investigation hoax was debunked either.

To me this is far more interesting missing debunked conspiracy link - since it shows incredible coordination between the DNC, the "leak" of their DNC computer data, Ukrainian Crowdstrike, and finally the Mueller Report who used the DNC Crowdstrike investigation conclusoin hook line and sinker to reach their own official conclusions which is now "proven" operating dogma. Without ever doing an independent investigation themselves. How often does that happen?

To me the Crowdstrike connection begs further investigation - why would a Russian hating Ukrainian who was running Crowdstrike point the finger at the Russians and claim they "hacked" the DNC computers, but not let anyone else touch those same computers to corroborate that conclusion?

And then parlay this into Trump supporting Russian interference in the 2016 election. All too tidy for me. Feels like dark forces are still at work, and subverting language to achieve their ends.

Petrel , 25 November 2019 at 04:17 PM
Whatever happened to Joe Biden's taped boast, at the Council on Foreign Relations, that he gave President Poroshenko 6 hours to fire Prosecutor Shokin -- or else lose $1 Billion of US aid ?

How was this taped confession of QUID-PRO-QUO debunked ?

Factotum said in reply to Petrel... , 25 November 2019 at 07:16 PM
Quid pro quo becomes a fait accompli.
Upstate NY'er , 25 November 2019 at 04:34 PM
The media (approx. 99% of them) have been in the tank for Democrats since at least the Vietnam war.
Roger Ailes said why he didn't read the NY Times:
"You cover the bad news about America. You do. But you don't get up in the morning hating your country."
b , 25 November 2019 at 05:21 PM
The "debunked" is based on the claim the the Ukrainian General Prosecutor Shokin was not investigating Burisma or its owner Mykola Zlochevsky.

That claim is evidently false.

On Feb 2 2016 Shokin confiscated the houses (more like palaces) of Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky.

A news agency reports the seizure two days later (Note: European date format ddmmyy)
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/322395.html

Eight days later Joe Biden launched an intense pressure campaign to get rid of Shokin. He personally calls Poroshenko on Feb 12, 18 and 19 to press for firing Shokin.

To think that this is unrelated is not reasonable.

The rest of the timeline shows further Biden influence in the case.

(I should update that timeline as a lot of additional evidence of Burisma lobbying State at that time has since come in.)

There are tons of additional dirt. The U.S. has control over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and uses it to push all such investigations to its favor. NABU has itself been involved in serious corruption.
There is also a USAID/Soros paid NGO that has a similar function and is equally corrupt.

These organizations are used as weapons to put all Ukrainian assets into the hands of those that the U.S. embassy likes.

JohnH said in reply to b ... , 25 November 2019 at 11:25 PM
The debunkers seem to be citing Yuriy Lutsenko, who said that "he had no evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden or his son."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/23/fact-checking-president-trumps-wild-jabs-joe-biden/

Lutsenko was the guy who was appointed as Prosecutor General after Biden got the previous one fired. IOW Lutsenko owed his job to Biden.

Lutsenko has had a pretty sketchy career, including charges of abuse of power, forgery and embezzlement among other things. https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/yuriy-lutsenko/ It's telling that Democrats and the mainstream media choose to cite such a character as their primary source for evidence that the Bidens did nothing wrong. Reminds me of Mark Twains old adage: "An honest politician is one who, once he's been bought, stays bought." More recently it seems that his loyalties have shifted, accusing Yovanovitch of giving him a list of people who should be protected.

The only thing I can conclude is that Lutsenko is probably just trying to survive the shifting tides in the Ukrainian swamp and will say or do whatever it takes.

Ian56 , 25 November 2019 at 06:27 PM
"American Independent" is David Brock's Clinton / Soros linked Shareblue disinfo and troll brigade rebranded. It will obviously tell every lie going to protect the corrupt Corporate Dem Establishment, the Globalists and the Deep State. https://twitter.com/Ian56789/status/1198338991814250497
Flavius , 25 November 2019 at 09:22 PM
It's not really that complicated an inquiry to decide whether there is a need to go further; two questions: what did Hunter Biden do for the money; and Joe, did you get the Ukrainian prosecutor fired as you bragged you did, and why? Maybe throw in a third if the answer is "I did", what or who made you think that you could do that?

[Nov 26, 2019] Something about chickenhawk Nuland

Notable quotes:
"... Only 2 months before Nuland bragged to Ukrainians about the 5.5 billion America invested to purchase democracy for the ex-SSR. In the private phone discussion it sounded more like all that scratch went to taking political decisions out of the hands of 44 million people. "I don't think Klitsch should go into the government," Nuland monarchically decides, "I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea" "I think Yats (banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience." ..."
"... Arseniy Yatsenyuk, that's "Yats" to BFFs, laid down the law to Crimean pols who dared to allow the referendum as soon as Nuland turned him loose: ..."
"... "We will find all of them-if it takes one year, two years-and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn under their feet." ..."
"... "Russian aggression in Ukraine is an attack on world order and order in Europe. All of us still clearly remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany". - [born in 1974, Yats' vivid memory rivals Bill O'Reilly's]-"That has to be avoided. And nobody has the right to rewrite the results of Second World War. And that is exactly what Russia's President Putin is trying to do." ..."
"... Before the Senate Foreign Relations Sub-Committee March 10th Nuland testified: ..."
"... "This manufactured conflict-controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers expense-has cost the lives of more than 6000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russian sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies." ..."
"... The Euro-cracy that won WWI tried micro-managing the broken pieces of Ottoman Empire 90 some years ago. Their first major accomplishment was a massacre in Smyrna. Further efforts have blessed the east Mediterranean with bloodthirsty dictators, Qutbists, Ba'athists, ISIS and the like. Treaties like Sevres and Laussanne have helped keep the War, which started in Europe 1914 and ended there in 1945, going on in Asia Minor to this day. ..."
"... The idea that US influence, meddling or intervention will transform Ukraine into Winthrop's "city upon a hill" is a highly combustible fantasy. Ideologues from fancy universities, foundations and think-tanks understanding of Ukraine, and world history, is as shallow as it was in Afghanistan in the 80's and Iraq 20 years later. People will inevitably be hurt as an ancient empire dissolves and settles. Outsider intrusions will metastasize the process into the kind of catastrophe the world has seen before, and continues to witness today. ..."
Apr 22, 2015 | www.theamericanconservative.com

bournite 6 days ago

Destiny's Children By Tim Hartnett

LewRockwell.com April 22, 2015

Victoria Nuland is a storybook kind of name you could hang on an actress. It's a good fit for the reigning princess of an over the rainbow place where rulers are wise and peasants are prosperous. If such a Eurotopia doesn't already exist, well, it ought to and it can. Euro-crats just have to change course and put subjects of the realm on the path to enlightenment. That's a route you can only traverse, incidentally, by shutting up and keeping the hind quarters of an enlightened one in front of you for the trip.

In the real world Madame Nuland is an employee of the US State Department who, for the time being, goes by the title Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. Her magnetism is metaphysically bipolar. It magically keeps Democrats and Republicans equally attracted. All that charm can throw circuit breakers when she try's turning it on foreigners and reporters. The lady made her splash into the annals of international intrigue after a phone call to the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, was recorded by a third party and put on YouTube in February 2014. "I think we are in play," Pyatt declares, from there he and the boss picked who else got to play, and who didn't, in Ukraine's interim government. They didn't seem to notice the elected one was still in office.

Only 2 months before Nuland bragged to Ukrainians about the 5.5 billion America invested to purchase democracy for the ex-SSR. In the private phone discussion it sounded more like all that scratch went to taking political decisions out of the hands of 44 million people. "I don't think Klitsch should go into the government," Nuland monarchically decides, "I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea" "I think Yats (banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience."

The mainstream press didn't make much of the un-democratic scheming going on at the time. The Assistant Secretary colorfully distracted the world from the substance of the conversation with the line: "Fuck the EU." Americans weren't offended. They take their princesses with a pinch of salt these days.

Ladies who speak for the US Diplomatic corps are just as good faking hypersensitivity as any man. Jen Psaki called the leaked call "a new low in Russian tradecraft." News of NSA listening in on their private conversations still kept foreign leaders distant and surly in early 2014. Psaki must have meant that our side would never stoop to spilling dirt that juicy to the rabble. Only a madman shares the fruits of "tradecraft" with all those little nobodies plying trades. Free world rulers need freedom from scrutiny. Otherwise the governed classes might get the idea they've been manipulated.

So far the US government has provided no evidence the Russians let everybody else in on the tidy little plot. It's possible a prankster with a contraption available on the internet for $50 pulled it off. The question of who the rat was lost some relevance March 11th. 2014. That's when the people of Crimea declared independence from the state of Ukraine. The plot thickened when they voted to re-Russify 5 days later. The audacity of self-determination unified opinions throughout the major media and DC double-think-tanking circuits. News-mouths, from MSNBC to Fox and everywhere in between, were just as uncompromising about Ukraine staying together as they were about Serbia breaking apart 15 years earlier. Plebiscites equal rebellious chaos when Foggy Bottom doesn't approve.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, that's "Yats" to BFFs, laid down the law to Crimean pols who dared to allow the referendum as soon as Nuland turned him loose:

"We will find all of them-if it takes one year, two years-and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn under their feet."

Yats received 7% of votes cast in the 2010 general election for president. The Rada (Ukrainian parliament) made him interim prime minister by 371 to 1 February 27, 2014. Earlier in the month the far more popular Viltali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok were considered more likely contenders. What neither of them had, as the infamous phone call revealed, was Nuland backing him up. Naturally Arseniy doesn't think the man on the street has any business voting without his, or US, supervision.

In January Mr. Yatsenyuk was in Germany and made the following remarks to ARD (German PBS) interviewer Pinar Atalay:

"Russian aggression in Ukraine is an attack on world order and order in Europe. All of us still clearly remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany". - [born in 1974, Yats' vivid memory rivals Bill O'Reilly's]-"That has to be avoided. And nobody has the right to rewrite the results of Second World War. And that is exactly what Russia's President Putin is trying to do."

Putin, 22 years closer to the war, may need help with Arseniy's references. Yats is either getting his wars or his results mixed up. The Institute for Historical Review wouldn't get caught running his revision. Details of Russian "aggression" in the Ukraine are sketchy even to the ones hellbent on making the most of it. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Sub-Committee March 10th Nuland testified:

"This manufactured conflict-controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers expense-has cost the lives of more than 6000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russian sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies."

All that big talk wasn't accompanied by a single photograph from a drone, a satellite, a journalist, a spy or even a cellphone. Victoria, who once called Russian espionage "pretty impressive", hasn't been dazzling anyone with the American brand. Did Snowden exaggerate all that super-duper snoopology? Have the separatists outwitted the NSA by staying in touch with Putin's army using smoke signals? At least Colin Powell gave us pictures of a trailer park as proof of Saddam's treachery.

When pressed by Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) on Russian losses, Nuland put the numbers at between 4 and 500. Corker sounded disappointed with less than 1000. No source was provided for the figure or the "more than 6000 Ukrainians." When asked if "In practical terms does that [Russian action] constitute an invasion?" Nuland responded: "We have used that word in the past, yes." The Guardian put out a fairly comprehensive article March 4th detailing the administration's avoidance of the term. Some White House midwives are finding the patient less pregnant than others. If the two countries are at war it's a weird one. Throughout the conflict Russia has never cut off fuel flow to Ukraine completely. This is only one contradiction to the brutal clash State continually describes.

Things are awfully complicated in Ukraine and particularly the Donbass region. 2010 demographic maps mark a stark east-west geographic divide between those who voted for and against deposed President Yanucovych. There's no question the fugitive chief-exec enjoyed his most intense support among Russian speaking Ukrainians. The fact remains he was run out of town on a rail over an economic treaty particularly loathed by ultra-nationalist types with a high tolerance for Nazi-style ideals. What would be the reaction of the US press if a Russian Foreign Service employee, one rung below Sergei Lavrov himself, crowed to the media about handing out sandwiches during the Occupy protests or at the Bundy Ranch the way Nuland has?

Meanwhile the best "intelligence" on Putin's skullduggery we've got from our woman in Kiev so far are grainy pictures of "a bearded man clearly a GRU agent." Wow, in East Ukraine? Near a Russian Naval base and several divisions of troops? Now there's a dastardly plot no one could have suspected. The Ukraine was a part of Russia for well over 200 years. Did idealists who grew up a continent and an ocean away really expect to dismantle the empire without any adjustments? American interventionists are like street urchins pouncing on a handful of coins dropped by an old man.

Back in 2005, shortly after Americans learned how urgently our attention was necessary there, Foreign Affairs began its "Ukraine's Orange Revolution" article:

"Razom nas bahato! Nas ne podolaty!"-"Together we are many! We cannot be defeated!"

This was the chant of protesters who refused to accept Yanukovich's first election in a November 2004 runoff. The reform candidate, Victor Yushchenko, maintained a clear lead in exit polling and worldwide media called fraud. Ukraine's Supreme Court mandated a new poll that Yushchenko won. During a five year term the president fired his own government and dissolved the Rada twice. Things were in constant upheaval. In the 2010 election the incumbent couldn't even muster 6% of the vote. Yanukovoch's victory went undisputed this time.

On his way out of office Yushchenko made Stepan Bandera, a nationalist who cooperated extensively with the Nazis, official Hero of Ukraine. Results like this took no wind from the sails of US internationalists keen for another go stirring the pot in Kiev. American "experts" never notice anything disturbing about pro-western Ukrainians nostalgia for the Axis. Yet they find fascism in any movement that doesn't kneel before political convention here at home. The US Constitution is the threat keeping the DHS up at night. People who go camping with founding documents and firearms threaten to lay siege on the District of Columbia any moment. Don't get distracted by how many times Mein Kamf makes book of the month with the State Department's foreign friends.

During testimony Nuland presented a list of chores American taxpayers are pitching in on:

"With U.S. support -- including a $1 billion loan guarantee last year and $355 million in foreign assistance and technical advisors -- the Ukrainian government is:

And there's more support on the way. The President's budget includes an FY16 request of $513.5 million -- almost six times more than our FY14 request -- to build on these efforts."

Jet-setting from the East coast to East Europe the Assistant Secretary is above petty details of uninsulated vulnerability to a whipsawing economy here at home. A legion of retirees who fought against Yats' favorite side in WWII are living out their days in poorly insulated energy inefficient structures under the stars and stripes.

Where shakedowns are concerned Foggy Bottom better circulate a memo on the asset forfeiture controversy that's been raging stateside nearly 30 years now. Teddy Roosevelt started reforming the police before he got to Washington. News is they're still shooting unarmed people in the back. Just yesterday the Washington Post front-paged a piece on people convicted on phony evidence from the FBI crime lab. Only a tiny fraction of such cases have been reviewed so far

Meanwhile we get another story of unscrupulous prosecutors railroading innocent victims to the penitentiary at least weekly. The US is no position to offer any country "criminal justice advisers." Deregulating agriculture is a great idea but shouldn't we try it first?

The Euro-cracy that won WWI tried micro-managing the broken pieces of Ottoman Empire 90 some years ago. Their first major accomplishment was a massacre in Smyrna. Further efforts have blessed the east Mediterranean with bloodthirsty dictators, Qutbists, Ba'athists, ISIS and the like. Treaties like Sevres and Laussanne have helped keep the War, which started in Europe 1914 and ended there in 1945, going on in Asia Minor to this day.

The idea that US influence, meddling or intervention will transform Ukraine into Winthrop's "city upon a hill" is a highly combustible fantasy. Ideologues from fancy universities, foundations and think-tanks understanding of Ukraine, and world history, is as shallow as it was in Afghanistan in the 80's and Iraq 20 years later. People will inevitably be hurt as an ancient empire dissolves and settles. Outsider intrusions will metastasize the process into the kind of catastrophe the world has seen before, and continues to witness today.

An egotistical desire for an entry in history books and the grip of an insatiable insecurity industry are the motives driving the princes and princesses of our realm. Each of these forces is bad enough by itself. Combined they guarantee an ugly ending.

[Nov 26, 2019] Repeal the Nearly Two-Decade-Old War Authorizations by Matthew Hoh

Nov 25, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

In 2001 and in 2002 Congress passed authorizations for war. While not declarations of war, these mandates, each titled an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) provided the legal framework for attacks against al-Qaeda in 2001 and in 2002 for the Iraq War. Both AUMFs are still in effect today. As Congress considers its annual authorization to fund the Pentagon our current members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, are in positions of responsibility and ability to repeal these AUMFs.

The effect of the AUMFs :

Based on FBI and journalist investigations, al Qaeda had between 200-400 members worldwide in September of 2001. Al Qaeda now has affiliates in every corner of the world, their strength measures in the tens of thousands of members, and they control territory in Yemen, Syria and parts of Africa. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now control as much as 60 percent of the territory and, with regards to international terrorism, where there was one international terror group in Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon now reports twenty such groups .

ISIS was formerly al Qaeda in Iraq, an organization that came into existence solely due to the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States. US military , intelligence agencies, journalists and other international organizations continually report that the reason people join such groups is not out of ideology or religious devotion, but out of resistance to invasion and occupation, and in response to the killing of family, friends and neighbors by foreign and government forces. It is clear the AUMFs have worsened terrorism, not defeated it.

The cost of the AUMFs :

More than 7,000 US service members have been killed and more than 50,000 wounded in the wars since 9/11. Of the 2.5 million troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as many as 20% percent are afflicted with PTSD, while 20 percent more may have traumatic brain injury. The Veterans Administration reports Afghan and Iraq veterans have rates of suicide 4-10 times higher than their civilian peers. This means almost two Afghan and Iraq veterans are die by suicide every day. Do the math and it is clear more Afghan and Iraq veterans are dying by suicide than by combat. The cost to the people overseas to whom we have brought these wars is hard to grasp. Between one and four million people have been killed, directly and indirectly, by these wars, while tens of millions more have been wounded or psychologically traumatized, and tens of millions more made homeless – the cause of the worst refugee crisis since WWII.

Financially, the cost of these wars is immense, at least $6 trillion. Of a vast many statistics that compose this incomprehensible figure of $6 trillion, is that nearly $1 trillion of it is simply just interest and debt payments. For any American, Democrat, Republican or independent, these interest and debt payments alone should cause them to reconsider these wars.

The AUMFs have allowed for wars to be waged without end by the executive branch, wars the American people, including veterans, say have not been worth fighting . Congress has the ability and responsibility to help bring about an end to these wars by ensuring the repeal of the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Matthew Hoh

Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For Peace and World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of the Afghan War by the Obama Administration. He previously had been in Iraq with a State Department team and with the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy.

[Nov 26, 2019] Neocon Uses Impeachment To Push Russophobic Agenda by David Stockman

Notable quotes:
"... She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands. ..."
"... "In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests." ..."
"... government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. ..."
"... Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. ..."
"... In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies .. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin. ..."
"... Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev. ..."
"... Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race .. ..."
"... But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections. ..."
"... While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government. ..."
"... Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed, ..."
"... "In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire." ..."
"... On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR . ..."
"... NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security. ..."
"... True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia. ..."
"... Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries. ..."
"... That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward. ..."
"... The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind. ..."
"... But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood. ..."
"... George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well. ..."
"... David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, ..."
"... . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader . ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
This is part 3 of the two-part article run Friday

It's beginning to seem like an assault by the Zulu army of American politics – they just never stop coming.

We are referring to the Russophobic neocon Deep Staters who have trooped before Adam's Schiff Show to pillory POTUS for daring to look into the Ukrainian stench that engulfs the Imperial City – a rank odor that is owing to their own arrogant meddling in the the internal affairs of that woebegone country.

This time it was Dr. Fiona Hill who sanctimoniously advised the House committee that there is nothing to see on the Ukraine front that involved any legitimate matter of state; it was just the Donald and his tinfoil hat chums jeopardizing the serious business of protecting the national security by injecting electioneering into relations with Ukraine.

She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands.

"In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests."

Folks, we are getting just plain sick and tired of this drumbeat of lies, misdirection and smug condescension by Washington payrollers like Fiona Hill. No Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US election?

Exactly what hay wagon does she think we fell off from?

Or better still, ask Paul Manafort who will spend his golden years in the Big House owing to an August 2016 leak to the New York Times about an alleged "black book" which recorded payments he had received from his work as an advisor to the Ukrainian political party of former president Yanakovych. As we have seen, the latter had been removed from office by a Washington instigated coup in February 2014.

By its own admission, this story came from the Ukrainian government and the purpose was clear as a bell: Namely, to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and force Manafort out of his months-old role as campaign chairman – a role that had finally brought some professional management to the Donald's helter-skelter campaign for the nation's highest office.

In the event, this well-timed bombshell worked, and in short order Manafort resigned, leaving the disheveled Trump campaign in the lurch:

government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.

In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies .. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.

Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev.

The bolded lines in the NYT story above tell you exactly where this was coming from. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau had been set up by an outfit called "AntAC", which was jointly funded by George Soros and the Obama State Department. And there can be little doubt that the Donald's accurate view at the time – that Crimea's reunification with Mother Russia after a 60 year hiatus which had been ordered by the former Soviet Union's Presidium – was unwelcome in Kiev and among the Washington puppeteers who had put it in power.

For want of doubt that the Poroshenko government was in the tank for Hillary Clinton, the liberal rag called Politico spilled the beans a few months later. In a January 11, 2017 story it revealed that the Ukrainian government had pulled out all the stops attempting to help Clinton, whose protégés at the State Department had been the masterminds of the coup which put them in office. Thus, Politico concluded,

Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race ..

But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections.

While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government.

Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency – and publicized by a parliamentarian – appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych.

The New York Times , in the August story revealing the ledgers' existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were "a focus" of an investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry.

Yet Fiona Hill sat before a House committee and under oath insisted that all of the above was a Trumpian conspiracy theory, thereby reminding us that the neocon Russophobes are so unhinged that they are prepared to lie at the drop of a hat to keep their false narrative about the Russian Threat and Putin's "invasion" of Ukraine alive.

Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed,

Russia today poses a greater foreign policy and security challenge to the United States and its Western allies than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Its annexation of Crimea, war in Ukraine's Donbas region, and military intervention in Syria have upended Western calculations from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Russia's intervention in Syria, in particular, is a stark reminder that Russia is a multi-regional power ..

There is not a single true assertion in that quotation, of course, but we cite it for a very particular reason. Shifty Schiff & his impeachment tribunal have brought in Hill – and Lt. Colonel Vindman, Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Tim Morrison previously – in order to created an echo chamber.

That's right. The Dems are parroting the neocon lies – whether they believe them or not – in order to propagate the impression that the Donald is undermining national security in his effort to take a different posture on Russia and Ukraine, and is actually bordering on treason.
Thus, Adam Schiff repeated the false neocon narrative virtually word for word at the opening of the public hearings:

"In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire."

That's pure rubbish. It's based on the Big Lie that the overwhelming vote of the Russian population of Crimea in March 2014 was done at the gun point of the Russian Army. And that event, in turn, is the lynch-pin of the hoary canard that Putin is seeking to rebuild the Soviet Empire.

So it is necessary to review the truth once again about how Russian Crimea had been temporarily appended to the Ukrainian SSR during Soviet times.

The allegedly "occupied" territory of Crimea, in fact, was actually purchased from the Ottomans by Catherine the Great in 1783, thereby satisfying the longstanding quest of the Russian Czars for a warm-water port. Over the ages Sevastopol then emerged as a great naval base at the strategic tip of the Crimean peninsula, where it became home to the mighty Black Sea Fleet of the Czars and then the Soviet Union, too.

For the next 171 years Crimea was an integral part of Russia (until 1954). That span exceeds the 170 years that have elapsed since California was annexed by a similar thrust of "Manifest Destiny" on this continent, thereby providing, incidentally, the United States Navy with its own warm-water port in San Diego.

While no foreign forces subsequently invaded the California coasts, it was most definitely not Ukrainian and Polish rifles, artillery and blood which famously annihilated The Charge Of The Light Brigade at the Crimean city of Balaclava in 1854; they were Russians defending the homeland from Turks, French and Brits.

And the portrait of the Russian "hero" hanging in Putin's office is that of Czar Nicholas I – whose brutal 30-year reign brought the Russian Empire to its historical zenith. Yet despite his cruelty, Nicholas I is revered in Russian hagiography as the defender of Crimea, even as he lost the 1850s war to the Ottomans and Europeans.

At the end of the day, security of its historic port in Crimea is Russia's Red Line, not Washington's. Unlike today's feather-headed Washington pols, even the enfeebled Franklin Roosevelt at least knew that he was in Soviet Russia when he made port in the Crimean city of Yalta in February 1945.

Maneuvering to cement his control of the Kremlin in the intrigue-ridden struggle for succession after Stalin's death a few years later, Nikita Khrushchev allegedly spent 15 minutes reviewing his "gift" of Crimea to his subalterns in Kiev.

As it happened, therefore, Crimea became part of the Ukraine only by writ of one of the most vicious and reprehensible states in human history – the former Soviet Union:

On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR .

That's right. Washington's hypocritical and tendentious accusations against Russia's re-absorption of Crimea imply that the dead-hand of the Soviet presidium must be defended at all costs – as if the security of North Dakota depended upon it!

In fact, the brouhaha about "returning" Crimea is a naked case of the hegemonic arrogance that has overtaken Imperial Washington since the 1991 Soviet demise.

After all, during the long decades of the Cold War, the West did nothing to liberate the "captive nation" of Ukraine – with or without the Crimean appendage bestowed upon it in 1954. Nor did it draw any red lines in the mid-1990's when a financially desperate Ukraine rented back Sevastopol and the strategic redoubts of the Crimea to an equally pauperized Russia.

In short, in the era before we got our Pacific port in 1848, and even during the 170-year interval since then, America's national security has depended not one whit on the status of Russian-speaking Crimea. That the local population has now chosen fealty to the Grand Thief in Moscow over the ruffians and rabble who have seized Kiev amounts to a giant: So what!

The truth is, when it comes to Ukraine there really isn't that much there, there. Its boundaries have been morphing for centuries among the quarreling tribes, peoples, potentates, Patriarchs and pretenders of a small region that is none of Washington's damn business..

Still, it was this final aggressive drive of Washington and NATO into the internal affairs of Russia's historic neighbor and vassal, Ukraine, that largely accounts for the demonization of Putin. Likewise, it is virtually the entire source of the false claim that Russia has aggressive, expansionist designs on the former Warsaw Pact states in the Baltics, Poland and beyond.

The latter is a nonsensical fabrication. In fact, it was the neocon meddlers from Washington who crushed Ukraine's last semblance of civil governance when they enabled ultra-nationalists and crypto-Nazis to gain government positions after the February 2014 putsch.

As we indicated above, in one fell swoop that inexcusable stupidity reopened Ukraine's blood-soaked modern history. The latter incepted with Stalin's re-population of the eastern Donbas region with "reliable" Russian workers after his genocidal liquidation of the kulaks in the early 1930s.

It was subsequently exacerbated by the large-scale collaboration by Ukrainian nationalists in the west with the Nazi Wehrmacht as it laid waste to Poles, Jews, gypsies and other "undesirables" on its way to Stalingrad in 1942-43. Thereafter followed an equal and opposite spree of barbaric revenge as the victorious Red Army marched back through Ukraine on its way to Berlin.

So it may be fairly asked. What beltway lame brains did not chance to understand that Washington's triggering of "regime change" in Kiev would reopen this entire bloody history of sectarian and political strife?

Moreover, once they had opened Pandora's box, why was it so hard to see that an outright partition of Ukraine with autonomy for the Donbas and Crimea, or even accession to the Russian state from which these communities had originated, would have been a perfectly reasonable resolution?

Certainly that would have been far preferable to dragging all of Europe into the lunacy of the current anti-Putin sanctions and embroiling the Ukrainian factions in a suicidal civil war. The alleged Russian threat to Europe, therefore, was manufactured in Imperial Washington, not the Kremlin.

In fact, in 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification, the West would not seek to exploit the situation through any eastward expansion – not even by "one inch," as then-secretary of state James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually led right up to the Russian border.

So Robert Merry said it well in his excellent piece on the entire neocon Ukraine Scam that is being paraded before the Schiff Show.

That is, what is being desperately defended on Capitol Hill is not the rule of law, national security or fidelity to the Constitution of the United States., but a giant Neocon Lie that is needed to keep the Empire in business, and the world moving ever closer to an utterly unnecessary Cold War 2.0 between nation's each pointing enough nuclear warheads at the other to destroy the planet.

NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.

True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.

Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries.

That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.

The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.

But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.

George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Nov 26, 2019] The problem with the loyalty of government employees in the state that strive to dominate the world

Notable quotes:
"... America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted. ..."
"... Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it. ..."
"... America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened. ..."
"... Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington. ..."
"... Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so. ..."
Nov 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Comments below are from Was Robert Oppenheimer a Soviet Agent, by John Wear - The Unz Review


JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website November 25, 2019 at 8:59 am GMT

The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union – and in the 1940s and 1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth – were rather idealistic. This was largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.

America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.

Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it.

You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.

America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.

It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.

Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.

A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea's connections with China.

I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.

Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so.

Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy), look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.

In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.

He was subject to severe emotional breakdowns.

SolontoCroesus , says: November 25, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT

"the[y] . . . saw themselves as a new breed of superstatesmen whose mandate transcended national boundaries"

Like Vindman

another anon , says: November 25, 2019 at 12:20 pm GMT

Later they believed that equality of superpower status for the Soviet Union would contribute to world peace.

How dumb were these "scientists". Everyone knows that once Soviet Union fell, peace and freedom and democracy are flowering all over the world and United States are not waging any wars anymore.

[Nov 25, 2019] Impeaching Trump and Demonizing Russia Birds of a Feather

Notable quotes:
"... It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion? ..."
"... The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine. ..."
"... Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. ..."
"... Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model. ..."
"... The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is not the issue. ..."
"... I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the most blatant coup in history". ..."
"... This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam. ..."
"... This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief. ..."
"... When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he Wall Street Journal 's Peggy Noonan liked what she saw when U.S. diplomats George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr. went before the House Intelligence Committee to give testimony as part of the ongoing impeachment drama. She saw them as "the old America reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."

All true. Kent, with his bow tie and his family tradition of public service, appeared to be the very picture of the old-school American foreign service official. And Taylor, with his exemplary West Point career, his Vietnam heroism, and his longtime national service, seemed a throwback to the blunt-spoken American military men who gave us our World War II triumph and our rise to global dominance.

But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue to them, since it is the same geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy establishment, of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing America towards a very possible disaster.

Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither gave even a nod to the long, complex relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance or the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in what for centuries has been part of Russia's sphere of influence.

Both Taylor and Kent declared that America's vital national interest is wrapped up in Ukraine, though neither sought to explain why in any substantive way. Spin out all the potential scenarios of Ukraine's fate and then ask whether any of them would materially affect America's vital interests. Any affirmative answer would require elaborate contortions.

It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion?

The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine.

"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment] controversy that we are discussing today."

In contrast to this misleading rendition, here are the facts, with appropriate context.

In 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification, the West would not seek to exploit the situation through any eastward expansion -- not even by "one inch," as then-secretary of state James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually led right up to the Russian border.

NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.

As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the U.S. Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles up against the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's population and industrial capacity at risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries share strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No Russian leader of any stripe would survive as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.

And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to gin up pro-Western sentiment there, according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who spearheaded much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign nation -- and a nation residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.

But Ukraine is a tragically divided nation, with many of its people drawn to the West while others feel greater ties to Russia. The late Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct cultures." Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in Crimea, the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what they consider their Russian heritage. The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear that the national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded to avoid a violent national confrontation.) In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."

True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.

Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables U.S. meddling in foreign countries.

That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.

The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia -- the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder -- renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.

But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player -- aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the U.S. government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.

George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century .


minsredmash 7 days ago

Well written article. American diplomacy (if you can even call it that) is one-dimensional and myopic.
John Reece minsredmash 6 days ago
American diplomacy is rather reminiscent of German diplomacy in 1917, in that expanding NATO into Ukraine and the Baltics is as stupidly provocative to Moscow as the Zimmerman Telegram was to the US. Zimmerman's offer was incredibly stupid since it provoked a US declaration of war but Germany had absolutely no way to provide Mexico any material assistance. Neither will NATO be providing any real assistance to Ukraine or the Baltic states if the balloon goes up -- today's Bundeswehr is not your grandfathers Wehrmacht.
minsredmash John Reece a day ago
True. The stupidity of US policy toward Russia can only be defeated by stupidity of the limitrophus of Eastern Europe, like Poland or the Baltic states. If "balloon goes up" they will be first to evaporate.
ebergerud 7 days ago
Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. The first person to speak out publicly was the former diplomat (and godfather of "Containment") George Kennan. In his last public comment, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times warning against pushing NATO to the East as a policy guaranteed to cause Russian fear and resentment. In the early years of the century, Mikhail Gorbachev - no friend of Putin's - accused the West of trying to treat Russia like a third rate nation. It is sad that the "deep state" maneuvers against Trump (up and running early enough to destroy Paul Manafort) derailed Trump's plans to talk openly with Putin and thus earn him the blind hatred of John Brennan. The rest is history.
Affluent_White_Progs_Suck Not Kent 5 days ago
You need a foreign policy update. Ukraine and Europe are not longer our problems. They have grown ideologically distant and opposed to US interests, which is self interest and transactional foreign policy now. The days of "altruistic" foreign policy are over with. Marshall died long ago.
Bjorn Andresen princess kenyetta 6 days ago
This is totally inaccurate. The current Russian system is not socialist, and it certainly has problems with corruption, but it is opposed to the Western establishment and it is promoting a traditional Christian and nationalist outlook as opposed to the liberal globalism of the Western elites. It is better than the alternative at the moment, and in a sense Putin, especially his foreign policy , is executing the will of the people in Russia. Conservatives opposed Russia up until Trump because both sides are controlled by the same Western establishment, which has been pursuing an anti-Russian agenda for a long time. They do not want any resistance to their liberal world order.

"Democracy" is a lie and a fraud, Plato knew this 4,000 years ago, and "class consciousness" is only real in the sense that the current situation in the West has an elite that is going against the interests of the people. I don't see how defending Russia is "undermining class conscientious," actually arguing against the anti-Russian warmongering is a good thing. What "Russian state attacks" are you talking about?

"To see US conservatives defending an autocracy reflects they have embraced those fascistic principles."

Do you even know how conservatism and the terms right and left wing originated? Conservatism and the right wing are terms that are from the French Revolution, used to describe supporters of the Catholic French Monarchy of the Bourbons while the liberals or the left were the revolutionaries. Historically Conservatives defended European Christian monarchies while the liberals always wanted to overthrow throne and altar to replace them with secular democratic republics. In fact there is nothing more conservative than autocracy, namely a Church-anointed monarchy. Americanism, or the ideology of the American founding fathers, was inherently liberal. They were in revolt against the monarchy of their time. There is nothing conservative about democracy, it's quite to the contrary. Autocracy is not "fascistic," that term is completely irrelevant in this historical context.

"Seeing similar headlines from opposite political poles exposes a 'horseshoe' phenomenon of left/right ideologies in which the two poles are close together in significant contexts."

Are you really going to be so grug brained as to unironically bring up the horseshoe theory? Looks like we have a big brained intellectual centrist over here. Not even worth giving an in depth analysis on this one.

par4 Bjorn Andresen 6 days ago
Good comment. The Monarchists sat on the right side of the French assembly and the revolutionaries sat on the left. That is how the modern spectrum morphed into Fascism (corporate state) on the right and Communism (revolutionary) on the left.
blimbax Sactoman 5 days ago
I've actually been to Russia, twice in the last year and a half, and I had a chance to meet and to converse with, and to hear from, Russians of all sorts: academics, students, politicians, government employees, businessmen, environmentalists, scientists, and journalists.

Based on what I saw and heard, I categorically reject your statement that Russians "are not all that free to express their opinion."

I heard from people who are well known in Russia who disagree with Putin. I heard criticisms of the government from people who are not well known, or who are just average people. People note that corruption is still a problem, at many levels of society and government, but they did not seem at all reticent to make that point.

No one displayed any fear or reluctance to express his views. At the same time, Russians acknowledge a great deal of improvement since the tragedy of the Yeltsin years.

And while there are people who criticize the government's domestic policies, they tend to be much more in support of what the government under Putin has accomplished in terms of foreign policy. And that seems to me to be a very rational reaction.

Bjorn Andresen Sactoman 5 days ago
First off I am Russian myself. Most people are in favour of an authoritarian government, nobody cares about or wants democracy. Monarchist restoration would be ideal but Putin is good enough for now. Free press and elections are a fraud and a lie, as I said.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) princess kenyetta 6 days ago
First of all, show me one single state on the planet today which is pro working class. Secondly, juxtaposing the concepts of working class and fascism is just a demonstration of how badly you know the history. Suffice it to say that the set of political views deriving from the ideas of Mussolini are called right-wing socialism. Hence, your ignorance of history logically begets that of today's politics. No, Trump and Putin cannot be called truly pro working class. But they're at least are not so blatantly anti working class as neolibs who oppose them.
TooTall7 princess kenyetta 6 days ago
Perhaps neither end of the horseshoe is game for negotiating a storm of mushroom clouds as I'm sure you are.
Летописец princess kenyetta 6 days ago • edited
Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model.
Bjorn Andresen Adriana Pena 6 days ago • edited
Except that isn't what this is about. The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is not the issue.

But we do know from the testimonies that they oppose Trump BECAUSE he changed Ukraine policy away from the policy of confrontation with Russia, or tried to. They are all against that and against Trump doing that, as they said. The entire establishment has opposed Trump on this since he got elected. So let's not be disingenuous. This charade has gone on long enough. The elites want their proxy war with Russia.

Sid Finster Adriana Pena 6 days ago • edited
1. From my perspective, the article is saying that our Ukraine policy is immoral, not that the impeachment is not founded.

2. Further to 1. above, your pizza analogy doesn't hold up. If pizza is bad for you, eating pizza harm nobody but the eater and the eater's insurers.

By contrast, our Ukraine policy is the support of actual live Nazis and has resulted in the deaths of numerous innocents, not to mention the economic destruction of Ukraine.

This is more like providing one pizza company weapons and support, knowing full well that they will use those weapons and cash to murder rivals and customers who order from those rivals.

former-vet 6 days ago
The good news is that the influence of apparatchiks like Mr. Kent and Mr. Taylor will be at an end within a few years. America thought the blood of hundreds of thousands of foreign children was a "fair price" to pay for the dollar's continued role as a reserve currency (Madeleine Albright's words) and cheaper gas at the pump. The effort was a bust. Endless trillion-dollar-a-year deficits will come to an end quickly. There isn't that much liquidity in the private sphere to sop up at the price the U.S. Gov can afford.

Americans have forgotten how much money a billion dollars is, much less a trillion: to wit, the Democrats future plans are priced in dozens of trillions of dollars. Is it even possible to count that high (given that no one has any real idea how the economy will react)?

Boomers destroyed the country. It only took one "me" generation to introduce such deep structural instability that there is no recovery. Really, does anyone think a trillion dollars a year of demand can ever be pulled out of the economy? No. Does anyone really think a trillion dollars a year will magically appear for free, from nowhere, for a decade or more? The intelligentsia will reap the fruit of its effort within a few years. And it will be dried cat food for dinner. Bless them!

Sid Finster bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
What "actual bloody invasion" of Ukraine and Georgia. Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and got a bloody nose for their trouble. They didn't lose any territory however, which is odd, if Russia were the attacker.

If Russia had actually invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian clown army would be obliterated in days or hours. Note how there are some 500 miles of open border between Donbass and Sumskaya Oblast - but no fighting? Do you think that the Russian military doesn't know the geography of their own border?

Natalia Karlik kalendjay 5 days ago
Ukraine was already devided before it separated from USSR. People from western Ukraine called Russians and eastern Ukrainians moskali. Eastern Ukraine spoke mostly Russian, western Ukraine spoke mostly Ukrainian. I believe tension escalated after Russia was about to loose access to the Black Sea and its navy there. Sorry. That was a big mistake to even think that it would happen easy. Russia annexed Crimea from Ottoman Empire in 18th century. Since then it was part of Russia. Khrushchev transferred it to Ukrainian republic in 1954. You seriously believe that Russia would easy let it go after almost 2 centuries of its presence there? Big chunk of Russian history associated with Black Sea Fleet.
Bjorn Andresen bumbershoot 6 days ago
The invasions were in response to them trying to acquire NATO memberships and NATO egging then on to do this and provoke Russia. If they remain in the Russian sphere than that would not be a problem.

NATO goes where it was warned not to go, provokes the response it knew it would get, and claims that this is "aggression." What a joke.

There was no "Russian meddling", that was debunked. There is no evidence that the DNC was hacked and the so called troll farm had no connection to the Russian government and was merely a business marketing firm selling advertising space on their social media pages.

Russia doesn't poison dissidents in foreign countries, if you are referring to the Skripal case, that narrative has fallen apart, multiple journalists have written lengthy pieces about all of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the UK government's narrative. Not to mention Yulia Skripal said she's still wants to go back to Russia, so clearly she doesn't think Russia poisoned her.

Bjorn Andresen kalendjay 5 days ago
We do have evidence to the show the opposite. The only ones who examined the DNC servers are a firm that was caught lying about Russian hacking before and is owned by a Ukrainian millionaire that donated to the Clinton Foundation. Can't get more damning than that.
Bjorn Andresen kalendjay 3 days ago
What are you even talking about? The DNC refused to allow the server to be examined because they know there was no Russian hacking, and why would Trump privately ask Zelensky to investigate Ukraine's role in all of this if he knew he were guilty? The point is there is no evidence to prove Russian hacking, and the only claims come from a firm that is owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who has been caught lying about Russian hacking before and donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.

How much mental gymnastics are you going to use to try to pretend like you don't understand?

Begemot bumbershoot 6 days ago
Which is more aggressive, do you think -- invading one's neighbors, or "dangling the prospect of NATO membership" for them?

The US engineered and supported a coup in Ukraine to overthrow the constitutional government. Is this aggression? It seems so to me. It certainly preceded any Russian response. As far as NATO membership for Ukraine, polls of Ukrainian opinion long before the Maidan showed very strong feeling against Ukraine joining NATO.

Zoran Aleksic Sid Finster 6 days ago
I believe, when all facts fail, that the way through to some would be pointing out the absurdities of what they hear therefore think. It might make them think twice before publicly embarassing themselves.
Brady bumbershoot 6 days ago
The Western actions are more aggressive, because they actually happened... Russia's annexation of the Crimea was bloodless, and doubtless spared it the carnage that the regime in Kiev wrought in Donbass.
MPC bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
America's movements since the end of the Cold War have been consistently offensive in nature, and Russia's consistently defensive in nature. That defense has included counterattacks, feints, and opportunistic thrusts. In every 'attack' it made, Russia was reacting, not taking the initiative.For their part the liberal hegemonists know what they're doing. Good PR is priceless, and they know it's essential for offensive movements to not appear that way.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
Problem is, you liberals are still unable to prove a single allegation of those you uttered in your comment.

How come the previous Ukrainian government didn't manage to beg one single satellite pic of, say, Russian tanks crossing their border from the CIA or the DIA, given the purported "bloody invasion"? Russian armored vehicles have some cloaking devices or what?

How come the Mueller's so-called "investigation" turned out to be such a pathetic juridical failure, given the purported "direct meddling"?

What a naive poor dear one has to be to believe in poisonings with radioactive substances (as dangerous to the poisoner as to his victim) in a world where poisons causing deaths looking like those from natural causes exist and are available to all secret services (and even to private citizens having talents in chemistry)?

Plus, careful with (ab)using upper case. "Democratical countries" with a capital "D" reads like "countries, whose governments are proxies of the Democratic Party". Blame Freud and his slips.

TooTall7 bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
I love people like you. I mean since we were invaded by Germany, Napoleon, Charles the Tenth of Sweden, the Teutonic Knights, the Golden Horde (Ghengis Khan started this), at the cost of countless millions of lives lost, I sense that we- as Americans- have every need to push our frontiers to Russia's doorstep.

You demonstrate a phenomenal ignorance of Historical perspective: exactly the cannon fodder the establishment's looking for.

Alex (the one that likes Ike) FJR Atlanta 6 days ago
At least Trump isn't pushing the country into yet another Middle Eastern swamp. Given that, his wordings may be as unclear as he likes.
morning_in_america FJR Atlanta 6 days ago
Taylor should not be pushing any foreign policy. He should be executing Trumps policy or retiring
kouroi 6 days ago
Nice and sober account. One detail that might be significant. Until 1954, Crimea was part of the Russian Federation (the Russian State has wrestled that territory from the Tatars/Mongols and Ottomans more than 200 years before and fought for it against the united Europe in 1850s). And Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, had bestowed Crimea in an unsanctioned administrative decision to the then Ukrainian Socialist Republic in 1954.

Ukraine as a state is pretty much a creation of Russia and instead of being grateful for their extensive statehood, elements in Ukraine would rather bite the hand that made them.

Sid Finster Affluent_White_Progs_Suck 5 days ago
Lots of people all over the world get up and go to work. They do it in democracies, autocracies, and countries that are somewhere in between. In fact, the United States is losing its position as global economic hegemon in large part because the Chinese (no democracy there) are harder working than Americans.

The United States currency has value for two reasons - inside the United States, it's the only way you can pay taxes. Outside the United States, the gulfie tyrannies only accept dollars for international sales of oil.

Disqus10021 6 days ago
$5 billion thrown down the Ukraine rat hole. It is too bad that the money wasn't spent providing better care for our wounded veterans. Watch the video "Delay, Deny, Hope They Die". As one of the very few, perhaps only, commentater who has criticized Victoria Nuland's role in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, I have made many of the same points in recent days.
Bjorn Andresen Jonathan Marcus 6 days ago
You know that is dishonest. This has nothing to do with what Trump tried to tell Zelensky, and anyway the US and Ukraine do in fact have a treaty from 1998 that mandates them to cooperate on law enforcement matters. DC is full of corruption but none of it is ever punished, so we know that is not the issue.

This is all about Trump's desire to end the proxy war with Russia. That is all this is about ultimately. Looking at the big picture, that is a large part of the reason why the establishment wants to delegitimization him or remove Trump from office. This phone call scandal is nothing more than the latest tactical move to get there. If you don't see that, and you genuinely think that this is merely about Trump asking Zelensky to investigate something and get caught up in the minutiae of that, you are simply naive and don't understand the true nature of politics. Think about the big picture.

Ellen K Bjorn Andresen 6 days ago
A proxy war is nice cover for weapons smuggling. I've postulated for awhile now that Benghazi is the key to Deep State. Ask yourself why the Obama administration allowed Stevens and his cohorts to die when there was ample air and naval power nearby. What did he stumble upon? I think it was a vast smuggling operation designed to support Muslim Bros. and Al Shabbab-both of whom later attacked US assets and who continue to worry the region with their raids of kidnappings, rapes and mass murders that go largely unreported in the US press. There's a reason why so many liberals her and abroad claim to support open borders and it has nothing to do with humanitarian goals and everything to do with an organized global crime group who is using sievelike borders to allow drugs, fake licensed products, fake pharmaceuticals, weapons and even humans to become trade goods. People should really ask why Democrats refuse to stop this. Europeans should ask who is getting rich off of unchecked migration of indigent people.
APPPS Jonathan Marcus 6 days ago
The President sets the policy. These dipsticks implement it or quit. Nobody elected them.
Sid Finster 6 days ago
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.

2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.

3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.

Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.

invention13 Sid Finster 6 days ago
Another possible reason is that Russia is a relatively weak country with enormous natural resources.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) invention13 6 days ago
Well, comparing to China, its military is much stronger. China is not even in the same league as the US and Russia.
Sid Finster invention13 5 days ago
Except that Russia has a nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it.
SatirevFlesti 6 days ago
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.

Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy" in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.

Sid Finster 6 days ago
I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the most blatant coup in history".
Bjorn Andresen Sid Finster 6 days ago • edited
Exactly. This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam.
EliteCommInc. TheSnark 6 days ago
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin

1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false

this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date against Russia despite the lack of evidence

as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done

:Laugh ---

It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know you did it

-even there's no evidence you did.

If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.

If you still don't get read Kafka

Bjorn Andresen 6 days ago
This is true, all of this could have easily been avoided if the US stopped meddling and withdrew its troops from the former USSR. People like Taylor and Kent show there is an agenda to start a war with Russia. Hopefully the upcoming Ukraine-Russia peace summit can settle this conflict.
Sid Finster 6 days ago
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.

2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.

3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.

Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.

SatirevFlesti 6 days ago
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.

Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy" in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.

EliteCommInc. TheSnark 6 days ago
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin

1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false

this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date against Russia despite the lack of evidence

as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done

:Laugh ---

It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know you did it

-even there's no evidence you did.

If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.

If you still don't get read Kafka

Bjorn Andresen ben benis 5 days ago
That's a strawman and there's nothing to refute, the article is correct. Because the US government and CFR globalist thinkers like Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Friedman, and George Soros have talked about the geopolitical importance of Ukraine since the 1990s -- read Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard from 1996, where talks about the need for the US to take control of Ukraine from Russia to prevent Russia from becoming a great power that can challenge US global hegemony, or Soros' admission on a 60 Minutes interview from 1998 that he has invested billions in Ukraine, particularly in the Ukrainian military. As Brzezinski says, the US was quick to recognise the geopolitical importance of an independent Ukrainian state, and became one of Ukraine's strongest backers in the 1990s for this reason. Globalist plans for Ukraine go back many years.

Polls before the Maidan show most Ukrainians had a very positive image of Russia as well, and increasingly people in Ukraine are getting tired of the war, which is why they voted massively for Zelensky over Poroshenko.

alex renk 6 days ago
When I look at our foreign policy, before Trump, you have to go back to Reagan to have any semblance of policy based in reality. While Trump is kinda of a bull in a china shop, at least he highlights some of the asinine policies the 'experts' have been pursuing.
TISO_AX2 6 days ago
Hat tip to Patrick Buchanan.
Lynn 6 days ago
Russia's objection to US and EU interference into Ukrainian politics makes as much sense as US objection. would if Russia were in Mexico attempting to draw them into a confederation with Moscow.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) =marco01= 5 days ago
He may be as immoral as hell. Most of them, R or D, are, in case you haven't noticed. The fact is, there's still no factual evidence he committed any impeachable in this specific case.
Harry Taft 6 days ago
So, if the employees of the government who are involved in international affairs do not agree with the President, the President is accused of an impeachable offense? These two are not patriots in the usual sense. Nor are they public servants. They see themselves as somehow above the Law. Above the Constitution. Applauded by those trying ever since the election to bring down a President. Seditionists.
doug masnaghetti 6 days ago
The last 30 years has been a complete disaster for US foreign diplomacy. We are being led by complete morons! Trump is a big step in the right direction.
J House 6 days ago
The fact is, it was a U.S. sponsored coup by the Obama administration that overthrew a democratically elected government in Ukraine. Here is the Feb 2015 Obama CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria...note that Obama says 'Yanukovich fleeing AFTER we brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine'...incredible. Play Hide
Bjorn Andresen john 5 days ago
Why is it wrong and improper to know whether or not a presidential candidate's family was involved in corrupt dealings abroad? But that's not even the question, because the issue of what Trump may or may not have done is not the real issue. DC is full of corruption and none of it is ever punished, so we know that's not what they care about. What this is about is Trump's disagreement with the establishment on Russia-Ukraine policy and the greater geopolitical picture. Thinking this is about some minutiae over who said what on a phone call and what he mayor may not have really meant is naive and ignorant of the true nature of politics. These situations are not compartmentalised, these have to be seen from the the big picture of geopolitics.
morning_in_america 6 days ago
He sensible policy would be to Finlandize Ukraine and Byelorus. NATO would not have them as members and Russia would let them pursue economic ties with Europe. This worked for Finland through put the Cold War and kept the region peaceful
Ellen K 6 days ago
This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief. That's a problem.

When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. Why? Who is Vindman reporting to if not the President? Too many of these folks act as if the change in administrations is merely a formality to which they can choose to embrace or not. Almost without exception, we have seen testimony from people whose personal history is in the Russian/Ukraine theater and who have family and history there. This is problematic. If anyone ever looked and sounded the part of a mole, it was Vindman today.

Reggie 6 days ago
These maniacs are provoking nuclear war. They fail to understand that, unlike 50 years ago when America had a decentralized industrial economy and banking system, 2 large nukes aimed at NYC and DC would destroy the country.
john 6 days ago
This is the only conservative site worth reading. I do love me some serious and deep analysis from Conservatives in important geopolitical issues. God for a return to the days of Buckley. It would be glorious.
Hey now 6 days ago
Fantastic analysis of the 3D chess game. But we are talking about Biden and Clinton so we need not overthink this. Obama gave 1 billion of taxpayer money to Ukraine. Ukraine gave Burisma some of that according the government of the UK. And once Burisma was in receipt of our aid funds, millions flow through right back to the very same bad actors like Biden who directly controlled the one billion in foreign aid. I wish this was more complicated. I wish it made Americans seem smarter. But to this old guy it seems like a good old fashioned and very simple run of the mill scam . And in this scam the only person we know for fact cashed the checks is Biden.

Come on Barr. It's time to do what we all know what needs to be done.

Disgruntled2012 6 days ago
"But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion?"

An excellent question. The cold war is over. We won. We don't need to keep fighting it. Russia is not that much of a threat to us.

Jonathan Galt 5 days ago
Think about it. Our State Department has been in operation for well over 100 years in some form or another. Are we ANY safer? Fire them all. No pension for failure.
MPNavrozjee 5 days ago • edited
For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.

Putin is a serious strategist – on the premises of Russian history. Understanding US values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point among US policymakers.

-- Henry A. Kissinger in 2014 at the start of the Ukraine crisis (writing in the Washington Post.)

PierrePendre 5 days ago
I cannot believe that the State Department was unaware of the intertwined history of Russia and the Ukraine or rather given State's rigid worldview I can believe it. The Russians knew perfectly well that the United States was pulling the strings of the so-called Maidan revolution and that the end would be to plant Nato and the EU right on Russia's doorstep.

Previous attempts to push Nato into parts of the south of the former Soviet empire had been fought off. Nothing could be more predictable than that the Kremlin would do everything it could to oppose what it saw as hostile interference in the Ukraine on behalf of "reformers". The US plays by the same rules. Cuba and the earlier Monroe doctrine are prize exhibits.

Obama slotted temperamentally into the State Department worldview or maybe it was the other way round. It was a worldview that got the Middle East profoundly wrong at every turn including misundertanding the Arab Spring, support for the deeply anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood, the appeasement and promotion of Iran, the abandonment of the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, the destruction of Libya as a going concern and how to tackle Syria. If there was an opportunity to get something wrong, Obama and the bow ties managed it. They left behind a trail of wreckage.

Worst of all, Obama, the great opponent of nuclear proliferation, turned out to be its greatest enabler but ensured that he would be long out of office when it happened and the media started asking "who lost Iran?" If Obama achieved one thing, it was finally to kill off nuclear non-proliferation as a viable ambition. A nuclear Iran isn't just a threat to its neighours. It is a direct missile threat to the EU which has happily collaborated in advancing Iranian power.

Unsurprisingiy, Trump rejected all this and it is for this that he is vilified by the foreign police dinosaurs who try to delude the nation into believing that even when what they do ends in manifest disaster, there is no alternative. There is hardly a word leaked by the foreign policy to the willingly ignorant media that is not a lie. The mess is theirs and they hate Trump for wakening Americans up to their self-serving, somnolent incompetence.

The usual response to posts like this is to accuse the writer of being a traitrous Putin lover. On the contrary, know thy enemy. The maxim doesn't mean have a beer with him. It means understand him.

MFH 5 days ago
Excellent statement of the "Thucydides trap" argument for caution regarding Russia and its traditional sphere of concern. But Merry leaves us with a cliffhanger: what is the sound US Russian policy given his concerns and cautions? Moreover, his rendition is vulnerable to a counterargument, namely, that Putin's Russia has gone far beyond the seizure or control of "protective lands" towards an encirclement or menacing of Europe. This can be seen unfolding in Russia's military presence on Syria's (and potentially Libya's) Mediterranean coast, its sale of weapons to Turkey, its connivance with Iran's Middle Eastern proxy wars, and the potential for petro-blackmail of its energy customers. Add to this the affirmative case for European interest in Poland, whose capital Warsaw is exposed to attack from its eastern and southern flanks just as Moscow is immediately threatened from its western and southern flanks. Perhaps all this just confirms how far down the path to the "Thucydides trap" the principal parties have traveled. Yet, all the same, on what grounds do we rationalize Russian inroads into the Mediterranean? Free navigation of the seas?
D Gamboa 5 days ago
I like this article but Russia is no longer a declining power technically. It's GDP is slowly rising again in the last few years. They did take a hit from sanctions and low oil prices but they are staring to recover to some degree.

Russians like Putin because their economy is much better now than it was during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The problem this country has with Russia is that they were a declining power and now are back on the rise. China is more of a threat but the imbeciles in the establishment keep focusing on trying to undermine Russian security. They seem to really believe Putin is their enemy without realizing the overwhelming majority of Russians have issues with our stupid foreign policy.

Google Russian GDP, especially through time, and you'll see what I mean.

kuddels 5 days ago
Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous"?
The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and such. Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at the local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.
Kelly Wright 5 days ago
One thing that few appreciate is that US actions in the Ukraine in 2013/14 prompted Russian retaliation in the 2016 election. The Russians had been playing by our rules. (Party of the Regions won a free and fair election in the Ukraine) and then we supported a violent extra-constitutional takeover.The Obama administration wanted to see a repeat of the performance in Kiev, in Moscow with Putin playing the part of Yanukovych. The Russian response was to attack the fault lines in American Society. Their ultimate goal is to see the kind of rioting in the US that we had supported in Kiev in the Winter of 14.
Jonathan Gillispie 5 days ago
American diplomacy has become dangerously simplistic and one-dimensional in outlook. Turkey bad, Kurds good. Iran bad, Israel good. Russia bad, Ukraine and NATO good. You try talking with Russia, Iran or Turkey you'll be crucified in domestic politics. Russia on the other hand doesn't have this simplistic view. They wisely recognize that the world is varying shades of gray.
Connecticut Farmer 2 days ago
Excellent piece. Bottom line: the Ukraine is within Russia's "sphere of influence", not ours. Not our problem. The last time a major power attempted to insert itself within another country's sphere of influence was in 1962. Anybody remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?
James Schumaker a day ago • edited
Mr. Merry is entitled to his point of view, but I find his remarks to be out of touch -- sort of like another "Chicken Kiev" speech with the date "2019" slapped on it. Perhaps he would benefit from a couple of tours of duty in Kyiv, like George Kent and Bill Taylor. Then he would appreciate the fact that the United States does have real interests in preserving Ukrainian sovereignty, along with the independence of all the former Soviet states who have split off from Russia. He should also not be so quick to characterize Kent's and Taylor's testimony. They were in Congress not to express a policy position on Russia, but to act as fact witnesses to the potentially impeachable actions of the President and his circle. So, let's not get into conspiracy theories about what "elites" believe. It's one short step from that to muttering darkly about the 'Deep State" and Comet Pizza.

[Nov 25, 2019] These folks are not latter-day De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer

Nov 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

kuddels 5 days ago

Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous"?

The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and such.

Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at the local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.

[Nov 25, 2019] Impeaching Trump and Demonizing Russia Birds of a Feather

Notable quotes:
"... It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion? ..."
"... The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine. ..."
"... Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. ..."
"... Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model. ..."
"... The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is not the issue. ..."
"... I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the most blatant coup in history". ..."
"... This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam. ..."
"... This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief. ..."
"... When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he Wall Street Journal 's Peggy Noonan liked what she saw when U.S. diplomats George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr. went before the House Intelligence Committee to give testimony as part of the ongoing impeachment drama. She saw them as "the old America reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."

All true. Kent, with his bow tie and his family tradition of public service, appeared to be the very picture of the old-school American foreign service official. And Taylor, with his exemplary West Point career, his Vietnam heroism, and his longtime national service, seemed a throwback to the blunt-spoken American military men who gave us our World War II triumph and our rise to global dominance.

But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue to them, since it is the same geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy establishment, of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing America towards a very possible disaster.

Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither gave even a nod to the long, complex relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance or the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in what for centuries has been part of Russia's sphere of influence.

Both Taylor and Kent declared that America's vital national interest is wrapped up in Ukraine, though neither sought to explain why in any substantive way. Spin out all the potential scenarios of Ukraine's fate and then ask whether any of them would materially affect America's vital interests. Any affirmative answer would require elaborate contortions.

It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion?

The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine.

"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment] controversy that we are discussing today."

In contrast to this misleading rendition, here are the facts, with appropriate context.

In 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification, the West would not seek to exploit the situation through any eastward expansion -- not even by "one inch," as then-secretary of state James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually led right up to the Russian border.

NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.

As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the U.S. Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles up against the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's population and industrial capacity at risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries share strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No Russian leader of any stripe would survive as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.

And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to gin up pro-Western sentiment there, according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who spearheaded much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign nation -- and a nation residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.

But Ukraine is a tragically divided nation, with many of its people drawn to the West while others feel greater ties to Russia. The late Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct cultures." Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in Crimea, the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what they consider their Russian heritage. The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear that the national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded to avoid a violent national confrontation.) In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."

True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.

Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables U.S. meddling in foreign countries.

That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.

The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia -- the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder -- renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.

But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player -- aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the U.S. government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.

George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century .


minsredmash 7 days ago

Well written article. American diplomacy (if you can even call it that) is one-dimensional and myopic.
John Reece minsredmash 6 days ago
American diplomacy is rather reminiscent of German diplomacy in 1917, in that expanding NATO into Ukraine and the Baltics is as stupidly provocative to Moscow as the Zimmerman Telegram was to the US. Zimmerman's offer was incredibly stupid since it provoked a US declaration of war but Germany had absolutely no way to provide Mexico any material assistance. Neither will NATO be providing any real assistance to Ukraine or the Baltic states if the balloon goes up -- today's Bundeswehr is not your grandfathers Wehrmacht.
minsredmash John Reece a day ago
True. The stupidity of US policy toward Russia can only be defeated by stupidity of the limitrophus of Eastern Europe, like Poland or the Baltic states. If "balloon goes up" they will be first to evaporate.
ebergerud 7 days ago
Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. The first person to speak out publicly was the former diplomat (and godfather of "Containment") George Kennan. In his last public comment, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times warning against pushing NATO to the East as a policy guaranteed to cause Russian fear and resentment. In the early years of the century, Mikhail Gorbachev - no friend of Putin's - accused the West of trying to treat Russia like a third rate nation. It is sad that the "deep state" maneuvers against Trump (up and running early enough to destroy Paul Manafort) derailed Trump's plans to talk openly with Putin and thus earn him the blind hatred of John Brennan. The rest is history.
Affluent_White_Progs_Suck Not Kent 5 days ago
You need a foreign policy update. Ukraine and Europe are not longer our problems. They have grown ideologically distant and opposed to US interests, which is self interest and transactional foreign policy now. The days of "altruistic" foreign policy are over with. Marshall died long ago.
Bjorn Andresen princess kenyetta 6 days ago
This is totally inaccurate. The current Russian system is not socialist, and it certainly has problems with corruption, but it is opposed to the Western establishment and it is promoting a traditional Christian and nationalist outlook as opposed to the liberal globalism of the Western elites. It is better than the alternative at the moment, and in a sense Putin, especially his foreign policy , is executing the will of the people in Russia. Conservatives opposed Russia up until Trump because both sides are controlled by the same Western establishment, which has been pursuing an anti-Russian agenda for a long time. They do not want any resistance to their liberal world order.

"Democracy" is a lie and a fraud, Plato knew this 4,000 years ago, and "class consciousness" is only real in the sense that the current situation in the West has an elite that is going against the interests of the people. I don't see how defending Russia is "undermining class conscientious," actually arguing against the anti-Russian warmongering is a good thing. What "Russian state attacks" are you talking about?

"To see US conservatives defending an autocracy reflects they have embraced those fascistic principles."

Do you even know how conservatism and the terms right and left wing originated? Conservatism and the right wing are terms that are from the French Revolution, used to describe supporters of the Catholic French Monarchy of the Bourbons while the liberals or the left were the revolutionaries. Historically Conservatives defended European Christian monarchies while the liberals always wanted to overthrow throne and altar to replace them with secular democratic republics. In fact there is nothing more conservative than autocracy, namely a Church-anointed monarchy. Americanism, or the ideology of the American founding fathers, was inherently liberal. They were in revolt against the monarchy of their time. There is nothing conservative about democracy, it's quite to the contrary. Autocracy is not "fascistic," that term is completely irrelevant in this historical context.

"Seeing similar headlines from opposite political poles exposes a 'horseshoe' phenomenon of left/right ideologies in which the two poles are close together in significant contexts."

Are you really going to be so grug brained as to unironically bring up the horseshoe theory? Looks like we have a big brained intellectual centrist over here. Not even worth giving an in depth analysis on this one.

par4 Bjorn Andresen 6 days ago
Good comment. The Monarchists sat on the right side of the French assembly and the revolutionaries sat on the left. That is how the modern spectrum morphed into Fascism (corporate state) on the right and Communism (revolutionary) on the left.
blimbax Sactoman 5 days ago
I've actually been to Russia, twice in the last year and a half, and I had a chance to meet and to converse with, and to hear from, Russians of all sorts: academics, students, politicians, government employees, businessmen, environmentalists, scientists, and journalists.

Based on what I saw and heard, I categorically reject your statement that Russians "are not all that free to express their opinion."

I heard from people who are well known in Russia who disagree with Putin. I heard criticisms of the government from people who are not well known, or who are just average people. People note that corruption is still a problem, at many levels of society and government, but they did not seem at all reticent to make that point.

No one displayed any fear or reluctance to express his views. At the same time, Russians acknowledge a great deal of improvement since the tragedy of the Yeltsin years.

And while there are people who criticize the government's domestic policies, they tend to be much more in support of what the government under Putin has accomplished in terms of foreign policy. And that seems to me to be a very rational reaction.

Bjorn Andresen Sactoman 5 days ago
First off I am Russian myself. Most people are in favour of an authoritarian government, nobody cares about or wants democracy. Monarchist restoration would be ideal but Putin is good enough for now. Free press and elections are a fraud and a lie, as I said.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) princess kenyetta 6 days ago
First of all, show me one single state on the planet today which is pro working class. Secondly, juxtaposing the concepts of working class and fascism is just a demonstration of how badly you know the history. Suffice it to say that the set of political views deriving from the ideas of Mussolini are called right-wing socialism. Hence, your ignorance of history logically begets that of today's politics. No, Trump and Putin cannot be called truly pro working class. But they're at least are not so blatantly anti working class as neolibs who oppose them.
TooTall7 princess kenyetta 6 days ago
Perhaps neither end of the horseshoe is game for negotiating a storm of mushroom clouds as I'm sure you are.
Летописец princess kenyetta 6 days ago • edited
Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model.
Bjorn Andresen Adriana Pena 6 days ago • edited
Except that isn't what this is about. The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is not the issue.

But we do know from the testimonies that they oppose Trump BECAUSE he changed Ukraine policy away from the policy of confrontation with Russia, or tried to. They are all against that and against Trump doing that, as they said. The entire establishment has opposed Trump on this since he got elected. So let's not be disingenuous. This charade has gone on long enough. The elites want their proxy war with Russia.

Sid Finster Adriana Pena 6 days ago • edited
1. From my perspective, the article is saying that our Ukraine policy is immoral, not that the impeachment is not founded.

2. Further to 1. above, your pizza analogy doesn't hold up. If pizza is bad for you, eating pizza harm nobody but the eater and the eater's insurers.

By contrast, our Ukraine policy is the support of actual live Nazis and has resulted in the deaths of numerous innocents, not to mention the economic destruction of Ukraine.

This is more like providing one pizza company weapons and support, knowing full well that they will use those weapons and cash to murder rivals and customers who order from those rivals.

former-vet 6 days ago
The good news is that the influence of apparatchiks like Mr. Kent and Mr. Taylor will be at an end within a few years. America thought the blood of hundreds of thousands of foreign children was a "fair price" to pay for the dollar's continued role as a reserve currency (Madeleine Albright's words) and cheaper gas at the pump. The effort was a bust. Endless trillion-dollar-a-year deficits will come to an end quickly. There isn't that much liquidity in the private sphere to sop up at the price the U.S. Gov can afford.

Americans have forgotten how much money a billion dollars is, much less a trillion: to wit, the Democrats future plans are priced in dozens of trillions of dollars. Is it even possible to count that high (given that no one has any real idea how the economy will react)?

Boomers destroyed the country. It only took one "me" generation to introduce such deep structural instability that there is no recovery. Really, does anyone think a trillion dollars a year of demand can ever be pulled out of the economy? No. Does anyone really think a trillion dollars a year will magically appear for free, from nowhere, for a decade or more? The intelligentsia will reap the fruit of its effort within a few years. And it will be dried cat food for dinner. Bless them!

Sid Finster bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
What "actual bloody invasion" of Ukraine and Georgia. Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and got a bloody nose for their trouble. They didn't lose any territory however, which is odd, if Russia were the attacker.

If Russia had actually invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian clown army would be obliterated in days or hours. Note how there are some 500 miles of open border between Donbass and Sumskaya Oblast - but no fighting? Do you think that the Russian military doesn't know the geography of their own border?

Natalia Karlik kalendjay 5 days ago
Ukraine was already devided before it separated from USSR. People from western Ukraine called Russians and eastern Ukrainians moskali. Eastern Ukraine spoke mostly Russian, western Ukraine spoke mostly Ukrainian. I believe tension escalated after Russia was about to loose access to the Black Sea and its navy there. Sorry. That was a big mistake to even think that it would happen easy. Russia annexed Crimea from Ottoman Empire in 18th century. Since then it was part of Russia. Khrushchev transferred it to Ukrainian republic in 1954. You seriously believe that Russia would easy let it go after almost 2 centuries of its presence there? Big chunk of Russian history associated with Black Sea Fleet.
Bjorn Andresen bumbershoot 6 days ago
The invasions were in response to them trying to acquire NATO memberships and NATO egging then on to do this and provoke Russia. If they remain in the Russian sphere than that would not be a problem.

NATO goes where it was warned not to go, provokes the response it knew it would get, and claims that this is "aggression." What a joke.

There was no "Russian meddling", that was debunked. There is no evidence that the DNC was hacked and the so called troll farm had no connection to the Russian government and was merely a business marketing firm selling advertising space on their social media pages.

Russia doesn't poison dissidents in foreign countries, if you are referring to the Skripal case, that narrative has fallen apart, multiple journalists have written lengthy pieces about all of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the UK government's narrative. Not to mention Yulia Skripal said she's still wants to go back to Russia, so clearly she doesn't think Russia poisoned her.

Bjorn Andresen kalendjay 5 days ago
We do have evidence to the show the opposite. The only ones who examined the DNC servers are a firm that was caught lying about Russian hacking before and is owned by a Ukrainian millionaire that donated to the Clinton Foundation. Can't get more damning than that.
Bjorn Andresen kalendjay 3 days ago
What are you even talking about? The DNC refused to allow the server to be examined because they know there was no Russian hacking, and why would Trump privately ask Zelensky to investigate Ukraine's role in all of this if he knew he were guilty? The point is there is no evidence to prove Russian hacking, and the only claims come from a firm that is owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who has been caught lying about Russian hacking before and donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.

How much mental gymnastics are you going to use to try to pretend like you don't understand?

Begemot bumbershoot 6 days ago
Which is more aggressive, do you think -- invading one's neighbors, or "dangling the prospect of NATO membership" for them?

The US engineered and supported a coup in Ukraine to overthrow the constitutional government. Is this aggression? It seems so to me. It certainly preceded any Russian response. As far as NATO membership for Ukraine, polls of Ukrainian opinion long before the Maidan showed very strong feeling against Ukraine joining NATO.

Zoran Aleksic Sid Finster 6 days ago
I believe, when all facts fail, that the way through to some would be pointing out the absurdities of what they hear therefore think. It might make them think twice before publicly embarassing themselves.
Brady bumbershoot 6 days ago
The Western actions are more aggressive, because they actually happened... Russia's annexation of the Crimea was bloodless, and doubtless spared it the carnage that the regime in Kiev wrought in Donbass.
MPC bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
America's movements since the end of the Cold War have been consistently offensive in nature, and Russia's consistently defensive in nature. That defense has included counterattacks, feints, and opportunistic thrusts. In every 'attack' it made, Russia was reacting, not taking the initiative.For their part the liberal hegemonists know what they're doing. Good PR is priceless, and they know it's essential for offensive movements to not appear that way.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
Problem is, you liberals are still unable to prove a single allegation of those you uttered in your comment.

How come the previous Ukrainian government didn't manage to beg one single satellite pic of, say, Russian tanks crossing their border from the CIA or the DIA, given the purported "bloody invasion"? Russian armored vehicles have some cloaking devices or what?

How come the Mueller's so-called "investigation" turned out to be such a pathetic juridical failure, given the purported "direct meddling"?

What a naive poor dear one has to be to believe in poisonings with radioactive substances (as dangerous to the poisoner as to his victim) in a world where poisons causing deaths looking like those from natural causes exist and are available to all secret services (and even to private citizens having talents in chemistry)?

Plus, careful with (ab)using upper case. "Democratical countries" with a capital "D" reads like "countries, whose governments are proxies of the Democratic Party". Blame Freud and his slips.

TooTall7 bumbershoot 6 days ago • edited
I love people like you. I mean since we were invaded by Germany, Napoleon, Charles the Tenth of Sweden, the Teutonic Knights, the Golden Horde (Ghengis Khan started this), at the cost of countless millions of lives lost, I sense that we- as Americans- have every need to push our frontiers to Russia's doorstep.

You demonstrate a phenomenal ignorance of Historical perspective: exactly the cannon fodder the establishment's looking for.

Alex (the one that likes Ike) FJR Atlanta 6 days ago
At least Trump isn't pushing the country into yet another Middle Eastern swamp. Given that, his wordings may be as unclear as he likes.
morning_in_america FJR Atlanta 6 days ago
Taylor should not be pushing any foreign policy. He should be executing Trumps policy or retiring
kouroi 6 days ago
Nice and sober account. One detail that might be significant. Until 1954, Crimea was part of the Russian Federation (the Russian State has wrestled that territory from the Tatars/Mongols and Ottomans more than 200 years before and fought for it against the united Europe in 1850s). And Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, had bestowed Crimea in an unsanctioned administrative decision to the then Ukrainian Socialist Republic in 1954.

Ukraine as a state is pretty much a creation of Russia and instead of being grateful for their extensive statehood, elements in Ukraine would rather bite the hand that made them.

Sid Finster Affluent_White_Progs_Suck 5 days ago
Lots of people all over the world get up and go to work. They do it in democracies, autocracies, and countries that are somewhere in between. In fact, the United States is losing its position as global economic hegemon in large part because the Chinese (no democracy there) are harder working than Americans.

The United States currency has value for two reasons - inside the United States, it's the only way you can pay taxes. Outside the United States, the gulfie tyrannies only accept dollars for international sales of oil.

Disqus10021 6 days ago
$5 billion thrown down the Ukraine rat hole. It is too bad that the money wasn't spent providing better care for our wounded veterans. Watch the video "Delay, Deny, Hope They Die". As one of the very few, perhaps only, commentater who has criticized Victoria Nuland's role in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, I have made many of the same points in recent days.
Bjorn Andresen Jonathan Marcus 6 days ago
You know that is dishonest. This has nothing to do with what Trump tried to tell Zelensky, and anyway the US and Ukraine do in fact have a treaty from 1998 that mandates them to cooperate on law enforcement matters. DC is full of corruption but none of it is ever punished, so we know that is not the issue.

This is all about Trump's desire to end the proxy war with Russia. That is all this is about ultimately. Looking at the big picture, that is a large part of the reason why the establishment wants to delegitimization him or remove Trump from office. This phone call scandal is nothing more than the latest tactical move to get there. If you don't see that, and you genuinely think that this is merely about Trump asking Zelensky to investigate something and get caught up in the minutiae of that, you are simply naive and don't understand the true nature of politics. Think about the big picture.

Ellen K Bjorn Andresen 6 days ago
A proxy war is nice cover for weapons smuggling. I've postulated for awhile now that Benghazi is the key to Deep State. Ask yourself why the Obama administration allowed Stevens and his cohorts to die when there was ample air and naval power nearby. What did he stumble upon? I think it was a vast smuggling operation designed to support Muslim Bros. and Al Shabbab-both of whom later attacked US assets and who continue to worry the region with their raids of kidnappings, rapes and mass murders that go largely unreported in the US press. There's a reason why so many liberals her and abroad claim to support open borders and it has nothing to do with humanitarian goals and everything to do with an organized global crime group who is using sievelike borders to allow drugs, fake licensed products, fake pharmaceuticals, weapons and even humans to become trade goods. People should really ask why Democrats refuse to stop this. Europeans should ask who is getting rich off of unchecked migration of indigent people.
APPPS Jonathan Marcus 6 days ago
The President sets the policy. These dipsticks implement it or quit. Nobody elected them.
Sid Finster 6 days ago
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.

2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.

3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.

Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.

invention13 Sid Finster 6 days ago
Another possible reason is that Russia is a relatively weak country with enormous natural resources.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) invention13 6 days ago
Well, comparing to China, its military is much stronger. China is not even in the same league as the US and Russia.
Sid Finster invention13 5 days ago
Except that Russia has a nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it.
SatirevFlesti 6 days ago
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.

Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy" in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.

Sid Finster 6 days ago
I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the most blatant coup in history".
Bjorn Andresen Sid Finster 6 days ago • edited
Exactly. This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam.
EliteCommInc. TheSnark 6 days ago
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin

1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false

this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date against Russia despite the lack of evidence

as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done

:Laugh ---

It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know you did it

-even there's no evidence you did.

If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.

If you still don't get read Kafka

Bjorn Andresen 6 days ago
This is true, all of this could have easily been avoided if the US stopped meddling and withdrew its troops from the former USSR. People like Taylor and Kent show there is an agenda to start a war with Russia. Hopefully the upcoming Ukraine-Russia peace summit can settle this conflict.
Sid Finster 6 days ago
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.

2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.

3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.

Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.

SatirevFlesti 6 days ago
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.

Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy" in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.

EliteCommInc. TheSnark 6 days ago
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin

1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false

this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date against Russia despite the lack of evidence

as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done

:Laugh ---

It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know you did it

-even there's no evidence you did.

If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.

If you still don't get read Kafka

Bjorn Andresen ben benis 5 days ago
That's a strawman and there's nothing to refute, the article is correct. Because the US government and CFR globalist thinkers like Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Friedman, and George Soros have talked about the geopolitical importance of Ukraine since the 1990s -- read Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard from 1996, where talks about the need for the US to take control of Ukraine from Russia to prevent Russia from becoming a great power that can challenge US global hegemony, or Soros' admission on a 60 Minutes interview from 1998 that he has invested billions in Ukraine, particularly in the Ukrainian military. As Brzezinski says, the US was quick to recognise the geopolitical importance of an independent Ukrainian state, and became one of Ukraine's strongest backers in the 1990s for this reason. Globalist plans for Ukraine go back many years.

Polls before the Maidan show most Ukrainians had a very positive image of Russia as well, and increasingly people in Ukraine are getting tired of the war, which is why they voted massively for Zelensky over Poroshenko.

alex renk 6 days ago
When I look at our foreign policy, before Trump, you have to go back to Reagan to have any semblance of policy based in reality. While Trump is kinda of a bull in a china shop, at least he highlights some of the asinine policies the 'experts' have been pursuing.
TISO_AX2 6 days ago
Hat tip to Patrick Buchanan.
Lynn 6 days ago
Russia's objection to US and EU interference into Ukrainian politics makes as much sense as US objection. would if Russia were in Mexico attempting to draw them into a confederation with Moscow.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) =marco01= 5 days ago
He may be as immoral as hell. Most of them, R or D, are, in case you haven't noticed. The fact is, there's still no factual evidence he committed any impeachable in this specific case.
Harry Taft 6 days ago
So, if the employees of the government who are involved in international affairs do not agree with the President, the President is accused of an impeachable offense? These two are not patriots in the usual sense. Nor are they public servants. They see themselves as somehow above the Law. Above the Constitution. Applauded by those trying ever since the election to bring down a President. Seditionists.
doug masnaghetti 6 days ago
The last 30 years has been a complete disaster for US foreign diplomacy. We are being led by complete morons! Trump is a big step in the right direction.
J House 6 days ago
The fact is, it was a U.S. sponsored coup by the Obama administration that overthrew a democratically elected government in Ukraine. Here is the Feb 2015 Obama CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria...note that Obama says 'Yanukovich fleeing AFTER we brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine'...incredible. Play Hide
Bjorn Andresen john 5 days ago
Why is it wrong and improper to know whether or not a presidential candidate's family was involved in corrupt dealings abroad? But that's not even the question, because the issue of what Trump may or may not have done is not the real issue. DC is full of corruption and none of it is ever punished, so we know that's not what they care about. What this is about is Trump's disagreement with the establishment on Russia-Ukraine policy and the greater geopolitical picture. Thinking this is about some minutiae over who said what on a phone call and what he mayor may not have really meant is naive and ignorant of the true nature of politics. These situations are not compartmentalised, these have to be seen from the the big picture of geopolitics.
morning_in_america 6 days ago
He sensible policy would be to Finlandize Ukraine and Byelorus. NATO would not have them as members and Russia would let them pursue economic ties with Europe. This worked for Finland through put the Cold War and kept the region peaceful
Ellen K 6 days ago
This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief. That's a problem.

When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. Why? Who is Vindman reporting to if not the President? Too many of these folks act as if the change in administrations is merely a formality to which they can choose to embrace or not. Almost without exception, we have seen testimony from people whose personal history is in the Russian/Ukraine theater and who have family and history there. This is problematic. If anyone ever looked and sounded the part of a mole, it was Vindman today.

Reggie 6 days ago
These maniacs are provoking nuclear war. They fail to understand that, unlike 50 years ago when America had a decentralized industrial economy and banking system, 2 large nukes aimed at NYC and DC would destroy the country.
john 6 days ago
This is the only conservative site worth reading. I do love me some serious and deep analysis from Conservatives in important geopolitical issues. God for a return to the days of Buckley. It would be glorious.
Hey now 6 days ago
Fantastic analysis of the 3D chess game. But we are talking about Biden and Clinton so we need not overthink this. Obama gave 1 billion of taxpayer money to Ukraine. Ukraine gave Burisma some of that according the government of the UK. And once Burisma was in receipt of our aid funds, millions flow through right back to the very same bad actors like Biden who directly controlled the one billion in foreign aid. I wish this was more complicated. I wish it made Americans seem smarter. But to this old guy it seems like a good old fashioned and very simple run of the mill scam . And in this scam the only person we know for fact cashed the checks is Biden.

Come on Barr. It's time to do what we all know what needs to be done.

Disgruntled2012 6 days ago
"But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion?"

An excellent question. The cold war is over. We won. We don't need to keep fighting it. Russia is not that much of a threat to us.

Jonathan Galt 5 days ago
Think about it. Our State Department has been in operation for well over 100 years in some form or another. Are we ANY safer? Fire them all. No pension for failure.
MPNavrozjee 5 days ago • edited
For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.

Putin is a serious strategist – on the premises of Russian history. Understanding US values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point among US policymakers.

-- Henry A. Kissinger in 2014 at the start of the Ukraine crisis (writing in the Washington Post.)

PierrePendre 5 days ago
I cannot believe that the State Department was unaware of the intertwined history of Russia and the Ukraine or rather given State's rigid worldview I can believe it. The Russians knew perfectly well that the United States was pulling the strings of the so-called Maidan revolution and that the end would be to plant Nato and the EU right on Russia's doorstep.

Previous attempts to push Nato into parts of the south of the former Soviet empire had been fought off. Nothing could be more predictable than that the Kremlin would do everything it could to oppose what it saw as hostile interference in the Ukraine on behalf of "reformers". The US plays by the same rules. Cuba and the earlier Monroe doctrine are prize exhibits.

Obama slotted temperamentally into the State Department worldview or maybe it was the other way round. It was a worldview that got the Middle East profoundly wrong at every turn including misundertanding the Arab Spring, support for the deeply anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood, the appeasement and promotion of Iran, the abandonment of the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, the destruction of Libya as a going concern and how to tackle Syria. If there was an opportunity to get something wrong, Obama and the bow ties managed it. They left behind a trail of wreckage.

Worst of all, Obama, the great opponent of nuclear proliferation, turned out to be its greatest enabler but ensured that he would be long out of office when it happened and the media started asking "who lost Iran?" If Obama achieved one thing, it was finally to kill off nuclear non-proliferation as a viable ambition. A nuclear Iran isn't just a threat to its neighours. It is a direct missile threat to the EU which has happily collaborated in advancing Iranian power.

Unsurprisingiy, Trump rejected all this and it is for this that he is vilified by the foreign police dinosaurs who try to delude the nation into believing that even when what they do ends in manifest disaster, there is no alternative. There is hardly a word leaked by the foreign policy to the willingly ignorant media that is not a lie. The mess is theirs and they hate Trump for wakening Americans up to their self-serving, somnolent incompetence.

The usual response to posts like this is to accuse the writer of being a traitrous Putin lover. On the contrary, know thy enemy. The maxim doesn't mean have a beer with him. It means understand him.

MFH 5 days ago
Excellent statement of the "Thucydides trap" argument for caution regarding Russia and its traditional sphere of concern. But Merry leaves us with a cliffhanger: what is the sound US Russian policy given his concerns and cautions? Moreover, his rendition is vulnerable to a counterargument, namely, that Putin's Russia has gone far beyond the seizure or control of "protective lands" towards an encirclement or menacing of Europe. This can be seen unfolding in Russia's military presence on Syria's (and potentially Libya's) Mediterranean coast, its sale of weapons to Turkey, its connivance with Iran's Middle Eastern proxy wars, and the potential for petro-blackmail of its energy customers. Add to this the affirmative case for European interest in Poland, whose capital Warsaw is exposed to attack from its eastern and southern flanks just as Moscow is immediately threatened from its western and southern flanks. Perhaps all this just confirms how far down the path to the "Thucydides trap" the principal parties have traveled. Yet, all the same, on what grounds do we rationalize Russian inroads into the Mediterranean? Free navigation of the seas?
D Gamboa 5 days ago
I like this article but Russia is no longer a declining power technically. It's GDP is slowly rising again in the last few years. They did take a hit from sanctions and low oil prices but they are staring to recover to some degree.

Russians like Putin because their economy is much better now than it was during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The problem this country has with Russia is that they were a declining power and now are back on the rise. China is more of a threat but the imbeciles in the establishment keep focusing on trying to undermine Russian security. They seem to really believe Putin is their enemy without realizing the overwhelming majority of Russians have issues with our stupid foreign policy.

Google Russian GDP, especially through time, and you'll see what I mean.

kuddels 5 days ago
Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous"?
The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and such. Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at the local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.
Kelly Wright 5 days ago
One thing that few appreciate is that US actions in the Ukraine in 2013/14 prompted Russian retaliation in the 2016 election. The Russians had been playing by our rules. (Party of the Regions won a free and fair election in the Ukraine) and then we supported a violent extra-constitutional takeover.The Obama administration wanted to see a repeat of the performance in Kiev, in Moscow with Putin playing the part of Yanukovych. The Russian response was to attack the fault lines in American Society. Their ultimate goal is to see the kind of rioting in the US that we had supported in Kiev in the Winter of 14.
Jonathan Gillispie 5 days ago
American diplomacy has become dangerously simplistic and one-dimensional in outlook. Turkey bad, Kurds good. Iran bad, Israel good. Russia bad, Ukraine and NATO good. You try talking with Russia, Iran or Turkey you'll be crucified in domestic politics. Russia on the other hand doesn't have this simplistic view. They wisely recognize that the world is varying shades of gray.
Connecticut Farmer 2 days ago
Excellent piece. Bottom line: the Ukraine is within Russia's "sphere of influence", not ours. Not our problem. The last time a major power attempted to insert itself within another country's sphere of influence was in 1962. Anybody remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?
James Schumaker a day ago • edited
Mr. Merry is entitled to his point of view, but I find his remarks to be out of touch -- sort of like another "Chicken Kiev" speech with the date "2019" slapped on it. Perhaps he would benefit from a couple of tours of duty in Kyiv, like George Kent and Bill Taylor. Then he would appreciate the fact that the United States does have real interests in preserving Ukrainian sovereignty, along with the independence of all the former Soviet states who have split off from Russia. He should also not be so quick to characterize Kent's and Taylor's testimony. They were in Congress not to express a policy position on Russia, but to act as fact witnesses to the potentially impeachable actions of the President and his circle. So, let's not get into conspiracy theories about what "elites" believe. It's one short step from that to muttering darkly about the 'Deep State" and Comet Pizza.

[Nov 25, 2019] These folks are not latter-day De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer

Nov 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

kuddels 5 days ago

Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous"?

The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and such.

Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at the local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.

[Nov 25, 2019] Something about chickenhawk Nuland

Nov 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

bournite 6 days ago

Destiny's Children

Victoria Nuland is a storybook kind of name you could hang on an actress. It's a good fit for the reigning princess of an over the rainbow place where rulers are wise and peasants are prosperous. If such a Eurotopia doesn't already exist, well, it ought to and it can. Euro-crats just have to change course and put subjects of the realm on the path to enlightenment. That's a route you can only traverse, incidentally, by shutting up and keeping the hind quarters of an enlightened one in front of you for the trip.

In the real world Madame Nuland is an employee of the US State Department who, for the time being, goes by the title Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. Her magnetism is metaphysically bipolar. It magically keeps Democrats and Republicans equally attracted. All that charm can throw circuit breakers when she try's turning it on foreigners and reporters. The lady made her splash into the annals of international intrigue after a phone call to the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, was recorded by a third party and put on YouTube in February 2014. "I think we are in play," Pyatt declares, from there he and the boss picked who else got to play, and who didn't, in Ukraine's interim government. They didn't seem to notice the elected one was still in office.

Only 2 months before Nuland bragged to Ukrainians about the 5.5 billion America invested to purchase democracy for the ex-SSR. In the private phone discussion it sounded more like all that scratch went to taking political decisions out of the hands of 44 million people. "I don't think Klitsch should go into the government," Nuland monarchically decides, "I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea" "I think Yats (banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience."

The mainstream press didn't make much of the un-democratic scheming going on at the time. The Assistant Secretary colorfully distracted the world from the substance of the conversation with the line: "Fuck the EU." Americans weren't offended. They take their princesses with a pinch of salt these days.

Ladies who speak for the US Diplomatic corps are just as good faking hypersensitivity as any man. Jen Psaki called the leaked call "a new low in Russian tradecraft." News of NSA listening in on their private conversations still kept foreign leaders distant and surly in early 2014. Psaki must have meant that our side would never stoop to spilling dirt that juicy to the rabble. Only a madman shares the fruits of "tradecraft" with all those little nobodies plying trades. Free world rulers need freedom from scrutiny. Otherwise the governed classes might get the idea they've been manipulated.

So far the US government has provided no evidence the Russians let everybody else in on the tidy little plot. It's possible a prankster with a contraption available on the internet for $50 pulled it off. The question of who the rat was lost some relevance March 11th. 2014. That's when the people of Crimea declared independence from the state of Ukraine. The plot thickened when they voted to re-Russify 5 days later. The audacity of self-determination unified opinions throughout the major media and DC double-think-tanking circuits. News-mouths, from MSNBC to Fox and everywhere in between, were just as uncompromising about Ukraine staying together as they were about Serbia breaking apart 15 years earlier. Plebiscites equal rebellious chaos when Foggy Bottom doesn't approve.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, that's "Yats" to BFFs, laid down the law to Crimean pols who dared to allow the referendum as soon as Nuland turned him loose:

"We will find all of them-if it takes one year, two years-and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn under their feet."

Yats received 7% of votes cast in the 2010 general election for president. The Rada (Ukrainian parliament) made him interim prime minister by 371 to 1 February 27, 2014. Earlier in the month the far more popular Viltali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok were considered more likely contenders. What neither of them had, as the infamous phone call revealed, was Nuland backing him up. Naturally Arseniy doesn't think the man on the street has any business voting without his, or US, supervision.

In January Mr. Yatsenyuk was in Germany and made the following remarks to ARD (German PBS) interviewer Pinar Atalay:

"Russian aggression in Ukraine is an attack on world order and order in Europe. All of us still clearly remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany". - [born in 1974, Yats' vivid memory rivals Bill O'Reilly's]-"That has to be avoided. And nobody has the right to rewrite the results of Second World War. And that is exactly what Russia's President Putin is trying to do."

Putin, 22 years closer to the war, may need help with Arseniy's references. Yats is either getting his wars or his results mixed up. The Institute for Historical Review wouldn't get caught running his revision. Details of Russian "aggression" in the Ukraine are sketchy even to the ones hellbent on making the most of it. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Sub-Committee March 10th Nuland testified:

"This manufactured conflict-controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers expense-has cost the lives of more than 6000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russian sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies."

All that big talk wasn't accompanied by a single photograph from a drone, a satellite, a journalist, a spy or even a cellphone. Victoria, who once called Russian espionage "pretty impressive", hasn't been dazzling anyone with the American brand. Did Snowden exaggerate all that super-duper snoopology? Have the separatists outwitted the NSA by staying in touch with Putin's army using smoke signals? At least Colin Powell gave us pictures of a trailer park as proof of Saddam's treachery.

When pressed by Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) on Russian losses, Nuland put the numbers at between 4 and 500. Corker sounded disappointed with less than 1000. No source was provided for the figure or the "more than 6000 Ukrainians." When asked if "In practical terms does that [Russian action] constitute an invasion?" Nuland responded: "We have used that word in the past, yes." The Guardian put out a fairly comprehensive article March 4th detailing the administration's avoidance of the term. Some White House midwives are finding the patient less pregnant than others. If the two countries are at war it's a weird one. Throughout the conflict Russia has never cut off fuel flow to Ukraine completely. This is only one contradiction to the brutal clash State continually describes.

Things are awfully complicated in Ukraine and particularly the Donbass region. 2010 demographic maps mark a stark east-west geographic divide between those who voted for and against deposed President Yanucovych. There's no question the fugitive chief-exec enjoyed his most intense support among Russian speaking Ukrainians. The fact remains he was run out of town on a rail over an economic treaty particularly loathed by ultra-nationalist types with a high tolerance for Nazi-style ideals. What would be the reaction of the US press if a Russian Foreign Service employee, one rung below Sergei Lavrov himself, crowed to the media about handing out sandwiches during the Occupy protests or at the Bundy Ranch the way Nuland has?

Meanwhile the best "intelligence" on Putin's skullduggery we've got from our woman in Kiev so far are grainy pictures of "a bearded man clearly a GRU agent." Wow, in East Ukraine? Near a Russian Naval base and several divisions of troops? Now there's a dastardly plot no one could have suspected. The Ukraine was a part of Russia for well over 200 years. Did idealists who grew up a continent and an ocean away really expect to dismantle the empire without any adjustments? American interventionists are like street urchins pouncing on a handful of coins dropped by an old man.

Back in 2005, shortly after Americans learned how urgently our attention was necessary there, Foreign Affairs began its "Ukraine's Orange Revolution" article:

"Razom nas bahato! Nas ne podolaty!"-"Together we are many! We cannot be defeated!"

This was the chant of protesters who refused to accept Yanukovich's first election in a November 2004 runoff. The reform candidate, Victor Yushchenko, maintained a clear lead in exit polling and worldwide media called fraud. Ukraine's Supreme Court mandated a new poll that Yushchenko won. During a five year term the president fired his own government and dissolved the Rada twice. Things were in constant upheaval. In the 2010 election the incumbent couldn't even muster 6% of the vote. Yanukovoch's victory went undisputed this time.

On his way out of office Yushchenko made Stepan Bandera, a nationalist who cooperated extensively with the Nazis, official Hero of Ukraine. Results like this took no wind from the sails of US internationalists keen for another go stirring the pot in Kiev. American "experts" never notice anything disturbing about pro-western Ukrainians nostalgia for the Axis. Yet they find fascism in any movement that doesn't kneel before political convention here at home. The US Constitution is the threat keeping the DHS up at night. People who go camping with founding documents and firearms threaten to lay siege on the District of Columbia any moment. Don't get distracted by how many times Mein Kamf makes book of the month with the State Department's foreign friends.

During testimony Nuland presented a list of chores American taxpayers are pitching in on:

"With U.S. support -- including a $1 billion loan guarantee last year and $355 million in foreign assistance and technical advisors -- the Ukrainian government is:

And there's more support on the way. The President's budget includes an FY16 request of $513.5 million -- almost six times more than our FY14 request -- to build on these efforts."

Jet-setting from the East coast to East Europe the Assistant Secretary is above petty details of uninsulated vulnerability to a whipsawing economy here at home. A legion of retirees who fought against Yats' favorite side in WWII are living out their days in poorly insulated energy inefficient structures under the stars and stripes. Where shakedowns are concerned Foggy Bottom better circulate a memo on the asset forfeiture controversy that's been raging stateside nearly 30 years now. Teddy Roosevelt started reforming the police before he got to Washington. News is they're still shooting unarmed people in the back. Just yesterday the Washington Post front-paged a piece on people convicted on phony evidence from the FBI crime lab. Only a tiny fraction of such cases have been reviewed so far. Meanwhile we get another story of unscrupulous prosecutors railroading innocent victims to the penitentiary at least weekly. The US is no position to offer any country "criminal justice advisers." Deregulating agriculture is a great idea but shouldn't we try it first?

The Euro-cracy that won WWI tried micro-managing the broken pieces of Ottoman Empire 90 some years ago. Their first major accomplishment was a massacre in Smyrna. Further efforts have blessed the east Mediterranean with bloodthirsty dictators, Qutbists, Ba'athists, ISIS and the like. Treaties like Sevres and Laussanne have helped keep the War, which started in Europe 1914 and ended there in 1945, going on in Asia Minor to this day.

The idea that US influence, meddling or intervention will transform Ukraine into Winthrop's "city upon a hill" is a highly combustible fantasy. Ideologues from fancy universities, foundations and think-tanks understanding of Ukraine, and world history, is as shallow as it was in Afghanistan in the 80's and Iraq 20 years later. People will inevitably be hurt as an ancient empire dissolves and settles. Outsider intrusions will metastasize the process into the kind of catastrophe the world has seen before, and continues to witness today.

An egotistical desire for an entry in history books and the grip of an insatiable insecurity industry are the motives driving the princes and princesses of our realm. Each of these forces is bad enough by itself. Combined they guarantee an ugly ending.

[Nov 25, 2019] WSWS: This utterly reactionary, pro-imperialist role played by the USA was demonstrated Friday in the tribute that Yovanovitch paid, in the course of her testimony, to Arsen Avakov, the Ukrainian interior minister

This is a replay of Vietnam Communist Domino Theory. May all those neocons rest in Eternal Hell.
Notable quotes:
"... Now is not the time to retreat from our relationship with Ukraine, but rather to double down on it. As we sit here, Ukrainians are fighting a hot war on Ukrainian territory against Russian aggression. ..."
"... I went to the front line approximately 10 times during a hot war sometimes literally as we heard the impact of artillery, and to see how our assistance dollars were being put to use. ..."
"... Ukraine, with an enormous land mass and a large population, has the potential to be a significant force multiplier on the security side And now Ukraine is a battleground for great power competition with a hot war for the control of territory and a hybrid war to control Ukraine's leadership. ..."
"... She explained that the US-funded and fascist-led "Maidan Revolution" of 2014, which she and other State Department officials absurdly called the "Revolution of Dignity," was part of this conflict. "That's why they launched the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, demanding to be a part of Europe," she declared. ..."
"... Diplomat George Kent invoked the same theme in his testimony last Wednesday, saying: ..."
"... Ukraine's popular Revolution of Dignity in 2014 forced a corrupt pro-Russian leadership to flee to Moscow. After that, Russia invaded Ukraine, occupying seven percent of its territory, roughly equivalent to the size of Texas for the United States ..."
"... Since then, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression. American support in Ukraine's own de facto war of independence has been critical in this regard. ..."
"... Kent subsequently compared the role of the United States in the Ukrainian civil war to that of Spain and France in the American War of Independence. In that conflict, Spain and France were officially at war with Great Britain, including formal declarations of war in 1778 and 1779. ..."
"... If Kent's analogy is true, then the United States is in an undeclared war with Russia. ..."
"... But when has this war ever been discussed with the American people? Was there ever a congressional vote to authorize it? ..."
"... When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces," she said, threatening the "president, or anyone else, [who] impedes or subverts the national security of the United States. ..."
"... "In an otherwise divided Washington, one of the few issues of bipartisan agreement for the past six years has been countering Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's broad plan of disruption. That effort starts in Ukraine, where there has been a hot war underway in the east for five years " ..."
"... @wendy davis ..."
"... @jim p ..."
"... @lotlizard ..."
"... Mykola Zlochevsky, former employer of Hunter Biden and current partner of the Atlantic Council ..."
"... @lotlizard ..."
"... @Linda Wood ..."
"... @snoopydawg ..."
"... @wendy davis ..."
"... @snoopydawg ..."
"... @snoopydawg ..."
"... @snoopydawg ..."
"... @wendy davis ..."
"... @Pluto's Republic ..."
"... @Pluto's Republic ..."
"... @wendy davis ..."
"... @Pluto's Republic ..."
"... @Linda Wood ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

' Who decided the US should fight a "hot war" with Russia? ', 23 November 2019 . Andre Damon, wsws

"There is a saying attributed to the banker J.P. Morgan: " A man always has two reasons for what he does -- a good one and the real one ."

If the alleged "organized crime shakedown" by Trump was the "good" reason for the impeachment inquiry, the "real" reason has emerged over two weeks of public congressional hearings. The hearings have lifted the lid on a massive US conspiracy to spend billions of dollars to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014 and foment a civil war that has led to the deaths of thousands of people.

The impeachment drive is itself the product of efforts by sections of the intelligence agencies and elements within the State Department to escalate Washington's conflict with Russia, with potentially world-catastrophic consequences.

(the photo)
https://www.wsws.org/asset/b1b0532e-c1c2-4265-851c-7585d61378ab?renditio...

On Thursday, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell showed a photo of Ukrainian President Zelensky in body armor on the "front lines" of the civil war in eastern Ukraine. He asked the State Department witnesses "why it's so important that our hard-earned tax dollars help President Zelensky and the men standing beside him fight Russia in this hot war?"

David Holmes, political counselor at the US embassy in Kiev, replied:

Now is not the time to retreat from our relationship with Ukraine, but rather to double down on it. As we sit here, Ukrainians are fighting a hot war on Ukrainian territory against Russian aggression.

Later in his testimony, Holmes pointed to the massive sums expended by the United States and its European allies to fight this "hot war," saying the US had provided $5 billion and its European allies $12 billion since 2014.
In her testimony last week, the former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich recalled that as ambassador:

I went to the front line approximately 10 times during a hot war sometimes literally as we heard the impact of artillery, and to see how our assistance dollars were being put to use.

She added:

Ukraine, with an enormous land mass and a large population, has the potential to be a significant force multiplier on the security side And now Ukraine is a battleground for great power competition with a hot war for the control of territory and a hybrid war to control Ukraine's leadership.

She explained that the US-funded and fascist-led "Maidan Revolution" of 2014, which she and other State Department officials absurdly called the "Revolution of Dignity," was part of this conflict. "That's why they launched the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, demanding to be a part of Europe," she declared.

Diplomat George Kent invoked the same theme in his testimony last Wednesday, saying:

Ukraine's popular Revolution of Dignity in 2014 forced a corrupt pro-Russian leadership to flee to Moscow. After that, Russia invaded Ukraine, occupying seven percent of its territory, roughly equivalent to the size of Texas for the United States

Since then, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression. American support in Ukraine's own de facto war of independence has been critical in this regard.

Kent subsequently compared the role of the United States in the Ukrainian civil war to that of Spain and France in the American War of Independence. In that conflict, Spain and France were officially at war with Great Britain, including formal declarations of war in 1778 and 1779.

If Kent's analogy is true, then the United States is in an undeclared war with Russia.

But when has this war ever been discussed with the American people? Was there ever a congressional vote to authorize it? Does anyone believe that if the question, "Do you want to spend billions of dollars to help Ukraine fight a war with Russia," were posed to the American public, the percentage answering yes would be anything more than minuscule? Of course, that question was never asked." [snip]

"But in the congressional hearings this week, government officials declared that any questioning of this aid is virtually treasonous. In her testimony on Thursday, former National Security Council officer Fiona Hill accused anyone who questions that "Ukraine is a valued partner" of the United States of advancing "Russian interests. "

" When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces," she said, threatening the "president, or anyone else, [who] impedes or subverts the national security of the United States. "

In 2017, Hill penned a blog post for the Brookings Institution calling Trump a "Bolshevik," echoing statements made more than 60 years ago by John Birch Society leader Robert W. Welch, who declared that President Eisenhower was a "communist."

Underlying the mad allegations of the Democrats that Trump is functioning as a "Russian asset" is a very real content: The extremely dangerous drive by factions within the state for a military confrontation between the United States and Russia, whose combined nuclear weapons arsenals are capable of destroying all of humanity many times over.

There is no "peace" faction within the American political establishment. No credence can be given to either one of the parties of US imperialism, which have, over the course of decades, presided over the toppling of dozens of governments, the launching of countless wars and the deaths of millions of people."

Patrick Martin from his Oct. 16, 2019 ' The Trump impeachment and US policy in Ukraine '

"This utterly reactionary, pro-imperialist role was demonstrated Friday in the tribute that Yovanovitch paid, in the course of her testimony, to Arsen Avakov, the Ukrainian interior minister (head of the domestic police) under both the current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko. Avakov is a principal sponsor of fascist militias such as the Azov Battalion , which glorify the Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II against the Soviet Union. In other words, the State Department officials being celebrated in the media for defending American democracy are actually working with the fascists in Ukraine .

While Yovanovitch hailed Avakov, Kent cited as his heroes among immigrants who have rallied to the defense of the United States Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger, two of the biggest war criminals of the second half of the twentieth century ." [snip]
""The connection between the impeachment drive and differences on foreign policy was spelled out Friday on the front page of the New York Times, in an analysis by the newspaper's senior foreign policy specialist, David Sanger, a frequent mouthpiece for the concerns of the CIA, State Department and Pentagon, under the headline, " For President, Case of Policy vs. Obsession." [snip]

But Sanger goes on to spell out, in remarkably blunt terms, the real foreign policy issues at stake in the Trump impeachment. He writes,

"In an otherwise divided Washington, one of the few issues of bipartisan agreement for the past six years has been countering Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's broad plan of disruption. That effort starts in Ukraine, where there has been a hot war underway in the east for five years "

Trump, according to Sanger, has betrayed the anti-Russia policy outlined by his own administration in a Pentagon strategic assessment which declared that the "war on terror" had been superseded as the top US priority by "great-power competition," particularly directed at China and Russia. He sacrificed this policy to his own personal, electoral interests, as expressed in the comment by the US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland: "President Trump cares more about the investigation of Biden" than about the military conflict between Ukraine and Russia."


edg on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 12:12pm

Don't mess with the Deep State.

They'll bust both your kneecaps and then fit you with cement overshoes and toss you into the ocean. Trump is finding out the hard way that entrenched interests in the US government wield vast veto power over anything a president wants to do.

edg on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 5:05pm
I wonder if Trump gets anything.

@wendy davis

He's his own worst enemy with his self-sabotaging Twitter rants, endless character assassinations, hastily burnt bridges, and conflicting statements that change based upon the last person he talked to. Trump doesn't inspire loyalty in those who work for him and around him. OTOH, that doesn't excuse the Deep State, an unelected cabal secretly running our government and risking our lives with endless wars and Russia baiting. If impeachment has shown nothing else, it's that the Deep State is real and usually gets its way.

jim p on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 1:59pm
They forget to mention

almost all the casualties are Russian speakers in the East. Back in the early coup days there were 37 claims that Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Which turned out to be none. I still remember when Pravda in New York had a blurred photo they claimed to be a Russ officer (and how do you get blurring in the digital age) which turned out to be a Ukranian officer facebook photo. They never explained how that happened.

wendy davis on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 9:59pm
'failed to mention'...

@jim p

great context. kent's number 13,000, and yes, they were likely all Novoroosians , if he hadn't pulled that figure out of his ass, anyway. photos of 'little green men' in ancient soviet uniforms, old tanks left over from the days of yore.

was kent counting the dead inside the trade unions massacre in odessa petrol-bombed by the neo-nazis?

lotlizard on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 2:03pm
David Stockman probes recent events in the Ukraine,

putting them in the context of the region's deeper past. The first two parts of a series.

Links are also given for the same articles at Antiwar.com (though for me at the moment that website times out without responding):

wendy davis on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 4:39pm
they look like fascinating

@lotlizard

in depth reads for later, and thank you, miz lizard. funny that the Atlantic council (at least one version) had chosen Zelenskiy based on promises to end corruption (read: so ukraine could have the lucre to enter Nato). and yet, he'd kept 9as per the photo caption) Mykola Zlochevsky, former employer of Hunter Biden and current partner of the Atlantic Council in hi cabinet, isn't it?

wendy davis on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 8:36am
so that others might

@lotlizard

be encouraged to read your stockman links to his 'The Ukrainian Influence Peddling Rings – A Microcosm of How Imperial Washington Rolls', David Stockman, November 13, 2019 , i'll offer a few excerpts. i rarely (if ever) call anything a 'must read', but even you, voice, might want to dig into this one (part I of II, if i get his drift).

i'm assumming his historical narrative is correct, as all the pieces i do know about are there are well, but what he writes i hadn't known is key, of course. his language is also colorful as all giddy-up, which i like, and good on him. he's lost me a bit in some sections, as he names names, lobbying firms, and so on, but that's on me, not stockman.

"The latest dispatch from the Wall Street Journal on the stench wafting westward from Kiev reveals more about the rotten foundation of UkraineGate than its authors probably understood.

Burisma Holdings' campaign to clean up its image in the West reached beyond the 2014 hiring of Hunter Biden, son of the then-U.S. vice president, to include other well-connected operatives in Washington, according to officials in both countries and government records.

The Ukrainian company, owned by tycoon Mykola Zlochevsky, also hired a lobbyist with close ties to then-Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as a consulting group founded by top officials in the Clinton administration that specialized in preparing former Soviet-bloc countries to join NATO (Blue Star Strategies).

Soon the efforts bore fruit. With the help of a New York-based lawyer, Mr. Zlochevsky's U.S. consultants argued to Ukrainian prosecutors that criminal cases against the company should be closed because no laws had been broken.

Burisma later became a sponsor of a Washington think tank, the Atlantic Council, whose experts are often cited on energy and security policy in the former Soviet Union.

Simple translation: Zlochevsky was an ally, officeholder (minister of ecology and natural resources) and inner-circle thief in the ousted government of Viktor Yanukovych. He therefore needed to powder the pig fast and thoroughly in order to hold onto his ill-gotten billions.""
[longish snip of a who's who involvement]...................

"Finally, the Clinton wing of the Washington racketeering system had to be covered, too – hence the above mentioned Blue Star Strategies. And the bolded sentence from the WSJ story quoted below tells you all you need to know about its business, which was to " .help former Soviet countries prepare for NATO consideration".

That's right. With the Soviet Union gone, its 50,000 tanks on the central front melted-down for scrap and the Warsaw Pact disbanded, the rational order of the day was to declare "mission accomplished" for NATO and effect its own disbandment.

The great parachuter and then US president, George Bush the Elder, could have actually made a jump right into the giant Ramstein Air Base in Germany to effect its closure. At that point there was no justification for NATO's continued existence whatsoever.

But the Clinton Administration, under the baleful influence of Washington busybodies like Strobe Talbot and Madeleine Albright, went in just the opposite direction. In pursuit of Washington's post-1991 quest for global hegemony as the world's only superpower and putative keeper of the peace, they prepared the way for the entirety of the old Warsaw Pact to join NATO.

So doing, however, they also laid the planking for a revival of the cold war with the Kremlin. As the father of containment and NATO during the late 1940s, Ambassador George Kennan, observed at the time, the Clinton Administration's policy of expanding NATO to the very doorstep of Russia was a colossal mistake." [longish snip]
...............................
"So that's how the Imperial City rolls. People make policies which extend the Empire while in office – as did these Clintonistas with the NATO expansion project – and then cash-in afterwards by peddling influence in the corridors of the beltway on behalf of Washington's newly acquired vassals and supplicants.

In this case, all roads lead to the Atlantic Council, which is the semi-official "think tank" of NATO in Washington and is infested with Russophobes and Clinton/Biden operatives. The latter, of course, make a handsome living peddling anti-Putin propaganda – the better to grease the Washington purse strings for unneeded military spending and foreign aid, security assistance and weapons sales to the "front line" states allegedly in the path of Kremlin aggression."

thank you, miz lizard. love this title of his on the sidebar: ' Democrats Empower a Pack of Paranoid Neocon Morons '. ; )

i'll grab part II and read it greedily when i have more time.

putting them in the context of the region's deeper past. The first two parts of a series.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/david-stockman-exposes-ukrainian-...

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/david-stockman-exposes-ukrainian-...

Links are also given for the same articles at Antiwar.com (though for me at the moment that website times out without responding):

https://original.antiwar.com/david_stockman/2019/11/12/the-ukrainian-inf...

https://original.antiwar.com/david_stockman/2019/11/21/democrats-empower...

Linda Wood on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 2:12pm
Azov Battallion

and U.S. support:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion

The Special Operations Detachment "Azov", often known as Azov Battalion, Azov Regiment, or Azov Detachment, (Ukrainian: Полк Азов) is a Ukrainian National Guard regiment,[1][2][3][4] based in Mariupol in the Azov Sea coastal region.

In 2014, it gained notoriety after allegations emerged of torture and war crimes, as well as neo-Nazi sympathies and usage of associated symbols by the regiment itself, as seen in their logo featuring the Wolfsangel, one of the original symbols used by the German Nazi Party. In 2014, around 10-20% of the unit were neo-Nazis.[9] In 2018, a provision in an appropriations bill passed by the U.S. Congress blocked military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology. [10] Members of the regiment come from 22 countries and are of various backgrounds.[11]

On 13 April 2014 Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov [nb 1] issued a decree authorizing creating new paramilitary forces from civilians up to 12,000.[22] The Azov Battalion (using "Eastern Corps" as its backbone[20]) was formed on 5 May 2014 in Berdiansk[23] by a white nationalist.[24] Many members of Patriot of Ukraine joined the battalion.[20] Among the early patrons of the battalion were a member of the Verkhovna Rada Oleh Lyashko, and an ultra-nationalist Dmytro Korchynsky and businessman Serhiy Taruta and Avakov.[25][20] The battalion then received training near Kiev by instructors with experience in the Georgian Armed Forces.[

In September 2014, the Azov battalion was expanded from a battalion to a regiment and enrolled into the National Guard of Ukraine.[23][33] At about this time it started receiving increased supplies of heavy arms.[33] The Azov battalion received funding from the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and other sources (believed to be Ukrainian oligarchs).

As of late March 2015, despite a second ceasefire agreement (Minsk II), the Azov Battalion continued to prepare for war, with the group's leader seeing the ceasefire as "appeasement".[33] In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[44][45] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its Neo-Nazi background.[46] After the vote Congressman John Conyers thanked the House saying "I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions."[45]

Since 2015 Azov is organising summer camps where children and teenagers receive practice in civil defense and military tactics mixed with lectures on Ukrainian nationalism.[48][20]

Since 2015 the Battalion has been upgraded to Regimental status and "Azov" is now officially called "Special Operations Regiment" , with combat duties focused on reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, EOD disposal, interdiction and special weapons operations.

Foreign membership [edit]
According to The Daily Telegraph, the Azov Battalion's extremist politics and professional English social media pages have attracted foreign fighters,[30] including people from Brazil, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, France, America, Greece, Scandinavia,[2][30] Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Russia. [2][56][57] About 50 Russian nationals are members of the Azov regiment.[58]

According to Minsk Ceasefire Agreements, foreign fighters are not allowed to serve in Ukraine's military:[66] since "Azov" Regiment was granted full military status, its foreign volunteers were compelled either to take Ukrainian citizenship, or to leave the Regiment.

Human rights violations and war crimes[edit]
Reports published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have connected the Azov Battalion to war crimes such as mass looting, unlawful detention, and torture.[68][69] An OHCHR report from March 2016 stated that the organisation had "collected detailed information about the conduct of hostilities by Ukrainian armed forces and the Azov regiment in and around Shyrokyne (31km east of Mariupol), from the summer of 2014 to date. Mass looting of civilian homes was documented, as well as targeting of civilian areas between September 2014 and February 2015".[68] Another OHCHR report documented an instance of rape and torture

Rodnovery, symbolism and neo-Nazism [edit]

Emblem featuring a Wolfsangel and Black Sun
Most soldiers of Azov are followers of a Ukrainian nationalist type of Rodnovery (Slavic Native Faith), wherefrom they derive some of their symbolism (such as a variation of the swastika symbol kolovrat). They have also established Rodnover shrines for their religious rites, including one in Mariupol dedicated to Perun.[70][71][72][unreliable source] German ZDF television showed images of Azov fighters wearing helmets with swastika symbols and "the SS runes of Hitler's infamous black-uniformed elite corps".[73] Due to the use of such symbols, Azov has been considered to have connections with neo-Nazism, with members wearing neo-Nazi and SS symbols and regalia and expressing Neo-Nazi views.

The group's insignia features the Wolfsangel[78][79][80] and the Black Sun,[78][81][82] two Nazi-era symbols adopted by neo-Nazi groups.

In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision blocking any training of Azov members by American forces, citing its neo-Nazi background. In previous years, between 2014 and 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed amendments banning support of Azov, but due to pressure from the Pentagon, the amendments were quietly lifted.[87][88][89] This move has been protested by Simon Wiesenthal Center which stated that the move highlights danger of Holocaust distortion in Ukraine.[89] On 26 June 2015, the Canadian defence minister declared as well, that training by Canadian forces or support would not be provided to Azov. [90]
While Azov Battalion troops have denied that the organization has any neo-Nazi or white supremacist beliefs, journalists stated that "numerous swastika tattoos of different members and their tendency to go into battle with swastikas or SS insignias drawn on their helmets make it very difficult for other members of the group to plausibly deny any neo-Nazi affiliations" .[85]

wendy davis on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 5:02pm
great info, amiga.

@Linda Wood

no more US training? dunno what to say to that. but i plugged '2018' into a bing search of azov torchlight parades and found this from 2016 instead (although there were some later, as well):

Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Azov battalion [as well as Right Sector' stages torch-lit march in Kharkov (VIDEOS)], 12 Dec, 2016 , RT.com

really according to Eva Bartlett who'd committed journalism in the donbass independent republics, zelenskiy hasn't been able to control them (as promised) either.

it's a good time to remember all who'd invested in the ukraine who had interest in the Maidan putsch, isn't it?

and U.S. support:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion

The Special Operations Detachment "Azov", often known as Azov Battalion, Azov Regiment, or Azov Detachment, (Ukrainian: Полк Азов) is a Ukrainian National Guard regiment,[1][2][3][4] based in Mariupol in the Azov Sea coastal region.

In 2014, it gained notoriety after allegations emerged of torture and war crimes, as well as neo-Nazi sympathies and usage of associated symbols by the regiment itself, as seen in their logo featuring the Wolfsangel, one of the original symbols used by the German Nazi Party. In 2014, around 10-20% of the unit were neo-Nazis.[9] In 2018, a provision in an appropriations bill passed by the U.S. Congress blocked military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology. [10] Members of the regiment come from 22 countries and are of various backgrounds.[11]

On 13 April 2014 Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov [nb 1] issued a decree authorizing creating new paramilitary forces from civilians up to 12,000.[22] The Azov Battalion (using "Eastern Corps" as its backbone[20]) was formed on 5 May 2014 in Berdiansk[23] by a white nationalist.[24] Many members of Patriot of Ukraine joined the battalion.[20] Among the early patrons of the battalion were a member of the Verkhovna Rada Oleh Lyashko, and an ultra-nationalist Dmytro Korchynsky and businessman Serhiy Taruta and Avakov.[25][20] The battalion then received training near Kiev by instructors with experience in the Georgian Armed Forces.[

In September 2014, the Azov battalion was expanded from a battalion to a regiment and enrolled into the National Guard of Ukraine.[23][33] At about this time it started receiving increased supplies of heavy arms.[33] The Azov battalion received funding from the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and other sources (believed to be Ukrainian oligarchs).

As of late March 2015, despite a second ceasefire agreement (Minsk II), the Azov Battalion continued to prepare for war, with the group's leader seeing the ceasefire as "appeasement".[33] In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[44][45] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its Neo-Nazi background.[46] After the vote Congressman John Conyers thanked the House saying "I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions."[45]

Since 2015 Azov is organising summer camps where children and teenagers receive practice in civil defense and military tactics mixed with lectures on Ukrainian nationalism.[48][20]

Since 2015 the Battalion has been upgraded to Regimental status and "Azov" is now officially called "Special Operations Regiment" , with combat duties focused on reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, EOD disposal, interdiction and special weapons operations.

Foreign membership [edit]
According to The Daily Telegraph, the Azov Battalion's extremist politics and professional English social media pages have attracted foreign fighters,[30] including people from Brazil, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, France, America, Greece, Scandinavia,[2][30] Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Russia. [2][56][57] About 50 Russian nationals are members of the Azov regiment.[58]

According to Minsk Ceasefire Agreements, foreign fighters are not allowed to serve in Ukraine's military:[66] since "Azov" Regiment was granted full military status, its foreign volunteers were compelled either to take Ukrainian citizenship, or to leave the Regiment.

Human rights violations and war crimes[edit]
Reports published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have connected the Azov Battalion to war crimes such as mass looting, unlawful detention, and torture.[68][69] An OHCHR report from March 2016 stated that the organisation had "collected detailed information about the conduct of hostilities by Ukrainian armed forces and the Azov regiment in and around Shyrokyne (31km east of Mariupol), from the summer of 2014 to date. Mass looting of civilian homes was documented, as well as targeting of civilian areas between September 2014 and February 2015".[68] Another OHCHR report documented an instance of rape and torture

Rodnovery, symbolism and neo-Nazism [edit]

Emblem featuring a Wolfsangel and Black Sun
Most soldiers of Azov are followers of a Ukrainian nationalist type of Rodnovery (Slavic Native Faith), wherefrom they derive some of their symbolism (such as a variation of the swastika symbol kolovrat). They have also established Rodnover shrines for their religious rites, including one in Mariupol dedicated to Perun.[70][71][72][unreliable source] German ZDF television showed images of Azov fighters wearing helmets with swastika symbols and "the SS runes of Hitler's infamous black-uniformed elite corps".[73] Due to the use of such symbols, Azov has been considered to have connections with neo-Nazism, with members wearing neo-Nazi and SS symbols and regalia and expressing Neo-Nazi views.

The group's insignia features the Wolfsangel[78][79][80] and the Black Sun,[78][81][82] two Nazi-era symbols adopted by neo-Nazi groups.

In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision blocking any training of Azov members by American forces, citing its neo-Nazi background. In previous years, between 2014 and 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed amendments banning support of Azov, but due to pressure from the Pentagon, the amendments were quietly lifted.[87][88][89] This move has been protested by Simon Wiesenthal Center which stated that the move highlights danger of Holocaust distortion in Ukraine.[89] On 26 June 2015, the Canadian defence minister declared as well, that training by Canadian forces or support would not be provided to Azov. [90]
While Azov Battalion troops have denied that the organization has any neo-Nazi or white supremacist beliefs, journalists stated that "numerous swastika tattoos of different members and their tendency to go into battle with swastikas or SS insignias drawn on their helmets make it very difficult for other members of the group to plausibly deny any neo-Nazi affiliations" .[85]

snoopydawg on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 3:23pm
CIA honoring the Nazis in Ukraine

Despite a Jewish President, Ukraine keeps honoring Nazi collabos (with a bit of help from America)

It's great that Ukraine's revisionist far-right politics are at least getting some attention in the press. But what you won't read in these reports is that the U.S. government had recently sponsored a "cultural" exhibit that celebrated the Nazi collaborator who is now getting his own street in Kiev. You can't make this stuff up!

But we have to help the Nazis because Putin's Russia is invading and we owe it to them to.... blehh!

wendy davis on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 5:24pm
holy hell and christ

@snoopydawg

in a canoe!

yasha levine commits good journalism, there too! i'd never even heard of Nil Khasevych nor his Kil the Jews wood block prints. zelenskiy is not only jewish, but russian speaking, ukrainian is his second language as i understand it.

imagine now living on Khasevych; wouldn't you be proud? i'd been on yasha's account recently looking for his take (if any) on the intercept/NYT collaboration on the Iranaian leaks. i'd figured his link to the history if U S meddling at the bottom would speak at length about Pierre Omidyar's investments (centre UA, USAID, etc.) and maybe (then) monsanto/billy gates.

thank you; a whoosh -worthy exposé. do you get his newsletter, snoop?

p.s. on edit: i tried to subscribe, but it costs money. oh, well...

Despite a Jewish President, Ukraine keeps honoring Nazi collabos (with a bit of help from America)

It's great that Ukraine's revisionist far-right politics are at least getting some attention in the press. But what you won't read in these reports is that the U.S. government had recently sponsored a "cultural" exhibit that celebrated the Nazi collaborator who is now getting his own street in Kiev. You can't make this stuff up!

But we have to help the Nazis because Putin's Russia is invading and we owe it to them to.... blehh!

snoopydawg on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 5:48pm
Followed a Twitter link

@wendy davis

There is lots of good info on Twitter about the Ukraine system and corruption. Bibi didn't have any problems dealing with the neo Nazis there either which threw me for a loop. But then it was people in our country that made Hitler's war chest. Bush Sr., Ford and lots of others thought Hitler's system should be implemented here. Oh yeah and of course the banks..

Nunes sums it up perfectly.

Must watch: Low rent Ukrainian Sequel pic.twitter.com/URXgy8ush8

-- Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) November 22, 2019

I don't know how many witnesses have admitted that there is no there there, but people hear what they want to hear Schiff just keeps rolling on.

#6

in a canoe!

Yasha Levine commits good journalism, there too! i'd never even heard of Nil Khasevych nor his Kil the Jews wood block prints. zelenskiy is not only jewish, but russian speaking, ukrainian is his second language as i understand it.

imagine now living on Khasevych; wouldn't you be proud? i'd been on yasha's account recently looking for his take (if any) on the intercept/NYT collaboration on the Iranaian leaks. i'd figured his link to the history if U S meddling at the bottom would speak at length about Pierre Omidyar's investments (centre UA, USAID, etc.) and maybe (then) monsanto/billy gates.

thank you; a whoosh -worthy exposé. do you get his newsletter, snoop?

p.s. on edit: i tried to subscribe, but it costs money. oh, well...

wendy davis on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 8:31pm
lol; great,

@snoopydawg

especially with the editing. but it' like the game of telephone, isn't it? 'he told me he overheard...', and someone told me s he heard..., yada, yada,

but just think if Pelosi hadn't limited the inquiry to One Phone call? 'as trump's puppet, is zelenskiy's claiming 'no quid pro quo worth anything?'

#WhataZoo.

#7

There is lots of good info on Twitter about the Ukraine system and corruption. Bibi didn't have any problems dealing with the neo Nazis there either which threw me for a loop. But then it was people in our country that made Hitler's war chest. Bush Sr., Ford and lots of others thought Hitler's system should be implemented here. Oh yeah and of course the banks..

Nunes sums it up perfectly.

Must watch: Low rent Ukrainian Sequel pic.twitter.com/URXgy8ush8

-- Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) November 22, 2019

I don't know how many witnesses have admitted that there is no there there, but people hear what they want to hear Schiff just keeps rolling on.

snoopydawg on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 7:48pm
Ukraine tried to get Hillary elected is just CT right?

Nah not so much. Numerous websites wrote about it back when it happened just like they wrote about Hunter Biden and Burisma. But now I'm seeing the main stream media trying to tell us that it didn't happen that way. Well here's one article that hasn't been scrubbed yet.

Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire

01/11/2017 05:05 AM EST

Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.

Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia's alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.

Ahh that good ole but. Yes what people in Ukraine did was bad, but.... and here's the but.

Russia's effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, involved the country's military and foreign intelligence services, according to U.S. intelligence officials. They reportedly briefed Trump last week on the possibility that Russian operatives might have compromising information on the president-elect. And at a Senate hearing last week on the hacking, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said " I don't think we've ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we've seen in this case."

There's little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country -- not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia -- would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country's election. And President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.

Yet Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections.

Well there you have it. People in Ukraine were digging up dirt on people in Trump's campaign whilst Vlad only placed a few ads on FB and most of them were placed after the election was over. Badder Russia.

That Ukraine was trying to get Hillary elected was well known in the Ukraine government, but sure let's just say it never happened like that. Then of course there was Hillary hiring people in another country to dig up dirt too, but that doesn't count. Why? Reasons of course and because it was Hillary and the DNC doing it. See? Reasons.

Next paragraph starts with this.

Russia's meddling has sparked outrage from the American body politic. Lots of words about how that outraged people here...and more blah blah blah stuff.

Next paragrap

Ukraine, on the other hand, has traditionally enjoyed strong relations with U.S. administrations. Its officials worry that could change under Trump, whose team has privately expressed sentiments ranging from ambivalence to deep skepticism about Poroshenko's regime, while sounding unusually friendly notes about Putin's regime.

Poroshenko is scrambling to alter that dynamic, recently signing a $50,000-a-month contract with a well-connected GOP-linked Washington lobbying firm to set up meetings with U.S. government officials "to strengthen U.S.-Ukrainian relations."

Hmm hint of a quid pro quo there?

BTW. Lindsay Graham wants to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe says that he will regret doing that for the rest of his life. Stay tuned for the fireworks.

snoopydawg on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 8:06pm
Okay now that we have settled the facts here...

@snoopydawg

there has to be an effort to discredit what happened back then even though it's true.

Charges of Ukrainian Meddling? A Russian Operation, U.S. Intelligence Says

Ahh yes Russia was the one that started that propaganda. Burisma and Biden was always on the up and up so don't even think that they weren't. I really don't know how people who believe everything about Russia Gate and now Ukraine Gate can keep their beliefs intact when there is so much information showing that what they believe is wrong or didn't happen the way they think it did.

Read more about this on Moon of Alabama

Nah not so much. Numerous websites wrote about it back when it happened just like they wrote about Hunter Biden and Burisma. But now I'm seeing the main stream media trying to tell us that it didn't happen that way. Well here's one article that hasn't been scrubbed yet.

Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire

01/11/2017 05:05 AM EST

Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.

Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia's alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.

Ahh that good ole but. Yes what people in Ukraine did was bad, but.... and here's the but.

Russia's effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, involved the country's military and foreign intelligence services, according to U.S. intelligence officials. They reportedly briefed Trump last week on the possibility that Russian operatives might have compromising information on the president-elect. And at a Senate hearing last week on the hacking, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said " I don't think we've ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we've seen in this case."

There's little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country -- not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia -- would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country's election. And President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.

Yet Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections.

Well there you have it. People in Ukraine were digging up dirt on people in Trump's campaign whilst Vlad only placed a few ads on FB and most of them were placed after the election was over. Badder Russia.

That Ukraine was trying to get Hillary elected was well known in the Ukraine government, but sure let's just say it never happened like that. Then of course there was Hillary hiring people in another country to dig up dirt too, but that doesn't count. Why? Reasons of course and because it was Hillary and the DNC doing it. See? Reasons.

Next paragraph starts with this.

Russia's meddling has sparked outrage from the American body politic. Lots of words about how that outraged people here...and more blah blah blah stuff.

Next paragrap

Ukraine, on the other hand, has traditionally enjoyed strong relations with U.S. administrations. Its officials worry that could change under Trump, whose team has privately expressed sentiments ranging from ambivalence to deep skepticism about Poroshenko's regime, while sounding unusually friendly notes about Putin's regime.

Poroshenko is scrambling to alter that dynamic, recently signing a $50,000-a-month contract with a well-connected GOP-linked Washington lobbying firm to set up meetings with U.S. government officials "to strengthen U.S.-Ukrainian relations."

Hmm hint of a quid pro quo there?

BTW. Lindsay Graham wants to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe says that he will regret doing that for the rest of his life. Stay tuned for the fireworks.

wendy davis on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 10:16am
ha, i'd run into that

@snoopydawg

this morning intending to grab some of his quotes and links here: ' November 20, 2019 , Impeachment Circus - Today's Bombshell Is Another Dud one chris cilizza link i'd given to linda wood to see if she or others might parse for me/us.

"The impeachment circus continued today with a refreshingly candid opening statement from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU. Sondland was involved in diplomatic efforts in Ukraine. Instead of stonewalling Sondland just let it all out:

'Gordon D. Sondland testified that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on the pressure campaign, and that he told Vice President Mike Pence about an apparent link between military aid for Ukraine and investigations of Democrats. Mr. Sondland confirmed there was a "clear quid pro quo" for a White House meeting between President Trump and Ukraine's president.'
The anti-Trump media see this as another "bombshell" that will hurt him.

But it is more likely that Sondland's testimony will help President Trump and those involved on his side.

#8

there has to be an effort to discredit what happened back then even though it's true.

Charges of Ukrainian Meddling? A Russian Operation, U.S. Intelligence Says

Ahh yes Russia was the one that started that propaganda. Burisma and Biden was always on the up and up so don't even think that they weren't. I really don't know how people who believe everything about Russia Gate and now Ukraine Gate can keep their beliefs intact when there is so much information showing that what they believe is wrong or didn't happen the way they think it did.

Read more about this on Moon of Alabama

Pluto's Republic on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 3:38pm
Today, Eric Zuesse dropped the most important document

@wendy davis

...I've ever read about Ukraine.

Ukraine, Trump, & Biden - The Real Story Behind "Ukrainegate"

Almost everything Americans have ever been told about US foreign policy is a lie. Almost everything we think we know is still a lie.

The Democrat's immediate goal is to install Mike Pence as President as soon as possible.

Everything depends on this. Pence is the continuation of Obama's Neocon policies in Ukraine and throughout the world. Biden is the premier Neocon on the 2020 ticket. His job is to lie himself into the nomination and pick-up a Neocon Vice President. If he loses to Pence, it doesn't matter. The CFR wins either way. And we're off to war with Russia.

This is a must read for those who want to know what is happening to them. And happening fast.

It will be hard to see the world the same way again.

#9.1

as with a hella busy 3-day weekend, i hadn't intended to, but what with the smoke coming out of my ears and all...

i'd long claimed that i'd want to go out in a first strike as well, and here we are just east of the shit-head capital of bumfuck, CO (h/t ed abbey).

now there are a number of NORAD sites , but most nations as i understand it still have No First Strike Rules, but the US no longer does, iirc (meaning: don't count on it). our daughter and her family live in el paso county, CO home of one or two, one an alt-site under cheyenne mountain.

i've often been a bit glib as to: 'Who will stop the US Empire? Those who can...and must.'
but i dunno who that might end up being, nor how including with nukes. but at this point, i guess it's all philosophical to me, as we're all living on borrowed time, and Live in the Moment when possible.

i do so wish i could help you ease your fears, my friend.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==

snoopydawg on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 3:59pm
Yep that is a must read

@Pluto's Republic

This video goes back to what was described in the article I posted above. The Nazis in Ukraine have ties to Hitler and we knew it.

//www.youtube.com/embed/fWkfpGCAAuw?modestbranding=0&html5=1&rel=0&autoplay=0&wmode=opaque&loop=0&controls=1&autohide=0&showinfo=0&theme=dark&color=red&enablejsapi=0

wendy davis on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 7:15pm
sigh; kill me now.

@Pluto's Republic

there's no way i can read anything that long, especially in the zero-hedge format. but i found it at the duran, and an easier read on my eye-brain configuration at the saker . strategic culture usually carries his columns, but not this one...yet.

even scanning at the zero hedge version, i hadn't spotted pence's name. in which part (I-IV) was it? zuesse has always needed a good editor, imo. but yeah, Pentecostal Pence gives me the shivers.

#9.1.1

...I've ever read about Ukraine.

Ukraine, Trump, & Biden - The Real Story Behind "Ukrainegate"

Almost everything Americans have ever been told about US foreign policy is a lie. Almost everything we think we know is still a lie.

The Democrat's immediate goal is to install Mike Pence as President as soon as possible.

Everything depends on this. Pence is the continuation of Obama's Neocon policies in Ukraine and throughout the world. Biden is the premier Neocon on the 2020 ticket. His job is to lie himself into the nomination and pick-up a Neocon Vice President. If he loses to Pence, it doesn't matter. The CFR wins either way. And we're off to war with Russia.

This is a must read for those who want to know what is happening to them. And happening fast.

It will be hard to see the world the same way again.

wendy davis on Mon, 11/25/2019 - 10:09am
never mind;

@wendy davis

i read the comments on the saker version, what was key was what zuesse hadn't written (i.e. any mention of the CIA), and part IV at the duran,, withut elaborating, much of which i disagreed with.

#9.1.1.1

there's no way i can read anything that long, especially in the zero-hedge format. but i found it at the duran, and an easier read on my eye-brain configuration at the saker . strategic culture usually carries his columns, but not this one...yet.

even scanning at the zero hedge version, i hadn't spotted pence's name. in which part (I-IV) was it? zuesse has always needed a good editor, imo. but yeah, Pentecostal Pence gives me the shivers.

aliasalias on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 8:20pm
If someone wants to get vaporised right away be in DC

@Pluto's Republic or New York for sure. There are a lot of other target rich areas like Langley, the Silicon Valley area and certainly that big base in San Diego in California, the possible list is long because this Country is littered with military installations.

But I'd expect that if Russia had only two nukes to fire Washington DC and NY would be the instant decision. DC is 'evil Central' to most of the world, and NY City's Wall Street is its oxygen supply and without those two cities it's like chopping off the head of the snake. (no offense to snakes intended)

#9

It fills the soul with dread. There is no one left to fight the poisonous empire from the inside. All have succumbed. They will be along soon enough to clean up these fragments and send them down the memory hole. I'm going to dwell in the large-target cities from now on. I intend to be vaporized in the first strike.

Linda Wood on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 5:31pm
David Stockman's articles

are brilliant and vital to understanding the Ukraine situation. I think Part 2 is most important, even though I disagree with him on one point. He establishes how stupid and moronic the Democrats' impeachment witnesses are to suggest we have to fight Russia in Ukraine so we don't have to fight them here. He shows how minuscule Russia's conventional weapons systems are compared to ours, especially with respect to sea and air power, and then he states,

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/david-stockman-exposes-ukrainian-...

... Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military establishment anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion of military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current $750 billion of expenditures for defense.

Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland security in America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.

That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a continuation of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got through 45-years of cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy committed to a hostile ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth via a forced-draft allocation of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to the military.

By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian "stans" among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the self-evidently calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to go mad, defy MAD and trigger a nuclear Armageddon?

Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is laughable. Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is the extent of what he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force to the North American continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere between nichts and nothing.

I agree with Stockman that in a conventional war with the U.S., we win. But that's just exactly the problem. Russia can't have a conventional war with us or with NATO. It's defense from us is ONLY nuclear assured destruction. So the problem is not whether or not he's nuts. The problem is that we are nuts. Our government is nuts. Our government has a first strike policy, meaning our government considers it rational to eliminate a portion of the American people, which in our Nuclear Posture Review would be catastrophic, in order to win a war with Russia.

https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2018-02/new-us-nuclear-strategy...

... The NPR argues that additional low-yield options are "not intended to enable" nuclear war-fighting "[n]or will it lower the nuclear threshold" (p. 54). But this assertion ignores the fact that the stated purpose is to make their use "more credible" in the eyes of U.S. adversaries , which means that they are meant to be seen as "more usable."

The belief that a nuclear conflict could be controlled is dangerous thinking. The fog of war is thick, the fog of nuclear war would be even thicker. Such thinking could also have the perverse effect of convincing Russia that it could get away with limited nuclear use without putting its survival at risk.

Many military targets are in or near urban areas. It has been estimated that the use of even a fraction of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces could lead to the death of tens of millions of people in each country. An all-out exchange would kill hundreds of millions and produce catastrophic global consequences with adverse agricultural, economic, health, and environmental consequences for billions of people.

No country should be preparing to wage a "limited nuclear war" that neither side can guarantee would remain "limited." Rather, as Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev declared in 1985, today's Russian and U.S. leaders should recognize that "a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought."

wendy davis on Sun, 11/24/2019 - 8:55pm
thank you, amiga.

@Linda Wood

and i agree: it's not the defense budget that matters. in this nation, the defense industries are allowed to do 'cost over-runs', and russia's weapons of war and defensive war are clearly superior. see how many are wanting russian man-pads missile defense, for instance.

i'll take part two, but at anti-war.com to the café. commenter juliania loved part I witless! i was sad to read that justin raimondo has already crossed over, may he rest in power. one place i'd blogged for a time were outraged i tell you, Outraged, that a libertarian wrote for antiwar.com. needless to say, i didn't last long at the accursed dagblog.com.

are brilliant and vital to understanding the Ukraine situation. I think Part 2 is most important, even though I disagree with him on one point. He establishes how stupid and moronic the Democrats' impeachment witnesses are to suggest we have to fight Russia in Ukraine so we don't have to fight them here. He shows how minuscule Russia's conventional weapons systems are compared to ours, especially with respect to sea and air power, and then he states,

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/david-stockman-exposes-ukrainian-...

... Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military establishment anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion of military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current $750 billion of expenditures for defense.

Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland security in America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.

That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a continuation of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got through 45-years of cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy committed to a hostile ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth via a forced-draft allocation of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to the military.

By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian "stans" among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the self-evidently calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to go mad, defy MAD and trigger a nuclear Armageddon?

Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is laughable. Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is the extent of what he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force to the North American continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere between nichts and nothing.

I agree with Stockman that in a conventional war with the U.S., we win. But that's just exactly the problem. Russia can't have a conventional war with us or with NATO. It's defense from us is ONLY nuclear assured destruction. So the problem is not whether or not he's nuts. The problem is that we are nuts. Our government is nuts. Our government has a first strike policy, meaning our government considers it rational to eliminate a portion of the American people, which in our Nuclear Posture Review would be catastrophic, in order to win a war with Russia.

https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2018-02/new-us-nuclear-strategy...

... The NPR argues that additional low-yield options are "not intended to enable" nuclear war-fighting "[n]or will it lower the nuclear threshold" (p. 54). But this assertion ignores the fact that the stated purpose is to make their use "more credible" in the eyes of U.S. adversaries , which means that they are meant to be seen as "more usable."

The belief that a nuclear conflict could be controlled is dangerous thinking. The fog of war is thick, the fog of nuclear war would be even thicker. Such thinking could also have the perverse effect of convincing Russia that it could get away with limited nuclear use without putting its survival at risk.

Many military targets are in or near urban areas. It has been estimated that the use of even a fraction of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces could lead to the death of tens of millions of people in each country. An all-out exchange would kill hundreds of millions and produce catastrophic global consequences with adverse agricultural, economic, health, and environmental consequences for billions of people.

No country should be preparing to wage a "limited nuclear war" that neither side can guarantee would remain "limited." Rather, as Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev declared in 1985, today's Russian and U.S. leaders should recognize that "a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought."

[Nov 25, 2019] Chris Matthews Asks Gabbard Why Are So Many Democrats War Hawks

Notable quotes:
"... Why were they hawks? ..."
"... "Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount of influence over both parties." ..."
"... She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so serious about what's at stake here." ..."
"... Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta, via the AP. ..."
Nov 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In a rare moment with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard explained why the leading figures in her party are war hawks. Far from days of the Democrats feigning to have any semblance of an 'anti-war' platform (only convenient for Liberal activism during the Bush years, but fizzling out under Obama), today's party attempts to out-hawk Republicans at every turn.

"I'm looking at the Democratic establishment figures," Matthews introduced, "people I normally like. John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton. You go down the list. They all supported the war in Iraq. Why were they hawks? " (Though we might ask, what do you mean, " were ?"). "Why so many Democrats with a party that's not hawkish, why are so many of their leaders hawks?" Matthews reiterated.

In the segment, Matthews heaps rare praise on Tulsi for being "out there all alone tonight fighting against the neocons."

me title=

"Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount of influence over both parties."

She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so serious about what's at stake here."

Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta, via the AP. NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

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The interview happened immediately after this week's fifth Democratic debate Wednesday night in Atlanta, and after pundits have continued to complain that Gabbard is a 'single issue candidate'.

However, is there any candidate in her party or in the GOP saying these things?

We find ourselves in a rare moment of agreement with MSNBC's Matthews: she is "out there all alone tonight fighting against the neocons." Tags Politics

[Nov 25, 2019] There Is No Accountability in U.S. Foreign Policy by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Nov 22, 2019

For some bizarre reason, The New York Times asked Paul Wolfowitz to write about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East:

If we abandon the allies who made possible the victory over ISIS, and perhaps now also abandon the Afghan allies who enabled us to drive Al Qaeda out of their country in 2001, the United States will make the same mistake as Mark Twain's cat, viewing everything in the greater Middle East through the prism of the painful experiences of the "hot stoves" -- the Iraq and Afghanistan wars [bold mine-DL]. Abandoning allies who have advanced American interests, while fighting courageously for their own, is not a formula for avoiding another large-scale United States military engagement in the Middle East, but rather for ending up in another one. Next time, however, will be without the local allies we need.

Before we get to Wolfowitz's argument, such as it is, can we just marvel at the shamelessness of Wolfowitz when he presumes to lecture anyone about sound foreign policy decision-making? Wolfowitz was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the invasion of Iraq, and in his role at the Pentagon he was also one of the top officials most responsible for the ensuing debacle. He then has the gall to liken that war and the war in Afghanistan to "hot stoves," as if the consequences of these wasteful wars were no more than being briefly burned. What an awful way to trivialize almost two decades of failure and massive loss of life.

No one needs to hear from Wolfowitz on this or frankly any other foreign policy issue. There must be dozens of other writers who would argue for the same general position without helping to rehabilitate one of the architects of the biggest U.S. foreign policy blunder in the last forty years. If we want to know why there is no accountability in U.S. foreign policy, this Wolfowitz op-ed is Exhibit A. Former officials and policymakers can get things as wrong as can be, advocate for truly disastrous policies that claim hundreds of thousands of lives, and yet their opinions will still be taken seriously and published as if nothing had ever happened. There have been no professional or legal consequences for the officials responsible for the great crime that was the Iraq war, and instead they are asked for their advice on what the U.S. should do next in the same region that they set on fire.

The main flaw in the substance of Wolfowitz's op-ed is that he assumes that the U.S. will always be "sucked back in" to more regional conflicts if it ever tries to leave any of them. According to this view, withdrawal is more destabilizing than intervention, and so while Wolfowitz never disagrees with the interventions he is dead-set against the withdrawals. If the U.S. can't ever leave a foreign conflict that it has chosen to fight for fear of creating a "vacuum," that amounts to saying that some U.S. forces must remain in these countries in perpetuity. No U.S. interests are being served by refusing to bring these wars to a conclusion. It just traps the U.S. in prisons of our own making. Instead of thinking about how to prepare local partners for the inevitable U.S. departure, our politicians and policymakers waste that time by concocting implausible stories for why we can never leave.

Syria is the more straightforward example. Even when ISIS was in control of a significant amount of territory, the U.S. did not have to go to war there. The U.S. was not defending itself, and our forces had no business going into Syria five years ago. Now that ISIS is a fraction of its former self, there is really no reason for U.S. forces to stay. The U.S. should be able to avoid another "large-scale military engagement" in the region because there is no good reason for the U.S. to get involved in another one. The idea that the U.S. has to keep forces in Syria illegally in Syria to prevent our government from launching another war on the scale of the Iraq invasion is preposterous, but Wolfowitz presents it as if it needs no argument.

Wolfowitz likes to fault the U.S. for its "inaction" in the region, by which he always means that the U.S. chose not to become even more actively involved in conflicts inside other countries. It is telling that he repeats the falsehood that the U.S. didn't support the Syrian opposition, when support for the opposition from the U.S. and our allies and clients helped to fuel the war and keep it going longer than it otherwise might have. In one breath, he lists the terrible human costs of the war, and then in the next condemns the U.S. for not having done more to add to them. There is no acknowledgment anywhere in his op-ed that U.S. intervention frequently makes things worse, and there is no consideration that avoiding deeper involvement in these conflicts was actually in the best interests of the United States. Of course there isn't. Wolfowitz is a tired neoconservative ideologue and he isn't going to learn anything from the catastrophic failures of policies he supported.

Of course, there is no ineluctable force that drags the U.S. into these conflicts. It is the faulty assumptions of ideologues like Wolfowitz who imagine that there are vital American interests at stake in conflicts where there aren't any. The U.S. is never "sucked back in." Our government goes running back in at the first chance it gets. Sometimes this is driven by threat inflation, sometimes it is driven by headlines that prompt calls for "action," sometimes it is driven by a misguided need to show "leadership," and sometimes it is just old-fashioned "do-somethingism" where the U.S. intervenes because it can. It is almost never driven by a need to protect the United States or even our treaty allies. One president after another chooses to entangle the U.S. in conflicts in the Middle East that the U.S. could easily avoid. Having failed to avoid these entanglements, we are then told that disentanglement is never an acceptable option. If the U.S. is ever going to extricate itself from endless wars, we have to learn that our ongoing military involvement in these conflicts is a greater source of instability than our departure ever could be.

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .

[Nov 25, 2019] Waht is the motivation behind the rabid Russophobia of the American neo-liberals and neocons

Notable quotes:
"... "...it is quite possible that the historically well-informed neocons are merely longing for the good old Bolshevik days in Russia." ..."
"... Neocons resurrect tribal memories to fan the flames ..."
"... Imo Vindman's testimony revealed a 'personal' grudge against Russia. Hill also displayed a 'obsession' with Russia imo..... its interesting her Russian instructor at Harvard was Richard Pipes, the supreme Russian hater. ..."
"... Perhaps you should consider the influence of Ukrainian emigre groups/lobbies. They are essentialy an extension of the Galician movement you refer to. ..."
"... Machiavelli warned repeatedly of the baleful results that listening to exiles gets you into (specifically concerning attempts to reinstate some exiles in the place they came from), George Washingtons farewell adress can be read in a similiar way. Here is the thing with exiles: ..."
"... Lets pretend that Atlantis exists, but 98% of Americans do not particularly care about this country. Now something happens there that genereates exiles. If those exiles are at least somewhat savy, they will passionately argue that the current atlantean government is pure evil. Other then that, they will strive to make themselfs usefull to the host nation. Now, lets pretend that you have 5 such atlantean exiles in a group of 100 politicians. The atlantean exiles would care primarily about condeming the atlantean government, and may be in a position to deliver political points in other areas to anyone who is asking. A normal "I dont care about Atlantis" politican will see a fairly simple cost benefit thing, I condemn Atlantis, something about which I do not care at all, and in return the exiles will back something I care about, like my health policy. ..."
"... This is by no means a rapid development, but give it a couple of decades and the exchange of many such small favors will essentially result in a large group of politicians who will underwrite things like "Atlantis delenda est", mostly because they dont actually care about Atlantis. ..."
"... I don't know why this campaign against Russia was launched but at least part of it was domestic political pressure from Clinton Dems towards Trump Reps. What better way to deflect criticism about the foreign influences on the Clinton Dems (massive bribes from the usual suspects, either direct or via the Clinton Fdn.) but by accusing your opponent of being in the pay of foreign powers? ..."
"... Hillary Clinton shrieking about "Russia Wikileaks" seems to me to be pure projection and also rationalising a cause for her defeat other than the incompetence and corruption of her campaign. ..."
"... Also it seems to me that the Russian defeat of the regime change op in Syria (altho the situation seems rather fluid at the moment...) is another motivation where Israel's interests loom large. ..."
"... A grandfather and great grandfather were in a Union regiment but that hardly is proof that I am a Union man. Unusual family demographics to be sure but even then those Ukrainians served in that SS unit over 70 years ago. I doubt they were even then motivated by National Socialist ideology. Hatred of Russians was likely the primary motivation, as now. The German invasion was an opportunity to settle scores. ..."
"... I understand the hatred but not the application of "Nazi" to any Ukrainian thinking. If "Nazi" merely connotes "thuggish" then perhaps that explains the Azov formations but I suspect much more is at work. Additional inquiry is warranted. ..."
"... Many of those in the Ukrainian SS units ended up in Canada after WW2, resulting in the very pro Ukranian actions of the Canadian Government post 2014. Their FM, Christina Freeland, is a descendant. ..."
"... After the fall of the Former Soviet Union in 1991, saw a resurgence of the OUN. ..."
"... The Ukrainian Nazi formations and political factions openly call themselves Nazis. For that matter, everyone else called them Nazis too, at least before they became useful to the neocons. I'll spare everyone an explanation of Ukrainian diaspora culture, but I will say that, before WWII, the principal Ukrainian nationalist folk devil wasn't Russia. It was Poland and the Jews. ..."
"... Could the anti Russia bias be as simple as the need to protect the empires of people in State and Defence etc that would be no longer needed if Russia was a 'good' guy? ..."
"... Then there is the MIC and the lobbying flows of money into Congress.Russia is far too important to too many insiders to be anything but an enemy. ..."
"... As pointed out earlier - the military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify its exorbitant budgets. The Deep State, the Borg, the Blob, whatever you want to call it, needs a Big Enemy to justify its spying and increasingly blatant interference in domestic US politics. ..."
"... the Russian nation is greatly under populated and owns a staggering per cent of the planets natural resources of every description. envy by those look from the outside towards russia is alone sufficient justification for wanting to grab it for themselves as has been unsuccessfully tried for centuries. ..."
"... The irony, of course, is that in Jewish folk memory, the most pig-headed (pun intended) and virulent anti-Semites were the peasants of Galicia (western Ukraine) and Poland. ..."
"... I also share your bafflement and not just with the political positions of the likes of Victoria Nuland. What do US & UK hope to gain? I can't see any benefits. ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

PavewayIV , 25 November 2019 at 12:54 AM

Giraldi suggests, "...it is quite possible that the historically well-informed neocons are merely longing for the good old Bolshevik days in Russia." That aligns more readily with neocons' (and their oligarch supporters') psychopathic obsession with power and control via the state. Giraldi also illustrates another more recent period in history when the neocons were not decidedly anti-Russian:
In fact, the neocons got along quite well with Russia when they and their overwhelmingly Jewish oligarchs and international commodity thieves cum financier friends were looting the resources of the old Soviet Union under the hapless Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. Alarms about the alleged Russian threat only re-emerged in the neocon dominated media and think tanks when old fashioned nationalist Vladimir Putin took office and made it a principal goal of his government to turn off the money tap.

From Giraldi's article on Global Research: Hating Russia Is a Full-Time Job."Who is Driving the Hostility towards Russia?"
Neocons resurrect tribal memories to fan the flames

There was no monolithic 'Jewish Oligarch' club cashing in on Yeltsin's Russia. In the broadest sense, the western neocon-friendly Russian-Jewish oligarch group(s) were booted out by Putin, while rival group(s) stayed in Russia and submitted to Putin's reforms (whatever that means). Saker has written in the past about the various Jewish oligarch factions in Russia. It's complicated and beyond me.

Israel Shamir attempts to untangle the contradictory views on Ukraine from the State of Israel, Ukrainian-Jewish oligarchs, neocons and Jews from the US, Ukraine and Russia:

The Fateful Triangle: Russia, Ukraine and the Jews

Summary: 'Tribal' oversimplifies - no unified opinion. It's complicated. Mr. Shamir's views seem reasonable and go a long way to explaining the contradictions to me.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> PavewayIV... , 25 November 2019 at 09:11 AM
Giraldi suggests, "...it is quite possible that the historically well-informed neocons are merely longing for the good old Bolshevik days in Russia."

I have a great deal of respect for Phil Giraldi but he is wrong here--it has nothing to do with "Bolshevism", whatever that means in the American context, but with settling accounts with 1930s purges of largely, not exclusively, Jewish Trotskists from the party and a consistent anti-Zionist position of USSR till the every end. Now, with Russia effectively de-fanging Israel, they go apoplectic. Modern neocons have zero relation to Bolshevism and if they dream about anything--it is mostly have Russia gone as such.

catherine , 25 November 2019 at 01:36 AM
''A question for me is the motivation behind the antipathy of the American neo-liberals and neocons toward Russia. There are a lot of Jews scattered among these groups. .... Or, do these people see Russia as a plausible geopolitical rival for the US? Surely it cannot be as simple, or simpleminded as that.''

Jews have next to zero political control in Russia and I do think that the Zionist see Russia, as the only other superpower, as a hindrance to their aims for one thing.
Also any state where Jews 'lost out' is subject to vilification and branded as evil.

Imo Vindman's testimony revealed a 'personal' grudge against Russia. Hill also displayed a 'obsession' with Russia imo..... its interesting her Russian instructor at Harvard was Richard Pipes, the supreme Russian hater.

As for the non Jewish Neos what would they do without a big scary enemy to fight?...they might have to actually concentrate on doing things for America.

If anyone is interested here is a nice tool for following congressional bills and etc.. Mostly good for counting all the money they are giving away and the sanctions on countries they are demanding....they aren't doing much of anything else in congress if you don't count the kangaroo court circus.

https://fmep.org/resources/?rsearch=&rcat%5B%5D=345
Legislative Round-ups
1. Bills, Resolutions, & Letters 2. Hearings 3. On the Record

Factotum , 25 November 2019 at 02:06 AM
How odd on PBS tonight - 'Secrets of Her Majesty's Secret Service" - an inside look at the worlds only defense against Russia -a love letter to M16 and it nearly 100 year "special relationship" with the US and CIA.

What strange timing for such a calculated PR piece for an extremely publicity shy Five Eyes operation. Were they trying to get ahead of the coming Russiagate investigation reports with this engaging documentary - we are in fact the James Bonds of the world and we know you Americans love James Bond.

Anyone else see it or have I gotten aa sinister cabal derangement syndrome behind even PBS "friendly" documentaries?

Paco , 25 November 2019 at 03:15 AM
It is plain to see, sour grapes after losing the great and possibly only opportunity for doing a Yugoslavia on the Russian Federation.
Mathias Alexander , 25 November 2019 at 03:23 AM
"A question for me is the motivation behind the antipathy of the American neo-liberals and neocons toward Russia"
Perhaps you should consider the influence of Ukrainian emigre groups/lobbies. They are essentialy an extension of the Galician movement you refer to.

" Is it Russia's relentless persecution of homosexuals?" What's the evidence for this persecution?

A.I.S. , 25 November 2019 at 04:18 AM
My 2 cents:

Essentially, when both 2 persons as contrary to each other as George Washington and Niccolo Machiavelli agree on something, it behoves one well to listen.

Machiavelli warned repeatedly of the baleful results that listening to exiles gets you into (specifically concerning attempts to reinstate some exiles in the place they came from), George Washingtons farewell adress can be read in a similiar way. Here is the thing with exiles:

Lets pretend that Atlantis exists, but 98% of Americans do not particularly care about this country. Now something happens there that genereates exiles. If those exiles are at least somewhat savy, they will passionately argue that the current atlantean government is pure evil. Other then that, they will strive to make themselfs usefull to the host nation. Now, lets pretend that you have 5 such atlantean exiles in a group of 100 politicians. The atlantean exiles would care primarily about condeming the atlantean government, and may be in a position to deliver political points in other areas to anyone who is asking. A normal "I dont care about Atlantis" politican will see a fairly simple cost benefit thing, I condemn Atlantis, something about which I do not care at all, and in return the exiles will back something I care about, like my health policy.

This is by no means a rapid development, but give it a couple of decades and the exchange of many such small favors will essentially result in a large group of politicians who will underwrite things like "Atlantis delenda est", mostly because they dont actually care about Atlantis.

This is not a specifically US thing at all. My understanding is that Russias WW1 decision to back Serbia was considerably influenced by a group of ethnically serbian/Montenegrin advisors (who, one has to say were otherwise loyal to Russia, and had fought with distinction in the Tsars wars, shedding their blood for Russia).

Babak Makkinejad -> A.I.S.... , 25 November 2019 at 10:56 AM
Affinity for Serbia has older antecedents. I think it was rooted in the common struggle against Muslim powers in earlier centuries.
divadab , 25 November 2019 at 06:12 AM
I don't know why this campaign against Russia was launched but at least part of it was domestic political pressure from Clinton Dems towards Trump Reps. What better way to deflect criticism about the foreign influences on the Clinton Dems (massive bribes from the usual suspects, either direct or via the Clinton Fdn.) but by accusing your opponent of being in the pay of foreign powers?

Hillary Clinton shrieking about "Russia Wikileaks" seems to me to be pure projection and also rationalising a cause for her defeat other than the incompetence and corruption of her campaign.

Also it seems to me that the Russian defeat of the regime change op in Syria (altho the situation seems rather fluid at the moment...) is another motivation where Israel's interests loom large.

It also seems to me to be stunningly stupid to have thrown away any potential alliance with Russia in favor of promoting Wahabist scum. And forcing Russia into the arms of the Chinese instead of recruiting them into the containment cordon.

Anyway, speaking as a denizen of Plato's cave, without direct knowledge of the reality of the thing it's mostly educated guesses on my part...

turcopolier , 25 November 2019 at 08:13 AM
J
A cabinet officer who thinks he can bargain with the president is too stupid to hold office. POTUS is not first among equals. This is not the UK.
Richard Ong , 25 November 2019 at 08:29 AM
A grandfather and great grandfather were in a Union regiment but that hardly is proof that I am a Union man. Unusual family demographics to be sure but even then those Ukrainians served in that SS unit over 70 years ago. I doubt they were even then motivated by National Socialist ideology. Hatred of Russians was likely the primary motivation, as now. The German invasion was an opportunity to settle scores.

I understand the hatred but not the application of "Nazi" to any Ukrainian thinking. If "Nazi" merely connotes "thuggish" then perhaps that explains the Azov formations but I suspect much more is at work. Additional inquiry is warranted.

And I still have no idea what "neoliberal" means.

JohninMK said in reply to Richard Ong... , 25 November 2019 at 10:09 AM
Many of those in the Ukrainian SS units ended up in Canada after WW2, resulting in the very pro Ukranian actions of the Canadian Government post 2014. Their FM, Christina Freeland, is a descendant.
prawnik said in reply to JohninMK... , 25 November 2019 at 10:53 AM
Folks like Freeland openly credit her SS grandfather for her ideology. When speaking in public, she does then to conveniently omit his services to the national Socialist state.
J -> Richard Ong... , 25 November 2019 at 10:40 AM
Try Stephan Bandera, he was as bad of a figure as what the Russians accused him of being. Bandera's legacy was that of a Nazi sympathizer and a real nut case too boot. He was one sick twisted individual.

After the fall of the Former Soviet Union in 1991, saw a resurgence of the OUN. These Russian hating individuals that composed the far-right Nazi resurgence in the Ukraine government, started terrifying the Russian enclaves in the Crimea, and those enclaves in turn called on their fellow Russian brothers in Russia for help, to which Putin and the Russian military came to their aid and the annexation of the Crimea by Russia took place so as to protect the Russian enclaves from further persecution by the Banderites. Bandera posters became more and more prevalent. The Euromaidan protests turned more and more violent, the wolfsangel that was formerly a symbol of the SS but was now taken up by the Azov Battalion and other militias, the old OUN war cry of "Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes" that was now ubiquitous among anti-Yanukovych protesters.

Here's some further reading regarding Stephan Bandera:


https://cup.columbia.edu/book/stepan-bandera-the-life-and-afterlife-of-a-ukrainian-nationalist/9783838206844


prawnik said in reply to Richard Ong... , 25 November 2019 at 10:52 AM
The Ukrainian Nazi formations and political factions openly call themselves Nazis. For that matter, everyone else called them Nazis too, at least before they became useful to the neocons. I'll spare everyone an explanation of Ukrainian diaspora culture, but I will say that, before WWII, the principal Ukrainian nationalist folk devil wasn't Russia. It was Poland and the Jews.
Fred , 25 November 2019 at 09:03 AM
That's a very interesting write up at Zerohedge. I believe we discussed the same conduct, though not the depth of corruption of US politicians, here while that was happening. The borg are starting to panic with the threat of a real investigation.
Diana C , 25 November 2019 at 09:45 AM
Thank you for the posting and thank all for the comments.

Some of us out here in The Middle can't really understand any of the behaviors of those good and not-so-good Swamp dwellers (any more than we can understand the behaviors of the La La Land Californian politicians.

I understand more about the issues involving our relationship with Ukraine by reading this post and comments than I ever would have been able to since I simply don't have time to get large books and many detailed published papers to read.

JohninMK , 25 November 2019 at 10:04 AM
Could the anti Russia bias be as simple as the need to protect the empires of people in State and Defence etc that would be no longer needed if Russia was a 'good' guy?

The US's 'independent' multi-national force NATO would clearly no longer be needed, so many years after the Warsaw Pact dissolved. Whilst the US 'occupation' forces all over the place, but especially in Europe, could return home to the US.

Then there is the MIC and the lobbying flows of money into Congress.Russia is far too important to too many insiders to be anything but an enemy.

Indeed, its boom time as China related structures are expanding in parallel rather than replacing those directed at Russia.

prawnik said in reply to JohninMK... , 25 November 2019 at 10:48 AM
As pointed out earlier - the military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify its exorbitant budgets. The Deep State, the Borg, the Blob, whatever you want to call it, needs a Big Enemy to justify its spying and increasingly blatant interference in domestic US politics.

There are too many business ties with China, and our supply chains reach too deeply into that country, for it to serve as a Big Enemy without causing serious disruption.

So Russia it is.

ted richard , 25 November 2019 at 10:10 AM
the reasons for the agreed upon antipathy towards Russia is imo not the actual reason for the hostilities that have existed for at least the last 100 years and actually much longer.

the Russian nation is greatly under populated and owns a staggering per cent of the planets natural resources of every description. envy by those look from the outside towards russia is alone sufficient justification for wanting to grab it for themselves as has been unsuccessfully tried for centuries.

why complicate matters when simple greed answers so many of the questions asked about WHY the west hates russia.

prawnik , 25 November 2019 at 10:45 AM
The irony, of course, is that in Jewish folk memory, the most pig-headed (pun intended) and virulent anti-Semites were the peasants of Galicia (western Ukraine) and Poland.
Babak Makkinejad , 25 November 2019 at 10:59 AM
Col. Lang:

I also share your bafflement and not just with the political positions of the likes of Victoria Nuland. What do US & UK hope to gain? I can't see any benefits.

[Nov 24, 2019] 25 Times Trump Has Been Dangerously Hawkish On Russia by Caitlin Johnstone

From the point of view of election promise of detente with Russia, Trump clearly betrayed them. He was a neocon puppet from the beginning to the end, His policy was not that different from hypothetical policy of Hillary administration.
Notable quotes:
"... Caitlin Johnstone discredits a CNN listicle on Trump's "softness" towards Moscow. In fact, she writes, the U.S. president has actually been consistently reckless towards Moscow, with zero resistance from either party. ..."
"... It would be understandable if you were unaware that Trump has been escalating tensions with Moscow more than any other president since the fall of the Berlin Wall; it's a fact that neither of America's two mainstream political factions care about, so it tends to get lost in the shuffle. Trump's opposition is interested in painting him as a sycophantic Kremlin crony, and his supporters are interested in painting him as an antiwar hero of the people, but he is neither ..."
"... Anyone who has not read Orwell's 1984 should do so sooner rather than later. The official control of narrative in the novel is what we are presently drowning in. To watch it work so spectacularly is beyond depressing. ..."
"... The complete corruption of Western MSM is the reason many of us regularly read Caitlin and Consortium, all desperately trying to get some sort of a reality-check in an otherwise "Orwellian" media environment. ..."
"... The simple truth here is that in regard to the military (read 'military complex', which includes the deep state and shadow government [intelligence agencies] every president is a puppet. ..."
"... The coup in Ukraine was a major provocation to Russia, but was also a repeat of the Americans' rape and pillaging of Russia under Yeltsin, Clinton's puppet. The per capita median income of Ukrainians has dropped in half from 2013, despite pumping $billions in from the US. ..."
"... Failing impeachment, from the attempts by the Clinton Campaign, to the Congressional sanctions on Russia, to sabotage of Syria withdrawal to the Mueller hoax, to the State Dept hawks protests on Ukraine, the effort to prevent Trump from following through on his campaign promise has been the primary goal of the intelligence community. It is instructive to note that the phone call that has led to the current impeachment inquiry was made on July 26, the day following Robert Mueller's clownish testimony before Congress, effectively ending that line of impeachment. ..."
"... Also note that although the phone call was made in July, nothing was said about it until after John Bolton was fired in September, 2 months later. ..."
Nov 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

30 Comments

Caitlin Johnstone discredits a CNN listicle on Trump's "softness" towards Moscow. In fact, she writes, the U.S. president has actually been consistently reckless towards Moscow, with zero resistance from either party.

CaitlinJohnstone.com

CNN has published a fascinatingly manipulative and falsehood-laden article titled " 25 times Trump was soft on Russia ," in which a lot of strained effort is poured into building the case that the U.S. president is suspiciously loyal to the nation against which he has spent his administration escalating dangerous new cold war aggressions.

The items within the CNN article consist mostly of times in which Trump said some words or failed to say other words; "Trump has repeatedly praised Putin," "Trump refused to say Putin is a killer," "Trump denied that Russia interfered in 2016," "Trump made light of Russian hacking," etc. It also includes the completely false but oft-repeated narrative that "Trump's team softened the GOP platform on Ukraine", as well as the utterly ridiculous and thoroughly invalidated claim that "Since intervening in Syria in 2015, the Russian military has focused its airstrikes on anti-government rebels, not ISIS."

CNN's 25 items are made up almost entirely of narrative and words; Trump said a nice thing about Putin, Trump said offending things to NATO allies, Trump thought about visiting Putin in Russia, etc. In contrast, the 25 items which I am about to list do not consist of narrative at all, but rather the actual movement of actual concrete objects which can easily lead to an altercation from which there may be no re-emerging. These items show that when you ignore the words and narrative spin and look at what this administration has actually been doing , it's clear to anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty that, far from being "soft" on Russia, Trump has actually been consistently reckless in the one area where a US president must absolutely always maintain a steady hand. And he's been doing so with zero resistance from either party.

It would be understandable if you were unaware that Trump has been escalating tensions with Moscow more than any other president since the fall of the Berlin Wall; it's a fact that neither of America's two mainstream political factions care about, so it tends to get lost in the shuffle. Trump's opposition is interested in painting him as a sycophantic Kremlin crony, and his supporters are interested in painting him as an antiwar hero of the people, but he is neither. Observe:

1. Implementing a Nuclear Posture Review with a more aggressive stance toward Russia

Last year Trump's Department of Defense rolled out a Nuclear Posture Review which CNN itself called "its toughest line yet against Russia's resurgent nuclear forces."

"In its newly released Nuclear Posture Review, the Defense Department has focused much of its multibillion nuclear effort on an updated nuclear deterrence focused on Russia," CNN reported last year.

This revision of nuclear policy includes the new implementation of "low-yield" nuclear weapons , which, because they are designed to be more "usable" than conventional nuclear ordinances, have been called "the most dangerous weapon ever" by critics of this insane policy. These weapons, which can remove some of the inhibitions that mutually assured destruction would normally give military commanders, have already been rolled off the assembly line.

2. Arming Ukraine

Lost in the gibberish about Trump temporarily withholding military aide to supposedly pressure a Ukrainian government who was never even aware of being pressured is the fact that arming Ukraine against Russia is an entirely new policy that was introduced by the Trump administration in the first place. Even the Obama administration, which was plenty hawkish toward Russia in its own right, refused to implement this extremely provocative escalation against Moscow. It was not until Obama was replaced with the worst Putin puppet of all time that this policy was put in place.

3. Bombing Syria

Another escalation Trump took against Russia which Obama wasn't hawkish enough to also do was bombing the Syrian government, a longtime ally of Moscow. These airstrikes in April 2017 and April 2018 were perpetrated in retaliation for chemical weapons use allegations that there is no legitimate reason to trust at this point.

4. Staging coup attempts in Venezuela

Venezuela, another Russian ally, has been the subject of relentless coup attempts from the Trump administration which persist unsuccessfully to this very day . Trump's attempts to topple the Venezuelan government have been so violent and aggressive that the starvation sanctions which he has implemented are believed to have killed tens of thousands of Venezuelan civilians .

Trump has reportedly spoken frequently of a U.S. military invasion to oust Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, provoking a forceful rebuke from Moscow .

"Signals coming from certain capitals indicating the possibility of external military interference look particularly disquieting," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "We warn against such reckless actions, which threaten catastrophic consequences."

5. Withdrawing from the INF treaty

For a president who's "soft" on Russia, Trump has sure been eager to keep postures between the two nations extremely aggressive in nature. This administration has withdrawn from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, prompting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to declare that "the world lost an invaluable brake on nuclear war." It appears entirely possible that Trump will continue to adhere to the John Bolton school of nuclear weapons treaties until they all lie in tatters, with the administration strongly criticizing the crucial New START Treaty which expires in early 2021.

Some particularly demented Russiagaters try to argue that Trump withdrawing from these treaties benefits Russia in some way. These people either (A) believe that treaties only go one way, (B) believe that a nation with an economy the size of South Korea can compete with the U.S. in an arms race, (C) believe that Russians are immune to nuclear radiation, or (D) all of the above. Withdrawing from these treaties benefits no one but the military-industrial complex.

6. Ending the Open Skies Treaty

"The Trump administration has taken steps toward leaving a nearly three-decade-old agreement designed to reduce the risk of war between Russia and the West by allowing both sides to conduct reconnaissance flights over one another's territories," The Wall Street Journal reported last month , adding that the administration has alleged that "Russia has interfered with American monitoring flights while using its missions to gather intelligence in the US."

Again, if you subscribe to the bizarre belief that withdrawing from this treaty benefits Russia, please think harder. Or ask the Russians themselves how they feel about it:

"US plans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and multiply the risks for the whole world, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said," Sputnik reports .

"All this negatively affects the predictability of the military-strategic situation and lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which drastically increases the risks for the whole humanity," Patrushev said.

"In general, it is becoming apparent that Washington intends to use its technological leadership in order to maintain strategic dominance in the information space by actually pursuing a policy of imposing its conditions on states that are lagging behind in digital development," he added.

7. Selling Patriot missiles to Poland

"Poland signed the largest arms procurement deal in its history on Wednesday, agreeing with the United States to buy Raytheon Co's Patriot missile defense system for $4.75 billion in a major step to modernize its forces against a bolder Russia," Reuters reported last year .

8. Occupying Syrian oil fields

The Trump administration has been open about the fact that it is not only maintaining a military presence in Syria to control the nation's oil, but that it is doing so in order to deprive the nation's government of that financial resource. Syria's ally Russia strongly opposes this, accusing the Trump administration of nothing short of "international state banditry".

"In a statement, Russia's defense ministry said Washington had no mandate under international or US law to increase its military presence in Syria and said its plan was not motivated by genuine security concerns in the region," Reuters reported last month.

"Therefore Washington's current actions – capturing and maintaining military control over oil fields in eastern Syria – is, simply put, international state banditry," Russia's defense ministry said.

9. Killing Russians in Syria

Reports have placed Russian casualties anywhere between a handful and hundreds , but whatever the exact number the U.S. military is known to have killed Russian citizens as part of the Trump administration's ongoing Syria occupation in an altercation last year.

exact number the U.S. military is known to have killed Russian citizens as part of the Trump administration's ongoing Syria occupation in an altercation last year.

10. Tanks in Estonia

Within weeks of taking office, Trump was already sending Abrams battle tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and other military hardware right up to Russia's border as part of a NATO operation.

"Atlantic Resolve is a demonstration of continued US commitment to collective security through a series of actions designed to reassure NATO allies and partners of America's dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine," the Defense Department said in a statement.

11. War ships in the Black Sea

12. Sanctions

Trump approved new sanctions against Russia on August 2017. CNN reports the following:

"US President Donald Trump approved fresh sanctions on Russia Wednesday after Congress showed overwhelming bipartisan support for the new measures," CNN reported at the time . "Congress passed the bill last week in response to Russia's interference in the 2016 US election, as well as its human rights violations, annexation of Crimea and military operations in eastern Ukraine. The bill's passage drew ire from Moscow -- which responded by stripping 755 staff members and two properties from US missions in the country -- all but crushing any hope for the reset in US-Russian relations that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had called for."

"A full-fledged trade war has been declared on Russia," said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in response.

13. More sanctions

"The United States imposed sanctions on five Russian individuals on Wednesday, including the leader of the Republic of Chechnya, for alleged human rights abuses and involvement in criminal conspiracies, a sign that the Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Russia," The New York Times reported in December 2017 .

14. Still more sanctions

"Trump just hit Russian oligarchs with the most aggressive sanctions yet," reads a Vice headline from April of last year.

"The sanctions target seven oligarchs and 12 companies under their ownership or control, 17 senior Russian government officials, and a state-owned Russian weapons trading company and its subsidiary, a Russian bank," Vice reports. "While the move is aimed, in part, at Russia's role in the U.S. 2016 election, senior U.S. government officials also stressed that the new measures seek to penalize Russia's recent bout of international troublemaking more broadly, including its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and military activity in eastern Ukraine."

15. Even more sanctions

The Trump administration hit Russia with more sanctions for the alleged Skripal poisoning in August of last year, then hit them with another round of sanctions for the same reason again in August of this year.

16. Guess what? MORE sanctions

"The Trump administration on Thursday imposed new sanctions on a dozen individuals and entities in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea," The Hill reported in November of last year. "The group includes a company linked to Bank Rossiya and Russian businessman Yuri Kovalchuk and others accused of operating in Crimea, which the U.S. says Russia seized illegally in 2014."

17. Oh hey, more sanctions

"Today, the United States continues to take action in response to Russian attempts to influence US democratic processes by imposing sanctions on four entities and seven individuals associated with the Internet Research Agency and its financier, Yevgeniy Prigozhin. This action increases pressure on Prigozhin by targeting his luxury assets, including three aircraft and a vessel," reads a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from September of this year.

18. Secondary sanctions

Secondary sanctions are economic sanctions in which a third party is punished for breaching the primary sanctions of the sanctioning body. The U.S. has leveled sanctions against both China and Turkey for purchasing Russian S-400 air defense missiles, and it is threatening to do so to India as well.

19. Forcing Russian media to register as foreign agents

Both RT and Sputnik have been forced to register as "foreign agents" by the Trump administration. This classification forced the outlets to post a disclaimer on content, to report their activities and funding sources to the Department of Justice twice a year, and could arguably place an unrealistic burden on all their social media activities as it submits to DOJ micromanagement.

20. Throwing out Russian diplomats

The Trump administration joined some 20 other nations in casting out scores of Russian diplomats as an immediate response to the Skripal poisoning incident in the U.K.

21. Training Polish and Latvian fighters "to resist Russian aggression"

"US Army Special Forces soldiers completed the first irregular and unconventional warfare training iteration for members of the Polish Territorial Defense Forces and Latvian Zemmessardze as a part of the Ridge Runner program in West Virginia, according to service officials," Army Times reported this past July.

"U.S. special operations forces have been training more with allies from the Baltic states and other Eastern European nations in the wake of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014," Army Times writes. "A low-level conflict continues to simmer in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region between Russian-backed separatists and government forces to this day. The conflict spurred the Baltics into action, as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia embraced the concepts of total defense and unconventional warfare, combining active-duty, national guard and reserve-styled forces to each take on different missions to resist Russian aggression and even occupation."

22. Refusal to recognize Crimea as part of the Russian Federation

even while acknowledging Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan Heights as perfectly legal and legitimate.

23. Sending 1,000 troops to Poland

From the September article " 1000 US Troops Are Headed to Poland " by National Interest :

Key point: Trump agreed to send more forces to Poland to defend it against Russia.

What Happened: U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to deploy approximately 1,000 additional U.S. troops to Poland during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, Reuters reported Sept. 23.

Why It Matters: The deal, which formalizes the United States' commitment to protecting Poland from Russia, provides a diplomatic victory to Duda and his governing Law and Justice ahead of November elections. The additional U.S. troops will likely prompt a reactive military buildup from Moscow in places like neighboring Kaliningrad and, potentially, Belarus.

24. Withdrawing from the Iran deal

Russia has been consistently opposed to Trump's destruction of the JCPOA. In a statement after Trump killed the deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was "deeply disappointed by the decision of US President Donald Trump to unilaterally refuse to carry out commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action", adding that this administration's actions were "trampling on the norms of international law".

25. Attacking Russian gas interests

Trump has been threatening Germany with sanctions and troop withdrawal if it continues to support a gas pipeline from Russia called Nord Stream 2.

"Echoing previous threats about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said he's looking at sanctions to block the project he's warned would leave Berlin 'captive' to Moscow," Bloomberg reports . "The US also hopes to export its own liquefied natural gas to Germany."

"We're protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars in money from Germany" for its gas, Trump told the press.

I could have kept going, but that's my 25. The only reason anyone still believes Trump is anything other than insanely hawkish toward Russia is because it doesn't benefit anyone's partisanship or profit margins to call it like it really is. The facts are right here as plain as can be, but there's a difference between facts and narrative. If they wanted to, the political/media class could very easily use the facts I just laid out to weave the narrative that this president is imperiling us all with dangerous new cold war provocations, but that's how different narrative is from fact; there's almost no connection. Instead they use a light sprinkling of fact to weave a narrative that has very little to do with reality. And meanwhile the insane escalations continue.

In a cold war, it only takes one miscommunication or one defective piece of equipment to set off a chain of events that can obliterate all life on earth. The more things escalate, the greater the probability of that happening. We're rolling the dice on Armageddon every single day, and with every escalation the number we need to beat gets a bit harder.

We should not be rolling the dice on this. This is very, very wrong, and the U.S. and Russia should stop and establish detente immediately. The fact that outlets like CNN would rather diddle made-up Russiagate narratives than point to this obvious fact with truthful reporting is in and of itself sufficient to discredit them all forever.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium . Follow her work on Facebook , Twitter , or her website . She has a podcast and a new book " Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers ."

This article was re-published with permission. The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.


Roger D Owens , November 20, 2019 at 11:28

Our historians here seem to be forgetting the brutal takeover of Ukraine by the USSR in the 50's, in which millions of Ukrainians were shot, raped, beaten and starved out, while "ethnic Russians" moved in and took over. Kruschev didn't "give" Crimea away, he simply transferred the administration thereof to the Soviet Republic of "the" Ukraine (a term Ukranians have always decried as a way to make it seem as if Ukraine had always been a part of the USSR). The "ethnic Russians" wouldn't have been there at all if the Soviets hadn't put them there. That argument is the same one Hitler used as his excuse to annex Poland, and Polk used to annex Texas. It's true Russia's self-interest (and well-founded fears of foreign betrayal) have been largely ignored, but it's also disingenuous to ignore their murderous 20th-century imperialism. Just because we're not the good guys doesn't mean they are either.

anon4d2 , November 20, 2019 at 18:12

Perhaps you forgot that the USSR actions in eastern Europe after WWII were in direct response to the murder of 20 million Russians in WWII by the Nazi forces, attacking through E Europe just as Napoleon had done. All US casualties in all its wars are less than five percent of that, and 95 percent of Nazi division-months were spent in the USSR. On that front they had nearly all of the casualties and did nearly all of the fighting. No wonder they were a bit uncomfortable afterward with leaving open the favorite attack route of the west. What would the US have done if a hundred times its WWII casualties were caused by two invasions through (for example) Mexico? Would we have left the door open? Such circumstances cannot be ignored. Starting one's version of history after the world's greatest provocation cannot be said to clarify the history.

Toby McCrossin , November 21, 2019 at 02:56

"Our historians here seem to be forgetting the brutal takeover of Ukraine by the USSR in the 50's"

Nice alternative facts. Ukraine was one of the original constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922!

" Kruschev didn't "give" Crimea away"

Huh? Crimea had been part of Russia since 1783. You know you can check this stuff yourself using Google, right?

"The "ethnic Russians" wouldn't have been there at all if the Soviets hadn't put them there."

Right, so the Soviets put the Russians in Crimea in 1783, 139 years before it was in existence. I guess the Soviets mastered time travel.

I know reading's hard and all but you might wanna try it some time.

Jon Anderholm , November 20, 2019 at 02:22

An essential article by Caitlin .. Thanks so much .

Sam F , November 19, 2019 at 22:56

Another excellent article by Caitlin Johnstone.

Jeff G. , November 19, 2019 at 19:59

Given the laws of cause and effect, our nuclear missiles might as well be considered to be pointed straight at ourselves. Like shooting at one's image in a mirror or joining in a mutual suicide pact. Sheer insanity.

ranney , November 19, 2019 at 17:26

WONDERFUL article, Caitlin. You are so right! I agree with Alan Ross, you deserve an award for this, and I hope this gets passed around for a wide readership.

Antonio Costa , November 19, 2019 at 15:14

When elected POTUS you are elected, no matter the campaign rhetoric, to take the reins of the imperial empire.

Trump did that willingly, in fact to a fault given his "big mouth". He's no more nor less dangerous than his predecessors. And like them, his is a mass of rhetorical contradictions. Policy is all that should really matters. It is our only means of identifying some truth.

Trump knows what most here know regarding US invasions and assassinations. What he thinks about any leader is anyone's guess (including his). For him it's all deal making as if it's his private Trump Towers Enterprises. But in the end he's playing the chief gangsta role of his like. (If you've ever listened to Sinatra at the Sands (the full concert), you'll hear how Trump has mimicked the popular gangsta singer to the last "love ya baby ").

The media is not free. It is an arm of the national security state, with occasional outages of truth telling, all the more to tell the big lies. It's purpose is to pacify and repress any rebellions. Since the end of Vietnam it has succeeded. And here we are, never knowing truth from lie. (I think of Obama as deceitful to the max, while Trump just tells transparent lies so you don't know when he's actually telling a profound truth.)

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

-- Joseph Goebbels (was a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945)

Mark Thomason , November 19, 2019 at 14:22

We can go one step further than to say that Trump was reckless toward Russia, "with zero resistance from either party."

Both parties demanded it. They approved it as "Presidential" whenever he did it, and attacked him for any effort to be less reckless. They'd done the same to Obama, but Trump proved weaker and more malleable.

Jeff Harrison , November 19, 2019 at 14:14

Verra nice peroration. I have two objections. One, I doubt that the people of the Donbass are Russian backed in the same sense that the "moderate" rebel scum in Syria is US backed with weapons, intelligence, and training but the people of the Donbass are ethnic Russians. With a steady stream of anti-Russian legislation coming out of Kiev, I imagine they're looking for an out. Putin is trying to get it for them without starting a war with Ukraine. The real question that Washington has yet to address is what are they going to do if the people of Ukraine notice that since they signed on to the neo-liberal dictates of Washington and Brussels they've become the poorest nation in Europe. I know that there are a number of Ukrainians who think wistfully of the days when they were part of Mother Russia. But you never know, the CIA is notorious for its subversion and the Ukrainians might prove to be spectacularly stupid. After all, they weren't doing badly until they let the US and EU foment a coup for them.

And, two, "We should not be rolling the dice on this. This is very, very wrong, and the U.S. and Russia should stop and establish detente immediately." While I agree with the sentiment, don't bring Russia into this. Everything that Russia has done has been a reaction to what is usually an American violation of international law. Putin has been very clear that he wants to back off this cold war but he has also been very clear that we started it and we're going to have to be the ones to start backing off.

David Hamilton , November 20, 2019 at 02:11

I absolutely agree with your number two reaction to Caitlin's suggestion that Russia and the U.S. should stop it and establish detente immediately. Everything Russia's leadership is doing is a reaction to American imperial dares to defy their law violations. They exhibit extreme and principled restraint to the Orwellian madness emanating from this place.

I think it is important that this be understood. Russians have been used and abused once before by American largesse in the form of Clinton's puppet's assistance in the rape of the former Soviet Union by the Harvard-sponsored project. That was the one during the nineties that privatized national industries and created a dozen neoliberal oligarchs. The cost was a huge increase in death rate that lowered life expectancy into the 50's from 70 years I think. Cynical foreign policy, isn't it?

Lois Gagnon , November 19, 2019 at 13:16

Anyone who has not read Orwell's 1984 should do so sooner rather than later. The official control of narrative in the novel is what we are presently drowning in. To watch it work so spectacularly is beyond depressing.

Many thanks to Caitlin Johnstone, Consortium News and all the others pushing back against this system of perception management. I keep repeating it because it rings true. It's like waking up in the Twilight Zone.

John Neal Spangler , November 19, 2019 at 12:44

She is right. CNN. MSNBC, NYT, and Wapo totally irresponsible. Fox not much better. So many anti-Russian bigots in US

Jimmy gates , November 19, 2019 at 12:37

Thank you Caitlin. The neoliberals and neocons both desperately want a greatly intensified cold war with Russia, but want it started by Trump ( because he is personally an outsider).

This gives the Democrat and Republican donors contracts for the war machine. Ever since Clinton administration moved NATO to the Russian border, the process has worked for the oligarchs who control all US policies, foreign and domestic.

Gary Weglarz , November 19, 2019 at 12:20

The complete corruption of Western MSM is the reason many of us regularly read Caitlin and Consortium, all desperately trying to get some sort of a reality-check in an otherwise "Orwellian" media environment.

For anyone who has been waiting for the publication of reporter Udo Ulfkotte's best selling book (in Germany), a book based on his experience as a well respected journalist whose reporting was completely compromised by Western intelligence services and business interests, it is finally available in an English language edition. The English language edition has been quite obviously suppressed for the last several years and the book was published in 9 languages BEFORE this English edition became available. It is a book that is well worth reading to better understand why literally NOTHING written by MSM should be believed at face value, ever:
See:

amazon.com/Presstitutes-Embedded-Pay-CIA-Confession/dp/1615770178/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0/131-5128290-0014039

Skip Scott , November 19, 2019 at 15:34

I would urge anyone interested in buying this book to get it directly from the publisher- Progressive Press. Amazon and other mega monopolies are a big part of our problems. Take the time to make a few extra clicks and boycott Jeff Bezos.

Noah Way , November 19, 2019 at 10:58

The simple truth here is that in regard to the military (read 'military complex', which includes the deep state and shadow government [intelligence agencies] every president is a puppet. Nobel Peace Prize winner oBOMBa bombed 7 countries, overthrew Ukraine's democratic government, invaded Syria, armed terrorists as proxy armies, authorized drone assassinations, and bombed a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The last president to resist the military complex? JFK

peter mcloughlin , November 19, 2019 at 10:19

Caitlin Johnstone's list points to growing tensions with Russia. Failure of the political and media establishment to see this makes the task of avoiding world war three all the more difficult. In the West the end of the Cold War was seen as the dawn of peace. But the Cold War was the peace, a post-world war environment: we are now in a pre-world war environment.

Jimmy gates , November 19, 2019 at 12:45

The Democratic Party members have not " missed" anything that Trump has done. They will not impeach him on those grounds, because they too are guilty of complicity in those war crimes. As Pelosi said regarding impeaching GWB for the torture program or invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan " it's off the table". Because she was complicit.

Lois Gagnon , November 19, 2019 at 13:23

Russia did not illegally annex Crimea. A referendum was held and 90% of the voters voted to rejoin Russia. Most people in Crimea are ethnic Russians and speak Russian. They were understandably scared to death of what their fate would be under the rule of the fascists the US installed in Ukraine.

And frankly, Russia had every right to protect its only warm water port in Sevastopol that would have been taken over by NATO if Crimea had remained part of Ukraine. Too many Americans have been indoctrinated in the belief that Russia has no legitimate self interest to defend.

michael , November 19, 2019 at 18:22

In addition to what Lois Gagnon points out, you have to realize that the re-patriation of Crimea to Russia in March 2014 was the direct result of Obama, Biden, Nuland et al overthrowing the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Yanukovych, in the Maidan coup in February, 2014, and replacing him with a neoNAZI regime. Russian speech was outlawed, which has been the language of the majority of Crimea since Catherine the Great.

The coup in Ukraine was a major provocation to Russia, but was also a repeat of the Americans' rape and pillaging of Russia under Yeltsin, Clinton's puppet. The per capita median income of Ukrainians has dropped in half from 2013, despite pumping $billions in from the US.

Jeff G. , November 19, 2019 at 20:25

Crimeans have an absolute right of self-determination as a fundamental human right under established international law, just as the Kosovars did when we were supporting the breakup of Serbia when Clinton was president. Ethnic Russians voted in an overwhelming majority in a free and fair plebiscite to rejoin Russia, which they had been part of for centuries, because the neo-Nazi US coup government allied with Azov battalions in Kyiv terrified them and they wanted nothing further to do with them. Crimea had every right to decide. Russia did nothing to interfere, not a bullet was fired. Russia's troops were already stationed in Crimea by treaty and did not invade. Russia warned NATO against the Kosovo precedent that it would come back to bite them someday, and it was ignored. NATO is unhappy because it was denied an illegitimate geostrategic advantage they thought they would gain. Crimea is happy, so what's the problem?

DH Fabian , November 19, 2019 at 21:08

"We," who? Regardless, the issues you raise can't be understood outside of their historical context, and Americans never try to understand the world within that historical context.

anon , November 19, 2019 at 22:54

Crimea was part of Russia for roughly 200 years before the USSR premier (Kruschev?) gave it to Ukraine, although its inhabitants were nearly all of Russian heritage and language, like E Ukraine. So not surprising that they wanted to go back to being part of Russia.

dean 1000 , November 20, 2019 at 19:26

Couldn't agree more Lois Gagnon. Washington did an illegal coup. Russia did a legal annexation.

btw – The Autonomous Republic of Sevastopol on SW Crimea is no longer the only ice-free port of the Russian Navy. Kaliningrad (on the Baltic sea) has been part of Russia since 1945. Its deep ice-free harbor is the home port of Russia's Baltic fleet according to the 2012 world book DVD.

Good one Caitlin. Again

jdd , November 19, 2019 at 09:51

This article properly puts to rest the absurd notion that President Trump is a "tool of Putin, " and correctly notes that it has created a potentially disastrous situation.

However, let's put the blame squarely where it belongs: on the Anglo/American led forces arrayed against Trump from the moment he announced his intention to run on a platform of "getting along" with Russia and joining with Putin to defeat ISIS.

Failing impeachment, from the attempts by the Clinton Campaign, to the Congressional sanctions on Russia, to sabotage of Syria withdrawal to the Mueller hoax, to the State Dept hawks protests on Ukraine, the effort to prevent Trump from following through on his campaign promise has been the primary goal of the intelligence community. It is instructive to note that the phone call that has led to the current impeachment inquiry was made on July 26, the day following Robert Mueller's clownish testimony before Congress, effectively ending that line of impeachment.

Nick , November 19, 2019 at 16:50

Also note that although the phone call was made in July, nothing was said about it until after John Bolton was fired in September, 2 months later.

Alan Ross , November 19, 2019 at 09:47

This article alone deserves an award for public service. And in a more sensibly run world Caitlin Johnstone would have gotten at least fifty such awards for past articles.

[Nov 24, 2019] Ukraine Part of America's Vital Interests by Barry R. Posen ,

Notable quotes:
"... For the last twenty years Ukraine and Belarus have kept NATO and Russian forces far apart. This was an underappreciated benefit. NATO's flirtation with admitting Ukraine into the alliance simply ignored the new risks that would be assumed. If Russia were to occupy all of Ukraine, we would return to this unhappy standoff. ..."
"... If Ukraine falls into civil war, with Russia and the West aiding their respective favorites, the risk of a direct NATO-Russia clash also rises. To ensure peace between Russia and the West, the question of foreign alignment should be taken out of Ukrainian politics. ..."
"... Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT and Director of their Security Studies Program. He is the author of Restraint- A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy . ..."
May 12, 2014 | nationalinterest.org

Topic: Grand Strategy Region: Ukraine Ukraine: Part of America's "Vital Interests"?

"If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to "fall" to Russia, it would have little impact on the security of the United States."

Once, foreign policy experts talked about "vital interests." The term has fallen into disuse, partly because there are no hard and fast rules for calculating what distinguishes the "vital" from the merely "interesting." If advocates wanted their country to do a thing they would call it a vital interest; if they did not, then they would not. But students of foreign policy did seem to agree on one thing: vital interests were the things you were willing to have your soldiers die for and kill for. By this measure, even the most hawkish politicians in the United States, all of whom have eschewed any desire for a shooting match, have agreed that the United States has no vital interests in Ukraine.

What would vital interests look like if they were present? Vital interests affect the safety, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and power position of the United States, or indeed of any country. If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to "fall" to Russia, it would have little impact on the security of the United States. Russia is no longer the strong country that the USSR was: its GDP is dwarfed by that of the United States. Its non-nuclear military power is woefully insufficient for the conquest of the major states of Eurasia. The possession of Crimea, a grab for Ukraine's eastern provinces, or even the occupation of all Ukraine would not change this. Indeed, the military conquest of Ukraine would be costly to Russia because as one moves westward, one encounters ever-more-nationalistic Ukrainians, who have a historical propensity to fight. Russian forces facing west would find themselves with a fifth column in their rear.

Geography alone can sometimes create a vital interest. If Ukraine were Mexico, the United States would have an interest in protecting it from Russia or anyone else. For Russia, Ukraine is Mexico, and in their eyes, the United States and its Western allies have been inexorably creeping in their direction since the end of the Cold War. Russian interests in Ukraine probably exceed NATO's, which is why modest sanctions are unlikely to coerce Russia into passivity. They do not want Western political, economic, and military power on their border. Of course, the easternmost members of NATO would not like Russian forces on their doorstep , but because they are all too weak to defend themselves, or too confident in the United States to bother, their security depends much more on whether the United States will make good on its alliance commitments than on whether Russia shares a border.

The United States does have one security interest in Ukraine. Though it is not a vital interest, the preservation of an independent neutral zone between NATO and Russian military forces has been a stabilizing factor in east-west relations. During the Cold War, especially in Germany, NATO and Soviet forces faced each other head to head. Even their non-nuclear forces had powerful offensive capabilities -- thousands of tanks and aircraft that could strike deeply into the other's territory. The two sides also possessed large numbers of nuclear weapons, and had the command, control and plans in place to use them if necessary. This was a nervous relationship, fraught with the possibility of escalation and mutual disaster. This is a world that neither we nor the Russians should wish to recreate, even with the diminished forces Russia now possesses. The United States and its allies succeeded in managing this for forty years, and we could do it again if we had to. So preventing this is "nice to have" but not "need to have." Indeed, trying to prevent it by force brings on the very thing we should wish to avoid. But maintaining a wide military buffer zone is a real security interest, and the only one worth pursuing in Ukraine.

For the last twenty years Ukraine and Belarus have kept NATO and Russian forces far apart. This was an underappreciated benefit. NATO's flirtation with admitting Ukraine into the alliance simply ignored the new risks that would be assumed. If Russia were to occupy all of Ukraine, we would return to this unhappy standoff. If NATO forces were to help Ukraine resist Russia militarily, we would also return to this situation. This is neither in Russia's interests, nor in ours. It is far better to negotiate a mutual "hands off Ukraine" agreement. Diplomacy, sanctions (and the threat of more), and economic assistance (bribes) to Ukraine are the tools that the West should use to restore the status quo ante.

Western liberals will be quick to decry any security agreement reached over the heads of the Ukrainians. The crisis in Ukraine, however, is a direct consequence of the fact that Ukrainians do not agree on the extent to which they should be associated with the West or with Russia. This disagreement threatens to tear the country apart. If Ukraine falls into civil war, with Russia and the West aiding their respective favorites, the risk of a direct NATO-Russia clash also rises. To ensure peace between Russia and the West, the question of foreign alignment should be taken out of Ukrainian politics.

Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT and Director of their Security Studies Program. He is the author of Restraint- A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy .

[Nov 23, 2019] Fiona Hill a rabid neocon promoting UK foreign policy within the USA government, a book writer of Luke Harding mold, was appointed by Trump in 2017 when Russiagate was in full broom

This is another remnant for Bush neocon team, a protégé of Bolton. Trump probably voluntarily appointed this rabid neocon, a chickenhawk who would shine in Hillary State Department. Interestingly she came from working class background. So much about Marx theory of class struggle. Brown, David (March 4, 2017). "Miner's daughter tipped as Trump adviser on Russia" . The Times. She also illustrate level pf corruption of academic science, because she got PhD in history from Harvard in 1998 under Richard Pipes, Akira Iriye, and Roman Szporluk. But at least this was history, not languages like in case of Ciaramella.
Such appointment by Trump is difficult to describe with normal words as he understood what he is buying. So he is himself to blame for his current troubles and his inability to behave in a diplomatic way when there was important to him question about role of CrowdStrike in 2016 election and creation of Russiagate witch hunt.
There is something in the USA that creates conditions for producing rabid female neocons, some elevator that brings ruthless female careerists with sharp elbows them to the establishment. She sounds like a person to the right of Madeline Albright, which is an achievement
With such books It is unclear whether she is different from Max Boot. She buys official Skripal story like hook and sinker. The list of her book looks like produced in UK by Luke Harding
Being miner daughter raised in poverty we can also talk about betrayal of her class and upbringing.
This also rises wisdom of appointing emigrants to the Administration and the extent they pursue policies beneficial for their native countries.
Nov 23, 2019 | en.wikipedia.org

Impeachment testimony

On October 14, 2019, responding to a subpoena , Hill testified in a closed-door deposition for ten hours before special committees of the United States Congress as part of the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump . [9] [10] [11]

Testimony to the House Intelligence Committee by Hill and David Holmes, November 21, 2019 , C-SPAN

She testified in public before the same body on November 21, 2019. [12] While being questioned by Steve Castor , the counsel for the House Intelligence Committee's Republican minority, Hill commented on Gordon Sondland 's involvement in the Ukraine matter: "It struck me when (Wednesday), when you put up on the screen Ambassador Sondland's emails, and who was on these emails, and he said these are the people who need to know, that he was absolutely right," she said. "Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged." [13] In response to a question from that committee's chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff , Hill stated: "The Russians' interests are frankly to delegitimize our entire presidency. The goal of the Russians [in 2016] was really to put whoever became the president -- by trying to tip their hands on one side of the scale -- under a cloud." [

Hill's books include:

[Nov 23, 2019] Fiona Hill a rabid neocon promoting UK foreign policy within the USA government, a book writer of Luke Harding mold, was appointed by Trump in 2017 when Russiagate was in full broom

This is another remnant for Bush neocon team, a protégé of Bolton. Trump probably voluntarily appointed this rabid neocon, a chickenhawk who would shine in Hillary State Department. Interestingly she came from working class background. So much about Marx theory of class struggle. Brown, David (March 4, 2017). "Miner's daughter tipped as Trump adviser on Russia" . The Times. She also illustrate level pf corruption of academic science, because she got PhD in history from Harvard in 1998 under Richard Pipes, Akira Iriye, and Roman Szporluk. But at least this was history, not languages like in case of Ciaramella.
Such appointment by Trump is difficult to describe with normal words as he understood what he is buying. So he is himself to blame for his current troubles and his inability to behave in a diplomatic way when there was important to him question about role of CrowdStrike in 2016 election and creation of Russiagate witch hunt.
There is something in the USA that creates conditions for producing rabid female neocons, some elevator that brings ruthless female careerists with sharp elbows them to the establishment. She sounds like a person to the right of Madeline Albright, which is an achievement
With such books It is unclear whether she is different from Max Boot. She buys official Skripal story like hook and sinker. The list of her book looks like produced in UK by Luke Harding
Being miner daughter raised in poverty we can also talk about betrayal of her class and upbringing.
This also rises wisdom of appointing emigrants to the Administration and the extent they pursue policies beneficial for their native countries.
Nov 23, 2019 | en.wikipedia.org

Impeachment testimony

On October 14, 2019, responding to a subpoena , Hill testified in a closed-door deposition for ten hours before special committees of the United States Congress as part of the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump . [9] [10] [11]

Testimony to the House Intelligence Committee by Hill and David Holmes, November 21, 2019 , C-SPAN

She testified in public before the same body on November 21, 2019. [12] While being questioned by Steve Castor , the counsel for the House Intelligence Committee's Republican minority, Hill commented on Gordon Sondland 's involvement in the Ukraine matter: "It struck me when (Wednesday), when you put up on the screen Ambassador Sondland's emails, and who was on these emails, and he said these are the people who need to know, that he was absolutely right," she said. "Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged." [13] In response to a question from that committee's chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff , Hill stated: "The Russians' interests are frankly to delegitimize our entire presidency. The goal of the Russians [in 2016] was really to put whoever became the president -- by trying to tip their hands on one side of the scale -- under a cloud." [

Hill's books include:

[Nov 23, 2019] Testimony to the House Intelligence Committee by Hill and David Holmes

The most interesting part of testimony is that CrowdStrike machinations in case of DNC leak which was artificially turns into Russian hack (and probably not without Crowdstyle server located in Ukraine). As this is connected to Steel which is a hot spot for the UK government was swiped under the carpet.
She actually met with Steele. She was shown Steele dossier before it was published.
Nov 21, 2019 | www.c-span.org

CrowdStrike was mentioned only is passing and was instantly dismissed by rabid neocon Hill. While this was the central issue with Zelensky administration.

All questioning was about semi-senile Biden, who is probably the most favorable contender on Democratic side for Trump.

[Nov 22, 2019] The quote "The higher the monkey climbs, the harder he will fall..." is perfectly applicable to Pompeo

Nov 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

flankerbandit , Nov 21 2019 16:38 utc | 74

Uncle T...thanks for that Pieczenik commentary

Nice and focused and succinct...love the Mao quote...

The higher the monkey climbs, the harder he will fall...

That describes Scumbag Pompeo in a nutshell...worth hearing this brief history of the lardass pathological climber...

I have said this before...Trump is still the best of what's on offer in the fake democracy of empire...

His opponents are hoisting themselves on their own petard...the more pathologically determined they get, the bigger the bomb exploding in their face...Wile E Coyote 101...

The simple fact as I see it is that Trump is basically alone, which is not surprising because who among the Washington creatures is going to agree with any of his sensible agenda...which most notably is to get out of Syria and Afghanistan...and 'get along' with Russia...

Regardless of anything else bad that he thinks is good...which includes enabling Israeli colonialism and other things...if he were able to actually pull off those agenda items it would be a very good step forward...

Now he has been tied up quite effectively by the opposition ['resistance'] but he's still managed to at least break open northeastern Syria for the government to return...a big plus...

As far as hopes to somehow take him down...that is delusional...he's a tough cookie who's dealt with much tougher customers than these half wits in Washington...

People forget that the POTUS has tremendous power, even all alone and stranded on an oval office island...he is not going to be brought down like Nixon...that era is over...plus he's not as dumb as poor Dickie...

At the same time, there will be no scumbags going to jail for the massive hoax of Russiagate and what amounts to a domestic color revolution attempt that they perpetrated on their own people...

The Trump plan is to simply remain in office, which almost certainly he will do, and then we may see Prometheus Unbound...

[Nov 22, 2019] The Independent Ukraine s painful journey through the five stages of grief by The Saker

Notable quotes:
"... Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but many of us will never know... ..."
"... They certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for "the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism. ..."
Nov 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

In my July 25th article " Zelenskii's dilemma " I pointed out the fundamental asymmetry of the Ukrainian power configuration following Zelenskii's crushing victory over Poroshenko: while a vast majority of the Ukrainian people clearly voted to stop the war and restore some kind of peace to the Ukraine, the real levers of power in the post-Maidan Banderastan are all held by all sorts of very powerful, if also small, minority groups including:

The various "oligarchs" (Kolomoiskii, Akhmetov, etc.) and/or mobsters Arsen Avakov's internal security forces including some "legalized" Nazi death squads The various non-official Nazi deathsquads (Parubii) The various western intelligence agencies who run various groups inside the Ukraine The various western financial/political sponsors who run various groups inside the Ukraine The so-called "Sorosites" (соросята) i.e. Soros and Soros-like sponsored political figures The many folks who want to milk the Ukraine down to the last drop of Ukrainian blood and then run

These various groups all acted in unison, at least originally, during and after the Euromaidan. This has now dramatically changed and these groups are now all fighting each other. This is what always happens when things begin to turn south and the remaining loot shrinks with every passing day,

Whether Zelenskii ever had a chance to use the strong mandate he received from the people to take the real power back from these groups or not is now a moot point: It did not happen and the first weeks of Zelenskii's presidency clearly showed that Zelenskii was, indeed, in " free fall ": instead of becoming a "Ukrainian Putin" Zelenskii became a "Ukrainian Trump" – a weak and, frankly, clueless leader, completely outside his normal element, whose only "policy" towards all the various extremist minorities was to try to appease them, then appease them some more, and then even more than that. As a result, a lot of Ukrainians are already speaking about "Ze" being little more than a "Poroshenko 2.0". More importantly, pretty much everybody is frustrated and even angry at Zelenskii whose popularity is steadily declining.

... ... ...

Another major problem for Zelenskii are two competing narratives: the Ukronazi one and, shall we say, the "Russian" one. I have outlined the Ukronazi one just above and now I will mention the competing Russian one which goes something like this:

The Euromaidan was a completely illegal violent coup against the democratically elected President of the Ukraine, whose legitimacy nobody contested, least of all the countries which served as mediators between Poroshenko and the rioters and who betrayed their word in less than 24 hours (a kind of a record for western politicians and promises of support!).

... ... ...

Some of the threats made by these Ukronazis are dead serious and the only person who, as of now, kinda can keep the Ukrainian version of the Rwandan " Interahamwe " under control would probably be Arsen Avakov, but since he himself is a hardcore Nazi nutcase, his attitude is ambiguous and unpredictable. He probably has more firepower than anybody else, but he was a pure " Porokhobot " (Poroshenko-robot) who, in many ways, controlled Poroshenko more than Poroshenko controlled him. The best move for Zelenskii would be to arrest the whole lot of them overnight (Poroshenko himself, but also Avakov, Parubii, Iarosh, Farion, Liashko, Tiagnibok, etc.) and place a man he totally trusts as Minister of the Interior. Next, Zelenskii should either travel to Donetsk or, at least, meet with the leaders of the LDNR and work with them to implement the Minsk Agreements. That would alienate the Ukronazis for sure, but it would give Zelenskii a lot of popular support.

Needless to say, that is not going to happen. While Zelenskii's puppet master Kolomoiskii would love to stick this entire gang in jail and replace them with his own men, it is an open secret that powerful interest groups in the US have told Zelenskii "don't you dare touch them". Which is fine, except that this also means "don't you dare change their political course either".

...are going through the famous Kübler-Ross stages of griefs: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance: currently, most of them are zig-zagging between bargaining and depression; acceptance is still far beyond their – very near – horizon. Except that Zelenskii has nothing left to bargain with.


Alfred , says: November 14, 2019 at 9:51 am GMT

Thank you for a rational article about Ukraine. The sad thing is that it might take years to reach the "acceptance" phase.

It would take someone like Hitler to clean out the stables. Arrest is not a viable option as they will bribe their way out. These people need to be put down like rabid dogs. That is the only way to put an end to their mischief and it would be a deterrent to their replacements.

Personally, I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel. Another country that is still in the "denial" phase. Its military and political leaders know full-well that their strategic aims have all failed. The boot is now firmly on the other foot.

I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score. To give you an idea of how ridiculous it has all become, the UK no longer accepts medical degrees awarded by universities in Crimea.

AWM , says: November 14, 2019 at 1:56 pm GMT
Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but many of us will never know...
Kateryna , says: November 14, 2019 at 5:18 pm GMT
It's "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine".
Spycimir Mendoza , says: November 14, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMT
Roman Dmowski, one of the creators of independent Poland, wrote in 1931 about Ukraine:
http://www.mysl-polska.pl/node/164
Commentator Mike , says: November 14, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMT
@Alfred

I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel.

You got that right – what it's all about is building a New Khazaria. But they're neither giving up on their Greater Israel project between the two rivers, and hence more wars, conflict and chaos to drive out the native Arabs from the Middle East.

I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.

SeekerofthePresence , says: November 14, 2019 at 7:31 pm GMT
'Murka in boundless greed seizes Ukraine,
"Vital US national interest."
US now run by the likes of Strain,
'Nother hide to post in Pinterest.
Curmudgeon , says: November 14, 2019 at 9:47 pm GMT
@AWM They certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for "the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism.
tolemo , says: November 15, 2019 at 12:06 am GMT
@Curmudgeon They may not be real n@zis but they sure do look like it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhw4IdIO6Lg&feature=youtu.be
Alfred , says: November 15, 2019 at 10:14 am GMT
@bob sykes Kolomoiskii is the real hidden owner/controller of the company that bribed the Bidens. He has a finger in lots of pies. His pretense to leaning towards Russia is his way to try to get the Americans to stop attempts to get at the many millions that he stole from his own Ukrainians bank – fake loans to his companies.

Of course, the Russians understand all of that. This theater is aimed at the Americans – not at the Russians.

Igor Kolomoisky Makes A Mistake, And The New York Times Does What It Always Does

Felix Keverich , says: November 15, 2019 at 9:43 pm GMT
For the Ukrainian state to break up, there need to be some forces interested in a break-up. You won't find such forces inside the Ukraine.

What is Ukrainian South-East? In pure political terms, "South-East" is a bunch of oligarchs, who are all integrated into Ukrainian system, and have no reason to seek independence from Kiev, especially if it means getting slapped with Western sanctions.

Even the Kremlin doesn't show much interest in breaking up the Ukraine, so why the hell would it break up?

It's worth pointing out that the so-called "Novorossia movement" started out as Akhmetov's project to win concessions from new Kiev regime. It was then quickly hijacked by Strelkov, a man who actually wanted to break up the Ukraine, and it is because of Strelkov, that Donetsk and Lugansk are now de-facto independent. Without similar figures to lead secessionist movements elsewhere in the Ukraine, this break-up that Saker keeps talking about will never happen.

Marshall Lentini , says: November 17, 2019 at 5:28 am GMT
Twenty-one occurrences of "Nazi".
Marshall Lentini , says: November 17, 2019 at 5:30 am GMT
@Nodwink Do you doubt it'll come to that? Krakow is on its way to becoming Little Bombay. Gotta have that "tech".
Carlton Meyer , says: Website November 17, 2019 at 6:31 am GMT
How 98% of Americans feel about the Ukraine BS:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Evj_qduJY7U?feature=oembed

Skeptikal , says: November 17, 2019 at 2:02 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer Tucker nails it -- with humor, to boot.

His ratings must be sky-high, because otherwise I cannot imagine why Fox would allow him to continue to use their network as a medium to broadcast common sense.

Of course the Dems are making it so easy.
Schiff, Kent, Taylor, Yanovitch -- what a pathetic, nauseating crew.

[Nov 22, 2019] Another Glass Menagerie

Notable quotes:
"... She looked to be a most convincing and dignified victim but it was difficult to work out quite what she'd been a victim of. ..."
"... I think our closest equivalent over here would be Lady Ashton, who headed up the pre-coup European negotiations with the Ukraine. It was Lady Ashton who gave the most famous diplomatic response in modern history, when she was told that the snipers might be provocateurs. "Gosh." ..."
"... And Chairman Schiff looked as scary as usual. If I could open my eyes that wide I'd make a fortune in horror movies. Which I suppose is more or less what he does. ..."
"... Colonel, your description of Ambassador Yovanovitch as "a secular nun" is spot on. Congratulations ! On the other hand, why is a nun continuing a civil war with 1% predatory oligarchs and Bandera thugs on our side, versus 99% of un-armed local nobodies who want a return to normalcy? ..."
"... Lastly, note that Representative Stefanik caught Ambassador Marie in a lie about Hunter Biden and Burisma. Marie claimed under oath that she had never encountered the issue pre-arrival in the Ukraine, while she had admitted earlier that Obama staff coached her about Hunter / Burisma responses for her Senate Confirmation Hearings. ..."
Nov 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

... She seems to live alone, alone with her work. She tried living with her 88 year old mother three years ago but that did not last. What would the old girl have done with herself in Kiev with her daughter working all the time?

So, the maman went home to the States. Marie is still employed as a Career Ambassador (a high rank) in the Foreign Service of of the United States She is currently assigned at Georgetown U.

... ... ...


English Outsider , 16 November 2019 at 03:35 PM


That's the first time I've seen "winsome" used with an edge.

I watched her for some time and didn't know what on earth to make of her. She looked to be a most convincing and dignified victim but it was difficult to work out quite what she'd been a victim of.

I think our closest equivalent over here would be Lady Ashton, who headed up the pre-coup European negotiations with the Ukraine. It was Lady Ashton who gave the most famous diplomatic response in modern history, when she was told that the snipers might be provocateurs. "Gosh."

A very safe pair of hands, is what would be said of both and almost certainly often is.

I did know what to make of the histrionics just before the recess. They looked false. That man wasn't really crying. And Chairman Schiff looked as scary as usual. If I could open my eyes that wide I'd make a fortune in horror movies. Which I suppose is more or less what he does.

Eric Newhill said in reply to English Outsider ... , 17 November 2019 at 10:14 AM
EO,
Zelensky did not like her and suggested that she was involved with corrupt people and undermining the President. I don't understand how Trump gets all of the blame for her being relieved of her position.
turcopolier , 16 November 2019 at 03:49 PM
English Outsider

Marie IMO was always the second best looking girl in the class but maybe teacher's pet, and has never had anyone take anything away from her before. "Gosh." She doesn't look like someone you could safely make a pass at unless you had an awful lot of rank.

Petrel said in reply to turcopolier ... , 17 November 2019 at 07:22 AM
Colonel, your description of Ambassador Yovanovitch as "a secular nun" is spot on. Congratulations ! On the other hand, why is a nun continuing a civil war with 1% predatory oligarchs and Bandera thugs on our side, versus 99% of un-armed local nobodies who want a return to normalcy?

Then again, since when does a Presidential emissary not only criticize him and the President of her host country, but also instruct local law enforcement on which oligarchs he may investigate and which oligarch's (admittedly ours) he may not.

Lastly, note that Representative Stefanik caught Ambassador Marie in a lie about Hunter Biden and Burisma. Marie claimed under oath that she had never encountered the issue pre-arrival in the Ukraine, while she had admitted earlier that Obama staff coached her about Hunter / Burisma responses for her Senate Confirmation Hearings.

To take your cue, Ambassador Marie is a secular nun with very bad ideas, who wandered to a profession she is not at all suited.

Factotum said in reply to Petrel... , 17 November 2019 at 03:16 PM
She has some bad habits, for a secular nun.

[Nov 22, 2019] Rand Paul To Trump Don't Let Neocons Run State Department

Notable quotes:
"... Senator Rand Paul has urged President Trump to shut out neoconservative war hawks from the State Department, as it has emerged that Elliott Abrams , a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, could be appointed to serve in the number two spot. ..."
"... "Elliott Abrams is a neoconservative too long in the tooth to change his spots, and the president should have no reason to trust that he would carry out a Trump agenda rather than a neocon agenda," Paul writes in an opinion piece for the libertarian website Rare . ..."
"... "Congress has good reason not to trust him -- he was convicted of lying to Congress in his previous job," Paul notes in his piece. ..."
"... Abrams is also believed to have been involved in approving the attempted Venezuelan coup against Hugo Chávez in 2002 while serving as Special Assistant to the President and holding office in the National Security Council. ..."
"... It is believed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is the one pushing for Abrams to join him at the State Department. ..."
Feb 07, 2017 | www.infowars.com
Senator Rand Paul has urged President Trump to shut out neoconservative war hawks from the State Department, as it has emerged that Elliott Abrams , a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, could be appointed to serve in the number two spot.

"Elliott Abrams is a neoconservative too long in the tooth to change his spots, and the president should have no reason to trust that he would carry out a Trump agenda rather than a neocon agenda," Paul writes in an opinion piece for the libertarian website Rare .

Abrams was intimately tied in with the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, and was even convicted of withholding information from Congress about covert government activities in Nicaragua and El Salvador. He was later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.

"Congress has good reason not to trust him -- he was convicted of lying to Congress in his previous job," Paul notes in his piece.

Abrams is also believed to have been involved in approving the attempted Venezuelan coup against Hugo Chávez in 2002 while serving as Special Assistant to the President and holding office in the National Security Council.

Senator Paul urges Trump not to appoint Abrams, adding that his "neocon agenda trumps his fidelity to the rule of law."

Paul points out that during the election, Abrams publicly spoke out against Trump's intention to withdraw from policing the world.

"He is a loud voice for nation building and when asked about the president's opposition to nation building, Abrams said that Trump was absolutely wrong; and during the election he was unequivocal in his opposition to Donald Trump, going so far as to say, 'the chair in which Washington and Lincoln sat, he is not fit to sit,'" Paul writes.

It is believed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is the one pushing for Abrams to join him at the State Department.

Paul, a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, hopes Tillerson "will continue the search for expert assistance from experienced, non-convicted diplomats who understand the mistakes of the past and the challenges ahead."

[Nov 22, 2019] Listening to our "world's best diplomats" convinced me that the deep state is real

The State (War) Department is really the neocons viper nest
Notable quotes:
"... Listening to our "world's best diplomats" convinced me that the deep state is real. These people think they, not elected officials, make policy. Plus, they are sneaky and conniving in trying to establish and protect their own little fiefdoms. They have never seen a foreign aid budget that in their humble yet expert opinion shouldn't be increased tenfold. They are political but pretend otherwise. And, their sanctimony is unbearable. Let's just say that I don't think that Foggy Bottom made a good impression with the general public this week. ..."
"... Oh, please. Every time it looks like we might actually pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, the generals pop up on the TV talk shows and in the Op-Ed pages warning of the dire consequences and pleading for more time. The neo-cons used to pull this "OMG, the military is the most competent part of the federal government" stuff back in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, and TAC is not the only publication that has blown up that myth. ..."
Nov 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

chris_zzz 19 hours ago

Listening to our "world's best diplomats" convinced me that the deep state is real. These people think they, not elected officials, make policy. Plus, they are sneaky and conniving in trying to establish and protect their own little fiefdoms. They have never seen a foreign aid budget that in their humble yet expert opinion shouldn't be increased tenfold. They are political but pretend otherwise. And, their sanctimony is unbearable. Let's just say that I don't think that Foggy Bottom made a good impression with the general public this week.
EdMan 15 hours ago
Straight fire out of Peter Van Buren. The State is the "The Blob." They're the ones who want to promote a policy of interventionism and nation-building. The military actually prefers to stay out of wars and don't want to pursue nation-building.
cka2nd EdMan 5 hours ago
Oh, please. Every time it looks like we might actually pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, the generals pop up on the TV talk shows and in the Op-Ed pages warning of the dire consequences and pleading for more time. The neo-cons used to pull this "OMG, the military is the most competent part of the federal government" stuff back in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, and TAC is not the only publication that has blown up that myth.
James Graham 11 hours ago • edited
This now-retired former private sector ex-pat had several encounters overseas with State employees.

They all came across as arrogant empty suits/dresses who thought their "service" made them automatically superior to us private sector citizens.

BTW "thank you for your service" should be bestowed only on US military personnel. Never on State employees.

[Nov 21, 2019] The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters, the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests

Highly recommended!
Nov 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Wills , Nov 14 2019 15:33 utc | 105

snake @95 argues "the deep state does not exist" with circular logic that is massively off target.

The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters, the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests. None of those interests have the ability to make policy and implement regime changes without the deep state. Yes, outside interests drive the actions of the deep state, but no, those outside interests have no ability to accomplish anything without their deep state operatives.

If the US federal government bureaucracy was a) much less powerful, b) much more transparent, and c) more responsive to elected leaders, then none of the bad things would happen. A pipe dream? Yes - but it is erroneous to make a simple declaration "the deep state doesn't exist" without any rational arguments to refute my points in @72.


juliania , Nov 14 2019 16:06 utc | 106

Don Wills @ 72:

Thank you for your post. You say that there is a deep state, but you then go on to tell us it is not as deep as we imagine. So, I posit we should call it "the shallow state". It is the foam on the edge of the sea as it begins to recede from a high tide of corrupt practices, delicate and lacy at the edges and so mesmerizing and attractive to some. But it is receding. And out there as it departs the Deep People are waiting. They are the depths of an ocean that never disappears. At low tide they are still there, and they will feed the incoming tide. At the turn.

And I also say, you may not care what the future brings, but I do. I have a little granson, born on my birthday, gazing at me with twinkling eyes from his photograph across the room. Family is also something we can call Deep and be truthful about that. It runs in both directions, past and future. The Deep People have Deep Families.

And yes, I know, other grandsons have met untimely deaths this century and are counted as 'collateral damage' by the shallow state. Still they are with us as the past is always with us; they deepen our persons in unaccountable but irreversible ways. They strengthen our family commitments. They are always here, in our memories and in our strengths. They are not collateral; they are the fabric of our determinations, our life blood.

The Deep People do care what happens. The twinkle in their grandsons' eyes burns in their hearts. It is a fire, a consuming force. It never dies.

Don Wills , Nov 14 2019 17:06 utc | 108
"deep state", "deep people", "the swamp" .. a rose by any other name would smell just as rancid.

"deep people" implies a small, isolated group. IMO, it's more like an iceberg than seashore foam. 90% of it is hidden from view.

My point was that snake's blame of the oligarchs misses the target. I look at them the way I look at any other predator - if the opportunity exists, they will take it. The deep state is THE necessary ingredient for the evil that the US government does.

I too have grandchildren. I am convinced that their lives will be less free, less prosperous, with less opportunity than what the seven generations of Wills family before me have experienced in the US for the last 275 years. So what can I do about it? Typing on my keyboard certainly won't make one whit of difference...

[Nov 21, 2019] Washington Makes Endless War And Calls It Peace

Nov 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Washington Makes Endless War And Calls It Peace by Tyler Durden Sun, 11/17/2019 - 23:30 0 SHARES

Authored by Daniel Larison via TheAmericanConservative.com,

Andrew Bacevich rightly rejects the idea that there was ever a Pax Americana in the Middle East:

"It took many decades to build a Pax Americana in the Middle East," X writes. Not true: it took only a handful of hours - the time he invested in writing his essay. The Pax Americana is a figment of X's imagination.

Defenders of U.S. hegemony like to make what they think is a flattering comparison between the U.S. and the Roman Empire, but where the Romans made a desert and called it peace the U.S. has gone to war in the desert again and again with no end in sight.

Not only has the U.S. not brought peace, but there is little reason to think that our government is capable of doing so. More to the point, the U.S. has no right to keep meddling in the affairs of these nations. It would also be accurate to say that the more American involvement there has been in the region, the less pax there has been there. There is nowhere else in the world where our foreign policy is as intensely militarized, and it is no accident that it is also where our foreign policy is most destructive. If the U.S. genuinely desired stability and the security of energy supplies, it would not be waging an economic war on Iran, and it wouldn't be fueling a disgraceful war on Yemen. The author of that piece, William Wechsler, notably has nothing to say about either one of those policies.

Opponents of U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East make two major claims: that withdrawal would harm U.S. interests and that it would make the region worse off than it already is.

The second point is wrong but debatable, and the first one depends on an absurdly expansive definition of what U.S. interests are. The piece that Bacevich is answering asserts that "it would be a terrible mistake and deeply harmful to the United States" to withdraw from the region, but the author does not show that current troop levels of more than 50,000 people are necessary or even useful for securing U.S. interests. The U.S. didn't have and didn't need a large military presence in the Middle East for the entire Cold War, and it doesn't need to have one now. Having a military presence in the region has directly contributed to increased threats to U.S. security through terrorism, and it made the Iraq war debacle possible. The greatest harm to U.S. security has come from our ongoing extensive military involvement in this part of the world.

Neither does the author demonstrate that U.S. foreign policy up until now has actually been doing the job he thinks it has. For instance, he mentions "supporting a delicate balance of power that promotes regional stability and protects our allies," but looking back over just the last twenty years of U.S. foreign policy in the region there is no evidence that the U.S. has been supporting a balance of power or promoted regional stability. On the contrary, to the extent that there was a balance of power at the start of this century, the U.S. set about destroying it by overthrowing the Iraqi government, and it has further contributed to the destabilization of at least three other countries through direct or indirect involvement in military interventions. The clients that the U.S. has in the Middle East aren't allies and we aren't obliged to protect them, but the U.S. hasn't done a terribly good job of protecting them, either. The U.S. has managed to indulge its clients in reckless and atrocious behavior that has also made them less secure and undermined our own security interests. Support for the war on Yemen is a good example of that. Enabling the Saudi coalition's war has bolstered Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), devastated and fractured Yemen, and exposed Saudi Arabia to reprisal attacks that it had never suffered before.

The other major flaw with the Wechsler piece is that he is warning against something that isn't happening:

As campaign promises tend to become governing realities for American foreign policy, the prospect of a full U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East now stands before us.

If only that were true. The U.S. has more troops in the region than it did at the start of this year. There is no sign that those numbers will be reduced anytime soon. Support for the war on Yemen continues, and the president has gone out of his way to keep arming the Saudi coalition. Even in Syria, there will still be an illegal U.S. military presence for the foreseeable future. Full withdrawal is nowhere in sight right now. The U.S. is heading in the opposite direction. The author pretends that withdrawal is in the offing and then urges the next president to "reverse this course," but there is nothing for the next president to reverse. So why rail against something that hasn't happened and isn't likely to occur? This is an old tactic of making the option of withdrawing from the region seem so extreme and dangerous that it has to be rejected out of hand, but these scare tactics are less and less effective as we see the mounting costs of open-ended conflict and deep entanglement in the affairs of other countries.

The author wants the next administration "to reestablish American leadership in the Middle East, restore deterrence with our adversaries, and begin renewing trust with our partners and allies," but he has not made a persuasive case that "American leadership" in the region is worth "reestablishing" even if it were possible to get back to the way things were before the Iraq war. Many of the "partners and allies" in question are themselves unreliable and have become liabilities, and many of the adversaries do not really threaten the U.S. Bacevich concludes that there needs to be a radical overhaul of U.S. foreign policy in the region on account of its colossal failures:

Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero.

There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East. The imperative is to go forward, which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.

Once we acknowledge those errors, the next step is not to fall into the same patterns out of a misguided desire for "leadership" and domination. Instead of chasing after a fantasy of imposing peace in some other part of the world, we need to stop our destabilizing and destructive policies that perpetuate conflict and make new wars more likely.


Miss Informed , 17 minutes ago link

Did the author forget that USA is Netenyahu's little bitch?

khnum , 27 minutes ago link

Lets just be honest the USA is in the business of war,overthrowing governments and creating vassal states with murder and mayhem all the way,sponsoring fascists,dictators,drug lords and Christ knows what else along the way and there is no high moral ground as its average citizen is either watching football or Kim Kardashians *** and couldn't give a ****,no amount of whinging is ever going to change that the author is pissing in the wind.

Jam Akin , 42 minutes ago link

Bacevich's book "America's War for the Greater Middle East" is an excellent read. Highly recommended.

Roger Casement , 57 minutes ago link

https://russianmafiagangster.blogspot.com/2012/08/expose-little-odessas-hidden-world-of.html

https://www.davidicke.com/article/508513/russian-mafia-jewish-groomed-trump

Epstein101 , 1 hour ago link

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islamic_militancy_2049

NoMoreWars , 1 hour ago link

Bring the troops home and put them on our southern border. #1 reason why people voted for Trump.

TheLastMan , 1 hour ago link

Time magazine 2003 cover

" Peace is Hell"

Demented time magazine enjoys programming the folks

And so... "War is Heaven"?

Epstein101 , 1 hour ago link

Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel

ibeanbanned , 1 hour ago link

Joo boys want moar war. Always.

dogismycopilot , 1 hour ago link

Instead of replacing and upgrading infrastructure in the US, we have burned that money up in the desert fighting wars so the Chinese and Russian oil companies could waltz in and take all of marbles.

US Middle East policy has been failing since Eisenhower injected us into Iran an in the 1950s.

libtears , 1 hour ago link

It seems to me those people are intent on killing each other at all costs. No need to get in their way and suffer casualties. Seems like a population reduction in that region might improve the world

Nexus789 , 49 minutes ago link

Your ignorance is amazing. Before the US interventions a number of these countries were going down the path of having secular governments. Many had mixed communities from a religious and ethnic perspective. US bastardry has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people.

libtears , 1 hour ago link

Aside from the countless us blunders in the middle east.. The core issues are rooted in the barbaric religious beliefs that have plagued the region since Mohammed rose to power.

Epstein101 , 1 hour ago link

Moses was considerably earlier, Bub.

http://www.unz.com/article/the-holy-hook/

libtears , 1 hour ago link

So what Bub. You believe in Moses? No thanks

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Let them figure it out. Why stick yoar hook nose into someone else's problems? Ah there is something in it for the special group, and the tab goes to the tax payers.

The politicians should set the example by sending their kids to woar first. Trillions wasted and what benefit has that been to the tax payers? No money for healthcare or education, pensions, infrastructure etc. Lotsa money available for killing people.

libtears , 1 hour ago link

Agreed. The Jews were a relatively recent reintroduction to the region. It was a **** hole long before this time. Try to blame it all on them but it's a weak point of view. Unless you are looking at the last 70 years. But that **** hole status goes back far beyond this time frame

Roger Casement , 1 hour ago link

Empire of the City - Brief

Empire of the City - Knuth

artistant , 1 hour ago link

ALL MidEast terrorism, shenanigans, and warmongering are for and by APARTHEID Israhell.

Element , 1 hour ago link

Where did this ridiculously unrealistic author get the idea that it was the USA's job to bringing peace to the ME?

Snap out of it fool.

capital101 , 1 hour ago link

With the dollar on it's way out,

when all you have left is a hammer,

everything feels like the last nail in the coffin.

This is what the smart money is doing

Nelbev , 1 hour ago link

Perpetual war was always the plan since Reagan days to break up OPEC or cause in-fighting and destablize region. Iran/Iraq war, first Gulf war, Iraq war, ISIS, Syrian conflict, Yemen, Sunni/Shitte division, feed the fire on unofficial decades old plan still ongoing by CIA and State Dept lifers. Perpetual war in Mid-East was always the plan.

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

destablize region

That way you keep down the competition. What do you think all the demonizing efforts are against China and Russia now? They are countries murica can't conquer.

Murica is isolating itself and the USD.

Archeofuturist , 42 minutes ago link

Perpetual war is a fact of human existence.

"War is as natural for man as eat or mating"

cforeman44z , 1 hour ago link

https://www.magicalquote.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WAR-IS-PEACE.png

Elliott Eldrich , 1 hour ago link

War is a racket.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

JailBanksters , 2 hours ago link

Peace through superior firepower

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708783/?ref_=tt_ch

Epstein101 , 2 hours ago link

The author of the referenced article is a prototypical Atlantic Council Zionist *** chickenhawk ******** artist who pisses swampwater - William F. Wechsler.

His concern is Greater Israel, not what is best for Americans.

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Just look at congress.

TheVoicesInYourHead , 3 minutes ago link

Why would anybody want to volunteer to join, or stay in, the USA military when they know they are only fighting on behalf of Israel?

Risu , 2 hours ago link

All humanity, including us, have the right to survive and defend ourselves from obliteration. To do this we must hit when hit, and harder to eliminate the attack. beyond that, we need not fight. God will is in charge, not ours.

We are at risk of non-survival when we fail to recognize the difference between what we feel responsibly for, and what we can actually control. That is why we need a border. Defnding it gives us a line behidn which we can produce, and be productive. Once we cross that line, we begin to fall into a morass.

Generation O , 2 hours ago link

How long did it take America to exit Vietnam? You would think America had money and men to burn with these fruitless wars. Who benefits other than the vampires of the military-industrial complex, owners of cemetaries, and those who produce and market the Intel community's distracting and criminally-produced films and television offerings?

JuliaS , 1 hour ago link

Vietnam War started back when dollar debt was redeemable in gold. Back then debts had impact and the war spending was felt almost immediately though its effect on the economy. War was partially responsible for closing of the gold window by Nixon. They couldn't fake sustainability otherwise.

yaridanjo , 2 hours ago link

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

US power and influence as a "major threat."

I don't blame them. Look at all the invasions and coups since WWII. Theft of gold, resources, death and destruction and poverty follows. No moar competition.

I hate cunton , 2 hours ago link

obama

libtears , 2 hours ago link

Obamao

Roger Casement , 1 hour ago link

Tweaker

OldFuddyDuddy , 1 hour ago link

Error message

Roger Casement , 1 hour ago link

Try this scroll down to Hussein on the right.

SocratesSolves , 2 hours ago link

Washington? We know what our founding father said about the Jews. He was right. Today, and even before the Federal Reserve "Black Magic Act" of 1913: Washington = Israel. There is no America any longer. It was 911'd inside and out by the Joker *** cult. And after they 911'd you they did a Joker dance, didn't they?

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Maybe people will better understand Germany's struggles in the 30's

DirtySanchez , 2 hours ago link

Only a matter of time before weaponized foreign sovereign drones are flying above jusa coastal cities.

Shortly after the second and absolutely devastating second civil war in this 3rd world banana republic.

Hang every bush, clinton, and bozo family member, and their entire administrations and staff.

rahrog , 2 hours ago link

America's Ruling Class never intended to bring peace to the ME

TBT or not TBT , 2 hours ago link

To be fair, the Middle East has been Islamic for a solid millennium or more, and Islam...isn't peace.

besnook , 2 hours ago link

it was never paxamericana. it was always paxjudaica, in other words war and chaos called peace the way jewlanders roll with their zionazi cocksuckers in tow.

SocratesSolves , 2 hours ago link

besnook: EXACTLY right.

"They [the Jews] work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." -- George Washington

ed_209 , 2 hours ago link

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. Karl Marx

Epstein101 , 2 hours ago link

THE BOLSHEVIK TAKEOVER OF THE WEST

Schroedingers Cat , 2 hours ago link

Our new flag.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vexillology/comments/5qnu1r/redesigns_the_divided_states_of_america/

2banana , 2 hours ago link

Anyone remember Cindy Sheehan?

She was a nightly fixture on the evening news under Bush.

Entirely disappeared under obama. Along with the daily war dead count.

For now, I will take "not a single new war started" DJT and not care how hard the democrats/fake legacy media scream with a Syrian pullout.

[Nov 16, 2019] Devin Nunes begins Republican questioning of Taylor and Kent

Taylor is a neocon and he is against detente with Russia. So he is part of State Department nest of neocon vipers.
Taylor was very evasive. but he is a trained diplomat. Taylor will definitely regret his role ( and may be already started to regret ) but he has nothing to lose; he is old enough to retire.
Notable quotes:
"... I love how CBS completely edited out Nunes first part of his speech about all the lowlife activities the left pulled. ..."
"... My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he was talking about the United States. ..."
Nov 13, 2019 | www.youtube.com

october71777 , 1 day ago

Why did Rick Perry resign his cabinet position after the Ukrainian Cabal was exposed? Just wondering.

High Velocity , 14 hours ago

Ambassador Taylor do you know anything? -- I'm not sure, I don't recall.

jack epperson , 7 hours ago (edited)

I think Schiff overdosed on his meds. Look at his eyes they tell the story eyes don't lie

Bryochemical Intuition , 1 hour ago

Nunes is extremely impressive I must admit. He's been handing the democrats their own @$$'$ for 3 years

Wesley Kline , 4 hours ago

I love how CBS completely edited out Nunes first part of his speech about all the lowlife activities the left pulled.

Sue Osborne , 1 day ago

Taylor is a Buffoon...who is trying to make something out of nothing

rek131 , 6 hours ago

My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he was talking about the United States.

American Argonaut , 37 minutes ago

Schiffs a freaking sociopath!

D Chase , 1 day ago

I have learned to HATE everything the Democrats, their deep state and MSM stand for. It's beyond comprehension that they have hijacked the greatest nation on earth and subverted the constitution for personal power and gain! A government takeover by the citizens is not far off, and the only people who will be safe are a few Republicans in government.

D Chase , 1 day ago

KENT = C.I.A. Pay close attention. These clowns have infiltrated the state department in order to control foreign policy and rob nations!!!!!

rtrouthouse , 1 day ago

Now this amounts to the impeachment of The President of the United States, for "shaking the confidence of a close partner for our reliability" Ambassador Taylor. 21:21

speedoflite1 , 1 day ago

18:40 - 19:50 Turner gives a confused explanation of the "6th Amendment" - right of criminal defendant to “to be confronted with the witnesses against him” versus The Hearsay Rule - which is evidence (statements made outside court setting) that may or may not be admissible at trial. Which, in part, why Judges are present to rule on whether exceptions, exclusions to the Hearsay Rule apply.

Larry Smith , 1 day ago

He obviously had his script written before this hearing and didn't listen to what was actually said. He referenced things that were never even brought up but were talking points for the Democrats.

Klaus Klaus , 1 day ago

...What a blinder and hypocrisy in the highest echelons of power. What a little petty thinking....Democrats are clearly communists. Do you Americans know what this mean? Obviously not.

jlc , 7 hours ago

Democrat lunacy on parade Taylor was about as clear as mud and so where his he said, they said, or i heard someone say something, are we really taking these people seriously.?

Mark Merithew , 2 days ago

Do these republicans not realize that the Ukrainian President is going to say whatever trump tells him to say so he gets his money and weapons....he’s got a war going on and must have those resources...what else is he going to say?

sjcthrn5 , 1 day ago

If Giuliani seeking information in Ukraine is such an abnormal thing as to cause alarm then please explain DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa and the years she has spent in Ukraine performing opposition research along with maintaining close ties with the NSCand the Obama whitehouse.

Christine Morris , 1 day ago

There is no evidence against Trump and Taylor was so tongue-tied that he couldn't answer some of those questions. I loved Jordan asking all those questions and putting those two witnesses in place. In the court of law they WILL NOT TAKE HEARSAY because I worked for the courts and lawyers so I know what the Judge would say. this is nothing but a scham and when Trump gets to be President again I hope he puts Schiff in prison!!!!!!!

[Nov 16, 2019] Devin Nunes begins Republican questioning of Taylor and Kent

Taylor is a neocon and he is against detente with Russia. So he is part of State Department nest of neocon vipers.
Taylor was very evasive. but he is a trained diplomat. Taylor will definitely regret his role ( and may be already started to regret ) but he has nothing to lose; he is old enough to retire.
Notable quotes:
"... I love how CBS completely edited out Nunes first part of his speech about all the lowlife activities the left pulled. ..."
"... My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he was talking about the United States. ..."
Nov 13, 2019 | www.youtube.com

october71777 , 1 day ago

Why did Rick Perry resign his cabinet position after the Ukrainian Cabal was exposed? Just wondering.

High Velocity , 14 hours ago

Ambassador Taylor do you know anything? -- I'm not sure, I don't recall.

jack epperson , 7 hours ago (edited)

I think Schiff overdosed on his meds. Look at his eyes they tell the story eyes don't lie

Bryochemical Intuition , 1 hour ago

Nunes is extremely impressive I must admit. He's been handing the democrats their own @$$'$ for 3 years

Wesley Kline , 4 hours ago

I love how CBS completely edited out Nunes first part of his speech about all the lowlife activities the left pulled.

Sue Osborne , 1 day ago

Taylor is a Buffoon...who is trying to make something out of nothing

rek131 , 6 hours ago

My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he was talking about the United States.

American Argonaut , 37 minutes ago

Schiffs a freaking sociopath!

D Chase , 1 day ago

I have learned to HATE everything the Democrats, their deep state and MSM stand for. It's beyond comprehension that they have hijacked the greatest nation on earth and subverted the constitution for personal power and gain! A government takeover by the citizens is not far off, and the only people who will be safe are a few Republicans in government.

D Chase , 1 day ago

KENT = C.I.A. Pay close attention. These clowns have infiltrated the state department in order to control foreign policy and rob nations!!!!!

rtrouthouse , 1 day ago

Now this amounts to the impeachment of The President of the United States, for "shaking the confidence of a close partner for our reliability" Ambassador Taylor. 21:21

speedoflite1 , 1 day ago

18:40 - 19:50 Turner gives a confused explanation of the "6th Amendment" - right of criminal defendant to “to be confronted with the witnesses against him” versus The Hearsay Rule - which is evidence (statements made outside court setting) that may or may not be admissible at trial. Which, in part, why Judges are present to rule on whether exceptions, exclusions to the Hearsay Rule apply.

Larry Smith , 1 day ago

He obviously had his script written before this hearing and didn't listen to what was actually said. He referenced things that were never even brought up but were talking points for the Democrats.

Klaus Klaus , 1 day ago

...What a blinder and hypocrisy in the highest echelons of power. What a little petty thinking....Democrats are clearly communists. Do you Americans know what this mean? Obviously not.

jlc , 7 hours ago

Democrat lunacy on parade Taylor was about as clear as mud and so where his he said, they said, or i heard someone say something, are we really taking these people seriously.?

Mark Merithew , 2 days ago

Do these republicans not realize that the Ukrainian President is going to say whatever trump tells him to say so he gets his money and weapons....he’s got a war going on and must have those resources...what else is he going to say?

sjcthrn5 , 1 day ago

If Giuliani seeking information in Ukraine is such an abnormal thing as to cause alarm then please explain DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa and the years she has spent in Ukraine performing opposition research along with maintaining close ties with the NSCand the Obama whitehouse.

Christine Morris , 1 day ago

There is no evidence against Trump and Taylor was so tongue-tied that he couldn't answer some of those questions. I loved Jordan asking all those questions and putting those two witnesses in place. In the court of law they WILL NOT TAKE HEARSAY because I worked for the courts and lawyers so I know what the Judge would say. this is nothing but a scham and when Trump gets to be President again I hope he puts Schiff in prison!!!!!!!

[Nov 16, 2019] Assad Goes Red Pill In Interview Epstein, Bin Laden Baghdadi 'Liquidated' As They Knew Vital Secrets

Nov 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Assad Goes Red Pill In Interview: Epstein, Bin Laden & Baghdadi 'Liquidated' As "They Knew Vital Secrets" by Tyler Durden Fri, 11/15/2019 - 17:25 0 SHARES

In a wide-ranging new interview with Russia's Rossiya-24 television on Thursday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad addressed the death of White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier, who had been found dead Nov. 11 after an apparent fall from a three story high balcony outside his Istanbul office.

Le Mesurier was a former British military intelligence officer and founder of the controversial White Helmets group which Assad has previously dubbed the 'rescue force for al-Qaeda' and his reported suicide under mysterious circumstances is still subject of an ongoing Turkish investigation. In an unusual and rare conversation for a head of state, Assad compared Le Mesurier's death to the murky circumstances surrounding the deaths of Jeffry Epstein, Osama bin Laden and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi .

Assad said what connects these men are that they "knew major secrets" and were thus "liquidated" by "intelligence services" -- most likely the CIA , in the now viral interview picked up by Newsweek and other mainstream outlets.

"American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was killed several weeks ago, they said he had committed suicide in jail," Assad said during the Russian broadcaster interview .

"However, he was killed because he knew a lot of vital secrets connected with very important people in the British and American regimes , and possibly in other countries as well."

"And now the main founder of the White Helmets has been killed, he was an officer and he had worked his whole life with NATO in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq and Lebanon," he explained.

"Epstein didn't kill himself": Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in this image shared November 14 by his office, via Syrian Presidency/Newsweek

"Both of us know that they [representatives of the White Helmets] are naturally part of Al Qaeda. I believe that these people, as well as the previously liquidated bin Laden and al-Baghdadi had been killed chiefly because they knew major secrets. They turned into a burden once they had played out their roles. A dire need to do away with them surfaced after they had fulfilled their roles," Assad continued.

Concerning White Helmet's founder Le Mesurier's death, he pointed to the CIA or an allied intelligence service, such as Turkey's MIT :

"Of course, this is the work of the secret services. But which secret service? When we talk about Western secret services in general, about Turkish and some other ones in our region, these are not the secret services of sovereign states, rather these are departments of the main intelligence agency – the CIA ."

"It is quite possible that Turkish intelligence agencies did the job upon the instructions of foreign intelligence services," he qualified.

me title=

The Syrian president then speculated that , "Possibly, the founder of the White Helmets had been working on his memoirs and on the biography of his life, and this was unacceptable . This is an assumption, but a very serious one, since other options don't sound convincing to me at the moment."

Though Assad has done major media interviews routinely over the past years related to the now eight-year long war out of which which he's come out on top, this latest has already received the most visibility, and is currently going viral -- likely given the immense public suspicion and doubts surrounding Epstein's jail cell death.

Even Newsweek weighed in, commenting : "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad waded into the conspiracy theories around Jeffery Epstein's suicide, saying the financier and convicted sex offender was murdered as part of a Western plot to eliminate high-profile people who knew too much."

How to report offensive comments

Notice on Racial Discrimination .


P Dunne , 1 hour ago link

Strange that we hear truth to power from Assad. Who in Washington has the courage to tell the truth these days?? Tulsi.

Chupacabra , 1 hour ago link

Trump, for all his faults, tells the truth often. Give the man his due. He did a lot of work to expose the corruption of the MSM as simply propaganda for the deep state (aka "fake news"). That alone is a legacy more lasting than any president I can think of in my lifetime.

anduka , 1 hour ago link

Of course they could easily have taken Osama Bin Laden alive too and gotten a treasure trove of intelligence if they were interested.

pablozz , 2 hours ago link

Prince Andrew interview has the convenience of "I do not recall " ever meeting the underage girls I have my arm around in multiple photos. What hope of justice do the plebs have

tchild2 , 2 hours ago link

Assad called the US and British governments, "regimes" Hehe, I like it.

Totally_Disillusioned , 2 hours ago link

The deep state IS A REGIME...they disregard the constitution, have total disdain for American citizens an compromise EVERYONE in their path for control. That's a totalitarian regime.

beemasters , 2 hours ago link

Of course Prince Pedo has to quickly/finally say something right after Assad's interview and especially, the recent Australia's 60Minutes' coverage

Prince Andrew interview: I let the side down by staying with Jeffrey Epstein

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50431163

[Nov 15, 2019] The 15 essential questions for Marie Yovanovitch, America's former ambassador to Ukraine John Solomon Reports

Notable quotes:
"... In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained influence over Ukraine's national bank? ..."
"... John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. ..."
"... In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record, videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target. Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you just rely on press reports? ..."
"... Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials. These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country? ..."
"... If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate? ..."
"... At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky? ..."
Nov 15, 2019 | johnsolomonreports.com

The next big witness for the House Democrats' impeachment hearings is Marie Yovanovitch, the former American ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled last spring at President Trump's insistence.

It is unclear what firsthand knowledge she will offer about the core allegation of this impeachment: that Trump delayed foreign aid assistance to Ukraine in hopes of getting an investigation of Joe Biden and Democrats started.

Nonetheless, she did deal with the Ukrainians going back to the summer of 2016 and likely will be an important fact witness.

After nearly two years of reporting on Ukraine issues, here are 15 questions I think could be most illuminating to every day Americans if the ambassador answered them.

  1. Ambassador Yovanovitch, at any time while you served in Ukraine did any officials in Kiev ever express concern to you that President Trump might be withholding foreign aid assistance to get political investigations started? Did President Trump ever ask you as America's top representative in Kiev to pressure Ukrainians to start an investigation about Burisma Holdings or the Bidens?
  2. What was the Ukrainians' perception of President Trump after he allowed lethal aid to go to Ukraine in 2018?
  3. In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained influence over Ukraine's national bank?
  4. Back in May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting you might have made comments unflattering or unsupportive of the president and should be recalled. Setting aside that Sessions is a Republican and might even have donors interested in Ukraine policy, were you ever questioned about his concerns? At any time have you or your embassy staff made comments that could be viewed as unsupportive or critical of President Trump and his policies?
  5. John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. Can you explain what role your embassy played in funding this group and why State funds would flow to it? And did any one consider the perception of mingling tax dollars with those donated by Soros, a liberal ideologue who spent millions in 2016 trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump?
  6. In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record, videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target. Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you just rely on press reports?
  7. Now that both the New York Times and The Hill have confirmed that Lutsenko stands by his account and has not recanted, how do you respond to his concerns? And setting aide the use of the word "list," is it possible that during that 2016 meeting with Mr. Lutsenko you discussed the names of certain Ukrainians you did not want to see prosecuted, investigated or harassed?
  8. Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials. These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country?
  9. On March 5 of this year, you gave a speech in which you called for the replacement of Ukraine's top anti-corruption prosecutor. That speech occurred in the middle of the Ukrainian presidential election and obviously raised concerns among some Ukrainians of internal interference prohibited by the Geneva Convention. In fact, one of your bosses, Under Secretary David Hale, got questioned about those concerns when he arrived in country a few days later. Why did you think it was appropriate to give advice to Ukrainians on an internal personnel matter and did you consider then or now the potential concerns your comments might raise about meddling in the Ukrainian election or the country's internal affairs?
  10. If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate?
  11. At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky?
  12. At any time since you were appointed ambassador to Ukraine, did you or your embassy have any contact with the following Burisma figures: Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, lawyer John Buretta, Blue Star strategies representatives Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, or former Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko?
  13. John Solomon obtained documents showing Burisma representatives were pressuring the State Department in February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company and were invoking Hunter Biden's name as part of their effort. Did you ever subsequently learn of these contacts and did any one at State -- including but not limited to Secretary Kerry, Undersecretary Novelli, Deputy Secretary Blinken or Assistant Secretary Nuland -- ever raise Burisma with you?
  14. What was your embassy's assessment of the corruption allegations around Burisma and why the company may have hired Hunter Biden as a board member in 2014?
  15. In spring 2019 your embassy reportedly began monitoring briefly the social media communications of certain people viewed as supportive of President Trump and gathering analytics about them. Who were those people? Why was this done? Why did it stop? And did anyone in the State Department chain of command ever suggest targeting Americans with State resources might be improper or illegal?

[Nov 15, 2019] Trump And Zelensky Want Peace With Russia. The Fascists Oppose That

Notable quotes:
"... "In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to Ukraine. ..."
"... But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such? ..."
"... And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay. ..."
"... The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that. ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia. ..."
"... "They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for it." ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets. ..."
"... Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He predicted that the trauma of war will pass. ..."
"... Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received nearly 73% of all votes. ..."
"... Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They are joined in this with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup: ..."
"... Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25% of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won 5.8%. ..."
"... on Yovanovitch, She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States." ..."
"... She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. . .Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee ..."
Nov 14, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

NBC News is not impressed by the first day of the Democrats' impeachment circus. But it fails to note what the conflict is really about:

It was substantive, but it wasn't dramatic.

In the reserved manner of veteran diplomats with Harvard degrees, Bill Taylor and George Kent opened the public phase of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Wednesday by bearing witness to a scheme they described as not only wildly unorthodox but also in direct contravention of U.S. interests.

"It is clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian aggression," Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said in explaining why Trump's decision to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to the most immediate target of Russian expansionism didn't align with U.S. policy.

But at a time when Democrats are simultaneously eager to influence public opinion in favor of ousting the president and quietly apprehensive that their hearings could stall or backfire, the first round felt more like the dress rehearsal for a serious one-act play than the opening night of a hit Broadway musical.

"In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to Ukraine.

But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such?

President Obama was against giving weapons to Ukraine and never transferred any to Ukraine despite pressure from certain circles. Was Obama's decision against U.S. national interest? Where are the Democrats or deep state members accusing him of that?

Which brings us to the really critical point of the whole issue. Who defines what is in the "national interest" with regards to foreign policy? Here is a point where for once I agree with the right-wingers at the National Review where Andrew McCarthy writes :

[O]n the critical matter of America's interests in the Russia/Ukraine dynamic, I think the policy community is right, and President Trump is wrong. If I were president, while I would resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly associate myself with the delusion that stable friendship is possible (or, frankly, desirable) with Putin's anti-American dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia family and is acting on its revanchist ambitions.

But you see, much like the policy community, I am not president. Donald Trump is.

And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay.

We have made the very same point :

The U.S. constitution "empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries."

The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that.

and :

The president does not like how the 'American policy' on Russia was built. He rightly believes that he was elected to change it. He had stated his opinion on Russia during his campaign and won the election. It is not 'malign influence' that makes him try to have good relations with Russia. It is his own conviction and legitimized by the voters.
...
[I]t is the president who sets the policies. The drones around him who serve "at his pleasure" are there to implement them.

There is another point that has to be made about the NBC's assertions. It is not in the interest of Ukraine to be a proxy for U.S. deep state antagonism towards Russia. Robber baron Igor Kolomoisky, who after the Maidan coup had financed the west-Ukrainian fascists who fought against east-Ukraine, says so directly in his recent NYT interview :

Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia.

"They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for it."
...
Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets.

Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He predicted that the trauma of war will pass.
...
Mr. Kolomoisky said he was feverishly working out how to end the war, but he refused to divulge details because the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way."

Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received nearly 73% of all votes.

Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They are joined in this with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup:

Zelenskiy's decision in early October to accept talks with Russia on the future of eastern Ukraine resulted in an outcry from a relatively small but very vocal minority of Ukrainians opposed to any deal-making with Russia. The protests were relatively short-lived, but prospects for a negotiated end to the war in the eastern Donbas region became more remote in light of this domestic opposition.
...
The supporters for war with Russia are ex-president Poroshenko and two parliamentary factions, European Solidarity and Voice, whose supporters are predominantly located in western Ukraine. Crucially, however, they can also rely on right-wing paramilitary groups composed of veterans from the hottest phase of the war in Donbas in 2014-5.

Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25% of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won 5.8%.

By pursuing further conflict with Russia the deep state of the United States wants to ignore the wishes not only of the U.S. voters but also those of the Ukrainian electorate. That undemocratic mindset is another point that unites them with the Ukrainian fascists.

Zelensky should ignore the warmongers in the U.S. embassy in Kiev and sue for immediate peace with Russia. (He should also investigate Biden's undue influence .) Reengaging with Russia is also the easiest and most efficient step the Ukraine can take to lift its desolate economy.

It is in the national interest of both, the Ukraine and the United States.

Posted by b on November 14, 2019 at 18:23 UTC | Permalink


pretzelattack , Nov 14 2019 18:28 utc | 1

next page " agree with mccarthy about who conducts foreign policy, disagree about who the aggressor is; it's the USA, trying to weaken Russia, which is the aggressor.
james , Nov 14 2019 18:48 utc | 2
thanks b... typo - immediate piece with Russia - 'peace' is the spelling here...

the comments from Kolomoisky in the recent nyt interview are very telling.. aside from being a first rate kleptomaniac who will willingly play both sides if he can profit from it, he is also speaking a moment of truth..for him Ukraine is available to the highest bidder... he could give a rats ass about Ukraine or the people... but still, it is refreshing that the NYT published his comments in this regard..

the quote "the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way." is very true... it was true before kolomisky picked a side too.. this guy is very shrewd.. i wonder if his own country is able to see thru him?

national interest.... yes, trump gets to decide and he won on the idea of having closer relations with russia, but the cia-msm has been lambasting him and anyone else associated with him since before the election over the clinton e mails... they have painted a scenario that it is all russias fault and have been relentless in this portrayal... hoping trump is going to turn this around is like hoping someone is going to turn the titanic around from hitting a giant iceberg... the usa is too far gone and will be hitting the iceberg.. they are in fact...

michael lacey , Nov 14 2019 19:00 utc | 3
Good article what the American people miss is good articles instead of the mind numbing BS! They actually receive!
Piotr Berman , Nov 14 2019 19:01 utc | 4
From NYT about Kolomo???? (spelling in English is highly variable)

George D. Kent, a senior State Department official, said he had told Mr. Zelensky that his willingness to break with Mr. Kolomoisky -- "somebody who had such a bad reputation" -- would be a litmus test for his independence. [If is good to be independent, i.e. to do what we want.]

And William Taylor, the acting ambassador in Kiev, said he had warned Mr. Zelensky: "He, Mr. Kolomoisky, is increasing his influence in your government, which could cause you to fail." [La Paz is a fresh reminder for Kiev?]

Bemildred , Nov 14 2019 19:07 utc | 5
Well the thing about Zelensky is he's still there, and he is making changes in Donbass.

Kolomoisky was interested in the fracked gas in Donbass, the completion of NordStream II has made a mess of that idea. It is good that he has seen the light, as it means Zelensky will have support in his attempts to adapt to reality. But Kolomoisky is still a crook no doubt.

Montreal , Nov 14 2019 19:14 utc | 6
My immediate reaction was that Kolomoisky realises he has to act - the Ukrainian oligarchs have got too close to America. I agree with James that he is a extremely clever man. Ukraine's traditional business is playing both ends against the middle and sending the proceeds to Switzerland (or the Caribbean in Porosyonok's case). Since 1990 a few of these robber barons have made a very good business winding up the west against Russia, it could go on ever - why spoil it by lifting the rock and seeing all the insects scurrying around in the light?

Another rock that has been lifted is in Washington, where the khokhol diaspora are desperately trying to get Uncle Sam to right the wrongs of a century ago.

Montreal , Nov 14 2019 19:25 utc | 7
I should have written: the "perceived" wrongs" of a century ago.
Babyl-on , Nov 14 2019 19:26 utc | 8
"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.

There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks placed in every key position in government.

There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western governments and society. They are the owners oif the world and they run the world they own.

chet380 , Nov 14 2019 19:28 utc | 9
... @ b -- "Only some 20% of the Ukrainians favor to continue the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports."

The are not 'separatists', but rather Ukrainians who want to stay in a federated Ukraine as 'provinces' with powers to pass their regional laws, similar to those in Canada.

psychohistorian , Nov 14 2019 19:35 utc | 10
The segment of empire in the US that are against Russia act so because it was Russia that stymied them in Syria and continues to be in their way of expanding the control from that part of empire...the US segment.

I still believe that the global private finance core segment of empire is behind Trump and throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The cult of global private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role in the new multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyones heads to make it ongoing.

I don't believe that strategy will work but as long as they can be fronted by a MAD player of some sort (Occupied Palestine comes to mind) they can be bully players in international matters.

As the world economies grind to a "halt" there will be lots of pressure everywhere and very little clarity about the key civilization war over public/private finance, IMO

NOBTS , Nov 14 2019 19:37 utc | 11
For a military dictatorship, diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means. The US has been at war with Russia since the right-wing coup at the Democratic convention of 1944. All presidents have been servants of the military, which includes the police/intel/security apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead role were "dealt with." Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state bureaucrats are shocked and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US foreign policy for 75 years!
karlof1 , Nov 14 2019 19:39 utc | 12
Wow! The depth of delusion on display is as breathtaking as its complete projection of the intentions and actions of the Evil Outlaw US Empire! Oh so many saying I'm displaying four fingers instead of two. Too bad there isn't a padded cell big enough to contain all the lunatics. I recall the pre- and post-coup discussions from 2014--that Russia was going to make NATO own Ukraine until it was forced to concede it has no business being there; that Russia would teach the would-be leaders of Ukraine a serious lesson in where their national interests lay. NATO is ready to cede and the lesson's been learned.

IMO, two referendums must be held. The first within Russia: Will you accept portions of Ukraine wanting to merge with Russia: Yes/No? Second to be given within Ukraine provided Yes wins in #1: Do you wish to join Russia or remain in Ukraine? IMO, this is a very longstanding unresolved issue of consequence for the people involved. The political leaders of Russia and Ukraine might both be against such a vote, but IMO that merely kicks the can further down the road and opens the door for more mischief making by the Evil Outlaw US Empire. Assuming a Yes from Russia and some from Ukraine, a strategic threat to Russia and Europe would be mitigated. Additional questions about those parts of Ukraine not wanting to join Russia could be solved via additional referenda in the Ukraine and neighboring nations that might prove willing to absorb the remnants and their people. Such action would of course negate the Minsk Agreements.

Given the ideological passions of those living in Western and Northern Ukraine, I don't see any hope for the continuation of the Ukrainian state as currently arranged, thus the proposed referenda. However, if Russia says Nyet, then Minsk must be implemented.

TG , Nov 14 2019 19:39 utc | 13
Ah, well said, but missing the point.

"Democracy" is not about letting the people as a whole have a say in how the country is governed. That would be fascist, and racist, and populist, and LITERALLY HITLER. Letting the people decide on things like foreign policy, is literally anti-democratic.

No, "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing responsibility. The elites get to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take responsibility when things go wrong. Because you see, we are a "Democracy."

jayc , Nov 14 2019 19:41 utc | 14
Breaking off long established economic and cultural ties with a large neighbouring country, virtually overnight, is a rash act, and certain to create dislocation and hardship. The craziness of the idea was only achievable through the traumatizing psy-op of the sniper event, leading directly to the coup and the state of war. The EU and the US were clearly malevolent in orchestrating the Association agreement with its ridiculous terms and the corresponding Maidan pressures.

The fools in Hong Kong, after protester-sponsored screenings of the World On Fire documentary, were actually quoted as presuming the Maidan protests had "won" and expressed their hopes that they too could "win". Good luck to them.

AntiSpin , Nov 14 2019 19:49 utc | 15
Ukraine Timeline

for anyone who hasn't had the time to get caught up on the topic, by Ray McGovern
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Ukraine-For-Dummies-by-Ray-McGovern-Crimea_Ignorance_Intelligence_Media-191114-285.html

Taffyboy , Nov 14 2019 19:50 utc | 16
Kolomoisky and Zelensky know what needs to be done, but they fear the blood that will flow with Nazi-Banderist scum! Zelinski's balls are not that big, and has no options left after compromising his position from day one. Who will make the first move, I fear not him? Russia has time, and patience, which is sorely lacking in the west who feel they have to push the envelope.
Don Bacon , Nov 14 2019 19:57 utc | 17
The Minsk II protocol was agreed to on 12 February 2015 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, It included provisions for a halt in the fighting, the withdrawal of foreign forces, new constitution to allow special status for Donbass, and election in Donbass for local self governance. Control of the present border of Ukraine would be restored to the Ukraine government. Donbass would continue to be in Ukraine with some autonomy here (scroll down).
There are many such autonomous zones in the world, and in Europe, seen here .
The problem in Ukraine is that the neo-Nazi factions promoted by the US don't want to see a resolution, and will fight it with US support.
flankerbandit , Nov 14 2019 19:59 utc | 18
Kolomoysky is obviously a master thief and general scumbag...but he is no fool...

I think the writing on the wall became obvious with the Nordstream 2 finalization, where, it is noted, Denmark came in just under the wire in terms of not disrupting the timetable...

Obviously the interests of German business have prevailed...and rightly so in this case...

And what of the famous EU line about 'protecting' Ukraine as a gas transit corridor...?

LOLOLOL...that is in the same category of nothingburger as the EU noises about 'alternate payment' mechanisms for trade with Iran...

As soon as the Denmark story broke, Gazprom and Russian energy analysts talked openly about the tiny volumes that Ukraine could expect to see transiting its territory...as part of a new agreement to replace the one that has expired...

It works out to a small fraction of the several billion dollars in transit fees the Ukraine was getting...

Also considering that the IMF appears to be finally shutting off the tap of loans to this failed gangster state...and that the promises from the EU in 2013 were just so much fairy tales...hard-nosed operators like Kolomoysky are recalculating...

The chaos and national ruin has really cost these gangster capitalists nothing [in fact they have profited wildly]...so it is easy for them to reverse course and come begging back to Russia...

Bryan MacDonald has a good piece about this today in RT...

Ukraine's most powerful oligarch states the obvious: Ukraine has to turn back towards Russia

So, here we are, almost six years since the first "EuroMaidan" protests in Kiev, and Ukraine's most prominent oligarch has finally voiced the unmentionable: the project has failed.

As for Kolomoysky...like Trump, there is something to like about dirtballs who speak their minds openly...LOL

Vonu , Nov 14 2019 20:08 utc | 19
According to Kevin Shipp, the National Security Council really runs the executive branch, not the president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=XHbrOg092GA
PJB , Nov 14 2019 20:11 utc | 20
Quite a turnaround by Kolomoisky. Wasn't he once caught on a tapped phone call admitting while chuckling about Ukrainian complicity in shooting down MH-17? i.e. NOT Donbas rebels and NOT Russia.
james , Nov 14 2019 20:13 utc | 21
@12 karlof1... a referendum... as if the usa would agree to that, lol.... look how they processed the one in crimea...

@18 flankerbandit... last line is true, but it pales in relation to the ugliness these 2 exhibit 99% of the time, although the 1% when they don't it's refreshing! ukraine will continue to be used as a tool by the west..

forget about any referendum.. that makes too much sense and won't be allowed..

Kadath , Nov 14 2019 20:23 utc | 22
Nordstream 2 will come online in less than 2 months and the Ukrainian gas exports at that time will cease (I.e. no oil for the Oligarchs to steal), no matter what the US says they can't replace the Russian oil exports in terms of money & support to Ukraine, so the Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in order for the Russians to keep even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets
J Swift , Nov 14 2019 20:31 utc | 23
It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the loot.

But now the Ukrainian thieves are beginning to realize that the Western thieves are going to steal the very ground from under their feet, so there will be no more Ukraine to steal from. That's not a very good business model. Plus they're no doubt seeing how the US treats its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere, and realize they could easily find themselves the next meal for the US beast. Pretty easy to see why the smarter ones are getting nervous.

DannC , Nov 14 2019 20:37 utc | 24
they need to make peace with Russia or they will be left out in the cold, literally. They seemed to have previously bought into some insane lie that they'd be a part of the EU and NATO if theyd do Washington's bidding. The Deep state vastly underestimated Putin's resolve when it became clear to the Russians that Washington may try and turn Crimea into a NATO port one day. The game is over. Ukraine needs to find a way forward now for itself or it will be a failed state in the near future. It's clear Merkel and Europe want no part of this headache
flankerbandit , Nov 14 2019 20:42 utc | 25
I don't think Russians want to 'own' any part of Ukraine...at least that is the nearly unanimous opinion of my own contacts and colleagues in Russia...so I don't think any referenda will be on the table...

What I do think is possible is what Yanukovich and Russia agreed to in terms of a trade and economic deal...which was a lot more practical [not to mention generous] than the EU 'either or' nonsense...

Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they are selling vast tracts of agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally dispossessing themselves of their own food security...

At the time of the Soviet dissolution, Ukraine had the highest living standards and some of the world's prime industry and technology...including for instance the Yuzhnoye design bureau [rocket engines and spacecraft] and many more such cutting edge aerospace concerns...

For years these crucial enterprises were able to keep going due to the Russian market...that all ended in 2014 [and in fact was tapering off even before due to the massive corruption]...

Now the Chinese are looking to scoop up these gems at firesale prices...

It is really quite unbelievable that the nutcases in the Ukraine would be willing to cut off their own arm just to bleed on Russia's shirt...

Why did the Ukraine never recover from the gangster capitalism like Russia did...because no Putin ever came along to reign in the oligarchy...[It could be argued Putin hasn't done nearly enough in this regard].

The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own future...as the unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to extract maximal wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on the verge of toppling...

Jackrabbit , Nov 14 2019 20:49 utc | 26
Disappointed in b's analysis.

Kolomoisky is talking his book and helping USA to make the case that Nordstream is a NATO security issue. To pretend that he's serious about a rapproachment with Russia just plays into that effort.

And b ignores my comment on the prior thread that he references (about Trump being Constitutionally charged with foreign policy). Repeating: the "Imperial Presidency" has flung off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing the need to get Congressional approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and black budgets.

While for practical reasons the Executive Branch of USA government has the power to negotiate treaties and manage foreign relations, Constitutionally he does so for the sovereign (the American people) and his efforts are subject to review and approval of the people's representatives via the power of the purse.

Ignoring how the "Imperial Presidency" has usurped power leads to faulty analysis that supports that power grab.

Ukrainegate IS a farce, but for other reasons. Chief among them being the inherent fakery of 'managed democracy' which manifests as kayfabe.

uncle tungsten , Nov 14 2019 20:50 utc | 27
Babyl-on #8
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks placed in every key position in government.

There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western governments and society. They are the owners of the world and they run the world they own.

Nicely put:- that is the reality. Thanks b for your intrepid reports.

Paul Craig Roberts has a deeply aggrieved rant at zero hedge if barflies want a chuckle. What a shitshow.

uncle tungsten , Nov 14 2019 20:58 utc | 28
flankerbandit #25

YES to all that and we are all getting the same split and plunder treatment.

Indonesia is the trial ground and has been where the methods were in place the longest as Andre Vitchek reports .

That is our future unless we intervene and throw the USA out of our countries.

jo6pac , Nov 14 2019 21:06 utc | 29
Long but a good read on the Ukraine by David Stockman.

https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2019/11/12/the-ukrainian-influence-peddling-rings-a-microcosm-of-how-imperial-washington-rolls/

flankerbandit , Nov 14 2019 21:16 utc | 30
Agree with Uncle on Indonesia...yes that Vltchek piece [and much of his previous work on Indonesia] is pretty sobering...this is our future folks...
Duncan Idaho , Nov 14 2019 21:21 utc | 31
Crimea?
It has been part of Russia about as long as the USA has been a country.
9 out of 10 residents are of Russian origin, and Russian is the spoken language.
I guess it could be returned to the 10%-- but out of fairness, we must turn the USA over to its original occupants.
If you live in the USA, get your ass ready to leave.
bevin , Nov 14 2019 21:47 utc | 32
One of the problems that the anti-nazis face in Ukraine is that there are occupying armies in the country. Armies which cannot be trusted to obey instructions which are not agreed upon by NATO warmongers.
One such army is Canadian, commanded I believe by a descendant of the Ukrainian SS refugees and reporting to the Foreign Minister in Ottawa, a Russophobe with a family background of nazi collaboration.
The actual political situation is much more delicate than media reports suggest: what are called elections feature, in the Washington approved fashion, the banning of socialist and communist candidates. Bans which are enforced by a combination of fascist commanded police forces and, even less responsible, private nazi militias. Opponents of the Maidan regime are driven into exile, jailed or murdered.
Those who wonder as Jackrabbit, in a rare essay into rationality, does above, about the nature of the US Constitution after decades of the erosion of checks and balances thanks to the Imperial Presidency, will recognise that a dialectic is at work here. Washington's support for fascism abroad has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the installation of fascist regimes abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US intervenes it leaves a fascist regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind it.
And what this means is that, among other things, the ability of the population to effect political change is cancelled: there is no way that the people of Ukraine can decide what they want because the decisions have been taken for them, in weird cult like gatherings of SS worshiping Bandera supporters in Toronto and Chicago. It is no accident that most of the 'Ukrainians' being wheeled out by the Democrats to testify against Trump are actually greedy expatriates who have never really lived in Ukraine.
There was a moment, not long ago, when it looked as if the Minsk accords promised a path to peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately the plain people of Ukraine, the poorest in Europe though living in one of the richest countries, Washington, Ottawa and NATO didn't like the sound of Minsk. Nor did the fascists in the Baltic states and Poland, for whom, for centuries, Ukraine has been a cow to milk, its people slaves to be exploited and its rich resources too tempting to ignore.
michael , Nov 14 2019 21:56 utc | 33
As Thomas Jefferson explained the President's role in foreign affairs in 1790, and the lack of advisors' policy making decisions: ''as the President was the only channel of communication between the United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation'; that whatever he communicated as such, they had a right and were bound to consider 'as the expression of the nation'; and that no foreign agent could be 'allowed to question it,' or 'to interpose between him and any other branch of government, under the pretext of either's transgressing their functions.' Mr. Jefferson therefore declined to enter into any discussion of the question as to whether it belonged to the President under the Constitution to admit or exclude foreign agents. 'I inform you of the fact,' he said, 'by authority from the President.'
Sadness , Nov 14 2019 22:04 utc | 34
Might also be worth yesterdays hero's asking if dear Mr Kolomoisky, joint Uki/Israeli national, took a part in authorising the shoot down of MH17 as a news cover for Operation Protective Edge. Heave ho zionist USA ....et al.
steven t johnson , Nov 14 2019 22:11 utc | 35
1.The decisions to with hold and release aid have nothing to do with the President making foreign policy but with his campaign. Saying it was about foreign policy is a damned lie.
2.Trump as president is supposed to lead foreign policy, which means actually setting a policy. Military aid to Ukraine, yes, except no, except yes, personal handling without asking anybody with experience how to achieve the national goal desired, national agenda kept secret from the people who have to carry it out, abuse of officials, demands for dubiously legal actions without rationale...Saying it was about the president's executive role is a damned lie.
3.Trump has not made even a tweet that questions US support for fascists. That not even a issue for Trump. Saying this is about support for fascism is a damned lie.
4.Kolomoyskiy is a bankroller of fascists. It is not impossible even a billionaire might get frightened by the genie he's let out of the bottle, even if he's Jewish and rich enough to run away. But actually undoing the fascist regime means taming the paramilitaries and this is not even on the horizon. Given the rivalry between Poroshenko and Kolomoyskiy it's not even certain it's a real change of heart or just soothing words for the non-fascist people. Nor is it even clear the Zelensky will follow even the Steinmeier formula. If he does, good, but until something actually happens? Saying it's about the antifascist turn is a damned lie.

The only thing that isn't a lie is that Trump was not committing treasons, "merely" a campaign violation. But then, Clinton never did either. The crybabies who dished it out but can't take it deserve zero respect, and zero time.

Don Bacon , Nov 14 2019 22:16 utc | 36
@ michael 34
There's a major difference between being a national spokesman and being a national decision-maker.
Don Bacon , Nov 14 2019 22:17 utc | 37
@ stj 36
Trump as president is supposed to lead foreign policy, which means actually setting a policy.
There's no basis for that in the Constitution.
Jen , Nov 14 2019 22:32 utc | 38
Curious to know how Kolomoisky is working "feverishly" to end the war in the Donbass region. Wonder if he is planning to come clean on what he knows of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 shootdown and crash in an area not far from Slavyansk and near where his Privat Group's subsidiary company Burisma Holdings holds a licence to drill for oil and natural gas. What does he know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control personnel's direction to MH17 to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000 metres above as the flight crew had requested? He had been governor of Dnepropetrovsk region at the time.
ben , Nov 14 2019 22:47 utc | 39
A quote from b's article;"It is clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian aggression".

Spoken by two sycophants for the empire.

It would be in our "national interest" if we could stop our aggression's around the globe.

DJT, IMO, only favors peace with Russia, or any one else,if, it furthers HIS personal, and his families enrichment.

He has a record of shafting people, I just wish people would inform themselves about it, and see what he's done with his life, not what says about it.

Paul Damascene , Nov 14 2019 22:56 utc | 40
Somewhere I read it alleged that the actual owner of Burisma was or is Kolomoiski.

Anything to this?

And via John Helmer (via Checkpointasia and dances with bears) comes the perspective that it's not so much Kolomoiski floating trial balloons (though that may also be true) but that K is being given space in the NYT to build his credentials as the new Borg villain, thereby making it still harder for Zelensky to reconcile with Russia.

ben , Nov 14 2019 22:56 utc | 41
fb @ 25 said;"The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own future...as the unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to extract maximal wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on the verge of toppling..."

Yup, aided and abetted by our current regime, while pretending not to...

Really?? , Nov 14 2019 23:23 utc | 42
@23
"It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the loot."

This is it in a nutshell. The Russians were fed up with Ukraine stealing gas. Hence, Nord Stream 2. That was always the plan. Whether the Yanks truly grasped the rationale here ---Russia is cutting off gas to Ukraine, simple---has never been clear to me. Although it is a fairly simple plot. The Russians had decades of shenanigans with the Ukes and said Basta. By not overreacting to the Ukrainian-USA freakout and keeping their eyes on the prize (Nord Stream and disengaging, gas-wise, from Uk), they have managed to reach their goal of getting Nord Stream 2 online.

oldhippie , Nov 14 2019 23:25 utc | 43
Kolomoiski is the bankroller and commander of the Azov Battalion. Has close arrangements with other paramilitaries. And is the current principal of Burisma. And is Privatbank, the only bank left in Ukraine. He gets a cut of all the action.

When Trump queries Zelensky, all that Zelensky is thinking is this guy does not know the score. This guy does not know who's on first. He wants me to investigate the boss? Let him talk to the boss. And who does Z talk to in D.C.? Pointless getting into detail with Trump.

Trump has no team. No one in D.C. is on his side. He's unable to finish anything.

OutOfThinAir , Nov 14 2019 23:45 utc | 44
1) Say the fantasy happens and the US/Russia become BFFs like US/UK...

- Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss?

- Tough to answer, many unknowns- Russia may act different once its on top, actors may derail schemes, Deep State temper tantrum, etc...

In general, governments are the order-providing solution for chaos and problems that only first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over others.

Zedd , Nov 14 2019 23:50 utc | 45
Kolomoiski is a U.S. asset. His interview with the NYTimes proves it.

His threats are meant to mobilize NATO and Russia haters in general; because Trump and most of his cadre care nothing for Ukraine.

Does anyone think Russia will give Kolomoiski 100 million dollars? Why was he given an opportunity to threaten the USA? For no reason? Something else is afoot but Russia still won't take the bait because they are winning.

Russia is quite happy with the status quo. The war in Ukraine keeps the war against Russia on a level which is easy to manipulate and therefore geostrategically beneficial. Kolomoiski will get nothing.

Steve , Nov 15 2019 0:03 utc | 46
Thank you, b, for that snippet from NY Interview with Kolomoisky . I had glanced the headline on RT but didn't read it because of RT's usual clumsy writing.
evilempire , Nov 15 2019 0:51 utc | 47
Kolomoiski is taunting the empire: investigate my crimes and
ukraine will seek reconciliation and alliance with russia.
Russia won't fall for it. They want kolomoiski's scalp even
more than the empire. From the statements putin has made, maybe
the only concession russia would accept is the dissolution of
ukraine as a sovereign entity and reintegration with russia, minus galicia.
Putin has remarked that they are not one people but one state. Ukraine
already knows that its domestic industry is only viable in competition
with the eu industrial powerhouses if it is integrated with russia.
flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 0:59 utc | 48
Jen said...
What does [Kolomoysky] know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control personnel's direction to MH17 to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000 metres above as the flight crew had requested?

Okay..so an interesting can of worms here...

First is the fact that Kolomoysky was the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast at the time...

Now as to the flight and Dnipro Radar [the regional air traffic control facility that controls a very big chunk of airspace over eastern Ukraine]...

First the issue of the airplane cruising altitude...the crew had filed their flight plan to climb from flight level 330 [33,000 ft] to FL350 after passing a certain waypoint in eastern Ukraine...

Now the controllers did instruct the crew to go ahead and climb to their planned altitude, but the crew declined the clearance and opted to stay at FL330...this was done very likely because the atmospheric conditions at that height were better for fuel economy...

[To be even more specific...the Boeing manual gave an optimum flight altitude of 33,800 ft, but flying eastward you only have odd numbered flight levels to choose from, so the crew figured they would be better off staying at 33 than climbing to 35...]

BUT...there are a couple of very curious things here...

First is the fact that Dnipro controllers deviated the airplane from its flight plan just before it went down...ostensibly due to other traffic...

We can see this in the following map, which is what's called a high altitude en route chart, which is used by pilots to plan and execute their flight...

Here we see the route of MH17 superimposed on the chart...

You will note a couple of things here...the airplane is flying on the L980 airway [basically a highway in the sky] when it is turned south by controllers to the RND waypoint, which is in Russian territory...

This is NOT the route filed by the crew...which can be seen here...

They were supposed to continue flying on L980 right to the TAMAK waypoint, which is visible on the previous chart and is right on the border with Russia...

They would have continued on the A87 airway to their next waypoint in Russia which is TIKNA...

Now here is the thing...right after they were turned south, they got shot down...

According to the radio transcripts, the crew acknowledged the course change, but did not object...however, usually these kinds of course changes aren't appreciated on the flight deck because the crew is trying to minimize wasted time and wasted fuel on course deviations...

Most times you will just not bother to complain to controllers...but for sure there will always be chatter between the captain and copilot about being yanked around like that...

No mention is made in the Dutch Safety Board report about such chatter from the cockpit voice recorder, which I find very odd...

Also odd is the fact that Dnipro ATC primary radar was down, and only the so-called 'secondary' was working which uses the transponder signals from the airplane...

This is very busy airspace because a lot of flights from western Europe to South Asia traverse this territory...the plan is always to fly what's called a 'great circle route' which is basically a straight line, if you flattened out the globe...

Plus considering that you have a war going on underneath...it's very unusual to have your PRIMARY radar inoperable...

This is significant also because military aircraft will not be using transponders and so will not be visible to the secondary surveillance...

The Russian primary radar did pick up two other aircraft very nearby MH17...but the Dutch have made some kind of excuse about that data not being in 'raw' form and thus not usable...

So we see some very suspicious anomalies here...

The Ukrainian authorities did have a NOTAM [notice to airmen] in effect up to FL320 [32,000 ft] so commercial traffic could not fly under that height...but clearly they should have closed the airspace over the hot conflict area...

They didn't do that...and Kolomoysky was in charge...


Kiza , Nov 15 2019 1:12 utc | 49
The Deep State's view on the members' God given right to make foreign policy decisions (it must be the God who has give it to them, because the people certainly have not) just reminds the of the general attitude of the Government's bureaucracy. Give any fartbag a position in the government and he/she becomes "a prince/princes over the people", give him or her a monopoly over violence and you got yourself a king/queen. All these police and military kings & queens milling around and lording over us. "Deep State" is such a totally natural consequence of the government bureaucracy corrupted by power that it appropriated. Pillaging taxes from the sheeple (and taking young maidens like Sheriff of Nottingham/Epstein) could have never ever been enough. Did you seriously think that the Deep Staters would constrain themselves to only stealing your money, taking your children for their pleasure and to die in their wars of conquest, and putting you into a totally unsafe airplanes to die for their profit? Constrain themselves when there is a whole globe out there to be lorded over, like Bidens over Ukraine? It is the poor people of Ukraine who just have too much money, thus had to give it through the gas monopoly to the Biden gang, which selflessly brought them "democracy" at $5B in US taxpayers' expense. Therefore, it is the Deep State which has been chosen by God, or someone just like that, to make the decisions about the imperialist/globalist foreign policy and have billions of dollars thrown by the grateful natives into their own pockets, as consulting fees:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaked-bank-records-confirm-burisma-biden-payments-morgan-stanley-account

So far the only clear-cut globalization is that one of crime, which has become global.

dh , Nov 15 2019 1:42 utc | 50
What is the US National Interest b asks? Who defines it as such?

Ome magazine that might know is none other than The National Interest. Hopefully I won't get attacked for quoting from what seems like a fairly sane article to me....

"The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to. Ukraine is a debt-ridden state and only five years beyond an extralegal revolution. Should the government collapse again, then American weapons could end up in the possession of any number of dubious paramilitary groups.

It wouldn't be the first time. In the 2000s, CIA operatives were forced to repurchase Stinger missiles that had fallen into the hands of Afghani warlords -- at a markup. Originally offered to the Mujahideen in the 1980s, the Stingers came to threaten American forces in the region. Similarly, many weapons provided with US authorization to Libyan rebels in 2011 ended up in the possession of jihadists."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dressed-kill-arming-ukraine-could-173200746.html

karlof1 , Nov 15 2019 1:47 utc | 51
It's difficult to find clean information on happenings within Ukraine and those involving Russia. The Ministry of Foreign affairs has this page dedicated to the "Situation Around Ukraine." Of the three most recent listings, this one --"Comment by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on the NATO Council's visit to Ukraine"--from 1 November is quite important as it deals with the reality on the ground versus the circus happening thousands of miles away, although it's clear the delusions in Washington and Brussels are the same and "continue to be guided by the Cold War logic of exaggerating the nonexistent 'threat from the East' rather than the interests of pan-European security."

In the second most recent listing --"Remarks by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OSCE Vladimir Zheglov at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine and the need to implement the Minsk Agreements, Vienna, October 31, 2019"--the following was noted:

"There's more to it. The odious site Myrotvorets continues to function using servers located in the United States. The UN has repeatedly stated that this violates the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. Recently, Deputy Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Benjamin Moreau, reiterated the recommendation to shut down this website. A similar demand was made by other representatives of the international community, including the German government. The problem was brought to the attention of the European Court of Human Rights. The other day, the representative of Ukraine at the ECHR was made aware of the groundlessness of the Ukrainian government's excuses saying that it allegedly 'has no influence' on the above website.

"In closing, recent opinion polls in Ukraine indicate that its residents are expecting the government to do more to bring peace to Donbas. The path to a settlement is well known, that is, the full implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, that was approved by the UN Security Council."

Clearly, Zelensky's government is much like Poroschenko's when it comes to listening to those who empowered it, the above citation is one of several from the overall report.

The latest report deals with an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice at The Hague that reveals some of the anti-Russian bias there. It has no bearing on this discussion, although it does provide evidence of the contextual background against which the entire affair, including the circus in Washington, operates.

MoA consensus is Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords they continue to oppose to implement despite their promise to do so. Clearly an excellent example of not being agreement capable that hasn't changed since 2015.

If the Republicans had any brains, they'd turn the Ukrainian aspect of the hearings into an indictment against Obama/Biden for illegally overthrowing Kiev and trying to obtain their piece-of-the-action, but then that would be the logical thing to do and thus isn't an option. The prospect of each day providing similar spectacle is mind numbing as it airs the sordid, unwashed underwear if the Evil Outlaw US Empire.

Kiza , Nov 15 2019 2:01 utc | 52
I normally do not reply to trolls, but I make an exception for you. Pedo-dollar? Do you have any more such crap to dilute the valid points discussed here?
james , Nov 15 2019 2:36 utc | 53
@41 paul damascene... regarding the helmer article - thanks for pointing it out.. IGOR KOLOMOISKY MAKES A MISTAKE, AND THE NEW YORK TIMES DOES WHAT IT ALWAYS DOES

i liked what @ 32 tod said - "he's just doing the old Jewish threatening/begging dance!
"And you are forcing us to be at war, and not even giving us the money for it." Wink! Wink!"

stating the obvious is one remedy for any possible confusion here..

@54 karlof1... i don't believe trump is allowed to shine any light on the usas illegal actions as that would be sacrilege to all the americans who see their country in such a great, exceptional-ist light... how would trumps MAGA concept swallow that? it wouldn't, so it won't happen...

UnionHorse , Nov 15 2019 2:40 utc | 54
I just watched Seven Days in May for the first time in a long while. It is worth the time. It resonates loudly today.
Kiza , Nov 15 2019 2:50 utc | 55
@flankerbandit 18

You are a bit off on that story. NS2 pipeline will increase the capacity not transitioning via Ukraine and reduce the price banditry by the Ukrainian & US gangs, but it will not make gas transit via Ukraine unnecessary. The planned switch off of the German nuclear and coal power plants will gradually increase the German demand for gas, that is the Russian gas by so much that NS1 and NS2 will not be enough. Primarily, NS2 is a signal to the Ukrainian & US Democrat gangs that if they try excessive transit fees and stealing of gas again, that they will be circumvented within a few years by NS 3,4,5 ...

BTW, the globalized pillaging of the population is clearly not an invention of the DNC crime gang only. For example, the 737Max is a product of primarily Republican activity on deregulating what should have never been deregulated and subjugation to the Wall Street (aka financialization). The pillaging of the World is strictly bipartisan, just differently packaged:
1) R - packaging the deregulation to steal & kill as "freedom" or
2) D - packaging the regime change as responsibility to protect R2P (such regime change and stuffing of own pockets later).

Grieved , Nov 15 2019 3:01 utc | 56
karlof1 @54 - "Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords"

Yes. As you well know, and as we have well discussed, Minsk was in its very essence the surrender terms dictated to the US by NAF and Russia in return for letting the NATO contractors go free and secretly out of the Debaltsevo cauldron. Either actually or poetically, this was the basis. The US lost against NAF. The only way to prevent Donbass incursion into the rest of Ukraine was to freeze the situation. The US had no choice, and surrendered.

Out of the heat and fog of warfare came a simple document made of words which, even so, illustrated perfectly just how elegantly the Kremlin had the entire situation both war-gamed and peace-gamed. Minsk from that day until forever has locked the Ukraine play into a lost war of attrition for the US sponsors, with zero gain - except for thieves.

To attempt to parse Ukraine in terms of statecraft is to miss the point that Ukraine can only be parsed in terms of thievery. This is not cynicism, simply truth.

Now they sell their land because this is all there is left to sell. Kolomoisky proposes selling the entire country to Russia for $100 billion but not only will Russia not bite, the country isn't worth even a fraction of that - because of Minsk, it can cause zero harm to Russia. But this ploy raises the perceived value (Kolomoisky hopes) in the eyes of the west, and starts the bidding.

In Russia the people see all this very clearly, including on their TV. Yakov Kedmi in this Vesti News clip of Vladimir Soloviev's hugely popular talk show, discusses the situation. He baits Soloviev by saying that the Ukrainian thieves are only doing what the Russian thieves did in the 1990's - and one must filter through this badinage to take out the nuggets he supplies. Here are three:

1. Zelensky has no security apparatus that follows his command, therefore how can he be considered the leader of the country?
2. There is no power in Ukraine, only forces that contend over the scraps of plunder.
3. These forces are creating the only law there is, which is the sacred nature of private property for the rich - the only thing the US holds sacred.

Therefore sell the very soil.

~~

The Minsk agreement is a sheer wall of ice reaching to the sky. No force imaginable can scale it or break it. Against that ultimate, immovable wall the US pounds futilely, with Ukraine caught in the middle, while Russia waits for Ukraine to devolve into whatever it can.

And the Russian people and government regard the people of the Ukraine as brothers and sisters. But until the west has worn itself down, and either gone away or changed the equation through a weakening of its own position in some significant way, nothing can be done by Russia except to wait.

Kiza , Nov 15 2019 3:09 utc | 57
What Tod @32 described is spot-on, "the old Jewish threatening/begging dance". It is not that the Russians do not know this about Kolomoyskyi. They will play along not expecting anything from the Zelo-on-a-String and his master. The Russians like to let those scumbags (Erdo comes to mind) huff & puff and embarrass themselves by flips. They know - it could always be worse if those did something intelligent. Kolomoyskyi is vile but he ain't no genius, not any more than Erdo.
flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 3:42 utc | 58
You are a bit off on that story.

Sure Cheeza...everybody's a 'bit off' except you...

Gazprom is talking about 10 bcm a year through Ukraine for the new 10 year deal, as opposed to the 60 bcm [billion cubic meters] that Ukraine is hoping for...

The Vesti report right here...

james , Nov 15 2019 3:47 utc | 59
@62 grieved.. nice to see you back.. thanks of the link with yako kedmi talking.. that was fascinating.. i think the guy is bang on..
snake , Nov 15 2019 3:58 utc | 60

"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.

There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction/)which consists of imperial apparatchiks placed in every key position in government. Babyl-on @ 8

? before I begin , how do you measure the political and economic power of money as opposed to the political and economic power of the intentions and needs of the masses. Does $1 control a 100 people? A million dollars control 100,000,000 people? How do we measure the comparative values between money power and people power? I think the divisions of economics and the binaries of politics established by the nation state system means that the measurement function (political and economic values) varies as a function of the total wealth vs the total population in each nation state. If true, become obvious how it is that: foreign investments displaces the existing homeostatis in any particular nation state, the smaller the poorer the nation state, the more impact foreign wealth can have; in other words outside wealth can completely destroy the homeostatis of an existing nation state. I think it is this fact which makes globalization so attractive to the ruling interest (RI) and so damning to the poorest of the poor.

Change by amendment is impossible There is one and only one Western Empire but there is also an Eastern Empire, a southern empire, and a Northern Empire and I believe the ruling interest (faction) manipulate all nations through these empires. In fact, they can do this in any nation they wish. The world has been divided into containers of humans and propaganda and culture have highly polarized the humans in one container against the humans in other containers. <=divide, polarize, then exploit: its like pry the window, and gain access to the residence, then exploit. It is obvious that the strength of the resistance to ruling class exploitation is a function of common cause among the masses. But money allows to control both the division of power and the polarization of the masses. The persons who have the powers described in Article II of the US Constitution since Lincoln was murdered can be controlled (Epstein, MSM directed propaganda, impeachment, assassination, to accomplish the objects of the ruling interest (faction). Article II of the USA constitution removes foreign activity of the USA from domestic view of the governed at home Americans. Article II makes it possible for the POTUS to use American assets and resources to assist his/her feudal lords in exploiting foreign nations almost at will and there is no way governed Americans can control who the ruling interest place in the Article II position.

A little History Immigration to NYC from Eastern (the poor) and Western (the rich) Europe transitioned NYC and other cities from Irish majority to a Jewish majority; and the wealthy interest used the Jewish majorities in key cities to take control over both Article I and Article II constitutional powers by electing field effect controlled politicians (political puppets are elected that can be reprogrammed while they are in office to suit the ruling interest. The source code is called rule of law, and money buys the programmers who write the code. So the ruling interest can reprogram in field effect fashion, any POTUS they wish. Out of sight use of the resources of America in foreign lands is nothing new, it was established when the constitution was written in Philadelphia in 1787 and ratified in 1788.

Propaganda targeted to the Jewish Immigrants allowed the wealthy interest to control the outcome of the 1912 election. That election allowed to destroy Article I, Section 9, paragraph 4 " No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid unless in Proportion to the Census of enumeration herein before directed to be taken". and to enact a law which privatized the USA monopoly on money into the hands of private bankers (the federal reserve act of 1913)

What was the grand design Highly competitive, independent too strong economic Germany was interfering with Western hegemony and the oil was in the lands controlled by the Ottomans. It took two wars, but Germany was destroyed, and the Ottoman empire (basically the entire Middle East) became the war gained property of the British (Palestine), the French (Syria) and the USA (Israel). Since then, the ruling interest have used their (field effect devices to align governments so the wealthy could pillage victim societies the world over. Field effect programming allows wealth interest to use the leaders of governments to use such governments to enable pillage in foreign places. The global rich and powerful, and their corporations are the ruling interest.

psychohistorian says it well "..the global private finance core segment of empire is behind Trump and throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The cult of global private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role in the new multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyone's heads to make it ongoing..." by psychochistorian @ 10


NOBITs @ 11 says it also "All presidents have been servants of the military, which includes the police/intel/security apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead role were "dealt with." Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state bureaucrats are shocked and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US foreign policy for 75 years!" by: NOBTS @ 11

According to TG @ 13 "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing responsibility. The elites get to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take responsibility when things go wrong. Because you see, we are a "Democracy."by: TG @ 13 <= absolutely not.. the constitution isolates governed Americans from the USA, because the USA is a republic and republics are about privatizing power and socializing responsibility; worse, there ain't nothing you can do about it.


Vonu @ 19 says "According to Kevin Shipp, the National Security Council really runs the executive branch, not the president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=XHbrOg092GA" by: Vonu @ 19 <=but it is by the authority of Ariicle II that the NSC has the power to run the executive branch?

KAdath @ 22 says "the Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in order for the Russians to keep even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets by: Kadath @ 22" <=exactly.. but really its not abandoning the USA, its abandoning the oligarchs local to the pillaged nation..

J Swift @ 23 says "the US treats its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere," [poorly] but its not the USA per say, because only one person has the power to deal in foreign places. Its that the POTUS, or those who control the Article II powers vested in the POTUS, have or has been reprogrammed.. J. Switft @23>>

flankerbandit @ 25 says " Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they are selling vast tracts of agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally dispossessing themselves of their own food security..." flankerbandit @ 25 <=Not really the wealthy (investor interest) have pushed the pillage at will button.. since there is no resistance remaining, the wealthy will take it all for a song..


Jackrabbit @ 26 says "Trump [is].. Constitutionally charged with foreign policy. Repeating: the "Imperial Presidency" has flung off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing the need to get Congressional approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and black budgets.by Jackrabbit @ 26 <== Trumps orders military to take 4 million day from Syria in oil?
your observation that the money has circumvented Article I of the COUS explains why the democraps are so upset.. the wealthy democrap interest has been left to rot? Your comment suggest s mafia is in charge?

Tod @ 32 says "As soon as some money goes his way, he'll discover democracy again.
Sorry to burst you bubbles." by: Tod @ 32" <==understatement of the day.. thanks.

Bevin @ 32 says "a dialectic is at work here. Washington's support for fascism abroad has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the installation of fascist regimes abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US intervenes it leaves a fascist regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind it. this means.. the ability of the population to effect political change is cancelled" by bevin @ 33 <= yes but there is really no difference in a republic and its rule of law, and a fascist government and its military police both rule without any influential input from the governed.

michael @ 34 reaffirms "The President was the only channel of communication between the United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation'" michael @ 34 well known to barflies, the design of national constitutions is at the heart of the global problem. Until constitutional powers are placed in control of the governed there will never be a change in how the constitutional powers ( in case of the USA Article II powers) are used and abused.

OutofThinAir @45 says "In general, governments are the order-providing solution for chaos and problems that only first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over others.by: OutOfThinAir @ 45" <+governments are the tools of wealth interest and the governors their hired hands.

by: War is Peace @48 " Trump is a moron, groomed by Jewish parents ( Mother was Jewish, Father buried at biggest Jewish cementary in NYC ) to be a non-Jew worked for the mob under Cohen ( lawyer for 1950's McCarthy ); Became the 'Goyim Fool" real estate developer as a cover for laundering mob money. So that it didn't appear that it was Jewish Mafia Money, so they could work with the Italian Mafia. Trump went on for his greatest role ever to be the "fool in Chief" of the USA for AIPAC. What better way to murder people, than send out a fool, it causes people to drop their guard. by War is Peace @48 <= yes this is my take, What does it mean. com suggest the global wealth interest may be planning to reprogram Trump to better protect the interest of the global wealthy.
Kiza @ 51 the reason for globalization is explained see above=> response to Babyl-on @ 8

dh @ 53 says ""The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to." by dh @53 < the USA cannot consider anything, if its foreign the POTUS (Article II) makes all decisions because Art II gives the POTUS a monopoly on talking to, and dealing with, foreign governments.

Deagel @ 56 says "The American people don't care, they're all drugged out, and shitting on the side-walks all over the USA, and sleeping in their own shit. This is the best time in USA history for the Zionists to do anything they wish." by: Deagel @ 56 <= I think you under estimate the value Americans place on democracy and human rights, until recently governed Americans believed the third party privately produced MSM delivered propaganda that nearly all overseas operations by the USA were to separate the people in those places from their despotic leaders, and to help those displaced people install Democracy.. many Americans have come to understand such is far from the case.. the situation in the Ukraine has been an eye opener for many Americans. thoughts are sizzling, talk is happening, and people are trying to shut google out of their lives. that is why i think Trump is about to be reprogrammed from elected leader to .. God in charge

wealth interest example

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 4:01 utc | 61
Grieved...thanks for that magnificent analysis...

I watched that Soloviev segment with Kedmi the other day...always interesting to say the least...

Btw...I'm not really up to speed on that whole Debaltsevo cauldron thing...I've heard snippets here and there...[there is a guy, Auslander, who comments on the Saker blog that seems to have excellent first hand info, but I've only caught snippets here and there]...

I hadn't heard this part of the story before about Nato contractors as bargaining chips...if you care to shed a bit more light I will be grateful...

karlof1 , Nov 15 2019 4:55 utc | 62
flankeerbandit @67--

I suggest going to The Saker Blog and enter Debaltsevo Cauldron into the site's search box and click Submit where you'll be greeted with numerous results.

Grieved @62--

Thanks for your reply and excellent recap. As I recall, Putin wants Donbass to remain in Ukraine and Ukraine to remain a whole state, although I haven't read his thoughts on the matter for quite some months as everything has revolved around implementing Minsk. The items at the Foreign Ministry I linked to are also concerned with Minsk.

The circus act in DC is trying to avoid any mention of Minsk, the coup or anything material to the gross imperial meddling done there to enrich the criminal elite, which includes Biden, Clinton, other DNC members--a whole suite of actors that omits Trump in this case, although they're trying to pin something on him. The issue being studiously ignored is Obama/Biden needed to be busted for their actions at the time, but in time-honored fashion weren't. And the huge rotted sewer of corruption related to that action and ALL that came before is the real problem at issue.

Kiza , Nov 15 2019 5:12 utc | 63
@flankerbandit 64

Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person as evidenced by The New Yorker 737Max article in the previous thread. This good article could only be measured by how much it agrees with your own opinion that MCAS was put in to mimic the pilots' usual fly-stick feel. If anyone does his home work, such as the journalist of this article, then he must agree with you, right? With experts such as you out there, why would anyone dare apply common sense and say that it would be an unimaginably stupid idea to put in ANY AUTOMATED SYSTEM which pushes the plane's nose down during ascent (the most risky phase of a civilian flight, when almost desperately trying to get up and up and up) for any DUMBLY POSSIBLE REASON !? What could ever go wrong with such an absolutely dumbly initiated system relying on one sensor? Maybe it was a similar idea to putting a cigarette lighter right next to the car's gas tank because it lights up cigarettes better when there are gasoline vapors around. Or maybe an idea of testing the self-driving lithium battery (exploding & flammable) cars near kindergartens (of some other people's children)!?

An intelligent person would have said - whatever the reason was to put in MCAS it was a terribly dumb idea, instead of congratulating himself on understanding the "true reason".

dickr , Nov 15 2019 6:49 utc | 64
flankerbandit @18 good analysis thx.
Ike , Nov 15 2019 6:55 utc | 65
"If I were president, while I would resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly associate myself with the delusion that stable friendship is possible (or, frankly, desirable) with Putin's anti-American dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia family and is acting on its revanchist ambitions."

Really?

From what have gleaned from the alternative media available on the internet ,of which MOA is an important part. Putin and Lavrov are the two most moral and diplomatic statesmen on the world stage today Compared to Trump, Johnson, Macron, Merkel, Stoltenberg, Pompeo, Bolton and whoever else blights the international scene these days these two are colossi.

To describe them as like a Mafia family seems to me to be 180 degrees wrong. Maybe Putin overreacted, in his early days in power, to the Chechen conflict but look at the situation today.

Look at how Gorbachev and Yeltsin were played by the west. I appreciate you did not write the words quoted above but you said you agree with them and I find that startling given I am usually very admiring of your insight and knowledge of geopolitical events.

Fly , Nov 15 2019 7:14 utc | 66
According to the Impeachniks, it is Schiff's staff who decides how Schiff votes and his policies. It would be illegal for Schiff to make decisions. But Schiff's recommendation will make or break the careers of his staff, so elected Schiff has some influence. That's not true for elected Trump, because those in his service already have made careers and/or a host of outsiders looking to place them.
dickr , Nov 15 2019 7:32 utc | 67
@50 flankerbandit - wow!
QuietRebel , Nov 15 2019 8:47 utc | 68
Although, he didn't get impeached for it Obama did get criticized for not sending the aid to Ukraine. He was also criticized when he did intervene, but not fast enough for the deep state. Remember "leading from behind" in response to Libya. Obama was much more popular and circumspect than Trump, which protected him from possible impeachment when he went off the deep state's script.
Walter , Nov 15 2019 9:12 utc | 69

Discussion of the USC and the responsibilities assigned therein is probably a foolish and merely moot exercise, as law is, ultimately simply custom over time, and since '45 or so the custom has become dissociated from the documents' provisions, particularly with regard to war-making and the "licensed" import and sale of dangerous drugs, dope. The custom in place is essentially ukase - rule by decree. Many decree are secret.

I do not object, simply pointing to the obvious.

This is a public secret anybody can know. Inter alia see The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (McCoy)

...........

Custom includes also permitted theft, blackmail, trafficking children and so forth.

...........

zerohedge put up some documents tying TGM Hunter B to the money from Ukraine...


................

I would not worry about the name of the person called president. The real sitrep is more like watching rape and murder from the dirty windows of a runaway train.

ralphieboy , Nov 15 2019 11:24 utc | 71
Upon the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine was left with the fifth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In exchange for financial assistance in the costs of removing all the nukes, the West guaranteed to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity.

In the meantime, Russia has annexed the Crimea and rebels have taken control of parts of Eastern Ukraine. The West has not provided any direct military assistance to restore those territorial infringements.

Since the West has reneged on its end of the deal, would it not only be fair to return Ukraine's nukes so it can defend itself like the Big Boys do, namely with threat of nuclear annihilation?

Christian J Chuba , Nov 15 2019 12:36 utc | 72
Ukrainians are dying

I hate this trope. The Russian Fed. is not launching offensive operations to capture Kharkov or Kiev. Western Ukraine is shelling ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. What would U.S. Congressman say if these were Jews? (I would condemn that as well).

The next time someone pontificates, 'Ukrainians are dying because Trump held up aid' ask them how many. The number is ZERO. Javelins are not being used on the front line.

Seamus Padraig , Nov 15 2019 12:47 utc | 73
Wow. My opinion of Kolomoisky has just improved ... somewhat.
deschutes , Nov 15 2019 13:25 utc | 74
Mr. Kolomoisky is spot on, i.e. when he says that the Americans will only use Ukrainians as their little bitches to fight and die for America's gain against Russia. Just like the Americans fucked over the Kurds in Syria, using them as proxy fighters to do USA/Israel's dirty work. Wherever the USA shows up and starts interfering, everything turns into shit: Iraq...Afghanistan...Venezuela...Bolivia...Ukraine...Libya...Yemen...Nicaragua...Ecuador...the list is quite long. It remains to be seen if Mr. Kolomoisky can bring about rapprochement with Russia. He'd better watch his back.
William Gruff , Nov 15 2019 13:30 utc | 75
"Wow. My opinion of Kolomoisky has just improved ... somewhat." --Seamus Padraig @73

Yes, Kolomoisky has moved up a notch in my estimation as well; from the low of "monstrously inhuman spawn of satan" all the way up to "rabid dog" . That's quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.

juliania , Nov 15 2019 14:13 utc | 76
I am very glad to see you back, Grieved, and your 'wall of ice' metaphor is indeed accurate. To me, the promising signs in Ukraine were even as here in the US when voters fought back against what b calls Deep State, which I am sure in my heart was even more of an overwhelming surge than registered - the best the corrupters of the system could do was make it close enough to be a barely legitimate win for their side, and they didn't succeed. Maybe somewhere along their line of shenanigans a small cog in the wheel got religion and didn't do their 'job'. An unsung hero who will sing when it's safe.

I hope, dearly hope, it gets safe in Ukraine very soon. They are us only further down the line than we are, but we will get there if we can't totally remove the cancer in our midst. That's our job; I wish Ukraine all the best in removing theirs.

Peter AU1 , Nov 15 2019 14:39 utc | 77
Jen 70

I believe the Russian presentation on MH17 showed a military aircraft climbing in the vicinity of, or towards MH17.

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 14:47 utc | 78
Jen...I should have made clear that the two aircraft picked up by Russian PRIMARY RADAR were unidentified...

The two commercial flights you mention were in the area and were known to both Russian and Ukrainian controllers by means of the SECONDARY SURVEILLANCE RADAR, which picks up the aircraft transponder signals...

However, secondary WILL NOT pick up military craft that have their transponders off...which is normal operating procedure for military craft...

So the airspace situation was this...you can see this from one of the illustrations I provided from the DSB prelim report...

You had MH17...you had that other flight coming from the opposite direction [flying west]...and you had that airplane that overtook the MH17 from behind [they were in a hurry and were going faster, so when MH17 decided to stay at FL330, they were cleared to climb to FL350 so they could safely overtake with the necessary vertical separation...]

Those three aircraft were all picked up on the Ukrainian SECONDARY [transponder] surveillance...as well as the Russians...on both their PRIMARY AND SECONDARY...

But what the Russians picked up were two craft ONLY ON THEIR PRIMARY...those would have been military aircraft flying with their transponders off [they're allowed to do that and do that most of the time in fact]...

That's why those two DIDN'T SHOW UP ON THE SECONDARY DATA HANDED OVER TO THE INVESTIGATORS BY THE UKRAINIANS...

Only primary radar would pick those up...and, very conveniently, the Dnipro primary was inop at the time...[so the data handed to investigators by the Ukrainians would have no trace of any military aircraft nearby]...

But with the Russian primary radar data, there is in fact evidence that there were military aircraft in the air at the time...just that the Dutch investigators simply decided to exclude the very vital Russian radar data on some stupid technicality...

[Really this is a very poorly done report, both prelim and final, and I've read many over the years...]

The other thing I should have emphasized more clearly is about that course deviation that controllers steered MH17 to, just seconds before it was hit...

The known traffic was those three commercial aircraft, as shown on the chart... here it is again...

Those three commercial flights are clearly labeled...and the big question is... why was MH17 DIVERTED SOUTH...OFF ITS PLANNED ROUTE...?

We can see the deviation track by the dotted red line...

Clearly there was no 'other traffic' that required MH17 to be vectored south by the controllers...

In fact we see that there was a FOURTH commercial flight [another B777] that was flying south exactly to that same waypoint that MH17 was diverted to...we see this airplane is flying west on the M70 airway and is heading to the RND waypoint...

This does not make sense...why would you divert MH17 from going to TAMAK as flight planned...in order to go south toward RND where another airplane is heading...

If nothing else this is very bad controller practice right there...yet again, the DSB [Dutch Safety Board] does not even raise this question...

Like I said, leaving aside any guesswork, these are the simple facts and they raise serious questions...both about the competence of the Dutch report, and the way the controllers handled that flight...

S , Nov 15 2019 14:53 utc | 79
Ukrainian think tank Ukrainian Institute of the Future and Ukrainian media outlet Zerkalo Nedeli (both anti-Russian, but slightly more intellectual than typical Ukrainian outlets) have contracted a Kharkov-based pollster to conduct a poll among DNR/LNR residents from October 7 to October 31 (method: face-to-face interviews at the homes of the respondents, sample size: 806 respondents in DNR and 800 respondents in LNR, margin of error: 3.2%) and published its results in an article: Тест на сумісність [Compatibility Test] (in Ukrainian).

It's a long and rambling article, interspersed with Ukrainian propagandistic clichés (perhaps to placate Ukrainian nationalists), but the numbers look solid, so I've extracted the numbers I consider important and put them in a table format. Here they are:

GENERAL INFORMATION

Gender
46.5% male
53.5% female

Age
8.3% <25 years old
91.7% ≥25 years old

Education
31.5% no vocational training or higher education
45.2% vocational training
23.3% higher education

Employment
24% public sector
24% private sector
5% NGOs
45% unemployed

Religion
57% marry and baptize their children in Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
31% believe in God, but do not go to any church
12% other churches, other religions, atheists

Political activity
3% are members of parties
97% are not members of parties

Language
90% speak Russian at home
10% speak other languages at home

Nationality
55.4% consider themselves Ukrainians
44.6% do not consider themselves Ukrainians

ECONOMY

Opinion about the labor market
24.3% there are almost no jobs
39.3% high unemployment, but it's possible to find a job
15.7% there are jobs, even if temporary
17.1% key enterprises are working, those who want to work can find a job
2.9% there are not enough employees

Personal financial situation
4.9% are saving on food
36.4% enough money to buy food, but have to save money to buy clothing
43.6% enough money to buy food and clothing, but have to save money to buy a suit, a mobile phone, or a vacuum cleaner
12% enough money to buy food, clothing, and other goods, but have to save money to buy expensive goods (e.g. consumer electronics)
2.7% enough money to buy food, clothing, and expensive goods, but have to save money to buy a car or an apartment
0.4% enough money to buy anything

Personal financial situation compared to the previous year
28.4% worsened
57.3% stayed the same
14.2% improved

Personal financial situation expectations for the next year
21% will worsen
58.6% will stay the same
18.7% will improve

Opinion on the Ukraine's (sans DNR/LNR) economic situation compared to the previous year
50.3% worsened
41.4% stayed the same
6.3% improved

CITIZENSHIP

Consider themselves citizens of
57.8% the Ukraine
34.8% DNR/LNR
6.8% Russia

Russian citizenship
42.9% never thought about obtaining it
15.5% don't want to obtain it
34.2% would like to obtain it
7.4% already obtained it

Considered leaving DNR/LNR for
5.2% the Ukraine
11.1% Russia
2.9% other country
80.8% never considered leaving

Visits to the Ukraine over the past year
35.1% across the DNR/LNR–Ukraine border (overwhelming majority of them -- 32.2% of all respondents -- are pensioners who visit the Ukraine to receive their pensions)
2.6% across the Russia–Ukraine border
62.3% have not visited the Ukraine

WAR

Is the war in Donbass an internal Ukrainian conflict?
35.6% completely agree
40.5% tend to agree
14.1% tend to disagree
9.3% completely disagree

Was the war started by Moscow and pro-Russian groups?
3.1% completely agree
6.4% tend to agree
45.1% tend to disagree
44.9% completely disagree

Who must pay to rebuild DNR/LNR? (multiple answers)
63.6% the Ukraine
29.3% Ukrainian oligarchs
18.5% DNR/LNR themselves
17% the U.S.
16.5% the EU
16% Russia
13% all of the above

ZELENSKIY

Opinion about Zelenskiy
1.9% very positive
17.2% positive
49.6% negative
29.3% very negative

Has your opinion about Zelenskiy changed over the past months?
2.7% significantly improved
7.9% somewhat improved
44.8% stayed the same
22.9% somewhat worsened
20.5% significantly worsened

Will Zelenskiy be able to improve the Ukraine's economy?
1.4% highly likely
13.3% likely
55.3% unlikely
30% highly unlikely

Will Zelenskiy be able to bring peace to the region?
1.7% highly likely
12.5% likely
59% unlikely
26.5% highly unlikely

MEDIA

Where do you get your information on politics? (multiple answers)
84.3% TV
60.6% social networks
50.9% relatives, friends
45.9% websites
17.4% co-workers
10% radio
7.4% newspapers and magazines

What social networks do you use? (multiple answers)
70.7% YouTube
61% VK
52.3% Odnoklassniki
49.8% Viber
27.1% Facebook
21.4% Instagram
12.4% Twitter
11.1% Telegram

FUTURE

Desired status of DNR/LNR
5.1% part of the Ukraine
13.4% part of the Ukraine with a special status
16.2% independent state
13.4% part of Russia with a special status
50.9% part of Russia

Desired status of entire Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts
8.4% part of the Ukraine
10.8% part of the Ukraine with a special status
14.4% independent state
13.3% part of Russia with a special status
49.6% part of Russia

Really?? , Nov 15 2019 15:12 utc | 80
Just listening to a bit of the testimony of the ex-ambassador to Ukraine.

It is all BS hearsay!

Also, this lady doesn't seem to grasp that as an employee of the State Department, she answers to Trump. Trump is her boss.

The questioning is full of leading questions that contains allegations and unproved premises built into them. I can't imagine that such questioning would be allowed in a normal court of justice in the USA.

Sure, Trump is a boor. But he is still the boss and he gets to pull out ambassadors if he wants to.

This is total grandstanding.

Also, a lot of emotional stuff like "I was devastated. I was shocked. Color drained from my face as I read the telephone transcript . . . "
This is BS!

I hope it is as obvious to others as to me.

I do

Seamus Padraig , Nov 15 2019 15:28 utc | 81
@ Posted by: Jen | Nov 15 2019 10:26 utc | 70

IIRC the Russian radar showed that the two mystery planes in questions were flying in MH17's blindspot . That's way too close to be half an hour away. Also, the fact that the two planes were flying over a war zone with their transponders turned off (which is why they couldn't be conclusively identified) strongly suggests that they were military.

@ Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 15 2019 11:24 utc | 71

When the US launched a coup in Kiev, wasn't that a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty too?

@ Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Nov 15 2019 12:36 utc | 72

You know the real reason why they have yet to deliver the javelins to Ukraine? It's because they're afraid that they'll be sold on the black market and end up in the ME somewhere targeting US tanks. That's why.

@ Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 15 2019 13:30 utc | 75

That's quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.
Well, I did use the qualifier 'somewhat'. ;-)
Don Bacon , Nov 15 2019 15:34 utc | 82
on Yovanovitch, She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States."

She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. . .Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 15:52 utc | 84
Cheeza decides to launch a personal attack...also completely off topic...
Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person [sic]...With experts such as you out there, why would anyone dare apply common sense...an intelligent person would have said...blah blah blah...

Look man...I'm not going to take up a lot of space on this thread because it's not about the MAX...

BUT...I need to set the record straight because you are accusing me here of somehow muddying the waters on the MAX issue...

That is a complete inversion of the truth...I have been very explicit in my [professional] comments about the MAX...and it is the exact opposite of what you are trying to tar me with here...

An example of my one of my comments here...

Yes, it is important to understand these things...which is why I have made the effort to explain the issue more clearly for the layman audience...

Your pathetic attack here shows you have no shame, nor self-respect...

Let's rewind the tape here...I said that Gazprom is looking to cut supplies to Ukraine in the new 10 year deal that comes up for negotiation in January...and that they are going to be pumping much less gas through Ukraine because NS2 now allows to bypass Ukraine...

You took a run at this comment, calling it wrong, and putting up a bunch of your own hypothesizing...

I responded by linking to the Russian news report quoting officials saying exactly that...that gas to Ukraine will be greatly reduced...

Instead of responding to that by admitting you were full of shit...you decide to attack me on the MAX issue...everybody here knows my [professional] position on the MAX...and that I have said repeatedly THAT IT CANNOT BE FIXED...[which is also why I have offered detailed technical explanations...]

I'm not going to let you screw with my integrity here...everything you attributed to me on the MAX is completely FALSE and in fact turning the truth on its head...

Realist , Nov 15 2019 16:08 utc | 87
Well done Peter. You totally f'd up the thread width once again.

Thanks a lot, you selfish incompetent c**t

Peter AU1 , Nov 15 2019 16:32 utc | 91
Realist 87

If you weren't such a dickhead you would see my links dont even reach text margins.

c1ue , Nov 15 2019 16:33 utc | 92
@flankerbandit #18

As Kiza #55 noted - Nordstream 1 and 2, combined, only equal half of Ukraine's transit capacity. The primary impact is that Ukraine can't hold far Western European customer gas hostage anymore with its gas transit "negotiations" as Nordstream allows Russia to sell directly to Germany.

There can still be Russian gas sold via Ukraine, but this will be mostly to near-Ukraine neighbors: Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Czech as well as Ukraine itself.
Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania can transit from Turk Stream, but there are potential Turk (and Bulgarian) issues.

Poland is already committing to LNG in order to not be dependent on Russian gas transiting Ukraine - a double whammy. The ultimate effect is to remove Ukraine's stranglehold position over Russian gas exports, which in turn severely undercuts Ukraine's ability to both get really cheap Russian gas and additional transit fees - a major blow to their economy.

That part of your analysis is accurate.

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 17:13 utc | 97
A fool piped in...
Nordstream 1 and 2, combined, only equal half of Ukraine's transit capacity.

Look...I'm not going to waste more time on bullshit...where are the FACTS about what you CLAIM here...?

The two Nordstream pipes equal 110 bcm per year...plus there are other pipeline routes that do not go through Ukraine...

Here is a study of the Euro gas imports from Russia from a few months ago...

The Conclusion...page 9

Therefore, the continuation of gas transit via Ukraine in volumes greater than the 26 bcm/y suggested above will depend on the European Commission and European gas importers, and their insistence that gas transit via Ukraine continues.

Otherwise, gas transit via Ukraine will be reduced to delivering limited volumes for European storage re-fills in the 'off-peak' summer months...

This prospect will undoubtedly complicate any negotiations between Gazprom and its Ukrainian counterparty over a new contract to govern the transit of Russian gas via Ukraine, once the existing contract expires at the end of December 2019.

...Gazprom may be willing to commit to only limited annual transit volumes...

European gas importers don't give a shit about Ukraine...and they have the final word...they care only about getting the gas they need from Russia in a reliable way and at a good price...

The news report I linked to makes it perfectly clear that the Europeans are demanding that the Ukranians get their act together on the gas issue, or they will be dropped altogether...

You know...FOOL...it really makes me wonder how fools like you decide to make statements here with a very authoritative tone...when it is quite clear you are talking out your rear end...

Nobody needs that kind of bullshit here...if you don't know a subject sufficiently well, then maybe you should keep quiet...or when making a statement, phrase it as your own OPINION and nothing more...

[Nov 15, 2019] Understanding the Foreign Service Officer Nerd Behavior by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... To become a Foreign Service Officer you must take a written and an oral exam. If you pass these exams then you win the golden ticket granting you entrance into the FSO club. FSOs have convinced themselves that only the smartest, the brightest, the most able can pass this exam. If you have not taken the exam and passed it then you are by definition not a very smart person. ..."
"... Many FSOs looked down their nose at these knuckle dragging gorillas masquerading as Special Operations forces at U.S. They assumed they were barely literate. Imagine their shock when the FSOs discovered that a member of the elite U.S. Army CT unit or a member of the SEALS could actually speak a foreign language, had read some real literature and held an advanced college degree. Not making this up. ..."
"... The Foreign Service contains many officers who take arrogance and prickishness to new heights. You make a fatal error if you believe that because they tend to be soft spoken and non-confrontational that they are not dangerous and devious. Au contraire. Many that rise in the Foreign Service have a knack for sticking a knife in the back of a perceived rival. ..."
"... Just another day in the life of a Pomposity. From what I have seen of tomorrow's witness, Marie Yovanovitch, an FSO, is the same kind of person I encountered in the Office of Counter Terrorism. Arrogant and aggrieved and convinced that she is so much smarter than the troglodytes who will be asking her questions. ..."
"... You get to the point of not caring if you don't get the credit. You just want to be able to do your job better and go home each night ..."
"... It's common for females in almost every work situation I held. Pompous men getting the credit for what a whole office of females actually did -- sometimes doing things and making decisions they just didn't ask the boss to "approve." ..."
Nov 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

by a state grand jury | Main

14 November 2019 Understanding the Foreign Service Officer Nerd Behavior by Larry C Johnson

A group of lions is called a "pride." A group of crows is called a "murder." A group of geese is called a "gaggle." So what do you call a group of Ambassadors? A pomposity (that term was coined by Colonel Lang when the two of us were working on an exercise on Iran and there were three Ambassadors huddled in a corner scheming--brilliant).

There are two types of Ambassadors--political appointees and Foreign Service Officers who have made their way to the top of the Foreign Service mountain. The two fellows testifying at the opening of the House Impeachment inquiry -- Kent and Taylor -- are Foreign Service Officers. They are a strange lot. There are some exceptions who are normal people, such as Ambassador Morris (Buzz) Busby and Ambassador Anthony Quainton. I worked for Buzz and dealt with Ambassador Quainton on a variety of policy issues.

I conducted training for U.S. military Special Ops forces for several years in the aftermath of 9-11. My task was to teach them how to understand the culture of the Foreign Service Officers and offer tips on how to interact. In the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks, U.S. SpecOps personnel were deployed to U.S. Embassies around the world and were having some trouble interacting with the so-called diplomats.

To become a Foreign Service Officer you must take a written and an oral exam. If you pass these exams then you win the golden ticket granting you entrance into the FSO club. FSOs have convinced themselves that only the smartest, the brightest, the most able can pass this exam. If you have not taken the exam and passed it then you are by definition not a very smart person.

Many FSOs looked down their nose at these knuckle dragging gorillas masquerading as Special Operations forces at U.S. They assumed they were barely literate. Imagine their shock when the FSOs discovered that a member of the elite U.S. Army CT unit or a member of the SEALS could actually speak a foreign language, had read some real literature and held an advanced college degree. Not making this up.

The Foreign Service contains many officers who take arrogance and prickishness to new heights. You make a fatal error if you believe that because they tend to be soft spoken and non-confrontational that they are not dangerous and devious. Au contraire. Many that rise in the Foreign Service have a knack for sticking a knife in the back of a perceived rival.

Let me give you a personal example. A female Ambassador who was a Deputy in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism had a blow up when I helped a Navy SEAL Commander, who was detailed to State, revamp a memo she had already approved because an important overseas asset deployed for responding to a international terrorist incident had been inadvertently left out of the memo. When my SEAL buddy went in to brief her on the change she started screaming at him, broke her lamp and threw a bottle of hand lotion at him. If she had been a man my friend would have physically retaliated. Instead, my SEAL buddy walked out of the office and recounted the incident to a Civil Service employee in the office. That employee happened to be the neighbor of Ambassador A. Peter Burleigh, who was in charge of S/CT during that time.

When Ambassador Burleigh learned of her outburst he called her to his office and read her the riot act. What did she do? She assumed I was the one (I was not) who had ratted on her to Ambassador Burleigh. She set out to destroy me. My boss at the time was a retired Marine Corps Colonel, Dominick "Dick" Gannon. What a gentleman. I counted him as a mentor and a second father. Hard as woodpecker lips and a man who lived by a code of honor.

Dick prepared my fitness report and submitted it to his supervisor, the crazy female FSO. She demanded he change it to trash me and he refused. So she waited. Dick went overseas on a diplomatic mission and the female Ambassador snuck upstairs to the 7th floor (i.e., the Secretary of State's suite). She filed a complaint against Dick accusing him of failing to do the evaluation in a timely manner. Fortunately, the admin person she talked to, Joanne Graves, looked it over, saw that Dick had signed and informed the female FSO that the person who had failed to act in a timely manner was her. She was furious but beaten.

Just another day in the life of a Pomposity. From what I have seen of tomorrow's witness, Marie Yovanovitch, an FSO, is the same kind of person I encountered in the Office of Counter Terrorism. Arrogant and aggrieved and convinced that she is so much smarter than the troglodytes who will be asking her questions.

I am not saying that all FSOs are like this. But a large number are. You will be seeing another one of these critters in Friday's testimony.

Posted at 08:47 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink


Factotum , 15 November 2019 at 12:32 AM
Sounds like Peter Strozk has a perfect new career for himself - FSO.
confusedponderer , 15 November 2019 at 03:05 AM
Ah, troglodytes ... a decade ago I was told that I was one too. Because I can ... count.

As a student I worked in a marketing company that sold US credit cards. My part of the job was more honourable: I was tasked with administering the phone numbers called to do that.

It's like that with these numbers: You call someone and he sais " Never ever call me again, never ever, you a**hole " the number is blocked to be recalled for 6 weeks and was then called again. If the person agrees to appointment with a seller, the number is blocked for a year etc pp.

The point is, the more you call the less numbers you have left. Call in a city for a week, starting with 5000 numbers - after a week you're left with, say, 300 (mostly crap).

To make after that many or any more appointments then is simply impossible or requires a lot of luck or, much worse, to re-use the numbers by nullifying all blockings (= burning resources).

It's that simple: To make fried eggs you need eggs, a stove and a pan (or a really hot engine hood), to make bricks you need clay, if you want to drive from Europe to Vladivostok you need ... a visum, money, time, food, good weather, a warm jacket, to know russian, have a robust car and a lot of fuel etc pp.

One day another employee (nice ties, glued hair and IMO seriously business study damaged) negotiated a new contract with the credit card company with very ambitious goals, without asking whether we had the resources (phone numbers) to achieve that.

And we didn't have what was needed and the bosses decided and chose not to buy more numbers. So I told the unfortunate guy tasked with achieving the demanded sales that, with the numbers left, we simply couldn't do it.

I was then wildly insulted to be a ... troglodyte, wicked, mean, illoyal, evil, that I would lie and some more of that sort. I was fired 15 minutes later, which annoyed as hell but, on the plus side, with luck led me to a three times better paid much better job elsewhere.

The part more entertaining me was that I was absolutely correct, which I learned a few months later from a former colleague:

The company was bankrupt eight weeks later, and the guy who fired me had a burnout or mental breakdown three weeks later. One of the bosses went from having been a millionaire to work as a waiter. The contract partner simply chose another "executor" (who was amusingly employing the same salesmen).

So, I was right, and what did it give me? Not much but a bad experience and, with luck, something much better elsewhere. Alas, and good riddance.

Diana C said in reply to confusedponderer... , 15 November 2019 at 01:06 PM
Yes, it's not often that someone who is right first gets the credit. It's true in business, educational organizations--well everywhere I ever worked. I just got used to someone else getting credit for things I had put in place first.

You get to the point of not caring if you don't get the credit. You just want to be able to do your job better and go home each night.

It's common for females in almost every work situation I held. Pompous men getting the credit for what a whole office of females actually did -- sometimes doing things and making decisions they just didn't ask the boss to "approve."

Turcopolier , 15 November 2019 at 09:16 AM
All

I am struck by the fact that a woman mentioned above actually threw a bottle of hand lotion at a SEAL who came to Main State to brief her. Much the same thing happened to me with a male FSO who was DCM in an embassy in which I was DATT.

I had drafted a lengthy report to DIA that described the local armed forces as inept and difficult to train. The embassy had the right to append remarks to my report but not to change it or block it without my agreement. The DCM tried for half an hour to pressure me into changing my report to make it more favorable to the local forces.

When I refused repeatedly to do so he threw the fifteen page message form across the room at me. I got up and left, leaving it where it fell. After talking to the ambassador the man apologized and the embassy sent my message.

Terence Gore , 15 November 2019 at 11:04 AM
https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-real-ukraine-controversy-an-activist-u-s-embassy-and-its-adherence-to-the-geneva-convention/
edding said in reply to Terence Gore ... , 15 November 2019 at 02:04 PM
And, see also John Solomon's latest directed at Yovanovich at: https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-15-essential-questions-for-marie-yovanovitch-americas-former-ambassador-to-ukraine/

Someone's ox is getting slowly and methodically gored. Solomon's reporting on Ukraine and the State Department has been spot on and backed up by solid evidence.

akaPatience , 15 November 2019 at 02:04 PM
What??? The EXCELLENT Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is not being permitted to question today's [self-important bureaucrat] witness. Why???

[Nov 15, 2019] We need to get the globalist class under control: Sputnik is reporting that the US has spent $6.4 Trillion fighting wars that have killed 800,000 since Sept 11/01, that number is unbelievable, at least 1,500,000 dead in Iraq, 250,000 in Afghanistan, 750,000 in Syria.

Nov 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kadath , Nov 14 2019 21:09 utc | 136

Sputnik is reporting that the US has spent $6.4 Trillion fighting wars that have killed 800,000 since Sept 11/01, that number is unbelievable, at least 1,500,000 dead in Iraq, 250,000 in Afghanistan, 750,000 in Syria.

The US military budget alone has averaged about 650 billion since then, plus the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were funded separately (around 200 million a year), plus CIA/ blackbook projects - 7 or 8 trillion is a more likely number.

When things get blown up, no one really knows what was actually bought and existed and what was just a phantom piece of equipment War has always been the ideal cover for corruption

[Nov 15, 2019] Trump And Zelensky Want Peace With Russia. The Fascists Oppose That

Notable quotes:
"... "In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to Ukraine. ..."
"... But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such? ..."
"... And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay. ..."
"... The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that. ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia. ..."
"... "They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for it." ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets. ..."
"... Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He predicted that the trauma of war will pass. ..."
"... Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received nearly 73% of all votes. ..."
"... Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They are joined in this with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup: ..."
"... Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25% of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won 5.8%. ..."
"... on Yovanovitch, She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States." ..."
"... She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. . .Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee ..."
Nov 14, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

NBC News is not impressed by the first day of the Democrats' impeachment circus. But it fails to note what the conflict is really about:

It was substantive, but it wasn't dramatic.

In the reserved manner of veteran diplomats with Harvard degrees, Bill Taylor and George Kent opened the public phase of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Wednesday by bearing witness to a scheme they described as not only wildly unorthodox but also in direct contravention of U.S. interests.

"It is clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian aggression," Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said in explaining why Trump's decision to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to the most immediate target of Russian expansionism didn't align with U.S. policy.

But at a time when Democrats are simultaneously eager to influence public opinion in favor of ousting the president and quietly apprehensive that their hearings could stall or backfire, the first round felt more like the dress rehearsal for a serious one-act play than the opening night of a hit Broadway musical.

"In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to Ukraine.

But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such?

President Obama was against giving weapons to Ukraine and never transferred any to Ukraine despite pressure from certain circles. Was Obama's decision against U.S. national interest? Where are the Democrats or deep state members accusing him of that?

Which brings us to the really critical point of the whole issue. Who defines what is in the "national interest" with regards to foreign policy? Here is a point where for once I agree with the right-wingers at the National Review where Andrew McCarthy writes :

[O]n the critical matter of America's interests in the Russia/Ukraine dynamic, I think the policy community is right, and President Trump is wrong. If I were president, while I would resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly associate myself with the delusion that stable friendship is possible (or, frankly, desirable) with Putin's anti-American dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia family and is acting on its revanchist ambitions.

But you see, much like the policy community, I am not president. Donald Trump is.

And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay.

We have made the very same point :

The U.S. constitution "empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries."

The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that.

and :

The president does not like how the 'American policy' on Russia was built. He rightly believes that he was elected to change it. He had stated his opinion on Russia during his campaign and won the election. It is not 'malign influence' that makes him try to have good relations with Russia. It is his own conviction and legitimized by the voters.
...
[I]t is the president who sets the policies. The drones around him who serve "at his pleasure" are there to implement them.

There is another point that has to be made about the NBC's assertions. It is not in the interest of Ukraine to be a proxy for U.S. deep state antagonism towards Russia. Robber baron Igor Kolomoisky, who after the Maidan coup had financed the west-Ukrainian fascists who fought against east-Ukraine, says so directly in his recent NYT interview :

Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia.

"They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for it."
...
Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets.

Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He predicted that the trauma of war will pass.
...
Mr. Kolomoisky said he was feverishly working out how to end the war, but he refused to divulge details because the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way."

Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received nearly 73% of all votes.

Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They are joined in this with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup:

Zelenskiy's decision in early October to accept talks with Russia on the future of eastern Ukraine resulted in an outcry from a relatively small but very vocal minority of Ukrainians opposed to any deal-making with Russia. The protests were relatively short-lived, but prospects for a negotiated end to the war in the eastern Donbas region became more remote in light of this domestic opposition.
...
The supporters for war with Russia are ex-president Poroshenko and two parliamentary factions, European Solidarity and Voice, whose supporters are predominantly located in western Ukraine. Crucially, however, they can also rely on right-wing paramilitary groups composed of veterans from the hottest phase of the war in Donbas in 2014-5.

Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25% of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won 5.8%.

By pursuing further conflict with Russia the deep state of the United States wants to ignore the wishes not only of the U.S. voters but also those of the Ukrainian electorate. That undemocratic mindset is another point that unites them with the Ukrainian fascists.

Zelensky should ignore the warmongers in the U.S. embassy in Kiev and sue for immediate peace with Russia. (He should also investigate Biden's undue influence .) Reengaging with Russia is also the easiest and most efficient step the Ukraine can take to lift its desolate economy.

It is in the national interest of both, the Ukraine and the United States.

Posted by b on November 14, 2019 at 18:23 UTC | Permalink


pretzelattack , Nov 14 2019 18:28 utc | 1

next page " agree with mccarthy about who conducts foreign policy, disagree about who the aggressor is; it's the USA, trying to weaken Russia, which is the aggressor.
james , Nov 14 2019 18:48 utc | 2
thanks b... typo - immediate piece with Russia - 'peace' is the spelling here...

the comments from Kolomoisky in the recent nyt interview are very telling.. aside from being a first rate kleptomaniac who will willingly play both sides if he can profit from it, he is also speaking a moment of truth..for him Ukraine is available to the highest bidder... he could give a rats ass about Ukraine or the people... but still, it is refreshing that the NYT published his comments in this regard..

the quote "the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way." is very true... it was true before kolomisky picked a side too.. this guy is very shrewd.. i wonder if his own country is able to see thru him?

national interest.... yes, trump gets to decide and he won on the idea of having closer relations with russia, but the cia-msm has been lambasting him and anyone else associated with him since before the election over the clinton e mails... they have painted a scenario that it is all russias fault and have been relentless in this portrayal... hoping trump is going to turn this around is like hoping someone is going to turn the titanic around from hitting a giant iceberg... the usa is too far gone and will be hitting the iceberg.. they are in fact...

michael lacey , Nov 14 2019 19:00 utc | 3
Good article what the American people miss is good articles instead of the mind numbing BS! They actually receive!
Piotr Berman , Nov 14 2019 19:01 utc | 4
From NYT about Kolomo???? (spelling in English is highly variable)

George D. Kent, a senior State Department official, said he had told Mr. Zelensky that his willingness to break with Mr. Kolomoisky -- "somebody who had such a bad reputation" -- would be a litmus test for his independence. [If is good to be independent, i.e. to do what we want.]

And William Taylor, the acting ambassador in Kiev, said he had warned Mr. Zelensky: "He, Mr. Kolomoisky, is increasing his influence in your government, which could cause you to fail." [La Paz is a fresh reminder for Kiev?]

Bemildred , Nov 14 2019 19:07 utc | 5
Well the thing about Zelensky is he's still there, and he is making changes in Donbass.

Kolomoisky was interested in the fracked gas in Donbass, the completion of NordStream II has made a mess of that idea. It is good that he has seen the light, as it means Zelensky will have support in his attempts to adapt to reality. But Kolomoisky is still a crook no doubt.

Montreal , Nov 14 2019 19:14 utc | 6
My immediate reaction was that Kolomoisky realises he has to act - the Ukrainian oligarchs have got too close to America. I agree with James that he is a extremely clever man. Ukraine's traditional business is playing both ends against the middle and sending the proceeds to Switzerland (or the Caribbean in Porosyonok's case). Since 1990 a few of these robber barons have made a very good business winding up the west against Russia, it could go on ever - why spoil it by lifting the rock and seeing all the insects scurrying around in the light?

Another rock that has been lifted is in Washington, where the khokhol diaspora are desperately trying to get Uncle Sam to right the wrongs of a century ago.

Montreal , Nov 14 2019 19:25 utc | 7
I should have written: the "perceived" wrongs" of a century ago.
Babyl-on , Nov 14 2019 19:26 utc | 8
"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.

There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks placed in every key position in government.

There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western governments and society. They are the owners oif the world and they run the world they own.

chet380 , Nov 14 2019 19:28 utc | 9
... @ b -- "Only some 20% of the Ukrainians favor to continue the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports."

The are not 'separatists', but rather Ukrainians who want to stay in a federated Ukraine as 'provinces' with powers to pass their regional laws, similar to those in Canada.

psychohistorian , Nov 14 2019 19:35 utc | 10
The segment of empire in the US that are against Russia act so because it was Russia that stymied them in Syria and continues to be in their way of expanding the control from that part of empire...the US segment.

I still believe that the global private finance core segment of empire is behind Trump and throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The cult of global private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role in the new multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyones heads to make it ongoing.

I don't believe that strategy will work but as long as they can be fronted by a MAD player of some sort (Occupied Palestine comes to mind) they can be bully players in international matters.

As the world economies grind to a "halt" there will be lots of pressure everywhere and very little clarity about the key civilization war over public/private finance, IMO

NOBTS , Nov 14 2019 19:37 utc | 11
For a military dictatorship, diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means. The US has been at war with Russia since the right-wing coup at the Democratic convention of 1944. All presidents have been servants of the military, which includes the police/intel/security apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead role were "dealt with." Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state bureaucrats are shocked and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US foreign policy for 75 years!
karlof1 , Nov 14 2019 19:39 utc | 12
Wow! The depth of delusion on display is as breathtaking as its complete projection of the intentions and actions of the Evil Outlaw US Empire! Oh so many saying I'm displaying four fingers instead of two. Too bad there isn't a padded cell big enough to contain all the lunatics. I recall the pre- and post-coup discussions from 2014--that Russia was going to make NATO own Ukraine until it was forced to concede it has no business being there; that Russia would teach the would-be leaders of Ukraine a serious lesson in where their national interests lay. NATO is ready to cede and the lesson's been learned.

IMO, two referendums must be held. The first within Russia: Will you accept portions of Ukraine wanting to merge with Russia: Yes/No? Second to be given within Ukraine provided Yes wins in #1: Do you wish to join Russia or remain in Ukraine? IMO, this is a very longstanding unresolved issue of consequence for the people involved. The political leaders of Russia and Ukraine might both be against such a vote, but IMO that merely kicks the can further down the road and opens the door for more mischief making by the Evil Outlaw US Empire. Assuming a Yes from Russia and some from Ukraine, a strategic threat to Russia and Europe would be mitigated. Additional questions about those parts of Ukraine not wanting to join Russia could be solved via additional referenda in the Ukraine and neighboring nations that might prove willing to absorb the remnants and their people. Such action would of course negate the Minsk Agreements.

Given the ideological passions of those living in Western and Northern Ukraine, I don't see any hope for the continuation of the Ukrainian state as currently arranged, thus the proposed referenda. However, if Russia says Nyet, then Minsk must be implemented.

TG , Nov 14 2019 19:39 utc | 13
Ah, well said, but missing the point.

"Democracy" is not about letting the people as a whole have a say in how the country is governed. That would be fascist, and racist, and populist, and LITERALLY HITLER. Letting the people decide on things like foreign policy, is literally anti-democratic.

No, "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing responsibility. The elites get to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take responsibility when things go wrong. Because you see, we are a "Democracy."

jayc , Nov 14 2019 19:41 utc | 14
Breaking off long established economic and cultural ties with a large neighbouring country, virtually overnight, is a rash act, and certain to create dislocation and hardship. The craziness of the idea was only achievable through the traumatizing psy-op of the sniper event, leading directly to the coup and the state of war. The EU and the US were clearly malevolent in orchestrating the Association agreement with its ridiculous terms and the corresponding Maidan pressures.

The fools in Hong Kong, after protester-sponsored screenings of the World On Fire documentary, were actually quoted as presuming the Maidan protests had "won" and expressed their hopes that they too could "win". Good luck to them.

AntiSpin , Nov 14 2019 19:49 utc | 15
Ukraine Timeline

for anyone who hasn't had the time to get caught up on the topic, by Ray McGovern
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Ukraine-For-Dummies-by-Ray-McGovern-Crimea_Ignorance_Intelligence_Media-191114-285.html

Taffyboy , Nov 14 2019 19:50 utc | 16
Kolomoisky and Zelensky know what needs to be done, but they fear the blood that will flow with Nazi-Banderist scum! Zelinski's balls are not that big, and has no options left after compromising his position from day one. Who will make the first move, I fear not him? Russia has time, and patience, which is sorely lacking in the west who feel they have to push the envelope.
Don Bacon , Nov 14 2019 19:57 utc | 17
The Minsk II protocol was agreed to on 12 February 2015 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, It included provisions for a halt in the fighting, the withdrawal of foreign forces, new constitution to allow special status for Donbass, and election in Donbass for local self governance. Control of the present border of Ukraine would be restored to the Ukraine government. Donbass would continue to be in Ukraine with some autonomy here (scroll down).
There are many such autonomous zones in the world, and in Europe, seen here .
The problem in Ukraine is that the neo-Nazi factions promoted by the US don't want to see a resolution, and will fight it with US support.
flankerbandit , Nov 14 2019 19:59 utc | 18
Kolomoysky is obviously a master thief and general scumbag...but he is no fool...

I think the writing on the wall became obvious with the Nordstream 2 finalization, where, it is noted, Denmark came in just under the wire in terms of not disrupting the timetable...

Obviously the interests of German business have prevailed...and rightly so in this case...

And what of the famous EU line about 'protecting' Ukraine as a gas transit corridor...?

LOLOLOL...that is in the same category of nothingburger as the EU noises about 'alternate payment' mechanisms for trade with Iran...

As soon as the Denmark story broke, Gazprom and Russian energy analysts talked openly about the tiny volumes that Ukraine could expect to see transiting its territory...as part of a new agreement to replace the one that has expired...

It works out to a small fraction of the several billion dollars in transit fees the Ukraine was getting...

Also considering that the IMF appears to be finally shutting off the tap of loans to this failed gangster state...and that the promises from the EU in 2013 were just so much fairy tales...hard-nosed operators like Kolomoysky are recalculating...

The chaos and national ruin has really cost these gangster capitalists nothing [in fact they have profited wildly]...so it is easy for them to reverse course and come begging back to Russia...

Bryan MacDonald has a good piece about this today in RT...

Ukraine's most powerful oligarch states the obvious: Ukraine has to turn back towards Russia

So, here we are, almost six years since the first "EuroMaidan" protests in Kiev, and Ukraine's most prominent oligarch has finally voiced the unmentionable: the project has failed.

As for Kolomoysky...like Trump, there is something to like about dirtballs who speak their minds openly...LOL

Vonu , Nov 14 2019 20:08 utc | 19
According to Kevin Shipp, the National Security Council really runs the executive branch, not the president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=XHbrOg092GA
PJB , Nov 14 2019 20:11 utc | 20
Quite a turnaround by Kolomoisky. Wasn't he once caught on a tapped phone call admitting while chuckling about Ukrainian complicity in shooting down MH-17? i.e. NOT Donbas rebels and NOT Russia.
james , Nov 14 2019 20:13 utc | 21
@12 karlof1... a referendum... as if the usa would agree to that, lol.... look how they processed the one in crimea...

@18 flankerbandit... last line is true, but it pales in relation to the ugliness these 2 exhibit 99% of the time, although the 1% when they don't it's refreshing! ukraine will continue to be used as a tool by the west..

forget about any referendum.. that makes too much sense and won't be allowed..

Kadath , Nov 14 2019 20:23 utc | 22
Nordstream 2 will come online in less than 2 months and the Ukrainian gas exports at that time will cease (I.e. no oil for the Oligarchs to steal), no matter what the US says they can't replace the Russian oil exports in terms of money & support to Ukraine, so the Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in order for the Russians to keep even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets
J Swift , Nov 14 2019 20:31 utc | 23
It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the loot.

But now the Ukrainian thieves are beginning to realize that the Western thieves are going to steal the very ground from under their feet, so there will be no more Ukraine to steal from. That's not a very good business model. Plus they're no doubt seeing how the US treats its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere, and realize they could easily find themselves the next meal for the US beast. Pretty easy to see why the smarter ones are getting nervous.

DannC , Nov 14 2019 20:37 utc | 24
they need to make peace with Russia or they will be left out in the cold, literally. They seemed to have previously bought into some insane lie that they'd be a part of the EU and NATO if theyd do Washington's bidding. The Deep state vastly underestimated Putin's resolve when it became clear to the Russians that Washington may try and turn Crimea into a NATO port one day. The game is over. Ukraine needs to find a way forward now for itself or it will be a failed state in the near future. It's clear Merkel and Europe want no part of this headache
flankerbandit , Nov 14 2019 20:42 utc | 25
I don't think Russians want to 'own' any part of Ukraine...at least that is the nearly unanimous opinion of my own contacts and colleagues in Russia...so I don't think any referenda will be on the table...

What I do think is possible is what Yanukovich and Russia agreed to in terms of a trade and economic deal...which was a lot more practical [not to mention generous] than the EU 'either or' nonsense...

Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they are selling vast tracts of agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally dispossessing themselves of their own food security...

At the time of the Soviet dissolution, Ukraine had the highest living standards and some of the world's prime industry and technology...including for instance the Yuzhnoye design bureau [rocket engines and spacecraft] and many more such cutting edge aerospace concerns...

For years these crucial enterprises were able to keep going due to the Russian market...that all ended in 2014 [and in fact was tapering off even before due to the massive corruption]...

Now the Chinese are looking to scoop up these gems at firesale prices...

It is really quite unbelievable that the nutcases in the Ukraine would be willing to cut off their own arm just to bleed on Russia's shirt...

Why did the Ukraine never recover from the gangster capitalism like Russia did...because no Putin ever came along to reign in the oligarchy...[It could be argued Putin hasn't done nearly enough in this regard].

The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own future...as the unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to extract maximal wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on the verge of toppling...

Jackrabbit , Nov 14 2019 20:49 utc | 26
Disappointed in b's analysis.

Kolomoisky is talking his book and helping USA to make the case that Nordstream is a NATO security issue. To pretend that he's serious about a rapproachment with Russia just plays into that effort.

And b ignores my comment on the prior thread that he references (about Trump being Constitutionally charged with foreign policy). Repeating: the "Imperial Presidency" has flung off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing the need to get Congressional approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and black budgets.

While for practical reasons the Executive Branch of USA government has the power to negotiate treaties and manage foreign relations, Constitutionally he does so for the sovereign (the American people) and his efforts are subject to review and approval of the people's representatives via the power of the purse.

Ignoring how the "Imperial Presidency" has usurped power leads to faulty analysis that supports that power grab.

Ukrainegate IS a farce, but for other reasons. Chief among them being the inherent fakery of 'managed democracy' which manifests as kayfabe.

uncle tungsten , Nov 14 2019 20:50 utc | 27
Babyl-on #8
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks placed in every key position in government.

There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western governments and society. They are the owners of the world and they run the world they own.

Nicely put:- that is the reality. Thanks b for your intrepid reports.

Paul Craig Roberts has a deeply aggrieved rant at zero hedge if barflies want a chuckle. What a shitshow.

uncle tungsten , Nov 14 2019 20:58 utc | 28
flankerbandit #25

YES to all that and we are all getting the same split and plunder treatment.

Indonesia is the trial ground and has been where the methods were in place the longest as Andre Vitchek reports .

That is our future unless we intervene and throw the USA out of our countries.

jo6pac , Nov 14 2019 21:06 utc | 29
Long but a good read on the Ukraine by David Stockman.

https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2019/11/12/the-ukrainian-influence-peddling-rings-a-microcosm-of-how-imperial-washington-rolls/

flankerbandit , Nov 14 2019 21:16 utc | 30
Agree with Uncle on Indonesia...yes that Vltchek piece [and much of his previous work on Indonesia] is pretty sobering...this is our future folks...
Duncan Idaho , Nov 14 2019 21:21 utc | 31
Crimea?
It has been part of Russia about as long as the USA has been a country.
9 out of 10 residents are of Russian origin, and Russian is the spoken language.
I guess it could be returned to the 10%-- but out of fairness, we must turn the USA over to its original occupants.
If you live in the USA, get your ass ready to leave.
bevin , Nov 14 2019 21:47 utc | 32
One of the problems that the anti-nazis face in Ukraine is that there are occupying armies in the country. Armies which cannot be trusted to obey instructions which are not agreed upon by NATO warmongers.
One such army is Canadian, commanded I believe by a descendant of the Ukrainian SS refugees and reporting to the Foreign Minister in Ottawa, a Russophobe with a family background of nazi collaboration.
The actual political situation is much more delicate than media reports suggest: what are called elections feature, in the Washington approved fashion, the banning of socialist and communist candidates. Bans which are enforced by a combination of fascist commanded police forces and, even less responsible, private nazi militias. Opponents of the Maidan regime are driven into exile, jailed or murdered.
Those who wonder as Jackrabbit, in a rare essay into rationality, does above, about the nature of the US Constitution after decades of the erosion of checks and balances thanks to the Imperial Presidency, will recognise that a dialectic is at work here. Washington's support for fascism abroad has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the installation of fascist regimes abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US intervenes it leaves a fascist regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind it.
And what this means is that, among other things, the ability of the population to effect political change is cancelled: there is no way that the people of Ukraine can decide what they want because the decisions have been taken for them, in weird cult like gatherings of SS worshiping Bandera supporters in Toronto and Chicago. It is no accident that most of the 'Ukrainians' being wheeled out by the Democrats to testify against Trump are actually greedy expatriates who have never really lived in Ukraine.
There was a moment, not long ago, when it looked as if the Minsk accords promised a path to peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately the plain people of Ukraine, the poorest in Europe though living in one of the richest countries, Washington, Ottawa and NATO didn't like the sound of Minsk. Nor did the fascists in the Baltic states and Poland, for whom, for centuries, Ukraine has been a cow to milk, its people slaves to be exploited and its rich resources too tempting to ignore.
michael , Nov 14 2019 21:56 utc | 33
As Thomas Jefferson explained the President's role in foreign affairs in 1790, and the lack of advisors' policy making decisions: ''as the President was the only channel of communication between the United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation'; that whatever he communicated as such, they had a right and were bound to consider 'as the expression of the nation'; and that no foreign agent could be 'allowed to question it,' or 'to interpose between him and any other branch of government, under the pretext of either's transgressing their functions.' Mr. Jefferson therefore declined to enter into any discussion of the question as to whether it belonged to the President under the Constitution to admit or exclude foreign agents. 'I inform you of the fact,' he said, 'by authority from the President.'
Sadness , Nov 14 2019 22:04 utc | 34
Might also be worth yesterdays hero's asking if dear Mr Kolomoisky, joint Uki/Israeli national, took a part in authorising the shoot down of MH17 as a news cover for Operation Protective Edge. Heave ho zionist USA ....et al.
steven t johnson , Nov 14 2019 22:11 utc | 35
1.The decisions to with hold and release aid have nothing to do with the President making foreign policy but with his campaign. Saying it was about foreign policy is a damned lie.
2.Trump as president is supposed to lead foreign policy, which means actually setting a policy. Military aid to Ukraine, yes, except no, except yes, personal handling without asking anybody with experience how to achieve the national goal desired, national agenda kept secret from the people who have to carry it out, abuse of officials, demands for dubiously legal actions without rationale...Saying it was about the president's executive role is a damned lie.
3.Trump has not made even a tweet that questions US support for fascists. That not even a issue for Trump. Saying this is about support for fascism is a damned lie.
4.Kolomoyskiy is a bankroller of fascists. It is not impossible even a billionaire might get frightened by the genie he's let out of the bottle, even if he's Jewish and rich enough to run away. But actually undoing the fascist regime means taming the paramilitaries and this is not even on the horizon. Given the rivalry between Poroshenko and Kolomoyskiy it's not even certain it's a real change of heart or just soothing words for the non-fascist people. Nor is it even clear the Zelensky will follow even the Steinmeier formula. If he does, good, but until something actually happens? Saying it's about the antifascist turn is a damned lie.

The only thing that isn't a lie is that Trump was not committing treasons, "merely" a campaign violation. But then, Clinton never did either. The crybabies who dished it out but can't take it deserve zero respect, and zero time.

Don Bacon , Nov 14 2019 22:16 utc | 36
@ michael 34
There's a major difference between being a national spokesman and being a national decision-maker.
Don Bacon , Nov 14 2019 22:17 utc | 37
@ stj 36
Trump as president is supposed to lead foreign policy, which means actually setting a policy.
There's no basis for that in the Constitution.
Jen , Nov 14 2019 22:32 utc | 38
Curious to know how Kolomoisky is working "feverishly" to end the war in the Donbass region. Wonder if he is planning to come clean on what he knows of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 shootdown and crash in an area not far from Slavyansk and near where his Privat Group's subsidiary company Burisma Holdings holds a licence to drill for oil and natural gas. What does he know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control personnel's direction to MH17 to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000 metres above as the flight crew had requested? He had been governor of Dnepropetrovsk region at the time.
ben , Nov 14 2019 22:47 utc | 39
A quote from b's article;"It is clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian aggression".

Spoken by two sycophants for the empire.

It would be in our "national interest" if we could stop our aggression's around the globe.

DJT, IMO, only favors peace with Russia, or any one else,if, it furthers HIS personal, and his families enrichment.

He has a record of shafting people, I just wish people would inform themselves about it, and see what he's done with his life, not what says about it.

Paul Damascene , Nov 14 2019 22:56 utc | 40
Somewhere I read it alleged that the actual owner of Burisma was or is Kolomoiski.

Anything to this?

And via John Helmer (via Checkpointasia and dances with bears) comes the perspective that it's not so much Kolomoiski floating trial balloons (though that may also be true) but that K is being given space in the NYT to build his credentials as the new Borg villain, thereby making it still harder for Zelensky to reconcile with Russia.

ben , Nov 14 2019 22:56 utc | 41
fb @ 25 said;"The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own future...as the unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to extract maximal wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on the verge of toppling..."

Yup, aided and abetted by our current regime, while pretending not to...

Really?? , Nov 14 2019 23:23 utc | 42
@23
"It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the loot."

This is it in a nutshell. The Russians were fed up with Ukraine stealing gas. Hence, Nord Stream 2. That was always the plan. Whether the Yanks truly grasped the rationale here ---Russia is cutting off gas to Ukraine, simple---has never been clear to me. Although it is a fairly simple plot. The Russians had decades of shenanigans with the Ukes and said Basta. By not overreacting to the Ukrainian-USA freakout and keeping their eyes on the prize (Nord Stream and disengaging, gas-wise, from Uk), they have managed to reach their goal of getting Nord Stream 2 online.

oldhippie , Nov 14 2019 23:25 utc | 43
Kolomoiski is the bankroller and commander of the Azov Battalion. Has close arrangements with other paramilitaries. And is the current principal of Burisma. And is Privatbank, the only bank left in Ukraine. He gets a cut of all the action.

When Trump queries Zelensky, all that Zelensky is thinking is this guy does not know the score. This guy does not know who's on first. He wants me to investigate the boss? Let him talk to the boss. And who does Z talk to in D.C.? Pointless getting into detail with Trump.

Trump has no team. No one in D.C. is on his side. He's unable to finish anything.

OutOfThinAir , Nov 14 2019 23:45 utc | 44
1) Say the fantasy happens and the US/Russia become BFFs like US/UK...

- Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss?

- Tough to answer, many unknowns- Russia may act different once its on top, actors may derail schemes, Deep State temper tantrum, etc...

In general, governments are the order-providing solution for chaos and problems that only first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over others.

Zedd , Nov 14 2019 23:50 utc | 45
Kolomoiski is a U.S. asset. His interview with the NYTimes proves it.

His threats are meant to mobilize NATO and Russia haters in general; because Trump and most of his cadre care nothing for Ukraine.

Does anyone think Russia will give Kolomoiski 100 million dollars? Why was he given an opportunity to threaten the USA? For no reason? Something else is afoot but Russia still won't take the bait because they are winning.

Russia is quite happy with the status quo. The war in Ukraine keeps the war against Russia on a level which is easy to manipulate and therefore geostrategically beneficial. Kolomoiski will get nothing.

Steve , Nov 15 2019 0:03 utc | 46
Thank you, b, for that snippet from NY Interview with Kolomoisky . I had glanced the headline on RT but didn't read it because of RT's usual clumsy writing.
evilempire , Nov 15 2019 0:51 utc | 47
Kolomoiski is taunting the empire: investigate my crimes and
ukraine will seek reconciliation and alliance with russia.
Russia won't fall for it. They want kolomoiski's scalp even
more than the empire. From the statements putin has made, maybe
the only concession russia would accept is the dissolution of
ukraine as a sovereign entity and reintegration with russia, minus galicia.
Putin has remarked that they are not one people but one state. Ukraine
already knows that its domestic industry is only viable in competition
with the eu industrial powerhouses if it is integrated with russia.
flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 0:59 utc | 48
Jen said...
What does [Kolomoysky] know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control personnel's direction to MH17 to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000 metres above as the flight crew had requested?

Okay..so an interesting can of worms here...

First is the fact that Kolomoysky was the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast at the time...

Now as to the flight and Dnipro Radar [the regional air traffic control facility that controls a very big chunk of airspace over eastern Ukraine]...

First the issue of the airplane cruising altitude...the crew had filed their flight plan to climb from flight level 330 [33,000 ft] to FL350 after passing a certain waypoint in eastern Ukraine...

Now the controllers did instruct the crew to go ahead and climb to their planned altitude, but the crew declined the clearance and opted to stay at FL330...this was done very likely because the atmospheric conditions at that height were better for fuel economy...

[To be even more specific...the Boeing manual gave an optimum flight altitude of 33,800 ft, but flying eastward you only have odd numbered flight levels to choose from, so the crew figured they would be better off staying at 33 than climbing to 35...]

BUT...there are a couple of very curious things here...

First is the fact that Dnipro controllers deviated the airplane from its flight plan just before it went down...ostensibly due to other traffic...

We can see this in the following map, which is what's called a high altitude en route chart, which is used by pilots to plan and execute their flight...

Here we see the route of MH17 superimposed on the chart...

You will note a couple of things here...the airplane is flying on the L980 airway [basically a highway in the sky] when it is turned south by controllers to the RND waypoint, which is in Russian territory...

This is NOT the route filed by the crew...which can be seen here...

They were supposed to continue flying on L980 right to the TAMAK waypoint, which is visible on the previous chart and is right on the border with Russia...

They would have continued on the A87 airway to their next waypoint in Russia which is TIKNA...

Now here is the thing...right after they were turned south, they got shot down...

According to the radio transcripts, the crew acknowledged the course change, but did not object...however, usually these kinds of course changes aren't appreciated on the flight deck because the crew is trying to minimize wasted time and wasted fuel on course deviations...

Most times you will just not bother to complain to controllers...but for sure there will always be chatter between the captain and copilot about being yanked around like that...

No mention is made in the Dutch Safety Board report about such chatter from the cockpit voice recorder, which I find very odd...

Also odd is the fact that Dnipro ATC primary radar was down, and only the so-called 'secondary' was working which uses the transponder signals from the airplane...

This is very busy airspace because a lot of flights from western Europe to South Asia traverse this territory...the plan is always to fly what's called a 'great circle route' which is basically a straight line, if you flattened out the globe...

Plus considering that you have a war going on underneath...it's very unusual to have your PRIMARY radar inoperable...

This is significant also because military aircraft will not be using transponders and so will not be visible to the secondary surveillance...

The Russian primary radar did pick up two other aircraft very nearby MH17...but the Dutch have made some kind of excuse about that data not being in 'raw' form and thus not usable...

So we see some very suspicious anomalies here...

The Ukrainian authorities did have a NOTAM [notice to airmen] in effect up to FL320 [32,000 ft] so commercial traffic could not fly under that height...but clearly they should have closed the airspace over the hot conflict area...

They didn't do that...and Kolomoysky was in charge...


Kiza , Nov 15 2019 1:12 utc | 49
The Deep State's view on the members' God given right to make foreign policy decisions (it must be the God who has give it to them, because the people certainly have not) just reminds the of the general attitude of the Government's bureaucracy. Give any fartbag a position in the government and he/she becomes "a prince/princes over the people", give him or her a monopoly over violence and you got yourself a king/queen. All these police and military kings & queens milling around and lording over us. "Deep State" is such a totally natural consequence of the government bureaucracy corrupted by power that it appropriated. Pillaging taxes from the sheeple (and taking young maidens like Sheriff of Nottingham/Epstein) could have never ever been enough. Did you seriously think that the Deep Staters would constrain themselves to only stealing your money, taking your children for their pleasure and to die in their wars of conquest, and putting you into a totally unsafe airplanes to die for their profit? Constrain themselves when there is a whole globe out there to be lorded over, like Bidens over Ukraine? It is the poor people of Ukraine who just have too much money, thus had to give it through the gas monopoly to the Biden gang, which selflessly brought them "democracy" at $5B in US taxpayers' expense. Therefore, it is the Deep State which has been chosen by God, or someone just like that, to make the decisions about the imperialist/globalist foreign policy and have billions of dollars thrown by the grateful natives into their own pockets, as consulting fees:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaked-bank-records-confirm-burisma-biden-payments-morgan-stanley-account

So far the only clear-cut globalization is that one of crime, which has become global.

dh , Nov 15 2019 1:42 utc | 50
What is the US National Interest b asks? Who defines it as such?

Ome magazine that might know is none other than The National Interest. Hopefully I won't get attacked for quoting from what seems like a fairly sane article to me....

"The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to. Ukraine is a debt-ridden state and only five years beyond an extralegal revolution. Should the government collapse again, then American weapons could end up in the possession of any number of dubious paramilitary groups.

It wouldn't be the first time. In the 2000s, CIA operatives were forced to repurchase Stinger missiles that had fallen into the hands of Afghani warlords -- at a markup. Originally offered to the Mujahideen in the 1980s, the Stingers came to threaten American forces in the region. Similarly, many weapons provided with US authorization to Libyan rebels in 2011 ended up in the possession of jihadists."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dressed-kill-arming-ukraine-could-173200746.html

karlof1 , Nov 15 2019 1:47 utc | 51
It's difficult to find clean information on happenings within Ukraine and those involving Russia. The Ministry of Foreign affairs has this page dedicated to the "Situation Around Ukraine." Of the three most recent listings, this one --"Comment by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on the NATO Council's visit to Ukraine"--from 1 November is quite important as it deals with the reality on the ground versus the circus happening thousands of miles away, although it's clear the delusions in Washington and Brussels are the same and "continue to be guided by the Cold War logic of exaggerating the nonexistent 'threat from the East' rather than the interests of pan-European security."

In the second most recent listing --"Remarks by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OSCE Vladimir Zheglov at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine and the need to implement the Minsk Agreements, Vienna, October 31, 2019"--the following was noted:

"There's more to it. The odious site Myrotvorets continues to function using servers located in the United States. The UN has repeatedly stated that this violates the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. Recently, Deputy Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Benjamin Moreau, reiterated the recommendation to shut down this website. A similar demand was made by other representatives of the international community, including the German government. The problem was brought to the attention of the European Court of Human Rights. The other day, the representative of Ukraine at the ECHR was made aware of the groundlessness of the Ukrainian government's excuses saying that it allegedly 'has no influence' on the above website.

"In closing, recent opinion polls in Ukraine indicate that its residents are expecting the government to do more to bring peace to Donbas. The path to a settlement is well known, that is, the full implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, that was approved by the UN Security Council."

Clearly, Zelensky's government is much like Poroschenko's when it comes to listening to those who empowered it, the above citation is one of several from the overall report.

The latest report deals with an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice at The Hague that reveals some of the anti-Russian bias there. It has no bearing on this discussion, although it does provide evidence of the contextual background against which the entire affair, including the circus in Washington, operates.

MoA consensus is Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords they continue to oppose to implement despite their promise to do so. Clearly an excellent example of not being agreement capable that hasn't changed since 2015.

If the Republicans had any brains, they'd turn the Ukrainian aspect of the hearings into an indictment against Obama/Biden for illegally overthrowing Kiev and trying to obtain their piece-of-the-action, but then that would be the logical thing to do and thus isn't an option. The prospect of each day providing similar spectacle is mind numbing as it airs the sordid, unwashed underwear if the Evil Outlaw US Empire.

Kiza , Nov 15 2019 2:01 utc | 52
I normally do not reply to trolls, but I make an exception for you. Pedo-dollar? Do you have any more such crap to dilute the valid points discussed here?
james , Nov 15 2019 2:36 utc | 53
@41 paul damascene... regarding the helmer article - thanks for pointing it out.. IGOR KOLOMOISKY MAKES A MISTAKE, AND THE NEW YORK TIMES DOES WHAT IT ALWAYS DOES

i liked what @ 32 tod said - "he's just doing the old Jewish threatening/begging dance!
"And you are forcing us to be at war, and not even giving us the money for it." Wink! Wink!"

stating the obvious is one remedy for any possible confusion here..

@54 karlof1... i don't believe trump is allowed to shine any light on the usas illegal actions as that would be sacrilege to all the americans who see their country in such a great, exceptional-ist light... how would trumps MAGA concept swallow that? it wouldn't, so it won't happen...

UnionHorse , Nov 15 2019 2:40 utc | 54
I just watched Seven Days in May for the first time in a long while. It is worth the time. It resonates loudly today.
Kiza , Nov 15 2019 2:50 utc | 55
@flankerbandit 18

You are a bit off on that story. NS2 pipeline will increase the capacity not transitioning via Ukraine and reduce the price banditry by the Ukrainian & US gangs, but it will not make gas transit via Ukraine unnecessary. The planned switch off of the German nuclear and coal power plants will gradually increase the German demand for gas, that is the Russian gas by so much that NS1 and NS2 will not be enough. Primarily, NS2 is a signal to the Ukrainian & US Democrat gangs that if they try excessive transit fees and stealing of gas again, that they will be circumvented within a few years by NS 3,4,5 ...

BTW, the globalized pillaging of the population is clearly not an invention of the DNC crime gang only. For example, the 737Max is a product of primarily Republican activity on deregulating what should have never been deregulated and subjugation to the Wall Street (aka financialization). The pillaging of the World is strictly bipartisan, just differently packaged:
1) R - packaging the deregulation to steal & kill as "freedom" or
2) D - packaging the regime change as responsibility to protect R2P (such regime change and stuffing of own pockets later).

Grieved , Nov 15 2019 3:01 utc | 56
karlof1 @54 - "Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords"

Yes. As you well know, and as we have well discussed, Minsk was in its very essence the surrender terms dictated to the US by NAF and Russia in return for letting the NATO contractors go free and secretly out of the Debaltsevo cauldron. Either actually or poetically, this was the basis. The US lost against NAF. The only way to prevent Donbass incursion into the rest of Ukraine was to freeze the situation. The US had no choice, and surrendered.

Out of the heat and fog of warfare came a simple document made of words which, even so, illustrated perfectly just how elegantly the Kremlin had the entire situation both war-gamed and peace-gamed. Minsk from that day until forever has locked the Ukraine play into a lost war of attrition for the US sponsors, with zero gain - except for thieves.

To attempt to parse Ukraine in terms of statecraft is to miss the point that Ukraine can only be parsed in terms of thievery. This is not cynicism, simply truth.

Now they sell their land because this is all there is left to sell. Kolomoisky proposes selling the entire country to Russia for $100 billion but not only will Russia not bite, the country isn't worth even a fraction of that - because of Minsk, it can cause zero harm to Russia. But this ploy raises the perceived value (Kolomoisky hopes) in the eyes of the west, and starts the bidding.

In Russia the people see all this very clearly, including on their TV. Yakov Kedmi in this Vesti News clip of Vladimir Soloviev's hugely popular talk show, discusses the situation. He baits Soloviev by saying that the Ukrainian thieves are only doing what the Russian thieves did in the 1990's - and one must filter through this badinage to take out the nuggets he supplies. Here are three:

1. Zelensky has no security apparatus that follows his command, therefore how can he be considered the leader of the country?
2. There is no power in Ukraine, only forces that contend over the scraps of plunder.
3. These forces are creating the only law there is, which is the sacred nature of private property for the rich - the only thing the US holds sacred.

Therefore sell the very soil.

~~

The Minsk agreement is a sheer wall of ice reaching to the sky. No force imaginable can scale it or break it. Against that ultimate, immovable wall the US pounds futilely, with Ukraine caught in the middle, while Russia waits for Ukraine to devolve into whatever it can.

And the Russian people and government regard the people of the Ukraine as brothers and sisters. But until the west has worn itself down, and either gone away or changed the equation through a weakening of its own position in some significant way, nothing can be done by Russia except to wait.

Kiza , Nov 15 2019 3:09 utc | 57
What Tod @32 described is spot-on, "the old Jewish threatening/begging dance". It is not that the Russians do not know this about Kolomoyskyi. They will play along not expecting anything from the Zelo-on-a-String and his master. The Russians like to let those scumbags (Erdo comes to mind) huff & puff and embarrass themselves by flips. They know - it could always be worse if those did something intelligent. Kolomoyskyi is vile but he ain't no genius, not any more than Erdo.
flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 3:42 utc | 58
You are a bit off on that story.

Sure Cheeza...everybody's a 'bit off' except you...

Gazprom is talking about 10 bcm a year through Ukraine for the new 10 year deal, as opposed to the 60 bcm [billion cubic meters] that Ukraine is hoping for...

The Vesti report right here...

james , Nov 15 2019 3:47 utc | 59
@62 grieved.. nice to see you back.. thanks of the link with yako kedmi talking.. that was fascinating.. i think the guy is bang on..
snake , Nov 15 2019 3:58 utc | 60

"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.

There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction/)which consists of imperial apparatchiks placed in every key position in government. Babyl-on @ 8

? before I begin , how do you measure the political and economic power of money as opposed to the political and economic power of the intentions and needs of the masses. Does $1 control a 100 people? A million dollars control 100,000,000 people? How do we measure the comparative values between money power and people power? I think the divisions of economics and the binaries of politics established by the nation state system means that the measurement function (political and economic values) varies as a function of the total wealth vs the total population in each nation state. If true, become obvious how it is that: foreign investments displaces the existing homeostatis in any particular nation state, the smaller the poorer the nation state, the more impact foreign wealth can have; in other words outside wealth can completely destroy the homeostatis of an existing nation state. I think it is this fact which makes globalization so attractive to the ruling interest (RI) and so damning to the poorest of the poor.

Change by amendment is impossible There is one and only one Western Empire but there is also an Eastern Empire, a southern empire, and a Northern Empire and I believe the ruling interest (faction) manipulate all nations through these empires. In fact, they can do this in any nation they wish. The world has been divided into containers of humans and propaganda and culture have highly polarized the humans in one container against the humans in other containers. <=divide, polarize, then exploit: its like pry the window, and gain access to the residence, then exploit. It is obvious that the strength of the resistance to ruling class exploitation is a function of common cause among the masses. But money allows to control both the division of power and the polarization of the masses. The persons who have the powers described in Article II of the US Constitution since Lincoln was murdered can be controlled (Epstein, MSM directed propaganda, impeachment, assassination, to accomplish the objects of the ruling interest (faction). Article II of the USA constitution removes foreign activity of the USA from domestic view of the governed at home Americans. Article II makes it possible for the POTUS to use American assets and resources to assist his/her feudal lords in exploiting foreign nations almost at will and there is no way governed Americans can control who the ruling interest place in the Article II position.

A little History Immigration to NYC from Eastern (the poor) and Western (the rich) Europe transitioned NYC and other cities from Irish majority to a Jewish majority; and the wealthy interest used the Jewish majorities in key cities to take control over both Article I and Article II constitutional powers by electing field effect controlled politicians (political puppets are elected that can be reprogrammed while they are in office to suit the ruling interest. The source code is called rule of law, and money buys the programmers who write the code. So the ruling interest can reprogram in field effect fashion, any POTUS they wish. Out of sight use of the resources of America in foreign lands is nothing new, it was established when the constitution was written in Philadelphia in 1787 and ratified in 1788.

Propaganda targeted to the Jewish Immigrants allowed the wealthy interest to control the outcome of the 1912 election. That election allowed to destroy Article I, Section 9, paragraph 4 " No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid unless in Proportion to the Census of enumeration herein before directed to be taken". and to enact a law which privatized the USA monopoly on money into the hands of private bankers (the federal reserve act of 1913)

What was the grand design Highly competitive, independent too strong economic Germany was interfering with Western hegemony and the oil was in the lands controlled by the Ottomans. It took two wars, but Germany was destroyed, and the Ottoman empire (basically the entire Middle East) became the war gained property of the British (Palestine), the French (Syria) and the USA (Israel). Since then, the ruling interest have used their (field effect devices to align governments so the wealthy could pillage victim societies the world over. Field effect programming allows wealth interest to use the leaders of governments to use such governments to enable pillage in foreign places. The global rich and powerful, and their corporations are the ruling interest.

psychohistorian says it well "..the global private finance core segment of empire is behind Trump and throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The cult of global private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role in the new multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyone's heads to make it ongoing..." by psychochistorian @ 10


NOBITs @ 11 says it also "All presidents have been servants of the military, which includes the police/intel/security apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead role were "dealt with." Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state bureaucrats are shocked and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US foreign policy for 75 years!" by: NOBTS @ 11

According to TG @ 13 "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing responsibility. The elites get to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take responsibility when things go wrong. Because you see, we are a "Democracy."by: TG @ 13 <= absolutely not.. the constitution isolates governed Americans from the USA, because the USA is a republic and republics are about privatizing power and socializing responsibility; worse, there ain't nothing you can do about it.


Vonu @ 19 says "According to Kevin Shipp, the National Security Council really runs the executive branch, not the president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=XHbrOg092GA" by: Vonu @ 19 <=but it is by the authority of Ariicle II that the NSC has the power to run the executive branch?

KAdath @ 22 says "the Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in order for the Russians to keep even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets by: Kadath @ 22" <=exactly.. but really its not abandoning the USA, its abandoning the oligarchs local to the pillaged nation..

J Swift @ 23 says "the US treats its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere," [poorly] but its not the USA per say, because only one person has the power to deal in foreign places. Its that the POTUS, or those who control the Article II powers vested in the POTUS, have or has been reprogrammed.. J. Switft @23>>

flankerbandit @ 25 says " Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they are selling vast tracts of agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally dispossessing themselves of their own food security..." flankerbandit @ 25 <=Not really the wealthy (investor interest) have pushed the pillage at will button.. since there is no resistance remaining, the wealthy will take it all for a song..


Jackrabbit @ 26 says "Trump [is].. Constitutionally charged with foreign policy. Repeating: the "Imperial Presidency" has flung off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing the need to get Congressional approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and black budgets.by Jackrabbit @ 26 <== Trumps orders military to take 4 million day from Syria in oil?
your observation that the money has circumvented Article I of the COUS explains why the democraps are so upset.. the wealthy democrap interest has been left to rot? Your comment suggest s mafia is in charge?

Tod @ 32 says "As soon as some money goes his way, he'll discover democracy again.
Sorry to burst you bubbles." by: Tod @ 32" <==understatement of the day.. thanks.

Bevin @ 32 says "a dialectic is at work here. Washington's support for fascism abroad has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the installation of fascist regimes abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US intervenes it leaves a fascist regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind it. this means.. the ability of the population to effect political change is cancelled" by bevin @ 33 <= yes but there is really no difference in a republic and its rule of law, and a fascist government and its military police both rule without any influential input from the governed.

michael @ 34 reaffirms "The President was the only channel of communication between the United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation'" michael @ 34 well known to barflies, the design of national constitutions is at the heart of the global problem. Until constitutional powers are placed in control of the governed there will never be a change in how the constitutional powers ( in case of the USA Article II powers) are used and abused.

OutofThinAir @45 says "In general, governments are the order-providing solution for chaos and problems that only first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over others.by: OutOfThinAir @ 45" <+governments are the tools of wealth interest and the governors their hired hands.

by: War is Peace @48 " Trump is a moron, groomed by Jewish parents ( Mother was Jewish, Father buried at biggest Jewish cementary in NYC ) to be a non-Jew worked for the mob under Cohen ( lawyer for 1950's McCarthy ); Became the 'Goyim Fool" real estate developer as a cover for laundering mob money. So that it didn't appear that it was Jewish Mafia Money, so they could work with the Italian Mafia. Trump went on for his greatest role ever to be the "fool in Chief" of the USA for AIPAC. What better way to murder people, than send out a fool, it causes people to drop their guard. by War is Peace @48 <= yes this is my take, What does it mean. com suggest the global wealth interest may be planning to reprogram Trump to better protect the interest of the global wealthy.
Kiza @ 51 the reason for globalization is explained see above=> response to Babyl-on @ 8

dh @ 53 says ""The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to." by dh @53 < the USA cannot consider anything, if its foreign the POTUS (Article II) makes all decisions because Art II gives the POTUS a monopoly on talking to, and dealing with, foreign governments.

Deagel @ 56 says "The American people don't care, they're all drugged out, and shitting on the side-walks all over the USA, and sleeping in their own shit. This is the best time in USA history for the Zionists to do anything they wish." by: Deagel @ 56 <= I think you under estimate the value Americans place on democracy and human rights, until recently governed Americans believed the third party privately produced MSM delivered propaganda that nearly all overseas operations by the USA were to separate the people in those places from their despotic leaders, and to help those displaced people install Democracy.. many Americans have come to understand such is far from the case.. the situation in the Ukraine has been an eye opener for many Americans. thoughts are sizzling, talk is happening, and people are trying to shut google out of their lives. that is why i think Trump is about to be reprogrammed from elected leader to .. God in charge

wealth interest example

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 4:01 utc | 61
Grieved...thanks for that magnificent analysis...

I watched that Soloviev segment with Kedmi the other day...always interesting to say the least...

Btw...I'm not really up to speed on that whole Debaltsevo cauldron thing...I've heard snippets here and there...[there is a guy, Auslander, who comments on the Saker blog that seems to have excellent first hand info, but I've only caught snippets here and there]...

I hadn't heard this part of the story before about Nato contractors as bargaining chips...if you care to shed a bit more light I will be grateful...

karlof1 , Nov 15 2019 4:55 utc | 62
flankeerbandit @67--

I suggest going to The Saker Blog and enter Debaltsevo Cauldron into the site's search box and click Submit where you'll be greeted with numerous results.

Grieved @62--

Thanks for your reply and excellent recap. As I recall, Putin wants Donbass to remain in Ukraine and Ukraine to remain a whole state, although I haven't read his thoughts on the matter for quite some months as everything has revolved around implementing Minsk. The items at the Foreign Ministry I linked to are also concerned with Minsk.

The circus act in DC is trying to avoid any mention of Minsk, the coup or anything material to the gross imperial meddling done there to enrich the criminal elite, which includes Biden, Clinton, other DNC members--a whole suite of actors that omits Trump in this case, although they're trying to pin something on him. The issue being studiously ignored is Obama/Biden needed to be busted for their actions at the time, but in time-honored fashion weren't. And the huge rotted sewer of corruption related to that action and ALL that came before is the real problem at issue.

Kiza , Nov 15 2019 5:12 utc | 63
@flankerbandit 64

Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person as evidenced by The New Yorker 737Max article in the previous thread. This good article could only be measured by how much it agrees with your own opinion that MCAS was put in to mimic the pilots' usual fly-stick feel. If anyone does his home work, such as the journalist of this article, then he must agree with you, right? With experts such as you out there, why would anyone dare apply common sense and say that it would be an unimaginably stupid idea to put in ANY AUTOMATED SYSTEM which pushes the plane's nose down during ascent (the most risky phase of a civilian flight, when almost desperately trying to get up and up and up) for any DUMBLY POSSIBLE REASON !? What could ever go wrong with such an absolutely dumbly initiated system relying on one sensor? Maybe it was a similar idea to putting a cigarette lighter right next to the car's gas tank because it lights up cigarettes better when there are gasoline vapors around. Or maybe an idea of testing the self-driving lithium battery (exploding & flammable) cars near kindergartens (of some other people's children)!?

An intelligent person would have said - whatever the reason was to put in MCAS it was a terribly dumb idea, instead of congratulating himself on understanding the "true reason".

dickr , Nov 15 2019 6:49 utc | 64
flankerbandit @18 good analysis thx.
Ike , Nov 15 2019 6:55 utc | 65
"If I were president, while I would resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly associate myself with the delusion that stable friendship is possible (or, frankly, desirable) with Putin's anti-American dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia family and is acting on its revanchist ambitions."

Really?

From what have gleaned from the alternative media available on the internet ,of which MOA is an important part. Putin and Lavrov are the two most moral and diplomatic statesmen on the world stage today Compared to Trump, Johnson, Macron, Merkel, Stoltenberg, Pompeo, Bolton and whoever else blights the international scene these days these two are colossi.

To describe them as like a Mafia family seems to me to be 180 degrees wrong. Maybe Putin overreacted, in his early days in power, to the Chechen conflict but look at the situation today.

Look at how Gorbachev and Yeltsin were played by the west. I appreciate you did not write the words quoted above but you said you agree with them and I find that startling given I am usually very admiring of your insight and knowledge of geopolitical events.

Fly , Nov 15 2019 7:14 utc | 66
According to the Impeachniks, it is Schiff's staff who decides how Schiff votes and his policies. It would be illegal for Schiff to make decisions. But Schiff's recommendation will make or break the careers of his staff, so elected Schiff has some influence. That's not true for elected Trump, because those in his service already have made careers and/or a host of outsiders looking to place them.
dickr , Nov 15 2019 7:32 utc | 67
@50 flankerbandit - wow!
QuietRebel , Nov 15 2019 8:47 utc | 68
Although, he didn't get impeached for it Obama did get criticized for not sending the aid to Ukraine. He was also criticized when he did intervene, but not fast enough for the deep state. Remember "leading from behind" in response to Libya. Obama was much more popular and circumspect than Trump, which protected him from possible impeachment when he went off the deep state's script.
Walter , Nov 15 2019 9:12 utc | 69

Discussion of the USC and the responsibilities assigned therein is probably a foolish and merely moot exercise, as law is, ultimately simply custom over time, and since '45 or so the custom has become dissociated from the documents' provisions, particularly with regard to war-making and the "licensed" import and sale of dangerous drugs, dope. The custom in place is essentially ukase - rule by decree. Many decree are secret.

I do not object, simply pointing to the obvious.

This is a public secret anybody can know. Inter alia see The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (McCoy)

...........

Custom includes also permitted theft, blackmail, trafficking children and so forth.

...........

zerohedge put up some documents tying TGM Hunter B to the money from Ukraine...


................

I would not worry about the name of the person called president. The real sitrep is more like watching rape and murder from the dirty windows of a runaway train.

ralphieboy , Nov 15 2019 11:24 utc | 71
Upon the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine was left with the fifth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In exchange for financial assistance in the costs of removing all the nukes, the West guaranteed to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity.

In the meantime, Russia has annexed the Crimea and rebels have taken control of parts of Eastern Ukraine. The West has not provided any direct military assistance to restore those territorial infringements.

Since the West has reneged on its end of the deal, would it not only be fair to return Ukraine's nukes so it can defend itself like the Big Boys do, namely with threat of nuclear annihilation?

Christian J Chuba , Nov 15 2019 12:36 utc | 72
Ukrainians are dying

I hate this trope. The Russian Fed. is not launching offensive operations to capture Kharkov or Kiev. Western Ukraine is shelling ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. What would U.S. Congressman say if these were Jews? (I would condemn that as well).

The next time someone pontificates, 'Ukrainians are dying because Trump held up aid' ask them how many. The number is ZERO. Javelins are not being used on the front line.

Seamus Padraig , Nov 15 2019 12:47 utc | 73
Wow. My opinion of Kolomoisky has just improved ... somewhat.
deschutes , Nov 15 2019 13:25 utc | 74
Mr. Kolomoisky is spot on, i.e. when he says that the Americans will only use Ukrainians as their little bitches to fight and die for America's gain against Russia. Just like the Americans fucked over the Kurds in Syria, using them as proxy fighters to do USA/Israel's dirty work. Wherever the USA shows up and starts interfering, everything turns into shit: Iraq...Afghanistan...Venezuela...Bolivia...Ukraine...Libya...Yemen...Nicaragua...Ecuador...the list is quite long. It remains to be seen if Mr. Kolomoisky can bring about rapprochement with Russia. He'd better watch his back.
William Gruff , Nov 15 2019 13:30 utc | 75
"Wow. My opinion of Kolomoisky has just improved ... somewhat." --Seamus Padraig @73

Yes, Kolomoisky has moved up a notch in my estimation as well; from the low of "monstrously inhuman spawn of satan" all the way up to "rabid dog" . That's quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.

juliania , Nov 15 2019 14:13 utc | 76
I am very glad to see you back, Grieved, and your 'wall of ice' metaphor is indeed accurate. To me, the promising signs in Ukraine were even as here in the US when voters fought back against what b calls Deep State, which I am sure in my heart was even more of an overwhelming surge than registered - the best the corrupters of the system could do was make it close enough to be a barely legitimate win for their side, and they didn't succeed. Maybe somewhere along their line of shenanigans a small cog in the wheel got religion and didn't do their 'job'. An unsung hero who will sing when it's safe.

I hope, dearly hope, it gets safe in Ukraine very soon. They are us only further down the line than we are, but we will get there if we can't totally remove the cancer in our midst. That's our job; I wish Ukraine all the best in removing theirs.

Peter AU1 , Nov 15 2019 14:39 utc | 77
Jen 70

I believe the Russian presentation on MH17 showed a military aircraft climbing in the vicinity of, or towards MH17.

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 14:47 utc | 78
Jen...I should have made clear that the two aircraft picked up by Russian PRIMARY RADAR were unidentified...

The two commercial flights you mention were in the area and were known to both Russian and Ukrainian controllers by means of the SECONDARY SURVEILLANCE RADAR, which picks up the aircraft transponder signals...

However, secondary WILL NOT pick up military craft that have their transponders off...which is normal operating procedure for military craft...

So the airspace situation was this...you can see this from one of the illustrations I provided from the DSB prelim report...

You had MH17...you had that other flight coming from the opposite direction [flying west]...and you had that airplane that overtook the MH17 from behind [they were in a hurry and were going faster, so when MH17 decided to stay at FL330, they were cleared to climb to FL350 so they could safely overtake with the necessary vertical separation...]

Those three aircraft were all picked up on the Ukrainian SECONDARY [transponder] surveillance...as well as the Russians...on both their PRIMARY AND SECONDARY...

But what the Russians picked up were two craft ONLY ON THEIR PRIMARY...those would have been military aircraft flying with their transponders off [they're allowed to do that and do that most of the time in fact]...

That's why those two DIDN'T SHOW UP ON THE SECONDARY DATA HANDED OVER TO THE INVESTIGATORS BY THE UKRAINIANS...

Only primary radar would pick those up...and, very conveniently, the Dnipro primary was inop at the time...[so the data handed to investigators by the Ukrainians would have no trace of any military aircraft nearby]...

But with the Russian primary radar data, there is in fact evidence that there were military aircraft in the air at the time...just that the Dutch investigators simply decided to exclude the very vital Russian radar data on some stupid technicality...

[Really this is a very poorly done report, both prelim and final, and I've read many over the years...]

The other thing I should have emphasized more clearly is about that course deviation that controllers steered MH17 to, just seconds before it was hit...

The known traffic was those three commercial aircraft, as shown on the chart... here it is again...

Those three commercial flights are clearly labeled...and the big question is... why was MH17 DIVERTED SOUTH...OFF ITS PLANNED ROUTE...?

We can see the deviation track by the dotted red line...

Clearly there was no 'other traffic' that required MH17 to be vectored south by the controllers...

In fact we see that there was a FOURTH commercial flight [another B777] that was flying south exactly to that same waypoint that MH17 was diverted to...we see this airplane is flying west on the M70 airway and is heading to the RND waypoint...

This does not make sense...why would you divert MH17 from going to TAMAK as flight planned...in order to go south toward RND where another airplane is heading...

If nothing else this is very bad controller practice right there...yet again, the DSB [Dutch Safety Board] does not even raise this question...

Like I said, leaving aside any guesswork, these are the simple facts and they raise serious questions...both about the competence of the Dutch report, and the way the controllers handled that flight...

S , Nov 15 2019 14:53 utc | 79
Ukrainian think tank Ukrainian Institute of the Future and Ukrainian media outlet Zerkalo Nedeli (both anti-Russian, but slightly more intellectual than typical Ukrainian outlets) have contracted a Kharkov-based pollster to conduct a poll among DNR/LNR residents from October 7 to October 31 (method: face-to-face interviews at the homes of the respondents, sample size: 806 respondents in DNR and 800 respondents in LNR, margin of error: 3.2%) and published its results in an article: Тест на сумісність [Compatibility Test] (in Ukrainian).

It's a long and rambling article, interspersed with Ukrainian propagandistic clichés (perhaps to placate Ukrainian nationalists), but the numbers look solid, so I've extracted the numbers I consider important and put them in a table format. Here they are:

GENERAL INFORMATION

Gender
46.5% male
53.5% female

Age
8.3% <25 years old
91.7% ≥25 years old

Education
31.5% no vocational training or higher education
45.2% vocational training
23.3% higher education

Employment
24% public sector
24% private sector
5% NGOs
45% unemployed

Religion
57% marry and baptize their children in Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
31% believe in God, but do not go to any church
12% other churches, other religions, atheists

Political activity
3% are members of parties
97% are not members of parties

Language
90% speak Russian at home
10% speak other languages at home

Nationality
55.4% consider themselves Ukrainians
44.6% do not consider themselves Ukrainians

ECONOMY

Opinion about the labor market
24.3% there are almost no jobs
39.3% high unemployment, but it's possible to find a job
15.7% there are jobs, even if temporary
17.1% key enterprises are working, those who want to work can find a job
2.9% there are not enough employees

Personal financial situation
4.9% are saving on food
36.4% enough money to buy food, but have to save money to buy clothing
43.6% enough money to buy food and clothing, but have to save money to buy a suit, a mobile phone, or a vacuum cleaner
12% enough money to buy food, clothing, and other goods, but have to save money to buy expensive goods (e.g. consumer electronics)
2.7% enough money to buy food, clothing, and expensive goods, but have to save money to buy a car or an apartment
0.4% enough money to buy anything

Personal financial situation compared to the previous year
28.4% worsened
57.3% stayed the same
14.2% improved

Personal financial situation expectations for the next year
21% will worsen
58.6% will stay the same
18.7% will improve

Opinion on the Ukraine's (sans DNR/LNR) economic situation compared to the previous year
50.3% worsened
41.4% stayed the same
6.3% improved

CITIZENSHIP

Consider themselves citizens of
57.8% the Ukraine
34.8% DNR/LNR
6.8% Russia

Russian citizenship
42.9% never thought about obtaining it
15.5% don't want to obtain it
34.2% would like to obtain it
7.4% already obtained it

Considered leaving DNR/LNR for
5.2% the Ukraine
11.1% Russia
2.9% other country
80.8% never considered leaving

Visits to the Ukraine over the past year
35.1% across the DNR/LNR–Ukraine border (overwhelming majority of them -- 32.2% of all respondents -- are pensioners who visit the Ukraine to receive their pensions)
2.6% across the Russia–Ukraine border
62.3% have not visited the Ukraine

WAR

Is the war in Donbass an internal Ukrainian conflict?
35.6% completely agree
40.5% tend to agree
14.1% tend to disagree
9.3% completely disagree

Was the war started by Moscow and pro-Russian groups?
3.1% completely agree
6.4% tend to agree
45.1% tend to disagree
44.9% completely disagree

Who must pay to rebuild DNR/LNR? (multiple answers)
63.6% the Ukraine
29.3% Ukrainian oligarchs
18.5% DNR/LNR themselves
17% the U.S.
16.5% the EU
16% Russia
13% all of the above

ZELENSKIY

Opinion about Zelenskiy
1.9% very positive
17.2% positive
49.6% negative
29.3% very negative

Has your opinion about Zelenskiy changed over the past months?
2.7% significantly improved
7.9% somewhat improved
44.8% stayed the same
22.9% somewhat worsened
20.5% significantly worsened

Will Zelenskiy be able to improve the Ukraine's economy?
1.4% highly likely
13.3% likely
55.3% unlikely
30% highly unlikely

Will Zelenskiy be able to bring peace to the region?
1.7% highly likely
12.5% likely
59% unlikely
26.5% highly unlikely

MEDIA

Where do you get your information on politics? (multiple answers)
84.3% TV
60.6% social networks
50.9% relatives, friends
45.9% websites
17.4% co-workers
10% radio
7.4% newspapers and magazines

What social networks do you use? (multiple answers)
70.7% YouTube
61% VK
52.3% Odnoklassniki
49.8% Viber
27.1% Facebook
21.4% Instagram
12.4% Twitter
11.1% Telegram

FUTURE

Desired status of DNR/LNR
5.1% part of the Ukraine
13.4% part of the Ukraine with a special status
16.2% independent state
13.4% part of Russia with a special status
50.9% part of Russia

Desired status of entire Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts
8.4% part of the Ukraine
10.8% part of the Ukraine with a special status
14.4% independent state
13.3% part of Russia with a special status
49.6% part of Russia

Really?? , Nov 15 2019 15:12 utc | 80
Just listening to a bit of the testimony of the ex-ambassador to Ukraine.

It is all BS hearsay!

Also, this lady doesn't seem to grasp that as an employee of the State Department, she answers to Trump. Trump is her boss.

The questioning is full of leading questions that contains allegations and unproved premises built into them. I can't imagine that such questioning would be allowed in a normal court of justice in the USA.

Sure, Trump is a boor. But he is still the boss and he gets to pull out ambassadors if he wants to.

This is total grandstanding.

Also, a lot of emotional stuff like "I was devastated. I was shocked. Color drained from my face as I read the telephone transcript . . . "
This is BS!

I hope it is as obvious to others as to me.

I do

Seamus Padraig , Nov 15 2019 15:28 utc | 81
@ Posted by: Jen | Nov 15 2019 10:26 utc | 70

IIRC the Russian radar showed that the two mystery planes in questions were flying in MH17's blindspot . That's way too close to be half an hour away. Also, the fact that the two planes were flying over a war zone with their transponders turned off (which is why they couldn't be conclusively identified) strongly suggests that they were military.

@ Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 15 2019 11:24 utc | 71

When the US launched a coup in Kiev, wasn't that a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty too?

@ Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Nov 15 2019 12:36 utc | 72

You know the real reason why they have yet to deliver the javelins to Ukraine? It's because they're afraid that they'll be sold on the black market and end up in the ME somewhere targeting US tanks. That's why.

@ Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 15 2019 13:30 utc | 75

That's quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.
Well, I did use the qualifier 'somewhat'. ;-)
Don Bacon , Nov 15 2019 15:34 utc | 82
on Yovanovitch, She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States."

She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. . .Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 15:52 utc | 84
Cheeza decides to launch a personal attack...also completely off topic...
Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person [sic]...With experts such as you out there, why would anyone dare apply common sense...an intelligent person would have said...blah blah blah...

Look man...I'm not going to take up a lot of space on this thread because it's not about the MAX...

BUT...I need to set the record straight because you are accusing me here of somehow muddying the waters on the MAX issue...

That is a complete inversion of the truth...I have been very explicit in my [professional] comments about the MAX...and it is the exact opposite of what you are trying to tar me with here...

An example of my one of my comments here...

Yes, it is important to understand these things...which is why I have made the effort to explain the issue more clearly for the layman audience...

Your pathetic attack here shows you have no shame, nor self-respect...

Let's rewind the tape here...I said that Gazprom is looking to cut supplies to Ukraine in the new 10 year deal that comes up for negotiation in January...and that they are going to be pumping much less gas through Ukraine because NS2 now allows to bypass Ukraine...

You took a run at this comment, calling it wrong, and putting up a bunch of your own hypothesizing...

I responded by linking to the Russian news report quoting officials saying exactly that...that gas to Ukraine will be greatly reduced...

Instead of responding to that by admitting you were full of shit...you decide to attack me on the MAX issue...everybody here knows my [professional] position on the MAX...and that I have said repeatedly THAT IT CANNOT BE FIXED...[which is also why I have offered detailed technical explanations...]

I'm not going to let you screw with my integrity here...everything you attributed to me on the MAX is completely FALSE and in fact turning the truth on its head...

Realist , Nov 15 2019 16:08 utc | 87
Well done Peter. You totally f'd up the thread width once again.

Thanks a lot, you selfish incompetent c**t

Peter AU1 , Nov 15 2019 16:32 utc | 91
Realist 87

If you weren't such a dickhead you would see my links dont even reach text margins.

c1ue , Nov 15 2019 16:33 utc | 92
@flankerbandit #18

As Kiza #55 noted - Nordstream 1 and 2, combined, only equal half of Ukraine's transit capacity. The primary impact is that Ukraine can't hold far Western European customer gas hostage anymore with its gas transit "negotiations" as Nordstream allows Russia to sell directly to Germany.

There can still be Russian gas sold via Ukraine, but this will be mostly to near-Ukraine neighbors: Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Czech as well as Ukraine itself.
Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania can transit from Turk Stream, but there are potential Turk (and Bulgarian) issues.

Poland is already committing to LNG in order to not be dependent on Russian gas transiting Ukraine - a double whammy. The ultimate effect is to remove Ukraine's stranglehold position over Russian gas exports, which in turn severely undercuts Ukraine's ability to both get really cheap Russian gas and additional transit fees - a major blow to their economy.

That part of your analysis is accurate.

flankerbandit , Nov 15 2019 17:13 utc | 97
A fool piped in...
Nordstream 1 and 2, combined, only equal half of Ukraine's transit capacity.

Look...I'm not going to waste more time on bullshit...where are the FACTS about what you CLAIM here...?

The two Nordstream pipes equal 110 bcm per year...plus there are other pipeline routes that do not go through Ukraine...

Here is a study of the Euro gas imports from Russia from a few months ago...

The Conclusion...page 9

Therefore, the continuation of gas transit via Ukraine in volumes greater than the 26 bcm/y suggested above will depend on the European Commission and European gas importers, and their insistence that gas transit via Ukraine continues.

Otherwise, gas transit via Ukraine will be reduced to delivering limited volumes for European storage re-fills in the 'off-peak' summer months...

This prospect will undoubtedly complicate any negotiations between Gazprom and its Ukrainian counterparty over a new contract to govern the transit of Russian gas via Ukraine, once the existing contract expires at the end of December 2019.

...Gazprom may be willing to commit to only limited annual transit volumes...

European gas importers don't give a shit about Ukraine...and they have the final word...they care only about getting the gas they need from Russia in a reliable way and at a good price...

The news report I linked to makes it perfectly clear that the Europeans are demanding that the Ukranians get their act together on the gas issue, or they will be dropped altogether...

You know...FOOL...it really makes me wonder how fools like you decide to make statements here with a very authoritative tone...when it is quite clear you are talking out your rear end...

Nobody needs that kind of bullshit here...if you don't know a subject sufficiently well, then maybe you should keep quiet...or when making a statement, phrase it as your own OPINION and nothing more...

[Nov 15, 2019] The 15 essential questions for Marie Yovanovitch, America's former ambassador to Ukraine John Solomon Reports

Notable quotes:
"... In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained influence over Ukraine's national bank? ..."
"... John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. ..."
"... In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record, videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target. Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you just rely on press reports? ..."
"... Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials. These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country? ..."
"... If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate? ..."
"... At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky? ..."
Nov 15, 2019 | johnsolomonreports.com

The next big witness for the House Democrats' impeachment hearings is Marie Yovanovitch, the former American ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled last spring at President Trump's insistence.

It is unclear what firsthand knowledge she will offer about the core allegation of this impeachment: that Trump delayed foreign aid assistance to Ukraine in hopes of getting an investigation of Joe Biden and Democrats started.

Nonetheless, she did deal with the Ukrainians going back to the summer of 2016 and likely will be an important fact witness.

After nearly two years of reporting on Ukraine issues, here are 15 questions I think could be most illuminating to every day Americans if the ambassador answered them.

  1. Ambassador Yovanovitch, at any time while you served in Ukraine did any officials in Kiev ever express concern to you that President Trump might be withholding foreign aid assistance to get political investigations started? Did President Trump ever ask you as America's top representative in Kiev to pressure Ukrainians to start an investigation about Burisma Holdings or the Bidens?
  2. What was the Ukrainians' perception of President Trump after he allowed lethal aid to go to Ukraine in 2018?
  3. In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained influence over Ukraine's national bank?
  4. Back in May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting you might have made comments unflattering or unsupportive of the president and should be recalled. Setting aside that Sessions is a Republican and might even have donors interested in Ukraine policy, were you ever questioned about his concerns? At any time have you or your embassy staff made comments that could be viewed as unsupportive or critical of President Trump and his policies?
  5. John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. Can you explain what role your embassy played in funding this group and why State funds would flow to it? And did any one consider the perception of mingling tax dollars with those donated by Soros, a liberal ideologue who spent millions in 2016 trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump?
  6. In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record, videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target. Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you just rely on press reports?
  7. Now that both the New York Times and The Hill have confirmed that Lutsenko stands by his account and has not recanted, how do you respond to his concerns? And setting aide the use of the word "list," is it possible that during that 2016 meeting with Mr. Lutsenko you discussed the names of certain Ukrainians you did not want to see prosecuted, investigated or harassed?
  8. Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials. These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country?
  9. On March 5 of this year, you gave a speech in which you called for the replacement of Ukraine's top anti-corruption prosecutor. That speech occurred in the middle of the Ukrainian presidential election and obviously raised concerns among some Ukrainians of internal interference prohibited by the Geneva Convention. In fact, one of your bosses, Under Secretary David Hale, got questioned about those concerns when he arrived in country a few days later. Why did you think it was appropriate to give advice to Ukrainians on an internal personnel matter and did you consider then or now the potential concerns your comments might raise about meddling in the Ukrainian election or the country's internal affairs?
  10. If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate?
  11. At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky?
  12. At any time since you were appointed ambassador to Ukraine, did you or your embassy have any contact with the following Burisma figures: Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, lawyer John Buretta, Blue Star strategies representatives Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, or former Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko?
  13. John Solomon obtained documents showing Burisma representatives were pressuring the State Department in February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company and were invoking Hunter Biden's name as part of their effort. Did you ever subsequently learn of these contacts and did any one at State -- including but not limited to Secretary Kerry, Undersecretary Novelli, Deputy Secretary Blinken or Assistant Secretary Nuland -- ever raise Burisma with you?
  14. What was your embassy's assessment of the corruption allegations around Burisma and why the company may have hired Hunter Biden as a board member in 2014?
  15. In spring 2019 your embassy reportedly began monitoring briefly the social media communications of certain people viewed as supportive of President Trump and gathering analytics about them. Who were those people? Why was this done? Why did it stop? And did anyone in the State Department chain of command ever suggest targeting Americans with State resources might be improper or illegal?

[Nov 15, 2019] Now the US and the CIA had long ago figured that if the integrity of party could be disintegrated the USSR would collapse. And so it did.

Nov 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Nov 15 2019 16:54 utc | 168

@ Posted by: c1ue | Nov 15 2019 16:39 utc | 166

From Luciana Bohne , apud Pepe Escobar's Facebook page:

At the 19th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, President Xi (31 October 2019) reiterated the imperative of "Upholding the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC."

Why does Xi insist on this point as #1 item on the party's agenda of items?

Let's make a comparison. In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a "dictator" and of using the party as a sort of church for the worship of his own "personality cult." This was nonsense of course and Mao said so formally in 1963, but it was music to the ears of the capitalist powers, in the lead the US .

Kruscev then decided to liberalize the "Stalinist party"--which was more music to the ears of the capitalist "Free West." He said, since the class struggle in in the USSR was over, there were no class enemies, and everyone could join the party. Opportunist did; corrupt greedy people did, until at last in 1989 it was top heavy with members of the shadow economy--managers of factories, mines, industries of all sorts who had over 3 decades accumulated undeclared private wealth from leeching from the the public wealth. The party had become a club of "entrepreneurs" (thieves) whose best bet for investments of their ill-gotten accumulation of wealth was the restoration of capitalism.

There was much more damage to the party than I can synthesize in a post, but this small bit will do. The party was infiltrated by opportunists of the worst greed. And its integrity, authority, ability to plan the economy according to scientific Marxist Lenininst wisdom and principles died.

Now the US and the Cia had long ago figured that if the integrity of party could be disintegrated the USSR would collapse. And so it did.

The CPC has no intention of China collapsing and falling once again into the avid hands of Western imperialism, which wages capitalist.imperialist class war on China. So, China would never dream of declaring the class struggle over for China.

Its constitution states that China will remain a class society for a long time. Not only because it depends for the creation of wealth on a loyal national, anti-imperialist bourgeoisie but also because China is threatened by imperialism, which is also a class war Khrushchev ignored, calling for "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism, since both USSR and the imperialists supposedly shared the goal of peace under the nuclear cloud.

The man was a scoundrel and destroyed the power of the Communist Party, paving the way to the restoration of capitalism.

This is the difference between the Soviet Union post-1956 and China. Mao was not cleansed out of the party and consigned to the lower depths of Hell like Stalin. Whatever his mistakes, he was treated as a comrade not an enemy, his contribution acknowledged, his deficits also--unlike Stalin. Furthermore, his revolutionary contribution to the founding and survival of the People's Republic of China was enshrined in the party's memory. His picture is on the currency. He is loved and respected. The party was not stressed, purged, or divided by making Mao an issue of allegiance.

Finally, by recognizing the contribution of the loyal bourgeoisie to a self-sufficient, independent China, the CPC acknowledges that China is still a class society. No second economy, operating in the shadow for China. The private sector exists and is regulated (and lately bought up gradually by the state). No chance for a clutch of opportunists to accumulate more combined wealth than the state's and so able to take over the state and exact regime change.

This is why Xi specifically demands and requires a strong, centralized, integral, and uncorrupt Communist party. The party is the insurance for the persistence of the path to socialism and eventually communism for China. No party, no sovereign, imperialism-free China

And in this determination of making the CPC the pillar of China's social and economic progress for all the people, Xi is acting as a Leninist. The party is for the people and the people for the party. They are one. Without a revolutionary party and a revolutionary theory (in China "scientific and Marxist) the revolution would die. A it did in the Soviet Union, starting with the Kruscev gambit.

This for the West is "authoritarianism," though the West is ruled by a clutch of authoritarian economic elites who make all the decisions in their own interests. But they call tit "democracy." At least in China, if anything, it's an "authoritarianism" for and by the people--a bit closer to democracy, I should argue.

[Nov 15, 2019] Russia is trying to re-industrialize because they're forced to: sanctions actually accelerates the process because Russian internal investors know there will be a reasonably long term market for Russian goods

Nov 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Nov 15 2019 16:23 utc | 164

@NemesisCalling #142

The problem with import substitution is that the factories that used to make these goods were largely moved to China. China isn't going to give them back.

So in order to attempt to substitute US made for the China imports, the factories have to be built first.

Secondly, China heavily subsidizes the early parts of the supply chains: raw materials and what not. This wouldn't hold true to American factories.

So while the goal and the theory are good, the problem is the execution.

Russia is doing it because they're forced to: sanctions actually accelerates the process because Russian internal investors know there will be a reasonably long term market for Russian goods so long as the sanctions hold true, and the sanctions also lock in Russian capital (that which was repatriated) to some extent.

[Nov 15, 2019] Choking on the Democrats' Ukraine Fantasy Narrative by Barbara Boland

Dems skillfully changed the narrative from Biden's Corruption to Trump actions against his potential Presidential candidate (which is actually much less dangerous to Trump then Warren or Sanders; it is optimal for Trump variation of Hilary 2.0 theme )
The issue of supplying Ukraine arm to destabilize the region (with the USA on the receiving end of the potential Russia retaliation incase of escalation of the conflict ) was changed in "withholding the aid from the ally". Real propaganda professionals.
Looks like George Kent is dyed-in-the-wool neocon and belongs to the neocon vipers nest in the State Department as Nuland. He is actually extremely damaging for the USA foreign policy person. Another crazy USA supremacist, believer in "Full Spectrum Domination" doctrine
Notable quotes:
"... I really wish that TAC writers would stop offering concessions to the neocons in an effort to appear "serious" and "reasonable". It's disingenuous, counterfactual, and it does not work. Russia did not invade Ukraine. (You could say that about Crimea, but if you were to do so, you should also admit that the locals welcomed the "invaders" as liberators.) ..."
"... Conservatives are basically wimps, that is why they feel they have to throw the neocon dogs some bones ..."
"... If his domestic political opponents have been engaged (or even suspected of being engaged) in corrupt dealings with foreign governments, why should they not be investigated??? ..."
"... The civilians killed are almost all on the Donbass side of the line (as a result of Ukrainian terror attacks). The civilians on the other side of the line are not attacked. The Ukrainian line is that the Novorussians are shelling themselves, but that would require them, among other absurdities, to invent artillery shells that can do a 180 degree turn mid-flight. ..."
"... These foreign policy experts ignore the fact that a large percentage of Ukrainians *are* Russians and proud of their heritage but do not want to join the Russian Federation and support a united Ukraine. I was a relentless critic of Obama but the more I read about Euromaiden and the subsequent Russian invasion/annexation the more I agree with his policy or not rushing in to supply arms in what was a confusing situation that was part civil war between factions of Ukrainians. ..."
"... The 13,000 Ukrainian deaths could probably have been avoided had the US had stayed out of Ukraine's internal affairs and not encouraged the overthrow of its elected government back in 2014, however corrupt it was. It was naive of the US State Department and specifically Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary for East European Affairs (who served in this role under both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) to think that Russia would not respond to a shift in Ukrainian foreign policy in favor of the West. ..."
"... The Deep State lies about the Ukraine and US involvement in political and economic corruption there are just astounding, but not surprising. The US and NATO bear a huge portion of the blame for destabilizing an already unstable "nation," being largely responsible for the coup that ousted the rightful President Yanukovich in 2014 (whom they also helped deny election in 2004). NATO itself should have been disbanded after the Warsaw Pact was disbanded. Instead it has taken an ever more expansionist and aggressive stance toward Russia. ..."
"... The US drove forward with NATO until this inevitably happened. Then resistance became "aggression." It was imagined that NATO would station its ships in former Russian Black Sea bases of the Crimea, and so lock down Russia's north-south river system as completely as someone allowed to capture New Orleans and close the Mississippi river system. That attempt had to produce a war of some sort. Russia just had to resist that. The US did it anyway, guys like George Kennan in his last years protesting without effect. ..."
"... Refusing to consider what it was about themselves or their agenda for why they lost the election, Unable, or unwilling to allow a change of course they set about an entire process for revenge. Refusing to take this time to reassess themselves, their candidates or their agenda they have chosen instead to plow ahead in their attempts to overturn the election. by impeachment and conviction or at least damaging the president so badly making his unelectable. ..."
"... Demonstrating the worst attributes of a prosecution: a case with no evidence to the charge, manufacturing evidence, open admissions that the witnesses saw a crime or we even in the room when the alleged crime took place -- they are showing how the system works and why government cannot be trusted, maybe the public probably too busy trying to earn a living to attend to the details explains why half of them actually believe that Russia infiltrated the US to sabotage an election, regardless that no evidence supports the accusation. ..."
"... If it is an impeachable offense, then just about every administration that has been around since I have been alive should have been nailed. Do you think we don't make deals with no strings attached? ..."
"... Those string attached are for the benefit of the US. NOT for the benefit of particular persons. Strings attached to official aid to benefit particulars is called CORRUPTION ..."
"... Not a criminal act and you have your facts wrong. The president referenced CrowdStrike at the center of the collusion and Russian hack accusations) and given the circumstances of the VP's son and the VP conduct regarding an investigation in progress in the Ukraine -- the suspicions are entirely reasonable and the VP openly speaks about what he did ---- political rival or not that confession is a fact. ..."
"... -- it's metaphysically impossible to desperately need something unless you are already receiving that same thing; or if someone else once said you didn't need the thing; or wrote an op-ed saying you needed the thing but we shouldn't be the ones to provide the thing you need ..."
Nov 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Choking on the Democrats' Ukraine Fantasy Narrative

Officials and media delivered enough untruths and distortions yesterday to cause us all heartburn. State Department deputy assistant secretary, George Kent, left, and acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor, right, appear for a House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearing Wednesday November 13, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

A top U.S. State Department official began his testimony before the House impeachment inquiry with eye-popping analogies comparing patriotic Ukrainians to the Minutemen of the American revolution. His narrative went unchallenged, as all of Washington appears to have suddenly fallen in love with the poor, defenseless, disadvantaged Ukraine that President Trump tried to deny arms to.

George Kent, a U.S. State Department official who served under five presidents, told the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday morning that after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, occupying seven percent of its territory, "Ukraine's state institutions were on the verge of collapse" until "the 21st century Ukrainian equivalent of our own Minutemen in 1776" bought "time for the regular army to reconstitute."

"Since then, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression," said Kent. "American support in Ukraine's own de facto war of independence has been critical in this regard." Here's more:

"By analogy, the American colonies may not have prevailed against British imperial might without help from transatlantic friends after 1776. In an echo of Lafayette's organized assistance to General George Washington's army and Admiral John Paul Jones' navy, Congress has generously appropriated over $1.5 billion over the past five years in desperately needed train and equip security assistance to Ukraine . Similar to von Steuben training colonials at Valley Forge, U.S. and NATO allied trainers develop the skills of Ukrainian units at Yavoriv near the Polish border, and elsewhere. They help rewrite military education for Ukraine's next generation, as von Steuben did for America's first."

One would think, listening to this, that the U.S. had always provided arms to Ukraine, and that Ukraine has relied on this aid for years. But this is completely untrue, and the Washington blob knows it.

Back in 2014, when Russia annexed a large swath of Ukraine, the Obama administration declined to arm Ukraine, fearing that adding American weapons to the conflict would spark a hot war between the U.S. and Russia. At the time, Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain argued vociferously against Obama's policy.

"The Obama Administration's policy in Ukraine effectively amounts to an arms embargo on victims of aggression," Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain said in a joint statement. "The United States and the European Union must provide Ukraine with the arms and related military and intelligence support that its leaders have consistently sought and desperately need."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression "demands more than additional empty rhetoric and threats of lowest-common-denominator sanctions," they wrote. "That has been the extent of the world's response to Putin's slow-motion dismemberment of Ukraine, and it has consistently failed to deter new acts of aggression."

Even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned of a "serious military buildup" by Russian forces inside Ukraine, the Obama administration still declined to provide Ukraine with lethal aid.

"We don't think the answer to the crisis in Ukraine is simply to inject more weapons and engage in tit-for-tat," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told CNN.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki stressed that the US didn't want to "get into a proxy war with Russia."

So instead, the U.S. responded to Russian aggression with sanctions and kicking them out of the G-8 (now G-7.) Instead of providing arms,Washington provided Ukraine with non-lethal aid and with military advisers and continued to engage in joint training exercises together with several other countries.

Back when a Democrat occupied the White House, foreign policy experts were comfortable with an unarmed Ukraine.

Foreign Policy magazine published an article called "Don't Poke the Russian Bear" just after the Russian incursion into Ukraine. Providing arms to Ukraine would be a needless escalation of a conflict with Moscow, the piece argues.

Where are all these foreign policy experts and their fears about conflict with Russia now? Did they all suddenly change their minds now that Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office?

Obama's opinion on arming Ukraine never wavered. Even as late as 2016, he argued to The Atlantic that Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one.

"The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do," said Obama.

Thus, the Trump administration decision to provide Ukraine with weapons was a significant departure from previous US policy. In August 2017, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said the Trump administration was "actively reviewing" the question of whether to provide lethal assistance to Ukraine. Then in 2018, the State Department approved the sale of 210 Javelin portable anti-tank missiles, as well as launchers, associated equipment, and training, at a total estimated cost of $47 million.

The media appears to be deliberately blurring the timeline to obscure this fact.

From Politico:

The U.S. has provided about $1.5 billion in military support to Kiev between 2014 and this past June, according to an updated analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. And Trump's temporary cut off of the aid represented a significant setback for the country.

But here's what that CRS report Politico links to actually says: "During the Obama administration, arguments against the provision of lethal assistance centered on Russia's ability and willingness to steadily escalate conflict in response," says the report. But things changed significantly under the Trump administration which "has provided major defensive lethal weaponry to Ukraine."

Note what appears to be deliberate obfuscation: Politico calls the aid "military support" and dates it from 2014. Even the title of this article is misleading: "How U.S. military aid became a lifeline for Ukraine."

The U.S. has only approved the sale of weapons to Ukraine last year! But now, weapons Obama refused to provide are "a lifeline."

Obscuring the timeline advances the narrative that Ukraine relied on military assistance which Trump suddenly precipitously withdrew. But the truth is that Ukraine did not even have this assistance until Trump came into office. How can a country rely on something that was only authorized last year? about the author Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She is the author of Patton Uncovered , a book about General George Patton in World War II, and her work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill , UK Spectator , and elsewhere. Boland is graduate from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC .


Sid Finster a day ago
I really wish that TAC writers would stop offering concessions to the neocons in an effort to appear "serious" and "reasonable". It's disingenuous, counterfactual, and it does not work. Russia did not invade Ukraine. (You could say that about Crimea, but if you were to do so, you should also admit that the locals welcomed the "invaders" as liberators.)

If Russia were to invade Ukraine, the Ukrainian clown army, "minuteman patriots(tm)" and all, would be wiped out in days or hours.

Robert Bruce Sid Finster 18 hours ago
Conservatives are basically wimps, that is why they feel they have to throw the neocon dogs some bones. It also is why they tend to be history's biggest losers.
cdugga a day ago
The Don did not withhold arms from Ukraine because we shouldn't even be giving arms to Ukraine...
Gary Sellars bumbershoot 16 hours ago
If his domestic political opponents have been engaged (or even suspected of being engaged) in corrupt dealings with foreign governments, why should they not be investigated???

Maybe you think that senior US officials should be immune from investigation, or that laws don't apply to them?

Begemot a day ago
more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression," said Kent.

The UN has estimated that the total number killed in Ukraine's war since the Maidan is 13,000. This figure includes casualties in the Donbass region, fighters and civilians, killed by the armed forces of Kiev. Mr. Kent is enlisting these dead into a cause they died resisting. Is there no limit to Washington's cynicism?

Sid Finster Begemot 9 hours ago
1. And most of those pro-Kiev soldiers died because they rushed into reckless and poorly planned offensives and got slaughtered as a result. When they stay on their own side of the contact line, they don't get killed.

2. The civilians killed are almost all on the Donbass side of the line (as a result of Ukrainian terror attacks). The civilians on the other side of the line are not attacked. The Ukrainian line is that the Novorussians are shelling themselves, but that would require them, among other absurdities, to invent artillery shells that can do a 180 degree turn mid-flight.

David Prejean a day ago
The fact that the Obama administration did not give lethal aid to Ukraine came up at the impeachment hearing yesterday and was confirmed by the two bureaucrats. A republican asked about it.
J'accuse a day ago
These foreign policy experts ignore the fact that a large percentage of Ukrainians *are* Russians and proud of their heritage but do not want to join the Russian Federation and support a united Ukraine. I was a relentless critic of Obama but the more I read about Euromaiden and the subsequent Russian invasion/annexation the more I agree with his policy or not rushing in to supply arms in what was a confusing situation that was part civil war between factions of Ukrainians.

Congress disagreed and passed the Ukraine Freedom Act which mandated sanctions and authorized arms shipments. Obama signed it in December of 2014 but in his signing statement wrote that wasn't going to implement sanctions or ship arms. Back then ignoring the will of Congress wasn't an impeachable offense but obviously times change.

Disqus10021 a day ago
The 13,000 Ukrainian deaths could probably have been avoided had the US had stayed out of Ukraine's internal affairs and not encouraged the overthrow of its elected government back in 2014, however corrupt it was. It was naive of the US State Department and specifically Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary for East European Affairs (who served in this role under both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) to think that Russia would not respond to a shift in Ukrainian foreign policy in favor of the West.

Russia was never going to allow Sevastopol (in Crimea), its only warm water to become a future NATO base and Ms. Nuland should have understood that. Crimea had been captured from the Ottoman Empire in Catherine the Great's time (c. 1783). Nikita Khrushchev had transferred administrative control of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine at a time (1954) when there was no land link from Crimea to Russia and no one expected the USSR to break up.

At the time the Soviet Union gave its consent to the peaceful reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, it was with the understanding that NATO would not expand eastward beyond its then existing sphere of influence. But NATO and the US violated this understanding as new member states from the old Soviet block countries were admitted to NATO starting in 1999.

As the US continues to meddle in the internal affairs of foreign countries and to hand out billions of dollars in military foreign aid money every year, the medical care our own veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan is being short changed. Watch the documentary "Delay, Deny and Hope You Die" (free if you have an Amazon Prime Membership).

SatirevFlesti a day ago
The Deep State lies about the Ukraine and US involvement in political and economic corruption there are just astounding, but not surprising. The US and NATO bear a huge portion of the blame for destabilizing an already unstable "nation," being largely responsible for the coup that ousted the rightful President Yanukovich in 2014 (whom they also helped deny election in 2004). NATO itself should have been disbanded after the Warsaw Pact was disbanded. Instead it has taken an ever more expansionist and aggressive stance toward Russia.

Ukraine is a largely artificial country, parts of which (The Crimea and eastern Ukraine) really should just be part of greater Russia (the Russian nation's very roots, after all, are in mediaeval Kievan Rus). It had never been a sovereign nation-state before 1991, and its current borders are arbitrary and unworkable demographically. The US line that Ukraine is a vital national security interest in garbage - they just want to join the oligarchs in fleecing the country and using it as a proxy in their bizarro-world where Russian bogeymen are everywhere.

What Congress ought to be investigating is how Joe Biden's son ended up on the board of one of the most corrupt Ukraine oil companies shortly after own visit to the country while he was VP. That's where the real corruption is.

Mark Thomason a day ago
The US drove forward with NATO until this inevitably happened. Then resistance became "aggression." It was imagined that NATO would station its ships in former Russian Black Sea bases of the Crimea, and so lock down Russia's north-south river system as completely as someone allowed to capture New Orleans and close the Mississippi river system. That attempt had to produce a war of some sort. Russia just had to resist that. The US did it anyway, guys like George Kennan in his last years protesting without effect.

The US did this to Ukraine. It rightly ought to be rather like Austria, Yugoslavia, and Finland of the Cold War era, a safe space between playing off each against the other. Instead, it got thrown into NATO's aggression.

Don Quijote a day ago
Here is the basic question: Did Donald Trump attempt to extort the Ukrainian government to get dirt on Biden? It's a basic yes or no question. And assuming that he did extort the Ukrainian government, is it enough of a crime and abuse of power for him to be impeached. Every thing else is irrelevant.
Amanda Powell Don Quijote 20 hours ago
A very succinct question.
Gary Sellars Don Quijote 16 hours ago • edited
No. He didn't. Even if you think he did, his behaviour could be considered inappropriate, but that doesn't make it a criminal offense, no matter how much you hate the man.

Like it or not, Trump WON a legal and constitutionally held election, run according to electoral college procedures. That doesn't change because he wants to know what REALLY happened when Biden demanded the Ukr sack its corruption investigator (and then bragged about it) when the investigator started sniffing around the gas company that Hunter Biden and been installed in by daddy and his pals.

Dave a day ago
Readers, don't be fooled by her focus on "arms." Here's what the report says:

"Since independence, Ukraine has been a leading recipient of U.S. foreign and military aid in Europe and Eurasia. In the 1990s (FY1992-FY2000), the U.S. government provided almost $2.6 billion in total aid to Ukraine ($287 million a year, on average).146 In the 2000s (FY2001 to FY2009), total aid to Ukraine amounted to almost $1.8 billion ($199 million a year, on average).147 In the five years before Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine (FY2010 to FY2014), State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) assistance (including foreign military financing) totaled about $105 million a year, on average.

Separate nonproliferation and threat reduction assistance administered by the Departments of Energy and Defense amounted to an average of over $130 million a year in obligated funds."

It's true that Obama didn't want to stumble into a proxy war with Russia. It's also true that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating a political rival.

Blame the media!

Another example of the right's love of Trump. Grab 'em by the truth!

EliteCommInc. a day ago
My week started nice. I has been setting dates to take an entire week off to give my body a rest from exercise, but after but two and half days I couldn't do it. My mind could not let iot rest. It plagued and nagged with all of those self deprecating thoughts press against a change of pace or of course. I found myself trying to cram a weeks worth of exercise into three days without a break . . it was nuts. Passing my quota was not enough and i have not let it go to this moment, despite what damage i may do to my body.

I guess the democrats are that way. Refusing to consider what it was about themselves or their agenda for why they lost the election, Unable, or unwilling to allow a change of course they set about an entire process for revenge. Refusing to take this time to reassess themselves, their candidates or their agenda they have chosen instead to plow ahead in their attempts to overturn the election. by impeachment and conviction or at least damaging the president so badly making his unelectable.

Demonstrating the worst attributes of a prosecution: a case with no evidence to the charge, manufacturing evidence, open admissions that the witnesses saw a crime or we even in the room when the alleged crime took place -- they are showing how the system works and why government cannot be trusted, maybe the public probably too busy trying to earn a living to attend to the details explains why half of them actually believe that Russia infiltrated the US to sabotage an election, regardless that no evidence supports the accusation.

Maybe, just maybe enough of them will see this for what it is an abuse of the our system worthy of condemnation and maybe the next election will be a second dose of shock and awe. . Sadly should that be the case the message that democrats will here is that they need to redouble their efforts potential opponents, even if means destroying the republic they supposedly seek to save.

Jhawk a day ago
I see nothing in this article but deflection and whataboutism. Instead, answer the question these hearings are actually about: Did Donald Trump withhold or threaten to withhold aid or support from a foreign ally in return for a personal benefit? If so, that's extortion and abuse of power and an impeachable offense. It's really that simple.
Robert Bruce Jhawk 18 hours ago
If it is an impeachable offense, then just about every administration that has been around since I have been alive should have been nailed. Do you think we don't make deals with no strings attached?
Adriana Pena Robert Bruce 7 hours ago
Those string attached are for the benefit of the US. NOT for the benefit of particular persons. Strings attached to official aid to benefit particulars is called CORRUPTION
Jake Jaramillo a day ago
According to "Defense News," the millions of dollars in U.S. security assistance provided to Ukraine during the Obama administration was "...aimed at helping Ukraine monitor and secure its borders, deploy its forces more safely and effectively, and make progress toward NATO interoperability." It was also militarily significant. For example, "After Ukraine received 20 Lockheed Martin AN/TPQ-53 radar systems that track incoming mortar and short-range artillery fire in 2015, the casualty rate for units equipped with those systems went from 47 percent to about 18 percent..."

A year after Trump took office, the U.S.added lethal aid to the mix, as authorized in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. According to Defense News, these weapons included "anti-armor weapon systems, mortars, crew-served weapons and ammunition, grenade launchers and ammunition, and small arms and ammunition ― but also unspecified 'cyber' and 'electronic warfare' capabilities."

Ms. Boland's article seems to ignore the amount and the helpfulness of the previous administration's security aid. It also blithely minimizes the harm of holding up the latest tranche of enhanced security aid (an action that was done for no discernible reason that anyone but several impeachment witnesses and Mick Mulvaney seems able to explain).

EliteCommInc. Jeffrey Samuels 20 hours ago
Actually, I think it was a knee jerk response to an election they thought was in the bag. And that is why it looks so painfully shoddy, and chaotic.
JWJ Jeffrey Samuels 6 hours ago
Agree with you that is interesting that those deep state bureaucrats who think that they make all the policy and the they run the country did lie, and lie quite often.

But I think you're wrong that they planned anything for years. The deep state just wanted to get Trump out via any means possible and thought they could just come up with anything. Only useful idiots (and media) believe their lies. Clearly, you are not one of these useful idiots.

Connecticut Farmer a day ago
I am hopeful that Kent is educated enough not to take seriously the analogy between the Ukraine and the 13 colonies and that this was directed to the ignorant boobocracy that is fixated on their TV screens watching this dreck unfold and whose knowledge of history is virtually nonexistent.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong and Kent himself is one of them.

EliteCommInc. Oddish a day ago
You might want to have some facts that are related to the charges --

"Congressional approved funding would be withheld until Ukraine officials agreed to investigate (or at least publicly announce an investigation) into the President's political rival."

Not a criminal act and you have your facts wrong. The president referenced CrowdStrike at the center of the collusion and Russian hack accusations) and given the circumstances of the VP's son and the VP conduct regarding an investigation in progress in the Ukraine -- the suspicions are entirely reasonable and the VP openly speaks about what he did ---- political rival or not that confession is a fact.

You do realize there are currently investigations underway in the US on these issues.

staircaseghost a day ago
Key takeaways from this article:

-- Trump did, in fact, do exactly what he was accused of doing

-- you shouldn't whine like a baby when "only" seven percent of your territory is militarily annexed by a hostile foreign power

-- Lindsay Graham pushed for the very aid Trump held up, but that was different because that was Obama then and anyway can't you see how Democrats are the unprincipled hyper-partisans here?

-- non-lethal military aid including military advisors is not military aid because something something Obama something something mainstream media something Obama

-- it's metaphysically impossible to desperately need something unless you are already receiving that same thing; or if someone else once said you didn't need the thing; or wrote an op-ed saying you needed the thing but we shouldn't be the ones to provide the thing you need

[Nov 14, 2019] The Inconsequential Nikki Haley

Notable quotes:
"... And, of course, it wouldn't be good, old-fashioned Washington gunslinging if she didn't pin the blame on somebody else. In this case, it was former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former White House chief of staff John Kelly -- portrayed by Haley as duplicitous snakes who sought to undermine the president behind his back. ..."
Nov 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Her messaging confirms what many have long suspected: Nikki Haley is a human weathervane, trying to ingratiate herself to the boss (she knows Trump will remain a popular figure within Republican politics for years to come) while at the same time distancing herself from his most controversial actions.

And, of course, it wouldn't be good, old-fashioned Washington gunslinging if she didn't pin the blame on somebody else. In this case, it was former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former White House chief of staff John Kelly -- portrayed by Haley as duplicitous snakes who sought to undermine the president behind his back.


Doug Wallis9 hours ago

She is a neocon and people arent going to vote for more war. She has no real accomplishments. I think she would make an interesting candidate. A republican woman is generally not as loopy left wing as the democratic women running just because their women. Personally Nikki does not represent my values and I wouldnt vote for her.
Fayez Abedaziz2 hours ago
Well, what does that tell ya about the continuing corruption and ruining of America's elections systems in this evolving, shallower society and the major 'news' media being 'neo-con' run or influenced as such?
It's ridiculous and I'm being kind, that people with no qualifications are seriously being given money and given media exposure such as- Buttgieg, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and some others with low IQ's and only want the ego tripping and be one of the 'elites' all their non-productive lives.
So, Nikki Haley is seriously one of those to lead America?
You now what, people who vote for these clowns, clowns that never worked in their lives, are just plain shallow too. But...the big donors give these characters money so that they will continue the terrible neo-con foreign policy.
Now, may I ask, as a fella that was born in another nation:
how come I use my real name but Nikki Haley and others do not?
I laugh, as did others, over the years when I say-you would think, that a guy with my name, being a Palestinian/Arab/Moslem heritage, would be the last one to do that!
Well, how 'bout that question in our great big country America? Dig?
PeaceObserver2 hours ago • edited
Opportunism of this one is so sky high that it resembles a cartoonish psychopath. Even her name is not real. A pathological liar who took up barking as a profession because that is what sells these days. Tragedy of America is that snakes move high and up.

[Nov 14, 2019] America Is Wide Open for Foreign Influence by Stephen M. Walt

Notable quotes:
"... Nick Danforth , Daphne McCurdy ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | foreignpolicy.com
If you're an outsider with a political agenda, there's no better country to target than the United States. Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia, the idea of territorial sovereignty has been central to how most of us think about international politics and foreign policy. Although a huge amount of activity occurs across state borders, one of the chief tasks of any government is to defend the nation's territory and make sure -- to the extent it can -- that outsiders are not in position to interfere in harmful ways. But for all the effort and expense devoted to keeping harmful influences out, sometimes countries wind up locking and bolting the windows while leaving the front door wide open.

Take the mighty United States, for example. It has a vast Department of Homeland Security, whose job is to defend its borders from international terrorism, illegal migration, drug smuggling, customs violations, and other dangers. The United States has intelligence agencies monitoring dangerous developments all over the world to keep them from harming Americans at home. It has spent trillions of dollars on a sophisticated nuclear arsenal designed to deter a hostile country from attacking the U.S. homeland directly, and it's spent additional hundreds of billions of dollars pursuing the holy grail of missile defense. Americans now worry about cyberthreats of various kinds, including the possibility that foreign powers like Russia might be interfering in U.S. elections or sowing division and false information via social media. And then there's President Donald Trump's obsession with that southern wall, which he declares is necessary to keep the Republican base riled up -- oops, sorry, I meant to say "is necessary to protect us from impoverished refugees or other undesirables."

Given all the time, effort, and money the United States devotes to defending the realm against outside intrusions, it is ironic that the United States may also be the most permeable political system in modern history. More than any great power's that I can think of, America's political system is wide open to foreign interference in a variety of legitimate and illegitimate ways. I'm not talking about foreign bots infecting the national mind via social media -- though that is a worrisome possibility. I'm talking about foreign governments or other interests that use a variety of familiar avenues to shape U.S. perceptions and persuade the U.S. government to do things that these outsiders want it to do, even when it might not be in America's broader interest.

Suppose you were a foreign government, or perhaps an opposition movement challenging a foreign regime. Suppose further that you wanted to get America on your side, or maybe you just wanted to make sure that the United States didn't use its considerable power against you. What avenues of influence are available to achieve your goal?

Obviously, you can use traditional diplomatic channels. You can tell your official representatives (ministers, ambassadors, consular officers, envoys, etc.) to meet with the relevant U.S. counterparts and plead your case. While they're at it, your official representatives could also shmooz with other members of the executive branch and try to win them over too. There's nothing remotely dodgy here; it's just the usual workings of the normal diplomatic machinery. And sometimes that's all you'll need, especially when your interests and America's interests really do coincide.

But you don't have to stop there. For example, you could also take your case up to Capitol Hill. There are 435 representatives and 100 senators, and that's an awful lot of potential points of access. Most of them don't care a fig about foreign policy (and know even less), but some of them do care and a few of them have real clout. If you can win over a respected and well-placed representative or senator -- or even just persuade one of their top aides -- there's a good chance a lot of the other lawmakers will follow their lead. Back in the 1950s, for example, Sen. William Knowland (R-Calif.) was often derided as the "Senator from Formosa" because of his consistent opposition to communist China and ardent support for Taiwan. More recently, Beltway denizen Randy Scheunemann was both a paid lobbyist for the government of Georgia and a top foreign-policy aide to the late Republican Sen. John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign, which may help explain why the latter was such an ardent defender of Georgia during its 2008 war with Russia.

On top of that, there are plenty of politicians outside Congress who might be enlisted to your cause as well. Over the past decade or more, for example, Democrats including former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean and Republicans such as former New York mayor (and Trump apologist) Rudy Giuliani or current National Security Advisor John Bolton have spoken at rallies sponsored by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) an Iranian exile group that was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department from 1997 to 2012. The MEK is despised within Iran for its past collaboration with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but that didn't prevent it from recruiting a wide array of prominent Americans to its side, many of whom received lucrative speakers' fees. See how easy this is?

But wait, there's more! Foreign governments, corporations, and opposition movements can also hire public relations firms and professional lobbyists to clean up their public image, lobby politicians directly, and try to get influential Americans to see them as valuable partners. In his amusing but disturbing book Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, the journalist Ken Silverstein showed how eager D.C. PR firms were to serve as the paid agents of a ruthless Central Asian dictator, along with the various ways that savvy spin doctors can scrub a despot's reputation and get them access to influential people in Washington. The sad news is that Silverstein's saga is far from atypical.

And don't forget the rest of the Blob. In recent years, for example, we've learned that several prominent D.C. think tanks took millions of dollars from foreign governments eager to enhance their visibility, presence, and influence in Washington. The receiving organizations predictably denied that the money had the slightest influence on what they did, said, wrote, or believed, but former employees tell a different story . And yes, I know: Universities are not immune to temptation either.

The influence of self-interested foreigners increases even more when they can partner with domestic groups that share their objectives, and that will use their testimony to sell whatever course of action they are trying to promote. The most notorious recent example of this phenomenon was the infamous Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, who joined forces with American neoconservatives to help sell the Iraq War in 2003. Foreign voices like Chalabi's often exercise disproportionate influence because they are (falsely) perceived as objective experts with extensive local knowledge, making uninformed, gullible, or mendacious Americans more likely to heed their advice. It is usually a good idea to listen to what foreign witnesses have to say about conditions far away provided that one never forgets that they may be telling Americans what they think they want to hear or feeding Americans false information designed to advance their interests at America's expense.

Notice I haven't said a word about espionage, bribery, or more ordinary forms of corruption, though each can be another way for foreign powers to advance their aims inside America's borders. After all, when the U.S. president continues to defy the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and when his son-in-law and White House advisor is still financially connected to a real estate firm that recently got bailed out by a Qatari-backed investment company, one may legitimately wonder whether key foreign-policy decisions are being influenced by the personal financial interests of the president or his entourage. Trademarks in China, anyone ?

The debacle over Syria shows that neither party understands the country's real goals in the Middle East -- or what it would take to achieve them. Argument | Nick Danforth , Daphne McCurdy

Last but by no means least, foreign governments (or in some cases opposition groups) can also benefit from support by Americans with a strong attachment to the countries in question. Ethnic lobbying by Greek Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, Indian Americans, Jewish Americans, and other ethnic groups has been part of the U.S. political scene for more than a century, and foreign governments understand that such groups can be a valuable asset. As an official Indian government commission noted back in 2002, Indian Americans "have effectively mobilised on issues ranging from the nuclear test in 1999 to Kargil and lobbied effectively on other issues of concern to the Indian community. The Indian community in the United States constitutes an invaluable asset in strengthening India's relationship with the world's only superpower."

To be clear: Americans holding strong attachments to a foreign country are free to express their views and try to influence what the government does, regardless of whether their particular attachment is based on ethnicity, ideology, family connections, or personal experience (such as tourism, a Peace Corps stint, or whatever). That's how our system of interest group politics works. Nonetheless, India and other countries have also recognized that Americans with powerful connections are a potent source of political influence, and it would be naive to expect them not to take advantage of it.

This issue is not one-sided, of course. The permeability of the U.S. political system allows more sources of information to penetrate U.S. politics and undoubtedly contributes to a broader understanding of complicated international problems in some cases. U.S. foreign policy would be even less effective if Americans tried to wall the country off -- sorry, Donald! -- or if they foolishly tried to bar politicians from talking to people from other parts of the world. So my warnings are not a recommendation for a head-in-the-sand approach to the outside world.

Rather, it is an argument for a more hardheaded, cynical, and realistic approach to the influence that foreigners invariably seek to exercise over U.S. foreign policy. As long as the U.S. political system is so permeable, it behooves Americans to treat foreign efforts to shape their thinking with due discretion. It also requires preserving a sophisticated and independent analytic capacity of their own, so that they can distinguish when they are gaining useful information and when they are being conned. Americans should always be willing to exchange ideas with others -- including their adversaries, by the way -- but let's try not to be foolish about it. Foreign policy is not a philanthropic activity, and even close allies think first and foremost about self-interest, which sometimes means trying to bamboozle the United States into doing what they want, even at some cost to Americans. If the United States is spending all this money securing the borders, leaving the national mind unlocked and ripe for manipulation is a tad short-sighted.

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

[Nov 14, 2019] Neocon US Ambassador tells impeachment panel what they want to hear about Trump-Ukraine Quid Pro Quo

This is how filthy neocon fifth column typically works: "The senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine said Tuesday he was told release of military aid was contingent on public declarations from Ukraine that it would investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election, contradicting President Trump’s denial that he used the money as leverage for political gain." Who told him? Some State Dept. apparatchik? Unless it was directly from Trump it's just a hearsay and evidence of nothing whatsoever.
He clearly belongs to people described in Caitlin Johnstone famous 2017 article Neoconservatism Is An Omnicidal Death Cult, And It Must Be Stopped
"It’s absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly calls “the most dangerous ideology that has ever existed,” neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies."
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Oct 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Taylor notably expressed his concerns in a Sept. 9 text message to US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, saying: " I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. "

To which Sondland replies " Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind, " adding "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text."

On Tuesday, Mr. Taylor directly addressed accusations surrounding Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that employed Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., one of the leading Democratic candidates for president.

He "drew a very direct line in the series of events he described between President Trump's decision to withhold funds and refuse a meeting with Zelensky unless there was a public pronouncement by him of investigations of Burisma and the so-called 2016 election conspiracy theories," Ms. Wasserman Schultz said. - New York Times

As the Washington Post notes, Taylor said "By mid-July it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelenskyy wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma," the Ukrainian gas firm which employed Hunter Biden, "and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections."


HoserF16 , 24 seconds ago link

He's a Liar. There's no QPQ. We have the transcript of the call. No QPQ. This Frail looking Douche Bag is lying. He's obviously on the Ukrainian-Take like the rest of them. DNC kept Servers in the Ukraine. Why would they do that??? (wink, wink)

Jackprong , 3 minutes ago link

Democrats have called the testimony the most damaging account yet, as Taylor provided an "excruciatingly detailed" opening statement, according to the New York Times .

And they have Zero, Zilch, Nada!

Largebrneyes1 , 3 minutes ago link

Taylor was a democratic appointee from the Obama administration...shocker. And he was the only one suggesting this was politically motivated. Sondland corrected him immediately. Nobody else, including the Ukrainians, agree with his "interpretation".

south40_dreams , 8 minutes ago link

JOE BIDEN IN 1998;

"Even if the President should be impeached, history is going to question whether or not this was just a partisan lynching..."

He said a dirty word

slickrick , 9 minutes ago link

Schiff's bitch said it like he was told to. Nothing to see folks.

Bobzilla. Do not piss him off , 12 minutes ago link

Wasn't creepy uncle joe doing a quid pro quo when he said no billion $ unless you fir the prosecutor?? Seems the demonrats have two sets of rules. ******* hypocrites.

The Persistent Vegetable , 21 minutes ago link

Manaforts in prison

Cohens in prison

Stone? arrested

Flynn? convicted

Rudy? Soon to be arrested

Whose next in the most transparent administration in history? An administration which only arrests its own and lets the Dems skate?

William Dorritt , 10 minutes ago link

Trump forgot to fire 10,000 Obama Political Appointees

when he took office

Trump created this mess

he actually stiff armed conservatives who offered to help him

doubt many would now.

McConnell has systemically undermined Trump

blocking Trump's appointments and

blocking Trump from making recess appointments

KY needs to do the US a favor and retire McConnell

Rest Easy , 25 minutes ago link

Ex ******* scuse me, but didn't obumer and company start a civil war in Ukraine?

Ukraine is right next to ******* Russia. A nuclear power.

People have died here. Whatever else these ******* fuckers were up to, this seems pretty clearly criminally insane.

Let's cut the crap journalists. Start doing your jobs.

Dept. Of whatever Justice. And congress. This is unacceptable. And beyond irresponsible.

TahoeBilly2012 , 22 minutes ago link

That's right, I followed everything Ukraine in detail in 2013, so did my Mom who is 81. She knows more Ukraine than any of my dirtbag Democrat friends. Hunter Biden corruption old news.

Son of Loki , 25 minutes ago link

I definitely believe the neocon anti-Trumper.

He's so brave to come forward.

He even talked in a little gurl's voice!

#MeToo!

estradagold , 34 minutes ago link

Yet the average Ukrainian makes $300 a month and we have zero qualms about robbing their country blind. Some friend we are.

joego1 , 36 minutes ago link

First of all Ukraine had already started to investigate Biden and Burisma in March, second of all the aid was turned over to them already and there is no resolution to the investigation yet. Third, the Ukrainians have gone on the record saying there was no pressure. Last, the president has a responsibility to look into corruption even if it was a Demonrat.

[Nov 14, 2019] House Releases Transcripts From Recalled US-Ukraine Ambassador Yovanovitch And Michael McKinley

Tandem of CIA and the State Department against Trump ?
Notable quotes:
"... Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May, testified that President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani led a campaign to oust her as ambassador over unsubstantiated allegations that she badmouthed the president and was seeking to stop Ukraine from opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. -Axios ..."
"... Last month, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan reportedly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Trump recalled Yovanovitch after Giuliani singled her out for having an anti-Trump agenda. ..."
"... McKinley testified to impeachment investigators that he resigned over the State Department's unwillingness to support foreign service officers caught up in the Ukraine scandal and the apparent "utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives. ..."
Nov 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
On Monday, the House committees conducting impeachment inquiries into President Trump released transcripts of testimony from several witnesses, including former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and career diplomat and former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Michael McKinley.

Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May, testified that President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani led a campaign to oust her as ambassador over unsubstantiated allegations that she badmouthed the president and was seeking to stop Ukraine from opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. -Axios

Yovanovitch, who left her position in May, testified that she "assumed" Trump's lack of support for her stemmed from a "partnership" between Giuliani and Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko .

Last month, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan reportedly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Trump recalled Yovanovitch after Giuliani singled her out for having an anti-Trump agenda.

Read Yovanovitch's testomony below:

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/433409580/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=false&access_key=key-JW1O5jjytc6cN8EftFrK

McKinley:

McKinley testified to impeachment investigators that he resigned over the State Department's unwillingness to support foreign service officers caught up in the Ukraine scandal and the apparent "utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives." -Axios

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/433408331/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=false&access_key=key-TmEgYTw2yLgo0YEDXYq f

[Nov 14, 2019] A Timeline Of Joe Biden's Intervention Against The Prosecutor General Of Ukraine

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Ukraine cancels arrest warrant against Zlochevsky and closes the case against him. ..."
"... Ukraine's prosecutor closes the case against Burisma after the company agrees to pay UAH 180 millions of tax liabilities. ..."
"... Burisma announces a donation of between $100,000 and 249,999 to the Atlantic Council ..."
"... U.S. supported National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) closes its case against Zlochevsky ..."
"... Joe Biden brags publicly how he blackmailed Poroshenko into firing Shokin. ..."
"... When put this way it is difficult to not ..."
"... Biden son's case is more than demonstrated right now and, in itself, is not even that impressive: it's just bread & butter patronage corruption, which happens all the time in Western Democracies, at all countries, at all levels. What's really impressive here is the scale, because an entire country was destroyed overnight. I mean, if a man as powerful as a vice-POTUS is willing to destroy entire nations just to give his son a sinecure, then no country is safe. ..."
"... A discussion to be followed by prison terms. ..."
"... "Here is to hoping that both sides continue the battle until the whole treasonous house of cards collapses." ..."
"... I agree with previous posters that the real crime was the 2014 coup, and people like Hillary, Victoria Noland and Biden are the greater criminals. But let's not make this a Dem vs Rep thing. Bush and Cheney lied us into a war in Iraq to steal their oil. Both war parties supported Poroshenko and unending anti-Russian invective. It is from that mindset that they argue over whether conditioning military aid to Ukraine constitutes quid pro quo. ..."
"... We've gone through a lot of news sources to see if we couldn't figure out what is going on in Ukraine as to why the Democrats, led by Jewish congressional representatives Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who leads the impeachment committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) who is on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), Eliot Engel (D-New York) along with 21 other Jewish Democratic congressional representatives all calling for the impeachment of President Trump because of his phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine. ..."
"... As I wrote in April 2015, there are very strong indications that Foreign Affairs Representative for the EU Catherine Ashton, IMF boss Christine Lagarde and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland provided the united US/EU media front for the Ukraine coup, with Biden, Kerry and John McCain too publicity hungry to remain in the background like they were almost certainly supposed to. https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/double-double-toil-and-trouble-the-cauldron-of-kiev/ ..."
"... It is like a virtual country that wants to impose a distorted view of itself. Just imagine for a minute if California became independent and all of the sudden the official language is Spanish, all relations at schools, hospitals, state centers, banks, etc. etc. are to be held in Spanish only. Well, that's happening in that new "liberated" for democracy country, the priceless work of Nulands, Bidens et al, plus all the killing, that goes without saying. ..."
"... when a corrupt system lies to itself about its corruption there is some hope. ..."
"... We desperately need a bringer of light. Could it be Tulsi Gabbard? Perhaps, if she has the guts to turn away from Indian and Israeli nationalism and if the people choose to support her truth telling. It's a long shot, but she might be our last hope. ..."
www.theamericanconservative.com
Nov 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

This is a working thread intended to be updated when new details come to light.

The Washington Post provided a timeline of the 2015/206 intervention

by then-Vice President Joe Biden against the then-General Prosecutor of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin. Shokin was investigating Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of the gas company Burisma Holdings which paid Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden at least $50,000 per month for being on its board.

We used that timeline to show that Biden's intervention reached its height shortly after the prosecutor confiscated Zlochevsky houses.

A new report by John Solomon, based on released State Department emails, supports the suspicion that Joe Biden and others intervened against Shokin on behalf of Burisma and on request of his son:

Hunter Biden and his Ukrainian gas firm colleagues had multiple contacts with the Obama State Department during the 2016 election cycle, including one just a month before Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating his son's company for corruption, newly released memos show.

During that February 2016 contact, a U.S. representative for Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with Undersecretary of State Catherine A. Novelli to discuss ending the corruption allegations against the Ukrainian firm where Hunter Biden worked as a board member, according to memos obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Just three weeks before Burisma's overture to State, Ukrainian authorities raided the home of the oligarch who owned the gas firm and employed Hunter Biden, a signal the long-running corruption probe was escalating in the middle of the U.S. presidential election.

Solomon points to the same Interfax-Ukraine report about the prosecutor's action against Burisma owner Zlochevsky that we have used to make our case against Biden. Other media have so far ignored that report and several have falsely claimed that the case against Burisma was "dormant" when Biden intervened to get the Prosecutor General fired.

Below is an integrated timeline which combines the one WaPo provided with the new dates from Solomon's reporting and from additional sources. It is intended as a working reference that can be updated when new details come to light.

Posted by b on November 5, 2019 at 20:13 UTC | Permalink


karlof1 , Nov 5 2019 20:34 utc | 1

Considering the deep peril the legitimacy of the Outlaw US Empire's electoral system enjoys as Elizabeth Vos reports, why put forth the effort to prize then reveal the truth of Ukrainegate or Russiagate.

The DNC will forward whomever it chooses to face Trump in 2020 -- the court determined that whomever the people choose through the primary and convention exercises doesn't matter as DNC can legally negate that choice.

Now I don't mean to belittle the great amount of effort b's done on those issues, but IMO the message within Vos's essay is what must be addressed.

William Gruff , Nov 5 2019 20:45 utc | 2
When put this way it is difficult to not see the corruption. How is Trump asking Ukraine's new president to investigate this obvious corruption more of a crime than the corruption that Trump is asking to be investigated? That will take some mental gymnastics for the establishment's spinmeisters to explain.
worldblee , Nov 5 2019 20:53 utc | 3
#2 @William Gruff

Totally agree, but want to add one more important point: How is Trump's melding his legitimate and personal interests together in a phone call also more serious than the original war crime of overthrowing the legal Ukrainian government in an armed coup? Biden's corruption is obvious upon logical review of the known facts, but along with ignoring this, the US elites also completely ignore the serious crime of otherthrowing a government (because, such things are not discussed in polite company, one supposes).

Nathan Mulcahy , Nov 5 2019 21:11 utc | 4
William Gruff | Nov 5 2019 20:45 utc | 2. Says "How is Trump asking Ukraine's new president to investigate this obvious corruption more of a crime than the crime itself?"

No problem for the TDS afflicted sheeple. Not much different than the position of the sheeple that the exposure of DNC machinations is the crime rather than the crimes of DNC themselves.

Nathan Mulcahy , Nov 5 2019 21:17 utc | 5
Continued from 4

... or the exposure of war crimes by Assange, Manning and John Kiriaku are the crimes rather than the exposed crimes. We live in a surreal world

james , Nov 5 2019 21:18 utc | 6
thanks b... as far as crimes go, biden corrupt is small potatoes and ditto trumps.. the big enchilada is the dynamic leading up to the coup of feb 23 2014.... that is what needs to be examined and of course it won't be, as that would highlight just how corrupt the whole usa system is here... that said, i agree with @1 karolf1 and @ 2 william gruffs comments.. in the greater scheme of things though - meddling in a foreign country, whether it be an election or outright war and everything in between is what the usa has excelled at for as long as i can remember - 60's forward... they are one bullshite country with a bullshite msm completing the propaganda loop that is on display 24/7... i am not sure what it takes to break it.. your work certainly helps!
vk, Nov 5 2019 21:23 utc | 7
Biden son's case is more than demonstrated right now and, in itself, is not even that impressive: it's just bread & butter patronage corruption, which happens all the time in Western Democracies, at all countries, at all levels. What's really impressive here is the scale, because an entire country was destroyed overnight. I mean, if a man as powerful as a vice-POTUS is willing to destroy entire nations just to give his son a sinecure, then no country is safe.
William Gruff , Nov 5 2019 21:25 utc | 8
worldblee @3

My thinking on the matter is that the Washington establishment is panicking over this relatively small issue because, like pulling a loose end of yarn on a sweater, they fear the whole cover story on the Ukraine covert actions will unravel if the Biden corruption investigation continues.

bevin , Nov 5 2019 21:42 utc | 9

The obvious explanation, for the way that the democrats have used all their energies to ensure that the entirety of this sordid scandal is made known to the world is that the John Birch Society entrists, such as the Clintons, are about ready to withdraw from the Democrats altogether and so, like good arsonists, they have poured flammable, explosive material everywhere, confident that a spark will ignite it.
In any case arguing that 'black is white' and 'up is down' is easy compared to convincing the world that Biden, his son, Kerry and all are not totally corrupt.

Jen , Nov 5 2019 21:49 utc | 10

Dear B,

According to Wikipedia, Vitaly Yarema was the Ukrainian Prosecutor General from 19 June 2014 to 10 February 2015. He was nominated to the position by President Petro Poroshenko.

A list of Prosecutor General title-holders is here at this link if you need to refer to it. The odd thing though is that while Yarema was Prosecutor General, he was all very much for bring Mykola Zlochevsky to justice in the London court (depending on who you read , of course).

The U.K. asked Ukraine to investigate whether Burisma's founder had benefited from criminal dealings with Sergei Kurchenko, a shadowy billionaire who acted as the alleged frontman for the money of Viktor Yanukovych and his older son, Oleksander Yanukovych. Prosecutor General Vityaly Yarema ordered Zlochevsky brought to court, which put him on what Ukrainians call their "wanted list."

According to that Daily Beast source, Zlochevsky was on the "wanted list" in January 2015.

On reading that Guardian article which you cite, the thought occurred to me that someone other than Yarema must have written and signed that letter sent from the Prosecutor General's office to the UK court, which then ordered the case against Zlochevsky to be dropped. That in itself would be worth an article, as the timeline seems to be a bit confused: did Zlochevsky go on the "wanted list" before the letter was sent to the UK and the money released or did he go on the "wanted list" AFTER the UK court dropped the case against him and ordered the release of the $23 million?

bevin , Nov 5 2019 21:52 utc | 11
karlofi@1

I agree about the Voss article, but there is nothing new in it is there? The DNC 'defence' has been in the public domain ever since it was first annunciated. As to the absolute scandal of the disenfranchiement of 100,000 Democrats in Bernie's hometown, it was obvious on the night that it was this which allowed HC to steal the New York Primary.

The problem was that the Sanders campaign seems to have done nothing about it- it is hard to believe that, back in 2016, they were thinking of 2020 and running Sanders again.
Were not the White primaries, a DNC favourite at the time, banned on just these grounds that public money and resources could not be used to disenfranchise large numbers of people?

You are right that the story, which reminds us that it was the democrats who invented dirty tricks and the NY Democrats, who used to meet at Tammany Hall, were on the cutting edge of electoral corruption, is one that cannot be too widely discussed. A discussion to be followed by prison terms.

snake , Nov 5 2019 22:19 utc | 12
Once again this Ukraine story shows that its not the government, its not the structure of the government, its not even the functions of the government, but instead its is the actors that run the government and the actors that benefit from the government being run by the actors-in-charge that make a strong case that an independent non governmental auditor is needed (one paid from a % of the taxes collected but one that answers only to the HR courts). So the government would not pay the auditors any salaries since the auditors are the governed. In other words, any qualified voter would be an eligible Auditor. Such people (auditors) would have the right to audit the-conduct of any person claiming or benefiting from a government interest.

The independent HR court would hear all charges made by any HR auditor. All persons claiming or benefiting in some way from a government interest would be subject to the jurisdiction of the HR courts. The HR court would be empowered to hear a claim of wrongful behavior made against any government person (elected, appointed, bureaucrats, military and contractors) and if the court agrees substantive facts exist, then the court would assemble a case, impanel a jury (from the ranks of the governed) and instruct that jury to hear the charges and to develop the case, and to decide on the innocence or guilt of the person charged, and if guilty then to decide on the penalty.

Important here is that the HR rights courts would hear cases against individuals that involve corruption, fraud, theft, self dealing, negligence and treason.. the HR rights courts are not government, they are courts made up of judges and juries that are appointed by the governed people.

karlof1 , Nov 5 2019 22:47 utc | 16
bevin @11--

Thanks for your reply! Did you note the number of people who committed multiple felonies that have yet to be prosecuted years now after-the-fact? The lack of justice being applied to those who broke the law and violated the public trust is also a big issue itself that I mentioned on the week in review. The bottom line: No democracy + no justice = no legitimacy, which appears to be the main point. I just finished listening to this interview with Dr. Hudson where in the last few minutes he says the DNC in 2020 aims at electing Donald Trump, which seems to be the consensus arrived at by us barflies and with which I agree. What Hudson doesn't touch on, nor is he asked, is what can be done to overturn the Reagan Revolution which installed the current policy direction, although we can make a few assumptions based on his preferences for Sanders and Gabbard and the movement to deal with student debt relief.

My comment to the article wasn't optimistic and has yet to be posted. I don't really have anything of substance to add to what b's proving about Biden as I've already called him out for his Capital Crimes and the usual corruption. Maybe I ought to throw up my arms in disgust and adopt a Don't Worry; Be Happy/What, Me Worry? escapist attitude and ignore it all for my remaining days and party like it's 1999. Too bad Styx didn't offer a solution to having Too Much Time on My Hands aside for that being a calamity for my sanity.


Mike Sylwester, Nov 5 2019 22:49 utc | 18
I offer my interpretation of the timeline.

General-Prosecutor Victor Shokin was being pressured -- mostly by the USA -- to prosecute corruption more effectively.

In response to such pressure, Shokin initiated an investigation of Mykola Zlochevsky on October 17, 2015. It seems that Britain had established an investigation of Zlochevsky in 2014, had suspended that investigation on January 21, 2015, but then resumed that investigation in October 2015. Shokin joined that British investigation on October 17, 2015.

It seems further that the USA eventually took unknown actions to prevent that joint British-Ukrainian investigation of Zlochevsky.

On December 7-8, 2015, Vice President Biden indicated that a large US grant of aid money would be conditional. However, the conditions seem to be secret.

In this situation, before the end of December 2015, General-Prosecutor Shokin transfered the Zlochevsky investigation to the so-called National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), which essentially was a creature of the US Government.

The situation seemed to remain quiet through the month of January 2016. On February 2, however, Shokin seized some of Zlochevsky's property, even though the NABU was supposed to be managing the Zlochevsky case.

Sholin's seizure of Zlochevsky's property on February 2 sparked a US-Ukraine crisis. The US (i.e. the Bidens) felt it had been double-crossed by Shokin.

Although the property seizure occurred on February 2, it was not announced publicly until February 4. On that same day, Hunter Biden began following the Twitter account of US Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who managed Ukrainian affairs. (I wonder if Blinken communicated in code to Hunter Biden by means of Twitter.)

On February 12, Vice President Joe Biden talked with Ukrainian President Poroshenko by telephone and ordered the firing of Shokin. The firing essentially happened later that same day.

Joe Biden's story about waiting for an airplane due to take off in six hours might be false or might refer to an airplane taking off in some country other than Ukraine.

Evelyn , Nov 5 2019 22:51 utc | 19
bevin @11
A discussion to be followed by prison terms.

Several (numerous?) topics so qualify. Either they're scarcely hinted at, or the lies and misdirections prevail. Applause for anyone brave enough to name the first three forbidden items that come to mind.

Roger , Nov 5 2019 22:52 utc | 20
Not sure how this fits in, but makes an interesting read.

https://theduran.com/debunking-some-of-the-ukraine-scandal-myths-about-biden-and-election-interference/?fbclid=IwAR0zTbfwwMQgG8fck6FZYMD1wVZk5ebUIyt9AjzInXmhvANAoqQUrwvnqX0

evilempire , Nov 5 2019 22:54 utc | 21
Are vlochevsky, kolomoisky, and pinchbuk partners in crime? $1.8 billion in imf loans "disappeared" in koilomoiski's
privat bank. After that privat bank was nationalized and kolomoiski
fled to the us. Was this how vlochevsky's asets doubled? Coincidentally
the chinese firm investment in rosemont seneca was over $1 billion. Some
have speculated that the bidens could have become billionaires from this.
Was the chinese firm a pass through for the embezzled $1.8 billion imf loan?
ben , Nov 6 2019 0:05 utc | 23
Come on' folks, there are no Dems, there are no Repubs, there are no Independants ,only reps who take the $ offered by the wealthy. In the U$A today, the party of $ owns the system. Case closed. We get who they want. The rules have been changed to favor them. Vote if you want, it's good therapy,but, the system is rigged.

Sanders, Warren, and Tulsi are history. Want some reality? Read this; https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-enemy-within/

Likklemore , Nov 6 2019 0:08 utc | 24
@ psychohistorian 17

"Here is to hoping that both sides continue the battle until the whole treasonous house of cards collapses."

exactly. A huge mistake the Dems made; all to deflect from Ukraine funding. Recall reports claiming Hillary said 'IF he wins, we will all hang"

Oh dear. Zerohedge just posted the latest report from John Solomon Obama Admin Coached Anti-Trump Ukraine Ambassador On Biden Scandal

The latest report from journalist John Solomon reveals that the Obama State Department saw Joe and Hunter Biden's brewing Burisma scandal as a "Biden problem" during the 2016 US election, and specificialy coached now-recalled US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch on how to answer awkward questions about it. [.]

Memos newly released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on my behalf detail how State officials in June 2016 worked to prepare the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to handle a question about "Burisma and Hunter Biden."
In multiple drafts of a question-and-answer memo prepared for Yovanovitch's Senate confirmation hearing, the department's Ukraine experts urged the incoming ambassador to stick to a simple answer.

"Do you have any comment on Hunter Biden, the Vice President's son, serving on the board of Burisma, a major Ukrainian Gas Company?," the draft Q&A asked.
The recommended answer for Yovanovitch: "For questions on Hunter Biden's role in Burisma, I would refer you to Vice President Biden's office."[.]

Linda Amick , Nov 6 2019 0:28 utc | 26
The Media has created a story whose purpose it is to keep the public focused on some small details of goings-on in Ukraine mostly since 2014 and NOT the fact that this is a clear example of a US backed coup which destabilized the country enough to allow the US Corporate jackals in to strip off the booty. THAT is what all the participants in this scheme want to keep secret. Why? Because the American citizens benefit not one bit from any of this. Change will require something major to trigger it.
Citizen621 , Nov 6 2019 0:36 utc | 27
I agree with previous posters that the real crime was the 2014 coup, and people like Hillary, Victoria Noland and Biden are the greater criminals. But let's not make this a Dem vs Rep thing. Bush and Cheney lied us into a war in Iraq to steal their oil. Both war parties supported Poroshenko and unending anti-Russian invective. It is from that mindset that they argue over whether conditioning military aid to Ukraine constitutes quid pro quo.

In the meantime I wonder if Zelensky, who was elected over Porky with an end the war platform, is thinking "Why do these idiots think they can negotiate by offering me something I absolutely do not want?"

karlof1 , Nov 6 2019 0:57 utc | 31
I guess Caitlin Johnstone recently summarized it best:

"Remember when voters in 2016 were like 'can we please have even one major candidate who doesn't have something seriously wrong with them?', and the entire US political system was all 'LOL nope,' and then nobody burned that system to the ground and flushed it down the toilet? Good times."

Except IMO there were thousands of people willing and ready to burn down the system just as there are now--that's what ought to happen to things that are corrupt: they get exposed as illegitimate and get torched by the public is a fit of righteous outrage and exact justice collectively.

But that didn't happen within the Outlaw US Empire in 2016, nor did it happen when Obama backstabbed millions, broke the law he was supposed to enforce and gave billions to fraudulent banksters. Most all political riots--not police riots--during my life were against racism and its associated injustices long ongoing. Within the Outlaw US Empire historically, corruption in politics is as traditional as apple pie, meaning the people are mostly inured to its occurrence. As with customary bribery in some nations, political corruption is seen as a normal happening usually of little consequence until something morally repulsive occurs to raise awareness again. The problem of course is that corruption is always morally repulsive. Perhaps such leniency says more about a nation's public than anything else--tons of corruption's tolerated just as the killing of millions of innocents overseas is tolerated/abided/excused. Guess it's time for some Victory Gin as there's not much more to say.

juliania , Nov 6 2019 1:20 utc | 32
I think you've left out the Vietnam era, karlof1 - there were certainly riots against that war plus there was l968 in Chicago Democratic Convention. I'd call both of those political. And I would call the Occupy movement at least anti-political in its focus on the banksters. Plus protests against the invasion of Iraq. Those two latter 'thrusts' by the citizenry were indeed handled oppressively and not covered adequately or at all in the case of protests against the invasion and/or other political events. Just because they weren't covered doesn't mean they didn't happen or weren't part of the general malaise. Trump got elected on that premise. And just because you don't see it on TV doesn't mean the general public isn't totally unhappy with the way things are.

Do you see happy faces? I don't.

james , Nov 6 2019 2:23 utc | 37
@ 34 jr.. you asked, lol..

Since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the international energy group Burisma has been providing systematic and comprehensive assistance to the defenders of the Fatherland. Among the military, whom the Burisma Group has supported since 2014, is the Poltava Special Purpose Police Battalion, which has repeatedly served in the war zone in the Donbass. from one of their press releases - being the good nazis biden requested of them..

Jackrabbit, Nov 6 2019 2:48 utc | 38
james 37

AFAIK, Burisma supported regaining Donbas because that's where the fracking opportunity is.

Who else was an ardent supporter of regaining the Donbas? Kolomoyskyi, who is also militantly pro-Israel, and is rumored to be the real owner (or part owner?) of Burisma.

Biden is also a Zionist and what his son made is peanuts compared to what Biden has/could make if he plays along. Obama is said to have made $70 million after leaving the Presidency and has just bought a $15 million home. And where else is a fracking opportunity sought by a corrupt company that is connected to corrupt politicians? Golan Heights and Genie Energy..

NOBTS , Nov 6 2019 3:16 utc | 39
karlof1@16

I liked Dr. Hudson's remarks concerning that DNC's quest for a candidate most sure to lose to Trump. This of course accounts for their hysterical fear of Tulsi Gabbard, as she is the only one who would be certain to beat him! The DNC will probably be willing, this time around, to let Bernie sheepdog on into the general election if that's what it takes to stop Tulsi. It's very sad to see the would be left media falling in line with the Jacobin/Intercept/Omidyar psyops regime. The one slim hope is that actual voters not controlled by any of the usual gatekeepers might overwhelm the DNC rigging machine in early primaries. I'm encouraged whenever I'm out on the real street I frequently overhear people mentioning her name and passersby chime in. Don't hear a thing about any of the mediocrities supported by the DNC and the press.

Robert Snefjella , Nov 6 2019 4:20 utc | 40
Posted by: ben | Nov 6 2019 0:05 utc | 23

From the Chris Hedges article you linked to: "The deep state committed the greatest strategic blunder in American history when it invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq."

The sentence quoted is an example of the murky self-assured but dubious 'wordscape' that we are so inundated by. This is not to imply that the author doesn't make many sensible points in this particular article, or to dismiss his work more generally. In my opinion he does lots of good work.

Note the use of the cryptic abstraction "deep state" to describe the 'perpetrator' of the 'invasions and occupations'.

Note the use of the abstract term "greatest" to describe the "strategic blunder". One can declare without deserving even a raised eyebrow 'that was the greatest day of my life!' or that was greatest number of apples I've ever eaten at one sitting, but never again!" But how does one calibrate those two wars of aggression as the "greatest" whatever?

Note that these particlular wars of aggression, the supreme crime, and both not coincidentally based on lies upon lies, have been verbally downgraded to "invasions". As in, say, the Normandy invasion, or an invasion of grasshoppers? And all the horrors that followed the wars of aggression are condensed by the summary word "occupation". Many of us have occupations.

And for who were these "strategic blunders?" From the perspective of the MIC, and PNAC, and 'strategic positioning' re Earthly heroin flows, say, perhaps these were "strategic blessings". Or even diabolically cunning?

The point I'm making here is that even in the 'good articles', even in 'noble efforts' its pretty hard not to slip into, what? Let's call it, Empire Speak. Or is that Swamp Speak?

psychohistorian

, Nov 6 2019 4:41 utc | 41

@ Robert Snefjella with the analysis of the wording of the Chris Hedges article that ben linked to

Nice work but I want to add that the real reason for going after Iraq and Afghanistan was because they were not yet owned and subservient to the Western private banking cult.

Like Libya before Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton served her masters.

Sorghum , Nov 6 2019 4:55 utc | 42

@ 42 Rboert
Personally, I don't care to dissect Hedges word choices. Those invasion were the greatest mistake, because they broke the US public image, its military, and its economy. No, not directly, but those overextensions were the watershed moments. While it has been quite lucrative for certain parties since then, it has been a huge quagmire and literal sand in the military's gears. It also destroyed the invincible image of the US military. Trillions of dollars, thousands of troops, millions of civilians and yet we are all negotiating to stay in Afghanistan against troops with tire scandals, no air force, and very limited mechanization.

@ 43 psycho I agree that the banking, and gold in particular, were reason for destroying the countries. Along with human trafficking, Sumerian artifacts, takfiri recruitment, etc.

uncle tungsten , Nov 6 2019 5:13 utc | 43
sorghum #35
Exactly, JR. The very limited amount of reporting on that quickly led to Jewish oligarchs and that has been studiously ignored since. Since then it has been an endless shit show of Biden's corruption and how the US foreign policy is handled with everyone trying to thinly slice the corruption of DC so as to only smear the other side.

There are some sites that think about these things.

We've gone through a lot of news sources to see if we couldn't figure out what is going on in Ukraine as to why the Democrats, led by Jewish congressional representatives Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who leads the impeachment committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) who is on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), Eliot Engel (D-New York) along with 21 other Jewish Democratic congressional representatives all calling for the impeachment of President Trump because of his phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine.

This site seems devoted to looking for links of this nature, but is often sketchy IMO. Where is O when you need an obsessive analysis.

uncle tungsten , Nov 6 2019 5:20 utc | 44

So if the Biden's and Rosemont Seneca were in Ukraine stealing IMF funds, what were they stealing in China?

Do they have no shame? Or is that Whitey Bulger's clan ethics at play. Is all currency ok as long as its stolen? How much bitcoin can they steal and convert or is that story yet to be told?

Jen , Nov 6 2019 5:28 utc | 45
Jack Rabbit @ 34, 38:

Did you say Ihor Kolomoisky is rumoured to be owner or part-owner of Burisma Holdings? Wonder no more ... Yves Smith / Naked Capitalism reposted an old 2014 article recently on Ihor Kolomoisky and his ownership of Burisma Holdings through his Privat Group.

That is the oldest trick in the book: owning a company as a subsidiary of another company that you own. The wonder is that Kolomoisky didn't insert another layer of another subsidiary between Privat Group and Burisma Holdings to cover his tracks even more.

Jen , Nov 6 2019 5:33 utc | 46
Oh my goodness ... here's a juicy tidbit from January 2017

to be filed away for future reference:

The largest private gas producer in Ukraine is establishing relations with the new US administration.

The Atlantic Council and the Burisma Group, Ukraine's largest independent gas producer, have signed a partnership agreement. The Atlantic Council, with the support of Burisma, will develop transatlantic relations programs with a focus on energy security in Europe and the world, the company said in an official press release.

For the Burisma Group, this is a new stage in the development of cooperation between the United States and European countries together with such an influential world institution as the Atlantic Council.

Relations with Ukraine and future programs with the Burisma Group will be overseen by an authoritative diplomat, US Ambassador to Ukraine (2003-2006) and Director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center (structure under the Atlantic Council) John Herbst.

"Support and cooperation with Burisma will allow us to expand our program development activities in Ukraine and create new platforms for discussing important and relevant issues," said John Herbst.

It is symbolic that the collaboration between the Atlantic Council and the Burisma Group coincided with the launch of the new US Presidential Administration Donald Trump. According to experts, this will allow for more efficient implementation of new joint projects in the energy sector and gain support from one of the most respected and influential organizations in the United States. The conclusion of an agreement between Burisma and the Atlantic Council and the full implementation of joint projects became possible after all charges against Burisma Group and its owner Nikolai Zlochevsky were dropped.

According to Mykola Zlochevsky, president of the Burisma Group, the Atlantic Council plays a key role in Ukraine in building transatlantic relations, democracy and energy security. "Ambassador Herbst has been and continues to be the lawyer of Ukraine, and Burisma is pleased to be able to support the work of the ambassador and the Atlantic Council," said Nikolai Zlochevsky.

The Atlantic Council (US Atlantic Council) is the largest American non-governmental analytical center for international relations of the Atlantic community, headquartered in Washington. It is one of the most influential non-governmental organizations in the United States, operates ten regional centers and functional programs that deal with issues of international security and global economic development.

The Atlantic Council and Burisma Holdings working together!

Stephen McIntyre , Nov 6 2019 5:43 utc | 47
A. Kravetz was prosecutor who sent letter in early Dec 2014 that was used in UK.
Bryan Hemming, Nov 6 2019 5:48 utc | 48
As I wrote in April 2015, there are very strong indications that Foreign Affairs Representative for the EU Catherine Ashton, IMF boss Christine Lagarde and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland provided the united US/EU media front for the Ukraine coup, with Biden, Kerry and John McCain too publicity hungry to remain in the background like they were almost certainly supposed to. https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/double-double-toil-and-trouble-the-cauldron-of-kiev/
uncle tungsten , Nov 6 2019 6:24 utc | 49
Jen #47

Thank you for that link. Rolling up the naked capitalism story is this rather more profound analysis from the Saker. It is also linked to in the abel danger site I referenced earlier.

Paco , Nov 6 2019 8:21 utc | 51
Something that really shocks me about Ukraine is like the video about the kitsch palace of the Zlochevsky guy, the neighbors on the other side of the river complain about not being able to swim across anymore, as they used to do, but the whole interview is in Russian¡¡¡¡, I mean, it is supossed to be Kiev, not the east and everybody speaks in a language that does not have official status anymore.

It is like a virtual country that wants to impose a distorted view of itself. Just imagine for a minute if California became independent and all of the sudden the official language is Spanish, all relations at schools, hospitals, state centers, banks, etc. etc. are to be held in Spanish only. Well, that's happening in that new "liberated" for democracy country, the priceless work of Nulands, Bidens et al, plus all the killing, that goes without saying.

vk, Nov 6 2019 11:46 utc | 54
Dems think Bernie better on MOST policy issues, but will vote for Biden in hopes he dethrones Trump – poll

The same case happens in the UK (with Corbyn). They want the policies, but they don't want "socialism".

This is the great contradiction of the USA and other First World countries: they know they need to reform, but they don't want to give up the good things that capitalist imperialism gave them. Therefore, they want the best of both worlds.

Paul , Nov 6 2019 12:22 utc | 55
Great, true comment, vk. The people of America are willing participants in the American Dream, aka The American Death Cult. Let's give the American People full credit for the horror show they've inflicted on the world. They willfully chose this and continue to choose this and that is why they embrace horrific figures like Trump, Hillary, Biden, etc..

But the American People do have a better angel. They also want community. They want to see themselves as individually and collectively good. They want to believe that they are on the light side of the Force, not the dark side of the Force, so to speak. How it plays out is that they want the elites to tell them lies, sweet little lies...

For me the turning point of America, at least of the America that I've seen, was the Iraq War. The Libya War can be seen as a second stage of that war; same with the Syria War. It's not that such acts of global mayhem have been worse than what America has done before. It's that the American System has embraced the evil more knowingly than ever before, it seems to me. No one can credibly claim that they didn't see the US knowingly lie its way into war vs. Iraq. No one can credibly call that a just war.

when a corrupt system lies to itself about its corruption there is some hope. When it knows it is corrupt and embraces this anyway then there is no hope. The Ukraine controversey we are seeing play its way out now typifies and illustrates this state of affairs. What Trump did was brutal and corrupt, yet his fans continue to defend him and even to defend this. What Biden did was far far more brutal and corrupt, yet the Dems continue to defend him and what he did. Biden helped plunge a country into chaos and then feasted on the corpse. The Ukraine controversey is a journey into the heart of our darkness.

We desperately need a bringer of light. Could it be Tulsi Gabbard? Perhaps, if she has the guts to turn away from Indian and Israeli nationalism and if the people choose to support her truth telling. It's a long shot, but she might be our last hope.

As for Biden? Well I suppose he's a placeholder for Hillary Clinton.

vk, Nov 6 2019 13:22 utc | 56
We've already discussed this on the topic about American extreme pragmatism:

The US Military Is a Socialist Organization: Affordable housing and food, tuition assistance, and universal health care are hallmarks of a social welfare system -- and life in the armed forces.

The USA is a capitalist society. However, as Marx demonstrated in his opus, the development of capitalism tends to socialism. Socialism cannot be born out of manorialism or antiquity, but only from capitalism.

The American elite knows this, so they came up with a very interesting strategy: they keep the rest of the world down, in a permanent state of destruction and rebuild (groundhog day mode); and, at home, they try to preserve a minimum of industrial dynamism and life quality for their masses with "domesticated and restricted socialism". FDR did it during 1938-1944 and it worked; after the end of Bretton Woods and the establishment of the Dollar Standard, they adopted restricted socialism in a specific sector -- the Military -- in order to maintain its industrial and innovation capacity going in face of its inexorable tendency of "financialization".

Although the Pentagon by itself is socialist, the USA remains capitalist because of the way the Pentagon relates to the rest of the nation: it takes the infinite pool of taxpayer money (so the profit motivation is removed) but they give it back to private contractors, who are capitalist and thus have the profit motivation. Taxpayer money is then converted into money-capital through a socialist institution.

However, this comes at a price for the capitalists: as profits go down over time (as Marx also scientifically demonstrated), the share of the Pentagon on the overall American economy rises, thus rising the "socialist piece of the pie". Heterodox estimates put the Pentagon social architecture at 10% of the American economy; most still put it at around 5%, and some of then put it at an insignificant 3%. If think that, if you take out the ficitious part of the capitalist economy (i.e. Wall St.), the figures are much closer to the 10%, probably even more.

imo , Nov 6 2019 13:39 utc | 57
@56 -- "... it [Pentagon] takes the infinite pool of taxpayer money (so the profit motivation is removed) but they give it back to private contractors, who are capitalist and thus have the profit motivation. Taxpayer money is then converted into money-capital through a socialist institution."

State-base 'capitalism' just like China!

The only additional point is that a sizable % of the socialist $$$'s (more Fed than taxpayer these days) also flow from said funds into lobbying and then into the pockets of the politician du jour. The corrupt Clinton's were not the exception -- rather the rule. Was this systemic corruption not referred to previously as the military-industrial-congressional complex?

vk, Nov 6 2019 13:59 utc | 58
@ Posted by: imo | Nov 6 2019 13:39 utc | 58

No, it would be China if the contractors themselves were owned by the Government.

China is pretty much the polar opposite of the USA: it has a socialist system with some restricted pockets of capitalism. Capitalism there is restricted to the special economic zones, and private enterprise is restricted to non-strategic sectors.

That's why China's tax rates are actually lowering, not rising.

Goldhoarder , Nov 6 2019 14:01 utc | 59
@2 If you recall the media explained that Joe Biden's corruption is really Joe Biden fighting corruption. They create their own reality. We are just supposed to swallow it. The CFR video doesn't matter. Just like Victoria Nuland's call. Snowden's revelations, or the volumes of wikileaks documents proving the enormity of US self described "elite" corruption
karlof1 , Nov 6 2019 17:06 utc | 63
juliania @32--

I'd written a long detailed reply that I was about to post when my computer locked-up and I lost my entire effort, and that ended my contributions yesterday. Of the many observations I made, this IMO was the most important--When MLK was murdered, blacks nationwide rioted; but when JFK and RFK were murdered, nothing of the sort occurred. I'll also reinforce the notion of people rioting as the vast majority of what's deemed a riot by Media was in fact a Police Riot as they run amok amidst peaceful protesters just as they would do against striking workers, of which there's a long bloody history of massacres.

[Nov 14, 2019] Opinion Attack of the Wall Street Snowflakes by Paul Krugman

Notable quotes:
"... Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral." ..."
"... Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with " Obama rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012. ..."
Nov 14, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

No, the really intense backlash against Warren and progressive Democrats in general is coming from Wall Street . And while that opposition partly reflects self-interest, Wall Street's Warren hatred has a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal political calculation.

What's behind that virulence?

First, let's talk about the rational reasons Wall Street is worried about Warren. She is, of course, calling for major tax increases on the very wealthy, those with wealth exceeding $50 million, and the financial industry is strongly represented in that elite club. And since raising taxes on the wealthy is highly popular , it's an idea a progressive president might actually be able to turn into real policy.

Warren is also a big believer in stricter financial regulation; the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was highly effective until the Trump administration set about gutting it, was her brainchild.

So if you are a Wall Street billionaire, rational self-interest might well induce you to oppose Warren. Neoliberal_rationality/ does not, however, explain why a money manager like Leon Cooperman -- who just two years ago settled a suit over insider trading for $5 million, although without admitting wrongdoing -- would circulate an embarrassing, self-pitying open letter denouncing Warren for her failure to appreciate all the wonderful things billionaires like him do for society.

Nor does it explain why Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral."

The real tell here, I think, is that much of the Wall Street vitriol now being directed at Warren was previously directed at, of all people, President Barack Obama.

Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with " Obama rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012.

I wonder, by the way, if this history helps explain an odd aspect of fund-raising in the current primary campaign. It's not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn't Joe Biden but Pete Buttigieg , who's running a fairly distant fourth in the polls. Is Biden suffering from the lingering effects of that old-time Obama rage?

In any case, the point is that Wall Street billionaires, even more than billionaires in general, seem to be snowflakes, emotionally unable to handle criticism.

I'm not sure why that should be the case, but it may be that in their hearts they suspect that the critics have a point.

What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons of yore, today's Wall Street tycoons don't build anything tangible. They don't even direct money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future. The vast expansion of credit in America after around 1980 basically involved a surge in consumer debt rather than new money for business investment.

Moreover, there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually acts as a drag on the economy -- and America is well past that point .

Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly. So it's not surprising that people who couldn't handle Obama's mild, polite criticism are completely losing it over Warren.

What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects. Such claims don't reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent they're coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here's our email: [email protected] .

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram .

[Nov 14, 2019] America Is Wide Open for Foreign Influence by Stephen M. Walt

Notable quotes:
"... Nick Danforth , Daphne McCurdy ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | foreignpolicy.com
If you're an outsider with a political agenda, there's no better country to target than the United States. Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia, the idea of territorial sovereignty has been central to how most of us think about international politics and foreign policy. Although a huge amount of activity occurs across state borders, one of the chief tasks of any government is to defend the nation's territory and make sure -- to the extent it can -- that outsiders are not in position to interfere in harmful ways. But for all the effort and expense devoted to keeping harmful influences out, sometimes countries wind up locking and bolting the windows while leaving the front door wide open.

Take the mighty United States, for example. It has a vast Department of Homeland Security, whose job is to defend its borders from international terrorism, illegal migration, drug smuggling, customs violations, and other dangers. The United States has intelligence agencies monitoring dangerous developments all over the world to keep them from harming Americans at home. It has spent trillions of dollars on a sophisticated nuclear arsenal designed to deter a hostile country from attacking the U.S. homeland directly, and it's spent additional hundreds of billions of dollars pursuing the holy grail of missile defense. Americans now worry about cyberthreats of various kinds, including the possibility that foreign powers like Russia might be interfering in U.S. elections or sowing division and false information via social media. And then there's President Donald Trump's obsession with that southern wall, which he declares is necessary to keep the Republican base riled up -- oops, sorry, I meant to say "is necessary to protect us from impoverished refugees or other undesirables."

Given all the time, effort, and money the United States devotes to defending the realm against outside intrusions, it is ironic that the United States may also be the most permeable political system in modern history. More than any great power's that I can think of, America's political system is wide open to foreign interference in a variety of legitimate and illegitimate ways. I'm not talking about foreign bots infecting the national mind via social media -- though that is a worrisome possibility. I'm talking about foreign governments or other interests that use a variety of familiar avenues to shape U.S. perceptions and persuade the U.S. government to do things that these outsiders want it to do, even when it might not be in America's broader interest.

Suppose you were a foreign government, or perhaps an opposition movement challenging a foreign regime. Suppose further that you wanted to get America on your side, or maybe you just wanted to make sure that the United States didn't use its considerable power against you. What avenues of influence are available to achieve your goal?

Obviously, you can use traditional diplomatic channels. You can tell your official representatives (ministers, ambassadors, consular officers, envoys, etc.) to meet with the relevant U.S. counterparts and plead your case. While they're at it, your official representatives could also shmooz with other members of the executive branch and try to win them over too. There's nothing remotely dodgy here; it's just the usual workings of the normal diplomatic machinery. And sometimes that's all you'll need, especially when your interests and America's interests really do coincide.

But you don't have to stop there. For example, you could also take your case up to Capitol Hill. There are 435 representatives and 100 senators, and that's an awful lot of potential points of access. Most of them don't care a fig about foreign policy (and know even less), but some of them do care and a few of them have real clout. If you can win over a respected and well-placed representative or senator -- or even just persuade one of their top aides -- there's a good chance a lot of the other lawmakers will follow their lead. Back in the 1950s, for example, Sen. William Knowland (R-Calif.) was often derided as the "Senator from Formosa" because of his consistent opposition to communist China and ardent support for Taiwan. More recently, Beltway denizen Randy Scheunemann was both a paid lobbyist for the government of Georgia and a top foreign-policy aide to the late Republican Sen. John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign, which may help explain why the latter was such an ardent defender of Georgia during its 2008 war with Russia.

On top of that, there are plenty of politicians outside Congress who might be enlisted to your cause as well. Over the past decade or more, for example, Democrats including former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean and Republicans such as former New York mayor (and Trump apologist) Rudy Giuliani or current National Security Advisor John Bolton have spoken at rallies sponsored by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) an Iranian exile group that was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department from 1997 to 2012. The MEK is despised within Iran for its past collaboration with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but that didn't prevent it from recruiting a wide array of prominent Americans to its side, many of whom received lucrative speakers' fees. See how easy this is?

But wait, there's more! Foreign governments, corporations, and opposition movements can also hire public relations firms and professional lobbyists to clean up their public image, lobby politicians directly, and try to get influential Americans to see them as valuable partners. In his amusing but disturbing book Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, the journalist Ken Silverstein showed how eager D.C. PR firms were to serve as the paid agents of a ruthless Central Asian dictator, along with the various ways that savvy spin doctors can scrub a despot's reputation and get them access to influential people in Washington. The sad news is that Silverstein's saga is far from atypical.

And don't forget the rest of the Blob. In recent years, for example, we've learned that several prominent D.C. think tanks took millions of dollars from foreign governments eager to enhance their visibility, presence, and influence in Washington. The receiving organizations predictably denied that the money had the slightest influence on what they did, said, wrote, or believed, but former employees tell a different story . And yes, I know: Universities are not immune to temptation either.

The influence of self-interested foreigners increases even more when they can partner with domestic groups that share their objectives, and that will use their testimony to sell whatever course of action they are trying to promote. The most notorious recent example of this phenomenon was the infamous Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, who joined forces with American neoconservatives to help sell the Iraq War in 2003. Foreign voices like Chalabi's often exercise disproportionate influence because they are (falsely) perceived as objective experts with extensive local knowledge, making uninformed, gullible, or mendacious Americans more likely to heed their advice. It is usually a good idea to listen to what foreign witnesses have to say about conditions far away provided that one never forgets that they may be telling Americans what they think they want to hear or feeding Americans false information designed to advance their interests at America's expense.

Notice I haven't said a word about espionage, bribery, or more ordinary forms of corruption, though each can be another way for foreign powers to advance their aims inside America's borders. After all, when the U.S. president continues to defy the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and when his son-in-law and White House advisor is still financially connected to a real estate firm that recently got bailed out by a Qatari-backed investment company, one may legitimately wonder whether key foreign-policy decisions are being influenced by the personal financial interests of the president or his entourage. Trademarks in China, anyone ?

The debacle over Syria shows that neither party understands the country's real goals in the Middle East -- or what it would take to achieve them. Argument | Nick Danforth , Daphne McCurdy

Last but by no means least, foreign governments (or in some cases opposition groups) can also benefit from support by Americans with a strong attachment to the countries in question. Ethnic lobbying by Greek Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, Indian Americans, Jewish Americans, and other ethnic groups has been part of the U.S. political scene for more than a century, and foreign governments understand that such groups can be a valuable asset. As an official Indian government commission noted back in 2002, Indian Americans "have effectively mobilised on issues ranging from the nuclear test in 1999 to Kargil and lobbied effectively on other issues of concern to the Indian community. The Indian community in the United States constitutes an invaluable asset in strengthening India's relationship with the world's only superpower."

To be clear: Americans holding strong attachments to a foreign country are free to express their views and try to influence what the government does, regardless of whether their particular attachment is based on ethnicity, ideology, family connections, or personal experience (such as tourism, a Peace Corps stint, or whatever). That's how our system of interest group politics works. Nonetheless, India and other countries have also recognized that Americans with powerful connections are a potent source of political influence, and it would be naive to expect them not to take advantage of it.

This issue is not one-sided, of course. The permeability of the U.S. political system allows more sources of information to penetrate U.S. politics and undoubtedly contributes to a broader understanding of complicated international problems in some cases. U.S. foreign policy would be even less effective if Americans tried to wall the country off -- sorry, Donald! -- or if they foolishly tried to bar politicians from talking to people from other parts of the world. So my warnings are not a recommendation for a head-in-the-sand approach to the outside world.

Rather, it is an argument for a more hardheaded, cynical, and realistic approach to the influence that foreigners invariably seek to exercise over U.S. foreign policy. As long as the U.S. political system is so permeable, it behooves Americans to treat foreign efforts to shape their thinking with due discretion. It also requires preserving a sophisticated and independent analytic capacity of their own, so that they can distinguish when they are gaining useful information and when they are being conned. Americans should always be willing to exchange ideas with others -- including their adversaries, by the way -- but let's try not to be foolish about it. Foreign policy is not a philanthropic activity, and even close allies think first and foremost about self-interest, which sometimes means trying to bamboozle the United States into doing what they want, even at some cost to Americans. If the United States is spending all this money securing the borders, leaving the national mind unlocked and ripe for manipulation is a tad short-sighted.

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

[Nov 13, 2019] Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite these people at best only having advisory roles. The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits and are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

Notable quotes:
"... So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it). ..."
"... Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"). ..."
Nov 13, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

michael , November 13, 2019 at 10:50

"to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they set U.S. foreign policy and resent the president for intruding upon them. It is increasingly evident that Trump's true offense is proposing to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or less untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation)."

This may be even worse than Lawrence depicts. It is clear that Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite constitutionally these people at best only having advisory roles to the President (and constitutionally the President can ask for their opinions in writing; CYA even back then!) The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup (national security from Vindman's perspective) are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits with no interference from Trump. And the Democrats/ Ukraine-Americans "running the show" are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

I have started Oliver Bullough's "Money Land" and was aghast at the luxury items Yanukovich had stolen through corruption and accumulated at his many properties. Surely with so much money going to corrupt Yanukovich and his henchmen, the coup would have been a blessing for the Ukrainian people! Right? I was shocked to find that after the overthrow of Yanukovich in 2014, the median per capita household income in Ukraine, which had risen steadily from $2032 in 2010 to $2601 in 2013, had dropped over 50% to $1110 to $1135 in 2015 and 2016, and has only risen to $1694 in 2018 (ceicdata.com).

So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it).

Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman").

[Nov 13, 2019] Neocon vipers nest in the State Department wants to destory Trump

Our wonderful "pro-democracy" diplomats and Ukrainian far right. An interesting alliance...
Nov 13, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The ambassadors' testimony:

"Meet the witnesses: Diplomats start off impeachment hearings" [Associated Press]. "Diplomats and career government officials, they're little known outside professional circles, but they're about to become household names testifying in the House impeachment inquiry . The witnesses will tell House investigators -- and Americans tuning into the live public hearings -- what they know about President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine First up will be William Taylor, the charge d'affaires in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau, both testifying on Wednesday." • You can read the full article for the bios. First, William Taylor:

"Op-Ed in Novoye Vremya by CDA Taylor: Ukraine's Committed Partner" [ U.S. Embassy in Ukraine ]. From November 10, 2019, the penultimate paragraph. I've helpfully underlined the dogwhistles:

But as everyone who promotes democracy knows, strengthening and protecting democratic values is a constant process, requiring persistence and steady work by both officials and ordinary citizens. As in all democracies, including the United States, work remains in Ukraine, especially to strengthen rule of law and to hold accountable those who try to subvert Ukraine's structures to serve their personal aims, rather than the nation's interests .

It's kind of Taylor to let the Ukrainians know who's really in charge of foreign policy, isn't it? Now, Kent–

"George Kent Opening Statement At Impeachment Hearing: Concerned About "Politically-Motivated Investigations" [ RealClearPolitics ]. From the full text as prepare for delivery:

Ukraine's popular Revolution of Dignity in 2014 forced a corrupt pro-Russian leadership to flee to Moscow.

By analogy, the American colonies may not have prevailed against British imperial might without help from transatlantic friends after 1776. In an echo of Lafayette's organized assistance to General George Washington's army and Admiral John Paul Jones' navy , Congress has generously appropriated over $1.5 billion over the past five years in desperately needed train and equip security assistance to Ukraine.

Similar to von Steuben training colonials at Valley Forge, U.S. and NATO allied trainers develop the skills of Ukrainian units at Yavoriv near the Polish border, and elsewhere.

Are these people out of their minds? See, e.g., "America's Collusion With Neo-Nazis" [ The Nation ]:

Not even many Americans who follow international news know the following, for example:

That the snipers who killed scores of protestors and policemen on Kiev's Maidan Square in February 2014, thereby triggering a "democratic revolution" that overthrew the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and brought to power a virulent anti-Russian, pro-American regime -- it was neither democratic nor a revolution, but a violent coup unfolding in the streets with high-level support -- were sent not by Yanukovych, as is still widely reported, but instead almost certainly by the neofascist organization Right Sector and its co-conspirators.

§ That the pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa shortly later in 2014 reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during World War II has been all but deleted from the American mainstream narrative even though it remains a painful and revelatory experience for many Ukrainians.

(To be fair, the Ukrainian neo-Nazis we supported weren't slaveholders, unlike to many of our own Founders. So there's that.)

Off The Street , November 13, 2019 at 2:26 pm

The Hearings should be in a room that lets in sunlight, that universal disinfectant. Make the Front Row Kid Careerists sit by the windows.

Thus far, my main reaction is that the State Department needs to be shaken up to get rid of those entrenched FRK'ing Careerists and to bring in some accountability. Inspector General positions and functions should not be optional at the whim of some SoS or other.

Not change for its own sake, just bringing things out of the shadows. In keeping with my light theme, a Sunset Provision would help, too. That is one step toward eliminating the hearsay, innuendo and nonsense suppression of Due Process as that is anti-Constitutional. The people, including back-row, dropouts and all, deserve better from their government.

[Nov 13, 2019] Finally an Unvarnished History of the Iraq Invasion

Nov 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians; the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam featured a military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous."

The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers, General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had -- but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."

But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."

Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on Philadelphia.

When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."

Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied), performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal 1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as "uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale, particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light infantry in the history of the world.

But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin, while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States. For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and choose reality.

This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman General Omar Bradley.

These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson "stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.

Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories. Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in later accounts.

These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories, burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling, rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the war.

The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab, leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.

In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population, substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.

The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should have never been in Vietnam in the first place.

"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote . "Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did. Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars themselves."

Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will to prevail, the war should have never been fought.

The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq. The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American Conservative , online, back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train and equip the Iraqi armed forces.

But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like) judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress, the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.

Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.

Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can, and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on the war.

At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that the war, once ended, simply continued.

The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC study:

"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning." Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."

In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the Emmitsburg Road.

As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything. It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only Lee had known that Wentz was there.

He didn't.

For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women, for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later, generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning, observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was your job to anticipate."

Mark Perry is a contributing editor at The American Conservative and the author of The Pentagon's Wars. He tweets @markperrydc .


Taras77 3 days ago

Good article!

It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor performance overall.

The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do not and could not work to specs and plans.

But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the "political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.

leisureguy Taras77 2 days ago
we all had to "support the troops" - if you held people accountable, you were an unpatriotic soldier non-supporter
E.J. Smith leisureguy a day ago
And still have to. Just ask Danny Sjursen.
EliteCommInc. Taras77 2 days ago
Excuse me.

no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military dissenters.

IanDakar EliteCommInc. a day ago
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.

The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that wants it to end.

Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.

kirthigdon 2 days ago
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4 years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most wars, there are no good guys.

Kirt Higdon

leisureguy kirthigdon 2 days ago
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?

US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.

As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.

They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched towards dug in Confederates.

This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.

The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open, well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.

Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.

kirthigdon leisureguy 2 days ago
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard, the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes tactical proficiency, not just bravery.

Kirt Higdon

EliteCommInc. kirthigdon 2 days ago
It was poor leadership decisions that prolonged the war, not bad soldiering.
E.J. Smith EliteCommInc. a day ago
Gen. McLellan at Antietam immediately comes to mind.
Kent 2 days ago
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other countries.

In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of Congress.

It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.

Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.

Kawi 2 days ago
The US Army and the Battle for Baghdad can be downloaded for free from the RAND website.

Thank you to the author of this well-written essay for brining this study to our attention.

leisureguy 2 days ago
Wow!

I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.

Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.

further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action without considering all knowable facts.

Alan Vanneman 2 days ago
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"

The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed. There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one of the 10 best ever.

D. B. Cooper Alan Vanneman 2 days ago
207 comments, 364 votes = troll
kirthigdon Alan Vanneman 2 days ago
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world, including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved peacefully.

Kirt Higdon

Sid Finster Alan Vanneman a day ago
Can you provide a link? This sounds interesting.

And that is an honest question, BTW.

EliteCommInc. 2 days ago
I think we should start out right in keeping with your agenda.

"of a war against slavery that . . ."

It was not a war against slavery, and to think so is part of a very deep misread of events. It freed slaves, it was the cause for the war ---

But the North had one primary goal: keep the union together, freeing slaves was a by product, not an end.

Chuckles a day ago
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation. 750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our "Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
E. T. Bass a day ago
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances, but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not wasted.

Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US military death to have been in vain.

roberto a day ago
Great article, Mark Perry
dougdiggler a day ago
This website looks like a dying newspaper from the flyover states. Autoplay ads are like kryptonite to people who are web-literate

[Nov 13, 2019] Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite these people at best only having advisory roles. The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits and are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

Notable quotes:
"... So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it). ..."
"... Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"). ..."
Nov 13, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

michael , November 13, 2019 at 10:50

"to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they set U.S. foreign policy and resent the president for intruding upon them. It is increasingly evident that Trump's true offense is proposing to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or less untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation)."

This may be even worse than Lawrence depicts. It is clear that Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite constitutionally these people at best only having advisory roles to the President (and constitutionally the President can ask for their opinions in writing; CYA even back then!) The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup (national security from Vindman's perspective) are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits with no interference from Trump. And the Democrats/ Ukraine-Americans "running the show" are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

I have started Oliver Bullough's "Money Land" and was aghast at the luxury items Yanukovich had stolen through corruption and accumulated at his many properties. Surely with so much money going to corrupt Yanukovich and his henchmen, the coup would have been a blessing for the Ukrainian people! Right? I was shocked to find that after the overthrow of Yanukovich in 2014, the median per capita household income in Ukraine, which had risen steadily from $2032 in 2010 to $2601 in 2013, had dropped over 50% to $1110 to $1135 in 2015 and 2016, and has only risen to $1694 in 2018 (ceicdata.com).

So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it).

Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman").

[Nov 13, 2019] HARPER NEOCONS STILL PROMOTE PERMANENT REVOLUTION

Notable quotes:
"... From the 1950s, the anti-Soviet fervor of these New York City-based intellectuals prompted support for the early United States intervention in Vietnam. In the 1970s, the Socialist Party split up as some factions aligned with the New Left. The neocons formed the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), only later abandoning their socialist party-building in favor of penetrating both the Democratic and Republican parties. In the 1970s, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Representative William Hughes hired some leading second-generation neocons as foreign policy staffers, beginning a long, steady penetration of key Congressional committees. ..."
"... Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage. ..."
"... Antonio Gramsci quote" Trotskyist are the whores of the fascists". Globalist are modern day or post modern Trotskyist ..."
Nov 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

As the happy marriage of neoconservatives and Obama-era humanitarian interventionists continues to flourish in defense of American permanent war deployments around the globe, it is a worthwhile moment to recall the roots of the neocons in the old left of the 1930s. Neocon founders like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Max Schachtman, Seymour Martin Lipset, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, and Gertrude Himmelfarb were all anti-Soviet socialists from the 1930s, many of whom were followers of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky broke with Stalin in the late 1930s over his emphasis on permanent world socialist revolution, as Stalin concentrated on the consolidation of "socialist in one country"--the USSR.

From the 1950s, the anti-Soviet fervor of these New York City-based intellectuals prompted support for the early United States intervention in Vietnam. In the 1970s, the Socialist Party split up as some factions aligned with the New Left. The neocons formed the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), only later abandoning their socialist party-building in favor of penetrating both the Democratic and Republican parties. In the 1970s, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Representative William Hughes hired some leading second-generation neocons as foreign policy staffers, beginning a long, steady penetration of key Congressional committees.

At the Gerald Ford White House, successive chiefs of staff Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney organized a series of "intellectual seminars" by Irving Kristol, further spreading neocon ideology within the foreign policy establishment. As Defense Secretary and later as Vice President, Cheney continued to promote neocons to key posts and to advocate for neocon permanent warfare.

Early in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan launched "Project Democracy," to spread democracy around the globe through well-funded programs including the National Endowment for Democracy, led by Carl Gershman, who has headed the NED since its founding in 1984 through to the present. Gershman was previously Executive Director of Social Democrats USA. NED has been a stronghold of neocons from its inception.

While the anti-Soviet outlook of the neocons continued even after the Berlin Wall and the fall of Soviet communism, the focus increasingly was on permanent warfare to promote democracy around the globe.

Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage.

Posted at 03:24 AM | Permalink


falcemartello , 11 November 2019 at 06:28 AM

Antonio Gramsci quote" Trotskyist are the whores of the fascists". Globalist are modern day or post modern Trotskyist
JJackson , 11 November 2019 at 07:03 AM
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage."

I don't think the Democracy bit is much more than a fig leaf, it can quickly be discarded if votes do not go as required. The aim seems to have more to do with removing unfriendly regimes and replacing them with compliant ones. It does not work because the people/'voters' do not like the imposed elites and are inclined to vote by tribe/clan/religion, rather than any western concept of party, the biggest block wins and lords it over the minority.

David Lentini , 11 November 2019 at 08:30 AM
"Democracy-promotion" is just the ostensible reason. Socialism, controlled by the Western élites, was always the goal.
oldman22 , 11 November 2019 at 08:52 AM
It is a serious error to conflate Irving Howe with support for the Vietnam war. In fact the truth is quite opposite. Here is a reference:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1965/11/25/the-vietnam-protest/

doug said in reply to oldman22... , 11 November 2019 at 10:40 AM
oldman22,

Irving was quite a character. A socialist who's eyes were not totally closed to the um, "contradictions" and stagnation inherent in socialist economies. He spun his wheels mightily in the pages of Dissent trying to reconcile his socialist ideals with it's fundamental conflict with human nature.

Vig , 11 November 2019 at 09:03 AM
Ok, thus the essence of neoconism is Trotzkism and not Straussianism?

In other words, concerning the neoconservatives it makes no sense to look at the (Leo) Straussian angle? Arbitarily?

Now, considering their (not so prominent???) part in the US Culture War (still ongoing???) I am admittedly puzzled. If they were leaning towards Strauss at one point in time, they may well have shifted from revolutionaries to counterevolutionaries at one point in time. No?

They never did? They weren't impressed by their heroes death, but carried his legacy on? Nevertheless?

Babak Makkinejad , 11 November 2019 at 10:18 AM
Actually, this is a recasting of the old Muslim idea of Dar al Salam and Dar al Harb. Western Diocletian states embodying the House of Peace while the rest of mankind lives in the House of War. For Muslims, the idea was to bring the benefits of Islam to non-Muslims. Here, it is to bring the benefits of Civilization to the barbarian hordes.
Babak Makkinejad , 11 November 2019 at 10:22 AM
Fundamentally, neocon and their fellow travellers - an assortment of Protestants, Jews, Nihilists, Democrats, and Shoah Cultists - are waging a relugious war that has failed and will fail against the particularities of mankind. Just like Islam failed to destroy either Christianity or Hinduism, this Western errand will fail too.
Eric Newhill said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 11 November 2019 at 12:08 PM
What you say is true, Babak.

I think these people are the type, subset pseudointellectuals, that just enjoy power and using it to stir the pot of humanity for self-glorification.

IMO, they really believe in nothing else. They are, by nature, miserable craven control freaks that justify their activities by hijacking whatever ideology is floating around in the zeitgeist that the dupes will follow; could be Islam, could be Christianity, could be democracy, could be socialism. Makes no difference to them as long as they get to experience themselves as superior masters of the world.

Sbin , 11 November 2019 at 10:23 AM
Nice to see one of the founders of White Helmets being rehomed in the correct manner.

James le Mesurier found dead in Turkey.

Babak Makkinejad , 11 November 2019 at 10:29 AM
Harper:

In Libya, in 2011, Democracy-promoters destroyed her so that Sarkozy and others in France, Spain, Italy, UK could steal her wealth; reminiscent of Muslim invasions of India in search of war booty, rapine, and slaves, in the name of Islam.

fredw , 11 November 2019 at 10:31 AM
So? This review of (important) history gives us no insight into why it happened or why we should care today. Yes, I agree that these were bad people in the 1930s and they remained bad people when they moved (in theory) from the left wing to the right wing. But that is all you have said. What were the motives? How was it done? Why were they able to find acceptance in both parties with such a lousy history? How are they able to continue being accepted after such a lousy continuing history.

This account is all ad hominem, all about how a certain strain of ideologue has consistently advocated for policies of world-wide control. The logical back story would be a Trotskyite coordinating presence, something I don't for a minute believe. Yet people of this description are undeniably pervasive in the councils of state.

So what is the connection between advocates of US dominion and former advocates of world wide revolution? And, if it is just a matter of attitudes toward power, why should we care? So some people 70 years ago (bad people, admittedly) had an influence of some people today (also in my mind bad people). So? Were they the only people from that era who held such attitudes? Could we not just as easily trace other genealogies for ideas of US domination? Do such ideas ever in history fail to materialize when the power balances enable them?

So you don't like these people and you don't like where you think they came from. But do you have anything to say about why they are so pervasive and what could be done about it?

Vegetius said in reply to fredw... , 11 November 2019 at 12:07 PM

> Could we not just as easily trace other genealogies

Keep it simple and start with tracing the actual genealogies of these people. If you do that, a lot of things should begin to fall into place.

If they don't, you're still operating under a century of mass media propaganda.

doug , 11 November 2019 at 10:35 AM
Harper,

Ah, the good old days. In the early 80's I would stop after work at the local newsstand and pick up Commentary, Dissent, Partisan Review, National Interest, and so on. Whatever struck my fancy and for some reason, these did even though their circulation was quite small. At the time I didn't not realize their commonality which came to me later in the 80's. The PBS movie/book, "Arguing the World," which came out about 20 years ago, has a lot of the backstory.

A common thread is the desire to change the world though they had different views of what that "change" should be.

As for me, I was an accidental entrepreneur and generally liked Hayek's economic views. I'm also highly skeptical of idealist and messianic movements like Mao's which the 60's had been rife with. But I loved readings all these rags with somewhat different perspectives but a common thread that each seemed to think their "Truth" should rule. Seems to me the greatest evil gets perpetrated by those that think they have found "The Way."

Babak Makkinejad -> doug... , 11 November 2019 at 12:31 PM
The most dangerous man is an intellectual.
doug said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 11 November 2019 at 03:09 PM
Babak,

And the Alcoves at CUNY bred a bunch of 'em. Different perspectives but a fevered desire to change the World. God help us.

prawnik , 11 November 2019 at 10:38 AM
To such people, ihe ideology is unimportant. Empire is what matters.
Babak Makkinejad -> prawnik... , 11 November 2019 at 12:31 PM
Not empire, rather, power.
prawnik said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 11 November 2019 at 05:21 PM
Same difference, viewed from the neocon perspective.
tjfxh , 11 November 2019 at 11:30 AM
How much of neoconservatism cum liberal internationalism (foreign policy idealism aka Wilsonianism) is "spreading freedom and democracy" and now much is neoliberal globalization as "making the world safe for capitalism"?

In either case the end in view is a Pax Americana where the US has permanent global dominance in accordance with the Wolfowitz doctrine of not permitting a challenger to arise as a competitor.

Vegetius , 11 November 2019 at 11:58 AM
If you go no further than Marxism, you will not understand what is happening. But to go further is to engage in thoughtcrime.

Fortunately, the Catholic scholar E. Michael Jones has written a great book on this. It is called The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit: And Its Impact on World History. Incredibly, it has not been banned from Amazon yet. It is exhaustive, encyclopedic and documented.

Jones has developed a following among young Catholics appalled at both the corruption in Rome and the corruption in American society. These kids are the ones digging conservatism's grave, not the left. The left needs Conservative Inc to plays its role and keep the show going for the benefit of older people who get all their information from television.

It has not been covered much by the media but TPUSA, a Trump-aligned youth organization, has been battered by audience after audience on its recent campus tour. Yesterday in Los Angeles Donald Trump Jr was booed off the stage as he tried to promote his latest book.

At first, TPUSA tried to blame campus leftwingers. This was an obvious lie, and so they began to call the audience Nazis. Then, they accused them of being virgins. They tried to vet and plant questioners but when this failed they eliminated the Q&A altogether. A similar episode happened the week before when Sebastian Gorka stupidly took on a 20 year-old Youtube personality with an audience ten times larger than his own.

Post-WW2 Conservatives failed because they never understood what they were fighting, failed to wage culture war, and fooled themselves into thinking that the fall of the Berlin Wall meant the end of struggle, when it only meant a change of theater.


Stephanie , 11 November 2019 at 12:33 PM
Not off-topic, just a footnote.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/11/british-founder-of-white-helmets-found-dead-in-istanbul-james-le-mesurier

RIP

Fred -> Stephanie... , 11 November 2019 at 06:33 PM
Stephanie,

"...appeared to have fallen from a balcony." I somehow doubt that.

"The NGO's funders currently include the British and German governments. The Trump administration froze US funding, which made up about one-third of the total, without public explanation in early 2018, but resumed giving financial aid last month amid criticism of its decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria."

I bet that pissed off the neocons to no end. He should stop it again. We can use the money at home.

Harlan Easley , 11 November 2019 at 12:51 PM
Their ideology is Anti-Christian. It's that simple. Their motive is spiritual.
Thirdeye , 11 November 2019 at 04:27 PM
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution?"

Yes, profoundly. For starters, Permanent Revolution and world revolution were two separate Trotskyist doctrines. Permanent Revolution was a doctrine eschewing the mainstream social-democratic strategy of supporting bourgeois-democratic revolutions until the proletariat gained sufficient strength to gain state power. Trotsky contended that socialist - capitalist alliances were inherently unstable and that bourgeois-democratic forces would inevitably align with the existing ruling order against the proletariat. World revolution was a doctrine that a socialist revolution in Russia could not survive in isolation and revolutions had to take place in more advanced countries, particularly Germany. That was given a messianic veneer of "proletarian internationalism" and "world revolution." Such maximalism was opposed to realist expedients such as the New Economic Policy and the Rapallo Treaty of 1924 that fostered economic relations between the Soviet Union and capitalist Germany.

Revolutionary movements have always drawn opportunists who saw them mainly as a shortcut to gaining power for themselves. The ur-neocons were such a group. Their loyalty to Trotskyist ideology only lasted as long as they saw it as something that could boost them into power. When better means in various apparatuses of US power presented themselves, they latched onto them under the guise of "spreading democracy." That seems a cynical formulation, since the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that the great unwashed masses are not to be trusted, so power must be arrogated to themselves.

fredw said in reply to Thirdeye... , 11 November 2019 at 09:36 PM
"... the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that the great unwashed masses are not to be trusted, so power must be arrogated to themselves." Isn't that the real ideology of all these factions? To my mind the rest is all just tactics.

I am genuinely unsure what the real distinctions are. The present American "conservative" idolizing of democracy and free market economics seems about as sincere as the Communist ideal of economic control by the working classes. Many years ago I argued with a (captured) VC political officer that the Vietnam war was just a fight between two elites over who would get to run things. He was appalled by the idea. His claim to the moral high ground was based on two factors: the personal honesty of the Viet Cong cadre and the party discipline that that guaranteed it. These seemed plausible at the time. Both went up in smoke almost as soon as the victory had been won.

How different were the results of the war from those to be expected from a Southern victory? I haven't followed the subsequent history in detail, but American Vietnamese acquaintances tell me that 40 years later everything is being run by Southerners. Not identically the same Southerners, but ... And does anyone believe that a southern government securely established would not have set about expelling the Chinese population that had accumulated during the years when the Vietnamese could not control their own borders? (American media never said much about it, but the boat people were overwhelmingly Chinese victims of longstanding hatreds.)

So how different is the neocon vision from a Trotskyist vision in a world where direct control is no longer possible?

ex PFC Chuck , 11 November 2019 at 10:16 PM
The dots I have yet to connect are those that trace the path by which the neoconservatives wandered from their socialist roots to become the enforcers of the Western world's fundamentalist neoliberal ideology of political economy. How many of the dots pertaining to the latter came to be embedded in the western industrialized world and most of the Global South were tied together for me by the recent book Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism , by Quinn Slobodian. Several points jump from the author's narrative. The neoliberal movement traces its origins to two citizens of the Austrian Empire who came of age in the decades immediately before its collapse: Ludwig von Mises* (b 1881) and Frederick Hayek (b 1899). Both were of un-landed noble families that had been promoted to that status just a generation or two before. Slobodian argues that the Empire's uniqueness as a multi-cultural, multi-national entity held together by a common market with no internal tariffs and free migration within the empire led them (and especially Hayek) to envision a similarly structured world economy. They and their disciples and successors saw the making of that structure happen as their lives' work. The goal remained constant but the means of achieving it changed with the times. First they saw the League of Nations as the potential vehicle until its collapse during the Second World War. Next was the United Nation until it was "overrun" by new nations emerging from colonialism. The goal was largely achieved in the late 20th century when General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) morphed into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994.

The most salient features of a neoliberal political economy are: free movement and safety of capital and protections for the ownership rights of investors across borders; free migration of people across those same borders; also tariff-free trade among countries; and the removal of economic policies and relationships from the purviews of sovereign countries and subordinate jurisdictions within them.

Slobodian elaborates how as the neoliberal ideology became embedded in the world economy during the 20th century it was believed by the movers and shakers (mostly implicitly but in some cases explicitly) that the lagging development status of the peoples of the recently decolonized emerging countries were the results of racial and/or cultural weaknesses. There was little recognition of the impacts of the cultural carnage and wealth extraction that were part and parcel of colonial enterprise. As a result, as the institutions of radical neoliberalism took shape they consigned a secondary economic status to the countries of what is now known as the Global South. The USA has been the leader in putting this ideology in place and has been aggressively looking out for its own interests in the process, which is understandable.* However an unintended consequence has been an economically lagging global south that has been prevented from industrializing enough to employ the millions of people whose farms have become uncompetitive with highly industrialized USA and European agribusiness. These folks move off the land either to the growing megacities of the Global South or, increasingly, into countries of the Global North by means either legal or illegal. Thus the Democratic Party establishment's Kumbaya on immigration is not all sweetness, light and harmony. They're also doing the bidding of their neoliberal masters.

https://www.greenlightbookstore.com/book/9780674979529

* Michael Hudson has written extensively on this subject, especially in Superimperalism , which was first published in 1972 and substantially updated about 2003. You can download the full text in PDF format here: https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf

[Nov 13, 2019] Former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev Reveals Who Was Responsible for Country's Collapse

Nov 13, 2019 | sputniknews.com

I understand some worries he had over the existing system, but goddamn Gorbachev is an intellectual midget!

But maybe he's a sign of Soviet imbecilization. Maybe the USSR's degeneration was indeed inevitable.

I just weep for the world's socialists, who had to pay for the end of bipolarity.

Posted by: vk | Nov 10 2019 19:38 utc | 20

[Nov 13, 2019] CIA emerged as a Political Party

Notable quotes:
"... this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods. ..."
"... Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth. ..."
"... To me Trump is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split when it comes to impeachment. ..."
"... Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist Web Site: The CIA Democrats . ..."
"... "The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth." ..."
"... Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all boats! ..."
"... Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a "war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all. ..."
"... To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero. ..."
"... The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee. ..."
Nov 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bemildred , Nov 10 2019 15:41 utc | 1

I am amazed how the Impeachment Circus and the mainstream media continue to ignore the facts of this story:

Joe Biden has been a favorite target for Trump-allied lawmakers. Many have adopted Trump's unsubstantiated assertion that Biden pushed for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, because he was investigating Burisma.

Other people get it:

The CIA is emerging as a domestic political party.
...
Brennan put a friendly finger on my chest. "The CIA is not involved in domestic politics," he said. "Period. That's on the record."

This he asserted confidently, at an event where he had just spoken about about influence campaigns on swing voters and implied that Hillary Clinton might be right in calling U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard a Russian asset. Even seasoned analysts, it seems, have their blind spots.

Motivation to impeach Trump is about control of Democratic Party - Rick Salutin, The Star

What shifted [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] now? I'd say the answer is: this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods.
I agree with Mr. Salutin, the impeachment is not about impeachment, although if impeachment results, I'm sure they will take it. And I agree it's about protecting the current Democratic Part "elites", both from scandal (Joe Biden, Clinton) and from the challenge on the left. A risky and desperate move .

I tend to think it was Trump going after the Ukraine cesspit that precipitated the impeachment, but other motives seem relevant. I have thought since Obama went all in with Russiagate that the current Dem leadership does not feel it can afford to relinquish control.


Walter , Nov 10 2019 15:54 utc | 2

@ "ince Obama went all in with Russiagate that the current Dem leadership does not feel it can afford to relinquish control."

How about that...geewhiz, one does speculate as to what crimes they fear might become known and public?

Everybody Knows...Brother Leonard Cohen... this they fear.

It's a mighty force. To the mat.

Jose Garcia , Nov 10 2019 16:59 utc | 4
Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth.

To me Trump is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split when it comes to impeachment.

pnyx , Nov 10 2019 17:58 utc | 10
Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair' (original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)
Seamus Padraig , Nov 10 2019 18:23 utc | 12
Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist Web Site: The CIA Democrats .
karlof1 , Nov 10 2019 18:24 utc | 13
Craig Murray has an exclusive interview with Randy Credico he prefaces with these remarks:

"The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth."

That would include MoA barflies since we crave Truth. Murray has a bit more to say prior to the excerpt I provide, which I suggest be read, too.

juliania , Nov 10 2019 19:13 utc | 18
What a feast of links! I've only just started, with b's Daniel Lazare piece at Stretegic Culture.org - well done!

" ...This is what impeachment is about, not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine – plus Syria, Libya, Yemen, and other countries that the Obama administration succeeded in destroying – and why Trump should pay the supreme penalty for suggesting that Democrats are in any way to blame..."

Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all boats!

chop stick , Nov 10 2019 19:17 utc | 19
Impeachment is about controlling where the attention is focused. When things get to close to home Pelosi says look over here at the orange head, look over there at the border but whatever you do, do not look over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1KfU5ifhqE ">here.
b , Nov 11 2019 14:20 utc | 114
@pnyx - Thanks for linking the NZZ piece

"Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair' (original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)"

Funny it is mostly a recap of my findings of Biden in Ukraine. The piece links to William Bowles ( https://williambowles.info/2019/10/08/when-ukraines-prosecutor-came-after-his-sons-sponsor-joe-biden-sprang-into-action/) and attributes that the findings to him.

But it is not Bowles but a copy my piece here ( https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/10/biden-timeline.html).

So the Neue Züricher Zeitung, the most prestige Swiss outlet, is practically quoting MoA.

I am honored.

Bemildred , Nov 11 2019 14:35 utc | 115
Andrew J. Bacevich weighs in on US foreign policy:
Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a "war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all.

To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero.

There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East. The imperative is to go forward, which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.t

So succinct.

The Blob: Still Chasing After Pax Americana

vk , Nov 11 2019 14:41 utc | 116
@ Posted by: b | Nov 11 2019 14:20 utc | 114

The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee.

[Nov 12, 2019] Currently staring in Congress Impeachment Ukraine testimony against Trump

Nov 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: Next New Comment November 12, 2019 at 7:23 pm GMT

Phil, you need to get on the State Department and NSC re the coup against Trump by the Ukraine cabal . The State Department has been stuffed with people like the below who try to set US policy according their personal loyalties and /or hatreds or love for any foreign country. And as we all know the State Department lost all objectivity when the Jews infiltrated it decades ago to run out the 'Arbarist".

Currently staring in Congress Impeachment Ukraine testimony against Trump

I have read the testimonies and several things jump out. All these people are outspoken anti Russia activist and pro Ukraine. According to their statements Russia is the ultimate evil. Vindman, Yovanovitch and Hill all use the same description "Ukraine needs US aid because it is fighting for US interest and against Russian aggression'. .same spin Jews put on "Israel fighting for US and world interest against Iran'.

Their testimonies were as much or more about why we should support Ukraine then about what Trump said or didn't say.

It is clear and was even said by Hill in her testimony that they .."should formulate foreign policy, not they president'. And in several cases that is what they have done going even further with sanctions on countries then what was called for and the unattentive Trump just accepts it .

This Trump coup is coming from the Deep State of the NSC and the State Department, not the CIA this time.

[Nov 12, 2019] Currently staring in Congress Impeachment Ukraine testimony against Trump

Nov 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: Next New Comment November 12, 2019 at 7:23 pm GMT

Phil, you need to get on the State Department and NSC re the coup against Trump by the Ukraine cabal . The State Department has been stuffed with people like the below who try to set US policy according their personal loyalties and /or hatreds or love for any foreign country. And as we all know the State Department lost all objectivity when the Jews infiltrated it decades ago to run out the 'Arbarist".

Currently staring in Congress Impeachment Ukraine testimony against Trump

I have read the testimonies and several things jump out. All these people are outspoken anti Russia activist and pro Ukraine. According to their statements Russia is the ultimate evil. Vindman, Yovanovitch and Hill all use the same description "Ukraine needs US aid because it is fighting for US interest and against Russian aggression'. .same spin Jews put on "Israel fighting for US and world interest against Iran'.

Their testimonies were as much or more about why we should support Ukraine then about what Trump said or didn't say.

It is clear and was even said by Hill in her testimony that they .."should formulate foreign policy, not they president'. And in several cases that is what they have done going even further with sanctions on countries then what was called for and the unattentive Trump just accepts it .

This Trump coup is coming from the Deep State of the NSC and the State Department, not the CIA this time.

[Nov 12, 2019] HARPER NEOCONS STILL PROMOTE PERMANENT REVOLUTION - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Nov 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

HARPER: NEOCONS STILL PROMOTE PERMANENT REVOLUTION Harp
As the happy marriage of neoconservatives and Obama-era humanitarian interventionists continues to flourish in defense of American permanent war deployments around the globe, it is a worthwhile moment to recall the roots of the neocons in the old left of the 1930s. Neocon founders like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Max Schachtman, Seymour Martin Lipset, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, and Gertrude Himmelfarb were all anti-Soviet socialists from the 1930s, many of whom were followers of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky broke with Stalin in the late 1930s over his emphasis on permanent world socialist revolution, as Stalin concentrated on the consolidation of "socialist in one country"--the USSR.

From the 1950s, the anti-Soviet fervor of these New York City-based intellectuals prompted support for the early United States intervention in Vietnam. In the 1970s, the Socialist Party split up as some factions aligned with the New Left. The neocons formed the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), only later abandoning their socialist party-building in favor of penetrating both the Democratic and Republican parties. In the 1970s, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Representative William Hughes hired some leading second-generation neocons as foreign policy staffers, beginning a long, steady penetration of key Congressional committees.

At the Gerald Ford White House, successive chiefs of staff Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney organized a series of "intellectual seminars" by Irving Kristol, further spreading neocon ideology within the foreign policy establishment. As Defense Secretary and later as Vice President, Cheney continued to promote neocons to key posts and to advocate for neocon permanent warfare.

Early in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan launched "Project Democracy," to spread democracy around the globe through well-funded programs including the National Endowment for Democracy, led by Carl Gershman, who has headed the NED since its founding in 1984 through to the present. Gershman was previously Executive Director of Social Democrats USA. NED has been a stronghold of neocons from its inception.

While the anti-Soviet outlook of the neocons continued even after the Berlin Wall and the fall of Soviet communism, the focus increasingly was on permanent warfare to promote democracy around the globe.

Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage.

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F1977%2F01%2F23%2Farchives%2Fmemoirs-of-a-trotskyist-memoirs.html&amp;data=02%7C01%7C%7C92c15993844d46f9806208d76680e03f%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637090576006365192&amp;sdata=mZXg7sdCVTVU5TtiHT4G3HZiJsBH2%2F8w%2FnXYE5V7KTs%3D&amp;reserved=0

Posted at 03:24 AM | Permalink

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falcemartello , 11 November 2019 at 06:28 AM

Antonio Gramsci quote" Trotskyist are the whores of the fascists".
Globalist are modern day or post modern Trotskyist
JJackson , 11 November 2019 at 07:03 AM
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage."
I don't think the Democracy bit is much more than a fig leaf, it can quickly be discarded if votes do not go as required. The aim seems to have more to do with removing unfriendly regimes and replacing them with compliant ones. It does not work because the people/'voters' do not like the imposed elites and are inclined to vote by tribe/clan/religion, rather than any western concept of party, the biggest block wins and lords it over the minority.
David Lentini , 11 November 2019 at 08:30 AM
"Democracy-promotion" is just the ostensible reason. Socialism, controlled by the Western élites, was always the goal.
oldman22 , 11 November 2019 at 08:52 AM
It is a serious error to conflate Irving Howe with support for the Vietnam war. In fact the truth is quite opposite. Here is a reference:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1965/11/25/the-vietnam-protest/
doug said in reply to oldman22... , 11 November 2019 at 10:40 AM
oldman22,

Irving was quite a character. A socialist who's eyes were not totally closed to the um, "contradictions" and stagnation inherent in socialist economies. He spun his wheels mightily in the pages of Dissent trying to reconcile his socialist ideals with it's fundamental conflict with human nature.

Vig , 11 November 2019 at 09:03 AM
Ok, thus the essence of neoconism is Trotzkism and not Straussianism?

In other words, concerning the neoconservatives it makes no sense to look at the (Leo) Straussian angle? Arbitarily?

Now, considering their (not so prominent???) part in the US Culture War (still ongoing???) I am admittedly puzzled. If they were leaning towards Strauss at one point in time, they may well have shifted from revolutionaries to counterevolutionaries at one point in time. No?

They never did? They weren't impressed by their heroes death, but carried his legacy on? Nevertheless?

Babak Makkinejad , 11 November 2019 at 10:18 AM
Actually, this is a recasting of the old Muslim idea of Dar al Salam and Dar al Harb. Western Diocletian states embodying the House of Peace while the rest of mankind lives in the House of War. For Muslims, the idea was to bring the benefits of Islam to non-Muslims. Here, it is to bring the benefits of Civilization to the barbarian hordes.
Babak Makkinejad , 11 November 2019 at 10:22 AM
Fundamentally, neocon and their fellow travellers - an assortment of Protestants, Jews, Nihilists, Democrats, and Shoah Cultists - are waging a relugious war that has failed and will fail against the particularities of mankind. Just like Islam failed to destroy either Christianity or Hinduism, this Western errand will fail too.
Eric Newhill said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 11 November 2019 at 12:08 PM
What you say is true, Babak.

I think these people are the type, subset pseudointellectuals, that just enjoy power and using it to stir the pot of humanity for self-glorification.

IMO, they really believe in nothing else. They are, by nature, miserable craven control freaks that justify their activities by hijacking whatever ideology is floating around in the zeitgeist that the dupes will follow; could be Islam, could be Christianity, could be democracy, could be socialism. Makes no difference to them as long as they get to experience themselves as superior masters of the world.

Sbin , 11 November 2019 at 10:23 AM
Nice to see one of the founders of White Helmets being rehomed in the correct manner.
James le Mesurier found dead in Turkey.
Babak Makkinejad , 11 November 2019 at 10:29 AM
Harper:

In Libya, in 2011, Democracy-promoters destroyed her so that Sarkozy and others in France, Spain, Italy, UK could steal her wealth; reminiscent of Muslim invasions of India in search of war booty, rapine, and slaves, in the name of Islam.

fredw , 11 November 2019 at 10:31 AM
So? This review of (important) history gives us no insight into why it happened or why we should care today. Yes, I agree that these were bad people in the 1930s and they remained bad people when they moved (in theory) from the left wing to the right wing. But that is all you have said. What were the motives? How was it done? Why were they able to find acceptance in both parties with such a lousy history? How are they able to continue being accepted after such a lousy continuing history.

This account is all ad hominem, all about how a certain strain of ideologue has consistently advocated for policies of world-wide control. The logical back story would be a Trotskyite coordinating presence, something I don't for a minute believe. Yet people of this description are undeniably pervasive in the councils of state.

So what is the connection between advocates of US dominion and former advocates of world wide revolution? And, if it is just a matter of attitudes toward power, why should we care? So some people 70 years ago (bad people, admittedly) had an influence of some people today (also in my mind bad people). So? Were they the only people from that era who held such attitudes? Could we not just as easily trace other genealogies for ideas of US domination? Do such ideas ever in history fail to materialize when the power balances enable them?

So you don't like these people and you don't like where you think they came from. But do you have anything to say about why they are so pervasive and what could be done about it?

Vegetius said in reply to fredw... , 11 November 2019 at 12:07 PM

> Could we not just as easily trace other genealogies

Keep it simple and start with tracing the actual genealogies of these people. If you do that, a lot of things should begin to fall into place.

If they don't, you're still operating under a century of mass media propaganda.

doug , 11 November 2019 at 10:35 AM
Harper,

Ah, the good old days. In the early 80's I would stop after work at the local newsstand and pick up Commentary, Dissent, Partisan Review, National Interest, and so on. Whatever struck my fancy and for some reason, these did even though their circulation was quite small. At the time I didn't not realize their commonality which came to me later in the 80's. The PBS movie/book, "Arguing the World," which came out about 20 years ago, has a lot of the backstory.

A common thread is the desire to change the world though they had different views of what that "change" should be.

As for me, I was an accidental entrepreneur and generally liked Hayek's economic views. I'm also highly skeptical of idealist and messianic movements like Mao's which the 60's had been rife with. But I loved readings all these rags with somewhat different perspectives but a common thread that each seemed to think their "Truth" should rule. Seems to me the greatest evil gets perpetrated by those that think they have found "The Way."

Babak Makkinejad -> doug... , 11 November 2019 at 12:31 PM
The most dangerous man is an intellectual.
doug said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 11 November 2019 at 03:09 PM
Babak,

And the Alcoves at CUNY bred a bunch of 'em. Different perspectives but a fevered desire to change the World. God help us.

prawnik , 11 November 2019 at 10:38 AM
To such people, ihe ideology is unimportant. Empire is what matters.
Babak Makkinejad -> prawnik... , 11 November 2019 at 12:31 PM
Not empire, rather, power.
prawnik said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 11 November 2019 at 05:21 PM
Same difference, viewed from the neocon perspective.
tjfxh , 11 November 2019 at 11:30 AM
How much of neoconservatism cum liberal internationalism (foreign policy idealism aka Wilsonianism) is "spreading freedom and democracy" and now much is neoliberal globalization as "making the world safe for capitalism"?

In either case the end in view is a Pax Americana where the US has permanent global dominance in accordance with the Wolfowitz doctrine of not permitting a challenger to arise as a competitor.

Vegetius , 11 November 2019 at 11:58 AM
If you go no further than Marxism, you will not understand what is happening. But to go further is to engage in thoughtcrime.

Fortunately, the Catholic scholar E. Michael Jones has written a great book on this. It is called The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit: And Its Impact on World History. Incredibly, it has not been banned from Amazon yet. It is exhaustive, encyclopedic and documented.

Jones has developed a following among young Catholics appalled at both the corruption in Rome and the corruption in American society. These kids are the ones digging conservatism's grave, not the left. The left needs Conservative Inc to plays its role and keep the show going for the benefit of older people who get all their information from television.

It has not been covered much by the media but TPUSA, a Trump-aligned youth organization, has been battered by audience after audience on its recent campus tour. Yesterday in Los Angeles Donald Trump Jr was booed off the stage as he tried to promote his latest book.

At first, TPUSA tried to blame campus leftwingers. This was an obvious lie, and so they began to call the audience Nazis. Then, they accused them of being virgins. They tried to vet and plant questioners but when this failed they eliminated the Q&A altogether. A similar episode happened the week before when Sebastian Gorka stupidly took on a 20 year-old Youtube personality with an audience ten times larger than his own.

Post-WW2 Conservatives failed because they never understood what they were fighting, failed to wage culture war, and fooled themselves into thinking that the fall of the Berlin Wall meant the end of struggle, when it only meant a change of theater.


Stephanie , 11 November 2019 at 12:33 PM
Not off-topic, just a footnote.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/11/british-founder-of-white-helmets-found-dead-in-istanbul-james-le-mesurier

RIP

Fred -> Stephanie... , 11 November 2019 at 06:33 PM
Stephanie,

"...appeared to have fallen from a balcony." I somehow doubt that.

"The NGO's funders currently include the British and German governments. The Trump administration froze US funding, which made up about one-third of the total, without public explanation in early 2018, but resumed giving financial aid last month amid criticism of its decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria."

I bet that pissed off the neocons to no end. He should stop it again. We can use the money at home.

Harlan Easley , 11 November 2019 at 12:51 PM
Their ideology is Anti-Christian. It's that simple. Their motive is spiritual.
Thirdeye , 11 November 2019 at 04:27 PM
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution?"

Yes, profoundly. For starters, Permanent Revolution and world revolution were two separate Trotskyist doctrines. Permanent Revolution was a doctrine eschewing the mainstream social-democratic strategy of supporting bourgeois-democratic revolutions until the proletariat gained sufficient strength to gain state power. Trotsky contended that socialist - capitalist alliances were inherently unstable and that bourgeois-democratic forces would inevitably align with the existing ruling order against the proletariat. World revolution was a doctrine that a socialist revolution in Russia could not survive in isolation and revolutions had to take place in more advanced countries, particularly Germany. That was given a messianic veneer of "proletarian internationalism" and "world revolution." Such maximalism was opposed to realist expedients such as the New Economic Policy and the Rapallo Treaty of 1924 that fostered economic relations between the Soviet Union and capitalist Germany.

Revolutionary movements have always drawn opportunists who saw them mainly as a shortcut to gaining power for themselves. The ur-neocons were such a group. Their loyalty to Trotskyist ideology only lasted as long as they saw it as something that could boost them into power. When better means in various apparatuses of US power presented themselves, they latched onto them under the guise of "spreading democracy." That seems a cynical formulation, since the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that the great unwashed masses are not to be trusted, so power must be arrogated to themselves.

fredw said in reply to Thirdeye... , 11 November 2019 at 09:36 PM
"... the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that the great unwashed masses are not to be trusted, so power must be arrogated to themselves." Isn't that the real ideology of all these factions? To my mind the rest is all just tactics.

I am genuinely unsure what the real distinctions are. The present American "conservative" idolizing of democracy and free market economics seems about as sincere as the Communist ideal of economic control by the working classes. Many years ago I argued with a (captured) VC political officer that the Vietnam war was just a fight between two elites over who would get to run things. He was appalled by the idea. His claim to the moral high ground was based on two factors: the personal honesty of the Viet Cong cadre and the party discipline that that guaranteed it. These seemed plausible at the time. Both went up in smoke almost as soon as the victory had been won.

How different were the results of the war from those to be expected from a Southern victory? I haven't followed the subsequent history in detail, but American Vietnamese acquaintances tell me that 40 years later everything is being run by Southerners. Not identically the same Southerners, but ... And does anyone believe that a southern government securely established would not have set about expelling the Chinese population that had accumulated during the years when the Vietnamese could not control their own borders? (American media never said much about it, but the boat people were overwhelmingly Chinese victims of longstanding hatreds.)

So how different is the neocon vision from a Trotskyist vision in a world where direct control is no longer possible?

ex PFC Chuck , 11 November 2019 at 10:16 PM
The dots I have yet to connect are those that trace the path by which the neoconservatives wandered from their socialist roots to become the enforcers of the Western world's fundamentalist neoliberal ideology of political economy. How many of the dots pertaining to the latter came to be embedded in the western industrialized world and most of the Global South were tied together for me by the recent book Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism , by Quinn Slobodian. Several points jump from the author's narrative. The neoliberal movement traces its origins to two citizens of the Austrian Empire who came of age in the decades immediately before its collapse: Ludwig von Mises* (b 1881) and Frederick Hayek (b 1899). Both were of un-landed noble families that had been promoted to that status just a generation or two before. Slobodian argues that the Empire's uniqueness as a multi-cultural, multi-national entity held together by a common market with no internal tariffs and free migration within the empire led them (and especially Hayek) to envision a similarly structured world economy. They and their disciples and successors saw the making of that structure happen as their lives' work. The goal remained constant but the means of achieving it changed with the times. First they saw the League of Nations as the potential vehicle until its collapse during the Second World War. Next was the United Nation until it was "overrun" by new nations emerging from colonialism. The goal was largely achieved in the late 20th century when General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) morphed into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994.
The most salient features of a neoliberal political economy are: free movement and safety of capital and protections for the ownership rights of investors across borders; free migration of people across those same borders; also tariff-free trade among countries; and the removal of economic policies and relationships from the purviews of sovereign countries and subordinate jurisdictions within them.
Slobodian elaborates how as the neoliberal ideology became embedded in the world economy during the 20th century it was believed by the movers and shakers (mostly implicitly but in some cases explicitly) that the lagging development status of the peoples of the recently decolonized emerging countries were the results of racial and/or cultural weaknesses. There was little recognition of the impacts of the cultural carnage and wealth extraction that were part and parcel of colonial enterprise. As a result, as the institutions of radical neoliberalism took shape they consigned a secondary economic status to the countries of what is now known as the Global South. The USA has been the leader in putting this ideology in place and has been aggressively looking out for its own interests in the process, which is understandable.* However an unintended consequence has been an economically lagging global south that has been prevented from industrializing enough to employ the millions of people whose farms have become uncompetitive with highly industrialized USA and European agribusiness. These folks move off the land either to the growing megacities of the Global South or, increasingly, into countries of the Global North by means either legal or illegal. Thus the Democratic Party establishment's Kumbaya on immigration is not all sweetness, light and harmony. They're also doing the bidding of their neoliberal masters.
https://www.greenlightbookstore.com/book/9780674979529

* Michael Hudson has written extensively on this subject, especially in Superimperalism , which was first published in 1972 and substantially updated about 2003. You can download the full text in PDF format here: https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf


[Nov 11, 2019] The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'.

Notable quotes:
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Nov 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Beckow , says: November 9, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT

Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed middle class out of existence.

What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.

The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along.

alexander , says: November 9, 2019 at 11:38 am GMT
BUILDING OUT vs. BLOWING UP

China 2000-2020 vs. USA 2000-2020

Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.

China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive, illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake, etc.)

China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the "middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly mobile" lives.

The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.

It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.

As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".

It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.

To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war" ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.

It is as shameful as it is tragic.

SafeNow , says: November 9, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT
That's fascinating about the declining "middle class" usage. A "soft synonym" that has gone in the opposite direction, I think, is "the community."
LoutishAngloQuebecker , says: November 9, 2019 at 6:31 pm GMT
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on total power.

Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.

The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.

Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke. It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.

Svevlad , says: November 9, 2019 at 6:32 pm GMT
Ah yes, apparatchiks. The worst kind of person
Counterinsurgency , says: November 9, 2019 at 7:36 pm GMT
@Achmed E. Newman

There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all shapes and sizes.

Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.

What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.

Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.

Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas. And so it goes.

Counterinsurgency

1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.

Mark G. , says: November 9, 2019 at 8:20 pm GMT
@unit472 A lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues is appealing to the white middle class.
anon [201] • Disclaimer , says: November 9, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
Wealth held by the top 1% is now close to equal or greater than wealth held by the entire middle class.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-09/one-percenters-close-to-surpassing-wealth-of-u-s-middle-class

Something similar was seen in the 1890's, the "gilded age". This is one reason why Warren's "wealth tax" has traction among likely voters.

WorkingClass , says: November 9, 2019 at 11:55 pm GMT
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders and the financialization of everything.

Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.

Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than abusing it.

Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.

Rosie , says: November 10, 2019 at 2:21 am GMT
@Audacious Epigone

Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the middle class?

In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."

Rosie , says: November 10, 2019 at 2:25 am GMT
@WorkingClass

Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.

I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the ones who identify with Whiteness the most.

[Nov 10, 2019] Middle East: a Complex Re-alignment by Conn Hallinan

Nov 10, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

The fallout from the September attack on Saudi Arabia's Aramco oil facilities is continuing to reverberate throughout the Middle East, sidelining old enmities -- sometimes for new ones -- and re-drawing traditional alliances. While Turkey's recent invasion of northern Syria is grabbing the headlines, the bigger story may be that major regional players are contemplating some historic re-alignments.

After years of bitter rivalry, the Saudis and the Iranians are considering how they can dial down their mutual animosity. The formerly powerful Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of Persian Gulf monarchs is atomizing because Saudi Arabia is losing its grip. And Washington's former domination of the region appears to be in decline.

Some of these developments are long-standing, pre-dating the cruise missile and drone assault that knocked out 50 percent of Saudi Arabia's oil production. But the double shock -- Turkey's lunge into Syria and the September missile attack -- is accelerating these changes.

Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan , recently flew to Iran and then on to Saudi Arabia to lobby for détente between Teheran and Riyadh and to head off any possibility of hostilities between the two countries. "What should never happen is a war," Khan said, "because this will not just affect the whole region this will cause poverty in the world. Oil prices will go up."

According to Khan, both sides have agreed to talk, although the Yemen War is a stumbling block. But there are straws in the wind on that front, too. A partial ceasefire seems to be holding, and there are back channel talks going on between the Houthis and the Saudis.

The Saudi intervention in Yemen's civil war was supposed to last three months, but it has dragged on for over four years. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was to supply the ground troops and the Saudis the airpower. But the Saudi-UAE alliance has made little progress against the battle-hardened Houthis, who have been strengthened by defections from the regular Yemeni army.

Air wars without supporting ground troops are almost always a failure, and they are very expensive. The drain on the Saudi treasury is significant, and the country's wealth is not bottomless.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to shift the Saudi economy from its overreliance on petroleum, but he needs outside money to do that and he is not getting it. The Yemen War -- which, according to the United Nations is the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet -- and the Prince's involvement with the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has spooked many investors.

Without outside investment, the Saudi's have to use their oil revenues, but the price per barrel is below what the Kingdom needs to fulfill its budget goals, and world demand is falling off. The Chinese economy is slowing -- the trade war with the US has had an impact -- and European growth is sluggish. There is a whiff of recession in the air, and that's bad news for oil producers.

Riyadh is also losing allies. The UAE is negotiating with the Houthis and withdrawing their troops, in part because the Abu Dhabi has different goals in Yemen than Saudi Arabia, and because in any dustup with Iran, the UAE would be ground zero. US generals are fond of calling the UAE "little Sparta" because of its well trained army, but the operational word for Abu Dhabi is "little": the Emirate's army can muster 20,000 troops, Iran can field more than 800,000 soldiers.

Saudi Arabia's goals in Yemen are to support the government-in-exile of President Rabho Mansour Hadi, control its southern border and challenge Iran's support of the Houthis. The UAE, on the other hand, is less concerned with the Houthis but quite focused on backing the anti-Hadi Southern Transitional Council, which is trying to re-create south Yemen as a separate country. North and south Yemen were merged in 1990, largely as a result of Saudi pressure, and it has never been a comfortable marriage.

Riyadh has also lost its grip on the Gulf Cooperation Council. Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar continue to trade with Iran in spite of efforts by the Saudis to isolate Teheran,

The UAE and Saudi Arabia recently hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pressed for the 22-member Arab League to re-admit Syria. GCC member Bahrain has already re-established diplomatic relations with Damascus. Putin is pushing for a multilateral security umbrella for the Middle East, which includes China.

"While Russia is a reliable ally, the US is not," Middle East scholar Mark Katz told the South Asia Journal . And while many in the region have no love for Syria's Assad, "they respect Vladimir Putin for sticking by Russia's ally."

The Arab League -- with the exception of Qatar -- denounced the Turkish invasion and called for a withdrawal of Ankara's troops. Qatar is currently being blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE for pursuing an independent foreign policy and backing a different horse in the Libyan civil war. Turkey is Qatar's main ally.

Russia's 10-point agreement with Turkey on Syria has generally gone down well with Arab League members, largely because the Turks agreed to respect Damascus's sovereignty and eventually withdraw all troops. Of course, "eventually" is a shifty word, especially because Turkey's goals are hardly clear.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to drive the Syrian Kurds away from the Turkish border and move millions of Syrian refugees into a strip of land some 19 miles deep and 275 miles wide. The Kurds may move out, but the Russian and Syrian military -- filling in the vacuum left by President Trump's withdrawal of American forces -- have blocked the Turks from holding more than the border and one deep enclave, certainly not one big enough to house millions of refugees.

Erdogan's invasion is popular at home -- nationalism plays well with the Turkish population and most Turks are unhappy with the Syrian refugees -- but for how long? The Turkish economy is in trouble and invasions cost a lot of money. Ankara is using proxies for much of the fighting, but without lots of Turkish support those proxies are no match for the Kurds -- let alone the Syrian and Russian military.

That would mainly mean airpower, and Turkish airpower is restrained by the threat of Syrian anti-aircraft and Russian fighters , not to mention the fact that the Americans still control the airspace. The Russians have deployed their latest fifth-generation stealth fighter, the SU-57, and a number of MiG-29s and SU-27s, not planes the Turks would wish to tangle with. The Russians also have their new mobile S-400 anti-aircraft system, and the Syrians have the older, but still effective, S-300s.

In short, things could get really messy if Turkey decided to push their proxies or their army into areas occupied by Russian or Syrian troops. There are reports of clashes in Syria's northeast and casualties among the Kurds and Syrian Army, but a serious attempt to push the Russians and the Syrians out seems questionable.

The goal of resettling refugees is unlikely to go anywhere. It will cost some $53 billion to build an infrastructure and move two million refugees into Syria, money that Turkey doesn't have. The European Union has made it clear it won't offer a nickel, and the UN can't step in because the invasion is a violation of international law.

When those facts sink in, Erdogan might find that Turkish nationalism will not be enough to support his Syrian adventure if it turns into an occupation.

The Middle East that is emerging from the current crisis may be very different than the one that existed before those cruise missiles and drones tipped over the chessboard. The Yemen War might finally end. Iran may, at least partly, break out of the political and economic blockade that Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel has imposed on it. Syria's civil war will recede. And the Americans, who have dominated the Middle East since 1945, will become simply one of several international players in the region, along with China, Russia, India and the European Union.

[Nov 09, 2019] Donald Trump s Only Crime Is Defending Himself by Daniel McCarthy

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Impeachment is a game that Democrats are playing with Donald Trump, and the game's only rule is "heads I win, tails you lose." ..."
"... : by telling the president that he was not a subject of the probe and then refusing to issue a statement to that effect, Comey was making the point: Trump might be the country's elected executive, but men like Comey were the government. Officials could leak, they could issue anonymous quotes prejudicial to the president, and all Trump could do was wait until Comey decided to clear his name. ..."
"... by the time he issued his report, the protracted investigation, and all the hype about Trump and Russia that it sustained, had done its political damage and hammered the lesson home. Republicans suffered a bloodbath in the 2018 midterms, and the next president would think twice-and then twice again-about treating an FBI director as his underling. ..."
"... On January 11, 2017, Politico ran a news story under the headline "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire." The story documented Ukraine's meddling on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern summarized the findings: ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... Trump was within his rights as president to demand answers from Ukraine. And if he stood to benefit politically it was because Ukraine had already involved itself in American politics on the side of Democrats: severing those dubious ties and preventing further manipulation of U.S. elections would necessarily come at the expense of the party that Ukrainians had cultivated when Barack Obama was in power and which they had hoped to keep in power by helping Hillary Clinton ..."
"... Ukraine may have failed to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Democrats hope to use Ukraine to remove Trump now, either through impeachment-a longshot-or by weakening him and the GOP ahead of the 2020 election. And Democrats hope that Republican senators will be so embarrassed and perhaps divided by a trial in the Senate that they will lose control of that chamber in 2020, too. They know Trump will keep fighting, and the harder he fights, the more he refuses to play by the rigged rules of the game, the more opportunity Democrats see to frame his defensive moves as outrageous and impeachable offenses. With Nixon and Watergate, the cover-up was often said to be worse than the crime. With Trump, there is no crime, but his defiant acts of self-defense are enough to convict him-or so the Democrats and their allies hope. ..."
Nov 08, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

With Trump, there is no crime, but his defiant acts of self-defense are enough to convict him -- or so the Democrats and their allies hope.

by Daniel McCarthy
,

With Trump, there is no crime, but his defiant acts of self-defense are enough to convict him-or so the Democrats and their allies hope.

Impeachment is a game that Democrats are playing with Donald Trump, and the game's only rule is "heads I win, tails you lose." The president is familiar with these rules by now, as they're the same ones that governed the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. FBI Director James Comey told Trump at the outset that he was not a target of the investigation.

Yet anonymous quotes and other questionably sourced reports continued to appear in the press claiming that Trump was a Russian asset-as Hillary Clinton might bluntly put it-and so the president asked Comey to say in public what he had told him in private. Comey refused, and Trump soon fired him.

This act of self-defense, or pique, depending on your point of view, triggered calls for the appointment of a special counsel to take over the investigation-which ballooned from an investigation that didn't center around Trump into one in which Trump's behavior toward Comey was grounds for investigating the president. Comey had made a power play: by telling the president that he was not a subject of the probe and then refusing to issue a statement to that effect, Comey was making the point: Trump might be the country's elected executive, but men like Comey were the government. Officials could leak, they could issue anonymous quotes prejudicial to the president, and all Trump could do was wait until Comey decided to clear his name.

Other politicians might play by those rules out the desire for self-preservation. Trump chose not to. And so, an ex-FBI director, who may have had hopes of becoming director once again, took over the investigation. Comey would not go unavenged. Mueller ultimately found nothing criminal or meriting a recommendation of impeachment in Trump's behavior. But by the time he issued his report, the protracted investigation, and all the hype about Trump and Russia that it sustained, had done its political damage and hammered the lesson home. Republicans suffered a bloodbath in the 2018 midterms, and the next president would think twice-and then twice again-about treating an FBI director as his underling.

The Ukraine corruption that is at the heart of the Democrats' impeachment project involves the same logic if somewhat different players. On January 11, 2017, Politico ran a news story under the headline "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire." The story documented Ukraine's meddling on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern summarized the findings:

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

If a foreign power involves itself is a U.S. election like that, shouldn't America ask questions? And shouldn't aid money to that foreign power be held up until those questions were answered-not least because withholding those funds might be necessary to compel cooperation with the investigation and to get the foreign interest to mend its ways? The questions Trump had to ask in this case, however, involving what ties Ukrainians had to prominent Democratic Party figures, could and would, of course, be portrayed by Democrats and the media sympathetic to them as a kind of election interference in its own right. Why, Trump was demanding a quid pro quo from Kiev-the funds in return for information about the Democrats or an investigation that would embarrass a possible 2020 nominee.

Again, as Trump's enemies would have it, he loses if he acts (by firing Comey, by urging Kiev to look into questionable behavior by or benefiting Democrats), and he loses if he doesn't act (and simply accepts mischaracterizations of the Russia investigation in the press or Kiev's intrigues with Democrats). Trump has a predilection to defy his enemies-something they might now have come to count on-so rather than taking the beating they want to mete out to him, he hits back, and then they cry foul. The media intensifies its insinuations that Trump has broken one or more laws (though just which law remains vague and hardly even argued, let alone proven), and the president's foes reach for their institutional weapons: the special counsel provisions and now impeachment proceedings. When Republicans do not go along with the kangaroo court, well-paid ex-conservatives are hauled out to bemoan the lost integrity of a party whose last president misled the country into ceaseless wars in the Middle East-with these very same ex-conservatives having led the cheers for those interventions.

Trump was within his rights as president to demand answers from Ukraine. And if he stood to benefit politically it was because Ukraine had already involved itself in American politics on the side of Democrats: severing those dubious ties and preventing further manipulation of U.S. elections would necessarily come at the expense of the party that Ukrainians had cultivated when Barack Obama was in power and which they had hoped to keep in power by helping Hillary Clinton.

Ukrainians are only acting in self-interest here: they understandably want to enlist U.S. power in every way possible as a check upon Russia. The prospect of American politics taking a turn toward rapprochement with Russia stirs Ukraine to take one side in our elections and Russia to take another. This is an old familiar pattern in American politics-as old as the Washington and Adams administrations, when revolutionary France and counter-revolutionary England had interests in our elections, and America's ideological factions were inclined to favor one power or another. Neutrality was the course that George Washington urged, and by and large, it was the one that won out, even when the French-sympathizing Thomas Jefferson and James Madison came to power.

A lesson from George Washington would stand the leaders in Washington, DC in good stead today. But Democrats in Congress have other ideas: Ukraine may have failed to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Democrats hope to use Ukraine to remove Trump now, either through impeachment-a longshot-or by weakening him and the GOP ahead of the 2020 election. And Democrats hope that Republican senators will be so embarrassed and perhaps divided by a trial in the Senate that they will lose control of that chamber in 2020, too. They know Trump will keep fighting, and the harder he fights, the more he refuses to play by the rigged rules of the game, the more opportunity Democrats see to frame his defensive moves as outrageous and impeachable offenses. With Nixon and Watergate, the cover-up was often said to be worse than the crime. With Trump, there is no crime, but his defiant acts of self-defense are enough to convict him-or so the Democrats and their allies hope.

nopeace > jeremypw • 2 hours ago

The Jan 2017 piece referenced above disproves your entire post. It points out that Democrats used Ukraine n the 2016 election (long before Trump ever the Ukraine or Biden entered the race.

BTW, there wasn't just one country where the drug-abusing, bad discharged Biden-boy made gross amounts of money from countries trying to buy influence in the Obama administration through his father. There were several, including China. The difference is that his father admitted on video to threatening withdrawing billions in U.S. aid if the prosecutor of his son was not fired. True quid pro quo.

[Nov 09, 2019] Finally an Unvarnished History of the Iraq Invasion -

Nov 09, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians; the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam featured a military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous."

The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers, General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had -- but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."

But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."

Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on Philadelphia.

When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."

Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied), performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal 1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as "uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale, particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light infantry in the history of the world.

But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin, while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States. For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and choose reality.

This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman General Omar Bradley.

These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson "stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.

Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories. Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in later accounts.

These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories, burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling, rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the war.

The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab, leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.

In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population, substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.

The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should have never been in Vietnam in the first place.

"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote . "Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did. Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars themselves."

Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will to prevail, the war should have never been fought.

The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq. The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American Conservative , online, back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train and equip the Iraqi armed forces.

But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like) judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress, the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.

Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.

Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can, and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on the war.

At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that the war, once ended, simply continued.

The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC study:

"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning." Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."

In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the Emmitsburg Road.

As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything. It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only Lee had known that Wentz was there.

He didn't.

For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women, for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later, generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning, observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was your job to anticipate."

Mark Perry is a contributing editor at The American Conservative and the author of The Pentagon's Wars. He tweets @markperrydc .


Taras77 3 days ago

Good article!

It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor performance overall.

The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do not and could not work to specs and plans.

But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the "political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.

leisureguy Taras77 2 days ago
we all had to "support the troops" - if you held people accountable, you were an unpatriotic soldier non-supporter
E.J. Smith leisureguy a day ago
And still have to. Just ask Danny Sjursen.
EliteCommInc. Taras77 2 days ago
Excuse me.

no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military dissenters.

IanDakar EliteCommInc. a day ago
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.

The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that wants it to end.

Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.

kirthigdon 2 days ago
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4 years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most wars, there are no good guys.

Kirt Higdon

leisureguy kirthigdon 2 days ago
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?

US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.

As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.

They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched towards dug in Confederates.

This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.

The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open, well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.

Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.

kirthigdon leisureguy 2 days ago
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard, the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes tactical proficiency, not just bravery.

Kirt Higdon

EliteCommInc. kirthigdon 2 days ago
It was poor leadership decisions that prolonged the war, not bad soldiering.
E.J. Smith EliteCommInc. a day ago
Gen. McLellan at Antietam immediately comes to mind.
Kent 2 days ago
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other countries.

In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of Congress.

It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.

Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.

Kawi 2 days ago
The US Army and the Battle for Baghdad can be downloaded for free from the RAND website.

Thank you to the author of this well-written essay for brining this study to our attention.

leisureguy 2 days ago
Wow!

I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.

Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.

further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action without considering all knowable facts.

Alan Vanneman 2 days ago
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"

The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed. There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one of the 10 best ever.

D. B. Cooper Alan Vanneman 2 days ago
207 comments, 364 votes = troll
kirthigdon Alan Vanneman 2 days ago
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world, including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved peacefully.

Kirt Higdon

Sid Finster Alan Vanneman a day ago
Can you provide a link? This sounds interesting.

And that is an honest question, BTW.

EliteCommInc. 2 days ago
I think we should start out right in keeping with your agenda.

"of a war against slavery that . . ."

It was not a war against slavery, and to think so is part of a very deep misread of events. It freed slaves, it was the cause for the war ---

But the North had one primary goal: keep the union together, freeing slaves was a by product, not an end.

Chuckles a day ago
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation. 750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our "Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
E. T. Bass a day ago
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances, but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not wasted.

Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US military death to have been in vain.

roberto a day ago
Great article, Mark Perry
dougdiggler a day ago
This website looks like a dying newspaper from the flyover states. Autoplay ads are like kryptonite to people who are web-literate

[Nov 09, 2019] Israel's Last War by Gilad Atzmon

Notable quotes:
"... Until now, Iran has restrained itself despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah, Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale exchanges, the real war would begin " ..."
Nov 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Last War Gilad Atzmon November 6, 2019 1,100 Words 59 Comments Reply Listen ॥ ■ ► RSS

In my 2011 book, The Wandering Who , I elaborated on the possible disastrous scenario in which Israel is the nucleus of a global escalation over Iran's emerging nuclear capabilities. I concluded that Israel's PRE Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PRE-TSS) would be central to such a development. "The Jewish state and the Jewish discourse in general are completely foreign to the notion of temporality. Israel is blinded to the consequences of its actions, it only thinks of its actions in terms of short-term pragmatism. Instead of temporality, Israel thinks in terms of an extended present."

In 2011 Israel was still confident in its military might, certain that with the help of America or at least its support, it could deliver a mortal military blow to Iran. But this confidence has diminished, replaced by an existential anxiety that might well be warranted. For the last few months, Israeli military analysts have had to come to terms with Iran's spectacular strategic and technological abilities. The recent attack on a Saudi oil facility delivered a clear message to the world, and in particular to Israel, that Iran is far ahead of Israel and the West. The sanctions were counter effective: Iran independently developed its own technology.

Former Israeli ambassador to the US, and prolific historian, Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the Atlantic and described a horrific scenario for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.

Oren understands that a minor Israeli miscalculation could lead to total war, one in which missiles and drones of all types would rain down on Israel, overwhelm its defences and leave Israeli cities, its economy and its security in ruins.

Oren gives a detailed account of how a conflict between Israel and Iran could rapidly descend into a massive "conflagration" that would devastate Israel as well as its neighbours.

In Israel, the term "The War Between the Wars ," refers to the targeted covert inter-war campaign waged by the Jewish State with the purpose of postponing, while still preparing for, the next confrontation, presumably with Iran. In the last few years Israel has carried out hundreds of 'war between the wars' strikes against Iran-linked targets in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Oren speculates that a single miscalculation could easily lead to retaliation by Iran. "Israel is girding for the worst and acting on the assumption that fighting could break out at any time. And it's not hard to imagine how it might arrive. The conflagration, like so many in the Middle East, could be ignited by a single spark."

Until now, Iran has restrained itself despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah, Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale exchanges, the real war would begin "

Oren predicts that rockets would "rain on Israel" at a rate as high as 4,000 a day. The Iron Dome system would be overwhelmed by the vast simultaneous attacks against civilian and military targets throughout the country. And, as if this weren't devastating enough, Israel is totally unprepared to deal with precision-guided missiles that can accurately hit targets all across Israel from 1000 miles away.

Ben Gurion International Airport would be shut down and air traffic over Israel closed. The same could happen to Israel's ports. Israelis that would seek refuge in far away lands would have to swim to safety .

In this scenario, Palestinians and Lebanese militias might join the conflagration and attack Jewish border communities on the ground while long-range missiles from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran land. Before long, Israel's economy would cease to function, electrical grids severed and damaged factories and refineries would spew toxic chemicals into the air.

In the Shoah scenario Oren describes, "Millions of Israelis would huddle in bomb shelters. Hundreds of thousands would be evacuated from the border areas as terrorists attempt to infiltrate them. Restaurants and hotels would empty, along with the offices of the high-tech companies of the start-up nation. The hospitals, many of them resorting to underground facilities, would quickly be overwhelmed, even before the skies darken with the toxic fumes of blazing chemical factories and oil refineries."

Oren predicts that Israel's harsh response to attack, including a violent put down of likely West Bank and Gaza protests, would result in large scale civilian casualties and draw charges of war crimes.

As Oren states, he did not invent this prediction, it is one of the similar scenarios anticipated by Israeli military and government officials.

If such events occur, the US will be vital to the survival of the Jewish State by providing munitions, diplomatic, political, and legal support, and after the war, in negotiating truces, withdrawals, prisoner exchanges and presumably 'peace agreements.' However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the current impeachment proceedings against Trump.

In 1973 the US helped save Israel by providing its military with the necessary munitions. Will the US do so again? Do the Americans have the weapons capability to counter Iran's ballistics, precision missiles and drones? More crucially, what kind of support could America provide that would lift the spirits of humiliated and exhausted Israelis after they emerge from underground shelters having enduring four weeks without electricity or food and see their cities completely shattered?

This leads us to the essential issue. Zionism vowed to emancipate the Jews from their destiny by liberating the Jews from themselves. It vowed to bring an end to Jewish self-destruction by creating a Jewish safe haven. How is it that just seven decades after the founding of the Jewish state, the people who have suffered throughout their history have once again managed to create the potential for their own disaster?

ORDER IT NOW

In The Wandering Who I provide a possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability to accept that the past is shaped and revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink the past and the future." Accordingly, revisionism is the true essence of historical thinking. It turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.


A123 , says: November 8, 2019 at 2:07 pm GMT

Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear bombs would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.

The sociopath, Ayatollah Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks. However, there is no reason to believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace certain suicide. It is quite likely that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and end the theocracy, rather than die following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.
____

The whole theory about a prolonged conflict falls apart once accurate facts are applied to the situation. Iranian al'Hezbollah has large numbers of Katyusha pattern rockets, but very few precision weapons. And to provide human shields for these weapons, almost all of them are in a limited number of urban centers.

The facts are clear, even if Gilad chooses to ignore them in favor of his personal fantasies. Iranian al'Hezbollah would lose badly in a total forces engagement. The nuclear incineration of their rear echelons would leave forward forces totally defenseless against overwhelming Israeli air superiority.

-- Would there be Israeli civilian casulities? Certainly.
-- Would Lebanon become uninhabitable? Yes.
-- Would Ayatollah Khameni perish when Israeli nukes Tehran? Absolutely.
______

There is no possible scenario where Iran "wins" if they launch a substantial first strike. And, the Iranian military understands this as fact.

Fran Taubman , says: November 8, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@A123 It is really fun when Gilad gets off Epstein and rape stuff and ventures into wars and Israeli security. The generals have kept Gilad up to date on the latest and the greatest.
He is so out to lunch in his desire to see Israel panic and loose the next war facing horrible casualties because it makes his point about how the Jews are doomed unless they cease being Jews.

He really believes that he can solve the problem and change our destiny if we all read "Wondering
Who"

In The Wandering Who I provide a possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability to accept that the past is shaped and revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink the past and the future." Accordingly, revisionism is the true essence of historical thinking. It turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.

I wonder what it is like to wish death and destruction on a people and a country to prove your point and call yourself an unemotional Athenian.

No Jews in the headline another slow thread.

Gilad Atzmon , says: November 8, 2019 at 2:51 pm GMT
@A123 As you may have noticed, in the Israeli apocalyptic scenarios the Jewish state doesn't put into play the Samson option.. it is slightly less genocidal than yourself .. you may want to ask yourself why
Rev. Spooner , says: November 8, 2019 at 4:05 pm GMT
Israel is making a terrible mistake. The oft touted "Sampson Option" is a bogus option as Bibi, Benny Gatz and/or any other Israeli leader knows it will be suicide if they use this option. Because even if they emerge from the bunkers days later after using nuclear bombs against Iran, Syria, Lebanon and other European capitals ( Samson option targets Europe ) they will be greeted with hostility and will have no sanctuary.

Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.

Miro23 , says: November 8, 2019 at 4:52 pm GMT

However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the current impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Not at all unpredictable with regards to Israel. Trump and Congress would use the last cent of US taxpayer's money and the last drop of Anglo blood to save the place. Trump is Israel's US Viceroy and Congress is its Colonial Parliament.

Israel's real nightmare starts when US nationalists toss out the colonialists, and Israel has to find a way live on its own resources.

Sulu , says: November 8, 2019 at 5:07 pm GMT
I have to think that considering the failure of military intelligence agencies in the past that no one has any real idea how close Iran is to getting the bomb. But even if they get numbers of them and have a means to deliver them on target it simply would mean that Iran and Israel are in a standoff. I can understand how Israel would not want Iran to have the bomb but in reality how much difference would it make? It would only be relevant if the two countries had already blundered into war and things were entering a final disastrous stage. Then it would simply mean both countries would be destroyed instead of just one.
Also, not being a military man am I naive in thinking Iran might be able to buy nuclear weapons on the black market? From North Korea, perhaps? I have got to suspect Israel will be faced with two options. Either fight Iran sooner, before they get nukes. Or they will simply have to accept that Iran is going to be a nuclear power. It's pretty obvious that Israel has been trying to get America to fight their war for them. But Trump has been reluctant to do so. No wonder the Jews are chomping at the bit to find some way to get rid of him. 2020 should prove to be an interesting year.
Tom Verso , says: November 8, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMT
This analysis leaves out two very significant historic military facts:

1) The 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon aka the "33 Day War" where in:

"Hezbollah inflicted more Israeli casualties per Arab fighter in 2006 than did any of Israel's state opponents in the 1956, 1967, 1973, or 1982 Arab-Israeli interstate wars, and is generally acknowledge that Israel flat out lost that war and de facto sued for a cease fire.

(see: "U.S. Department of Defense. The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy." Kindle Edition.)

2) The Syrian army is currently the only army in the world that has multi-front, contiguous multi-year 'combined arms' (i.e. army, armor, artillery and air force) combat experience .

Further, the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah in a recent interview pointed out that Hezbollah fighting along side of the Syrian Army these past five years, now has experience in offensive warfare. In 2006 they fought strictly defensively.

In short, if an Israeli war comes again, given the experience of the Syrian and Hezbollah armies and Syria acquiring state of the art air defense system (S 300, etc), Iranian missiles may very well be the least of Israel's worries.

Indeed, before Iran launches missiles, Hezbollah and Syria may move to take back Shebaa Farms and Golan Heights.

To my mind: Israel and American militaries are "paper Tigers". Israel has never fought a combined arms war for a sustained period of time against an equally matched military. And the US not since Korea. Their victories have always been overwhelming an inferior force.

Gilad Atzmon , says: November 8, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT
@AaronB For me the fact that the Jewish state indulges itself in apocalyptic and genocidal fantasies is really a glimpse into to tribal mind.. as far as I can tell this pre traumatic stress points at severe form of projection .. Israeli politicians and commentators attribute their own symptoms to their neighbours ..
Colin Wright , says: November 8, 2019 at 6:55 pm GMT
@Rev. Spooner ' Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.'

The Persians more or less created 'the Jews.' At any rate, a religion recognizable as Judaism first appeared in the wake of the Persian conquests.

However, when did the Persians 'rescue' the Jews?

They allowed the creation of an autonomous Jewish state in Palestine when they overran that place around the beginning of the seventh century AD -- but that only lasted for about twenty years anyway.

So what are the three times?

Tom Verso , says: November 8, 2019 at 7:43 pm GMT
@A123 If I may: I don't know for sure what G Atzmon meant by the Samson Option; but, I have come across this express before and I took it to mean that Israel will go to nuclear war even if means the destruction of the Jewish State. That is, like Samson who destroyed his enemies by killing himself; Israel nuec's Iran and Iran nuce's Israel (kills enemies and itself).

This should not be taken lightly. While it would be totally irrational for most states to take the Samson Option, it is to my mind a plausible option for Israel. For even if the Jewish State is destroyed, the Jewish Nation i.e. the Jewish people around the world will survive and continue on as they have these thousands of years. But, they will be free of what they perceive as their arch enemy i.e. Iran and other Moslems. They survived the metaphoric Holocaust and they will survive a literal one. The Jewish State may be destroyed but not the Jewish People.

Altai_3 , says: November 8, 2019 at 9:35 pm GMT
This is something not enough people comment on. Israel's military is not a mini US military, it has serious problems and takes losses and casualties in contexts that would be shocking for another Western country that spends as much per capita for it's military.

This is why Israel having nuclear weapons irks me so much, the more it can't rely on it's conventional military, the more they'll lean into their nuclear deterrent, increasing the probability of it's use. (Not dissimilar to the situation with Pakistan vis-a-vis India, though in that case, India has nukes too)

Adrian , says: November 8, 2019 at 10:06 pm GMT
@Tom Verso The Samson Option
The Samson Option.jpg
Author Seymour Hersh
Country United States
Language English
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Random House
Publication date
1991
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 362 pp
ISBN 0-394-57006-5
OCLC 24609770
Dewey Decimal
355.8/25119/095694 20
LC Class UA853.I8 H47 1991
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The "Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated.

According to The New York Times, Hersh relied on Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli government employee who says he worked for Israeli intelligence, for much of his information on the state of the Israeli nuclear program. However, Hersh confirmed all of this information with at least one other source.[1] Hersh did not travel to Israel to conduct interviews for the book, believing that he might have been subject to the Israeli Military Censor. Nevertheless, he did interview Israelis in the United States and Europe during his three years of research.[1]

Colin Wright , says: November 8, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT
@Fran Taubman ' If you study it, can be pretty scary. It is not just Israel. Also who wants another North Korea blackmail game?'

You mean something like the Samson option?

Anyway, the whole discussion is silly. No nation -- and that included Imperial Japan in 1945, when the chips were down -- chooses self-immolation. They always give way. Iran isn't a threat to Israel because Iran's not going to commit national suicide, and 'the Samson Option' is bullshit as well, because six million Jews aren't going to commit national suicide either.

Zionists such as yourself only choose to think otherwise about Iran -- in spite of the absence of any historical evidence at all -- because it justifies your own pathological aggression towards a nation that is (a) a thousand miles away, and (b) poses no serious threat to Israel whatsoever.

Try not attacking literally everyone you can think of. That might help. I mean, fuck -- Israel is the only state in modern history that has attacked literally every single one of her neighbors, and several more besides. Since 1948, she's attacked Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, and even the United States. What's up?

Art , says: November 8, 2019 at 10:41 pm GMT

Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.

The Jews are always long-term losers because they teach their children that they have always been and will forever be victims of humanity. Jew children are traumatized at an immature young age – they are mentally damaged by the thought that humanity wants to kill them and do them harm. This notion is inculcated deep in the Jew child's psyche. These poor children can never escape what has been implanted. (For three thousand years, generation after generation, Jew culture has been abusing their children with dreadful thoughts.)

Nine out of ten adult Jews are triggered into thoughts of doom by any criticism of Israel – their reactions are visceral, and a pure reflex coming out of their brainstem.

Jews cannot be introspective because of what elder Jews have implanted in them in their youth. Their rational emotional systems have been short-circuited.

I have seen intelligent Jews on this forum flirt with empathy for Palestinians – only to fall back into mindless reflexive support of whatever Israel does.

Art , says: November 8, 2019 at 11:14 pm GMT
@Art

Jews Are Feeling Guilty: They Should Be. Their Influence Has Been Cancerous to America
Gilad Atzmon Wed, Nov 6, 2019

It has become an institutional Jewish habit to examine how much Jews are hated by their host nations and how fearful Jews are of their neighbours. Jewish press outlets reported yesterday that "9 out of 10 US Jews worry about anti-Semitism."

. . .

As Haartez writer Ari Shavit wrote back in 2003: "The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish " Maybe some Jews now understand that the Zionist shift from a 'promised land' to the Neocon 'promised planet' doesn't reflect well on the Jews as a group.

https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/jews-are-feeling-guilty-they-should-be-their-influence-has-been-cancerous-america/ri27813

Miro23 , says: November 8, 2019 at 11:40 pm GMT
@AaronB

Any separation of one group from another is a tribe. Any identity whatsoever is a tribe – because identity sets you apart. The moment you define yourself you are tribal, because definitions distinguish one thing from another.

The issue is that some people are not particularly tribal (i.e. Westerners) and they are open to multiculturalism – i.e. proposition nations. However, proposition nations are very much non-tribalist places and need non-tribalism to survive.

If tribalists talk multiculturalism and proposition nations (i.e. use deception) while practicing tribalism, they quickly overwhelm these societies – which is where the US is today with regards to Jewish tribalists.

What does a Jewish tribalist elite do next? And what does a (subjected) majority do next?

renfro , says: November 9, 2019 at 12:49 am GMT

Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the Atlantic and described a horrific scenario for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.

The purpose of Oren's Atlantic article was to create alarm in the DC political corridors .."warning' that if the US doesnt 'soon help Israel' with its Iran enemy there will be chaos and dead bodies galore .
Its propaganda but 'true' propaganda 'if' Israel were to attack Iran on their own but they wont .they aren't capable of it alone.
They are running this same propaganda articles/warnings in Europe, saying Europe needs to 'do something' about Iran Now!
Its basically a blackmail and scare ploy because they don't think Trump will do it for them .and of course if Israel starts a war it will be because Trump/US deserted them like he/we did the Kurds and they were 'forced' to try and defend the world against Iran 'all alone' and Israel isn't to blame for the mess lol.

What Israel will do is try to start a war on Hezbollah 'first, as Hezbollah would be their most immediate and dangerous threat , severely crippling Israel right at the onset of any war with Iran.
They will claim that Iran directed attacks on Israel and so the US should step in because its an attack by Iran.

If we had anyone in DC that wasn't bought off by Jewish 'benjamin's ' they would be laughing their asses off at this typical Jewish tactic.

Ash Williams , says: November 9, 2019 at 2:10 am GMT
@A123

Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear bombs would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.

The sociopath, Ayatollah Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks. However, there is no reason to believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace certain suicide. It is quite likely that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and end the theocracy, rather than die following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.

Kristol, you're drunk. Turn off the computer and go to bed, you shmuck.

renfro , says: November 9, 2019 at 4:49 am GMT
@Colin Wright

She has us all to herself

That was the goal.
Remember the Zios in Rumsfeld's pentagon stressing how the US must dump 'old Europe"?
Even a non genius like me could figure that out .old Europe might be too much of a 'restraining ' influence on the US.
The Jews hate Europe anyway ..just like they hate Russia.

Some interesting things popped up this week .Vindman , main testifier against Trump on Ukraine is a Ukraine Jew, Solderman,Trump's main man on Ukraine is a Jew, also has now testified against Trump, their attorney is also a Jew ..they all have issued statements about how the plucky "little Ukraine is fighting against Russia for the US and world" and needs our aid and so on. Exactly the same wording and bullshit spin the Jews use about Israel "fighting Iran to protect the US and world interest".
Plain to me the Uber Jews are trying to set up the Ukraine as a Israel satellite and weight on Russia's flank.

I read Vindman's testimony to congress ..something is very off about the guy. he sounded numerous times like he lost his script. He's, in his own words, a fanatical supporter of Ukraine . I don't like Trump but I think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly from the CIA ,its coming from the Nat Sec Council that Vindman works for.

https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=6543468-Alexander-Vindman-Testimony

ziogolem , says: November 9, 2019 at 5:28 am GMT
The Andinia Plan (and others like it) gives Israel almost a "reset" button, making the Samson Option a disturbing possibility.

"Holiday camps" with hundreds of thousands of empty houses, a military landing strip, a submarine base
https://www.globalresearch.ca/does-israel-have-a-patagonia-project-in-argentina/5624434

A Palestinian sees for herself what these Israeli tourists are about
http://www.kawther.info/K20040416A.html
http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/01/30/israeli-war-criminals-in-patagonia

It seems that the Argentinian elite are reliant on Israeli (and US) armed support
https://steemit.com/informationwar/@renny-krieger/the-military-invasion-of-argentina-english-version

It is terrifying to think that in the event Israel be run by psychopaths, they might sacrifice another "6 million", while securing themselves a new Zion.

On the other hand, a peaceful transfer of the occupation of Palestine to Patagonia (and elsewhere), without the trigger of war, would be a possible path to peace in the Middle East (not so ideal for Patagonia though).

What would it take for either outcome to pass? I fear the former is far more likely than the latter.

Not Raul , says: November 9, 2019 at 5:31 am GMT
@Altai_3 I agree.

Israel is much more likely to be the next country to use atomic weapons than Iran.

They reached their limit in the 2006 Lebanon War with just over a hundred fatalities.

It's hard to imagine the Israelis losing even half as many as they did in 1973 (somewhat less than 3000) before pushing the button.

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: November 9, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
@renfro

I don't like Trump but I think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly from the CIA ,its coming from the Nat Sec Council .

Have you heard of –
Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force
by Larry C Johnson
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/11/growing-indicators-of-brennans-cia-trump-task-force-by-larry-c-johnson.html

They were out to get him a year before he was elected;

[Nov 09, 2019] Visitor Logs Reveal Whistleblower And DNC Contractor Visited Obama White House Multiple Times

Nov 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Visitor Logs Reveal 'Whistleblower' And DNC Contractor Visited Obama White House Multiple Times by Tyler Durden Sat, 11/09/2019 - 13:30 0 SHARES

Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

A controversial whistleblower who allegedly reported second-hand on President Donald Trump's private conversation with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Obama White House on numerous occasions, according to Obama era visitor logs obtained by Judicial Watch.

Last week Real Clear Investigation's first reported the whistleblower's name. It is allegedly CIA officer Eric Ciaramella. His name, however, has been floating around Washington D.C. since the leak of Trump's phone call. It was considered an 'open secret' until reporter Paul Sperry published his article. Ciaramella has never openly stated that he is the whistleblower and most news outlets are not reporting his name publicly.

He was detailed to the National Security Counsel during the Obama Administration in 2015 and was allegedly sent back to the CIA in 2017, after a number of people within the Trump White House suspected him of leaking information to the press, according to several sources that spoke with SaraACarter.com .

Further, the detailed visitor logs reveal that a Ukrainian expert Alexandra Chalupa , a contractor that was hired by the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election, visited the White House 27 times.

Chalupa allegedly coordinated with the Ukrainians to investigate then candidate Trump and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Manafort was forced out of his short tenure as campaign manager for Trump when stories circulated regarding business dealings with Ukrainian officials. Manafort was later investigated and convicted by a jury on much lesser charges then originally set forth by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. He was given 47 months in prison for basically failing to pay appropriate taxes and committing bank fraud.

Both Ciaramella and Chalupa are of interest to Republican's investigating the what some conservatives have described as the second Trump 'witch-hunt.' And many have called for the whistleblower to testify to Congress.

They are absolutely correct and within the law. There is so much information and evidence that reveals that this was no ordinary whistleblower complaint but one that may have been based on highly partisan actions targeting Trump.

Here's just one example : Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes said its impossible to have a fair impeachment inquiry without the testimony of the alleged whistleblower because he is a 'fact foundational witness' who had met with Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-CA, previously. Schiff had originally denied that he had any contact with his committee and then had to walk back his statements when it was revealed that the whistleblower had met with the Democrats prior to filing his complaint to the Intelligence Inspector General about the President.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, said the visitor logs reveal that there is much lawmakers or the American public don't know about what happened during the 2016 presidential elections and moreover it raises very significant questions about the apparent partisan nature of the whistleblower.

"Judicial Watch's analysis of Obama White House visitor logs raises additional questions about the Obama administration, Ukraine and the related impeachment scheme targeting President Trump," said Fitton, in a press release Friday.

"Both Mr. Ciaramella and Ms. Chalupa should be questioned about the meetings documented in these visitor logs."

Read Below From Judicial Watch

The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Eric Ciaramella while he was detailed to the Obama White House:

The Hill reported that in April 2016, during the U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Embassy under Obama in Kiev, "took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and (AntAC)."

On March 7, 2019, The Associated Press reported that the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.

On June 29, 2018, Foreign Policy reported that Melville resigned in protest of Trump.

(Judicial Watch has previously uncovered documents revealing Nuland had an extensive involvement with Clinton-funded dossier . Judicial Watch also released documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department's "urgent" gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Trump taking office.)

On October 7, 2019, the Daily Wire reported leaked tapes show Sytnyk confirming that the Ukrainians helped the Clinton campaign.

The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Alexandra Chalupa, then a DNC contractor:

Mayerson was previously an intern at the Center for American Progress. After leaving the Obama administration, he went to work for the City of Chicago Treasurer's office.

Mayerson met with Chalupa and Amanda Stone, who was the White House deputy director of technology, on January 11, 2016.

On May 4, 2016, Chalupa emailed DNC official Luis Miranda to inform him that she had spoken to investigative journalists about Paul Manafort in Ukraine.

[Nov 09, 2019] Made In America How the U.S. Government Paid For Turkey's War in Syria The National Interest

Nov 09, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Mounting evidence shows that Turkey is now using rebel groups paid for by a $1 billion U.S. taxpayer-funded program as its soldiers in a brutal war on the Kurdish-led forces in Syria -- which were also armed and trained by America.

U.S. officials are describing these militants as "thugs, bandits, and pirates" as the Turkish-led Islamist forces are currently committing alleged war crimes against civilians and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Northeast Syria. Ironically, the United States armed many of these rebels as part of an effort to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Critics say that there were warning signs along the way year after year. In fact, Turkish-backed fighters recently videotaped themselves using a U.S.-made anti-tank rocket against an SDF vehicle, perhaps itself supplied by the U.S. military. "If a fighter was in a faction that received weapons from the CIA, and is still fighting today -- and that's a big if -- he is most likely in the ranks of the Syrian National Army," said Foreign Policy Research Institute Fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has extensive contacts with Syrian rebels.

Anti-Russia and anti-Iran hawks believe that the United States could have ended the could have pre-empted the whole mess in Northeast Syria -- Turkey, the Kurds, ISIS, and all -- by taking out Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Now that the window of opportunity has passed, and as President Donald Trump doubles down on ending the "endless war" in Syria, anti-Assad hawks have shifted their attention toward using U.S. power to pressure the Syrian dictator into submission. But first, they have to clean up the image of the Syrian opposition.

[Nov 09, 2019] Obama and Muslim Brotherhood

Nov 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

fersur , 1 hour ago link

Unedited !

America is fighting terrorism and the White House is hosting it

Walid Sharabi and Gamal Hishmat , Muslim Brotherhood leaders, wanted for justice for participating in killing and inciting on terror attacks in Egypt, escaped from the country and they are hosted by Qatar, Turkey and moving freely in Europe and the USA.

They are wanted for participating and inciting on burning vital buildings and public properties, inciting for violence and killing, criminal court cases numbers 12838 year 2013 , and 10790/101 year 2013 .

Muslim Brotherhood leaders attended meetings with senior US officials and Congress in this current month Jan 2015. Walid Sharabi declared on his Face book page, that Mohamed Morsi being the legitimate president of Egypt, is not an open issue for discussion or arguments. He added that this is not the first time and won't be the last time to held meetings with US officials and also they are in contact and meetings with 27 other countries in the world to discuss Egyptian affairs issues.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADERS IN THE US CONGRESS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADERS ESCAPED FROM EGYPT AND WANTED FOR JUSTICE FOR PARTICIPATING AND INCITING ON TERROR ATTACKS

Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the above screenshot are the leaders of the revolutionary council formed and established by Muslim brotherhood in Turkey after the 30/6/2013 revolution. The woman is Maha Azzam the chief of the council, Walid Sharabi and Gamal Hishmat Shura council member of Muslim Brotherhood and Abd Elmawgoud Aldardiri the official spokesman of Muslim Brotherhood and their dissolved political party, after being declared a "terrorist organization" in Egypt.

Despite that the US refused to consider Muslim Brotherhood as "terrorist organization", and that the US doesn't hide publicly their ties with Muslim Brotherhood, but we do have many questions and exclamations here. What is the purpose of these meetings? Is it to hold the stick from the middle?!

There is a blatant contradictory in the White house policy , The White house claims their support for stability and fighting terrorism in Egypt, and in the meantime time, they support and held meetings with the same terrorists, Egypt is fighting!

There is no official declarations from the US officials or the Brotherhood about the details of discussions of these meetings between MB and US officials. If Washington follows the transparency policy as they always claim, why these meetings details were not published to the public opinion!?

There is certainly a message there to Egypt from the US and their Muslim Brotherhood allies, and If there is any honesty or transparency in the White house policy, Obama should declare and admit publicly that they held deals with the devil and the terrorists, as long as it serve their interests, and they have no shame in applying double standards policy. This is happening already, so why not call spade a spade!

Does the White house think that playing with this idiotic card of Muslim Brotherhood, can put any pressure on Egypt, when needed, or to go on with the same chaos middle East project, that Egypt was saved from, after the 30/6 Egyptian revolution, to face the same destiny of Syria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen, so the project will be accomplished and achieve its targets!

Is it a coincidence or intentional to allow the first political party of a terrorist organization like the Muslim Brotherhood in the USA, and held official meetings with them what is the deal here?

On 26 Jan 2015, the inquisitr's Website published that Muslim Brotherhood Starts A Political Party "UMMA" out of Chicago. The founder of the party is Sabri Samirah a Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood member, was deemed a US national security risk in 2003 and was banned from entering the US for almost 11 years.

SABRI SAMIRAH ALLOWED TO ENTER THE US BY OBAMA IN 2014 AFTER 11 YEARS OF BAN FOR NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT

Sabri Samirah, was allowed into the U.S. by President Barack Obama back in 2014 following an 11-year ban!!! He immediately gathered Muslims to form the party, which is now recognized as the UMMA, an offset of the United Muslim Americans Association (UMAA means nation). The first political party in the U.S. to be openly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization .

So, not only the White House refused to consider Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organization, but they allowed them to form a political party in the US There are some political analysis that are confirming the ties between MB and Washington, to keep the channels open between the US and terrorist Organizations through the mediation of Muslim Brotherhood, like Al-Qaeda and ISIS to ease the pressure on the US in their fight against terrorism!

What is the deal Obama?!

This is not the first time and it won't be the last time either, the White House make deals with all parties, including terrorists, this is no longer a secret and it is not shocking anymore.

But why not call things by its own names? Obama always talks about his administration's principles and values and standard policy and he is always lecturing us about the US transparency in dealing whether with internal or external affairs. But he never calls things by its right names!

The Muslim Brotherhood who deceived the entire world and many Egyptians, with their moderate Islam and that they only seek to be political partners with other political currents, are the same Muslim Brotherhood who ruled Egypt with fascism and the same who live in about 80 countries in the world, including the US, they are the same MB who consider women as nothing but a pot of desires and lusts

They are the same brotherhood who burned churches , killed Christians , tortured and killed Egyptian citizens and burned private and public properties , they are the same Brotherhood who are loyal to ISIS and raising their flags of slaughtering and terrorism in Egypt.

This is their tactics, they are spreading through deception, and when the right moment comes, they show their ugly faces and raise their swords against any one who doesn't belong to their sick distorted ideology.

This is no longer a prediction or analysis, this is no longer a reading of the scene. We repeat and we will never gave up confirming and warning the entire world that Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, because this is what we have lived and experienced when Egypt was under the rule of Muslim Brotherhood, and we are still fighting their terror attacks.

Obama, you can't support the Egyptian people and support the terrorists at the same time, unless of course, you are a MORON or a Schizophrenic!

Obama said that the US will always support the Egyptian people's will and the Egyptians are the only ones to chose freely their own future and destiny

We did chose freely our destiny and future, like UNCLE OBAMA said, by our own free will on 30/6/2013.

We revolted against Muslim Brotherhood fascist regime and got back our identity and country that has been hijacked by Muslim Brotherhood terrorists.

Obama can't claim that the US respect our human rights and free choices, the Obama's administration violated one of our main human rights when they interfered in our internal affairs from the very first beginning, and every time they are dictating and lecturing us about what must be done to enjoy freedom and democracy.

Obama is against violence and armed demonstrations, this is what he claims He mentioned several times that those who demonstrate can not express themselves with violence!? Not even with bombs or machine guns! How come Obama is telling our gevernment to apply Restraint policy , while they are facing Muslim Brotherhood armed demonstrations and terror attacks?!

Yes, "He can" support us and support the terrorists at the same time.

Obama, you can't claim that you are with us and you are fighting terrorism, and at the same time, you are hosting Terrorists in the heart of America!

All of these flags, logos and names vary, but The terrorism is one. they symbolize the blood, racism and extremism, intolerance and discrimination, murder and slaughter and bloodshed and torture.

How come Obama supports the symbol of Muslim Brotherhood which is a symbol of terrorism, violence and blood, and he is fighting ISIS and Al-Qaeda? They are all coming from the same bloody womb! How come America declared HAMAS as terrorist group, and in the meantime, the white house is supporting Muslim brothers terrorists and Hamas is the military wing of MB!

Muslim Brotherhood raising their 4 fingers sign of terrorism and blood in the US congress and US foreign affairs department, it is not a message of challenging the Egyptian State or the Egyptian people, but Muslim Brotherhood are directly challenging the American people.

This is totally insane and beyond any logic for any brain to absorb or even to understand.

[Nov 09, 2019] UN says 12,800 13,000 killed since April 2014. That's not enough. So Congress bought a pile of Javelin AT munitions

Nov 09, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

shinola , November 8, 2019 at 3:26 pm

From the Medium article "John Bolton's Old Rivals Say Trump Should Be Very, Very Worried"

"I don't think dirt-digging would offend Bolton. What would offend Bolton is interrupting military supplies to a country in a deadly battle with Russia. Doing something that for whatever reason appeases Putin," Thielmann said."

The country referred to is Ukraine. I guess I've missed all the msm articles detailing all those deadly clashes between Russian & Ukrainian military units along with casualty figures and all that. I suppose I need to pay closer attention (or something).

Misty Flip , November 8, 2019 at 5:46 pm

UN says 12,800–13,000 killed since April 2014. So Congress bought a pile of Javelin AT munitions, the ones with a top attack flight profile that will place a high explosive shape-charge of molten copper through tops of young Russian tank commanders' heads, who are sons of Putin's base, if there was a mechanized push further into Ukraine. [The political tolerance window for which is narrowing.]

Our benevolent leader said, "Hold-on. You gotta first get your FBI to clear my campaign and come up with some trumped-up charges against my political opponent. My FBI won't do it." Congressional impoundment, solicitation of a bribe for personal gain, and abuse of power. In any case, Ukraine's getting a smaller pile of missiles until next year, so, gross incompetent moves, both domestic and abroad.

Darthbobber , November 8, 2019 at 8:43 pm

You recall that the Obama administration opposed giving Ukraine any lethal assistance?

Congress has just come up with an excellent method of giving the Russians a lot of free Javelins if there were a serious fight. Which there continues to be no sign of.

Darthbobber , November 8, 2019 at 8:38 pm

The great bulk of (pro-government) Ukrainian casualties occurred in the course of ill-advised and poorly conducted offensives against the breakaway republics. When it only defends, the Ukrainian side doesn't suffer casualties. Because nobody attacks it.

[Nov 09, 2019] Three Deep State Confessions On Syria by Brad Hoff

At a US gov-funded think tank, this official who oversaw Congress' Syria Study Group outlines the continued regime-change strategy. She says the US military "owned" 1/3rd of Syrian territory, including its oil/wheat-rich region. And the US is trying to block reconstruction funds: 1191808201177604096
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is a total moron, but we owe him a great debt for bringing the Deep State out into the open. We also owe him a great debt for blatantly stealing Syria's oil. Trump's big problem is that he's too stupid to keep the secrets of the ruling-class. They will never again be able to deny the Deep State. And their "just" wars are all exactly what they always looked like: unadulterated criminal greed. It's just killing and stealing, no different from any other murderous, thieving criminal other than the massive scale of the killing and stealing. ..."
Nov 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Brad Hoff via The Libertarian Institute,

First, all the way back in 2005 -- more than a half decade before the war began -- CNN's Christiane Amanpour told Assad to his face that regime change is coming . Thankfully this was in a televised and archived interview, now for posterity to behold.

Amanpour, it must be remembered, was married to former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin (until 2018), who further advised both President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Mr. President you know the rhetoric of regime change is headed towards you from the United States... They're granting visas and visits to Syrian opposition politicians," Amanpour told Assad in a 2005 CNN interview .

Next, a surprisingly blunt assessment of where Washington currently stands after eight years of the failed push to oust Assad and influence the final outcome of the war, from the very man who was among the early architects of America's covert "arm the jihadists to topple the dictator" campaign .

Myself and others long ago documented how former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford worked with and funded a Free Syrian Army commander who led ISIS suicide bombers into the battlefield in 2013.

Amb. Ford has since admitted this much (that US proxy 'rebels' and ISIS worked together in the early years of the war), and now admits defeat in the below recent interview as perhaps a reborn 'realist'.

And finally, not everyone is as pessimistic on the continuing prospects for yet more US-led regime change future efforts as Robert Ford is above. Below is an astoundingly blunt articulation of the next disturbing phase of US efforts in Syria , from an October 31 conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) .

"The panel featured the two co-chairs of the Syria Study Group , a bi-partisan working group appointed by Congress to draft a new US war plan for Syria," The Grayzone's Ben Norton wrote of the below clip:

She made it a point to stress that this sovereign Syrian land "owned" by Washington also happened to be "resource-rich," the "economic powerhouse of Syria, so where the hydrocarbons are as well as the agricultural powerhouse."

With images now circulating of Trump's "secure the oil" policy in effect, which has served to at least force pro-interventionist warmongers to drop all high-minded humanitarian notions of "democracy promotion" and "freedom" and R2P doctrine as descriptive of US motives in Syria, the above blunt admissions of Dana Stroul , the Democratic co-chair of the Syria Study Group, are ghastly and chilling in terms of what's next for the suffering population of Syria.

We are "preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back into Syria," she stressed in her statement.

America is not finished, apparently, and it's likely to get a lot uglier than merely seizing the oil.


Generation O , 1 hour ago link

Hell, why doesn't America unleash nerve gas on Syria's population and get this shat-show over with? Naturally, this will result in the loss to the international body parts market of Syria's youngsters (videos of actual procedures upon screaming school-age kids are available online), but America's shockingly-enabled Child Protective Services seems quite adept at replacing that market sector.

Blue Boat , 1 hour ago link

General Wesley Clarke revealed it all in 2007. He's been banished from the TV pundit shows ever since.

If you haven't seen this, it's 2 min. Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTbg11pCwOc

jeff montanye , 1 hour ago link

"They're granting visas and visits to Syrian opposition politicians"

think there were any quid pro quos with those? of course that was ok; it only led to a million dead in the mideast for the very short term advantage of the likud mossad, for which anything, at all, from 9-11 to epstein, is permitted

jeff montanye , 1 hour ago link

zionist but yes. note rubin worked both sides of the street like victoria nuland.

also the lovely lady in the video is dana sproul, https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=dana+stroul+zionist+***&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Conscious Reviver , 1 hour ago link

The Dogs of War live in Occupied DC.

Aleedsfella , 2 hours ago link

Gooooooooo Russia! NATO are great at bombing farmers but they **** their panties when another modern army drew a line in the sand and they retreated and dug in around the oil fields.

That sounds very anti USA and it is! But I know the British are involved, I just do not see the British Armed Forces as the British Armed Forces anymore they are just small players in a USA fronted globalist force and this globalist force fights for the private wealth of a few individuals?

**** that and **** you for your service to all NATO personnel since 9/11. Our armed forces are the bad guys in this movie. Which oil/ore rich nation without a western run central bank are NATO forces going to free the **** out of next? I was betting on Iran but it looks like America is about to turn on South America soon, Venezuela looks like NATO want to free it.

East Indian , 2 hours ago link

Christiane Amanpour - I wonder what she sees when she sees herself in the mirror.

'To die, to sleep – to sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.'

Good luck, Amanpour.

BobEore , 2 hours ago link

Put down that crak pipe ho! \

likely to get a lot uglier than merely seizing the oil

Lost in their factionalist partisan bubble of rabid political gamesmanship, Merikans continue to squabble over which of their talmudic puppet parties suffer more from imperial over reach...

whilst serious war crimes committed by jihadis and their neo-islamist backers continue to occur as a result of the WAR CRIMINAL IN CHIEFS' kowtowing to an oriental despot who has the goods on Donnies' Debt Deal with turco-talmudic bagmen who did over his dirty real estate laundry in return for having their own 'special genius' POTUS dancing on their strings!

Hundreds of thousands displaced, and more now on the run from rape n pillage gangsters due to Dons' Deceitful Sellout of the ONLY group who took on the Daesh/ISIS and pounded their pouty asses in to the desert sands. All to save his own chicken neck; And you wanna talk about oil?

"I like oil - we're keeping the oil." OIL FOR BLOOD - BLOODY DON DRIMPF, THE JIHADIST CHEW TOY!

Condor_0000 , 2 hours ago link

Trump is a total moron, but we owe him a great debt for bringing the Deep State out into the open. We also owe him a great debt for blatantly stealing Syria's oil. Trump's big problem is that he's too stupid to keep the secrets of the ruling-class. They will never again be able to deny the Deep State. And their "just" wars are all exactly what they always looked like: unadulterated criminal greed. It's just killing and stealing, no different from any other murderous, thieving criminal other than the massive scale of the killing and stealing.

ImTalkinfullCs , 2 hours ago link

This twat wants to "hold the line on preventing reconstruction aid from going back to Syria" ........ the Zionists love a failed state. Music to their creepy ears.

DEDA CVETKO , 2 hours ago link

Syria is the last barrier that separates the civilization from the tsunami of evil. The Syrian sovereignty and independence - however flawed - must be preserved at any cost.

Anglo-Aryan , 2 hours ago link

Jews responsible for the whole of it. America cannot become a decent force in the world without deposing its Jewish elite and removing their power, reach and influence.

pHObuk0wrEHob71Suwr2 , 2 hours ago link

https://vault.fbi.gov/victor-marchetti/victor-marchetti-part-01-of-01/view

DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago link

I lived under communism for 21 years. For the first 11 or so years, we only had one TV channel, which was kinda 50/50: fifty percent government propaganda, fifty percent government-approved forms of entertainment. Some 11 years later, we got another channel, which was mostly movies and assorted entertainment, with bits and pieces of Big Brother presence tossed in for good measure.

Still, I found the official news credible in one sense: you knew that these guys were full of **** and lying through the teeth so you could always reconstruct the truth by placing their news coverage on its head. It never failed. It worked like a charm.

Now, I have some 600+ channels worth of pure brainwash in every shape, shade and nuance of mind control. It is impossible to even think of reconstituting some semblance of objective reality from the fake media coverage. All you get is one gigantic funhouse, the house of horrors, the lunatic asylum on steroids. The only way to stay sane is to steer clear and as far away from the insanity as possible. You did the right thing, in fact the only possible thing.

Seek Shelter , 2 hours ago link

The Washington Institute -- founded by Barbi Weinberg and first led by the former deputy director of research for AIPAC. Democrat, Republican--all the same to these 'think tanks'.

[Nov 09, 2019] Post-Cold War Triumphalism and Kennan's Warning by Daniel Larison

Nov 09, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Andrew Bacevich describes how the U.S. learned all the wrong lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War:

You won't hear it from any of the candidates vying to succeed Trump, but we are still haunted by our false conception of the Cold War. On the stump, politicians get away with reciting comforting clichés about the imperative of American global leadership. Yet the time for believing such malarkey is long gone.

An essential first step toward recoupling national security policy and reason is to see the Cold War for what it was: not a "long, twilight struggle" ending in victory, but a vast and costly tragedy that inflicted needless suffering, brought humankind absurdly close to extinction, and from which U.S. policymakers have drawn all the wrong lessons.

The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall offers an occasion not for celebration but for somber and long overdue reflection.

One of the wrong lessons that U.S. policymakers drew from the events of 1989-1991 was that the U.S. was chiefly responsible for ending and "winning" the Cold War, which inevitably overestimated our government's capabilities and effectiveness in affecting the political fortunes of other parts of the world. The far more critical and important role of the peoples of central and eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself in overthrowing the system that had oppressed them was pushed into the background as much as possible. The U.S. took credit for their success and policymakers frequently attributed the outcome to the policies of the late Cold War rather than to the deficiencies and failings of the other system. After waging stalemated and failed wars in the name of anticommunism, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to claim that they had "won" something, and so they declared victory for something that they hadn't caused.

The period that followed the dissolution of the USSR was one of triumphalism, expansion, and overreach. The U.S. not only congratulated itself for achieving something that was accomplished by others, but it also assumed that it could achieve similar results in other parts of the world. If NATO had been a great success as a defensive alliance, the "thinking" went, why shouldn't it continue and expand to include many more countries? If the U.S. was supposedly able to bring down the Soviet Union, why shouldn't it do the same to authoritarian regimes elsewhere? Absent the check on ambition and hubris that a superpower rival provided, the U.S. was free to run amok and do whatever it liked without regard for the consequences. That triumphalism sowed the seeds for many of the more significant post-Cold War failures that we have witnessed since then. Even today, that same overconfidence encourages U.S. policymakers to flirt with the idea of engaging in another Cold War-style rivalry with a more formidable state in China.

George Kennan presciently warned against the triumphalism that he saw around him as early as 1992. At that time, he was responding directly to the claims from Republicans that Reagan and his policies had "won" the Cold War:

The suggestion that any American administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic-political upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is intrinsically silly and childish. No great country has that sort of influence on the internal developments of any other one.

Kennan went on to say that the militarization of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War was a boon to Soviet hard-liners and in that way helped prolong it:

The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet Union.

The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.

Whenever hawks talk about "winning" the Cold War, they invariably mean that it was the militarized policies they favored that carried the day, but Kennan reminded us that this was not so. In fact, a militarized foreign policy perpetuated the struggle by providing Soviet hard-liners with a plausible foreign threat that they could use to justify their own policies and to clamp down on internal dissent. We have seen the same thing repeated several times in the last thirty years on a smaller scale with other governments. The most aggressive and confrontational policies unwittingly aid authoritarian regimes by giving them an external enemy that they can use to deflect attention from their own failings and as a pretext for the consolidation of power at home.

Kennan was already telling us shortly after the Cold War ended that no one had "won" it:

Nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- "won" the cold war. It was a long and costly political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and exaggerated estimates of the intentions and strength of the other party [bold mine-DL]. It greatly overstrained the economic resources of both countries, leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy financial, social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither had anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.

We can all be grateful that the Cold War ended, but we shouldn't delude ourselves with talk of victory. Not only is it inaccurate, but it encourages the worst kinds of overreach and arrogance that has led to several serious foreign policy failures in the decades that have followed. Kennan warned us almost thirty years ago not to go down this path of triumphalism, and as so often happened Americans ignored Kennan's wisdom.

Kennan concluded with the same idea that Bacevich stated at the end of his op-ed:

That the conflict should now be formally ended is a fit occasion for satisfaction but also for sober re-examination of the part we took in its origin and long continuation. It is not a fit occasion for pretending that the end of it was a great triumph for anyone, and particularly not one for which any American political party could properly claim principal credit.

American policymakers are not known for sober re-examination and acknowledgment of error, but these are exactly the things that are needed if we are to stop making the same blunders and learning the wrong lessons from the past. Kennan and Bacevich's advice is just as timely and important today as it was twenty-seven years ago. Perhaps this time we should pay attention and listen to it.

[Nov 08, 2019] Pompeo attempt in projection

Nov 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

james , Nov 8 2019 20:51 utc | 31

who said this today in an official gov't press release?

"Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades its neighbors and slays political opponents. It suppresses the independence of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Russian authorities, even as we speak, use police raids and torture against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who are working in opposition to Russian aggression. In Chechnya, anyone considered "undesirable" by the authorities simply disappears.

In China – in China, the Chinese Communist Party is shaping a new vision of authoritarianism, one that the world has not seen for an awfully long time. The Chinese Communist Party uses tactics and methods to suppress its own people that would be horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans. The People's Liberation Army encroaches on the sovereignty of its Chinese neighbors, and the Chinese Communist Party denies travel privileges to critics – even German lawmakers – who condemn its abysmal human rights record. The CCP harasses the families of Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, who simply sought refuge abroad. We – all of us, everyone in this room – has a duty. We must recognize that free nations are in a competition of values with those unfree nations."

[Nov 08, 2019] Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Nov 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Nov 8 2019 17:31 utc | 8

Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Tea Party foot soldiers?

Repeal and replace Obamacare on day one
Nope. Quietly dropped coverage for prior conditions.

Build a Wall - and Mexico's gonna pay for it!

Not really. Building sections of a wall that USA will pay for.

Drain the swamp

Nope - unless by "swamp" Trump means the Democratic Party.

"Lock her up!"

Nope. He says they're good people who have been thru a lot. Aww . . .
America?
End the "threat" from NK "Rocket man"
Nope. No follow-thru on the (sham) Summit.

End the new Cold War

Nope. Increased military spending; ended treaties; militarized space.

End "forever wars", bring the troops home

Nope.

Bring jobs home

Uncertain: trade War with China doesn't necessarily mean jobs coming back US.

= = = = = = = =

Republican Party?

Cut taxes
YES!

Cut regulations on business

YES!

Israel?

Move Embassy to Jerusalem
YES!

Recognize Golan Heights as part of Israel

YES!

End aid to Palestinians

YES!

Don't give up on Syrian regime-change

YES!

US MIC, Netanyahu, MbS?

End US participation in the JCPOA
YES!

McCain: "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"

"locked and loaded"
!!

[Nov 08, 2019] Pompeo attempt in projection

Nov 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

james , Nov 8 2019 20:51 utc | 31

who said this today in an official gov't press release?

"Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades its neighbors and slays political opponents. It suppresses the independence of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Russian authorities, even as we speak, use police raids and torture against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who are working in opposition to Russian aggression. In Chechnya, anyone considered "undesirable" by the authorities simply disappears.

In China – in China, the Chinese Communist Party is shaping a new vision of authoritarianism, one that the world has not seen for an awfully long time. The Chinese Communist Party uses tactics and methods to suppress its own people that would be horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans. The People's Liberation Army encroaches on the sovereignty of its Chinese neighbors, and the Chinese Communist Party denies travel privileges to critics – even German lawmakers – who condemn its abysmal human rights record. The CCP harasses the families of Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, who simply sought refuge abroad. We – all of us, everyone in this room – has a duty. We must recognize that free nations are in a competition of values with those unfree nations."

[Nov 08, 2019] Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Nov 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Nov 8 2019 17:31 utc | 8

Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Tea Party foot soldiers?

Repeal and replace Obamacare on day one
Nope. Quietly dropped coverage for prior conditions.

Build a Wall - and Mexico's gonna pay for it!

Not really. Building sections of a wall that USA will pay for.

Drain the swamp

Nope - unless by "swamp" Trump means the Democratic Party.

"Lock her up!"

Nope. He says they're good people who have been thru a lot. Aww . . .
America?
End the "threat" from NK "Rocket man"
Nope. No follow-thru on the (sham) Summit.

End the new Cold War

Nope. Increased military spending; ended treaties; militarized space.

End "forever wars", bring the troops home

Nope.

Bring jobs home

Uncertain: trade War with China doesn't necessarily mean jobs coming back US.

= = = = = = = =

Republican Party?

Cut taxes
YES!

Cut regulations on business

YES!

Israel?

Move Embassy to Jerusalem
YES!

Recognize Golan Heights as part of Israel

YES!

End aid to Palestinians

YES!

Don't give up on Syrian regime-change

YES!

US MIC, Netanyahu, MbS?

End US participation in the JCPOA
YES!

McCain: "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"

"locked and loaded"
!!

[Nov 07, 2019] 3 Steps to Reviving the Russian Relationship

Notable quotes:
"... This period is when Clinton IMHO sent NATO in a wrong direction from being strictly defensive/political to getting involved in Yugoslavia which certainly irritated Russia. ..."
"... Then good old Obama and another Clinton deciding to overthrow Gaddafi and his whole Arab Spring foreign policy to include getting involved in Syria. These were disastrous decisions that the current POTUS inherited and is trying to change except the "deep state" is fighting him tooth and nail. ..."
"... Getting out of Ukraine would be a huge trust maker for Russia and it would be followed by sanctions being lifted allowing for a level playing field to begin working on the issues that need fixing. NATO isn't going away however the forward deployed forces in the Baltic's and Poland could over time in an agreed to reciprocal move say removing Iskander missiles from Kaliningrad could be accomplished. ..."
Nov 07, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

J Urie Z'ing Sui 13 hours ago ,

You are 100% correct that trust is the number one point in coming to any agreement and currently there is very little trust on either side for varying reasons. One important fact that is overlooked by most people is the leadership of President George H. W. Bush and PM Margaret Thatcher during the transition from the Soviet Union/Warsaw pact to independent sovereign nations. The Bush was a WW II pilot and Thatcher earned the name Iron Lady for her decisive action in the Falklands War, both understood the world as it was in 1990. This statement highlights the view that prevailed from Bush at the time: "Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the "not one inch eastward" formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev's statement in response to the assurances that "NATO expansion is unacceptable." Baker assured Gorbachev that "neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place," and that the Americans understood that "not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO's present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction." (See Document 6)"

These were complicated issues that involved a multitude of parties being negotiated by just a few i.e. US, UK, France and West Germany a holdover from the WW II model. The Poles, Czechs and others were not consulted and IMHO had they been the situation would have become untenable. It must be remembered that Poland and Czechoslovakia suffered heavily due to "large important nations" giving them away pre and post WW II. There was no written agreement nor official treaty between the west and the Soviet Union soon to be Russian Federation and I believe that was intentional for the reason I give above. George H. W. Bush was not reelected in 1992 and Bill Clinton became POTUS and he pursued a foreign policy that was entirely different. Some of his ideas used Thatchers earlier idea of a more political NATO with less emphasis on the original military mission which brought in the Partnerships for Peace program. That program was IMHO quite good as it stabilized countries that were wobbly in the 1990's after the breakup occurred. The Clinton White House had Madeline Albright an immigrant from Czechoslovakia as secretary of State and Zbigniew Brzezinski a former secretary of State and an academic that influenced his policies which were pro eastern European anti Russian. It was during this time that NATO expanded. The US is a country of immigrants and there is a large Polish population as well as other eastern Europeans and political considerations are always come into play.

This period is when Clinton IMHO sent NATO in a wrong direction from being strictly defensive/political to getting involved in Yugoslavia which certainly irritated Russia.

G.W. Bush basically continued the trend with regard to NATO but was preoccupied with 9/11 more than anything else. Bush thought that he understood Putin and even invited him to his ranch in Crawford, Texas which Putin accepted and they did seem to get along.

However 2008 and the Georgia War began the slide in relations between the two countries. Then good old Obama and another Clinton deciding to overthrow Gaddafi and his whole Arab Spring foreign policy to include getting involved in Syria. These were disastrous decisions that the current POTUS inherited and is trying to change except the "deep state" is fighting him tooth and nail.

Getting out of Ukraine would be a huge trust maker for Russia and it would be followed by sanctions being lifted allowing for a level playing field to begin working on the issues that need fixing. NATO isn't going away however the forward deployed forces in the Baltic's and Poland could over time in an agreed to reciprocal move say removing Iskander missiles from Kaliningrad could be accomplished.

Gaugamela39 a day ago ,

Carthago delenda est. The policy of Cato the Censor should be applied in an unrelenting manner, leading to 'salting the earth' of Moscow.

dorotea Gaugamela39 a day ago ,

Many have tried, usually ended up in those infamous endless Russian fields, in long boxes. See Pushkin, for the exact quote. But historical trivialities aside, there should be a way to satisfy Imperial hubris without 'salting the grounds'. Hannibal's elephants did not carry nukes in their trunks. Trying for the sixth time in the last 4 centuries to get Moscow grounds salted might end badly for the entire planet.

The Chosen One dorotea a day ago ,

So it seems to me that only the advent of a nuclear weapon and the threat of an imminent deadly retaliation prevents a new "drang nach osten".

Z'ing Sui J Urie 39 minutes ago • edited ,

Trust was not breached by Russia, military buildup, hostile threatening military, NATO expansion and refusal to negotiate on these issues did not originate from Russia. Russia has tried to negotiate, concede and de-escalate before. The West did not respond to those moves. Even US sanctions placed on Soviet Union were not removed from Russia, despite there being no reason for them to remain in place. This and other recent events (libya, iran deal etc) tells Russia and other global players that de-escalating with the West doesn't work.

Even now, West seems to be interested to trade with Russia at least in some areas. And Europe is increasingly frustrated with the United States. There is reportedly a number of EU initiatives aimed at gradually limiting US economic levers created during the Cold War. Rising economies will gradually offer more opportunities outside of the Western world. Multipolar wolrd was a slogan in the 00s, in the 2040es it might be a reality.

We know NATO will not maintain ABM and CFE, and it is apparently not interested in INF and Open Skies, and even START is in question now. NATO will withdraw troops if only Russia does something? Please, you don't really believe that. With INF gone, Iskander is outdated, it was a treaty-limited weapon. Moving it a few hundred klicks will not make NATO concede anything now.

A huge trust maker would be for all NATO members to publically admit on their web page that pledges to Russia were broken and at least some NATO officials feel responsibility for that. They've spent 27 years denying any verbal assurances, now that those assurances are declassified, they build other narratives about how those pledges did not matter. For there to be trust, there needs to be an admission that trust was there, and was broken, and not by Russia. No troop movements necessary even.

J Urie mal a day ago • edited ,

Biden isn't going to win the next election Trump will be reelected in 2020. The current strain in relations with Russia has been inherited by Trump and even before he was elected the DNC and Hillary Clinton cooked up the "Russia colusion" story which after $46 million and 2 1/2 years no Russia collision. Of course now we have the Dems trying to impeach Trump which will not go anywhere in the Senate more waste of time and money. However there is the Justice Department I.G. report soon to be released and many of the people who brought you the Russia colusion hoax will be named. The Justice Department has an ongoing criminal investigation into the key players and will undoubtedly result in indictments and prosecutions.
The real reason all of this is going on is because the establishment both Dem's & Repub's along with the deep state look at Trump as an outsider who is tipping over their apple cart i.e. he is changing the foreign policy direction and they don't like it one bit so they create fake issues to try and stop him.
After his reelection I predict that more normal relations with Russia will resume.

dorotea Roma Ilto 14 hours ago ,

Nowadays the actual attacks are manifested as 'hybrid warfare'. Of course Russia took the US intervention and financing of Chechen rebels as an attack back in the 2000 ties. She took fermenting and financing of the Georgian rose revolution as a hybrid attack, same as promises made to pres. Saakashvili to support him militarily and politically after his attack on Tskhinvali were taken as a hybrid attack. Same goes for both of the first color revolution in Ukraine, and then the Revolution of dignity of 2014 that pushed ultra-right government to power in Ukraine. In fact the NATO promise to both Georgia and Ukraine to take them in as members in 2008 right after Putin's warning in 2007 was the first move in the 'hybrid war'. The West had been warned, yet it decided to bulldoze its way across Eurasia and triggered the confrontation. The placings of Aegises ashore in Poland and Romania was the cherry on top. There can be be no meaningful compromise until the West backs off on the NATO enlargement. That 2008 conference was what had reanimated the image of the collective West as adversary for Russia.

What both sides should strive for though is at the very least to diminish the degree of danger to the planet. Russia would not back off because she finds it easy enough to corner individual EU states into minimal economic cooperation - Germany is already in recession and there is no way they are going to continue damaging their economy for the sake of US politics. And then there is China. When the Russians cannot buy goods from Germans they go for made in China, which in turn gets China secure oil and gas from Russia. Which make the repeat of pre-WW II situation with blockade on Japan pretty much impossible. Get realistic, the West is loosing this one and should count her chickens already.

Roma Ilto dorotea 14 hours ago ,

Well, then the sanctions will continue, as will the policy of keeping Russian in check in the EU gas market.
What's interesting is that NATO never attacked Russia or threatened to attack Russia. Seems to me that Putin is simply using the expansion as a pretext for military aggression against the neighboring states. It's what the USSR did in 1939 against Finland. According the Soviet side, the war started after Finland attacked the Soviet Union...

dorotea Roma Ilto 14 hours ago ,

Russia *needs* the sanctions for at least another 5 years. Her milk and beef production is still lagging compared to the deceased USSR and the only way her greedy oligarchs will heavily invest in cow herd rearing is to continue to block the Eastern European milk products to enter Russia. Chicken, eggs, pork and veggies are already up to speed, wheat production is exploding, the salmon breeding programme have started so the Norway is not getting her market back, bu the cow herds take longer to rear.
The Power of Siberia pipeline is being certified and filled right now - China would receive her first delivery of piped Russian gas in 2020, so it is good that EU is prepping or the squeeze - they are not going to continue getting unlimited cheap Russian gas, because Power of Siberia II is in the works.

Every individual NATO member had attacked Russia in the past 4 centuries ( including small but meaningful US contingent in the 1918), and some non-member allies had stomped those fields as well. So the Russians are not taking any chances with the buffer zone. All of Russia expansions to the West have always started with West invading first - then being rolled back league by league. But seriously - ? Russians can live with Europe staying where she is - if in turn Europe can learn to respect her civilization borders. The move on Ukraine and Georgia was not a wise one.

[Nov 06, 2019] Impeachment Inquiry Transcripts: Read Excerpts of Sondland's and Volker's Testimonies

Nov 06, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , November 05, 2019 at 01:34 PM

Impeachment Inquiry Transcripts: Read Excerpts of Sondland's and Volker's Testimonies

House investigators on Tuesday released transcripts from two more closed-door depositions.

Gordon Sondland's Testimony
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/05/us/politics/sondland-testimony-transcript-impeachment.html

Kurt Volker's Testimony
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/05/us/politics/volker-testimony-transcript-impeachment.html

[Nov 06, 2019] A Timeline Of Joe Biden's Intervention Against The Prosecutor General Of Ukraine

Nov 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , Nov 5 2019 22:32 utc | 13

Right on cue Sondland changes gears from drive to reverse:

Sondland Acknowledges 'Quid Pro Quo' In Reversal To Trump-Ukraine Testimony

House Democrats on Tuesday released excerpts of closed-door depositions with former US Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker, as well as revised testimony from US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland which was a complete reversal from what he said in text messages revealed last month as well as prior testimony.

In them, Sondland reveals in four new pages of sworn testimony he told a top Ukrainian official that a meeting with President Trump may be contingent upon its new administration committing to investigations Trump wanted, according to the New York Times.

Mr. Sondland provided a more robust description of his own role in alerting the Ukrainians that they needed to go along with investigative requests being demanded by the president's personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. -New York Times

Bloomberg reports "Sondland testified that a promise by Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden's son and the 2016 election was a condition that "would have to be complied with" for the country's leaders to get a meeting with Trump."

"That was my understanding," he said.

SO if that is Sondland's [mis]understanding, let's compare. Read his Sept 9 text message to Taylor.

Pat Buchanan wants to know Where are the high crimes?

The image of Biden and son in link, speaks truth. Take a look.

These are the offenses designated in the Constitution for which presidents may be impeached and removed from office.

Which of these did Trump commit?[.]

According to his accusers in this city, his crime is as follows:

The president imperiled our "national security" by delaying, for his own reasons, a transfer of lethal aid and Javelin missiles to Ukraine -- the very weapons President Barack Obama refused to send to Ukraine, lest they widen and lengthen the war in the Donbass.

Now, if Trump imperiled national security by delaying the transfer of the weapons, was not Obama guilty of a greater crime against our national security by denying the weapons to Ukraine altogether?

The essence of Trump's crime, it is said, was that he demanded a quid pro quo. He passed word to incoming President Volodymyr Zelensky that if he did not hold a press conference to announce an investigation of Joe Biden and son Hunter, he, Zelensky, would not get the arms we had promised, nor the Oval Office meeting that Zelensky requested.

Again, where is the body of the crime? [.]


By the way, what was Biden doing approving a $1 billion loan guarantee to Petro Poroshenko's regime, which was so corrupt that it ferociously fought not to fire a prosecutor whose dismissal all of Europe was demanding?

Should Biden be nominated and elected, a special prosecutor would have to be appointed to investigate this smelly deal, as well as the $1 billion Hunter got for his equity fund from the Chinese after his father visited the Middle Kingdom.[.]


[Nov 06, 2019] British Government Disinformation Shop Lost Charity Status

Nov 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

The Integrity Initiative, as paid for by the British Foreign Office, Ministry of Defense, NATO and other such entities, will live on as a non-charitable entity with even less transparency. Its website, as well as that of Institute of Statecraft, is down. That it will now have to live in total secrecy will make it more difficult for it to recruit foreign journalists to spread its propaganda.

Since the Integrity Initiative was exposed the British government opened and financed a new secretive shop that will continue to spread anti-Russian disinformation :

On 3rd April, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Alan Duncan revealed his department's 'Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme' - which bankrolls the Institute for Statecraft and its Integrity Initiative subsidiary - was funding a new endeavour, Open Information Partnership (OIP).

The announcement, buried in a response to a written parliamentary question, was supremely light on detail - Duncan merely said the effort would "respond to manipulated information in the news, social media and across the public space". Official fanfare was also unforthcoming - there was no accompanying press release, briefing document, or even mention of the launch by any government minister or department via social media channels.

The original proposal for the Open Information Partnership , as released by 'anonymous' , included the Institute of Statecraft , a Media Diversity Institute , Bellingcat , DFR Lab (i.e. the Atlantic Council) and some others in a so called ZINC Network . On the current OIP website the Institute of Statecraft 'charity' is no longer named.

---
Previous Moon of Alabama reports on the issue:

Tim Hayward provides a list (scroll down) of a large number of articles written here and elsewhere about the Integrity Initiative . Speaking of Bellingcat:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BfLPJpRtyq4RFtHJoNpvWQjmGnyVkfE2HYoICKOGguA/mobilebas

Posted by: NOBTS | Nov 4 2019 18:45 utc | 2


karlof1 , Nov 4 2019 18:49 utc | 3

At Kit Klarenberg's Twitter , there's a long tweet thread further detailing what b has written above. I can't help be wonder how the Monty Python troop would have portrayed the Institute for Statecraft and its parent the Integrity Initiative. It appears that the governments of the English speaking nations became addicted to lying to their citizens @1900 and are unable to kick the habit and instead have actually deepened their addiction. Elsewhere on the planet, it seems that people are learning it's easier to talk straight and transparently with other people and to pool resources and combine efforts to form a community of nations and humanity to better one and all. Seems simple enough to determine which is functional and which isn't.
/div> Oops! Googlehidden. Here's one that might work. An interesting compendium: https://www.comsuregroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Bellingcats-Digital-Toolkit.pdf

Posted by: NOBTS , Nov 4 2019 18:51 utc | 5

Oops! Googlehidden. Here's one that might work. An interesting compendium: https://www.comsuregroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Bellingcats-Digital-Toolkit.pdf

Posted by: NOBTS | Nov 4 2019 18:51 utc | 5

Symen Danziger , Nov 5 2019 11:34 utc | 41
Bellingcat only serves one interest, a propaganda/info laundering shop for NATO, the military industrial complex and some very rich people. The blatant lies about MH17, chemical weapons in Syria, OPCW, Russia, the list goes on and on.

By the time the people in the Netherlands find out how they have been manipulated with the MH17 narrative and the role of Bellingcat in this operation, hopefully they will torch the office of Bellingcat in The Hague and club the survivors to death like the Uktainian Nazi friends of Bellingcat did in Odessa.

The Ukrainian army shot down MH17. It was no accident. The Dutch were also involved with the 2014 coup in the Ukraine. Putting the blame on Russia is a political decision, its not based on facts. Dutch politicians are very dirty people. Burn in hell.

[Nov 06, 2019] Manufacturing Fear and Loathing, Maximizing Corporate Profits! A Review of Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc. Why Today's Media Makes Us

Notable quotes:
"... "Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear it" (p. 11). ..."
"... Americans were held captive by the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic. ..."
"... The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15). ..."
"... our corporate media have devised -- at least for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in order to smother real dissent (p. 21). ..."
"... And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid. ..."
"... For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the same" (pp. 259-260). ..."
Nov 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc . is the most insightful and revelatory book about American politics to appear since the publication of Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal almost four full years ago, near the beginning of the last presidential election cycle.

While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite social circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class. In fact, I would strongly recommend that the reader spend some time with Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) and Listen, Liberal! (2016) as he or she takes up Taibbi's book.

And to really do the book the justice it deserves, I would even more vehemently recommend that the reader immerse him- or herself in Taibbi's favorite book and vade-mecum , Manufacturing Consent (which I found to be a grueling experience: a relentless cataloging of the official lies that hide the brutality of American foreign policy) and, in order to properly appreciate the brilliance of Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the Media Stole from Pro Wrestling," visit some locale in Flyover Country and see some pro wrestling in person (which I found to be unexpectedly uplifting -- more on this soon enough).

Taibbi tells us that he had originally intended for Hate, Inc . to be an updating of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (1988), which he first read thirty years ago, when he was nineteen. "It blew my mind," Taibbi writes. "[It] taught me that some level of deception was baked into almost everything I'd ever been taught about modern American life .

Once the authors in the first chapter laid out their famed propaganda model [italics mine], they cut through the deceptions of the American state like a buzz saw" (p. 10). For what seemed to be vigorous democratic debate, Taibbi realized, was instead a soul-crushing simulation of debate. The choices voters were given were distinctions without valid differences, and just as hyped, just as trivial, as the choices between a Whopper and a Big Mac, between Froot Loops and Frosted Mini-Wheats, between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, between Marlboro Lites and Camel Filters. It was all profit-making poisonous junk.

"Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear it" (p. 11). And there's an indisputable logic at work here, because the reality of hideous American war crimes is and always has been, from the point of view of the big media corporations, a "narrative-ruining" buzz-kill. "The uglier truth [brought to light in Manufacturing Consent ], that we committed genocide of a fairly massive scale across Indochina -- ultimately killing at least a million innocent civilians by air in three countries -- is pre-excluded from the history of the period" (p. 13).

So what has changed in the last thirty years? A lot! As a starting point let's consider the very useful metaphor found in the title of another great media book of 1988: Mark Crispin Miller's Boxed In: The Culture of TV . To say that Americans were held captive by the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic.

Taibbi summarizes the history of these three decades in terms of three "massive revolutions" in the media plus one actual massive political revolution, all of which, we should note, he discussed with his hero Chomsky (who is now ninety! -- Edward Herman passed away in 2017) even as he wrote his book. And so: the media revolutions which Taibbi describes were, first, the coming of FoxNews along with Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio; second, the coming of CNN, i.e., the Cable News Network, along with twenty-four hour infinite-loop news cycles; third, the coming of the Internet along with the mighty social media giants Facebook and Twitter.

The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15).

For all that, however, the most salient difference between the news media of 1989 and the news media of 2019 is the disappearance of the single type of calm and decorous and slightly boring cis-het white anchorman (who somehow successfully appealed to a nationwide audience) and his replacement by a seemingly wide variety of demographically-engineered news personæ who all rage and scream combatively in each other's direction. "In the old days," Taibbi writes, "the news was a mix of this toothless trivia and cheery dispatches from the frontlines of Pax Americana . The news [was] once designed to be consumed by the whole house . But once we started to be organized into demographic silos [italics mine], the networks found another way to seduce these audiences: they sold intramural conflict" (p. 18).

And in this new media environment of constant conflict, how, Taibbi wondered, could public consent , which would seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from conflict, still be manufactured ?? "That wasn't easy for me to see in my first decades in the business," Taibbi writes. "For a long time, I thought it was a flaw in the Chomsky/Herman model" (p. 19).

But what Taibbi was at length able to understand, and what he is now able to describe for us with both wit and controlled outrage, is that our corporate media have devised -- at least for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in order to smother real dissent (p. 21).

And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.

Or pretty much so. Taibbi is more historically precise. Because of the tweaking of the Herman/Chomsky propaganda model necessitated by the disappearance of the USSR in 1991 ("The Russians escaped while we weren't watching them, / As Russians do ," Jackson Browne presciently prophesied on MTV way back in 1983), one might now want to speak of a Propaganda Model 2.0. For, as Taibbi notes, " the biggest change to Chomsky's model is the discovery of a far superior 'common enemy' in modern media: each other. So long as we remain a bitterly-divided two-party state, we'll never want for TV villains" (pp. 207-208).

To rub his great insight right into our uncomprehending faces, Taibbi has almost sadistically chosen to have dark, shadowy images of a yelling Sean Hannity (in lurid FoxNews Red!) and a screaming Rachel Maddow (in glaring MSNBC Blue!) juxtaposed on the cover of his book. For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the same" (pp. 259-260).

And that effect is hate. Impotent hate. For while Rachel's fan demographic is all wrapped up in hating Far-Right Fascists Like Sean, and while Sean's is all wrapped up in despising Libtard Lunatics Like Rachel, the bipartisan consensus in Washington for ever-increasing military budgets, for everlasting wars, for ever-expanding surveillance, for ever-growing bailouts of and tax breaks for and and handouts to the most powerful corporations goes forever unchallenged.

Oh my. And it only gets worse and worse, because the media, in order to make sure that their various siloed demographics stay superglued to their Internet devices, must keep ratcheting up levels of hate: the Fascists Like Sean and the Libtards Like Rachel must be continually presented as more and more deranged, and ultimately as demonic. "There is us and them," Taibbi writes, "and they are Hitler" (p. 64). A vile reductio ad absurdum has come into play: "If all Trump supporters are Hitler, and all liberals are also Hitler," Taibbi writes, " [t]he America vs. America show is now Hitler vs. Hitler! Think of the ratings! " The reader begins to grasp Taibbi's argument that our mainstream corporate media are as bad as -- are worse than -- pro wrestling. It's an ineluctable downward spiral.

Taibbi continues: "The problem is, there's no natural floor to this behavior. Just as cable TV will eventually become seven hundred separate twenty-four-hour porn channels, news and commentary will eventually escalate to boxing-style, expletive-laden, pre-fight tirades, and the open incitement to violence [italics mine]. If the other side is literally Hitler, [w]hat began as America vs. America will eventually move to Traitor vs. Traitor , and the show does not work if those contestants are not eventually offended to the point of wanting to kill one another" (pp. 65-69).

As I read this book, I often wondered about how difficult it was emotionally for Taibbi to write it. I'm just really glad to see that the guy didn't commit suicide along the way. He does describe the "self-loathing" he experienced as he realized his own complicity in the marketing processes which he exposes (p. 2). He also apologizes to the reader for his not being able to follow through on his original aim of writing a continuation of Herman and Chomsky's classic: "[W]hen I sat down to write what I'd hoped would be something with the intellectual gravitas of Manufacturing Consent ," Taibbi confesses, "I found decades of more mundane frustrations pouring out onto the page, obliterating a clinical examination" (p. 2).

I, however, am profoundly grateful to Taibbi for all of his brilliantly observed anecdotes. The subject matter is nauseating enough even in Taibbi's sparkling and darkly tragicomic prose. A more academic treatment of the subject would likely be too depressing to read. So let me conclude with an anecdote of my own -- and an oddly uplifting one at that -- about reading Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the News Media Stole from Pro Wrestling."

On the same day I read this chapter I saw that, on the bulletin board in my gym, a poster had appeared, as if by magic, promoting an upcoming Primal Conflict (!) professional wrestling event. I studied the photos of the wrestlers on the poster carefully, and, as an astute reader of Taibbi, I prided myself on being able to identify which of them seemed be playing the roles of heels , and which of them the roles of babyfaces .

For Taibbi explains that one of the fundamental dynamics of wrestling involves the invention of crowd-pleasing narratives out of the many permutations and combinations of pitting heels against faces . Donald Trump, a natural heel , brings the goofy dynamics of pro wrestling to American politics with real-life professional expertise. (Taibbi points out that in 2007 Trump actually performed before a huge cheering crowd in a Wrestlemania event billed as the "battle of the billionaires." Watch it on YouTube! https://youtu.be/5NsrwH9I9vE -- unbelievable!!)

The mainstream corporate media, on the other hand, their eyes fixed on ever bigger and bigger profits, have drifted into the metaphorical pro wrestling ring in ignorance, and so, when they face off against Trump, they often end up in the role of inept prudish pearl-clutching faces .

Taibbi condemns the mainstream media's failure to understand such a massively popular form of American entertainment as "malpractice" (p. 125), so I felt more than obligated to buy a ticket and see the advertised event in person. To properly educate myself, that is.

... ... ...


Steve Ruis , November 5, 2019 at 8:13 am

I have stopped watching broadcast "news" other than occasional sessions of NPR in the car. I get most of my news from sources such as this and from overseas sources (The Guardian, Reuters, etc.). I used to subscribe to newspapers but have given them up in disgust, even though I was looking forward to leisurely enjoying a morning paper after I retired.

I was brought up in the positive 1950's and, boy, did this turn out poorly.

Dao Gen , November 5, 2019 at 8:59 am

Matt Taibbi is an American treasure, and I love his writing very much, but we also need to ask, Why hasn't another Chomsky (or another Hudson), an analyst with a truly deep and wide-ranging, synthetic mind, appeared on the left to take apart our contemporary media and show us its inner workings? Have all the truly great minds gone to work for Wall Street? I don't have an answer, but to me the pro wrestling metaphor, while intriguing, misses something about the Fourth Estate in America, if it indeed still exists. And that is, except for radio, there is a distinct imbalance between the two sides of the MSM lineup. On the corporate liberal side of the national MSM team you have five wrestlers, but on the conservative/reactionary side you have only the Fox entry. Because of this imbalance, the corruption, laziness, self-indulgence, and generally declining interest in journalistic standards seems greater among the corporate liberal media team, including the NYT and WaPo, than the Fox team.

I'm not a fan of either Maddow (in her current incarnation) or Hannity, but Hannity, perhaps because he thinks he's like David, often hustles to refute the discourse of the corporate liberal Goliath team. Hannity obviously does more research on some topics than Maddow, and, perhaps because he began in radio, he puts more emphasis on semi-rationally structured rants than Maddow, who depends more on primal emotion, body language, and Hollywood-esque fear-inducing atmospherics.

I'd wager that in a single five-minute segment there will often be twice as many rational distinctions made in a Hannity rant than in a Maddow performance. In addition, for the last three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right about the fake Russiagate propaganda blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong from the very beginning as propaganda industry trend-setter Adam Schiff. So for at least these last three years, the Maddow-Hannity primal match has been a somewhat misleading metaphor. The Blob and the security state have been decisively supporting (and directing?) the corporate liberal global interventionist media, at least regarding Russia and the permanent war establishment, and because the imbalance between the interventionist and the non-interventionist MSM, Russia and Ukraine are being used as a wedge to steadily break down the firewalls between the Dem party, the intel community, and the interventionist MSM. If we had real public debates with both sides at approximately equal strength as we did during the Vietnam War, then even pro wrestling-type matches would be superior to what we have now, which is truthy truth and thoughtsy thought coming to us from the military industrial complex and monopolistic holding companies. If fascism is defined as the fusion of the state and corporations, then the greatest threat of fascism in America may well be coming from the apparent gradual fusion of the corporate liberal MSM, the Dem party elite, and the intel community. Instead of an MSM wrestling match, we may soon be faced with a Japanese-style 'hitori-zumo' match in which a sumo wrestler wrestles with only himself. Once these sumo wrestlers were believed to be wrestling with invisible spirits, but those days are gone . http://kikuko-nagoya.com/html/hitori-zumo.htm

coboarts , November 5, 2019 at 9:59 am

"If we had real public debates" and if they were even debates where issues entered into contest were addressed point by point with evidence

Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg , November 5, 2019 at 10:03 am

Today's Noam Chomksy? Chomsky was part of the machine who broke ranks with it. His MIT research was generously funded by the Military Industrial Complex. Thankfully, enough of his latent humanity and Trotskyite upbringing shone through so he exposed what he was part of. So I guess today that's Chris Hedges, though he's a preacher at heart and not a semiotician.

neighbor7 , November 5, 2019 at 10:04 am

Thank you, Dao Gen. An excellent analysis, and your final image is usefully haunting.

a different chris , November 5, 2019 at 12:11 pm

> In addition, for the last three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right about the fake Russiagate propaganda blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong

Eh. Read whats-his-name's (Frankfurter?) book On Bullshit . You are giving Hannity credit for something he doesn't really care about.

jrs , November 5, 2019 at 12:21 pm

I don't believe the media environment as a whole leans corporate Dem/neoliberal.

T.V. maybe, but radio is much more right wing than left (yes there is NPR and Pacifica, the latter with probably only a scattering of listerners but ) and it's still out there and a big influence, radio hasn't gone away. So doesn't the right wing tilt of radio kind of balance out television? (not necessarily in a good way but). And then there is the internet and I have no idea what the overall lean of that is (I mean I prefer left wing sites, but that's purely my own bubble and actually there are much fewer left analysis out there than I'd like)

Self Affine , November 5, 2019 at 9:05 am

Also,

Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

by Sheldon S. Wolin

Critical deep analysis of not just the media but the whole American political enterprise and
the nature of our "democracy".

DJG , November 5, 2019 at 9:20 am

The whole review is good, but this extract should be quoted extensively:

While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite social circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class.

In short, stagnation and self-dealing at the top. What could possibly go wrong?

Yves Smith Post author , November 5, 2019 at 11:51 am

Are you serious? Maddow called Trump a traitor and accused him of betrayal in Russiagate, and was caught out when that fell apart. This was pointed out all over the MSM .

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/27/rachel-maddows-deep-delusion-226266

https://www.salon.com/2018/07/17/rachel-maddow-hits-the-panic-button-after-trump-putin-summit-this-is-the-worst-case-scenario/

Carolinian , November 5, 2019 at 9:52 am

This is great stuff. Thanks.

One quibble: the author says

Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets

and then goes on to spend most of the article talking about television. I'd say television is still the main propaganda instrument even if many webheads like yours truly ignore it (I've never seen Hannity's show or Maddow's–just hear the rumors). Arguably even newspapers like the NYT have been dumbed down because the reporters long to be on TV and join the shouting. And it's surely no coincidence that our president himself is a TV (and WWE) star. Mass media have always been feeders of hysteria but television gave them faces and voices. Watching TV is also a far more passive experience than surfing the web. They are selling us "narratives," bedtime stories, and we like sleepy children merely listen.

Jerri-Lynn Scofield , November 5, 2019 at 9:54 am

This rave review has inspired me to add this to my to-read non-fiction queue. Currently reading William Dalrymple's The Anarchy, on the rise of the East India Company. Next up: Matt Stoller's Goliath. And then I'll get to Taibbi. Probably worth digging up my original copy of Manufacturing Consent as well, which I read many moons ago; time for a re-read.

Susan the Other , November 5, 2019 at 12:32 pm

almost every page of mine is dog-eared and marked along the edge with exclamation points

urblintz , November 5, 2019 at 1:41 pm

May I suggest Stephen Cohen's "War with Russia?" if it's not already on your list? In focusing on the danger emerging from the new cold war, seeded by the Democrats, propagated by corporate media (which he thinks is more dangerous than the first), Cohen clarifies the importance of diplomacy especially with one's nuclear rivals.

Imagine that

shinola , November 5, 2019 at 9:56 am

Support your local book store!

Off The Street , November 5, 2019 at 9:57 am

Us rubes knew decades ago about pro wrestling. There was a regional circuit and the hero in one town would become the villain in another town. The ones to be surprised were like John Stossel, who got a perforated eardrum from a slap upside the head for his efforts at in-your-face journalism with a wrestler who just wouldn't play along with his grandstanding. Somewhere, kids cheered and life went on.

The Historian , November 5, 2019 at 10:01 am

Ah, Ancient Athens, here we come – running back to repeat your mistakes! Our MSM media has decided that when we are not at our neighbor's throats, we should be at each other's throats!

teacup , November 5, 2019 at 10:11 am

I was watching old clips of the 'Fred Friendly Seminars' on YouTube. IMHO any channel that produced a format such as this would be a ratings bonanza. Imagine a round table with various media figures (corporate) left, (corporate) right, and independent being refereed by a host-moderator discussing topics in 'Hate, Inc.'. In wrestling it's called a Battle Royale. The Fourth Estate in a cage match!

@ape , November 5, 2019 at 10:12 am

And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.

This is important, if people don't want to be naive about what democracy buys. Democracy in the end is a ritual system to determine which members of an elite would win a war without actually having to hold the war. Like how court functions to replace personal revenge by determining (often) who would win in a fight if there were one, and the feudal system replaced the genocidal wars of the axial age with the gentler warfare of the middle ages which were often ritual wars of the elite that avoided the full risk of the earlier wars.

That, I think, is important -- under a democracy, the winner should be normally the winner of the avoided violent conflict to be sustainable. Thus, it's enough to get most people to consent to the solution, using the traditional meaning of consent being "won't put up a fight to avoid it". If the choices on the table are reduced enough, you can get by with most people simply dropping out of the questions.

Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit

It shouldn't be a surprise that we've moved to "faking dissent" -- it's the natural evolution of a system where a lot of the effective power is in the hands of tech, and not just as in the early 20th century, how many workers you have and how many soldiers you can raise.

If you don't like it, change the technology we use to fight one another. We went from tribes to lords when we switch from sticks to advanced forged weapons, and we went from feudalism to democracy when we had factories dropping guns that any 15 year old could use (oversimplifying a bit). Now that the stuff requires expertise, you'd expect a corresponding shift in how we ritualize our conflict avoidance, and thus the organization of how we control communication and how we organize our rituals of power.

Aka, it's the scientists and the engineers who end up determining how everything is organized, and people never seem to bother with that argument, which is especially surprising that even hard-core Marxists waste their time on short-term politics rather than the tech we're building.

I'd be curious whether Taibbi thought about the issue of the nature of the technology and whether there are technological options on the horizon which drive the conflict in other directions. If we had only kept the laws on copyright and patent weaker, so that the implementation of communicative infrastructure would have stayed decentralized

Susan the Other , November 5, 2019 at 12:41 pm

Tabby's "manufacturing fake consent" was really the whole punchline – the joke's on us. Hunter S. Thompson, another of Taibbi's heroes, is, along with Chomsky, speaking to us through MT. Our media is distracting us from social coherence. Another thing it is doing (just my opinion) is it is overwhelming us to the point of disgust. Nobody likes it. And we protect ourselves by tuning it out. Turning it off. Once the screaming lunatics marginalize themselves by making the whole narrative hysterical, we just act like it's another family fight and we're gonna go do something else. When everyone is screaming, no one is screaming.

Jerry B , November 5, 2019 at 10:26 am

I have tried to read Hate Inc. and Taibbi's Griftopia but one of my main issues with Taibbi's writing is his lack of notes, references, or bibliography, etc. in his books. In skimming Hate Inc. it seems like a book I would enjoy reading, however my personal value system is that any book without footnotes, endnotes, citations, or at minimum a bibliography is just an opinion or a story. At least Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal has a section for End Notes/References at the end of the book. Again just my personal values.

Sbbbd , November 5, 2019 at 10:45 am

Another classic in the genre of manufactured consent through media from the age of radio and Adolf Hitler:

"The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception", in the book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.

Joe Well , November 5, 2019 at 11:04 am

I am from Greater Boston, far, far from flyover country (which I imagine begins in Yonkers NY), but I sure grew up with pro wrestling as part of the schoolyard discourse. I certainly knew it was as much of a family affair as Disney on Ice and have trouble believing he thought otherwise though I will not impugn his honesty. I am very grateful to the author for taking the time to write this, but is it possible for a male who grew up in the US to be as deeply embedded in the MSNBC demo as he claims to be?

Seriously, how is it possible for a male raised in the US to not at least have some working familiarity with pro wrestling? My family along with my community was very close to the national median income–do higher income boys really not learn about WWF and WWE?

Seriously, rich kids, what was childhood like? I know you had music lessons and sports camps, what else? Was it really that different?

Carolinian , November 5, 2019 at 11:59 am

And it's not just the US. See the British WWE movie: Fighting With My Family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_with_My_Family

Yves Smith Post author , November 5, 2019 at 12:03 pm

Sorry, my blue collar, lifetime union member brother says your view is horseshit. All the knows about WWE and WWF is that they are big-budget fakery and that's why they are of no interest.

amfortas the hippie , November 5, 2019 at 1:38 pm

aye. in my blue to white collar( and back to blue to no collar) upbringing, wrestling was never a thing. it was for the morons who couldn't read. seen as patently absurd by just about everyone i knew. and this in klanridden east texas exurbia
wife's mexican extended familia oth luche libre is a big thing that all and sundry talked about at thanksgiving. less so these days possibly due to the hyperindiviualisation of media intake mentioned
(and,btw, in my little world , horseshit is a good thing)

BlueStater , November 5, 2019 at 11:11 am

Even allowing for my lefty-liberal bias, I do not see how it is possible to equate Fox Noise and MSNBC, or Hannity and Maddow, as "both-sides" extremists. Fox violates basic professional canons of fairness and equity on a daily basis. MSNBC occasionally does, but is quick to correct errors of fact. Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without much education or knowledge of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar. It is one of the evil successes of the right-wing news cauldron to have successfully equated these two figures and organizations.

Yves Smith Post author , November 5, 2019 at 12:05 pm

Huh? MSNBC regularly makes errors of omission and commission with respect to Sanders. They are still pushing the Russiagate narrative. That's a massive, two-year, virtually all the time error they have refused to recant.

The blind spots of people on the soi-disant left are truly astonishing.

semiconscious , November 5, 2019 at 1:08 pm

'Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without much education or knowledge of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar '

oh, well, then – end of conversation! i mean, god knows, it'd be a cold day in hell before a rhodes scholar, or even someone married to one, would ever lead us astray down the rosy neoliberal path to hell, while, at the same time, under the spell of trump derangement syndrome, actually attempt to revive the mccarthy era, eh?

Summer , November 5, 2019 at 12:11 pm

Actual drugs are being used to hinder debate as well as emotional drugs like hate.
They can't trust agency to be removed by words and images alone – the stakes are too high.
Now all of you go take a feel good pill and stop complaining!

McWatt , November 5, 2019 at 1:02 pm

I would like to know if Matt is doing any book signings any where around the states for this new title?

David , November 5, 2019 at 1:15 pm

I've been impressed with Taibbi's work, what I've read of it, but ironically this very article contains a quote from him which exemplifies the problem: his casual assertion that the US committed "genocide" in Indochina. Even the most fervent critics of US policy didn't say this at the time, for the very good reason that there was no evidence that the US tried to destroy a racial, religious, ethnic or nationalist group (the full definition is a lot more complex and demanding than that). He clearly means that the US was responsible for lots of deaths, which is incontestable. But the process of endless escalation of rhetoric, which this book seems to be partly about, means that everything now has to be described in the most extreme, absurd or apocalyptic tones, and at the top of your voice, otherwise nobody takes any notice. So any self-respecting war now has to be qualified as "genocide" or nobody will take any notice.

[Nov 06, 2019] US foreign policy is driven by "diaspora politics"

Nov 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Petri Krohn , Nov 5 2019 22:40 utc | 14

A SPY AND A TRAITOR

A week ago I commented on the Vindman story:

US foreign policy is driven by "diaspora politics" - double traitors who first betrayed their home country and are now betraying the US in the name of their nationalist Nazi ideology and their desire to wage war on Russia.

My friend George Eliason has expanded on the topic.

Alexander Vindman – Why Diaspora Ukrainians are Driving Sedition

Was it Vindman's American patriotism or Diaspora nationalism that led him to share the Oval Office transcript with Ukraine's president?

[Nov 06, 2019] CENTCOM strategy seems to be protect ISIS and help them kill Syrian soldiers, while coalition jets destroy as much Syrian civilian and commercial infrastructure as humanly possible around Deir EzZor.

Nov 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

LeaNder said in reply to trinlae... , 03 February 2017 at 09:17 AM

Pat, will allow me to follow your off-topic link.

Interesting author, trinlae. Great points.

Random pick from the only comment by Pave Way IV. But triggering something on my mind.

CENTCOM strategy seems to be protect ISIS and help them kill Syrian soldiers, while coalition jets destroy as much Syrian civilian and commercial infrastructure as humanly possible around Deir EzZor.

I wouldn't mind someone to take a closer look at one specific 'point' versus its 'counterpoint', or aligned diverse narration variants plus the respectively supporting evidence. Maybe the author wouldn't be a bad choice. ;)

In a nutshell:

a) (point) Assad more or less deliberately created Isis by releasing a series of Islamists from prison in 2011.

b) (counterpoint) the US supports both AQ and Isis indirectly somewhat following earlier US strategies at ME regime change.

"a" seems to be the dominating narrative on our media over here too. No surprise there. It also surfaced in an article by Omar Kassem on CounterPunch linked here a couple of days ago, if I recall correctly.

Am I to believe that releasing a couple of Islamist from prison, -- how many anyway -- had a bigger impact on the genesis of Isis than the mishandling of the Iraqi transition and Occupation. After a war that should never have happened to start with?

Comment variation of 'counterpoint':

http://www.alternet.org/comments/world/isis-syrian-war-and-al-qaeda#disqus_thread

Article contains variation of 'point', Assad created Isis:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/01/grinding-towards-peace-in-the-middle-east-as-america-looks-inward/

[Nov 05, 2019] The Foreign Policy Blob Versus Trump by Hunter DeRensis

Oct 30, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Ever since the whistleblower complaint from inside the CIA first surfaced against President Donald Trump, a steady stream of national security and State Department officials have testified about their consternation at his dealings with Ukraine. The dominant impression that they have left, however, is that they are blurring the line between what constitutes unsavory behavior when it comes to pressuring Ukraine for information on domestic political opponents, on the one hand, and what are legitimate policy disagreements. Indeed, it appears that they are, more often than not, substituting their own political judgments for the president's when it comes to the conduct of American foreign policy-something that should concern Democrats as much as Republicans. A whole caste of government officials seems to believe that for an American president to aim to improve relations with Russia is an illegitimate, even treasonous, aspiration.

Today was no exception. Consider the testimony of State Department official Catherine Croft. In her brief opening statement, she declared, "As the Director covering Ukraine, I staffed the President's December 2017 decision to provide Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missile systems. I also staffed his September 2017 meeting with then-President Petro Poroshenko on the margins of the UN General Assembly. Throughout both, I heard-directly and indirectly-President Trump describe Ukraine as a corrupt country." The implication was that Trump had no business complaining about corruption in Ukraine. But why not? The persistence of corruption, which President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected by an overwhelming majority to combat, is hardly a secret.

Perhaps even more revealing was Croft's declaration to the House Intelligence Committee that in November 2018 the White House refused to approve the release of a statement condemning Russia for seizing three Ukrainian ships located close to Crimea. It sounds damning at first glance. But once again, why shouldn't Trump have practiced restraint in this instance if he was intent on improving relations with Russia, a platform that he was elected on? As it happens, the Zelensky campaign depicted the ship incident as a political provocation on the part of the Poroshenko government.

The implicit assumptions that appear to guide these veteran members of the bureaucracy were even more obvious in the case of Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman. As the media has underscored, he is the first person to testify in the impeachment inquiry who participated in the July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Initially, Trump's defenders sought to portray him as guilty of "espionage" or dual loyalty because he emigrated to America as a toddler. But this was always preposterous. More telling is that Vindman, no less than Croft, epitomizes a mindset that seems to regard a deviation from the strictures of the foreign policy establishment as by definition unacceptable.

In his opening statement, Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression." He added, "the U.S. government policy community's view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity." But what if Trump has a different view of matters than the "U.S. government policy community's view"? After all, Trump was elected in part on his explicit declarations that he would not rely on the experts who had plunged America into Iraq and Libya.

Consider as well the attention that Vindman has lavished upon Trump's phone call with Zelensky. According to Vindman, portions of the call he considered important were not included in the document kept by the government that was released to the last month. This includes President Trump claiming there are recordings of former Vice President Joe Biden discussing Ukrainian corruption, and President Zelensky specifically referring to Biden's son's company, Burisma Holdings. The document released by the administration includes Zelensky talking about "the company" and Trump saying, "Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution," which is an interpretation of a video of Joe Biden describing how the Obama administration made firing Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin a prerequisite for receiving foreign aid. Vindman's recollection of the call does not change the substance of what was already understood. However, the changes in language are being portrayed as more analogous to Richard Nixon editing the White House tapes than the routine process that produced a routine document. "Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, who heard President Trump's July phone call with Ukraine's president and was alarmed, testified that he tried and failed to add key details to the rough transcript," blared the New York Times headline.

For two months, major media outlets have described the document as a "transcript," as a shorthand term. But as the document, and TNI's previous reporting makes clear, it is not a transcript in the strict sense of the term. "This is what's known as a memorandum of conversation: MEMCON. It is a standard tool that is used throughout the government and the procedures can vary from agency to agency, or who your boss is. But generally, they're all done about the same way," explains Peter Van Buren, a former Foreign Service Officer in the State Department.

"In my own experience in government for 24 years it's a pretty standardized practice. The idea is, for all sorts of reasons, most interactions are not recorded. Instead, they're memorialized through this process of MEMCON. Typically, while there are many people who may be listening in or present at a meeting, someone (or sometimes two people) are designated as official notetakers and they take down the conversation. And they're not trying necessarily to get an exact word-for-word account, but they're certainly trying to get an idea for idea. And in many cases when you're dealing at the White House level, they are getting it pretty much word for word," Van Buren tells TNI.

As a participant on the phone call, Vindman would have been one of the early editors. As the process continued, officials higher than him made changes, just like the editor of a magazine would for a writer. The precise reasons for the changes are open-ended and probably unknowable. There exists no evidence that the changes were nefarious or anything other than mundane word choice. The document released to the public is the official U.S. government record of what happened.

John Marshall Evans, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and Ambassador to Armenia, narrows down what should be the focus of this inquiry-and what it's actually becoming. "The issue is indeed not one of policy, which the President can change, but of the purpose that was pursued in the July 25th call: whether it was in the national interest or a private gain," he says. So far, no one has shown that Trump demanded that the Ukrainian government produce a specific result or fabricate evidence about the Bidens.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is supposed to hold a House vote on the impeachment inquiry tomorrow, after a barrage of criticism from Republicans for moving forward without one. Whether the open hearings and public testimony will provide any more substance than a parade of national security bureaucrats ventilating their grievances about a president who sought to take a different course in foreign policy is questionable.


Sean.McGivens 3 days ago ,

Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression.

Complete bull. The truth is that there is no Russian aggression. What we're seeing from Russia is actually pushback against American aggression. The US is trying to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, knowing that doing so would severely undermine Russia's national security. The American goal is to reduce Russia's influence in world affairs, and to be in geostrategic position to relate to Russia coercively. Little wonder, then, that Russia lashed back by taking Crimean and Donbass.

For Vindman to assert that Ukraine is "bulwark against Russian aggression" and a matter vital to the US's national interests only goes to prove that America is under the influence of liars. The American people are being mislead about the truth.

Ukraine's on Russia's front door step. It overlaps with Russia territorially, demographically, and geopolitically. By entering Ukraine for strategic reasons, the US has provoked and threatened Russia. There is no justification for this reckless foreign policy move by the US.

Terry 4 days ago ,

First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense. Every foreign policy move this president has made has only benefited Russia, not the US! Secondly, I have slowly but surely become convinced Trump is a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin Inc. I don't know what Putin has on Trump (but I think money laundering would be a solid guess) or if it's the promise of Putin's blessing for a Trump Tower Moscow, but whatever it is, he has Trump in his back pocket. And lastly, if everyone has not figured out all The Donald cares about is money in his pocket they are fools. Face it, writer, you either have bought that bag of magic beans Trump sold the electorate in the last election or you are being willfully blind to who and what this 'man' is.

Sean.McGivens Terry 3 days ago ,

First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense.

That's confusing. How exactly is America doing something for Russia at the expense of the US? If you really believe this, then you've been fooled by American propaganda into thinking that Ukraine is an extension of the continental US. The reality, of course, is that Ukraine is on the other side of the world, and does not in any way matter to America's vital national interests.

In Ukraine, America is overstretching its ambitions, and is behaving like an aggressor.

Terry Sean.McGivens 3 days ago ,

Let's start with the sanctions passed by Congress on Russian oligarchs for invading the Ukraine. Somehow, they just weren't imposed until Trump was forced to. Then there is the deliberate sabotage of all of our alliances. Now it's stabbing the kurds in the back so Putin and Erdogan can split that area up between them. The only thing Trump, Turkey and Russia have in common are Trump Tower Istanbul and his desire for Trump Tower Moscow. He is, quite literally selling us out.

P.S. Nice try, Russkie, but it wasn't us who invaded and seized Crimea and western Ukraine. That was you. We may stick our noses into world affairs more than we should, but we have not stolen any land or resources of any country we are in. Get right down to it, if it wasn't for your nukes, we'd put you down like a rabid dog. Don't think we can? Your economy is the size of our state of Georgia and it ain't even close to the top. Just another commie basket case.

Yuki 5 days ago ,

The "Trump Foreign Policy" itself is doing splash damage on US Power.

[Nov 05, 2019] The Foreign Policy Blob Versus Trump by Hunter DeRensis

Oct 30, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Ever since the whistleblower complaint from inside the CIA first surfaced against President Donald Trump, a steady stream of national security and State Department officials have testified about their consternation at his dealings with Ukraine. The dominant impression that they have left, however, is that they are blurring the line between what constitutes unsavory behavior when it comes to pressuring Ukraine for information on domestic political opponents, on the one hand, and what are legitimate policy disagreements. Indeed, it appears that they are, more often than not, substituting their own political judgments for the president's when it comes to the conduct of American foreign policy-something that should concern Democrats as much as Republicans. A whole caste of government officials seems to believe that for an American president to aim to improve relations with Russia is an illegitimate, even treasonous, aspiration.

Today was no exception. Consider the testimony of State Department official Catherine Croft. In her brief opening statement, she declared, "As the Director covering Ukraine, I staffed the President's December 2017 decision to provide Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missile systems. I also staffed his September 2017 meeting with then-President Petro Poroshenko on the margins of the UN General Assembly. Throughout both, I heard-directly and indirectly-President Trump describe Ukraine as a corrupt country." The implication was that Trump had no business complaining about corruption in Ukraine. But why not? The persistence of corruption, which President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected by an overwhelming majority to combat, is hardly a secret.

Perhaps even more revealing was Croft's declaration to the House Intelligence Committee that in November 2018 the White House refused to approve the release of a statement condemning Russia for seizing three Ukrainian ships located close to Crimea. It sounds damning at first glance. But once again, why shouldn't Trump have practiced restraint in this instance if he was intent on improving relations with Russia, a platform that he was elected on? As it happens, the Zelensky campaign depicted the ship incident as a political provocation on the part of the Poroshenko government.

The implicit assumptions that appear to guide these veteran members of the bureaucracy were even more obvious in the case of Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman. As the media has underscored, he is the first person to testify in the impeachment inquiry who participated in the July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Initially, Trump's defenders sought to portray him as guilty of "espionage" or dual loyalty because he emigrated to America as a toddler. But this was always preposterous. More telling is that Vindman, no less than Croft, epitomizes a mindset that seems to regard a deviation from the strictures of the foreign policy establishment as by definition unacceptable.

In his opening statement, Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression." He added, "the U.S. government policy community's view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity." But what if Trump has a different view of matters than the "U.S. government policy community's view"? After all, Trump was elected in part on his explicit declarations that he would not rely on the experts who had plunged America into Iraq and Libya.

Consider as well the attention that Vindman has lavished upon Trump's phone call with Zelensky. According to Vindman, portions of the call he considered important were not included in the document kept by the government that was released to the last month. This includes President Trump claiming there are recordings of former Vice President Joe Biden discussing Ukrainian corruption, and President Zelensky specifically referring to Biden's son's company, Burisma Holdings. The document released by the administration includes Zelensky talking about "the company" and Trump saying, "Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution," which is an interpretation of a video of Joe Biden describing how the Obama administration made firing Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin a prerequisite for receiving foreign aid. Vindman's recollection of the call does not change the substance of what was already understood. However, the changes in language are being portrayed as more analogous to Richard Nixon editing the White House tapes than the routine process that produced a routine document. "Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, who heard President Trump's July phone call with Ukraine's president and was alarmed, testified that he tried and failed to add key details to the rough transcript," blared the New York Times headline.

For two months, major media outlets have described the document as a "transcript," as a shorthand term. But as the document, and TNI's previous reporting makes clear, it is not a transcript in the strict sense of the term. "This is what's known as a memorandum of conversation: MEMCON. It is a standard tool that is used throughout the government and the procedures can vary from agency to agency, or who your boss is. But generally, they're all done about the same way," explains Peter Van Buren, a former Foreign Service Officer in the State Department.

"In my own experience in government for 24 years it's a pretty standardized practice. The idea is, for all sorts of reasons, most interactions are not recorded. Instead, they're memorialized through this process of MEMCON. Typically, while there are many people who may be listening in or present at a meeting, someone (or sometimes two people) are designated as official notetakers and they take down the conversation. And they're not trying necessarily to get an exact word-for-word account, but they're certainly trying to get an idea for idea. And in many cases when you're dealing at the White House level, they are getting it pretty much word for word," Van Buren tells TNI.

As a participant on the phone call, Vindman would have been one of the early editors. As the process continued, officials higher than him made changes, just like the editor of a magazine would for a writer. The precise reasons for the changes are open-ended and probably unknowable. There exists no evidence that the changes were nefarious or anything other than mundane word choice. The document released to the public is the official U.S. government record of what happened.

John Marshall Evans, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and Ambassador to Armenia, narrows down what should be the focus of this inquiry-and what it's actually becoming. "The issue is indeed not one of policy, which the President can change, but of the purpose that was pursued in the July 25th call: whether it was in the national interest or a private gain," he says. So far, no one has shown that Trump demanded that the Ukrainian government produce a specific result or fabricate evidence about the Bidens.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is supposed to hold a House vote on the impeachment inquiry tomorrow, after a barrage of criticism from Republicans for moving forward without one. Whether the open hearings and public testimony will provide any more substance than a parade of national security bureaucrats ventilating their grievances about a president who sought to take a different course in foreign policy is questionable.


Sean.McGivens 3 days ago ,

Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression.

Complete bull. The truth is that there is no Russian aggression. What we're seeing from Russia is actually pushback against American aggression. The US is trying to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, knowing that doing so would severely undermine Russia's national security. The American goal is to reduce Russia's influence in world affairs, and to be in geostrategic position to relate to Russia coercively. Little wonder, then, that Russia lashed back by taking Crimean and Donbass.

For Vindman to assert that Ukraine is "bulwark against Russian aggression" and a matter vital to the US's national interests only goes to prove that America is under the influence of liars. The American people are being mislead about the truth.

Ukraine's on Russia's front door step. It overlaps with Russia territorially, demographically, and geopolitically. By entering Ukraine for strategic reasons, the US has provoked and threatened Russia. There is no justification for this reckless foreign policy move by the US.

Terry 4 days ago ,

First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense. Every foreign policy move this president has made has only benefited Russia, not the US! Secondly, I have slowly but surely become convinced Trump is a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin Inc. I don't know what Putin has on Trump (but I think money laundering would be a solid guess) or if it's the promise of Putin's blessing for a Trump Tower Moscow, but whatever it is, he has Trump in his back pocket. And lastly, if everyone has not figured out all The Donald cares about is money in his pocket they are fools. Face it, writer, you either have bought that bag of magic beans Trump sold the electorate in the last election or you are being willfully blind to who and what this 'man' is.

Sean.McGivens Terry 3 days ago ,

First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense.

That's confusing. How exactly is America doing something for Russia at the expense of the US? If you really believe this, then you've been fooled by American propaganda into thinking that Ukraine is an extension of the continental US. The reality, of course, is that Ukraine is on the other side of the world, and does not in any way matter to America's vital national interests.

In Ukraine, America is overstretching its ambitions, and is behaving like an aggressor.

Terry Sean.McGivens 3 days ago ,

Let's start with the sanctions passed by Congress on Russian oligarchs for invading the Ukraine. Somehow, they just weren't imposed until Trump was forced to. Then there is the deliberate sabotage of all of our alliances. Now it's stabbing the kurds in the back so Putin and Erdogan can split that area up between them. The only thing Trump, Turkey and Russia have in common are Trump Tower Istanbul and his desire for Trump Tower Moscow. He is, quite literally selling us out.

P.S. Nice try, Russkie, but it wasn't us who invaded and seized Crimea and western Ukraine. That was you. We may stick our noses into world affairs more than we should, but we have not stolen any land or resources of any country we are in. Get right down to it, if it wasn't for your nukes, we'd put you down like a rabid dog. Don't think we can? Your economy is the size of our state of Georgia and it ain't even close to the top. Just another commie basket case.

Yuki 5 days ago ,

The "Trump Foreign Policy" itself is doing splash damage on US Power.

[Nov 05, 2019] Where Will Ukraine Go from Here

Notable quotes:
"... As for the rest of Ukraine, even though they lost something, they get something valuable in return: it's called neutral status between east and west. A subdued, federalized Ukraine led by Zelensky, in many ways, makes Ukraine "Finlandized." That is good for the Ukrainian people. It means they retain their independence, but peacefully accept that Russia controls their foreign policy. That position benefited Finland between 1945 and 1991. Finland is now a peaceful and prosperous country, and it is no longer living under influence of Russia or the Soviets. If "Finlandization" led to happiness for the Finns, it can do the same for Ukraine. ..."
"... Finland did not fight against Swedish language and peacefully uses it, while it is "legacy of Swedish occupation" and less than 10% of Finnish people can speak it. Ukrainian Nazis are deprived of wisdom, they are fighting with Russian language and own people. So, if you haven't brain, nothing will help you. ..."
"... after Maidan, Nuland directly stated that the United States spent 5 billion on "building democracy in Ukraine." The United States invested 5 billion in a coup, but is Poland to blame? why? if Poland had really done that, then western Ukraine would have become part of Poland immediately after the Maidan, but this did not happen. After the Maidan, Biden was photographed in a pride chair, but not the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland;) ..."
Nov 05, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Sean.McGivens19 days ago ,

When Russia is led by truly capable leaders, it can beat any foreign power in war or geostrategic conflict. Today Russia is led by a great man who is starting to look more and more like another Suvorov.

And everyone knows who Suvorov was.

Just read today's headlines concerning Syria. Russia ordered Turkey to stand down its offensive. Russian troops are now functioning as peacekeepers in-between the Turkish and Syrian armies. The Kurds have signed allied themselves with Russia and Assad.

What a huge and great victory for Russia.

Gary Sellars Sean.McGivens19 days ago ,

..while Americans of all stripes scratch their heads wondering what went wrong, and then check CNN and their FB feeds in a hopeless bid to understand what's going down. Just.... hilarious....

Sean.McGivens Gary Sellars19 days ago • edited ,

What disturbs me the most is that Americans are being misled into believing that they "lost" something in Syria. In reality, America "lost" nothing in Syria. That's because the US was never established in Syria to begin with. America has long been established in Syria's neighbors, Israel, SA, Turkey, and to a lesser degree Iraq. But not Syria.

Basically, America got involved in Syria for aggressive, illegitimate, and unnecessary reasons. We were there to further the over-ambitious geopolitical ambitions of our ME allies. That's why America launched a minor invasion of eastern Syria, and armed and funded rebels, jihadis to try to violently overthrow Assad. And when that didn't work, the US POTUS justifiably pulled out US troops and stopped supporting the rebels.

So, America didn't ever have anything to gain or to lose in Syria. Nothing at all.

Meanwhile, all the hawkish American newspapers -- which includes much of MSM -- are now complaining that Trump allowed Russia to "take" Syria, and to "humiliate" and "drive out" America from that country. What hogwash! What propaganda and lies!

Russia has been in Syria for nearly 50 years. That means Russia's the chief ally of Syria, and as such, is a guarantor peace and stability in the country. Also, Russia definitely has something to lose in Syria if Assad gets overthrown. So, in the end, Russia wasn't trying to "take over Syria," as lying US media suggests. Russia was just protecting itself, protecting Assad, and trying to impose peace on the region.

Check out Newsweek's totally dishonest story on this is subject. The article was published today. It's a shame so many naive Americans believe these lies about America's alleged "role" in Syria.

SergioMeira Sean.McGivens17 days ago ,

Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people. If you're talking about Butinterests in terms of money, no -- we don't have any. But in terms of principles, yes, we were justified in entering that area of the country.

And we made a difference. Or else the Russians wouldn't be rushing in to take the place we left. We were getting a lot out of very little engagement.

Russia has never been a guarantee for peace and stability anywhere; it has always been a guarantee of more support for Russia. Whenever necessary, instabillity was sown, and inconvenient parties, whether or not former allies, were abandoned.

Plus, there is the nagging issue of the Kurds having helped us in the fight against ISIS. Letting this out of the picture is as dishonest as you try to make parts of the MSM be.

But hey -- have your own opinions. Write a book about them while you're at it.

FromRussiaWithLove SergioMeira11 days ago ,
Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people. If you're talking about Butinterests in terms of money, no -- we don't have any. But in terms of principles, yes, we were justified in entering that area of the country.

sorry what???

In fact, Assad is the legitimate, democratically elected president of Syria. have you decided in the USA that you have the right to decide who is bad and who is good?
The United States has worked hard to overthrow legitimate power in Syria. for 7 years of NATO's joint operation in Syria, ISIS captured 70% of the territory of this country. Of course, with the active support of the United States, it supplied weapons to everyone who was ready to fight against the Syrian army. but the "evil" Russia came and ruined everything. for 5 years of military operations in Syria, ISIS were defeated and switched to guerrilla warfare. solved the problem between the Kurds, Turks and Syrians. US plans have completely collapsed. or not?

Congress is currently making a decision to bring tanks into Syria to protect oil fields from terrorists. Really??? it looks like American democracy is black and actually called oil! all these hundreds of thousands of murdered women and children in Syria just so that the United States could continue to steal oil from Syria!

"the greatest power in the world" turns out to be an ordinary thief! do not you disgust?

Sean.McGivens SergioMeira17 days ago • edited ,

Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people.

Define what you mean by "monster to his own people." And explain to me why 30% of Syrians -- a huge chunk of whole -- have always been solidly behind Assad.

If you're talking about the Assad regime's barrel bombing, yes, that's monstrous. But Assad didn't start doing that until the civil war was fulling raging. That war, mind you, didn't broaden and deepen until America stepped in to fund and arm Assad's enemies.

Had America had stayed out of Syria and allowed Assad to stamp out the initial protests and acts of rebellion, then there would have been no civil war. Therefore, America's involved escalated Syria's civil disorder all the way up to the level of a full fledged war, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.

I really don't understand how American Triumphalists and messianic spreaders of American democracy can justify what they did in Syria. Essentially, America consciously took a chance in Syria, choosing to support the rebels on the off chance that they might topple Assad. America knew that the price of failure in this reckless gambit would be the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

Why did America do this? America's action in Syria were driven by the desire to turn the country into a strategic asset. America chose to pursue this goal on behalf of its regional allies (all Syrian enemies), Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. That's all. Never mind "principles." We're talking geopolitical ambitions here. Blind ambitions.

It's a mysterious to me as to why you blame the war on Russia. After all, Russia's been in Syria for nearly 50 years. During that time, Syria was stable, and experienced no civil war. But as soon as America began meddling in Syria, war broke out. Russia worked with Assad to try to stomp out that war. America worked with the rebels to expand it.

I cannot fathom the views of people like you.

Vladdy20 days ago ,

Ukraine power captured it's country in own trap. They can't stop civil war in Donbass because then they will need to explain somehow why they killed Donbass people (Ukraine Nazis power hate Donbassians, but at the same time pretends to call them their own citizens) for so many years. Admit truth means acknowledge own crimes. So, the only way they have is continuing lying about "liberation" (means genociding) of Donbass.

Sean.McGivens Vladdy17 days ago ,

But rest assured: Ukraine is beaten and the Ukrainians know it. They can feel it. That's why they elected Zelensky, who may be a sensible guy.

Implementation of the peace plan in Donbass will turn the region into a virtually independent part of Ukraine. Russia will be able to influence Ukrainian politics through its connections in Donbass. That means Russia will have gained exactly what it fought for: veto power over Ukraine's attempts to join the EU and NATO.

As for the rest of Ukraine, even though they lost something, they get something valuable in return: it's called neutral status between east and west. A subdued, federalized Ukraine led by Zelensky, in many ways, makes Ukraine "Finlandized." That is good for the Ukrainian people. It means they retain their independence, but peacefully accept that Russia controls their foreign policy. That position benefited Finland between 1945 and 1991. Finland is now a peaceful and prosperous country, and it is no longer living under influence of Russia or the Soviets. If "Finlandization" led to happiness for the Finns, it can do the same for Ukraine.

Vladdy Sean.McGivens7 days ago ,

Finland did not fight against Swedish language and peacefully uses it, while it is "legacy of Swedish occupation" and less than 10% of Finnish people can speak it. Ukrainian Nazis are deprived of wisdom, they are fighting with Russian language and own people. So, if you haven't brain, nothing will help you.

FromRussiaWithLove Sean.McGivens11 days ago ,
But rest assured: Ukraine is beaten and the Ukrainians know it. They can feel it. That's why they elected Zelensky, who may be a sensible guy.

your optimism is due to ignorance of the peculiarities of Ukrainian political life;) Let's start with a short introduction to Ukrainian political life. Who is Zelensky? this is a representative of the oligarch Kolomoisky. exactly the same oligarch as Parashenko has ruled Ukraine for the past 5 years. For 5 years, Parashenko has robbed banks and enterprises of other oligarchs in Ukraine, now Kolomoisky will do the same through his representative Zelensky.

Now about the peace process in the Donbas ... The armed coup in 2014 was carried out by the forces of Ukrainian Nazis and over the past 5 years, the Ukrainian Nazis have firmly established themselves in the Verkhovna Rada and, most importantly, in the army and law enforcement agencies. these structures are controlled by Avakov, not Zelensky. Zelensky cannot withdraw troops, and even more so "Ukrainian volunteers" from punitive battalions Aidar, Azov, etc. Zelensky does not control these formations and has no leverage over them. all he can do is put forward an additional requirement of 7 days without shelling. Naturally, the shelling is not embellished and no one withdraws the troops. Even if Zelensky really wanted to end the war, there simply isn't any opportunity for this. all that he can do is populism and tell that he will return Crimea :))))

adammska20 days ago ,

Mr Gvosdev sounds like one of those Eastern European svidomites . They combine this unwavering faith in the power of Washington on top of a deep, irrational hostility to Russia.

How is "collapse of Russian economy" going to happen exactly? Judging by the casual manner in which Gvosdev talks about it, I think he imagines president Biden flipping some switch in his cabinet, and the economy of vast country shutting down in an instant.

How does a Western economic war on Russia can help its proxies seize power? It didn't work like this in Iran or Venezuela, it's even less likely to happen in Russia. If anything the opposite is likely to happen: pro-Western 5th column in Russia will be eradicated.

You know that the Ukraine is doomed when your "optimistic scenario" requires Russia to drop dead essentially.

Sean.McGivens SergioMeira17 days ago ,

Russia's economy is functioning very close to autarky. That means Russia could survive expulsion from SWIFT.

As for for your reference to China, your point is anything but clear. China is forming a strategic alliance with Russia pointed directly at the US. If you don't realize this, you haven't been reading the news. It would behoove you to know that China and the US have long been drifting in the direction of a conflict for supremacy in Pan-Pacific affairs. The US has lots of weapons systems set up in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Beijing is determined to make the US withdraw those military assets from China's borders. China is also wary of the US's messianic impulse to spread democracy anywhere it can. China blames America for the Hong Kong disturbances, which Beijing thinks of as America's latest attempt at a "color revolution."

Meanwhile, Russia poses no such threat to China. If anything, Russia makes an ideal junior ally for China in the latter's growing tendency to constantly subvert the US as the world's superpower. So, I am confused as to what kind of threat you think China poses to Russia?

Perhaps you believe that China wants to take Siberia from Russia. Do you really believe China has the ability to do so? If that's what you're thinking, you are willfully blind to the fact that Russia remains a nuclear weapons superpower. If war broke out between China and Russia (which is very unlikely), which country would do more damage to the other? Think about it: Russia is a massive open land mass that is not densely populated, and it is full of nuclear missile launch sites. China is a population dense nation consisting of far less territory than Russia. Who would suffer more in an exchange of nuclear missiles? I think the answer is clear. For this reason, Beijing is not thinking about war with Russia, or making Russia "collapse," as you say.

How much have you read about Russia, anyway?

Сергей Ерохин20 days ago ,

Wow, I can write comments here. I am russian, so I can tell the Mordor's version. The article is generally objective, but the author was cunning in a few points

1) The principal reason why Yanukovich refused to sign the agreement with Europe was the duty free zone with Russia. Russians sad: ok, You will sign the agreement with Europe, but we have high customs duties with europeneans, so we will break our free trade zone agreement. Russia was the biggest export market for Ukraine and ukranians understood that they will lose a lot of money. But Maidan decided differently.

2) Today the Russian primary strategy for Ukraine is do nothing and wait, we have no any influence in this country. We understand that Europe and USA will not feed this country a lot of time. Internal contradictions will ruin this country before our intervention

3) But we support new government of Zelensky because he has an opportunity to implement Minsk agreements (may be). It will be enough to close this deal and move on

FromRussiaWithLove Сергей Ерохин11 days ago ,

greetings to you a colleague from Mordor :)))

But we support new goverment of Zelensky because he has an oportunity to implement Minsk aggreements (may be). It will be enough to close this deal and move on

I do not agree with this. how Zelensky can end the war when the security forces and the army are controlled by Avakov and the punitive battalions do not even know who controls?
the support of any government in Ukraine is due to the fact that our countries still have a fairly large turnover. while we trade with ukraine will cooperate ..

Sean.McGivens21 days ago ,

But now Poland and other Central European states were similarly interested in changing their position -- from being Euro-Atlantic frontline states to shifting that line further east

I believe that this is a big reason why Maidan occured. It is also a big reason for the war in Ukraine today. The Poles have had a hand in this issue from the very beginning. Poland is literally an aggressor state at this point, stoking trouble in Ukraine.

America's greatest sin in all of this has been to allow itself to be influenced by Poland and the Baltic states. Just like America allowed itself to be led by the nose by its "allies" in the Syrian War. We're talking about two conflicts that have very little to do with America's best interests, and which could result in disaster (nuclear exchange with Russia) if something goes wrong.

It's absolutely nuts for anyone to think that nuclear equipped Russia would allow Poland and America to have their way in Ukraine, which is virtually Russia's front porch. By supporting our Polish "ally," the US has come close to creating a Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse. In 1963 the Russians provoked America. Since 2014, America has been provoking Russia. It could get much worse.

FromRussiaWithLove Sean.McGivens11 days ago ,
I believe that this is a big reason why Maidan occured. It is also a big reason for the war in Ukraine today. The Poles have had a hand in this issue from the very beginning. Poland is literally an aggressor state at this point, stoking trouble in Ukraine.

but after Maidan, Nuland directly stated that the United States spent 5 billion on "building democracy in Ukraine." The United States invested 5 billion in a coup, but is Poland to blame? why? if Poland had really done that, then western Ukraine would have become part of Poland immediately after the Maidan, but this did not happen. After the Maidan, Biden was photographed in a pride chair, but not the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland;)

Gary Sellars Sean.McGivens21 days ago ,

"In 1963 the Russians provoked America."

Actually the Soviets were mainly responding to secret US basing of missiles in Turkey.

Sean.McGivens Gary Sellars21 days ago ,

Okay, I can see where you're coming from. But still, the Russians were readying to station missiles in Cuba, just miles from America's borders. That means the Russians must have known -- or should have known -- that they were risking war with the US. That's my point.

Now America's doing the same thing as the USSR did in 1963. America is setting the stage to establish bases, radars, and missiles in Ukraine. That's what preparing Ukraine for NATO membership is all about. Therefore, America must know -- or should know -- that it is risking war with Russia. In a major way.

Gary Sellars Sean.McGivens20 days ago • edited ,

Agree with the thrust of your agrument. The US knows it is stoking conflict with their actions (ie Donbass), but since they are not directly in the firing line (barring major escalations) they simply don't care. They want to discomfort and undermine Russia, drive a wedge between Russia and Germany/France, and force the Eurotrash into compliance with US diktat as a demonstration of US power over its minions.

Re the Cuban Missile Crisis, on the balance it wasn't really a climb-down by the Soviets, but it is usually interpreted that way, especially as anti-Krushchev factions in the USSR were succesful in portraying it that way as part of their palace coup. The US remoived its misiles from Turkey, promised not to update them with new ones, and undertook not to repeat any more "Bay of Pigs" attempts at overthrowing Castro by force of arms. All the Soviets needed to do was halt their mobilisation and similarly agree not to base missiles. On the balance, the Soviets played brinkmanship well and won real concessions in exchange for very little. Krushchevs problem was really that he marketted the ploy very poorly and was able to be portrayed as a loser by his political enemies, and Westeners have happily repeated the narratives ever since.

Vladdy Sean.McGivens21 days ago ,

And what? US placed their missiles in every corner of the Globe, including Soviet/Russian borders. Why USSR can't place it's missiles in Cuba?
BTW, what Gary Powers did in his U-2 in the sky above Ekaterinburg 01.05.1960? https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Sean.McGivens Vladdy20 days ago ,

My point is that each power is expected to respect the other's buffer zones. That's how the powers have gotten along historically. If and when one side disrespects the other's buffer zone, major trouble is right around the corner.

Generally, in these confrontations between the nuclear superpowers, the side with the less to lose is the first to back down. That side is always the one that has overreached. In 1963 it was the Soviets who overreached. It's looking increasingly clear that since 2014, it's the US that's overreached.

The US will find a graceful way to end the Ukraine-NATO expansion issue, something amounting to a face-saving American retreat from the region. Putin will likely make it easy for America to pull out without loss of prestige.

Vladdy Sean.McGivens20 days ago • edited ,

In general, you are right, but in 60's it was not Soviets, who overreached. It was US planes intervened in Soviet airspace, not vice versa. It was US, who firstly placed missiles in Turkey in 1961, not USSR in Cuba in 1963.

Allalin22 days ago ,

Ukraine is not going anywhere, because of 115 Mrd. outstanding Debt. Ukraine lost 85% of their Industrial Base in the last 5 Years. Most of them working for Russian Companies. Those Companies get Advanced Payments from Russia till 2014 worth about 10 Mrd. for Material and Salaries. That Money is not coming again. Russian Companies replace 90% of all Ukraine deliveries during the last 5 Years - more modern and especially with far better time frames. Ukraine has a minor Cash Reserve of 7 Billion USD.

Emidio Borg22 days ago • edited ,

Whatever happens to Ukraine we can be sure of one thing, through our contributions via the World Bank, the IMF and Obama's loan guarantees, the one million dollars a day paid by U.S taxpayers directly into the pockets of Ukrainian Oligarchs will continue in perpetuity.

I doubt Putin is in any hurry to relieve us of that 'honor' the man is a master of playing the U.S for a sucker.

Sean.McGivens Emidio Borg22 days ago • edited ,

You are correct on most counts. However, I think that Putin wants the US to scale down its Ukraine involvement ASAP. That's because Russia's nightmare is NATO expansion into Ukraine. Therefore, the sooner the US backs away, the less likely Russia will have to fight a future war in order to keep NATO off of its front yard. Nobody, including Putin, wants war.

Ivo22 days ago ,

Ukraine needs internal stability, this means peace treaty with rebels and some kind of minimal agreement with Russia. Country needs to buy time, it is too much to expect to fight war, to do reforms and fight corruption and to develop all at the same time.

NATO expansion to East proved to be big destabilizing factor for Ukraine, its geopolitical situation is difficult. It will always need to balance and make concessions between Eastern and Western interests.

New president looks very promising, hopefully he will be able to bring country back to stability and push it more toward faster economical development and national reconciliation.

J Urie Ivo21 days ago • edited ,

You make some good points regarding stability within the country. The amount now spent on fighting the war in Donbas will not go down as Ukraine will need to continue to rebuild their military to include new fighters and new ships for the navy however the killing will stop. Any agreement made with Putin should be made with eyes wide open as Russia has no honor so agreements are worthless only a potent enough military will guarantee Ukraine's peace.

Peace at any cost is not acceptable and any plan that allows complete autonomy should be a no go, it would be better to just build a wall along the existing line and rid the country of a fifth columnist element. If the plan allows for local elections, local use of Russian, local police forces not military but police that is acceptable. These elections must allow for all residents who resided in the area prior to the war to vote and for all Ukrainian political parties to participate.

Zelenskiy has made corruption a key to his election and it is imperative that he takes some bold action(s) soon to set the tone. I am a little concerned that he has selected some less than pure individuals to be part of his presidential team, apparently he hasn't picked up on how bad the optics are by having a lawyer that worked for Kolomosky as your chief of staff?
Cracking down on the oligarchs would allow Ukraine to have a standard of living like Poland within a very few years and many of the Ukrainians that now work in Poland could come home an make as much money.

The presidential vote proved that at least 73% of Ukrainians agreed that a new beginning was needed hence Zelnskiy being elected. The reason IMHO that "national reconciliation" hasn't been achieved is the continued Russian interference/influence in Ukraine. It hasn't been long enough for Ukraine as an independent nation to come to terms with the past history. This part of the world has seen millions killed over the past 100+ years, the country hasn't come to grips with that there is still finger pointing and until that is dealt with the reconciliation will be difficult.

The desire to join NATO is all on Russia and it's continuous interference in Ukraine. In all reality NATO is a long way off as Ukraine needs to do a lot to bring the country up to NATO standards including in the corruption realm.

Sean.McGivens J Urie21 days ago ,

This part of the world has seen millions killed over the past 100+ years

Ukraine has been used an invasion route by Western aggressors who want to conquer Russia. That's resulted in Russia suffering millions killed in the 20th century, and hundreds of thousands more killed in earlier wars.

You keep failing to see matters from Russia's perspective. You only think about Ukraine's most selfish national interests. You've got to understand that any security arrangement in that part of the world will have to be a shared security plan. It will have to consider and respect Russia's concerns. NATO is not the answer here. Militarization of a Ukraine led by far-right wing nationalists is not the answer either.

Ukraine's only path to peace and security is to accept the status of Finlandization.

Sean.McGivens J Urie21 days ago ,

If the plan allows for local elections, local use of Russian, local police forces not military but police that is acceptable.

It's too late for that. Remember, the Ukrainian ATO invaded Donbass and killed many thousands of innocent local people. For this reason, Donbass will never allow the Ukrainian military onto its soil.

J Urie Sean.McGivens21 days ago ,

Did you read what I said? A police force yes a military force no.

Sean.McGivens J Urie21 days ago ,

Yes, I read what you said. That's why I highlighted "military" in my quote. You are saying that Donbass Russians are expected to allow themselves to be occupied by the Ukrainian military, as if they are conquered, humiliated people. I am saying that Russia and Donbass will never let that happen.

Let's not overlook that it appears very much like the war is ending now, with Ukraine submitting to the terms set by Donbass and Russia. That means Zelensky will have to drink his poison soup and allow the Donbass militia to have exclusive and unrestricted military rights within Donbass, and along the region's borders. That's unavoidable.

J Urie Sean.McGivens21 days ago ,

Even if you go by Minsk II which plainly does not allow for a Separatist Military there is zero chance that Ukraine will agree to anything resembling a "military". This territory will be under Ukrainian sovereignty and the border will be under Ukrainian sovereignty. The autonomy will be for language, education, elections of local councils, cultural endeavors etc...

It is the thugs in charge who are supported by the Kremlin are the ones that envision some quasi country within Ukraine. If you were to go out into the villages the average person wants the war to end and life to go back to as close to what it was before this all started. The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections are to be held without Russian and mercenary gun toting thugs walking the streets. They are the ones that are worried as their world will come to an end if real peace comes to past.

Sean.McGivens J Urie20 days ago ,

If you were to go out into the villages the average person wants the war to end and life to go back to as close to what it was before this all started. The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections are to be held...

You are in denial of the facts. Respected international polling agencies have taken polls inside the rebel held portion of Donbass. The results confirm that the people there want nothing to do with the Ukrainian government, and that they identify themselves as an extension of Russia.

The only open question among the Donbass people is whether they want to be annexed by Russia (many do), or whether they want to remain in Ukraine as a completely autonomous region, running all of their own affairs (many like this idea too).

But under no circumstances do the Donbass people want the Ukrainian army to enter their territory, establish bases or outposts, and then garrison the border with Russia. Why would the Donbass people have fought for five hard, victorious years only to accept this ignominious outcome? It makes no sense. Donbass and Russia won. Ukraine lost. The winners will not let the losers take military control of their homeland. No possible way.

From the way your posts read, it's obvious you are way, way oversold on anti-Russian propaganda.

J Urie Sean.McGivens20 days ago ,

Who says that the Ukrainian Army is going to go into this area of Donbas? Th border will be secured by Ukrainian Border personnel as it is on every other part of the border. Ukraine is currently decentralizing services and responsibility in the rest of the country withheld control coming from Kyiv. A modified version of that for occupied Donbas to include local elections, language, education and local law enforcement is what they should expect. In exchange Kyiv promises to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and provide economic assistance to the area.
If that isn't good enough then as I said build a wall and cut them lose and let Putin take on the burden which he doesn't want. Money coming form Russia to rebuild will be a long time in coming and what they have now is pretty much what they can expect for the future. Of course the educate and most of the young have left the area an only the poor pensioners who had no where to go are left.

Sean.McGivens J Urie20 days ago ,

Even if you go by Minsk II which plainly does not allow for a Separatist Military there is zero chance that Ukraine will agree to anything resembling a "military"

You're living in a dream world if you think this. The reality is that Ukraine has lost the war. Zelensky wouldn't dare to implement Minsk II unless he were leading a defeated nation, a nation that was throwing in the towel. We're talking about a complete capitulation. That's what Minsk II means.

I am certain that Zelensky fully expects that once Minsk II is implemented, Ukraine will be somehow be maneuvered into accepting that the Donbass military is in charge of Donbass and the abutting section of the Russian-Ukraine frontier.

Most likely, after Donbass holds internationally ratified elections per Minsk II, the newly elected officials will claim that they are officially part of Ukraine's government. From there, they will claim that the Donbass rebel militia, therefore, is officially an extension of Ukraine's national army. Then, finally, the Donbass leaders and Russia will say that "returning control of the border to Ukraine" means, in reality, putting the border under the control of the Donbass militia.

Possibly the Donbass militia will wear Ukrainian army uniforms, just for show. But believe me: there's no way the victors in this war are going to settle for surrendering military control of their territory to a despised, alien military force (i.e., the Ukrainian army).

There's no possible way that Putin, Russia, or the Donbass rebels would have pushed the Minsk II Accords on Ukraine unless it one of the treaty's unstated implications is that the Ukrainian military is ejected from the region permanently. That's what Russia and Donbass fought to achieve. It's unthinkable that they would settle for anything less.

I'm certain that Zelensky and everyone else understands this.

J Urie Sean.McGivens20 days ago ,

It will not happen Minsk II will not be implemented. Th eUkrainian foreign minister already stated what will be the approach in the Normandy talks an edit isn't Minsk II.

Gary Sellars J Urie20 days ago • edited ,

"The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections are to be held without Russian and mercenary gun toting thugs walking the streets."

What nonsense. You really think that voters in Donetsk & Lugansk would to reward Kiev authorities with their support in light of the atrocities the "volunteer" battalions have dished out to civilians over the last 5 years???

You can cry about "thugs" or "mercenaries" all you like (in a futile attempt to de-legitimise the views of the seperatists) but your bias is clear when you whitewash the crimes of Banderites and Neo-Nazis. Or maybe you would prefer to adopt the US MSM ploy and simply pretend that these factions don't exist, or that no warcrimes have been committed?

Sean.McGivens Gary Sellars20 days ago ,

You really think that voters in Donetsk & Lugansk would to reward Kiev authorities...

You make a valid point. I'd add also that the rebel controlled areas are the parts of Donetsk and Lugansk where the ethnic Russian demographic majorities are heaviest. That means there's virtually zero chance that any elections held in that zone will favor Kiev.

Sean.McGivens J Urie21 days ago ,

...as Ukraine will need to continue to rebuild their military to include new fighters and new ships for the navy...

Impossible. That's because there aren't enough Ukrainians who feel nationalistic enough to be willing to lay down their lives in war for Ukraine. The reason for this problem is that a huge minority of Ukrainians are ethnic Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians who won't fight Russia. Many other Ukrainian people are ambivalent about national identity, and will not honor their military obligations.

In some ways, Ukraine's military problem today is akin to that suffered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WW1. The Austro-Hungarian state was multi-national, and much of its population did not share the political and national values of the rulers in Vienna and Budapest.

Multi-national countries always have trouble fielding political reliable militaries. Even the Soviet Union, a superpower, had a bottom one-third of military recruits (most from Cental Asia) that simply weren't politically reliable.

Ukraine's military future looks very grim. Only if Kiev grants independence to the non-Ukrainian regions will the country finally have a population of people who share the same national and political values. That will have to precede Ukraine building any kind of competent army.

Sean.McGivens J Urie21 days ago ,

The presidential vote proved that at least 73% of Ukrainians agreed that a new beginning was needed hence Zelnskiy being elected.

That Ukrainian majority is exhausted and demoralized by the Donbass War. They want peace at any cost, even if that means granting virtual independence to Donbass. Even if that means allowing Russia to use Donbass as an agent through which it can influence Ukraine's domestic political situation. That's the "new beginning" that Ukrainians have in mind.

There's no way Zelensky can be in power while simultaneously continuing the Donbass War. Ukrainians elected him to get the country out of that agony.

J Urie Sean.McGivens21 days ago ,

My wife is Ukrainian and they will not accept Russia running things through a Fifth column in Donbas. They might as well just wall it off and be done with it makes zero sense to allow your rendition.

[Nov 05, 2019] The problem with stealing Syrian oil by Daniel Larison

Nov 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

U.S. troops sent into Syria on an illegal and pointless mission to "take the oil" don't know what they are supposed to be doing :

US military commanders overseeing Syria operations are still waiting for precise battlefield orders from the White House and Pentagon on their exact mission to protect oilfields in eastern Syria, according to a defense official directly familiar with the matter.

Nearly three weeks after President Donald Trump ordered troops out of northern Syria, publicly declaring he was taking "control" of the oil and sending troops and armored carriers to protect it from ISIS, US commanders lack clarity on the most basic aspects of their mission, including how and when troops can fire their weapons and what, exactly, that mission is.

The lack of precise orders means troops are on the ground while critical details are still being worked out -- exactly where they will go, when and how they will stay on small bases in the area, and when they go on patrol.

Perhaps most crucially, there is no clarity about exactly who they are operating against in the oilfields.

Everything the Trump administration has done in Syria has been horribly confused, so it makes sense that the latest version of the policy would be baffling to our own troops. U.S. commanders lack clarity about the mission because it was cooked up to appeal to the president's desire for plundering other countries' resources. It was thrown together on the spur of the moment as an excuse to keep U.S. troops in Syria no matter what, and now those troops are stuck there with no instructions and no idea what they are expected to do. This is the worst kind of unnecessary military mission, because it is being carried out simply to keep a U.S. foothold in Syria for its own sake. The "critical details" aren't being worked out so much as a plausible justification after the fact is being conjured out of thin air. There is no reason for these troops to be there, and there is nothing that they can do there legally, but the administration will come up with some bad argument to keep them there anyway.

Meanwhile, Trump is very proud of his clownish, illegal Syria policy:

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Trump labors under the delusion that the oil is ours to "distribute." which everyone else knows to be false. The oil belongs to the Syrian government, and that oil can't be sold and revenues from those sales cannot be used without the permission of the government that owns it. Syria's oil resources are not that great, and the infrastructure of many of the fields has been damaged or destroyed, so if it were legal to loot the spoils there wouldn't be very much to loot. The president thinks that seizing Syrian oil is worth boasting about, but in reality it is one of the most absurd and indefensible reasons for deploying troops abroad. In addition to damaging the country's international standing with allied and friendly governments with this open thievery, Trump's "take the oil" fixation is a propaganda coup for hostile governments and groups. As Paul Pillar pointed out last week, it plays into the hands of jihadist groups and aids them in their recruitment:

Trump's Sunday appearance before the press played right into this theme. Referring back to the Iraq War, Trump described as his own view at the time that if the United States was going into Iraq, it should "keep the oil." As for Syria's oil, he said it can help the Kurds but "it can help us because we should be able to take some also. And what I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an Exxon Mobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly." A propagandist for ISIS or al-Qaeda would hardly have written the script differently.

Keeping troops in Syria to "take the oil" is divorced from genuine American security interests just like any other unnecessary military intervention. The president is exposing U.S. military personnel to unnecessary risk, and he is also putting them in legal jeopardy by ordering them to commit what is essentially the war crime of pillaging. The president has managed to take a Syria policy that was already incoherent and chaotic and he has made it even worse.

[Nov 05, 2019] Something about Trump coherence

Nov 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Barba_Papa 21 hours ago

The US openly occupies parts of Syria, boasts of taking it resources and supported the attempts of the Kurds to set up their own little state, until the Turks blew a hissy fit. And yet it has the gall to call out what Russia does in the Ukraine as a breach of international law.

[Nov 05, 2019] Syrians especially, but all of us owe a huge thank you to Russia for saving us from the horrors that would've come in wider wars if not for Russia's intervention.

Nov 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

PJB , Nov 5 2019 3:30 utc | 28

Good article by Scott Ritter, former US army officer and senior U.N. weapons of mass destruction inspector, about how Syrians especially, but all of us owe a huge thank you to Russia for saving us from the horrors that would've come in wider wars if not for Russia's intervention.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/russia-isnt-getting-the-recognition-it-deserves-on-syria/

[Nov 05, 2019] The Empire, Trump and Intra-Ruling Class Conflict Dissident Voice

Notable quotes:
"... On the other hand, as Targ explains, are the Trumpian, "America First" nationalist capitalists. This faction of the ruling class, while also supporting global dominance and a permanent war economy (military-related spending will consume 48 percent of the 2020 federal budget) favors trade restrictions, economic nationalism, building walls and anti-immigrant policies. Although Trump is inconsistent, bumbling and sometimes contradictory, he's departed from the neocon's agenda by making overtures to North Korea and Russia, voicing doubts about NATO as an expensive relic from the past that is being dangerously misused outside of Europe, not being afraid to speak bluntly to EU allies, frequently mentioning ending our "endless, ridiculous and costly wars," asserting that the U.S. is badly overextended and saying "The job of our military is not to police the world." ..."
"... This is a high stakes intra-ruling class struggle and neither side cares a fig about what's best for the American people or those beyond our borders. At this point it's impossible to know how it will play out but grasping the underlying dynamics explains much about current U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This understanding may, in turn, point toward how opponents of America's oligarchic elites can most expeditiously use their time and energy. ..."
"... Foremost is the fact that Trump's intra-elite enemies despise him not for being a neo-fascistic demagogue, a despicable human being devoid of a conscience, or for the brouhaha over Ukraine. Their animus is rooted in the conviction that Trump has been a foot dragging imperialist, an equivocal caretaker of empire, unreliable pull-the-trigger Commander-in-chief (e.g.Iran) and transparent truth-teller about the real motives behind U.S. foreign policy. These are his unforgivable sins and if he's impeached or denied the Oval Office by some other means, they will be real reasons. ..."
"... One of Trump's most traitorous acts is that he's been consistent, at least rhetorically, in being opposed to U.S. troops being killed in "endless wars." One need not agree with his reasons to find merit in this worthy objective. His motives probably include Nativism, racism, foreign investment stability, the wars causing more refugees to come here, his massive ego, appeals to his voting base, or simply because he believes both he and the "real America" would be better off. For him, the latter two are synonymous. ..."
"... For this treachery, those arrayed against Trump include at least, the Pentagon-CIA-armaments lobby, MSM editors like those at CNN, The New York Times ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
Nov 05, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

Over the past few months President Trump has unilaterally by Tweet and telephone begun to dismantle the U.S. military's involvement in the Middle East. The irony is amazing, because in a general overarching narrative sense, this is what the marginalized antiwar movement has been trying to do for decades. 1

Prof. Harry Targ, in his important piece "United States foreign policy: yesterday, today, and tomorrow," (MR online, October 23, 2919), reminds us of the factional dispute among U.S. foreign policy elites over how to maintain the U.S. empire. On the one hand are the neoliberal global capitalists who favor military intervention, covert operations, regime change, strengthening NATO, thrusting China into the enemy vacuum and re-igniting the Cold War with Russia. All of this is concealed behind lofty rhetoric about humanitarianism, protecting human rights, promoting democracy, fighting terrorism and American exceptionalism. Their mantra is Madeleine Albright's description of the United States as the world's "one indispensable nation."

On the other hand, as Targ explains, are the Trumpian, "America First" nationalist capitalists. This faction of the ruling class, while also supporting global dominance and a permanent war economy (military-related spending will consume 48 percent of the 2020 federal budget) favors trade restrictions, economic nationalism, building walls and anti-immigrant policies. Although Trump is inconsistent, bumbling and sometimes contradictory, he's departed from the neocon's agenda by making overtures to North Korea and Russia, voicing doubts about NATO as an expensive relic from the past that is being dangerously misused outside of Europe, not being afraid to speak bluntly to EU allies, frequently mentioning ending our "endless, ridiculous and costly wars," asserting that the U.S. is badly overextended and saying "The job of our military is not to police the world."

I would add that Trump is also an "American exceptionalist" but ascribes a very different provincial meaning to the term, something closer to a crabbed provincialism, an insular "Shining City on a Hill," surrounded by a moat.

This is a high stakes intra-ruling class struggle and neither side cares a fig about what's best for the American people or those beyond our borders. At this point it's impossible to know how it will play out but grasping the underlying dynamics explains much about current U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This understanding may, in turn, point toward how opponents of America's oligarchic elites can most expeditiously use their time and energy.

Foremost is the fact that Trump's intra-elite enemies despise him not for being a neo-fascistic demagogue, a despicable human being devoid of a conscience, or for the brouhaha over Ukraine. Their animus is rooted in the conviction that Trump has been a foot dragging imperialist, an equivocal caretaker of empire, unreliable pull-the-trigger Commander-in-chief (e.g.Iran) and transparent truth-teller about the real motives behind U.S. foreign policy. These are his unforgivable sins and if he's impeached or denied the Oval Office by some other means, they will be real reasons.

One of Trump's most traitorous acts is that he's been consistent, at least rhetorically, in being opposed to U.S. troops being killed in "endless wars." One need not agree with his reasons to find merit in this worthy objective. His motives probably include Nativism, racism, foreign investment stability, the wars causing more refugees to come here, his massive ego, appeals to his voting base, or simply because he believes both he and the "real America" would be better off. For him, the latter two are synonymous.

For this treachery, those arrayed against Trump include at least, the Pentagon-CIA-armaments lobby, MSM editors like those at CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post , NSA, Zionist neocons, the DNC, establishment Democrats, some hawkish Republican senators, many lifestyle liberals still harboring a sentimental faith in American goodness and even EU and NATO elites who've benefited from being faithful lackeys to Washington's global imperialism.

In a recent interview, Major Danny Sjursen, retired army officer and West Point instructor with tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, notes that "The last bipartisan issue in American politics today is warfare, forever warfare." In terms of the military, that means " even the hint of getting out of the establishment interventionist status quo is terrifying to these generals, terrifying to these former intelligence officers from the Obama administration who seem to live on MSNBC now." Sjursen adds that many of these generals (like Mattis) have already found lucrative work with the military industrial complex. 2

In response to Trump's announcement about removing some U.S. troops from the region, we find an op-ed in The New York Times by Admiral William McRaven where he states that Trump "should be out of office sooner than later. It's time for a new person in the Oval Office, Republican, Democrat or Independent. The fate of the nation depends on it." The unmistakeable whiff of support for a soft coup is chilling. If Trump can't be contained, he must be deposed one way or another.

And this is all entirely consistent with the fact that the national security state was totally caught off guard by Trump's victory in 2016. For them, Trump was a loose cannon, erratic and ultra-confrontational, someone they couldn't control. Their favored candidate was the ever reliable, Wall Street-friendly, war-mongering Hillary Clinton or even Jeb Bush. Today, barring a totally chastised Trump, the favorites include a fading Biden, Pence, a reprise of Clinton or someone in her mold but without the baggage.

For Trump's establishment enemies, another closely related failing is his habit of blurting out inconvenient truths. I'm not the first person to say that Trump is the most honest president in my lifetime. Yes, he lies most of the time but as left analyst Paul Street puts it, "Trump is too clumsily and childishly brazen in laying bare the moral nothingness and selfishness of the real material-historical bourgeois society that lives beneath the veils of 'Western civilization' and 'American democracy.'" 3

All his predecessors took pains or were coached to conceal their imperialist actions behind declarations of humanitarian interventionism but Trump has pulled the curtains back to reveal the ugly truths about U.S. foreign policy. As such, the carefully calibrated propaganda fed to the public in endless reiterations over a lifetime is jeopardized whenever Trump utters a transparent truth. This is intolerable.

Here are a few examples culled from speeches, interviews and press reports:

As noted earlier, the endgame is not in sight. Trump seems without a clear strategy for moving forward and from all reports he can't depend on his current coterie of White House advisors to produce one. Further, he may lack the necessary political in-fight skills or tenacity to see it through. When some of his Republican "allies" savaged his announcement to withdraw troops from Syria, he backtracked and made some, at least cosmetic concessions. However, the fact that Trump's position remains popular with his voter base and especially with veterans of these wars will give pause to Republicans. If some finally join the Democrats in voting for impeachment over Ukraine-gate they may minimize re-election risks by hiding their real motives behind pious claims -- as will most Democrats -- about "protecting the constitution and the rule of law".

Now, lest I be misunderstood, nothing I've written here should be construed as support for Donald Trump or that I believe he's antiwar. Trump is aberration only in that his brand of Western imperialism means that the victims remain foreigners while U.S. soldiers remain out of harm's way. He knows that boots on the ground can quickly descend into bodies in the ground and unlike his opponents, coffins returning to Dover Air Base are not worth risking his personal ambitions. This is clearly something to build upon. We don't know if Trump views drones, cyber warfare and proxies as substitutes but his intra-elite opponents remain extremely dubious. In any event, that's another dimension to expose and challenge.

Finally, we know the ruling class in a capitalist democracy -- an oxymoron -- expends enormous time and resources to obtain a faux "consent of the governed" through misinformation conveyed via massive, lifelong ideological indoctrination. For them, citizen's policing themselves is more efficient than coercion and precludes raising questions that might delegitimize the system. Obviously force and fear are hardly unknown -- witness the mass incarceration and police murder of black citizens -- but one only has to look around to see how successful this method of control has been.

Nevertheless, as social historian Margaret Jacoby wisely reminds us, "No institution is safe if people simply stop believing the assumptions that justify its existence." 4 Put another way, the system simply can't accommodate certain "dangerous ideas."

Today, we see promising political fissures developing, especially within the rising generation, and it's our responsibility to help deepen and widen these openings through whatever means at our disposal.

[Nov 04, 2019] John Solomon Exposes Fired Ukrainian Ambassador's Links to Radical Soros Group (VIDEO) - David Harris Jr

Nov 04, 2019 | davidharrisjr.com

FOX News contributor John Solomon revealed fired Ukrainian Ambassador Maria Yovanovich's links to a radical Soros group. Yovanovich appeared before Congress on Friday, claiming that she was unjustly fired just because she badmouthed the president, prevented Ukrainian officials from coming to the US to expose Democrat corruption, and giving Ukrainian prosecutor a do not prosecute list. Now, investigative reporter John Solomon reports on her link to a Soros-supported group. Lutsenko told Solomon that in April 2016, Ukrainian prosecutors were investigating an alleged anti-corruption group, AntAC, over $4.4 million that was illegally diverted. AntAc was founded by the Obama administration and George Soros. Trump's Little Surprise Is Making Liberals Cry! Got Yours Yet? Liberty Journalists x Ads by Revcontent Find Out More > 21,994

From The Gateway Pundit

On Friday fired Ambassador Yovanovich testified behind closed doors in front of the Pelosi-Schiff impeachment committee.

Yovanovich believes she was unjustly fired despite the fact that she was an Obama holdover, was speaking out against President Trump and she was colluding with the DNC and Hillary Campaign to undermine the US presidential election.

On Friday John Solomon told Lou Dobbs about the fired ambassador's links to a radical Soros group operating in Ukraine.

On March 20th Solomon published his interview with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko alleging Yovanovitch gave him a "do not prosecute list," back in 2016.

[Nov 04, 2019] The Key Players in Ukrainegate LaRouchePAC

Nov 04, 2019 | larouchepac.com

It will be clear once the transcripts are released, that the crew testifying for Adam Schiff are upset about the President fulfilling his Constitutional responsibility to run foreign policy rather than letting them run it, about his determination to get to the bottom of Ukraine's role in intervening in the 2016 U.S. Election, and the ongoing coup against him, which implicates many of these very same "witnesses." The President, knowing that Ukraine tried to take him out by intervening in the 2016 election, refused to meet with the Poroshenko government. That government jockeyed for favor by revealing its role in the 2016 illegalities and documenting the Biden story for Rudy Guilani and others.

When new President Zelensky was elected, President Trump used an alternate channel to assess him, rather than the State Department and National Security Council operatives who were either involved in the coup against him or refused to stand against it. That appears to have included Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. There is nothing unusual in this but it drove the unelected Mandarins, including John Bolton, crazy, along with the considerable military industrial complex grouping in the Congress who want permanent war with Russia.

Here are the key players so far based on the applause provided by Democrats and the Main Stream Media:

William B. Taylor, Jr.

Presented hearsay testimony, based on conversations with NSC John Bolton protégé Tim Morrison, and others that somehow the President presented a quid pro quo in his July 25th phone call with Zelensky, despite the fact that the actual transcript of the call and repeated statements by President Zelensky evidence no quid pro quo. Taylor's career has featured every U.S. imperial disaster possible:

– "Economic development" coordinator for Eastern Europe, former Soviet Union, resulting in the economic decimation of those countries and their looting

– Coordinator for U.S. assistance of Afghanistan. Said the U.S. had the right to stay forever until the country was secured to U.S. specifications

– Coordinator for Iraq Reconstruction. Program lost billions and left the country destitute and mired in religious warfare.

– Ambassador to Ukraine in 2006-2009 right after the Orange Revolution, the nation's first color revolution delivered by the British and the State Department.

– Under Obama, Special Coordinator for Mideast "transitions" in the wake of the Arab Spring, the program which set all of Southwest Asia on fire and birthed the present round of Isis terrorism.

– Serves on the U.S./Ukraine Business Council with David J. Kramer as a senior advisor. Kramer leaked the dirty Christopher Steele dossier against Donald Trump to Buzzfeed. The Council coordinates the "investment" of various vulture and "turnaround" funds in Ukraine. According to Breitbart's Aaron Klein, Taylor met with a member of Adam Schiff's staff, Thomas Eager, in Ukraine, prior to his testimony.


Marie Yovanovitch

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from August 18, 2016, until she was recalled, in May of 2019. She claimed she was the victim of a smear campaign by Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani and Ukrainians who opposed her. But, she was at the helm of the Embassy at the point when the Manafort black ledger smear campaign was at full roar.

Way back in March, 2019, U.S. Embassy employees at the Ukrainian Embassy were leaking that the Ambassador was telling Embassy employees and Ukrainians not to pay any attention to President Donald Trump because he was going to be impeached.

This was before a wave of articles featuring Ukraine's former prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko claiming that Yovanovitch had provided him with a list of "do not prosecute" names, including those Ukrainians most involved in the Ukrainian efforts to target and smear former Trump Campaign Advisor Paul Manafort as a Russian agent.

Judicial Watch has just filed a FOIA request based on State Department sources who claim that during her tenure in Ukraine, Yovanovitch ordered the monitoring of various journalists who published negative stories about her or who generally support President Trump.

Her resume evidences a trail of destruction. Dubbed the "Iron Lady" by colleagues, she replaced the infamous Ambassador Geoffey Pyatt in Ukraine.

In 2002, after serving as one of the key State Department anti-Russian diplomats, Yovanovitch played a central role in the Ukraine regime change operation known as the "Orange Revolution." She promoted the scandal of Ukraine selling 4 Kolchuga radar systems to Iraq in violation of the United Nations sanctions. This led to the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma being replaced by Washington and London's choice, Viktor Yushschenko..

She was Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic at the time the British-U.S. Tulip Color Revolution occurred in that country, led by the State Department and the British.

In 2008-2011 Yovanovitch was U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, where she was heavily involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in neighboring Azerbaijan (a separatist operation as part of a regime-change operation).


Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman

A Ukrainian born Army veteran, Vindman joined the NSC in July of 2018, under John Bolton, as the NSC's "Ukraine expert." He claimed that all of his corrections to the transcript of the Zelensky/Trump call were not accepted although he admitted that his corrections were minor and did not change the call substantively. He testified that he discussed with Ukrainian colleagues how to "handle Trump."

The key to who he is and why he is testifying is contained in his opening statement:

"When I joined the NSC in the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful for U.S. government policy."

There you have it, the "interagency" dictates U.S. foreign policy, not the President as specified in Article II of the Constitution. Vindman also says he authored the Russia strategy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff for managing "competition" with Russia, an undoubtedly very bellicose document.

Amidst the media fanfare claiming that Vindman represents "the ultimate immigrant hero" story, the Republicans finally leaked something substantive about what happened behind closed doors. Asked to cite in the transcript of the call where the President offered a quid pro quo, Vindman apparently testified that the entire call evidenced this, since the President was in a "position of power" over President Zelensky. If true, foreign policy is now being managed on the same terms as the Me Too movement.

[Nov 04, 2019] Right-wing media tries to smear former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch Media Matters for America

Nov 04, 2019 | www.mediamatters.org

Right-wing media tries to smear former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

Despite grave Judicial Watch allegations about a "surveillance" campaign from right-wing figures, the facts so far point to mere tracking of a pro-Trump disinformation campaign

Written by Courtney Hagle

Research contributions from Brendan Karet & Andrew Lawrence

Published 10/17/19 10:31 AM EDT

Updated 10/24/19 4:07 PM EDT

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UPDATE (10/24/19) : It turns out that the list Marie Yovanovitch allegedly used to "spy" on conservatives was really a basic Facebook search on CrowdTangle, a mundane and widely-used social media tool that tracks public social media activity. Judicial Watch described CrowdTangle as a "Soros-linked media tracking tool."

Representatives of right-wing group Judicial Watch have been claiming during appearances on conservative media shows that former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was "spying" on media figures close to President Donald Trump by monitoring public statements they made on social media regarding Ukraine.

Judicial Watch is alleging that Yovanovitch -- who recently testified to House impeachment investigators that Trump pressured the State Department to remove her over baseless allegations -- was "basically running a war room" by monitoring public statements regarding Ukraine made by figures in right-wing media like Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs, Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump, Jr. The list also includes former Obama ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. Judicial Watch also claims that the searches were looking for the following keywords: "Biden," "Giuliani," "Soros," and "Yovanovitch."

That Yovanovich would monitor public statements made by public figures is unsurprising given her recent testimony claiming that Giuliani had been criticizing her in the months before her ousting, and the people she allegedly monitored are connected to the smear campaign Giuliani was waging. He had accused her of privately criticizing the president and trying to protect the interests of Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The smear included accusations that Soros was funding a conspiracy to hurt Trump's presidency and elect Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Yovanovich said she was "incredulous" about her removal and that it was based on "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives" -- claims that have been promoted publicly by conservative media figures.

The Washington Post reported that George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Ukraine, became concerned around October 2018 that Yovanovitch was the target of a "classic disinformation operation." NBC News indicated that the State Department was concerned over the effort to oust Yovanovich, reporting that the agency "attempted to ring alarm bells" regarding Giuliani's efforts to smear her:

The documents also show that Giuliani, through conservative writer John Solomon's columns in The Hill, attempted to tie former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to the liberal donor George Soros as part of a massive conspiracy to take down Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.

...

When State Department officials saw the disinformation campaign, they attempted to ring alarm bells and strategized to correct the record, the documents show.

Yovanovitch, who has over 30 years of experience in foreign diplomacy, further testified that, as The Washington Post put it, "under Trump's leadership, U.S. foreign policy has been compromised by self-interested actors who have badly demoralized and depleted America's diplomatic corps." The testimony of White House aide Fiona Hill confirmed Yovanovitch's depiction of foreign policy under the Trump administration.

Still, Judicial Watch is attempting to push the narrative that Yovanovitch nefariously spied on Trump allies among right-wing media, appearing on the radio shows of Sebastian Gorka and Sean Hannity and Fox Business host Lou Dobbs' prime-time show to spread the message. Some Fox News figures responded with paranoia regarding their own conversations.

Judicial Watch also shared its report on Twitter, announcing that it is "investigating if prominent conservative figures/journalists & persons [with ties] to @realDonaldTrump were unlawfully monitored by the State Dept in Ukraine at the request of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, an Obama appointee." Fox & Friends hosted Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who repeated that his "sourcing tells us that she was asking that folks like Rudy Giuliani, Don Trump Jr., a whole list of your colleagues there at Fox, be monitored on certain phrases." Co-host Steve Doocy invited Fitton to "go ahead and speculate for a second" about Yovanovitch's motives, to which Fitton replied, "It looks an awful lot like an enemy's list to me." Doocy noted that Yovanovitch is "keeping an eye on television, of all things," and he called it "particularly disturbing that, you know, somebody in the federal government would be tracking people on TV."

[Nov 04, 2019] Nunes: Fired Ukrainian ambassador might have been spying on reporters by Ed Morrissey

Nov 04, 2019 | hotair.com

As Bette Davis said in All About Eve , "Fasten your seatbelts -- it's going to be a bumpy night."

The ride started last night with Rep. Devin Nunes' appearance on Hannity , escalated with arrests of figures tied to Rudy Giuliani, and will possibly come to a complete halt when former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch meets with three House committees tomorrow -- assuming the State Department allows the testimony to take place at all.

Kicking this off, Kicking this off, Kicking this off, Nunes went on Hannity last night to claim that Yavonovitch may have been spying on Americans -- including journalists.

Sean Hannity expresses his anger over what his own sources are telling him about surveillance of John Solomon among others, although Nunes more cautiously advises patience:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SL6Y4wu5578?feature=oembed

"What I can tell you is that we know what Pete Sessions, congressman from Texas now retired, we know what he had to say. We know that there are people within that were not only Ukrainians but also Americans that worked at the State Department who have raised concerns about this ambassador, that's why she was ultimately removed," Nunes said.

"We also have concerns that possibly they were monitoring press from different journalists and others," he continued. "That we don't know, but, you know, we have people who have given us this information and we're going to ask these questions to the State Department and hopefully they'll get the answers before she comes in on Friday."

Hannity then said three sources have told him there "is evidence that shows government resources were used to monitor communications" of a journalist, The Hill's John Solomon.

"Well, what I have heard, and I want to be clear. I think there is a difference. What I've heard is that there were strange requests, irregular requests to monitor, not just one journalist, but multiple journalists," Nunes said. "Now perhaps that was okay. Perhaps there was some reason for that, that it can be explained away. But that's what we know and that's what we are going to be looking into."

Keep Pete Sessions in mind as our ride progresses to its next sharp turn. Earlier today, two of Rudy Giuliani's clients -- and donors to a PAC funding Giuliani's investigation of the Bidens -- got arrested for criminal campaign finance violations . Among the allegations are that those violations intended to mask foreign influence on US elections:

Two Soviet-born donors to a pro-Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani's efforts to investigate Democrat Joe Biden were arrested late Wednesday on criminal charges of violating campaign finance rules, including funneling Russian money into President Trump's campaign.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Florida businessmen, have been under investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, and are expected to appear in federal court in Virginia later on Thursday, the people said. Both men were born in former Soviet republics.

Mr. Giuliani, President Trump's private lawyer, identified the two men in May as his clients. Both men have donated to Republican campaigns including Mr. Trump's, and in May 2018 gave $325,000 to the primary pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, through an LLC called Global Energy Producers, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The men were charged with four counts, including conspiracy, falsification of records and lying to the FEC about their political donations, according to the indictment that outlines a conspiracy to funnel a Russian donor's money into U.S. elections.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the two have been instrumental in helping Giuliani make contacts in Ukraine. One of them happened to be part of a meeting Giuliani had with the now-unemployed envoy Kurt Volker:

Since late 2018, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas have introduced Mr. Giuliani to several current and former senior Ukrainian prosecutors to discuss the Biden case.

Mr. Parnas in July accompanied Mr. Giuliani to a breakfast meeting with Kurt Volker, then the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations. "We had a long conversation about Ukraine," Mr. Volker wrote in his testimony to House committees last week. During that breakfast, Mr. Giuliani mentioned the investigations he was pursuing into Mr. Biden and 2016 election interference.

The indictment released today has a very telling reference to a former US congressman who involved himself in the effort to oust Yovanovitch:

And now let's go back to the WSJ for some dot-connecting:

In May 2018, Pete Sessions, at the time a GOP congressman from Texas, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking for her removal, saying he had been told Ms. Yovanovitch was displaying a bias against the president in private conversations.

The indictment references a congressman, identifiable as Mr. Sessions, whose assistance Mr. Parnas sought in "causing the U.S. government to remove or recall the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine." The indictment says those efforts were conducted "at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials." Mr. Sessions didn't respond to a request for comment.

Hoo boy . If nothing else, this certainly looks bad, which makes Nunes' citation of Session suspect on its face. The Department of Justice is essentially accusing Sessions of being bought by foreign influence in going after Yovanovitch, and clearly intends to press that case against Giuliani's associates on that basis.

Bear in mind that this is William Barr's DoJ, too. Barr got read into the case soon after taking over the Attorney General job in February, and apparently found it convincing enough to proceed to indictment. The arrest also made it very convenient for House Democrats to issue subpoenas for testimony from the pair , although it likely complicates how cooperative they're willing to be. At the very least, they'll be easy to find.

Giuliani responded by attacking the DoJ for its "extremely suspect" timing in unsealing the indictment and arresting his associates. He promised Fox News' Catherine Herridge that he would shortly reveal how all of this is connected to his investigation into the Bidens:

What about the "extremely suspect" timing? It turns out that the pair were trying to leave the country , which forced the DoJ to make the arrests now:

The two Giuliani-linked defendants, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, were detained at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington on Wednesday and are scheduled to appear in court in Virginia at 2 p.m. ET Thursday.

Meanwhile, Yovanovitch continues to prepare for her own testimony, which is still scheduled to take place tomorrow . The Washington Post reported late last night that she's "on board" for cooperating with the committees, and perhaps now even more so after Nunes' allegations on Hannity last night. The State Department could still bar her from discussing her work with Congress (she remains employed by State), but ABC reports today that Mike Pompeo is already facing a rising level of discontent over Yovanovitch's treatment and Pompeo's lack of a public defense for her:

Marie Yovanovitch, who was recalled early from her post this spring, is scheduled for a deposition Friday with three committees in the House of Representatives, but it is unclear whether she will be allowed to show up after the U.S. ambassador to the European Union was blocked by the Trump administration from testifying on Tuesday.

Either way, the manner in which Yovanovitch has been treated by Trump and the silence from Pompeo has already rankled many rank and file at the State Department, according to half a dozen current and former officials, who are also upset by the administration's use of career diplomats in the president's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents.

So where does this ride come to a stop? How much of this is true -- all of it, none of it, or only some of it? Trump loyalists will surely consider all of this as more evidence of a Deep State plot that now involves both the State and Justice Departments. Trump haters will see this as another case of foreign influence on the administration and a plot to smear Trump's opponents, both electoral and otherwise. The rest of America might just be hoping that the [expletive deleted] ride would come to an end, period .

At this point, the mess is too complicated to suss out which conclusion reflects the truth. What does appear to true is that we're not going to know for sure what's true for a long, long time -- and it might turn out, ironically, that the DoJ could end up as the most credible player in Ukraine-Gate.

[Nov 04, 2019] From Russiagate to Ukrainegate An Impeachment Inquiry by Renée Parsons

Notable quotes:
"... NBC s uggests that the Barr investigation is a ' mysterious ' review " amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis " while the NY Times continues to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to " deliver a political victory for President Trump." The Times misleads its readers with: ..."
"... There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their partisan spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the BD investigation ought to send ripples through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a 'small group' within the agency who led the counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. ..."
"... Baker's cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the Inspector General's FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release. ..."
"... As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and currently remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media. ..."
"... As the agency's chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision (real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they know it. ..."
"... Adds realist Dr.Assad: "I said before whatever the Americans say has no credibility, whether they say it to an enemy or a friend, the result is the same – it is unreliable. That is why we do not waste our time on things like this. " ..."
"... I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted a formal impeachment, they would prefer that Trump just faded away quietly before the 2020 election and were in the process of collecting information to reinforce this. They got cornered into formalizing the investigation by Trump's defense team baiting them as part of their overall strategy. It really doesn't change anything. ..."
"... Whichever way you slice and/or dice it Trump is fundamentally incompetent, he's unable to fulfill the duties of the office of the President. ..."
"... The DNC is playing this with a relatively weak field of potential candidates for 2020. Much as I personally like a Sanders or Warren they're just not going to fly in a Presidential contest -- as we found from the Obama presidency the ship of state just doesn't turn on a dime, you're not going to undo decades or generations of entrenched neoconservatism and a politically divided country overnight by some kind of Second Coming pronouncements. My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together we're going to end up with a President Romney after 2020 -- a much more reasonable choice considering the last four years but also one that's guaranteed to change nothing. We need the journey but its only going to start with a few steps. ..."
"... Interesting updates, Joerg: however, it was obvious from the beginning that the interference in the US 2016 elections were Deep State gamers, from GCHQ-Ukro-Italian secret services, which was why they manufactured the Skripal Affair as Russians, Warning & Distraction, to cover their own backsides in the media: the same Skripal that worked on the Bum Steele Dossier, writing complete & utter fiction about Trump, that Comey then used as basis for his attempt with McCabe to enact Treason U$A, on wholly false trumped up charges, which were then transposed to the Russiagate-Hoax, Mueller &&& (yawn), . Still, it's good that Sid Powell has confirmed that they have Mifsud's phone . . . Get Mifsud, Now !? Strange how such USUK Agents become untraceable, when we simple folk would be harangued to hell, even with the odd ex-judicial killing, if we prove inconvenient to their narrative. ..."
"... "American Ukrainian nationalists don't like democracy. They don't understand the concept of it and don't care to learn. But they do understand nationalist fascism where only the top of society matters. They are behind the actors of the Intelligence coup going on in the US today .This is the mentality and politics the Diaspora is pushing into American politics today. Hillary Clinton and the DNC is surrounded with this infection which even includes political advisors. ..."
"... Rest assured they all the related Diasporas are in a fight for their political lives. If Donald Trump wins, their ability to infect American politics might be broken. Many of the leadership will be investigated for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States." ..."
Oct 30, 2019 | OffGuardian

As the Quantum field oversees the disintegration of institutions no longer in service to the public, the Democratic party continues to lose their marbles, perpetuating their own simulated bubble as if they alone are the nation's most trusted purveyors of truth.

Since the Mueller Report failed to deliver on the dubious Russiagate accusations, the party of Thomas Jefferson continues to remain in search of another ethical pretense to justify continued partisan turmoil. In an effort to discredit and/or distract attention from the Barr-Durham and IG investigations, the Dems have come up with an implausible piece of political theatre known as Ukrainegate which has morphed into an impeachment inquiry.

The Inspector General's Report, which may soon be ready for release, will address the presentation of fabricated FBI evidence to the FISA Court for permission to initiate a surveillance campaign on Trump Administration personnel. In addition, the Department of Justice has confirmed that Special Investigator John Durham's probe into the origin of the FBI's counter intelligence investigation during the 2016 election has moved from an administrative review into the criminal prosecution realm. Durham will now be able to actively pursue candidates for possible prosecution.

The defensive assault from the Democrat hierarchy and its corporate media cohorts can be expected to reach a fevered pitch of manic proportions as both investigations threatened not only their political future in 2020 but perhaps their very existence.

NBC s uggests that the Barr investigation is a ' mysterious ' review " amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis " while the NY Times continues to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to " deliver a political victory for President Trump." The Times misleads its readers with:

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it."

when in fact, it was the Russiagate collusion allegations that Trump referred to as a hoax, rather than the Mueller investigation per se.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va), minority leader of the Senate Intel Committee suggested that Attorney General William Barr " owes the Committee an explanation " since the committee is completing a " three-year bipartisan investigation " that has " found nothing to justify " Barr's expanded effort.

The Senator's gauntlet will be ever so fascinating as the public reads exactly how the Intel Committee spent three years and came up with " nothing " as compared to what Durham and the IG reports have to say.

On the House side, prime-time whiners Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) commented that news of the Durham investigation moving towards criminal liability " raised profound concerns that Barr has lost his independence and become a vehicle for political revenge " and that " the Rule of Law will suffer irreparable damage ."

Since Barr has issued no determination of blame other than to assure a full, fair and rigorous investigation, it is curious that the Dems are in premature meltdown as if they expect indictments even though the investigations are not yet complete.

There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their partisan spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the BD investigation ought to send ripples through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a 'small group' within the agency who led the counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Baker's cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the Inspector General's FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release.

As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and currently remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media.

As the agency's chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision (real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they know it.

His 'cooperation' can be generally attributed to being more concerned with saving his own butt rather than the Constitution.

In any case, the information he is able to provide will be key for getting to the true origins of Russiagate and the FISA scandal. Baker's collaboration may augur others facing possible prosecution to step up since 'cooperation' usually comes with the gift of a lesser charge.

With a special focus on senior Obama era intel officials Durham has reportedly already interviewed up to two dozen former and current FBI employees as well as officials in the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

From the number of interviews conducted to date it can be surmised that Durham has been accumulating all the necessary facts and evidence as he works his way up the chain of command, prior to concentrating on top officials who may be central to the investigation.

It has also been reported that Durham expects to interview current and former intelligence officials including CIA analysts, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper regarding Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.

In a recent CNN interview , when asked if he was concerned about any wrongdoing on the part of intel officials, Clapper nervously responded:

I don't know. I don't think there was any wrongdoing. It is disconcerting to know that we are being investigated for having done our duty and done what we were told to do by the President."

One wonders if Clapper might be a candidate for 'cooperating' along with Baker.

As CIA Director, Brennan made no secret of his efforts to nail the Trump Administration. In the summer of 2016, he formed an inter-agency taskforce to investigate what was being reported as Russian collusion within the Trump campaign. He boasted to Rachel Maddow that he brought NSA and FBI officials together with the CIA to ' connect the dots ."

With the addition of James Clapper's DNI, three reports were released: October, 2016, December, 2016 and January, 2017 all disseminating the Russian-Trump collusion theory which the Mueller Report later found to be unproven.

Since 1947 when the CIA was first authorized by President Harry Truman who belatedly regretted his approval, the agency has been operating as if they report to no one and that they never owe the public or Congress any explanation of their behaviour or activity or how they spend the money.

Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run their own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress willing to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31


vexarb

From a realist who deals with the real world, Syrian President Dr.Assad on why Trump is the best POTU$A:

"As for Trump, you might ask me a question and I give you an answer that might sound strange. I say that he is the best American President, not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president. All American presidents perpetrate all kinds of political atrocities and all crimes and yet still win the Nobel Prize and project themselves as defenders of human rights and noble and unique American values, or Western values in general. The reality is that they are a group of criminals who represent the interests of American lobbies, i.e. the large oil and arms companies, and others. Trump talks transparently, saying that what we want is oil. We want money. This is the reality of American policy. What more do we need than a transparent opponent?"

vexarb
Adds realist Dr.Assad: "I said before whatever the Americans say has no credibility, whether they say it to an enemy or a friend, the result is the same – it is unreliable. That is why we do not waste our time on things like this. "

[Note: by "the Americans" Dr.Assad means the United $tates. A figure of speech, taking the whole to denote the part.]

Martin Usher
I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted a formal impeachment, they would prefer that Trump just faded away quietly before the 2020 election and were in the process of collecting information to reinforce this. They got cornered into formalizing the investigation by Trump's defense team baiting them as part of their overall strategy. It really doesn't change anything.

Whichever way you slice and/or dice it Trump is fundamentally incompetent, he's unable to fulfill the duties of the office of the President. He also refuses to distinguish between private interests and public service. His cabinet, a rag tag body of industry insiders and special interests, are busy trying to ride roughshod over opposition, established policy and even public opinion to grab as much as possible before the whole house of cards collapses. Its a mess, and its a mess that's quite obviously damaging US interests. Many constituency groups will have gone along with the program because they thought they could control things or benefit from them but as its become increasingly obvious Trump's unable to deliver they've been systematically alienated.

The DNC is playing this with a relatively weak field of potential candidates for 2020. Much as I personally like a Sanders or Warren they're just not going to fly in a Presidential contest -- as we found from the Obama presidency the ship of state just doesn't turn on a dime, you're not going to undo decades or generations of entrenched neoconservatism and a politically divided country overnight by some kind of Second Coming pronouncements. My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together we're going to end up with a President Romney after 2020 -- a much more reasonable choice considering the last four years but also one that's guaranteed to change nothing. We need the journey but its only going to start with a few steps.

( and as for Trump/collusion we've spent the last three years confusing money with nation states. Trump's a businessman in a business that's notorious for laundering money from dubious sources (this doesn't mean he's involved, of course)(legal disclaimer!). I daresay that if Russia really wanted to sink Trump they could easily do so but why would they bother when he's doing such a great job unaided?)

Joerg
Please make sure You see the Interview-Video "MICHAEL FLYNN CASE UNRAVELS. US-UK DEEP STATE ENTRAPMENT PLAN" on https://youtube.com/channel/UCdeMVChrumySxV9N1w0Au-w – it's a must-see!
Tim Jenkins
Interesting updates, Joerg: however, it was obvious from the beginning that the interference in the US 2016 elections were Deep State gamers, from GCHQ-Ukro-Italian secret services, which was why they manufactured the Skripal Affair as Russians, Warning & Distraction, to cover their own backsides in the media: the same Skripal that worked on the Bum Steele Dossier, writing complete & utter fiction about Trump, that Comey then used as basis for his attempt with McCabe to enact Treason U$A, on wholly false trumped up charges, which were then transposed to the Russiagate-Hoax, Mueller &&& (yawn), . Still, it's good that Sid Powell has confirmed that they have Mifsud's phone . . . Get Mifsud, Now !? Strange how such USUK Agents become untraceable, when we simple folk would be harangued to hell, even with the odd ex-judicial killing, if we prove inconvenient to their narrative.

More importantly for me was the "Putin sends a clear Message to Macron and the EU" TDC, (Top dead centre) in your link: it was a (month old) pretty good longterm objective analysis of how the alliance between Russia & China was designed to be and has become truly rock-solid, moving forwards: and it's well discussed & documented what a moron ManuMacroni has been on the world stage >>> great translation of Putin's statement of intent and clear talk to Macron, who is exposed for the meaningless Deep State puppet he is >>> even, Putin had no need to mention the Gilets Jaunes, representing a degree of vision, trust & commitment far beyond that of the failing FUKUS empires: a vision that FUKUS cannot even financially entertain, in their present economic state of financial & moral depravity & bankruptcy.

Austerity my ass, let's keep raising national debt and keep funding bum wars & terrorism, for the MIC & National Security State, until society burns. How utterly shameful

It should be now very clear to all that the Russian-Chinese alliance is far more than just military, in every sense: together, the world's largest economy will plough on regardless of what Macron or any other arrogant manipulative untrustworthy Westerner has to say! And frankly, after NATZO's broken promises in Eastern Europe, (which I have personally observed here in Bulgaria since 2004, fully expected & awaited, I might add) and the events in the Ukraine and the self-destructive EU sanctions based on media lies & manipulations & omissions, I really do believe Putin has handled this all extremely wisely & astutely playing the long game, like the Chinese & avoiding incredible provocation, media wise. One day, however long it takes, the average ignorant Westerner will come to understand that they have been deceived & lied to, from the beginning, especially by their secret services; & have been lapdogs in the arms of US Deep State Corporate Fascist NATZO CIA & GCHQ morons, in "The History of the National Security State" and, that Julian Assange needs to be set FREE asap : and given the Seth Rich murder, which kinda' benefited Trump and his Fake News declarations, my guess is that Trump will not want Assange charged, in the end: but, we'll see ! ? Because first the British have to sort out the arrogant bastards in GCHQ, also in the Media and their own new 'attorney general' who will investigate secret services role in Deep State Corporate Deeds & prosecute people like Judge Arbuthnot, for not recusing herself >>> BoJo's job, actually, but who cares ? >>> drain UK Swampland. ? Myopic Corbyn seems to have missed the bus & significance on the Affair Assange, completely, which is somewhat inexplicable, given the Guardian Moderators infiltration by the British Military 77th Brigade, and their bias against Corbyn. At least, that appears to be Trump's agenda and the longer Assange remains 'Censored', the worse that societies throughout Europe will become, until we all address Communications & Media Law, with wholly wise, tech. savvy intelligent and independent JUDGES, not compromised by the HillBilly Clinton/Epstein Clan of NATZO CIA/GCHQ operatives. (maybe I'm not clarifying in the best way, but hopefully you get the drift?). Only a week or so ago, the Bulgarian President was complaining about appalling standards of journalism, too, with an obvious agenda from abroad, also in terms of ownership. (Not widely reported!) And, I'm sure you are aware of the incredible bias & censorship in the German MSM, just like Professor Dan Ganser & myself. 😉 R.i.P Udo Ulfkotte >>> when Secret Services dictate the News, not much point in listening to a word they have to say >>> HANG 'EM HIGH ! out to dry, in Public Eye ! They are FASCISTS ! The worst kind !
I don't say this lightly . . . after over 40 years studying their collective behaviours, in relation to the reality on the ground.

Joerg
@Tim Jenkins
Yes, You are right.
But let's look at the bigger picture.
23 Trillions(!) of $$ are missing in the Pentagon.
To that see the great James Corbett's video "Fitt's Trillions" – https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=fitts-trillions .

So 23 trillion $ are missing – and the congress decided not to follow that up.
Before that on 911 already 3 trillion $ (if I remember this right) were missing in the Pentagon. And surprise, surprise: On 911 the Pentagon building exploded exactly there where those accountants were placed, who tried to find out where all that money (3 trillion $) went. All accountants died. After that no one started again to find out where the money went.
Where did the stolen gold from under the Twin Towers go to? Mueller (than state attorney of NY) obviously did want to research that.

The US is already ruled by a mighty super-syndicate – or possibly by two or three of them. So mighty they could put the classical Mafia directly into kindergarten.
And with that much money stolen they can buy in the USA but also in Europe (and, yes, Germany) all politicians, judges and journalists. And those who don't comply, get fired by their (also bought) boss. Or they get murdered ("suicide"), or their career gets destroyed.

There are no classical politics anymore like, let's say, 50 years ago. Here in the west it is only the super-syndicates' power that rules.
By the way: In the end-time of the Roman Empire there were also no more free judges. They had to follow the orders of the local criminal gang – or they got killed. And I also believe that the fall of this impressive "Indus Valley Civilisation" (2000 B.C.) was caused by overwhelming and destructive power of Mafia/Syndicates. In the end the citizens of the Indus Valley civilisation simply fled the area – obviously to south India. So the Tamils may very well be the descendants of the old Indus people.

Joerg
Sorry, I meant this Corbett video: https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=Pentagon+trillions+skidmore
Tim Jenkins
With you all the way, Joerg: ironic you should mention the Tamils. I spent time alone in Jaffna, in the aftermath of genocide.

I'd better not start here & now on Sin-dication and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Suffice to say, if one wishes to speculate on the weather & commodities, with insider knowledge of what the D.o.D. did/do with electronics like HAARP, one would not be a particularly intelligent or moral person, scientifically speaking. And said person, would never wish to discuss the contents of WTC 7 and that Pentagon Wing. 😉

Ta, for the linkS :). Look forward to hearing more from you.
Viele Grüsse,
Tim

Simon Hodges
Sorry post below was posted to wrong article.
Jonathan Jarvis
Something much deeper going on?

http://thesaker.is/the-terrorists-among-us11-azov-battalion-and-american-congressional-support/

Latest in series of articles by the author re USA – Ukraine connections

"American Ukrainian nationalists don't like democracy. They don't understand the concept of it and don't care to learn. But they do understand nationalist fascism where only the top of society matters. They are behind the actors of the Intelligence coup going on in the US today .This is the mentality and politics the Diaspora is pushing into American politics today. Hillary Clinton and the DNC is surrounded with this infection which even includes political advisors.

Rest assured they all the related Diasporas are in a fight for their political lives. If Donald Trump wins, their ability to infect American politics might be broken. Many of the leadership will be investigated for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States."

Simon Hodges
"My thoughts on all this are that many of us have become distracted and failed to examine the timeline of events since 9/11. We look at news and conflict in isolation and move on to the next without seeing what is now a clear pattern."

In terms of the Middle East you need to go back further than the fortuitous event of 9/11 – at least to 1997 and the founding of the Project for the New American Century which was essentially the first explicit formalisation of the agenda for an imperialist Neoliberal and Neoconservative globalist new world order deployed through the media constructed conflicts of 'good' and 'evil' around the world and with it the call for the 'democratisation' of the Middle East under the alibi of humanitarian interventionism against broadly socialist governments, which since the fall of communism were constructed by Neoliberal fundamentalists as being patently heretical and ideologically illegitimate forms of government. If it is economically illogical to elect a socialist failed form of government then one can only assume that the election must have been rigged.

I started looking at this all a few years ago when I asked myself the question 14 years after the invasion of Iraq: where was the liberal outrage at what had subsequently taken place in the ME? The answer was that from the Invasion of Iraq onward in addition to fully embracing the economics of Neoliberalism as the end of economic history, the progressive 'left' quietly assimilated and reduplicated the fundamentalist illiberal political philosophy of the Neocons. The progressive 'left' both in the UK and US have subsequently become the far Neocon 'right' in all but name and their party hosts of Labour in the UK and the Democrats in the US remain blissfully unaware of all of this. How else can we explain why they would welcome 'Woke' Bill Kristol into their ranks? Once one accepts this hypothesis, then an awful lot falls into place in order to explain the 'Progressive' open support for regime change and the almost total lack of any properly liberal objections to what has taken place ever since.

One key point here is that the Neocons have nothing to do with conservatism or the right. What is striking and most informative about the history of Neo-conservatism is that it does not have its roots in conservatism at all, but grew out of disillusioned US left wing intellectuals who were Marxist, anti-Stalinist Trotskyites. This is important because at the heart of Neo-conservatism is something that appeals strongly to the die hard revolutionaries of the left who hold a strong proclivity for violence, conflict and struggle. If one looks at the type of people in the Labour party who gravitated to the 'progressive' Neoliberal imperialist camp they all exhibit similar personality traits of sociopathic control freaks with sanctimonious Messiah complexes such as Blair. These extremist, illiberal fundamentalists love violence and revolution and the bloodier the better. In Libya or Syria is did not matter that Gadaffi or Assad headed socialist governments, the Neo-colonised progressives would back any form of apparent conflict and bloody revolution in any notional struggle between any identifiable form of 'authority' or 'oppression' with any identifiable form of 'resistance' even if those leading the 'resistance' were head chopping, misogynist, jihadist terrorists. It makes no difference to the fundamentalist revolutionary mindset.

The original left wing who gradually morphed in the Neoconservatives took 30-40 years to make the transition for the 1960s to 1990s. The Labour party Blairites made the same journey from 1990 to 2003. Christopher Hitchens made the same journey in his own personal microcosm.

Gezzah Potts
When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end? Does anyone else think that Adam Schiff has a screw or three loose, and should be residing in an institution? And imagine if somehow Mike Pence became Prez. Now that would be something to scare the bejesus out of you.
Tim Jenkins
Adam Schiff should be shot for Treason, of the highest order, along with many others, including HRC, Brennan & Clapper ; and it should be a public execution, like in Saudi Arabia. This is war on the minds of the masses, that Schiff for brains cares nothing for.
As for Chuck Schumer, he can have a life sentence, as long as he manages to shut his utterly unfunny dumb vulgar cousin Amy up & keep her out of the public eye, forever 🙂
Gezzah, life may seem bad right now: but imagine if,
you were Amy Schumer's Husband and father of her child 😉
Talk about obnoxious and utterly nauseating 🙂 , with you Gezzah, all the way.

"When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end?"

Gezzah Potts
I'm almost seriously thinking of buying a one way ticket to the Marquesas Islands Right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, nowhere near anywhere; such is the mad bad state of the World.
Need to start up a Go Fund Me page tho!
As I almost (94.6% of the time) boycott the presstitute filth masquerading as journalists (cough) so, I 99% of the time boycott anything coming out of Hollywood, including alleged 'comedians'.
How are things in Bulgaria? What are the Fascist Stormtroopers up to, aka NATZO who all those you named have intimate connections with.
Listening to a gorgeous Russian band called: iamthemorning. Check them out – food for the soul. Enjoy your arvo..
vexarb
Pepe sends more news from the real world:

https://thesaker.is/the-age-of-anger-exploding-in-serial-geysers/

"The presidential election in Argentina was a game-changer and a graphic lesson. It pitted the people versus neoliberalism. The people won – with new President Alberto Fernandez and former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) as his VP.

Neoliberalism was represented by a PR marketing product, Mauricio Macri [a Micron look-alike]: former millionaire playboy, president of football legends Boca Juniors, obsessed with spending cuts, who was unanimously sold by Western MSM as a New Age paradigm.

Well, the paradigm will soon be ejected, leaving behind the usual New Age wasteland: $250 billion in foreign debt, less than $50 billion in reserves; inflation at 55 percent; 35.4 percent of Argentine homes can't make it); and (incredible as it may seem in an agriculturally self-sufficient nation) a food emergency."

vexarb
And from Yemen:

https://southfront.org/10000-sudanese-troops-to-potentially-withdraw-from-yemen-leaving-saudi-arabia-to-dry/

vexarb
Meanwhile, in the real world, the Denmark's Ukronazi-friendly regime has been brought to heel by Germany's common sense:

Some big natural gas news very significant for Russia, Germany and the Ukraine. The Danish pipeline sector has been stalled for a while now by anti-Russia, pro-Ukrainian forces within the Scandiwegian NATZO-friendly regimes. But it appears that Nordstream 2 _will_ get completed and that Ukraine's gas transit chokehold on the EU will come to an end when Russia's Nordstream 2 comes online for Europe.
-- -- -- -

Permit for the Nord Stream 2 project is reluctantly granted by the Danish Energy Agency. Nord Stream 2 AG has been granted a permit to construct natural gas pipelines on the Danish continental shelf.

The permit is granted pursuant to the Continental Shelf Act and in accordance with Denmark's obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Denmark has been put under obligation to allow the construction of transit pipelines with respect to resources and the environment.

https://en-press.ens.dk/pressreleases/permit-for-the-nord-stream-2-project-is-granted-by-the-danish-energy-agency-2937696

Antonym
Gas is the second most firm green energy source after nuclear. Denmark manages only due to their undersea cables to Norway's hydro mountains.

In another field has far more common sense than neighbors Germany or Sweden: immigration / integration.

RobG
In my humble opinion, the Trump stuff is all total nonsense.

Donald Trump was a property speculator in New York (amongst other places) and was heavily involved with the Mafia. Likewise, Trump was heavily involved with Jeffery Epstein.

There's so much dirt on Trump that they could get him with the snap of fingers; but of course that's not what they really want. Trump is pure theatre; a ploy to divert the masses. 'RussiaGate', 'UkraineGate' are all utter rollocks.

Trump and Obama, and all the rest going back to the assassination of Kennedy, are just puppets.

American/ deep state policy doesn't change a jot with any of them.

Wilmers31
America is always presentation over substance, wrapper over content, and shoot the messenger if you don't like the message.
In the meantime the adults in this world outside the US have to hold it all together.
Why was for instance Hillary Clinton not in the dock for saying 'Assad must go'?? It was meddling in the highest order.
Antonym
Pretty humble for an opinion 😀
phree
I guess this just goes to show you that a person can be a member of the ACLU, even a leader apparently, and still be highly biased in favor of Trump.

Just because a witness is "cooperating" with an investigation does not entail that the witnesses testimony or evidence will favor any particular side.

And implying that Clapper's comments somehow shows guilt when he clearly says he knows of no wrongdoing is pretty over the top.

I've read a lot of what's out there about the start of the initial Russia investigation, and it does seem that some of the FBI personnel leading it (McCabe particularly) were anti-Trump.

Isn't the bigger question whether the investigation was justified based on the reports from the Australians that Trump was getting political dirt on Hillary from Russia? Is the FBI just supposed to ignore those reports? Really?

George Cornell
Love the Clapper claim (the same Clapper who lied to Congress) says he was just doing his duty in Russiagate. As GBS said, " when a scoundrel is doing something of which he is ashamed, he always says he is doing his duty".
mark
The Spook Organisations and the Dirty Cops are a greater threat to our way of life than any foreign army or terrorist group (most of which they created in the first place and which they directly control.)
They are a law unto themselves and completely free of any genuine oversight or control.
This applies equally to the US and UK.
"We lie, we cheat, we steal", as Pompeo helpfully explains.
They also murder people, at home and abroad. JFK, David Kelly, Diana, Epstein.
They plant bombs and blow people up.
Many of the "terrorist atrocities" from Northern Ireland to the present day, were false flag spook operations. The same applies with Gladio on the continent and the plethora of recent false flags.
There is also a long and inglorious history of interference in domestic politics from the Zinoviev Letter onwards. Plots to stage a military coup against the Wilson government of the 60s and 70s, with Mountbatten as its figurehead.
The more recent Skripal Hoax.
The contrived Syrian Gas Attack Hoaxes and the White Helmets.
They would not hesitate to do the same to Corbyn if they deemed it necessary.
The CIA and FBI conspired with the UK and Ukrainian governments to prevent the election of Trump, and then to sabotage and smear his administration once he had been elected. The UK played a major part in this through MI6 and Steele.
This is highly dangerous for this country, irrespective of your view of Trump.
Trump has repaid the favour by meddling in Brexit and interfering in UK politics. It is not in his nature to turn the other cheek.
We have spook organisations claiming for themselves a right of veto over election results and foreign policy. These people are poor servants and terrible masters.
We see Schumer warning against crossing the spook organisations, begging the obvious question – who runs this country, you or the spooks?
The Democrats, the Deep State, the MSM, and the Deranged Left were willing to support these conspiracies and hoaxes, and even suspend disbelief, for the greater good. The ends justify the means. All that matters is getting rid of Trump. Anything goes.
The corrosive erosion of trust, credibility and integrity in all the institutions of the state is probably irreparable. The legislature and the political process in general. The judiciary. The spooks and police. About 9% of Americans now believe the MSM.

The irony in all this is that it very much serves Trump's interests.
He is extremely vulnerable, having failed to keep any of his promises.
Building The Wall, Draining The Swamp, Bringing The Troops Home. Sorting out health care. Building "incredible, fantastic" infrastructure.
All the Democrats had to do was highlight these failures, find a suitable candidate, and put forward some sensible policies, and they were home and dry.
Instead, they provided an endless series of diversions and distractions from Trump's failures by charging down every rabbit hole they could find, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, Impeachment. It couldn't work out better for Trump if he was paying them.

Expect to see the Orange Man in the White House for another 4 years.
And another even more virulent outbreak of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Tim Jenkins
Enigmatic and brilliant synopsis, m8, lol: & surely BigB could only agree 🙂
and you never even mentioned HQ.Intel.inside.Israel, today & their illegal trespass of WhatsApp, via corporate 'subsidiaries' with 'plausible' denial of liability of spying on
everything-everything & any body, that could possibly threaten corporate fascist computerised dictatorship: distributing backdoors, like Promis & Prism, liberally & worldwide, the Maxwells legacy . . . (yet) 🙂

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/29/whatsapp-sues-israeli-firm-accusing-it-of-hacking-activists-phones

No need to even discuss, until Western societies ALL get a grip on the depths of depravity that lie within the actions and "The History of the National Security State" you have to admit, that Julian Assange could not have picked a better book to firmly grip and signal with, than GORE Vidal's, when being manhandled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy, by Spooks who would sell their own mother, let alone nation, in their utter technological ignorance and adherence to anachronistic doctrines & mentality !

Glad you mentioned 'good ole' cousin ChuckS.' >>> Lol, just for a laugh and a sense of perspective: yes, he is related to Amy Queen of Vulgarity & hideous societal distraction.
What a family of wimps & morons: the 'Schumers' being perfect fodder for ridicule & intelligent humour, naturally . . . on a positive note, mark, think yourself lucky that you are not married to or the father of Amy Schumer's child 🙂

mark
I think I'd prefer the female rhinoceros in Moscow Zoo, even if Putin has been blackmailing me with the photos ever since.
Tim Jenkins
Well, (ahem), you certainly got me all thorny & horny, more than AmyS. ever could, in her wildest dreams, or Chucks, (shucks) 🙂 talk about suckers . . . now, do tell, what was the female Rhino's name ? ! 🙂

Who cares about some BlackRhinoMail, today ?

They'll be dead and extinct, in no time with a legacy 😉
for passionate lovers of Black holes & eternal energy 🙂

Antonym
Is that the best money can buy these days in the US? I guess most of the 1% reside in the Caribbean these days, while Washington D.C. is stuffed with semi-stiffs.
Dungroanin
Catching up Off-G. Excellent.

Larry C Johnson is at the vanguard on the debacle and is miles ahead on it.
Check his output at sst. Here is a short speech outlining the conspiracy.
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/10/my-speech-on-the-deep-state-plot-by-larry-c-johnson.html

Two more pieces there – it is moving fast now.

The most important thing for us and deliciously so now the election is happening is the BLOWBACK. Our DS lying murdering arses are going to get new ones drilled by Trump and BoBos bromance exploding in full technicolor.

Think May's dementia tax and Strong and Stable were bad?

Lol. This is going to be a FUN month of early xmases.

Chris Rogers
Dungroanin,
SST is essential reading for anyone concerned with US overseas policy and the corruption of the USA itself in the service of the security state, so, many thanks for posting this link.
Dungroanin
By sharing we disrupt the msm messages.
Bernard at MoonofAlabama is also worth a daily visitation – priceless analysis on multiple subjects.
lundiel

Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run their own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress willing to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.

Pretty much a carbon copy of our own oversight. We hear even less about our security services than Americans do of theirs. I'd have thought that events like the spy in the holdall, the spies caught by farmers in Libya, the Skripal's, and the whole over-the-top reaction to the domestic terrorism threat and consequent successful pleas for extra funding, the obvious danger of creating terrorists by security services, the policy of giving asylum to foreign terrorists of countries we don't like and the whole concept of the 5 eyes and GCHQ needs more than ministerial oversight, a committee of yes men/women and an intelligence services commissioner.

[Nov 04, 2019] The Taliban wiped out poppy production in 2000. Americans retored it

Nov 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Stephanie , 03 November 2019 at 09:57 AM

Gosh, the Taliban wiped out poppy production in 2000. The Twin Towers were destroyed in 2001. Bush (son of CIA Bush) invaded Afghanistan to... well, to do what? To defeat the Taliban? Why? To restore poppy production? To find bin Laden? Didn't really do that. After all he was in Pakistan. And what has happened to poppy farming since we invaded? Booming. For 17 years. Those farming families are doing really well under the protection of U.S. troops. Just like the oil families in Syria that are protected by U.S. troops. Now, Trump seems to be throwing a spanner in all this. Of course, "We came, we saw, he died [giggle, giggle]" Clinton would have never committed Trump's crimes. Trump's just a loose cannon.

Angleton, quoting Jesus, said "In my Father's house are many mansions."

I guess we know which mansion Brennan inhabits.


May 20, 2001
The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's largest crop in less than a year, officials said today.

The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world's opium and most of the heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season.

But the eradication of poppies has come at a terrible cost to farming families, [A TERRIBLE COST TO FARMING FAMILIES, OH, THOSE POOR FARMING FAMILIES]and experts say it will not be known until the fall planting season begins whether the Taliban can continue to enforce it.

''It appears that the ban has taken effect,'' said Steven Casteel, assistant administrator for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.

The findings came in part from a Pakistan-based agent of the administration who was one of the two Americans on the team just returned from eight days in the poppy-growing areas of Afghanistan.

Tue 11 Sep 2001: 9/11

Tue 25 Sep 2001:
In a dramatic and little-noticed reversal of policy, the Taliban have told farmers in Afghanistan that they are free to start planting poppy seeds again if the Americans decide to launch a military attack.
Drug enforcement agencies last night confirmed that they expect to see a massive resumption of opium cultivation inside Afghanistan, previously the world's biggest supplier of heroin, in the next few weeks.

The Taliban virtually eradicated Afghanistan's opium crop last season after an edict by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader.

In July last year he said that growing opium was "un-Islamic" and warned that anyone caught planting seeds would be severely punished.

Taliban soldiers enforced the ruling two summers ago and made thousands of villagers across Afghanistan plough up their fields. Earlier this year UN observers agreed that Afghanistan's opium crop had been completely wiped out.

[Nov 03, 2019] How Controlling Syria s Oil Serves Washington s Strategic Objectives by Nauman Sadiq

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other main rival in the region, Damascus. ..."
Nov 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Nauman Sadiq,

Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern Syria to western Iraq, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria. After the drawdown of US troops at Erdogan's insistence in order for Ankara to mount a ground offensive in northern Syria, the US has still deployed 1,000 troops, mainly in oil-rich eastern Deir al-Zor province and at al-Tanf military base.

Al-Tanf military base is strategically located in southeastern Syria on the border between Syria, Iraq and Jordan, and it straddles on a critically important Damascus-Baghdad highway, which serves as a lifeline for Damascus. Washington has illegally occupied 55-kilometer area around al-Tanf since 2016, and several hundred US Marines have trained several Syrian militant groups there.

It's worth noting that rather than fighting the Islamic State, the purpose of continued presence of the US forces at al-Tanf military base is to address Israel's concerns regarding the expansion of Iran's influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Regarding the oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate, it's worth pointing out that Syria used to produce modest quantities of oil for domestic needs before the war – roughly 400,000 barrels per day, which isn't much compared to tens of millions barrels daily oil production in the Gulf states.

Although Donald Trump crowed in a characteristic blunt manner in a tweet after the withdrawal of 1,000 American troops from northern Syria that Washington had deployed forces in eastern Syria where there was oil, the purpose of exercising control over Syria's oil is neither to smuggle oil out of Syria nor to deny the valuable source of revenue to the Islamic State.

There is no denying the fact that the remnants of the Islamic State militants are still found in Syria and Iraq but its emirate has been completely dismantled in the region and its leadership is on the run. So much so that the fugitive caliph of the terrorist organization was killed in the bastion of a rival jihadist outfit, al-Nusra Front in Idlib, hundreds of kilometers away from the Islamic State strongholds in eastern Syria.

Much like the "scorched earth" battle strategy of medieval warlords – as in the case of the Islamic State which early in the year burned crops of local farmers while retreating from its former strongholds in eastern Syria – Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other main rival in the region, Damascus.

After the devastation caused by eight years of proxy war, the Syrian government is in dire need of tens of billions dollars international assistance to rebuild the country. Not only is Washington hampering efforts to provide international aid to the hapless country, it is in fact squatting over Syria's own resources with the help of its only ally in the region, the Kurds.

Although Donald Trump claimed credit for expropriating Syria's oil wealth, it bears mentioning that "scorched earth" policy is not a business strategy, it is the institutional logic of the deep state. President Trump is known to be a businessman and at least ostensibly follows a non-interventionist ideology; being a novice in the craft of international diplomacy, however, he has time and again been misled by the Pentagon and Washington's national security establishment.

Regarding Washington's interest in propping up the Gulf's autocrats and fighting their wars in regional conflicts, it bears mentioning that in April 2016, the Saudi foreign minister threatened that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow Americans to sue the Saudi government in the United States courts for its role in the September 11, 2001 terror attack – though the bill was eventually passed, Saudi authorities have not been held accountable; even though 15 out of 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

Moreover, $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the United States, if we add its investment in Western Europe and the investments of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf's investments in North America and Western Europe.

Furthermore, in order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf's oil in the energy-starved industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data: Saudi Arabia has the world's largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production exceeds 10 million barrels; Iran and Iraq, each, has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day, each; while UAE and Kuwait, each, has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3 million barrels per day, each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788 billion barrels, more than half of world's 1477 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

No wonder then, 36,000 United States troops have currently been deployed in their numerous military bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which states: "Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

Additionally, regarding the Western defense production industry's sales of arms to the Gulf Arab States, a report authored by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International Policy found that the Obama administration had offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during its eight-year tenure.

Similarly, the top items in Trump's agenda for his maiden visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2017 were: firstly, he threw his weight behind the idea of the Saudi-led "Arab NATO" to counter Iran's influence in the region; and secondly, he announced an unprecedented arms package for Saudi Arabia. The package included between $98 billion and $128 billion in arms sales.

Therefore, keeping the economic dependence of the Western countries on the Gulf Arab States in mind, during the times of global recession when most of manufacturing has been outsourced to China, it is not surprising that when the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided to provide training and arms to the Islamic jihadists in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Obama administration was left with no other choice but to toe the destructive policy of its regional Middle Eastern allies, despite the sectarian nature of the proxy war and its attendant consequences of breeding a new generation of Islamic jihadists who would become a long-term security risk not only to the Middle East but to the Western countries, as well.

Similarly, when King Abdullah's successor King Salman decided, on the whim of the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, to invade Yemen in March 2015, once again the Obama administration had to yield to the dictates of Saudi Arabia and UAE by fully coordinating the Gulf-led military campaign in Yemen not only by providing intelligence, planning and logistical support but also by selling billions of dollars' worth of arms and ammunition to the Gulf Arab States during the conflict.

In this reciprocal relationship, the US provides security to the ruling families of the Gulf Arab states by providing weapons and troops; and in return, the Gulf's petro-sheikhs contribute substantial investments to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to the Western economies.

Regarding the Pax Americana which is the reality of the contemporary neocolonial order, according to a January 2017 infographic by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel were stationed all over the world, including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East.

Although Donald Trump keeps complaining that NATO must share the cost of deployment of US troops, particularly in Europe where 47,000 American troops are stationed in Germany since the end of the Second World War, 15,000 in Italy and 8,000 in the United Kingdom, fact of the matter is that the cost is already shared between Washington and host countries.

Roughly, European countries pay one-third of the cost for maintaining US military bases in Europe whereas Washington chips in the remaining two-third. In the Far Eastern countries, 75% of the cost for the deployment of American troops is shared by Japan and the remaining 25% by Washington, and in South Korea, 40% cost is shared by the host country and the US contributes the remaining 60%.

Whereas the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar – pay two-third of the cost for maintaining 36,000 US troops in the Persian Gulf where more than half of world's proven oil reserves are located and Washington contributes the remaining one-third.

* * *

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.


ipsprez , 8 minutes ago link

I am always amazed (and amused) at how much smarter "journalists" are than POTUS. If ONLY Mr. Trump would read more and listen to those who OBVIOUSLY are sooo much smarter!!!! Maybe then he wouldn't be cowed and bullied by Erdogan, Xi, Jung-on, Trudeau (OK so maybe that one was too far fetched) to name a few. Please note the sarcasm. Do I really need to go in to the success after success Mr. Trump's foreign policy has enjoyed? Come on Man.

OLD-Pipe , 19 minutes ago link

What a load of BOLOCKS...The ONLY, I mean The Real and True Reason for American Armored presence is one thing,,,,,,,Ready for IT ? ? ? To Steal as much OIL as Possible, AND convert the Booty into Currency, Diamonds or some other intrinsically valuable commodity, Millions of Dollars at a Time......17 Years of Shadows and Ghost Trucks and Tankers Loading and Off-Loading the Black Gold...this is what its all about......M-O-N-E-Y....... Say It With Me.... Mon-nee, Money Money Mo_on_ne_e_ey, ......

Blue Steel 309 , 5 minutes ago link

This is about Israel, not oil.

ombon , 58 minutes ago link

From the sale of US oil in Syria receive 30 million. dollars per month. Image losses are immeasurably greater. The United States put the United States as a robbery bandit. This is American democracy. The longer the troops are in Syria, the more countries will switch to settlements in national currencies.

Pandelis , 28 minutes ago link

yeah well these are mafia guys...

uhland62 , 50 minutes ago link

"Our interests", "strategic interests" is always about money, just a euphemism so it doesn't look as greedy as it is. Another euphemism is "security' ,meaning war preparations.

BobEore , 1 hour ago link

...The military power of the USA put directly in the service of "the original TM" PIRATE STATE. U are the man Norm! But wait... now things get a little hazy... in the classic... 'alt0media fake storyline' fashion!

"President Trump is known to be a businessman and at least ostensibly follows a non-interventionist ideology; being a novice in the craft of international diplomacy, however, he has time and again been misled by the Pentagon and Washington's national security establishment."

Awww! Poor "DUmb as Rocks Donnie" done been fooled agin!

...In the USA... the military men are stirring at last... having been made all too aware that their putative 'boss' has been operating on behalf of foreign powers ever since being [s]elected, that the State Dept of the once Great Republic has been in active cahoots with the jihadis ...

and that those who were sent over there to fight against the headchoppers discovered that the only straight shooters in the whole mess turned out to be the Kurds who AGENT FRIMpf THREW UNDER THE BUS ON INSTRUCTIONS FROM JIHADI HQ!

... ... ...

[Nov 03, 2019] The Saker interviews Michael Hudson by Michael Hudson and The Saker

Nov 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

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Introduction: I recently spoke to a relative of mine who, due to her constant and voluntary exposure to the legacy AngloZionist media, sincerely believed that the three Baltic states and Poland had undergone some kind of wonderful and quasi-miraculous economic and cultural renaissance thanks to their resolute break with the putatively horrible Soviet past and their total submission to the Empire since. Listening to her, I figured that this kind of delusion was probably common amongst those who still pay attention and even believe the official propaganda. So I asked Michael Hudson, whom I consider to be the best US economists and who studied the Baltics in great detail, to reply to a few very basic questions, which he very kindly did in spite of being very pressed on time. Once again, I want to sincerely thank him for his kind time, support and expertise.

* * *

The Saker: The US propaganda often claims that the three Baltic states are a true success, just like Poland is also supposed to be. Does this notion have a factual basis? Initially it did appear that these states were experiencing growth, but was that not mostly/entirely due to EU/IMF/US subsidies? Looking specifically at the three Baltic states, and especially Latvia, these were the "showcase" Soviet republics, with a high standard of living (at least compared to the other Soviet republics) and a lot of high-tech industries (including defense contracts). Could you please outline for us what truly happened to these economies following independence? How did they "reform" their economies going from an ex-Soviet one to the modern "liberal" one?

Michael Hudson: This is a trick question, because it all depends on what you mean by "success."

The post-Soviet neoliberalism has been a great success for kleptocrats at the top. They gave themselves the public domain, from key industries to prime real estate. But the Balts largely let their Soviet industries collapse, making no effort to salvage or reorganize them.

Much of the problem, of course, was that all the linkages to Soviet-era industry were torn apart as the Soviet Union was disbanded. With their supplier and final markets closed down from Russia to Central Asia, the Baltic economies had to start afresh – with a very right-wing tax policy and no government help whatsoever, as the government itself had become privatized in the hands of former officials and grabitizers.

Lithuania was marginally better in having some industrial policy. EU and NATO accession in 2004, along with easy credit, kicked off property bubbles in the Baltics, largely inflated by Swedish banks that made a bonanza off these countries that lacked their own banks or public credit creation. The resulting 2008 crashes were the largest in the world as a percent of GDP, with Latvia suffering the world's biggest contraction.

The neoliberal western advisors who took control of these economies – as if this was the only alternative to Soviet bureaucracy – imposed crushing austerity programs to restore macroeconomic "stability" meaning security of their land and infrastructure grabs. This was applauded by Europe's bankers, who thought the Balts had discovered a workable recipe allowing austerity governments to retain power in a seeming democracy. These policies would have collapsed governments anywhere else, but the ability to emigrate, plus ethnic divisions against Russian speakers, allowed these governments to survive.

It's a historically specific situation, but Europe's bankers promote it as a generalized model. George Soros's INET and his associated front institutions have been leaders in subsidizing this financialization-cum-grabitization. The result has been a massive exodus of prime working age people from Lithuania and Latvia. (Estonians simply commute to Finland.) Meanwhile, their economies are buoyed by foreign bank lending, which sends profits back to home countries and can be reversed at any time.

Politically, the neoliberal revolution also has been a success for U.S. Cold Warriors, who sent over native Balts from Georgetown and other universities to impose "free market" doctrine – that is, a market "free" of domestic regulation against theft of the public domain, against monopolies, against land taxes and other income taxes. The Baltic states, like most of the rest of the former Soviet Union, became the Wild East.

What was left to the Baltic countries was land and real estate. Their forests are being cut down to sell wood abroad. I describe all this in my book Killing the Host .

The Saker: After independence, the Baltic states had tried to cut as many ties with Russia as possible. This included building (rather silly looking) fences, to forcing the Russians to develop their ports on the Baltic, to shutting down large (or selling to foreign interests which then shut them down) and profitable factories (including a large nuclear plant I believe), etc. What has been the impact of this policy of "economic de-Sovietization" on the local economies?

Michael Hudson: Dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that Baltic countries lost their traditional markets, and had to shift their focus to Western Europe and, to some extent, Asia.

Latvia and Estonia had been assigned computer and information technology, and they have found this to be much in demand. When I was in Japan, for instance, CEOs told me that they were looking to Latvia above all to outsource computer work.

Banking also was a surviving sector. Gregory Lautchansky, former vice-rector at the University of Riga had been a major player already in the 1980s for moving out Russian oil and KGB money. (His company, Nordex, was sold to Mark Rich.) Many banks continued to shepherd Russian flight capital via offshore banking centers into the United States, Britain and other countries. Cyprus of course was another big player in this.

The Saker: Russians are still considered "non-citizens" in the Baltic republics; what has been the economic impact of this policy, if any, of anti-Russian discrimination in the Baltic states?

ORDER IT NOW

Michael Hudson: Russian-speakers, who do not acquire citizenship (which requires passing local language and history tests), are blocked from political office and administrative work. While most Russian speakers below retirement age have now acquired that citizenship, the means by which citizenship must be acquired has caused divisions.

Early on in independence, many Russians were blocked from government, and they went into business, which was avoided by many native Balts during the Soviet era because it was not as remunerative as going into government and profiting from corruption. For instance, real estate was a burden to administer. Russian-speakers, especially Jewish ones, have wisely focused on real estate.

The largest political party is Harmony Center, whose members and leadership are mainly Russian-speaking. But the various neoliberal and nationalist parties have jointed to block its ability to influence law in Parliament.

Since Russian speakers are only able to "vote with their feet," many have joined in the vast outflow of emigration, either back to Russia or to other EU countries. Moreover, the poor quality of social benefits has led to few children being born.

The Saker: I often hear that a huge number of locals (including non-Russians) have emigrated from the Baltic states. What has caused this and what has been the impact of this emigration for the Baltic states?

Michael Hudson: The Baltic states, especially Latvia, have lost about 30 percent of their population since the 1990s, especially those of working age. In Latvia, about 10 percent of the loss were Russians who exited shortly after independence. The other 20 percent have subsequently emigrated.

The European Commission forecasts that Latvia's working-age population will decline by 1.6% annually for the next 20 years, while the birth rate remains as stagnant as it was in the late 1980s. The retired population (over age 65) will rise to half a million people by 2030, more than a quarter of today's population, and perhaps about a third of what remains. This is not a domestic market that will attract foreign or local investment.

And in any case, the European Union has viewed the post-Soviet economies simply as markets for their own industrial and agricultural exports, not as economies to be built up by public subsidy as the European countries themselves, the U.S. and Chinee economies have done. The European motto is, "Give a man a fish, and he will be fed all day with your surplus fish and consumer goods – but give him a fishing rod and we will lose a customer."

Readers who are interested might want to look at the following books and articles. I think the leading work has been done by Jeffrey Sommers and Charles Woolfson.

The Saker: Finally, what do you believe is the most likely future for these states? Will the succeed in becoming a "tiny anti-Russia" on Russia's doorstep? The Russians appear to have been very successful in their import-substitution program, at least when trying to replace the Baltic states: does that mean that the economic ties between Russia and these states is now gone forever? Is it now too late, or are there still measures these countries could take to reverse the current trends?

Michael Hudson: Trump's trade sanctions against Russia hurt the Baltic countries especially. One of their strong sectors was agriculture. Lithuania, for instance, was known for its cheese, even in Latvia. The sanctions led Russian dairy farming to develop their own cheese-making, and agriculture has become one of Russia's strongest performing sectors.

This is a market that looks like it will be permanently lost to the Baltic states. In effect, Trump is helping Russia follow precisely the policy that made American agriculture rich: agricultural isolation has forced domestic replacement for hitherto foreign food. I expect that this will lead to consumer goods and other products as well.

The Saker: thank you for your time and replies!


PeterMX , says: November 3, 2019 at 7:01 am GMT

I am in Tallinn, Estonia right now. Just how good an economy is performing is often hard to determine by talking to people, because like economists, many people have different perceptions. I was just talking to a Russian-Estonian who was telling me how much better Lithuanians and Latvians are then Estonians at doing things and how much cheaper things are there. It is true that things are much cheaper in the other Baltic countries because Estonia (a tiny country of just over 1 million people) has taken off. Since the 2008 econmic collapse housing prices have shot up and in Tallinn there is building going on all over the city. But, my acquaintance is wrong about other things. Estonians do things very well and Tallinn is a very nice city, with beautiful cafes, clean and well kept streets and crime is very low. It is a very good city, except it is now very expensive, especially considering how much people make here. The weather is not nice, except for in the summer and there are friendly Estonians but they don't have a reputation for being particularly friendly, even among themselves. I have not been back to Latvia yet, but when I was in Riga years ago, it was a gorgeous city, bigger than Tallinn too. I think they do things very well there too. The Russians I speak to here are often friendly and based on what I have been told, relations between Russians and Estonians are much better than when I was here in the early 2000's.

No offense is intended to Russians, but the Baltic countries had large German populations that played a key role in the development of the cultures and peoples of these countries. There were also many Jews here prior to WW II. By the time WW II had begun the German populations were much smaller than they had been and at the end of the war the Jewish populations were much smaller. Jews were targeted in Latvia and Lithuania and many Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians were shipped off to far off places in the USSR during the war. I believe the Jews were largely pro communist and welcomed the Soviet takeover of these countries in 1940, while the Latvian and Estonian peoples were pro German, thus explaining the hard feelings between Balts and Jews.. They wanted independence and formed legions to fight alongside the German army during WW II.

These countries were very advanced before WW II, having engineering industries and the Russian Empire's first auto company was formed in Riga before WW I. While engineering may have been restarted after WW II, these countries populations were decimated and they never returned to their former heights. Perhaps they still can.

GMC , says: November 3, 2019 at 7:33 am GMT
I'm assuming that these 3 East European countries are being bombarded with the same propaganda as the Ukies are, so Russian speakers and those intelligent enough to see the game being played will be belittled and isolated. But the Russian folks living in Russia have a birds eye view of what is going on in the west and their puppet countries. Russia TV and debate programs, just have to show the delinquencies that are daily happenings in the States, and Europe, in order to make the Ru people say – No Thanks to that way of life. As far as the new Russian cheeses that are now in the markets -lol – they make a lightly smoked gouda that is really good and is about 120-140 roubles a kilo. And, they are making more cheddar that is a white medium taste as well. No scarcity of good natural food in Russia and No POlice state. Spacibo Unz Rev.
Anonymous [159] Disclaimer , says: November 3, 2019 at 8:18 am GMT
The trade volume between Russia and the Baltic states has actually risen, despite the sanctions. The Baltics send food products and booze to Russia (and another 150 countries, food exports to Russia actually grew in 2016-2018). As well as chemical products and pharmaceuticals. Meldonium, btw, is made in Latvia and is still being sent to Russia (as well as 20 other countries), not for athletes, but for regular folks. Work is being carried out on a new generation Meldonium pill (the biggest market will be Russia).

Growth in the Baltic states has been 3-4% in the last few years. GDP per capita, as well as HDI, is higher than in Russia. Foreign investment, including from Russia, has been growing (Russia was the second largest investor in Latvia in 2018). Savings rates are growing, too. After a relative quiet period after 2010, the number of Russian (and other tourists) has grown again.

Estonia's population stopped shrinking in 2016 and is now growing in fact. They've seen immigration from Finland, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as returning Estonians.

Emigration is a problem, of course, but this is partly because the Baltic states are the only former USSR republics whose citizens were even given work permits in the West, imagine what would happen if these permits were given to Russians from the regions.

Neo-liberal policies are of course bad and certain types of investment should be controlled, but to say that there are no social services in the Baltic states is complete nonsense. Due to generous parental payments, birthrates have risen significantly since the 1990s – in fact, birthrates in the Baltics are now slightly higher than the EU average. Life expectancy is also growing. Latvia covers IVF treatments in full. There are free school lunches.

Yes, it is true that some of the Soviet era factories should've been salvaged but the problem was they were not competitive globally at that time (and there was no capital to remodel them). The Soviet market was a closed one. However, some businesses were salvaged. There is local manufacturing (electronics, pharmaceuticals, etc).

Not everything is ideal, but it is also not the kind of gloom and doom as you paint.

Jake , says: November 3, 2019 at 11:46 am GMT
If the Anglo-Zionist Empire comes to save you, you should expect to be raped: culturally and religiously as well as economically.
onebornfree , says: Website November 3, 2019 at 3:48 pm GMT
Saker says: "Initially it did appear that these states were experiencing growth, but was that not mostly/entirely due to EU/IMF/US subsidies?"

"Foreign Aid Makes Corrupt Countries More Corrupt":

"Any time a government hands out money, not just foreign aid, it breeds corruption And there are few better examples than Ukraine – just don't tell the House impeachment hearings. Counting on foreign aid to reduce corruption is like expecting whiskey to cure alcoholism .If U.S. aid was effective, Ukraine would have become a rule of law paradise long ago . The surest way to reduce foreign corruption is to end foreign aid."

http://jimbovard.com/blog/2019/10/29/foreign-aid-makes-corrupt-countries-more-corrupt/

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: November 3, 2019 at 5:16 pm GMT
@onebornfree The EU gives every year about 2,500 million euros to the 3 Baltic countries ( 6 million people the three of them ) , and 9000 million euros to Poland ( 38 million people ) , plus more billions to other eastern members .

Older members of the EU , specially the UK which is going out , Greece witch was tortured ( again ) economically by Germany , and south Europe in general are not very happy about admitting so many ex-soviets countries en the EU and subsidizing them .

AnonFromTN , says: November 3, 2019 at 9:31 pm GMT
@SeekerofthePresence

Recovery and self-sufficiency since Yeltsin show the brilliance of the Russian people

It's not so much brilliance as sheer necessity to survive under sanctions. But some results were better than anyone expected. Say, food before sanctions used to be so-so in the provinces and downright bad in Moscow because of abundance of imported crap. Now the food is exclusively domestic, fresh and tasty. Russia never had traditions of making fancy cheeses. Now, to bypass sanctions, quite a few Italian and French cheese-makers started production in Russia, so in the last 2-3 years domestically made excellent fancy cheeses appeared in supermarkets. Arguably, Russian agriculture benefited by sanctions more than any other sector, but there are success stories virtually in every industry. Sanctions and Ukrainian stupidity served as a timely wake up call for Russian elites, who earlier wanted to sell oil and natural gas and buy everything else. Replacing imports after the sanctions were imposed had a significant cost in the short run, but in the long run it made Russia much stronger, economically and militarily. Speak of unintended consequences.

Kazlu Ruda , says: November 3, 2019 at 11:58 pm GMT
My mom is from Lithuania and I've been there several times. We have second cousins our age.

Her father was a surveyor for the Republic in the 20s and 30s, charged with breaking up the manors and estates and the state distributing the land to the peasantry. It was near-feudalism. There was very little industrialization; that which existed were in a few urban centers. One interesting comment from her was that the "Jews were communists". From what I've read they were the urban working class, but perhaps part of the socialist/Jewish Bund?

There is no doubt that the Soviet period unleashed considerable industrialization and modernization. Lithuania had some of the best infrastructure in the USSR. Its traditional culture was really celebrated.

When I first visited, not long after the fall of the USSR, there were enormous, vacant industrial plants. The collective farms were in the process of being sold off the western European agribusiness firms. One relative through marriage was from the Ukraine, with a PhD in Physics and had been employed in the military industries -- she was cleaning houses thereafter.

Any usable industrial enterprises were quickly sold off. The utilities are all foreign owned. Part of EU mandates are "open" electricity "markets", which resulting in DC interconnections costing hundreds of millions with the west to import very high priced electricity. The EU has paid for "Via Baltica", a highway running from Poland to Estonia; it is choked with trucks carrying imports and there are huge distribution and fulfillment centers along the highway. Such progress, huh?

There had been good public transport in the earlier years of independence, but that has been replaced with personal automobiles -- usually western European used cars that pollute a lot. Trakai is a commuter town to Vilnius with a medieval castle (restored in Soviet times). First time I went it was very pleasant. Second time in 2018 the place was choked with cars and not very nice at all.

The impact of emigration cannot be over-stated. College educated young people leave by the hundreds of thousands. Those that remain are paid very low wages (e.g., 1000 euros for a veterinarian or dentist), but pay west European prices for many essentials. Housing is cheaper than the west.

Last time in Kazlu Ruda there were huge NATO exercises in progress and even bigger ones planned for 2020. German units were billeted at an airbase nearby, rumored to have been a CIA black site. How fitting, as the Germans with the Lithuanian Riflemens Union exterminated a quarter of a million Jews in a matter of months (see Jager Report on Wikipedia). There is a Red Army graveyard in the town that has the remains of perhaps 350 soldiers killed in the area driving out the Nazis. I was frankly surprised it was still there.

Lithuania hasn't been independent since the days of the Pagans and Vytautas. It surely isn't independent today.

Anecdotal -- yes. But based on personal observation.

[Nov 03, 2019] No true war is bad

Nov 03, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

by John Quiggin on October 13, 2019 On Facebook, my frined Timothy Scriven pointed to an opinion piece by classics professor Ian Morris headlined In the long run, wars make us safer and richer It's pushing a book with the clickbaity title War! What is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots .". Timothy correctly guessed that I wouldn't like it.

Based on the headline, I was expecting a claim along the lines "wars stimulate technological progress" which I refuted (to my own satisfaction at any rate) in Economics in Two Lessons" . But the argument is much stranger than this. The claim is that war, despite its brutality created big states, like the Roman empire, which then delivered peace and prosperity.

For the classical world at 100 CE or so, the era on which Morris is an expert, that argument seemed pretty convincing. As the famous Life of Brian sketch suggests, Roman rule delivered a lot of benefits to its conquered provinces.

The next 1900 years or so present a bit of a problem, though. There have been countless wars in that time, and no trend towards bigger states. On the contrary two or three dozen states (depending on how you count them) now occupy the territory of the former Roman Empire.

You could cut the number down a bit by treating the European Union as a new empire, but then you have an even bigger problem. The EU was not formed through war, but through a determination to avoid it. Whatever you think about the EU in other respects, this goal has been achieved.

Morris avoids the problem by a "no true Scotsman" argument. He admits in passing that the 1000 years of war following the high point of Rome had the effect of breaking down larger, safer societies into smaller, more dangerous ones, but returns with relief to the era of true wars, in which big states always win. That story works, roughly, until 1914, when the empires he admires destroyed themselves, killing millions in the process.

After that, the argument descends into Pinker-style nonsense. While repeating the usual stats about the decline in violent deaths, Morris mentions in passing that a nuclear war could cause billions of deaths. He doesn't consider the obvious anthropic fallacy problem – if such a war had happened, there would not be any op-eds in the Washington Post discussing the implications for life expectancy.

I haven't read the book, and don't intend to. If someone can't present a 700 word summary of their argument without looking silly, they shouldn't write opinion pieces. But, for what its worth, FB friends who have read it agree that it's not very good.


William Meyer 10.13.19 at 12:31 pm (no link)

I have not read the book in question, so I don't know if the author made this point: "Since violence or implicit violence is how we overcome essentially all collective action problems as humans, war probably does belong in the human toolkit." Obviously it would be better if we could find more and better alternatives to war, and remove the obvious glitches in the alternatives (e.g., representative democracy, single-party states, etc.) we have tried in the past. So I find it odd as I get old that so little energy/research/academic effort is devoted by the human race to finding better means of collective decision making. Clearly our current abilities in this field are completely inadequate. I ponder if this is because we are incapable of doing better by some inherent flaw in our makeup or if it is because, as in some many areas of life, the wicked work tirelessly to maintain the systems that enrich and empower them. I suspect I'll never find out.
Omega Centauri 10.13.19 at 4:33 pm (no link)
There might be a case to be made for empire building conquest advancing human society. I think it was primarily by forcing the mixing of cultures which otherwise would have been relatively isolated from each other. Also empires tended to create safe internal trade routes, the Silk Road was made possible by the Mongol empire.

At least the authors of books about such empires like to state that over a timespan of centuries that empire creation was a net positive.

Orange Watch 10.13.19 at 7:07 pm (no link)
Tim Worstall and Dipper's suggestion that the EU is borne of war is mostly just a failure to take Morris's claim on its unsophisticated face and instead assume it contains subtle complexity that is obviously missing if you read the article itself:

This happened because about 10,000 years ago, the winners of wars began incorporating the losers into larger societies. The victors found that the only way to make these larger societies work was by developing stronger governments; and one of the first things these governments had to do, if they wanted to stay in power, was suppress violence among their subjects.

For the EU to have been a result of war in the sense that Morris means, it would have to have been forcibly formed in 1945 by the US/UK/Russia forcibly incorporating Europe into it. When Morris states "wars make us stronger and richer" he very simply means wars of conquest are long-term net positives. He doesn't mean something subtle about nations banding together to forestall further war; he bluntly means conquerors gluing together their conquests into empires and then liberally applying boot leather to necks.

Mark Brady 10.13.19 at 7:56 pm (no link)
John Quiggin is, of course, well aware of this quotation, but some of you may not.

"Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of destruction, they see almost endless benefits in enormous acts of destruction. They tell us how much better off economically we all are in war than in peace. They see "miracles of production" which it requires a war to achieve. And they see a postwar world made certainly prosperous by an enormous "accumulated" or "backed up" demand. In Europe they joyously count the houses, the whole cities that have been leveled to the ground and that "will have to be replaced." In America they count the houses that could not be built during the war, the nylon stockings that could not be supplied, the worn-out automobiles and tires, the obsolescent radios and refrigerators. They bring together formidable totals.

"It is merely our old friend, the broken-window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown fat beyond recognition. This time it is supported by a whole bundle of related fallacies. It confuses need with demand."

Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, Chapter 3, "The Blessings of Destruction."

Alex SL 10.13.19 at 8:37 pm (no link)
On one side, AFAIK the last few centuries of war in Europe have indeed seen a reduction of the number of states. Yes, the trend was partly reversed since 1914, but never to the degree of splintering that existed in the middle ages.

On the other side, even the widely accepted cases of supposedly 'beneficial' empires such as the Romans bringing the Pax Romana and the Mongols allowing far-reaching trade and travel need to be seen against the devastation they caused to make their victories possible. The Romans, for example, committed genocide in Gaul and Carthage, and they enslaved millions.

Best case argument in my eyes is that a very successful war is beneficial because it stops continuous smaller wars, which is still not exactly the same as a general "war is beneficial". Why not just create institutional arrangements that avoid wars between small nations in the first place?

fran6 10.13.19 at 9:26 pm (no link)
Here's another personality who's also unfazed by the evils of war (although, she does wish more folks were "kind" to each other):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EsWSh8kPMfg?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Barry 10.13.19 at 10:40 pm ( 18 )
Tim Worstall: "The EU came into existence in 1992, neatly coinciding with the Yugoslav unpleasantnesses."

You might want to look at the time between then and WWII.

You also might want to check the membership in the EU in 1992, and see which state(s) were not in it (hint – Yugoslavia).

John Quiggin 10.13.19 at 11:36 pm ( 19 )
Stephen @11 Say what? Are you suggesting that the Soviet bloc was part of the EU? As both your comment and Tim Worstall's unwittingly illustrate, the fact that the EU has been entirely peaceful since its creation (by contrast with non-EU Europe) is not because Europeans suddenly became pacifists.
Salazar 10.14.19 at 12:39 am ( 20 )
Sorry if I have a hard time getting Morris' argument, but: towards the end, be seems to be saying the world requires a "Globocop" like the US to ensure its prosperity. But how does that relate to his wider point about the benefits of war? Does Morris believe the hegemon owes it to itself, and to the rest of the world, to wage permanent war?
Tabasco 10.14.19 at 1:23 am ( 21 )
"the EU has been entirely peaceful since its creation"

Spain and Portugal are still arguing the 200+ year border dispute over Olivenza/Olivença, but it hasn't reached Kashmir levels (yet).

Ed 10.14.19 at 2:34 am ( 22 )
Morris sold out. This was evident in his book comparing the progress of China and Europe, though that book made excellent points in between the fluff and is well worth reading. But he is well versed enough in Chinese history to be aware of the ultimate example of armies conquering and bringing peace to a large area, which happens repeatedly in Chinese history.

Actually, Chinese history itself shows that the opposite argument has more support, that instead of war being valuable because one powerful country will conquer a large area and bring peace to it, its valuable because competition between states who are worried about other states getting a jump on them turns out to be valuable to progress. Large continental empires, including the Roman one as well, tended to stagnate in terms of culture and technology and become correct.

MFB 10.15.19 at 7:18 am (no link)
Well, the opinion-piece was published on Jeff Bezos' blog. Oligarchs are naturally in favour of centralised power and therefore of empires (so long as they are at the apex thereof, which they usually are). The best way to build an empire is through war.

Of course, the author has to say "despite Hitler, Stalin and Mao", for ideological reasons. Actually, Hitler built his empire largely through the threat of war rather than through war itself; once he had actually started the war, he antagonised three more powerful empires than his own and his empire was then crushed. As for Stalin, he actually did various double-back-somersaults to avoid getting into wars, and the "empire" which he built in Eastern Europe as a result of winning a war he didn't want did not sustain itself. And of course Mao didn't start any wars at all -- his name just had to be thrown in for reactionary reasons.

It is true that the Spanish, Portuguese, French and British empires were built upon war. But where are they now? The United States fought a lot of wars against its indigenous people, but frankly it would still have been a global superpower if it had simply sidestepped most of them, at least from about 1865 onward.

An interesting question: can it be that a professor of Classics doesn't actually have to understand the concept of evidence-based argument in any case, because everything has already been said on the subject and all you have to do is cherry-pick other people's statements? Because that seems to be how that silly article reads.

And yes, the whole thing reeks of the better angels propaganda. Let's not forget, by the way, that various members of the EU -- Britain, France, Italy et al -- have launched brutally murderous wars elsewhere, and the fact that they don't fight among themselves doesn't make them peaceful or moral entities.

Neville Morley 10.15.19 at 9:47 am (no link)
@TheSophist #25: that was mentioned as a joke rather than self-publicity, but if you're really interested: The Roman Empire: roots of imperialism (Pluto Press, 2020). Obviously books about the Roman Empire are ten a penny; my main claim for this one, besides its being less apologetic and/or gung-ho than most, is that I try to integrate the historical reality with its reception, i.e. how people have subsequently deployed Rome as an example or model.
Bill Benzon 10.15.19 at 12:44 pm (no link)
Maybe the Roman Empire delivered on peace, but prosperity is a bit more complicated. Some years ago David Hays wrote a book on the history of technology. One of the things he did was make a back-of-the-envelope estimate of material welfare at different levels of development. He concluded that, while civilization has always been a good deal for the elite, it's been rather iffy for peasants and workers. It's only during the Industrial Evolution that the standard of living at the lower end of society rose above that of hunter-gatherers. So, the prosperity delivered by the Roman Empire went mostly to the elite, not the peasantry.

I've excerpted the relevant section of Hays's book .

steven t johnson 10.16.19 at 8:06 pm (no link)
Peter Erwin@43 wanted the Nazis to roll right up to the eastern border of Poland, etc. etc. So did Hitler. And although I'm quite reluctant to read minds, especially dead one, I will nevertheless guarantee the move into the Baltics was seen as a blow to his plans, even if accepted for temporary advantage. You must always see who hates Stalin for beating Hitler, and those rare few who object to his real crimes.

And, Erwin thinks Chinese troops being in Korea with permission is an aggression, while US troops closing on Chinese borders is not. The US still isn't out of Korea, but China is, but he can't figure out who the aggressor is.

Really, Peter Erwin really says it all. The maddest ant-Communist propaganda is now official.

MFB 10.17.19 at 9:02 am (no link)
I don't want to unnecessarily dump on Peter Erwin, because I don't believe in kicking disadvantaged children, but if he reads the original post he will notice that it was talking about international wars, not civil wars. I'll admit the invasion of Finland (and of the Baltic states and Poland) but those were fairly obviously ways of strengthening the USSR's position in order to discourage a German invasion, and all took place within the boundaries of the former Russian Empire which Stalin undoubtedly saw as the default position.

As to Mao, he didn't start the Korean war (as Erwin unwillingly admits) and all the other wars except for the invasion of Vietnam were civil wars since they entailed moving into Chinese-controlled territory which had broken away during the main civil war. I'll admit that Vietnam was a problem, but then, since Mao had been dead for some time by then, it's would be hard for Erwin to blame him except for the fact that Erwin clearly lives on Planet Bizarro.

Z 10.17.19 at 9:05 am (no link)
@John Quiggin The claim is that war, despite its brutality created big states, like the Roman empire, which then delivered peace and prosperity

I don't think this is an intellectually generous summary of the arguments, as presented in the article.

The author himself summarizes it as "war made states, and states made peace", and if it is indeed true that the author often speaks of "larger, more organized societies" there is a strong implication that for a society to be "large" in the sense discussed in the article, it is not really necessary that it be territorially very wide (the most clear cut indication of that is that the author refers to the European states of the 1600s as "big, settled states" while they all were geographically tiny at the time). So the point of the author, if interpreted with intellectual honesty, seems to me to be twofold: 1) that war has been a crucial factor in the formation of complex, organized states and societies and 2) that these complex, organized states and societies brought with them so many positive things that the wars required to form them were worth it.

The second point is pure Pinker. I consider it logically meaningless, myself (it ultimately relies on the concept that History proceeds like an individual who is choosing a pair of shoes) and morally repugnant (it is not hard to see who will be pleased to have a rhetorical tool that can justify any atrocity by the long term gains it will provide humanity – indeed, it is instructive in that respect to read SS internal papers on when and why children should be executed with their parents, and how to select people for that task: contrary to what could be guessed, the manual recommends the soldiers who appear to have a strong sense of empathy and morality, with the idea that they will those who will most strongly endorse the "by doing this abominable act, we are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of future generations" thesis).

The first point, however, appears to me to be broadly correct descriptively. Extracting an interesting thesis out of it requires much more work than is indicated by the article, however (I consider Ertman's Birth of the Levianthan an example of that kind of extra work done successfully).

Z 10.17.19 at 9:30 am ( 52 )
@John Quiggin Lots of people predicted, along the lines of your post, that with the external threat of the USSR gone, and the US pulling back, the old warlike Europe would reassert itself.

I think what we may call the "wide military context thesis" runs rather like this: because of the experience of WWII and the Cold War, modern industrial states have amassed enormous military power while at the same time knowing that they can experience total destruction if they enter into a military conflict with a state of comparable military might. As a consequence, peace dominates between them. So France is not at war with the United Kingdom or Germany, certainly in part because they are all (for now) members of the EU but also in part for the same reason Japan is not at war with South Korea and Russia not at war with China.

Personally, I think it would be absurd to claim that the EU has played no role in the pacification of Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, but I think it would be equally absurd to deny the role of other factors that plainly play a major role in the equally remarkable pacification of other regional areas in the absence of an economical and political unification process (rise in prosperity, rise in education, aging populations, increased military power ).

otpup 10.19.19 at 10:51 pm ( 68 )
@7, Omega
Not really wanting to get into the "do empires benefit civilization by promoting trade" argument, but having just read Lost Enlightenment, nothing in that lengthy tome suggests the Silk Road city states gain any special advantage from the Mongol invasion. In fact, quite the opposite. After the Mongols (in part for reasons preceeding the conquest), Central Asia never regained its pre-eminence (it had actually not just been a facilitator of trade but also a center of manufacture, culture, scientific progress). Maybe the trade routes hobbled along as trade routes but the civilization that was both built by and facilitated trade did not rebound. Most empires seem to get that there is wealth to be had from involvement in trade, they don't always know how to keep the gold goose alive.
LFC 10.20.19 at 9:10 pm (no link)
"War made states and states made peace" is a riff on Charles Tilly's line "war made the state and the state made war."

[Nov 03, 2019] Such a Nobel peaceprice winnder: Strikes under the Bush Administration: 51; Strikes under the Obama Administration: 373; Strikes under the Trump Administration: 5

Notable quotes:
"... Obama's life and actions are a texbook explanation of how humans develop on the sociopathic spectrum. Not all sociopaths are evil-looking monsters. Obama, Biden, Buttigieg, Kamala, W... but their actions always expose them. We, as fellow humans and sentient beings, must develop filters that trigger deeper probes into their actions over time and their sociopathic-- even psychopatic actions will emerge. ..."
Nov 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Nov 2 2019 11:12 utc | 126

For the hysterical Trump Derangement Syndrome jello-brained fools saying Trump is killing people in secret or something ridiculous like that, check out the list of drone murders in Pakistan as a rather typical illustration. The trend is the same for Yemen and Afghanistan.

Here are the crucial totals for Pakistan:

"O-bomber" is an apt sobriquet for the previous Nobel Peace Prize winning PotUS.

igueljose , Nov 2 2019 13:53 utc 144

migueljose , Nov 2 2019 13:53 utc | 144

Karlof1,petri, lysias and others,(@40s) thank you for your details and focus on the U.S. government's crimes and actions in Ukraine, especially pointing to Obama. His name is left out of most blogs and discussions and I think is key to a critical need for us to redirect our future conversations and actions: we need to identify the neoliberal/neocon trojan horses early and often. I voted for Obama in 08 and was shocked as he immediately began filling his cabinet with neoliberal/neocons-- Geitner, Hillary, Gates, Summers, etc.

Obama's life and actions are a texbook explanation of how humans develop on the sociopathic spectrum. Not all sociopaths are evil-looking monsters. Obama, Biden, Buttigieg, Kamala, W... but their actions always expose them. We, as fellow humans and sentient beings, must develop filters that trigger deeper probes into their actions over time and their sociopathic-- even psychopatic actions will emerge.

[Nov 02, 2019] GOP laments Schiff's handling of Ukraine probe, Volker testimony

Nov 02, 2019 | www.rollcall.com

House Republicans on Thursday said that testimony from the State Department's former envoy to Ukraine, sought by House Democrats with regards to their impeachment inquiry, won't advance the drive to impeach President Donald Trump.

Emerging from the day-long deposition, New York Republican Lee Zeldin said that former U.S. Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker's private Thursday testimony, "blows a hole in the argument" presented by Democrats that Trump asked the president of Ukraine for a quid pro quo.

Volker on Thursday spent hours testifying with congressional investigators who are seeking to discover if he played any role in Trump's efforts to obtain from Ukrainian officials information on Hunter Biden, the son of 2020 presidential hopeful Joseph R. Biden Jr.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff briefly addressed reporters during the testimony, charging that Trump encouraging a foreign nation to investigate his political rival was a "fundamental breach of the president's oath of office."

"It endangers our elections, it endangers our national security, it ought to be condemned by every member of this body, Democrats and Republicans alike," Schiff said.

While Volker testified, Ohio Republican Michael R. Turner , an Intelligence Committee member, released a statement saying he does "not believe that Volker's testimony advanced Schiff's impeachment agenda."

Zeldin urged the relevant congressional committees to make public a transcript of Volker's deposition, along with text messages Volker sent to Ukrainian officials, which have become a source of intrigue in the fledgling impeachment push.

About two-and-a-half hours into Volker's deposition, Jim Jordan , an Ohio Republican and founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, emerged and told reporters that Schiff wanted to limit certain members from questioning Volker and that the California Democrat had barred State Department lawyers from participating in the closed briefing.

Want insight more often? Get Roll Call in your inbox

"If this is how Mr. Schiff is going to conduct these types of interviews in the future," Jordan said, "that's a concern."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has drawn the ire of congressional Democrats this week for rejecting a subpoena and rebuffing congressional requests to question five current and former State Department officials to testify in the impeachment inquiry.

Trump: House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff should "resign from office"

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.347.1_en.html#goog_1403673562

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In defending his actions, Trump has taken aim at Schiff, calling him names and urging that he resign and be investigated himself, potentially for treason .

Jordan praised Volker, calling him "impressive." Turner called Volker "an incredible diplomat," in his statement.

Volker resigned from his position as special envoy less than a week ago after his name appeared in a whistleblower complaint alleging that Volker was coordinating with Ukrainian officials on how to handle requests from Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. That whistleblower report is central in justifying House Democrats' impeachment inquiry.

Turner said he doesn't believe Volker would have done anything untoward during his State Department service.

"It is my strong belief that Volker would not have been involved in nor permitted anything inappropriate, let alone illegal, in his service to our country," Turner said. "Today he continued his legacy of integrity under questioning from Schiff's staff."

[Nov 02, 2019] Assad Calls Trump Best US President Ever For Transparency Of Real US Motives

Nov 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Arguably some of the most significant events since the eight-year long war's start have played out in Syria with rapid pace over just the last month alone, including Turkey's military incursion in the north, the US pullback from the border and into Syria's oil fields, the Kurdish-led SDF&# deal making with Damascus, and the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. All of this is why a televised interview with Presiden39;st Bashar Assad was highly anticipated at the end of this week.

Assad's commentary on the latest White House policy to "secure the oil" in Syria, for which US troops have already been redeployed to some of the largest oil fields in the Deir Ezzor region, was the biggest pressing question. The Syrian president's response was unexpected and is now driving headlines, given what he said directly about Trump, calling him the "best American president" ever – because he's the "most transparent."

"When it comes to Trump you may ask me a question and I'll give you an answer which might seem strange. I tell you he's the best American president," Assad said, according to a translation provided by NBC.

"Why? Not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president," Assad continued.

"All American presidents commit crimes and end up taking the Nobel Prize and appear as a defender of human rights and the 'unique' and 'brilliant' American or Western principles. But all they are is a group of criminals who only represent the interests of the American lobbies of large corporations in weapons, oil and others," he added.

"Trump speaks with the transparency to say 'We want the oil'." Assad's unique approach to an 'enemy' head of state which has just ordered the seizure of Syrian national resources also comes after in prior years the US president called Assad "our enemy" and an "animal."

Trump tweeted in April 2018 after a new chemical attack allegation had surfaced: "If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!"

A number of mainstream outlets commenting on Assad's interview falsely presented it as "praise" of Trump or that Assad thinks "highly" of him; however, it appears the Syrian leader was merely presenting Trump's policy statements from a 'realist' perspective , contrasting them from the misleading 'humanitarian' motives typical of Washington's rhetoric about itself.

That is, Damascus sees US actions in the Middle East as motivated fundamentally by naked imperial ambition, a constant prior theme of Assad's speeches , across administrations, whether US leadership dresses it up as 'democracy promotion' or in humanitarian terms characteristic of liberal interventionism. As Assad described, Trump seems to skip dressing up his rhetoric in moralistic idealism altogether, content to just unapologetically admit the ugly reality of US foreign policy.


indaknow , 4 minutes ago link

Most President's thought you had to plot coups. Regime changes, color revolutions. Long convoluted wars with many deaths and collateral damage.

Trump says **** that. We're just taking the oil. Brilliant

Chupacabra-322 , 18 minutes ago link

To fund their Black Ops to destabilize Sovereign Countries & rape, murder, pillage & steal their natural resources. And, install their Puppet leaders.

Wash, rinse & repeat.

ExPat2018 , 22 minutes ago link

I see Americans keep calling Assad and Putin a ''dictator'' Hey, jackasses, they were ELECTED in elections far less corrupt than what you have in the USSA

Guentzburgh , 54 minutes ago link

Transparently Assad is a moron, the oil belongs to the kurds snake.

beemasters , 52 minutes ago link

Not anymore... Russian Military Releases Satellite Images Confirming US Smuggling of Syrian Oil
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910261077154752-russian-military-releases-satellite-images-confirming-us-smuggling-of-syrian-oil/

yerfej , 1 hour ago link

Securing oil from those you don't want to have it is different than "stealing" the oil. Face it the oil means nothing to any large western economy.

Dzerzhhinsky , 33 minutes ago link

Face it the oil means nothing to any large western economy.

The one thing all capitalists have in common is they all want more money, it's never enough.

You commies will never understand the deep in your gut need to take every penny from every child.

Fiscal Reality , 1 hour ago link

Pelosi, Schiff, Cankels, Schumer, The MSM all sriek in unison "TRUMP IS ASSAD'S PAWN. IMPEACH HIM!!!"

beemasters , 1 hour ago link

the "best American president" ever – because he's the "most transparent."

Very much so. When he says something, it's definitely the opposite that he would be doing. You can't get more transparent than that.

NorwegianPawn , 1 hour ago link

Assad is a very eloquent speaker. Witty, sharp and always calm when speaking with decadent press. Of course the MSM understood what he DID mean, but they cannot help themselves, but parse anything to try hurting Trump.

Just don't believe a word the media says.

Son of Captain Nemo , 1 hour ago link

Mr. Assad's got that pitch correctly...

As a matter of fact he used "real motives" when he should have used the words "maniacal" and "desperate"...

Case in point... https://southfront.org/western-europe-archdiocese-officially-reunited-with-russian-orthodox-church/

If true. It means the Vatican (the oldest most important money there is) like Saudi Arabia and the UAE sure do seem to care about stuff like purchasing power in their "portfolios" and a "store of value"?...

I see lots of EU participants taking their money to Moscow as well with that Arctic bonanza that says "come hither" if you want your money to be worth something!!!

To Hell In A Handbasket , 1 hour ago link

It's always been about oil. Spreading Freedumb, Dumbocracy and Western values, is PR spiel. The reality is, the West are scammers, plunderers and outright thieves. Forget the billions Shell Oil, is holding for the Biafran people/region in Nigeria, which it won't give to either the Bianfran states in the east, nor the Nigerian government, dating back to the secessionist state of Biafra/Nigerian civil war 1967-70. The west are nothing more than gang-bangers, but on the world stage.

If people think its just oil we steal, then you are mad. What the UK did in reneging on 1500 Chieftain tanks and armoured personnel vehicles, with Iran which they paid for up-front and fucked Iran over in the UK courts over interest payments over 40 years. Are stories that simply do not make the news.

Yet the department for trade and industry is scratching its head, wondering why their are so few takers for a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK, where the honest UK courts have the final say? lol

truthseeker47 , 1 hour ago link

Too bad it is political suicide for an American president to try to establish communication with Assad. He seems like a pretty practical guy and who knows, it might be possible to work out a peaceful settlement with him.

TheLastMan , 1 hour ago link

economic warfare on the syrian civlian population through illegal confiscation of vital civilian economic assets, and as conducted in venezeula, is called ________________

Meximus , 1 hour ago link

That is not a compliment for Trompas .

Assad is saying where before the UKK was a masked thief, with Trompas and his egotism alias exceptionalism, has not bothered withthe mask. He is still a murderer and thief.

Obi-jonKenobi , 2 hours ago link

Now Assad has some idea why Trump is so popular with his base, they love him for not being politically correct, for "telling it like it is". He's like the wolf looking at the sheep and telling them he's going to eat them and the sheep cheering because he's not being a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Unfortunately in the case of Trump's sheeple, they don't even have a clue they're going to be eaten, the Trumptards all think he's going to eat someone else like the "deep state" or the "dumbocrats". Meanwhile he's chewing away at their health care, their export markets, piling up record deficits, handing the tax gold to the rich and corporations while they get the shaft, taking away program after program that aided students, the poor, and the elderly, appointing lobbyists to dismantle or corrupt departments they used to lobby against, and in general destroying the international good will that it's taken decades to build.

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[Nov 02, 2019] At the Feet of Mammon by Philip Farruggio

Notable quotes:
"... Of course, when the die was cast and Rumsfeld's famous Shock and Awe campaign began, the three major news talk channels, CNN, MSNBC and FOX, were all over us with cheerleading. ..."
"... Swinton's use of the phrase 'Intellectual prostitutes' rang true then. ..."
"... As the war criminal Mr. Obama stated, when in 2008 many of his own party wanted to have hearings on the pre-emptive attack and occupation of Iraq, that it was time to 'Move forward'. Forward he did by increasing the number of drone murderous assaults by Tenfold! ..."
"... Now that he is out of office, Barack, the 'Hope and Change' king, just purchased a home for $8.1 million. Tell that to the suckers who fell for his rhetoric in the Afro American communities. ..."
Oct 20, 2019 | off-guardian.org

He stated:

There is no such thing at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press There is not ONE of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print!

I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with The business of journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread We are the tools of rich men behind the scenes.

We are jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes!"

We only need go back a few short years to see the utter magnitude of what Swinton was talking about. Remember the illegal and immoral USA invasion and occupation of Iraq? Most of the 'levers of empire' were pushed to accommodate that bit of lying, disinformation and half truths.

This writer remembers when Phil Donahue had his nightly news/talk show on MSNBC. By February of 2003 or thereabouts, Jeff Cohen, Phil's producer, recalls how he was told to have TWO pro invasion guests on for every anti invasion guest. Remember, at that time General Electric Corp. owned MSNBC. Yet, that was not enough to satisfy the empire. On February 23 the Donahue show was cancelled, although the ratings were pretty good.

You see, by that time, late February, the machine was all ready for the attack. It just needed a few more morsels of propaganda to sink into both the Congress and of course the consumers Sorry, I mean the citizenry.

This writer was extremely agitated by the high level of Pro invasion info coming over the embedded mainstream print and electronic media. One slight consolation was when C-Span actually 'did the correct thing' and showed a Canadian news channel's coverage of the impending doom.

Of course, when the die was cast and Rumsfeld's famous Shock and Awe campaign began, the three major news talk channels, CNN, MSNBC and FOX, were all over us with cheerleading.

FOX was so off the radar that no critique is needed. However, CNN and MSNBC, trying to look like 'Neutral Journalism 101', could not contain their peanut gallery mindsets, the one that John Swinton referred to in his famous speech.

You had Aaron Brown, Lester Holt and little Katie Couric (of flagship station NBC, owned by GE), along with Brian Williams (later to be outed, for but awhile, for his phony news stories in Iraq) all right there celebrating the 'Liberators of Iraq'.

They all wore their flag buttons on their lapels, and little Katie was filmed strolling through the halls of NBC shouting 'Marines Rock!' Of course, Lester Holt did the 'right (wing) thing' and now is a respected anchor so much so that good ole Lester moderates presidential debates.

Swinton's use of the phrase 'Intellectual prostitutes' rang true then.

Now we come to a recent bit of disgrace. Ellen Degeneres, the highly celebrated and successful daytime talk show hostess and proud gay woman, was seen sitting with Junior Bush at a Dallas Cowboys game, in the exclusive owner's box area.

She has had Junior on her show to talk about his painting, has visited him at his ranch, and considers him a 'Nice guy'. Junior has, on record as president, never did squat to help with the AIDs pandemic, and allowed his far right evangelical beliefs to keep him from ever speaking favorably about gay rights etc.

Yet, this openly gay woman, who must have felt alarmed by our illegal invasion (OR DID SHE?), must have had friends who were enraged by that invasion at the time.

All the many alternative news blips must have gotten to her eyes and ears, telling her that the Bush/Cheney gang were WAR CRIMINALS! Yet Ms. DeGeneres continues to satisfy the lie which tells us to take a pass on the dastardly things done by the war criminals in the White House.

As the war criminal Mr. Obama stated, when in 2008 many of his own party wanted to have hearings on the pre-emptive attack and occupation of Iraq, that it was time to 'Move forward'. Forward he did by increasing the number of drone murderous assaults by Tenfold!

Now that he is out of office, Barack, the 'Hope and Change' king, just purchased a home for $8.1 million. Tell that to the suckers who fell for his rhetoric in the Afro American communities.

Anyone but the foolish people who still support Mr. Trump realize that he is as much of a populist as the man he emulates with his body gestures: Il Duce!

Nothing ever changes when the majority of working stiffs suck in the foul air that comes from the mouths of the empire's minions, whether they be presidents, congress people or (so called) journalists and talk show hosts. It is time for those of good conscience to boycott the lot of them!

Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his works posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, OffGuardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, , Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust , whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has an internet interview show, 'It's the Empire... Stupid' with producer Chuck Gregory.


peeWee

Pretty good article. Pity you had to spoil it with the Trump populist Mussolini comparison at the end. Don't get me wrong I am no Trump fan but are you saying that much of the stuff written about him is not propaganda? So when it comes to Trump the media are ..even handed? honest? ..unbiased? (LOL). P.S. How many wars did Bush try and stop? How many wars did Obama stop? Is stopping wars now "populism"? Even I can see that the highest levels of the US government have been compromised by the intelligence agencies and corrupt partisan actors. Need I remind you that it was a "populist" who called out the FAKE NEWS?
Doctortrinate
The News Today, as slipshod as you like – but how far is it different from those diligent yesterdays. Broadcasts, built upon a complex Fabrication, to deceive it's willing dependants into accepting falsifications as an authentic constant of everyday reality.

So, until the demoi discard the pleasure of blissful ignorance, for the painful truth whatever the spin, however its dressed, the story will continue, trapped in it's own invention, lost in a pernicious labyrinth where every redundant turn forgets the last.

MASTER OF UNIVE
Corporatism is Fascism, and Fascists that tow the party line are always utilized for purposes of impression management much like props on a TV program are. Dubya is a corporatist whore just as daytime talk show hosts are too. Assuming that corporatist whores should have integrity is naïve in the extreme.

If you watch television you are an automaton without enough reason to be able to turn the television off given that you have been programmed to mindlessly adhere to whatever the television coughs up daily.
If you watch mindless Fascists entertaining mass murderers like George W. Bush at ballgames that host the Military Industrial Complex for halftime shows you are _Functionally Retarded_ and likely skimmed over this article whilst locked in a trance state of ignorance & a lack of education.

FUCK America & American television.

It's a bankrupt Corporation that is $22 trillion in debt that it will never pay back, suckers!

MOU

wardropper
" Mr. Obama stated, when in 2008 many of his own party wanted to have hearings on the pre-emptive attack and occupation of Iraq, that it was time to 'Move forward' "

And I will never, ever, forget Nancy Pelosi's dismissive shrug when many of that same party were calling for Bush's impeachment on account of that illegal invasion:
"Impeachment is off the table." Decent Americans no longer have a representative in the US government. As Swinton clearly implies, those who hire today's journalists bear practically all the responsibility for this.

hollyPlastic
A glaring example of how much the West loves freedom is shown in this UN briefing on Torture, this week.

Spoiler: the room is basically empty.

https://www.rt.com/news/471016-assange-torture-violations-un/

This serves a good demonstration of how stupid Hong Kong protesters are in believing that there is a 'West/UK/US' supporting their quest for 'Democracy' and 'Freedom'.

milosevic
you mean Hollywood movies aren't an accurate source of information about world politics and history???
hollyPlastic
Look and you'll see that according to the Controlled Corporate Mass Media, there are, in this period of history, three pillars that are supporting Western civilisation:

And

The Blonde is getting blonder. Even, black is now turning blonde. The White is getting whiter. The Blue is getting bluer.

Other pillars of Western Civilisation are somewhat behind the scene and include the proliferation/sales of weapons of mass destruction, breaking international laws, as well as, the withdrawal from treaties which restrict the deployment of nuclear missiles.

mark
Ah, but everybody knows Bombing Brown People and Torturing Brown People is good for them. We only do it for their benefit. And this in no way contradicts Our Values and Our Rules Based Order. All these benighted natives and lesser breeds are jolly grateful for all our lofty sermons and pious lectures about human rights.
milosevic
indeed, it's the white man's burden .
padre
I find it very interesting, how people need to worship something!It seems to me that they aren't able to admit, that there are things that are not clear to them!For instance, we know very little about the universe, so we declare God made it!
hollyPlastic
There is a poignant remark made on these pages which goes something like this:

When surviving depends on believing, the mind works wonders

I think the implications of 'believing' in order to survive are profound. People need to believe in order to fit in, in order to get a job, in order to get a promotion, in order to get married, in order to get enough food to feed their offspring, and in order to 'look' free.

Not to forget, by believing in Jesus, you give your proxy support to plunder every inch of the Earth, and kill as many brown-skin people as possible.

hollyPlastic

I describe this situation we face as mind control warfare

It is indeed. Thanks for the valuable thoughts!

Tim Jenkins
Mammon avoids questioning & analysing incredible endless lies by 'Schiff for brains'. When actually, just like Norman Bates in Psycho, Adam Schiff is actually the "whistleblower", with bent whistle all he needs is a wig and a rocking chair 🙂
Tim Jenkins
Correction: an electric rocking chair, lol
Gezzah Potts
Jayzus . Adam fecken Schiff. Complete wackjob extraordinaire, tho in Washington DC he has s(ch)tiff competition. Someone the Liberal bourgie professional types here in Aussie regard with dewy eyed fondness and admiration for leading the . Resistance. Gag. Can things get anymore surreal? Do you sometimes feel like you've dropped acid by mistake such is the bizarre happenings, um, happening. Do you think the Mad Hatter would be perplexed at the state of our World? I know I bloody am
bob
Hey man, there's nothing wrong with the way the British regime treats its sick people .

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/months-of-pip-distress-hastened-my-brothers-death/

. is there?

vexarb
Bob, nothing wrong at all -- if you worship St.Margaret of Muck, patron saint of the AZC.

"There's no such thing as a social conscience".

Pyewacket
Eugenics mate, it's been back in fashion here for the past decade. But instead of dying in a death camp, you die on the street, or your own home, if you have one.
vexarb
AOO, you mean Trump's Time to Bring Them Back might be genuine? I give him credit because I understand his problem: he has to face his Jewish daughter and her Likudnik husband.

"It is easier to rule an Empire than to manage a family" -- Montaigne

vexarb
ps Not only face but live with. Trump's sincerity is in the same awkward family position as Cher in "Moonstruck" when she and her boyfriend meet her father and his girlfriend at the Opera, and she says to her father:

"I'm not sure whether I saw you".

mark
The only 2 reputable journalists who tried to cover Iraq honestly were Donahue and Chris Hedges. Needless to say, both were immediately sacked. Needless to say, all the cheerleading whores with blood on their hands prospered greatly and are still in situ peddling new lies.
Graft
Unfortunately Donahue is not on the working mans side he just didn't want a war and Chris Hedges is controlled opposition that's why he has his own tv show and lost a tonne of support for his outright lies about Lenin
mark
I don't agree with either of them on different issues but I wouldn't question their integrity.
Ramdan
"But the more fundamental problem is that Americans are too nice. That may seem like a paradox, since we are a country that blithely bombs the world and then weeps with self-pity and affronted dignity when the little people we just stomped on fail to forgive us for tearing out their fingernails. In fact, our niceness is itself a symptom of the moral obliviousness that permits us to enact atrocities in the first place. Niceness is not friendliness, not hospitality, not charity and not goodness. Niceness is the blank grin on the face of the psychopath: it is the public enactment of all the forms of love and kindness without the troublesome burden of loving anyone or treating people with kindness.

This is what an Ellen DeGeneres is really getting at when she brags about being friends with those who have "different beliefs." It is not a matter of actual emotional attachment to any system of values, and it's certainly not a matter of transcending minor political squabbles to form some approximation of a community. [ ]
Rather, she is saying that it is more personally and professionally convenient just to be nice to whatever person happens to be in the same grandstand for the same spectacle of large men grievously injuring each other. It is not that there are disparate values to be bridged in order to form a diverse and tolerant society. Instead, it is hankering after the ease of a society in which there is no necessity to form a core of values beyond the practical calculation of personal and social advantage."

Ellen DeGeneres and the American Psychopath

mark
Dubya rehabilitated himself by slagging off the Orange Man. So he's now a jolly decent chap and all round good egg. Certainly outweighs a little thing like a couple of million dead sand niggers.
Graft
As jimmy Bore said on his show liberals love Bush nowadays but they still fucking hate Ralph Nader, because he gave us ..Bush! Mind officially blown
Ramdan
This is an interesting (as for debate) assessment of the motives and the way we (mis)construct reality .

"in the interests of survival" but "survival" of what?

"survival" of a mind construct as in "I don't like this but I NEED to do it to survive, to STAY ALIVE, to keep eating, to not to die"?

"Survival" as in the indegenous kids eating from dumpsters? ( here and here ) .

OR "survival" of our INTERNALIZED adoration of Mammon as the provider for pleasurable moments and the utter avoidance of the non-pleasurable.

survival of a vehement desire for what is mentally, socially and culturally construed as 'satisfactory', 'laudable', 'praiseworthy', 'deserving' .which basically is the adoration of wealth, and 'upper' social status, of celebrity and of all other things that represent the ACTUAL internal adoration of Mammon.

Is in this- seemingly 'innocuous' – way that reality is subverted and we (unconsciously) construct the uber-materialistic worldview that continues to discard the honest, deep human, spiritual values that can save us from this madness.

I would rather remember again, and old, "crazy" guy .

"A philosopher named Aristippus, who had quite willingly sucked up to Dionysus and won himself a spot at his court, saw Diogenes cooking lentils for a meal. "If you would only learn to compliment Dionysus, you wouldn't have to live on lentils."

Diogenes replied, "But if you would only learn to live on lentils, you wouldn't have to flatter Dionysus."
― Diogenes of Sinope

[Nov 02, 2019] Time to Extricate From Ukraine by Doug Bandow

Notable quotes:
"... In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted. ..."
"... Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor. ..."
"... I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't. ..."
"... I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique. ..."
"... And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot. ..."
"... How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement. ..."
Oct 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Capt. Matthew McCoy, commander of Company A, 1st Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team during international weapons training near Yavoriv, Ukraine, in 2017. (Photo by Sgt. Anthony Jones, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team)/U.S. Army

Recently Ukraine has been thrown into the spotlight as Democrats gear up to impeach President Donald Trump. More important, though, is its role in damaging America's relations with Russia, which has resulted in a mini-Cold War that the U.S. needs to end.

Ukraine is in a bad neighborhood. During the 17th century, the country was divided between Poland and Russia, and eventually ended up as part of the Russian Empire. Kiev then enjoyed only the briefest of liberations after the 1917 Russian Revolution, before being reabsorbed by the Soviet Union. It later suffered from a devastating famine as Moscow confiscated food and collectivized agriculture. Ukraine was ravaged during Germany's World War II invasion, and guerrilla resistance to renewed Soviet control continued for years afterwards.

In 1991, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. gave Ukraine another, more enduring chance for independence. However, the new nation's development was fraught: GDP dropped by 60 percent and corruption burgeoned. Ukraine suffered under a succession of corrupt, self-serving, and ineffective leaders, as the U.S., Europe, and Russia battled for influence.

In 2014, Washington and European governments backed a street putsch against the elected, though highly corrupt, pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. The Putin government responded by annexing Crimea and backing separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine's Donbass region. Washington and Brussels imposed economic sanctions on Russia and provided military aid to Kiev.

The West versus Russia quickly became a "frozen" conflict. Moscow reincorporated Crimea into Russia, from which it had been detached in 1954 as part of internal Soviet politics. In the Donbass, more than a score of ceasefires came and went. Both Ukraine and Russia failed to fulfill the 2016 Minsk agreements, which sought to end the conflict.

In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted.

The most important geopolitical impact has been to poison Russia's relations with the West. Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine cannot be justified, but the U.S. and Europe did much to create the underlying suspicion and hostility. Recently declassified documents reveal the degree to which Western officials misled Moscow about their intention to expand NATO. Allied support for adding Georgia and Ukraine, which would have greatly expanded Russian vulnerability, generated a particularly strong reaction in Moscow. The dismemberment of Serbia with no consideration of Russia's interests was another irritant, along with Western support for "color revolutions" elsewhere, including in Tbilisi. The ouster of Yanukovych finally triggered Putin's brutal response.

Washington and Brussels apparently did not view their policies as threatening to Russia. However, had Moscow ousted an elected Mexican president friendly to America, while inviting the new government to join the Warsaw Pact, and worked with a coalition of Central American states to divert Mexican trade from the U.S., officials in Washington would not have been pleased. They certainly wouldn't have been overly concerned about juridical niceties in responding.

This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response. Subsequent allied policies then turned the breach in relations into a gulf. The U.S. and European Union imposed a series of economic sanctions. Moreover, Washington edged closer to military confrontation with its provision of security assistance to Kiev. Moscow responded by challenging America from Syria to Venezuela.

It also began moving towards China. The two nations' differences are many and their relationship is unstable. However, as long as their antagonism towards Washington exceeds their discomfort with each other, they will cooperate to block what they see as America's pursuit of global hegemony.

Why is the U.S. entangled in the Ukrainian imbroglio? During the Cold War, Ukraine was one of the fabled "captive nations," backed by vigorous advocacy from Ukrainian Americans. After the Soviet Union collapsed, they joined other groups lobbying on behalf of ethnic brethren to speed NATO's expansion eastward. Security policy turned into a matter of ethnic solidarity, to be pursued irrespective of cost and risk.

To more traditional hawks who are always seeking an enemy, the issue is less pro-Ukraine than anti-Russia. Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nominee, improbably attacked Russia as America's most dangerous adversary. Hence the GOP's counterproductive determination to bring Kiev into NATO. Originally Washington saw the transatlantic alliance as a means to confront the Soviet menace; now it views the pact as a form of charity.

After the Soviet collapse, the U.S. pushed NATO eastward into nations that neither mattered strategically nor could be easily protected, most notably in the Balkans and Baltics. Even worse were Georgia and Ukraine, security black holes that would bring with them ongoing conflicts with Russia, possibly triggering a larger war between NATO and Moscow.

Ukraine never had been a matter of U.S. security. For most of America's history, the territory was controlled by either the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union. Washington's Cold War sympathies represented fraternal concerns, not security essentials. Today, without Kiev's aid, the U.S. and Europe would still have overwhelming conventional forces to be brought into any conflict with Moscow. However, adding Ukraine to NATO would increase the risk of a confrontation with a nuclear armed power. Russia's limitations when it comes to its conventional military would make a resort to nuclear weapons more likely in any conflict.

Nevertheless, George W. Bush's aggressively neoconservative administration won backing for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in NATO and considered intervening militarily in the Russo-Georgian war. However, European nations that feared conflict with Moscow blocked plans for NATO expansion, which went into cold storage. Although alliance officials still officially backed membership for Ukraine, it remains unattainable so long as conflict burns hot with Russia.

In the meantime, Washington has treated Ukraine as a de facto military ally, offering economic and security assistance. The U.S. has provided $1.5 billion for Ukrainian training and weapons, including anti-tank Javelin missiles. Explained Obama administration defense secretary Ashton Carter: "Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States."

Equally important, the perception of U.S. backing made the Kiev government, headed by President Petro Poroshenko, less willing to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Russia. Thus did Ukraine, no less than Russia, almost immediately violate the internationally backed Minsk accord.

Kiev's role as a political football highlights the need for Washington to pursue an enduring political settlement with Russia. European governments are growing restless; France has taken the lead in seeking better relations with Moscow. Germany is unhappy with U.S. attempts to block the planned Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has campaigned to end the conflict.

Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recently met in Minsk to revive the agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage of Ukrainian legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong opposition from nationalists, passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid legislative majority.

Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security concerns. The U.S. and its allies should formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances, Moscow would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine protects local autonomy while Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted. Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation, since the country would likely be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of Crimea while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent referendum with independent monitors.

Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object. Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would certainly be better than endless conflict.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.


cka2nd 12 hours ago

I credit Mr. Bandow for his largely fair and accurate description of the events in Ukraine of five years ago, and for his ultimate policy proposal for the US to extricate itself from its close involvement in the area. However, I'm a little confused by what exactly the author means by "Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine" and "Putin's brutal response" (aside from the treatment of dissidents and journalists as he specifically mentioned) to the Maidan Revolution.

Was it aggressive and brutal for Russia to support separatists in the Donbass who were facing the prospect of legal discrimination and violence by a criminal, neo-fascist government in Kiev, not to mention de-industrialization, the gutting of the agriculture sector and the forced economic migration of an enormous number of its young workers (assuming that Ukraine's economic deal with the EU followed the script of every other Easter European's country's deal with the EU)? If Yanukovych had fled to the Donbass and proclaimed himself still the freely elected (though certainly corrupt) President of the nation, Russia's support for the region would have even had a shiny brass legal fig leaf, wouldn't it?

As for the supposed "conquest" of Crimea, that's a rather strong word to use considering that all of two members of the Ukrainian military were killed, and 60-80 of them detained, while 15,000 defected to Russia. Compared to the violence in Kiev and Odessa, what happened in Crimea almost qualifies as a bloodless coup. But then Mr. Bandow shies away from using the word "hegemony" to describe the foreign policy of the United States, figuratively putting the word in the mouths of those bad men (which they are) in Moscow and Beijing. It's a pity that Mr. Bandow felt the need to make linguistic concessions to the foreign policy establishment in what was otherwise a useful and balanced piece.

minsredmash 9 hours ago
Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor.
EliteCommInc. 8 hours ago
I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't.

I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique.

And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot.

How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement.

https://washingtonsblog.com...

https://thewashingtonstanda...

It is a deeply held belief that democracy is a system that by definition a generally acceptable path forward. That belief is false as democracy is still comprised of human beings. And democracy in their hands is no "cure all". It can be a turbulent and jerky bureaucratic maze process that pleases no one and works over time.

The US didn't accomplish it without violence until after more than 130 years, when the native populations were finally subdued. And as for a system that embodied equal treatment to similar circumstance -- we are still at it. But a violent revolution every ten years certainly isn't the most effective road to take.
-----------------

Why we insistent on restarting the cold war is unclear to me save that it served to create a kind of strategic global clarity Though what that means would troublesome because Russia's ole would now be as a developing democratic state as opposed to a communist monolith. And that means unfettered from her satellites and empowered by more capital markets her role as adversary would be more adroit. As time after time, Ores Putin has appeared the premier diplomat for peace and stability in situations in which the US was engaged or encouraging violence.(the Ukraine). I certainly don't think that our relations with Russia or China are a to be kumbaya love fests, there is still global competition and there's no reason to pretend it would be without tensions. But seriously, as a democratic/capital market player -- there really was no way to contain Russia.
----------------------

Given what we experienced during 2007 --- corruption comes in a mryiad of guises.

timoth3y 7 hours ago • edited
The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia clean up seems like a bad idea.

This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops to withdraw from the Turkish border. And now the author is arguing we should do something similar in the Ukraine.

When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?

kouroi timoth3y 3 hours ago
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate, no international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans should look beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the right to put its troops wherever it fancies.

This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening the US, when it has the biggest moats protecting its shores? The only thing that is happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy for its own elites benefit is being denied.

This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you think they will share with you, or that, like the good English boys of the past, you will not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives for a while?

Doug Wallis 6 hours ago
If the US were smart then they would lead some sort of negotiation where eastern Europe and Ukraine and Russia were allowed only mutually agreed defensive weapons systems. A demilitarization of say 200 miles on each side of the Russia border. The strategy should be to encourage trade between Eastern Europe and Russia where Russia has influence but is not threatening. It may be slow to build that trust but the real question is whether the US and Europe and NATO want peace with Russia or whether they are using fear of Russia to keep eastern Europe united with the US and Europe. This may be the case but the future will have China as a greater threat than Russia (China will even be a threat to Russia). Any shift in Russian relations will take decades of building trust on both sides.
tweets21 6 hours ago
Good article and excellent history of facts. If I recall during the last Bush administration W hosted a Putin and his then spouse, at a visit at his ranch. Putin informed W," the Ukraine belongs to Russia. end of sentence.
Disqus10021 5 hours ago
The author forgot the critical role of Sevastopol in the Crimea. It is Russia's only warm water port and there was no way that it was going to allow this area to become a NATO naval base. Secretary of State Clinton and her sidekick for Ukraine, Victoria Nuland should have known this before they started supporting the overthrow of the pro-Russia government in Kiev.

If you look at a historical atlas, you won't find an independent country called Ukraine before 1991. When my parents were born, near what is now called Lviv, the area was called Galicia and Lemberg was its provincial capital. A gold medal issued in 1916 in honor of Franz Josef's 85th birthday noted that he was the Kaiser of Austria, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria.

When the old Soviet Union agreed to allow East and West Germany to reunify, it was with the understanding that NATO would not extend membership to former Soviet block countries and that there would be no NATO bases in these areas either. NATO and the US broke their oral commitment to Russia a few years later.

The US should get out of the business of trying to spread democracy in third world countries and interfering in the affairs of foreign governments. We can't afford to be the policeman of the world. We don't even have the ability to make many of our own central cities safe for Americans. Think Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, all four of which appear on Wikipedia's list of the 50 murder capitals of the world (per thousand population).

kouroi Disqus10021 3 hours ago
It is not for the sake of spreading democracy mate, but to control those economies for the benefit of US economic elite.
Sid Finster 4 hours ago
"This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response."

For the love of Pete, will TAC quit with offering limited concessions to the neocon position in an attempt to appear "serious" and "reasonable".

The United States formented an armed coup in Ukraine spearheaded by Nazis.

[Nov 02, 2019] Eveen Obama slams 'wokeness'

Notable quotes:
"... America is a pathetic nation; a fascist state fueled by the greed, malice, and stupidity of her own people. ..."
"... @Alligator Ed ..."
Nov 02, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

identity politics icon himself

"This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama said, to some laughs from the crowd.
"The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws." he continued.

Obama cited college campuses and social media as a breeding ground for wokeness.

"One danger I see among young people particularly on college campuses," he said, "I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people and that's enough."

Obama then directly poked fun at 'woke' keyboard warriors:

"Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or used the wrong verb or then, I can sit back and feel good about myself: 'You see how woke I was? I called you out.'" he mocked.

Here are a few callouts.. @lizzyh7

People who do good stuff dont bomb 7 countries

-- Ruth Bader Joinersburg (@JuboktimusPrime) October 30, 2019

Or throw citizens in dog kennels for the oil companies.

Or hire lobbyists in nearly every single cabinet position.

#2 Go on ahead and mock all you want. Those of us who see you for what you are will never stop seeing it and calling you out on it. Boohoo mofo.

up 24 users have voted. --

America is a pathetic nation; a fascist state fueled by the greed, malice, and stupidity of her own people.
- strife delivery


Alligator Ed on Wed, 10/30/2019 - 7:47pm

snoop, give the guy a break

@snoopydawg He only filled 12 of the 13 Citigroup nominees. A real sell-out Neolib/neocon woulda done all 13.

13's an unlucky number? Yeah. So is number 44.

#2.1

People who do good stuff dont bomb 7 countries

-- Ruth Bader Joinersburg (@JuboktimusPrime) October 30, 2019

Or throw citizens in dog kennels for the oil companies.

Or hire lobbyists in nearly every single cabinet position.

Wally on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 9:05am
What's this Obama lovin' stuff, Alligator Ed?

@Alligator Ed

A veritable Mr. Aloha, huh?

In a nutshell, Obama is saying we all need a little more aloha spirit -- being respectful & caring for one another. Not being so quick to judge. Not seeing everything as black/white. I hope you'll join me in bringing the spirit of aloha to the White House. https://t.co/tYADx6Dzqs

-- Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October 30, 2019

#2.1.1 He only filled 12 of the 13 Citigroup nominees. A real sell-out Neolib/neocon woulda done all 13.

13's an unlucky number? Yeah. So is number 44.

Cant Stop the M... on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 2:07pm
My comment elsewhere in this essay

@snoopydawg

should not be taken to mean disagreement with your excellent points here, snoop.

#2.1

People who do good stuff dont bomb 7 countries

-- Ruth Bader Joinersburg (@JuboktimusPrime) October 30, 2019

Or throw citizens in dog kennels for the oil companies.

Or hire lobbyists in nearly every single cabinet position.

Wally on Wed, 10/30/2019 - 4:14pm
Promises, promises

@lizzyh7

Obama made some pretty campaign finance promises in the 2008 primary, and then did an about-face during the general, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from the usual suspects. Then he declined to prosecute the bankers. Let's not do that again.

-- Meagan Day (@meaganmday) September 24, 2019


Bernie Sanders on Elizabeth Warren's work for big corporations such as advising Dow Chemical:

"I'll let the American people make that judgment. I've never worked for a corporation. I've never carried their baggage in the U.S. Senate." pic.twitter.com/yV9TRw7jPB

-- BERNforBernie2020 (@BernForBernie20) October 29, 2019

#2 Go on ahead and mock all you want. Those of us who see you for what you are will never stop seeing it and calling you out on it. Boohoo mofo.

snoopydawg on Wed, 10/30/2019 - 9:08pm
Have you seen how the Bernie tweet is being played?

@Wally

People are defending Warbama's helping DOW screw women who had breast cancer out of their settlement. It's absolutely sickening to see people defending the indefensible. "She needed the experience." WTAF does that even mean?

#2.1

Obama made some pretty campaign finance promises in the 2008 primary, and then did an about-face during the general, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from the usual suspects. Then he declined to prosecute the bankers. Let's not do that again.

-- Meagan Day (@meaganmday) September 24, 2019

Bernie Sanders on Elizabeth Warren's work for big corporations such as advising Dow Chemical:

"I'll let the American people make that judgment. I've never worked for a corporation. I've never carried their baggage in the U.S. Senate." pic.twitter.com/yV9TRw7jPB

-- BERNforBernie2020 (@BernForBernie20) October 29, 2019

Cant Stop the M... on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 2:02pm
Barack is intelligent enough to know that the current brand

@lizzyh7

of identity politics is bullshit. He's offended enough by irrationality that he's willing to comment on that in public--now that he's out of the Presidency and doesn't have to win any more elections.

However, none of that would stop him (or did stop him) using that kind of identity politics to the hilt for his own political advantage.

#2 Go on ahead and mock all you want. Those of us who see you for what you are will never stop seeing it and calling you out on it. Boohoo mofo.

[Nov 01, 2019] Viable Opposition The Legal Connection Between Washington and Kiev

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal: ..."
"... " Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. " ..."
"... The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page: ..."
"... With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very, very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter. ..."
October 15, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

With the Trump impeachment procedures ongoing and the connection to his conversation about the Biden family with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, there has been very little coverage of an important aspect of the relationship between Washington and Kiev. While none of us can speak to the actual intent of Donald Trump's remarks be it for personal gain or for other reasons, there is background information that may help illuminate the context of the discussion between the two world leaders.

In case you haven't read the pertinent section of the transcript of the conversation, here it is:

" President Zelenskyy : Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.

President Trump : Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.

President Zelenskyy : I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all, I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

President Trump : Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people." (my bolds)

Now, let's look back in time to 1998. On July 22, 1998, a treaty was signed between Ukraine and Washington.

The Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed in Kiev on the aforementioned date. Here is an excerpt from the The original letter of submittal from the Department of State to the President's office dated October 19, 1999 which states the following:

"I have the honor to submit to you the Treaty between the United States of America and Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters with Annex (``the Treaty''), signed at Kiev on July 22, 1998. I recommend that the Treaty be transmitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification.
Also enclosed, for the information of the Senate, is an exchange of notes under which the Treaty is being provisionally applied to the extent possible under our respective domestic laws, in order to provide a basis for immediate mutual assistance in criminal matters. Provisional application would cease upon entry into force of the Treaty.

The Treaty covers mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. In recent years, similar bilateral treaties have entered into force with a number of other countries. The Treaty with Ukraine contains all essential provisions sought by the United States. It will enhance our ability to investigate and prosecute a range of offenses. The Treaty is designed to be self-executing and will not require new legislation." (my bold)

The Treaty was then transmitted by the President of the United States (Bill Clinton) to the Senate on November 10, 1999 (Treaty Document 106-16 -106th Congress - First Session) as shown on this letter of transmittal from Bill Clinton's office:

Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal:

" Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. "

The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page:

Here are the first two pages of the Treaty which outline the scope of assistance that is to be offered by both nations as well as the limitations on assistance:

... ... ...

If you wish to read the Treaty in its entirety, please click here .

With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very, very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter.

[Nov 01, 2019] Borg and symbolic importance of Ukraine for the neocon foreign policy

Notable quotes:
"... The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg, to which Lt.Col. Vindman belongs, are trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals. They want to implement their own polices independent of what the president thinks or believes. ..."
"... If the deep state is allowed to make its own policies against the will of the elected officials why should we bother with holding elections? ..."
"... The Democrats are stupid to applaud this and to even further these schemes. They are likely to regain the presidency in 2024. What will they do when all the Civil Service functionaries Trump will have installed by then organize to ruin their policies? ..."
"... I surmise he is reflecting Israeli disquiet with the idea of a peace in Syria that leaves Assad in power. ..."
"... I first heard this idea that Trump is supposed to implement the foreign policy of the "government policy community" just a few days ago on the PBS Snooze Hour. It was startling to hear such a blatant admission of the existence of the "Deep State", and that Trump is supposed to obey it. I wonder who wrote the memo that says its now OK to publicly criticize Trump for not following the orders of the "government policy community". ..."
"... Trump is truly a horrible excuse for a human being, but apparently that is what is required to successfully rip the facade off the Deep State, however one wants to define it. Brain-dead Dummycrats will nod and exclaim that of course Trump is supposed to follow policy established by "knowledgeable experts". But I speculate that this new public attitude of the stink tank talking heads will enrage Trump supporters. ..."
"... Our foreign policies have, IMO, long been tailored to the needs and expectations of our major corporations. Notably, the fossil fuel corporations and their allies on Wall street. ..."
"... Our corporate empire wishes to export predatory capitalism around the globe, and pity any nation who stands in our way.. ..."
"... Isn't it something, b. Could you imagine ever reading a headline out of Russia or Germany where a subordinate went on record declaring he made attempts to edit Putin or Merkel's classified phone transcript, he then admits to sharing this classified information with a group of peers OUTSIDE classified channels and ended his 15 mins of fame by declaring Putin nor Merkel's policies on Ukraine fit the consensus of a national security bureaucratic group of nobodies. It's simply unimaginable! ..."
"... Which tells me they are fighting for something else entirely. Maybe more light will be shed following the release of the IG's FISA report. Then again, maybe they are motivated by fear that their lining their pockets with taxpayers gazillions has finally caught up to them. ..."
"... When Vindman admitted his crime, the Sergeant at Arms should have arrested him immediately after his testimony, but he was allowed to walk--yet another perversion of justice! By cutting off the line of questioning, Schiff was engaging in the obstruction of justice--the very crime he accuses Trump of committing! IMO, the application of the law must be depoliticized and all offenders arrested regardless of their station in life. ..."
"... A guy like this Vindman character, a walking identity problem first and foremost, given his background, should never have made it through the ranks of the US forces, let alone be given a job at the Security Council. A loyalty issue waiting to get worse. It's just wrong, a ridiculous notion. ..."
"... If you want to join the British forces e.g. you are required to have parents who were already born in Britain. Kept me from applying to join their navy back when I tried to. I was disappointed then, but it makes sense to handle the nationality question just like that. I can see that now. ..."
"... Regarding Washington, seems like the Beast, aka the Deep State, is finally coming out of its lair. Trump is way too salacious as bait for them to be careful and keep in hiding. Before they realize that trying to snatch Trump will be their own undoing, things will have way too much momentum for them to stop. Just look at Rep. Schiff moving from blunder to blunder. He'd be so much better off just doing nothing for half a year and keeping his mouth shut, but he somehow cannot do that. Neither can the Times. ..."
"... American citizens lost their voice in foreign policy a long time ago. It's a question I ask when the party politicians meet with lobbyists or attend events like Bilderberg. I am thankful for the alt media. Americans should be disgusted by their politicians and political parties. ..."
Nov 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

President Trump and many other people believe that it would be better for the United States to ally with Russia against an ever growing China than to push Russia and China into an undefeatable alliance against the United States. Trump often alluded to this during his campaign. The voters seem to have liked that view.

The U.S. coup in the Ukraine made that policy more difficult to achieve. But within the big picture the Ukraine is just a bankrupt and corrupt state that has little strategic value and can be ignored.

One can disagree with that view and with other foreign policy priorities Trump set out and pursues. I certainly disagree with most of them. But for those who work "at the pleasure of the President" his views are the guidelines that set the direction of their duties.

The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg, to which Lt.Col. Vindman belongs, are trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals. They want to implement their own polices independent of what the president thinks or believes.

We have warned that such interference by the Borg, the 'deep state' or 'swamp', is a danger to democracy :

If the deep state is allowed to make its own policies against the will of the elected officials why should we bother with holding elections?

The Democrats are stupid to applaud this and to even further these schemes. They are likely to regain the presidency in 2024. What will they do when all the Civil Service functionaries Trump will have installed by then organize to ruin their policies?

It is unfortunate that the above points have to be repeated again and again. But when powerful media try to sell the lies about the Ukrainian interferences by repeating the same falsehoods over and over again the truth has only a chance to win when it is likewise spread repeatedly.


lysias , Oct 30 2019 19:43 utc | 2

Vindman is a Jew born in Ukraine and brought up in the Little Odessa neighborhood of Brooklyn. I surmise he is reflecting Israeli disquiet with the idea of a peace in Syria that leaves Assad in power.

Trailer Trash , Oct 30 2019 20:08 utc | 6

I first heard this idea that Trump is supposed to implement the foreign policy of the "government policy community" just a few days ago on the PBS Snooze Hour. It was startling to hear such a blatant admission of the existence of the "Deep State", and that Trump is supposed to obey it. I wonder who wrote the memo that says its now OK to publicly criticize Trump for not following the orders of the "government policy community".

Everyone was shocked when Trump won the election, especially Trump and the "government policy community". He is the proverbial dog that caught the speeding car. It's quaint that Trump thinks he can make real policy changes. His failures in medical insurance, controlling the FED, etc. underscore the point that being the leader is useless if underlings don't obey. The "government policy community" will never follow Trump and it won't stop until Trump is gone one way or another.

Trump is truly a horrible excuse for a human being, but apparently that is what is required to successfully rip the facade off the Deep State, however one wants to define it. Brain-dead Dummycrats will nod and exclaim that of course Trump is supposed to follow policy established by "knowledgeable experts". But I speculate that this new public attitude of the stink tank talking heads will enrage Trump supporters.

I'm starting to think that things may get really ugly in the "Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free".

ben , Oct 30 2019 20:59 utc | 15
Our foreign policies have, IMO, long been tailored to the needs and expectations of our major corporations. Notably, the fossil fuel corporations and their allies on Wall street.

Our corporate empire wishes to export predatory capitalism around the globe, and pity any nation who stands in our way..

h , Oct 30 2019 21:01 utc | 16
Isn't it something, b. Could you imagine ever reading a headline out of Russia or Germany where a subordinate went on record declaring he made attempts to edit Putin or Merkel's classified phone transcript, he then admits to sharing this classified information with a group of peers OUTSIDE classified channels and ended his 15 mins of fame by declaring Putin nor Merkel's policies on Ukraine fit the consensus of a national security bureaucratic group of nobodies. It's simply unimaginable!

Last night I watched a report by Catherine Herrhidge of Fox state that in Vindman's statement he admits to sharing POTUS' classified transcripts and other readouts to a small group of others outside the NSC. In essence he admitted to leaking classified information. When Rep Jim Jordan started to drill down into that line of questioning, Schiff cut him off.

Here's a link for those interested in watching the 1:30 clip - https://twitter.com/i/status/1189331134443917312

This entire shitshow honestly tells any w/an open mind that the D's and their leadership are desperate. Imagine a committee chairman not allowing members to question a witness about who he shared the President's classified information with. That's not the rascally Dem Party I know. It's painfully obvious these radicals will walk on hot coals, climb the Himalayans and swim across the Atlantic to pin anything and I mean anything on Trump. They do not care about downstream impacts, catastrophic as they may turn out to be.

Which tells me they are fighting for something else entirely. Maybe more light will be shed following the release of the IG's FISA report. Then again, maybe they are motivated by fear that their lining their pockets with taxpayers gazillions has finally caught up to them.

karlof1 , Oct 30 2019 21:25 utc | 20
h @16--

When Vindman admitted his crime, the Sergeant at Arms should have arrested him immediately after his testimony, but he was allowed to walk--yet another perversion of justice! By cutting off the line of questioning, Schiff was engaging in the obstruction of justice--the very crime he accuses Trump of committing! IMO, the application of the law must be depoliticized and all offenders arrested regardless of their station in life.

Scotch Bingeington , Oct 30 2019 22:18 utc | 25
Great piece, b, many thanks! Really meticulous.

A guy like this Vindman character, a walking identity problem first and foremost, given his background, should never have made it through the ranks of the US forces, let alone be given a job at the Security Council. A loyalty issue waiting to get worse. It's just wrong, a ridiculous notion.

If you want to join the British forces e.g. you are required to have parents who were already born in Britain. Kept me from applying to join their navy back when I tried to. I was disappointed then, but it makes sense to handle the nationality question just like that. I can see that now.

And nothing good ever comes from Ukraine. It's a psyched country, or would-be country, just there to give the world trouble.

Regarding Washington, seems like the Beast, aka the Deep State, is finally coming out of its lair. Trump is way too salacious as bait for them to be careful and keep in hiding. Before they realize that trying to snatch Trump will be their own undoing, things will have way too much momentum for them to stop. Just look at Rep. Schiff moving from blunder to blunder. He'd be so much better off just doing nothing for half a year and keeping his mouth shut, but he somehow cannot do that. Neither can the Times.

S.O. , Oct 30 2019 22:32 utc | 27
> Will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.

Take a look at that statement and realise how diseased it is.

Ghost Ship , Oct 30 2019 22:38 utc | 29
Looks like Real Clear Investigations is suggesting a certain Eric Ciaramella is the "whistleblower", which might upset Schiff since the Democrats want he name and political attachments kept a secret. Anyway the article provides some more pieces for the Russiagate/Ukrainegate jigsaw puzzle.
Curtis , Oct 30 2019 22:44 utc | 30
American citizens lost their voice in foreign policy a long time ago. It's a question I ask when the party politicians meet with lobbyists or attend events like Bilderberg. I am thankful for the alt media. Americans should be disgusted by their politicians and political parties.

How The Obama Administration Set In Motion Democrats' Coup Against Trump

karlof1 , Oct 30 2019 23:29 utc | 32
Okay, so just what is the Outlaw US Empire's Foreign/Imperial Policy? I'm glad I asked!

The overarching #1 policy goal of the Outlaw US Empire is to establish Full Spectrum Domination over the planet and its people as enunciated publicly in 1996 policy paper Joint Vision 2010 which was modified and republished as Joint Vision 2020 , both of which are essentially military policies, not National Defense as they're espousing 100% offensive doctrines. In tandem is the much older economic policy plot known as the Washington Consensus, which I've referenced many times and is best explained by Dr. Hudson's book Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire , and began at the end of WW2 but was greatly expanded/escalated in 1978.

Now it's obvious that Trump's trying to implement his own policies since he's getting so much resistance. On the previous thread having this topic, I noted that Pepe Escobar had written several pieces citing members of the Current Oligarchy who are Trump supporters who provided him with info as to the likely directions of Trump's policies if he became POTUS. In response to a request by Evelyn, I went and looked for those old items and found several. This one IMO is worthy of close scrutiny. Pepe opens:

"And for all the 24/7 scandal time of non-stop groping and kissing and lewd locker room misbehaving, Trump seems to be ready to limp toward the finish line just as he began; an all-out populist/nativist/nationalist fighting open borders (a Clinton mantra, as revealed by the latest WikiLeaks Podesta email dump); 'free' trade; neoliberal globalization; and regime change/bomb them into democracy/'humanitarian' imperialism."

Yes, there's more, but the above's more than enough to show that Trump's 100% against the two major policies of the Outlaw US Empire--and--he's actually done what the above suggests he might do. I remember reading that just a little more than 3 years ago and thought Pepe was fed a line of bull from his sources--he wasn't.

Really?? , Oct 30 2019 23:35 utc | 33
S.O. 2
"> Will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.

Take a look at that statement and realise how diseased it is."

I totally agree. It is diseased on multiple levels. "lock in"? he says? What if Ukrainians change their minds??? Say, by electing a Russia-leaning politico?
Oh, right, that's what happened back in 2014. Hence, the Maidan "lock-in." to me this "lock in" comment is an open confession of ongoing meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.

That is quite apart from the sick joke that is reference to "a dream of vibrant democracy and economic development" brought about by the "West-leaning trajectory."

From what I have heard, Ukraine is an unmitigated disaster since "the West" decided to determine and "lock in" its political trajectory. Not to mention thousands dead in the Donbass and Lukansk.

karlof1 , Oct 30 2019 23:52 utc | 35
32 Cont'd--

And here's Pepe from 10 Nov 2016 :

"Donald Trump's red wave on Election Day was an unprecedented body blow against neoliberalism. The stupid early-1990s prediction about the 'end of history' turned into a – possible – shock of the new....

"Once again. A body blow, not a death blow. Like the cast of The Walking Dead, the zombie neoliberal elite simply won't quit. For the Powers That Be/Deep State/Wall Street axis, there's only one game in town, and that is to win, at all costs . Failing that, to knock over the whole chessboard, as in hot war...

"The angry, white, blue collar Western uprising is the ultimate backlash against neoliberalism – an instinctive reaction against the rigged economic casino capitalism game and its subservient political arms. That's at the core of Trump winning non-college white voters in Wisconsin by 28 points. Blaming 'whitelash', racism, WikiLeaks or Russia is no more than childish diversionary tactics." [My Emphasis]

No, they didn't quit but immediately put their very improvised "insurance policy" into play based on the lies and contrivances concocted during the campaign and put into play by Obama in the most unprecedented fashion ever as a sitting POTUS had never before sought to undermine/sabotage the incoming POTUS in the manner being devised--essentially in my book, Obama committed treason: again .

juliania , Oct 31 2019 0:22 utc | 37
In his written testimony (from the Stars and Stripes account in Don Bacon's link at 146 in the previous 'Deep State' thread) Lt. Colonel Vindman wrote:"...I am a patriot, and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective of party or politics."

Thanks so much b, for elaborating on that first part - "...sacred duty and honor to advance.."

It does seem the Constitutional duties and limitations got lost in the shuffle back when George Bush (I think it was) joked the Constitution was 'just a piece of paper.' Still, even he too thought foreign policy was his to dictate. I am remembering the 'first strike' doctrine that he propounded and Al Gore gave a speech decrying back in the day.

That "advance" stuck in my craw - thanks for shining the light.

oldhippie , Oct 31 2019 0:24 utc | 38
Leonid Vindman. With a brother like that how do you get a security clearance at all, much less a desk in the West Wing?

Helps a lot if you're a pal of Firtash and Kolomoisky.

This is just beginning.

ptb , Oct 31 2019 1:05 utc | 44
@29 Ghost Ship
fascinating... didn't realize how much the Trump Admin's seemingly simple retaliation-for-Russiagate investigation of Biden really struck a nerve among the Obama era CIA/NSC Ukraine team. Wonder what they know.

[Nov 01, 2019] The Absurdity and Futility of Our Syria Policy by Daniel Larison

Oct 31, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The new deployment in Syria will leave almost the same number of U.S. troops in the country as there were before the "withdrawal":

Meanwhile, the first few hundred infantry troops, soon to be joined by mechanized troops in Bradley fighting vehicles and possibly a few tanks, have driven in from Iraq. Defense Department officials said the total number of American troops guarding the oil fields would be around 500. When combined with the troops at Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be in Syria to near 900, a number that could easily rise if, as expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." Meanwhile, the first few hundred infantry troops, soon to be joined by mechanized troops in Bradley fighting vehicles and possibly a few tanks, have driven in from Iraq. Defense Department officials said the total number of American troops guarding the oil fields would be around 500. When combined with the troops at Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be in Syria to near 900, a number that could easily rise if, as expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." When combined with the troops at Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be in Syria to near 900, a number that could easily rise if, as expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." When combined with the troops at Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be in Syria to near 900, a number that could easily rise if, as expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out."

These few sentences in the These few sentences in the NYT report on the deployment sum up the absurdity and futility of the mission that these troops have been given. A few hundred troops are being sent to "guard" oil fields that belong to the Syrian government for the purpose of keeping the Syrian government from being able to use their own property, so there it seems as if U.S. troops stuck with this illegal and bizarre mission indefinitely. The troops that have been sent there also happen to be a National Guard unit that shouldn't be there: ... ... ... A smaller number of troops will remain at the pointless Tanf base as a token force just so that the administration can say that it is opposing Iranian influence in Syria. Neither one of these has anything to do with making the U.S. more secure, and neither one of them has ever been authorized by Congress. The unauthorized anti-ISIS mission that these two groups of soldiers are supposedly supporting also won't end because, as Gen. McKenzie puts it, "you will never be able to stamp it out," so their illegal military presence in Syria will continue because there will always be the possibility of a "resurgence." Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms ... ... ... A smaller number of troops will remain at the pointless Tanf base as a token force just so that the administration can say that it is opposing Iranian influence in Syria. Neither one of these has anything to do with making the U.S. more secure, and neither one of them has ever been authorized by Congress. The unauthorized anti-ISIS mission that these two groups of soldiers are supposedly supporting also won't end because, as Gen. McKenzie puts it, "you will never be able to stamp it out," so their illegal military presence in Syria will continue because there will always be the possibility of a "resurgence." Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms A smaller number of troops will remain at the pointless Tanf base as a token force just so that the administration can say that it is opposing Iranian influence in Syria. Neither one of these has anything to do with making the U.S. more secure, and neither one of them has ever been authorized by Congress. The unauthorized anti-ISIS mission that these two groups of soldiers are supposedly supporting also won't end because, as Gen. McKenzie puts it, "you will never be able to stamp it out," so their illegal military presence in Syria will continue because there will always be the possibility of a "resurgence." Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms explains that his death doesn't matter for the future of the group because he was a remarkably bad leader:
When you look scientifically at the history of militant groups, one thing becomes immediately clear about the Islamic State (ISIS): Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was one stupid leader. Baghdadi could have written a book called Rules for Rebels to Fail. Indeed, he did the exact opposite of what smart leaders have historically done to achieve their stated political goals. When you look scientifically at the history of militant groups, one thing becomes immediately clear about the Islamic State (ISIS): Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was one stupid leader. Baghdadi could have written a book called Rules for Rebels to Fail. Indeed, he did the exact opposite of what smart leaders have historically done to achieve their stated political goals.
In other words, eliminating such an incompetent leader is hardly a fatal blow to a group when he is the one who led them to ruin. All of this demonstrates how foolish our Syria policy is in particular, and it also shines a light on our complete lack of strategy in countering terrorist groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and lots of their followers again and again, but a heavily militarized approach to counter-terrorism has caused terrorist groups to flourish and terrorist attacks to increase significantly over time. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. In other words, eliminating such an incompetent leader is hardly a fatal blow to a group when he is the one who led them to ruin. All of this demonstrates how foolish our Syria policy is in particular, and it also shines a light on our complete lack of strategy in countering terrorist groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and lots of their followers again and again, but a heavily militarized approach to counter-terrorism has caused terrorist groups to flourish and terrorist attacks to increase significantly over time. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. All of this demonstrates how foolish our Syria policy is in particular, and it also shines a light on our complete lack of strategy in countering terrorist groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and lots of their followers again and again, but a heavily militarized approach to counter-terrorism has caused terrorist groups to flourish and terrorist attacks to increase significantly over time. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. All of this demonstrates how foolish our Syria policy is in particular, and it also shines a light on our complete lack of strategy in countering terrorist groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and lots of their followers again and again, but a heavily militarized approach to counter-terrorism has caused terrorist groups to flourish and terrorist attacks to increase significantly over time. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile.

Sid Finster a day ago

Now, were Israel (and Saudi Arabia) not screeching for regime change, nobody in the pundit class would care in the slightest about "Muh Poor Kurds" or "Iranian influence" or "ISIS ZOMG" or anything else about the region.

Filter any news reports you read or see accordingly.

Zoran Aleksic 21 hours ago
Will achieve a good deal of something. Steal the oil to finance the empire, poke the Russians in the eye, continue destabilizing Syria as the means to get closer to installing democracy in Iran. Will, definately.
HenionJD 21 hours ago
Well, at least this operation will put and end to that silly idea that the only reason we're in the Middle East is for oil.
PEACEINOURTIMES 16 hours ago
Incorrect!!!!! Our Middle East policy is fantastic - if you are a local neocon, warmonger, apostle and/or fan of the only democracies in the Middle East; namely, Israel and Saudi Arabia. If you are an American it is an absurd, illogical, and possibly unconstitutional policy. Don't count on the knee jerk worshipers of AIPAC in Congress to call for a proper examination. Golly NO! They are still upset that Russia might be interfering in our elections. Never mind Israel. Israel just runs the show. Not to worry - they are our best and bravest ally? Congress still does not believe the USS Liberty was attacked by our beloved Israel. Get out of the Middle East morass ASAP and screw the party of Middle East wars .

[Nov 01, 2019] Viable Opposition The Legal Connection Between Washington and Kiev

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal: ..."
"... " Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. " ..."
"... The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page: ..."
"... With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very, very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter. ..."
October 15, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

With the Trump impeachment procedures ongoing and the connection to his conversation about the Biden family with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, there has been very little coverage of an important aspect of the relationship between Washington and Kiev. While none of us can speak to the actual intent of Donald Trump's remarks be it for personal gain or for other reasons, there is background information that may help illuminate the context of the discussion between the two world leaders.

In case you haven't read the pertinent section of the transcript of the conversation, here it is:

" President Zelenskyy : Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.

President Trump : Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.

President Zelenskyy : I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all, I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

President Trump : Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people." (my bolds)

Now, let's look back in time to 1998. On July 22, 1998, a treaty was signed between Ukraine and Washington.

The Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed in Kiev on the aforementioned date. Here is an excerpt from the The original letter of submittal from the Department of State to the President's office dated October 19, 1999 which states the following:

"I have the honor to submit to you the Treaty between the United States of America and Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters with Annex (``the Treaty''), signed at Kiev on July 22, 1998. I recommend that the Treaty be transmitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification.
Also enclosed, for the information of the Senate, is an exchange of notes under which the Treaty is being provisionally applied to the extent possible under our respective domestic laws, in order to provide a basis for immediate mutual assistance in criminal matters. Provisional application would cease upon entry into force of the Treaty.

The Treaty covers mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. In recent years, similar bilateral treaties have entered into force with a number of other countries. The Treaty with Ukraine contains all essential provisions sought by the United States. It will enhance our ability to investigate and prosecute a range of offenses. The Treaty is designed to be self-executing and will not require new legislation." (my bold)

The Treaty was then transmitted by the President of the United States (Bill Clinton) to the Senate on November 10, 1999 (Treaty Document 106-16 -106th Congress - First Session) as shown on this letter of transmittal from Bill Clinton's office:

Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal:

" Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. "

The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page:

Here are the first two pages of the Treaty which outline the scope of assistance that is to be offered by both nations as well as the limitations on assistance:

... ... ...

If you wish to read the Treaty in its entirety, please click here .

With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very, very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter.

[Nov 01, 2019] About Trump Wanting Iraq's Oil Fields by John Kiriakou

Notable quotes:
"... Consortium News' ..."
"... If you enjoyed this original article, please consider ..."
"... making a donation ..."
"... to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Consider Israel's 1967 war for the Golan Heights, WWI partitions of Germany, Spanish American war, What am I missing? ..."
"... "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations." ..."
"... Clearly, the UN is the arbiter of war crimes but they only ever find small, weak offenders guilty. ..."
"... The powerful countries like the US, Britain and Europe are not even investigated for war crimes let alone prosecuted. War crimes are only war crimes if there is someone there to police, prosecute and punish the offenders. There is no such authority, so reference to war crimes is just self gratification and meaningless. The US doesn't even pretend to adhere to international law. ..."
"... You can't be President of the US without engaging in war crimes. They all serve the military industrial complex. At least Trump does some things right instead of 100% for the elite and their NWO. ..."
"... I agree he's stupid, generally. But it seems pretty rational for any US President to expect he (or she) will never face any consequences for the horrific crimes they commit. ..."
"... The trouble is, angry spittle, that the US will get away with this pillage, as it has done in the past. The only difference between this "prez" and the ones before him is his *boasting* openly, publicly about America's war crimes. ..."
"... The issue of "securing oil" makes a lot if sense in this perspective. Syria is not as utterly miserable as planned, but quite miserable indeed, and delaying her access to her own oil will keep it that way. ..."
Oct 29, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

October 29, 2019 • 40 Comments

What the president advocated was one of the most telling statements of his presidency. It amounted to an admission that he is perfectly willing to commit a war crime.

By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium News

P resident Donald Trump on Sunday held a highly unusual press conference to announce the successful special forces operation the night before that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. When Trump read his prepared statement and did not walk away from the podium, my first thought was, "Oh, boy. How much classified information is he going to release now?" My own informed opinion is that he released a lot, talking about who did the raid, how they did it, where they launched from, what other countries were involved, and the fact that special forces elements remained on-scene for two hours to collect documentary intelligence. Often, those kinds of details leak out in the days and weeks after a raid like this. But they never, ever come from the president himself.

Trump also gloated inappropriately that Baghdadi "ran whimpering, crying, and screaming all the way" before detonating a suicide vest, killing himself and three of his children. The whimpering, crying, and screaming part probably wasn't true. After all, the raid was in the middle of the night and Baghdadi had fled into a tunnel to try to escape the onslaught. It would have been impossible to know if he was crying down there. Trump added about Baghdadi, "He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place."

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Very few people in the Middle East keep dogs as pets. This was an insult just for the sake of insult. Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad Baghdadi is dead. He was a coldblooded murderer, child killer, and terrorist, and the world is a better place without him in it. But the insults were unnecessary.

President Donald Trump announcing the U.S. killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Twitter)

All of that is irrelevant to the story, though. The most interesting part of the president's press conference was his segue into a non sequitur about Iraq. Mid way through the press conference a reporter asked Trump about what "brilliant" people helped in his decision-making process for the operation. Trump's response was one of the most telling statements of his presidency. Indeed, it was an admission that he is perfectly willing to commit a war crime, an impeachable offense, as part of his personal ideology. Here's the exchange :

Reporter: "You -- you mentioned that you had met some -- gotten to know some brilliant people along this process who -- who had helped provide information and -- and -- and advice along the way. Is there anyone in particular or would you like to give anyone credit for getting to this point today?"

Trump: "Well, I -- I would but if I mention one, I have to mention so many. I spoke to Senator Richard Burr this morning and as you know, he's very involved with intelligence and the committee. [Note: Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) is the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.] And he's a great gentleman. I spoke with Lindsey Graham just a little while -- in fact, Lindsey Graham is right over here, and he's been very much involved in this subject and he's -- he's a very strong hawk, but I think Lindsey agrees with what we're doing now. And again, there are plenty of other countries that can help them patrol. I don't want to leave 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers on the border. But where Lindsey and I totally agree is the oil.

"The oil is, you know, so valuable. For many reasons. It fueled ISIS, number one. Number two, it helps the Kurds, because it's basically been taken away from the Kurds. They were able to live with that oil. And number three, it can help us, because we should be able to take some also. And what I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly. Right now it's not big. It's big oil underground but it's not big oil up top. Much of the machinery has been shot and dead. It's been through wars. But -- and -- and spread out the wealth. But no, we're protecting the oil, we're securing the oil. Now that doesn't mean we don't make a deal at some point.

"But I don't want to be -- they're -- they're fighting for 1,000 years, they're fighting for centuries. I want to bring our soldiers back home, but I do want to secure the oil. If you read about the history of Donald Trump, I was a civilian. I had absolutely nothing to do with going into Iraq and I was totally against it. But I always used to say that if they're going to go in -- nobody cared that much but it got written about -- if they're going to go in -- I'm sure you've heard the statement because I made it more than any human being alive. If they're going into Iraq, keep the oil. They never did. They never did. I know Lindsey Graham had a bill where basically we would have been paid back for all of the billions of dollars we've spent."

Pillaging

What Donald Trump is advocating here, in his very Donald Trump kind of way, is "pillaging." He is advocating taking Iraq's oil by force, ostensibly as payment for our "liberation" of that country. This is clearly and definitively a war crime .

International law has long protected property against pillage during armed conflict. The Lieber Code, a military law from the U.S. civil war, said, "All pillage or sacking, even after taking place by force, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense." In The Hague Regulations of 1907, two provisions stipulate clearly that "the pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is prohibited," and that "pillage is formally forbidden." The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court have both formally reaffirmed that pillaging a country of its natural resources is illegal and is considered to be a war crime. It's as simple as that.

It matters not one whit if Lindsey Graham has a bill to take Iraq's oil. It doesn't matter if Trump thinks we should take the oil as reimbursement for U.S. aggression against that country. What matters here is the rule of law, and the law is clear. It's bad enough that the U.S. military is in Syria illegally. (There are only three ways to send troops to a foreign country legally: If the troops are invited by the country; if the country attacks the United States; or with the permission of the United Nations Security Council.) Let's not add more international crimes to the ones we've already committed.

John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act -- a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.

If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.


Vincent Castigliola , October 30, 2019 at 14:03

We have no right undertaking any military action in Syria or taking or deciding how Syria's oil should be used. I also respect John K; however, I question his characterization of taking control of Syrian territory or resources as "pillage".

I would distinguish the literal definition and also ask him to cite a single instance in which the victor in a war didn't take property fro the loser.

Consider Israel's 1967 war for the Golan Heights, WWI partitions of Germany, Spanish American war, What am I missing?

Paul Merrell , October 30, 2019 at 18:59

@ "What am I missing?"

You're missing that the law changed over time and that Israel's pillage of Palestine is an ongoing legal issue.

1949 4th Geneva Convention, Article 33: "Pillage is prohibited."

Article 53:

"Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."

GMCasey , October 31, 2019 at 11:37

Vincent, I think you missed the pillage of America when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people too.

Guillermo Fregozo , October 31, 2019 at 11:53

This has been a "pillage" act from day one The US Congress, never declared a war on Syria.

GMCasey , October 31, 2019 at 11:57

Vincent, you forgot how America took down the free nation of Hawaii and its queen. Then there's the Whiskey Rebellion when America was forming that was pretty depressing too as it let the citizens know that freedom was missing from certain classes. The sadness of America's continual influence in South America was begun so long ago, and remember, the land on which Guantanamo is situated does belong to Cuba -- -and then of course, Taft and the Philippines -- -- – actually, it seems since the beginning of America's time this nation has not seriously committed to making ,"a more perfect union," for its citizens and the world -- -- –maybe the Climate Crisis will rein us in.

robert e williamson jr , October 30, 2019 at 13:00

RE: my earlier comment!

The US Government has been a thief ever since those who created it started stealing the North American Continent from the indigenous people who lived here. Never mind the genocide the white man prosecuted against those people.

We been stealing oil from the middle east ever since the 1950's. Now that the problems created world wide by the super wealthy elitists, SWETS, greed are coming back to haunt us has the deep state decided we need to be governed by a dictator or is the dictator the excuse for the security state to take over the government because a dictator got elected potus?

Vera Gottlieb , October 30, 2019 at 12:56

All one needs to do is study up close a world map, locate all the countries rich in natural resources and bingo know where the US will meddle next, bring "democracy and human rights", instigate civil unrest and then intervene. All in a nutshell: stealing.

robert e williamson jr , October 30, 2019 at 12:43

Anyone, the only republicans talking for the last two years, who supports the proposition that the "Orange Apocalypse " could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it needs to be in the dock also. . The one thing the security state, deep state, intelligence community and congress have all trumpeted, pardon the pun, is the U.S. does not support dictators. Right.

Er, that is dictators anywhere the U.S. security state, deep state, intelligence community and congress doesn't want them.

The CIA history does support that last statement BTW.

CIA has stellar record of interfering in elections and overthrowing legitimately elected rulers the globe over. Successful endeavors CIA calls them I believe.

The CIA went against the conventions of democracy by supporting dictators as soon as the agency was created. See the Dulles Bros. and the United Fruit Company saga. The U.S. foreign policy has been schizophrenic ever since.

Rob , October 30, 2019 at 12:36

Hey, maybe the pillaging of natural resources acquired by military conquest can be added to the list of impeachment charges against Trump. That list could stretch across an ocean, if the Dems include all of Trump's impeachable offenses. Ukrainegate is possibly the least serious of all.

Michael McNulty , October 30, 2019 at 11:53

If Al Capone was alive today he wouldn't go into organised crime and bribe officials, he'd go into Wall Street and own them.

Dale , October 30, 2019 at 10:18

Excellent article, John. I will never forget the oil guys gathering in my Bahrain office with their maps of Iraq's oil fields. I don't think they have yet made their millions, but I have no doubt they expect they will.

Peter , October 30, 2019 at 09:55

"International law has long protected property against pillage during armed conflict. The Lieber Code, a military law from the U.S. civil war, said, "All pillage or sacking, even after taking place by force, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense." "

As if that was anything new. The USA| pilfered tens of thousands of patents after WW2 fom Germany – from private companies. The confiscation of German foreign accounts, like in WW1 the removing of machinery and the dismantling of Factories etc. etc. The USA is no diffrnet in this aspect than what the Nazis did in the areas they occupied. See: spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-29194050.html

Michael McNulty , October 30, 2019 at 12:04

Regarding patent theft, I read the two places the Nazis headed for when invading a country were the Central Bank and the Patent Office. It turns out the pulse engine they used on the V1 Doodlebug was a design stolen from the Patent Office in Paris. The design was granted a patent around the end of WWI but it had not been in production because nobody had a practical use for it. Until the Germans did.

Keith , October 30, 2019 at 09:40

When it is said that "we take the oil," what is meant is that our oligarchs are taking the oil. "We" are not taking the oil, they are. I wonder if, when the time comes that the means of production are seized in an uprising in this country if those leading such uprising will be considered war criminals.

Nathan Mulcahy , October 30, 2019 at 08:02

There is nothing surprising or unusual about Trump saying that he is willing to commit war crimes. His immediate predecessors (Obama, Bush and Clinton) have all committed war crimes and all are celebrated widely as great statesmen (one of them recently even as a "peace expert"). It is just that, unlike his predecessors, Trump does not care about the false facade.

What is stunning is not Trump's bluntness, but the utter disregard for (international) law by both political "parties" (I'd rather call them two brands of the same Mafia organization), our so called "media" (I'd rather call them propaganda arms of the said Mafia organization), but also of the "intellectuals" of the land, and of course the vast, vast majority of its citizens. (Of course I exclude the readers of this website, and of similar news media from my condemnation).

john wilson , October 30, 2019 at 07:02

If plundering the oil was America's only war crime we would think that wasn't so bad. The war crimes committed by the West are so huge that much of them are never reported. Clearly, the UN is the arbiter of war crimes but they only ever find small, weak offenders guilty.

The powerful countries like the US, Britain and Europe are not even investigated for war crimes let alone prosecuted. War crimes are only war crimes if there is someone there to police, prosecute and punish the offenders. There is no such authority, so reference to war crimes is just self gratification and meaningless. The US doesn't even pretend to adhere to international law.

Paul Merrell , October 30, 2019 at 19:35

@ "The war crimes committed by the West are so huge that much of them are never reported."

I disagree. I think generally they are reported but are not identified as the war crimes that they are. E.g., the wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, etc.

Dao Gen , October 30, 2019 at 02:53

It's unlikely that Trump is sending US troops back into Syria for economic or for long-term reasons. Oil is just a smokescreen. Probably there are several real reasons:
1. Lindsey Graham is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so Graham would oversee a possible Senate trial if the foolish Dems choose to impeach. Right after Trump's recent pullout, the neocon Graham was furious and said he would support impeachment. Trump needs to mollify Graham and other neocon Repubs for a while for the sake of his own survival.
2. The DINO lib-neocon Dem leadership, attacked Trump ferociously from the right. And the Repub leadership in the House all voted with the Dems to censure Trump for his very helpful pullout. With impeachment likely, Trump can't ignore this situation.
3. The MSM are overwhelmingly neocon about foreign affairs, and they have put out many stories romanticizing the Kurds, who have actually done a fair amount of ethnic cleansing against Christians, Sunnis, and various tribal groups, so millions of Americans have been brainwashed into thinking Trump actually "betrayed" the poor Kurds, whereas it was the pro-PKK leadership of the Kurds who betrayed ordinary Kurds by not reconciling with Syria long ago. After all, Trump announced last December that he was soon going to withdraw from Syria. If the PKK-affiliated leaders had been realistic, there would have been no Turkish invasion. But the MSM hide this situation, thus putting great pressure on Trump.
4. France and Israel and much of the US security state want to continue to use the Kurds as tools to balkanize Syria, attack the Syrian government, and block Iran. They are fighting back hard against Trump.

Ultimately Trump's reasons for staying in Syria are basically kabuki to pacify the neocons and strengthen his domestic political position. Of course this does not justify his war crimes. However, US forces are unlikely to stay for a long time in Syria for several reasons, and when Trump sees a good opening, surely he will try to make another realistic withdrawal after the impeachment farce has passed. Probably Putin will come up with some kind of diplomatic solution that will allow the US to save face while withdrawing. The conditions which will limit US oil banditry in Syria are:
1. After impeachment has passed and after the Syrian government liberates Idlib province, it will send its military to eastern Syria, and the small US force will be obliged to leave. Neither Trump nor the Syrians want a war to break out over second-rate oil fields, so diplomacy will win out.
2. The Kurds normally look down on Arabs and discriminate against them, so there is no way the Arab tribes now running the Deir Ezzour oil field will allow the Kurds to come in and take it away from them. Likewise, further to the northeast the Kurds have been pushed out of several oil fields which they grabbed after Isis forced the Syrian government to leave the area.
3. Trump's base doesn't at all like this plan to send US troops back into Syria. If Trump wants to be reelected, he'll be forced to withdraw by late spring of 2020. By then Trump's base will be more important to him than the DC neocons.

This Great Oil Rustling Expedition is actually the last hurrah for the US in Syria. The US has definitely lost in Syria, but the neocons are just too stupid, stubborn, narcissistic, and immature to be able to come out and directly say, "We lost. Let's move on." Instead they have to grandstand and pretend they are winning until the very last moment. How many more people will have to die because of the vanity of the neocons and the weakness of Trump? Let us pray there will not be many.

Dale , October 30, 2019 at 10:15

Can you supply corroboration for your allegations against the Kurds? I went looking and found an old Telegraph article, which identified a small part of Syria where Kurdish operations had driven Syrians toward ISIL.

But I also found this:
See: medium.com/@makreyi/have-the-syrian-kurds-committed-ethnic-cleansing-8af3c33abf6c :

"YPG has had its share of faults. Crimes have been committed in regions under their control. Some members of Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) -- a multi-national force made up of Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and other minorities -- have committed violations against civilians. And those few perpetrators were reprimanded by SDF and YPG. However, by no means have the Kurds committed ethnic cleansing and forced displacement against any ethnic or religious group. Despite their faults, the Kurds have considerably done a phenomenon job in protecting the civilians of all backgrounds."

Have you got more?

Thanks!

Steven , October 29, 2019 at 22:35

Trump's no more guilty of war crimes than every President since I've been alive, for 69 years. And even Presidents before then. You can't be President of the US without engaging in war crimes. They all serve the military industrial complex. At least Trump does some things right instead of 100% for the elite and their NWO.

dfnslblty , October 30, 2019 at 09:45

¿What?
potus does few things correctly, and economically those things benefit the elite.

Peter , October 29, 2019 at 21:09

Historically, who benefits by emboldening the the fly overs? In show business, entertainers always starts out by telling their audience how great they are. Essentially, lodging their tongues up the audience's bum. Trump's got his tongue so far up the fly over's bums, well, it's just embarrassing really. This is the recipe for popularity. Trump tells American's just what they want to hear. Exceptionalism on steroids.

angry spittle , October 29, 2019 at 20:46

The stupid idiot announces to the world he is about to commit a war crime. That on top of his bone headed admissions of several other crimes. The guy is so stupid he probably thinks Cheerios are donut seeds.

Cambo mambo , October 30, 2019 at 01:14

I agree he's stupid, generally. But it seems pretty rational for any US President to expect he (or she) will never face any consequences for the horrific crimes they commit.

Are you actually suggesting Trump would ever face justice if he sent ExxonMobil to take over Syria or Iraqi oil wells, by force? Bush did much, much worse. Obama committed horrible war crimes. Why would Trump face consequence when they didn't? Believing he would is what's "stupid", imo.

AnneR , October 30, 2019 at 08:34

The trouble is, angry spittle, that the US will get away with this pillage, as it has done in the past. The only difference between this "prez" and the ones before him is his *boasting* openly, publicly about America's war crimes.

Of course, the Strumpet is clueless about such things as the Geneva Convention. Mind you, even being aware of it doesn't mean that the US president and admin and Pentagon etc will in fact abide by any of the international laws regarding war. The past 70 years have made that absolutely clear. And so far as I recall the US has refused to agree to any possibility of its politicos, military, secret agency folks being tried for war crimes by any international body. So the whole political, MIC, corporate-capitalist-imperialist set up here feels completely free to destroy, steal, lay claim to, give away, kill, torture – as it pleases anywhere it wants, when and how it wants.

Piotr Berman , October 30, 2019 at 10:28

The stupidity of Trump may be exaggerated. Keep in mind that he is a businessman who had his key property bankrupted and survived pretty well. Superficially, bankruptcy is a symptom of stupidity, but the trick is to make OTHER people to loose money and yet continue in spite of common wisdom of lost trust etc.

Exhibit one is "insane" endeavor to bring Iran to its knees by unilaterally breaking a multilateral agreement and imposing sanctions that would be utterly unenforceable because no serious country would cooperate. Initially that was my thinking, all leaders of major allied countries were against and promised measures to resist. And "heroically" petitioned to Washington to be allowed to do so. Washington gave a limited time reprieve and otherwise refused. So that make them sad, although quickly they focused on other troubles. Trump proved that Amercan ability to get away with any s t imaginable was greatly underestimated.

Thus Trump's citizenry can rejoice that America proved better than before that it has unique power to make selected other countries very misreable. Wimps like Obama were dabbling in that too, but now the lives of Venezuela and Iran are worse than before. Not that allies and lap dog countries do well, but not as miserable. And leaders from Equador to Lithuania can be glad that following America is a wise choice, the alternative is worse, even if they are periodically humiliated.

The issue of "securing oil" makes a lot if sense in this perspective. Syria is not as utterly miserable as planned, but quite miserable indeed, and delaying her access to her own oil will keep it that way.

To summarise, "admitting to crimes" is not stupid if you can get away with it. But it is evil.

JustAMaverick , October 29, 2019 at 20:14

From here on out the rule of law will have very little meaning if any at all internationally or otherwise. We can't vote our way out and the corporate fascists and the military industrial machine have assumed virtually total control of everything. They will not give that power back, nor will they give up one cent of their ill gotten gains without a fight .a fight they have been preparing for, for almost forty years.

America is truly a Kleptocracy with all the goals and lack of ethics or morals that word implies. We have let them sow an enormous amount of greed, hate and ignorance while they lobotomized the citizenry with endless programming and propaganda, and that crop is soon to be reaped. It will be bad. Really bad Worse, nobody even addresses the real issues let alone unites to defend themselves.

To my eyes the daylight is almost gone and all I can see in the future is as Orwell put it: "A boot kicking you in the face forever."

David Hungerford , October 29, 2019 at 19:21

The problem traces back to the conquest of Iraq. The article implicitly assumes the existence of a sovereign entity named "Iraq." That is wrong. There is no such entity. There was one up until 2003. Then U.S. imperialism invaded and destroyed it. Iraq's oil was taken by force right there.

What resulted is an occupation political project in place of the former Iraqi state. Then the plan went wrong. Iran seized control of the project entity through elections. The first and second "Iraqi prime ministers" under the conquest represented an Iranian clerical organization called the Islamic Dawa.

Now, the occupation political entity was granted exclusive control of Iraq's oil revenues under the terms of the conquest. The U.S. imperialists figured they would remain in control of the entity, but Iran gained control.

Trump doesn't want to take Iraq's oil away not from Iraq. He wants to take it away from Iran.

Jimmy Gates , October 29, 2019 at 18:58

Valid call. Include, in the prosecution, all previous executives who are\ were complicit in these crimes. We all know the Presidents etc, but Congress members should be indicted and IC members as well.

Nick , October 30, 2019 at 10:25

Don't forget 'journalists'! Bill Kristol and Judith Miller should be in the dock as well!

lizzie dw , October 29, 2019 at 18:44

I agree totally with this author. Taking Syria's oil is Not A Good Thing. It is blatant thievery to take something from a sovereign country "because you can", then try to justify it by some lame statement. What additionally bothers me is that this attitude has been present in the USA through many administrations. Look at the Ukraine since 2014. Many long time politicians were involved with getting money from Ukraine – for no reason other than they were American and in charge. Look at Afghanistan and the poppy fields our soldiers are guarding for the CIA. Thieves, all of them. Look at Clinton and the Central American drugs through Mina. We can look at the Turks looting areas of Syria of whole factories(!) while they were occupying the northeast. What about WWII? Politicians took whatever was not nailed down from Germany. Stealing the art. Look at Britain only now returning some artifacts they took out of countries they were administrating decades ago. I am sickened by all of them and I sure am disgusted with President Trump.

rodney lowery , October 29, 2019 at 18:39

My circle of friends thought Trump's speech and actions were refreshing and perfect to reduce these terrorist leaders publicly to nothing. You libs just can't get it. Trump is not going to give respect and dignity to murderers. We take their life and dress them down publicly, and take away any prestige they may have had towards other terrorists. And since when do democrats and libs care about war crimes? why don't you go apologize for us.

ML , October 30, 2019 at 09:01

Your lack of respect for decency, decorum, the rule of international law, statesmanship, diplomacy, etc etc, is simply breathtaking. Many of us here were appalled by Obama's war crimes too, rodney. And most of us here are not "libs" but free and critically thinking human beings, well apart from your Team Red/Team Blue baloney dichotomous way of seeing the U.S.A.'s role in the world. Now, who doesn't "get it?" Why, I'd say that would be you!

Jerry Alatalo , October 30, 2019 at 12:16

rodney lowery,

With all due respect, sir Since there are a good number of Americans who've swallowed the obvious psychological warfare "Operation Baghdadi" operation hook, line and sinker, featuring a President of the United States effectively sharing with the American boys and girls a scary bedtime story, – and drenched with a very poor actor's "tells" or giveaways – the more accurate term might be "My circle jerk of friends ". We would strongly suggest sobering up – before Phase 2 of this extremely dangerous fairy tale commences.

Peace.

Joe , October 29, 2019 at 18:35

Lot of folks were bit premature giving Trump some credit for pulling troops out of Syria. The MIC waved a dollar sign in front of Trump and showed his true colors once again.

Noah Way , October 29, 2019 at 18:18

Just a continuation of oBOMBa's war crimes .The deep state / shadow government is in control.

Nick , October 30, 2019 at 10:35

Which were a continuation of Bush's war crimes, which were a continuation of Clinton's which were a continuation of Bush's which were a continuation of Reagan's which were a continuation of Carter's

[Nov 01, 2019] Russia, Ukraine, and Donald Trump by Stephen F. Cohen

Nov 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cohen notes that the Russian press, which follows American politics closely, has resulted in a consensus that all of this -- Russiagate, Ukrainegate -- was created to stop Trump from having better relations with Russia. Thus, it is important that Putin had been told the reason Trump cannot engage in détente is because of Trump being shackled.

Cohen noted that expert opinion in Russia -- which informs the Kremlin leadership, including Putin -- has soured on the United States; the older generation of Russian America specialists who like America, who visit regularly and appreciate American culture, have become utterly disillusioned and cannot promote a Russian-American partnership given what has happened to Trump.

Regarding Ukraine, Cohen notes it shares a very large border with Russia, tens of millions of intermarriages, language, culture and history, and although the United States shares none of this with Ukraine, the United States has declared Ukraine is a strategic ally, and this would be equivalent to Russia stating that Mexico is its strategic ally, which is preposterous; the term "strategic" clearly has military implications.


renfro , says: November 1, 2019 at 4:49 am GMT

I agree with Cohen.

Congress (and the Jewish groups) ruined Nixon's effort with Russia.
Now congress and the eternally stupid Dems are ruining Trump's efforts.

I have argued for years that we should have taken Russia in as an ally affter WWII.

Alfred , says: November 1, 2019 at 5:14 am GMT
Your line of thinking might reflect the way some people in the US Establishment look on the matter. However, this is militarily a non-starter. Attacking Russia with nuclear weapons would immediately result in the disappearance of the USA.

IMHO, Ukraine and other countries has been a gift to corrupt US politicians. The money they send to Ukraine never ends in the hands of those who are supposed to get it -- the Ukrainian peoples (it is de facto several countries). The money is redirected into the hands of US and Ukrainian politicians and Jewish oligarchs.

The weapons that are sent to Ukraine are largely sold off to countries in the Middle East -- countries which in turn give them to terrorists on their payrolls. This money largely benefits the upper echelons of the army of Ukraine.

S , says: November 1, 2019 at 6:01 am GMT
Powerful elements amongst the US power elites and their hangers on wish to provoke a war with Russia. The obtainment of total world power would seem to be the ultimate objective.

Z Brzizinski in his late 1990's book The Grand Chessboard specifically points out the importance of Ukraine to US ambitions in Eurasia.

Excerpts below from an 1853 US geo-political book called The New Rome elaborate further. I see the mid 19th century book and it's contents potentially as 'a suggestion' being put into the US public's mind to let them know what was expected of them in the future, and why, as most people in the US, then and now, are rather indifferent about Russia, just as most Russians are probably indifferent about the United States.

Similarly, Russia could be being manipulated into a war with the US, a war which potentially could largely destroy both the US and Russia, which indeed may be the idea as part of a larger picture.

People have their refusal.

Has Mr Cohen read this generally unknown 1853 book, The New Rome ?

Some excerpts from The New Rome linked below:

US and UK are free, Russia is not.

pg 155

'Freedom is now limited to the oceanic world, to England and America; Russia, with its continental dependencies, is despotic..'

After US and UK form a united front and conquer Germany (the center of power upon continental Europe) and consolidate control over it, the US and Russia will then square off.

pg 109

'Thus the lines are drawn. The choirs are marshalled on each wing of the world's stage, Russia leading the one, the United States the other. Yet the world is too small for both, and the contest must end in the downfall of the one and the victory of the other.'

Global projection of US air power is to be the key for final US victory over Russia.

pg.155-156

'It [air power] will give us the victory over Russian continentalism. American air-privateers will be down upon the Russian garrisons, to use our own expressive slang, 'like a parcel of bricks'

https://majorityrights.com/weblog/comments/the_new_rome_or_the_united_states_of_the_world_1853

https://archive.org/details/politicalprophec00goeb/page/n3

Erebus , says: November 1, 2019 at 6:05 am GMT
There's a treaty obliging the USA and Ukraine to cooperate in the prosecution of criminal matters. One wonders why it seems to have escaped notice.
Dan Hayes , says: November 1, 2019 at 6:25 am GMT
Who transcribed the broadcast (Giraldi?). BTW, I regard the transcription as very fair and accurate.

Listening to the very last stages of the broadcast I felt that Batchelor became somewhat confrontational towards Cohen. As a matter of fact Cohen remarked that Batchelor will be getting a lot of phone calls and emails over that!

Franz , says: November 1, 2019 at 6:32 am GMT

Here is the obvious explanation.
Zio-Globalist led by Rothschild are dead set to destroy, or at least neutralize Russia.

Keep in mind another clear and obvious point: The Zio-Globalists now see the USA as totally expendable. There is some sign they are throwing it to the curb right now.

To be fair, Netanyahu said as much years ago. America would be tossed when no longer needed. Well, that day is coming close. Productive facilities leaving the nation is nearing its half-century mark, and now even films and TV shows mostly film in Canada, the UK, etc., even though they are sold as US products, which they are mostly not.

Destroy and Russia and USA, part one. Get them to blame each other, part two. Three? They'll both still have lots of bombs

Jake , says: November 1, 2019 at 1:03 pm GMT

@Ilyana_Rozumova “Russia now is last resistance to Globalist control of all world.
China for Globalists is not really a problem. When Globalists will control Russia than China will like it not, will be controlled by flow of energy.”

That is essentially the situation. If Russia is forced to be something close to a vassal of the Anglo-Zionist Empire, then China will be faced with being forced into the same boat. The Chinese might well prefer nuclear war, and unleashing 5 million men at arms, with another 5 million in training camps.

The leaders of the Anglo-Zionist Empire would not care a teeny tiny bit if Korea, southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Japan were to be decimated. They would be tickled pink to fill those lands with black Africans and Sunni Arabs, with Jews running the local shows

Emslander , says: November 1, 2019 at 1:20 pm GMT
@Baron Ukraine is lebensraum . It has had little importance in geopolitical affairs until Russia stupidly gave it its independence upon the breakup of the Soviet Union. Now it’s a slush fund for the most prominent Democrat politicians. It’s also become another conveniently remote shithole for justifying insane military spending.

[Nov 01, 2019] A Brief Summary Of The War In Syria

Nov 01, 2019 | off-guardian.org

mark

A Brief Summary Of The War In Syria.

2011. The Neocons activate a long standing plan that has been around for 20 years to destroy Syria. Syria is to be destroyed, like Iraq and Libya before it. Assad will be toppled within a few months and Syria smashed into a thousand pieces.

The Axis of Evil, the US and its NATO satraps, Shady Wahabia, Kosherstan and Sultan Erdogan, flood Syria with the necessary cannon fodder, hundreds of thousands of head choppers and throat slitters from a hundred countries, with a licence to murder, burn, rape, loot, steal and enslave to their hearts content. An alphabet soup of takfiri groups is created out of thin air, armed, trained, paid, transported and orchestrated with tens of billions of western taxpayers money. ISIS is just one of many.

The Syrian state, armed forces and people resist with unexpected courage and determination, and fight the proxy head choppers to a standstill. But they are under extreme pressure and have to concentrate their forces in the main battles in the west of the country. This leaves a vacuum that is filled by the phantom ISIS caliphate. This suits the Axis of Evil just fine. There is no problem with ISIS black flags flying over Damascus provided Syria is destroyed.

By 2015, the outcome is in the balance. Clinton and Sultan Erdogan have agreed to impose a no fly zone to turn the tide in favour of the head choppers. A series of Gas Attack Hoaxes and false flag atrocity claims are staged over a protracted period of time to justify Libya style intervention.

All bets are off as Putin overrides his advisors and despatches Russian forces to intervene and prevent the destruction of the Syrian state. With the support of Iran and Hezbollah, the situation is transformed. Though the worst of the fighting is yet to come, the Neocon plot to destroy Syria is a busted flush. Syria is steadily liberated from terrorist occupation.

The main terrorist sponsors try to salvage something from this failure. Sultan Erdogan switches sides and takes the opportunity to attack the Kurds. Trump seizes the opportunity to scale back US involvement, generating much hysteria from all the Zionist shills in Washington. The Kurds seek some kind of accommodation with Damascus.

The war is now winding down. It will take some time before all the terrorist areas are liberated and occupying US and Turkish forces have to withdraw. But the outcome is now inevitable.

Chalk up another failure for the Neocons.

[Nov 01, 2019] Assad: We must remember that Erdogan aimed, from the beginning of the war, to create a problem between the Syrian people and the Turkish people, to make it an enemy, which will happen through a military clash

Notable quotes:
"... "Western logic is an intentionally and maliciously up-side-down logic. It says that the military operation should be stopped in order to protect civilians, whilst for them the presence of civilians under the authority of terrorists constitutes a form of protection for the civilians. The opposite is actually true. The military intervention aims at protecting the civilians, by leaving civilians under the authority of terrorists you extend a service to terrorists and take part in killing civilians." ..."
Nov 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sasha , Oct 31 2019 22:20 utc | 59

@Posted by: Sasha | Oct 31 2019 22:01 utc | 58

RT publish a wider coverage of Assad´s interview , with the main points made by Syrian President on "Operation Al Baghdadi"....


karlof1 , Oct 31 2019 22:48 utc | 63

Thread summarzing main points of Assad interview. English transcript of President al-Assad's interview given to al-Sourya and al-Ikhbarya TVs. There's a lot on the Turks; here's a bit:

"President Assad: Let us take another example, which is Idlib. There is an agreement through the Astana Process that the Turks will leave. The Turks did not abide by this agreement, but we are liberating Idlib. There was a delay for a year; the political process, the political dialogue, and various attempts were given an opportunity to drive the terrorists out. All possibilities were exhausted. In the end, we liberated areas gradually through military operations. The same will apply in the northern region after exhausting all political options.

"We must remember that Erdogan aimed, from the beginning of the war, to create a problem between the Syrian people and the Turkish people, to make it an enemy, which will happen through a military clash. At the beginning of the war, the Turkish Army supported the Syrian Army and cooperated with us to the greatest possible extent, until Erdogan's coup against the Army.

Therefore, we must continue in this direction, and ensure that Turkey does not become an enemy state. Erdogan and his group are enemies, because he leads these policies, but until now most of the political forces in Turkey are against Erdogan's policies. So, we must ensure not to turn Turkey into an enemy, and here comes the role of friends – the Russian role and the Iranian role."

Yes, it's a very long and complex interview. Be sure to take your time reading.

Sasha , Oct 31 2019 22:58 utc | 64
Whole interview with Assad where he tlaks about the Russian-Turkish agreement...

President al-Assad's interview given to al-Sourya and al-Ikhbarya TVs

flankerbandit , Oct 31 2019 23:09 utc | 65
I'm reposting here a comment I made on the earlier open thread about Syria and the US plans for the oil patch

So about the situation in Syria...

Southfront reports that the Syrian govt has called on the SDF fighters to join the SAA...but this has been rejected by the SDF leadership...

In particular the SDF chief Mazloum Abdi...who is still clinging to the US apron strings like a total fool...[recently he went on western news shows to talk about how his fighters stole Baghdadi's underwear prior to the alleged raid...]

So clearly the Pentagon move to try to stay in the Syrian oil patch depends on keeping at least some faction of the SDF on board...

But there are many problems with this...first one is that Turkey is going to distance itself even more from the US orbit and into deeper partnership with Russia...as noted here by a legit scholar and expert...

The second problem is that the Kurds don't own that oil patch to the south...it is Arab tribes there and they have their own axe to grind with the Kurds...

Arab fighters and tribes who accepted Kurds in leadership since they had American support and key cities in north.

Many of those Arabs are already switching and joining the Syrian Army. "Securing" oil for benefit of the Kurds is likely to antagonize the Arab fighters and tribes in the region.

That from a Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment...published on zero hedge...

Here's Why Trump's "Secure Syria's Oil" Plan Will Prove Practically Impossible

As I have already noted, this is a quite stupid enterprise that Trump has acquiesced to in the face of huge pressure from the establishment that wants to remain in Syria [and other places] forever...

I will give my own opinion here that this Mazloum Abdi character is clearly betting on the wrong horse...the Turks are demanding that the US hand him over since he is actually listed on an Interpol Red Notice arrest warrant [he is the adopted son of Abdullah Occalan, the PKK leader who is in jail in Turkey...]

He is also pissing off the Syrian government and all the millions of Syrians that support that government, by continuing to put a stick in the spokes of the SAR and the inevitable political process that will lead to peace and a unified Syria, since all the major players want that...Russia, Iran and Turkey...

The US is not now, nor has ever really been a major player in Syria...its grip was always tenuous on that northeast territory, and now it has lost the bulk of it...including most importantly the border...

So even from a military perspective it is quite insane...how do you expect to sit inside a country's territory, when you no longer have access to the border...?

This is just one more example of the delusional character that characterizes Sodom on the Potomac...

The Russians by contrast play the long game...they don't need to do anything now but wait for the inevitable internal contradictions of this scheme to fall apart...

For instance, we see in the north that the Kurds are pitching in with the SAA to fight the Turks and their proxies [who are breaching the Sochi agreement by attacking the SAA south of the border town of Ras Al Ayn...the SAA has a right to be there according to the agreement...

In very plain terms, the Kurds can thank the Russians and the SAR for retaining much of their heartland along the Turkish border...two thirds in fact, since the Turkish plan was to take the entire 450 km stretch...they only got one third of that...

Plus the Kurds have retained, again thanks to Russia and SAR their key cities of Manbij and Kobane...

Now this Mazloum character thinks he's going to prevail on ordinary Kurds to throw all that away and move south into Arab tribal lands as Trump proposes...how fucking crazy is that...?

From where I sit I don't see this US puppet retaining any legitimacy among the Kurds, since their heartland is to the north, which has been secured by the Sochi agreement...

[A a sidebar we note that Al Masdar reports that SAA held Tel Tamr was about tp fall to Turkish militias has proved false...I have long suspected Al Masdar as not reliable...Syrian troops with heavy weapons are moving in, plus the Turks released to Russian military police those 19 SAA soldiers captured by the takfiris in clashes the other day.]

karlof1 , Oct 31 2019 23:11 utc | 66
63 Cont'd--

I'm going to post one further excerpt, Was Obama better than Trump:

"President Assad: We should not bet on any American President. First, when Erdogan says that he decided to make an incursion or that they told the Americans, he is trying to project Turkey as a super power or to pretend that he makes his own decisions; all these are theatrics shared between him and the Americans. In the beginning, nobody was allowed to interfere, because the Americans and the West believed that demonstrations will spread out and decide the outcome. The demonstrations did not spread as they wanted, so they shifted towards using weapons. When weapons did not decide the outcome, they moved towards the terrorist extremist organizations with their crazy ideology in order to decide the outcome militarily. They were not able to. Here came the role of ISIS in the summer of 2014 in order to disperse the efforts of the Syrian Arab Army, which it was able to do, at which point came the Russian intervention. When all bets on the field failed, it was necessary for Turkey to interfere and turn the tables; this is their role.

"As for Trump, you might ask me a question and I give you an answer that might sound strange. I say that he is the best American President, not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president. All American presidents perpetrate all kinds of political atrocities and all crimes and yet still win the Nobel Prize and project themselves as defenders of human rights and noble and unique American values, or Western values in general. The reality is that they are a group of criminals who represent the interests of American lobbies, i.e. the large oil and arms companies, and others. Trump talks transparently, saying that what we want is oil. This is the reality of American policy, at least since WWII. We want to get rid of such and such a person or we want to offer a service in return for money. This is the reality of American policy. What more do we need than a transparent opponent? That is why the difference is in form only, while the reality is the same."


karlof1 , Nov 1 2019 0:51 utc | 76
I highly recommend taking the time to read the interview with Assad I linked to above. He answers questions being asked on this thread and provides insight into his and Syria's thoughts in numerous other areas. On his recent visit to Idlib and how he perceives the terrorists there, a perception shared by many Syrians I encounter on Twitter:

"This has been common practice for me; the visit to Idlib in particular was because the world perhaps believed that the whole Syria question is summed up in what is happening in the north, and the issue has now become a Turkish Army incursion into Syrian territory, and forgetting that all those fighting in Idlib are actually part of the Turkish Army, even though they are called al-Qaeda, Ahrar al-Sham and other names. I assure you that those fighters are closer to Erdogan's heart than the Turkish Army itself . We should not forget this, because politically and in relation to Turkey in particular, the main battle is Idlib because it is linked to the battle in the north-eastern region or the Jazeera region." [My Emphasis]

james , Nov 1 2019 1:02 utc | 77
usa press release from today.. more typical bullshite..

Joint Statement by the Foreign Ministers of the Small Group on Syria


The Foreign Ministers of Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America welcome the launch of the Constitutional Committee in Geneva on October 30, 2019.

We greatly appreciate the work of the UN Secretary General and UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen in launching this effort. This is a long-awaited positive step that requires serious engagement and commitment in order to succeed. It can complement implementation of other dimensions of Security Council Resolution 2254, including the meaningful involvement of all Syrians, especially women, in the political process. We support efforts to create a safe and neutral environment that enables Syria to hold free and fair elections, under UN supervision.

We recall our statement in New York on September 26 and continue to call for an immediate and genuine nationwide ceasefire in Idlib. There can be no military solution to the Syria crisis, only a political settlement on the basis of UNSC resolution 2254.

james , Nov 1 2019 1:18 utc | 79
one line from assad in the interview that i liked..

"Western logic is an intentionally and maliciously up-side-down logic. It says that the military operation should be stopped in order to protect civilians, whilst for them the presence of civilians under the authority of terrorists constitutes a form of protection for the civilians. The opposite is actually true. The military intervention aims at protecting the civilians, by leaving civilians under the authority of terrorists you extend a service to terrorists and take part in killing civilians."

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-president-gives-rare-in-depth-interview-full-transcript/

Peter AU 1 , Nov 1 2019 1:52 utc | 83
Assad "American politicians are actually guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around."

This is the only way to veiw the US.

Jackrabbit , Nov 1 2019 3:41 utc | 91
karlof1 @63 @66

Assad's suspicions about Erdogan and USA mirror suspicions expressed here by james, myself, and others. Erdogan is playing both sides but favoring US-backed extremists and the overall objective of regime-change in Syria.

[Nov 01, 2019] The story of how crucial Uncle Baghdadi intel was delivered to the unsuspecting US

Nov 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Scotch Bingeington , Oct 31 2019 21:19 utc | 53

Here we go, the story of how crucial Uncle Baghdadi intel was delivered to the unsuspecting US: Kurdish general reveals details about who sold Baghdadi out to US . What a colorful tale, and so full of details, smuggling underpants out of Idleb!

Alright, please file under "too good to be true" then, thx.


Scotch Bingeington , Oct 31 2019 21:19 utc | 53

Sasha , Oct 31 2019 21:37 utc | 54
@Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Oct 31 2019 21:19 utc | 53

Yeah, the story about underpants is the touch of humor...but as Nazanín Armanian tells us today in her 15 notes on the assassination of Al Bagdadi, the Sackman from the US ,

American brigadier general Kevin Bergner already told us in 2007 that Abu Bakr Al Bagdadi, the alleged Daesh chief was actually a fictional character whose voice was provided by an actor named Abu al-Adullah Naima, and that the Islamic State is a fictional entity . Those who had invented this fiction allegedly intended to locate the origins of the terrorist group in Iraq, not in the dark basements of the CIA, Mosad and MI6, as well as Al Qaeda, as revealed by Edward Snowden, the former official of the American intelligence

Also that Trump, in his usual style and record, lied all the way during his address to comunicate the killing of Al Baghdadi:

According to The Washington Post, until October 14, President Trump had released 13,435 lies, although what he told on October 27 was the icing: that the US Delta Special Forces attacked the home of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Bagdadi, in locality of Barisha, located in the province of Idlib, 5 kilometers from the border of Turkey, and Trump himself saw, in direct transmission, how that man was "crying all the way" to take refuge in a tunnel along with his two wives and five children, and then activate the bomb vest they wore: "he died like a dog", "we had no casualties", and that "it was like a movie". But, the press rebelled that:

-The movie that Trump saw without popcorn had no sound, so he couldn't see him whining-

-He was not at the White House at 3:33 pm, watching the operation, but playing golf, Newsweek betrays him. Fact corroborated by former White House photographer Pete Souza who points out that the photo of the president and his team, with those faces without any emotion, is subsequent to the events and was taken at 5:05 p.m., as shown in IPTC data from the camera.

Sasha , Oct 31 2019 22:01 utc | 58
No body...no evidence...Why making such show off with Gaddafi and Sadam Hussein, and with Bin Laden and Al Baghdadi we have no corpse, nor cruelty with it, and moreover both are awarded the Islamic Burial in the sea...???

Assad also doubts the elimination of the leader of Daesh Al Bagdadi in a US operation

Assad declared that "they knew about their own "collaboration" in the operation by the media"

At the same time, Assad emphasized that "the death of Al Bagdadi and all the combatants will not change the situation in general as long as the "terrorist ideology" remains alive".

[Nov 01, 2019] I like to think that Trump's saying that the US army are going to steal Syria's oil is very much the same strategy. What better way to turn world opinion against US occupation of Syria?

Nov 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Maximus , Oct 31 2019 21:06 utc | 51

Good historical rundown of Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe; the wars in Southeast Asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the aftermath. Sickening

Tim Glover , Oct 31 2019 20:37 utc | 49

@joost #33 I like to think that Trump's saying that the US army are going to steal Syria's oil is very much the same strategy. What better way to turn world opinion against US occupation of Syria?

karlof1 , Oct 31 2019 20:37 utc | 50
breadonwater @45--

Yes. The route goes within its 12 mile limit, but the okay is provisional and won't become final for @ 4 more weeks.

Maximus , Oct 31 2019 21:06 utc | 51
Good historical rundown of Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe; the wars in southeast asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the aftermath. Sickening
Joost , Oct 31 2019 21:40 utc | 55
@49 Tim Glover. Exactly, imagine Obama saying that. Trump seems to have a habit of using reverse psychology on people. This strategy works very well when nobody likes you and you have the power of Twitter at your disposal.
People tend to overestimate the power of the US president. Every one of them, being democrat or republican, gets assimilated by the borg. Resistance is futile, unless you are perceived to be an idiot and do just enough to please your overlords. The Borg likes what he says, "we are there for the oil" and they are getting reckless, exposing themselves for what they are. Group think distorts perception and that is their weak spot. The borg will get more open about their crimes and their true intentions. This breaks global support for the petrodollar and that will be the end of the "outlaw" US empire.
augrr , Oct 31 2019 22:30 utc | 61
I am surprised that I've not seen any commentary regarding the US's announcement that they will continue to steal Syria's oil, and more importantly what anyone - Syria, Russia or anyone else - might do about this blatant crime.
Clearly this challenges Syria's sovereignty as well as Russia's declared aim to restore Syrian territory in full.

Any thoughts how this situation might evolve? IMO Russia has to remain a facilitator rather than an actor. A "no-fly zone" enforced by Syrians and SAA ground troops?


Don Bacon , Oct 31 2019 23:14 utc | 68
Stripes:
Carolina Army Guard troops move into eastern Syria with Bradley Fighting Vehicles
WASHINGTON – National Guard members from North and South Carolina began moving into eastern Syria with heavy armored vehicles on Thursday as part of the Pentagon's new mission to secure oil fields wrestled from the Islamic State, a military spokesman said.

Soldiers with the North Carolina-based 4th Battalion, 118th Infantry Regiment and the South Carolina-based 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade were deployed to Deir al-Zour to protect American-held oil fields around that city, Army Col. Myles Caggins, the spokesmen for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve, tweeted Thursday. Caggins' tweet included photos of soldiers loading M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles onto Air Force C-17 Globemaster cargo jets to be used on the mission. . . .

For now, the new deployment will not include M1 Abrams tanks, the Pentagon official said Thursday. here

Why use regulars when we can call up the National Guard?
Peter AU 1 , Nov 1 2019 0:23 utc | 72
US hold on the oilfields depends mostly on Iraq. The oilfields of Deir Ezzor are in open country with few towns and apart from the Euphrates flood plain is sparsely populated.

The only cover for guerrilla style attacks against US or its proxies on the oilfields will be the occasional dust storm.

Apart from Iraq, syria setting up S-300 at deir Ezzor and taking control of the airspace would also be a game changer but this may not happen.

Lebanon and Iraq are both undergoing US color revolutions at the moment so its a matter of waiting for the dust to settle on both these moves to see where US is positioned in the region.

JW , Nov 1 2019 0:50 utc | 74
@Sally #1

Yet the US military is overwhelmingly the #1 most trusted US institution among Americans, despite it forcibly wasting their hard earned money to kill tens of millions of innocents abroad. At the same time the US is also filled to the brim with draft dodgers.

If anybody thinks Bolton and his chickenhawking buddies isn't representative of the whole US, think again.

Peter AU 1 , Nov 1 2019 1:12 utc | 78
Don Bacon 73 "Really? I thought the protests were like many other protests around the world, over economic issues."

As was the Syrian 'revolution'. Plenty of small US companies willing to go in. US already has buyers as they have been shipping oil out of east Syria for some time. Turkey, Israel ect plus many more willing to buy at a discount. And considering the oilfields are simply stolen, oil can be sold at a discount.

[Nov 01, 2019] For these business interests, illegal immigration, rigged currencies, and the 'unnecessary war' against Russia are the biggest issues of the presidential campaign.... This business crowd is distinctly anti-war

Nov 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Oct 31 2019 1:16 utc | 45

32&35 Cont'd--

Just prior to the R-Party Nominating Convention at Cleveland in July 2016, Pepe wrote :

"Some powerful, well-connected business interests supporting Trump from New York to the Midwest have outlined their reasons to me, off the record. The fact that their reasons run completely opposite to the Beltway consensus speaks volumes."

Yes, I remember this article quite well as should other barflies. As I wrote at the time, those Pepe cited had their own perverted twist on history and thus incorrect reasons as to the why of America's decline as this paragraph details:

"Why Russia? ' Because Russia does not rig their currency against us to destroy our industries, and is therefore a natural ally rather then Germany and Japan, who still rig their currencies against the United States and have destroyed much of our industrial power .'" [Italics Original]

The bolded text above is what the businessmen were wrong about, and in a big way. But Trump's isn't the first time policy was based on misconceptions and incorrect history. Pepe provides further citations that I'll omit here, although they are important, and just provide his summation followed by one a bit too important to omit here:

"For these business interests, illegal immigration, rigged currencies, and the 'unnecessary war' against Russia are the biggest issues of the presidential campaign....

"This business crowd is distinctly anti-war: ' When Mr. Trump talks about war having to have rational profit and loss expectation, he is sounding as a logical businessman .' They also stress that, ' the war against Russia is also destroying our oil industry as the US ordered the Gulf States to dump their shut-in oil production capacity on the oil market to bankrupt Russia .'" [Bolded text my emphasis]

But 3 years later, oil price has yet to really recover to the point where Frackers can make a profit and their Ponzi Scheme seems about to go bust, which is why we're seeing something that looks like a shift in Trump's initial plan regarding Syria. And there's still more that can be gleaned from the article that goes against what was then current policy and its direction. I think it's now fairly easy to see the reasoning behind Trump's UNGA tirade aimed at the Globalists while contradicting himself about patriots as he's fighting against one of the most noted--and demonized--of the planet's patriots--Bashar Hafez al-Assad.

[Oct 31, 2019] WhistleBlower Ciaramella - IPOT

Eric Ciaramella is connected to Victoria Nuland. IIf this information is true, the entire Impeachment thing is a another phase of Russiagate. It's the Democrats attempt at a coup d'etat
Ciaramella, who was a Susan Rice protégé and was brought into the White House by H. R. McMaster. Looks like McMaster was a neocon zealot.
Oct 23, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Cajun Jim , 1 week ago

Great piece! I love that the reporter called the "whistle blower" the "whistle leaker" , much more accurate.

Diane Smith , 1 week ago

I'm so sick of this these snakes need there heads of there has to be justice

Ellen Jackson , 1 week ago

And Adam Schiff's sister is married to George Soros's son!

[Oct 31, 2019] Who Is Supposed To Define U.S. Foreign Policy - Hint It Is Not The Borg

Notable quotes:
"... As lawmakers examine whether President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, here are some of the most prominent falsehoods that have spread online and an explanation of what really happened. ..."
"... Interfax-Ukraine ..."
"... The second part is about Trump allegations connecting the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to the Ukraine. The NYT ..."
"... CrowdStrike's co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch issued a report about a Ukrainian software for artillery targeting. The report falsely claimed that the software was hacked by Russia and that Russia used the coordinates the hacked software allegedly transmitted. ..."
"... Those CrowdStrike allegations were completely false : ..."
"... The debunked CrowdStrike report about the Ukraine demonstrated that the company can not be trusted when it alleges Russian hacking - be it of an Ukrainian artillery app or of the DNC servers. ..."
"... The Ukrainian actions against the Trump campaign are well documented . The Ukrainians even admitted their intervention : ..."
"... The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election. ..."
"... Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power. ..."
"... Trump claimed that China handed over $1.5 billion to Hunter Biden. But the truth is that the state owned Bank of China handed $1.5 billion ( by now $2.1 billion ) to a company that was partially owned by Hunter Biden. The timing of the very unusual deal additionally suggests that it was made for political purposes. ..."
"... The debunking piece fails in all four points it raises. It is itself sowing disinformation about Biden's intervention against Shokin and the Ukrainian meddling in the U.S. election. It fails to mention relevant facts on the two other issues. ..."
"... While Colonel Vindman's concerns were shared by a number of other officials, some of whom have already testified, he was in a unique position. Because he emigrated from Ukraine along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian officials sought advice from him about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani , though they typically communicated in English. ..."
Oct 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Cemi , Oct 30 2019 19:39 utc | 1

The New York Times continues to lie about Joe Biden's involvement in the Ukraine and about Ukrainian involvement in the U.S. election. Today it also lied about a fact in relation to Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who was yesterday questioned by the Democrats 'impeachment inquiry'. The NYT reported that very fact just a day ago. During the hearing Lt.Col. Vindman expressed a rather preposterous view about who should define U.S. foreign policy.

The NYT claims to debunk falsehoods but spreads more of them:

Debunking 4 Viral Rumors About the Bidens and Ukraine
As lawmakers examine whether President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, here are some of the most prominent falsehoods that have spread online and an explanation of what really happened.

Why was Ukraine's top prosecutor fired?
...
A year later, Viktor Shokin became Ukraine's prosecutor general, a job similar to the attorney general in the United States. He vowed to keep investigating Burisma amid an international push to root out corruption in Ukraine.

But the investigation went dormant under Mr. Shokin . In the fall of 2015, Joe Biden joined the chorus of Western officials calling for Mr. Shokin's ouster. The next March, Mr. Shokin was fired. A subsequent prosecutor cleared Mr. Zlochevsky.

We have show the time lime of Biden's intervention against Shokin and provided evidence that the investigation into Burisma was very much alive:

Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.

Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.

and:

It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record , in form of a report by Interfax-Ukraine , contradicts it.

bigger

Back to the NYT 'debunking' . The second part is about Trump allegations connecting the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to the Ukraine. The NYT is correct to say that Trump's claims in that direction are mostly confused or false. But it also makes this claim:

CrowdStrike, based in California, is not Ukrainian-owned and does not appear to have any Ukrainian connections.

CrowdStrike's co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch issued a report about a Ukrainian software for artillery targeting. The report falsely claimed that the software was hacked by Russia and that Russia used the coordinates the hacked software allegedly transmitted.

Those CrowdStrike allegations were completely false :

In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists.

VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has stated that the combat losses and hacking never happened.

CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last year, but some cybersecurity experts have questioned its evidence.

The debunked CrowdStrike report about the Ukraine demonstrated that the company can not be trusted when it alleges Russian hacking - be it of an Ukrainian artillery app or of the DNC servers.

The NYT 'debunking' also claims:

Mr. Trump's own former Homeland Security secretary, Thomas P. Bossert, called the president's assertion that Ukraine intervened in the 2016 elections on behalf of the Democrats "not only a conspiracy theory" but "completely debunked."

Mr. Bossard indeed has said such but he is wrong. The Ukrainian actions against the Trump campaign are well documented . The Ukrainians even admitted their intervention :

The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
...
Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power.

The third claim which the NYT tries to 'debunk' is that the CIA agent who played the 'whistleblower' against Trump is a political partisan. The debunking fails when the NYT itself notes the source of the claim:

Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the American intelligence community, found unspecified indications of "an arguable political bias," suggesting the whistle-blower favored a rival political candidate, according to a Justice Department memo.

The fourth 'debunking' is about Hunter Biden's business with China:

Critics of Hunter Biden have sought other areas ripe for sowing disinformation. One they have homed in on is his dealings in China.
...
While the amount of money Hunter Biden made from those deals remains unknown, Mr. Trump has said that China handed over $1.5 billion to Mr. Biden in a "sweetheart" business deal meant to win favor with his father.
...
The $1.5 billion figure Mr. Trump has referred to appears to be the amount of money a Shanghai private-equity company raised in 2014. Hunter Biden joined the board of the company, BHR Equity Investment Fund Management, in late 2013. In 2017, he bought 10 percent of the firm, investing the equivalent of $420,000.

The NYT conveniently forgets to mention who is behind BHR and how the deal was made:

On one of the first days of December 2013, Hunter Biden was jetting across the Pacific Ocean aboard Air Force Two with his father and daughter Finnegan. ... Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden and Finnegan arrived to a red carpet and a delegation of Chinese officials.
...
[Hunter Biden's company] Rosemont Seneca Partners had been negotiating an exclusive deal with Chinese officials, which they signed approximately 10 days after Hunter visited China with his father. The most powerful financial institution in China, the government's Bank of China, was setting up a joint venture with Rosemont Seneca.
...
Rosemont Seneca and the Bank of China created a $1 billion investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), a name that reflected who was involved. Bohai (or Bo Hai), the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea, was a reference to the Chinese stake in the company. The "RS" referred to Rosemont Seneca. The "T" was Thornton.

Trump claimed that China handed over $1.5 billion to Hunter Biden. But the truth is that the state owned Bank of China handed $1.5 billion ( by now $2.1 billion ) to a company that was partially owned by Hunter Biden. The timing of the very unusual deal additionally suggests that it was made for political purposes.

The NYT asserts that Trump was "sowing disinformation' about Hunter Biden's China relation. Trump often lies but in this case he just simplified the facts.

The debunking piece fails in all four points it raises. It is itself sowing disinformation about Biden's intervention against Shokin and the Ukrainian meddling in the U.S. election. It fails to mention relevant facts on the two other issues.

In its zeal to propagandize against the Trump administration the NYT is playing lose with the facts and is even disregarding its own reporting. Consider this item from today about media reactions to the Lieutenant Colonel who was yesterday questioned by the Democrats 'impeachment inquiry':

Jack Posobiec, a well-known figure on the far-right internet, tweeted the falsehood that Mr. Vindman had been advising the Ukrainian government on how to counter Mr. Trump's foreign policy goals. Mr. Posobiec cited The New York Times as his source -- in fact, The Times reported no such thing.

In fact, Posobiec quoted this New York Times piece from yesterday which reported:

While Colonel Vindman's concerns were shared by a number of other officials, some of whom have already testified, he was in a unique position. Because he emigrated from Ukraine along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian officials sought advice from him about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani , though they typically communicated in English.

When Rudi Giuliani was trying to get information about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election he was undoubtly pursuing the president's foreign policy. Posobiec was right and the NYT should correct itself.

Lt.Col. Vindman did not like those policies. He in fact believes that U.S. foreign policy should not be directed by the president.

In his written opening remarks to yesterday's confidential hearing, widely spread to the media, he asserts :

In spite of being under assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukraine has taken major steps towards integrating with the West. The U.S. government policy community's view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms to eliminate corruption will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.

Given this perspective and my commitment to advancing our government's strategic interests , I will now recount several events that occurred.
...
When I joined the NSC in July 2018, I began implementing the administration's policy on Ukraine. In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy . While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine's prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.

Who the f**k does this NSC minion thinks he is? The President of the United States?

The U.S. constitution "empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries."

The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that.

President Trump and many other people believe that it would be better for the United States to ally with Russia against an ever growing China than to push Russia and China into an undefeatable alliances against the United States. Trump often alluded to this during his campaign. The voters seem to have liked that view.

The U.S. coup in the Ukraine made that policy more difficult to achieve. But within the big picture the Ukraine is just a bankrupt and corrupt state that has little strategic value and can be ignored.

One can disagree with that view and with other foreign policy priorities Trump set out and pursues. I certainly disagree with most of them. But for those who work "at the pleasure of the President" his views are the guidelines that set the direction of their duties.

The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg, to which Lt.Col. Vindman belongs, are trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals. They want to implement their own polices independent of what the president thinks or believes.

We have warned that such interference by the Borg, the 'deep state' or 'swamp', is a danger to democracy :

If the deep state is allowed to make its own policies against the will of the elected officials why should we bother with holding elections?

The Democrats are stupid to applaud this and to even further these schemes. They are likely to regain the presidency in 2024. What will they do when all the Civil Service functionaries Trump will have installed by then organize to ruin their policies?

It is unfortunate that the above points have to be repeated again and again. But when powerful media try to sell the lies about the Ukrainian interferences by repeating the same falsehoods over and over again the truth has only a chance to win when it is likewise spread repeatedly.

Posted by b on October 30, 2019 at 18:46 UTC | Permalink Thanks,b. The truth is that the NYT piece is a published blue print for what the quality media in vassal countries are supposed to communicate. Being German, you know what I mean. Now, I know what will be presented in all channels tomorrow and I can spare the time considering that bs. ;-)


nemo , Oct 30 2019 19:47 utc | 3

No mystery here. As you pointed out already, the NYT first denied the deep state and then came to love it. There is no going back now, it is a love story for the ages...
AlainJ , Oct 30 2019 19:50 utc | 4
All the lies are just part of a neverending media circus, with no real consequences on anything. Telling the truth about the media circus has exactly the same effect.
Jay , Oct 30 2019 20:07 utc | 5
And if you look at the NY Times reporter's credit and CV, clicking her name will lead you there, her job at the NY Times is to "debunk" online disinformation.

But she posted a crap load of fake news here as you note.


Here's Ms Alba's NY Times bio-CV page, note the short first paragraph:

Davey Alba is a technology reporter covering online disinformation and its global harms.

Before joining The New York Times, Ms. Alba was a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News, writing about artificial intelligence and the invasive effects of tech in people's lives. In 2019, her feature on how Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, used Facebook to fuel the drug war in the country won a Livingston Award for excellence in international reporting. The article also won a 2019 Mirror Award for best story on journalism in peril.

Ms. Alba has covered tech for the last decade, writing about topics as diverse as facial recognition's civil rights problems, the industry's practice of using forced arbitration in employee contracts and sexual harassment in tech. She has written for various publications, including Wired, Gizmodo and IEEE Spectrum.

She moved to the United States in 2010 after attending De La Salle University in Manila and has a master's degree in science journalism from Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn.


Columbia University School of Journalism embarrasses itself again.

Trailer Trash , Oct 30 2019 20:08 utc | 6
I first heard this idea that Trump is supposed to implement the foreign policy of the "government policy community" just a few days ago on the PBS Snooze Hour. It was startling to hear such a blatant admission of the existence of the "Deep State", and that Trump is supposed to obey it. I wonder who wrote the memo that says its now OK to publicly criticize Trump for not following the orders of the "government policy community".

Everyone was shocked when Trump won the election, especially Trump and the "government policy community". He is the proverbial dog that caught the speeding car. It's quaint that Trump thinks he can make real policy changes. His failures in medical insurance, controlling the FED, etc. underscore the point that being the leader is useless if underlings don't obey. The "government policy community" will never follow Trump and it won't stop until Trump is gone one way or another.

Trump is truly a horrible excuse for a human being, but apparently that is what is required to successfully rip the facade off the Deep State, however one wants to define it. Brain-dead Dummycrats will nod and exclaim that of course Trump is supposed to follow policy established by "knowledgeable experts". But I speculate that this new public attitude of the stink tank talking heads will enrage Trump supporters.

I'm starting to think that things may get really ugly in the "Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free".

David G , Oct 30 2019 20:15 utc | 7
I don't agree with b that Posobiec's assertion that the NY Times had reported that "Vindman had been advising the Ukrainian government" was factual just because the Times had reported that "Ukrainian officials sought advice from [Vindman]".

Surely Ukraine seeking advice is not the same as Vindman actually providing it. It seems the Times may be accurate in calling Posobiec's statement a "falsehood".

Paul Damascene , Oct 30 2019 20:24 utc | 9
I am not a legal or constitutional scholar, but I ask myself, not for the first time, whether the media can ever be held to account. One might argue that the criminal justice system could not function without credible penalties for perjury. Whistleblowers and journalists who bring the secrets of the powerful to light are increasingly fair game. But the only journalist I can think of who faced at least mildly negative consequences for her role in the run up to the Iraq war was Judith Miller, and she managed to have herself carted off on the laughable hobbyhorse of "protecting" her sources among the murderous architects of that war.

I get that we have wandered back into the arena of "fake news," which has been framed by the Right against corporate media that they quaintly characterize as "Left", and that the Oligarchy's concern for it (among the Right) has been a stalking horse for repressing actual progressive dissent. (A la Propornot.)

But are there simply no legal remedies that might actually serve to improve the quality of information that we are forced to wade through?

[Oct 31, 2019] The Militarization Of Everything

Notable quotes:
"... But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones. In fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. ..."
"... But who can object to celebrating " hometown heroes " in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters in schools ? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of Midway , timed for Veterans Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the good guys but the underdogs? ..."
"... Roughly two-thirds of the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever closer to a trillion dollars ..."
"... The U.S. military remains the most trusted institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. ..."
"... A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. ..."
"... America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in the room." ..."
"... The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as talking heads to explain and promote military action to the American people. ..."
"... America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. ..."
"... In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50 caliber sniper rifles to various military-style assault rifles. ..."
"... Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000 gun deaths in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the continued bombing of numerous countries. ..."
"... 9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself has taken on a new " warrior ethos " that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this country's citizen-soldier tradition , especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II. ..."
"... Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform. A now-widely accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a new civil war , as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when Americans themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism. ..."
Oct 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Militarization Of Everything by Tyler Durden Wed, 10/30/2019 - 23:10 0 SHARES

Authored by William Astore via TomDispatch.com,

Killing Me Softly with Militarism - The Decay of Democracy in America

When Americans think of militarism , they may imagine jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping through the streets as flag-waving crowds exult ; or, like our president , they may think of enormous parades featuring troops and missiles and tanks, with warplanes soaring overhead. Or nationalist dictators wearing military uniforms encrusted with medals, ribbons, and badges like so many barnacles on a sinking ship of state. (Was Donald Trump only joking recently when he said he'd like to award himself a Medal of Honor?) And what they may also think is: that's not us. That's not America. After all, Lady Liberty used to welcome newcomers with a torch, not an AR-15 . We don't wall ourselves in while bombing others in distant parts of the world, right?

But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones. In fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. Even in the heartland of Trump's famed base, most Americans continue to reject nakedly bellicose displays like phalanxes of tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue.

But who can object to celebrating " hometown heroes " in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters in schools ? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of Midway , timed for Veterans Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the good guys but the underdogs?

What do I mean by softer forms of militarism? I'm a football fan, so one recent Sunday afternoon found me watching an NFL game on CBS. People deplore violence in such games, and rightly so, given the number of injuries among the players, notably concussions that debilitate lives. But what about violent commercials during the game? In that one afternoon, I noted repetitive commercials for SEAL Team , SWAT , and FBI , all CBS shows from this quietly militarized American moment of ours. In other words, I was exposed to lots of guns, explosions, fisticuffs, and the like, but more than anything I was given glimpses of hard men (and a woman or two) in uniform who have the very answers we need and, like the Pentagon-supplied police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, are armed to the teeth. ("Models with guns," my wife calls them.)

Got a situation in Nowhere-stan? Send in the Navy SEALs. Got a murderer on the loose? Send in the SWAT team. With their superior weaponry and can-do spirit, Special Forces of every sort are sure to win the day (except, of course, when they don't, as in America's current series of never-ending wars in distant lands).

And it hardly ends with those three shows. Consider, for example, this century's update of Magnum P.I. , a CBS show featuring a kickass private investigator. In the original Magnum P.I. that I watched as a teenager, Tom Selleck played the character with an easy charm. Magnum's military background in Vietnam was acknowledged but not hyped. Unsurprisingly, today's Magnum is proudly billed as an ex-Navy SEAL.

Cop and military shows are nothing new on American TV, but never have I seen so many of them, new and old, and so well-armed. On CBS alone you can add to the mix Hawaii Five-O (yet more models with guns updated and up-armed from my youthful years), the three NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) shows, and Blue Bloods (ironically starring a more grizzled and less charming Tom Selleck) -- and who knows what I haven't noticed? While today's cop/military shows feature far more diversity with respect to gender, ethnicity, and race compared to hoary classics like Dragnet , they also feature far more gunplay and other forms of bloody violence.

Look, as a veteran, I have nothing against realistic shows on the military. Coming from a family of first responders -- I count four firefighters and two police officers in my immediate family -- I loved shows like Adam-12 and Emergency! in my youth. What I'm against is the strange militarization of everything, including, for instance, the idea, distinctly of our moment, that first responders need their very own version of the American flag to mark their service. Perhaps you've seen those thin blue line flags, sometimes augmented with a red line for firefighters. As a military veteran, my gut tells me that there should only be one American flag and it should be good enough for all Americans. Think of the proliferation of flags as another soft type of up-armoring (this time of patriotism).

Speaking of which, whatever happened to Dragnet 's Sergeant Joe Friday, on the beat, serving his fellow citizens, and pursuing law enforcement as a calling? He didn't need a thin blue line battle flag. And in the rare times when he wielded a gun, it was .38 Special. Today's version of Joe looks a lot more like G.I. Joe, decked out in body armor and carrying an assault rifle as he exits a tank-like vehicle, maybe even a surplus MRAP from America's failed imperial wars.

Militarism in the USA

Besides TV shows, movies, and commercials, there are many signs of the increasing embrace of militarized values and attitudes in this country. The result: the acceptance of a military in places where it shouldn't be , one that's over-celebrated, over-hyped , and given far too much money and cultural authority, while becoming virtually immune to serious criticism.

Let me offer just nine signs of this that would have been so much less conceivable when I was a young boy watching reruns of Dragnet :

1. Roughly two-thirds of the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever closer to a trillion dollars . Such colossal sums are rarely debated in Congress; indeed, they enjoy wide bipartisan support.

2. The U.S. military remains the most trusted institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. No other institution even comes close, certainly not the presidency (37%) or Congress (which recently rose to a monumental 25% on an impeachment high). Yet that same military has produced disasters or quagmires in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. Various "surges" have repeatedly failed. The Pentagon itself can't even pass an audit . Why so much trust?

3. A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. Wars are now automatically treated as multi-generational with little concern for how permawar might degrade our democracy. Anti-war protesters are rare enough to be lone voices crying in the wilderness.

4. America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in the room." Sages like former Secretary of Defense James Mattis ( cited glowingly in the recent debate among 12 Democratic presidential hopefuls) will save America from unskilled and tempestuous politicians like one Donald J. Trump. In the 2016 presidential race, it seemed that neither candidate could run without being endorsed by a screaming general ( Michael Flynn for Trump; John Allen for Clinton).

5. The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as talking heads to explain and promote military action to the American people. Simultaneously, when the military goes to war, civilian journalists are "embedded" within those forces and so are dependent on them in every way. The result tends to be a cheerleading media that supports the military in the name of patriotism -- as well as higher ratings and corporate profits.

6. America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. Consider, for instance, the current controversy over the aid to Ukraine that President Trump blocked before his infamous phone call, which was, of course, partially about weaponry . This should serve to remind us that the United States has become the world's foremost merchant of death, selling far more weapons globally than any other country. Again, there is no real debate here about the morality of profiting from such massive sales, whether abroad ($55.4 billion in arms sales for this fiscal year alone, says the Defense Security Cooperation Agency) or at home (a staggering 150 million new guns produced in the USA since 1986, the vast majority remaining in American hands).

7. In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50 caliber sniper rifles to various military-style assault rifles. Roughly 15 million AR-15s are currently owned by ordinary Americans. We're talking about a gun designed for battlefield-style rapid shooting and maximum damage against humans. In the 1970s, when I was a teenager, the hunters in my family had bolt-action rifles for deer hunting, shotguns for birds, and pistols for home defense and plinking. No one had a military-style assault rifle because no one needed one or even wanted one. Now, worried suburbanites buy them, thinking they're getting their " man card " back by toting such a weapon of mass destruction.

8. Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000 gun deaths in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the continued bombing of numerous countries. But ignorance is not bliss. By tacitly giving the military a blank check, issued in the name of securing the homeland, Americans embrace that military, however loosely, and its misuse of violence across significant parts of the planet. Should it be any surprise that a country that kills so wantonly overseas over such a prolonged period would also experience mass shootings and other forms of violence at home?

9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself has taken on a new " warrior ethos " that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this country's citizen-soldier tradition , especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II.

What these nine items add up to is a paradigm shift as well as a change in the zeitgeist. The U.S. military is no longer a tool that a democracy funds and uses reluctantly. It's become an alleged force for good, a virtuous entity, a band of brothers (and sisters), America's foremost missionaries overseas and most lovable and admired heroes at home. This embrace of the military is precisely what I would call soft militarism. Jackbooted troops may not be marching in our streets, but they increasingly seem to be marching unopposed through -- and occupying -- our minds.

The Decay of Democracy

As Americans embrace the military, less violent policy options are downplayed or disregarded. Consider the State Department, America's diplomatic corps, now a tiny , increasingly defunded branch of the Pentagon led by Mike Pompeo (celebrated by Donald Trump as a tremendous leader because he did well at West Point). Consider President Trump as well, who's been labeled an isolationist, and his stunning inability to truly withdraw troops or end wars. In Syria, U.S. troops were recently redeployed, not withdrawn, not from the region anyway, even as more troops are being sent to Saudi Arabia. In Afghanistan, Trump sent a few thousand more troops in 2017, his own modest version of a mini-surge and they're still there, even as peace negotiations with the Taliban have been abandoned. That decision, in turn, led to a new surge (a " near record high ") in U.S. bombing in that country in September, naturally in the name of advancing peace. The result: yet higher levels of civilian deaths .

How did the U.S. increasingly come to reject diplomacy and democracy for militarism and proto-autocracy? Partly, I think, because of the absence of a military draft. Precisely because military service is voluntary, it can be valorized. It can be elevated as a calling that's uniquely heroic and sacrificial. Even though most troops are drawn from the working class and volunteer for diverse reasons, their motivations and their imperfections can be ignored as politicians praise them to the rooftops. Related to this is the Rambo-like cult of the warrior and warrior ethos , now celebrated as something desirable in America. Such an ethos fits seamlessly with America's generational wars. Unlike conflicted draftees, warriors exist solely to wage war. They are less likely to have the questioning attitude of the citizen-soldier.

Don't get me wrong: reviving the draft isn't the solution; reviving democracy is. We need the active involvement of informed citizens, especially resistance to endless wars and budget-busting spending on American weapons of mass destruction. The true cost of our previously soft (now possibly hardening) militarism isn't seen only in this country's quickening march toward a militarized authoritarianism. It can also be measured in the dead and wounded from our wars, including the dead, wounded , and displaced in distant lands. It can be seen as well in the rise of increasingly well-armed, self-avowed nationalists domestically who promise solutions via walls and weapons and "good guys" with guns. ("Shoot them in the legs," Trump is alleged to have said about immigrants crossing America's southern border illegally.)

Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform. A now-widely accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a new civil war , as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when Americans themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism.

With apologies to the great Roberta Flack , America is killing itself softly with war songs.

hoytmonger , 12 minutes ago link

"Police who deployed explosives and armored vehicles to flush out a man –who'd stolen two belts and a shirt from a Greenwood Village Walmart– from the house of Leo and Alfonsia Lech, are not required to compensate the couple for destroying their home, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday."

https://www.rt.com/usa/472224-police-explode-house-zero-compensation/

charlie_don't_surf , 3 minutes ago link

Those police destroyed a house worth well over 200K since it's in metro Denver...and all to apprehend a punk that shoplifted less than $100 of merchandise...something terribly wrong, all the govt units, local on up are high on the arrogance of power with impunity.

[Oct 31, 2019] Trump created enemies in Israeli lobby, Turky, Kurds, and Russia simulatnaiouly. That's an achivement

Oct 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

An Imperfect Bit of Statecraft, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review

To give Trump his due, his original announcement that he was removing ALL U.S. troops from Syria made powerful new enemies in the Israel Lobby, which has been backing the president because of his many favors to Tel Aviv but which has never really liked or trusted him. Israel has long, and even openly, promoted the breaking up of Syria into its component tribal and religious parts to enable the acquisition of even more land in the Golan Heights and to reduce dramatically the threat coming from any unified government in Damascus. It has also seen the Syrian civil war as a proxy conflict fought by the its poodle the United States against Iran. Israel and its friends in Congress and the media will, to say the least, be disappointed if the war is now truly ended and the U.S. military is withdrawn.

Trump also must continue to deal with the fallout from his Democratic Party opponents, having given them a cudgel to beat him over the head with as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff all wax emotional over how they really love those "freedom fighting" Kurds. The Democrats, having denounced Trump with one voice, were joined by Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney and the ever-versatile Lindsay Graham, all dedicated to the continuation of an interventionist foreign policy, though they would never quite call it that. It is not likely that any of them are really pleased with a deal to end the Syrian fighting.

So the opposition, coming from multiple directions against a Donald Trump also on the impeachment block for Ukraine, will continue and as of this writing it is by no means clear what will happen vis-à-vis the Pentagon announcing that some troops, augmented by armor units, would remain in Syria to protect the oil fields . Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper explained to reporters that the remaining U.S. troops would seek "to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities." The president has also suggested , in true Trumpean fashion, that "We want to keep the oil, and we'll work something out with the Kurds. Maybe we'll have one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly," a step that even the feckless Obama Administration had hesitated to take on legal grounds as the oil unquestionably belongs to Syria. Trump's amigo Senator Lindsey Graham elaborated on the plan , saying bluntly that "We can use some of the revenues from future Syrian oil sales to pay our military commitment in Syria."

And there will be additional fallout from Syria in the damaged relationships in the region. Demonstrating that it could actually screw up two things simultaneously, the White House had unleashed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who warned last Tuesday that the United States was ready to go to war against Turkey if it proved necessary. He said "We prefer peace to war But in the event that kinetic action or military action is needed, you should know that President Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action." Pompeo's comment comes on top of Trump warnings that he would "obliterate" or "destroy" the Turkish economy, statements that did not sit well in Ankara and will predictably only create new problems with a NATO member that has the largest army and economy in the Middle East.

And in another maladroit move, the White House has just announced that it will be giving $4.5 million to the so-called White Helmets, the major propaganda arm of the Syrian "resistance." Falsely claiming to be a humanitarian rescue and relief organization, the White Helmets produced carefully edited films of "heroism under fire" that have been released worldwide. The films conceal the White Helmets' relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of "rebel" opponents. Indeed, the White Helmets only operated in rebel held territory, which enabled them to shape the narrative both regarding who they were and what was occurring on the ground.

The White Helmets travelled to bombing sites with their film crews trailing behind them. Once at the sites, with no independent observers, they are able to arrange or even stage what was filmed to conform to their selected narrative. Perhaps the most serious charge against the White Helmets consists of the evidence that they actively participated in the atrocities , to include torture and murder, carried out by their al-Nusra hosts. There have been numerous photos of the White Helmets operating directly with armed terrorists and also celebrating over the bodies of execution victims and murdered Iraqi soldiers. The group's jihadi associates regard the White Helmets as fellow "mujahideen" and "soldiers of the revolution."


anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 29, 2019 at 1:22 am GMT

Trump using our troops to occupy Syrian oil fields -- part of our regime change war to topple the Syrian government by crippling their economy -- is a modern-day siege that will hurt the Syrian people the most.

@TulsiGabbard

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 29, 2019 at 2:30 am GMT
BBC SEGMENT CASTS DOUBT ON SYRIA "CHEMICAL ATTACK"

Another whistleblower says Syria 'chemical attack' may have been staged – rare BBC interview

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iaq2wOf2Haw?feature=oembed

renfro , says: October 29, 2019 at 4:47 am GMT

Lindsey Graham elaborated on the plan, saying bluntly that "We can use some of the revenues from future Syrian oil sales to pay our military commitment in Syria."

And Trump's statement that Saudi would pay for our troops in Saudi.

So now the US is whoring out our military . They are all insane .all of them.
Our politicians are whores for Israel and then middle men pimps who whore out Americans and our troops.

NoseytheDuke , says: October 29, 2019 at 5:56 am GMT
The best thing that could or can be said of Orange Donald is that Hillary would've been worse. Every time I see and hear him speak I can only imagine the intense embarrassment that thinking Americans must feel. Yes, Obama was worse, as was Bill, but Trumpenstein is a sick joke of a president by any measure. Sad indeed. It's Halloween every day in America these days it seems.
renfro , says: October 29, 2019 at 6:34 am GMT
I agree with Walt 100%.

What Makes A Good Alliance
Not all allies are made equal. But who's worth the commitment, and who's not?
"

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/28/kurds-turkey-israel-saudi-arabia-good-alliance/

By Stephen M. Walt
| October 28, 2019, 1:51 PM

excerpts
.
"An ally's value is not just a function of interests and capabilities, however; it may also depend on how it treats its partners. A good ally doesn't interfere too much in one's own domestic politics and doesn't overtly favor one political faction over another. A good ally is (mostly) truthful and doesn't lie to you or deliberately feed faulty information to your intelligence agencies. All nations spy on one another to some extent, but a good ally doesn't do so with abandon. Needless to say, a good ally doesn't cut deals with your biggest rivals and isn't constantly hunting for a better deal from some other patron.

Allies that violate one or more of these strictures are more problematic partners. That does not necessarily mean that the alliance should be terminated, but the net value of an otherwise useful ally will decline if it becomes unstable, repeatedly gets into trouble and has to be bailed out, becomes weaker with time and requires more and more protection , makes promises and doesn't keep them, and repeatedly flirts with one's rivals. The more that such behaviors become commonplace, the more the alliance's value should be questioned.

With respect to the Middle East, therefore, the United States should adopt a more conditional and businesslike approach to its current partners and its present adversaries. None of its current allies are so valuable or virtuous to deserve unconditional U.S. support, and confining U.S. policy toward Iran to the imposition of even-stricter sanctions just limits U.S. leverage even more. Why should any of its current allies do its bidding when they know it'll back them no matter what? And if the Saudis, Israelis, Egyptians, and others knew the United States was also talking to Iran (something China and Russia do routinely), they might be inclined to do more to keep Washington happy.
The obvious solution to this dilemma is to be more selective in extending commitments in the first place. This is the essence of foreign-policy restraint: The United States should define its interests somewhat more narrowly and then defend those interests more consistently and vigorously. In alliance terms, it means extending commitments only when vital U.S. interests are at stake. Carefully considered commitments will be highly credible, because both allies and adversaries can see for themselves why it is in the U.S. interest to fulfill them. (Pro tip: When it is hard to convince some other country that you really will fight for them, maybe that's telling you something important about their strategic value.)

Antares , says: October 29, 2019 at 7:22 am GMT
Everyone with brains saw this coming. This is so typically Donald Trump. He doesn't have a clue at all. The most righteous thing that the US can do is to fail in Syria. But this will also doom the empire itself. Hopefully it will also spell the end for Israel.

But this game is far from over yet. Hezbollah is denounced as a terrorist organisation as another step in the war against the region. US and Israel will continue until the very last end. They will never quit because their empires are at stake.

sally , says: October 29, 2019 at 9:02 am GMT
In response to article by PG above

" White House ..will be giving $4.5 million to the ..White Helmets, the major propaganda arm of the Syrian "resistance.". the "major propaganda arm of the Syrian resistance"?

I just don't see how investing in propaganda in Syria can make a profit for the white house ?

take a look at this link..
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/10/29/609831/Pentagon-Mark-Esper-Syria-oil
caption => us threatens 'military force' against'any group' challenging occupation of Syria oil fields.

What American interest in Syria would support challenging the world to take on the USA military?
Seems kind of risky to me.. if someone accepts, or false flags, the challenge, the result might initiate WW III.

EliteCommInc. , says: October 29, 2019 at 9:07 am GMT
I am pretty tough on the president. However, on this issue, I would have grant him credit for being prudent, even if his frustration in that mode is to grant interventionists some of what they want.

I don't like ironing his suits every other day -- however, if anything can be drawn from all of the hysteria, it is that the president is slowly making some headway. And had he not, no daylight would be visible on this issue. it took all of about a day before the interventionists demonstrated just how entrenched this policy is.

The real damage is what this policy has done to US credibility on the whole. I am aware that lost of very smart people consider "credibility" a nonissue. But I disagree. Anyone wanting to check Russian influence would not have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan and had they done so, they would have done so by exercising full force and owning the countries in full.

Attempting to hold Afghanistahn to development -- could never have been piecemeal work and it was folly. Not to mention wholly unnecessary to the purpose. Even the invasion to capture twenty wanted suspects of 9/11 -- uh conspiracy aside -- was ineffectual.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

Before the waxing on about Israel starts. Clearly, we must take responsibility for our foreign policy.

Sean , says: October 29, 2019 at 9:11 am GMT

The fundamental reason why the U.S. was so ineffective was that Al-Assad was never in serious danger as he had significant popular support

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/syria-chemical-weapons/558065/

Decision-makers in Western capitals had long viewed the Assad regime as a grim model of Middle Eastern stability, but in 2011, they suddenly thought that "people power" would bring down Assad as it had other Arab despots. The Assad regime, however, had something the others didn't. "Popular resistance" strategies work well against authoritarian systems whose leadership come from the country's ethnic and sectarian majority , such as Egypt. Soldiers ordered to turn their guns on protestors are faced with a choice: Shoot their brethren among the protestors, or help get rid of those ordering them to do so. This causes a split in the army and security services, which can lead to a toppling of the government.

Assad's by contrast is a minority government with a kind of fortress of sectarian interests around it. Minority Alawites serve at the core, followed by concentric rings of other minorities (Christians, Shia, etc.), and finally by coopted Sunnis who represent the majority in Syria. Minority army and security officers are therefore farther removed from the majority Sunni population, making them more likely to order fire against protestors than to topple their brethren in power.

KenH , says: October 29, 2019 at 10:40 am GMT
Trump has told us at least twenty times how ISIS has been defeated so if that is truly the case then the oil fields aren't in need of protection by the U.S. military. The last remnants of ISIS and their bloodthirsty leader, Al-Baghdadi, were supposedly just killed in the weekend raid, so while ISIS may live on in the hearts of some Muslims it has lost almost all of its leadership and military potential to threaten the oil fields.

Trump says he wants to end "these stupid wars" but by his rhetoric and schizophrenic policy seems possibly on the verge of starting new ones.

Russia is correct in saying that the continued U.S. presence in Syria preventing Assad from assuming control over his own oil constitutes "international state banditry". On that point I say the U.S. has learned the craft of banditry well from its Israeli handlers and masters.

Germanicus , says: October 29, 2019 at 11:27 am GMT
@renfro

Who can name all the US Suckerfish allies?

Not sure the US empire have allies.
There are vassals, the occupied and conquered, the colonies, euphemistically called "allies", and there is an enemy parasite euphemistically called "ally", Israel.

Then there is maybe sort of "junior" ally in crime, the Brits, who are more or less vassals too.

US Admiral Inman called Israel an enemy, who is aggressively spying.

Hail , says: Website October 29, 2019 at 2:16 pm GMT

as of this writing it is by no means clear what will happen vis-à-vis the Pentagon announcing that some troops, augmented by armor units, would remain in Syria to protect the oil fields.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper explained to reporters that the remaining U.S. troops would seek "to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities." The president has also suggested, in true Trumpean fashion, that "We want to keep the oil, and we'll work something out with the Kurds. Maybe we'll have one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly,"

Embarrassing.

" We want to keep the oil ." That's the oil in Syria? A foreign country and sovereign state.

This is something like a bad caricature, a comedy sketch.

Trump says he is a nationalist. He is a one-step-forward-two-steps-back nationalist.

Meh , says: October 29, 2019 at 2:23 pm GMT
@renfro The US military is nothing but a make work program for middle America. But keeping them engaged in countless overseas "conflicts" the power that be hope to keep them from noticing that the jobs they used to do either don't exist or are being done by illegals all while funneling tax dollars into the military industrial complex. The bonus is that in the process you kill or maim a disproportionate number of traditional Americans while the folks at home encourage the whole thing
Republic , says: October 29, 2019 at 3:00 pm GMT
@anon https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/heres-why-trumps-secure-syrias-oil-plan-will-be-impossible-implement

From Zerohedge: why trumps secure Syrian oil plan will never work

OverCommenter , says: October 29, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
It's funny the Isreal lobby has gotten more out of Trump than the American public, and they are still complaining and don't trust him. Why would anyone work with these ghastly wretches after seeing this kind of temperament. The Isreal lobby in America enjoys more privileges and benefits that any other individual group, yet it's never enough. Notice how Obama wanted regime change in Syria, and then it's neocons who are urging the fight to continue today. What did this tiny ethnic minority ever do to earn the absolute devotion of the entire US government.
Jeff Davis , says: October 29, 2019 at 3:51 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke ... ... ...

Now as to the challenge of governing effectively, Trump must be allowed two "excuses" for his less-than-ideal governance. One, the major one, is that he is being obstructed -- attacked actually -- by the entire entrenched Establishment which has been looting the country forever, in good times and bad, and wishes to preserve that status quo. The other is the personal limitations inherent in every human being. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Trump is a bright guy, and a very strong personality, but clearly not omniscient. On his own, he will not be able to get it right every time. So, subject to these two factors, Trump will have -- has had -- diminished effectiveness. That said, he's incredibly nimble, and can "flip-flop" -- ie turn on a dime, to change direction -- when something isn't working. That's in stark contrast to the "foolish consistency [that] is the hobgoblin of [the] little minds" -- ie rigidity -- of the professional political class. In any event, the game will take a while, and Trump will stick with it and he knows how to win.

The Trump-haters won't acknowledge this, of course, and his supporters may be unable to properly assess the obstacles he has to deal with so as to be able to accept a certain level of disappointment. But unless Tulsi can break out, Trump will have five+ more years -- that's four more plus the fourteen months remaining of this, his first term -- to work on fixing the US.

Personally, I don't give a damn -- I'm safe and prosperous and outside the nuclear blast zone -- and as a Trump supporter who wants to see him burn Washington to the ground, I'm enjoying -- thoroughly enjoying -- the spectacle. I'm particularly excited by the prospect of the coming take-down of the Deep State coup plotters. Brennan, Clapper, and Comey: perp-walked, in the dock, orange jump-suits, etc. Bring it!

YMMV

Rurik , says: October 29, 2019 at 5:10 pm GMT
@Jeff Davis

I look at actions and their results, not the noise of rhetorical "perception management"/mind-rape.

He has half the nation, 95+ percent of Washington, DC, 95+ of NYC elites, 95+ percent of the media, 100% of the Democrats, half the Republicans, 95+ percent of the world's people, including their leaders

who hate his guts with a netherworld insanity, and would like to see him and the Deplorables castrated and then burned alive. In that order.

So is it any surprise that his rhetoric is disjointed and contradictory?

Is it Donald Trump who's torturing Julian Assange, or the Deepstate scum who also hate Donald Trump?

I've said all along, that the day he starts a war with Iran, (or anyone else, for that matter), is the day I damn his soul. (insofar as a mortal can do so ; ).

But he hasn't started a war with Iran. All screeching- from every orifice of the media and Deepstate and Zion and zio-Christians and MIC and CIA; ad infinitum.- notwithstanding.

As you so colorfully put it, "I wouldn't give a damn if Trump wore a tutu and farted and belched.." his Tweets, so long as we get no war with Iran, and the troops ebb their way out of the Eternal Wars.

That's how I see it all. The guy is swimming in a septic tank full of Chuck Schumer's turds and Nancy Pelosi's acid piss. The pure hatred of the media, and a very significant percentage of Mitts and Marcos and other assorted human excrement. He's hated by most of the world for simply being an unapologetic white guy, as opposed to the leaders of Germany and France and Canada and England, where sniveling, abased self-loathing is de rigueur.

I certainly don't approve of everything he does, but considering that the alternative would have meant the end of even the pretense of human freedom in my lifetime, at least in the (dying) Western world- what he's done is given us a precious few more years. That's critical time to plan an escape rout, and get thee to Uruguay. If for no other reason, I'm grateful to Trump for that.

The Howard Gutman Prize , says: October 29, 2019 at 5:34 pm GMT
Improvement of this sorry state would take lots of painstaking capacity building to offset CIA's ongoing capacity demolition. Everybody at State is a CIA focal point or an actual official-cover fake dip, a professional ratfucker ratfucking Assad or Assange or everybody else A-Z. They could not negotiate their way out of a paper bag. They have no inkling what authorities govern their official functions.

I looked at the foreign service exam once and thought, who would waste their precious moments on this shit? Grade-school civics, Microsoft office tips & tricks, just crap insulting your intelligence. They're churning out statesmooks who don't know what the UN Charter says. They know nothing about diplomatic history. They spy on foreign diplomats instead of just like asking them what they think.

Your whole fucking country is a joke, a laughingstock, cause CIA knuckle-draggers wrecked it. And it's extra funny now that Russia can make Langley, the Farm, Camp Swampy, No Man's Island and all your fusion centers into big sinkholes of molten basalt and there ain't nothin you can do about it, so you just got to watch the whole world laugh in your face and blow you off.

[Oct 31, 2019] An Imperfect Bit of Statecraft by Philip Giraldi

Oct 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

The long nightmare in Syria might finally be coming to an end, but not thanks to the United States and the administration of President Donald Trump. Trump's boast that "this was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else" was as empty as all the other rhetoric coming out of the White House over the past two and a half years. Nevertheless, it now appears that the U.S. military just might finally be bidding farewell to an exercise that began under President Barack Obama as a prime bit of liberal interventionism, with American forces illegally entering into a conflict that the White House barely understood and subsequently meddling and prolonging the fighting.

The fundamental reason why the U.S. was so ineffective was that the Obama Administration's principal objective from the beginning was to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, yet another attempt at "humanitarian" regime change similar to that which produced such a wonderful result in Libya. Al-Assad was never in serious danger as he had significant popular support, including from the country's Christian minority, and American piecemeal attempts to negotiate some kind of exit strategy were doomed as they eschewed any dealing with the legitimate government that was in place. The Syrian civil war supported and even enabled by Washington caused more than 500,000 deaths, created some 9 million internal and external refugees, and destroyed the Syrian economy and infrastructure while also almost starting a war between the U.S. and Turkey.

The Russians understood the American mistake and consequently were able to arrange a settlement which now appears to be viable. They were able to deal with the Syrian government, Turkey, and the Kurds who had been set adrift by Washington. The arrangement arrived at has a number of significant features. First, it guarantees Syria's territory integrity, which presumably means the U.S. will eventually have to evacuate its remaining positions in the oil region. Second, it satisfies Turkish legitimate security demands for a disarmed safe zone, which means that Kurdish militias will have to disarm and/or move twenty miles away from the border. The safe zone will be patrolled by the Syrian Army and the Russians with Turkish observers. Third, all separatist groups (terrorists) will be hunted down and eliminated and further attempts by them to reestablish in Syria will be opposed by all parties to the agreement. Fourth, steps will be taken to make possible the orderly return of refugees to Syria.

It is undeniably true that throughout the Syrian farrago, President Trump's admittedly inherited policy could not possibly have been more incoherent, occasionally bizarre, predictably inconsistent, and actually dangerous to genuine American interests in the region. It is to everyone's benefit that the game is finally over, but one can expect the neoconservatives in the United States to do their best to bring about yet another reversal by Trump.

It must be conceded that along the way, President Trump was not exactly acting with a free hand. He has been beleaguered by a Deep State conspiracy against him that began even before he was nominated, though he didn't have to help his enemies by shooting himself in the head at every opportunity through tweets and demeaning language. The apparent commitment to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria was long overdue as Washington's involvement in the fighting was wrong by every measure right from the beginning and remaining has only served to make more complicated the country's recovery from eight years of conflict. It also was contrary to its publicly stated objective of destroying ISIS. A strong Syrian government was and is best placed to do just that and Washington, in a panic to recruit, train and arm mercenaries to fight Damascus often wound up arming terrorists.

But doing what is right does not go far in today's United States of America and the fact that Trump is now taking credit for a ceasefire and by extension a settlement of the conflict means little as he has predictably folded already once on plans to withdraw. The argument that the Kurds have been betrayed has a certain cogency, but the reality is that the Kurdish leaders entered into a relationship with the U.S. military based on their own interests with no expectation that Washington would be backing them up forever. They are now well placed to cut their own deals with both Damascus and Ankara, with Russia in the middle working to sustain the agreement to end the fighting and restore the Syrian state's status ante bellum.

To give Trump his due, his original announcement that he was removing ALL U.S. troops from Syria made powerful new enemies in the Israel Lobby, which has been backing the president because of his many favors to Tel Aviv but which has never really liked or trusted him. Israel has long, and even openly, promoted the breaking up of Syria into its component tribal and religious parts to enable the acquisition of even more land in the Golan Heights and to reduce dramatically the threat coming from any unified government in Damascus. It has also seen the Syrian civil war as a proxy conflict fought by the its poodle the United States against Iran. Israel and its friends in Congress and the media will, to say the least, be disappointed if the war is now truly ended and the U.S. military is withdrawn.

Trump also must continue to deal with the fallout from his Democratic Party opponents, having given them a cudgel to beat him over the head with as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff all wax emotional over how they really love those "freedom fighting" Kurds. The Democrats, having denounced Trump with one voice, were joined by Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney and the ever-versatile Lindsay Graham, all dedicated to the continuation of an interventionist foreign policy, though they would never quite call it that. It is not likely that any of them are really pleased with a deal to end the Syrian fighting.

So the opposition, coming from multiple directions against a Donald Trump also on the impeachment block for Ukraine, will continue and as of this writing it is by no means clear what will happen vis-à-vis the Pentagon announcing that some troops, augmented by armor units, would remain in Syria to protect the oil fields . Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper explained to reporters that the remaining U.S. troops would seek "to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities." The president has also suggested , in true Trumpean fashion, that "We want to keep the oil, and we'll work something out with the Kurds. Maybe we'll have one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly," a step that even the feckless Obama Administration had hesitated to take on legal grounds as the oil unquestionably belongs to Syria. Trump's amigo Senator Lindsey Graham elaborated on the plan , saying bluntly that "We can use some of the revenues from future Syrian oil sales to pay our military commitment in Syria."

And there will be additional fallout from Syria in the damaged relationships in the region. Demonstrating that it could actually screw up two things simultaneously, the White House had unleashed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who warned last Tuesday that the United States was ready to go to war against Turkey if it proved necessary. He said "We prefer peace to war But in the event that kinetic action or military action is needed, you should know that President Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action." Pompeo's comment comes on top of Trump warnings that he would "obliterate" or "destroy" the Turkish economy, statements that did not sit well in Ankara and will predictably only create new problems with a NATO member that has the largest army and economy in the Middle East.

And in another maladroit move, the White House has just announced that it will be giving $4.5 million to the so-called White Helmets, the major propaganda arm of the Syrian "resistance." Falsely claiming to be a humanitarian rescue and relief organization, the White Helmets produced carefully edited films of "heroism under fire" that have been released worldwide. The films conceal the White Helmets' relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of "rebel" opponents. Indeed, the White Helmets only operated in rebel held territory, which enabled them to shape the narrative both regarding who they were and what was occurring on the ground.

Some White Helmets continue to operate in Syria's terrorist-controlled Idlib province, raising the question whether the United States is prepared to give more taxpayer derived money directly to terrorists. Several months ago, as the Syrian Army closed in on some of the other pockets where the White Helmets operated, the U.S. and Israel mounted an operation to evacuate many of them. Some of them and their families were moved to Israel and Jordan and many of them have wound up in Canada. If the White House again does a flip-flop and pulls the plug on the money earmarked for them it would truly be a welcome sign that the U.S. has realized that the game is over and its direct involvement in Syria should be ended.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 29, 2019 at 1:22 am GMT

Trump using our troops to occupy Syrian oil fields -- part of our regime change war to topple the Syrian government by crippling their economy -- is a modern-day siege that will hurt the Syrian people the most.

@TulsiGabbard

[Oct 31, 2019] America's History Of Controlling The OPCW To Promote Regime Change

Oct 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

America's History Of Controlling The OPCW To Promote Regime Change by Tyler Durden Wed, 10/30/2019 - 23:50 0 SHARES

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

You wouldn't know it from today's news headlines, but there's a major scandal unfolding with potentially far-reaching consequences for the entire international community.

The political/media class has been dead silent about the fact that there are now two whistleblowers whose revelations have cast serious doubts on a chemical weapons watchdog group that is widely regarded as authoritative , despite the fact that this same political/media class has been crowing all month about how important whistleblowers are and how they need to be protected ever since a CIA spook exposed some dirt on the Trump administration.

When the Courage Foundation and WikiLeaks published the findings of an interdisciplinary panel which received an extensive presentation from a whistleblower from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigation of an alleged 2018 chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria, it was left unclear (perhaps intentionally) whether this was the same whistleblower who leaked a dissenting Engineering Assessment to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media this past May or a different one. Subsequent comments from British journalist Jonathan Steele assert that there are indeed two separate whistleblowers from within the OPCW's Douma investigation, both of whom claim that their investigative findings differed widely from the final OPCW Douma report and were suppressed from the public by the organization.

The official final report aligned with the mainstream narrative promulgated by America's political/media class that the Syrian government killed dozens of civilians in Douma using cylinders of chlorine gas dropped from the air, while the two whistleblowers found that this is unlikely to have been the case. The official report did not explicitly assign blame to Assad, but it said its findings were in alignment with a chlorine gas attack and included a ballistics report which strongly implied an air strike (opposition fighters in Syria have no air force). The whistleblowers dispute both of these conclusions.

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At the very least we can conclude from these revelations that the OPCW hid information from the public that an international watchdog organization has no business hiding about an event which led to an act of war in the form of an airstrike by the US, UK and France . We may also conclude that skepticism of their entire body of work around the world is perfectly legitimate until some very serious questions are answered. Right now no attempt is being made by the organization to bring about the kind of transparency which would help restore trust, with multiple journalists now reporting that the OPCW is refusing to answer their questions.

It is also not at all unreasonable to question whether the OPCW could have been influenced in some way by the United States behind the scenes, given how its now-dubious final report aligns so nicely with the narratives promoted by the CIA and US State Department, and given how we know for a fact that the US has aggressively manipulated the OPCW before in order to advance its regime change agendas.

In June of 2002, as the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, Mother Jones published an article titled " A Coup in The Hague " about the US government's campaign to oust the OPCW's very first Director General, José Bustani. If you've been following the recent OPCW revelations you will recall that Bustani was one of the panelists at the Courage Foundation whistleblower presentation in Brussels on October 15, after which he wrote the following:

" The convincing evidence of irregular behavior in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing."

Mother Jones (which used to be a decent outlet for the record) breaks down how the US government was able to successfully bully the OPCW into ousting the very popular Bustani from his position as Director General in April 2002 by threatening to withdraw funding from the organization. This was done because Bustani was having an uncomfortable amount of success bringing the Saddam Hussein government to the negotiating table, and his efforts were perceived as a threat to the war agenda.

me title=

"Indeed, US officials have offered little reason for its opposition to Bustani, saying only that they questioned his 'management style' and differed with several of Bustani's decisions," Mother Jone s reports.

"Despite this, Washington waged an unusually public and vocal campaign to unseat Bustani, who had been unanimously reelected to lead the 145-nation body in May, 2000. Finally, at a 'special session' called after the US had threatened to cut off all funding for the organization, Bustani was sent packing."

This happened despite broad international support for Bustani, including from then-Secretary of State Colin Powell who'd written to the renowned Brazilian diplomat praising his work in February 2001. According to the report's author Hannah Wallace, the US was able to oust a unanimously re-elected Director General due to the disproportionate amount of financial influence America had over the OPCW.

"[I]n March of 2002, Bustani survived a US-led motion calling for a vote of no confidence in his leadership," Wallace writes. "Having failed in that effort, Washington increased the pressure, threatening to cut off funding for the organization -- a significant threat given that the US underwrites 22 percent of the total budget. A little more than a month later, Bustani was out."

"Bustani suggests US officials were particularly displeased with his attempts to persuade Iraq to sign the chemical weapons treaty, which would have provided for routine and unannounced inspections of Iraqi weapons plants," Wallace reported. "Of course, the Bush White House has recently cited Iraq's refusal to allow such inspections as one justification for a new attack on Saddam Hussein's regime."

"Of course, had Iraq [joined the OPCW], a door would be opened towards the return of inspectors to Bagdad and consequently a viable, peaceful solution to the impasse," Bustani told Mother Jones . "Is that what Washington wants these days?"

me title=

Bustani told Mother Jones that he was already seeing a shift in the OPCW into alignment with US interests. Again, this was back in 2002.

"The new OPCW, after my ousting, is already undergoing radical structural changes, along the lines of the US recipe, which will strike a definitive blow to the post of the Director General, making it once and for all a mere figurehead of a sham international regime," he said.

"Bustani traces the shift to the influence of several hawkish officials in the Bush State Department, particularly Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton," Wallace wrote.

Indeed, we've learned since that Bolton took it much further than that. Bustani reported to The Intercept last year that Bolton literally threatened to harm his children if he didn't resign from his position as Director General.

"You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you," Bolton reportedly told him , adding after a pause, "We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York."

The Intercept reports that Bolton's office did not deny Bustani's claim when asked for comment.

It is worth noting here that John Bolton was serving in the Trump administration as National Security Advisor throughout the entire time of the OPCW's Douma investigation. Bolton held that position from April 9, 2018 to September 10, 2019. The OPCW's Fact-Finding mission didn't arrive in Syria until April 14 2018 and didn't begin its investigation in Douma until several days after that, with its final report being released in March of 2019.

me title=

It is perfectly reasonable, given all this, to suspect that the US government may have exerted some influence over the OPCW's Douma investigation. If they were depraved enough to not only threaten to withdraw funding from a chemical weapons watchdog in order to attain their warmongering agendas but actually threaten a diplomat's family, they're certainly depraved enough to manipulate an investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack. This would explain the highly suspicious omissions and discrepancies in its report.

It is a well-established fact that the US government has long sought regime change in Syria, not just in 2012 with Timber Sycamore and the official position of "Assad must go", but even before the violence began in 2011. I've compiled multiple primary source pieces of evidence in an article you can read by clicking here that the US government and its allies have been planning to orchestrate an uprising in Syria exactly as it occurred with the goal of toppling Assad, and a former Qatari Prime Minister revealed on television in 2017 that the US and its allies were involved in that conflict from the very moment it first started.

So to recap, we know that the US government has manipulated the OPCW in order to advance regime change agendas in the past, and we know that the US government has long had a regime change agenda against Syria. Many questions will need to be answered before we can rule out the possibility that these two facts converged in an ugly way upon the OPCW's Douma investigation.

* * *

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Sandman69 , 20 minutes ago link

John Bolton. Economic Hit-Man.

GETrDun , 44 minutes ago link

"It's a big club and we ain't in it"

WTFUD , 29 minutes ago link

I dunno, Public Servants have a whole heap of responsibility thrust upon them, i mean coming up with all these new taxes and stuff requires a lot of scheming. I hope they're receiving a good pension on the way out the door to non-exec dir MIC/XYZFinancial.

Yeah, serving one's country selflessly takes a special breed . . . . of scum.

WTFUD , 55 minutes ago link

How To Win Friends and Influence People. lol

Denmark clears Russian Nord Stream 2 project.

The Evil Empire is having a bad hair decade.

hugin-o-munin , 43 minutes ago link

Denmark was instructed to delay the European/Russian Nordstream2 approval. The delay forced the consortium to redirect the pipeline to avoid Danish waters and so now whatever they decide is completely moot and irrelevant. They are only trying to save face because they recently approved a pipeline to Poland for expensive US freedom gas. This is how it works, small countries like Denmark and Poland have no say of their own when the US wants something.

peggysue1 , 1 hour ago link

Bolton is such a first-rate *******. I have no idea why Trump hired the guy. Why would you bring an enemy into the White House? It was a senseless move.

hugin-o-munin , 55 minutes ago link

Trump is told what to do. Many of the appointments that Trump has done have been highly questionable and suspect. This says more about the people behind him who are calling the shots and which is why people seriously need to question the whole Q-anon thing because it reeks of a psy-op. Trump himself probably has good intentions and believes in what he does but he doesn't understand the bigger picture, he only wants for the US to be returned to the better days he remembers.

What he did in Syria should concern most Americans. Not because he made it clear he wants US troops out of there, that is something most will agree to, but rather what we see happening now. The military and CIA have been running things there and this was surely the issue that made Bolton loose his temper with Trump and he got fired for it. The plan to overthrow Syria and Iran is still on for them and they will not let a President get in their way.

WTFUD , 46 minutes ago link

Nimrata Nikki Haley Randhawa to the UN for one, after a dinner date at Trump H/Q with Mutt Romney; Notice how the anti-Iran, pro Israeli rhetoric increased several decibels.

Maybe Trump just wants an easy life, to bag a few billion (am sure his Goldman after dinner speeches will be funnier than Hillary's ) and to join Obama & The Clinton's in building a trophy/show room.

hugin-o-munin , 36 minutes ago link

Nicky Haley was a complete IQ relieved tool. I don't hold it as an impossibility that Trump himself has been hoodwinked. The biggest threat to the NWO crowd is when the US population wakes up and smells the coffee. That is when these parasites know that they have lost. If they can accelerate their plans while pacifying the public enough through some clever perception management program that is what they'll do and that is precisely what I believe is happening. Plausible deniability has always been the best cover and so to have the President himself sold on this fairy tale is perfect through their perspective.

hugin-o-munin , 24 minutes ago link

I disagree. As more and more people see the big picture and agenda they will not fall victim to it. The divide and conquer tactics only work as long as people fall into that trap. Right now it looks quite dark but that is always the case before real and proper change occurs. Many believe extreme hardship only creates conflict but that is not always the case. Sometimes extreme hardship creates new communities and bonds between folks through which real information can spread very quickly. No wonder they are in such a panic to censor everything.

nuerocaster , 23 minutes ago link

Who do you think saved Donald from the treason frame up steamroller? AIPAC

hugin-o-munin , 1 hour ago link

Sadly the OPCW is no different than most other UN umbrella organizations. Finally people are starting to see how all of these international organizations have been used to roll out an agenda right under our noses. This method of using politically powerful organizations as cover for something completely different is not something new. What we see today most probably took off when the United States introduced the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Service. That was when the super wealthy families in the US had maneuvered themselves (and their wealth) beyond reach through foundations, trusts and endowments. So called Philanthropy is still popular in the US and this is how generational wealth is insulated to do as they please.

What they created was not only to avoid taxes but to concentrate power/influence and do pretty much anything they desired without any kind of insight or scrutiny. The United Nations is a perfect example where the Rockefeller family donated land and huge amounts of money to start this massive trojan horse whose goal is to usurp all national governments and spearhead the creation of a global governance structure. Don't be fooled, nothing these people do has anything to do with democracy or freedom. Just like psychopaths and sociopaths they have learned how to dress it all up so that people go along with it all.

If only enough people would spend the time and effort to learn how this all works. We are told to believe that these are all benign and altruistic when the truth is the exact opposite. It's somewhat ironic that the UN's main headquarter is located in the US which it was set up to destroy from within. The OPCW is located in the Hague Netherlands but all these international bodies are nothing but vehicles to push an agenda. That agenda is not what people think it is.

Golden Showers , 1 hour ago link

OPCW is operated out of the Hague, in coordianation with the UN.

One of it's Director Generals (of the four Spain, Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey... Donmeh and jews, naturlich) is one Ahmet Uzumcu. Nobel Peace Prize, Consul of general of Aleppo, Syria, Order of Saint Michael and Saint George...

The OPCW is a sham "legit" organization, especially when it wins the Hague award... like that's not boosterish. Nobel Prizes and Hague awards are red flags. CF Obama.

You've got Bolton and Bustani in 2002, Brazil.

Pfirter and Brazil are connected on nuclear. World Economic Forum guy.

Arias, UN diplomat point man. All these people are unelected crooks and bagmen.

The OPCW is a UN agency run out of the Hague for purposes of narrative control like any intel SAP. It's just like Hillary Clinton sending a child protector to Haiti to smuggle children for human trafficking under guise of a foundation. These people are career criminals and liars with their legitimacy ops preaching world peace for cover. They are all high born **** crooks.

Bolton is a traitor and he deserves a military tribunal, along with all the last presidents since JFK, even goober. MAGA.

vampirekiller , 1 hour ago link

Disgusting, all for the sole purpose to normalize colon punching in the ME and to satisfy the delusions of the neocons regarding peak oil.

Pandelis , 1 hour ago link

still stuck on oil ???

all syria's oil is less than 0.01% ... what they were saying ... ISIS is making 30 million a month ... a lot of money for these scumbags but for Trump and the US ??? common ... the interest on US debt is 7-8 billion a day

they can always buy oil with printed money ... like they do in all these gulf countries making them trillioners in paper

there is more to killing a million syrians and removing 10 million out of their land of thousands of years ...

hugin-o-munin , 54 minutes ago link

It's not about the oil per se, it is about how that oil is priced. That is what Kissinger's plan was all along, tie important global commodities to the USD to lock in its global reserve currency status. As that setup is now seriously starting to fail all attempts to restore it are jumped on if for nothing else than to delay the inevitable collapse of the USD and US economy.

Pandelis , 37 minutes ago link

even if that is true what the massacres in syria for the last ten years have anything to do with it?

this is not about oil, currency or whatever ... it is pure evil

hugin-o-munin , 30 minutes ago link

The people behind all of this are evil. They know very well what power used to rule over this world. We are the ignorant ones but things have changed now. In the not too distant future when people look back at these times they will be in awe at how we managed to break this total evil control.

wee-weed up , 1 hour ago link

Bolton is an opportunist of the slimy sort.

The Dims know that and are salivating that...

"sour-grapes" Bolton just might spout some...

impeachment-worthy dirt on Trump (who fired him)...

when he testifies before their secret tribunal.

Return_of_Byzantium , 2 hours ago link

The funniest part is the Satanist, Bolton, probably thinks he's going to be on the winning side.

How laughable it will be in a few years, in the end times, when Bolton is told he -- as "the best among the goyim" -- is to be the first to die on the ***'s sacrificial altar.

Then immediately upon rising again, he'll meet the real God, only to be thrown straight into the hellfire. 😁😁😁😁

Curses be upon this scumbag who no doubt schemed in an attempt to kill millions more innocent people in the Middle East for his Zionist entity.

White Nat , 2 hours ago link

"You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you," Bolton reportedly told him, adding after a pause, "We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York."

Nice family you got there. Be a shame if something happened to them.

Is there any difference between .gov and the mafia?

The 3rd Dimentia , 2 hours ago link

for any observable, practical purpose, no difference whatsoever. just more guns, and wealthier thugs.

Omni Consumer Product , 2 hours ago link

Government has bigger public relations staff.

Meanwhile, mafia has (((hollywood))) pumping out mobster hero-worship movies.

White Nat , 1 hour ago link

Funny most ((( hollywood ))) mobster movies show italian gangsters. When in fact a large percentage are kosher nostra like Meyer Lansky, Moe Dalitz, Sidney Korshak, Lew Wasserman, Sam Bronfman and Semion Mogilevich.

((( They ))) wouldn't misrepresent the truth about organized crime would they? You know, because it makes the tribe look bad.

Don't worry. It's rhetorical. Of course they would. Just like all the lies they spin about WWII, the bolsheviks, etc.

Pandelis , 1 hour ago link

not funny ... a way of living for them:

he said to his disciples first, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."

Clashfan , 36 minutes ago link

"Ye are of your father" is a good one, too.

Let's not forget Stumpy Zevon, Warren's father.

His mama couldn't be persuaded from marrying Stumpy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejM8lGjFDQ

Whitney Webb, writing out of Chile, has excellently documented plenty of Jewish crime figures and their connection w/the JewSA:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/

Pandelis , 1 hour ago link

bolton is just a high paid hit man ... no difference.

supposedly he is doing for the US ... bs ... he will turn on a dime against american people.

he knows pretty well who and what he is working for ... even smedley butler figured that much out a century ago

[Oct 30, 2019] Bill Taylor Led Ukraine Delegation for Group Advised by Hunter Biden

Oct 30, 2019 | www.breitbart.com

Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who provided key testimony to the Democrats' controversial impeachment inquiry last week, led an election observation delegation in Ukraine earlier this year for a George Soros-funded organization that at the time boasted Hunter Biden on its small chairman's council.

Two months before he came out of retirement to serve as the highest ranking U.S. official in Ukraine, Taylor led an election observer delegation to Ukraine's April 21, 2019 second round presidential election for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) organization.

The delegation's mission, according to NDI literature , was to "accurately and impartially assess various aspects of the election process, and to offer recommendations to support peaceful, credible elections and public confidence in the process."

Taylor led the team along with former Director of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) Audrey Glover and former Minister for European Union Affairs Birgitta Ohlsson.

Hunter Biden at the time served on NDI's ten person Chairman's Council, which describes itself as bringing together "leaders from corporate, philanthropic, and academia sectors to provide expertise, counsel and resources to help the Institute meet these evolving challenges."

Biden was engaged in Ukraine in his role as a board member for Burisma, the Ukranian natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden's involvement in Ukraine policy during the Obama administration while his son was being paid by Burisma.

NDI did not immediately respond to a Breitbart News inquiry about when Hunter Biden was removed from the organization's chairman's council. The WayBack Internet archive shows Biden was listed on NDI's website in that position until at least August 2019, encompassing the period when Taylor led the organization's delegation.

Earlier this month, an attorney for Biden said the former vice president's son had stepped down from the Burisma board and that he planned to step down from the board of BHR, a Chinese company seeking to invest Chinese funds outside China.

The NDI is not Taylor's only seemingly conspicuous link. Last week, Breitbart News reported that Taylor has evidenced a close relationship with the Atlantic Council think tank, writing Ukraine policy pieces with the organization's director and analysis articles published by the Council. The Atlantic Council is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma.

In addition to a direct relationship with the Atlantic Council, Taylor for the last nine years also served as a senior adviser to the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), which has co-hosted events with the Atlantic Council and has participated in events co-hosted jointly by the Atlantic Council and Burisma. USUBC events have been financially sponsored by Burisma.

Another senior adviser to the USUBC is David J. Kramer, a long-time adviser to late Senator John McCain. Kramer played a central role in disseminating the anti-Trump dossier to the news media and Obama administration.

Taylor participated in events and initiatives organized by Kramer.

The links may be particularly instructive after Breitbart News reported that itinerary for a trip to Ukraine in August organized by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council for ten Congressional aides reveals that a staffer on Rep. Adam Schiff's House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a meeting during the trip with Taylor. The pre-planned trip took place after the so-called whistleblower officially filed his August 12 complaint and reportedly after a Schiff aide was contacted by the so-called whistleblower.

Common funding themes

Meanwhile, NDI, where Taylor led the election observation delegation, lists partners and sponsors who "provide much-needed resources," including Soros's Open Society Foundation, Google Inc., the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of State.

Besides Burisma funding, the Atlantic Council is also financed by Soros's Open Society Foundations, Google, and the U.S. State Department. Another Atlantic Council funder is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.,

Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund, and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race.

The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the so-called whistleblower's document and released by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's own claims, as Breitbart News documented .

One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S. officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."

This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the "cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden corruption allegations.

Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

That footnote reads:

In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.

The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three more occasions. It does so to:

Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko "also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani." Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above."

The OCCRP report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and business records in the United States and Ukraine."

BuzzFeed infamously also first published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt outfit.

The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.

The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia collusion claims.

Taylor, Atlantic Council, Kramer

Multiple U.S. media outlets last week obtained Taylor's full opening statement to the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees.

In the leaked pre-written full opening statement, Taylor alluded to work he said he did for a "small Ukrainian non- governmental organization" but he omitted the name of the organization.

"In the intervening 10 years, I have stayed engaged with Ukraine, visiting frequently since 2013 as a board member of a small Ukrainian non- governmental organization supporting good governance and reform," he said.

The name of the organization is the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), where Taylor served for nine years as senior advisor. The USUBC has co-hosted or participated in scores of events with the Atlantic Council. Taylor has also authored numerous analysis pieces published by the Atlantic Council itself and has co-authored opeds written together with the Atlantic Council's director.

Burisma is a key financial backer of the Atlantic Council. In 2017, Burisma and the Atlantic Council signed a cooperative agreement to develop transatlantic programs with Burisma's financial support reportedly to focus "on European and international energy security." Burisma specifically finances the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.

Besides funding the Atlantic Council, Burisma also routinely partners with the think tank. Only four months ago, the company co-hosted the Atlantic Council's second Annual Kharkiv Security Conference. Burisma advertises that it committed itself to "15 key principles of rule of law and economic policy in Ukraine developed by the Atlantic Council."

In March, three months before he became Trump's ambassador to Ukraine, the Atlantic Council featured an oped co-authored by Taylor in which the diplomat argued Ukraine "has further to travel toward its self-proclaimed European goal" of reformation.

In 2017, Taylor wrote a piece for the Atlantic Council about a Ukrainian parliament vote on health care reform.

Last year, he participated in an online Atlantic Council Q & A on the Crimea.

In November 2011, the Atlantic Council hosted Taylor as the featured speaker at a discussion event when he was appointed that year as Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions at the State Department.

In March 2014, Taylor co-authored an analysis piece at Foreign Policy magazine written together with John E. Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who serves as director of the Eurasia Center for the Atlantic council – the same Eurasia Center that is specifically funded by Burisma.

That same year, Taylor also co-authored a New York Times op-ed with the Atlantic Council's Herbst on Ukraine. The duo co-authored another Times op-ed one year later on the future of Ukraine. The op-ed was reprinted on the USUBC's website.

The USUBC, where Taylor was a senior adviser for nine years along with Kramer, has hosted Herbst for briefings and other events.

Kramer of the USUBC, infamous for his role in disseminating the anti-Trump dossier, also held a November 2011 event at the Atlantic Council's D.C. offices for a group that he heads called Freedom House. Taylor was one of six featured speakers at Kramer's event.

The Atlantic Council published what it deemed a 24-point plan for ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In conjunction with the plan, Kramer, in his role as director of Freedom House, organized a letter by American and European experts and former officials urging Russia to end its conflict with Ukraine. Signatories of the letter, published on the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council's website, include Taylor, Kramer and the Atlantic Council's Herbst.

As late as this past March, Taylor was listed as one of nine members of the Friends of Ukraine Network Economic Security Task Force. Another member is Kramer.

When he deployed to Ukraine as Trump's ambassador in June, the USUBC authored a piece in the Kyiv Post welcoming him.

In the USUBC piece welcoming Taylor to Ukraine, Kramer himself commented about Taylor's ambassador position. "He's a great choice for now," Kramer gushed.

The USUBC's piece noted that the "USUBC has worked closely with Ambassador Taylor for many years," touting his role as the business group's senior adviser.

On June 26, just nine days after arriving in Ukraine as ambassador, the USUBC already hosted Taylor for a roundtable discussion about his new position.

Vadym Pozharskyi, adviser to the board of directors at Burisma Holdings, was also previously hosted as a USUBC featured speaker.

Geysha Gonzalez is the sponsoring Atlantic Council officer listed on the Congressional disclosure form for the Schiff staffer's trip to Ukraine in August. She is deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.

Gonzalez is also one of eleven members of the rapid response team for the Ukrainian Election Task Force, which says it is working to expose "foreign interference in Ukraine's democracy." Another member of the team is Kramer.

Kramer revealed in testimony that he held a meeting about the anti-Trump dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News, who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom. That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.

BuzzFeed infamously published the Christopher Steele dossier on January 10, 2017, setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

The Washington Post reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it.

In a deposition taken on December 13, 2017, and posted online earlier this year, Kramer revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier was being taken seriously.

In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander.

In the deposition, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department.

Taylor testimony and Burisma

In his testimony to the Democrats secretive impeachment inquiry, Taylor said that he "understood" from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland that a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "was dependent on a public announcement of the investigations." Taylor was referring to the announcement of an investigation that included Burisma, as well as alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Taylor's testimony was characterized by CNN as "explosive" and was similarly hyped by other news media outlets despite it not being unusual for the U.S. to condition aspects of relations on participation in ongoing American investigations involving the foreign country in question.

Still, Taylor conceded that there was no quid pro quo.

"Ambassador Sondland said that he had talked to President Zelensky and Mr. Yermak and told them that, although this was not a quid pro quo, if President Zelensky did not 'clear things up' in public, we could be at a 'stalemate.' I understood 'stalemate to mean that Ukraine would not receive the much-needed military assistance," Taylor testified.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.

[Oct 30, 2019] Here Are the Giuliani-Ukraine Notes Few Have Seen RealClearInvestigations

Oct 30, 2019 | www.realclearinvestigations.com

In addition to the fired Shokin's claim that President Poroshenko warned him not to investigate Burisma because it was not in the Bidens' interest, the notes say, the prosecutor also said he "was warned to stop" by the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt .

The State Department declined to explain this assertion about Pyatt, who was ambassador to Ukraine from 2013 to 2016 and now is Ambassador to Greece. The Biden presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Recounting Shokin's version of events, the notes say he "was called into Mr. Poroshenko's office and told that the investigation into Burisma and the Managing Director where Hunter Biden is on the board, has caused Joe Biden to hold up one billion dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine." Poroshenko later told Shokin that "he had to be fired as the aid to the Ukraine was being withheld by Joe Biden," the Giuliani interview notes say.

Trump has claimed that Vice President Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin because he was investigating his son's employer.

"I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair," the president said, referring to Shokin in his July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky. That call triggered the current impeachment crisis after a CIA whistleblower alleged that Trump had pressured the Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden in return for military aid.

A Politico investigation in 2017 found that officials in Poroshenko's government helped Hillary Clinton allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, notably Paul Manafort, who before joining the Trump campaign was a political consultant for ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Poroshenko's administration insisted at the time that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.

[Oct 30, 2019] How Long Can the Israeli Goliath Last

Oct 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Following a short artillery and air engagement with Syria over raids by exiled Palestinian guerillas, Egypt mobilized against her nemesis in 1967. President Nasser sent six divisions to the Sinai, removed the UN peacekeeping force, and closed the Straits of Tiran south of Israel. Israel struck first, fearing annihilation.

As Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld states in The Transformation of War , "for six glorious days war was Israel and Israel was war." The result was a smashing victory for the Israelis , who lost around 800 soldiers, as opposed to 20,000 for Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The Sinai peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights were added to Israel's territory.

Compare this short war with another conflict that played out in 2006. For 34 days, Israel battled Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in response to the Shia terrorist group's killing and capturing of several Israeli soldiers in cross-border raids. Israel launched a massive air and artillery campaign, followed by a ground invasion in late July. When the ceasefire was signed on August 14, both sides claimed victory, but as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt noted in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy , "it was clear to most independent experts" that "Hezbollah had come out ahead in the fight." The IDF chief of staff resigned, and an Israeli government investigation rebuked the planning and handling of the campaign, stating that the military had "pursued goals that were not clear and could not be achieved."

Worse still, the air, artillery, and naval campaign killed an estimated 1,183 Lebanese (a third of them children) and devastated the country's infrastructure. These actions drew strong condemnation from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for causing "destruction on a catastrophic scale." During the last three days of the war, the IDF fired over one million cluster bombs into southern Lebanon, "saturating the area." The leader of an IDF rocket unit called these actions "insane and monstrous."

War can still be won by being nasty and short, as shown in the first Gulf War, but time is not on the side of the powerful. Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped adversary almost always works to the advantage of the weaker side. Van Creveld compares this situation to an adult who "administers a prolonged, violent beating to a child in a public place." Observers will sympathize with the child and intervene, regardless of its prior behavior.

With the Palestinians, the position of weakness is even more extreme. Israel dominates the lives of 3.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, controlling air, land, and sea access, in a situation that's been compared to "living in a cage" by Swedish foreign minister Jan Eliasson. Despite numerous American attempts to secure Palestinian statehood and resolve the conflict, the present situation seems worse than ever.

The Trump administration, on the other hand, has made it clear that Israel will be supported through thick and thin. And the world has slowly but surely begun to take notice. The BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction), initially confined to college campuses and Palestine, spilled into the national news when Democratic lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib spearheaded a movement opposing bills aimed at criminalizing support of BDS. Some Republicans, namely Senator Rand Paul, have opposed those bills, too, on free speech grounds.

Recently, after the congresswomen were denied entry to Israel because of their support of BDS, liberal Jewish journalist Peter Beinart defended their stance. Speaking on a CNN panel , he openly sympathized with the plight of the Palestinians, claiming their treatment by Israel constitutes an "indefensible denial of basic human rights." Fellow panelists attempted to tie support for Palestine to terrorism, a common tactic. But terrorism in that part of the world is nothing new. Israel's defenders tend to forget or are ignorant of the fact that beginning in 1937, the militant Zionist group Irgun was responsible for placing bombs in buses and large crowds. One of its leaders during Israel's war for independence, future prime minister Menachem Begin, was referred to by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol simply as "the terrorist."

Modern Israel is no longer a weak state in danger of annihilation. The IDF is highly motivated, trained, and funded. Emboldened by the financial and moral backing of the United States and powerful lobbying groups, its treatment of Palestinians and other enemies has become steadily more severe.

With recent elections still contested , it remains to be seen whether these policies will continue. But militarily, Israel's position is not tenable. You can win at the tactical level and rack up a higher body count, but still lose the war. As frequent TAC contributor and military historian William S. Lind notes, "in the 3,000 years that the story of David and Goliath has been told, how many listeners have identified with Goliath?"

Jeff Groom is a former Marine officer. He is the author of American Cobra Pilot: A Marine Remembers a Dog and Pony Show (2018). Follow him on Twitter @BigsbyGroom .

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Zsuzsi Kruska 10 hours ago

Israel will last as long as Wash. extorts money from our wages and supports it. Without the US taxpayer, Israel wouldn't exist, both from its beginning to right now.
Sid Finster 10 hours ago
Hell, take away American support and watch all official sympathy for Israel everywhere evaporate.
ThaomasH 10 hours ago
I think the lack of sympathy for Israel is not that it s the "Goliath" of this story but that it is allowing settlers to live in the Occupied Territories.
hooly 9 hours ago
So TAC is standing with the Palestinians now I see. Will it stand with those other Davids, the intersectional allies of the BDS crowd too? namely Black Lives Matter, illegal Latino migrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and other assorted SJW types?
Jeff Z 7 hours ago
We are now in the end times; when it comes to Israel, all is in the hands of the Lord. As the nations of the earth seek to attack and destroy Israel, they fall into ruin: look at the entire Muslim world; look at what's happening to Europe. Most of all, look at the astonishing rise and continued power of Donald Trump, the man who recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Pick your side and accept your fate accordingly.
Kent 7 hours ago

"Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped adversary almost always works to the advantage of the weaker side."

I don't always buy this. For me this only works if the powerful state is in the wrong. And sadly, in this situation, Israel is deeply in the wrong.

But what does happen is over time, the weak becomes slowly stronger. Because they are always studying their enemies. They are learning their tactics and how to defeat them. This may take decades, but eventually the weak become the strong.

This is why it is always best to quickly offer a hand of friendship to a vanquished enemy. If you don't, you'll eventually trade places.

[Oct 29, 2019] Asia Times China's financial threat to the 2020 US election Article

Oct 29, 2019 | www.asiatimes.com
Henry 4 days ago ,

The author seems to be writing an interesting fiction, reminds one of a Hollywood movie about a Russian oligarch at the behest of a senior Russian government official, attempting to engineer wall street crash.

Taking out a newspaper advertisement with proper representation to state one's case can't be compared with the US funded National Endowment for Democracy's funding of Hong Kong's increasingly violent rioting.

tinhatter Henry 4 days ago ,

Is the NED something like the China's interference in the NBA ?

Henry tinhatter 4 days ago ,

This is like apple and orange, not comparable. China did not interfere in NBA's affairs, just reacting to her citizens uproar against the infamous now deleted tweet. Thus many Chinese Chinese sponsors pulled out. This is no different to sponsors pulling out of US athletes endorsements from time to time when there are scandals.
Whereas NED is US intelligence cover for interference in targeted countries like Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran and many Islamic countries around the world, to advance US political agenda.

tinhatter daggo77 4 days ago ,

And in breaking news. 39 Britons have been found dead in a container trying to be smuggled fromt eh failed UK state to the successful state run by the CCP.
Did I get that the right-way round ?

Mustafa 4 days ago ,

Who is this guy? Does he think this is CNN?

Is he smoking a heretofore unheard of narcotic?

Let me set the stage.

This is a paper or news site about asia. It is written in English? What does this tell you? The audience ostensibly consists of westerners (or educated people from asia or elsewhere) who want to read an alternative to the drivel and rubbish that's propagated in copious quantities by the scat factories of the west and their zionist-oligarch dominated news conglomerates...

Who is interfering in elections? Does china name some loser guaido as president of venezuela or support terrorists in syria? Is china sanctioning (with financial warfare)the whole world including their own allies? You must have no modicum of shame to come up with this absolute smorgasbord of rancid festering bollocks that you think is befitting of "reporting." You are bettet off taking a sabbatical and never coming back... i would tell you all of this to your face with the utmost respect that i could muster before i vomited...

Presidents come and go... the empire, deep state bureaucrats, and their slavish dual-state minions such as yourself will march on no matter what until your rotten seed perpetuate the corruption and degeneracy passed down through your genes. That xyz is president makes zero difference in deterring the momentum of evil that lurks within the diseased sociopaths such as yourself.

You are an unmitigated disgrace to true journalism and do a grave disservice to this site's reputation.

pooi-hoong chan Mustafa 4 days ago ,

Bill Gertz is not a journalist. He is a bullshitter. He constantly spews out lies, fake news, propaganda and BS against China.

M Henri Day pooi-hoong chan 2 days ago ,

"Bill Gertz is not a journalist. He is a bullshitter." Alas, pooi-hong chan, these two professions are in many cases equivalent....

Henri

AsianInvestor Mustafa 4 days ago • edited ,

CIA uses fake identities for the propaganda articles. If a nation is building close ties with China, automatically an author with a name from that nation appears. They also have groups posting propaganda under a single fake name. There are only a few genuine Asian CIA hacks making a living off the CIA.

USA is heading for multiple recessions possibly a depression unless they change their current anti China policies.

Bianca AsianInvestor 4 days ago ,

In fact, in military, fake identities for information warfare are assigned to one person, so that it multiplies the effect. To keep track of these "personas" per each real person, and their postings -- a "persona" data bases are needed to keep track of their activities. And unfortunately , there are always some technicians who are more then happy to talk about it.

Deuxieme Bianca 4 days ago ,

Yes. just google Operation Earnest Voice. It's a project by Pentagon that let one person control several of these "personas"

Mustafa AsianInvestor 4 days ago ,

It would not surprise me if he worked for the CIA... this organization is, by its mission, embedded into all public spheres...

What is worrisome is that the cia has no accountability to anyone. It is one great example of deep state operator. Also, cia is heavily infiltrated by mossad. In other words, cia is a parallel drug traffickers organization that dabbles in news, democracy promotion, torture, coups, blackmail, assasibation, rendition...

It is accountable to no one ... their actions are conducted in secrecy and cannot be scrutinized... the president can't control them... these organizations are a manifest example of why this article is a huge fallacy dressed up in cured excrement.

Huashen 4 days ago • edited ,

These people are outrageously shameless in their assertion that they can openly interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, like the recent bills passed by the US House of Representatives in support of the Blackshirts of HK, but they would not brook any interference from China in their election, not that it's true at all.
This is a good example of how the US apply its Orwellian ideology of "American Exceptionalism" - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" - George Orwell's "Animal Farm."

Lee Sky 4 days ago ,

Another guy cashing in on the evil China fad, pathetic. It is the US who conducts financial warfare by imposing illegal sanctions and restrictions on other countries using the dominance of the dollar in international trade.

Bianca 4 days ago ,

If it is so easy to have a country's financial system snd stock markets manipulated -- how do know that our own financial sharks are not already manipulating market to enrich them selves , while making it appear that everything is fine? Or that they are not crashing markets in order to profit?
There is something not right about a country with financial and market systems living off the fumes of news cycle?

Look at how many times West attacked Russian financial systems
and markets, blocking whole companies and financial institutions -- yet nothing crashed. Currency lost some value helping exports, while those earning in dollars simply had more money to spend domestically. And by placing sanctions kn European food products -- they shot up to the first place globally in wheat production.

I am wondering if the difference is Russia's large currency and gold reserves. As opposed US economy that sits atop a large debt bubble? Than anything can spook it.

Deuxieme 4 days ago • edited ,

Bill Gertz is running out of stuff to bad mouth China. He is eager to make some money now that he's been fired by Washington Free Beacon for having some shady deals with the Chinese billionaire fugitive Guo who is the subject covered in his reporting.
Maybe Gertz can tell us who China wants to be elected by staging these financial influence campaign? Gertz is sounding utterly ridiculous now.

Bapa aku 4 days ago ,

american are losers, foreign influence here and there, well thanks to your own foreign policies bombing here and there and regime change everywhere, you sow what you get. if you don't want foreign influence. just build a great wall and extend it to these. not only no 5G, ditch all comunications including mail

Bobserver 4 days ago • edited ,

This is a nonsense article. Lots of hypotheticals with no proof presented of China's intention or cases of actually trying to influence any American election.

This is more how Western countries behave with their Machivellian modus operandi overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. This author and American officials are merely voicing what the USA is already capable of doing rather than what China has in place.

In fact there is a debate among Chinese officials and think tanks that they might want Trump to have a second term because as the USA p@sses off many countries including those allied with the USA that might help China down the line.

Bianca 4 days ago ,

Wait a minute -- Russia wants Trump to be reelected, and China wants him to lose?

With US creating legislation for the whole world -- our sanctions whose enforcement is imposed in others -- means that other people must have the right to elect the president? How can the world accept such financial burden on others with no right to vote.

Remember America next time you vote for sanctions, tariffs etc. -- no taxation without representation. Global presidents must be elected globally!

MD6888 4 days ago ,

Bill Gertz is a Washington-based national security journalist and author of Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China's Drive for Global Supremacy

007's imaginary script writer. LOL!

Alex 4 days ago ,

There's no need for the Chinese to rely on 'covert' operation to influence the election's outcome. For instance, if China just cancels the buying of the agricultural goods from the US that it has dealt with Trump in what is being called the partial deal from the trade war, it would be already enough to influence in the election. Lol!

[Oct 29, 2019] Chile: The poster boy of neoliberalism who fell from grace

Notable quotes:
"... The brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile, became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became rich. ..."
"... José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around the world) is about 80% of that of the United States. ..."
"... the combined wealth of Chilean billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park" their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's GDP, exceeds even that of Russians. [Graph] ..."
"... Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising its GDP per capita. ..."
"... if there Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people. ..."
Oct 29, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne

, October 26, 2019 at 01:42 PM
https://glineq.blogspot.com/2019/10/chile-poster-boy-of-neoliberalism-who.html

October 26, 2019

Chile: The poster boy of neoliberalism who fell from grace

It is not common for an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development county to shoot and kill 16 people in two days of socially motivated riots. (Perhaps only Turkey, in its unending wars against the Kurdish guerrilla, comes close to that level of violence.) This is however what Chilean government, the poster child of neoliberalism and transition to democracy, did last week in the beginning of protests that do not show the signs of subsiding despite cosmetic reforms proposed by President Sebastian Piñera.

The fall from grace of Chile is symptomatic of worldwide trends that reveal the damages causes by neoliberal policies over the past thirty years, from privatizations in Eastern Europe and Russia to the global financial crisis to the Euro-related austerity. Chile was held, not the least thanks to favorable press that it enjoyed, as a exemplar of success. Harsh policies introduced after the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973, and the murderous spree that ensued afterwards, have been softened by the transition to democracy but their essential features were preserved. Chile indeed had a remarkably good record of growth, and while in the 1960-70s it was in the middle of the Latin American league by GDP per capita, it is now the richest Latin American country. It was of course helped too by high prices for its main export commodity, copper, but the success in growth is incontestable. Chile was "rewarded" by the membership in the OECD, a club of the rich nations, the first South American country to accede to it.

Where the country failed is in its social policies which somewhat bizarrely were considered by many to have been successful too. In the 1980s-90s, the World Bank hailed Chilean "flexible" labor policies which consisted of breaking up the unions and imposing a model of branch-level negotiations between employers and workers rather than allowing an overall umbrella union organization to negotiate for all workers. It was even more bizarrely used by the World Bank as a model of transparency and good governance, something that the transition countries in Eastern Europe should have presumably copied from Chile. The brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile, became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became rich.

José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around the world) is about 80% of that of the United States.

While Chile leads Latin America in GDP per capita, it also leads it terms of inequality. In 2015, its level of income inequality was higher than in any other Latin American country except for Colombia and Honduras. It exceeded even Brazil's proverbially high inequality. The bottom 5% of the Chilean population have an income level that is about the same as that of the bottom 5% in Mongolia. The top 2% enjoy the income level equivalent to that of the top 2% in Germany. Dortmund and poor suburbs of Ulan Bataar were thus brought together.

Chilean income distribution is extremely unequal. But even more so is its wealth distribution. There, Chile is an outlier even compared to the rest of Latin America. According to the Forbes' 2014 data on world billionaires, the combined wealth of Chilean billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park" their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's GDP, exceeds even that of Russians.
[Graph]

Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising its GDP per capita.

But the recent protests show that the latter is not enough. Growth is indispensable for economic success and reduction in poverty. But it is not enough: if there Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people.

-- Branko Milanovic

[Oct 29, 2019] Do the Public and 'the Blob' Want the Same Things

Oct 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Dan Drezner jumps to a shaky conclusion on public opinion and foreign policy:

What is striking about arguments like these is the near-complete absence of any discussion of public opinion polling to buttress their argument. If the Blob's policy preferences are truly disconnected from those of the American public, that would be a powerful populist talking point. This has been made in the past with a heavy reliance on polling data. Both Trumpists and progressives should be trumpeting public opinion surveys from the rooftops that highlight the disconnect with the Blob.

They are not doing that, however, and I think I know why. It turns out that what the American people want in foreign policy looks an awful lot like what the Blob wants.

I am neither a Trumpist nor a progressive, but I do advocate for foreign policy restraint, so it may be worth noting that I have called attention to public opinion surveys that show that most Americans want a more restrained foreign policy. These surveys do not show that most Americans want "what the Blob wants." Quite the contrary. The disconnect with "the Blob" is hard to miss.

The findings of the Eurasia Group Foundation's survey point to the very "chasm" between the public and foreign policy experts that Drezner says doesn't really exist:

A new, national survey commissioned by the Eurasia Group Foundation (EGF) reveals the American public supports a more restrained approach to international relations and military interventions. However, this desire for a more focused foreign policy is at odds with the more expansive role generally favored by foreign policy experts.

A separate study commissioned by the Center for American Progress found a similar preference for what they call "restrained engagement":

The findings in this survey suggest that American voters are not isolationist. Rather, voters are more accurately described as supporting "restrained engagement" in international affairs -- a strategy that favors diplomatic, political, and economic actions over military action when advancing U.S. interests in the world. American voters want their political leaders to make more public investments in the American people in order to compete in the world and to strike the right balance abroad after more than a decade of what they see as military overextension.

In contrast to much of the debate among political leaders and foreign policy experts today, voters in this survey express little interest in the processes and tactics of foreign policy or the workings of international alliances and institutions. They generally support cooperation and engagement with allies, but these are not top-tier objectives on their own.

One example of the "chasm" between foreign policy experts and the public from the EGF survey concerned the appropriate response to atrocities committed by foreign governments:

While there is some support among the surveyed experts for a restrained approach or a U.N.-led response, a large majority of them favors U.S.-led intervention (61%). The public leans heavily in the opposite direction with 43% in favor of restraint and 34% that prefer a U.N.-led response. When it comes to deciding when to initiate interventions and attack other states, there clearly is a yawning gap between the public and the foreign policy establishment. The latter is much more open to unilateral or U.S.-led military action in this instance.

The EGF survey found a similar gap when they asked about the prospect of retaliation in the event of an attack on a NATO ally:

While there is a slight majority in favor of retaliation, the public is much more evenly divided. The foreign policy experts are almost unanimously in favor. The gap is real and it is huge. Using Bremmer's categories, we see that expressed again in preferences for the U.S. role in the world:

Roughly half of the experts prefer America as the "indispensable nation" compared with less than 10% of the public. The "independent" America that is most closely identified with foreign policy restraint has the backing of 44% of the public and just 9% of the experts. One can argue that the experts are right and the public is wrong, or vice versa, but one cannot say that they all want the same thing.

Drezner cites public opinion on Syria as evidence in favor of the proposition that the public and "the Blob" are much more closely aligned than critics of "the Blob" allow, but this is not as compelling as he thinks it is. He finds that opinion at the start of this year was evenly split between pro- and anti-withdrawal blocs. The Pew poll he cites breaks down the responses by political affiliation, and there is a clear partisan split with far more Republicans in favor of withdrawal and most Democrats opposed. Most of the respondents are reacting to the proposed withdrawal in a partisan fashion: Democrats opposed it because Trump supposedly wanted it, and Republicans supported it for the same reason. There is now apparently more opposition to withdrawal, but that is presumably informed by the arbitrary and incompetent way in which the quasi-withdrawal has been executed. It may also be influenced by the fact that Trump's so-called withdrawal isn't really a withdrawal, but just a chaotic redeployment that may end up leaving more U.S. troops in Syria than before . That is not surprising. The public tends to turn against policies that are being carried out ineptly, no matter what their other policy preferences might be. The association with the increasingly unpopular Trump is probably also causing more people to reject whatever it is they think the president favors.

To understand the gap between foreign policy establishment and the public on Syria, we need to look at Americans' views over many years. Most Americans have been strongly against U.S. involvement in Syria over the years. The popular backlash against the proposed attack on the Syrian government in 2013 was strong enough that it blocked the intervention from happening. Many people in the foreign policy establishment have been calling for a more activist and interventionist Syria policy from the earliest days of the war in Syria, and there has been tremendous resistance from the public for almost all of this time. Obama caught ten kinds of hell from "the Blob" for his entire second term because he would not commit the U.S. to the larger role in the Syrian war that so many of them were demanding. Support for fighting ISIS from the air is the only thing that has consistently commanded broad support . When it comes on whether to send U.S. forces into a conflict, the public has consistently been much more reluctant to support this than the foreign policy establishment, and that is especially true when there don't appear to be any vital U.S. interests at stake.

Drezner concludes:

None of this is to say that the Blob or the American people are right about any particular foreign policy issue. I am all for serious debates about the future of American foreign policy. But advocates of restraint need to stop claiming that the Blob is acting in an undemocratic manner. Because it just ain't so.

Our objection to Syria policy isn't so much that "the Blob" is behaving in an undemocratic way as it is that the U.S. government has illegally involved itself in a war in Syria for the last five years without Congressional authorization or any legal justification whatsoever . U.S. forces were sent into Syria without the consent of the American people and our representatives, and they have been kept there all this time without that consent. If that doesn't demonstrate that our foreign policy today has become far too undemocratic, I don't know what would. If most Americans now disapprove of the Trump administration's haphazard, clownish management of Syria policy, that does not mean that they agree with "the Blob" about the larger policy questions. The divide between the public and "the Blob" is quite large on some of the most important questions, and if there is occasional agreement on a specific issue that shouldn't cause us to forget how wide that divide is.

Sid Finster 4 days ago

Since when did the public or voters start to have any discernable influence on policy?

As befits an oligarchic republic, they have none.

ThaomasH 4 days ago
Trump's problem is that his "restraint" is quit selective -- Not Iran, Not Saudi Arabia, Not Israel -- and where exercised, exaggerated. One need not withhold military aid from Ukraine in order to avoid a shooting war with Russia over Crimea, or abandon the Kurds to draw down the commitment in Syria.

[Oct 29, 2019] Russian Defense Minister Publishes Evidence Of US Oil Smuggling From Syria by Saker

Images removed...
Oct 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

10/29/2019

Via The Saker blog,

Translated by Leo, bold and italics added for emphasis.

Source: https://ria.ru/20191026/1560247607.html

MOSCOW, October 26, 2019 – RIA Novosti – The Russian Ministry of Defense has published satellite intelligence images , showing American oil smuggling from Syria.

Image 1: Situation in the Syrian Arab Republic as of October 26, 2019.

According to the ministry, the photos confirm that "Syrian oil, both before and after the routing defeat of the Islamic State terrorists in land beyond the Euphrates river , under the reliable protection by US military servicemen, oil was actively being extracted and then the fuel trucks were massively being sent for processing outside of Syria."

Image 2: Daman oil gathering station, Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 42 km east of Deir ez-Zor, August 23, 2019.

Here, in a picture of the Daman oil gathering station (42 kilometers east of the Deir-ez-Zor province), taken on August 23, a large amount of trucks were spotted. "There were 90 automotive vehicles, including 23 fuel trucks," the caption to the image said.

In addition, on September 5, there were 25 vehicles in the Al-Hasakah province, including 22 fuel trucks. Three days later, on September 8, in the vicinity of Der Ez-Zor, 36 more vehicles were recorded (32 of them were fuel trucks). On the same day, 41 vehicles, including 34 fuel trucks, were in the Mayadin onshore area.

Image 3: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Al-Hasakah province, 8 km west of Al-Shaddadi, September 5, 2019.

As the official representative of the Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov noted, the Americans are extracting oil in Syria with the help of equipment, bypassing their own sanctions.

Igor Konashenkov:

"Under the protection of American military servicemen and employees of American PMCs, fuel trucks from the oil fields of Eastern Syria are smuggling to other states. In the event of any attack on such a caravan, special operations forces and US military aircraft are immediately called in to protect it," he said.

According to Konashenkov, the US-controlled company Sadcab , established under the so-called Autonomous Administration of Eastern Syria , is engaged in the export of oil, and the income of smuggling goes to the personal accounts of US PMCs and special forces.

The Major General added that as of right now, a barrel of smuggled Syrian oil is valued at $38, therefore the monthly revenue of US governmental agencies exceeds $30 million.

Image 4: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 10 km east of Mayadin, September 8, 2019.

"For such a continuous financial flow, free from control and taxes of the American government, the leadership of the Pentagon and Langley will be ready to guard and defend oil fields in Syria from the mythical 'hidden IS cells' endlessly," he said.

According to Konashenkov, Washington, by holding oil fields in eastern Syria, is engaged in international state banditry.

Image 5: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 14 km east of Mayadin, September 8, 2019.

The reason for this activity, he believes, "lies far from the ideals of freedom proclaimed by Washington and their slogans on the fight against terrorism."

Igor Konashenkov:

"Neither in international law, nor in American legislation itself – there is not and cannot be a single legal task for the American troops to protect and defend the hydrocarbon deposits of Syria from Syria itself and its own people, " the representative of the Defense Ministry concluded.

A day earlier, the Pentagon's head, Mark Esper declared that the United States is studying the situation in the Deir ez-Zor region and intends to strengthen its positions there in the near future "to ensure the safety of oil fields."


Sirdirkfan , 5 minutes ago link

The Ruskies are mad - Trump is stopping them from taking the oil, it belongs to the Kurds for their revenue and if US wants to help them have it so what....US is staying to secure those oilfields against ISIS taking it again!

If everyone listened to the President when he talks there wouldn't be any spin that anyone could get away with.

Arising , 7 minutes ago link

Trump's The Art of the Steal - New chapter just added

Fish Gone Bad , 15 minutes ago link

War is used to take resources from people who can not protect it adequately.

punjabiraj , 15 minutes ago link

The oil is on Kurdish land. This part of Syria is just a small sector of Kurdish territory that has been stolen from them by dividing it between four "countries", each of which has oil. This is why the territory was stolen and why the Kurds have become the world's best fighters.

Putin brokered a deal to stop Turkey wiping the Kurds by having their fighting force assimilate with the Syrian military and required Russian observers access to ensure the Turks keep their word and not invade to wipe all the Kurd civilians in order to also take their Syrian oil.

So the corrupt US generals get caught in the act. Their senators and reps on the payroll are going to need some more of that fairy tale PR for POTUS to read to us at bedtime.

If we are to believe that this is to protect the oil fields then the oil revenue should be going to Syria, even though the Kurds are on the land. Follow the money to find the truth because there is no one you can trust on this stage.

Bernard_2011 , 15 minutes ago link

America is not stealing Syria's oil, they are "protecting it".

haruspicio , 22 minutes ago link

MSM are simply not covering this story. Or the other story about the supposed gas attack at Douma where evidence was adulterated and/or ignored completely under US pressure.

Expect the same from MH17.

WTF is going on with our leaders and corporate MSM....can no one in a leadership position distinguish between lies and the truth? Or fantasy and reality? Where are the 'journalists' who will stand up and tell the truth in MSM? They no longer exist.

Chain Man , 25 minutes ago link

18 wheel fuel trucks around here hold 10K gal. 50 truck loads 500K of un processed oil if it's true? I though they just got there. but no telling who might steal under those conditions.

Bernard_2011 , 25 minutes ago link

If the caliphate is 100% eliminated as Trump likes to say, then what does Trump need to "protect" the oil fields from?

It's like he's just parroting whatever BS the deep state is telling him to say.

NiggaPleeze , 24 minutes ago link

The Orange Satan is the Deep State. Or, a product of it.

Orange Satan is protecting the oil from Syrians. It rightly belongs to the Globalists, not the local peasants!

Roger Casement , 27 minutes ago link

That was August. this is now. The Russians must have really wanted that oil to finance their occupation. Trump is preventing ISIS from using the oil as their piggy bank.

You're welcome.

jjames , 26 minutes ago link

no, trump is trying to starve the syrian people.

OliverAnd , 25 minutes ago link

The irony of course is that from the same oil fields the Turks were doing the exact same in cooperation with ISIS and now the US is doing it alone.

NiggaPleeze , 23 minutes ago link

Russians really want Syria to have their own soil. But the Globalist Orange Satan is stealing it to finance his Globalist Evil Empire.

After all, nothing spells Globalism like a Global Empire.

OliverAnd , 29 minutes ago link

Wasn't Erdogan doing the same not too long ago? Shortly after Erdogan became close friends with Putin. Does this mean Trump and Putin will become close friends as well? Or is this simply a common practice between two people who undeservingly place relatives in government positions? First Turkey hands over Al Baghdadi (he received medical treatment in Southern Turkey in a private clinic owned by Erdogan's daughter guarded by MIT agents) so that they can continue to commit genocide against Kurds in Turkey and Syria... and now the US is stealing Syrian oil like how the Turks initially were doing. What a mess and a disappointment. Hopefully Erdogan visits DC and unleashes his security guards beating any person freely walking the streets while Trump smiles and describes him as a great leader.

Joe A , 29 minutes ago link

War is a racket.

Manipuflation , 31 minutes ago link

So be it Ed Harley. What you're asking for has a powerful price .

IronForge , 31 minutes ago link

Since when did PLUNDERING OTHER NATION-STATES become included in the Serviceman's Oath or the Officer's Oath of Office?

expatch , 32 minutes ago link

Watch in coming weeks as the tanker convoys are proven to be rogue operations from an out of control CIA / Cabal network. Trump removed the troops, and now Russia is shining a light on it.

KuriousKat , 27 minutes ago link

No coincidence another article on ZH brung attention to the Ukrainian wareehouse arsos..12 in 2 yrs..2017-2018 where stored munition were carted away...not to fight rebels n Donbass but sold to Islamic groups in Syria..it was one of Bidens pals..one keeps the wars going while the others steal siphon of resources..whatever isn't nailed down..I've never seen anything like this..Democrats are truly CRIME INC

KuriousKat , 34 minutes ago link

w/o that oil..Syria can never reconstruct itself..Usually in a War or ,after that is, the victors help rebuild..what we see is pillaging and salting the earth and walk away.. as the Romans did to enemies like Carthage..it will resemble Libya ...a shambles

sbin , 39 minutes ago link

Simple destroy every tanker truck not authorized by Syrian government.

Remember the giant line of ISIS trucks going to Turkey US couldn't find but Russia had no problem destroying.

Some "jahhadi" should use those TOW missles and MAN pads to deal with foreign invaders.

Demologos , 45 minutes ago link

So the smuggling is protected by air cover and special forces? Light up the fields using some scud missiles. I'm sure Iran or Iraq have a few they could lend Syria. Can't sell it if its burning.

Guderian , 51 minutes ago link

Brits and Americans have pillaged, as any other empire, wherever they conquered.

After WW1 the 'Allies' robbed Germany of all foreign currency and its entire gold. This triggering hyperinflation and mega crisis.

During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated' across Europe.

In more recent history, the gold of Iraq, Ukraine and Libya was flown to Fort Knox.

All well documented.

This is common practice by empires. Just please stop pretending you were the good guys , spreading freedom and democracy, because that's really a mockery and the disgusting part of your invasions.

Dzerzhhinsky , 33 minutes ago link

During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated'.

Exactly, that's where the US got its 8,000 tons of gold. Before WWII, the US had 2000 tons of gold, after WWII it had 8,000 tons. Even today the US always steals the gold of the countries it "liberates"

Minamoto , 1 hour ago link

The USA reduced to common thievery...! How pathetic can a country become?

San Pedro , 26 minutes ago link

...and don't forget the billions and billion and billons the oooobama gave Iran in the fake "Iran Nuke Deal"!!

punjabiraj , 56 minutes ago link

This is a breach of our official secrets laws. This is none of the American peoples business like everything else we do in the deep state.

Any more articles like this and you will all be sharing a cell in solitary like we do with the whistle blowers and their anti-satanic consciences.

All devil worshipers say Aye.

gvtlinux , 1 hour ago link

Help me understand why the USA would want to smuggle oil from Syria. When the USA has more oil than all of the middleast.

Now I can see why Russia would blame the USA if smuggling Oil from Syria. Russia needs that oil really bad. So to get the USA away from the Syrian oil fields they would of course create a reason for the rest of the world that the USA is Dishonerable and must not be trusted with Syrian oil. It is just too obvious to me, what Russia is trying to accomplish.

Demologos , 58 minutes ago link

Huh? The US is stealing the oil to deprive the Syrian people energy they need to rebuild the country we destroyed. This is collective punishment of Syrians because they won't overthrow Assad.

Collective punishment is a crime against humanity according to international law. There's your impeachable offense. But don't worry, that kind of crime is ok with Shifty Schiff and the rest of the Israel ***-kissers in Congress.

God above wins , 48 minutes ago link

Most people in the US still erroneously think our gov has good intentions. At least Trump showed us the real intention of staying in Syria.

Omen IV , 40 minutes ago link

The US is NOT stealing the oil - the American Military have become PIRATES - no different than Somali Red Sea Pirates or looters in Newark stealing diapers and TV's

they probably do it in Black Face !

what a miserable excuse for a country

nuerocaster , 18 minutes ago link

No taxes, regulations, royalties. The muscle is already on payroll.

KekistanisUnite , 1 hour ago link

This is nothing new. We've been stealing oil from dozens of countries for the past 75 years since WWII. The only difference is that Trump is being blatant about it which in a way is weirdly refreshing.

spoonful , 1 hour ago link

Like Janis Joplin once sang - Get it While You Can https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju9yFA1S7K8

[Oct 28, 2019] Expert Panel Finds Gaping Plot-Holes In OPCW Report On Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
This implicates State Department in the attempt to run a false flag operation. If we add that the State Department is the key organization behind for color revolution against Trump that picture becomes even more disturbing. This is really a neocon vipers nest.
Notable quotes:
"... This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun. ..."
"... "I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today. ..."
"... And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story. ..."
"... Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests. ..."
"... On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place. ..."
"... The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population." ..."
"... In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government. ..."
"... The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work. ..."
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ." ..."
"... "The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. " ..."
"... "The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported." ..."
"... "One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ." ..."
"... "Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation." ..."
Oct 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

The Courage Foundation , an international protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has published the findings of a panel it convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the OPCW's Douma investigation team, the panel's members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General) report that they are "unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018."

I'll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who aren't intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.

In late March of last year, President Trump publicly stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like independent US congressional candidate Steve Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun.

"I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today.

"Khan Shaykhun also occurred within days of the Trump Admin saying we're leaving Syria."

And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story.

There was immediate skepticism, partly because acclaimed journalists like Sy Hersh have been highlighting plot holes in the official story about chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, partly because Assad would stand nothing to gain and everything to lose by using a banned yet highly ineffective weapon in a battle he'd already essentially won in that region, and partly because the people controlling things on the ground in Douma were the Al Qaeda-linked extremist group Jaysh-al Islam and the incredibly shady narrative management operation known as the White Helmets. Those groups, unlike the Assad government, most certainly would stand everything to gain by staging a chemical attack in the desperate hope that it would draw NATO powers into attacking the Syrian government and perhaps saving their necks.

Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests.

On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place.

The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population."

In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government.

The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work.

Throughout this time, critical thinkers like myself have been aggressively smeared as deranged conspiracy theorists, war crimes deniers and genocide deniers for expressing skepticism of the establishment-authorized narrative on Douma. Which takes us to today.

The Courage Foundation panel who met with the OPCW whistleblower consists of former OPCW Director General José Bustani (whose highly successful peacemongering once saw the lives of his children threatened by John Bolton during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in an attempt to remove him from his position), WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson , Professor of International Law Richard Falk , former British Army Major General John Holmes , Dr Helmut Lohrer of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, German professor Dr Guenter Meyer of the Centre for Research on the Arab World, and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East Elizabeth Murray of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

So these are not scrubs. These are not "conspiracy theorists" or "Russian propagandists". These are highly qualified and reputable professionals expressing deep concerns in the opaque and manipulative way the OPCW appears to have conducted its investigation into the Douma incident. Some highlights from their joint statement and analytical points are quoted below, with my own emphasis added in bold:

"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."

"The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. "
~ Bustani

"A critical analysis of the final report of the Douma investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation (chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies,) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts. "

From the section on Chemical Analysis:

"The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported."

"Although the report stresses the 'levels' of the chlorinated organic chemicals as a basis for its conclusions (para 2.6), it never mentions what those levels were -- high, low, trace, sub-trace? Without providing data on the levels of these so-called 'smoking-gun' chemicals either for background or test samples, it is impossible to know if they were not simply due to background presence . In this regard, the panel is disturbed to learn that quantitative results for the levels of 'smoking gun' chemicals in specific samples were available to the investigators but this decisive information was withheld from the report ."

"The final report also acknowledges that the tell-tale chemicals supposedly indicating chlorine use, can also be generated by contact of samples with sodium hypochlorite, the principal ingredient of household bleaching agent (para 8.15). This game-changing hypothesis is, however, dismissed (and as it transpires, incorrectly) by stating no bleaching was observed at the site of investigation. (' At both locations, there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent' ). The panel has been informed that no such observation was recorded during the on-site inspection and in any case dismissing the hypothesis simply by claiming the non -observation of discoloration in an already dusty and scorched environment seems tenuous and unscientific ."

From the section on Toxicology:

"The toxicological studies also reveal inconsistencies, incoherence and possible scientific irregularities. Consultations with toxicologists are reported to have taken place in September and October 2018 (para 8.87 and Annex 3), but no mention is made of what those same experts opined or concluded. Whilst the final toxicological assessment of the authors states ' it is not possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical ' (para 9.6) the report nonetheless concludes there were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was the chemical (used as a weapon)."

"More worrying is the fact that the panel viewed documented evidence that showed other toxicologists had been consulted in June 2018 prior to the release of the interim report. Expert opinions on that occasion were that the signs and symptoms observed in videos and from witness accounts were not consistent with exposure to molecular chlorine or any reactive-chlorine-containing chemical. Why no mention of this critical assessment, which contradicts that implied in the final report, was made is unclear and of concern. "

From the section on Ballistic Studies:

"One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ."

From the section titled "Exclusion of inspectors and attempts to obfuscate":

"Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation."

I'll leave it there for now.

* * *

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[Oct 28, 2019] Could we please kill the Blob's "gift to Putin" meme?

Oct 28, 2019 | nonzero.org

Oct 26 2019 American foreign policy elites are in near-unanimous agreement that President Trump's withdrawal of troops from northern Syria, along with the ensuing influx of Russian and Syrian troops, is a "gift to Putin." Some variant of that phrase has over the past two weeks appeared in headlines from the venerable New York Times, the venerable Foreign Affairs, and the quasi-venerable CNN, among other mainstream outlets.
Russian elites have joined their American counterparts in viewing recent developments in Syria as a zero-sum game that Russia won and the United States lost. One Russian newspaper touted Russia's "triumph in the Middle East," and an analyst on Russian TV said this triumph is "sad for America."
There are certainly things to be sad about. It's sad that Trump's withdrawal -- impulsively ordered, with no diplomatic preparation -- has caused so much more havoc and suffering, especially for the Kurds, than was necessary. And to me, at least, it's sad that Trump, in his record-setting incompetence, is giving military withdrawals a bad name.
But I don't buy the premise of the "gift to Putin" meme -- that a decline of American influence in Syria, and a commensurate growth in Russian influence, is inherently a sad thing for America. This shift may well be good for Putin, but it could also be, in the long run, good for the United States and good for the Middle East broadly.

Some people may find the previous sentence, with it's win-win overtones, deeply disorienting if not flat-out unintelligible. The Cold War idea that the U.S. and Russia are playing a zero-sum game has gotten a second wind in recent years, in part because of genuine contentions between the two but also because of #Resistance psychology. Acting on the intuition that the friend of my enemy is my enemy, lots of anti-Trumpers look at the often-cozy relationship between Trump and Vladimir Putin (including their symbiosis during the 2016 presidential campaign) and conclude that Russia must be thwarted at every stop.
But what most needs thwarting is this archaic way of looking at foreign policy -- as a Manichaean struggle for influence between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and the forces of darkness on the other. The U.S. shares important interests with Russia -- and, for that matter, with Russian allies Syria and Iran -- and the sooner it recognizes that, the better.
I noted one example of this in last week's newsletter: Russia and Syria and Iran are enemies of ISIS, one of the final obstacles to firm regime control of Syria. So any reprieve to ISIS granted by America's abrupt withdrawal may be temporary.
But a larger and more critical point is that the challenge facing Russia and its client regime in Syria -- not just consolidating control of Syria but rebuilding a devastated country -- leaves Russia with no interest in the further destabilization of the Middle East. Which is good, because it's hard to imagine the Middle East getting much more unstable -- especially along the fault line between Iran and Syria on the one hand and Israel and Saudi Arabia on the other -- without another disastrous war breaking out.
Russia has already shown signs of being able to play a constructive role here -- a fact that, oddly, has been emphasized even by some who buy the "gift to Putin" thesis. Hal Brands of the American Enterprise Institute -- in a Bloomberg Opinion essay titled, "Putin Conquered the Middle East. The U.S. Can Get It Back" -- notes that "Putin has shown diplomatic flexibility, keeping the lines open to nearly all players throughout the region."
Brands laments "the collapse of America's position in the region and Moscow's ascendance as the key power broker in the Syrian civil war." He goes on: "Moscow, in partnership with Iran and its proxies, has made itself the centerpiece of the diplomacy and regional power struggles surrounding that conflict. To what other capital would both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force, trek to discuss Middle Eastern security?"
Not Washington, certainly -- and that's the point! It isn't just that Russia shares America's interest in a stable Middle East. It's that Russia, unlike America, is in a position to do something about it. Yet Brands is so busy recoiling at Russia's regional rise that he doesn't welcome, or perhaps even quite recognize, its potential benefits -- even as he comes tantalizingly close to spelling them out.
Brands's disposition is shared by many in the American foreign policy establishment. They combine an awareness that America hasn't translated its regional power into productive diplomacy with a deep aversion to any waning of that power. This isn't as ironic as it may sound. Many, perhaps most, of them see America's diplomatic impotence as a product of the Trump era. They want to preserve American influence so that, once Trump is gone, it can again be used wisely.
Hope is a wonderful thing, but in this case you have to wonder what its historical basis is. When exactly in recent American history could you have gotten an Iranian leader, and not just an Israeli leader, to trek to Washington? Would that be, say, right after George W. Bush declared Iran part of the "axis of evil"? Even Barack Obama, more intent on improving relations with Iran than any recent president, never got all the way to rapprochement.
To read the rest of this piece, go to Politico Magazine . [ Back story: A Politico editor who read the piece in last week's NZN that noted the shared Russian-US interest in subduing ISIS asked me if I wanted to do a piece on other non-zero-sum aspects of Russia's growing influence in the Middle East -- in other words, a piece that would rebut the "gift to Putin" argument more broadly. This piece, published in Politico Magazine a few hours before this week's newsletter came out, is the result.]

[Oct 28, 2019] My Speech on the Deep State Plot by Larry C Johnson

Regardless of what do you think about Donald Trump, what intelligence community did was a plain vanilla coup d'état approved by Obama and coordinated by run by Brennan faction in CIA. With active participation of factions of FBI (Counterintelligence department), Department of Justice (several highly placed officials) and State Department (which is a real neocon vipers nest so the majority of high level officials, especially connected with the Ukrainian color revolution participated) eagerly participated in the coup.
They left too many fingerprints in this and now Barr hopefully will brings some individuals to justice for this coup.
Notable quotes:
"... I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community. ..."
Oct 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/GgRJ6UuPWM0

Posted at 12:00 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink

Turcopolier , 28 October 2019 at 01:00 PM

All

I was invited to this meeting and regret now that I did not attend.

[Oct 28, 2019] Important facts developed in video as for KSA role in financing ISIS

Oct 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

snake , Oct 26 2019 17:08 utc | 109

State of Saudi Arabia, not a few citizens, funded ISIS, paid USA to engage Syria in war

Important facts developed in video suggest barflies analyze it..

[Oct 28, 2019] Expert Panel Finds Gaping Plot-Holes In OPCW Report On Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
This implicates State Department in the attempt to run a false flag operation. If we add that the State Department is the key organization behind for color revolution against Trump that picture becomes even more disturbing. This is really a neocon vipers nest.
Notable quotes:
"... This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun. ..."
"... "I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today. ..."
"... And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story. ..."
"... Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests. ..."
"... On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place. ..."
"... The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population." ..."
"... In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government. ..."
"... The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work. ..."
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ." ..."
"... "The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. " ..."
"... "The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported." ..."
"... "One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ." ..."
"... "Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation." ..."
Oct 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

The Courage Foundation , an international protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has published the findings of a panel it convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the OPCW's Douma investigation team, the panel's members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General) report that they are "unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018."

I'll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who aren't intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.

In late March of last year, President Trump publicly stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like independent US congressional candidate Steve Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun.

"I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today.

"Khan Shaykhun also occurred within days of the Trump Admin saying we're leaving Syria."

And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story.

There was immediate skepticism, partly because acclaimed journalists like Sy Hersh have been highlighting plot holes in the official story about chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, partly because Assad would stand nothing to gain and everything to lose by using a banned yet highly ineffective weapon in a battle he'd already essentially won in that region, and partly because the people controlling things on the ground in Douma were the Al Qaeda-linked extremist group Jaysh-al Islam and the incredibly shady narrative management operation known as the White Helmets. Those groups, unlike the Assad government, most certainly would stand everything to gain by staging a chemical attack in the desperate hope that it would draw NATO powers into attacking the Syrian government and perhaps saving their necks.

Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests.

On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place.

The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population."

In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government.

The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work.

Throughout this time, critical thinkers like myself have been aggressively smeared as deranged conspiracy theorists, war crimes deniers and genocide deniers for expressing skepticism of the establishment-authorized narrative on Douma. Which takes us to today.

The Courage Foundation panel who met with the OPCW whistleblower consists of former OPCW Director General José Bustani (whose highly successful peacemongering once saw the lives of his children threatened by John Bolton during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in an attempt to remove him from his position), WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson , Professor of International Law Richard Falk , former British Army Major General John Holmes , Dr Helmut Lohrer of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, German professor Dr Guenter Meyer of the Centre for Research on the Arab World, and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East Elizabeth Murray of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

So these are not scrubs. These are not "conspiracy theorists" or "Russian propagandists". These are highly qualified and reputable professionals expressing deep concerns in the opaque and manipulative way the OPCW appears to have conducted its investigation into the Douma incident. Some highlights from their joint statement and analytical points are quoted below, with my own emphasis added in bold:

"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."

"The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. "
~ Bustani

"A critical analysis of the final report of the Douma investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation (chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies,) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts. "

From the section on Chemical Analysis:

"The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported."

"Although the report stresses the 'levels' of the chlorinated organic chemicals as a basis for its conclusions (para 2.6), it never mentions what those levels were -- high, low, trace, sub-trace? Without providing data on the levels of these so-called 'smoking-gun' chemicals either for background or test samples, it is impossible to know if they were not simply due to background presence . In this regard, the panel is disturbed to learn that quantitative results for the levels of 'smoking gun' chemicals in specific samples were available to the investigators but this decisive information was withheld from the report ."

"The final report also acknowledges that the tell-tale chemicals supposedly indicating chlorine use, can also be generated by contact of samples with sodium hypochlorite, the principal ingredient of household bleaching agent (para 8.15). This game-changing hypothesis is, however, dismissed (and as it transpires, incorrectly) by stating no bleaching was observed at the site of investigation. (' At both locations, there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent' ). The panel has been informed that no such observation was recorded during the on-site inspection and in any case dismissing the hypothesis simply by claiming the non -observation of discoloration in an already dusty and scorched environment seems tenuous and unscientific ."

From the section on Toxicology:

"The toxicological studies also reveal inconsistencies, incoherence and possible scientific irregularities. Consultations with toxicologists are reported to have taken place in September and October 2018 (para 8.87 and Annex 3), but no mention is made of what those same experts opined or concluded. Whilst the final toxicological assessment of the authors states ' it is not possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical ' (para 9.6) the report nonetheless concludes there were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was the chemical (used as a weapon)."

"More worrying is the fact that the panel viewed documented evidence that showed other toxicologists had been consulted in June 2018 prior to the release of the interim report. Expert opinions on that occasion were that the signs and symptoms observed in videos and from witness accounts were not consistent with exposure to molecular chlorine or any reactive-chlorine-containing chemical. Why no mention of this critical assessment, which contradicts that implied in the final report, was made is unclear and of concern. "

From the section on Ballistic Studies:

"One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ."

From the section titled "Exclusion of inspectors and attempts to obfuscate":

"Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation."

I'll leave it there for now.

* * *

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[Oct 28, 2019] on Baghdadi

Oct 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Oct 27 2019 18:48 utc | 58

on Baghdadi:

The US regularly rotates general officers in and out of war-zones annually, but when a foreign leader is occasionally (and supposedly) lost it's a big publicity deal. Do they think we're stupid?

So I can't help but conclude that making such a big publicity deal of this is only intended to motivate the enemy to fight harder, which it does, and so prolong the almost never-ending war against ISIS, to which ground troops are rarely employed, if ever.

Plus having citizens focus on foreign enemies to gain domestic advantage is an old strategy dating back to Randolph Bourne's "The State" here (1918) .


les7 , Oct 27 2019 19:20 utc | 68

I have little doubt Baghdadi lives, but this incarnation is finished. He might be recycled after plastic surgery and sho up in a place like southern Yemen or Kazakhstan...

Takeouts of guys like him and Osama are news icons saying the big boys are finishing up their public games/involvement in an area.

The good news is that this signals the end of US and EU overt support for the Syrian jihadists. The bad news - and perhaps more dangerous- is that Western influence goes back to being covert


Several years ago Syrper had a detailed article on Baghdadi- a lot of it quoting info from Syrian intelligence ( who are good at their job). IIRC it detailed a stint in an Israeli treatment center, American handlers, the works. With all that Baghdadi has since done for them, he is simply too useful to be disposed of.

The giveaway was the relocation of the ISIS leaders harem to Iraq two weeks ago at the start of the US withdrawal. ISIS called for their secure relocation and US forces jumped to it (and moved them to Iraq) They did not relocate SDF families to safety...

Mina , Oct 27 2019 20:21 utc | 83
If even the BBC reports on that, the French and US really need some big smoke screen to cover their traces
https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/major-revelation-from-opcw-whistleblower-jonathan-steele-speaking-to-the-bbc/
Laguerre , Oct 27 2019 20:44 utc | 86
Occupying Tanf has nothing to do with the oil-fields, they are far away. The objective is disrupting Syria. Providing a base for the US-supported militias, who didn't succeed when trained outside the country, and are not likely to do better when trained in Tanf. The Tanf lot haven't achieved much, other than defending themselves. At least they're not in Jordan or Iraq, where there might be questions. A base in the middle of the desert works as long as you're willing to pay for it. Probably they even have to have water trucked in from over the border.
m , Oct 27 2019 21:03 utc | 91
Timeline on the Baghdadi raid: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-baghdadi-raid-timeline/timeline-anatomy-of-a-raid-how-the-united-states-took-out-baghdadi-idUSKBN1X60P8
"Just like watching a movie", Trump stated. Right. A movie. Pure Hollywood.
flankerbandit , Oct 27 2019 21:04 utc | 93
Peter...I don't think the Russian statement was that ambiguous...

Strikes with munitions purportedly preceded the landings...so 'no airstrikes' would contradict that...

As for hiding from radar, that's possible but looking at a topo map of the area it seems difficult...

The route in from Turkey to the north and west is mostly flat, although it does start to rise south of Barisha...

Those big Russian SAM radars would be on high ground in the An Nusayrah range that runs along the coast of Latakia...if you wanted to come in nap of the earth, you would need to plan specifically for that...

And then there is sigint plus humint on the ground in Idlib, which the Russians do have...

So it's a he said, she said...

Right now I'm filing this one under 'questionable'...

Bruce , Oct 28 2019 0:41 utc | 119
This report came in the night before the purported commando raid:
MYSTERIOUS HELICOPTERS ATTACK TERRORISTS' POSITIONS ALONG TURKISH-SYRIAN BORDER (VIDEOS)
https://southfront.org/mysterious-helicopters-attack-terrorists-positions-along-turkish-syrian-border-videos/ The video indicates helicopters firing but does not appear to indicate anyone firing from the ground toward the helicopters.
FRESH PHOTOS FROM SITE OF U.S. RAID TO ELIMINATE AL-BAGHDADI
https://southfront.org/fresh-photos-from-site-of-u-s-raid-to-eliminate-al-baghdadi/
Photos indicate grenade sized shells designed for helicopter guns had been fired at the compound. Nothing in Trump's statement or the "time line" in Reuters indicates aerial bombardment. Nothing commandos fired from ground positions would reduce a compound to rubble. If any of this is real, they reduced the compound to rubble before landing. The Russians have contradicted Trump's statements, and they have evidenced considerable skepticism of this report.
The area in which this allegedly happened is dense with Al Quaeda / Al Nusra militants and controlled by them. It is unlikely the ISIS leader would reside there.
Bagdhadi is said to have run down a tunnel with three sons, pursued by dogs, and blown himself up with a suicide belt. The explosion allegedly caused the tunnel to collapse.
Somehow the suicide belt which killed four failed to inflict any damage upon the commandos. Yet it was sufficiently powerful to collapse the tunnel. Presumably that is why the video of the area after the fact does not suggest a tunnel. The collapse of this tunnel did not entrap any of the commandos. And they were subsequently able to retrieve Bagdhadi's body from the collapsed tunnel, within one hour and forty five minutes, allowing fifteen minutes to confirm his DNA. And round up a bunch of children and a bunch of militants, without incurring a single casualty. As well as retrieve considerable highly sensitive intelligence materials.
If you've read this far, I thank you for assisting me with my therapy in writing this up - in hopes of recovering from the violent assault this story made upon my intelligence.
A User , Oct 28 2019 2:41 utc | 134
Bruce @119

You forgot to mention that Trump watched the assault "like a movie" but only a small snippet of video has been released.

No explanation of where they got the DNA. In a TV news interview I saw earlier today, the Administration/Military spokesperson wouldn't even say where the body is now.

And lastly, ISIS is defeated and Baghdadi is dead . . . but USA must still hold the oil fields? Was Trump's language designed to incite ISIS because USA needs an "ISIS resurgence" to justify holding the oil fields?

Jackrabbit !! I don't understand all the fuss. Al-Baghdadi has been a American puppet since at least '05. Cast yer minds back to the AQ in Iraq days when his mob would do something over the top to excuse/instigate some evil imperial atrocity. His job has always been to give amerika an excuse to stay. Which was isis/daesh raison d'etre The colour revolution is being touted as the best way to go so the imperialists are tidying up loose ends.
Trump stated emphatically that all Iraqi oil must go to amerikan corporations the day he announced they were gonna steal Syria's oil. Then Iran's.

They musta decided Al-Baghdadi was a liability, one that couldn't be trusted so they killed him where-ever he was being kept 'n that's where the DNA is from. Expect to see parts of the vid as soon as it gets back from post processing & editing.
The dems will stay schtum cos acknowledging that level of deceit has no upside, they are already sailing close to the wind with the Biden stuff, where their excuse is Trump broke the secret of imperial corruption first by going straight to Uke prez instead of a quiet character assassination which woulda left the chumps in the dark.

[Oct 28, 2019] One "keeping" Syrian oil: the point of "keeping the oil" is not to profit from it, but to deny it to the Syrians. That's what Bibi wants.

Oct 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Horace , Oct 27 2019 17:37 utc | 39

Read the transcript of Trump's announcement this morning. He explicitly says he is keeping the oil, and might invite in Exxon to use it. Logistics are sketchy, because who will buy it? The pipelines will go through Syrian controlled territory. But he also says that a deal might be possible. It's ridiculous.

William Gruff , Oct 27 2019 18:18 utc | 46

Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.

Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks. Trump is a businessman. Not a very good one, perhaps, but certainly not so stupid that he cannot see that as an incredibly bad deal. This "keeping the oil" nonsense is empty posturing intended to appeal to shallow thinkers who don't know the difference between Syria and Venezuela and who don't really care what American foreign policy is so long as it is done with an arrogant swagger. Now that may be the majority of the US population, but these kinds are not even going to remember the tweet this time next week, much less even care.

"Keeping the oil" is not only tactically, strategically, and logistically untenable, it is such a baldfaced violation of so many US and international laws, treaties, and agreements that even America's fig leaf of last resort, Canada, would have to condemn it. This is just childish posturing to throw the appearance of bravado on America's exit from the theatre. People functioning at the level of many posters here need to stop taking it so seriously.

Laguerre , Oct 27 2019 18:37 utc | 54
Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.
Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 27 2019 18:18 utc | 45

The point of "keeping the oil" is not to profit from it, but to deny it to the Syrians. That's what Bibi wants.

Don Bacon , Oct 27 2019 18:51 utc | 60
@ 53
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.
Peter AU 1 , Oct 27 2019 19:19 utc | 67
On the Syrian oil, US apparently was raking in 30 million a month in an operation that was small enough to be kept from the public. If they take over the oilfields publicly and boost oil infrastructure, the monthly take will rise considerably.

The oil fields on the east bank of the Euphrates produced the bulk of Syrian oil. If production there was only 50% of Syrian production, the figures in dollar terms would still be high.

200,0000 BPD would be just over half Syria pre war oil production, so 200,000 X say $40 per barrel brings the take up to $8 million per day. Not bad when its money for nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Syria

"before the Syrian Civil War, oil sales for 2010 were projected to generate $3.2 billion for the Syrian government"

" In 2010, Syria produced around 385,000 barrels (61,200 m3) per day of crude oil"

Peter AU 1 , Oct 27 2019 19:47 utc | 74
William Gruff
Trump has made no effort or even noises to pull out of Tanf. I think he wants to continue holding the Syrian border where he can. Denying the oil to Syria is a plus for him and that also has the bonus of partly paying the cost of stationing the US along that border.
Zionism, oil, getting returns on military expenditure seems to be Trump's foreign policy or as foreign policy is termed in the US 'War Policy"
Laguerre , Oct 27 2019 20:06 utc | 78
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 27 2019 18:51 utc | 60

Sure, that's also true. The NeoCon warmongers only got convincing very late in the game, when US Special Forces were already withdrawing from most of Rojava, and could not be stopped, except for this massively mounted late defence of the oil-fields. As the NeoCons were resisting from the beginning, what was it that changed Trump's mind? Bibi sounds like the answer, but I'm open to others.

William Gruff , Oct 28 2019 0:46 utc | 120
"So why did Trump state so emphatically that Russia and China love U.S. presence there???"

Reverse psychology. If Trump can get that narrative to fly then the mindless Russophobic and Sinophobic brainwash victims in the US will start screaming for the US to get out. After all, jello-brained Americans believe they must do the opposite of whatever China and Russia think is good. The USA certainly cannot do anything that China or Russia might approve of, right? So if they want us to stay then we have to leave.

Let's see if it works.

nemo , Oct 28 2019 2:27 utc | 133
Russia loves the US stealing Syria's oil. Listen, Russia delivered a beat down to murican regime change policy the likes of which the world has never seen before. It is epic humiliation beyond all endurance! The Syrian state is saved and the prospects of a Libya just a few hours from Russia's border are now gone! The US is scared shittless to attack Iran head on, so the status quo is returning to this region faster than murica's tiny brain can process. So what to do? Grab the oil! Be a thug and criminal! No more pretense, just sin proudly like the evil turd you are! Lol! And Russia can point at that turd and condemn it on the world stage for the whole world to see. No excuses...no sympathy. Of course that bravado wont last long. When push comes to shove, murica will fold like the dodgy piece of toilet paper it is and go home. Be patient and enjoy the Evil Empire's death agony a while longer...make popcorn...
Don Bacon , Oct 28 2019 2:54 utc | 136
Here's some historical documents

The Redirection, Mar 5, 2007
Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
By Seymour M. Hersh
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. . . here

InsurgeIntel, May 22, 2015
Pentagon report predicted West's support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS
Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to 'isolate' Assad, rollback 'Shia expansion'
by Nafeez Ahmed
The newly declassified DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency -- headed by General Flynn!] document from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad rebel forces by this time comprised Islamist insurgents affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of ISIS. Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving support from Western militaries and their regional allies. . . here

The DIA doc is here

A good overview is here

Don Bacon , Oct 28 2019 3:29 utc | 137
Some more history on how Russia's changed the US attitude toward Syria oil shipments to foreign customers. Specifically, whereas until 2015 US air force pilots were not given permission to fire on ISIS oil shipments, that policy changed when Russia entered the war.

In September 2015, the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament authorised the Russian president to use armed forces in Syria.[9][10] Russia acknowledged that Russian air and missile strikes targeted not only ISIL, but also rebel groups in the Army of Conquest coalition like al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, and even FSA.
On 30 September 2015, Russia launched its first airstrikes against targets in Rastan, Talbiseh, and Zafaraniya in Homs province of Syria. Moscow gave the United States a one-hour advance notice of its operations. The Homs area is crucial to President Bashar al-Assad's control of western Syria. -- wiki here

CBSNEWS, Nov 23, 2015
U.S. airstrikes against ISIS target oil tanker trucks
Two airstrikes, the most recent over the weekend, have destroyed almost 500 tanker trucks ISIS uses to smuggle oil and sell it on the black market.
By one estimate, these attacks have destroyed roughly half the trucks ISIS uses to bring in $1 million a day in revenues.
Until now, the U.S. has not gone after the tankers for fear of killing the civilian drivers. . . here

That's the first time (and probably the last time) ever that the US military had any consideration for civilian casualties. But they were ISIS employees so. . .cut 'em some slack. Still, only half the trucks were destroyed at that time (more were destroyed much later).

[Oct 28, 2019] The recent events in Syria, in which 'a quarter of the country was freed in a week' is not only a victory for Assad, but the defeat of the 'military strategy to establish the supremacy of financial capitalism'.

Oct 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

dh-mtl , Oct 27 2019 15:04 utc | 8

Last week, Thierry Meyssan posted an excellent paper ( https://www.voltairenet.org/article208007.html), in which he states that the recent events in Syria, in which 'a quarter of the country was freed in a week' is not only a victory for Assad, but the defeat of the 'military strategy to establish the supremacy of financial capitalism'. These events mark the overturning of the world order that has been in place since the end of WWII.

What I find remarkable is how quickly the old order has been overturned. The old order was initially a bi-polar world, which evolved, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, into a Uni-Polar World Order under the control of 'financial capitalism' (i.e. the 'Globalists', also referred to as 'international financial elites', 'Anglo-Zionists', the 'Davos Crowd', etc.). Arguably the Uni-Pole's power peaked in the early 2000s after the creation of the EU and the eastern expansion of NATO. The first cracks in the Uni-Pole's hegemonic power appeared in 2003 with the fiasco in Iraq, and in 2008 with the Global Financial Crisis. But even as late as 2015, when Obama dismissed Russia's entry into Syria as nothing but Russia stepping into a quagmire, the 'Globalists' could foresee no opposing force that would prevent them from consolidating their Uni-Polar World Order into an enduring world-wide system of 'Global Governance' through a 'Rules-based International Order' under the 'Globalists' control and enforced by the U.S. and NATO. But now, as Meyssan suggests, only four years later, the Uni-Polar World Order has been toppled.

In its place a 'Multi-Polar World' order is emerging. I would like to suggest that the outlines of this emerging order are as follows:
1. The dominant pole of this Multi-polar World is that led by the alliance of Russia and China. Spanning Eurasia from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, this pole includes the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Union, and includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, and possibly, in the future, Turkey.

2. The second pole will be the remnants of the 'Globalist' empire, stripped, however, of Europe (ex. U.K.) and any Asian representation, i.e. the U.S., U.K., Israel and likely Canada.

3. A third group consists of countries that are currently either occupied militarily by the U.S. or are part of NATO, but are either economically dependent on China or are in economic competition with the U.S. This includes most of Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the GCC countries (KSA, UAE, etc.). These countries cannot be considered as poles by themselves, for while some of them may have the economic weight to be considered a pole, such as Germany and Japan, they lack the geo-political weight. These countries are likely to try to escape from their status as American ('Globalist') vassals and become independent nations dealing equitably with all the poles of the new Multi-Polar World. In my view, it is unlikely that the EU will survive the birth of this new-world order in its current form. At best it is likely to revert back to a European free trade area, in which each country will recapture its sovereignty and its own currency.

4. A fourth group consists of countries that, while not being a part of the Russia/China pole will be under its wing, with Russia providing military, political and geo-political support, and China providing economic support. This group includes countries which are currently either under threat from the 'Globalists' (ie. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, etc.), are in turmoil due to exploitation by the 'Globalists' (ie. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, etc.) or are outright failed states (most of Africa). Under the protection of Russia and China, they will once again have a chance to overcome the anarchy of the past 20 or so years and to return to peaceful development.

5. A fifth group consists of what will likely end up as secondary poles of the Multi-Polar World. These are countries that today are both independent and have the geo-political and economic weight to continue to function independently. This group includes the likes of India and the ASEAN countries.

Uncertain is the time that it will take for this emerging order to stabilize. In my view, this depends to a great extent on whether Trump survives impeachment and wins in 2020. If he does then the emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order could be quite quick and painless, as it is aligned with the policies that Trump has been espousing from the beginning of his presidential campaign in 2015. To 'Make America Great Again' requires that the U.S. recover its sovereignty and redevelop its industrial power. After all, a countries wealth, and thus its power, is what it produces, and a country that doesn't produce as much as it consumes will, in the end, consume itself. To redevelop its industrial power the U.S. needs to isolate itself, as Trump is attempting to do behind a wall of tariff barriers and a devalued currency. The Multi-Polar World Order will allow the U.S. the opportunity it needs isolate, and then rebuild, itself. One must remember that it was the isolation of the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries that enabled the U.S. to become so powerful in the first place.

If, on the other hand, Trump is either overthrown by the 'Globalists' or defeated in 2020 then the emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order will be fraught with conflict. The 'Globalists' will fight it every step of the way, using all tools at their disposal, and particularly the military muscle of the U.S. and NATO. For the 'Globalists' the Multi-Polar World Order means the dispossession of their power and wealth. However, I believe that will simply be a case of the losers continuing to fight long after the war has been lost. It is only a question of how much time that it will take, and death and destruction that will occur, before the U.S. and NATO are exhausted.

The emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order, once it stabilizes, is likely to usher in a new era of peace and human development, similar to that which the world experienced in the decades following WWII.


Chris Cosmos , Oct 27 2019 15:32 utc | 14

I agree with dh-mtl that we are entering a multi-polar world but that is happening because of the deep corruption and divisions within the Washington Deep State. Still, the imperial forces are formidable and should any faction get full control of them an expansion of current wars is very possible. Trump is trying to fashion and has been trying to fashion a coalition but he's failed and is failing. Media narratives, in the USA, always represent the interests of the factions in power and they are all against Trump. This election is critical to world history. Will we get a restoration with Biden (or Buttigieg) or Pence or will we start moving in a new direction with Warren or Sanders? If the latter then the Deep State may move in a new direction and begin to negotiated with Russia/China. If Trump then more chaos.
dh-mtl , Oct 27 2019 16:09 utc | 23
john | Oct 27 2019 15:53 utc | 19

Sorry John, the quote that you posted was not taken from Thierry Meyssan, but is my original work. I only quoted from Meyssan in the first paragraph.

The decades after WW2 may have spawned the CIA and their dirty tricks, but in spite of this, the stand off between the U.S. and Russia, the bi-polar world, ensured a level of peace and stability that lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. These decades were undoubtedly on of the greatest eras of human development that mankind has experienced.

Vasco da Gama , Oct 27 2019 19:01 utc | 63
dh-mtl@8 (and Circe)

I think those 5 categories are pretty much spot on. They also appear to be in sync with Russia's envisioned relation with the main elements of those categories, as they develop in practice. China's positioning looks more obscure though, but that must be due to lack of information on my part more than anything else. What Russia initiates, China consolidates in its broad strokes, but i am missing how coherent the details where the space of action actually overlaps between the two.

The switch between the first and second category members from the previous status quo appears to be settled along with tolerable levels of conflict. Circe won't like to hear it, but in my opinion, we have Trump to thank for that, not because he intended for the switch, but because he stresses on the US economical system the main effective capitalist contradiction: productive vs financial capital. The tumultuous social and psychological state of the US, attest to that contradiction despite emerging as very heated but apparently distant themes (immigration, gender issues, the personality and conduct of the president, etc..), Circe would have us believe it is all kabuki. I believe it is real, commonly misanalysed but very very real.

What I have yet to see though is the multi-polar trend to take root. Obvious signs would be Germany and Europe in general of course, but at best as a block of sovereigns, and for that, Frankfurt will have to surrender before the remaining capitals. That may actually come about as production takes the main stage, and this could be very sudden.

This is obvious positive thinking. An anecdote:
Once I super glued the tip of my finger. I had a box cutter nearby and I just thought - I simply must use it as a razor blade to scrap the glue out, movements perpendicular to the blade, and I'll be fine - whatever I do just don't move along the .... zaaaat - here's the scar. The point being: as soon as the wrong thought crossed my mind, my hand simply ignored the "don't do" part of the thinking and obeyed the rest.

Keep thinking positive!

[Oct 27, 2019] Here s Why Trump s Secure Syria s Oil Plan Will Prove Practically Impossible

Notable quotes:
"... The below analysis is provided by " Ehsani " -- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment . ..."
"... An M1 Abrams tank at the Udairi Range Complex in Kuwait, via Army National Guard/Military Times. ..."
Oct 27, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Here's Why Trump's "Secure Syria's Oil" Plan Will Prove Practically Impossible by Tyler Durden Sat, 10/26/2019 - 23:30 0 SHARES

The below analysis is provided by " Ehsani " -- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment .

Much has been debated since President Trump tweeted that "The U.S has secured the oil" in Syria. Is this feasible? Does it make any sense? The below will explain how and why the answer is a resounding NO .

An M1 Abrams tank at the Udairi Range Complex in Kuwait, via Army National Guard/Military Times.

Al-Omar and Conoco fields are already secured by Kurdish-led SDF and U.S forces. Some of the oil from these fields was being sold through third parties to Syria's government by giving it in crude form and taking back half the quantity as refined product (the government owns the refineries).

Syria's government now has access to oil fields inside the 32km zone (established by the Turkish military incursion and subsequent withdrawal of Kurdish forces). Such fields can produce up to 100K barrels a day and will already go a long way in terms of meeting the country's immediate demand. So the importance of accessing oil in SDF/U.S hands is not as pressing any longer.

SDF/U.S forces can of course decide to sell the oil to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) but Syria's government now has control over the border area connecting Syria to KRG territory through both Yaaroubia and Al-Mallkiya.

The Syrian government also now has control over supply of electricity. This was made possible by taking control of the Tishreen and Furat dams. Operating those fields needs electric power supply and the state is now the provider.

me title=

Securing and operating these fields also entails paying salaries to those operating the fields. International companies would be very reluctant to get involved without legal backing to operate the fields.

"Securing the oil" therefore can only mean preventing the Syrian state from accessing al-Omar/Conoco only (not oil in the north) . It's unlikely anything can be sold or transported.

And let's not forget "securing" this oil would need ready air cover, and all for what?

me title=

SDF composition included Arab fighters and tribes who accepted Kurds in leadership since they had American support and key cities in north. Many of those Arabs are already switching and joining the Syrian Army. "Securing" oil for benefit of the Kurds is likely to antagonize the Arab fighters and tribes in the region.

Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of "securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level .


kanoli , 54 minutes ago link

"Securing the oil" means "Denying Assad government access to the oil." I don't think they care if the pumps are running or not.

comissar , 3 hours ago link

The psychopaths destroyed the last secular country in the ME. Same with Lybia. Now all we get are extremists on all sides. Mossad doing what it knows best, bringing chaos for the psychopaths.

Teja , 9 hours ago link

By withdrawing from Northern Kurdistan and by making an exception for the oil fields, Genius President Trump just told the world a number of things:

Of course, the European allies (except Turkey) are still refusing to learn from this experience. "Duck and cover until November 2020" is their current tactics. Not sure if this is a good idea.

Turkey has learned to go their own ways, but I don't think it is a good idea to create ever more enemies at one's borders. Greece, Armenia, the Kurdish regions, Syria, Cyprus, not sure how their stance is towards Iran. Reminds me of Germany before both World Wars. Won't end well.

Chochalocka , 9 hours ago link

Pretty hilarious how some see ****.

"America/The US", a label, is actually just a location on a map and is not a reference to the actual identities of those who start wars for profit.

Also it is hilarious to use that label as if an area of the planet is or has attacked another area. Land can not attack itself, ever, just as guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Trump is not claiming posession of oil in syria by leaving some troops behind. Just as he did not declare war, nor start any EVER. Every conflct on earth has it's roots with very specific individuals, none of whom are even related to Trump.

Syria was a conflicting mess before he took office and he is dutifully attempting to pull US soldiers out of a powder keg of nonsense he wants no part of. Nor does any sane American want more conflict in battles we can't afford, in countries we'll never even visit.

Like I said before, Trump can't just abruptly yank all our troops. It's simply not that simple. And for those pretending he is doing syria a disservice, I dare any one of you to go there yourselves and see if you bunch of complete dipshits can do better. Who knows, maybe you'll find the love of your life, ******* idiots.

2stateshmoostate , 7 hours ago link

There is no one on this planet more owned and controlled by Juice and Israel than Trump. He does and says what he is told to do and say. All scripted.

wdg , 10 hours ago link

First, the US invades Syria in violation of the Geneva Convention on War making it an international criminal. Then it funds and equips the most vile terrorists on the planet which leads to the killing of thousands of innocent Syrians. And now it has decided to stay and steal oil from Syria. The US is now the Evil American Empire owned and run by crooks, gangsters and mass murderers. The Republic is dead along with morality, justice and freedom.

Brazen Heist II , 10 hours ago link

Don't forget the sanctions it levies on Syria, in an attempt to prevent recovery and re-construction from said crimes of attempted regime change.

Truth Eater , 10 hours ago link

Let's limit the culprits to: The Obama regime... and not all the US. This is why these devils need to be brought to trial and their wealth clawed out of their hiding places to pay reparations to some of the victims.

wdg , 9 hours ago link

The US has been an Evil American Empire for a long time, since at least the Wilson administration, and Republican or Democrat...it make little difference. World wars, the Fed, IRS, New Deal, Korea, Vietnam, War OF Terror, assassinations, coups, sanctions, Big Pharma, Seeds of Death and Big Agri...and the list goes on and on. Please understand that America is not great and one day all Americans will have to account for what their country did in their name. If you believe in the Divine, then know that their will be a reckoning.

Shemp 4 Victory , 9 hours ago link

The Obama regime was merely a continuation of the Chimpy Bush regime, which was merely a continuation of the Clinton regime, which was merely a continuation of the Pappy Bush regime, which was merely a continuation... etc.

NorwegianPawn , 10 hours ago link

More chinks in the petrodollar armor will be the outcome of this. The credibility of murica is withering away as every day passes. Iraqi pressure upon foreign troops there to leave and/or drawdown further will also make this venture even more difficult to manage.

The Kurds may not be the smartest with regards to picking allies, but even they may by now have learned that sticking to murica any longer will destroy any semblance of hope for any autonomy status whatsoever once the occupants have left. Likewise, the Sunni tribes around this area don't want to become another Pariah group once things revert to normal.

Assad will eventually retake all his territory and this is speeding up the process of eventual reconciliation in Syria.

Fluff The Cat , 10 hours ago link

They've spent far more on these wars than they've made back by stealing other countries' resources. Trillions wasted in exchange for mere billions in profit, to say nothing of the massive loss of life and destruction incurred.

americanreality , 9 hours ago link

Well the profit was privatized while the losses were picked up by the taxpayers. So, success!

G-R-U-N-T , 12 hours ago link

'The below analysis is provided by " Ehsani " -- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment .'

this quote was my first red flag.

so POTUS outsmarts Erdongan, takes out ISIS leader BAGHDADI along with Erdongan MIT agents meeting with him. sorry, Ehsani, i think your full of sh*t.

CoCosAB , 12 hours ago link

CIA & MOSSAD LLC friends ISIS is just the excuse the american an israeli terrorists used and use in order to keep trying to remove Assad from the Government.

They just can't accept defeat and absolute failure. What's worse than an american/israeli terrorist destroyed ego?!

punjabiraj , 12 hours ago link

All info needs verification. US sources are not trustworthy including anyone where money originates from the usual fake info instigators/ players.

POTUS is so misled by the deep state MIC /CIA/ FBI et al and their willing fake media cohorts that he agreed to give the White Helmets more public money for more fake movies, as has been properly proven and widely reported.

Either they have taken control of his mind with a chip insert or they have got his balls to the knife.

The false flags have been discredited systematically and only a very brainwashed or a very frightened person would believe anything from the same source until after a thorough scourge is proven successfully undertaken.

It is evident that even the last hope department has been got at by the money-power.

If they can do 9/11 and get away with it, as they have, then they will stop at nothing to remain entrenched.

Tiritmenhrta , 13 hours ago link

Where is oil, there has to be ******* US military, business as usual...

looks so real , 12 hours ago link

90% of oil is traded in U.S. dollars if that stops living standards will drop in the U.S.. We dropped from 97% look how bad its now with 7% imagine going down to 50% life would be unlivable here.

Jerzeel , 11 hours ago link

Well US would have to learn to live within their means like other countries who dont have the world reserve currency & petrodollar

americanreality , 9 hours ago link

Exorbitant privilege. Paging Charles DeGaulle..

donkey_shot , 13 hours ago link

...meanwhile, both according to russia today as well as the (otherwise lying rag of a newspaper) guardian , the russian government seems to take a different position to the views expressed here by "a middle east expert".

russian state media is reporting that US troops are in the process of taking control of syrian oil fields in the deir el-zour region and have described such actions as "banditry". the crux of the matter is this: if the US were not actually illegally taking control of Syrian oil, then Russia would not be reporting this. Contrary to western mainstream media, Russian sources have repeatedly shown themselves to be factual.

https://www.rt.com/newsline/471940-lavrov-pompeo-russia-us-syria/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/26/russia-us-troops-syria-oil-isis

surfing another appocalypse , 13 hours ago link

Shame the "withdrawl" from Syria is tainted with "securing the oil". US doesnt need that oil at all. So Orwellian! Unless the Kurds somehow get rights to it.

Arising , 13 hours ago link

Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of "securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level .

Trump is securing the oil not for the Kurds or anything in the middle east- his doing it as a response to the media backlash he received when he announced he's abandoning the Kurds.

donkey_shot , 13 hours ago link

this is nonsense. thinking of the kurds and their interests is the absolutely last thing on trump`s mind: what counts for trump is how he is viewed by his voter base, no more, no less.

[Oct 27, 2019] The new status quo in Syria means the end of the US policy of regime change and the beginning of the rehabilitation of Syria as a legitimate nation state. This is really going to piss off the Deep State by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... This is really going to piss off the Deep State. All their plans initiated by Obama and Hillary are being destroyed by the red haired road runner known as Trump. ..."
"... If these reports are true of the oil tanker smuggling operation, then the Syrian Kurds do not have clean hands. ..."
"... Kind of sounds to me like Erdogan and Trump made a deal. ..."
"... Baghdadi wasn't the jihadis' only loss today. Abu-Hassan al-Muhajir, the likely successor to Baghdadi, was blown away near Jarabulus in a US strike. Here's a couple of tweets about these events: ..."
"... "Led by the 4th Armored Division, the Syrian Arab Army began their attack around 10 A.M. on Saturday, when their troops began to storm the Zuwayqat Mountain and its corresponding hills. Following a heavy battle that lasted for several hours, the Syrian Arab Army was able to take hold of the Zuwayqat Mountain, giving their forces fire control over the remaining hills south of Kabani. The Syrian Arab Army is now trying to push their way into Kabani; however, they are facing heavy resistance from the jihadist rebels of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)." ..."
Oct 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

What does a radical Islamic mother say to another radical Islamic mother? Children, they blow up so fast.

What a contrast with the raid that killed Bin Laden in May 2011. The Obama Administration came out with conflicting accounts and required the SEALS who carried out the attack to sign non-disclosure agreements. Why? Because the raid was conducted with the cooperation and knowledge of the Pakistani government; the SEALS faced no guard force; Bin Laden was a cripple unable to get out of bed and was shot so many times by the SEALs his body has to be dumped in the ocean.

Al Baghdadi? It is now clear he was protected by someone in Turkey. The Turks knew where he was and, until yesterday, kept him safe. Trump's actions over the last three weeks with respect to U.S. forces in Syria set the table for this operation. A combination of pressure and incentives confronted Turkey's President Erdogan and he rolled over.

It is telling that there was not a huge fire fight going in. Where was the Baghdadi security team? This is a further indicator that Baghdadi was betrayed by folks he thought were protecting him. Baghdadi fled his house and jumped into a tunnel. Baghdadi is reported to have blown himself up. Looks like the mission was carried out by Delta Force. They are accompanied by Malanois dogs (looks a little like a German shepherd). Based on what Trump briefed today the dog followed Baghdadi down into the tunnel. The dog can run faster than any soldier in such an environment. Once Baghdadi was trapped he detonated his suicide vest. Fortunately, the dog was not killed (but probably suffered some frag wounds.)

(Someone needs to re-write the Peter and Gordon lyrics on "I Go to Pieces" in honor of Baghdadi's passing.)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HB6l4i-zA_Q

Don't believe the media reports that the U.S. forces launched from Iraq. Just look at a map. Al Baghdadi was hiding out in Idlib province, which is in northwest Syria. Flight time in helicopters from Iraq is three hours plus. Flight time from the U.S. Air Force base in Incirlik, Turkey is about one hour. This came out of Turkey. That is why the U.S. coordinated/deconflicted the flight path with Russia. Flying from Turkey into northwest Syria takes one directly over territory controlled by the Russians and Syrians.

Trump's press conference was amazing. He did not divulge key operational details and did a good job of obfuscating the intel sources that provided the break on Al Baghdadi's location.

One thing is certain--most of the anti-Trump crowd will look for some reason to criticize Trump's victory. The anti-Trumper crowd looks pretty stupid now. They were predicting the resurgence of ISIS. Whoops!! There goes that narrative. The new status quo in Syria means the end of the U.S. policy of regime change and the beginning of the rehabilitation of Syria as a legitimate nation state. This is really going to piss off the Deep State. All their plans initiated by Obama and Hillary are being destroyed by the red haired road runner known as Trump.


Horace , 27 October 2019 at 01:46 PM

But what about Trump's comments about keeping the oil, and protecting it with heavy fire power, and inviting in Exxon, etc. He did say a deal might be possible.
Factotum said in reply to Horace... , 27 October 2019 at 02:05 PM
Sop for Tillerston: Take it, it is yours, if you can keep it?
turcopolier , 27 October 2019 at 01:53 PM
Horace

Watch what he does, not what he says. He thinks while talking. This is a bad habit since he does not speak English well. I am told that this is a characteristic of people from the Outer Boroughs of NY City.

LULU -> turcopolier ... , 27 October 2019 at 06:31 PM
Someone put it this way: "Don't take him literally. DO take him seriously."
Lurker , 27 October 2019 at 06:31 PM
https://tass.com/defense/1085522
"Russian defense ministry says has no proof of Islamic State leader's extermination

Russia's defense ministry has no reliable information about an operation by US forces in the Turkey-controlled part of the Idlib de-escalation zone aimed at another extermination of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said"

Artemesia

...I weep for my country that the way that its leader re-establishes his bona fides is by celebrating brutal murder, and many Americans will celebrate that murder right along with him.

HillaryObama did the same thing; so did G H W Bush with the "precision bombing" of Iraq that became a thing of pride; the capture of Saddam in his "spider hole;" Hillary's glee over the sodomized assassination of Qaddafi.

We have been inured to outrages to human beings, especially if they are "over there," and many who have become wealthy producers of popular culture have played a major role in conditioning the American people to celebrate blood and gore in the name of American Values.

Col. Lang -- Your post on Comments is at the back of my mind. I like to think I'm complying; that if I hated USA it would not bother me that we are conditioned to celebrate killing. It does bother me. I don't think the killing of el Baghdadi is something that enhances the moral stature of USA -- particularly when it is coupled, as it was in Trump's speech -- with the bold declaration that US intends to steal Syria's oil.

"Real Men Go To Tehran."
Real Man James Jeffrey has been hot to bankrupt Syria for at least a year, his scheme to make reconstruction of Syria impossible unless / until Syria ejects Iran & complies with the Borg's demands.

Peter AU 1 said in reply to turcopolier ... , 27 October 2019 at 06:31 PM

Erdogan's Islam views appears to be genuine. Rather than terrible Turk, Erdogan is strongly Islamic and taking Turkey from a secular state back to and Islamic state. Turkey put off as long as possible declaring AQ a terrorist organization. AQ have no problems having the Turk bases through Idlib.

Turkey was buying oil from ISIS earlier in the piece. There was some fighting when Erdogan first moved his jihadis into Syria but large number of ISIS left Manbij once they had nutted out a deal.

Turk border in Idlib may well have been the safest place for Baghdadi to stay.

The Beaver , 27 October 2019 at 06:31 PM
If these reports are true of the oil tanker smuggling operation, then the Syrian Kurds do not have clean hands.

From that BBC guy who misled everyone about Raqqa:
https://twitter.com/Dalatrm/status/1188530187551547392

Jack , 27 October 2019 at 06:31 PM
Thread by journalist Rukmini Callimachi on Baghdadi.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1188514608056811530.html

JamesT , 27 October 2019 at 06:31 PM
A Canadian news channel is reporting that Turkey handed a key Baghdadi lieutenant over to Iraqi intelligence, who under interrogation gave up enough information to allow Baghdadi to be located.https://globalnews.ca/news/6089814/baghdadi-aide-key-to-capture-iraq/

Kind of sounds to me like Erdogan and Trump made a deal.

The Twisted Genius , 27 October 2019 at 06:31 PM
Baghdadi wasn't the jihadis' only loss today. Abu-Hassan al-Muhajir, the likely successor to Baghdadi, was blown away near Jarabulus in a US strike. Here's a couple of tweets about these events:

"So SDF and Iraq shared intel with US on position of ISIS leader Baghdadi - 3.5 miles from border with Turkey. And SDF shared intel with US on the position of ISIS spox Muhajir - just outside Turkish Euphrates Shield city of Jarablus. Doesn't look *great* for Turkey, have to say"

We believe ISIS spox. Al-Muhajir was in Jarablus to facilitate Baghdadi's entry to Euphrates Shield area. The two US-led operations have effectively disabled top ISIS leadership who were hiding [in] NW Syria. More still remain hiding in the same area."

The SAA did well at Kabani... if they can keep it this time. From Al Masdar:

"Led by the 4th Armored Division, the Syrian Arab Army began their attack around 10 A.M. on Saturday, when their troops began to storm the Zuwayqat Mountain and its corresponding hills. Following a heavy battle that lasted for several hours, the Syrian Arab Army was able to take hold of the Zuwayqat Mountain, giving their forces fire control over the remaining hills south of Kabani. The Syrian Arab Army is now trying to push their way into Kabani; however, they are facing heavy resistance from the jihadist rebels of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)."

Maybe with Baghdadi's ass now far from his head, perhaps the HTS and TIP will loose some of their enthusiasm for defending Kabani. They have been tenacious.

[Oct 27, 2019] Frat Boy Thermopylae The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... The Democrats are the ones who are twisting the "protocols" regarding private hearings to protect the seditious liars and their lies... To paraphrase the Washington Post : "Democracy Dies In The Darkness"... The Darkness created by the shadowy deep state and those who dwell in it ! ..."
"... Without expressing any opinion on the truth or falsity of Taylor's testimony or any of it, the idea that being a West Point graduate and Vietnam vet is some kind of assurance of probity is a joke. ..."
"... Have you learned nothing from RussiaGate, from the various imperial wars on Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Serbia, etc.? All these were based on flat out lies promoted by cleancut, well dressed, well spoken, impeccably credentialed monsters. Many of them veterans themselves. All of them lying without shame, and lauded for telling lies. ..."
"... You realize that we are an empire, and our institutions act the way that imperial institutions do? Imperial institutions cannot be hindered by things like honesty and "rule of law", because the empire cannot survive if its freedom of action is restrained. ..."
"... Is your anti Russian phobia a product of Slavic racism or of disliking orthodox countries or what? Why do you pro war liberals obsess over Russia so much? I think it is empire envy. ..."
"... I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never let This country move past militarism ..."
Oct 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Amadeus Mozart 2 days ago

I'd like to commend Rep. Gaetz for this very well justified act of 'civil disobedience' to draw attention to this farce of a travesty of a sham of a mockery of a witchhunt. This so-called "impeachment" is totally consistent with the manufacturing of "evidence" to justify an "investigation" of Trump's campaign to keep him from being elected as well.

I'm glad we have someone standing up to these corrupt lying leaking Democrat bullies. It would be nice if we could have an investigation of the actual and documented illegal campaign contributions of Hillary to her attorney to Chris Steele, but that water has passed under the bridge by now.

But if we're going to go down the rabbit hole of campaign finance law violations, I'd like to propose that the quite obvious main and only real (non-manufactured) reason for these so-called "impeachment" hearings is to prevent Trump from being re-elected (as opposed to investigating "corruption").

Thus the Democrats' activities are quite obviously a misappropriation of taxpayer funds and an illegal donation to the political campaigns of the Democratic party. I demand an investigation. In secret of course.

As you rightfully said, the rule of law is a pain in the butt, after all. The double standard is infuriating.

We are coming to a point in American society where the only meaningful "truth" belongs to whoever wins. If that is true, under those circumstances, you've got to decide whom you trust more to protect your interests. Is it Adam Schiff or Donald Trump? If you choose not to decide, you've still made a choice. Or are elections only supposed to have consequences if Democrats win them?

CoyoteTheClever 2 days ago
Matt Gaetz is one of those few Republicans in on the fundamental truth of our country: We are an empire in decline and politics is 100% theatre. And so he puts on one of the best shows on television.

Yeah, he is likely a nihilist, but I can't really call him a grifter any more than you could call Milo or Jacob Wohl grifters. They are performance artists, dressing up in conservative drag and giving everyone the show of their lifetime, and they are so dedicated to it they don't break character. In wrestling it is called kayfebe.

If you are in on the joke, these people are amazing, true heroes of late capitalism, exposing the absurdities of our commodified democracy and news cycle.

The Other Sands CoyoteTheClever 2 days ago
The standards for a sitting Congressman representing 800,000 Americans should probably be a bit higher than the standards for alt-right YouTube dancing bears.
CoyoteTheClever The Other Sands 2 days ago
As our country winds down and enters the end of its natural lifespan, and every country has a lifespan, don't fool yourself, because no human creations last forever, some of the dancing bears we get aren't going to be quite as funny as Matt Gaetz, and there are only going to be more and more of them coming out of the woodwork.

So I think we should appreciate people like him while we can, who at least elevate the art to something legitimately entertaining, and are generally pretty harmless. "I love the president so much I may never love another president again." is an amazing line, for instance, and I'll never understand anyone who doesn't appreciate it. That's something he put care and thought into.

People like entertainment. They elected an entertainer as president for a reason, and he is representing a lot more than 800,000 Americans. But I'm sure those 800,000 Americans are pretty happy with the entertainment they are getting from Gaetz too, even if they might not appreciate the nuances of his performance and only like that he is "triggering the libs" or somesuch. And maybe some of them do see how his performance implicates them too and they just don't care because it is such a fun show. I know if Matt Gaetz were running for president (Against some neo-liberal like Buttigieg, not against someone I like) I'd be tempted to vote for him just to add fuel to the fire.

Amirite CoyoteTheClever 11 hours ago
You wouldn't think it was so funny if that fuel they were adding was to your burning house.

But you think you'll be long gone before the house burns down, so you don't care.

Dale McNamee 2 days ago
The Democrats are the ones who are twisting the "protocols" regarding private hearings to protect the seditious liars and their lies... To paraphrase the Washington Post : "Democracy Dies In The Darkness"... The Darkness created by the shadowy deep state and those who dwell in it !
Rod Dreher Moderator Dale McNamee 2 days ago
"The seditions liars and their lies"? Bill Taylor is a West Point graduate, decorated Vietnam vet, and was G.W. Bush's appointee to be Ukraine ambassador. The smears aren't going to stick to him.
CoyoteTheClever Rod Dreher 2 days ago
Like they didn't stick to Mueller, Comey, Mattis, McCain, Romney, and whoever else is the white knight of the week who will save liberal decadence from Trump. As if!

He will be down in the mud with the rest of them, loathed by Trump's base and forgotten by the Democrats once the next savior conservative messiah comes along. Eventually there won't be enough Never Trump zombies in the Bush establishment morgue left to revive, and what then?

They certainly aren't going to work with the left to concentrate on substance and policy rather than the Trump news cycle, so I imagine liberals will just all collectively die from despair

Sid Finster CoyoteTheClever 2 days ago
Remember how John Bolton became the Savior of The Republic once he resigned (or was fired) from the Trump Maladministration?

If that were not enough, witness the Team D rehabilitation of Dubya and Dick Cheney, who were Team D folk devils not so long ago.

Sid Finster Rod Dreher 2 days ago
Without expressing any opinion on the truth or falsity of Taylor's testimony or any of it, the idea that being a West Point graduate and Vietnam vet is some kind of assurance of probity is a joke.

Have you learned nothing from RussiaGate, from the various imperial wars on Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Serbia, etc.? All these were based on flat out lies promoted by cleancut, well dressed, well spoken, impeccably credentialed monsters. Many of them veterans themselves. All of them lying without shame, and lauded for telling lies.

Not "misspeaking", as if they were merely overenthusiastic in defense of the Freedom, but lying. And their lies killed innocent people on a hitlerian scale.

You only don't recognize this, because you are fortunate enough to live in America, where you don't have to see your children droned and your country destroyed because some monster claims to be bringing you the freedom.

You realize that we are an empire, and our institutions act the way that imperial institutions do? Imperial institutions cannot be hindered by things like honesty and "rule of law", because the empire cannot survive if its freedom of action is restrained.

Amirite Sid Finster a day ago
So "Russiagate" was based on lies?

... ... ..

Sid Finster Amirite a day ago
Meeting a Russian person now is a crime, unpatriotic to boot is it?
Patrick Constantine Amirite 10 hours ago
Is your anti Russian phobia a product of Slavic racism or of disliking orthodox countries or what? Why do you pro war liberals obsess over Russia so much? I think it is empire envy.
sawbuck57 2 days ago
If the Democrats are so concerned with confidentiality then why are the anti-Trump snippets of testimony the only things getting leaked?

Bill Taylor's testimony was shredded in 90 seconds of cross-examination by a Republican member of the Committee. Funny, that didn't make the time breathless coverage of the umpteenth bombshell. (Or is it "The Walls Are Closing In!" this week?

By any standard of fairness, Schiff should have recused himself due to a monumental conflict of interest. He had contact with the main complainant prior to the filing of the complaint. A Dem Senator visited Taylor in the Ukraine several weeks ago. Nothing to see here.

As Ben Franklin was noted as saying: "Well, Doctor, what have we got -- a Republic or a Monarchy?"

"A Republic, if you can keep it."

Well, we didn't keep it. This is purely Political Kabuki Theater. Both sides deserve to lose. At this point, with the Dems tilting so hard left, and the Rockefeller Wing (Re-branded as NeoCons for some silly reason) of the Republicans ever-waiting for their ascendance it remains for most of the country wish both sides could lose - if for nothing else than to just stop the noise.

"A nation is born a stoic and dies an epicurean" Will Durant

cestusdei 2 days ago
I do not trust our "betters" to hold closed door trials. After 2 years of Russia Russia Russia I don't believe a word they say. Shiff told us he had ironclad evidence of Russian collusion, I saw him say it at the interview. He lied. When a politician says "trust me" the last thing we should do is trust him. Open hearings, transparency, due process...we should demand
temp anon cestusdei 2 days ago
There is no trial yet. If there is one, that will be in the Senate, presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in full view of everyone.
JonF311 temp anon 2 days ago
That's what they're afraid of: a veritable conga line of skeletons, loosed from the Trumpian closet, cha-chaing across the Senate chamber in front of the whole world.
cestusdei temp anon 2 days ago
Oh this is a trial. A show trial. Our Stalinist Dems do miss the old USSR.
Amirite cestusdei 2 days ago
But you loved all the closed door meetings in the Benghazi hearings, that was totally fine.

Now it's your turn.

cestusdei Amirite 2 days ago
Actually that did involve intelligence NOT an impeachment. Apples and oranges. But thanks for reminding us of the lies and ineptitude that got American's killed by Obama and Clinton in Libya. They lied and people died.
Deoxy 2 days ago
If Schiff weren't selectively leaking like a sieve, your argument might have some merit.

As it is, easily the best reason to believe they are doing as they are doing is FOR the purpose of only leaking the parts they want.

And it goes far beyond simply "closed door" - the controls enacted are extreme, at least for the Republicans, yet somehow, certain *very convenient* bits find their way to the press, time after time. After time. After TIME.

The whole thing is a farce, designed to allow control of the narrative, facts be hanged.

janicefahy 2 days ago
Brilliant comparison to that Animal House scene - thanks for that! The facts on the ground are so devastating to Trump than even his most lickspittle toadies can't properly defend them, and so they scheme up weak stunts like this. The mind boggles.
L617 2 days ago
This stunt just proves why the deposition phase of the inquiry should not happen in front of the cameras. What a bunch of tools.
HarryTruman2016 2 days ago
I suppose all the Trump supporters would be on this very page defending Barack Obama if he called the Saudi Crown Prince in 2011 and told him that any military aid is contingent on investigating the Bush family and any business ties they have with Saudi Arabia because Jeb Bush might run in 2012. Totally legal. No problem and nothing to see.
Tony D. HarryTruman2016 a day ago
Well, you're forgetting that the typical Trump supporter despises the Bushes and everything they stand for...
HarryTruman2016 Tony D. 19 hours ago
That is not the point. What you write is simply deflection. If any President other than Trump did this, Republicans would be (correctly) moving to impeach and remove. So I ask again: would it have been OK if Obama called the Saudis and held up military aid until they provided him information damaging to the Bush family?
Ted 2 days ago • edited
The picture is funny, but you're on the wrong side of this, Dreher. I've finally realized why Schiff and his merry men, but especially Schiff, give me such agita.

Let's pick a date, or an incident: Bork. Since then, long before then, but let's pick a date, the Democrats have stood for moral anarchy . The only chance they had to show they retained a shred of principle was the Gulf War (both Gulf Wars, actually, but let's take the second), and there their response was, at least legislatively, muted to say the least (considering their Senatorial champion was the Lion of Chappaquiddick...) Since then it's been what? Feminism, abortion, and that more abundantly, all LGBTQ all the time, micro regulation of speech and behavior, race hustling, and--ha ha--more unjust unnecessary wars and the destruction of the white middle class. The soft totalitarianism we talk about in these boxes--no need to go on. The usual menu of "liberal" horror.

And this guy is to be impeached because he cusses in public? It's not adding up for me. Schiff's behavior is outrageous (read Kim Strassel today) but he's getting the job done. You might want to call it soft Leninism.

Amirite Ted a day ago
Not sure why so many conservatives hang their hat on Bork. This man was the guy who committed the Saturday Night Massacre, this is who you stake your moral ground on?

Conservatives are so angry Dems stopped the guy who tried to shield Nixon from accountability? It's moral anarchy for Congress to refuse to confirm a president's nomination for the Supreme Court? Congress is supposed to give a president's nominee a hearing and a vote, not a rubber stamp. Congress if fully within it's constitutional rights to not confirm a president's nominee, and it's hard to find a less fit man for the Supreme Court than Bork was.

Meanwhile your guys refused to even grant a hearing to President Obama's nominee. I guess that's OK because you don't acknowledge the rights of Democrats under the Constitution.

Ted Amirite 19 hours ago
You don't really think the Democrats got together to destroy Bork professionally and personally because he signed off on Nixon's firings, do you? You can't be that dumb. If you'd like to know why, it was keeping Roe v. Wade alive. And that is moral anarchy, pal.
Amirite Ted 12 hours ago • edited
So you offer a conspiracy theory, a belief.

You know what's moral anarchy? Supporting an immoral character like Bork because you think he's going to help you get rid of Roe vs Wade. Kind of reminds of the deal you RWers have struck with Trump. You support a man you know is morally debased because you think he will help you restore a white Christian conservative America.

It just boggles my mind you RWers are mad Democrats refused to confirm a man who help cover up one of the most egregious acts an American president has ever committed. A person who would commit such an unethical act was not fit for a seat on the Supreme Court, I shouldn't even have to say this.

Ted Amirite 9 hours ago
And you offer an unsupported calumny. Bork was "morally debased"? By what standard? By whose standard? John Dean's? Elliot Richardson's? Remember when they rifled through his borrowing habits at Blockbuster and it turned out he was a Fred Astaire fan? They were expecting maybe Leni Riefenstahl. Or hoping for it. And a conspiracy is usually thought of as somewhat secret. The Lion of Chappaquiddick was pretty up front about what he didn't like about Bork.

And I think Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was far worse than anything Nixon did. Have fun with that one, pal.

Ro Si 2 days ago
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence and testimony behind closed doors."
Other than that they're simply following the rules established by a previous Republican congress.
ADCWonk 2 days ago
Below, someone wrote: "By any standard of fairness, Schiff should have recused himself due to a
monumental conflict of interest. He had contact with the main
complainant prior to the filing of the complaint."

Using that standard, Barr should have recused himself a thousand times over, no?

Franklin_Evans 2 days ago
Coined by a Randian objectivist fantasy author. It is absolute truth, but knowing the source will become the utmost irony because for some, it will be personal proof of it.

People will believe a lie because they're afraid it might be true, or because they want it to be true.

The Trump candidacy and tenure in office is a non-stop series of examples proving this.

The author is Terry Goodkind.

sb 2 days ago
Yet again, I note Rod, that there is more than one explanation over this hysterical impeach Trump nonsense.

This 'aid' is actually 'US military assistance'. Did it ever occur to you 'impeachers' that Trump may have deliberately been avoiding such a meeting with his top 4 warmongers precisely so as to avoid US 'aid' escalating the military tension betwen Ukraine and Russia? (and getting the US firmly tied into that fight?)

Trump was elected in part on a platform of no more foreign wars, and he seems genuinely committed to that (at least when he thinks he can). Maybe the withheld 'aid' was all just leverage for a Biden investigation, but it may also be Trump trying not to get pressured and bullied into more conflicts (which all prior Presidents were happy to go along with) in the face of a deep state totally committed to a condition of forever war.

As an anti-war activist who campaigned against the Afghan and Iraq wars, in Trump's shoes I would also have tried to avoid fueling an existing dangerous conflict that brings no benefit to my nation (other than a few arms sales) but may drag us into a war with major nations. Same situation repeating right now in Syria - no major benefit to US in staying, and staying may drag US into conflict between Turks and Kurds and Syria & Russia.

Not saying Trump has acted lawfully always - just that he may have been trying to avoid military escalation (at the same time as getting dirt on Biden). Lets not jump to obvious conclusions when they may not be so obvious.

Thomas Kaempfen 2 days ago
Thugs disrupting a Constitutional and legal proceeding doing the people's business in order to protect their Dear Leader -- that's not frat-boy stuff. There's a much better "f" word to label that.
KevinS a day ago
If these people were testifying in public, I'm sure the Trumpists would find a reason to oppose that as well. But I hope they are ready for the public phase when they will need to defend Trump on the substance rather than voice procedural complaints. And calling people like Taylor never-Trumpist "human scum" (what a classy president we have) is not going to cut it.
TISO_AX2 a day ago
Democrats say these House Intelligence Committee procedures
aren't official hearings, but rather the equivalent of depositions,
meant to gather facts that will later be examined and argued over in
public hearings.

If that's the case they shouldn't be characterizing themselves as having an "impeachment inquiry." This is not in any legal sense an impeachment. It's an inquiry without a cause...political games. The abberant activities of Dems trying to remove the US President where there are no crimes justifies abberant reactions from the opposition. Since they are going to abuse the House of Representatives and pursue unprincipled and unprecedented antagonism of a co-equal branch of government, why should the GOP be idealistic and proper under such circumstances? I find Schiff to be a lot more of a problem than Gaetz.

Rod Dreher Moderator TISO_AX2 a day ago
No, it's the first stage of an inquiry. They're gathering evidence -- and Republican reps are there to question too -- that will be used in open impeachment hearings.
TISO_AX2 Rod Dreher a day ago • edited
Concerning Republican reps on the committee...apparently they're not getting all the evidence. If they're not it's not bi-partisan, and it's irregular. Also, Schiff did not notify Republicans on the committee of an intelligence official who came to one of his aides with concerns about President Trump before filing a whistleblower complaint. If that's true he's withholding evidence. I'm sure he has a good reason for that...if you know what I mean.
October 18, 2019 By Chrissy Clark

All nine GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence penned a letter to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., lambasting him for hiding documents related to Democrats' impeachment inquiry.

"We are concerned that the Majority is knowingly withholding Committee documents related to your so-called 'impeachment inquiry' from the Minority," the letter reads. " it has come to our attention that the Majority is not uploading (or providing physical copies of) certain
Committee documents related to your 'impeachment inquiry' to its document repository, thus withholding the existence of such documents from the Minority."

Skiddle DeDe a day ago
I think you don't like the Republicans playing by the same rules and tricks Democrats do. Looks different when the shoe is on the other foot, huh? Think KFC eating and setting all night on the senate floor.
Ro Si Skiddle DeDe 10 hours ago
If you think that freshly squeezed orange juice you have every morning tastes odd, it's because those are apples you're using.
Shakes_McQueen a day ago
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence and testimony behind closed doors. Given the character of the people in question, it is safe to assume that their reasons for doing so are corrupt and motivated by narrowly calculated political self-interest. "

That's a heck of a leap in logic there, Kevin. And kind of incredible in light of Kevin McCarthy previously admitting on national television that the Benghazi Select Committee's purpose was to tank Clinton's poll numbers. Would Kevin agree that committee was corrupt then, I guess?

These are depositions, not hearings. Public hearings come later, once depositions are complete, and there's no more opportunity for deposed subjects to coordinate details. Then a Senate trial after that, where Trump gets all the "due process" he has been disingenuously complaining about.

It's amusing to me how it seems to be lost in all of this, that half of the people sitting in on these depositions are REPUBLICANS.

Patrick Constantine 15 hours ago
I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never let This country move past militarism
anon 14 hours ago
If you supported the Schiff parody-as-truth from the other week but this bothers you, then you are an anti-Trump partisan. Conversely, if you support this but had a problem with Schiff, you are a pro-Trump partisan. And that is okay because impeachment is a political act. Just don't dress it up and pretend your side follows the rule of law and the other side doesn't. Both sides are engaging in politics to convince the public. And we'll be just fine as long as both sides stick with that, and obey the constitutional rules for impeachment. We'll only get in serious trouble if folks decide to go extra constitutional:

Tlaib: Democrats looking into how to arrest Trump officials
https://www.foxnews.com/pol...

Or if someone from the military tries to intervene:
https://www.nytimes.com/201...

Chris Mallory 4 hours ago
Nothing done by the US government should be done behind closed doors. Every thing should be done in the open with full disclosure to the citizens.
Ted 2 days ago • edited
The picture is funny, but you're on the wrong side of this, Dreher. I've finally realized why Schiff and his merry men, but especially Schiff, give me such agita.

Let's pick a date, or an incident: Bork. Since then, long before then, but let's pick a date, the Democrats have stood for moral anarchy . The only chance they had to show they retained a shred of principle was the Gulf War (both Gulf Wars, actually, but let's take the second), and there their response was, at least legislatively, muted to say the least (considering their Senatorial champion was the Lion of Chappaquiddick...) Since then it's been what? Feminism, abortion, and that more abundantly, all LGBTQ all the time, micro regulation of speech and behavior, race hustling, and--ha ha--more unjust unnecessary wars and the destruction of the white middle class. The soft totalitarianism we talk about in these boxes--no need to go on. The usual menu of "liberal" horror.

And this guy is to be impeached because he cusses in public? It's not adding up for me. Schiff's behavior is outrageous (read Kim Strassel today) but he's getting the job done. You might want to call it soft Leninism.

sb 2 days ago
Yet again, I note Rod, that there is more than one explanation over this hysterical impeach Trump nonsense.

This 'aid' is actually 'US military assistance'. Did it ever occur to you 'impeachers' that Trump may have deliberately been avoiding such a meeting with his top 4 warmongers precisely so as to avoid US 'aid' escalating the military tension betwen Ukraine and Russia? (and getting the US firmly tied into that fight?)

Trump was elected in part on a platform of no more foreign wars, and he seems genuinely committed to that (at least when he thinks he can). Maybe the withheld 'aid' was all just leverage for a Biden investigation, but it may also be Trump trying not to get pressured and bullied into more conflicts (which all prior Presidents were happy to go along with) in the face of a deep state totally committed to a condition of forever war.

As an anti-war activist who campaigned against the Afghan and Iraq wars, in Trump's shoes I would also have tried to avoid fueling an existing dangerous conflict that brings no benefit to my nation (other than a few arms sales) but may drag us into a war with major nations. Same situation repeating right now in Syria - no major benefit to US in staying, and staying may drag US into conflict between Turks and Kurds and Syria & Russia.

Not saying Trump has acted lawfully always - just that he may have been trying to avoid military escalation (at the same time as getting dirt on Biden). Lets not jump to obvious conclusions when they may not be so obvious.

Shakes_McQueen a day ago
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence and testimony behind closed doors. Given the character of the people in question, it is safe to assume that their reasons for doing so are corrupt and motivated by narrowly calculated political self-interest. "

That's a heck of a leap in logic there, Kevin. And kind of incredible in light of Kevin McCarthy previously admitting on national television that the Benghazi Select Committee's purpose was to tank Clinton's poll numbers. Would Kevin agree that committee was corrupt then, I guess?

These are depositions, not hearings. Public hearings come later, once depositions are complete, and there's no more opportunity for deposed subjects to coordinate details. Then a Senate trial after that, where Trump gets all the "due process" he has been disingenuously complaining about.

It's amusing to me how it seems to be lost in all of this, that half of the people sitting in on these depositions are REPUBLICANS.

Patrick Constantine 15 hours ago
I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never let This country move past militarism
anon 14 hours ago
If you supported the Schiff parody-as-truth from the other week but this bothers you, then you are an anti-Trump partisan. Conversely, if you support this but had a problem with Schiff, you are a pro-Trump partisan. And that is okay because impeachment is a political act. Just don't dress it up and pretend your side follows the rule of law and the other side doesn't. Both sides are engaging in politics to convince the public. And we'll be just fine as long as both sides stick with that, and obey the constitutional rules for impeachment. We'll only get in serious trouble if folks decide to go extra constitutional:

Tlaib: Democrats looking into how to arrest Trump officials
https://www.foxnews.com/pol...

Or if someone from the military tries to intervene:
https://www.nytimes.com/201...

[Oct 27, 2019] HARPER TRUTH ABOUT SYRIAN OIL: As is usually the case in theaters of combat, reality on the ground differs widely from the sharp and clear lines that are presented to uninformed outside observers

Oct 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

As is usually the case in theaters of combat, reality on the ground differs widely from the sharp and clear lines that are presented to uninformed outside observers. Good case in point is the state of Syrian oil. I am told by a well-informed source that the Syrian Democratic Forces led by the Kurds have been selling much of the oil in northeast Syrian territory they controlled until recently to the Syrian National Oil Company--the Assad government.

Some of that oil has also been sold to the Turks,,,

As we know, in the past, when ISIS controlled some of the Syrian oil, they were trucking it across the border to Turkey and selling it to Erdogan's minions at a steep discount. The SDF has continued doing that.

... ... ...


BraveNewWorld , 27 October 2019 at 01:37 PM

... Those tanker lines that Daesh was running into Turkey were done with the blessing of the US. It was the resistance and in particular Russia that blew all that up.
turcopolier , 27 October 2019 at 01:56 PM
BNW

What Harper meant to say is that some of the oil goes by tanker TRUCK from Turkey to Iran. The oil thus trans-shipped to Iran is sold on as refined product to North Korea. The Turks have been getting it at a very cheap prices from the SDF The Iranians add these products to domestic production shipped east.

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 27 October 2019 at 02:33 PM
So, an oil-swap deal? Just like the currently defunct gas-swap deal that used to obtain between Iran and Turkmenistan a few years back. Kurds and Turks acting like middlemen; how very Middle-eastern!
JP Billen , 27 October 2019 at 03:10 PM
The SDF/SNOC oil deal was negotiated by Russia 18 months ago. The SDF does NOT sell the oil to the SNOC. Under the Russian deal, they get a share of the oil. The rest is turned over to a broker from Raqqa who transports it in tanker trucks to Baniyas and Homs refineries.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Kurds-In-Syria-Share-Oil-With-Government-As-Part-Of-A-Deal.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-s-syria-ally-supplies-oil-to-assads-brokers-11549645073

If any oil is being diverted to Turkey, the it is the Raqqa brokers doing so. They are the reportedly the brokers that used to deliver ISIS oil to Turkey via Erdogan's son-in-law.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/raqqa-and-the-oil-economy-of-isis/

JP Billen -> turcopolier ... , 27 October 2019 at 03:10 PM
... it was a deal negotiated by Russia with full agreement of Assad and his government and the SNOC. My understanding is also that they did not choose the middleman from Raqqa. Apparently he was the only one with tankers and with drivers who had no problem driving through areas controlled by SDF, other areas controlled by SAA, and a few risky areas where Daesh hijackings were a possibility.

[Oct 27, 2019] Congress Stop Moaning About Syria and Start Voting on Wars

Oct 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com Curiously, this reticence doesn’t extend to voting on resolutions that seek to preserve America’s military presence in the Middle East. Legislators are more interested in stopping troop withdrawals from unauthorized conflicts than authorizing those conflicts in the first place.

Ask Congress to engage in an honest, open, and transparent national conversation before launching the first cruise missile and they run for the hills like villagers from a flash flood.

But ask them to spend an hour on the floor blasting the president for losing his “resolve” or upending American “leadership” (those favorite Beltway buzzwords), and they arrive with speeches in hand. It would all be hilarious if it wasn’t so depressing.


Sid Finster 3 days ago

Asking Congress to start acting principled?

Please. Might as well ask cats to become vegetarians, or Trump to be honest.

Our leaders are indistinguishable from sociopaths, because power attracts sociopaths the way cocaine attracts addicts.

polistra24 2 days ago
It's way too late to be saying "the longer this continues". Undeclared wars have been standard practice from the start. WW1 and WW2 were extremely unusual exceptions to the normal rule.
NotYouNotSure 2 days ago • edited
It also begs the question who exactly is war supposed to be declared on here? Syria, Turkey, Iran or Russia, and for what reason are they going to declare this war for?
Trump=Obama 2 days ago
Trumpologists. Stop moaning about Congress, the Democrats, RINOs and the media and start holding Trump to account.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) Trump=Obama 2 days ago • edited
Sorry, but the only one who's moaning here is you. While the article tells hard facts by saying that there would be nothing to hold Trump to account for regarding foreign policy, since he wouldn't have inherited any war, had the parliament done its job and denied Bush II and Obama the authorization of the said wars. Now, it doesn't mean that those wars wouldn't have happened, since the MIC, oil companies, pharmaceutical industry et al. could have easily staged a coup to get rid of such an inconvenient parliament, but in such a case the said (former) parliament could, at least, speak from a morally high ground. While now their complaints sound like laments about a streak of assassinations from those who prepared sniper nests for hitmen every single time.
EliteCommInc. Trump=Obama 2 days ago
i am certainly no Trumpologist ---

But I am not sure we read the same article which made it clear that in te author's view --

Congress has failed to do its duty on the issue.

TISO_AX2 Trump=Obama a day ago
TDSers..Stop the madness. Stay on context or be quiet.
EliteCommInc. 2 days ago
Nice try.

The mistake the president made was to extend an olive branch to his opponents by hiring them in the first place.

Whatever one thinks of Mr Bannon. He came out with a clear understanding . . . whatever agenda or intent was had to reduce our use of force to regime change --

"fo ged aboud it . . . "

And while, I think he may have overstated the matter. It's clear that agenda was not aided by those appointments to is cabinate.

Goodwill to policy goodbye.

It is farcical and painful to watch.

Note:

one aspect of my opposition to the conflict was the strategy chosen. And it that strategy unfortunately did not include "pulling out all the stops."

TheSnark 2 days ago
The author actually expects those in Congress to stand up and take responsibility for something? He can't be serious.
TheSnark 2 days ago
BTW. the author states: "Most lawmakers accepted the administration's arguments with barely a blink, which enabled one of the gravest U.S. foreign policy blunders (the second Iraq War) in modern history."

Most of the Democrats were opposed, but remembering how they were raked over the coals for opposing the first Iraq War, voted in favor of a war to cover their butts.

Sid Finster TheSnark a day ago
Don't make excuses.

It doesn't matter why Team D voted the way they did - it's not like a whole hearted vote in favor of aggressive war counts double, or the kids on the other end of the drone don't really die if you feel sad when you push the "yes" button.

For that matter, it's not as if Team D are engaged in a wholesale mea culpa after they claimed to have been rooked.

Alex (the one that likes Ike) TheSnark a day ago
Those who call nearly all shots in today's Democratic Party were fervent proponents of that war.
TISO_AX2 a day ago
I couldn't agree more. Congress is a disaster. And if you believe in opinion polls, they show it.
Joshua Barlow 15 hours ago
If our military members refuse to uphold their oath to constitution it's time to disband the standing army as it has become nothing more than the tool of foreign occupiers who have purchased our government. Revoke all their benifit packages, no more free college, no more subsidized loans for housing. If these people are nothing but mercenaries then stop paying them for violating the contract.

[Oct 27, 2019] What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured. He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context, media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"!

Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

jadan , Oct 27 2019 2:44 utc | 56

@41 Jackrabbit

If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge

Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.

What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured. He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context, media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.

[Oct 27, 2019] Biden's Intervention In Ukraine And Ukraine's 2016 Election Meddling Are Matters of Fact

Notable quotes:
"... On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired. ..."
"... Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out. ..."
"... Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky. ..."
"... Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really "debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. ..."
"... In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the Ukrainians delivered a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych. ..."
"... Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT headline emphasized the fact: ..."
"... insisting on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. ..."
"... That term "conspiracy theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the author wishes were not true but almost certainly is. ..."
"... Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very much doubt.... ..."
"... If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these young journalists are suggesting. ..."
"... Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being lied to particularly over matters of importance. ..."
"... Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent him becoming president. That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump ..."
"... Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. ..."
"... Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions known as Russiagate began. ..."
"... I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up "dirt" on Trump ..."
"... Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out. ..."
"... It seems some corners are coming unglued if the ZH link below is any indication: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-entrapped-flynn-manipulated-evidence-clapper-allegedly-issued-kill-shot-order ..."
"... The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit "LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States." ..."
"... Prescient observation by Aaron Mate : "When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep State TV." ..."
"... The take away quote: "Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner." ..."
"... Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors. ..."
"... Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation. ..."
"... It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals since he is such a lousy business man. ..."
"... The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101. ..."
"... Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit. What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony. ..."
"... Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents, MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with "conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent (that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his position is a "conspiracy theory". ..."
"... Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare. For example, this was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities' version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy theorists". ..."
"... This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles. ..."
"... They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths appear to carry some validity. ..."
"... If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge. ..."
"... as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the ordinary USA persons mind... ..."
"... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc. ..."
"... i am sure biden is small potatoes in the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage, it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam when i was a teenager.. ..."
Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Several mainstream media have made claims that Joe Biden's intervention in the Ukraine and the Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election are "conspiracy theories" and "debunked". The public record proves them wrong. By ignoring or even contradicting the facts the media create an opening for Trump to rightfully accuse them of providing "fake news".

On October 04 a New Yorker piece, headlined The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine , asserted:

[In late 2018], Giuliani began speaking to current and former Ukrainian officials about the Biden conspiracy theory, and meeting with them repeatedly in New York and Europe. Among those officials was Viktor Shokin, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who was sacked in March, 2016, after European and U.S. officials, including Joe Biden, complained that he was lax in curbing corruption. Shokin claimed that he had lost his powerful post not because of his poor performance but rather because Biden wanted to stop his investigation of Burisma, in order to protect his son. The facts didn't back this up. The Burisma investigation had been dormant under Shokin.

Several other media outlets also made the highlighted claim to debunk the "conspiracy theory". But is it correct?

We have looked into the claim that Shorkin's investigation against Burisma owner Zlochevsky was dormant, as the New Yorker says, and found it to be false :

The above accounts are incorrect. Shokin did go after Zlochevsky. He opened two cases against him in 2015. After he did that Biden and his crew started to lobby for his firing. Shokin was aggressively pursuing the case. He did so just before Biden's campaign against him went into a frenzy.
...
On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired.
...
Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.

Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.

It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record , in form of a report by Interfax-Ukraine , contradicts it.


bigger


On Thursday Buzzfeed News wrote about a different Ukrainian prosecutor who in early 2019 was approached to set up meetings with President Donald Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani:

[Gyunduz] Mamedov's role was key. He was an intermediary in Giuliani's efforts to press Ukraine to open investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and the debunked conspiracy theory about the country's interference in the 2016 presidential election , a collaboration between BuzzFeed News, NBC News, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) can reveal.

The OCCRP is funded by the UK Foreign Office, the US State Dept, USAID, Omidyar Network, Soros' Open Society, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others. Most of these entities were involved in the 2014 coup against the elected government of the Ukraine.

Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really "debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials.

As Politico reported shortly after Trump had won the election, it was the Democratic Party organization, the DNC, which had asked the Ukrainians for dirt that could be used against the campaign on Donald Trump:

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia.

The Ukrainian-American who was the go between the DNC and the government of Ukraine had earlier worked for the Clinton administration:

Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the Ukrainians delivered a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych.

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.

"Paul Manafort is among those names on the list of so-called 'black accounts of the Party of Regions,' which the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine are investigating," the statement said. "We emphasize that the presence of P. Manafort's name in the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in the column of recipients could belong to other people."

The provenance of the ledger is highly dubious. It was allegedly found in a burned out office of Yanukovych's old party:

The papers, known in Ukraine as the "black ledger," are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev.
...
The accounting records surfaced this year, when Serhiy A. Leshchenko, a member of Parliament who said he had received a partial copy from a source he did not identify, published line items covering six months of outlays in 2012 totaling $66 million. In an interview, Mr. Leshchenko said another source had provided the entire multiyear ledger to Viktor M. Trepak, a former deputy director of the domestic intelligence agency of Ukraine, the S.B.U., who passed it to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Anti-corruption groups in Ukraine said the black ledger detailing payments was probably seized when protesters ransacked the Party of Regions headquarters in February 2014.

The pages from the ledger, which had come from anonymous sources probably supported by John Brennan's CIA , were never proven to be genuine. But the claims were strong enough to get Manafort fired as campaign manager for Donald Trump. He was later sentenced for unrelated cases of tax evasion.

Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT headline emphasized the fact:

Ukraine's leaders campaign against 'pro-Putin' Trump ( screenshots ):

The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
...
Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power.

"A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy," Mr Leshchenko, an investigative journalist turned MP, told the Financial Times. "For me it was important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world."
...
If the Republican candidate loses in November, some observers suggest Kiev's action may have played at least a small role.

A Democratic Party operative asked the Ukrainian ambassador to find dirt on Trump's campaign manger Paul Manafort. A few month later a secret "black ledger" emerges from nowhere into the hands of dubious Ukrainian actors including a 'former' domestic intelligence director.

The ledger may or may not show that Manafort received money from Yanukovych's party. It was never verified. But it left Trump no choice but to fire Manafort. Ukrainian figures who were involved in the stunt openly admitted that they had meddled in the U.S. election, promised to do more of it and probably did.

The Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election is well documented. How the Buzzfeed News author can claim that it is a "debunked conspiracy theory" is beyond me.

In 1998 the U.S. and the Ukraine signed a Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (pdf). I came into force in February 2001. Article I defines the wide scope of assistance:

1. The Contracting States shall provide mutual assistance, in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty, in connection with the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of offenses, and in proceedings related to criminal matters.

2. Assistance shall include: (a) taking the testimony or statements of persons; (b) providing documents, records, and other items; (c) locating or identifying persons or items; (d) serving documents; (e) transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; (f) executing searches and seizures; (g) assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and (h) any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested State.

3. Assistance shall be provided without regard to whether the conduct that is the subject of the investigation, prosecution, or proceeding in the Requesting State would constitute an offense under the laws of the Requested State.

When Trump asked the current Ukrainian President Zelensky to help with an investigation into the above matters he acted well within the law and within the framework of the treaty. It was certainly not illegitimate to do that.

But when mainstream media deny that Biden's interference in Ukraine's prosecutor office is suspect, or claim that the Ukraine did not interfere in the U.S. elections, they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. To use it a basis of an 'impeachment inquiry' is political bullshit.

Making these false claims will come back to haunt those media outlets. Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the media even more.

Posted by b on October 26, 2019 at 17:51 UTC | Permalink


Piotr Berman , Oct 26 2019 18:16 utc | 1

"Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the media even more."

More precisely, there exit Trump-friendly media with millions of followers, so insisting on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. Not to mention leftist media reminiscing how Senator Biden championed the cause of MBNA (credit cart giant) when it was also a generous employer of his dear son. Of course, given the size of Delaware, it could be just a coincidence.

corkie , Oct 26 2019 18:27 utc | 3
Thanks b for providing the nitty gritty details of this sorry saga. That term "conspiracy theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the author wishes were not true but almost certainly is.
Maracatu , Oct 26 2019 18:30 utc | 4
What is certain is that if Biden is selected as the Dem candidate and ends up as President, the GOP (if it retains influence in Congress) will open an investigation into his actions on behalf of his son. Russia-gate is the gift that keeps on giving!
ben , Oct 26 2019 18:34 utc | 5
Thanks b, for the reality check. Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very much doubt....
ben , Oct 26 2019 18:39 utc | 6
P. S. DJT, IMO, is ALSO in the same category with Biden, HRC and other scum-bags that need to "go away", if not imprisoned..
Ort , Oct 26 2019 18:56 utc | 8
Thanks for another informative and insightful commentary, B. It's like a drink of cool, clean water after staggering through a volcanic landscape full of fumaroles belching sulfurous plumes of superheated gas.

Sometimes my hobby horses merrily hop along under me without any effort on my part. I just hang onto the reins and howl. So: it's bad enough that the US mass-media consent-manufacturers, aka the CIA/Deep State's "Mighty Wurlitzer", gin up endless propaganda to discredit the facts you mention; their mission is to fool enough of the public that there's no "there" there, and prop up Biden's presidential campaign in the bargain.

But what increasingly bugs me is so-called "alternative" news outlets and independent journalists buying into the spin that Trump and his associates are using the pretext of investigating corruption as a means to illegally and illicitly "dig up dirt on political rivals". Put the other way around, they concede that Biden and other Team Obama honchos are indeed "dirty", and that their Ukraine adventure was reprehensibly illicit or illegal and self-serving-- but they return to faulting Trump for impermissibly exploiting these circumstances in order to gain political advantage.

It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful to affirm that Trump et al 's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power. But, sadly, even journalists like Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and Michael Tracey have echoed this rote condemnation.

My guess is that this arises from two acronyms: incipient TDS, which compels even "alternative" US journalists to regard Trump as the "heel" in the staged "professional"-wrestling scam of US electoral politics. Also, CYA; I suspect that these relatively young, professionally vulnerable journalists are terrified of coming off as "defending" or "excusing" Trump, lest they trigger wrathful excoriation from their peers and the hordes of social-media users whose custom they cultivate.

This is why I appreciate your clarity and forthrightness on this fraught topic.

Paul Damascene , Oct 26 2019 19:26 utc | 10
Ort @ 8 --

Rereading your post, and agreeing with some it, I find I disagree less with its conclusions than on first reading.

If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these young journalists are suggesting.

But where I would disagree is if you were suggesting that Taibbi, Mate and Blumenthal are making obligatory objections to Trump more generally, in order to curry favour with their peers. I think each of them would readily reel off lists of things (more substantive than Ukrainegate -- and probably not including Russia collusion) that they think Trump should be castigated, impeached and perhaps prosecuted for.

karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 19:32 utc | 11
Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being lied to particularly over matters of importance.
Peter AU 1 , Oct 26 2019 19:39 utc | 12
Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent him becoming president. That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump. He definitely is more than the twitter reality TV persona that he puts up as a public face.

With the Barr investigation, it looks like the non Trump section of the swamp will be drained in the near future.

jasmin , Oct 26 2019 19:43 utc | 13
Possibly an irrelevant point, but Shokin's replacement Lutsenko was the prosecutor who resurrected the "deceased", self declared journalist, Arkady Babchenko. The story was full of plot twists, involving a Boris German/Herman, who was Russian. B kept Us regaled with events. I'd post a link, but have witnessed too many thread expansions too risk it.
dh , Oct 26 2019 19:45 utc | 14
I think a lot of people give the MSM too much credit. Of course editorials etc. can influence people's thinking but the media, and journalists in general, are loathed by the people who voted for Trump. It's a big reason he was elected.
ben , Oct 26 2019 19:45 utc | 15
Ort @ 8 said;"It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful to affirm that Trump et al's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power."

Co-Opted, or truthful, depending on what you believe. You, have every right to your opinion, but, when push comes to shove, think I'll give my opinion being swayed or not, by giving more credibility to the five names you've decided to "shade".

DJT has a record of behavior, and so do the five you've mentioned. My choice is clear, I'll believe the five..

Jen , Oct 26 2019 19:56 utc | 16
Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions known as Russiagate began.

I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up "dirt" on Trump, Manafort or anyone Manafort supposedly had connections with who is also mentioned in the "black ledger" but maybe that's because with the garbage that Bellingcat has so delivered, Eliot Higgins and company can't be trusted any more. Their masters should have known though, that when you give your subordinates base material to work with, they can only come up with base results: garbage in, garbage out.

psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 19:57 utc | 17
Thanks for your ongoing documentation of the political criminality in the US b. The recent events are playing out like a two-bit soap opera rerun in a nursing home for America's brainwashed. Maybe Trump could start a new TV game show called Apprentice Corruption and instead of saying "Your Fired!" it could be "Your Guilty!"

As an American it is difficult to watch the country that I was taught such good things about in school be exposed as a criminal enterprise running cover for the elite cult that owns global private finance and manipulates Western not-so-civilized culture.

I hope all this BS we are going through wakes up enough of the semi-literate public to overthrow the criminal sect and restore the Founding Fathers motto and concept of E Pluribus Unum.

lysias , Oct 26 2019 20:09 utc | 18
Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out.
karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 20:35 utc | 19
Given the fact that she got a first hand look at the Outlaw US Empire's injustice system and its tie-in with BigLie Media, the comments by the now back in Russia Maria Butina carry some legitimate weight that're worth reading: "'I believe that the Americans are wonderful people, but they have lost their legal system,' Butina said. 'What is more, they are routinely losing their country. They will lose it unless they do something'.... "'I am very proud of my country, of my origin,' Butina stressed. 'And I come to realize it more and more.'"

Should I bold the following, maybe make the lettering red, and put it in all caps:

"They are routinely losing their country."

I know this is an international bar, but the general focus has long been on the Outlaw US Empire. IMO, Maria Butina is 100% correct. The topic of this thread is just further proof of that fact. As I tirelessly point out, the federal government has routinely violated its own fundamental law daily since October 1945. The media goes along with it robotically. And aside from myself, I know of no other US citizen that's raised the issue--not Chomsky, not Zinn, not anyone with more credentials and public accessibility than I. I sorta feel like Winston Smith: Am I the only one who sees and understands what's actually happening?! Well, I've shared what I know, so I'm no longer alone. But that's not very satisfying, nor is it satisfactory.

psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 21:00 utc | 22
It seems some corners are coming unglued if the ZH link below is any indication: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-entrapped-flynn-manipulated-evidence-clapper-allegedly-issued-kill-shot-order

The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit "LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States."
"

karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 21:00 utc | 23
Prescient observation by Aaron Mate : "When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep State TV."

Sure, he sees it, many of us barflies see it, but it's the public within the Outlaw US Empire that must see and understand this dynamic. If they don't or won't, then Butina's words are even more correct--They are losing their country.

Brian_J , Oct 26 2019 21:07 utc | 24
Here are some more Biden & Biden lobbying revelations going back to 2008 from the Washington Examiner from before Biden became VP: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-outreach-to-dhs-and-doj-overlapped-with-work-by-son-hunters-lobbying-firm
psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 21:08 utc | 25
Below is another ZH link (still can't do HTML....sigh) about more Biden perfidy re his son Hunter: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/busted-joe-biden-intervened-help-hunters-lobbying-efforts-multiple-occasions

The take away quote: "Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner."

uncle tungsten , Oct 26 2019 21:10 utc | 26
steven t johnson #20

Excuses from the Trump lovers should be dismissed out of hand.

They usually are dismissed around this bar stj. As are the excuses from the Dem lovers.

How do you excuse this ?

MadMax2 , Oct 26 2019 21:27 utc | 28
maracatu 4

The merry-go-round scenario you post would indicate a broken state. Biden's been in office for 43 years, Trump 3 yrs... the potential for dirt is large, mix it with even larger GOP vengeance should that scenario arise and this will drag on through the decades.

'A republic, if you can keep it.' ~Franklin

paul , Oct 26 2019 21:35 utc | 29
What Trump did was corrupt. Normal corruption. What Biden did was corrupt. A lot more corrupt. And rather brazen.
Peter AU 1 , Oct 26 2019 21:46 utc | 30
"They are routinely losing their country."

Part and parcel of democracy. Western style democracy at least. Perhaps others can set theirs up better, though allways, the achilles heel of democracy is information, or media. Who oversees ensuring voters recieve accurate information.

The oz state of NSW had something that broke through this for a bit. ICAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Commission_Against_Corruption_(New_South_Wales)

It took complaints from the public and investigated them. They did not have power to bring charges, but for a time findings were made public. Once it got onto a money trail it would keep following and that would lead to other money trails. It was a state agency and had to stop at state borders but most money trails led to federal politics. It was defanged when they came too close to federal politics.

Something like this in a countries constitution could work though it could be corrupted the same as anything else.

MadMax2 , Oct 26 2019 21:49 utc | 31
@karlof 23

Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors.

It wasn't so long ago these deep state types would rather steer clear of the media. Now they are out there earning bread driving the narrative. Are these deep state media faces a tactical last resort...?

jadan , Oct 26 2019 22:13 utc | 32
Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation.

It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals since he is such a lousy business man. Putin and other Russian kleptocrats saved Trump boy's bacon. So it's very confusing when bed actors do good things.

Biden is no doubt quite corrupt. But that's got little to do with Trumps quid pro quo with Ukraine. You say that Ukrainian interference in US elections is well documented. You don't offer any documents, b. Anti-Putin Ukrainians were naturally anti-Trump. So what? Where's the beef? Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills and gave the world Chernobyl, interfered in US elections.

Your defense of Trump is getting tiresome. He's a criminal with no respect for the US Constitution and he deserves to be impeached. This is not to say that Joe Biden or his drug addict son are not also shit stains. I am just dismayed that you, an ostensibly intelligent independent commentator would go to bat for an ignoramus like Trump.

Don Bacon , Oct 26 2019 22:16 utc | 33
The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101.

President Harry Truman probably received as much flak as any politician ever did, especially after he canned war-hero General MacArthur. But Truman wasn't a candy-ass current politician complaining about dirt-digging. No, he gave back more than he got, in spades.

What was "give-em-hell" Harry Truman's attitude? Some Truman quotes:
--"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
--"It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart"
--"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
-- "I'll stand by [you] but if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen ."

That's what Trump is doing and will probably continue to do with fake news. (And he coined the phrase.)

vk , Oct 26 2019 22:19 utc | 34
I'll repeat what I posted here some days ago: this is not a battle between truth vs lies, but between which is the truth that will guide the USA for the forseeable future.

Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit. What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony.

It's not that the liberals deny Biden did what he did, but that they disagree with Trump's interpretation over what he did. This is what the doctrine of the vital center is all about: some facts are more facts than others, prevailing the one which maintains the cohesion of the empire.

There's a battle for America's soul; the American elite is in flux: Russia or China?

vk , Oct 26 2019 22:25 utc | 35
It seems Jeff Bezos is angry he didn't get that USD 10 billion cloud contract from the Pentagon: Company with ties to Trump's brother Robert awarded $33 million government contract
karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 22:26 utc | 36
MadMax2 @31--

In 1984 , the narrative was now 100% in your face and everything had to be manipulated to match it, which apparently hadn't been needed previously. But we aren't told if that was done as a "last resort." I would think not given continuing polls showing ongoing distrust of media, thus the difficulty of manufacturing consent. Look at the great popularity enjoyed by Sanders amongst 18-30 year-olds who get most of their information online or via social media and the measures being taken to try and manipulate those realms. Then there're efforts to counter the misinformation and manipulation by numerous activists, many of which get cited here.

Another thought: They're out front now because the Establishment's deemed the fight to control the narrative's being lost, and they've been drafted to rectify the situation. If correct, they ought to keep failing.

uncle tungsten , Oct 26 2019 22:27 utc | 37
karlof1 #19

The international nature of this bar and its many flies is that mostly (from what I read) they have an immense respect for the rule of law. It is this singular concept that we trust will transcend religion and the quasi religiosity of political allegiances.

The rule of law is a deity-like singularity that embraces all beings equally, or should. Assaulting that legitimate expectation of the law applying equally is what confronts us daily in so many ways and when it is observed being assaulted by the highest office bearers in political and corporate life that we barflies get mighty annoyed. The gross vista of assumed immunity demonstrated by Nixon is equaled by the antics of the Clinton foundation and its Directors. Each and every one of them.

But it is far worse than that as the assault on the rule of law is daily carried out by the mafias that infest our societies, the corrupt and violent police that cant/wont protect our citizens, the international warmongering criminal classes that propagandise us to accept warring as a legitimate exercise of power even though we recognise it as a crime against humanity.

So when we see the deplorable state of media and jurisprudence and fairness we can only think as Maria Butina does "that we are routinely losing our countries" and I would add our civil societies. The latter is vastly more concerning than the former IMO.

alaff , Oct 26 2019 22:47 utc | 38
Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents, MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with "conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent (that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his position is a "conspiracy theory".

Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare. For example, this was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities' version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy theorists".

When I see words like "conspiracy theory" in the headlines and see what media use them, then, you know, it's all clear. No chance for such articles/media to be taken seriously.

james , Oct 26 2019 22:59 utc | 39
@32 jadan quote "Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills...." are you familiar with the name porkoshenko, or any other one of the numbers of kleptomaniacs in positions of power in the ukraine? how do you think they got their, if ''that little piss ant country' can't even pay it's bills? i am sure you are capable of adding 2 + 2...

b isn't defending trump here.. he's highlighting how corrupt the msm is! it looks like you missed that.. check the headline..

Peter Charles , Oct 26 2019 23:02 utc | 40
This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles.

They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths appear to carry some validity. If you look for it you can find it applying in almost every bit of 'news', if it is in any way controversial, whether it is partisan politics, Climate Change or Brexit to give examples.

Jackrabbit , Oct 26 2019 23:51 utc | 41
jadan @32:
As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge.
Jackrabbit , Oct 26 2019 23:51 utc | 42
uncle tungsten @37: rule of law

If the people get the government they deserve then they also get the laws/order they deserve. Voting alone is unlikely to fix that. We need Movements.

Michael Droyd , Oct 27 2019 0:12 utc | 43
Ukraine was just one hell of a honey pot that too many couldn't resist visiting. Kind of like Russia (Uranium One and HRC) or China (Biden for a start). Giulani is going to be very busy - he still hasn't produced anything that wasn't already published, but I bet he has much more.

And then there is this: https://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-plundering-of-ukraine/

ben , Oct 27 2019 0:47 utc | 48
DB @ 33 said; Trump coined the phrase "fake news".

Horse puckey DB, check this out: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/head-in-the-cloud/201611/brief-history-fake-news

ben , Oct 27 2019 0:54 utc | 49
And this; https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/rewind/the-true-history-of-fake-news
evilempire , Oct 27 2019 0:56 utc | 50
Burisma investigated by SFO for money laundering: https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2019/04/07/the-hunt-for-burisma-pt-1/
Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 1:12 utc | 51
Glenn Brown @46:
... smart enough to understand and agree that they needed someone like Trump?
Yes, I do think they are smart enough and agreed to act in their collective best interest. Kissinger first wrote of MAGA in a WSJ Op-Ed in August 2014. Trump entered the race in June 2015, IIRC.

Do you think that Trump - who failed at multiple businesses - just woke up one day and became a political and geopolitical genius? As a candidate he said he'd "take the oil" and now, more than 3 years later, he has! LOL.

And JUST AFTER the Mueller investigation formally ends, Trump ONCE AGAIN solicits a foreign power to interfere in a US election. The biggest beneficiary? Deep State BIDEN! Who now gets all the media attention.

FYI Wm Gruff makes your same point often: that Deep State mistakes demonstrate that they couldn't possible pull of a Trump win (if that's what they wanted). I disagree.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

I very much doubt that anyone will go to jail - or serve any meaningful jail time if they do - over the Deep State shenanigans. Nor will people 'wake up' and see how they've been played anytime soon. Even the smarter, more savvy denizens of the moa bar have much difficulty connecting dots. Dots that they don't want to see.

Jackrabbit !!

Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 2:14 utc | 55
The Deep State at work:

But they would NEVER interfere in a Presidential election.

LOL

Jackrabbit !!

jadan , Oct 27 2019 2:44 utc | 56
@41 Jackrabbit

If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge

Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.

What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured. He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context, media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.

Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 2:45 utc | 57
Oh, but Deep State DID interfere. FACT: Deep Stater Hillary colluded with DNC against Sanders. ( But she would NEVER participate in collusion that caused her to lose an election./sarc LOL)

And now pro-Trump people say Clapper, Brennan, and Comey interfered in the 2016 election OR committed treason by trying to unseat the President!

So we can talk about Deep State interference . . . as long as it follows the partisan narrative that's been established for us.

Jackrabbit !!

uncle tungsten , Oct 27 2019 3:26 utc | 58
jadan #54

I have news for you. USA Presidents use strong coercive persuasive arguments or means of speech ALL THE TIME. And always have. Sometimes they can be subtle and allude to an action that might make them happy and sometimes they can be blunt. Its a presidential thing. It is what statespeople do when they 'negotiate' for their desired outcome.

It is not illegal or corrupt. It is power nakedly exercised. Just because Biden is a candidate for the same presidential role does not confer immunity for Biden's graft in favor of his son a few years back. You make a mockery of your position.

One USA President visited Australia once and when confronted with a roadblock of demonstrators seeking peace in Vietnam demanded of the Australian Premier to "drive over the bastards". That didn't happen but the President continued to drive all over the Vietnamese innocents.

Trump may be a grifter and a scumbag but there are warmongers well ahead of him in the cue for justice. Take Hillary Clinton for example. She is a ruthless killer and the greatest breach of USA national Security ever with her Secretary of State emails held on an unsecured server in her closet.

ben , Oct 27 2019 3:30 utc | 59
The same powers some call "deep state," are the same powers that have given us ALL modern day presidents, probably from FDR on. IMO, they are nothing more, nothing less than the "captains of commerce", who, through the vast accumulation of wealth by monopoly, buy our "representatives" to legislate rules and regulations to benefit themselves.

Our so-called "leaders" work for them, with very few exceptions, and transcends all political parties, and now also the Supreme Court.

$ has been ruled speech, unlimited $ is allowed to be given to politicians for elections. How could anything but massive corruption take place under this kind of system?

restlelss94110 , Oct 27 2019 3:34 utc | 60
they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. You suffer from TDS. What on Earth are you talking about here? Plenty of that? Say what? Why do you undercut your entire point in your article with this little piece of utter nonsense?

Name one thing that Trump that has done that is illegal. Name one thing that is crazy. Stop apologizing to the crazies by denigrating Trump. Your entire article was all about how none of the bs is true. And then you put your own brand of bs in there at the end. Cut it out.

james , Oct 27 2019 3:44 utc | 61
@ 54 jadan... thanks for your comments... i am feeling more philosophical tonight, as i don't have a gig and have some time to express myself a bit more here.. first off, i don't like any of these characters - trump, biden, and etc. etc.. i have no horse in the game here, and it sounds like you don't either.. your comment- "The issue is Trump's extortion of Ukraine, not Biden's extortion of Ukraine." i can go along with that until i reflect back onto what increasingly looks like an agenda to get trump even prior to when he was elected, at which point i want to say why are we only examining trump in all of this? who gets to decide what the issue is, or as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the ordinary USA persons mind...

let me back up... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc..

so, i don't think it is fair to only consider the latest boneheaded thing trump did when i consider the bigger picture unfolding here.. now, maybe you think i am a trump apologist... i am just saying what the backdrop looks like to me here.. i am sure biden is small potatoes in the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage, it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam when i was a teenager..

i suppose it depends on the time frame one wants to take.. my time frame will be considered an evasion of the moment to some, but it is how i see it.. sure, trump is scum, but the bigger issue to me is the usa's foreign policy agenda.. anything that can pull back the covers on that would be an extremely good thing... now, perhaps this is the straw that broke trumps back and the deep state will not tolerate being scrutinized.. that i could understand, but i am not going to be putting it all on trump as the reason the covers have to remain on all the shit the usa has been responsible for on the world stage to date and especially the past 10 years.. i am not able to blame trump for all of that.. and as you can see, i would prefer to get down to the nitty gritty of who is zooming who here... the msm for all intensive purposes is complicit in duping the american public.. that to me is the gist of b's comment here, not that he is cheer-leading for trump.. i just don't see it that way...i'm definitely not!

[Oct 26, 2019] The Blob Strikes Back by Hunter DeRensis

The State Department is a neoliberal Trojan horse in the USA government, with strong globalist ethos. They will sabotage any change of foreign policy. and they intend to kick the neoliberal can down the road as long as possible. They are the same type of neoliberals as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Probably less corrupt them those two, but still.
They are imperial soldiers par excellence; these whole life concentrated on serving the imperial interests, and strive for the strengthening and expansion of neoliberal empire via opening new markets for the expansions of US based multinationals, staging wars and color revolutions to overthrows the governments which resists Washington Consensus, etc.
They probably can't be reformed, only fired, or forced into retirement. 72 years old neocon stooge Taylor is just the tip of the iceberg.
From Wikipedia: He directed a Defense Department think tank at Fort Lesley J. McNair . Following that assignment, he went to Brussels for a five year assignment as the Special Deputy Defense Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to NATO From 1992 until 2002 Taylor served with the rank of ambassador coordinating assistance to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union , followed by an assignment in Kabul coordinating U.S. and international assistance to Afghanistan . In 2004 he was transferred to Baghdad as Director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office
Taylor was nominated by President George W. Bush to be United States ambassador to Ukraine while he was serving as Senior Consultant to the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization at the Department of State. [10] He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 26, 2006, and was sworn in on June 5, 2006. At the time Taylor assumed responsibilities at the embassy it was, with over 650 employees from nine U.S. government departments and agencies, the fifth-largest bilateral mission in Europe
Notable quotes:
"... As William Taylor's testimony about Ukraine creates shock waves in Washington, a self-anointed mandarin class or, if you prefer, deep state, that has largely operated unmolested until the advent of Trump now appears to believe that it can foil, or even subvert, the policies of a president it deems unfit for office, a development that should worry Democrats and Republicans alike. ..."
"... One reason is that those who seek to repair the damage caused by a thirty-year deterioration in trust and cooperation face an uphill battle against what recently has been given the colloquial name, "the Blob." The term, coined by Obama White House staffer Ben Rhodes, refers to the foreign-policy establishment, mostly located in Washington, DC and constantly focused on the putative decline of American influence abroad. It has been distinguished by its unwillingness, or inability, to reconsider or reprioritize national interests that were first defined after World War II, and then continued, by and large, on auto-pilot after the end of the Cold War. ..."
"... Another reason is that Trump himself has been largely indifferent to who assumes positions in his administration, calculating that by sheer force of will he, and he alone, can be the decider. In September, Trump referred to his search for a fresh national security adviser in the following terms: "It's great because it's a lot of fun to work with Donald Trump, and it's very easy, actually, to work with me. You know why it's easy? Because I make all the decisions. They don't have to work." This insouciant approach has now boomeranged on Trump. ..."
"... Taylor, as his testimony made clear, was able to observe first-hand many of the Trump administration's ham-fisted moves to extract, in one form another, concessions from Ukraine. But however clumsy and counterproductive Trump's moves may have been, Taylor offered an overly simplistic survey of events in the region. Indeed, his Manichean introductory and concluding remarks suggested that he views Russia as an inveterate enemy of America and Ukraine as a white knight. ..."
"... Foreign policy is rarely a morality play and the fairy-tale that Taylor presented was more redolent of a post–Cold War cold warrior who, like too many of his colleagues at the foreign desk, are committed to retrograde thinking, than of an official offering an incisive look at a complex and troubled region. It is not as though Ukraine, where Taylor served as ambassador during the George W. Bush administration, has ever been free from the plague of corruption or murky machinations by local competing factions. Reflexively taking the side of Ukraine does not serve American interests any more than trying to pummel it for political favors. The testimony of Taylor and other State Department witnesses before the House Intelligence Committee is a case in point. ..."
"... ow that the fight between Trump and the permanent bureaucracy is now in the open? ..."
"... Vice President Mike Pence told Laura Ingraham , host of Fox's The Ingraham Angle , "There is no question when President Trump said we were going to drain the swamp, but an awful lot of the swamp has been caught up in the State Department bureaucracy and we're just going to keep fighting it. And we are going to fight it with the truth." For his part, Evans thinks that there is a modicum of hope for improved relations with Moscow. "Taylor will have to resign now," he says. "We might even see a moderation of the uncritical support for Ukraine, as some of the ugly underside starts to emerge, although anti-Russian sentiment is the mother's milk of Congress." ..."
Oct 23, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

As William Taylor's testimony about Ukraine creates shock waves in Washington, a self-anointed mandarin class or, if you prefer, deep state, that has largely operated unmolested until the advent of Trump now appears to believe that it can foil, or even subvert, the policies of a president it deems unfit for office, a development that should worry Democrats and Republicans alike.

President Donald Trump campaigned and was elected on a platform of improved relations with Russia. Yet, three years after his election, no real improvement has materialized and, if anything, they have deteriorated. Why?

One reason is that those who seek to repair the damage caused by a thirty-year deterioration in trust and cooperation face an uphill battle against what recently has been given the colloquial name, "the Blob." The term, coined by Obama White House staffer Ben Rhodes, refers to the foreign-policy establishment, mostly located in Washington, DC and constantly focused on the putative decline of American influence abroad. It has been distinguished by its unwillingness, or inability, to reconsider or reprioritize national interests that were first defined after World War II, and then continued, by and large, on auto-pilot after the end of the Cold War. Now Trump is taking a wrecking ball to this world order. But a self-anointed mandarin class or, if you prefer, deep state, that has largely operated unmolested until the advent of Trump now appears to believe that it can foil, or even subvert, the policies of a president it deems unfit for office, a development that should worry Democrats and Republicans alike.

Another reason is that Trump himself has been largely indifferent to who assumes positions in his administration, calculating that by sheer force of will he, and he alone, can be the decider. In September, Trump referred to his search for a fresh national security adviser in the following terms: "It's great because it's a lot of fun to work with Donald Trump, and it's very easy, actually, to work with me. You know why it's easy? Because I make all the decisions. They don't have to work." This insouciant approach has now boomeranged on Trump.

Enter William B. Taylor, Jr. Taylor has been the U.S. Chargé d 'Affaires Ukraine since June of this year (having previously held the position of ambassador 2006–2009), and yesterday he testified behind-closed-doors as part of the House impeachment inquiry into Trump. Taylor, as his testimony made clear, was able to observe first-hand many of the Trump administration's ham-fisted moves to extract, in one form another, concessions from Ukraine. But however clumsy and counterproductive Trump's moves may have been, Taylor offered an overly simplistic survey of events in the region. Indeed, his Manichean introductory and concluding remarks suggested that he views Russia as an inveterate enemy of America and Ukraine as a white knight.

In his opening statement, Taylor emphasized that Ukraine is a strategic partner of the United States that is "important for the security of our country as well as Europe," as well as a country that is "under armed attack from Russia." Well, yes. But this sweeping description occludes more than it reveals. Foreign policy is rarely a morality play and the fairy-tale that Taylor presented was more redolent of a post–Cold War cold warrior who, like too many of his colleagues at the foreign desk, are committed to retrograde thinking, than of an official offering an incisive look at a complex and troubled region. It is not as though Ukraine, where Taylor served as ambassador during the George W. Bush administration, has ever been free from the plague of corruption or murky machinations by local competing factions. Reflexively taking the side of Ukraine does not serve American interests any more than trying to pummel it for political favors. The testimony of Taylor and other State Department witnesses before the House Intelligence Committee is a case in point.

Will anything change n ow that the fight between Trump and the permanent bureaucracy is now in the open? On Tuesday night, Vice President Mike Pence told Laura Ingraham , host of Fox's The Ingraham Angle , "There is no question when President Trump said we were going to drain the swamp, but an awful lot of the swamp has been caught up in the State Department bureaucracy and we're just going to keep fighting it. And we are going to fight it with the truth." For his part, Evans thinks that there is a modicum of hope for improved relations with Moscow. "Taylor will have to resign now," he says. "We might even see a moderation of the uncritical support for Ukraine, as some of the ugly underside starts to emerge, although anti-Russian sentiment is the mother's milk of Congress."

Hunter DeRensis is a reporter at the National Interest .

[Oct 26, 2019] Trump Accuses Obama Of Treason by Paul Bedard

Notable quotes:
"... "What they did was treasonous, OK? It was treasonous," he told author Doug Wead for his upcoming book, " Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency." ..."
"... "Obama." ..."
Oct 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Paul Bedard via WashingtonExaminer.com,

President Trump has ratcheted up his claim that the Obama White House spied on his 2016 campaign, charging in a new book that it was a "treasonous" act by the former Democratic president.

"What they did was treasonous, OK? It was treasonous," he told author Doug Wead for his upcoming book, " Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency."

"The interesting thing out of all of this is that we caught them spying on the election. They were spying on my campaign. So you know? What is that all about?" said Trump.

"I have never ever said this, but truth is, they got caught spying. They were spying," said Trump who then added, "Obama."

In 2017, Trump tweeted that he felt the Obama White House "had my wires tapped" in Trump Tower. He later said he didn't mean it literally but that he felt his campaign was being spied on.

Attorney General William Barr earlier this year said he was looking into whether "improper surveillance" may have occurred in 2016.

" I think spying did occur, " he said.

He has tasked a prosecutor to look into Obama officials and other officials who sparked the Russia collusion investigation into Trump after a report showed no collusion. New reports on that investigation described it as "criminal" in nature.

"It turned out I was right. By the way," Trump told Wead in excerpts provided to Secrets.

"In fact, what I said was peanuts compared to what they did. They were spying on my campaign. They got caught and they said, 'Oh we were not spying. It was actually an investigation.' Can you imagine an administration investigating its political opponents?" said the president.

In the book, Trump said that the Russia investigation undercut his presidency.

" Anybody else would be unable to function under the kind of pressure and distraction I had. They couldn't get anything done. No other president should ever have to go through this. But understand, there was no collusion. They would have had to make something up," he said.


Demeter55 , 11 minutes ago link

Technically, it was sedition, unless Trump can show that Obama was acting for a foreign power. There definitely were foreign powers involved, the question is who was in charge?

dibiase , 9 minutes ago link

Is the CIA a foreign power? Sure seems like an occupying force to me.

TheSharpenedPen , 24 minutes ago link

The attempt to circumvent democracy and ensure Hillary's victory in the elections with falsified Russian collusion allegations along with a constant communist media bombardment to discredit Trump, absolutely constitutes treason. What you need to understand is that socialist progressives serve a different god - lucifer - and a different nation - Israel; that they do not have your best interests at heart is a given.

Everything they do is to undermine traditional morality and the moral fabric that holds civilization together. Ordo Ab Cao.

punchasocialist , 23 minutes ago link

This is treason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQgDgMGuDI0

and nothing to see here either: https://www.exposetheenemy.com/israel-russia

[Oct 26, 2019] Trump Outsmarts Putin With Syria Retreat by Zev Chafets

For a change, a view from Jerusalem ;-)
Yes, neocons still dominate the USA foreign policy which is evident in resolutions of the House of Representatives (were Clinton warmongers now in power ) and Mitch McConnel reaction (which is for all practical purposes is MIC reaction) .
But their power is on decline and there are forces that want a different foreign policy, and who are afraid that overstretching of the empire might bring the rebellion in the USA due to sliding standard of living. We already observe Latin-Americanization of the US politics. Probably those forces were are behind Trump decision.
Notable quotes:
"... After U.S. President Donald Trump announced a withdrawal from Syria, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution denouncing it as “a benefit to adversaries of the United States government, including Syria, Iran and Russia." ..."
"... Six days later, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, introduced a similar resolution. “If not arrested,” he said, “withdrawing from Syria will invite more of the chaos that breeds terrorism and create a vacuum our adversaries will certainly fill.” ..."
"... Such bipartisan agreement is rare in Washington these days. But it underestimates the wisdom of Trump’s decision, the benefits for U.S. interests in the Middle East and the nasty trick he has played on Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Russia cannot afford a project of this magnitude. It’s possible that Putin expects EU countries to foot the bill — motivated either by humanitarian impulses or by the desire to forestall another wave of destitute immigrants. But this is wishful thinking. Faced with a potential influx of Syrian refugees, Europe is more likely to raise barriers on its southern and eastern borders than to invest in affordable housing in the ruins of Aleppo and Homs. ..."
"... Another headache for Putin is the ongoing Israel-Iran war, which is being fought largely in Syrian territory. ..."
"... Critics who see the U.S. withdrawal as an act of weakness that will hurt American prestige and influence in the Middle East are wrong. ..."
"... For that is what the U.S. is. It has far more naval power, air dominance, strategic weaponry and intelligence assets than any other country in the region, including Russia. And its allies are the richest, best situated and most militarily potent countries in the Middle East. Not one of them will trade its relationship with Washington for an alliance with Moscow, and Trump knows this. As far as he’s concerned, Putin is welcome to the sandbox and the briar patch. ..."
Oct 25, 2019 | docs.disqus.com

After U.S. President Donald Trump announced a withdrawal from Syria, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution denouncing it as “a benefit to adversaries of the United States government, including Syria, Iran and Russia."

Six days later, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, introduced a similar resolution. “If not arrested,” he said, “withdrawing from Syria will invite more of the chaos that breeds terrorism and create a vacuum our adversaries will certainly fill.”

Such bipartisan agreement is rare in Washington these days. But it underestimates the wisdom of Trump’s decision, the benefits for U.S. interests in the Middle East and the nasty trick he has played on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump calls Syria a “bloody sandbox.” He’s right about that. It is also a briar patch of warring tribes and sects, inexplicable ancient animosities and irreconcilable differences.

The president is not prepared to take responsibility for this complicated place, or to get caught up in it. If leaving creates an opportunity for Russia to fill the vacuum, as American lawmakers believe, then it is one Trump is happy to cede. The Russian leader struts on the world stage, but he has not exactly won a victory.

Sooner or later, al-Qaeda, Islamic State or the next iteration of jihad will break loose in Syria. When that happens, the Russians will be the new Satan on the block. Their diplomats in Damascus will come under attack, as will Russian troops. More troops will be sent to defend them. Putin’s much-prized Mediterranean naval installations will require reinforcement. And so on. Soon enough, jihad will inflame Russia’s large Muslim population. Moscow itself will become a terrorist target.

The “safety zone” that Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have recently carved from northern Syria will collapse. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad rightly considers it a violation of his country’s sovereignty, and if he can persuade his Russian patrons to shut down the zone, Erdogan will threaten another invasion. If Putin then sides with Turkey, Assad will take matters into his own hands. His army may not be fit for fighting armed opponents, but the Kurds are and can act as Assad’s proxies.

If and when such a border fight develops, Putin will find himself between Assad and Erdogan. Whatever he does, he will wind up in that most vulnerable of Middle Eastern positions, the friend of somebody’s enemy.

As the big power in charge, Russia also will be expected to help its Syrian client rebuild the damage from the civil war. Physical reconstruction alone is expected to cost $400-500 billion. This is a bill Trump had no intention of paying — and one more reason he was glad to hand northern Syria to Putin.

Russia cannot afford a project of this magnitude. It’s possible that Putin expects EU countries to foot the bill — motivated either by humanitarian impulses or by the desire to forestall another wave of destitute immigrants. But this is wishful thinking. Faced with a potential influx of Syrian refugees, Europe is more likely to raise barriers on its southern and eastern borders than to invest in affordable housing in the ruins of Aleppo and Homs.

What’s more, Syria needs more than new housing. It needs an entire economy. Tourism, once a major industry, has vanished. The country’s relatively insignificant oilfields are inoperable, or in the hands of the tiny contingent of U.S. troops that’s left to guard them. And the country’s biggest export product is spice seeds.

Another headache for Putin is the ongoing Israel-Iran war, which is being fought largely in Syrian territory. So far, Russia has been studiously neutral. The powerful Israel Defense Forces are engaged against what their leaders regard as a strategic threat. And, unlike the Kurds, Israel is not a disposable American ally. Putin knows this and will not risk a military confrontation no matter how many Syrian-based Iranian munitions warehouses Israel destroys or how hard Assad pushes him to retaliate.

Critics who see the U.S. withdrawal as an act of weakness that will hurt American prestige and influence in the Middle East are wrong. The Arab world understands realpolitik and will read Trump’s indifference to the fate of Syria as the self-serving behavior of the strong horse.

For that is what the U.S. is. It has far more naval power, air dominance, strategic weaponry and intelligence assets than any other country in the region, including Russia. And its allies are the richest, best situated and most militarily potent countries in the Middle East. Not one of them will trade its relationship with Washington for an alliance with Moscow, and Trump knows this. As far as he’s concerned, Putin is welcome to the sandbox and the briar patch.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine. To contact the author of this story: Zev Chafets at [email protected]


Par Swing2 days ago ,

Zev, if you know the future so well why dont you just trade the market. We are hearing this song for many years - Russia will collapse, it will get stuck in Syria, second 'Afghanistan' etc, etc. So far it's all 'sour grapes' and pipe dreams. So far reality is diverging from perceptions not to benefit of the West - Russia goes from strength to strength, and despite enourmous efforts the West has not managed to knock down even Iran.

Siber_RUS Vytautas Šyvys21 hours ago ,

The US is the aggressor and the destroyer, so negotiations are unacceptable for the US...

[Oct 26, 2019] Russia Deploys some additional Troops, Equipment In Northern Syria

Crisis in Syria was partially created by drought, neoliberal policies by Assad and overpopulation. Overpopulation is now is less an issue as many Syrian left the country and many were killed. But the threat of self-defeating neoliberal policies remains. Also Israel will do its best to destabilize the country, as strong Syria is a direct threat to annexation of Golan Heights. Wikipedia: "On 25 March 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed that "the United States recognizes that the Golan Heights are part of the State of Israel", making the United States the first and only country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the effectively annexed regions of the Golan Heights.[25][26] The 28 member states of the European Union declared in turn they do not recognize Israeli sovereignty, and several Israeli experts on international law stated the principle remains that land gained by defensive or offensive wars cannot be annexed under international law.[27][28][29] "
The Golan Heights supply 15% of Israel's water.[45]
Notable quotes:
"... Rubbish. There is no political crisis in Syria except the one created by the vile regime in Washington and its allies. Syrian Kurds are Syrian citizens and those who ally themselves with US, after 'our' government sent head-chopping jihadists to destabilize and destroy the country, are traitors. ..."
Oct 26, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

David Wooten , 11 minutes ago link

"Bali claimed that "all parties must recognize that there is a political crisis that needs to be resolved by political means". "

Rubbish. There is no political crisis in Syria except the one created by the vile regime in Washington and its allies. Syrian Kurds are Syrian citizens and those who ally themselves with US, after 'our' government sent head-chopping jihadists to destabilize and destroy the country, are traitors.

AriusArmenian , 12 minutes ago link

If the Arabs and Kurds in eastern Syria go into alliance with Damascus then the US cannot hold the oil fields in eastern Syria.

The Russians are providing evidence that the US is stealing Syrian oil (probably to fund US team B off the books operations).

madashellron , 1 minute ago link

"Satellite images prove US smuggling of Syrian oil: Russia."

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/10/26/609615/Russia-Igor-Konashenkov-Syrian-oil-Daesh-Takfiri-terrorist-group

pparalegal , 14 minutes ago link

Good. About time someone called game off on the PNAC Obama-Hillary Muslim Spring regime change industry.

No reason why helpful Kurds can't get a visa, EBT cards and free rent vouchers in Chappaqua, NY. Why not. As the "DNC-media" tells me they have done more than 99.8% of Baltimore and Chicago hood rats who get it all for free.

AriusArmenian , 8 minutes ago link

The US use of liver eating jihadis extends through the regimes of Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Trump is cutting US backing of the liver eaters but he is overly trying to use the US military to steal resources. But even that will end when all the states around the US in eastern Syria want the Kurds down and the US to get out.

fersur , 28 minutes ago link

Wow 300 more people with 33 more.cars , it is their neck of the woods, the Oilfield will Not fall into hostile hands because President Trump reserves it for whoever homesteads the War Ruined Cities by rebuilding infrastructure !

Art_Vandelay , 25 minutes ago link

Wrong! It's not our business Q. I'm tired of all this BS world policeman ****.

GunnyG , 30 minutes ago link

Trump wins again. Pulls the troops back and drops Obama's war in Syria in Putin's lap. Genius.

AriusArmenian , 7 minutes ago link

Wrong. The US is sitting in eastern Syria on the oil fields completely surrounded by counties that want the US to get out.

Return_of_Byzantium , 26 minutes ago link

The five overthrows and revolutions in Syria, which were historically unprecedented for hundreds of years, before Hafez were ALL orchestrated by the CIA as the agency and its lackeys proudly admit. Syria was a peaceful country before the crooked Zionists and their proxies began tearing up the country.

Pure Evil , 17 minutes ago link

Well, since the British and the French carved Syria out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire after the end of WWI I guess you could say they were relatively peaceful up until the end of WWII when the Five Eyes turned their gaze on the oil riches in the area.

Syria didn't exist until the Sykes-Picot agreement was signed.

chinkyeyes247 , 9 minutes ago link

You remember ?? Then you would know that Assad father was also fighting jihadist. The Muslim Brotherhood was and still is a terror org. Know what you're talking bout. The US isn't the only country in the world that can define terrorist. You're prolly the type that think Syrian army is fighting their own countrymen ...they're fighting an invading horde of jihadi scum from N. Africa to the Uhgar Chinese nationals. They came from all corners of the earth to buy into Isis propaganda of Islam and booty. Stop watching CNN

AriusArmenian , 7 minutes ago link

Since the end of WW2 the CIA has run regime change operations in Syria using the Muslim Brotherhood with the usual results.

Proud-Christian-White-American-Man , 34 minutes ago link

Russia destroyed ISIS after Obama was bombing empty desert. Putin's intervention in Syria at the urging of the Russian Orthodox church saved many Syrian Christian lives. He can figure out how to deal with the Kurds. It is about time that nations other than the US get involved in peacekeeping or oil keeping.

hoytmonger , 39 minutes ago link

It seems some of those US troops that re-entered Syria from Iraq didn't go to occupy oil fields...

"U.S. occupation forces' convoy -consists of 13 military vehicles and dozens of soldier-, which entered Syria today, have settled in Qasrak illegal base on Tell Tamr-Qamishli road," the SANA's reporter in al-Hasakah said.

https://southfront.org/fresh-u-s-troops-settle-in-northern-hasakah-not-oil-fields-sana/

Return_of_Byzantium , 42 minutes ago link

Turks are shedding their blood because they think every inch of the "safe zone" will henceforth be Turkish land. The land belongs to Syria!

Brazen Heist II , 44 minutes ago link

The US and Pissrael must pay war reparations to Syria and all other nations they crippled and set back their economic prosperity decades behind. This is how these imbred zionists are able to beat their chests at being "superior" - by setting their neighbours back decades, and preventing re-construction. What a bunch of oppressor scum. The Yehudi get Uncle Scam to do the pillaging for them.

Sanctions on Syria are criminal. Preventing people from recovering from war crimes, is satanic. **** the USA and Israel.

CheapBastard , 48 minutes ago link

"Bush and Cheney and their neocons are outraged!"

" Bloodthirsty Billy Kristol could not be reached for comment; in the middle of a hissy fit."

Brazen Heist II , 46 minutes ago link

SDF are traitors, you can't trust them like Zionists. Proceed with caution.

If you want Russian and Syrian protection, you can't allow American squatting in Deir el Zor, nor the illegal smuggling of Syrian oil. I hope Putin and Assad lay it all out to these turds, errr Kurds.

You either join the Syrian army and allow full access to the SAA, or you keep sucking Zio **** and selling out. In that case, you deserve to face the Turks on your own.

sistersoldier , 56 minutes ago link

Russia claps back at the American Syrian occupation. Hmmm.......

sweetgrasshills , 49 minutes ago link

Let them be the policemen for a while. They won't get anything out of it other than a huge bill and dead Russians and nothing will change.

[Oct 26, 2019] Declassified Documents: Obama Ordered CIA To Train ISIS

Oct 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

CharlieSeattle , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:35 pm GMT

2012 Classified U.S. Report: ISIS Must Rise To Power
Posted on May 23, 2015 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai

http://yournewswire.com/2012-classified-u-s-report-isis-must-rise-to-power/

Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defence which reveals the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.

Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.

The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.

CharlieSeattle , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:36 pm GMT
Declassified Documents: Obama Ordered CIA To Train ISIS
Posted on May 28, 2015 by Carol Adl

http://yournewswire.com/declassified-documents-obama-ordered-cia-to-train-isis/

Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department.

The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.

The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and some of its coalition allies had actually facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria – as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also that ISIS members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency at facilities in Jordan in 2012.

HEREDOT , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:55 pm GMT
When I say Isis, I immediately think of Obama, Hillary, Mc Cain. These are the most despicable psychopaths who have resigned from humanity.

[Oct 26, 2019] Secret Jordan base was site of covert aid to insurgents targeting Assad

Oct 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

CharlieSeattle , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:33 pm GMT

WND EXCLUSIVE
BLOWBACK! U.S. TRAINED ISLAMISTS WHO JOINED ISIS

Secret Jordan base was site of covert aid to insurgents targeting Assad
Published: 06/17/2014 – By Aaron Klein

http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/officials-u-s-trained-isis-at-secret-base-in-jordan/

[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters trained in Jordan became members of the ISIS after their training.]

JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.

The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.

In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.

Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.

The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months amid U.S. plans to train a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.

Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British and French instructors.

Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine's report. The French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.

[Oct 25, 2019] Is not only a the coup against Trump, it is also an attempt to cover up the crimes against humanity that America's Ruling Class has been committing

Notable quotes:
"... As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud and a scoundrel and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has happened before in history. ..."
Oct 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

10/25/2019 - 16:12 0 SHARES

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

It was interesting to watch the Cable News divas go incandescent under the glare of their own gaslight late yesterday when they received the unpleasant news that the Barr & Durham "review" of RussiaGate had been officially upgraded to a "criminal investigation."

Rachel Maddow's trademark pouty-face got a workout as she strained to imagine " what the thing is that Durham might be looking into." Yes, that's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, all right with a sputtering fuse sticking out of it. Welcome to the Wile E. Coyote Lookalike Club, Rache. You'll have a lot of competition when the Sunday morning news-chat shows rev up.

Minutes later, the answer dawned on her:

"It [ the thing ] follows the wildest conspiracy theories from Fox News!"

You'd think that someone who invested two-plus years of her life in the Mueller report, which blew up in her pouty-face last spring, might have felt a twinge of journalistic curiosity as to the sum-and-substance of the thing. But no, she just hauled on-screen RussiaGate intriguer David Laufman, a former DOJ lawyer who ran the agency's CounterIntel and Export Control desk during the RussiaGate years, and also helped oversee the botched Hillary Clinton private email server probe.

"They have this theory," Rachel said, "that maybe Russia didn't interfere in the election ."

"It's preposterous," said Laufman, all lawyered up and ready to draw a number and take a seat for his own grand jury testimony.

Over in the locked ward of CNN, Andy Cooper and Jeff Toobin attempted to digest the criminal investigation news as if someone had ordered in a platter of shit sandwiches for the green room just before air-time. Toobin pretended to not know exactly who the mysterious Joseph Misfud was, and struggled to even pronounce his name: " Mifsood? Misfood ? You mean the Italian professor?" No Jeff, the guy employed by several "friendly" foreign intelligence agencies, and the CIA, to sandbag Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, and failed. I guess when you're at the beating heart of TV news, you don't have to actually follow any of the stories reported outside your locked ward, and maybe entertain a few angles outside your purview , i.e. your range of thought and experience.

Next Andy hauled onscreen former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (now a paid CNN "contributor") to finesse a distinction between the "overall investigation of the Russian interference" or "the counterintelligence investigation that was launched by the FBI." Consider that Mr. Clapper was right in the middle between the CIA and the FBI. Since he is known to be a friend of Mr. Comey's and a not-friend of Mr. Brennan's one can easily see which way Mr. Clapper is tilting. One can also see the circular firing squad that this is a setup for. And, of course, Mr. Clapper himself will be a subject in Mr. Durham's criminal case proceedings. I predict October will be the last month that Mr. Clapper draws a CNN paycheck -- as he hunkers down with his attorneys awaiting the subpoena with his name on it.

The New York Times story on this turn of events Friday morning is a lame attempt to rescue former FBI Director Jim Comey by pinning the blame for RussiaGate on the CIA, shoving CIA John Brennan under the bus. The Times report says: "Mr. Durham has also asked whether C.I.A. officials might have somehow tricked the F.B.I. into opening the Russia investigation." There's the next narrative for you. Expect to hear this incessantly well into 2020.

I wonder if there is any way to hold the errand boys-and-girls in the news media accountable for their roles as handmaidens in what will be eventually known as a seditious coup to overthrow a president. We do enjoy freedom of the press in this land, but I can see how these birds merit charges as unindicted co-conspirators in the affair. One wonders if the various boards of directors of the newspaper and cable news outfits might seek to salvage their self-respect by firing the executives who allowed it happen. If anything might be salutary in the outcome of this hot mess, it would be a return to respectability of the news media.

As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud and a scoundrel and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has happened before in history. Two centuries before Joe McCarthy, the French national assembly suddenly turned on the Jacobins Robespierre and St. Just after their orgy of beheading 17,000 enemies. The two were quickly dispatched themselves to the awe of their beloved guillotine and the Jacobin faction was not heard of again -- until recently in America, where it first infected the Universities and then sickened the polity at large almost unto death

[Oct 25, 2019] Just in time for Halloween! : MadCow is crying agian -- now she is afraid of the sound of shoes dropping in the night

Oct 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Rachel Maddow's trademark pouty-face got a workout as she strained to imagine " what the thing is that Durham might be looking into." Yes, that's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, all right with a sputtering fuse sticking out of it.

... ... ...

Over in the locked ward of CNN, Andy Cooper and Jeff Toobin attempted to digest the criminal investigation news as if someone had ordered in a platter of shit sandwiches for the green room just before air-time. Toobin pretended to not know exactly who the mysterious Joseph Misfud was, and struggled to even pronounce his name

... ... ...

As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud and a scoundrel and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has happened before in history.

5fingerdiscount , 1 hour ago link

Out of 300,000,000 Americans how many watch cable news?

3,000,000 tops?

Rick Madcow averaged 432,000 this month.

[Oct 25, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard is right, and Nancy Pelosi wrong. It was US Democrats who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis by Jonathan Cook

Notable quotes:
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
"... It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East. ..."
"... Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ..."
"... They've re-started the Cold War. Keeps all the warmongers in business. Surely they're not stupid enough to want a hot one are they? ..."
"... It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold. ..."
"... "Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them." ..."
Oct 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria.

One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger picture.

The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the paper writes that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".

Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.

Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington, in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.

No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care.

Overthrow, not regime change

You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined in international law as "the supreme war crime".

The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book Israel and the Clash of Civilisations , these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.

The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.

The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they could export to non-compliant states in the region.

The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction, the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".

The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.

Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted – from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."

The birth of Islamic State

The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services.

Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture I want to address.

The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.

The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing, flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.

A dark US vanity project

After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.

The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.

This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria.

Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.

The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.

From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.

A giant red herring

Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East, one intimately tied to Islamic State.

What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should have no credibility on the matter to begin with.

But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.

First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.

Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.

With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.

Doomed Great Game

The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army, which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.

The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.

That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.

Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against the head-chopping extremists?

Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.

Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .


A123 , says: October 21, 2019 at 1:05 pm GMT

The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.

The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.

ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme and immediate solution and broke away.

-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.

-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.

One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".

PEACE

NegroPantera , says: October 21, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
Oscar Peterson , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
@A123

"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".

Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not? Forces outside of what?

ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.

Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011, the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge" in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.

While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.

And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could be dealt with later after Assad was gone.

That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed the situation.

The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously: Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.

And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.

So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.

We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.

The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:41 pm GMT
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts on this site?

Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.

Given the craziness of Wahhabism

There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.

MarathonMan , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:43 pm GMT
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country – Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and fully implement the New World (banking) Order.

Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.

Rev. Spooner , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:44 pm GMT
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should have no credibility on the matter to begin with.

But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .

My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.

Paul , says: October 21, 2019 at 6:29 pm GMT
Hillary Clinton (wife of draft dodger Bill) and the New York Times are Zionist assets. Hillary is a stooge!
donald j tingle , says: October 21, 2019 at 6:50 pm GMT
Why blame Bush, Rove etc. for the mess created by Clinton/Obama in Syria? Are they still out of bounds?
joe2.5 , says: October 21, 2019 at 7:32 pm GMT
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" -- instead of our own lying eyes.
anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2019 at 7:48 pm GMT
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.

"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."

Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct

It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.

This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency of having clothes on .

anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2019 at 8:06 pm GMT

"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they could export to non-compliant states in the region."-

This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.

Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website October 21, 2019 at 9:13 pm GMT
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Stop Bush and Clinton , says: Website October 21, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton.

Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.

TG , says: October 22, 2019 at 12:00 am GMT
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate change led to repeated crop failures?"

Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run out of water because of "climate change," that's false.

The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).

The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).

Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.

Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.

... ... ...

barr , says: October 22, 2019 at 2:01 am GMT
LONDON: Hundreds of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists were smu ..
Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/61703015.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Toxik , says: October 22, 2019 at 2:21 am GMT
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing.

I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled, or even dead, it was all for naught.

Colin Wright , says: Website October 22, 2019 at 6:46 am GMT
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.

We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.

Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11.

Twodees Partain , says: October 22, 2019 at 11:00 am GMT
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "

That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?

Twodees Partain , says: October 22, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
Twodees Partain , says: October 22, 2019 at 12:13 pm GMT
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was inevitably going to fill."

Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created. IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in the existence of (international) banks.

Michael888 , says: October 23, 2019 at 2:02 pm GMT
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib "don't measure up?")

I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!

Ilya G Poimandres , says: October 25, 2019 at 4:18 am GMT
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last 100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition! http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Alfred , says: October 25, 2019 at 8:53 am GMT
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power

Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: October 25, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
@Colin Wright

I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized. In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.

TellTheTruth-2 , says: October 25, 2019 at 12:42 pm GMT
Syria may be the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam. (right click) https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/18/pepe-escobar-the-road-to-damascus-how-the-syria-war-was-won/ . The CIA will be after Trump's scalp till Kingdom Come.
Greg Bacon , says: Website October 25, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical care for their wounded, training and weapons.

WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006

Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-us-israel-and-saudi-arabia-planned-overthrow-of-syrian-govt-in-2006/221784/

The one time their hired ISIS thugs accidentally attacked IDF forces, ISIS leaders made a profuse apology to Israel.

Isis fighters 'attacked Israel Defense Forces unit, then apologised' claims former commander

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-israel-defence-force-apology-attack-unit-golan-heights-defense-minister-moshe-ya-alon-a7700616.html

Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.

From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
Panel Criticizes 'Unacceptable Practices' in the OPCW's investigation of the Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, Syria on April 7th 2018
https://www.couragefound.org/2019/10/opcw-panel-statement

Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion.

We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments -- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.

Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention the weak sheep-dog Sanders).

ivan , says: October 25, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.

But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.

Arnieus , says: October 25, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT
@MarathonMan

Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting" neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.

Agent76 , says: October 25, 2019 at 2:51 pm GMT
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"

Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as a third-party candidate.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JNjzBJWUyWI?feature=oembed

Oct 19, 2019 This Is The Final Nail For Hillary Clinton! Tulsi Gabbard Moves On Up!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jqChZzFrvxE?feature=oembed

Herald , says: October 25, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

The explanation is quite simple, supporting terrorism is what the US does, and it has done so for decades.

cassandra , says: October 25, 2019 at 5:59 pm GMT
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.

Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks watching the headlights approach:

1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.

2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child policy.

Climate:

If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back a few years, at most.

The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.

I enjoyed your comment.

Fool's Paradise , says: October 25, 2019 at 6:20 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX

They've re-started the Cold War. Keeps all the warmongers in business. Surely they're not stupid enough to want a hot one are they?

Bill Jones , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:35 pm GMT
@MarathonMan

It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-18/ukraine-admits-its-gold-gone

Jeff Davis , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them."

FTFY

Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest, the country be damned.

Kolya Krassotkin , says: October 26, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT
@Agent76 The end of Hill-dog? In your dreams. She rises from the grave with the regularity of an obese vampire.
ivan , says: October 26, 2019 at 1:36 am GMT
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more, that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for their lifestyle.

As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.

[Oct 25, 2019] Just in time for Halloween! : MadCow is crying agian -- now she is afraid of the sound of shoes dropping in the night

Oct 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Rachel Maddow's trademark pouty-face got a workout as she strained to imagine " what the thing is that Durham might be looking into." Yes, that's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, all right with a sputtering fuse sticking out of it.

... ... ...

Over in the locked ward of CNN, Andy Cooper and Jeff Toobin attempted to digest the criminal investigation news as if someone had ordered in a platter of shit sandwiches for the green room just before air-time. Toobin pretended to not know exactly who the mysterious Joseph Misfud was, and struggled to even pronounce his name

... ... ...

As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud and a scoundrel and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has happened before in history.

5fingerdiscount , 1 hour ago link

Out of 300,000,000 Americans how many watch cable news?

3,000,000 tops?

Rick Madcow averaged 432,000 this month.

[Oct 25, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard is right, and Nancy Pelosi wrong. It was US Democrats who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis by Jonathan Coo

Notable quotes:
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
Oct 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria.

One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger picture.

The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the paper writes that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".

Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.

Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington, in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.

No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care.

Overthrow, not regime change

You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined in international law as "the supreme war crime".

The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book Israel and the Clash of Civilisations , these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.

The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.

The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they could export to non-compliant states in the region.

The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction, the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".

The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.

Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted – from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."

The birth of Islamic State

The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services.

Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture I want to address.

The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.

The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing, flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.

A dark US vanity project

After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.

The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.

This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria.

Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.

The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.

From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.

A giant red herring

Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East, one intimately tied to Islamic State.

What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should have no credibility on the matter to begin with.

But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.

First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.

Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.

With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.

Doomed Great Game

The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army, which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.

The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.

That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.

Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against the head-chopping extremists?

Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.

Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .


A123 , says: October 21, 2019 at 1:05 pm GMT

The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.

The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.

ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme and immediate solution and broke away.

-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.

-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.

One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".

PEACE

NegroPantera , says: October 21, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
Oscar Peterson , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
@A123

"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".

Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not? Forces outside of what?

ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.

Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011, the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge" in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.

While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.

And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could be dealt with later after Assad was gone.

That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed the situation.

The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously: Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.

And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.

So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.

We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.

The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:41 pm GMT
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts on this site?

Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.

Given the craziness of Wahhabism

There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.

MarathonMan , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:43 pm GMT
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country – Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and fully implement the New World (banking) Order.

Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.

Rev. Spooner , says: October 21, 2019 at 4:44 pm GMT
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should have no credibility on the matter to begin with.

But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .

My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.

Paul , says: October 21, 2019 at 6:29 pm GMT
Hillary Clinton (wife of draft dodger Bill) and the New York Times are Zionist assets. Hillary is a stooge!
donald j tingle , says: October 21, 2019 at 6:50 pm GMT
Why blame Bush, Rove etc. for the mess created by Clinton/Obama in Syria? Are they still out of bounds?
joe2.5 , says: October 21, 2019 at 7:32 pm GMT
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" -- instead of our own lying eyes.
anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2019 at 7:48 pm GMT
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.

"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."

Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct

It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.

This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency of having clothes on .

anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2019 at 8:06 pm GMT

"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they could export to non-compliant states in the region."-

This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.

Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website October 21, 2019 at 9:13 pm GMT
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Stop Bush and Clinton , says: Website October 21, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton.

Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.

TG , says: October 22, 2019 at 12:00 am GMT
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate change led to repeated crop failures?"

Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run out of water because of "climate change," that's false.

The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).

The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).

Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.

Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.

... ... ...

barr , says: October 22, 2019 at 2:01 am GMT
LONDON: Hundreds of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists were smu ..
Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/61703015.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Toxik , says: October 22, 2019 at 2:21 am GMT
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing.

I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled, or even dead, it was all for naught.

Colin Wright , says: Website October 22, 2019 at 6:46 am GMT
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.

We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.

Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11.

Twodees Partain , says: October 22, 2019 at 11:00 am GMT
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "

That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?

Twodees Partain , says: October 22, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
Twodees Partain , says: October 22, 2019 at 12:13 pm GMT
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was inevitably going to fill."

Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created. IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in the existence of (international) banks.

Michael888 , says: October 23, 2019 at 2:02 pm GMT
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib "don't measure up?")

I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!

Ilya G Poimandres , says: October 25, 2019 at 4:18 am GMT
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last 100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition! http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Alfred , says: October 25, 2019 at 8:53 am GMT
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power

Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: October 25, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
@Colin Wright

I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized. In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.

TellTheTruth-2 , says: October 25, 2019 at 12:42 pm GMT
Syria may be the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam. (right click) https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/18/pepe-escobar-the-road-to-damascus-how-the-syria-war-was-won/ . The CIA will be after Trump's scalp till Kingdom Come.
Greg Bacon , says: Website October 25, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical care for their wounded, training and weapons.

WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006

Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-us-israel-and-saudi-arabia-planned-overthrow-of-syrian-govt-in-2006/221784/

The one time their hired ISIS thugs accidentally attacked IDF forces, ISIS leaders made a profuse apology to Israel.

Isis fighters 'attacked Israel Defense Forces unit, then apologised' claims former commander

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-israel-defence-force-apology-attack-unit-golan-heights-defense-minister-moshe-ya-alon-a7700616.html

Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.

From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.

Ghan-buri-Ghan , says: October 25, 2019 at 1:18 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat Absolutely. Gabbard is the "Democrat" Trump. A Jew puppet presented as an outsider. They're exactly the same. Even Obama was presented that way to an extent.

Yet the dumb goyim will fall for it for the third time in a row.

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
Panel Criticizes 'Unacceptable Practices' in the OPCW's investigation of the Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, Syria on April 7th 2018
https://www.couragefound.org/2019/10/opcw-panel-statement

Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion.

We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments -- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.

Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention the weak sheep-dog Sanders).

ivan , says: October 25, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.

But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.

Arnieus , says: October 25, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT
@MarathonMan Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting" neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Herald , says: October 25, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
@TellTheTruth-2 As promised by themselves for themselves. Amazing that anyone can take the chosen ones even remotely seriously.
Agent76 , says: October 25, 2019 at 2:51 pm GMT
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"

Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as a third-party candidate.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JNjzBJWUyWI?feature=oembed

Oct 19, 2019 This Is The Final Nail For Hillary Clinton! Tulsi Gabbard Moves On Up!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jqChZzFrvxE?feature=oembed

Herald , says: October 25, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova The explanation is quite simple, supporting terrorism is what the US does, and it has done so for decades.
Fool's Paradise , says: October 25, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
And now, according to the latest news, Trump will send tanks into Syria to help the Kurds secure the oil for Israel. It's hard to understand why the Elders of the Deep State want to impeach Trump. He has done everything they wanted, moved the embassy, gave Syria's Golan Heights to Israel, never criticizes the illegal settlements in Palestine. What else do they want from him?
DESERT FOX , says: October 25, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
@Fool's Paradise They want a war with Russia.
really no shit , says: October 25, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMT
What do you mean Pelosi has no credibility? Have you checked her bank balance lately? Nancy, had she not waded into politics, would have been a pole dancer she had the goods for it.
KA , says: October 25, 2019 at 5:58 pm GMT
@Greg Bacon Interesting
cassandra , says: October 25, 2019 at 5:59 pm GMT
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.

Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks watching the headlights approach:

1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.

2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child policy.

Climate:

If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back a few years, at most.

The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.

I enjoyed your comment.

Fool's Paradise , says: October 25, 2019 at 6:20 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX They've re-started the Cold War. Keeps all the warmongers in business. Surely they're not stupid enough to want a hot one are they?
anonymous [348] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
When it comes to senior American politihoes, no one is ever right. Pelosi may be cultivating the ISIS, but Gabbard is busy blowing assorted dictators and more closer to the heart, the hindoo nationalist queers, as impotent (I mean that in a literal sexual context, as their elites don't marry) as they might be.
SafeNow , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:12 pm GMT
Tulsi needs to conduct herself with gravitas, because of her age. However, she is helped by the fact that the leader of the progressive wing is a former bartender, and the leader of the environmental resistance is a high-school sophomore.
anonymous [348] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
@A123

Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability.

A hasbara style attempt to obfuscate and/or absolve the 2 greatest evils on earth. Joo/whitrash nationalist lowlife spotted.

DESERT FOX , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:26 pm GMT
@Fool's Paradise They are demonic warmongering hounds from hell and will destroy the world for their zionist NWO!
Bill Jones , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:35 pm GMT
@MarathonMan It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-18/ukraine-admits-its-gold-gone

Jeff Davis , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them."

FTFY

Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest, the country be damned.

anonymous [348] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT
@Anon

There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.

Lol! Deceitful lies from some godless/pagan whitrash.

If you are referring to some self-perceived notions of barbarity/deception/etc., within Islam, then you are a deceitful !@# who is trying to cover up the sheer savagery/psychopathy/deception/hypocrisy/etc., of the Christoo whitrash race.

Again, as far as the roots of Islam being in Judaism, that is laughable. It is Christooism which is clearly having roots in Judaism (there have been so many here who have quoted from your pagan scriptures about the haloed position of the Jooscum) and Hindooism .

In-his-image mangods/womangods, Trinity/Trimurthi, the human body is the temple of god the list is long where you all share your pagan theologies.

Islam utterly rejects all such pagan abominations. The following verses of the Holy Quran amply proves the simplest and purest form of monotheism, that is Islam;

Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born , Nor is there to Him any equivalent ."

You are the Liar!!

Jeff Davis , says: October 25, 2019 at 7:54 pm GMT
@A123 "Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability."

Wrong.

The Oded Yinon Plan employs exactly this strategy, and along with the Neocon dominated State Dept with its Regime Change program (Oded Yinon plan in stealth mode) is the predicate. Meanwhile, once it emerged, Obama & Kerry sought to preserve ISIS as a means to pressure Assad. Neocon Zionist fifth column in the US, & Israel-behind-the-scenes are the dual agency-behind-the-curtain of US regime-change wars ***EVERYWHERE*** (because they hate Russia, too.).

Fool's Paradise , says: October 25, 2019 at 8:42 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX And rule, finally, over a smoldering wreck of a planet? They already rule most of it, they're at the Endgame of their long match with the world. Not that they eschew violence and mass murder. Indeed, they got their start thousands years ago by worshiping a god who told them to genocide all their neighbors and steal all their goods.
Anonymous [124] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
@really no shit I'm in the same age cohort as most of these shameless grifters, so I know the end of this run on earth is drawing near. I know that no one can take whatever they accumulate in this life with them into oblivion or whatever their imagined version of paradise might be. The loot stays here in this vale of tears.

ALL of these players busy ruining and ending lives, like Pelosi, the Clintons and the Bush family, are multi-millionaires at the least–and all on the taxpayers' dime. Why do they desperately seek to add ever more cash to their bank accounts by bringing yet more misery into the world? It won't be very long and either the collection of psychopaths known as the government of the United States and its ruthless war machine will end up with the proceeds or they will pass down to further generations of these congenital parasites and deadbeats.

Does Joe ask himself whether it was worthy to spend his wretched life accumulating ill-gotten wealth to pass on to Hunter and his ilk? Or for Hillary to set up Chelsea and the next generation of Rodham Clinton lampreys? Jimmy Carter seems to have been the only American president who didn't constantly grasp for money once out of office and the world never heard a peep about Amy ever again.

CharlieSeattle , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:33 pm GMT
WND EXCLUSIVE
BLOWBACK! U.S. TRAINED ISLAMISTS WHO JOINED ISIS

Secret Jordan base was site of covert aid to insurgents targeting Assad
Published: 06/17/2014 – By Aaron Klein

http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/officials-u-s-trained-isis-at-secret-base-in-jordan/

[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters trained in Jordan became members of the ISIS after their training.]

JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.

The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.

In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.

Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.

The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months amid U.S. plans to train a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.

Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British and French instructors.

Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine's report. The French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.

CharlieSeattle , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:35 pm GMT
2012 Classified U.S. Report: ISIS Must Rise To Power
Posted on May 23, 2015 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai

http://yournewswire.com/2012-classified-u-s-report-isis-must-rise-to-power/

Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defence which reveals the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.

Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.

The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.

CharlieSeattle , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:36 pm GMT
Declassified Documents: Obama Ordered CIA To Train ISIS
Posted on May 28, 2015 by Carol Adl

http://yournewswire.com/declassified-documents-obama-ordered-cia-to-train-isis/

Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department.

The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.

The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and some of its coalition allies had actually facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria – as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also that ISIS members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency at facilities in Jordan in 2012.

HEREDOT , says: October 25, 2019 at 9:55 pm GMT
When I say Isis, I immediately think of Obama, Hillary, Mc Cain. These are the most despicable psychopaths who have resigned from humanity.
Kolya Krassotkin , says: October 26, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT
@Agent76 The end of Hill-dog? In your dreams. She rises from the grave with the regularity of an obese vampire.
ivan , says: October 26, 2019 at 1:36 am GMT
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more, that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for their lifestyle.

As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.

redmudhooch , says: October 26, 2019 at 1:37 am GMT
The CIA!

Rise of the National Security State The CIA's links to Wall Street
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30605.htm

The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47873.htm

Regime Change and Capitalism
https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/07/regime-change-and-capitalism/

Hassan Nasrallah should know:

The path of U.S.-Israeli arrogance and domination, with its various dimensions, and with its direct and indirect extensions and alliances, which is witnessing military defeats and political failures, reflected successive defeats for the American strategies and plans, one after the other. All this has led [the U.S.] to a state of indecision, retreat, and inability to control the progress of events in our Arab and Islamic world. There is a broader international context for this – a context that, in its turn, helps to expose the American crisis, and the decline of the [U.S.] unipolar hegemony, in the face of pluralism, the characteristics of which are yet to be stabilized.

"The crisis of the arrogant world order is deepened by the collapse of U.S. and international stock markets, and by the confusion and powerlessness of the American economy. This reflects the height of the structural crisis of the model of capitalist arrogance. Therefore, it can be said that we are in the midst of historic transformations that foretell the retreat of the USA as a hegemonic power, the disintegration of the unipolar hegemonic order, and the beginning of the accelerated historic decline of the Zionist entity.

After World War II, the U.S. has adopted the leading, central hegemonic project. At its hands, this project has witnessed great development of the means of control and unprecedented subjugation. It has benefited from an accumulation of multi-faceted accomplishments in science, culture, technology, knowledge, economy, and the military, which was supported by an economic political plan that views the world as nothing but open markets subject to the laws of [the U.S.].

"The most dangerous aspect of Western logic of hegemony in general, and the American logic of hegemony in particular, is their basic belief that they own the world, and have the right to hegemony due to their supremacy in several fields. Thus, the Western, and especially American, expansionist strategy, when coupled with the enterprise of capitalist economy, has become a strategy of a global nature, whose covetous desires and appetite know no bounds.

The barbaric capitalism has turned globalism into a means to spread disintegration, to sow discord, to destroy identities, and to impose the most dangerous form of cultural, economic, and social plunder. Globalization reached its most dangerous phase, when it was transformed into military globalization by the owners of the Western hegemony enterprise, the greatest manifestation of which was evident in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, to Palestine, and to Lebanon.

There is no doubt that American terrorism is the source of all terrorism in the world. The Bush administration has turned the U.S. into a danger threatening the whole world, on all levels. If a global opinion poll were held today, the United States would emerge as the most hated country in the world.

The most important goal of American arrogance is to take control of the peoples politically, economically, and culturally, and to plunder their resources.

– Hassan Nasrallah December 8, 2009

and Trump IS NOT "pulling out" Will Tulsi? One way to find out. Doesn't look good though, unless shes willing to splinter the C.I.A. into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds, as they say..

Where's the proof that she is CFR member, I see sock puppets parrot this line all the time but offer no proof. Her serving on the armed & financial services committees and doing a speech for them doesn't make her a member. I'd take her over Trump any day.

[Oct 25, 2019] Hundreds of Islamic State fighters, both Syrian and foreign, were covertly evacuated by US, UK and Kurdish forces from the besieged city of Raqqa last month and freed to "spread out far and wide across Syria and beyond

Oct 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

barr , says: October 22, 2019 at 1:47 am GMT

Hundreds of Islamic State fighters, both Syrian and foreign, were covertly evacuated by US, UK and Kurdish forces from the besieged city of Raqqa last month and freed to "spread out far and wide across Syria and beyond".

Although reports on the convoy surfaced at the time, BBC journalists Quentin Sommerville and Riam Dalati have revealed the details in their documentary Raqqa's Dirty Secret.

Their investigation describes how the convoy carrying 250 fighters, 3,500 family members, and lorry loads of arms and possessions, was arranged for October 12th by local officials in meetings attended by a western officer.

During a visit to Syria in mid-October, The Irish Times was told not only about the evacuation but also that senior Islamic State commanders and their families, 45 people in all, had been airlifted out of Raqqa by a US helicopter and flown to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Fighters escaping Raqqa were said to have been given passage across the desert to join comrades battling the Syrian army and its allies in Deir al-Zor.

Among the people the BBC team interviewed for the exposé were drivers paid by the Islamic State to drive the buses and trucks carrying the evacuees. According to driver Abu Fawzi, men, women and children wore suicide vests and the trucks had been booby-trapped in case "something went wrong".

The convoy contained 50 trucks, 13 buses, and more than 100 of the fighters' own vehicles. Although it had been agreed they would take only personal weapons, they filled 10 trucks with arms and ammunition.

Three-day convoy

It had also been stipulated that no foreigners would leave, but drivers told the BBC that French, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Saudi, Chinese, Tunisian and Egyptians had joined the exodus. The only restriction observed was a ban against flags and banners.

Whenever it passed through a village or hamlet, fighters warned frightened bystanders they would return, a villager called Muhanad told the BBC, "running a finger across their throats".

Two Humvees led the convoy into the desert where the going was rough. Coalition aircraft and drones hovered above, dropping flares after dark to light the way. When the motorcade reached Islamic State-held territory, fighters and civilians departed with their arms and possessions and drivers returned home.

The BBC investigation compelled Col Ryan Dillon, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, to admit to the deal. He told the team: "We didn't want anyone to leave. But this goes to the heart of our strategy 'by, with and through' local leaders on the ground.

His statement on foreign fighters contradicted information given to the BBC by drivers and people along the route as well as a statement about strategy made by US defence secretary James Mattis in May.

"Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home . . . We are not going to allow them to do so," said Mattis.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/isis-fighters-smuggled-out-of-raqqa-by-us-uk-and-kurds-bbc-claims-1.3293105

[Oct 25, 2019] The UN General Assembly actually affirmed that Israel's continued occupation of the Golan Heights is 'a violation of international law'

Oct 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star November 26, 2018 at 1:48 am

Occupied but not forgotten
https://syria360.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/un-general-assembly-votes-overwhelmingly-in-favor-of-resolution-affirming-syrias-sovereignty-over-occupied-golan/
If Syria can consolidate her sovereign status and territorial integrity she may well be able take back the Golan heights from Israel.

Like Like

cartman November 26, 2018 at 3:40 am
Where Cheney, Murdoch, and the Rothschilds purchased oil concessions.

Like Like

Mark Chapman November 26, 2018 at 10:23 am
Gosh! The UN General Assembly actually affirmed that Israel's continued occupation of the Golan Heights is 'a violation of international law'!! But the USA voted against the resolution. Does that mean the USA supports violations of international law, or that it believes it has the right to decide what does or does not constitute violations thereof? My vote is with option B. As others have pointed out, the USA loves to throw the weight of 'international law' about, often when there is no such backing and even more often without getting any more specific than just 'international law'. The supposed annexation of Crimea is a natural example – the USA and Ukraine monotonously refer to the transfer of Crimea to the Russian Federation as such a violation, but do not specify what law was violated, instead bleating about the Budapest Memorandum. The latter is not international law, and more importantly, it assumed that conditions which prevailed at the time of signing would endure; no provision was made for a bloody coup right next door, and nobody would be fool enough to sign such an agreement as unconditional. Not to blame it all on the USA and Ukraine, either – the USA's retinue of lickspittles who depend on it for trade and economic reasons are happy to parrot it as a 'violation of international law'. That only shows you how easily an action the west routinely lauds as the very essence of democratic principles – a declaration of independence supported by a huge majority of the inhabitants – can be made to seem 'a violation of international law': simply refuse to recognize the decision as the will of the people, and characterize it as a forced decision made under duress. Because America says the Crimean referendum was not legal or proper, Crimea should have been forced against its will to remain a possession of Ukraine – the very and complete polar opposite of the USA's customary prancing and whooping about 'freedom'.
Mark Chapman November 26, 2018 at 8:30 am
I wouldn't want to be a Russian in Ukraine now, though. Hysteria will be high, and the nationalists will be looking for an outlet for their frustration and hate.
Cortes November 26, 2018 at 2:37 pm
Protests about the lack of heating and hikes in utility prices are going to be kiboshed by the decree.
Northern Star November 26, 2018 at 10:44 am
Since a nation's territorial Waters extend 12 miles beyond its coast, doesn't that put the entirety of the Ketch strait in Russian territorial waters ??
BTW What happens where the 12 mile extensions of two nations overlap???

Like Like

Moscow Exile November 26, 2018 at 11:30 am
In such cases there is usually some sort of convention, as there is as regards the 20.7 mile wide Straits of Dover.

This matter was brought up in Moon of Alabama :

The usual anti-Russian subject in "western" political circles use the incident to demand more measures against Russia. Fronting the effort is the weapon industry lobbying group Atlantic Council:

Anders Åslund, a resident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, said: "NATO and the United States should send in naval ships in the Sea of Azov to guarantee that it stays open to international shipping."

Such action, Åslund said, "would be in full compliance with the UN Law of the Sea Convention of 1982 and the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits of 1936."

Anders Aslund is listed as member of the "U.S. & Canadian Cluster" of the secret influence operation by the British Foreign Office describe here two days ago. He is obviously unable to read a map, sea chart, or UN convention. The Ukrainian attempt to pass through the Kerch Strait without Russian consent is a breach of Article 7, 19 and 21 of the UN Law of the Sea Convention (pdf):

Article 7: "Subject to this Convention, ships of all States, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea."

Article 19-1: "Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. Such passage shall take place in conformity with this Convention and with other rules of international law."

Article 21-4: "Foreign ships exercising the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea shall comply with all such [coastal state] laws and regulations and all generally accepted international regulations relating to the prevention of collisions at sea."

There will now be again a lot of noise in the media about the 'nefarious Russians' and new demands for even more useless sanctions. But the legal case is clear. It was the Ukrainian navy that willfully attempted to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov through Russian territorial waters without regard to the laws and regulations of the coastal state. Russia was within its full rights to prevent the passage and to seize the Ukrainian boats.

Mark Chapman November 26, 2018 at 12:40 pm
Dear God; Anders Aslund. Now he's an expert in maritime law. Might as well, I guess; he's a chrome-plated clusterfuck as an economist – good on you, Anders, to make a career change so late in life.

Anders Aslund is a wooden-head whose sole useful function is to give the veneer of academia to agit-prop.

Jen November 26, 2018 at 8:32 pm
The Atlantic Council seems to attract many people who have quite sudden and dramatic mid-life career changes, for example that former women's lingerie salesman turned investigative journalist Eliot Higgins.

[Oct 25, 2019] Instead of Warmongering, Trump Should Throw Turkey Out of NATO

Oct 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Alex (the one that likes Ike) a day ago

On one hand, you're totally right about the necessity of reducing the number of NATO members. On the other hand, the problem is that without Turkey NATO will militarily become only a little more than a bilateral Franco-American agreement plus those 215 British warheads.
Daniel Enous a day ago
The problem with Trump is he has no morals, values, and/or convictions. He does what he thinks will be the most popular and what will make him LOOK NOT weak.

Motto for the USA: Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine

Fayez Abedaziz a day ago
Lemme know when Syria sends troops to support some group or to fight some group in the US won't you?
Let me know when Syria or any nation in the Middle East bombs American military bases in the US because they believe that the US government mis-treated some group or area in the US.
Then let me know who the hell the US government and military think they are...
talking about Syria and Turkey as if it's any of you alls damn business-oh yeah, you're the good guys right? You preach to other nations and cultures?
Have you any decency left, when you demand this or that from other nations?
After it was and is proven that, since 1945, the US has murdered more civilians around the world than any other nation? That the US and it's fine 'civilized' military and agencies like the CIA tortured people in and from Iraq and other places in the MIddle East?
And, what business is it of yours what religion Turkey has?
Is Turkey telling America what it must do on America's borders?
You arrogant hypocrites. Was it Moslem nations that did the terror in Russia starting in 1917? World War 1 and mustard gas and so on?
World War 11 and that suffering? How about the US bombing northern Korea and Vietnam in the 50' and 60's? Over a million humans slaughtered there!!
How would you feel if it was a close relative of yours that got blown apart by the fine US military in Iraq and Afghanistan or in Syria?
I'll tell you 'know it's all' something which including the above article writer:
if true justice were to happen the US and NATO nations would be brought to trial for high crimes against humanity and trillions of dollars in reparations paid to nations the US and NATO destroyed and those leaders such as Bush, HIllary Clinton, Condi Rice, Obama and their neo-con owners would be jailed, at the very least. So, how about throw the US and NATO out of NATO? As in, disband that criminal enterprise. NATO: a question why do you even exist?
You know, the politicians in D.C. don't care and the American people will never get it-what I mean from my words above. Dig?
TellTheTruth-2 a day ago • edited
Shame on the ZioCON warmongers.

Syria may be the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam. ... (right click) ... https://www.strategic-cultu... .... Trump strikes back at the CIA (deep state) and the CIA will be after his scalp till Kingdom Come.

The real corruption in Ukraine started in February of 2014 (right click) https://www.strategic-cultu... when Obama/Biden and ZioCON Communist Victoria Nuland "ILLEGALLY OVERTHREW" the Ukraine Government and INSTALLED a corrupt illegal dictator handpicked by Obama and Nuland.

The real question is: Would we be here today if Obama/Biden had not taken part in an illegal overthrow of Ukraine? If you follow actual events, the people of Crimea were so upset they voted, LAWFULLY, to return to Russia. The two Eastern regions of Ukraine voted to join Russia too; but President Putin refused to accept them.

The vultures also descended on Ukraine to make a profit and Hunter Biden was one of them and an honest prosecutor started to investigate, and Joe Biden blackmailed the "installed" President to fire him.

When the people of Ukraine got fed up with the "installed" President, they voted a COMEDIAN, who ran as a joke, into office. Now the conspirators have a new ball game and, before this is over, the CORRUPTION will come out and impeachment will only speed it up.

So, bring on the impeachment and let the truth come out as it should. Before this is over, this could be the Dimms last Rodeo for a long, long time.

JPH 21 hours ago
The failed coup against Erdogan marked a turn from Erdogan away from US and towards Russia. Might well be that Turkey didn't view US a a "good ally" since that coup.
Doug Wallis 16 hours ago
I agree. Turkey should be expelled but I think its not as easy as simple expulsion. I think its a matter of timing and justification otherwise it will appear anti-muslim and we may need Turkey at some point in the future (and I think we are keeping that ace in the hand just a little longer before playing it).
Daniel Enous Doug Wallis 12 hours ago
Yes, because all those invasions of Muslim countries and support for the Israeli occupation and apartheid state aren't perceived as anti-Muslim

dumba55

Trump=Obama 15 hours ago
I suspect that it is time for the US to leave NATO.
Create a new alliance with Canada and Britain and let the continent create it's own alliance. They will be forced to use their own money and

[Oct 25, 2019] White House Considering Syria Reversal May Leave 500 Troops, Deploy Dozens Of Battle Tanks

Notable quotes:
"... As a reminder, after ordering all U.S. forces out of northeastern Syria in early October, Trump has already modestly reversed his position, agreeing (after Sen. Lindsey Graham outlined the potential importance of the oil) to leave about 200 troops in northeast Syria to safeguard oil fields . ..."
"... Perhaps the Deep State's grip is a little firmer, ..."
"... One thing is for sure, if this reversal takes place, Putin and Erdogan will not be pleased at all, ..."
Oct 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

he options for tanks and troops, which The Journal notes hasn't been decided upon yet , has the smell of a strawman from the neocons - bargaining over troop numbers and logistics - in an effort to gauge the base's reaction and to then provide some leverage on the president to reverse his position more aggressively.

As a reminder, after ordering all U.S. forces out of northeastern Syria in early October, Trump has already modestly reversed his position, agreeing (after Sen. Lindsey Graham outlined the potential importance of the oil) to leave about 200 troops in northeast Syria to safeguard oil fields .

Of course, it is still unclear what will be done with the approximately 1,000 troops - mostly special ops - but, as Senator Graham made clear - they're not coming home any time soon:

"There are some plans coming together from the Joint Chiefs that I think may work, that may give us what we need to prevent ISIS from coming back, Iran taking the oil, ISIS from taking the oil," he said.

"I am somewhat encouraged that a plan is coming about that will meet our core objectives in Syria."

Perhaps the Deep State's grip is a little firmer, and Graham's marshalling of Senate votes to 'save' Trump from impeachment, than the president initially conceived.

One thing is for sure, if this reversal takes place, Putin and Erdogan will not be pleased at all, and with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in Brussels, alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, noting that NATO ally Turkey "put us all in a terrible situation," one could imagine this strategy is one of stalling while the nukes can be moved from Incirlik to another 'ally' ahead of the planned votes next week on additional Turkish sanctions (as questions about the viability of Turkey as a NATO ally so closely aligned with Russia are growing stronger - in rhetoric only for now).

[Oct 25, 2019] Escobar Vladimir Putin, Syria s Pacifier-In-Chief by Pepe Escobar

The devastation created in Syria by the USA and its allies who recruited and armed the ISIS fighters and "moderate islamists" with weapons captured in Libya after fall of Libyan government and start of the civil war will be remembered for generations. Obama and Hillary were key war criminals in this game.
But the gamble to remove Assad using Islamists as the driving force and then somehow deal with islamists failed.
Now the USA, Israel and KSA suffered a geopolitical defeat.
Notable quotes:
"... The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border – something Erdogan had been gunning for since 2014. There will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces, will need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and they will have to abandon their much-cherished urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij. The Syrian Arab Army will be back in the whole northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity – a Putin imperative – will be preserved. ..."
"... This is a Syria-Russia-Turkey win-win-win – and, inevitably, the end of a separatist-controlled Syrian Kurdistan. Significantly, Erdogan's spokesman Fahrettin Altun stressed Syria's "territorial integrity" and "political unity." That kind of rhetoric from Ankara was unheard of until quite recently. ..."
Oct 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

Russia-Turkey deal establishes 'safe zone' along Turkish border and there will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols

The negotiations in Sochi were long – over six hours – tense and tough. Two leaders in a room with their interpreters and several senior Turkish ministers close by if advice was needed. The stakes were immense: a road map to pacify northeast Syria, finally.

The press conference afterwards was somewhat awkward – riffing on generalities. But there's no question that in the end Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan managed the near impossible.

The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border – something Erdogan had been gunning for since 2014. There will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces, will need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and they will have to abandon their much-cherished urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij. The Syrian Arab Army will be back in the whole northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity – a Putin imperative – will be preserved.

This is a Syria-Russia-Turkey win-win-win – and, inevitably, the end of a separatist-controlled Syrian Kurdistan. Significantly, Erdogan's spokesman Fahrettin Altun stressed Syria's "territorial integrity" and "political unity." That kind of rhetoric from Ankara was unheard of until quite recently.

Putin immediately called Syrian President Bashar al Assad to detail the key points of the memorandum of understanding. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov once again stressed Putin's main goal – Syrian territorial integrity – and the very hard work ahead to form a Syrian Constitutional Committee for the legal path towards a still-elusive political settlement.

Russian military police and Syrian border guards are already arriving to monitor the imperative YPG withdrawal – all the way to a depth of 30 kilometers from the Turkish border. The joint military patrols are tentatively scheduled to start next Tuesday.

On the same day this was happening in Sochi, Assad was visiting the frontline in Idlib – a de facto war zone that the Syrian army, allied with Russian air power, will eventually clear of jihadi militias, many supported by Turkey until literally yesterday. That graphically illustrates how Damascus, slowly but surely, is recovering sovereign territory after eight and a half years of war.

Who gets the oil?

For all the cliffhangers in Sochi, there was not a peep about an absolutely key element: who's in control of Syria's oilfields , especially after President Trump's now-notorious tweet stating, "the US has secured the oil." No one knows which oil. If he meant Syrian oil, that would be against international law. Not to mention Washington has no mandate – from the UN or anyone else – to occupy Syrian territory.

The Arab street is inundated with videos of the not exactly glorious exit by US troops, leaving Syria pelted by rocks and rotten tomatoes all the way to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they were greeted by a stark reminder. "All US forces that withdrew from Syria received approval to enter the Kurdistan region [only] so that they may be transported outside Iraq. There is no permission granted for these forces to stay inside Iraq," the Iraqi military headquarters in Baghdad said.

The Pentagon said a "residual force" may remain in the Middle Euphrates river valley, side by side with Syrian Democratic Forces militias, near a few oilfields, to make sure the oil does not fall "into the hands of ISIS/Daesh or others." "Others" actually means the legitimate owner, Damascus. There's no way the Syrian army will accept that, as it's now fully engaged in a national drive to recover the country's sources of food, agriculture and energy. Syria's northern provinces have a wealth of water, hydropower dams, oil, gas and food.

As it stands, the US retreat is partial at best, also considering that a small garrison remains behind at al-Tanf, on the border with Jordan. Strategically, that does not make sense, because the al-Qaem border between Iran and Iraq is now open and thriving.

Map: Energy Consulting Group

The map above shows the position of US bases in early October, but that's changing fast. The Syrian Army is already working to recover oilfields around Raqqa, but the strategic US base of Ash Shaddadi still seems to be in place. Until quite recently US troops were in control of Syria's largest oilfield, al-Omar, in the northeast.

There have been accusations by Russian sources that mercenaries recruited by private US military companies trained jihadi militias such as the Maghawir al-Thawra ("Army of Free Tribes") to sabotage Syrian oil and gas infrastructure and/or sell Syrian oil and gas to bribe tribal leaders and finance jihadi operations. The Pentagon denies it.

Gas pipeline

As I have argued for years, Syria to a large extent has been a key ' Pipelineistan' war – not only in terms of pipelines inside Syria, and the US preventing Damascus from commercializing its own natural resources, but most of all around the fate of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline which was agreed in a memorandum of understanding signed in 2012.

This pipeline has, over the years, always been a red line, not only for Washington but also for Doha, Riyadh and Ankara.

The situation should dramatically change when the $200 billion-worth of reconstruction in Syria finally takes off after a comprehensive peace deal is in place. It will be fascinating to watch the European Union – after NATO plotted for an "Assad must go" regime change operation for years – wooing Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus with financial offers for their gas.

NATO explicitly supported the Turkish offensive "Operation Peace Spring." And we haven't even seen the ultimate geoeconomic irony yet: NATO member, Turkey, purged of its neo-Ottoman dreams, merrily embracing the Gazprom-supported Iran-Iraq-Syria 'Pipelineistan' road map .


frankthecrank , 2 minutes ago link

NATO explicitly supported the Turkish offensive "Operation Peace Spring." And we haven't even seen the ultimate geoeconomic irony yet: NATO member, Turkey, purged of its neo-Ottoman dreams, merrily embracing the Gazprom-supported Iran-Iraq-Syria 'Pipelineistan' road map .

except, I thought the EU and the US cut Erdogan off from military supplies?

https://www.washingtonpost.com › world › europe › 2019/10/14

Oct 14, 2019 - European leaders warn of ISIS revival with Turkish invasion of Syria ... condemned the Turkish incursion and agreed on an informal, E.U. -wide ban on arms sales to Ankara. ... That is a direct security threat to the European Union." AD ... who escape from Syrian prison camps could make their way to France.

And, six hours isn't ****. The deal was cut long before that meeting. Funny Assad wasn't there -- it's his country. Or is it? given that he couldn't resupply his army, what choice did he have?

DEDA CVETKO , 2 minutes ago link

Some people build alliances. Other people backstab their allies and friends.

Some people build infrastructure. Others drone-bomb it and smart-bomb it and depleted-uranium-bomb it..

Some people invest in people. Other people invest in WeWork and $1.3 trillion death-and-destruction budget.

Such is life, alas.

McDuff71 , 14 minutes ago link

...oh to be rid of this vipers nest of **** bought to you by George Sr and Jnr, Obamawambachamawamba and of course Killary and Co along with quite a few Repub. necons...

I worked in Syria before all this **** went down and I can tell you it was thriving and probably the best exemplar in the mid east; I hope they get back to where they should never have been torn down from...

Trump is the one that deserves the credit here, no one else...

Svastic , 15 minutes ago link

Read the entire crap all through again as well as anything that is published in the Saker blog. While they feign sympathy for Syria (with oodles of Zionist plots to get the reader emotionally-activated), their true intent is to promote Turkey's interests.

There is hardly any mention of Turkey's role in the genocide in Syria, and the sex-slave and organ trafficking markets it had facilitated. Turkey appears white as snow and anything bad can be blamed on an exiled Gulen.

Who is threatening to flood White Europe with millions Muslim refugees...? ...

Northbridge , 4 minutes ago link

Don't forget who was buying ISIS oil.

Arising , 25 minutes ago link

All the U.S foreign policies in Syria are brought to you by your friendly neighborhood zionist.

[Oct 25, 2019] Slavic Studies Becomes a Mandatory Course for All Americans The National Interest

Oct 25, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Sean.McGivens 2 days ago ,

Russia and Ukraine are topics on all Americans' minds only because the Obama Administration made the collossal mistake of trying to turn Ukraine into a de facto American base. Under Obama, the US sponsored a coup which put Ukraine under the control of anti-Russian nationalists. The ultimate goal for the US and the Ukrainian nationalists was to turn Ukraine into a NATO member.

Clearly, the Obama Administration attacked Russia on a geopolitical and geostrategic level. Unsurprisingly, Russia fought back ferociously, just as the Russian have always done when their existential needs and vital national security interests are threatened.

Consequently, the Ukrainian nationalists have been defeated in war and at the polls in Ukraine. America must now make its exit from Ukraine in as graceful and organized a way as possible. Nobody wants to see US helicopters fleeing the rooftops of Kiev.

Trump has the right idea about pulling America out of Ukraine. The US should never have been in that country in the first place. Ukraine is part of Russia's zone of influence. Nothing will ever change that.

mal 3 days ago ,

"when an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile exploded during testing along the shores of the White Sea."

Except it wasn't. A damaged nuclear reactor with highly enriched uranium for fuel would still be glowing to this day. Also, while tragic, seven people dead is less than a pipeline explosion, if that's the worst that can happen, it's pretty safe technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Russia reported radioisotopes for power source (radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs), which makes more sense. RTGs are used for long term power needs (such as batteries on Voyager spacecraft that are still going strong). That makes them ideal for robotic sleeper drones (Poseidon/Status 6 types) that will go undetected to the ocean floor and then get activated in the event of nuclear war.

""The American television channel CNBC recently reported that the test of the Petrel missile near Arkhangelsk was the fifth in a row, and all five were unsuccessful. Is this an acceptable number of failures for a new project?""

Yes. That's how you learn - by building and testing. Also, I strongly doubt Russian military invites CNBC to every classified weapons test. Five tests may have been unsuccessful, but there could have been more tests that CNBC doesn't know about.

"but this record illustrates an "emergency situation" and indeed a "failed development process.""

It doesn't. Nuclear powered propulsion is a difficult subject and very few countries can do it successfully. Especially at small size.

"So, "this missile is only necessary in the circumstance that we and America depart from all arms agreements and beat each other with missiles until we are blue"

United States is indeed leaving all arms agreements and is preparing for nuclear war.

"The best explanation Gorbachevsky can find for this weapon is "domestic consumption.""

If that's the case, then Gorbachevsky is not well informed.

slawunt 4 days ago ,

The reason that Russia will continue to invest in nuclear weapons and their modernization regardless of the cost is that it is still cheaper than the alternative.

Having a western Army murder and slaughter its way to your capital as it did in 1941 is the one thing you definitely avoid if you have a viable nuclear deterrance.

For Russia it is the ultimate insurance policy and the threat of a preemptive nuclear strike is the one effective guarantee against any western power once again launching another invasion against Russia.And is relatively cheap at the price!

J Urie slawunt 3 days ago ,

They have sufficient numbers of existing nuclear weapons to protect themselves from some imaginary western Army. Where they need to worry is in their far east that is where the real threat will come from. Spending additional monies on nuclear weapons is overkill and the money is better spent diversifying the economy.

Sean.McGivens J Urie 2 days ago • edited ,

You overlook that the real issue isn't war or nuclear war, but the stationing of US military assets all along Russia's borders. If that happens, America will have established coercive influence over Russia. That's because Russia will have to spend untold billions countering the fleets of American F-35's that are parked only minutes away from the RF's cities and defensive bastions. That's the kind of stress that the US is trying to impose on Russia. That's why Russia wants the US and NATO out of the former Soviet Union, and for good reason.

Your remark about Russia's far east comes across as Sinophobia, BTW.

J Urie Sean.McGivens 2 days ago ,

Russian Federation: 146 million, China: 1.4 billion a 10 to 1 advantage in population in a country with little to no natural resources and little usable open space. Lebensraum has been used many times in the past as a reason to start a war.

As I pointed in another post the irony is that NATO was pretty timid up until 2008 and Putin's first little go at a mini war in Georgia then invade and annex Crimea followed by fostering war in Donbas. Of course NATO responded to those Russian aggressions and low and behold we now have Putin pouting about NATO an the US surrounding Russia.

You have missiles in Kaliningrad aimed at Europe same in Sevastopol. The basic problem is that no one trusts Russia and no one really likes Russia. Putin started this and now he will need to change his tack if he wants the "stress" to start to be relieved. NATO is a defensive organization and they are deploying in a defensive manner in other NATO countries.

mal J Urie 3 days ago ,

Nuclear propulsion research is by definition diversifying the economy. It is far more high tech than "like" button on Facebook or whatever passes for "high tech" in Silicon Valley.

J Urie mal 3 days ago • edited ,

Considering the Soviet Union was working on this in the 1970's it really doesn't count as "diversification" in the traditional economic sense. Why not work with the US, UK, Canada, France on nuclear fusion? That would truly take man kind a lot further than nuclear powered cruise missiles.

Sean.McGivens J Urie 2 days ago ,

NATO will have to stop expanding into the former USSR before Russia can realistically be expected to work the US, UK, Canada, and France on nuclear fusion.

Western aggression against Russia must stop. That's step number one towards solving the West vs East problem.

mal J Urie 3 days ago ,

Russia is a part of the ITER project, so it does work with the West in fusion research. As far as Burevestnik goes, i view it in the same venue as NASA Kilopower type small reactors (or Soviet TOPAZ line). If it is light enough to power a cruise missile, it is light enough to provide power to spacecraft. This will be very economically important in the near future.

J Urie mal 3 days ago ,

Fair enough regarding the joint study on Fusion. However the nuclear powered cruise missile is for domestic consumption and to incite the western MSM. It makes little sense to pile more nuclear weapons on top of the existing ones. As the article mentions there are a lot nuclear reactors that need maintenance in Russia old Soviet era designs that pose a safety risk.

Sean.McGivens J Urie 2 days ago ,

As long as the US is setting up bases in the Baltics and ramping up mililtary aid to Ukraine, and as long as the West is trying to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, then Russia has no option except to fight back. That means Russia must develop new missiles and even more destructive WMD's.

American and the Ukrainian nationalists have suffered a humiliating defeat in Donbass. It looks like peace will be made there on Russian terms, and that the US and its allies will pull out of Ukraine. Upon completion of that retreat, the relationship between Russia and the West can be reassessed. But not until then.

J Urie Sean.McGivens 2 days ago ,

It is rather ironic that there were no NATO forces in the Baltic states until Putin invaded and annexed Crimea and tried the same in Donbas. Naturally the countries such as the Baltic states who have experienced Russian/Soviet occupation tend too get nervous when Putin decides to play war in the neighborhood.
As far as Ukraine the amount of military aid provided by the US, Canada, Poland is relatively small with regard to major arms systems. The only major arms system is Javelin which is a defensive weapon.
You obviously have little or no knowledge of nuclear weapons and MAD. Russia has plenty of nuclear warheads in fact the most of any nation on planet Earth.
There are no NATO forces anywhere near the line of contact in Donbas. Any peace accord/deal has nothing to do with the US or NATO it is between Ukraine and Russia with the pawns being the poor saps called separatists.

Sean.McGivens J Urie 2 days ago ,

The only major arms system is Javelin which is a defensive weapon.

Javelins can be used to support offensive operations. They can serve to neutralize the enemy's ability to use tanks on the defensive, or to squelch the enemy's counteroffensive.

It's a very thin line that differentiates offense from defense.

J Urie Sean.McGivens 2 days ago ,

True but all weapons have a certain amount of offensive capability. Javelin is designed for infantrymen to take out advancing armor. Artillery and tanks are offensive.

Sean.McGivens J Urie 2 days ago ,

Artillery and tanks are also used for counter-offensives, so the defender can repulse the aggressor.

There are hawks in the West who are hoping that Ukraine launches one more major military offensive against Donbass. In that case, the Ukrainians will attack with superior numbers of tanks and troops. If the Ukrainians capture ground (which is unlikely), they will use their Javelins to try to prevent the Russians and rebels from using tanks to recapture that ground.

That's the real significance of the Javelin missile. That's why American warmongers are sending this weapon to Kiev.

J Urie Sean.McGivens 2 days ago ,

What Hawks in the West? We are sending the Javelins to help Ukraine keep Russia on their side of the border.

Sean.McGivens J Urie 2 days ago ,

It is rather ironic that there were no NATO forces in the Baltic states until Putin invaded and annexed Crimea...

You are in denial of the facts again. The reality is that the Baltics joined NATO in 2004. That means, since that year, the US could put any weapons systems it so desires in the Baltics, and there's nothing Russia can do about it short of war.

If that's not a threatening situation for Russia, then I don't know what is.

J Urie Sean.McGivens 2 days ago ,

There was nothing in the Baltic's until after Putin's venture into Crimea and Ukraine proper. He miscalculated as to the push back regarding both operations and now you are complaining. Those nations are tiny and have almost no defensive capability hence the deployment of US, UK, Canadian and the NATO troops.

mal J Urie 3 days ago ,

Well, nuclear weapons get obsolete like anything else. ICBMs travel in predictable trajectories and silos are vulnerable to first strikes. Hence the need for technology evolution.

And sure, old Soviet reactors are getting up there in age. Rosatom is replacing them with modern VVER-1200 designs, not just in Russia, but all over the world. Rosatom is like the largest and most productive nuclear corporation in the world. in general though, i would argue that fears of nuclear power are vastly overblown, and it is one of the safest, most reliable forms of power available.

J Urie mal 3 days ago ,

I'm not anti nuclear power however like everything mechanical it has a safe life time. Weapons of course need modernizing and that can be done without designing an entirely new weapons system.
MAD is still relevant today as it was during the Cold War. Ultimately I would like to see a reduction in the number of war heads that the US, Russia have as China, France, UK, India, Pakistan and Israel have far fewer.

Vladdy 4 days ago • edited ,

I think, US people have enough of their own internal problems. Isn't it better to concentrate on them? Slavics will deal with their problems themselves. US already piled fantastic bunch of sh@t in Ukraine. As well as in the Middle East.

Emidio Borg 4 days ago ,

Current trends of immigration and birthrates in the west mean that by 2070 Russia will be the last homogeneous all white conservative christian democracy left on earth.

Mephisto Emidio Borg 4 days ago ,

what rubbish. Russia, even today, has 25 milion muslims, and is dying out even faster than Europe

Sean.McGivens Mephisto 2 days ago ,

Russia has 9,400,000 Moslems citizens as of the latest census.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... .

It's possible that there are actually 11,400,000 Moslems in Russia, but nobody knows for certain. Either way, it's rubbish to claim that there are "25 million Moslems" in the RF.

Volodimir 4 days ago ,

as famous Russian classics once meticulously observed - Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house [Всё смешалось в доме Облонских]

Same is this article - first they "scare" you with this "Vergeltungswaffe" of the Soviet designed ca 1970, and, consequently, abandoned around same time for multiple reasons.

Then they praise the wisdom of not helping Ukraine with real weapons - because Russia was not able achieve much in the current status quo, so it was wise not to arm Ukraine.

The only thing one can learn from this article (or, more accurately, despite) is that to get a degree in Slavic Studies, ability to use colloquial phrases in Russian only will not cut it. Even superficially, one should drop Polish or Czech, or, god forbid, Ukrainian words of wisdom - [Кохайтеся, чорнобриві,. Та не з москалями]

Begemot Volodimir 4 days ago ,

God forbid.

[Oct 24, 2019] Empire Interventionism Versus Republic Noninterventionism by Jacob Hornberger

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.

Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.

This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.

Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers, or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.

Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.

It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.

America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters. That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships. Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.

All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.

That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."

That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying people in countries all over the world.

The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.

The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom and peace, both here and abroad.

There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land.

[Oct 24, 2019] Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil by Colonel Patrick Lang

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.

In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates. Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!

Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party air forces (Russia) who support them

This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.

IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession and they are a danger to us all. pl

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/graham-fox-news-star-showed-trump-map-change-his-mind-n1069901

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Syria


Fred , 23 October 2019 at 04:54 PM

If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug cartel?
Harlan Easley , 23 October 2019 at 05:35 PM
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
JohninMK , 23 October 2019 at 05:43 PM
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.

Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit.

As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what Congress wants?

At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown.

walrus , 23 October 2019 at 06:42 PM
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply are playing dog-in-the-manger.

My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.

different clue , 23 October 2019 at 06:54 PM
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria.

Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)

prawnik said in reply to different clue... , 24 October 2019 at 11:25 AM
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
Decameron , 23 October 2019 at 07:03 PM
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation. Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the region and their customs is a national treasure.

This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.

Stephanie , 23 October 2019 at 07:06 PM
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what the war was about.

Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?

Babak Makkinejad -> Stephanie... , 23 October 2019 at 08:48 PM
Men are quite evidently are in a state of total complete and irretrievable Fall, all the while living that particular Age of Belief.
Jackrabbit , 23 October 2019 at 07:39 PM
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
VietnamVet , 23 October 2019 at 07:47 PM
Colonel,

The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world.

Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence. The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.

Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is chaos.

Mk-ec said in reply to VietnamVet... , 24 October 2019 at 07:40 PM
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc
Harper , 23 October 2019 at 07:49 PM
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked. Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.

My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling" Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.

Thoughts?

Babak Makkinejad -> Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 08:52 PM
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said in Persian, has grown a tail.
Tidewater said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 24 October 2019 at 01:14 PM
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?

Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks.

It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.

Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.

Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?

Lars said in reply to Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 09:10 PM
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a cataract.

They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to the price.

Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:30 AM
Lars,

Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to be the nominee?

Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a 95% probability of winning the day before the election.

As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that will vote to convict?

Lars said in reply to Jack... , 24 October 2019 at 02:05 PM
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed, there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a stampede.

You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In addition to circus acts.

I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.

Mk-ec said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 08:20 PM
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:29 PM
Lars,

It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an election for the presidency is no small feat.

There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?

Diana C said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 08:37 AM
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying when he was asked questions.
prawnik said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 11:28 AM
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.

He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.

Congratulations are hardly in order here.

Patrick Armstrong -> prawnik... , 24 October 2019 at 05:06 PM
The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/
Flavius said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 01:21 PM
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.

With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and became midwife to additional disasters.

It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change.

Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.

With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.

The Twisted Genius , 23 October 2019 at 11:33 PM
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
Fourth and Long -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 12:01 PM
In case you missed this piece in Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-us-has-plan-send-tanks-troops-secure-syria-oil-fields-amid-withdrawal-1467350

No idea here who the un-named pentagon "official" might be, but sounds as thought Gen Keane may not be all alone in his soup.

Artemesia said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 04:17 PM
IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause
Decepiton , 24 October 2019 at 04:40 AM
We massacred two hundred ruskies in the battle of khasham. What can they do.
MSB said in reply to Decepiton... , 24 October 2019 at 03:21 PM
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to the Battle of Khasham.

http://freewestmedia.com/2018/04/11/skripal-affair-real-reason-is-capture-of-200-sas-soldiers-in-ghouta/
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201805211064652345-syrian-army-foreign-military-presence/
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/news--analysis/a-real-h-o-t-war-with-russia-is-underway-right-now

http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/news--analysis/confirmation-that-us-uk-special-ops-are-in-syria-some-captured

ancientarcher , 24 October 2019 at 11:19 AM
Colonel, thanks for spelling it out so clearly.

The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it.

While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.

Larry Kart , 24 October 2019 at 11:39 AM
"This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth.
David said in reply to Linda... , 24 October 2019 at 04:39 PM
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
robt willmann , 24 October 2019 at 12:46 PM
On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/
turcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 01:34 PM
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 02:54 PM
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
turcopolier -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:15 PM
TTG

you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.

The Twisted Genius -> CK... , 24 October 2019 at 05:21 PM
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by. Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon and Zionist.
oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 01:49 PM
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?

> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously.

> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds.

> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous.

> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to happen now with U.S. withdrawal.

> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.

> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say, people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce any more positive results?

> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.

more here, about Tulsi, about Afghanistan, about Trump:
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/24/trump_lifts_turkey_sanctions_syrian_kurds

Leith , 24 October 2019 at 01:50 PM
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.

This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of 2018:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-syrian-government-sdf-reach-agreement-on-omar-oil-field/5643086

The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:49 PM
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
Stephanie said in reply to turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 09:59 PM
Two things.

In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes around comes around?

But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example. Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?

As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."

Jane , 24 October 2019 at 05:48 PM
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry [at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.

It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the north.

To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in one field and 400 contractors in the other.

There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something they wish to see.

"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.

oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 08:29 PM
The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump's earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/24/us-military-syria-tanks-oil-fields
turcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 09:46 PM
oldman22

He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers.

[Oct 24, 2019] Trump is now proven war criminal: WikiLeaks Releases New Documents Questioning Syria Chemical Attack Narrative

Highly recommended!
Objectively this should be a death sentence for Trump reelection -- war criminals should never be reelected: he proved to be yet another MIC stooge. And his government is not that different form Hillarie's: it is the same government of lies by lies for liars (from MIC)...
There is no positives heroes in this story. As Colonel W. Patrick Lang noted raving neocon lunatics in congress brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession are yet another danger to us all. ( Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil. - Sic Semper Tyrannis _
Notable quotes:
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out. ..."
"... Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best." ..."
"... Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

A whistleblower with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), responsible for conducting an independent investigation into the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, 2018, has presented WikiLeaks with a body of evidence suggesting the chemical weapons watchdog agency manipulated and suppressed evidence .

A prior official OPCW report of the investigation issued last March found "reasonable grounds" for believing a toxic chemical was used against civilians, likely chlorine. Long prior to any independent investigators reaching the site, however, Washington had launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for "Assad gassing his own people" .

WikiLeaks published documents based on evidence presented by the internal OPCW whistleblower to an expert review panel on Wednesday. "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW," WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson wrote.

An official WikiLeaks press release said as follows :

Kristinn Hrafnsson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the OPCW whistleblower. He says: "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW. Although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and/or present documents to the public, WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the public to see everything that was collected by the Fact Finding Mission on Douma and all scientific reports written in relation to the investigation."

"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out.

"We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."

The testimony further revealed "disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns , highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments."

The new information was enough to convince José Bustani, former director-general of the OPCW to conclude there is now "convincing evidence" of irregularities .

According to a summary of the latest controversy to cast doubt on the dominant mainstream narrative related to Douma, Middle East analysis site Al-Bab noted Bustain harbored prior doubts :

Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best."

Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria.


spam filter , 4 minutes ago link

"Because of my great wisdom as a stable genius, i launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for Assad gassing his own people" .

I am Ironman!

Has he lost his mind?

Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?

boattrash , 2 minutes ago link

...to appease the neocons...he killed a total of 3 ground squirrels.

monty42 , 41 seconds ago link

Tell that to the Syrians who were killed, both soldiers and civilians, as well as those having to pay for the lost property that was destroyed. It was thrown out there, purely out of thin air, that nothing of substance was hit and it was just a show by Trump, despite reports by those terrorized by the attacks.

NA X-15 , 6 minutes ago link

It's the same lying neocon **** that cried out "Darfur!"..."Donbass!"...the exact same lying ****. **** them all to hell, I wish I could exterminate their voices forever.

Arising , 12 minutes ago link

I have reposted these wikileaks documents on many different sites, especially the one's where the intelligence agencies are active.

I want them to know that we know.

Chupacabra-322 , 16 minutes ago link

The Gas Lighting, PsyOp & False Flags will continue until the masses are completely Frightened & Brainwashed.

US Interference and Regime Change PsyOp

"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."

Regime change is the only reason we or any of our proxies are there. We have NO GOOD REASON being there other than this BS.

I mean C'mon now? These Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Deep State CIA, MI6, Mossad Psychopaths couldn't write up a different Scripted False Narrative PsyOp to sell to the World & American People.

CHEM ATTACK PART III RETURN OF THE ASSAD.

The Lack of creativity among those in the Pentagram & Deep Staters is downright pathetic.

Bolton was nothing more than a mere Agent of Chaos with his mission the for continuation of the Yinon Plan.

I'd respect them more if they'd just said, "we seeking regime change to secure the better interests of Israel, the US & World Community."

Wink, wink, nod, nod...those better interest are the Qatari Pipeline to provide continued SA & Petro Dollar Hegemony among Vassel States. While simultaneously eliminating Russia's & Gasprom's ability to supply European Oil.

Meximus , 23 minutes ago link

The french are having misgivings in supporting this war crime. They are now talking with russia to normalize relations.

Soon we will go from FUKUS to just UKK (united **** kingdom) .

ebworthen , 49 minutes ago link

People are still believing the chemical attack canard? Seriously?

Assad wears a suit and protects Christians and Jews; as does Russia.

I can't say the same for the U.S.A., other than protecting Christians and Jews connected to Wall Street.

NA X-15 , 51 minutes ago link

From Day One, nobody believed the neocon ******** about the alleged "gassings".

[Oct 24, 2019] If motives can signal the future, the present convulsions in the US government signal that America has been taken over by the Zionists who populate all avenues of US power structures.

Oct 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

CarlD , Oct 23 2019 23:37 utc | 21

if motives can signal the future, the present convulsions in the US government signal that America has been taken over by the Zionists who populate all avenues of US power structures.

It is inconceivable that Trump who has been up to now catering to AIPAC and the Israeli lobbies and actors would be subjected to ignominy because he seems to want to abandon Syria. But. let's face it, Israel wants mayhem to engulf Syria, an ally of Iran and the Hezbollah.

American troops' withdrawal from Syria is seen as anathema by Zionists and Israeli likewise.
The Jewish interests can pull numerous strings in America to prevent this from happening. Trump is caught between a hammer and a nail. He wants to be reelected so he has to fulfill his promises
to his bases. Bring the troops home and all this nice stuff.

But his Israeli masters will make life difficult for him as long as he is not pandering to Israel's wishes.

There is a subtle game whereas the MSM assaults Trump but his actions are all in favor of his MSM detractors. Actor or puppet remains to be elucidated. No tax on the rich, Jerusalem, Golan Heights, the West Bank,, the Jordan Valley, all gifts to the criminal state of Israel.

And then, sanctions on China? If Trump wants to return the industrial jobs to America, he has to put tariffs on all imported goods, regardless of origin. Not only from Germany and China because they are successful exporters to America.

He would also have to put a stop on the expatriation of capital to other countries in view of reducing the ability of Wall Street to export jobs.

We do not see any of these actions from the WH so DJT is not the angel he wants to project himself to be.

For the time being, his orders of withdrawal are freeing some of the Syrian territories recently under US watch. The best thing for Syria is that it now has control over most of its territory. Much to the disgust of Israel.

I can see that Israel's greatest wish is to see a conflagration between Iran and the USA. There will be more false flags until one is so painful that Israel will be destroyed.

The Samson option is anti-Jewish. Will Israel bomb The City, New York and other great congregations of Zionists?

Remains to be seen.

[Oct 24, 2019] Empire Interventionism Versus Republic Noninterventionism by Jacob Hornberger

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.

Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.

This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.

Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers, or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.

Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.

It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.

America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters. That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships. Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.

All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.

That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."

That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying people in countries all over the world.

The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.

The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom and peace, both here and abroad.

There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land.

[Oct 24, 2019] Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil by Colonel Patrick Lang

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.

In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates. Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!

Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party air forces (Russia) who support them

This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.

IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession and they are a danger to us all. pl

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/graham-fox-news-star-showed-trump-map-change-his-mind-n1069901

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Syria


Fred , 23 October 2019 at 04:54 PM

If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug cartel?
Harlan Easley , 23 October 2019 at 05:35 PM
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
JohninMK , 23 October 2019 at 05:43 PM
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.

Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit.

As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what Congress wants?

At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown.

walrus , 23 October 2019 at 06:42 PM
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply are playing dog-in-the-manger.

My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.

different clue , 23 October 2019 at 06:54 PM
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria.

Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)

prawnik said in reply to different clue... , 24 October 2019 at 11:25 AM
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
Decameron , 23 October 2019 at 07:03 PM
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation. Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the region and their customs is a national treasure.

This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.

Stephanie , 23 October 2019 at 07:06 PM
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what the war was about.

Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?

Babak Makkinejad -> Stephanie... , 23 October 2019 at 08:48 PM
Men are quite evidently are in a state of total complete and irretrievable Fall, all the while living that particular Age of Belief.
Jackrabbit , 23 October 2019 at 07:39 PM
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
VietnamVet , 23 October 2019 at 07:47 PM
Colonel,

The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world.

Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence. The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.

Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is chaos.

Mk-ec said in reply to VietnamVet... , 24 October 2019 at 07:40 PM
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc
Harper , 23 October 2019 at 07:49 PM
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked. Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.

My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling" Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.

Thoughts?

Babak Makkinejad -> Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 08:52 PM
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said in Persian, has grown a tail.
Tidewater said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 24 October 2019 at 01:14 PM
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?

Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks.

It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.

Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.

Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?

Lars said in reply to Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 09:10 PM
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a cataract.

They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to the price.

Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:30 AM
Lars,

Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to be the nominee?

Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a 95% probability of winning the day before the election.

As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that will vote to convict?

Lars said in reply to Jack... , 24 October 2019 at 02:05 PM
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed, there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a stampede.

You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In addition to circus acts.

I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.

Mk-ec said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 08:20 PM
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:29 PM
Lars,

It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an election for the presidency is no small feat.

There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?

Diana C said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 08:37 AM
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying when he was asked questions.
prawnik said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 11:28 AM
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.

He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.

Congratulations are hardly in order here.

Patrick Armstrong -> prawnik... , 24 October 2019 at 05:06 PM
The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/
Flavius said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 01:21 PM
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.

With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and became midwife to additional disasters.

It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change.

Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.

With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.

The Twisted Genius , 23 October 2019 at 11:33 PM
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
Fourth and Long -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 12:01 PM
In case you missed this piece in Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-us-has-plan-send-tanks-troops-secure-syria-oil-fields-amid-withdrawal-1467350

No idea here who the un-named pentagon "official" might be, but sounds as thought Gen Keane may not be all alone in his soup.

Artemesia said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 04:17 PM
IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause
Decepiton , 24 October 2019 at 04:40 AM
We massacred two hundred ruskies in the battle of khasham. What can they do.
MSB said in reply to Decepiton... , 24 October 2019 at 03:21 PM
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to the Battle of Khasham.

http://freewestmedia.com/2018/04/11/skripal-affair-real-reason-is-capture-of-200-sas-soldiers-in-ghouta/
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201805211064652345-syrian-army-foreign-military-presence/
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/news--analysis/a-real-h-o-t-war-with-russia-is-underway-right-now

http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/news--analysis/confirmation-that-us-uk-special-ops-are-in-syria-some-captured

ancientarcher , 24 October 2019 at 11:19 AM
Colonel, thanks for spelling it out so clearly.

The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it.

While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.

Larry Kart , 24 October 2019 at 11:39 AM
"This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth.
David said in reply to Linda... , 24 October 2019 at 04:39 PM
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
robt willmann , 24 October 2019 at 12:46 PM
On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/
turcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 01:34 PM
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 02:54 PM
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
turcopolier -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:15 PM
TTG

you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.

The Twisted Genius -> CK... , 24 October 2019 at 05:21 PM
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by. Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon and Zionist.
oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 01:49 PM
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?

> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously.

> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds.

> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous.

> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to happen now with U.S. withdrawal.

> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.

> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say, people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce any more positive results?

> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.

more here, about Tulsi, about Afghanistan, about Trump:
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/24/trump_lifts_turkey_sanctions_syrian_kurds

Leith , 24 October 2019 at 01:50 PM
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.

This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of 2018:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-syrian-government-sdf-reach-agreement-on-omar-oil-field/5643086

The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:49 PM
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
Stephanie said in reply to turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 09:59 PM
Two things.

In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes around comes around?

But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example. Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?

As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."

Jane , 24 October 2019 at 05:48 PM
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry [at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.

It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the north.

To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in one field and 400 contractors in the other.

There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something they wish to see.

"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.

oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 08:29 PM
The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump's earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/24/us-military-syria-tanks-oil-fields
turcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 09:46 PM
oldman22

He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers.

[Oct 24, 2019] Putin Urges Erdogan to Keep Commitments

Notable quotes:
"... The Russian-Turkish Memorandum confirms the legality of the Turkish "Operation Spring Peace" within a border area of 32 kilometers with the exception of the city of Qamishli. It makes no mention of US demands to shut down the northern land corridor linking Tehran to Beirut. Moreover, it does not set a deadline for the withdrawal of the Turkish army, which is now likely to impose a military occupation, as it has done in Cyprus and Iraq. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zedd , Oct 23 2019 20:42 utc | 3

After one of the longest, bitterest negotiations ever held between President Vladimir Putin and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov forced the Turks into an agreement for a Turkish military enclave inside Syrian territory between Tal Abiad and Ras Al-Ain (Sari Kani). That is less than one-quarter of the Syrian territory Erdogan was demanding at the start of the Sochi talks.

http://johnhelmer.net/the-sultan-blinked-the-tsar-agreed-to-close-his-eyes-the-ottoman-empire-expands-by-118-kilometres-of-syria/


jayc , Oct 23 2019 20:44 utc | 4

Craig Murray's report on the farcical yet deeply disturbing court appearance for Julian Assange should be as widely distributed as possible. Please share with colleagues and request they do the same.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/assange-in-court/

Zedd , Oct 23 2019 20:48 utc | 5
Putin Urges Erdogan to Keep Commitments
The Russian-Turkish Memorandum confirms the legality of the Turkish "Operation Spring Peace" within a border area of 32 kilometers with the exception of the city of Qamishli. It makes no mention of US demands to shut down the northern land corridor linking Tehran to Beirut. Moreover, it does not set a deadline for the withdrawal of the Turkish army, which is now likely to impose a military occupation, as it has done in Cyprus and Iraq.

https://www.voltairenet.org/article208063.html

Oz , Oct 23 2019 21:45 utc | 11
OFAC is ending the Turkish Sanctions.

//home.treasury.gov/news/press-relief/sm801


Now will the US Comgress pass more Sanctions.

s , Oct 23 2019 22:29 utc | 15
Regarding article @ 3: It does make sense that Erdogan had the leverage in his negotiation with Putin.

Russia's interest is in brokering peace and keeping its bases and influence in Syria/ME. It's not to openly antagonize Turkey economically or militarily. Therefore, Putin can state his commitment to a unified Syria free from foreign occupation as an aspirational goal, but can't demand it or force it to happen as things stand.

Nathan Mulcahy , Oct 24 2019 0:49 utc | 24
Lavrov and Shoygu's press conference shortly after the signing of the Russia-Turkey memorandum of understating. Lavrov verbally pokes at the Outlaw Empire, and Shoygu uses some sarcasm. Quite informative with the Q&A segment ...

https://thesaker.is/lavrov-and-shoygu-hold-press-conference-over-new-syria-deal-verbally-spar-with-rude-journalists/

[Oct 24, 2019] Trump is now proven war criminal: WikiLeaks Releases New Documents Questioning Syria Chemical Attack Narrative

Highly recommended!
Objectively this should be a death sentence for Trump reelection -- war criminals should never be reelected: he proved to be yet another MIC stooge. And his government is not that different form Hillarie's: it is the same government of lies by lies for liars (from MIC)...
There is no positives heroes in this story. As Colonel W. Patrick Lang noted raving neocon lunatics in congress brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession are yet another danger to us all. ( Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil. - Sic Semper Tyrannis _
Notable quotes:
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out. ..."
"... Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best." ..."
"... Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

A whistleblower with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), responsible for conducting an independent investigation into the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, 2018, has presented WikiLeaks with a body of evidence suggesting the chemical weapons watchdog agency manipulated and suppressed evidence .

A prior official OPCW report of the investigation issued last March found "reasonable grounds" for believing a toxic chemical was used against civilians, likely chlorine. Long prior to any independent investigators reaching the site, however, Washington had launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for "Assad gassing his own people" .

WikiLeaks published documents based on evidence presented by the internal OPCW whistleblower to an expert review panel on Wednesday. "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW," WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson wrote.

An official WikiLeaks press release said as follows :

Kristinn Hrafnsson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the OPCW whistleblower. He says: "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW. Although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and/or present documents to the public, WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the public to see everything that was collected by the Fact Finding Mission on Douma and all scientific reports written in relation to the investigation."

"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out.

"We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."

The testimony further revealed "disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns , highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments."

The new information was enough to convince José Bustani, former director-general of the OPCW to conclude there is now "convincing evidence" of irregularities .

According to a summary of the latest controversy to cast doubt on the dominant mainstream narrative related to Douma, Middle East analysis site Al-Bab noted Bustain harbored prior doubts :

Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best."

Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria.


spam filter , 4 minutes ago link

"Because of my great wisdom as a stable genius, i launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for Assad gassing his own people" .

I am Ironman!

Has he lost his mind?

Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?

boattrash , 2 minutes ago link

...to appease the neocons...he killed a total of 3 ground squirrels.

monty42 , 41 seconds ago link

Tell that to the Syrians who were killed, both soldiers and civilians, as well as those having to pay for the lost property that was destroyed. It was thrown out there, purely out of thin air, that nothing of substance was hit and it was just a show by Trump, despite reports by those terrorized by the attacks.

NA X-15 , 6 minutes ago link

It's the same lying neocon **** that cried out "Darfur!"..."Donbass!"...the exact same lying ****. **** them all to hell, I wish I could exterminate their voices forever.

Arising , 12 minutes ago link

I have reposted these wikileaks documents on many different sites, especially the one's where the intelligence agencies are active.

I want them to know that we know.

Chupacabra-322 , 16 minutes ago link

The Gas Lighting, PsyOp & False Flags will continue until the masses are completely Frightened & Brainwashed.

US Interference and Regime Change PsyOp

"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."

Regime change is the only reason we or any of our proxies are there. We have NO GOOD REASON being there other than this BS.

I mean C'mon now? These Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Deep State CIA, MI6, Mossad Psychopaths couldn't write up a different Scripted False Narrative PsyOp to sell to the World & American People.

CHEM ATTACK PART III RETURN OF THE ASSAD.

The Lack of creativity among those in the Pentagram & Deep Staters is downright pathetic.

Bolton was nothing more than a mere Agent of Chaos with his mission the for continuation of the Yinon Plan.

I'd respect them more if they'd just said, "we seeking regime change to secure the better interests of Israel, the US & World Community."

Wink, wink, nod, nod...those better interest are the Qatari Pipeline to provide continued SA & Petro Dollar Hegemony among Vassel States. While simultaneously eliminating Russia's & Gasprom's ability to supply European Oil.

Meximus , 23 minutes ago link

The french are having misgivings in supporting this war crime. They are now talking with russia to normalize relations.

Soon we will go from FUKUS to just UKK (united **** kingdom) .

ebworthen , 49 minutes ago link

People are still believing the chemical attack canard? Seriously?

Assad wears a suit and protects Christians and Jews; as does Russia.

I can't say the same for the U.S.A., other than protecting Christians and Jews connected to Wall Street.

NA X-15 , 51 minutes ago link

From Day One, nobody believed the neocon ******** about the alleged "gassings".

[Oct 23, 2019] The treason of the intellectuals The Undoing of Thought by Roger Kimball

Highly recommended!
Supporting neoliberalism is the key treason of contemporary intellectuals eeho were instrumental in decimating the New Deal capitalism, to say nothing about neocon, who downgraded themselves into intellectual prostitutes of MIC mad try to destroy post WWII order.
Notable quotes:
"... More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. ..."
"... "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration. ..."
"... In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds! ..."
"... In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time." ..."
"... In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. ..."
"... His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ." ..."
"... From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today. ..."
"... Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity." ..."
"... Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." ..."
"... Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason ..."
"... In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity." ..."
"... The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. ..."
"... In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions ..."
"... Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes. ..."
"... Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s. ..."
"... Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity." ..."
"... The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. ..."
"... There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group ..."
"... To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. ..."
"... In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare." ..."
"... The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? ..."
"... . Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value ..."
"... The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim." ..."
"... "'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West. ..."
"... There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. ..."
"... As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom. ..."
"... Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men." ..."
Dec 01, 1992 | www.moonofalabama.org

On the abandonment of Enlightenment intellectualism, and the emergence of a new form of Volksgeist.

When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning. -- Alain Finkielkraut, The Undoing of Thought

Today we are trying to spread knowledge everywhere. Who knows if in centuries to come there will not be universities for re-establishing our former ignorance? -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

I n 1927, the French essayist Julien Benda published his famous attack on the intellectual corruption of the age, La Trahison des clercs. I said "famous," but perhaps "once famous" would have been more accurate. For today, in the United States anyway, only the title of the book, not its argument, enjoys much currency. "La trahison des clercs": it is one of those memorable phrases that bristles with hints and associations without stating anything definite. Benda tells us that he uses the term "clerc" in "the medieval sense," i.e., to mean "scribe," someone we would now call a member of the intelligentsia. Academics and journalists, pundits, moralists, and pontificators of all varieties are in this sense clercs . The English translation, The Treason of the Intellectuals , 1 sums it up neatly.

The "treason" in question was the betrayal by the "clerks" of their vocation as intellectuals. From the time of the pre-Socratics, intellectuals, considered in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. In Benda's terms, they were understood to be "all those whose activity essentially is not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art or a science or a metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages." Thanks to such men, Benda wrote, "humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species, and formed the rift whereby civilization slipped into the world."

According to Benda, however, this situation was changing. More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. The attack on the universal went forward in social and political life as well as in the refined precincts of epistemology and metaphysics: "Those who for centuries had exhorted men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their differences have now come to praise them, according to where the sermon is given, for their 'fidelity to the French soul,' 'the immutability of their German consciousness,' for the 'fervor of their Italian hearts.'" In short, intellectuals began to immerse themselves in the unsettlingly practical and material world of political passions: precisely those passions, Benda observed, "owing to which men rise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions, class passions and national passions." The "rift" into which civilization had been wont to slip narrowed and threatened to close altogether.

Writing at a moment when ethnic and nationalistic hatreds were beginning to tear Europe asunder, Benda's diagnosis assumed the lineaments of a prophecy -- a prophecy that continues to have deep resonance today. "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration.

J ulien Benda was not so naïve as to believe that intellectuals as a class had ever entirely abstained from political involvement, or, indeed, from involvement in the realm of practical affairs. Nor did he believe that intellectuals, as citizens, necessarily should abstain from political commitment or practical affairs. The "treason" or betrayal he sought to publish concerned the way that intellectuals had lately allowed political commitment to insinuate itself into their understanding of the intellectual vocation as such. Increasingly, Benda claimed, politics was "mingled with their work as artists, as men of learning, as philosophers." The ideal of disinterestedness, the universality of truth: such guiding principles were contemptuously deployed as masks when they were not jettisoned altogether. It was in this sense that he castigated the " desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values of action ."

In its crassest but perhaps also most powerful form, this desire led to that familiar phenomenon Benda dubbed "the cult of success." It is summed up, he writes, in "the teaching that says that when a will is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas the will which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt." In itself, this idea is hardly novel, as history from the Greek sophists on down reminds us. In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds!

In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time."

In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. To appreciate the force of Benda's thesis one need only think of that most influential modern Callicles, Friedrich Nietzsche. His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ."

Benda understood that the stakes were high: the treason of the intellectuals signaled not simply the corruption of a bunch of scribblers but a fundamental betrayal of culture. By embracing the ethic of Callicles, intellectuals had, Benda reckoned, precipitated "one of the most remarkable turning points in the moral history of the human species. It is impossible," he continued,

to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who for twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality of an act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason insofar as it is universal, that his will is only moral if it seeks its law outside its objects, should begin to teach him that the moral act is the act whereby he secures his existence against an environment which disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will "to power," that the part of his soul which determines what is good is its "will to live" wherein it is most "hostile to all reason," that the morality of an act is measured by its adaptation to its end, and that the only morality is the morality of circumstances. The educators of the human mind now take sides with Callicles against Socrates, a revolution which I dare to say seems to me more important than all political upheavals.

T he Treason of the Intellectuals is an energetic hodgepodge of a book. The philosopher Jean-François Revel recently described it as "one of the fussiest pleas on behalf of the necessary independence of intellectuals." Certainly it is rich, quirky, erudite, digressive, and polemical: more an exclamation than an analysis. Partisan in its claims for disinterestedness, it is ruthless in its defense of intellectual high-mindedness. Yet given the horrific events that unfolded in the decades following its publication, Benda's unremitting attack on the politicization of the intellect and ethnic separatism cannot but strike us as prescient. And given the continuing echo in our own time of the problems he anatomized, the relevance of his observations to our situation can hardly be doubted. From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today.

In 1988, the young French philosopher and cultural critic Alain Finkielkraut took up where Benda left off, producing a brief but searching inventory of our contemporary cataclysms. Entitled La Défaite de la pensée 2 ("The 'Defeat' or 'Undoing' of Thought"), his essay is in part an updated taxonomy of intellectual betrayals. In this sense, the book is a trahison des clercs for the post-Communist world, a world dominated as much by the leveling imperatives of pop culture as by resurgent nationalism and ethnic separatism. Beginning with Benda, Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity."

Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." Quoting the French historian Joseph Renan, he describes the idea as "the most dangerous explosive of modern times." "Nothing," he writes, "can stop a state that has become prey to the Volksgeist ." It is one of Finkielkraut's leitmotifs that today's multiculturalists are in many respects Herder's (generally unwitting) heirs.

True, Herder's emphasis on history and language did much to temper the tendency to abstraction that one finds in some expressions of the Enlightenment. Ernst Cassirer even remarked that "Herder's achievement is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs of the philosophy of the Enlightenment."

Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason. Finkielkraut opposes this just as the mature Goethe once took issue with Herder's adoration of the Volksgeist. Finkielkraut concedes that we all "relate to a particular tradition" and are "shaped by our national identity." But, unlike the multiculturalists, he soberly insists that "this reality merit[s] some recognition, not idolatry."

In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity."

The Undoing of Thought resembles The Treason of the Intellectuals stylistically as well as thematically. Both books are sometimes breathless congeries of sources and aperçus. And Finkielkraut, like Benda (and, indeed, like Montaigne), tends to proceed more by collage than by demonstration. But he does not simply recapitulate Benda's argument.

The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. Finkielkraut's distinctive contribution is to have taken the measure of the cultural swamp that surrounds us, to have delineated the links joining the politicization of the intellect and its current forms of debasement.

In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions.

The humanizing "reason" that Enlightenment champions is a universal reason, sharable, in principle, by all. Such ideals have not fared well in the twentieth century: Herder's progeny have labored hard to discredit them. Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes.

Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s.

Safely ensconced in Los Angeles, these refugees from Hitler's Reich published an influential essay on the concept of Enlightenment. Among much else, they assured readers that "Enlightenment is totalitarian." Never mind that at that very moment the Nazi war machine -- what one might be forgiven for calling real totalitarianism -- was busy liquidating millions of people in order to fulfill another set of anti-Enlightenment fantasies inspired by devotion to the Volksgeist .

The diatribe that Horkheimer and Adorno mounted against the concept of Enlightenment reminds us of an important peculiarity about the history of Enlightenment: namely, that it is a movement of thought that began as a reaction against tradition and has now emerged as one of tradition's most important safeguards. Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity."

The chief enemy of Enlightenment was "superstition," an omnibus term that included all manner of religious, philosophical, and moral ideas. But as the sociologist Edward Shils has noted, although the Enlightenment was in important respects "antithetical to tradition" in its origins, its success was due in large part "to the fact that it was promulgated and pursued in a society in which substantive traditions were rather strong." "It was successful against its enemies," Shils notes in his book Tradition (1981),

because the enemies were strong enough to resist its complete victory over them. Living on a soil of substantive traditionality, the ideas of the Enlightenment advanced without undoing themselves. As long as respect for authority on the one side and self-confidence in those exercising authority on the other persisted, the Enlightenment's ideal of emancipation through the exercise of reason went forward. It did not ravage society as it would have done had society lost all legitimacy.

It is this mature form of Enlightenment, championing reason but respectful of tradition, that Finkielkraut holds up as an ideal.

W hat Finkielkraut calls "the undoing of thought" flows from the widespread disintegration of a faith. At the center of that faith is the assumption that the life of thought is "the higher life" and that culture -- what the Germans call Bildung -- is its end or goal.

The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. "It is," he writes, "the first time in European history that non-thought has donned the same label and enjoyed the same status as thought itself, and the first time that those who, in the name of 'high culture,' dare to call this non-thought by its name, are dismissed as racists and reactionaries." The attack is perpetrated not from outside, by uncomprehending barbarians, but chiefly from inside, by a new class of barbarians, the self-made barbarians of the intelligentsia. This is the undoing of thought. This is the new "treason of the intellectuals."

There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group . "Their most extraordinary feat," he observes, "is to have put forward as the ultimate individual liberty the unconditional primacy of the collective." Western rationalism and individualism are rejected in the name of a more "authentic" cult.

One example: Finkielkraut quotes a champion of multiculturalism who maintains that "to help immigrants means first of all respecting them for what they are, respecting whatever they aspire to in their national life, in their distinctive culture and in their attachment to their spiritual and religious roots." Would this, Finkielkraut asks, include "respecting" those religious codes which demanded that the barren woman be cast out and the adulteress be punished with death?

What about those cultures in which the testimony of one man counts for that of two women? In which female circumcision is practiced? In which slavery flourishes? In which mixed marriages are forbidden and polygamy encouraged? Multiculturalism, as Finkielkraut points out, requires that we respect such practices. To criticize them is to be dismissed as "racist" and "ethnocentric." In this secular age, "cultural identity" steps in where the transcendent once was: "Fanaticism is indefensible when it appeals to heaven, but beyond reproach when it is grounded in antiquity and cultural distinctiveness."

To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. Finkielkraut speaks in this context of a "cheerful confusion which raises everyday anthropological practices to the pinnacle of the human race's greatest achievements." This process began in the nineteenth century, but it has been greatly accelerated in our own age. One thinks, for example, of the tireless campaigning of that great anthropological leveler, Claude Lévi-Strauss. Lévi-Strauss is assuredly a brilliant writer, but he has also been an extraordinarily baneful influence. Already in the early 1950s, when he was pontificating for UNESCO , he was urging all and sundry to "fight against ranking cultural differences hierarchically." In La Pensée sauvage (1961), he warned against the "false antinomy between logical and prelogical mentality" and was careful in his descriptions of natives to refer to "so-called primitive thought." "So-called" indeed. In a famous article on race and history, Lévi-Strauss maintained that the barbarian was not the opposite of the civilized man but "first of all the man who believes there is such a thing as barbarism." That of course is good to know. It helps one to appreciate Lévi-Strauss's claim, in Tristes Tropiques (1955), that the "true purpose of civilization" is to produce "inertia." As one ruminates on the proposition that cultures should not be ranked hierarchically, it is also well to consider what Lévi-Strauss coyly refers to as "the positive forms of cannibalism." For Lévi-Strauss, cannibalism has been unfairly stigmatized in the "so-called" civilized West. In fact, he explains, cannibalism was "often observed with great discretion, the vital mouthful being made up of a small quantity of organic matter mixed, on occasion, with other forms of food." What, merely a "vital mouthful"? Not to worry! Only an ignoramus who believed that there were important distinctions, qualitative distinctions, between the barbarian and the civilized man could possibly think of objecting.

Of course, the attack on distinctions that Finkielkraut castigates takes place not only among cultures but also within a given culture. Here again, the anthropological imperative has played a major role. "Under the equalizing eye of social science," he writes,

hierarchies are abolished, and all the criteria of taste are exposed as arbitrary. From now on no rigid division separates masterpieces from run-of-the mill works. The same fundamental structure, the same general and elemental traits are common to the "great" novels (whose excellence will henceforth be demystified by the accompanying quotation marks) and plebian types of narrative activity.

F or confirmation of this, one need only glance at the pronouncements of our critics. Whether working in the academy or other cultural institutions, they bring us the same news: there is "no such thing" as intrinsic merit, "quality" is an only ideological construction, aesthetic value is a distillation of social power, etc., etc.

In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare."

Those whom Finkielkraut calls "postmodernists," waving the standard of radical chic, declare that Shakespeare is no better than the latest fashion -- no better, say, than the newest item offered by Calvin Klein. The litany that Finkielkraut recites is familiar:

A comic which combines exciting intrigue and some pretty pictures is just as good as a Nabokov novel. What little Lolitas read is as good as Lolita . An effective publicity slogan counts for as much as a poem by Apollinaire or Francis Ponge . The footballer and the choreographer, the painter and the couturier, the writer and the ad-man, the musician and the rock-and-roller, are all the same: creators. We must scrap the prejudice which restricts that title to certain people and regards others as sub-cultural.

The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? Anyone who thinks so should take a moment to recall the major exhibition called "High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture" that the Museum of Modern Art mounted a few years ago: it might have been called "Krazy Kat Meets Picasso." Few events can have so consummately summed up the corrosive trivialization of culture now perpetrated by those entrusted with preserving it. Among other things, that exhibition demonstrated the extent to which the apotheosis of popular culture undermines the very possibility of appreciating high art on its own terms.

When the distinction between culture and entertainment is obliterated, high art is orphaned, exiled from the only context in which its distinctive meaning can manifest itself: Picasso becomes a kind of cartoon. This, more than any elitism or obscurity, is the real threat to culture today. As Hannah Arendt once observed, "there are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say."

And this brings us to the question of freedom. Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value.

For the postmodernist, then, "culture is no longer seen as a means of emancipation, but as one of the élitist obstacles to this." The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim."

What Finkielkraut has understood with admirable clarity is that modern attacks on elitism represent not the extension but the destruction of culture. "Democracy," he writes, "once implied access to culture for everybody. From now on it is going to mean everyone's right to the culture of his choice." This may sound marvelous -- it is after all the slogan one hears shouted in academic and cultural institutions across the country -- but the result is precisely the opposite of what was intended.

"'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West." The irony, alas, is that by removing standards and declaring that "anything goes," one does not get more culture, one gets more and more debased imitations of culture. This fraud is the dirty secret that our cultural commissars refuse to acknowledge.

There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. "A careless indifference to grand causes," Finkielkraut warns, "has its counterpart in abdication in the face of force." As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom.

Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men."

Julien Benda took his epigraph for La Trahison des clercs from the nineteenth-century French philosopher Charles Renouvier: Le monde souffre du manque de foi en une vérité transcendante : "The world suffers from lack of faith in a transcendent truth." Without some such faith, we are powerless against the depredations of intellectuals who have embraced the nihilism of Callicles as their truth.

1 The Treason of the Intellectuals, by Julien Benda, translated by Richard Aldington, was first published in 1928. This translation is still in print from Norton.

2 La Défaite de la pensée , by Alain Finkielkraut; Gallimard, 162 pages, 72 FF . It is available in English, in a translation by Dennis O'Keeffe, as The Undoing of Thought (The Claridge Press [London], 133 pages, £6.95 paper).

Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. His latest book is The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press)

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[Oct 23, 2019] Neoconservatism Is An Omnicidal Death Cult, And It Must Be Stopped by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Jul 18, 2017 | medium.com

Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group, Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.

This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium, but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about when discussing the Democratic party.

When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be, "Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."

It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.

This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives. Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:

... ... ...

Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.

This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment; there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species within a hair's breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest, and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.

... ... ...

I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My article about Senator John McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from CNN to USA Today to the Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.

This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate nonsense , showing where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician, some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.

This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has engaged in, and some that it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.

Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.

-- -- --

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[Oct 23, 2019] Retired imperial soldiers still dream about the glory of empire

Oct 23, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

Dennis Coyne x Ignored says: 10/09/2019 at 9:55 am

Interesting piece.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-national-security-officials-fight-back-as-trump-attacks-impeachment-as-deep-state-conspiracy/ar-AAIu7Ju?ocid=spartanntp

Former national security officials fight back as Trump attacks impeachment as 'deep state' conspiracy

"What is happening currently is not normal," said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who served as a U.S. intelligence officer on Russia and Eurasia before stepping down in 2018. "This represents a deviation from the way that these institutions regularly function. And when the institutions don't work, that is a national security threat."

She was among 90 national security veterans who signed an open letter published Sunday in support of the anonymous whistleblower who filed a complaint that Trump had acted improperly in asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden in a July phone call.

Trump has attempted to intimidate other government officials into not cooperating by casting those who offered information to the whistleblower as "close to spies." The open letter emphasized that the whistleblower "is protected from certain egregious forms of retaliation."

[Oct 23, 2019] Democrat s Virtue-Signaling Over Syria

Oct 18, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm

With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a mortal sin .

Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced, "Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."

However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal moral imperative .

Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has done.

Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any double-standards on this issue.

When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."

What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.

It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.

It's not like we would eventually have the choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an existential threat, or Turkey , a NATO member.

We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person could ever expect you to do it.

Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why must we deny him of this again?

And then there is the lack of an AUMF for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and international law .

Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.

Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.

Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the 16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?

Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.

But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces do not have a combat mission."

We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself violated).

Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of war crimes .

"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.

"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.

Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify this.
And yet it still gets worse .

In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.

If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.

gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a mortal sin .

Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced, "Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."

However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal moral imperative .

Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has done.

Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any double-standards on this issue.

When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."

What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.

It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.

It's not like we would eventually have the choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an existential threat, or Turkey , a NATO member.

We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person could ever expect you to do it.

Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why must we deny him of this again?

And then there is the lack of an AUMF for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and international law .

Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.

Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.

Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the 16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?

Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.

But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces do not have a combat mission."

We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself violated).

Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of war crimes .

"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.

"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.

Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify this.
And yet it still gets worse .

In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.

If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.

Why are we there? Follow the money

The good kind of foreign influence in our elections

The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.

The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.

"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.

The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".

The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.

edg on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 7:13pm
Quote from article

@gjohnsit

The New Arab article quote "public relations firms to brandish their image in the US" has a word usage problem. The correct word would be burnish, not brandish. You brandish your weapon. You burnish your image.

Malapropism police out.

The good kind of foreign influence in our elections

The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.

The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.

"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.

The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".

The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.

Funkygal on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 6:11pm
Here is another excellent one

https://fair.org/home/media-alarmed-by-imaginary-pullout-from-syria/

They are only moving 50-100 soldiers away and the lamestream media is hyperventilating.

apenultimate on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 6:52pm
The Turkish Invasion

a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:

Moon of Alabama

The basics are:

--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds

--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to go independent)

--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey

--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)

--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey

--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)

--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole thing

--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)

--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.

I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies down in a couple weeks.

edg on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 7:17pm
Small disagreement

@apenultimate

"Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness" won't happen. The MSM won't allow it.

a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:

Moon of Alabama

The basics are:

--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds

--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to go independent)

--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey

--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)

--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey

--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)

--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole thing

--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)

--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.

I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies down in a couple weeks.

Cassiodorus on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 7:02pm
What's interesting about Rojava

(as Kurdish Syria is sometimes called) is that one of the Kurd leaders became a follower of Murray Bookchin after spending a bunch of time as a Marxist-Leninist, and so portions of Kurdish society are an experiment in Bookchinism. Here is a piece by Bookchin's daughter on the correspondence between him and the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will find some protection in the new Putin-brokered Syria.

Otherwise, yeah, the Kurds are an ally of convenience for the Democratic Party and its apologists on that most disgusting of propaganda instruments, National Public Radio.

snoopydawg on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 8:07pm
It's not only illegal for us to be in Syria

but it should have also been illegal for us to arm the same people that we had declared terrorists. Now those people are killing the people who fought on our side against the ones now doing the killing.. my head is spinning with all the insane talking points coming from people who have never met a war they didn't support.

This is a good read.

Former and current US officials have slammed the Turkish mercenary force of "Arab militias" for executing and beheading Kurds in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the CIA and Pentagon.
By Max Blumenthal

The US has backed 21 of the 28 'crazy' militias leading Turkey's brutal invasion of northern Syria


Left: John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss (right) in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss (center) in October, announcing the establishment of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.

Hmm..kinda hard to explain that huh? The article talks about Idriss in detail. As well as Obama and Hillary's roles in the 'no boots on the ground' war.

This should embarrass every person who is moaning over Trump's actions in Syria. Turkey was coming in one way or another and the only way to stop them was for our troops to stand in their way. But what really ticks me off is all of that equipment they left behind on their bug out. Not just tents , TVs and air conditioners and everything in between, but they left weapons and bombs there and they just blew them up. This will make the defense companies very happy!

snoopydawg on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 9:13pm
This is interesting if true

After the ceasefire, US backed #Kurds are deciding to hand over the north of #Syria to Turkey rather than the Syrian army. All trump had to promise them was a stake in #Syria 's oil fields. https://t.co/euat8DvIa4

-- Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) October 19, 2019

Syrian Girl lives in Syria and has been a good source of information, but I'm not sure if what she is reporting is true. But wouldn't that shut lots of people up?

doh1304 on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 10:21pm
The only thing I wonder

Obama kept troops out of Syria until the last minute. Then he took a force small enough to justify his successor's escalation. So when the Turks tried to genocide the Kurds - like they were certain to do - Trump gets the blame. But it was supposed to be Hillary. What was in it for her? The joy of another country seeing genocide?

The Wizard on Sat, 10/19/2019 - 1:21am
Fool me once...

The Kurds were promised land and valuable oil fields in North Eastern Syria by... the US. What's wrong with this picture? Damascus has I invited the Kurds to be part of the multi-ethnic Syria. The Kurds refused and took America's deal. We armed them to the teeth with 10s of billions of dollars of weapons. What could go wrong? Well just about everything as the US offer was highly illegal, they are stealing Syrian oil, and Turkey will not accept any Kurdish permanent enclave on her border. Syria, Russia, Iran, China, Hezbollah, Iraq and more support the reunification of all of Syria. Why were the Kurds so stupid? Go it? Blind belief in the all powerful US!

[Oct 23, 2019] The treason of the intellectuals The Undoing of Thought by Roger Kimball

Highly recommended!
Supporting neoliberalism is the key treason of contemporary intellectuals eeho were instrumental in decimating the New Deal capitalism, to say nothing about neocon, who downgraded themselves into intellectual prostitutes of MIC mad try to destroy post WWII order.
Notable quotes:
"... More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. ..."
"... "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration. ..."
"... In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds! ..."
"... In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time." ..."
"... In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. ..."
"... His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ." ..."
"... From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today. ..."
"... Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity." ..."
"... Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." ..."
"... Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason ..."
"... In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity." ..."
"... The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. ..."
"... In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions ..."
"... Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes. ..."
"... Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s. ..."
"... Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity." ..."
"... The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. ..."
"... There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group ..."
"... To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. ..."
"... In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare." ..."
"... The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? ..."
"... . Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value ..."
"... The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim." ..."
"... "'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West. ..."
"... There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. ..."
"... As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom. ..."
"... Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men." ..."
Dec 01, 1992 | www.moonofalabama.org

On the abandonment of Enlightenment intellectualism, and the emergence of a new form of Volksgeist.

When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning. -- Alain Finkielkraut, The Undoing of Thought

Today we are trying to spread knowledge everywhere. Who knows if in centuries to come there will not be universities for re-establishing our former ignorance? -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

I n 1927, the French essayist Julien Benda published his famous attack on the intellectual corruption of the age, La Trahison des clercs. I said "famous," but perhaps "once famous" would have been more accurate. For today, in the United States anyway, only the title of the book, not its argument, enjoys much currency. "La trahison des clercs": it is one of those memorable phrases that bristles with hints and associations without stating anything definite. Benda tells us that he uses the term "clerc" in "the medieval sense," i.e., to mean "scribe," someone we would now call a member of the intelligentsia. Academics and journalists, pundits, moralists, and pontificators of all varieties are in this sense clercs . The English translation, The Treason of the Intellectuals , 1 sums it up neatly.

The "treason" in question was the betrayal by the "clerks" of their vocation as intellectuals. From the time of the pre-Socratics, intellectuals, considered in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. In Benda's terms, they were understood to be "all those whose activity essentially is not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art or a science or a metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages." Thanks to such men, Benda wrote, "humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species, and formed the rift whereby civilization slipped into the world."

According to Benda, however, this situation was changing. More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. The attack on the universal went forward in social and political life as well as in the refined precincts of epistemology and metaphysics: "Those who for centuries had exhorted men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their differences have now come to praise them, according to where the sermon is given, for their 'fidelity to the French soul,' 'the immutability of their German consciousness,' for the 'fervor of their Italian hearts.'" In short, intellectuals began to immerse themselves in the unsettlingly practical and material world of political passions: precisely those passions, Benda observed, "owing to which men rise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions, class passions and national passions." The "rift" into which civilization had been wont to slip narrowed and threatened to close altogether.

Writing at a moment when ethnic and nationalistic hatreds were beginning to tear Europe asunder, Benda's diagnosis assumed the lineaments of a prophecy -- a prophecy that continues to have deep resonance today. "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration.

J ulien Benda was not so naïve as to believe that intellectuals as a class had ever entirely abstained from political involvement, or, indeed, from involvement in the realm of practical affairs. Nor did he believe that intellectuals, as citizens, necessarily should abstain from political commitment or practical affairs. The "treason" or betrayal he sought to publish concerned the way that intellectuals had lately allowed political commitment to insinuate itself into their understanding of the intellectual vocation as such. Increasingly, Benda claimed, politics was "mingled with their work as artists, as men of learning, as philosophers." The ideal of disinterestedness, the universality of truth: such guiding principles were contemptuously deployed as masks when they were not jettisoned altogether. It was in this sense that he castigated the " desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values of action ."

In its crassest but perhaps also most powerful form, this desire led to that familiar phenomenon Benda dubbed "the cult of success." It is summed up, he writes, in "the teaching that says that when a will is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas the will which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt." In itself, this idea is hardly novel, as history from the Greek sophists on down reminds us. In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds!

In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time."

In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. To appreciate the force of Benda's thesis one need only think of that most influential modern Callicles, Friedrich Nietzsche. His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ."

Benda understood that the stakes were high: the treason of the intellectuals signaled not simply the corruption of a bunch of scribblers but a fundamental betrayal of culture. By embracing the ethic of Callicles, intellectuals had, Benda reckoned, precipitated "one of the most remarkable turning points in the moral history of the human species. It is impossible," he continued,

to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who for twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality of an act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason insofar as it is universal, that his will is only moral if it seeks its law outside its objects, should begin to teach him that the moral act is the act whereby he secures his existence against an environment which disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will "to power," that the part of his soul which determines what is good is its "will to live" wherein it is most "hostile to all reason," that the morality of an act is measured by its adaptation to its end, and that the only morality is the morality of circumstances. The educators of the human mind now take sides with Callicles against Socrates, a revolution which I dare to say seems to me more important than all political upheavals.

T he Treason of the Intellectuals is an energetic hodgepodge of a book. The philosopher Jean-François Revel recently described it as "one of the fussiest pleas on behalf of the necessary independence of intellectuals." Certainly it is rich, quirky, erudite, digressive, and polemical: more an exclamation than an analysis. Partisan in its claims for disinterestedness, it is ruthless in its defense of intellectual high-mindedness. Yet given the horrific events that unfolded in the decades following its publication, Benda's unremitting attack on the politicization of the intellect and ethnic separatism cannot but strike us as prescient. And given the continuing echo in our own time of the problems he anatomized, the relevance of his observations to our situation can hardly be doubted. From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today.

In 1988, the young French philosopher and cultural critic Alain Finkielkraut took up where Benda left off, producing a brief but searching inventory of our contemporary cataclysms. Entitled La Défaite de la pensée 2 ("The 'Defeat' or 'Undoing' of Thought"), his essay is in part an updated taxonomy of intellectual betrayals. In this sense, the book is a trahison des clercs for the post-Communist world, a world dominated as much by the leveling imperatives of pop culture as by resurgent nationalism and ethnic separatism. Beginning with Benda, Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity."

Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." Quoting the French historian Joseph Renan, he describes the idea as "the most dangerous explosive of modern times." "Nothing," he writes, "can stop a state that has become prey to the Volksgeist ." It is one of Finkielkraut's leitmotifs that today's multiculturalists are in many respects Herder's (generally unwitting) heirs.

True, Herder's emphasis on history and language did much to temper the tendency to abstraction that one finds in some expressions of the Enlightenment. Ernst Cassirer even remarked that "Herder's achievement is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs of the philosophy of the Enlightenment."

Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason. Finkielkraut opposes this just as the mature Goethe once took issue with Herder's adoration of the Volksgeist. Finkielkraut concedes that we all "relate to a particular tradition" and are "shaped by our national identity." But, unlike the multiculturalists, he soberly insists that "this reality merit[s] some recognition, not idolatry."

In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity."

The Undoing of Thought resembles The Treason of the Intellectuals stylistically as well as thematically. Both books are sometimes breathless congeries of sources and aperçus. And Finkielkraut, like Benda (and, indeed, like Montaigne), tends to proceed more by collage than by demonstration. But he does not simply recapitulate Benda's argument.

The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. Finkielkraut's distinctive contribution is to have taken the measure of the cultural swamp that surrounds us, to have delineated the links joining the politicization of the intellect and its current forms of debasement.

In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions.

The humanizing "reason" that Enlightenment champions is a universal reason, sharable, in principle, by all. Such ideals have not fared well in the twentieth century: Herder's progeny have labored hard to discredit them. Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes.

Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s.

Safely ensconced in Los Angeles, these refugees from Hitler's Reich published an influential essay on the concept of Enlightenment. Among much else, they assured readers that "Enlightenment is totalitarian." Never mind that at that very moment the Nazi war machine -- what one might be forgiven for calling real totalitarianism -- was busy liquidating millions of people in order to fulfill another set of anti-Enlightenment fantasies inspired by devotion to the Volksgeist .

The diatribe that Horkheimer and Adorno mounted against the concept of Enlightenment reminds us of an important peculiarity about the history of Enlightenment: namely, that it is a movement of thought that began as a reaction against tradition and has now emerged as one of tradition's most important safeguards. Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity."

The chief enemy of Enlightenment was "superstition," an omnibus term that included all manner of religious, philosophical, and moral ideas. But as the sociologist Edward Shils has noted, although the Enlightenment was in important respects "antithetical to tradition" in its origins, its success was due in large part "to the fact that it was promulgated and pursued in a society in which substantive traditions were rather strong." "It was successful against its enemies," Shils notes in his book Tradition (1981),

because the enemies were strong enough to resist its complete victory over them. Living on a soil of substantive traditionality, the ideas of the Enlightenment advanced without undoing themselves. As long as respect for authority on the one side and self-confidence in those exercising authority on the other persisted, the Enlightenment's ideal of emancipation through the exercise of reason went forward. It did not ravage society as it would have done had society lost all legitimacy.

It is this mature form of Enlightenment, championing reason but respectful of tradition, that Finkielkraut holds up as an ideal.

W hat Finkielkraut calls "the undoing of thought" flows from the widespread disintegration of a faith. At the center of that faith is the assumption that the life of thought is "the higher life" and that culture -- what the Germans call Bildung -- is its end or goal.

The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. "It is," he writes, "the first time in European history that non-thought has donned the same label and enjoyed the same status as thought itself, and the first time that those who, in the name of 'high culture,' dare to call this non-thought by its name, are dismissed as racists and reactionaries." The attack is perpetrated not from outside, by uncomprehending barbarians, but chiefly from inside, by a new class of barbarians, the self-made barbarians of the intelligentsia. This is the undoing of thought. This is the new "treason of the intellectuals."

There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group . "Their most extraordinary feat," he observes, "is to have put forward as the ultimate individual liberty the unconditional primacy of the collective." Western rationalism and individualism are rejected in the name of a more "authentic" cult.

One example: Finkielkraut quotes a champion of multiculturalism who maintains that "to help immigrants means first of all respecting them for what they are, respecting whatever they aspire to in their national life, in their distinctive culture and in their attachment to their spiritual and religious roots." Would this, Finkielkraut asks, include "respecting" those religious codes which demanded that the barren woman be cast out and the adulteress be punished with death?

What about those cultures in which the testimony of one man counts for that of two women? In which female circumcision is practiced? In which slavery flourishes? In which mixed marriages are forbidden and polygamy encouraged? Multiculturalism, as Finkielkraut points out, requires that we respect such practices. To criticize them is to be dismissed as "racist" and "ethnocentric." In this secular age, "cultural identity" steps in where the transcendent once was: "Fanaticism is indefensible when it appeals to heaven, but beyond reproach when it is grounded in antiquity and cultural distinctiveness."

To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. Finkielkraut speaks in this context of a "cheerful confusion which raises everyday anthropological practices to the pinnacle of the human race's greatest achievements." This process began in the nineteenth century, but it has been greatly accelerated in our own age. One thinks, for example, of the tireless campaigning of that great anthropological leveler, Claude Lévi-Strauss. Lévi-Strauss is assuredly a brilliant writer, but he has also been an extraordinarily baneful influence. Already in the early 1950s, when he was pontificating for UNESCO , he was urging all and sundry to "fight against ranking cultural differences hierarchically." In La Pensée sauvage (1961), he warned against the "false antinomy between logical and prelogical mentality" and was careful in his descriptions of natives to refer to "so-called primitive thought." "So-called" indeed. In a famous article on race and history, Lévi-Strauss maintained that the barbarian was not the opposite of the civilized man but "first of all the man who believes there is such a thing as barbarism." That of course is good to know. It helps one to appreciate Lévi-Strauss's claim, in Tristes Tropiques (1955), that the "true purpose of civilization" is to produce "inertia." As one ruminates on the proposition that cultures should not be ranked hierarchically, it is also well to consider what Lévi-Strauss coyly refers to as "the positive forms of cannibalism." For Lévi-Strauss, cannibalism has been unfairly stigmatized in the "so-called" civilized West. In fact, he explains, cannibalism was "often observed with great discretion, the vital mouthful being made up of a small quantity of organic matter mixed, on occasion, with other forms of food." What, merely a "vital mouthful"? Not to worry! Only an ignoramus who believed that there were important distinctions, qualitative distinctions, between the barbarian and the civilized man could possibly think of objecting.

Of course, the attack on distinctions that Finkielkraut castigates takes place not only among cultures but also within a given culture. Here again, the anthropological imperative has played a major role. "Under the equalizing eye of social science," he writes,

hierarchies are abolished, and all the criteria of taste are exposed as arbitrary. From now on no rigid division separates masterpieces from run-of-the mill works. The same fundamental structure, the same general and elemental traits are common to the "great" novels (whose excellence will henceforth be demystified by the accompanying quotation marks) and plebian types of narrative activity.

F or confirmation of this, one need only glance at the pronouncements of our critics. Whether working in the academy or other cultural institutions, they bring us the same news: there is "no such thing" as intrinsic merit, "quality" is an only ideological construction, aesthetic value is a distillation of social power, etc., etc.

In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare."

Those whom Finkielkraut calls "postmodernists," waving the standard of radical chic, declare that Shakespeare is no better than the latest fashion -- no better, say, than the newest item offered by Calvin Klein. The litany that Finkielkraut recites is familiar:

A comic which combines exciting intrigue and some pretty pictures is just as good as a Nabokov novel. What little Lolitas read is as good as Lolita . An effective publicity slogan counts for as much as a poem by Apollinaire or Francis Ponge . The footballer and the choreographer, the painter and the couturier, the writer and the ad-man, the musician and the rock-and-roller, are all the same: creators. We must scrap the prejudice which restricts that title to certain people and regards others as sub-cultural.

The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? Anyone who thinks so should take a moment to recall the major exhibition called "High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture" that the Museum of Modern Art mounted a few years ago: it might have been called "Krazy Kat Meets Picasso." Few events can have so consummately summed up the corrosive trivialization of culture now perpetrated by those entrusted with preserving it. Among other things, that exhibition demonstrated the extent to which the apotheosis of popular culture undermines the very possibility of appreciating high art on its own terms.

When the distinction between culture and entertainment is obliterated, high art is orphaned, exiled from the only context in which its distinctive meaning can manifest itself: Picasso becomes a kind of cartoon. This, more than any elitism or obscurity, is the real threat to culture today. As Hannah Arendt once observed, "there are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say."

And this brings us to the question of freedom. Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value.

For the postmodernist, then, "culture is no longer seen as a means of emancipation, but as one of the élitist obstacles to this." The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim."

What Finkielkraut has understood with admirable clarity is that modern attacks on elitism represent not the extension but the destruction of culture. "Democracy," he writes, "once implied access to culture for everybody. From now on it is going to mean everyone's right to the culture of his choice." This may sound marvelous -- it is after all the slogan one hears shouted in academic and cultural institutions across the country -- but the result is precisely the opposite of what was intended.

"'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West." The irony, alas, is that by removing standards and declaring that "anything goes," one does not get more culture, one gets more and more debased imitations of culture. This fraud is the dirty secret that our cultural commissars refuse to acknowledge.

There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. "A careless indifference to grand causes," Finkielkraut warns, "has its counterpart in abdication in the face of force." As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom.

Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men."

Julien Benda took his epigraph for La Trahison des clercs from the nineteenth-century French philosopher Charles Renouvier: Le monde souffre du manque de foi en une vérité transcendante : "The world suffers from lack of faith in a transcendent truth." Without some such faith, we are powerless against the depredations of intellectuals who have embraced the nihilism of Callicles as their truth.

1 The Treason of the Intellectuals, by Julien Benda, translated by Richard Aldington, was first published in 1928. This translation is still in print from Norton.

2 La Défaite de la pensée , by Alain Finkielkraut; Gallimard, 162 pages, 72 FF . It is available in English, in a translation by Dennis O'Keeffe, as The Undoing of Thought (The Claridge Press [London], 133 pages, £6.95 paper).

Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. His latest book is The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press)

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[Oct 23, 2019] Neoconservatism Is An Omnicidal Death Cult, And It Must Be Stopped by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Jul 18, 2017 | medium.com

Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group, Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.

This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium, but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about when discussing the Democratic party.

When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be, "Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."

It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.

This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives. Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:

... ... ...

Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.

This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment; there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species within a hair's breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest, and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.

... ... ...

I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My article about Senator John McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from CNN to USA Today to the Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.

This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate nonsense , showing where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician, some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.

This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has engaged in, and some that it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.

Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.

-- -- --

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[Oct 23, 2019] New York Times Fakes The Record About Arming The Syrian Rebels

Notable quotes:
"... Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum of Russia-Turkey relationship. ..."
"... If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now swung to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially catastrophic for regional stability. ..."
"... the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western support for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory. ..."
"... Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to strengthen its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From Ankara, Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. " ..."
Oct 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

New York Times Fakes The Record About Arming The Syrian Rebels

History as faked by the New York Times :

Kurds' Sense of Betrayal Compounded by Empowerment of Unsavory Rivals
Ben Hubbard, David D. Kirkpatrick, NYT 18. Oct 2019

Now, [..] the sense of betrayal among the Kurds [..] is matched only by their outrage at who will move in: Turkish soldiers supported by Syrian fighters the United States had long rejected as extremists, criminals and thugs .
...
The deadly battles [..] have also given new leeway to Syrian fighters once considered too extreme or unruly to receive American military support.
...
Grandly misnamed the Syrian National Army, this coalition of Turkish-backed militias is in fact largely composed of the dregs of the eight-year-old conflict's failed rebel movement.

Early in the war [..] the military and the C.I.A. sought to train and equip moderate, trustworthy rebels to fight the government and the Islamic State.

A few of those now fighting in the northeast took part in those failed programs, but most were rejected as too extreme or too criminal . Some have expressed extremist sensibilities or allied with jihadist groups.

The reality is the opposite of what the NYT claims. The majority of the groups now fighting with the Turkish army had earlier received support from the U.S. Even their nominal leader is the same one who the U.S. earlier paid, armed and promoted.

COMPONENTS OF THE NATIONAL ARMY AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE UNIFICATION
Ömer Özkizilcik, SETA, October 2019

On August 31, the Syrian National Coalition came together and elected the president and the cabinet of the Syrian Interim Government in which Abdurrahman Mustafa was elected president and Salim Idriss was elected defense minister . With the new cabinet, the Syrian Interim Government became more active on the ground, started visiting each faction of the National Army, and accelerated the stalled negotiations to unite the National Army and the NLF under one command.
Salim Idriss with U.S. Senator John McCain

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Salim Idriss with Guy Verhofstadt, then leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament

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Among the 41 factions that joined the merger, 15 are from the NLF and 26 from the National Army. Thirteen of these factions were formed after the United States cut its support to the armed Syrian opposition. Out of the 28 factions, 21 were previously supported by the United States , three of them via the Pentagon's program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence operation room of the 'Friends of Syria' to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles.

The SETA study provides a detailed list of the groups involved in the current Turkish invasion of Syria. Not only is their commander Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge but the majority of these groups did receive U.S. support and weapons.


bigger

The New York Times claim that only "a few of those" who now fight the YPG Kurds took part in the U.S. programs is a blatant lie.

The NYT piece quotes three 'experts' who testify that the 'rebels' the U.S. had armed are really, really bad:

"These are the misfits of the conflict, the worst of the worst," said Hassan Hassan, a Syrian-born scholar tracking the fighting. "They have been notorious for extortion, theft and banditry, more like thugs than rebels -- essentially mercenaries."

It was Hassan Hassan who since the start of the conflict lobbied for arming the rebels from his perch at the UAE's media flagship The National .

Another 'expert' quoted is the Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov:

"They are basically gangsters, but they are also racist toward Kurds and other minorities," said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "No human should be subjected to their rule."

Tsurkov earlier lauded the Israeli hiring and arming of the very same 'Syrian rebels'.

Another 'expert' quoted by the Times is a co-chair of the 'congressionally sponsored bipartisan Syrian Study Group':

"We are turning areas that had been controlled by our allies over to the control of criminals or thugs, or that in some cases groups were associated or fighting alongside Al Qaeda," said Ms. Stroul, of the Syrian Study Group. "It is a profound and epic strategic blunder."

The 'Syrian Study Group' wants to prolong the war on Syria. Ms. Stroul and her co-chair Michael Singh reside at the Washington Institute which is a part of the Zionist lobby and has long argued for 'arming the Syrian rebels'.

The Times report does not mention that the 'experts' it quotes all once lobbied for arming the very same groups they are now lamenting about. When these groups ran rampant in the areas they took from the Syrian government the Times and its 'experts' were lauding them all the way. No effort to support them was big enough. All crimes they committed were covered up or excused.

Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what they always have been.

Posted by b on October 20, 2019 at 11:19 UTC | Permalink


Richard , Oct 20 2019 11:46 utc | 1

Hah! More lies from the NYT....mainstream media in the west has deteriorated into a propaganda channel for the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy, pumping out a never ending tide of lying filth aimed at more and more war (more and more weapon sales) and promoting and preserving predatory capitalism (more money for the Billionaire class, less for you).

In my own reading of MSM press and my own watching of the MSM Talking Heads I believe I've indentified 8 techniques that amoral, dangerous, barely competent idiots that have the cheek to call themselves journalists use to lie to you, the reader/viewer/listener. Here's my list...

https://richardhennerley.com/2018/10/16/8-techniques-journalists-use-to-lie-to-you/

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Oct 20 2019 12:12 utc | 2
Okay how practical.
Now only is the NYT trying to whitewash themselves by faking, they are also kind enough to do the same for their Jihadi lovin partners in crime.
How empathic! How sensible! Like a true moral authority.

BTW: It seems my previous claims were right. The Turks made a 180 and allied with the US again, reviving the NATO allaince. Now that the Kurds are out of the way in Turk-US relations, US and NATO has much more to offer than Russia, and noe Erdogan has support from NATO and will not be deterred by Putin.
B, i respect you immensly, but your belief the Turkish invasion was Erdogan doing some secret Putin plan was unproven at the time, and now, AT LEAST since the US-Turk deal, is obsolte.

Read M. K. BHADRAKUMARs blog, he thought like you, but after the US-Turk deal, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED:

https://indianpunchline.com/us-stokes-the-fires-of-turkish-revanchism/

"The extraordinary US overture to Turkey regarding northern Syria resulted in a joint statement on Thursday, whose ramifications can be rated only in the fulness of time , as several intersecting tracks are running.

The US objectives range from Trump's compulsions in domestic politics to the future trajectory of the US policies toward Syria and the impact of any US-Turkish rapprochement on the geopolitics of the Syrian conflict.

Meanwhile, the US-Turkish joint statement creates new uncertainties. The two countries have agreed on a set of principles -- Turkey's crucial status as a NATO power ; security of Christian minorities in Syria; prevention of an ISIS surge; creation of a "safe zone" on Turkish-Syrian border; a 120-hour ceasefire ("pause") in Turkish military operations leading to a permanent halt, hopefully.

The devil lies in the details. Principally, there is no transparency regarding the future US role in Syria . The Kurds and the US military will withdraw from the 30-kilometre broad buffer zone. What thereafter? In the words of the US Vice-President Mike Pence at the press conference in Ankara on Thursday,

"Kurdish population in Syria, with which we have a strong relationship, will continue to endure. The United States will always be grateful for our partnership with SDF in defeating ISIS, but we recognise the importance and the value of a safe zone to create a buffer between Syria proper and the Kurdish population and -- and the Turkish border. And we're going to be working very closely ."

To be sure, everything devolves upon the creation of the safe zone. Turkey envisages a zone stretching across the entire 440 kilometre border with Syria upto Iraqi border, while the US special envoy James Jeffrey remains non-committal, saying it is up to the "Russians and the Syrians in other areas of the northeast and in Manbij to the west of the Euphrates" to agree to Turkey's maximalist stance.

Herein lies the rub. Jeffrey would know Ankara will never get its way with Moscow and Damascus. In fact, President Bashar al-Assad told in unequivocal terms to a high-level Russian delegation visiting Damascus on Friday, "At the current phase it is necessary to focus on putting an end to aggression and on the pullout of all Turkish, US and other forces illegally present in Syrian territories."

Is there daylight between Moscow and Damascus on this highly sensitive issue? Turkish President Recep Erdogan's forthcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on October 22 may provide an answer.

Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum of Russia-Turkey relationship.

If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now swung to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially catastrophic for regional stability. The heart of the matter is that while Turkey's concerns over terrorism and the refugee problem are legitimate, Operation Peace Spring has deeper moorings: Turkey's ambitions as regional power and its will to correct the perceived injustice of territorial losses incurred during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The ultra-nationalistic Turkish commentator (and staunch supporter of Erdogan) wrote this week in the pro-government daily Yeni Safak:

"Turkey once again revived the millennium-old political history on Anatolian territory. It took action with a mission that will carry the legacy of the Seljuks, the Ottomans, the Republic of Turkey to the next stage It is not possible to set an equation in this region by excluding Turkey – it will not happen. A map cannot be drawn that excludes Turkey – it will not happen. A power cannot be established without Turkey – it will not happen. Throughout history, both the rise and fall of this country has altered the region the mind in Turkey is now a regional mind, a regional conscience, a regional identity. President Erdoğan is the pioneer, the bearer of that political legacy from the Seljuks, the Ottomans, and the Turkish Republic to the future."

Trump is unlikely to pay attention to the irredentist instincts in Turkish regional policies. Trump's immediate concerns are to please the evangelical Christian constituency in the US and silence his critics who allege that he threw the Kurds under the bus or that a ISIS resurgence is imminent. But there is no way the US can deliver on the tall promises made in the joint statement. The Kurds have influential friends in the Pentagon. (See the article by Gen. Joseph Votel, former chief of the US Central Command, titled The Danger of Abandoning our Partners.) Nonetheless, the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western support for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory.

All in all, it's a "win-win" for Erdogan insofar as he got what he wanted -- US' political and diplomatic support for "the kind of long-term buffer zone that will ensure peace and stability in the region", to borrow the words of Vice President Pence. A Turkish withdrawal from Syrian territory can now be virtually ruled out. State secretary Mike Pompeo added at the press conference in Ankara on Thursday that there is "a great deal of work to do in the region. There's lots of challenges that remain."

Pompeo said Erdogan's "decision to work alongside President Trump will be one that I think will benefit Turkey a great deal." Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to strengthen its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From Ankara, Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. "

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Oct 20 2019 12:16 utc | 3
Add to that, that the Turks now threaten SAA with "full out war".

John Helmers latest post sheds light on the fact, that the Russian military leadership and the Stavka in general has warned Putin since the Idlib deal again and again to no avail that the Turks would do this.

Which seems now to have been proven true since the US-Turk deal, which in essence changed everything overnight.

http://johnhelmer.net/in-the-war-for-syrias-highway-m4-the-kremlin-turks-have-been-beaten-to-the-punch-by-the-russian-general-staff-foreign-ministry-for-the-moment/

oldhippie , Oct 20 2019 12:21 utc | 4
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news from any source. That is not the American way.

The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT. Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable. For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the Times will never untie the knot.

oldhippie , Oct 20 2019 12:21 utc | 4
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news from any source. That is not the American way.

The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT. Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable. For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the Times will never untie the knot.

Walter , Oct 20 2019 12:29 utc | 5
"Why" always seem like a good question, eh? The NYT lies...why?

This quote caught my attention> " The powerful and historical walls to study today are those of the Kremlin." (Fisk, information clearing house)

As it was for Winston's "Ministry of Truth" (Orwell) the NYT article is necessary. That's the significance - not the lies but the necessity of lies...

And under what situations are lies required? Think about that when (if) you read Fisk's analysis. (I am not a fan of Fisk, but his views in this instance align with my own rather well)

Fisk article title> "Trump's disgrace in the Middle East is the death of an empire. Vladimir Putin is Caesar now"

Some may recall that the monks on Mt Athos quietly elected VVP as the Byzantine Emperor (about 2 years ago) - the Eastern branch of Christianity continues whilst nominally christian(western) branch is fake and perverse ritual and worse...while his Popeness in Rome has as Luther saw... I think Luther said it was a vast brothel...

Does this need Daniel to read the writing...


which is?

mene mene tekel upharsin (well somebody said..)

By the way my vote for the clown-man was cast because I reasoned the best esthetic feature in the freak parade at the end of empire would be a clown act. I am indebted to the late George Carlin for the symbolism.

I am proved right? I think so. Dogs bark and caravan continue...and many expect dollars to go weimarish. then?

Red Corvair , Oct 20 2019 12:57 utc | 7
Ahh.. "experts"... Hassan Hassan is not a Syrian-born scholar, but a Syrian "born-scholar"... Nuance. Or is it "a natural-born-scholar"? ...
As for Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov, those very same "bad extremists" she now repudiates on Twitter she once excused for mutilating children "because they were deeply traumatised"... A very coherent "expert"!!
From The Grayzone, Ben Norton and Aaron Maté (and Dan Cohen) about Tsurkov: Western pundits who lobbied for Syrian rebels now admit they are jihadist extremists, Oct. 16 (about Tsurkov, go about 1:45 and the rest):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkg4wJFpc_E
Now Tsurkov seems rather busy rooting for some "color revolution" to take place in Lebanon. Where is Israel?...
As for the picture of Guy Verhofstadt next to Salim Idriss, it seems very aptly to epitomize the EU "politics" about the Syrian conflict: "How tasty those American boots are!! Wanna lick more American boots, please!!"
BM , Oct 20 2019 13:11 utc | 8
Ahh.. "experts"... Hassan Hassan is not a Syrian-born scholar, but a Syrian "born-scholar"... Nuance. Or is it "a natural-born-scholar"? ...

If he is writing nothing but lies he is not any kind of scholar at all except a fake scholar. Nor is he a journalist. He is a propagandist, nothing else. Call a spade a spade.


-----


Ahhh, I've just posted to the Media and Pundits thread, but it should have come here much more sensibly. Anyway the post is top a new page over there, on Trump and Syria's oil fields.

Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 20 2019 13:18 utc | 9
The new narrative seems to me to have everything to do with Turkey and nothing to do with Russia. A comment in the last Syria-related thread.

Then again there are so many loose ends concerning Turkey that almost anything could happen (coup attempt and "cleansing", dead ambassadors, Cyprus, Greece, Armenia, Syria, ISIS and others, Kurds, weapon deals, shooting down a Russian plane, annoying Europe and the EU as well as the US and just about everybody, some only politically but many militarily as well (at least the US, Germany, and France), the list surely goes on).

As I commented I'm not convinced Turkey will survive this, are they able to stop and reverse if they find they've set themselves up?

Clueless Joe , Oct 20 2019 14:19 utc | 10
Turkey might be playing a double-game, or plan to betray one side - whether it'll be US or Russia remains to be seen. But that this is all a clever NATO plot conflicts a bit with the fact that the US is systematically destroying its bases in NE Syria. Sure, that might be because they don't want the SAA to use them and to plunder them for techs and scraps, but that would also make things more complicated for a Turkish take-over - it will surely considerably slow the process if the Turkish army and its lackeys have to do everything back from scratches.
Besides, odds are that Putin has taken that into consideration and has some contingency measures ready, just in case - not that they could fully stop Turkish aggression in its tracks in a couple of hours, but still.
Stever , Oct 20 2019 14:46 utc | 11
Meanwhile Nicholas Kristof at the NYTimes also is whitewashing Obama's Syrian policy. He conveniently forgets Timber Sycamore (the CIA's second largest operation, over $1 billion) to overthrow Assad - 2013-2017, that allowed ISIS to get a firm foothold.

Trump Takes Incoherence and Inhumanity and Calls It Foreign Policy

"It was just five years ago that an American president, faced with a crisis on Syria's border, acted decisively and honorably."

"Barack Obama responded with airstrikes and a rescue operation in 2014 when the Islamic State started a genocide against members of the Yazidi sect, slaughtering men and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery. Obama's action, along with a heroic intervention by Kurdish fighters, saved tens of thousands of Yazidi lives."

"Contrast Obama's move, successfully working with allies to avert a genocide, with President Trump's betrayal this month of those same Kurdish partners in a way that handed a victory to the Islamic State, Turkey, Syria, Iran -- and, of course, Russia, ."

Nathan Mulcahy , Oct 20 2019 14:53 utc | 12

@ Walter 5: "I reasoned the best esthetic feature in the freak parade at the end of empire would be a clown act"

Just love it!!

On a side note. Last night met with a new friend couple for dinner. Both are highly educated and work in technical professions. Accordingly they pride themselves in logical thinking ability. I wanted to check out their political leanings and asked about Trump's troop pullback in Syria. Not surprisingly, both were outraged. When asked about their rationale the expected answer was Trump's betrayal of the Kurds. I politely pointed out that our troops' presence in Syria violates both domestic and international laws. That was news to them!!! One of them did lamely point out that Assad is a brutal dictator. Being new "friends", we refrained from further in depth political discussions. That incidence further convinced me of the impending total collapse of the empire.

Don Bacon , Oct 20 2019 15:25 utc | 13
There has been some discussion regarding Syrian oilfields, here's some more on that.

The Syrian Democratic Council is the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, including sites of Syrian oilfields. The SDC's stated mission is working towards the implementation of a "secular, democratic and decentralized system for all of Syria. The Syrian Democratic Council was established on 10 December 2015 in Al-Malikiyah.

Here is a letter dated Jan 21, 2019 from the SDC to the CEO of Global Development Corporation (GDC) Inc. in New Jersey, "a formal acceptance of your company, GDC, to represent the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) in all matters related to the sale of oil owned by SDC . .the estimate off production of crude oil to be 400,000 barrels per day. . .current daily production is 125,000 barrels. ."

The CEO of New Jersey's GDC (no mention on the web) is Mordechai (Moti) Kahana (Hebrew: מוטי כהנא‎; born February 28, 1968, Jerusalem, Israel) is an Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist. He is most notable for his work for the civil war refugees in Syria. . .Since 2011 he heads a group of Israeli businessmen and American Jews who travel to the Syrian refugee camps to provide humanitarian aid to Syrian Civil War refugees.. . He paid for Senator John McCain's trip to war-torn Syria. . . here .

The GDC mailing address is the Roxbury Mall, 275 Route 10 E, Succasunna, NJ.

Hausmeister , Oct 20 2019 15:27 utc | 14

Southfront reports that Turkish mercenaries have taken over Ras Al-Ayn. Did I overlook something? Why didn't the SAA take over after the SDF left?
Don Bacon , Oct 20 2019 15:54 utc | 15
re: Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge
WSJ, Jun 12, 2013
Rebels Plead for Weapons in Face of Syrian Onslaught
A top Syrian rebel commander has issued a desperate plea for weapons from Western governments to prevent the fall of his forces in Aleppo, pushing the Obama administration to decide quickly whether to agree to arm rebels for the first time or risk the loss of another rebel stronghold just days after the regime's biggest victory.

Gen. Salim Idris, the top Syrian rebel commander backed by the West, issued a detailed request in recent days to the U.S., France and Britain for antitank missiles, antiaircraft weapons and hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds, according to U.S. and European officials and Mr. Idris's request to the Americans, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Gen. Idris's call comes at a pivotal moment in Syria's war, following rapid-fire gains by Bashar al-Assad forces, including last week's recapture of Qusayr, a strategic town near the Lebanon border. Fighters from Hezbollah, which were crucial in helping the Assad regime to take Qusayr, are now massing around Aleppo, say rebels and Western officials. . . here


This was after H. Clinton (SecState) and D. Petraeus (CIA) wanted to fully arm the US-supported rebels but President Obama declined. Clinton had resigned Feb 1, 2013.
worldblee , Oct 20 2019 16:57 utc | 16
I am shocked, shocked, shocked, to find out that lying is going on in the establishment of the NYT.
james , Oct 20 2019 17:24 utc | 17
thanks b... stellar writing and comments throughout... i especially liked your last line :
"Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what they always have been."

@13 don bacon - the address says it all.. The GDC mailing address is the Roxbury Mall, 275 Route 10 E, Succasunna, NJ.

james , Oct 20 2019 17:27 utc | 18
regarding the nyt, larry johnson has a post up on sst here.. i quote from it :
"Let us start with a reminder of how damn corrupt the NY Times and its reporters are. Consider this paragraph penned by Adam Goldman and William Rashbaum:

Closely overseen by Mr. Barr, Mr. Durham and his investigators have sought help from governments in countries that figure into right-wing attacks and unfounded conspiracy theories about the Russia investigation, stirring criticism that they are trying to deliver Mr. Trump a political victory rather than conducting an independent review.

"Unfounded conspiracy theories?" What a damn joke."

karlof1 , Oct 20 2019 17:31 utc | 19
Wow! Quite a knee jerk reaction by the NY Times to Max Blumenthal's 16 Oct article in The Grayzone , "The US has backed 21 of the 28 'crazy' militias leading Turkey's brutal invasion of northern Syria," which I linked to Friday. It's great to see such a reaction to what for most people's an obscure online publication.

Notice of MoA website change: I must now type in my name and email every time I want to comment after years of never needing to do so. My issue might be related to the one ben encountered in thinking he couldn't comment, which you can't if those two fields aren't filled.

Tom Ratliff , Oct 20 2019 17:47 utc | 20
@snake #6

See the growing collection of related techniques by David Martin (aka dcdave): Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

"Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party..."

Cloak And Dagger , Oct 20 2019 18:12 utc | 21
Trump should not have sent Pence and Pompeo to Turkey. They will do everything possible to derail the rollback of the US in Syria. They are both more subtle than Bolton, but they are both neocons. If you want anything done, you have to do it yourself.

[Oct 23, 2019] The Four A's Of American Policy Failure In Syria

Notable quotes:
"... The first, Afghanistan, represents the epitome of covert American meddling in regional affairs -- Operation Cyclone , the successful CIA-run effort to arm and equip anti-communist rebels in Afghanistan to confront the Soviet Army from 1979 to 1989. The success of the Afghanistan experience helped shape an overly optimistic assessment by the administration of President Barack Obama that a similarly successful effort could be had in Syria by covertly training and equipping anti-Assad rebels. ..."
"... The second, Astana , is the capital city of Kazakhstan, recently renamed Nur Sultan in March 2019. Since 2017, Astana has played host to a series of summits that have become known as " the Astana Process ," a Russian-directed diplomatic effort ostensibly designed to facilitate a peaceful ending to the Syrian crisis, but in reality part of a larger Russian-run effort to sideline American regime change efforts in Syria. ..."
"... The resulting agreement, known as the Adana Agreement , helped prevent a potential war between Turkey and Syria by formally recognizing the respective sovereignty and inviolability of their common border. In 2010, the two nations expanded the 1998 deal into a formal treaty governing cooperation and joint action, inclusive of intelligence sharing on designated terrorist organizations (i.e., the PKK). The Adana Agreement/Treaty was all but forgotten in the aftermath of the 2011 Syrian crisis, as Turkey embraced regime change regarding the Assad government, only to be resuscitated by Russian President Vladimir Putin during talks with Erdogan in Moscow in January 2019. The re-introduction of the moribund agreement into the Syrian-Turkish political dynamic successfully created a diplomatic bridge between the two countries, paving the way for a formal resolution of their considerable differences. ..."
"... Russia backed Turkey's demand for a security corridor along the Turkish-Syrian border, and accepted Ankara's characterization of the American-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) as "terrorists." This agreement, combined with Turkey's willingness to recognize the outcome of Syrian presidential elections projected to take place in 2021, paved the way for the political reconciliation between Turkey and Syria. It also hammered the last nail in the coffin of America's regime change policy regarding Bashar al-Assad. ..."
"... there's only a skewed version of reality, which portrays the American military presence in Syria as part and parcel of a noble alliance between the U.S. and the Kurdish SDF to confront the ISIS scourge. This ignores the reality that the U.S. has been committed to regime change in Syria since 2011, and that the fight against ISIS was merely a sideshow to this larger policy objective. ..."
"... One of the byproducts of the work initiated by ISOG was the creation of Syrian political opposition groups that were later morphed by the Obama administration into an entity known as the Syrian National Council, or SNC . When Obama demanded that Assad must step aside in August 2011, he envisioned that the Syrian president would be replaced by the SNC ..."
"... Faced with this diplomatic failure, Obama turned to the CIA to undertake an Afghanistan-like arming of Syrian rebels to accomplish on the ground what could not be around a table in Geneva. ..."
"... In 2013, the CIA took direct control of the arm and equip program, sending teams to Turkey and Jordan to train the FSA. This effort, known as Operation Timber Sycamore , was later supplemented with a Department of Defense program to provide anti-tank weapons to the Syrian opposition. ..."
"... American efforts to create a viable armed opposition ultimately failed, with many of the weapons and equipment eventually falling into the hands of radical jihadist groups aligned with al-Qaeda and, later, ISIS. The emergence of ISIS as a regional threat in 2014 led to the U.S. building ties with Syrian Kurds as an alternative vector for implementation of its Syrian policy objectives. ..."
"... While the fight against ISIS was real, it was done in the context of the American occupation of fully one third of Syria's territory, including oil fields and agricultural resources. As recently as January 2019, the U.S. was justifying the continued presence of forces in Syria as a means of containing the Iranian presence there; the relationship with the SDF and Syrian Kurds was little more than a front to facilitate this policy. ..."
"... But the American misadventure in Syria was never going to end well -- bad policy never does. For the American troops caught up in the collapse of the decades-long effort of the United States to overthrow the Assad government, the retreat from Syria was every bit as ignominious as the retreats of all defeated military forces before them. ..."
"... The U.S presidents all seemed to believe that they had /have the holy right to murder whomever they want and demand /take whatever their want. This is not good, but evil. May they and all of those who followed their orders "rot in hell". ..."
"... Ah yes, "falling into." Go **** yourself , Scott. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq ..."
"... Why can't he use a euphemism for the US arming them? Americans are not ready for the truth. Tulsi got called out for calling a regime change war, a regime change war. We both know the US armed the terrorists, but the American people do not want to know. They have a (false) narrative that they are comfortable with. ..."
Oct 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Four A's Of American Policy Failure In Syria by Tyler Durden Tue, 10/22/2019 - 23:25 0 SHARES

Authored by Scott Ritter via The American Conservative,

How events in Afghanistan, Astana, Adana, and Ankara all led to the victory of Russian diplomacy over U.S. force...

The ceasefire agreement brokered by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday accomplishes very little outside of putting window dressing on a foregone conclusion. Simply put, the Turks will be able to achieve their objectives of clearing a safe zone of Kurdish forces south of the Turkish border, albeit under a U.S. sanctioned agreement. In return, the U.S. agrees not to impose economic sanctions on Turkey.

So basically it doesn't change anything that's already been set into motion by the Turkish invasion of northern Syria. But it does signal the end of the American experiment in Syrian regime change, with the United States supplanted by Russia as the shot caller in Middle Eastern affairs.

To understand how we got to this point, we need to navigate the four A's that underpin America's failed policy vis-à-vis Syria -- Afghanistan, Astana, Adana, and Ankara.

The first, Afghanistan, represents the epitome of covert American meddling in regional affairs -- Operation Cyclone , the successful CIA-run effort to arm and equip anti-communist rebels in Afghanistan to confront the Soviet Army from 1979 to 1989. The success of the Afghanistan experience helped shape an overly optimistic assessment by the administration of President Barack Obama that a similarly successful effort could be had in Syria by covertly training and equipping anti-Assad rebels.

The second, Astana , is the capital city of Kazakhstan, recently renamed Nur Sultan in March 2019. Since 2017, Astana has played host to a series of summits that have become known as " the Astana Process ," a Russian-directed diplomatic effort ostensibly designed to facilitate a peaceful ending to the Syrian crisis, but in reality part of a larger Russian-run effort to sideline American regime change efforts in Syria.

The Astana Process was sold as a complementary effort to the U.S.-backed, UN-brokered Geneva Talks , which were initially convened in 2012 to bring an end to the Syrian conflict. The adoption by the U.S. of an "Assad must go" posture doomed the Geneva Talks from the outset. The Astana Process was the logical outcome of this American failure.

The third "A" -- Adana -- is a major city located in southern Turkey, some 35 kilometers inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It's home to the Incirlik Air Base , which hosts significant U.S. Air Force assets, including some 50 B-61 nuclear bombs . It also hosted a meeting between Turkish and Syrian officials in October 1998 for the purpose of crafting a diplomatic solution to the problem presented by forces belonging to the Kurdish People's Party, or PKK , who were carrying out attacks inside Turkey from camps located within Syria.

The resulting agreement, known as the Adana Agreement , helped prevent a potential war between Turkey and Syria by formally recognizing the respective sovereignty and inviolability of their common border. In 2010, the two nations expanded the 1998 deal into a formal treaty governing cooperation and joint action, inclusive of intelligence sharing on designated terrorist organizations (i.e., the PKK). The Adana Agreement/Treaty was all but forgotten in the aftermath of the 2011 Syrian crisis, as Turkey embraced regime change regarding the Assad government, only to be resuscitated by Russian President Vladimir Putin during talks with Erdogan in Moscow in January 2019. The re-introduction of the moribund agreement into the Syrian-Turkish political dynamic successfully created a diplomatic bridge between the two countries, paving the way for a formal resolution of their considerable differences.

The final "A" -- Ankara -- is perhaps the most crucial when it comes to understanding the demise of the American position in Syria. Ankara is the Turkish capital, situated in the central Anatolian plateau. In September 2019, Ankara played host to a summit between Erdogan, Putin, and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani. While the ostensible focus of the summit was to negotiate a ceasefire in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib, where Turkish-backed militants were under incessant attack by the combined forces of Russia and Syria, the real purpose was to facilitate an endgame to the Syrian crisis.

Russia's rejection of the Turkish demands for a ceasefire were interpreted by the Western media as a sign of the summit's failure. But the opposite was true -- Russia backed Turkey's demand for a security corridor along the Turkish-Syrian border, and accepted Ankara's characterization of the American-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) as "terrorists." This agreement, combined with Turkey's willingness to recognize the outcome of Syrian presidential elections projected to take place in 2021, paved the way for the political reconciliation between Turkey and Syria. It also hammered the last nail in the coffin of America's regime change policy regarding Bashar al-Assad.

There is little mention of the four A's in American politics and the mainstream media. Instead there's only a skewed version of reality, which portrays the American military presence in Syria as part and parcel of a noble alliance between the U.S. and the Kurdish SDF to confront the ISIS scourge. This ignores the reality that the U.S. has been committed to regime change in Syria since 2011, and that the fight against ISIS was merely a sideshow to this larger policy objective.

"Assad must go." Those three words have defined American policy on Syria since they were first alluded to by President Obama in an official White House statement released in August 2011. The initial U.S. strategy did not involve an Afghanistan-like arming of rebel forces, but rather a political solution under the auspices of policies and entities created under the administration of President George W. Bush. In 2006, the State Department created the Iran-Syrian Operations Group , or ISOG, which oversaw interdepartmental coordination of regime change options in both Iran and Syria.

Though ISOG was disbanded in 2008, its mission was continued by other American agencies. One of the byproducts of the work initiated by ISOG was the creation of Syrian political opposition groups that were later morphed by the Obama administration into an entity known as the Syrian National Council, or SNC . When Obama demanded that Assad must step aside in August 2011, he envisioned that the Syrian president would be replaced by the SNC. This was the objective of the Geneva Talks brokered by the United Nations and the Arab League in 2011-2012. One of the defining features of those talks was the insistence on the part of the U.S., UK, and SNC that the Assad government not be allowed to participate in any discussion about the political future of Syria. This condition was rejected by Russia, and the talks ultimately failed. Efforts to revive the Geneva Process likewise floundered on this point.

Faced with this diplomatic failure, Obama turned to the CIA to undertake an Afghanistan-like arming of Syrian rebels to accomplish on the ground what could not be around a table in Geneva.

The CIA took advantage of Turkish animosity toward Syria in the aftermath of suppression of anti-Syrian government demonstrations in 2011 to funnel massive quantities of military equipment , weapons, and ammunition from Libya to Turkey, where they were used to arm a number of anti-Assad rebels operating under the umbrella of the so-called " Free Syrian Army ," or FSA. In 2013, the CIA took direct control of the arm and equip program, sending teams to Turkey and Jordan to train the FSA. This effort, known as Operation Timber Sycamore , was later supplemented with a Department of Defense program to provide anti-tank weapons to the Syrian opposition.

American efforts to create a viable armed opposition ultimately failed, with many of the weapons and equipment eventually falling into the hands of radical jihadist groups aligned with al-Qaeda and, later, ISIS. The emergence of ISIS as a regional threat in 2014 led to the U.S. building ties with Syrian Kurds as an alternative vector for implementation of its Syrian policy objectives.

While the fight against ISIS was real, it was done in the context of the American occupation of fully one third of Syria's territory, including oil fields and agricultural resources. As recently as January 2019, the U.S. was justifying the continued presence of forces in Syria as a means of containing the Iranian presence there; the relationship with the SDF and Syrian Kurds was little more than a front to facilitate this policy.

Turkish incursion into Syria is the direct manifestation of the four A's that define the failure of American policy in Syria -- Afghanistan, Astana, Adana and Ankara. It represents the victory of Russian diplomacy over American force of arms. This is a hard pill for most Americans to swallow, which is why many are busy crafting a revisionist history that both glorifies and justifies failed American policy by wrapping it in the flag of our erstwhile Kurdish allies.

But the American misadventure in Syria was never going to end well -- bad policy never does. For the American troops caught up in the collapse of the decades-long effort of the United States to overthrow the Assad government, the retreat from Syria was every bit as ignominious as the retreats of all defeated military forces before them. But at least our forces left Syria alive, and not inside body bags -- which was an all too real alternative had they remained in place to face the overwhelming forces of geopolitical reality in transition.


Duc888 , 44 minutes ago link

Who the **** cares? The sooner we're outta there the better.

Grandad Grumps , 48 minutes ago link

The U.S presidents all seemed to believe that they had /have the holy right to murder whomever they want and demand /take whatever their want. This is not good, but evil. May they and all of those who followed their orders "rot in hell".

Epstein101 , 52 minutes ago link

with many of the weapons and equipment eventually falling into the hands of radical jihadist groups aligned with al-Qaeda and, later, ISIS.

Ah yes, "falling into." Go **** yourself , Scott. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq

Pardero , 20 minutes ago link

Why can't he use a euphemism for the US arming them? Americans are not ready for the truth. Tulsi got called out for calling a regime change war, a regime change war. We both know the US armed the terrorists, but the American people do not want to know. They have a (false) narrative that they are comfortable with.

enfield0916 , 56 minutes ago link

Bcuz RINOs and Neocunts in both parties!

Neoconservatism Is An Omnicidal Death Cult, And It Must Be Stopped

Pardero , 28 minutes ago link

Classic Johnstone. Good article.

WTFUD , 1 hour ago link

There must be loads of space in GITMO that can accommodate the IS/US Proxies on the run or in jail in NE Syria. Keep them in cold storage as such for when other opportunities present themselves down the road. I believe they'd go willingly too as they wont find Russia-SAA as accommodating and genial as their previous hosts.

Only a handful of Americans, Israelis, Brits, French and Saudis stood to benefit and despite this expensive epic failure, clusterfuck, those same bastards will be closing the book and calling the shots on the next genocidal mission impossible.

enfield0916 , 1 hour ago link

'Murica's OG baby daddy Israel had to make money off the wars, so did the "defense contractors".

vampirekiller , 1 hour ago link

" How events in Afghanistan, Astana, Adana, and Ankara all led to the victory of Russian diplomacy over U.S. force..." What about Aleppo? Alliteration is fun.........

gaasp , 42 minutes ago link

The four 'I's - Iran, Israel, five-I, and Istanbul.

Pardero , 1 hour ago link

These are provable facts, which back Tulsi Gabbard's characterization, 'regime change war' in Syria.

Where are the voices defending Gabbard for telling the truth?

White Nat , 1 hour ago link

Eight years of US fuckery in Syria for what? The US has no national interest in Syria.

The only beneficiary of all these failed machinations was to be israel.

And America is nothing but israel's little bitch thanks to zionist-occupied DC.

Time to take back control of our country from the israel-first jews.

And tell israel to **** off and pay for their own wars.

besnook , 1 hour ago link

you are talking about the miga president who just said today that war with iran is still on the table.

Ambrose Bierce , 1 hour ago link

1973 Yom Kipper War, high gas prices and a expensive ally running amok in Israel.

Over 50 years later and these lousy zionistas are still fighting a losing battle.

JBL , 25 minutes ago link

got back those petrodollars w oil

why u think troops are guarding syrian oil fields?

besnook , 1 hour ago link

the root of the failure of usa foreign policy all over the world is the opening that russia and china are creating for escape from the zionazi predation of countries in every corner of the globe. both russia and china are positioning themselves as an alternative or at least a foil for countries to help them resist the predatory dollar. ecuador is a great present example. morales was just re-elected in bolivia and brazil won't stay quiet for long as maduro hangs on in vz.

enfield0916 , 1 hour ago link

Outside the 50 states of USA, none of the land is ours and so ALL these ******* ILLEGAL wars & permanent bases are for one reason and one dumbass reason only.

For Israels security because the Oxford University Press and The Scofield Bible. (cue in the retarded kid Nathan's voice from Southpark)

https://gilad.online/writings/the-roots-of-christian-zionism-how-scofield-sowed-seeds-of-a.html

Roots Of Christian Zionism

U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel

**** all you lifelong (D) and (R) *** kissing retards! You deserve the govt you get, so **** YOU!

The Palmetto Cynic , 1 hour ago link

The forgot the most important "A" of them all: Assclownery. Without that none of this would have been possible.

MaxThrust , 1 hour ago link

The JUSA have been winning for a long time. Good to see someone else getting a chance.

Ruler , 1 hour ago link

Never should have been there in the first place.

Thanks Obama!

enfield0916 , 1 hour ago link

Never should've been any country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

"But, but, but they hate us for our freedoms!" - Bullllllshittt!

Ruler , 25 minutes ago link

Agreed, Afghanistan never made sense to me either.

[Oct 22, 2019] Kurt Volker Testified To Congress On Trump's Conversations With Ukraine

Looks like a testimony of a member of Nuland neocons clique.
A reasonable Trump administration gesture of delaying military aid now is interpreted as a pressure on Zelensky government. But not everybody in Zelensky government is interesting in the USA military aid; most including probably Zelensky himself understand that this carrot s the way US neocon push Ukraine in self-destructive game of to catching hot potatoes from the fire to advance the USA strategic anti-Russian interests in the region.
Trump is right that Ukraine participated in Russiagate, but he is wrong that Poroshenko administration acted as a supplementary force in Russiagate on its own initiative: in reality Poroshenko was the USA marionette fully controlled from Washington and would do anything to please Obama administration.
Notable quotes:
"... "He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they 'tried to take me down.' ..."
Oct 22, 2019 | www.buzzfeednews.com

"Second, in May of this year, I became concerned that a negative narrative about Ukraine, fueled by assertions made by Ukraine's departing Prosecutor General, was reaching the President of the United States, and impeding our ability to support the new Ukrainian government as robustly as I believed we should."

"Fifth and finally, I strongly supported the provision of U.S. security assistance, including lethal defensive weapons, to Ukraine throughout my tenure."

...While Volker said Biden did not come up explicitly in his conversations, he made a point of defending the former vice president in his remarks. "I have known former Vice President Biden for 24 years, and the suggestion that he would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by money for his son simply has no credibility to me," he wrote. "I know him as a man of integrity and dedication to our country."

... ... ...

Volker also testified that while he was aware that the Trump administration had put a hold on needed military aid to Ukraine at the same time that he was connecting Giuliani with Zelensky's government, "I did not perceive these issues to be linked in any way."

Volker said that "no reason was given" for the holdup, but it concerned him; he "stressed" to staff at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council that the aid was vital to Ukraine's security, "deterrence of Russian aggression," and Ukraine's relationship with the US.

"That said, I was not overly concerned about the development because I believed the decision would ultimately be reversed," Volker told Congress, citing the "unanimous position" of Congress, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the NSC in favor of restoring the aid. "I knew it would just be a matter of time."

...On his contacts with Rudy Giuliani, Volker said he became aware early this year about "an emerging, negative narrative about Ukraine in the United States, fueled by accusations made by the then–prosecutor general of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, that some Ukrainian citizens may have sought to influence" the 2016 presidential election in the US, "including by passing information that was detrimental to" Trump, which they hoped would reach Hillary Clinton's campaign.

"I believed that these accusations by Mr. Lutsenko were themselves self-serving, intended to make himself appear valuable to the United States, so that the United States might weigh in against his being removed from office by the new government," Volker said.

...Volker told Congress that he learned in May this year that Giuliani planned to travel to Ukraine to look into the unsubstantiated allegations that Biden had used his position as vice president to benefit his son Hunter Biden. Volker said he contacted Giuliani to say that Lutsenko was not credible -- Volker said they had a brief phone call, but didn't say how Giuliani responded. Giuliani later canceled his trip. Volker noted that Giuliani claimed at the time that Zelensky was surrounded "by enemies of the United States," a sentiment that Volker said he "fundamentally disagreed" with.

...Giuliani came up repeatedly in Volker's conversations with Zelensky and the Ukrainian president's administration. Volker said he had a private conversation with Zelensky in early July, and told Zelensky that a "negative view" of Ukraine -- one that Giuliani held -- was "likely making its way to" Trump. A week later, Volker met with Yermak, the Zelensky aide, who asked to be connected to Giuliani.

...

Volker also testified to Congress that he met with Trump in May and suggested that the president invite Zelensky to the White House, arguing Zelensky could help clean up corruption in Ukraine. But Volker said that Trump was "very skeptical" of Zelensky at the time.

"He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they 'tried to take me down.' In the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations with Mayor Giuliani," Volker said. "It was clear to me that despite the positive news and recommendations being conveyed by this official delegation about the new President, President Trump had a deeply rooted negative view on Ukraine rooted in the past. He was clearly receiving other information from other sources, including Mayor Giuliani, that was more negative, causing him to retain this negative view."

[Oct 22, 2019] Birds of the feather. In a sense William Taylor participation in Ukrainegate is just a top, the final accord of his long carrier as a color revolution specialist.

Michael McFaul was the key person in failed "white color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012 designed to prevent reelection of Putin. h was recalled soon after Putin elections. So his praise instantly suggests that the other person might be a color revolution specialist as well
In this sense his participation in Ukrainegate is just a top of his long carier as colore revolution specialist. Ukrainegate does looks like the second Maydan.
Oct 22, 2019 | www.buzzfeednews.com
Michael McFaul, who served as the US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, called Taylor, who he's known for three decades, "just a consummate public servant."

"I do remember when he was ambassador to Ukraine he saw the bigness of the moment -- this is well before Russia annexed Crimea and went into Donbass -- that fighting for sovereignty for Ukraine and democracy and anti-corruption, he was very committed to that," McFaul said.

[Oct 22, 2019] It's four more years of the Trumpian Reich folks, with Russian Spetsnaz patrolling the streets, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, babushkas, the whole nine yards by CJ Hopkins

Notable quotes:
"... Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins vis The Unz Review, ..."
Oct 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins vis The Unz Review,

So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked," or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy.

Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up a last-minute military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration camps, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public schools, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.

[Oct 22, 2019] Kurt Volker Testified To Congress On Trump's Conversations With Ukraine

Looks like a testimony of a member of Nuland neocons clique.
A reasonable Trump administration gesture of delaying military aid now is interpreted as a pressure on Zelensky government. But not everybody in Zelensky government is interesting in the USA military aid; most including probably Zelensky himself understand that this carrot s the way US neocon push Ukraine in self-destructive game of to catching hot potatoes from the fire to advance the USA strategic anti-Russian interests in the region.
Trump is right that Ukraine participated in Russiagate, but he is wrong that Poroshenko administration acted as a supplementary force in Russiagate on its own initiative: in reality Poroshenko was the USA marionette fully controlled from Washington and would do anything to please Obama administration.
Notable quotes:
"... "He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they 'tried to take me down.' ..."
Oct 22, 2019 | www.buzzfeednews.com

"Second, in May of this year, I became concerned that a negative narrative about Ukraine, fueled by assertions made by Ukraine's departing Prosecutor General, was reaching the President of the United States, and impeding our ability to support the new Ukrainian government as robustly as I believed we should."

"Fifth and finally, I strongly supported the provision of U.S. security assistance, including lethal defensive weapons, to Ukraine throughout my tenure."

...While Volker said Biden did not come up explicitly in his conversations, he made a point of defending the former vice president in his remarks. "I have known former Vice President Biden for 24 years, and the suggestion that he would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by money for his son simply has no credibility to me," he wrote. "I know him as a man of integrity and dedication to our country."

... ... ...

Volker also testified that while he was aware that the Trump administration had put a hold on needed military aid to Ukraine at the same time that he was connecting Giuliani with Zelensky's government, "I did not perceive these issues to be linked in any way."

Volker said that "no reason was given" for the holdup, but it concerned him; he "stressed" to staff at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council that the aid was vital to Ukraine's security, "deterrence of Russian aggression," and Ukraine's relationship with the US.

"That said, I was not overly concerned about the development because I believed the decision would ultimately be reversed," Volker told Congress, citing the "unanimous position" of Congress, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the NSC in favor of restoring the aid. "I knew it would just be a matter of time."

...On his contacts with Rudy Giuliani, Volker said he became aware early this year about "an emerging, negative narrative about Ukraine in the United States, fueled by accusations made by the then–prosecutor general of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, that some Ukrainian citizens may have sought to influence" the 2016 presidential election in the US, "including by passing information that was detrimental to" Trump, which they hoped would reach Hillary Clinton's campaign.

"I believed that these accusations by Mr. Lutsenko were themselves self-serving, intended to make himself appear valuable to the United States, so that the United States might weigh in against his being removed from office by the new government," Volker said.

...Volker told Congress that he learned in May this year that Giuliani planned to travel to Ukraine to look into the unsubstantiated allegations that Biden had used his position as vice president to benefit his son Hunter Biden. Volker said he contacted Giuliani to say that Lutsenko was not credible -- Volker said they had a brief phone call, but didn't say how Giuliani responded. Giuliani later canceled his trip. Volker noted that Giuliani claimed at the time that Zelensky was surrounded "by enemies of the United States," a sentiment that Volker said he "fundamentally disagreed" with.

...Giuliani came up repeatedly in Volker's conversations with Zelensky and the Ukrainian president's administration. Volker said he had a private conversation with Zelensky in early July, and told Zelensky that a "negative view" of Ukraine -- one that Giuliani held -- was "likely making its way to" Trump. A week later, Volker met with Yermak, the Zelensky aide, who asked to be connected to Giuliani.

...

Volker also testified to Congress that he met with Trump in May and suggested that the president invite Zelensky to the White House, arguing Zelensky could help clean up corruption in Ukraine. But Volker said that Trump was "very skeptical" of Zelensky at the time.

"He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they 'tried to take me down.' In the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations with Mayor Giuliani," Volker said. "It was clear to me that despite the positive news and recommendations being conveyed by this official delegation about the new President, President Trump had a deeply rooted negative view on Ukraine rooted in the past. He was clearly receiving other information from other sources, including Mayor Giuliani, that was more negative, causing him to retain this negative view."

[Oct 22, 2019] Birds of the feather. In a sense William Taylor participation in Ukrainegate is just a top, the final accord of his long carrier as a color revolution specialist.

Michael McFaul was the key person in failed "white color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012 designed to prevent reelection of Putin. h was recalled soon after Putin elections. So his praise instantly suggests that the other person might be a color revolution specialist as well
In this sense his participation in Ukrainegate is just a top of his long carier as colore revolution specialist. Ukrainegate does looks like the second Maydan.
Oct 22, 2019 | www.buzzfeednews.com
Michael McFaul, who served as the US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, called Taylor, who he's known for three decades, "just a consummate public servant."

"I do remember when he was ambassador to Ukraine he saw the bigness of the moment -- this is well before Russia annexed Crimea and went into Donbass -- that fighting for sovereignty for Ukraine and democracy and anti-corruption, he was very committed to that," McFaul said.

[Oct 22, 2019] US foreign policy is now based on virtual facts

Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Some of the "virtual facts:" ..."
"... The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist and an inevitable and indeed indispensable enemy of the US. Anyone who challenges that certitude is an obvious agent of the Russian government. ..."
"... Iran is the "greatest supporter of terrorism" in the world." ..."
"... The Syrian Arab Government is an abomination on the scale of Nazi Germany and must be destroyed and replaced by God knows what . ..."
"... Saudi Arabia is a deeply friendly state and ally of the US. ..."
"... It is beyond scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both political parties ..."
"... I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect. ..."
"... The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are always simplified and usually grossly distorted. ..."
"... Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'. ..."
"... It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled. A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi, is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country, ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen. (Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug", just as they call Assad a "butcher".) ..."
"... Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. ..."
"... Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown his way by the Arab sheikhs ..."
Oct 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Mika B remarked a couple of years ago on the show that she and her sex slave stage in the early morning that the social media were out of control because it is the job of the MSM to tell people what to think. The Hillary stated recently that life was better when there were only three TeeVee news outlets because it was easier to keep things under control. Now? My God! Any damned fool can propagate unauthorized "facts." What? Who?

Well, pilgrims, the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters) are the preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base our policy. These "facts" are "ginned up" in the well moneyed hidden staff groups of "hidden" candidates that are devoted to the seizure of power made possible by a deluded electorate. These "facts" are then propagated and reinforced through relentless IO campaigns run by executive "bots" in the MSM and in such remarkable and imaginative efforts as the "White Helmets" film company manned by jihadis and managed by clubby Brits left over from the Days of The Raj (sob). These "facts" are now so entrenched in the general mind that they can be used to denounce people like Rep. (major ) Gabbard as traitors because they challenge them.

Some of the "virtual facts:"


Harper , 21 October 2019 at 07:50 PM

Yes I fully concur. We have gone from fact-based news to faith-based fake news led by the MSM. I recall at the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, the line was out that British PM Tony Blair was George W. Bush's "poodle," forgetting entirely that it was the first of the British "dodgy dossiers" that made the totally discredited claim that Saddam had gotten tons of yellow cake from Niger. So the British have no military resources but they continue to maintain the idea that they can manipulate the U.S. and make up for the demise of the old British empire.

The Steele dossier was the second British "dodgy dossier" that got the ball rolling on Trump the Russian mole and Putin's "poodle."

So much fraud. But now social media must be patrolled and anyone daring to challenge the voice of the MSM must be purged by Google, Facebook, Twitter et al.

My question is: When will the machinations of the Big Lie MSM Wurlitzer cross the line and trigger the backlash that they secretly fear so much? MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or else his "fake news" polemic will stick... because there is no much truth to it. The messenger may be crude, but he has the bully pulpit to have a real impact.

I await the release, as Larry Johnson pointed out, of the Horowitz IG report on the origins of the fake Trump-Russia collusion line. Also the pending Barr-Durham larger report which is zeroing in on John Brennan.

Fred -> Harper... , 22 October 2019 at 08:28 AM
Harper,

"MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or else..."
The MSM are joined by all those folks who were wined, dined, and degraded by Jeffrey Epstein and Hollywood hero Harvey Weinstein. Nobody seems to care about who Jeffrey abused, or who enjoyed his island paradise. Harvey, he's about to buy a free ride out of jail. Meanwhile we jail idiots who "bribe" there kids way into that "elite" institution - UCLA.

Vig said in reply to Harper... , 22 October 2019 at 11:31 AM
Great response Harper,

an ideal study would no doubt want to look into the Italy-GB-US angle already concerning the "first dossier", or whatevers. Didn*t that have mediawise an intermediate French angle?

But is that what is looked at? At present?

VietnamVet , 21 October 2019 at 08:03 PM
Colonel,

This is what happens when the deciders believe their own propaganda. The media now says that a residual force of American troops and contractors will stay behind at the Deir ez-Zor oil fields and Al-Tanf base near the Jordon border. The media moguls dare not mention that the real intention is to prevent the Syrian Arab Army from retaking its own territory or that Turkey is seizing thousands of square miles of Syria. Syrians with Russia, Chinese and Iranian aid won't quit until Syria is whole again and rebuilt. This means that America continues its uninvited unwinnable war in the middle of nowhere with no allies for no reason at all except to do Israel's bidding and to make money for military contractors. The swamp's regime change campaign failed. The Houthis' Aramco attack shows that the gulf oil supply is at risk and can be shut down at will. Continuing these endless wars that are clearly against the best interests of the American people is insane.

CK said in reply to VietnamVet... , 22 October 2019 at 10:05 AM
It strikes me, as a matter of observable fact, that the Houthi attack had almost no long run affect on oil production. Everything was back to normal within 10 days. I think that the attack was allowed to occur for exactly one reason and that was to start a shooting war between the USA as KSA's great defender and Iran as the horrible nation that has a mild dislike for Israel.
It failed. So far.
To believe that the 24/7/52 AWACS, Ground radar, Israeli radar, and the overlapping close in radar coverage of the Saudi oil fields all failed to detect the drones and cruise missiles is to believe in more miracles than I can handle on a good day. It also means that assets in other parts of this world covered by these same type of radars are just as vulnerable to local disaffected groups.
j , 21 October 2019 at 08:22 PM
The FUKUS thinks we are all a bunch of brainless sheep to be led by a ring in our noses. The 'Muktar' is clueless regarding our Saudi brethren, he's supposed to administer how the overlords say he's to administer, nothing more. The CIA administration still has a hard-on because they blew it regarding Iran and they're still embarrassed about it.

In two days, counting closer to a day and a half will be the sad anniversary (October 23) where the Israeli government willfully with forethought let our Marines and other service personnel bunked with them at the barracks in Beirut die needlessly, because Nahum Admoni wanted U.S. to get our noses bloodied.

Never mind that the Russians lost close to 30 million to the brotherhood of the Operation Paper Clip, and the Bormann Group that today controls from behind the scenes most of the World's money thanks to Martin creating over 750 corporations initially to start with, that has expanded like a Hydra. Any time that truth (Russia is no longer Communist) rears its ugly head, the Bormann group goes into overdrive to ensure that the big lie perpetuates.

The FUKUS think we're all a bunch of sheep to be led off a cliff, and the propaganda mills have created the trail right up to the edge of the precipice that the sheep are trotting.

Heaven help our children and grandchildren.

Larry Johnson , 21 October 2019 at 08:29 PM
Amen. The landslide of disinformation and bullshit disseminated on a daily basis by a pliant media is happily lapped up by ignorant, uninformed Americans. I've had quite an exchange with a liberal friend of mine who was shrieking MSNBC talking points on Syria and the Kurds. Mind you, this fellow never served a day in the military. Never held a clearance in his life. Didn't know a thing about JOPES and how Special Ops forces use a series of written orders signed off on by the CJCS. Yet, he was qualified to criticize Trump. At the same time not one of his kids or grandkids are signed up to fight on that frontline. I told him politely to STFU and get educated before trying to comment on something he knows nothing about.
Thanks Colonel.
JJackson said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 22 October 2019 at 06:41 AM
I am British and did consider the military in my youth but if I were that age now I would not. Having seen what my political master, and yours, have asked the military to do the danger of being sent on some counter product regime change mission or to prop-up someone I would rather fight is just too great. I would only end up refusing to follow orders which I understand the military takes a rather dim view of.
Vig said in reply to JJackson... , 22 October 2019 at 12:03 PM
... regime change mission or to prop-up someone I would rather fight is just too great.

once upon a time, and strictly I had opted not to believe either side before that, but yes, at one point I wondered fully aware they may be legitimate complaints, how would the UCK, or the Kosovo Liberation Army become the "Western" partner in war.

In hindsight I was made aware of this one grandiose British officer ... once upon a time.

Fred -> JJackson... , 22 October 2019 at 12:04 PM
JJackson,

"if I were that age now..." That is the same line used by the American left since the '60s.
"I would only end up refusing to follow orders..."
Samantha Power at the UN and James Comey at the FBI both had a "higher loyalty" than to the elected government or the Constitution on which it is based. That's why they are busy trying to subvert it.

The Twisted Genius , 21 October 2019 at 10:01 PM
There's a lot of truth there, Colonel. Life would be better with just three TV new outlets, huh. Which three? Can you imagine being limited to three cable new outlets? Actually most people probably limit themselves to three news outlets or less. They find an echo chamber and stick with it. I thank God I don't have cable or satellite TV and I have too many interests to engage with talk radio.

I couldn't agree more with your characterization of "virtual facts" about Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. I also agree that those who continue to view Russia as an implacable enemy bent on our destruction and world domination are liars and/or fools. The Soviet Union was just a phase, a phase now past. Russia never ended. Conversely, those who insist that Russia is a newly minted nation of glitter farting unicorns incapable of nefarious behavior are also fools and/or liars. Russia is a formidable competitor, fully capable and willing to take prudent actions in pursuit of her interests. We should respect her and seek cooperation where we can and tolerance where we must.

How the never-Trumpers treat Tulsi Gabbard is shameful. What Clinton recently said is mild compared to what others have been saying for quite some time. Calling Tulsi a Russian asset is foolishly wrong. That Russia may prefer Tulsi over other potential Presidential candidates should be seen as a positive thing. A policy of mutual respect, cooperation and tolerance between our two countries would benefit the entire world.

Sbin , 21 October 2019 at 10:21 PM
The nonsense is endless.

America needed to restore the Kuwait monarchy for freedom and democracy. Remember defense Secretary Dick Cheney sending captured Iraq arms to the Taliban.

Same play book was used to run Libyan arms through Bengazi to Wahhabism freedom fighter "ISIS" and the al Lindsey McCain head choppers.

Babak Makkinejad -> Sbin... , 21 October 2019 at 11:25 PM
The nonsense will end since not even the United States can endure these costs. Did you hear Trump? 8 trillion yankee dollars and nothing to show for it.
Fred -> Babak Makkinejad... , 22 October 2019 at 08:23 AM
Babak,

He left out thousands dead and injured and not a single one of them a politician, banker, professor or news anchor.

walrus , 21 October 2019 at 11:43 PM
What is highly alarming, almost terrifying, is that really well educated people who have achieved great things in their careers and are pillars of society believe this crap.

I had dinner guests last week; a former Chairman of a bank and his wife who is a highly acclaimed Professor of public Health and Epidemiology who told me how awful Trump and Putin are neither of these friends are what you could remotely classify as Social Justice leftists.

My problem is that I don't know where to start to try and put them right without them thinking I'm a tinfoil hatted conspiracy nut. I wish there was a website dedicated solely to purveying basic truthful information that is not perhaps as esoteric as SST. Should I try and start one or are there already good examples to point to?

Voatboy -> walrus... , 22 October 2019 at 05:10 AM
https://www.wanttoknow.info/ is a useful resource for educating citizens.
John B said in reply to walrus... , 22 October 2019 at 09:21 AM
I'm thinking this is so far and so deep there is nothing that can or will be done. Trump's election and presidency has lifted the curtain on the puppet show. This recent Syria troop removal is Trump's second attempt at openly declaring troops will be pulled out of Syria only to have the military has said, "Um, no, we will stay and simply relocate."

Trump openly called for FISA warrants to be declassified only to have the DOJ and FBI either ignore and defy him. Groups like Judicial Watch and others go into court to get the requested information through FOIA and DOJ and FBI lawyers and the courts block them.

It is beyond scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both political parties. Trump has faced hurricane winds of opposition from day one and has been constantly subverted by his own party and his own people. I don't know how he can get up every day and continue to fight the obvious and concerted Deep State coup against him. I pray for him. I pray the rosary for him.

There are members within Trump's own party who have agreed that there should be an investigation into the impeachment of Trump for running a yellow light (at most). Again, members of his own party. Renowned Constitutional lawyers John Yoo and Alan Dershowitz, from Cal-Berkeley and Harvard laws schools respectively, have said that not only has Trump done nothing, even remotely, which could trigger an impeachment inquiry but if Congress were to do so it would be unconstitutional and illegal. But alas, who would enforce this? Deep State snakes like John Roberts at the Supreme Court? Robert has already signed off on the coup ( https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/john-roberts-mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment-trial.amp).

The only thing that separates America from falling into the abyss is Trump, a handful of people in Washington, a few conservative talk show hosts, and about 40% of America. Many people have talked a good game at points but I think in the end are just double agents of the dark side/Deep State (Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, ... IG Horowitz, etc.). And some, such as Chris Wray, are unabashed dark side/Deep State agents in good standing.

As St. Thomas More said, "The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them." I have faith in Barr. I have faith in Durham. Two men whose Catholic faith is integral to every aspect of their lives and work. But with as pervasive, entrenched, and powerful as the Deep State is I'm skeptical they have the power to do anything. Btw, here's U.S. Attorney John Durham's lecture before the Thomistic Institute at Yale (hosted by the Dominican Order): https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/perspective-of-a-catholic-prosecutor-honorable-john-durham

One thing that really amuses me is that the marionettes of Deep State in the media and politics actually believe that once Trump is gone their puppet show theatre can resume like nothing happened. Sorry, but there is no coming back from this. They will be lucky if the worst thing that happens is a sizable part of of the American populace protests by throwing sand in the gears. I'm afraid it will end much worse.

Peter AU 1 said in reply to walrus... , 22 October 2019 at 01:12 PM
I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect.

Most only get to see the odd sentence or paragragh in western MSM with an entirely fictional story built around it, so perhaps and MSM piece like that and the transcript of the relevant presser or speech alongside it.

I suspect the fine detail in Putin and Lavrov's replies to press questions rather than cliches would surprise many people.

Glorious Bach said in reply to walrus... , 22 October 2019 at 02:29 PM
Walrus--100% my experience as well. Many dinners with "liberal" even "progressive" friends, mostly of the retired kind require great psychic energy. Their Overton Window is 1"-square, making exchanges very difficult to squeeze even minimal bits of political reality.

My daily blog tour, like MW's above, takes me through: Moon of Alabama, Naked Capitalism, SST, Caitlin Johnstone, Grayzone and a few others. I'm intel gathering -- but I need to figure out how to convey broader perspectives even to my 40-45 year-old children and their friends. Inside the Beltway assumptions are hard to de-program.

Vegetius , 22 October 2019 at 12:13 AM
The CIA is a clear and present danger.
b , 22 October 2019 at 01:31 AM
While I agree with the essence of the post I disagree with the characterization of SOHR. It tends to get its stuff right. I have listed several significant events where SOHR disagreed with the official narrative: On Sources And Information - The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights . Those are exactly the moments where SOHR is disregarded by the pressitude.

It is the selective quoting of such sources that paint them as partisan even as they try to stay somewhat neutral.

---
@Pat - Any comment to the Gen. McRaven op-ed in the NYT?
Our Republic Is Under Attack From the President
If President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office.

Isn't it a call to mutiny? It seems to me to be far beyond the allowed political comment from a retired General.

Anonymous , 22 October 2019 at 01:34 AM
Those that look up the pole, all they see is assholes. Those that look down all they see is assholes, but those that look straight ahead, they see which path to take.
fredw , 22 October 2019 at 08:13 AM
The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are always simplified and usually grossly distorted.

Is the Iranian regime terrible? Well, yes, but it is also a regime that holds real elections and often loses them. Not in the same league of awful with Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

Similarly with the other examples. The "facts" have in each case a basis in truth but do not by themselves give a true picture. Is our discourse more unfair to Russia than it was to Nasser's Egypt? Is our promotion of Saudi Arabia any worse than our adulation of Chiang Kai-shek?

Christian J Chuba , 22 October 2019 at 08:30 AM
Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'.

It would do our vaunted free press wonders if they traveled to Damascus instead of repeating the same tired talking points about Syria. I'll never forget the look on Gabbard's face when she talked about the Syrians came up to her and said, 'why are you attacking us, what did we do to you'. Meeting real people can undo a lifetime of blather and must be stopped at all cost.

turcopolier , 22 October 2019 at 08:56 AM
b Perhaps memory fails me but I think SOHR propagated the SAG gas attacks mythology. I have stated that McRaven should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed. I could find several punitice articles in UCMJ under which he could be charged.
CK said in reply to turcopolier ... , 22 October 2019 at 10:21 AM
When McCain returned from the Hanoi Hilton he could have been prosecuted for treason he was not because "peace with honour" overrode UCMJ and honour. McRaven is being offered up as a distraction. Call him back to active duty yes, and assign him somewhere dreary, unimportant and far from CONUS. Ignore the stuff he is blathering while he is retired, if he repeats blather while on active duty then the navy might be able to recover some honour.
Elora Danan said in reply to turcopolier ... , 22 October 2019 at 12:50 PM
No...your memory does not fail you, Colonel, the SOHR was the main source cited at MSM level on the alleged protests which gave place to the destruction of Syria and the legitimation and labelling of alleged "moderate rebels" which then resulted being but terrorist jihadi groups brought mainly from abroad under financing and mtrainning of non Syrian actors...

The source on the alleged atrocities commited by Assad was SOHR at the first years of the war on Syria, along with Doctors Without Borders and "special envoys" by British and French main papers reporting from the former, and first, "Baba Amr" caliphate in Homs....I am meaning the times of Sunday Times´ Marie Colvin and the other woman from Le Figaro , who then resulted or KIA or caught amongst the jihadists ranks along with other foreign "special envoys" who then were released in a truce with Assad through a safe corridor, especially made for that end, to Lebanon.

I fear SOHR was the source of the super-trolling consisting on inundating the MSM comments sections, like that of El País , with dozens of vertical doctored photographs every time any of us aware entered commenting to debunk their fake news.
I remember this since that was the starting point of Elora as net activist...( till then, just a baby, peacefully growing up...unaware....but had no election, felt it was a duty, since, as you comment here, so few people aware...Having known Syria few years before she could not believe what they were telling about Assad, who, eventhough not being perfect, as it has been long ago proved any other leader in the world is, had managed to show the visitant a flourishing Syria where misery present at other ME countries was almost absent...

It is only lately, when the Syrian war was obviously lost for the US coalition, that the SOHR started contradicting some fake claims by the White Helmets, especially last two alleged chemical attacks, if Elora´s not wrong.

Why this, why now, why in this form? Probably those powers behind SOHR trying to secure a part in the cake of reconstruction and future of Syria...since, it got obvious, love for Syria is not amongst one of their mottos...

Dave P. said in reply to Elora Danan... , 22 October 2019 at 04:04 PM
This news just broke:
Trump approves $4.5 million in aid for Syria's White Helmets

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump has authorized $4.5 million in aid for Syria's White Helmets group, famed for rescuing wounded civilians from the frontlines in the civil war, the White House says today...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-approves-4-5-million-in-aid-for-syrias-white-helmets/

Steve , 22 October 2019 at 09:41 AM
Col Lang,
I'm an extremely grateful for you and your blog. We are all very fortunate to have you.
PeterVE , 22 October 2019 at 09:58 AM
Thank you for this refuge from the noise. How long before the strangling of information makes its way here, and to Craig Murray, Naked Capitalism, and others who look on with clear eyes?
Terry , 22 October 2019 at 10:13 AM
Humans are copy/paste artists and generally not very good at creative thinking. When shown a series of steps to achieve a reward people will repeat all the steps including clearly unnecessary ones. Monkeys will drop unnecessary steps and frequently show more creativity by using a different method to achieve the reward instead of copying.

The old story goes how a woman always cut the ends off a roast before putting it in a pan. When her daughter asks why she doesn't know, asks her mother who doesn't know and asks the great grandmother who laughs and says her pan was too small.

I suspect it is a functional tradeoff that lets us transfer great amounts of cultural information and maintain a civilization of sorts. It creates a tough environment for innovators and allows for easy manipulation of the majority.

Nature of course always has a sprinkling of minority traits in the gene pool to allow for sudden changes in the environment. Most likely those of us that are more critical thinkers and like in depth, multi-dimensional viewpoints and historical knowledge are always going to be standing by watching the crowd do their copy/paste thing.

The rise of the internet giving easy access to more "sources" means more fragmentation in worldviews than ever before depending on where people copy/paste from.

prawnik , 22 October 2019 at 10:56 AM
To be fair, Russia is portrayed as a sort of resurrected Soviet Union intent on world conquest when the audience are conservatives.

Russia portrayed as a fascist theocracy when the audience are liberals.

prawnik , 22 October 2019 at 11:05 AM
Re: only three TV channels and they all said the same thing!

Once Upon a Time, not so long ago, publishing news was hard. For one thing, you needed a printing press, which was big, expensive and required housing and specialized technicians to operate it. Not only that, but a printing press cost money for every sheet of paper printed, and you had to spend more money to distribute what he printed.

They say that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one" but there's more! Unless you were already rich and planned to publish as an expensive and time-consuming hobby, you needed an income stream. You would get some money from subscriptions, but subscriptions are really a means to sell advertising. Dependence on advertising meant that there were some people the publisher had to keep happy, and others he could not afford to annoy.

Anyone who knows anything about local news knows this. At best, it's a tightrope walk between giving subscribers the news they want to know, and not infuriating your advertisers. The result was a sort of natural censorship. Publishers had to think long and hard before they published anything that would tork the bigwigs off. The fact that a publisher was tied to a physical location and physical assets also made libel suits much easier.

The same thing applied to broadcast TV, only more so. It took orders of magnitude more money, and you were restricted to a limited amount of bandwidth.

The internet changed all that. Now, any anonymous toolio with a laptop ($299 cheap at WallyWorld) and WiFi (free at many businesses) can go into the news publishing business by nightfall, and with worldwide distribution and an advertising revenue stream, to boot. Marginal cost of readership is zero.

Needless to say, this development has The People That Matter very concerned, and they are working hard to stuff that genie back into the bottle.

casey , 22 October 2019 at 11:32 AM
For what it's worth, I found the late Udo Ulfkotte's personal-experience book "Bought Jounalism" to be quite interesting on this topic, as it details the kind of nuts-and-bolts of print-media prostitution. But I would really like to see an org-chart sometime of the overlapping, possibly competing, mission control centers (if that's the right phrase) that control the various "Wurlitzer" messaging and who, ultimately, is on charge of these. It has been intriguing to watch, since Kerry uttered his "the Internet makes it very hard to govern" line years ago, the blurry outline of a vast operation to shut down any non-approved media messages, now including all social media. To give credit where credit is due, "they" sure have done a bang-up job in feeding bullshit across all platforms down the throats of a Western people, like a goose being fattened up for foie gras.
Jack , 22 October 2019 at 12:04 PM
"...the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters) are the preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base our policy."

Sir

I've been perplexed for some time what the objectives are of these virtual fact creators? When one digs into who the movers & shakers are in the virtual fact creation apparatus then it seems very much analogous to the Jeffrey Epstein orbit. Folks bound together through the carrot of extraordinary personal gain and the stick of personal destruction. Your Drinking the Koolaid, is a seminal work in exploring how these virtual facts are created and how those who challenge the creation are marginalized and even destroyed personally.

IMO, policy making on the basis of virtual facts extends beyond foreign policy to economic and financial policy as well as healthcare policy in the US. The symptoms are seen in growing wealth inequality and increased market concentration globally and financial policy completely unmoored from common sense and sophistry an important element in virtual fact creation.

We're seeing signs of the early breakdown in social cohesion with social unrest in France, Spain, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Ecuador. Brexit and the election of Trump despite the intensity and vitriolic nature of how the media was used against them. The impeachment of Trump another tool in the desperate attempt to retain and consolidate power. Maybe we're in the Fourth Turning as Howe & Strauss label it.

Keith Harbaugh , 22 October 2019 at 12:43 PM
"The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist ..."
In the interest of specificity and accountability, where/who in the MSM are asserting that?
You (PL) are making a serious charge.
Just who is guilty of perpetrating such a blatant falsehood?
Terry said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... , 22 October 2019 at 04:19 PM
Google "Russia like USSR". It has to be google tho, not Qwant or Duckduckgo. The bias is thick on google.

Back in the U.S.S.R.? How Today's Russia Is Like the Soviet Era
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/back-u-s-s-r-how-todays-russia-soviet-era-n453536

Russia vs. Ukraine: More Russians Want the Soviet Union and Communism Back Amid Continued Tensions

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-vs-ukraine-soviet-union-communism-1264875

Putin's Russia is becoming more Soviet by the day

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/02/26/putins-russia-is-becoming-more-soviet-by-the-day/

Joseph Stalin: Why so many Russians like the Soviet dictator

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47975704

Putin says he wishes the Soviet Union had not collapsed and many Russians agree.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/03/putin-says-he-wishes-he-could-change-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union-many-russians-agree/&usg=AOvVaw22Q9M8lhhTo8IYh6rl-FCi

oldman22 , 22 October 2019 at 01:04 PM
John Helmer has today published a comprehensive piece on Syria.
The details of history and current affairs are comprehensive.
Highly recommended, a reference work.
His cartoon is good too!
http://johnhelmer.net/oil-and-water-dont-mix-the-solution-to-the-war-in-syria/print/
oldman22 , 22 October 2019 at 01:13 PM
pardon me, should have said the article that John Helmer published
was written by Gary Busch
divadab , 22 October 2019 at 01:15 PM
well it seems to me that the groundwork is being laid for an authoritarian state - and it already has sophisticated tools that are unprecedented in their scope and depth and ability to store data. And the whole enterprise is based on three rules:
1) secrecy - data is restricted to "insiders";
2) deception - the "outsiders" (you know, the citizens) are regarded as a herd of cattle to be managed - with lies and disinformation so we don't get any ideas;
3) ruthless enforcement to dehumanize and destroy dissent. Just consider the torture and destruction of Journalist Julian Assange: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

Not sure what the appropriate response is but I spend a lot of time at my camp working in the woods. Thanks, Colonel Lang, for maintaining this site.

turcopolier , 22 October 2019 at 01:24 PM
Elora Danan

You are more and more interesting.

turcopolier , 22 October 2019 at 01:28 PM
Keith Harbaugh
This is my opinion. I am uninterested in proving anything to you. If you listen to what is said on the MSM (including Fox) it is evident that in the "minds" of the media squirrels Russia is just the USSR in disguise. Try listening to what they are saying as sub-text.
Jackrabbit , 22 October 2019 at 02:21 PM
Thank you pl!
Keith Harbaugh , 22 October 2019 at 02:25 PM
The request was not just for my benefit, but with the thought that it would be useful to document the occurrences of such clearly false statements in the media.

It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled. A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi, is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country, ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen. (Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug", just as they call Assad a "butcher".)

I am certainly not endorsing that view, just reporting what I hear and read. When I hear that, I harken back to my graduate school days, when the same sort of charges were leveled against America, which was usually spelled "Amerika", or sometimes "AmeriKKKa", and described as a racist, imperialist, fascist country whose establishment must be "Smashed". I believe the core group of people who so wanted a revolution in America in 1970 (which they essentially got, as we have seen over the last 50 years) are much the same as those now demonizing Russia.

Here is some specificity on their complaints against Russia back then: They were not opposed to the USSR, or communism. Many of them were in effect communists. The cry among many was : "Marx, Mao, and Marcuse" (Herbert Marcuse was a former Brandeis professor who extolled cultural Marxism). What they did have, in spades, was a feeling that their ancestors had been victimized by the Czarist regime in Russia, which, among other supposed sins, had not done enough to prevent pogroms against them. They seemed to have a deep fear of the Russian people, based on their long experience with them.

My suspicion (actually, belief) is that the opposition to Putin is based on the fact that he is sometimes viewed as a throwback to the the Czars, and that is definitely not something looked upon favorably by many Jews.

arze , 22 October 2019 at 02:33 PM
This is SOHR, Tweet, Dec. 6, 2014

"Regime forces use Chlorine gas to stop ISIS advances in Der-Ezzor military airport http://fb.me/4qb09QhnH
3:01 AM - 6 Dec 2014"

https://twitter.com/syriahr/status/541185710443995136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fen%2Fsyrian-observatory-reports-assad-gas-attack-on-is%2Fa-18113807

blue peacock , 22 October 2019 at 03:33 PM
Col. Lang,

"Trump has a balance sheet where a soul should be and that is the basis for the belief that MBS and/or his "country" are our friends."

Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11.

Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown his way by the Arab sheikhs.

[Oct 22, 2019] A Memorandum of Understanding between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey

Notable quotes:
"... US forces leaving Syria will most likely be positioned in Iraq regardless of what Iraq says. ..."
Oct 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Red Ryder , Oct 22 2019 18:42 utc | 8

Today in Sochi, Putin and Erdogan agreed:

A Memorandum of Understanding between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey
22 Oct 2019
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed on the following.

1. Both parties reaffirm their commitment to preserve political unity and territorial integrity of Syria, as well as national security of Turkey.

2. They reiterate their resolve to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and to resist separatist aspirations in the Syrian territory.

3. In this context, existing the status quo in the current operations area "Source of peace" between tel-Abyad and RAS Al ain to a depth of 32 km is saved.

4. Both sides confirmed are important the value of the Adana agreement, the Russian Federation will assist the implementation of the Adana agreement in modern conditions.

5. Starting from 12.00 on 23 October 2019 on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Turkish border outside the area of operation "The source of peace" entered the units of the military police and Syrian border service. They will facilitate the withdrawal of the KOS and their arms at 30 km from the Syrian-Turkish border, which should be completed within 150 hours after 12.00 noon on 23 October 2019 this moment will start joint Russian-Turkish patrol to a depth of 10 km from the border to the West and to the East of the operations area "Source world", in addition to the city of Qamishli.

6. All divisions of CBS and their weapons will be withdrawn from Manuja and tal Rifat.

7. Both sides will take the necessary steps to prevent the infiltration of terrorist elements.

8. Will be undertaken by joint efforts to promote the safe and voluntary return of refugees.

9. Will set up a joint mechanism monitoring and verification for reviewing and coordinating the implementation of this Memorandum.

10. Both sides will continue to work on the search for a political solution to the Syrian conflict in the framework of the "mechanism of Astana" and will support the activities of the constitutional Committee.

http://www.kremlin.ru/supplement/5452

S , Oct 22 2019 19:02 utc | 15
@Red Ryder #8:
will start joint Russian-Turkish patrol to a depth of 10 km from the border to the West and to the East of the operations area "Source world", in addition to the city of Qamishli.

Oh, the perils of machine translation! The document actually says " except the city of Qamishli".

Peter AU 1 , Oct 22 2019 19:47 utc | 28

From May 19 2017

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/05/us-attacks-syrian-government-forces-it-now-has-to-make-its-choice.
"The coalition led by the U.S. military claimed it asked Russia to intervene and that Russia tried to deter the Syrian force to move towards al-Tanf. I am told that this claim is incorrect. Russia supports the Syrian move to the east and the retaking of the border. The move will be reinforced and continue. The revamped Syrian air defense will actively protect it. Russia will support it with its own forces if needed.

The illegitimate occupation forces, the U.S. and British forces and their proxies, will have to move out of al-Tanf or they will have to directly fight the Syrian government forces and all its allies. They have no right to be there at all. The Iraqi PMU in Syria, some of which were hurt in yesterday's U.S. attack, are an active part of the coalition against ISIS in Iraq. If the U.S. fights it in Syria it will also have to fight it in Iraq (and elsewhere). Russia is able and willing to reinforce its own contingent in Syria to help the government to regain the Syrian east."
...........

As to the US setting up a similar operation on the Deir Ezzor oilfields, much will depend on Iraq.

Iraq have allowed the US to hit the Iraqi militias with impunity, Trump flew into the US base in Iraq and flew out again without bothering to meet the Iraqi president or PM, nor ask permission to come to Iraq, treating the base as sovereign US territory (perhaps it is).

Going on past performance, US forces leaving Syria will most likely be positioned in Iraq regardless of what Iraq says.

Oilfields in north eastern toe of Syria will be within SAA zone on the border.

Esper has stated US forces stationed near the oil fields have not been given orders to pull out. Supposedly that will be a second stage of the pull out.

Allowing Syria to regain the oilfields would defeat the purpose of the oil blockade so enthusiastically enforced by US and UK, as once up and running, the oilfield would supply the bulk of Syria's requirements.

ToivoS , Oct 22 2019 19:40 utc | 25
I do not agree that the US withdrawal from Northern Syria is that disorderly. When a war is lost and withdrawal is the only option it will look very disorderly. That is the nature of war.

Look at Vietnam when Nixon first became president. He basically campaigned on getting out of that war -- the slogan was peace with honor. That "orderly" process began in 1969. The first stage was "Vietamization". The US began an "orderly" withdrawal. That withdrawal took four years and involved the deaths of 25,000 US troops (yes half of all US casualties in that war happened during the withdrawal).

The final stage of this "orderly" withdrawal happened in 1975 was captured in those iconic photos of US marine helicopters evacuating US embassy personal from the roof of the US embassy. And then there was the mass exodus of millions of Vietnamese US collaborators that fled and became the boat people. That lasted about three years.

So compare to Trump's Syrian withdrawal. US casualties: 0. Kurdish causualites: likely less than a few hundred. US collaborators that must flee their homes: Not clear but no likely to exceed a few 10s of thousands.

I would likely to offer that this Trump instigated withdrawal is very likely much more orderly than if it was carefully planned by the US DOD in collaboration with all 17 intelligence agencies and the US DOS.

DannyC , Oct 22 2019 19:40 utc | 24
The Russian Defense Minister said all foreign forces (the US) had 90 minutes to withdraw from Northen Syria. I don't think the Russians were going to agree to the US holding that oilfield. I've rarely read of them making such a strong statement.

People are getting fed up and rightfully so.

Igor Bundy , Oct 22 2019 19:23 utc | 22
The commandos at the pentagon still think they lost the vietnam war because they did not have enough support.. Losing 10,000 planes and using more bombs than used in WW2 and dropping daisy cutters and other chemical weapons etc etc etc was all just shy of not enough and if only they had a little more.. half a million men was also not enough now that the Red army was not tying up 90% of the enemy.. Also harder to bribe true communists than most others like they did in Iraq and afghanistan and even in Syria and you wonder why the place is run like al capone's garage, thats because the US hires thugs and criminals because those are the only ones who blatantly betray their countries.. same as random guiado and his ilk..
plantman , Oct 22 2019 19:18 utc | 19
Some people on this site refuse to give Trump credit for anything, but the results speak for themselves. In less than a week, two of the main participants (Russia and Turkey) have consummated an historic deal that could resolve issues on the border. Allow Turkey to resettle tens of thousands of refugees in syria, and clear the way for an end to the war.

No matter how you cut it, this is a major achievement.

It's worth noting that the Syria war was never going to end as long as the US occupied territory east of the Euphrates. So, if peace finally breaks out, it will be largely because of the change in US policy. Trump deserves credit for that.

Trump might not be the president that everyone wanted, but he's sure done a heck'uva a lot more than warmonegring Obama.

Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 22 2019 19:19 utc | 20
A. "Take the oil".
B. "No endless wars".

If this is to be congruent one must take the oil without endless war. Occupation is endless war thus it's not an option. The more expensive the "taking the oil" is or becomes the less interesting it should be for a society on the whole (as it turns defense into wealth distribution at a loss). "Taking the oil" is heavily dependent on time.

Maybe Trump never really thought that far, maybe no one else did either, and maybe he's simply wrong about the oil but that's okay if "no endless wars" (and at this point in time most wars tend towards either "endless" or "instant mutual defeat") takes precedence and so far for as little or much as it is worth that is the difference between him and '"business" as usual'.

William Gruff , Oct 22 2019 19:04 utc | 16
b notes: "Not only would this be obviously illegal but nobody seems to have given a thought on how the logistics for such remote unit could be sustained ."

This is just a small detail to highlight the point that b makes above, but fuel airlifted in to run base generators and power the troops' vehicles and such ends up costing about $400/gallon. This assumes the base has a regular runway that cargo aircraft can use and not that the fuel has to be relayed from a nearby airfield by helicopter. And even just 200 troops will burn through a lot of fuel... many hundreds of gallons per day even if they are trying to conserve. Figure about 1,200 gallons per day just for electricity alone if the base can get by with a modest 1000kw genset. That works out to almost half a $million per day just for electricity for your soda coolers and air conditioners and battlefield radar.

These little details are not what people like to think about when they propose that some troops just camp out around some oil wells.

[Oct 22, 2019] A Call for a Coup Plus a Week Like No Other for Tulsi Gabbard by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party ..."
"... Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . ..."
"... Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic candidate debate the New York Times ..."
"... quid pro quos ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Oct 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by last week's media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The op-ed entitled "Our Republic is Under Attack by the President" with the subtitle "If President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office" was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as a call for a military coup.

McRaven's exact words, after some ringing praise for the military and all its glorious deeds in past wars, were that the soldiers, sailors and marines now must respond because "The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within."

McRaven then elaborated that "These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen, preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, 'I don't like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!'"

It is a call to arms if there ever was one. Too bad Trump can't strip McRaven of his pension and generous health care benefits for starters and McRaven might also consider that he could be recalled to active duty by Trump and court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And the good admiral, who up until 2018 headed the state university system in Texas, might also receive well merited pushback for his assessment of America's role in the world over the past two decades, in which he was a major player, at least in terms of dealing out punishment. He wrote ""We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the protectors of the less fortunate."

Utter bullshit, of course. The United States has been acting as the embodiment of a rogue nation, lashing out pointlessly and delivering death and destruction. If McRaven truly believes what he says he is not only violating his oath to defend the constitution while also toying with treason, he is an idiot and should never have been allowed to run anything more demanding than a hot dog stand. Washington has been systematically blowing people up worldwide for no good reasons, killing possibly as many as 4 million mostly Muslims, while systematically stripping Americans of their Bill of Rights at home. "Good guys" and "champions of justice" indeed!

And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party . She said, clearly suggesting that it would be Tulsi Gabbard, that "They're also going to do third-party again. I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far."

Clinton explained how the third-party designation would work, saying of Jill Stein, who ran for president in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, "And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate. So I don't know who it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most needed."

Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly."

Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic candidate debate the New York Times ran an article suggesting that Gabbard was an isolationist, was being promoted by Russia and was an apologist for Syria's Bashar al-Assad. In reality, Gabbard is the only candidate willing to confront America's warfare-national security state.

The Hillary Clinton attack on Gabbard and on the completely respectable Jill Stein is to a certain extent incomprehensible unless one lives in the gutter that she and Bill have wallowed in ever since they rose to prominence in Arkansas. Hillary, the creator of the private home server for classified information as well as author of the catastrophic war against Libya and the Benghazi debacle has a lot to answer for but will never be held accountable, any more than her husband Bill for his rapes and molestations. And when it comes to foreign interference, Gabbard is being pilloried because the Russian media regards her favorably while the Clinton Foundation has taken tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and billionaires seeking quid pro quos , much of which has gone to line the pockets of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea.

Finally, one comment about the Democratic Party obsession with the Russians. The media was enthusing last Friday over a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing up across a table from President Trump and pointing at him before walking out of the room. The gushing regarding how a powerful, strong woman was defying the horrible chief executive was both predictable and ridiculous. By her own admission Pelosi's last words before departing were "All roads lead to Putin." I will leave it up to the reader to interpret what that was supposed to mean.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]

[Oct 22, 2019] Turkey, Syria Engage In Secret Negotiations To Avert War Report

Oct 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Turkey and Syria are conducting previously-unknown negotiations in an attempt to avert direct conflict in northeast Syria in the wake of a US withdrawal from the region, according to the Jerusalem Post , citing Turkish officials.

The announcement comes as Russian-backed Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad sweep back into the region - heading for incoming Turkish troops moving in from the north.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has backed anti-Assad rebels during Syria's eight-year civil war, calling Assad a terrorist who should be driven from power.

The newly revealed backchannels were first initiated over a separate escalation in northwest Syria, at a time when Russian-backed Syrian troops launched an assault in the Idlib region which contained Turkish forces. Those same channels are now being used to avoid direct conflict , according to the report.

"We have been in contact with Syria on military and intelligence issues for some time in order to avoid any problems on the field," a Turkish official told Reuters, adding " Contact with Syria has largely been through Russia, but this communication was done directly between Turkey and Syria at times to avoid Syrian and Turkish soldiers engaging in direct confrontation ."

While the Turkish government insists that it has not changed its stance towards Assad, the security contacts with Damascus reflect a growing reality that it cannot ignore the Syrian president's steady restoration of control over his country .

Russia's position as go-between also points to the central role played by Moscow - Assad's most powerful backer - in Syria since President Donald Trump said he was pulling U.S. troops out of northern Syria.

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday for talks which are likely to shape the next steps in northeast Syria.

" We will also receive information about Syria's perspective and the steps it will take during the meeting with Putin ," a senior Turkish official said. - Jerusalem Post

On October 9 , Turkey launched a cross-border offensive against Kurdish-led forces to establish a 20-mile "safe zone" near the border. Once this is completed, Erdogan is preparing to settle up to 2 million Syrian refugees.

Meanwhile, a 5-day ceasefire expires late Tuesday focusing on two Syrian border towns; Tel Abyad and Ras al Ain - the latter of which the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced their withdrawal from on Sunday . That said, a spokesman for the Turkish-backed Syrian rebels said the withdrawal was not yet complete. Turkey, meanwhile, says it's in control of Tel Abyad.

Last week, Erdogan announced that he would accept Syrian forces entering the border town of Manbij as long as the Kurdish YPG militia - the core component of the SDF considered a terrorist group by Ankara - was removed.

Moscow mules

While Russia and Syria are longstanding allies in the region, Ankara and Moscow have grown closer according to the report - as their ties have strengthened over joint energy projects as well as Turkey's purchase of Russian missile defense systems over comparable US equipment.

As Erdogan and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence hammered out a surprise Syria truce under the glare of international media on Thursday, Russia's Syria envoy quietly met Erdogan's national security aide in another part of the president's palace.

Syrian media reported that envoy Alexander Lavrentiev met Assad in Damascus the next day, without saying whether he had brought a message from Ankara.

A third Turkish official said Lavrentiev's talks in Turkey had focused on preparations for Erdogan and Putin's meeting.

Turkey and Russia have cooperated more closely on Syria since agreeing two years ago to work along with Assad's other main ally, Iran, to contain the fighting. - Jerusalem Post

Turkey insists that Syria must conduct free elections overseen by the United Nations , and has vowed to work with whoever wins a "fair vote."

[Oct 22, 2019] Betrayal And Deception Syria Is A Prime Example Of US Foreign Policy by Federico Pieraccini

Oct 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops who had been protecting the SDF (Syrian democratic forces) in the northeast of Syria, prompting Kurdish leadership and the Damascus governed to strike a deal allowing Syrian Arab Army to retake control of the border with Turkey after nearly six years.

... ... ..

Given that the deep state retains ultimate control of US foreign policy, Trump is allowed to do and say what he wants – provided it is only within the confines of his media playpen, safe in the knowledge that his motivations are purely electoral and not really aimed and upending the foreign-policy consensus of the US establishment.

If we look beyond Trump's histrionics, we can see that the US deep state continues its illegal stay in Syria, with Trump in reality having no intention of opposing the military-industrial complex (indeed often appointing its members to serve in his administration), with these two parties finding a common point of agreement in the alleged threat posed by Iran.

US troops will only shift near Iraq, looking at disrupting any form of cooperation between Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran.

Trump's Saudi and Israeli allies in the region have long been conspiring with the Pentagon to bring down the Islamic Republic of Iran.

That said, the possibility of war with Iran does not align well with Trump's focus on securing a second term. In any such war, Israel and Saudi Arabia would bear the brunt of hostilities, making pointless their support for Trump. The price of oil would rise sharply, throwing the financial markets into chaos; and all this would conspire to ensure that Trump lost the 2020 election. Trump, therefore, has nothing to gain from war and will prefer dialogue and negotiation with the likes of North Korea, even if it does not bear much fruit.

Trump's main problem lies in the long-term damage his actions and statements may do to the credibility of the US empire. The photo-op with Kim was criticized by many in mainstream media for giving credibility to a "dictator". But the anger of the military and intelligence community really lay in leaving Washington with nowhere to go after Trump's threats of annihilation only led to negotiations that did not go anywhere.

I have previously written about the effectiveness of Pyongyang's nuclear and conventional deterrence, something well known to US policy makers, making them careful to avoid exposing themselves too much such that Pyongyang calls their bluff, thereby revealing to the world that Washington's bark is worse than its bite. To avoid such an embarrassing situation, Obama and his predecessors were always careful to refuse to meet with the North Korean leader.

The United States bases much of its military strength on the display of power, advertising its theoretical ability to annihilate anyone anywhere. By North Korea calling its bluff and revealing that the most powerful country in the world cannot in actual fact attack it, the projected image of American invincibility is thus punctured.

Similarly, when Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from the northeast of Syria (quickly downsized by the Pentagon), and above all gave the green light to Turkey to occupy the area vacated, the political establishment and mainstream media swung into action to dissuade Trump from communicating to the world that America does not stick with its allies. Even Fox News, now siding with the Democrats, started giving wide coverage to Trump's impeachment story, inviting in the process an angry Twitter response from Trump.

Trump is of course more than aware that a complete US withdrawal from Syria would go against the interests of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, those who actually have an influence on him.

Turkey's aspirations to occupy the northeast Syria are part of Erdogan's strategy to improve negotiating positions with Damascus and Moscow with regard to the jihadists in Idlib. Erdogan hopes to be able to annex Syrian territory and fill them with the jihadists and their families who lost the war in Syria and who otherwise pose the security risk of invading Turkey from Idlib. Erdogan seems to have come to some kind of understanding with the US, which has hitherto been the protector of the SDF.

Erdogan and Trump didn't seem to consider the possibility of the SDF and Damascus finding common ground, but this is exactly what happened.

The Syrian Arab Army is now in the North East of the country, protecting its borders against an invading army. Russia and Iran will try and convince Erdogan to downplay the operation in exchange for some sort of arrangement regarding Idlib. The Syrian government in the near future should be able to take back the rich oil fields, boosting its economy.

Turkey and the US have have for years armed and financed terrorism in the region, as have Qatar and Saudi Arabia (in spite of their ideological differences). Even the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were involved in the destabilization of Syria.

All this chaos is ultimately supervised and directed by the United States, which has for years been coordinating in the region color revolutions, the Arab Spring, and proxy wars. Any other interpretation of events would be disingenuous and untruthful.

The withdrawal of US troops from Syria simply reinforces Damascus's position as the only legitimate authority in Syria, undermines confidence of European allies in the US, and emphasizes the consistency of Moscow's actions, which has always been opposed to Washington's chaotic actions in the region.

Amidst this generalized chaos and confusion, Russia, Iran and Syria are trying to put the house back in order again, which includes the international system where sovereign states are respected.

The unipolarists have been suffering pronounced setbacks of late. The expensive air-defense systems of the United States were shown by the Houthis in the last month to be rather ineffectual; Saudi troops soon after this suffered a humiliating defeat in the south of their own country; Washington saw its high-tech drone shot down by Iran; and numerous European and Middle Eastern allies have lost faith in the US, as they watch factions fighting with each other over control for US foreign policy

The US is the victim of a unipolar world order onto which it desperately hangs without any thought of letting go, even as the rest of the world inexorably moves towards a multipolar world order, one that becomes ever more difficult to subdue with every waking day.

[Oct 22, 2019] It's four more years of the Trumpian Reich folks, with Russian Spetsnaz patrolling the streets, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, babushkas, the whole nine yards by CJ Hopkins

Notable quotes:
"... Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins vis The Unz Review, ..."
Oct 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins vis The Unz Review,

So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked," or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy.

Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up a last-minute military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration camps, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public schools, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.

[Oct 21, 2019] Winners Losers In The Failed American Project For A 'New Middle East'

Notable quotes:
"... During this period of Trump's ruling, the Middle East became a huge warehouse of advanced weapons from varied sources. Every single country (and some non-state actors) has armed drones -- and some even have precision and cruise missiles. But superiority in armaments by itself counts for very little, and its very balance is not enough to shift the weight to one side or another. Even the poorest country, Yemen, has done significant damage to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a country highly equipped, militarily, and with the most modern US hardware in the Middle East. ..."
"... Trump's move offered an unexpected victory to Damascus . The Syrian government is now slowly recovering its most important source of food, agriculture and energy. North-East Syria represents a quarter of the country's geography. ..."
"... Assad trusts that Russia will succeed in halting the Turkish advance and reduce its consequences, perhaps by asking the Kurds to pull back to a 30 km distance from the Turkish borders to satisfy President Erdogan's anxiety. That could also fit the Turkish-Syrian 1998 Adana agreement (5 km buffer zone rather than 30 km) and offer tranquillity to all parties involved. ..."
"... Moscow mediated between the Syrian Kurds and the central government in Damascus even when these had been under US control for years. Putin behaved wisely with Israel even when he accused Tel Aviv of provoking the killing of his officers, and stayed relatively neutral in relation to the Iran-Israel struggle. ..."
"... On the other hand, Tel Aviv never thought Syria would be reunited . Today Damascus has armed drones, precision and cruise missiles from Iran, supersonic anti-ship Russian missiles -- and has survived the destruction of its infrastructure and so many years of war. ..."
"... Israel has lost the prospect of a Kurdish state (Rojava) as an ally ..."
"... Israel now has to deal with the Russian presence in the Middle East and bear the consequences of the victory achieved by Assad, the Russians, and the Iranians. ..."
"... After the Kurds, Israel is the second biggest loser- even if it has suffered no financial damage and no Israeli lives have been lost in combat. ..."
Oct 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Winners & Losers In The Failed American Project For A 'New Middle East' by Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 22:55 0 SHARES

Authored by Elijah Magnier, Middle East based chief international war correspondent for Al Rai Media

The United States of America emerged victorious from the Second World War, and came out stronger than any other country in the world. The allies- notably the Soviet Union- won the war but emerged much weaker.

They needed to reconstruct their countries and rebuild their economies, with the US demanding huge retrospective payments for its support. The US became a superpower with nuclear bomb capability and an imposing power of dominance. Industrial countries rebuilt in what the Germans called their Wirtschaftswunder and the French les Trentes Glorieuses , the thirty years of post-war prosperity. Meanwhile the US leveraged its prosperity to spread its hegemony around the world.

US power was enhanced with the beginning of Perestroika and after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the new millennium the US establishment declared the " War on Terror " as justification to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, while attempting to subdue Hezbollah in Lebanon, changing the régime in Libya and attempting to destroy Syria, all with the goal of reshuffling and forming a " New Middle East " .

In the Levant, the US has dramatically failed to reach its objectives, but it has succeeded in waking Russia from its long hibernation , to challenge the US unilateral hegemony of the world and to develop new forms of alliance.

Iran has also challenged the US hegemony incrementally since the 1979 "Islamic Revolution". Iran has planned meticulously, and patiently built a chain of allies connecting different parts of the Middle East. Now, after 37 years, Iran can boast a necklace of robust allies in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan - who are all ready, if necessary, to take up arms to defend Iran.

Iran, in fact, has greatly benefited from US mistakes. Through its lack of understanding of populations and leaders around the world, it has universally failed to win "hearts and minds" in every Middle Eastern country where it imposed itself as a potential ally. The arrival of President Donald Trump to power helped US allies and the anti-US camp to discover, together, the limits and reach of US sanctions .

Russia and China took the lead in offering a new, softer model of an alliance , which apparently does not aim to impose another kind of hegemony. The offer of an economic alliance and partnership is especially attractive to those who have tasted US hegemony and wish to liberate themselves from it by means of a more balanced alternative.

During this period of Trump's ruling, the Middle East became a huge warehouse of advanced weapons from varied sources. Every single country (and some non-state actors) has armed drones -- and some even have precision and cruise missiles. But superiority in armaments by itself counts for very little, and its very balance is not enough to shift the weight to one side or another. Even the poorest country, Yemen, has done significant damage to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a country highly equipped, militarily, and with the most modern US hardware in the Middle East.

US President Trump was informed about the evident failure to change the régime in Syria and the equal impossibility of dislodging Iran from the Levant. He most probably aimed to avoid the loss of lives and therefore decided to abandon the country that his forces have occupied for the past few years. Nonetheless, his sudden withdrawal, even if so far it is partial (because he says, a small unit will remain behind at al-Tanf, to no strategic benefit since al-Qaem border crossing is now operational) – came as a shock to his Kurdish and Israeli allies. Trump proved his readiness to abandon his closest friends & enemies overnight.

Based on the 2006 proposed plan to redrawn the borders of the Middle East by retired Army lieutenant colonel Ralph Peters, which he referenced as "blood borders".

Trump's move offered an unexpected victory to Damascus . The Syrian government is now slowly recovering its most important source of food, agriculture and energy. North-East Syria represents a quarter of the country's geography. The northern provinces have exceptional wealth in water, electricity dams, oil, gas and food. President Trump has restored it to President Bashar al-Assad. This will also serve Trump's forthcoming election campaign.

Assad trusts that Russia will succeed in halting the Turkish advance and reduce its consequences, perhaps by asking the Kurds to pull back to a 30 km distance from the Turkish borders to satisfy President Erdogan's anxiety. That could also fit the Turkish-Syrian 1998 Adana agreement (5 km buffer zone rather than 30 km) and offer tranquillity to all parties involved. Turkey wants to make sure the Kurdish YPG, the PKK Syrian branch, is disarmed and contained. Nothing seems difficult for Russia to manage, particularly when the most difficult objective has already been graciously offered: the US forces' withdrawal.

President Assad will be delighted to trim the Kurds' nails. The Kurds offered Afrin to Turkey to prevent the Syrian government forces controlling it. The Kurds, in exchange for the State of their dreams (Rojava), supported US occupation and Syria's enemy, Israel. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu bombed hundreds of targets in Syria, preferring ISIS to dominate the country and pushing Trump to give him the Syrian-occupied Golan Heights as a gift- although the US has no authority over this Syrian territory.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed, millions of refugees were driven from their homes and hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on destroying Syria. Nonetheless, the Syrian state and President Assad have prevailed. Notwithstanding the consequences of the war, Arab and Gulf countries are eager to return to Syria and participate in reconstruction. Whoever rules Syria, the attempt to destroy the Syrian state and change the existing régime has failed.

Russia is one of the most successful players here, on numerous fronts, and is now in a position President Putin could only have dreamed about before 2015 . Numerous analysts and think tanks predicted Moscow would sink into the Syrian quagmire, and they mocked its arsenal. They were all wrong. Russia learned its lesson from the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. It offered air and missile coverage and brilliantly cooperated with Iran and its allies as ground forces.

President Putin skillfully managed the Syrian war, striking a balance and creating good ties with Turkey, a NATO ally- even after the downing of his jet by Ankara in 2015. Russia wanted to collaborate with the US but was faced with an administration with persistent "Red-Soviet" phobia. Moscow proceeded without Washington to solve the Syrian war and defeat the jihadists who had flocked to the country with support from the West (via Turkey and Jordan) from all over the world.

Russia showed off its new arsenal and managed to sell a lot of its weapons. It has trained its Air Force using real battle scenarios, fought alongside the Syrian and Iranian armies, and a non-state actor (Hezbollah). It defeated ISIS and al-Qaeda 40 years after its defeat in Afghanistan. President Putin has distinguished himself as a trustworthy partner and ally, unlike Trump- who abandoned the Kurds, and who blackmails even his closest ally (Saudi Arabia).

Russia imposed the Astana process instead of Geneva for peace talks, it offered countries to use their local currencies for commerce rather than the dollar, and it is dealing pragmatically with Iran and Saudi Arabia, and with Assad and Erdogan. The Americans, by their recklessness, showed themselves incapable of diplomacy.

Moscow mediated between the Syrian Kurds and the central government in Damascus even when these had been under US control for years. Putin behaved wisely with Israel even when he accused Tel Aviv of provoking the killing of his officers, and stayed relatively neutral in relation to the Iran-Israel struggle.

On the other hand, Tel Aviv never thought Syria would be reunited . Today Damascus has armed drones, precision and cruise missiles from Iran, supersonic anti-ship Russian missiles -- and has survived the destruction of its infrastructure and so many years of war.

Israel has lost the prospect of a Kurdish state (Rojava) as an ally. This dream has gone now for many decades to come and with it the partition of Syria and Iraq. The "Deal of the Century" makes no sense anymore and the non-aggression deal with the Arab states is a mirage. Everything that Trump's close advisor, Prime Minister Netanyahu, wanted has lost its meaning, and Israel now has to deal with the Russian presence in the Middle East and bear the consequences of the victory achieved by Assad, the Russians, and the Iranians.

After the Kurds, Israel is the second biggest loser- even if it has suffered no financial damage and no Israeli lives have been lost in combat.

Netanyahu's ambitions can no longer be used in his election scenario. Israel needs to prepare for living next door to Assad , who will certainly want back Syria's Golan- a priority for Damascus to tackle once domestic reconstruction is on its way. He has been preparing the local resistance for years, for the day when Syria will recover this territory.

[Oct 20, 2019] How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area. ..."
"... Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. ..."
"... Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind. ..."
"... A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion? ..."
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Oct 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dan Hayes says: October 4, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz Proprietor Ron,

Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled man.

Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.

I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU academic nor an Upper West Side resident.

And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!


sally , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:47 am GMT

How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area.

Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt, Yemen etc.

Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind.

I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.

A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?

Beckow , says: October 4, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT

The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO, and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?

There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?

eah , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:55 am GMT
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.

Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.

Roberto Masioni , says: October 4, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level. This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
Pamela , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:41 pm GMT
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.

To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96% turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with all the international mandates.

It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.

All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!

follyofwar , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.

The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State knew it.

Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.

The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones.

The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt, that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.

These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights, those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable damage will be done to our country and its institutions.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@Pamela In fact, several Western sources reluctantly confirmed the results of Crimean referendum of 2014:
German polling company GFK
http://www.gfk.com/ua/Documents/Presentations/GFK_report_FreeCrimea.pdf
Gallup
http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf

Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.

On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.

Alden , says: October 4, 2019 at 5:35 pm GMT
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.

We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.

chris , says: October 4, 2019 at 9:11 pm GMT
@Ron Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any push-back from the interviewer) says:

Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a coup d'etat against Yanukovich.

Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the Ukraine coup ?

Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US.

These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.

No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.

In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is the staging post for an attack on Russia.

The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical conclusion.

Anonymous [855] • Disclaimer , says: October 4, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of Europe.

Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion, according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and, according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.

According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital, which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1 million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools' endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous populations they claim to protect.

AnonFromTN , says: October 5, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Mikhail Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@anon American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run by the same puppet master.

Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him, like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the rat).

Skeptikal , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:10 pm GMT
@follyofwar The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.

But it is probably not worth the aggravation.

Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other innovations.

Beckow , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
@AP Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?

Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' – actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in hell of joining EU.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
@Skeptikal Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away. Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).

So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports, Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.

annamaria , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:10 pm GMT
@Sergey Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."

-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the coziness of western life?

S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet regime."

-- If you wish: "The Rape of Russia: Testimony of Anne Williamson Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives, September 21, 1999:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/Harvard_mafia/testimony_of_anne_williamson_before_the_house_banking_committee.shtml

"Economic rape of post-USSR economic space was by design not by accident:"
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#Economic_rape_of_post_USSR_economic_space_was_by_design_not_by_accident

"MI6 role in economic rape of Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet republics:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#MI6_role_

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 11:39 pm GMT
@AP Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and blew it.
AP , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:39 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) a

Illegal revolution (are there any legal ones? – was American one legal?) rather than coup. Violations of Constitution began under Yanukovich.

We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide.

LOL. Were you the one comparing it to Somalia?

Here is "dead" Ukraine:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDWAobR8U0c?start=3017&feature=oembed

What a nightmare.

Compare Ukraine 2019 to Ukraine 2013 (before revolution):

GDP per capita PPP:

$9233 (2018) vs. $8648 (2013)

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=UA-AM-GE-MN-AL&name_desc=false

GDP per capita nominal:

$3110 (2018) vs. $3160 (2013)

Given 3% growth in 2019, it will be higher.

Forex reserves:

$20 billion end of 2013, $23 billion currently

Debt to GDP ratio:

40% in 2013, 61% in 2018. Okay, this is worse. But it is a decline from 2016 when it was 81%.

Compare Ukraine's current 61% to Greece's 150%.

Military: from ~15,000 usable troops to 200,000.

Overall, not exactly a "suicide."

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@AnonFromTN I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups – it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.

In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could stage a ' revolution '.

AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.

Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed, Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.

We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.

Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@AP You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989, had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.

So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.

You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a success?

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Beckow True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies, and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.

What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about ' EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.

What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well, all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal', almost as good as 2013 . Right.

Robjil , says: October 5, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
Ukraine is an overseas US territory.

It is not a foreign nation at all.

Trump dealt with one of our overseas territories.

Nuland said that US invested 5 billion dollars to get Ukraine.

She got Ukraine without balls that is Crimea. Russia took back the balls.

US cried, cried a Crimea river about this. They are still crying over this.

DESERT FOX , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Robjil Agree, and like Israel the Ukraine will be a welfare drain on the America taxpayers as long as Israel and the Ukraine exist.
Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
@AP I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:

lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians

Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask: why? did the authors of that policy think it through?

Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@AP I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth' under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.

One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.

If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
@Beckow Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.

Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood. Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets, etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more, most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).

Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for has befallen us". End of story.

Sergey Krieger , says: October 6, 2019 at 4:15 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even 40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing. Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when die off very real one is going right under your nose.
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important to those hawks.

Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing. I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct, what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of better relations impossible.)

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@Per/Norway

The ukrops are pureblooded nazis

Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender. Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:28 pm GMT
@AP

So uprising by American colonists was a coup?

How about what happened in Russia in 1917?

Or Romania when Communism fell?

Talk about false equivalencies.

Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected president of Ukraine.

Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the Euromaidan.

Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and the deaths of law enforcement personnel.

In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Beckow The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:17 am GMT
@AP Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert Trump's investigation of those crimes.

Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24 report fairly objective?

Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RtUrPKK73rE?feature=oembed

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:24 am GMT
@AP This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage- is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.

Crimea: Three years after annexation – BBC News

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 3:55 am GMT
@AP Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@AP "Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by @TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"

REVEALING UKRAINE OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER #1 (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Nj_bdtO0SI0

Robjil , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
@Malacaay Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.

This probably explains their differences with Russia.

Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the rest of Russia.

The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the Soviet Union.

Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime Minister.

Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine, Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.

[Oct 20, 2019] USA corporations, can not and will not survive without WARS. Complete USA "economy" is a WAR machine

Oct 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

onebornfree , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 1:27 pm GMT

@Proud_Srbin Proud_Srbin says: "USA corporation, can not and will not survive without WARS. Complete USA "economy" is a WAR machine,"

As Randolph Bourne observed: "War is the health of the state". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Bourne

But its not just the US that is a war machine. Bourne's statement equally applies to _all_ states everywhere, past present and future.

If any state appears to not be making war on other countries at any particular time, its only because it is too busy making war on its own citizens [ eg taxes, drug laws, weapons/gun laws, religion laws, speech laws, environmental laws etc.etc. etc.], and has not yet created enough fake money via its central bank to enable it to debt-fund consistent overseas aggressions against others.

Regards, onebornfree

DESERT FOX , says: October 15, 2019 at 1:38 pm GMT
@onebornfree The Report From Iron Mountain says it all, the ZUS is to fight perpetual wars for the zionist agenda of a zionist NWO.

This report came out in the 1960's and can be googled.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen

What will they do when the U.S. decouples from the Middle East completely?

Believing the U.S. will "completely decouple" from the Middle East is akin to believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Moon Landings.
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2Fc8YC8htf5YQg0%2Fgiphy.gif&f=1&nofb=1

anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:00 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger My hypothesis is that the man, narcissistic as he is, has reached the end of his tether. "

This is a truth ,eternal truth ,it applies to ironically both to a person and to a country . Just keep on giving and some more.

melpol , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT
Wars by the US will never end because arms manufactures own Trump. Almost one half of the US budget goes for the security of the state, domestic and abroad. New weapon development would come to a halt if the US was not threatened. Fake news about China and Russia planning to attack the US keeps the arms industry humming. Over a million national security workers and their families would be devastated if Trump stopped fighting fake wars. God bless imagined threat of wars.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:13 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke

The goal all along was not to "take" Syria so much as to destroy it and leave it in fragments acting in the service of Israel.

Just so.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:14 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

This has strengthened the possibility of the revival of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). There are around 10,000 such ISIS fighters currently lodged in prisons run by the SDF.

And with this, "the war on terror" is guaranteed to go on, and on, and on..

Subhead Corrigendum , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
Let's see what CIA actually does

https://armswatch.com/

There ya go.

Anonymous [835] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
@Sean started to click the Troll button
decided Sean #36 not worth the calories
DESERT FOX , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read AL CIADA aka ISIS is a creation of the CIA and the MOSSAD and MI6.
Prof Watson , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
Trump is Bibi's Shabbos goy.
Agent76 , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:43 pm GMT
September 20, 2019 The Imperial Debris of War

Just in case you hadn't heard the good news, the last man from the president's foreign policy "team" still standing, Trump whisperer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently left National Security Advisor John Bolton in the dust.

https://original.antiwar.com/stephanie_savell/2019/09/19/the-imperial-debris-of-war/

June 27, 2018 Harvard Research Scholar Explains How America Created Al-Qaeda & The ISIS Terror Group

It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49733.htm

Rev. Spooner , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen Trade wars, sanctions, embargoes are economic warfare. I'm not going to elaborate as teaching Kindergarten is not my forte.
Longfisher , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
Oh, what a tangled web we leave when the CIA first seeks to deceive.
Greg Bacon , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 4:20 pm GMT
What Trump wants to do and what he can do are two very different things. The MIC/Zionist rot in DC is way too deep and entrenched for any one man to tackle.

Trump could make all his Schiffty problems go away by bombing Iran. Overnight, the man would be lauded as the president we need and that aging hack Pelosi would suddenly drop that phony impeachment hearing.

Trump is finding out that when making foreign policy, the safest route to take is to first ask, "Is this good for Israel?"

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:26 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger Agree.

And look what it has revealed the Dems, the Zios, the msm and Trump's Repubs all screaming how the US should stay in Syria

I have no love for Trump BUT .his Syria move has shown us how far into the Trump Derangement throes the Dems are.

It reveals as nothing else he has done so far that we have a government OF THE PARTIES, BY THE PARTIES , FOR THE PARTIES ..not for the people.

I hope people concentrate on that reveal.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger

I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will opt for the former

I think you are spot on there also.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Exactly, with thousands of ISIS,ISIL(American/Israeli proxy forces)types now being freed due to Turkey's incursions into Syria, these "rebels" will be free to re-group and fight another day. Hence the need for American forces to STAY deployed in the Area. This is nothing more than a distraction move by Trump, which will result in the opposite "intended" actions of American forces being withdrawn from Syria. This will also guarantee the "need" for a strong Soviet presence in Syria.

America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria, the only point of contention between America/Israel and Russia was whether Assad was to be forced from power or would be allowed to remain President as a puppet of Putin and the Russians. Syria was to never remain a sovereign nation.

Priss Factor , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 4:50 pm GMT

https://www.youtube.com/embed/P0EwGEZKWvA?feature=oembed

Syrian Exposes Media Lies About Syria Withdrawal

The US still hasn't acknowledged the Armenian Massacre by the Turks. Why should it care about Kurds. US is the nation that said killing 500,000 kids in Iraq was worth it.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:52 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke

Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind of peace.

Not really. All are still standing and not under US control. Iraq now leans even more toward Iran and Syria toward Russia ..and that outcome in these countries has made Israel's goal of destroying Iran much harder and less likely .
The curtailment of the Kurds, Israel's long time friends and proxy , is another blow to Israel's plot.

It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey loose to do that job.

Bragadocious , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:01 pm GMT
@WJ Right. But as Giraldi always points out, Trump almost attacked Venezuela. He said mean words and rattled sabres! As opposed to Obama, who said no mean words ('cause he upheld the "dignity of the office") but sent the fighter jets into Libya and turned that country from a stable, secular regime into a human trafficking warzone. And also got an ambassador killed. Here are some of Giraldi's gems from April 2011:

Libya is a humanitarian mission

it [the invasion] has no clearly stated objective except to protect Libyan civilians

it is now clear that the rebels do not have any military organization to speak of and Gaddafi has the whip hand

Nice analysis there, Mr. CIA lifer and Obama lickspittle. I can only assume Giraldi was part of the crack CIA team of Sovietologists who were utterly blindsided when the Soviet Union broke up. It's amazing how much slack he's given around here for his anti-Israel stuff. It's like Teflon for him.

DESERT FOX , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
@Priss Factor Agree, and the ZUS has killed millions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria, for their zionist masters, the only lives the ZUS cares about is zionists.
Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke The only question you failed to address is what was the true motives of Putin's intervention into the whole mess. A few good points:

As in Ukraine, Putin will stay in Syria until it no longer suits him. He has no long-term strategic goals beyond creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free world wherever possible. This allows him to play the big man on the international stage, an essential element of his domestic appeal. 24/7 propaganda and Soviet nostalgia have turned Putin's invasion into a domestic hit in Russia. In contrast, Russians have no interest in Syria or Assad, but who cares what they want? Unlike the leaders of Europe, the U.S., and other democratic countries, Putin doesn't have to worry about how popular his foreign adventures are at home. There are no checks and balances in the Russian government, no free media to criticize him, and no popularity polls that matter more than ranks of well-armed riot police.

https://www.newsweek.com/kasparov-putins-goal-syria-chaos-380620

ben sampson , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:21 pm GMT
Licks for Giraldi: Giraldi has been careless but not where he lists Trumps lies about ending 'silly' wars. from what Trump has actually done compared to what he says about ending America's wars he is a liar of clear and complete proportions
Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:24 pm GMT
@renfro Turkey's invasion of Syria has been condemned by the United States, the European Union, Israel , Iran and some Arab states.
Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:26 pm GMT
@Anonymous

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10104926/turkey-invasion-of-syria-migrants-europe-fears/

TURKEY'S hardline leader has threatened to send 3.6 million refugees to Europe if it brands his military offensive in Syria an invasion.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to open the gates to "millions" of Syrians over criticism of his deadly attacks on Kurdish targets.

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:32 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Why no link? Are you misquoting?
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:34 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read You're quoting the Zionist anti-Russian Kasparov? LOLOL.
SafeNow , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:35 pm GMT
"the military the only real source of pride the only thing Americans feel they excel at"

An insightful point. Politicians support the military and its deployments for economic reasons, but the support of the public might derive from "what else is there?" Examples of institutional and private-sector failure abound in the news over recent years, and every day. The Boeing Max. The hotel collapse. 250,000 deaths per year from medical negligence. Power shutoffs. Useless college. The dive boat. A relaxed performance standard. The demise of meritocracy and rationality. During Katrina, every agency except the Coast Guard went into gridlock. There are remaining islands of expertise, but the unraveling is contagious.

Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm GMT
@Bragadocious International human rights is not a suicide pact.
Anonymous [867] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:41 pm GMT
@Bragadocious

– [Giraldi] bashes Trump for his pre-Presidential life but never delved into Obama's pre-political life, which involved bathhouses and mounds of coke.

At least Obama served in the military. He was a corpse-man.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT
@Sean lol ..So What?
Phibbs , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:08 pm GMT
The dirty, filthy hand of the Jew is all over America's Mideast policy. Israel backs ISIS in Syria with weapons. The Israeli-Occupied Government in Washington D.C. has even protected ISIS in Syria at times. The Jew-owned media gives no credit to Iran and Russia for defeating Jew and American-supported terrorists inside Syria. Now the Jew-owned government is aching for war with Iran, which is not a threat to Gentile America.
A123 , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT
@WorkingClass

The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are still there. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Replacing Assad was an Globalist goal, heavily pushed by Erdogan. We also remember the failed presidency of Barak Hussein that never represented the citizens of the U.S. So it would be more precise to say that:
-- George Soros, Erdogan, Obama, Wahhabism, and the Globalists are losing.
-- Putin, Trump, Assad, and Populism are winning.

The real test will be Putin getting all other foreign troops & proxies to leave. The Globalist agenda is to keep the fight between Iran (Shia) and Turkey (Sunni) going, when they both leave combatants in Syria. Hopefully, Putin will be able to fully rout the Globalists and move out both Turkish and Iranian agitators.

PEACE

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:11 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Maybe you don't know who the author of that article is .Garry Kasparov

Kasparov might be great at chess but in Russia he was big fail as a politician .couldn't get any votes on his campaign to make Russia like America. He went into a self-imposed exile in the West. claiming Putin ruined his political campaigning.
Now everything Putin does infuses all Kasparov's punditry

Kasparow's love for Bolton should clue you to what he is about.

Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) · Twitter
As I said about Bolton entering the Trump admin nearly 3 years ago, you may not agree with his views as much as I generally do, but he puts US interests first, not Trump's. Can't say same about Pompeo & the rest.
31 mins ago

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
The short story on Syria, Turkey, USAISRAEL, Russia –

Turkey-Syria offensive: Russia vows to prevent clashes with Assad forces
BBC

Takeaways

THEN .

"When the US decided to equip and train Syrian Kurds, as well as some Arabs, to fight IS, they were aware of a potential problem, that their would-be Kurdish allies were regarded as terrorists by their Nato ally, Turkey. Washington turned a blind eye to a problem that could be kicked into the future. Now the future is here, and it has blown up."

NOW .

"On Sunday the Kurds announced a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, agreeing that its troops could advance into the zone that had not been controlled by Damascus since 2012, right up to the border with Turkey. That is a big victory for the regime. The troops moved quickly out of bases they maintained in the north-east. Assad loyalists dug out regime flags.
It was a disastrous day for American Middle East policy. The alliance with the Kurds, and the security guarantee safeguarding their self-governing slice of Syria, gave the Americans a stake in the war's endgame. It was also a way of pushing against the backers of the Assad regime: Russia and Iran. The departure of the Americans, and the advance of the Syrian army, are victories for them too.
European governments, rattled in the way that happens when the problems of the Middle East come knocking at their doors, are calling on Turkey to stop the offensive. Some Nato members can see a nightmare scenario unfolding, with Syria, backed by Russian power, potentially facing off against Turkey, a fellow Nato member. The Russians say they are in regular contact with Turkey. But in a fluid, violent theatre of war. the chances for misperception, mistakes and escalation are always present.

Perhaps what has happened in the last week simplifies the endgame of the Syrian war. Two major players, the Americans and the Kurds, look to be out of the picture. And President Assad, along with his allies from Russia and Iran, continue to solidify their victory in Syria's catastrophic war."

WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.

Anyone who doesnt know that can ask me how.

Rurik , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT

The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines.

Not too sure where this partisan line is, Dr. G.

It looks like they're screeching from both sides of the isle.

https://www.deseret.com/2019/10/7/20903288/president-donald-trump-syria-isis-turkey-kurds-pelosi-mcconnell-romney-islamic-state

Both powerful Republican Liz Cheney and Hillary called the pull out "sickening".

While Republican Senator Rand Paul applauds the decision, Tulsi Gabbard condemns it.

As for 'ideological', we all know that ideologically, the vast majority of all congress-critters (99+%) from both sides of the isle, are motivated by the ideology of doing "what's good for the Jew$"

NATO agreement stipulates that if an alliance member is threatened, other members must support it in its defense. Turkey has not made that claim, but it is completely plausible that it should do so .

Are you joking, Dr. G?

Hasn't Turkey been engaged in waging an aggressive war on Syria these last few years?

Wouldn't Turkey demanding military aid from NATO, (for a "threat" from the Kurds or Syria), amount to the US demanding NATO aid for a "threat" from Iran?

IOW, it's Turkey that has been the murderous aggressor, and the Kurds and Syrians their victims. Not to mention that Turkey's military could make mince-meat out of the Kurdish "threat" in a New York minute.

So it seems to me that the only thing holding Turkey back, is orders from the ZUSA and Russia. Russia is certainly a large part of this equation, IMHO.

did not understand the Turkish mindset regarding the Kurdish threat, which they regard as existential.

'Existential'?

Would a limited autonomy Kurdish state on Turkey's southern border, perhaps incorporating a small swath of Turkey, be the end of Turkey's existence?

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the world demanded that Germany sacrifice some of its territory as recompense for its aggressive military imperialism.

If I were in a position to do so, I'd hand Syria a slice of Israel's and Saudi Arabia's and Turkey's territory – as a punishment for their depraved attacks on an innocent and unthreatening Syria.

Definitely the Hatay province, which arguably belongs to Syria anyways.

I'm sure Turkey would call that an existential! calamity, but I'd tell them 'karma's a bitch'.

Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars

I remain you most loyal fan, Dr. G. But I confess this sounds to me like you think the situation above started on the day of Trump's inauguration.

He inherited those things by the former ZUS regimes.

He has tried over and over again to disengage, only to be dragged back by the screeching from the members of his own party. Not to mention the ((media)).

There are a lot of reasons to condemn the actions of Trump. The Golan Heights, for instance. But it seem glaringly obvious to me at least, that Trump is not ideologically committed to Eternal Wars.

As you put it, he threatened regime change in Venezuela.

He wanted to have talks with the Taliban, (and the whole deepstate and their ((media)) screeched)

He "continues to support Saudi Arabia" but as Pat Buchannan points out.. "The Saudis got the message when the U.S., in response to a missile and drone strike from Iran or Iranian-backed militias, which shut down half of Riyadh's oil production, did nothing.

Said Washington, this is between Saudi Arabia and Iran."

And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds

You really do make it sound like all that is his fault.

I love your work Dr. G. And consider you one of the very best, most honorable and most courageous writers out there.

But I confess, (like so many others!), it seems like to me that you have an irrational, personal hatred for Donald Trump that colors your perspective.

IMHO.

I didn't have time to write this response well, have to go. Hope it's not too off base..

Art , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:27 pm GMT
@animalogic More information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.

There is a gigantic problem in America. It makes us dysfunctional. Certain news cannot get to the American people.

Everyone in the know gets it – do not go to the NY Times with anti-Israel news. Do NOT buck the AIPAC agenda – period. The darkest element of the ADL will be at your door within minutes. The US government will soon follow.

It is obvious – when it comes to Jew matters, US government employees fear for their jobs, if not their lives. Same for the MSM.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:30 pm GMT
@Bragadocious The Soviet Union never broke up, it just re-branded itself.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/dssXAoQou1A?feature=oembed

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:33 pm GMT
@anon See post #88
anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
US President Donald Trump has lambasted American broadcaster ABC News for airing a video from Knob Creek Gun Range in the town of West Point, Kentucky, claiming that the network used footage from the facility to depict a Turkish attack on Kurdish civilians in northern Syria. Trump called the mistake "a big scandal" and "a real disgrace".

"A big scandal at @ABC News. They got caught using really gruesome FAKE footage of the Turks bombing in Syria. A real disgrace", the president wrote on Twitter early Tuesday morning.

AMN news

Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@renfro The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014. Despite all the protests about Crimea, the Donbass invasion using asymmetric tactics with Putin out outright denying responsability, Ukraine is a vital interest for Putin, and he would have been willing to confront America and Nato there because it is his home ground and advantage. But Russia is powerful enough to; Putin only went into Syria after Obama decided not to overthrow Assad. No one particularly cares about Syria and neither do they care about the Kurds (despite them having as good a case as the Palestinians to be given a state) and that is why jumped up Turkey can get away with invading Syria and attacking Kurds, just like they INVADED Cyprus.

This whole thing is probably a a storm in a teacup, but if Turkey gets into trouble they know, because they were already told very clearly over Cyprus, that if they play Lone Ranger, Nato does not have their back. Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view. It is begining to experience delusions of its own importance.

Art , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:41 pm GMT
@renfro It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey loose to do that job.

Here is a very good video – Putin being interviewed. They asked him hard questions. He came across as being very rational.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qxPepA-Jwr8?feature=oembed

Maybe between Trump and Putin things can work out in Syria?

paranoid goy , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 6:43 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen People! The internet is there for you to verify/debunk any statement you question. Running a website is a lot of work, why don't you guys collect the information you demand from Mr. Unz, and share with us?
Or are you looking at others to supply you with ready-made opinions?
Bragadocious , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:44 pm GMT
@anon Yeah, I'm misquoting, you utter imbecile.
Bragadocious , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:49 pm GMT
Ok.

Maybe you should explain how that comment's relevant to anything.

Proud_Srbin , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:51 pm GMT
@onebornfree Thanks for the link about Mr.Bourne and you correct about his statement applying to ALL states.
They are more like progressive, merciful and humanitarian slave owners.
Be free
anonymous [299] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:55 pm GMT
@renfro

WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.

How?

Did Hillary become an honorary member of the Saudi royal family, or just prostitute the US State Dept to make sure the guns were delivered on time?

anonymous [348] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:58 pm GMT
I wonder why the "high IQ" westerners have never deemed it fit to study their undeniable mass psychopathy.

If they were indeed as smart as claimed, they would begin to admit it, and given the claim to their innate highly civilised humanitarian inclinations *cough* , they would come to the conclusion that this world needs less of their cursed kind.

Since that is not going to happen, I guess nature has its way

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:59 pm GMT
@renfro How?
c matt , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Obama's pre-political life

To be fair, I don't know if Obama ever HAD a pre-political life. He seems to be a creation ex publicae.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:12 pm GMT
@Rev. Spooner The point he makes is extremely vague. No specificity. None. Yet 10's of thousands are dead. Ok, how about some evidence.
Why don't you go back to kindergarten, Rev?
renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMT
@Sean

It is begining to experience delusions of its own importance.

I would say Israel is beginning to experience the fallacy of its own importance.

What you clearly don't get is that ..kowtowing to the US as the ME superpower and enforcer is declining.

The rules are out the window, the ways of wars have changed, alliances are temporary, power is fluid, hyenas can eat elephants .

Israel will not be able to navigate this.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMT
@paranoid goy He makes a claim. Where is the journalistic integrity to back it up?
9/11 Inside job , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:15 pm GMT
@SafeNow The support of the public for the military derives from constant and pervasive propaganda particularly through movies and TV shows , David Sirota calls it the "Military Entertainment
Complex".
Zero Hedge : " Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon , CIA & NSA ".
steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:29 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read I was making a rhetorical point. I don't think the U.S. can decouple from the Middle East.
I do, however, think that Trump wants value for blood and treasure.

Long-term, America simply lacks the financial strength to continue to project power. The MIC costs the U.S. a tremendous amount of money. Budget to the MIC will continue to be slashed over time. The Deep State in the U.S. will contract simply due to financial realities.
Israel will be less and less of a priority.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.

Z-man , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:37 pm GMT
@Whitewolf Yes, lack of talent and totall inane radical left wing proposals whiped up by the AOC wing and swallowed by all the candidates 'hook, line and stinker '.
Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:39 pm GMT
@OscarWildeLoveChild After JFK's assassination, every successive president is/was shown a film clip of JFK's head exploding from an angle nobody's ever seen.

It doesn't matter what party they're from; they'll tow TPTB's line. All of them.

US Foreign Policy = Occupied Palestine Foreign Policy.

That's all that's wrong with US foreign policies in a nutshell.

Curmudgeon , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:40 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Whether he or his father served is irrelevant. Carter was in the Naval Academy, Reagan and Bush 43 were in the reserves. Clinton had none and neither did Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, or Wilson.
What is telling, is the "alleged bone spurs", and "Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf".
An allegation is an unproven accusation. What Giraldi is stating, is that Trump's physician falsified records. You think old man Trump sent Donnie for a megadollar military academy education so he could avoid the military?
As for Drumpf, I was acquainted with a couple of Schmidts who became Smith, a Bryjolfson who became Byron, a Pachkowski who became Berry and, no one says Roosevelt's name was changed from Rosenfeld. The snide commentary doesn't help.
I have said all along, that there is a lot not to like about Trump, but let's keep it in the realm of reality. Whether he wants to end the stupid wars or not, he will never be allowed to, as long as Giraldi's old employer is in business and making up non-existent bullshit "threats to American interests", whatever they are.
anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:43 pm GMT
@Sean "Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view"

Israel is known to puff and bluff . It is grandiose polemic or rabid canine barking. It was not exposed by the west . But the west now knows it ,thanks to Hizbullah

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:48 pm GMT
It is difficult to understand nato secretary Stultemberg , it must be his thick swedish accent . I suppose he does not like turkish music

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YnR0VqDkjuA?feature=oembed

https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5isjGfHa4E?feature=oembed

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:55 pm GMT
@anon Getting women to work had nothing to do with their 'liberation.'

Even though my mom had her own [private] school, my dad's salary was enough to provide for all 5 of us, go on annual holidays abroad and put three kids through college, loan-free.

To TPTB, it's better to tax 2 people instead of 1.

To them it's just a number game, like the 'Torches of Freedom' gambit, all spiel, smoke and mirrors, to fool us gullible idiots into believing we do have a say

We should really start to use our guns and rifles to free the country and rid it of the rot that's smothering it.

Oh, look, another Cartra$$hian selfie butt shot on Instagram!!!!!!

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:00 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read The Easter Bunny isn't real?

Dang!

I thought the youngster was raped by Epstain.

Hence his egg-shaped penis .

barr , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:07 pm GMT
It's very old habit.Very much ingrained . It is also generational . Increasingly and suddenly religious also as the feckless toothless Evangelicals are rooting for 1 second fame .

But here is a short chronology–

1 Plans for mayhem in Syria have been on the imperial table since the 1950s (Operation Straggle).

2 US general Wesley Clark gave the game away years ago when he revealed US intentions in the Middle East after 9/11: seven countries were to be invaded

3 Seymour Hersh gave the game away too in his 2007 New Yorker article: "The Redirection". In this piece he revealed how the US were hooking up once again with the Saudi/Sunni fundamentalists in and around Syria.
4 France's ex-foreign minister Roland Dumas also gave the game away when he revealed that the British State (a definite CIA asset) was preparing for a war on Syria two years before the start of the Syrian Holocaust in 2011.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/31/homage-to-syria-a/

"This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June, "goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/11/the-biggest-lie/

As we recently learned from former French Foreign Minister Dumas, it was also about that time, that actors in the United Kingdom began planning the subversion of Syria with the help of "rebels"' (Christof Lehmann, Interview with Route Magazine)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/12/my-moneys-on-putin/

Between 2006 to 2010, the US spent 12 million dollars in order to support and instigate demonstrations and propaganda against the Syrian government. 6,3 million dollars was funneled to the Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian dissident organization based in London. The Movement operated the Barada satellite channel

https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/17/the-dirty-politics-behind-the-syrian-conflict/

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:20 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Quote: "America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "

Reply: Kindly allow me to correct your statement.

"America/Israel have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "

Russia has a wet entrance into the Med via Syria.

Perhaps you've dozed off a bit over the past few years, but Russia has been destroying and killing the FUKZUIS 'war' machine goons in Syria [aka the takfiri terrorist].

They're assisting in getting the country back [on its feet] as a whole again.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT
@anon I'll keep it short. You can find the beginnings back in the 2012 coverage.

In 2012 Saudi sent Saudi Prince Bandar to Syria to be in charge of helping Syrian rebels bring down Assad, an ally of Riyadh's biggest regional rival Iran.
They were originally created, set up and armed and financed by Saudi.
The Saudis were then joined by Israel and Qatari and finally by the US under Obama.

A new twist appeared in the Saudi rebels war with Assad when ISI appeared and joined the fight.
This scared Saudi shitless as they thought this ISI version of ALQ might be a threat to them and lead to an invasion of Saudi as ALQ always saw it as a' westernerized' Saudi.
Everyone doubled down on both fighting Assad and fighting ISI ..which was a FUBAR if there ever was one.

Then enter the proxies, the Kurds, the PPK terrorist group all fighting for their own agendas within and under cover of the original war on Assad.

What could possibility go wrong in all this? LOL

Then enter Russia. Which gave some pause to the US in how far they wanted to go to throw Assad out for Saudi and Israel and open a gateway to get Iran.
So now we are headed to the ending of the Saud and others Syrian adventure which is probably best expressed by the fable of the fox and his shadow.

"A fox arose in the morning and saw his large shadow cast in the morning sun and said " I will have a camel for lunch today'. The fox hunted all day for the camel without success. As he paused in the afternoon setting sun he saw his shadow was much smaller and said "A mouse will do after all."

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:44 pm GMT
@anonymous Quote: " sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world.."

Reply: Yet here you are

anonymous [299] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:48 pm GMT
@Daniel Rich

In 1992, Alexandra Zapruder began to collect diaries written by children during the Holocaust. These diaries speak eloquently of both hope and despair.

[Alexandra said:] "Anne Frank's diary was the first diary that was published. And her voice was so powerful that it captured the voices of all the children and all the people who had been killed. That's the way it's framed. And that by reading her diary and sort of taking her into our hearts, we could redeem her life. . . ." [US Holocaust Memorial Museum https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/alexandra-zapruder ]

Alexandra Zapruder is the author of Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film.
Her grandfather was Abraham Zapruder, who took a twenty-six second home movie of President John F. Kennedy's assassination[1] -- now known as the Zapruder film.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Zapruder ]

Jon Baptist , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
Here is another article found at American Herald Tribune where Phil Giraldi also often has articles posted.

The US Isn't Serious about Leaving Syria at All -David Macilwain
https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/syria-crisis/3575-the-us-isnt-serious.html

From a strategic point of view it is very noteworthy to observe that Kurdish troops are fully positioned east of the Euphrates River. The Kurds are allies of Israel and a vital proxy implemented to fracture Syria along the lines envisioned for Greater Israel (Oded Yinon Plan).

It is perceived that Russia is an ally of Syria. However, Putin has not prevented Kurdish troops from establishing themselves firmly within Syrian territory.

Israel along with their diaspora will never relent until their abomination of "Eretz Yisrael" is achieved. It's not an accident that the ISIS flag is marked "All Jew."

9/11 Inside job , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:03 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke Washingtonsblog : " Balkanizing the Middle East – The real goal of America and Israel : shatter Iraq and Syria into many small pieces "
Thomas Harrington : " One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet "
Sanchez : " Plan B is to Balkanize Israel is endorsing its plan B for Syria just when its enemies are making it clear that its plan A (Assad must go) is not happening anytime soon ."
Voltara , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:06 pm GMT
The US watching while Syria and Turkey start shooting at each other is something new. For decades the US has run towards conflict in the region
renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:24 pm GMT
Former AIPAC officials launch political action committee to direct funds to pro-Israel candidates
https://www.jweekly.com/2019/03/19/former-aipac-officials-launch-political-action-committee-to-direct-funds-to-pro-israel-candidates/

Pro-Israel America launched Tuesday endorsing 27 candidates -- 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans. All have long histories of working with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to advance the brand of pro-Israel legislation it favors. Its endorsements on its website praise the named lawmakers for their actions favoring the legislative agenda closely identified with the lobby: funding for Israel's defense, sanctions on Iran and its regional proxies, and bills that seek to counter the boycott Israel movement.

They include Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del.; Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the minority leader; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, that committee's ranking Republican.

here are all of them listed .make sure you don't vote for one:

https://proisraelamerica.org/endorsements-2020/

anon [123] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@barr Blaming Saudi or Turkey or UAE has possibly some validity but as far as far the effect of the independent move by any of them is concerned , it has less than zero effect on Syria on its own.

It is like a hypothetical scenario where Florida and Alabama are independent countries . Rest of America is splintered into 50 different states and Canada is trying to get rid of Cuban regime for 50 years and only in last 5 years Florida and Alabama have joined the scheme under dubious circumstances of pressure bribery and blackmail.

Art , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
Isn't "regime change wars" a mealy-mouthed term? Isn't it time to call a spade a spade?

Why are we using that benign term, for something so destructive of America's future?

Que bono – who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of America – AIPAC.

Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term – "AIPAC Wars?"

These wars and crushing national sanctions against others, all come from AIPAC.

Our elected congressmen and senators are almost all AIPAC such-ups. Let's put it in their face with a factual term.

AIPAC Wars

anon [415] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:40 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke Israel was more powerful and also more favorite of the west across ideological drive until 2003
It is not a normal country . Somewhere that guilt and remorse of stealing and killing have left a mark on its psyche . It doesn't know how to settle and be normal

It doesn't know the meaning of the power, advantage or gain . The paranoia drives to more dangerous world of fear and insecurity . It can't rest . Even if it is left alone, he talks to itself and bangs it head against wall . Recent election is the manifestation of more madness . It's begging jaunt to Russia and screaming through US media show how badly weakened the country is.

The countries that bow to Israel – UK, USA, Egypt, Saudi are finding themselves also badly weakened ,

A seed was planted in 2006 in Lebanon . That tree is growing taller and establishing roots , Israel will be a shrub hiding in the shadow of that tree in a few years time.
Soviet and Russia were both almost destroyed by Jews . Now they look for the Russian shadow to hide .

Anonymous Snanonymous , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:43 pm GMT
@Anon You don't say!
Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT
@renfro A pack of lions can bring down an adult elephant at night when they have the advantage, but they are careful not to choose a really big strong one. Russia is fighting in the Ukraine its traditional heartland and what H. Mackinder called the Heartland of the World Island. A victory in Syria that only came because Obama chose to not crush Assad with a couple of days of air raids is hardly evidence of the Empire falling.

The real meaning of Trump is the facing of the threat from China, and if the neocons want to play games in the Middle East so what? There is a fight coming with China and it is a match for the West led by giant Bull Elephant America, Backward ME shitholes all together could not take down America in a thousand years.

Republic , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:53 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger It is very nice to see a video from RT in Arabic showing the very rapid evacuation of a US base in Syria:

Hope to see many more in the future

anon [414] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMT
And what were the Kurds in Iraq called?
Didn't Saddam use some type of gas on them and that's why we were siding with them? Who told about the incubator babies, maybe some other terrorist group?
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
@renfro Mmmm, okay, you must have meant something like 'organized shooting' when you said, "SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR." Sorry I bit on false advertising.

As you see from 'barr' at #119 above, your starting point is months, years, even decades too late. For a fact (I've met some of the Syrians who met with Robert Ford in Damascus, now here and still lobbying for regime-change), the US was meddling, encouraging, prompting the anti-Assadists well before the 2011 demonstrations.

EliteCommInc. , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:04 pm GMT
laughing.

We shall see.

jsinton , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:07 pm GMT
It's their back yard, let them figure out where the property line goes. Just get out. Don't argue with that.
Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:19 pm GMT
@Daniel Rich Putin is not the nice guy we have been told he is. He is in Syria for a reason, and that is not simply because he wants Syria returned to al-Assad. Syria is only one cog in the wheel. World wide Communism marches on, if you hadn't noticed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=4sKxkY0Tz5s
Z-man , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:23 pm GMT
@Anon Stoltenberg-Globalist tool and a moron.
Sick of Orcs , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:26 pm GMT
Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright citizenship' and then done nothing about it?

A: Every time.

Commentator Mike , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:43 pm GMT

rapid evacuation of a US base in Syria

LOL. My favourite rapid US evacuation was the CIA flying off the roof of the Saigon Embassy while the Viet Kong were busting in through the door and running up the stairs.

A123 , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:44 pm GMT
@Art

who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of America – AIPAC. Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term – "AIPAC Wars?"

Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist movement.

Soros intentionally orchestrated the ultra-weak, time limited JCPOA treaty to create a nuclear arms race among Iran, SA, Turkey, and possibly other MENA nations. That way he and his buddies with MIC investments could profit by selling weapons to all sides.

So let's put in everyone's face with a factual term

SOROS Wars

PEACE

HEREDOT , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Z-man Stoltenberg jewish whore is a bastard.
A123 , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Sick of Orcs

Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright citizenship' and then done nothing about it?

A: Every time.

If Trump drives too hard, too early and the case arrives at the Supreme Court while it is split 5-4 in favor of 'birthright citizenship' Is that a win? Or, a loss?

There is a huge difference between 'failed action' and 'successful action'.

Given the proven hostility of the deep state establishment, it makes a great deal of sense to lay groundwork now (via tweets), but only launch the correct constitutional action once the courts are prepared to support it.

PEACE

ChuckOrloski , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT
With class, Philip Giraldi amused me by his article's mere title, "Trump wants to end the "Stupid Wars?"

Oh yea! Thanks, Phil , & please continue with offering dashes of intelligent, dissident, & unflappable humor. Haha. For example, "Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs at Normandy, they were undoubtedly on the German side."

(Zigh) The insatiable global tag team, M.I.C. and The Land of Bilk & Money , want "Big Time" and more stupidly unnecessary & immoral wars. (Zigh) One sure path to a 2nd term for President Bonespur is for him to get off the "low energy" Turkey/Syria skirmish, & get on with real war against Iran , for Israel.

Thanks, Phil! Fyi, I think Senator Lindsey Graham wants to get Bolton back in The Blue & White House, and sanction Camp Mar a Lago.

P.S.: For all commenters assembled here, linked below is Stephen Colbert's satiric covering of President Drumpf's having followed Israel's yonder (fallen) , and establishing a US Space Force Command! To that, Colbert quipped, "Trump can not join it because of his galactic bonespur."

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:23 pm GMT
@anon Well would you like to go baaaaaccccckkkk all the way to the failed US CIA coup attempt in Syria in 1957 ?

If so, do it yourself .I don't feel like typing out a whole history book just for you to jerk off on about how bad the US is..

Robjil , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:26 pm GMT
@9/11 Inside job Seven Nations to Destroy for the nine eleven false flag. Wesley Clark mentioned the seven – Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.

Seven Nations to Destroy for Yahweh's Israel – Deut. 7:1-2 – Tanakh/OT.

Iraq 2003 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces

Libya 2011 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces

How four other nations on the list that were destroyed.

Somalia –

Since 2006 it has been a mess with Israel/US Al-Qaeda running the show.

Bizarre article about US/Israel terrorists "worried" about the environment.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4310799/al-shabab-plastic-ban-somalia-al-qaeda/

Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabab has reportedly announced a ban on the use of single-use plastic bags in territories under its control.

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization, which has been blamed for thousands of deaths since its inception in 2006, dubbed plastic a "serious threat to the well-being of both humans and animals," the BBC reported, citing Al-Shabab's radio station Radio Andalus.

It even mentions that Osama Bin Laden, the puppet of Israel/US, was "worried" about the environment too. It makes one wonder if this Climate Change thing and Imperialism terror are connected.

Bin Laden wrote that Americans needed to save Obama from corporate and other nefarious influences to empower him to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny."

He added that the world would be better off fighting climate change than waging what he claimed was a war against Islam.

Sudan

Divided in two in 2011. Israel/US is pushing for more divisions.

https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article64102

Asked about his demand for protection during his meeting with Putin, al-Bashir said we wanted to highlight "the big U.S. pressure and conspiracy" on Sudan in Darfur crisis and the huge pressure exerted on his government to separate the South Sudan.

"Now we have information that the American quest is to divide the Sudan into five countries If we do not find protection and security. America took the world leadership and devastated the Arab world. (See) what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Iraq, what happened in Syria, what happened in Yemen and what happened in Sudan," said al-Bashir.

Lebanon

Invaded by Israel in the summer of 2006. It made a mess out of Lebanon. Israel had a lot of trouble fighting off Hezbollah. This is the reason that Israel fears going into Lebanon again. After this adventure, Golems like US and its friends are the go to for Israel's war adventures.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180712-remembering-israels-2006-war-on-lebanon/

Initially, both Israel and Hezbollah claimed victory in the war, with Nasrallah declaring that Hezbollah had achieved a "divine, historic and strategic victory". Some international observers saw the fact that Hezbollah had survived the Israeli assault, despite the asymmetrical power balance, as a PR victory for the group. According to Reuters, the Lebanese government estimated direct war damage at $2.8 billion, and lost output and income for 2006 at $2.2 billion. The economy also shrank five per cent, with tourism effectively halted.

Six of the seven were messed up, destroyed. It leaves only Iran left. Iran is in the "news" everyday for this reason.

anonymous [403] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:31 pm GMT
Trump is flawed, ok then, but we had Clinton as the alternative. She would have been ten times worse so what choice did the American people have? He's rolling up the Obama-Clinton project in Syria which was a huge atrocity. Can you imagine the bloodbath that would have ensued had the US backed jihadi cannon fodder actually succeeded in overthrowing Assad? It's not a one man show and Trump has to go along with much of what has been taking place. Much of this has been imposed upon the American people as well as on Trump.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting for so long. But yet the mighty Turks are going to defeat the Kurds of Syria even as they can't defeat the ones living in their own country? Perhaps they'll take on the inferior Syrian army at the same time. After all, they're a big NATO ally with lots of weapons to dump on lightly armed foes. Reality is they haven't fought anyone in a hundred years so who knows how well they'd do.
Quit calling Afghanistan a "war". It's an occupation with anti-guerilla operations going on. Apparently they don't like being occupied so they fight on.
Trump's name is Trump, not Drumpf. Or do we now refer to people by the family name used a hundred years ago, or why not five hundred years ago?
Mark Hunter , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMT
Excerpt from
"Trump Mistake: Allowing Turkish Invasion of Northern Syria"
by Joel Skousen (there is no direct link to it but it is/was on his website World Affairs Brief ):

This week in a telephone conversation with Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan he [President Trump] assented to Erdogan's demand from over a year ago to let them enter Turkey and establish a buffer zone where Turkey can resettle the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees that have burdened Turkey since the beginning of the US-created terror attacks on Syria. But as part of that strategy, and without emphasizing that to Trump, Erdogan intends to drive out or destroy the Syrian Kurds which occupy northern Syria. Erdogan calls them terrorists because the US-backed YPG Kurds are affiliated with the homegrown Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which represents about 20% of the Turkish population, and which has been fighting for independence from Turkey. So while the Turkish Foreign Minister plays lip service to Syrian sovereignty, Turkey has already begun the invasion and occupation of northern Syria. While Trump claims he is fulfilling a campaign promise to remove troops from Syria, this isn't really a pullout at all since only two observation posts in the path of the Turkish invasion are pulling out. There are thousands of other US troops elsewhere in Syria protecting US-backed terrorist rebels.

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read H.E. Mr. Putin has clearly stated it's up to the Syrian population to choose who leads them, not him.

Tartus has a port Russia needs and uses.

Khmeimim Air Base is also needed and used by the Russian AF.

These are military strategic assets and used to counter balance the FUKZUS 'war' machine's bases dotted around the ME region. Of course, those you don't mention.

The Red Menace.

I get it.

ploni almoni , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:05 am GMT
No president actually controls the government, least of all Trump. The Deep State controls the government. Trump is a an interloper. Why does one have to remind the author of this elementary fact? The threat to destroy the economy of Turkey was made by Stephen Israel Mnuchin. Trump had to make noises as if it was his "decision" when in fact he had nothing to do with it. What Trump wants to do, and what he can do, are entirely different things. And anyone who has anything to do with Americans knows what happened to all the previous allies. Mnuchin has clued in those Turks who may have had illusions.
Art , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:08 am GMT
@A123 Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist movement.

Gee -- never heard of ASPAC?????

anon [123] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:13 am GMT
@renfro very bad US is indeed . It continues to sabotage ,cast evil eye,try to strangle ,and continue to punish Cuba . That long history is really long punctuated by half hearted Obama attempt .
Once empire decided a project,it becomes , NASA , Present Danger , PNAC or NED . The project goes on losing the aim . The project goes on because the vested interest ,employees,pensioner,glory seeking men, arm merchant, politicians and expatriate find means to rake up profit and launder dishonest living into honest lifestyle . Name is changed when it suits the project . Aim is not lost. It becomes the final destination . It never stops energegizing the dishonest, looter,profit seekers, and opportunists . Often the brains that gather under the flag are not that intelligent or ideologically certain.
Money and corruption drive them.
Zumbuddi , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:31 am GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Later
Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:49 am GMT
@Agent76

It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.

Going broke happens slowly at first, then quickly. The Western cities are going broke, as are those in the Third World. Nothing else changes peoples minds like having their basic income reduced or eliminated.

All the promises (including self-governmement and freedom and equality) have turned out to be lies, smoke. Computers, which were supposed to be a seamless adjunct to human existence, a source of education and information, and a liberation from the bad parts of part of reality, have turned into (poor but cheap) entertainment, gossip, a drug substitute, and a propaganda source. The result is shock and horror, sometimes followed by violent psychosis [1] (e.g. antifa).

Once again, I recommend "Marat/Sade"

(1967). It gives you a feel for what a revolution is like once the revolution gets going. Note the movie's final scene, which almost breaks the "fourth wall" convention. It was made during our last revolution, and the director wanted to record the spirit of what he had seen.

Counterinsurgency

Counterinusurgency

1] https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/what-is-psychosis

nsa , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:51 am GMT
@Phibbs "jew and Amelikan supported terrorists inside Syria"
They call them Joohadis for a reason.
ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:53 am GMT
@Art I like it, very catchy, original, Art said: "AIPAC Wars."

Oh yea, Art, thanks, and a "spade is a spade" when one manages to get the hell out of the AIPAC shade.

Unfortunately tonight, millions of process estranged Amerikan Democrat & GOP voters are now "beamed up" to an AIPAC-approved strange & hostile telescreen's DebateLand.

(Zigh) Across aisle, including a possible Beaming Bloomberg entry, , "winnable" 2020 presidential nomination contestants shall pick & choose, finagle & sell, an either/or USrael foreign policy posture, as regrettably follows:
1.) The Zio-Democrat War to end the deplorable Trump's stupid call to end all Amerika's endless Wars just for the paltry good of gradually achieving Greater Israel's unending endgame. or,
2.) The Zio-GOP's War to end all Democrat Party hopefuls' stupid call to end all US endless wars just because a lefty AIPAC-Branch put an Israel Labor Party "bug in their ear" about having lowly dead-ender 'Merikan workers fucking pay for it.

Thanks again, Art, and "Good night America."*

* Phil Giraldi inhabits Sinatra's City That Never Sleeps.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:57 am GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen

The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.

Agree.

And the financial debt must be augmented by degradation of physical infrastructure (especially in cities and city support infrastructure) and the degradation of human capital by importation of low IQ populations and effective destruction of education. And the capital misallocation that continues today.

The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global trade will end with it.

Counterinsurgency

Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:07 am GMT
@anonymous

The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting for so long.

Turkish birth rate low (lower in cities than in hinterlands), Kurdish birth rate high. Kurds replace Turks in a few decades. Kurds don't follow Turkish cultural norms, nor Turks follow Kurdish. Kurds don't want to wait a few decades, want power _now_ (c.f. Black Power and Whiteness in USA). Kurds use destructive commando raides ("terrorism") to get power now. Turks don't like that, respond with same.

Long term: demography wins barring very large change.

Please correct parts of this that are wrong. I'm not following this conflict closely.

Counterinsurgency

geokat62 , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:16 am GMT
Latest TruNews godcast, E. Michael Jones: The Deception Facing the Church by Christian Zionism

YT Description:

Today on TruNews, Dr. E. Michael Jones joins us to talk about the influence of modern Christian Zionism upon the American Church, and how that has led to a dramatic radicalization of US foreign policy in favor of one nation, Israel.

Prof. Jones takes the deluded xian Zionists to task, calling them "useful idiots." My favourite passage starts @ 18:58:

.. which means you got a lot of Christians who don't understand the gospel. Because there are plenty of Christians out there who are Christian Zionists. It's a simple fact of life. I think it can be traced to Jewish influence in our culture Jewish influence over the publishing industry, for example. How did the Scofield Bible end up being published by Oxford University Press? Because it's a great scholarly work? No! Because of people like Mr. Untermeyer pulled strings. This is the way this happened. It's the biggest issue facing American politics, right now. The role that Zionism is playing right now, in corrupting the government of the United States, in diverting American resources into a quagmire in the Middle East, which doesn't serve the interests of the American people at all and is all done in the name of Israel.

DESERT FOX , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:50 am GMT
@geokat62 Watched trunews.com tonight and agree with Dr. Jones.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:51 am GMT
@renfro LOL. You're the one with the hard-on to dump it all on the Saudis, IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry to call your bluff, NOT.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:07 am GMT
@Counterinsurgency I'm kind of having a mental barrier with this now.
There is a guy in Vancouver who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, Jensen I believe (he wrote to the Bank of Canada and a list of people in 2006). He argues that the fundamentals are even worse now due to the failure to finance these foreign adventures and other factors (expenditures on domestic expenses not matching tax income, etc.).

I haven't even taken the time to consider the knock on effects. Mentally, I've been more focused on having to sit through the screaming match that is going to occur over who is to blame and the lying that will go on with respect to needing to move to a sound money system but having bankers et al try to argue for a rollover into a new currency. It is going to be ugly, I can feel it. It will provide an opportunity for some serious structural change and constitutional amendments. A whole host of reforms are open when you have a debt induced currency collapse. I just know it could be really ugly and I've been dreading thinking through how this will play out. I keep thinking that I never expected to live in a time like this; I think back to being a teenager during the Reagan years and, despite the Cold War-nuclear war scenario hanging over our heads, it seemed a much more optimistic time.
I am not optimistic. I'm very worried.

IllyaK , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Chump will do as is his wont: fold like the numbskull Jew-controlled POS assclown he is.
geokat62 , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:15 am GMT ivan , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:19 am GMT
@Robjil Somalia under a failing Siad Barre regime was going to the dogs with various warlords cannibalising each other. Then the Americans were told in the flush of victory in the Gulf in 1991, that they should just kick the door in to save the dumb Muslims. It is not the fault of the late senior Bush that Somalia is compounded of that specimen of humanity that emerges like clockwork when African tribalism is married to Islamic fanaticism (but is there any other kind?) . The Americans were minding their own business, but were told that it was the humanitarian thing (and furthermore quite cheap to boot) to do at little cost to themselves to save Muslim chillun'.

Afghanistan was no better : The idiot, the younger George Bush instead of bombing the the hell out of Al-Queda and leaving was instead misled by mystagogues of various hues, including his own self into sinking lives and treasure in a vain attempt to civilise the Afghans.

The truth is the further you keep away from Muslims, the better it is for your health and sanity, notwithstanding the parallel machinations of various neocohens, for Islam is a pernicious religion that breeds insanity, intolerance and bloodshed all by itself.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:29 am GMT
E. Michael Jones: a very wise man. He believes in free speech and is hated by Jews who, of course, label him an 'anti-semite'. I would argue they are 'truth averse' fanatical maniacs.
He makes a good case that 'Christian Zionism' is a heresy. I don't believe he uses that term BUT I do.
It's just another bubbling that is bursting.
What will they do besides scream and throw tantrums? Is it time for another false flag 911 type event?
What the media never really exposed was how Syria, and every Middle East country that has been attacked by the DeepStateZio monster, has seen the oldest Christian communities on the planet under attack. Strange pattern. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, initiated by the British alliance with the Wahabi's and the Saud Family and furthered by the CIA/Mossad in Afghanistan, has corresponded with the destruction and diasporas of the world's oldest Christian communites.
Somehow, Europe has ended up with a bunch of Muslims when these Christians would have fit into their societies much better.
I think that none of this just 'happened'. I strongly suspect that if we were to kick over some rocks we would find the usual suspects: the Khazar/Black Nobility Alliance.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:29 am GMT
@renfro How?????????????????????????????????????????
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I do think it was Mc Cain.
Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care of payroll.
( I am not entirely confident but there is a possibility that CIA did channel some profits from Afghanistan poppy fields for this noble cause.
Daniel Rich , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:26 am GMT
@Counterinsurgency Quote: "The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global trade will end with it."

Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will not nosedive along with it.

Too much a stake for the multinationals [not necessary a good thing, but alas].

Stan , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:27 am GMT
@Sean Hasbarats are repugnant.
Wally , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:54 am GMT
@Bragadocious Has Giraldi ever stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?

I thought not.

Trump over the alternatives any day.

Justsaying , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:59 am GMT

Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.

It's very challenging to come up with any foreign policy initiatives that do not serve Zionist Israel's interests, first and foremost. Israeli interests have defined American foreign policy objectives in the ME for much of the post-WWII era. Not at Israel's behest, but on Israel's instructions and demands via pro-Zionist lobbies and the infestation of the Administration with Israel First officials, Israeli citizens and spies. Add to that the Israel First MSM.

anon [123] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 4:04 am GMT
@ivan Is it methamphetamine instead of regular fentanyl ? Anyway, this logic and perverted emotion make sense to you. Unfortunately it will reinforce your decision to switch . Business will sure be coming back from China to rural America.
renfro , says: October 16, 2019 at 4:23 am GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care of payroll.

The Saudis were just the money ..there were no Saudi fighters in Syria.

Robert Whatever , says: October 16, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
I voted for Trump. But maybe the people who said Trump has no core values were right all along?
Sick of Orcs , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:58 am GMT
@A123 I respectfully disagree on this particular matter. There is no US law bestowing birthright citizenship. All that would change is recognition of what the law really says.

Trump waiting to win another 4 (still a gamble) AND for RBG's animatronics to fizzle out AND for her replacement to not be another skunk like Roberts is foolish.

There is no underwater 38th-dimensional quantum chess being played here, and we still have no wall.

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 6:32 am GMT
Oops, I posted this under another writer. (Small wonder I got no answer.) Since then, someone else remarked that at the end of WWI this land (northern Syria) was taken from Turkey. So this is a long grievance, with deep sense of entitlement.

Rurik wrote, " .the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "

Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.


Maybe Phil can enlighten us:

We know that Robert Ford, US Embassador to Syria, was meeting privately with Syrian "civil society" activists before the 2011 demonstrations.
-- Was Erdogan/Turkey also involved in infiltrating, inflaming those anti-Assad elements?
-- How did Turkey involvement begin?
-- Was the CIA actively involved in Syria before the fall of Libya?

Thanks.

EliteCommInc. , says: October 16, 2019 at 7:04 am GMT
"I voted for Trump. But maybe the people who said Trump has no core values were right all along?"

There was no question that the president was going to be a situational leader.

jsigur , says: October 16, 2019 at 8:07 am GMT
C'mon guys.
Using prior military service as some sort of litmus test to the right to critique involvement and opinion sharing today plays to an audience mentality that encourages blind patriotism.
There really are no necessary wars these days as they are all being fought for the banker elite which holds no loyalty to country though it plays on ppl's ignorance to use such loyalties for propaganda purposes.
There is no justification for US troops to be all over the world as a banker mercenary force and this site acknowledges 911 was an Israeli- internationalist false flag which removes all justifications for the meddling in Israeli neighbor's internal affairs.
Tolerating this to get air time with magazines that lie for power is encouraging this negative behavior for personal advantage in a country and world striving to control the most minute areas of our lives.
Going along to get along only brings the eternal boot down of the forehead forever@!

The fact that none of these bickering forces are targeting Israel who always was the catalyst for the divisions there, is a huge clue that we and Israel are the problem causers primarily. Of course we need false flags to excite the population to support the fake war on terror within the US and Europe (as well as justify the reverse colonialism going on). Jews for hundreds of years have counted on stupid goyim to do the fighting but now that Israel is a supposed stand alone nation, that should be harder to accomplish but apparently total corporate media control keeps the truth hidden from 85% of the public.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:10 am GMT
@Daniel Rich

Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will not nosedive along with it.

I actually hadn't thought of that. Now that you point it out, of course the dollar trade will decrease. Negative interest rates are, in a way, saying that nobody wants US Dollars anymore, and trades that are not in US Dollars are being actively sought. The decrease will happen a bit before the USN becomes ineffective. And that will be hard on the multi-nationals, but I can't say I have much sympathy. They were firmly behind the move of Western manufacturing to East Asia – what did they think would happen?
But I do disagree over the assertion that global trade will remain about as it is.
The New Silk Road. Interesting topic.

Well, first of all it's a reasonable thing for the PRC to do. Historically, the Silk Road has paid off for China, at least in terms of precious metals, and being dependent on a single transportation mode for one's raw materials is strategically undesirable. It's a good move. It's also an attempt to realize McKinder's proposed making the World Island into a unified state[1].

But a couple of points:

a) New Silk Road is much more expensive than sea transport [2]. If sea lanes are cut off, China's raw materials costs increase by several times.
b) New Silk Road recapitulates the interaction of European empires of the 1800s through 1900s with ethnicities along the Silk Road. The Europeans were resented and eventually ejected. The Chinese are having similar problems.
China has loaned money to various nations which have then spent that money on immediate consumption and are attempting to repudiate the debt. The Chinese (who have no compunctions about debt repudiation through currency devaluation) are apparently taking over completion of the Silk Road facilities for which the natives can no longer pay (having spent the money on other things). Local rulers are saying that this makes the Chinese foreign invaders (on a very low level so far). Just like the Europeans.
Chinese society also does not mix well with either Islamic or African tribal society, yet the Silk Road crosses both cultural territories.
So far as I know, the Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal since the US evacuation has gone well. Last I heard, a few years back, Panama had started teaching Chinese in its public schools. Chinese operations in South and Meso America are increasing, however, and I know little about how they are going.

The nice thing about policed sea lanes is that shippers don't have to worry much about the natives. Piracy is and has been a problem, but so far not a serious one. New Silk Road goes overland, and that has (historically) always led to security problems with the locals, whoever the locals may be.

So: Let's suppose that the USN were to become ineffective. Only the part of the Silk Road guarded by the Russian Federation would remain secure. The rest would be subject to local raids and extortion from the local government. Note that raw materials costs would increase drastically for everybody (because of less shipping), so local governments and bandits would have motives for confiscating goods.

This would be especially the case in Africa, which is largely dependent on food imports. That conflict could become severe, as China is increasingly dependent on Africa for raw materials (as is the rest of the world).

In other words, sole reliance on the New Silk Road (should that ever be necessary) would be expensive in terms of shipping and in terms of security / warfare costs. China's bellicose policy is, IMHO, counterproductive. China should be positioning itself to police the sea lanes cooperatively but reluctantly with a declining USN, gradually assuming the mantle of worldwide protection of the sea lanes that China needs so badly. Current efforts to be able to interdict the sea lanes are not in the PRC's interest, as the PRC needs these sea lanes open. It's sort of like developing a hyperbomb to make the Sun go nova. Under what circumstances would you use such a device? Under what circumstances would China want to cease shipping by sea?

So, what's likely to happen? The USN will decline because it needs recapitalization due to age and a changing threat, and the US is instead devoting its income to debt repayment and immediate social stability expenditures. The PRC, which has never been a naval power, will still attempt to keep global trade alive. When that fails, the PRC will trade more with the Russian Federation It will also take what sea and land it has, make an expeditionary force out of it, and deploy it in some trading zones (possibly in countries that have resources China needs) rather than see its population starve and itself overthrown. That's the standard response from any H. Sap. political organization. Things will get very messy.

And please remember that I'm like the weatherman: I report, I don't cause.

Counterinsurgency

1] http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/geography/mackinders-heartland-theory-explained/42542

2] http://www.economicsdiscussion.net/articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-water-transport/2185

Sean , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:49 am GMT
@Stan Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state would weaken the West,
geokat62 , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:12 pm GMT
Israel: "It doesn't feel like my country anymore."

My favourite comment:

"Israelis need to learn be multicultural. Ask Barbara Spectre."

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:59 pm GMT
@Daniel Rich What part of BOTH the US and Russia are only there to serve their own interest don't people understand. My only point is Russia is not there out of the goodness of their hearts. People who claim Russia is fighting the globalist juggernaut and is only in Syria to "fight ISIS/ISL" and to make Syria "safe for Democracy" aren't seeing the big picture. Russia is working hand in hand with China to make sure America is reduced to a second rate global power. Assad has become nothing more than Putin's puppet on a string. Syria will need money for re-construction, thanks to Russia destroying much of their infrastructure, that money more than likely will come from China(China's version of "Economic Hit Men"). All the while, lurking in the back ground, that little shit stain known as Israel.

This report will present the reality of Russia's Syrian campaign. Russia launched air strikes on hospitals, water treatment plants, and mosques. Russia used cluster bombs. Russia almost exclusively targeted non-ISIS targets. These are the truths that Russia will not admit, and the truths that must be understood when negotiating with Russia as a potential partner.

https://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/distract-deceive-destroy/

It's all about the "Belt and Road Initiative". There are no good guy's in this mess, and the real losers in this conflict are the citizens of Syria. Russia is a main partner in "Globalization".

One of the main problems of the People's Republic is to connect the "Belt" with the "Road". For China it is crucial to be able to bypass the choke points represented by the straits that separate the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok) that, being controlled by the US, prevent the Chinese maritime power to fully develop. A first important asset in this sense is represented by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which connects by land Eastern China to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, in turn connected to the String of Pearls.

Why Syria?

In this perspective, Syria becomes a crucial junction within the BRI: a possible development of its transport and port infrastructures, properly connected with each other and with the Belt and Road Initiative, would allow China a further maritime outlet for its land trade and a formidable trade post in the Mediterranean. A further advantage is represented by the increased quantity of goods that China could deliver into the Mediterranean, overcoming the further bottleneck of the Suez Canal.

Syria also has at least two important factors that represent opportunities to be exploited by Beijing: the country's urgent need to obtain funds to be allocated to reconstruction and development and the simultaneous disengagement of the United States from the Middle East, an empty space not filled by the EU. Syria is therefore an extremely interested and receptive partner to the proposals of the Chinese government, which finds itself at the same time freed from any diplomatic controversy that could slow down its action.

http://mediterraneanaffairs.com/bri-china-syria-reconstruction/

A123 , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:05 pm GMT
@Sick of Orcs

we still have no wall.

We have wall building taking place. (1). However, Trump can only do so much rearranging within congressional appropriations.

Please, correctly lay the blame on Pelosi and Schumer. They are the ones who refuse to find national security.

PEACE
_______

(1) https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/04/defense-secretary-mark-esper-oks-diversion-of-3-6b-in-military-construction-funds-to-border-wall/

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:07 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency Many good points made in your comments.
A123 , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:12 pm GMT
@Art

Gee -- never heard of ASPAC?????

Gee -- Never heard of George Soros?

He and his cronies out spend AIPAC by at least 100:1. Why don't you care about the anti-Semitic Globalists' massive cash outlays?

PEACE

Abdul Alhazred , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:21 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger A very good analysis!

Here is a speech concerning what is the hardest thing he has to do as President!

and some other reactions of import

https://larouchepac.com/20191014/president-trump-kicks-over-chessboard-british-geopolitics

https://larouchepac.com/20191015/historical-sea-change-has-been-launched-president-trump

And the way forward to world peace .the Syria Template!

https://larouchepac.com/20191016/syria-template

Europe Nationalist , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for them eventually.
Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:49 pm GMT
@Abdul Alhazred Thank you for that video. I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said.

More on Trump by Shamir's recent article:

What is much worse for Israel, is Trump's intent to leave the region. There is a good chance you haven't seen relevant tweets of the President, for the MSM doomed to surround it by the wall of silence. That is what the President said while ordering withdrawal:

"Fighting between various groups that has been going on for hundreds of years. USA should never have been in Middle East. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending! The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers & military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE!"

Just for this recognition "GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY" and for this promise "The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending!" Trump deserves to be re-elected and remembered as the most courageous and independent US President since Richard Nixon.

His efforts on withdrawing from the Middle East remind of Nixon's hard struggle to leave Vietnam and to make peace with Russia and China. If he succeeds in this endeavour, he will be rewarded by the American people in 2020..

http://www.unz.com/ishamir/cautious-optimism-on-turks-and-kurds/

If he succeeds, then he sure will have my support!

One of the main instigators of the Syrian imbroglio – Saudi Arabia – had been beaten in Yemen and is no longer eager for battle; ditto Qatar and UAE. Europe is less keen on removing "bloody dictators" than it was. CIA, Jewish Lobby and Clintonite Democrats would keep Syria boiling, but mercifully they are not in full command in Washington. .

Thank God.

Peace.

Sick of Orcs , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMT
@A123 What is allegedly being built is the same worthless fence. The wall prototypes couldn't legally be used per a clause in one of the terrible spending bills hastily signed by "Master Negotiator" Trump.

Better than cacklin' cankles? Yes, but so is my last bowel movement.

Even if we got a real wall, Orangemeister wants legal gimmegrants in record numbers. We just can't effing win.

Don't you think Trump was a tad premature in announcing "Only I can fix," to all these problems?

A123 , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:26 pm GMT
@Europe Nationalist

Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for them eventually.

Every high value PRC project in Africa seems to come with as suspiciously large number of military age, ethnic Han Chinese staff.

The PRC colonization effort is informed by the lessons of former Euro colonies. They have built-in measures to make them very hard to displace. And, should they eventually be forced out, the locals will get nothing but destroyed and poisoned lands.

Republic , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT
@geokat62 Know more News with Adam News covers the Christian Zionist story. He is still on you tube.
Jones was banned from that platform recently. He can still be heard on bitchute as well as his own website, Culturewars.com
Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:48 pm GMT
@anon

the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "

Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.

I have a metric that I use.

If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is suspect, at best.

Insofar as Erdogan has been aligned with Israel and its interests and agendas (the destruction and carving up of Syria)- is the degree to which he has been a malefactor on the world's stage.

/

Vs. the degree to which he's opposed to Israel's nefarious agendas;

– he's demonstrated actual statesmanship.

So that's my metric. That's why generally I don't have to pour over the minutia of every action or issue with a fine tooth comb, rather I just ask, 'is this person or action aligned with Israel's agenda.. (genocide, theft, murder, hegemony, strife ), and the question always seems to answer itself!

Just consider the Obama regime. When I approved of what Obama was doing- peace with Iran- it was when he was in Israel's crosshairs.

When I disapproved of Obama's treasons, it was when his actions were perfectly aligned with Israel – destruction of Libya, destruction of Syria and so forth.

It really is a near perfect, if not perfect metric.

When Trump is betraying America and Americans, is when he's serving Israel – open borders, drones, sanctions on Iran and Russia and others..

When he's acting like an actual American president, in the service of this nation, is when he's in direct opposition to Israel's agenda – ending the Eternal Wars, making videos about dead American soldiers, firing Bolton, talking about nationalism at the UN..

I'm really sort of waiting for this test to ever fail, it's been so reliably perfect for so long.

So if you want to know if Erdogan is acting in good faith, just check to see if what he's doing pleases Israel, and you'll know all you need to know!

Is a Kurdish state a good thing?

Well, what does the 'metric' say?

Is Turkey's incursion into Syria a good thing?

Here, a mouthpiece of Zion posits 'no'.

The Turkish government is no longer interested in helping Syrians liberate themselves from Assad's murderous regime.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/turkeys-incursion-syria-making-things-better-or-worse

which indicates that it is a good thing!

We can't all be savvy to every nuanced action taken all over the globe. There are regional exigencies that we simply can't know about.

Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in places like Ukraine, or Syria?

But with my metric, so far, I've had a 100% success rate in determining the good actors and actions, from the bad.

ploni almoni , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:52 pm GMT
@ivan It is quite obvious that it is you and your meshpukha who are not civilized John of the Apocalypse.
ploni almoni , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@A123 It takes one to know one.
Abdul Alhazred , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:20 pm GMT
@Rurik Thanks!

The video is very powerful, and this video linked in this link features Trump's speaking with attendant images of the families of the soldiers and what they have to go through .because of the lies of the warmongers.

Yes Peace!

https://www.infowars.com/watch-the-most-powerful-and-tear-jerking-words-ever-spoken-by-trump/

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
@Rurik As Commander in Chief tRump wanted to kill Syria President Basher Assad for having gassed his own people & having to be restrained by his Generals, Amerikans now see another side to their president which Rurik observed on video & gushed: "I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said Thank God. Peace."

Am sincerely glad you're "happy," Rurik, that Trumpstein moved to shed some of his Adelson/Netantahu skin implants. Nonetheless, & I don't want to be a GOP Likud-Party pooper, but am sticking with Philip Giraldi's advisory to, "Let's see what he actually does."

At any rate, linked below (& fyr in ), is Brother Nathanael's latest video. In order to stave off our nation's descent into Greater Sodom & Gomorrah, it's understandable to me how Bro Nat prefers "The Chosen One" to continue as ZUS president over his uber-liberal & decadent Zio-Democrat opponents.

Thanks Rurik, and enjoy the good times of tRump's proclamation of an end to endless wars for Greater Israel while it lasts!

https://www.bitchute.com/video/55BgQc7QrSD4/

SolontoCroesus , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Sean

"Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the West . . . A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons"

Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US FP dysfunction.

According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise.

h/t Johnny Walker Read @138

vyshibala , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT
The wonderful context is, it's not up to Trump. It's not up to the US government. The world will squeeze the CIA regime out of Syria. Russian doctrine of coercion to peace works equally well on degenerate great powers, with the minor filip of face-saving subterfuge for routed US functionaries.

Lindsay Graham gets to shake his tiny fist ineffectually at a sneering NATO ally instead of shaking his tiny fist ineffectually at a nuclear power with overwhelming hypersonic nonballistic missile capability. Much safer.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:48 pm GMT
@Wally The only way to change this cast of filthy charACTORs we have running this country is to have a "NONE OF THE ABOVE" box located prominently at the bottom of every ballot. One I would take the time and effort needed to check.
jack daniels , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:17 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger Trump's problem is that he has very little support for his MAGA agenda in his own party. People like Lindsey Graham who support him here and there will not hesitate to turn on him if he takes positions that offend Sheldon Adelson. Trump's none-too-sophisticated, none-too-affluent base is opposed by the media, academe, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the FBI and CIA, and the Rainbow Coalition assemblage of minority voices. Even Fox News (apart from Tucker) opposes Trump's agenda even as it defends Trump against spurious charges of colluding with the Russians. For example, Hannity regularly charges the Democrats with being in league with Putin, in effect conceding that the Russians are evil enemies. Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.

At the end of the day, the 4D Chess view seems more right than wrong. While Trump's commitment to the right is both shallow and wavery, in the present setting he cannot do more than hold the enemy at bay and wait for reinforcements to show up. That means it's up to US, his supporters, to find ways to weigh in on his side. As the fascists used to say, a bundle of sticks can be strong even if the individual sticks are weak.

jack daniels , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:39 pm GMT
@Sean My question to you is: a confrontation between who or what and China? To the extent that America collapses into a post-Christian, post-European congeries of plutocrats and their commercial interests, such a confrontation has no clear shape. The evolving character of American society has been put on the table by the Trump/populist revolution, and the role of Jews in our cultural evolution is part of that even if it is taboo to discuss it. The issue over the Palestinians is the only way to challenge the successful assumption of moral carte blanche by the secular Jewish community, which Jewish thought leaders have parlayed into an effective assault on freedom of speech and assembly (particularly in Europe but also here), and a campaign to stigmatize whiteness, Christianity, and the nuclear family.

Conclusion: The issue of Palestine is a proxy for the larger issue of whether secular Judaism deserves its current status as moral hegemon. It is the only way to raise this issue that is not instantly dismissed as neo-Nazism.

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus SolontoCroesus wrote: "Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise."

To All commenters,

Above, when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.

When President Bonespur speaks, it pains to listen, & I can potentially become deceived.

Will likely get friendly fire from Rurik, but I truly wish he reads your comment & astutely watches the very informative linked Talpiot video. Hurts when I see good men (like him) gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.

Thanks for your patriotic servus, S2C!

P.S.: Behind D.C.'s Blue & White House curtain, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin licks his choppers in anticipation of effectual ZUS sanctions, & the Chinese communist government's finally granting Goldman Sachs Group permission to do "untethered" investment business" in the mainland; the largest consumer market on the planet.

Colin Wright , says: Website October 16, 2019 at 5:53 pm GMT
@Sean 'Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state would weaken the West,'

As usual you've being dishonest. You agree Israel is a 'shitty little country' -- but manage to insinuate we should continue to support it.

After all, we don't have to spend a penny to 'play Santa' to the Palestinians (as if we had nothing to do with their expulsion.). It's the Israelis we subsidize and protect, not the Palestinians.

In fact, we can help the Palestinians and save money too! Yank Israel off our tit and we get to have our cake and eat it too. The Palestinians get their home back, and we save billions every year. All we have to do is to stop funding their tormentors,

Colin Wright , says: Website October 16, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@Rurik 'I have a metric that I use.

If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is suspect, at best.'

It is always wrong to support Israel.

In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.

I voted for McCain because he wasn't black. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that I allowed some other consideration to seduce me into supporting Israel -- however trivially and as it turned out ineffectually.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency A quick history of Marquis de Sade for those who are unaware of the history of this perverted demon.
https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/10/the-marquis-de-sade-a-philosophical-godfather-of-the-new-underworld-order/
Tel LIE vised 911 evangeLIED , says: October 16, 2019 at 8:52 pm GMT
If you establish 911 was a fraud then subsequent war on terror is a fraud. The West will exhaust themselves waging war against Islam and the Muslims despite killing millions of people. They will dig their own graves and cast themselves in hell fire for eternal damnation for subscribing to Santa Claus lies and Jesus died for their evils by supporting the money changer's ideology for greater Israel project to usher in their Anti-Christ as their Messiah. Anti-Christ Dajjal will take them for a ride to hell. He will play them "By way of Deception" just as they are playing the rest of the world "By way of Deception wage wars." So how many of us are willing to sell our souls in exchange for the worldly gains and pay a penalty for eternal damnation?
Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:14 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski

when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.

A prudent policy.

gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.

"I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. "

Gushing?

Perhaps, I suppose, depending on your definition.

But when's the last time you heard a Z.U.S. president speak of the war dead with compassion and pathos? Hell, when's the last time you heard them speak of these tragic victims of American f0lly (treason and war crimes), and their families- at all?

He was saying 'enough of this madness!'

And from what I understand, American troops are indeed vacating Syrian bases.

BTW, leaving for a few days, so keep up the good fight, Brother Chuck!

Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:24 pm GMT
@Colin Wright

In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.

That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.

I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).

I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by then I understood the nature of McCain all too well.

How bad could a racist commie be, after all, since there still are the other branches of Gov.

Turns out very bad indeed.

Still tho, not as bad as McCain would have been. Just as Trump, (TDS* notwithstanding), is a thousand times better than the war hag would have been.

* Trump Derangement Syndrome

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:28 pm GMT
@Wally Wally likes to cheap shot P.G., haha, and once again futilely asked him: "Has Giraldi ever stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?"

Get on the ball, wailing Wall! (zzZigh) Likely, even some knowledgeable CODAH associates will inform that YOU'LL get what Supremacist Jews give you.

Haha. The Zionized D.N.C. is presently fretting over which Jewish Lobby-approved presidential 2020 candidate they should give to their "base" voters. Haha. Liberal tribe chieftains are confident that even Mayor Pete Buttigieg will make incumbent, Trumpstein, Tweet-out "endless" sweat on election night.

Nonetheless, had Amerika a real choice, , Ron Paul would be my #1 "anti-Chosen One" alternative. Refer to his article below, wailing Wall?

Yours truly, in "ownership," ( Igh)

Charles J. Orloski, Jr.
West Scranton, Pa.

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2019/october/14/washington-is-wrong-once-again-kurds-join-assad-to-defend-syria/

Selah, uh , can Amerikans audit The Fed instead of having to go to bed with an abusive Talpiot Red?

Z-man , says: October 16, 2019 at 10:39 pm GMT
@jack daniels

Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.

That's why the NeoCohens hate Putin so much, for re-establishing Russian Christian Orthodoxy as the 'national' religion. Trump, on the other hand, admires Putin for his nationalism and wants white Christian Russia to be friends with nominally Christian America. Unfortunately he must bow down to the Satanic anti Christ power brokers, the Cabal, that keeps him in power and checks his nationalist leanings. Hopefully he will overcome this in a second term but I've been saying that about presidents for years!

flashlight joe , says: October 16, 2019 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Anon Very interesting video. I will begin researching the stories in it and making my judgement. Thanks for sharing.
SolontoCroesus , says: October 16, 2019 at 11:01 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Thanks ChuckOrloski.
Undeserved, tho -- I was just being a shepherd guiding the flock to other people's good work, a practice I learned from your comment style.
ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 11:05 pm GMT
@Rurik Hey Brother Rurik!

I don't want to be in the business of educating you on un-American actions undertaken by "Z.U.S. presidents." You really know better, but since Jacques Sheete, peace be upon him, is M.I.A., I will now do my best.

No doubt, Trumpstein is different. Please pause momentarily and consider how he very recently wanted to sell/provide nuclear weapons systems to Saudi Arabia. Fyi, and lucky for the entire Middle East's general population, Trump's lack of "compassion" was overuled by those higher in the ZUS's Blue & White House Lowerarchy. (Note: He ain't "The Decider," he is the ever useful & divisive Zion Tweet-Chord)

So given the U.R. Moderator sword is not activated, linked down below, is a joint radio show, hosted by Dr. David Duke & Ryan Dawson. Ideally, this action will take the job of trying to educate YOU from off my shoulders, Rurik. No reading needed, & just carefully listen!

Fyi, Dr. Duke and Mr. Dawson will provide the means by which an anti-Zionist & patriotic American can resist the evil sway dished-out daily by our "Homeland's" Zionist Corporate Media. These largely demonized gentlemen/scholars explain how Zionized Republicans & Democrats are curiously "on the same page" when it comes to humanely protecting the Kurds.

But when it comes to supporting & defending The Land of Bilk & Money, they unite. Yippie! On other hand, and when it comes to actually helping the restless & sorry lot of dumb goyim working Amerikans, they fight like , er, "Tom and Jerry." (Zigh) Why Trumpstein even moved to kill the underachieving & oft unaffordable "Affordable Care Act," a.k.a., Obamacare.

Enjoy your time off, my Brother Rurik, and I suggest, at minimum, partial evacuation from the dug-in Jewish Corporate Media "bases."

https://davidduke.com/friday191011/

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT
@Rurik More homework, Rurik!

Linked below is what appears to be VT's "honest reflection" upon our current ZUS president's "senility." Again, a good rest to you!

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/10/16/trumps-senile-moment-of-the-day-kurds-now-worse-than-isis/

Colin Wright , says: Website October 16, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT
@Rurik 'That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.

I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).

I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by then I understood the nature of McCain all too well '

Now you're reminding me of 2012. Of course, I was going to vote for Obama over Israel's man-in-the-White House-to-be. An unpleasant choice, but there it was

So my wife and I were down in Alameda at a winery. Somewhat incongruously, the server was right-wing, and started praising Romney. I stayed tactful, as I didn't want to kill my buzz, but my wife -- who is easily influenced -- came out of there going 'Romney number one. Yeah -- I'm going to vote for him!'

In an unusual display of wisdom, I bit my tongue. We'll see how this plays out

You need to understand my wife comes from a poor background. If you want to meet 'the working poor,' go see her relatives.

So the very next day, Romney comes out with his '49%' remark. It was classic.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 17, 2019 at 12:52 am GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Right. This happens every so often. I am not recommending de Sade or any of his works.

I'm recommending the movie:
"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade ", play 1963, movie 1967 [1]. The movie has very little to do with the writings of the original Marquis de Sade [2], but it does do a good job of showing the spirit of revolutions.

de Sade had a good reputation with the revolutionaries. He was elected a delegate to the French National Convention, but fell during the Reign of Terror [3]. He really did direct publicly presented plays at Charenton starting in 1803, but was eventually arrested and denied paper and pen in 1809. Died 1815, and several large manuscripts were subsequently burned by his son, who apparently thought that de Sade had done quite enough harm already.

Insofar as tje video has anything to do with the real de Sade, it is that the director (fictional de Sade) manages to stage a small revolution himself in the final scene, _after_ demonstrating that the audience is little more sane than de Sade is ("15 glorious years" scene). As in the link given by Read [4], de Sade acts as the philosophical godfather of revolution and revolt as an end in itself.

Counterinsurgency

1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marat/Sade
XXXhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc4I6pivqg

2] https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/10/the-marquis-de-sade-a-philosophical-godfather-of-the-new-underworld-order/

3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Sade

4] https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/10/the-marquis-de-sade-a-philosophical-godfather-of-the-new-underworld-order/

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 17, 2019 at 12:55 am GMT

The really pathetic attempt by ABC to pass off Kentucky gun range footage as a Syrian conflict zone is a good example of the consequences of Congress' horrible 2013 decision (that you may not have heard of) to totally legalize domestic propaganda. @_whitneywebb

In the age of legal, weaponized propaganda directed against the American people, false narratives have become so commonplace in the mainstream media that they have essentially become normalized, leading to the era of "fake news" and "alternative facts."

Lifting of US Propaganda Ban Gives New Meaning to Old Song
https://www.mintpressnews.com/planting-stories-in-the-press-lifting-of-us-propaganda-ban-gives-new-meaning-to-old-song/237493/

ChuckOrloski , says: October 17, 2019 at 1:00 am GMT
@SolontoCroesus Dear SolontoCroesus,

A point, re; Non-Zionized Rules of Engagement.

The bad and ugly shepherds persistently hit vulnerable & trusting Unzers with their "best shot." For one example, the currently M.I.A. commenter, Maven Sam Shama.

Subsequently, I see no valid reason why intelligent & good men -- like you! -- should not give their "best shot" and attempt to support & rescue lost sheeple who regularly appear here.*

* Some lost sheep simply like it that way, and therefore, bad shepherds, for one example, the featherweight commenter "Sean," get lots of practice at misguiding the flock.

Ciao, S2C. Continue to be unflappable.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 17, 2019 at 1:18 am GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen Right, what to do is the question now that everybody has been taken by surprise.

I'd say that the advice "get out of debt, get out of the major cities" is fairly good, and fairly obvious, and has been so for some time. As to income, I just don't know. You might try linking up to some group (non-Left) that seems to be cohesive and has _some_ plan of action that isn't too weird. Under stress, cohesive groups can survive better than individuals.

You might also remember the rule of thumb that prophets can predict either what or when, but not both. It's obvious that the US in general and cities in particular are in severe decline, but _when_ the current system will cast off much of the population it now supports is simply not known. Abandon it too soon and you end up extremely poor, so a sharp break is extremely risky. I'd say that retiring debt, hardening your house against home invasion, and finding some group as above, would be about all that would be justified right now. If your neighborhood is deteriorating, it might be a good idea to go to another one that isn't, since the deterioration is unlikely to reverse itself. If you're in with an ethnic group that doesn't like your ethnic group, it might be a good idea to displace, if only to avoid the unpleasantness.

Wish I could say something better, but that's it.

Counterinsurgency

Counterinsurgency , says: October 17, 2019 at 1:32 am GMT
@jack daniels The current US system / world order will end within the next decade no matter what Trump does. Trump is trying to shut it down with minimal casualties and replace it with something viable, which is a good thing to do, but if Trump were to vanish tomorrow the current US system / world order would still end within the next decade, maybe two decades if things went very badly wrong.
Trump has the wind at his back, he's trying to do things that would do themselves (although not as well) and that's why the appearance of 4D Chess. But, as you point out, Trump leads a very small force of government officials, and would lose without the strength given by his supporters. Continued support, in word and in deed, should reduce casualties (to include Trump and his family) during the current transition.

Counterinsurgency

J. O. , says: October 17, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
BILLIONS FOR WARS

MEANWHILE, Millions Hungry and Food Insecure in the US

"According to the US Department of Agriculture in 2018, food insecurity affects 37 million Americans, including over 11 million children -- the numbers likely way understated."

"Around 40 million Americans experience hunger annually."

"At least 15 million US households endure food insecurity."

"Hunger is caused by poverty and inadequate financial resources, a nationwide problem."

"Around 45 million Americans rely on food stamps, an eroding program providing inadequate help."

"1 in 6 American children may not know where their next meal is coming from."

"22 million children in America rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they receive at school, but as many as 3 million children still aren't getting the breakfast they need."

FROM Stephen Lendman:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/millions-hungry-food-insecure-us/5692168

DOES THE ABOVE CORRESPOND TO THE "MAKE AMERICA GREAT GAIN"????

WHY THE BILLIONS IN WEAPONS AND RESSOURCES FOR WARS?

INFURIATING! DEFINITELY NOT A GREAT NATION.

USAID SHOULD REMAIN HERE: FOR THE 40 MILLION AMERICANS EXPERIENCING HUNGER

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 17, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT
@Rurik I applaud the sentiment too.
I'm hearing rumours that Trump has put a thousand troops into Saudi Arabia and claimed they are paying for it.
Is it now America's lot to be not just Israel's but SA's mercenaries?
2020 can't come fast enough. I'd love to see a Trump super majority and some serious reform.
It's pretty clear the Evangelical Zionist's are Israelis' b@tches.
America, it seems, must not only reclaim itself but also it's religion. EV is a heresy and the leaders are on their knees f@llating Israel. It is disgusting to watch.
Daniel Rich , says: October 17, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
@Counterinsurgency Thank you for you lengthily and thorough reply.

Yes, I agree, having trucks and trains go overland and via various countries comes with the risk of conflicts erupting between 2 or more states participating in Chinese projects. China burnt itself badly in Libya, where Hillary " We Came, We Saw, He Died! Haw, haw, haw " Rotham Clingon ran amok.

China is actively setting up routes via the attic as well, so I think China carefully weighs all its options, but doing business comes with certain risks, those are unavoidable.

When I was in Africa [The Gambia and there about], I noticed a lot of Chinese merchandise being sold all over the place. I heard stories of some Chinese being attacked and/or murdered elsewhere in Africa, but haven't dealt with any Chinese businessman myself or heard their stories in person.

Having been on that vast continent doesn't make me an expert whatsoever, but I see Africa become a huge anchor around the world's neck. Can't use a single brush to paint entire nations, I know, but what I saw didn't look good.

side note : I didn't live in a hotel with armed guards, I lived in a compound with Africans, so it's not that I have no up close experience. Furthermore, I was always treated with kindness, respect and warmth.

[Oct 20, 2019] Was Adam Schiff running a spy operation against the White House by Monica Showalter

If this is true, then "Schiff spy scandal" might became a serious liability for neoliberal Dems in 2020 elections. Schiff is scion of a very un[leasent character who was reposible for Russo-Japanese war: Russo-Japanese War – financed by Jacob Schiff The Strange Side of Jewish History
Notable quotes:
"... Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint . ..."
"... The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and who has expertise in Ukraine, the Washington Examiner has reported . ..."
"... later emerged that a member of his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The Washington Post concluded that Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false. ..."
"... Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence. ..."
"... Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an illegal spying operation on the president. ..."
"... It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on intelligence ..."
"... Image credit: Caricature by Donkey Hotey via Flickr , CC BY-SA 2.0 . ..."
"... Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence. ..."
"... The Lives of Others ..."
Oct 12, 2019 | www.americanthinker.com

Seems every day brings a new revelation about Democratic efforts to rig an impeachment of the president. The false claims and astonishing conflicts of interest being thrown out there are piling up fast.

The latest, from the San Francisco Examiner, exposes House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff's choice of staffers, who it turns out were two disgruntled Deep-Staters from the White House who had actually worked with the so-called "whistleblower":

Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint .

The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and who has expertise in Ukraine, the Washington Examiner has reported .

A career CIA analyst with Ukraine expertise, the whistleblower aired his concerns about a phone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a House Intelligence Committee aide on Schiff's staff. He had previously informed the CIA's legal counsel's office.

Schiff initially denied he knew anything about the complaint before it was filed, stating on Sep. 17: "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to."

But it later emerged that a member of his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The Washington Post concluded that Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false. "

Grace, 36, was hired to help Schiff's committee investigate the Trump White House. That month, Trump accused Schiff of "stealing people who work at White House." Grace worked at the NSC from 2016 to 2018 in U.S.-China relations and then briefly at the Center for a New American Security think tank, which was founded by two former senior Obama administration officials.

So these people were all buddies beforehand, and this would explain why the so-called whistleblower had been sneaking around with Schiff's staff before he made his whistleblower complaint.

And that came only after someone with influence was able to get the inspector general of the Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put into place, the whistleblower got going.

More and more, this sounds like a pre-planned setup. One Trump operative has a very good summary of what seems to have been really going on as these anything but exculpatory stories mount:

Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence.

Experienced intelligence operatives, and apparently this Trump operative has this sort of background, like to say there are no coincidences.

As facts continue to roll out, it's getting more and more obvious that Schiff's operation was to orchestrate this impeachment scenario all along, going into high gear with the flame-out of the Mueller investigation.

Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an illegal spying operation on the president.

signed on to GOP rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona's call to condemn and censure Schiff for this sick little illegal freelance operation to spy on Trump.

It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on intelligence , not on being one of those creepy secret police characters in The Lives of Others . It's also an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars. In light of this Schiff spy operation, and if Democrats don't want some backatcha next time there's a Dem in office with a Republican House, it really ought to be every last one of them signed up to that Biggs list.

Image credit: Caricature by Donkey Hotey via Flickr , CC BY-SA 2.0 . Seems every day brings a new revelation about Democratic efforts to rig an impeachment of the president. The false claims and astonishing conflicts of interest being thrown out there are piling up fast.

The latest, from the San Francisco Examiner, exposes House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff's choice of staffers, who it turns out were two disgruntled Deep-Staters from the White House who had actually worked with the so-called "whistleblower":

Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint .

The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and who has expertise in Ukraine, the Washington Examiner has reported .

A career CIA analyst with Ukraine expertise, the whistleblower aired his concerns about a phone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a House Intelligence Committee aide on Schiff's staff. He had previously informed the CIA's legal counsel's office.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/9371484590420070?pubid=ld-8832-1542&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com&rid=aim4truth.org&width=500

Schiff initially denied he knew anything about the complaint before it was filed, stating on Sep. 17: "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to."

But it later emerged that a member of his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The Washington Post concluded that Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false."

Grace, 36, was hired to help Schiff's committee investigate the Trump White House. That month, Trump accused Schiff of "stealing people who work at White House." Grace worked at the NSC from 2016 to 2018 in U.S.-China relations and then briefly at the Center for a New American Security think tank, which was founded by two former senior Obama administration officials.

So these people were all buddies beforehand, and this would explain why the so-called whistleblower had been sneaking around with Schiff's staff before he made his whistleblower complaint.

And that came only after someone with influence was able to get the inspector general of the Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put into place, the whistleblower got going.

More and more, this sounds like a pre-planned setup. One Trump operative has a very good summary of what seems to have been really going on as these anything but exculpatory stories mount:

me title=

Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence.

Experienced intelligence operatives, and apparently this Trump operative has this sort of background, like to say there are no coincidences.

As facts continue to roll out, it's getting more and more obvious that Schiff's operation was to orchestrate this impeachment scenario all along, going into high gear with the flame-out of the Mueller investigation.

Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an illegal spying operation on the president.

And that's a far more concrete crime than anything Trump is accused of committing. Right now, Schiff has 109 congressional representatives signed on to GOP rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona's call to condemn and censure Schiff for this sick little illegal freelance operation to spy on Trump.

It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on intelligence, not on being one of those creepy secret police characters in The Lives of Others . It's also an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars. In light of this Schiff spy operation, and if Democrats don't want some backatcha next time there's a Dem in office with a Republican House, it really ought to be every last one of them signed up to that Biggs list.

Veritas Aequitas 6d

"... inspector general of the Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put into place, the whistleblower got going." Doesn't that beg the question IF Atkinson had any past relationships with any of these people in his former position? I believe I read somewhere that Atkinson somehow was involved in the Steele Dossier from his former job.

walterbyrd ElBaron 6d

> So someone changes the rules. So why can't the rules be changed back?


I suspect the ICIG rules about accepting hearsay "evidence" will be changed back - if they haven't already been.

mondo_cane Follow Full Profile mondo_cane ElBaron 6d

Our government has always operated this way. Nothing new here. It only seems "run worse" because the results are out in the open for all to see. Whereas, the same thing could be done in secret and you'd never know about it (the changes in the rules).


Which do you prefer? The sloppy American way, or the secretive Chinese way?

I'm sorry to say we have only these two choices. The sloppy American way is preferable to me because it's the better part of our openly democratic republic and our Constitution.


The current problems and distractions we are dealing with are the result of Biden, Schiff, and the Democrat's attempts to be secretive about what they're doing. So, we have to wonder why these people don't want their actions to be known.


We should delight in seeing such illegitimate secrets exposed.

Divi_Julius_Augustus mondo_cane 6d

"...The sloppy American way, or the secretive Chinese way?" What difference does it make if the criminals are never indicted? The fact that I know of don't know makes no difference. We know politicians are dirty scum, anyway..

ElBaron mondo_cane 6d

Good post.

But I think it's not good enough to just accept rampant corruption, surely things could be better than this?

Also, it's not so much the Dems in question but the entire system.

And I see little evidence that the system is changing.

Though as you point out, one big shift is that more of us have become aware of how bad it is.

And as you point out, it's always been that way, going back at least to 1913... but more like forever and with all systems.


And if it is forever and all systems, then maybe it's better we DON'T get to see all the dirty laundry all the time, including that nothing is done about it. Maybe better not to know! Maybe that's the only way to make the country 'great' again!?

[Oct 20, 2019] The Deep State Goes Shallow 2.0 by Edward Curtin

Notable quotes:
"... It was the Obama administration who engineered the 2014 right-wing, Neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine as part of its agenda to undermine Russia. A neo-liberal/neo-conservative agenda. This is, or should be, common knowledge. Obama put it in his typically slick way in a 2015 interview with CNN's Fareed Zakiria, saying that the United States "had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine." ..."
"... This is Orwellian language at its finest, from a warmonger who received the Nobel Prize for Peace while declaring he was in support of war. That the forces that have initiated a new and highly dangerous Cold War, a nuclear confrontation with Russia, demonized Vladimir Putin, and have overthrown the elected leader of a country allied with Russia on its western border, dares from the day he was elected in 2016 to remove its own president in the most obvious ways imaginable seems like bad fiction. But it is fact, and the fact that so many Americans approve of it is even more fantastic. ..."
"... It is well known that the United States is infamous for engineering coups against democratically elected governments worldwide. Voters' preferences are considered beside the point. Iran and Mosaddegh in 1953, Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia and Sukarno in 1965-7, Allende in Chile in 1973, to name a few from the relatively distant past. ..."
"... Recently the Obama administration worked their handiwork in Honduras and Ukraine. It would not be hyperbolic to say that overthrowing democratic governments is as American as apple pie. It's our "democratic" tradition – like waging war. ..."
"... What is less well known is that elements within the U.S. ruling power elites have also overthrown democratically elected governments in the United States. One U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated because he had turned toward peace and opposed the forces of war within his own government. He is the lone example of a president who therefore was opposed by all the forces of imperial conquest within the ruling elites. ..."
"... Others, despite their backing for the elite deep state's imperial wars, were taken out for various reasons by competing factions within the shadow government. Nixon waged the war against Vietnam for so long on behalf of the military-industrial complex, but he was still taken down by the CIA, contrary to popular mythology about Watergate. ..."
"... Jimmy Carter was front man for the Tri-Lateral Commission's deep-state faction, but was removed by the group represented by George H. Bush, William Casey, and Reagan through their traitorous actions involving the Iran hostages. ..."
"... Obama, CIA groomed, was smoothly moved into power by the faction that felt Bush needed to be succeeded by a slick smiling assassin who symbolized "diversity," could speak well, and played hoops. ..."
"... Take your pick – heads or tails. Hillary Clinton was expected to complete the trinity. ..."
"... The day after his surprise election, the interlocking circles of power that run the show in sun and shadows – what C. Wright Mills long ago termed the Power Elite – met to overthrow him, or at least to render him more controllable. ..."
"... Trump, probably never having expected to win and as shocked as most people when he did, made some crucial mistakes before the election and before taking office. Some of those mistakes have continued since his inauguration ..."
"... Trump's fatal mistake was saying that he wanted to get along with Russia, that Putin was a good leader, and that he wanted to end the war against Syria and pull the U.S. back from foreign wars ..."
"... This was verboten. And when he said nuclear war was absurd and would only result in nuclear conflagration, he had crossed the Rubicon. That sealed his fate ..."
"... "Only the shallow know themselves," said Oscar Wilde. ..."
"... ...The first step in dealing with this is to combat ignorance and misinformation. There may not be one undeniable truth but we can certainly squash blatant mis-truths. ..."
"... If you read Professor Antony C Sutton's books about Wall Street, the Bolshevik Revolution and Hitlers rise to power, it is possible, as Sutton did, to examine the methodology, ideology and psychology of the string pullers in depth. For exposing them, Hutton was as he said " persecuted but not prosecuted ". ..."
Oct 20, 2019 | off-guardian.org

This article was first published on February 21, 2017, one month after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, more than two-and-a half years ago. What was true then is even truer now, and so I am reprinting it with this brief introduction since I think it describes what is happening in plain sight today.

Now that years of Russia-gate accusations have finally fallen apart, those forces intent on driving Trump from office have had to find another pretext. Now it is Ukraine-gate, an issue similar in many ways to Russia-gate in that both were set into motion by the same forces aligned with the Democratic Party and the CIA-led Obama administration.

It was the Obama administration who engineered the 2014 right-wing, Neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine as part of its agenda to undermine Russia. A neo-liberal/neo-conservative agenda. This is, or should be, common knowledge. Obama put it in his typically slick way in a 2015 interview with CNN's Fareed Zakiria, saying that the United States "had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine."

This is Orwellian language at its finest, from a warmonger who received the Nobel Prize for Peace while declaring he was in support of war. That the forces that have initiated a new and highly dangerous Cold War, a nuclear confrontation with Russia, demonized Vladimir Putin, and have overthrown the elected leader of a country allied with Russia on its western border, dares from the day he was elected in 2016 to remove its own president in the most obvious ways imaginable seems like bad fiction. But it is fact, and the fact that so many Americans approve of it is even more fantastic.

Over the past few years the public has heard even more about the so-called "deep state," only to see its methods of propaganda become even more perversely cynical in their shallowness.

No one needs to support the vile Trump to understand that the United States is undergoing a fundamental shift wherein tens of millions of Americans who say they believe in democracy support the activities of gangsters who operate out in the open with their efforts to oust an elected president.

We have crossed the Rubicon and there will be no going back.

In irony a man annihilates what he posits within one and the same act; he leads us to believe in order not to be believed; he affirms to deny and denies to affirm; he creates a positive object but it has no being other than its nothingness."
Jean-Paul Sartre

It is well known that the United States is infamous for engineering coups against democratically elected governments worldwide. Voters' preferences are considered beside the point. Iran and Mosaddegh in 1953, Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia and Sukarno in 1965-7, Allende in Chile in 1973, to name a few from the relatively distant past.

Recently the Obama administration worked their handiwork in Honduras and Ukraine. It would not be hyperbolic to say that overthrowing democratic governments is as American as apple pie. It's our "democratic" tradition – like waging war.

What is less well known is that elements within the U.S. ruling power elites have also overthrown democratically elected governments in the United States. One U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated because he had turned toward peace and opposed the forces of war within his own government. He is the lone example of a president who therefore was opposed by all the forces of imperial conquest within the ruling elites.

Others, despite their backing for the elite deep state's imperial wars, were taken out for various reasons by competing factions within the shadow government. Nixon waged the war against Vietnam for so long on behalf of the military-industrial complex, but he was still taken down by the CIA, contrary to popular mythology about Watergate.

Jimmy Carter was front man for the Tri-Lateral Commission's deep-state faction, but was removed by the group represented by George H. Bush, William Casey, and Reagan through their traitorous actions involving the Iran hostages.

The emcee for the neo-liberal agenda, Bill Clinton, was rendered politically impotent via the Lewinsky affair, a matter never fully investigated by any media.

Obama, CIA groomed, was smoothly moved into power by the faction that felt Bush needed to be succeeded by a slick smiling assassin who symbolized "diversity," could speak well, and played hoops. Hit them with the right hand; hit them with the left. Same coin: Take your pick – heads or tails. Hillary Clinton was expected to complete the trinity.

But surprises happen, and now we have Trump, who is suffering the same fate – albeit at an exponentially faster rate – as his predecessors that failed to follow the complete script. The day after his surprise election, the interlocking circles of power that run the show in sun and shadows – what C. Wright Mills long ago termed the Power Elite – met to overthrow him, or at least to render him more controllable.

These efforts, run out of interconnected power centers, including the liberal corporate legal boardrooms that were the backers of Obama and Hillary Clinton, had no compunction in planning the overthrow of a legally elected president.

Soon they were joined by their conservative conspirators in doing the necessary work of "democracy" – making certain that only one of their hand-picked and anointed henchmen was at the helm of state. Of course, the intelligence agencies coordinated their efforts and their media scribes wrote the cover stories. The pink Pussyhats took to the streets. The deep state was working overtime.

Trump, probably never having expected to win and as shocked as most people when he did, made some crucial mistakes before the election and before taking office. Some of those mistakes have continued since his inauguration.

Not his derogatory remarks about minorities, immigrants, or women. Not his promise to cut corporate taxes, support energy companies, oppose strict environmental standards. Not his slogan to "make America great again." Not his promise to build a "wall" along the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it. Not his vow to deport immigrants. Not his anti-Muslim pledges. Not his insistence that NATO countries contribute more to NATO's "defense" of their own countries. Not even his crude rantings and Tweets and his hypersensitive defensiveness. Not his reality-TV celebrity status, his eponymous golden tower and palatial hotels and sundry real estate holdings. Not his orange hair and often comical and disturbing demeanor, accentuated by his off the cuff speaking style.

Surely not his massive wealth.

While much of this was viewed with dismay, it was generally acceptable to the power elites who transcend party lines and run the country. Offensive to hysterical liberal Democrats and traditional Republicans, all this about Trump could be tolerated, if only he would cooperate on the key issue.

Trump's fatal mistake was saying that he wanted to get along with Russia, that Putin was a good leader, and that he wanted to end the war against Syria and pull the U.S. back from foreign wars.

This was verboten. And when he said nuclear war was absurd and would only result in nuclear conflagration, he had crossed the Rubicon. That sealed his fate.

Misogyny, racism, support for Republican conservative positions on a host of issues – all fine. Opposing foreign wars, especially with Russia – not fine.

Now we have a reality-TV president and a reality-TV coup d'etat in prime time. Hidden in plain sight, the deep-state has gone shallow. What was once covert is now overt. Once it was necessary to blame a coup on a secretive "crazy lone assassin," Lee Harvey Oswald. But in this "post-modern" society of the spectacle, the manifest is latent; the obvious, non-obvious; what you see you don't see. Everyone knows those reality-TV shows aren't real, right?

It may seem like it is a coup against Trump in plain sight, but these shows are tricky, aren't they? He's the TV guy. He runs the show. He's the sorcerer's apprentice. He wants you to believe in the illusion of the obvious. He's the master media manipulator. You see it but don't believe it because you are so astute, while he is so blatant. He's brought it upon himself. He's bringing himself down. Everyone who knows, knows that.

I am reminded of being in a movie theatre in 1998, watching The Truman Show, about a guy who slowly "discovers" that he has been living in the bubble of a television show his whole life. At the end of the film he makes his "escape" through a door in the constructed dome that is the studio set.

The liberal audience in a very liberal town stood up and applauded Truman's dash to freedom. I was startled since I had never before heard an audience applaud in a movie theatre – and a standing ovation at that. I wondered what they were applauding. I quickly realized they were applauding themselves, their knowingness, their insider astuteness that Truman had finally caught on to what they already thought they knew. Now he would be free like they were. They couldn't be taken in; now he couldn't.

Except, of course, they were applauding an illusion, a film about being trapped in a reality-TV world, a world in which they stood in that theatre – their world, their frame. Frames within frames. Truman escapes from one fake frame into another – the movie. The joke was on them. The film had done its magic as its obvious content concealed its deeper truth: the spectator and the spectacle were wed. McLuhan was here right: the medium was the message.

This is what George Trow in 1980 called "the context of no context."

Candor as concealment, truth as lies, knowingness as stupidity. Making reality unreal in the service of an agenda that is so obvious it isn't, even as the cognoscenti applaud themselves for being so smart and in the know.

The more we hear about "the deep state" and begin to grasp its definition, the more we will have descended down the rabbit hole. Soon this "deep state" will be offering courses on what it is, how it operates, and why it must stay hidden while it "exposes" itself. Right-wing pundit Bill Kristol tweets:

Liberal CIA critic and JFK assassination researcher, Jefferson Morley, after defining the deep state, writes:

With a docile Republican majority in Congress and a demoralized Democratic Party in opposition, the leaders of the Deep State are the most – perhaps the only – credible check in Washington on what Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) calls Trump's "wrecking ball presidency."

These are men who ostensibly share different ideologies, yet agree, and state it publically, that the "deep state" should take out Trump. Both believe, without evidence, that the Russians intervened to try to get Trump elected. Therefore, both no doubt feel justified in openly espousing a coup d'etat. They match Trump's blatancy with their own. Nothing deep about this.

Liberals and conservatives are now publically allied in demonizing Putin and Russia, and supporting a very dangerous military confrontation initiated by Obama and championed by the defeated Hillary Clinton. In the past these opposed political factions accepted that they would rotate their titular leaders into and out of the White House, and whenever the need arose to depose one or the other, that business would be left to deep state forces to effect in secret and everyone would play dumb.

Now the game has changed. It's all "obvious." The deep state has seemingly gone shallow. Its supporters say so. All the smart people can see what's happening. Even when what's happening isn't really happening.

"Only the shallow know themselves," said Oscar Wilde.

Edward Curtin Edward Curtin writes, and his writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an impossibility and therefore sees all his work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. His website is edwardcurtin.com


Frank Speaker

I remember this excellent piece the first time around. It's indeed even more pertinent today,
Martin Usher

...The first step in dealing with this is to combat ignorance and misinformation. There may not be one undeniable truth but we can certainly squash blatant mis-truths. This arena isn't just political -- our culture has a habit of reworking our past in a contemporary image and so subtly warping the lessons of history. Hollywood is a prime offender but then its no surprise to discover that the original master of propaganda, Goebbels, recognized that entertainment that pushed cultural values was a far more powerful tool for propaganda than the media that was, and still is, traditionally associated with propaganda.

John Deehan
If you read Professor Antony C Sutton's books about Wall Street, the Bolshevik Revolution and Hitlers rise to power, it is possible, as Sutton did, to examine the methodology, ideology and psychology of the string pullers in depth. For exposing them, Hutton was as he said " persecuted but not prosecuted ".
nottheonly1
Sadly though, an old wisdom brings itself into this ludicrous scenery. It also makes the comparison with the Truman show so apt. You can't fix stupid.

[Oct 20, 2019] New York Times Fakes The Record About Arming The Syrian Rebels

Oct 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

New York Times Fakes The Record About Arming The Syrian Rebels

History as faked by the New York Times :

Kurds' Sense of Betrayal Compounded by Empowerment of Unsavory Rivals
Ben Hubbard, David D. Kirkpatrick, NYT 18. Oct 2019

Now, [..] the sense of betrayal among the Kurds [..] is matched only by their outrage at who will move in: Turkish soldiers supported by Syrian fighters the United States had long rejected as extremists, criminals and thugs .
...
The deadly battles [..] have also given new leeway to Syrian fighters once considered too extreme or unruly to receive American military support.
...
Grandly misnamed the Syrian National Army, this coalition of Turkish-backed militias is in fact largely composed of the dregs of the eight-year-old conflict's failed rebel movement.

Early in the war [..] the military and the C.I.A. sought to train and equip moderate, trustworthy rebels to fight the government and the Islamic State.

A few of those now fighting in the northeast took part in those failed programs, but most were rejected as too extreme or too criminal . Some have expressed extremist sensibilities or allied with jihadist groups.

The reality is the opposite of what the NYT claims. The majority of the groups now fighting with the Turkish army had earlier received support from the U.S. Even their nominal leader is the same one who the U.S. earlier paid, armed and promoted.

COMPONENTS OF THE NATIONAL ARMY AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE UNIFICATION
Ömer Özkizilcik, SETA, October 2019

On August 31, the Syrian National Coalition came together and elected the president and the cabinet of the Syrian Interim Government in which Abdurrahman Mustafa was elected president and Salim Idriss was elected defense minister . With the new cabinet, the Syrian Interim Government became more active on the ground, started visiting each faction of the National Army, and accelerated the stalled negotiations to unite the National Army and the NLF under one command.
Salim Idriss with U.S. Senator John McCain

bigger
Salim Idriss with Guy Verhofstadt, then leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament

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Among the 41 factions that joined the merger, 15 are from the NLF and 26 from the National Army. Thirteen of these factions were formed after the United States cut its support to the armed Syrian opposition. Out of the 28 factions, 21 were previously supported by the United States , three of them via the Pentagon's program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence operation room of the 'Friends of Syria' to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles.

The SETA study provides a detailed list of the groups involved in the current Turkish invasion of Syria. Not only is their commander Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge but the majority of these groups did receive U.S. support and weapons.


bigger

The New York Times claim that only "a few of those" who now fight the YPG Kurds took part in the U.S. programs is a blatant lie.

The NYT piece quotes three 'experts' who testify that the 'rebels' the U.S. had armed are really, really bad:

"These are the misfits of the conflict, the worst of the worst," said Hassan Hassan, a Syrian-born scholar tracking the fighting. "They have been notorious for extortion, theft and banditry, more like thugs than rebels -- essentially mercenaries."

It was Hassan Hassan who since the start of the conflict lobbied for arming the rebels from his perch at the UAE's media flagship The National .

Another 'expert' quoted is the Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov:

"They are basically gangsters, but they are also racist toward Kurds and other minorities," said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "No human should be subjected to their rule."

Tsurkov earlier lauded the Israeli hiring and arming of the very same 'Syrian rebels'.

Another 'expert' quoted by the Times is a co-chair of the 'congressionally sponsored bipartisan Syrian Study Group':

"We are turning areas that had been controlled by our allies over to the control of criminals or thugs, or that in some cases groups were associated or fighting alongside Al Qaeda," said Ms. Stroul, of the Syrian Study Group. "It is a profound and epic strategic blunder."

The 'Syrian Study Group' wants to prolong the war on Syria. Ms. Stroul and her co-chair Michael Singh reside at the Washington Institute which is a part of the Zionist lobby and has long argued for 'arming the Syrian rebels'.

The Times report does not mention that the 'experts' it quotes all once lobbied for arming the very same groups they are now lamenting about. When these groups ran rampant in the areas they took from the Syrian government the Times and its 'experts' were lauding them all the way. No effort to support them was big enough. All crimes they committed were covered up or excused.

Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what they always have been.

Posted by b on October 20, 2019 at 11:19 UTC | Permalink


Richard , Oct 20 2019 11:46 utc | 1

Hah! More lies from the NYT....mainstream media in the west has deteriorated into a propaganda channel for the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy, pumping out a never ending tide of lying filth aimed at more and more war (more and more weapon sales) and promoting and preserving predatory capitalism (more money for the Billionaire class, less for you).

In my own reading of MSM press and my own watching of the MSM Talking Heads I believe I've indentified 8 techniques that amoral, dangerous, barely competent idiots that have the cheek to call themselves journalists use to lie to you, the reader/viewer/listener. Here's my list...

https://richardhennerley.com/2018/10/16/8-techniques-journalists-use-to-lie-to-you/

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Oct 20 2019 12:12 utc | 2
Okay how practical.
Now only is the NYT trying to whitewash themselves by faking, they are also kind enough to do the same for their Jihadi lovin partners in crime.
How empathic! How sensible! Like a true moral authority.

BTW: It seems my previous claims were right. The Turks made a 180 and allied with the US again, reviving the NATO allaince. Now that the Kurds are out of the way in Turk-US relations, US and NATO has much more to offer than Russia, and noe Erdogan has support from NATO and will not be deterred by Putin.
B, i respect you immensly, but your belief the Turkish invasion was Erdogan doing some secret Putin plan was unproven at the time, and now, AT LEAST since the US-Turk deal, is obsolte.
Read M. K. BHADRAKUMARs blog, he thought like you, but after the US-Turk deal, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED:

https://indianpunchline.com/us-stokes-the-fires-of-turkish-revanchism/


"The extraordinary US overture to Turkey regarding northern Syria resulted in a joint statement on Thursday, whose ramifications can be rated only in the fulness of time , as several intersecting tracks are running.

The US objectives range from Trump's compulsions in domestic politics to the future trajectory of the US policies toward Syria and the impact of any US-Turkish rapprochement on the geopolitics of the Syrian conflict.

Meanwhile, the US-Turkish joint statement creates new uncertainties. The two countries have agreed on a set of principles -- Turkey's crucial status as a NATO power ; security of Christian minorities in Syria; prevention of an ISIS surge; creation of a "safe zone" on Turkish-Syrian border; a 120-hour ceasefire ("pause") in Turkish military operations leading to a permanent halt, hopefully.

The devil lies in the details. Principally, there is no transparency regarding the future US role in Syria . The Kurds and the US military will withdraw from the 30-kilometre broad buffer zone. What thereafter? In the words of the US Vice-President Mike Pence at the press conference in Ankara on Thursday,

"Kurdish population in Syria, with which we have a strong relationship, will continue to endure. The United States will always be grateful for our partnership with SDF in defeating ISIS, but we recognise the importance and the value of a safe zone to create a buffer between Syria proper and the Kurdish population and -- and the Turkish border. And we're going to be working very closely ."

To be sure, everything devolves upon the creation of the safe zone. Turkey envisages a zone stretching across the entire 440 kilometre border with Syria upto Iraqi border, while the US special envoy James Jeffrey remains non-committal, saying it is up to the "Russians and the Syrians in other areas of the northeast and in Manbij to the west of the Euphrates" to agree to Turkey's maximalist stance.

Herein lies the rub. Jeffrey would know Ankara will never get its way with Moscow and Damascus. In fact, President Bashar al-Assad told in unequivocal terms to a high-level Russian delegation visiting Damascus on Friday, "At the current phase it is necessary to focus on putting an end to aggression and on the pullout of all Turkish, US and other forces illegally present in Syrian territories."

Is there daylight between Moscow and Damascus on this highly sensitive issue? Turkish President Recep Erdogan's forthcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on October 22 may provide an answer.

Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum of Russia-Turkey relationship.

If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now swung to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially catastrophic for regional stability. The heart of the matter is that while Turkey's concerns over terrorism and the refugee problem are legitimate, Operation Peace Spring has deeper moorings: Turkey's ambitions as regional power and its will to correct the perceived injustice of territorial losses incurred during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The ultra-nationalistic Turkish commentator (and staunch supporter of Erdogan) wrote this week in the pro-government daily Yeni Safak:

"Turkey once again revived the millennium-old political history on Anatolian territory. It took action with a mission that will carry the legacy of the Seljuks, the Ottomans, the Republic of Turkey to the next stage It is not possible to set an equation in this region by excluding Turkey – it will not happen. A map cannot be drawn that excludes Turkey – it will not happen. A power cannot be established without Turkey – it will not happen. Throughout history, both the rise and fall of this country has altered the region the mind in Turkey is now a regional mind, a regional conscience, a regional identity. President Erdoğan is the pioneer, the bearer of that political legacy from the Seljuks, the Ottomans, and the Turkish Republic to the future."

Trump is unlikely to pay attention to the irredentist instincts in Turkish regional policies. Trump's immediate concerns are to please the evangelical Christian constituency in the US and silence his critics who allege that he threw the Kurds under the bus or that a ISIS resurgence is imminent. But there is no way the US can deliver on the tall promises made in the joint statement. The Kurds have influential friends in the Pentagon. (See the article by Gen. Joseph Votel, former chief of the US Central Command, titled The Danger of Abandoning our Partners.) Nonetheless, the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western support for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory.

All in all, it's a "win-win" for Erdogan insofar as he got what he wanted -- US' political and diplomatic support for "the kind of long-term buffer zone that will ensure peace and stability in the region", to borrow the words of Vice President Pence. A Turkish withdrawal from Syrian territory can now be virtually ruled out. State secretary Mike Pompeo added at the press conference in Ankara on Thursday that there is "a great deal of work to do in the region. There's lots of challenges that remain."
Pompeo said Erdogan's "decision to work alongside President Trump will be one that I think will benefit Turkey a great deal." Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to strengthen its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From Ankara, Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. "

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Oct 20 2019 12:16 utc | 3
Add to that, that the Turks now threaten SAA with "full out war".

John Helmers latest post sheds light on the fact, that the Russian military leadership and the Stavka in general has warned Putin since the Idlib deal again and again to no avail that the Turks would do this.
Which seems now to have been proven true since the US-Turk deal, which in essence changed everything overnight.

http://johnhelmer.net/in-the-war-for-syrias-highway-m4-the-kremlin-turks-have-been-beaten-to-the-punch-by-the-russian-general-staff-foreign-ministry-for-the-moment/

oldhippie , Oct 20 2019 12:21 utc | 4
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news from any source. That is not the American way.

The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT. Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable. For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the Times will never untie the knot.

[Oct 20, 2019] Researchers Detail How Slashing Pentagon Budget Could Pay for Medicare for All While Creating Progressive Foreign Policy Americ

Notable quotes:
"... "Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All (though estimates vary)." ..."
"... cancellation of current plans to develop more nuclear weapons, saving $20 billion a total nuclear weapons ban, saving $43 billion ending military partnerships with private contractors, saving $364 billion production cuts for the F-35 -- a military plane with 900 performance deficiencies, according to the Government Accountability Office -- saving $17.7 billion a shift of $33 billion per year, currently used to provide medical care to veterans, servicemembers, and their families, to Medicare for All's annual budget. ..."
"... "The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress. ..."
Oct 18, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. For those of you who have friends and colleagues who would go on tilt if you tried educating them about MMT, a simpler approach to persuade them that Medicare for All is affordable is to sell them on another worthy goal, cutting the military-surveillance state down to size.

Even then, I still encourage you to set them up for a later conversation about MMT: "Even if you accept the idea that taxes pay for spending, which actually isn't true for the Federal government, we can still get the money for Medicare for All by ."

Note also that the Pentagon has various black budgets, an "official" one and covert ones.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

The Institute for Policy Studies on Thursday shared the results of extensive research into how the $750 billion U.S. military budget could be significantly slashed, freeing up annual funding to cover the cost of Medicare for All -- calling into question the notion that the program needs to create any tax burden whatsoever for working families.

Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), took aim in a New York Times op-ed at a "chorus of scolds" from both sides of the aisle who say that raising middle class taxes is the only way to pay for Medicare for All. The pervasive claim was a primary focus of Tuesday night's debate, while Medicare for All proponents Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) attempted to focus on the dire need for a universal healthcare program.

At the Democratic presidential primary debate on CNN Tuesday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was criticized by some opponents for saying that "costs will go down for hardworking, middle-class families" under Medicare for All, without using the word "taxes." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on the other hand, clearly stated that taxes may go up for some middle class families but pointed out that the increase would be more than offset by the fact that they'll no longer have to pay monthly premiums, deductibles, and other medical costs.

"All these ambitious policies of course will come with a hefty price tag," wrote Koshgarian. "Proposals to fund Medicare for All have focused on raising taxes. But what if we could imagine another way entirely?"

"Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All (though estimates vary)."

"While we can't un-spend that $4.9 trillion," Koshgarian continued, "imagine if we could make different choices for the next 20 years."

Koshgarian outlined a multitude of areas in which the U.S. government could shift more than $300 billion per year, currently used for military spending, to pay for a government-run healthcare program. Closing just half of U.S. military bases, for example, would immediately free up $90 billion.

"What are we doing with that base in Aruba, anyway?" Koshgarian asked.

Other areas where IPS identified savings include:

"This item takes us well past our goal of saving $300 billion," Koshgarian wrote of the last item.

As Koshgarian published her op-ed in the Times , progressive think tank Data for Progress released its own report showing that a majority of Americans support a "progressive foreign policy" far less focused on decades-long on-the-ground wars, establishing military bases around the world, drone strikes, and arms sales.

"The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress.

"Voters want to see U.S. funding go to domestic needs such as healthcare, or to other national security tools like diplomacy, instead of to the Pentagon and more endless war," according to the report.

Polling more than 1,000 ppl with YouGov, Data for Progress found that 73 percent of Democratic primary voters ranked numerous issues -- including economic challenges and the climate -- as more important to them than national security and military funding.

Progressive national security proposals proved popular with respondents, including closing Guantanamo Bay, ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and leveraging military aid to Israel to force it to adopt better human rights policies toward Palestinians.

"There is a clear appetite for progressive reforms to U.S. foreign policy," wrote Data for Progress.

In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly "defense-based institution, rather than a war machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes."

But, she wrote, "that's no excuse for continuing to spend hundreds of billions in ways that make our world more dangerous and deny us the ability to seriously invest in things like jobs, healthcare, education, and all that makes our lives better."


inode_buddha , October 18, 2019 at 4:39 am

I would love to see it, but I strongly doubt this would happen in my lifetime. The Pentagon budget seems to be one of those political "third rail" issues like Social Security.

Many people are so paranoid that I think it constitutes a mass hysteria; others are propagandized into 24×7 jingoism. I'm not talking concepts here, I deal with pro-military people almost daily. Its the glorifying and fetishizing of the military that bothers me.

Most if not all pro-military types are also deeply conservative; bring up *any* social program and they will wonder how to pay for it.

Kurt Sperry , October 18, 2019 at 7:26 am

I don't know, how many "third rail" type taboos has Trump danced on and become more popular because he did? I think the average voter would be *extremely* receptive to a well-crafted message promoting the redirection of resources away from forever foreign wars and bases to concrete material benefits for Americans. I don't even think it'd be a hard sell, once the pearls had been gathered up.

Michael , October 18, 2019 at 7:59 am

It was done before starting in 1990.
Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act.

An amazing process.

dcrane , October 18, 2019 at 5:13 am

What's so maddening about this question is the fact that we know that the military budget is probably much more than 750 billion per year, but we can never know how much more, because the government is expressly allowed to hide and even fake spending totals.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/secret-government-spending-779959/

GF , October 18, 2019 at 11:37 am

Here is an example of unbridled government spending and it is happening right this minute on wall street. It seems the military budget is chump change compared to this:
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2019/10/feds-balance-sheet-spikes-by-253-billion-now-topping-4-trillion/

Sound of the Suburbs , October 18, 2019 at 5:42 am

Why do we worry about money more than anything else?
All money is easy; it comes out of nothing and is just numbers typed in at a keyboard.

Zimbabwe found it all too easy to create so much money they caused hyper-inflation.

Alan Greenspan tells Paul Ryan the Government can create all the money it wants and there is no need to save for pensions.

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

What matters is whether the goods and services are there for them to buy with that money, and this is where real wealth lies.

Governments can create all the money they want, but if they create too much you will get inflation, or hyper-inflation if they type in too many zero's when creating money.

Money has no intrinsic value; its value comes from what it can buy.

Banks create money from loans and that's easy too, just type the numbers in.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf

They can dash wildly into the latest fad, like the dot.com boom, and finance it with money they create out of nothing.

What could possibly go wrong?

Bankers do need to ensure the vast majority of that money gets paid back, and this is where they keep falling flat on their faces.

Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it.

If someone can't repay a loan, they need to repossess that asset and sell it to recoup that money. If they use bank loans to inflate asset prices they get into a world of trouble when those asset prices collapse.

"It's nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime loans, and dispersed throughout the world" All the Presidents Bankers, Nomi Prins.

When this little lot lost almost all its value overnight, the Western banking system became insolvent. Wall Street can turn a normal asset price bubble into something that will take out the global economy using leverage.

Bankers create money out of nothing and the monetary system requires that nearly all that money they loaned out gets paid back.

Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity, and when you realise all that debt can't be paid back, a financial black hole opens up, as it did in 2008.

When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation.
When banks create too much money you tend to see it in asset price inflation.

We see inflation in asset prices as good and consumer price inflation as bad.

The asset price boom will crash the economy, but no one realises while it's happening.

Sound of the Suburbs , October 18, 2019 at 5:43 am

Asset price inflation.
Financial assets are limited in supply.
Pour more money in and the price goes up.

https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-13.52.41.png

1929 – Inflating the US stock market with debt (margin lending)
2008 – Inflating the US real estate market with debt (mortgage lending)

Bankers inflating asset prices with the money they create from loans.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf

They believed in the markets and neoclassical economics in the 1920s and after 1929 they had to reassess everything. They had placed their faith in the markets and this had proved to be a catastrophic mistake.

This is why they stopped using the markets to judge the performance of the economy and came up with the GDP measure instead.

In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised inflating asset prices doesn't create real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track real wealth creation in the economy.

The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth and therefore does not add to GDP. The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by GDP.

Inflated asset prices aren't real wealth, and this can disappear almost over-night, as it did in 1929 and 2008.

Real wealth creation involves real work, producing new goods and services in the economy.

notabanktoadie , October 18, 2019 at 10:03 am

Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it. Sound of the Suburbs

100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors means we (the general public) wouldn't have to give a flip if banks lent prudently or not since we would have an additional but risk-free payment system consisting of debit/checking accounts for all who want one at the Central Bank (or Treasury) itself.

Moreover without government privileges and without captive depositors and unable to hold the economy hostage via a SINGLE payment system that must work through them, you can rest assured that banks WOULD lend prudently or go under, like they should, if they don't.

So what is required is 100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors and that situation has NEVER before existed in history so it cannot be said to have failed.

notabanktoadie , October 18, 2019 at 10:31 am

When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation. Sound of the Suburbs

Because the DEMAND for fiat is suppressed in that only depository institutions may use it in the private sector.

Fix that injustice and eliminate all other privileges for banks and then government should be able to create much MORE fiat for the general welfare since banks would be much LESS able to create deposits for the private welfare of themselves and for the so-called "worthy" of what is, currently, the public's credit but for private gain.

Grayce , October 18, 2019 at 11:07 am

if they [governments] create too much you will get inflation
Is this true, or is it an economist's assumption? Here's the other thought:
Capitalism embraces borrowing for investment. Real estate development is an example. Borrowing involves an assumption of paying back more than was borrowed, but at a future date. When that future date arrives, it is in the borrower's best interest if the face value dollars are wroth less in spending power that the face value of the loan. You stated that, but the link to inflation is fuzzy.
Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity
Rather than the government's causality, and a nebulous prosperity, it may be the borrower's CFO who then decides to raise consumer prices to keep up with expenses. The borrowed dollars came from a banker-created asset, but the inflation is tied to a direct result similar to the so-called "wage-price spiral." In this case, the "interest-price spiral" that is not visibly tied to the supply of money.

Susan the other` , October 18, 2019 at 1:23 pm

I've got a new disconnect. I understand and appreciate how MMT works. It is the only way, imo, for a sovereign country to pay for the social costs of a good society. And, of course, the government does not charge itself interest, does not expect to be "paid back" at all. The tradeoff for the government is the betterment of society. So if your neighbor loans you $500 and you tell him you'll pay him back as soon as your check comes in and with some interest that seems fair bec. you're dealing with two private budgets. But when a licensed bank loans you money for a new house under the terms that you pay it back over 30 years with interests that amounts to triple the original cost of the house – then you are not dealing as one private person to another. You are then dealing with usury. Made legal by the private financial industry. This private industry does not use its own money – it uses the government's money by a computer click. And the government then lets it profiteer on this tiny transaction of apples and oranges to the degree that over time the money "earned" by the private bank accumulates and topples the steady state of the economy. At that point there's no place left to invest that "private" profit and the whole financial system goes haywire in a panic not to "lose" money. Money that should never have been given to them in the first place. It's an oxymoron – demanding that money be paid back with interest when it's not your money in the first place and you do nothing to stabilize your profligate profiteering. Nothing. Just a thought.

Synoia , October 18, 2019 at 2:49 pm

Zimbabwe found it all too easy to create so much money they caused hyper-inflation.

Yes, after destroying their Ag Industry, and having no Ag products to export, because Mugabe and his party assumed all the white farmers just sat around drinking beer while the dark farm workers did all the work.

After Mugabe took the land, there was no collateral for the farmers to get loans for the next planting season.

Who knew that managing the farm was so much work? /s

John k , October 18, 2019 at 2:55 pm

Inflation in Zimbabwe first came from shortages, especially food, as things looted rhe country of 4x and mismanaged the economy, like farm price controls under cost of production.
Historically shortages cause high inflation.

Burns , October 18, 2019 at 6:45 am

"In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly 'defense-based institution, rather than a war machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes.'"

Interesting. Beyond cost cutting, what exactly would it take to remake the military into a true defense-based institution ? How would assets be deployed? What weapons systems would be prioritized and ultimately receive funding? What doctrines would need to change to flip from an offensive mindset to a defensive mindset? What alliances would we maintain and what alliances would we discard?

I see that the article offers some examples, but I think crafting a progressive foreign policy would entail answering these kinds of more fundamental military questions. Cost cutting is a laudable goal but it strikes me that there's much more to it if real transformation is desired.

Lord Koos , October 18, 2019 at 2:11 pm

aybe ask Russia – their military policy is based on defensive posture rather than offensive.

Arnold , October 18, 2019 at 7:09 am

As a civil servant working for the Department of Defense, I can tell you that this would be a difficult shift in priorities for Congress to accept. It all comes down to the defense industry political donations they receive year after year, and the jobs the defense industry provides their constituents (no matter how meager or sub-optimal). Since defense spending is basically this nation's sole industrial policy, I think that finding employment for displaced workers (whether defense civil servants or contractors) is the biggest hurdle to address; a green new deal would solve the problem. We'd also need political campaign reform to force Congress off of the teet of defense industry political contributions.

Phacops , October 18, 2019 at 8:12 am

Finding employment for displaced defense civil servants or contractors? We've done that before . . . we tell them to train for the jobs of the future as we did for manufacturing workers and leave it at that. The same goes for the parasites working in health insurance companies, pharmacy benefit management and healtcare administration when M4A becomes a reality.

I have no sympathy for those people nor care for their well being as they deliberately, and with malice aforethought, make life meaner for us all.

John Wright , October 18, 2019 at 9:27 am

I remember when the defense/aerospace industry collapsed in Southern California in the early 1970's as the Vietnam war was winding down.

Tech jobs were scarce.

The political sphere is well aware of potential job loss due to defense cutbacks.

I have mentioned before, the relatively liberal CA Senator Barbara Boxer fought to preserve Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in Vallejo, CA, when it was slated to be shut down in the 1990's.

One could suggest that Vallejo has not fully recovered.

It is a tragedy of immense proportions, as I believe a future historian will remark that the USA, a nation that in its 200 + year history had only one large deadly war on its soil (the internal Civil War), re-titled its WWII "War Department" as "Defense Department" and then consumed tremendous resources in its purported defense for the next 70+ years.

A recent discussion with someone, that I regard as a "Northern California Liberal", about Trump's pullout of Syria further re-enforced that the resistance to ANY change in the MIC in the USA is formidable.

He was sure that Trump would be deservedly impeached because he was pulling out of Syria and abandoning our allies, the Kurds.

And he is old enough to remember Vietnam.

The USA news media and entertainment industries (big sports/Hollywood) are fully on board with the righteous USA "war is good" meme.

Given how the USA economy has restructured much employment and lifelihoods in costly sectors (finance, education, medicine, military) it is difficult for me to see how there would be political will to downsize the military to any extent as "good paying" jobs of politically powerful people would be lost.

Many of the manufacturing jobs have been moved overseas.

It is far easier to "kick the can down the road".

Off The Street , October 18, 2019 at 11:21 am

There is some hope for policy redirection in the Administration's recent Turkey-Syria-Kurd action. If there really is a shift away from foreign nation building and away from endless wars over endless enmities, then that could lead to redirection and reduction of military budgets. Watching the defenders of those engagements fall all over themselves recently has reconfirmed my notion that they are not acting in the best interests of their constituents. Meanwhile, the sun rose today.

xformbykr , October 18, 2019 at 7:38 am

The current defense spending and growth of national debt
more or less "prove" the validity of MMT. This has supported the channeling of resources and energy into military activity (and profits for enterprizes). Something similar is happening with healthcare; maybe it's inelastic
demand. (The similar something is ever-increasing costs.)
Healthcare at the moment seems to be outside of
the scope of current uses of MMT. But there are major
cost-control issues with it nonethess.
In what direction will things head if healthcare is
swept under the government MMT umbrella in the form of medicare for all? Will the government negotiate prices
with providers (hospitals, staff, pharma)? Certainly military procurement is no leading light.

Steve Ruis , October 18, 2019 at 8:17 am

While cutting the bloated Pentagon's budget is a very good idea, why is no one talking about the fringe benefit that is employer provided healthcare? I do believe a sizable fraction of folks on private insurance (maybe 40%?) get their health coverage through a fringe benefit from their employer. If that coverage is no longer necessary under universal coverage, it seems contractually that the money spent on the fringe benefit should go to the employees. That money is enough to pay for their insurance under universal coverage, so the employer pays it to the employee, the government taxes part of that to pay for the universal healthcare and everyone is better off. The employee, due to savings in the system, ends up with more money in pocket. The employer is out from under the ever increasing costs of the fringe benefit (plus can now claim to be paying higher salaries), and, well, the insurance companies are left behind to pick up "expanded coverage" for those wanting to pay for it.

This and "defense" spending cuts could pay for the whole system easily, no?

NotTimothyGeithner , October 18, 2019 at 8:57 am

The relative value of small business based jobs would increase with a functional health care system. There would be an outflow of employees from jobs with healthcare benefits.

With single payer, looking for a less stressful job becomes an alternative. Big employers know this.

rd , October 18, 2019 at 5:35 pm

It also means people may retire earlier if they don't need their employer-provided health insurance.

Health insurance becomes a minor consideration in selecting which employer to work for.

Companies and state/local governments that provide health care coverage in retirement should see their liabilities for that plummet as healthcare costs drop and public insurance improves.

inode_buddha , October 18, 2019 at 10:11 am

What contract? Unless you're in a union you don't have one.

HotFlash , October 18, 2019 at 11:36 am

Medicare for all makes self-employment, gig employment, and starting/running a small business much less terrifying.

Grayce , October 18, 2019 at 12:14 pm

COULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Technically, yes.
WOULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Not in this age of activist stockholders seeking new sources of "revenue." Everywhere. Benefits are simply a "cost." Human Resources is a "cost center." Defined benefits that averaged out the risk among many have segued to defined contribution that is no more than a tax-abated savings account. Risk has monetary value, but risk invisibly is shifting more and more to the individual.

Jeffersonian , October 18, 2019 at 8:37 am

After the last Democratic debate, it is safe say anti-war Progressivism is dead. Everyone was frothing at the mouth to prove how much they care for the Kurds, and our nation's honor, and that we should stay in the ME. Except Tulsi, but her response fell flat with the audience, and judging by my Left friends/family on Facebook, fell flat with them too. Having the same position as Trump is a death sentence. My faith in my fellow citizens is at quite a low ebb.

Grayce , October 18, 2019 at 12:19 pm

Cheer up. No matter what you used to think of Lindsay Graham, he is setting the pace for a representative to think for him/herself. Commentators reported surprise that he was "formerly in Trump's corner." Think about how easily we accept that the future is secured by a majority in either house. The outrageous president is inspiring elected Republicans to analyze issues (imagine!). Even if it is cold and calculated to influence their own voters, let's begin to applaud and encourage those who seem to think for them/ourselves.

Carl , October 18, 2019 at 8:45 am

We don't suffer from a lack of ideas in this area; no, we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Thus, another exercise in mental masturbation.

notabanktoadie , October 18, 2019 at 11:17 am

we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Carl

A Citizen's Dividend would be the camel's nose under the tent since the less wasted by government, the more that could be distributed to citizens to counter price deflation.

And it's only justice that all fiat creation, beyond that created for government to spend for the general welfare, be in the form of an equal Citizen's Dividend.

Carl , October 18, 2019 at 1:15 pm

Give me a shout if that ever happens. I'll be over in Europe enjoying low cost, high quality healthcare and not going bankrupt to pay for it.

notabanktoadie , October 18, 2019 at 1:55 pm

Funny you should mention Europe since an equal Citizen's Dividend for all Euro zone citizens would be a way to eliminate austerity that even Germany might not object to since Germans would receive it too.

Carl , October 18, 2019 at 6:44 pm

For example, Italy gives the unemployed 500 euros per month and tries to find them any sort of job. I think you're a little behind. But by all means, keep tilting at windmills.

Amfortas the hippie , October 18, 2019 at 1:15 pm

i was just thinking about that this am while finishing my fence like in alaska.
i figger that after 40+ years of declining or stagnant wages, a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay.
but "dividend" works just as well.

notabanktoadie , October 18, 2019 at 2:13 pm

a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay. Amfortas the hippie

The Citizen's Dividend would vary as required to counter price deflation but during the period when the banks are progressively de-privileged, it would have to be quite high to provide for the conversion of bank deposits to fiat deposits at the Central Bank – with the banks, by necessity, having to borrow the needed fiat from citizens.

notabanktoadie , October 18, 2019 at 2:22 pm

[addendum]

Or sell their assets to citizens at a discount.

In other words, a Citizen's Dividend PLUS de-privileging the banks can easily be a means to re-distribute wealth.

Carl , October 18, 2019 at 6:46 pm

Oh please, in what universe is this going to actually happen? You sound like you're running for office.

rd , October 18, 2019 at 10:08 am

Its still the wrong set of arguments. The problem in the US is not that Medicare-for-All would require new taxes that need funding. The problem is that the US spends twice per capita on healthcare what the average OECD country spends. The US spends more public tax money on healthcare per capita than Canada does, and Canada insures the entire population.

We can pay for our entire military budget as it exists if we simply drop our per capita healthcare spending to less than what Switzerland pays. Name one other thing that costs more in the US than in Switzerland.

Americans simply cannot comprehend how exorbitantly expensive and unequal the US healthcare system is compared to the rest of the developed world.

Mike , October 18, 2019 at 2:33 pm

While I gladly accept the results of these surveys, I question the reasons they seem to have garnered from the public. To most citizens, lower taxes mean much more than non-aggresive foreign policy and peaceful diplomacy. If the question was phrased in such a way that respondents were replying to the lower cost AND the concomitant peace-oriented habits that should (would?) come from it, then it is an issue whether they agreed with both statements. Further, this reorientation of spending would have to be bully-pulpited quite strongly to educate the US as to its long-term benefits since most of us have been prepped to be anxious about foreign nations and the paranoia of saving us from the evil dictator "X". Oh, yes, peace should come, but compare the Syria brou-ha-ha to what would descend upon us when peace broke out. The elites won't disappear.

Adam Eran , October 18, 2019 at 5:18 pm

Bizarre. The question is: How can we afford something that's half as expensive as what we're already paying? I wouldn't expect that level of insanity from someone in a straitjacket yet it's a commonplace in these discussions.

Even worse: the argument that government is financially constrained. It's not "tax & spend," it can't be. Where would taxpayers get dollars to pay those taxes if government didn't spend them first?

So it must be "spend first & then ask for some back in taxes." This is how reality works. And what do we call the dollar financial assets left in the economy, not retrieved by taxes? a) The dollar financial assets of the citizens, i.e. their savings or (same thing) b) National 'Debt'

National 'Debt' is completely unlike household debt. It's like bank debt. If you have a bank account, that's your asset, but to the bank, it's a liability. It's the money they owe you. It's their debt.

Now imagine a mob of depositors marching down to the bank to demand it reduce the size of its debt (i.e. make their accounts smaller) Crazy? Yes, but that's the austerian line of talk.

Finally, the inflationistas: "If you just print money, you'll have [gasp][hyper-]inflation!" This is the finest quality bullshit, and people spout it practically without prompting. The truth: The Fed extended $16 – $29 trillion in credit to cure the frauds of the financial sector in 2007-8. I defy anyone to find a measurement of inflation that says there was any then.

Was there central-bank-run-amok inflation in the classical cases (Weimar, Zimbabwe). Nope. Not even there. Yes they did print lots of Deutchmarks and Zimbabwe currency, but only after a shortage of good occurred that actually caused the inflation. Just printing money, especially if there's spare capacity, does not cause inflation. You need a bidding war for some commodity that's become scarce (like oil in the '70s). So Weimar had the burden of war reparations, a balance of payments problem, and when they delayed sending some telephone poles to France, the French military shut down the German equivalent of Ohio (the Ruhr). Shortages led to the hyperinflation. Similarly, the Rhodesian colonists left Zimbabwe, which had previously fed itself, and food shortages led to the hyperinflation.

The Cato study of 56 hyperinflationary episodes in human history also validates the above. In *no* case did a central bank "run amok" and print too much to kick off the hyperinflation. Always the cost push of a shortage of goods drove it.

Carl , October 18, 2019 at 6:47 pm

Nicely said.

RubyDog , October 18, 2019 at 6:51 pm

Gosh, it's all so simple. We just need to take on the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, and our corrupt political system all at the same time.

TG , October 19, 2019 at 12:04 am

Researchers Detail How Slashing the Social Security and Medicare Budgets Could Pay for More Pointless Wars While Creating the Progressive Wall Street Bailouts Americans Want.

[Oct 20, 2019] Trump Wants to End the Stupid Wars, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review

Oct 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

It should be observed that the Syrian incursion by the American military, which was initiated by President Barack Obama and his band of lady hawks during the so-called "Arab Spring" of 2011, was illegal from the gitgo. Syria did not threaten the United States, quite the contrary. Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.

When American soldiers first arrived in Syria the U.S. War Powers act was ignored, making the incursion illegal. Nor was there any mandate authorizing military intervention emanating from any supra-national agency like the United Nations. The excuse for the intervention was plausibly enough to destroy ISIS, but the reality was much more complex, with U.S. forces in addition seeking to limit Iranian and Russian presence in Syria while also bringing about regime change. The objectives were from the start unattainable as Iran and Russia were supporting the Syrian Army in doing most of the hard fighting against ISIS while the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was not threatened by a so-called democratic alternative which only existed in the minds of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice.

Unwilling to see large numbers of Americans coming home in caskets, the United States inevitably began to search for proxies to carry out the fighting on the ground and wound up willy-nilly arming, training and otherwise supporting terrorists, to include the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces eventually became the principal tool of U.S. military, but it must be observed that the Kurds in all likelihood had no illusions about the staying power of their American patrons. They were fighting Syrian forces as well as ISIS because they were seeking to carve out their own homeland of Kurdistan from the ruins of the Syrian state. Their expansion into northern Syria, aided by the U.S., was at the expense of the local population, which was overwhelmingly not Kurdish. Their occupation of that area was not reported honestly in the U.S. media, but other sources suggest that their behavior was often brutal.

So the lament about abandoning one's Kurdish allies has a kernel of truth, but the Senator Lindsey Graham response, to include sanctioning Turkey, should be considered to be little more than a dangerous misstep that would lead to acquiring a new and more powerful enemy. And, of course, the argument in favor of leaving the Kurds to their fate found its most ridiculous expression from the mouth of Donald Trump himself, who, up until recently had praised the Kurds as friends who had "fought and died for us." Trump is now observing that "they [the Kurds] didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy." As President Trump did not serve his country in Vietnam due to alleged bone spurs and his father Fred likewise did not serve in the military, the comment is particularly ironic. Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs present at Normandy they were undoubtedly on the German side.

Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not consider the economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions that is reportedly killing tens of thousands.

So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless wars? Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his actions, not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the actual front lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will change.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]


Cloak And Dagger , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:02 am GMT

The Turkish Army, which is one of the most powerful in NATO, will do whatever is necessary to crush them. Trump should have realized that before he started talking.

IDK, Phil. I am not sure that he didn't. My sense is that he has been pandering to the neocons in the hope of a compromise that would allow him to deliver enough of his campaign promises to permit his re-election. I think hiring Bolton was just such a move – thinking that keeping his enemies closer would permit him more control.

Recently, he has expressed frustration with his staff and I speculate that he has come to realize that pandering to the jews is going to be a one-way street. He has given them a score of concessions, including Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. He hasn't received anything in return, except for the onslaught of palace coups, one after the other, orchestrated by the very same zionist forces in both parties.

My hypothesis is that the man, narcissistic as he is, has reached the end of his tether. Faced with the potential to not get re-elected, he has mounted a counteroffensive against them. He, rightly, believes that the people who got him elected are the only ones who can get him re-elected. So, his recent tweets are both an attempt to recapture us to his side, while at the same time slapping the zionists across their faces with a show of power, as he is won't to do in business negotiations where he feels that he has been betrayed.

I could be completely wrong as I try to pry into his mind.

So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless wars? Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his actions, not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the actual front lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will change.

It serves us naught to take this pessimistic stance in the absence of a replacement candidate. I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will opt for the former.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:49 am GMT
Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors.
These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not consider the economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions that is reportedly killing tens of thousands
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mr. Giraldi,
Could you please elaborate on the first point: the use of drones. Who and where?

Secondly, economic warfare: are you referring to Iran or Venezuela? Could you elaborate?

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:54 am GMT
@A123 NATO members will not help the New Ottoman Empire "offensive".
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Wow, Israeli is really terrified. What will they do when the U.S. decouples from the Middle East completely? It's pretty clear that, short of running to Russia and fellating Putin, Bobo the Clown of Tel Aviv has no plan.
Tic Toc.
Anon [280] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT
The fact of the matter is that President Donald Trump is a Corrupt "Crypto Jew" in spite of the American people may think Trump is as he was chosen by the Elite to serve and protect Israel and churn profits for Elite owned and controlled Armaments industry in promoting wars against the Best interests of the citizens of United States of America.
WorkingClass , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:22 am GMT
If Washington withdraws its military, spooks and mercenaries the Syrian Curds will go back to being Syrians. Syria, Iran, Russia and Turkey will negotiate the peace. The U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will have been defeated in their war against Assad. Syria, unlike Iraq and Libya will remain standing.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:45 am GMT
Everyone loves to hate on Erdogan. I was hoping for a more nuanced view than [he] "is just crazy enough to do that." Remember when George Galloway called him "a lion," awestruck at his reaction to the Israeli murders of Turks on the boat to Gaza? Is it true that Turkey has made tremendous economic gains under his administration? He has much support, as shown by the [popular] squelching of attempted coup.

I've just never understood why he facilitated the chaos on his border, harboured the White Helmets, probably murdered Serena Shim, etc. And now, what will he do with his jihadi proxy army? As far as his threats to release migrants to Europe, I have no sympathy for EU countries who've been part of the war on the ME. What goes around, comes around. Same for the Kurds.

anon [219] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:00 am GMT

There have been some suggestions that the Kurds could make nice with the Damascus government and rely on the protection of the Syrian Army to deter the Turks, an option that they have already begun to exercise.

The Kurds have caved. Plus our radical Islamic rebels are going over, with our equipment etc to the Ass man.

Updated Oct. 14, 2019 6:48 pm ET. WSJ
ISTANBUL -- Syrian troops entered areas that have been outside their control for years on Monday, after a quickly forged pact between Kurdish forces and the Syrian government to confront a Turkish military campaign reshaped alliances in Syria.

That pact transformed the Kurds, an erstwhile partner of the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State, into a force more closely aligned with Russia and Iran, as the U.S. began withdrawing its troops from northeastern Syria.

Until recently, thousands of U.S.-backed fighters had trained at a military base in the town of Ain Eissa. After the Syrian military arrived on Monday morning, soldiers raised the tricolor Syrian flag in the town center.

The US gets out of the way, and Assad, who won the Civil War, immediately settles with the Kurds and Nustra.

So, it wasn't many troops, but we had successfully prevented Assad from absorbing (voluntarily) two groups in the Civil War. Meaning we (US) alone was preventing settlement. The. deep state has thwarted Trump's intentions to leave for 3 years.

Ghali , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:11 am GMT
"Or the Turks might be willing to escalate their own offensive to take on the inferior Syrian Army and the Kurds together." It is a stretch without careful analysis.
Many people said the same about the world's most cowardice army, the Israeli. There is an agreement between the parties and Erdogan will comply. The Kurds are the West-Israel proxy terrorists. They proved their usefulness many times.
anon [219] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:20 am GMT

But in pursuing their aspirations for self-rule, Syria's Kurds risked overreach and miscalculation. American officials have long made clear in meetings and public comments that U.S. military backing never amounted to an endorsement of Kurdish political ambitions.

In December, U.S. envoy to Syria James Jeffrey likened the partnership with the SySo he rian Kurds to a "transactional relationship for a specific goal."

Trump got it basically right -- time to leave and we never promised Kurds a Rose Garden.

His bumbling ruling decrees via Twitter stem from the lack of loyal staff. His decisions are ignored or subverted when he goes through channels. So he announces it and works from there. This is the 3rd Time Trump has announced withdrawal from Syria. Although the neocon press and Hawkish politicians howled.

Trump also implemented the Pivot to Asia (an Obama failure) by engaging China diplomatically through efforts at trade reform. Much more nuanced that fortifying bases.

Its never pretty, but Trump tends to stubbornly pursue a less warlike agenda.

Ronald Thomas West , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 7:17 am GMT
The mideast is where everybody backstabs everybody recalling the CIA used to deliver renditioned prisoners to Assad to be tortured along lines a bit more than 'enhanced' interrogations (karma could be a b *** h.) The soup only gets thicker as the pot boils down. Remember those NATO nukes kept at Incirlik?

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/10/14/with-turkeys-invasion-of-syria-concerns-mount-over-nukes-at-incirlik/

Why had NATO (the USA particularly) sat on its hands these past 3+ years? It's not like no one was aware there could be a serious problem with 50 (or more) tactical nukes in the hands of the paranoid narcissist Erdogan:

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2016/08/01/about-those-nato-nukes-kept-in-turkey/

^

animalogic , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:25 am GMT
@A123 "that is, the goods and services produced by the economy -- rises faster than the money created, so there is no inflation, and rises faster than the debt created, so the country's debt burden doesn't increase."
"The long term prospects for peace are still there. A return to the status quo ante. Russia remains as guarantor of the peace and all other foreign fighters and their proxies exit the nation."
Spot on.
Given cast-iron assurances re the PKK & it's Syrian cousins that Nth Syria will cease to be a zone for organising attacks (or any kind of nefarious Kurdish behaviour) on Turkey, I think Erdogan would likely consider a withdrawal of his forces.
animalogic , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:29 am GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen Agreed.
More information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.
sally , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:31 am GMT
i think there are few unknowns between Russia, Turkey, Syria; the plan seems to be to get ISIS, SDF, the PYD/YPD without regard to who is supporting them. Unleash ISIS, even those in prisons so they can move against Assad to be destroyed ? Those trapped in Idlib can either commit suicide or wait for the executioner. I have no facts, but by observing that the sanctions warfare is directed at those who intend to destroy ISIS, SDF, PYD/YPD and Israelis and Iranians visiting in Syria I conclude Russia and Turkey have skunked the Pentagon (maybe Trump is also in on it?) .

Russia and Syria have agreed to stand by while Turkey engages in some target practice at unwanted visitors in Syria? Invade Syria even North Western Iraq.. rid the world of pesky, trouble making, fake news head chopping face book and Twitter super stars, destroy all traces of Kurds, remove all non Syrian others threatening the Ottoman, Syrian Turf. Don't look now, but Iran seems to be on the Turkey list of non Syrians ?. ..After the area is cleared Assad's problem, will be, what if Turkey (Erdogan) refuses to return to Turkey, and that return to Turkey promise has probably been be guaranteed to Assad by Russia.

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:36 am GMT
I read a Russian statement somewhere last year [early 2018], in which they unequivocal said there would never be an autonomous Kurdish state. They [the Kurds] could stick to some of their customs, but legally and lawfully they would fall on Damascus' rule/s.
gotmituns , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:37 am GMT
"Beware of Foreign Entanglements" – George Washington.
Joe Palooka , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:41 am GMT
Trump's foreign policy constitutes an egregious betrayal of his election platform which was to "stay neutral" on Israel/Palestine, withdraw remaining troops and avoid any further entanglements. He reneged on all pledges.

The recent announcement that he was withdrawing troops from Syria was followed the next day by an announcement of 2,000 US troops being deployed to Saudi Arabia to protect that country from Iran. Say what?

It was totally predictable five years ago that Turkey was in Israel's gunsights, and as usual Israel tends to destroy others by proxy. They can sit back and savor Turkey destroying more of Syria, while US sanctions destroy more of Turkey.

The waves of death and destruction that have hammered the Middle East for the last seventy years are all symptoms of one problem and that is the illegitimate "state of Israel".

Europe natonalist , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
Most Americans seem obsessed with stupid wars. For example the vast majority of people in the UK see the Iraq War as a catastrophic mistake and despise Tony Blair, yet in the US most people still seem to see the Iraq War as a good thing. The mentality is far apart.

Americans seem a very insecure people, projecting military power is all they really have. If America is not constantly embroiled in a war somewhere then most Americans feel they have nothing to be proud of. I would go as far to say that the military is the only real source of pride in America, it's the only thing Americans feel they undeniably excel at.

Proud_Srbin , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:33 am GMT
There are no "stupid wars", every slaughter of millions was long time in planning and was based on greed and racism of the "master" races vs. "subhumans".
USA corporation, can not and will not survive without WARS.

Complete "economy" is a WAR machine, USA corporations has WEAPONIZED it ALL.

It is nice to dream, even HollyWood supports and promotes it.

Whiskey Rebellion me think was the Birthday of citizen USA and blessed it's associates with representation by corrupt and greedy anointed by others rushing to become corrupt and greedy.

Constructions ALWAYS follow destruction.

eah , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:02 am GMT
Trump has shown himself to be completely unreliable on every important issue; I do not see why it will be different this time -- his desire for approval from the Establishment is apparently far stronger than any principles he may hold -- you can see this in practically everything he does, perhaps most notably in his constant bleating about black and Hispanic unemployment -- he simply can't be trusted.
Contraviews , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:02 am GMT
On the other hand Trump has not started any new wars (so far). He is also resisting the elite of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia, probably in his own weird way by making confusing statements keeping them off balance. No body knows we are all simply speculating. Time will tell.
NoseytheDuke , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:16 am GMT
@WorkingClass Not really. The goal all along was not to "take" Syria so much as to destroy it and leave it in fragments. Mission accomplished! Syria, or at east large swathes of it has been reduced to rubble, its economy is gutted and its people are scattered to the winds. The US had no goals there to begin with and has just been acting in the service of its "great friend and ally" Israel. Your tax dollars at work.

Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind of peace. Solitudenum facient, pacem appellant said Tacitus. They make desolation and call it peace.

dimples , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:38 am GMT
@Europe natonalist I agree. Worship of the military is surely modern America's most cringeworthy and repellent aspect. The war hero is the American equivalent of the medieval saint, and you can't even blame the Jews for it. It's clearly a whitey thing. Get a few bullets shot at you by some primitive and soon to be obliterated savages and you can live large on your war stories for the rest of your comfortably pensioned days. The sad thing is that there are no wars for the US military to fight these days except those they create themselves.

America, an exceptionally immature, warlike and stupid nation. And they worship Jesus! Who of course will just laugh when he presses the button and sends them all into the lake of fire without a second thought.

OscarWildeLoveChild , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:17 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger Interesting, I've been mulling over this possibility recently and was thinking about it earlier as a potential outcome-based upon basic game theory.

What I don't understand is, if there be an alleged discreet hidden super-hand of power controlled by the Jewish elite, and Trump seemed to be doing their bidding (moving the Embassy), where are all the "compromising photos" and "Blasey Ford's" for the Warren's and Biden's of the world? Certainly some damaging (and likely private) material, or "witnesses" from the past exist, against those who attack Trump? Certainly the Mossad and/or other hidden forces have such information, that could protect Trump. Here's a guy with a (now) Jewish daughter and a Jewish son-in-law, doing positive things for Israel and the Jewish elite in the US/West, and yet, he has been subject to continual attacks, as have those around him, and now he is facing impeachment?

I don't see Israel getting it any better if Warren is elected (certainly not by her base, which is turning more toward a BDS worldview). It just makes me think their power is not as great as conspiracy theorists alleged, or in the alternative (perhaps likely) their "power" is superseded by an even greater hidden force of elites. If their power is as awesome and infiltrating as alleged, why isn't he president for life at this point? Using the media, politics, blackmail, international banking, this guy could usher in Israel as the capital of the universe, but yet none of that is happening. He is betrayed at every corner and faces removal from office, disgrace (for actually being the removed, i.e. the other side actually "winning" against him), and probably the destruction of any chance Ivanka and Jared had of becoming the first couple, in the future.

So perhaps as you offer, he's going for broke and just doing whatever he wants or wanted to do in the beginning. Time will tell. Strange times indeed.

ChuckOrloski , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:31 pm GMT
@Contraviews , Contraviews said: "He (Trump) is also resisting the elite of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia, probably in his own weird way by making confusing statements keeping them off balance."

No! Zionist Jews & Israel are keeping you and almost all of Amerika "off balance."

Refer to Jerusalem Post article (linked below) and you will distinguish "confusing statements" by Trump from the reality of mandatory ZUS endless ME wars since 9/11.

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Trump-swears-allegiance-to-Israel-as-he-decries-endless-Middle-East-wars-604506

JoaoAlfaiate , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:35 pm GMT
Everybody should be happy Uncle Sam is getting out of Syria. Look at the disasters the US created in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. and all the money wasted which could have been better spent here at home.

Much of what's being said in the MSM has to do with the American narrative that Turkey and Syria are bad guys for the unspoken reason that they have opposed the zionist enterprise.

What American national interest justified the occupation and dismemberment of Syria? Why should we support terrorist groups like the PPK against NATO member Turkey? Why should we ally with al-Qaeda affiliate HTS for israel's benefit?

Anonymous [648] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:48 pm GMT
@anon Good point about DJT needing to use Twitter to announce his decisions since they'd otherwise be thwarted or outright ignored going through normal channels. But, how can he actually be against these wars when they're contrasted with his embarrassing servility toward Israel, which in actuality is an enemy state responsible for Lavon, Liberty, and 9/11, not to mention it's theft of our technology that's used against us by Israel's intel tech companies for profit and communications espionage at the deepest levels of our government? The canard about other, overriding strategic interests doesn't hold water since the $trillions wasted on these wars could have secured our economic and military interests a hundredfold through trade and cultural interaction. As much as I want to trust DJT and would stand with him and the deplorables at the barricades if necessary, I cannot overcome my repugnance at his support for Israel, knowing as he now must know that Israel did 9/11.
huckOrloski , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:53 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger Interestingly, Cloak And Dagger said: ". I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego."

Hey C&D!

Just remember the treatment President JFK got when he refused to support Israeli M.E. nuke egos. Doubtless, Trump does.

DESERT FOX , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:59 pm GMT
The reason America was pushed into the mideast wars was the attack on the WTC 911 by Israel and traitors in the ZUS government and this attack was blamed on the Arabs and America was tricked into attacking Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, all this for Israels goal of greater Israel, and all this at the cost of millions in lives and 7 trillion and counting in taxpayers money.

To top off the deception, AL CIADA aka ISIS is a creation of the CIA and the Mossad and MI6, and these are the real terrorists!

onebornfree , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMT
Contraviews says: "On the other hand Trump has not started any new wars (so far). "

Only if you don't consider his various ongoing trade sanctions/embargoes to be overt acts of war.

Regards, onebornfree

[Oct 20, 2019] The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are still there

Oct 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Johnny Walker Read says: October 15, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT 200 Words

The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a deal with the Syrian government of president Bashar al-Assad to resist the ongoing Turkish invasion. Syrian forces have already moved into Kobane and Manbij. If Turkey continues with its push southwards into Syria, a war between the Turkish and Syrian forces seems imminent.

As per the deal signed on October 13, the SDF will dissolve its Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, and hand over the control of cities, such as Kobane and Manbij to the Syrian government. Talks between the SDF and the Syrian government were facilitated by the Russians at their Syrian base at Hmeimim in Latakia.

Turkey and its ally, the Free Syrian Army – many of whose members were directly affiliated to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups – continue their offensive and atrocities. The FSA has reportedly already illegally executed 13 people. The victims include Hervin Khalaf, leader of the Future Syria Party, and her two drivers.Turkey launched 'Operation Peace Spring' on October 9. The operation has already led to the death of around 60 Kurdish and 18 Turkish fighters. It has already caused the displacement of more than 130,000 people.

Is this just another cheap political stunt by the forces in D.C.(with both parties seemingly aligned)to distract us from all the corruption on both sides of the political isle which is close to being uncovered?
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/10/14/syrian-democratic-forces-and-bashar-al-assad-government-join-hands-against-turkey/


Yurt Fetishist , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT

How has the discussion predictably developed along partisan lines? Trump said he wants out of Syria. That united the war mongers in the house and senate because war means massive profits to the military industrial complex and congress works for them. Trump said something that affects the bottom line of the rich and they reacted predictably.
Branimir Aleksandrov , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:15 pm GMT
@A123 You can google and watch what Assad told the Kurds in a press conference. It will contradict part of your statement. The Kurds risked and lost. Great warriors, but weak diplomats and strategists.
barr , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:44 pm GMT
1BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:50 A.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has taken over the U.S. military base in Manbij after entering the city last night.

According to a military source in the Aleppo Governorate, the Syrian Arab Army has deployed several units to Manbij as they look to block any potential Turkish offensive to capture the city.

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On Tuesday, the Anna News Agency reported from Manbij, as they showed the deployment of the Syrian Army and their eventual take over of the U.S. military base there. -- AMN news .

2 A stunning development in the key northern Syrian city of Manbij -- the Pentagon has confirmed a planned handover to Russian military forces is underway amid a Turkish military assault on the region. This also hours after President Trump tweeted that Assad "wants naturally to protect the Kurds" and that the problem should be left to local powers.

Late Monday the main US base in Manbij was filmed empty of US forces, and American convoys were also spotted hastily pulling out of the city as Syrian national forces entered, following Sunday's historic deal between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Assad government. Newsweek reports the developments follows:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagon-confirms-manbij-handed-over-russia-us-forces-filmed-departing

I think Russia has allowed Turkey to attack Syria to satisfy Turke's main objective of rooting out the Kurd on the condition of returning the territory to Syria . It has given Kurd the bleak choice of oblivion or self preservation . America suffers from PTSD . The flashback of Saigon on the roof top reappeared again . It ran. Good a sensible job by Trump.

Greg S. , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@WJ The machinations people are making on this topic are truly stunning when it's clear Trump is doing the right thing. Today are reports that US positions and bases in N. Syria have been turn keyed over the Assad and Russian forces. Trump IS Protecting the Kurds, just not with American blood, as he promised.

The one thing Turkey has always wanted is a broken Syria so it can gobble up the remnants. Past US (and many current) leaders and Democrats were complicit in this by funneling cash and weapons to Syrian opposition, which directly led to the rise of Isis and deaths of thousands – can you say evil?

I have hope that Trumps current actions will bring an end to thus war for good – Turkey was OK to beat up on some kurds but war with Russia is something else.

anon [299] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
@OscarWildeLoveChild imho Jewish power keeps Trump on a perpetual short leash (Schiff is this month's designee to 'walk the dog') until Iran is wrecked.

[edit: renfro commented on Giraldi's earlier thread reminding readers that Israel has a major interest in the Kurds, their territory, which is oil rich. Remember the proposals to divide Iraq into three ]

Warren -- BDS is one thing, but her agenda to tax >$50million -- that's the part people hear & cheer: Hooray! Soak the rich!
The next thing she says is, "Use the money to pay for universal child care, universal kindergarten, increase pay for child care workers."

This gets cheers from millennials struggling to keep two people employed and kids cared for.

But think about how drastically anti-family those proposals are.

TOTALLY turn over the care of our children to the loving embrace of the federal government aka the Frankfurt school

mumbo meets jumbo --
https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_CITE_006_0049–pathologies-of-authority-some-aspects-of.htm

The combined synthesis of social theory and psychoanalysis thus allows resituating on new bases the Marxist optimism according to which the working class, due to its position in the relations of production, is disposed to adopt a point of view scientifically based on reality as well as promote legitimate forms of action.

Knowledge of the forms of the becoming-adult of humanity conceived by Freud, in the form of a theory of passage through different stages that must result in an assumed genital sexuality, leads to the recognition of a working class that is believed to be less encumbered by typically bourgeois prejudices and perversities.

WorkingClass , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:20 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are still there. Where is Saddam Hussein? Where is Muammar Gaddafi? After seven years of war in Syria the victors are Syria, Iran and Russia. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The real losers of course are the dead and the maimed. The widows and orphans. And the millions who have been displaced and have become refugees. All are victims of Imperial aggression. And the real winners of course are the war profiteers who have grown fatter and fatter since 9/11.

[Oct 20, 2019] Unasked Questions About US-Ukrainian Relations by Stephen F. Cohen

Notable quotes:
"... Russia hating is the lynchpin of oligarchic deepstate MIC MSM propaganda. Take that away and the fat cats are revealed as the naked face of evil that they are. Hating Russia (and China) supposedly justifies all their crimes. ..."
Oct 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

The transcript of President Trump's July 25 telephone conversation with Ukraine's recently elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has ignited the usual anti-Trump bashing in American political-media circles, even more calls for impeachment, with little, if any, regard for the national security issues involved. Leave aside that Trump should not have been compelled to make the transcript public and ask: Which, if any, foreign leaders will now feel free to conduct personal telephone diplomacy with an American president directly or indirectly, of the kind that helped end the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, knowing that his or her comments might become known to domestic political opponents? Consider instead only the following undiscussed issues:

§ Even if former vice president Joseph Biden, who figured prominently in the Trump-Zelensky conversation, is not the Democratic nominee, Ukraine is now likely to be a contested, and poisonous, issue in the 2020 US presidential election. How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion, as some of us who opposed that folly back in the 1990s warned would be the case, and not only in Ukraine. The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013 -- 14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass. All those fateful events infused the Trump-Zelensky talk, if only between the lines.

§ Russia shares centuries of substantial civilizational values, language, culture, geography, and intimate family relations with Ukraine. America does not. Why, then, is it routinely asserted in the US political-media establishment that Ukraine is a "vital US national interest" and not a vital zone of Russian national security, as by all geopolitical reckoning it would seem to be? The standard American establishment answer is: because of "Russian aggression against Ukraine." But the "aggression" cited is Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for anti-Kiev fighters in the Donbass civil war, both of which came after, not before, the Maidan crisis, and indeed were a direct result of it. That is, in Moscow's eyes, it was reacting, not unreasonably, to US-led "aggression." In any event, as opponents of eastward expansion also warned in the 1990s, NATO has increased no one's security, only diminished security throughout the region bordering Russia.

§ Which brings us back to the Trump-Zelensky telephone conversation. President Zelensky ran and won overwhelmingly as a peace-with-Moscow candidate, which is why the roughly $400 million in US military aid to Ukraine, authorized by Congress, figured anomalously in the conversation. Trump is being sharply criticized for withholding that aid or threatening to do so, including by Obama partisans. Forgotten, it seems, is that President Obama, despite considerable bipartisan pressure, steadfastly refused to authorize such military assistance to Kiev, presumably because it might escalate the Russian-Ukrainian conflict (and Russia, with its long border with Ukraine, had every escalatory advantage). Instead of baiting Trump on this issue, we should hope he encourages the new peace talks that Zelensky has undertaken in recent days with Moscow, which could end the killing in Donbass. (For this, Zelensky is being threatened by well-armed extreme Ukrainian nationalists, even quasi-fascists. Strong American support for his negotiations with Moscow may not deter them, but it might.)

§ Finally, but not surprisingly, the shadow of Russiagate is now morphing into Ukrainegate. Trump is also being sharply criticized for asking Zelensky to cooperate with Attorney General William Barr's investigation into the origins of Russiagate, even though the role of Ukrainian-Americans and Ukraine itself in Russiagate allegations against Trump on behalf of Hillary Clinton in 2016 is now well-documented .

We need to know fully the origins of Russiagate, arguably the worst presidential scandal in American history, and if Ukrainian authorities can contribute to that understanding, they should be encouraged to do so. As I've argued repeatedly, fervent anti-Trumpers must decide whether they loathe him more than they care about American and international security. Imaging, for example, a Cuban missile -- like crisis somewhere in the world today where Washington and Moscow are militarily eyeball-to-eyeball, directly or through proxies, from the Baltic and the Black Seas to Syria and Ukraine. Will Trump's presidential legitimacy be sufficient for him to resolve such an existential crisis peacefully, as President John F. Kennedy did in 1962?

Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com.

Realist , says: October 4, 2019 at 12:06 am GMT

Trump is an agent of the Deep State, playing good cop to the bad cop Deep State. I have been saying this since mid April 2017. His multitude of actions belie his promises. Trump is a quisling to his supporters.

Here is an excellent article that comports with my view of Trump.

http://www.alt-market.com/index.php/articles/3949-trump-cannot-be-anti-globalist-while-working-with-global-elites

Ron Unz , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:35 am GMT
@Dan Hayes

I am puzzled why Cohen is permitted to publish in the Nation. Is it due to his marriage to its publisher or to the magazine's remnant infatuation with the Soviet state? Just asking.

The whole situation is a rather ironic

Prof. Cohen is certainly one of America's most eminent Russia scholars, and I think that for decades he was regarded as one of the most left-leaning ones, regularly denounced for his leftism by all the Neocons and other rightwingers. I remember I used to see him on the PBS Newshour, sometimes paired with a conservative critic of the Soviets. I'd guess that past history plus being married to the publisher of The Nation is what gives him his residual foothold there.

I'd suspect that if someone had told him a couple of decades ago that by the late 2010s he'd be blacklisted from the MSM and denounced as a "Russian agent," he probably would have been greatly saddened at the disheartening turn in American society, but not totally shocked. He probably would have regarded such a scenario as having a 10% possibility.

But if someone would have told him that the people denouncing and blacklisting him would have been the *liberal Democrats* and some of their most "excitable" elements would be accusing him of being a "Neo-Nazi White Supremacist Russian Agent" he would have thought the entire country had gone on LSD.

It's sad that our entire country has gone on LSD

The whole situation is actually a perfect parallel to the various past American purges I've often covered in my articles:

http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-our-great-purge-of-the-1940s/


renfro , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT

Russia is the excuse for US actions in the Ukraine as it was in the ME.
What is America without a big bad boogeyman like Russia?.
Certainly not a “Superpower’ defending the world.
Without enemies like Russia we would be nothing but big rich country.
And all the Neos and Zios and politicians would have to use Viagra instead of war to squirt out their poison.

A lot of countries like the Ukraine have gotten a lot of US taxpayer money by ‘standing up to a Russian takeover’….and are laughing all the way to their bank.

sally , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:47 am GMT
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine’s torturous and famously corrupt politics?

The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area.

Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt, Yemen etc.

Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind.

I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.

A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?

mark green , says: October 4, 2019 at 6:06 am GMT
It is more than ironic that the Dems (and their like-minded cronies in Big Media) are up in arms over Trump’s attempt in find ‘dirt’ about Joe Biden when the ‘dirt’ looks and smells like actual corruption. Have laws been broken? Was Biden selling influence through his son? Stranger things have happened. At the very least, it looks as though Joe Biden crossed an ethical line. This will likely cost him the nomination.

Similarly, the news media should–if it was doing its job–pursue leads that would help find the source behind the missing server and the Fake News that helped justify the toxic and duplicitous ‘Russiagate’ investigation. But they’d rather pursue Trump instead. I have never witnessed a more partisan and bloodthirsty Fourth Estate.

Why is the media so utterly uninterested in finding out who/how the fake Putin-Trump ‘conspiracy’ was cooked up in the first place? Doesn’t it make sense the Trump would want to find out more? Justice demands it. False intelligence can sow chaos and start wars.

Consider, for instance, the manufactured lies (Saddam’s phantom WMD, links to 911, etc) that were used to justify Zio-America’s annihilation of Iraq. What intelligence agency cooked up these falsehoods? Who spoon-fed these fairy tales to G.W. Bush and Colin Powell?

Not only have these questions never been answered, they are seldom even asked! The Deep State has gone rogue. And Big Media is covering it up.

animalogic , says: October 4, 2019 at 7:29 am GMT
This whole ridiculous drama may profit the Dem’s in the longer term — that is, by removing that corrupt, dementia ridden nit-wit Biden from the presidential competition.
As president, Biden would be a greater sock puppet than even GWB…of course, “sock puppet” maybe just what the Dem’s want….
Patric , says: October 4, 2019 at 8:13 am GMT
@renfro renfro said “And all the Neos and Zios and politicians would have to use Viagra instead of war to squirt out their poison.”

Very well said indeed!

Beckow , says: October 4, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO, and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?

There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?

Mikhail , says: • Website October 4, 2019 at 8:33 am GMT
@Ron Unz Thanks to Tucker Carlson’s show, some folks on the left like Cohen, Mate and Greenwald, are more likely to get air time on Fox News than MSNBC and CNN.
Observator , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:15 am GMT
The current CIA talking point is that it is illegal for the President to seek foreign assistance for his campaign. One might also slant it that the President of the United States has an obligation to the people who elected him to require an allied, friendly government to reopen the investigation of Biden because there is adequate reason to suspect that the Democrats are running yet another corrupt criminal for President. Incidentally, this puts Zelensky in a very awkward position, as one of the backers of his transition from sitcom star to President of Ukraine was a principal in Burisma

It is not the threat of impeachment that will energize Trump’s base; it is the grotesque, constant character assassination in the (largely CIA manipulated) media that will return him to the White House. The American people have a sense of fairness. They have always been of better character than the reprobates we are allowed to vote for. Whatever happened to trusting the democratic process, instead of using intelligence assets to engineer domestic regime change?

History is not made by nice guys. Trump has torn a big hole in the tissue of lies about what this country is and what it stands for, and that is too much for those who make their living deceiving us.

mike k , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
Russia hating is the lynchpin of oligarchic deepstate MIC MSM propaganda. Take that away and the fat cats are revealed as the naked face of evil that they are. Hating Russia (and China) supposedly justifies all their crimes.
eah , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:55 am GMT
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country’s constitutionally elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.

Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American military/industrial/political Establishment — none of that had anything to do with US national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) — how fucking hypocritical is it to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? — none of it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.

[Oct 20, 2019] Reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable Syrian and Turkish demands is now Putin's problem. If he can work this out, he ought to get the Nobel Prize by Patrick J. Buchanan

Looks like our stable genius" pushed Putin against Erdogan and sided with Erdogan in the process.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf. ..."
"... There is first President Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles, from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq. ..."
"... Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish troops. ..."
"... The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS, Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted, and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe. ..."
"... Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining American values. ..."
"... Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet without harming others. ..."
"... The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid situation. ..."
"... The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald Trump, has called the Democrats out on this. ..."
"... Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels (AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history is written in a few years all this will come out. ..."
"... ISIS formed in the chaos that was the Iraq War, neat how you guys never accept blame for anything. ..."
"... The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a 'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal. ..."
"... Our imperialists must have misread Tacitus, because it seems they aspire to making peaceful deserts. ..."
"... Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US politicians (Republican and Democrat). ..."
"... No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite. ..."
Oct 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

"Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East," proclaimed Britain's Telegraph .

The article began:

"Russia's status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the U.S."

"Donald Trump Has Handed Putin the Middle East on a Plate" was the title of yet another Telegraph column. "Putin Seizes on Trump's Syria Retreat to Cement Middle East Role," declared the Financial Times .

The U.S. press parroted the British: Putin is now the new master of the Mideast. And woe is us.

Before concluding that Trump's pullout of the last 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is America's Dunkirk, some reflection is needed.

Yes, Putin has played his hand skillfully. Diplomatically, as the Brits say, the Russian president is "punching above his weight."

He gets on with everyone. He is welcomed in Iran by the Ayatollah, meets regularly with Bibi Netanyahu, is a cherished ally of Syria's Bashar Assad, and this week was being hosted by the King of Saudi Arabia and the royal rulers of the UAE. October 2019 has been a triumphal month.

Yet, consider what Putin has inherited and what his capabilities are for playing power broker of the Middle East.

He has a single naval base on the Med, Tartus, in Syria, which dates to the 1970s, and a new air base, Khmeimim, also in Syria.

The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf.

We have the world's largest economy. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's, and not a tenth the size of ours.

And now that we are out of Syria's civil war and the Kurds have cut their deal with Damascus, consider what we have just dumped into Vladimir Putin's lap. He is now the man in the middle between Turkey and Syria.

He must bring together dictators who detest each other. There is first President Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles, from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq.

Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish troops.

Reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable Syrian and Turkish demands is now Putin's problem. If he can work this out, he ought to get the Nobel Prize.

"Putin is the New King of Syria," ran the op-ed headline in Thursday's Wall Street Journal.

The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS, Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted, and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe.

If Putin wants to be king of this, and it is OK with Assad, how does that imperil the United States of America, 6,000 miles away?

Wednesday, two-thirds of the House Republicans joined Nancy Pelosi's Democrats to denounce Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and dissolve our alliance with the Kurds. And Republican rage over the sudden abandonment of the Kurds is understandable.

But how long does the GOP believe we should keep troops in Syria and control the northeastern quadrant of that country? If the Syrian army sought to push us out, under what authority would we wage war against a Syrian army inside Syria?

And if the Turks are determined to secure their border, should we wage war on that NATO ally to stop them? Would U.S. planes fly out of Turkey's Incirlik air base to attack Turkish soldiers fighting in Syria?

If Congress believes we have interests in Syria so vital we should be willing to go to war for them -- against Syria, Turkey, Russia or Iran -- why does Congress not declare those interests and authorize war to secure them?

Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining American values.

If Putin is king of Syria, it is because he was willing to pay the price in blood and treasure to keep his Russia's toehold on the Med and save his ally Bashar Assad, who would have gone under without him.

Who dares wins. Now let's see how Putin likes his prize.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.


Sydney 2 days ago

Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet without harming others. At a recent interview with Arabic media a UAE journalist tried to drive a wedge between Russia and Iran in favor of Saudi Kingdom by challenging Putin to condemn Iran for alleged attacks on Saudi oil installations by Iran.

To which Putin skillfully replied: "Russia will never be friends 'with one country against another' in the Middle East". Nor would Putin condemn Iran unless he was presented with clear evidence - not just accusations - of Iran's guilt. Point in case: Putin does it better than others; sure, but why is that bad?

Oh of course envy and fear of one being exposed for inept leadership. Time long overdue to shake hands with Putin and Russia.
https://www.rt.com/russia/o...

Doug Wallis 2 days ago
I haven't a concern for Russia in the middle east.
  1. Russia is doing the US the biggest unasked favor proving where our friends and allies loyalties in the middle east lay by forcing them to make choices in the face of shifting alliances that they wouldn't reveal if the US continued its presence.
  2. Russia is depopulating and it has choke points with China, with Central Asia, with the middle east and Europe. Russia will eventually not have the population to defend all these choke points and will eventually withdraw and focus on its own national security. At that time, I think its possible to see Russia shift its relationship in eastern Europe while distancing itself from Chinese expansionism that might one day want its old north pacific territories back (like what is today Vladivostok and Sakhalin).
Sydney Doug Wallis 2 days ago
Depopulating? Where did you get that from? Population decrease in Russia stopped. By the latest stats it is just about breaking even (death rates = birth rates). Moreover, population is growing albeit very slowly. Sorry but Russkies won't die out like extinct species. As far as its own national security; well, the old notion of "Russia is, more or less, a giant gas station pretending to be a real country." is as dead as Senator McCain, who pretended to know something about Russia; alas he was sadly and dangerously uninformed.
https://www.forbes.com/site...
Sid Finster Doug Wallis 2 days ago • edited
1. Trump has no plan or strategy in the Middle East.
2. Russia is not depopulating, nor has it been doing so for some time now.
Fayez Abedaziz 2 days ago
Let me get this straight:
  1. The US has troops and a base or more in Syria? I don't see any Syrian army bases in the US...
  2. And, the US is telling/demanding where the Syrian army come and goes in...Syria? What the hell is wrong with this picture? You know!?
  3. Oh, now hypocrite neo-con enabler Pelosi and some of the freaky other politicians are concerned with human lives in Syria? Ha ha

But...not about the lives of children dying in Yemen and Afghanistan and Gaza? How come? And, the US is telling Turkey what it had better do with it's border?
Also, friends and enemies o' mine,just which entity, nation and group is not a US ally?

Ally? What does that mean? As if the American people know the hell that words means anymore and as if there's even a meaning to that. And the American people do not watch the news, read magazines (news) as they did before. They don't know what is going on in the world, they gave up.

People under 50 automatically tune world news out, thanks mostly to the phonies at CNN and the major, basically neo-con supporting networks confusing the public, purposely so that they don't see the misery that is in the nations of the MId-East thanks to US invasions and bombings. Just look at cnn-they spend all day talking about what Trump or some politician said, no coverage of battles overseas, unless it benefits the continuing spinning of the news for intervention and so on.

The US won't get a grip and stop threatening nation after nation (while Russia does not) and so, people all over the world are thinking, you now what, look at how dumb Americans are that they allow people from Obama, Hillary, Schumer, Pelosi, Graham and more to conduct foreign policy that makes enemies for America daily. And don't forget Cheney and that group, too from before. These people are actually an insult to America.

Compare how the leaders of Russia and America talk and conduct themselves.

Russia has Lavrov, the gentleman diplomat, the US has Pompeo and the likes of Bolton and Kushner, the Israeli lobbyist and the Presidents son in law.

How does a so-called Republic allow the President to have his daughter and Kushner, her husband, to be security/foreign policy advisers. You're really losing it, America.

Sydney Fayez Abedaziz 2 days ago
Well argued and reasoned.
Mercerville 2 days ago
"But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining American values."

No, they don't lack "confidence". They've got all the confidence in the world. What they lack is competence, integrity, and credibility with the American people and the rest of the world. They have dragged America through the mud in the Middle East for nearly two decades. They transformed the once proud American military and diplomatic corps into a customer service operation for Israel and Saudi Arabia.

We don't need more lectures and directives about "our interests" and "Western values" that always turn out to be Israeli and Saudi Arabian interests and values. We need new foreign policy elites, free of the current elite's miserable record of failure, corruption, and subordination to foreign interests. Above all, we need to get out of the Mideast swamps that the younger Bush and Obama pushed us into, bring our troops back to America, start defending America and American interests again.

Sydney Mercerville a day ago
How simple and true what U've said. Sounds like a sound position and logical too. So why is this not happening? The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid situation.
Emmet Sweeney 2 days ago
The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald Trump, has called the Democrats out on this.
Name Emmet Sweeney 2 days ago
Which action was that and how is Trump withdrawal any different form said action, except for handing Russia and Iran the influence in the ME
Mrm Penumathy Name a day ago
Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels (AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history is written in a few years all this will come out.
Zoran Aleksic Name a day ago
Absolutely. Handing the ME to the Russians, when we all know it belongs to the US by some divine appointment.
=marco01= Emmet Sweeney a day ago
ISIS formed in the chaos that was the Iraq War, neat how you guys never accept blame for anything.
chris chuba 2 days ago
The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a 'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal.

Trump is indeed our Dorian Gray, he is just outwardly reflecting our narcissism, 'if we don't get to do it then no one else can'.

tweets21 2 days ago
Obvious Pat we have no consistent foreign policy in the region since we inherited the mantle from the Brit Empire post WW 2. Oil and Israel were a marketable justification for our wars and changing partners ( regime change ), for a long time. Now neither is relevant. We have all the fossil fuels we need, and Israel is all powerful.. Long term I doubt the Russians will make a difference, in the Muslim quest to resurrect the Ottoman Empire. We have lost too many of our sons and daughters. get out.
LostForWords 2 days ago
Trump is a genius. At the moment, Syria is a poisoned chalice to anyone accepting responsibility for it. Russia is only there because they cannot get a naval base in any other Mediterranean country.

When, or if peace is achieved in Syria, it will be the US that swoops in to market the brands the Arabs love. The Syrians won't be buying Russian products.

NoNonsensingPlease LostForWords a day ago
Name an American brand the "Arabs love": Toyota, Lexis, Rollex, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung, iPhone (made in China)? Which one(s). While their infrastructure and basic technology are and will continue to be Russian.
Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
Our imperialists must have misread Tacitus, because it seems they aspire to making peaceful deserts.
NotYouNotSure 2 days ago
Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US politicians (Republican and Democrat).

No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite.

Trump=Obama 2 days ago • edited
The Middle East is home to oil, terrorism, access points for maritime transportation (The Red Sea, The Bosphorus, Suez Canal, Persian Gulf). It is strategically important. It was a mistake for Obama to leave Iraq before there was a stable situation and it is a mistake for Trump to leave before there is a stable situation.

To say, "Just let them all fight it out" is foolhardy and likely just a rationalization for your mistake to support the narcissistic fool in the White House.

Zoran Aleksic 2 days ago
" Who dares wins. Now let’s see how Putin likes his prize. " With a smirk on my face, I look forward to seeing you fail.
John Sobieski 2 days ago
I don't think Putin is going to be unhappy about it. The various powers of the ME will now go to him for favors, and he will get favors in return. I doubt US interests will be among them.
cdugga 2 days ago
Putin said, I've got your no fly zone right here. After Russian deployment of the SA400's, america had no choice but to begin withdrawal.

And kind of missing from Buchanan's list of putin friends, is erdogan himself.

So, it will be interesting to see what happens now. Putin holds all the cards and is in the best position of anybody on the planet to broker a deal between assad and erdogan. Part of that deal will likely be very bad for those who threw their lot in with the US.

Turkey is not a small country and has an enormous military. Buchanan himself said that we should stay out of Syria and let the Turks deal with ISIS.

But they were too smart for that, and had their own coup to worry about. I have always thought that the US should have brokered a homeland for the kurds. It would have been hard, but now it is impossible.

Turkey is now a client state of Russia much more than a member of NATO. At least in appearance. They now buy SA400's and SU-57's from mother russia.

Who supplies and maintains your best weapon systems indicates who your real allies are. What has the US lost? I would say we lost anybody across the globe that we ever hoped would ally with us against the new sino-russian superpower. Russia has unlimited space and resources. China has unlimited people and no limits on its technical growth and markets. The US? We are the biggest debtor third world nation that has ever existed. But hey, we have the most stable genius as our president, and the sky is the limit for what he will accomplish other than permanent tax cuts for corporations. Right? The right again.

Except for 2 wrongs, they wouldn't even exist. Can faith overcome inconvenient truth? Real faith probably could by accepting inconvenient truth. But real faith is mostly dead. It was replaced with tax free religiosity and assault weaponry sponsored by corporate fascist government. I watched it happen. And his story is being rewritten in days or weeks instead of years and decades.

bt a day ago
It's not often that I would agree with Pat B. Essentially never.

But on this point, yes. If Putin wants the Middle East, by all means proceed.

That region has been messing up our politics for literally my whole life - It is most decidedly not a Promised Land for the United States. Let the Saudis and the Iranians and the Russians and the Turks fight it out. It should be lovely. The Israelis call sell weapons to all of them.

Amadeus Mozart a day ago
Thank you for this small bit of obvious wisdom, Mr. Buchanan. Your insights are very common sensical here, and thus, most valuable. Too bad they will mostly fall on the deaf ears of our moronic "Elites".
Cascade Joe a day ago
I believe Obama said that Putin would be overwhelmed in Syria. However, Putin has overseen an excellent strategy of picking an area of insurgents, militarily pounding them, then offering them free passage to a safe area (Idlib). After doing this across Syria, he and Assad now have all of the jihadist groups in one place where they can pound them senseless or just sit back and wait for them to start shooting each other.

Trump did not screw up the Kurds' clearing of ISIS above the Euphrates. Now he has given Putin and Assad the results of that. I expect the PA team will stabilize that area in short order.

So, Idlib and NW Syria will be a cauldron for a while. Now Al Tanf is the only insurgent holdout. Be interesting to see how that unfolds.

MPC 17 hours ago
Lest Trumpland forget, there is a reason we got involved in the region. Jihadists can and will use neglect to later come after us.

Putin shows us how its done. 3 billion or so, find good Muslims (anyone other than Sunni islamists) and help them blow up, conquer, and occasionally repress the bad Muslims.

We spent several TRILLION ourselves and thousands of American lives for nothing. We never had a single achievable objective in any of these conflicts.

Donald is a moron for selling out the Kurds, who it cost nothing to back, to Turkey but the DC elites made this inevitable by refusing to cut a deal with Assad for the Kurds. He's been the only realistic option for a long time now.

[Oct 20, 2019] USA corporations, can not and will not survive without WARS. Complete USA "economy" is a WAR machine

Oct 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

onebornfree , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 1:27 pm GMT

@Proud_Srbin Proud_Srbin says: "USA corporation, can not and will not survive without WARS. Complete USA "economy" is a WAR machine,"

As Randolph Bourne observed: "War is the health of the state". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Bourne

But its not just the US that is a war machine. Bourne's statement equally applies to _all_ states everywhere, past present and future.

If any state appears to not be making war on other countries at any particular time, its only because it is too busy making war on its own citizens [ eg taxes, drug laws, weapons/gun laws, religion laws, speech laws, environmental laws etc.etc. etc.], and has not yet created enough fake money via its central bank to enable it to debt-fund consistent overseas aggressions against others.

Regards, onebornfree

DESERT FOX , says: October 15, 2019 at 1:38 pm GMT
@onebornfree The Report From Iron Mountain says it all, the ZUS is to fight perpetual wars for the zionist agenda of a zionist NWO.

This report came out in the 1960's and can be googled.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen

What will they do when the U.S. decouples from the Middle East completely?

Believing the U.S. will "completely decouple" from the Middle East is akin to believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Moon Landings.
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2Fc8YC8htf5YQg0%2Fgiphy.gif&f=1&nofb=1

anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:00 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger My hypothesis is that the man, narcissistic as he is, has reached the end of his tether. "

This is a truth ,eternal truth ,it applies to ironically both to a person and to a country . Just keep on giving and some more.

melpol , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT
Wars by the US will never end because arms manufactures own Trump. Almost one half of the US budget goes for the security of the state, domestic and abroad. New weapon development would come to a halt if the US was not threatened. Fake news about China and Russia planning to attack the US keeps the arms industry humming. Over a million national security workers and their families would be devastated if Trump stopped fighting fake wars. God bless imagined threat of wars.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:13 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke

The goal all along was not to "take" Syria so much as to destroy it and leave it in fragments acting in the service of Israel.

Just so.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:14 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

This has strengthened the possibility of the revival of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). There are around 10,000 such ISIS fighters currently lodged in prisons run by the SDF.

And with this, "the war on terror" is guaranteed to go on, and on, and on..

Subhead Corrigendum , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
Let's see what CIA actually does

https://armswatch.com/

There ya go.

Anonymous [835] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
@Sean started to click the Troll button
decided Sean #36 not worth the calories
DESERT FOX , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read AL CIADA aka ISIS is a creation of the CIA and the MOSSAD and MI6.
Prof Watson , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
Trump is Bibi's Shabbos goy.
Agent76 , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:43 pm GMT
September 20, 2019 The Imperial Debris of War

Just in case you hadn't heard the good news, the last man from the president's foreign policy "team" still standing, Trump whisperer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently left National Security Advisor John Bolton in the dust.

https://original.antiwar.com/stephanie_savell/2019/09/19/the-imperial-debris-of-war/

June 27, 2018 Harvard Research Scholar Explains How America Created Al-Qaeda & The ISIS Terror Group

It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49733.htm

Rev. Spooner , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen Trade wars, sanctions, embargoes are economic warfare. I'm not going to elaborate as teaching Kindergarten is not my forte.
Longfisher , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
Oh, what a tangled web we leave when the CIA first seeks to deceive.
Greg Bacon , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 4:20 pm GMT
What Trump wants to do and what he can do are two very different things. The MIC/Zionist rot in DC is way too deep and entrenched for any one man to tackle.

Trump could make all his Schiffty problems go away by bombing Iran. Overnight, the man would be lauded as the president we need and that aging hack Pelosi would suddenly drop that phony impeachment hearing.

Trump is finding out that when making foreign policy, the safest route to take is to first ask, "Is this good for Israel?"

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:26 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger Agree.

And look what it has revealed the Dems, the Zios, the msm and Trump's Repubs all screaming how the US should stay in Syria

I have no love for Trump BUT .his Syria move has shown us how far into the Trump Derangement throes the Dems are.

It reveals as nothing else he has done so far that we have a government OF THE PARTIES, BY THE PARTIES , FOR THE PARTIES ..not for the people.

I hope people concentrate on that reveal.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger

I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will opt for the former

I think you are spot on there also.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Exactly, with thousands of ISIS,ISIL(American/Israeli proxy forces)types now being freed due to Turkey's incursions into Syria, these "rebels" will be free to re-group and fight another day. Hence the need for American forces to STAY deployed in the Area. This is nothing more than a distraction move by Trump, which will result in the opposite "intended" actions of American forces being withdrawn from Syria. This will also guarantee the "need" for a strong Soviet presence in Syria.

America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria, the only point of contention between America/Israel and Russia was whether Assad was to be forced from power or would be allowed to remain President as a puppet of Putin and the Russians. Syria was to never remain a sovereign nation.

Priss Factor , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 4:50 pm GMT

https://www.youtube.com/embed/P0EwGEZKWvA?feature=oembed

Syrian Exposes Media Lies About Syria Withdrawal

The US still hasn't acknowledged the Armenian Massacre by the Turks. Why should it care about Kurds. US is the nation that said killing 500,000 kids in Iraq was worth it.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:52 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke

Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind of peace.

Not really. All are still standing and not under US control. Iraq now leans even more toward Iran and Syria toward Russia ..and that outcome in these countries has made Israel's goal of destroying Iran much harder and less likely .
The curtailment of the Kurds, Israel's long time friends and proxy , is another blow to Israel's plot.

It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey loose to do that job.

Bragadocious , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:01 pm GMT
@WJ Right. But as Giraldi always points out, Trump almost attacked Venezuela. He said mean words and rattled sabres! As opposed to Obama, who said no mean words ('cause he upheld the "dignity of the office") but sent the fighter jets into Libya and turned that country from a stable, secular regime into a human trafficking warzone. And also got an ambassador killed. Here are some of Giraldi's gems from April 2011:

Libya is a humanitarian mission

it [the invasion] has no clearly stated objective except to protect Libyan civilians

it is now clear that the rebels do not have any military organization to speak of and Gaddafi has the whip hand

Nice analysis there, Mr. CIA lifer and Obama lickspittle. I can only assume Giraldi was part of the crack CIA team of Sovietologists who were utterly blindsided when the Soviet Union broke up. It's amazing how much slack he's given around here for his anti-Israel stuff. It's like Teflon for him.

DESERT FOX , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
@Priss Factor Agree, and the ZUS has killed millions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria, for their zionist masters, the only lives the ZUS cares about is zionists.
Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke The only question you failed to address is what was the true motives of Putin's intervention into the whole mess. A few good points:

As in Ukraine, Putin will stay in Syria until it no longer suits him. He has no long-term strategic goals beyond creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free world wherever possible. This allows him to play the big man on the international stage, an essential element of his domestic appeal. 24/7 propaganda and Soviet nostalgia have turned Putin's invasion into a domestic hit in Russia. In contrast, Russians have no interest in Syria or Assad, but who cares what they want? Unlike the leaders of Europe, the U.S., and other democratic countries, Putin doesn't have to worry about how popular his foreign adventures are at home. There are no checks and balances in the Russian government, no free media to criticize him, and no popularity polls that matter more than ranks of well-armed riot police.

https://www.newsweek.com/kasparov-putins-goal-syria-chaos-380620

ben sampson , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:21 pm GMT
Licks for Giraldi: Giraldi has been careless but not where he lists Trumps lies about ending 'silly' wars. from what Trump has actually done compared to what he says about ending America's wars he is a liar of clear and complete proportions
Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:24 pm GMT
@renfro Turkey's invasion of Syria has been condemned by the United States, the European Union, Israel , Iran and some Arab states.
Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:26 pm GMT
@Anonymous

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10104926/turkey-invasion-of-syria-migrants-europe-fears/

TURKEY'S hardline leader has threatened to send 3.6 million refugees to Europe if it brands his military offensive in Syria an invasion.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to open the gates to "millions" of Syrians over criticism of his deadly attacks on Kurdish targets.

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:32 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Why no link? Are you misquoting?
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:34 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read You're quoting the Zionist anti-Russian Kasparov? LOLOL.
SafeNow , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:35 pm GMT
"the military the only real source of pride the only thing Americans feel they excel at"

An insightful point. Politicians support the military and its deployments for economic reasons, but the support of the public might derive from "what else is there?" Examples of institutional and private-sector failure abound in the news over recent years, and every day. The Boeing Max. The hotel collapse. 250,000 deaths per year from medical negligence. Power shutoffs. Useless college. The dive boat. A relaxed performance standard. The demise of meritocracy and rationality. During Katrina, every agency except the Coast Guard went into gridlock. There are remaining islands of expertise, but the unraveling is contagious.

Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm GMT
@Bragadocious International human rights is not a suicide pact.
Anonymous [867] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:41 pm GMT
@Bragadocious

– [Giraldi] bashes Trump for his pre-Presidential life but never delved into Obama's pre-political life, which involved bathhouses and mounds of coke.

At least Obama served in the military. He was a corpse-man.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT
@Sean lol ..So What?
Phibbs , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:08 pm GMT
The dirty, filthy hand of the Jew is all over America's Mideast policy. Israel backs ISIS in Syria with weapons. The Israeli-Occupied Government in Washington D.C. has even protected ISIS in Syria at times. The Jew-owned media gives no credit to Iran and Russia for defeating Jew and American-supported terrorists inside Syria. Now the Jew-owned government is aching for war with Iran, which is not a threat to Gentile America.
A123 , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT
@WorkingClass

The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are still there. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Replacing Assad was an Globalist goal, heavily pushed by Erdogan. We also remember the failed presidency of Barak Hussein that never represented the citizens of the U.S. So it would be more precise to say that:
-- George Soros, Erdogan, Obama, Wahhabism, and the Globalists are losing.
-- Putin, Trump, Assad, and Populism are winning.

The real test will be Putin getting all other foreign troops & proxies to leave. The Globalist agenda is to keep the fight between Iran (Shia) and Turkey (Sunni) going, when they both leave combatants in Syria. Hopefully, Putin will be able to fully rout the Globalists and move out both Turkish and Iranian agitators.

PEACE

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:11 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Maybe you don't know who the author of that article is .Garry Kasparov

Kasparov might be great at chess but in Russia he was big fail as a politician .couldn't get any votes on his campaign to make Russia like America. He went into a self-imposed exile in the West. claiming Putin ruined his political campaigning.
Now everything Putin does infuses all Kasparov's punditry

Kasparow's love for Bolton should clue you to what he is about.

Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) · Twitter
As I said about Bolton entering the Trump admin nearly 3 years ago, you may not agree with his views as much as I generally do, but he puts US interests first, not Trump's. Can't say same about Pompeo & the rest.
31 mins ago

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
The short story on Syria, Turkey, USAISRAEL, Russia –

Turkey-Syria offensive: Russia vows to prevent clashes with Assad forces
BBC

Takeaways

THEN .

"When the US decided to equip and train Syrian Kurds, as well as some Arabs, to fight IS, they were aware of a potential problem, that their would-be Kurdish allies were regarded as terrorists by their Nato ally, Turkey. Washington turned a blind eye to a problem that could be kicked into the future. Now the future is here, and it has blown up."

NOW .

"On Sunday the Kurds announced a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, agreeing that its troops could advance into the zone that had not been controlled by Damascus since 2012, right up to the border with Turkey. That is a big victory for the regime. The troops moved quickly out of bases they maintained in the north-east. Assad loyalists dug out regime flags.
It was a disastrous day for American Middle East policy. The alliance with the Kurds, and the security guarantee safeguarding their self-governing slice of Syria, gave the Americans a stake in the war's endgame. It was also a way of pushing against the backers of the Assad regime: Russia and Iran. The departure of the Americans, and the advance of the Syrian army, are victories for them too.
European governments, rattled in the way that happens when the problems of the Middle East come knocking at their doors, are calling on Turkey to stop the offensive. Some Nato members can see a nightmare scenario unfolding, with Syria, backed by Russian power, potentially facing off against Turkey, a fellow Nato member. The Russians say they are in regular contact with Turkey. But in a fluid, violent theatre of war. the chances for misperception, mistakes and escalation are always present.

Perhaps what has happened in the last week simplifies the endgame of the Syrian war. Two major players, the Americans and the Kurds, look to be out of the picture. And President Assad, along with his allies from Russia and Iran, continue to solidify their victory in Syria's catastrophic war."

WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.

Anyone who doesnt know that can ask me how.

Rurik , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT

The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines.

Not too sure where this partisan line is, Dr. G.

It looks like they're screeching from both sides of the isle.

https://www.deseret.com/2019/10/7/20903288/president-donald-trump-syria-isis-turkey-kurds-pelosi-mcconnell-romney-islamic-state

Both powerful Republican Liz Cheney and Hillary called the pull out "sickening".

While Republican Senator Rand Paul applauds the decision, Tulsi Gabbard condemns it.

As for 'ideological', we all know that ideologically, the vast majority of all congress-critters (99+%) from both sides of the isle, are motivated by the ideology of doing "what's good for the Jew$"

NATO agreement stipulates that if an alliance member is threatened, other members must support it in its defense. Turkey has not made that claim, but it is completely plausible that it should do so .

Are you joking, Dr. G?

Hasn't Turkey been engaged in waging an aggressive war on Syria these last few years?

Wouldn't Turkey demanding military aid from NATO, (for a "threat" from the Kurds or Syria), amount to the US demanding NATO aid for a "threat" from Iran?

IOW, it's Turkey that has been the murderous aggressor, and the Kurds and Syrians their victims. Not to mention that Turkey's military could make mince-meat out of the Kurdish "threat" in a New York minute.

So it seems to me that the only thing holding Turkey back, is orders from the ZUSA and Russia. Russia is certainly a large part of this equation, IMHO.

did not understand the Turkish mindset regarding the Kurdish threat, which they regard as existential.

'Existential'?

Would a limited autonomy Kurdish state on Turkey's southern border, perhaps incorporating a small swath of Turkey, be the end of Turkey's existence?

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the world demanded that Germany sacrifice some of its territory as recompense for its aggressive military imperialism.

If I were in a position to do so, I'd hand Syria a slice of Israel's and Saudi Arabia's and Turkey's territory – as a punishment for their depraved attacks on an innocent and unthreatening Syria.

Definitely the Hatay province, which arguably belongs to Syria anyways.

I'm sure Turkey would call that an existential! calamity, but I'd tell them 'karma's a bitch'.

Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars

I remain you most loyal fan, Dr. G. But I confess this sounds to me like you think the situation above started on the day of Trump's inauguration.

He inherited those things by the former ZUS regimes.

He has tried over and over again to disengage, only to be dragged back by the screeching from the members of his own party. Not to mention the ((media)).

There are a lot of reasons to condemn the actions of Trump. The Golan Heights, for instance. But it seem glaringly obvious to me at least, that Trump is not ideologically committed to Eternal Wars.

As you put it, he threatened regime change in Venezuela.

He wanted to have talks with the Taliban, (and the whole deepstate and their ((media)) screeched)

He "continues to support Saudi Arabia" but as Pat Buchannan points out.. "The Saudis got the message when the U.S., in response to a missile and drone strike from Iran or Iranian-backed militias, which shut down half of Riyadh's oil production, did nothing.

Said Washington, this is between Saudi Arabia and Iran."

And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds

You really do make it sound like all that is his fault.

I love your work Dr. G. And consider you one of the very best, most honorable and most courageous writers out there.

But I confess, (like so many others!), it seems like to me that you have an irrational, personal hatred for Donald Trump that colors your perspective.

IMHO.

I didn't have time to write this response well, have to go. Hope it's not too off base..

Art , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:27 pm GMT
@animalogic More information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.

There is a gigantic problem in America. It makes us dysfunctional. Certain news cannot get to the American people.

Everyone in the know gets it – do not go to the NY Times with anti-Israel news. Do NOT buck the AIPAC agenda – period. The darkest element of the ADL will be at your door within minutes. The US government will soon follow.

It is obvious – when it comes to Jew matters, US government employees fear for their jobs, if not their lives. Same for the MSM.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:30 pm GMT
@Bragadocious The Soviet Union never broke up, it just re-branded itself.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/dssXAoQou1A?feature=oembed

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:33 pm GMT
@anon See post #88
anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
US President Donald Trump has lambasted American broadcaster ABC News for airing a video from Knob Creek Gun Range in the town of West Point, Kentucky, claiming that the network used footage from the facility to depict a Turkish attack on Kurdish civilians in northern Syria. Trump called the mistake "a big scandal" and "a real disgrace".

"A big scandal at @ABC News. They got caught using really gruesome FAKE footage of the Turks bombing in Syria. A real disgrace", the president wrote on Twitter early Tuesday morning.

AMN news

Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@renfro The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014. Despite all the protests about Crimea, the Donbass invasion using asymmetric tactics with Putin out outright denying responsability, Ukraine is a vital interest for Putin, and he would have been willing to confront America and Nato there because it is his home ground and advantage. But Russia is powerful enough to; Putin only went into Syria after Obama decided not to overthrow Assad. No one particularly cares about Syria and neither do they care about the Kurds (despite them having as good a case as the Palestinians to be given a state) and that is why jumped up Turkey can get away with invading Syria and attacking Kurds, just like they INVADED Cyprus.

This whole thing is probably a a storm in a teacup, but if Turkey gets into trouble they know, because they were already told very clearly over Cyprus, that if they play Lone Ranger, Nato does not have their back. Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view. It is begining to experience delusions of its own importance.

Art , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:41 pm GMT
@renfro It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey loose to do that job.

Here is a very good video – Putin being interviewed. They asked him hard questions. He came across as being very rational.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qxPepA-Jwr8?feature=oembed

Maybe between Trump and Putin things can work out in Syria?

paranoid goy , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 6:43 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen People! The internet is there for you to verify/debunk any statement you question. Running a website is a lot of work, why don't you guys collect the information you demand from Mr. Unz, and share with us?
Or are you looking at others to supply you with ready-made opinions?
Bragadocious , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:44 pm GMT
@anon Yeah, I'm misquoting, you utter imbecile.
Bragadocious , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:49 pm GMT
Ok.

Maybe you should explain how that comment's relevant to anything.

Proud_Srbin , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:51 pm GMT
@onebornfree Thanks for the link about Mr.Bourne and you correct about his statement applying to ALL states.
They are more like progressive, merciful and humanitarian slave owners.
Be free
anonymous [299] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:55 pm GMT
@renfro

WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.

How?

Did Hillary become an honorary member of the Saudi royal family, or just prostitute the US State Dept to make sure the guns were delivered on time?

anonymous [348] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:58 pm GMT
I wonder why the "high IQ" westerners have never deemed it fit to study their undeniable mass psychopathy.

If they were indeed as smart as claimed, they would begin to admit it, and given the claim to their innate highly civilised humanitarian inclinations *cough* , they would come to the conclusion that this world needs less of their cursed kind.

Since that is not going to happen, I guess nature has its way

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:59 pm GMT
@renfro How?
c matt , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Obama's pre-political life

To be fair, I don't know if Obama ever HAD a pre-political life. He seems to be a creation ex publicae.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:12 pm GMT
@Rev. Spooner The point he makes is extremely vague. No specificity. None. Yet 10's of thousands are dead. Ok, how about some evidence.
Why don't you go back to kindergarten, Rev?
renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMT
@Sean

It is begining to experience delusions of its own importance.

I would say Israel is beginning to experience the fallacy of its own importance.

What you clearly don't get is that ..kowtowing to the US as the ME superpower and enforcer is declining.

The rules are out the window, the ways of wars have changed, alliances are temporary, power is fluid, hyenas can eat elephants .

Israel will not be able to navigate this.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMT
@paranoid goy He makes a claim. Where is the journalistic integrity to back it up?
9/11 Inside job , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:15 pm GMT
@SafeNow The support of the public for the military derives from constant and pervasive propaganda particularly through movies and TV shows , David Sirota calls it the "Military Entertainment
Complex".
Zero Hedge : " Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon , CIA & NSA ".
steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:29 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read I was making a rhetorical point. I don't think the U.S. can decouple from the Middle East.
I do, however, think that Trump wants value for blood and treasure.

Long-term, America simply lacks the financial strength to continue to project power. The MIC costs the U.S. a tremendous amount of money. Budget to the MIC will continue to be slashed over time. The Deep State in the U.S. will contract simply due to financial realities.
Israel will be less and less of a priority.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.

Z-man , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:37 pm GMT
@Whitewolf Yes, lack of talent and totall inane radical left wing proposals whiped up by the AOC wing and swallowed by all the candidates 'hook, line and stinker '.
Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:39 pm GMT
@OscarWildeLoveChild After JFK's assassination, every successive president is/was shown a film clip of JFK's head exploding from an angle nobody's ever seen.

It doesn't matter what party they're from; they'll tow TPTB's line. All of them.

US Foreign Policy = Occupied Palestine Foreign Policy.

That's all that's wrong with US foreign policies in a nutshell.

Curmudgeon , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:40 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Whether he or his father served is irrelevant. Carter was in the Naval Academy, Reagan and Bush 43 were in the reserves. Clinton had none and neither did Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, or Wilson.
What is telling, is the "alleged bone spurs", and "Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf".
An allegation is an unproven accusation. What Giraldi is stating, is that Trump's physician falsified records. You think old man Trump sent Donnie for a megadollar military academy education so he could avoid the military?
As for Drumpf, I was acquainted with a couple of Schmidts who became Smith, a Bryjolfson who became Byron, a Pachkowski who became Berry and, no one says Roosevelt's name was changed from Rosenfeld. The snide commentary doesn't help.
I have said all along, that there is a lot not to like about Trump, but let's keep it in the realm of reality. Whether he wants to end the stupid wars or not, he will never be allowed to, as long as Giraldi's old employer is in business and making up non-existent bullshit "threats to American interests", whatever they are.
anon [117] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:43 pm GMT
@Sean "Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view"

Israel is known to puff and bluff . It is grandiose polemic or rabid canine barking. It was not exposed by the west . But the west now knows it ,thanks to Hizbullah

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:48 pm GMT
It is difficult to understand nato secretary Stultemberg , it must be his thick swedish accent . I suppose he does not like turkish music

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YnR0VqDkjuA?feature=oembed

https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5isjGfHa4E?feature=oembed

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 7:55 pm GMT
@anon Getting women to work had nothing to do with their 'liberation.'

Even though my mom had her own [private] school, my dad's salary was enough to provide for all 5 of us, go on annual holidays abroad and put three kids through college, loan-free.

To TPTB, it's better to tax 2 people instead of 1.

To them it's just a number game, like the 'Torches of Freedom' gambit, all spiel, smoke and mirrors, to fool us gullible idiots into believing we do have a say

We should really start to use our guns and rifles to free the country and rid it of the rot that's smothering it.

Oh, look, another Cartra$$hian selfie butt shot on Instagram!!!!!!

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:00 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read The Easter Bunny isn't real?

Dang!

I thought the youngster was raped by Epstain.

Hence his egg-shaped penis .

barr , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:07 pm GMT
It's very old habit.Very much ingrained . It is also generational . Increasingly and suddenly religious also as the feckless toothless Evangelicals are rooting for 1 second fame .

But here is a short chronology–

1 Plans for mayhem in Syria have been on the imperial table since the 1950s (Operation Straggle).

2 US general Wesley Clark gave the game away years ago when he revealed US intentions in the Middle East after 9/11: seven countries were to be invaded

3 Seymour Hersh gave the game away too in his 2007 New Yorker article: "The Redirection". In this piece he revealed how the US were hooking up once again with the Saudi/Sunni fundamentalists in and around Syria.
4 France's ex-foreign minister Roland Dumas also gave the game away when he revealed that the British State (a definite CIA asset) was preparing for a war on Syria two years before the start of the Syrian Holocaust in 2011.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/31/homage-to-syria-a/

"This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June, "goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/11/the-biggest-lie/

As we recently learned from former French Foreign Minister Dumas, it was also about that time, that actors in the United Kingdom began planning the subversion of Syria with the help of "rebels"' (Christof Lehmann, Interview with Route Magazine)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/12/my-moneys-on-putin/

Between 2006 to 2010, the US spent 12 million dollars in order to support and instigate demonstrations and propaganda against the Syrian government. 6,3 million dollars was funneled to the Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian dissident organization based in London. The Movement operated the Barada satellite channel

https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/17/the-dirty-politics-behind-the-syrian-conflict/

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:20 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Quote: "America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "

Reply: Kindly allow me to correct your statement.

"America/Israel have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "

Russia has a wet entrance into the Med via Syria.

Perhaps you've dozed off a bit over the past few years, but Russia has been destroying and killing the FUKZUIS 'war' machine goons in Syria [aka the takfiri terrorist].

They're assisting in getting the country back [on its feet] as a whole again.

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT
@anon I'll keep it short. You can find the beginnings back in the 2012 coverage.

In 2012 Saudi sent Saudi Prince Bandar to Syria to be in charge of helping Syrian rebels bring down Assad, an ally of Riyadh's biggest regional rival Iran.
They were originally created, set up and armed and financed by Saudi.
The Saudis were then joined by Israel and Qatari and finally by the US under Obama.

A new twist appeared in the Saudi rebels war with Assad when ISI appeared and joined the fight.
This scared Saudi shitless as they thought this ISI version of ALQ might be a threat to them and lead to an invasion of Saudi as ALQ always saw it as a' westernerized' Saudi.
Everyone doubled down on both fighting Assad and fighting ISI ..which was a FUBAR if there ever was one.

Then enter the proxies, the Kurds, the PPK terrorist group all fighting for their own agendas within and under cover of the original war on Assad.

What could possibility go wrong in all this? LOL

Then enter Russia. Which gave some pause to the US in how far they wanted to go to throw Assad out for Saudi and Israel and open a gateway to get Iran.
So now we are headed to the ending of the Saud and others Syrian adventure which is probably best expressed by the fable of the fox and his shadow.

"A fox arose in the morning and saw his large shadow cast in the morning sun and said " I will have a camel for lunch today'. The fox hunted all day for the camel without success. As he paused in the afternoon setting sun he saw his shadow was much smaller and said "A mouse will do after all."

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:44 pm GMT
@anonymous Quote: " sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world.."

Reply: Yet here you are

anonymous [299] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:48 pm GMT
@Daniel Rich

In 1992, Alexandra Zapruder began to collect diaries written by children during the Holocaust. These diaries speak eloquently of both hope and despair.

[Alexandra said:] "Anne Frank's diary was the first diary that was published. And her voice was so powerful that it captured the voices of all the children and all the people who had been killed. That's the way it's framed. And that by reading her diary and sort of taking her into our hearts, we could redeem her life. . . ." [US Holocaust Memorial Museum https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/alexandra-zapruder ]

Alexandra Zapruder is the author of Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film.
Her grandfather was Abraham Zapruder, who took a twenty-six second home movie of President John F. Kennedy's assassination[1] -- now known as the Zapruder film.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Zapruder ]

Jon Baptist , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
Here is another article found at American Herald Tribune where Phil Giraldi also often has articles posted.

The US Isn't Serious about Leaving Syria at All -David Macilwain
https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/syria-crisis/3575-the-us-isnt-serious.html

From a strategic point of view it is very noteworthy to observe that Kurdish troops are fully positioned east of the Euphrates River. The Kurds are allies of Israel and a vital proxy implemented to fracture Syria along the lines envisioned for Greater Israel (Oded Yinon Plan).

It is perceived that Russia is an ally of Syria. However, Putin has not prevented Kurdish troops from establishing themselves firmly within Syrian territory.

Israel along with their diaspora will never relent until their abomination of "Eretz Yisrael" is achieved. It's not an accident that the ISIS flag is marked "All Jew."

9/11 Inside job , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:03 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke Washingtonsblog : " Balkanizing the Middle East – The real goal of America and Israel : shatter Iraq and Syria into many small pieces "
Thomas Harrington : " One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet "
Sanchez : " Plan B is to Balkanize Israel is endorsing its plan B for Syria just when its enemies are making it clear that its plan A (Assad must go) is not happening anytime soon ."
Voltara , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:06 pm GMT
The US watching while Syria and Turkey start shooting at each other is something new. For decades the US has run towards conflict in the region
renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:24 pm GMT
Former AIPAC officials launch political action committee to direct funds to pro-Israel candidates
https://www.jweekly.com/2019/03/19/former-aipac-officials-launch-political-action-committee-to-direct-funds-to-pro-israel-candidates/

Pro-Israel America launched Tuesday endorsing 27 candidates -- 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans. All have long histories of working with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to advance the brand of pro-Israel legislation it favors. Its endorsements on its website praise the named lawmakers for their actions favoring the legislative agenda closely identified with the lobby: funding for Israel's defense, sanctions on Iran and its regional proxies, and bills that seek to counter the boycott Israel movement.

They include Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del.; Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the minority leader; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, that committee's ranking Republican.

here are all of them listed .make sure you don't vote for one:

https://proisraelamerica.org/endorsements-2020/

anon [123] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@barr Blaming Saudi or Turkey or UAE has possibly some validity but as far as far the effect of the independent move by any of them is concerned , it has less than zero effect on Syria on its own.

It is like a hypothetical scenario where Florida and Alabama are independent countries . Rest of America is splintered into 50 different states and Canada is trying to get rid of Cuban regime for 50 years and only in last 5 years Florida and Alabama have joined the scheme under dubious circumstances of pressure bribery and blackmail.

Art , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
Isn't "regime change wars" a mealy-mouthed term? Isn't it time to call a spade a spade?

Why are we using that benign term, for something so destructive of America's future?

Que bono – who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of America – AIPAC.

Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term – "AIPAC Wars?"

These wars and crushing national sanctions against others, all come from AIPAC.

Our elected congressmen and senators are almost all AIPAC such-ups. Let's put it in their face with a factual term.

AIPAC Wars

anon [415] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:40 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke Israel was more powerful and also more favorite of the west across ideological drive until 2003
It is not a normal country . Somewhere that guilt and remorse of stealing and killing have left a mark on its psyche . It doesn't know how to settle and be normal

It doesn't know the meaning of the power, advantage or gain . The paranoia drives to more dangerous world of fear and insecurity . It can't rest . Even if it is left alone, he talks to itself and bangs it head against wall . Recent election is the manifestation of more madness . It's begging jaunt to Russia and screaming through US media show how badly weakened the country is.

The countries that bow to Israel – UK, USA, Egypt, Saudi are finding themselves also badly weakened ,

A seed was planted in 2006 in Lebanon . That tree is growing taller and establishing roots , Israel will be a shrub hiding in the shadow of that tree in a few years time.
Soviet and Russia were both almost destroyed by Jews . Now they look for the Russian shadow to hide .

Anonymous Snanonymous , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:43 pm GMT
@Anon You don't say!
Sean , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT
@renfro A pack of lions can bring down an adult elephant at night when they have the advantage, but they are careful not to choose a really big strong one. Russia is fighting in the Ukraine its traditional heartland and what H. Mackinder called the Heartland of the World Island. A victory in Syria that only came because Obama chose to not crush Assad with a couple of days of air raids is hardly evidence of the Empire falling.

The real meaning of Trump is the facing of the threat from China, and if the neocons want to play games in the Middle East so what? There is a fight coming with China and it is a match for the West led by giant Bull Elephant America, Backward ME shitholes all together could not take down America in a thousand years.

Republic , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:53 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger It is very nice to see a video from RT in Arabic showing the very rapid evacuation of a US base in Syria:

Hope to see many more in the future

anon [414] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMT
And what were the Kurds in Iraq called?
Didn't Saddam use some type of gas on them and that's why we were siding with them? Who told about the incubator babies, maybe some other terrorist group?
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
@renfro Mmmm, okay, you must have meant something like 'organized shooting' when you said, "SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR." Sorry I bit on false advertising.

As you see from 'barr' at #119 above, your starting point is months, years, even decades too late. For a fact (I've met some of the Syrians who met with Robert Ford in Damascus, now here and still lobbying for regime-change), the US was meddling, encouraging, prompting the anti-Assadists well before the 2011 demonstrations.

EliteCommInc. , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:04 pm GMT
laughing.

We shall see.

jsinton , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:07 pm GMT
It's their back yard, let them figure out where the property line goes. Just get out. Don't argue with that.
Johnny Walker Read , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:19 pm GMT
@Daniel Rich Putin is not the nice guy we have been told he is. He is in Syria for a reason, and that is not simply because he wants Syria returned to al-Assad. Syria is only one cog in the wheel. World wide Communism marches on, if you hadn't noticed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=4sKxkY0Tz5s
Z-man , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:23 pm GMT
@Anon Stoltenberg-Globalist tool and a moron.
Sick of Orcs , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:26 pm GMT
Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright citizenship' and then done nothing about it?

A: Every time.

Commentator Mike , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:43 pm GMT

rapid evacuation of a US base in Syria

LOL. My favourite rapid US evacuation was the CIA flying off the roof of the Saigon Embassy while the Viet Kong were busting in through the door and running up the stairs.

A123 , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:44 pm GMT
@Art

who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of America – AIPAC. Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term – "AIPAC Wars?"

Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist movement.

Soros intentionally orchestrated the ultra-weak, time limited JCPOA treaty to create a nuclear arms race among Iran, SA, Turkey, and possibly other MENA nations. That way he and his buddies with MIC investments could profit by selling weapons to all sides.

So let's put in everyone's face with a factual term

SOROS Wars

PEACE

HEREDOT , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Z-man Stoltenberg jewish whore is a bastard.
A123 , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Sick of Orcs

Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright citizenship' and then done nothing about it?

A: Every time.

If Trump drives too hard, too early and the case arrives at the Supreme Court while it is split 5-4 in favor of 'birthright citizenship' Is that a win? Or, a loss?

There is a huge difference between 'failed action' and 'successful action'.

Given the proven hostility of the deep state establishment, it makes a great deal of sense to lay groundwork now (via tweets), but only launch the correct constitutional action once the courts are prepared to support it.

PEACE

ChuckOrloski , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT
With class, Philip Giraldi amused me by his article's mere title, "Trump wants to end the "Stupid Wars?"

Oh yea! Thanks, Phil , & please continue with offering dashes of intelligent, dissident, & unflappable humor. Haha. For example, "Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs at Normandy, they were undoubtedly on the German side."

(Zigh) The insatiable global tag team, M.I.C. and The Land of Bilk & Money , want "Big Time" and more stupidly unnecessary & immoral wars. (Zigh) One sure path to a 2nd term for President Bonespur is for him to get off the "low energy" Turkey/Syria skirmish, & get on with real war against Iran , for Israel.

Thanks, Phil! Fyi, I think Senator Lindsey Graham wants to get Bolton back in The Blue & White House, and sanction Camp Mar a Lago.

P.S.: For all commenters assembled here, linked below is Stephen Colbert's satiric covering of President Drumpf's having followed Israel's yonder (fallen) , and establishing a US Space Force Command! To that, Colbert quipped, "Trump can not join it because of his galactic bonespur."

renfro , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:23 pm GMT
@anon Well would you like to go baaaaaccccckkkk all the way to the failed US CIA coup attempt in Syria in 1957 ?

If so, do it yourself .I don't feel like typing out a whole history book just for you to jerk off on about how bad the US is..

Robjil , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:26 pm GMT
@9/11 Inside job Seven Nations to Destroy for the nine eleven false flag. Wesley Clark mentioned the seven – Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.

Seven Nations to Destroy for Yahweh's Israel – Deut. 7:1-2 – Tanakh/OT.

Iraq 2003 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces

Libya 2011 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces

How four other nations on the list that were destroyed.

Somalia –

Since 2006 it has been a mess with Israel/US Al-Qaeda running the show.

Bizarre article about US/Israel terrorists "worried" about the environment.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4310799/al-shabab-plastic-ban-somalia-al-qaeda/

Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabab has reportedly announced a ban on the use of single-use plastic bags in territories under its control.

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization, which has been blamed for thousands of deaths since its inception in 2006, dubbed plastic a "serious threat to the well-being of both humans and animals," the BBC reported, citing Al-Shabab's radio station Radio Andalus.

It even mentions that Osama Bin Laden, the puppet of Israel/US, was "worried" about the environment too. It makes one wonder if this Climate Change thing and Imperialism terror are connected.

Bin Laden wrote that Americans needed to save Obama from corporate and other nefarious influences to empower him to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny."

He added that the world would be better off fighting climate change than waging what he claimed was a war against Islam.

Sudan

Divided in two in 2011. Israel/US is pushing for more divisions.

https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article64102

Asked about his demand for protection during his meeting with Putin, al-Bashir said we wanted to highlight "the big U.S. pressure and conspiracy" on Sudan in Darfur crisis and the huge pressure exerted on his government to separate the South Sudan.

"Now we have information that the American quest is to divide the Sudan into five countries If we do not find protection and security. America took the world leadership and devastated the Arab world. (See) what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Iraq, what happened in Syria, what happened in Yemen and what happened in Sudan," said al-Bashir.

Lebanon

Invaded by Israel in the summer of 2006. It made a mess out of Lebanon. Israel had a lot of trouble fighting off Hezbollah. This is the reason that Israel fears going into Lebanon again. After this adventure, Golems like US and its friends are the go to for Israel's war adventures.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180712-remembering-israels-2006-war-on-lebanon/

Initially, both Israel and Hezbollah claimed victory in the war, with Nasrallah declaring that Hezbollah had achieved a "divine, historic and strategic victory". Some international observers saw the fact that Hezbollah had survived the Israeli assault, despite the asymmetrical power balance, as a PR victory for the group. According to Reuters, the Lebanese government estimated direct war damage at $2.8 billion, and lost output and income for 2006 at $2.2 billion. The economy also shrank five per cent, with tourism effectively halted.

Six of the seven were messed up, destroyed. It leaves only Iran left. Iran is in the "news" everyday for this reason.

anonymous [403] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:31 pm GMT
Trump is flawed, ok then, but we had Clinton as the alternative. She would have been ten times worse so what choice did the American people have? He's rolling up the Obama-Clinton project in Syria which was a huge atrocity. Can you imagine the bloodbath that would have ensued had the US backed jihadi cannon fodder actually succeeded in overthrowing Assad? It's not a one man show and Trump has to go along with much of what has been taking place. Much of this has been imposed upon the American people as well as on Trump.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting for so long. But yet the mighty Turks are going to defeat the Kurds of Syria even as they can't defeat the ones living in their own country? Perhaps they'll take on the inferior Syrian army at the same time. After all, they're a big NATO ally with lots of weapons to dump on lightly armed foes. Reality is they haven't fought anyone in a hundred years so who knows how well they'd do.
Quit calling Afghanistan a "war". It's an occupation with anti-guerilla operations going on. Apparently they don't like being occupied so they fight on.
Trump's name is Trump, not Drumpf. Or do we now refer to people by the family name used a hundred years ago, or why not five hundred years ago?
Mark Hunter , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMT
Excerpt from
"Trump Mistake: Allowing Turkish Invasion of Northern Syria"
by Joel Skousen (there is no direct link to it but it is/was on his website World Affairs Brief ):

This week in a telephone conversation with Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan he [President Trump] assented to Erdogan's demand from over a year ago to let them enter Turkey and establish a buffer zone where Turkey can resettle the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees that have burdened Turkey since the beginning of the US-created terror attacks on Syria. But as part of that strategy, and without emphasizing that to Trump, Erdogan intends to drive out or destroy the Syrian Kurds which occupy northern Syria. Erdogan calls them terrorists because the US-backed YPG Kurds are affiliated with the homegrown Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which represents about 20% of the Turkish population, and which has been fighting for independence from Turkey. So while the Turkish Foreign Minister plays lip service to Syrian sovereignty, Turkey has already begun the invasion and occupation of northern Syria. While Trump claims he is fulfilling a campaign promise to remove troops from Syria, this isn't really a pullout at all since only two observation posts in the path of the Turkish invasion are pulling out. There are thousands of other US troops elsewhere in Syria protecting US-backed terrorist rebels.

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read H.E. Mr. Putin has clearly stated it's up to the Syrian population to choose who leads them, not him.

Tartus has a port Russia needs and uses.

Khmeimim Air Base is also needed and used by the Russian AF.

These are military strategic assets and used to counter balance the FUKZUS 'war' machine's bases dotted around the ME region. Of course, those you don't mention.

The Red Menace.

I get it.

ploni almoni , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:05 am GMT
No president actually controls the government, least of all Trump. The Deep State controls the government. Trump is a an interloper. Why does one have to remind the author of this elementary fact? The threat to destroy the economy of Turkey was made by Stephen Israel Mnuchin. Trump had to make noises as if it was his "decision" when in fact he had nothing to do with it. What Trump wants to do, and what he can do, are entirely different things. And anyone who has anything to do with Americans knows what happened to all the previous allies. Mnuchin has clued in those Turks who may have had illusions.
Art , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:08 am GMT
@A123 Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist movement.

Gee -- never heard of ASPAC?????

anon [123] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:13 am GMT
@renfro very bad US is indeed . It continues to sabotage ,cast evil eye,try to strangle ,and continue to punish Cuba . That long history is really long punctuated by half hearted Obama attempt .
Once empire decided a project,it becomes , NASA , Present Danger , PNAC or NED . The project goes on losing the aim . The project goes on because the vested interest ,employees,pensioner,glory seeking men, arm merchant, politicians and expatriate find means to rake up profit and launder dishonest living into honest lifestyle . Name is changed when it suits the project . Aim is not lost. It becomes the final destination . It never stops energegizing the dishonest, looter,profit seekers, and opportunists . Often the brains that gather under the flag are not that intelligent or ideologically certain.
Money and corruption drive them.
Zumbuddi , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:31 am GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Later
Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:49 am GMT
@Agent76

It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.

Going broke happens slowly at first, then quickly. The Western cities are going broke, as are those in the Third World. Nothing else changes peoples minds like having their basic income reduced or eliminated.

All the promises (including self-governmement and freedom and equality) have turned out to be lies, smoke. Computers, which were supposed to be a seamless adjunct to human existence, a source of education and information, and a liberation from the bad parts of part of reality, have turned into (poor but cheap) entertainment, gossip, a drug substitute, and a propaganda source. The result is shock and horror, sometimes followed by violent psychosis [1] (e.g. antifa).

Once again, I recommend "Marat/Sade"

(1967). It gives you a feel for what a revolution is like once the revolution gets going. Note the movie's final scene, which almost breaks the "fourth wall" convention. It was made during our last revolution, and the director wanted to record the spirit of what he had seen.

Counterinsurgency

Counterinusurgency

1] https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/what-is-psychosis

nsa , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:51 am GMT
@Phibbs "jew and Amelikan supported terrorists inside Syria"
They call them Joohadis for a reason.
ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:53 am GMT
@Art I like it, very catchy, original, Art said: "AIPAC Wars."

Oh yea, Art, thanks, and a "spade is a spade" when one manages to get the hell out of the AIPAC shade.

Unfortunately tonight, millions of process estranged Amerikan Democrat & GOP voters are now "beamed up" to an AIPAC-approved strange & hostile telescreen's DebateLand.

(Zigh) Across aisle, including a possible Beaming Bloomberg entry, , "winnable" 2020 presidential nomination contestants shall pick & choose, finagle & sell, an either/or USrael foreign policy posture, as regrettably follows:
1.) The Zio-Democrat War to end the deplorable Trump's stupid call to end all Amerika's endless Wars just for the paltry good of gradually achieving Greater Israel's unending endgame. or,
2.) The Zio-GOP's War to end all Democrat Party hopefuls' stupid call to end all US endless wars just because a lefty AIPAC-Branch put an Israel Labor Party "bug in their ear" about having lowly dead-ender 'Merikan workers fucking pay for it.

Thanks again, Art, and "Good night America."*

* Phil Giraldi inhabits Sinatra's City That Never Sleeps.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:57 am GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen

The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.

Agree.

And the financial debt must be augmented by degradation of physical infrastructure (especially in cities and city support infrastructure) and the degradation of human capital by importation of low IQ populations and effective destruction of education. And the capital misallocation that continues today.

The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global trade will end with it.

Counterinsurgency

Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:07 am GMT
@anonymous

The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting for so long.

Turkish birth rate low (lower in cities than in hinterlands), Kurdish birth rate high. Kurds replace Turks in a few decades. Kurds don't follow Turkish cultural norms, nor Turks follow Kurdish. Kurds don't want to wait a few decades, want power _now_ (c.f. Black Power and Whiteness in USA). Kurds use destructive commando raides ("terrorism") to get power now. Turks don't like that, respond with same.

Long term: demography wins barring very large change.

Please correct parts of this that are wrong. I'm not following this conflict closely.

Counterinsurgency

geokat62 , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:16 am GMT
Latest TruNews godcast, E. Michael Jones: The Deception Facing the Church by Christian Zionism

YT Description:

Today on TruNews, Dr. E. Michael Jones joins us to talk about the influence of modern Christian Zionism upon the American Church, and how that has led to a dramatic radicalization of US foreign policy in favor of one nation, Israel.

Prof. Jones takes the deluded xian Zionists to task, calling them "useful idiots." My favourite passage starts @ 18:58:

.. which means you got a lot of Christians who don't understand the gospel. Because there are plenty of Christians out there who are Christian Zionists. It's a simple fact of life. I think it can be traced to Jewish influence in our culture Jewish influence over the publishing industry, for example. How did the Scofield Bible end up being published by Oxford University Press? Because it's a great scholarly work? No! Because of people like Mr. Untermeyer pulled strings. This is the way this happened. It's the biggest issue facing American politics, right now. The role that Zionism is playing right now, in corrupting the government of the United States, in diverting American resources into a quagmire in the Middle East, which doesn't serve the interests of the American people at all and is all done in the name of Israel.

DESERT FOX , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:50 am GMT
@geokat62 Watched trunews.com tonight and agree with Dr. Jones.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:51 am GMT
@renfro LOL. You're the one with the hard-on to dump it all on the Saudis, IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry to call your bluff, NOT.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:07 am GMT
@Counterinsurgency I'm kind of having a mental barrier with this now.
There is a guy in Vancouver who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, Jensen I believe (he wrote to the Bank of Canada and a list of people in 2006). He argues that the fundamentals are even worse now due to the failure to finance these foreign adventures and other factors (expenditures on domestic expenses not matching tax income, etc.).

I haven't even taken the time to consider the knock on effects. Mentally, I've been more focused on having to sit through the screaming match that is going to occur over who is to blame and the lying that will go on with respect to needing to move to a sound money system but having bankers et al try to argue for a rollover into a new currency. It is going to be ugly, I can feel it. It will provide an opportunity for some serious structural change and constitutional amendments. A whole host of reforms are open when you have a debt induced currency collapse. I just know it could be really ugly and I've been dreading thinking through how this will play out. I keep thinking that I never expected to live in a time like this; I think back to being a teenager during the Reagan years and, despite the Cold War-nuclear war scenario hanging over our heads, it seemed a much more optimistic time.
I am not optimistic. I'm very worried.

IllyaK , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Chump will do as is his wont: fold like the numbskull Jew-controlled POS assclown he is.
geokat62 , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:15 am GMT ivan , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:19 am GMT
@Robjil Somalia under a failing Siad Barre regime was going to the dogs with various warlords cannibalising each other. Then the Americans were told in the flush of victory in the Gulf in 1991, that they should just kick the door in to save the dumb Muslims. It is not the fault of the late senior Bush that Somalia is compounded of that specimen of humanity that emerges like clockwork when African tribalism is married to Islamic fanaticism (but is there any other kind?) . The Americans were minding their own business, but were told that it was the humanitarian thing (and furthermore quite cheap to boot) to do at little cost to themselves to save Muslim chillun'.

Afghanistan was no better : The idiot, the younger George Bush instead of bombing the the hell out of Al-Queda and leaving was instead misled by mystagogues of various hues, including his own self into sinking lives and treasure in a vain attempt to civilise the Afghans.

The truth is the further you keep away from Muslims, the better it is for your health and sanity, notwithstanding the parallel machinations of various neocohens, for Islam is a pernicious religion that breeds insanity, intolerance and bloodshed all by itself.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:29 am GMT
E. Michael Jones: a very wise man. He believes in free speech and is hated by Jews who, of course, label him an 'anti-semite'. I would argue they are 'truth averse' fanatical maniacs.
He makes a good case that 'Christian Zionism' is a heresy. I don't believe he uses that term BUT I do.
It's just another bubbling that is bursting.
What will they do besides scream and throw tantrums? Is it time for another false flag 911 type event?
What the media never really exposed was how Syria, and every Middle East country that has been attacked by the DeepStateZio monster, has seen the oldest Christian communities on the planet under attack. Strange pattern. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, initiated by the British alliance with the Wahabi's and the Saud Family and furthered by the CIA/Mossad in Afghanistan, has corresponded with the destruction and diasporas of the world's oldest Christian communites.
Somehow, Europe has ended up with a bunch of Muslims when these Christians would have fit into their societies much better.
I think that none of this just 'happened'. I strongly suspect that if we were to kick over some rocks we would find the usual suspects: the Khazar/Black Nobility Alliance.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:29 am GMT
@renfro How?????????????????????????????????????????
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I do think it was Mc Cain.
Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care of payroll.
( I am not entirely confident but there is a possibility that CIA did channel some profits from Afghanistan poppy fields for this noble cause.
Daniel Rich , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:26 am GMT
@Counterinsurgency Quote: "The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global trade will end with it."

Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will not nosedive along with it.

Too much a stake for the multinationals [not necessary a good thing, but alas].

Stan , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:27 am GMT
@Sean Hasbarats are repugnant.
Wally , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:54 am GMT
@Bragadocious Has Giraldi ever stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?

I thought not.

Trump over the alternatives any day.

Justsaying , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:59 am GMT

Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.

It's very challenging to come up with any foreign policy initiatives that do not serve Zionist Israel's interests, first and foremost. Israeli interests have defined American foreign policy objectives in the ME for much of the post-WWII era. Not at Israel's behest, but on Israel's instructions and demands via pro-Zionist lobbies and the infestation of the Administration with Israel First officials, Israeli citizens and spies. Add to that the Israel First MSM.

anon [123] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 4:04 am GMT
@ivan Is it methamphetamine instead of regular fentanyl ? Anyway, this logic and perverted emotion make sense to you. Unfortunately it will reinforce your decision to switch . Business will sure be coming back from China to rural America.
renfro , says: October 16, 2019 at 4:23 am GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care of payroll.

The Saudis were just the money ..there were no Saudi fighters in Syria.

Robert Whatever , says: October 16, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
I voted for Trump. But maybe the people who said Trump has no core values were right all along?
Sick of Orcs , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:58 am GMT
@A123 I respectfully disagree on this particular matter. There is no US law bestowing birthright citizenship. All that would change is recognition of what the law really says.

Trump waiting to win another 4 (still a gamble) AND for RBG's animatronics to fizzle out AND for her replacement to not be another skunk like Roberts is foolish.

There is no underwater 38th-dimensional quantum chess being played here, and we still have no wall.

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 16, 2019 at 6:32 am GMT
Oops, I posted this under another writer. (Small wonder I got no answer.) Since then, someone else remarked that at the end of WWI this land (northern Syria) was taken from Turkey. So this is a long grievance, with deep sense of entitlement.

Rurik wrote, " .the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "

Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.


Maybe Phil can enlighten us:

We know that Robert Ford, US Embassador to Syria, was meeting privately with Syrian "civil society" activists before the 2011 demonstrations.
-- Was Erdogan/Turkey also involved in infiltrating, inflaming those anti-Assad elements?
-- How did Turkey involvement begin?
-- Was the CIA actively involved in Syria before the fall of Libya?

Thanks.

EliteCommInc. , says: October 16, 2019 at 7:04 am GMT
"I voted for Trump. But maybe the people who said Trump has no core values were right all along?"

There was no question that the president was going to be a situational leader.

jsigur , says: October 16, 2019 at 8:07 am GMT
C'mon guys.
Using prior military service as some sort of litmus test to the right to critique involvement and opinion sharing today plays to an audience mentality that encourages blind patriotism.
There really are no necessary wars these days as they are all being fought for the banker elite which holds no loyalty to country though it plays on ppl's ignorance to use such loyalties for propaganda purposes.
There is no justification for US troops to be all over the world as a banker mercenary force and this site acknowledges 911 was an Israeli- internationalist false flag which removes all justifications for the meddling in Israeli neighbor's internal affairs.
Tolerating this to get air time with magazines that lie for power is encouraging this negative behavior for personal advantage in a country and world striving to control the most minute areas of our lives.
Going along to get along only brings the eternal boot down of the forehead forever@!

The fact that none of these bickering forces are targeting Israel who always was the catalyst for the divisions there, is a huge clue that we and Israel are the problem causers primarily. Of course we need false flags to excite the population to support the fake war on terror within the US and Europe (as well as justify the reverse colonialism going on). Jews for hundreds of years have counted on stupid goyim to do the fighting but now that Israel is a supposed stand alone nation, that should be harder to accomplish but apparently total corporate media control keeps the truth hidden from 85% of the public.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:10 am GMT
@Daniel Rich

Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will not nosedive along with it.

I actually hadn't thought of that. Now that you point it out, of course the dollar trade will decrease. Negative interest rates are, in a way, saying that nobody wants US Dollars anymore, and trades that are not in US Dollars are being actively sought. The decrease will happen a bit before the USN becomes ineffective. And that will be hard on the multi-nationals, but I can't say I have much sympathy. They were firmly behind the move of Western manufacturing to East Asia – what did they think would happen?
But I do disagree over the assertion that global trade will remain about as it is.
The New Silk Road. Interesting topic.

Well, first of all it's a reasonable thing for the PRC to do. Historically, the Silk Road has paid off for China, at least in terms of precious metals, and being dependent on a single transportation mode for one's raw materials is strategically undesirable. It's a good move. It's also an attempt to realize McKinder's proposed making the World Island into a unified state[1].

But a couple of points:

a) New Silk Road is much more expensive than sea transport [2]. If sea lanes are cut off, China's raw materials costs increase by several times.
b) New Silk Road recapitulates the interaction of European empires of the 1800s through 1900s with ethnicities along the Silk Road. The Europeans were resented and eventually ejected. The Chinese are having similar problems.
China has loaned money to various nations which have then spent that money on immediate consumption and are attempting to repudiate the debt. The Chinese (who have no compunctions about debt repudiation through currency devaluation) are apparently taking over completion of the Silk Road facilities for which the natives can no longer pay (having spent the money on other things). Local rulers are saying that this makes the Chinese foreign invaders (on a very low level so far). Just like the Europeans.
Chinese society also does not mix well with either Islamic or African tribal society, yet the Silk Road crosses both cultural territories.
So far as I know, the Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal since the US evacuation has gone well. Last I heard, a few years back, Panama had started teaching Chinese in its public schools. Chinese operations in South and Meso America are increasing, however, and I know little about how they are going.

The nice thing about policed sea lanes is that shippers don't have to worry much about the natives. Piracy is and has been a problem, but so far not a serious one. New Silk Road goes overland, and that has (historically) always led to security problems with the locals, whoever the locals may be.

So: Let's suppose that the USN were to become ineffective. Only the part of the Silk Road guarded by the Russian Federation would remain secure. The rest would be subject to local raids and extortion from the local government. Note that raw materials costs would increase drastically for everybody (because of less shipping), so local governments and bandits would have motives for confiscating goods.

This would be especially the case in Africa, which is largely dependent on food imports. That conflict could become severe, as China is increasingly dependent on Africa for raw materials (as is the rest of the world).

In other words, sole reliance on the New Silk Road (should that ever be necessary) would be expensive in terms of shipping and in terms of security / warfare costs. China's bellicose policy is, IMHO, counterproductive. China should be positioning itself to police the sea lanes cooperatively but reluctantly with a declining USN, gradually assuming the mantle of worldwide protection of the sea lanes that China needs so badly. Current efforts to be able to interdict the sea lanes are not in the PRC's interest, as the PRC needs these sea lanes open. It's sort of like developing a hyperbomb to make the Sun go nova. Under what circumstances would you use such a device? Under what circumstances would China want to cease shipping by sea?

So, what's likely to happen? The USN will decline because it needs recapitalization due to age and a changing threat, and the US is instead devoting its income to debt repayment and immediate social stability expenditures. The PRC, which has never been a naval power, will still attempt to keep global trade alive. When that fails, the PRC will trade more with the Russian Federation It will also take what sea and land it has, make an expeditionary force out of it, and deploy it in some trading zones (possibly in countries that have resources China needs) rather than see its population starve and itself overthrown. That's the standard response from any H. Sap. political organization. Things will get very messy.

And please remember that I'm like the weatherman: I report, I don't cause.

Counterinsurgency

1] http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/geography/mackinders-heartland-theory-explained/42542

2] http://www.economicsdiscussion.net/articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-water-transport/2185

Sean , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:49 am GMT
@Stan Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state would weaken the West,
geokat62 , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:12 pm GMT
Israel: "It doesn't feel like my country anymore."

My favourite comment:

"Israelis need to learn be multicultural. Ask Barbara Spectre."

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 12:59 pm GMT
@Daniel Rich What part of BOTH the US and Russia are only there to serve their own interest don't people understand. My only point is Russia is not there out of the goodness of their hearts. People who claim Russia is fighting the globalist juggernaut and is only in Syria to "fight ISIS/ISL" and to make Syria "safe for Democracy" aren't seeing the big picture. Russia is working hand in hand with China to make sure America is reduced to a second rate global power. Assad has become nothing more than Putin's puppet on a string. Syria will need money for re-construction, thanks to Russia destroying much of their infrastructure, that money more than likely will come from China(China's version of "Economic Hit Men"). All the while, lurking in the back ground, that little shit stain known as Israel.

This report will present the reality of Russia's Syrian campaign. Russia launched air strikes on hospitals, water treatment plants, and mosques. Russia used cluster bombs. Russia almost exclusively targeted non-ISIS targets. These are the truths that Russia will not admit, and the truths that must be understood when negotiating with Russia as a potential partner.

https://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/distract-deceive-destroy/

It's all about the "Belt and Road Initiative". There are no good guy's in this mess, and the real losers in this conflict are the citizens of Syria. Russia is a main partner in "Globalization".

One of the main problems of the People's Republic is to connect the "Belt" with the "Road". For China it is crucial to be able to bypass the choke points represented by the straits that separate the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok) that, being controlled by the US, prevent the Chinese maritime power to fully develop. A first important asset in this sense is represented by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which connects by land Eastern China to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, in turn connected to the String of Pearls.

Why Syria?

In this perspective, Syria becomes a crucial junction within the BRI: a possible development of its transport and port infrastructures, properly connected with each other and with the Belt and Road Initiative, would allow China a further maritime outlet for its land trade and a formidable trade post in the Mediterranean. A further advantage is represented by the increased quantity of goods that China could deliver into the Mediterranean, overcoming the further bottleneck of the Suez Canal.

Syria also has at least two important factors that represent opportunities to be exploited by Beijing: the country's urgent need to obtain funds to be allocated to reconstruction and development and the simultaneous disengagement of the United States from the Middle East, an empty space not filled by the EU. Syria is therefore an extremely interested and receptive partner to the proposals of the Chinese government, which finds itself at the same time freed from any diplomatic controversy that could slow down its action.

http://mediterraneanaffairs.com/bri-china-syria-reconstruction/

A123 , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:05 pm GMT
@Sick of Orcs

we still have no wall.

We have wall building taking place. (1). However, Trump can only do so much rearranging within congressional appropriations.

Please, correctly lay the blame on Pelosi and Schumer. They are the ones who refuse to find national security.

PEACE
_______

(1) https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/04/defense-secretary-mark-esper-oks-diversion-of-3-6b-in-military-construction-funds-to-border-wall/

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:07 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency Many good points made in your comments.
A123 , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:12 pm GMT
@Art

Gee -- never heard of ASPAC?????

Gee -- Never heard of George Soros?

He and his cronies out spend AIPAC by at least 100:1. Why don't you care about the anti-Semitic Globalists' massive cash outlays?

PEACE

Abdul Alhazred , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:21 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger A very good analysis!

Here is a speech concerning what is the hardest thing he has to do as President!

and some other reactions of import

https://larouchepac.com/20191014/president-trump-kicks-over-chessboard-british-geopolitics

https://larouchepac.com/20191015/historical-sea-change-has-been-launched-president-trump

And the way forward to world peace .the Syria Template!

https://larouchepac.com/20191016/syria-template

Europe Nationalist , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for them eventually.
Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:49 pm GMT
@Abdul Alhazred Thank you for that video. I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said.

More on Trump by Shamir's recent article:

What is much worse for Israel, is Trump's intent to leave the region. There is a good chance you haven't seen relevant tweets of the President, for the MSM doomed to surround it by the wall of silence. That is what the President said while ordering withdrawal:

"Fighting between various groups that has been going on for hundreds of years. USA should never have been in Middle East. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending! The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers & military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE!"

Just for this recognition "GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY" and for this promise "The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending!" Trump deserves to be re-elected and remembered as the most courageous and independent US President since Richard Nixon.

His efforts on withdrawing from the Middle East remind of Nixon's hard struggle to leave Vietnam and to make peace with Russia and China. If he succeeds in this endeavour, he will be rewarded by the American people in 2020..

http://www.unz.com/ishamir/cautious-optimism-on-turks-and-kurds/

If he succeeds, then he sure will have my support!

One of the main instigators of the Syrian imbroglio – Saudi Arabia – had been beaten in Yemen and is no longer eager for battle; ditto Qatar and UAE. Europe is less keen on removing "bloody dictators" than it was. CIA, Jewish Lobby and Clintonite Democrats would keep Syria boiling, but mercifully they are not in full command in Washington. .

Thank God.

Peace.

Sick of Orcs , says: October 16, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMT
@A123 What is allegedly being built is the same worthless fence. The wall prototypes couldn't legally be used per a clause in one of the terrible spending bills hastily signed by "Master Negotiator" Trump.

Better than cacklin' cankles? Yes, but so is my last bowel movement.

Even if we got a real wall, Orangemeister wants legal gimmegrants in record numbers. We just can't effing win.

Don't you think Trump was a tad premature in announcing "Only I can fix," to all these problems?

A123 , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:26 pm GMT
@Europe Nationalist

Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for them eventually.

Every high value PRC project in Africa seems to come with as suspiciously large number of military age, ethnic Han Chinese staff.

The PRC colonization effort is informed by the lessons of former Euro colonies. They have built-in measures to make them very hard to displace. And, should they eventually be forced out, the locals will get nothing but destroyed and poisoned lands.

Republic , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT
@geokat62 Know more News with Adam News covers the Christian Zionist story. He is still on you tube.
Jones was banned from that platform recently. He can still be heard on bitchute as well as his own website, Culturewars.com
Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:48 pm GMT
@anon

the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "

Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.

I have a metric that I use.

If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is suspect, at best.

Insofar as Erdogan has been aligned with Israel and its interests and agendas (the destruction and carving up of Syria)- is the degree to which he has been a malefactor on the world's stage.

/

Vs. the degree to which he's opposed to Israel's nefarious agendas;

– he's demonstrated actual statesmanship.

So that's my metric. That's why generally I don't have to pour over the minutia of every action or issue with a fine tooth comb, rather I just ask, 'is this person or action aligned with Israel's agenda.. (genocide, theft, murder, hegemony, strife ), and the question always seems to answer itself!

Just consider the Obama regime. When I approved of what Obama was doing- peace with Iran- it was when he was in Israel's crosshairs.

When I disapproved of Obama's treasons, it was when his actions were perfectly aligned with Israel – destruction of Libya, destruction of Syria and so forth.

It really is a near perfect, if not perfect metric.

When Trump is betraying America and Americans, is when he's serving Israel – open borders, drones, sanctions on Iran and Russia and others..

When he's acting like an actual American president, in the service of this nation, is when he's in direct opposition to Israel's agenda – ending the Eternal Wars, making videos about dead American soldiers, firing Bolton, talking about nationalism at the UN..

I'm really sort of waiting for this test to ever fail, it's been so reliably perfect for so long.

So if you want to know if Erdogan is acting in good faith, just check to see if what he's doing pleases Israel, and you'll know all you need to know!

Is a Kurdish state a good thing?

Well, what does the 'metric' say?

Is Turkey's incursion into Syria a good thing?

Here, a mouthpiece of Zion posits 'no'.

The Turkish government is no longer interested in helping Syrians liberate themselves from Assad's murderous regime.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/turkeys-incursion-syria-making-things-better-or-worse

which indicates that it is a good thing!

We can't all be savvy to every nuanced action taken all over the globe. There are regional exigencies that we simply can't know about.

Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in places like Ukraine, or Syria?

But with my metric, so far, I've had a 100% success rate in determining the good actors and actions, from the bad.

ploni almoni , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:52 pm GMT
@ivan It is quite obvious that it is you and your meshpukha who are not civilized John of the Apocalypse.
ploni almoni , says: October 16, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@A123 It takes one to know one.
Abdul Alhazred , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:20 pm GMT
@Rurik Thanks!

The video is very powerful, and this video linked in this link features Trump's speaking with attendant images of the families of the soldiers and what they have to go through .because of the lies of the warmongers.

Yes Peace!

https://www.infowars.com/watch-the-most-powerful-and-tear-jerking-words-ever-spoken-by-trump/

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
@Rurik As Commander in Chief tRump wanted to kill Syria President Basher Assad for having gassed his own people & having to be restrained by his Generals, Amerikans now see another side to their president which Rurik observed on video & gushed: "I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said Thank God. Peace."

Am sincerely glad you're "happy," Rurik, that Trumpstein moved to shed some of his Adelson/Netantahu skin implants. Nonetheless, & I don't want to be a GOP Likud-Party pooper, but am sticking with Philip Giraldi's advisory to, "Let's see what he actually does."

At any rate, linked below (& fyr in ), is Brother Nathanael's latest video. In order to stave off our nation's descent into Greater Sodom & Gomorrah, it's understandable to me how Bro Nat prefers "The Chosen One" to continue as ZUS president over his uber-liberal & decadent Zio-Democrat opponents.

Thanks Rurik, and enjoy the good times of tRump's proclamation of an end to endless wars for Greater Israel while it lasts!

https://www.bitchute.com/video/55BgQc7QrSD4/

SolontoCroesus , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Sean

"Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the West . . . A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons"

Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US FP dysfunction.

According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise.

h/t Johnny Walker Read @138

vyshibala , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT
The wonderful context is, it's not up to Trump. It's not up to the US government. The world will squeeze the CIA regime out of Syria. Russian doctrine of coercion to peace works equally well on degenerate great powers, with the minor filip of face-saving subterfuge for routed US functionaries.

Lindsay Graham gets to shake his tiny fist ineffectually at a sneering NATO ally instead of shaking his tiny fist ineffectually at a nuclear power with overwhelming hypersonic nonballistic missile capability. Much safer.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 3:48 pm GMT
@Wally The only way to change this cast of filthy charACTORs we have running this country is to have a "NONE OF THE ABOVE" box located prominently at the bottom of every ballot. One I would take the time and effort needed to check.
jack daniels , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:17 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger Trump's problem is that he has very little support for his MAGA agenda in his own party. People like Lindsey Graham who support him here and there will not hesitate to turn on him if he takes positions that offend Sheldon Adelson. Trump's none-too-sophisticated, none-too-affluent base is opposed by the media, academe, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the FBI and CIA, and the Rainbow Coalition assemblage of minority voices. Even Fox News (apart from Tucker) opposes Trump's agenda even as it defends Trump against spurious charges of colluding with the Russians. For example, Hannity regularly charges the Democrats with being in league with Putin, in effect conceding that the Russians are evil enemies. Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.

At the end of the day, the 4D Chess view seems more right than wrong. While Trump's commitment to the right is both shallow and wavery, in the present setting he cannot do more than hold the enemy at bay and wait for reinforcements to show up. That means it's up to US, his supporters, to find ways to weigh in on his side. As the fascists used to say, a bundle of sticks can be strong even if the individual sticks are weak.

jack daniels , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:39 pm GMT
@Sean My question to you is: a confrontation between who or what and China? To the extent that America collapses into a post-Christian, post-European congeries of plutocrats and their commercial interests, such a confrontation has no clear shape. The evolving character of American society has been put on the table by the Trump/populist revolution, and the role of Jews in our cultural evolution is part of that even if it is taboo to discuss it. The issue over the Palestinians is the only way to challenge the successful assumption of moral carte blanche by the secular Jewish community, which Jewish thought leaders have parlayed into an effective assault on freedom of speech and assembly (particularly in Europe but also here), and a campaign to stigmatize whiteness, Christianity, and the nuclear family.

Conclusion: The issue of Palestine is a proxy for the larger issue of whether secular Judaism deserves its current status as moral hegemon. It is the only way to raise this issue that is not instantly dismissed as neo-Nazism.

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus SolontoCroesus wrote: "Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise."

To All commenters,

Above, when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.

When President Bonespur speaks, it pains to listen, & I can potentially become deceived.

Will likely get friendly fire from Rurik, but I truly wish he reads your comment & astutely watches the very informative linked Talpiot video. Hurts when I see good men (like him) gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.

Thanks for your patriotic servus, S2C!

P.S.: Behind D.C.'s Blue & White House curtain, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin licks his choppers in anticipation of effectual ZUS sanctions, & the Chinese communist government's finally granting Goldman Sachs Group permission to do "untethered" investment business" in the mainland; the largest consumer market on the planet.

Colin Wright , says: Website October 16, 2019 at 5:53 pm GMT
@Sean 'Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state would weaken the West,'

As usual you've being dishonest. You agree Israel is a 'shitty little country' -- but manage to insinuate we should continue to support it.

After all, we don't have to spend a penny to 'play Santa' to the Palestinians (as if we had nothing to do with their expulsion.). It's the Israelis we subsidize and protect, not the Palestinians.

In fact, we can help the Palestinians and save money too! Yank Israel off our tit and we get to have our cake and eat it too. The Palestinians get their home back, and we save billions every year. All we have to do is to stop funding their tormentors,

Colin Wright , says: Website October 16, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@Rurik 'I have a metric that I use.

If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is suspect, at best.'

It is always wrong to support Israel.

In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.

I voted for McCain because he wasn't black. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that I allowed some other consideration to seduce me into supporting Israel -- however trivially and as it turned out ineffectually.

Johnny Walker Read , says: October 16, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency A quick history of Marquis de Sade for those who are unaware of the history of this perverted demon.
https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/10/the-marquis-de-sade-a-philosophical-godfather-of-the-new-underworld-order/
Tel LIE vised 911 evangeLIED , says: October 16, 2019 at 8:52 pm GMT
If you establish 911 was a fraud then subsequent war on terror is a fraud. The West will exhaust themselves waging war against Islam and the Muslims despite killing millions of people. They will dig their own graves and cast themselves in hell fire for eternal damnation for subscribing to Santa Claus lies and Jesus died for their evils by supporting the money changer's ideology for greater Israel project to usher in their Anti-Christ as their Messiah. Anti-Christ Dajjal will take them for a ride to hell. He will play them "By way of Deception" just as they are playing the rest of the world "By way of Deception wage wars." So how many of us are willing to sell our souls in exchange for the worldly gains and pay a penalty for eternal damnation?
Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:14 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski

when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.

A prudent policy.

gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.

"I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. "

Gushing?

Perhaps, I suppose, depending on your definition.

But when's the last time you heard a Z.U.S. president speak of the war dead with compassion and pathos? Hell, when's the last time you heard them speak of these tragic victims of American f0lly (treason and war crimes), and their families- at all?

He was saying 'enough of this madness!'

And from what I understand, American troops are indeed vacating Syrian bases.

BTW, leaving for a few days, so keep up the good fight, Brother Chuck!

Rurik , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:24 pm GMT
@Colin Wright

In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.

That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.

I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).

I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by then I understood the nature of McCain all too well.

How bad could a racist commie be, after all, since there still are the other branches of Gov.

Turns out very bad indeed.

Still tho, not as bad as McCain would have been. Just as Trump, (TDS* notwithstanding), is a thousand times better than the war hag would have been.

* Trump Derangement Syndrome

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 9:28 pm GMT
@Wally Wally likes to cheap shot P.G., haha, and once again futilely asked him: "Has Giraldi ever stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?"

Get on the ball, wailing Wall! (zzZigh) Likely, even some knowledgeable CODAH associates will inform that YOU'LL get what Supremacist Jews give you.

Haha. The Zionized D.N.C. is presently fretting over which Jewish Lobby-approved presidential 2020 candidate they should give to their "base" voters. Haha. Liberal tribe chieftains are confident that even Mayor Pete Buttigieg will make incumbent, Trumpstein, Tweet-out "endless" sweat on election night.

Nonetheless, had Amerika a real choice, , Ron Paul would be my #1 "anti-Chosen One" alternative. Refer to his article below, wailing Wall?

Yours truly, in "ownership," ( Igh)

Charles J. Orloski, Jr.
West Scranton, Pa.

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2019/october/14/washington-is-wrong-once-again-kurds-join-assad-to-defend-syria/

Selah, uh , can Amerikans audit The Fed instead of having to go to bed with an abusive Talpiot Red?

Z-man , says: October 16, 2019 at 10:39 pm GMT
@jack daniels

Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.

That's why the NeoCohens hate Putin so much, for re-establishing Russian Christian Orthodoxy as the 'national' religion. Trump, on the other hand, admires Putin for his nationalism and wants white Christian Russia to be friends with nominally Christian America. Unfortunately he must bow down to the Satanic anti Christ power brokers, the Cabal, that keeps him in power and checks his nationalist leanings. Hopefully he will overcome this in a second term but I've been saying that about presidents for years!

flashlight joe , says: October 16, 2019 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Anon Very interesting video. I will begin researching the stories in it and making my judgement. Thanks for sharing.
SolontoCroesus , says: October 16, 2019 at 11:01 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Thanks ChuckOrloski.
Undeserved, tho -- I was just being a shepherd guiding the flock to other people's good work, a practice I learned from your comment style.
ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 11:05 pm GMT
@Rurik Hey Brother Rurik!

I don't want to be in the business of educating you on un-American actions undertaken by "Z.U.S. presidents." You really know better, but since Jacques Sheete, peace be upon him, is M.I.A., I will now do my best.

No doubt, Trumpstein is different. Please pause momentarily and consider how he very recently wanted to sell/provide nuclear weapons systems to Saudi Arabia. Fyi, and lucky for the entire Middle East's general population, Trump's lack of "compassion" was overuled by those higher in the ZUS's Blue & White House Lowerarchy. (Note: He ain't "The Decider," he is the ever useful & divisive Zion Tweet-Chord)

So given the U.R. Moderator sword is not activated, linked down below, is a joint radio show, hosted by Dr. David Duke & Ryan Dawson. Ideally, this action will take the job of trying to educate YOU from off my shoulders, Rurik. No reading needed, & just carefully listen!

Fyi, Dr. Duke and Mr. Dawson will provide the means by which an anti-Zionist & patriotic American can resist the evil sway dished-out daily by our "Homeland's" Zionist Corporate Media. These largely demonized gentlemen/scholars explain how Zionized Republicans & Democrats are curiously "on the same page" when it comes to humanely protecting the Kurds.

But when it comes to supporting & defending The Land of Bilk & Money, they unite. Yippie! On other hand, and when it comes to actually helping the restless & sorry lot of dumb goyim working Amerikans, they fight like , er, "Tom and Jerry." (Zigh) Why Trumpstein even moved to kill the underachieving & oft unaffordable "Affordable Care Act," a.k.a., Obamacare.

Enjoy your time off, my Brother Rurik, and I suggest, at minimum, partial evacuation from the dug-in Jewish Corporate Media "bases."

https://davidduke.com/friday191011/

ChuckOrloski , says: October 16, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT
@Rurik More homework, Rurik!

Linked below is what appears to be VT's "honest reflection" upon our current ZUS president's "senility." Again, a good rest to you!

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/10/16/trumps-senile-moment-of-the-day-kurds-now-worse-than-isis/

Colin Wright , says: Website October 16, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT
@Rurik 'That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.

I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).

I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by then I understood the nature of McCain all too well '

Now you're reminding me of 2012. Of course, I was going to vote for Obama over Israel's man-in-the-White House-to-be. An unpleasant choice, but there it was

So my wife and I were down in Alameda at a winery. Somewhat incongruously, the server was right-wing, and started praising Romney. I stayed tactful, as I didn't want to kill my buzz, but my wife -- who is easily influenced -- came out of there going 'Romney number one. Yeah -- I'm going to vote for him!'

In an unusual display of wisdom, I bit my tongue. We'll see how this plays out

You need to understand my wife comes from a poor background. If you want to meet 'the working poor,' go see her relatives.

So the very next day, Romney comes out with his '49%' remark. It was classic.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 17, 2019 at 12:52 am GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Right. This happens every so often. I am not recommending de Sade or any of his works.

I'm recommending the movie:
"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade ", play 1963, movie 1967 [1]. The movie has very little to do with the writings of the original Marquis de Sade [2], but it does do a good job of showing the spirit of revolutions.

de Sade had a good reputation with the revolutionaries. He was elected a delegate to the French National Convention, but fell during the Reign of Terror [3]. He really did direct publicly presented plays at Charenton starting in 1803, but was eventually arrested and denied paper and pen in 1809. Died 1815, and several large manuscripts were subsequently burned by his son, who apparently thought that de Sade had done quite enough harm already.

Insofar as tje video has anything to do with the real de Sade, it is that the director (fictional de Sade) manages to stage a small revolution himself in the final scene, _after_ demonstrating that the audience is little more sane than de Sade is ("15 glorious years" scene). As in the link given by Read [4], de Sade acts as the philosophical godfather of revolution and revolt as an end in itself.

Counterinsurgency

1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marat/Sade
XXXhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc4I6pivqg

2] https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/10/the-marquis-de-sade-a-philosophical-godfather-of-the-new-underworld-order/

3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Sade

4] https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/10/the-marquis-de-sade-a-philosophical-godfather-of-the-new-underworld-order/

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 17, 2019 at 12:55 am GMT

The really pathetic attempt by ABC to pass off Kentucky gun range footage as a Syrian conflict zone is a good example of the consequences of Congress' horrible 2013 decision (that you may not have heard of) to totally legalize domestic propaganda. @_whitneywebb

In the age of legal, weaponized propaganda directed against the American people, false narratives have become so commonplace in the mainstream media that they have essentially become normalized, leading to the era of "fake news" and "alternative facts."

Lifting of US Propaganda Ban Gives New Meaning to Old Song
https://www.mintpressnews.com/planting-stories-in-the-press-lifting-of-us-propaganda-ban-gives-new-meaning-to-old-song/237493/

ChuckOrloski , says: October 17, 2019 at 1:00 am GMT
@SolontoCroesus Dear SolontoCroesus,

A point, re; Non-Zionized Rules of Engagement.

The bad and ugly shepherds persistently hit vulnerable & trusting Unzers with their "best shot." For one example, the currently M.I.A. commenter, Maven Sam Shama.

Subsequently, I see no valid reason why intelligent & good men -- like you! -- should not give their "best shot" and attempt to support & rescue lost sheeple who regularly appear here.*

* Some lost sheep simply like it that way, and therefore, bad shepherds, for one example, the featherweight commenter "Sean," get lots of practice at misguiding the flock.

Ciao, S2C. Continue to be unflappable.

Counterinsurgency , says: October 17, 2019 at 1:18 am GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen Right, what to do is the question now that everybody has been taken by surprise.

I'd say that the advice "get out of debt, get out of the major cities" is fairly good, and fairly obvious, and has been so for some time. As to income, I just don't know. You might try linking up to some group (non-Left) that seems to be cohesive and has _some_ plan of action that isn't too weird. Under stress, cohesive groups can survive better than individuals.

You might also remember the rule of thumb that prophets can predict either what or when, but not both. It's obvious that the US in general and cities in particular are in severe decline, but _when_ the current system will cast off much of the population it now supports is simply not known. Abandon it too soon and you end up extremely poor, so a sharp break is extremely risky. I'd say that retiring debt, hardening your house against home invasion, and finding some group as above, would be about all that would be justified right now. If your neighborhood is deteriorating, it might be a good idea to go to another one that isn't, since the deterioration is unlikely to reverse itself. If you're in with an ethnic group that doesn't like your ethnic group, it might be a good idea to displace, if only to avoid the unpleasantness.

Wish I could say something better, but that's it.

Counterinsurgency

Counterinsurgency , says: October 17, 2019 at 1:32 am GMT
@jack daniels The current US system / world order will end within the next decade no matter what Trump does. Trump is trying to shut it down with minimal casualties and replace it with something viable, which is a good thing to do, but if Trump were to vanish tomorrow the current US system / world order would still end within the next decade, maybe two decades if things went very badly wrong.
Trump has the wind at his back, he's trying to do things that would do themselves (although not as well) and that's why the appearance of 4D Chess. But, as you point out, Trump leads a very small force of government officials, and would lose without the strength given by his supporters. Continued support, in word and in deed, should reduce casualties (to include Trump and his family) during the current transition.

Counterinsurgency

J. O. , says: October 17, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
BILLIONS FOR WARS

MEANWHILE, Millions Hungry and Food Insecure in the US

"According to the US Department of Agriculture in 2018, food insecurity affects 37 million Americans, including over 11 million children -- the numbers likely way understated."

"Around 40 million Americans experience hunger annually."

"At least 15 million US households endure food insecurity."

"Hunger is caused by poverty and inadequate financial resources, a nationwide problem."

"Around 45 million Americans rely on food stamps, an eroding program providing inadequate help."

"1 in 6 American children may not know where their next meal is coming from."

"22 million children in America rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they receive at school, but as many as 3 million children still aren't getting the breakfast they need."

FROM Stephen Lendman:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/millions-hungry-food-insecure-us/5692168

DOES THE ABOVE CORRESPOND TO THE "MAKE AMERICA GREAT GAIN"????

WHY THE BILLIONS IN WEAPONS AND RESSOURCES FOR WARS?

INFURIATING! DEFINITELY NOT A GREAT NATION.

USAID SHOULD REMAIN HERE: FOR THE 40 MILLION AMERICANS EXPERIENCING HUNGER

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 17, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT
@Rurik I applaud the sentiment too.
I'm hearing rumours that Trump has put a thousand troops into Saudi Arabia and claimed they are paying for it.
Is it now America's lot to be not just Israel's but SA's mercenaries?
2020 can't come fast enough. I'd love to see a Trump super majority and some serious reform.
It's pretty clear the Evangelical Zionist's are Israelis' b@tches.
America, it seems, must not only reclaim itself but also it's religion. EV is a heresy and the leaders are on their knees f@llating Israel. It is disgusting to watch.
Daniel Rich , says: October 17, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
@Counterinsurgency Thank you for you lengthily and thorough reply.

Yes, I agree, having trucks and trains go overland and via various countries comes with the risk of conflicts erupting between 2 or more states participating in Chinese projects. China burnt itself badly in Libya, where Hillary " We Came, We Saw, He Died! Haw, haw, haw " Rotham Clingon ran amok.

China is actively setting up routes via the attic as well, so I think China carefully weighs all its options, but doing business comes with certain risks, those are unavoidable.

When I was in Africa [The Gambia and there about], I noticed a lot of Chinese merchandise being sold all over the place. I heard stories of some Chinese being attacked and/or murdered elsewhere in Africa, but haven't dealt with any Chinese businessman myself or heard their stories in person.

Having been on that vast continent doesn't make me an expert whatsoever, but I see Africa become a huge anchor around the world's neck. Can't use a single brush to paint entire nations, I know, but what I saw didn't look good.

side note : I didn't live in a hotel with armed guards, I lived in a compound with Africans, so it's not that I have no up close experience. Furthermore, I was always treated with kindness, respect and warmth.

[Oct 19, 2019] Karl Sharro on Twitter That's it, I quit. I can't be expected to compete with this.

Oct 19, 2019 | twitter.com

That's it, I quit. I can't be expected to compete with this.

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

October 9, 2019

His Excellency
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
President of the Republic of Turkey
Ankara

Dear Mr. President:

Let's work out a good deal! You don't want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don't want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy -- and I will. I've already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson.

1 have worked hard to solve some of your problems. Don't let the world down. You can make a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make concessions that they would never have made in the past. I am confidentially enclosing a copy of his letter to me, just received.

History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen. Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool!

I will call you later.

Sincerely.

/signature/

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

[Oct 19, 2019] How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion

Notable quotes:
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dan Hayes says:

October 4, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz Proprietor Ron,

Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled man.

Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.

I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU academic nor an Upper West Side resident.

And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!

Read More • Replies: @Mikhail Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

sally , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:47 am GMT

How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics?

The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area.

Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt, Yemen etc.

Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind.

I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.

A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?

Beckow , says: October 4, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO, and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?

There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?

eah , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:55 am GMT
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.

Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.

Roberto Masioni , says: October 4, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level. This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
Pamela , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:41 pm GMT
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.

To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96% turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with all the international mandates.

It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.

All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!

follyofwar , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.

The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State knew it.

Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.

The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones.

The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt, that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.

These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights, those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable damage will be done to our country and its institutions.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@Pamela In fact, several Western sources reluctantly confirmed the results of Crimean referendum of 2014:
German polling company GFK
http://www.gfk.com/ua/Documents/Presentations/GFK_report_FreeCrimea.pdf
Gallup
http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf

Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.

On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.

Alden , says: October 4, 2019 at 5:35 pm GMT
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.

We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.

chris , says: October 4, 2019 at 9:11 pm GMT
@Ron Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any push-back from the interviewer) says:

Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a coup d'etat against Yanukovich.

Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the Ukraine coup ?

Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US.

These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.

No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.

In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is the staging post for an attack on Russia.

The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical conclusion.

Anonymous [855] • Disclaimer , says: October 4, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of Europe.

Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion, according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and, according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.

According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital, which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1 million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools' endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous populations they claim to protect.

AnonFromTN , says: October 5, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Mikhail Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@anon American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run by the same puppet master.

Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him, like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the rat).

Skeptikal , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:10 pm GMT
@follyofwar The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.

But it is probably not worth the aggravation.

Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other innovations.

Beckow , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
@AP Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?

Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' – actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in hell of joining EU.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
@Skeptikal Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away. Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).

So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports, Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.

annamaria , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:10 pm GMT
@Sergey Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."

-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the coziness of western life?

S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet regime."

-- If you wish: "The Rape of Russia: Testimony of Anne Williamson Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives, September 21, 1999:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/Harvard_mafia/testimony_of_anne_williamson_before_the_house_banking_committee.shtml

"Economic rape of post-USSR economic space was by design not by accident:"
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#Economic_rape_of_post_USSR_economic_space_was_by_design_not_by_accident

"MI6 role in economic rape of Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet republics:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#MI6_role_

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 11:39 pm GMT
@AP Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and blew it.
AP , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:39 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) a

Illegal revolution (are there any legal ones? – was American one legal?) rather than coup. Violations of Constitution began under Yanukovich.

We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide.

LOL. Were you the one comparing it to Somalia?

Here is "dead" Ukraine:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDWAobR8U0c?start=3017&feature=oembed

What a nightmare.

Compare Ukraine 2019 to Ukraine 2013 (before revolution):

GDP per capita PPP:

$9233 (2018) vs. $8648 (2013)

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=UA-AM-GE-MN-AL&name_desc=false

GDP per capita nominal:

$3110 (2018) vs. $3160 (2013)

Given 3% growth in 2019, it will be higher.

Forex reserves:

$20 billion end of 2013, $23 billion currently

Debt to GDP ratio:

40% in 2013, 61% in 2018. Okay, this is worse. But it is a decline from 2016 when it was 81%.

Compare Ukraine's current 61% to Greece's 150%.

Military: from ~15,000 usable troops to 200,000.

Overall, not exactly a "suicide."

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@AnonFromTN I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups – it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.

In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could stage a ' revolution '.

AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.

Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed, Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.

We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.

Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@AP You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989, had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.

So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.

You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a success?

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Beckow True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies, and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.

What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about ' EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.

What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well, all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal', almost as good as 2013 . Right.

Robjil , says: October 5, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
Ukraine is an overseas US territory.

It is not a foreign nation at all.

Trump dealt with one of our overseas territories.

Nuland said that US invested 5 billion dollars to get Ukraine.

She got Ukraine without balls that is Crimea. Russia took back the balls.

US cried, cried a Crimea river about this. They are still crying over this.

DESERT FOX , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Robjil Agree, and like Israel the Ukraine will be a welfare drain on the America taxpayers as long as Israel and the Ukraine exist.
Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
@AP I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:

lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians

Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask: why? did the authors of that policy think it through?

Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@AP I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth' under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.

One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.

If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
@Beckow Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.

Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood. Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets, etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more, most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).

Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for has befallen us". End of story.

Sergey Krieger , says: October 6, 2019 at 4:15 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even 40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing. Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when die off very real one is going right under your nose.
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important to those hawks.

Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing. I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct, what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of better relations impossible.)

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@Per/Norway

The ukrops are pureblooded nazis

Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender. Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:28 pm GMT
@AP

So uprising by American colonists was a coup?

How about what happened in Russia in 1917?

Or Romania when Communism fell?

Talk about false equivalencies.

Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected president of Ukraine.

Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the Euromaidan.

Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and the deaths of law enforcement personnel.

In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Beckow The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:17 am GMT
@AP Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert Trump's investigation of those crimes.

Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24 report fairly objective?

Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RtUrPKK73rE?feature=oembed

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:24 am GMT
@AP This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage- is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.

Crimea: Three years after annexation – BBC News

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 3:55 am GMT
@AP Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@AP "Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by @TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"

REVEALING UKRAINE OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER #1 (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Nj_bdtO0SI0

Robjil , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
@Malacaay Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.

This probably explains their differences with Russia.

Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the rest of Russia.

The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the Soviet Union.

Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime Minister.

Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine, Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.

[Oct 19, 2019] How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion

Notable quotes:
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dan Hayes says:

October 4, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz Proprietor Ron,

Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled man.

Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.

I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU academic nor an Upper West Side resident.

And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!

Read More • Replies: @Mikhail Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

sally , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:47 am GMT

How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics?

The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area.

Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt, Yemen etc.

Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind.

I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.

A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?

Beckow , says: October 4, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO, and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?

There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?

eah , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:55 am GMT
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.

Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.

Roberto Masioni , says: October 4, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level. This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
Pamela , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:41 pm GMT
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.

To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96% turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with all the international mandates.

It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.

All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!

follyofwar , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.

The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State knew it.

Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.

The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones.

The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt, that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.

These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights, those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable damage will be done to our country and its institutions.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@Pamela In fact, several Western sources reluctantly confirmed the results of Crimean referendum of 2014:
German polling company GFK
http://www.gfk.com/ua/Documents/Presentations/GFK_report_FreeCrimea.pdf
Gallup
http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf

Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.

On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.

Alden , says: October 4, 2019 at 5:35 pm GMT
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.

We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.

chris , says: October 4, 2019 at 9:11 pm GMT
@Ron Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any push-back from the interviewer) says:

Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a coup d'etat against Yanukovich.

Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the Ukraine coup ?

Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US.

These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.

No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.

In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is the staging post for an attack on Russia.

The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical conclusion.

Anonymous [855] • Disclaimer , says: October 4, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of Europe.

Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion, according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and, according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.

According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital, which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1 million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools' endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous populations they claim to protect.

AnonFromTN , says: October 5, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Mikhail Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@anon American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run by the same puppet master.

Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him, like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the rat).

Skeptikal , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:10 pm GMT
@follyofwar The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.

But it is probably not worth the aggravation.

Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other innovations.

Beckow , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
@AP Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?

Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' – actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in hell of joining EU.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
@Skeptikal Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away. Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).

So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports, Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.

annamaria , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:10 pm GMT
@Sergey Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."

-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the coziness of western life?

S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet regime."

-- If you wish: "The Rape of Russia: Testimony of Anne Williamson Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives, September 21, 1999:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/Harvard_mafia/testimony_of_anne_williamson_before_the_house_banking_committee.shtml

"Economic rape of post-USSR economic space was by design not by accident:"
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#Economic_rape_of_post_USSR_economic_space_was_by_design_not_by_accident

"MI6 role in economic rape of Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet republics:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#MI6_role_

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 11:39 pm GMT
@AP Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and blew it.
AP , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:39 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) a

Illegal revolution (are there any legal ones? – was American one legal?) rather than coup. Violations of Constitution began under Yanukovich.

We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide.

LOL. Were you the one comparing it to Somalia?

Here is "dead" Ukraine:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDWAobR8U0c?start=3017&feature=oembed

What a nightmare.

Compare Ukraine 2019 to Ukraine 2013 (before revolution):

GDP per capita PPP:

$9233 (2018) vs. $8648 (2013)

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=UA-AM-GE-MN-AL&name_desc=false

GDP per capita nominal:

$3110 (2018) vs. $3160 (2013)

Given 3% growth in 2019, it will be higher.

Forex reserves:

$20 billion end of 2013, $23 billion currently

Debt to GDP ratio:

40% in 2013, 61% in 2018. Okay, this is worse. But it is a decline from 2016 when it was 81%.

Compare Ukraine's current 61% to Greece's 150%.

Military: from ~15,000 usable troops to 200,000.

Overall, not exactly a "suicide."

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@AnonFromTN I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups – it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.

In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could stage a ' revolution '.

AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.

Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed, Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.

We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.

Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@AP You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989, had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.

So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.

You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a success?

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Beckow True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies, and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.

What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about ' EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.

What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well, all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal', almost as good as 2013 . Right.

Robjil , says: October 5, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
Ukraine is an overseas US territory.

It is not a foreign nation at all.

Trump dealt with one of our overseas territories.

Nuland said that US invested 5 billion dollars to get Ukraine.

She got Ukraine without balls that is Crimea. Russia took back the balls.

US cried, cried a Crimea river about this. They are still crying over this.

DESERT FOX , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Robjil Agree, and like Israel the Ukraine will be a welfare drain on the America taxpayers as long as Israel and the Ukraine exist.
Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
@AP I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:

lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians

Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask: why? did the authors of that policy think it through?

Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@AP I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth' under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.

One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.

If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
@Beckow Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.

Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood. Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets, etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more, most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).

Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for has befallen us". End of story.

Sergey Krieger , says: October 6, 2019 at 4:15 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even 40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing. Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when die off very real one is going right under your nose.
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important to those hawks.

Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing. I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct, what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of better relations impossible.)

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@Per/Norway

The ukrops are pureblooded nazis

Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender. Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:28 pm GMT
@AP

So uprising by American colonists was a coup?

How about what happened in Russia in 1917?

Or Romania when Communism fell?

Talk about false equivalencies.

Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected president of Ukraine.

Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the Euromaidan.

Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and the deaths of law enforcement personnel.

In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Beckow The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:17 am GMT
@AP Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert Trump's investigation of those crimes.

Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24 report fairly objective?

Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RtUrPKK73rE?feature=oembed

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:24 am GMT
@AP This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage- is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.

Crimea: Three years after annexation – BBC News

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 3:55 am GMT
@AP Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@AP "Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by @TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"

REVEALING UKRAINE OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER #1 (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Nj_bdtO0SI0

Robjil , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
@Malacaay Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.

This probably explains their differences with Russia.

Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the rest of Russia.

The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the Soviet Union.

Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime Minister.

Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine, Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.

[Oct 19, 2019] The Democratic Party Should Suspend Hillary Clinton

Notable quotes:
"... I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against 'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans. ..."
"... This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description ..."
"... The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two branches of the Business Party. ..."
"... Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points across at the same time. ..."
"... Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment. ..."
"... Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local. ..."
Oct 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hillary Clinton has gone mad :

Hillary Clinton appeared to suggest that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is the "favorite of the Russians" to win the 2020 presidential election and is being groomed by Moscow to run as a third-party candidate against the eventual Democratic nominee.
...
The Russians already have their "eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," she said, in an apparent reference to Gabbard.

"She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her, so far," Clinton told David Plouffe, the podcast's host and the campaign manager for former President Obama's 2008 campaign.

"And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton added, referring to the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate.

The responses were appropriate:

Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard - 22:20 UTC · Oct 18, 2019
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a ...
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and ...
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.

The Streisand effect of Clinton's shoddy remark will help Tulsi Gabbard with regards to name recognition. It will increase her poll results. With Joe Biden faltering and Elizabeth Warren increasingly exposed as a phony Clinton copy, Bernie Sanders could become the Democrats leading candidate. Then the “favorite of the Russians” smear will be applied to him.

Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party for damaging it's chances to regain the White House. But the Democratic establishment would rather sabotage the election than to let one of the more progressive candidates take the lead.

Voters do not like such internal squabble and shenanigans. The phony Ukrainegate 'impeachment inquiry' is already a gift for Trump. Messing with the candidate field on top of that will inevitably end with another Trump presidency.


Brendan , Oct 19 2019 14:14 utc | 6

and Suspend her from what? a lamp post? That's a little bit harsh.

Hillary is actually doing something constructive for the first time in her career - by giving a boost to Tulsi Gabbard who is the only candidate who challenges the military industrial complex, which has probably caused more death and destruction than anyone else in history.

I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against 'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans.

But none of the other Democratic candidates stand a chance of beating Trump either. The two front-runners are medically unfit for any important challenging job - Biden (senility) and Sanders (recent heart attack/stroke?).

librul , Oct 19 2019 14:29 utc | 9

Tulsi is urging Hillary to "enter the race" !! Hillary is foaming at the mouth with desire to enter the 2020 race. Is Tulsi working for Hillary?

Behind the scenes it was decided to make HunterBidenGate the pretext for a Trump impeachment. This, it was thought, would damage Trump AND Biden and make way for the resurrection of Hillary Clinton. There were so many other pretexts available but they chose this one.

Gambits everywhere !

Trailer Trash , Oct 19 2019 14:42 utc | 11
"Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party"

This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description. Even a quick review of the Wikipedia entry reveals little.

As best I can tell, a person is a party member by checking the box on the voter registration form. The few times I have registered, I did not check a box for any party. It is none of the state's business who I associate with or vote for.

It is also not the state's business to supervise and fund the selection of party candidates. But that is what happens in the US. The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two branches of the Business Party.

Peter AU 1 , Oct 19 2019 14:48 utc | 13
The Clinton delusional ranting probably needs to be looked at in the light of this.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/10/18/tulsi-nails-national-tv-us-regime-change-wars/

"It didn't come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV debate this week. It was billed as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii Representative told some prime-time home-truths to the nation:

"Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and cheer-leading this regime-change war."

The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda terrorists for its objective of overthrowing the government in Damascus."

paul , Oct 19 2019 14:58 utc | 16
Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points across at the same time. The way she tries to finesse her stances on Iran, India and Israel is disturbing though.

Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement.

When she's forthright, punches hard and says the things that many people are thinking but few dare say - as she did in her statement on Syria, but didn't in her statement on Iran - she comes off as the first real candidate for President that I've seen in my lifetime (I don't count the likes of Dennis Kucinich, who never seemed to actually want to win).

If Tulsi is serious about doing the world good, this is the path she needs to take. Speak the truths no one else is willing to say; punch hard; stick with it. Yeah and be willing to die for it. If they can't stop you, which I don't think they can, they'll come gunning for you...

Don Bacon , Oct 19 2019 15:04 utc | 17
Finally, at last, foreign affairs (i.e wars) has made it into a presidential campaign, and by a veteran, with veterans currently being sanctified in the U.S. The women (Tulsi, Jill and Hillary) are getting down and dirty, too, which is always a good thing and a feature of politics in time past, as in the Truman era. President Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you cannot handle the pressure, you should not remain in a position where you have to deal with it."

Let's hope that they get into the details of Hillary's failures, including Libya, Somalia, and especially Syria. Let's get it on! In the last election she never was forced to answer for her specific failures. Now's the time.

Ludwig , Oct 19 2019 15:19 utc | 20
Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment.

What Trump has successfully done from the right that Sanders/Gabbard (like Corbyn in the UK) are struggling to do from the left is to attack the establishment that's in a permanent state of warfare abroad and at home against its "enemies" and unfettered capitalism at home For a brief moment it was hoped by progressives that Obama - who defeated the faces of the establishment, Clinton and McCain in 2008 - would really fight the establishment but he ended up becoming more of a celebrity politician like Trudeau who talked a good game but was unable to effect real change on the ground which of course led to a large number or African Americans not voting in 2016 and a lot of white blue collar Obama 2008 voters going for Trump.

The corporate media which has been totally corrupted and infiltrated by intelligence agencies - quote openly versus covertly as in the past - is going to make every effort to shut down not just Gabbard but Sanders and ensure that Warren - a wannabe feel-gooder like Obama - be completely neutered to effect real change.

c1ue , Oct 19 2019 16:08 utc | 30
Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local.

[Oct 19, 2019] The United States formented an armed coup in Ukraine spearheaded by Nazis.

Notable quotes:
"... For the love of Pete, will TAC quit with offering limited concessions to the neocon position in an attempt to appear "serious" and "reasonable". ..."
"... I counted only once the word "aggressive" attributed to Washington. And no peep about the oversees Ukrainians as most likely descendants of individuals (maybe I am exaggerating a bit, there was quite some emigration at the end of 1800 beginning of 1900 from that area in Canada and US) that probably fought along the Nazi Germany, see current Canadian Foreign Minister. ..."
"... I am sure you're right about this. Diana Johnstone covered the role of the children of Croatian fascist exiles in the break-up of Yugoslavia and the US/NATO bombing campaign in her book, "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions." ..."
"... The US supports democracy? Depends on who got elected, apparently. ..."
Oct 19, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Sid Finster2 days ago

"This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response."

For the love of Pete, will TAC quit with offering limited concessions to the neocon position in an attempt to appear "serious" and "reasonable".

The United States formented an armed coup in Ukraine spearheaded by Nazis.

kouroi Sid Finster2 days ago
Isn't that right!. I counted only once the word "aggressive" attributed to Washington. And no peep about the oversees Ukrainians as most likely descendants of individuals (maybe I am exaggerating a bit, there was quite some emigration at the end of 1800 beginning of 1900 from that area in Canada and US) that probably fought along the Nazi Germany, see current Canadian Foreign Minister.
cka2nd kouroia day ago
I am sure you're right about this. Diana Johnstone covered the role of the children of Croatian fascist exiles in the break-up of Yugoslavia and the US/NATO bombing campaign in her book, "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions."
Sid Finster kouroi16 hours ago
Apparently pro-Soviet (from the earlier emigration) and Nazi Ukrainian emigres used to fight quite regularly in Canada.
cka2nd Sid Finster11 hours ago
Like the Pro-PRC vs. Pro-ROC folks in the nation's Chinatown's used to go at each other.
William Toffan Sid Finster10 hours ago
We still do!
Per kouroi15 hours ago
http://thesaker.is/why-2019...
here is part 2 of a series about ukrop nazis and their heirs in the murcan politics and canadian politics.
marku52 Sid Finster2 days ago • edited
To overthrow an elected head of state.

The US supports democracy? Depends on who got elected, apparently.

Tecumseh1768 marku5214 hours ago
Very much so.

[Oct 19, 2019] Peace-Expert George W Bush Says Isolationism Is Dangerous To Peace by Caitlin Johnstone

Notable quotes:
"... For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world." ..."
"... a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is endangering peace with his "isolationism" ..."
"... Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things. ..."
Oct 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Humanity was treated to an important lecture on peace at a recent event for the NIR School of the Heart by none other than Ellen Degeneres BFF and world-renowned peace expert George W Bush.

"I don't think the Iranians believe a peaceful Middle East is in their national interest," said the former president according to The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin, whose brief Twitter thread on the subject appears to be the only record of Bush's speech anywhere online.

"An isolationist United States is destabilizing around the world," Bush said during the speech in what according to Rogin was a shot at the sitting president.

"We are becoming isolationist and that's dangerous for the sake of peace."

For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world."

It is unclear why Bush is choosing to present himself as a more peaceful president than Trump given that by this point in his first term Bush had launched not one but two full-scale ground invasion wars whose effects continue to ravage the Middle East to this very day, especially given the way both presidents appear to be in furious agreement on foreign policy matters like Iran. But here we are.

From a certain point of view it's hard to say which is stranger:

(A) a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is endangering peace with his "isolationism", or

(B) the claim that Trump is "isolationist" at all.

As we've discussed previously , Trump's so-called isolationism has thus far consisted of killing tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions in an attempt to effect regime change in the most oil-rich nation on earth , advancing a regime change operation in Iran via starvation sanctions , CIA covert ops , and reckless military escalations , continuing to facilitate the Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen and to sell arms to Saudi Arabia , inflating the already insanely bloated US military budget to enable more worldwide military expansionism , greatly increasing the number of bombs dropped per day from the previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians in airstrikes for which he has reduced military accountability , and of course advancing many, many new cold war escalations against the nuclear superpower Russia.

But these bogus warnings about a dangerous, nonexistent threat of isolationism are nothing new for Dubya. In his farewell address to the nation , Bush said the following:

"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."

As we discussed recently , use of the pro-war buzzword "isolationism" has been re-emerging from its post-Bush hibernation as a popular one-word debunk of any opposition to continued US military expansionism in all directions, and it is deceitful in at least three distinct ways. Firstly, the way it is used consistently conflates isolationism with non-interventionism, which are two wildly different things . Secondly, none of the mainstream political figures who are consistently tarred with the "isolationist" pejorative are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination, or even proper non-interventionists; they all support many interventionist positions which actual non-interventionists object to. Thirdly, calling someone who opposes endless warmongering an "isolationist" makes as much sense as calling someone who opposes rape a man-hating prude; opposing an intrinsically evil act is not the same as withdrawing from the world.

Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things.

It would actually be great if George W Bush could shut the fuck up forever, ideally in a locked cell following a public war tribunal. Failing that, at the very least people should stop looking at him as a cuddly wuddly teddy bear with whom it's fun to share a sporting arena suite or a piece of hard candy or to hang award medals on for his treatment of veterans. This mass murdering monster has been growing more and more popular with Democrats lately just because he offers mild criticisms of Trump sometimes, as have war pigs like Bill Kristol and Max Boot and even John Bolton for the same reason, and it needs to stop. And in the name of a million dead Iraqis, please don't start consulting this man on matters of peace.

* * *

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[Oct 19, 2019] How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion

Notable quotes:
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dan Hayes says:

October 4, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz Proprietor Ron,

Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled man.

Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.

I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU academic nor an Upper West Side resident.

And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!

Read More • Replies: @Mikhail Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

sally , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:47 am GMT

How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics?

The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area.

Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt, Yemen etc.

Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind.

I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.

A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?

Beckow , says: October 4, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO, and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?

There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?

eah , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:55 am GMT
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.

Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.

Roberto Masioni , says: October 4, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level. This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
Pamela , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:41 pm GMT
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.

To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96% turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with all the international mandates.

It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.

All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!

follyofwar , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.

The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State knew it.

Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.

The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones.

The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt, that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.

These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights, those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable damage will be done to our country and its institutions.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@Pamela In fact, several Western sources reluctantly confirmed the results of Crimean referendum of 2014:
German polling company GFK
http://www.gfk.com/ua/Documents/Presentations/GFK_report_FreeCrimea.pdf
Gallup
http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf

Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.

On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.

Alden , says: October 4, 2019 at 5:35 pm GMT
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.

We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.

chris , says: October 4, 2019 at 9:11 pm GMT
@Ron Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any push-back from the interviewer) says:

Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a coup d'etat against Yanukovich.

Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the Ukraine coup ?

Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US.

These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.

No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.

In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is the staging post for an attack on Russia.

The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical conclusion.

Anonymous [855] • Disclaimer , says: October 4, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of Europe.

Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion, according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and, according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.

According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital, which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1 million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools' endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous populations they claim to protect.

AnonFromTN , says: October 5, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Mikhail Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@anon American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run by the same puppet master.

Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him, like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the rat).

Skeptikal , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:10 pm GMT
@follyofwar The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.

But it is probably not worth the aggravation.

Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other innovations.

Beckow , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
@AP Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?

Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' – actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in hell of joining EU.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
@Skeptikal Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away. Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).

So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports, Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.

annamaria , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:10 pm GMT
@Sergey Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."

-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the coziness of western life?

S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet regime."

-- If you wish: "The Rape of Russia: Testimony of Anne Williamson Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives, September 21, 1999:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/Harvard_mafia/testimony_of_anne_williamson_before_the_house_banking_committee.shtml

"Economic rape of post-USSR economic space was by design not by accident:"
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#Economic_rape_of_post_USSR_economic_space_was_by_design_not_by_accident

"MI6 role in economic rape of Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet republics:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#MI6_role_

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 11:39 pm GMT
@AP Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and blew it.
AP , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:39 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) a

Illegal revolution (are there any legal ones? – was American one legal?) rather than coup. Violations of Constitution began under Yanukovich.

We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide.

LOL. Were you the one comparing it to Somalia?

Here is "dead" Ukraine:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDWAobR8U0c?start=3017&feature=oembed

What a nightmare.

Compare Ukraine 2019 to Ukraine 2013 (before revolution):

GDP per capita PPP:

$9233 (2018) vs. $8648 (2013)

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=UA-AM-GE-MN-AL&name_desc=false

GDP per capita nominal:

$3110 (2018) vs. $3160 (2013)

Given 3% growth in 2019, it will be higher.

Forex reserves:

$20 billion end of 2013, $23 billion currently

Debt to GDP ratio:

40% in 2013, 61% in 2018. Okay, this is worse. But it is a decline from 2016 when it was 81%.

Compare Ukraine's current 61% to Greece's 150%.

Military: from ~15,000 usable troops to 200,000.

Overall, not exactly a "suicide."

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@AnonFromTN I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups – it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.

In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could stage a ' revolution '.

AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.

Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed, Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.

We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.

Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@AP You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989, had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.

So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.

You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a success?

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Beckow True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies, and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.

What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about ' EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.

What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well, all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal', almost as good as 2013 . Right.

Robjil , says: October 5, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
Ukraine is an overseas US territory.

It is not a foreign nation at all.

Trump dealt with one of our overseas territories.

Nuland said that US invested 5 billion dollars to get Ukraine.

She got Ukraine without balls that is Crimea. Russia took back the balls.

US cried, cried a Crimea river about this. They are still crying over this.

DESERT FOX , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Robjil Agree, and like Israel the Ukraine will be a welfare drain on the America taxpayers as long as Israel and the Ukraine exist.
Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
@AP I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:

lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians

Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask: why? did the authors of that policy think it through?

Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@AP I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth' under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.

One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.

If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
@Beckow Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.

Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood. Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets, etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more, most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).

Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for has befallen us". End of story.

Sergey Krieger , says: October 6, 2019 at 4:15 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even 40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing. Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when die off very real one is going right under your nose.
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important to those hawks.

Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing. I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct, what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of better relations impossible.)

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@Per/Norway

The ukrops are pureblooded nazis

Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender. Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:28 pm GMT
@AP

So uprising by American colonists was a coup?

How about what happened in Russia in 1917?

Or Romania when Communism fell?

Talk about false equivalencies.

Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected president of Ukraine.

Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the Euromaidan.

Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and the deaths of law enforcement personnel.

In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Beckow The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:17 am GMT
@AP Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert Trump's investigation of those crimes.

Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24 report fairly objective?

Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RtUrPKK73rE?feature=oembed

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:24 am GMT
@AP This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage- is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.

Crimea: Three years after annexation – BBC News

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 3:55 am GMT
@AP Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@AP "Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by @TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"

REVEALING UKRAINE OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER #1 (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Nj_bdtO0SI0

Robjil , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
@Malacaay Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.

This probably explains their differences with Russia.

Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the rest of Russia.

The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the Soviet Union.

Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime Minister.

Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine, Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.

[Oct 19, 2019] Trump Boasts The US Has Secured The Oil In Syria

Oct 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

From nearly the start of the now eight-year long war in Syria, analysts and commentators polarized into two camps, with some calling the conflict a "popular uprising" in cause of democracy against a brutal dictator, and with others seeing it as a 'regime change war' fueled largely by US imperialist interests.

While there's many layers to what most can now acknowledge long ago became a complex international proxy war, America's commander-in-chief just issued an astounding admission that has a number of pundits scratching their heads .

Following a Friday morning phone call with Turkey's Erdogan over Thursday's newly inked ceasefire deal with the Kurds, President Trump tweeted " The U.S. has secured the Oil , & the ISIS Fighters are double secured by Kurds & Turkey..."

[Oct 19, 2019] PEPE ESCOBAR: The Road to Damascus How the Syria War was Won

Oct 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Starting in 1963, the Baath party, secular and nationalist, took over Syria, finally consolidating its power in 1970 with Hafez al-Assad, who instead of just relying on his Alawite minority, built a humongous, hyper-centralized state machinery mixed with a police state. The key actors who refused to play the game were the Muslim Brotherhood, all the way to being massacred during the hardcore 1982 Hama repression.

Secularism and a police state: that's how the fragile Syrian mosaic was preserved. But already in the 1970s major fractures were emerging: between major cities and a very poor periphery; between the "useful" west and the Bedouin east; between Arabs and Kurds. But the urban elites never repudiated the iron will of Damascus: cronyism, after all, was quite profitable.

Damascus interfered heavily with the Lebanese civil war since 1976 at the invitation of the Arab League as a "peacekeeping force." In Hafez al-Assad's logic, stressing the Arab identity of Lebanon was essential to recover Greater Syria. But Syrian control over Lebanon started to unravel in 2005, after the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, very close to Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) eventually left.

Bashar al-Assad had taken power in 2000. Unlike his father, he bet on the Alawites to run the state machinery, preventing the possibility of a coup but completely alienating himself from the poor, Syrian on the street.

What the West defined as the Arab Spring, began in Syria in March 2011; it was a revolt against the Alawites as much as a revolt against Damascus. Totally instrumentalized by the foreign interests, the revolt sprang up in extremely poor, dejected Sunni peripheries: Deraa in the south, the deserted east, and the suburbs of Damascus and Aleppo.

What was not understood in the West is that this "beggars banquet" was not against the Syrian nation, but against a "regime." Jabhat al-Nusra, in a P.R. exercise, even broke its official link with al-Qaeda and changed its denomination to Fatah al-Cham and then Hayat Tahrir al-Cham ("Organization for the Liberation of the Levant"). Only ISIS/Daesh said they were fighting for the end of Sykes-Picot.

By 2014, the perpetually moving battlefield was more or less established: Damascus against both Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS/Daesh, with a wobbly role for the Kurds in the northeast, obsessed in preserving the cantons of Afrin, Kobane and Qamichli.

But the key point is that each katiba ("combat group"), each neighborhood, each village, and in fact each combatant was in-and-out of allegiances non-stop. That yielded a dizzying nebulae of jihadis, criminals, mercenaries, some linked to al-Qaeda, some to Daesh, some trained by the Americans, some just making a quick buck.

For instance Salafis -- lavishly financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- especially Jaish al-Islam, even struck alliances with the PYD Kurds in Syria and the jihadis of Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (the remixed, 30,000-strong al-Qaeda in Syria). Meanwhile, the PYD Kurds (an emanation of the Turkish Kurds' PKK, which Ankara consider "terrorists") profited from this unholy mess -- plus a deliberate ambiguity by Damascus – to try to create their autonomous Rojava.

That Turkish Strategic Depth

Turkey was all in. Turbo-charged by the neo-Ottoman politics of former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the logic was to reconquer parts of the Ottoman empire, and get rid of Assad because he had helped PKK Kurdish rebels in Turkey.

Davutoglu's Strategik Derinlik ("Strategic Depth'), published in 2001, had been a smash hit in Turkey, reclaiming the glory of eight centuries of an sprawling empire, compared to puny 911 kilometers of borders fixed by the French and the Kemalists. Bilad al Cham, the Ottoman province congregating Lebanon, historical Palestine, Jordan and Syria, remained a powerful magnet in both the Syrian and Turkish unconscious.

No wonder Turkey's Recep Erdogan was fired up: in 2012 he even boasted he was getting ready to pray in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, post-regime change, of course. He has been gunning for a safe zone inside the Syrian border -- actually a Turkish enclave -- since 2014. To get it, he has used a whole bag of nasty players -- from militias close to the Muslim Brotherhood to hardcore Turkmen gangs.

With the establishment of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), for the first time Turkey allowed foreign weaponized groups to operate on its own territory. A training camp was set up in 2011 in the sanjak of Alexandretta. The Syrian National Council was also created in Istanbul – a bunch of non-entities from the diaspora who had not been in Syria for decades.

Ankara enabled a de facto Jihad Highway -- with people from Central Asia, Caucasus, Maghreb, Pakistan, Xinjiang, all points north in Europe being smuggled back and forth at will. In 2015, Ankara, Riyadh and Doha set up the dreaded Jaish al-Fath ("Army of Conquest"), which included Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda).

At the same time, Ankara maintained an extremely ambiguous relationship with ISIS/Daesh, buying its smuggled oil, treating jihadis in Turkish hospitals, and paying zero attention to jihad intel collected and developed on Turkish territory. For at least five years, the MIT -- Turkish intelligence – provided political and logistic background to the Syrian opposition while weaponizing a galaxy of Salafis. After all, Ankara believed that ISIS/Daesh only existed because of the "evil" deployed by the Assad regime.

... ... ...

The ultimate American aim was to consistently keep the north of the Euphrates under U.S. power, via their proxies, the SDF and the Kurdish PYD/YPG. That American dream is now over, lamented by imperial Democrats and Republicans alike.

The CIA will be after Trump's scalp till Kingdom Come.

... ... ...

The West, with typical Orientalist haughtiness, never understood that Alawites, Christians, Ismailis and Druze in Syria would always privilege Damascus for protection compared to an "opposition" monopolized by hardcore Islamists, if not jihadis. The West also did not understand that the government in Damascus, for survival, could always count on formidable Baath party networks plus the dreaded mukhabarat -- the intel services.

[Oct 19, 2019] US Has Backed 21 of the 28 'Crazy' Militias Leading Turkey's Brutal Invasion of Northern Syria Consortiumnews

Oct 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

New data from Turkey reveals almost all the mercenary force of "Arab militias" getting slammed by former and current U.S. officials were armed and trained in the past by the CIA and Pentagon, reports Max Blumenthal.

By Max Blumenthal
The Grayzone

F ootage showing members of Turkey's mercenary "national army" executing Kurdish captives as they led the Turkish invasion of northern Syria touched off a national outrage, provoking U.S. government officials, pundits and major politicians to rage against their brutality.

In The Washington Post , a U.S. official condemned the militias as a "crazy and unreliable." Another official called them "thugs and bandits and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth." Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the scene as a "sickening horror," blaming President Donald Trump exclusively for the atrocities.

But the fighters involved in the atrocities in northern Syria were not just random tribesmen assembled into an ad hoc army. In fact, many were former members of the Free Syrian Army, the force once armed by the CIA and Pentagon and branded as "moderate rebels." This disturbing context was conveniently omitted from the breathless denunciations made by U.S. officials and Western pundits.

Left: The late Sen. John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss, on his right, in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss, in center, in October, announcing the establishment of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.

According to a research paper published this October by the pro-government Turkish think tank, SETA, "Out of the 28 factions [in the Turkish mercenary force], 21 were previously supported by the United States, three of them via the Pentagon's program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence operation room of the 'Friends of Syria' to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles." (A graph by SETA naming the various militias and the type of U.S. support they received is at the end of this article).

In other words, virtually the entire apparatus of insurgents arrayed against President Bashar al-Assad's regime -- and armed and equipped under the Obama administration -- has been repurposed by the Turkish military to serve as the spearhead of its brutal invasion of northern Syria. The leader of this force is Salim Idriss, now the "defense minister" of Syria's Turkish-backed "interim government." He's the same figure who hosted John McCain when the late senator made his infamous 2013 incursion into Syria.

[Oct 19, 2019] US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate, no international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria

Oct 19, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

timoth3y 2 days ago • edited

The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia clean up seems like a bad idea.

This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops to withdraw from the Turkish border. And now the author is arguing we should do something similar in the Ukraine.

When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?

kouroi timoth3y 2 days ago
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate, no international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans should look beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the right to put its troops wherever it fancies.

This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening the US, when it has the biggest moats protecting its shores? The only thing that is happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy for its own elites benefit is being denied.

This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you think they will share with you, or that, like the good English boys of the past, you will not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives for a while?

timoth3y kouroi a day ago
One can be opposed to both foreign engagements and to abandoning our allies.

We retreated from the border in order to allow the Turkish and Russian advance. More baffling still, we have just announced a five-day ceasefire where the US will assist in moving the Kurds out of their border territory. The US is now assisting in an ethnic cleansing.

I do agree that the US made plenty of poor (even cynical) decisions in the past in the use of military force. However, the suggestion that we should simply pull out and trust Russia to do the right thing seems naive at best and disingenuous at worst.

VikingLS timoth3y 15 hours ago • edited
Well maybe if the Kruds hadn't been murdering Turks on a weekly basis for years they wouldn't be in this mess, or are our Turkish allies just supposed to suck it up and die? Why don't their lives matter?

Other people can play your "our poor betrayed allies!!!" game too.

William Toffan kouroi 10 hours ago
Nice and accurate retort!

[Oct 19, 2019] Media And Pundits Misread The 'Everyone Wins' Plan For Syria

The Turkish invasion, the US has now agreed, is a NATO operation under the treaty's collective defence Article 5 ; this implies the threat of US reprisals if the Turkish advance is fought by Kurdish, Syrian and Russian forces . johnhelmer.net
"This is an incredible outcome," President Donald Trump has declared. "We got everything we ever could have dreamed of." Trump thinks he has Putin's capitulation.
Oct 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
VietnamVet , Oct 18 2019 8:21 utc | 10
The U.S. media get yesterday's talks between U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan all wrong. Those talks were just a show to soothe the criticism against President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast Syria.

The fake negotiations did not change the larger win-win-win-win plan or the facts on the ground. The Syrian Arab Army is replacing the Kurdish PKK/YPG troops at the border with Turkey. The armed PKK/YPG forces, which had deceivingly renamed themselves (vid) "Syrian Democratic Forces" to win U.S. support, will be disbanded and integrated into the Syrian army. Those moves are sufficient to give Turkey the security guarantees it needs. They will prevent any further Turkish invasion.

... ... ...

Only a few pundits in the U.S. recognize reality. Stephen Walt :
The bottom line: The solution to the situation in Syria is to acknowledge Assad's victory and work with the other interested parties to stabilize the situation there. Unfortunately, that sensible if unsavory approach is anathema to the foreign-policy "Blob" -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- and its members are marshaling the usual tired arguments to explain why it's all Trump's fault and the United States should never have withdrawn a single soldier.

I am confident for now that the blob will be held off by Trump and that the Win 4 plan will succeed. Erdogan will soon travel to Russia to discuss the next steps towards peace in Syria. The talks will be about a common plan to liberate the Jihadi controlled governorate of Idleb. That step may require a summit between the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Erdogan which Russia and Iran will help to facilitate.

With the U.S. removed from the Syria scenario such steps towards peace will now be much easier. I really hope this analysis is correct. It means there is a future. Thousands of soldiers and contractors survive. Killing of civilians stops. Refugees return home.

The agitprop of western media and democrats is astonishingly scary. Solely for the benefit of war profiters. Based on fear, it is detached from history. In truth, peace is only possible if the Syrian government regains control of its territory within borders agreed to with its neighbors. The Kurds and Jihadists become non-issues if reintegrated into Syria. The only way for the House of Saud to keep its wealth is to end the Yemen war.

Forever wars are pointless. Nations must coordinate, keep their agreements and regulate corporations. Cooperation is the only way humans can overcome climate change and avoid a nuclear war. Then future generations will continue live on the tiny blue globe in the Milky Way.


Peter AU 1 , Oct 18 2019 8:24 utc | 11

Syria has gained much ground to date with the arrangements. A win already for Syria. A deal between Trump and Erdogan will comprise of the PKK and border areas.
Erdogan will not dump his cards in the bin just to be a nice bloke. He will play the cards he has as an independent player.
It will still be some time before US leaves east Syria. Trump will try to hold onto the oil.

Trump has pulled out of a number of agreements. As Putin has said, US is not agreement capable.

The only difference between Obama and Trump in that respect is that hopefully Trump will not shit on the chessboard and kick off nuclear war. In the meantime, Russia will have to make their moves to counter whatever moves Trump and Erdo have cooked up.

BM , Oct 18 2019 8:54 utc | 16

The question is now if the U.S. will stick to the deal or if the pressure on President Trump will get so heavy that he needs to retreat from the common deal.

If so, will the US order the SAA and Russia back out of the areas they have already taken control of, and order the SDF to cease cooperation with the SAA? That is impossible, it cannot be done. If the US try to back out now they are automatically militarily defeated and out-gunned by the militarily far superior Russians and SAA who now almost completely surrounded them - completely, if the Iraqi PMU's cover the Iraqi border. If Trump really wanted to pull the US soldiers out of northeastern Syria permanently, as soon they allowed the Russians and SAA to flood in, Trump got fait accompli .

The US military are risk-averse, and trying to hold on to the oil would be military suicide. The Russians might step back a couple of steps and let the SAA do most of the action, but expecting the SAA to back off would be unrealistic. They have international law on their side, they have morality on their side, they have the guns on their side, and they have the boots on the ground on their side. Just as Iran forced the British warship to hold back while the Iranian navy boarded and took control of the British tanker, so to the US in that situation would back off from the oil fields. Since they are so risk-averse, they would try to avoid even being put in that situation They might yet try to bluff their control of the oil fields, but will readily back down as soon as the Syrians call their bluff). The Russians can impose a no-fly zone at any time. The US will not push their luck that far at so much risk.

The absolute most the US could do is to try to delay, but they won't get away with much delay either, I think. Russia/SAA can always subtly increase the pressure, making the US soldiers ever hotter and hotter under the collar.

Ghost Ship , Oct 18 2019 9:50 utc | 20
As for al Tanf, once the US has quit the formerly SDF controlled parts of Syria which will happen, any idea of regime change is completely off the table so al Tanf becomes pointless. Why leave any Americans in harms way for anything that's utterly and totally pointless except kissing Tel Aviv's arse. Let the Israelis defend that bit of the border. When Trump does pull out of al Tanf expect it to be met with the usual objections from the usual suspects which will rise to a crescendo when they understand how that "idiot" Trump has played them. Generally I don't like Trump but if this little project is actually what it seems to be then I'll really enjoy watching the agony and hatred of the corporate Democrats. Fuck them.
DontBelieveEitherPr. , Oct 18 2019 10:02 utc | 22
All well, but the big question, as Magnier also wrote: Will the Turks just end their occupation? I seriously doubt it.

Like expected for a long time, Erdogan and Putin will "swap" liberating Idlib with Erdogan having his north Syria colony. Erdogan has executed a pre planed agenda in the occupied areas of "Turkeyzation", meaning enforcing and teaching Turkish language in schools and administration, and replacing anything Syrian with Turkish.

He went also through great lenghts, to brainwash the Syrian refugees in Turkey into being loyal followers.

The "safe zone" will be seen as a Turkish colony, even if the doublespeak says otherwise.

Erdogan wont give this up without being forced to. No "peace" process will change that, like with Cyprus.

Fun fact from Elijahs report: When the SAA+Russian troops went into the area of the turkish observation post in Idlib, they automatically received a text message, saying: "Welcome to Turkey".

Erdogan sees the occupied territorys as part of his Turkish empire. He may swap (like Idlib with N. Syria), but he will NEVER just give it up. Only when being forced.

So we better get used to the idea, that the promised respect of Syrias integrity ends for Erdogan where his empire begins, and that Assad can write off the safe zone as Syrian territory.

Not officially, and next to no country will recognize Erdogans occupation, but like with Cyprus, this is of no concern to Erdogan.

Despite all the PR statements he signed at Astana.

ToivoS , Oct 18 2019 10:03 utc | 23
Excellent analysis b. You have nailed this story to a tee. Also today Pepe Escobar has a great historical analysis on the significance of these developments on consolidating Syria as unified nation. Pepe's piece complements bs perfectly.
D. , Oct 18 2019 10:47 utc | 26
The following letter from the American Jewish Congress could be a clue why the mainly Jewish owned US MSM chooses to misreport the situation in Syria. What happens in Syria is not in Israels interest.

The American Jewish Congress opposes the U.S. decision to withdraw troops from Syria and strongly condemns Turkey's actions in Syria against the Kurds. In addition to endangering a U.S. ally, the Kurds, it also poses a great threat to Israel and to the region's stability overall. Israel shares a border with Syria and is affected by what happens within Syria.

Syria has become a hotbed of Hezbollah and Iranian activity, which poses a direct threat to Israel; as a result of this decision, Turkey, Iran and Hezbollah win while Israel loses. Ultimately, the impact of this decision may come to outweigh President Trump's historic actions in support of Israel. Regional stability and the security of our allies must be paramount for U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Jack Rosen
President
American Jewish Congress

American Jewish Congress
745 5th Ave., 30th Floor
New York NY 10151 United States

Bemildred , Oct 18 2019 12:44 utc | 35
This is Spengler on Strategic Culture. He is a Trumpist and generally not my cup of tea, but every once in a while he comes up with something interesting:
China has had its issues with Turkey's volatile and ambitious leader, to be sure. Turkey in the past styled itself the protector of China's Uyghur minority, some 15 million Muslims who speak a dialect of Turkish and live mainly in China's Xinjiang Province. China reportedly has incarcerated between 1 and 2 million Uyghurs in "re-education camps" where they are forced to learn Chinese culture to the detriment of their Islamic identity. Erdogan in the past had accused China of "genocide" against the Uyghurs. After the Chinese bailout, however, Erdogan declared that the Uyghurs are "living happily" in China.

Turkey has changed from Ataturk to Rent-A-Turk. China likes to keep its friends close and its enemies closer. China built the Great Wall to repel Turkic invasions, among others, and warred with nomadic peoples on its borders for centuries. Now Beijing believes that its $2 trillion Belt and Road Initiative will assimilate the Turkic peoples of Central Asia into its sphere of economic influence. The Turkic countries seem eager to sign up.

China's $3.6 bn Bailout Insulates Turkey From US

jared , Oct 18 2019 12:47 utc | 36
I think Mr Lieven's analysis is a little too rational -
"Anatol Lieven describes the mess of U.S. Middle Eastern strategy: ..."

Basically, utimately, a bureauraucracy has something of a mind apart from the individuals (otherwise described as "mob rule" with a touch of hysteria), wherein certain boiler plate methods become tools of choice and there is a detachment from the impact on humanity. As we say in engineering: "It looked good on paper."

For me being of child-like mentality, I believe simple things in life often bear great opportunities for learning and I often find mysel remembering the animated feature "Iron Giant" (an under appreciated masterpiece of wit and story telling) when the (stupid, self-serving and narcissistic) FBI agent says: "we done know what it is or who sent it so therefor we've got to blow it to smithereens..". He then goes on to try to destroy the thing by launching a missile directed at themselves. OK, that's all I know, I am tired now.

Walter , Oct 18 2019 13:13 utc | 38
The video on RT or Brother Erdo in confab/photo-op with That Good Man VP (The Grise) Pence, suggests by VP's body language that one ought to bear in mind that Betrayal and Victory are a pair-twin gods of conflict. Trump has made with considerable help from Fate and Putin a "victory" inasmuch as retreat from Imperial War constitutes a victory in fact for ordinary US people, and people in the area, of course...

Pence wants power...and status. If we consider what he shows of himself, which is a costume of course, he's saying his basic assumption about himself.

"I am fraudulent and worthless."

Lean and hungry men>

Caesar:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2

Trumpie the clown better "stay outta Dallas"...remember Lyndon fellas...

see photo> search images for "Johnson Kennedy good one at

morganreynolds.files.wordpress

[dot com]/2013/06/lbj-jfk[dot] png

I do hope I have not post wrongly, puter skill in me does not exist.

stonebird , Oct 18 2019 13:15 utc | 39
My post 37. was not clear
The 500 + 3500 are the Terrorists.
Meanwhile the Russian and the SAA have been building up steadily - probably to try to take Kobani.

The question I have is - how many troops are now available for the SSA to take further action as there are supposed to be 10'000 on the "Turkish front"?

bevin , Oct 18 2019 13:17 utc | 40
"The agitprop of western media and democrats is astonishingly scary. Solely for the benefit of war profiteers." @10

Not just them. The Democrats, and most Republicans, fellow members of the duopoly, are intent on using every opportunity to whip up the apathetic public into believing that the most urgent business is to impeach Trump.
Why? Because if Trump is not eliminated by impeachment he will have to be campaigned against in an election.
And the US ruling class doesn't like elections when there is a possibility of politics arising.
There is no doubt that in 2020 the Democrats will either lose to Trump, by running a candidate who can't win (the First Gay candidate with a husband; the first female of colour; the first Obama from Newark NJ: the first member of the Biden family to go to University; the first First Lady to run and be defeated and run again...and so on ad nauseam) or beat Trump by running a candidate opposed not to the Arms industries but to Big Pharma, the Healthcare industry, the insurance companies, the Union racketeers who want to continue acting as middlemen for all of the above, and the entire universe of privatised public services, from prisons to charter schools.
The threat of Medicare for All is not just that it challenges the profit centres of those who make a killing out of dying, the fear of death and ill health, but that a public healthcare system would logically be bound to address the causes of ill health. Such as, for example, agriculture's reliance on pesticides and chemicals to cut labour costs and increase profit margins. Such as the malpractices at the heart of the food processing industries.
Recently Bernie Sanders talked of the enormous cost, to ordinary people, of fighting cancer. In doing so he highlighted the reality that "cancer" is one of the country's leading industries, a major source of profit for investors and far too important to be left to the tender mercies of american families prejudiced against it.
For the likes of Pelosi, Schumer and 90% of Congress elections are just a reminder that they haven't shaken down their capitalist sponsors for a year or two and the Fund Raising season has come again. The last thing they want to do is get involved in debates over things that matter, like living standards, public services, jobs, the cost of education and other sordid matters.
If Trump is impeached there will be no reason for the Democrats to run a candidate who can beat him. Instead they will run another one who will be-in almost all respects- indistinguishable politically from him, someone like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama or their female equivalents, who can be relied upon to keep things going the way they have been since 1944.
Of course, the problem, that nobody in Congress wants to think about is that that particular game-NATO, Bretton Woods, US triumphalism- is rapidly coming to an end.

[Oct 19, 2019] The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are still there

Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Johnny Walker Read says: October 15, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT 200 Words

The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a deal with the Syrian government of president Bashar al-Assad to resist the ongoing Turkish invasion. Syrian forces have already moved into Kobane and Manbij. If Turkey continues with its push southwards into Syria, a war between the Turkish and Syrian forces seems imminent.

As per the deal signed on October 13, the SDF will dissolve its Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, and hand over the control of cities, such as Kobane and Manbij to the Syrian government. Talks between the SDF and the Syrian government were facilitated by the Russians at their Syrian base at Hmeimim in Latakia.

Turkey and its ally, the Free Syrian Army – many of whose members were directly affiliated to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups – continue their offensive and atrocities. The FSA has reportedly already illegally executed 13 people. The victims include Hervin Khalaf, leader of the Future Syria Party, and her two drivers.Turkey launched 'Operation Peace Spring' on October 9. The operation has already led to the death of around 60 Kurdish and 18 Turkish fighters. It has already caused the displacement of more than 130,000 people.

Is this just another cheap political stunt by the forces in D.C.(with both parties seemingly aligned)to distract us from all the corruption on both sides of the political isle which is close to being uncovered?
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/10/14/syrian-democratic-forces-and-bashar-al-assad-government-join-hands-against-turkey/


Yurt Fetishist , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT

How has the discussion predictably developed along partisan lines? Trump said he wants out of Syria. That united the war mongers in the house and senate because war means massive profits to the military industrial complex and congress works for them. Trump said something that affects the bottom line of the rich and they reacted predictably.
Branimir Aleksandrov , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:15 pm GMT
@A123 You can google and watch what Assad told the Kurds in a press conference. It will contradict part of your statement. The Kurds risked and lost. Great warriors, but weak diplomats and strategists.
barr , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:44 pm GMT
1BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:50 A.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has taken over the U.S. military base in Manbij after entering the city last night.

According to a military source in the Aleppo Governorate, the Syrian Arab Army has deployed several units to Manbij as they look to block any potential Turkish offensive to capture the city.

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On Tuesday, the Anna News Agency reported from Manbij, as they showed the deployment of the Syrian Army and their eventual take over of the U.S. military base there. -- AMN news .

2 A stunning development in the key northern Syrian city of Manbij -- the Pentagon has confirmed a planned handover to Russian military forces is underway amid a Turkish military assault on the region. This also hours after President Trump tweeted that Assad "wants naturally to protect the Kurds" and that the problem should be left to local powers.

Late Monday the main US base in Manbij was filmed empty of US forces, and American convoys were also spotted hastily pulling out of the city as Syrian national forces entered, following Sunday's historic deal between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Assad government. Newsweek reports the developments follows:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagon-confirms-manbij-handed-over-russia-us-forces-filmed-departing

I think Russia has allowed Turkey to attack Syria to satisfy Turke's main objective of rooting out the Kurd on the condition of returning the territory to Syria . It has given Kurd the bleak choice of oblivion or self preservation . America suffers from PTSD . The flashback of Saigon on the roof top reappeared again . It ran. Good a sensible job by Trump.

Greg S. , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@WJ The machinations people are making on this topic are truly stunning when it's clear Trump is doing the right thing. Today are reports that US positions and bases in N. Syria have been turn keyed over the Assad and Russian forces. Trump IS Protecting the Kurds, just not with American blood, as he promised.

The one thing Turkey has always wanted is a broken Syria so it can gobble up the remnants. Past US (and many current) leaders and Democrats were complicit in this by funneling cash and weapons to Syrian opposition, which directly led to the rise of Isis and deaths of thousands – can you say evil?

I have hope that Trumps current actions will bring an end to thus war for good – Turkey was OK to beat up on some kurds but war with Russia is something else.

anon [299] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
@OscarWildeLoveChild imho Jewish power keeps Trump on a perpetual short leash (Schiff is this month's designee to 'walk the dog') until Iran is wrecked.

[edit: renfro commented on Giraldi's earlier thread reminding readers that Israel has a major interest in the Kurds, their territory, which is oil rich. Remember the proposals to divide Iraq into three ]

Warren -- BDS is one thing, but her agenda to tax >$50million -- that's the part people hear & cheer: Hooray! Soak the rich!
The next thing she says is, "Use the money to pay for universal child care, universal kindergarten, increase pay for child care workers."

This gets cheers from millennials struggling to keep two people employed and kids cared for.

But think about how drastically anti-family those proposals are.

TOTALLY turn over the care of our children to the loving embrace of the federal government aka the Frankfurt school

mumbo meets jumbo --
https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_CITE_006_0049–pathologies-of-authority-some-aspects-of.htm

The combined synthesis of social theory and psychoanalysis thus allows resituating on new bases the Marxist optimism according to which the working class, due to its position in the relations of production, is disposed to adopt a point of view scientifically based on reality as well as promote legitimate forms of action.

Knowledge of the forms of the becoming-adult of humanity conceived by Freud, in the form of a theory of passage through different stages that must result in an assumed genital sexuality, leads to the recognition of a working class that is believed to be less encumbered by typically bourgeois prejudices and perversities.

WorkingClass , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:20 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are still there. Where is Saddam Hussein? Where is Muammar Gaddafi? After seven years of war in Syria the victors are Syria, Iran and Russia. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The real losers of course are the dead and the maimed. The widows and orphans. And the millions who have been displaced and have become refugees. All are victims of Imperial aggression. And the real winners of course are the war profiteers who have grown fatter and fatter since 9/11.

[Oct 19, 2019] Trump Wants to End the Stupid Wars, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review

Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

It should be observed that the Syrian incursion by the American military, which was initiated by President Barack Obama and his band of lady hawks during the so-called "Arab Spring" of 2011, was illegal from the gitgo. Syria did not threaten the United States, quite the contrary. Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.

When American soldiers first arrived in Syria the U.S. War Powers act was ignored, making the incursion illegal. Nor was there any mandate authorizing military intervention emanating from any supra-national agency like the United Nations. The excuse for the intervention was plausibly enough to destroy ISIS, but the reality was much more complex, with U.S. forces in addition seeking to limit Iranian and Russian presence in Syria while also bringing about regime change. The objectives were from the start unattainable as Iran and Russia were supporting the Syrian Army in doing most of the hard fighting against ISIS while the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was not threatened by a so-called democratic alternative which only existed in the minds of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice.

Unwilling to see large numbers of Americans coming home in caskets, the United States inevitably began to search for proxies to carry out the fighting on the ground and wound up willy-nilly arming, training and otherwise supporting terrorists, to include the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces eventually became the principal tool of U.S. military, but it must be observed that the Kurds in all likelihood had no illusions about the staying power of their American patrons. They were fighting Syrian forces as well as ISIS because they were seeking to carve out their own homeland of Kurdistan from the ruins of the Syrian state. Their expansion into northern Syria, aided by the U.S., was at the expense of the local population, which was overwhelmingly not Kurdish. Their occupation of that area was not reported honestly in the U.S. media, but other sources suggest that their behavior was often brutal.

So the lament about abandoning one's Kurdish allies has a kernel of truth, but the Senator Lindsey Graham response, to include sanctioning Turkey, should be considered to be little more than a dangerous misstep that would lead to acquiring a new and more powerful enemy. And, of course, the argument in favor of leaving the Kurds to their fate found its most ridiculous expression from the mouth of Donald Trump himself, who, up until recently had praised the Kurds as friends who had "fought and died for us." Trump is now observing that "they [the Kurds] didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy." As President Trump did not serve his country in Vietnam due to alleged bone spurs and his father Fred likewise did not serve in the military, the comment is particularly ironic. Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs present at Normandy they were undoubtedly on the German side.

Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not consider the economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions that is reportedly killing tens of thousands.

So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless wars? Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his actions, not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the actual front lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will change.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]


Cloak And Dagger , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:02 am GMT

The Turkish Army, which is one of the most powerful in NATO, will do whatever is necessary to crush them. Trump should have realized that before he started talking.

IDK, Phil. I am not sure that he didn't. My sense is that he has been pandering to the neocons in the hope of a compromise that would allow him to deliver enough of his campaign promises to permit his re-election. I think hiring Bolton was just such a move – thinking that keeping his enemies closer would permit him more control.

Recently, he has expressed frustration with his staff and I speculate that he has come to realize that pandering to the jews is going to be a one-way street. He has given them a score of concessions, including Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. He hasn't received anything in return, except for the onslaught of palace coups, one after the other, orchestrated by the very same zionist forces in both parties.

My hypothesis is that the man, narcissistic as he is, has reached the end of his tether. Faced with the potential to not get re-elected, he has mounted a counteroffensive against them. He, rightly, believes that the people who got him elected are the only ones who can get him re-elected. So, his recent tweets are both an attempt to recapture us to his side, while at the same time slapping the zionists across their faces with a show of power, as he is won't to do in business negotiations where he feels that he has been betrayed.

I could be completely wrong as I try to pry into his mind.

So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless wars? Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his actions, not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the actual front lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will change.

It serves us naught to take this pessimistic stance in the absence of a replacement candidate. I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will opt for the former.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:49 am GMT
Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors.
These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not consider the economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions that is reportedly killing tens of thousands
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mr. Giraldi,
Could you please elaborate on the first point: the use of drones. Who and where?

Secondly, economic warfare: are you referring to Iran or Venezuela? Could you elaborate?

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: October 15, 2019 at 3:54 am GMT
@A123 NATO members will not help the New Ottoman Empire "offensive".
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Wow, Israeli is really terrified. What will they do when the U.S. decouples from the Middle East completely? It's pretty clear that, short of running to Russia and fellating Putin, Bobo the Clown of Tel Aviv has no plan.
Tic Toc.
Anon [280] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT
The fact of the matter is that President Donald Trump is a Corrupt "Crypto Jew" in spite of the American people may think Trump is as he was chosen by the Elite to serve and protect Israel and churn profits for Elite owned and controlled Armaments industry in promoting wars against the Best interests of the citizens of United States of America.
WorkingClass , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:22 am GMT
If Washington withdraws its military, spooks and mercenaries the Syrian Curds will go back to being Syrians. Syria, Iran, Russia and Turkey will negotiate the peace. The U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will have been defeated in their war against Assad. Syria, unlike Iraq and Libya will remain standing.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 5:45 am GMT
Everyone loves to hate on Erdogan. I was hoping for a more nuanced view than [he] "is just crazy enough to do that." Remember when George Galloway called him "a lion," awestruck at his reaction to the Israeli murders of Turks on the boat to Gaza? Is it true that Turkey has made tremendous economic gains under his administration? He has much support, as shown by the [popular] squelching of attempted coup.

I've just never understood why he facilitated the chaos on his border, harboured the White Helmets, probably murdered Serena Shim, etc. And now, what will he do with his jihadi proxy army? As far as his threats to release migrants to Europe, I have no sympathy for EU countries who've been part of the war on the ME. What goes around, comes around. Same for the Kurds.

anon [219] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:00 am GMT

There have been some suggestions that the Kurds could make nice with the Damascus government and rely on the protection of the Syrian Army to deter the Turks, an option that they have already begun to exercise.

The Kurds have caved. Plus our radical Islamic rebels are going over, with our equipment etc to the Ass man.

Updated Oct. 14, 2019 6:48 pm ET. WSJ
ISTANBUL -- Syrian troops entered areas that have been outside their control for years on Monday, after a quickly forged pact between Kurdish forces and the Syrian government to confront a Turkish military campaign reshaped alliances in Syria.

That pact transformed the Kurds, an erstwhile partner of the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State, into a force more closely aligned with Russia and Iran, as the U.S. began withdrawing its troops from northeastern Syria.

Until recently, thousands of U.S.-backed fighters had trained at a military base in the town of Ain Eissa. After the Syrian military arrived on Monday morning, soldiers raised the tricolor Syrian flag in the town center.

The US gets out of the way, and Assad, who won the Civil War, immediately settles with the Kurds and Nustra.

So, it wasn't many troops, but we had successfully prevented Assad from absorbing (voluntarily) two groups in the Civil War. Meaning we (US) alone was preventing settlement. The. deep state has thwarted Trump's intentions to leave for 3 years.

Ghali , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:11 am GMT
"Or the Turks might be willing to escalate their own offensive to take on the inferior Syrian Army and the Kurds together." It is a stretch without careful analysis.
Many people said the same about the world's most cowardice army, the Israeli. There is an agreement between the parties and Erdogan will comply. The Kurds are the West-Israel proxy terrorists. They proved their usefulness many times.
anon [219] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 6:20 am GMT

But in pursuing their aspirations for self-rule, Syria's Kurds risked overreach and miscalculation. American officials have long made clear in meetings and public comments that U.S. military backing never amounted to an endorsement of Kurdish political ambitions.

In December, U.S. envoy to Syria James Jeffrey likened the partnership with the SySo he rian Kurds to a "transactional relationship for a specific goal."

Trump got it basically right -- time to leave and we never promised Kurds a Rose Garden.

His bumbling ruling decrees via Twitter stem from the lack of loyal staff. His decisions are ignored or subverted when he goes through channels. So he announces it and works from there. This is the 3rd Time Trump has announced withdrawal from Syria. Although the neocon press and Hawkish politicians howled.

Trump also implemented the Pivot to Asia (an Obama failure) by engaging China diplomatically through efforts at trade reform. Much more nuanced that fortifying bases.

Its never pretty, but Trump tends to stubbornly pursue a less warlike agenda.

Ronald Thomas West , says: Website October 15, 2019 at 7:17 am GMT
The mideast is where everybody backstabs everybody recalling the CIA used to deliver renditioned prisoners to Assad to be tortured along lines a bit more than 'enhanced' interrogations (karma could be a b *** h.) The soup only gets thicker as the pot boils down. Remember those NATO nukes kept at Incirlik?

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/10/14/with-turkeys-invasion-of-syria-concerns-mount-over-nukes-at-incirlik/

Why had NATO (the USA particularly) sat on its hands these past 3+ years? It's not like no one was aware there could be a serious problem with 50 (or more) tactical nukes in the hands of the paranoid narcissist Erdogan:

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2016/08/01/about-those-nato-nukes-kept-in-turkey/

^

animalogic , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:25 am GMT
@A123 "that is, the goods and services produced by the economy -- rises faster than the money created, so there is no inflation, and rises faster than the debt created, so the country's debt burden doesn't increase."
"The long term prospects for peace are still there. A return to the status quo ante. Russia remains as guarantor of the peace and all other foreign fighters and their proxies exit the nation."
Spot on.
Given cast-iron assurances re the PKK & it's Syrian cousins that Nth Syria will cease to be a zone for organising attacks (or any kind of nefarious Kurdish behaviour) on Turkey, I think Erdogan would likely consider a withdrawal of his forces.
animalogic , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:29 am GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen Agreed.
More information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.
sally , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:31 am GMT
i think there are few unknowns between Russia, Turkey, Syria; the plan seems to be to get ISIS, SDF, the PYD/YPD without regard to who is supporting them. Unleash ISIS, even those in prisons so they can move against Assad to be destroyed ? Those trapped in Idlib can either commit suicide or wait for the executioner. I have no facts, but by observing that the sanctions warfare is directed at those who intend to destroy ISIS, SDF, PYD/YPD and Israelis and Iranians visiting in Syria I conclude Russia and Turkey have skunked the Pentagon (maybe Trump is also in on it?) .

Russia and Syria have agreed to stand by while Turkey engages in some target practice at unwanted visitors in Syria? Invade Syria even North Western Iraq.. rid the world of pesky, trouble making, fake news head chopping face book and Twitter super stars, destroy all traces of Kurds, remove all non Syrian others threatening the Ottoman, Syrian Turf. Don't look now, but Iran seems to be on the Turkey list of non Syrians ?. ..After the area is cleared Assad's problem, will be, what if Turkey (Erdogan) refuses to return to Turkey, and that return to Turkey promise has probably been be guaranteed to Assad by Russia.

Daniel Rich , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:36 am GMT
I read a Russian statement somewhere last year [early 2018], in which they unequivocal said there would never be an autonomous Kurdish state. They [the Kurds] could stick to some of their customs, but legally and lawfully they would fall on Damascus' rule/s.
gotmituns , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:37 am GMT
"Beware of Foreign Entanglements" – George Washington.
Joe Palooka , says: October 15, 2019 at 8:41 am GMT
Trump's foreign policy constitutes an egregious betrayal of his election platform which was to "stay neutral" on Israel/Palestine, withdraw remaining troops and avoid any further entanglements. He reneged on all pledges.

The recent announcement that he was withdrawing troops from Syria was followed the next day by an announcement of 2,000 US troops being deployed to Saudi Arabia to protect that country from Iran. Say what?

It was totally predictable five years ago that Turkey was in Israel's gunsights, and as usual Israel tends to destroy others by proxy. They can sit back and savor Turkey destroying more of Syria, while US sanctions destroy more of Turkey.

The waves of death and destruction that have hammered the Middle East for the last seventy years are all symptoms of one problem and that is the illegitimate "state of Israel".

Europe natonalist , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
Most Americans seem obsessed with stupid wars. For example the vast majority of people in the UK see the Iraq War as a catastrophic mistake and despise Tony Blair, yet in the US most people still seem to see the Iraq War as a good thing. The mentality is far apart.

Americans seem a very insecure people, projecting military power is all they really have. If America is not constantly embroiled in a war somewhere then most Americans feel they have nothing to be proud of. I would go as far to say that the military is the only real source of pride in America, it's the only thing Americans feel they undeniably excel at.

Proud_Srbin , says: October 15, 2019 at 9:33 am GMT
There are no "stupid wars", every slaughter of millions was long time in planning and was based on greed and racism of the "master" races vs. "subhumans".
USA corporation, can not and will not survive without WARS.

Complete "economy" is a WAR machine, USA corporations has WEAPONIZED it ALL.

It is nice to dream, even HollyWood supports and promotes it.

Whiskey Rebellion me think was the Birthday of citizen USA and blessed it's associates with representation by corrupt and greedy anointed by others rushing to become corrupt and greedy.

Constructions ALWAYS follow destruction.

eah , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:02 am GMT
Trump has shown himself to be completely unreliable on every important issue; I do not see why it will be different this time -- his desire for approval from the Establishment is apparently far stronger than any principles he may hold -- you can see this in practically everything he does, perhaps most notably in his constant bleating about black and Hispanic unemployment -- he simply can't be trusted.
Contraviews , says: October 15, 2019 at 10:02 am GMT
On the other hand Trump has not started any new wars (so far). He is also resisting the elite of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia, probably in his own weird way by making confusing statements keeping them off balance. No body knows we are all simply speculating. Time will tell.
NoseytheDuke , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:16 am GMT
@WorkingClass Not really. The goal all along was not to "take" Syria so much as to destroy it and leave it in fragments. Mission accomplished! Syria, or at east large swathes of it has been reduced to rubble, its economy is gutted and its people are scattered to the winds. The US had no goals there to begin with and has just been acting in the service of its "great friend and ally" Israel. Your tax dollars at work.

Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind of peace. Solitudenum facient, pacem appellant said Tacitus. They make desolation and call it peace.

dimples , says: October 15, 2019 at 11:38 am GMT
@Europe natonalist I agree. Worship of the military is surely modern America's most cringeworthy and repellent aspect. The war hero is the American equivalent of the medieval saint, and you can't even blame the Jews for it. It's clearly a whitey thing. Get a few bullets shot at you by some primitive and soon to be obliterated savages and you can live large on your war stories for the rest of your comfortably pensioned days. The sad thing is that there are no wars for the US military to fight these days except those they create themselves.

America, an exceptionally immature, warlike and stupid nation. And they worship Jesus! Who of course will just laugh when he presses the button and sends them all into the lake of fire without a second thought.

OscarWildeLoveChild , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:17 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger Interesting, I've been mulling over this possibility recently and was thinking about it earlier as a potential outcome-based upon basic game theory.

What I don't understand is, if there be an alleged discreet hidden super-hand of power controlled by the Jewish elite, and Trump seemed to be doing their bidding (moving the Embassy), where are all the "compromising photos" and "Blasey Ford's" for the Warren's and Biden's of the world? Certainly some damaging (and likely private) material, or "witnesses" from the past exist, against those who attack Trump? Certainly the Mossad and/or other hidden forces have such information, that could protect Trump. Here's a guy with a (now) Jewish daughter and a Jewish son-in-law, doing positive things for Israel and the Jewish elite in the US/West, and yet, he has been subject to continual attacks, as have those around him, and now he is facing impeachment?

I don't see Israel getting it any better if Warren is elected (certainly not by her base, which is turning more toward a BDS worldview). It just makes me think their power is not as great as conspiracy theorists alleged, or in the alternative (perhaps likely) their "power" is superseded by an even greater hidden force of elites. If their power is as awesome and infiltrating as alleged, why isn't he president for life at this point? Using the media, politics, blackmail, international banking, this guy could usher in Israel as the capital of the universe, but yet none of that is happening. He is betrayed at every corner and faces removal from office, disgrace (for actually being the removed, i.e. the other side actually "winning" against him), and probably the destruction of any chance Ivanka and Jared had of becoming the first couple, in the future.

So perhaps as you offer, he's going for broke and just doing whatever he wants or wanted to do in the beginning. Time will tell. Strange times indeed.

ChuckOrloski , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:31 pm GMT
@Contraviews , Contraviews said: "He (Trump) is also resisting the elite of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia, probably in his own weird way by making confusing statements keeping them off balance."

No! Zionist Jews & Israel are keeping you and almost all of Amerika "off balance."

Refer to Jerusalem Post article (linked below) and you will distinguish "confusing statements" by Trump from the reality of mandatory ZUS endless ME wars since 9/11.

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Trump-swears-allegiance-to-Israel-as-he-decries-endless-Middle-East-wars-604506

JoaoAlfaiate , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:35 pm GMT
Everybody should be happy Uncle Sam is getting out of Syria. Look at the disasters the US created in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. and all the money wasted which could have been better spent here at home.

Much of what's being said in the MSM has to do with the American narrative that Turkey and Syria are bad guys for the unspoken reason that they have opposed the zionist enterprise.

What American national interest justified the occupation and dismemberment of Syria? Why should we support terrorist groups like the PPK against NATO member Turkey? Why should we ally with al-Qaeda affiliate HTS for israel's benefit?

Anonymous [648] Disclaimer , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:48 pm GMT
@anon Good point about DJT needing to use Twitter to announce his decisions since they'd otherwise be thwarted or outright ignored going through normal channels. But, how can he actually be against these wars when they're contrasted with his embarrassing servility toward Israel, which in actuality is an enemy state responsible for Lavon, Liberty, and 9/11, not to mention it's theft of our technology that's used against us by Israel's intel tech companies for profit and communications espionage at the deepest levels of our government? The canard about other, overriding strategic interests doesn't hold water since the $trillions wasted on these wars could have secured our economic and military interests a hundredfold through trade and cultural interaction. As much as I want to trust DJT and would stand with him and the deplorables at the barricades if necessary, I cannot overcome my repugnance at his support for Israel, knowing as he now must know that Israel did 9/11.

[Oct 19, 2019] Karl Sharro on Twitter That's it, I quit. I can't be expected to compete with this.

Oct 19, 2019 | twitter.com

That's it, I quit. I can't be expected to compete with this.

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

October 9, 2019

His Excellency
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
President of the Republic of Turkey
Ankara

Dear Mr. President:

Let's work out a good deal! You don't want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don't want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy -- and I will. I've already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson.

1 have worked hard to solve some of your problems. Don't let the world down. You can make a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make concessions that they would never have made in the past. I am confidentially enclosing a copy of his letter to me, just received.

History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen. Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool!

I will call you later.

Sincerely.

/signature/

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

[Oct 17, 2019] Time to Extricate From Ukraine The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor. ..."
"... I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't. ..."
"... I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique. ..."
"... And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot. ..."
"... How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement. ..."
Oct 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Time to Extricate From Ukraine Kiev has become a drag on Trump, but if we don't watch out, it could turn into a geopolitical threat to everyone. By Doug Bandow October 17, 2019

Capt. Matthew McCoy, commander of Company A, 1st Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team during international weapons training near Yavoriv, Ukraine, in 2017. (Photo by Sgt. Anthony Jones, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team)/U.S. Army

Recently Ukraine has been thrown into the spotlight as Democrats gear up to impeach President Donald Trump. More important, though, is its role in damaging America's relations with Russia, which has resulted in a mini-Cold War that the U.S. needs to end.

Ukraine is in a bad neighborhood. During the 17th century, the country was divided between Poland and Russia, and eventually ended up as part of the Russian Empire. Kiev then enjoyed only the briefest of liberations after the 1917 Russian Revolution, before being reabsorbed by the Soviet Union. It later suffered from a devastating famine as Moscow confiscated food and collectivized agriculture. Ukraine was ravaged during Germany's World War II invasion, and guerrilla resistance to renewed Soviet control continued for years afterwards.

In 1991, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. gave Ukraine another, more enduring chance for independence. However, the new nation's development was fraught: GDP dropped by 60 percent and corruption burgeoned. Ukraine suffered under a succession of corrupt, self-serving, and ineffective leaders, as the U.S., Europe, and Russia battled for influence.

In 2014, Washington and European governments backed a street putsch against the elected, though highly corrupt, pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. The Putin government responded by annexing Crimea and backing separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine's Donbass region. Washington and Brussels imposed economic sanctions on Russia and provided military aid to Kiev.

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The West versus Russia quickly became a "frozen" conflict. Moscow reincorporated Crimea into Russia, from which it had been detached in 1954 as part of internal Soviet politics. In the Donbass, more than a score of ceasefires came and went. Both Ukraine and Russia failed to fulfill the 2016 Minsk agreements, which sought to end the conflict.

In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted.

The most important geopolitical impact has been to poison Russia's relations with the West. Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine cannot be justified, but the U.S. and Europe did much to create the underlying suspicion and hostility. Recently declassified documents reveal the degree to which Western officials misled Moscow about their intention to expand NATO. Allied support for adding Georgia and Ukraine, which would have greatly expanded Russian vulnerability, generated a particularly strong reaction in Moscow. The dismemberment of Serbia with no consideration of Russia's interests was another irritant, along with Western support for "color revolutions" elsewhere, including in Tbilisi. The ouster of Yanukovych finally triggered Putin's brutal response.

Washington and Brussels apparently did not view their policies as threatening to Russia. However, had Moscow ousted an elected Mexican president friendly to America, while inviting the new government to join the Warsaw Pact, and worked with a coalition of Central American states to divert Mexican trade from the U.S., officials in Washington would not have been pleased. They certainly wouldn't have been overly concerned about juridical niceties in responding.

This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response. Subsequent allied policies then turned the breach in relations into a gulf. The U.S. and European Union imposed a series of economic sanctions. Moreover, Washington edged closer to military confrontation with its provision of security assistance to Kiev. Moscow responded by challenging America from Syria to Venezuela.

It also began moving towards China. The two nations' differences are many and their relationship is unstable. However, as long as their antagonism towards Washington exceeds their discomfort with each other, they will cooperate to block what they see as America's pursuit of global hegemony.

Why is the U.S. entangled in the Ukrainian imbroglio? During the Cold War, Ukraine was one of the fabled "captive nations," backed by vigorous advocacy from Ukrainian Americans. After the Soviet Union collapsed, they joined other groups lobbying on behalf of ethnic brethren to speed NATO's expansion eastward. Security policy turned into a matter of ethnic solidarity, to be pursued irrespective of cost and risk.

To more traditional hawks who are always seeking an enemy, the issue is less pro-Ukraine than anti-Russia. Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nominee, improbably attacked Russia as America's most dangerous adversary. Hence the GOP's counterproductive determination to bring Kiev into NATO. Originally Washington saw the transatlantic alliance as a means to confront the Soviet menace; now it views the pact as a form of charity.

After the Soviet collapse, the U.S. pushed NATO eastward into nations that neither mattered strategically nor could be easily protected, most notably in the Balkans and Baltics. Even worse were Georgia and Ukraine, security black holes that would bring with them ongoing conflicts with Russia, possibly triggering a larger war between NATO and Moscow.

Ukraine never had been a matter of U.S. security. For most of America's history, the territory was controlled by either the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union. Washington's Cold War sympathies represented fraternal concerns, not security essentials. Today, without Kiev's aid, the U.S. and Europe would still have overwhelming conventional forces to be brought into any conflict with Moscow. However, adding Ukraine to NATO would increase the risk of a confrontation with a nuclear armed power. Russia's limitations when it comes to its conventional military would make a resort to nuclear weapons more likely in any conflict.

Nevertheless, George W. Bush's aggressively neoconservative administration won backing for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in NATO and considered intervening militarily in the Russo-Georgian war. However, European nations that feared conflict with Moscow blocked plans for NATO expansion, which went into cold storage. Although alliance officials still officially backed membership for Ukraine, it remains unattainable so long as conflict burns hot with Russia.

In the meantime, Washington has treated Ukraine as a de facto military ally, offering economic and security assistance. The U.S. has provided $1.5 billion for Ukrainian training and weapons, including anti-tank Javelin missiles. Explained Obama administration defense secretary Ashton Carter: "Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States."

Equally important, the perception of U.S. backing made the Kiev government, headed by President Petro Poroshenko, less willing to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Russia. Thus did Ukraine, no less than Russia, almost immediately violate the internationally backed Minsk accord.

Kiev's role as a political football highlights the need for Washington to pursue an enduring political settlement with Russia. European governments are growing restless; France has taken the lead in seeking better relations with Moscow. Germany is unhappy with U.S. attempts to block the planned Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has campaigned to end the conflict.

Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recently met in Minsk to revive the agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage of Ukrainian legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong opposition from nationalists, passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid legislative majority.

Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security concerns. The U.S. and its allies should formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances, Moscow would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine protects local autonomy while Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted. Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation, since the country would likely be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of Crimea while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent referendum with independent monitors.

Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object. Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would certainly be better than endless conflict.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.


cka2nd 12 hours ago

I credit Mr. Bandow for his largely fair and accurate description of the events in Ukraine of five years ago, and for his ultimate policy proposal for the US to extricate itself from its close involvement in the area. However, I'm a little confused by what exactly the author means by "Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine" and "Putin's brutal response" (aside from the treatment of dissidents and journalists as he specifically mentioned) to the Maidan Revolution.

Was it aggressive and brutal for Russia to support separatists in the Donbass who were facing the prospect of legal discrimination and violence by a criminal, neo-fascist government in Kiev, not to mention de-industrialization, the gutting of the agriculture sector and the forced economic migration of an enormous number of its young workers (assuming that Ukraine's economic deal with the EU followed the script of every other Easter European's country's deal with the EU)? If Yanukovych had fled to the Donbass and proclaimed himself still the freely elected (though certainly corrupt) President of the nation, Russia's support for the region would have even had a shiny brass legal fig leaf, wouldn't it?

As for the supposed "conquest" of Crimea, that's a rather strong word to use considering that all of two members of the Ukrainian military were killed, and 60-80 of them detained, while 15,000 defected to Russia. Compared to the violence in Kiev and Odessa, what happened in Crimea almost qualifies as a bloodless coup. But then Mr. Bandow shies away from using the word "hegemony" to describe the foreign policy of the United States, figuratively putting the word in the mouths of those bad men (which they are) in Moscow and Beijing. It's a pity that Mr. Bandow felt the need to make linguistic concessions to the foreign policy establishment in what was otherwise a useful and balanced piece.

minsredmash 9 hours ago
Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor.
EliteCommInc. 8 hours ago
I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't.

I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique.

And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot.

How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement.

https://washingtonsblog.com...

https://thewashingtonstanda...

It is a deeply held belief that democracy is a system that by definition a generally acceptable path forward. That belief is false as democracy is still comprised of human beings. And democracy in their hands is no "cure all". It can be a turbulent and jerky bureaucratic maze process that pleases no one and works over time.

The US didn't accomplish it without violence until after more than 130 years, when the native populations were finally subdued. And as for a system that embodied equal treatment to similar circumstance -- we are still at it. But a violent revolution every ten years certainly isn't the most effective road to take.
-----------------

Why we insistent on restarting the cold war is unclear to me save that it served to create a kind of strategic global clarity Though what that means would troublesome because Russia's ole would now be as a developing democratic state as opposed to a communist monolith. And that means unfettered from her satellites and empowered by more capital markets her role as adversary would be more adroit. As time after time, Ores Putin has appeared the premier diplomat for peace and stability in situations in which the US was engaged or encouraging violence.(the Ukraine). I certainly don't think that our relations with Russia or China are a to be kumbaya love fests, there is still global competition and there's no reason to pretend it would be without tensions. But seriously, as a democratic/capital market player -- there really was no way to contain Russia.
----------------------

Given what we experienced during 2007 --- corruption comes in a mryiad of guises.

timoth3y 7 hours ago • edited
The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia clean up seems like a bad idea.

This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops to withdraw from the Turkish border. And now the author is arguing we should do something similar in the Ukraine.

When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?

kouroi timoth3y 3 hours ago
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate, no international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans should look beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the right to put its troops wherever it fancies.

This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening the US, when it has the biggest moats protecting its shores? The only thing that is happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy for its own elites benefit is being denied.

This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you think they will share with you, or that, like the good English boys of the past, you will not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives for a while?

Doug Wallis 6 hours ago
If the US were smart then they would lead some sort of negotiation where eastern Europe and Ukraine and Russia were allowed only mutually agreed defensive weapons systems. A demilitarization of say 200 miles on each side of the Russia border. The strategy should be to encourage trade between Eastern Europe and Russia where Russia has influence but is not threatening. It may be slow to build that trust but the real question is whether the US and Europe and NATO want peace with Russia or whether they are using fear of Russia to keep eastern Europe united with the US and Europe. This may be the case but the future will have China as a greater threat than Russia (China will even be a threat to Russia). Any shift in Russian relations will take decades of building trust on both sides.
tweets21 6 hours ago
Good article and excellent history of facts. If I recall during the last Bush administration W hosted a Putin and his then spouse, at a visit at his ranch. Putin informed W," the Ukraine belongs to Russia. end of sentence.
Disqus10021 5 hours ago
The author forgot the critical role of Sevastopol in the Crimea. It is Russia's only warm water port and there was no way that it was going to allow this area to become a NATO naval base. Secretary of State Clinton and her sidekick for Ukraine, Victoria Nuland should have known this before they started supporting the overthrow of the pro-Russia government in Kiev.

If you look at a historical atlas, you won't find an independent country called Ukraine before 1991. When my parents were born, near what is now called Lviv, the area was called Galicia and Lemberg was its provincial capital. A gold medal issued in 1916 in honor of Franz Josef's 85th birthday noted that he was the Kaiser of Austria, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria.

When the old Soviet Union agreed to allow East and West Germany to reunify, it was with the understanding that NATO would not extend membership to former Soviet block countries and that there would be no NATO bases in these areas either. NATO and the US broke their oral commitment to Russia a few years later.

The US should get out of the business of trying to spread democracy in third world countries and interfering in the affairs of foreign governments. We can't afford to be the policeman of the world. We don't even have the ability to make many of our own central cities safe for Americans. Think Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, all four of which appear on Wikipedia's list of the 50 murder capitals of the world (per thousand population).

kouroi Disqus10021 3 hours ago
It is not for the sake of spreading democracy mate, but to control those economies for the benefit of US economic elite.
Sid Finster 4 hours ago
"This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response."

For the love of Pete, will TAC quit with offering limited concessions to the neocon position in an attempt to appear "serious" and "reasonable".

The United States formented an armed coup in Ukraine spearheaded by Nazis.

[Oct 16, 2019] So, who was the dumb **** that hired Bolton to begin with?

Notable quotes:
"... "I'm getting us out of unnecessary foreign wars"......by appointmentIng the most pro-Israel, rabid Yosemite Sam lookalike warmonger ever! Makes perfect sense. 4D chess at its finest. Nobody is asking for perfection, but John ******* Bolton? The guy who was part of Project for a New American Century, John Bolton?.... the same guy who is buddies with all Bushites responsible for Iraq part one, part two and Afghanistan? **** me thats dumb. ..."
Oct 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

south40_dreams , 45 minutes ago link

Have to wonder how many JFK events from the 3 letters have been thwarted. We just never hear

Archeofuturist , 1 hour ago link

Message to Don: Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. See what you get for playing nice with neocon deep state shitbags like Bolton. Stop draining the swamp into your administration.

I await the "trust the plan" and "keep your enemies closer" comments.

Oldwood , 58 minutes ago link

It's a ******* swamp.

Did you think this was going to be won with high morals and principles? You probably think you can win a war by suing for peace.

Archeofuturist , 52 minutes ago link

"I'm getting us out of unnecessary foreign wars"......by appointmentIng the most pro-Israel, rabid Yosemite Sam lookalike warmonger ever! Makes perfect sense. 4D chess at its finest. Nobody is asking for perfection, but John ******* Bolton? The guy who was part of Project for a New American Century, John Bolton?.... the same guy who is buddies with all Bushites responsible for Iraq part one, part two and Afghanistan? **** me thats dumb.

Oldwood , 46 minutes ago link

And how many wars has he gotten us into? And how many times has he been attacked for even suggesting getting us out of wars?

Never-Trumpers want to pretend that Trump is a failure because he is NOT a dictator, which only PROVES they are not conservative, as conservatives recoil at the thought of a dictatorial unconstitutional monarchy.

Trump is fighting fort his life in this ******* swamp, a swamp we can see and smell from our own living rooms. Only the retarded and ******* LIARS would attempt to condemn him for not doing more. Retards who have done NOTHING more with their lives than BITCH about other's failures.

Archeofuturist , 40 minutes ago link

Again, why did he hire him in the first place? WHY? Bolton is a VERY well known commodity. You can keep making excuses for Trump all you want, but there's a pattern emerging here where he hires horrible people, then tries to act like he's surprised when they **** him over.

Oldwood , 30 minutes ago link

To satiate those who demand war. Trump is in the ******* SWAMP. They are trying to impeach him AGAIN. Do you really think he can do everything as hew wishes...especially when easily half the republicans would throw him to the wolves tomorrow if there was self preservation or gain in it for them?

Kidbuck , 46 minutes ago link

So, who was the dumb **** that hired Bolton to begin with?

mervyn , 45 minutes ago link

his name is dumb ****.

MedTechEntrepreneur , 1 hour ago link

Ukraine is where Russiagate started through DNC operatives. Anyone who is opposed to investigating that is either Deep State or an utter Moron.

What was Russia and Ukraine all about? Watch this and you'll see. I'll give you a hint..Soros.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahSWNzW3woo&t=2738s

MedTechEntrepreneur , 47 minutes ago link

Short on time? Skip to the 42 minute mark

Oldwood , 42 minutes ago link

Democrats don't want to know as it could impede their agenda, the ends fully justifying the means.

Republicans don't want to know as they fear being tarred by the progressive assassin media, their futures put at risk.

Ultimately Trump will be thrown to the wolves the moment republicans perceive him weak. Thieves, assassins and cowards. Hell of group we have "leading" us.

Oldwood , 1 hour ago link

To appease the easily visible war hawks surrounding him on all sides.

Archeofuturist , 1 hour ago link

Trump hiring Bolton is like Obama hiring half the banking sector during the financial crisis..... SMFH.

Oldwood , 59 minutes ago link

The difference IS that Obama fulfilled his every banker's dream, whereas Bolton left defeated, and now he and every other rat out there is gunning for Trump for ******* up their dreams of eternal war.

You see, not all things are equal

Archeofuturist , 53 minutes ago link

Yes brilliant 4d move to invite the fox into the hen house. The real brilliant move would've been to tear up his resume when came across his desk so he couldn't cause any mischief. I get it though.... The diehard Trump people refuse except reality. It was dumb....full stop.

Oldwood , 2 minutes ago link

Look at what they have done to virtually every true conservative Trump has nominated to any position. They have destroyed every single one. Trump, given his choices, has put certain people into the light for all to see exactly WHO they are. Trump is simply the most illuminating president in history, exciting those around him to glow, to feel empowered and allowed to show themselves without fear of consequence or accountability.

Progressives are conflicted horribly as they have always known that their true intents were best left in secret, but with Trump, they simply cannot help themselves.

Simply LOOK at the 2020 democratic lineup. Who could have imagined just a few short years ago that democrats would be finally coming out of the closet?

[Oct 15, 2019] Bolton Opposed Ukraine Investigations; Called Giuliani A Hand Grenade

Oct 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Bolton Opposed Ukraine Investigations; Called Giuliani "A Hand Grenade" by Tyler Durden Tue, 10/15/2019 - 12:25 0 SHARES

Former national security adviser John Bolton was 'so alarmed' by efforts to encourage Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and 2016 election meddling that he told an aide, Fiona Hill, to alert White House lawyers, according to the New York Times .

On Monday, Hill told House investigators that Bolton got into a heated confrontation on July 10 with Trump's EU ambassador, Gordon D. Sondland, who was working with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to investigate Democrats. Hill said that Bolton told her to notify the top attorney for the National Security Council about the 'rogue' effort by Sondland, Giuliani and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

"I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up," Bolton apparently told Hill to tell the lawyers.

It was not the first time Mr. Bolton expressed grave concerns to Ms. Hill about the campaign being run by Mr. Giuliani. " Giuliani's a hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up, " Ms. Hill quoted Mr. Bolton as saying during an earlier conversation.

The testimony revealed in a powerful way just how divisive Mr. Giuliani's efforts to extract damaging information about Democrats from Ukraine on President Trump's behalf were within the White House. Ms. Hill, the senior director for European and Russian affairs, testified that Mr. Giuliani and his allies circumvented the usual national security process to run their own foreign policy efforts, leaving the president's official advisers aware of the rogue operation yet powerless to stop it. - NYT

When Hill confronted Sondland, he told her that he was 'in charge' of Ukraine, "a moment she compared to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.'s declaration that he was in charge after the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt, according to those who heard the testimony," according to the Times.

Hill says she asked Sondland on whose authority he was in charge of Ukraine, to which he replied 'the president.' She would later leave her post shortly before a July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president which is currently at the heart of an impeachment inquiry.

Meanwhile, the Times also notes that "House Democrats widened their net in the fast-paced inquiry by summoning Michael McKinley, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who abruptly resigned last week, to testify Wednesday."

Career diplomats have expressed outrage at the unceremonious removal of Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch from Ukraine after she came under attack by Mr. Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and two associates who have since been arrested on charges of campaign violations.

The interviews indicated that House Democrats were proceeding full tilt with their inquiry despite the administration's declaration last week that it would refuse to cooperate with what it called an invalid and unconstitutional impeachment effort. - NYT

Three other Trump admin officials are scheduled to speak with House investigators this week, including Sondland - who is now set to appear on Thursday. On Tuesday, deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent will testify, while on Friday, Laura K. Cooper - a a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia policy, will speak with lawmakers as well.


Et Tu Brute , 20 minutes ago link

Why are we still even hearing from that human excrement?

janus , 22 minutes ago link

Looks like we have our whistleblower. My only question is, how does one whistle with such a bristly moustache draping their hairlip?

So now we have Mr. Neocon and Mr. Liddle Kidz conjugating as the strangest of bedfellows? How will this play to their respective bases? Are we to assume these people think this nations top law enforcement agent (POTUS) is to abdicate his duties therewith just because the criminal is (at least according to our two tiered justice system) supposed to be beyond reproach?

Mr. Bolton, bright and determined as he is, has hitched his wagon to mad mare galloping full tilt over a precipice.

Looking for a return of uranium one to the headlines soon. In due time we will stich this Russia/Ukraine narrative back together from a patchwork of facts. You traitors are fucked...royally fucked...and you know it.

So, Mr bolton, explain to us in simple terms how you appraise America's security and her related interests. Your camp is in eclipse.

John Bolton:

"I was appauled...just flabbergasted...that the president was concerned that our intelligence apparatus was politicized to the extent that its highest echelons were arrayed in an attempt to subvert a lawful and legitimate election. Never mind that six other nations were tasked with abetting this treasonous plot...this is an outrage!!! The whole point of intelligence agencies is to skirt the law with impunity, and once we (the unelected permanent breacracy) tell one of our minions like Biden or Hillary that they're permanently immune from prosecution, we can't have some earnest pact of Patriots running around demanding law and order."

What a sorry bunch of cretians.

We were so close...so close...to losing it all. But since the enemy is making clear we're playing zero sum, we're going to end up with everything.

Brace yourself, California. If I were you, I'd study the legal framework of Reconstruction. Your plight will be of a kind. Your state has been engaged in a systematic attempt to overthrow the government. Your leaders will be appointed for a generation after this all comes out. Don't look to Beijing to save you...they kinda have their hands full.

Janus

Treavor , 17 minutes ago link

He is a criminal involved in Ukraine weapons deals the yal get the piece that is why they are mad lost $$$$$$

Mimir , 2 minutes ago link

Clearly a criminal among criminals.

MrAToZ , 26 minutes ago link

Deep state arms skim meister Bolton. Never enough bodies for this "patroit."

Infinityx2 , 26 minutes ago link

So, I guess Bolton is no longer collecting free money like Hunter Biden was. I get it now how all these politicians have kids overseas and open foreign corporations which our tax money goes in to by way of cutting deals overseas public officials to line their pockets with our money. This how they get into government poor and become very rich! Giuliani is pointing this fact out to the public with Trump and the swamp HATES IT!

The public now knows how these corrupt PUBLIC OFFICIALS in America have been fleecing the tax payers. This is a major hit on the swamp.

Trump & Giuliani we're behind you thank you for showing us how the swamp has been ******* us for all these years.

One-Hung-Lo , 30 minutes ago link

Bolton should have never been allowed to enter the White House and I am not sure about Giuliani either as I kinda feel like he is borderline senile.

moe_reeves , 32 minutes ago link

If Biden is guilty, Giuliani is not.

frankthecrank , 34 minutes ago link

Understand that the reason Schitt head won't allow public hearings is because the former Ambassador to Ukraine--Volker, shot this whole **** fest down when he testified. There is no "there" there.

Bolton and the others are crying because of Trump's pull out. The left jumped on the war bandwagon under Billary a long time ago. Necons work both parties.

John_Coltrane , 37 minutes ago link

If Bolton dislikes Guiliani that's the best endorsement of Rudy I can imagine. Bolton is a complete warmongering traitor who, like McShitstain, desires a nice case of brain cancer.

Go Rudy, expose the corrupt Demonrats! We deplorables love human hand grenades. That's why we elected the Donald, and you apparently are the perfect lawyer for our great God emperor.

Archeofuturist , 15 minutes ago link

You can bet that the piggies are squealing because it's more than just the Dems who are neck deep in the ****. Lotta funky stuff went down in Ukraine.

Buster84 , 55 minutes ago link

Sounds like Bolton may have some dirty laundry he is wanting to cover up.

AnnimaTday , 50 minutes ago link

"Schiff simply does not have the gravitas that a weighty procedure such as impeachment requires," Biggs wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News. "He has repeatedly shown incredibly poor judgment. He has persistently and consistently demonstrated that he has such a tremendous bias and animus against Trump that he will say anything and accept any proffer of even bogus evidence to try to remove the president from office."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/125-house-republicans-co-sponsor-resolution-to-censure-schiff-over-parody-reading-of-trump-zelensky-call

[Oct 15, 2019] DC's Atlantic Council Raked in Funding from Hunter Biden's Corruption-Stained Ukrainian Employer While Courting His VP Father

Both EuroMaydan cope d'état and the civil war in Ukraine was unleashed with the help and encouragement from Washington, DC because it suits geopolitical goals of the USA in the region.
Notable quotes:
"... As the furor over "Ukrainegate" continues, Biden and his allies are soldiering ahead, insisting that scrutiny of his activities in Ukraine constitute nothing more than a vast right-wing conspiracy. ..."
"... So the Russiagate claims against Russia were generated by cold warriors to justify a warmer war against Russia. Poor Hunter was caught in the graft that surrounds the US's relationship with Ukraine. ..."
"... Burisma has been described at Moon Of Alabama as a money-laundering entity. ..."
"... I suspect that these NGO non-profits such as the Atlantic Council are simply fronts for the U.S. intelligence community. ..."
"... The "King of Orange" is still publicly boring holes in the hull of the Ship of State and nothing happens except Dims and Repugs claim some honor in joining to condemn a foreign EU allied country for doing what "The King of Orange" approved that he do. ..."
"... The whole Ukraine story is an enormous blunder for the West . not only did it give Russia the opportunity to reclaim Crimea but the West now also has to finance a corrupt, unstable and bankrupt country. Not funny ! ..."
"... Excellent research. The deep state is indeed international and takes care of its own. Christopher Hunter, who, after Trump's election, resigned from the DOJ, then ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for Congress, was then parachuted into the Atlantic Council as senior fellow. He then proceeded to provide expert advice to Al Jazeera about why Trump should be impeached. So you now have the US State Department paying $1 million tax dollars to the Atlantic Council, at least one member of which is using his "expertise" to impeach President Trump. ..."
"... Dmitri Alperovitch, Hillary's own Russian Head of Crowdstrike and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, went to great lengths to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked into Ukrainian artillery, and claimed the same methodology was used to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked into the DNC ..."
"... These were Crowdstrike's bonafides (and thus no reason to look closely at the DNC servers). Of course, it later turned out that the Russians had NOT hacked Ukrainian artillery, Crowdstrike had lied, and hacking of the DNC was more likely initially done by Crowdstrike/ New Knowledge and the Atlantic Council, not the Russians. ..."
"... Think tanks should be responsible, with jail times and fines, for the discord they sow. ..."
"... The UK seizure of the 23mil was not accidental, i expect the US had all the banks of Europe watching this guys asset for this leverage. So they freeze his money, open a criminal investigation and put him on a wanted list. ..."
"... Just a couple weeks later Biden joins the board. This was a State Dept/CIA play. ..."
"... They went to Zlochevsky or the oligarch behind him and presented them with the only way out of ruin. Several months later, UK unfreezes 23mil and closes the case. USAID comes calling on Burisma, Atlantic Council attaches themselves. This was a well planned takeover and Biden was a beneficiary, but doing the bidding of the hidden hands. ..."
Oct 14, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

W ith its relentless focus on corruption in Russia and Ukraine, the Atlantic Council has distinguished itself from other top-flight think tanks in Washington. Over the past several years, it has held innumerable conferences and panel discussions, issued a string of reports, and published literally hundreds of essays on Russia's "kleptocracy" and the scourge of Kremlin disinformation.

At the same time, this institution has posed as a faithful partner to Ukraine's imperiled democracy, organizing countless programs on the urgency of economic reforms to tamp down on corruption in the country.

But behind the curtain, the Atlantic Council has initiated a lucrative relationship with a corruption-tainted Ukrainian gas company, the Burisma Group, that is worth as much as $250,000 a year. The partnership has paid for lavish conferences in Monaco and helped bring Burisma's oligarchic founder out of the cold.

This alliance has remained stable even as official Washington goes to war over allegations by President Donald Trump and his allies that former Vice President Joseph Biden fired a Ukrainian prosecutor to defend his son's handsomely compensated position on Burisma's board.

As Biden parries Trump's accusations, some of the former vice president's most ardent defenders are emerging from the halls of the Atlantic Council, which featured Biden as a star speaker at its awards ceremonies over the years. These advocates include Michael Carpenter , Biden's longtime foreign policy advisor and specialist on Ukraine, who has taken to the national media to support his embattled boss.

Even as Burisma's trail of influence-buying finds its way into front page headlines, the Atlantic Council's partnership with the company is scarcely mentioned. Homing in on the partisan theater of "Ukrainegate" and tuning out the wider landscape of corruption, the Beltway press routinely runs quotes from Atlantic Council experts on the scandal without acknowledging their employer's relationship with Hunter Biden's former employer.

This case of obvious cronyism has not been overlooked because the Atlantic Council is a bit player, but because of its success in leveraging millions from foreign governments, the arms and energy industries, and Western-friendly oligarchs to bring its influence to bear in the nation's capital.

NATO's Think Tank in Washington

The Atlantic Council functions as the semi-official think tank of NATO in Washington. As such, it cultivates relationships with well-established policymakers who take a hard line against Russia and support the treaty organization's perpetual expansion.

Biden has been among the think tank's most enthusiastic and well-placed allies.

In 2011, then-Vice President Biden delivered the keynote address at the Atlantic Council's distinguished leadership awards. He returned to the think tank again in 2014 for another keynote at its "Toward A Europe Whole and Free" conference, which was dedicated to expanding NATO's influence and countering "Russian aggression." Throughout the event, speakers like Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security adviser, sniped at President Barack Obama for his insufficiently bellicose posture toward Russia, while former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright fretted over polls showing low public support for U.S. interventionism overseas.

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In his own comments , Biden emphasized the need to power Europe with non-Russian sources of natural gas. This provided a prime opportunity to Ukrainian suppliers like Burisma and U.S. energy titans. Many of these energy companies, from Chevron to Noble Energy, also happen to be top donors to the Atlantic Council.

"This would be a game-changer for Europe, in my view, and we're ready to do everything in our power to help it happen," Biden promised his audience.

Joe Biden, second from right, while U.S. vice president, at 2011 Atlantic Council distinguished leadership awards ceremony.

At the time, the Atlantic Council was pushing to ramp up the proxy war against pro-Russian forces in Ukraine. In 2015, for instance, the think tank helped prepare a proposal for arming the Ukrainian military with offensive weaponry like Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Given that the Atlantic Council has been funded by the two manufacturers of the Javelin system, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, this created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. In fact, the think tank presented its Distinguished Business Leadership Award to Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson that same year.

Dubious arrangements like these are not limited to arms manufacturers. Anders Aslund, a neoliberal economist who helps oversee the Atlantic Council's programming on Russia and Eastern Europe, was quietly paid by a consortium of Latvian banks to write an October 2017 paper highlighting the supposed progress they had made in battling corruption.

Aslund was asked to write the piece by Sally Painter, a longtime lobbyist for Latvian financial institutions who was appointed to the Atlantic Council board in 2017. At the time, one of those banks was seeking access to the U.S. market and facing allegations that it had engaged in money laundering.

Pay-for-play collaborations have helped grow the Atlantic Council's annual revenue from $2 million to over $20 million in the past decade. In almost every case, the think tank has churned out policy prescriptions that seem suited to its donors' interests.

Government contributors to the Atlantic Council include Gulf monarchies, the U.S. State Department and various Turkish interests.

... ... ...

Among the think tank's top individual contributors is Victor Pinchuk, one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine and a prolific donor to the Clinton Foundation. Pinchuk donated $8.6 million to the Clintons' non-profit throughout Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.

Asked if Pinchuk was lobbying the State Department on Ukraine, his personal foundation told The Wall Street Journal , "this cannot be seen as anything but a good thing."

Obama's 'Point Person' on Ukraine

In mainstream media reports about the Bidens, scarcely any attention is given to the critical role that Joe Biden and other Obama administration officials played in the 2013-2014 Maidan revolt that replaced a fairly elected , Russian-oriented government with a Western vassal. In a relatively sympathetic New Yorker profile of Hunter Biden, for example, the regime change operation was described by reporter Adam Entous as merely "public protests."

During the height of the "Revolution of Dignity" that played out in Kiev's Maidan Square, then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland boasted that the U.S. had "invested $5 billion" since 1991 into Ukrainian civil society. On a December 2013 tour of the Maidan, Nuland personally handed out cookies to protesters alongside Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time.

In a phone conversation that leaked two months later, the two U.S. diplomats could be heard plotting out the future government of the country, discussing Ukrainian politicians as though they were chess pieces. "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience," Nuland said, essentially declaring Arseniy Yatsenyuk the next prime minister. Frustrated with the European Union's reluctance to inflame tensions with Moscow, Nuland exclaimed, "Fuck the EU."

By February 2014, the Maidan revolt had succeeded in overthrowing President Viktor Yanukovich with the help of far-right ultra-nationalist street muscle. With a new, U.S.-approved government in power, Biden assumed a personal role in dictating Ukraine's day-to-day affairs.

"No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden," Foreign Policy noted . The Atlantic Council also described Biden as "the point person on Ukraine in the Obama administration."

"Ukraine was the top, or one of the top three, foreign policy issues we were concentrating on," said Carpenter, Biden's foreign policy adviser. "[Biden] was front and center."

Biden made his first visit to the post-Maidan government of Ukraine in April 2014, just as Kiev was launching its "anti-terrorist operation" against separatists who broke off from the new, NATO-oriented Ukraine and its nationalist government and formed so-called people's republics in the Russophone Donbass region. The fragmentation of the country and its grinding proxy war flowed directly from the regime-change operation that Biden helped oversee.

Addressing the parliament in Kiev, Biden declared that "corruption can have no place in the new Ukraine," stating that the "United States has also been a driving force behind the IMF, working to provide a multi-billion package to help Ukraine."

That same month, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of Burisma. Hunter Biden starred at one of Burisma's energy conferences in Monaco, which are today sponsored by the Atlantic Council.

Burisma Recruits Hunter Biden

The ouster of Yanukovych put the founder and president of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, in a delicate spot. Zlochevsky had served as the environment minister under Yanukovych, handing out gas licenses to cronies. Having watched the president flee Ukraine for his life, currying favor with the Obama administration was paramount for Zlochevsky.

He was also desperate to get out of legal trouble. At the time, a corruption investigation in the U.K. had resulted in the freezing of $23 million of Zlochevsky's assets. Then, in August 2014, the oligarch was forced to follow Yanukovych into exile after being accused of illegally enriching himself.

The need to refurbish Burisma's tattered image, as well as his own, prompted Zlochevsky to resort to a tried and true tactic for shadowy foreign entities: forking over large sums of money to win friends in Washington. Hunter Biden and the Atlantic Council were soon to become two of his best friends.

Hunter Biden was no stranger to trading on his father's name for influence. He had served on the board of Amtrak, the train line his father famously rode more than 8,000 times, earning himself the nickname "Amtrak Joe." Somehow, he also rose to senior vice president at MBNA, the bank that was the top contributor to Joe Biden's Senate campaigns.

Moreover, the vice president's son reaped a board position at the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-funded "democracy promotion" organization that was heavily involved in pushing regime change in Ukraine. And then there was Burisma, which handed him a position on its board despite his total lack of experience in the energy industry and in Ukrainian affairs.

Hunter Biden tried to repay the $50,000-a-month gig Zlochevsky had handed him by enlisting a top D.C. law firm, Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, where he served as co-counsel, to help "improve [Burisma's] corporate governance." By the following January, Zlochevsky's assets were unfrozen by the U.K.

Back in Washington, the arrangement between the son of the vice president and a less than scrupulous Ukrainian oligarch was raising eyebrows. During a May 13, 2014, press conference, Matt Lee of the Associated Press grilled State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki about Hunter Biden's role on Burisma's board.

"Does this building diplomatically have any concerns about potential perceptions of conflict or cronyism – which is what you've often accused the Russians of doing?" Lee asked Psaki.

"No, he's a private citizen," Psaki responded, referring to Hunter Biden.

In a December 2015 op-ed, the editorial board of The New York Times took both Bidens to task for the unseemly business arrangement: "It should be plain to Hunter Biden that any connection with a Ukrainian oligarch damages his father's efforts to help Ukraine. This is not a board he should be sitting on."

For a paper that had firmly supported the installation of a U.S.-aligned government in Kiev, this was a striking statement.

Hunter Biden maintained that he had only a brief conversation with his father about his work at Burisma. "Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing,' and I said, 'I do,'" Hunter recalled to The New Yorker .

Despite his constant focus on Ukraine, the elder Biden claimed this September that he never spoke to his son about his business dealings in the country.

Disaster for Ukrainians, Boon for the Bidens

On Jan. 12, 2017, the criminal probes of Zlochevsky and Burisma were officially closed under the watch of a new Ukrainian prosecutor.

Less than a week later, Biden returned to Ukraine to make his final speech as vice president. By this point, three years after the Maidan uprising overthrew Yanukovych, it was clear that the national project the vice president personally had presided over was a calamitous failure.

As even the Atlantic Council's Aslund was willing to admit , Ukraine had become the poorest country in Europe. The country had also become the top recipient of remittances in Europe, with a staggering percentage of its population migrating abroad in search of work.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International stated : "Ukraine is descending into chaos of uncontrolled use of force by radical [far-right] groups. Under these conditions, no person in Ukraine may feel safe." As the country's proxy conflict with pro-Russian separatists dragged on, it transformed into a supermarket for the international arms trade.

Meanwhile, Biden's son Hunter was making a small fortune by simply warming a seat on Burisma's board of directors.

During his 2017 press conference in Kiev, Biden seemed oblivious to the trends that were driving Ukraine into ruin. He encouraged Ukraine's leadership to continue on an IMF-led path of privatization and austerity.

He then urged Kiev to "press forward with energy reforms that are eliminating Ukraine's dependence on Russian gas," once again advancing policy that would serve as a boon to the energy firms plowing their cash into the Atlantic Council.

Mykola Zlochevsky, former employer of Hunter Biden and current partner of the Atlantic Council.

Burisma Recruits the Atlantic Council

Even with Hunter Biden on his company's board, Zlochevsky was still seeking influential allies in Washington. He found them at the Atlantic Council in 2017, literally hours after he was cleared of corruption charges in Ukraine.

On Jan. 19, 2017 -- just two days after the investigation of Zlochevsky ended -- Burisma announced a major "cooperative agreement" with the Atlantic Council. "It became possible to sign a cooperative agreement between Burisma and the Atlantic Council after all charges against Burisma Group companies and its owner [Mykola] Zlochevskyi were withdrawn," the Kyiv Post reported at the time.

The deal was inked by the director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia program, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine named John Herbst.

Since then, Burisma helped bankroll Atlantic Council programming, including an energy security conference held this May in Monaco, where Zlochevsky currently lives.

"[Zlochevsky] invited them purely for whitewashing purposes, to put them on the façade and make this company look nice," Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Center, said of the Monaco event to The Financial Times .

At one such conference in Monaco, then-Burisma board member Hunter Biden declared, "One of the reasons that I am proud to be a member of the board at Burisma is that I believe we are trying to figure out the way to create a radical change in the way we look at energy." (Hunter Biden left Burisma with $850,000 in earnings when his father launched his presidential campaign this year).

While the Atlantic Council was bringing Burisma in from the cold, the company was still too toxic for much of the business world to touch.

As The Financial Times noted , the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine had rejected Burisma's application for membership. "We've never worked with them for integrity reasons. Never passed our due diligence," a Western financial institution told the newspaper.

"The company just does not pass the smell test," a businessman in Ukraine told The Financial Times . "Their reputation is far from squeaky clean because of their baggage, the background and attempts to whitewash by bringing in recognizable Western names on to the board."

In fact, a year before the Atlantic Council initiated its partnership with Burisma, the think tank published a paper describing Zlochevsky as "openly on the take" and deriding board members Hunter Biden and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski as his "trophy foreigners." (Kwasniewski is today a member of the Atlantic Council's international advisory board).

For Herbst, however, Burisma's generosity seemed too hard to resist.

"If there are companies that want to support my work, if those companies are not doing anything that I know to be illegal or unethical, I'll consider their support," Herbst stated in reply to questions about the Burisma partnership from the Ukrainian news site, Hromadske .

"They've been good partners," he added.

Men of Integrity

The Atlantic Council has provided more than just a web of influence for figures like Biden and Zlochevsky. It extended into the Trump administration, through a former employee who served as the president's lead envoy to Ukraine.

On the sidelines of a September 2018 Atlantic Council event in New York City, Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi held a meeting with Kurt Volker, then the State Department's special liaison to Ukraine. A former senior adviser to the Atlantic Council and national security hardliner, Volker had earned praise from Biden as a "solid guy."

At the time, Volker also served as the executive director of the McCain Institute, named for the senator, John McCain, who authored the congressional provision requiring the U.S. to budget 20 percent of all aid to Ukraine for offensive weapons. As I reported in 2017, the McCain Institute's financial backers included the BGR group, whose designated lobbyist, Ed Rogers, was a lobbyist for Raytheon – the company that produced the Javelin missiles that both Volker and the Atlantic Council wanted sold to Ukraine.

Following his abrupt resignation this September, Volker was called to testify before the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on the so-called Ukrainegate affair. There, he defended Biden as "a man of integrity and dedication to our country" who would never be "influenced in his duties as Vice President by money for his son "

Key Biden Adviser Joins Atlantic Council

Throughout Biden's tenure as the "point person" on Ukraine, one figure was constantly by his side: Michael Carpenter, a former Pentagon specialist on Eastern Europe who became a key adviser to Biden on the National Security Council. When Carpenter traveled with Biden to Ukraine in 2015, he helped provide the vice president with talking points throughout his trip.

Once Trump was inaugurated, Carpenter followed fellow members of the Democratic foreign policy apparatus into the think tank world. He accepted a fellowship at the Atlantic Council, and assumed a position as senior director of newly founded Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which provided office space to Biden when he was in Washington.

At the Jan. 23, 2018 Council on Foreign Relations event where Biden made his now-notorious comments about threatening the Ukrainian government with the withdrawal of a one billion dollar loan if it did not fire Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin – "well son of a bitch, he got fired!" Biden exclaimed – Carpenter was by his side, rattling off tough talking points about Russian interference. [Shokin testified under oath that Biden had him fired because he was investigating Burisma.]

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Since then, Carpenter has remained engaged in Ukrainian politics, throwing his weight behind some of the country's most hardline elements. In July 2018, for instance, he helped welcome Andriy Parubiy , the speaker of the Rada (the Ukrainian parliament), to a series of meetings on Capitol Hill.

Parubiy is the founder of the Social-National Party, which The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson described as "openly neo-fascist." In fact, Parubiy appeared in a Nazi-style uniform, packing a pistol beneath a Wolfsangel symbol on the cover of his Mein Kampf-style memoir, "A View From The Right."

After the Senate meeting with Parubiy, I challenged Carpenter over bringing the far-right politician to Capitol Hill. "Andriy Parubiy is a conservative nationalist who is also a patriot who cares about his country," Carpenter told me. "I don't think he has any neo-Nazi inclinations, nor background." He went on to dismiss the basis of my question as "mostly Russian propaganda."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bjK1yv-1IO8?feature=oembed

Months later, Carpenter staged a meltdown on Twitter over the incident, fabricating quotes by me, branding me as a "sleeze" [sic] and "pro-Asad and pro-Putin scumbag," while falsely and baselessly claiming I "enlist[ed] RT," the Russian-backed news network, "to do an exposé on him."

Asked by The Grayzone about Carpenter's work for a think tank funded by Burisma while simultaneously involving himself in Biden's political machine, Atlantic Council media relations deputy director Alex Kisling stated, "Council staff and fellows are free to participate in election activity as individuals and on their own time, provided they do so in a way that could not be seen as acting as a representative of the Council or implying Council endorsement of their activity or views. Michael's affiliations and previous service are on our website. (He is not part of our full time staff)."

The Penn Biden Center did not respond to a question on whether it supported Carpenter's work at the Burisma-backed Atlantic Council.

Beltway Press Scrubs Burisma's Ongoing Influence-Buying

As the scrutiny of Biden's dealings in Ukraine intensifies, Carpenter has thrust himself into the media limelight to defend his longtime boss.

In an Oct. 7 Washington Post op-ed denouncing Trump's "smear campaign" against Biden, Carpenter insisted that Biden had gone to great lengths to remove the Ukrainian prosecutor, Shokin, for his failure to take action against Burisma. That evening, Carpenter took to Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC to reinforce the message that Biden moved against "corrupt players" in Ukraine, presumably referring to Burisma.

At no point did he mention that Burisma was funding the think tank that hosted him as a senior fellow.

In publishing an "explainer" purporting to debunk the charges against Biden, the Atlantic Council also failed to mention its ongoing relationship with Burisma. Atlantic Council media relations deputy director Kisling dismissed the non-disclosure, telling The Grayzone , "The Council discloses its funding from Burisma on its website and whenever asked." (Ironically, the Atlantic Council has pushed for greater transparency in political advertising on Facebook, one of the top donors to the think tank).

Perhaps the most absurd omission took place in a GQ article about Ukrainegate by reporter and Russia-watcher Julia Ioffe. In painting Ukraine -- the largest nation entirely located in Europe -- as a "small country" drowning in corruption, Ioffe noted, "the best way to launder one's shady reputation and shine for international investors is to hire big-name Western consultants – as Burisma did."

In the very next paragraph, Ioffe quoted Daniel Fried, a former State Department official now serving as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "It's a country where there's a lot of freelance money and a lot of competing interests," Fried remarked.

Revealingly, Ioffe failed to acknowledge that Fried was one of those "big-named Western consultants" helping to launder Zlochevsky and Burisma's "shady reputation" through the Atlantic Council.

In fact, Fried was photographed in a one-on-one meeting with Burisma advisor Vadim Pozharskyi at a September 2018 Atlantic Council conference in New York City.

As the furor over "Ukrainegate" continues, Biden and his allies are soldiering ahead, insisting that scrutiny of his activities in Ukraine constitute nothing more than a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Meanwhile, the Beltway press shrugs at Burisma's buying of influence at a powerful think tank intertwined with Biden's political operation.

Russia might be a "kleptocracy" and Ukraine might endemically corrupt, but in Washington, this is all business as usual.

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling " Republican Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," " The Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of Savagery ." He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including " Killing Gaza " and " Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the Grayzone Project in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.


Robert , October 15, 2019 at 13:50

Thank you for the excellent research. I'll add that the Department of State's contribution to Atlantic Council is $1 million annually of US taxpayer dollars. Christopher Hunter, a lawyer with the DOJ when Trump was elected, resigned and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat, then parachuted into Atlantic Council as a Senior Fellow. Several weeks ago, in an interview with Al Jazeera, he affirmed that Trump should definitely be impeached. Although introduced as a Fellow of the Atlantic Council, he did nothing to indicate that he was in a conflict of interest position because of Burisma donations to the Council or that his opinions were not those of the Atlantic Council. Essentially, US tax $$ are being used to promote the impeachment of the President of the United States.

Karl Brantz , October 15, 2019 at 12:27

Excellent investigative journalism from Max Blumenthal and Grayzone! The death and destruction wrought in Ukraine by both U.S. political party operatives is appalling, as is their horrendous murders of civilians and combatants alike throughout the world today. That journalists go forth every day to document this atrocious conduct, risking their freedom and their lives to uncover the truth is an amazing and courageous service to the citizens of our world. I have nothing but praise for them. I only wish that some one would turn their piercing perception and integrity upon the apparently untouchable yet still festering account of the truth of the 9/11 events. All the facts are available and many of the perps are still walking around. I'm dying to know just what was going on as Dick Cheney commandeered the PEOC on that fateful morning. Or what took place at Offutt AFB as the towers were blown to dust in NYC. We've got a fairly good idea thanks to the last 19 years of research and reporting, but this story never seems to rise above the traditional scandal/bribery/corruption/war news that daily rains down upon the hapless plebes.

Bob in Portland , October 15, 2019 at 12:15

More inconvenience for the Atlantic Council: When the DNC claimed that Russia hacked its computers, it never allowed the FBI or any other intelligence agency to examine the computers. Instead, they used a private company, Crowdstrike. CrowdStrike, owned by Dmitri Alperovitch, still is the only known entity to have examined those computers. Dmitri Alperovitch has a chair at the Atlantic Council. Readers here at ConsortiumNews know all the flaws, okay, lies that William Binney uncovered.

So the Russiagate claims against Russia were generated by cold warriors to justify a warmer war against Russia. Poor Hunter was caught in the graft that surrounds the US's relationship with Ukraine.

In World War Two the Nazis ran the fascists in Ukraine who in turn ran Operation Nightingale, the genocidal program to kill the Jews and other ethnic enemies of Berlin's thinkers. After WWII the US, very soon represented by the CIA, supported a rebel force in Ukraine against the USSR. The US also embraced the Ukrainian fascists, being a part of the Republican Heritage Council. Members were imported into the US under the CIA's Crusade For Freedom. Ronald Reagan, the spokesman for CFF, first used his "freedom fighter" describing these Ukrainian fascists with the term later resurrected for the death squads and anti-democratic forces in Latin America.

Burisma has been described at Moon Of Alabama as a money-laundering entity.

Poor Hunter. Welcome to the working week.

Skip Scott , October 15, 2019 at 12:09

This is a great article that gets into the nitty-gritty of UkraineGate. There is no doubt in this day and age that "the Mighty Wurlitzer" will drown out the facts presented here. If Biden becomes too difficult of a sell for the Oligarchy, they have plenty of other servants to choose from.

robert e williamson jr , October 15, 2019 at 11:57

I'm no religious zealot. After 70 years on the planet I'm firmly agnostic and view too many organized religions with great dread., that said I suspect that these NGO non-profits such as the Atlantic Council are simply fronts for the U.S. intelligence community.

If churches tried to get away with what these think tanks do going through millions of dollars to lobby for special interest groups they would surely lose the their tax exempt status. Something I feel very strongly the IRS should investigate also.

Or would they. I suspect the IRS could care less about either type of entity considering that the Service is so under funded it cannot enforce the tax laws on the books, but that story is for a different time.

I keep reading these headlines which seem to cry "surprise, we found corruption here"! Give me a break by now everyone should see it coming.

The "King of Orange" is still publicly boring holes in the hull of the Ship of State and nothing happens except Dims and Repugs claim some honor in joining to condemn a foreign EU allied country for doing what "The King of Orange" approved that he do.

The problem here is not Turkey, my friends, the problem is the U.S. intelligence community and the corrupt think tanks fronts that facilitate their evil machinations.

Thank you Max for the expose' obviously far too many American are fooled by this B.S. stuff that goes on in D.C.

Drew Hunkins , October 15, 2019 at 11:15

The AC is arguably the most potentially dangerous organization in the world today. It's essentially a Bill Kristol neo-conservative outfit that's set on destroying any semblance of an independent Russia. It's closely connected to the Atlanticist Integrationists in Moscow.

The AC's a de facto NATO think [sic] tank that could possibly lead the world to nuclear war. It also totally belies the notion that Putin is somehow under the thumb of Netanyahu.

Eugenie Basile , October 15, 2019 at 11:13

The whole Ukraine story is an enormous blunder for the West . not only did it give Russia the opportunity to reclaim Crimea but the West now also has to finance a corrupt, unstable and bankrupt country. Not funny !

Robert , October 15, 2019 at 11:06

Excellent research. The deep state is indeed international and takes care of its own. Christopher Hunter, who, after Trump's election, resigned from the DOJ, then ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for Congress, was then parachuted into the Atlantic Council as senior fellow. He then proceeded to provide expert advice to Al Jazeera about why Trump should be impeached. So you now have the US State Department paying $1 million tax dollars to the Atlantic Council, at least one member of which is using his "expertise" to impeach President Trump.

Herman , October 15, 2019 at 10:28

The article notes that Hunter Biden left Ukraine with $850K. Does that include any fees he might have collected as co-counsel noted below?

"Hunter Biden tried to repay the $50,000-a-month gig Zlochevsky had handed him by enlisting a top D.C. law firm, Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, where he served as co-counsel, to help "improve [Burisma's] corporate governance." By the following January, Zlochevsky's assets were unfrozen by the U.K."

Curious.

michael , October 15, 2019 at 07:48

Dmitri Alperovitch, Hillary's own Russian Head of Crowdstrike and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, went to great lengths to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked into Ukrainian artillery, and claimed the same methodology was used to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked into the DNC.

These were Crowdstrike's bonafides (and thus no reason to look closely at the DNC servers). Of course, it later turned out that the Russians had NOT hacked Ukrainian artillery, Crowdstrike had lied, and hacking of the DNC was more likely initially done by Crowdstrike/ New Knowledge and the Atlantic Council, not the Russians.

Think tanks should be responsible, with jail times and fines, for the discord they sow.

Sally Snyder , October 15, 2019 at 07:15

There is a binding treaty between the United States and Ukraine that would serve as a precedent for Donald Trump's request.

Interestingly, the mainstream media in the United States has almost completely ignored this reality their haste to impeach the current president.

Daryl , October 15, 2019 at 04:51

My take is that this Zlochevsky and his energy co. was identified and targeted while he was part of the govt the US helped to overthrow. Rather than the story of a Ukrainian seeking western favor, i suspect he was made an offer he could not refuse.

The UK seizure of the 23mil was not accidental, i expect the US had all the banks of Europe watching this guys asset for this leverage. So they freeze his money, open a criminal investigation and put him on a wanted list.

Just a couple weeks later Biden joins the board. This was a State Dept/CIA play.

They went to Zlochevsky or the oligarch behind him and presented them with the only way out of ruin. Several months later, UK unfreezes 23mil and closes the case. USAID comes calling on Burisma, Atlantic Council attaches themselves. This was a well planned takeover and Biden was a beneficiary, but doing the bidding of the hidden hands.

Jeff Harrison , October 15, 2019 at 00:02

The sarcasm at the end is great. I have only one comment. This piece, like so many others about Ukraine uses the phrase "pro-Russian forces in Ukraine". That's crap. Yeah, they are pro Russian, but more importantly, they are ethnically Russian and when you have a regime in Kiev that is trying to suck up to the US and passing anti Russian and Russian language legislation and breaking all ties to Russia to please their masters in Washington, is it a surprise that those ethnic Russian Ukrainians might look for a champion?

Abby , October 14, 2019 at 23:11

Wow. This article is a must read for people to get up to date on the Ukraine coup. On Hunter and Joe ByeDone's actions after it and the many players involved. Well done, Max!
But Russia right?

[Oct 15, 2019] Bolton Opposed Ukraine Investigations; Called Giuliani A Hand Grenade

Oct 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Bolton Opposed Ukraine Investigations; Called Giuliani "A Hand Grenade" by Tyler Durden Tue, 10/15/2019 - 12:25 0 SHARES

Former national security adviser John Bolton was 'so alarmed' by efforts to encourage Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and 2016 election meddling that he told an aide, Fiona Hill, to alert White House lawyers, according to the New York Times .

On Monday, Hill told House investigators that Bolton got into a heated confrontation on July 10 with Trump's EU ambassador, Gordon D. Sondland, who was working with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to investigate Democrats. Hill said that Bolton told her to notify the top attorney for the National Security Council about the 'rogue' effort by Sondland, Giuliani and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

"I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up," Bolton apparently told Hill to tell the lawyers.

It was not the first time Mr. Bolton expressed grave concerns to Ms. Hill about the campaign being run by Mr. Giuliani. " Giuliani's a hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up, " Ms. Hill quoted Mr. Bolton as saying during an earlier conversation.

The testimony revealed in a powerful way just how divisive Mr. Giuliani's efforts to extract damaging information about Democrats from Ukraine on President Trump's behalf were within the White House. Ms. Hill, the senior director for European and Russian affairs, testified that Mr. Giuliani and his allies circumvented the usual national security process to run their own foreign policy efforts, leaving the president's official advisers aware of the rogue operation yet powerless to stop it. - NYT

When Hill confronted Sondland, he told her that he was 'in charge' of Ukraine, "a moment she compared to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.'s declaration that he was in charge after the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt, according to those who heard the testimony," according to the Times.

Hill says she asked Sondland on whose authority he was in charge of Ukraine, to which he replied 'the president.' She would later leave her post shortly before a July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president which is currently at the heart of an impeachment inquiry.

Meanwhile, the Times also notes that "House Democrats widened their net in the fast-paced inquiry by summoning Michael McKinley, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who abruptly resigned last week, to testify Wednesday."

Career diplomats have expressed outrage at the unceremonious removal of Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch from Ukraine after she came under attack by Mr. Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and two associates who have since been arrested on charges of campaign violations.

The interviews indicated that House Democrats were proceeding full tilt with their inquiry despite the administration's declaration last week that it would refuse to cooperate with what it called an invalid and unconstitutional impeachment effort. - NYT

Three other Trump admin officials are scheduled to speak with House investigators this week, including Sondland - who is now set to appear on Thursday. On Tuesday, deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent will testify, while on Friday, Laura K. Cooper - a a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia policy, will speak with lawmakers as well.


Et Tu Brute , 20 minutes ago link

Why are we still even hearing from that human excrement?

janus , 22 minutes ago link

Looks like we have our whistleblower. My only question is, how does one whistle with such a bristly moustache draping their hairlip?

So now we have Mr. Neocon and Mr. Liddle Kidz conjugating as the strangest of bedfellows? How will this play to their respective bases? Are we to assume these people think this nations top law enforcement agent (POTUS) is to abdicate his duties therewith just because the criminal is (at least according to our two tiered justice system) supposed to be beyond reproach?

Mr. Bolton, bright and determined as he is, has hitched his wagon to mad mare galloping full tilt over a precipice.

Looking for a return of uranium one to the headlines soon. In due time we will stich this Russia/Ukraine narrative back together from a patchwork of facts. You traitors are fucked...royally fucked...and you know it.

So, Mr bolton, explain to us in simple terms how you appraise America's security and her related interests. Your camp is in eclipse.

John Bolton:

"I was appauled...just flabbergasted...that the president was concerned that our intelligence apparatus was politicized to the extent that its highest echelons were arrayed in an attempt to subvert a lawful and legitimate election. Never mind that six other nations were tasked with abetting this treasonous plot...this is an outrage!!! The whole point of intelligence agencies is to skirt the law with impunity, and once we (the unelected permanent breacracy) tell one of our minions like Biden or Hillary that they're permanently immune from prosecution, we can't have some earnest pact of Patriots running around demanding law and order."

What a sorry bunch of cretians.

We were so close...so close...to losing it all. But since the enemy is making clear we're playing zero sum, we're going to end up with everything.

Brace yourself, California. If I were you, I'd study the legal framework of Reconstruction. Your plight will be of a kind. Your state has been engaged in a systematic attempt to overthrow the government. Your leaders will be appointed for a generation after this all comes out. Don't look to Beijing to save you...they kinda have their hands full.

Janus

Treavor , 17 minutes ago link

He is a criminal involved in Ukraine weapons deals the yal get the piece that is why they are mad lost $$$$$$

Mimir , 2 minutes ago link

Clearly a criminal among criminals.

MrAToZ , 26 minutes ago link

Deep state arms skim meister Bolton. Never enough bodies for this "patroit."

Infinityx2 , 26 minutes ago link

So, I guess Bolton is no longer collecting free money like Hunter Biden was. I get it now how all these politicians have kids overseas and open foreign corporations which our tax money goes in to by way of cutting deals overseas public officials to line their pockets with our money. This how they get into government poor and become very rich! Giuliani is pointing this fact out to the public with Trump and the swamp HATES IT!

The public now knows how these corrupt PUBLIC OFFICIALS in America have been fleecing the tax payers. This is a major hit on the swamp.

Trump & Giuliani we're behind you thank you for showing us how the swamp has been ******* us for all these years.

One-Hung-Lo , 30 minutes ago link

Bolton should have never been allowed to enter the White House and I am not sure about Giuliani either as I kinda feel like he is borderline senile.

moe_reeves , 32 minutes ago link

If Biden is guilty, Giuliani is not.

frankthecrank , 34 minutes ago link

Understand that the reason Schitt head won't allow public hearings is because the former Ambassador to Ukraine--Volker, shot this whole **** fest down when he testified. There is no "there" there.

Bolton and the others are crying because of Trump's pull out. The left jumped on the war bandwagon under Billary a long time ago. Necons work both parties.

John_Coltrane , 37 minutes ago link

If Bolton dislikes Guiliani that's the best endorsement of Rudy I can imagine. Bolton is a complete warmongering traitor who, like McShitstain, desires a nice case of brain cancer.

Go Rudy, expose the corrupt Demonrats! We deplorables love human hand grenades. That's why we elected the Donald, and you apparently are the perfect lawyer for our great God emperor.

Archeofuturist , 15 minutes ago link

You can bet that the piggies are squealing because it's more than just the Dems who are neck deep in the ****. Lotta funky stuff went down in Ukraine.

Buster84 , 55 minutes ago link

Sounds like Bolton may have some dirty laundry he is wanting to cover up.

AnnimaTday , 50 minutes ago link

"Schiff simply does not have the gravitas that a weighty procedure such as impeachment requires," Biggs wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News. "He has repeatedly shown incredibly poor judgment. He has persistently and consistently demonstrated that he has such a tremendous bias and animus against Trump that he will say anything and accept any proffer of even bogus evidence to try to remove the president from office."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/125-house-republicans-co-sponsor-resolution-to-censure-schiff-over-parody-reading-of-trump-zelensky-call

[Oct 15, 2019] I'm starting to wonder whether or not this whole time the phrase 'two state solution' meant Israel and Ukraine

Oct 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

janus , 12 minutes ago link

I'm starting to wonder whether or not this whole time the phrase 'two state solution' meant Israel and Ukraine.

An attempted return to the pale of settlement while maintaining what's thus far been captured?

Seems to me zbigs axiom (without the Ukraine Russia isn't an empire) may be cover for other ends. Why were IDF commandos leading Nazi units west of Kiev?

The scope of all this is far bigger than it appears.

[Oct 15, 2019] The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) is deeply embedded in the US' mainstream media and Fox . It has become a standard of patriotism to be lock step with Kagans and Wm Krystol.

Oct 15, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> anne... , October 07, 2019 at 05:25 AM

The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) is deeply embedded in the US' mainstream media and Fox . It has become a standard of patriotism to be lock step with Kagans and Wm Krystol.

Clinton and Obama are true believers, in a very liberal interventionists, responsibility to bomb to protect, subtle (scamming) kind of agenda.

PNAC calls for turning Syria over to al Qaeda/breaking it up, keeping US troops in Afghanistan because it is in the "land mass", and insisting Donbass self determination is a threat to you and me! Fairly consistent on ends.

But in some ways it act like Hitler on Czechoslovakia and in others it acts like the French in 1938.
Best keep the people in turmil over threats!

anne -> likbez... , October 07, 2019 at 05:10 AM
I appreciate this critically important reminder.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/books/review/stephen-m-walt-hell-good-intentions.html

November 20, 2018

A Foreign Policy Realist Challenges America's Zeal for Intervention
By Jacob Heilbrunn

THE HELL OF GOOD INTENTIONS
America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy
By Stephen M. Walt

[Oct 15, 2019] Leaked John Kerry audio White House wanted ISIS to rise in Syria by Systematic

Notable quotes:
"... if this is to inform us that Kerry is a duplicitous weasel,then id guess this has been known for at least a decade ..."
"... He is just a puppet of some big families and interest groups. He is their voice. He is maybe good in tactics but not in strategy. That's why he made a faulty assumption in Syria. ..."
"... I can't remember exactly what, but I noticed he was inconsistent in his bullcrapping. So he wanted an election, and democracy – gotta mouth 'democracy' -and he didn't. ..."
"... He of course expected to 'negotiate' with Assad, assuming that after Assad tasted fire he'd get lost, but that didn't go well when the evilest people around, the Russians, who just don't care about international law, were invited in to Syria, lol, because the law is the law. He was all over the place! ..."
"... Meanwhile, How many different scholars and politicians declaim loudly that the US should forget about international law?, starting with Michael Glennon. ..."
"... Those are Kerry's words. Among other things of interest, the recording also shows that the establishment actually do mouth their lies even to themselves, perhaps as a means of disciplining their own ranks. It's institutionalized schizophrenia. ..."
"... It is not a "free and fair" election without US interference! ..."
"... "Democracy has some virtues, folks" – so sayeth the old Bonesman. Enjoy your retirement , John. ..."
Oct 15, 2019 | off-guardian.org

South Front reports :

On Wednesday, Wikileaks released new evidence of US President-elect On Wednesday, Wikileaks released new evidence of US President-elect Donald Trump 's assertion that Barack Obama was the founder of ISIS – a leaked audio of US Secretary of State John Kerry's meeting with members of the Syrian opposition at the Dutch Mission of the UN on September 22.

The audio also is an evidence of the fact that mainstream media colluded with the Obama's administration in order to push the narrative for regime change in Syria, hiding the truth about arming and funding ISIS by the US, as it exposed a 35 minute conversation that was omitted by CNN.

Kerry admits that the primary goal of the Obama's administration in Syria was regime change and the removal of Syrian President Bahar al-Assad, as well as that Washington didn't calculate that Assad would turn to Russia for help.

In order to achieve this goal, the White House allowed the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group to rise. The Obama's administration hoped that growing power of the IS in Syria would force Assad to search for a diplomatic solution on US terms, forcing him to cede power. In its turn, in order to achieve these two goals, Washington intentionally armed members of the terrorist group and even attacked a In order to achieve this goal, the White House allowed the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group to rise.

The Obama's administration hoped that growing power of the IS in Syria would force Assad to search for a diplomatic solution on US terms, forcing him to cede power. In its turn, in order to achieve these two goals, Washington intentionally armed members of the terrorist group and even attacked a Syrian government military convoy, trying to stop a strategic attack on the IS, killing 80 Syrian soldiers.

According to Wikileaks, "the audio gives a glimpse into what goes on outside official meetings. Note that it represents the US narrative and not necessarily the entire true narrative." Earlier the audio was published by the "And we know that this was growing, we were watching, we saw that DAESH [the IS] was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened," Kerry said during the meeting.

. "(We) thought, however," he continued to say, "We could probably manage that Assad might then negotiate, but instead of negotiating he got Putin to support him." "I lost the argument for use of force in Syria," Kerry concluded.

Note that it represents the US narrative and not necessarily the entire true narrative." Earlier the audio was published by the "I lost the argument for use of force in Syria," Kerry concluded.

Earlier the audio was published by the New York Times and CNN, however, the both outlets chose only some its part, reporting on certain aspects, and omitted the most damning comments made by Kerry. In fact, they tried to hide the statements that would allow public to understand what has actually taken place in Syria.

The full audio has never been published by the New York Times; the outlet released only selected snippets. The full audio has never been published by the New York Times; the outlet released only selected snippets. The full audio has never been published by the New York Times; the outlet released only selected snippets.


Mickey

What a surprise!!
Don Rhudy
We know by observation and by reports from the sailors who served with Kerry on a Swiftboat that Kerry is a coward, liar, and enemy of the United States of America. He faked three Purple hearts to leave Swiftboat service early and return to the states, and he lied to the U.S. Congress while under oath. He belongs in Federal Prison.
JamesH
US Secretary of State John Kerry: "The problem is we in the US care about international law and Russia does not. This is the reason why we can't directly attack Assad forces.

The only way we can directly intervene is if we have a UN Security Council resolution, or if our forces are under attack by theirs, or if we are invited by the LEGITIMATE regime well not saying here they're "legitimate" ok, Assad's regime. The Russians were invited in and we're not."

The U.S. knows their presence in Syria is illegal

Kerry contradicts himself when he said that Russia does not care about international law when fact is Russia is legally allowed to operate in Syria at the invitation of the "legitimate" Syrian regime (admittedly, his tongue slipped at that point)

Cynthia Banks
You are so right and it has been proven, Kerry and Hillary are the ones who armed ISIS a d ISIS was the one doing the gas attacks. Assad has the right to his nation and Kerry promised these rebels they could win and they are only seventeen percent of the populace. The people of Syria support Assad. It was a civil uprising we had no right to get involved in. But as we learned the US was trying to take over seven nations in seven years.

We were the bad guys, https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw

Thank God they failed.

fmf

Its not about Syrian regime change, US also wanted to topple Shiite Iraqi Government through ISIS to install Sunni/Wahhabi regime to counter the Tehran influences in Iraq.

doug
I had come to the conclusion many years ago that democrats can never be trusted. All the do is lie and plot and cheat and cast aspersions and smears on everyone who disagrees with them. The smears are usually them trying to smear others with lacks in character that almost always apply to themselves. This news is nothing new. Glenn Beck for just one example has claimed this for years. He has maintained from the fall of Libya and the attack in Benghazzi that it was all about moving arms to Syria to arm and bolster ISIS.
Barbara
The reason why we can no longer trust the Democrats is because they have been infiltrated by the Communist party.
Barbara
Also remember this, the war criminals Rumsfeld and Chaney went to Syria to organize and start pumping out the Syrian oil. They just couldn't wait to get their hands on it. It's about the oil.
George Cornell
And even that wasn't enough to make honest people out of them.
Inerich
Wrong. No UN resolution when Trump attacked 2 Russian chemical weapons bases in Syria. As Commander in Chief, President Trump made the decision to bomb and destroy.
Cynthia Banks
You can't trust the RINO's either. Bush got us into this and I voted for him twice. https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw
JDD
PUT him in a rioom with families of the victims of 911. Lock the door.
pavlovscat7

Put him in a room with the families of Sandy Hook and he'd have to take out his wallet again.

D3F1ANT
None of this evidence matters. Look at what happened with Hillary and the proof of her MYRIAD crimes. Someone could post a video a Democrat breaking the law and it wouldn't matter. Lynch and Comey and their minions have proven that power-brokers on the Left are simply beyond the reach of the "long-arm" of the Law.
antirepublocrat
Treason.
Lumpy Gravy

CNN deleted the audio at all, explaining this with the request of some of the participants out of concern for their personal safety.

So, who then took part in the meeting at the Dutch UN mission? What are the names and the whereabouts of these so called Syrian opposition types? What are the names of the colluding Dutch mission staff? Seeing that none them ever cared in the least about the safety of the Syrian people, why should anyone care for their personal safety? With hundreds of thousands dead, millions of refugees or internally displaced and the country in ruins these people have a lot to answer for. I do hope that they and the hyena who over the past five years so eagerly promoted this mayhem in the western media will be held to account for their crimes at some point.

bill
if this is to inform us that Kerry is a duplicitous weasel,then id guess this has been known for at least a decade
Sam
He is just a puppet of some big families and interest groups. He is their voice. He is maybe good in tactics but not in strategy. That's why he made a faulty assumption in Syria.

I really hope that all the responsibles of casualties of civilians and innocent people will face an international tribunal or face the direct cosmic judgement. They betrayed all the secular and tolerant forces in the Middle East by creating a religious confusion. Just to remove Assad? What about the feudal system in Saudia, Qatar (slavery, stoning, beheading )? Where are the Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Who voted democratically for all those wars in the US? What is the power of Congress ? Who is going to bring back or payback taxpayers money? Poverty is rising in the US and the number of homeless people becomes astronomical.

Ronald Smith
A decade? I've known since he was in Vietnam. Him an John McCain we're both traitors to our country.
carinaragno
Reblogged this on Piazza della Carina .
Arrby
I hope someone, at some point, will be able to provide a transcript. It was a bit hard to follow, hard as I did. The women talked fast and maybe the accent didn't help.
The audio, which gives us a glimpse into the pathology of politicians who sell their souls for gain and have to do verbal contortions, speaking in code even to each other (lest somebody want to stab someone else in the back), in order to communicate. There was so much vileness attached to Kerry's inconsitent comments.
BigB
Hear hear! I got most of the slime coming from Kerry (and the 2nd American?) – but the female and particularly the male opposition rep – I couldn't quite pick.
I did get the bit when she had a meltdown when Kerry suggested an open election (because the US is big on free and fair elections – including their own as we have just seen.) Apparently the Syrian opposition aren't that keen on them either.

Do I take it from this that the Americans think that if the 'diaspora' is included in the vote, that there are enough Syrians abroad inculcated by western propaganda to ouster Assad? Or will that just blowback in their face?

BTW – as most regular commenters are well aware – the recent 2014 Syrian election was completely 'free and fair' – certainly by American standards. Assad won by a landslide.

Arrby
Yes, I think that you have that right. Kerry is keen on an American managed election (a la Haiti or Honduras) and must believe that the diaspora is sufficiently bamboozled for that to go swimmingly.
BigB
Kerry said that Assad was worried by the prospect of an election. I wonder where he gets his intel from – WaPo or the CIA? Mind you, that's a single-source these days!
Arrby
I can't remember exactly what, but I noticed he was inconsistent in his bullcrapping. So he wanted an election, and democracy – gotta mouth 'democracy' -and he didn't.

He of course expected to 'negotiate' with Assad, assuming that after Assad tasted fire he'd get lost, but that didn't go well when the evilest people around, the Russians, who just don't care about international law, were invited in to Syria, lol, because the law is the law. He was all over the place!

Meanwhile, How many different scholars and politicians declaim loudly that the US should forget about international law?, starting with Michael Glennon.

Pierre-henri Bredontiot
"the Russians, who just don't care about international law, "

How can you say such a thing? Only Russians are allowed to fight in Syria. Assad has been choosed by his people, and call Russia for help, nobody else.

No country but Russia is allowed to put a foot in Syria: that is International Right. That is ONU's law. USA, GB, France, Qatar, South Arabia, THEY don't care about international law. Please excuse my bad language, I'm French. But you understand what I mean.

Vaska
Those are Kerry's words. Among other things of interest, the recording also shows that the establishment actually do mouth their lies even to themselves, perhaps as a means of disciplining their own ranks. It's institutionalized schizophrenia.
Ron
Amen. Kerry babbled about 'all the people in the camps" voting. Yeah, we know how 'free and fair' the voting will be in Erdogan's camps! -- And we know -- and these hotel-dwelling shysters know -- how many Syrian missions were closed, as in the US, Australia and many other countries -- or were denied allowing voting, because they knew bloody well who ex-pat Syrians would vote for! Over a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon trekked many miles, though Hariri-occupied salafist ghettos, to vote in 2014, so many that there was chaos finding enough voting slips. And ALL for Assad!
The tone of this cabal is all. It's losers, and so they will remain.
bevin
"Do I take it from this that the Americans think that if the 'diaspora' is included in the vote, that there are enough Syrians abroad inculcated by western propaganda to ouster Assad?"

He was obviously hinting that the opposition need not worry about the 'free and fair' bit. After all we have seen, in Haiti most clearly, what they will do to ensure that the people they don't want lose. In Haiti Aristide- a shoo-in- was not allowed to compete. In Yemen only one (US/Saudi approved) name was allowed on the ballot for President. In Iraq no Socialists were allowed to run. In Ukraine the Communist Party was banned. The beauty if the diaspora option is that it would allow ballot boxes to be stuffed in every city in Europe and Arabia, away from the supervision of the election authorities.

But poor old Kerry's audience didn't understand him-they are afraid he really believes in 'democracy'. They probably think that they are smarter than him and have cheated him by pretending to subscribe to democracy!

BigB
It is not a "free and fair" election without US interference!
http://www.trueactivist.com/us-interfered-in-foreign-presidential-elections-at-least-81-times-in-54-years/
BigB
"Democracy has some virtues, folks" – so sayeth the old Bonesman. Enjoy your retirement , John.
Greg Bacon
The U.S. Government Supplied ISIS' Iconic Pickup Trucks
Posted on October 12, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog
U.S. counter-terror officials have launched an investigation into how ISIS got so many of those identical Toyota pickup trucks which they use in their convoys.
They don't have to look very far

The Spectator reported last year:

The [Toyota] Hilux [pics] is light, fast, manoeuvrable and all but indestructible ('bomb-proof' might not, in this instance, be a happy usage). The weapons experts Jane's claimed for the Hilux a similar significance to the longbows of Agincourt or the Huey choppers of Nam.

A US Army Ranger said the Toyota sure 'kicks the hell out of a Humvee' (referring to the clumsy and over-sized High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle made by AM General).

The fact is the Toyotas were supplied by the US government to the Al Nusra Front as 'non-lethal aid' then 'acquired' by ISIS.
Al Nusra Front is literally Al Qaeda.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/10/the-u-s-government-supplied-isis-iconic-pickup-trucks.html

Yonatan
The Washingtonsblog article contains an invalid link for the original Spectator article.
The correct link for the 2014 Spectator article is:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2014/09/the-four-wheel-drive-is-to-isis-what-the-longbow-was-to-the-english-at-agincourt/
jeb1511
The US govt via the CIA provided Ford F250 in their thousands to "liberation" movements in Africa back in the 70's.
Brian Harry, Australia
So, the U.S. taxpayers paid for the vehicles. No wonder the USA's National Debt is heading towards $19 TRILLION. There seems to be no end to the stupidity in America, giving Israel $3BILLION/year, fighting Israel's wars, and supplying their mercenaries, while the debts keep piling higher???
Not to mention sacrificing young American soldiers etc.
jimsresearchnotes
Reblogged this on EU: Ramshackle Empire .
leruscino
Reblogged this on leruscino .
Brian Harry, Australia
Is it any wonder that the people who put Obama in the White House(to act as their stooge) are now in panic mode as Trump readies for the White House, having thumbed his nose at them(by threatening to "Drain the Swamp"). Despite the USA's image as "The most powerful nation on Earth", the people in charge now find themselves in a very weak position, and in danger of loosing control. Trump will need to watch his back during his term as President, the people behind the façade of Freedom and Democracy will do ANYTHING to hold their grip on power.
Sav
Wondering if John Hinckley Jr's release was for a reason 🙂
BigB
LMFAO – I expect he'll be having dinner with the Bush family soon! That cut throat gesture by the old man HW was a promise – not a threat!
Brian Harry, Australia
Sav. Good comment, but, I'm sure the CIA have a ready supply of 'guns for hire' ..
mohandeer
Reblogged this on Worldtruth and commented:

Assad was going to cut a deal with Russia regarding the Russian pipeline through Syria, Iran and on to China. No way could the US allow this to happen. How to destroy Assad's plan?

Deploy murderous nutters and pretend it was all Assad's own fault with a prepared false narrative which the complicit MSM would spoon feed their public with. Simple.

Enter Russia's Putin with the most sophisticated and advanced military force in the world, add Hezbollah/Iran and China and watch the carnage the US and it's backers have unleashed. Simple, effective, murderous and criminal.

falcemartello
How much more evidence does one need these days to have these people tried for crimes against humanity
Hers some historical facts.

Germany in the 30's invaded Czechoslovakia
US and Nato bombed Yugoslavia in the 90's

Germany invaded Poland in the late 30's
US and Nato bombed and invaded Afghanistan in 2001

Germany and Italy bombed Spain in the 30's
Us and nato bombed Iraq in the first Gulf war in 1991

Germany invade France and western europe in the 40's
US and Nato have the biggest military buildup on Russians border since the second world war

Germany in 42 initiate operation barbarossa and invade the USSR
... ... ...

Using critical thinking and historical analysis.

The difference in time is circa 70 years . All we hear in the west is Russian aggression , Chinese aggression, Iranian aggression. The parody is amazing .
FREEDOM JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY IS LOOKING LIKE FASCISM THE FASCIST WAY.

The washington consensus is loosing badly and just like most bullies is behaving badly and here where the danger lies. These establishment characters whom ever they may be ( mind u most of my fellow bloggers know full well whom they r) r dying for a war .

Seeing that their terrorist islamaphobic narrative can only carry so much destruction we need to really muddy the waters with a Russia whom historically speaking has been such a bogie man for the west going back to Peter the Great.

[Oct 13, 2019] Opening Statement of Marie L.Yovanovitch to the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Committee on Oversight and Reform

Yet another female neocon hawk of the mold of Samantha Power. Hillary have found not only Nuland, but several of them ;-) She denied that Nulandgate create a civil war in Ukraine to advance the US geopolitical goals. She also denied influencing Ukrainian leadership, while in reality Ukraine now is governed from the US embassy (which is sometimes called by locals called Washington Obcom) . Such a hypocrite.
As for "do not prosecute" list -- do not believe anything government officials say until it is officially denied.
And that EuroMaydan actually promote corruption to the level unheard during Yanukovich tenure but with different players.
Notable quotes:
"... creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit. ..."
"... the Embassy's April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General's Office about the investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center or AntAC ..."
"... the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ..."
"... As Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or disseminated a "do not prosecute" list is completely false ..."
"... Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President's orders "since he was going to be impeached." That allegation is false. I have never said such a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else. ..."
"... I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or indirectly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me. ..."
"... With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him -- a total of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. ..."
Oct 11, 2019 | d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net

The Revolution of Dignity, and the Ukrainian people's demand to end corruption, forced the new Ukrainian government to take measures to fight the rampant corruption that long permeated that country's political and economic systems. We have long understood that strong anti-corruption efforts must form an essential part of our policy in Ukraine; now there was a window of opportunity to do just that.

Why is this important? Put simply: anti-corruption efforts serve Ukraine's interests. They serve ours as well. Corrupt leaders are inherently less trustworthy, while an honest and accountable Ukrainian leadership makes a U.S.-Ukraine partnership more reliable and more valuable to the U.S. A level playing field in this strategically located country -- one with a European landmass exceeded only by Russia and with one of the largest populations in Europe -- creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit. Corruption is a security issue as well, because corrupt officials are vulnerable to Moscow. In short, it is in our national security interest to help Ukraine transform into a country where the rule of law governs and corruption is held in check.

Two Wars

But change takes time, and the aspiration to instill rule-of-law values has still not been fulfilled. Since 2014, Ukraine has been at war, not just with Russia, but within itself, as political and economic forces compete to determine what kind of country Ukraine will become: the same old, oligarch-dominated Ukraine where corruption is not just prevalent, but is the system? Or the country that Ukrainians demanded in the Revolution of Dignity -- a country where rule of law is the system, corruption is tamed, and people are treated equally and according to the law? During the 2019 presidential elections, the Ukrainian people answered that question once again. Angered by insufficient progress in the fight against corruption, Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly elected a man who said that ending corruption would be his number one priority. The transition, however, created fear among the political elite, setting the stage for some of the issues I expect we will be discussing today.

... ... ...

I arrived in Ukraine on August 22, 2016 and left Ukraine permanently on May 20, 2019. Several of the events with which you may be concerned occurred before I was even in country.

Here are just a few:

Several other events occurred after I was recalled from Ukraine. These include:

During my Tenure in Ukraine

[Oct 13, 2019] Opening Statement of Marie L.Yovanovitch to the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Committee on Oversight and Reform

Yet another female neocon hawk of the mold of Samantha Power. Hillary have found not only Nuland, but several of them ;-) She denied that Nulandgate create a civil war in Ukraine to advance the US geopolitical goals. She also denied influencing Ukrainian leadership, while in reality Ukraine now is governed from the US embassy (which is sometimes called by locals called Washington Obcom) . Such a hypocrite.
As for "do not prosecute" list -- do not believe anything government officials say until it is officially denied.
And that EuroMaydan actually promote corruption to the level unheard during Yanukovich tenure but with different players.
Notable quotes:
"... creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit. ..."
"... the Embassy's April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General's Office about the investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center or AntAC ..."
"... the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ..."
"... As Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or disseminated a "do not prosecute" list is completely false ..."
"... Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President's orders "since he was going to be impeached." That allegation is false. I have never said such a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else. ..."
"... I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or indirectly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me. ..."
"... With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him -- a total of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. ..."
Oct 11, 2019 | d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net

The Revolution of Dignity, and the Ukrainian people's demand to end corruption, forced the new Ukrainian government to take measures to fight the rampant corruption that long permeated that country's political and economic systems. We have long understood that strong anti-corruption efforts must form an essential part of our policy in Ukraine; now there was a window of opportunity to do just that.

Why is this important? Put simply: anti-corruption efforts serve Ukraine's interests. They serve ours as well. Corrupt leaders are inherently less trustworthy, while an honest and accountable Ukrainian leadership makes a U.S.-Ukraine partnership more reliable and more valuable to the U.S. A level playing field in this strategically located country -- one with a European landmass exceeded only by Russia and with one of the largest populations in Europe -- creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit. Corruption is a security issue as well, because corrupt officials are vulnerable to Moscow. In short, it is in our national security interest to help Ukraine transform into a country where the rule of law governs and corruption is held in check.

Two Wars

But change takes time, and the aspiration to instill rule-of-law values has still not been fulfilled. Since 2014, Ukraine has been at war, not just with Russia, but within itself, as political and economic forces compete to determine what kind of country Ukraine will become: the same old, oligarch-dominated Ukraine where corruption is not just prevalent, but is the system? Or the country that Ukrainians demanded in the Revolution of Dignity -- a country where rule of law is the system, corruption is tamed, and people are treated equally and according to the law? During the 2019 presidential elections, the Ukrainian people answered that question once again. Angered by insufficient progress in the fight against corruption, Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly elected a man who said that ending corruption would be his number one priority. The transition, however, created fear among the political elite, setting the stage for some of the issues I expect we will be discussing today.

... ... ...

I arrived in Ukraine on August 22, 2016 and left Ukraine permanently on May 20, 2019. Several of the events with which you may be concerned occurred before I was even in country.

Here are just a few:

Several other events occurred after I was recalled from Ukraine. These include:

During my Tenure in Ukraine

[Oct 13, 2019] Will American Exceptionalism Rise Again

The Collapse of American exceptionalism is actually the collapse of neoliberalism and the US neoliberal empire.
Oct 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

At its core, exceptionalism places America outside of normal history into a category of its own. Our initial "escape" from history followed two interrelated tracks: one was the religious radicalism of the Puritans, the other was the frontier experience. Both paths were the warpath.

The early settlers believed that they were "chosen" -- blessed by a special relationship to their God. They viewed their " errand in the wilderness " as a holy mission destined to bring a new and better way of life to the world. God's judgment on their progress was revealed in the bounty of a harvest or the outcome of a war.

Exceptionalism was not a free-floating idea but was forged into a lasting culture by the frontier wars aimed at the elimination or assimilation of native people and the conquest of land. America's frontier history produced a lasting mythology that popularized empire and white settler culture while cloaking their many contradictions.

I know it is hard to believe that the Puritans are still camped out in our minds. The old religious radicalism has taken modern form in the liberal-sounding belief that the US military is a "force for good (read God) in the world." The double-edged sword of exceptionalism traps us into repeating history: our high moral standards and special role in the world gives us license for wars and aggressions. It is the liberal elements of exceptionalism that are most seductive, most difficult to wrap our heads around, and the most effective at winning our consent to war.

Exceptionalism Wins Our Consent to War With A One-Two Punch

On the one hand, we have the "hard" exceptionalism like that of the Cold War (New and Old) and the War on Terrorism. These war stories revolve around a rigid binary of good and evil. After 9/11, in scores of speeches, George W. Bush repeated the mantra that there were "no gray areas" in the struggle between good and evil.

On the other hand, "soft" exceptionalism takes a slightly different tack by appealing to the liberal in us. Stories of rescue, protection, democracy and humanitarian efforts assure us of our goodness. Obama mastered this narrative by claiming the US had a "duty to protect" the weak and vulnerable in places like Libya.

These two strains of war stories are the narrative one-two punch, winning our consent to war and empire.

Here is how war propaganda works: if authority figures in government and media denounce foreign leaders or countries or immigrants as an evil threat and repeat it thousands of times, they do not even have to say, "We are the chosen people destined to bring light to the world." They know that millions of Americans will unconsciously refer to the exceptionalist code by default because it's so deeply embedded in our culture. Once made brave by our exceptional character and sense of superiority, the next moves are war, violence and white supremacy.

Myth Meets the American War in Vietnam

The Vietnam War, and the resistance to it, profoundly challenged all existing war stories. At the heart of this disruption was the soldier's revolt. Thousands of US soldiers and veterans came to oppose the very war they fought in . An anti-war movement inside the military was totally unprecedented in US history. The war-makers have been scrambling to repair the damage ever since.

Following the defeat of US forces in Vietnam, the elites shifted gears. The idea that the US could create a new democratic nation -- South Vietnam -- was an utter illusion that no amount of fire-power could overcome. In truth, the US selected a series of petty tyrants to rule that could never win the allegiance of the Vietnamese people because they were the transparent puppets of American interests. The ruling class learned a lesson that forced them to abandon the liberal veneer of "nation-building."

The Next Generation of War Stories: From "Noble Cause" to "Humanitarian War."

Ronald Regan tried to repair the damaged narratives by recasting the Vietnam War as a "Noble Cause." The Noble Cause appealed to people hurt and confused by the US defeat, as well as the unrepentant war-makers, because it attempted to restore the old good vs. evil narrative of exceptionalism. For Regan, America needed to rediscover its original mission as a "city on a hill" -- a shining example to the world. Every single President since has repeated that faith.

The Noble Cause narrative was reproduced in numerous bad movies and dubious academic studies that tried to refight the war (and win this time!). Its primary function was to restore exceptionalism in the minds of the American people. While Regan succeeded to a considerable degree -- as we can see in the pro-war policy of both corporate parties -- "nation-building" never recovered its power as a military strategy or war story.

The next facade was Clinton's "humanitarian war." Humanitarian war attempted to relight the liberal beacon by replacing the problems of nation-building with the paternalistic do-gooding of a superior culture and country. In effect, the imperialists recycled the 19th Century war story of "Manifest Destiny" or "White Man's Burden." That "burden" was the supposed duty of white people to lift lesser people up to the standards of western civilization -- even if that required a lot of killing.

This kind of racist thinking legitimized the US overseas empire at its birth. Maybe it would work again in empires' old age?

From the "War on Terrorism" to the "Responsibility to Protect."

After the shock of 9/11 the narrative shifted again. Bush's "global war on terrorism" reactivated the good vs. evil framing of the Cold War. The "war on terror" was an incoherent military or political strategy except for its promise of forever wars.

Just as the Cold War was a "long twilight struggle" against an elusive but ruthless communist enemy, terrorists might be anywhere and everywhere and do anything. And, like the fight against communism, the war on terrorism would require the US to wage aggressive wars, launch preemptive strikes, use covert activities and dodge both international law and the US Constitution.

9/11 also tapped into deeply-rooted nationalistic and patriotic desires among everyday people to protect and serve their country. The first attack on US soil in modern memory powerfully restored the old binary: when faced with unspeakable evil, the US military became a "force for good in the world." It's easy to forget just how potent the combination is and how it led us into the War in Iraq. According to The Washington Post :

Nearing the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this.

The mythology is so deep that at first the people, soldiers especially, just had to believe there was a good reason to attack Iraq. So we fell back on exceptionalism despite the total absence of evidence. Of course Bush made no attempt to correct this misinformation. The myth served him too well -- as did the official propaganda campaign claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But in due course, some of the faithful became doubters. A peace movement of global proportions took shape. But in the US far too much of what appeared as resistance was driven by narrow partisan opposition to Republicans rather than principled opposition to war and empire.

But fear not war-makers -- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came to the rescue! As they continued Bush's wars in the Middle East and expanded the war zone to include Libya, Syria and then all of Africa, they sweetened "humanitarian war" with a heaping dose of cool-coated "Responsibility to Protect." Once again, American goodness and innocence made the medicine go down and our wars raged on.

Obama restored legitimacy to the empire so effectively that it took years for the illegal, immoral, racist and "unwinnable" wars to reveal themselves to the public. I was told by one of the leaders of About Face: Veterans Against War that they almost had to close shop after Obama was elected because their donor base dried up. Obama's hope was our dope. Just as the daze was finally lifting, Trump started to take the mask off.

Is The Mask Off?

Today's we face an empire with the mask half off. Trump's doctrine -- "We are not nation-building again, we are killing terrorists." -- is a revealing take on military trends that began with the first US – Afghan War (1978-1992). US leaders gave up nation-building and opted for failed states and political chaos instead of the strong states that nation-building, or its illusion, required. The US military began to rely on mercenaries and terrorists to replace the American citizen-soldier. The soldier revolt of the Vietnam Era already proved that everyday Americans were an unreliable force to achieve imperial ambitions.

Nothing rips the mask off of the humanitarian justifications better than the actual experience of combat in a war for oil and power -- so the war managers tried to reduce combat exposure to a few. And they succeeded. The number of official US troops abroad reached a 60-year low by 2017 . Even still a new resistance movement of veterans is gathering steam .

Can the mask be put back on? It's hard to say, because as The Nation reports, Americans from a wide spectrum of political positions are tired of perpetual war.

Can the "Green New Military" Put The Mask Back On?

The recycled imperial justifications of the past are losing their power: Manifest Destiny, White Mans' Burden, leader of the free world, nation-building, humanitarian war, war against terrorism, responsibility to protect -- what's next? If only the military could be seen as saviors once again.

A last-ditch effort to postpone the collapse of the liberal versions of war stories might just be the " Green New Military ." Elizabeth Warren's policy claims, "Our military can help lead the fight in combating climate change. " It's a wild claim that contradicts all evidence unless she is also calling for an end to regime-change wars, the New Cold War and the scaling down of our foreign bases. Instead, Warren is all about combat readiness. She did not invent this -- the Pentagon had already embraced the new rhetoric . Given that the Working Families Party and some influential progressives have already signaled their willingness to accept Warren as a candidate, she might just silence dissent as effectively as Obama once did.

But, the lie is paper-thin: "There is no such thing as a Green War." You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time but you cannot fool mother nature one little bit. War and climate change are deeply connected and ultimately there is no way to hide that.

The New Cold War and More of The Same Old Wars

So far the New Cold War against Russia and China has recycled the anti-communist conspiracy of the old Cold War into the xenophobic conspiracy theory of Russia-gate. Even a trusted tool like Mueller could not make it work as a coherent narrative but no matter -- the US did not skip a beat in building up military bases on Russia's borders .

The media and political attacks on Russia or China or immigrants, or Iran or Syria are likely to continue because propagandists cannot activate the exceptionalist code without an evil enemy. Still, it takes more than evil. An effective war story for the US ruling class must project the liberal ideas of helping, protection, saving and the spread of democracy in order to engineer mass consent to war. Hence the need for "Humanitarian War," "Duty to Protect" or maybe the"Green New Military."

Let anyone propose a retreat from any battlefield and the "humanitarian" war cry will rally the empire's pawns and savior-types. If we practice our exceptionalism religiously -- and religion it is -- then the US empire will never ever pull back from any war at any time. There is always someone for the empire to "protect and save:" from the "Noble Savages" and innocent white settlers of the frontier, to the Vietnamese Catholics, to the women of Afghanistan, to the Kurds of Syria.

We so want to see our wars as a morality play, just as the Puritans did, but the empire is all about power and profit.

"War is the Continuation of Politics by Other Means." -- Carl von Clausewitz

All the Big Brass study Clausewitz because he is the founder of western military science -- but they are so blinded by the dilemmas of empire that they make a mess of his central teaching: War is politics.

None of the war narratives and none of the wars can solve the most important question of politics: governance . Who will govern the colonies? The overwhelming verdict of history is this: colonies cannot be democratically or humanely governed as long as they are colonies. Until the empire retreats its heavy hand will rule in places like Afghanistan.

The empire is reaching the limits of exceptionalism as both war narrative and national mythology. This is why our rulers are forced to desperate measures: perpetual war, occupation, intense propaganda campaigns like Russia-gate, the reliance on mercenaries and terrorists, and the abuse and betrayal of their own soldiers.

Just as damning to the war machine is the collapse of conventional ideas about victory and defeat. The US military can no longer "win." The question of victory is important on a deep cultural level. According to the original mythology, the outcome of wars waged by "the chosen people" are an indication of God's favor or disfavor. In modern terms, defeat delegitimizes the state. Endless war is no substitute for "victory."

But it's not military victory we want. Our victory will be in ending war, dismantling the empire, abolishing the vast militarized penal system and stopping irreparable climate chaos. Our resistance will create a new narrative but it can only be written when millions of people become the authors of their own history.

The empire is slipping into decline and chaos – one way or another. Will we be actors deciding the fate of the American Empire or will it's collapse dictate our fate? But these wars will, sooner or later, become the graveyard of empire -- or else America is truly exceptional and we really are God's chosen people.

[Oct 10, 2019] There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect: he is a war criminal, who escaped justice

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
Oct 09, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

EMichael , October 09, 2019 at 04:05 PM

Despicable. She is actually saying Bush's actions were just a difference of opinion, as opposed to causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.

I have never watched anything she has ever done without thinking about it. Now I will never watch anything she does because of her imbecility.

Nobody Should Be Friends With George W. Bush by Sarah Jones

"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.

George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:

And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has many deaths on his conscience:

Here's the money quote from her apologia:

"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be kind to everyone."

This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days.

Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:

There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong, and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion, I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency has to die.

DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/ellen-degeneres-is-wrong-about-george-w-bush.html

... ... ...

...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.

Tulsi Gabbard
‏Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago

.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha, & work together for the people.

There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.

[Oct 10, 2019] There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect: he is a war criminal, who escaped justice

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
Oct 09, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

EMichael , October 09, 2019 at 04:05 PM

Despicable. She is actually saying Bush's actions were just a difference of opinion, as opposed to causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.

I have never watched anything she has ever done without thinking about it. Now I will never watch anything she does because of her imbecility.

Nobody Should Be Friends With George W. Bush by Sarah Jones

"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.

George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:

And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has many deaths on his conscience:

Here's the money quote from her apologia:

"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be kind to everyone."

This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days.

Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:

There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong, and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion, I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency has to die.

DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/ellen-degeneres-is-wrong-about-george-w-bush.html

... ... ...

...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.

Tulsi Gabbard
‏Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago

.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha, & work together for the people.

There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.

[Oct 09, 2019] Mark Ruffalo called out for selective outrage over tweet shaming Ellen Degeneres and George Bush's war crimes

Notable quotes:
"... "Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted. ..."
"... While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for which Bush is condemned today. ..."
"... From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan, establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria – Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner. ..."
"... *Nobel Peace Drones™ ..."
"... "Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions," ..."
Oct 09, 2019 | www.rt.com

Actor Mark Ruffalo was shredded for double standards after he posted a "callout" tweet assailing George Bush for the sins of the Iraq War, with many netizens noting his aversion to slamming Barack Obama's military adventures. Weighing into a controversy kicked off by TV personality Ellen Degeneres, who came under fire for schmoozing it up with former President George W. Bush at a football game last weekend, Ruffalo insisted no quarter or kindness should be offered to perpetrators of heinous war crimes until they face consequences, including Bush.

"Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted.

Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness. https://t.co/dpMwfck6su

-- Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) October 9, 2019

While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for which Bush is condemned today.

Claiming Bush is some monster while worshipping Obama even though they did the same things abroad🤔

-- Dave Weber (@Dave_Weber86) October 9, 2019

Bush and Obama bro! They're both war criminals!!

-- Dodgers High Correspondent (@42o_Bandit) October 9, 2019

From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan, establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria – Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

*Nobel Peace Drones™

-- Fuzzy Chimp (@fuzzychimpcom) October 9, 2019

Obama must be brought to justice for his drone strikes that killed thousands of civilians.

-- ed (@eleventy17) October 9, 2019

"Woke Twitter, [including] Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call outs," one user observed, noting the several occasions former first lady Michelle Obama posed affectionately with Bush without facing a similar wave of outrage from figures like Ruffalo.

People ripping Jameela Jamil and the celebs in these screenshots but it was tumbleweed 101 when Michelle Obama was getting regular sweeties fixes from George W. Bush & going above and beyond duty in friendly optics. Woke Twitter, incl Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call outs. pic.twitter.com/snNYZEbAWM

-- Independent Thinker (@ThinkIndep) October 9, 2019

It's funny how Mark Ruffalo can criticize Ellen, who was an actual person affected by Bush's ignorance, but not a peep about Michelle Obama who admits to having a special FRIENDSHIP with GW. https://t.co/9UM1BP8GpY

-- Anthony Joseph (@Anthony45525826) October 9, 2019

Another commenter seconded Ruffalo's views on Bush, but encouraged the actor to take his criticism further, applying the same humanitarian standard evenly, regardless of the party in power.

"Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions," the user said.

The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush. However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over.

Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions

The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush

However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over

-- HeroAssange (@HeroAssange) October 9, 2019

100% on Bush. You forgot to add Obama & Clinton though. No reason to root for justice against one war criminal, while giving a free pass to others. It makes it partisan, rather than ethical.

-- Life Coach (@jimlyons3000) October 9, 2019

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

[Oct 09, 2019] Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental hubris. When it comes to tallying up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who sold the war don t particularly matter.

Oct 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

oldman22 , 08 October 2019 at 07:15 PM

I did not vote for Trump, or for Hillary, but I firmly agree with analysis of Bacevich here:


> Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental hubris. When it comes to tallying up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include thousands of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands of non-Americans killed or injured; millions displaced; trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and in its case even formed inside a US prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it has yet to recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
> The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the administration of President Bill Clinton and continued by his successor. Deregulating the banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet, as a direct result of the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment shot up to 10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock market cratered and millions saw their life savings evaporate. Again, the question must be asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?


https://outline.com/x8vgFL

[Oct 08, 2019] Are There Israelis in the U.S. Government by Philip Giraldi

Looks like Us politicians adopted the stance: if you can't win against Israel lobby, join... And yea we should talk about Zionists as a flavor of far right nationalism, nit about Jews, per se. The latter smells with anti-Semitism as it accuses the ethnic group as a whole. Which is not only false, but also self-defeating stance: Russophobia is "politically correct" anti-Semitism in the USA.
Notable quotes:
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
"... I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun; Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge. ..."
"... I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. ..."
"... Mandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade. ..."
Oct 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Given Israel's clearly demonstrated ability to manipulate and manage American government at all levels, there is inevitably considerable speculation about the presence of actual Israeli citizens in the federal and state bureaucracies. Very often, lists that appear on the internet focus on Jewish legislators, but in reality, few of them are likely to have Israeli citizenship even if they regularly exhibit what amounts to "dual loyalty" sympathy for the Jewish state. Nevertheless, Jews who are Zionists are vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the Middle East.

There are, of course, some Jews who flaunt their identification with Israel, to include current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who describes himself as "protector" of Israel and former Senator Frank Lautenberg, frequently referred to as "Israel's Senator." One might also include Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff and mayor of Chicago, who reportedly served as a volunteer in the Israeli Army, and Doug Feith, who caused so much mischief from his perch at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Feith had a law office in Jerusalem, suggesting that he might have obtained Israeli citizenship.

To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their star to the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing. One only has to observe in action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and perhaps the most revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for office proclaiming that he would be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States. After being elected he traveled to Jerusalem with a large entourage of Zionist supporters to hold the first meeting of the Florida state government cabinet. According to some authorities in Florida, the meeting was supposed to be held in the state capitol Tallahassee and was therefore illegal, but DeSantis was undaunted and made clear to observers where his loyalty lies.

Part of the problem is that Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon application by any Jew and once obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the Israeli government. Nor is there anything equating to a list of citizens, so it is possible to be an Israeli citizen while also holding American citizenship and no one would be the wiser. As the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and American.

Having dual nationality only a real issue when the policies of one citizenship conflict with the other, and that is precisely where the problem comes in with Israeli dual nationals in the United States, particularly if they wind up in the government. Frank Lautenberg, for example, was responsible for the "Lautenberg amendment" of 1990 which brought many thousands of Russian Jews into the United States as refugees, even though they were not in any danger and were therefore ineligible for that status. As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided housing, subsistence and educational benefits.

Some other current officials in the government who may or may not have dual nationality and are in policy making positions might include U.S. (sic) Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and the recently resigned international negotiator Jason Greenblatt. Both have long histories of pro-Israel advocacy to include supporting illegal settlements on the West Bank. And there is also someone named Jared Kushner, whose ties to Israel are so close that Benjamin Netanyahu once slept in his father and mother's apartment. If the metric to judge the actions – and loyalty – of these individuals is their willingness to place American interests ahead of those of Israel, they all would fail the test.

That said, there was one individual dual national who truly stood out when it came to serving Israeli interests from inside the United States government. She might be worthy of the nickname "Queen of Sanctions" because she was the Department of the Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI), who handed the punishment out and had her hand on the throttle to crank the pain up. She is our own, unfortunately, and also Israel's own Sigal Pearl Mandelker, and is its wonderful to be able to say that she finally resigned last week!

OFTI's website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats," but it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel's perceived interests. Grant Smith notes how "the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons complex."

To be sure, sanctions have been the key weapon in the ongoing unending war against perceived "enemies" like Russia and Venezuela, but they have been laid on most promiscuously in the case of Iran, Israel's number one enemy du jour, which has also been demonized by Washington even though it is no threat to the United States. And it should be recognized that sanctions are not a bloodless exercise used to pressure a recalcitrant government. They disproportionately affect the poor and powerless, who starve and are denied access to medicines, but they rarely have any impact on those who run the government. Five-hundred thousand Iraqi children died from sanctions imposed by President Bill Clinton and his vulturine Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Currently, Iranians and Venezuelans are dying, by some estimates in their tens of thousands.

Once on a sanctions list administered by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) , there is no actual appeal process and no getting off the hook unless Mandelker said so. And anyone who has any contact with the sanctioned entity can be in for trouble, including American citizens who will find themselves no longer having rights to free speech and association. The terms for violation of sanctions used by OFAC are "transaction" and "dealing in transactions," broadly construed to include not only monetary dealings or exchanges, but also "providing any sort of service" and "non-monetary service," including giving a presentation at a conference or speaking or writing in support of a sanctioned group or individual.

OFAC has a broad mandate to punish anyone who has anything to do with any Iranian group or even any individual as Iran is considered a country that is "comprehensively sanctioned." To cite just one example of how indiscriminately the sanctions regime works, Max Blumenthal has described how the FBI recently, acting under Mandelker's orders, warned a number of Americans who had planned on speaking at an Iranian organized conference in Beirut that they might be arrested upon their return.

Mandelker was born in Israel and largely educated in the United States. She is predictably a lawyer. She has never stated how many citizenships she holds while repeated inquiries as to whether she retains her Israeli citizenship have been ignored by the Treasury Department. It is not clear how she managed to obtain a security clearance given her evident affinity to a foreign country. The position that she held until last Wednesday was created in 2004 by George W. Bush and is something of a "no Gentiles need apply" fiefdom. Its officials travel regularly on the taxpayer's dime to Israel for consultations and also collaborate with pro-Israel organizations like AIPAC, WINEP and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). Mandelker's predecessor was Adam Szubin and he was preceded by David Cohen and, before that, by the office's founder Stuart Levey, who is currently Group Legal Manager and Group Managing Director for global bank HSBC. Since its creation, OFTI has not surprisingly focused on what might be described as Israel's enemies, most notably among them being Iran.

Mandelker was clear about her role, citing her personal and business relationship with "our great partner, Israel." Referring to sanctions on Iran, she has said that "Bad actors need money to do bad things. That is why we have this massive sanctions regime Every time we apply that pressure, that crunch on them, we deny them the ability to get that kind of revenue, we make the world a safer place." In support of the pain she is inflicting to no real purpose other than to force complete Iranian capitulation, she cites alleged Iranian misdeeds, foremost of which is its alleged threatening of Israel. She also condemns Iran's support for Syria's Bashar al-Assad, who she claims has killed his own people with chemical weapons, an assertion that has proven to be untrue.

Mandelker touted her personal history as a claimed child of the seemingly ubiquitous "holocaust survivors." In a speech at the Holocaust Museum in April she claimed that her parents went underground in Eastern Europe: "They were hiding underground, in forests, in ditches and under haystacks. I grew up hearing their stories, including about moments of great courage, some of which resulted in survival and others that ended in death."

To be sure, Mandelker and her predecessors have been going after Iran's money since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, constantly devising new restrictions and rules to make it hard for Tehran to do business with any other country. In 2006 Levey's office began to focus on cutting off Iran from the global financial system. Currently the Trump administration is applying what it describes as "maximum pressure" in seeking to sink Iran's economy by blocking all oil exports. Since May, any country buying Iranian oil has been vulnerable to secondary sanctions by Washington, all set up and choreographed by Mandelker.

That Mandelker and company have been engaging in economic warfare with a country with which the United States is not at war seems to have escaped the notice of the media and Washington's chattering class, not surprisingly as Israel is a beneficiary of the policy. And the fact that the way sanctions are being enforced against American citizens is clearly unconstitutional has also slipped by the usual watchdogs. Sigal Mandelker was a prime example of why anyone who is either an actual dual national or plausibly possesses dual loyalty should not hold high office in the United States government and is a blessing that she is gone, though one imagines she will be replaced by another Zionist fanatic. If anyone wonders why Israel gets away with what it does the simple answer would be that there are just too many people at the federal level who think that serving Israel is the same as serving the United States. That is just not so and it is past time that the American public should wake up to that fact.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Greg Bacon , says: Website October 8, 2019 at 12:28 am GMT

As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided housing, subsistence and educational benefits.

Including free Social Security, even though they never paid any money into that fund.

And it's not merely thousands, but hundreds and hundreds of thousands, all living off the generosity of the American taxpayer. But Shhh, don't say anything, why that would be anti-Semitic!

Talk about welfare Queens.

Those covered by the Lautenberg Amendment are eligible for Special Cash Assistance and for Federal Public Assistance Programs including, but not limited to, Social Security, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

CRS statistics indicate that over 370,000 refugees were admitted from the Former Soviet Union in the first ten years of the Lautenberg Amendment. In October 2002 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that "The Lautenberg Amendment allowed some 350,000 to 400,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union to gain entry into the United States without having to prove they were individually persecuted." In 2010 the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society cited Eric Rubin, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow stating that the amendment had resulted in almost 440,000 refugees from the former Soviet Union and other regions of the world.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/06/the-lautenberg-amendment/

I'm sure Wolf Blitzer of Rachael Madcow will cover this theft soon.

renfro , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:33 am GMT
*Eric Alterman made extended remarks in 2009 at the 92d Y, celebrating his dual loyalty:

"You know, one of the touchiest words you can say when you're discussing Jews and Israel is the word dual loyalty. It's sort of one of those words that American Jewish officialdom has ruled out of the discourse. If you say dual loyalty, you're playing into the hands of anti-semites, because it's been a consistent trope among anti-Semites that you can't trust Jews. etc. etc. And I find this very confusing because I was raised dually loyal my whole life. When I went to Hebrew school, the content of my Hebrew school was all about supporting Israel. When my parents who I think are here tonight sent me to Israel when I was 14, on a ZOA [Zionist Organization of America]-sponsored trip it was drummed into me that I should do what's best for Israel.
I was at the Center for Jewish History not long ago where I heard Ruth Wisse, the Yiddishist professor at Harvard instruct a group of young Jewish journalists that they should think of themselves as members of the Israeli army.
I am a dual loyal Jew and sometimes I'm going to actually go with Israel, because the United States can take an awful lot of hits and come up standing. Whereas if Israel takes one serious bad hit it could disappear. So there's going to be some cases where when Israel and the United States conflict I'm going to support what's best for Israel rather than what I think is best for the United States.
Then-editor of the Forward Jane Eisner: Can you imagine a time where you would feel that dual loyalty and go with Israel?
Alterman: I just said, there are many occasions.
Eisner: Can you give us an example?
Alterman: I think that bin Laden and 9/11 were to some degree inspired by U.S. support of Israel. I think a great deal of the terrorist attacks and the sort of pool of potential terrorists who want to attack the United States are inspired by the United States support for Israel. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Israel for that reason. I'm saying, Dammit if that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it. I'm just saying Let's be honest about it.".>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Just think that what Alterman said is not condemned ..he suffers nothing for admitting that he is basically a traitor who would sacrifice Americans for the Jewish state.

Unbelievable ..staggers the mind how this kind of Jew treason is so accepted in America ..just staggering.

How did this kind of treason come to be O.K. for the Jews?
It came from this kind of treason .. Nancy Pelosi Addressing AIPAC in December of last year:

"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are.""

If there was a terrorist out there worth a damn he would be bombing congress instead of Wal-Mart's.

Oscar Peterson , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT
@renfro It's true. They're utterly disgusting.
Jon Baptist , says: October 8, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT

If there was a terrorist out there worth a damn he would be bombing congress instead of Wal-Mart's

This is the key observation.

"ISIS once 'apologized' to Israel for attacking IDF soldiers – former Defense Minister" –
https://www.rt.com/news/386027-isis-apologized-israel-golan/

"'You can assume that these terrorists are fighting for Israel. If they aren't part of the regular Israeli army, they're fighting for Israel. Israel has common goals with Turkey, the United States, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries,' Assad was quoted by Ynet" – https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4946010,00.html

Greg Bacon , says: Website October 8, 2019 at 6:23 am GMT

Dammit if that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it

Altermann is being slippery here, saying HE would be willing to pay the price of some neoCONs or Zionists dragging the USA into another war for Israel.

What he should of said is that as a member of the Jewish dominated MSM, they are more than willing to trick, deceive, bamboozle and pull us by our Star of David shaped nose ring into endless wars for the glory of Apartheid Israel and if you disagree, why you're just a mouth breathing, knuckle-dragging anti-Semite.

Dmitry , says: October 8, 2019 at 6:28 am GMT

obtained virtually automatically upon application

^ Just nonsense.

They need to live for 3 months in Israel (after attaining the correct visa) to attain the citizenship, or a year of living in Israel for the passport (unless they changed this recently or accelerated it).

What you are confused with is obtaining the repatriation visa and the temporary card. The visa they can issue before people arrive in Israel, and the temporary identity card at the airport. But those are only useful if you will live for the following months in Israel.

Ludwig Watzal , says: Website October 8, 2019 at 7:12 am GMT
I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun; Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge.
JR , says: October 8, 2019 at 7:18 am GMT
"current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who describes himself as "protector" of Israel "

FARA registration?

Tom Welsh , says: October 8, 2019 at 7:59 am GMT
"As the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and American".

Although I have not checked recently, I am fairly sure that is not the whole story by any means.

It is quite true that ordinary citizens can go a lifetime with dual nationality and feel no pain. I am one such, as my parents were British by birth but I was born in Argentina. Like the USA, Argentina grants nationality to everyone born there (or, perhaps more accurately, claims such people as its citizens).

However I think you will find that US law forbids anyone with dual US-anything nationality to serve as an officer (or perhaps in any rank) in the other nation's armed forces, or to accept political office in the other nation's government. There may well be other restrictions.

The exceptions I have pointed out are very relevant indeed to the dual US-Israeli citizens mentioned in the article, as many of them have served in the Israeli armed forces. Indeed is that not compulsory for any Israeli citizen resident in Israel)? Some of them have also held political office, had civil service jobs, etc.

For such people to remain anonymous is a scandal and, frankly, a serious national security risk for the USA.

Tom Welsh , says: October 8, 2019 at 8:03 am GMT
"Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon application by any Jew and once obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the Israeli government".

Neat and effective. "It's a kopeck to get in, but a ruble to get out".

Tom Welsh , says: October 8, 2019 at 8:08 am GMT
'OFTI's website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats" '

Doesn't the US government mind this office setting itself up against the power of Washington?

Illicit use of funds – check.
Rogue nation – check.
Terrorist facilitators – check in CAPITAL LETTERS. (Also actual terrorists).
WMD – check. (No other nation's government still maintains nuclear, chemical and biological weapons).
Money launderers – Hell, Washington is the world's biggest counterfeiter.
Drug kingpins – check, although that is mostly delegated to the CIA.
Other national security threats – check, Washington is a national security threat to every other nation in the world except Israel.

Realist , says: October 8, 2019 at 10:32 am GMT

To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their star to the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing.

It can only be career enhancing if whites allow it.

One only has to observe in action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and perhaps the most revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for office proclaiming that he would be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States.

With the exception of Nikki Haley, who was appointed by an elected official, the other two were elected by the majority white electorate. Jews have inordinate power in our country because whites allow it.

To be clear any problems caused by Jews are the result of white insouciance.

alexander , says: October 8, 2019 at 10:46 am GMT
@renfro Dear Phil,

I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008.

If it is true, then she,like Alexander Acosta, is guilty of breaking the law by entering into judgement a plea deal without first notifying the plaintiffs of what that deal was, and whether or not it met to their satisfaction.

The fact that it was MORE important to Mandelker to reward a child rapist/ pedophile with a super sweet, totally cush deal , than to seek justice for his numerous victims , indicates , with extreme clarity , she has no business working in our treasury department, let alone our OFAC.

Individuals, who breach our laws and rules of ethics to ensure pedophiles and child rapists are free to roam our streets, have no business working in the United States Government, in any capacity.

The fact that both Mendaker AND Acosta were given prominent positions of power , with the full awareness of their actions by those who appointed them, is very, very troubling.

It is simply NOT acceptable to the American People that there may be pedophiles and/or child rapists serving within, and/ or influencing , our representative bodies.

The fact there has been no investigation into any of this, as well as Mandelkers connection, is an absolute disgrace.

It seems to me, that until all the facts are clear, President Trump should order a "clean sweep protocol" As soon as possible.

Child rapists , and their enablers , belong in only one place .and that is Federal Prison. .

It is not just a matter of ethics it is a matter of National Security.

mark green , says: October 8, 2019 at 11:14 am GMT
Excellent article. Important subject.

Zionists have thoroughly infiltrated and compromised the US Treasury. This is news. Watch it be ignored.

Crypto-Israelis have captured (and partly converted) a US Federal agency for the purpose of crippling the economies of any state that interferes with the far-flung agenda of global Zionism. Their duplicitous mission borders on treason.

Using American resources to target Israel's far-away foes has nothing to do with advancing the interests of the American people. To the contrary. It damages us economically and strategically. It also undermines us domestically since these actions allow a foreign-based faction to seize and exploit US power for its own nefarious ends.

Crypto-Zionist penetration of Washington is a backdoor assault on US sovereignty. We are being parasitized.

Incredibly, Israeli influence over Washington has become so embedded that's it's now taken for granted by Jews and acquiescing gentiles alike. Success in Washington now requires one to A) fully understand (and respect) Jewish privilege, while B) never transgressing upon the taboos that protect this indomitable group.

Indeed, just examining the range and depth of Jewish power in America is a forbidden topic (except by Jewish scholars for a Jewish audience).

But for the rest of us, just noticing Jewish power is a risky enterprise. (So say nothing.)

Officially, there's no such thing. Only Jewish victims.

Hapless Americans are confused. For Diaspora Jews however these artful deceptions constitute a familiar gameplan. Organized Jewish subversion dates back to ancient Persia. Jews celebrate it. (See: Purim)

Today, Israeli operatives are all over Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood and beyond. And they're not the least bit ashamed about it. No siree. It's what they do.

Activist Jews are deeply committed to weaving Israel's economic and political needs into the very fabric of American life. They are succeeding.

When Zio-America's corrupt, bloodthirsty, and over-extended empire finally collapses, Diaspora Jews can simply cash in their chips and migrate to Israel. America's demise will mark a new chapter in their glorious, wandering, drama-filled history.

Unfortunately, we goyim are expected to go down with the American ship.

Richard B , says: October 8, 2019 at 11:23 am GMT
@Grigor That's exactly right! They should not be recognized.

What should be recognized is the fact that no American could seriously think of a single thing Israel has ever done for us.

We could think of a lot of things they've done TO us.

Now THAT's something that should be recognized.

They've corrupted our Congress.
They've subborned our Citizens.
They've looted our Treasury.
They've sold our secrets to China and Russia.
They've attacked our military (USS Liberty)
They've attacked our country (September 11th, 2001)

I could go on but I'd never finish.

Either way, you get the idea.

Just as Iran is no threat to the US, Israel is no benefit to the US.

Israel is a Terror State working with its Dual Citizens to Destroy America. Period!

By the way, if Mueller really wanted to bust someone for collusion he could arrest the entire US Congress after its next AIPAC meeting.

He could contact CNN and organize a live feed of Congress coming out of the hotel holding their AIPAC checks.

geokat62 , says: October 8, 2019 at 11:45 am GMT
@renfro

To see just how 'entitled' the Jewish State thinks it is read these two articles. They are aflame over Trump decision not to interfere in the Turkey Kurd dispute on the Turkey Syrian border.

Speaking of aflame, I would recommend a third. It's an article by Yossi Alpher, who is a former Mossad official and former director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

Concluding paragraphs from, What Trump's Withdrawal From Syria Means For The Kurds – And For Israel :

At the end of the day, there are two basic lessons here for Israel and its supporters. For anyone who has entertained doubts about the need for a state for the Jewish people, the Kurds represent a tragic reminder. They are consistently being abandoned to an ugly fate because they don't have a country.

The second lesson is that Israel cannot and must not depend on Trump. The cries of alarm in Israel in recent days about a looming security threat do not only reflect lessons drawn from Iran's (or one of its proxy's) spectacular attack on Saudi Arabia's energy infrastructure. The alarms also reflect concern over the precedent set by Trump's refusal to get involved militarily after Washington's Saudi ally was the victim of naked aggression from Iran.

From that standpoint, America abandoning the Syrian Kurds is just icing on the cake of Trump's Middle East non-strategy.

https://forward.com/opinion/432783/what-trumps-withdrawal-from-syria-means-for-the-kurds-and-for-israel/

lysias , says: October 8, 2019 at 12:06 pm GMT
@alexander Mandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade.

[Oct 08, 2019] ISIS once 'apologized' to Israel for attacking IDF soldiers former Israel Defense Minister"

Oct 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jon Baptist , says: October 8, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT

If there was a terrorist out there worth a damn he would be bombing congress instead of Wal-Mart's

This is the key observation.

"ISIS once 'apologized' to Israel for attacking IDF soldiers – former Defense Minister" –
https://www.rt.com/news/386027-isis-apologized-israel-golan/

"'You can assume that these terrorists are fighting for Israel. If they aren't part of the regular Israeli army, they're fighting for Israel. Israel has common goals with Turkey, the United States, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries,' Assad was quoted by Ynet" – https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4946010,00.html

[Oct 08, 2019] Syria - Trump Gives A Green Light For Another Turkish Invasion

Oct 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Turkey wants to replace those Kurds with the Syrian mob that it armed and supported against the Syrian government troops. These people and their families currently live in Turkey. To move them into north Syria would be one of the largest ethnic cleansing operation the world has seen in recent times.

A saying goes "The Kurds have no friends but the mountains." But there are no mountains in Syria's north east. While the YPG might want to fight off a Turkish invasion they have little chance to succeed. The land is flat and the YPG forces only have light arms.

There is only one solution for them. They will have to call up the Syrian government and ask it to come back into the north east. That would remove the Turkish concerns and would likely prevent further Turkish moves.

[Oct 08, 2019] The Ugly Results of an Absurd Syria Policy

Oct 08, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

By Daniel LarisonOctober 7, 2019, 12:23 PM

Trump has opened the door to a Turkish incursion into Syria:

Donald Trump has given the green light to a contentious Turkish military operation in north-east Syria against the main US allies in the battle with Isis, triggering alarm in Washington and Europe and plunging the campaign against jihadis into uncertainty.

The US has started withdrawing troops from the vicinity of a looming Turkish incursion, following Mr Trump's phone call with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, on Sunday night.

The White House said the US military, which has about 1,000 troops in Syria, would not "support or be involved in the operation" that Turkey has repeatedly threatened to launch against US-backed Kurdish militias. In a statement, it said US forces would "no longer be in the immediate area".

Removing U.S. forces from the area avoids having them caught up in the Turkish military operation. Unless the U.S. was prepared to oppose Turkey and defend the YPG, it's not clear what purpose would be served by keeping those forces where they were. Our absurd Syria policy has put us in the untenable position of trying to keep the peace between mutually hostile "allies" for years, and eventually the U.S. was going to have to choose which "ally" it was going to side with. It is worth remembering that Turkey is a treaty ally and the YPG is at most a proxy that has proven to be useful over the last few years. If the U.S. is going to favor one or the other, it was never likely that our government would take the side of the YPG over Turkey.

This dilemma wouldn't exist if the U.S. hadn't been waging an illegal war in Syria for the past five years, and this should teach us to think very carefully about whether we should support armed groups in a conflict where we have few clear interests. The U.S. has a long history of supporting and then discarding armed proxies, and this will keep repeating itself as long as the U.S. gets involved in unnecessary wars that it will sooner or later quit. The solution isn't to use U.S. forces as a buffer with no end in sight, as quite a few critics of this decision seem to want, but to refrain from sending U.S. forces into conflicts that don't matter for U.S. security in the first place. Eventually our forces are going to leave places on the other side of the planet, and it is unrealistic and unfair to make promises of a more enduring commitment that everyone has to know won't be kept.

Having said all that, the administration has handled all this very poorly. Like almost every Trump decision, the decision was made hastily and without coordinating with any of the people that would be affected by it. It isn't clear that all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Syria anytime soon, so it is possible that the illegal deployment there will continue somewhere else. And it wouldn't be a Trump foreign policy decision if it didn't involve making insane threats about destroying a country if its government does something he doesn't like:

me title=

Trump clearly wants to have things both ways, but it won't work. He is obviously wrong to threaten to "destroy and obliterate" the Turkish economy, and the language in his statement is deranged. Anyone who refers to his own "great and unmatched wisdom" obviously doesn't have any wisdom to speak of, and it shows in this unhinged threat. For one thing, the threat isn't likely to deter Erdogan from ordering an attack on Kurdish forces. The Turkish government sees the YPG as part of an intolerable threat, and they aren't going to be coerced into changing their position on that. Following through on the threat would mean inflicting punishment on the people of Turkey for something their government has done, which would both inflame hostility to the U.S. and harm tens of millions of people without achieving anything.

These are all the ugly results of an absurd Syria policy and an illegal war that Trump escalated when he came into office. It should serve as a warning to future administrations about the pitfalls of involving the U.S. in wars we don't need to fight and throwing our support behind "allies" that we will eventually leave in the lurch.

Update: The movement of U.S. forces is just a redeployment inside Syria:

US troops are *not* leaving Syria and will simply be moved out of area Turkey may attack, senior administration official says. Number moving is 50 special operators.

Rep. Justin Amash says it best:

He's not bringing home the troops. He's not ending any war. Stop falling for it.

Shakes_McQueen 13 hours ago

"...if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!)."

WHO SAYS THIS?

Forget the self-aggrandizing wording, which is beyond satire... Turkey are a treaty ally! He's casually musing and threatening, in public, about "obliterating" the economy of a treat ally!

It's going to be fascinating to see what the American history books have to say about this time we are living through.

JSC2397 12 hours ago
BTW, just as background: apparently Trump's threat to "destroy and obliterate" the Turkish economy relates to a massive fine the US is "entitled" to assess on some Turkish interests regarding a huge money-laundering scheme to evade financial sanctions on dealing with Iran. Which fine we have not yet officially levied out of the goodness of our hearts...

[Oct 07, 2019] When it comes to US foreign policy, the unchallenged world record holders for 'second chances' and 'failing upward' are America's neoconservatives.

Oct 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Replying to @BrankoMilan

"When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, the unchallenged world record holders for 'second chances' and 'failing upward' are America's neoconservatives.", Stephen Walt

Actually, many of them should have been considered candidates for war criminals. "Waging the war of agression" was part of the Nuremberg trials. This was the media called euphemistically "the war of choice"!

"When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, the unchallenged world record holders for 'second chances' and 'failing upward' are America's neoconservatives. Beginning in the mid-1990s, this influential network of hard-line pundits, journalists, think tank analysts, and government officials developed, purveyed, and promoted an expansive vision of American power as a positive force in world affairs.

They conceived and sold the idea of invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein and insisted that this bold move would enable the United States to transform much of the Middle East into a sea of pro-American democracies.

What has become of the brilliant strategists who led the nation into such a disastrous debacle? None of their rosy visions have come to pass, and if holding people to account were a guiding principle inside the foreign policy community, these individuals would now be marginal figures commanding roughly the same influence that Charles Lindbergh enjoyed after making naive and somewhat sympathetic statements about Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.",

Walt, S. (2018). The Hell of good intentions: America's foreign policy elite and the decline of US primacy. Straus and Giroux, p. 190.

anne , October 06, 2019 at 07:20 PM

https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1180792968598474752

Branko Milanovic‏ @BrankoMilan

You would have thought that these cheerleaders of invasion of Iraq and violation of the UN charter would have run far, far away so that we never hear from them again--but no, they are back explaining the world for us and making money doing that.

[ Milanovic was referring to a new column in Project Syndicate that I was confused by before I noticed this reference to the column. Among the points of Milanovic, we find the same self-defeating foreign policy being pushed by the same elite opinion-makers who hurt us so much by taking us to war in Iraq and beyond.

I am thinking this through. ]

[Oct 02, 2019] The Self-Set Impeachment Trap naked capitalism

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment? ..."
"... One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike. ..."
"... Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time for the election. Buckle up, indeed. ..."
"... The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger" ..."
"... The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent, but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. ..."
"... Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were ratting on the CIA. ..."
"... I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed. The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't. ..."
"... And Pelosi, when asked by the CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" ..."
"... There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have to look no further than her constituency, the donor class. ..."
"... Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's harmful acts to date. ..."
"... Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever, brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous. ..."
"... In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected. ..."
"... Once is the intra-elite competition between the intelligence community and Trump. ..."
"... Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue town than any other candidates. ..."
"... I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it. ..."
"... The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks, of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism. One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct about the "Noise" part. ..."
"... The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses, more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has supported those policies in the past. ..."
"... Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political, which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against. ..."
"... And not a word about Clinton approving arms sales while Secretary of State and accepting gifts to their foundation? ..."
"... What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch. ..."
"... That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in office. ..."
"... Yes, Pelosi put the Intelligence Committee (Schiff) in charge, as opposed to the Judiciary Committee (Nadler). Odd. ..."
"... Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family! Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits. ..."
"... Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! ..."
"... Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later normalized and rationalized all this, of course.) ..."
"... In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for losing. ..."
"... Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than ever? ..."
"... It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves, that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway ..."
"... a world in which it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment. ..."
"... Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings will happen behind closed doors. ..."
"... Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the republicans or Trump (other than bombast). ..."
"... Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. ..."
"... As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership. His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the cause. ..."
"... Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence, halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged in US media? ..."
"... I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere. ..."
"... Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter ..."
"... Here, Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or political refuge. ..."
"... The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama. ..."
"... Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of the lies. Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful, prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME. ..."
"... I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to watch that theater live on a 60 inch screen. ..."
Oct 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"We've got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden," said Biden's brother James according to this Politico story about how the Biden family cashes in on their well-placed relative.

... ... ...

If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment?

Two traps for a party that much of the nation depends on to rid them of the man the last election elevated to power. Two reasons for independent voters -- those not Party loyalists, not blue-no-matter-who, not Never-Trumpers, voters who never turn out for elections or rarely do -- to not turn out for this one, when their voice and vote is needed most in this greatest of watershed years .

What's decided now, in this year and the next, will set the course of the nation and the world for a dozen years to come -- or a dozen millennia if the chaos predicted by the most pessimistic among us takes root and grows. After all, social and political chaos is a breeding ground for authoritarian "solutions." We don't need any of those, and this may be the last electoral chance to avoid them.

Acacia , October 2, 2019 at 5:02 am

To reiterate a comment in the recent Water Cooler (this article is a better forum):

One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike.

dcrane , October 2, 2019 at 5:20 am

Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time for the election. Buckle up, indeed.

Acacia , October 2, 2019 at 7:46 am

Yes, I've been wondering this also. The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger", as @InquiringMind put it during the latest Water Cooler.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 9:03 am

A recent decision was made by the intelligence organs to allow reporting of second-hand information and be titled a whistleblower for your efforts. it is acceptable to spy (which this is an example of, since it is not whistleblowing) and listen to conversations saying they heard this or that was happening, report that through legal channels, and have it accepted BECAUSE IT APPEALS POLITICALLY to the agency or the particular representative.

The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent, but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. We're getting wise – not completely, not with any assuredness that our info is complete, but enough to cause tremendous doubt and distrust of the messaging coming from government and media propagandists.

To me, the danger of this period is exactly the lack of organized opposition, politically at home and among the nations of the globe, to this onslaught and flooding of the ears with lies that become real due to that repetition. We are not united, and the convenient and quick answers are flawed. The Communist Party was deeply flawed, and the International a craven defender of Stalin, but we could certainly use some organization similar to fight this neocon cancer now, before it metastisizes into worse, if that is possible. That being said, impatience drives tribal thinking, already invading academia and the few public intellectuals existing. I await the working classes hitting their limit. Buckle up, indeed

Acacia , October 2, 2019 at 10:00 am

Thanks for this comment. Agree completely.

Strategies are badly needed to dislodge people from duopolistic and partisan groupthink.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 12:05 pm

Hey, I'm not posing an answer, and see fear of one everywhere, so don't thank me. There is a inchoate and diffuse anger brewing "out there", but it does not reflect our measured, rather moderate knowledge of crime and abuse of power we observe daily. It will, given the money and influence of the right wing, push over to such violent reaction it will make the 1930s seem like a birthday party. The left, or what is loosely left of it, badly needs discipline and structure, but its traditional organs have been rent asunder and are not trustworthy.

A thinktank? New party? Dunno it has to have room to grow, and our secret-sauce parties and intel outfits have "six ways from Sunday" to mess with any of it. Clarity of political thought seems to come from crisis and being cornered, but that clarity is not guaranteed to be "healthy", babies going with the bath water-wise. Bernie is a short-term stopgap to the bleeding IF he can wrap his mind around the movement and an understanding of the immediate threats to its existence- i.e., the DNC.

marym , October 2, 2019 at 10:56 am

Regarding the first sentence of your comment: The requirements of the law never changed, the whistleblower used an old form anyway, and the recently changed form has been replaced.

WaPo :

In any case, the IG's process for handling whistleblower allegations is determined not by a form but by the law and related policy documents. The key document, ICD 120, has been virtually unchanged since 2014. Contrary to the speculation, the whistleblower used the 2018 form, not the new online form. The IG then investigated and found that his allegations were credible and that Congress should be notified.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 12:16 pm

Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were ratting on the CIA. This hearsay would be laughed out of a court of law absent other proof. Further, I think we can dismiss the IG investigation as being anything not pressured by establishment types threatened by Trump's vendetta against Obama and his wing of the neo-lib global corporation, as it promises to open the can of worms that both parties are united in foreign policy and who we deal with, and that unity spills over into McCarthy-like reaction to any unpredictability and unreliability such as Trump's. We can't "get him" on his real crimes, as that would leave all "them guys" exposed.

polecat , October 2, 2019 at 1:50 pm

I'll bet that whistling 'blowviator' is a THEY !

.. as in a 'composite' entity manufactured by the C•I•A committee to de-elect the president.

JohnH , October 2, 2019 at 11:01 am

I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed. The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't.

And Pelosi, when asked by the CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" It will be extremely interesting to see how much influence the CIA has over Republican Senators who will be casting decisive votes. Thirty-three Republicans Senators will be excused and given cover. Is there a thirty-fourth with the cojones to vote against removal and against the CIA's efforts to impose a color revolution on American soil?

Peter Moritz , October 2, 2019 at 11:52 am

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/30/john-kiriakou-what-was-this-cia-officer-thinking/

Big River Bandido , October 2, 2019 at 6:25 am

If this is really about 2020 then Democrats are even more stupid than I'm inclined to believe. Krystal Ball said this morning that only 35% of the public supports impeachment. All this effort will do is rile up Trump supporters. I recall what happened in the 1998 midterms after the Clinton impeachment. There's every reason to believe this will turn around and bite the Democrats in 2020.

Pelosi and Schumer are fine with that. If Democrats were to actually win, they'd have to govern, and they can't do that.

epynonymous , October 2, 2019 at 1:57 pm

You'd think the Clintons would remember just how little impeachment did to them

Michael , October 2, 2019 at 10:18 am

The question of "why now" haunts me, too.

There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have to look no further than her constituency, the donor class.

From their perspective there has been too many uncomfortable policy debates, including climate change, occurring on the campaign trail. As with Russiagate all of these discussions will vanish from the corporate media.

Also, some of the donors have stated they will not donate to the Dems, and may in fact donate to Trump, if Warren gets nominated.

Finally, purely for display of party unity, protecting Joe Biden, even if it brings him down will have value. Also, this specific charge will not bring up any of other former "suits" illegal actions.

Inasmuch as polling showing the combined popularity of Sanders and Warren exceed 30% while Biden is down to 19%, if you can end with a inconclusive first round of voting at the Democratic Convention, you can bring in the Supers and name the person of your choice.

lyman alpha blob , October 2, 2019 at 1:46 pm

As to the question of 'why now?', my guess is because the 'resistance' types see the writing on the wall that they are going to lose with anybody but Sanders as the candidate, and they aren't about to allow Sanders to win. RussiaRussiaRussia, porn stars, and everything else they tried didn't work and they've got nothing else that would give the public at large something to vote for .

As to that writing on the wall, I will offer some very anecdotal evidence, but I found it telling. A few days ago I went to a rural county fair. Now granted these fairs likely attract a more conservative crowd, however this particular fair was in the most liberal county in the state. Took a look at the exhibition hall at the fair, full of quilts, 4th grade artwork, canned tomatoes, etc. as well as booths for both the Republican and Democrat parties.

At the Democrat party booth, they had put out poster boards with a list of issues and you were supposed to put a little round sticker next to the issue you felt was most important. Boring policy wonk stuff. I don't even remember if anyone was manning the booth when we stopped by, but if they were they made no attempt whatsoever to speak with us. My wife put one sticker on a poster and walked away and we were the only people there at the time. In fairness, clearly there had been people there earlier since there were a lot of stickers stuck to posters.

At the Republican booth, there were a number of people in line engaging with those manning the booth. And rather than just pining little stickers on a poster, the Republicans were handing out Trump 2020 swag and letting people get photos with a big Trump cutout. IDoing fun stuff. Walking around the fair later I saw one of the few Hispanics in attendance (this is a very white county in an extremely white state) sporting a Trump 2020 tote bag as he and his wife walked through the fair.

If I were to base a prediction on the evidence alone, I would say Trump and the Elephants are going to hand the Asses their asses in 2020 and they can feel it coming.

I really don't see how this doesn't blow up in their faces, but they've got nothing else.

PKMKII , October 2, 2019 at 1:33 pm

This is my feeling on it. It's the Democrats' Benghazi, a string of congressional hearings designed to produce dirt on Trump to sink him in the election. Actual impeachment and removal is nahgunnahappen, as that requires 67 senators, which would require all Democrats in the Senate, both independents, and 20 Republicans . It would be a minor miracle if five Republicans signed onto impeachment.

However, with dirt slinging as the only useful outcome possible, it shows how incompetent Pelosi is by limiting the inquiry to just the Ukraine business. The damning dirt could come in any form out of any corner of Trump's ongoings, so why would you limit the dirt digging to something that, on the face of it, doesn't scream it went any deeper than Trump's implication. Especially as it didn't happen that long ago.

The Rev Kev , October 2, 2019 at 5:26 am

God, this is so stupid. Look, perhaps it is because I live in a different continent or I have a twisted turn of mind but I am seeing something completely different at work here. Is Trump Corrupt? Of course he is but in a completely ham-fisted way that makes it blatantly obvious. With Trump you always have low expectations. But Thomas Neuburger talks about ICE deaths, Puerto Rico, the Muslim ban but so what? Obama was guilty of far worse but no Democrats will criticize him for any of it. An example? If you cover up an international war crime such as torture, that is an international crime too and Obama definitely covered up for the CIA tortures and "looked forward". And one ramification for that was the US now having a ex-torturer as head of the CIA.

So here is my take. The past few months Americans were finally having subjects like healthcare and college debt forgiveness getting some air time and some serious traction. The Democrat candidates were being forced to give answers on their positions on such ideas. But now? The Democrats have introduced impeachment which has all the success prospects of Russiagate. Expect copious amounts of verbal diarrhea in the next few months which will allow for no time for discussion of subjects like healthcare anymore. The DNC will shout down anyone trying to do so by shouting "Impeachment!". And when the elections rock around in a year's time and there is finally some minor space to start talking about such subjects, the DNC will tell progressives "You know, you should have really brought this up in 2019 while there was time to talk about it. Your bad."

dcrane , October 2, 2019 at 5:33 am

Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's harmful acts to date.

John Wright , October 2, 2019 at 12:05 pm

I tell people that Trump is a minor league con man because so many people assert that he is a con man

Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever, brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous.

In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected.

Obama is in a con man league of his own, as he benefits from the left's form of Obama Derangement Syndrome.

John k , October 2, 2019 at 1:37 pm

Best comment.

Interesting that attacking trump on this is attacking Biden did dem elites give up on him? don't see how he can survive, which seems to open the field for Warren sanders if so, not what donors want, pelosi musta been forced by blue dogs cia.

Maybe good for sanders he needs rest, the stents will require recovery msm can't focus away from impeach to celebrate his health problems
How long? Say one month?

Hopefully the dems great white hope Biden will be down and out by primaries Bernie might find help in the south this time where it was a wall last time

Ca dem elites don't want Bernie, but electorate doesn't want Kamala

And Tulsi back on stage with her useful to focus on wars.

Steve H. , October 2, 2019 at 6:09 am

I think this vectors the right direction, Rev Kev. White noise to drown out clearly articulated messages. If any of this were about actual evidence, Binney would've been called to undercut the Crowdstrike assertions.

There are a couple of things that seem real. Once is the intra-elite competition between the intelligence community and Trump. Epstein cracked a door and some light got through. Trump seems to have taken the standard operating procedures personally.

Despite this, Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue town than any other candidates.

The endgame comes with the primaries. Sander's campaign income has a verisimilitude with greater weight than the polls. Even polls which aren't specifically rigged can't cope with modern communications. The problem is, with electronic vote-flipping on top of old-school methods, unless the paper ballots get in (which is against status quo interests), how can it be made clear the vote is being rigged? Could public gatherings outside the polling places be enough to offer an alternative count?

Plus, Sanders has set himself up as TINA. He has not spread his wealth of four decades of credibility to anyone else. No Hindu is getting the Oval, so Gabbard is a gadfly, not an option. Trump and the top three Democratic candidates could all actually die of old age.

The only thing I'd actually put a bet on in all this is that Trump will not be removed from office via impeachment.

Big River Bandido , October 2, 2019 at 6:28 am

I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 6:41 am

"Not enough people care about it."

The real determinate is which people 'care' about it. The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks, of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism. One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct about the "Noise" part.

Big River Bandido , October 2, 2019 at 7:42 am

According to Ball in the "Rising" video, the percentage of people who support impeachment is 35%. That pretty much covers all the "partisan hacks" you refer to.

To the average voter? This is just noise and nonsense. Regardless of how impeachment ends (and one doesn't have to be a genius to figure out that it will go nowhere), the concerns and the anger of average voters are not going away.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 9:10 am

Aye, but, can someone effectively harness that anger to a coherent ideology, much less a set of policies?

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 2:04 pm

Ditto, Ambrit- a rational response bestride the not caring noise.

The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses, more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has supported those policies in the past.

Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political, which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against.

Whatever it is, I'm agin it

inode_buddha , October 2, 2019 at 12:37 pm

And not a word about Clinton approving arms sales while Secretary of State and accepting gifts to their foundation?

petal , October 2, 2019 at 12:58 pm

None, of course! Go figure. It was hard being there. Was surrounded by full-on TDS from all speakers to the crowd.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm

Right now, probably true. However, we've been victim to propaganda many times before – WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc.etc. We have an apparatus that has honed its abilities to reach millions immediately through TV, press, video, websites, that puts former agit-prop to shame. We have been swarmed with the same message, basically allowing those caught in lies previously to suddenly be believed today, "because"

The truth of any proposition comes down to its provenance and our ability to get tired of the repetition and cacophony surrounding us, thus surrendering the ground. If enough believe the initial message, if enough see their bread buttered by it, then the rest of us are prone to that surrender unless an outside agency we CAN rely on exists.

It is sad to say that "not caring" becomes a positive. 50% of the voting public does not vote, and most who vote do not care if their vote is even counted properly. Do not care equals no democracy at all.

notabanker , October 2, 2019 at 6:48 am

Agreed, most disappointing post. As if Congress, or past admins have no culpability, all Trump, therefore impeachment, sigh.

inode_buddha , October 2, 2019 at 3:01 pm

What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch.

EoH , October 2, 2019 at 5:27 am

Perhaps Ms. Pelosi's caucus finally made her do what she despises doing. That it should benefit her party leadership's choice to replace Donald Trump is, of course, coincidental.

There's still the nit that there's been no congressional vote authorizing her impeachment inquiry, which will keep the process in the courts and delay proceedings longer than necessary.

Ms. Pelosi's actions bring to mind the contradictory naval order, proceed with all deliberate speed. It is a sign that the admirals acknowledge the necessity of doing something, but tell their commanders it's on them if it goes South.

That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in office.

Lambert Strether , October 2, 2019 at 5:28 am

> That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff

Yes, Pelosi put the Intelligence Committee (Schiff) in charge, as opposed to the Judiciary Committee (Nadler). Odd.

KM in California , October 2, 2019 at 11:43 am

California is the vanguard of the "Resistance" to Trump. Pelosi is from California, as is Schiff. Two of the Intelligence Committee members are also from California (Jackie Speier and Eric Swalwell) as the LA Times pointed out a few days ago (" California to play an outsize role in impeachment inquiry of Trump "). This is probably why the whole impeachment inquiry is centered in the Intelligence committee and not the Judiciary.

Various Obama officials live or work in California. For example, Eric Holder was hired by the California Legislature to fight Trump. David Plouffe, who works with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative among other Silicon Valley groups, is helping a liberal group called ACRONYM with anti-Trump digital messaging.

Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family! Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits.

Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! The Wash Post even had a fantasy piece about "President Pelosi" just a few days ago.

smoker , October 2, 2019 at 3:27 pm

Thanks for that, saved me a bit of rushed commenting because I was going to quickly comment on it before I noticed you had already.

California has 6 of the 24 members of the House Intelligence Committee: 4 of those 6 members hold 100% of Democratic (Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff) and Republican (Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes) leadership roles; there are 4 out of 14 in the total Democratic membership, and 2 out of 10 in the Republican membership.

Also, Californian members make up 100% of the House membership of the Gang of Eight, , 2 Democratic and 2 Republican: respectively, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff; and Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes.

And lastly, both California Senators Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris (despite her newbiness), are on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the only State to have both Senators as members.

As a decades long California resident, what sickens me the most about this is California legislators (overwhelmingly Democratic Party, but may as well be Republican given the stunning inequality/austerity imposed in California) preside over the highest numbers of unsheltered homeless in the country. A full third of California residents have been forced onto Medi-Cal (where millions can't find a treating doctor for the life of them), or don't qualify (despite not being able to afford their rents), yet can't afford any insurance. Concurrently, State Legislators and that duplicitous, slimy creep Newsom just signed off on an Obama inspired California Healthcare Mandate Penalty , although there were crickets at California's Franchise Tax Board when it came to following the IRS in going after Facebook's stunning and blatant 2010 Ireland Asset transfers Tax evasion (to the tune of billions now, and next to impossible to determine what the current status of it is), they would much rather go after their increasingly impoverished populace who can't afford a CPA, let alone an attorney.

Lambert Strether , October 2, 2019 at 5:27 am

> In other words, the rightness of impeachment was never a consideration for Democratic Party leaders.

Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later normalized and rationalized all this, of course.)

So one would not have expected principle or the "rule of law" or any of those other shibboleths to enter into the liberal Democrat decision-making process. It never does.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 6:25 am

Wow. Just wow. The Woo is strong with this one.

This person starts out with an establishing remark that convicts Trump, and goes on from there. Unlike a true impeachment process, no 'real' groundwork is laid down. Furthermore, by half-heartedly mentioning "issues" with the Pelosi formulation, in effect, that Biden is just as bad as Trump, the author lays the groundwork for the 'impeachment' of both Party's "main" candidates. The piece reminds me of the logic of the Alice in Wonderland trial: "Sentence first – verdict afterwards." All this, my cynical sensibility reminds me, sotto voice, for an insane Queen.

Impeachment has always been a political process. After all, it is a function of the Congress, the prototype of politics. To take the authors buttressing point, that the 'essence' of impeachment should be the pure logic of the deeds in question casts the entire process of impeachment in the light of virtue signalling. How else would a disinterested observer characterize a process where the process itself is not initiated with the anticipation of a useful outcome? In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for losing.

This piece, if any, shows plainly the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American political process today. The two "leading" candidates of the "rival" Partys are both delineated to be frauds, figuratively and literally. Turning the mentioning of the earlier English Parliamentary 'version' of impeachment on, as it were, it's head, one is lead to consider that only something as all encompassing and determinative as an actual bloodletting will be of any use to the Nation.

Be very careful what you ask for. You might get it.

Ook , October 2, 2019 at 6:31 am

"Impeachment is the Constitution's version of the English Civil War, minus the war."

It could be argued that getting rid of a Prime Minister via a vote of no confidence is orders of magnitude simpler than impeachment. In fact, it seems to happen about every ten or twenty years on average in the UK. And no civil war required either.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 6:36 am

The best analogue of today with then is that the English Civil War did not just remove the Royalist leadership of the time, but an entire generation of Royalists. Does America really want a twenty year interregnum?

Anarcissie , October 2, 2019 at 10:37 am

We are already in the Interregnum. Trump was 'none of the above'. People talked about a 'clown car' and then Trump showed that a clown could actually accede to power, insofar as a clown can manage the role. The Democrats responded with a clown show of their own. It's a circus, although the clowns are pretty malign. Maybe people like that. Meanwhile, serious people with serious political proposals, like Sanders, are on the outside looking in. Someone's going to have to break a window.

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 6:50 am

Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than ever?

All I can think of is that the Clinton derangement syndrome – the bitterness and perceived injustice that the anointed one didn't get anointed – still has an iron grip on the psyche of the DC Daristocrats. They're stone drunk on hatred, spite, and lust for revenge and are hallucinating in broad daylight that they've got the hook to sell it.

I like the idea that this is all a clever ruse to keep the focus away from sanity in health care etc., but it just doesn't look like they have that much sense. From the UK to the the US, everyone's going nuts.

tegnost , October 2, 2019 at 9:06 am

I bet it's good for fund raising, those I know who are most embarrassed by trump have a fair amount of money and currently they are very excited. Whatever it is, it's not bernie (or should I say &@cking bernie), it's not M4A, and it's not student loans, as commented on above this line

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 10:05 am

It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves, that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway

There is a huge amount of pressure from the public to get rid of Trump any way possible and a lot of that, ironically, has been manufactured by the democrats themselves. That, I suspect, combined with Hillary syndrome, is more what's behind this than the criminal, but lucid, plan to obscure the popularity of programs benefiting the public.

inode_buddha , October 2, 2019 at 3:19 pm

Perhaps you should go back and re-read the last 5 years of commentary then -- there's been plenty of substance offered by those who are just as powerless as you.

John A , October 2, 2019 at 7:08 am

Imagine Trump were to overthrow Maduro in a coup. He installs his puppet Guido who immediately gives Ivanka a seat on the board of a Venezuelan oil company at 50K a month, or more. Would the Democrats be screaming 'nothing to see here' in that scenario?

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 7:57 am

It's not clear the Democrats would notice any impropriety. What would be tearing them apart is that they didn't get a seat at the trough (on the board) as well.

NotTimothyGeithner , October 2, 2019 at 8:27 am

Yes. In that case. Kicking foreign brown people is bipartisan. Schiff would organize Trump's ticker tape parade in that case.

Mattski , October 2, 2019 at 7:21 am

I would say 'Joe Biden's son's integrity' and 'the dubious right-wing Democratic Party CIA-led arms sales-drive policy in the Ukraine.'

I don't think that Biden himself is particularly corrupt; the guy really is a terrible hack. And I don't think legal corruption is necessarily what's at issue, but a world in which it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment.

The wider context–villifying Russia, cleaning up Ukraine enough to justify consorting with fascists and the far-right to keep all the balls in the air, needs to be exposed.

voteforno6 , October 2, 2019 at 7:54 am

There is a right way to do impeachment, and this ain't it. They could investigate the Trump administrator for its rampant corruption – it's a very target-rich environment. Instead, Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings will happen behind closed doors.

So, they think that they're going to remove the duly elected President behind closed doors, and they think the population will be okay with this? Do they really live in such a bubble that they think people trust their judgment enough to do this? It boggles the mind.

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 8:25 am

Do they really live in such a bubble[ ]

Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the republicans or Trump (other than bombast).

Also, just a thought, having this discussion behind closed doors makes sense if Pelosi is hoping they will come to their senses.

As to the right or wrong way to do impeachment, I think the democrats like the republicans are simply beyond that or any notion of it other than the residue of dim memory that ends up entirely as the decorative part in public speeches. I suspect they are quite simply oblivious to such niceties as anything being wrong with using impeachment as a weapon rather than as a means for justice.

NotTimothyGeithner , October 2, 2019 at 8:42 am

I'm pretty sure Pelosi doesn't want it and wanted to repeat her 2007 play, but she doesn't have 2008 certainty to offer (keep the powder dry I know but this was what that was about).

Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. The people who missed brunch aren't exactly rationale or going to have this explained to them behind closed doors. Pelosi has been slowly losing with the caucus, but most of the members are terrible and vulnerable to an AOC-esque challenge especially in safe seats which most of the seats are. Again without theven #resistance, safe seat Team Blue types are very vulnerable.

marym , October 2, 2019 at 9:09 am

Thank you, I agree with this perspective.

Adding that, imo, the rank and file voters did the work of electing Democrats to a House majority, motivated partly by Clinton revenge, but also by policy issues. There's been noticeable dismay in the corners of twitter where I wander at Pelosi's taking so long to act, the inept performances of the few hearings so far, and now the proposed narrow focus.

ptb , October 2, 2019 at 8:02 am

my take is they're never actually going to pass articles of impeachment, which would hand the process over to McConnell in the Senate. It will stay in the House and they will attempt to nab Trump or perhaps one of his sidekicks like Giuliani on obstruction of the House investigation. This is by now a fairly transparent strategy, and we will find out what the elusive PA swing voter thinks of it soon enough.

As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership. His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the cause.

Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence, halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged in US media?

I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere.

ptb , October 2, 2019 at 8:09 am

correction – investigating the company, not prosecuting the son.

LowellHIghlander , October 2, 2019 at 10:53 am

Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter.

Here, Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or political refuge.

Wasn't the power to go to war exclusively reserved for Congress, to try to make sure that the country wouldn't go to war on a lark? And wasn't the Bill of Rights enshrined to make sure that the U.S. Government could not put people to death, at least without due process?

I realize that this might mean that Congress would have had to impeach presidents left and right. So be it; enlisted women and men can be severely punished for killing innocent people (and for far less, such as disobeying orders). Why should presidents and vice-presidents escape responsibility for high crimes of unjustifiable homicide (and, I must add, countenancing torture)?

Seamus Padraig , October 2, 2019 at 1:06 pm

The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama.

John k , October 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm

Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of the lies. Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful, prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME.

Levi Tate , October 2, 2019 at 1:35 pm

Has it already happened?

Is this the last desperation Hail Mary by the Democratic Party and the National Security State to save themselves?

Has it already happened?

I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to watch that theater live on a 60 inch screen.

Roy G , October 2, 2019 at 3:38 pm

Well, if 'centrist' Lanny Davis sees no problem with Hunter Biden's business that really settles it, doesn't it? /sarcasm #emeraldcityethics

[Oct 02, 2019] The Self-Set Impeachment Trap naked capitalism

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment? ..."
"... One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike. ..."
"... Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time for the election. Buckle up, indeed. ..."
"... The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger" ..."
"... The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent, but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. ..."
"... Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were ratting on the CIA. ..."
"... I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed. The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't. ..."
"... And Pelosi, when asked by the CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" ..."
"... There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have to look no further than her constituency, the donor class. ..."
"... Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's harmful acts to date. ..."
"... Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever, brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous. ..."
"... In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected. ..."
"... Once is the intra-elite competition between the intelligence community and Trump. ..."
"... Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue town than any other candidates. ..."
"... I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it. ..."
"... The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks, of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism. One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct about the "Noise" part. ..."
"... The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses, more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has supported those policies in the past. ..."
"... Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political, which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against. ..."
"... And not a word about Clinton approving arms sales while Secretary of State and accepting gifts to their foundation? ..."
"... What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch. ..."
"... That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in office. ..."
"... Yes, Pelosi put the Intelligence Committee (Schiff) in charge, as opposed to the Judiciary Committee (Nadler). Odd. ..."
"... Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family! Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits. ..."
"... Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! ..."
"... Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later normalized and rationalized all this, of course.) ..."
"... In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for losing. ..."
"... Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than ever? ..."
"... It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves, that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway ..."
"... a world in which it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment. ..."
"... Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings will happen behind closed doors. ..."
"... Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the republicans or Trump (other than bombast). ..."
"... Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. ..."
"... As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership. His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the cause. ..."
"... Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence, halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged in US media? ..."
"... I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere. ..."
"... Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter ..."
"... Here, Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or political refuge. ..."
"... The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama. ..."
"... Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of the lies. Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful, prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME. ..."
"... I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to watch that theater live on a 60 inch screen. ..."
Oct 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"We've got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden," said Biden's brother James according to this Politico story about how the Biden family cashes in on their well-placed relative.

... ... ...

If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment?

Two traps for a party that much of the nation depends on to rid them of the man the last election elevated to power. Two reasons for independent voters -- those not Party loyalists, not blue-no-matter-who, not Never-Trumpers, voters who never turn out for elections or rarely do -- to not turn out for this one, when their voice and vote is needed most in this greatest of watershed years .

What's decided now, in this year and the next, will set the course of the nation and the world for a dozen years to come -- or a dozen millennia if the chaos predicted by the most pessimistic among us takes root and grows. After all, social and political chaos is a breeding ground for authoritarian "solutions." We don't need any of those, and this may be the last electoral chance to avoid them.

Acacia , October 2, 2019 at 5:02 am

To reiterate a comment in the recent Water Cooler (this article is a better forum):

One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike.

dcrane , October 2, 2019 at 5:20 am

Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time for the election. Buckle up, indeed.

Acacia , October 2, 2019 at 7:46 am

Yes, I've been wondering this also. The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger", as @InquiringMind put it during the latest Water Cooler.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 9:03 am

A recent decision was made by the intelligence organs to allow reporting of second-hand information and be titled a whistleblower for your efforts. it is acceptable to spy (which this is an example of, since it is not whistleblowing) and listen to conversations saying they heard this or that was happening, report that through legal channels, and have it accepted BECAUSE IT APPEALS POLITICALLY to the agency or the particular representative.

The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent, but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. We're getting wise – not completely, not with any assuredness that our info is complete, but enough to cause tremendous doubt and distrust of the messaging coming from government and media propagandists.

To me, the danger of this period is exactly the lack of organized opposition, politically at home and among the nations of the globe, to this onslaught and flooding of the ears with lies that become real due to that repetition. We are not united, and the convenient and quick answers are flawed. The Communist Party was deeply flawed, and the International a craven defender of Stalin, but we could certainly use some organization similar to fight this neocon cancer now, before it metastisizes into worse, if that is possible. That being said, impatience drives tribal thinking, already invading academia and the few public intellectuals existing. I await the working classes hitting their limit. Buckle up, indeed

Acacia , October 2, 2019 at 10:00 am

Thanks for this comment. Agree completely.

Strategies are badly needed to dislodge people from duopolistic and partisan groupthink.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 12:05 pm

Hey, I'm not posing an answer, and see fear of one everywhere, so don't thank me. There is a inchoate and diffuse anger brewing "out there", but it does not reflect our measured, rather moderate knowledge of crime and abuse of power we observe daily. It will, given the money and influence of the right wing, push over to such violent reaction it will make the 1930s seem like a birthday party. The left, or what is loosely left of it, badly needs discipline and structure, but its traditional organs have been rent asunder and are not trustworthy.

A thinktank? New party? Dunno it has to have room to grow, and our secret-sauce parties and intel outfits have "six ways from Sunday" to mess with any of it. Clarity of political thought seems to come from crisis and being cornered, but that clarity is not guaranteed to be "healthy", babies going with the bath water-wise. Bernie is a short-term stopgap to the bleeding IF he can wrap his mind around the movement and an understanding of the immediate threats to its existence- i.e., the DNC.

marym , October 2, 2019 at 10:56 am

Regarding the first sentence of your comment: The requirements of the law never changed, the whistleblower used an old form anyway, and the recently changed form has been replaced.

WaPo :

In any case, the IG's process for handling whistleblower allegations is determined not by a form but by the law and related policy documents. The key document, ICD 120, has been virtually unchanged since 2014. Contrary to the speculation, the whistleblower used the 2018 form, not the new online form. The IG then investigated and found that his allegations were credible and that Congress should be notified.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 12:16 pm

Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were ratting on the CIA. This hearsay would be laughed out of a court of law absent other proof. Further, I think we can dismiss the IG investigation as being anything not pressured by establishment types threatened by Trump's vendetta against Obama and his wing of the neo-lib global corporation, as it promises to open the can of worms that both parties are united in foreign policy and who we deal with, and that unity spills over into McCarthy-like reaction to any unpredictability and unreliability such as Trump's. We can't "get him" on his real crimes, as that would leave all "them guys" exposed.

polecat , October 2, 2019 at 1:50 pm

I'll bet that whistling 'blowviator' is a THEY !

.. as in a 'composite' entity manufactured by the C•I•A committee to de-elect the president.

JohnH , October 2, 2019 at 11:01 am

I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed. The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't.

And Pelosi, when asked by the CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" It will be extremely interesting to see how much influence the CIA has over Republican Senators who will be casting decisive votes. Thirty-three Republicans Senators will be excused and given cover. Is there a thirty-fourth with the cojones to vote against removal and against the CIA's efforts to impose a color revolution on American soil?

Peter Moritz , October 2, 2019 at 11:52 am

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/30/john-kiriakou-what-was-this-cia-officer-thinking/

Big River Bandido , October 2, 2019 at 6:25 am

If this is really about 2020 then Democrats are even more stupid than I'm inclined to believe. Krystal Ball said this morning that only 35% of the public supports impeachment. All this effort will do is rile up Trump supporters. I recall what happened in the 1998 midterms after the Clinton impeachment. There's every reason to believe this will turn around and bite the Democrats in 2020.

Pelosi and Schumer are fine with that. If Democrats were to actually win, they'd have to govern, and they can't do that.

epynonymous , October 2, 2019 at 1:57 pm

You'd think the Clintons would remember just how little impeachment did to them

Michael , October 2, 2019 at 10:18 am

The question of "why now" haunts me, too.

There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have to look no further than her constituency, the donor class.

From their perspective there has been too many uncomfortable policy debates, including climate change, occurring on the campaign trail. As with Russiagate all of these discussions will vanish from the corporate media.

Also, some of the donors have stated they will not donate to the Dems, and may in fact donate to Trump, if Warren gets nominated.

Finally, purely for display of party unity, protecting Joe Biden, even if it brings him down will have value. Also, this specific charge will not bring up any of other former "suits" illegal actions.

Inasmuch as polling showing the combined popularity of Sanders and Warren exceed 30% while Biden is down to 19%, if you can end with a inconclusive first round of voting at the Democratic Convention, you can bring in the Supers and name the person of your choice.

lyman alpha blob , October 2, 2019 at 1:46 pm

As to the question of 'why now?', my guess is because the 'resistance' types see the writing on the wall that they are going to lose with anybody but Sanders as the candidate, and they aren't about to allow Sanders to win. RussiaRussiaRussia, porn stars, and everything else they tried didn't work and they've got nothing else that would give the public at large something to vote for .

As to that writing on the wall, I will offer some very anecdotal evidence, but I found it telling. A few days ago I went to a rural county fair. Now granted these fairs likely attract a more conservative crowd, however this particular fair was in the most liberal county in the state. Took a look at the exhibition hall at the fair, full of quilts, 4th grade artwork, canned tomatoes, etc. as well as booths for both the Republican and Democrat parties.

At the Democrat party booth, they had put out poster boards with a list of issues and you were supposed to put a little round sticker next to the issue you felt was most important. Boring policy wonk stuff. I don't even remember if anyone was manning the booth when we stopped by, but if they were they made no attempt whatsoever to speak with us. My wife put one sticker on a poster and walked away and we were the only people there at the time. In fairness, clearly there had been people there earlier since there were a lot of stickers stuck to posters.

At the Republican booth, there were a number of people in line engaging with those manning the booth. And rather than just pining little stickers on a poster, the Republicans were handing out Trump 2020 swag and letting people get photos with a big Trump cutout. IDoing fun stuff. Walking around the fair later I saw one of the few Hispanics in attendance (this is a very white county in an extremely white state) sporting a Trump 2020 tote bag as he and his wife walked through the fair.

If I were to base a prediction on the evidence alone, I would say Trump and the Elephants are going to hand the Asses their asses in 2020 and they can feel it coming.

I really don't see how this doesn't blow up in their faces, but they've got nothing else.

PKMKII , October 2, 2019 at 1:33 pm

This is my feeling on it. It's the Democrats' Benghazi, a string of congressional hearings designed to produce dirt on Trump to sink him in the election. Actual impeachment and removal is nahgunnahappen, as that requires 67 senators, which would require all Democrats in the Senate, both independents, and 20 Republicans . It would be a minor miracle if five Republicans signed onto impeachment.

However, with dirt slinging as the only useful outcome possible, it shows how incompetent Pelosi is by limiting the inquiry to just the Ukraine business. The damning dirt could come in any form out of any corner of Trump's ongoings, so why would you limit the dirt digging to something that, on the face of it, doesn't scream it went any deeper than Trump's implication. Especially as it didn't happen that long ago.

The Rev Kev , October 2, 2019 at 5:26 am

God, this is so stupid. Look, perhaps it is because I live in a different continent or I have a twisted turn of mind but I am seeing something completely different at work here. Is Trump Corrupt? Of course he is but in a completely ham-fisted way that makes it blatantly obvious. With Trump you always have low expectations. But Thomas Neuburger talks about ICE deaths, Puerto Rico, the Muslim ban but so what? Obama was guilty of far worse but no Democrats will criticize him for any of it. An example? If you cover up an international war crime such as torture, that is an international crime too and Obama definitely covered up for the CIA tortures and "looked forward". And one ramification for that was the US now having a ex-torturer as head of the CIA.

So here is my take. The past few months Americans were finally having subjects like healthcare and college debt forgiveness getting some air time and some serious traction. The Democrat candidates were being forced to give answers on their positions on such ideas. But now? The Democrats have introduced impeachment which has all the success prospects of Russiagate. Expect copious amounts of verbal diarrhea in the next few months which will allow for no time for discussion of subjects like healthcare anymore. The DNC will shout down anyone trying to do so by shouting "Impeachment!". And when the elections rock around in a year's time and there is finally some minor space to start talking about such subjects, the DNC will tell progressives "You know, you should have really brought this up in 2019 while there was time to talk about it. Your bad."

dcrane , October 2, 2019 at 5:33 am

Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's harmful acts to date.

John Wright , October 2, 2019 at 12:05 pm

I tell people that Trump is a minor league con man because so many people assert that he is a con man

Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever, brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous.

In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected.

Obama is in a con man league of his own, as he benefits from the left's form of Obama Derangement Syndrome.

John k , October 2, 2019 at 1:37 pm

Best comment.

Interesting that attacking trump on this is attacking Biden did dem elites give up on him? don't see how he can survive, which seems to open the field for Warren sanders if so, not what donors want, pelosi musta been forced by blue dogs cia.

Maybe good for sanders he needs rest, the stents will require recovery msm can't focus away from impeach to celebrate his health problems
How long? Say one month?

Hopefully the dems great white hope Biden will be down and out by primaries Bernie might find help in the south this time where it was a wall last time

Ca dem elites don't want Bernie, but electorate doesn't want Kamala

And Tulsi back on stage with her useful to focus on wars.

Steve H. , October 2, 2019 at 6:09 am

I think this vectors the right direction, Rev Kev. White noise to drown out clearly articulated messages. If any of this were about actual evidence, Binney would've been called to undercut the Crowdstrike assertions.

There are a couple of things that seem real. Once is the intra-elite competition between the intelligence community and Trump. Epstein cracked a door and some light got through. Trump seems to have taken the standard operating procedures personally.

Despite this, Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue town than any other candidates.

The endgame comes with the primaries. Sander's campaign income has a verisimilitude with greater weight than the polls. Even polls which aren't specifically rigged can't cope with modern communications. The problem is, with electronic vote-flipping on top of old-school methods, unless the paper ballots get in (which is against status quo interests), how can it be made clear the vote is being rigged? Could public gatherings outside the polling places be enough to offer an alternative count?

Plus, Sanders has set himself up as TINA. He has not spread his wealth of four decades of credibility to anyone else. No Hindu is getting the Oval, so Gabbard is a gadfly, not an option. Trump and the top three Democratic candidates could all actually die of old age.

The only thing I'd actually put a bet on in all this is that Trump will not be removed from office via impeachment.

Big River Bandido , October 2, 2019 at 6:28 am

I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 6:41 am

"Not enough people care about it."

The real determinate is which people 'care' about it. The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks, of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism. One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct about the "Noise" part.

Big River Bandido , October 2, 2019 at 7:42 am

According to Ball in the "Rising" video, the percentage of people who support impeachment is 35%. That pretty much covers all the "partisan hacks" you refer to.

To the average voter? This is just noise and nonsense. Regardless of how impeachment ends (and one doesn't have to be a genius to figure out that it will go nowhere), the concerns and the anger of average voters are not going away.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 9:10 am

Aye, but, can someone effectively harness that anger to a coherent ideology, much less a set of policies?

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 2:04 pm

Ditto, Ambrit- a rational response bestride the not caring noise.

The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses, more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has supported those policies in the past.

Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political, which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against.

Whatever it is, I'm agin it

inode_buddha , October 2, 2019 at 12:37 pm

And not a word about Clinton approving arms sales while Secretary of State and accepting gifts to their foundation?

petal , October 2, 2019 at 12:58 pm

None, of course! Go figure. It was hard being there. Was surrounded by full-on TDS from all speakers to the crowd.

Mike , October 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm

Right now, probably true. However, we've been victim to propaganda many times before – WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc.etc. We have an apparatus that has honed its abilities to reach millions immediately through TV, press, video, websites, that puts former agit-prop to shame. We have been swarmed with the same message, basically allowing those caught in lies previously to suddenly be believed today, "because"

The truth of any proposition comes down to its provenance and our ability to get tired of the repetition and cacophony surrounding us, thus surrendering the ground. If enough believe the initial message, if enough see their bread buttered by it, then the rest of us are prone to that surrender unless an outside agency we CAN rely on exists.

It is sad to say that "not caring" becomes a positive. 50% of the voting public does not vote, and most who vote do not care if their vote is even counted properly. Do not care equals no democracy at all.

notabanker , October 2, 2019 at 6:48 am

Agreed, most disappointing post. As if Congress, or past admins have no culpability, all Trump, therefore impeachment, sigh.

inode_buddha , October 2, 2019 at 3:01 pm

What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch.

EoH , October 2, 2019 at 5:27 am

Perhaps Ms. Pelosi's caucus finally made her do what she despises doing. That it should benefit her party leadership's choice to replace Donald Trump is, of course, coincidental.

There's still the nit that there's been no congressional vote authorizing her impeachment inquiry, which will keep the process in the courts and delay proceedings longer than necessary.

Ms. Pelosi's actions bring to mind the contradictory naval order, proceed with all deliberate speed. It is a sign that the admirals acknowledge the necessity of doing something, but tell their commanders it's on them if it goes South.

That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in office.

Lambert Strether , October 2, 2019 at 5:28 am

> That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff

Yes, Pelosi put the Intelligence Committee (Schiff) in charge, as opposed to the Judiciary Committee (Nadler). Odd.

KM in California , October 2, 2019 at 11:43 am

California is the vanguard of the "Resistance" to Trump. Pelosi is from California, as is Schiff. Two of the Intelligence Committee members are also from California (Jackie Speier and Eric Swalwell) as the LA Times pointed out a few days ago (" California to play an outsize role in impeachment inquiry of Trump "). This is probably why the whole impeachment inquiry is centered in the Intelligence committee and not the Judiciary.

Various Obama officials live or work in California. For example, Eric Holder was hired by the California Legislature to fight Trump. David Plouffe, who works with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative among other Silicon Valley groups, is helping a liberal group called ACRONYM with anti-Trump digital messaging.

Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family! Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits.

Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! The Wash Post even had a fantasy piece about "President Pelosi" just a few days ago.

smoker , October 2, 2019 at 3:27 pm

Thanks for that, saved me a bit of rushed commenting because I was going to quickly comment on it before I noticed you had already.

California has 6 of the 24 members of the House Intelligence Committee: 4 of those 6 members hold 100% of Democratic (Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff) and Republican (Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes) leadership roles; there are 4 out of 14 in the total Democratic membership, and 2 out of 10 in the Republican membership.

Also, Californian members make up 100% of the House membership of the Gang of Eight, , 2 Democratic and 2 Republican: respectively, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff; and Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes.

And lastly, both California Senators Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris (despite her newbiness), are on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the only State to have both Senators as members.

As a decades long California resident, what sickens me the most about this is California legislators (overwhelmingly Democratic Party, but may as well be Republican given the stunning inequality/austerity imposed in California) preside over the highest numbers of unsheltered homeless in the country. A full third of California residents have been forced onto Medi-Cal (where millions can't find a treating doctor for the life of them), or don't qualify (despite not being able to afford their rents), yet can't afford any insurance. Concurrently, State Legislators and that duplicitous, slimy creep Newsom just signed off on an Obama inspired California Healthcare Mandate Penalty , although there were crickets at California's Franchise Tax Board when it came to following the IRS in going after Facebook's stunning and blatant 2010 Ireland Asset transfers Tax evasion (to the tune of billions now, and next to impossible to determine what the current status of it is), they would much rather go after their increasingly impoverished populace who can't afford a CPA, let alone an attorney.

Lambert Strether , October 2, 2019 at 5:27 am

> In other words, the rightness of impeachment was never a consideration for Democratic Party leaders.

Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later normalized and rationalized all this, of course.)

So one would not have expected principle or the "rule of law" or any of those other shibboleths to enter into the liberal Democrat decision-making process. It never does.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 6:25 am

Wow. Just wow. The Woo is strong with this one.

This person starts out with an establishing remark that convicts Trump, and goes on from there. Unlike a true impeachment process, no 'real' groundwork is laid down. Furthermore, by half-heartedly mentioning "issues" with the Pelosi formulation, in effect, that Biden is just as bad as Trump, the author lays the groundwork for the 'impeachment' of both Party's "main" candidates. The piece reminds me of the logic of the Alice in Wonderland trial: "Sentence first – verdict afterwards." All this, my cynical sensibility reminds me, sotto voice, for an insane Queen.

Impeachment has always been a political process. After all, it is a function of the Congress, the prototype of politics. To take the authors buttressing point, that the 'essence' of impeachment should be the pure logic of the deeds in question casts the entire process of impeachment in the light of virtue signalling. How else would a disinterested observer characterize a process where the process itself is not initiated with the anticipation of a useful outcome? In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for losing.

This piece, if any, shows plainly the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American political process today. The two "leading" candidates of the "rival" Partys are both delineated to be frauds, figuratively and literally. Turning the mentioning of the earlier English Parliamentary 'version' of impeachment on, as it were, it's head, one is lead to consider that only something as all encompassing and determinative as an actual bloodletting will be of any use to the Nation.

Be very careful what you ask for. You might get it.

Ook , October 2, 2019 at 6:31 am

"Impeachment is the Constitution's version of the English Civil War, minus the war."

It could be argued that getting rid of a Prime Minister via a vote of no confidence is orders of magnitude simpler than impeachment. In fact, it seems to happen about every ten or twenty years on average in the UK. And no civil war required either.

ambrit , October 2, 2019 at 6:36 am

The best analogue of today with then is that the English Civil War did not just remove the Royalist leadership of the time, but an entire generation of Royalists. Does America really want a twenty year interregnum?

Anarcissie , October 2, 2019 at 10:37 am

We are already in the Interregnum. Trump was 'none of the above'. People talked about a 'clown car' and then Trump showed that a clown could actually accede to power, insofar as a clown can manage the role. The Democrats responded with a clown show of their own. It's a circus, although the clowns are pretty malign. Maybe people like that. Meanwhile, serious people with serious political proposals, like Sanders, are on the outside looking in. Someone's going to have to break a window.

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 6:50 am

Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than ever?

All I can think of is that the Clinton derangement syndrome – the bitterness and perceived injustice that the anointed one didn't get anointed – still has an iron grip on the psyche of the DC Daristocrats. They're stone drunk on hatred, spite, and lust for revenge and are hallucinating in broad daylight that they've got the hook to sell it.

I like the idea that this is all a clever ruse to keep the focus away from sanity in health care etc., but it just doesn't look like they have that much sense. From the UK to the the US, everyone's going nuts.

tegnost , October 2, 2019 at 9:06 am

I bet it's good for fund raising, those I know who are most embarrassed by trump have a fair amount of money and currently they are very excited. Whatever it is, it's not bernie (or should I say &@cking bernie), it's not M4A, and it's not student loans, as commented on above this line

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 10:05 am

It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves, that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway

There is a huge amount of pressure from the public to get rid of Trump any way possible and a lot of that, ironically, has been manufactured by the democrats themselves. That, I suspect, combined with Hillary syndrome, is more what's behind this than the criminal, but lucid, plan to obscure the popularity of programs benefiting the public.

inode_buddha , October 2, 2019 at 3:19 pm

Perhaps you should go back and re-read the last 5 years of commentary then -- there's been plenty of substance offered by those who are just as powerless as you.

John A , October 2, 2019 at 7:08 am

Imagine Trump were to overthrow Maduro in a coup. He installs his puppet Guido who immediately gives Ivanka a seat on the board of a Venezuelan oil company at 50K a month, or more. Would the Democrats be screaming 'nothing to see here' in that scenario?

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 7:57 am

It's not clear the Democrats would notice any impropriety. What would be tearing them apart is that they didn't get a seat at the trough (on the board) as well.

NotTimothyGeithner , October 2, 2019 at 8:27 am

Yes. In that case. Kicking foreign brown people is bipartisan. Schiff would organize Trump's ticker tape parade in that case.

Mattski , October 2, 2019 at 7:21 am

I would say 'Joe Biden's son's integrity' and 'the dubious right-wing Democratic Party CIA-led arms sales-drive policy in the Ukraine.'

I don't think that Biden himself is particularly corrupt; the guy really is a terrible hack. And I don't think legal corruption is necessarily what's at issue, but a world in which it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment.

The wider context–villifying Russia, cleaning up Ukraine enough to justify consorting with fascists and the far-right to keep all the balls in the air, needs to be exposed.

voteforno6 , October 2, 2019 at 7:54 am

There is a right way to do impeachment, and this ain't it. They could investigate the Trump administrator for its rampant corruption – it's a very target-rich environment. Instead, Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings will happen behind closed doors.

So, they think that they're going to remove the duly elected President behind closed doors, and they think the population will be okay with this? Do they really live in such a bubble that they think people trust their judgment enough to do this? It boggles the mind.

Brooklin Bridge , October 2, 2019 at 8:25 am

Do they really live in such a bubble[ ]

Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the republicans or Trump (other than bombast).

Also, just a thought, having this discussion behind closed doors makes sense if Pelosi is hoping they will come to their senses.

As to the right or wrong way to do impeachment, I think the democrats like the republicans are simply beyond that or any notion of it other than the residue of dim memory that ends up entirely as the decorative part in public speeches. I suspect they are quite simply oblivious to such niceties as anything being wrong with using impeachment as a weapon rather than as a means for justice.

NotTimothyGeithner , October 2, 2019 at 8:42 am

I'm pretty sure Pelosi doesn't want it and wanted to repeat her 2007 play, but she doesn't have 2008 certainty to offer (keep the powder dry I know but this was what that was about).

Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. The people who missed brunch aren't exactly rationale or going to have this explained to them behind closed doors. Pelosi has been slowly losing with the caucus, but most of the members are terrible and vulnerable to an AOC-esque challenge especially in safe seats which most of the seats are. Again without theven #resistance, safe seat Team Blue types are very vulnerable.

marym , October 2, 2019 at 9:09 am

Thank you, I agree with this perspective.

Adding that, imo, the rank and file voters did the work of electing Democrats to a House majority, motivated partly by Clinton revenge, but also by policy issues. There's been noticeable dismay in the corners of twitter where I wander at Pelosi's taking so long to act, the inept performances of the few hearings so far, and now the proposed narrow focus.

ptb , October 2, 2019 at 8:02 am

my take is they're never actually going to pass articles of impeachment, which would hand the process over to McConnell in the Senate. It will stay in the House and they will attempt to nab Trump or perhaps one of his sidekicks like Giuliani on obstruction of the House investigation. This is by now a fairly transparent strategy, and we will find out what the elusive PA swing voter thinks of it soon enough.

As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership. His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the cause.

Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence, halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged in US media?

I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere.

ptb , October 2, 2019 at 8:09 am

correction – investigating the company, not prosecuting the son.

LowellHIghlander , October 2, 2019 at 10:53 am

Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter.

Here, Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or political refuge.

Wasn't the power to go to war exclusively reserved for Congress, to try to make sure that the country wouldn't go to war on a lark? And wasn't the Bill of Rights enshrined to make sure that the U.S. Government could not put people to death, at least without due process?

I realize that this might mean that Congress would have had to impeach presidents left and right. So be it; enlisted women and men can be severely punished for killing innocent people (and for far less, such as disobeying orders). Why should presidents and vice-presidents escape responsibility for high crimes of unjustifiable homicide (and, I must add, countenancing torture)?

Seamus Padraig , October 2, 2019 at 1:06 pm

The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama.

John k , October 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm

Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of the lies. Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful, prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME.

Levi Tate , October 2, 2019 at 1:35 pm

Has it already happened?

Is this the last desperation Hail Mary by the Democratic Party and the National Security State to save themselves?

Has it already happened?

I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to watch that theater live on a 60 inch screen.

Roy G , October 2, 2019 at 3:38 pm

Well, if 'centrist' Lanny Davis sees no problem with Hunter Biden's business that really settles it, doesn't it? /sarcasm #emeraldcityethics

[Sep 30, 2019] Ukraine's most recent popularity among cold warriors started when Bill Clinton decided that NATO should surround Russia. Coincidental with breaking and continuity of certain oligarchs' fortunes. up Serbia.

Sep 30, 2019 | taskandpurpose.com

Ukraine's ethnic problems go back to 1500's.

Ukraine's most recent popularity among cold warriors started when Bill Clinton decided that NATO should surround Russia. Coincidental with breaking and continuity of certain oligarchs' fortunes. up Serbia.

Then the pro West coup in 2014....

Maybe as part of the impeachment the house could go in to what US was doing in Kyiv up to and through the coup.

Note in the article Javelin systems are a foreign military sales case, run by the DoD, "approved" by Depts of Commerce and State.

Javelin, guided anti tank missile system, is not solely a defensive weapon unless you look at U S Grant on Richmond as a defensive campaign...... Reply Monday, September 30, 2019 at 06:50 AM ilsm said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... "Deductive reasoning" within the media message is mob control.

"It ain't what you know... it's what you know that ain't so"#. Keep reading the mainstream media!

Given enough time [and strategy wrt 2020 election] we will get to the bottom of Obama's "criminal influence" on 2016 election.

It takes a lot more to debunk the Biden, Clinton, Nuland, Obama Ukraine drama. To my mind, Ukraine needs to be clean as driven snow* to "earn" javelins to kill Russian speaking rebels.

Why do US from Obama+ fund rebels in Syria (Sunni radicals mainly) and want to send tank killers to suppress rebels where we might get in to the real deal?

# conservatives have been saying that about the 'outrage' started by the MSM for decades.

* not possible given US influenced coup in 2014

+Clinton in Serbia! Reply Monday, September 30, 2019 at 04:59 AM

[Sep 30, 2019] Looks like Trump at odds with rabid neocons in State, CIA and FBI.

Sep 30, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , September 28, 2019 at 07:20 PM

Outraged, I tell you. Outraged!!

Seems that the opposition press wants us to display mob outrage to make Trump foreign policy for him.

The democrats are painting a picture aimed at handcuffing any attempt to determine if the regime in Kyiv [Saudi ARAMCO, UAE,....]is worth tilting world war over.

A novel approach while Trump at odds with the neocon currents in State, CIA and FBI.

It takes a lot more than some good at grammar NYTimes writer to substantiate claims that allegations against the former VP and his son's cushy Ukraine oligarch job are unsubstantiated. That is work for prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The Biden oligarch links go back to before the Obama neocon [Nuland] coup in 2014 when Biden was VP. Out of context is no reason to make a conclusion.

Why I support impeachment. The evidence will be put out and the solicitors will argue on complete evidentiary lines. It is getting to be anything Trump wants to do they find some phony reason to be outraged.

I did a 20 minute telephone poll today. They called me! You can count on one respondent "strongly opposed" to impeachment for trying to get to the bottom of Biden family corruption.

likbez -> ilsm... , September 28, 2019 at 07:38 PM
ilsm,

Good points.

"A novel approach while Trump at odds with the neocon currents in State, CIA and FBI."

No. Nothing new here. This is just Russiagate II. Same actors, same methods.

But it is unclear to me why they even bothered? Trump folded long ago, In April 2017 to be exact. And before impeachment, his chances in 2020 were far from certain. Especially against Warren.

Also Biden should not even be discussed anymore. At this point he is history.

Warren now is the official frontrunner. Which is probably the only good thing emerging out of this CIA-inspired mess.

ilsm -> likbez... , September 29, 2019 at 05:59 AM
The democrats are in the midst (started when Obama ignored the source of the fallacious dossier which started the FISA spying on a campaign) of a strategic blunder. The polling on Ukrainegate show it is libelously political. Democrat respondents largely see it serious, independents are about 40% and GOP about 30%. This nugatory+, political ambush is not playing well to independents!

No one is asking if this nugatory, political ambush the CIA/democrats are using to run a circus in congress is troubling about Biden. As you say Biden is history, as are the democrats' chances in 2020 for every national office.

+U S Grant used the word nugatory in his memoir.

[Sep 29, 2019] Marie L. Yovanovitch blocked visa to the senior prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk

Notable quotes:
"... The senior prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk never got an answer, and he says it's because the visas were blocked by the U.S. Ambassador. The Ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch is a career diplomat (since 1986) who served under both Democratic and Republicans and was appointed to her present position in August 2016 by former President Obama. ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | lidblog.com

Originally from: New Report Indicates Case Against Paul Manafort Is Fruit Of The Poisonous Tree - The Lid by Jeff Dunetz

The FBI knew the Steele dossier was nonsense before they used it to get the FISA court to issue the warrant to begin spying on Carter Page leading to the Russia collusion hoax. John Solomon of The Hill found a second document that the FBI knew contained false information, but they used it to get the search warrant against Paul Manafort anyway.

Per Solomon:

The second document, known as the "black cash ledger," remarkably has escaped the same scrutiny, even though its emergence in Ukraine in the summer of 2016 forced Paul Manafort to resign as Trump's campaign chairman and eventually face U.S. indictment.

Trending: Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) Introduces Motion To Censure Adam Schiff

In search warrant affidavits, the FBI portrayed the ledger as one reason it resurrected a criminal case against Manafort that was dropped in 2014 and needed search warrants in 2017 for bank records to prove he worked for the Russian-backed Party of Regions in Ukraine.

There's just one problem: The FBI's public reliance on the ledger came months after the feds were warned repeatedly that the document couldn't be trusted and likely was a fake, according to documents and more than a dozen interviews with knowledgeable sources.

When the NY Times reported the news about the ledger, they positioned it as a big scandal as they do with almost everything associated with Donald Trump:

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.

( ) The papers, known in Ukraine as the "black ledger," are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev. The room held two safes stuffed with $100 bills, said Taras V. Chornovil, a former party leader who was also a recipient of the money at times. He said in an interview that he had once received $10,000 in a "wad of cash" for a trip to Europe.

Nazar Kholodnytsky, Ukraine's top anti-corruption prosecutor, told John Solomon that he had told his State Dept contacts and FBI agents that his colleagues who found the ledger thought it was bogus around the same time the Times published the story late August 2916.

"It was not to be considered a document of Manafort. It was not authenticated. And at that time it should not be used in any way to bring accusations against anybody," Kholodnytsky said, recalling what he told FBI agents.

This is the second incident of Obama's State Department ignoring Ukraine evidence. Two months ago we learned that senior member of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's International Legal Cooperation Dept. told John Solomon that since last year, he's been blocked from getting visas for himself and a team to go to the U.S. to deliver evidence of Democratic party wrongdoing during the 2016 election to the DOJ. The senior prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk never got an answer, and he says it's because the visas were blocked by the U.S. Ambassador. The Ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch is a career diplomat (since 1986) who served under both Democratic and Republicans and was appointed to her present position in August 2016 by former President Obama.

Solomon gives some more examples of the FBI being told the ledger was as real as a three-dollar bill. But that's when it gets really dicey because according to three of Solomon's sources, Mueller's team of political hitmen and the FBI were given copies of one of the warnings.

Because they knew the ledger was false Mueller and the FBI couldn't use the ledger to establish probable cause to investigate Manafort because it " would require agents to discuss their assessment of the evidence -- and instead cited media reports about it." Even though the feds assisted on one of those stories as sources

For example, agents mentioned the ledger in an affidavit supporting a July 2017 search warrant for Manafort's house, citing it as one of the reasons the FBI resurrected the criminal case against Manafort.

"On August 19, 2016, after public reports regarding connections between Manafort, Ukraine and Russia -- including an alleged 'black ledger' of off-the-book payments from the Party of Regions to Manafort -- Manafort left his post as chairman of the Trump Campaign," the July 25, 2017, FBI agent's affidavit stated.

Three months later, the FBI went further in arguing probable cause for a search warrant for Manafort's bank records, citing a specific article about the ledger as evidence Manafort was paid to perform U.S. lobbying work for the Ukrainians.

"The April 12, 2017, Associated Press article reported that DMI [Manafort's company] records showed at least two payments were made to DMI that correspond to payments in the 'black ledger,' " an FBI agent wrote in a footnote to the affidavit.

Guess who helped the AP with their story -- the DOJ's Andrew Weissmann who later moved to the special prosecutor's office and became Mueller's chief hit-man.

So just as they had done in the anti-Trump investigation "the FBI cited a leak that the government had facilitated and then used it to support the black ledger evidence, even though it had been clearly warned about the document."

Whether or not Paul Manafort deserved to be jailed is irrelevant. Part of the search warrants against him were lies that the prosecutors knew were false. The judgments against him should be tossed out because they contain the fruit of the poisonous tree. Our justice system promises equal justice for all, but the FBI and Special Prosecutor cheated in the case of Manafort.

There is much more to John Solomon's report. I recommend you click here and give it a read.

[Sep 29, 2019] How a Shadow Foreign Policy in Ukraine Prompted an Impeachment Inquiry

This is a classic example of "full of Schiff" jornalism.
Sep 29, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , September 28, 2019 at 03:22 PM

How a Shadow Foreign Policy in Ukraine Prompted
an Impeachment Inquiry https://nyti.ms/2m0n5aY
NYT - Kenneth P. Vogel, Andrew E. Kramer
and David E. Sanger - September 28

WASHINGTON -- Petro O. Poroshenko was still the president of Ukraine earlier this year when his team sought a lifeline. With the polls showing him in clear danger of losing his re-election campaign, some of his associates, eager to hold on to their own jobs and influence, took steps that could have yielded a signal of public support from a vital ally: President Trump.

Over several weeks in March, the office of Ukraine's top prosecutor moved ahead on two investigations of intense interest to Mr. Trump. One was focused on an oligarch -- previously cleared of wrongdoing by the same prosecutor -- whose company employed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son. The other dealt with the release by a separate Ukrainian law enforcement agency to the media of information that hurt Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign.

The actions by the prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, did not come out of thin air. They were the first visible results of a remarkable behind-the-scenes campaign to gather and disseminate political dirt from a foreign country, encouraged by Mr. Trump and carried out by his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani. In the last week their engagement with Ukraine has prompted a formal impeachment inquiry into whether the president courted foreign interference to hurt a leading political rival.

The story of how Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani operated in Ukraine has emerged gradually in recent months. It was laid out in further detail in the past week in a reconstructed transcript of Mr. Trump's phone call this summer with a new Ukrainian president and in a complaint filed by a whistle-blower inside the United States government.

Along with documents and interviews with a wide variety of people in Ukraine and the United States, the latest revelations show that Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani ran what amounted to a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that unfolded against the backdrop of three elections -- this year's vote in Ukraine and the 2016 and 2020 presidential races in the United States.

Despite the findings of United States intelligence agencies and the Justice Department that Russia was responsible for interfering in the 2016 election, Mr. Trump was driven to seek proof that the meddling was linked to Ukraine and forces hostile to him, even fixating on a fringe conspiracy theory suggesting that Hillary Clinton's missing emails might be found there.

Backed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani, who once aspired to be secretary of state, sought to tar Mr. Biden with unsubstantiated accusations of impropriety, while he and associates working with him in Ukraine on the president's agenda pursued their own personal business interests.

With the political landscape scrambled by Mr. Poroshenko's defeat in April and the arrival of a new cast of Ukrainian officials, the approach pursued by Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump undercut official United States diplomacy.

And the signals sent by Mr. Trump -- long skeptical of the strategic value of backing Ukraine against Russia, its menacing neighbor to the east -- complicated efforts by the new Ukrainian government to fortify itself against Moscow.

The intensifying overlap this summer between Mr. Trump's political agenda in Ukraine and his official foreign policy apparatus is now at the center of an impeachment inquiry that will examine whether the president of the United States directed or encouraged his subordinates to lean on a vulnerable ally for personal political gain.

Among the subjects covered in a subpoena sent Friday by House Democrats to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and demands for depositions from American diplomats was Mr. Trump's decision to freeze a $391 million military aid package to Ukraine this summer not long before his July 25 call with Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who defeated Mr. Poroshenko this spring.

Democrats are also looking into the recall in the spring of the United States ambassador to Kiev, Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer who was seen as insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump by some of his conservative allies. On Friday evening, the State Department's special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, abruptly resigned, not long after receiving a summons from House Democrats to sit for a deposition in the coming week.

Mr. Trump has dismissed the impeachment investigation as another "witch hunt."

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Giuliani defended his efforts to push the Ukrainians to investigate Mr. Biden, his son, Hunter Biden, and others. He asserted that he was not doing it to try to influence the 2020 presidential election, though Mr. Biden is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge Mr. Trump.

"I was doing it to dig out information that exculpates my client, which is the role of a defense lawyer," he said.

Mixing Business and Politics

In the months before the steps taken in March on the politically explosive investigations sought by Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani had met at least twice with the man who would become a central figure in his efforts and a target of criticism in both countries: Mr. Lutsenko, 54, Ukraine's top prosecutor.

First at a meeting in New York and later in Warsaw, Mr. Giuliani pushed Mr. Lutsenko for information about -- and investigations into -- a pair of cases of keen interest to his client.

They included the Bidens' activities in Ukraine and the release during the 2016 campaign of incriminating records about Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's campaign chairman. Mr. Giuliani said early this year he had become increasingly convinced that the Manafort records were doctored and disseminated by critics of Mr. Trump to sabotage his campaign, and later used to spur the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

No evidence supports this idea and Mr. Manafort's own retroactive filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act corroborated the Ukrainian documents, which also matched financial records in the United States.

Still, it was not long before Mr. Trump, sensitive to any questions about the legitimacy of his 2016 victory, began echoing Mr. Giuliani's language about what they viewed as the Ukrainian origins of the Russia investigation.

But Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani had also taken a growing interest in the role played by Mr. Biden, as vice president, in the dismissal of a previous Ukrainian prosecutor who had oversight of investigations into an oligarch who had served in a previous Ukrainian government and whose company had employed Hunter Biden. No evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the dismissal of that prosecutor, whose ouster was being sought by other Western governments and institutions concerned about corruption in the Ukrainian government.

In their first meeting, in January, Mr. Lutsenko later told people, Mr. Giuliani called Mr. Trump and excitedly briefed him on the discussions. And once Mr. Lutsenko's office took procedural steps to advance investigations involving the Manafort records and the oligarch linked to Hunter Biden, Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump and their allies aggressively promoted stories about the developments to conservative journalists at home, further turning a foreign government's action to the president's advantage.

"As Russia Collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges," Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter in March, echoing the headline of one of the first such pieces by a Trump-friendly journalist.

Mr. Giuliani had seemed to slide eagerly into his new role. After his hopes of becoming secretary of state were dashed -- in part, former administration officials said, because of his extensive foreign business ties -- he became a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump when the president came under scrutiny by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

Mr. Trump was publicly lobbying his own Justice Department for an investigation of Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats. When he got no satisfaction on that score, Mr. Giuliani volunteered to take on the role of independent investigator, empowered by nothing other than Mr. Trump's blessing.

Mr. Giuliani rejected the suggestion that he was interfering in the execution of American foreign policy, noting that Mr. Volker and the State Department eventually helped connect him with a top aide to Mr. Zelensky.

"If they were concerned, I don't think they would ask me to handle a mission like this that's sensitive," he said. "I feel perfectly comfortable with what we did in Ukraine."

Ukraine was familiar ground to Mr. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and presidential candidate who had built a thriving consulting and security business.

Mr. Giuliani's activity on behalf of Mr. Trump allowed him to maintain, and increase, his marketability to prospective clients around the world. Hiring him came to be seen as a way to curry favor with the Trump administration. ...

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , September 28, 2019 at 03:33 PM
(Vaguely related?)

Kurt Volker, Trump's Envoy for Ukraine,
Resigns https://nyti.ms/2mex0tH
NYT - Peter Baker -September 27

WASHINGTON -- Kurt D. Volker, the State Department's special envoy for Ukraine who got caught in the middle of the pressure campaign by President Trump and his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to find damaging information about Democrats, abruptly resigned his post on Friday.

Mr. Volker, who told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday that he was stepping down, offered no public explanation, but a person informed about his decision said he concluded that it was impossible to be effective in his assignment given the developments of recent days.

His departure was the first resignation since revelations about Mr. Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine's president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats. The disclosures have triggered a full-blown House impeachment inquiry, and House leaders announced on Friday that they planned to interview Mr. Volker in a deposition on Thursday.

Mr. Volker, a widely respected former ambassador to NATO, served in the part-time, unpaid position of special envoy to help Ukraine resolve its armed confrontation with Russia-sponsored separatists. He was among the government officials who found themselves in an awkward position because of the search for dirt on Democrats, reluctant to cross the president or Mr. Giuliani yet wary of getting drawn into politics outside their purview.

The unidentified intelligence official who filed the whistle-blower complaint that brought the president's actions to light identified Mr. Volker as one of the officials trying to "contain the damage" by advising Ukrainians how to navigate Mr. Giuliani's campaign.

Mr. Volker facilitated an entree for Mr. Giuliani with the newly elected government in Ukraine, acting not at the instruction of Mr. Trump or Mr. Pompeo, but at the request of the Ukrainians, who were worried because Mr. Giuliani was seeking information about Mr. Biden and other Democrats and had denounced top Ukrainian officials as "enemies of the president." ...

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , September 28, 2019 at 03:37 PM
Volker to appear before House
Foreign Affairs committee next week

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/28/politics/kurt-volker-house-foreign-affairs-committee/index.html

(CNN) -- Former US Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker plans to appear at his deposition next Thursday in front of the House Foreign Affairs committee, according to a source familiar with his plans.

The source would not say if the White House is seeking to use executive privilege to constrict Volker in terms of what he can say or provide.

Volker's appearance before the committee was announced just hours before the news broke Friday evening that he had resigned.

Volker didn't offer a comment when contacted Saturday by CNN.

The former US special envoy is expected to face tough questioning after finding himself in the middle of the controversy surrounding the intelligence whistleblower who had alleged a coverup by the White House over a call made by President Donald Trump to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That whistleblower also mentioned Volker's name in his complaint when discussing interactions between himself and Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, concerning pushing Ukraine to look into activities of Joe Biden's son, Hunter.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe or Hunter Biden. ...

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , September 28, 2019 at 03:44 PM
NYT: ... the United States Embassy in Kiev (Ukraine) is still without an ambassador after the administration yanked home Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who was targeted by the president and Mr. Giuliani for ostensibly being insufficiently loyal, a charge heatedly disputed by her colleagues. ...
JohnH -> Fred C. Dobbs... , September 28, 2019 at 06:17 PM
Ukraine is the place where US politicians, like the bear in Winne the Pooh, get their heads caught in the honey jar.

As Andrew Higgins writes today: "Ukraine's allure for American carpetbaggers, political consultants and adventurers has put it at the center of not just one but now two presidential elections in the United States and a host of second-tier scandals...

Caught between the clashing geopolitical ambitions of Russia and the West, Ukraine has for years had to balance competing outside interests and worked hard to cultivate all sides, and also rival groups on the same side -- no matter how incompatible their agendas -- with offers of money, favors and prospects for career advancement."

For Democrats and Republicans alike, Ukraine is a place where dirt on opponents can be fabricated and distributed, free from the prying eyes of fact checkers. Biden swears that any corruption on his part has been firmly debunked by Ukrainians who are part of a regime he brought into existence and whose careers he helps determine. Right!

All we know for certain is, like Mark Twain once said, "An honest politician is somebody who, when he is bought, stays bought." IMO, this is how we need to interpret any story that is sourced from the Ukraine.

Trump is trying to get to the bottom of that story by making it clear that the success of the regime now depends on him. He wants reliable source information to create a narrative about how Democrats tried to delegitimize him. Good Luck!

Meanwhile, Democrats and top figures in the intelligence services are pushing back, trying to preserve their original, Trump-Putin conspiracy narrative, created in part from dubious Ukranian sources.

So now the world is going to be subjected to these dueling narratives, neither of which can ever be verified or confirmed because they originated in the shadowy world of the Ukraine.

Ulimately, it will be up to Congress and the American people to decide which narrative they prefer: Trump's or the one pushed by Biden, Team Pelosi and their allies in the intelligence services.

Personally, I hope they both embarrass themselves to the point where we can finally be rid of both sides.

[Sep 29, 2019] Read the Whistle-Blower Complaint

Concerns about Biden are all false narrative specifically injected to generate hysteria: Biden is a dream opponent for Trump. The best he can expect.
Ukraine is a client state in which intelligence services are controlled by CIA, who has their people on the floor. So the leaker invents the risks: "I am also concerned that these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. Government's efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections."
The document also looks like an attempt of cover-up of Crowdstrike efforts and DNC (and the make the the key to the document -- Brennan people smelled something) : "assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security firm Crowdstrike,3 which initially reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC's networks in 2016; and"
The leaker also overplay the natural efforts of WH to hide Trump lack of diplomatic skills and bulling of Zelensky: "In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to "lock down" all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced -- as is customary -- by the White House Situation Room"
The key new question is "did Crowdstrike transferred images of DNC servers to Ukraine for the analysis? "
Also document dances around the fact that Poroshenko government in tandem in Us embassy was trying to undermine Trump
Notable quotes:
"... that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv -- specifically, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who had criticized Mr. Lutsenko's organization for its poor record on fighting corruption -- had allegedly obstructed Ukrainian law enforcement agencies' pursuit of corruption cases, including by providing a "do not prosecute" list, and had blocked Ukrainian prosecutors from traveling to the United States expressly to prevent them from delivering their "evidence" about the 2016 U.S. election; ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
Sep 27, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

I am deeply concerned that the actions described below constitute "a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law or Executive Order" that "does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters," consistent with the definition of an "urgent concern" in 50 U.S.C. §3033(k)(5)(G). I am therefore fulfilling my duty to report this information, through proper legal channels, to the relevant authorities.

I am also concerned that these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine theU.S. Government's efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections.

... ... ...

Multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me that, after an initial exchange of pleasantries, the President used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests. Namely, he sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President's 2020 reelection bid. According to the White House officials who had direct knowledge of the call, the President pressured Mr. Zelenskyy to, inter alia:

initiate or continue an investigation 2 into the activities of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden; assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security firm Crowdstrike,3 which initially reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC's networks in 2016; and meet or speak with two people the President named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General Barr, to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem.

The President also praised Ukraine's Prosecutor General, Mr. Yuriy Lutsenko, and suggested that Mr. Zelenskyy might want to keep him in his position. (Note: Starting in March 2019, Mr. Lutsenko made a series of public allegations -- many of which he later walked back -- about the Biden family's activities in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials' purported involvement in the 2016 U.S. election, and the activities of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. See Part IV for additional context.)

The White House officials who told me this information were deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call. 2 They told me that there was already a "discussion ongoing" with White House lawyers about how to treat the call because of the likelihood, in the officials' retelling, that they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain.

The Ukrainian side was the first to publicly acknowledge the phone call. On the evening of 25 July, a readout was posted on the website of the Ukrainian President that contained the following line (translation from original Russian-language readout):

"Donald Trump expressed his conviction that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve Ukraine's image and complete the investigation of corruption cases that have held back cooperation between Ukraine and the United States."

Aside from the above-mentioned "cases" purportedly dealing with the Biden family and the 2016 U.S. election, I was told by White House officials that no other "cases" were discussed.

Based on my understanding, there were approximately a dozen White House officials who listened to the call -- a mixture of policy officials and duty officers in the White House Situation Room, as is customary. The officials I spoke with told me that participation in the call had not been restricted in advance because everyone expected it would be a "routine" call with a foreign leader. I do not know whether anyone was physically present with the President during the call.

In addition to White House personnel, I was told that a State Department official, Mr. T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, also listened in on the call. I was not the only non-White House official to receive a readout of the call. Based on my understanding, multiple State Department and Intelligence Community officials were also briefed on the contents of the call as outlined above. IV. Circumstances leading up to the 25 July Presidential phone call

Beginning in late March 2019, a series of articles appeared in an online publication called The Hill. In these articles, several Ukrainian officials -- most notably, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko -- made a series of allegations against other Ukrainian officials and current and former U.S. officials. Mr. Lutsenko and his colleagues alleged, inter alia:

In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019, and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelenskyy adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.

that they possessed evidence that Ukrainian officials -- namely, Head of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine Artem Sytnyk and Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko -- had "interfered" in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, allegedly in collaboration with the DNC and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv

that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv -- specifically, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who had criticized Mr. Lutsenko's organization for its poor record on fighting corruption -- had allegedly obstructed Ukrainian law enforcement agencies' pursuit of corruption cases, including by providing a "do not prosecute" list, and had blocked Ukrainian prosecutors from traveling to the United States expressly to prevent them from delivering their "evidence" about the 2016 U.S. election; and that former Vice President Biden had pressured former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2016 to fire then Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in order to quash a purported criminal probe into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company on whose board the former Vice President's son, Hunter, sat. In several public comments, Mr. Lutsenko also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these matters. The allegations by Mr. Lutsenko came on the eve of the first round of Ukraine's presidential election on 31 March. By that time, Mr. Lutsenko's political patron, President Poroshenko, was trailing Mr. Zelenskyy in the polls and appeared likely to be defeated. Mr. Zelenskyy had made known his desire to replace Mr. Lutsenko as Prosecutor General.

On 21 April, Mr. Poroshenko lost the runoff to Mr. Zelenskyy by a landslide. See Enclosure for additional information.

Mr. Sytnyk and Mr. Leshchenko are two of Mr. Lutsenko's main domestic rivals. Mr. Lutsenko has no legal training and has been widely criticized in Ukraine for politicizing criminal probes and using his tenure as Prosecutor General to protect corrupt Ukrainian officials. He has publicly feuded with Mr. Sytnyk, who heads Ukraine's only competent anticorruption body, and with Mr. Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist who has repeatedly criticized Mr. Lutsenko's record. In December 2018, a Ukrainian court upheld a complaint by a Member of Parliament, Mr. Boryslav Rozenblat, who alleged that Mr. Sytnyk and Mr. Leshchenko had "interfered" in the 2016 U.S. election by publicizing a document detailing corrupt payments made by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych before his ouster in 2014. Mr. Rozenblat had originally filed the motion in late 2017 after attempting to flee Ukraine amid an investigation into his taking of a large bribe. On 16 July 2019, Mr. Leshchenko publicly stated that a Ukrainian court had overturned the lower court's decision.

Mr. Lutsenko later told Ukrainian news outlet The Babel on 17 April that Ambassador Yovanovitch had never provided such a list, and that he was, in fact, the one who requested such a list.

Mr. Lutsenko later told Bloomberg on 16 May that former Vice President Biden and his son were not subject to any current Ukrainian investigations, and that he had no evidence against them. Other senior Ukrainian officials also contested his original allegations; one former senior Ukrainian prosecutor told Bloomberg on 7 May that Mr. Shokin in fact was not investigating Burisma at the time of his removal in 2016.

See, for example, Mr. Lutsenko's comments to The Hill on 1 and 7 April and his interview with The Babel on 17 April, in which he stated that he had spoken with Mr. Giuliani about arranging contact with Attorney General Barr.

In May, Attorney General Barr announced that he was initiating a probe into the "origins" of the Russia investigation. According to the above-referenced OCCRP report (22 July), two associates of Mr. Giuliani claimed to be working with Ukrainian officials to uncover information that would become part of this inquiry. In an interview with Fox News on 8 August, Mr. Giuliani claimed that Mr. John Durham, whom Attorney General Barr designated to lead this probe, was "spending a lot of time in Europe" because he was "investigating Ukraine." I do not know the extent to which, if at all, Mr. Giuliani is directly coordinating his efforts on Ukraine with Attorney General Barr or Mr. Durham.

A widely criticized Ukrainian prosecutor piqued Mr. Trump's and Mr. Giuliani's interest by floating allegations to The Hill -- but then backtracked. In the July 25 phone call, Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Mr. Lutsenko when he told the Ukrainian president that, "I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair." It was also publicly reported that Mr. Giuliani had met on at least two occasions with Mr. Lutsenko: once in New York in late January and again in Warsaw in mid-February. In addition, it was publicly reported that Mr. Giuliani had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani. On 25 April in an interview with Fox News , the President called Mr. Lutsenko's claims "big" and "incredible" and stated that the Attorney General "would want to see this."

On or about 29 April, I learned from U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation that Ambassador Yovanovitch had been suddenly recalled to Washington by senior State Department officials for "consultations" and would most likely be removed from her position.

Around the same time, I also learned from a U.S. official that "associates" of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team. On 6 May, the State Department announced that Ambassador Yovanovitch would be ending her assignment in Kyiv "as planned." However, several U.S. officials told me that, in fact, her tour was curtailed because of pressure stemming from Mr. Lutsenko's allegations. Mr. Giuliani subsequently stated in an interview with a Ukrainian journalist published on 14 May that Ambassador Yovanovitch was "removed...because she was part of the efforts against the President."

On 9 May, The New York Times reported that Mr. Giuliani planned to travel to Ukraine to press the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations that would help the President in his 2020 reelection bid.

In his multitude of public statements leading up to and in the wake of the publication of this article, Mr. Giuliani confirmed that he was focused on encouraging Ukrainian authorities to pursue investigations into alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged wrongdoing by the Biden family. On the afternoon of 10 May, the President stated in an interview with Politico that he planned to speak with Mr. Giuliani about the trip. A few hours later, Mr. Giuliani publicly canceled his trip, claiming that Mr. Zelenskyy was "surrounded by enemies of the [U.S.] President...and of the United States."

On 11 May, Mr. Lutsenko met for two hours with President-elect Zelenskyy, according to a public account given several days later by Mr. Lutsenko. Mr. Lutsenko publicly stated that he had told Mr. Zelenskyy that he wished to remain as Prosecutor General.

See, for example, the above-referenced articles in Bloomberg (16 May) and OCCRP (22 July).

I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above.

See, for example, Mr. Giuliani's appearance on Fox News on 6 April and his tweets on 23 April and 10 May. In his interview with The New York Times , Mr. Giuliani stated that the President "basically knows what I'm doing, sure, as his lawyer." Mr. Giuliani also stated: "We're not meddling in an election, we're meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do... There's nothing illegal about it... Somebody could say it's improper. And this isn't foreign policy -- I'm asking them to do an investigation that they're doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I'm going to give them reasons why they shouldn't stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government."

Starting in mid-May, I heard from multiple U.S. officials that they were deeply concerned by what they viewed as Mr. Giuliani's circumvention of national security decision making processes to engage with Ukrainian officials and relay messages back and forth between Kyiv and the President.

These officials also told me:

that State Department officials, including Ambassadors Volker and Sondland, had spoken with Mr. Giuliani in an attempt to "contain the damage" to U.S. national security; and that Ambassadors Volker and Sondland during this time period met with members of the new Ukrainian administration and, in addition to discussing policy matters, sought to help Ukrainian leaders understand and respond to the differing messages they were receiving from official U.S. channels on the one hand, and from Mr. Giuliani on the other.

During this same timeframe, multiple U.S. officials told me that the Ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a meeting or phone call between the President and President Zelenskyy would depend on whether Zelenskyy showed willingness to "play ball" on the issues that had been publicly aired by Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Giuliani. (Note: This was the general understanding of the state of affairs as conveyed to me by U.S. officials from late May into early July. I do not know who delivered this message to the Ukrainian leadership, or when.) See Enclosure for additional information.

Shortly after President Zelenskyy's inauguration, it was publicly reported that Mr. Giuliani met with two other Ukrainian officials: Ukraine's Special Anticorruption Prosecutor, Mr. Nazar Kholodnytskyy, and a former Ukrainian diplomat named Andriy Telizhenko. Both Mr. Kholodnytskyy and Mr. Telizhenko are allies of Mr. Lutsenko and made similar allegations in the above-mentioned series of articles in The Hill .

On 13 June, the President told ABC 's George Stephanopoulos that he would accept damaging information on his political rivals from a foreign government.

On 21 June, Mr. Giuliani tweeted: "New Pres of Ukraine still silent on investigation of Ukrainian interference in 2016 and alleged Biden bribery of Poroshenko. Time for leadership and investigate both if you want to purge how Ukraine was abused by Hillary and Clinton people."

In mid-July, I learned of a sudden change of policy with respect to U.S. assistance for Ukraine. See Enclosure for additional information.

ENCLOSURE: Classified appendix

[Sep 28, 2019] An open letter to Establishment Democrats by Not Henry Kissinger

Notable quotes:
"... Of course, I understand your motives for Impeachment are not wholly altruistic. With corporate donations drying up and growing pressure from Progressive primary challengers making Establishment incumbents increasingly nervous, you need some way to excite your old school base for the important election season to come. ..."
Sep 28, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

Dear Establishment Democrats,

Thank you so much for inviting me to your Impeachment Party. It's really great to hear you've finally found something to nail Trump with. Good for you! You've been looking so hard these past three years. So nice to see all that effort finally pay off!

(Of course, some might say you should have spent that time looking for solutions to all the problems the country is facing, but hey, let's not get crazy! Right?) And your amazing valor doesn't stop at Biden. Oh no. You are even willing to let Republicans dredge up Hillary's email scandal long after people had all but forgotten about Crowdstrike. The Romans who stood in front of the charging elephants at Cannae would be proud.

... ... ...

Of course, I understand your motives for Impeachment are not wholly altruistic. With corporate donations drying up and growing pressure from Progressive primary challengers making Establishment incumbents increasingly nervous, you need some way to excite your old school base for the important election season to come.

That's why it's even more testament to your pluck that you would choose such a transparently hypocritical and overtly political hill on which to take your final stand, especially after 2016 showed so clearly that going after Trump personally only makes him more popular.

So I say onward Impeachment soldier!

By the time the primaries roll around, your brave Establishment beserkers will have divided the party and discredited the leadership to such an extent that rank and file Dems will be begging for a Progressive intervention.

Carry On!

Yours in Impeachment,
Not Henry Kissinger

[Sep 27, 2019] Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine

Notable quotes:
"... "During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland. ..."
"... More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI. ..."
"... As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans. ..."
Sep 27, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 01:02 PM

Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine:

"During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/04/former_assistant_secretary_of_state_victoria_nuland_christopher_steele_also_shared_information_with_state_department.html

By commercial clients, you should read oligarchs who were still in business because they had sworn fealty to the US owned regime.

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 07:09 PM
More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI.

Immediately after the coup, Hunter was appointed to the board of the strategically critical Burisma energy company, Ukraine's largest producer of natural gas. From what I have seen, the US likes to have its assets sit on the Board of strategically critically energy companies.

And is Ukraine ever strategically important!!! Apart from the fact the Russian pipelines pass through the country, "Ukraine has an estimated 42 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), ranking its deposits as the fourth largest in Europe."
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ukraine_and_fracking

Again, Hunter Biden's appointment would not have been by chance. He would have been put there to once again to be Joe Biden's eyes, ears, and gopher.

As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans.

So are we about to witness the first color revolution on US soil? Could be

[Sep 25, 2019] The Use of Low-IQ Troops in War Zone by Gilad Atzmon

Sep 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

A presentation and reading by Hamilton Gregory, author of "McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam." Because so many college students were avoiding military service during the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct 354,000 low-IQ men. they were known as McNamara's "Moron Corps." Their death toll in combat was appalling. Gregory indicates at the end of his talk that the situation didn't really change. The same practice is taking place nowadays.

McNamara's Folly The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War - YouTube

England patriot says: September 24, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT 100 Words A lot of people mistake low IQ brutishness for genuine bravery and strength, which is why blacks are considered by many whites to be the toughest race and probably why they are favoured by the military.

A big weakness of the US and UK militaries is the assumption that street thugs make the most effective and capable troops, in reality such people are often the most useless and cowardly in an actual war zone. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments


niteranger , says: September 24, 2019 at 5:52 pm GMT

The story is definitely true. Not only were there low moron troops but even the so called West Point graduates with no experience in war were complete idiots. It was a two fold fiasco because these graduates couldn't read coordinates on maps and the morons couldn't find them and thus they often bombed our own troops.

There were a lot "friendly fire" deaths that were never reported. The carnage of Vietnam was a disgrace from poor military strategies to morons and incompetents running them. We were not prepared for the "Jungle Type Gorilla War" our leaders got us into and the results are told forever on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. What did they die for? Another "Communist" are taking over Domino Policy when the true Communist Jews were running the stuff in the USA and destroying us.

SafeNow , says: September 24, 2019 at 6:21 pm GMT
Two destroyers were recently collided into by slow-moving merchant ships. Someone said that this is like a Chevy Corvette being struck by a bulldozer on the Bonneville Salt Flats while a team of trained experts had the job of keeping the Corvette from being hit.
mark green , says: September 24, 2019 at 6:32 pm GMT
@A123 Any civilization that sends their Best and Brightest to the front lines is taking huge risks. Cannon fodder troops generally come (and should come) from the lower tiers of society. This promotes a nation's long-term health and vitality.

There is no starvation–only fasting–during Ramadan. Fasting occurs each day from sunrise to sundown. On the other hand, Israel's high fertility rates among Orthodox and Sephardic Jews has dysgenics written all over it. This explains why Israel's average IQ average remains below 100. Highly religious and less-intelligent Jews are producing a disproportionate number of the births inside Israel.

Blankaerd , says: September 24, 2019 at 6:45 pm GMT
It's a lesson the US could've learned back in World War II. The US deployed black troops in France, and instead of proving that the blacks were just as capable fighters as the whites, the blacks engaged in typical black behavior of rape and thievery. It got so bad in areas like Cherbourg that the local population preferred the Germans over their supposed 'liberators'.

The same thing happened earlier in the war when the Allies deployed Moroccan mercenaries in Italy.
After the battle of Monte Cassino, these savages could rape Italian women with impunity, they wouldn't be stopped by the French, the British or indeed the Americans, and as a result more than 30.000 Italian women became victims of these vicious assaults.

But I bet it was all in good faith of course, after all the US was making Europe safe for stali I mean, 'democracy'

Paul , says: September 24, 2019 at 7:18 pm GMT
Politicians did not want the war to become an issue among the affluent. It was the old adage about wars: "Rich men start them; poor men fight them." There were plenty of chicken hawks around.
peterAUS , says: September 24, 2019 at 7:25 pm GMT
The article and comments, so far, are interesting.

A military is a tool of the ruling class/caste/layer/whatever. What is moronic, or not, is for them to decide. The only principle: is the tool good for the job?

There are several very good reasons to have "low-level IQ" troops in the military, a modern war/combat in particular.

In an infantry company of, say, 160 men, a smart O.C. would love to have 10-20 of those types. Plenty of jobs/assignments for them and definitely attributing to combat efficiency of the unit.
Even better in logistics, especially in higher units/rear areas. Comparison: warehouse/storage facilities employees in civvy street.

BTW, those guys, if/when properly treated (LEADERSHIP) can be utterly loyal and dependable. For "experts" around, there are plenty of miserable, mind-numbing jobs/tasks in the military, plus quite dangerous, which those guys shall do when others won't. If .treated properly

And, one more element, especially in contemporary wars: certain moral attitude, "relaxed" approach to human life and limb etc. Ability to commit acs of war other, more, say, smart, "sensitive" troops, are reluctant to do.
Israel. IDF as the state tool to keep Palestinians under control.
Occupation forces of The Empire in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And one more thing: for suppressing possible internal unrest in a Western country ..For that job you really don't want very intelligent/sensitive people.

Etc.
Big topic but, of course, not for this thread, for obvious reasons. Program.

Sorry for the interruption, guys. Feel free to resume the "bashing".

HJay , says: September 24, 2019 at 8:44 pm GMT
Who will write a book about the U.S. police force?

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/court-police-departments-refuse-hire-smart/

anon [102] Disclaimer , says: September 24, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMT
Infantry in Vietnam was known to be awful. Everyone in the military knew to avoid it. It was openly used as a threat for non-compliance to troops elsewhere.

There were certainly exceptions. Some Marines, people wanting or needing to get their ticket punched, etc. But before anything, Vietnam Infantry was getting the dregs. Not that I doubt McNamera leaned into it as an opportunity.

Why in the world did they want or need all these troops? Westmorland kept asking for more and more. After 500,000, per the pentagon papers, the JCS mood Westmorland that given US presence in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc., there were no more extra troops.

Too bad that the US military has made a cottage industry out of revisionist accounts regarding how it could have been "won". Showing a remarkable lack of insight into what it means to win.

Oscar Peterson , says: September 24, 2019 at 9:47 pm GMT
@A123 Interesting to see how a conniving Jew takes a piece about Vietnam and uses it to further his objective of trying (quite unsuccessfully, one infers) to generate sympathy for the Judenreich. He then doubles down with a further tangent leading somehow to Ramadan (!) It's almost comical how transparent Jew scheming has become. It makes one wonder if the Hasbara brigades have had to go low-IQ at this point?
Kolya Krassotkin , says: September 24, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT
I look forward to seeing the effect all those affirmative action US military academy graduates have on US combat readiness.

All those Navy ships running into each other in Asia last year? A bucket of the Colonel's extra crispy says that we were seeing diversity in action.

Oscar Peterson , says: September 24, 2019 at 9:58 pm GMT
@anon Not true.

Both in terms of IQ and class background, infantry in Vietnam were generally representative of the general population. As one author assessed, "If they [soldiers in combat units] were not the social and intellectual cream of American youth, neither were they its dregs or castoffs."

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: September 25, 2019 at 12:32 am GMT
nI saw the author of the book give at talk. I believe it was at a Tennessee Unversity. What he described he saw as an enlisted man if I remember correctly. He was sent to OCS later and sounded a very decent man. The conditions were awful for these guys. They were treated as expendable by peers and officers alike.

I wonder how the IDF works this issue out. The Israelis are masters of the universe at everything don't you know. They are utter geniuses.

Kratoklastes , says: September 25, 2019 at 12:47 am GMT
@Hunsdon Or the line in a movie I watched a few years ago about the British savagery in Northern Ireland

War is rich cunts sending thick cunts to kill poor cunts.

War is a racket – Smedley Butler was right. But so was Randolph Bourne: war is the health of the State. https://www.panarchy.org/bourne/state.1918.html

anarchyst , says: September 25, 2019 at 1:19 am GMT
@Blankaerd Emmett Till's father was executed by the U S military for multiple rapes

[Sep 25, 2019] Trump should be impeached not for his Ukrainian call but for Venezuela regime change efforts

Notable quotes:
"... Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions." ..."
"... The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's president. ' ..."
Sep 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

brian , Sep 25 2019 22:01 utc | 70

He should be impeached. His latest outrage:

'US President Donald Trump has moved to suspend Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's senior officials, relatives, and others who receive financial benefits from entering into the US in Wednesday press release from the White House.

Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions."

The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's president. '

Trumps Suspends US Entry for Iranian, Venezuelan Government Officials - Sputnik International

[Sep 25, 2019] Those who thought that timing of the attack on Saudi oil installations had not benefited Netanyahu might want to reconsider

Sep 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Sep 25 2019 21:52 utc | 64

Further to my comment @56

Those who thought that timing of the attack on Saudi oil installations had not benefited Netanyahu might want to reconsider.

Netanyahu Tapped By Israel's President To Form Government After Deadlocked Election .

Netanyahu's coalition was given the nod because they have 55 seats to the other side's 54.

There's still some question about whether Netanyahu can form a governing coalition.

But Netanyahu now has 42 days to convince his former Defense Minister(!) Lieberman (who heads the Yisrael Beiteinu Party) to join the coalition led by Likud.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

The Countdown to War with Iran has begun?

[Sep 25, 2019] After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop.

Notable quotes:
"... One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very top. ..."
"... To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD? ..."
Sep 25, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 25, 2019 at 03:45 PM

One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very top.

To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD?

This brings us to Hunter Biden's appointment to Ukrainian energy giant Burisma. After the coup in 2014, why wouldn't Biden want a trusted asset on the board of the biggest natural gas producer in Ukraine? IOW it was unpublicized standard operating procedure.

[Sep 24, 2019] With all the hoopla about Trump call to Zelensky it is time to remeber yet another interesting leaked call on unencrypted cellphones between two US officials

Blast from the last,,,
Sep 24, 2019 | www.reuters.com

Feb 7 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. State Department officer and the ambassador to Ukraine apparently used unencrypted cellphones for a call about political developments in Ukraine that was leaked and touched off an international furor, U.S. officials said in Washington on Friday.

In the call, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland used an expletive in apparently disparaging the idea of relying on help from the European Union in negotiating a political solution in Ukraine.

The U.S. officials said the conversation between Nuland and ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt was likely intercepted at the Ukraine end and that they believe both Ambassador Pyatt and Nuland were speaking on cellphones.

An official familiar with the matter said State Department employees, including officials at a senior level, are not issued cellphones that use encryption.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed this at a regular briefing. "All Department of State government-owned BlackBerry devices have data encryption. However, they don't have voice encryption," she said.

The U.S. officials said Pyatt was in Ukraine at the time of the call, although it was not clear where Nuland was.

They did not give the date of the call, although they said it was recent. The issues that Nuland and Pyatt discussed occurred in the last few days of January.

The audio clip was first posted on Twitter by Dmitry Loskutov, an aide to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, a diplomatic source said. A second intercepted audio conversation, between senior European Union diplomats, was posted on YouTube around the same time.

The Obama Administration has not formally acknowledged the authenticity of the audio clip or accused any specific party of recording it.
"IMPRESSIVE TRADECRAFT"

Nuland, who met President Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev on Thursday, described the bugging and leaks as "pretty impressive tradecraft" but said it would not hurt her ties with the Ukrainian opposition.

In the call, apparently made at a time when opposition leaders were considering an offer from President Viktor Yanukovich to join his cabinet, she suggested that one of three leading figures might accept a post but two others should stay out. In the end, all three rejected the offer.

The leak coincided with accusations from Moscow of U.S. interference in Ukraine. Washington and European countries back those opposing Yanukovich, a close Kremlin ally.

On Friday one senior U.S. official in Washington said: "The quality of the recording would certainly indicate that this was not the work of simple hackers, but rather an intelligence service with an interest in distracting from the efforts of the people of Ukraine to recover their own government."

The posting of the conversation surfaced as the U.S. faces international uproar over its own electronic eavesdropping disclosed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year.

One document leaked by Snowden appeared to indicate that the U.S. had tapped the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, prompting President Barack Obama to announce that spying on foreign leaders was being curtailed.

Mark Weatherford, a former deputy under secretary for cybersecurity with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said that some senior government officials were issued mobile handsets that are capable of encrypting conversations but typically do not use them.

"It is expensive. They are different phones. They are cumbersome," said Weatherford, now a principal with the Chertoff Group, a Washington-based consulting firm led by former senior U.S. security and intelligence officials.

He said that the conversation that was intercepted would have remained private had the two officials used encrypted devices.

Chris Morales, research director with the cybersecurity firm NSS Labs, said hacking into an unencrypted mobile phone line does not require a lot of training and can typically be done using equipment and software that is widely available. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Jim Finkle; editing by David Storey and David Gregorio)

[Sep 24, 2019] Have some fun with this imperialist Raguram Rajan: "The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith"

Sep 24, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Paine , September 14, 2019 at 04:38 PM

Have some fun with raguram

"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith"

". Meanwhile, the system's multilateral institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund, helped countries in dire need of funds, provided they followed the rules."

anne -> Paine ... , September 14, 2019 at 04:43 PM
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-trade-war-damage-by-raghuram-rajan-2019-09

September 5, 2019

The True Toll of the Trade War

Behind the escalating global conflict over trade and technology is a larger breakdown of the postwar rules-based order, which was based on a belief that any country's growth benefits all. Now that China is threatening to compete directly with the United States, support for the system that made that possible has disappeared.
By RAGHURAM G. RAJAN

CHICAGO – Another day, another attack on trade. Why is it that every dispute – whether over intellectual property (IP), immigration, environmental damage, or war reparations – now produces new threats to trade?

For much of the last century, the United States managed and protected the rules-based trading system it created at the end of World War II. That system required a fundamental break from the pre-war environment of mutual suspicion between competing powers. The US urged everyone to see that growth and development for one country could benefit all countries through increased trade and investment.

Under the new dispensation, rules were enacted to constrain selfish behavior and coercive threats by the economically powerful. The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith. Meanwhile, the system's multilateral institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund, helped countries in dire need of funds, provided they followed the rules....

likbez -> anne... , September 14, 2019 at 08:30 PM
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith"

USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites (neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy. Bolton attitude to UN is very symptomatic for the neocons as a whole.

Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at this stage of history.

The truth is that the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR.

The USA stated to behave like a typical Imperial state (New Rome, or, more correctly, London) accepting no rules/laws that are not written by themselves (and when it is convenient to obey them) with the only difference from the classic imperial states that the hegemony it not based on the military presence/occupation ( like was the case with British empire)

Although this is not completely true as there are 761 US Military Bases across the planet and only 46 Countries with no US military presence. Of them, seven countries with 13 New Military Bases were added since 09/11/2001. In 2001 the US had a quarter million troops posted abroad.

Still as an imperial state that is the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country.

I recently learned from https://akarlin.com/2010/04/on-liberasts-and-liberasty/ that the derogatory term for the neoliberal part of the Russian elite is "liberasts" and this term gradually slipping into English language ( http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/liberast ;-)

With the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 the USA centered neoliberal empire experiences first cracks. Brexit and election of Trump widened the cracks in a sense of further legitimizing the ruling neoliberal elite (big middle finger for Hillary was addressed to the elite as whole)

If oil price exceed $100 per barrel there will yet another crack or even repetition of the 2008 Great Recession on a new level (although we may argue that the Great Recession never ended and just entered in Summers terms "permanent stagnation" phase)

Although currently with unhinged Trump at the helm the USA empire still going strong in forcing vassals and competitors to reconsider their desire to challenge the USA. Trump currently is trying to neutralize the treat from China by rejecting classic neoliberal globalization mechanism as well as signed treaties like WTO. He might be successful in the short run.

In the long run the future does not look too bright as crimes committed by the USA during triumphal period of neoliberalism hangs like albatross around the USA neck.

EU now definitely wants to play its own game as Macron recently stated and which Merkel tacitly supports. If EU allies with Russia it will became No.1 force in the world with the USA No. 2. With severe consequences for the USA.

If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position will hinge of keeping EU vassals in check and NATO in place. Without them it will became No.2 with fatal consequences for the dollar as world reserve currency and sudden change of the USA financial position due to the level of external debt and required devaluation of the dollar.

Looks like 75 year after WWII the world started to self-organize a countervailing force trying to tame the USA with some interest expressed by such players as EU, Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and even Saudi Arabia. As well as ( in the past; and possibly in the future as neoliberal counterrevolutions in both countries probably will end badly) by Brazil and Argentina.

Only Canada, Australia and probably UK can be counted as the reliable parts of the USA empire. That's not much.

ilsm -> likbez... , September 15, 2019 at 07:21 AM
"If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position "........

Think Italy moving into the Axis in 1937? Or the Soviet German Non Aggression Pact. Nuclear weapons removes the incentive for large "rearmaments" or not?

Would the Britain to France 1938 relationship describe the US to EU? Thinking in 1939 (1914?) terms Europe is less stitched together than in 1936.

ilsm -> Paine ... , September 14, 2019 at 06:43 PM
"Beliefs" must be sustained by trust and justice... Which are clearly missing in the US' sacred cold war and post history "postwar rules-based order".

[Sep 24, 2019] CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country

Notable quotes:
"... CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country, mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though, read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO 1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long while.) ..."
"... So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another and there fore vulnerable. ..."
Sep 24, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

SusanR , September 20, 2019 at 20:22

It has been my contention that Biden's powerful backers from the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex are fully aware of his mental state, and that is precisely why they want him to be president. Why? He would only be a figure-head president. He would be given a suggested running mate as well as a list of candidates for cabinet and other appointed positions (as Obama was given) and Biden would follow that in making appointments. Policies of his administration would be consistent with the interests of the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex.

robert e williamson jr , September 20, 2019 at 15:19

Kids this is exactly what the intelligence community wants, someone who they can claim needs to be told what to do or be kept discreetly out of the loop, so currently Joe maybe the chosen one just as Bill Barr is reported to have told Slick Willy.

We end up where we are at the moment because our security state apparatus is ran by the intelligence community who do not really want a strong intelligent, clear minded president who can actually think for himself. Ask Barrack Obama!

For years I've used this analogy, crude as it maybe, that when the newly elected president is called on for his national security briefing it is always a tense encounter because this "Newby" is about to have a come to Jesus meeting with this most abusive of all government entities. The intelligence community. He is "shown the way"he will act because if he doesn't this community who has relieved him of one his go -- -s will come and relieve him of the other.

This started as a joke on my part, I'm now convinced it reflects reality.

At some point many here will understand that since around the time of the murder of JFK , CIA has framed things in this manner.

CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country, mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though, read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO 1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long while.)

Doing so will help make your mind more flexible , jeesh what a slog to get through it.

So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another and there fore vulnerable.

I figured if Caitlin could say "dog balls " which I think was a great analogy I could say gonads.

Time to sit down Joe.

Thanks again to Consortium News for their great efforts at informing the masses.

[Sep 23, 2019] Giuliani Hits Bidens With New $3 Million Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus Money Laundering Accusation

Highly recommended!
Things happen when the country loses its sovereignty. It's wealth is up to grab from this point.
Notable quotes:
"... New York Post ..."
"... New York Post ..."
"... New York Post ..."
Sep 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Rudy Giuliani leveled serious new claims at the Bidens in a series of Monday morning tweets. Chief among them is a claim that $3 million was laundered to former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter , via a "Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US" route - a revelation he claims was "kept from you by Swamp Media."

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

NEW FACT: One $3million payment to Biden's son from Ukraine to Latvia to Cyprus to US. When Prosecutor asked Cyprus for amount going to son, he was told US embassy (Obama's) instructed them not to provide the amount. Prosecutor getting too close to son and Biden had him fired.

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

Today though it's the $3 million laundered payment, classical proof of guilty knowledge and intent, that was kept from you by Swamp Media. Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US is a usual route for laundering money. Obama's US embassy told Cyprus bank not to disclose amount to Biden. Stinks!

Trump's personal attorney then mentioned China - where journalist Peter Schweizer reported Joe and Hunter Biden flew in 2013 on Air Force Two. Two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion , according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post .

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

Biden scandal only beginning. Lots more evidence on Ukraine like today's money laundering of $3 million. 4 or 5 big disclosures. Also the $1.5 billion China gave to Biden's fund while Joe was, as usual, failing in his negotiations with China is worse.

Giuliani then went on to tweet that the Bidens lied about not discussing Hunter's overseas business .

On Saturday, Joe Biden said he "never" spoke with Hunter about the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter sat on the board of while being paid $50,000 per month. As you're doubtless aware by now, the elder Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees from Ukraine if they didn't fire the investigator probing the company, Burisma.

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

Biden says he never talked to his son about his overseas business. Do you think we can prove, with our fact a day disclosures, it's a lie-a false exculpatory statement. Do we have to prove, or do you already know, it's a lie, and an incriminating statement.

Hunter, however, admitted in July that the two did speak about his Ukraine business "just once," telling the New Yorker " Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing,' and I said, 'I do' "

Rudy then lashed out at the Democratic party, which he said would "own" Biden's scandals if hey don't "call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions from China."

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

If Dem party doesn't call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions from China, they will own it. Bidens' made big money selling public office. How could Obama have allowed this to happen? Will Dems continue to condone and enable this kind pay-for-play?

Here's what we know about Hunter's dealings in China based on Schweizer's reporting via our May report :

It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers .

Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership of, had any role in the deal with Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont name became increasingly involved with China . Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. - New York Post

And while Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.

Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments Limited was negotiating and sealing deals with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts. That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.

The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the compan y. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.

Chinese executives lauded the deal. - New York Post

"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was precisely the investment opportunity Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited and Gemini Investments. " We look forward to a strong and successful partnership. "

Three years later, a crack pipe, two DC driver's licenses and other paraphenelia would be found in a rental car Hunter Biden returned to an Arizona Hertz location in the middle of the night .

The morning after the car was dropped off, a phone number belonging to a renowned local "Colon Hydrotherapist" called the Hertz . The caller identified himself as "Joseph McGee," who told the employees that the keys were located in the gas cap as opposed to the drop box.

Amazing how so many countries would scramble to do business with Hunter - a guy with virtually no experience who was discharged from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine - who just happened to be the Vice President's son.

Mountainview , 7 minutes ago link

Biden sucks! He should immediately retire his candidacy! Otherwise the Nuland-Yatsenyuk cover up will blow in his face.

[Sep 23, 2019] Apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact

Highly recommended!
This is a apt demonstration of the raw power of the US neoliberal MSM propaganda.
Notable quotes:
"... This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of faith". ..."
"... So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church of neoliberalism ..."
Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 21, 2019 at 3:52 pm

Interesting – apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact, it is safe to advance on that a little. Now Donald Trump actually asked Vladimir Putin to hack the emails of his democratic rival.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ukraine-if-youre-listening–how-trump-tries-to-quell-controversies-by-saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud/2019/09/20/8e68aad0-dbc1-11e9-adff-79254db7f766_story.html

Curiously, the Washington Post's recently-adopted new slogan is "Democracy dies in darkness". So telling the readers any old shit that you made up and can offer no proof whatsoever is true is infinitely better than darkness. And they wonder why academic standards are slipping, and why Americans faithfully believe things that few other countries accept as true. All the while they are cultivating a nation of dunces which believes anything it is told by its government.

likbez

"apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact,"

Mark, you are a very astute political observer!

This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of faith".

So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church of neoliberalism

[Sep 23, 2019] Giuliani Hits Bidens With New $3 Million Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus Money Laundering Accusation

Highly recommended!
Things happen when the country loses its sovereignty. It's wealth is up to grab from this point.
Notable quotes:
"... New York Post ..."
"... New York Post ..."
"... New York Post ..."
Sep 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Rudy Giuliani leveled serious new claims at the Bidens in a series of Monday morning tweets. Chief among them is a claim that $3 million was laundered to former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter , via a "Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US" route - a revelation he claims was "kept from you by Swamp Media."

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

NEW FACT: One $3million payment to Biden's son from Ukraine to Latvia to Cyprus to US. When Prosecutor asked Cyprus for amount going to son, he was told US embassy (Obama's) instructed them not to provide the amount. Prosecutor getting too close to son and Biden had him fired.

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

Today though it's the $3 million laundered payment, classical proof of guilty knowledge and intent, that was kept from you by Swamp Media. Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US is a usual route for laundering money. Obama's US embassy told Cyprus bank not to disclose amount to Biden. Stinks!

Trump's personal attorney then mentioned China - where journalist Peter Schweizer reported Joe and Hunter Biden flew in 2013 on Air Force Two. Two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion , according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post .

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

Biden scandal only beginning. Lots more evidence on Ukraine like today's money laundering of $3 million. 4 or 5 big disclosures. Also the $1.5 billion China gave to Biden's fund while Joe was, as usual, failing in his negotiations with China is worse.

Giuliani then went on to tweet that the Bidens lied about not discussing Hunter's overseas business .

On Saturday, Joe Biden said he "never" spoke with Hunter about the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter sat on the board of while being paid $50,000 per month. As you're doubtless aware by now, the elder Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees from Ukraine if they didn't fire the investigator probing the company, Burisma.

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

Biden says he never talked to his son about his overseas business. Do you think we can prove, with our fact a day disclosures, it's a lie-a false exculpatory statement. Do we have to prove, or do you already know, it's a lie, and an incriminating statement.

Hunter, however, admitted in July that the two did speak about his Ukraine business "just once," telling the New Yorker " Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing,' and I said, 'I do' "

Rudy then lashed out at the Democratic party, which he said would "own" Biden's scandals if hey don't "call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions from China."

Rudy Giuliani ✔ @RudyGiuliani

If Dem party doesn't call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions from China, they will own it. Bidens' made big money selling public office. How could Obama have allowed this to happen? Will Dems continue to condone and enable this kind pay-for-play?

Here's what we know about Hunter's dealings in China based on Schweizer's reporting via our May report :

It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers .

Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership of, had any role in the deal with Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont name became increasingly involved with China . Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. - New York Post

And while Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.

Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments Limited was negotiating and sealing deals with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts. That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.

The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the compan y. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.

Chinese executives lauded the deal. - New York Post

"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was precisely the investment opportunity Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited and Gemini Investments. " We look forward to a strong and successful partnership. "

Three years later, a crack pipe, two DC driver's licenses and other paraphenelia would be found in a rental car Hunter Biden returned to an Arizona Hertz location in the middle of the night .

The morning after the car was dropped off, a phone number belonging to a renowned local "Colon Hydrotherapist" called the Hertz . The caller identified himself as "Joseph McGee," who told the employees that the keys were located in the gas cap as opposed to the drop box.

Amazing how so many countries would scramble to do business with Hunter - a guy with virtually no experience who was discharged from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine - who just happened to be the Vice President's son.

Mountainview , 7 minutes ago link

Biden sucks! He should immediately retire his candidacy! Otherwise the Nuland-Yatsenyuk cover up will blow in his face.

[Sep 23, 2019] Ukrainian Fatigue Syndrome (UFS) is a serious affliction

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

yalensis September 21, 2019 at 1:50 pm

Ukrainian Fatigue Syndrom (UFS) is a serious affliction. If you suffer from this affliction, ask your Doctor about Rid-Uk. Do not continue to take Rid-Uk if you experience the following side effects: Historical clarity, soundness of reasoning, logical interpretation, factual evidence, economic utility, diplomatic success.
Moscow Exile September 21, 2019 at 1:43 am
The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine.

Source

Media: Trump considers senseless US actions in Ukraine
9/21/2019, 9:29:23 AM

US President Donald Trump considers US actions in the Ukraine senseless, which actions at the same time aggravate relations with Russia, The Washington Post reports, citing a former senior White House official.

According to the newspaper interlocutor, the president takes the position that "Russians should be our friends".

"What we do in the Ukraine is pointless and annoying Russia", he said, describing the president's opinion.

Earlier, former US Vice President Joe Biden called on Trump to publish a transcript of a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

So there you have it!

Trump is a Kremlin Stooge.

[Sep 23, 2019] I wonder when they find Putin's passport in wreckage of drones that hit Saudi oil stabilization plant

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 17, 2019 at 4:58 pm

Probably had Death to the Great Satan etched on them right above made in Tehran.
https://nypost.com/2019/09/17/suspected-iranian-missile-debris-found-on-saudi-oil-field-after-attack/

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Patient Observer September 17, 2019 at 5:39 pm
I wonder when they will find Putin's passport.
Jen September 17, 2019 at 7:15 pm
" Probably had Death to the Great Satan etched on them right above made in Tehran "

Etched in English and in the Roman alphabet as well, of course.

[Sep 23, 2019] You may like this Tulsi interview. I did. The interviewer is a moron but Tulsi handled him quite well

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 16, 2019 at 2:15 pm

Once Again.. She is Spot the Fuck on..

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tulsi-gabbard-donald-trump-saudi-arabia-oil-attack_n_5d7fc275e4b077dcbd622d5b

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Patient Observer September 20, 2019 at 3:34 pm
You may like this Tulsi interview. I did. The interviewer is a moron but Tulsi handled him quite well>
https://theduran.com/tulsi-gabbard-shoots-straight-on-the-middle-east-like-a-soldier-should/
Mark Chapman September 20, 2019 at 6:37 pm
She did make him look stupid – all he had was a handful of talking points. Occasionally he did try to talk over her to hammer home his points, but often he sat quietly and let her finish. When your interviewer lets you speak, he's interested in what you have to say, or if opposed to you, in letting you hang yourself.

When he talks over you, he's simply trying to do all the talking while offering the pretense of an interview.

[Sep 23, 2019] Apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact

Highly recommended!
This is a apt demonstration of the raw power of the US neoliberal MSM propaganda.
Notable quotes:
"... This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of faith". ..."
"... So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church of neoliberalism ..."
Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 21, 2019 at 3:52 pm

Interesting – apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact, it is safe to advance on that a little. Now Donald Trump actually asked Vladimir Putin to hack the emails of his democratic rival.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ukraine-if-youre-listening–how-trump-tries-to-quell-controversies-by-saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud/2019/09/20/8e68aad0-dbc1-11e9-adff-79254db7f766_story.html

Curiously, the Washington Post's recently-adopted new slogan is "Democracy dies in darkness". So telling the readers any old shit that you made up and can offer no proof whatsoever is true is infinitely better than darkness. And they wonder why academic standards are slipping, and why Americans faithfully believe things that few other countries accept as true. All the while they are cultivating a nation of dunces which believes anything it is told by its government.

likbez

"apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact,"

Mark, you are a very astute political observer!

This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of faith".

So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church of neoliberalism

[Sep 23, 2019] Boeing values 20-year Chinese market at $2.9 trillion

Notable quotes:
"... Erm, I think China was the first country to ground Boeing 737 MAX jets over the Angle of Attack sensor issue that caused the Indonesian and Ethiopian Boeing 737 MAX planes to crash after take-off, killing a combined total of 346 people. ..."
"... the company has a lot of work to do: either swallow its pride, redesign the jets to balance properly and work properly and retrain the pilots appropriately; or be prepared for any consequences if one of its airliners fails a third time because of the same problem. ..."
Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 17, 2019 at 10:19 am

Flight Global: Boeing values 20-year Chinese market at $2.9 trillion
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-values-20-year-chinese-market-at-29-trilli-460898/

Boeing forecasts that China will need 8,090 new commercial aircraft over the next 20 years in addition to $1.6 billion in services related to passenger air transport.

Its 2019 China Commercial Market Outlook for the next two decades sees the entire aircraft and services market through 2038 reaching $2.9 trillion, a 7% increase over its forecast last year.

####

What a tough one for Boeing. On the one hand it sells airliners to China, on the other it makes and sells weapons to fire at China! Like Russia, be in no doubt that China will work hard to minimize any dependence on the West (sic the USA) for any critical equipment like aero engines. The West seems to have learned nothing that threats and sanctions against strong countries will ultimately cost them much more in the long run, good will and more importantly trust , burnt to a cinder.

Jen September 17, 2019 at 3:50 pm
Erm, I think China was the first country to ground Boeing 737 MAX jets over the Angle of Attack sensor issue that caused the Indonesian and Ethiopian Boeing 737 MAX planes to crash after take-off, killing a combined total of 346 people.

f Boeing is keen to sell airliners to China, and especially its 737 MAX jets (because they're expected to be the workhorses of Boeing's range of passenger aircraft), the company has a lot of work to do: either swallow its pride, redesign the jets to balance properly and work properly and retrain the pilots appropriately; or be prepared for any consequences if one of its airliners fails a third time because of the same problem.

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Mark Chapman September 17, 2019 at 7:03 pm
The Chinese would need their heads examined if they bought Boeing after the graphic example they are even now observing, that the United States will leverage any advantage in order to demand concessions. Other countries – like Iran – who have bought American aircraft have seen the USA cut them off from spare parts and withdraw all the American technicians they insist do the maintenance routines. Justin Trudeau might fly around in a 737 just to demonstrate how confident he feels in American know-how and technology, but there's no reason for anyone else to act like such a retard.

Boeing does make a good aircraft. But Airbus is just as good, and more importantly, it's not American. It's bad enough that it's French, considering how the French under Hollande bent over for Washington, and canceled the warship contract they had signed with Russia when the first ship was already built and ready for delivery. Hopefully they learned a lesson, considering how bitter the French builders were at Hollande's spinelessness. But there's no reason China can't build its own airliners in cooperation with Russia. The USA will make a big noise about not certifying it, but the threat by China to junk its remaining Boeings would strike fear into Boeing's heart, and it has many lobbyists at court.

I hope everyone can see that this is only fairness in action. Americans proclaim themselves the champions of fairness – well, then, surely they will understand how, after the US government bullying everyone and American steelworkers smirking over the advantages Trump's tariffs on its neighbours bestowed upon them, other countries suddenly were not eager to buy American products. Trump's technique is to gain market share by prohibiting competition. Nobody should be surprised when American products in foreign markets are shunned.

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et Al September 18, 2019 at 3:22 am
It's interesting that Boeing has a 737 fitting and completion center in Zhoushan, China whereas Airbus builds entire A320s at Tianjin (50 p/y starting 2009) as it also does in Mobile, Alabama. And let us not forget that a VIP 767 ordered for Chairman Jiang Zemin was found to be bugged back in 2003

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-set-to-deliver-first-737-jet-from-completion-center-in-china/

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1769642.stm

[Sep 23, 2019] Israel has the means, plus the motive (Bib's reelection), and might have taken the opportunity to attribute the attack to Iran and force Trump's hand.

Sep 23, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 16, 2019 at 11:58 AM

"The Israeli military is armed with the latest fast jets and precision weaponry, yet it has turned to its fleet of drones to hit targets in Iraq. Deniability has played a big factor – the ability of drones to elude radar and therefore keep targets guessing about who actually bombed them is playing well for Israeli leaders who are trying to prevent an increasingly lethal shadow war with Iran from developing into an open conflict."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/16/middle-east-drones-signal-end-to-era-of-fast-jet-air-supremacy

Israel has the means, plus the motive (Bib's reelection), and might have taken the opportunity to attribute the attack to Iran and force Trump's hand.

JohnH -> Paine ... , September 17, 2019 at 01:34 PM
Right! If you get into the cui bono game, the list is pretty long including US shale oil companies.

Russia, too. I'm surprised that the 'Russia dun it crowd' (Team Pelosi) hasn't blamed it all on Putin. I mean, isn't everything bad that happened since Nov. 2016 Putin's fault.

But now it would appear that Iran is the villain du jour. Maybe they'll even get blamed for Trump's reelection next year!

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 17, 2019 at 01:42 PM
In terms of cui bono, you can group Wall Street investors and banksters in with shale oil companies they desperately need the shale oil companies to finally start generating some profits. What better way than to knock out shal oil's biggest competitor?

But, as I said, Iran has become the villain du jour, even though they have the deterrent capability of closing the Strait of Hormuz and taking most ME oil off line. To hear the neocons, even that deterrence is not enough to dissuade them from a war on Israel's behalf. To them war is certainly preferable to trying to make room for Iranian sovereignty and assure the flow of ME oil to world markets.

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , September 16, 2019 at 11:53 AM
if Saudi deliveries are not up and

running by Wednesday Riyadh time,

someone ampin' up crude oil futures!

Or the Brits and Americans

working for ARAMCO not qualified.

which flows to the quality of

strategic management in the oil cabal

defended by $350B a year of

pentagon trough fillin'

an PRC service company

should be called in

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to ilsm... , September 16, 2019 at 07:43 PM
Could this be the sort of false-flag
op where explosives are planted by
non-foreign operators to make a lot of
smoke and minimal real damage, and make
it look like the work of 'enemy missiles',
sort of like the 'Wag The Dog' plot. It
might be well worth it to Certain Parties
to even do a modest amount of real damage.
Paine -> ilsm... , September 17, 2019 at 10:07 AM
Short run oil markets are spec controlled

Takes weeks to sort out real flow impacts
By then house of Saud busters will be ready for another attack


My guess the hole in Saud House's crotch
is not uncle fixable
In less then a years time

Paine -> Paine ... , September 17, 2019 at 10:08 AM
Of course my sources are all
traitors pinkos and goblins
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , September 19, 2019 at 08:10 AM
Iran's Foreign Minister Vows 'All-Out War'
if US or Saudis Strike https://nyti.ms/2AxMgFi
NYT - Richard Pérez-Peña - September 19

A military strike against Iran by the United States or Saudi Arabia would result in "an all-out war," Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Thursday, repeating his government's denial of responsibility for an attack last week that damaged Saudi oil facilities.

The Houthi rebel faction in Yemen -- supported by Iran in its fight against a Saudi-led coalition -- claimed responsibility for the Saturday attack. But Saudi and American officials blamed Iran, raising the threat of military retaliation. But so far it is not clear how they will react.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out an "act of war" with the aerial attacks, but President Trump has appeared reluctant to order a military strike. ...

----

Trump's National Security Aides to Meet on
Possible Iran Options https://nyti.ms/2QgO2pa
NYT - Eric Schmitt - September 19

WASHINGTON -- Senior national security officials from across the government are scheduled to meet Thursday to refine a list of potential targets to strike in Iran, should President Trump order a military retaliation for missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil fields last weekend, officials said.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are to present the updated options to Mr. Trump at a National Security Council meeting scheduled for Friday, a senior American official said.

In advance of being presented with the newest set of options, Mr. Trump has sent different signals on his intentions. He has threatened to order "the ultimate option" of a strike on Iran to punish the nation for its behavior, but also has made clear his continued opposition to ordering the United States into another war in the Middle East.

The Pentagon is advocating military strikes that one senior official described as at the lower end of options. The official said that any retaliation could focus on more clandestine operations -- actions that military planners predict would not prompt an escalation by Iran. ...

[Sep 23, 2019] The Russian Foreign Ministry issued an immediate response to the new US measures against Iran for the Yemen attack of Saudy oil stabilization plant denouncing them as "illegitimate

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 21, 2019 at 10:39 am

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/21/iran-s21.html

"The Russian Foreign Ministry issued an immediate response to the new US measures denouncing them as "illegitimate."

"This will not affect our approaches to Iran," said Zamir Kabulov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry Second Asian Department. "As we planned, we will continue to cooperate with Iran in the banking sector. This will have no effect [on Moscow's position] "

While Beijing, which counts Saudi Arabia as its second-largest source of oil imports, was somewhat more circumspect, it is highly unlikely that any new measures will affect its own ties to Iran. China accounts for half of Iran's sharply reduced oil exports, and Beijing and Tehran this month signed $400 billion worth of deals connected to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of which Iran is a key component.

The sanctions imposed by the Trump administration after ripping up the nuclear agreement in May 2018 amount to an economic blockade, tantamount to a state of war. They have led to shortages of food and medicines, leaving cancer patients to die."

"Tehran has vehemently denied these accusations. The Houthi rebels, who control the bulk of Yemen, claimed responsibility, declaring the attacks an act of self-defense against the murderous US-backed war that the Saudi monarchy has waged against Yemen for nearly four-and-a-half years, killing nearly 100,000 Yemenis and driving 8 million more to the brink of starvation."

"The cost of the Patriot missile defense systems run into the billions while the price of each missile that they fire is estimated at $5 million. This massively expensive weaponry proved useless in countering drones costing a few thousand dollars that devastated the world's largest oil refining facility."

"useless in countering drones"

So why deploy more of the "useless" system???

Northern Star September 21, 2019 at 10:48 am
First rate article on this American Hero
https://www.wsws.org/asset/94b5c752-08cc-440c-83ca-9e358d9423ff?rendition=image320

The comments
"Authoritarian Western governments like the US, the UK, and Sweden preach an enlightened, exalted rhetorical reverence for "the rule of law" and absolute dedication to "justice", civil rights and due process. Meanwhile, whenever it serves their interests, their actions are heinously and ruthlessly tyrannical, brutal, hypocritical, and capricious.
As we have seen over and over with Julian Assange, governments and their ministers of (ostensible) justice will simply run roughshod over any technicalities and niceties that ordinarily compel the release of incarcerated persons."

and their links are also spot on:
e.g.
https://qz.com/1655268/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-140-countries-combined/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/21/pers-s21.html

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[Sep 23, 2019] Pepe Escoabar (via Saker) has an interesting take on the Houthis capabilities and potential. He suggests that they could destabilize Saudi Arabia via a lightning grab of Mecca and an uprising of Shia in the eastern provinces

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer September 19, 2019 at 4:40 pm

Pepe Escoabar (via Saker) has an interesting take on the Houthis capabilities and potential. He suggests that they could destabilize Saudi Arabia via a lightning grab of Mecca and an uprising of Shia in the eastern provinces. The recent successful drone attacks certainly must have brought a smile to the Shia in that region and shown the ineptness of the Saudi military and their US backers.

It is amusing to watch the US squirm over the failure of its radars and missile systems to detect the attack. Also, if there any doubt, it was clearly the Houthis's handiwork likely with help from Hezbollah. There was a good story on the drone's technical capabilities which IIRC, carries a 100 pound warhead, flies at about 120 miles per hour and has a 1,000 mile range approximately. Presumably, it uses GPS for guidance. Here is the link to the Escobar story:

https://thesaker.is/how-the-houthis-overturned-the-chessboard/

Jennifer Hor September 20, 2019 at 1:32 pm
Mecca and the Red Sea port city of Jeddah are well within the range of drone and missile strikes by the Houthis. They are not much farther away from the Yemeni border than Abqaiq is. The Abqaiq attack serves as a warning to Riyadh of how vulnerable Mecca and Jeddah are, and that warning could even have been the original intention of the attack.

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davidt September 20, 2019 at 2:46 pm
I notice that Andrei Martyanov says that the Patriot systems have blind zones since they are restricted to operate 7 degrees above the horizontal. According to Martyanov, this is in contrast to the Russian S-series AD systems where missiles are launched vertically and then take "a ride on the beam" towards the target. (This seems to explain the launch pattern of these missiles where they are "popped" out vertically, whence their engines ignite sending the missile off, (often) very low and flat towards their targets.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2019/09/why-would-you-ask.html
From what Martyanov writes, it would seem that the US stuff has very serious design flaws.

Like Like

Mark Chapman September 20, 2019 at 6:25 pm
Contrast what the public is told with what the government is told.

http://www.turnerhome.org/jct/patriot.html

From 100% hit probability down to 9%.

You would think having so much smoke blown up one's ass would be a cancer risk.

[Sep 23, 2019] CrossTalk on the drone strike!

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 18, 2019 at 2:58 pm

Stooges should definitely watch this CrossTalk on the drone strike!!!!!
As the kids say: "It's On"

https://www.youtube.com/embed/joECbBFM3gE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Like Like

yalensis September 19, 2019 at 3:24 pm
Thanks for posting, I LOVED this episode of Crosstalk, because it was so contentious.
That delicious catfight between the "Arab" and the "Persian".
Arab guy clearly a vicious moron.
Persian guy seemed rational and logical compared to Arab guy, and then he goes on that delicious rant about "What we will do to you, fucking Saudis, if you attack us!"
And not only Saudi Arabia will descend into Dante's hell, but AmeriKKKa too!

Chill goes down my spine, Viva Persia!

Mark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 4:11 pm
In complete fairness, though, Peter does simply talk over panelists he doesn't like until they have to stop talking, because listeners can't make sense of two people talking loudly at the same time. CrossTalk has its own politics, and the Arab was never going to get equal time or have his viewpoints uncritically aired. He should have been allowed the same courtesy everyone else was. I disagree strongly with what he was saying, but the immediate rejection of his views and shouting him down did absolutely nothing to make the Kingdom look like the party in the wrong.

[Sep 23, 2019] Washington now claims cruise missiles were involved as well as drones. What bullshit. (a) An enemy who was able to strike the Saudi oil fields with cruise missiles sent over drones as well? (b) The Saudis had 50% of their damaged capacity back online in only a day, driving the oil price spike back down?

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 18, 2019 at 3:55 pm

Washington now claims cruise missiles were involved as well as drones. What bullshit. (a) An enemy who was able to strike the Saudi oil fields with cruise missiles sent over drones as well? (b) The Saudis had 50% of their damaged capacity back online in only a day, driving the oil price spike back down? After a cruise-missile strike? Did they carry a warhead the size of an orange? The Saudi oil fields are defenseless against a cruise-missile attack?

https://www.theledger.com/news/20190918/saudi-arabia-says-iran-cruise-missiles-drones-attacked-oil-sites

et Al September 19, 2019 at 11:23 am
It's hard to say because some stuff is clearly being held back from public scrutiny. We don't even know which weapons were fired at what targets.

My only thoughts about the domes is that they only need to be punctured by a high speed delayed incendiary. If it is a weight trade off for range fuel v. warhead, then range wins if popping a hole and igniting the gas is the aim. I don't know enough about the other targets.

As others have pointed out, what is the intent behind these attacks? Is it an 'act of war', a 'warning shot' or other? There are games within games and bluffs within bluffs being played here.

Like Like

et Al September 19, 2019 at 12:31 pm
Via Moon of Alabama
Michael Duitsman @DuitsyWasHere

You know who I feel sorry for in Saudi Arabia right now? The Air Defense Forces officer in charge of the short range air defenses at the Abqaiq oil facility. He'll be lucky to get out of this with his life.

Mark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 3:37 pm
On the one hand, elements within the USA want war with Iran really, really badly. Of slightly greater value, though, is the opportunity to portray Trump as weak and dithering because he hesitates to commit to it. But usually if Washington claims to have 'evidence it cannot reveal publicly' , that's because it is making it up. When it makes up evidence which it claims clearly demonstrates this or that, it always has a reason. I'm not sure yet what it is, but the USA is very serious about putting Iran in the frame for it. They may have had something to do with it, but like the so-convenient 'chemical attacks' in Syria. Iran would have been beyond foolish to do something like that right now, while their attitude suggests if they had done it, they'd be quite happy to own it.

[Sep 23, 2019] MOA suggests that the US has become stuck in the mindset that it will be always on the offense thus has no need for a real defensive capability. That sort of worked with Iraq and Grenada but against a country that can hit back, not so much.

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer September 17, 2019 at 4:34 pm

It was a mystery to me how cruise missiles, drones or whatever could have evaded detection, much less engagement, by US-supplied air defense systems. Per MOA, it was easy – US systems such as the Patriot stare in one direction.

The PAC-2 and PAC-3 systems are sector defenses as their radars do not rotate. They can only see an arc of 120°. In the case of the Saudis those radars only look towards the east to Iran whcih is the most likely axis of attack. That left the crude oil processing plant in Abqaiq completely unprotected against attacks from any other direction. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the U.S. know from where the attack really came.

The foregoing explains why the US is unsure where the missiles originated despite the knee-jerk braying by Pompeo. Moreover, it be be assumed that US Navy ships in the Gulf certainly were scanning the skies yet apparently detected nothing from Iran. So it really does look like the missiles originated from Yemen way.

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Mark Chapman September 17, 2019 at 4:55 pm
I'd be careful about blaming Iran, in view of the allegation that the US-supplied air defenses are focused in that direction and apparently did not even see the attack coming. It also casts doubt on American bellowing that they have loads of new evidence that Iran was responsible. If they had, why didn't they try to stop it?

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Jen September 17, 2019 at 5:06 pm
What I find really amazing in that paragraph quoted from MoA is that these radars have such a limited capability in surveying the skies. A 120° arc is about the same as the vision span / field of view of one human eye. Two eyes working together increase the span to 210° or just over. How is it that current US radar defence technology development can't produce a system of radars so that each can rotate at least 180° and can be paired with another radar to provide a full 360° range of surveillance?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_view

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Patient Observer September 17, 2019 at 5:37 pm
MOA suggests that the US has become stuck in the mindset that it will be always on the offense thus has no need for a real defensive capability. That sort of worked with Iraq and Grenada but against a country that can hit back, not so much. That profoundly inept piece of junk Patriot missile system is proof positive.

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davidt September 18, 2019 at 6:07 pm
I am not sure that stupidity is ever amazing- after all, it is very easy to do stupid things. (Think Singapore, 1941) In all this, what took me a long time to accept is how technologically advanced the Russian missile technology is- for example, it seems that frequent swarm attacks by drones on the Russian air base at all been destroyed. Many decades of research have clearly gone into the development of this technology. I suspect that the key to this development was the strategic decision made by the Soviets back in the 70's to develop missiles to destroy US carrier groups. Over a long period of time their missiles became supersonic, and eventually the manoeuvrable hypersonic missiles that they have today. Putin seems very confident that it will take many years for the US to catch up. He might be right: "even 9 women cannot produce a baby within a month".

[Sep 23, 2019] Pretty sure you in particular will get a chuckle out of these comments from the wsws article

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 17, 2019 at 3:42 pm

@PO .Pretty sure you in particular will get a chuckle out of these comments from the wsws article
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/17/pers-s17.html

Kalen • 16 hours ago
There is no doubt that growing global tensions provocative rhetoric, erratic reckless behavior of leadership , irrationality in global diplomatic , political or economic relations permeating official propaganda narratives serve overall purpose of stoking nationalism as counteroffensive to exploding class struggle worldwide.

In case of Saudis though it is all about destabilization of outdated medieval regime by US and Israel via enticing trained in cruelty MbS to unnecessary useless and most of all un-winnable Yemen war that in fact presents existential threat to the very existence of Saudi puppet regime itself.

It is likely that Saudis regime will be at some point swept from power in the name of progressive .. nationalism in fact fascism one way or another via sort of Arab color revolution, as this medieval circus of flaccid clowns is too easy target for socialist revolution.

In fact Saudi Arabia is ironically the prime place with required conditions for socialist revolution to erupt not only because class division is so sharp and visible even embedded into state law but also because working class there is truly international from Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and entire MENA and level of their exploitation is horrific practically amounts to slavery.

The fragility of Saudi regime was clearly shown by this attack on practically unprotected critical oil infrastructure from low intensity warfare threat Saudi are engaged in fact by proxy in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, while spending $billions on useless junk that in fact does not work at all as Houti ballistic missile attacks proved as while Soviet era shor range ballistic missile missed the targets most of damage was done by falling patriot II missiles falling down after missing their targets.

And hence Saudis and Turkey long wanted to buy Russian air defense systems already bought by China, India and others triggering US sanctions against companies and individuals involved.

US Empire is already a technical and scientific failure founded on fraud in military area as well.

The question if quite primitive Houti forces were possibly able to pull of such attack of about twenty armed drones (claimed by Houties 1500 km range) must be answered yes, with recent technical support of Iranians (after reimposition of embargo) and local spotters/controllers on the ground.

The similar swarm drone attacks was pulled by AQ terrorist affiliated forces (with US training) several times against Russian Air and Navy base in Syria all unsuccessfully mostly due to Russia electronic warfare capability and Panzir 2 system purposefully designed to defend from drone swarm attacks.

The rather meek and balanced response of markets and politicians so far to this on its face conditions imminent regional war involving nuclear powers tells me that there is no real intention so far to start a war not because of better angel of ruling elites nature but because they do not yet feel directly threatened by socialist revolution.

For them much valuable counterrevolutionary tool is inspiring nationalism simple threat of war rather than war itself as it always unleashing law of unforeseen consequences and fuels real political instability potentially threatening their own empires of domination.

Best way to prevent war is not defending national elites but engaging in international socialist revolution.

jplotinus Kalen • 12 hours ago
In my view, the fact that Saudi Arabia's air defense system was unable to thwart an attack on major oil infrastructure is quite damning and worthy of being the leading element of this incident. However, as the Saudis have bought and paid for the very expensive but apparently ineffective Patriot air defense system means that as little coverage as possible of this aspect of the story will likely ensue in mainstream media.

I've noticed Putin has publicly offered to sell Saudi Arabia Russia's S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. Hmmm

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Patient Observer September 17, 2019 at 5:50 pm
There will be no major war against Iran. The US will continue to try to strangle Iran but success is becoming increasingly unlikely.

If there were to be a serious attack on Iran and Iran responded with its full capacity, KSA could kiss its ass goodby. Desalination facilities would be targeted, oil infrastructure would be destroyed including pipelines and loading facilities and power plants knocked out all by missiles, US warships in the Gulf would be in dire straits as well. Yes, a social revolution could then take place. I do wonder about the UAE. I hear that they are distancing themselves from the Saudis lately.

[Sep 23, 2019] The barbaric war waged by Saudi Arabia on Yemen, with US military assistance, has been all but omitted from the media coverage of the drone strikes.

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 16, 2019 at 1:48 pm

More on the drone strike on KSA oil production facilities.

https://www.checkpointasia.net/surgical-strike-attack-on-saudi-oil-plant-was-incredibly-well-executed/

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Mark Chapman September 16, 2019 at 11:17 pm
Oh, well, then; speculation over. It was Iran. Nobody else could have executed it incredibly well.

Like Liked by 1 person

Northern Star September 17, 2019 at 3:36 pm
The article and the comments..Absolute must read!!! (IMO)

e.g.
"Whatever the exact circumstances of the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, they are being exploited for the purpose of dragging the American people and all of humanity into a war that can rapidly escalate into a regionwide and even global conflagration.

US strikes against Iran carried out under the pretext of retaliation for the attacks on Saudi Arabia can trigger Iranian counterstrikes, sending US warships to the bottom of the Persian Gulf and wreaking havoc on American military bases throughout the region.

The prospect of thousands of US soldiers and sailors dying as a result of Washington's conspiracies and aggression carries with it the threat of the US government assuming emergency powers and implementing police-state measures in the US itself in the name of "national security."

This would, by no means, be an unintended consequence. The buildup to war is driven in large measure by the escalation of social tensions and class struggle within the United States itself, which has found fresh expression in the strike by 46,000 autoworkers against General Motors. "
OR

"Charlotte Ruse • 12 hours ago
"If there is, as Washington claims, "no evidence' that the attacks were launched from Yemen, one could, with equal if not greater justification, observe that there is likewise "no evidence' that they were not launched by the US itself, or by its principal regional ally, Israel.

If one proceeds from the age-old detective maxim of Cui bono? or Who benefits? Tehran is the least likely suspect. There is clearly more to Washington's rush to judgment than meets the eye."

Yes, Cui bono–who benefited most by this attack–all the usual neoconservative warmongers who've been biting at the chomp for decades to go to War with Iran–the "non-interventionist buffoon" may grant them their wish.

And undoubtedly, the usual Wall Street scum secured a financial "killing" as "Oil prices rose 10 percent on Monday.

I think Tulsi Gabbard's tweet perfectly sums up who's in-charge of US foreign policy:
"Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters. Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not "America First."
https://twitter.com/realDon

https://www.nytimes.com/201

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/17/pers-s17.html

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Jen September 17, 2019 at 4:00 pm
Iran having carried out the attack on the Abqaiq facilities from a southwest direction (when it is to the northeast of the area of the attack) was a stunning achievement. How could Saudi defences, aided by US satellites – and Israeli defences for that matter – have possibly missed the Iranian drones or missiles as they circled around the entire Middle Eastern region without being shot down before hitting those oil storage tanks?

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Northern Star September 16, 2019 at 1:59 pm
"The barbaric war waged by Saudi Arabia on Yemen, with US military assistance, has been all but omitted from the media coverage of the drone strikes. Since 2015, Saudi-led air strikes on towns and cities in Houthi-held areas have killed tens of thousands of civilians, while leaving 80 percent of the population in need of food aid and several million on the brink of starvation.
Saudi war planes, armed with US and British bombs and provided with targeting information by US officers based in Saudi Arabia, have carried out repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential areas, mosques and markets. Up to the end of last year, the US also provided mid-air refueling for the Saudi-led onslaught.
Saudi Arabia has a huge military budget. Last year it ranked as the world's third highest spender on military equipment, splurging for an estimated $67.6 billion. The ability of the Houthi rebels to penetrate Saudi defences and strike crucial oil infrastructure has heightened fears of further attacks."

(comment)
"Ric Size
The Trump administration & entire US political establishment must line-up behind the narrative that Iran is responsible for this devastating drone strike. As noted in this excellent article, Saudi Arabia now spends ~$68 billion annually on its military, and most of this comes in the form of sophisticated weaponry from the US. But these expensive instruments-of-death were unable to stop a coordinated drone attack from Yemeni rebels. This calls into question the usefulness of Saudi Arabia-US alliance, and the sustainability of the global petrodollar market.
A scapegoat is needed, and quickly. Look for an all-out war drive in the media, against Iran, as a cover-up to this disaster. Gasoline prices will rise by at least a dollar a gallon within a month, which is another embarrassment for political leaders during an election cycle, and an added expense for workers who commute by vehicle."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/16/saud-s16.html

[Sep 23, 2019] Ukrainian fatigue

Notable quotes:
"... The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine. ..."
Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 21, 2019 at 1:43 am

The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine.

Source

Media: Trump considers senseless US actions in Ukraine
9/21/2019, 9:29:23 AM

US President Donald Trump considers US actions in the Ukraine senseless, which actions at the same time aggravate relations with Russia, The Washington Post reports, citing a former senior White House official.

According to the newspaper interlocutor, the president takes the position that "Russians should be our friends".

"What we do in the Ukraine is pointless and annoying Russia", he said, describing the president's opinion.

Earlier, former US Vice President Joe Biden called on Trump to publish a transcript of a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

So there you have it!

Trump is a Kremlin Stooge.

[Sep 23, 2019] Kiev Accepts "Steinmeier Formula" For Peace In Donbass

Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine have never kept to the ceasefire and have been destroying settlements -- once they get control of the border – Donbass is finished. ..."
"... You mention the killing in Mariupol. The assassinations will continue and the people of Donbass will be made to pay. ..."
"... Five years has shown that real hatred has been unleashed – this is not going to go away. ..."
"... the Steinmeir formula is a con to hasten the end of Donbass. This was the guy who signed the agreement with Yanukovich on early elections etc and then stood back when he was overthrown. ..."
"... I also agree. This is a trap. No treaty should be signed unless DPR/LPR are guaranteed to control the border with Russia. ..."
"... The best defense against that would be the vote, which must take place first and under OSCE supervision, without Ukrainian meddling or coercion. If the vote indicated that a majority wants to return to Kiev's control, then that's what should happen. But I don't see it going that way. ..."
Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 10:46 pm

Kiev Accepts "Steinmeier Formula" For Peace In Donbass

So Volker can shut his gob and go back to where he came from.

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James lake September 19, 2019 at 11:12 pm
Major issue with this formula is "The transfer of the border"

Ukraine have never kept to the ceasefire and have been destroying settlements -- once they get control of the border – Donbass is finished.

You mention the killing in Mariupol. The assassinations will continue and the people of Donbass will be made to pay.

Five years has shown that real hatred has been unleashed – this is not going to go away.

Germany in my view plays a double game – they want this to happen – the Steinmeir formula is a con to hasten the end of Donbass. This was the guy who signed the agreement with Yanukovich on early elections etc and then stood back when he was overthrown.

Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 11:58 pm
I agree. The filth will swarm into the Donbass from Galitsia as soon as an agreement has been made and the killings will then begin.

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yalensis September 20, 2019 at 1:37 pm
I also agree. This is a trap. No treaty should be signed unless DPR/LPR are guaranteed to control the border with Russia.

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Mark Chapman September 20, 2019 at 3:28 pm
We'll see. According to the Minsk Agreement, the elections and the autonomous status were supposed to be settled before the border was returned to Ukrainian control. That has always been an issue for Kuh-yiv. It wants to be trusted to have control over the Donbas before the other elements are fulfilled. But as His Nibs Shaun Of The Dead Walker has pointed out before now, 'the border' in that region is largely an illusion, and checkpoints are for those who have to travel by road. Military units, especially heavy armor, do not.

I think what is most likely to happen is little troublesome uprisings across a broad front, initiated by Azov Battalion and other Ukie militias and making use of 'loyal' Ukrainians in Donbas and Lugansk.

This would create a governance problem for the regions, and be portrayed in the western press as an earnest desire among the inhabitants to return to Ukraine, 'now that the Russians have gone'.

The best defense against that would be the vote, which must take place first and under OSCE supervision, without Ukrainian meddling or coercion. If the vote indicated that a majority wants to return to Kiev's control, then that's what should happen. But I don't see it going that way.

Moscow Exile September 20, 2019 at 12:02 am
But what of the Russian army that has supposedly been entrenched in the Donbass these past few years?

Surely, the Russian Army will not allow this ethnic cleansing to happen, for that surely is what will happen, albeit "ethnic" is not the right word, even though the brain-dead Nazi "true Slavs" from the West believe it is.

Moscow Exile September 20, 2019 at 12:40 am
And if it comes to the worst, that shite Snyder can add another chapter to his "Bloodlands" -- or would he?
Moscow Exile September 20, 2019 at 3:50 am
Ukraine's Ambassador to Serbia Urged the World to Destroy Russia :
September 20, 2019 Stalker Zone

"Our actions have to become offensive and have the disintegration of the Russian Federation as a conscious ultimate goal. This is the only effective long-term solution that the vast majority of countries will benefit from.

attempts to pacify Russia lead only to the growth of its arrogance, as was was the case with the return of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Attempts to reach an agreement in a civilised way with the Russian Federation are also doomed to fail, "since such a decision contradicts the main expansionist thinking of the Kremlin regime".

"The Russian Federation, in its present borders and with its present resources, is never capable of becoming a normal civilised state", said the diplomat.

Aleksandrovich emphasises that "ways of disintegrating the Russian Federation don't demand conducting military operations".

The ambassador lists a number of tools via which it is possible to "pacify Russia":

1. personal sanctions against bosses with the freezing of assets and a ban on entrance;
2. tight restrictions for energy, bank, and financial-military and technical sectors;
3. a ban on the sale of modern technologies;
4 .a collapse in oil prices.

"There comes a time when the last evil empire has to fall," summarized the Ukrainian diplomat.

Oh please, not a ban on modern technologies!!!!!!

Brain dead?

Moscow Exile September 20, 2019 at 4:10 am
He's a bit of a shit, is Oleksandr Oleksandrovych, and has upset the Serbs on more than one occasion.

Belgrade outraged at Ukrainian ambassador's stance regarding Russia-Serbia relations

In his recent interview, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych claimed Russia 'uses Serbia to destabilize situation in Western Balkans and thereby destroy Europe'
09:15, 3 November 2017

Ukrainian ambassador's views on Russia-Serbia relations and Russia's role in continental security, all the more expressed publicly, are unacceptable. Ivica Tonchev, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia said this as quoted by Frontnews International, commenting on the statement recently made by the Ukrainian diplomat.

'The main role of ambassadors is to do everything to improve bilateral relations, primarily political and economic, as well as all other forms of cooperation. The Ambassador of Ukraine to Serbia, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych, seems to be constantly forgetting this, since all his activities are reduced to fruitless attempts to break relations between the Republic of Serbia and the Russian Federation. In the latest series of scandalous interviews he gave, he said that the Republic of Serbia does not pursue an independent foreign policy, that is, it is in the hands of Russia, thus destabilizing the entire region of the Western Balkans, thereby 'destroying Europe,' Tonchev said.

He also called on the Ukrainian government to take action on the Ambassador and his unacceptable behavior so that Serbia 'was not forced to make the usual steps in such situations.'

In recent interviews with Serbian media, Ukraine's Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Alexandrovich said that Russia is using Serbia to destabilize the situation in the region, in particular, encouraging separatism in Bosnia and trying to influence Macedonia. The ambassador also mentioned the Serbian mercenaries fighting on the side of the Russian armed formations in Donbas.


Oleksandr Oleksandrovych: he might be better suited to playing Count Dracula in horror movies.

In fact, the ambassador stepped so much out of line in November 2017 that even Rumpleklimkin, then Banderastan Foreign Minister, was forced to call him to hold consultations in Kiev because of his statements to the Serbian media.

At the same time, Ivica Toncev, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, stated that the Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Oleksandrovych's statements concerning Russian influence on Serbia were unacceptable and threatened him with possible consequences in accordance with the Vienna Convention.

Mark Chapman September 20, 2019 at 3:33 pm
Let him sign out a rifle and tin hat, and get to the front.

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Moscow Exile September 20, 2019 at 6:59 am
Meet Anna Novosad: Representative of Ukraine's "New" Liquidation Committee
September 19, 2019 Stalker Zone

Novosad is a graduate of the humanitarian lyceum in Kiev, and in 2011 she ended a bachelor degree at the National University "Kiyevo-Mogilyansky Academy" as a "political scientist". Two years later she received a master's degree in the Dutch Maastricht. She studied in Spain and the Czech Republic, and was a scholar of the Soros fund. In addition, as Novosad wrote on Facebook, she took part in the Ukrainian-Canadian administrative program, within the framework of which she attended a special course ran by the Canadian authorities.

I.e., as we see, Anna Novosad is the classical representative of the new "Ukrainian elite", which was raised and brought up abroad and which already is almost not connected to Ukraine even at the mental level. And the reset of the Ukrainian authorities in the form of "Zelensky's victory" was started to a large extent for the mass invasion of such artificially grown mankurts that are supposed to completely remove people with a Soviet past and any ties (family, friendly, business) with Russia from the country's governance structures.

And they absolutely do not need either knowledge of Ukrainian, knowledge of national history, or understanding of what's admissible. Even intellectual qualities aren't especially required from them, because their task is relaying the will of their masters and to control their implementation.

And Farion doesn't like her because she can't talk the shitkicker Slav dialect as good as she can. In fact, it's debatable whether Novosad can talk Yukie with any competence at all.

Mark Chapman September 20, 2019 at 6:06 pm
Yes, what's the matter with her? Real Ukrainians ride sturdy ponies and wear their hair in the khokol style. Government superiors are referred to as 'Hetman'. And there's a lot of kneeling. The age of machines is an utter betrayal of Kievan ideals.

[Sep 23, 2019] ISIS 'rebels' have their backs up against the wall in Syria and, whaddya know; the UN proposes a ceasefire. Just like it always does when Washington wants to buck up the 'rebels', resupply them with arms and ammunition and call up reinforcements.

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 21, 2019 at 4:31 pm

ISIS 'rebels' have their backs up against the wall in Syria and, whaddya know; the UN proposes a ceasefire. Just like it always does when Washington wants to buck up the 'rebels', resupply them with arms and ammunition and call up reinforcements.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/russia-blasted-carpet-bombing-syria-190919181519705.html

Russia and China vetoed it, and put forward their own resolution which also addressed a ceasefire, but it was rejected. When Russia and China veto a UN resolution, the western press is at great pains to point them out as having voted against it. When a Russia/China resolution is shot down, it 'failed to secure enough votes'. Those who voted against it are not identified.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Russia+China+resolution+ceasefire+Syria&t=ffsb&atb=v113-1&ia=web

This tradition extends even to the UN website itself, where "Belgium, Germany and Kuwait tabled a draft proposing a humanitarian ceasefire, which garnered 12 out of 15 votes. Permanent members Russia and China used their right to veto, blocking its adoption." Whereas "Their own resolution, which highlighted terrorism concerns by extremist groups operating inside the region, also failed to pass, with nine members voting against and four abstaining." Who voted against? You tell me.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/09/1046802

This follows a well-established pattern of the USA using the UN Security Council to introduce resolutions which forestall the eradication of ISIS in Syria, and intervene on 'humanitarian grounds' to create an opportunity to resupply extremist forces and stave off their defeat, or even sometimes to evacuate them before they can be overrun, whereupon they pop up someplace else and the effort to wipe them out must begin again.

Although the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs stipulated that "a unilateral ceasefire announced by Russia on 30 August has reportedly led to a decline in fighting in the northwestern region", it evidently did not provide the degree of freedom to dabble sought by western nations, and the French twit currently in residence there complained that Russia is 'carpet-bombing' Syria. Apparently when Russia drops bombs, only civilians are killed.

[Sep 23, 2019] Reminiscence of the Future... Something About Combat Use by smoothiex12

Notable quotes:
"... The United States hasn't "grown lazy and risk-averse"--and Breshidsky wouldn't know it even if explained--it was made such by Real Revolution in Military Affairs whose arrival through new technological means, operational concepts and new force structure , simply removed most (not all) "advantages", often grossly exaggerated, the United States thought it enjoyed for the last 30 years or so. ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | smoothiex12.blogspot.com

Leonid Bershidsky is (butt) hurt, badly. So, after Vladimir Putin's air and anti missile defense trolling yesterday--you can see (in Russian) Rouhani's and Erdogan's priceless reactions here:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fXpyH871l9I/0.jpg

whose biography you can read here , for some reason (wink, wink) takes it too personally and lets it rip in his piece at Bloomberg (another "fine" specimen of US "fair and balanced" propaganda outlet). Here is what bothers Mr. Bershidsky:

President Vladimir Putin's offer to sell Russian air defense systems to Saudi Arabia is about more than mere trolling, even though it caused laughter from Iran's President Hassan Rouhani. Putin was trying to persuade the entire Middle East that working with him is more effective than cooperating with the U.S. One could regard it as a kind of mafia-style protection offer: The new, more aggressive gangster on the block is making a bid because the current king of the streets has grown lazy and risk-averse.
One can almost feel Bershidsky's pain but the problem with this statement is not the fact that there is only one gangster in this story, and that is not Russia, but in the fact that Bershidsky, who hails from an army of brilliant (ahem) "influencers" with degrees in anything but applicable serious professional skills crucial for military and geopolitical analysis, has, as expected, misrepresented risk-aversion for the exercise of sound operational judgement.

The United States hasn't "grown lazy and risk-averse"--and Breshidsky wouldn't know it even if explained--it was made such by Real Revolution in Military Affairs whose arrival through new technological means, operational concepts and new force structure , simply removed most (not all) "advantages", often grossly exaggerated, the United States thought it enjoyed for the last 30 years or so.

Actually, one of the major reasons this had happened was the category of public with MBAs, stock trading, marketing, finances, banking and journalism backgrounds who could understand some financial bottom lines, for which they tirelessly worked, but had and continue (as Bershidsky so vividly demonstrates) to have huge difficulties with grasping technological, tactical, operational and strategic realities of our modern world.

Then, Bershidsky makes this bizarre assertion (one would expect it from an amateur):

In reality, it's the S-400 that Russia has been trying hard to sell to Saudi Arabia, so far without success. It has also offered the missiles to Qatar. Neither the S-300 nor the S-400 has seen any real combat use . Theoretically, and as seen in exercises, these are powerful weapons. But not even Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, who has had a few opportunities to use the S-300s he received from Russia last year, has done so.
First, Bashar Assad doesn't have full control of S-300 in Syria, at least not yet and it is Russia which defines S-300s use within her military and diplomatic agenda in Syria, not Syrians. It is an obvious fact, which was confirmed couple of days ago:
According to the report, Moscow has prevented three Israeli air strikes on three Syrian outposts recently, and even threatened that any jets attempting such a thing would be shot down, either by Russian jets or by the S-400 anti-aircraft missiles. The source cited in the report claims a similar situation has happened twice – and that during August, Moscow stopped an air strike on a Syrian outpost in Qasioun, where a S-300 missile battery is placed.
Unlike Israelis or US Military-Industrial-Media Complex Russians, when the deal is a very serious real kinetic military affair between Russia and nations which matter globally (US), or regionally (Israel), seldom runs around praising oneself and own capabilities, since this may adversely affect, usually behind the scene, diplomatic effort. It is one thing to show off salvos of 3M14 burning jihadists in their compounds in Syria, or reveal weapons, such as in Putin's speech on March 1, 2018, to cool the heads of some homicidal lunatics in D.C., totally another--describing everyday contingencies between all players in the region. In fact, Russia officially was very low key on that and that is understandable.
There is, however, a risible line in Bershidsky's "assertion" about S-300 and S-400 not seeing "any combat use". I would love to use Sergei Lavrov's meme here but I have to restrain myself, because at this stage it wouldn't help the situation. Evidently, Leonid Bershidsky who never spent a day in any serious military position, thinks that "combat use" is when things only "shoot". Well, there is one problem, well, actually two, with this assertion because from the get go he misses:

1. Both S-300 and S-400 systems were delivered to Syria with one thought in mind--to precisely prevent this "combat use" by means of deploying capability which drastically reduces tactical and operational options for all bogeys (Israel, ahem) to make them much more cooperative in a political, as opposed to combat, field. It worked, brilliantly in a strategic sense--with IAF being effectively pushed out of Syria's airspace, while reducing the number of its sorties drastically still. This is not to mention the fact that other systems, such as S1 and Tor M2s, not to mention a very well organized work of Battle Management Centers and Early Warning and Electronic Warfare systems, performing admirably by shooting down all, but one, jihadists' drones and missiles. That is real combat performance and a very impressive one. I will abstain from describing Trump's "very smart missiles" 70% of which (including, rumor has it, JASSM) had been taken down by Syrian Air Defense .

2. Now, most important--COMBAT record of the Soviet/Russian Air Defense systems. Discarding a fear of being called a Russian chauvinist, nationalist or accused of gloating (been there, done that), specifically for Bershidsky--combat record of Soviet/Russian AD systems is without equals in history. No one comes even close to a number of combat episodes Soviet/Russian systems took part in and came out victorious against bogeys. Not least among them is Israeli Air Force. I will quote from my latest:

While estimates vary wildly, approximately 1,737 U.S. aircraft (not counting helicopters) have been lost to hostile actions between 1961 and 1973 in South East Asia, largely over Vietnam.1 The majority of these losses were due to AAA (Anti-Air Artillery) and SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles). During almost 24 months of the Rolling Thunder operation the U.S. lost 881 aircraft; in 1967 alone, the United States lost 62 aircraft to SAMs while losing 205 to AAA. In 1973, during the 19-days long Yom Kippur War, the Israeli Air Force lost over 100 aircraft, most of them to SAMs.

This is just a highly abbreviated list of Surface-to-Air missiles engaging all kinds of aerial threats from high value attack and fighter jet aircraft, to bombers, to cruise missiles since the early 1960s. The feature which unifies all entries in this list is the fact that all these surface-to-air missiles and the targeting and launch systems for them were and are Soviet/Russian made.

Putting it in simpler, more straightforward language -- Soviet/Russian Air Defense systems, when used by skilled operators, have an unrivaled combat history. No other nation has a comparable record of the use of such systems in combat and thus of gaining such a combat experience.

For Bershidsky--all data was taken specifically from Western sources to avoid being accused of pro-Russian bias. Numbers do not lie, when confirmed. Those have been confirmed (unlike modern-day economic fuzzy data) and even at the lower end of estimates (not to mention a factor of often NON-Soviet/Russian manning of systems--in stochastic combat models multipliers less than 1 are introduced for degraded capability) make a dramatic impression.

So, in this case, one has to start thinking what this record means for new systems? It means an enormous array of data which is behind honing, design concepts, algorithms, sensors, targeting systems that is, which allow for steady improvements in capability. In the end, this was a major reason Turks "exchanged" F-35 for S-400. I am sure they were made privy to mathematical expectations and probabilities of success for various air attack scenarios against Turkey. They, obviously, loved what they heard and saw and now Turkish officers (the second team) are in Russia training for S-400. So, unless the whole Saudi (ARAMCO) oil facility attack is a false flag by Saudis themselves or by a triumvirate of purveyors of liberty and democracy in the Middle East, aka KSA, Israel and USA, there is pretty much only one thing Saudis can do about defending oil facilities against drone and missile attacks--get systems which work. I know, that makes Leonid Bershidsky's life miserable--after all, he dedicated his journo carrier to writing on things most of which he cannot grasp or doing a hack job for someone else's interests .

But in general, I am getting really tired when majors in marketing or broadcasting pretend to be "experts" in fields which are beyond their grasp. No wonder the West is in steep decline. Posted by smoothiex12

Labels: "combat use" , attack , butt-hurt , Israel , Leonid Bershidsky , oil fields , S-300 , S-400 , Saudi Arabia , Syria , trolling , Turkey , Vladimir Putin

Comments (Atom) For A Nice Shot Of Bourbon And A Good Cigar

Real Revolution In Military Affairs

Is comiing Soon My Book Is On Sale

It Is Here Saker's Review.

The above summary does not do justice to Martyanov's truly seminal book. I can only say that I consider this book as an absolutely indispensable "must read" for every person in the USA who loves his/her country and for every person who believes that wars, especially nuclear ones, must be avoided at all costs. Asia Times About The Book
In Losing Military Supremacy, his latest, groundbreaking book, crack Russian military-naval analyst Andrei Martyanov deconstructs in detail how, "the United States faces two nuclear and industrial superpowers, one of which fields a world-class armed forces. If the military-political, as opposed to merely economic, alliance between Russia and China is ever formalized – this will spell the final doom for the United States as a global power." My Blog List

[Sep 23, 2019] Birds of a feather flock together?

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 18, 2019 at 4:18 pm

Stooges

Any thoughts on this?

https://www.checkpointasia.net/canadian-ambassador-and-military-honour-nazi-collaborators-in-ukraine/

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Jen September 18, 2019 at 4:48 pm
Seeing that both the Canadian ambassador to Banderastan and his boss the Canadian Foreign Minister having family histories rooted in western Ukraine / Banderastan Ground Zero – Waschuk's father and Freeland's maternal grandmother both from Ivano-Frankivsk – what thoughts are we expected to have on Waschuk's participation and Freeland's approval for him to attend other than that cliche: "Birds of a feather flock together?"
Moscow Exile September 18, 2019 at 8:48 pm
Ivano-Frankivsk; formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislau, or Stanisławów. Became part of the UkSSR within the USSR as per the shifting of the pre-WWII Eastern Polish frontier (set by the Treaty of Versailles, 1919, but ignored by Poland) westwards and the transference of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire's Kronland of Galitsia, capital Krakow and administrative language Polish and not German as in other Kronländer , with the exception of Hungarian in the Hungarian part of the dual Hapsburg Empire.

Religion: Roman Catholic or Greek Uniate, depending whether you are a Polish Pan or a Ruthenian peasant shitkicker.

Built in the mid-17th century as a fortress of the Polish Potocki family, Stanisławów was annexed to the Habsburg Empire during the First Partition of Poland in 1772, after which it became the property of the State within the Austrian Empire.

The fortress was slowly transformed into one of the most prominent cities at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. After World War I, for several months, it served as a temporary capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic.

Galitsia, as Porky Poroshenko said, is the essence of Banderastan the Ukraine.

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Mark Chapman September 18, 2019 at 5:00 pm
What a disgrace.

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 1:47 am
The descent into a regime of terror:

Ukrainian Nazis Celebrate the Murder of a DPR Militiaman, Western "Human Rights Defenders" Silent
September 17, 2019 Stalker Zone

"Higher Justice is always done Once again, using humanistic principles, I address the enemies of the Ukraine: 'Surrender to Ukrainian law enforcement! Voluntarily go to Ukrainian prisons and don't leave them! Because God's punishment will inevitably come! Glory to the nation! Death to enemies!'" -- Dmitry Yarosh, commenting on his Facebook page on the murder of a DPR militiaman in Mariupol.

What can be said about this? A day has already passed since this extremist statement was made, but no human rights organisation or international observer has reacted. The murder of a DPR militiaman in Mariupol is obviously on the hands of nationalist battalions, but this case, like many others, will be registered as unsolved or fabricated. The fact of the exemplary punishment of people who supported the creation of the People's Republics testifies to the true attitude of Kiev towards the residents of Donbass. That is why Zelensky is against amnesty and wants elections after the People's Militia lays down their arms. As soon as the UAF come here, objectionable persons will be simply slashed and killed, and Yarosh only confirms this

The Mother of the DPR Militiaman Killed in Mariupol Named the Organiser of Her Son's Execution
September 17, 2019 Stalker Zone

About the Exaltation of Banderist Murderers
September 18, 2019 Stalker Zone

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et Al September 19, 2019 at 8:56 am
I'll say it again, the world's great democracies don't have a problem with little nazis and extremists. After all, they can be put back in their boxes when time is due, just as they did with Adolf Hitler and just as they did with ISIS in Syria.

You wonder how many times these countries go around this bush of backing 'small groups' that they then 'lose control of' leading to a much larger conflagration.

Accidental? Unintended? Repetitive? You won't have the great and good democratic institutions or the representatives of the great free press publicizing cause and effect much at all. What a bunch of Britneys!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CduA0TULnow?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

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Northern Star September 19, 2019 at 3:18 pm
Well it seems to me that the solution to a particular individual problem rests upon removing the problem permanently.

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Northern Star September 19, 2019 at 3:28 pm
As I understand it if a scope equipped assault automatic weapon can be targeted at point A to point B, its versatility enables it to operate the other way 'round..from B to A.

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Northern Star September 19, 2019 at 3:43 pm

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wMvTR012Dmg?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 6:53 am

Typical Times twat!

Pay, if you wish, to gain access to the shite that he has written!

Funny, though, how a state that he and his ilk consider to be weak, failed and "isolated" from the "World Community" always seems to win.

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 6:56 am
And as regards the "crimes" in the Ukraine that he mentions, I should not imagine that amongst those he includes the very recent and public murder of a Mariupol "Vatnik" and the praise for which crime the murderer/s has/have very publicly received in Banderastan.

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 7:13 am
The clipped paragraph in Boyes' Times article above reads:

Now we're at it again. Thirty-five Ukrainians, including a film director and two dozen hapless sailors, were this month traded for some hardnut separatists including Vladimir Tsemakh, the commander of a Russian-backed unit in Donetsk which shot down the civilian MH17 airliner in 2014.

Plenty of Dutch and Australian relatives of the victims of that Malaysian Airlines flight are unhappy that Tsemakh is

WALL

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 7:39 am
If anyone should wish to do so, Boyes' article can be back translated from its Russian translation that is at, inosmi.ru

The Times (Великобритания): Путин нужен Трампу, чтобы побеждать за рубежом

which ends with:

Perhaps it seems to Trump that Putin is the lever that will raise his moral weight and authority. Perhaps he seems to him to be a useful partner in times of extreme global confusion and volatility. It is possible that, in the opinion of the American president, a rapprochement with Putin will strengthen his reputation in the world, and will by no means will look like a fatal retreat. However, the principle should be that relations with Russia cannot return to normal, as long as it keeps the Crimea, cynically taken away from the Ukraine five years ago.

The Kremlin will try to fool the new and inexperienced president of the Ukraine, hoping that Western leaders will put pressure on him and forget a lot. However, the country where Sergey Skripal and his daughter were poisoned right before everyone's eyes should not silently watch this rehabilitation.

[back translation from the Russian]

Hear him, hear him, I say!

Let's hear it again for Great Britain!!!!

Those British are no fools and know full well what those damned Russkies are up to!

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Mark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 3:19 pm
Or the ubiquitous "Agent 404" and his well-earned down-time for killing journalists in Ukraine.

https://www.rt.com/news/250529-ukraine-journalists-killed-database/

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Mark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 3:16 pm
Well, there must be some truth to what he says – western food actually does plump you up.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/552768/Britons-too-fat-to-work-are-costing-taxpayers-10m-a-year

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[Sep 23, 2019] Russian secondary schools ("high schools" in US usage and literally "middle schools" in Russian) have now been internationally recognized as the best in the world.

But see https://cs10.pikabu.ru/post_img/big/2019/01/28/11/1548701259179284840.jpg In programming Russian university teams are now matched by other Universities
Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 17, 2019 at 10:45 am

Wherever you may now be, eat your heart out La Russophobe !

I can't remember if I have mentioned this earlier, but last Sunday lunchtime, when I was out in the sticks, I heard this snippet of information on the lunchtime radio news: Russian secondary schools ("high schools" in US usage and literally "middle schools" in Russian) have now been internationally recognized as the best in the world.

I have tried to follow it up on the Internet, but nothing there about it, so it must be Russian propagandistic "fake news", mustn't it, because if it were true, then it would have been announced in the Western news media -- wouldn't it?

Jen September 17, 2019 at 10:26 pm
Moscow State University came first again in the ICPC finals in 2019. Other universities in the top 12 included two other Russian universities and universities in Poland (2), Hong Kong (2), the two Koreas (1 each), Iran (1), Japan (1), Taiwan (1) and the United States (1).

https://icpc.baylor.edu/worldfinals/results

davidt September 18, 2019 at 5:20 pm
Do I detect a University of Sydney prejudice here? You could have easily drawn attention to the fact that my old institution came 6th. It seems UNSW didn't put a team in this year. I have had an interest in Mathematical Olympiads for many years and a keen academic convenor is necessary for success. As far as ME's comment about Russian secondary schools being the World's best, I would love to have a reference. I find the claim hard to believe simply because the parameters used to determine these rankings invariably depend on the most recent (Western) fads in education. This is one reason why Russian universities have such mediocre international rankings. On the other hand, I have noticed how enthusiastic Putin is about the Russian education system.

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Jen September 18, 2019 at 9:19 pm
No, no Hogwarts-Hack prejudice here your old institution did have a team this year but didn't get a placing.

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[Sep 23, 2019] The world top 10 countries as regards litres of pure alcohol consumption per capita

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 17, 2019 at 2:30 am

Another Independent article on Russia by someone who is an expert on matters Russian:

Despite a history of prohibition, Russians are still battling with alcohol – and not just vodka

That's right, folks! Lest you should forget, Russians are inveterate boozers!

The article has limited access, but here's its writer's opening line:

We can probably assume absolutist monarch Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik revolutionary who displaced him in 1917, didn't see eye to eye.

The Commie and the Autocrat, eh?

One small point: Lenin did not displace Nicholas II in October [OS] 1917, when the Bolshevik coup took place.

In February [OS] 1917, Nicholas II was advised to abdicate by the army chief and two duma deputies. He accepted their advice and abdicated.

Oh, and another thing: the Orcs aren't the top boozers in Europe.

The world top 10 countries as regards litres of pure alcohol consumption per capita are:

1 Belarus 17.50
2 Moldova 16.80
3 Lithuania 15.40
4 Russia 15.10
5 Romania 14.40
6 Ukraine 13.90
7 Andorra 13.80
8 Hungary 13.30
9 Czech Republic 13.00
10 Slovakia 13.00

Mark Chapman September 17, 2019 at 7:15 am
As usual, it's "Physician, heal thyself".

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-in-society/201906/is-america-the-alcoholic-republic

davidt September 17, 2019 at 2:25 pm
Why do people keep on writing such tosh? Here is a recent rebuttal:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oEUAo9IkE_A?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

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[Sep 23, 2019] to protect Russia from the Nazi threat, it was clearly necessary for the Russian armies to move West

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 17, 2019 at 11:25 pm

Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of eastern Polish territories.

I get sick to death of reading articles in Western rags and in comments to them, and of the opinions of the ignorant on social networks, that the USSR and Nazi Germany jointly invaded Poland on 1st September 1939, thereby triggering off WWII in Europe and that that war was the result of the complicity of two totalitarian states.

The following article concerning this accusation was published in KP on 16 September of this year :

Польша сделала всё, чтобы Сталин напал на неё через 17 дней после Гитлера
Чем был Западный поход Красной Армии в сентябре-1939: "освобождением древнерусских земель" или оккупацией?

Poland did everything for Stalin to attack it 17 days after Hitler
The September Red Army campaign in the west: was it for "the liberation of Old Russian lands" or an occupation?

Our Slavic neighbours once again have a reason to attack Russia. Exactly 80 years ago, on September 17, 1939, the Red Army crossed the Polish border and annexed to the USSR the current territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. This happened only 17 days after the Wehrmacht had invaded Poland, thereby starting the Second World War, and just three-and-a-half weeks after the conclusion of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact.

So it turns out that "the dictators Stalin and Hitler together divided the freedom-loving republic", and we are the same international criminals as were the German Nazis or are we? "KP" and Dmitry Surzhik, a candidate for historical sciences and an expert on World War II, have dissected the myths about that campaign.

Myth number 1. Stalin cynically attacked a democratic country.

On September 17, 1939, the troops of the Commonwealth [Poland -- ME] had already been defeated by the Wehrmacht and the Polish government had fled abroad. Let me remind you that Stalin himself acted quite differently during the critical days of the 1941 invasion [of the USSR by Nazi Germany and its fascist allies -- ME] : his phone call to the army was known to all: "The headquarters remains at the front, I remain in Moscow. Get hold of shovels and dig graves for yourself". Why did he say this? Because everyone was well aware of the fact that when there is no central government, then there is no state participating in a war: it disappears in every sense of the word, including as a subject of international law. This was understood even by the then Polish government. Caught in exile in France, it issued its first document, the Angers Declaration, in which it stated that it was at war with the Soviet Union but de jure it did not declare war, realizing, perhaps, that there were no legal grounds for this.

Myth number 2. Poland fell victim to the collusion of two totalitarian regimes.

They like to reproach us with "the pre-war alliance of Stalin and Hitler": they recall the joint parade of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht (held on September 21, 1939 in the former Polish, and now Byelorussian Brest), but the chief satellite of Nazi Berlin in Eastern Europe was only Warsaw. The Germans had concluded a non-aggression pact with Poland back in 1934 -- the so-called Pilsudski-Hitler Pact. Jozef Pilsudski was considered one of the founding fathers of independent Poland; in Germany a translation of his memoirs had been pompously published. And if we are going to talk about joint parades, such a parade was held in Warsaw on November 11, 1938 in honour of the independence of Poland, when the German military was present as guests of honour. There was even the likelihood of an "allied" Polish-German invasion of the USSR -- such prospects had been analyzed in a spring of 1938 note made by the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Boris Shaposhnikov made for the People's Commissar of Defence. So for Warsaw to point its finger at us for concluding a "Soviet-German alliance" is the height of cynicism.

Myth number 3. The USSR invaded the eastern parts of Poland (just as Germany had done in the western parts).

The interwar relations between Moscow and Warsaw were really tense. The eastern policy of Poland was the so-called "Prometheism" -- a plan for splitting up the USSR according to the nationalities within it. To this end, Warsaw worked with anti-Soviet immigrants, including Ukrainian and Georgian nationalists. The ultimate task was to create a "Poland from sea to sea" (from the Baltic to the Crimea) at the expense of Russian lands. [In Soviet times, it was not acceptable to talk about the pre-war "Prometheism" of fraternal socialist Poland. In the West, however, this project has been well studied -- for example, in the historical studies at the Hoover Institute in the USA - -- Ed.]. Moscow, of course, knew about these plans. However, during its Polish campaign, the Red Army did not advance too deeply, stopping only at the Curzon Line. This line, the ethnic border between the Poles, on the one hand, and Ukrainians and Belarusians on the other, had been agreed upon by the Entente after the First World War and was to have become the eastern border of Poland. But Warsaw, because of the weakness of Soviet Russia after the civil war, had been able to seize these territories.

Myth number 4. That invasion violated even international law then, not to mention current international law.

They have now forgotten In the West that in 1938 Poland, together with Hitler, participated in the partition of Czechoslovakia. The Teshinsky region was seized under the pretext that many ethnic Poles lived there. The guarantor of Czechoslovak security under international agreements was then the Soviet Union. On the 23rd of September, 1938, shortly before the shameful partition of this Slavic country, the USSR presented an ultimatum to Warsaw, namely that if it took part in this partition, then Moscow would withdraw its obligation not to attack Poland in the future. But our neighbours remained silent, thereby predetermining their fate by opening the "diplomatic gate" for a future Polish Red Army campaign.

Here it is interesting to recall the words that Winston Churchill said after September 17, 1939:

"Russia pursues a cold policy in its own interests. We should prefer that the Russians remain in their current positions (Curzon Lines in 1939 – Ed.) as friends and allies of Poland, and not as invaders. But to protect Russia from the Nazi threat, it was clearly necessary for the Russian armies to stay on this line", said one of the then key British politicians. That is, at that time, for some reason, no one considered the actions of the USSR to be a "crime", including even the "Western partners".

This Russian historian, in quoting Churchill above, is perhaps thinking of Churchill's "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" speech, made when he was not prime minister of the UK and still an "outsider", as it were, in his own Conservative party, which Churchillian phrase is often quoted in the West and out of context, of course, but seldom given in full:

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest or the safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of South-Eastern Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia" -- broadcast in London , 1st October, 1939.

And the key question really is this: if the UK and France had promised that they would declare war against Germany if it should invade Poland, then why did those countries not declare war on 17th September, 1939, against Germany's "ally", the USSR, which state, according to present day historical revisionists, was jointly responsible for the onset of WWII?

Cortes September 18, 2019 at 2:06 am
Fascinating!

Many thanks, ME.

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Moscow Exile September 18, 2019 at 7:29 am
Further to the vilification of the USSR for its allegedly being an instigator of WWII:

Why Portugal Must Kneel Before Russia and Repent
September 14, 2019 Stalker Zone

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 10:26 am
Как Польша готовилась к войне с СССР плечом к плечу с Германией

How Poland, shoulder to shoulder with Germany, prepared for war against the USSR


Best of friends?

Statement by the Soviet Government to the Polish Government
23 September 1938

The Government of the USSR has received reports from various sources that troops of the Polish Government are concentrated on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia, preparing to cross the border and forcefully occupy part of the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic. Despite the widespread and alarming nature of these reports, the Polish Government has not yet refuted them. The Government of the USSR expects such a refutation to follow immediately. Nevertheless, in the event that such a refutation does not follow and if, in confirmation of these reports, Polish troops have really crossed the border of the Czechoslovak Republic and occupied its territory, the Government of the USSR considers it timely and necessary to warn the Government of the Polish Republic, on the basis of Art. 2 of the non-aggression pact concluded between the USSR and Poland on July 25, 1932, the Government of the USSR, in view of this act of aggression committed by Poland against Czechoslovakia, would be forced to denounce the aforementioned agreement without warning.

Source: "Izvestia" No. 225 (6692). 26 September 1938

The statement was transmitted at about 4 a.m. on September 23, 1938, by Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, V.P. Potemkin, to the Chargé d'Affaires of Poland to the USSR, T. Yankovsky.

Note: the USSR, France and Czechoslovakia were bound by an agreement to give military assistance to Czechoslovakia in the event of aggression by third countries against it. So the USSR had every right to point out to Poland that it was acting aggressively.

Transcript of the Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs with the chargé d'affaires of Poland to the USSR
23 September 1938

The Polish chargé d'affaires, who asked me for an appointment today at 7 o'clock, came to me with the following message from his government:

"1. The measures taken in connection with the defence of the Polish state depend solely on the government of the Polish Republic, which is not obligated to give explanations to anyone.

2. The Government of the Polish Republic certainly knows the texts of the treaties that it has concluded".

The response of the Polish government was drawn up in Polish and handed to me and signed by the chargé d'affaires. An exact Russian translation of this text was agreed upon by both Yankovsky and me. After a written communication, the chargé d'affaires made the following oral statement to me: "The Polish government is surprised by the current démarche of the USSR government, because no measures have been taken by the Polish government on the Polish-Soviet border".

To this I replied that the démarche of the Soviet government was caused by events on the Polish-Czechoslovak border. If the same measures were carried out by the Polish government on the border of Poland and the USSR, the likely consequence would be not diplomatic démarches, but appropriate counter-measures by the USSR government.

My answer was recorded by Jankowski.

V. Potemkin

Source: "Documents and materials on the history of Soviet-Polish relations", vol. VI. M .. 1969. with 364.

The response of the Poles was quite arrogant by reason of the fact that they were already preparing to conclude a Polish-German Pact against the Soviet Union. For example, here is what the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz, wrote to the Ambassador of the USA on 5 September 1938:

"A religious war is beginning between fascism and Bolshevism, and if the Soviet Union renders aid to Czechoslovakia, Poland is ready to fight shoulder to shoulder with Germany against the USSR.

The Polish government is confident that within three months Russian troops will be completely defeated and Russia will no longer be even a semblance of a state".

As a result, Poland, not paying attention to our warnings, invaded the Czech Republic and captured the Tieszyn region.

Already in December 1938, a report by the 2nd (reconnaissance) department of the main headquarters of the Polish Army stated in plain terms that:

"The dismemberment of Russia lies at the basis of Polish politics in the East Therefore, our possible position will be reduced to the following formula: who will take part in this dismemberment? Poland should not remain passive during this wonderfully historical moment. The task is to prepare well, both physically and spiritually, in advance The main goal is to weaken and defeat Russia".

Source: "Z dziejow stosunkow polsko-radzieckich. Studia i materialy", T.III. Warszawa, 1968, S. 262, 287.

From all these materials, it is clear that pre-war Poland was an extremely toxic military dictatorship, which posed a danger not only to its neighbours, but to itself. As a result, this hyena, imagining itself to be a large European predator, would pay for its sins within a year. True, all the peoples of Eastern Europe would suffer from this, while the runaway Polish government would sit in London .

By referring to Poland as a "hyena", the writer of the above (partly translated) article has clearly been inspired by none other than Winston Churchill:

"And now, when every one of these aids and advantages has been squandered and thrown away, Great Britain advances, leading France by the hand, to guarantee the integrity of Poland -- that very Poland which with hyena appetite had only six months before joined in the pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak State."

Source: The Second World War – page 144; The Gathering Storm – page 311, W.S. Churchill.

Now don't all you folks go forget now: The USSR and Nazi Germany started WWII!

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yalensis September 19, 2019 at 3:26 pm
Rule #1: Never trust the Poles!

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 10:37 pm
In the European Parliament the "Nazi and Communist Regimes" Were Equated to Each Other
September 20, 2019 Stalker Zone

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Mark Chapman September 20, 2019 at 4:44 am
What, again?

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et Al

[Sep 23, 2019] Mig 15 was a huge leap in military technology and the Mig 17 was the best subsonic fighter ever fielded.

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 16, 2019 at 2:37 pm

An overlooked battle :

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mAmJUyHloTk?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

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Northern Star September 16, 2019 at 2:55 pm
Wow Learn something new..at least to some!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PlJOvUCrN30?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

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Patient Observer September 20, 2019 at 4:10 am
Interesting and new to me as well. I do recall reading several articles that the Mig 15 was a huge leap in military technology and the Mig 17 was the best subsonic fighter ever fielded.
Moscow Exile September 20, 2019 at 4:26 am
Fancy a flight down MiG Alley , chaps?

The MiG Alley battles produced many fighter aces. The top aces were Russian. Nikolay Sutyagin claimed 21 kills, including nine F-86s, one F-84 and one Gloster Meteor in less than seven months. His first kill was the F-86A of Robert H. Laier on 19 June 1951 (listed by the Americans as missing in action), and his last was on 11 January 1952, when he shot down and killed Thiel M. Reeves, who was flying an F-86E (Reeves is also listed as MIA). Other famous Soviet aces include Yevgeni G. Pepelyayev, who was credited with 19 kills, and Lev Kirilovich Shchukin, who was credited with 17 kills, despite being shot down twice himself.

During the Korean War, NATO Allies wanted so badly to examine a MiG at close quarters that they offered a US$100,000 reward for any pilot who would defect and bring his MiG-15 with him. When a North Korean pilot, Lt. Ro Kun Suk, did defect in September of 1953, he was not aware of the reward, but was given it anyway.

Source: MiG-15

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Patient Observer September 20, 2019 at 5:51 pm
I had heard that the Mig 17 was deliberately kept out of the war as it would have decimated the US Air Force forcing them to do something really stupid like drop a nuke. Could be an urban legend.

[Sep 23, 2019] It's Twenty-Fifth Amendment time. Americans need to get this dangerous clown out of office NOW.

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 16, 2019 at 2:29 pm

Fuck Impeachment. It's Twenty -Fifth Amendment time. Americans need to get this dangerous clown out of office NOW.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Jo8QU2s_5I?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

[Sep 23, 2019] Snowden: "I would like to return to the US"

Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 16, 2019 at 1:32 pm

Snowden on CBS this morning worth watching .

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/edward-snowden-wants-to-come-home-but-says-u-s-wont-give-him-a-fair-trial/

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Jen September 16, 2019 at 5:57 pm
Taco Bell, please open an outlet in Moscow or near where Ed Snowden lives to keep him happy and stop him from getting homesick!

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Moscow Exile September 16, 2019 at 10:57 pm
Snowden: "I would like to return to the US"
Mark Chapman September 16, 2019 at 11:06 pm
I don't see how he could have handled it better. He was polite and well-spoken, never flustered or defensive, and the talking heads tumbled over one another in their eagerness to be properly judgmental, to talk over him and recite their own talking points, and ended up looking like buffoons. He will be a tough nut to crack, and so far the American regime has done nothing to convince ordinary people that he is a cowardly traitor. Putting him on television only makes him look more heroic.

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Moscow Exile September 17, 2019 at 1:29 am
Typical Yankee judgementalism:

Snowdon: "Russia has, shall we say, a problematic human rights record -- at a minimum "

Never had no negro slavery, though, did it, Edward?

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Moscow Exile September 17, 2019 at 1:31 am
"That's if we're being generous" ???

Who?

The USA????

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Moscow Exile September 17, 2019 at 1:43 am
And a US "talking" head, in reply to Snowdon's belief that he would not get a fair trial in the USA (a US human rights issue, is that not, Mr.Snowdon?) says that criminals and alleged criminals do not customarily get to determine the terms of their trial: they broke the law and they face the consequences "

Guilty before proven innocent?

Presumption of innocence: an international human right under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11.

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Mark Chapman September 17, 2019 at 6:59 am
An excellent point I wish he had immediately made.

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Mark Chapman September 17, 2019 at 7:06 am
Nor, to the best of my recollection, did it have an Abu Ghraib. The United States actually has a pretty shitty human-rights record if you consider it from the viewpoint of how it treas others than Americans, and – going further back – only white Americans. The west always tries to factor in the Holodomor, too, how Russia deliberately starved the Ukrainians to death, as an example of their horrible human rights record.

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yalensis September 17, 2019 at 1:10 pm
I cringed at that one too. But I forgive Edward, because I think he was trying to make a tactical debating point, namely:

I am not a Russia stooge, I have my criticisms of the Russian regime yada yada, and I agree with you talking heads that their human rights record is not well received in the West. And yet they scored a human-rights trifecta when they let me in, when not one single "democracy" would defend me or give me asylum.

In other words, he would concede, for argumentation purposes, that Russia is bad, only to stick it to them that Russia did well by him and scored propaganda points against the West. It's a particular debating tactic, whose Latin name I cannot recall.

Unfortunately, Edward never got to finish his point, because those bitches cut him off before he could even get to the punchline.

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Northern Star September 17, 2019 at 3:18 pm
Ahhh I see you will need more intense beatings at the cultural reeducation camp in consideration of your continued use of the 'negro' word.

However one should ignore Gayle she's a black moron, one of the TV progeny of the uber fat whale 'O'.

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Moscow Exile September 19, 2019 at 8:20 pm
Is it "wrong" to say "negro" now?

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[Sep 22, 2019] US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim

Highly recommended!
Oct 01, 2025 | tass.com

Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin © Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry's press service/TASS BEIJING, October 25. /TASS/. The drones that attacked Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Syria were operated from the US Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin said at a plenary session of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security on Thursday.

"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted. Read also Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeymim air base in Syria When the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they switched to a manual guidance mode, he said. "Manual guidance is carried out not by some villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control," the deputy defense minister noted.

"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance, received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed," Fomin reported.

"This should be stopped as well: in order to avoid fighting with the high-technology weapons of terrorists and highly-equipped terrorists it is necessary to stop supplying them with equipment," the deputy defense minister concluded.

The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six drones was gained through electronic warfare systems. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed that the solutions used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced country and warned about the danger of repeating such attacks in any country of the world.

The forum

The eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security will run until October 26 in Beijing. It was organized by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, China Association for Military Science (CAMS) and China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS). Representatives for defense ministries, armed forces and international organizations, as well as former military officials, politicians and scientists from 79 countries are taking part in the forum.

[Sep 22, 2019] It was neoliberalism that won the cold war

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword. ..."
"... And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.) ..."
"... So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role. ..."
"... It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed. ..."
"... So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite). ..."
"... The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials. ..."
"... As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR. ..."
"... The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings. ..."
"... BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say. ..."
"... BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf ..."
"... Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe. ..."
"... Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides. ..."
"... But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state. ..."
Sep 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

likbez -> ilsm... , September 08, 2019 at 08:20 PM

This is a very complex issue. And I do not pretend that I am right, but I think Brad is way too superficial to be taken seriously.

IMHO it was neoliberalism that won the cold war. That means that the key neoliberal "scholars" like Friedman and Hayek and other intellectual prostitutes of financial oligarchy who helped to restore their power. Certain democratic politicians like Carter also were the major figures. Carter actually started neoliberalization of the USA, continued by Reagan,

Former Trotskyites starting from Burnham which later became known as neoconservatives also deserve to be mentioned.

It is also questionable that the USA explicitly won the cold war. Paradoxically the other victim of the global neoliberal revolution was the USA, the lower 90% of the USA population to be exact.
So there was no winners other the financial oligarchy (the transnational class.)

As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword.

And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.)

The degeneration started with the death of the last charismatic leader (Stalin) and the passing of the generation which remembers that actual warts of capitalism and could relate them to the "Soviet socialism" solutions.

So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role.

With bolshevism as the official religion, which can't be questioned, the society was way too rigid and suppressed "entrepreneurial initiative" (which leads to enrichment of particular individuals, but also to the benefits to the society as whole), to the extent that was counterproductive. The level of dogmatism in this area was probably as close to the medieval position of Roman Catholic Church as we can get; in this sense it was only national that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became a pope John Paul II -- he was very well prepared indeed ;-).

It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed.

So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite).

The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials.

As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR.

Explosion of far right nationalist sentiments without "Countervailing ideology" as Bolshevism was not taken seriously anymore was the key factor that led to the dissolution of the USSR.

Essentially national movements allied with Germany that were defeated during WWII became the winners.

The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings.

And the backlash created conditions for Putin coming to power.

BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say.

BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf

The majority of the xUSSR space countries have now dismal standard of living and slided into Latin American level of inequality and corruption (not without help of the USA).

Several have civil wars in the period since getting independence, which further depressed the standard living. Most deindustrialize.

Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe.

Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides.

But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state.

So in the worst case it is the USA which might follow the path of the USSR and eventually disintegrate under the pressure of internal nationalist sentiments. Such a victor...

Even now there are some visible difference between former Confederacy states and other states on the issues such as immigration and federal redistributive programs.

[Sep 22, 2019] Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick or similar?

Notable quotes:
"... Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran. ..."
"... They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. ..."
"... Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't get them into trouble. ..."
"... Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong? ..."
"... Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran. ..."
"... This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance. ..."
"... The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught. ..."
Sep 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

in response of how NK treats journalists, Eva Bartlett of Syria fame did a number of reports from NK and she said she had more freedom than in many western countries. As long as you dont show fake propaganda and show the NK'ians in favorable ie real light, they have no problems. They were not asked to take particular shots or taken to particular places but left to do everything themselves.

I remember cops pulling me over for taking pics of barns in south dakota.. Many such events.. I remember cops pulling me over so many times I can write a book on it. Once for having a white bag on the front seat.. For looking too young.. For looking like a car bugler because I was under the dash fixing speaker wires.. For having driving lights on before they had those on cars as standard.. For changing lanes to avoid police.. Free country my testicles..

A User , Sep 14 2019 6:59 utc | 44

I dunno how many have been following the issue of the 'brit-australian' trio who are in custody in Iran, but there are some oddities about these cases which suggest MI6/ ASIS are moronic and barefaced enough to try and propagandise the inevitable result of their own hamfisted stupidity.

No one had heard of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Jolie King and Mark Firkin a week ago, then John Bolton copped the flick and suddenly australians & englanders are told that Iran has more than British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe slotted up, that two pom/oz types and a genuine Australian were also being held.

Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran.

They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. Apparently both are University graduates who claim they didn't see the harm in doing what they were doing . . . yeah right, I guess it is possible to be that stupid but it is pretty unlikely. I'm old enough to remember that it wasn't that long ago when going into many of the nations between Oz and Iran with a ghetto blaster that would allow you to record and which had an AM or FM radio receiver would get you into the slammer quick smart.

Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't get them into trouble.

Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?

But that is nothing cos up until today we have been told that nothing is known about another woman who has been in prison for a year on 'unknown charges'.

According to today's graun we still don't know the charges, but we do know she is another pom/oz type, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated academic who we are told:

"The University of Melbourne's website lists Dr Moore-Gilbert on its "Find an expert" page as a lecturer at the university's Asia Institute.

It says she "specializes in Middle Eastern politics, with a particular focus on the Arab Gulf states," and that she had published work on the 2011 Arab uprisings, authoritarian governance, and on the role of new media technologies in political activism."

Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran.

This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance.

Norwegian , Sep 14 2019 7:36 utc | 46
Peter AU 1 @44
Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?
They were well aware that using drones could get them into trouble, they said so themselves talking about Cambodia, so in no doubt the same applied to Iran. https://www.instagram.com/p/BngpgAIHqpD/

The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught.

[Sep 22, 2019] Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states

Highly recommended!
Sep 22, 2019 | tass.com

The defense minister also stressed that the number of threats to Russia is not declining

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The United States' belief in its own superiority could lead to various unreasonable ideas, posing a major threat to Russia and other states, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.

"When you think - as the United States continues to believe so by inertia - that the balance of power has developed in your favor, various ideas may come to your head, including unreasonable ones. I consider this situation now as the main threat, and not only for Russia," Shoigu said.

Meanwhile, the recognition of your vulnerability and a wish to maintain balance and universal equal security "makes you turn your head on," the defense minister said, also stressing that the number of threats to Russia is not declining.

At the same time, Shoigu voiced hope that a full-scale war is not on the horizon.

The priority task now is to ensure information security, he stressed, noting that "at the current level of informatization and automation, there is a high probability of errors in the weapons control system.".

[Sep 22, 2019] Was Smolenkov just money obsessed forger, who supplied fake information knowing that this is what his USA handlers want to hear?

Sep 22, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 16, 2019 at 12:03 pm

The Beeb continues to blather on about Smolenkov being an absolutely top-hole high-level aide to Vladimir Putin, practically running the place, Darling, probably called each other 'Vladdy' and 'Smoky' when the peasants weren't around.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49651576

Includes the mandatory reference to Putin verifiably having ordered the election-meddling that put Trump in the White House. I have to wonder if this isn't an American dodge so they can say they were tricked by this fake spy into believing a nonsense story. Not much in the way of interest from Russia, mostly mockery about the American fondness for pulp fiction, but I notice the 'our American partners' line fell by the wayside some time ago.

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J.T. September 21, 2019 at 5:32 pm
How contrived.
What will they claim next? That Putin and Smolenkov were lovers?

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Mark Chapman September 21, 2019 at 6:57 pm
I should not be at all surprised.

Say; speaking of that – I don't know how I forgot to mention this. I saw in the paper the other day that the Palins are divorcing.

https://news.yahoo.com/sarah-palin-hires-big-shot-142811239.html

What are the chances Todd Palin will be approached to do a tell-all book?

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J.T. September 22, 2019 at 6:16 am
Are political tell-alls a popular subgenre now? Everyone's in on it! Rachel Maddow, Samantha Power, Andrei Kovalev, Vladimir Yakunin, some Lebedev banker guy whose upcoming title I forgot to bookmark

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[Sep 22, 2019] The US media has become a cesspool of bottom-feeders all looking for the 'gotcha' moment, while the business and profession of journalism in general has morphed to uncritical relay of government propaganda.

Sep 22, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 16, 2019 at 9:05 am

Young people in the west, generally speaking, are know-it-alls convinced of their own absolute currency of knowledge, and most of what they believe they know comes from reading newspapers and watching television. I say this from experience as, like all of us, I was young once and thought I knew it all, and I got almost all my information from newspapers and television news, although some came from professional journals like the US Naval Institute Proceedings. I grew up believing Russia was a grey and colourless place where hopeless people in shabby, ill-fitting clothes trudged dispiritedly from one line-up to another, then home to their tenth-floor walk-up concrete box shared with from eight to a dozen other family members and relatives.

Of course, it WAS like that for some people. Just as it likely was for the poor in the west, although they were all but invisible then save for occasional charity drives to 'help the less fortunate'. I was a huge fan of the United States, loving pretty much everything about it, as my first foreign trips with the Navy were to places like New London, Connecticut (right across the river from Groton, the headquarters of submarine builders Electric Boat) and Boston. I was a big fan of the U.S. Navy, and in many respects I still am – it was and is mostly a professional service with capable leaders and sound ethics common to seagoing services the world over.

It was in the area of the USA's political system that gradual and then total disillusionment took place. Any respect I might once have had for the media vanished at about the same time.

The media has become a cesspool of bottom-feeders all looking for the 'gotcha' moment, while the business and profession of journalism in general has morphed to uncritical relay of government propaganda.

From that same link, a very interesting dissection of the Salisbury poisonings. We've become used to mocking or horrified refutations of the UK government's line that it could only have been Russia, but this source does it with considerable detail; for instance, the formula originally devised by Vil Marzayanov and his compatriots in the Soviet Union was later patented by a US Chemical lab.

https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/briefing-note-update-on-the-salisbury-poisonings-2/

[Sep 22, 2019] Who Launched That Mystery Attack by Eric Margolis

Notable quotes:
"... Margolis also says the KSA's US made air defences "failed" to protect their oil installations. This maybe so. But apart from the fact that their air defences are orientated away from Yemen there's a good chance the defences were turned OFF -- apparently this is common practice in the KSA, esp on weekends. I don't believe that Margolis's "mystery" is anywhere as deep as he suggests. The Houthis have received weapons & training from Iran/Hezbollah & have demonstrated an ability to hit KSA targets with unmanned aerial weapons. ..."
"... Until better evidence appears, I'm willing to give it to the Houthis -- if for no other reason than that they deserve to get in some good licks against that vile "Kingdom" (I'd suggest they next hit the water purification plants that serve Riyadh with all its water – apparently, the city has about 3 days of water stored. Evacuating 6 million from the Capital, the Sauds would be exposed as the corrupt, negligent, incompetent, stupid, vicious frauds we all know they are. ..."
"... These Hawks are under delusional assumption that an American led war against Iran would be a "Cakewalk" ..."
"... What they do know for sure is that the military industrial complex will increase its budget during and after such a war. Follow the money! ..."
Sep 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Who Launched That Mystery Attack? Eric Margolis September 21, 2019 700 Words 14 Comments Reply Email This Page to Someone
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The Mideast has its own variety of crazy humor. The Saudis have been blasting and bombing wretched Yemen, one of this world's poorest nations, since 2015.

These US-supported attacks and a naval blockade of Yemen imposed by Saudi Arabia and its sidekick ally, the United Arab Emirates, have caused mass starvation. No one knows how many Yemenis have died or are currently starving. Estimates run from 250,000 to one million.

The black humor? The Saudis just claimed they were victims of Iranian `aggression' this past week after the kingdom's leading oil treatment facility at Abqaiq was hit by a flight of armed drones or cruise missiles. The usual American militarists, now led by State Secretary Mike Pompeo after the demented warmonger, John Bolton, was finally fired, are calling for military retaliation against Iran even though the attack was claimed by Yemen's Shia Houthi movement.

This drama came at roughly the same time that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally of US president Donald Trump, vowed to annex Palestine's entire Jordan Valley if elected. Not a peep of protest came from the US, which recently blessed Netanyahu's annexation of Syria's Golan Heights while scourging Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, for annexing Crimea – a Russian possession for over 300 years.

I studied US photos of the damaged Saudi oil installations. Its oil tanks appear to be precisely hit at the same place. After the attack, the Saudis claimed half of their oil production was knocked out; but a day later, they vowed production would be resumed within a week. Parts of so-called drones were shown that appeared way beyond the technological capabilities of Yemen or even Iran. The missiles may have been supplied by Ukraine.

The Saudis, like their patron in Washington, have a poor record for truthfulness. Remember the Saudi denials about the murder of journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi? More important, we have been waiting for more false flag attacks in the Gulf designed to justify a US attack on Iran.

The pattern of so-called drone attacks against the Saudi oil installations is just too neat and symmetrical. The Israelis have a strong interest in promoting a US-Saudi War. The attacks in Saudi came ironically right after the anniversary of 9/11 that plunged the US into war against large parts of the Muslim world.

As a long-time military observer, I find it very hard to believe that drones could be guided over such long distances and so accurately without aircraft or satellites to guide them. In Yemen, which is just creeping into the 12th century, changing a flat tire is a major technological achievement. To date, Iran's missile arsenal has poor reliability and major guidance problems.

Adding to the questions, the Saudis have spent billions on US-made air defense systems. They failed to protect the oil installations. The Saudis would have been better off buying air defenses from the Russians, at a quarter of the US selling price.

ORDER IT NOW

Trump at least showed some wisdom by so far rejecting demands from the neocons that surround him to launch major attacks on Iran. Blasting Iran would not serve much purpose and would expose US forces in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Somalia, and Syria to Iranian guerrilla attacks. Saudi oil installations – after what we saw last week – are vulnerable.

Attacking Iran, even if just from the air, risks a much wider Mideast war just as the Trump administration – which originally campaigned against 'stupid' Mideast wars – faces next year's elections. But the administration is under intense pressure from its pro-Israel base to go after Iran.

Bombing Iran's oil infrastructure would be relatively easy and has been intensively planned since early 2002. But what next? So-called 'regime change' (Washington's favorite euphemism for overthrowing disobedient foreign governments) rarely works as planned and can get the US into horribly messy situations. The CIA overthrew Iran's democratic government in 1953 and look where we are today.

Perhaps the attacks on Abqaiq may cause the reckless Saudi leaders to stop devastating Yemen and throttle back on their proxy war against Iran which has gone on since 1979. But don't count on it.


Alistair , says: September 21, 2019 at 3:16 pm GMT

"WHO LAUNCHED THAT MYSTERY ATTACK? "

The so called "Zionist Hawks" in Israel and Washington, who want to start a war between the USA and Iran.

These Hawks are under delusional assumption that an American led war against Iran would be a "Cakewalk", and that Iranians have no means to defend themselves, will capitulate – these are of course delusional assumptions – only found in disturbed minds of a bunch of Go-Getter Zionist Think-Tanks in Washington, DC who are eager to serve their own tribal interests at the US expense.

The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003, both are still ongoing – have long proven how delusional are these ridiculous assumptions – Iran will be at least 10 times harder nut to crack than Iraq was under Saddam Hussein – at least not without serious consequences to the security of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and the US itself, along with serious ramification to the post WWII international order under the USA; established since 1945.

By now, president Trump knows too well that he is being poorly served by these so called "Zionist Hawks" – who have instigated the US unilateral withdrawal from the Iranian Nuclear Agreement – but thanks to Trump's own instinct, and his close relationship with Emmanuel Macron; Shinzo Abe; and of course Vladimir Putin – so far, Trump has resisted the temptation of going to all out war against Iranians.

President Trump should ban these" Go-Getter Zionist Hawks" from the White House; they are "Disloyal Jews" – who are eager to serve their own tribal interests at the US expense.

Miro23 , says: September 22, 2019 at 12:25 am GMT

Trump at least showed some wisdom by so far rejecting demands from the neocons that surround him to launch major attacks on Iran.

He doesn't want to get involved in another Iraq (or worse) which makes excellent sense for the US and himself on many levels.

However, if the US Deep State (with the Israelis) could set up 9/11 without President Bush in the loop, then they could also arrange a False Flag attack on these oil installations, without Trump's knowledge.

The CIA looks very much like an independent international criminal enterprise, and they're used to working with their Israeli and Saudi friends.

Rabbitnexus , says: September 22, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
This is a seriously flawed analysis of Yemen's and Iran's actual capabilities. We've already seen Iran's precision strike capability in Iran and Syria and we've seen Yemen's homemade drones and missiles do similar to this at slightly lesser differences. The parts shown by SA are matches to Yemeni made missiles and drones such as Iran has been sharing around with their allies. The reason they avoided the US defences was that they came from a direction these do not cover, being pointed as they are at Iran. I'd say this was a Houthis attack and as they say, more will be coming if the aggression from SA against Yemen does not stop. One thing this attack has done is cool the heels of US, Saudi and Zionist warmongers. The damage done here by relatively small attack and cheap means gives some inkling of what things might look like after an attack on Iran. This was doubtless supported by Iran and as such a masterstroke. We enter a new paradigm.
steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: September 22, 2019 at 2:34 am GMT
Saudi Arabian oil pipelines have always been vulnerable to attack. They are not well guarded at all. This is well known by Security Experts worldwide but not well known, it would seem, by hack 'journalists'.

Saudi Arabia is attacking Yemen as part of a long term plan to reroute it's oil pipelines to the other side of it's country, the Red Sea side, so that it is no longer vulnerable at the Strait of Hormuz 'choke point'. In order to get rid of the Iranian threat to it's oil as it leaves port in the Persian Gulf, the Saudi's must sustain huge costs and PR losses to "stabilize" Yemen by a brutal war and then transit it's oil via the Red Sea. This is also well known by Security Experts but not 'hack journalist'.

... .. ...

Stan , says: September 22, 2019 at 2:57 am GMT
Trump rejected neocon demands for a war with Iran as he saw his chances for re-election vanish in the smoke of an US-Iran war. If Trump is reelected Americans will have to worry every day about a US-Iran war.
animalogic , says: September 22, 2019 at 8:23 am GMT
I love this comment by Margolis, that the KSA & US have a "poor record for truthfulness"

Priceless. Apparently Genghis Khan had a poor record for brushing his feet on the mat before entering a town for a bit of light shopping.

Margolis also says the KSA's US made air defences "failed" to protect their oil installations. This maybe so. But apart from the fact that their air defences are orientated away from Yemen there's a good chance the defences were turned OFF -- apparently this is common practice in the KSA, esp on weekends.
I don't believe that Margolis's "mystery" is anywhere as deep as he suggests. The Houthis have received weapons & training from Iran/Hezbollah & have demonstrated an ability to hit KSA targets with unmanned aerial weapons.

Until better evidence appears, I'm willing to give it to the Houthis -- if for no other reason than that they deserve to get in some good licks against that vile "Kingdom" (I'd suggest they next hit the water purification plants that serve Riyadh with all its water – apparently, the city has about 3 days of water stored. Evacuating 6 million from the Capital, the Sauds would be exposed as the corrupt, negligent, incompetent, stupid, vicious frauds we all know they are.

Justvisiting , says: September 22, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@Alistair

These Hawks are under delusional assumption that an American led war against Iran would be a "Cakewalk"

What they do know for sure is that the military industrial complex will increase its budget during and after such a war. Follow the money!

[Sep 22, 2019] Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin saif the US operated the drones that attack Russia Hmeymim airbase in Syria

Sep 22, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 22, 2019 at 8:18 am

I saw this via Moon of Alabama:

Tass: US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim -- defense official
https://tass.com/defense/1027736

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et Al September 22, 2019 at 8:23 am
25 Oct 2018.

Wierd. I saw this posted via another source on MoA but dated 20 September 2019:

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/us-spy-plane-operated-drones-that-attacked-hmeymim-base-in-syria-russia/

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin said at a plenary session of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security on Thursday

Mark Chapman September 22, 2019 at 9:48 am
Next time, just shoot the plane down. You can always claim afterward that it was a mistake and you were shooting at something else, or cleaning the missile launcher and it went off; something like that. It works great for the Israelis.

[Sep 22, 2019] US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim

Highly recommended!
Oct 01, 2025 | tass.com

Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin © Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry's press service/TASS BEIJING, October 25. /TASS/. The drones that attacked Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Syria were operated from the US Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin said at a plenary session of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security on Thursday.

"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted. Read also Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeymim air base in Syria When the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they switched to a manual guidance mode, he said. "Manual guidance is carried out not by some villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control," the deputy defense minister noted.

"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance, received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed," Fomin reported.

"This should be stopped as well: in order to avoid fighting with the high-technology weapons of terrorists and highly-equipped terrorists it is necessary to stop supplying them with equipment," the deputy defense minister concluded.

The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six drones was gained through electronic warfare systems. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed that the solutions used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced country and warned about the danger of repeating such attacks in any country of the world.

The forum

The eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security will run until October 26 in Beijing. It was organized by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, China Association for Military Science (CAMS) and China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS). Representatives for defense ministries, armed forces and international organizations, as well as former military officials, politicians and scientists from 79 countries are taking part in the forum.

[Sep 22, 2019] Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states

Highly recommended!
Sep 22, 2019 | tass.com

The defense minister also stressed that the number of threats to Russia is not declining

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The United States' belief in its own superiority could lead to various unreasonable ideas, posing a major threat to Russia and other states, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.

"When you think - as the United States continues to believe so by inertia - that the balance of power has developed in your favor, various ideas may come to your head, including unreasonable ones. I consider this situation now as the main threat, and not only for Russia," Shoigu said.

Meanwhile, the recognition of your vulnerability and a wish to maintain balance and universal equal security "makes you turn your head on," the defense minister said, also stressing that the number of threats to Russia is not declining.

At the same time, Shoigu voiced hope that a full-scale war is not on the horizon.

The priority task now is to ensure information security, he stressed, noting that "at the current level of informatization and automation, there is a high probability of errors in the weapons control system.".

[Sep 22, 2019] Alleged Novichok victim Rowley seeks to sue Russia for $1.25 mln

Sep 22, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 22, 2019 at 7:36 am

22 SEP, 12:25
Alleged Novichok victim Rowley seeks to sue Russia for $1.25 mln
According to Patrick Maguire, the lawyer of the British citizen, Rowley has continued to suffer from "serious side effects from the toxin he ingested"

"This has affected my life in a huge way. I want justice" -- Rowley.

[Sep 22, 2019] It is absolutely typical of Europe to wait until the pipeline is almost complete to offload that bomb. I suppose they figure Russia will have to agree to anything they say so as not to waste all that work and money.

Sep 22, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 16, 2019 at 10:54 am

I think the EU may have just fucked Nord Stream II. An EU General Court overturned the 2016 EU Commission decision to allow Gazprom to use more than 50% of the Opal pipeline, a critical choke point for both legs of Nord Stream II to get gas to the hub. If that decision can't be reversed again, a reasonable argument will be made that Nord stream II is not necessary, as Nord Stream alone can easily supply 50% capacity. The kicker is they do not have any other exporter who could make up the other 50% to use the pipeline to capacity. But this is a very shrewd move, as the Opal pipeline was always the weak link.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-13/russia-s-main-gas-route-to-europe-seen-at-risk-after-pipe-ruling

Ukraine, of course, will be dancing in the streets with delight. But I wouldn't be too quick to do that. Russia might still decline to renew the contract with Ukraine, and just let Europe go short, to teach it a lesson. Past time, in my opinion. Of course Uncle Sam will see that as the opportunity long looked for, and offer to step up with LNG imports. And that might be good, too, for a couple of years – let the Yurrupeans pay extortionate gas prices, and learn to be wary of America's temper tantrums translated to supply 'problems' which can only be resolved by making political concessions. Russia has always pretty much let Europe do its thing without pressuring it much, despite the hysterics you see in the media about weaponization of energy.

It is absolutely typical of Europe to wait until the pipeline is almost complete to offload that bomb. I suppose they figure Russia will have to agree to anything they say so as not to waste all that work and money. It also showcases Europe's complete unreliability in any business relationship, exactly in lock-step with American unreliability.

et Al September 17, 2019 at 12:38 am
I saw that news too. But then remember the original Nord Stream had a cap that was then lifted. If the EU insists on paying top $$$ for imported LNG from the US rather than lifting any sort of cap, I'd be interested to see how they justify that to EU citizen consumers.

I think the point is, again, not to react immediately to whatever outrage Brussels or its friends pick out of their ass. I could well imagine that NSII partners may well sue Brussels about this, actually file the papers. Brussels would argue 'But it's not us, it's the court', to which the lawyers would say 'We specifically asked you, and you came up with nothing in law'.

I think we will find the general court has taken a certain 'interpretation' of competition law that was 'advised' by Brussles. How NSII could get this far after all of these years and have a court come out with such a ruling. Expect egg on face and 'It's not me!'. I don't see how this 'ruling' can stand.

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Moscow Exile September 17, 2019 at 9:55 am
The Europeans Physically Shut Off the "Nord Stream" Tap – Everything Is Lost?

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Mark Chapman September 17, 2019 at 3:09 pm
"The Europeans apply antitrust legislation, which is designed to develop the competition. Why it is necessary to free up 50% of the gas pipeline's capacity? According to the idea of the legislators, it has to allow competition to arise. But when nobody can physically come to the start point of the OPAL gas pipeline, alternative suppliers have nowhere to come from. There physically isn't and can't be another supplier in OPAL!!! It's like banning water from being carried in full buckets!"

The very inspiration of competition is the introduction of anti-monopoly procedures to establish a lowest price by pitting the competitors against one another. I am pretty confident that Russia has always had the lowest prices, and can usually be induced to do a deal for lower prices yet in exchange for other considerations. When other countries do it, it's what dealing's all about – when Russia does it, it's weaponizing energy.

If you have a reliable supplier who has access to years of reserves and who consistently sells to you at a reasonable price, why do you have to impose a raft of new rules to bring in competitors who cannot match its prices and do not have access to plentiful supplies? Once again, for Yurrupeans who do not get it, competition is to arrive at a low price. If you start from a low price, it is stupid to mandate room for competitors who cannot get under it.

I suspect the Poles are behind this latest charade. But why is Germany going along with it? Opal lies entirely within Germany, and anything that risks constraining available supply risks Germany's status as a gas hub.

Anyway, as I suggested earlier, it would do Europe a world of good for Russia to short them gas for a little while and let them pay prices for outside supplies that would have their hair on fire. A period of throwing money away when you know there is a cheaper supply to which you cannot get access can be extremely educational. Uncle Sam would jump at the chance to sell Europe LNG and, at least in the beginning, would cut prices to the bone in order to establish market share. But it would still insist on making a profit, and it can't do that and match Russian prices, while its lengthy logistic chain depends on a lot of factors. If it became confident that its market share was both secure and relied upon, Europeans would quickly see how it was leveraged against them to American advantage.

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et Al September 18, 2019 at 3:27 am
But why is Germany going along with it?

Indeed, why now ?

Helping the Ukraine in it's gas talks fit in my opinion. This 50% cap can be lifted, reintroduced/whatever and whenever by Brussels. It's a gangsta move.

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Mark Chapman September 18, 2019 at 3:15 pm
Well, actually, it can't. Be lifted and re-imposed willy-nilly, I mean. If it is, it would be pointless to build the pipeline in the first place, as Opal would merely take the place of Ukraine. The western tacticians want to keep Ukraine in the mix because they can use it to introduce complications and problems in gas delivery from Russia, which can at the same time be used to paint Russia as an unreliable partner. If Opal can't be relied upon to supply the opportunity to transit major volumes, Russia will have to make a deal with Ukraine so as to preserve a Plan B option. It would have been better to not build the pipeline, and still cease transit through Ukraine, labeling it instead as the unreliable part of the logistics chain, and Europe would just have to be satisfied with what it could get out of existing pipelines – minus Ukraine – running flat-out. After all, Europe maintained that a twin line for Nord Stream was not needed; mind you, when they said that, they were envisioning continued transit through Ukraine, complete with the prima donna antics Ukraine exhibits when it believes it has leverage.

The price of gas would go through the roof, and Russia would probably make just as much money, while the Europeans were weeping and tearing out their hair.

Ukraine's offer for the gas talks is 60 Billion Cubic Meters transit annually for 10 years. Russia will tell them to go fuck themselves. They're basically asking for a contract to transit the same amount they're transiting now, when there is no alternative, for ten more years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/18/reuters-america-ukraine-says-supports-eus-sefcovic-position-at-trilateral-gas-talks.html

Of course Sefcovic will pull out all the stops to get Russia to sign on, because he's a Ukraine partisan.

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et Al September 19, 2019 at 11:51 am
Well, actually, it can't.

I wish I could be so sure. Brussels likes to think it is kleva (sic 'field pipes'/TAP exemptions). I've looked for more details, and it is appealable (is that a word)?

https://tass.com/economy/1078049

For several years, Russia could use only 50% of the pipeline's capacity, as prescribed in the EU's Third Energy Package. Gazprom asked for permission to use OPAL's 100% capacity,

.In the summer of 2017, the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court decided to remove interim measures on Gazprom's use of Opal's facilities imposed by the lawsuit. Poland finds that now the decision of the European Court of Justice will not allow Gazprom to abandon gas transit through the territory of Ukraine.

On September 10, on considering Poland's lawsuit, the EU Court of Justice overturned the European Commission's decision of 2016, according to which Gazprom could fully use the capacities of the OPAL gas pipeline. The Russian company reserves the right to use 50% of OPAL's capacity, but it will no longer be able to participate in auctions for the remaining 40%.
####

So it is a continuation of previous legal ding-dongs.

https://jamestown.org/program/eu-court-decision-will-limit-gazproms-ability-to-pump-gas-to-europe-via-nord-stream-route/

The ruling is also important because of the reasoning behind it. The justices said the main reason for their decision was not to preserve third-party access to pipelines that run through Europe but to maintain the EU's energy-solidarity policy. This opens the door to future litigation based on such policy
####

WTF? So it's not about allowing 3rd party access after all. The Court is ruling on a completely different aspect! So this is about a different rule of the EU's Third Energy Package that a) post dates the original Nord Stream; b) ignores that NSII follows the same route and is not substantially different to NS1. The Third Energy Package entered in to legislation in September 2009.* Excuse me, but 10 years late?

So it looks to me that the multipronged offensive against NSII though it has failed to stymie off-shore NSII because it is almost completely outside the EU (well, we'll see what happend with Denmark), it's temporarily struck gold with OPAL because it is on-shore EU.

Buuut, in leverageing against Russia to the benefit of Ukraine, it will directly impact Russia-EU-Ukraine talks:

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak "I think that, in terms of negotiations, this situation will be taken into account," **

Yet: Šefčovič said the decision was still very fresh, that his services were still studying it, and that it underlined how important the principle of energy solidarity is for Europe.

The ECJ ruled that the 2016 decision is "in breach of the principle of energy solidarity" because it failed to properly assess how to balance Germany's interests against the negative impacts on other EU member states .

Šefčovič avoided a direct answer, but insisted in the need of long-term contracts with Gazprom .

He explained that the Ukrainian side was willing to apply European law, saying this would bring clarity, transparency and efficiency. The letters sent by the Commission to both parties also stressed the importance of long-term contracts, he said . ***

Cake and eat it, Brussels? Kiev complying with 'European Law' when even EU member states do not? Ha ha ha! It all rather looks like vague horseshit to me. Open to creative interpretation a la Marcel Marceau.

* https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/markets-and-consumers/market-legislation/third-energy-package

** https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/business/667576-russias-novak-opal-ruling-will-affect-three-way-gas-talks

*** https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/brussels-unlikely-to-appeal-eu-court-decision-hampering-nord-stream-pipelines/

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Mark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 3:54 pm
When I said, "Actually, it can't", I didn't mean Europe can't do it, I meant that the uncertainty it introduces will not likely prove satisfactory for Russia to play the game, since Brussels could arbitrarily decide to apply the cap any time it wishes Russia to transit more gas through Ukraine, and pay it more money. The only real solution for Russia is to make it crystal clear to Brussels that it is not going to sign a big fat transit contract with Ukraine, and then business as usual, with Ukraine getting up to its monkeyshines and demanding cheaper gas against the possibility of restricting exports to Europe. Ukraine has demonstrated that it is just like the United States in the sense that if it has any leverage over you, it will use it for its own ends. The west has made it clear it approves of these tactics, even when they cause a temporary shutdown of gas exports to Europe.

Brussels thinks it is being cute, and that Russia will now have to do as Brussels wants it to. Russia has little choice but to play hardball, and let it be known that it has no intention of signing a long-term agreement with Ukraine to transit the same volumes of gas it always did – what the fuck was Nord Stream II all about? If Europe – and especially those perfidious krauts – want to cap the amount going through the Opal line at 50% of capacity, so be it. Europe will just have to adjust to 60 BcM less supply; maybe Uncle Sugar can send a fleet of LNG tankers to make up the difference, at double the cost. But if Russia signs on to transit 60 BcM annually through Ukraine, it is right back where it started, and built an expensive pipeline for nothing. Stand firm, Russia. Europe does not have an alternative gas supplier, and nothing would teach it that lesson like a year or so of scraping to find enough gas, and paying through the nose for it. It's always chunnering about alternative suppliers – go and find them!

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Patient Observer September 18, 2019 at 7:32 pm
Absolutely insane. The EU/Anglo/US fascists are making their last stand and forcing Russia into a corner with the only way out to continue transit through Ukraine. Oh, the humiliation will be so sweet!

I think the Russian reaction will be a big Fuck You. Its all about LNG and the need to save the US gas frackers and their debt. Oh, and to drive a wedge to further separate Russia from Europe. Perfect, Russia can now focus on its future and forget that rotting corpse of Western civilization.

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Mark Chapman September 19, 2019 at 3:47 am
Oh, I think Nord Stream II will still go through anyway, in the end. But a great deal depends on Russia not signing another 10-year gas deal with Ukraine for 60 BcM annually. If it does that, then there really is no difference from today, and Nord Stream II would just be an extra line for use in emergencies. I can't believe any of the partners want that, as there would be little opportunity for them to profit, which is why I wonder why Germany is being so passive. Have they been persuaded to take one for Team Ukraine? Again, I find that hard to believe. It is essentially a question of Ukraine being Europe's gas hub, or Germany. And it should be more than plain to Europe by now that Ukraine will happily toss a wrench in the transit works any time Washington tells it to.

Europe needs Russian gas. But it wants it on entirely its own terms, with Brussels in control. Apparently it is not obvious that Europe is already in control – it is the buyer. If it doesn't want gas, it doesn't need to buy it. But it does want it. It just wants to wave the rule-book around every time it makes a purchase. Which would be obvious to it, if ever there came a time when it wanted it and couldn't get it.

[Sep 22, 2019] It's become standard procedure for the US and its MSM to consider that Iran is totally responsible for all anti-US events in the Middle East because of actions by Iran's proxy forces in other countries

Notable quotes:
"... Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example, in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'." ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Sep 17 2019 21:06 utc | 19

It's become standard procedure for the US and its MSM to consider that Iran is totally responsible for all anti-US events in the Middle East because of actions by Iran's "proxy forces" in other countries. While these events usually have more diverse objectives, it's often Iran did this and Iran did that. But there's no legal basis for that.

Here's some words on proxy relationships from DefenseOne: (excerpts)

Iran's proxy relationships have given it an extraordinary ability to impose costs on its adversaries while obscuring its role. Doing so allows it to manage its risks while politically constraining its adversaries' response. It might seem intuitive to simply declare Iran responsible, and satisfying to retaliate against it directly. But international law sets a high bar for holding a proxy's benefactor responsible for the actions of its proxy, making it difficult to build the kind of international consensus necessary to the legitimacy for any retaliation.

Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example, in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'."

Setting the bar so high establishes perverse incentives. A state that employs proxies is discouraged from moderating their behavior, since any attempt at moderation could imply effective control, and even from acknowledging the proxy relationships. So without proof that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which typically manages Iran's proxy relationships, ordered or participated in the attacks, there is little for which Saudi Arabia or the United States can hold Iran legally accountable.. . here

Jackrabbit , Sep 17 2019 21:07 utc | 20
Peter AU 1

Yeah. USA+allies still have a soft blockade via sanctions. And every attack that is attributed to Iran strengthens that.

It doesn't make sense that Iran participated in the attack.

And it doesn't make sense that Houthi did the damage we see by themselves.

Either they increased the damage to create a reason for war OR they increased the damage to help Netanyahu and increase oil prices.

vk , Sep 17 2019 21:10 utc | 23
@ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 17 2019 20:50 utc | 16

9/11 doesn't even compare to the Houthi attack.

In 2001, drones were just a distant dream. It also involves a chain of once in a lifetime of human errors by at least three governmental institutions (CIA, FBI and Pentagon).

What the Houthi did in 2019 is not that far fetched. Drones are a much more developed and cheap technology, and Saudi Arabia is a basket case of a country. Surprise is how much soft power they did enjoy in the West, since many commenters here still insist Saudi Arabia is some kind of fascist utopia that couldn't be tricked by a bunch of stone age cave dwellers (which the Houthi aren't any way). Looks like the USA's aura of invincibility is contagious.

uncle tungsten , Sep 17 2019 21:12 utc | 24
Jackrabbit #16. Perhaps increased tensions are enough to get Nuttyahoo elected (which I think fits with the supposition that this attack is false flag). However My guess is that the Houthis will prosecute this war to the very doorsteps of the holy mosques in KSA and exact immense retribution if they can. They are responding to 5 years of geocidal assault and cannot but fight to the death.

Trump and his immaculate surrounds of holy zionists and pentecostal towel boys are in thrall. Mesmerised by their inspired service to the holy writ. No doubt they consult daily with their personal rabbi who talks through his fedora as O would have it. But they are beholden to something evil and beneath the dignity of humankind.

Perhaps war will be avoided by dithering and too elaborate plotting but I still consider that justice might manifest in a meteor strike on their heads.

[Sep 22, 2019] Searching for Kissinger's 'Decent Interval' in Afghanistan

Notable quotes:
"... Yet in spite of all this American sacrifice, the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001. ..."
"... After all, President Trump hasn't even signed off on Khalilzad's draft deal, and even if he does, he could always change his mind. The ability of the Blob to swallow presidents is not to be underestimated -- and Trump is a case in point. For decades, reaching back to his career as a businessman, Trump had been a skeptic of foreign military engagements, and he explicitly campaigned against "endless wars" in 2016. ..."
"... Yet since then, the Blob has been extending pseudopods of keep-the-status-quo cajolery deep within his administration. Trump has thus been persuaded to keep the U.S. engaged, or, if one prefers, quagmired ..."
"... The Taliban are not an invading military force. The struggle as it is has been one of internal forces and players sharing the land and never having been but various communities that fought, lived and negotiated agreements all nearly all of the countries history, unlike Vietnam which has almost entire history had a North/South division. ..."
"... Quit calling the Kabul regime a "client". It's a puppet. The minute US forces leave Afghanistan, the puppet government in Kabul will fall. Don't be surprised if it collapses before the last US transport has its landing gear all the way up. Notwithstanding 2., yes, it's over. Time to pack up and move on. However, Trump can't do that. ..."
"... If Trump had really wanted to leave Afghanistan, the time to do it was when he first entered office. Blame his predecessors and wash his hands of the situation while the political price was at its lowest. But Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. He listened to the generals, and the price of leaving has only risen and will only keep rising. ..."
"... They aren't much good for anything but staging, but Trump wants those Afghan outposts for the war on Iran that his Saudi owners and Israeli masters so crave. ..."
"... All the Democrats should be on the bandwagon for withdrawal yesterday because Trump's October Surprise could be announcing peace in our time and getting the hell out. It is a promise he can actually keep. It is not like he is getting his wall. ..."
"... Trump has become, himself, part of "the Blob." By hiring Pompeo and Bolton to head his foreign policy team he has abandoned any pretense of being an anti-war pro-restraint president. He's gone full neo-con and it's long past time conservatives stop pretending he hasn't. ..."
Sep 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Needless to say, the news from Afghanistan is always murky, and the U.S. is far from gone. Still, the BBC headline from September 3 tells us a lot: "Afghanistan war: US-Taliban deal would see 5,400 troops withdraw." U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad has hammered out an agreement, "in principle," with the Taliban.

He has now shared some of the details with the Afghan government -- which, revealingly, hasn't been involved in the negotiations -- and with the world as well. In other words, the U.S. has been bypassing its Kabul client regime in pursuit of a deal with the Taliban. Obviously, the fact that our Afghan ally has been left out of the negotiations is not a good sign for its relevance -- or its viability.

To be sure, even if those 5,400 American troops leave, another 8,600 would remain, plus an unknown number of contractors and operatives. Yet it's obvious that if the U.S. couldn't pacify Afghanistan with 100,000 troops at the beginning of this decade, it's not going to do much with a tiny fraction thereof. In fact, our current dealings with the Taliban recall our dealings with North Vietnam in the early '70s.

Back then, President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger were looking to negotiate with North Vietnam to find a way out. Their hope was for "peace with honor." Yet the appearance of "peace with honor" is not necessarily the same thing as the reality . Behind the scenes, it was grubbier. Nixon and Kissinger understood that the South Vietnamese government was deathly afraid of a U.S. deal with North Vietnam because Saigon understood that any such agreement would leave it in the lurch, unable to defend itself. North Vietnam, after all, was supported by both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. And so Nixon and Kissinger simply pushed South Vietnam out of the loop. Indeed, South Vietnamese fears would have been fully confirmed had they heard Kissinger speaking to Nixon inside the White House in October 1972, as recorded by the notorious secret taping system.

As Kissinger put it, the U.S. should be hoping for a "decent interval" between the American departure and the inevitable fall of the Saigon government. And that's what happened: the Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, and barely more than two years later, on April 30, 1975, Saigon fell. Understandably, millions of South Vietnamese sought to flee the communists, and that, again, is how D.C. -- and the U.S. as a whole -- gained so many new restaurants. All that history is familiar to the policymakers and pundits of today. And so inside the Beltway, the debate over the future of Afghanistan -- more precisely, U.S. involvement in the conflict -- is far from over.

As TAC contributor Doug Bandow noted on August 29, the foreign policy establishment, a.k.a. "the Blob," is perpetually in favor of staying in Afghanistan, because, well, establishments are always perpetually in favor of doing everything that they're doing, perpetually. After all, who wants to admit a mistake? Especially when establishmentarians can snugly oversee the war from their armchairs in a Massachusetts Avenue think-tank? In the meantime, American losses continue to mount. On August 29, another G.I. was killed in Afghanistan; that would be Army Sergeant First Class Dustin B. Ard of Idaho Falls, Idaho. He leaves behind his pregnant wife Mary and daughter Reagan. Ard's death was the 15th this year, bringing the total of American military deaths in Afghanistan to nearly 2,400 .

Yet in spite of all this American sacrifice, the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001. Indeed, the Taliban has proven its ability to strike anywhere, including inside Kabul; just on September 3, suicide bombers struck an international compound, killing at least 19. Tellingly, local Afghans now want the international residents out of their neighborhood, because they know the presence of foreigners is a magnet for Taliban killers -- whom nobody seems able to stop.

We can pause to observe that such popular fatalism dooms a regime. It makes people -- especially those with links to the West -- likely to flee. To be sure, there's no telling exactly when the Kabul government will crumble, as well as how, exactly, it will crumble.

After all, President Trump hasn't even signed off on Khalilzad's draft deal, and even if he does, he could always change his mind. The ability of the Blob to swallow presidents is not to be underestimated -- and Trump is a case in point. For decades, reaching back to his career as a businessman, Trump had been a skeptic of foreign military engagements, and he explicitly campaigned against "endless wars" in 2016.

Yet since then, the Blob has been extending pseudopods of keep-the-status-quo cajolery deep within his administration. Trump has thus been persuaded to keep the U.S. engaged, or, if one prefers, quagmired .

Remarkably, in August 2017, Trump even delivered a primetime speech on Afghanistan in which he pledged "victory." Even if Trump doesn't talk up victory anymore, nobody can say what exactly he will do. Does he want to get credit for extricating the U.S., finally, from an unpopular war?

Or does he not want to see a foreign capital fall on his watch? Whatever the case, it seems evident that the remaining sand is running out of the Afghan hourglass.

In the two years since that go-get-'em speech, Trump has expended zero rhetorical effort in support of the Afghan mission; instead he and his administration have shifted their focus to China. (And yes, there's also that fascination with Iran, although there again, because Trump is Trump, it's hard to know what will come of it. It could be anything from an armed conflict to a Kim Jong-un-ish summit.) In the meantime, the Democrats, too, have moved on. It wasn't that long ago that Barack Obama was referring to Afghanistan as the "good war," while surging American troops; Obama, too, was pseudopod-ed by the Blob. And while the 44th president soon enough realized that the new doctrine of counter-insurgency wasn't working any better than the old doctrine of counter-terrorism, he chose not to get cross-wise with the Blob -- and so American troops stayed. Yet today, nobody in the 2020 Democratic presidential field -- not even Obama alum Joe Biden -- has any enthusiasm for the Afghan mission. So whether it's a re-elected Trump or a newly elected Democrat in the White House in 2021, the U.S. is going to be looking for that fig-leafy "decent interval." It could come in the form of a bilateral agreement, or perhaps an international conference, complete with the promise of U.N. peacekeepers (although unless they're Pakistani or Chinese "peacekeepers," any foreign force will likely wilt in the face of the Taliban, which is nothing if not good at killing). Yes, it's intriguing to note that Afghanistan has trillions of dollars' worth of natural resources waiting to be mined. And so if a stable regime could ever be established in that war-crossed land, great wealth could spring forth. But that's a manifest destiny for someone else, not Uncle Sam. What we're going to get stateside when this misadventure finally comes to an end is a lot of new refugees -- and a lot of new restaurants.

James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor at . He served as a White House policy aide to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.


Peter913 a day ago

IMHO, we should have left Afghanistan years ago. I'll settle for yesterday. To hell with the Rare Earth and our warmongers running/ruining foreign affairs!
Late Jan 2021 21 hours ago
Too late. The "decent interval" ended well over fifteen years ago.

I'm actually surprised that Trump isn't getting us out of there. He's told a lot of lies and broken a lot of promises, but that's one that would have been easy to keep, and he didn't do it. No spine.

EliteCommInc. 10 hours ago
This all depends on one simple factor. The integrity of the Taliban verses the integrity of the communists in North Vietnam.

And trying to hedge a "we lost in Vietnam" slip and slide assail has no more veracity here than it had in 1975.

The Taliban are not an invading military force. The struggle as it is has been one of internal forces and players sharing the land and never having been but various communities that fought, lived and negotiated agreements all nearly all of the countries history, unlike Vietnam which has almost entire history had a North/South division.

We are going to have foreign restaurants regardless, but interventions just invite more of them.

Sid Finster 10 hours ago
Quit calling the Kabul regime a "client". It's a puppet. The minute US forces leave Afghanistan, the puppet government in Kabul will fall. Don't be surprised if it collapses before the last US transport has its landing gear all the way up. Notwithstanding 2., yes, it's over. Time to pack up and move on. However, Trump can't do that.

a. If Trump were to order a withdrawal from Afghanistan, his political opponents would pounce. Expect lots of cries of "Putin puppet", angry denunciations of "Who lost Afghanistan?" and heart-rending images depicting the fates of suffering girls. Not to mention the grisly fates those persons so foolish as to cooperate with the United States.

Let us not kid ourselves - some of these images will in fact be genuine.

Also, Sunni Islamicists will be emboldened. It took some 18 years, but in the end, they sent the Americans home packing.

No matter how you spin it, they won and we lost. Yes, the much hyped and much bloated United States military was unable to defeat some medieval farmers in flip flops, who cannot boast so much as a Piper Cub to their name, much less a drone or a cluster bomb.

If Trump had really wanted to leave Afghanistan, the time to do it was when he first entered office. Blame his predecessors and wash his hands of the situation while the political price was at its lowest. But Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. He listened to the generals, and the price of leaving has only risen and will only keep rising.

b. They aren't much good for anything but staging, but Trump wants those Afghan outposts for the war on Iran that his Saudi owners and Israeli masters so crave.

Of course, eighteen odd years and countless dollars, only to be defeated by peasants without a single fighter jet or drone is not exactly great PR for the folks trying to convince us that they really can win this time, why, Iran will be a walk in the park!

Trump is an imbecile, of course, but he is doing about the only thing he can do in Afghanistan, which is, to try and maintain a semblance of control over major population centers and pretend we're not losing.

Patrick O'Connor 6 hours ago
All the Democrats should be on the bandwagon for withdrawal yesterday because Trump's October Surprise could be announcing peace in our time and getting the hell out. It is a promise he can actually keep. It is not like he is getting his wall.
stevek9 6 hours ago
'Does he want to get credit for extricating the U.S., finally, from an unpopular war? Or does he not want to see a foreign capital fall on his watch?'

Any politician with sense knows that the American public could not care less about the fall of Kabul (what's a kabul?). That's the American people. Campaign contributions from the MIC is a different matter.

Clyde Schechter 6 hours ago
Trump has become, himself, part of "the Blob." By hiring Pompeo and Bolton to head his foreign policy team he has abandoned any pretense of being an anti-war pro-restraint president. He's gone full neo-con and it's long past time conservatives stop pretending he hasn't.
Rossbach 4 hours ago
Who gets to decide how many "refugees" the US will get from Afghanistan? Some of us would gladly forgo all these wonderful new restaurants to protect our communities from yet another "refugee" surge.

[Sep 22, 2019] It was neoliberalism that won the cold war

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword. ..."
"... And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.) ..."
"... So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role. ..."
"... It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed. ..."
"... So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite). ..."
"... The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials. ..."
"... As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR. ..."
"... The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings. ..."
"... BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say. ..."
"... BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf ..."
"... Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe. ..."
"... Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides. ..."
"... But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state. ..."
Sep 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

likbez -> ilsm... , September 08, 2019 at 08:20 PM

This is a very complex issue. And I do not pretend that I am right, but I think Brad is way too superficial to be taken seriously.

IMHO it was neoliberalism that won the cold war. That means that the key neoliberal "scholars" like Friedman and Hayek and other intellectual prostitutes of financial oligarchy who helped to restore their power. Certain democratic politicians like Carter also were the major figures. Carter actually started neoliberalization of the USA, continued by Reagan,

Former Trotskyites starting from Burnham which later became known as neoconservatives also deserve to be mentioned.

It is also questionable that the USA explicitly won the cold war. Paradoxically the other victim of the global neoliberal revolution was the USA, the lower 90% of the USA population to be exact.
So there was no winners other the financial oligarchy (the transnational class.)

As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword.

And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.)

The degeneration started with the death of the last charismatic leader (Stalin) and the passing of the generation which remembers that actual warts of capitalism and could relate them to the "Soviet socialism" solutions.

So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role.

With bolshevism as the official religion, which can't be questioned, the society was way too rigid and suppressed "entrepreneurial initiative" (which leads to enrichment of particular individuals, but also to the benefits to the society as whole), to the extent that was counterproductive. The level of dogmatism in this area was probably as close to the medieval position of Roman Catholic Church as we can get; in this sense it was only national that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became a pope John Paul II -- he was very well prepared indeed ;-).

It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed.

So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite).

The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials.

As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR.

Explosion of far right nationalist sentiments without "Countervailing ideology" as Bolshevism was not taken seriously anymore was the key factor that led to the dissolution of the USSR.

Essentially national movements allied with Germany that were defeated during WWII became the winners.

The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings.

And the backlash created conditions for Putin coming to power.

BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say.

BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf

The majority of the xUSSR space countries have now dismal standard of living and slided into Latin American level of inequality and corruption (not without help of the USA).

Several have civil wars in the period since getting independence, which further depressed the standard living. Most deindustrialize.

Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe.

Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides.

But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state.

So in the worst case it is the USA which might follow the path of the USSR and eventually disintegrate under the pressure of internal nationalist sentiments. Such a victor...

Even now there are some visible difference between former Confederacy states and other states on the issues such as immigration and federal redistributive programs.

[Sep 20, 2019] Trump Whistleblower Drama Puts Biden In The Hot Seat Over Ukraine

Highly recommended!
If this not of the Biden run, I do not know what can be. He now has an albatross abound his neck in the form of interference in Ukrainian criminal investigation to save his corrupt to the core narcoaddict son. Only the raw power of neoliberal MSM to suppress any information that does not fit their agenda is keeping him in the race.
But a more important fact that he was criminally involved in EuroMaydan (at the cost to the USA taxpayers around five billions) is swiped under the carpet. And will never be discussed along with criminality of Obama and Nuland.
As somebody put it "with considerable forethought [neoliberal MSM] are attempting to create a nation of morons who will faithfully go out and buy this or that product, vote for this or that candidate and faithfully work for their employers for as low a wage as possible."
Sep 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States after a whistleblower lodged an 'urgent' complaint about something Trump promised another world leader - the details of which the White House has refused to share.

Then, we learned it was a phone call.

Then, we learned it was several phone calls.

Now, we learn it wasn't Russia or North Korea - it was Ukraine!

Here's the scandal; It appears that Trump, may have made promises to newly minted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - very likely involving an effort to convince Ukraine to reopen its investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, after Biden strongarmed Ukraine's prior government into firing its top prosecutor - something Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have pursued for months . There are also unsupported rumors that Trump threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine fight Russian-backed separatists.

And while the MSM and Congressional Democrats are starting to focus on the sitting US president having a political opponent investigated, The New York Times admits that nothing Trump did would have been illegal , as "while Mr. Trump may have discussed intelligence activities with the foreign leader, he enjoys broad power as president to declassify intelligence secrets, order the intelligence community to act and otherwise direct the conduct of foreign policy as he sees fit."

Moreover, here's why Trump and Giuliani are going to dig their heels in; last year Biden openly bragged about threatening to hurl Ukraine into bankruptcy as Vice President if they didn't fire their top prosecutor , Viktor Shokin - who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into a natural gas firm whose board Hunter Biden sat on.

In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees , sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. - The Hill

"I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko.

" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired . And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q0_AqpdwqK4?start=3128

In short, there's both smoke and fire here - and what's left of Biden's 2020 bid for president may be the largest casualty of the entire whistleblower scandal.

And by the transitive properties of the Obama administration 'vetting' Trump by sending spies into his campaign, Trump can simply say he was protecting America from someone who may have used his position of power to directly benefit his own family at the expense of justice.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, are acting as if they've found the holy grail of taking Trump down. On Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) interviewed inspector general Michael Atkinson, with whom the whistleblower lodged their complaint - however despite three hours of testimony, he repeatedly declined to discuss the content of the complaint .

Following the session, Schiff gave an angry speech - demanding that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire share the complaint , and calling the decision to withhold it "unprecedented."

"We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming to Congress," said Schiff, adding "We're determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure that the national security is protected."

According to Schiff, someone "is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence," according to the Washington Post .

me title=

On thursday, Trump denied doing anything improper - tweeting " Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. "

"Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially 'heavily populated' call. "

me title=

Giuliani, meanwhile, went on CNN with Chris Cuomo Thursday to defend his discussions with Ukraine about investigating alleged election interference in the 2016 election to the benefit of Hillary Clinton conducted by Ukraine's previous government. According to Giuliani, Biden's dealings in Ukraine were 'tangential' to the 2016 election interference question - in which a Ukrainian court ruled that government officials meddled for Hillary in 2016 by releasing details of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's 'Black Book' to Clinton campaign staffer Alexandra Chalupa.

me title=

And so - what the MSM doesn't appear to understand is that President Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden over something with legitimate underpinnings.

Which - of course, may lead to the Bidens' adventures in China , which Giuliani referred to in his CNN interview. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which may have helped his son Hunter - who was making hand over fist in both countries.

Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion

Meanwhile, speculation is rampant over what this hornet's nest means for all involved...

Dan Bongino ✔ @dbongino

The latest intell hit on Trump tells me that the deep-state swamp rats are in a panic over the Ukrainian/Obama admin collusion about to be outed in the IG report. They're also freaked out over Biden's shady Ukrainian deals with his kid.


blindfaith , 18 seconds ago link

Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion

Lets clarify this a bit. The 1 billion came from the RED CHINESE ARMY, lets call spade a spade here. And why? To buy into (invest in ) DARPA related contractors. The RED CHINESE NAVY was so impressed with little sonny's performance (meaning daddy's help), that they handed over an additions 500,000.

Without daddy's influence as VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and that FREE PLANE RIDE on Air Force TWO with daddy holding sonny's little hand, little sonny never would have gotten past the ticket booth.

n0vocaine , 24 seconds ago link

"House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and his involvement with Burisma."

LOL looking into someone looking into a crime that may have been committed by a Democrat... they're some big brained individuals these dummycrats.

Tom Angle , 1 minute ago link

Putting him in the hot seat would be to ask why he sponsored a coup and backed a neo Nazi party. When he starts to lie, put up images of the party he back wearing inverted Das Reich arm bands and flying flags. Now that would be real journalism.

TahoeBilly2012 , 2 minutes ago link

"Blame your enemies for your crimes"

Everybodys All American , 12 minutes ago link

It's awfully clear that the US department of justice is not going to do a damn thing about the Biden family's corruption.

NotGonnaTakeItAnymore , 13 minutes ago link

The Bidens show precisely that power corrupts. They both need to be investigated and then jailed. To the countries of the world that depend on the USA for any kind of help, they had to deal with Joe 'what's in-it-for-me' Biden? What a disgrace for America.

I think every sitting President, Vice President, senator, and representative needs a yearly lie-detector test that asks but one question: "did you do anything in your official duties that personally benefited you or your family?"

Didn't you ever wonder how so many senators and representatives end up multi-millionaires after a couple terms in office?

The EveryThing Bubble , 14 minutes ago link

Why the fuuk do we have have to put up with this jackass. All the talk on cable, etc, is all ********. Trump is a fuuking crook, and Barr is his bag man,. He has surrounded hinmself with toadies, cowards , incompetents and a trash family. Rise up, call your representatives, March on DC get this crook out of office.
Call anyone you can think of, challenge them to overcome their cowardice, including members of congress, cabinet, your governor

And finally Vote this bastard out in 2020

RozKo , 11 minutes ago link

Same could be said for the Democrats and all their Russian collusion lies and Beto wants to FORCE people to sell their weapons to the government, right.......

RabbitOne , 14 minutes ago link

" ...The complaint <against the president> involved communications with a foreign leader and a "promise" that Trump made, which was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official <who monitored Trumps call> who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said. ..."

What this tells:

1. If president Trump is monitored this way our spooks know the number of hairs in our crotches...

2. If we convicted on promises most in congress would be hung by the neck til dead for treason for not following the constitution...

turbojarhead , 58 seconds ago link

Anybody that thinks that Trump, having had Roy Cohn as his mentor, and working in cut-throat NY real estate for years, AND having dealt with political snakes for many years..would allow himself to be taped saying something on a call that he KNOWS the Intel Community is listening in, is not paying attention.

This will backfire on the Dems and the media. Trump set them all up again..

My guess is the Dems will be hounding the IC for the complaint, will call Barr and the DNI in an investigation ran live on CNN and MSNBC..that will show how corrupt Biden was. Everytime you hear Alexandra Chalupa's name come up, look for the MSM to go ballistic..she is the tell in this one also. It cannot be allowed for the plebes to find out how Manafort was setup, Ukraine assisted the DNC in the fake Russian election interference farce..hey, guess what, guess who is an ardent Ukraininan nationalist? The head of Crowdstrike. Chalupa and Alparovich, the names that will bring down more dirty Dems than anyone in history.

Gold Banit , 15 minutes ago link

I have a trick question for for all of the DemoRats posters here!

Who is your President and will be for the next 6 years?

Hint

It is not your Hillary or your Putin......Fact......LMFAO

schroedingersrat , 21 minutes ago link

For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States

Trump is a traitor, but he does not work for either Ukraine nor Russia but instead he works for Israel first and foremost! He even admits it himself. Lol he doesn't even give a shite when Israel taps his phone :)

blindfaith , 27 minutes ago link

House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and his involvement with Burisma.

This bunch of filthy swine should be looking up each others asses for answers. Actually the Ukrainians have been screaming for over a year at the DOJ and FBI to take the evidence they have. But the rotten to the core Democrat socialist lefties wanted to block it.

otschelnik , 25 minutes ago link

Six ways to Sunday. This is another **** bomb that'll blow up in the dimocrat's faces, it will take Biden down.

Warren = Trump 2020.

Ex-Kalifornian , 27 minutes ago link

This does nothing to Biden because he gets a free pass on corruption like every other dem.....

vasilievich , 27 minutes ago link

This is all beginning to read like one those Roman histories of the decay of the Empire.

[Sep 20, 2019] Trump Whistleblower Drama Puts Biden In The Hot Seat Over Ukraine

Highly recommended!
If this not of the Biden run, I do not know what can be. He now has an albatross abound his neck in the form of interference in Ukrainian criminal investigation to save his corrupt to the core narcoaddict son. Only the raw power of neoliberal MSM to suppress any information that does not fit their agenda is keeping him in the race.
But a more important fact that he was criminally involved in EuroMaydan (at the cost to the USA taxpayers around five billions) is swiped under the carpet. And will never be discussed along with criminality of Obama and Nuland.
As somebody put it "with considerable forethought [neoliberal MSM] are attempting to create a nation of morons who will faithfully go out and buy this or that product, vote for this or that candidate and faithfully work for their employers for as low a wage as possible."
Sep 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States after a whistleblower lodged an 'urgent' complaint about something Trump promised another world leader - the details of which the White House has refused to share.

Then, we learned it was a phone call.

Then, we learned it was several phone calls.

Now, we learn it wasn't Russia or North Korea - it was Ukraine!

Here's the scandal; It appears that Trump, may have made promises to newly minted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - very likely involving an effort to convince Ukraine to reopen its investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, after Biden strongarmed Ukraine's prior government into firing its top prosecutor - something Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have pursued for months . There are also unsupported rumors that Trump threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine fight Russian-backed separatists.

And while the MSM and Congressional Democrats are starting to focus on the sitting US president having a political opponent investigated, The New York Times admits that nothing Trump did would have been illegal , as "while Mr. Trump may have discussed intelligence activities with the foreign leader, he enjoys broad power as president to declassify intelligence secrets, order the intelligence community to act and otherwise direct the conduct of foreign policy as he sees fit."

Moreover, here's why Trump and Giuliani are going to dig their heels in; last year Biden openly bragged about threatening to hurl Ukraine into bankruptcy as Vice President if they didn't fire their top prosecutor , Viktor Shokin - who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into a natural gas firm whose board Hunter Biden sat on.

In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees , sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. - The Hill

"I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko.

" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired . And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q0_AqpdwqK4?start=3128

In short, there's both smoke and fire here - and what's left of Biden's 2020 bid for president may be the largest casualty of the entire whistleblower scandal.

And by the transitive properties of the Obama administration 'vetting' Trump by sending spies into his campaign, Trump can simply say he was protecting America from someone who may have used his position of power to directly benefit his own family at the expense of justice.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, are acting as if they've found the holy grail of taking Trump down. On Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) interviewed inspector general Michael Atkinson, with whom the whistleblower lodged their complaint - however despite three hours of testimony, he repeatedly declined to discuss the content of the complaint .

Following the session, Schiff gave an angry speech - demanding that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire share the complaint , and calling the decision to withhold it "unprecedented."

"We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming to Congress," said Schiff, adding "We're determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure that the national security is protected."

According to Schiff, someone "is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence," according to the Washington Post .

me title=

On thursday, Trump denied doing anything improper - tweeting " Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. "

"Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially 'heavily populated' call. "

me title=

Giuliani, meanwhile, went on CNN with Chris Cuomo Thursday to defend his discussions with Ukraine about investigating alleged election interference in the 2016 election to the benefit of Hillary Clinton conducted by Ukraine's previous government. According to Giuliani, Biden's dealings in Ukraine were 'tangential' to the 2016 election interference question - in which a Ukrainian court ruled that government officials meddled for Hillary in 2016 by releasing details of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's 'Black Book' to Clinton campaign staffer Alexandra Chalupa.

me title=

And so - what the MSM doesn't appear to understand is that President Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden over something with legitimate underpinnings.

Which - of course, may lead to the Bidens' adventures in China , which Giuliani referred to in his CNN interview. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which may have helped his son Hunter - who was making hand over fist in both countries.

Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion

Meanwhile, speculation is rampant over what this hornet's nest means for all involved...

Dan Bongino ✔ @dbongino

The latest intell hit on Trump tells me that the deep-state swamp rats are in a panic over the Ukrainian/Obama admin collusion about to be outed in the IG report. They're also freaked out over Biden's shady Ukrainian deals with his kid.


blindfaith , 18 seconds ago link

Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion

Lets clarify this a bit. The 1 billion came from the RED CHINESE ARMY, lets call spade a spade here. And why? To buy into (invest in ) DARPA related contractors. The RED CHINESE NAVY was so impressed with little sonny's performance (meaning daddy's help), that they handed over an additions 500,000.

Without daddy's influence as VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and that FREE PLANE RIDE on Air Force TWO with daddy holding sonny's little hand, little sonny never would have gotten past the ticket booth.

n0vocaine , 24 seconds ago link

"House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and his involvement with Burisma."

LOL looking into someone looking into a crime that may have been committed by a Democrat... they're some big brained individuals these dummycrats.

Tom Angle , 1 minute ago link

Putting him in the hot seat would be to ask why he sponsored a coup and backed a neo Nazi party. When he starts to lie, put up images of the party he back wearing inverted Das Reich arm bands and flying flags. Now that would be real journalism.

TahoeBilly2012 , 2 minutes ago link

"Blame your enemies for your crimes"

Everybodys All American , 12 minutes ago link

It's awfully clear that the US department of justice is not going to do a damn thing about the Biden family's corruption.

NotGonnaTakeItAnymore , 13 minutes ago link

The Bidens show precisely that power corrupts. They both need to be investigated and then jailed. To the countries of the world that depend on the USA for any kind of help, they had to deal with Joe 'what's in-it-for-me' Biden? What a disgrace for America.

I think every sitting President, Vice President, senator, and representative needs a yearly lie-detector test that asks but one question: "did you do anything in your official duties that personally benefited you or your family?"

Didn't you ever wonder how so many senators and representatives end up multi-millionaires after a couple terms in office?

The EveryThing Bubble , 14 minutes ago link

Why the fuuk do we have have to put up with this jackass. All the talk on cable, etc, is all ********. Trump is a fuuking crook, and Barr is his bag man,. He has surrounded hinmself with toadies, cowards , incompetents and a trash family. Rise up, call your representatives, March on DC get this crook out of office.
Call anyone you can think of, challenge them to overcome their cowardice, including members of congress, cabinet, your governor

And finally Vote this bastard out in 2020

RozKo , 11 minutes ago link

Same could be said for the Democrats and all their Russian collusion lies and Beto wants to FORCE people to sell their weapons to the government, right.......

RabbitOne , 14 minutes ago link

" ...The complaint <against the president> involved communications with a foreign leader and a "promise" that Trump made, which was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official <who monitored Trumps call> who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said. ..."

What this tells:

1. If president Trump is monitored this way our spooks know the number of hairs in our crotches...

2. If we convicted on promises most in congress would be hung by the neck til dead for treason for not following the constitution...

turbojarhead , 58 seconds ago link

Anybody that thinks that Trump, having had Roy Cohn as his mentor, and working in cut-throat NY real estate for years, AND having dealt with political snakes for many years..would allow himself to be taped saying something on a call that he KNOWS the Intel Community is listening in, is not paying attention.

This will backfire on the Dems and the media. Trump set them all up again..

My guess is the Dems will be hounding the IC for the complaint, will call Barr and the DNI in an investigation ran live on CNN and MSNBC..that will show how corrupt Biden was. Everytime you hear Alexandra Chalupa's name come up, look for the MSM to go ballistic..she is the tell in this one also. It cannot be allowed for the plebes to find out how Manafort was setup, Ukraine assisted the DNC in the fake Russian election interference farce..hey, guess what, guess who is an ardent Ukraininan nationalist? The head of Crowdstrike. Chalupa and Alparovich, the names that will bring down more dirty Dems than anyone in history.

Gold Banit , 15 minutes ago link

I have a trick question for for all of the DemoRats posters here!

Who is your President and will be for the next 6 years?

Hint

It is not your Hillary or your Putin......Fact......LMFAO

schroedingersrat , 21 minutes ago link

For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States

Trump is a traitor, but he does not work for either Ukraine nor Russia but instead he works for Israel first and foremost! He even admits it himself. Lol he doesn't even give a shite when Israel taps his phone :)

blindfaith , 27 minutes ago link

House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and his involvement with Burisma.

This bunch of filthy swine should be looking up each others asses for answers. Actually the Ukrainians have been screaming for over a year at the DOJ and FBI to take the evidence they have. But the rotten to the core Democrat socialist lefties wanted to block it.

otschelnik , 25 minutes ago link

Six ways to Sunday. This is another **** bomb that'll blow up in the dimocrat's faces, it will take Biden down.

Warren = Trump 2020.

Ex-Kalifornian , 27 minutes ago link

This does nothing to Biden because he gets a free pass on corruption like every other dem.....

vasilievich , 27 minutes ago link

This is all beginning to read like one those Roman histories of the decay of the Empire.

[Sep 18, 2019] To End Endless Wars, We Must Give Up Hegemony by Daniel Larison

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Sep 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Stephen Wertheim explains what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:

American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.

Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership." A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.

U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:

Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.

Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure, but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:

Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.

The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."

Wertheim adds:

Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned" -- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in itself.

Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.


chris chuba 2 days ago

Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.

Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.

It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.

IanDakar chris chuba 16 hours ago
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.

Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've never happened if we took that policy.

Sid Finster 2 days ago
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment.

So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.

Clyde Schechter 2 days ago
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several decades longer.
Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?

How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances and interests be damned!"

I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.

This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.

Stumble Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.

We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.

Sid Finster Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
The USA are the source of a lot of the world's instability.
Sceptical Gorilla Sid Finster 2 days ago
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only take counterfactuals so far.
Mojrim ibn Harb Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
Lovely strawman you have there...
Taras77 2 days ago
Excellent article, excellent skeptical comments below.

I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.

The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.

It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting.

Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion) that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be curtailed or even better, changed.

polistra24 2 days ago • edited
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing left to dominate or own.

Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists" on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for 70 years.

China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive purchase of their output.

Mojrim ibn Harb polistra24 2 days ago
Join the liberal order or we'll wreck your country. That's hegemony.
Mark B. 2 days ago
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes. Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
James_R Mark B. 2 days ago
"On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own hands, I hope.".................

I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries.

AllenQ 2 days ago
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant US presence.

None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.

It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing, our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.

Fran Macadam 2 days ago
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits. War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled profitably to be encouraged.
Doom Incarnate a day ago
Fighting is good for business, so the fighting will continue.

[Sep 18, 2019] The groundwork is being laid for expensive new races in intermediate-range missile systems in Europe and Asia, which will likely decrease stability in both regions.

Sep 18, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Nick Klaus 5 hours ago ,

Now we need to bury the agreement on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and on the ban on nuclear testing!
And the world will be truly safe!

[Sep 18, 2019] The Obama Administration Destroyed Libya. Could Trump Make It Worse? by Ted Galen Carpenter

Notable quotes:
"... The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government -- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area. President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in April with Haftar and appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's stance. ..."
"... One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In her new book, The Education of an Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed, flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison correctly excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?" ..."
"... Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling! ..."
"... I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians. ..."
Sep 16, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

The United States cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials can't seem to decide which faction they want to back.

The Western-created disaster in Libya continues to grow worse. Fighting between Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar's so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) and the even more misnamed Government of National Accord (GNA) has intensified in and around Tripoli. The LNA boasted on September 11 that its forces had routed troops of the Sarraj militia, a GNA ally, killing about two hundred of them. That total may be exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the situation has become increasingly violent and chaotic in Tripoli and other portions of Libya, with innocent civilians bearing the brunt of the suffering.

An article in Bloomberg News provides a succinct account of the poisonous fruits of the U.S.-led "humanitarian" military intervention in 2011. "Libya is enduring its worst violence since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of Muammar el-Qaddafi, which ushered in years of instability that allowed Islamist radicals to thrive and turned the country into a hub for migrants destined to Europe. Haftar had launched the war as the United Nations was laying the ground for a political conference to unite the country. It is now more divided than ever." The country has become the plaything not only of rival domestic factions but major Middle East powers , including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Those regimes are waging a ruthless geopolitical competition, providing arms and in some cases even launching airstrikes on behalf of their preferred clients.

The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government -- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area. President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in April with Haftar and appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's stance.

Given the appalling aftermath of the original U.S.-led intervention, one might hope that advocates of an activist policy would be chastened and back away from further meddling in that unfortunate country. Yet, that is not the case. Neither the Trump administration nor the humanitarian crusaders in Barack Obama's administration who caused the calamity in the first place seem inclined to advocate a more cautious, restrained U.S. policy.

One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In her new book, The Education of an Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed, flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison correctly excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?"

The answer to Larison's rhetorical question is "extraordinarily arrogant." It is not as though prudent foreign-policy experts didn't warn Power and her colleagues about the probable consequences of intervening in a volatile, fragile country like Libya. Indeed, as Robert Gates, Obama's secretary of defense, confirms in his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War , the Obama administration itself was deeply divided about the advisability of intervention. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice President Joe Biden, and Gates were opposed. Among the most outspoken proponents of action were Power and her mentor, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gates notes further that Obama was deeply torn, later telling his secretary of defense that the decision was a "51 to 49" call.

The existence of a sharp internal division is sufficient evidence by itself that Power's attempt to absolve herself and other humanitarian crusaders of responsibility for the subsequent tragedy is without merit. Indeed, it has even less credibility than Pontius Pilate's infamous effort to evade guilt. They were warned of the probable outcome, yet they chose to disregard those warnings.

Power, Clinton, Obama and other proponents of ousting Qaddafi turned Libya into a chaotic Somalia on the Mediterranean, and the blood of innocents shed since 2011 is on their hands. Given the stark split within the president's national security team, the Libya intervention was especially reckless and unjustified. The default option in such a case should have been against intervention, not plunging ahead.

The Trump administration should learn from the blunders of its predecessor and resist any temptation to meddle further. America does not have a dog in the ongoing fight between Haftar and the GNA, and we should simply accept whatever outcome emerges. Washington's arrogant interference has caused enough suffering in Libya already.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest , is the author of thirteen books and more than eight hundred articles on international affairs. His latest book is NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur .


Druid 7 hours ago ,

The outcome in Libya is what the intent was - chaos, per the Yinon plan. The side effect of mass immigration to Europe was warned by Gaddafi! All was known, yet the destabilization war continued.

npbinni 8 hours ago ,

Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling!

dieter heymann 13 hours ago ,

Libya was and still is the case of a civil war into which foreign powers have intervened. The major parties of that war have always been the Tripolitanian West and the Cyrenaican East. Whoever is on top considers the others to be the rebels. That is how the demise of Qaddafi began. For him Benghazi was the rebel's nest which needed some cleaning. Nothing has changed. Haftar is the new Qaddafi.

I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians.

Mark Thomason a day ago ,

You can always make things worse. It is one thing that Trump and friends are good at.

They don't consider that a criticism either, since they want what the rest of us consider worse -- more war, more enemies, more inequality in outcomes at home, more desperation at home giving more power to the haves over the have-nots.

redeemed626 2 days ago • edited ,

Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book" is a timeless classic that still applies to articles produced for electronic consumption. One of Adler's primary admonitions was to consider the author's expertise, credibility, and potential biases. With regard to this article, scrolling down to the end reveals the author's association with the Koch Brother financed Cato Institute. The Koch Brothers and their money have done more to destroy American democracy than any foreign tyrant or Presidential folly.

And oh, by the way, what did the Neocons and the Vulcans of the W Administration do to the entire Middle East other than create a contiguous geographic belt of Iranian Shiite influence from Tehran to Beirut?

[Sep 18, 2019] Trump proved to be a weak politician who is too cozy with the Isreal lobby. He illegally removed the U.S. from the Iran deal and is now boxed into escalation that has no good outcome.

Brian not to be confused with the Inner Party member in 1984. This is just a coincidence.
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Circe , Sep 18 2019 14:19 utc | 146
The U.S. just increased sanctions on Iran again. Bad move.

Trump is stupid. He illegally removed the U.S. from the Iran deal and is now boxed into escalation that has no good outcome...

[Sep 18, 2019] Iran is a coherent nation with long history and proved ability to defend itslef even at the cost of enormous sacrifices. One hopes that the Pentagon can understand that any attack on Iran coalition will be met with a coordinated and unreserved response by Iran and all its allies.

Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Sep 18 2019 2:54 utc | 80

@b - "Iran has thereby plausible deniability when attacks like the recent one on Abquiq happen. That Iran supplied drones with 1,500 kilometer reach to its allies in Yemen means that its allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and elsewhere have access to similar means."

I read the Tyler Rogoway WarZone article you linked to, and it was the first time I'd seen the concept that Iran "has built a plausible deniability environment" for itself, but I think Rogoway is missing a serious point. If Iran has such deniability, I don't think this exists by contrivance. I think the truth of the situation has created such plausible deniability, if in fact such a thing even exists, or if such a thing is even desired by Iran or any of its allies.

I would like to offer a more nuanced view of the relationship between Iran and its allies. Specifically regarding your view that Iran's allies are "willing to act on Iran's behalf should the need arise."

I get the impression that it's more a case that all these allies see themselves in the same existential position, and have developed, and are continuing to refine, an "all for one and one for all" approach to the regional security of all the sovereign allies.

Sharmine Narwani explained this very thing in her recent interview with Ross Ashcroft, where she said that if one of the allies is attacked by the US or Israel, all of the allies will join in immediately and without reservation, because for each of them it is the same existential threat:
What's the real plan with Iran?

And the interview you link to by Nader Talebzadeh with IRGC General Amir Ali Hajizadeh concludes with the general's statement that "...in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen; now Muslims are all a coalition standing next to each other".
How likely is the possibility of a military conflict between Iran and the US?

~~

I'm not trying to split hairs here, but it strikes me as important to note that these countries have moved on from being isolated, and are in fact in a coalition, albeit still coalescing. Their militaries have trained together and established joint command centers in recent times.

As the general explained, when the threat of attack by the US seemed imminent - at the time Iran downed the drone - Iran was fully prepared to attack and destroy several US bases. One hopes that the Pentagon can understand that any attack on one of these members of the coalition will be met with a coordinated and unreserved response by all allies.

Given such a geopolitical situation now throughout the region, the concept of Iran's having "plausible deniability" for other countries to act on its behalf seems too narrow a view. And this is why all the fevered discussion about who "owns" the Houthi strike is missing the main strategic point that the whole region "owns" it - and why it is sufficient that the Houthi did in fact act alone, but not alone, because none of these forces is now alone. It is, one gathers, a brotherly coalition that has formed and is becoming yet stronger

So it need not be the case that everything flows from Iran, or revolves around Iran. The whole region is now the steel trap not to step on.

donkeytale , Sep 18 2019 3:16 utc | 81

Grieved @ 80

Excellent point very well stated.

[Sep 18, 2019] Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge?

Iran has incentives to increase the chance of a Democrat administration, bearing in mind the great deal they got from the last one and the lack of anything they can expect from Trump Term Two.
Sep 18, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge? Don't let the neocons like Pompeo sell you on war.

Make the intelligence people show you the evidence in detail. Make your own judgments. pl


Vegetius , 17 September 2019 at 08:37 PM

Whatever else he knows, Trump knows that he can't sell a war to the American people.
confusedponderer -> Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 03:51 AM
Vegetius,
re " Trump knows that he can't sell a war to the American people "

Are you sure? I am not.

Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump. He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4 pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in your face in an hour, Sir ".

A good number of the so called grownups who gave such advice were (gameshow style) fired, sometimes by twitter.

Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on the military (which likely will obey).

These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper.

Israel could, if politically just a tad more insane, bomb Iran and thus invite the inevitable retaliation. When that happens they'll cry for US aid, weapons and money because they alone ~~~

(a) cannot defeat Iran (short of going nuclear) and ...
(b) Holocaust! We want weapons and money from Germany, too! ...
(c) they know that ...
(d) which does not lead in any way to Netanyahu showing signgs of self restraint or reason.

Netanyahu just - it is (tight) election time - announced, in his sldedge hammer style subtlety, that (he) Israel will annect the palestinian west jordan territory, making the Plaestines an object in his election campaign.

IMO that idea is simply insane and invites more "troubles". But then, I didn't hear anything like, say, Trump gvt protests against that (and why expect that from the dudes who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem).

confusedponderer -> Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 07:28 AM
Vegetius,
as for Trump and Netanyahu ... policy debate ... I had that here in mind, which pretty speaks for itself. And I thought Trumo is just running for office in the US. Alas, it is a Netanyaho campaign poster from the current election:

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a6e60efd3bde0befbcb8b0a95a42bf4c2624e017/57_296_5123_3074/master/5123.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=1958b9e7cf24d7a3a7b024845de08f7e

As a thank you to Trump calling the Israel ocupied Golan a part of Israel Netanyahu called an (iirc also illegal) new Golan settlement "Ramat Trump"

https://cdn.mdr.de/nachrichten/mdraktuell-golan-hoehen-trump-hights-100-resimage_v-variantSmall24x9_w-704.jpg?version=0964

I generously assume that things like that only happen because of the hard and hard ly work of Kushner on his somewhat elusive but of course GIGANTIC and INCREDIBLE Middle East peace plan.

Kushner is probably getting hard and hard ly supported by Ivanka who just said that she inherited her moral compass from her father. Well ... congatulations ... I assume.

Stueeeeeeee said in reply to Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 08:31 AM
I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have?

The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking.

The rest of the nation will follow.

prawnik said in reply to Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 10:36 AM
Need I trot out Goering's statement regarding selling a war once more?

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

turcopolier , 17 September 2019 at 09:31 PM
jonst

We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies. If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL

Matt said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 12:54 AM
I agree with your reply 100%

Iranophobia goes back to 1979,

Russophobia goes back to at least 1917 if not further, especially in the UK,

Sinophobia for the US reaches back to the mid to late 1800's

these phobias are so entrenched now they're a huge obstacle to overcome,

Mark Twain: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

William Casey: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false"

Christian Chuba , 18 September 2019 at 05:22 AM
The 'ivestigations are a formality. The Saudis (with U.S. backing) are already saying that the missiles were Iranian made and according to them, this proves that Iran fired them. The Saudis are using the more judicious phrase 'behind the attack' but Pompeo is running with the fired from Iran narrative.

How can we tell the difference between an actual Iranian manufactured missile vs one that was manufactured in Yemen based on Iranian designs? We only have a few pictures Iranian missiles unlike us, the Iranians don't toss them all over the place so we don't have any physical pieces to compare them to.

Perhaps honest investigators could make a determination but even if they do exist they will keep quiet while the bible thumping Pompeo brays and shamelessly lies as he is prone to do.

PRC90 said in reply to Christian Chuba... , 18 September 2019 at 10:36 AM
These kinds of munition will leave hundreds of bits scattered all over their targets. I'm waiting for the press conference with the best bits laid out on the tables.
I doubt that there will be any stencils saying 'Product of Iran', unless the paint smells fresh.
Nuff Sed , 18 September 2019 at 07:22 AM
1. I am still waiting to read some informed discussion concerning the *accuracy* of the projectiles hitting their targets with uncanny precision from hundreds of miles away. What does this say about the achievement of those pesky Eye-rainians? https://www.moonofalabama.org/images9/saudihit2.jpg

2. "The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the IRGC Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed.: Ahem, Which forces are utterly destroyed? With respect colonel, you are not thinking straight. An army with supersonic land to sea missiles that are highly accurate will make minced meat of any fool's ship that dare attack it. The lesson of the last few months is that Iran is deadly serious about its position that if they cannot sell their oil, no one else will be able to either. And if the likes of the relatively broadminded colonel have not yet learned that lesson, then this can only mean that the escalation ladder will continue to be climbed, rung by rung. Next rung: deep sea port of Yanbu, or, less likely, Ra's Tanura. That's when the price of oil will really go through the roof and the Chinese (and possibly one or two of the Europoodles) will start crying Uncle Scam. Nuff Sed.

turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:07 AM
nuff Sed

It sounds like you are getting a little "help" with this. You statement about the result of a naval confrontation in the Gulf reflects the 19th Century conception that "ships can't fight forts." that has been many times exploded. You have never seen the amount of firepower that would be unleashed on Iran from the air and sea. Would the US take casualties? Yes, but you will be destroyed.

Nuff Sed -> turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 08:18 AM
We will have to agree to disagree. But unless I am quite mistaken, the majority view if not the consensus of informed up to date opinion holds that the surest sign that the US is getting ready to attack Iran is that it is withdrawing all of its naval power out of the Persian Gulf, where they would be sitting ducks.

Besides, I don't think it will ever come to that. Not to repeat myself, but taking out either deep sea ports of Ra's Tanura and/ or Yanbu (on the Red Sea side) will render Saudi oil exports null and void for the next six months. The havoc that will play with the price of oil and consequently on oil futures and derivatives will be enough for any president and army to have to worry about. But if the US would still be foolhardy enough to continue to want to wage war (i.e. continue its strangulation of Iran, which it has been doing more or less for the past 40 years), then the Yemeni siege would be broken and there would be a two-pronged attack from the south and the north, whereby al-Qatif, the Shi'a region of Saudi Arabia where all the oil and gas is located, will be liberated from their barbaric treatment at the hands of the takfiri Saudi scum, which of course is completely enabled and only made possible by the War Criminal Uncle Sam.

Go ahead, make my day: roll the dice.

scott s. said in reply to Nuff Sed ... , 18 September 2019 at 11:32 AM
AFAIK the only "US naval power" currently is the Abraham Lincoln CSG and I haven't seen any public info that it was in the Persian Gulf. Aside from the actual straits, I'm not sure of your "sitting ducks" assertion. First they wouldn't be sitting, and second you have the problem of a large volume of grey shipping that would complicate the targeting problem. Of course with a reduced time-of-flight, that also reduces target position uncertainty.
CK said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 09:55 AM
Forts are stationary.
Nothing I have read implies that Iran has a lot of investment in stationary forts.
Millennium Challenge 2002, only the game cannot be restarted once the enemy does not behave as one hopes. Unlike in scripted war simulations, Opfor can win.
I remember the amount of devastation that was unleashed on another "backwards nation" Linebackers 1 - 20, battleship salvos chemical defoliants, the Phoenix program, napalm for dessert.
And not to put to fine a point on it, but that benighted nation was oriental; Iran is a Caucasian nation full of Caucasian type peoples.
Nothing about this situation is of any benefit to the USA.
We do not need Saudi oil, we do not need Israel to come to the defense of the USA here in North America, we do not need to stick our dick into the hornet's nest and then wonder why they sting and it hurts. How many times does Dumb have to win?
Nuff Sed , 18 September 2019 at 08:07 AM
3. Also, I can't imagine this event as being a very welcome one for Israeli military observers, the significance of which is not lost on them, unlike their US counterparts. If Yemen/ Iran can put the Abqaiq processing plant out of commission for a few weeks, then obviusly Hezbollah can do the same for the giant petrochemical complex at Haifa, as well as Dimona, and the control tower at Ben Gurion Airport.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239251

https://www.timesofisrael.com/haifa-municipal-workers-block-refinery-access-for-2nd-day/

These are the kinds of issues which are germane: the game has changed. What are the implications?

turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:08 AM
nuff sed

I have said repeatedly that Hizbullah can destroy Israel. Nothing about that has changed.

turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:17 AM
Yeah, right

It was late at night when I wrote this. Yeah, Right. the Iranians could send their massive ground force into Syria where it would be chewed up by US and Israeli air. Alternatively they could invade Saudi arabia.

Yeah, Right said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 08:38 AM
Thank you for the reply but actually I was thinking that an invasion of Afghanistan would be the more sensible ploy.

To my mind if the Iranian Army sits on its backside then the USAF and IAF will ignore it to roam the length and breadth of Iran destroying whatever ground targets are on their long-planned target-list.

Or that Iranian Army can launch itself into Afghanistan, at which point all of the USA plans for a methodical aerial pummelling of Iran's infrastructure goes out the window as the USAF scrambles to save the American forces in Afghanistan from being overrun.

Isn't that correct?

So what incentive is there for that Iranian Army to sit around doing nothing?

Iran will do what the USAF isn't expecting it to do, if for no other reason that it upsets the USA's own game-plan.

johnf , 18 September 2019 at 08:41 AM
There seems to be a bit of a hiatus in proceedings - not in these columns but on the ground in the ME.

Everyone seems to be waiting for something.

Could this "something" be the decisive word fron our commander in chief Binyamin Netanyahu?

The thing is he has just pretty much lost an election. Likud might form part of the next government of Israel but most likely not with him at its head.

Does anyone have any ideas on what the future policy of Israel is likely to be under Gantz or whoever? Will it be the same, worse or better?

turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:51 AM
Yeah Right

The correct US move would be to ignore an Iranian invasion of Afghanistan and continue leaving the place. The Iranian Shia can then fight the Sunni jihadi tribesmen.

Yeah, Right said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 09:29 AM
Oh, I completely agree that if the Iranians launch an invasion of Afghanistan then the only sensible strategy would be for the US troops to pack up and get out as fast as possible.

But that is "cut and run", which many in Washington would view as a humiliation.

Do you really see the beltway warriors agreeing to that?

turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:53 AM
Stueee

A flaw in your otherwise sound argument is that the US military has not been seriously engaged for several years and has been reconstituting itself with the money Trump has given them.

turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:57 AM
Nuff Sed

Re-positioning of forces does not indicate that a presidential decision for war has been made. The navy will not want to fight you in the narrow, shallow waters of the Gulf.

Lars , 18 September 2019 at 09:53 AM
I would think that Mr. Trump would have a hard time sell a war with Iran over an attack on Saudi Arabia. The good question about how would that war end will soon be raised and I doubt there are many good answers.

The US should have gotten out of that part of the world a long time ago, just as they should have paid more attention to the warnings in President Eisenhower's farewell address.

turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 10:12 AM
CK

The point was about shore based firepower, not forts. don't be so literal.

CK said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 10:34 AM
The Perfumed Fops in the DOD restarted Millennium Challenge 2002,because Gen Van Riper had used 19th and early 20th century tactics and shore based firepower to sink the Blue Teams carrier forces. There was a script, Van Riper did some adlibbing. Does the US DOD think that Iran will follow the US script? In a unipolar world maybe the USA could enforce a script, that world was severely wounded in 1975, took a sucking chest wound during operation Cakewalk in 2003 and died in Syria in 2015. Too many poles too many powers not enough diplomacy. It will not end well.
turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 10:16 AM
lars

We would crush Iran at some cost to ourselves but the political cost to the anti-globalist coalition would catastrophic. BTW Trump's "base" isn't big enough to elect him so he cannot afford to alienate independents.

prawnik , 18 September 2019 at 10:32 AM
Even if Rouhani and the Iranian Parliament personally designed, assembled, targeted and launched the missiles (scarier sounding version of "drones"), then they should be congratulated, for the Saudi tyrant deserves every bad thing that he gets.
turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 10:49 AM
prawnik (Sid) in this particular situation goering's glittering generalization does not apply. Trump needs a lot of doubting suburbanites to win and a war will not incline them to vote for him.
Bill Wade , 18 September 2019 at 10:53 AM
Looks like President Trump is walking it back, tweet: I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!
PRC90 , 18 September 2019 at 11:34 AM
I doubt there will be armed conflict of any kind.
Everything Trump does from now (including sacking the Bolton millstone) will be directed at winning 2020, and that will not be aided by entering into some inconclusive low intensity attrition war.
Iran, on the other hand, will be doing everything it can to increase the chance of a Democrat administration, bearing in mind the great deal they got from the last one and the lack of anything they can expect from Trump Term Two.
This may be a useful tool for determining their next move, but the limit of their actions would be when some Democrats begin making the electorally damaging mistake of critising Trump for not retaliating against Iranian provocations.
Terence Gore , 18 September 2019 at 11:35 AM
Pros and cons of many options considered against Iran

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf

[Sep 18, 2019] Here is an article that looks at how American voters feel about Donald Trump's approach to Iran

Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sally Snyder , Sep 17 2019 19:58 utc | 5

Here is an article that looks at how American voters feel about Donald Trump's approach to Iran:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/07/main-street-america-and-another-war-in.html

Should the warrior who currently inhabits the position of Secretary of State use his influence to persuade Donald Trump to enter what would likely be a very lengthy war of attrition in Iran, it may prove to be a very costly move for the Republican Party in November of 2020 given the level of support for such actions among Main Street Americans.

[Sep 18, 2019] DOJ Sued For Records Of FBI Agent Who Helped Circulate Steele Dossier

Looks like Cheney protégé Victoria Nuland played an important role in Steele dossier saga.
I wonder why female neocons are so nasty. Is this this suppressed "Inferiority complex" or what ?
Notable quotes:
"... A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed against the US Justice Department on Wednesday by legal watchdog group Judicial Watch , ..."
"... According to August 2018 testimony by the DOJ's former #4 official Bruce Ohr, dossier author Christopher Steele gave two memos from his salacious, Clinton-funded opposition research to Gaeta. ..."
"... According to the Epoch Times ..."
"... For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele's reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. ..."
"... Victoria Nuland???? Oh, waits, that Nuland. The qwm who orchestrated the Ukraine mess. Now I've got it, whew, thought I was losing my memory there for a bit. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed against the US Justice Department on Wednesday by legal watchdog group Judicial Watch , seeking records concerning FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta - an agency Legal Attaché in Rome who helped circulate the infamous Steele Dossier.

George Papadopoulos @GeorgePapa19

Expect the name Michael Gaeta to become a household name very soon regarding spygate.

The JW lawsuit seeks:

According to August 2018 testimony by the DOJ's former #4 official Bruce Ohr, dossier author Christopher Steele gave two memos from his salacious, Clinton-funded opposition research to Gaeta.

In the July 30 meeting, Chris Steele also mentioned something about the doping -- you know, one of the doping scandals. And he also mentioned, I believe -- and, again, this is based on my review of my notes -- that he had provided Mr. Gaeta with two reports "

The only thing I recall him mentioning is that he had provided two of his reports to Special Agent Gaeta.

According to the Epoch Times , Gaeta was authorized by former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to meet with Steele at his London office in order to obtain dossier materials.

The purpose of the London visit was clear. Steele was personally handing the first memo in his dossier to Gaeta for ultimate transmission back to the FBI and the State Department.

For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele's reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis.

The FBI's scramble to vet the dossier's claims are well known. According to an April, 2017 NYT report , the FBI agreed to pay Steele $50,000 for "solid corroboration" of his claims . Steele was apparently unable to produce satisfactory evidence - and was not paid for his efforts :

Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October, bringing a stack of new intelligence reports. One, dated Sept. 14, said that Mr. Putin was facing "fallout" over his apparent involvement in the D.N.C. hack and was receiving "conflicting advice" on what to do.

The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid . - NYT

Still, the FBI used the dossier to obtain the FISA warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page - while the document itself was heavily shopped around to various media outlets . The late Sen. John McCain provided a copy to Former FBI Director James Comey, who already had a version, and briefed President Trump on the salacious document. Comey's briefing to Trump was then used by CNN and BuzzFeed to justify reporting on and publishing the dossier following the election.

" The FBI is covering up its role in the Russiagate hoax ," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Judicial Watch has had to fight the FBI 'tooth and nail' for every scrap of information about the illicit targeting of President Trump."


Herp and Derp , 1 minute ago link

Great news that Ted is finally (after 30+ years of discussion) introducing a term limits amendment.

Along with term limits for legislature, we need to kill the deep state as well. The government needs to be reduced significantly. I say we go back to spoils. If a federal role is needed, then it must be hired/re-hired by the whitehouse. Every FBI agent, etc. Trump has proven that most current direct appointments are waste of money and unnecessary.

Limits restricting ex-politicians and military from lobbying, but also partners and nepotism need to be codified and restricted for politician families.

LEEPERMAX , 2 minutes ago link

Whether it's MARK MEADOWS, DOUG COLLINS, JIM JORDAN, LINDSEY GRAHAM or any of the others, I've come to the conclusion that the ONLY PERSON seriously taking on those who were involved in THE ATTEMPTED COUP TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP is TOM FITTON of JUDICIAL WATCH.

The U.S. is a Captured Operation

tunetopper , 5 minutes ago link

Misfud was in Rome too. The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital St John - present sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II. Was he a bailiff or a knight, question...?

Swamidon , 8 minutes ago link

Talk talk talk, its cheap, and boring with the same criminals appearing over and over, but no action ever taken and the Traitors don't look very nervous. Why doesn't Trump issue an Executive Order to direct employees of the DOJ and the FBI etc., to fully cooperate with investigators?

I am Groot , 15 minutes ago link

Time to fire Director Deep State Wray and dismantle the FBI, President Trump ! They are 100% corrupt !

CheapBastard , 13 minutes ago link

He's a huge disappointment.

NoDebt , 6 minutes ago link

Agreed. This guy Wray has been slow-walking and standing in the way of anything happening at every turn. I am convinced he is absolutely there to protect the FBI and nothing else. He is definitely acting like a "company man".

And, I'm not gonna give Trump any more free passes for what seems to be a lot of BAD picks in his appointments. In this respect I think it's where Trump has been the most disappointing.

White Nat , 21 minutes ago link

Hope Judicial Watch files a FOIA request for weiner's laptop.

gilhgvc , 23 minutes ago link

correction: BARR,TRUMP and the REPUBLICANS are ALLOWING the FBI to cover up

New_Meat , 24 minutes ago link

Nuland?

Victoria Nuland???? Oh, waits, that Nuland. The qwm who orchestrated the Ukraine mess. Now I've got it, whew, thought I was losing my memory there for a bit.

but who is Evelyn Farkas? Gotta' think on that one.

f'noldbastard , 43 minutes ago link

They may respond sometime in 2025

Gringo Viejo , 44 minutes ago link

The FBI was founded by a cross dressing, closet homosexual with a gambling "jones" who was blackmailed by the Mafia.

And it was expected to improve with age?

JoeTurner , 45 minutes ago link

Is Steele still alive? He seems like a major liability

chunga , 33 minutes ago link

Christopher Wray is another beauty right up there with Stiff Sessions.

Secret Weapon , 46 minutes ago link

The FBI has become America's Gestapo.

chunga , 43 minutes ago link

Their top experts have been studying the malfunctioning Epstein cameras for about three weeks now.

Demologos , 26 minutes ago link

The FBI has their TOP men studying it, TOP men!

chunga , 10 minutes ago link

When NYPD busted Weiner Comey sent his black hats to seize the laptop.

While under an international spotlight Barr recused himself from the Epstein matter and Wray did nothing.

[Sep 18, 2019] Ukraine Votes for a Future in Europe by Robert C. O'Brien

A very weak article. Complete lack of understanding on the real situation in Ukraine. This worse the the level of freshmen in the second rate college.
Yet another unreformed Cold War warrior...
Oct 29, 2014 | nationalinterest.org

"Ukrainians are happy today. They showed the world that they remain unbowed in the face of aggression and are committed to a future in the democratic West."

https://lockerdome.com/lad/12130885885741670?pubid=ld-3562-627&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fnationalinterest.org&rid=duckduckgo.com&width=896

[Sep 18, 2019] Trump Makes Another Bad Choice for National Security Advisor

Looks like Trump just increased his chances to lose to Warren in 2020 elections.
Notable quotes:
"... O'Brien advised the Romney 2012 campaign, and he also advised the short-lived Scott Walker campaign in the 2016 cycle. He is a typical hawkish Republican. ..."
"... Obviously, "Bolton lite" isn't much of an improvement over Bolton, and it seems unlikely that there will be any significant improvement in administration foreign policy over the next fifteen months. The summary of O'Brien's book confirms as much: ..."
"... Back in 2014, he was praising Romney for his "Churchill-like warning of a resurgent Russia," and I pointed out that Romney had said a lot of ignorant, knee-jerk things about Russia that were wrong. The fact that O'Brien thought and probably still thinks that "Romney was right" about anything related to foreign policy is more evidence that Trump made a very poor choice again. ..."
"... Let's be serious, Mr Trump did not pick Mr Robert O'Brien. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Trump announced the selection of his fourth National Security Advisor:

President Trump announced Wednesday that Robert O'Brien, the special envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department, will be his next national security advisor.

O'Brien previously served in the Bush administration's State Department. Hugh Hewitt, who wrote the foreword to O'Brien's book , has described him as a "long time colleague of John Bolton." Since the Bush years, O'Brien advised the Romney 2012 campaign, and he also advised the short-lived Scott Walker campaign in the 2016 cycle. He is a typical hawkish Republican. Curt Mills referred to him in his recent report on the race to replace Bolton this way:

Robert O'Brien, the Trump hostage negotiator whose stock has risen in the administration in recent months, is "Bolton lite," according to a source who has known O'Brien for years.

Obviously, "Bolton lite" isn't much of an improvement over Bolton, and it seems unlikely that there will be any significant improvement in administration foreign policy over the next fifteen months. The summary of O'Brien's book confirms as much:

The world has become steadily more dangerous under President Obama's "lead from behind" foreign policy. The Obama Administration's foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries and disheartened our allies. Indeed, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is a 1938 moment. At the same time, the U.S. military has been cut and risks returning to the hollow force days of the 1970s. O'Brien lays out the challenges and provides the common sense "peace through strength" solutions that will allow the next president to make America great again.

There is nothing surprising in here, and a lot that is embarrassingly wrong, but it is consistent with the GOP's bankrupt foreign policy worldview. A friendly review of the book describes that worldview in boilerplate terms:

Robert writes from a series of beliefs and assumptions that I also hold: a deep belief in American Exceptionalism, that peace comes through strength, that the United States is stronger when it partners with its allies and when America is a reliable friend to its allies, that the greatness of America comes from a people that respect tradition and the rule of law, and that (yes) we are the good guys and there are some bad guys out there.

I have had occasion to criticize O'Brien's writings in the past. Back in 2014, he was praising Romney for his "Churchill-like warning of a resurgent Russia," and I pointed out that Romney had said a lot of ignorant, knee-jerk things about Russia that were wrong. The fact that O'Brien thought and probably still thinks that "Romney was right" about anything related to foreign policy is more evidence that Trump made a very poor choice again.

O'Brien's most recent high-profile assignment was to be sent to Sweden as part of the president's embarrassing fixation on the case of the rapper ASAP Rocky , who had been detained in Sweden and was facing charges for assault. It would not surprise me if this silly episode and waste of government resources was quite important in winning the president's favor. O'Brien probably wasn't the worst choice Trump could have made, but Trump's fourth choice for National Security Advisor is still a bad one.

Sydney an hour ago

Who says Mr Trump is unpredictable? Is there anybody expected anything else from Mr Trump when it comes to picking his advisers or making thoughtful decisions? Let's be serious, Mr Trump did not pick Mr Robert O'Brien. The Bolton, Pompeo, Pence triumvirate picked Trump's NSA; naturally.

[Sep 18, 2019] O'Brien lays out the challenges and provides the common sense "peace through strength" solutions that will allow the next president to make America great again.

Yet another neocon, who want to sacrifice the well being of the US population for imperial glory
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Don Bacon , Sep 18 2019 15:19 utc | 153
The new US National Security Advisor is lawyer Robert C. O'Brien, best known as author of his 2016 book "While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis."

Amazon 2016 blurb:

Robert C. O'Brien's collection of essays on U.S. national security and foreign policy, with a forward by Hugh Hewitt, is a wake up call to the American people. The world has become steadily more dangerous under President Obama's "lead from behind" foreign policy. The Obama Administration's foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries and disheartened our allies. Indeed, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is a 1938 moment. At the same time, the U.S. military has been cut and risks returning to the hollow force days of the 1970s. O'Brien lays out the challenges and provides the common sense "peace through strength" solutions that will allow the next president to make America great again. . . here
The origin of MAGA? Or merely an update.

Norwegian , Sep 18 2019 15:29 utc | 159

Don Bacon @153
O'Brien, best known as author of his 2016 book "While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis."

Not to be confused with the Inner Party member in 1984. Just a coincidence.

[Sep 18, 2019] USA Pretend Unmasked - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Sep 18, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

"USA Pretend" Unmasked By S. Brian Willson Global Research, September 12, 2019 Region: Asia , USA Theme: History

Viet Nam – Epiphany for the USA

There was a moment in Viet Nam when I questioned whether everything I had been taught about "America" was one big fabricated lie – a huge pretend. It was April 1969, and I had just experienced witnessing the aftermath of a series of bombings of supposed military targets. They were in fact inhabited, undefended villages where virtually everyone in those villages perished from low flying bombings, that included napalming. The majority of dead – murdered – were young burned children. On several occasions I observed those bodies up close, sickened by the sight, now burdened by the criminal nature of the US war. The policy of accumulating massive numbers of body counts was an inkling of the Grand Lie. Reading the entrance sign to my squadron in-country headquarters, "Welcome to Indian Country," was a first clue.

My duty station was the "home" of the fighter-bombers and pilots who followed orders to destroy those "enemy targets", i.e., villages. I was the USAF night security commander following orders to protect those soldiers and planes from mortar and sapper attacks.

A few days later I was reading an article in Stars and Stripes , an official, independent newspaper for soldiers, reporting on a recent Supreme Court decision ( Street v . New York , 1969) that upheld the right of desecrating our "sacred" symbol – the US flag. During a period of increased burnings of the US American flag in protests of the US wars against African-Americans at home, and Asians abroad, an African-American veteran recipient of a Bronze Star, Sidney Street , publicly burned his personal flag on a New York City street corner for which he was arrested and convicted.

Depressed, I pondered how it is that one could be arrested for burning a piece of cloth – even a national symbol – that represented an official policy of criminally burning innocent human beings, including large numbers of young children, while the pilot-perpetrators were commended, and whom, in my duties I was protecting? Initially suicidal, I had difficulty wrapping my head around this dystopian nightmare. I was in psychic shock from extreme cognitive dissonance.

Our behavior against the Vietnamese, a nation of peasants with one-sixth the population of the USA, one-thirtieth its size, certainly must rank as one of the worst of a number of barbarisms in the 20 th Century. The US left 26 million bomb craters, sprayed 21 million gallons of DNA-altering chemical warfare on the landscape and people, murdered some 6 million Southeast Asians, destroyed by bombing over 13,000 of Viet Nam's 21,000 villages, 950 churches and pagodas, 350 clearly marked hospitals, 3,000 high schools and universities, 15,000 bridges, etc.

Why all this overwhelming firepower and destruction? Incredulously, to prevent the Vietnamese from enjoying their self-determination, absurdly touted as necessary to stop "communism." Does there in fact exist a kind of psychopathy in our cultural DNA? Though I hadn't fired a bullet myself, or dropped a bomb, I had been a compliant participant in a mindless murder machine. Viet Nam was not an aberration, but consistent with a long history of arrogant interventions revealing something very dark about who we are. Was I part of a savage culture of unthinking sadists, I wondered?

VNWarMontage.png

Clockwise, from top left: U.S. combat operations in Ia Đrăng , ARVN Rangers defending Saigon during the 1968 Tết Offensive , two A-4C Skyhawks after the Gulf of Tonkin incident , ARVN recapture Quảng Trị during the 1972 Easter Offensive , civilians fleeing the 1972 Battle of Quảng Trị , and burial of 300 victims of the 1968 Huế Massacre . (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Learning Real People's Versus Fake, Kool Aid US History

I have spent countless hours studying a more comprehensive people's version of world and US history. Study of US history of course is part of the Eurocentric globalization/colonization over the past 500 years. The 20 percent Eurocentric "developed-world" is a product of self-proclaimed "superiors" violently and deceitfully stealing resources and labor from the other 80 percent, all cloaked in the conceited rhetoric of spreading "civilization." This patriarchal policy is totally unsustainable from a social, political, ecological, psychological, and moral perspective.

It is instructive to learn that the "Founding Fathers" chose, not democracy, but oligarchy/plutocracy "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." Jefferson's "empire of liberty" was a vision to expand private property for large landowners. Our Constitution is more a document to preserve freedom of "property" and commercial transactions, than it is to preserve human liberty, of which free speech is the most fundamental. Historian Staughton Lynd summarized it thus: inherited land replaced inherited government. Recently the highest court of the land ruled the legal fiction that property (money) is a person with free speech rights, as preposterous as the earlier legal fiction that a person (slave) is property.

A fear-laden gun culture originating in violent settler-colonialism and white nationalism-supremacy serve as a basis for the founding ideology and military strategy of the United States. Slave patrols and Indian fighters were our first "special operations," establishing the essential White character of our militarized culture. As the systematic dispossession project continued, the US government signed over 400 treaties with Indigenous nations, violating every one of them, establishing deceit and outright lying as part of our cultural DNA.

The politics of violence based on classism and racism has been incessant throughout our history. Examining the US criminal injustice system housing a quarter of all the world's prisoners reveals brutal truth when comparing extreme disparities in punishments by race, and class. Justice?

I studied the history of the city of my birth – Geneva, New York, which in the 1700s was Kanadesaga, capitol of the Seneca nation. On September 8, 1779, Major General John Sullivan and his forty-five hundred soldiers eradicated these "merciless Indian Savages" in the largest Revolutionary War battle of 1779 – a terrorist, scorched-earth campaign massacring civilians while destroying all forty of the well-established Seneca towns, including Kanadesaga. By 1788, the European settlers renamed it Geneva, as if nothing had happened, a deserved reward for superiors.

All those arrowheads I enjoyed collecting as a child possessed a profound dark secret about the nature and character of my ancestors. However, I would only discover their secret after deep reflections from my Viet Nam awakening.

Official US military interventionism began with the US Marine invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1798 during the undeclared naval war with France. However, hundreds of settler paramilitary units had been killing Indians since the 1620s. But imperialism has been explicit policy since the late 1890s to assure domestic prosperity. In 1907, Woodrow Wilson while president of Princeton University (six years before being elected US president) lectured:

"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. .Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused."

President McKinley, and various Senators continued to advocate "a foreign market for our surplus products." US meddling, both "soft," and hard, has never stopped.

Traveling to a number of nations in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East have exposed me to details of hundreds of US overt interventions, and thousands of covert destabilization actions. These policies have caused the murders of millions, 20 to 30 million alone since WWII during the so-called "Cold War". Only five of these nearly 600 military interventions have been declared wars as required by the Constitution, clearly indicating our sacred document is not taken seriously. This also tells us the system has no interest in being accountable to its own Constitution, or international law. Speaking with peasants in these victim-countries invariably reveals the horrendous cruelty of US interveners and their surrogates. Does the US possess any intentions to be law-abiding? Does the US possess any feelings for others, or only selfish imperial ambitions? And does anyone care?

Violence against even White citizens has matched violence we have carried out in foreign policy. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1917-18 were enacted to suppress anti-war dissent against US entrance into World War I. Thousands of US Americans were deported and imprisoned following World War I for "radical" anti-war expressions, including labor leaders and socialists. Some were tortured in US prisons. Ironically, free speech dissent is most critical when a government decides to go to war. The original Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 stifled free speech of US citizens, including elected officials, who objected to the undeclared war against France. Free speech? Huh?

While the US was locking up and deporting citizens for opposing World War I, the FBI was ignoring extremely violent KKK supremacist groups whose six million members – nearly 25 percent of the white male population at the time – were lynching with impunity an average of six African-Americans a month. Equal protection?

The first known use of air power against civilians was committed by US Marines in Haiti in 1919. But, the second known use of US air power against civilians occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, May 31-June 1, 1921, when hundreds of economically successful Black residents living in a 36-square block community were murdered, including from low flying white-piloted planes dropping incendiaries, destroying nearly 1,300 buildings. How many US Americans know about this abomination?

Walter White, a longtime leader in the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), concluded that southerners fear of Negro progress offends the intangible feeling of racial superiority, explaining the intensity of White savagery. The sense of established White superiority (or anyone possessing those feelings) often leads to an insecure character from lack of practicing accountability with others in a world of varied, challenging relationships. Those feelings easily morph into paranoia of others, and delusions of self grandeur – one of the most difficult psychological orders to treat, as the persistent pathology of racism (and classism) so attests.

America's Wars: The Day We Refused To Fight. "War is just Terrorism with a Bigger Budget"

The third known use of US bombing civilians occurred at Blair Mountain, West Virginia, August-September 1921. As many as 15,000 striking coal miners attempting to unionize were attacked by 2,000 armed sheriff's deputies, coal company paramilitaries, US troops, and US Army Martin MB-1 bombers, killing as many as 100 miners, with many more wounded. Before the battles had ended, more than a million ammunition rounds had been fired. Nearly 1,000 miners were ironically indicted for murder of the nearly 30 deaths among the miner's attackers. Over 700 union organizers have been murdered in our history. Is this known by many?

We continue to be obsessed with personal and government guns (police and military) as a guarantor of our security. Those who question easy access to guns, even assault weapons, or the ridiculously wasteful military spending, are thought of as nearly traitorous. US citizens personally own nearly 400 million firearms, or 40 percent of all private guns in the world. On average, three US citizens are killed every day by police, disproportionately African-Americans. So far in 2019, the US has experienced more than one mass shooting (4 or more shot) every day. Our gun death rate is ten times above that of other high income countries. Using violence as a default position historically ends in disaster, as it has been proven over and over that violence spirals out of control into more violence, while distracting from serious discourse. Why the incredible record of violence? Insecurity?

Under its doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, the US government routinely dispatches military ships to every sea space, military planes to every airspace, hundreds of satellites into outer space, while ordering Special Forces units to operate clandestinely in nearly three-fourths of the world's countries. Additionally, of the 1.4 million US soldiers in the world, nearly 200,000 are positioned in as many as 150 countries, most stationed at 800 major military bases in 80 nations. The US also possesses a large percentage of the world's weapons of mass destruction, and recently has dispensed with any genuine effort at containing the spread of nuclear weapons. The annual military budget, including hidden costs, amounts to an exorbitant $1.25 trillion a year, more money than the next seven countries combined spend on their militaries. If you want to be guaranteed health care and a modest house, join the Army. Otherwise these human rights are "unaffordable." If you want gun control, start at the top.

How to explain the extent and breadth of our violent militarism and global imperialism? Paranoia? It seems that our sense of superiority justifies hurtful dispossession from others to acquire and preserve undeserved privilege.

After exiting the military in 1970, my opinions about the US war against the Vietnamese were affirmed with the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers revealing the more than 20 years of criminal intentions, and deceit, to thwart Vietnamese aspirations for self-determination. Earlier in 1971, January 31-February 2, Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted the "Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes" when nearly 120 veterans testified about the war crimes and atrocities they committed or witnessed in Viet Nam. I was aghast when learning about Nixon's intended Huston plan to criminally interrupt antiwar activities, the FBI's sixteen-year COINTELPRO of more than 2,000 illegal actions against innocent US citizens, the CIA's Operation CHAOS keeping tabs on 300,000 citizens opposed to the Viet Nam war, and the National Security Agency's Operation SHAMROCK watch lists of those communicating with people overseas. Respect for the law? Huh? Further research revealed that as early as 1934 President Roosevelt instituted a long-standing joint FBI-military program to conduct domestic intelligence with broad investigative scope. The "American" Kool Aid indeed has sedated us.

Today our freedoms are further curtailed, for example, as the National Security Agency (NSA) spies on every US American, the Authorization of Military Force Act (AUFA) allows warrantless electronic surveillance of anyone suspected of aiding terrorism, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enables indefinite detention of US citizens, even arrest by the military. Where is the Constitution when we need it? Or was it ever really there for us?

One of the most revealing chapters in our history is the incredible sympathy the US possessed for authoritarian Nazi Germany. Even though the Soviet military was most critical in defeating the Nazis in World War II, deep fear of the Bolsheviks (the emergence of an alternative social-economic system to capitalism) motivated US America's wealthy class, with complicity of the US government, to support the rise of Nazi Germany from the mid-1930s into the war years themselves. The US capitalists supported the Nazi capitalists to defeat the "threat" of socialism. Elite power brokers included leaders of Wall Street and wealthy "barons" such as the Rockefellers and Andrew Mellon, and businesses such as Ford Motor, IBM (tabulating daily location of Jews in the Holocaust), General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil, Texaco, ITT, International Harvester, Chase Manhattan Bank, the House of Morgan banking dynasty, DuPont, United Aircraft, etc., who enjoyed huge profits from the war. And following the war, the US's "Operation Gladio" systematically defeated popular anti -Nazi groups throughout Europe, while "Operation Paperclip" secretly brought Nazi scientists and other professionals to the US. Our affinity for fascism has been established.

Psychologically, it is important to note that our national identity has consistently been markedly defined by demonizing others – "merciless savages", "uppity ni**ers", "anarchists", "radicals", "communists", "Russians", "alien filth", "narco-traffickers", "terrorists", "shithole countries", "vermin", etc., echoing psychologist Carl Jung's principle of "shadow projection." Jung described a cowardly trick we play on ourselves: avoid looking in the mirror so as not to take responsibility for seeing our own demons. We "see" the evil in others, perpetuating a nation addicted to war against them, obscenely profiting as we self-righteously deny our own severe pathologies. If we had looked in the mirror we would have learned what Pogo told us, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Eco-psychologist Chellis Glendinning suggests that modern humans suffer from deep insecurity that emerged from collective traumas hundreds of generations ago. A serious disconnect from intimacy with the earth occurred when our ancient ancestors began controlling nature through agriculture and animal domestication. Evolutionary philosopher Gregory Bateson concludes that addictive behavior is consistent with the Western approach to life that pits mind against body, while behaving as if the natural world is a commodity. We seek various distractions to numb our pain from this feeling of aloofness. Technology, not Nature, has become our God.

Recognizing the Lie

Could it be that virtually everything I was taught by my parents, community, school, church, and political leaders in terms of factual history, morality, ethics, and rational thinking about "America" was the opposite of what had been represented? How could that be?

Yes, I have been conditioned by an incredibly comfortable fairy tale, a massive cultural system denying or distorting historic realities, founded on shameful genocides. I had been betrayed. We are told we are the greatest, even as we (s)elect imperial Presidents and Congresspeople in an orgy of fantastic fiction about "democracy." The US Senate is a millionaire's club, with many members of the US House also in that class. Indian author Arundhati Roy describes "democracy" and "pro-democracy" as the "Free World's whores", hollow words satisfying a whole range of tastes, available to be used and abused at will where facts don't matter.

US America loves its myth of being committed to justice for all, but in fact it is a society ruled and funded by a wealthy elite. This is not a government of, by and for the people! It is a ruthless oligarchy sanctioned by a majority of the people believing their vote counts. Money has always mattered, severely rigging the game in many ways toward an upper class (obscenely bribing candidates, corporate personhood power, gerrymandering, proprietary election software, hacking capacity to effect results, Jim Crow laws, voter suppression, etc.). The oligarchy approves "acceptable" candidates, while contrived rhetoric, propaganda, and our education system keep us faithful to our political system comprised of one party with two right wings, the winner ruling by tyranny of its majority. But the bottom line is that (s)elected representatives obey their large donors who thrive on war-making against vulnerable others.

Nonetheless, these facts do not preclude existence of individual conscientious politicians. However, the political economic system itself is fixed, it is not broken, a dilemma every honest politician must face. This delicious Kool Aid has in fact concealed a delusional madness, a Kafkaesque, Orwellian nightmare. Our political leaders have consistently and collectively acted outside the Constitution, while selectively applying laws that preserve the cabal in power. It has always been this way, though the social revolution of the 1960s threatened to overturn the oligopoly. This revolution was unfortunately unsuccessful but the fearful system's repressive reaction is now in its fifth decade. In the end, we are in fact a nation of men, not laws.

So, in effect, our mythological story made me functionally stupid, a "good kid" who became complicit in mindless, mass murder. And I am suggesting that it has created a society comprised of millions of functionally stupid people. This is different from intelligence. This is not idiocy. This is serious non -thinking of intellectually capable people who, in effect, have suspended their autonomous critical thinking, basking in an intoxicated spell of our sense of national invincibility. It has enhanced the Friedman era of neoliberal privatization, worshipping greed, while millions are without health care and homeless. This is mass psychopathy, a dangerous cultural mental illness.

German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer , while a prisoner in one of Hitler's jails, wrote about the role of stupidity in the German people that substantially contributed to the rise of Nazism and worship of savior Hitler. He argued that it is very separate from intellectual capacity but occurs when a cult-like belief system dangerously suspends critical thinking, bringing collective relief to an emotionally anxious population. It is a form of voluntary servitude more dangerous than malice, an entrenched belief system that makes genuine dialogue and education almost impossible. (Bonhoeffer was hung in April 1945).

As US Americans we possess no visceral memory of the two unspeakable genocides our ancestors shamefully committed, forcefully dispossessing Indigenous Africans of their labor, and genuine Americans of their land, murdering millions with impunity. Even though we are superficially taught about slavery and conquering the Indigenous, their egregious suffering has been outsourced outside our feeling fields for 25 generations . Thus, was established our cultural "DNA" of achieving expansion benefitting a few (mostly White males and those who think like them) through any means while escaping any accountability whatsoever. Now nearly 600 overt, and thousands of covert interventions later, US Americans still know little or nothing about our unspeakable imperialism. Why not? Isn't it critically important that we seriously grapple with our diabolical history?

In 2019, the President, US military, CIA, and other "regime change" entities like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and their funders in Congress, continue to intervene almost everywhere, destabilizing with crippling sanctions, sadistically causing suffering, causing chaos, creating kill lists, murdering, bombing, etc. Does any of this criminal insanity even happen? Has it ever? Does it matter to most people? I believe there is a deep shame that burdens us. It is understandable to avoid looking at shame, but the cost is perpetual war for perpetual peace until we are all dead. The era of privilege is over, as we enter the terrifying era of consequences, bringing fear, insecurity and anxiety to many heretofore privileged folks. Denial becomes a lethal seduction.

Our amnesia has precluded emotional intelligence, a depth of character, so necessary for mature development, with little understanding of historical context. We are effectively emotionally retarded, blocking the universal embedded human feeling of empathy, and the collective solidarity that emerges therefrom. Thus, "America" is very insecure having been conveniently wrapped in a fake, pretend narrative, convincing us of our "exceptional" nature, ignoring both our systemic pattern of domestic violence, and global imperialism. The corporate media, and corporate-owned social media platforms, serve as stenographers for our oligarchic policies and values. They create an agenda-driven narrative that inoculates our minds with constant group think untruths of neo-liberal capitalism.

We now live in a post-truth world, where narcissistic life is experienced as virtual, not real. Do we feel the pain of the Afghani, Yemeni, the Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Libyan, Somali, the Russian, the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Palestinian in Gaza, or our neighbor down the street whose cancer left her homeless due to foreclosure? How much do we care? Answering these questions can tell us a lot about our own survival, including yours and mine.

Serious discussion and debate of a broad range and depth of ideas is virtually nonexistent. Mention of "socialism" is considered traitorous to the religion of neoliberal corporatism. In reality, we promote individualism over community, competition over cooperation, and acquisitiveness over inquisitiveness. These capitalist characteristics condition human development in a way that is diametrically opposed to our inherent, genetic nature as a social species requiring for survival cooperation in all our relations.

The economy and political system is now virtually dependent upon what Eisenhower proclaimed as the military/security industrial complex, and that complex thrives on creation of endless "enemies" which produce obscene war profits for a very few. Community and family units have disintegrated, and citizenship is less engaged as life is increasingly defined in terms of commodities. Everything and everybody is for sale to the highest bidder. This leads to anomie, violence and madness. And yet, we continue to enjoy shopping as the government conducts its daily bombing. How can this be? How can we pay taxes and go about our business as usual when so many people in the world are being impoverished or eliminated by US policies facilitating the wealthy getting richer?

The Deep Divide – 1959 – 2019

Having graduated from a rural upstate New York high school in 1959 at the height of post-WWII Cold War euphoria, in the midst of the short historic blip of aspiring consumerism, the "American" Kool Aid I and my 28 fellow graduates drank at that time was delicious. I was raised in a lower middle class home by conservative, religious parents, not dissimilar to the upbringings of many of my classmates. Life seemed great, and simple. However, my Viet Nam experience rudely exposed the poisonous nature of this delicious drink and its true ingredients.

Discovering information about my former classmates finds several still living in the same area we grew up, possessing similar views to that which we believed in 1959 – religiously and politically conservative, but now supporters of MAGA, Trump and Israel. One classmate who had been a basketball cheerleader, still married to her high school sweetheart after 60 years, read my Facebook postings from Nicaragua, then declared me "a fool" admonishing me to "stay there." This same cheerleader chanted for each starter before games, such as "Brian, Brian, he's our man, if he can't do it, nobody can."

Being raised in and conditioned by US America instills a desire to preserve a fantasy of post-WWII euphoria for many, at least until President Reagan. But experiential reality painfully destroys make-believe. I argue that the USA has never been great, but suspect many of my 1959 classmates would vehemently disagree.

Trump Exposes the Pretend Society

The phenomenon of the Presidency of Donald John Trump disturbingly "offers" our culture, and the world, an overdue undisguised photo of our real culture and its politics. Some say Trump brings out the worst in people – hatred, self-centeredness, cruelty, insensitivity, crassness, racism, insulting language, poisonous divisiveness, adolescent delinquency, etc. But is it possible that his language and demeanor are validating expressions of historically suppressed feelings and values which have never been sufficiently addressed or openly acknowledged in our Eurocentric, capitalist, money-oriented, nature-defying, often mean-spirited culture? These censored feelings once unleashed, no matter how adolescent they seem, are capable of manifesting in a vicious authoritarian and neo-fascist state, as they did in Germany nearly 100 years ago. It seems we are at that point again.

The "developed" world, now led by the United States of America, has historically been built on egregious exploitation and violence hidden under fanciful rhetoric. Inevitably, the chickens will come home to roost. As Eurocentrics we have been lying to ourselves and the world with our highly touted economic system and "democracy," fooling ourselves by myths and lies we have long believed about our "superiority" built on the suffering of others. As stated above, we have (s)elected leaders who are to varying degrees corrupted by money who use politically "correct" language and a finessed demeanor to gain approval. In fact, they have consistently been imperial and oligarchic, selfishly stealing to assure an insatiably consumptive lifestyle for under 5 percent of the world's population (but only benefitting a minority of its own people), while gobbling up anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the globe's resources (depending on the resource and era examined). We ad nauseum excuse our interventions using "national security" or "humanitarian justice." We have followed in the footsteps of our imperial teachers in the United Kingdom. Fair? Sustainable? Ever thought about the structural unfairness and gross arrogance that has enabled 500 years of colonization? Trump's Presidency reveals a lot about us that we have not wanted to recognize. Scary? Our historical chronic complicity in this horror story cannot be ignored.

Trump serves as an avatar, or caricature, of a collective, creepy, violent, disgusting, mean-spirited, immature culture, at least as experienced by large numbers of people both in the US and the world. Trump's appeal can largely be attributed to the fact that he has taken the clothes off of Pretend . His childish nature of lying, tweeting and exaggerating, ironically reveals an ugly "truth" about our modern selves that has been drowned under incredible "public relations" – education, the media, Hollywood, sports, the State Department, etc. His extreme personal narcissism matches well our extreme collective exceptionalism. Is it clearer now just how big the LIE has been, protected by our comfortable 500-year myths? Welcome to dystopia, Kafka, and Orwell.

Conclusion

The 400-year history of Western dualistic Cartesian thinking (named after French philosopher Rene Descartes' view of reductionist mind-body dualism) divorcing human beings from study of observable nature, has produced a terribly flawed epistemology. The opposite basis for knowledge is holism, a framework that enables comprehension of multiple interconnections and historical context. Dispensing with any serious concern for consequences, the insatiably consumer-driven materialistic Western Way of Life has ironically and blissfully been destroying life itself by its addiction to burning finite fossil fuels. The harsh truth is that a capitalist system is on a direct collision course with sustainable societies that require conserving healthy interconnected relationships with each other and the earth's eco-system. We have become accustomed to wishful thinking that resources are infinite, and that they belong to us. This theft can only happen, of course, by force or its threat, and deceit, while living in the toxic illusion we are better than others. Does this suggest a kind of arrogant collective stupidity?

Nature bats last, something our cortex apparently chose to fatally ignore. We now face the greatest existential crisis as Nature bats last humbling modern humans into extinction, or near so. We somehow forgot the most critical truth of all – that we all part of the One. If we can now recognize our various levels of "stupidity", we have an adrenaline opportunity to leap out of our heretofore seductive comfortable fantasy, choosing instead to access our buried human characteristic of interconnection with everything and everybody, i.e., mutual respect and accountability. This leap now must be of a revolutionary nature, rocketing us out of our historic arrogant pleasureableness. Our survival foundation: embracing the evolutionary feeling of empathy. Saving ourselves is pretty damn important, and that means saving life for all. Let's do it! We are not worth more; they are not worth less.

*

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Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer, has been a lifelong critic of US domestic and foreign policy. His essays and biography are found at his website: brianwillson.com. His recent book, "Don't Thank Me for My Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the Long History of US Lies" is published by Clarity Press (2018). His psycho-historical memoir, "Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson" was published by PM Press (2011). A documentary, "Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson" was produced in 2016 by Bo Boudart Productions.

[Sep 18, 2019] The systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in Washington

Bacevich is wrong: it is all about the control of oil producing nations in the Middle East and the preservation "oil for dollars only" regime (with the help of Israel as the forward base of the US imperialism in the Middle East)
Notable quotes:
"... In this piece, I want to draw attention to the systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in Washington, which is neither new nor limited to the hawkish political factions now running this country's foreign policy. ..."
"... I assert that the US foreign policy establishment[i] has collectively created a culture of expert impunity when it comes to Iran, which has contributed in no small part to the unstable and dangerous policy conditions we see under Trump today. ..."
"... Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted. ..."
"... Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem." ..."
"... Iran has a much longer history of managing pawns and vassal states than the USA. So too has Russia. Now replace 'Iran' with 'Israel' and you can recognise the belligerent initiator/opponent of the conflict. Trouble is that Trump is captive of the Israelis (and his petty ego) while being tormented and impoverished by all those countries that the USA invaded at the Israeli's behest. ..."
"... The dumb oafish response of the USA giant with its five eyes as it stomps about the planet enthralled by prospect of egomaniacle rapture is what endagers humanity. Leave the middle east and everyone else to their own conflict resolution I say. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

t r u t h , Sep 17 2019 23:59 utc | 60

Negar Razavi:

In this piece, I want to draw attention to the systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in Washington, which is neither new nor limited to the hawkish political factions now running this country's foreign policy.

I assert that the US foreign policy establishment[i] has collectively created a culture of expert impunity when it comes to Iran, which has contributed in no small part to the unstable and dangerous policy conditions we see under Trump today.

<...>

( The Systemic Problem Of "Iran Expertise" In Washington )


t r u t h , Sep 18 2019 0:18 utc | 64

Andrew J. Bacevich:

"I am not suggesting that Washington is supporting the wrong side in Yemen. I am suggesting, however, that neither side deserves support. Iran may well qualify as America's "enemy." But Saudi Arabia is not a "friend," regardless of how many billions Riyadh spends purchasing American-manufactured weaponry and how much effort Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman invests in courting President Trump and members of his family.

The conviction, apparently widespread in American policy circles, that in the Persian Gulf (and elsewhere) the United States is compelled to take sides, has been a source of recurring mischief. No doubt the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran poses a danger of further destabilizing the gulf. But the United States is under no obligation to underwrite the folly of one side or the other.

Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted.

Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem."

( Iran Might Be America's Enemy, but Saudi Arabia Is No Friend )

uncle tungsten , Sep 18 2019 0:22 utc | 65
Thanks Don Bacon #19, yep that is good material.

Iran has a much longer history of managing pawns and vassal states than the USA. So too has Russia. Now replace 'Iran' with 'Israel' and you can recognise the belligerent initiator/opponent of the conflict. Trouble is that Trump is captive of the Israelis (and his petty ego) while being tormented and impoverished by all those countries that the USA invaded at the Israeli's behest.

The dumb oafish response of the USA giant with its five eyes as it stomps about the planet enthralled by prospect of egomaniacle rapture is what endagers humanity. Leave the middle east and everyone else to their own conflict resolution I say.

karlof1 , Sep 18 2019 0:27 utc | 66
Don Bacon @58--

Yeah, I'm reminded--again--of Milo Mindbender's racket in Catch-22 , which was 100% greed driven. But we mustn't forget the vaunted Vietnam Syndrome assorted POTUS have set out to quell. Trump just played on that theme today in a portion of his speech I cited. As psychohistorian reported on the open thread, the next round of QE has commenced in an effort to bolster Trump's electability--lots of that money just went to shorting oil. Tomorrow will surely bring forth new revelations, accusations, and denials.

For any barflies in the vicinity, Iran opens "an exhibition of hunted/captured drones in #Tehran from September 22 to October 7" that will draw more than the curious. I'm sure pics will get tweeted.

Peter AU 1 , Sep 18 2019 13:12 utc | 129
Vk
Houthi news site. https://english.almasirah.net/catview.php?cid=1

https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=8810&cat_id=1
"Air Force of the Yemeni Army and Popular Committees, Saturday morning carried out a large-scale operation with 10 drones, targeting Abqaiq and Khurais refineries east of Saudi Arabia. The operation is called the 2nd Operation of Balanced Deterrence."

https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=8802&cat_id=1
"Ansarullah in Yemen claimed the attack, saying that 10 drones had targeted Abiqaiq, as well as the Khurais oilfield."

https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=8787&cat_id=1
"Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Yemeni forces said that the air force targeted 10 planes refinery Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia."

A number of other articles I have read at the houthi site also state 10 drones.

[Sep 18, 2019] Looks like Pompeo is busy sputtering platitudes and warmongering rhetorics to speed up the second coming of Christ

Notable quotes:
"... Someone should tell Mike that our credibility as a nation is further damaged with claims that are in need of supporting evidence. ..."
"... Did Fat Mike rub the head camel jockey's glowing orb? ..."
"... America is a bomb-happy empire - we kill illiterate peasants and destroy mud-walled villages. We are really good at it. ..."
"... Mike, it may be an "act of war" for Saudi Arabia but it's not an act of war for the United States. We weren't attacked, they were. Let them unfuck the situation. ..."
"... No more wars Mr. Trump, no more wars. Plus, we need to prepare to defend our Constitution on our own shores. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Heartfully , 1 minute ago link

Someone should tell Mike that our credibility as a nation is further damaged with claims that are in need of supporting evidence.

Thordoom , 3 minutes ago link

That conversation between Pompus and MBS must be hilarious.

Mah_Authoritah , 3 minutes ago link

Did Fat Mike rub the head camel jockey's glowing orb?

Deep Snorkeler , 8 minutes ago link

V I C T O R Y !

with Trump as our Commander-in-Chief victory is certain this won't be like those other wars:

  1. Korea
  2. Vietnam
  3. Afghanistan
  4. Iraq

America is a bomb-happy empire - we kill illiterate peasants and destroy mud-walled villages. We are really good at it.

romanmoment , 1 minute ago link

Mike, it may be an "act of war" for Saudi Arabia but it's not an act of war for the United States. We weren't attacked, they were. Let them unfuck the situation.

I am pro military and I have many friends who have served or currently serve. And I have kids. I'm not sending my kids to kill Iranians for the Saudi's, for Israel or for any other fucked-up nation in the Middle East. And I don't want 18-year-old American kids getting killed or wounded for those ungrateful ***** either.

No more wars Mr. Trump, no more wars. Plus, we need to prepare to defend our Constitution on our own shores.

[Sep 18, 2019] >War With Iran Would Be a Catastrophic Miscalculation by James Howard Kunstler

Notable quotes:
"... some people did some things ..."
"... some people will do nothing ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | russia-insider.com

Sep 16, 2019 Welcome to the world where things don't add up. For instance, some people did some things to the Saudi Arabian oil refinery at Abqaiq over the weekend. Like, sent over a salvo of cruise missiles and armed drone aircraft to blow it up. They did a pretty good job of disabling the works. It is Saudi Arabia's largest oil processing facility, and for now, perhaps months, a fair amount of the world's oil supply will be cut off. President Trump said "[we] are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Exclamation mark his.

How many times the past few years has our government declared that "we have the finest intelligence services in the world." Very well, then, why are we waiting for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to tell us who fired all that stuff into Abqaiq? Whoever did it, it was unquestionably an act of war. And, of course, what are we going to do about it? (And what will some people do about it?)

Let's face it: the USA has had a hard-on for Iran for forty years, ever since they overthrew their shah, invaded the US embassy in Tehran, and took fifty-two American diplomats and staff hostage for 444 days. On the other hand, the Arabians and Iranians have had a mutual hard-on for centuries, long before the Saud family was in charge of things, and back when Iran was known as Persia, a land of genies, fragrant spices, and a glorious antiquity (while Arabia was a wasteland of sand populated by nomads and their camels). The beef was formerly just about which brand of Islam would prevail, Sunni or Shia. Lately (the past fifty years) it has been more about the politics of oil and hegemony over the Middle East. Since the US invaded Iraq and busted up the joint, the threat has existed that Iran would take over Iraq, with its majority Shia population, especially the oil-rich Basra region at the head of the Persian Gulf. The presence of Israel greatly complicates things, since Iran has a hard-on for that nation, too, and for Jews especially, often expressed in the most belligerent and opprobrious terms, such as "wiping Israel off the map." No ambiguity there. The catch being that Israel has the capability of turning Iran into an ashtray.

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The world has been waiting for a major war in the Middle east for decades, and it might have one by close of business today. Or perhaps some people will do nothing . The Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen supposedly claimed responsibility for the attack. That's rich. As if that rag-tag outfit has a whole bunch of million-dollar missiles and the knowledge and capacity to launch them successfully, not to mention the satellite guidance mojo. A correspondent suggests that the missiles were fired from a pro-Iranian military base in Iraq, with the Houthis brought in on flying carpets to push the launch buttons.

President Trump is trumpeting America's "energy independence," meaning whatever happens over there won't affect us. Well, none of that is true. We still import millions of barrels of oil a day, though much less from Saudi Arabia than before 2008. The shale oil "miracle" is hitting the skids these days. Shale oil production has gone flat, the rig-count is down, companies are going bankrupt, and financing for the debt-dependent operations is dwindling since the producers have demonstrated that they can't make a profit at it. They're trapped in the quandary of diminishing returns, frontloading production, while failing to overcome steep decline curves in wells that only produce for a couple of years.

It's also the case that shale oil is ultra-light crude, containing little heavier distillates such as diesel and aviation fuel (basically kerosene). Alas, American refineries were all built before shale oil came along. They were designed to crack heavier oil and can't handle the lighter shale. The "majors" don't want to invest their remaining capital in new refineries, and the many smaller companies don't have the ability. So, this makes necessary a high volume of oil swapping around the world. Without diesel and aviation fuel, US trucking and commercial aviation has a big problem, meaning the US economy has a big problem.

With the new crisis in the Middle East, benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil is up from around $55-a-barrel to just over $60 at the market open (European Brent crude is just above $70). That's a pop, but not a spectacular one, considering that a whole lot more damage might ensue in the days ahead. China, Korea, and Japan stand to lose bigly if the players in the Middle East really go at it and bust up each other's assets. If that happens, the world will never be the same. You can kiss the global economy goodbye for good. Let's hope some people don't do something.

[Sep 18, 2019] Drone strikes on oil facilities were Yemen's 'reciprocal response' for Saudi bombings Rouhani

Sep 16, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said recent drone attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure were a proportionate Yemeni response to years of daily bombings carried out by a Saudi-led coalition.

Speaking to reporters in Ankara following three-way talks between the presidents of Turkey, Russia and Iran, Rouhani suggested the drone attacks were a legitimate act of self-defense.

"On a daily basis Yemen is being bombarded and innocent civilians are dying so they have to retaliate," Rouhani explained.

Yemeni people are exercising their legitimate right of defense the attacks were a reciprocal response to aggression against Yemen for years.

Rouhani added his hope that the conflict in Yemen would be resolved through diplomacy, and said that such a process might even mirror Syria's Astana talks.

Addressing the same question, Turkish President Recep Erdogan also pointed out that it was Saudi Arabia who'd started the cycle of attacks. He said the international community should inquire into the causes of Yemen's crisis, noting the country had been "basically destroyed" during its four-year conflict, and called on other world powers to consider how to rebuild Yemen "from scratch" and "put it back on its feet."

While Russia's President Vladimir Putin said the drone attacks had not been discussed at Monday's meeting, he noted the "humanitarian catastrophe" in the country and urged a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

The war in Yemen began in earnest in March 2015, when a coalition of states, led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US and Britain, launched a bombing campaign in an attempt to defeat the rebel Houthi movement and restore the rule of President Mansour Hadi, who'd been ousted in 2014. In addition to tens of thousands killed in the fighting, the conflict has sparked one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, leaving millions without food, water or healthcare, and dependent on international aid.

[Sep 18, 2019] Iran does have an Army, and can muster half a million fighting men.

Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Yeah, Right , Sep 18 2019 9:12 utc | 112

Pat Lang won't let me post on his site, so I'll have to point this out here instead.

He has just posted an open letter to Trump regarding a war with Iran, and he points out (correctly) that:
1) Iran can set its proxy forces in Syria and Iraq loose on US troops in those countries
2) Iran will fire every missile in its arsenal at any US troops within range
3) Iran will fire its AA missiles at any and all USAF planes
4) Iran will keep attacking the 5th fleet until they run out of boats

All true, and all well and good as far as it goes.

But Pat seems to have the same blind spot as all other US pundits, in that they apparently have forgotten all about the Iranian Army.

They do have an Army, and can muster half a million fighting men.
Which, indeed, is probably ten times as many ground troops that CENTCOM possesses.

Seems to me that the Iranians can think of several good uses for such an army.
For one thing, they can launch an invasion of Afghanistan with the intention of killing each and every GI who has the misfortune of being in-theatre.

They'll have at least a 10-to-1 advantage of men.
Not so much a fight as a slaughter.


Canthama , Sep 18 2019 10:53 utc | 114

Bernhard, excellent article, as usual, thank you. The recent situation in KSA is just a small example of the collapse on classic warfare, we have seen it closely in Vietnam, Lebanon 2006, then Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and for 2,500 years in Afghanistan, time and time again. The supposed richer countries trying to impose their will and military power when facing organized societies with, purpose and means to defend, do exactly that, they fend off the aggressors.

In the case of Yemen, which has not been conquered due to the terrain and its people (similar to Afghanistan), they, as few other cases, had friends that supplied means of defense and attack, this is why Yemen/Houthis, after 5 years of war of aggression against them, they can hit back, in a way that KSA is not able to defend, small drones, flying low and hard to be spotted with a long range, this is the perfect weapon to demoralize arrogant regimes, it creates terror and damages in highly explosive places. Yemen will not back down until KSA leaves its aggressive policy and pay reparations, or Yemen will continue to inflict damages, slowly bleeding KSA and demoralizing its corrupt leadership.

I my view a decision to remove the current royalty from KSA was already taken, I mean, The Resistance will pursue it, slowly, will create situations for an internal coup, internal revolts and so on, KSA's security is mostly done by foreigners, many from Pakistan, Sudan etc...these people are treated as slaves, very badly, a time bomb when an opportunity arises, and KSA is approaching that dangerous zone, few more well placed strikes that put KSA on its knees and expose wide open its vulnerability will be the sign for the large & oppressed Shia population to revolt, with it goes Bahrain as well.

Lets remember that Qatar is a mortal enemy for KSA, and has its own ambitions to expand territory beyond its tiny area, KSA is playing with fire by bending to the US,Uk and Israel, it is risking being retaliated in pieces.

William Gruff , Sep 18 2019 10:56 utc | 115
Grieved @80 noted that "...these countries... are in fact in a coalition..."

The response to that from imperial loyalists is not unexpected: "Nooo! Primitive sand people cannot put aside the identity politics differences that our empire cultivates in them and unite against us!"

The imperial loyalists, despite considering themselves to be "woke" and "inclusive" and unbigoted and moral, find it inconceivable that any peoples other than those of northern European and anglo descent could unite in the face of an existential threat. To be certain, these empire loyalists cannot even see themselves as being the existential threat that is uniting peoples, despite having literally slaughtered millions of innocents over the last half century or so. Their sense of moral and cultural superiority is an axiom that must remain beyond question lest their all-important identities be exposed as cheap narcissism, so they pour into the forum to promote conspiracy theories about how the stunning successes of the coalition that Grieved notes above are actually convoluted and inscrutably super-sophisticated moves on a Grand Chessboard . To maintain this fiction they must overlook the fact that their empire's best strategists reached the limits of their geostrategic talent playing the board game Risk . Consider that the imperial mass media has begun to refer to pompous Pompeo as "the next Kissinger" , and recall that even the former Kissinger was never really that bright but was just ruthless and totally lacking a conscience.

Face reality, imperial loyalists: The Houthis, whom you cannot even credit with being human, have just successfully wounded your lackeys in the Middle East. The Houthis accomplished this with skill, intelligence, and determination.

[Sep 18, 2019] Aramco Attacks An Act Of War By Iran Pompeo After Arriving In Jeddah

Notable quotes:
"... And President Trump himself said Wednesday from the White House that it looks like Iran did it but that he still hopes to avoid war . He announced via a statement on Twitter that, "I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!" -- ..."
"... Pompeo is in Jedda where he's expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to evaluate a possible response, where the are expected to "coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region," according to a State Department statement . ..."
"... Wednesday's Saudi Def. Ministry press briefing showcasing missile and drone debris alleged "evidence" the Iranians were behind attack. ..."
"... The fact that Johnson's statement included the word "diplomatic" - along with Trump's emphasis on extending stronger sanctions - is a good sign however, that the White House is not prepping for war. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

What's the end game here? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has just arrived in Jeddah for talks with Saudi leaders over a response to the weekend attacks on two of the kingdom's major oil facilities.

After a prior press conference by the Saudi Defense Ministry where it for the first time assigned public blame on Iran for the attacks which initially knocked out half of the kingdom's daily oil output, saying the air attacks "unquestionably" had Iranian state sponsorship, Pompeo has announced the Aramco attacks constitute an "act of war" by Iran .

And President Trump himself said Wednesday from the White House that it looks like Iran did it but that he still hopes to avoid war . He announced via a statement on Twitter that, "I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!" -- in what appears an alternative to launching a military response.

"I'm not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to," Trump told reporters Wednesday.

Pompeo's new "act of war" declaration indeed takes the potential for escalation right back to boiling point.

Pompeo is in Jedda where he's expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to evaluate a possible response, where the are expected to "coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region," according to a State Department statement .

Meanwhile, if the 'military option' is being considered, it appears we could be in the beginning phases of an international coalition response. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he and Trump held a phone call to discuss the need for a "united diplomatic response from international partners" after the Aramco attacks.

Wednesday's Saudi Def. Ministry press briefing showcasing missile and drone debris alleged "evidence" the Iranians were behind attack.

The fact that Johnson's statement included the word "diplomatic" - along with Trump's emphasis on extending stronger sanctions - is a good sign however, that the White House is not prepping for war.

[Sep 18, 2019] My hypothesis is this: the USA/Saudi Arabia are too embarassed to admit their anti-aircraft weapons and systems are useless against puny drones and created a big, subterranean enemy in the form of Iran in order to avoid public embarassment.

Notable quotes:
"... the attack dented the image of invincibility of Aramco's infrastructure ..."
"... Saudi Military stated the Aramco facilites were attacked with 18 missiles and 7 drones. They state cruise missiles were used. However, now they state the attack was simply "backed" by Iran. The weapons were all Iranian design. ..."
"... That Iran is backing the Houthis we already knew and nobody doubts. But those drones and missiles didn't come from Iranian territory nor were they operated by Iranian personel. It's a free market world, and everybody can buy weapons from anybody. ..."
"... The GOAL of exaggerating the attack could be to simply increase oil prices or to justify war with Iran. Tensions with Iran will be elevated for weeks, if not months. That will mean higher oil prices than otherwise. ..."
"... The timing is also suspicious because it comes just before the Israeli election and just after John Bolton was dismissed. ..."
"... Russian oil experts say 3 to 6 months to repair damage from strike as components must come from Europe according to TASS. As the remains of the uavs have been recovered their effective range can be determined. I suspect they were launched from within Saudi territory. ..."
"... It is embarrassing to the Saudis because they scarcely bother to unpack the weapons the US sends them-at premium prices - and dare not allow any of their countrymen to learn how to use them. And it is embarrassing to the Americans because they understand all this and ship over arms that don't work simply to ensure that those petrodollars circulate. ..."
"... Hence the current campaign to convince us that Iran was responsible. Mind you, that propaganda is only effective so long as the American people don't really believe it because, if they did, they might demand war (you can imagine Pelosi, Schumer and Biden insisting on it) and Washington doesn't want that. Jingoism isn't about fighting it's about threatening. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Sep 18 2019 15:22 utc | 156

@ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 18 2019 14:50 utc | 149

Let's see (again):

1) USA: that would only help if Trump was decided to go to a hot war against Iran. By his declarations since yesterday, we already know that isn't going to happen. He didn't even jump to the "Iran did it!" bandwagon right away. He said he increased sanctions against Iran -- but Iran is already sanctioned to the maximum by the USA, so that's empty rhetoric.

2) Israel: wars in Israel only work as an election boost to the incumbent Prime Minister when Israel emerges with a clear victory. ...

3) Saudi Arabia: it has a 188 billion barrel reserve to cover up for the losses for a couple of days, so they benefited a little bit from the 20% price rise. But so did everybody else -- including enemies of the USA, such as Russia and Venezuela. Besides, the attack dented the image of invincibility of Aramco's infrastructure, and Saudi Arabia's image as a neofascist ideal State.

4) Iran: Iran can block the Hormuz Strait -- a much more benign and cheap way to stop Saudi oil from being exported. If Iran attacks its neighbors' oil infrastructure, then it kind of states it's fair game for its neighbors to attack theirs. This is bad move for Iran from a purely game theory standpoint, let alone from the geopolitical one.

5) Masters of the Universe: yes, the oil price went up 20% in one day. But let's remember that even a USD 100.00 a barrel isn't that impressive from a historical standpoint: when the Iraq invasion happened, the barrel reached USD 300.00. Yes, a selected elite benefited a lot from this, but the USA didn't become a capitalist utopia because of that. We must not overestimate the effects of oil prices on capitalism and, specially, on the USA: the West is in terminal decline for a myriad of factors, not because of one silver bullet. Higher oil prices won't save the West.

My hypothesis is this: the USA/Saudi Arabia are too embarassed to admit their anti-aircraft weapons and systems are useless against puny drones and created a big, subterranean enemy in the form of Iran in order to avoid public embarassment.

The Houthis are telling the truth, and they will do more attacks if the Saudis don't stop with theirs and settle for peace.


vk , Sep 18 2019 15:31 utc | 160

And the number's just changed:

Saudi Military: Attack on Saudi Aramco Facilities Were "Unquestionably Sponsored by Iran"

The headline calls that the Saudi Military stated the Aramco facilites were attacked with 18 missiles and 7 drones. They state cruise missiles were used. However, now they state the attack was simply "backed" by Iran. The weapons were all Iranian design.

That Iran is backing the Houthis we already knew and nobody doubts. But those drones and missiles didn't come from Iranian territory nor were they operated by Iranian personel. It's a free market world, and everybody can buy weapons from anybody.

Jackrabbit , Sep 18 2019 15:47 utc | 163
vk @156

You're chasing your own tail.

US and Saudis say that over 20 missiles and drones were used in the attack. They say that this showed that Iran did the attack or participated in the attack because the Houthi only claim to have used 10 drones.

Peter AU 1 and I have said that it's possible to account for the excess damage as an attempt to exaggerate damage caused by the Houthi attack.

The GOAL of exaggerating the attack could be to simply increase oil prices or to justify war with Iran. Tensions with Iran will be elevated for weeks, if not months. That will mean higher oil prices than otherwise.

The timing is also suspicious because it comes just before the Israeli election and just after John Bolton was dismissed.

And despite Trump's backing away from his asinine "locked and loaded" comment, war with Iran is still very possible. The Iraq War started 18 months after 9-11.

the pessimist , Sep 18 2019 16:02 utc | 168
Russian oil experts say 3 to 6 months to repair damage from strike as components must come from Europe according to TASS. As the remains of the uavs have been recovered their effective range can be determined. I suspect they were launched from within Saudi territory.
vk , Sep 18 2019 16:05 utc | 170
Another official version came up. This time, from the Saudi military itself:

Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of sponsoring oil-plant attack, says it 'couldn't have originated in Yemen'

Their main argument is that the attacks came "from the north".

If that's true, then the question remains: why didn't the Saudi radars detect it? Either b is lying, or the Saudi military is lying.

It's really hilarious at this point: the attack caught the West so low-guarded and stunned them so much that they can't even come up with a unified official narrative.

karlof1 , Sep 18 2019 16:12 utc | 172
Houthi Armed Forces Spokesman is at this moment tweeting a series of statements explaining how the last attack was done that includes drone capabilities and types of munitions used!!!!!!!!!!! An example:

"Drones have fission heads carrying four precision bombs."

bevin , Sep 18 2019 16:19 utc | 175
Given that the entire relationship between the USA and the KSA is an elaborate protection racket the failure of all those high priced systems to protect the oil fields against Ansrullah drones is particularly embarrassing.

It is embarrassing to the Saudis because they scarcely bother to unpack the weapons the US sends them-at premium prices - and dare not allow any of their countrymen to learn how to use them. And it is embarrassing to the Americans because they understand all this and ship over arms that don't work simply to ensure that those petrodollars circulate.

Hence the current campaign to convince us that Iran was responsible. Mind you, that propaganda is only effective so long as the American people don't really believe it because, if they did, they might demand war (you can imagine Pelosi, Schumer and Biden insisting on it) and Washington doesn't want that.
Jingoism isn't about fighting it's about threatening.

And, now that 57 varieties of Israeli Fascism are squabbling about whether the Prime Minister goes to jail for theft, even that distraction is no longer useful.

the pessimist , Sep 18 2019 16:29 utc | 177
Statement from the Iranians "Saudi press conference shows they are clueless about how attack was executed and know nothing about the military capabilities of their adversary".

Seems about right. Statement by bevin is on target.

[Sep 18, 2019] Yeah, right..

Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Lozion , Sep 18 2019 15:19 utc | 154

#SaudiArabia Defense Ministry press briefing:

Yeah, right..

[Sep 18, 2019] Will Trump Take Neocon Bait and Attack Iran Over Saudi Strike by Ron Paul

Sep 17, 2019 | www.ronpaulinstitute.org

The recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities by Yemeni Houthi forces demonstrate once again that an aggressive foreign policy often brings unintended consequences and can result in blowback. In 2015 Saudi Arabia attacked its neighbor, Yemen, because a coup in that country ousted the Saudi-backed dictator. Four years later Yemen is in ruins, with nearly 100,000 Yemenis killed and millions more facing death by starvation. It has been rightly called the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.

But rich and powerful Saudi Arabia did not defeat Yemen. In fact, the Saudis last month asked the Trump Administration to help facilitate talks with the Houthis in hopes that the war, which has cost Saudi Arabia tens of billions of dollars, could finally end without Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman losing too much face. Washington admitted earlier this month that those talks had begun.

The surprise Houthi attack on Saturday disrupted half of Saudi Arabia's oil and gas production and shocked Washington. Predictably, however, the neocons are using the attack to call for war with Iran!

Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of the few people in Washington who makes John Bolton look like a dove, Tweeted yesterday that, "It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries " Graham is the perfect embodiment of the saying, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." No matter what the problem, for Graham the solution is war.

Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who is supposed to represent US diplomacy – jumped to blame Iran for the attack on Saudi Arabia, Tweeting that, "Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply." Of course, he provided no evidence even as the Houthis themselves took responsibility for the bombing.

What is remarkable is that all of Washington's warmongers are ready for war over what is actually a retaliatory strike by a country that is the victim of Saudi aggression, not the aggressor itself. Yemen did not attack Saudi Arabia in 2015. It was the other way around. If you start a war and the other country fights back, you should not be entitled to complain about how unfair the whole thing is.

The establishment reaction to the Yemeni oilfield strike reminds me of a hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee just before the US launched the 2003 Iraq war. As I was arguing against the authorization for that war, I pointed out that Iraq had never attacked the United States. One of my colleagues stopped me in mid-sentence, saying, "let me remind the gentleman that the Iraqis have been shooting at our planes for years." True, but those planes were bombing Iraq!

The neocons want a US war on Iran at any cost. They may feel temporarily at a disadvantage with the departure of their ally in the Trump Administration, John Bolton. However, the sad truth is that there are plenty more John Boltons in the Administration. And they have allies in the Lindsay Grahams in Congress.

Yemen has demonstrated that it can fight back against Saudi aggression. The only sensible way forward is for a rapid end to this four-year travesty, and the Saudis would be wise to wake up to the mess they've created for themselves. Whatever the case, US participation in Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen must end immediately and neocon lies about Iran's role in the war must be refuted and resisted.

[Sep 18, 2019] Middle East Mystery Theater: Who Attacked Saudi Arabia's Oil Supply?

Notable quotes:
"... Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen. Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution, they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. ..."
"... "Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the region." ..."
"... "The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued. ..."
"... Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing a successful bill to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen. ..."
"... "It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest between the Saudis and Iranians." ..."
"... "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran. ..."
"... "This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not a walk in the park." ..."
"... "In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's desulphurization capacity out of commission. ..."
"... "This little accident was designed to be maximally disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil in the long run. ..."
"... On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump understands." ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Retired Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis pointed out that the puncture marks do not actually show the origin of the attack. "Missiles can fly from almost anywhere. They have the ability to maneuver! And certainly drones can, too," the Defense Priorities senior fellow told the National Interest . "There hasn't been the time to do an actual analysis on the ground, so let's wait and see."

Mark Latham, managing partner at the London-based analysis firm Commodities Intelligence, told the National Interest that the puncture marks pointed to a cruise missile with no explosive warhead. Removing the payload would allow the missile to carry more fuel and launch from farther away from its target.

... ... ...

"Mr. X is a sophisticated fellow. He's sourced some Iranian cruise missiles. He's removed the explosive payload. He's replaced the explosive payload with fuel," he said. "So this isn't your twenty dollar Amazon drone. This is a sophisticated military operation."

"The culprit behind the Abqaiq attack is most definitely the Islamic Republic, either directly or through one of its proxies," argued Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

"The attack fits the pattern of Iran signaling to the Gulf states that if it can't get its oil out, it will cause their oil exports to become collateral damage," Koduvayur told the National Interest . "It's because of how strong our coercive financial tools are that Iran is resorting to attacks like this: it's lashing out."

Violating an Obama-era agreement to regulate Iran's nuclear research program, the Trump administration imposed massive sanctions on Iran's oil industry beginning in May 2018. The goal of this "maximum pressure" campaign was to force Iran to accept a "better" deal. Since then, Iranian forces have captured a British oil tanker and allegedly sabotaged tankers from other countries.

There were some signals that Trump was planning to use the ongoing United Nations General Assembly in New York to open a new diplomatic channel with Iran, especially after the firing of hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton. But the weekend attack sent Trump into reverse.

"Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was in their 'airspace' when, in fact, it was nowhere close. They stuck strongly to that story knowing that it was a very big lie," he said in a Monday morning Twitter post, referring to a June incident when Iranian and American forces almost went to war. "Now they say that they had nothing to do with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We'll see?"

He also hinted at a violent U.S. response.

"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Trump wrote on Sunday.

"Saudi Arabia is not a formal treaty ally of ours, so there are no international agreements that obligate us to come to their defense," John Glaser, director of foreign-policy studies at the CATO Institute, stated. "This does not amount to a clear and present danger to the United States, so no self-defense justification is relevant. He would therefore need authorization from Congress."

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had mixed reactions to the attack.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed putting "on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries" in order to "break the regime's back." His press office did not respond to a follow-up question from the National Interest asking whether the president would have the authority to do so.

Amy Grappone, spokeswoman for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), told the National Interest that the Senator "will support an appropriate and proportionate response" after "studying the latest intelligence pertaining to Iran's malign activities, including these recent attacks in Saudi Arabia."

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, condemned the attack with a backhanded insult towards Saudi Arabia. "Despite some ongoing policy differences with the kingdom, no nation should be subjected to these kinds of attacks on it soil and against its people," he wrote on Twitter, declining to name Iran as the culprit.

Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen. Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution, they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the region."

"The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued.

Asked how he would vote on a declaration of war, the senator told the National Interest : "Let's hope it does not come to that. Congress has not authorized war against Iran. The majority voted to engage them diplomatically to slow their nuclear ambitions. The international community is ready to work with the U.S. again to ease economic pressure on Iran in exchange for their restraint. We are at a dangerous precipice."

In a statement emailed to the National Interest and posted to Twitter, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) was even more direct: "The US should never go to war to protect Saudi oil."

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing a successful bill to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen.

"It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest between the Saudis and Iranians."

But the reaction did not fall neatly along party lines.

"Iran is one of the most dangerous state sponsors of terrorism. This may well be the thing that calls for military action against Iran, if that's what the intelligence supports," said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) in a Monday interview with Fox News. Others pointed out that attacking Iran would contradict Trump's own principles.

"Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran.

"This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not a walk in the park."

Davis agreed with Paul's assessment. "There's too many people who have lost touch with understanding what war is all about. They think it's easy," he told the National Interest . "Just imagine this. What we go ahead and do this, and Iran makes good on their threats, and American warships get sunk in the Gulf?" "This is not America's fight," he concluded. "The American armed forces are not on loan as a Saudi defense force."

"There's another claim that the impact on oil markets is sufficient to impact the vital U.S. interest in the free flow of energy coming out of that region, but that argument quickly descends into absurdity when we remember that the Trump administration has been trying to zero-out Iranian oil exports, for a host of spurious reasons," Glaser told the National Interest . "Washington is also aggressively sanctioning Venezuela, making it harder for Caracas to bring oil to market, too. If we really cared about the supply of oil, we wouldn't be doing this."

In any case, the attack may not have affected oil markets in such a straightforward way. Latham says that the attack struck an oil desulphurization facility. At the moment, desulphurized fuel is in high demand from the shipping industry, which is rushing to comply with new international environmental regulations.

"In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's desulphurization capacity out of commission.

"This little accident was designed to be maximally disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil in the long run.

On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump understands."

Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest.

[Sep 18, 2019] To End Endless Wars, We Must Give Up Hegemony by Daniel Larison

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Sep 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Stephen Wertheim explains what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:

American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.

Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership." A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.

U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:

Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.

Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure, but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:

Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.

The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."

Wertheim adds:

Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned" -- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in itself.

Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.


chris chuba 2 days ago

Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.

Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.

It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.

IanDakar chris chuba 16 hours ago
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.

Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've never happened if we took that policy.

Sid Finster 2 days ago
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment.

So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.

Clyde Schechter 2 days ago
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several decades longer.
Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?

How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances and interests be damned!"

I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.

This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.

Stumble Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.

We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.

Sid Finster Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
The USA are the source of a lot of the world's instability.
Sceptical Gorilla Sid Finster 2 days ago
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only take counterfactuals so far.
Mojrim ibn Harb Sceptical Gorilla 2 days ago
Lovely strawman you have there...
Taras77 2 days ago
Excellent article, excellent skeptical comments below.

I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.

The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.

It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting.

Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion) that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be curtailed or even better, changed.

polistra24 2 days ago • edited
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing left to dominate or own.

Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists" on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for 70 years.

China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive purchase of their output.

Mojrim ibn Harb polistra24 2 days ago
Join the liberal order or we'll wreck your country. That's hegemony.
Mark B. 2 days ago
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes. Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
James_R Mark B. 2 days ago
"On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own hands, I hope.".................

I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries.

AllenQ 2 days ago
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant US presence.

None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.

It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing, our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.

Fran Macadam 2 days ago
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits. War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled profitably to be encouraged.
Doom Incarnate a day ago
Fighting is good for business, so the fighting will continue.

[Sep 18, 2019] The groundwork is being laid for expensive new races in intermediate-range missile systems in Europe and Asia, which will likely decrease stability in both regions.

Sep 18, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Nick Klaus 5 hours ago ,

Now we need to bury the agreement on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and on the ban on nuclear testing!
And the world will be truly safe!

[Sep 18, 2019] The specter of Marx haunts the American ruling class - World Socialist Web Site

Nov 06, 2018 | www.wsws.org
White House report on socialism

Last month, the Council of Economic Advisers, an agency of the Trump White House, released an extraordinary report titled "The Opportunity Costs of Socialism." The report begins with the statement: "Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse. Detailed policy proposals from self-declared socialists are gaining support in Congress and among much of the younger electorate."

The very fact that the US government officially acknowledges a growth of popular support for socialism, particularly among the nation's youth, testifies to vast changes taking place in the political consciousness of the working class and the terror this is striking within the ruling elite. America is, after all, a country where anti-communism was for the greater part of a century a state-sponsored secular religion. No ruling class has so ruthlessly sought to exclude socialist politics from political discourse as the American ruling class.

The 70-page document is itself an inane right-wing screed. It seeks to discredit socialism by identifying it with capitalist countries such as Venezuela that have expanded state ownership of parts of the economy while protecting private ownership of the banks, and, with the post-2008 collapse of oil and other commodity prices, increasingly attacked the living standards of the working class.

It identifies socialism with proposals for mild social reform such as "Medicare for all," raised and increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of "economic freedom," i.e., the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or anything else that impinges on the oligarchy's self-enrichment.

The report's arguments and themes find expression in the fascistic campaign speeches of Donald Trump, who routinely and absurdly attacks the Democrats as socialists and accuses them of seeking to turn America into another "socialist" Venezuela.

What has prompted this effort to blackguard socialism?

A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a "large-scale uprising." Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, "Banks and money rule the world."

Last November, a poll conducted by YouGov showed that 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 21 and 29 would prefer to live in a socialist or communist country than in a capitalist country.

In August of this year, a Gallup poll found that for the first time since the organization began tracking the figure, fewer than half of Americans aged 18–29 had a positive view of capitalism, while more than half had a positive view of socialism. The percentage of young people viewing capitalism positively fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45 percent this year, a 23-percentage point drop in just eight years.

This surge in interest in socialism is bound up with a resurgence of class struggle in the US and internationally. In the United States, the number of major strikes so far this year, 21, is triple the number in 2017. The ruling class was particularly terrified by the teachers' walkouts earlier this year because the biggest strikes were organized by rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations that have suppressed the class struggle for decades.

The growth of the class struggle is an objective process that is driven by the global crisis of capitalism , which finds its most acute social and political expression in the center of world capitalism -- the United States. It is the class struggle that provides the key to the fight for genuine socialism.

Masses of workers and youth are being driven into struggle and politically radicalized by decades of uninterrupted war and the staggering growth of social inequality. This process has accelerated during the 10 years since the Wall Street crash of 2008. The Obama years saw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in history, the escalation of the wars begun under Bush and their spread to Libya, Syria and Yemen, and the intensification of mass surveillance, attacks on immigrants and other police state measures.

This paved the way for the elevation of Trump, the personification of the criminality and backwardness of the ruling oligarchy.

Under conditions where the typical CEO in the US now makes in a single day almost as much as the average worker makes in an entire year, and the net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans has doubled over the past decade, the working class is looking for a radical alternative to the status quo. As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in its program eight years ago, " The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism in the United States ":

The change in objective conditions, however, will lead American workers to change their minds. The reality of capitalism will provide workers with many reasons to fight for a fundamental and revolutionary change in the economic organization of society.

The response of the ruling class is two-fold. First, the abandonment of bourgeois democratic forms of rule and the turn toward dictatorship. The run-up to the midterm elections has revealed the advanced stage of these preparations, with Trump's fascistic attacks on immigrants, deployment of troops to the border, threats to gun down unarmed men, women and children seeking asylum, and his pledge to overturn the 14th Amendment establishing birthright citizenship.

That this has evoked no serious opposition from the Democrats and the media makes clear that the entire ruling class is united around a turn to authoritarianism. Indeed, the Democrats are spearheading the drive to censor the internet in order to silence left-wing and socialist opposition.

The second response is to promote phony socialists such as Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations in order to confuse the working class and channel its opposition back behind the Democratic Party.

In 2018, with Sanders totally integrated into the Democratic Party leadership, this role has been largely delegated to the DSA, which functions as an arm of the Democrats. Two DSA members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Detroit, are likely to win seats in the House of Representatives as candidates of the Democratic Party.

The closer they come to taking office, the more they seek to distance themselves from their supposed socialist affiliation. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, joined Sanders in eulogizing the recently deceased war-monger John McCain, refused to answer when asked if she opposed the US wars in the Middle East, and dropped her campaign call for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The working class and youth are increasingly looking for a socialist alternative, but their understanding of socialism and its history is limited. Here the role of the revolutionary party, the Socialist Equality Party, is critical. It alone seeks to arm the emerging mass movement of the working class with a genuine revolutionary, socialist and internationalist program.

The SEP fights to mobilize and unite the working class in the US and internationally in opposition to the entire ruling elite and all of its bribed politicians and parties. As our program explains:

But socialism will be achieved only through the establishment of workers' power. This will be a difficult struggle Socialism is not a gift to be given to the working class. It must be fought for and won by the working class itself.

The task facing workers and youth looking for the way to fight against war, inequality, poverty and repression is to join and build the Socialist Equality Party to lead the coming mass struggles of the working class.

Barry Grey

[Sep 18, 2019] China did the right thing: it shut down "free market" theologician maskeraling as economics from the academia

After 2008 free market economists should be treated at their face value: as academic charlatans. Now they are treated as goods which are past their shelf life in China and that's a progress.
Notable quotes:
"... The Chinese don't need, and don't want, a bunch of arrogant pro-US intellectuals giving them lectures. I can't say I blame them. ..."
"... No, that is because after WW2 the US was the only major economy left standing that hadn't been wrecked, and they were in the box seat to set the agenda post Bretton-Woods (and cement for themselves the leading dominant role). The USD is being used increasingly as a cudgel to enforce US hegemony, and that will lead much of the world to seek alternatives. It's happening now, slowly at first, and will only gain speed from here. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

During my last visit I stopped by the offices of what remained of the Unirule Institute of Economics. The well-respected organization was formed in 1993 by six economists, most importantly Mao Yushi (no relation to Mao Zedong) and Sheng Hong. My organization, the Cato Institute, gave the former the 2012 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to honor his work on behalf of human freedom. Now retired at the age of ninety, Mao Yushi paid a price for activism. Noted his award citation, Mao "has faced severe punishment, exile, and near starvation for remarks critical of a command-based economy and society." The late Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel laureate, said of Mao: his "bravery is worthy of our respect."

However, despite the hardship of its founder, Unirule was no revolutionary political organization. Its name stood for "universal rules," essentially the rule of law. Its focus was moving toward a more market-oriented economy. The group's work was scholarly, performed by economists and academics. Its publications were high-brow, its books often published in China. Unirule's international contacts were mainstream and focused on economic reform.

That Unirule prospered demonstrated how far the PRC had come from the bad old days under Mao Zedong. Economic integration with the West by no means delivered a libertarian China. Still, the increasingly vibrant private economy expanded personal autonomy, opening up space absent since the PRC's founding seventy years ago.

As for politics, other than the question of the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly of power, most issues could be at least discussed and sometimes debated in academic and other settings. A vaguely independent media developed, which reported on misdeeds of local governments and officials. Although this slightly diluted authoritarianism might have appeared to be weakness to a few who pined for the days of the Cultural Revolution, the system offered a release valve for people who had no control over their rulers.

That gave CCP officials additional ideas to consider and solutions to employ. Unirule sponsored lectures, ran conferences, and published books. The group consulted with both local governments and state companies. Even the national authorities appeared to respect if not necessarily love Unirule. (In 1980 the government even invited Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman to Beijing to get his advice.) Asked Jude Blanchette, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: "Without independent voices offering alternative viewpoints, how can China's leaders make effective decisions."

Allowing discussion -- if not exactly dissent -- also might have drained away some of the dissatisfaction that otherwise would have accumulated against the regime. The pervasiveness of corruption and intensity of resulting public disgust highlighted the threat both from and to Communist rule, which came much more from the natural consequences of the monopoly of power rather than from the expression of discontent with that monopoly.

However, Xi Jinping's ascension to head of both party and government became a dramatic political inflexion point...

... ... ...

The state agency which sponsored it dropped the affiliation. Newspapers stopped running articles by its staffers. Discussions of its activities on social media, including the Chinese phenomenon WeChat, were blocked. Venues cancelled Unirule events. The website was closed down. Then the organization was twice pushed out of professional spaces. Last year the landlord, under pressure from regulators, welded the office door shut with staffers still inside; they had to call the police for rescue. About ten employees and a mass of books, papers and files ultimately crammed into a small apartment ten floors up in an aged apartment building in a distant suburb.

The group's latest book, a collection of academic papers, is ready for publication but was rejected by the PRC's information overseers. The process has been transferred from state to party, ensuring that everything will be assessed for its propaganda value. More seriously, Unirule's business license was cancelled, a move the group was fighting. Sheng said he planned to focus on economic research if the CCP interdict took hold.

... ... ...

A few weeks after my visit Unirule's life appears to have run out. The group announced that the local government had declared it to be "unregistered and unauthorized." Although Unirule plans to fight the diktat in court, Sheng admitted that it had essentially no chance of prevailing and has begun the liquidation process. "We no longer have any space for survival," Sheng told the Wall Street Journal . He previously noted that Unirule had been careful to follow the rules, so the Xi regime wished for the reformers to "disappear by ourselves." Apparently Xi or someone else high up grew tired of waiting.

... ... ...

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .


jonathanpulliam 2 days ago ,

Come to think of it, why ISN'T Boeing's CEO in jail??

Gary Sellars 3 days ago ,

The Chinese don't need, and don't want, a bunch of arrogant pro-US intellectuals giving them lectures. I can't say I blame them.

... ... ...

Mephisto 3 days ago ,

Nixon's initiative to integrate China with the USA was the biggest strategic mistake the US ever did. It did not lead to democratization, but rather helped build a powerful totalitarian Orwellian state.

China clearly has a long term strategic plan how to become the world leader, and to this end, it steals western technology, locks other nations into dept traps, builds fifth columns in other countries, uses propaganda and cultural subversion. It is not yet too late to withdraw all western investment from China and to isolate the country. Due to the behavior of the CCP, it has very few actual friends.

jonathanpulliam Mephisto 2 days ago ,

PRC China & the U.S. share one thing at least in common, they lack dignity

Rudi Matich Mephisto 2 days ago ,

The strategic plan and task to defeat capitalism had been handed over to China after the Soviet Union has failed in this endeavor because economically it was no match for capitalist USA, plus it did not integrate science and technological innovation which without it capitalism can not be defeated.

China has achieved economic quantity and quality, and is heading towards full scientific and technological superiority over capitalist USA in the long run.

In this way socialism through science defeats and overtakes capitalism. Science and more science, the only way to defeat capitalism.

Swift Laggard II Rudi Matich 2 days ago ,

China is a hard core capitalist state. Even state ownership is state capitalism

Gary Sellars Mephisto 3 days ago ,

"Due to the behavior of the USA, it has very few actual friends."

Thats better...

Mephisto Gary Sellars 3 days ago ,

out of the 3 countries - USA, Russia, China - most of the world is clearly happy with USA having the leading role, because it is the least evil. Yes, USA is not perfect, Trump is not a great leader (to say it diplomatically), they have made mistakes (the invasion of Iraq etc), but they are still much better than USSRv2.0 or totalitarian China.

Even in Asia, China is widely disliked due to its arrogant and bullying behavior. The Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Indonesians, none of them really like China.

The fact, that US dollar is the leading currency has much to do with the world public perception of the stability of the country. Ie all countries believe the US is the most stable country. So China will have real trouble convincing the world that yuan is better. I do not believe that China will become a leading power anytim soon.

Gary Sellars Mephisto 2 days ago • edited ,

You can keep telling yourself that, but its a crock and we non-Americans know it only too well. Dishonesty and an inability to face truth seems to be an American trait, and the corruption is only growing worse as the US declines.

"The Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Indonesians, none of them really like China"

News for you buddy. None of these nations like each other... LOL!! You ever hear Koreans talking about the Japanese? Now that's hatred...

" The fact, that US dollar is the leading currency has much to do with the world public perception of the stability of the country."

No, that is because after WW2 the US was the only major economy left standing that hadn't been wrecked, and they were in the box seat to set the agenda post Bretton-Woods (and cement for themselves the leading dominant role). The USD is being used increasingly as a cudgel to enforce US hegemony, and that will lead much of the world to seek alternatives. It's happening now, slowly at first, and will only gain speed from here.

Pound Sterling used to dominate the world, now where is it? In the future, people will say the same of the greenback.

Swift Laggard II Mephisto 2 days ago ,

speak for yourself; don't speak for Asian nations. How many have joined AIIB, or BRI? What you believe about China is irrelevant

Mephisto Swift Laggard II 2 days ago ,

https://www.pewresearch.org...
it is interesting, that China is least popular in Asia with its direct neighbors

commit Mephisto 2 days ago ,

It would be interesting to know how the research was made and who they ask.

Mephisto commit 2 days ago ,

I traveled for 1 year across Asia - SE Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and 5 months across china. China is almost universally disliked all over Asia due to its arrogant behavior. And even the famous Chinese investments are increasingly being perceived as a form of Chinese neocolonialism and rejected
https://www.washingtonpost....

Redmond Mephisto 2 days ago ,

You know how African-Americans commit all sorts of violent crimes, hate speech, and racist slurs just because they were victims of racial discrimination in America decades ago? It's the same justification for violence Chinese mainlanders commit against everyone else just because they suffered from century of humiliation. I'm suspecting that the CCP/PLA is being coached by the black lefists in the US who have deep hatred against their perceived WASP establishment. The pattern of angst and diatribes are almost the same.

commit Redmond 2 days ago • edited ,

IDK, the trade war and other US actions against China are pretty recent. They have good reasons to hate your establishment. No need to look into past.

commit Mephisto 2 days ago • edited ,

> universally disliked all over Asia

In the survey you posted above, China is more popular than the USA in Indonesia. Other countries like Malaysia, Laos, Bangladesh, North Korea are missing. Also, people generally tell to English speaking foreigners what they expect they want to hear. If the survey was made by Chinese, the results would be different.

Redmond 3 days ago ,

The answer is simple and obvious. Democracy and rule of law means that they all go to jail. In all post-authoritarian shifts, the judicial branch of the government goes into overdrive, prosecuting past leaders for their crimes. They're really stuck to authoritarianism no-matter how hard they want democracy.

The CCP is just like a mafia. You won't get in unless you have blood in your hands, and death is the only way out (unless you can defect to another country and if you can stomach your immediate family members going to jail for you).

Swift Laggard II Redmond 3 days ago ,

what rule of law are you talking about? do you practice it in your own country?

Gary Sellars Swift Laggard II 3 days ago ,

Law of the Jungle. It's all that the Washingtonian primitives understand...

Walter Tseng 3 days ago ,

China is doing just great. Its citizens are enjoying a quality of life unprecedented in China's history (even the author do not dispute this). So why should a democratic majority 89% (PEW) happy individuals must suffer for the selfish few?

History has shown that intellectuals make lousy leaders but great at fomenting chaos + rebellions. And everyone knows that "soft-spoken criticisms", when weaponized, can kill millions just as effectively as a nuclear bomb!

[Sep 17, 2019] The Devolution of US-Russia Relations by Tony Kevin

Highly recommended!
Sep 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

A retired Australian diplomat who served in Moscow dissects the emergence of the new Cold War and its dire consequences.

I n 2014, we saw violent U.S.-supported regime change and civil war in Ukraine. In February, after months of increasing tension from the anti-Russian protest movement's sitdown strike in Kiev's Maidan Square, there was a murderous clash between protesters and Ukrainian police, sparked off by hidden shooters (we now know that were expert Georgian snipers) , aiming at police. The elected government collapsed and President Yanukevich fled to Russia, pursued by murder squads.

The new Poroshenko government pledged harsh anti-Russian language laws. Rebels in two Russophone regions in Eastern Ukraine took local control, and appealed for Russian military help. In March, a referendum took place in Russian-speaking Crimea on leaving Ukraine, under Russian military protection. Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, a request promptly granted by the Russian Parliament and President. Crimea's border with Ukraine was secured against saboteurs. Crimea is prospering under its pro-Russian government, with the economy kick-started by Russian transport infrastructure investment.

In April, Poroshenko ordered full military attack on the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine. A brutal civil war ensued, with aerial and artillery bombardment bringing massive civilian death and destruction to the separatist region. There was major refugee outflow into Russia and other parts of Ukraine. The shootdown of MH17 took place in July 2014.

Poroshenko: Ordered military attack.

By August 2015, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates, 13,000 people had been killed and 30,000 wounded. 1.4 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced, and 925,000 had fled to neighbouring countries, mostly Russia and to a lesser extent Poland.

There is now a military stalemate, under the stalled Minsk peace process. But random fatal clashes continue, with the Ukrainian Army mostly blamed by UN observers. The UN reported last month that the ongoing war has affected 5.2 million people, leaving 3.5 million of them in need of relief, including 500,000 children. Most Russians blame the West for fomenting Ukrainian enmity towards Russia. This war brings back for older Russians horrible memories of the Nazi invasion in 1941. The Russia-Ukraine border is only 550 kilometres from Moscow.

Flashpoint Syria

Russian forces joined the civil war in Syria in September 2015, at the request of the Syrian Government, faltering under the attacks of Islamist extremist rebel forces reinforced by foreign fighters and advanced weapons. With Russian air and ground support, the tide of war turned. Palmyra and Aleppo were recaptured in 2016. An alleged Syrian Government chemical attack at Khan Shaykhun in April 2017 resulted in a token U.S. missile attack on a Syrian Government airbase: an early decision by President Trump.

NATO, Strategic Balance, Sanctions

An F-15C Eagle from the 493rd Fighter Squadron takes off from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, March 6, 2014. The 48th Fighter Wing sent an additional six aircraft and more than 50 personnel to support NATO's air policing mission in Lithuania, at the request of U.S. allies in the Baltics. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Emerson Nunez/Released)

Tensions have risen in the Baltic as NATO moves ground forces and battlefield missiles up to the Baltic states' borders with Russia. Both sides' naval and air forces play dangerous brinksmanship games in the Baltic. U.S. short-range, non-nuclear-armed anti-ballistic missiles were stationed in Poland and Romania, allegedly against threat of Iranian attack. They are easily convertible to nuclear-armed missiles aimed at nearby Russia.

Nuclear arms control talks have stalled. The INF intermediate nuclear forces treaty expired in 2019, after both sides accused the other of cheating. In March 2018, Putin announced that Russia has developed new types of intercontinental nuclear missiles using technologies that render U.S. defence systems useless. The West has pretended to ignore this announcement, but we can be sure Western defence ministries have noted it. Nuclear second-strike deterrence has returned, though most people in the West have forgotten what this means. Russians know exactly what it means.

Western economic sanctions against Russia continue to tighten after the 2014 events in Ukraine. The U.S. is still trying to block the nearly completed Nordstream Baltic Sea underwater gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Sanctions are accelerating the division of the world into two trade and payments systems: the old NATO-led world, and the rest of the world led by China, with full Russian support and increasing interest from India, Japan, ROK and ASEAN.

Return to Moscow

In 2013, my children gave me an Ipad. I began to spend several hours a day reading well beyond traditional mainstream Western sources: British and American dissident sites, writers like Craig Murray in UK and in the U.S. Stephen Cohen, and some Russian sites – rt.com, Sputnik, TASS, and the official Foreign Ministry site mid.ru. in English.

In late 2015 I decided to visit Russia independently to write Return to Moscow , a literary travel memoir. I planned to compare my impressions of the Soviet Union, where I had lived and worked as an Australian diplomat in 1969-71, with Russia today. I knew there had been huge changes. I wanted to experience 'Putin's Russia' for myself, to see how it felt to be there as an anonymous visitor in the quiet winter season. I wanted to break out of the familiar one-dimensional hostile political view of Russia that Western mainstream media offer: to take my readers with me on a cultural pilgrimage through the tragedy and grandeur and inspiration of Russian history. As with my earlier book on Spain 'Walking the Camino' , this was not intended to be a political book, and yet somehow it became one.

I was still uncommitted on contemporary Russian politics before going to Russia in January 2016. Using the metaphor of a seesaw, I was still sitting somewhere around the middle.

My book was written in late 2015 – early 2016, expertly edited by UWA Publishing. It was launched in March 2017. By this time my political opinions had moved decisively to the Russian end of the seesaw, on the basis of what I had seen in Russia, and what I had read and thought during the year.

I have been back again twice, in winter 2018 and 2019. My 2018 visit included Crimea, and I happened to see a Navalny-led Sunday demonstration in Moscow. I thoroughly enjoyed all three independent visits: in my opinion, they give my judgements on Russia some depth and authenticity.

Russophobia Becomes Entrenched

Russia was a big talking point in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the initially unlikely Republican candidate Donald Trump's chances improved, anti-Putin and anti-Russian positions hardened in the outgoing Obama administration and in the Democratic Party establishment which backed candidate Hillary Clinton.

Russia and Putin became caught up in the Democratic Party's increasingly obsessive rage and hatred against the victorious Trump. Russophobia became entrenched in Washington and London U.S. and UK political and strategic elites, especially in intelligence circles: think of Pompeo, Brennan, Comey and Clapper. All sense of international protocol and diplomatic propriety towards Russia and its President was abandoned, as this appalling Economist cover from October 2016 shows.

My experience of undeclared political censorship in Australia since four months after publication of 'Return to Moscow' supports the thesis that:

We are now in the thick of a ruthless but mostly covert Anglo-American alliance information war against Russia. In this war, individuals who speak up publicly in the cause of detente with Russia will be discouraged from public discourse.

In the Thick of Information War

When I spoke to you two years ago, I had no idea how far-reaching and ruthless this information war is becoming. I knew that a false negative image of Russia was taking hold in the West, even as Russia was becoming a more admirable and self-confident civil society, moving forward towards greater democracy and higher living standards, while maintaining essential national security. I did not then know why, or how.

I had just had time to add a few final paragraphs in my book about the possible consequences for Russia-West relations of Trump's surprise election victory in November 2016. I was right to be cautious, because since Trump's inauguration we have seen the step-by-step elimination of any serious pro-detente voices in Washington, and the reassertion of control over this haphazard president by the bipartisan imperial U.S. deep state, as personified from April 2018 by Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Adviser Bolton. Bolton has now been thrown from the sleigh as decoy for the wolves: under the smooth-talking Pompeo, the imperial policies remain.

Truth, Trust and False Narratives

Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.

Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the battlefield, but in people's minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as much about influencing people's beliefs within your own national community as it is about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.

The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with which to control their gullible populations.

The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.

We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear , to generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear : these are the three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.

People who work or have worked close to government – in departments, politics, the armed forces, or top universities – mostly accept whatever they understand at the time to be 'the government view' of truth. Whether for reasons of organisational loyalty, career prudence or intellectual inertia, it is usually this way around governments. It is why moral issues like the Vietnam War and the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq were so distressing for people of conscience working in or close to government and military jobs in Canberra. They were expected to engage in 'doublethink' as Orwell had described it:

Even in Winston's nightmare world, there were still choices – to retreat into the non-political world of the proles, or to think forbidden thoughts and read forbidden books. These choices involved large risks and punishments. It was easier and safer for most people to acquiesce in the fake news they were fed by state-controlled media.

'Trust, Truth and False Narratives'

Fairfax journalist Andrew Clark, in the Australian Financial Review , in an essay optimistically titled "Not fake news: Why truth and trust are still in good shape in Australia", (AFR Dec. 22, 2018), cited Professor William Davies thus:

"Most of the time, the edifice that we refer to as "truth" is really an investment of trust in our structures of politics and public life' 'When trust sinks below a certain point, many people come to view the entire spectacle of politics and public life as a sham."

Here is my main point: Effective information warfare requires the creation of enough public trust to make the public believe that state-supported lies are true.

The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining.

Caitlin Johnstone a few days ago put it this way:

" Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens, you can have power until the public gets sick of your BS and tosses you out on your ass. If you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there's no limit to the evils you can get away with."

The Internet has made propaganda campaigns that used to take weeks or months a matter of hours or even minutes to accomplish. It is about getting in quickly, using large enough clusters of trusted and diverse sources, in order to cement lies in place, to make the lies seem true, to magnify them through social messaging: in other words, to create credible false narratives that will quickly get into the public's bloodstream.

Over the past two years, I have seen this work many times: on issues like framing Russia for the MH17 tragedy; with false allegations of Assad mounting poison gas attacks in Syria; with false allegations of Russian agents using lethal Novichok to try to kill the Skripals in Salisbury; and with the multiple lies of Russiagate.

It is the mind-numbing effect of constant repetition of disinformation by many eminent people and agencies, in hitherto trusted channels like the BBC or ABC or liberal Anglophone print media that gives the system its power to persuade the credulous. For if so many diverse and reputable people repeatedly report such negative news and express such negative judgements about Russia or China or Iran or Syria, surely they must be right?

We have become used to reading in our quality newspapers and hearing on the BBC and ABC and SBS gross assaults on truth, calmly presented as accepted facts. There is no real public debate on important facts in contention any more. There are no venues for dissent outside contrarian social media sites.

Sometimes, false narratives inter-connect. Often a disinformation narrative in one area is used to influence perceptions in other areas. For example, the false Skripals poisoning story was launched by British intelligence in March 2018, just in time to frame Syrian President Assad as the guilty party in a faked chemical weapons attack in Douma the following month.

The Skripals Gambit

The Skripals gambit was also a failed British attempt to blight the Russia –hosted Football World Cup in June 2018. In the event, hundreds of thousands of Western sports fans returned home with the warmest memories of Russian good sportsmanship and hospitality.

How do I know the British Skripals narrative is false? For a start, it is illogical, incoherent, and constantly changes. Allegedly, two visiting Russian FSB agents in March 2018 sprayed or smeared Novichok, a deadly toxin instantly lethal in the most microscopic quantities, on the Skripals' house front doorknob. There is no video footage of the Skripals at their front door on the day. We are told they were found slumped on a park bench, and that is maybe where they had been sprayed with nerve gas? Shortly afterwards, Britain's Head of Army Nursing who happened to be passing by found them, and supervised their hospitalisation and emergency treatment.

Allegedly, much of Salisbury was contaminated by Novichok, and one unfortunate woman mysteriously died weeks later, yet the Skripals somehow did not die, as we are told. But where are they now? We saw a healthy Yulia in a carefully scripted video interview released in May 2018, after an alleged 'one in a million' recovery. We were assured her father had recovered too, but nobody has seen him at all. The Skripals have simply disappeared from sight since 16 months ago. Are they now alive or dead? Are they in voluntary or involuntary British custody?

A month after the poisoning, the UK Government sent biological samples from the Skripals to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , for testing. The OPCW sent the samples to a trusted OPCW laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland.

Lavrov Spiez BZ claims, April 2018

A few days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dramatically announced in Moscow that the Spiez lab had found in the samples a temporary-effect nerve agent BZ, used by U.S. and UK but not by Russia, that would have disabled the Skripals for a few days without killing them. He also revealed the Spiez lab had found that the Skripal samples had been twice tampered with while still in UK custody: first soon after the poisoning, and again shortly before passing them to the OPCW. He said the Spiez lab had found a high concentration of Novichok, which he called A- 234, in its original form. This was extremely suspicious as A-234 has high volatility and could not have retained its purity over a two weeks period. The dosage the Spiez lab found in the samples would have surely killed the Skripals. The OPCW under British pressure rejected Lavrov's claim, and suppressed the Spiez lab report.

Let's look finally at the alleged assassins.

'Boshirov and Petrov'

These two FSB operatives who visited Salisbury under the false identities of 'Boshirov' and 'Petrov' did not look or behave like credible assassins. It is more likely that they were sent to negotiate with Sergey Skripal about his rumoured interest in returning to Russia. They needed to apply for UK visas a month in advance of travel: ample time for the British agencies to identify them as FSB operatives, and to construct a false attempted assassination narrative around their visit. This false narrative repeatedly trips over its own lies and contradictions. British social media are full of alternative theories and rebuttals. Russians find the whole British Government Skripal narrative laughable. They have invented comedy skits and video games based on it. Yet it had major impact on Russia-West relations.

The Douma False Narrative

I turn now to the claimed Assad chemical weapons attack in Douma in April 2018.This falsely alleged attack triggered a major NATO air attack on Syrian targets, ordered by Trump. We came close to WWIII in these dangerous days. Thanks to the restraint of the then Secretary of Defence James Mattis and his Russian counterparts, the risk was contained.

The allegation that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used outlawed chemical weapons against his own people was based solely on the evidence of faked video images of child victims, made by the discredited White Helmets, a UK-sponsored rebel-linked 'humanitarian' propaganda organisation with much blood on its hands. Founded in 2013 by a British private security specialist of intelligence background, James Le Mesurier, the White Helmets specialised in making fake videos of alleged Assad regime war crimes against Syrian civilians. It is by now a thoroughly discredited organisation that was prepared to kill its prisoners and then film their bodies as alleged victims of government chemical attacks.

White Helmets

As the town of Douma was about to fall to advancing Syrian Government forces, the White Helmets filled a room with stacked corpses of murdered prisoners, and photographed them as alleged victims of aerial gas attack. They also made a video alleging child victims of this attack being hosed down by White Helmets. A video of a child named Hassan Diab went viral all over the Western world.

Hassan Diab later testified publicly in The Hague that he had been dragged terrified from his family by force, smeared with some sort of grease, and hosed down with water as part of a fake video. He went from hero to zero overnight, as Western governments and media rejected his testimony as Russian and Syrian propaganda.

In a late development, there is proof that the OPCW suppressed its own engineers' report from Douma that the alleged poison gas cylinders could not have possibly been dropped from the air through the roof of the house where one was found, resting on a bed under a convenient hole in the roof.

I could go on discussing the detail of such false narratives all day. No matter how often they are exposed by critics, our politicians and mainstream media go on referencing them as if they are true. Once people have come to believe false narratives, it is hard to refute them.

So it is with the false narrative that Russian internet interference enabled Trump to win the 2016 U.S. presidential elections: a thesis for which no evidence was found by [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller, yet continues to be cited by many U.S. liberal Democratic media as if it were true. So, even, with MH17.

Managing Mass Opinion

This mounting climate of Western Russophobia is not accidental: it is strategically directed, and it is nourished with regular maintenance doses of fresh lies. Each round of lies provides a credible platform for the next round somewhere else. The common thread is a claimed malign Russian origin for whatever goes wrong.

So where is all this disinformation originating? Information technology firms in Washington and London that are closely networked into government elites, often through attending the same establishment schools or colleges like Eton and Yale, have closely studied and tested the science of influencing crowd opinions through mainstream media and online. They know, in a way that Orwell or Goebbels could hardly have dreamt, how to put out and repeat desired media messages. They know what sizes of 'internet attraction nodes' need to be established online, in order to create diverse critical masses of credible Russophobic messaging, which then attracts enough credulous and loyal followers to become self-propagating.

Firms like the SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) and the now defunct Cambridge Analytica pioneered such work in the UK. There are many similar firms in Washington, all in the business of monitoring, generating and managing mass opinion. It is big business, and it works closely with the national security state.

Starting in November 2018, an enterprising group of unknown hackers in the UK , who go by the name 'Anonymous', opened a remarkable window into this secret world. Over a few weeks, they hacked and dumped online a huge volume of original documents issued by and detailing the activities of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS) and the Integrity initiative (II). Here is the first page of one of their dumps, exposing propaganda against Jeremy Corbyn.

We know from this material that the IfS and II are two secret British disinformation networks operating at arms' length from but funded by the UK security services and broader UK government establishment. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence personnel, often nominally retired, journalists and academics, to produce and disseminate propaganda that serves the agendas of the UK and its allies.

Stung by these massive leaks, Chris Donnelly, a key figure in IfS and II and a former British Army intelligence officer, made a now famous seven-minute YouTube video in December 2018, artfully filmed in a London kitchen, defending their work.

He argued – quite unconvincingly in my opinion – that IfS and II are simply defending Western societies against disinformation and malign influence, primarily from Russia. He boasted how they have set up in numerous targeted European countries, claimed to be under attack from Russian disinformation, what he called 'clusters of influence' , to 'educate' public opinion and decision-makers in pro-NATO and anti-Russian directions.

Donnelly spoke frankly on how the West is already at war with Russia, a 'new kind of warfare', in which he said 'everything becomes a weapon'. He said that 'disinformation is the issue which unites all the other weapons in this conflict and gives them a third dimension'.

He said the West has to fight back, if it is to defend itself and to prevail.

We can confirm from the Anonymous leaked files the names of many people in Europe being recruited into these clusters of influence. They tend to be significant people in journalism, publishing, universities and foreign policy think-tanks: opinion-shapers. The leaked documents suggest how ideologically suitable candidates are identified: approached for initial screening interviews; and, if invited to join a cluster of influence, sworn to secrecy.

Remarkably, neither the Anonymous disclosures nor the Donnelly response have ever been reported in Australian media. Even in Britain – where evidence that the Integrity Initiative was mounting a campaign against [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn provoked brief media interest. The story quickly disappeared from mainstream media and the BBC. A British under-foreign secretary admitted in Parliamentary Estimates that the UK Foreign Office subsidises the Institute of Statecraft to the tune of nearly 3 million pounds per year. It also gives various other kinds of non-monetary assistance, e.g. providing personnel and office support in Britain's overseas embassies.

This is not about traditional spying or seeking agents of influence close to governments. It is about generating mass disinformation, in order to create mass climates of belief.

In my opinion, such British and American disinformation efforts, using undeclared clusters of influence, through Five Eyes intelligence-sharing, and possibly with the help of British and American diplomatic missions, may have been in operation in Australia for many years.

Such networks may have been used against me since around mid-2017, to limit the commercial outreach of my book and the impact of its dangerous ideas on the need for East-West detente; and efficiently to suppress my voice in Australian public discourse about Russia and the West. Do I have evidence for this? Yes.

It is not coincidence that the Melbourne Writers Festival in August 2017 somehow lost all my sign-and-sell books from my sold-out scheduled speaking event; that a major debate with [Australian writer and foreign policy analyst] Bobo Lo at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne was cancelled by his Australian sponsor, the Lowy institute, two weeks before the advertised date; that my last invitation to any writers festival was 15 months ago, in May 2018; that Return to Moscow was not shortlisted for any Australian book prize, though I entered it in all of them ; that since my book's early promotion ended around August 2017, I have not been invited to join any ABC discussion panels, or to give any talks on Russia in any universities or institutes, apart from the admirable Australian Institute of International Affairs and the ISAA.

My articles and shorter opinion commentaries on Russia and the West have not been published in mainstream media or in reputable online journals like Eureka Street, The Conversation, Inside Story or Australian Book Review . Despite being an ANU Emeritus Fellow, I have not been invited to give a public talk or join any panel in ANU (Australian National University) or any Canberra think tank. In early 2018, I was invited to give a private briefing to a group of senior students travelling on an immersion course to Russia. I was not invited back in 2019, after high-level private advice within ANU that I was regarded as too pro-Putin.

In all these ways – none overt or acknowledged – my voice as an open-minded writer and speaker on Russia-West relations seems to have been quietly but effectively suppressed in Australia. I would like to be proved wrong on this, but the evidence is there.

This may be about "velvet-glove deterrence" of my Russia-sympathetic voice and pen, in order to discourage others, especially those working in or close to government. Nobody is going to put me in jail, unless I am stupid enough to violate Australia's now strict foreign influence laws. This deterrence is about generating fear of consequences for people still in their careers, paying their mortgages, putting kids through school. Nobody wants to miss their next promotion.

There are other indications that Australian national security elite opinion has been indoctrinated prudently to fear and avoid any kind of public discussion of positive engagement with Russia (or indeed, with China).

There are only two kinds of news about Russia now permitted in our mainstream media, including the ABC and SBS: negative news and comment, or silence. Unless a story can be given an anti-Russian sting, it will not be carried at all. Important stories are simply spiked, like last week's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivistok, chaired by President Putin and attended by Prime Ministers Abe, Mahathir and Modi, among 8500 participants from 65 countries.

The ABC idea of a balanced panel to discuss any Russian political topic was exemplified in an ABC Sunday Extra Roundtable panel chaired by Eleanor Hall on July, 22 2018, soon after the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki. The panel – a former ONA Russia analyst, a professor of Soviet and Russian History at Melbourne University, and a Russian émigré dissident journalist introduced as the 'Washington correspondent for Echo of Moscow radio' spent most of their time sneering at Putin and Trump. There were no other views.

A powerful anti-Russian news narrative is now firmly in place in Australia, on every topic in contention: Ukraine, MH17, Crimea, Syria, the Skripals, Navalny and public protest in Russia. There is ill-informed criticism of Russia, or silence, on the crucial issues of arms control and Russia-China strategic and economic relations as they affect Australia's national security or economy. There is no analysis of the negative impact on Australia of economic sanctions against Russia. There is almost no discussion of how improved relations with China and Russia might contribute to Australia's national security and economic welfare, as American influence in the world and our region declines, and as American reliability as an ally comes more into question. Silence on inconvenient truths is an important part of the disinformation tool kit.

I see two overall conflicting narratives – the prevailing Anglo-American false narrative; and valiant efforts by small groups of dissenters, drawing on sources outside the Anglo-American official narrative, to present another narrative much closer to truth. And this is how most Russians now see it too.

The Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018 was damaged by the Skripal and Syria fabrications. Trump left that summit friendless, frightened and humiliated. He soon surrendered to the power of the U.S. imperial state as then represented by [Mike] Pompeo and [John] Bolton, who had both been appointed as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser in April 2018 and who really got into their stride after the Helsinki Summit. Pompeo now smoothly dominates Trump's foreign policy.

Self-Inflicted Wounds

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Gage Skidmore)

Finally, let me review the American political casualties over the past two years – self-inflicted wounds – arising from this secret information war against Russia. Let me list them without prejudging guilt or innocence. Slide 20 – Self-inflicted wounds: casualties of anti-Russian information warfare.

Trump's first National Security Adviser, the highly decorated Michael Flynn lost his job after only three weeks, and soon went to jail. His successor H R McMaster lasted 13 months until replaced by John Bolton. Trump's first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lasted just 14 months until his replacement by Trump's appointed CIA chief (in January 2017) Mike Pompeo. Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon lasted only seven months. Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is now in jail.

Defence Secretary James Mattis lasted nearly two years as Secretary of Defence, and was an invaluable source of strategic stability. He resigned in December 2018. The highly capable Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman lasted just two years: he is resigning next month. John Kelly lasted 18 months as White House Chief of Staff. Less senior figures like George Papadopoulos and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen both served jail time. The pattern I see here is that people who may have been trying responsibly as senior U.S. officials to advance Trump's initial wish to explore possibilities for detente with Russia – policies that he had advocated as a candidate – were progressively purged, one after another . The anti-Russian U.S. bipartisan imperial state is now firmly back in control. Trump is safely contained as far as Russia is concerned .

Russians do not believe that any serious detente or arms control negotiations can get under way while cold warriors like Pompeo continue effectively to control Trump. There have been other casualties over the past two years of tightening American Russophobia. Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning come to mind. The naive Maria Butina is a pathetic victim of American judicial rigidity and deep state vindictiveness.

False anti-Russian Government narratives emanating from London and Washington may be laughed at in Moscow , but they are unquestioningly accepted in Canberra. We are the most gullible of audiences. There is no critical review. Important contrary factual information and analysis from and about Russia just does not reach Australian news reporting and commentary, nor – I fear – Australian intelligence assessment. We are prisoners of the false narratives fed to us by our senior Five Eyes partners U.S. and UK.

To conclude: Some people may find what I am saying today difficult to accept. I understand this. I now work off open-source information about Russia with which many people here are unfamiliar, because they prefer not to read the diverse online information sources that I choose to read. The seesaw has tilted for me: I have clearly moved a long way from mainstream Western perceptions on Russia-West relations.

Under Trump and Pompeo, as the Syria and Iran crises show, the present risk of global nuclear war by accident or incompetent Western decision-making is as high as it ever was in the Cold War. The West needs to learn again how to dialogue usefully and in mutually respectful ways with Russia and China. This expert knowledge is dying with our older and wiser former public servants and ex-military chiefs.

These remarks were delivered by Tony Kevin at the Independent Scholars Association of Australia in Canberra, Australia on Wednesday.

Watch Tony Kevin interviewed Friday night on CN Live!

Tony Kevin is a retired Australian diplomat who was posted to Moscow from 1969 to 1971, and was later Australia's ambassador to Poland and Cambodia. His latest book is Return to Moscow, published by UWA Publishing.


Bruce , September 17, 2019 at 08:58

Excellent article. It's very interesting to see how the state and its media lackey set the narrative.

Most of this comment relates to the Skripals but also applies to other matters (the Skripals writing was some of Craig Murray's finest work in my opinion). One of the hallmarks of a hoax is a constantly evolving storyline. I think governments have learned from past "mistakes" with their hoaxes/deception where they've given a description of events and then scientists/engineers/chemists etc have come in and criticised their version of events with details and scientific arguments. Nowadays, governments are very reluctant to commit to a version of events, and instead rely on the media (their propaganda assets) to provide a scattergun set of information to muddy the waters and thoroughly confuse the population. The government is then insulated from some of the more bizarre allegations (the headlines of which are absorbed nonetheless), and can blame it on the media (who would use an anonymous government source naturally). Together with classifying just about everything on national security grounds, they can stonewall for as long as they want.

The British are masters of propaganda. They maintained a global empire for a very long time, and the prevailing view (in the west at least) was probably one of tea-drinking cricket playing colonials/gentlemen. But you don't maintain an empire without being absolutely ruthless and brutal. They've been doing this for a very long time.

When we hear something from the BBC or ABC, we should think "State Media".
That's probably why its got a nice folksy nickname of "aunty" .build up the trust.

Leslie Louis , September 17, 2019 at 04:00

Society is suffering the extreme paradox; there is the potential for everyone to have a voice, but the last vestiges of free speech have been whittled away. Fake news is universal, assisted by the fake "left". It is impossible to get published any challenge to even the most outlandish versions of identity politics. As the experience of Tony Kevin exemplifies, all avenues for dissent against hegemonic orthodoxies are closed off.
Disinformation is now an essential weapon in waging hot and cold wars. Cold War historians are well informed on false flags, "black ops", and other organised dirty tactics. I do not know what happened to the Skripals, and while it is legitimate to bear in mind KGB assassinations, despite the enormous resources at its disposal, the English security state has been unable to construct a credible case. Surely scepticism is provoked by the leading role being played by the notorious Bellingcat outfit.

Zenobia van Dongen , September 17, 2019 at 00:29

Here is part of an eyewitness account:
"After the Orange Revolution which began in Kiev, the country was divided literally into two parts -- the supporters of integration with Russia and the supporters of an independent Ukraine. For almost 100 years belonging to the Soviet Union, the propaganda about the assistance and care from our "big brother" Russia, in Ukraine as a whole and the Donbass in particular has borne fruit. At the end of February 2014, some cities of the Southeast part were boiling with mass social and political protest against the new Ukrainian government in defense of the status of the Russian language, voicing separatist and pro-Russian slogans. The division took place in our city of Sloviansk too. Some people stood for separation from Ukraine, while Ukrainian patriots stood for the unity of our country.
On April 12, 2014 our city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region was seized by Russian mercenaries and local volunteers. From that moment onward, armed assaults on state institutions began. The city police department, the Sloviansk City Hall, the building of the Ukraine Security Service was occupied. Armed militants seized state institutions and confiscated private property. They threatened and beat people, and those who refused to obey were taken away to an unknown destination and people started disappearing. The persecution and abduction of patriotic citizens began."

Michael McNulty , September 16, 2019 at 11:36

Watching Vietnam news coverage as a kid in the '60s I noticed the planes carpet-bombing South East Asia were American, not Russian. And as I only watched the footage and never listened to the commentary (I was waiting for the kids programs that followed) the BS they came out with to explain it all never reached me. I saw with my own eyes what the US really was and is, and always believed growing up they were the belligerent side not Russia. Once the USSR fell it was clear there were no longer any constraints on US excesses.

dean 1000 , September 15, 2019 at 18:17

Doublethink, not to mention doublespeak, is so apt to describe what is happening. If Orwell was writing today it would have to be classified as non-fiction.

Free speech is impossible unless every election district has a radio/TV station where candidates, constituents, and others can debate, discuss and speak to the issues without bending a knee to large campaign contributors or the controllers of corporate or government media. It may start with low-power pirate radio/TV broadcasts. No, the pirate speakers will not have to climb a cell tower to broadcast an opinion to the neighborhood or precinct.
If genuine free speech is going to exist it will start as something unauthorized and unlawful. If it sticks to the facts it will quickly prove its value.

Download a free pdf copy of '1984.' https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/1984.pdf

Njegos , September 15, 2019 at 03:39

Excellent article. The only exhibit missing was reference to Bill Browder's lies. Browder's rubbish has been exposed by intrepid journalists and documentary makers such as Andrei Nekrasov, Sasha Krainer and Lucy Komisar but to read or listen to our media, you'd think BB was some sort of human rights hero. That's because BB's fairy tale fits nicely into the MSM's hatred of Putin and Russia. Debunk Browder and a major pillar of anti-Russia prejudice collapses. Therefore, Browder will never face any serious questions by the MSM.

John A , September 16, 2019 at 09:18

judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgement a fortnight ago which utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments and media in the case of the late Mr Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the judgement in the mainstream media at all.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/the-magnitskiy-myth-exploded/

MSM propaganda by omission. Anything that doesn't fit the government narrative gets zero publicity.

Jim Ingram , September 14, 2019 at 21:12

Well said and needing to be said Tony.

Mr. Dan , September 14, 2019 at 19:41

I have stopped following australian mainstream media including the darlings of the 'left' ABC/SBS over a decade ago, completely. My disgust with their 'coverage' of the 2008 GFC was more than enough. Since 2008-9 things have deteriorated drastically into conspiracy theory propaganda by omission la-la land *it seems*, given I don't tune in at all.

The author has a well supported view. I find it a little naive in him thinking that the MSM has that much power over shaping public opinion in australia.

People who want to be informed do so. The half intelligent conformists on hamster wheel of lifetime mortgage debt have 'careers' to hold onto, so parroting the group think or living in ignorance is much easier. The massive portion of australian racists, inbred bogans and idiots that make up the large LNP, One Nation etc. voting block are completely beyond salvation or ability to process, and critically evaluate any information. The smarter ones drool on about the 'UN Agenda 21' conspiracy at best. Utterly hopeless.

I don't expect things to change as the australian economy is slowly hollowed out by the rich, and the education system (that has always been about conforming, wearing school uniform and regurgitating what the teacher/lecturer says at best) is gutted completely. Welcome to australistan.

Fran Macadam , September 14, 2019 at 19:21

Note that the prohibition against false propaganda to indoctrinate the domestic population by the American government was lifted by President Obama at the tail end of his administration. The Executive Order legalizes all the deceptive behavior Tony itemizes in his article.

Josep , September 17, 2019 at 04:10

I thought it was Reagan who did that by abolishing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. At least in terms of television and radio (?) broadcasts.

Stephen Morrell , September 14, 2019 at 19:02

Thank you Tony for your thoughtful talk (and interview on CN Live! too).

What's encouraging is this cohort of what might be called 'millennial journalists' coming through willing to do 'shoe-leather' journalism and stand up to smears and flack for revealing uncomfortable facts and truth. They're the online 5th estate holding the 4th to account (to steal Ray McGovern's apt view), and they're congealing against the onslaught.

Some include Max Blumenthal and Rania Kahlek (both now being pilloried by MSM and others for visiting Syrian government held areas and reporting that life isn't hellish as MSM would have everyone believe heaven forbid); Vanessa Bealey who's exposed a lot of White Helmet horrors and false-flag attacks in Syria (and being attacked by all and sundry for exposing the White Helmets in particular); Abby Martin whose Empire Files are excellent and always edifying; Dan Cohen who has written the best expose of the actors behind the Hong Kong rioting and co-authored the best expose of the background of Guaido et al.; Whitney Webb of Mint Press whose series on Epstein is overwhelming and likely a ticking timebomb; Caitlin Johnstone of course; and Aaron 'Buzzsaw' Mate who made his first mark with a wonderful takedown interview of Russiaphobe MI6 shill Luke Harding. Others too of course, with most appearing or having written pieces on CN. John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast, et al. won't drop off their twigs disappointed.

This, along with the fact that MSM -- that cowed and compromised fourth estate -- increasingly is held in such laughable contempt by most people under about 50 yr, is highly encouraging indeed. Truth is the new black.

nwwoods , September 15, 2019 at 11:49

The Blogmire is an excellent resource for detailed analysis of the Skripal hoax. The author happens to be a long-time resident of Salisbury, and is intimately familiar with the topography, public services, etc., and a very thorough investigator.

John Wright , September 14, 2019 at 18:35

I'm not surprised that Mr. Kevin is being isolated and shunned by the Australian establishment. Truth and truth tellers are always the first casualties of war. I do hope that his experience will encourage him to increase his resistance to the corrosiveness of mendacious propaganda and those who promulgate it.

Truth is the single best weapon when fighting for a peaceful future.

If Australia is to flourish in the 21st century, it really needs to understand Russia and China, how they relate to each other, and how this key alliance will interface with the rest of the world. Australia and Australians simply cannot afford to get sucked down further by facilitating the machinations of the collapsing Anglo-American Empire. They have served the empire ably and faithfully, but now need to take a cold hard look at reality and realign their long-term interests with the coming global power shift. If not, they could literally find themselves in the middle of an unwinnable and devastating war.

* * *

The first Anglo-American Russian cold war began with the Russian revolution and was only briefly suspended when the West needed the Soviet people to throw themselves in front of the Nazi blitzkrieg in order to save Western Europe. Following their catastrophically costly contribution to the victory on the Continent, the Russians were greeted with an American nuclear salute on their eastern periphery, signalling their return to the diplomatic and economic deep freeze.

While the Anglo-American Empire solidified and extended its hold on the globe, the enlarged but war-ravaged and isolated Soviet Union hunkered down and survived on scraps and sheer will until its collapse in 1989. Declaring the cold war over, and with promises to help their new Russian friends build a prosperous future, the duplicitous West then ransacked their neighbors resources and sold them into debt peonage. The Russians cried foul, the West shrugged and Putin pushed back. Unable to declaw the bear, the west closed the cage door again and the second cold war commenced.

* * *

The first cold war was essentially an offensive war disguised as a defensive war. It enabled the Anglo-American Empire to leverage its post-war advantage and establish near total dominance around the globe through naked violence and monetary hegemony.

Today, with its dominance rapidly slipping away, the Anglo-American Empire is waging a truly defensive cold war. On the home front, they fight to convince their subjects of their eternal exceptionalism with ever more absurd and vile propaganda denigrating their adversaries . Abroad, they disrupt and defraud in a desperate attempt to delay the demise of the PetroDollar ponzi.

The Russians and the Chinese, having both been brutally burned by the Western elites, will not be fooled into abandoning their natural geographic partnership. They are no longer content to sit quietly at the kids' table taking notes. While they may not demand to sit at the head of the table, it is clear that they will insist on a round table, and one that is large enough to include their growing list of friends.

If the Americans don't smash the table, it could be the first of many peaceful pot lucks.

John Read , September 15, 2019 at 02:11

Well said. Great comments. Thanks to Tony Kevin.

Mia , September 14, 2019 at 18:33

Thank you Tony for continuing to shine light on the pathetic propaganda information bubble Australians have been immersed in .. you demonstrate great courage and you are not alone ??

Peter Loeb , September 14, 2019 at 12:58

WITH THANKS TO TONY KEVIN

An excellent article.

There is a lack of comments from some of the common writers upon whose views I often rely.

Personally, I often avoid the very individual responses from websites as I have no way
of checking out previous ideas of theirs. Who funds them? With which organizations are they
affiliated? And so forth and so on.

Peter Loeb, Boston, Massachusetts

Peter Sapo , September 14, 2019 at 10:24

As a fellow Australian, everything Tony Kevin said makes perfect sense. Our mainstream media landscape is designed to distribute propaganda to folk accross the political spectrum. Have you noticed that the ABC regurgitates stories from the BBC? The BBC has a long history (at least since WW2) of supporting government propaganda initiatives. Based on this fact, it is hard to see how ABC and SBS don't do the same when called upon by their minders.

Francis Lee , September 14, 2019 at 09:48

I just wonder where the Anglo-Zionist empire thinks it is going. It should be obvious that any NATO war against Russia involving a nuclear exchange is unwinnable. It seems equally likely the even a conventional war will not necessarily bring the result expected by the assorted 'experts' – nincompoops living in their own fantasy world. The idea that the US can fight a war without the US homeland becoming very much involved basically ended when Putin announced the creation of Russia's set of advanced hypersonic missile system. But this was apparently ignored by the 'defence' establishment. It was not true, it could not possibly be true, or so we were told.

Moreover the cost of such wars involving hundreds of thousands of troops and military hardware are massively expensive and would occasion a massive resistance from the populations affected. It was the wests wars in Korea, and Indo-China that bankrupted the US and led to the US$ being removed from the gold standard. The American military is rapidly consuming the American economy, or at least what is left of it. From a realist foreign policy perspective this is simply madness. Great powers end wars, they don't start them. Great powers are creditor nations, not debtor nations. Such is the realist foreign policy view. But foreign policy realists are few and far between in the Washington Beltway and MIC/NSA Pentagon and US/UK/AUSTRALIAN MSM.

Thus the neo-hubris of the English speaking world is such that if it is followed to its logical conclusion then total annihilation would be the logical outcome. A sad example of not very bright people who face no domestic opposition, believing in their own bullshit:

"American elites proved themselves to be master manipulators of propaganda constructs But the real danger from such manipulations arises not when those manipulations are done out of knowledge of reality, which is distorted for propaganda purposes, but when those who manipulation begin to sincerely believe in their own falsifications and when they buy into their own narrative. They stop being manipulators and they become believers in a narrative. They become manipulated themselves." (Losing Military Supremacy – Andrei, Martyanov)

Or maybe just the whole thing is a bluff. Those policy elites maybe just want to loot the US Treasury for more cash to be put their way.

John Wright , September 15, 2019 at 19:15

The self-serving Israeli Zionists know that the American cow is running dry and their days of freely milking it are coming to an end. They have an historic relationship with Russia and, leveraging their nuclear arsenal, know they can make a deal with the emerging China-Russia-centric global paradigm to extort enough protection to maintain their armed enclave for the foreseeable future. Their no so hidden alliance with the equally sociopathic Saudis will become even more obvious for all to see.

Israel, like China and Russia, knows how to play a long game. Thus, Israel will consolidate its land grab with the just announced expansion into the Jordan Valley and quietly continue as much ethnic cleansing as possible while the rest of the world is preoccupied with the incipient global power shift (True victims of history, the Palestinians have no real friends). While they will bemoan the loss of their muscular American stooge, Israel enjoyed a very lucrative 70 year run and will part with a pile of useful and deadly toys. They're also fully aware that no one else will ever let them take advantage to the degree they've been able to with the U.S.A. (Unlimited Stupidity of Arrogance?)

Eventually, the social schizophrenia that is the state of Israel will catch up with them and they will implode. Let's hope that breakdown doesn't involve the use of their nuclear arsenal.

Yes, the U.S. Treasury will continue to be looted until the last teller turns the lights out or the electricity is shut off, whichever comes first.

The Western transnational financial elites will accept their losses, regroup and make deals with the new bosses where they can; but their days of running the game unopposed are over.

Today is a good day to learn Mandarin (or Russian, if you prefer to live in Europe).

Bill , September 16, 2019 at 03:36

Very well said and I agree with a lot of what you say.

Tiu , September 14, 2019 at 06:01

Won't be too long before writing articles like this will get you busted for "hate-speech" (e.g. anything that is contrary to the official version prescribed by the "democratically elected" government)
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-tony-blair-think-tank-proposes-end-free-speech
Personally I always encourage people to read George Orwell, especially 1984. We're there, and have been for a long time.

geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 01:15

Tony Kevin – Nice rundown of what ails society. You have a fine writing style that gets the point across to the reader. Kudos and cheers.

Michael , September 13, 2019 at 22:34

The 'modernization' of the Smith Mundt Act in 2013 "to authorize the domestic dissemination of information and material [PROPAGANDA] about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences" was a major nail in the Democracy coffin, consolidating the blatant ruling of the US Police State by our 17 Intelligence Agencies (our betters). The Telecommunications Act of 1996 lead to ownership of (>80%) of our media (the MSM by a handful of owners, all disseminating the same narratives from above (CIA, State Department, FBI etc) and squelching any dissenting views, particularly related to foreign policies.
Tony's article sadly just confirms the depth and breadth of our Global Stasi, with improved, innovative and (mostly) subtle surveillance, and the controlling constant interference with alternate viewpoints and discussions, the real basis for free societies. It is bad enough to be ruled by neoliberal psychopathic hyenas and jackals, soon we won't be able to even bitch about what they are doing.

Tom Kath , September 13, 2019 at 21:42

The most impressive article I have read in a very long time. I congratulate and thank Tony.
I have myself recently addressed the issue of whether it is a virtue to have an "open mind". – The ability to be converted or have your mind changed, or is it the ability to change your own mind ?
Tony Kevin clearly illustrates the difference.

Litchfield , September 13, 2019 at 16:11

Great article.
Please keep writing.
Do start a website, a la Craig Murray.
There are people who are proactively looking for alternative viewpoints and informed analysis.
How about starting a website and publishing some excerpts of your book there?

Or, sell chapters separately by download from your website?
You could also have a discussion blog/forum there.

John Zimmermann , September 13, 2019 at 16:02

Excellent essay. Thanks Mr. Kevin.

rosemerry , September 13, 2019 at 15:37

At least Tony Kevin was an Australian ambassador, not like Mike Morrell and the chosen russop?obes the USA assumes are needed as diplomats!! Now he is treated as Stephen Cohen is- a true expert called "controversial" as he dares to go by real facts and evidence, not prejudice.

If instead of enemies, the West could consider getting to understand those they are wary of, and give them a chance to explain their point of view and actually listen and reflect on it.
(Dmitri Peskov valiantly explained the Russian official response as soon as the "Skripal poisoning" story broke, but it was fully ignored by UK/US media, while all of Theresa May's fanciful imaginings were respectfully relayed to the public).

geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 23:26

As you usually are with your comments, you are spot on again, rosemerry.

Martin - Swedish citizen , September 13, 2019 at 14:46

Excellent article!
I find the mechanics of how the propaganda is spread and the illusion upheld the most important part of this article, since this knowledge is required to counter it.
When (not if) the fraud becomes more common knowledge, our societies are likely to tumble.

Pablo Diablo , September 13, 2019 at 14:45

Whoever controls the media, controls the dialogue.
Whoever controls the dialogue, controls the agenda.

peter mcloughlin , September 13, 2019 at 13:40

' The present risk of global nuclear war is as high as it ever was in the Cold War.' And possibly higher. The Cold War, though dangerous, was the peace. The world has experienced periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. The Congress System finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent a third world war. The powers that are leading us towards conflagration see this as a re-run of the first Cold War. They are dangerously mistaken.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Guy , September 13, 2019 at 13:21

With so many believing the lies ,how will this mess ever come to light . I don't reside in Australia but anywhere in the Western world the shakedown is the same .In my own house ,the discussion on world politics descends into absolute stupidity . As one can't get past the constant programming that has settled in the minds of the comfortable with the status quo of lies by our media. There are intelligent sources of news sources but none get past the absolutely complete control of MSM.So the bottom line is ,for now ,the lies and liars are winning the propaganda war.

Anton Antonovich , September 13, 2019 at 13:16

He speaks the truth. Liars and dissemblers have won over the minds and hearts of so many lazy shameful citizens who will not accept the truth Tony Kevin wants to share with the world.

junaid , September 13, 2019 at 13:08

Washington resumes military assistance to Kyiv. According to American lawmakers, Ukraine is fighting one of the main enemies. "Contain Russia": what the US pays for Ukraine

"Contain Russia": what the US pays for Ukraine

Lily , September 13, 2019 at 23:42

The Pentagon is using the Ukrainian territory for experiments on chemical weapons.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3T9ktfz_FfA

John A , September 14, 2019 at 06:55

Anyone or article who spells Kiev as Kyiv can be safely ignored as western anti-Russia propaganda. It's a true tell.

Robert Edwards , September 13, 2019 at 12:53

The Cold war is totally manufacture to keep the dollars flowing into the MIC – what a sham . and a disgrace to humanity.

Cavaleiro Marginal , September 13, 2019 at 12:52

"The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining."

This had occurred in Brazil since the very first day of Lula's presidency. Eleven years late, 2013, a color revolution began. Nobody (and I mean REALLY nobody) could realize a color revolution was happening at that time. In 2016, Dilma Rousseff was kicked from power throughout a ridiculous and illegal coup perpetrated by the parliament. In 2018 Lula was imprisoned in an Orwellian process; illegal, unconstitutional, with nothing (REALLY nothing) proved against him. Then a liar clown was elected to suppress democracy

I knew on the news that in Canada and Australia the police politely (how civilized ) went to some journalist's homes to have a chat this year. Canadians and Aussies, be aware. The fascism's dog is a policial state very well informed by the propaganda they call news.

Robert Fearn , September 13, 2019 at 12:48

As a Canadian author who wrote a book about various tragic American government actions, like Vietnam, I can relate to the difficulties Tony has had with his book. I would mail my book, Amoral America, from Canada to other countries, like the US, and it would never arrive. Book stores would not handle it, etc. etc.

Josep , September 17, 2019 at 05:21

Not to disagree, but some years ago I read about anecdotes of anti-Americanism in Canada, coming from both USians and Canadians, whether it be playful banter or legitimate criticism. I believe it is more concentrated among the people than among the governmental elites (with the exception of the Iraq War era when both the people and the government were against it). And considering what you describe in your book and the difficulty you've faced in distributing it abroad, maybe the said people are on to something.

Stephen , September 13, 2019 at 11:44

This interview by Abby Martin with Mark Ames is a little dated but is a fairly accurate history. I post it to try and counter the nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7HwvFyMg7A

All the empire wants is to do it all again.

Jeremy Kuzmarov , September 13, 2019 at 10:33

Outstanding article and analysis. Thank you Sir! Jeremy Kuzmarov

Jeff Harrison , September 13, 2019 at 10:17

Thank you, sir. A far better peroration than I could have produced but what I have concluded nonetheless.

Skip Scott , September 13, 2019 at 10:10

Fantastic article. Left unmentioned is the origin of the west's anti-Russia narrative. Russia was being pillaged by the west under Yeltsin, and Russia was to become our newest vassal. Life expectancy dropped a full decade for the average Russian under Yeltsin. The average standard of living dropped dramatically as well. Putin reversed all that, and enjoys massive popular support as a result. The Empire will never tolerate a national leader who works for the benefit of the average citizen. It must be full-on rape, pillage and plunder- OR ELSE. Keep that in mind as we watch the latest theatrical performances by our DNC controlled "Commander in Chief" wannabes.

Realist , September 17, 2019 at 05:48

?The ongoing success of the "Great Lie" (that Washington is protecting the entire world from
anarchy perpetrated by a few bad actors on the global stage) and all of its false narrative subtexts
(including but far from limited to the Maidan, Crimea, Donbass, MH-17, the Skripals, gassing
"one's own people," piracy on the high Mediterranean, etc) just underscores how successful was
the false flag operation known as 9-11, even as the truth of that travesty is slowly being
unraveled by relentless truth-seekers applying logic and the scientific method to the problem.
Most Americans today would gladly concur, if queried, that Osama bin Laden was most certainly
a perfidious tool of Russia and its diabolical leader, Mr. Putin (be sure to call him "Vlad," to
conjure up images of Dracula for effect). The Winston Smith's are rare birds in America or in
any of its reliable vassal states. Never mind that the spooks from Langley (and the late
"chessmaster") concocted and orchestrated all these tales from the crypt.

Lily , September 13, 2019 at 07:54

Great summary of the developement of a new cold war. The narrative of the Mainstream Media is dangerous as well as laughable. I am glad to hear the Russian reaction to this bullshit propaganda. As often the people are so much wiser than their government – at least in the West.

During the Football WM a famous broadcaster of the German State TV channel ARD, who is a giftet propagandist, regrettet publicly the difficulty to convince the stubborn Germans to look at Russia as an enemy because they have started to look at Russia as a friend long ago.

Contrary to the people and the big firms who are completely against the sanctions against Russia and 100 % pro Northstream the German government with Chancelor Merkel is one of the top US vassalles. Even the Green Party which started as an environmental and peace party are now against North Stream and in favour of the filthy US fracking gas thanks to NATO propaganda although Russia has never let them down. Most of "Die Grünen" party have been turned into fervent friends of our American occupants which is very sad.

Thank you Tony Kevin. It has been great to read your article. I cant wait to read your book 'Return to Moscow' and to watch your interview on CN Live.

Godfree Roberts , September 13, 2019 at 07:37

Good summary of the status quo. From my experience of writing similarly about China, precisely the same policies and forces are at work.

The good news is that they are failing.

junaid , September 13, 2019 at 07:15

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the end of the war in Syria and the country's return to a state of peace. "Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced the end of the war

"Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced the end of the war

Gezzah Potts , September 13, 2019 at 05:47

You hit several nails squarely on the head with your excellent article Tony. Thank you for the truth of how the media is in Australia. It is indeed chilling where all this is leading. The blatant lies just spewed out as fact by both ABC and SBS. They, in my opinion are nothing but stenographers for the Empire, of which Australia is a fully subservient vassal state, with no independence.
I try to boycott all Australian presstitutes . Oops, I mean 'media' now. Occasionally, I do slip up and watch SBS or The Drum or News on ABC.
Virtually all my news comes from independent news sites like this one.
I have been accused of being a 'Putin lover', a Russian troll, a conspiracy theorist, while people I know have claimed that "Putin is a monster whose murdered millions of people".
On and on this crap goes. And the end result? Ask Stephen Cohen. Things are very surreal now. Sadly, you've been made an Unperson Tony.

Robyn , September 13, 2019 at 04:08

Bravo, Tony, great article. I enjoyed your book and recommend it to CN readers who haven't yet read it.

The world looks entirely different when one stops reading/watching the MSM and turns to CN, Caitlin Johnstone and many others who are doing a sterling job.

Cascadian , September 13, 2019 at 03:52

I don't know which is worse, to not know what you are (reliably uninformed) and be happy, or to become what you've always wanted to be (reliably informed) and feel alone.

Realist , September 14, 2019 at 00:19

Knowing the truth has always seemed paramount to me, even if it means realising that the entire world and all in it are damned, and deliberately by our own actions. Hope is always the last part of our essence to die, or so they say: maybe we will somehow be redeemed through our own self-immolation as a species.

Deb , September 13, 2019 at 02:54

As an Australian I have no difficulty accepting what Tony Kevin has said here. He should do what Craig Murray has done start a website.

[Sep 17, 2019] Stingray devices near White House with no consequences to Israel might be a sign of "domesticated intelligence" Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found?

Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

Justvisiting , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT

@Anonymous At some point when an foreign intelligence service has a critical mass of politicians blackmailed it becomes "domestic intelligence" or "domesticated intelligence". :-)
JoaoAlfaiate , says: September 17, 2019 at 11:09 am GMT
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non stop.
sally , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA

[Sep 17, 2019] The Dissolution of the USSR and the Unipolar Moment of US Imperialism by Bill Van Auken

Notable quotes:
"... The last three decades have seen the United States engaged in continuous and ever-expanding warfare under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The drive to conquer and subjugate the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia is a consensus policy of the American ruling class. The results have included over a million dead in Iraq and hundreds of thousands more across Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen. ..."
"... Meanwhile the Pentagon released a seemingly lunatic "joint doctrine" that goes well beyond Dr. Strangelove. It states: "nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the use of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and develop situations that call for commanders to win." ..."
"... There is a worried sense within ruling circles that three decades of war have only created a series of debacles, and that US imperialism is confronting what is termed, in military and foreign policy circles, as "strategic competition" from Russia and China. At the same time, ever-sharper conflicts are emerging between Washington and its erstwhile NATO partners, in particular Germany, against which the US fought in two world wars. ..."
"... Zakaria pays special tribute to the individual who popularized the concept of the "unipolar moment," the extreme right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote an article with that title, also in Foreign Affairs , in 1991. He promoted an unvarnished perspective of the unilateral use of US military aggression to assert the dominance of American capitalism around the globe. ..."
"... He further insisted that if US imperialism proved unable to maintain its unipolar moment it would be "not for foreign but for domestic reasons. ... stagnant productivity, declining work habits, rising demand for welfare state entitlements and new taste for ecological luxuries." He charged that while "defense spending declined, domestic entitlements nearly doubled." And, above all, he blamed "America's insatiable desire for yet higher standards of living without paying any of the cost." [3] ..."
"... For America's ruling elite, long at each other's throats, the path should be clearer now to reforming a working consensus about the US's world role. Some of the policy-making world's most divisive issues now look settled. Force is a legitimate tool of policy; it works. For the elites themselves, the message is America can lead, stop whining, think more boldly. Starting now. [5] ..."
"... We understood this editorial, by the mouthpiece of US finance capital, as an accurate reflection of the pathological triumphalism prevailing within the American bourgeoisie. ..."
"... A third of the population is functionally illiterate. Not even the mass media can avoid reporting on a daily basis some of the more spectacular 'horror stories' of lives destroyed by the impact of the social crisis: homeless people freezing in cardboard boxes, cancer victims being denied treatment because they have no medical insurance and unemployed workers and their families committing suicide ..."
"... This position dovetailed neatly with that of German imperialism, which was backing Croatian and Slovenian independence as part of a post-reunification reassertion of its power in Europe. German imperialism was returning to the scenes of its crimes in 1914 and 1941, unilaterally defying the United States, the United Nations and the European Commission. ..."
"... This was patently the case in Yugoslavia, where the first impulse to break up the existing federation came from Slovenia and Croatia, the wealthiest regions of the country, where local ruling elites calculated that they could fare better by breaking with the poorer republics and establishing their own independent ties to European governments, banks and corporations. ..."
"... In conclusion: the so-called "Unipolar Moment" of 1990 and 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the launching of the Gulf War, marked the collapse of the post-World War II equilibrium, established on the basis of the hegemony of American capitalism and the collaboration of the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy. It signaled the beginning of a new period of uninterrupted war, the growth of inter-imperialist rivalries ..."
Sep 13, 2019 | www.wsws.org

This lecture was delivered by Bill Van Auken, senior writer for the World Socialist Web Site , at the Socialist Equality Party (US) Summer School on July 25, 2019.

It is now nearly three decades since the deliberate liquidation of the Soviet Union by the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy and the launching of the First Persian Gulf War, which began in January 1991. This war, which involved the deployment of over half a million US troops -- more than twice the number sent into the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- clearly marked a turning point in the development of US and world imperialism.

It likewise marked a turning point for the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Objective developments, in particular the disintegration of Stalinism, intersected with the protracted struggle of the ICFI against Pabloite revisionism, culminating in the 1985 split and the consolidation of control by the orthodox Trotskyists, for the first time since the founding of the International Committee in 1953. This signaled a fundamental change in the relationship between the Fourth International and the working class.

Grasping that change, the ICFI sought to shoulder the immense political responsibility of leading the international working class, which found concrete expression in the convening of the extraordinarily important "World Conference of Workers against War and Colonialism" held in Berlin in November 1991, to which we will return.

The sharp turn by US imperialism toward unilateralism and militarism, consummated in the Gulf War of 1991, was bound up with the protracted crisis of American capitalism and the relative decline of its domination of the global economy. With the demise of the USSR, US imperialism concluded that it could now offset the challenge that American corporations faced from rivals in Europe and Japan, which had been growing since the 1970s, through the relatively untrammeled use of the US armed forces.

Demolished vehicles line Highway 80, also known as the "Highway of Death", the route fleeing Iraqi forces took as they retreated fom Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. [Credit: U.S. Air Force]

In the case of the Persian Gulf, the US military could be used to secure unchallenged American supremacy in the world's most important oil-producing region, which would put Washington in a position to blackmail its oil-import-dependent European and Asian imperialist rivals with the threat of cutting off their energy supplies. As President George H.W. Bush would declare, in the run-up to the Gulf war, an attack on Iraq would give the US "persuasiveness that will lead to more harmonious trading relationships."

This was not a development that took us by surprise. In its 1988 Perspectives Resolution, the ICFI warned:

Despite the loss of its economic hegemony, the United States remains, militarily, the most powerful imperialist country, and reserves to itself the role of global policeman. But the conditions which prevailed in 1945 at the beginning of the so-called American Century have been drastically transformed. The loss of the economic preponderance which once made its word "law" among the major capitalist nations compels the United States to place ever-greater reliance on the brute force of its military strength. [1]

The resolution went on to declare that a prophecy made by Trotsky was about to be vindicated, quoting his War and the Fourth International from 1934. "The world is divided? It must be re-divided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must organize the world. History is bringing humanity face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism." This was confirmed in barely two years.

There is an obvious continuity between these events of nearly 30 years ago and the present global political situation. The struggle to assert US hegemony over the Persian Gulf threatens to ignite a new and even more terrible war against Iran, a country with three times the population and four times the landmass of Iraq. The outbreak of a military confrontation is only a matter of time.

The last three decades have seen the United States engaged in continuous and ever-expanding warfare under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The drive to conquer and subjugate the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia is a consensus policy of the American ruling class. The results have included over a million dead in Iraq and hundreds of thousands more across Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

More and more these various conflicts threaten to metastasize into a Third World War. Preparations for a nuclear confrontation with Russia and China were chillingly described recently by the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the military's No. 1 priority. Meanwhile the Pentagon released a seemingly lunatic "joint doctrine" that goes well beyond Dr. Strangelove. It states: "nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the use of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and develop situations that call for commanders to win."

There is a worried sense within ruling circles that three decades of war have only created a series of debacles, and that US imperialism is confronting what is termed, in military and foreign policy circles, as "strategic competition" from Russia and China. At the same time, ever-sharper conflicts are emerging between Washington and its erstwhile NATO partners, in particular Germany, against which the US fought in two world wars.

The contradiction between the interdependent character of the global economy and the capitalist nation-state system is leading inexorably to a new world war.

Under these conditions, there have been several recent commentaries by US foreign policy analysts bemoaning the end of the "unipolar moment" proclaimed nearly 30 years ago, and looking back upon it with a certain nostalgia.

Among them is a piece published in Foreign Affairs by CNN's multi-millionaire pseudo-intellectual charlatan Fareed Zakaria, titled "The Self-Destruction of American Power." He writes:

Ever since the end of World War I, the United States has wanted to transform the world. In the 1990s, that seemed more possible than ever before. Countries across the planet were moving toward the American way. The Gulf War seemed to mark a new milestone for world order, in that it was prosecuted to uphold a norm legitimized by international law. [2]

The American way, world order, norms and international law: this is how these layers fondly recall a mass slaughter.

Zakaria pays special tribute to the individual who popularized the concept of the "unipolar moment," the extreme right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote an article with that title, also in Foreign Affairs , in 1991. He promoted an unvarnished perspective of the unilateral use of US military aggression to assert the dominance of American capitalism around the globe.

Our best hope for safety in such times is in American strength and will to lead a unipolar world, unashamedly laying down the rules of world order and being prepared to enforce them," he wrote.

He went on to present the pretext for the next major US war: "There is no alternative to confronting, deterring and, if necessary, disarming states that brandish and use weapons of mass destruction. And there is no one to do that but the United States."

He further insisted that if US imperialism proved unable to maintain its unipolar moment it would be "not for foreign but for domestic reasons. ... stagnant productivity, declining work habits, rising demand for welfare state entitlements and new taste for ecological luxuries." He charged that while "defense spending declined, domestic entitlements nearly doubled." And, above all, he blamed "America's insatiable desire for yet higher standards of living without paying any of the cost." [3]

This, after a decade of unrelenting attacks on working class living standards in the wake of the breaking of the 1981 PATCO strike. The message was clear: imperialist war abroad had to be accompanied by an intensification of social counterrevolution and class war in the US itself.

Bush himself, in the run-up to the Gulf War, proclaimed that the unleashing of US military power, against a relatively defenseless oppressed country, would inaugurate a "New World Order."

The content of this "new world order" was never explained. The only thing that was clear was that the old world order had broken down and what was to replace it, in the first instance, was an eruption of US military violence.

The catastrophic breakdown of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union -- celebrated by facile bourgeois intellectuals as the "end of history" and the "triumph of capitalism" -- had removed a key prop of the old post-World War II order. Moreover, the very same forces of globalization of capitalist production and technological development that had fatally undermined the autarchic Stalinist economies were driving the entire world capitalist order into profound crisis.

... ... ...

It justified this threat on the basis of the "overwhelming dependence of Western nations on vital oil supplies from the Middle East." Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, introduced the "Reagan corollary," vowing that the US would defend these vital oil interests against internal threats to stability as well.

The US government deliberately manufactured the pretext for its military intervention in the Persian Gulf. Tensions between Iraq and Kuwait had been growing since the end of the Iran-Iraq war, in which Washington had provided significant aid to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Kuwait's lowering of oil prices and its demand for debt payments had further undermined an Iraqi economy that had been battered by the war, while Baghdad claimed that Kuwait was carrying out slant drilling into Iraq's Rumaila oil field, on the border between the two countries.

The US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, used a meeting on July 25, 1990 -- just weeks before Bush was to announce his "line in the sand" and launch the drive to war -- to assure Saddam Hussein of US friendship and sympathy, while telling him that Washington had "no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

The trap having been laid, Saddam Hussein, driven by desperation over the mounting economic and social crisis in Iraq, quickly walked into it.

Like every US imperialist war waged in the name of liberation and democracy, the Gulf War was based on deception and lies.

The attempt was made to equate Saddam Hussein, whom Washington had only recently courted as an ally, with Adolf Hitler. This demonization would become a standard feature of every succeeding US war. It had, in fact, been used in what amounted to a dress rehearsal for the Gulf War, less than two years earlier. In preparing the invasion of Panama, the US State Department compared the involvement in the drug trade of Manuel Noriega -- a longtime CIA asset -- with Hitler's invasion of Poland.

A massive propaganda campaign was waged to sway US public opinion toward support for the Gulf war. This infamously included the testimony given by a 15-year-old girl to Congress, in which she tearfully recounted seeing armed Iraqi troops invading a hospital to steal incubators, throwing babies onto the floor to die. Only later was it revealed that the story was a complete fabrication. The girl had not been in Kuwait before, during or after the Iraqi invasion. She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington and a member of the royal family, sent to read a script written by a major US PR firm.

Finally, Bush justified military intervention by claiming an imminent threat posed by Iraq's massing of 120,000 troops on Saudi Arabia's border. Satellite images subsequently revealed that there was nothing on the Kuwait-Saudi border but desert sand.

A critically important part of the report to the Special Congress of the Workers League in 1990 was the clarification of our attitude toward Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Initial responses within the International Committee had included its condemnation as an "act of aggression" by the British section, in an initial article published in its newspaper. On the other hand, there was a suggestion from within the Australian section, that we support the annexation of Kuwait as a "small step" in advancing "the unfulfilled national and democratic tasks of the Arab revolution."

The report made clear that we had no reason to condemn Iraqi aggression. Given the economic warfare waged by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia against Iraq in the run-up to the invasion, our concern was not who fired the first shot. Moreover, to take such a position would be to support the territorial integrity of Kuwait, a Sheikdom created by British imperialism, carved out of the southern Iraqi province of Basra, as a means of better dominating the Arabian Peninsula. The same is the case with virtually all the borders drawn by imperialist powers in the Middle East.

At the same time, in response to the suggestion from a member of the Australian section that we support Kuwait's annexation, it affirmed:

To attribute any progressive role to Hussein's invasion would lead the ICFI in a false direction and undermine the theoretical and political gains that have been made since 1985, in our collective struggle against the WRP's betrayal of the program of world socialist revolution.

Of course, this refers to the struggle waged against the Workers Revolutionary Party's abandonment of the Theory of Permanent Revolution, particularly in relation to its opportunist relations with various Arab regimes, systematically subordinating the independent struggle of the working class to the supposedly anti-imperialist stance of one or another bourgeois nationalist leader.

... ... ...

The US launched the Gulf War on January 16, 1991. Operation Desert Storm, as it was dubbed, consisted mainly of one of the most intensive air bombardments in military history. Eighty-eight thousand tons of munitions were dropped on Iraq in the course of just 42 days. This is roughly equivalent to one-fourth of the total bomb tonnage dropped on Germany during the entire Second World War. The Iraqi casualty totals were estimated at 135,000. Much of Iraq's conscript army was wiped out, with soldiers incinerated from the air or buried alive in their trenches. Hundreds of thousands more Iraqis, of course, died as a result of the systematic destruction of the country's infrastructure.

On the so-called Highway of Death, the US launched wave after wave of bombings against a defenseless, miles-long column of vehicles, carrying Iraqi troops as well as civilians withdrawing from Kuwait on the orders of the Hussein government, which announced that it was complying with a UN Resolution demanding the withdrawal.

As we stated in response to this war crime:

The US war against Iraq is among the most terrible crimes of the twentieth century, a slaughter that future generations will look back on with shame. It has demonstrated that the ruling class of so-called democratic America is just as capable of mass murder as the Nazis. [4]

The Wall Street Journal responded to the Gulf War with an editorial that stated:

For America's ruling elite, long at each other's throats, the path should be clearer now to reforming a working consensus about the US's world role. Some of the policy-making world's most divisive issues now look settled. Force is a legitimate tool of policy; it works. For the elites themselves, the message is America can lead, stop whining, think more boldly. Starting now. [5]

We understood this editorial, by the mouthpiece of US finance capital, as an accurate reflection of the pathological triumphalism prevailing within the American bourgeoisie.

The 11th Plenum of the International Committee was held on March 5, 1991, less than a week after the end of the Gulf War. Its opening report stated:

The American bourgeoisie is serving notice that American imperialism will seek through force to overcome problems arising from the protracted economic decline of the US. For all the problems of American capitalism -- the decay of its industrial base, the loss of its overseas markets, the massive trade deficits and budget deficits, the collapse of its banking system, the gangrenous growth of social ills -- the bourgeoisie believes it has found an answer: Force!

The report quotes the extremely relevant passage from Anti-Dühring , written 113 years earlier, in which Engels delivered a Marxist response to Dühring's claim that force was the decisive element in history:

...its own productive forces have grown beyond its control and, as if necessitated by a law of nature, are driving the whole of bourgeois society towards ruin, or revolution. And if the bourgeoisie now make their appeal to force in order to save the collapsing "economic situation" from the final crash, this only shows that they are laboring under the same delusion as Herr Dühring: the delusion that "political conditions are the decisive cause of the economic situation"; this only shows that they imagine, just as Herr Dühring does, that by making use of "the primary," "the direct political force," they can remodel those "facts of the second order," the economic situation and its inevitable development; and that therefore the economic consequences of the steam-engine and the modern machinery driven by it, of world trade and the banking and credit developments of the present day, can be blown out of existence by them with Krupp guns and Mauser rifles. [6]

Substitute computerization for the steam engine and smart bombs and cruise missiles for Krupp guns and Mausers and this statement stands as a fitting refutation of the triumphalist rantings of the US ruling class in the wake of the Gulf War.

... ... ...

Moreover, in the context of the Gulf War, the call for revolutionary defeatism from the standpoint of fighting the US military to the last Iraqi was senseless and reactionary. The military balance of forces was such that -- outside of the revolutionary mobilization of the masses of the Middle East and the working class in the US and beyond -- the military victory of the US was virtually assured. More fundamentally, it betrayed a complete disdain for and hostility to the fight against war based upon the struggle of the working class. It was entirely bound up with the Pabloite perspective that one or another form of "armed struggle," waged by non-proletarian forces, was the substitute for the revolutionary mobilization of the working class internationally, and particularly in the advanced capitalist countries.

The most decisive response of the ICFI to the Gulf War, US imperialism's "unipolar moment" and the march toward the restoration of capitalism and dissolution of the USSR, was the calling of the Berlin Conference against imperialist war and colonialism.

... ... ...

The war ushered in a period of capitalist disequilibrium that would last for three decades, dominated by capitalist crisis and overshadowed by the successful October 1917 Revolution in Russia, calling into question the very survival of the capitalist order.

The absence, however, of revolutionary parties -- particularly in Europe -- on a par with the Bolsheviks in Russia, allowed the bourgeoisie to defeat a series of revolutionary struggles. But they were unable to create a new equilibrium to replace what was shattered by 1914.

The rise of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, led by Stalin, and the terrible degeneration of the Communist International as it was subordinated to the Stalinist theory of "socialism in one country" and Moscow's maneuvers with imperialism, led to a series of catastrophic defeats, above all in Germany. The coming to power of the Nazis in 1933, without a shot being fired, exposed the counterrevolutionary character of Stalinism, leading Trotsky to found the Fourth International.

The document establishes that the ability of the bourgeoisie to achieve a new equilibrium in the aftermath of World War II, which they could not do following World War I, was based not merely on the rise of US imperialism as a hegemonic power, but also the indispensable role of Stalinism. It opposed and sabotaged the revolutionary struggles of the working class in the aftermath of the war, particularly in Italy, France and Greece. In Eastern Europe, its establishment of so-called buffer states served not only to suppress the working class and any genuine struggle for socialism, but also to pacify a fractious region that had been a source of European instability since the dawn of the 20th century.

The equilibrium established at the end of World War II, however, as the document makes clear, was mined with its own contradictions. Its revival of world trade and rebuilding of capitalism in Europe and Japan led to the gradual decline of US hegemony, leading to mounting US deficits which, by 1985, had transformed America into a debtor nation.

Turning to the crisis in the United States, the manifesto sketches out a portrait that seems altogether contemporary:

Not a single significant piece of social legislation has passed through Congress in more than two decades [now we can say five decades ]. Massive budget cuts have destroyed what remains of the old social programs. The crime statistics are merely the most obvious symptoms of the malignant state of social relations. Amidst rapidly growing unemployment and, for those who still have jobs, declining wages, the state of education, housing and medical care is nothing less than catastrophic.

A third of the population is functionally illiterate. Not even the mass media can avoid reporting on a daily basis some of the more spectacular 'horror stories' of lives destroyed by the impact of the social crisis: homeless people freezing in cardboard boxes, cancer victims being denied treatment because they have no medical insurance and unemployed workers and their families committing suicide. [10]

... ... ...

The manifesto warned that these conflicts were being manipulated and exploited by the imperialist powers, while capitalism sought to divert popular indignation over social inequality into the blind alley of national and ethnic conflict.

The ability of reactionary petty-bourgeois demagogues to agitate for communal violence it said, "is to be attributed not to the intellectual and moral power of nationalism, but to the political vacuum left by the prostration of the traditional organizations of the working class, which offer no way out of the crisis of the capitalist system."

Between the calling of the conference on May 1, 1991 and its convening on November 16, events moved very rapidly, with Croatia and Slovenia both declaring their independence on June 25 of that year. Macedonia followed suit soon after, and the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina began its fragmentation into warring ethnic cantons. Armed clashes had broken out, particularly around the coastal city of Dubrovnik.

US Army combat engineer vehicle demolishes a Bosnian Serb bunker near Dubrave, January 1996

The promotion of virulent ethno-chauvinism and national separatism was led by former bureaucrats of Yugoslavia's ruling League of Communists. They sought, on the one hand, to divide and suppress the Yugoslav working class, which had carried out a wave of mass strikes against the austerity measures imposed by the IMF as part of capitalist restoration. On the other, they were driven to carve out ethnic states in order to forge their own independent relations with imperialism as a new ruling class of comprador capitalists.

In his report to the conference, comrade North pointed to the attitude adopted by the Pabloite leader Ernest Mandel, who advocated unconditional support for the self-determination of Croatia, regardless of the character of the regime. Mandel moreover issued a call for direct imperialist intervention, denouncing Serbian chauvinism, while turning a blind eye to Croatian chauvinism.

This position dovetailed neatly with that of German imperialism, which was backing Croatian and Slovenian independence as part of a post-reunification reassertion of its power in Europe. German imperialism was returning to the scenes of its crimes in 1914 and 1941, unilaterally defying the United States, the United Nations and the European Commission.

The Berlin conference adopted a resolution titled "On the Defense of the Working Class in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union" which stated the following:

Everywhere rival capitalist cliques are stirring up nationalism and chauvinism, in order to incite the workers against each other and to preempt an uprising against the old and new oppressors. The bloodbath in Yugoslavia is a result of these policies. This war has nothing to do with the right of nations to self-determination. Serbian and Croatian nationalists are merely fighting to secure for themselves a larger portion of the exploitation of the working class. [19]

The history of Yugoslavia, its rise and fall, could be the subject for an entire school, as could the national question and the slogan of "self-determination." Clearly that cannot be accomplished in this lecture.

... ... ...

Not only the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia, but more fundamentally, the development of capitalist globalization, gave rise to a new type of nationalist movement, seeking the dismemberment of existing states -- including those that emerged out of the previous national struggles against colonialism -- to further the interests of rival bourgeois factions in establishing the most advantageous relations to imperialism and transnational capital.

This was patently the case in Yugoslavia, where the first impulse to break up the existing federation came from Slovenia and Croatia, the wealthiest regions of the country, where local ruling elites calculated that they could fare better by breaking with the poorer republics and establishing their own independent ties to European governments, banks and corporations.

Similar considerations have motivated a whole series of national separatist movements, including in Europe, in the cases of the right-wing Northern League in Italy and Catalan nationalism in Spain.

... ... ...

In conclusion: the so-called "Unipolar Moment" of 1990 and 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the launching of the Gulf War, marked the collapse of the post-World War II equilibrium, established on the basis of the hegemony of American capitalism and the collaboration of the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy. It signaled the beginning of a new period of uninterrupted war, the growth of inter-imperialist rivalries, and inevitably, a global rise in the class struggle and socialist revolution.

... .. ...

Footnotes:

[Sep 17, 2019] While the Trump Administration seems to be cozying up to America's Jewish voters, here is an article that outlines what American Jews really think of Donald Trump and his leadership:

Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sally Snyder , says: September 16, 2019 at 12:13 pm GMT

While the Trump Administration seems to be cozying up to America's Jewish voters, here is an article that outlines what American Jews really think of Donald Trump and his leadership:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/06/americas-jews-on-trump-administration.html

Washington would seem to be on the wrong track when it comes to the U.S. Jewish community.

[Sep 17, 2019] The Devolution of US-Russia Relations by Tony Kevin

Highly recommended!
Sep 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

A retired Australian diplomat who served in Moscow dissects the emergence of the new Cold War and its dire consequences.

I n 2014, we saw violent U.S.-supported regime change and civil war in Ukraine. In February, after months of increasing tension from the anti-Russian protest movement's sitdown strike in Kiev's Maidan Square, there was a murderous clash between protesters and Ukrainian police, sparked off by hidden shooters (we now know that were expert Georgian snipers) , aiming at police. The elected government collapsed and President Yanukevich fled to Russia, pursued by murder squads.

The new Poroshenko government pledged harsh anti-Russian language laws. Rebels in two Russophone regions in Eastern Ukraine took local control, and appealed for Russian military help. In March, a referendum took place in Russian-speaking Crimea on leaving Ukraine, under Russian military protection. Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, a request promptly granted by the Russian Parliament and President. Crimea's border with Ukraine was secured against saboteurs. Crimea is prospering under its pro-Russian government, with the economy kick-started by Russian transport infrastructure investment.

In April, Poroshenko ordered full military attack on the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine. A brutal civil war ensued, with aerial and artillery bombardment bringing massive civilian death and destruction to the separatist region. There was major refugee outflow into Russia and other parts of Ukraine. The shootdown of MH17 took place in July 2014.

Poroshenko: Ordered military attack.

By August 2015, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates, 13,000 people had been killed and 30,000 wounded. 1.4 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced, and 925,000 had fled to neighbouring countries, mostly Russia and to a lesser extent Poland.

There is now a military stalemate, under the stalled Minsk peace process. But random fatal clashes continue, with the Ukrainian Army mostly blamed by UN observers. The UN reported last month that the ongoing war has affected 5.2 million people, leaving 3.5 million of them in need of relief, including 500,000 children. Most Russians blame the West for fomenting Ukrainian enmity towards Russia. This war brings back for older Russians horrible memories of the Nazi invasion in 1941. The Russia-Ukraine border is only 550 kilometres from Moscow.

Flashpoint Syria

Russian forces joined the civil war in Syria in September 2015, at the request of the Syrian Government, faltering under the attacks of Islamist extremist rebel forces reinforced by foreign fighters and advanced weapons. With Russian air and ground support, the tide of war turned. Palmyra and Aleppo were recaptured in 2016. An alleged Syrian Government chemical attack at Khan Shaykhun in April 2017 resulted in a token U.S. missile attack on a Syrian Government airbase: an early decision by President Trump.

NATO, Strategic Balance, Sanctions

An F-15C Eagle from the 493rd Fighter Squadron takes off from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, March 6, 2014. The 48th Fighter Wing sent an additional six aircraft and more than 50 personnel to support NATO's air policing mission in Lithuania, at the request of U.S. allies in the Baltics. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Emerson Nunez/Released)

Tensions have risen in the Baltic as NATO moves ground forces and battlefield missiles up to the Baltic states' borders with Russia. Both sides' naval and air forces play dangerous brinksmanship games in the Baltic. U.S. short-range, non-nuclear-armed anti-ballistic missiles were stationed in Poland and Romania, allegedly against threat of Iranian attack. They are easily convertible to nuclear-armed missiles aimed at nearby Russia.

Nuclear arms control talks have stalled. The INF intermediate nuclear forces treaty expired in 2019, after both sides accused the other of cheating. In March 2018, Putin announced that Russia has developed new types of intercontinental nuclear missiles using technologies that render U.S. defence systems useless. The West has pretended to ignore this announcement, but we can be sure Western defence ministries have noted it. Nuclear second-strike deterrence has returned, though most people in the West have forgotten what this means. Russians know exactly what it means.

Western economic sanctions against Russia continue to tighten after the 2014 events in Ukraine. The U.S. is still trying to block the nearly completed Nordstream Baltic Sea underwater gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Sanctions are accelerating the division of the world into two trade and payments systems: the old NATO-led world, and the rest of the world led by China, with full Russian support and increasing interest from India, Japan, ROK and ASEAN.

Return to Moscow

In 2013, my children gave me an Ipad. I began to spend several hours a day reading well beyond traditional mainstream Western sources: British and American dissident sites, writers like Craig Murray in UK and in the U.S. Stephen Cohen, and some Russian sites – rt.com, Sputnik, TASS, and the official Foreign Ministry site mid.ru. in English.

In late 2015 I decided to visit Russia independently to write Return to Moscow , a literary travel memoir. I planned to compare my impressions of the Soviet Union, where I had lived and worked as an Australian diplomat in 1969-71, with Russia today. I knew there had been huge changes. I wanted to experience 'Putin's Russia' for myself, to see how it felt to be there as an anonymous visitor in the quiet winter season. I wanted to break out of the familiar one-dimensional hostile political view of Russia that Western mainstream media offer: to take my readers with me on a cultural pilgrimage through the tragedy and grandeur and inspiration of Russian history. As with my earlier book on Spain 'Walking the Camino' , this was not intended to be a political book, and yet somehow it became one.

I was still uncommitted on contemporary Russian politics before going to Russia in January 2016. Using the metaphor of a seesaw, I was still sitting somewhere around the middle.

My book was written in late 2015 – early 2016, expertly edited by UWA Publishing. It was launched in March 2017. By this time my political opinions had moved decisively to the Russian end of the seesaw, on the basis of what I had seen in Russia, and what I had read and thought during the year.

I have been back again twice, in winter 2018 and 2019. My 2018 visit included Crimea, and I happened to see a Navalny-led Sunday demonstration in Moscow. I thoroughly enjoyed all three independent visits: in my opinion, they give my judgements on Russia some depth and authenticity.

Russophobia Becomes Entrenched

Russia was a big talking point in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the initially unlikely Republican candidate Donald Trump's chances improved, anti-Putin and anti-Russian positions hardened in the outgoing Obama administration and in the Democratic Party establishment which backed candidate Hillary Clinton.

Russia and Putin became caught up in the Democratic Party's increasingly obsessive rage and hatred against the victorious Trump. Russophobia became entrenched in Washington and London U.S. and UK political and strategic elites, especially in intelligence circles: think of Pompeo, Brennan, Comey and Clapper. All sense of international protocol and diplomatic propriety towards Russia and its President was abandoned, as this appalling Economist cover from October 2016 shows.

My experience of undeclared political censorship in Australia since four months after publication of 'Return to Moscow' supports the thesis that:

We are now in the thick of a ruthless but mostly covert Anglo-American alliance information war against Russia. In this war, individuals who speak up publicly in the cause of detente with Russia will be discouraged from public discourse.

In the Thick of Information War

When I spoke to you two years ago, I had no idea how far-reaching and ruthless this information war is becoming. I knew that a false negative image of Russia was taking hold in the West, even as Russia was becoming a more admirable and self-confident civil society, moving forward towards greater democracy and higher living standards, while maintaining essential national security. I did not then know why, or how.

I had just had time to add a few final paragraphs in my book about the possible consequences for Russia-West relations of Trump's surprise election victory in November 2016. I was right to be cautious, because since Trump's inauguration we have seen the step-by-step elimination of any serious pro-detente voices in Washington, and the reassertion of control over this haphazard president by the bipartisan imperial U.S. deep state, as personified from April 2018 by Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Adviser Bolton. Bolton has now been thrown from the sleigh as decoy for the wolves: under the smooth-talking Pompeo, the imperial policies remain.

Truth, Trust and False Narratives

Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.

Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the battlefield, but in people's minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as much about influencing people's beliefs within your own national community as it is about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.

The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with which to control their gullible populations.

The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.

We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear , to generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear : these are the three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.

People who work or have worked close to government – in departments, politics, the armed forces, or top universities – mostly accept whatever they understand at the time to be 'the government view' of truth. Whether for reasons of organisational loyalty, career prudence or intellectual inertia, it is usually this way around governments. It is why moral issues like the Vietnam War and the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq were so distressing for people of conscience working in or close to government and military jobs in Canberra. They were expected to engage in 'doublethink' as Orwell had described it:

Even in Winston's nightmare world, there were still choices – to retreat into the non-political world of the proles, or to think forbidden thoughts and read forbidden books. These choices involved large risks and punishments. It was easier and safer for most people to acquiesce in the fake news they were fed by state-controlled media.

'Trust, Truth and False Narratives'

Fairfax journalist Andrew Clark, in the Australian Financial Review , in an essay optimistically titled "Not fake news: Why truth and trust are still in good shape in Australia", (AFR Dec. 22, 2018), cited Professor William Davies thus:

"Most of the time, the edifice that we refer to as "truth" is really an investment of trust in our structures of politics and public life' 'When trust sinks below a certain point, many people come to view the entire spectacle of politics and public life as a sham."

Here is my main point: Effective information warfare requires the creation of enough public trust to make the public believe that state-supported lies are true.

The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining.

Caitlin Johnstone a few days ago put it this way:

" Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens, you can have power until the public gets sick of your BS and tosses you out on your ass. If you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there's no limit to the evils you can get away with."

The Internet has made propaganda campaigns that used to take weeks or months a matter of hours or even minutes to accomplish. It is about getting in quickly, using large enough clusters of trusted and diverse sources, in order to cement lies in place, to make the lies seem true, to magnify them through social messaging: in other words, to create credible false narratives that will quickly get into the public's bloodstream.

Over the past two years, I have seen this work many times: on issues like framing Russia for the MH17 tragedy; with false allegations of Assad mounting poison gas attacks in Syria; with false allegations of Russian agents using lethal Novichok to try to kill the Skripals in Salisbury; and with the multiple lies of Russiagate.

It is the mind-numbing effect of constant repetition of disinformation by many eminent people and agencies, in hitherto trusted channels like the BBC or ABC or liberal Anglophone print media that gives the system its power to persuade the credulous. For if so many diverse and reputable people repeatedly report such negative news and express such negative judgements about Russia or China or Iran or Syria, surely they must be right?

We have become used to reading in our quality newspapers and hearing on the BBC and ABC and SBS gross assaults on truth, calmly presented as accepted facts. There is no real public debate on important facts in contention any more. There are no venues for dissent outside contrarian social media sites.

Sometimes, false narratives inter-connect. Often a disinformation narrative in one area is used to influence perceptions in other areas. For example, the false Skripals poisoning story was launched by British intelligence in March 2018, just in time to frame Syrian President Assad as the guilty party in a faked chemical weapons attack in Douma the following month.

The Skripals Gambit

The Skripals gambit was also a failed British attempt to blight the Russia –hosted Football World Cup in June 2018. In the event, hundreds of thousands of Western sports fans returned home with the warmest memories of Russian good sportsmanship and hospitality.

How do I know the British Skripals narrative is false? For a start, it is illogical, incoherent, and constantly changes. Allegedly, two visiting Russian FSB agents in March 2018 sprayed or smeared Novichok, a deadly toxin instantly lethal in the most microscopic quantities, on the Skripals' house front doorknob. There is no video footage of the Skripals at their front door on the day. We are told they were found slumped on a park bench, and that is maybe where they had been sprayed with nerve gas? Shortly afterwards, Britain's Head of Army Nursing who happened to be passing by found them, and supervised their hospitalisation and emergency treatment.

Allegedly, much of Salisbury was contaminated by Novichok, and one unfortunate woman mysteriously died weeks later, yet the Skripals somehow did not die, as we are told. But where are they now? We saw a healthy Yulia in a carefully scripted video interview released in May 2018, after an alleged 'one in a million' recovery. We were assured her father had recovered too, but nobody has seen him at all. The Skripals have simply disappeared from sight since 16 months ago. Are they now alive or dead? Are they in voluntary or involuntary British custody?

A month after the poisoning, the UK Government sent biological samples from the Skripals to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , for testing. The OPCW sent the samples to a trusted OPCW laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland.

Lavrov Spiez BZ claims, April 2018

A few days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dramatically announced in Moscow that the Spiez lab had found in the samples a temporary-effect nerve agent BZ, used by U.S. and UK but not by Russia, that would have disabled the Skripals for a few days without killing them. He also revealed the Spiez lab had found that the Skripal samples had been twice tampered with while still in UK custody: first soon after the poisoning, and again shortly before passing them to the OPCW. He said the Spiez lab had found a high concentration of Novichok, which he called A- 234, in its original form. This was extremely suspicious as A-234 has high volatility and could not have retained its purity over a two weeks period. The dosage the Spiez lab found in the samples would have surely killed the Skripals. The OPCW under British pressure rejected Lavrov's claim, and suppressed the Spiez lab report.

Let's look finally at the alleged assassins.

'Boshirov and Petrov'

These two FSB operatives who visited Salisbury under the false identities of 'Boshirov' and 'Petrov' did not look or behave like credible assassins. It is more likely that they were sent to negotiate with Sergey Skripal about his rumoured interest in returning to Russia. They needed to apply for UK visas a month in advance of travel: ample time for the British agencies to identify them as FSB operatives, and to construct a false attempted assassination narrative around their visit. This false narrative repeatedly trips over its own lies and contradictions. British social media are full of alternative theories and rebuttals. Russians find the whole British Government Skripal narrative laughable. They have invented comedy skits and video games based on it. Yet it had major impact on Russia-West relations.

The Douma False Narrative

I turn now to the claimed Assad chemical weapons attack in Douma in April 2018.This falsely alleged attack triggered a major NATO air attack on Syrian targets, ordered by Trump. We came close to WWIII in these dangerous days. Thanks to the restraint of the then Secretary of Defence James Mattis and his Russian counterparts, the risk was contained.

The allegation that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used outlawed chemical weapons against his own people was based solely on the evidence of faked video images of child victims, made by the discredited White Helmets, a UK-sponsored rebel-linked 'humanitarian' propaganda organisation with much blood on its hands. Founded in 2013 by a British private security specialist of intelligence background, James Le Mesurier, the White Helmets specialised in making fake videos of alleged Assad regime war crimes against Syrian civilians. It is by now a thoroughly discredited organisation that was prepared to kill its prisoners and then film their bodies as alleged victims of government chemical attacks.

White Helmets

As the town of Douma was about to fall to advancing Syrian Government forces, the White Helmets filled a room with stacked corpses of murdered prisoners, and photographed them as alleged victims of aerial gas attack. They also made a video alleging child victims of this attack being hosed down by White Helmets. A video of a child named Hassan Diab went viral all over the Western world.

Hassan Diab later testified publicly in The Hague that he had been dragged terrified from his family by force, smeared with some sort of grease, and hosed down with water as part of a fake video. He went from hero to zero overnight, as Western governments and media rejected his testimony as Russian and Syrian propaganda.

In a late development, there is proof that the OPCW suppressed its own engineers' report from Douma that the alleged poison gas cylinders could not have possibly been dropped from the air through the roof of the house where one was found, resting on a bed under a convenient hole in the roof.

I could go on discussing the detail of such false narratives all day. No matter how often they are exposed by critics, our politicians and mainstream media go on referencing them as if they are true. Once people have come to believe false narratives, it is hard to refute them.

So it is with the false narrative that Russian internet interference enabled Trump to win the 2016 U.S. presidential elections: a thesis for which no evidence was found by [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller, yet continues to be cited by many U.S. liberal Democratic media as if it were true. So, even, with MH17.

Managing Mass Opinion

This mounting climate of Western Russophobia is not accidental: it is strategically directed, and it is nourished with regular maintenance doses of fresh lies. Each round of lies provides a credible platform for the next round somewhere else. The common thread is a claimed malign Russian origin for whatever goes wrong.

So where is all this disinformation originating? Information technology firms in Washington and London that are closely networked into government elites, often through attending the same establishment schools or colleges like Eton and Yale, have closely studied and tested the science of influencing crowd opinions through mainstream media and online. They know, in a way that Orwell or Goebbels could hardly have dreamt, how to put out and repeat desired media messages. They know what sizes of 'internet attraction nodes' need to be established online, in order to create diverse critical masses of credible Russophobic messaging, which then attracts enough credulous and loyal followers to become self-propagating.

Firms like the SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) and the now defunct Cambridge Analytica pioneered such work in the UK. There are many similar firms in Washington, all in the business of monitoring, generating and managing mass opinion. It is big business, and it works closely with the national security state.

Starting in November 2018, an enterprising group of unknown hackers in the UK , who go by the name 'Anonymous', opened a remarkable window into this secret world. Over a few weeks, they hacked and dumped online a huge volume of original documents issued by and detailing the activities of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS) and the Integrity initiative (II). Here is the first page of one of their dumps, exposing propaganda against Jeremy Corbyn.

We know from this material that the IfS and II are two secret British disinformation networks operating at arms' length from but funded by the UK security services and broader UK government establishment. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence personnel, often nominally retired, journalists and academics, to produce and disseminate propaganda that serves the agendas of the UK and its allies.

Stung by these massive leaks, Chris Donnelly, a key figure in IfS and II and a former British Army intelligence officer, made a now famous seven-minute YouTube video in December 2018, artfully filmed in a London kitchen, defending their work.

He argued – quite unconvincingly in my opinion – that IfS and II are simply defending Western societies against disinformation and malign influence, primarily from Russia. He boasted how they have set up in numerous targeted European countries, claimed to be under attack from Russian disinformation, what he called 'clusters of influence' , to 'educate' public opinion and decision-makers in pro-NATO and anti-Russian directions.

Donnelly spoke frankly on how the West is already at war with Russia, a 'new kind of warfare', in which he said 'everything becomes a weapon'. He said that 'disinformation is the issue which unites all the other weapons in this conflict and gives them a third dimension'.

He said the West has to fight back, if it is to defend itself and to prevail.

We can confirm from the Anonymous leaked files the names of many people in Europe being recruited into these clusters of influence. They tend to be significant people in journalism, publishing, universities and foreign policy think-tanks: opinion-shapers. The leaked documents suggest how ideologically suitable candidates are identified: approached for initial screening interviews; and, if invited to join a cluster of influence, sworn to secrecy.

Remarkably, neither the Anonymous disclosures nor the Donnelly response have ever been reported in Australian media. Even in Britain – where evidence that the Integrity Initiative was mounting a campaign against [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn provoked brief media interest. The story quickly disappeared from mainstream media and the BBC. A British under-foreign secretary admitted in Parliamentary Estimates that the UK Foreign Office subsidises the Institute of Statecraft to the tune of nearly 3 million pounds per year. It also gives various other kinds of non-monetary assistance, e.g. providing personnel and office support in Britain's overseas embassies.

This is not about traditional spying or seeking agents of influence close to governments. It is about generating mass disinformation, in order to create mass climates of belief.

In my opinion, such British and American disinformation efforts, using undeclared clusters of influence, through Five Eyes intelligence-sharing, and possibly with the help of British and American diplomatic missions, may have been in operation in Australia for many years.

Such networks may have been used against me since around mid-2017, to limit the commercial outreach of my book and the impact of its dangerous ideas on the need for East-West detente; and efficiently to suppress my voice in Australian public discourse about Russia and the West. Do I have evidence for this? Yes.

It is not coincidence that the Melbourne Writers Festival in August 2017 somehow lost all my sign-and-sell books from my sold-out scheduled speaking event; that a major debate with [Australian writer and foreign policy analyst] Bobo Lo at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne was cancelled by his Australian sponsor, the Lowy institute, two weeks before the advertised date; that my last invitation to any writers festival was 15 months ago, in May 2018; that Return to Moscow was not shortlisted for any Australian book prize, though I entered it in all of them ; that since my book's early promotion ended around August 2017, I have not been invited to join any ABC discussion panels, or to give any talks on Russia in any universities or institutes, apart from the admirable Australian Institute of International Affairs and the ISAA.

My articles and shorter opinion commentaries on Russia and the West have not been published in mainstream media or in reputable online journals like Eureka Street, The Conversation, Inside Story or Australian Book Review . Despite being an ANU Emeritus Fellow, I have not been invited to give a public talk or join any panel in ANU (Australian National University) or any Canberra think tank. In early 2018, I was invited to give a private briefing to a group of senior students travelling on an immersion course to Russia. I was not invited back in 2019, after high-level private advice within ANU that I was regarded as too pro-Putin.

In all these ways – none overt or acknowledged – my voice as an open-minded writer and speaker on Russia-West relations seems to have been quietly but effectively suppressed in Australia. I would like to be proved wrong on this, but the evidence is there.

This may be about "velvet-glove deterrence" of my Russia-sympathetic voice and pen, in order to discourage others, especially those working in or close to government. Nobody is going to put me in jail, unless I am stupid enough to violate Australia's now strict foreign influence laws. This deterrence is about generating fear of consequences for people still in their careers, paying their mortgages, putting kids through school. Nobody wants to miss their next promotion.

There are other indications that Australian national security elite opinion has been indoctrinated prudently to fear and avoid any kind of public discussion of positive engagement with Russia (or indeed, with China).

There are only two kinds of news about Russia now permitted in our mainstream media, including the ABC and SBS: negative news and comment, or silence. Unless a story can be given an anti-Russian sting, it will not be carried at all. Important stories are simply spiked, like last week's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivistok, chaired by President Putin and attended by Prime Ministers Abe, Mahathir and Modi, among 8500 participants from 65 countries.

The ABC idea of a balanced panel to discuss any Russian political topic was exemplified in an ABC Sunday Extra Roundtable panel chaired by Eleanor Hall on July, 22 2018, soon after the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki. The panel – a former ONA Russia analyst, a professor of Soviet and Russian History at Melbourne University, and a Russian émigré dissident journalist introduced as the 'Washington correspondent for Echo of Moscow radio' spent most of their time sneering at Putin and Trump. There were no other views.

A powerful anti-Russian news narrative is now firmly in place in Australia, on every topic in contention: Ukraine, MH17, Crimea, Syria, the Skripals, Navalny and public protest in Russia. There is ill-informed criticism of Russia, or silence, on the crucial issues of arms control and Russia-China strategic and economic relations as they affect Australia's national security or economy. There is no analysis of the negative impact on Australia of economic sanctions against Russia. There is almost no discussion of how improved relations with China and Russia might contribute to Australia's national security and economic welfare, as American influence in the world and our region declines, and as American reliability as an ally comes more into question. Silence on inconvenient truths is an important part of the disinformation tool kit.

I see two overall conflicting narratives – the prevailing Anglo-American false narrative; and valiant efforts by small groups of dissenters, drawing on sources outside the Anglo-American official narrative, to present another narrative much closer to truth. And this is how most Russians now see it too.

The Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018 was damaged by the Skripal and Syria fabrications. Trump left that summit friendless, frightened and humiliated. He soon surrendered to the power of the U.S. imperial state as then represented by [Mike] Pompeo and [John] Bolton, who had both been appointed as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser in April 2018 and who really got into their stride after the Helsinki Summit. Pompeo now smoothly dominates Trump's foreign policy.

Self-Inflicted Wounds

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Gage Skidmore)

Finally, let me review the American political casualties over the past two years – self-inflicted wounds – arising from this secret information war against Russia. Let me list them without prejudging guilt or innocence. Slide 20 – Self-inflicted wounds: casualties of anti-Russian information warfare.

Trump's first National Security Adviser, the highly decorated Michael Flynn lost his job after only three weeks, and soon went to jail. His successor H R McMaster lasted 13 months until replaced by John Bolton. Trump's first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lasted just 14 months until his replacement by Trump's appointed CIA chief (in January 2017) Mike Pompeo. Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon lasted only seven months. Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is now in jail.

Defence Secretary James Mattis lasted nearly two years as Secretary of Defence, and was an invaluable source of strategic stability. He resigned in December 2018. The highly capable Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman lasted just two years: he is resigning next month. John Kelly lasted 18 months as White House Chief of Staff. Less senior figures like George Papadopoulos and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen both served jail time. The pattern I see here is that people who may have been trying responsibly as senior U.S. officials to advance Trump's initial wish to explore possibilities for detente with Russia – policies that he had advocated as a candidate – were progressively purged, one after another . The anti-Russian U.S. bipartisan imperial state is now firmly back in control. Trump is safely contained as far as Russia is concerned .

Russians do not believe that any serious detente or arms control negotiations can get under way while cold warriors like Pompeo continue effectively to control Trump. There have been other casualties over the past two years of tightening American Russophobia. Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning come to mind. The naive Maria Butina is a pathetic victim of American judicial rigidity and deep state vindictiveness.

False anti-Russian Government narratives emanating from London and Washington may be laughed at in Moscow , but they are unquestioningly accepted in Canberra. We are the most gullible of audiences. There is no critical review. Important contrary factual information and analysis from and about Russia just does not reach Australian news reporting and commentary, nor – I fear – Australian intelligence assessment. We are prisoners of the false narratives fed to us by our senior Five Eyes partners U.S. and UK.

To conclude: Some people may find what I am saying today difficult to accept. I understand this. I now work off open-source information about Russia with which many people here are unfamiliar, because they prefer not to read the diverse online information sources that I choose to read. The seesaw has tilted for me: I have clearly moved a long way from mainstream Western perceptions on Russia-West relations.

Under Trump and Pompeo, as the Syria and Iran crises show, the present risk of global nuclear war by accident or incompetent Western decision-making is as high as it ever was in the Cold War. The West needs to learn again how to dialogue usefully and in mutually respectful ways with Russia and China. This expert knowledge is dying with our older and wiser former public servants and ex-military chiefs.

These remarks were delivered by Tony Kevin at the Independent Scholars Association of Australia in Canberra, Australia on Wednesday.

Watch Tony Kevin interviewed Friday night on CN Live!

Tony Kevin is a retired Australian diplomat who was posted to Moscow from 1969 to 1971, and was later Australia's ambassador to Poland and Cambodia. His latest book is Return to Moscow, published by UWA Publishing.


Bruce , September 17, 2019 at 08:58

Excellent article. It's very interesting to see how the state and its media lackey set the narrative.

Most of this comment relates to the Skripals but also applies to other matters (the Skripals writing was some of Craig Murray's finest work in my opinion). One of the hallmarks of a hoax is a constantly evolving storyline. I think governments have learned from past "mistakes" with their hoaxes/deception where they've given a description of events and then scientists/engineers/chemists etc have come in and criticised their version of events with details and scientific arguments. Nowadays, governments are very reluctant to commit to a version of events, and instead rely on the media (their propaganda assets) to provide a scattergun set of information to muddy the waters and thoroughly confuse the population. The government is then insulated from some of the more bizarre allegations (the headlines of which are absorbed nonetheless), and can blame it on the media (who would use an anonymous government source naturally). Together with classifying just about everything on national security grounds, they can stonewall for as long as they want.

The British are masters of propaganda. They maintained a global empire for a very long time, and the prevailing view (in the west at least) was probably one of tea-drinking cricket playing colonials/gentlemen. But you don't maintain an empire without being absolutely ruthless and brutal. They've been doing this for a very long time.

When we hear something from the BBC or ABC, we should think "State Media".
That's probably why its got a nice folksy nickname of "aunty" .build up the trust.

Leslie Louis , September 17, 2019 at 04:00

Society is suffering the extreme paradox; there is the potential for everyone to have a voice, but the last vestiges of free speech have been whittled away. Fake news is universal, assisted by the fake "left". It is impossible to get published any challenge to even the most outlandish versions of identity politics. As the experience of Tony Kevin exemplifies, all avenues for dissent against hegemonic orthodoxies are closed off.
Disinformation is now an essential weapon in waging hot and cold wars. Cold War historians are well informed on false flags, "black ops", and other organised dirty tactics. I do not know what happened to the Skripals, and while it is legitimate to bear in mind KGB assassinations, despite the enormous resources at its disposal, the English security state has been unable to construct a credible case. Surely scepticism is provoked by the leading role being played by the notorious Bellingcat outfit.

Zenobia van Dongen , September 17, 2019 at 00:29

Here is part of an eyewitness account:
"After the Orange Revolution which began in Kiev, the country was divided literally into two parts -- the supporters of integration with Russia and the supporters of an independent Ukraine. For almost 100 years belonging to the Soviet Union, the propaganda about the assistance and care from our "big brother" Russia, in Ukraine as a whole and the Donbass in particular has borne fruit. At the end of February 2014, some cities of the Southeast part were boiling with mass social and political protest against the new Ukrainian government in defense of the status of the Russian language, voicing separatist and pro-Russian slogans. The division took place in our city of Sloviansk too. Some people stood for separation from Ukraine, while Ukrainian patriots stood for the unity of our country.
On April 12, 2014 our city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region was seized by Russian mercenaries and local volunteers. From that moment onward, armed assaults on state institutions began. The city police department, the Sloviansk City Hall, the building of the Ukraine Security Service was occupied. Armed militants seized state institutions and confiscated private property. They threatened and beat people, and those who refused to obey were taken away to an unknown destination and people started disappearing. The persecution and abduction of patriotic citizens began."

Michael McNulty , September 16, 2019 at 11:36

Watching Vietnam news coverage as a kid in the '60s I noticed the planes carpet-bombing South East Asia were American, not Russian. And as I only watched the footage and never listened to the commentary (I was waiting for the kids programs that followed) the BS they came out with to explain it all never reached me. I saw with my own eyes what the US really was and is, and always believed growing up they were the belligerent side not Russia. Once the USSR fell it was clear there were no longer any constraints on US excesses.

dean 1000 , September 15, 2019 at 18:17

Doublethink, not to mention doublespeak, is so apt to describe what is happening. If Orwell was writing today it would have to be classified as non-fiction.

Free speech is impossible unless every election district has a radio/TV station where candidates, constituents, and others can debate, discuss and speak to the issues without bending a knee to large campaign contributors or the controllers of corporate or government media. It may start with low-power pirate radio/TV broadcasts. No, the pirate speakers will not have to climb a cell tower to broadcast an opinion to the neighborhood or precinct.
If genuine free speech is going to exist it will start as something unauthorized and unlawful. If it sticks to the facts it will quickly prove its value.

Download a free pdf copy of '1984.' https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/1984.pdf

Njegos , September 15, 2019 at 03:39

Excellent article. The only exhibit missing was reference to Bill Browder's lies. Browder's rubbish has been exposed by intrepid journalists and documentary makers such as Andrei Nekrasov, Sasha Krainer and Lucy Komisar but to read or listen to our media, you'd think BB was some sort of human rights hero. That's because BB's fairy tale fits nicely into the MSM's hatred of Putin and Russia. Debunk Browder and a major pillar of anti-Russia prejudice collapses. Therefore, Browder will never face any serious questions by the MSM.

John A , September 16, 2019 at 09:18

judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgement a fortnight ago which utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments and media in the case of the late Mr Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the judgement in the mainstream media at all.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/the-magnitskiy-myth-exploded/

MSM propaganda by omission. Anything that doesn't fit the government narrative gets zero publicity.

Jim Ingram , September 14, 2019 at 21:12

Well said and needing to be said Tony.

Mr. Dan , September 14, 2019 at 19:41

I have stopped following australian mainstream media including the darlings of the 'left' ABC/SBS over a decade ago, completely. My disgust with their 'coverage' of the 2008 GFC was more than enough. Since 2008-9 things have deteriorated drastically into conspiracy theory propaganda by omission la-la land *it seems*, given I don't tune in at all.

The author has a well supported view. I find it a little naive in him thinking that the MSM has that much power over shaping public opinion in australia.

People who want to be informed do so. The half intelligent conformists on hamster wheel of lifetime mortgage debt have 'careers' to hold onto, so parroting the group think or living in ignorance is much easier. The massive portion of australian racists, inbred bogans and idiots that make up the large LNP, One Nation etc. voting block are completely beyond salvation or ability to process, and critically evaluate any information. The smarter ones drool on about the 'UN Agenda 21' conspiracy at best. Utterly hopeless.

I don't expect things to change as the australian economy is slowly hollowed out by the rich, and the education system (that has always been about conforming, wearing school uniform and regurgitating what the teacher/lecturer says at best) is gutted completely. Welcome to australistan.

Fran Macadam , September 14, 2019 at 19:21

Note that the prohibition against false propaganda to indoctrinate the domestic population by the American government was lifted by President Obama at the tail end of his administration. The Executive Order legalizes all the deceptive behavior Tony itemizes in his article.

Josep , September 17, 2019 at 04:10

I thought it was Reagan who did that by abolishing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. At least in terms of television and radio (?) broadcasts.

Stephen Morrell , September 14, 2019 at 19:02

Thank you Tony for your thoughtful talk (and interview on CN Live! too).

What's encouraging is this cohort of what might be called 'millennial journalists' coming through willing to do 'shoe-leather' journalism and stand up to smears and flack for revealing uncomfortable facts and truth. They're the online 5th estate holding the 4th to account (to steal Ray McGovern's apt view), and they're congealing against the onslaught.

Some include Max Blumenthal and Rania Kahlek (both now being pilloried by MSM and others for visiting Syrian government held areas and reporting that life isn't hellish as MSM would have everyone believe heaven forbid); Vanessa Bealey who's exposed a lot of White Helmet horrors and false-flag attacks in Syria (and being attacked by all and sundry for exposing the White Helmets in particular); Abby Martin whose Empire Files are excellent and always edifying; Dan Cohen who has written the best expose of the actors behind the Hong Kong rioting and co-authored the best expose of the background of Guaido et al.; Whitney Webb of Mint Press whose series on Epstein is overwhelming and likely a ticking timebomb; Caitlin Johnstone of course; and Aaron 'Buzzsaw' Mate who made his first mark with a wonderful takedown interview of Russiaphobe MI6 shill Luke Harding. Others too of course, with most appearing or having written pieces on CN. John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast, et al. won't drop off their twigs disappointed.

This, along with the fact that MSM -- that cowed and compromised fourth estate -- increasingly is held in such laughable contempt by most people under about 50 yr, is highly encouraging indeed. Truth is the new black.

nwwoods , September 15, 2019 at 11:49

The Blogmire is an excellent resource for detailed analysis of the Skripal hoax. The author happens to be a long-time resident of Salisbury, and is intimately familiar with the topography, public services, etc., and a very thorough investigator.

John Wright , September 14, 2019 at 18:35

I'm not surprised that Mr. Kevin is being isolated and shunned by the Australian establishment. Truth and truth tellers are always the first casualties of war. I do hope that his experience will encourage him to increase his resistance to the corrosiveness of mendacious propaganda and those who promulgate it.

Truth is the single best weapon when fighting for a peaceful future.

If Australia is to flourish in the 21st century, it really needs to understand Russia and China, how they relate to each other, and how this key alliance will interface with the rest of the world. Australia and Australians simply cannot afford to get sucked down further by facilitating the machinations of the collapsing Anglo-American Empire. They have served the empire ably and faithfully, but now need to take a cold hard look at reality and realign their long-term interests with the coming global power shift. If not, they could literally find themselves in the middle of an unwinnable and devastating war.

* * *

The first Anglo-American Russian cold war began with the Russian revolution and was only briefly suspended when the West needed the Soviet people to throw themselves in front of the Nazi blitzkrieg in order to save Western Europe. Following their catastrophically costly contribution to the victory on the Continent, the Russians were greeted with an American nuclear salute on their eastern periphery, signalling their return to the diplomatic and economic deep freeze.

While the Anglo-American Empire solidified and extended its hold on the globe, the enlarged but war-ravaged and isolated Soviet Union hunkered down and survived on scraps and sheer will until its collapse in 1989. Declaring the cold war over, and with promises to help their new Russian friends build a prosperous future, the duplicitous West then ransacked their neighbors resources and sold them into debt peonage. The Russians cried foul, the West shrugged and Putin pushed back. Unable to declaw the bear, the west closed the cage door again and the second cold war commenced.

* * *

The first cold war was essentially an offensive war disguised as a defensive war. It enabled the Anglo-American Empire to leverage its post-war advantage and establish near total dominance around the globe through naked violence and monetary hegemony.

Today, with its dominance rapidly slipping away, the Anglo-American Empire is waging a truly defensive cold war. On the home front, they fight to convince their subjects of their eternal exceptionalism with ever more absurd and vile propaganda denigrating their adversaries . Abroad, they disrupt and defraud in a desperate attempt to delay the demise of the PetroDollar ponzi.

The Russians and the Chinese, having both been brutally burned by the Western elites, will not be fooled into abandoning their natural geographic partnership. They are no longer content to sit quietly at the kids' table taking notes. While they may not demand to sit at the head of the table, it is clear that they will insist on a round table, and one that is large enough to include their growing list of friends.

If the Americans don't smash the table, it could be the first of many peaceful pot lucks.

John Read , September 15, 2019 at 02:11

Well said. Great comments. Thanks to Tony Kevin.

Mia , September 14, 2019 at 18:33

Thank you Tony for continuing to shine light on the pathetic propaganda information bubble Australians have been immersed in .. you demonstrate great courage and you are not alone ??

Peter Loeb , September 14, 2019 at 12:58

WITH THANKS TO TONY KEVIN

An excellent article.

There is a lack of comments from some of the common writers upon whose views I often rely.

Personally, I often avoid the very individual responses from websites as I have no way
of checking out previous ideas of theirs. Who funds them? With which organizations are they
affiliated? And so forth and so on.

Peter Loeb, Boston, Massachusetts

Peter Sapo , September 14, 2019 at 10:24

As a fellow Australian, everything Tony Kevin said makes perfect sense. Our mainstream media landscape is designed to distribute propaganda to folk accross the political spectrum. Have you noticed that the ABC regurgitates stories from the BBC? The BBC has a long history (at least since WW2) of supporting government propaganda initiatives. Based on this fact, it is hard to see how ABC and SBS don't do the same when called upon by their minders.

Francis Lee , September 14, 2019 at 09:48

I just wonder where the Anglo-Zionist empire thinks it is going. It should be obvious that any NATO war against Russia involving a nuclear exchange is unwinnable. It seems equally likely the even a conventional war will not necessarily bring the result expected by the assorted 'experts' – nincompoops living in their own fantasy world. The idea that the US can fight a war without the US homeland becoming very much involved basically ended when Putin announced the creation of Russia's set of advanced hypersonic missile system. But this was apparently ignored by the 'defence' establishment. It was not true, it could not possibly be true, or so we were told.

Moreover the cost of such wars involving hundreds of thousands of troops and military hardware are massively expensive and would occasion a massive resistance from the populations affected. It was the wests wars in Korea, and Indo-China that bankrupted the US and led to the US$ being removed from the gold standard. The American military is rapidly consuming the American economy, or at least what is left of it. From a realist foreign policy perspective this is simply madness. Great powers end wars, they don't start them. Great powers are creditor nations, not debtor nations. Such is the realist foreign policy view. But foreign policy realists are few and far between in the Washington Beltway and MIC/NSA Pentagon and US/UK/AUSTRALIAN MSM.

Thus the neo-hubris of the English speaking world is such that if it is followed to its logical conclusion then total annihilation would be the logical outcome. A sad example of not very bright people who face no domestic opposition, believing in their own bullshit:

"American elites proved themselves to be master manipulators of propaganda constructs But the real danger from such manipulations arises not when those manipulations are done out of knowledge of reality, which is distorted for propaganda purposes, but when those who manipulation begin to sincerely believe in their own falsifications and when they buy into their own narrative. They stop being manipulators and they become believers in a narrative. They become manipulated themselves." (Losing Military Supremacy – Andrei, Martyanov)

Or maybe just the whole thing is a bluff. Those policy elites maybe just want to loot the US Treasury for more cash to be put their way.

John Wright , September 15, 2019 at 19:15

The self-serving Israeli Zionists know that the American cow is running dry and their days of freely milking it are coming to an end. They have an historic relationship with Russia and, leveraging their nuclear arsenal, know they can make a deal with the emerging China-Russia-centric global paradigm to extort enough protection to maintain their armed enclave for the foreseeable future. Their no so hidden alliance with the equally sociopathic Saudis will become even more obvious for all to see.

Israel, like China and Russia, knows how to play a long game. Thus, Israel will consolidate its land grab with the just announced expansion into the Jordan Valley and quietly continue as much ethnic cleansing as possible while the rest of the world is preoccupied with the incipient global power shift (True victims of history, the Palestinians have no real friends). While they will bemoan the loss of their muscular American stooge, Israel enjoyed a very lucrative 70 year run and will part with a pile of useful and deadly toys. They're also fully aware that no one else will ever let them take advantage to the degree they've been able to with the U.S.A. (Unlimited Stupidity of Arrogance?)

Eventually, the social schizophrenia that is the state of Israel will catch up with them and they will implode. Let's hope that breakdown doesn't involve the use of their nuclear arsenal.

Yes, the U.S. Treasury will continue to be looted until the last teller turns the lights out or the electricity is shut off, whichever comes first.

The Western transnational financial elites will accept their losses, regroup and make deals with the new bosses where they can; but their days of running the game unopposed are over.

Today is a good day to learn Mandarin (or Russian, if you prefer to live in Europe).

Bill , September 16, 2019 at 03:36

Very well said and I agree with a lot of what you say.

Tiu , September 14, 2019 at 06:01

Won't be too long before writing articles like this will get you busted for "hate-speech" (e.g. anything that is contrary to the official version prescribed by the "democratically elected" government)
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-tony-blair-think-tank-proposes-end-free-speech
Personally I always encourage people to read George Orwell, especially 1984. We're there, and have been for a long time.

geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 01:15

Tony Kevin – Nice rundown of what ails society. You have a fine writing style that gets the point across to the reader. Kudos and cheers.

Michael , September 13, 2019 at 22:34

The 'modernization' of the Smith Mundt Act in 2013 "to authorize the domestic dissemination of information and material [PROPAGANDA] about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences" was a major nail in the Democracy coffin, consolidating the blatant ruling of the US Police State by our 17 Intelligence Agencies (our betters). The Telecommunications Act of 1996 lead to ownership of (>80%) of our media (the MSM by a handful of owners, all disseminating the same narratives from above (CIA, State Department, FBI etc) and squelching any dissenting views, particularly related to foreign policies.
Tony's article sadly just confirms the depth and breadth of our Global Stasi, with improved, innovative and (mostly) subtle surveillance, and the controlling constant interference with alternate viewpoints and discussions, the real basis for free societies. It is bad enough to be ruled by neoliberal psychopathic hyenas and jackals, soon we won't be able to even bitch about what they are doing.

Tom Kath , September 13, 2019 at 21:42

The most impressive article I have read in a very long time. I congratulate and thank Tony.
I have myself recently addressed the issue of whether it is a virtue to have an "open mind". – The ability to be converted or have your mind changed, or is it the ability to change your own mind ?
Tony Kevin clearly illustrates the difference.

Litchfield , September 13, 2019 at 16:11

Great article.
Please keep writing.
Do start a website, a la Craig Murray.
There are people who are proactively looking for alternative viewpoints and informed analysis.
How about starting a website and publishing some excerpts of your book there?

Or, sell chapters separately by download from your website?
You could also have a discussion blog/forum there.

John Zimmermann , September 13, 2019 at 16:02

Excellent essay. Thanks Mr. Kevin.

rosemerry , September 13, 2019 at 15:37

At least Tony Kevin was an Australian ambassador, not like Mike Morrell and the chosen russop?obes the USA assumes are needed as diplomats!! Now he is treated as Stephen Cohen is- a true expert called "controversial" as he dares to go by real facts and evidence, not prejudice.

If instead of enemies, the West could consider getting to understand those they are wary of, and give them a chance to explain their point of view and actually listen and reflect on it.
(Dmitri Peskov valiantly explained the Russian official response as soon as the "Skripal poisoning" story broke, but it was fully ignored by UK/US media, while all of Theresa May's fanciful imaginings were respectfully relayed to the public).

geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 23:26

As you usually are with your comments, you are spot on again, rosemerry.

Martin - Swedish citizen , September 13, 2019 at 14:46

Excellent article!
I find the mechanics of how the propaganda is spread and the illusion upheld the most important part of this article, since this knowledge is required to counter it.
When (not if) the fraud becomes more common knowledge, our societies are likely to tumble.

Pablo Diablo , September 13, 2019 at 14:45

Whoever controls the media, controls the dialogue.
Whoever controls the dialogue, controls the agenda.

peter mcloughlin , September 13, 2019 at 13:40

' The present risk of global nuclear war is as high as it ever was in the Cold War.' And possibly higher. The Cold War, though dangerous, was the peace. The world has experienced periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. The Congress System finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent a third world war. The powers that are leading us towards conflagration see this as a re-run of the first Cold War. They are dangerously mistaken.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Guy , September 13, 2019 at 13:21

With so many believing the lies ,how will this mess ever come to light . I don't reside in Australia but anywhere in the Western world the shakedown is the same .In my own house ,the discussion on world politics descends into absolute stupidity . As one can't get past the constant programming that has settled in the minds of the comfortable with the status quo of lies by our media. There are intelligent sources of news sources but none get past the absolutely complete control of MSM.So the bottom line is ,for now ,the lies and liars are winning the propaganda war.

Anton Antonovich , September 13, 2019 at 13:16

He speaks the truth. Liars and dissemblers have won over the minds and hearts of so many lazy shameful citizens who will not accept the truth Tony Kevin wants to share with the world.

junaid , September 13, 2019 at 13:08

Washington resumes military assistance to Kyiv. According to American lawmakers, Ukraine is fighting one of the main enemies. "Contain Russia": what the US pays for Ukraine

"Contain Russia": what the US pays for Ukraine

Lily , September 13, 2019 at 23:42

The Pentagon is using the Ukrainian territory for experiments on chemical weapons.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3T9ktfz_FfA

John A , September 14, 2019 at 06:55

Anyone or article who spells Kiev as Kyiv can be safely ignored as western anti-Russia propaganda. It's a true tell.

Robert Edwards , September 13, 2019 at 12:53

The Cold war is totally manufacture to keep the dollars flowing into the MIC – what a sham . and a disgrace to humanity.

Cavaleiro Marginal , September 13, 2019 at 12:52

"The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining."

This had occurred in Brazil since the very first day of Lula's presidency. Eleven years late, 2013, a color revolution began. Nobody (and I mean REALLY nobody) could realize a color revolution was happening at that time. In 2016, Dilma Rousseff was kicked from power throughout a ridiculous and illegal coup perpetrated by the parliament. In 2018 Lula was imprisoned in an Orwellian process; illegal, unconstitutional, with nothing (REALLY nothing) proved against him. Then a liar clown was elected to suppress democracy

I knew on the news that in Canada and Australia the police politely (how civilized ) went to some journalist's homes to have a chat this year. Canadians and Aussies, be aware. The fascism's dog is a policial state very well informed by the propaganda they call news.

Robert Fearn , September 13, 2019 at 12:48

As a Canadian author who wrote a book about various tragic American government actions, like Vietnam, I can relate to the difficulties Tony has had with his book. I would mail my book, Amoral America, from Canada to other countries, like the US, and it would never arrive. Book stores would not handle it, etc. etc.

Josep , September 17, 2019 at 05:21

Not to disagree, but some years ago I read about anecdotes of anti-Americanism in Canada, coming from both USians and Canadians, whether it be playful banter or legitimate criticism. I believe it is more concentrated among the people than among the governmental elites (with the exception of the Iraq War era when both the people and the government were against it). And considering what you describe in your book and the difficulty you've faced in distributing it abroad, maybe the said people are on to something.

Stephen , September 13, 2019 at 11:44

This interview by Abby Martin with Mark Ames is a little dated but is a fairly accurate history. I post it to try and counter the nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7HwvFyMg7A

All the empire wants is to do it all again.

Jeremy Kuzmarov , September 13, 2019 at 10:33

Outstanding article and analysis. Thank you Sir! Jeremy Kuzmarov

Jeff Harrison , September 13, 2019 at 10:17

Thank you, sir. A far better peroration than I could have produced but what I have concluded nonetheless.

Skip Scott , September 13, 2019 at 10:10

Fantastic article. Left unmentioned is the origin of the west's anti-Russia narrative. Russia was being pillaged by the west under Yeltsin, and Russia was to become our newest vassal. Life expectancy dropped a full decade for the average Russian under Yeltsin. The average standard of living dropped dramatically as well. Putin reversed all that, and enjoys massive popular support as a result. The Empire will never tolerate a national leader who works for the benefit of the average citizen. It must be full-on rape, pillage and plunder- OR ELSE. Keep that in mind as we watch the latest theatrical performances by our DNC controlled "Commander in Chief" wannabes.

Realist , September 17, 2019 at 05:48

?The ongoing success of the "Great Lie" (that Washington is protecting the entire world from
anarchy perpetrated by a few bad actors on the global stage) and all of its false narrative subtexts
(including but far from limited to the Maidan, Crimea, Donbass, MH-17, the Skripals, gassing
"one's own people," piracy on the high Mediterranean, etc) just underscores how successful was
the false flag operation known as 9-11, even as the truth of that travesty is slowly being
unraveled by relentless truth-seekers applying logic and the scientific method to the problem.
Most Americans today would gladly concur, if queried, that Osama bin Laden was most certainly
a perfidious tool of Russia and its diabolical leader, Mr. Putin (be sure to call him "Vlad," to
conjure up images of Dracula for effect). The Winston Smith's are rare birds in America or in
any of its reliable vassal states. Never mind that the spooks from Langley (and the late
"chessmaster") concocted and orchestrated all these tales from the crypt.

Lily , September 13, 2019 at 07:54

Great summary of the developement of a new cold war. The narrative of the Mainstream Media is dangerous as well as laughable. I am glad to hear the Russian reaction to this bullshit propaganda. As often the people are so much wiser than their government – at least in the West.

During the Football WM a famous broadcaster of the German State TV channel ARD, who is a giftet propagandist, regrettet publicly the difficulty to convince the stubborn Germans to look at Russia as an enemy because they have started to look at Russia as a friend long ago.

Contrary to the people and the big firms who are completely against the sanctions against Russia and 100 % pro Northstream the German government with Chancelor Merkel is one of the top US vassalles. Even the Green Party which started as an environmental and peace party are now against North Stream and in favour of the filthy US fracking gas thanks to NATO propaganda although Russia has never let them down. Most of "Die Grünen" party have been turned into fervent friends of our American occupants which is very sad.

Thank you Tony Kevin. It has been great to read your article. I cant wait to read your book 'Return to Moscow' and to watch your interview on CN Live.

Godfree Roberts , September 13, 2019 at 07:37

Good summary of the status quo. From my experience of writing similarly about China, precisely the same policies and forces are at work.

The good news is that they are failing.

junaid , September 13, 2019 at 07:15

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the end of the war in Syria and the country's return to a state of peace. "Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced the end of the war

"Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced the end of the war

Gezzah Potts , September 13, 2019 at 05:47

You hit several nails squarely on the head with your excellent article Tony. Thank you for the truth of how the media is in Australia. It is indeed chilling where all this is leading. The blatant lies just spewed out as fact by both ABC and SBS. They, in my opinion are nothing but stenographers for the Empire, of which Australia is a fully subservient vassal state, with no independence.
I try to boycott all Australian presstitutes . Oops, I mean 'media' now. Occasionally, I do slip up and watch SBS or The Drum or News on ABC.
Virtually all my news comes from independent news sites like this one.
I have been accused of being a 'Putin lover', a Russian troll, a conspiracy theorist, while people I know have claimed that "Putin is a monster whose murdered millions of people".
On and on this crap goes. And the end result? Ask Stephen Cohen. Things are very surreal now. Sadly, you've been made an Unperson Tony.

Robyn , September 13, 2019 at 04:08

Bravo, Tony, great article. I enjoyed your book and recommend it to CN readers who haven't yet read it.

The world looks entirely different when one stops reading/watching the MSM and turns to CN, Caitlin Johnstone and many others who are doing a sterling job.

Cascadian , September 13, 2019 at 03:52

I don't know which is worse, to not know what you are (reliably uninformed) and be happy, or to become what you've always wanted to be (reliably informed) and feel alone.

Realist , September 14, 2019 at 00:19

Knowing the truth has always seemed paramount to me, even if it means realising that the entire world and all in it are damned, and deliberately by our own actions. Hope is always the last part of our essence to die, or so they say: maybe we will somehow be redeemed through our own self-immolation as a species.

Deb , September 13, 2019 at 02:54

As an Australian I have no difficulty accepting what Tony Kevin has said here. He should do what Craig Murray has done start a website.

[Sep 17, 2019] Danger in the Gulf What the Attack on Saudi Arabian Oil Means for America by Alireza Ahmadi

Pompeo is just MIC lobbyst who got position of the Secretary of State due to Trump incompetence of pressure from donors like Adelson. Nothing good can come from this strange choice of warmonger and neocon hawk, not that different from Hillary Clinton.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region have gone from being an intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic vulnerability. ..."
"... The first priority was to deny the Iranian leadership resources. Previous administration taken a different approach. It said olly olly oxen free, here's all the money you can possibly stand to build out your terror campaign, to build your nuclear weapons system, to take nuclear physicists, all of the things that money can deliver – terror against Israel out of Hizballah and from Syria. Our – the first proposition for our campaign was to deny wealth and resources for the Iranian leadership, and it has been enormously successful in doing so. You can see it. Hizballah is passing the tin cup. ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

It may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region have gone from being an intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic vulnerability.

For hawks like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, American power, as the Bolshevik adage goes, cannot fail, it can only be failed. For many of his ilk, the superiority of American power means the willingness to project it is the only thing needed to earn the capitulation of foes and the only way America loses is if it chooses to relent. Donald Trump, however, watched George W. Bush's presidency burn in the Iraq war and is unlikely to embrace the chaos of war heading into an election year. President Trump would be wise to heed the lessons of the most recent volatile security episode in the Persian Gulf region, especially as it pertains to his administration's campaign against Tehran.

... ... ...

Without the basic ability to guard against even crude air assets, any notion of the United States empowering its regional network to dictate terms to Iranian allies with military action seems impractical. The credibility of U.S. anti-missile capabilities were already in question . For Saudi Arabia and hawks inside the U.S. government, the notion that a tribal force like the Houthis could reach into their territory and engage in this kind of tactical action is militarily embarrassing and practically discrediting from a policy standpoint.

...If it is conceivable that Iranian cruise missiles -- the newest and least tested section of Iran's missile fleet -- flew across the militarized Persian Gulf and evaded both Saudi and American sensors and air-defenses to hit an oil facility, then how much safer are U.S. forces in the region?

...Add to this the survivability and precision that Pompeo is now attributing to Iranian missiles and the conclusion very well may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region have gone from being an intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic vulnerability.

... ... ...

Pompeo has been on a months-long media campaign promoting, among other things, what he describes as the success of the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. But Pompeo's primary argument for the success of the anti-Iran efforts centers on the narrative that U.S. sanctions have severely damaged Iran's alliance network in the region. Consider the way he framed the issue to a right-wing talk show host in July:

The first priority was to deny the Iranian leadership resources. Previous administration taken a different approach. It said olly olly oxen free, here's all the money you can possibly stand to build out your terror campaign, to build your nuclear weapons system, to take nuclear physicists, all of the things that money can deliver – terror against Israel out of Hizballah and from Syria. Our – the first proposition for our campaign was to deny wealth and resources for the Iranian leadership, and it has been enormously successful in doing so. You can see it. Hizballah is passing the tin cup.

...The attack on the Saudi refiner disrupted Pompeo's public victory lap in a particularly bright and striking way.

... ... ...

Simply put, Washington's hopes to stop Iran from supporting its allies by pressing the Iranian economy is unlikely to work. Iran's support for its alliance network is largely dismissed in Washington as a frivolous imperial project that Iran can simply choose to abandon. But for Iran, its non-state allies are a core national-security issue and will, therefore, be prioritized in budgetary considerations especially when tensions are high. Iran's support for non-state actors, like Hezbollah, are also not financially intensive and therefore can continue under sanctions.

Alireza Ahmadi is a researcher and analyst focused on U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East. His work has been published by the National Interest , The Hill and Al-Monitor . Follow him on Twitter @AliAhmadi_Iran.

[Sep 17, 2019] Washington's rush to indict Iran over Saudi attacks

Notable quotes:
"... Wall Street Journal, ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Casting itself once again as the world's judge, jury and executioner, US imperialism is recklessly hurtling toward yet another war in the Middle East, with catastrophic implications. This time, Washington has seized upon Saturday's attacks on Saudi installations as its pretext for war against Iran.

The reaction of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to these attacks, which have cut the kingdom's oil production by almost half and slashed global daily output by 6 percent, was as noteworthy for its haste as for its peculiar wording.

"Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," Pompeo tweeted late Saturday, adding, "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."

This image provided on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019, by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe and annotated by the source, shows damage to the infrastructure at Saudi Aramco's Abaqaiq oil processing facility in Buqyaq, Saudi Arabia. (U.S. government/Digital Globe via AP)

The indictment of Iran for attacks that set off a series of fires which devastated two oil facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia came without a shred of supporting evidence, outside of the bald assertion that there was "no evidence" that they were launched from Yemen.

Yemen had to be discounted, according to the secretary of state's predatory logic, because the Houthi rebels, who control most of the country, had claimed responsibility for the attacks and had a clear motive -- given the kingdom's near-genocidal war against Yemen's civilian population -- for carrying them out. The US mass media has by and large echoed Pompeo's allegations as absolute truth. On Monday night, television news broadcasts quoted unnamed intelligence sources, citing unspecified evidence, claiming Iranian responsibility for the attacks. No doubt this "evidence" will prove just as compelling as that of the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam and "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. These same media outlets have made virtually no mention of Saudi crimes in Yemen.

For the last four and a half years, Saudi Arabia has waged a near-genocidal war against Yemen, the Middle East's poorest country. The violence has claimed the lives of nearly 100,000 Yemenis outright -- the greatest share through a relentless bombing campaign against civilian targets -- while pushing some 8 million more to the brink of starvation.

Washington is a direct accomplice in this bloodbath, providing the warplanes, bombs and missiles used to carry it out, along with logistical support and, until the end of last year, mid-air refueling that allowed Saudi bombers to carry out uninterrupted carnage. Meanwhile, the US Navy has helped enforce a blockade that has starved Yemen of food and medicine.

If what the Yemeni Houthis say is true, that they sent a swarm of 10 weaponized drones to attack the Saudi facilities, then the action was clearly an act of self-defense, far less than proportionate to the slaughter inflicted by the Saudi regime against Yemen.

Meanwhile, Washington's new ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, repeated the charges against Iran on Monday before a United Nations Security Council meeting on Yemen. Providing no more proof than Pompeo did two days earlier, merely repeating the formulation that "there is no evidence that the attacks came from Yemen," she described the damage to the Saudi oil installations as "deeply troubling."

Like the government she represents, the UN ambassador -- the wife of billionaire Kentucky coal baron Joe Craft and a top Republican donor -- clearly finds the spilt oil of the Saudi monarchy far more upsetting than the spilt blood of tens of thousands of Yemeni men, women and children.

On Saturday night, President Donald Trump made a call to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, offering his condolences and unqualified support to a man exposed as a cold-blooded murderer. Bin Salman is responsible not only for the grisly assassination and dismemberment of the Washington-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul nearly a year ago, but also the beheadings of at least 134 people in just the first half of this year, 34 of them political activists slaughtered en masse on April 23.

Trump subsequently announced that the US was "locked and loaded" to avenge Saudi oil with military force. (This was a variation on his assertion in June that the Pentagon had been "cocked and loaded" when he came, by his own account, within 10 minutes of launching devastating attacks on Iran after it shot down an unmanned US spy drone over its territory.)

If there is, as Washington claims, "no evidence" that the attacks were launched from Yemen, one could, with equal if not greater justification, observe that there is likewise "no evidence" that they were not launched by the US itself, or by its principal regional ally, Israel.

If one proceeds from the age-old detective maxim of Cui bono? or "Who benefits?", Tehran is the least likely suspect. There is clearly more to Washington's rush to judgment than meets the eye.

The attack on the Saudi oil facilities provides a casus belli desired by a major section of the US ruling oligarchy and its military and intelligence apparatus, which is determined to prosecute a war for regime change in Iran. Such a war would be the latest installment in Washington's protracted drive to reverse by military means the decline of US imperialism's global hegemony, in particular by claiming unfettered US control over the world's energy reserves and the power to deny them to its rivals.

The thinking within these layers was expressed in an editorial published Monday by the Wall Street Journal, the mouthpiece of US finance capital. The Journal warned that Iran was "probing Mr. Trump as much as the Saudis." It continued, "They are testing his resolve to carry out his 'maximum pressure' campaign, and they sense weakness." It pointed disapprovingly to Trump's failure to launch airstrikes in June following the downing of the US drone.

The Journal approvingly cited calls by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham for bombing Iranian oil refineries in order to "break the regime's back" and suggested that Trump "apologize to John Bolton, who warned repeatedly that Iran would take advantage of perceived weakness in the White House." Bolton, a long-time advocate of bombing Iran, resigned as Trump's national security adviser last week, reportedly over differences on policy toward Tehran.

The attack on the Saudi oil facilities also provides leverage for Washington in corralling the Western European powers -- the UK, France and Germany -- behind US war aims. Signatories to the Iranian nuclear accord that the Trump administration renounced, they have made feeble gestures toward countering Washington's "maximum pressure" sanctions regime in an attempt to salvage their own imperialist interests. While thus far failing to endorse US charges of Iranian responsibility, they could, by means of the attack on Saudi Arabia, be swung behind the US drive to war.

Israel and its beleaguered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also have ample motive to stage a military action aimed at provoking war with Iran. On the eve of Tuesday's Israeli election, the threat of a major war with Iran serves the political interests of Netanyahu, whose political fortunes are inextricably tied to the escalation of military conflict in the Middle East. The Israeli state, moreover, had become increasingly concerned over an apparent cooling of the appetite of the ruling monarchies in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for a confrontation with Iran.

Recent drone strikes against Shia militias in Iraq that had allegedly received Iranian weapons were, according to a report by the web site Middle East Eye, staged by Israeli drones operating out of bases controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main US proxy force in Syria. A similar covert US-Israeli collaboration could easily have produced the attacks on the Saudi oil installations.

Whatever the exact circumstances of the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, they are being exploited for the purpose of dragging the American people and all of humanity into a war that can rapidly escalate into a regionwide and even global conflagration.

US strikes against Iran carried out under the pretext of retaliation for the attacks on Saudi Arabia can trigger Iranian counterstrikes, sending US warships to the bottom of the Persian Gulf and wreaking havoc on American military bases throughout the region.

The prospect of thousands of US soldiers and sailors dying as a result of Washington's conspiracies and aggression carries with it the threat of the US government assuming emergency powers and implementing police-state measures in the US itself in the name of "national security."

This would, by no means, be an unintended consequence. The buildup to war is driven in large measure by the escalation of social tensions and class struggle within the United States itself, which has found fresh expression in the strike by 46,000 autoworkers against General Motors. There is a powerful incentive for the US ruling class to direct these tensions outward in the eruption of military conflict, while creating the pretext for mass repression.

The threat of a US assault on Iran paving the way to a third world war must be answered through a politically conscious and independent intervention of the working class to put an end to imperialism and reorganize society on socialist foundations.

Bill Van Auken

[Sep 17, 2019] The latest warmonger's lie to start a war with Iran

Notable quotes:
"... @Fishtroller 02 ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

gjohnsit on Tue, 09/17/2019 - 3:10pm Remember in 2002 when the neocons in Washington told us that we had to attack Iraq because of 9/11, eventhough Iraq had nothing to do with it?

So now Iran is being blamed for the attack on Saudi oil fields, and anonymous warmongers claim that they have proof.

The United States has identified the exact locations in Iran from which a combination of more than 20 drones and cruise missiles were launched against Saudi oil facilities over the weekend, a senior U.S. official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin on Tuesday. The official said the locations are in southern Iran, at the northern end of the Persian Gulf.

What a coincidence! That also happens to be around Iran's major oil fields.
What's more, the Saudi air defenses would have stopped it if it came from Yemen.

Saudi Arabia's air defenses have been aimed south for months, to protect against missile attacks launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, so they were useless against the missiles and drones coming in from the north, the official told Martin.

Let's put a pin in that for now.
Washington immediately dismissed the Houthi's claim of responsibility for the attack. Why? Because the Houthis don't have the knowledge or the means to carry it out.

But U.S. officials have cast doubt on the Houthis’ claim, arguing that the sophisticated nature of the attack suggested that it was beyond the capabilities of the rebel group.

The NY Times is even more direct.

Analysts say this is what the Houthis appear to have used to hit the Abha International Airport in southern Saudi Arabia a few months ago. But the Quds 1 lacks the range to get from northern Yemen to the oil installations in Saudi Arabia.

The range, scale and precision of the latest attack — including the successful penetration of Saudi air defenses and the avoidance of obstacles like power lines and communication towers — far exceeds anything the Houthis have ever done.

So it's all wrapped up. The Houthis aren't capable of doing it, and we have proof that Iran did it. We just can't show it to you.

It makes a good story if you have no long-term memory.
Because this happened less than a month ago.


A drone attack launched by Yemen’s Houthi group on an oilfield in eastern Saudi Arabia on Saturday caused a fire at a gas plant but had no impact on oil production, state-run oil company Saudi Aramco said.

A Houthi military spokesman said earlier that the group had targeted the Shaybah oilfield with 10 drones, in what he said was the “biggest attack in the depths” of the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, by the Iran-aligned group.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih described Shaybah as a “vital facility”.

That oilfield is 900 kilometres away from Yemen.
Literally everything about this Houthi attack is the same as Saturday's attack, except for fewer explosions. So what the fuck is the NY Times talking about?

To make this even more interesting, I happened upon this report by the UAE following the Houthi attack from last month.

The report also reveals critical Saudi defence weaknesses to the weaponised drones used by the Houthis.

It reports that from January to May there were 155 such attacks against Saudi targets in Yemen and throughout the Gulf, a much higher figure than previously admitted.

“The attack on the Lahj Military Base demonstrates a weakness in Saudi air defences and the lack of capacity in electronic war if we take into account that these drones are basic and are not launched on tarmac,” the report says.

“Air defences such as the Patriot are not capable of spotting these drones because the systems are designed to intercept long and medium range Scud missiles.”

Najran airport has been hit repeatedly by Houthi drones despite being protected by a Patriot battery, the report reveals.

155 drone attacks? U.S. Patriot missiles unable to detect and stop them?
Why that sounds a lot different than what we are being told.

Recall that the Houthis had brought down a U.S. drone just a few weeks ago. That was the second U.S. drone they shot down just this summer.
Recall that the Houthis have been hitting Riyadh with missiles for over a year.

All the evidence points to the Houthis being more than capable of not just being responsible for this attack, but for repeating this attack in a matter of weeks Mark F. McCarty

Fishtroller 02 on Tue, 09/17/2019 - 4:06pm

Because the US has now pissed off all of Europe

and probably most of the UN, they are going to have a harder time getting anyone on board the Pompeo Holy War train. We are going to have to show our allies totally verifiable evidence that Iran lobbed those drones, and it looks like we can't do that.

Probably because they didn't do it! And once that starts looking clear to the world, the last remnants of US credibility will fly away for good.

gjohnsit on Tue, 09/17/2019 - 4:23pm
It's been more than four days

@Fishtroller 02

We are going to have to show our allies totally verifiable evidence that Iran lobbed those drones, and it looks like we can't do that.

If we had proof it was Iran we would have shown it to someone by now.
Aren't we monitoring the airspace around Iran?

And what is Iran's motivation?
It's not worth the risk for Iran if they were caught.

OTOH, if Iran gives the weapons to the Houthis...that makes a Hell of a lot more sense.

and probably most of the UN, they are going to have a harder time getting anyone on board the Pompeo Holy War train. We are going to have to show our allies totally verifiable evidence that Iran lobbed those drones, and it looks like we can't do that.

Probably because they didn't do it! And once that starts looking clear to the world, the last remnants of US credibility will fly away for good.

[Sep 17, 2019] Stingray devices were detected near White House -- Isreali intelligence is most probably culprit

Notable quotes:
"... Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it." ..."
"... So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution? ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: September 17, 2019 at 6:41 am GMT

Too bad Tulsi can't call out Israel the way she does KSA.

Trump offers to pimp out our military to his Saudi masters

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Jo8QU2s_5I?feature=oembed

cranc , says: September 17, 2019 at 8:21 am GMT
Just bewildering to read the Left's continuing insistence that Israel is best understood as 'just another outpost of the American empire'. This is probably the most damaging idea in circulation right now, as its diversionary effect is only matched by its absurdity.
The Left simply cannot 'go there' though, no matter how much factual evidence is stacked up. (On top of the spying and theft we have 'The Lobby' documentary, the defence pact, party funding, etc. etc.). They have to avoid the reality, one which can only be explained through cross border tribal allegiances and religious history going back many centuries. These, of course, lay outside the Left's purview, and any consideration of them is dogmatically opposed. It is getting to be a kind of insanity.

Tulsi can allege that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9/11 attacks and that they pull the strings in Washington, (and many on the Left will applaud) but she cannot point out the rather more glaring 9/11 connections to Israel and the whole machinery of control that lies at the centre of American empire.
As she votes against BDS, has there ever been a more ridiculous double standard ?

Realist , says: September 17, 2019 at 9:09 am GMT

Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it."

So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: September 17, 2019 at 11:09 am GMT
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non stop.
sally , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
Hans , says: September 17, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would RISE UP IN ARMS. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983

Admiral Moorer, "the dirty anti-semite," was one of the few people with influence to call out Israel for their deliberate attack on the USS Liberty – https://www.erasingtheliberty.com/

The American Legion continues to wet its pants apparently believing that kissing (((ass))) is more patriotic than standing up for America and members of the Navy.

USS Liberty Veterans banned forever from Am Legion Nat'l Convention – https://israelpalestinenews.org/uss-liberty-vets-banned-forever-american-legion-national-conference/

DESERT FOX , says: September 17, 2019 at 1:17 pm GMT
Whats new about Israeli spying against the zio/US, hell the government is full of zionists in every facet of the government, they run every department, including and especially the CIA , which would be better named the Mossad West, in fact the Mossad is so embedded in the CIA that the only way to end this would be to as JFK said to scatter it to the winds aka abolish the Mossad infested CIA.

[Sep 17, 2019] Iran Rejects US Accusation It Is Behind Saudi Attacks

Notable quotes:
"... Send Pompeo to the UN...... looks like yellow cake to me. ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , September 15, 2019 at 06:19 AM

Iran Rejects US Accusation It Is Behind
Saudi Attacks https://nyti.ms/30iNte7
NYT - Michael Wolgelenter - September 15

Iran on Sunday forcefully rejected charges by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it was responsible for drone attacks that caused serious damage to two crucial Saudi Arabian oil installations, with the foreign minister dismissing the remarks as "max deceit."

The attacks on Saturday, which hold the potential to disrupt global oil supplies, were claimed by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Mr. Pompeo said that Iran had launched "an unprecedented attack on the world's oil supply," although he did not offer any evidence and stopped short of saying that Iran had carried out the missile strikes.

The Houthis are part of a complex regional dynamic in the Middle East, receiving support from Iran while the Saudis, Tehran's chief rival for supremacy in the region and the leader of a coalition that is fighting the Houthis in Yemen, are aligned with the United States.

Seyed Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, castigated the Saudis for their role in the war in Yemen, where the Saudis have directed airstrikes that have caused heavy civilian casualties and exacerbated a humanitarian crisis. He also ridiculed Mr. Pompeo's comments.

The semiofficial Fars news agency reported on its English-language website that Mr. Mousavi described Mr. Pompeo's allegations as "blind and fruitless remarks" that were "meaningless" in a diplomatic context.

Saudi Arabia has yet to publicly accuse Iran of involvement in the attack. On Sunday, its Foreign Ministry urged international action to preserve the world oil supply in response to the attack, but it said nothing about assigning blame or striking back.

The developments come at a moment of rising tensions between Iran and the United States, which have mounted since President Trump pulled out of the 2015 accord in which Iran agreed with the West to restrict its nuclear program. Since the American withdrawal, Iran has gradually pulled away from its some obligations under the agreement. ...

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , September 15, 2019 at 06:23 AM
... "US & its clients are stuck in Yemen because of illusion that weapon superiority will lead to military victory," Mr. Zarif wrote on Twitter. "Blaming Iran won't end disaster. Accepting our April '15 proposal to end war & begin talks may.

The attack on Saturday, which the Houthis said involved 10 drones, represented the rebels' most serious strike since Saudi Arabia inserted itself into the conflict in Yemen four years ago. That the rebels could cause such extensive damage to such a crucial part of the global economy astonished some observers. ...

im1dc , September 16, 2019 at 04:59 AM
It's Monday September 16th, 2019 and the weeks starts off like this:

GM's UAW Strike

Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production

Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME

One of Trump's White House flunky's declared "it is better if Trump does not study an issue" before making decisions (oh yea,"Stupid is what Stupid does")

Biden and S. Warren tied in the DEM race for 2020

Piketty's new Economics tome is out

PM Netanyahu is losing his re-election bid in Israel, to be determined by tomorrow's Election

We live in interesting times...

...the question I pose for the times is 'Are the People are better lead by businessmen, politicians, academics, or intellectuals?

ilsm -> im1dc... , September 16, 2019 at 06:29 AM
The biggest damage from

"Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production"

is the ARAMCO IPO.

"Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME"

Send Pompeo to the UN...... looks like yellow cake to me.

[Sep 17, 2019] Meet the Quds1 cruise missile. Made in Yemen - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in fact have been a missile strike ..."
"... But regardless, the game has escalated up one more rung up the ladder. How many more will it take for the world to put its interests ahead of Israel's? ..."
"... Next escalation rung: a loading dock for supertankers: either the port of Yanbu or Ra's Tanura. Followed by desalination facilities, if Western politicians still pretend to turn a blind eye and prefer to follow the dictates of their Israeli masters. Nuff Sed. ..."
"... In asking the question, qui bono, you do have to include Netanyahu, who is up for reelection tomorrow. There's nothing like striking fear into the heart of the electorate on the eve of an election for firming up support for a proven incumbent. And if the US attacks Iran before tomorrow, so much the better for Netanyahu. ..."
"... That said, I don't think that Netanyahu's buddies in Riyadh would be amused if this were proven. However, poking a friend in the eye never seemed to stop Israel before think USS Liberty. ..."
"... Israel has the means, plus the motive (Bib's reelection), and might have taken the opportunity to attribute the attack to Iran and force Trump's hand. ..."
"... I am assuming, myself, personally, this action was taken to prevent a meeting in NYC between Trump and the President of Iran. That is my guess. ..."
"... There was never going to be a meeting between Rouhani and Trump. I expect to be dead of old age before there would be any substantive meetings between Iran and the United States. ..."
"... Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei has said there will be no meeting until the U.S.ends sanctions. ..."
"... I do not for a moment believe Bolton would have stood for it, and even though he's gone, neither will Pompeo or Pence. Both appear to be fanatically devoted to Israel. There may be meetings between low level functionaries, and Trump seems to want one very much, but Rouhani has said there is no way to trust America, so no point to talking. The situation may change if Netanyahu loses the election, although I have no reason to believe Avigdor will be any better. ..."
"... However, if Trump DOES cut a deal, he will not try and fluff it off as an "Executive Agreement"....if Trump cuts a deal he knows he will have to bring it to Congress. Thee Lobby may kill it there...or not. We'll see. ..."
"... It's not just Yemen. People forget there is an oppressed Shiite minority near the Aramco HQ (dispossessed of the oil fields, located in their ancestral area & treated like sub-sub-citizens); they get periodically beheaded" ..."
"... The Al Saud gang, under the Clown Prince Muhammad Bone Saw, can not count on those Shiite inhabitants of the oil rich region, not necessarily because of the latter's sympathy for Iran but because they were brutalized for almost a century. ..."
"... One to benefit from it that I see so far is Saudi's Aramco IPO which is critical to Saudi . According to WSJ they were considering delaying it because of low oil prices, they needed oil to reach $80 barrel to make it viable. The attack sent prices up but now market is talking about risk if there are 'on going attacks'. What could we deduce if there are no on going attacks and the IPO proceeds? ..."
"... We know Yemen has the Quds-1 and has surprised us before with their technical capability. Combine that with the video of Yahya Sari claiming full responsibility for the attack and I'm not sure there is any reason to speculate about conspiracies involving other actors. ..."
"... In addition, the specificity of the targets hit suggests good intel. I would suspect that Houthi's have linked with disaffected groups in SA (lots!) and improved their Humint. It seems highly unlikely that Iran would do something like this AND leave their fingerprints behind - at least based on recent events. ..."
"... Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my experience they turn off all ATC and air defense systems that require manning or watch keeping when they find them inconvenient as on the weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar soon to prove they are responsible. ..."
"... israel gets a lot of press and speculation on this board as well as everywhere else for all their conspiracies and supposed omnipotent power and control but in this writers opinion THEY have been punching way above their actual weight for years and current reality has exposed how feckless and puny they really are in the scheme of things. ..."
"... ''i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if israel were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations israel is viewed as responsible for.'' A Cult is a Cult regardless of it members makeup. And Israel is looking more like a Jim Jones farm every day. ..."
"... And Iran has demonstrated that they can cause months worth of damage on the KSA, the UAE, and Kuwait. I can't believe the number of Congressman who simultaneously believe that Iran was able to glide over U.S. made air defenses without detection and also believe that we can simply carpet bomb their refineries without any repercussion. How can one believe both things at the same time? That Iran is responsible for a sophisticated ghost attack and that they are incapable of retaliating in a target rich environment. ..."
"... Not only did Graham say this but the loon from Maryland repeated it. These people are insane but MSM hosts encourage it, just saw Cavuto snear at Ron Paul because he actually made sense. We are so messed up. ..."
"... Everyone keeps misunderestimating the Yemenis. The Houthis are fighting as part of a coalition that includes a large part of the Yemeni military and intelligence services. This coalition is carrying out a war under guerrilla conditions, but that war is led by professional military men. ..."
"... It is the benefit of being a perfumed prince or fop or neo-con that history has no meaning because history ended sometime in the 90's. Somehow I hear the voice of a Rove lecturing: ..."
"... "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ..."
"... Yes indeed. Dave deserves hearty congratulations though we might add a caveat. The said "valves" could have been blown out in advance via software or person throwing a switch (humint or cyber component to one attack vector). ..."
"... It cries out "sure, it's bad, but it is reversible." ..."
"... Houthis have every reason to utilize their advanced weapons systems against Saudi targets to bring the war to an end. As for Iran, seems they have been on a semi-successful diplomatic campaign to counter US maximum pressure with their own maximum pressure on Europeans, Russia and China to deliver on the economic benefits that are as important in JCPOA as the curtailing of Iran's nuclear program. ..."
"... Trump talking about meeting Rouhani in New York, Zarif in China getting at least $50-100 billion in pledged economic support, Russia suggesting $10 billion investment in the Iranian energy sector: Why would Iran at this moment make a direct move to turn the world fully against them? Perhaps a rogue faction of IRGC out to stop any diplomatic action, but even that would have to come with OK from Khamenei--or there would be strong action against the rogues. ..."
"... Pressure on Trump to maintain the hardline against Iran following Bolton ouster? Pompeo has been leading the diplomatic back channels and repeating Trump's goal of forcing Iran to the table. Even the Saudis are for the moment hesitant to blame Iran, actually calling for a UN investigation into the source of the attacks. ..."
"... "The Iran did it" narrative as an attempt to keep on undermining the pro-Syrian government coalition. ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Meet the Quds1 cruise missile. Made in Yemen?

"On September 14, several explosions rocked the Khurais oilfield as well as the Abqaiq refinery, one of Saudi Arabia's most vital petrochemical installations. Several hours later, the Houthis claimed that they had targeted both facilities with ten drones as part of their "Balance of Deterrence" campaign.

What made this attack different from other recorded Houthi drone attacks was not only the unprecedented amount of material damage caused but also lingering doubt about the nature and the attribution of the attack. First, a video allegedly showing flying objects entering Kuwaiti airspace led to speculation that like a previous "Houthi" drone attack this strike might actually have originated in Iraq or even Iran. While the video remains unverified, the fact that the Kuwaiti government launched a probe into the issue lends some credence to the idea that something might have happened over Kuwait that day. Speculation about the origins of the attack was further fueled by a tweet by Mike Pompeo in which he claimed that there was no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.

Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in fact have been a missile strike. Previous Houthi drone strikes against oil facilities tended to result in quite limited damage which could be an indication that a different weapons system was used this time. Indeed, Aramco came to the conclusion that its facilities were attacked by missiles. Even more curious, several pictures began to emerge on social media purportedly showing the wreckage of a missile in the Saudi desert. While the images appear real, neither the date the photos were taken nor their location can be verified.

Social media users quickly claimed the images showed a crashed Iranian-made Soumar cruise missile. The Soumar and its updated version, the Hoveyzeh, are Iran's attempts at reverse-engineering the Soviet-designed KH-55 cruise missile, several of which the country illegally imported from Ukraine in the early 2000s . Others claimed it was the Quds 1, a recently unveiled Houthi cruise missile often claimed to be a rebranded Soumar." armscontrolwonl

---------------

TTG raised the issue of whether or not this wave of strikes was done by UAVs or cruise missiles. IMO this cruise missile could be built in Yemen with Iranian assistance. I am very interested in the question of what the actual vector of the attacks was in this case. pl

/www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208062/meet-the-quds-1/


Nuff Sed , 16 September 2019 at 10:43 AM

The accuracy of the strikes in the spherical pressurized gas storage containers all being in the same place relative to each target is the place to start for those who, unlike me, are capable of analyzing these things.

But regardless, the game has escalated up one more rung up the ladder. How many more will it take for the world to put its interests ahead of Israel's?

Next escalation rung: a loading dock for supertankers: either the port of Yanbu or Ra's Tanura. Followed by desalination facilities, if Western politicians still pretend to turn a blind eye and prefer to follow the dictates of their Israeli masters. Nuff Sed.

JohnH said in reply to Nuff Sed ... , 16 September 2019 at 12:19 PM
In asking the question, qui bono, you do have to include Netanyahu, who is up for reelection tomorrow. There's nothing like striking fear into the heart of the electorate on the eve of an election for firming up support for a proven incumbent. And if the US attacks Iran before tomorrow, so much the better for Netanyahu.

That said, I don't think that Netanyahu's buddies in Riyadh would be amused if this were proven. However, poking a friend in the eye never seemed to stop Israel before think USS Liberty.

JohnH said in reply to JohnH... , 16 September 2019 at 02:59 PM
"The Israeli military is armed with the latest fast jets and precision weaponry, yet it has turned to its fleet of drones to hit targets in Iraq. Deniability has played a big factor – the ability of drones to elude radar and therefore keep targets guessing about who actually bombed them is playing well for Israeli leaders who are trying to prevent an increasingly lethal shadow war with Iran from developing into an open conflict."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/16/middle-east-drones-signal-end-to-era-of-fast-jet-air-supremacy

Israel has the means, plus the motive (Bib's reelection), and might have taken the opportunity to attribute the attack to Iran and force Trump's hand.

Procopius said in reply to JohnH... , 17 September 2019 at 08:09 AM
The Samad 3 is laden with explosives that allow it to detonate a shaped charge which explodes downwards towards its target. Footage provided to MintPress by Yemen's Operations Command Center shows the Samad landing on an asphalt runway, confirming that the drone is now capable of conducting operations and then returning to base.
from Mint Press, Jul 9, 2019.
Thirdeye said in reply to Nuff Sed ... , 16 September 2019 at 03:02 PM
Neat holes on the western sides of the tanks. Shape charges? Wonder what the required payload would be.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/damage-at-saudi-oil-plant-points-to-well-targeted-swarm-attack.html#more

Johnb said in reply to Nuff Sed ... , 17 September 2019 at 12:42 AM
There is a huge sea water desalination plant not far away that provides all the treated water via pipeline for injection into the oil reservoirs to improve recovery of oil. Target that and not only have you already impacted the processing of the oil produced but would then impact the total volume of oil available for processing.

I can see no happy ending short of negotiation between interested parties. MBZ looks to have already reached that conclusion in respect of the UAE. what will be the self preservation response for the House of Saud

jonst , 16 September 2019 at 10:52 AM
Could the Committee speculate on possible 'steps of retaliation' operating, for theoretical purposes, at the moment, on the assumption that regardless of where the 'bullets' were fired from, or from what 'gun' they were fired, Iran paid for deed. What steps are open for action?

I am assuming, myself, personally, this action was taken to prevent a meeting in NYC between Trump and the President of Iran. That is my guess.

BABAK MAKKINEJAD -> jonst... , 16 September 2019 at 11:28 AM
There was never going to be a meeting between Rouhani and Trump. I expect to be dead of old age before there would be any substantive meetings between Iran and the United States.
Procopius said in reply to jonst... , 17 September 2019 at 08:15 AM
Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei has said there will be no meeting until the U.S.ends sanctions.

I do not for a moment believe Bolton would have stood for it, and even though he's gone, neither will Pompeo or Pence. Both appear to be fanatically devoted to Israel. There may be meetings between low level functionaries, and Trump seems to want one very much, but Rouhani has said there is no way to trust America, so no point to talking. The situation may change if Netanyahu loses the election, although I have no reason to believe Avigdor will be any better.

Babak Makkinejad -> Procopius... , 17 September 2019 at 08:42 AM
Even then discussion were to be in 5+1 forum.

US is in an economic, legal, political, and religious war with Iran. I should think that you would need a cease fire deal before anything else.

jonst said in reply to Procopius... , 17 September 2019 at 09:30 AM
With all due respect, I think one of us fails to grasp the true nature of Trump. If he puts his mind to it, and thinks it will benefit him, nobody, not Bolton, not Pompeo, not the whole Neocon cabal, Israeli govt, the present one or the next one, will stop him if he is President and alive. He will do what is best for Trump.

And trust has nothing to do with this. Why in the hell should I trust Iran? Hell, why should I trust the UK? I trust that people and nations have interests. That's all I trust. But that does mean I could not reach a deal with them. Now, as to whether that deals holds...that is another question. However, if Trump DOES cut a deal, he will not try and fluff it off as an "Executive Agreement"....if Trump cuts a deal he knows he will have to bring it to Congress. Thee Lobby may kill it there...or not. We'll see.

JP Billen said in reply to BABAK MAKKINEJAD... , 16 September 2019 at 04:46 PM
Babak, I value your input here. However, I hope you are wrong and that a meeting or meetings (substantive or not) will start as soon as the dealbreaker is out of office, and the sanctions are called off. But I would never wish you an early death. May you live a hundred years.
BABAK MAKKINEJAD -> JP Billen... , 17 September 2019 at 09:53 AM
Thank you very kindly. I would like to ask the following questions:

In my opinion, the answer to all of these are "no". Unfortunately, even if a man with the caliber of an FDR or a Nixon is elected to the US Presidency, he will not be able to accomplish much because of the difficulty, nay the impossibility, of untangling the rules and regulations that US has woven against Iran.

In my opinion, all of that was predicated on the strategic defeat of Iran and her surrender.

jonst said in reply to BABAK MAKKINEJAD... , 17 September 2019 at 01:42 PM
If I WERE ANSWERING. I got some demands of my own..but we can put them aside for the moment. In general, I would be inclined to respond: Yes, to the "sovereign immunity" question. Certainly. Regarding "economic warfare", you would have to give me your legal definition of such a broad phrase, but in principle, yes. Whole heartedly yes. Sanctions against Iran, and it individuals officers? Yes, absolutely. Sick of sanctions, in general. It is not in my power to answer the "unrequited love" issue, but I do solemnly state that I would agree to stop laughing--in public, anyway, at the question. Wanna meet?
Amir -> jonst... , 16 September 2019 at 02:13 PM
Nassim Nicolaas Taleb, author of "Black Swan":
"SAUDI FIELDS
It's not just Yemen. People forget there is an oppressed Shiite minority near the Aramco HQ (dispossessed of the oil fields, located in their ancestral area & treated like sub-sub-citizens); they get periodically beheaded"

The Al Saud gang, under the Clown Prince Muhammad Bone Saw, can not count on those Shiite inhabitants of the oil rich region, not necessarily because of the latter's sympathy for Iran but because they were brutalized for almost a century.

eakens , 16 September 2019 at 11:01 AM
https://gifyu.com/image/hofq
turcopolier , 16 September 2019 at 11:26 AM
jonst

So, you believe that the damage was self inflicted?

jonst said in reply to turcopolier ... , 16 September 2019 at 02:05 PM
No, sorry for lack of clarity. I believe Iran was behind it.
catherine said in reply to jonst... , 16 September 2019 at 03:20 PM
''I believe Iran was behind it.''

Why would Iran have done it? Just to show they can or to provoke a attack on Iran?

One to benefit from it that I see so far is Saudi's Aramco IPO which is critical to Saudi . According to WSJ they were considering delaying it because of low oil prices, they needed oil to reach $80 barrel to make it viable. The attack sent prices up but now market is talking about risk if there are 'on going attacks'. What could we deduce if there are no on going attacks and the IPO proceeds?

Only other beneficiary would be Israel if the attack actually does and likely has killed any Trump-Iran meeting.

Yemenis claimed credit for it, Iran and Iraq said they didn't do it. First word out of US mouth is Iran did it. The mouth I am least likely to believe is the US. I remember Iraq has WMDs propaganda....and those it came from.

jonst said in reply to catherine... , 17 September 2019 at 06:45 AM
Oh well, if Iran says they did not do it.......the US govt lies. The Iranian govt lies, the Saudis surely lie. This is not about innocents. That search is for children and mighty young ones at that.
The Twisted Genius , 16 September 2019 at 11:58 AM
The Quds-1 cruise missile is a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). The remotely piloted aerial vehicles, which are more commonly referred to as drones are also UAVs. The difference is in the degree of autonomy in flight control. On board autonomous flight control negates the need for LOS radio or satellite communications with the cruise missile. Cruise missiles, with their autonomous control, were always characterized by their high degree of accuracy.

I've started looking a little closer at the Arduino/RasberryPi and model aircraft hobbyist groups. With the availability of affordable microcontrollers and sensors, along with the massive library of open source software, I am convinced a hobbyist could put together a guidance system in his garage workshop capable of doing what the Quds-1 just did in SA. I also agree with Colonel Lang that an airframe like the Quds-1 could easily be built in war-torn Yemen. A cave would make an outstanding workshop.

Amir -> The Twisted Genius ... , 16 September 2019 at 01:54 PM
I tend to have a distant memory of a chart showing that the Yemeni missile range was way lobed that the Iranian, almost embryonal arsenal, in the 80's. I think they are well capable of developing/upgrading better missile: www.janes.com/images/assets/330/72330/Yemeni_rebels_enhance_ballistic_missile_campaign.pdf

Even if Iran exported dual use components or even blue prints; it should be counted as part of the unfortunate world weapons market & wouldn't be illegal.

Amir -> The Twisted Genius ... , 16 September 2019 at 04:56 PM
"Arms Control Wonk" describing the difference/similarities between the Iranian missiles and the Yemeni cruise missiles, used to give MBS a taste of his own medicine: www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208062/meet-the-quds-1/
JamesT -> The Twisted Genius ... , 16 September 2019 at 07:35 PM
This drone discussion board is interesting: https://diydrones.com
Johnb said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 17 September 2019 at 01:02 AM
Your point TTG was nicely illustrated in b's video of the Russian guy building in his workshopa turbofan engine that flew . Providing there is a set of plans it can be constructed and it only has to have a one time reliability.

Evidence for what delivered the strike will be found within the complex and there will be a lot of skills on the ground looking for those answers. The projectiles that struck the spheres looked to have had penetrating qualities rather than high explosive, putting a hole in a pressure vessel is sufficient to destroy its usefulness. I would be interested to know if the projectiles that struck the train were explosive to maximise damage there. Do we need to be considering what could deliver multiple targeted projectiles or were there simply multiple independent units or some combination as there were more strikes logged over two target complexes than the ten delivery platforms mentioned in the Al Ansar press release. Was there a flight controller and if so where were they located also comes to mind.

Adrestia said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 17 September 2019 at 02:54 AM
I was looking at the engine. The Quds 1 is powered by a TJ100 built in the Czech republic. https://www.pbsaerospace.com/our-products/tj-100-turbojet-engine

There is also the TJ200 built bij Polaris from Brazil with the following description::

"Turbine TJ200: TJ200 was specially designed to be used in either small cruise missiles or small high performance UAVs. The most important advantage of TJ200 engine is small diameter and a relatively low SFC (Specific Fuel Consumption) when compared to other engines of the same thrust, what makes TJ200 perfect to be used in long range small missiles." http://www.polaristec.com.br/products.html

That's a pretty specific description. So there are a number of COTS engines out there.

CK said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 17 September 2019 at 07:43 AM
If those benighted peoples of the desert can do this just think what highly motivated Antifa types could build in the warehouses of Portland.
JP Billen , 16 September 2019 at 01:45 PM
"neither the date the photos were taken nor their location can be verified."

Bingo! Interesting that bin Salman has put a press blackout on both Khurais and Buqaiq.

elkern said in reply to JP Billen... , 17 September 2019 at 12:26 AM
I'd have more confidence in the reporting if I could match it up better with what I can see in Google Maps/Earth.

The only two satellite pictures I've seen of "burning oil plants" disticntly show a large plume of black smoke centered a little ways away from the actual refinery area, in some kind of rectangular area outside the actual "plant". Are those wellheads burning? or adjacent underground storage? or what?

And the pictured of a burning plant labeled "Haradh Gas Plant" is actually (according to Google Maps & my eyeballs) the Hawiyah Gas Plant, about 60 miles NNE of Haradh.

In Google Maps/Earth, the Abqaiq facility is on the East side of the city/town of Buquaiq, and the details match the recent pix. The plume lines up with an empty square patch of desert at the end of a pipeline running SSE out of the plant.

I've looked all around Khurais, and haven't found anything which could possibly be the "Oil/Gas Infrastructure at Khurais", as the pictures of the damaged facility there are labeled.

Google Earth is big fun.

JP Billen said in reply to elkern... , 17 September 2019 at 10:58 AM
Elkern, I was referring to the pictures of the cruise missile parts in the sand. Seems to me they are old from previous attacks.

As far as I can tell the pics of damage at Buqaiq and Khurais are valid. With the exception of the eleven spherical tanks, which I believe were NOT hit. But I've been wrong before and am no expert on imagery analysis.

Erwin , 16 September 2019 at 02:00 PM
We know Yemen has the Quds-1 and has surprised us before with their technical capability. Combine that with the video of Yahya Sari claiming full responsibility for the attack and I'm not sure there is any reason to speculate about conspiracies involving other actors.

The Houthis are not an Iranian "proxy" and I highly doubt they would accept responsibility for something they didn't do.

ISL , 16 September 2019 at 03:10 PM
Dear Colonel,

Moon of Alabama links some photos and has discussion that suggests very high precision 5-10 m. That is not easily achievable with commercial GPS absent a lot of additional correction hardware. On the other hand, drones can easily do so. Further, it would be negligent for SA not to have GPS jamming around such facilities.

In addition, the specificity of the targets hit suggests good intel. I would suspect that Houthi's have linked with disaffected groups in SA (lots!) and improved their Humint. It seems highly unlikely that Iran would do something like this AND leave their fingerprints behind - at least based on recent events.

turcopolier , 16 September 2019 at 03:33 PM
ISL et al

Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my experience they turn off all ATC and air defense systems that require manning or watch keeping when they find them inconvenient as on the weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar soon to prove they are responsible.

PeterHug said in reply to turcopolier ... , 17 September 2019 at 01:26 PM
Well, the Swiss Air Force is only able to respond to emergencies during normal business hours...
ted richard , 16 September 2019 at 03:48 PM
imo, the saudi's and washington are going to have to take one for the team. the team being the global oil based world economy and all the notional value FOR THE present ONLY oil derivatives and interest rate derivatives burdening the western banking system.... think the insolvent deutsche bank et al.

a war on iran will do every bit as much damage or MORE to the west as it does to iran which both russia and china can not.. will not allow to die.

israel gets a lot of press and speculation on this board as well as everywhere else for all their conspiracies and supposed omnipotent power and control but in this writers opinion THEY have been punching way above their actual weight for years and current reality has exposed how feckless and puny they really are in the scheme of things.

i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if israel were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations israel is viewed as responsible for.

catherine said in reply to ted richard... , 16 September 2019 at 04:39 PM
''i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if israel were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations israel is viewed as responsible for.'' A Cult is a Cult regardless of it members makeup. And Israel is looking more like a Jim Jones farm every day.
Peter AU 1 , 16 September 2019 at 04:51 PM
Only one tank appears to have minor sooting or scorching. As though they were emptied after an initial strike then targeted in a second strike, but no reports of a second strike.
In the sat pic showing targets in red boxes, top square, the target appears to be smaller spheres which do look darkened.
The Twisted Genius , 16 September 2019 at 05:00 PM
Several correspondents here, including Adrestia and b, seem to lack faith in an autonomous navigation and terminal guidance system for these cruise missiles. They do not need a radio or cell phone communication link. This could have been even without a GPS signal. Given that the strikes appear to come from the west, the smartest route would be to fly north to the pipelines and then east to the targets. Once the missiles are close to the target either a visual terminal guidance system could take over or the targets are marked and the missiles' terminal guidance systems just home in on the marked targets. The marks could be laser illumination, small IR strobes or offset targeting devices. These offset targeting devices are emplaced with the exact azimuth and distance to the desired target programmed into the missiles' terminal guidance system. As I said before, we did this in the early 80s. In the 90s, I used the IR strobes. These were tiny lights snapped to the top of a 9V battery. You could carry a dozen in your pocket. I personally like the idea of emplacing small IR strobes on target or a set distance and azimuth from the target. The missiles could home on a spot say due east and 100 meters from the strobe. I'm sure there are other methods I haven't thought of yet. My educated guess is that this strike was well thought out with both intelligence and operational support on and near the target site. Anyone who thinks the Houthi and their Yemeni allies are incapable of planning and executing this is magnificently ignorant.
Adrestia said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 17 September 2019 at 12:14 PM
My perspective is for the DIY drone using COTS.

GPS is not accurate enough for the last 10-30 feet. Another possiblity that doesn't need any human terminal guidance could be a creative use of sensors.

Using CARVER select suitable targets. Pick something that is hot, big or fumes gas.

Then use a combination of gas-sensing, parking-sensors, heat-sensing sensors for the last few feet.

https://store.arduino.cc/components/components-sensors
https://tutorials-raspberrypi.com/raspberry-pi-sensors-overview-50-important-components/#temperature
https://tutorials-raspberrypi.com/raspberry-pi-sensors-overview-50-important-components/

walrus , 16 September 2019 at 05:21 PM
I'm reading the manual for an FY41AP autopilot right now. About $250, made in china. As for optical guidance, the attacks happened about 0400 - night or dawn?

This autopilot has a video link as well as autonomous and ground based control modes I think. If the Yemenis had a guy with a transceiver near abqaiq, then maybe they could send these things over from yemen using gps and a guy with transceiver provided terminal guidance. If that were to happen the drones would need to be launched at set intervals.

JP Billen said in reply to walrus... , 17 September 2019 at 10:49 AM
Night. Dawn at Riyadh was approximately 5:38 AM. But those facilities would have been well lit up with hundreds of floodlights.
Antoinetta III , 16 September 2019 at 05:49 PM
Your last sentence is true enough as far as it goes, but also, if Israel were all Zoroastrians (or any other group) the world would have dealt with their paranoid and psychopathic behavior decades ago. The only reason they get away with everything is because they are Jewish.
oldman22 , 16 September 2019 at 07:37 PM
Bacevich in NYT op ed. Behind a paywall, here is a copy. Please do not post if it is too long or off topic

Iran Might Be America's Enemy, but Saudi Arabia Is No Friend

After last week's refinery attack, Trump should be careful about throwing America's weight behind an unreliable "ally."

By Andrew J. Bacevich

Mr. Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Sept. 16, 2019

Image The American frigate Stark, which was hit by two missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter plane during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987. The American frigate Stark, which was hit by two missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter plane during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987.

In 1987, an Iraqi warplane attacked an American Navy frigate, the Stark, on patrol in the Persian Gulf. Accepting Saddam Hussein's explanation that the attack, which killed 37 sailors, had been an accident, American officials promptly used the incident, which came at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, to ratchet up pressure on Tehran. The incident provided the impetus for what became a brief, and all but forgotten, maritime war between the United States and Iran.

Last week, someone -- precisely who remains to be determined -- attacked two oil refineries in Saudi Arabia. American authorities have been quick to blame Iran, and the possibility of a violent confrontation between the two countries is once again growing. Before making a decision on whether to pull the trigger, President Trump would do well to reflect on that 1987 episode and its legacy.

Back then, the United States had become involved in the very bloody and seemingly interminable Iran-Iraq war, which Hussein had instigated in 1980 by invading Iran. As that war turned into a brutal stalemate, President Ronald Reagan and his advisers persuaded themselves that it was in America's interests to come to Iraq's aid. Iran was the "enemy" so Iraq became America's "friend."

After the Stark episode, American and Iranian naval forces in the Gulf began jousting, an uneven contest that culminated in April 1988 with the virtual destruction of the Iranian Navy.

Yet the United States gained little from this tidy victory. The principal beneficiary was Hussein, who wasted no time in repaying Washington by invading and annexing Kuwait soon after his war with Iran ground to a halt. Thus did America's "friend" become America's "enemy."

The encounter with Iran became a precedent-setting event and a font of illusions. Since then, a series of administrations have indulged the fantasy that the direct or indirect application of military power can somehow restore stability to the Gulf.

In fact, just the reverse has occurred. Instability has become chronic, with the relationship between military policy and actual American interests in the region becoming ever more difficult to discern.

In 2019, this now well-established penchant for armed intervention finds the United States once more involved in a proxy conflict, this time a civil war that has ravaged Yemen since 2015. Saudi Arabia supports one side in this bloody and interminable conflict, and Iran the other.

Under President Barack Obama and now President Trump, the United States has thrown in its lot with Saudi Arabia, providing support comparable to what the Reagan administration gave Saddam Hussein back in the 1980s. But American-assisted Saudi forces have exhibited no more competence today than did American-assisted Iraqi forces back then. So the war in Yemen drags on.
ImageSmoke billowing from one of the oil facilities hit by drone attacks on two Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, on Saturday.
Smoke billowing from one of the oil facilities hit by drone attacks on two Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, on Saturday.CreditAgence France-Presse -- Getty Images

Concrete American interests in this conflict, which has already claimed an estimated 70,000 lives while confronting as many as 18 million with the prospect of starvation, are negligible. Once more, as in the 1980s, the demonization of Iran has contributed to a policy that is ill advised and arguably immoral.

I am not suggesting that Washington is supporting the wrong side in Yemen. I am suggesting, however, that neither side deserves support. Iran may well qualify as America's "enemy." But Saudi Arabia is not a "friend," regardless of how many billions Riyadh spends purchasing American-manufactured weaponry and how much effort Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman invests in courting President Trump and members of his family.

The conviction, apparently widespread in American policy circles, that in the Persian Gulf (and elsewhere) the United States is compelled to take sides, has been a source of recurring mischief. No doubt the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran poses a danger of further destabilizing the Gulf. But the United States is under no obligation to underwrite the folly of one side or the other.

Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted.

Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem.

Andrew J. Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of the forthcoming "The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory."

Christian Chuba , 16 September 2019 at 07:47 PM
"a war on iran will do every bit as much damage or MORE to the west as it does to iran"

And Iran has demonstrated that they can cause months worth of damage on the KSA, the UAE, and Kuwait. I can't believe the number of Congressman who simultaneously believe that Iran was able to glide over U.S. made air defenses without detection and also believe that we can simply carpet bomb their refineries without any repercussion. How can one believe both things at the same time? That Iran is responsible for a sophisticated ghost attack and that they are incapable of retaliating in a target rich environment.

Not only did Graham say this but the loon from Maryland repeated it. These people are insane but MSM hosts encourage it, just saw Cavuto snear at Ron Paul because he actually made sense. We are so messed up.

Matt , 16 September 2019 at 08:35 PM
I found those gas domes on Google maps using the satellite view, I tagged the co-ordinates as: 25°55'37.3"N 49°41'00.8"E

or in digital format: 25.927015, 49.683559

here's a link that should take you straight there:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/25%C2%B055'37.3%22N+49%C2%B041'00.8%22E/@25.927015,49.6813703,702m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d25.927015!4d49.683559

use the pic released by USG of the damage to get an idea of the orientation of the incoming projectiles, I used that rectangularish pond behind as an aid,

then progressively zoom out looking to see which country they 'could' have come from?

oy vey!

Foxbat , 16 September 2019 at 08:50 PM
Everyone keeps misunderestimating the Yemenis. The Houthis are fighting as part of a coalition that includes a large part of the Yemeni military and intelligence services. This coalition is carrying out a war under guerrilla conditions, but that war is led by professional military men. Yemen had a serious air force consisting mostly of missile systems before the war. Much of it was destroyed by the bombing campaign carried out for Saudi Arabia, but the military organization survived. They have now reconstituted the Yemeni air forces under fire and in the midst of famine, blockade and invasion.

Stock up on popcorn, the show has only just begun.

Robert Waddell , 17 September 2019 at 01:41 AM
All,

Using my CAD and graphic tools and Google Earth along with the photo showing the four perforated pressure tanks, I have estimated the four vectors as:
E1 280W. E2 279W, E3 281W and E4 273W. I have numbered the tanks from the most eastwards (the furthermost away in the photo). Angles from true north (0/360 deg). This averages as 278N with a STDEV of 3 degrees. Its almost due west. Must be very difficult for autopilots (or real pilots) could perform more than one group-turning maneuver and still maintain final-run accuracy to what was achieved.

p.s. I'm not specialist in this field apart from terrestrial navigation and drafting experience.
RobW

Adrestia , 17 September 2019 at 03:19 AM
The Czech company which produces the TJ100 does have strong links with Iran. "2005 TPP Iranshahr Iran, the largest project in the company's history, a turnkey project - four power plant units." But then again. Creating a crash site in the desert with some COTS components in it is also easy to do. I would be surprised if Iran is launching missiles now. That would be pretty stupid to do.
turcopolier , 17 September 2019 at 07:49 AM
CK There is nothing "benighted" about them. that is a lesson the perfumed fops in Ryadh ae learning.
CK said in reply to turcopolier ... , 17 September 2019 at 08:27 AM
I know. I was attempting a comparison between the way most Americans perceive the desert peoples and the way most Americans fail to extrapolate from their beliefs of one groups capabilities and motivations and another group closer to home. The perfumed fops in Ryadh and the Perfumed Princes in DC are very similar under the perfume.
I remember in the mid sixties how the "benighted" Vietnamese and VC were on their last legs, unable to do anything militarily significant, that the war would be over in 67. This was that generations perfumed princes attitude towards a people who had been fighting against invaders since the 1850s. I remember 68 and the most unexpectedly successful operational and strategic level victory by the NVA and the VC that was TET.

From an infotainment/Cronkite perspective the important thing was that the Saigon embassy was broached. From and operational perspective a "defeated" enemy launched several hundred simultaneous attacks all over South Vietnam while holding down as a diversion the Dien Bien Phu look alike that was Khe San. 51 years 2 and 1/2 generations and today we make the exact same mistakes in evaluating the current situation.

It is the benefit of being a perfumed prince or fop or neo-con that history has no meaning because history ended sometime in the 90's. Somehow I hear the voice of a Rove lecturing:

"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Procopius , 17 September 2019 at 07:59 AM
I found this interesting report on a display of Houthi missiles and drones from June. https://www.mintpressnews.com/uae-yemen-troop-withdrawal-houthi-new-drones-missiles/260253/

I have seen articles over the last month or so (sorry, no links) saying that because they are not able to send large amounts of material aid through the Saudi and U.S. Navy blockade of Yemen, the Iranians sent blueprints and a few engineers and the Ansar Allah have been building them in Yemen.

turcopolier , 17 September 2019 at 08:19 AM
Robert Waddell

So, the sheaf of attacks on those tanks was from due west to east?

Dave Good , 17 September 2019 at 08:52 AM
My guess,

What looks like missile hits at identical positions on those spherical tanks are not. They are the locations of pressure relief valvaes that blew when the towers hit, venting gas up out and away.

JP Billen said in reply to Dave Good... , 17 September 2019 at 10:39 AM
I am in full agreement with your assessment Dave. I don't see any penetrations on those 11 spherical tanks. Look at the complete devastation on the three smaller spherical pressure tanks.

Unless we get higher resolution pics that definitely show those tanks were pierced there is no way I am going to believe those tiny scorch marks are UAV or missile hits. Much too symmetrical! No amount of geometrical explaining of drone tracks will account for that symmetry.

Fourth and Long -> JP Billen... , 17 September 2019 at 12:36 PM
Yes indeed. Dave deserves hearty congratulations though we might add a caveat. The said "valves" could have been blown out in advance via software or person throwing a switch (humint or cyber component to one attack vector). Yes, tremors or shakes triggering sensor which blows valve is possible, I suppose. But the thing that had me up at night was the nagging sense that this was a prearranged message of sorts.

It cries out "sure, it's bad, but it is reversible." So I had been wondering about invitation for pow-wows given UN upcoming meeting in NY. I'm tending to lean toward an advance blowout rather than blowout in reaction to stress. Why damage such delicate, custom equipment as those beautiful tanks? As you say, it has to be something intrinsic/internal to the construction of the tanks. So - before or after remains to be discussed. Assuming the pics are legitimate. But that's why I thought especially there was a subtle message sent. If they are legit - see above. If not legit - then it is howling reversibility or caution at the very least.

Fourth and Long -> Dave Good... , 17 September 2019 at 11:42 AM
Tend to agree. With hat tip and high five.
JP Billen said in reply to turcopolier ... , 17 September 2019 at 11:36 AM
The processor trains are a linear series of stabilizer columns that help separate the sour hydrogen sulfide gas from the crude oil. They are at the heart of the process and probably the highest value target. They are to the left of the 11 pressure tanks in the pictures shown, or perhaps just NNW of those tanks.
turcopolier , 17 September 2019 at 09:49 AM
TTG

I buy the idea of HUMINT assets having collected target informatoin but the idea of mini-strobes, etc. seems to me to be too difficult to do given the separation of the missile force and the HUMINT assets. Very hard to coordinate.

Harper , 17 September 2019 at 11:04 AM
Houthis have every reason to utilize their advanced weapons systems against Saudi targets to bring the war to an end. As for Iran, seems they have been on a semi-successful diplomatic campaign to counter US maximum pressure with their own maximum pressure on Europeans, Russia and China to deliver on the economic benefits that are as important in JCPOA as the curtailing of Iran's nuclear program.

Trump talking about meeting Rouhani in New York, Zarif in China getting at least $50-100 billion in pledged economic support, Russia suggesting $10 billion investment in the Iranian energy sector: Why would Iran at this moment make a direct move to turn the world fully against them? Perhaps a rogue faction of IRGC out to stop any diplomatic action, but even that would have to come with OK from Khamenei--or there would be strong action against the rogues.

Pressure on Trump to maintain the hardline against Iran following Bolton ouster? Pompeo has been leading the diplomatic back channels and repeating Trump's goal of forcing Iran to the table. Even the Saudis are for the moment hesitant to blame Iran, actually calling for a UN investigation into the source of the attacks.

glupi , 17 September 2019 at 11:13 AM
The key question of JohnH - "Qui bono?"

1) other suppliers

2) a general redirection of attention is achieved from 2 points:

- from Syria

In the issue of National Geographic Bulgaria of 04.2019, April 2019 number 4 (162),on p.29 there is a map of the migratory route of a bird - Ethiopia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Bulgaria. BUT the name of Syria is missing, just an empty space within its current borders.

Maybe, I sincerely hope not, it was just a part of a campaign of mass indoctrination - the "former Syria" to be divided between neighbors with a US military base here and there or to turn onto a No Man's land of lawlessness right there, flanking the EU, Russia's Muslim areas, China's silk road etc

"The Iran did it" narrative as an attempt to keep on undermining the pro-Syrian government coalition.

- from the temptation to mix with West's "rivals" internal issues

A strange coincidence that there was such a recent burst of "opposition" activity first in Russia, then in China. The velvet revolution recipe of the Arabian spring, Ukraine, etc (if it was such) didn't quite work however.

And the "empires strike back" - subtly and not so subtly. China offers for the London stock exchange (let's not forget that the Chinese take-over of the London metal exchange went without a fuss). Saudi Arabia next. Maybe the message is "Just stay out of your ex-colonies"

JamesT , 17 September 2019 at 12:06 PM
Richard Gill, managing director of the UK company Drone Defence: "But [drone defence is] military-grade technology and it's massively expensive. To install a defensive system is extremely complex and the threat is evolving at such a rate that it's very hard to keep up to date, because the adversaries change the type of technology they use in a way that almost renders the defence moot."

From related article on FT: https://www.ft.com/content/f2a73b40-d920-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17

[Sep 17, 2019] Detailed satellite photos show extent of 'surgical' attack damage to Saudi Aramco oil facilities CNBC - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... I get a big kick out of those of you who think someone faked this attack for, what; An excuse to go to war with Iran? ..."
"... Or, maybe the Izzies blew it up to start a war?Will wonders never cease? ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Detailed satellite photos show extent of 'surgical' attack damage to Saudi Aramco oil facilities" CNBC

"Satellite photos released by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe reveal the surgical precision with which Saudi Aramco's oil facilities were struck in attacks early Saturday.

The strikes, which unidentified U.S. officials have said involved at least 20 drones and several cruise missiles, forced Saudi Arabia to shut down half its oil production capacity, or 5.7 million barrels per day of crude -- 5% of the world's global daily oil production.

The images, first obtained by The Associated Press, show that at least 19 strikes were launched and 17 actually hit targets." CNBC

------------ --

I get a big kick out of those of you who think someone faked this attack for, what; An excuse to go to war with Iran?

An opening gambit to get the Iranians to talk to Trump at the UN? If so, that did not work. Khamenei has said unequivocally that they are not going to talk to the US.

Mikey Pompeo is now going to travel to Saudi Arabia to see if he can jawbone the Saudis into saying that it was undoubtedly the Iranians who done it. Would that be going on if the Saudis had been in the plot?

So, some of you think that the Saudis blew up their own processing plant for some nefarious reason.

Or, maybe the Izzies blew it up to start a war?Will wonders never cease? I mean you, not the attack. pl

[Sep 17, 2019] Locked-And-Loaded For War With Iran Is Bolton's Soul Living On by Patrick Buchanan

Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org, ..."
"... "Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," ..."
"... "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen." ..."
"... The War Party is giddy with excitement over the prospect of war with Iran, while the nation does not want another war. ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

09/17/2019

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

"Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," declared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Putting America's credibility on the line, Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out the devastating attack on Saudi oil facilities that halted half of the kingdom's oil production, 5.7 million barrels a day.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump did not identify Iran as the attacking nation, but did appear, in a tweet, to back up the secretary of state:

"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) as to who they believe was the cause of this attack and under what terms we would proceed!"

Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have been fighting Saudi Arabia for four years and have used drones to strike Saudi airport and oil facilities, claim they fired 10 drones from 500 kilometers away to carry out the strikes in retaliation for Saudi air and missile attacks.

Pompeo dismissed their claim, "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."

But while the Houthis claim credit, Iran denies all responsibility.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif says of Pompeo's charge, that the U.S. has simply replaced a policy of "maximum pressure" with a policy of "maximum deceit." Tehran is calling us liars.

And, indeed, a direct assault on Saudi Arabia by Iran, a Pearl Harbor-type surprise attack on the Saudis' crucial oil production facility, would be an act of war requiring Saudi retaliation, leading to a Persian Gulf war in which the United States could be forced to participate.

Tehran being behind Saturday's strike would contradict Iranian policy since the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal. That policy has been to avoid a military clash with the United States and pursue a measured response to tightening American sanctions.

U.S. and Saudi officials are investigating the sites of the attacks, the oil production facility at Abqaiq and the Khurais oil field.

According to U.S. sources, 17 missiles or drones were fired, not the 10 the Houthis claim, and cruise missiles may have been used. Some targets were hit on the west-northwest facing sides, which suggests they were fired from the north, from Iran or Iraq.

But according to The New York Times, some targets were hit on the west side, pointing away from Iraq or Iraq as the source. But as some projectiles did not explode and fragments of those that did explode are identifiable, establishing the likely source of the attacks should be only a matter of time. It is here that the rubber meets the road.

Given Pompeo's public accusation that Iran was behind the attack, a Trump meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the U.N. General Assembly's annual gathering next week may be a dead letter.

The real question now is what do the Americans do when the source of the attack is known and the call for a commensurate response is put directly to our "locked-and-loaded" president.

If the perpetrators were the Houthis, how would Trump respond?

For the Houthis, who are native to Yemen and whose country has been attacked by the Saudis for four years, would, under the rules of war, seem to be entitled to launch attacks on the country attacking them.

Indeed, Congress has repeatedly sought to have Trump terminate U.S. support of the Saudi war in Yemen.

If the attack on the Saudi oil field and oil facility at Abqaiq proves to be the work of Shiite militia from inside Iraq, would the United States attack that militia whose numbers in Iraq have been estimated as high as 150,000 fighters, as compared with our 5,000 troops in-country?

What about Iran itself?

If a dozen drones or missiles can do the kind of damage to the world economy as did those fired on Saturday -- shutting down about 6% of world oil production -- imagine what a U.S.-Iran-Saudi war would do to the world economy.

In recent decades, the U.S. has sold the Saudis hundreds of billions of dollars of military equipment. Did our weapons sales carry a guarantee that we will also come and fight alongside the kingdom if it gets into a war with its neighbors?

Before Trump orders any strike on Iran, would he go to Congress for authorization for his act of war?

Sen. Lindsey Graham is already urging an attack on Iran's oil refineries to "break the regime's back," while Sen. Rand Paul contends that "there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran."

Divided again: The War Party is giddy with excitement over the prospect of war with Iran, while the nation does not want another war.

How we avoid it, however, is becoming difficult to see.

John Bolton may be gone from the West Wing, but his soul is marching on.

[Sep 17, 2019] Stingray devices near White House with no consequences to Israel might be a sign of "domesticated intelligence" Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found?

Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

Justvisiting , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT

@Anonymous At some point when an foreign intelligence service has a critical mass of politicians blackmailed it becomes "domestic intelligence" or "domesticated intelligence". :-)
JoaoAlfaiate , says: September 17, 2019 at 11:09 am GMT
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non stop.
sally , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA

[Sep 17, 2019] The Costs of Trump's Economic War on Iran Keep Growing by Daniel Larison

Sep 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Trump speaks at Washington rally against the Iran deal back in September 2015. Credit: Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA/Newscom Paul Pillar comments on the attack on the Saudi oil facility at Abqaiq, and he connects it to the administration's dangerous, failing "maximum pressure" campaign:

Iranian leaders have been explicit in warning that if Iran could not export its oil, then other Persian Gulf producers would not be able to either. Was anyone in the Trump administration listening?

To borrow another formulation from Pompeo's tweet, there is no evidence that in the absence of the administration's economic warfare against Iran, Iran would do anything like attack the Abqaiq facility or have any incentive to conduct such an attack. If Iran did do the attack, then it was a direct and unsurprising result of the administration's policy of unrelenting hostility and of inflicting economic pain with no apparent end.

The Trump administration's economic war on Iran has not achieved anything except to destabilize the region further and impoverish the Iranian people. It is the cause of the current crisis with Iran, and were it not for this economic war we can reasonably assume that there would have been no attacks on tankers, pipelines, and possibly oil facilities in the last few months. As Pillar notes, the administration has shown Iran unrelenting hostility, and they have continued to apply one set of sanctions after another, and then the administration pretends that its own actions have not created the present mess. A smart administration would start lifting sanctions, but then a smart administration would never have imposed them in the first place.

Under no circumstances should the U.S. increase its involvement in Yemen and do more to devastate that country, as this former admiral has suggested that we do in an interview with Foreign Policy . The U.S. should have ended our involvement in the war on Yemen long ago. It is an ongoing disgrace that the administration continues to support and arm the governments that have been destroying and starving Yemen. Our involvement in the war is already unauthorized and illegal, and directly launching attacks alongside the Saudi coalition would make things even worse.

Deescalating tensions with Iran is the only sane way forward, so of course the only thing being seriously considered right now in Washington is a possible attack on Iran. It can't be stressed enough that the U.S. has no justification, legal or otherwise, to launch an attack on Iran. Not only is the U.S. not obliged to come to the defense of Saudi Arabia, but our government is bound by the U.N. Charter that prohibits using force against another state except in self-defense. No one can seriously claim that a U.S. strike on Iran right now would be anything other than an illegal attack in clear violation of international law.

Sid Finster 5 hours ago

The only sane thing MBS can do is to declare defeat and withdraw from Yemen, tout suite .

The problem is that there is no way for him to do so without humiliation. Shame and honor are paramount in Saudi society, and MBS has just gotten a very nasty and very public punch in the nose. Anything less than brutal escalation, and his honor and prestige will be seriously damaged.

The Saudi tyrants are stuck in Yemen so deep, that they have little choice but to keep doubling down.

[Sep 17, 2019] Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production

Notable quotes:
"... USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions... ..."
"... Strategically what this means is that after wantonly bombing and attacking woefully poor Yemen for years, rich Saudi Arabia is not capable of protecting almost the entire source of its wealth. ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

im1dc , September 16, 2019 at 04:59 AM

It's Monday September 16th, 2019 and the weeks starts off like this:

GM's UAW Strike

Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production

Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME

One of Trump's White House flunky's declared "it is better if Trump does not study an issue" before making decisions (oh yea,"Stupid is what Stupid does")

Biden and S. Warren tied in the DEM race for 2020

Piketty's new Economics tome is out

PM Netanyahu is losing his re-election bid in Israel, to be determined by tomorrow's Election

We live in interesting times...

...the question I pose for the times is 'Are the People are better lead by businessmen, politicians, academics, or intellectuals?

im1dc -> im1dc... , September 16, 2019 at 05:01 AM
Personally, I choose to be lead by people that do the right thing long term for the People, not the most politically expedient or the one that makes the most money in the short run or the smartest, etc.
ilsm -> im1dc... , September 16, 2019 at 06:29 AM
The biggest damage from

"Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production"

is the ARAMCO IPO.

"Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME"

Send Pompeo to the UN...... looks like yellow cake to me.

point -> ilsm... , September 16, 2019 at 06:44 AM
USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions about USA capability. Have not yet seen any press questions in that direction.
anne -> point... , September 16, 2019 at 07:25 AM
USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions...

[ Really important. ]

anne -> point... , September 16, 2019 at 08:55 AM
Strategically what this means is that after wantonly bombing and attacking woefully poor Yemen for years, rich Saudi Arabia is not capable of protecting almost the entire source of its wealth.

[Sep 16, 2019] This Wasn't How Trump's War on Iran Was Supposed to Go by David C. Hendrickson

Sep 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The U.S. thought it was cleverly choking the regime, but now it's clear that 'maximum pressure' goes both ways.

• The Saturday attack on Saudi oil facilities, which took 5.7 million barrels of oil per day offline, is the escalation that wasn't supposed to happen. Now that it has happened, we enter perilous new terrain.

America has blamed Iran and hinted at some sort of retaliation . Iran has denied responsibility, while the Houthis gladly take it. There are conflicting reports of where the missiles or drones were launched from, which we will learn more about in the coming days.

In the meantime, Trump is in a tight spot of his own making, with neither escalation nor retrenchment looking to be attractive options.

It is still uncertain when Saudi Aramco can get everything back on line. The attack showed sophistication. Critical nodes were hit. If the facilities are quickly repaired, that lessens the gravity of this event. The Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s showed the resiliency of oil installations, as Iraqi bombers pounded Kharg Island, where Iran exported much of its oil, yet the Iranians managed to keep the exports flowing. This suggests that a war of attrition today would be possible without major disruptions, though the impact of new technologies of attack and resistance makes any guess hazardous.

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If past crises are any indication, a sustained loss of 5.7 million barrels per day, over five percent of world oil consumption, would likely quadruple oil prices. Strategic petroleum reserves can cover this to a certain extent: the U.S. system can pump 4.4 million barrels per day. But it would exhaust its reserves in 150 days at that pace. We do not know whether more strikes will be forthcoming or whether such efforts can be successfully suppressed with airpower or invigorated defenses. All we can say is that the great game has advanced to a new stage.

From the beginning, escalation has seemed the likely consequence of the Trump administration's decision to asphyxiate the Iranian regime by cutting off its ability to export oil. This was a declaration of economic war. That is the polite term, as it is an action every international lawyer on the planet, back in the day when these things mattered, would have called an act of war without any precious qualifiers.

It turns out that there may be some street cred to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's assertion that if Iran isn't allowed to export oil, others will face obstacles too. Tit for tat. Got a quid? Here's a quo. The funny thing is that any significant threat to Saudi capacity creates a pressing need to get Iran's spare capacity onto the world market. As to which side now has more leverage, in a position to squeeze harder, that's a tough question. Putting it nicely, the Iranians can, if their will is stout, impose huge costs on the United States and the world economy. They would only consider that if pressed extremely hard, yet the United States has been pressing them extremely hard for over a year now.

Remember that the purpose of America's economic war on Iran was to force Iran to submit to 12 demands issued by Pharaoh Mike Pompeo in his edict delivered on May 21, 2018. It was really disappointing that Pompeo didn't raise the obvious thirteenth demand and insist that the embargo would not be lifted until an American regent was appointed in Tehran, taking the Islamic Revolution under neoliberal guidance until circumstances changed, after which Iranian democracy would be restored to its former lack of glory. That was implied, to be sure, but we didn't get much straight talk from Mr. Pompeo on that point.

This ultimatum was reminiscent of the demands that the Austro-Hungarians made on the Serbs on a certain date in 1914. Make them as extreme as you can, said the inspired diplomatists looking for war. World reaction was then unfavorable. Winston Churchill, in charge of Britain's navy, called it "the most insolent document of its kind ever devised." The resemblance to Pompeo's ultimatums hardly shows the imminence of a 1914-like crisis today, but there is a certain arrogance to both the U.S. warmongers and Austro-Hungarians. The Austrians got the war they were looking for; the neocons may yet get theirs.

Trump's renunciation of the Iran nuclear deal is mostly about Israel and its perceived security requirements. Not only must Iran not have a single nuclear weapon, it must not have the theoretical capability to produce a weapon, were the Iranians to break from their pledges under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the JCPOA. This imposes a requirement on the Islamic Republic that no other medium-sized power has had to endure. That the Iranians are bearers of an ancient civilization makes the humiliation all the more painful. Those 12 demands were not designed to produce a settlement; they were designed to produce a crisis, as they now have done. Regime change lies back of them -- that or simply the immiseration of another Muslim country.

American policy toward Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has recently been mostly about arms sales. People say all the time that the oil companies are the heavyweights in this drama. In fact, they are secondary. What has driven events in the recent past is the military-industrial complex salivating over the sales of high-priced and high-tech U.S. armaments to sheikdoms with money to burn. The MIC plunderers, like the Hollywood moguls, understand that you simply must have the foreign market to make the big profits. Politicians see such sales as a way of making our own arms purchases remotely affordable and thereby politically palatable. For these reasons, foreign arms sales to reprehensible characters is Washington's go-to move, a win-win for the plutocrats and the praetorians.

The United States acted under no prompting of national interest in so aiding and abetting the Saudi war in Yemen, but its hankering after all those lucrative contracts was just too much temptation. When the flesh is weak, as it seems to be in Washington, burning flesh is not a problem. Trump saw it as a great business deal and had no compunctions about the human fallout in Yemen. The Democrats -- a certain Democrat, especially -- did what was once said of Austrian Queen Maria Theresa after the Partition of Poland in 1772: "She wept, but she took."

The president may have outsmarted himself this time. He got rid of National Security Adviser John Bolton because he didn't like Bolton's across-the-board hawkish recommendations, but he signed on to the very big change in U.S. policy towards Iran that Bolton had recommended. Trump thought he was in control of the escalation. But when you declare your intention to asphyxiate another country, you've committed an act of war. Retaliation from the other side usually follows in some form or fashion. You can then advance to your ruin or retreat in ignominy.

Trump has threatened retaliation, but he surely does not want a big war with Iran. His supporters definitely do not want a war with Iran. Americans in general are opposed to a war with Iran. Mysteriously, however, the U.S. declaration of war on Iran in fact -- though not, of course, in name, heaven forbid -- escaped notice by the commentariat this past year. The swamp's seismograph doesn't record a reading when we violate the rules, but when the other guy does, it's 7.8 on the Richter Scale.

The whole drama, in a nutshell, is just the old-fashioned hubris of the imperial power, issuing its edicts, and genuinely surprised when it encounters resistance, even though such resistance confirms for the wunderkinds their view of the enemy's malevolence.

Is Trump trapped? That is the question of the hour. He faces strong pressure to do something in retaliation, but that something may aggravate the oil shock and imperil his re-election. As he dwells on that possibility, he will probably look for ways to back down. He will try to get out of the trap set by the U.S. economic war on Iran without abandoning the economic war on Iran. But that probably won't work; that was Iran's message over the weekend. Were he to abandon the economic war, however, he would get a ton of flak from both sides of the aisle in Congress. The commentators would scream "appeasement!" In Washington lobby-land, we'd be back to 1938 in a flash.

Does the president have the gumption to resist that tired line? I hope so.

David Hendrickson teaches history at Colorado College and is the author of Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition.

[Sep 16, 2019] The continual plundering and looting of Iranian resources

Sep 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

camfree , 26 minutes ago link

Bibi is desperate for war with Iran to avoid election defeat and prison and Bolton is fired/resigns only to predict "Iranian deception" on the way out the door.

Insurrexion , 33 minutes ago link

Zeroes,

Re: $100/Bl Oil...

Today, Brent climbed as much as 12% towards $70 per barrel and the US crude oil rose 10% to nearly $61. Historically, Brent crude oil reached an all time high of 147.50 in July of 2008. Remember what happened next?

Qui Bono?

Who suffers?

Iraq, Libya, Venezuela and Iran are a mess and cannot produce to make a difference.

This will be the catalyst for the economic downturn.

attah-boy-Luther , 39 minutes ago link

Trumptards locked and loaded....sigh and now this:

https://www.henrymakow.com/2019/09/disgrace-canadas-theft-of-ir.html

So the continual plundering and looting of Iranian resources never ceases to amaze me.

[Sep 16, 2019] The Only Way to End 'Endless War' - First, America has to give up its pursuit of global dominance.

Sep 16, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

-Stephen Wertheim / New York Times

"American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace."

[Sep 16, 2019] President Trump Called Former President Carter To Talk About China

Sep 16, 2019 | www.wabe.org

- WABE , Apr 14, 2019

Carter suggested that instead of war, China has been investing in its own infrastructure, mentioning that China has 18,000 miles of high-speed railroad.

"How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?"

Zero, the congregation answered.

"We have wasted I think $3 trillion," Carter said of American military spending. " It's more than you can imagine. China has not wasted a single penny on war and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way."

[Sep 16, 2019] The attack seemed to have involved not only Houti drones (already build with help from Iran), but also Iranian backed forces in Iraq, AND pro Iranian forces in Saudi Arabia itself. And maybe even other actors.

Sep 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

dh-mtl , Sep 15 2019 15:58 utc | 3

b,

The Americans have gotten themselves in a real bind with their maximum pressure campaign on Iran. This latest attack on Saudi Arabia's oil production looks like an escalation of the previous attacks on shipping and the spy drone. It is not evident how the Americans can respond to this latest attack.

As I see it their options are:

1. To let KSA respond to the Houthi attack and continue with their campaign to shut down Iranian oil production, without any direct U.S. response to the attack. However this will achieve nothing, as next month Iran will up pressure again with another attack on Middle-East oil assets, and we'll be back to the same place.

2. To bomb Iran's oil industry, as Pompeo and Graham suggest. However this risks blowing up the whole Middle East, as well as the World's oil market and their own (Western) economies.

3. Forget about Iran and move the fight to maintain U.S. global hegemony to another front: back to Venezuela? Serbia? Hong Kong? Taiwan? However the end result of such a move would more than likely be another humuliating defeat for the U.S.

4. Do as Stephen Wertheim / New York Times suggest and sue for peace. This will end the dream of U.S. World dominance, Globalization and the current western based financial system. The U.S. will become no more than a heavily indebted regional power in a 'Multi-polar World Order' led by China and Russia.

As I see it, the U.S. is out of options to continue their war for global dominance. #4 is the only viable option. But, as one author argued in a recent paper (I don't have the reference), wars continue long after the victor is clear, because the loser can't admit defeat (at heavy additional costs to the loser). I think that this is the position that the U.S. finds itself in now.


DontBelieveEitherPr. , Sep 15 2019 16:21 utc | 4

What the attack on Saudi oil infrastructure shows us, is that now Iran has united her proxys into one united front.

While they were cautious to not leave evidence of their involvment with the Houtis before, they now are putting their support more and more into the open.

The attack seemed to have involved not only Houti drones (already build with help from Iran), but also Iranian backed forces in Iraq, AND pro Iranian forces in Saudi Arabia itself. And maybe even other actors.

This is a major new development. Not only for the war on Yemen, but also in the context of Iran providing a credile detterence against US+Saudi aggression.
They excalated with increasing levels, and one wonders, what could top this last attack off.

And i am pretty sure, we will find out sooner rather than later.

Don Bacon , Sep 15 2019 20:13 utc | 29
@ 27
WaPo: Abqaiq . .damaged on the west-northwest sides
That's it! It was Hezbollah for sure. (not)

Actually there were two targets, the Buqaiq (Abqaiq) oil processing plant and the Khurais oil field, both in the Eastern Province.

These attacks are not the first -- from longwarjournal:

Last month, the Houthis claimed another drone operation against Saudi's Shaybah oil field near the United Arab Emirates. At more than 1,000 miles away from it's Yemen territory, that strike marked one of the Houthis farthest claimed attacks.
The Houthis also claimed a drone strike on the Abu Dhabi airport last year, but that has been denied by Emirati officials.
Additionally, a drone strike on Saudi's East-West oil pipeline near Riyadh earlier this year, which the Houthis claimed responsibility, was allegedly conducted by Iranian-backed Iraqi militants. If accurate, that means the Houthi claim of responsibility acted as a type of diplomatic cover for the Iraqi militants.
Since beginning its drone program last year, the Houthis have launched at least 103 drone strikes in Yemen and Saudi Arabia according to data compiled by FDD's Long War Journal. . . here . . .and more here .
Hercules , Sep 15 2019 21:27 utc | 35
Really appreciated the write up on the Houthis attack.
Sounds like the attack left substantial damage. Another bigger issue underlying all of this, aside from Saudi inability to get what it wants now from it's IPO, is the fact that the US Patriots did not detect this attack.
The Saudis spent billions last year on this defense system. Sounds like the clown Prince better give Russians a call about their S-400.
But the US wouldn't appreciate that much, would they?

[Sep 15, 2019] Demythologizing the Roots of the New Cold War by Ted Snider

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future "Russian aggression." ..."
"... That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro. ..."
"... When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy, warned that NATO expansion would be "the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .." ..."
"... As Matlock explains, the urgent transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could, as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen, "a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty and misery." ..."
"... The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging." ..."
"... The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty], the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more." ..."
"... By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community. ..."
"... But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in, and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy. ..."
"... Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian people's choice of leaders. ..."
"... "Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers, drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996." ..."
"... Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals. ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

When Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev received his peace prize in 1990, the Nobel Prize committee declared that "the two mighty power blocs, have managed to abandon their life-threatening confrontation" and confidently expressed that "It is our hope that we are now celebrating the end of the Cold War." Recently, U.N. General Secretary António Guterres funereally closed the celebrations with the realization that "The Cold War is back."

In a very short span of history, the window that had finally opened for Russia and the United States to build a new international system in which they work cooperatively to address areas of common interest had slammed back closed. How was that historic opportunity wasted? Why was the road from the Nobel committee's hope to the UN's eulogy such a short one?

The doctrinal narrative that is told in the U.S. is the narrative of a very short road whose every turn was signposted by Russian lies, betrayal, deception and aggression. The American telling of history is a tale in which every blow to the new peace was a Russian blow. The fact checked version offers a demythologized history that is unrecognizably different. The demythologized version is also a history of lies, betrayal, deception and aggression, but the liar, the aggressor, is not primarily Russia, but America. It is the history of a promise so historically broken that it laid the foundation of a new cold war.

But it was not the first promise the United States broke: it was not even the first promise they broke in the new cold war.

The Hot War

Most histories of the cold war begin at the dawn of the post World War II period. But the history of U.S-U.S.S.R. animosity starts long before that: it starts as soon as possible, and it was hot long before it turned cold.

The label "Red Scare" first appeared, not in the 1940s or 50s, but in 1919. Though it is a chapter seldom included in the history of American-Russian relations, America actively and aggressively intervened in the Russian civil war in an attempt to push the Communists back down. The United States cooperated with anti-Bolshevik forces: by mid 1918, President Woodrow Wilson had sent 13,000 American troops to Soviet soil. They would remain there for two years, killing and injuring thousands. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev would later remind America of "the time you sent your troops to quell the revolution." Churchill would record for history the admission that the West "shot Soviet Russians on sight," that they were "invaders on Russian soil," that "[t]hey armed the enemies of the Soviet government," that "[t]hey blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed for its downfall."

When the cause was lost, and the Bolsheviks secured power, most western countries refused to recognize the communist government. However, realism prevailed, and within a few short years, by the mid 1920s, most countries had recognized the communist government and restored diplomatic relations. All but the US It was not until several years later that Franklin D. Roosevelt finally recognized the Soviet government in 1933.

The Cold War

It would be a very short time before the diplomatic relations that followed the hot war would be followed by a cold war. It might even be possible to pin the beginning of the cold war down to a specific date. On April 22 and 23, President Truman told Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov to "Carry out his agreement" and establish a new, free, independent government in Poland as promised at Yalta. Molotov was stunned. He was stunned because it was not he that was breaking the agreement because that was not what Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had agreed to at Yalta. The final wording of the Yalta agreement never mentioned replacing Soviet control of Poland.

The agreement that Roosevelt revealed to congress and shared with the world – the one that still dominates the textbook accounts and the media stories – is not the one he secretly shook on with Stalin. Roosevelt lied to congress and the American people. Then he lied to Stalin.

In exchange for Soviet support for the creation of the United Nations, Roosevelt secretly agreed to Soviet predominance in Poland and Eastern Europe. The cold war story that the Soviet Union marched into Eastern Europe and stole it for itself is a lie: Roosevelt handed it to them.

So did Churchill. If Roosevelt's motivation was getting the UN, Churchill's was getting Greece. Fearing that the Soviet Union would invade India and the oil fields of Iran, Churchill saw Greece as the geographical roadblock and determined to hold on to it at all cost. The cost, it turned out, was Romania. Churchill would give Stalin Romania to protect his borders; Stalin would give Churchill Greece to protect his empire's borders. The deal was sealed on October 9, 1944.

Churchill says that in their secret meeting, he asked Stalin, "how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Romania, for us to have ninety percent predominance in Greece? . . ." He then went on to offer a fifty-fifty power split in in Yugoslavia and Hungary and to offer the Soviets seventy-five percent control of Bulgaria. The exact conversation may never have happened, according to the political record, but Churchill's account captures the spirit and certainly captures the secret agreement.

Contrary to the official narrative, Stalin never betrayed the west and stole Eastern Europe: Poland, Romania and the rest were given to him in secret. Then Roosevelt lied to congress and to the world.

That American lie raised the curtain on the cold war.

The New Cold War

Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future "Russian aggression."

At the close of the cold war, at a meeting held on February 9, 1990, George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, promised Gorbachev that if NATO got Germany and Russia pulled its troops out of East Germany, NATO would not expand east of Germany and engulf the former Soviet states. Gorbachev records in his memoirs that he agreed to Baker's terms "with the guarantee that NATO jurisdiction or troops would not extend east of the current line." In Super-power Illusions , Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was the American ambassador to Russia at the time and was present at the meeting, confirms Gorbachev's account, saying that it "coincides with my notes of the conversation except that mine indicate that Baker added "not one inch." Matlock adds that Gorbachev was assured that NATO would not move into Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact moved out, that "the understanding at Malta [was] that the United States would not 'take advantage' of a Soviet military withdrawal from Eastern Europe." At the February 9 meeting, Baker assured Gorbachev that "neither the President or I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place."

But the promise was not made just once, and it was not made just by the United States. The promise was made on two consecutive days: first by the Americans and then by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. According to West German foreign ministry documents, on February 10, 1990, the day after James Baker's promise, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze "'For us . . . one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.' And because the conversation revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: 'As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.'"

A few days earlier, on January 31, 1990, Genscher had said in a major speech that there would not be "an expansion of NATO territory to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union."

Gorbachev says the promise was made not to expand NATO "as much as a thumb's width further to the east." Putin also says mourns the broken promise, asking at a conference in Munich in February 2007, "What happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them."

Putin went on to remind his audience of the assurances by pointing out that the existence of the NATO promise is not just the perception of him and Gorbachev. It was also the view of the NATO General Secretary at the time: "But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. [Manfred] Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: 'The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.' Where are those guarantees?"

Recent scholarship supports the Russian version of the story. Russian expert and Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, Richard Sakwa says that "[r]ecent studies demonstrate that the commitment not to enlarge NATO covered the whole former Soviet bloc and not just East Germany." And Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and of Russian Studies and History at New York University, adds that the National Security Archive has now published the actual documents detailing what Gorbachev was promised. Published on December 12, 2017, the documents finally, and authoritatively, reveal that "The truth, and the promises broken, are much more expansive than previously known: all of the Western powers involved – the US, the UK, France, Germany itself – made the same promise to Gorbachev on multiple occasions and in various emphatic ways."

That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro.

It was this shattered promise, this primal betrayal, this NATO expansion to Russia's borders that created the conditions and causes of future conflicts and aggressions. When, in 2008, NATO promised Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership, Russia saw the threat of NATO encroaching right to its borders. It is in Georgia and Ukraine that Russia felt it had to draw the line with NATO encroachment into its core sphere of influence. Sakwa says that the war in Georgia was "the first war to stop NATO enlargement; Ukraine was the second." What are often cited as acts of Russian aggression that helped maintain the new cold war are properly understood as acts of Russian defense against US aggression that made a lie out of the promise that ended the Cold War.

When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy, warned that NATO expansion would be "the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .."

The broken promise restored the cold war. Though it is the most significant root of the new cold war, it was not the first. There was a prior broken promise, and this time the man who betrayed Russia was President H.W. Bush.

The end of the Cold War resulted from negotiations and not from any sort of military victory. Stephen Cohen says that "Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated with the last Soviet Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, what they said was the end of the Cold War on the shared, expressed premise that it was ending 'with no losers, only winners.'"

The end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union occurred so closely chronologically that it permitted the American mythologizers to conflate them in the public imagination and create the doctrinal history in which the US defeat of the Soviet Union ended the cold war. But the US did not defeat the Soviet Union. Gorbachev brought about what Sakwa calls a "self-willed disintegration of the Soviet bloc." The Soviet Union came to an end, not by external force or pressure, but out of Gorbachev's recognition of the Soviet Union's own self interest. Matlock flatly states that "pressure from governments outside the Soviet Union, whether from America or Europe or anywhere else, had nothing to do with [the Soviet collapse]." "Cohen demythologizes the history by reinstating the chronological order: Gorbachev negotiated the end of the cold war "well before the disintegration of the Soviet Union." The Cold War officially ended well before the end of the Soviet Union with Gorbachev's December 7, 1988 address to the UN

Matlock says that "Gorbachev is right when he says that we all won the Cold War." He says that President Reagan would write in his notes, "Let there be no talk of winners and losers." When Gorbachev compelled the countries of the Warsaw Pact to adopt reforms like his perestroika in the Soviet Union and warmed them that the Soviet army would no longer be there to keep their communist regimes in power, Matlock points out in Superpower Illusions that "Bush assured Gorbachev that the United States would not claim victory if the Eastern Europeans were allowed to replace the Communist regimes that had been imposed on them." Both the reality and the promise were that there was no winner of the Cold War: it was a negotiated peace that was in the interest of both countries.

When in 1992, during his losing re-election campaign, President Bush arrogantly boasted that "We won the Cold War!" he broke his own promise to Gorbachev and helped plant the roots of the new cold war. "In psychological and political terms," Matlock says, "President Bush planted a landmine under the future U.S.-Russian relationship" when he broke his promise and made that claim.

Bush's broken promise had two significant effects. Psychologically, it created the appearance in the Russian psyche that Gorbachev had been tricked by America: it eroded trust in America and in the new peace. Politically, it created in the American psyche the false idea that Russia was a defeated country whose sphere of interest did not need to be considered. Both these perceptions contributed to the new cold war.

Not only was the broken promise of NATO expansion not the first broken American promise, it was also not the last. In 1997, when President Clinton made the decision to expand NATO much more than an inch to the east, he at least signed the Russia-NATO Founding Act , which explicitly promised that as NATO expanded east, there would be no "permanent stationing of substantial combat forces." This obliterated American promise planted the third root of the new cold war.

Since that third promise, NATO has, in the words of Stephen Cohen, built up its "permanent land, sea and air power near Russian territory, along with missile-defense installations." US and NATO weapons and troops have butted right up against Russia's borders, while anti-missile installations have surrounded it, leading to the feeling of betrayal in Russia and the fear of aggression. Among the earliest moves of the Trump administration were the moving of NATO troops into Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and nearby Norway.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who offered the West Russia and cooperation in place of the Soviet Union and Cold War, was rewarded with lies, broken promises and betrayal. That was the sowing of the first seeds of the new cold war. The second planting happened during the Yeltsin years that followed. During this stage, the Russian people were betrayed because their hopes for democracy and for an economic system compatible with the West were both destroyed by American intervention.

The goal, Matlock too gently explains, "had to be a shift of the bulk of the economy to private ownership." What transpired was what Naomi Klein called in The Shock Doctrine "one of the greatest crimes committed against a democracy in modern history." The States allowed no gradual transition. Matlock says the "Western experts advised a clean break with the past and a transition to private ownership without delay." But there was no legitimate private capital coming out of the communist system, so there was no private money with which to privatize. So, there was only one place for the money to come. As Matlock explains, the urgent transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could, as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen, "a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty and misery."

The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging."

Sometimes damaging? In the first year, millions lost their entire life savings. Subsidy cuts meant that many Russians didn't get paid at all. Klein says that by 1992, Russians were consuming 40% less than they were the year before, and one third of them had suddenly sunk below the poverty line. The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty], the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more."

By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community.

But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in, and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy.

In late 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin won a year of special powers from the Russian Parliament: for one year, he was to be, in effect, the dictator of Russia to facilitate the midwifery of the birth of a democratic Russia. In March of 1992, under pressure from the, by now, impoverished, devastated and discontented population, parliament repealed the dictatorial powers it had granted him. Yeltsin responded by declaring a state of emergency, re-bestowing upon himself the repealed dictatorial powers. Russia's Constitutional Court ruled that Yeltsin was acting outside the constitution. But the US sided – against the Russian people and against the Russian Constitutional Court – with Yeltsin.

Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian people's choice of leaders.

Yeltsin took the money and sent police officers and elite paratroopers to surround the parliament building. Clinton "praised the Russian President has (sic) having done 'quite well' in managing the standoff with the Russian Parliament," as The New York Times reported at the time. Clinton added that he thought "the United States and the free world ought to hang in there" with their support of Yeltsin against his people, their constitution and their courts, and judged Yeltsin to be "on the right side of history."

On the right side of history and armed with machine guns and tanks, in October 1993, Yeltsin's troops opened fire on the crowd of protesters, killing about 100 people before setting the Russian parliament building on fire. By the time the day was over, Yeltsin's troops had killed approximately 500 people and wounded nearly 1,000. Still, Clinton stood with Yeltsin. He provided ludicrous cover for Yeltsin's massacre , claiming that "I don't see that he had any choice . If such a thing happened in the United States, you would have expected me to take tough action against it." Clinton's Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, said that the US supported Yeltsin's suspension of parliament in these "extraordinary times."

In 1996, elections were looming, and America's hegemonic dreams still needed Yeltsin in power. But it wasn't going to happen without help. Yeltsin's popularity was nonexistent, and his approval rating was at about 6%. According to Cohen, Clinton's interference in Russian politics, his "crusade" to "reform Russia," had by now become official policy . And so, America boldly interfered directly in Russian elections . Three American political consultants, receiving "direct assistance from Bill Clinton's White House," secretly ran Yeltsin's reelection campaign. As Time magazine broke the story , "For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin's campaign."

"Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers, drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996."

More incriminating still is that Richard Dresner, one of the three American consultants, maintained a direct line to Clinton's Chief Strategist, Dick Morris. According to reporting by Sean Guillory , in his book, Behind the Oval Office , Morris says that, with Clinton's approval, he received weekly briefings from Dresner that he would give to Clinton. Based on those briefings, Clinton would then provide recommendations to Dresner through Morris.

Then ambassador to Russia, Thomas Pickering, even pressured an opposing candidate to drop out of the election to improve Yeltsin's odds of winning.

The US not only helped run Yeltsin's campaign, they helped pay for it. The US backed a $10.2 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan for Russia, the second-biggest loan the IMF had ever given. The New York Times reported that the loan was "expected to be helpful to President Boris N. Yeltsin in the presidential election in June." The Times explained that the loan was "a vote of confidence" for Yeltsin who "has been lagging well behind in opinion polls" and added that the US Treasury Secretary "welcomed the fund's decision."

Yeltsin won the election by 13%, and Time magazine's cover declared: "Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win". Cohen reports that the US ambassador to Russia boasted that "without our leadership we would see a considerably different Russia today." That's a confession of election interference.

Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals.

Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

[Sep 15, 2019] Iran A Club of Sanctioned Countries in Solidarity Against US Economic Terrorism Dissident Voice

Sep 15, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

Iran: A Club of Sanctioned Countries in Solidarity Against US Economic Terrorism

by Press TV / September 13th, 2019

PressTV Interview – transcript

Background links:
https://ifpnews.com/iranian-mps-propose-formation-of-club-of-sanctioned-countries
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-china-iran-fight-sanctions-1458096

Excerpts:

An Iranian parliamentary faction has come up with the idea of establishing a club of sanctioned countries for concerted action against the US economic terrorism.

The chairman of the Parliament's faction on countering sanctions, Poormokhtar, gave a report on the formation of the faction and its activities, as well as the ongoing efforts to establish the club of sanctioned countries. Iran's FM, Zaraf, said this would be enhancing the already existing alliance of Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela against US economic terrorism.

PressTV: Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela are among the nations that have come out against the United States' use of sanctions to enforce its foreign policy around the world. In what ways can they fight these US sanctions as a group?

Peter Koenig: Brilliant idea! Solidarity makes stronger and eventually will attract other countries who are sick and tired of the US sanction regime, and since they have the backing of Russia and China, that's a very strong alliance, especially an economic alliance. The sanction regime can only be broken through economics, meaning decoupling from the western monetary system. I said this before and say it again, at the risk of repeating myself.

After all, China is the world's largest and strongest economy in Purchasing Power GDP measures which is the only comparison that really counts. I believe this solidarity alliance against US sanctions is certainly worth a trial.

And personally, I think it will be a successful trial, as more countries will join, possibly even non-sanctioned ones, out of solidarity against a common tyrant.

The countries in solidarity against sanctions, in addition to ignoring them -- and the more they ignore them, the more other countries will follow-suit -- that's logical as fear disappears and solidarity grows.

For example, Iran and Venezuela, oil exporting countries, could accompany their tankers by war ships. Yes, it's an extra cost, but think of it as temporary and as a long-term gain. Would "Grace I" have been accompanied by an Iranian war ship the Brits would not have dared confiscating it. That's for sure.

PressTV: Many of the US sanctions have led to death of civilians in those particular countries. At the same time, sanctions have also led to the improvement of these countries to the point where domestic production in various fields advanced. Don't sanctions become country-productive to US aims?'

PK: Of course, the sanctions are counter-productive. They have helped Russia to become food-self-sufficient, for example. That was not Washington's intention and less so the intention of the EU, who followed Washington's dictate like puppets.

Sanctions are like a last effort before the fall of the empire, to cause as much human damage as possible, to pull other nations down with the dying beast. It has always been like that starting with the Romans through the Ottoman's. They realize their time has come but can't see a world living in peace. So they must plant as much unrest and misery as possible before they disappear

That's precisely what's happening with the US.

Intimidation, building more and more military bases, all with fake money, as we know the dollar is worth nothing – FIAT money – that the world still accepts but less and less so, therefore military bases, deadly sanctions, and trade wars. Trump knows that a trade war against China is a lost cause. Still, he can intimidate other countries by insisting on a trade war with China or that's what he thinks.

PressTV: The more countries US sanctions, illegally, more people turn against the US: doesn't that defeat the US so-called fight against terrorism and violence?

PK: Well, US sanction and the entire scheme of US aggression has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, as you know. It's nothing but expanding US hegemony over the world, and if needed, and more often than not, the US finances terrorism to fight proxy wars against their so-called enemies, meaning anybody not conforming to their wishes and not wanting to submit to their orders and not letting them exploit – or rather steal – their natural resources.

Syria is a case in point. ISIL is funded and armed by the Pentagon, who buys Serbian produced weapon to channel them through the Mid-East allies to Syrian terrorists, the ISIL or similar kinds with different names -- just to confuse.

Venezuela too – the opposition consist basically of US trained, financed and armed opposition "leaders" – who do not want to participate in totally democratic elections – order of the US – boycott them. But as we have seen as of this day, the various coup attempts by the US against their legitimate and democratically elected President, Nicolás Maduro, have failed bitterly, and this despite the most severe sanctions regime South American has known, except for Cuba, against whom the US crime has been perpetuated for 60 years.

So, nobody should have the illusion that Washington's wars are against terrorism. Washington is THE terrorist regime that fights for world hegemony.

Press TV is the first Iranian international news network broadcasting in English on a round-the-clock basis. Read other articles by Press TV , or visit Press TV's website .

This article was posted on Friday, September 13th, 2019 at 7:33am and is filed under China , Cuba , Interview , Iran , Russia , Sanctions , Syria , United States , US Terrorism , Venezuela .

[Sep 15, 2019] Demythologizing the Roots of the New Cold War by Ted Snider

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future "Russian aggression." ..."
"... That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro. ..."
"... When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy, warned that NATO expansion would be "the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .." ..."
"... As Matlock explains, the urgent transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could, as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen, "a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty and misery." ..."
"... The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging." ..."
"... The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty], the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more." ..."
"... By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community. ..."
"... But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in, and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy. ..."
"... Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian people's choice of leaders. ..."
"... "Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers, drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996." ..."
"... Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals. ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

When Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev received his peace prize in 1990, the Nobel Prize committee declared that "the two mighty power blocs, have managed to abandon their life-threatening confrontation" and confidently expressed that "It is our hope that we are now celebrating the end of the Cold War." Recently, U.N. General Secretary António Guterres funereally closed the celebrations with the realization that "The Cold War is back."

In a very short span of history, the window that had finally opened for Russia and the United States to build a new international system in which they work cooperatively to address areas of common interest had slammed back closed. How was that historic opportunity wasted? Why was the road from the Nobel committee's hope to the UN's eulogy such a short one?

The doctrinal narrative that is told in the U.S. is the narrative of a very short road whose every turn was signposted by Russian lies, betrayal, deception and aggression. The American telling of history is a tale in which every blow to the new peace was a Russian blow. The fact checked version offers a demythologized history that is unrecognizably different. The demythologized version is also a history of lies, betrayal, deception and aggression, but the liar, the aggressor, is not primarily Russia, but America. It is the history of a promise so historically broken that it laid the foundation of a new cold war.

But it was not the first promise the United States broke: it was not even the first promise they broke in the new cold war.

The Hot War

Most histories of the cold war begin at the dawn of the post World War II period. But the history of U.S-U.S.S.R. animosity starts long before that: it starts as soon as possible, and it was hot long before it turned cold.

The label "Red Scare" first appeared, not in the 1940s or 50s, but in 1919. Though it is a chapter seldom included in the history of American-Russian relations, America actively and aggressively intervened in the Russian civil war in an attempt to push the Communists back down. The United States cooperated with anti-Bolshevik forces: by mid 1918, President Woodrow Wilson had sent 13,000 American troops to Soviet soil. They would remain there for two years, killing and injuring thousands. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev would later remind America of "the time you sent your troops to quell the revolution." Churchill would record for history the admission that the West "shot Soviet Russians on sight," that they were "invaders on Russian soil," that "[t]hey armed the enemies of the Soviet government," that "[t]hey blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed for its downfall."

When the cause was lost, and the Bolsheviks secured power, most western countries refused to recognize the communist government. However, realism prevailed, and within a few short years, by the mid 1920s, most countries had recognized the communist government and restored diplomatic relations. All but the US It was not until several years later that Franklin D. Roosevelt finally recognized the Soviet government in 1933.

The Cold War

It would be a very short time before the diplomatic relations that followed the hot war would be followed by a cold war. It might even be possible to pin the beginning of the cold war down to a specific date. On April 22 and 23, President Truman told Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov to "Carry out his agreement" and establish a new, free, independent government in Poland as promised at Yalta. Molotov was stunned. He was stunned because it was not he that was breaking the agreement because that was not what Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had agreed to at Yalta. The final wording of the Yalta agreement never mentioned replacing Soviet control of Poland.

The agreement that Roosevelt revealed to congress and shared with the world – the one that still dominates the textbook accounts and the media stories – is not the one he secretly shook on with Stalin. Roosevelt lied to congress and the American people. Then he lied to Stalin.

In exchange for Soviet support for the creation of the United Nations, Roosevelt secretly agreed to Soviet predominance in Poland and Eastern Europe. The cold war story that the Soviet Union marched into Eastern Europe and stole it for itself is a lie: Roosevelt handed it to them.

So did Churchill. If Roosevelt's motivation was getting the UN, Churchill's was getting Greece. Fearing that the Soviet Union would invade India and the oil fields of Iran, Churchill saw Greece as the geographical roadblock and determined to hold on to it at all cost. The cost, it turned out, was Romania. Churchill would give Stalin Romania to protect his borders; Stalin would give Churchill Greece to protect his empire's borders. The deal was sealed on October 9, 1944.

Churchill says that in their secret meeting, he asked Stalin, "how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Romania, for us to have ninety percent predominance in Greece? . . ." He then went on to offer a fifty-fifty power split in in Yugoslavia and Hungary and to offer the Soviets seventy-five percent control of Bulgaria. The exact conversation may never have happened, according to the political record, but Churchill's account captures the spirit and certainly captures the secret agreement.

Contrary to the official narrative, Stalin never betrayed the west and stole Eastern Europe: Poland, Romania and the rest were given to him in secret. Then Roosevelt lied to congress and to the world.

That American lie raised the curtain on the cold war.

The New Cold War

Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future "Russian aggression."

At the close of the cold war, at a meeting held on February 9, 1990, George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, promised Gorbachev that if NATO got Germany and Russia pulled its troops out of East Germany, NATO would not expand east of Germany and engulf the former Soviet states. Gorbachev records in his memoirs that he agreed to Baker's terms "with the guarantee that NATO jurisdiction or troops would not extend east of the current line." In Super-power Illusions , Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was the American ambassador to Russia at the time and was present at the meeting, confirms Gorbachev's account, saying that it "coincides with my notes of the conversation except that mine indicate that Baker added "not one inch." Matlock adds that Gorbachev was assured that NATO would not move into Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact moved out, that "the understanding at Malta [was] that the United States would not 'take advantage' of a Soviet military withdrawal from Eastern Europe." At the February 9 meeting, Baker assured Gorbachev that "neither the President or I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place."

But the promise was not made just once, and it was not made just by the United States. The promise was made on two consecutive days: first by the Americans and then by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. According to West German foreign ministry documents, on February 10, 1990, the day after James Baker's promise, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze "'For us . . . one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.' And because the conversation revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: 'As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.'"

A few days earlier, on January 31, 1990, Genscher had said in a major speech that there would not be "an expansion of NATO territory to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union."

Gorbachev says the promise was made not to expand NATO "as much as a thumb's width further to the east." Putin also says mourns the broken promise, asking at a conference in Munich in February 2007, "What happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them."

Putin went on to remind his audience of the assurances by pointing out that the existence of the NATO promise is not just the perception of him and Gorbachev. It was also the view of the NATO General Secretary at the time: "But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. [Manfred] Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: 'The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.' Where are those guarantees?"

Recent scholarship supports the Russian version of the story. Russian expert and Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, Richard Sakwa says that "[r]ecent studies demonstrate that the commitment not to enlarge NATO covered the whole former Soviet bloc and not just East Germany." And Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and of Russian Studies and History at New York University, adds that the National Security Archive has now published the actual documents detailing what Gorbachev was promised. Published on December 12, 2017, the documents finally, and authoritatively, reveal that "The truth, and the promises broken, are much more expansive than previously known: all of the Western powers involved – the US, the UK, France, Germany itself – made the same promise to Gorbachev on multiple occasions and in various emphatic ways."

That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro.

It was this shattered promise, this primal betrayal, this NATO expansion to Russia's borders that created the conditions and causes of future conflicts and aggressions. When, in 2008, NATO promised Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership, Russia saw the threat of NATO encroaching right to its borders. It is in Georgia and Ukraine that Russia felt it had to draw the line with NATO encroachment into its core sphere of influence. Sakwa says that the war in Georgia was "the first war to stop NATO enlargement; Ukraine was the second." What are often cited as acts of Russian aggression that helped maintain the new cold war are properly understood as acts of Russian defense against US aggression that made a lie out of the promise that ended the Cold War.

When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy, warned that NATO expansion would be "the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .."

The broken promise restored the cold war. Though it is the most significant root of the new cold war, it was not the first. There was a prior broken promise, and this time the man who betrayed Russia was President H.W. Bush.

The end of the Cold War resulted from negotiations and not from any sort of military victory. Stephen Cohen says that "Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated with the last Soviet Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, what they said was the end of the Cold War on the shared, expressed premise that it was ending 'with no losers, only winners.'"

The end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union occurred so closely chronologically that it permitted the American mythologizers to conflate them in the public imagination and create the doctrinal history in which the US defeat of the Soviet Union ended the cold war. But the US did not defeat the Soviet Union. Gorbachev brought about what Sakwa calls a "self-willed disintegration of the Soviet bloc." The Soviet Union came to an end, not by external force or pressure, but out of Gorbachev's recognition of the Soviet Union's own self interest. Matlock flatly states that "pressure from governments outside the Soviet Union, whether from America or Europe or anywhere else, had nothing to do with [the Soviet collapse]." "Cohen demythologizes the history by reinstating the chronological order: Gorbachev negotiated the end of the cold war "well before the disintegration of the Soviet Union." The Cold War officially ended well before the end of the Soviet Union with Gorbachev's December 7, 1988 address to the UN

Matlock says that "Gorbachev is right when he says that we all won the Cold War." He says that President Reagan would write in his notes, "Let there be no talk of winners and losers." When Gorbachev compelled the countries of the Warsaw Pact to adopt reforms like his perestroika in the Soviet Union and warmed them that the Soviet army would no longer be there to keep their communist regimes in power, Matlock points out in Superpower Illusions that "Bush assured Gorbachev that the United States would not claim victory if the Eastern Europeans were allowed to replace the Communist regimes that had been imposed on them." Both the reality and the promise were that there was no winner of the Cold War: it was a negotiated peace that was in the interest of both countries.

When in 1992, during his losing re-election campaign, President Bush arrogantly boasted that "We won the Cold War!" he broke his own promise to Gorbachev and helped plant the roots of the new cold war. "In psychological and political terms," Matlock says, "President Bush planted a landmine under the future U.S.-Russian relationship" when he broke his promise and made that claim.

Bush's broken promise had two significant effects. Psychologically, it created the appearance in the Russian psyche that Gorbachev had been tricked by America: it eroded trust in America and in the new peace. Politically, it created in the American psyche the false idea that Russia was a defeated country whose sphere of interest did not need to be considered. Both these perceptions contributed to the new cold war.

Not only was the broken promise of NATO expansion not the first broken American promise, it was also not the last. In 1997, when President Clinton made the decision to expand NATO much more than an inch to the east, he at least signed the Russia-NATO Founding Act , which explicitly promised that as NATO expanded east, there would be no "permanent stationing of substantial combat forces." This obliterated American promise planted the third root of the new cold war.

Since that third promise, NATO has, in the words of Stephen Cohen, built up its "permanent land, sea and air power near Russian territory, along with missile-defense installations." US and NATO weapons and troops have butted right up against Russia's borders, while anti-missile installations have surrounded it, leading to the feeling of betrayal in Russia and the fear of aggression. Among the earliest moves of the Trump administration were the moving of NATO troops into Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and nearby Norway.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who offered the West Russia and cooperation in place of the Soviet Union and Cold War, was rewarded with lies, broken promises and betrayal. That was the sowing of the first seeds of the new cold war. The second planting happened during the Yeltsin years that followed. During this stage, the Russian people were betrayed because their hopes for democracy and for an economic system compatible with the West were both destroyed by American intervention.

The goal, Matlock too gently explains, "had to be a shift of the bulk of the economy to private ownership." What transpired was what Naomi Klein called in The Shock Doctrine "one of the greatest crimes committed against a democracy in modern history." The States allowed no gradual transition. Matlock says the "Western experts advised a clean break with the past and a transition to private ownership without delay." But there was no legitimate private capital coming out of the communist system, so there was no private money with which to privatize. So, there was only one place for the money to come. As Matlock explains, the urgent transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could, as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen, "a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty and misery."

The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging."

Sometimes damaging? In the first year, millions lost their entire life savings. Subsidy cuts meant that many Russians didn't get paid at all. Klein says that by 1992, Russians were consuming 40% less than they were the year before, and one third of them had suddenly sunk below the poverty line. The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty], the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more."

By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community.

But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in, and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy.

In late 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin won a year of special powers from the Russian Parliament: for one year, he was to be, in effect, the dictator of Russia to facilitate the midwifery of the birth of a democratic Russia. In March of 1992, under pressure from the, by now, impoverished, devastated and discontented population, parliament repealed the dictatorial powers it had granted him. Yeltsin responded by declaring a state of emergency, re-bestowing upon himself the repealed dictatorial powers. Russia's Constitutional Court ruled that Yeltsin was acting outside the constitution. But the US sided – against the Russian people and against the Russian Constitutional Court – with Yeltsin.

Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian people's choice of leaders.

Yeltsin took the money and sent police officers and elite paratroopers to surround the parliament building. Clinton "praised the Russian President has (sic) having done 'quite well' in managing the standoff with the Russian Parliament," as The New York Times reported at the time. Clinton added that he thought "the United States and the free world ought to hang in there" with their support of Yeltsin against his people, their constitution and their courts, and judged Yeltsin to be "on the right side of history."

On the right side of history and armed with machine guns and tanks, in October 1993, Yeltsin's troops opened fire on the crowd of protesters, killing about 100 people before setting the Russian parliament building on fire. By the time the day was over, Yeltsin's troops had killed approximately 500 people and wounded nearly 1,000. Still, Clinton stood with Yeltsin. He provided ludicrous cover for Yeltsin's massacre , claiming that "I don't see that he had any choice . If such a thing happened in the United States, you would have expected me to take tough action against it." Clinton's Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, said that the US supported Yeltsin's suspension of parliament in these "extraordinary times."

In 1996, elections were looming, and America's hegemonic dreams still needed Yeltsin in power. But it wasn't going to happen without help. Yeltsin's popularity was nonexistent, and his approval rating was at about 6%. According to Cohen, Clinton's interference in Russian politics, his "crusade" to "reform Russia," had by now become official policy . And so, America boldly interfered directly in Russian elections . Three American political consultants, receiving "direct assistance from Bill Clinton's White House," secretly ran Yeltsin's reelection campaign. As Time magazine broke the story , "For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin's campaign."

"Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers, drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996."

More incriminating still is that Richard Dresner, one of the three American consultants, maintained a direct line to Clinton's Chief Strategist, Dick Morris. According to reporting by Sean Guillory , in his book, Behind the Oval Office , Morris says that, with Clinton's approval, he received weekly briefings from Dresner that he would give to Clinton. Based on those briefings, Clinton would then provide recommendations to Dresner through Morris.

Then ambassador to Russia, Thomas Pickering, even pressured an opposing candidate to drop out of the election to improve Yeltsin's odds of winning.

The US not only helped run Yeltsin's campaign, they helped pay for it. The US backed a $10.2 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan for Russia, the second-biggest loan the IMF had ever given. The New York Times reported that the loan was "expected to be helpful to President Boris N. Yeltsin in the presidential election in June." The Times explained that the loan was "a vote of confidence" for Yeltsin who "has been lagging well behind in opinion polls" and added that the US Treasury Secretary "welcomed the fund's decision."

Yeltsin won the election by 13%, and Time magazine's cover declared: "Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win". Cohen reports that the US ambassador to Russia boasted that "without our leadership we would see a considerably different Russia today." That's a confession of election interference.

Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals.

Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

[Sep 15, 2019] USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites (neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy

The USA might eventually pay the price for the economic rape and alienation of Russia by criminal Clinton and his coterie
Notable quotes:
"... Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at this stage of history. ..."
"... The truth is that after the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR. ..."
"... Still as an imperial state and the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country. ..."
Sep 15, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

likbez -> anne... , September 14, 2019 at 08:30 PM

"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith"

USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites (neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy.

Bolton attitude to UN is very symptomatic for the neocons as a whole.

Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at this stage of history.

The truth is that after the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR.

The USA stated to behave like a typical Imperial state (New Rome, or, more correctly, London) accepting no rules/laws that are not written by themselves (and when it is convenient to obey them) with the only difference from the classic imperial states that the hegemony it not based on the military presence/occupation ( like was the case with British empire)

Although this is not completely true as there are 761 US Military Bases across the planet and only 46 Countries with no US military presence. Of them, seven countries with 13 New Military Bases were added since 09/11/2001.In 2001 the US had a quarter million troops posted abroad.

Still as an imperial state and the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country.

I recently learned from https://akarlin.com/2010/04/on-liberasts-and-liberasty/ that the derogatory term for the neoliberal part of the Russian elite is "liberasts" and this term gradually slipping into English language ( http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/liberast ;-)

With the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 the USA centered neoliberal empire experiences first cracks. Brexit and election of Trump widened the cracks in a sense of further legitimizing the ruling neoliberal elite (big middle finger for Hillary was addressed to the elite as whole)

If oil price exceed $100 per barrel there will yet another crack or even repetition of the 2008 Great Recession on a new level (although we may argue that the Great Recession never ended and just entered in Summers terms "permanent stagnation: phase)

Although currently with a bully at the helm the USA empire still going strong in forcing vassals and competitors to reconsider their desire to challenge the USA that situation will not last. Trump currently is trying to neutralize the treat from China by rejecting classic neoliberal globalization mechanism as well as signed treaties like WTO. He might be successful in the short run but in the "long run" that undermines the USA centered neoliberal empire and speed up its demise. .

In the long run the future does not look too bright as crimes committed by the USA during triumphal period of neoliberalism hangs like albatross around the USA neck.

EU now definitely wants to play its own game as Macron recently stated and which Merkel tacitly supports. If EU allies with Russia it will became No.1 force in the world with the USA No. 2. With severe consequences for the USA.

If Russia allied with China the USA Np.1 position will hinge of keeping EU vassals in check and NATO in place. Without them it will became No.2 with fatal consequences for the dollar as world reserve currency and sudden change of the USA financial position due to the level of external debt and requires devaluation of the dollar.

Looks like 75 year after WWII the world started to self-organize a countervailing force trying to tame the USA with some interest expressed by such players as EU, Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and even Saudi Arabia. As well as ( in the past; and possibly in the future as neoliberal counterrevolutions in both countries probably will end badly) by Brazil and Argentina.

Only Canada, Australia and probably UK can be counted as the reliable parts of the USA empire. That's not much.

[Sep 15, 2019] Israeli Attacks On Syria Halted After Russia Threatened To Shoot Down Jets

Sep 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

According to reports in both Israeli and Arabic regional media, Israel this past week was preparing to expand major airstrikes against "Iran-backed" targets in Syria, but Moscow imposed its red line. The Independent has published a story describing that Russia's military in Syria threatened to shoot down any invading Israeli warplanes using fighter jets or their S-400 system .

The Jerusalem Post , citing sources in the UK Independent (Arabia) , writes just after the latest meeting in Sochi between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin:

According to the report, Moscow has prevented three Israeli airstrikes on three Syrian outposts recently, and even threatened that any jets attempting such a thing would be shot down, either by Russian jets or by the S400 Anti-aircraft missiles . The source cited in the report claims a similar situation has happened twice, and that during August, Moscow stopped an airstrike on a Syrian outpost in Qasioun, where a S300 missile battery is placed.

Netanyahu's hasty trip to meet with Putin on Thursday - even in the final days before Tuesday's key election - was reportedly with a goal to press the Russian president on essentially ignoring Israel's attacks in Syria.

Image via The Jerusalem Post

Citing further sources in the British-Arabic Independent Arabia , The Jerusalem Post continues :

According to the Russian source, Putin let Netanyahu know that his country will not allow any damage to be done to the Syrian regime's army, or any of the weapons being given to it...

Israel sources cited by the Arabic newspaper described Netanyahu's attempts to persuade Putin as "a failure" . This in spite of Netanyahu telling reporters after the meeting that his relations with Moscow were stronger than ever.

Moscow is said to be particularly resistant given the Israeli military's recent spate of attacks on targets in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria.

me title=

Sources in the report claimed further that Putin in a somewhat unprecedented moment raised the issue of Lebanon :

The Russian source said: "Putin has expressed his dissatisfaction from Israel's latest actions in Lebanon" and even emphasized to Netanyahu that he "Rejects the aggression towards Lebanon's sovereignty" something which has never been heard from him. Putin further stated that someone is cheating him in regards to Syria and Lebanon and that he will not let it go without a response. According to him, Netanyahu was warned not to strike such targets in the future.

It could also be simply that Putin understands that Netanyahu, now desperate to extend his political career to a record fifth term as prime minister as next week's elections loom, could be ready to risk a major and very unnecessary Middle East conflagration in order to continue to appeal to Israeli right wing and nationalist voters.


shortingurass , 24 minutes ago link

Say what you want about Putin, this guy has balls. I wish we had a leader like him. it's been way too long we're being governed by weak zio puppets pussies.

naro , 22 minutes ago link

Putin is a good man and loves the Judean people.

naro , 19 minutes ago link

SUPPORT FROM PUTIN IN SOCHI

Netanyahu traveled to the Black Sea resort to meet the Russian leader – just five days before the election – in a move widely seen as an effort to woo elder Russian-speaking immigrants.

Noob678 , 40 minutes ago link

US, Israel talk about mutual defense treaty – Trump - Trump is anti-establishment ZOG-Rothschild lol

The US and Israel are discussing a mutual defense treaty that would further cement the already "tremendous" alliance between the two countries, President Donald Trump has revealed.

"I had a call today with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss the possibility of moving forward with a Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Israel, that would further anchor the tremendous alliance between our two countries," Trump tweeted.

Wahooo , 37 minutes ago link

OrangeZioPedo at his finest. MIGA!

Brazen Heist II , 36 minutes ago link

The US has become a bad Jewish comedy sketch and kvetch.

petroglyph , 5 minutes ago link

And just two days ago, Israel was caught again places spy devices in Wash. But today the POTUS is going to sign on for sacrificing what's left of our sovereignty to Israel so they can go around MENA pounding their chest and threatening everyone. https://www.israellobbyus.org/transcripts/1.1Grant_Smith.htm

ADB , 45 minutes ago link

Einstein101: "Well, so far the Joos are those who are throwing the punches ..."

Only because you can run to America the moment anyone fights back. Until now.

How does it feel to have the whole Oded Yinon/ Greater Israel project crumbling before your eyes?

I am Groot , 49 minutes ago link

I hope Putin gives Iran one of those Tsar Bomba's to drop on Israel. Or one of those Satan 2's that can wipe out an area the size of Texas.

Et Tu Brute , 46 minutes ago link

Not sure option 2 would be such good idea, with Damascus being only a few kms from the Israeli border and all...

Airstrip1 , 1 hour ago link

Interesting body language/facials -- Nutty still with the smirk, but VVP and background say a grave/serious word has gone out ... similar as the Izzies bend to listen very carefully to the erect and confident-looking Russkies ...

********'s over, Bibi, where it goes from here depends on your nasty little country ... maybe others in your region looking for 70-odd years payback for your murders terrorism land-confiscation cruelty against those weaker than your miserable selves.

Einstein101 , 53 minutes ago link

********'s over, Bibi, where it goes from here depends on your nasty little country

Not so fast, Israel will try not to step on Putin's tows but it can't afford the Iranians to build that ring of missiles around Israel. It's not that Israel does not have leverage too, it can make things complicated for Putin, like one small bomb on Assad's resident in Damascus.

Airstrip1 , 22 minutes ago link

... one small bomb on Assad's resident in Damascus.

You can certainly shoot out the ******** yourself, Einstein.

Surely you must be aware that your namesake condemned the founding of Israel in 1948, which has turned out to be the all-round disaster he predicted. Not alone, many Jewish voices round the world continue to condemn it. How inconvenient for you and your bombs on Assad's house ... lol ...

Airstrip1 , 7 minutes ago link

"I am in favor of Palestine being developed as a Jewish Homeland but not as a separate State. It seems to me a matter for simple common sense that we cannot ask to be given the political rule over Palestine where two thirds of the population are not Jewish. What we can and should ask is a secured bi-national status in Palestine with free immigration. If we ask more we are damaging our own cause and it is difficult for me to grasp that our Zionists are taking such an intransigent position which can only impair our cause," Einstein said in a letter in 1946, according to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation.


Read Newsmax: Israel: 5 Albert Einstein Quotes About Zionism | Newsmax.com

ThomasEdmonds , 1 hour ago link

In as delicate and diplomatic phrasing as I can attempt, Netanyahu needs to go.

[Sep 14, 2019] The End of Israel by Gilad Atzmon

Theocratic of neo-theocratic states do not last long. So Gilad Atzmon is probably right. The writing for theocratic Israel might well be on the wall, much like it was for the USSR. At some point the majority of population just became sick and tied of the theocratic elite and stops believing the official propaganda. .
Trump strong connecting and deference to Zionists means that he will lose certain strata of voters that previously voted for him. Will money form Zionist billionaire donors outweigh this factor is difficult to say.
Sep 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

This conflict at the heart of Israeli politics is a window into the Jewish state and its fears. Israel is rapidly becoming an Orthodox Jewish state. Israel's Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing group in the country. They are also the country's poorest population, 45 percent live below the poverty line in segregated communities. Ordinarily, one would expect the poor to support the left, but Israeli Torah Jews are rabid nationalists and openly lend their support to Benjamin Netanyahu and his party.

Prof. Dan Ben-David of Tel Aviv University warned recently that Israel could cease to exist in a couple of generations. He pointed to the astonishingly high birth rate among ultra Orthodox Jews and predicted that, based on current trends, they will comprise 49% of Israel's population by 2065. The ultra Orthodox parties are destined to dominate the Knesset within a generation or less. Ben David predicts that their dependence on Israel's welfare system will lead to a rapid decline is Israel's economy. This is economically damaging enough and is made worse by the refusal of most rabbinical schools to incorporate standard Western subjects such as mathematics, science and English into their core curriculum. Consequently, Israel is educating a growing percentage of its population in a fashion that fails to equip them to contribute to the needs of a hi-tech society that is immersed in a conflict for survival.

The picture that comes across is peculiar. As Israel becomes increasingly Jewish and fundamentalist in its nationalist and religious ethos, it has also become more divided on everything else. The Russian immigrants find it impossible to live alongside the ultra Orthodox and vice versa. The secular enclave in Tel Aviv is committed to seeing their metropolis as an extension of NY.

The Israeli Left has morphed into an LGBT hasbara unit. It has practically removed itself from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Jewish settlers adhere to the concept of a 'Two Jewish States Solution.' They want to see the West Bank become a Jewish land. Orthodox Jews are barely concerned with any of these political issues. They well know that the future of the Jewish state belongs to them. All they need to do is sustain a productive secular Jewish minority to serve as their milk cow. On top of all of that we face Bibi's survival wars that threaten to escalate any minute into a world conflict.


Altai , says: September 12, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT

This is why I'm more optimistic the more Trump embraces Israel. He seems to have clearly decided not to get caught in Syria and so has to keep them off his back in some other way, moving the embassy and presumably giving Netanyahu the greenlight for annexation of more of the West Bank is a good thing.

It means Israel incorporates more and more Palestinians that it can't disengage from by keeping within it's existing borders and it means damaging the bi-partisan consensus with Trump's polarising association.

Everything Netanyahu does is just pulling back the sinews for the final reckoning. Instead of staying within reasonable borders and seeking a reconciliation with neighbours, Israel just gets more demanding, more unreasonable, breaks more promises and makes itself impossible to negotiate with and runs headlong into more and more Palestinian citizens.

What's unfortunate is that Europe and the US will be forced to put up with the millions of vagrant Sabras when it all goes kaput. Instead of becoming less anti-social, the Sabra became a magnificent compilation of every annoying and anti-social habit of the nations. Israelis make Sicilians look like Swedes.

Priss Factor , says: Website September 12, 2019 at 9:53 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan Israeli power is the consequence of Jewish-American Power.

It's like the princeling brat can romp around and make all kinds of trouble because his father is the king.

The King of Jewish Power is the hold over America.

Gilad Atzmon , says: September 12, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
@Altai I agree Altai . at the end of the day this entire mess will fall on Europe and The USA but if I read the map correctly the tolerance and empathy to the primacy of Jewish suffering is running out..the situation is getting complicated
Gilad Atzmon , says: September 12, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
@Altai I agree Altai . at the end of the day this entire mess will fall on Europe and The USA but if I read the map correctly the tolerance and empathy to the primacy of Jewish suffering is running out..the situation is getting complicated
niteranger , says: September 13, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@Robert Dolan Absolutely correct. If not for the US and it's Jewish Controlled Congress that never met a money bill for the Magic Jews Israel would be under water already. Our infrastructure is collapsing but we continue to find money for Israel no matter that we have cities with thousands of homeless people with the threat of disease and Middle Age plagues on our door step. Orthodox Jews are like Muslims in many ways because they love the "Welfare State" and they stay on it forever. Sections of New York are saturated with these Orthodox Welfare Jews and idiots like DeBlasio caters to them.

There is now a backlash by both blacks who hate them and want to kill them for their business practices in real estate and upper middle class residents that refuse to allow them to build their so called "Jewish Orthodox Communes" and take over the areas.

Israel may have overplayed their hand but that doesn't mean they will just disappear. They are sick enough to take mankind with them with their eternal wars. Hopefully Netanyahu is crazy enough to start a conflict with Iran who will bomb the shit out of them and then Hezabollah will destroy the wimp military the IDF.

We can only hope and perhaps mankind will have a chance .

Dennis Gannon , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:27 am GMT
It is more accurate to call them Talmudists. They are not "Jews". Jew is a recent abbreviation of Judean. The Ashkenazi came from Asia. They don't follow the Old Testament. They follow the Talmud, which is Maciavellian to the core. Pure evil. Since God made the man Jesus to be Lord, eventually, their works will be judged, they are headed for destruction morally, you reap what you sew. Israel is the most anti-Semitic country on earth. Which makes them hypocrites. The Arabs and Palestinians are a Semitic people and no one hates and kills them more that Israel.
Gilad Atzmon , says: Website September 13, 2019 at 4:10 am GMT
@Colin Wright As you may know Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitsm and this fact alone suggests that people including Jews were aware of the problem before Israel was formed
Giuseppe , says: September 13, 2019 at 4:34 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon

I don't want to ruin the party but as far as I can tell Israel is not the problem it is just a symptom of the problem peculiarly, Israel was born to fix the problem

Interesting point of view, actually, one of the most profound things I have ever read. If this is their calling, and I too somehow believe it is, they need to turn around, because they are kind of falling down on the job. So I look forward to that great day of turning. However, when they call you names, anti-Semite, self-hating Jew, or whatever else they might dig up, they greatly err, because you are a watchman on the wall.

Frankie P , says: September 13, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@Saggy Gilad has expressed his views on this topic many, many times. The early Zionists desired a Jewish State to make Jews human. By this, I mean that they were well aware of the Jewish Question and the repeated bad behavior of Jews in host societies, both Muslim and Christian. They were conscious of the economic role of powerful Jews, particularly with their usurious financial practices, but also as tax collectors and enforcers for the aristocracy. This, along with their tilted ethnocentric business practices, favoring their own while fleecing the goyim, invariably led to their control of what were traditionally local businesses, creating a growing resentment in local societies that reached critical mass. What followed were pogroms and expulsion. This occurred in both Muslim and Christian lands, but were especially pronouncrd in Christian Europe, which took more aggressive protective actions to shield itself.

The early Zionists wanted to be the midwives of a Jewish State that would solve the JQ by making a nation of Jews, in which Jews carried out all of the work, took all the jobs, from garbage collecting to farming, from street cleaner to bank president. They wanted to stop the pogroms and expulsions, but at the same time they were keenly aware that these were effects of Jewish behavior and actions, not senseless anti-Semitism of the goyim. So, yes Israel was conceived and born to solve the problem.

It didn't.

refl , says: September 13, 2019 at 6:10 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon

As you may know Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitsm and this fact alone suggests that people including Jews were aware of the problem before Israel was formed

Was it? Or was antisemitism the solution by the jewish leadership to the dissolution of their community in modern arreligious society? Was antisemitism the virtual ghetto wall?
Tell the people within that those outside want to kill them, at the same time having a small faction of very cunning Jews who go outside and produce trouble that then by necessity falls back on the whole community?

I find it quite astonishing when I read how privileged certain Jews were in European states, compared to what was the norm for regular Christian folks.
And indeed, also Christians were butchered, expelled etc in more religious times.

mena , says: September 13, 2019 at 7:50 am GMT
peculiarly, Israel was born to fix the problem

I have heard you say this before and remain surprised that you seem to believe this. The whole " people like any other people" hasbara may have been a sales approach tailored to a particular audience at some point, but any sincerity behind it has been demonstrably beside the point. Israel has been a projection of raw power from the start.

sally , says: September 13, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT
@niteranger Are you sure => "we continue to find money for Israel" <=unless you are among the elected 527 that run the USA you probably are not included in the WE.. did you vote (either yes or no) to send money to Israel?

Three votes (one to select a person to fill one of (1/425) jobs in the house of representatives, and 1 vote to select each of 2 persons to fill two senate jobs (2/100) does not make most Americans into deciding members of the USA. Not only that, at election time, American votes for President or VP do not count, because the electoral college vote decides who shall be President or vice President? So why do the candidates spend billions on the presidential elections?

350,000,000 Americans are governed by 527 salaried persons, who are elected to work at the USA.

Israel is a product of the bankers and their corporations; it began in earnest in 1897 in Switzerland.

The great success of Zionism (not racially or religiously connected) has been its networking ability. It can identify and intercept opposing forces, transport resources($, and people) in invisible ways, to/from multi many places, to focus on and to support a target project (local, regional, national or international) . The network that facilitates this "always win intention" works like a newspaper on one side, keeping all elements informed, and on the other side, like a powerful, but invisible government; seeking or willing to invade, protect or promote a place, project or person on the other side.

The network can concentrate fire power, vote power, impose political pressure, control the media, and develop the means to take advantage of, or put down, situation or opportunity or it can protect a friend in need. In a few days, a local situation or a massive opportunity can be "crowd funded" or "petition protected" via the network. For hypothetical example, say the NYT comes up for sale, in a short while a person with meager credit, tenders a multi-billion dollar offer backed with financing sufficient to acquire the opportunity? So how did the credit come to make this possible?

Its not Israel per se..that the USA congress supports: its the banking establishments and their powerful multi nation corporations, seeking to control the middle east, seeking to use "in the course of commerce" as their excuse for invisible weapon, mind control, and spy technology development. Its Economic Zionism that explains the foreign nation state support for Israel. IMO except for the propaganda value, race or religion has little to do with it.

Germanicus , says: September 13, 2019 at 8:28 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon Why not infuse Israel with the tons of fanatical leftist(godless) Jews we have in Germany and Europe? They could counter the orthodox leeching by providing work force, and could additionally work their bottoms off on "racism", transform settlements in gay discos and do all the other professional complaints they make in Europe, like open borders.
The Jews in Europe are always scared, if Netanyahu calls them to Israel due to "anti-semitism". If a non Jew says something similar, its evil and "anti-semitic" of course.

It is quite interesting to note, that Israel develops in a theocracy(always has been in my view), while the Jews outside Israel seek to disprove/kill god and are in rebellion against god, nature, more or less play god.

Antares , says: September 13, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
@FvS "It is the patriotic duty of all American Jews to relocate to Israel and help their nation thrive. Remember the holocaust. Also, democracy is garbage."

You could be an American patriot who doesn't want to pay 3.8 billion per year.

gotmituns , says: September 13, 2019 at 9:22 am GMT
Theodor Herzl said, "Where there is no anti Semitism, there are no Jews."
Lol , says: September 13, 2019 at 9:25 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon The issue is that regular Europeans have diminishing rates of sympathy for Jews and the only reason European politics don't trash Israel is largely vassalage to America and not having an independent foreign policy.

With Americans ruining their relations with everyone, this will most likely change since there's no real reason for Europeans to source military equipment from outside the EU, have sanctions on Iran or Russia instead of backing their infrastructure projects, not back China in the Pacific if it offers a better deal etc.

Essentially, Jews will be America's problem and rightfully so considering right wing Americans can't seem to stop sucking Jewish dick.

Lol , says: September 13, 2019 at 9:34 am GMT
@A123 The only realistic plan would probably involve Israel not violating the fourth Geneva convention anymore which would mean the Jewish settlements on territories outside the pre-1967 borders will cease to exist as Jewish in any way.

Once you reject international law, you can't appeal to it anymore, but you must be Jewish if you think you can pick and choose what suits you. Lol

Johnny Walker Read , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Rational The "Holy Hook" is being exposed on a level never imagined. Charles Giuliani has a great series out exposing the "Tribe". This is one of my favorites:
http://www.renegadebroadcasting.com/truth-hertz-pimp-daddy-abrahams-adventures-in-egypt-6-17-19/
Greg Bacon , says: Website September 13, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT
The loonie Avi Lieberman is salivating at the thought being Israeli PM, and the loonie Nuttyahoo is salivating at the thought of staying PM and using that power to keep his sorry ass out of prison.

Presented with those two choices is like a robber asking its victim, "Do you want to be stabbed with a knife or shot with a gun?"

Johnny Walker Read , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan America will never be shed of this parasite until the fundamentalist Christian Zionist/NeoCons are swept from power. They are every bit as insane as the radicalized Muslims. You tell me which country this clown truly servers!!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UYEF8y7IZYc?feature=oembed

anonymous [420] Disclaimer , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT
@Anon

Few goyim will make the leap to figure out the modern implications of the Moses mythology.

You should discuss that with @ Dennis Gannon, who appears to be tangled in a ball of misunderstanding or ignorance, especially of Machiavelli, evident when he wrote:

The Ashkenazi came from Asia. They don't follow the Old Testament. They follow the Talmud, which is Maciavellian to the core. Pure evil.

Crack open The Prince: Machiavelli "figured out the modern implications of the Moses mythology." Of three candidates Machiavelli considered, he selected Moses as the model Prince. Certain "evil" behavior that became necessary to save his beloved city, Florence, and make it a Republic of and for the people of Florence, was acceptable, inasmuch as Moses, whose chief counselor was god himself, used whatever means necessary to achieve the wellbeing of the conquerors of Canaan.

If only the people of the USA had a Prince as evil, and as dedicated to the wellbeing of the American people, as Machiavelli was to Florence.

Frankie P , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:50 pm GMT
@Brewer "Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitism." Gilad is correct, but I believe that implicit in his statement is the understanding that the "antisemitism" is reactionary: it is born out of the anti gentile behavior and actions of Jews in gentile host societies. Gilad, please correct me if I've misrepresented you.
DESERT FOX , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:59 pm GMT
Israel is a terrorist state ran by terrorists for terrorists and its goal is to destroy the mideast for its greater Israel agenda and with the help of the zionist controlled zio/US government and the American taxpayers funding of these wars and providing the military muscle the zionists are now their way to armageddon!
Twodees Partain , says: September 13, 2019 at 1:45 pm GMT
@Brewer My definition of antisemitism is any pushback against crimes of the Ashkenazi.
Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:06 pm GMT
Israel is not an ally of the United States of America.

Israel is a client-state millstone of the American Empire that uses diasporan Jews such as Shelly Adelson to buy off politicians such as President Trump.

Andrew Jackson and George Washington would immediately sever all ties to Israel and they would make sure that diasporan Jews that put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the USA were strongly encouraged to permanently leave the USA. Those Jews who put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the USA should be disallowed from gaining entry into any other European Christian nation such as Canada, Australia, Germany, France, England, Italy, Spain etc.

It would also be a no-go Blavatsky for these diasporan Jews who put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the USA to go to South America or Asia or anywhere else. Israel must be made into a receptacle that will contain and constrain the ability of diasporan Jews and Israeli Jews from interfering in the governmental affairs of any other nation.

One of the reasons I will not vote for Trump and the Republican Party is that Trump and the Republicans put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the United States of America.

Trump seems to get the fact that the American Empire is a completely and totally separate entity from the United States of America. Trump seems to understand that resistance to Shelly Adelson's demands about foreign policy decisions regarding Israel is the best way to show patriotism to the USA.

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is a clear and present threat to the safety, security and sovereignty of the United States of America

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FIRST!

Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the USA.

Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to President Trump and the Republican Party over the years.

What has all that loot bought for diasporan Jew Adelson?

Is Adelson buying the foreign policy of the USA?

How come that dumb boob Chris Christie used the word "occupied" in front of Adelson when Christie was trying to pry some loot out of Adelson's checkbook? DUMMY!

Tweet from 2015:

Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:21 pm GMT
The ruling class in Israel wants to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel.

The ADL puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States of America.

The ADL is an evil and immoral JEW PRESSURE GROUP that pushes mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration and REFUGEE OVERLOAD and ASYLUM SEEKER INUNDATION and multicultural mayhem and all manner of other anti-White crud.

DESERT FOX , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Agree, the zionists have controlled the American people since 1913 when they fastened their privately owned central bank aka the FED and IRS on to the American people and then came the foreign wars and debt and total control of the American people by the zionists and their banking kabal.

Nathan Rothschild infamously said; I care not what puppet is place on the throne of England for the man who controls the money supply controls the British Empire, and I am that man!

The same holds true here in the zio/US the zionists have control of the money supply via the FED and we are slaves on the zionist plantation aka America, and a central bank and the income tax are 2 of the 10 planks of the communist manifesto, and zionism = communism!

Anonymous Snanonymous , says: September 13, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
So the Orthodox will turn Israel into a big shtetl within the span of next fifty years with the financial help of the "secular" Jews in the West and then they would want to do away with the LGBTQ crowd out of Tel Aviv you reap what you sow!
Wally , says: September 13, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@J said:
"Under all that noise there is country growing and strengthening very fast"

Dream on.
Without US taxpayers money "that shitty little country" wouldn't last a month.

The True Cost of Parasite Israel
Forced US taxpayers money to Israel goes far beyond the official numbers
.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-true-cost-of-israel/

How Zionist Israel Is Robbing America Blind !:
http://www.unz.com/gatzmon/how-zionist-israel-is-robbing-america-blind/

[Sep 13, 2019] The Sacking of John Bolton by Binoy Kampmark

The key question is why Trump hired Bolton in the first place, not why he was sucked...
This guy is a reckless imperialist, staunch neocon and a war criminal. No person who promoted or voted in the Congress for Iraq war can held government or elected position. They are compromised for the rest of their miserable lifes.
Sep 13, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

"Every time the president, or Pompeo, or anyone in the [Trump] administration came up with an idea, they had to face Dr No."

– Cliff Kupchan, Chairman of the Eurasia Group, The Washington Post , Sep 11, 2011.

[Sep 13, 2019] Obama and Hillary are immersed in their megalomaniac view of themselves as world actors, and will willfully kill a few hundred thousand if they think it advances their misguided objectives

Both are MIC prostitutes. For Obama that came naturally.
Sep 13, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Robert McGregor , September 13, 2019 at 3:43 pm

I'm no fan of Trump, but I would like to see a comparison of the total "US instigated foreign fatalities" for his last 2 & 1/2 years compared with Obama's last 2 & 1/2 years, and what we guess the number would have been under Hillary. I'm sorry, but I think Trump's number would be the lowest. In coming up with an explanation, I like to use the "Reality Show Entertainment Value" theory which many have described. In this case, people like to watch Trump bullshitting and freaking out the establishment, but they really don't like watching dead bodies burn up or be carried away in body bags. That reality is not attractive entertainment, despite the fantasy of it being bankable entertainment when Tarantino flame throws a teenager at the end of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."

Obama and Hillary are not "reality TV fans." They are more immersed in their megalomaniac view of themselves as world actors, and will willfully kill a few hundred thousand if they think it advances their misguided objectives.

[Sep 13, 2019] The US Massively Underestimates the Trade War Blowback by Robert Berke

Notable quotes:
"... Trade wars and sanctions are economic weapons against rival regimes, and like actual military warfare, often lead to unanticipated and sometimes devastating blowback from the targeted regimes. ..."
"... At the same time, western companies were forced to withdraw from Russian mega-deals because of sanctions. The best-known example was Exxon, forced by sanctions to walk away from an Arctic joint venture with Russia's state-owned oil giant, Rosneft, where it had invested $3.2 billion. In their very first effort, the partners successfully drilled oil wells containing 750 million barrels. ..."
"... The trade war with China that has led to tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese exports to the US, and as a result, Russia and China have moved even closer. It remains an absolute mystery why no one in the west had foreseen the blowback from economic warfare leading to an alliance between two of its most powerful adversaries. ..."
"... The US acts as if it has been blind-sided by the Russian/China moves, even though years before it undertook economic warfare against them, China, the world's largest energy importer, agreed to finance oil and gas multi-billion-dollar pipelines in neighboring Russia. Now Russia has become China's largest energy supplier, equaling or perhaps even surpassing its energy supplies to Europe. ..."
"... As stated by Global Village Space (GBS) , China and Russia rushed to aid Iran, with China replacing Total, in a 25-year deal estimated to be worth some $400 billions. With that, China inherits a bonanza, providing much needed finance and technology to a country that was and could again become one of the world's leading energy producers. China is looking to finance $280 billion to develop Iran's gas, oil and petrochemicals industries, along with $120 billion to improve transport and manufacturing, making it a key partner in China's Road and Belt program. ..."
"... The deal also gives China the right to buy any or all Iranian oil, gas, and petrochemicals products at a minimum guaranteed 12% discount to global benchmarks, plus an additional discount of 6-8% for risk adjusted compensation. Financing will proceed using local currencies, avoiding the costs of converting to a hard currency like the US dollar or the Euro, giving the Beijing yet another 10% cost advantage. ..."
"... In direct defiance of US sanctions against Iran, China has stepped into the breach, increasing its oil purchases from Iran while becoming Iran's major energy trade and finance partner. Like Russia, it seems that Iran is moving towards a military alliance with China. If the west worries about China's expansive moves in the South China Sea, along China's own borders, what to make then of China moving in on Hormuz, where some 30% of world oil is transited each day? ..."
"... It is well known that the US has been in secret meetings with Iran representatives, much to the dismay of the Saudi Arabia and Israel. As Bloomberg reports, after the G7 meeting, Trump publicly and repeatedly stated he was ready to meet with Iran's President, Hassan Rouhani. Bloomberg also reported that in a meeting with his Cabinet, Trump announced that he was ready to ease sanctions as a possible way to open negotiations between the two countries. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin agreed with the President, while National Security Advisor Bolton voiced strong opposition, that only one day later, led to his firing. Secretary of State Pompeo stated that Trump may meet on the sidelines of the upcoming UN meeting with Iran's President. ..."
"... The EU defence industry initiative, the ECB's money transfer service, the EU army (or defence collaboration :) are all longer term policies aimed at reducing the EU's reliance on systems that are controlled by the USA. ..."
"... Sanctions are the modern equivalent of siege warfare, only the target is a nation, not a city. ..."
"... John Bolton is clueless. He's a throwback to ruthless American competition and cowboy capitalism. And he appears to be an idiot. ..."
"... Consumer spending is going to struggle the rest of the year as it rebalances and manufacturing is heading to a full blown recession by December as auto companies try and get their balance sheets under control. ..."
Sep 13, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. Even though most readers know the general point very well, that US trade and financial sanctions haven't brought targets to their knees, and had instead pushed them to find allies, but it's useful to have detail to flesh out the story. There are some bits one can quibble with, like the "annexation of Crimea" bit, and the US objectives for its sanctions against Russia. At least under the Obama Administration, the belief was that they would damage the economy severely and force a regime change.

By Robert Berke, an energy financial analyst with experience as a government consultant to the State of Alaska. Originally published at OilPrice

Trade wars and sanctions are economic weapons against rival regimes, and like actual military warfare, often lead to unanticipated and sometimes devastating blowback from the targeted regimes.

A prime example was President Obama sanctioning Russia over its annexation of Crimea. The sanctions were designed to block Russia from any access to western financing, aimed at causing a dire financial and economic crisis in Russia that would force it to relinquish Crimea and end support for Ukraine's breakaway territories.

In fact, the sanctions did cause Russia to enter a short-lived recession. But it also had other, much more drastic results for the West. It forced Russia to move closer to China, and Moscow saw Beijing as a great alternative to western financing for Russian industries.

At the same time, western companies were forced to withdraw from Russian mega-deals because of sanctions. The best-known example was Exxon, forced by sanctions to walk away from an Arctic joint venture with Russia's state-owned oil giant, Rosneft, where it had invested $3.2 billion. In their very first effort, the partners successfully drilled oil wells containing 750 million barrels.

As noted by Reuters, the withdrawal was costly:

Exxon will post an after-tax loss of $200 million as a result of pulling out of the Rosneft deal, but the true costs for the company run much deeper. Exploring and developing giant offshore fields in Russia was supposed to provide long-term growth for the company, and, in recent years, has seen falling reserves.

But the opportunity losses are likely to be far higher for Exxon, the company that famously missed the US shale revolution. The long-term deal with Rosneft, expected to continue for decades, included exploration for oil in the Black Sea, enormous shale resources in Western Siberia, and the development of three large blocks in the Arctic (Kara Sea).

The trade war with China that has led to tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese exports to the US, and as a result, Russia and China have moved even closer. It remains an absolute mystery why no one in the west had foreseen the blowback from economic warfare leading to an alliance between two of its most powerful adversaries.

China's major state-owned oil companies and its Silk Road fund each became 10% partners in Russia's first major Arctic LNG (liquified natural gas), project in the Yamal Peninsula, undertaken with Novatek, Russia's largest independent gas producer. The project offers great prospects for enormous expansion.

The US acts as if it has been blind-sided by the Russian/China moves, even though years before it undertook economic warfare against them, China, the world's largest energy importer, agreed to finance oil and gas multi-billion-dollar pipelines in neighboring Russia. Now Russia has become China's largest energy supplier, equaling or perhaps even surpassing its energy supplies to Europe.

A similar scenario is taking place in the Persian Gulf where the US has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, while imposing economic sanctions on Iranian oil exports. The French energy giant, Total, that in recent years has been a leading international oil company in that country, was forced to withdraw because of sanctions, just like Exxon in Russia's Arctic, it left billions of dollars on the table.

This may also answer the question as to why French Prime Minister Macron was so intent on inviting the Iranian Foreign Secretary to the recent G7 meeting in France. It's also no secret that French carmakers Peugeot and Renault are the main suppliers to Iran's auto assembly plants.

As stated by Global Village Space (GBS) , China and Russia rushed to aid Iran, with China replacing Total, in a 25-year deal estimated to be worth some $400 billions. With that, China inherits a bonanza, providing much needed finance and technology to a country that was and could again become one of the world's leading energy producers. China is looking to finance $280 billion to develop Iran's gas, oil and petrochemicals industries, along with $120 billion to improve transport and manufacturing, making it a key partner in China's Road and Belt program.

The deal also gives China the right to buy any or all Iranian oil, gas, and petrochemicals products at a minimum guaranteed 12% discount to global benchmarks, plus an additional discount of 6-8% for risk adjusted compensation. Financing will proceed using local currencies, avoiding the costs of converting to a hard currency like the US dollar or the Euro, giving the Beijing yet another 10% cost advantage.

GBS further reports that the security for these projects will include up to 5,000 Chinese security personnel on the ground in Iran to protects Chinese projects and to safeguard the transit of energy products from Iran to China, including security for the very strategic Hormuz Straits.

In direct defiance of US sanctions against Iran, China has stepped into the breach, increasing its oil purchases from Iran while becoming Iran's major energy trade and finance partner. Like Russia, it seems that Iran is moving towards a military alliance with China. If the west worries about China's expansive moves in the South China Sea, along China's own borders, what to make then of China moving in on Hormuz, where some 30% of world oil is transited each day?

If these are considered winning policies for the West, one has to ask what failure looks like.

The West is already slowly becoming aware of the blowback this disastrous policy has caused. Evidence for this can be found in Macron's efforts to persuade Trump towards a peaceful resolution with Iran.

It is well known that the US has been in secret meetings with Iran representatives, much to the dismay of the Saudi Arabia and Israel. As Bloomberg reports, after the G7 meeting, Trump publicly and repeatedly stated he was ready to meet with Iran's President, Hassan Rouhani. Bloomberg also reported that in a meeting with his Cabinet, Trump announced that he was ready to ease sanctions as a possible way to open negotiations between the two countries. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin agreed with the President, while National Security Advisor Bolton voiced strong opposition, that only one day later, led to his firing. Secretary of State Pompeo stated that Trump may meet on the sidelines of the upcoming UN meeting with Iran's President.

The firing of Bolton was immediately followed by a fall in the price of oil and gold. Allowing Iran to continue to increase supplies into already well supplied oil markets will add downward pressure on oil prices. For the Trump administration, this is not necessarily a bad thing unhappy consumers at the gas pump make for unhappy voters.

Similarly, the Trump Administration badly needs to move towards ending the trade war with China in order to calm global markets. The recent announcement of the resumption of trade talks between the US and China in October may provide an opportunity for a similar easing of tariffs and a path towards further resolution.

Although these actions could help to quell global tensions, it may be too late to reverse some of the serious damage caused by US-led economic warfare. Once China positions itself in Iran, it will not likely be interested in withdrawing from its new strategic position in the Middle East, that it gained as a result of US near sighted foreign policy.

Prior to the election, we may see a breakthroughs in the trade war, and the alleviation of sanctions with Russia, Iran, China, and perhaps even North Korea, but the US will almost certainly see the negative consequences from adversaries it helped to expand and strengthen.


The Rev Kev , September 13, 2019 at 5:48 am

Can't speak much about the effects of the Chinese sanctions but I know a little bit about the Russian ones. These Russian sanctions are biting hard but not the way they were intended and it is not only the big oil companies that are losing big. Since they kicked in Russia has lost about $50 billion in trade with the European Union which kinda stings. But in the same time frame, the European Union has lost about $240 billion.

Considering that fact that these sanctions were never for their benefit but for solidarity with the US, that is a very expensive price tag. The US lost only about $17 billion but I remember reading that after the sanctions kicked in, trade between the U and Russia actually increased. Europe is a big loser here, particularly with agriculture. When the EU sanctioned Russian products to the EU, the Russians did the same to them a few weeks later which came as a shock. Since then Russia has made huge investments into growing their own food crops and those markets will never come back again for the EU. As an example, Russia is once more a world leader in the production of wheat second only to the US and has learned the value of autarky.

You see these results in all sorts of areas as the country started phasing out imports and replacing them with domestically made products. They even started making marine engines out of necessity as they were denied purchase of foreign ones. People might remember how Russia was going to buy two specially built ships from France but France reneged under pressure from Washington.

France not only had to give back all the money the Russians paid but also had to compensate Russia for all related costs that the Russians made. In the end France paid Russia over a billion dollars which was triple what the Russians initially paid. And now the Russians are constructing their own ships of this class in the Crimea using the knowledge acquired from France. Perhaps it is things like this that has cause Macron to open up contacts with Russia once more in spite of what Washington demands.

https://www.rt.com/business/462291-putin-sanctions-eu-losses/

Add in the purchase of gold stocks, developing financial systems in case the US cuts Russia off from the SWIFT clearance systems, the development of weaponry that makes the deployment of nuclear missile systems in Europe futile, you realise that Washington has massively underestimated the response of counties like Russia, China and Iran and depended on unicorn wishes instead.

fajensen , September 13, 2019 at 7:03 am

But in the same time frame, the European Union has lost about $240 billion. Considering that fact that these sanctions were never for their benefit but for solidarity with the US, that is a very expensive price tag.

Well, Looks like Donald Trump let "The Swamp(tm)" run loose and they went and over-torqued the screws!

Some decision makers in within the EU have begun to see the US sanctions against everything and everyone as having the true goals of ablating EU's influence on the world while hampering EU-based businesses. There are initiatives and polices that hints at "cutting the cord" are quietly being introduced.

The EU defence industry initiative, the ECB's money transfer service, the EU army (or defence collaboration :) are all longer term policies aimed at reducing the EU's reliance on systems that are controlled by the USA.

The 'North Stream' pipeline and keeping the Iran deal kinda alive are more immediate and direct challenges, as was the total unwillingness to join in any of the planned military adventures involving Syria and Iran.

France is being rather open about about it. Possibly to test out on behalf of the EU what the USA is actually willing to do to exact revenge and enforce compliance, possibly also because opposing the USA in France remains a reliable way to win votes.

Carolinian , September 13, 2019 at 8:51 am

It's not just Trump. Our Congress is totally at the beck of special pleaders such as LNG exporters and arms companies. All seek to use the US economic weapon to further their own interests.

John A , September 13, 2019 at 7:17 am

Plus, Russia is determinedly GMO free. The more the US goes down the GMO route, the less likely the food trade with the EU – the European dogs wont eat GMO dogfood. Post Brexit perhaps, Britain will accept US foods, all the more reason to insist on a proper border if NI remains part of the 'UK'.

notabanker , September 13, 2019 at 9:43 am

It's not just GMO, but the level and quality of technocratic oversight. US government agencies are incapable of regulating anything in the private sector. While the EU is still greatly influenced by private money, it has not completely sold out.

rd , September 13, 2019 at 2:16 pm

The EU has effectively sidelined FAA on the the 737 MAX: https://www.heraldnet.com/business/boeing-737-max-jet-to-face-separate-test-by-eu-regulators/

What US airline would fly the 737 MAX if the FAA says go ahead but the EASA holds back on approval?

US regulatory capture has now become so blatant that the rest of the world is starting to ignore US regulators.

jackiebass , September 13, 2019 at 6:17 am

What is ignored by media is the harm sanctions inflict on the people living in these countries. I think it should be considered a crime against humanity and our leaders should be prosecuted. Sanctions are a weapon that is just as harmful as weapons to kill. We only seem to look at the economic effects and ignore the social effects.

Ander Pierce , September 13, 2019 at 9:13 am

Sanctions are the modern equivalent of siege warfare, only the target is a nation, not a city.

I've known in a vague intuitive way that US sanctions would alienate nations and isolate the US, it's useful seeing how exactly these sanctions are backfiring with more nuance!

John , September 13, 2019 at 7:15 am

What is the next step after you have sanctioned everything and everyone and the reaction is a shrug and a work around? Sanctions do have their bite, but they are, or are becoming, a more effective tool for global economic and political realignment than a means to accomplish their stated purpose.

Susan the other` , September 13, 2019 at 10:38 am

Good question. I am wondering the same thing. There is a vague pattern here with Russia, the most resource-rich oil producer. We don't want Russia to take off too fast. What can be left in the ground should be left in the ground. And maybe that was the existential threat posed by Exxon – a private, profit seeking US corporation geared to do everything fast in order to make their profits.

Just thinking about slamming the breaks on manufacturing and consumption and how this can make a mess of the oil industry if it is going for profits – race to the bottom (currently). Rather, anyone thinking straight would want to conserve oil, control it's production and marketing. John Bolton is clueless. He's a throwback to ruthless American competition and cowboy capitalism. And he appears to be an idiot.

Watt4Bob , September 13, 2019 at 7:18 am

There was a discussion of China's role in manufacturing drugs for Big Pharma on the news last night, truly frightening.

They've already been found to be selling us contaminated drugs, what happens when they refuse to deliver anything other than fentanyl?

I find it hard to understand how we're going to recover from the damage done by the short-sighted, wholesale outsourcing of our manufacturing to China.

Drake , September 13, 2019 at 10:52 am

Given the centrality of drugs to American life, we should categorize them as sensitive items of national security and declare a war on foreign drugs. That would brilliantly combine the failed policies of the past with the failed policies of the present. We could make exceptions for most-favored nations like Colombia or Afghanistan.

I'm not even sure how sarcastic I'm being. ;)

Chauncey Gardiner , September 13, 2019 at 12:53 pm

As in military conflicts, the fog of geoeconomic war together with partisan lens and poor leadership can prevent adversaries from developing an accurate assessment of reality. The writer has raised some examples that support his view pertaining to pushback, and he could be right as The Rev Kev so eloquently pointed out here WRT Russia. However, whether his article provides an accurate overview of the current state of play remains an open question IMO.

Setting aside deeply troubling questions about our national values and whether sanctions should ever be employed due to their very damaging effects on domestic populations, together with their evident past failure to realize policy goals, there are credible accounts that China is now confronting a U.S. dollar shortage; that China has significant issues in its financial system and economy; and that the people of China are seeing sharply rising food prices as a result of decreased supplies of pork and soybeans. These issues are being perceived as sufficient to cause China's leaders to be receptive to negotiating resolution of the current tariffs, trade, intellectual property, and investment impasse on terms favorable to the U.S. Whether this will be so remains to be seen, of course.

Sound of the Suburbs , September 13, 2019 at 2:27 pm

A multi-polar world became a uni-polar world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis Fukuyama said it was the end of history. It was all going so well, until the neoliberals got to work. The US created an open, globalised world with the Washington Consensus. China went from almost nothing to become a global super power.

That wasn't supposed to happen, let's get the rocket scientists onto it. Maximising profit is all about reducing costs. China had coal fired power stations to provide cheap energy. China had lax regulations reducing environmental and health and safety costs. China had a low cost of living so employers could pay low wages. China had low taxes and a minimal welfare state.

China had all the advantages in an open globalised world. "The Washington Consensus was always going to work better for China than the US" the rocket scientists.

If the US left this running it would be China first and America second. PANIC!

marku52 , September 13, 2019 at 3:48 pm

It seems since about the Vietnam war era, US FP has been run by hubristic idiots with delusions of grandeur. Its foreign policy 101 that you never, never, set policy to drive your 2 largest rivals to alliance.

Yet these morons did exactly that. Since Trump, there have been many retirements form the State Dept.

And maybe that's not such a bad thing. They show no evidence of competence.

GF , September 13, 2019 at 3:50 pm

According to this linked article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-13/russia-wants-to-rent-out-more-farmland-for-food-exports-to-asia

Russia is leasing out old collective farm lands that was abandoned in the eastern part of the country to Asian countries to farm and grow the export food products needed. It seems the collective farms were abandoned and now the Russian government is re-purposing the vast amounts of land available.

"Russia is now considering requests from Asian firms to farm another 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) -- an area roughly the size of Jamaica, according to the head of a government agency."

It may be said that Trump's tariffs are the best things that could have happened to China and Russia.

notabanker , September 13, 2019 at 3:55 pm

If it leads to us not growing corn and soybeans, it may be a good thing for the US as well.

Andy Raushner , September 13, 2019 at 4:16 pm

Frankly, I think it has pushed up consumer spending and that is about it. In other words, this economy has overcapacity problems in the auto sector and its relation to junk corporate debt, is not good.

Consumer spending is going to struggle the rest of the year as it rebalances and manufacturing is heading to a full blown recession by December as auto companies try and get their balance sheets under control.

[Sep 13, 2019] Trump has acceded to 2 of the 4 demands of Republican Party donor and Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson in regards to Israel: 1) Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and 2) Trump has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Sep 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 5:13 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski

Then having very (unsafely) gone off the Gaderene cliff deep end, you opined, "Trump seems to understand that resistance to Shelly Adelson's demands about foreign policy decisions regarding Israel is the best way to show patriotism to the USA."

Let me elaborate further on that sentence.

Trump has acceded to 2 of the 4 demands of Republican Party donor and Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson in regards to Israel:

1) Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and 2) Trump has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem.

But,

3) Trump has refused to invade Iran or start a war with Iran and 4) Trump has not dropped a nuclear bomb on Iran.

Shelly Adelson wants the US military to invade Iran and Shelly Adelson wants the US military to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.

Trump knows that there is a difference between the American Empire and the United States of America. Trump pushes military Keynesianism for the jobs and the loot for the American people, but Trump doesn't think that the American Empire must continually be at war to justify the war expenditures. Trump gave an interview where he spoke of the military-industrial complex and Trump is a baby boomer who remembers Ike and his warnings about the profiteers and scoundrels who would use the American Empire to profit off the USA.

Trump made the wise decision to not go to war against Iran with that drone incident, and that is a good thing. Trump may have thought about oil at two hundred dollars a barrel or he might have thought it's better to pop the Iranians surreptitiously rather than televised on CNN with air strikes and the like.

I do think that Trump puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the USA, but a lot of the ruling class slobs who run the American Empire don't even think that the USA exists anymore. A lot of us voted for Trump to reclaim the sovereignty and independence of the USA from the American Empire.

So I think Trump is in his own way being patriotic to a certain extent by giving Shelly Adelson some of what Adelson wanted but not all.

Trump may also understand that German American women and other American women in the Great Lakes states don't want their sons or husbands or uncles or fathers getting killed or horribly wounded in endless wars that only benefit Israel. The German Americans, bless them, have historically shown great reluctance to get caught up in all the endless war crud that the JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire cooks up.

I won't vote for Trump because of his backstab on immigration, but I think Trump knows that he is the government leader of a big monster and that big monster is the creature that encompasses both the American Empire and the United States of America.

I was long winded, but there's a point in there somewhere!

Mark James , says: September 13, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMT
" My relationship with Israel has been great," Trump said, listing some of his pro-Israel accomplishments. "Anything is possible," he conceded, "but I don't believe it."

Trump, Netanyahu say no spying:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-hints-gantz-campaign-planted-false-story-of-israel-spying-on-white-house/

"Yesterday you heard the lies that Israel tried to spy on the White House, a complete lie," Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language video.
He then quoted Mark Levin as saying on his show that "this is exactly like the tricks carried out by Joel Benenson. He was an adviser to Obama and now he is the adviser to [Blue and White leaders Benny] Gantz and [Yair] Lapid."

Wally , says: September 13, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Trump certainly deserves criticism for his ME policies.

However, it's pure folly to think that the alternatives to Trump would be any better, in fact I suggest that most would be worse.

It's always interesting to see those here who are so quick to bash Trump never tell us which of the alternative candidates they are willing to endorse and why.

Thanks.

[Sep 13, 2019] The Sacking of John Bolton by Binoy Kampmark

The key question is why Trump hired Bolton in the first place, not why he was sucked...
This guy is a reckless imperialist, staunch neocon and a war criminal. No person who promoted or voted in the Congress for Iraq war can held government or elected position. They are compromised for the rest of their miserable lifes.
Sep 13, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

"Every time the president, or Pompeo, or anyone in the [Trump] administration came up with an idea, they had to face Dr No."

– Cliff Kupchan, Chairman of the Eurasia Group, The Washington Post , Sep 11, 2011.

[Sep 13, 2019] Tucker Carlson Pushes for End of the Neo-cons Reuters and Haaretz

Notable quotes:
"... Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down. ..."
"... Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as whatever was most useful politically. ..."
Sep 13, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Carlson concluded by warning about the many other Boltons in the federal bureaucracy, saying that "war may be a disaster for America, but for John Bolton and his fellow neocons, it's always good business."

He went on to slam Trump's special representative for Iran and contender to replace Bolton, Brian Hook, as an "unapologetic neocon" who "has undisguised contempt for President Trump, and he particularly dislikes the president's nationalist foreign policy." Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed Carlson hours later in a tweet, arguing that "Thirst for war – maximum pressure – should go with the warmonger-in-chief." Reuters and Haaretz

-------------

Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down.

Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as whatever was most useful politically.

They are not conservative at all, not one bit. Carlson was absolutely right about that.

They despise nationalism. They despise the idea of countries. In that regard they are like all groups who aspire to globalist dominion for their particular ideas.

They should all be driven from government. pl

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-trump-bolton-neo-cons-iran-fox-news-tucker-carlson-1.7833399?=&ts=_1568393219979b

[Sep 13, 2019] The USA foreign policy has been run by hubristic idiots with delusions of grandeur. Its foreign policy 101 that you never, never, set policy to drive your 2 largest rivals to alliance.

Sep 13, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

marku52 , , September 13, 2019 at 3:48 pm

It seems since about the Vietnam war era, US FP has been run by hubristic idiots with delusions of grandeur. Its foreign policy 101 that you never, never, set policy to drive your 2 largest rivals to alliance.

Yet these morons did exactly that. Since Trump, there have been many retirements from the State Dept. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. They show no evidence of competence.

[Sep 13, 2019] The War in Eastern Ukraine May be Coming to an End But Do Any Americans Care? by Jeremy Kuzmaro

Ukraine is mainly the result of attempt of the USA to encircle Russia well as EU design for economic Drang nach Osten -- attempt to displace Russia in xUSSR republics.
So they pushed Ukraine into the pat that Baltic republic were already known for.
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine's newly elected comedian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the prisoner exchange a "first step" in ending the war in Eastern Ukraine, which has killed an estimated 13,000 civilians. ..."
"... In a subsequent referendum, 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine voted for independence, which the new government of Petro Poroshenko government did not accept. ..."
"... She told U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in a telephone conversation that was tapped and later leaked that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, neoliberal head of the "Fatherland" Party, should be Prime Minister as he was thought to have the "economic" and "governing experience." ..."
"... Nuland further revealed that the U.S. had invested over $5 billion in "democracy promotion" in Ukraine since 1991 through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was carrying on the kind of work previously undertaken by the CIA during the Cold War. ..."
"... NED president Carl Gershman called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step towards toppling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who "may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself." ..."
"... To help achieve this end, the Obama administration pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to the post-coup government in Ukraine, which Putin considered as the "ideological heirs of [Stephen] Bandera, Hitler's accomplice in World War II." ..."
"... Swayed by a slick lobbying campaign backed by supporters of the Afghan mujahidin in the 1980s looking for a new cause and by the Senate's Ukraine Caucus, the Obama administration further provided nearly $600 million in security assistance to the Ukrainian military. ..."
"... American military advisers embedded in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry provided rocket propelled grenades, carried out training exercises and planned military operations including with members of the fascist Azov battalion, which had Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel patches emblazoned on their sleeves. ..."
Sep 13, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

On Saturday September 7, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a prisoner swap which has brought hope of improved relations between the two countries and an end to the 5-year long conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

A peace accord is being planned for later this month in Normandy involving Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.

Ukraine's newly elected comedian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the prisoner exchange a "first step" in ending the war in Eastern Ukraine, which has killed an estimated 13,000 civilians.

The Ukraine War remains largely unknown to the American public even though the United States has had a great stake in it.

The war started after a coup d'états in Ukraine in February 2014, which overthrew the democratically elected pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovuch.

In a subsequent referendum, 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine voted for independence, which the new government of Petro Poroshenko government did not accept.

The United States was a heavy backer of the coup and dirty war that unfolded in the East.

Victoria Nuland, the head of the State Department's European desk, traveled to Ukraine three times during the protests that triggered the coup, handing out cookies to demonstrators.

She told U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in a telephone conversation that was tapped and later leaked that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, neoliberal head of the "Fatherland" Party, should be Prime Minister as he was thought to have the "economic" and "governing experience."

Nuland further revealed that the U.S. had invested over $5 billion in "democracy promotion" in Ukraine since 1991 through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was carrying on the kind of work previously undertaken by the CIA during the Cold War.

Ukraine has long been considered an important bridge between Eastern and Western Europe and holds lucrative oil and gas deposits.

NED president Carl Gershman called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step towards toppling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who "may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."

To help achieve this end, the Obama administration pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to the post-coup government in Ukraine, which Putin considered as the "ideological heirs of [Stephen] Bandera, Hitler's accomplice in World War II."

Swayed by a slick lobbying campaign backed by supporters of the Afghan mujahidin in the 1980s looking for a new cause and by the Senate's Ukraine Caucus, the Obama administration further provided nearly $600 million in security assistance to the Ukrainian military.

It was supplied with counter-artillery radars, anti-tank systems, armored vehicles and drones in a policy expanded upon by Trump.

Before and after the Ukrainian military's campaign began, Secretary of State John Kerry, CIA Director John Brennan, and Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev, followed by a flow of senior Pentagon officials.

A back-door arms pipeline was set up through the United Arab Emirates and Blackwater mercenaries were allegedly deployed.

American military advisers embedded in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry provided rocket propelled grenades, carried out training exercises and planned military operations including with members of the fascist Azov battalion, which had Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel patches emblazoned on their sleeves.

Obama's National Security adviser, Samantha Power, claimed that the [Ukrainian] governments "response [to alleged provocations by eastern rebels] [was] reasonable, it is proportional, and frankly it is what any of our countries would have done."

The Ukrainian military and allied warlord and neo-Nazi militias were not acting reasonably or proportionally, however, when they carried out artillery and air attacks on cities and struck residential buildings, shopping malls, parks, schools, hospitals and orphanages in Eastern Ukraine, and tortured and executed POWs in what amounted to clear war crimes.

NYU Professor Stephen Cohen notes that even The New York Times , which mainly deleted atrocities from its coverage, described survivors in Slovyansk living "as if in the Middle Ages."

That the American public knows nothing of these events is a sad reflection of the superficiality of our media and decline in the quality of international news coverage.

It is also a testament to the failing of the political left, which has embraced the cause of immigrant and Palestinian rights and fighting climate change, legitimately, but neglected the plight of the Eastern Ukrainian people. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Jeremy Kuzmarov

Jeremy Kuzmarov is the author of The Russians are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce (Monthly Review Press, 2018).

[Sep 13, 2019] Wallace against the USA neocolonialism

Leopard can't change its spots...
Notable quotes:
"... After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism. ..."
"... In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." ..."
"... Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system." ..."
"... The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another. ..."
Sep 13, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Stephen M , September 10, 2019 at 15:14

This is as good a time as any to point to an alternative vision of foreign policy. One based on the principle of non-interference, respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and, above all, international law. One based on peaceful coexistence and mutual cooperation. A vision of the world at peace and undivided by arbitrary distinctions. Such a world is possible and even though there are currently players around the world who are striving in that direction we need look no further than our own history for inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one Henry A. Wallace, for your consideration.

(The following excerpts from an article by Dr. Dennis Etler. Link to the full article provided below.) --

The highest profile figure who articulated an alternative vision for American foreign policy was the politician Henry Wallace, who served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1944 and ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the Progressive Party.

After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism.

Wallace gave a speech in 1942 that declared a "Century of the Common Man." He described a post-war world that offered "freedom from want," a new order in which ordinary citizens, rather than the rich and powerful, would play a decisive role in politics.

That speech made direct analogy between the Second World War and the Civil War, suggesting that the Second World War was being fought to end economic slavery and to create a more equal society. Wallace demanded that the imperialist powers like Britain and France give up their colonies at the end of the war.

In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit."

Wallace responded to Luce with a demand to create a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace took the New Deal global. His foreign policy was to be based on non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Sadly, since then, despite occasional efforts to head in a new direction, the core constituency for US foreign policy has been corporations, rather than the "common man" either in the United States, or the other nations of the world, and United States foreign relations have been dominated by interference in the political affairs of other nations. As a result the military was transformed from an "arsenal for democracy" during the Second World War into a defender of privilege at home and abroad afterwards.

-- -
Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system."

--

Wallace's legacy suggests that it is possible to put forth a vision of an honest internationalism in US foreign policy that is in essence American. His approach was proactive not reactive. It would go far beyond anything Democrats propose today, who can only suggest that the United States should not start an unprovoked war with Iran or North Korea, but who embrace sanctions and propagandist reports that demonize those countries.

Rather than ridiculing Trump's overtures to North Korea, they should go further to reduce tensions between the North and the South by pushing for the eventual withdrawal of troops from South Korea and Japan (a position fully in line with Wallace and many other politicians of that age).
Rather than demonizing and isolating Russia (as a means to score political points against Trump), progressives should call for a real détente, that recognizes Russia's core interests, proposes that NATO withdraw troops from Russia's borders, ends sanctions and reintegrates Russia into the greater European economy. They could even call for an end to NATO and the perpetuation of the dangerous global rift between East and West that it perpetuates.
Rather than attempt to thwart China's rise, and attack Trump for not punishing it enough, progressives should seek to create new synergies between China and the US economically, politically and socioculturally.
-- -
In contrast to the US policy of perpetual war and "destroying nations in order to save them," China's BRI proposes an open plan for development that is not grounded in the models of French and British imperialism. It has proposed global infrastructure and science projects that include participants from nations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America previously ignored by American and European elites -- much as Wallace proposed an equal engagement with Latin America. When offering developmental aid and investment China does not demand that free market principles be adopted or that the public sector be privatized and opened up for global investment banks to ravish.
--
The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another.

Link to the full article provided below.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/henry-wallaces-internationalism-path-american-foreign-policy-could-have-taken-still-can/5683683

[Sep 13, 2019] Support and attend the People's Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine and Save the Planet, September 20 through 23, in New York City.

Sep 13, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Expat2uruguay , September 13, 2019 at 5:59 pm

"Support and attend the People's Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine and Save the Planet, September 20 through 23, in New York City. Christian liberationist intellectual Cornel West and Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations will speak, and much of the Black Agenda Report team are participating.

Only a mass movement of the streets can begin to dismantle the twin imperial policies of endless austerity and war, end the military occupations of Africa and Black America, and save the world from a wounded and angry ecosphere."
https://www.blackagendareport.com/what-does-boltons-ouster-mean-victims-us-imperial-aggression

[Sep 12, 2019] The Brain-Dead Maximalism of [neocon] Hard-liners by Daniel Larison

Highly recommended!
Iran sanction and the threat of war has nothing to do with its nuclear program. It is about the USA and by extension Israel dominance in the region. and defencing interesting of MIC, against the interest of general public. Which is the main task of neocons, as lobbyists for MIC (please understand that MIC includes intelligence agencies and large part of Wall Street) .
That's why Israel lobby ( and Bloomberg is a part of it ) supports strangulation Iran economy, Iran war and pushes Trump administration into it. the demand " Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination of Iran's nuclear activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist groups across the Middle East -- in exchange for readmission into the world economy" is as close to Netanyahu position as we can get.
Notable quotes:
"... The Bloomberg editors urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran ..."
"... As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them to yield. ..."
"... They have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons. ..."
"... Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder to justify punitive measures against Iran without end ..."
Sep 12, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The Bloomberg editors urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran:

Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination of Iran's nuclear activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist groups across the Middle East -- in exchange for readmission into the world economy.

This chance may never come again.

Bloomberg's latest advice to Trump on Iran is terrible as usual, but it is a useful window into how anti-Iran hard-liners see things. They see the next year as their best chance to push for their maximalist demands, and they fear the possibility that Trump might settle for something short of their absurd wish list. If Trump does what they want and "holds out" until Iran capitulates, he will be waiting a long time. He has nothing to show for his policy except increased tensions and impoverished and dying Iranians, and this would guarantee more of the same. The funny thing is that the "extended sunset" they deride is already an unrealistic goal, and they insist that the president pursue a much more ambitious set of goals that have absolutely no chance of being reached. As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them to yield.

The Bloomberg editorial is ridiculous in many ways, but just one more example will suffice. At one point it says, "Nor is there any doubt that Iran wants nuclear weapons." Perhaps ideologues and fanatics have no doubt about this, but it isn't true. If Iran wanted nuclear weapons, they could have pursued and acquired them by now. They gave up that pursuit and agreed to the most stringent nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated to prove that they wouldn't seek these weapons, but the Trump administration chose to punish them for their cooperation. Iran has not done any of the things that actual rogue nuclear weapons states have done. They have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons.

Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder to justify punitive measures against Iran without end.

They don't want to resolve the crisis with Iran, but rather hope to make it permanent by setting goals that can't possibly be reached and insisting that sanctions remain in place forever.

[Sep 12, 2019] Which countries concluded agreements and treaties with Hitler

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Moscow Exile September 4, 2019 at 4:38 am

1933 – Great Britain, France, Italy – four-power pact
1934 – Poland – Hitler-Pilsudski pact
1935 – Great Britain – Anglo-German naval agreement
1936 – Japan – Anti-Comintern pact
1938, September – Great Britain – non-aggression pact
1938, December – France – non-aggression pact
1939, March – Romania – economic agreement
1939, March – Lithuania – non-aggression pact
1939, May – Italy – pact of friendship and alliance
1939, May – Denmark – non-aggression pact
1939, June – Estonia – non-aggression pact
1939, June – Latvia – non-aggression pact
1939, August – USSR – non-aggression pact

Yet everyone only talks about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Mark Chapman September 4, 2019 at 7:21 am
Well, people talk about Italy – they have to; it was one of the Axis powers, and the allies had to fight it to subdue it. But now Italy is totally rehabilitated and, aside from a certain carelessness with money, a valued friend. Just as Germany itself is totally rehabilitated.

It is only Russia which remains a place of evil, because it will not admit its Stalinist guilt and pay Billions in reparations to the Ukrainians for starving them all to death, and atone as the west demands for its sins. Then it will be broke and helpless but happy.

[Sep 12, 2019] Bolt. Off.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 10, 2019 at 11:22 am

Bolt. Off.
Mark Chapman September 10, 2019 at 11:37 am
Ha, ha!! Ever the wit.
Jen September 10, 2019 at 9:23 pm
The better moments in John Bolton's career:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fQ-BOqQw_TQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

yalensis September 10, 2019 at 3:22 pm
It's pathetic how Bolton tries to save face (=his walrus face, such as it is) by insisting that he quit instead of being fired. It's that old canard, "You can't fire me 'cause I quit!" [snif sob]
A variant of "You didn't break up with ME, I broke up with YOU!" [snif sob]

[Sep 12, 2019] John Bolton Meets His Fate by Daniel R. DePetris

The problem is not Bolton. It is Trump. Bolton is a well known neocon, who pushed for Iraq war (which makes his a war criminal) and founded PNAC. So his credentials as a warmonger were clear. He was/is a typical MIC prostitute, or agent of influence in more politically correct terms.
But any President who hired Bolton deliberately ositioned himself as a wrecking ball. Such an art of the deal. Hiring Bolton to a large extent justified Russiagate, because such a President is clear and present danger for the USA as a country. For the physical existence of this country and civilization on this territory. All bets for a realistic foreign policy are off. They are just wishful thinking.
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton would rather blow up Iran than talk to its leaders, engagement Trump has said numerous times he is more than happy to consider (maybe as soon as next week's U.N. General Assembly meeting). ..."
"... On Venezuela, Trump seems to have soured on pushing Nicolás Maduro from power, even as Bolton refers to Caracas as part of the "troika of tyranny." Bolton's obsession with getting North Korea denuclearized in one fell swoop -- an approach that came crashing down on Trump's head during his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February -- is far more likely to lead to an end of diplomacy than an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program (an uphill climb if there ever was one). ..."
"... Bolton, prickly as a porcupine in dealing with colleagues, had long been under Trump's skin. NBC News reports that the two men had a shouting match behind closed doors the night before Bolton's resignation. ..."
"... Whatever finally pushed Bolton out the door, however, is far less relevant than where Trump goes from here. He will announce a new national security adviser next week, and the Washington parlor game is already swirling with names. ..."
"... We don't know who Bolton's replacement will be, but we do know what he or she needs to do: dump most of the previous regime's ideas in the garbage and start over with strategies that actually have a chance at success. ..."
"... Trump needs an adviser who is willing to engage in a pragmatic negotiation and be prepared for uncomfortable but necessary bargaining. He needs someone who will help him end wars -- like the 18-year-long quagmire in Afghanistan -- that have gone on aimlessly and without purpose. ..."
Sep 12, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Bolton's is an extreme black-and-white view of the world: if you aren't an ally of the United States, you are an adversary who needs a boot on your neck in the form of U.S. military force or economic sanctions. The second- and third-order strategic consequences are no obstacle in Bolton's mind. Why go through the humiliating spectacle of negotiations when you can simply bomb Iran's nuclear facilities or take out the Kim regime by force ?

Diplomacy, after all, is for wimps, spineless State Department bureaucrats, and appeasers. If the boss is insisting on diplomacy, then demand the moon, stars, and everything in between before offering a nickel of sanctions relief.

This is how John Bolton made his career: as the proverbial wrecking ball of arms control agreements -- and indeed agreements of any kind. And he makes no excuses for it. Indeed, he takes prideful ownership of his views, seeing anyone who disagrees with him or who isn't on his level as a weasel. Before Bolton joined the Trump administration as national security adviser, he was the short-lived ambassador to the United Nations and the undersecretary of state for arms control, where he attempted to get an intelligence analyst removed for disagreeing with his position on Cuba's alleged biological weapons program.

All of this is why so many of us were worried and confused when President Trump asked Bolton to serve as his national security adviser last year. The two men could not have more fundamental disagreements on foreign policy. While both laugh at the U.N. and international organizations more broadly, they diverge paths on some of the weightiest issues on the docket. Bolton would rather blow up Iran than talk to its leaders, engagement Trump has said numerous times he is more than happy to consider (maybe as soon as next week's U.N. General Assembly meeting).

On Venezuela, Trump seems to have soured on pushing Nicolás Maduro from power, even as Bolton refers to Caracas as part of the "troika of tyranny." Bolton's obsession with getting North Korea denuclearized in one fell swoop -- an approach that came crashing down on Trump's head during his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February -- is far more likely to lead to an end of diplomacy than an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program (an uphill climb if there ever was one).

Trump grew tired of Bolton the same way he grew tired of other staffers. Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly were all liked by the president at one time, only to be fired or convinced to resign. Bolton, prickly as a porcupine in dealing with colleagues, had long been under Trump's skin. NBC News reports that the two men had a shouting match behind closed doors the night before Bolton's resignation.

Whatever finally pushed Bolton out the door, however, is far less relevant than where Trump goes from here. He will announce a new national security adviser next week, and the Washington parlor game is already swirling with names.

We don't know who Bolton's replacement will be, but we do know what he or she needs to do: dump most of the previous regime's ideas in the garbage and start over with strategies that actually have a chance at success.

Trump needs an adviser who is willing to engage in a pragmatic negotiation and be prepared for uncomfortable but necessary bargaining. He needs someone who will help him end wars -- like the 18-year-long quagmire in Afghanistan -- that have gone on aimlessly and without purpose.

He needs someone who will hold those within the administration accountable when they refuse to execute policy once it is cleared by the inter-agency. And above all, he or she should prize restraint and think through all the options when the Beltway loudly urges immediate action.

All of this will be easier with Bolton off the team.

Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at Reuters, and a frequent contributor to The American Conservative.

See also

[Sep 12, 2019] The Brain-Dead Maximalism of [neocon] Hard-liners by Daniel Larison

Highly recommended!
Iran sanction and the threat of war has nothing to do with its nuclear program. It is about the USA and by extension Israel dominance in the region. and defencing interesting of MIC, against the interest of general public. Which is the main task of neocons, as lobbyists for MIC (please understand that MIC includes intelligence agencies and large part of Wall Street) .
That's why Israel lobby ( and Bloomberg is a part of it ) supports strangulation Iran economy, Iran war and pushes Trump administration into it. the demand " Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination of Iran's nuclear activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist groups across the Middle East -- in exchange for readmission into the world economy" is as close to Netanyahu position as we can get.
Notable quotes:
"... The Bloomberg editors urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran ..."
"... As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them to yield. ..."
"... They have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons. ..."
"... Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder to justify punitive measures against Iran without end ..."
Sep 12, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The Bloomberg editors urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran:

Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination of Iran's nuclear activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist groups across the Middle East -- in exchange for readmission into the world economy.

This chance may never come again.

Bloomberg's latest advice to Trump on Iran is terrible as usual, but it is a useful window into how anti-Iran hard-liners see things. They see the next year as their best chance to push for their maximalist demands, and they fear the possibility that Trump might settle for something short of their absurd wish list. If Trump does what they want and "holds out" until Iran capitulates, he will be waiting a long time. He has nothing to show for his policy except increased tensions and impoverished and dying Iranians, and this would guarantee more of the same. The funny thing is that the "extended sunset" they deride is already an unrealistic goal, and they insist that the president pursue a much more ambitious set of goals that have absolutely no chance of being reached. As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them to yield.

The Bloomberg editorial is ridiculous in many ways, but just one more example will suffice. At one point it says, "Nor is there any doubt that Iran wants nuclear weapons." Perhaps ideologues and fanatics have no doubt about this, but it isn't true. If Iran wanted nuclear weapons, they could have pursued and acquired them by now. They gave up that pursuit and agreed to the most stringent nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated to prove that they wouldn't seek these weapons, but the Trump administration chose to punish them for their cooperation. Iran has not done any of the things that actual rogue nuclear weapons states have done. They have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons.

Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder to justify punitive measures against Iran without end.

They don't want to resolve the crisis with Iran, but rather hope to make it permanent by setting goals that can't possibly be reached and insisting that sanctions remain in place forever.

[Sep 12, 2019] Where we are now in Afghanistan- Editorial Opinion by PL

This is all false. The goal was establish military bases in former soviet republics to encircle Russia and this goal was achieved. Putin was probably not so wise giving 100% support to Bush invasion, which was a typical false flag invasion.
Taliban was the creation of the USA to fight Soviets, like political Islam in general so any complains are just pure hypocity.
Notable quotes:
"... Afghanistan borders China. For that reason alone, we are never leaving whatever the cost in blood or treasure. The country is a very forward, strategic military base that can be used to launch air attacks on Chinese assets and impede China's Belt and Road initiative. ..."
"... Despite his bluster, Trump is very weak and knows the Taliban is winning and fears they will try to drive us out before the election, ushering in his defeat. Most of his time is spent cowering in his golf resorts, ranting and raving on a tiny little cellphone. ..."
"... The Blob will not allow any of his fears to shake the resolve of the Deep State to make Afghanistan a colony for a thousand years. ..."
"... American's negotiating position in every instances with rival nations is to dictate the terms for surrender regardless of the circumstances on the ground. It's an untenable position and guarantees perpetual war and occupation which is precisely the point. ..."
"... It seems to me that if one parsed reports from the Special Inspector General Afghanistan Reconstruction along with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's "Afghanistan Opium Survey", any illusions as to what the reasons for the West's intervention in that country were, should dissipate rather speedily. ..."
"... we invaded Afghanistan so that we could steal the foreign aid money that we would give them and could sponsor the opium trade. ..."
"... Gramsci and his like stand vindicated. Capture the academies and the rest of us follow, often willingly. ..."
"... And just a few, of those in the public eye, standing up true and declaring "This emperor has no clothes!" ..."
Sep 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Where we are now in Afghanistan- Editorial Opinion by PL

(Lt. Hamilton VC at Kabul where he commanded Sir Louis Cavangnari's escort)

A year or so after the US intervention in Afghanistan began in 2001 I perceived that there was a danger that US public and government opinion might begin to favor the idea of "nation building" in Afghanistan. From long experience in and study of the area of Islamicate civilization and its history it seemed clear to me that such an effort would be doomed to failure at any price that one should be willing to pay in; expended effort over time, money and blood shed on all sides.

The basic problem with Afghanistan is that there "is no there there." Afghanistan is really a geographical expression rather than a country in the sense understood of the word in the post-Westphalian system of independent states.

Across the Islamicate world from Mauritania to BanglaDesh and beyond to Oceania there is a pronounced tendency to atomization in group perception of identity. Arabs do not identify with Berbers, etc., Tribes and clans within these groups regard all others as rivals and often enemies unless they are needed as temporary allies.

The Islamic religion which holds unity to be an ideal is often thought to be a unifier against the atomizing tendency in these cultures, but in fact there are many, many varieties of Islam, each one believing that it is uniquely favored by God. This often cancels out whatever unifying effect Islam, as religion, can have.

Afghanistan, created as a buffer between imperial Russia and British India, is an extreme case of atomization among the inhabitants of a state which has recognition in the world political system including membership in the UN. In spite of that status , a status that might deceive one into believing that there is such a thing as "the Afghan People,"the population of Afghanistan is actually made up of a number of different ethnic nations; Pushtuns, Hazzara, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turcomans, Arabs, etc. These different peoples all speak mutually unintelligible languages which often have such extreme separation in dialect that this amounts to uninteligibility as well. Some of these groups are Sunni and others Shia. This is yet another factor in the separation of the segments of the population.

The country has little substantial physical infrastructure. What there is was largely constructed in the 50s and 60s as part of Cold War competition between the USSR and the US. There is very little legal or governmental infrastructure. A commercial company investing its own or borrowed money in Afghanistan is taking a great risk of never being able to recover its investment from the local "pirates." Government is generally predatory in its attitude toward foreign investment funds. I tried to find a safe haven in Afghanistan for some of my company's funds and could find none. Senior Afghan government people would typically respond to questions about legal infrastructure with exhortations to "bring your project, all will be well." Needless to say ...

US intervention in this place was inevitable after 9/11, but what was not necessary or wise were repeated US decisions for a COIN nation building campaign. As this tendency began to be evident I argued for a much more limited goal in which the US would keep about 20K troops in country to maintain a government controlled enclave around Kabul and Bagram. This would enable pursuit of located international terrorist groups through raiding operations from that base area. The basis for this strategy was my conclusion that the US could never "pacify" all of the territory of Afghanistan and that we would "break our teeth" trying.

I pressed this belief in various fora and with various individuals within the Obama Administration even as Obama endlessly contemplated the entreaties of the COINista generals, Petraeus, Mattis, McChrystal etc. for a country wide nation building COIN campaign. The most interesting of these encounters was at an IQ2 debate at NYU in 2009 where I (and teammates) argued that "The US can never win in Afghanistan." My side lost on points but the leader of the other team recently told me that he knows now that we were completely correct. Obama gave in to the generals, and gave them the COIN war that they wanted. I suppose that for "Barry" it was immensely flattering to have them "butter him up."

It is clear now that the COIN strategy has failed miserable and totally. Afghanistan is not one bit more united or modernized than it has ever been. The US has spent a sea of money there and many brave people have perished or been wrecked in chasing the idea of Afghanistan as a Central Asian Switzerland.

Trump has allowed Zalmai Khalilzad to attempt to achieve a negotiated peace with the Taliban, the former salafi takfiri, Pushtun rulers of Afghanistan, in the apparent belief that they could be "talked down out of the tree" just as his business competitors could always be talked down to meet at a "closing" table where his supposed "closing genius' would bring a DEAL.

Unfortunately this belief in his closing talent goes unrewarded in Palestine, Syria, Turkey,Yemen, Iran, China (not yet), North Korea and Afghanistan. IMO his difficulty in finding solutions lies in his entrapment within his own New York City business model, a model in which everything is for sale if the deal is structured skillfully to advantage the stronger party while all the while claiming that the party you are screwing is your friend.

Sadly for The Donald all those "stupid" foreigners do not understand that "everything is for sale." Among them, the Taliban, an army and religio-political movement are notable for a lack of belief in the commercial possibilities of selling out to Donald Trump for a "mess of pottage" or thirty pieces of silver whichever reference you prefer. They want to win, and they want to be seen to have driven the "crusaders" from Afghanistan and in the process to have humiliated the US as the leading infidel state. To that end they lie, prevaricate and await the day when they can crush the puny forces of "modernism" after the American departure. Zalmai Khalilzad is an Afghan pushtun Sunni by birth and rearing. Did he not know that they could not be trusted in dealings with the US? I do not blame the Taliban for being what they are. I blame all the American and NATO fools for believing that they could make the Taliban either go away or become "happy campers." They were never going to do either of those things. We should have known that. Some of us did, but Americans are addicted to all the melting pot, right side of history foolishness so common in "levelled" America,

What should the US do now that the scales have fallen from Trump's eyes and the time of "good faith" negotiation with the Taliban is "dead?" The first thing to do is to fire Khalilzad.

Last night, Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor told Tucker Carlson that the US should simply leave, and should have never intervened. IOW we should get the hell out totally and forever. This is a tempting thought. I have wrestled with the attractiveness of the idea but there are certain problems with it.

1. We should not want to give the jihadi movements proof of our feckless defeatability. IMO if we leave suddenly the Afghan government and armed forces will soon collapse. The country will then further disintegrate into a welter of jihadi factions and regional tribal strongmen, the strongest of which will be the Taliban.

2. We have encouraged modernist Afghan men, women and girls to emerge from the shadows. Shall we leave them to their fates under the rule of the jihadis.

3. What about all the translators, base workers and other people who have cast their lots with us. The Taliban and other jihadis will simply kill them as apostates. We abandoned a lot of such people in Iraq. Will we do it again?

On balance I would say Macgregor is right that we must leave. The time for a small remaining presence is past. The forces in the field are too strong for a small force to maintain itself even with massive long range air support. Think of Sir Louis Cavangnari. No, we should leave, but we should leave on a schedule that will enable us to control the timing of our going and to protect the departure of those who wish to leave with us. pl

BTW, SWMBO says that no mutually understood languages = no country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Louis_Napoleon_Cavagnari

Posted at 06:00 PM in Afghanistan , Policy | Permalink


Keith Harbaugh , 10 September 2019 at 12:57 PM
"We should not want to give the jihadi movements proof of our feckless defeatability."

Gee, like admit to reality? My view: Acknowledge the U.S. is not omnipotent, and has very limited ability to influence, let alone, control, other parts of the world other than those to which it has extremely close ties, most especially the Five Eyes and other parts of what was once called Western Civilization.

Aono , 10 September 2019 at 01:11 PM
Col,

I just want to mention that about once a year I dig the IQ2 debate out and watch it again in full. Call it a sanity check I suppose. It is clear that you were trying to be substantive throughout, which was somewhat hampered by the amorphous premise of "success" undergirding the debate question. The other side (Nagle in particular) was trying to "win" the debate by defining success so broadly as to exclude questions over the "how," and they used that as an excuse to dodge your indictment of COIN. But it is very clear who had the right of it, and it is at least somewhat gratifying to hear that same admission was made to you.

Dave Schuler , 10 September 2019 at 02:03 PM
I suspect that we will retain our forces in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. To understand why you've got to consider the politics rather than the pragmatics.

No president wants to be the one who "lost Afghanistan" (as though it were ours to lose) or, worse yet, be the president who removed forces from a country from which an attack on the U. S. would emanate afterwards or be staged from or planned from.

The greatest likelihood of our removing our forces from Afghanistan would be towards the end of a president's second term, especially if that president were a Democrat and could expect to take less heat from the media. In other words Obama should have removed our forces from Afghanistan and if he wouldn't Trump won't, especially not before being re-elected.

Barbara Ann said in reply to Dave Schuler ... , 10 September 2019 at 05:54 PM
These kind of wars seem to take 3 presidents to end. Trump is this war's Nixon and was elected on a platform which included 'losing' Afghanistan. The media will howl once the Taliban take over, but it will swiftly pass as they realize Americans have no interest in a place where their countrymen are no longer dying.
blue peacock , 10 September 2019 at 02:45 PM
Col. Lang

No matter what the US government does or does not do, wouldn't Afghanistan revert to its natural state as you have described it?

It seems Trump's "negotiated" deal with the Taliban would have been a good approach to getting out but that's now no longer a possibility. Would supporting the Tajiks through Russia and India as a counter-balance to the Taliban work to keep them from completely dominating? Russia and India likely have an interest in preventing jihadis from using Taliban dominated territory to infiltrate. Is it even worth any effort on the part of the US government? It would seem Pakistan and China would continue working to influence events there.

Grazhdanochka , 10 September 2019 at 03:08 PM
My longstanding belief is that Afghanistan to be 'tamed' requires the type of Steel that only existed long ago.

The Modern World has modernized beyond the brutal realities that taming it likely requires, and as such may lose a fraction of the Lives and Treasure as past - but cannot sustain it politically or socially.

The next Question - If Afghanistan is simply a construct, why not forsake most of it and develop the regions of Afghanistan that ARE more amiable and Homogenous?

A lot of the Tadzhiks and Uzbeks (varied Turkmen) I suspect could be far more easily propped up and supported in their own Lands, which back to back with the Central Asian FSU States is a more viable 'Nation Building' Exercise.

What ultimately tamed the 'Wilds'? The Development of strong local States, Force of Arms and ultimately - Demographics. If you will not do it yourself, pick a unified Team and back them in doing it. Ironically the means to inflict harm on occupying Militaries seems to go down as those Armies means to stomach it does also.

The next obvious Question. Is it worth considering (not necessarily for the US and Western States - who will appear as desperate Losers the idea that Afghanistan if allowed to run as strong Armed Islamic State, albeit modernized - might actually one day develop into one more approachable to further modernization?

All just quick Thoughts for me.

The Twisted Genius , 10 September 2019 at 03:28 PM
I agree we should unilaterally withdraw all our forces from Afghanistan. The military can surely plan and carry out a unilateral withdrawal. Just do it. The Taliban are not al Qaeda or the Islamic State. Their desires don't extend beyond the mountains of Afghanistan. Hell, they're fighting IS. Let them do so and don't give them reason to go over to them.

The rub will be all those Afghanis who tied their futures to us. We should resettle them here or somewhere more familiar to them as part of that withdrawal. The chance of that happening under the Trump administration is nil.

CK said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 11 September 2019 at 06:57 AM
That is the exact same argument I heard in 72 and again in 75. By early 76 no one cared. There are in every country and in every involvement Quislings and main chancers who find the short term gelt available to be worth the future risk of making the wrong and visible choice. In the case of most of these Afghanis the tie was a slip knot at best.
Ray R , 10 September 2019 at 03:45 PM
A "long, long, time ago" in "a land far away", Najibullah was deposed. Pat, you'll recall that I was then serving as the chair of the Inter-agency Task Force on Afghanistan. Well, we had our regular meeting at which a couple of the folks opined that this was a wonderful development for the country and the folks would now all join hands, dance around the campfire, and sign Kumbaya. To bring the group back to reality, I asked for someone to identify the national sport of Afghanistan. One of the group said that, obviously, it was buzkhasi. So I then asked for someone else to clarify how such a game unfolds and another stalwart did so. This dialogue quickly brought everyone back to reality. For those unfamiliar with the sport, buzkhasi consists of two nominal "teams" on horseback trying to get a headless goat carcass across the opponent's goal line. All goes well at first, but ultimately the teams disintegrate until it's every man for himself in mass mayhem. Thus, IMHO will go Afghanistan.
A. Pols , 10 September 2019 at 04:23 PM
Sadly enough this old quote seems especially true in the case of the "Afghan War" or whatever it is. Our experts' obdurate insistence on pursuing "peace with honor" or some outcome we can get our heads around and feel good about has become a receding horizon...

The only way we could "win" would be by waging a war of extermination with the goal of totally depopulating the entire territory and building an impenetrable barrier around it. But of course that would be a hard sell for a country with a good guy reputation to protect. And then what would we do with the land? After all, we still haven't been able to settle most of Nevada and Wyoming!


"History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools."

Ambrose Bierce

walrus , 10 September 2019 at 05:19 PM
I said at the beginning of this mess that the one sure thing was that we would end up with chains of Iraqi and afghan restaurants begun by the refugees who had to leave their countries with us when we left. I just hope we have progressed from leaving behind card indexes of our in-country supporters for the Taliban to discover, as allegedly happened in Vietnam.
Barbara Ann , 10 September 2019 at 06:00 PM
I enjoyed the IQ2 debate you reference, particularly your coining of the word "Vermontize". Incredible to think this conversation about an 8 year old war was 10 years ago - and we are still having it. Here is the link for anyone interested:

https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/america-cannot-and-will-not-succeed-afghanistanpakistan

Valissa , 10 September 2019 at 09:05 PM
I really enjoy these type of situational overview and analysis posts, thanks!

Although I see your point about Trump's crass business approach, let's face it... the military and various US gov't orgs have had any many years to try various approaches to "solving" (cough, cough) Afghanistan. After all the US has been in Afghanistan since 2001. We had been in Afghanistan for 15 years before Trump was elected. After all those years of failure by the Borg I have no problem whatsoever with Trump taking a shot at the situation in his own way. Trump tried a certain tactic and it didn't work. Oh well, but lessons learned. He'll regroup, get more advice and try something else. He's making more of an effort to resolve things than previous presidents, and willing to think outside of the Borg box.

evodevo said in reply to Valissa... , 11 September 2019 at 10:00 AM
No, all Trump was doing was looking for a re-election publicity stunt and a shot at that elusive Nobel like Obama got....he's done this kind of thing for the last 40 years - he isn't going to change his personality now...
BraveNewWorld , 10 September 2019 at 09:07 PM
If the US leaves and I believe it should it doesn't have to mean the end of days. China, Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan have all expressed interest in clearing the area of terrorists. They have all been blocked by the US presence. Preferably the US would work a deal with those players who are far better connected and prepared to clean up the neighbourhood than the US is from the other side of the world. Russia was willing to act as guarantor for the collapsed deal. Work a deal for one or more of them to move in as the US moves out.

My concern is that with all the big players wanting a piece of the pie that it evolves into an even worse proxy war. But China, Pakistan, Russia and Iran are all rowing in more or less the same direction these days and India has bitten off all it can chew in Kashmir so this may be the perfect time. Americans just have to get over that indispensable nation nonsense.

Ya, I know go fuck myself.

Diana C said in reply to turcopolier ... , 11 September 2019 at 10:19 AM
Thank you for thinking of the women and girls....and perhaps their little boys.

I've lived through the abandonment of Vietnam and the influx of refugees from that part of the world, the mess after the Iraq War that included bringing to our country many who had tied their fortunes to us. We can not this time decide to abandon any who have tied their hopes to us after we came in and caused so much turmoil in their country.

I always thought it was hubris on our part to think we could do what the Soviets failed to do.

If we bring these people here, my hope is that we examine how our bringing in Somalis has, in many places, not been a successful effort in regard to integrating them into our society. (Do not many of us, including Nancy Pelosi, regret the bringing in of at least one Somali woman?) We need to prepare for their entry into our country in some way that will not mean just dropping them somewhere and letting them fend for themselves.

I know the government has some sort of protocol for finding them places to live. Often, however, the people seem to be dropped in and left in some ways to depend on themselves "as strangers in a strange land." This should be our last time. Stop the "nation-building" efforts.

I feel that most Americans are welcoming and friendly people, but they often just do not understand how difficult it is for some to adapt to a very different way of life.

RenoDino , 11 September 2019 at 09:33 AM
Afghanistan borders China. For that reason alone, we are never leaving whatever the cost in blood or treasure. The country is a very forward, strategic military base that can be used to launch air attacks on Chinese assets and impede China's Belt and Road initiative.

Despite his bluster, Trump is very weak and knows the Taliban is winning and fears they will try to drive us out before the election, ushering in his defeat. Most of his time is spent cowering in his golf resorts, ranting and raving on a tiny little cellphone.

The Blob will not allow any of his fears to shake the resolve of the Deep State to make Afghanistan a colony for a thousand years.

They have been successful in implanting in the psyche of every American the incorrect notion that the Taliban launched 9/11. That notion alone means there is no support for any truce or treaty with our bete noir.

Morongobill , 11 September 2019 at 09:35 AM
These lines from Rudyard Kipling immediately came to my mind:

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!"

We are never going to change Afghanistan so getting out and taking those who supported us is appealing to me.

turcopolier , 11 September 2019 at 10:01 AM
RenoDino

It is not a base. It is a sinkhole.

confusedponderer -> turcopolier ... , 11 September 2019 at 11:49 AM
Mr. Lang,
" It is not a base. It is a sinkhole. "

Maybe that's why Mr. Prince wanted Trump to make him the viceroy of Afghanistan.

What a career that would be - a former SEAL lieutenant, then mercenary, promoted to something like a field marshal, bringing fabulous quarter numbers, strategy or something like that, peace and freedom to the place by privatizing the war and fighting it more cost effective for himself .

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-19/trump-mulling-blackwater-founder-erik-princes-plan-privatize-war-afghanistan

RenoDino said in reply to confusedponderer... , 11 September 2019 at 05:10 PM
It is not a base. It is a sinkhole--A distinction without a difference.

Confusedponderer

Your reference to Mr. Prince was spot on. He understood what the long-term plans for Afghanistan were and still are. A viceroy is the designated ruling representative of a colonial power.

American's negotiating position in every instances with rival nations is to dictate the terms for surrender regardless of the circumstances on the ground. It's an untenable position and guarantees perpetual war and occupation which is precisely the point.

HK Leo Strauss -> confusedponderer... , 11 September 2019 at 10:01 PM
This has been Trump's true failing - not applying his vast business acumen to turn DoD into a profit center.
guidoamm , 11 September 2019 at 11:12 AM
It seems to me that if one parsed reports from the Special Inspector General Afghanistan Reconstruction along with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's "Afghanistan Opium Survey", any illusions as to what the reasons for the West's intervention in that country were, should dissipate rather speedily.

History repeats.

turcopolier , 11 September 2019 at 11:51 AM
guidoamm

so, your belief is that we invaded Afghanistan so that we could steal the foreign aid money that we would give them and could sponsor the opium trade. Funny! A joke right?

turcopolier , 11 September 2019 at 02:22 PM
ISL

IMO Trump has no clarity of anyhthing in foreign policy. He is just trying to make a deal in accordance with his experience of deal making and is not doing well. It will be interesting to see if he and Trudeau can sell the USMCA to Pelosi. this is clearly a gooddeal. Let's see how hard he pushes for it. With regard to the ME, have reached the conclusion that his basic attitudes are formed in the culture of New York City Jewry. A Christian Brother who had two PH.D.s in STEM and was a New York City guy once told me that I had to understand that everyone in NY City is to some extent Jewish, even the cardinal archbishop.

JM Gavin , 11 September 2019 at 08:45 PM
I spent several years in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014. I was there, with a front row seat, when the shift to nation-building began. The best days of my life were in Afghanistan, spent amongst the finest men and women from many nations...including Afghanistan. We lost the war a long time ago. By 2006, I could see we were losing. By 2008, I knew it was lost. How many Afghans have hitched their horses to our wagon? More than enough. How many others chose to live as free men and women because we were there? A significant part of the population. They face a reckoning for living that hope out loud, in public.

The Afghan people are amazing, and a lot of them believed in us, and in a future where women could be more than a piece of property. I can see why some would say we should walk away, and, it's hard to argue against that.

I'll carry what we did in Afghanistan to my grave. DOL,

JMG

Jim Ticehurst , 11 September 2019 at 11:18 PM
Colonel ...I agree with your Opinion on this matter of Withdrawal. I have read a Year by Year timeline of The Millions spent. for the Training Of Afghanistan Military and Security Forces and Like in Viet Nam..they will fail. Fail to defend themselves..

Their hearts wont be in it..and like Vietnam..It Just made The Communist North Vietnamese the Third Most Powerful Conventional Weapons stockpile in the World..with all the Equipment we Left behind...The..billions spent to keep our military presence there..

The millions Spent for VA Resources to care for our wounded. Many with traumatic head injuries...The loss of Our People there..Overt and Covert...The loss of Seal Team 6 in the Aftermath of Finally Getting Osama Bin Laden...It will Never End...

There will always be those willing to die for JiHad..Forever..Over a Trillion Dollars..Plus all The Money we sent to Pakistan. Which has been Most of Our Foreign Aid..Its been a Tragic Blunder and there has never been such a thing as "Mission Accomplished"..

This has been the second most Costly War since WWII. ..Bring Them Home.. ...

9/11/2001,,,,9/11/2019.A War of the Politicians..By The Politicians For The Politicians.and the Military..Industrial Complex....and Their Egos..and Bank accounts..Period...Thomas Jefferson Knew This was coming.

Jack , 11 September 2019 at 11:31 PM
Sir

I know nothing about Doug Macgregor but he sounds really sane in this interview with Tucker. If Trump does what he suggests it would be a welcome approach and drive the Borg insane.

Do you know him or have an opinion about him?

https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1171583543832715264?s=21

turcopolier , 12 September 2019 at 07:55 AM
jack

Yes, I know Doug. A fine soldier. AIPAC would rather see me have the job than Doug

Bill Hatch , 12 September 2019 at 08:10 AM
I agreed with sending SOF in to kill AQ being harbored by the Taliban. I said at the time, "Go in, kill the people who need killing & get the hell out."

There is only one thing that can unify Afgan tribes, that's the presence of foreigners. A very long history has resulted in the reference to "the graveyard of empires." I don't believe that the Taliban is a threat to the US outside of Afghanistan. They are a threat to any American in Afghanistan. Nation building in Afghanistan is domed to failure. The only issue is what is to be the fate of the Afghani's who assisted us or bought into the idea of westernization. Our recent history is to abandon these people.

Eventually we will join the list of Afghan invaders from Cyrus, to Alexander, to the Brits. The only question is how we depart & how much more blood & treasure we spend.

JM Gavin said in reply to Bill Hatch... , 12 September 2019 at 09:02 AM
In my experience, nothing can unify Afghan tribes, or even the sub-tribes. There is a saying amongst the Pashtun: "Me against my brothers, my brothers and I against my cousins, my cousins and I against the world." The real Taliban (meaning the political entity, exiled to the east, also known as "The Quetta Shura," have never been able to get "Taliban" factions in Afghanistan to unite against anything. COL Lang is spot-on, there is no collective "Afghan" identity.

Afghanistan is still run by warlords. The vast majority of folks referred to as "Taliban" are really just warlords (and the warlords' minions) wrapping themselves in the Taliban flag, as it suits them now. If the Taliban were to come back to controlling power in Afghanistan, many of the warlords would switch to fighting the Taliban. True territorial gains in Afghanistan are generally made when warlords switch sides. Afghan warlords are the most loyal people money can buy...well, rent, anyway.

DOL,

JMG

English Outsider , 12 September 2019 at 04:06 PM
The IQ2 debate was significant for me personally when I first saw it. The arguments for staying in Afghanistan were set out coherently and for perhaps the first time I caught a glimpse of the immense intellectual effort, in the think tanks and the academies, that goes into justifying the neocon position. That neocon position working through almost by osmosis to the heavyweight newspapers and media outlets, and providing the narrative framework within which the Intelligence Initiatives of this world right down to the little propaganda sites work. Such varied figures as Charles Lister or Peter Tatchell have backup, and how.

It's an intellectual fortress, the whole, and for many of us in the general public it confirms us comfortably in the neocon rationale. It gives us the arguments, and the excuses, and as long as one declines to notice that those arguments and excuses do shift around, we pay our taxes for this or that crazy neocon venture without complaint and often gladly. Gramsci and his like stand vindicated. Capture the academies and the rest of us follow, often willingly.

And just a few, of those in the public eye, standing up true and declaring "This emperor has no clothes!"

Which happened, as I saw several years later when I got to view it, in that IQ2 debate. Around that time I came across Major Stueber's documentary which had rather more than seven minutes to lay out how hopeless it was for Western armies to fight alongside local forces, when those local forces were so hopelessly factional, corrupt, and therefore ineffectual.

And a footnote just recently. I head a Swedish aid worker relating just how impossible it was for him too to function in Afghanistan. Money put through to local groups swallowed up in false invoicing, ghost workers whose salaries went to swell the pay packet of their superiors, slush funds because that was the only way to get things done.

It was never a doable venture, Afghanistan. That was clear to a few in that debate ten years ago and it's clear to more now. I hope it's possible to get out without leaving the urban Westernised Afghans too much at the mercy of the rest.

And perhaps, also reflecting that the Rovean narratives that the academies and think tanks conjure up for us, at such expense and at such effort, all crumble eventually when reality, as it must finally, breaks through.

[Sep 12, 2019] You know who would be a good replacement for Bolton ? Tulsi Gabbard.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

cartman September 10, 2019 at 8:51 am

Trump Fires John Bolton After "Disagreeing Strongly With His Suggestions

One less warmongering neo-con in the swamp.

That still leaves Patriarch Pompous Dumpus of the UOC-KP-CIA in place.

Mark Chapman September 10, 2019 at 11:13 am
Good catch; you were first with that blockbuster. You know who would be a good replacement? Tulsi Gabbard. It would please those who moan the government is too partisan, it would remove the only real non-ideologue from the Democratic slate, and leave them with doddering Uncle Joe and a bunch of no-ideas bobbleheads. Few would dare question her lack of foreign-policy experience, given her actual experience of being at the sharp end of it with the military. The American people claim to be sick of war – although not sick enough of it to do any real protesting against it – and Gabbard is anti-war. She's easy on the eyes, but if Trump tried his grab-'er-by-the-pussy move, he would find himself only needing one glove this winter; her obvious toughness would appeal to feminists. I think she'd take it if asked, because although she despises Trump and his government, she would not be able to resist the opportunity to shape America's foreign policy. She would eat news outlets who tried to portray her as an apologist for terror or Putin or whatever for lunch.
Northern Star September 10, 2019 at 2:57 pm
Nope .Major Gabbard is needed as America's CIC aka POTUS.

Nothing short of that is called for.

To implement even partially achieve (implement) her agenda she needs the full weight and authority of the Oval office.

BTW Tulsi has the skills to totally fuck up bashers of women:

Mark Chapman September 10, 2019 at 10:38 pm
Well, she was not on the short list of names I saw for potential Bolton replacements. I don't see her making president, though, her support base is just not big enough. But if the Democrats put all their eggs in the Burnout Joe basket, he will in all probability lose to Trump. Trump's support has eroded, but not so far that very many people want to see Joe Biden running the country.

[Sep 12, 2019] Tulsi. Tulsi. Tulsi: Harris is making as many gaffes as that moron Biden .

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 8, 2019 at 2:05 pm

Tulsi. Tulsi. Tulsi
Harris is making as many gaffes as that moron Biden .

https://www.youtube.com/embed/FxUxij7Fkj0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Mark Chapman

[Sep 12, 2019] I liked Bernie Sanders back when he was getting shafted by the Clinton juggernaut, but since then a lot of information on his voting record has come to light I have become convinced he is just another lifelong political mouthpiece

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 4, 2019 at 1:04 pm

I liked Bernie Sanders back when he was getting shafted by the Clinton juggernaut, but since then a lot of information on his voting record has come to light – not that it was ferreted out, it's all public information for anyone who chooses to look for it – and I have become convinced he is just another lifelong political mouthpiece whose first concern upon getting elected would be getting re-elected.

So I don't really care much for him now, and I think that if he were president, his policies would differ little from those of Barack Obama, and he would support any war that appeared to have enough public backing to get it off the ground. His main concern, obviously – and it will be for anyone who is elected – is preserving US dominance of global affairs, and trade relationships which gain the United States significant advantages.

Re-establishing a more cooperative relationship between the United States and its allies and partners is not on anyone's radar. The USA has made its choice, and it likes the idea of sitting on the throne and detailing off its minions to do busy stuff. Gabbard might have very slightly different ideas about polishing America's global image so it is not viewed as quite so much of a bossy prick and grabby selfish jerk, but if she were elected, America's corporate elite would waste no time in making sure she understood any president who is not going to be zealous in standing up for expansion of American business would be a one-termer at best.

[Sep 12, 2019] Dances With Bears: MARK GALEOTTI IS A FACT FAKER HIS BOOK ON RUSSIAN CRIME IS A HATE CRIME, A WAR CRIME

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 9, 2019 at 9:14 am

I only mentioned Mark 'Gerasimov' Galeotti recently linked to a MT source one of you posted and hey, presto

Dances With Bears: MARK GALEOTTI IS A FACT FAKER – HIS BOOK ON RUSSIAN CRIME IS A HATE CRIME, A WAR CRIME
http://johnhelmer.net/mark-galeotti-is-a-fact-faker-his-book-on-russian-crime-is-a-hate-crime-a-war-crime/

Repeating lies over and over makes old-fashioned Joseph Goebbels-type propaganda. Repeating lies, then contradicting them; moving them from one government-paid think-tank to another; footnoting a new lie to an older version; quoting policemen and gangsters saying fatuities; adding slang and the words of pop songs -- this is still Goebbels-type but stretched out and product-diversified to make its author more money. This is Mark Galeotti's method .
####

The rest at the link and a deep dive on Galeotti himself.

[Sep 12, 2019] Later on in the distant future, after Tsemakh has been transported to The Hague or Rome, as the court case date draws near, or when Tsemakh is supposed to appear as a "witness" in court, he can always suddenly and unexpectedly expire in prison from some hitherto undiagnosed heart condition.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 9, 2019 at 10:37 am

FlightGlobal.com: MH17: Dutch fail to keep key witness out of prisoner swap

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/mh17-dutch-fail-to-keep-key-witness-out-of-prisoner-460735/

Blok says the Ukrainian side offered to "postpone" the exchange to give Dutch prosecutors the opportunity to interview Tsemach again, and adds that this questioning subsequently took place

Investigators directing the criminal probe into MH17's loss have previously identified four individuals – three Russians and a Ukrainian, none of which is Tsemach – who they are seeking to prosecute over the attack.
####

'interview again '. To repeat the f/king obvious, surely if there was sufficient intelligence/evidence/coffee grounds/magda the gypsy/whatever, then Tsemach would have been handed over. Did they honestly thing that having another crack at him would have provided something? Weak as piss.

Of course the Pork Pie New Networks despite being rather more careful than usual in their reporting of this are having their cake and eating it, i.e. not using phraes like ' smoking gun ' but happy with 'key witness' with no qualifier or anything to back this up. The insinuation is there, but not the actual words. Spineless mofos.

Mark Chapman September 9, 2019 at 3:03 pm
They're just having so much fun with the ridiculous narrative that Russia moved behind the scenes to ensure he was included in the prisoner swap – before you know it, the entire exchange will have been engineered to get Tsemakh out of Ukrainian hands. Why? Well, you know – where there's smoke, there's a crashed airliner, wink, wink.

Moscow never mentioned Tsemakh; if they sent Ukraine a list of prisoners recommended for exchange, he was not on it. But the western media planted the seed that his inclusion in the slate of transferred prisoners was owed to Russian pressure, and it just gets wilder as it goes along.

Jen September 9, 2019 at 3:51 pm
I'd have thought that the Dutch investigators would try to persuade the Banderites to keep Tsemakh in custody on the pretence that his life would be in danger if he were to be returned to Russia, because Lord Vlademort would be displeased that Tsemakh might have let something valuable slip from his lips, let alone be inconsiderate enough as to be arrested in the first place.

Later on in the distant future, after Tsemakh has been transported to The Hague or Rome, as the court case date draws near, or when Tsemakh is supposed to appear as a "witness" in court, he can always suddenly and unexpectedly expire in prison from some hitherto undiagnosed heart condition.

Mark Chapman September 9, 2019 at 7:23 pm
Ukraine released him on bail before the prisoner swap. Obviously they either considered him an insignificant flight risk – given how difficult it must be to collect a bail bond in Ukraine – or knew that he had no information which would be useful to anyone. They might even be using him to spread disinformation in Russia, and all the teeth-grinding from the west all for show, to make the bait sweeter. You never know. But under normal circumstances, when a European country said "Jump", Ukraine's response would be "How high"?

[Sep 12, 2019] The Ukraine had the means and a motive, they should have been treated as a criminal suspect, yet without further investigation they were promoted to member of the JIT that does the criminal investigation

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 9, 2019 at 1:25 am

Over at MoA, not 'Stef Blok' writes:

If you read the accident investigation report, on page 239 it clearly states that the Ukrainian army was active with heavy anti-aircraft installations in the eastern part of the Ukraine. The Ukrainian army has BUK rockets of the type that downed MH17.

The Ukraine had the means and a motive, they should have been treated as a criminal suspect, yet without further investigation they were promoted to member of the JIT that does the criminal investigation

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/ukraine-reuters-cnn-and-hrw-make-false-russian-prisoners-claims.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a480da79200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a480da79200c

####

More at the link, obvs.

Not to mention that Ukranian TV itself showed Ukranian air defense BUKs on manoeuvers in Eastern Ukraine.

[Sep 12, 2019] Saudi jets, armed with US and UK bombs and provided with targeting information by US military intelligence officers stationed in Saudi Arabia,

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star September 3, 2019 at 3:52 pm

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/02/yeme-s02.html

"Saudi jets, armed with US and UK bombs and provided with targeting information by US military intelligence officers stationed in Saudi Arabia, have continued to carry out repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, mosques, funerals and markets. The US had provided coalition jets with mid-air refueling until the end of last year, ensuring maximum carnage."

https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/current-members

Like I was saying Too bad the two foremost war criminal terrorist nations sit on the UNSC.

Mark Chapman September 3, 2019 at 4:14 pm
Funny – their position is exactly the opposite; too bad Russia and China are on the UNSC, if it were not for them, so much more could get done.

[Sep 12, 2019] Which countries concluded agreements and treaties with Hitler

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Moscow Exile September 4, 2019 at 4:38 am

1933 – Great Britain, France, Italy – four-power pact
1934 – Poland – Hitler-Pilsudski pact
1935 – Great Britain – Anglo-German naval agreement
1936 – Japan – Anti-Comintern pact
1938, September – Great Britain – non-aggression pact
1938, December – France – non-aggression pact
1939, March – Romania – economic agreement
1939, March – Lithuania – non-aggression pact
1939, May – Italy – pact of friendship and alliance
1939, May – Denmark – non-aggression pact
1939, June – Estonia – non-aggression pact
1939, June – Latvia – non-aggression pact
1939, August – USSR – non-aggression pact

Yet everyone only talks about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Mark Chapman September 4, 2019 at 7:21 am
Well, people talk about Italy – they have to; it was one of the Axis powers, and the allies had to fight it to subdue it. But now Italy is totally rehabilitated and, aside from a certain carelessness with money, a valued friend. Just as Germany itself is totally rehabilitated.

It is only Russia which remains a place of evil, because it will not admit its Stalinist guilt and pay Billions in reparations to the Ukrainians for starving them all to death, and atone as the west demands for its sins. Then it will be broke and helpless but happy.

[Sep 12, 2019] Bolt. Off.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 10, 2019 at 11:22 am

Bolt. Off.
Mark Chapman September 10, 2019 at 11:37 am
Ha, ha!! Ever the wit.
Jen September 10, 2019 at 9:23 pm
The better moments in John Bolton's career:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fQ-BOqQw_TQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

yalensis September 10, 2019 at 3:22 pm
It's pathetic how Bolton tries to save face (=his walrus face, such as it is) by insisting that he quit instead of being fired. It's that old canard, "You can't fire me 'cause I quit!" [snif sob]
A variant of "You didn't break up with ME, I broke up with YOU!" [snif sob]

[Sep 12, 2019] Jon Huntsman, who, following his resignation, is leaving in October, has stressed that he is ready to discuss allegations of interference

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 5, 2019 at 12:54 am

"Это дорогого стоит": Госдума оценила готовность американского посла прийти поговорить после интервью "Комсомолке"
С Джоном Хантсманом хотят обсудить иностранное вмешательство в московские протесты

"It will be well worth while": the state Duma has praised the willingness of the American Ambassador to come and have a talk following his interview "Komsomolskaya Pravda"

Okhotny Ryad [address of State Duma -- ME] is now waiting for the Ambassador of the USA to Russia, following his interview with "Komsomolskaya Pravda". We shall remind you, that Jon huntsman, who, following his resignation, is leaving in October, has stressed that he is ready to discuss allegations of interference (here he was talking about the publication on Twitter by his Embassy of the announcement of the rally and a map of its route, together with a request that these places be avoided these), but there has yet been no invitation made that he do so.

I would be very happy to discuss this with anyone, but nobody has invited me and I think I have not been invited because people know the truth, and it consists of the fact that on the eve of the demonstrations, the Embassy should publish a consular alert and warn its citizens to stay away from the places where they are to take place. My first responsibility is to ensure the safety of American citizens.

And if I do not tell people, I would thereby have demonstrated neglect of my duty, and my official duties. So I did what I did in all other cases – what I was doing in China and what to do in Singapore when I was Ambassador there: we took documents already in the public domain, and warned U.S. citizens that they should stay away from specific locations, and published a map of where these places were marked.

That is what all this is really about, and I am very surprised that the standard function of the Embassy has been presented as something unusual", said the Ambassador."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lv9vTT-orD0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

(above) 02.20 2011, Beijing: Huntsman staying away from a specific place that the US Embassy to China considered as being potentially dangerous to US citizens.

yalensis September 5, 2019 at 2:47 am
Oh, Huntsman is just a misunderstood angel, ain't he? Too bad he had to pack his Mormon underpants and hie himself home.

[Sep 12, 2019] Russia has no net public debt left

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile September 9, 2019 at 8:57 pm

У России не осталось чистого государственного долга
06:54 10.09.2019 (обновлено: 07:26 10.09.2019)

Russia has no net public debt left
06:54 09/10/2019 (updated: 07:26 09/10/2019)

MOSCOW, Sep 10 – RIA News. The net public debt of Russia has become negative for the first time since the introduction of the first sanctions for the annexation of the Crimea and the fall in oil prices in 2014, RBC writes, with reference to Ministry of Finance and Central Bank data.

As of August 1, the volume of public debt of the federal government, regions and municipalities, including state guarantees for enterprise loans, amounted to 16.2 trillion rubles.

At the same time, the liquid assets of the state – federal authorities, regions and extrabudgetary state funds – totalled 17.6 trillion ruble son the same date.

Thus, in the widest sense, the public debt since mid-2019 has become less than the liquid assets of the "expanded government", the publication indicates.

As noted, this has became possible owing to record reserves that have fully covered the state debt. That is to say, if Russia needed to immediately pay off all existing debts, this could be done at the expense of only government deposits with the Central Bank and commercial banks.

As the Minister of Economic Development, Maxim Oreshkin, emphasized, "what has been done in Russian macroeconomics from 2014 to 2019 will definitely fall into the textbooks", At the same time, the flip side of such a tough approach is the lack of fiscal incentives for economic development.

Over to you Bloomberg, WSJ, FT etc., etc!

Waddya say to that, arseholes?

And think on this, you happy folk of the Exceptional Nation who prosper ever onwards:

MOSCOW, 16 August 2019/ Radio Sputnik . Russia continues to reduce investments in US bonds in June, reducing their size to 10.8 billion dollars, the United States Ministry of Finance has reported.

According to Finance Department data, 5,296 billion dollars of this amount is for long-term securities and 5,552 billion are short – term.

For comparison, in may, the total amount was $ 12 billion.

As part of the de-dollarization course for Russia, other financial instruments are gaining importance: gold and investments in European and Asian securities, chief expert of FinEk agency Mikhail Belyaev said on Sputnik radio.

According to the economist, the instability of the US economy also contributes to the withdrawal of Russian assets from it.

[Sep 12, 2019] Nina Khrushcheva -- miserable and incompetent

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

J.T. September 7, 2019 at 6:29 pm

During the time I am away, KS does both a book review and coverage of Nina Khrushcheva? ))

Dr. Khrushcheva maintains a WordPress blog , which also doubles as her official webpage for the New School. It is amusing?

Once, still in grad school and a misanthropic Russian to boot (given our totalitarian history most Russians are unhappy), I wrote a very sad novel Small World, published in Moscow and quickly out of print. But that was a fluke, living in New York I am much happier now. And all in all, my favorite theme is political culture in Russia and America. Politicians lie all the time, but culture never lies about politics. Culture and politics are symbiotically linked like the famous double-headed Russian eagle that used to be on the front of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and now is rotting in the backyard of the city's museum of architecture. It is the perfect symbol of Russia's former political and cultural grandeur and current decay. American eagle is just one-headed, of course, yet this country is no less interesting in its own idiosyncratic relations between culture and politics.

( source )

I (with the architect colleague Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss) have curated an exhibition titled Romancing True Power: D20. It ran February 12-26, 2015 at Parsons The New School for Design, 66 Fifth Avenue (between 12th and 13th St). In the meantime my amazing research assistant and student Yiqing Wang (who really should be running not-a-small country) and I have produced a supplement to the exhibition, a D20 Journal, in which we put together thoughts on true power, dicktatroship, dicktatorial fashion, economics, philosophy, body count and other stats.
D20 (modeled on G20, group of most industrialized nations) is a selective list of leaders from present and recent past across continents and different political systems. Romancing True Power investigates an idea of power: autocratic, authoritarian and dictatorial. This type of power–the Dick power–could be found in both dictatorships and democracies. The exhibition looks at dicktatorial construct, its typology and trappings. What constitutes a "strong leader"? Why does the public often prefer one? Since everyone's list of dicktators is subjective, at the show visitors were invited to PYOD (Pick Your Own Dick). For the Dick winners and more information check out the D20 Facebook page.
Other topics I am fond of include politics, and mostly Russian politics, and, of course, movies. But whatever I do, all fits neatly into the last line of Billy Wilder's 1959 classic Some Like it Hot, the best ever, "Nobody's perfect."

(source: see hyperlink above)

I do not intend to slam the IMO legitimate topic – only the content and tone of this "analysis." You have a PhD in Comp Lit (Princeton, 1998). You shouldn't be writing like a second-year undergrad.

Mark Chapman September 7, 2019 at 7:26 pm
Hey, JT – welcome back, where you been? Yes, that attitude is familiar among the emigre Russian Jews, the too-smart-to-believe Ashkenazim that make American jaws drop with their brilliance: Russians in Russia are miserable and always unhappy, but put them in America and they shine like diamonds, they're so fucking hap-hap-happy you'd better just get out of the way. I don't believe Khrushchev was Jewish, but the complaining sounds just like all the Jewish 'refugees' like Miriam Elder and Julia Ioffe; Russia was a drag, man – but New Yawk, Dahling, now there's a city! It's almost as if they feel denigrating the country of their birth is the price of acceptance. Perhaps it is – for a people who snap to attention whenever they see the American flag, Americans are awfully smitten with Russians who dump on Russia, as if it affirms their own beliefs.

Khrushcheva seems very stuck on herself, but perhaps she simply believes all the hype. For my part, I find her mean-spirited and shallow, prone to go for the cheap laugh, and most comfortable in a crowd of like-minded 'free thinkers'. It amazes me that anyone who classified him/herself as a free thinker could see American-style democracy as the last word in human development, but perhaps I'm just thick.

J.T. September 8, 2019 at 5:55 am
Between a lecture Dr. Khruscheva gave at my university a year or so ago and an attempted reading of her book, In Putin's Footsteps , I have concluded that she is the kind of writer who takes advantage of an absence of consistent critical voices to let her opinions run wild, untethered from factual backing, theory, or academic standards.

She lectured at my university with the backing of some powerful people within "Russia-Watching" (quite literally in this case, as one sat behind her while she lectured). Although she made her argument sloppily, painting in broad brushstrokes, no one challenged the argument during Q&A.
Read the preview of In Putin's Footsteps on A'zon. It's ridiculous. The same generalizing commentary as before but sprinkled on what reads like an extended TripAdvisor review.

For whatever reason, academia and editors give her a free pass. The resulting writing, while insightful re: how she thinks, is not useful [to me] in any professional sense.

--

Hey, JT – welcome back, where you been?

Haha I've been doing the blog equivalent of breathing into a brown paper bag. Now that I'm back at uni with a capstone/distinction project, Russia Reviewed will hopefully regain its previous sense of direction.

moscowexile September 8, 2019 at 1:25 am
Yes, Russians are so miserable, never smile and are permanently depressed at thought of their misfortune of having been born in Russia and, therefore, condemned to a life of woe under an authoritarian regime.

I mean, just look at all those sad bastards who have been celebrating "Moskva Day" since Thursday, 5 September this year.

I wish I could send you some clips that my permanently depressed because he is a Russian son sent me late yesterday evening from Red Square: a big firework display and sad looking Russians pretending to be enjoying themselves.

Most of them, I am sure, had been ordered to go to Tversksya Street and walk down to Red Square.

Tverskaya has been closed to traffic since Thursday (the bogus celebrations end this evening) and along its length are the usual Soviet-style distractions that the oppressed multitudes pretend are so much fun.

Since 5 September until the 8th inclusive the city is celebrating the founding of Moskva in 1147.

Well, not its founding, really, but the earliest date that they have a written record of a place called "Moskva" – in a letter from the Prince of the city of Vladimir, Yuri Dolgoruki, to his brother, inviting him to visit him in Moskva. (Remember, this was when Kiev was the centre of world civilisation.)

It was during the first of these "Moskva Day" celebrations, held 22 years ago, when on 7 September 1997 I asked Mrs. Exile if she wished to marry me.

It was our first date.

I don't like to waste time over important matters.

She jumped at the offer, of course.

No holding her back!

Luckiest break she's ever had, I reckon, for my ebullient presence in her life has most certainly rescued her from the pit of permanent gloom that would most certainly have accompanied her living under this regime and from the likelihood of her being wed to a brute of a balalaika strumming, vodka swilling Russian husband.

Limp-wristed, tea sipping Englishmen are much more preferable!

[Sep 12, 2019] The comments to WSWS article on HK are **well worth** reading

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

NOrthern Star September 9, 2019 at 3:59 pm

HK article gets at the nascent conflicting conflagrations wrt objectives .what is to be cast into the fire and what is to be taken as a new HK socioeconomic script.
The comments are **well worth** reading ,some of which mirror comments on HK by Stooges.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/09/pers-s09.html

[Sep 12, 2019] Carrie Lam chose to play it like Yanukovych, and to give the protesters what they asked for.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen September 6, 2019 at 3:40 am

If Carrie Lam had half a brain, she could always threaten to bring back the extradition bill with a new provision that people who damage essential infrastructure like railway lines and roads, and who target police with rocks, laser beams and grenades shot from portable grenade launchers will be extradited to Beijing to stand trial for their misdeeds, if the protesters keep changing and ramping up their demands.
Mark Chapman September 6, 2019 at 2:57 pm
Carrie Lam chose to play it like Yanukovych, and to give the protesters what they asked for. That resulted in Yanukovych running for his life, and Lam might well find herself in the same situation if the police don't get a handle on the hoodlums that are smashing the place up and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails. Appeasing protesters only makes them feel empowered, and that empowerment causes them to wonder why they should be satisfied with only what they originally demanded. That's a natural effect, and this is not a natural protest, but a destabilization effort instigated and nurtured by foreign interests. So the protesters' demands are just going to grow and grow, because the goal is either a violent clash with the police or complete government capitulation. China is not going to let the latter happen.

Lam has said already that there will be no negotiation with groups that destroy public property, but protesters have vowed not to give an inch. The ball is in Lam's court, and if she does not harden up and present a credible defense, she will be removed either by China or by the protesters. Hong Kong is not going to become a democratic independent country – China is not going to let it be snatched away under their noses. Firm action right now might be able to get the situation under control with a minimum of violence, but if it goes on much longer, people are going to be killed And there is zero the west could do to stop it, as it is a domestic Chinese matter, so their continued egging on of the protesters shows how little it cares for their lives.

[Sep 12, 2019] Full 10-minute video of middle-aged and elderly commuters fighting with protesters, the incident that led to the Prince Edward MTR station staff calling in police over the August / September weekend to subdue and arrest protesters, some of whom attempted to evade arrest by changing clothes:

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen September 3, 2019 at 6:26 pm

WSWS,org's reporting on the Hong Kong protests has been dismal and ideologically biased. To my knowledge, the protesters' demands have never covered working conditions, housing conditions and the tremendous social inequalities (said to be the highest in the world). They have never covered the state of a tax haven economy used and abused by billionaires in mainland China to minimise their tax obligations to Beijing or to send money to other overseas tax havens through registering their offspring or other people as Hong Kong residents, resulting in money being poured into property speculation which itself has led to sky-high property prices and the inability of ordinary people to afford to buy or rent homes of a suitable space at reasonable prices.

The protesters' initial demands were to withdraw the extradition bill, to force Carrie Lam to resign as Chief Executive and to force her government to investigate what they claimed was police violence – in spite of the fact that most of the violence and sabotage (which has now extended to fighting with commuters and throwing things at them, vandalising MTR stations and throwing rocks and objects onto train lines) has been committed by protesters themselves – and (as if as a last thought) demanding universal suffrage.

Photos and videos of protesters throwing rods onto a train line, and damaging ticket machines at MTR stations:
https://mothership.sg/2019/09/hong-kong-protesters-train-tracks/

Full 10-minute video of middle-aged and elderly commuters fighting with protesters, the incident that led to the Prince Edward MTR station staff calling in police over the August / September weekend to subdue and arrest protesters, some of whom attempted to evade arrest by changing clothes:

Northern Star September 4, 2019 at 2:46 pm
Yes You are correct in that wsws appears to be not on its game in its analysis of the HK situation,as was noted in some of the comments to the article. Addressing fundamental economic disparities in HK does not seem to feature in the agenda of the protesters.

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/community/article/2120366/poverty-hong-kong-hits-7-year-high-one-five-people
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/one-in-five-people-in-hong-kong-were-living-in-poverty

As you know,Lam has done a volte-face on the extradition bill:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/04/asia/hong-kong-carrie-lam-extradition-bill-intl-hnk/index.html

But it's not clear if that in itself will extinguish the protesters' fires of various complaints.

I've yet to see a cogent analysis of the dynamic interplay-with the potential for lethal conflict- between:

The HK protesters
The Super elite HK billionaires
The Super elite mainland billionaire class
The mainland population as a whole

Mark Chapman September 4, 2019 at 5:06 pm
Can't wait to see the Chinese headline: "Safe in Hong Kong, Chinese Accused Murderer Wei Tu Lukky says, 'Thanks for the Democracy, Students!" Of course you'll never see it, because no western paper would ever print it. As far as the west is concerned, it really is all about freedom and democracy. Like no such things as extradition treaties exist between democracies. Canada and the United States have an extradition treaty – aren't they democracies? Aren't they free?

https://internationalextraditionblog.com/2011/04/12/canada-extradition-treaty-with-the-united-states/

What it boils down to is that westerners like Bill Browder do not want to be snatched when they are passing through Hong Kong International Airport, and extradited to China. Westerners do not particularly care otherwise about the rule of law in China, but the usual troublemakers sense an opportunity to destabilize and create a problem for China. If China soft-pedals it, as they have done, it quickly gets out of hand to the point where they are dealing with rioters rather than protesters, smashing and destroying in an orgy of violence. Had they cracked down hard in the beginning and kicked out all western journalists reporting on the issue, the 'protests' would have been strangled in the cradle, and while the west would have gotten a little mileage out of the brutal Chinese authoritarianism, it would have been nowhere near as bad as it is now.

The 'student leaders' of the 'protests', Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, are 22. I suppose there might be a place somewhere in which 22-year-olds don't feel like they know everything, but I've never heard of it. With political unit chief of the US Consulate Julie Eadeh stroking them and telling them she's never seen anyone so brave, they can barely keep the grins off their faces and fancy they really are somebody important. Lam did indeed flip on the extradition issue, but it's too late for that now. She is going to learn the Yanukovych lesson all over again – appeasing protesters, especially when it is part of a destabilization program, only leads to more demands and more protests.

The Chinese government perhaps thought to go slow and not give the western media any money shots to make a big issue of. That might have worked, if this was a genuine one-issue protest. But it isn't – as i just pointed out, extradition treaties have nothing to do with democracy and freedom, and if a bunch of students think they are going to have their own country to play Independence Doctor in, they have a big surprise coming. Remember when Poroshenko was justified in doing whatever he wanted, including taking students right out of the university parking lot and putting them on a bus to Army training, because he was 'protecting his country'? Well, the Chinese government sees itself as having the same rights where a small group of students is causing a major problem, and is blatantly violating public order in an attempt to win western approbation; it is plainly not legal to throw stones and gas bombs at the police and smash up public infrastructure.

You can't give people whatever they want when they are acting like hooligans – it only makes them think of more things they want. And that's just what is happening here. If they are not very careful, the entire Lam government is going to be replaced overnight with hardliners, and then heads will roll.

Jen September 4, 2019 at 9:36 pm
Withdrawing the extradition bill is an easy move because Lam can always reintroduce it later (perhaps in a changed form) though perhaps when that happens, the guy who killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan on St Valentine's Day in 2018, and used all her bank cards to clear his own debts will have already gone free and for all we know have left Hong Kong.

Also by withdrawing the bill, Lam takes some of the wind out of the sails of the protest movement. If the protesters are not happy over the withdrawal and ratchet up their demands that Lam and her entire government resign, then Beijing knows this is a Color Revolution protest movement and might start to press Hong Kong to expel British and American consular staff stationed in the territory and shut down British and American NGOs and think-tanks using whatever the laws of Hong Kong permit Lam to use against them. Lam may not be able to stop the protests from escalating but she can slow them down by cutting off their funding, advice and support.

[Sep 12, 2019] Only neoliberal governments can crush protests with absolute impunity

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 2, 2019 at 12:06 pm

Yes, it's curious that western governments are justified in using whatever force they feel is necessary to put down anti-government protests, or just to keep order in general – reports abound of ordinary people not doing anything wrong meeting up with a mean cop who decides to slam them around a little in the process of establishing their identity, and the aversion of the American police to bystanders filming them is well-known. But in certain countries – and sometimes just certain governments in those countries – dispersal of protesters or those posing as peaceful protesters is always 'brutal'. So it is in Hong Kong, where 'pro-democracy protesters' – which is a label used to justify pretty much any behavior – throw stones and gas bombs at police and destroy public property (rioting by another, more palatable name). Nothing Saakashvili did to put down protests was ever described by western media as 'brutal' in my recollection.

[Sep 12, 2019] Zelenskiy bends over for western corporate interests, and orders his government to get a law ready which will allow the sale of Ukrainian farmland.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 3, 2019 at 4:11 pm

Zelenskiy bends over for western corporate interests, and orders his government to get a law ready which will allow the sale of Ukrainian farmland. Bye-bye, black earth; if the investors can't stay in Ukraine, they'll take it with them, once they've bought it. Get ready for hammering on the door to let GMO agricultural imports in, Europe.

https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-president-plans-land-reform-101448503.html

Speaking of GMO, over 80% of soybeans and corn grown in the USA are GMO's. Which strongly suggests the American soybeans Canada is buying to send to the crushers, since the Americans can't get rid of them and have a year's harvest already in storage, are GMO. And are muscling out Canadian-grown soybeans, so that we have to look for new markets for our own.

cartman September 3, 2019 at 8:27 pm
Raids on farms to confiscate their land have increased a lot since the Maidan, so naturally land "reforms" were going to come through the pipe.

[Sep 12, 2019] Minsky accords are as good as dead

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 11, 2019 at 11:45 am

I see the French Ambassador to Ukraine expects 'Normandy Four' meetings to resume by the end of this month. Just to make sure everyone knows not to actually expect any progress, the Rada issued an official statement on non-recognition of elections held in 'occupied Crimea'. The people of Crimea – as far as Kuh-yiv is concerned – can have a say in who local leaders should be once they have pledged fealty to Kuh-yiv, and not until.

https://www.unian.info/politics/10682310-ukraine-s-parliament-issues-statement-on-non-recognition-of-local-elections-in-occupied-crimea.html

Actually, Ukraine is just using Crimea, which it knows it is never going to get back again, as a reason not to fulfill any of its own obligations under the Minsk Accords. And so the Normandy Four sessions will resume with no hope of ever seeing any results; it's just a chance to get away from the wife and kiddies for a couple of days, fly First Class and have a couple of meals in nice restaurants and stay in a comfortable hotel, all in exchange for spending a few hours in conversations that might as well be barked like dogs for all the actual use they will be.

[Sep 12, 2019] Several sources pointed out, after the Junta appointed itself and graced the nation with Wabbit Senya as Prime Minister, that Yanukovych was still the legal president of Ukraine, as he had never been legally and properly impeached, and could not after he was driven from power.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 11, 2019 at 11:28 am

Neuters via Antiar.com: Ukraine ruling party gets impeachment law through parliament
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-president-lawmaking/ukraine-ruling-party-gets-impeachment-law-through-parliament-idUKKCN1VV1I3

Ukraine's ruling party on Tuesday passed legislation that allows a sitting president to be impeached if they break the law, acting on an election pledge by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the campaign trail this year

But opponents of Tuesday's vote said the legislation was rushed through without proper consultation and that the law itself was so convoluted as to be meaningless.

The law was passed at a first reading and then immediately voted on again a second time. Typically, legislation is sent to a committee for further scrutiny before being voted on again
####

Meaningless? It's on the books. If there is confusion then it will be up the to judicia branch to make sense of it, but knowing the expresse intent should go most of the way.

Mark Chapman September 11, 2019 at 11:49 am
It's not meaningless, because in all probability it will be retroactively applied to the illegal ouster of Yanukovych. Several sources pointed out, after the Junta appointed itself and graced the nation with Wabbit Senya as Prime Minister, that Yanukovych was still the legal president of Ukraine, as he had never been legally and properly impeached, and could not after he was driven from power.
Jen September 11, 2019 at 3:00 pm
Who are these opponents of the impeachment law? The article doesn't say. Presumably the opponents are those politicians allied to the previous Porky Pig president. Saying that the bill was "rushed" through the Verkhovna Rada without "proper consultation" (meaning: the bill has to be watered down through endless debate and discussion and inspection with microscopes and tweezers to throw out annoying bits to the point where it has all water and none of the substance of the original bill) and that the law is half-baked is just a ploy to try to stop it from being passed.

[Sep 12, 2019] Classic narrative management we are supposed to believe a Ukrainian investigation of Motor Sich when it was about to be sold to a Chinese company 'triggered' concern in Washington. Sure it did. I would bet quite a bit that concern in Washington triggered the Ukrainian investigation.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 11, 2019 at 11:13 am

Ha, ha!! Classic narrative management – we are supposed to believe a Ukrainian investigation of Motor Sich when it was about to be sold to a Chinese company 'triggered' concern in Washington. Sure it did. I would bet quite a bit that concern in Washington triggered the Ukrainian investigation.

And I frankly doubt there were any subversive plans to sell engines or engine components to Russia.

That was just the excuse used to nix the sale due to an investigation. But it sends a clear message both to Ukrainian companies and the Ukrainian administration – the United States very much wants extensive privatization of state assets; let's get those companies thinking profits instead of subsidies.

But the privatization must be carried out so that western investors get first crack; after all, they've been feeding Ukraine subsistence 'loans' for 5 years now. Only when westerners have decided a company or asset is of no value may it be considered for sale to outsiders.

https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/ukraine-defense-firm-caught-us-china-rivalry-probed-subversion

et Al September 11, 2019 at 12:01 pm
As far as I can see, Motor Sich is as good as dead, unless the Chinese are allowed to buy it. It only benefits from current installed base and future projects – of which there is nothing of note. Russia's future platforms will have indigenous designs and old platforms will become obsolete, so even if Motor Sich does somehow survive it will be competing with Russia (and not western designs) which is far more sustainable. Who else makes economic sense but China? The best case for a western buyer that I can see is if it is used as a low-cost second tier component manufacturer and also take advantage of what little local expertize remains.
Mark Chapman September 11, 2019 at 12:52 pm
But the west – like the oil companies we discussed who buy the design rights to fuel-saving technologies and then shelve them, or so they are reputed to do – would be perfectly content to see Motor Sich become a low-level component manufacturer, or disappear altogether, so long as it is taken off the board where a Chinese buy is concerned. It has become a symbol now out of all proportion to its actual worth, in a ball-swinging contest which will see it interpreted as a Chinese victory if it ends up with control, and a western victory if it manages to prevent such a buy. What happens to the Ukrainians employed there is of no concern to anyone but themselves. I guess there's no need to mention how little effect the Ukrainian government has on how it will come out.
Jen September 11, 2019 at 3:17 pm
Motor Sich won't just be a low-cost second-tier component manufacturer, it'll also be a useful tax shelter for whichever Western company buys it to park profits that can be taxed at a low percentage rate in Ukraine and the income of which (Motor Sich, that is) doesn't need to be declared in the country where the Western country is domiciled.

[Sep 12, 2019] Well, well the United States allegedly IS considering buying Ukraine's distressed Motor Sich in order to keep it out of Chinese hands.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 5, 2019 at 11:15 am

Well, well – the United States allegedly IS considering buying Ukraine's distressed Motor Sich in order to keep it out of Chinese hands.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Ukraine-is-new-battleground-in-US-China-fight-for-influence

The buy, if it happens, would be in favour of 'a US company through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)'. If you were wondering what that is, it's just like it sounds – a branch of the US Treasury, used to invest taxpayer money in snapping up foreign companies for US interests, and finance American influence-peddling operations abroad which further its foreign-policy goals.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/3/13/311246/-

[Sep 12, 2019] The reality of neoliberal governance: a pre-election survey by the National Democratic Institute in May said only 5% of Ukrainians thought political parties represented citizens' interests and just 3% said politicians met their expectations. On the other hand, 87% believed political parties were engaged in corruption

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 4, 2019 at 5:34 am

Neuters via Antiwar.com: Quick win for Zelenskiy as Ukraine parliament strips lawmakers` immunity
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-parliament-immunity/quick-win-for-zelenskiy-as-ukraine-parliament-strips-lawmakers-immunity-idUKKCN1VO0W9

But the new measure passed easily by 373 votes in the 450-seat parliament

A pre-election survey by the National Democratic Institute in May said only 5% of Ukrainians thought political parties represented citizens' interests and just 3% said politicians met their expectations. On the other hand, 87% believed political parties were engaged in corruption

[Sep 12, 2019] On 6 May, a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old soldier, was dosed with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth, collapsed into convulsions, and died an hour later

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al September 7, 2019 at 4:07 am

The subject itself is v. interesting but I'm only posting this because, well you'll see from the brief section below:

The Groaning Man: From mind control to murder? How a deadly fall revealed the CIA's darkest secrets
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to-murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets

Olson's doubts deepened. In spring 1953, he visited the top-secret Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, where government scientists were studying the effects of sarin and other nerve gases. On 6 May, a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old soldier, was dosed with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth, collapsed into convulsions, and died an hour later. Afterward, Olson spoke about his discomfort with a psychiatrist who helped direct the research, William Sargant .
####

That's very unBritish! Not really. This is not the first time that something that has been declassified in the United States and uncovered British (shameful) secrets. The thing is the Brits like to see themselves as not 'going as far' as their American cousins and this myth is perpetuated – a bit like the British sense of 'fairness'. Yet again we discover that the UK has worked hand in glove in the deepest of sh*t, something that most probably would have been buried forever under their Secrets Act if it wasn't for the US' relative openness.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to-murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets

Olson's doubts deepened. In spring 1953, he visited the top-secret Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, where government scientists were studying the effects of sarin and other nerve gases. On 6 May, a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old soldier, was dosed with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth, collapsed into convulsions, and died an hour later. Afterward, Olson spoke about his discomfort with a psychiatrist who helped direct the research, William Sargant .
####

That's very unBritish! Not really. This is not the first time that something that has been declassified in the United States and uncovered British (shameful) secrets. The thing is the Brits like to see themselves as not 'going as far' as their American cousins and this myth is perpetuated – a bit like the British sense of 'fairness'. Yet again we discover that the UK has worked hand in glove in the deepest of sh*t, something that most probably would have been buried forever under their Secrets Act if it wasn't for the US' relative openness.

[Sep 12, 2019] The stars-and-stripes-wavers you meet in comment forums are usually blissfully ignorant, happy in their fool's paradise where everyone wants to be an American, and resistance to Uncle Sam's ruthless bullying is inspired by jealousy and inadequacy.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 10, 2019 at 8:42 am

One reaction Americans are unaccustomed to is pity. When I meet them on the boats, traveling, I am always extra nice to them, because I feel sorry for them. They have to go back. They're nice people, mostly, they've never done anything to me personally. But sooner or later, they have to go back to where those license plates were issued. They can't stay here. And I'm sorry for them. But I would imagine most of them feel they are envied, and their citizenship is coveted by the less-fortunate. That might be true in some third-world hellholes where people would go anywhere to get out, but it certainly isn't so here.

The stars-and-stripes-wavers you meet in comment forums are usually blissfully ignorant, happy in their fool's paradise where everyone wants to be an American, and resistance to Uncle Sam's ruthless bullying is inspired by jealousy and inadequacy. For them, simply acknowledging that Washington sometimes makes mistakes – which it's allowed to do, because it's exceptional – is the essence of responsibility and fairness. There, I said we aren't always right – what could be more fair? But when America invades a country that did nothing to provoke it except refuse when it was ordered to do this or that, sometimes things it couldn't do, like abandon the nuclear weapons program it didn't have well, that was a mistake, but it was an honest mistake because no end of smart people the world over agreed they did indeed have a nuclear weapons program. I mean, if you don't do something quick, the consequences could be a mushroom cloud, ya know. And when it orders the democratically-elected president of a country to stand down and make way for a hand-picked replacement, it's not being arrogant. No; it's taking necessary on behalf of that leader's benighted people, who suffer awful oppression at his hands, and America only wants them to be free to make good choices.

A lot of those comments go unanswered; some because many of those forums now insist you sign in with Facebook so they can go behind the scenes and see who and where you are and gain all sorts of personal information about you, because dimwits love to blabber their entire personal lives on Facebook. But some go unanswered simply because there is no real use in trying to change such made-up minds. You will never dent the my-country-right-or-wrong blathering of ignorant people who know nothing beyond what they see on CNN.

[Sep 12, 2019] Ukraine appears not to have noticed that its backing for the United States to persuade Europe to reject Nord Stream II is supporting American pressure for Europe to buy American LNG instead and will lead to loss of profits from transit

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 2, 2019 at 9:00 pm

Ukraine appears not to have noticed that its backing for the United States to persuade Europe to reject Nord Stream II is supporting American pressure for Europe to buy American LNG instead. Would they be transiting that to Europe through Ukraine? Hardly.

https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-struggling-sense-trump-boltons-190111002.html

President Trump has repeatedly criticized the project, saying it would make Germany "captive" to Russian interests, and urging the Europeans to buy fuel from the U.S. instead. During their talks in Kyiv this week, Danilyuk discussed this issue at length with Bolton, and he urged the U.S. government to block the project by imposing economic sanctions against it. "Bolton was very supportive," Danilyuk says. "He understands that Nord Stream 2 is bad for the United States."

If – extremely unlikely – that initiative were ever successful, and the EU blew off Nord stream II in favour of American imported LNG the Ukies would still be out $3 Billion a year in transit fees. The USA wants to replace Russian gas supplies to Europe, not supplement them.

As usual, Ukraine is so eager to hurt Russia that it does not care if it hurts itself in doing it. Just the sort of ally the USA loves.

[Sep 11, 2019] Video Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 The Bamboozle Has Captured Us

Highly recommended!
David Warner Mathisen definitely know what he is talking about due to his long military career... Free fall speed is documented and is an embarrassment to the official story, because free fall is impossible for a naturally collapsing building.
Now we need to dig into the role of Larry Silverstein in the Building 7 collapse.
Notable quotes:
"... Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001. ..."
"... The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004. ..."
"... Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7 ..."
"... This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001. ..."
"... its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview. ..."
"... the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building ..."
"... Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states). ..."
"... Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day. ..."
"... In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019. ..."
"... on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. ..."
"... Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here . ..."
"... The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare: ..."
"... David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001.

The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004.

  1. Building.
  2. Seven.
  3. Freefall.
  4. Speed.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mamvq7LWqRU

Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane on September 11, 2001, and concluded that fires could not possibly have caused the collapse of that 47-story steel-frame building -- rather, the collapse seen could have only been caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every support column (43 in number).

This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001.

Various individuals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tried to argue that the collapse of Building 7 was slower than freefall speed, but its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview.

Although the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building prior to the flight of the aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (Buildings One and Two), as well as the power to cover up the evidence of this criminal activity and to deflect questioning by government agencies and suppress the story in the mainstream news, the collapse of Building 7 is by no means the only evidence which points to the same conclusion.

Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states).

However, eighteen years later there is simply no excuse anymore -- except for the fact that the ramifications of the admission that the official story is a flagrant fraud and a lie are so distressing that many people cannot actually bring themselves to consciously admit what they in fact already know subconsciously.

For additional evidence, I strongly recommend the work of the indefatigable Kevin Robert Ryan , whose blog at Dig Within should be required reading for every man and woman in the united states -- as well as those in the rest of the world, since the ramifications of the murders of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001 have led to the murders of literally millions of other innocent men, women and children around the world since that day, and the consequences of the failure to absorb the truth of what actually took place, and the consequences of the failure to address the lies that are built upon the fraudulent explanation of what took place on September 11, continue to negatively impact men and women everywhere on our planet.

Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day.

I would also strongly recommend listening very carefully to the series of five interviews with Kevin Ryan on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, which can be found in the Guns and Butter podcast archive here . These interviews, from 2013, are numbered 287, 288, 289, 290, and 291 in the archive.

Selected Articles: 9/11: Do You Still Believe that Al Qaeda Masterminded the Attacks?

I would in fact recommend listening to nearly every interview in that archive of Bonnie Faulkner's show, even though I do not of course agree with every single guest nor with every single view expressed in every single interview. Indeed, if you carefully read Kevin Ryan's blog which was linked above, you will find a blog post by Kevin Ryan dated June 24, 2018 in which he explicitly names James Fetzer along with Judy Woods as likely disinformation agents working to discredit and divert the efforts of 9/11 researchers. James Fetzer appears on Guns and Butter several times in the archived interview page linked above.

In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019.

That article contains a number of stunning quotations about the ongoing failure to address the now-obvious lies we are being told about the attacks of September 11. One of these quotations, by astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), is particularly noteworthy -- even though I certainly do not agree with everything Carl Sagan ever said or wrote. Regarding our propensity to refuse to acknowledge what we already know deep down to be true, Carl Sagan said:

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken.

This quotation is from Sagan's 1995 text, The Demon-Haunted World (with which I have points of disagreement, but which is extremely valuable for that quotation alone, and which I might suggest turning around on some of the points that Sagan was arguing as well, as a cautionary warning to those who have accepted too wholeheartedly some of Sagan's teachings and opinions).

This quotation shows that on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. This internal division is actually addressed in the world's ancient myths, which consistently illustrate that our egoic mind often refuses to acknowledge the higher wisdom we have available to us through the reality of our authentic self, sometimes called our Higher Self. Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here .

The important author Peter Kingsley has noted that in ancient myth, the role of the prophet was to bring awareness and acknowledgement of that which the egoic mind refuses to see -- which is consistent with the observation that it is through our authentic self (which already knows) that we have access to the realm of the gods. In the Iliad, for example, Dr. Kingsley notes that Apollo sends disaster upon the Achaean forces until the prophet Calchas reveals the source of the god's anger: Agamemnon's refusal to free the young woman Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has seized in the course of the fighting during the Trojan War, and who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo. Until Agamemnon atones for this insult to the god, Apollo will continue to visit destruction upon those following Agamemnon.

Until we acknowledge and correct what our Higher Self already knows to be the problem, we ourselves will be out of step with the divine realm.

If we look the other way at the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001, and deliberately refuse to see the truth that we already know deep down in our subconscious, then we will face the displeasure of the Invisible Realm. Just as we are shown in the ancient myths, the truth must be acknowledged and admitted, and then the wrong that has been done must be corrected.

In the case of the mass murder perpetrated on September 11, eighteen years ago, that admission requires us to face the fact that the "terrorists" who were blamed for that attack were not the actual terrorists that we need to be focusing on.

Please note that I am very careful not to say that "the government" is the source of the problem: I would argue that the government is the lawful expression of the will of the people and that the government, rightly understood, is exactly what these criminal perpetrators actually fear the most, if the people ever become aware of what is going on. The government, which is established by the Constitution, forbids the perpetration of murder upon innocent men, women and children in order to initiate wars of aggression against countries that never invaded or attacked us (under the false pretense that they did so). Those who do so are actually opposed to our government under the Constitution and can be dealt with within the framework of the law as established by the Constitution, which establishes a very clear penalty for treason.

When the people acknowledge and admit the complete bankruptcy of the lie we have been told about the attacks of September 11, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate repeal and dismantling of the so-called "USA PATRIOT Act" which was enacted in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 and which clearly violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Additionally, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate cessation of the military operations which were initiated based upon the fraudulent narrative of the attacks of that day, and which have led to invasion and overthrow of the nations that were falsely blamed as being the perpetrators of those attacks and the seizure of their natural resources.

The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That human right has been grievously trampled upon under the false description of what actually took place during the September 11 attacks. Numerous technology companies have been allowed and even encouraged (and paid, with public moneys) to create technologies which flagrantly and shamelessly violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and which track their every move and even enable secret eavesdropping upon their conversation and the secret capture of video within their homes and private settings, without any probable cause whatsoever.

When we admit and acknowledge that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, which has been falsely used as a supposed justification for the violation of these human rights (with complete disregard for the supreme law of the land as established in the Constitution), then we will also demand the immediate cessation of any such intrusion upon the right of the people to "be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- including the cessation of any business models which involve spying on men and women.

Companies which cannot find a business model that does not violate the Bill of Rights should lose their corporate charter and the privilege of limited liability, which are extended to them by the people (through the government of the people, by the people and for the people) only upon the condition that their behavior as corporations do not violate the inherent rights of men and women as acknowledged in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

It is well beyond the time when we must acknowledge and admit that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, 2001 -- and that we continue to be lied to about the events of that awful day. September 11, 2001 is in fact only one such event in a long history which stretches back prior to 2001, to other events which should have awakened the people to the presence of a very powerful and very dangerous criminal cabal acting in direct contravention to the Constitution long before we ever got to 2001 -- but the events of September 11 are so blatant, so violent, and so full of evidence which contradicts the fraudulent narrative that they actually cannot be believed by anyone who spends even the slightest amount of time looking at that evidence.

Indeed, we already know deep down that we have been bamboozled by the lie of the so-called "official narrative" of September 11.

But until we admit to ourselves and acknowledge to others that we've ignored the truth that we already know, then the bamboozle still has us .

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © David W. Mathisen , Global Research, 2019 Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.

[Sep 11, 2019] Better late than never Bolton's firing gives Trump a chance to heed his instincts Ron Paul

This is a bit like rearranging the chairs on the deck of Titanic.
The problem is we do not know who pressed Trump to appoint Bolton., Rumors were that it was Abelson. In this case nothing changed.
The other problem with making Bolton firing a significant move is the presence in White House other neocon warmongers. So one less doe not change the picture. For example Pompeo remains and he is no less warmongering neocon, MIC stooge, and no less subservant to Israel then Bolton.
Notable quotes:
"... Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT ..."
"... Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday ..."
"... "Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product." ..."
"... "A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date. ..."
"... As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.rt.com

Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT.

Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday, after news of Bolton's dismissal from the White House. Also on rt.com Bolton out: Trump ditches hawkish adviser he kept for 18 months despite 'disagreements'

"Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product."

Foreign leaders weren't the only ones who had a problem with Trump's notoriously belligerent advisor, either.

"A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date.

While the uber-hawk's firing came "later than it should be," Paul hoped it would clear the way for Trump to follow through on the America First, end-the-wars promises that won him so much support in 2016. "Those of us who would like less intervention, we're very happy with it."

Also on rt.com War and whiskers: Freshly-resigned John Bolton gets meme-roasting

As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week.

[Sep 11, 2019] The Guardian view on John Bolton: good riddance, but the problem is his boss

Notable quotes:
"... However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity. ..."
"... It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions. ..."
"... The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who hired him is much more so. ..."
"... As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly with Pence. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

confusedponderer , 11 September 2019 at 07:11 AM

There is an nice article about his "Being fired by Don Donald / Nope, actually I quit myself" story:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/10/the-guardian-view-on-john-bolton-good-riddance-but-the-problem-is-his-boss

The Guardian view on John Bolton: good riddance, but the problem is his boss

Many will rightly celebrate the departure of the US national security adviser. But however welcome the news, it reflects the deeper problems with this administration

...

However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity.

It is neither normal nor desirable for the national security adviser to be excluded from meetings about Afghanistan – even if it is a relief, when the individual concerned is (or was) Mr Bolton. It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions.

The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who hired him is much more so.

I read that the main drivers of getting him kicked or retire himself were Mnuchin and Pompeo, both afflicted by that nasty goofy smile disease. I am always happy when I see Mnuchin's hands on the table, eliminating one explanation for the smile.

There is that reported sentence about Bolton - that there is no problem for which war was not his solution. I read about similar sentence about Pompeo - that he has an IR seeker for Donald's ass.

That written, good riddance indeed. Likely, if Bolton had his way, the US would likely be at war with North Korea and Iran.

When I studied I was at the UNFCCC for a time during Bush Jr. presidency and talked about what Bolton did at the UN with my superior, a 20 year UN veteran.

A 'malicious saboteur arsonist' is a polite summary of what he did there directly and indirectly, and with given his flirt with MEK and regime change in Iran he has likely not changed at all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/world/middleeast/john-bolton-regime-change-iran.html

As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly with Pence.

[Sep 11, 2019] Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor

Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

catherine , 10 September 2019 at 08:48 PM

I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/trump-tries-to-fix-his-foreign-policy-without-bolton/593284/

different clue , 11 September 2019 at 01:08 AM
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some names and the reasoning for offering those names.

If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor.

confusedponderer said in reply to different clue... , 11 September 2019 at 09:10 AM
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."

Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.

Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.

As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.

And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in Germany.

That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of course.

He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...

[Sep 11, 2019] Peacemaker Bolton Quits by Walrus.

Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

...Who should the Administration now call on to provide some restraint on the Presidents warlike impulses?

blue peacock , 10 September 2019 at 04:55 PM

How about another peacemaker and lady in waiting for the GOP 2024 nomination - Nimrata "Nikki" Haley. She will immediately call for a Peace & Friendship Treaty with that evil thug Vladimir Putin.
Barbara Ann , 10 September 2019 at 05:26 PM
I'm sure the Administration will give the matter much thought and due deliberation and using the same selection process as before, choose the candidate most highly qualified recommended by the Adelsons. Tell me it ain't so.

Lyttennburgh said... Reply 11 September 2019 at 07:05 AM

Subhān Allāh! Sultan Danuld at-Trumphoon al-Quincy dismissed his wazir Yahya al-Boltoni, for verily it’s said to all Faithful: mustache is Shaitan’s brush. /s

[Sep 11, 2019] Even during Obama second term it was clear Putin and his staff did not trust the Obama administration to tell the truth about the weather let alone anything important.

Notable quotes:
"... Its said a reputation arrives on foot and departs on horseback and with ours all you can see now is the tail wafting the air. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

ted richard , 10 September 2019 at 08:47 PM

does it really matter any longer?

If you think that Russia or China or Iran takes this clown show seriously or trusts in word one Washington will follow through on what they say i have a bridge to sell you.

even during Obama's second term it was clear Putin and his staff did not trust the Obama administration to tell the truth about the weather let alone anything important.

to get anything done now with Russia or China or Iran i suspect its become impossible. all that's left between Washington, Moscow and Beijing is to avoid a nuclear ww3.

we have an impasse which is impossible to bridge. Russia and China are creating a new world order for those that become a part that's philosophically, morally and economically incompatible with the one Washington and its European vassals are trying to sustain.

only one winner will emerge from the struggle and i do not mean war although that is not impossible once one side reaches denouement point of economic degradation.

Its said a reputation arrives on foot and departs on horseback and with ours all you can see now is the tail wafting the air.

[Sep 11, 2019] Video Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 The Bamboozle Has Captured Us

Highly recommended!
David Warner Mathisen definitely know what he is talking about due to his long military career... Free fall speed is documented and is an embarrassment to the official story, because free fall is impossible for a naturally collapsing building.
Now we need to dig into the role of Larry Silverstein in the Building 7 collapse.
Notable quotes:
"... Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001. ..."
"... The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004. ..."
"... Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7 ..."
"... This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001. ..."
"... its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview. ..."
"... the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building ..."
"... Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states). ..."
"... Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day. ..."
"... In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019. ..."
"... on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. ..."
"... Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here . ..."
"... The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare: ..."
"... David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001.

The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004.

  1. Building.
  2. Seven.
  3. Freefall.
  4. Speed.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mamvq7LWqRU

Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane on September 11, 2001, and concluded that fires could not possibly have caused the collapse of that 47-story steel-frame building -- rather, the collapse seen could have only been caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every support column (43 in number).

This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001.

Various individuals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tried to argue that the collapse of Building 7 was slower than freefall speed, but its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview.

Although the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building prior to the flight of the aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (Buildings One and Two), as well as the power to cover up the evidence of this criminal activity and to deflect questioning by government agencies and suppress the story in the mainstream news, the collapse of Building 7 is by no means the only evidence which points to the same conclusion.

Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states).

However, eighteen years later there is simply no excuse anymore -- except for the fact that the ramifications of the admission that the official story is a flagrant fraud and a lie are so distressing that many people cannot actually bring themselves to consciously admit what they in fact already know subconsciously.

For additional evidence, I strongly recommend the work of the indefatigable Kevin Robert Ryan , whose blog at Dig Within should be required reading for every man and woman in the united states -- as well as those in the rest of the world, since the ramifications of the murders of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001 have led to the murders of literally millions of other innocent men, women and children around the world since that day, and the consequences of the failure to absorb the truth of what actually took place, and the consequences of the failure to address the lies that are built upon the fraudulent explanation of what took place on September 11, continue to negatively impact men and women everywhere on our planet.

Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day.

I would also strongly recommend listening very carefully to the series of five interviews with Kevin Ryan on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, which can be found in the Guns and Butter podcast archive here . These interviews, from 2013, are numbered 287, 288, 289, 290, and 291 in the archive.

Selected Articles: 9/11: Do You Still Believe that Al Qaeda Masterminded the Attacks?

I would in fact recommend listening to nearly every interview in that archive of Bonnie Faulkner's show, even though I do not of course agree with every single guest nor with every single view expressed in every single interview. Indeed, if you carefully read Kevin Ryan's blog which was linked above, you will find a blog post by Kevin Ryan dated June 24, 2018 in which he explicitly names James Fetzer along with Judy Woods as likely disinformation agents working to discredit and divert the efforts of 9/11 researchers. James Fetzer appears on Guns and Butter several times in the archived interview page linked above.

In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019.

That article contains a number of stunning quotations about the ongoing failure to address the now-obvious lies we are being told about the attacks of September 11. One of these quotations, by astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), is particularly noteworthy -- even though I certainly do not agree with everything Carl Sagan ever said or wrote. Regarding our propensity to refuse to acknowledge what we already know deep down to be true, Carl Sagan said:

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken.

This quotation is from Sagan's 1995 text, The Demon-Haunted World (with which I have points of disagreement, but which is extremely valuable for that quotation alone, and which I might suggest turning around on some of the points that Sagan was arguing as well, as a cautionary warning to those who have accepted too wholeheartedly some of Sagan's teachings and opinions).

This quotation shows that on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. This internal division is actually addressed in the world's ancient myths, which consistently illustrate that our egoic mind often refuses to acknowledge the higher wisdom we have available to us through the reality of our authentic self, sometimes called our Higher Self. Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here .

The important author Peter Kingsley has noted that in ancient myth, the role of the prophet was to bring awareness and acknowledgement of that which the egoic mind refuses to see -- which is consistent with the observation that it is through our authentic self (which already knows) that we have access to the realm of the gods. In the Iliad, for example, Dr. Kingsley notes that Apollo sends disaster upon the Achaean forces until the prophet Calchas reveals the source of the god's anger: Agamemnon's refusal to free the young woman Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has seized in the course of the fighting during the Trojan War, and who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo. Until Agamemnon atones for this insult to the god, Apollo will continue to visit destruction upon those following Agamemnon.

Until we acknowledge and correct what our Higher Self already knows to be the problem, we ourselves will be out of step with the divine realm.

If we look the other way at the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001, and deliberately refuse to see the truth that we already know deep down in our subconscious, then we will face the displeasure of the Invisible Realm. Just as we are shown in the ancient myths, the truth must be acknowledged and admitted, and then the wrong that has been done must be corrected.

In the case of the mass murder perpetrated on September 11, eighteen years ago, that admission requires us to face the fact that the "terrorists" who were blamed for that attack were not the actual terrorists that we need to be focusing on.

Please note that I am very careful not to say that "the government" is the source of the problem: I would argue that the government is the lawful expression of the will of the people and that the government, rightly understood, is exactly what these criminal perpetrators actually fear the most, if the people ever become aware of what is going on. The government, which is established by the Constitution, forbids the perpetration of murder upon innocent men, women and children in order to initiate wars of aggression against countries that never invaded or attacked us (under the false pretense that they did so). Those who do so are actually opposed to our government under the Constitution and can be dealt with within the framework of the law as established by the Constitution, which establishes a very clear penalty for treason.

When the people acknowledge and admit the complete bankruptcy of the lie we have been told about the attacks of September 11, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate repeal and dismantling of the so-called "USA PATRIOT Act" which was enacted in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 and which clearly violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Additionally, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate cessation of the military operations which were initiated based upon the fraudulent narrative of the attacks of that day, and which have led to invasion and overthrow of the nations that were falsely blamed as being the perpetrators of those attacks and the seizure of their natural resources.

The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That human right has been grievously trampled upon under the false description of what actually took place during the September 11 attacks. Numerous technology companies have been allowed and even encouraged (and paid, with public moneys) to create technologies which flagrantly and shamelessly violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and which track their every move and even enable secret eavesdropping upon their conversation and the secret capture of video within their homes and private settings, without any probable cause whatsoever.

When we admit and acknowledge that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, which has been falsely used as a supposed justification for the violation of these human rights (with complete disregard for the supreme law of the land as established in the Constitution), then we will also demand the immediate cessation of any such intrusion upon the right of the people to "be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- including the cessation of any business models which involve spying on men and women.

Companies which cannot find a business model that does not violate the Bill of Rights should lose their corporate charter and the privilege of limited liability, which are extended to them by the people (through the government of the people, by the people and for the people) only upon the condition that their behavior as corporations do not violate the inherent rights of men and women as acknowledged in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

It is well beyond the time when we must acknowledge and admit that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, 2001 -- and that we continue to be lied to about the events of that awful day. September 11, 2001 is in fact only one such event in a long history which stretches back prior to 2001, to other events which should have awakened the people to the presence of a very powerful and very dangerous criminal cabal acting in direct contravention to the Constitution long before we ever got to 2001 -- but the events of September 11 are so blatant, so violent, and so full of evidence which contradicts the fraudulent narrative that they actually cannot be believed by anyone who spends even the slightest amount of time looking at that evidence.

Indeed, we already know deep down that we have been bamboozled by the lie of the so-called "official narrative" of September 11.

But until we admit to ourselves and acknowledge to others that we've ignored the truth that we already know, then the bamboozle still has us .

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © David W. Mathisen , Global Research, 2019 Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.

[Sep 11, 2019] Tucker John Bolton refuses to acknowledge his mistakes - YouTube

Tucker is right: the problem is that Bolton can be replaced by another Bolton.
Sep 11, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Matt Curley , 16 hours ago

With Romney being "VERY VERY UNHAPPY" makes it all worthwhile..

Pete G , 18 hours ago

No more Wars Trump America first starts at Home Bring our Troops home 🇺🇸

Zentella6 , 18 hours ago

Bye bye, douchebag. Great news for America. I'm an 11 year vet, and I approve this message.

Marcus McCurley , 10 hours ago

I'm a vet who served in the 82nd Airborne and I say good riddance to this War Monger. This is an awful awful man!

stantheman1684 , 14 hours ago

iv> I see the GLOBALIST shills are in full force on this video, trying to artificially bring down the ratio from probably 99% Positive that such a bad man is gone. Doesn't matter, the Silent Majority & good people everywhere know that Bolton was a poor candidate for that job with a catastrophic failure record & everybody is better of with a more competent person in that position.

MAGA2020

Rebecca Martinez , 18 hours ago

Neo-con Bolton war monger turning on military industrial complex! No wars, no conflicts, no ME instability change! Good riddens!

Richard Willette , 13 hours ago

Trump only hires the best. Bolton will go to Fox and someone from Fox will be 4th National Security Advisor

Michael Ross , 14 hours ago

Thanks President Trump for getting rid of the globalist John Bolton

TED C , 17 hours ago

Foreign policy appears to be 17 year wars. Being a perpetual non winner.

caligirl , 16 hours ago

Good job Tucker, thank you for telling the truth about John Bolton and help to stop bombing Iran!

The Nair , 12 hours ago (edited)

John Bolton is owned by foreign powers like many in Washington. They get paid by their lobby to push the neocon agenda which translates into robbing the US of it's $ to fight wars that don't benefit the US.

yukonjeffimagery , 6 hours ago

War monger Bolton. How did that Libya thing work out for Europe ? Now after looking back, I am sure the African invasion into Europe was planned by Obama and his boss Soros.

Justin Noordyke , 8 hours ago

Romney is another swamp rat. All these politicians supporting Bolton have lost their sanity.

Marutgana Rudraksha , 6 hours ago

2,200 neo-cons don't like this video.

danielgarrison91 , 17 hours ago

Tucker while I agree with you on the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. But one thing you left out Tucker. Foxnews hired John Bolton as a Contributer for over a decade. How do you miss that part.

SAROJA Band , 3 hours ago (edited)

Bolton is pure evil. A "catastrophic success". Warmonger neo-con-artist. Abject failure. Delusional hubris exemplified. Brilliant reporting Tucker!!

Jamie Kloer , 8 hours ago

All the policies in the Middle East are complete and other failures. I'm so sick of neo cons. You can't get rid of them. You can not get rid of them. It doesn't matter who you vote for. Constant war. Like every regime couldn't be replaced around the world. Absolutely ridiculous.

BP , 9 hours ago

"In Washington, nobody cares what kind of job you did, only that you did the job. Nobody there learns from mistakes, because mistakes are never even acknowledged. Ever." Yes, Tucker DOES understand Washington!!!

Deborah Beaudoin Zaki , 6 hours ago div tabindex="0" class="comment-renderer-te

xt" role="article"> If Bolton becomes a Fox News contributor: I will change the channel immediately... I already do this when Jeff Epstein's, the child trafficker and rapist, good buddy Alan Dershowitz comes on as a guest... Do not know why Fox News selects guest contributors that have their morals/values in the wrong directions...

Angela J , 6 hours ago div tabindex="0" role="art

icle"> Bolton was signatory to PNAC- the project for a new american century, like other progressives and neo-cons of his generation. They do not view the chaos left by taking out Ghaddafi and Saddam as problems, rather the creation of failed states was their objective all along. Members of the GOP went along with these plans where they coincided with their own political and business objectives- the military industrial complex and the oilmen.

[Sep 11, 2019] Andrew Bacevich, Ending War, American-Style

Sep 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

September 11, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. Note that for all of Trump's considerable faults, including hiring John Bolton in the first place and taking too long to get rid of him, Bolton's opposition to finding a way for the US to extricate itself from the war in Afghanistan was reportedly the last straw.

By Andrew Bacevich, who serves as president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft . His new book The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory will be published in January. Originally published at TomDispatch

When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student body at any of our Army's myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).

Since ARVN's founding two decades earlier, the United States had assigned itself the task of professionalizing that fledgling military establishment. Based on a conviction that the standards, methods, and ethos of our armed forces were universally applicable and readily exportable, the attendance of ARVN personnel at such Army schools was believed to contribute to the professionalizing of the South Vietnamese military.

Evidence that the U.S. military's own professional standards had recently taken a hit -- memories of the My Lai massacre were then still fresh -- elicited no second thoughts on our part. Association with American officers like me was sure to rub off on our South Vietnamese counterparts in ways that would make them better soldiers. So we professed to believe, even while subjecting that claim to no more scrutiny than we did the question of why most of us had spent a year or more of our lives participating in an obviously misbegotten and misguided war in Indochina.

For serving officers at that time one question in particular remained off-limits (though it had been posed incessantly for years by antiwar protestors in the streets of America): Why Vietnam? Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely encourages critical thinking.

On the day that Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, fell and that country ceased to exist, I approached one of my ARVN classmates, also a captain, wanting at least to acknowledge the magnitude of the disaster that had occurred. "I'm sorry about what happened to your country," I told him.

I did not know that officer well and no longer recall his name. Let's call him Captain Nguyen. In my dim recollection, he didn't even bother to reply. He simply looked at me with an expression both distressed and mournful. Our encounter lasted no more than a handful of seconds. I then went on with my life and Captain Nguyen presumably with his. Although I have no inkling of his fate, I like to think that he is now retired in Southern California after a successful career in real estate. But who knows?

All I do know is that today I recall our exchange with a profound sense of embarrassment and even shame. My pathetic effort to console Captain Nguyen had been both presumptuous and inadequate. Far worse was my failure -- inability? refusal? -- to acknowledge the context within which that catastrophe was occurring: the United States and its armed forces had, over years, inflicted horrendous harm on the people of South Vietnam.

In reality, their defeat was our defeat. Yet while we had decided that we were done paying, they were going to pay and pay for a long time to come.

Rather than offering a fatuous expression of regret for the collapse of his country, I ought to have apologized for having played even a miniscule role in what was, by any measure, a catastrophe of epic proportions. It's a wonder Captain Nguyen didn't spit in my eye.

I genuinely empathized with Captain Nguyen. Yet the truth is that, along with most other Americans, soldiers and civilians alike, I was only too happy to be done with South Vietnam and all its troubles. Dating back to the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States and its armed forces had made a gargantuan effort to impart legitimacy to the Republic of Vietnam and to coerce the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to its north into giving up its determination to exercise sovereignty over the entirety of the country. In that, we had failed spectacularly and at a staggering cost.

"Our" war in Indochina -- the conflict we chose to call the Vietnam War -- officially ended in January 1973 with the signing in Paris of an "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam." Under the terms of that fraudulent pact, American prisoners of war were freed from captivity in North Vietnam and the last U.S. combat troops in the south left for home, completing a withdrawal begun several years earlier. Primary responsibility for securing the Republic of Vietnam thereby fell to ARVN, long deemed by U.S. commanders incapable of accomplishing that mission.

Meanwhile, despite a nominal cessation of hostilities, approximately 150,000 North Vietnamese regulars still occupied a large swathe of South Vietnamese territory -- more or less the equivalent to agreeing to end World War II when there were still several German panzer tank divisions lurking in Belgium's Ardennes Forest. In effect, our message to our enemy and our ally was this: We're outta here; you guys sort this out . In a bit more than two years, that sorting-out process would extinguish the Republic of Vietnam.

Been There, Done That

The course Captain Nguyen and I were attending in the spring of 1975 paid little attention to fighting wars like the one that, for years, had occupied the attention of my army and his. Our Army, in fact, was already moving on. Having had their fill of triple-canopy jungles in Indochina, America's officer corps now turned to defending the Fulda Gap, the region in West Germany deemed most hospitable to a future Soviet invasion. As if by fiat, gearing up to fight those Soviet forces and their Warsaw Pact allies, should they (however improbably) decide to take on NATO and lunge toward the English Channel, suddenly emerged as priority number one. At Fort Knox and throughout the Army's ranks, we were suddenly focused on "high-intensity combined arms operations" -- essentially, a replay of World War II-style combat with fancier weaponry. In short, the armed forces of the United States had reverted to "real soldiering."

And so it is again today. At the end of the 17th year of what Americans commonly call the Afghanistan War -- one wonders what name Afghans will eventually assign it -- U.S. military forces are moving on. Pentagon planners are shifting their attention back to Russia and China. Great power competition has become the name of the game. However we might define Washington's evolving purposes in its Afghanistan War -- "nation building," "democratization," "pacification" -- the likelihood of mission accomplishment is nil. As in the early 1970s, so in 2019, rather than admitting failure, the Pentagon has chosen to change the subject and is once again turning its attention to "real soldiering."

Remember the infatuation with counterinsurgency (commonly known by its acronym COIN) that gripped the national security establishment around 2007 when the Iraq "surge" overseen by General David Petraeus briefly ranked alongside Gettysburg as a historic victory? Well, these days promoting COIN as the new American way of war has become, to put it mildly, a tough sell. Given that few in Washington will openly acknowledge the magnitude of the military failure in Afghanistan, the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial becomes all but irresistible.

Only one thing is required to validate this reshuffling of military priorities. Washington needs to create the appearance, as in 1973, that it's exiting Afghanistan on its own terms. What's needed, in short, is an updated equivalent of that "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam."

Until last weekend, the signing of such an agreement seemed imminent. Donald Trump and his envoy, former ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, appeared poised to repeat the trick that President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pulled off in 1973 in Paris: pause the war and call it peace. Should fighting subsequently resume after a "decent interval," it would no longer be America's problem. Now, however, to judge by the president's twitter account -- currently the authoritative record of U.S. diplomacy -- the proposed deal has been postponed, or perhaps shelved, or even abandoned altogether. If National Security Advisor John Bolton has his way , U.S. forces might just withdraw in any case, without an agreement of any sort being signed.

Based on what we can divine from press reports, the terms of that prospective Afghan deal would mirror those of the 1973 Paris Accords in one important respect. It would, in effect, serve as a ticket home for the remaining U.S. and NATO troops still in that country (though for the present only the first 5,000 of them would immediately depart). Beyond that, the Taliban was to promise not to provide sanctuary to anti-American terrorist groups, even though the Afghan branch of ISIS is already firmly lodged there. Still, this proviso would allow the Trump administration to claim that it had averted any possible recurrence of the 9/11 terror attacks that were, of course, planned by Osama bin Laden while residing in Afghanistan in 2001 as a guest of the Taliban-controlled government. Mission accomplished , as it were.

Back in 1973, North Vietnamese forces occupying parts of South Vietnam neither disarmed nor withdrew. Should this new agreement be finalized, Taliban forces currently controlling or influencing significant swaths of Afghan territory will neither disarm nor withdraw. Indeed, their declared intention is to continue fighting.

In 1973, policymakers in Washington were counting on ARVN to hold off Communist forces. In 2019, almost no one expects Afghan security forces to hold off a threat consisting of both the Taliban and ISIS. In a final insult, just as the Saigon government was excluded from U.S. negotiations with the North Vietnamese, so, too, has the Western-installed government in Kabul been excluded from U.S. negotiations with its sworn enemy, the Taliban.

A host of uncertainties remain. As with the olive branches that President Trump has ostentatiously offered to Russia, China, and North Koea, this particular peace initiative may come to naught -- or, given the approach of the 2020 elections, he may decide that Afghanistan offers his last best hope of claiming at least one foreign policy success. One way or another, in all likelihood, the deathwatch for the U.S.-backed Afghan government has now begun. One thing only is for sure. Having had their fill of Afghanistan, when the Americans finally leave, they won't look back. In that sense, it will be Vietnam all over again.

What Price Peace?

However great my distaste for President Trump, I support his administration's efforts to extricate the United States from Afghanistan. I do so for the same reason I supported the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. Prolonging this folly any longer does not serve U.S. interests. Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something really stupid, stop. To my mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of American soldiers are at stake.

In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for nothing. In Afghanistan, we have lost more than 2,300 troops , with another 20,000 wounded, again for next to nothing. Last month, two American Special Forces soldiers were killed in a firefight in Faryab Province. For what?

That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered Captain Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials about to befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order of 800,000 Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid refugee camps scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000 former ARVN officers and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation camps for up to 18 years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the unified country's new leaders.

Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000 casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches of territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million Vietnamese have suffered health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a direct consequence of the promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.

For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its actions in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The 1.3 million Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War formally concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the people of Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy.

As to what will follow if Washington does succeed in cutting a deal with the Taliban, well, don't count on President Trump (or his successor for that matter) welcoming anything like 1.3 million Afghan refugees to the United States once a "decent interval" has passed. Yet again, our position will be: we're outta here; you guys sort this out.

Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as "careless people" who "smashed up things and creatures" and then "retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness" to "let other people clean up the mess they had made." That description applies to the United States as a whole, especially when Americans tire of a misguided war. We are a careless people. In Vietnam, we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our money, leaving others to clean up the mess in a distinctly bloody fashion.

Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in Afghanistan.


RBHoughton , September 11, 2019 at 1:05 am

Bacevich is right. Vietnam was a tragedy. Here we are at Ground Hog Day in Afghanistan.

I was touched by the author's recollection of Capt Nguyen. I well know that awful moment when , reflecting on some past event, I have recognised my own actions as insensitive, crass and unfeeling. How do we get so wrapped-up in ourselves that the feelings of others hardly impinge on our sensitivities? What happened to society? Is that where the West has gone wrong?

Btw, quote "to judge by the president's twitter account -- currently the authoritative record of U.S. diplomacy" unquote. I hope those owning the Twitter Nest note the future use of their archive.

VietnamVet , September 11, 2019 at 3:42 am

Andrew Bacevich is right. However, there is an amazing human disinclination to face facts but live with delusions which risk extinction for immediate gratification. The lessons from Vietnam were never learned. The Bush/Cheney fateful decision to occupy Afghanistan at the same time as invading Iraq ultimately led to the current predatory corporate military rule that will never voluntarily withdraw from overseas. The intent of the media/intelligence coup against the President is to prevent peace from breaking out. Executives and wealthy shareholders would lose their taxpayer gravy train. The troops and contractors now in Eastern Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are expendable. They will not have two years to get out. No planning, deep-sixing science, and profits over safety all assure that sooner or later there will be another black swan event. Be it Brexit, closure of Strait of Hormuz, subprime auto loans, WWIII, or climate change, assuredly something will give the final push and the American Empire will collapse.

Mattski , September 11, 2019 at 7:43 am

"Après moi, le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation. Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society."

No Pasaran , September 11, 2019 at 5:05 am

Prof. Bacevich is very perceptive and he writes well; his essays are always worth reading. Nevertheless, he is a retired US Army officer after all and there is that thing about leopards and spots. There is a tell in this article, when he speaks of the day that Saigon 'fell'. I too remember well that day in April of '75. I was studying in Madison, on the GI Bill. My friends and I all rejoiced on that day, as Saigon had finally been 'liberated'.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 11:13 am

I was at high school in the UK, and my friends and I also rejoiced on that day.

Donald , September 11, 2019 at 12:29 pm

Why rejoice? The point should be that the US had no business in Vietnam, not that one group finally succeeded in uniting the country under the rule of one dictatorial party. Not all Vietnamese welcomed the "liberation" and many died fleeing the country.

I am sure this will be misunderstood, so I'll add that I think that the US role was one massive war crime and we never should have been there at all, that Ho Chi Minh probably would have won a fair election in the 1950's etc

Being antiwar has nothing necessarily to do with favoring the side our government opposes. It simply means that there is no moral justification for the US invading Vietnam or Iraq, supporting jihadists in Syria, helping the Saudis and the Israelis bomb civilians, and so on.

The Rev Kev , September 11, 2019 at 6:39 pm

Prof. Bacevich has an personal stake in what he writes about. His son, Lt. Andrew John Bacevich, was killed in action by an IED during the occupation back in 2007. He was already a severe critic of the war at the time but I am guessing that this underlined the futility of it tall.

Ignacio , September 11, 2019 at 6:01 am

Although it is true that the willing of Trump to put an end to the Afghan occupation must be seen as a positive, his policy of ever increasing military budgets make this affirmation from Bacevich "the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial becomes all but irresistible" truer that ever. These expenditures must be justified in practical terms and It worries me what the new enemies in Trump's brain are.

fajensen , September 11, 2019 at 8:17 am

One was hoping that the Space Marines would focus The Decider's attention firmly on those pesky Centaurians .

Ignacio , September 11, 2019 at 9:23 am

Ha, ha hah!
Yes, Hollywood has made a big effort to explain us, the common people, that US's military expenses will protect us from Centaurians, Klingons, meteorites and some other rogue invaders. I cannot imagine any other reason.

Steve H. , September 11, 2019 at 6:37 am

> Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely encourages critical thinking.

John Boyd: "And you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go." He raised his hand and pointed. "If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments." Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction. "Or you can go that way and you can do something -- something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?" [Robert Coram]

Jesper , September 11, 2019 at 7:42 am

Which is worse? Living in a cave in Afghanistan or living in a prison in Europe/US?
If the invasion of Afghanistan was about capturing some people and then imprisoning them then that question might possibly be relevant.
If the invasion was about prestige then sometimes the best revenge and biggest insult is to treat that someone as irrelevant and insignificant. If the opportunity presents itself to do something then by all means do something, do what prestige demands but if that does not happen then what?
Sometimes the measure of someone is had by the measure of his/her enemies. Giving someone the significance of being the enemy might provide that someone with a better life. There are people with money who'd be willing to fund the enemy of their enemy. But how do those financiers know if they are funding some chancers/charlatans or the real thing? Spread some uncertainty about who are charlatans/chancers and see what happens to the funding . Maybe the guilty ones might feel it necessary to publicly provide the necessary proof of their guilt, doubtful but & if the location of them is found then threaten closure of the diplomatic missions of the nation where they are unless they are handed over. The diplomatic missions are cushy positions and closing them will only hurt the 'elite', the general population is left unharmed.

Afghanistan is unlikely to change anytime soon. As with all predictions of the future that one might be very wrong. However, the ones predicting that Afghanistan can and will change due to military occupation are in my opinion the ones who need to somehow provide support for their prediction.

The Rev Kev , September 11, 2019 at 9:11 am

A few predictions here. After the US and the rest of the Coalition leaves Afghanistan, not much happens for awhile. But then the government starts to lose ground. Slowly at first, and then quickly. Eventually Kabul falls. Long before then the US and other countries would have had evacuated their embassies so that there is no repeat of the frantic helicopter evacuations like happened in Saigon. There is a swell of refugees, particularly those who worked with the Coalition but Trump refuses all entry of them into the US saying that there are "very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers" in Afghanistan.
Five years after the last troops are out of Afghanistan the war is all but forgotten in the same way that the vets of the Korean War were forgotten. Not for nothing did they call Korea the "Forgotten War.' By then the US is immersed in another campaign – probably in Africa – and news about what is happening in Afghanistan is relegated to the back pages. The vets will remember, but the nation will ignore them in the same way that Vietnam vets were forgotten after that war ended until the striking Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built in Washington by the vets themselves. In West Point text books, the war is relegated to the back pages as the cadets will instead study peer warfare with Russia and China.

Alex Cox , September 11, 2019 at 1:50 pm

One very important question remains.
By 2001 the Taliban had reduced opium production to virtually zero. Every year since the US/NATO invasion, opium production has increased.
What will the Afghans do when the US and British are no longer around to facilitate the heroin trade? Perhaps that's why negotiations are proving so difficult.

ewmayer , September 11, 2019 at 4:56 pm

"By 2001 the Taliban had reduced opium production to virtually zero."

You need to update things past 2001 :

The Taliban banned the cultivation of opium in 2001, shortly before being ousted by the US-led NATO coalition. However, after 2005, the Taliban began to regroup, and encouraged opium production to finance its insurgency by forcing locals to grow opium and punishing those who refused. Besides, major opium traffickers annually pay vast amounts to the Taliban in exchange for safe transport routes secured by the group.

The Taliban uses the money it collects from the opium trade to pay fighters' salaries, buy fuel, food, weapons and explosives. Based on some reports, around 40% of the Taliban's funding comes from opium production, while the rest of its expenditure is borne by foreign patrons and tax collections. The group's annual income from the opium trade was estimated to be $400 million in 2011, but it is believed to have significantly increased in recent years.

The Taliban collect two types of taxes from opium businesses: a transportation tax from drug trafficking and a 10% tax from opium cultivation. In exchange, the group provides security for the drug convoys and carries out attacks on government institutions like checkpoints in order to allow drug convoys to pass. The group has also launched attacks on government forces to safeguard drug labs and factories.

The Taliban don't need US/UK to facilitate things. In fact, getting the US out of the country might eliminate one of their major Heroin-related business rivals, the CIA.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 11:10 am

Bacevich states, "Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something really stupid, stop. To my mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of American soldiers are at stake. In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for nothing."
Why does he find his rule especially applicable to the paltry number of US dead, given that at least fifty times as many Indochinese died?
This attitude is surely one reason for the loathing felt by much of the world toward the USA. People are justifiably sick of hearing how US lives are inherently more valuable than their own.

juliania , September 11, 2019 at 12:24 pm

I guess you missed this part of the article:

" That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered Captain Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials about to befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order of 800,000 Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid refugee camps scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000 former ARVN officers and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation camps for up to 18 years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the unified country's new leaders.

Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000 casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches of territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million Vietnamese have suffered health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a direct consequence of the promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.

For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its actions in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The 1.3 million Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War formally concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the people of Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy ."

Note in particular the phrase "the people of Vietnam" in the last sentence. I find your criticism to be unwarranted.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 1:01 pm

I neither missed nor ignored Bacevich's caveat.
I was focusing on his 'rule number one', which seems to make the lives of a few US soldiers more sacred than those of the many people – civilians as well as soldiers – they kill.
I am not trying to say that Bacevich is as evil and abhorrent as say Bolton. I don't think he is, though I suspect he's on the same side when it comes down to it.
I am suggesting that the USA will fail to win the hearts and minds of the world's people while killing them and belittling their deaths.

(and you might note the phrase "can hardly be said to make up for" in the last sentence!)

John Wright , September 11, 2019 at 6:38 pm

As I remember the movie Dr. Strangelove, as the USA nuclear weapon was launched toward Russia, Russia was given an option to destroy some USA cities as a way of the USA doing fair and suitable penance.

I don't imagine the USA's military is viewed in the world as other than operating in the USA elites' interests, despite any media (Cable, internet, print,Hollywood films) verbiage about "bringing democracy" or "bringing freedom" to other nations.

I believe the Peace Corps was established as a way to make the world a better place with USA's expertise and as a way to win "hearts and minds of the world's people".

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Corps , the Peace Corps budget in 2018 was 398 million.

The USA defense budget for 2019 is shown as 686 billion putting the Peace Corps budget as 0.058% of the, perhaps understated, defense budget.

I believe winning the world's hearts and minds via USA military action is very unlikely at best.

The small Peace Corps budget is evidence that concern about winning hearts and minds in foreign countries is a very small priority in Washington D.C.

Ford Prefect , September 11, 2019 at 11:44 am

If you fund, arm, and train an army for a decade and it still can't defend itself against insurgents, then you have to wonder whose side is right? If it actually had the backing of the people on the ground and dedicated troops and government, then it should be able to hold its ground well.

The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the respective armies.

In Iraq, it is largely coherent tribal entities of Kurds and Shiites that have been providing the backbone of relatively successful military organizations (not the same one despite being in the same country). Both groups have their own independent goals. The US forefeited its abiltiy to create a true national army in Iraq when they disbanded the former Iraqi Army shortly after invading. That resulted in a well-trained insurgency.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 12:27 pm

"The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the respective armies."
Hardly. From 1979 the US funded, armed and trained the Mujaheddin, who won. I'm not aware of them funding, arming or training the Viet Cong or Viet Minh.
They didn't win when they backed the losing sides, that's true. But it isn't saying much beyond the obvious.

Susan the other` , September 11, 2019 at 3:12 pm

I like Bacevich but he really demurred from making his underlying point. He asked "Why Vietnam" and then he proceeded to fluff through that question. But the analogy to Afghanistan remains at a much deeper level. That level (imo) is this: Why Vietnam? Because, at that hysterical cold war turning point, Vietnam was the gateway to Southern China (Gore Vidal). Our main objective was to position ourselves to invade Southern China and protect the old imperialist interests of the UK and France (aka Nato). But we dithered and hesitated. Thank god. It could have been a much worse debacle. So here it is: We invaded Afghanistan and sent a zillion dollars worth of materiel to Iraq in order to take over the Middle East. And that meant invading Iran. But just like China, Iran was a dangerous plan. Too many things could go wrong, so everyone knew they would go wrong. Duh. And so we dithered and hesitated. And made up for it by blatant propaganda for 15 years. We're "outta there" because we should never have been in there. And one of the tragedies is our abandonment of the Kurds. Just like the South Vietnamese. Bacevich didn't mention the Kurds. He implied our abandonment would upset the poor Afghans. But, they won't care at all. They'll be flipping all of our departing helicopters the bird. Still there was a point to be made about our fecklessness. Interesting aside here that Bacevich, a well thought-out moral person, is the new President of the Quincy Institute. It will probably become famous for deep, murky contradictions. And pompous rationalizations without ever really making the point. Just to the taste of Soros and the Kochs.

Susan the other` , September 11, 2019 at 3:25 pm

I suspect, re Afghanistan, there is an upside that will never be made into a finer point. That is, we have worn out the appetite for a wider war for all concerned and managed to come to agreement with all parties of interest in Middle East oil. Including Russia. And Israel. And nobody will make much fuss about it, but we will still leave a very high-tech military contingent in Afghanistan because Eurasia is a vast opportunity.

barrisj , September 11, 2019 at 7:30 pm

Vietnam War strictly motivated by the "Domino Theory" and "monolithic Asian communism", per Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, et al. Kennedy was said to be having "second thoughts" about expanded US presence at the time of his assassination; however, LBJ went all-in, urged on by McNamara and the generals 11 years later it all went tits-up, Nixon ended the draft, all relatively quiet on the war front, then Carter and Brzezinski funded Islamic militants in Afghanistan to harry the Russkies and ca. 20yrs later, Cheney-Bush repeat the Russian quagmire plus ça change etc" .

stan6565 , September 11, 2019 at 3:55 pm

The author is too limited in his appraisals of USA wars, and the commentariat here too polite to expand on the list of the criminal wars waged by the USA since Vietnam.

Iraq and Afghanistan were mentioned, yes, but there were also open wars of aggression against Yugoslavia, then Serbia, Grenada and Libya as well as clandestine wars against a good chunk of the globe, Israel/Palestine, Russian backyard countries, China, Venezuela, a swathe of Central American countries, and so on ad infinitum.

USA's holy grail of subjugating all oil producing countries in the world, except for those that can fight back, and purported payment to those unable to fight back, with readily printable papers of questionable value, is not a long term strategy. Not long term as in 10 or 20 more years. Then what? John Bolton or his clone on a cocktail of steroids and amphetamine, lobbing nuclear weapons indiscriminately all over the place?

The Indispensable Nation.

[Sep 11, 2019] Better late than never Bolton's firing gives Trump a chance to heed his instincts Ron Paul

This is a bit like rearranging the chairs on the deck of Titanic.
The problem is we do not know who pressed Trump to appoint Bolton., Rumors were that it was Abelson. In this case nothing changed.
The other problem with making Bolton firing a significant move is the presence in White House other neocon warmongers. So one less doe not change the picture. For example Pompeo remains and he is no less warmongering neocon, MIC stooge, and no less subservant to Israel then Bolton.
Notable quotes:
"... Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT ..."
"... Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday ..."
"... "Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product." ..."
"... "A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date. ..."
"... As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.rt.com

Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT.

Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday, after news of Bolton's dismissal from the White House. Also on rt.com Bolton out: Trump ditches hawkish adviser he kept for 18 months despite 'disagreements'

"Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product."

Foreign leaders weren't the only ones who had a problem with Trump's notoriously belligerent advisor, either.

"A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date.

While the uber-hawk's firing came "later than it should be," Paul hoped it would clear the way for Trump to follow through on the America First, end-the-wars promises that won him so much support in 2016. "Those of us who would like less intervention, we're very happy with it."

Also on rt.com War and whiskers: Freshly-resigned John Bolton gets meme-roasting

As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week.

[Sep 11, 2019] The Guardian view on John Bolton: good riddance, but the problem is his boss

Notable quotes:
"... However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity. ..."
"... It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions. ..."
"... The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who hired him is much more so. ..."
"... As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly with Pence. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

confusedponderer , 11 September 2019 at 07:11 AM

There is an nice article about his "Being fired by Don Donald / Nope, actually I quit myself" story:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/10/the-guardian-view-on-john-bolton-good-riddance-but-the-problem-is-his-boss

The Guardian view on John Bolton: good riddance, but the problem is his boss

Many will rightly celebrate the departure of the US national security adviser. But however welcome the news, it reflects the deeper problems with this administration

...

However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity.

It is neither normal nor desirable for the national security adviser to be excluded from meetings about Afghanistan – even if it is a relief, when the individual concerned is (or was) Mr Bolton. It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions.

The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who hired him is much more so.

I read that the main drivers of getting him kicked or retire himself were Mnuchin and Pompeo, both afflicted by that nasty goofy smile disease. I am always happy when I see Mnuchin's hands on the table, eliminating one explanation for the smile.

There is that reported sentence about Bolton - that there is no problem for which war was not his solution. I read about similar sentence about Pompeo - that he has an IR seeker for Donald's ass.

That written, good riddance indeed. Likely, if Bolton had his way, the US would likely be at war with North Korea and Iran.

When I studied I was at the UNFCCC for a time during Bush Jr. presidency and talked about what Bolton did at the UN with my superior, a 20 year UN veteran.

A 'malicious saboteur arsonist' is a polite summary of what he did there directly and indirectly, and with given his flirt with MEK and regime change in Iran he has likely not changed at all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/world/middleeast/john-bolton-regime-change-iran.html

As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly with Pence.

[Sep 11, 2019] Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor

Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

catherine , 10 September 2019 at 08:48 PM

I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/trump-tries-to-fix-his-foreign-policy-without-bolton/593284/

different clue , 11 September 2019 at 01:08 AM
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some names and the reasoning for offering those names.

If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor.

confusedponderer said in reply to different clue... , 11 September 2019 at 09:10 AM
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."

Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.

Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.

As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.

And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in Germany.

That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of course.

He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...

[Sep 11, 2019] Peacemaker Bolton Quits by Walrus.

Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

...Who should the Administration now call on to provide some restraint on the Presidents warlike impulses?

blue peacock , 10 September 2019 at 04:55 PM

How about another peacemaker and lady in waiting for the GOP 2024 nomination - Nimrata "Nikki" Haley. She will immediately call for a Peace & Friendship Treaty with that evil thug Vladimir Putin.
Barbara Ann , 10 September 2019 at 05:26 PM
I'm sure the Administration will give the matter much thought and due deliberation and using the same selection process as before, choose the candidate most highly qualified recommended by the Adelsons. Tell me it ain't so.

Lyttennburgh said... Reply 11 September 2019 at 07:05 AM

Subhān Allāh! Sultan Danuld at-Trumphoon al-Quincy dismissed his wazir Yahya al-Boltoni, for verily it’s said to all Faithful: mustache is Shaitan’s brush. /s

[Sep 10, 2019] Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik

Highly recommended!
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
Aug 25, 2019 | portside.org
Originally from: Monthly Review printer friendly
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop.

Harry Magdoff's The Age of Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1

Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end. Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.

Globalization and Economic Crisis

There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end. The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2

The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the surplus. 3 Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization. In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.

While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand.

Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of labor. 4 This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to the metropolis instead).

The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5

At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected, to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole therefore remains restrained.

Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that finance capital opposes.

Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital, especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.

This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis.

The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6

It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold" should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt (since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7

Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules are no longer viable in their pristine form.

Some Implications of This Dead End

There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4 percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting stagnation of investment. 8

If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.

There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.

In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s. 9 While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.

The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market.

Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture, defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway until now.

The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.

In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.

The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81 divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016 -- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding, especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial segment of the world's population.

But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism (since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time. Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.

In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and fascist upstarts." 10

Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.

This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed revolution" points in this direction.

Fascism Then and Now

Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences between the two that must also be noted.

First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s, however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.

Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a transition that much more unlikely.

Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The 1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to say, great cost to humankind.

Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an "ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry, but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.

In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and Kautsky, as well as their debates.

Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge (of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally. But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."

Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism, can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.

Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.

Imperialist Interventions

Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not anti-imperialist).

In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by most political formations.)

Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with these challenges in at least four different ways.

The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support.

Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits, financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital. Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.

The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism.

And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.

Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal segments.

Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it.

Notes
  1. Harry Magdoff, The Age of Imperialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969).
  2. Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
  3. Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966).
  4. One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in The Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
  5. Joseph E. Stiglitz, " Inequality is Holding Back the Recovery ," New York Times , January 19, 2013.
  6. For a discussion of how even the recent euphoria about U.S. growth is vanishing, see C. P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, " Vanishing Green Shoots and the Possibility of Another Crisis ," The Hindu Business Line , April 8, 2019.
  7. For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
  8. Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization: Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
  9. This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression, 1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2013).
  10. Michał Kalecki, " Political Aspects of Full Employment ," Political Quarterly (1943), available at mronline.org.
  11. Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1952).

Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987), The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997), The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).

[Sep 10, 2019] The idea tha the USA won the Cold War is questionable

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime. ..."
"... By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order. ..."
"... Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization and relaxation of international tensions. ..."
"... The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.... ..."
"... In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral aspects of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity. ..."
Sep 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , September 07, 2019 at 07:23 AM

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/09/note-to-self-_the-ten-americans-who-did-the-most-to-win-the-cold-war-hoisted-from-the-archiveshttpswwwbradford-de.html

September 5, 2019

Note to Self: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War *

Harry Dexter White... George Kennan... George Marshall... Arthur Vandenberg... Paul Hoffman... Dean Acheson... Harry S Truman... Dwight D. Eisenhower... Gerald Ford... George Shultz

* https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/02/note-the-ten-americans-who-did-the-most-to-win-the-cold-war-archive-entry-from-brad-delongs-webjournal.html

-- Brad DeLong

anne -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 07:24 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/28/opinion/the-gop-won-the-cold-war-ridiculous.html

October 28, 1992

The G.O.P. Won the Cold War? Ridiculous.
By George F. Kennan

The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically silly.

The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish. No great country has that sort of influence on the internal developments of any other one.

As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime.

These thoughts found a place in my so-called X article in Foreign Affairs in 1947, from which the policy of containment is widely seen to have originated. This perception was even more clearly expressed in a letter from Moscow written in 1952, when I was Ambassador there, to H. Freeman Matthews, a senior State Department official, excerpts from which also have been widely published. There were some of us to whom it was clear, even at that early date, that the regime as we had known it would not last for all time. We could not know when or how it would be changed; we knew only that change was inevitable and impending.

By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order.

Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization and relaxation of international tensions.

The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put an end to this hope. The episode humiliated Khrushchev and discredited his relatively moderate policies. It forced him to fall back, for the defense of his own political position, on a more strongly belligerent anti-American tone of public utterance.

The U-2 episode was the clearest example of that primacy of military over political policy that soon was to become an outstanding feature of American cold war policy. The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet Union.

The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's....

ilsm -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:28 AM
Very interesting observation.

In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral aspects of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity.

Early in my time in the service, when I had time to think being at a remote station I decided the west had the marked economic advantage, particularly as the green revolution permitted some higher level of nutrition security.

Later on I recall discussions where the collapse of the Soviet Union was assured but would take in to the 21st century to occur. The big question then was "would a nuclear exchange occur in the way of a peaceful collapse".....

The presence of the A Bomb in some ways prevented war in other encouraged intrigue and small scrapes in to each other's spheres.

There was a bit of the Divine in the world getting through the Cold War.

The Berlin wall came down as hoped but 25 years earlier than I expected.

Plp -> ilsm... , September 07, 2019 at 08:58 AM
Stalin built the party military complex that ran Russia from 1932 to 1989

Cold war liberals built uncle's post was military industrial complex as a counterpart to Stalin's

alas thanx to guys from wasp firms on Wall Street like Dean Acheson that knew the planet was ours to pluck post 1946

anne -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:14 AM
These are important comments, and deserve to be saved and gradually expanded on. I appreciate this.
ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:35 AM
As an aside the Ukraine farmers whom Stalin "collectivized" were seen as impediment to industrializing.......

interesting too, how LBJ kept guns and butter and went pedal to the metal in Vietnam......

politics has always (since June 1950, anyway) "ended when the pentagon appropriations bills were up for enacting".

Which may be synonymous with the proscription about politics kept out of diplomacy?

anne -> ilsm... , September 07, 2019 at 09:15 AM
Do save and develop this interesting thinking further over time.
Plp -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:46 AM
KENNAN Was a lucky guy. He hit the right notes at the right time and then as he got second thoughts and better vision. Like yugoslaving peoples China in 1949
He was side tracked and then sent out to ivy pastures
Plp -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 08:53 AM
U 2

Nonsense. The moment to engage was 1953 -54 and yes a goo regime blocked it

But it was Truman that crossed the parallel in 1950 and tried to liberate north Korea

It was Kennedy that preferred brinksmanship to real engagement. Brush wars and regime change to accommodation. Missile racing to sensible unilateralism

Yes LBJ was an ignorant oaf on foreign policy. But it was Nixon that finally used PRC as Yugo twenty years too late of course

The cold war was invented by democrats and exploited by republicans for domestic shindiggery. Tragicomedy cinescope scaled

EMichael -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:18 AM
Yes, very clever how democrats coerced Stalin into annexing eastern Europe and placing millions of people under total control in every way of life.

Your ideology trumps facts when needed.

ilsm -> EMichael... , September 07, 2019 at 09:39 AM
democrats + Truman and Churchill......

Had FDR survived the 3 western sectors of Germany would have been demilitarized, and agrarian.

Churchill conned Truman to use Potsdam as a replay of Munich!

Keenan's angst was the "militarized" usurped "containment".

Stalin may not have been replaying 1938........

Plp -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:37 AM
Pompous banality worthy of a tenured entitled utterly secure mind

I don't like or respect Brad but I do enjoy him ss a punching bag

Plp -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:39 AM
Nixon and Kissinger won the cold war For God sake. Everyone knows that

George Schultz and KENNAN?

Where's Joe McCarthy? And Paul Nitze

ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 08:51 AM
Where is Luce?

Truman and Acheson.... were there when Keenan went off to teach instead of be ignored.

Marshall aside from his plan, he and his Army staffers just off beating Hitler knew Chiang was not worth propping.

The Luce empire went all cold warrior over "who lost China" which gave Joe McCarthy a drum.

ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:27 AM
:<)

You could have no Cold War without the agitprop. As with the GWOT today.

The one no loser in the demise of the commies: the MIC!

ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:41 AM
As Vinegar Joe Stillwell observed.......

eventually Stillwell went.

anne -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 09:31 AM
Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now, American historians were mistaken at the end of the 1980s. There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about. If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold War.

[Sep 10, 2019] It s all about Gene Sharp and seeping neoliberal regime change using Western logistical support, money, NGO and intelligence agencies and MSM as the leverage

Highly recommended!
What democracy they are talking about? Democracy for whom? This Harvard political prostitutes are talking about democracy for oligarchs which was the nest result of EuroMaydan and the ability of Western companies to buy assets for pennies on the dollar without the control of national government like happen in xUSSR space after dissolution of the USSR, which in retrospect can be classified as a color revolution too, supported by financial injection, logistical support and propaganda campaign in major Western MSM.
What Harvard honchos probably does not understand or does not wish to understand is that neoliberalism as a social system lost its attraction and is in irreversible decline. The ideology of neoliberalism collapsed much like Bolsheviks' ideology. As Politician like Joe Boden which still preach neoliberalism are widely viewed as corrupt or senile (or both) hypocrites.
The "Collective West" still demonstrates formidable intelligence agencies skills (especially the USA and GB), but the key question is: "What they are fighting for?"
They are fighting for neoliberalism which is a lost case. Which looks like KGB successes after WWIII. They won many battles and lost the Cold war.
Not that Bolsheviks in the USSR was healthy or vibrant. Economics was a deep stagnation, alcoholism among working class was rampant, the standard of living of the majority of population slides each year, much like is the case with neoliberalism after, say, 1991. Hidden unemployment in the USSR was high -- at least in high teens if not higher. Like in the USA now good jobs were almost impossible to obtain without "extra help". Medical services while free were dismal, especially dental -- which were horrible. Hospitals were poor as church rats as most money went to MIC. Actually, like in the USA now, MIC helped to strangulate the economy and contributed to the collapse. It was co a corrupt and decaying , led by completely degenerated leadership. To put the person of the level of Gorbachov level of political talent lead such a huge and complex country was an obvious suicide.
But the facts speak for themselves: what people usually get as the result of any color revolution is the typical for any county which lost the war: dramatic drop of the standard of living due to economic rape of the country.
While far form being perfect the Chinese regime at least managed to lift the standard of living of the majority of the population and provide employment. After regime change China will experience the same economic rape as the USSR under Yeltsin regime. So in no way Hong Cong revolution can be viewed a progressive phenomenon despite all the warts of neoliberalism with Chenese characteristics in mainland China (actually this is a variant of NEP that Gorbachov tried to implement in the USSR, but was to politically incompetent to succeed)
Aug 31, 2019 | Chris Fraser @ChrisFraser_HKU • Aug 27 \z

Replying to @edennnnnn_ @AMFChina @lihkg_forum

A related resource that deserves wide circulation:

Why nonviolent resistance beats violent force in effecting social, political change – Harvard Gazette

CHENOWETH: I think it really boils down to four different things. The first is a large and diverse participation that's sustained.

The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide how violent the confrontation with -- and reaction to -- the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other security elites, economic and business elites, state media. There are lots of different pillars that support the status quo, and if they can be disrupted or coerced into noncooperation, then that's a decisive factor.

The third thing is that the campaigns need to be able to have more than just protests; there needs to be a lot of variation in the methods they use.

The fourth thing is that when campaigns are repressed -- which is basically inevitable for those calling for major changes -- they don't either descend into chaos or opt for using violence themselves. If campaigns allow their repression to throw the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they're essentially co-signing what the regime wants -- for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they're probably going to get totally crushed.

Wai Sing-Rin @waisingrin • Aug 27

Replying to @ChrisFraser_HKU @edennnnnn_ and 2 others

Anyone who watched the lone frontliner (w translator) sees the frontliners are headed for disaster. They're fighting just to fight with no plans nor objectives.
They see themselves as heroes protecting the HK they love. No doubt their sincerity, but there are 300 of them left.

[Sep 10, 2019] Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik

Highly recommended!
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
Aug 25, 2019 | portside.org
Originally from: Monthly Review printer friendly
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop.

Harry Magdoff's The Age of Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1

Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end. Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.

Globalization and Economic Crisis

There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end. The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2

The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the surplus. 3 Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization. In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.

While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand.

Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of labor. 4 This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to the metropolis instead).

The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5

At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected, to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole therefore remains restrained.

Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that finance capital opposes.

Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital, especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.

This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis.

The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6

It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold" should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt (since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7

Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules are no longer viable in their pristine form.

Some Implications of This Dead End

There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4 percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting stagnation of investment. 8

If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.

There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.

In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s. 9 While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.

The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market.

Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture, defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway until now.

The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.

In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.

The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81 divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016 -- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding, especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial segment of the world's population.

But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism (since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time. Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.

In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and fascist upstarts." 10

Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.

This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed revolution" points in this direction.

Fascism Then and Now

Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences between the two that must also be noted.

First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s, however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.

Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a transition that much more unlikely.

Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The 1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to say, great cost to humankind.

Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an "ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry, but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.

In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and Kautsky, as well as their debates.

Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge (of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally. But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."

Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism, can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.

Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.

Imperialist Interventions

Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not anti-imperialist).

In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by most political formations.)

Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with these challenges in at least four different ways.

The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support.

Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits, financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital. Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.

The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism.

And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.

Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal segments.

Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it.

Notes
  1. Harry Magdoff, The Age of Imperialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969).
  2. Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
  3. Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966).
  4. One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in The Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
  5. Joseph E. Stiglitz, " Inequality is Holding Back the Recovery ," New York Times , January 19, 2013.
  6. For a discussion of how even the recent euphoria about U.S. growth is vanishing, see C. P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, " Vanishing Green Shoots and the Possibility of Another Crisis ," The Hindu Business Line , April 8, 2019.
  7. For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
  8. Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization: Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
  9. This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression, 1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2013).
  10. Michał Kalecki, " Political Aspects of Full Employment ," Political Quarterly (1943), available at mronline.org.
  11. Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1952).

Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987), The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997), The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).

[Sep 10, 2019] Is John Bolton's Time Up

Notable quotes:
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.

And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John Bolton?"

At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.

Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain of regime change.

But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful" regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.

More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels for his joining the Trump administration.

The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017, days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart honcho was an influential figure.

"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is not in the national-security interests of the United States."

Then Bolton, as I documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to strenuously object.

So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the easiest, most senior role to change horses.

A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to see sensitive plans unsupervised.

Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war. Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton and even Tillerson.

The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman diplomacy.

Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane.

Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.

And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.

Curt Mills is senior writer


Laurelite a day ago
"Pompeo is the consummate politician."

You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been prodigious but transparent.

Taras77 a day ago
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
Bordentown a day ago
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist.

It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.

Alex (the one that likes Ike) Bordentown 19 hours ago • edited
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.

[Sep 10, 2019] Trump Fires John Bolton After Disagreeing Strongly With His Suggestions

Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
"... War-mongering Ziocons - 0; Peace-loving Humanity - 1 ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after " disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "

... ... ...

Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.

While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American Conservative:

Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane.

Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.

And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.

White Nat , 9 minutes ago link

War-mongering Ziocons - 0; Peace-loving Humanity - 1

[Sep 10, 2019] Bolton mioght be consistent and sincere. But he remains a rabid warmonger, who serves Israeli interests.

Notable quotes:
"... Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does? ..."
"... Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration (as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.) ..."
"... Heinrich Himmler also was consistent and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime. ..."
"... You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what purpose does such a relationship serve? ..."
"... It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for what was effectively his firing. ..."
"... Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy ..."
"... Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance. ..."
"... Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is their messenger. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Steve Smith EliteCommInc. 19 hours ago • edited

"I have to think that NSA Bolton actually believes what he advocates."

There are and have been lots of people who believe what they advocate--Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Robespierre, and the Neoconservatives in general among them.

Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does?

Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration (as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.)

Sorry, but Bolton's "service" sure ain't appreciated by me!

Sid Finster EliteCommInc. 19 hours ago
"He's consistent and sincere!" in that cause of evil, yes.

Heinrich Himmler also was consistent and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime.

Steve Smith Sid Finster 19 hours ago
We are obviously thinking along the same lines.
EliteCommInc. Sid Finster 8 hours ago
Hyperbole much I see. If you want to honestly assess someone, you might want to avoid that tact. To my knowledge NSA Bolton is not building concentration camps to send undesirables to an early grave.

I would be curious what you know about what his agenda is or why.

EdMan EliteCommInc. 18 hours ago
You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what purpose does such a relationship serve?

Bolton was the wrong man for the job.

gdpbull 20 hours ago • edited
Nah, they (Bolton and all the neocons) are celebrating the death of another American soldier killed in a suicide attack just prior to a planned peace summit with the Taliban. The Taliban and the neocons are two sides that deserve each other, but at the cost of many innocents.

Its easy to depose any third world government with our military, but one cannot eradicate an ideology with today's humanitarian standards. So we should just leave and tell the Taliban they can even take power in Afghanistan again, but if they harbor any groups that want to attack our country, we'll be back. It only takes a month or so to depose a third world government. Then we leave again. We can do this over and over again and it'll be way cheaper than leaving troops there and many fewer casualties.

The Rocket Man gdpbull 15 hours ago
I don't think Bolton will be in there for the rest of Trump's presidency. Presidential appointments rarely ever last through the whole administration. Now I'm not when he goes cause anyone's guess is as good as mine. And will policy actually change for the better or remain the same?
Sid Finster 19 hours ago
" If only the Tsar knew how wicked his advisers are! "

We've been hearing of Bolton's imminent demise since the time Trump appointed the unindicted criminal, and to a position that isn't subject to Congressional advice and consent.

Bolton is still in office, still making policy, still stovepiping "intelligence" to Trump, still plotting away like Grima Wormtongue.

If Trump wasn't so close to Bolton, why was he in regular contact with the man before appointing him, and why does he allow Bolton to control what information Trump gets?

And if you read the latest news, it seems that the occupation of Afghanistan isn't going anywhere either. Bolton wins again, but some writers at TAC keep holding out hope for Trump.

Steve Smith 19 hours ago
"If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to strenuously object."

Well, isn't that nice? Trump's decision on whether to keep or fire his national security advisor depends on the whim of the hideous, Israel-uber-alles ideologue Adelson. That sure makes me feel good. (And by the way, Curt Mills, this is called burying the lede.)

Of course it's only logical. It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for what was effectively his firing.

This piece misses what's important about the Trump administration's foreign/security policy saga and reduces it to a mere matter of personalities and petty politics. File this under the heading of discretion being the better part of valor.

Countee Cullen 18 hours ago
"Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to strenuously object."

So -- Ilhan Omar was right??? I thought she was a vile anti-Semite echoing an ancient slur!!

Carl Jacobson 8 hours ago
If Bolton does leave, I won't be sorry to see him go. Bolton's Hawkish opinions are dangerous to the US' economic health.

Want to go into a deep Recession? Start another long-term foreign war that goes on for decades - and do it on credit, AGAIN.

Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance.

Into Night 6 hours ago
The photo accompanying the article sums it up. Pompeo flanked by an American flag, and both of them dwarfed by a huge projection of the flag of Israel.

Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is their messenger.

[Sep 10, 2019] If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons, US would have to keep bombing itself to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam

Sep 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Paw , says: September 10, 2019 at 3:26 am GMT

If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons , US would have to keep bombing itself to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam ..And elsewhere.

On its own population as well..

[Sep 10, 2019] Consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does?

Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Steve Smith EliteCommInc. 19 hours ago • edited

"I have to think that NSA Bolton actually believes what he advocates."

There are and have been lots of people who believe what they advocate--Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Robespierre, and the Neoconservatives in general among them.

Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does?

... ... ...

Sid Finster EliteCommInc. 19 hours ago
"He's consistent and sincere!" in that cause of evil, yes.

Heinrich Himmler also was a. consistent. and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime.

[Sep 10, 2019] Yemen Another Shameful US Defeat Looms by Finian Cunningham

Notable quotes:
"... A UN report published last week explicitly held the US, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure. ..."
"... The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed by Washington's mendacity about allegedly combating "Iran subversion" in Yemen. The southern Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official American pretensions of being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue. ..."
"... After four years of relentless air strikes, which has become financially ruinous for the Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels. ..."
"... The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden. There are reports of UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies. ..."
"... When the US starts to talk about "ending the war" with a spin about concern for "mutual peace", then you know the sordid game is finally up. ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

... ... ...

The war was launched by the US-backed Saudi coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015, without any provocation from Yemen. The precipitating factor was that the Houthis, a mainly Shia rebel group aligned with Iran, had kicked out a corrupt Saudi-backed dictator at the end of 2014. When he tucked tail and fled to exile in Saudi capital Riyadh, that's when the Saudis launched their aerial bombing campaign on Yemen.

The slaughter in Yemen over the past four years has been nothing short of a calamity for the population of nearly 28 million people. The UN estimates that nearly 80 per cent of the nation is teetering on hunger and disease.

A UN report published last week explicitly held the US, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure. The UN report also blamed the Houthis for committing atrocities. That may be so, but the preponderance of deaths and destruction in Yemen is due to American, British and French military support to the Saudi-led coalition. Up to 100,ooo civilians may have been killed from the Western-backed blitzkrieg, while the Western media keep quoting a figure of "10,000", which magically never seems to increase over the past four years.

Several factors are pressing the Trump administration to wind down the Yemen war.

The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed by Washington's mendacity about allegedly combating "Iran subversion" in Yemen. The southern Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official American pretensions of being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue.

When the American Congress is united in calling for a ban on US arms to Saudi Arabia because of the atrocities in Yemen, then we should know that the PR war has been lost. President Trump over-ruled Congress earlier this year to continue arming the Saudis in Yemen. But even Trump must at last be realizing his government's culpability for aiding and abetting genocide is no longer excusable, even for the most credulous consumers of American propaganda.

After four years of relentless air strikes, which has become financially ruinous for the Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels.

Not only that but the Houthis have begun to take the war into the heart of Saudi Arabia. Over the past year, the rebels have mounted increasingly sophisticated long-range drone and ballistic missile attacks on Saudi military bases and the capital Riyadh. From where the Houthis are receiving their more lethal weaponry is not clear. Maybe from Lebanon's Hezbollah or from Iran. In any case, such supply if confirmed could be argued as legitimate support for a country facing aggression.

No doubt the Houthis striking deep into Saudi territory has given the pampered monarchs in Riyadh serious pause for thought.

When the UAE – the other main coalition partner – announced a month ago that it was scaling back its involvement in Yemen that must have rattled Washington and Riyadh that the war was indeed futile.

The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden. There are reports of UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies.

Washington has doubtless taken note of the unstoppable disaster in Yemen and how its position is indefensible and infeasible.

Like so many other obscene American wars down through the decades, Washington is facing yet another ignominious defeat in Yemen. When the US starts to talk about "ending the war" with a spin about concern for "mutual peace", then you know the sordid game is finally up.

[Sep 10, 2019] Trump Fires John Bolton After Disagreeing Strongly With His Suggestions

Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
"... War-mongering Ziocons - 0; Peace-loving Humanity - 1 ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after " disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "

... ... ...

Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.

While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American Conservative:

Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane.

Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.

And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.

White Nat , 9 minutes ago link

War-mongering Ziocons - 0; Peace-loving Humanity - 1

[Sep 10, 2019] Afghanistan - Graveyard of Dreams - Originally published 28 Jan 2018

Sep 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

(In light of yesterday's bombing in Kabul ...)

We have been in Afghanistan for how long? 16 years? It is our longest war. How much progress have we actually made?

1. The government that we have tried so long to nurture controls a shrinking percentage of both territory and population.

2. How much money have we poured into the pockets of crooks of all nationalities? In spite of that the country is severely lacking in physical, social, legal, and business infrastructure.

3. The country's armed forces have been expanded under NATO tutelage to such a size that the small GDP will never be able to pay for them on its own. In spite of that they are unable even to defend their own installations.

4. The country is still racked by tribal, ethnic and jihadi wars. It has always been thus with the exception of a golden age when the last Afghan king ruled in the 50s and 60s. How did he do that? He did it by careful inter-ethnic diplomacy and a minimum effort to "unify" his realm.

5. Attacks on NATO personnel by Afghan soldiers and police continue.

6. The capital, Kabul, is not secured and is regularly attacked.

7. The much vaunted COIN doctrine has failed there as it has failed in so many places in the world.

In spite of this the generals and the COIN nuts persist in trying to reverse Obama's policy of withdrawal from the "country" (a geographical expression really). President Trump, who knows nothing of things military or geo-political is about to begin the process of re-introducing US combat and training forces into this blank space on the map, a space filled with hostile tribesmen and religious fanatics. This blank space was given the dubious status of a state in the international system of states because the Russians and the British wanted to establish a buffer entity between the Tsar's empire and the Raj.

President Trump should be told that there is nothing there of real importance to the US, nothing worth more vast quantities of our money and more rivers of our blood. Let the Afghans, Chinese, Pakistanis, Iranians and Russians deal with the chaos. pl

[Sep 10, 2019] The idea tha the USA won the Cold War is questionable

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime. ..."
"... By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order. ..."
"... Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization and relaxation of international tensions. ..."
"... The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.... ..."
"... In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral aspects of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity. ..."
Sep 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , September 07, 2019 at 07:23 AM

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/09/note-to-self-_the-ten-americans-who-did-the-most-to-win-the-cold-war-hoisted-from-the-archiveshttpswwwbradford-de.html

September 5, 2019

Note to Self: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War *

Harry Dexter White... George Kennan... George Marshall... Arthur Vandenberg... Paul Hoffman... Dean Acheson... Harry S Truman... Dwight D. Eisenhower... Gerald Ford... George Shultz

* https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/02/note-the-ten-americans-who-did-the-most-to-win-the-cold-war-archive-entry-from-brad-delongs-webjournal.html

-- Brad DeLong

anne -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 07:24 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/28/opinion/the-gop-won-the-cold-war-ridiculous.html

October 28, 1992

The G.O.P. Won the Cold War? Ridiculous.
By George F. Kennan

The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically silly.

The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish. No great country has that sort of influence on the internal developments of any other one.

As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime.

These thoughts found a place in my so-called X article in Foreign Affairs in 1947, from which the policy of containment is widely seen to have originated. This perception was even more clearly expressed in a letter from Moscow written in 1952, when I was Ambassador there, to H. Freeman Matthews, a senior State Department official, excerpts from which also have been widely published. There were some of us to whom it was clear, even at that early date, that the regime as we had known it would not last for all time. We could not know when or how it would be changed; we knew only that change was inevitable and impending.

By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order.

Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization and relaxation of international tensions.

The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put an end to this hope. The episode humiliated Khrushchev and discredited his relatively moderate policies. It forced him to fall back, for the defense of his own political position, on a more strongly belligerent anti-American tone of public utterance.

The U-2 episode was the clearest example of that primacy of military over political policy that soon was to become an outstanding feature of American cold war policy. The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet Union.

The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's....

ilsm -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:28 AM
Very interesting observation.

In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral aspects of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity.

Early in my time in the service, when I had time to think being at a remote station I decided the west had the marked economic advantage, particularly as the green revolution permitted some higher level of nutrition security.

Later on I recall discussions where the collapse of the Soviet Union was assured but would take in to the 21st century to occur. The big question then was "would a nuclear exchange occur in the way of a peaceful collapse".....

The presence of the A Bomb in some ways prevented war in other encouraged intrigue and small scrapes in to each other's spheres.

There was a bit of the Divine in the world getting through the Cold War.

The Berlin wall came down as hoped but 25 years earlier than I expected.

Plp -> ilsm... , September 07, 2019 at 08:58 AM
Stalin built the party military complex that ran Russia from 1932 to 1989

Cold war liberals built uncle's post was military industrial complex as a counterpart to Stalin's

alas thanx to guys from wasp firms on Wall Street like Dean Acheson that knew the planet was ours to pluck post 1946

anne -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:14 AM
These are important comments, and deserve to be saved and gradually expanded on. I appreciate this.
ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:35 AM
As an aside the Ukraine farmers whom Stalin "collectivized" were seen as impediment to industrializing.......

interesting too, how LBJ kept guns and butter and went pedal to the metal in Vietnam......

politics has always (since June 1950, anyway) "ended when the pentagon appropriations bills were up for enacting".

Which may be synonymous with the proscription about politics kept out of diplomacy?

anne -> ilsm... , September 07, 2019 at 09:15 AM
Do save and develop this interesting thinking further over time.
Plp -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:46 AM
KENNAN Was a lucky guy. He hit the right notes at the right time and then as he got second thoughts and better vision. Like yugoslaving peoples China in 1949
He was side tracked and then sent out to ivy pastures
Plp -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 08:53 AM
U 2

Nonsense. The moment to engage was 1953 -54 and yes a goo regime blocked it

But it was Truman that crossed the parallel in 1950 and tried to liberate north Korea

It was Kennedy that preferred brinksmanship to real engagement. Brush wars and regime change to accommodation. Missile racing to sensible unilateralism

Yes LBJ was an ignorant oaf on foreign policy. But it was Nixon that finally used PRC as Yugo twenty years too late of course

The cold war was invented by democrats and exploited by republicans for domestic shindiggery. Tragicomedy cinescope scaled

EMichael -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:18 AM
Yes, very clever how democrats coerced Stalin into annexing eastern Europe and placing millions of people under total control in every way of life.

Your ideology trumps facts when needed.

ilsm -> EMichael... , September 07, 2019 at 09:39 AM
democrats + Truman and Churchill......

Had FDR survived the 3 western sectors of Germany would have been demilitarized, and agrarian.

Churchill conned Truman to use Potsdam as a replay of Munich!

Keenan's angst was the "militarized" usurped "containment".

Stalin may not have been replaying 1938........

Plp -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:37 AM
Pompous banality worthy of a tenured entitled utterly secure mind

I don't like or respect Brad but I do enjoy him ss a punching bag

Plp -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 08:39 AM
Nixon and Kissinger won the cold war For God sake. Everyone knows that

George Schultz and KENNAN?

Where's Joe McCarthy? And Paul Nitze

ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 08:51 AM
Where is Luce?

Truman and Acheson.... were there when Keenan went off to teach instead of be ignored.

Marshall aside from his plan, he and his Army staffers just off beating Hitler knew Chiang was not worth propping.

The Luce empire went all cold warrior over "who lost China" which gave Joe McCarthy a drum.

ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:27 AM
:<)

You could have no Cold War without the agitprop. As with the GWOT today.

The one no loser in the demise of the commies: the MIC!

ilsm -> Plp... , September 07, 2019 at 09:41 AM
As Vinegar Joe Stillwell observed.......

eventually Stillwell went.

anne -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 09:31 AM
Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now, American historians were mistaken at the end of the 1980s. There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about. If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold War.

[Sep 10, 2019] The msm , Hollywood, etc. all sing from the same song-sheet. "USA is great", ignore all the wars they have lost, ignore the astronomical military financial expenditure (declared and hidden)

Sep 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sally Snyder | Sep 5 2019 19:04 utc | 18

The American military is advanced over both Russia and China in one sense - they have access to endless taxpayers' dollars to fund their programs, many of which are complete failures.

Ike , Sep 5 2019 19:45 utc | 23
Putin can offer Trump hyper-sonic missiles knowing he cannot accept. To accept these would display the USA's technical military inferiority for all to see. The msm , Hollywood, etc. all sing from the same song-sheet. "USA is great", ignore all the wars they have lost, ignore the astronomical military financial expenditure (declared and hidden).

Just like Reagan's star-wars program public perception is everything

[Sep 10, 2019] It s all about Gene Sharp and seeping neoliberal regime change using Western logistical support, money, NGO and intelligence agencies and MSM as the leverage

Highly recommended!
What democracy they are talking about? Democracy for whom? This Harvard political prostitutes are talking about democracy for oligarchs which was the nest result of EuroMaydan and the ability of Western companies to buy assets for pennies on the dollar without the control of national government like happen in xUSSR space after dissolution of the USSR, which in retrospect can be classified as a color revolution too, supported by financial injection, logistical support and propaganda campaign in major Western MSM.
What Harvard honchos probably does not understand or does not wish to understand is that neoliberalism as a social system lost its attraction and is in irreversible decline. The ideology of neoliberalism collapsed much like Bolsheviks' ideology. As Politician like Joe Boden which still preach neoliberalism are widely viewed as corrupt or senile (or both) hypocrites.
The "Collective West" still demonstrates formidable intelligence agencies skills (especially the USA and GB), but the key question is: "What they are fighting for?"
They are fighting for neoliberalism which is a lost case. Which looks like KGB successes after WWIII. They won many battles and lost the Cold war.
Not that Bolsheviks in the USSR was healthy or vibrant. Economics was a deep stagnation, alcoholism among working class was rampant, the standard of living of the majority of population slides each year, much like is the case with neoliberalism after, say, 1991. Hidden unemployment in the USSR was high -- at least in high teens if not higher. Like in the USA now good jobs were almost impossible to obtain without "extra help". Medical services while free were dismal, especially dental -- which were horrible. Hospitals were poor as church rats as most money went to MIC. Actually, like in the USA now, MIC helped to strangulate the economy and contributed to the collapse. It was co a corrupt and decaying , led by completely degenerated leadership. To put the person of the level of Gorbachov level of political talent lead such a huge and complex country was an obvious suicide.
But the facts speak for themselves: what people usually get as the result of any color revolution is the typical for any county which lost the war: dramatic drop of the standard of living due to economic rape of the country.
While far form being perfect the Chinese regime at least managed to lift the standard of living of the majority of the population and provide employment. After regime change China will experience the same economic rape as the USSR under Yeltsin regime. So in no way Hong Cong revolution can be viewed a progressive phenomenon despite all the warts of neoliberalism with Chenese characteristics in mainland China (actually this is a variant of NEP that Gorbachov tried to implement in the USSR, but was to politically incompetent to succeed)
Aug 31, 2019 | Chris Fraser @ChrisFraser_HKU • Aug 27 \z

Replying to @edennnnnn_ @AMFChina @lihkg_forum

A related resource that deserves wide circulation:

Why nonviolent resistance beats violent force in effecting social, political change – Harvard Gazette

CHENOWETH: I think it really boils down to four different things. The first is a large and diverse participation that's sustained.

The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide how violent the confrontation with -- and reaction to -- the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other security elites, economic and business elites, state media. There are lots of different pillars that support the status quo, and if they can be disrupted or coerced into noncooperation, then that's a decisive factor.

The third thing is that the campaigns need to be able to have more than just protests; there needs to be a lot of variation in the methods they use.

The fourth thing is that when campaigns are repressed -- which is basically inevitable for those calling for major changes -- they don't either descend into chaos or opt for using violence themselves. If campaigns allow their repression to throw the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they're essentially co-signing what the regime wants -- for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they're probably going to get totally crushed.

Wai Sing-Rin @waisingrin • Aug 27

Replying to @ChrisFraser_HKU @edennnnnn_ and 2 others

Anyone who watched the lone frontliner (w translator) sees the frontliners are headed for disaster. They're fighting just to fight with no plans nor objectives.
They see themselves as heroes protecting the HK they love. No doubt their sincerity, but there are 300 of them left.

[Sep 10, 2019] With Iran the USA repeating mistakes it made with North Koria

Sep 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Harry Law , Sep 9 2019 23:21 utc | 15

G W Bush was responsible for North Korea developing nuclear weapons, the North Koreans did a deal whereby the US would supply several light water reactors and 500,000 tons of oil per year in exchange for NK not pursuing its nuclear program, the US accused the Koreans of cheating [with no proof] and cancelled the agreement, thinking that sanctions and military pressure would force Korea to capitulate. North Korea then decided to go nuclear. That same US mistake is happening again with Iran, US hubris is on full display,but this time Iran has the 'arc of resistance. on its side plus Russia and China. Trump will not go back to the JCPOA it is not in his nature, the only thing we can hope for is a Trump defeat at the next election, and hope an adult wins.

SteveK9 , Sep 9 2019 23:47 utc | 16

Harry Law #15. Harry, have you seen the people running for the Democratic nomination? Hope is not a word I would use. Gabbard at least wants peace, but she will not be allowed to win the nomination (she is too young in any case). And if by some miracle she were to be nominated and win, she would not be allowed to carry out her own goals for peace. She would be defeated or failing that, killed. As would anyone who really went up against the most powerful political party in America, the War Party.

[Sep 10, 2019] Is John Bolton's Time Up

Notable quotes:
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.

And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John Bolton?"

At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.

Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain of regime change.

But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful" regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.

More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels for his joining the Trump administration.

The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017, days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart honcho was an influential figure.

"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is not in the national-security interests of the United States."

Then Bolton, as I documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to strenuously object.

So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the easiest, most senior role to change horses.

A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to see sensitive plans unsupervised.

Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war. Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton and even Tillerson.

The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman diplomacy.

Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane.

Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.

And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.

Curt Mills is senior writer


Laurelite a day ago
"Pompeo is the consummate politician."

You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been prodigious but transparent.

Taras77 a day ago
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
Bordentown a day ago
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist.

It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.

Alex (the one that likes Ike) Bordentown 19 hours ago • edited
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.

[Sep 10, 2019] Bolton mioght be consistent and sincere. But he remains a rabid warmonger, who serves Israeli interests.

Notable quotes:
"... Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does? ..."
"... Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration (as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.) ..."
"... Heinrich Himmler also was consistent and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime. ..."
"... You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what purpose does such a relationship serve? ..."
"... It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for what was effectively his firing. ..."
"... Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy ..."
"... Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance. ..."
"... Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is their messenger. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Steve Smith EliteCommInc. 19 hours ago • edited

"I have to think that NSA Bolton actually believes what he advocates."

There are and have been lots of people who believe what they advocate--Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Robespierre, and the Neoconservatives in general among them.

Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does?

Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration (as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.)

Sorry, but Bolton's "service" sure ain't appreciated by me!

Sid Finster EliteCommInc. 19 hours ago
"He's consistent and sincere!" in that cause of evil, yes.

Heinrich Himmler also was consistent and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime.

Steve Smith Sid Finster 19 hours ago
We are obviously thinking along the same lines.
EliteCommInc. Sid Finster 8 hours ago
Hyperbole much I see. If you want to honestly assess someone, you might want to avoid that tact. To my knowledge NSA Bolton is not building concentration camps to send undesirables to an early grave.

I would be curious what you know about what his agenda is or why.

EdMan EliteCommInc. 18 hours ago
You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what purpose does such a relationship serve?

Bolton was the wrong man for the job.

gdpbull 20 hours ago • edited
Nah, they (Bolton and all the neocons) are celebrating the death of another American soldier killed in a suicide attack just prior to a planned peace summit with the Taliban. The Taliban and the neocons are two sides that deserve each other, but at the cost of many innocents.

Its easy to depose any third world government with our military, but one cannot eradicate an ideology with today's humanitarian standards. So we should just leave and tell the Taliban they can even take power in Afghanistan again, but if they harbor any groups that want to attack our country, we'll be back. It only takes a month or so to depose a third world government. Then we leave again. We can do this over and over again and it'll be way cheaper than leaving troops there and many fewer casualties.

The Rocket Man gdpbull 15 hours ago
I don't think Bolton will be in there for the rest of Trump's presidency. Presidential appointments rarely ever last through the whole administration. Now I'm not when he goes cause anyone's guess is as good as mine. And will policy actually change for the better or remain the same?
Sid Finster 19 hours ago
" If only the Tsar knew how wicked his advisers are! "

We've been hearing of Bolton's imminent demise since the time Trump appointed the unindicted criminal, and to a position that isn't subject to Congressional advice and consent.

Bolton is still in office, still making policy, still stovepiping "intelligence" to Trump, still plotting away like Grima Wormtongue.

If Trump wasn't so close to Bolton, why was he in regular contact with the man before appointing him, and why does he allow Bolton to control what information Trump gets?

And if you read the latest news, it seems that the occupation of Afghanistan isn't going anywhere either. Bolton wins again, but some writers at TAC keep holding out hope for Trump.

Steve Smith 19 hours ago
"If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to strenuously object."

Well, isn't that nice? Trump's decision on whether to keep or fire his national security advisor depends on the whim of the hideous, Israel-uber-alles ideologue Adelson. That sure makes me feel good. (And by the way, Curt Mills, this is called burying the lede.)

Of course it's only logical. It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for what was effectively his firing.

This piece misses what's important about the Trump administration's foreign/security policy saga and reduces it to a mere matter of personalities and petty politics. File this under the heading of discretion being the better part of valor.

Countee Cullen 18 hours ago
"Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to strenuously object."

So -- Ilhan Omar was right??? I thought she was a vile anti-Semite echoing an ancient slur!!

Carl Jacobson 8 hours ago
If Bolton does leave, I won't be sorry to see him go. Bolton's Hawkish opinions are dangerous to the US' economic health.

Want to go into a deep Recession? Start another long-term foreign war that goes on for decades - and do it on credit, AGAIN.

Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance.

Into Night 6 hours ago
The photo accompanying the article sums it up. Pompeo flanked by an American flag, and both of them dwarfed by a huge projection of the flag of Israel.

Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is their messenger.

[Sep 10, 2019] Isreal role in Syria

Sep 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dr. E. Black says: September 10, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT

We are Democratic

Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. This Commenter

[Sep 10, 2019] If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons, US would have to keep bombing itself to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam

Sep 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Paw , says: September 10, 2019 at 3:26 am GMT

If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons , US would have to keep bombing itself to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam ..And elsewhere.

On its own population as well..

[Sep 10, 2019] Behaving like a normal country

Sep 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Martin , Sep 10 2019 4:56 utc | 24

As newly appointed US Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, was reported to have claimed about wanting for Russia to ''behave like a normal country'', Sergey Lavrov urged for him to clarify what he means by ''normality'' during a press conference in the Russian capital; if Russia was to behave like the US, it would have had to bomb Iraq, Libya, supporting an armed, anti-constitutional coup in Kiev, and allocating millions in the interference in the affairs of other countries, as in the ''promotion of democracy'' in Russia.

Sergey Shoygu did not have much to add, but what he did add could not be clearer: Russia will probably have to remain being ''not normal''.

[Sep 10, 2019] A recurring theme in international relations and diplomacy is that dealing with the Americans is like dealing with children. Of course when the American is trying to kill you, as they a often want to do, the actions of the petulant child take on new meaning.

Notable quotes:
"... For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in the world at large. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase as applied to Russia. Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be ..."
"... I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similar phrase as applied to Russia. ..."
"... Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties, or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ted01 , Sep 10 2019 7:17 utc | 26

"...and hope an adult wins."

This can never happen. All Americans are inherently childish. They are all a product of the same environment, the same educational system and the same all pervasive 'cultural' influences. This transcends ethnic boundaries for those born in the US or those who arrived at an early age.

For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in the world at large.

A recurring theme in international relations and diplomacy is that dealing with 'the Americans' is like dealing with children. Of course when the American is trying to kill you, as they a often want to do, the actions of the petulant child take on new meaning.

Taras77 11 hours ago
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase as applied to Russia.
Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law "
Chris in Appalachia 10 hours ago
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be."

I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.

Taras77 11 hours ago
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similar phrase as applied to Russia.

Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law "

Chris in Appalachia 10 hours ago
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be."

I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.

Humboldt Octopus 7 hours ago
Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties, or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption.

This is also a thing about leftists with Trump Derangement Syndrome, who are oh-so-upset about Trump, either ignorant or lying that he's at all an aberration. The US has consistently flouted international law, waged illegal wars and staged violent coups and assassinations, and killed tens of thousands of innocents, under nearly all Presidents, including Obama.

[Sep 10, 2019] Trump has, unfortunately, shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage

Notable quotes:
"... I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Kent19 hours ago

I think it is highly unlikely Trump can pull off detente with the Chinese or anyone else before the next election. He has, unfortunately, shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage. Under what circumstance are the Chinese going to sign some agreement with him, when he might just throw out new tariffs a week later?

What are the Taliban going to agree to when the US wants to leave thousands of troops in Afghanistan?

I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this.

[Sep 09, 2019] Will NPR Now Officially Change Its Name to National Propaganda Radio? by Edward Curtin

The main achievement of neoliberal and imperial (warmongering) propaganda in the USA is that it achieved the complete, undisputed dominance in MSM
Pot Calling the Kettle Black: "The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield may be the fight of the 21st century."
Notable quotes:
"... Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left." ..."
"... The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites. ..."
"... Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media (The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world. ..."
Sep 08, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left."

Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.

The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites.

Frances Stonor Saunders comprehensively covers this in her 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA And The World Of Arts And Letters, and Joel Whitney followed this up in 2016 with Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers, with particular emphasis on the complicity between the CIA and the famous literary journal, The Paris Review.

By the mid-1970s, as a result of the Church Committee hearings, it seemed as if the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. had been caught in flagrante delicto and disgraced, confessed their sins, and resolved to go and sin no more.

Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media (The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world.

It seemed as if all would be hunky-dory now with the bad boys purged from the American “free” press. Seemed to the most naïve, that is, by which I mean the vast numbers of people who wanted to re-stick their heads in the sand and believe, as Ronald Reagan’s team of truthtellers would announce, that it was “Morning in America” again with the free press reigning and the neo-conservatives, many of whom had been “converted” from their leftist views, running things in Washington.

... ... ...

...read Lansing’s July 10, 2019 testimony before the House Appropriations Sub-Committee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs: “United States Efforts to Counter Russian Disinformation and Malign Influence.”

Here is an excerpt:

USAGM provides consistently accurate and compelling journalism that reflects the values of our society: freedom, openness, democracy, and hope. Our guiding principles—enshrined in law—are to provide a reliable, authoritative, and independent source of news that adheres to the strictest standards of journalism…

Russian Disinformation. And make no mistake, we are living through a global explosion of disinformation, state propaganda, and lies generated by multiple authoritarian regimes around the world. The weaponization of information we are seeing today is real. The Russian government and other authoritarian regimes engage in far-reaching malign influence campaigns across national boundaries and language barriers.

The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield may be the fight of the 21st century.

Then research the history of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, etc. You will be reassured that Lansing’s July testimony was his job interview to head National Propaganda Radio.

Edward Curtin writes, and his writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an impossibility and therefore sees all his work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. His website is edwardcurtin.com

[Sep 09, 2019] no title

Notable quotes:
"... And behind it all, the demonization (demonetization) of Russia (and Putin) still continues. ..."
"... is admittedly so cool (given the advanced technology) to be dropping bombs on women and children for the uncountable time, clearly we now know we are going broke killing the innocent. We are bludgeoning them to the point that we have broken our rifles on their corpses. Time to let off. ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

jared , Sep 9 2019 17:36 utc | 119

Excellent posting on RT: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/468193-russiagate-collusion-trump-election/

Which is re-publication of article by Stephen Cohen on The Nation -
https://www.thenation.com/article/what-we-still-do-not-know-about-russiagate/

Very well written and keeping focus on what's important. Very useful, revealing event with many issues remaining to be fully considered regarding behaviors of
- the elected officials,
- the "intelligence" "community",
- the media,
- the public.

And behind it all, the demonization (demonetization) of Russia (and Putin) still continues.

There likely are cases where Russia is acting nefariously or in bad faith, but who could tell given all the b/s they are feeding us.

So it's clear (to anyone interested) that they are misleading us, and (I think) clear why they are misleading us, but that does stop the the constant stream of crap in the media - "news" and "entertainment".

Is their target audience the most obtuse among us?

While is admittedly so cool (given the advanced technology) to be dropping bombs on women and children for the uncountable time, clearly we now know we are going broke killing the innocent. We are bludgeoning them to the point that we have broken our rifles on their corpses. Time to let off.

Leaving aside the need to feed the war machine (particularly in light of slowing economy), many on both sides seemed to fear that the public had succeeded in electing a populist and that could not be allowed. So they attacked him knowing the technocratic state would support them. But Trump out-smarted them and went all in deep state, elitest and sooth the worried vested interests and their owners. So that's all past us now. Still, kind of hard to over-look. Does Shiff take himself seriously?

[Sep 09, 2019] Russians still wonder if perestroika was a curse or a blessing by ALEXANDROVA Lyudmila

Sep 09, 2019 | tass.com

Many voice conflicting judgments, but an impartial look back on history produces the unequivocal conclusion: yes, mistakes and shortcomings were many, but without perestroika the world would have never been what it is today MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Thirty years after the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on a policy of reforms that would go down in history under a name sounding very oddly to a foreign ear - perestroika - Russians are discussing those events of their country's recent history again. Many voice conflicting judgements, but an impartial look back on history produces the unequivocal conclusion: yes, mistakes and shortcomings were many, but without perestroika the world would have never been what it is today. On April 23, 1985 the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party gathered for its historic full-scale meeting to set course towards what was described as fundamental reorganization and acceleration of the Soviet Union's economic development after a long period of what was condemned as stagnation. The new course, originally expected to overhaul and invigorate the Soviet system, ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"The gist of what happened then was simple: at the very top a decision was a made the people are free to express their thought in public and for that they will neither risk losing their life or go to jail or even go jobless," says the founder of the Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky. "There emerged the freedom of speech. The feeling of fear vanished. Full stop. All other processes that followed were nothing but consequences. The previous political system was built on falsehoods. The advent of truth caused a lethal effect on that system, and it fell apart."

"Perestroika's worst problem was there was no strategic planning. The reform plan and its end goal were very unclear all along," Sergey Filatov, the former chief of staff of Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin told TASS. "Without a plan the policy was doomed to fail."

And still, Filatov said, perestroika caused a tremendous impact: it triggered reforms and showed the people that changes were possible even under the old system.

"Perestroika was an intricate process," says Aleksei Makarkin, the first deputy president of the Political Technologies Centre. "It was first a belated attempt to reform the economy, then the ensuing chaos, and ultimately an attempt to defuse popular anger with political reform. The process eventually broke bounds. It all ended with the collapse of the country. Gorbachev merely tried to make that process controllable more or less," Makarkin told TASS.

Gorbachev was forced to launch economic reforms, because the main engine that kept the Soviet economy going was the export of oil. When oil prices slumped, something had to be done right away," Makarkin recalled. "His predecessors had drawn up no strategic plans. Nobody dared touch the system. Later, when some steps began to be taken at last, it turned out that no one had the slightest idea of how to go about that business. Conflicting decisions followed in quick succession. First, an attempt was made to speed up economic development and diversify the economy at a time when oil prices plummeted. In 1987 the attempt failed. Other remedies began to be tried. Some traces of a free market economy began to develop, such as cooperatives in the services and public catering. Some components of a controlled market economy cropped up."

The rapprochement with the West under Gorbachev was started with a far-reaching aim, Makarkin believes. In that situation the Soviet economy was no longer capable of carrying the burden of the Cold War and the arms race. "Without that no rapprochement might have ever happened. Also, there was the war in Afghanistan that had to be curtailed."

"In general, the Gorbachev era in home and foreign policies was that of haste, inconsistency, belated decisions and forced moves. In the meantime, the people's living standards slumped and protest sentiment soared. Attempts to woo the general public reached nowhere. In 1987-1988 social discontent soared and Boris Yeltsin emerged as its embodiment."

"Hoping to ease tensions in society political reforms were declared only to cause centrifugal processes," Makarkin recalls. "As a result, the Soviet republics began to drift ever farther apart - some before the August 1991 coup, and others after. A counter-attempt to create something like a federation or confederation drew strong objections from the hard-line conservatives, which led to the country's utter collapse.

But perestroika should not be painted only in dark colours, Makarkin said.

"One should remember that Gorbachev gave the people freedom - first, economic, and then political. For instance, the freedom to travel out of the country and back: something everybody takes for granted. It was under Gorbachev that the Church regained full legitimacy. Lastly, the freedom of speech, which has long become a fact of life."

"Also, Gorbachev largely takes the credit for avoiding a large-scale civil war and chaos and total chaos in a vast country, however tragic the unrest in Tbilisi, Vilnius and Nagorno-Karabakh of those days may still look these days. He decided against the extreme scenario implying the use of force, which many interpreted as a sign of weakness. It should be remembered: those who dared use force merely accelerated the country's collapse."

The policy of perestroika proclaimed in the Soviet Union in 1985 has caused more harm than good, say 55% of Russians, as follows from a Levada poll held in March. In contrast to this, ten years ago 70% said perestroika was a bad choice.

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[Sep 09, 2019] Trump wants the Jewish political donations. Iran is opposed to Israel. It's all about the money.

Sep 09, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The Rev Kev , September 8, 2019 at 6:08 am

Probably an important factor here in the gamesmanship between Trump and Iran is Trump's re-election campaign next year. Consider – Trump probably realizes that if he is no longer President by 2021, then the democrats and a host of others will have the knives out for him and seek to drag him through a series of courts to convict him of something, anything. It sounds so Roman that. Proof of this was the Meuller investigation which went nowhere but which was used to beat him over the head with for nearly three years. Another four more years of Presidency will keep him safe from these attacks.
If a war breaks out then at a minimum Saudi Arabia's oil fields and water filtration installations along with their capital is toast! The oil route through the Straits of Hormuz are blocked and the war may spread to other countries as well, including Israel. I would guess that this would result in more economic turmoil than the 2008 crash at a minimum . And there would go Donald's chances of re-election. I know that some people may be surprised that Trump may put his personal interests ahead of that of the country but there it is. So, irony of irony, Trump may be the one factor stopping the trouble here from breaking out into a full blown war.

Synoia , September 8, 2019 at 1:41 pm

Trump wants the Jewish political donations. Iran is opposed to Israel.

It's all about the money.

[Sep 09, 2019] Are Iran sanctions effective?

Sep 09, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

... ... ...

PATRICK COCKBURN: I'm a bit doubtful about it. They have done a certain amount, this offer of a $15 billion credit line, to make up for the loss of Iranian oil revenue It was a French idea originally, but they are asking Iran to step right back into the old nuclear deal, but the Iranians are not likely to do that while they're subject to US sanctions. US sanctions and the sanctioning of European companies or banks that deal with Iran, basically means that Iran is facing an economic siege.

So these are maneuvers. The Iranians want to show they're being kind of moderate. They want to preserve this deal as they do. At the same time, they don't want to look as though they're pushovers, that sanctions are squeezing them to death, and they've got no alternative but to give up. This would be to surrender to what Trump calls the policy of maximum pressure. I think we're a long way from any real agreement on this. It's still escalating. GREG WILPERT: Iran also just recently announced that it is releasing seven of the 23 crew members it is holding of a Swedish-owned, but British-registered tanker that Iran had seized last July. Iran's Revolutionary Guard seized that tanker in retaliation for the British seizing an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar in early July, but the Iranian tanker has now been released. Now, how do you see the situation of these tankers evolving? Could such seizures of oil tankers eventually lead to an escalation and to even war?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Yes, they could. This is sort of a game of chicken. As you said, it started off on the 4th of July when the British rather melodramatically dropped 30 Royal Marine commandos on the deck of this vessel saying, "It was heading for Syria. This had nothing to do with sanctions on Iran, but was a breach of sanctions on Syria imposed by the EU." This never sounded right because it's a peculiar moment for Britain to suddenly put such energy into enforcing EU sanctions, when we all know that Britain is trying to leave the EU at the moment. There's a great political crisis here in Britain about this. This looked as though it was on the initiative of Washington. Then, as was inevitable, the Iranians retaliated against British-flagged vessels in the Gulf. There was an escalation that seems to have died down at the moment.

As I see it, the Iranian policy is to maintain pressure by sort of pinprick attacks. There were some small mines placed on oil tankers of the United Arab Emirates. Then when we had the shooting down of the American drone, a whole series of events to show that they're not frightened, that they can retaliate, but not bring it up to the level of war. That's sort of the way the Iranians often react to this sort of thing, with some covert military measures and to create an atmosphere of crisis, but not bring a war about.

Of course, once you start doing this, it could slip over the edge of the cliff at any moment. The Iranians did a sort of mirror image of the British takeover of their tanker when they took over the British tanker crew, which are just being released, as you mentioned. They dropped 30 commandos on the deck. There was a British Naval vessel not so far away, not far enough to stop this, but let's say that Naval vessel had been closer. Would they have opened fire on a helicopter dropping these 30 Iranian commandos on the boat? That would have brought us – would have been a war, and could have very rapidly escalated. We're always on, as I said, the edge of the cliff in the Gulf with each side sort of daring the other to go further.

PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, it's falling apart by inches, but there's still quite a long way to go on that. I think the one thing that has emerged is that the US, Trump and Iran, don't want war. At one time, the US was calling on – some of its senior officials were calling for a regime change. How far do they really believe this? When Trump decided not to retaliate for the drone being shot down, that shows that he wants to rely on sanctions on this sort of very intense economic siege of Iran, but I don't think the Iranians are going to come running. Once they know there isn't going to be an all-out war, they'll try to sustain these sanctions, and the situation isn't quite as desperate as it looks. Obviously, they're suffering a lot. On the other hand, they're not isolated. China and Russia give them a measure of support.

The EU, rather pathetically, says it's trying to maintain the nuclear deal of 2015, but it's rather underlining the political and military weakness of the EU that they haven't been able to do much about it. Big companies are too frightened of US sanctions against them if they have any relations with Iran. So the Europeans aren't coming well out of it. Obviously, their relations with Trump are pretty frosty. They also probably don't think it's worth a really big crisis between the EU, the European states, and America on this issue, but they are looking pretty feeble at the moment.


Tom Pfotzer , September 8, 2019 at 8:28 am

There's one thing that continues to puzzle me about the sanctions.

My understanding of these sanctions is that they are designed to prevent the Iranians from importing certain goods from Western countries, and prevent export of and payments for Iranian goods to Western countries.

Why are these sanctions effective?

Iran has demonstrated that they can manufacture. They have open trading relations with Russian and China, which gives them access to materials and manufactures they might not be able to source within Iran.

They can trade oil for goods, and that oil can readily be absorbed by China or re-packaged and sold by Russia if it chose to. Both Russia and China are highly motivated to bypass the SWIFT payments system.

Both Russia and China have a roughly analagous situation re: trade with the West, and they have been coping with it for over a decade in the case of Russia, somewhat less for China.

Why isn't Iran re-directing external purchasing toward domestic sources, and using that pressure as a means to build their internal economic capacity?

What am I missing?

ambrit , September 8, 2019 at 10:29 am

My two cents worth.
Alas, this is now a sort of, kind of, globalized economic system. Even prior to the 'Neo-Liberal Dispensation,' the world had international trade in raw materials and some manufactured goods. As a side effect of this, internal national development of all sorts of materials and merchandise languished. Why build an expensive factory or mine to get something when you could buy it cheaper overseas? Where your idea has merit is in 'national security' goods production. The things that make a country 'safe' should be sourced, if at all possible, at home, where supply can be protected and controlled.

The second point I'd like to stress is how that oil is paid for and delivered. If I read aright, most Persian oil is shipped to the end user. Thus, control of the seaways and vessles plying same is crucial. That's why these somewhat symbolic oil tanker 'grabs' are important. This demonstrates to the world at large one's ability to control the trans-shipment of oil, from anywhere, to anywhere. The seizure of the oil transit ships was a message to the entire oil using world: "We can shut down your economy whenever we want." As Lambert sometimes quotes from Frank Herbert: "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it."

The replacement of the SWIFT system would free the world from American economic thuggery. When oil is finally priced, in significant amounts anyway, in something other than American dollars, then will the world economy begin to regain equitability.

Tom Pfotzer , September 8, 2019 at 1:10 pm

Of course if the option of trade is available, it's in everyone's interest to trade, under the "caparative advantage" principle which underlies the dogma of free trade.

However, there isn't free trade for Iran, China, Russia, N. Korea, etc. So, they have to improvise. Some countries, like China, are re-directing trade inwards. If Google won't license the Android OS to Huawei, for example, Huawei makes their own smart phone OS.

So the question becomes "why hasn't Iran instituted a crash program to build Iran-based companies to enable Iran to substitute Iran-manufactured/sourced products for ones formerly obtained abroad?

Russia and China have both done this very successfully, and there are many economic as well as "security" reasons to do it.

With respect to the "selling oil to end-users .vs. to brokers" the end-user would probably prefer to buy direct from the source, to cut out the middle-man's fee. I don't see how that presents an obstacle to buying Iran's oil.

Lastly, if it's a question of whether or not the oil can be delivered, the rest of the world won't side with the U.S. if we seize cargoes on the high seas. That's what the fiasco with the Grace 1 demonstrated. Furthermore, the sales contract could simply specify that the goods are to be picked up dockside @ Iran, transferring the transport risk to the buyer (e.g. China, for ex). Nobody is going to hijack a Chinese oil freighter.

Please rebut / add your 2c.

Lastly

ambrit , September 8, 2019 at 1:48 pm

Another farthings worth of comment.
For the last point, I see two possibilities. First, the Neocons in Washington may not care what the rest of the world thinks, under the (fallacious) assumption that America IS the world. Second, the 'disruptions' of oil sea transport can be carried out by "arms length" third parties, viz. the recent spate of tanker 'minings' in the Persian Gulf being 'sourced' to dissident elements within the Arab world. So, some "Somali Pirates" would be the obvious choice for 'hijackings' of Chinese flagged tankers, or "Yemeni Pirates," or "Baluch Pirates," etc. etc.
In reference to other points you raise, there is a lag time in the implementation of industrial policy. During WW2, America already had heavy industry available for war production. The lag time was determined by the length of time needed for retooling of those extant factories. When there is no extant heavy industry plant available, the lag time becomes much longer. Having worked in commercial construction during my life, I attest that planning, preparing for, and building industrial capacity, takes years. Iran could well be in the middle of an industrial building phase right now. Add to the usual worries attendant to industrial construction the worry of some outside hostile actor coming over and bombing your shiny new factory back to rubble and you have added a new layer of complexity to the endeavour. Air defense for industrial base has not usually been part of an average country's economic planning regime.
One reason I can think of as to why Russia and China have embarked on an "internalization" program way in advance of, say, Iran's is that the two former State Socialist countries have weathered nearly a centuries worth of hostility, both rhetorical and military, emanating from the West. Their latest 'internalization' programs could be the result of several generations worth of institutional memory residing within the nomenklaturas of the two states.
Iran, on the other hand, has had an up and down relationship with the West.
At one time, a client state of the West, at another, in a fiercely nationalistic confrontation with the West, in both regimes, a trading partner with the West as far as oil goes.
The promise of present day Iran for the world in general is that it is finally trying to forge an independent self-identity. Someone in power in the West must realize that, if Iran slips the leash of the West, then other countries will follow. Nothing less than Western Hegemony is at stake.

drumlin woodchuckles , September 8, 2019 at 5:51 pm

Or if oil is progressively transcended and deleted from more and more of the world's energy portfolio.
That would give those who "don't need oil anymore" some new post-petro freedom of action.

ambrit , September 8, 2019 at 5:57 pm

One area where oil will be needed for the foreseeable future is in the lubrication of moving parts. I have yet to see a true "Buckey Ball" lubricant on the market.

Odysseus , September 8, 2019 at 11:17 pm

+1

jefemt , September 8, 2019 at 9:14 am

Good question. No answers here, but another observation and question:

While I don't endorse it, what about the legitimacy of Nation-states to pursue their best interest, and the implied hubris/ arrogance that counters with actions and policy precluding that autonomy? The Great Game ™?

Cuba blockades. They have done pretty well, despite nearly 70 years of very harsh blockade. Look how much the US has punished the least amongst the Cuban human beings, some for their entire life

Venezuela?

North Korea and Iran aspire to have the ultimate WMD. Why does the US get to have the say? My measuring stick senses that the US hardly holds the moral high ground.

Then, the counter-point that we have never tried in the recent history of man–global cooperation and no more war. The image of our earth floating in space, the big blue marble, akin to a Star Trek enterprise ship, with all of the war-ing beyond-memory enemies all on board. Give every deck and wing some nukes. Avail them with the information on how to conserve and create renewable energy, to grow and put food by, to access clean drinking water, modest but efficient shelter, and access to books, education, and the arts. Awareness of ecology, full life cycle of plants, animals, and man-made products. The experiment that we must ever allow. Sharing.

The whole thing makes my head spin.

synoia , September 8, 2019 at 11:20 am

Iran must import, and to pay fpr imports must export oil.

The US prevents trade by sanctioning any bank who finances trade with Iran in dolllars.

Oregoncharles , September 8, 2019 at 2:13 pm

The big question in my mind is, why does the rest of the world allow that sort of bullying, or more to the point, allow themselves to be vulnerable to it? Somebody's been careless. We now see both Russia and China taking steps to be more autarkic, and even the EU waking up to the danger. It may be they just haven't had time to develop new institutions.

Haydar Khan , September 8, 2019 at 4:26 pm

They are working on it.

https://www.juancole.com/2019/09/defies-investment-troops.html

drumlin woodchuckles , September 8, 2019 at 5:47 pm

The rest-of-the-world could straight-up GIVE Iran the survival-critical things that Iran would otherwise have to import. The rest of the world could do that in return for Iran staying in the agreement till the next American election. This would give everyone time to see if America would elect a pro-deal-ante Democrat to the Presidency.

( This would require the rest of the world to actually be willing to give Iran that kind of c"cold-war-support" aid till the American election. It would also require the IranGov to be willing to stay in the agreement until the American election results shake out. It would need a lot of people to be willing to take a lot of slow long-term chances. Would everyone involved be willing to do that in a harmonized way?)

drumlin woodchuckles , September 8, 2019 at 5:42 pm

The EU LeaderLords have no bravery and no taste for conflict with the TrumpAdmin. Not only will they not lift a fear-quivering finger to save the accords, they will not even buy and donate to Iran the goods and services Iran would need to survive until the next American election.

It is too bad that Rouhani ( and his boss the Supreme Leader Khamenei) cannot have a remote long-distance Vulcan mind-meld with the DemParty nominee-wannabes in this country. Because if they could have such a remote long-distance Vulcan mind-meld, here is what they might well decide. Every DemParty nominee-wannabe would PROMise ( and MEAN IT) to take America right back into the JCPOA if elected, and to rescind every re-sanction that the TrumpAdmin imposed. And Rouhani ( at Supreme Leaders's direction) would agree to keep Iran "in" the JCPOA till the winner of the American Presidential election were announced. Maybe such a remote mind-meld agreement openly and overtly stated might raise the chances of a DemParty victory and lower the chances of an Iran-America war.

[Sep 09, 2019] Armed Turkish military vehicles crossed into war-stricken Syria on Sunday to begin joint patrols with U.S. counterparts to establish a high-stakes "safe zone" along a border region controlled by Kurdish forces

Sep 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter AU 1 , Sep 8 2019 21:34 utc | 49

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-turkey/turkish-military-enters-syria-to-begin-joint-u-s-safe-zone-patrol-idUSKCN1VT05H
"AKCAKALE, Turkey/TAL ABYAD, Syria (Reuters) - Armed Turkish military vehicles crossed into war-stricken Syria on Sunday to begin joint patrols with U.S. counterparts to establish a high-stakes "safe zone" along a border region controlled by Kurdish forces."

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/fuel-tanks-enter-syrian-government-area-sdf-territories-aleppo/
"DAMASCUS, SYRIA (4:30 P.M.) – Scores of fuel tanks have entered areas controlled by the Syrian government in northeast Aleppo following agreement with the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, a monitor group reported.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) released a video showing a convoy of fuel tanks crossing toward areas controlled by the Syrian Army, supposedly coming from SDF-held territories.

The footage was filmed in Manbij crossing located to the southwest of Manbij city, located in northeast Aleppo."

Erdo's doing his bit and pushing the Kurds away from the yanks and back to Syria.

[Sep 09, 2019] Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now, American historians were mistaken at the end of the 1980s.

Notable quotes:
"... There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about. ..."
"... If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold War. ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 09:31 AM

Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now, American historians were mistaken at the end of the 1980s.

There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about.

If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold War.

[Sep 09, 2019] Who Won the Cold War? by John Payne

Notable quotes:
"... No, America lost the Cold War. We may be richer than when it started, but a larger portion of our incomes go to the government . Even worse, the United States now leads the world in imprisonment –not just by rate but in absolute terms as well, with 1 out of every 150 Americans behind bars. This is largely a consequence of the War on Drugs, which is a war the American government wages upon its own citizens. In the years of the Cold War and since, we have become substantially less free. ..."
Nov 09, 2009 | www.theamericanconservative.com

As everyone should know by now but probably does not, this is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first breach in that wall set off a chain reaction that would eventually topple Communist governments and liberate people across half of Europe. It would also end the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Block, substantially diminishing the possibility for nuclear annihilation. However, when people say that the West–or more particularly, America–won the Cold War, I'm not exactly sure what they mean.

Of course, America still exists as a country while the Soviet Union does not, but in a war that is supposedly about ideas and ideals, victory must me something more than outlasting your opponent.

I think the more appropriate way to look at the matter is to ask: who has benefited the most from the end of the Cold War? Clearly, it is the peoples of East Germany, Poland, Estonia, etc. that have gained the most. They are far richer than they were twenty years ago, and more importantly they are able to speak and think as they please without fear of imprisonment, torture, and possibly death at the hands of their governments. Even Russia, which is still far from free, is a much freer place than it was under the Soviets. Dissident journalists do still turn up missing, but to be known as a dissident journalist in the Soviet Union was almost an impossibility. The post-Communist states all have a long way to go to complete freedom, but with few exceptions , they are all now much closer to that ideal than they were twenty years ago.

But can we say that the people of the United States also won the Cold War? Sadly, I do not believe so. After World War II, the United States' standing army likely would have shrunk back to the small peacetime numbers that existed for most of our history if it weren't for the Cold War. Instead, the U.S. military spread across the world, allegedly to keep the country free from the horrors of Communism. Ironically, keeping the people of America free required enslaving a large percentage of her young men through the country's first peacetime draft. And of course, soldiers must be housed, equipped, fed, and paid, which required a higher level of taxation than Americans were used to in peacetime. Twenty years ago, the United States could have reversed this course and reaped the peace dividend, but instead the government pressed ahead and extended American influence into the former Soviet Block–taking on new powers and responsibilities along the way.

No, America lost the Cold War. We may be richer than when it started, but a larger portion of our incomes go to the government . Even worse, the United States now leads the world in imprisonment –not just by rate but in absolute terms as well, with 1 out of every 150 Americans behind bars. This is largely a consequence of the War on Drugs, which is a war the American government wages upon its own citizens. In the years of the Cold War and since, we have become substantially less free.

One right that is still largely intact is the Freedom of Religion, but most versions of American Christianity today bear little resemblance to the teachings found in the Gospels. In this country today, people tend to worship the American Jesus , more known for killing "hajis" than offering salvation. Christianity has become a state religion in this country as it was for the Roman Emperor Constantine, and it is put to the same use of justifying military power. Perhaps even worse than using the Prince of Peace for war, the president (provided he is of the right party, of course) is now viewed by most as an avatar of God on Earth if not God himself. Many American Christians have rendered everything unto Caesar and have nothing left for God.

The world is a far freer place than it was twenty years ago, but America is not. Kierkegaard once wrote "What slave in chains is as unfree as a tyrant!" As the tyrant of the world, America is enslaved to all. Truly, America has gained the world, but lost her soul.

woodbutcher says: November 9, 2009 at 8:44 pm

America has gained the world, but lost her soul. That is what we get for trying to legislate morality .

... ... ...

Thomas says: November 10, 2009 at 1:53 am

And yet we had plenty of (perhaps more) morality laws before the War on Drugs

Perhaps the problem is that the government does not defend its borders (well, that and the intelligence agencies have long funded some operations with drug money look at Afghanistan!)?

Not everything illegal has a special allure, it really depends on enforcement of the law.

And, John, a lot of Eastern Europe is NOT better off than it was 20 years ago, particularly now that their speculative bubbles have burst. The signs are shinier, there are more decent restaurants, but many other economic, social, and moral declines. And East Europeans have gained freedom in many ways, but lost it in others.

People forget that many of the anti-Communist movements like the New Forum activists in the DDR or Solidarnosc in Poland claimed they were pro-socialist (just for a more democratic, participatory regime). The original point was not joining NATO and mass privatisation, but rather civil liberties, and, sometimes, true conservative principles (pro-church, rediscovering a spiritual mission of their people). But church attendance has increased slightly while (corporal, at least) immorality has increased significantly! What gain is that? Much of the national infrastructure was stolen by oligarchs who took the money to Switzerland, much others were sold to foreigners.

Basically, (most of) East Europe has been absorbed into the control of the international financial elite (or NWO or whatever you prefer to term it).

Thomas says: November 14, 2009 at 3:05 am T.O.M.-

There are some very secular, more generous welfare states with considerably more civil liberties. Of course they have their own problems, but that is not the source of our War of Terror, War on Drugs, USA Patriot Act, etc. Paleoconservatives are too often naifs in suggesting, essentially, that some lead us on the road to Hell with good intentions. It is actually direct corruption in our govt that is the source of all our greatest national catastrophes.

I found a figure for Cuba. The 2005 official statistics put it at about 490 per 100K, so about 70% the US rate – still high, but no cigar. Oh I see a more recent (2008?) rate of 531, but still keeping pace with the US at about 70% its rate. That is a British univeristy study – they estimate the Sudanese rate about 1/20 the US rate (so they had a civil war, but they aren't totalitarian, what did you think?). Zimbabwe is given as about 1/5 the US rate. The link, if it works to post it here-

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/wppl-8th_41.pdf

Thomas O. Meehan says: November 14, 2009 at 4:32 pm T

Thomas, were you referring to England and the continental welfare states with their anti free speech laws, confiscatory taxation and intrusive regulation of every stage of life? Welfare states must be coercive in order to function. That's why conservatives off all types abhor them.

The percentage of population in incarceration can be a deceptive statistic. States lie about these things for a start. Totalitarian states like Cuba and China have the option of simply killing offenders and of course many people just flee state control.

The US has a large degree of incarceration due to the popularity of "Get tough on drug offender" legislation. We have a large criminal underclass in this country and after decades of revolving door justice, the public just got fed up. It may not be humane, but it works. That's democracy for you.

By the way, there is no system more involved in the criminal justice system than our welfare bureaucracy. Most criminals are born into to welfare, graduate to truancy and addiction and then crime, all under the watchful eye of social workers, guidance counselors, school psychologists, court appointed counselors and probation officers, etc. etc. But this shouldn't take any of the luster off welfare states, right?

Thomas says: November 15, 2009 at 4:42 am

Actually, China records their executions, they do not just shoot criminals on sight. Neither does Cuba. And neither of those countries would qualify as the top 10 or 20 draconian, authoritarian states (i.e., where citizens shake in fear of the police) at the moment.

England is widely known to be the most surveillance over its population, but it also has the weakest welfare state in Western Europe!!!! Scandinavia has much more freedom in general and much stronger welfare. Your attempt to make some sort of correlation is ridiculous. None of these countries has a PATRIOT ACT, where you can be deemed an enemy and held indefinitely. Britain has tried several times to enact something similar, but the Lords always block it. It would be absurd in Germany even.

The United States is simply no longer a beacon of civil liberties even compared with true welfare states. Sorry.

And if you are worried about the existence of a criminal underclass, you can probably blame the extreme inequalities of wealth, the co-existence of hyper-First World and quasi-Third World elements. All of Latin America has the same, though their welfare states are rarely very advanced. I think you would find the same trend in Africa.

Mind you, I don't want to be like Sweden. I would prefer America to return to the 50s (not entirely, but overall it would be an improvement). In the 50s there was a more even redistribution of wealth and less nanny statism because there was more direct dirigisme. The State was more involved in industrial planning and regulated trade and financial institutions. Individuals paid less tax because corporations paid more. If the economy is planned such that productive employment is a priority, then you can maintain a stable working class. If you take that away, like the US and UK have done, then you get a permanent underclass with no prospects of a stable life.

Thomas O. Meehan says: November 15, 2009 at 5:18 pm

The problem with the 1950's is that they inevitably evolve into the 1960's. And soon we're where we are now. That's the way of welfare states, they introduce such dependency, indolence and corruption that they just grow. But hey they always have their defenders. As for the lack of a Patriot Act in Europe, you must be kidding. The least you could do is read the British press. British subjects can be criminally charged for suggesting that heterosexual couples make better adoptive parents than homosexuals. The French police do as they please, and always have. The British do have preventative detention.

Nobody said that the Chinese and or Cubans shot people out of hand. But they do shoot people rather than feed them for long periods, as we do. You can believe their statistics if you want to.

Our underclass remains a dangerous nuisance despite public education, taxpayer supported charity care, a multitude of Federal and State programs and affirmative action. Of course we are importing more every day, adding to the income disparity you speak of. Perhaps we should deport people to level out the disparity a bit. What do you think?

I like your idea of our no longer being a beacon. It's attracting the wrong sort.

Thomas says: November 16, 2009 at 12:55 pm

Yes, of course we should deport people. Illegal immigration is not the source of the US socioeconomic problems, but it compounds them by a serious factor.

Being a former resident of Houston, where parts of the city (probably the most red-voting major city in the US) were literally crawling with illegals who undercut everyone else's wages (that's why they are here), I can attest a bit to the corrupting effect this has on everyone involved.

[Sep 09, 2019] Who Won the Cold War by Jordan Michael Smith

Notable quotes:
"... Westad faults Truman for being unwilling or unable to extend Franklin Roosevelt's friendly policy toward the USSR. ..."
"... "The Soviet assistance program for China was not only the biggest Moscow ever undertook outside its own borders," Westad writes. "It was also, in relative terms, the biggest such program undertaken by any country anywhere, including the US Marshall Plan for Europe." Within a decade following this generosity, they almost fought a nuclear war. ..."
"... WESTAD ALSO wrote a book on the fall of détente, for which he distinctly blames Americans. "Nixon and Kissinger had gone further in attempting to manage the Cold War together with the Soviet Union than most Americans were willing to accept," he writes. "Most Americans were simply not willing to tolerate that the United States could have an equal in international affairs, in the 1970s or ever." This is where Gaddis's immersion in American documents might have been helpful. Most Americans, at least on the anti-détente side, were worried not that the Soviet Union was at parity with the United States, but that it had actually exceeded America's capabilities. However wrongheaded and overly alarmist that perspective was, its importance in explaining American behavior should not be overlooked. ..."
"... Westad will have none of it. "Intent to move away from the Cold War as a national emergency, Eisenhower ended up institutionalizing it as policy and doctrine," he writes. "On the Korean War, the new president simply got lucky. . . . The turn toward a policy of massive nuclear retaliation meant preparing for strategic warfare on a scale that so far had seemed unimaginable." Pages later, he adds, ..."
"... Eisenhower lacked the imagination and political will to think about ending the Cold War after Stalin's death. This is a provocative portrayal of Eisenhower, a welcome antidote to the revisionism that can approach hagiography. But it is undercut by Westad's slight documentation. ..."
"... Cold War triumphalism has had pernicious effects on American foreign policy. A straight line can be drawn from the idea that Ronald Reagan's military buildup and assertive rhetoric ended the Cold War to the fantasy that the United States could rebuild the Middle East. The prominence of neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration was due largely to the widespread belief that they had been right in seeing the transformative potential of American power during the Cold War. Though Donald Trump was able, in the Republican primaries in 2016, to counter delusions of American omnipotence with delusions of American seclusion, the messianic streak still runs strong in the Republican Party and in segments of the Democratic Party. Its absence in current political debates should be seen as temporary. When it inevitably arises again, trouble will ensue. "We all lost the cold war," Gorbachev once said. The difficulty arises when one party thinks it won. ..."
August 27, 2017 | nationalinterest.org

Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 720 pp., $35.00.

IN 2005 , the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis released his book, The Cold War: A New History . Glowing reviews of the book followed in the New York Times and Foreign Affairs . Among the few dissenters was Tony Judt, a New York University historian who died in 2010. Judt had opposed the Iraq War, when so many other intellectuals -- including Gaddis -- joined in the delusions that George W. Bush could, should and would democratize the Middle East. By 2005, those fantasies were discredited by events in Mesopotamia (though Gaddis was unchastened, arguing in the American Interest as late as 2008 that the senior goal of American foreign policy should be "ending tyranny").

In the New York Review of Books , Judt argued that "John Lewis Gaddis has written a history of America's cold war: as seen from America, as experienced in America, and told in a way most agreeable to many American readers." However brilliant his works had been during the Cold War, Gaddis became an American triumphalist once the Berlin Wall collapsed. He had comparatively little understanding of the Soviet experience and, most egregiously, didn't seem to care much about the enormous damage both superpowers inflicted on what was then called the Third World. The result, Judt argued, was that the Cold War was "a story still to be told."

With Odd Arne Westad's new book, the story is now told. Westad is the coauthor of several books on the Cold War, as well as coeditor of the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War . He also wrote The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times , which won the Bancroft Prize. As its title indicates, The Global Cold War suggested that the Cold War was very much a globe-spanning conflict, migrating into areas far beyond the borders of the two superpowers.

His new book integrates that focus on the developing world with a more traditional emphasis on the great powers. It is aimed at a general rather than a scholarly audience, with far fewer footnotes or archival research than his previous works (more on that later). The Cold War: A World History is told chronologically, but unlike most books on the subject, it begins with the right period.

THE FIRST well-regarded book on the war written from a post–Berlin Wall perspective was Martin Walker's Cold War, published in 1994. Like so many others to come, it began with the dissension in the Allied ranks in the closing years of World War II. By beginning with an earlier period, Westad advances beyond that approach. He is able to devote some attention to the ideological sources of the struggle, which began with Lenin's interpretation of communism, prioritizing global revolution and antagonism toward the noncommunist world. "The Cold War was born from the global transformations of the late nineteenth century and was buried as a result of tremendously rapid changes a hundred years later," he writes. Those changes include decolonization, the ascension of the United States to world power and the gradual decline of scientific socialism, as well as the two world wars. "The Great War jumpstarted the destinies of the two future Cold War Superpowers. It made the United States the global embodiment of capitalism and it made Russia a Soviet Union, a permanent challenge to the capitalist world." Westad also makes the thought-provoking claim, rather unusual in a book on the Cold War, that

it is therefore quite possible that the Cold War will be reduced in significance by future historians, who from their vantage point will attach more significance to the origins of Asian economic power, or the beginning of space exploration, or the eradication of smallpox.

Westad proceeds from there through all the stops along the way to the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Separate chapters examine India, China, the Middle East and Latin America, as well as summaries of Richard Nixon's diplomacy and the reigns of Kennedy, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. That he manages to do all this in largely sequential fashion is doubly impressive.

The Cold War evinces a lifetime of research and thought on the subject. Compelling ideas and valuable insights appear frequently, such as: "In spite of their attractiveness on a global scale, neither the Soviet nor the US system was ever fully replicated elsewhere." Or the explanation for communism's appeal in Vietnam: "One reason, ironically, was the integration of Vietnamese elites into French culture and education, from whence the post-1914 generation took over the radicalization that was prevalent among French youth, too." Or: "In Asia as in Europe, US policy in the early Cold War was more oriented toward the expansion of capitalism as such than toward a unique preservation of US national economic advantage or the interests of specific US companies."

Westad's assessment is that some sort of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was inevitable once the common foe of Nazi Germany was extinguished. "Leaders of the two countries had seen each other as adversaries ever since the Russian Revolution of 1917, and in some cases even before that," he writes. Illustrative of his measured approach throughout the book, Westad assigns blame for the conflict to both parties, though not so much that he is unable to make moral distinctions. Stalin's determination to establish control in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, contributed greatly to the breakdown of good relations with Britain and the United States. But, he writes, "it was containment that made postwar conflict into a Cold War." The United States was unwilling to grant the Soviets a traditional sphere of influence, let alone see them as a comparable power deserving of commensurate respect. Seen from 2017, it might seem absurd that so many Europeans, even in England, looked upon the Soviet Union with admiration and gratitude. But, however much Americans like to forget it, it was the Red Army that "tore the guts out of the German military machine," in Winston Churchill's colorful phrase.

Westad faults Truman for being unwilling or unable to extend Franklin Roosevelt's friendly policy toward the USSR. Stalin might have hunkered down and developed foreign-policy paranoia regardless of Truman's behavior, he concedes. "But the intensity of the conflict, including the paranoia that it later produced on both sides, might have been significantly reduced if more attempts had been made by the stronger power to entice Moscow toward forms of cooperation." This is somewhat unfair to Truman. The day he was sworn in as president after Roosevelt's death, Truman said in a statement he intended "to carry on as he believed the President would have done." There is little reason to doubt his sincerity. In From Roosevelt to Truman , University of Notre Dame professor Wilson Miscamble credibly argued that Truman began his presidency with open-mindedness toward the Soviets but was convinced by events that cooperation was impossible. He wasn't alone.

ASIA, MEANWHILE , experienced rapid decolonization. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were resolutely opposed to traditional European imperialism, however much they acted as imperialist powers in their own regions. Combined with the destitution of the former colonial powers, this meant that Asian nations were freer to pursue their own destinies. Of course, in Japan and Korea, those destinies were determined by their occupiers, who molded these societies in their own images. It is a sign of Westad's attentiveness to facts that, without ever succumbing to anything resembling American chauvinism, he can write something as direct as: "The Korean War came from Stalin's change of mind. If he had not given the go-ahead to Kim, there would have been no war."

Westad betrays no romanticism toward the Soviet Union or its communist admirers -- that might seem like a low bar, but there are still scholars like Bruce Cumings who look fondly on the Marxist regimes -- but the book makes the clear-eyed observation,

Only by industrializing fast could a country become socialist and modern. The policy had an obvious appeal: in countries on the European periphery, where there was a profound sense of having fallen behind, and in countries outside of Europe, such as China, Korea, and Vietnam, rapid industrialization seemed indeed to be the way forward.

Westad might have added that the Soviet Communist Party's untouchable command of power was similarly appealing to political leaders and intellectuals worldwide.

Immediately prior to The Cold War , Westad's latest book was a study of China's foreign policy since 1750. His mastery of the subject is evident in a chapter called "China's Scourge." It is valuable not only for a discussion of how the Chinese Communist Party managed to win the civil war against the Nationalists, but also for a succinct reminder of why and how swiftly relations dissolved between the CCP and the Soviets. "The Soviet assistance program for China was not only the biggest Moscow ever undertook outside its own borders," Westad writes. "It was also, in relative terms, the biggest such program undertaken by any country anywhere, including the US Marshall Plan for Europe." Within a decade following this generosity, they almost fought a nuclear war.

Similarly incisive here is a chapter on India. Often neglected in general histories of the Cold War, India was for a while the leader of the Non-Aligned nations. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was progressive, but intent on keeping his newly independent country truly independent. This, of course, infuriated the Americans, for whom any friendliness with the USSR was interpreted as hostility to them. And yet, when India's moral purity conflicted with its conflict with China, nationalism prevailed, leading to a brief war. "In spite of its many efforts, even a country as a significant as India was never able to fully break away from the global conflict molding its policies," Westad concludes.

WESTAD ALSO wrote a book on the fall of détente, for which he distinctly blames Americans. "Nixon and Kissinger had gone further in attempting to manage the Cold War together with the Soviet Union than most Americans were willing to accept," he writes. "Most Americans were simply not willing to tolerate that the United States could have an equal in international affairs, in the 1970s or ever." This is where Gaddis's immersion in American documents might have been helpful. Most Americans, at least on the anti-détente side, were worried not that the Soviet Union was at parity with the United States, but that it had actually exceeded America's capabilities. However wrongheaded and overly alarmist that perspective was, its importance in explaining American behavior should not be overlooked.

Indeed, Westad's decision to reduce the research shown to the readers in this book makes some of his unorthodox judgments difficult to credit. Most conspicuously, Westad assesses Dwight Eisenhower harshly, but without offering enough support for his claims. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the evaluation of Ike was decidedly mixed. He was too complacent, it was said, too moderate and timid. He favored a strategic posture built around nuclear weapons that led to an arms race. He failed to confront Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism. He initiated the first of many ill-considered CIA interventions in foreign countries, in Guatemala and Iran. And he added a religious dimension to the Cold War, which elevated the conflict beyond the already-dangerous levels that existed when he took power in 1953.

That perception gave way in the 1980s to a consideration that Eisenhower was not complacent, but subtle. The opening of archives in the 1970s convinced many that his was, as the political scientist Fred Greenstein put it in his 1982 book of the same name, "the hidden-hand presidency." The popular historian Stephen Ambrose did much to further this view, first in 1981's Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment , and then in a biography, released in two volumes in 1983 and 1984. (Writing in the New Republic in 2006, the journalist John Judis observed that Ambrose's books "changed many a liberal's view of the general," counting himself among them.)

The revisionist view of Eisenhower has now become orthodoxy. He routinely numbers among historians' rankings of the top ten presidents. Far from sharing the contemporary perception of him as popular but ineffectual -- "It's just like Eisenhower. The worse I do, the more popular I get," JFK said after the Bay of Pigs disaster -- we like Ike as much as the people who wore his campaign buttons. Celebrity architect Frank Gehry designed an Eisenhower memorial that Congress has funded to the tune of $100 million, to sit across from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, on Washington's Independence Avenue.

Most scholars lean toward the view that Ike was a first-rate Cold War strategist. He balanced the budget thrice, halting the unsustainable economic and military buildup that resulted from the Korean War. He set diplomatic precedents by meeting with Soviet leaders and organizing purposeful summits. And he outflanked domestic hysteria, establishing a bipartisan commitment to a strategy of containment. Predominant is the view expressed by Robert Bowie and Richard Immerman in their book, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped a Cold War Strategy :

Later events . . . have enhanced appreciation of his prudent and sober judgment. In a turbulent and dangerous stage of East-West relations, with an untested and erratic Soviet leadership and a changing strategic environment, Eisenhower managed a succession of crises and set a course that preserved both security and peace.

Westad will have none of it. "Intent to move away from the Cold War as a national emergency, Eisenhower ended up institutionalizing it as policy and doctrine," he writes. "On the Korean War, the new president simply got lucky. . . . The turn toward a policy of massive nuclear retaliation meant preparing for strategic warfare on a scale that so far had seemed unimaginable." Pages later, he adds,

If the president was not a Cold War hysteric, neither was he someone who could conceive of a world without the confrontation with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower lacked the imagination and political will to think about ending the Cold War after Stalin's death. This is a provocative portrayal of Eisenhower, a welcome antidote to the revisionism that can approach hagiography. But it is undercut by Westad's slight documentation.

Cold War triumphalism has had pernicious effects on American foreign policy. A straight line can be drawn from the idea that Ronald Reagan's military buildup and assertive rhetoric ended the Cold War to the fantasy that the United States could rebuild the Middle East. The prominence of neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration was due largely to the widespread belief that they had been right in seeing the transformative potential of American power during the Cold War. Though Donald Trump was able, in the Republican primaries in 2016, to counter delusions of American omnipotence with delusions of American seclusion, the messianic streak still runs strong in the Republican Party and in segments of the Democratic Party. Its absence in current political debates should be seen as temporary. When it inevitably arises again, trouble will ensue. "We all lost the cold war," Gorbachev once said. The difficulty arises when one party thinks it won.

Jordan Michael Smith is the author of the Kindle single Humanity: How Jimmy Carter Lost an Election and Transformed the Post-Presidency .

[Sep 09, 2019] "'The New Normal': Trump's 'China Bind' Can Be Iran's Opportunity" by Alastair Crooke, and "Who Is Holding Back the Russian Economy?" by Tom Luongo.

Notable quotes:
"... Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran. ..."
"... This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down ..."
"... [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last. ..."
"... "And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'. ..."
"... "If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)." ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Speculation's abounded about the political loyalty of the head of Russia's central bank Elvira Nabullina. Luongo simply explains:

"Nabullina has always been a controversial figure because she is western trained and because the banking system in Russia is still staffed by those who operate along IMF prescriptions on how to deal with crises.

"But those IMF rules are there to protect the IMF making the loans to the troubled nation, not to assist the troubled nation actually recover....

"The fundamental problem is a miseducation about what interest rates are, and how they interact with inflation and capital flow. Because of this, the medicine for saving an economy in trouble is, more often than not, worse than the disease itself.

"If Argentina's fourth default in twenty years doesn't prove that to you, nothing will."

It sounds like he's been reading Hudson's J is for Junk Economics !

The real rescue is Putin's aggressive de-dollarization policy that's finally rid Russia of "dollar-dependency":

"She [Nabullina] keeps jumping at the shadows of a dollar-induced crisis. But the Russian economy of 2019 is not the Russian economy of 2015. Dollar lending has all but evaporated and the major source of demand for dollars domestically are legacy corporate loans not converted to rubles or euros."

The key for me is to weave the content emphasis of Putin's Eastern Economic Conference speech with his increasing pressure on Nabullina for the bank to support this very important development policy direction and show China and other nations that Russia's extremely serious about the direction being taken. Just Putin's language about mortgage rate reductions as an attracter ought to be a huge message for Nabullina to respond properly. And a further kick in the pants was provided by the massive deal announced between China and Iran. Luongo briefly alludes to foreign policy in his article, its regional economic aspects, while omitting aspects hidden by the US-China Trade War, specifically Russia's now very clear technological supremacy to the Outlaw US Empire.

This brings us to Crooke's article in which he inadvertently tells us the #1 false assumption in Trump's Trade War policy with China:

"To defend America's technology leadership , policymakers must upgrade their toolkit to ensure that US technology leadership can withstand the aftershocks." [My Emphasis]

Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran.

I could write further about the supposed handcuffing of POTUS by the unconstitutional and illegal sanction regime "imposed" by the US Congress. Crooke mentions as a significant hindrance--but if it was indeed a hindrance, any POTUS could break it by suing to prove its unconstitutional, illegal standing, yet no effort is put into that, begging the question Why? Crooke spends lots of space about this but fails to see the above solution:

"The pages to that chapter have been shut. This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down , and not the 'clock' of US domestic politics. The old adage that the 'sea is always the sea' holds true for US foreign policy.

And [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last.

"And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'.

"If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)."

Being British, we should excuse Crooke for not knowing about the crucial Supremacy Clause within the US Constitution, but that doesn't absolve any POTUS if that person is really intent on talking with Iran--or any other sanctioned nation. IMO, the Iranians know what I know and have finally decided the Outlaw US Empire's marriage to Occupied Palestine won't suffer a divorce anytime soon. The result is the recent very active change in policy direction aimed at solidifying the Arc of Resistance and establishing a Persian Gulf Collective Security Pact that will end in check mating the Empire's King thus causing further economic problems for the Empire.

Crooke does a good job of summarizing my comment and many more made over the year regarding the reasons for the utter failure of Outlaw US Empire policy:

"Well, here is the key point: Washington seems to have lost the ability to summon the resources to try to fathom either China, or the Iranian 'closed book', let alone a 'Byzantine' Russia. It is a colossal attenuation of consciousness in Washington; a loss of conscious 'vitality' to the grip of some 'irrefutable logic' that allows no empathy, no outreach, to 'otherness'. Washington (and some European élites) have retreated into their 'niche' consciousness, their mental enclave, gated and protected, from having to understand – or engage – with wider human experience."

The only real way for the Outlaw US Empire to regain its competitive "niche" with the rest of the world is to mount a massive program of internal reform verging on a revolution in its outcome. It's patently obvious that more of the same will yield more of the same--FAILURE--and the chorus of inane caterwauling by BigLie Media over where to place the blame.

Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 9 2019 17:24 utc | 118

[Sep 08, 2019] The Case for Restraint Drawing the Curtain on the American Empire by Stewart M. Patrick

Notable quotes:
"... " Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. ..."
"... Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism), immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty. ... ..."
Aug 26, 2019 | www.worldpoliticsreview.com

In a provocative new book, three scholars from the libertarian Cato Institute -- John Glaser, Christopher A. Preble and A. Trevor Thrall -- counsel the United States to abandon the pursuit of global primacy for a policy of prudence and restraint. " Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. American foreign policy professionals may cast the United States as a benevolent hegemon, defending the liberal or "rules-based" international order. But this self-serving argument is hard to take seriously, they write, given the hubris, hypocrisy and coerciveness of the American imperium.

The most surprising argument in "Fuel to the Fire" is that this misguided orientation has persisted under Donald Trump. This seems counterintuitive. Washington's mandarins have recoiled in bipartisan horror as the president dismantles their handiwork and pursues his "America First" agenda. Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism), immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty. ...

[Sep 08, 2019] Note: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War: Hoisted from the Archives

Sep 08, 2019 | www.bradford-delong.com

Hoisted from the Archives : Note: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War :

*Also, almost surely an "Agent of Influence" and perhaps an out-and-out spy for Stalin's Russia. If so, never did any intelligence service receive worse service from an agent than Stalin's Russia did from Harry Dexter White....

Donald Pretari said...

I'm reading "The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Princeton University Press))" by Benn Steil and wanted to share this quote with you.

"As regards the economics White advocated, they were hardly Marxist. They were by this time what would be described as thoroughly Keynesian. He insisted that government should take an active role in supporting economic activity; certainly more so than was orthodox before the Great Depression, but he never pushed for broad government control of the means of production. His writings on international monetary affairs express a concern with the need to fashion a system that "reduces the necessity of restrictions on private enterprise."As for White's domestic politics, these were mainstream New Deal progressive, and there is no evidence that he admired communism as a political ideology." Reply February 15, 2019 at 12:49

jorgensen said...

Vannevar Bush pushed for government support of science after the Second World War and should get some credit for America's scientific dominance through the Cold War. Reply February 16, 2019 at 15:38

andres said... The above list is old hat, so to speak. I would add the following two lists:

Russians Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War (for both sides):

1. Georgi Zhukov (Was an unbelievable s.o.b. during WWII, but did the right thing having the Red Army side with Khruschev and Malenkov against Beria).
2. Nikita Khruschev (secret speech, ousting of Stalin's old cronies and final unwillingness to go to war over Cuba outweigh Hungary and U-2 incident, imo).
3. Aleksandr Solshenitsyn (self-explanatory).
4. Boris Pasternak (Dr. Zhivago is a better read than The Gulag Archipelago).
5. Roy Medvedev (Let History Judge).
6. Vasili Arkhipov (Don't Push the Button I).
7. Andrei Sakharov (self-explanatory).
8. Stanislav Petrov (Don't Push the Button II).
9. Mikhail Gorbachev (glasnost plus withdrawal from Afghanistan).
10. Boris Yeltsin (lousy president, but energetic opposition to August 1991 coup was vital).

Americans Who Tried Their Best to Make the U.S. Lose the Cold War.

1. Douglas MacArthur.
2. John Foster Dulles.
3. Allen Dulles.
4. Barry Goldwater.
5. Robert McNamara/McGeorge Bundy/Maxwell Taylor/W.W. Rostow (joint award for Vietnam)
6. William Westmoreland (made it even worse).
7. Richard Nixon (carpet bomber in chief, plus undermined 1968 Vietnam peace talks).
8. Henry Kissinger (took over from JF Dulles as military coup enabler in chief, and nearly pushed India to Russia's side after giving a blank check to Pakistan).
9. Ronald Reagan (was clearly pointed toward WWIII before Schultz and GHW Bush brought him around).

(There are lots more, but I've tried to limit the list to those who were either in the executive branch or came close (Goldwater). LBJ could also be included, but it is still being argued whether he led his cabinet or his cabinet led him into Vietnam). Reply February 16, 2019 at 22:52

[Sep 08, 2019] Pray for peace, and no mistakes! Neocon warmonger Nicholas Kristof speculates in NYT How a War With China Could Begin

Sep 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , September 07, 2019 at 12:06 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/opinion/china-taiwan-war.html

September 4, 2019

This Is How a War With China Could Begin
First, the lights in Taiwan go out.
By Nicholas Kristof

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- If the United States gets embroiled in a war with China, it may begin with the lights going out here in Taipei.

Tensions are rising across the Taiwan Strait, and there's a growing concern among some security experts that Chinese President Xi Jinping might act recklessly toward Taiwan in the next few years, drawing the United States into a conflict....

[ Nuttier and nuttier but there we are, and as Les Gelb explained, the foreign policy community at such times have become incapable of independent thought. ]

anne -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 12:06 PM
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1167904600604590081

May 12, 2009

Mission Unaccomplished: Meet the press -- and see why it failed at several crucial points during the Iraq War
By Leslie H. Gelb with Jeanne-Paloma Zelmati - Council on Foreign Relations

My initial support for the war was symptomatic of unfortunate tendencies within the foreign policy community, namely the disposition and incentives to support wars to retain political and professional credibility. We "experts" have a lot to fix about ourselves, even as we "perfect" the media. We must redouble our commitment to independent thought, and embrace, rather than cast aside, opinions and facts that blow the common -- often wrong -- wisdom apart. Our democracy requires nothing less.

anne -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 12:17 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/opinion/china-taiwan-war.html

September 4, 2019

This Is How a War With China Could Begin
First, the lights in Taiwan go out.
By Nicholas Kristof

[ Though this essay is nutty, the implications are really frightening to me. We have reached a point where New York Times columnists are imagining the bombing of China. This, to my imagination, was precisely what was imagined during the height of the supposedly won Cold War. ]

ilsm -> anne... , September 07, 2019 at 06:55 PM
Sad!

The atomic scientists should move their clock half the distance to mid night.

A side benefit of the US finding an excuse to terminate Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 is to ring China with INF banned weapon systems!

The new, made up, cold war has two major fronts, Europe and the Pac Rim, whereas the Soviet based [my] cold war only had Russia ringed from Germany Belgium UK and Spain.....

Pray for peace, and no mistakes!

[Sep 07, 2019] US Sanctions Are Designed to Kill

Sep 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , September 05, 2019 at 05:34 PM

http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/us-sanctions-are-designed-to-kill

September 1, 2019

US Sanctions Are Designed to Kill
By Kevin Cashman and Cavan Kharrazian

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recently visited the Group of Seven (G7) at the invitation of French president Emmanuel Macron, in what was seen as an overture to the Trump administration to negotiate over sanctions that have plagued the Iranian economy. Back in 2018, after months of increasingly hostile rhetoric, the US government withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or "Iran Deal," and imposed a "maximum pressure" campaign that included unilateral, economy-wide sanctions. The Iran Deal was an agreement that provided Iran relief from existing sanctions in exchange for limits on its enrichment of uranium, among other concessions. These sanctions hampered trade between the European Union, whose leaders have sought to salvage the Iran Deal.

When President Trump reimposed sanctions in November 2018, it cut off Iran's oil exports and access to the international financial system. At the time, he announced that Iran could comply with new US demands or face "economic isolation." Additional US sanctions issued since then have specifically targeted a thousand individuals and entities with the goal of reducing Iran's oil revenues to "zero." More recently, Trump said that although "[Iran's] economy is crashing...it's very easy to straighten [it] out or it's very easy for us to make it a lot worse."

And so, according to Trump himself, the United States has the power to solve -- or exacerbate -- Iran's current economic problems. What is left unsaid, including by much of the media, is that sanctions that "crash" the economy are an attack on the country's civilian population and create widespread human misery. Indeed, they appear to be contributing to widespread shortages of medicine and medical equipment, particularly affecting cancer patients. In Venezuela, which is under a similar US sanctions regime, there have been similar effects, with more than 40,000 people estimated to have died from 2017 to 2018 due to the "collective punishment" inflicted on them.

Yet other statements from US administration officials often contend that sanctions have negligible economic or social effects on the general population of Iran. For example, the US State Department's special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, recently denied that US sanctions on Iran affect the availability of medicine and agricultural products. In this argument, Hook divorces the connection between the economic damage caused by sanctions in Iran and the lack of basic necessities like medicine and food, preferring to instead lay blame on the Iranian government, not what the Trump administration calls "targeted" sanctions.

Are the sanctions causing Iran's economic problems, or simply a way to punish individual actors? Answering this question requires an examination of the impact sanctions have on Iran's economy and the mechanisms by which sanctions work -- two important areas of inquiry that seldom receive attention in the US press.

Sanctions are severely impacting Iran's oil production

Looking at Iran's oil sector, which has been directly targeted by the sanctions regime, is a good way to get a sense of how the sanctions have affected the country's economy, which remains dependent on the production and export of oil, according to a number of indicators. For example, around 70 percent of Iran's merchandise exports consists of fuel. Although this dependence on oil production has decreased over the last decade, in large part due to government efforts to diversify the economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported in March 2018 (before the announcement of the resumption of US sanctions) that oil revenues accounted for nearly 40 percent of government revenues in fiscal year 2016–17, and projected a similar number for fiscal year 2017–18 (assuming, then, that there would be no new sanctions). Clearly, a large reduction in Iran's oil production would pose significant challenges to its ability to provide services to its people, as well as maintain essential imports including some foreign-produced medicines and other healthcare and life-saving goods.

Unsurprisingly, Iran's oil production moves very much in tandem with the enactment and repeal of broad sanctions over time (see the figure below). US sanctions in 2010 affected investment in Iran's oil infrastructure and prohibited some international transactions. Then, in early 2012, the United States and the European Union banned oil imports from Iran and froze its central bank assets. Shortly thereafter, oil production plummeted and reached its nadir in late 2012. After the Iran Deal was enacted in early 2016 and US and EU sanctions were repealed, Iran's oil production rapidly recovered to 2007 levels. This level of production was maintained until the announcement by the Trump administration in May 2018 that the United States was withdrawing from the Iran Deal. Since May 2018, Iran's oil production has fallen precipitously; it is down by over 40 percent over the last year. Waivers the United States issued to purchasers of Iranian oil have expired over the last few months, eliminating one of the remaining factors that put upward pressure on production.

[Graph]

To get a sense of the size of these impacts, it's useful to compare what they would look like in the US economy. If applied to the United States, they would be comparable to a budget reduction of $521 billion or 16 percent in 2018. However, this would also represent about 85 percent of nonmilitary discretionary spending. While the United States would be able to borrow or create money to fill this deficit, Iran has much less capacity to do either without triggering more economic difficulties.

Broader economic impacts are also visible. The IMF lowered growth projections for Iran due to the "crippling effect of tighter US sanctions" in its July update. Based on this projection, it is estimated that the economy will contract by 9.3 percent in 2019. This is a downward revision from a previous projection in April of a decline of 6.0 percent. (Before the sanctions, the economy was projected to grow by 4.0 percent.) Other indicators also worsened after the reimposition of sanctions: the unemployment rate is estimated to be 25 percent; inflation has risen to 80 percent; and the currency has lost over half its value.

Sanctions are exacerbating social problems

The main mechanism by which oil production has fallen is the same mechanism that prevents Iran from importing food and medicine: Iran cannot find buyers for its oil on the open market, just like it cannot buy food or medicine on the open market. In effect, it is cut off from the US-dominated international financial system.

Uniquely, the United States exerts broad control over international banking transactions. One way is via the SWIFT and CHIPS systems, which handle the vast majority of those transactions. The SWIFT system, which provides a common communication system for banks, is controlled by US banks, which own the majority of the system and have officials on its board. On top of that, despite not being located in the United States, SWIFT makes all of the system's data available to the US government, even if those transactions do not involve the United States. The CHIPS system, which provides communication as well as settlement functions, is governed by US law, has many US banks as owners, and is directly overseen by US authorities. These systems rely on a network of correspondent banks -- which link banks that might not have relationships with one another -- to complete transactions. The apex of the correspondent system is the New York Federal Reserve Bank, under the control of US banking authorities, which also serves as a lender of last resort to other central banks.

A system designed in this way ensures that banks with no relationship with each other still can transact in a common currency (dollars) via a common bank (the New York Fed) in an agreed-upon framework (SWIFT and CHIPS). However, it also means that the United States has disproportionate power over transactions. Formally, the United States government, via the Office of Foreign Assets Control, can prohibit transactions involving Iran to pass through systems and banks in which it has jurisdiction. More informally, the US government can pressure SWIFT, other central banks, correspondent banks, and even specific firms to adopt policies of refusing to do business with Iran. Since these players fear retribution from US authorities (e.g., being sanctioned themselves), they are usually unwilling to take the risk of doing business with Iran unless they have no other business that might involve the United States or financial entities that can be pressured by the United States.

Because the international banking system is designed in this way, US sanctions on the Iranian economy effectively mean that not only can Iran not easily sell oil on the open market, it cannot easily buy food or medicine either, even if the latter are nominally exempt, as Hook says. This is because sanctioned Iranian banks and officials are ultimately involved in these transactions in the same way that they are with oil, often by virtue of the position they hold in the Iranian banking system. It is telling that hours after an October 2018 ruling by the International Court of Justice ordering the United States to "remove any impediments" that affect the importation of medicine, food, and civil aviation products (including impediments to payments and other transfers of funds related to these products), the US withdrew from the treaty that formed the basis of the ruling, instead of complying with it. Unsurprisingly, efforts at importing food and medicine via the technical exemptions that do exist often fail. It appears that the technical exemptions are used more to deflect criticism of sanctions overall than to actually permit the importation of food and medicine.

But on top of these issues, even if food and medicine were, in reality, exempt from the sanctions regime, the "crippling effect" on Iran's economy would impact the Iranians' financial ability to acquire food and medicine anyway. Iran would have fewer resources to devote to domestic food and medicine production, and many fewer resources to import the same products.

Adapting to US sanctions

It is surprisingly difficult to bypass this financial system because it is so entrenched, although it is not impossible. For example, countries might set up a bilateral or multilateral system to carry out transactions in their own currencies and settle accounts in a currency other than the dollar. Iran could negotiate bilateral trades with India: in exchange for oil, Iran would accept rupees, and then use those rupees to purchase Indian products. The downsides are that mechanisms would be needed to support these transactions (i.e., establishing parallel payment and banking functions). In addition, Iran would need to find a use for the rupees it received in exchange for oil, usually by buying Indian goods (this is because it would be difficult to exchange rupees for other currencies on the open market due to the sanctions).

One promising new multilateral mechanism, dubbed INSTEX, would allow trade between EU countries and Iran without relying on direct transfer of funds or the use of the US-dominated financial system. While in its beginning stage it will only deal with humanitarian trade, INSTEX's model could potentially create a new path to buy Iranian oil. It is telling, however, that EU countries set up an entirely different financial mechanism to use for humanitarian trade, rather than risk drawing the ire of the United States by using established channels.

Yet these alternative mechanisms are not immune from US influence either. In recent cases where countries have announced intentions to develop alternative trade arrangements, the United States has applied political pressure to nip them in the bud. This involves overt economic threats as well as rhetoric urging countries like India to refrain from using a "narrow bilateral lens" in economic trade.

In the meantime, Iran is able to sell some oil to countries such as China, Russia, and India; either to pay back debt or because some banks in these countries do not have a significant business that can be impacted by US retaliation. It also has had some success in covertly transferring oil to buyers, but this does not always escape US control. Similarly, Iran is able to maintain imports of some items, like bananas, outside of the established financial system primarily due to the experience and ingenuity of importers, although usually at lower volumes.

It should be clear that the US is uniquely positioned to choke off imports and exports from a targeted country using sanctions, with deep, negative consequences for that country's economy as well as severe constraints on its government's ability to address economic problems.

In Iran's case, US sanctions mean that production of oil -- a vital export -- is in free fall, unemployment is on the rise, and record inflation due to scarce imports has made it harder for everyday Iranians to buy basic goods and access life-saving medicine. Recent reports have detailed harrowing stories of hospitals running out of crucial cancer medicines and patients struggling to afford or even find their prescriptions. As in Venezuela and other targeted countries, US sanctions undoubtedly have a human toll associated with them, which will only grow as time goes on. This human impact is one of the main reasons that experts in international law argue unilateral sanctions are illegal under the United Nations Charter and international human rights law.

While Iran has been exploring alternative ways of exporting and importing goods, it's unclear what more it could do absent relief from sanctions. Even so, US officials will typically place responsibility for the social and economic problems resulting from the sanctions on the Iranian government, as Hook does. But Trump's comments are more revealing. Sanctions only work because they cause suffering in the first place. In effect, the United States is risking -- and sometimes ending -- the lives of thousands of Iranians with the hope that the Iranian government acquiesces to its demands or is replaced by a more compliant government. That the United States could carry out such a strategy in the first place should raise serious questions among concerned US citizens and within the international community, especially among those who respect international law.

[Sep 07, 2019] 14 Strange Facts Exposed As General Flynn's Endgame Approaches

Sep 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Here are just some of the twists and turns in the case, which has gone on for more than three years.

  1. Flynn's trip to Russia in 2015, where it was claimed Flynn went without the knowledge or approval of the DIA or anyone in Washington, was proven not to be true .
  2. Flynn was suspected of being compromised by a supposed Russian agent, Cambridge academic Svetlana Lokhova, based on allegations from Western intelligence asset Stefan Halper. This was also proven to be not true.
  3. Flynn's phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were framed as being incredibly shady and a potential violation of the Logan Act . This allegation was always preposterous .
  4. Unnamed intelligence officials leaked the details of the Flynn-Kislyak phone calls to The Washington Post.
  5. FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joseph Pientka were dispatched by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe to interview Flynn at the White House, even though the FBI had already reviewed the transcripts of the calls and cleared Flynn of any crimes .
  6. Both FBI Director James Comey and McCabe testified to Congress that Flynn didn't lie.
  7. Despite what McCabe and Comey both testified to under oath before Congress, the Mueller special counsel's office decided to prosecute Flynn for perjury in November of 2017 .
  8. The very strange post-dated FD-302 form on the FBI's January 2017 interview of Flynn that wasn't filled out until August 2017, almost seven months afterward, is revealed in a court filing by Flynn's defense team .
  9. FBI agent Pientka became the "DOJ's Invisible Man," despite the fact that Congress has repeatedly called for him to testify. Pientka has remained out of sight and out of mind more than a year and a half since his name first surfaced in connection with the Flynn case.
  10. Judge Rudolph Contreras was removed from the Flynn case immediately after accepting Flynn's guilty plea and was replaced by Judge Emmit Sullivan .
  11. Sullivan issued what's known as a Brady order to prosecutors -- which ordered them to immediately turn over any exculpatory evidence to Flynn's defense team. Flynn's team then made a filing alleging the withholding of exculpatory evidence .
  12. Flynn was given a chance to withdraw his guilty plea by Judge Sullivan but refused , and insisted to go forward with sentencing.
  13. Flynn suddenly fired his lawyers for the past two years and hired Sidney Powell to lead his new legal team following special counsel Robert Mueller's disastrous testimony to Congress . And now, the latest startling development:
  14. Flynn filed to have the Mueller prosecution team replaced for having withheld exculpatory evidence , despite Sullivan having directly ordered them to hand any such evidence over months ago.

Now, it's not that far-fetched of an idea that the Mueller special counsel prosecutors would hide exculpatory evidence from the Flynn defense team, since they've just admitted to having done exactly that in another case their office has been prosecuting .

The defense team for Internet Research Agency/Concord, more popularly known as "the Russian troll farm case," hasn't been smooth going for the Mueller prosecutors.

First, the prosecution team got a real tongue-lashing from Judge Dabney L. Friedrich in early July , when it turned out they had no evidence whatsoever to prove their assertion that the Russian troll farms were being run by the Putin government.

Then, in a filing submitted to the court on Aug. 30, the IRA/Concord defense team alerted Judge Friedrich that the prosecutors just got around to handing them key evidence the prosecutors had for the past 18 months. The prosecution gave no explanation whatsoever as to why they hid this key evidence for more than a year.

It's hard to see at this point how the entire IRA/Concord case isn't tossed out.

What would it mean for Flynn's prosecutors to have been caught hiding exculpatory evidence from him and his lawyers, even after the presiding judge explicitly ordered them in February to hand over everything they had?

It would mean that the Flynn case is tossed out, since the prosecution team was caught engaging in gross misconduct.

Now you can see why Flynn refused to withdraw his guilty plea when Judge Sullivan gave him the opportunity to do so in late December 2018.

A withdrawal of the guilty plea or a pardon would let the Mueller prosecution team off the hook.

And they're not getting off the hook.

Flynn hired the best lawyer he possibly could have when it comes to exposing prosecutorial misconduct. Nobody knows the crafty, corrupt, and dishonest tricks federal prosecutors use better than Powell, who actually wrote a compelling book about such matters, entitled " License to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice ."

Everything this Mueller prosecution team did in withholding exculpatory evidence from Flynn's defense team -- and continued to withhold even after Judge Sullivan specifically issued an order about it -- is going to be fully exposed.

Defying a federal judge's Brady order is a one-way ticket to not only getting fired, it's a serious enough offense to warrant disbarment and prosecution.

If it turns out Mueller special counsel prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence -- not only in the IRA/Concord case, but also in the cases against Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and others -- that will have a huge impact.

If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn't they do the same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven't they have already demonstrated they are willing to break the rules? Tags


Tirion , 3 minutes ago link

We have become a third-world country. Even throwing Mueller and his entire prosecutors' team in jail would not be enough to restore confidence in our legal system. But it would be a start.

consistentliving , 2 hours ago link

On or about December 28, 2016, the Russian Ambassador contacted FLYNN.

c. On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team ("PTT official"), who was with other senior ·members of the Presidential Transition Team at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador about the U.S. Sanctions. On that call, FLYNN and 2 Case 1:17-cr-00232-RC Document 4 Filed 12/01/17 Page 2 of 6 the PTT official discussed the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on the incoming administration's foreign policy goals. The PIT official and FLYNN also discussed that the members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to escalate the situation. d. Immediately after his phone call with the PTT official, FLYNN called the Russian Ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only respond to the U.S. Sanctions in a reciprocal manner. e. Shortly after his phone call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with the PTT official to report on the substance of his call with the Russian Ambassador, including their discussion of the U.S. Sanctions. f. On or about December 30, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a statement indicating that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the U.S. Sanctions at that time. g. On or about December 31, 2016, the Russian Ambassador called FLYNN and informed him that Russia had chosen not to retaliate in response to FL YNN's request. h. After his phone call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with senior members of the Presidential Transition Team about FL YNN's conversations with the Russian Ambassador regarding the U.S. Sanctions and Russia's decision not to escalate the situation.

https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download

Charlie_Martel , 2 hours ago link

The coup plot between the international intelligence community (which includes our FBI-CIA-etc) and their unregistered foreign agents in the multinational corporate media is slowly being revealed.

Mah_Authoritah , 2 hours ago link

The truth is so precious that it must be spoon fed.

Transmedia001 , 3 hours ago link

Here’s another possibility... elites in the US Gov set on running a soft coup against a duly elected president and his team made up a whole pile of **** and passed it off as truth.

spoonful , 2 hours ago link

Agreed, so long as you put Flynn on the side of the elites

Boris Badenov , 3 hours ago link

The Manafort thing has me totally riled since HRC's "Password" guy and his brother were PARTNERS with manafort, did the same damn things, and were NOT investigated.

Donald Trump is many things to many people, but is not his social personna to be patient. He is being VERY patient to let this unfold, to "give a man enough rope" or political party and its owner, as it may be....

Donna Brazile's book is under-rated: it holds they keys as to who ran the DNC and why after Obie bailed.

TheAnswerIs42 , 3 hours ago link

Our local community rag (Vermont) had an opinion piece last week about "The slide towards Facism", where the author breathlessly stated that she had learned from a MSNBC expose by Rachel Maddow that the administration was firing researchers at NASA and EPA as well as cutting back funding for LGBTQ support groups. Oh the horror. The author conveniently forgot that the same dyke had lied for 2 years about Russia,Russia,Russia but it's still OK to believe any **** that drops out of her mouth.

This is the level of insanity happening around here. Of course it is Bernie's turf.

People who are so stupid and gullible deserve everything they are gonna get.

LEEPERMAX , 4 hours ago link

14 Strange Facts About Mueller's "Michael Flynn Scam"

https://youtu.be/ksb8VsOMqQg

LEEPERMAX , 4 hours ago link

MUELLER and his "Band of Legal Clowns" have played us all for "Absolute Fools" again and again.

THE U.S. IS A CAPTURED OPERATION

Drop-Hammer , 4 hours ago link

Poor Flynn. Rail-roaded by ZOG and Obama and Hillary and Co. I hope beyond hope that the truth is revealed and that he can sue the **** out of the seditionists/(((seditionists))) who put him into this mess such that his great-great-grandchildren will never have to work.

I also blame Trump for throwing Flynn under the bus.

Westcoastliberal , 3 hours ago link

Trump didn't throw Flynn under the bus, I think he would pardon him later, but Trump needs to let this play out. Otherwise the left will bury him.

just the tip , 36 minutes ago link

trump threw flynn under the bus when trump said the reason he let flynn go was flynn lied to pence.

Homer E. Rectus , 4 hours ago link

If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn’t they do the same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven’t they have already demonstrated they are willing to break the rules?

Duh! Because it's easy and the media never covers it and AG Barr and FBI director Wray will cover it all up. America no longer operates under rule of law, and now we all know it. Never cooperate with them!

Roger Casement , 4 hours ago link

Mike Flynn stands for us. Help him put handicapped trolls out of work.

Buy lunch for Sidney Powell. o7

https://mikeflynndefensefund.org/

ztack3r , 4 hours ago link

flynn didn't rape children, to buzy trying to fight liberators of iraq and afganistan from invasion... that's his major crime.

I guess, kelly, mattis, mcmaster neither are on the child rape trend. but what can they do? when the entire cia and doj and fbi are full on controlled and run by the pedos? it's like when all the cardinals and the pope are pedos, what a bishop to do...

Why would CIA Rothschild'd up puppet Trump pick only the best William Barr?

Who told Acosta to cut no prosecution deal with Epstein? George Bush? Robert Mukasey? or Bob Mueller?

Trump, Barr, Bush, Mueller all on the same no rule of law national no government pys op , for Epstein & 9/11 clean op team Poppa Bush, Clinton, & Mossad.

Barr: CIA operative

It is a sobering fact that American presidents (many of whom have been corrupt) have gone out of their way to hire fixers to be their attorney generals.

Consider recent history: Loretta Lynch (2015-2017), Eric Holder (2009-2015), Michael Mukasey (2007-2009), Alberto Gonzales (2005-2007), John Ashcroft (2001-2005),Janet Reno (1993-2001), **** Thornburgh (1988-1991), Ed Meese (1985-1988), etc.

Barr, however, is a particularly spectacular and sordid case. As George H.W. Bush’s most notorious insider, and as the AG from 1991 to 1993, Barr wreaked havoc, flaunted the rule of law, and proved himself to be one of the CIA/Deep State’s greatest and most ruthless champions and protectors :

A strong case can be made that William Barr was as powerful and important a figure in the Bush apparatus as any other, besides Poppy Bush himself.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/ciabushiran-contra-covert-operative-fixer-william-barr-nominated-attorney-general/5662609

my new username , 4 hours ago link

That's FBI lawfare: either you plead guilty of crimes you did not commit, or we frame your son, as well as bankrupt you.

Roger Casement , 5 hours ago link

Mike Flynn stands for us. Going to buy guns or butter for the cause?

These consiglieres went after his son. They aren't lawyers. They are hitmen.

https://mikeflynndefensefund.org/

ztack3r , 4 hours ago link

there is a war on america, and the DoD and men like flynn are too arrogant, dumb, and proud to admit they have been fucked and conned deeply by men way smarter than them...

we don't need ******* brains, but killers to wage this revolution against the american pedostate.

and that, what they master, they don't want to do.

if they want money, they should have learned to trade and not kill...

[Sep 07, 2019] "Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have 'conspired' with key unknown figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240 billion in off balance sheet securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to overthrow the Soviet Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging their existence.

Sep 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Tunga , 12 minutes ago link

Oh those securities!

""Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have 'conspired' with key unknown figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240 billion in off balance sheet securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to overthrow the Soviet Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging their existence. These securities, originally managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, were cleared and settled in the aftermath of September 11th

through the BoNY. The $100 billion account balance bubble reported by the Wall Street Journalas being experienced in the BoNY was tip of a three day operation, when these securities were moved from off-balance-sheet to the balance sheet.

Tunga , 12 minutes ago link

https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/epr/02v08n2/0211flempdf.pdf

pparalegal , 3 minutes ago link

Oops. Building 7 and all the records gone in a collapsed vertical pancake. What a shame.

[Sep 07, 2019] Who Is Jared Kushner Trump Loyalist or 'Deep State' Kissinger Protege by Robert Bridge

Nov 22, 2017 | www.strategic-culture.org

Beyond the question of Jared's omnipresence is his apparent knack for political survival. Although Trump tends to go through officials as rapidly as he tweets, Jared has managed thus far to ride out the storm. Of course, firing Jared – husband of Trump's daughter, Ivanka – would be more than your average political decision, which is probably why Trump should never have dabbled in nepotism to begin with. Or perhaps Jared Kushner remains in his top-level position not because he is the son-in-law of Donald Trump, or because he is so politically astute (thus far it would seem he is not), but precisely because the Deep State wants him there.

Whatever the case may be, it is notable that while Trump's main allies – guys like Mike Flynn, Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus (all of whom were loathed by the Deep State, incidentally) – fell to the wayside one after another, Kushner alone remains from the original Trump lineup. And his popularity among the establishment elite remains high.

Reminiscent of the day when Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize without ever negotiating a single peace deal, Time magazine just named Jared Kushner among its '100 Most Influential People'. And it was none other than Henry Kissinger, 93, the fiercely criticized former US statesman, who penned the blurb that accompanied Jared's honorable mention.

Kissinger, expert practitioner of the "strategic lie", says he first met Kushner "about 18 months ago, when he introduced himself after a foreign policy lecture I had given." The very next line strongly suggests that Kissinger is lurking in the shadows of the Trump administration. "We have sporadically exchanged views since."

Really? That short sentence should have set alarms ringing. What exactly does Kissinger mean by "sporadically," and what is it that he and Jared discuss? Somehow I doubt the weather. And is Trump aware of the content of these "sporadic" conversations, or is he content to get the Cliff Notes courtesy of Kushner?

Considering Henry Kissinger's extremely checkered past – for starters, he convinced Nixon to bomb Cambodia and Laos, and replace the democratically elected government of Chile with a brutal military dictatorship – these are no idle questions. And as it turns out, there is already some whiff of mischief in the air that directly involves Jared Kushner, and, indirectly or otherwise, Henry Kissinger.

The Art of The Dumb

To date, President Trump has made two critical decisions that, for many analysts, defied logic and even common sense and were, in short, disastrous. The first involved the firing of Michael Flynn less than a month after he was named national security adviser. The stated reason for that decision was due to conversations Flynn had with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak a month before Trump formally took office. However, Flynn was doing nothing more 'subversive' than attempting to tamp down Russia's understandable fury at being treated so brusquely by the Obama administration.

In the tidal wave of Russophobia that swept through Washington following Hillary Clinton's dramatic defeat, Barack Obama – after originally acknowledging the election to have been fair – suddenly changed his tune. Apparently somebody had a talk with him, and on December 29, based on the groundless claims of Russian tampering the elections, Obama expelled 35 Russian embassy staff, as well as imposing sanctions – all just days before the New Year.

It was in the course of this dramatic diplomatic meltdown between the world's two nuclear powers that Flynn and Kislyak spoke on the telephone on several occasions in an effort to repair the damage (It should be noted that Jared Kushner also participated in an earlier meeting at Trump Tower with Michael Flynn and Sergey Kislyak. The purpose of that meeting was to "establish a line of communication" between the soon-to-be Trump administration and the Kremlin, the White House told the New York Times). All things considered, it was the honorable thing to do. Others, of course, saw things differently. Yet Flynn got the sack, while Kushner continues in his post relatively unscathed.

When the wolves in the Democratic Party came a knocking, Trump probably thought he could satisfy the Deep State, obviously hell-bent on sabotaging US-Russia relations, by sacrificing Flynn like an easily disposable pawn. The maverick of Manhattan gambled wrong. Trump now reportedly " regrets " firing Flynn, who he says got a "very bad deal" from the media.

The second even more mysterious event involved the firing of James Comey, the FBI Director who was in the process of investigating claims of collusion between Trump and Russia in the course of the 2016 presidential election. It did not take a political genius to understand that firing Comey while he was investigating claims of "Russian collusion" would only serve to fortify that very myth – and worse, appear as an attempt at a Trump cover-up. The US president, understandably at wits end over the ongoing witch-hunt, now seemed guilty of attempting to 'disappear' the nosy Comey. What he got instead was just more barbarians at the gate.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, yet another dedicated Trump loyalist who got served a pink slip, told Charlie Rose in an interview that President Trump's decision to fire James Comey was "the biggest mistake in modern political history."

So who gave Trump such horrible advice? Some reports point to Kushner.

According to a Vanity Fair report , "Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller's appointment." That comment was allegedly based on a phone call between Bannon and Trump. In another conversation, political analyst Roger Stone supposedly told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, and Trump agreed.

"Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history," former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg told the magazine. "I'm only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress."

However, Nunberg's judgment is only true if we assume that Kushner is really dedicated to faithfully serving Donald Trump, but is just awful at his job. Or, alternatively, if he is instead accepting the demands and advice being given to him from people like Henry Kissinger, representatives of the Deep State. In that case, it could be argued he is doing a remarkable job.

Welcome back, Henry Kissinger

Keeping in mind Mark Twain's observation that "history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme," it was impossible to miss the historical coincidence of Kissinger appearing next to Donald Trump in May shortly after the latter unceremoniously canned Comey. Why was it a coincidence?

Because decades earlier, Henry Kissinger, while serving under Richard Nixon as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, played a major role in the so-called 'Saturday Night Massacre,' which saw Nixon fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was attempting to retrieve telephone recordings connected to the case.

What followed from that disastrous decision was Nixon being eventually forced to resign in disgrace, a political calamity that some experts say could eventually happen to Trump if 'Russiagate' gets any more out of control.

"The unexpected firing of a high-profile investigator looking into potential political malfeasance connected to the White House, followed by a visit by Henry Kissinger to the Oval Office. No, this is not October 1973," began an ABC News report detailing Kissinger's strangely timed invitation to the White House.

Trump said the meeting with Kissinger, now 93, focused on Russia, Syria and "various other matters," calling Kissinger a "friend for a long time."

Coincidence or otherwise, Kissinger was one of Nixon's closest confidants and also met with him after the Saturday Night Massacre.

"I don't think we can read too much into that, but it would be interesting if they were consulting him on troubleshooting, in which case, Kissinger wouldn't be the first person I would turn to," David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism and media studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told ABC News.

In any case, if it really was Jared Kushner who advised Trump to dump both Flynn and Comey, as many analysts suggest, then the sudden appearance of geopolitical guru Kissinger in the White House shortly afterwards is peculiar to say the least.

1001 Arabian arrests

Just this month, we may have witnessed, albeit from second-hand accounts, Jared Kushner taking his first steps as a Kissinger geopolitical protégé.

On November 3rd, Saudi Arabia placed a call to Lebanon's then Prime Minister Saad Hariri, demanding that he pay a visit to Riyadh. Hariri wasted no time at all, reportedly flying to Saudi Arabia without his regular staff. The next day, Hariri did something completely out of the ordinary: In a televised appearance, from the Saudi capital, he announced that he was resigning from his post as prime minister.

Western media greatly played down the fact that Hariri made his announcement on foreign soil, not least of all Saudi soil, while giving extra attention to Hariri's explanation for his sudden retirement: Iran and Hezbollah, which just helped Syria liberate itself from ISIS terrorists.

"Wherever Iran settles, it sows discord, devastation and destruction, proven by its interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries," he said in his prepared statement. He also said he feared for his life.

That evening, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested 11 Saudi princes, 4 government officials and dozens of businessmen, while also claiming that Saudi Arabia had intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The blame for that unconfirmed event naturally went to Iran as well.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said Hariri's resignation was a ploy to "create tension in Lebanon and the region."

"Hariri's resignation was done with planning by Donald Trump, the president of America, and Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia," said Hussein Sheikh al-Islam, adviser to Iran's supreme leader.

However, Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took the blame game one step further, pointing to Jared Kushner as the cause of the spectacle.

"Visits by Kushner & Lebanese PM led to [Saad] Hariri's bizarre resignation while abroad," Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted . "Of course, Iran is accused of interference."

Indeed, Kushner paid a visit to Saudi Arabia in October as part of a four-day trip that also included stops in Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The Washington Post provided some scant details on Kushner's secretive meeting with MbS: "MBS is emboldened by strong support from President Trump and his inner circle It was probably no accident that last month, Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, made a personal visit to Riyadh. The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy."

Meanwhile, Israel's interest in what transpires between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon is also of no small concern, given its wariness of Iranian moves in the region, as noted by The Spectator : "The Jewish state is hardly a natural ally for Saudi Arabia, but they have long shared a common enemy: Iran. Both fear the latter is exploiting the opening created by the fall of Isis, and the triumph of the Assad regime in Syria, to dominate the region "

The question, however, comes down to what role Jared Kushner has been playing in all of this, and to what end? Is he loyally and dutifully serving the interests of Donald Trump, while being groomed as the next Henry Kissinger, possibly eventually moving seamlessly between consecutive administrations, as Kissinger did when he survived the downfall of Nixon and went on to serve under Gerald Ford?

Or is Jared Kushner, despite being the son-in-law and top adviser of Donald Trump, heeding the demands of a different master?

[Sep 07, 2019] US Army Major (Ret.) We Are Living In The Wreckage Of The War On Terror by Danny Sjursen

Notable quotes:
"... The man was remarkable at one specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded self-promotion. Sure he lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more than tools for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the clinical definition of sociopathy. Details, details ..."
Sep 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by US Army Major (ret.) Danny Sjursen via AntiWar.com,

It has taken me years to tell these stories. The emotional and moral wounds of the Afghan War have just felt too recent, too raw. After all, I could hardly write a thing down about my Iraq War experience for nearly ten years, when, by accident, I churned out a book on the subject. Now, as the American war in Afghanistan – hopefully – winds to something approaching a close, it's finally time to impart some tales of the madness. In this new, recurring, semi-regular series, the reader won't find many worn out sagas of heroism, brotherhood, and love of country. Not that this author doesn't have such stories, of course. But one can find those sorts of tales in countless books and numerous trite, platitudinal Hollywood yarns.

With that in mind, I propose to tell a number of very different sorts of stories – profiles, so to speak, in absurdity. That's what war is, at root, an exercise in absurdity, and America's hopeless post-9/11 wars are stranger than most. My own 18-year long quest to find some meaning in all the combat, to protect my troops from danger, push back against the madness, and dissent from within the army proved Kafkaesque in the extreme. Consider what follows just a survey of that hopeless journey...

The man was remarkable at one specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded self-promotion. Sure he lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more than tools for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the clinical definition of sociopathy. Details, details

Still, you (almost) had to admire his drive, devotion, and dedication to the cause of promotion, of rising through the military ranks. Had he managed to channel that astonishing energy, obsession even, to the pursuit of some good, the world might markedly have improved. Which is, actually, a dirty little secret about the military, especially ground combat units; that it tends to attract (and mold) a disturbing number of proud owners of such personality disorders. The army then positively reinforces such toxic behavior by promoting these sorts of individuals – who excel at mind-melding (brown-nosing, that is) with superiors – at disproportionate rates. Such is life. Only there are real consequences, real soldiers, (to say nothing of local civilians) who suffer under their commanders' tyranny.

Back in 2011-12, the man served as my commander, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. As such, he led – and partly controlled the destinies of – some 500 odd soldiers .

Then a lowly captain, I commanded about one-fifth of those men and answered directly to the colonel. I didn't much like the guy; hardly any of his officers did. And he didn't trust my aspirational intellectualism, proclivity to ask "why," or, well, me in general. Still, he mostly found this author an effective middle manager. As such, I was a means to an end for him – that being self-advancement and some positive measurable statistics for his annual officer evaluation report (OER) from his own boss. Nonetheless, it was the army and you sure don't choose your bosses.

So it was, early in my yearlong tour in the scrublands of rural Kandahar province, that the colonel treated me to one his dog-and-pony-show visits. Only this time he had some unhappy news for me. The next day he, and the baker's dozen tag-alongs in his ubiquitous entourage, wanted to walk the few treacherous miles to the most dangerous strongpoint in the entire sub-district. It was occupied, needlessly, by one of my platoons in perpetuity and suffered under constant siege by the local Taliban, too small to contest the area and too big to fly under the radar, this – at one point the most attacked outpost in Afghanistan – base just provided an American flag-toting target. I'd communicated as much to command early on, but to no avail. Can-do US colonels with aspirations for general officer rank hardly ever give up territory to the enemy – even if that's the strategically sound course.

Walking to the platoon strongpoint was dicey on even the best of days. The route between our main outpost and the Alamo-like strongpoint was flooded with Taliban insurgents and provided precious little cover or concealment for out patrols. On my first jaunt to the outpost, I (foolishly, it must be said) walked my unit into an ambush and was thrown over a small rock wall by the blast of a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) with my apparent name on it. Since then, it was standard for our patrols to the strongpoint to suffer multiple ambushes during the roundtrip rotation. Sometimes our kids got wounded or killed; sometimes they were lucky. Mercifully, at least, my intelligence section – led by my friend and rebranded artillery lieutenant – did their homework and figured out that the chronically lazy local Taliban didn't like to fight at night or wake up early, so patrols to the strongpoint that stepped off before dawn had a fighting chance of avoiding the worst of ambush alley.

I hadn't wanted to take my colonel on a patrol to the outpost. His entourage was needlessly large and, when added to my rotational platoon, presented an unwieldy and inviting target for Taliban ambush. Still I knew better than to argue the point with my disturbingly confident and single-minded colonel. So I hedged. Yes, sir, we can take you along, with one caveat: we have to leave before dawn! I proceeded to explain why, replete with historical stats and examples, we could only (somewhat) safely avoid ambush if we did so.

That's when things went south. The colonel insisted we leave at nine, maybe even ten, in the morning, the absolute peak window for Taliban attack. This prima donna reminded me that he couldn't possibly leave any earlier. He had a "battle rhythm," after all, which included working out in the gym at his large, safe, distant-from-the-roar-of-battle base each morning. How could I expect him to alter that predictable schedule over something as minor as protecting the lives and limbs of his own troopers? He had "to set an example," he reminded me, by letting his soldiers on the base "see him in the gym" each and every morning. Back then, silly me, I was actually surprised by the colonel's absurd refusal; so much so that I pushed back, balked, tried to rationally press my point. To no avail.

What the man said next has haunted me ever since. We would leave no earlier than nine AM, according to his preference. My emotional pleas – begging really – was not only for naught but insulted the colonel. Why? Because, as he imparted to me, for my own growth and development he thought, "Remember: lower caters to higher, Danny!" That, he reminded me, was the way of the military world, the key to success and advancement. The man even thought he was being helpful, advising me on how to achieve the success he'd achieved. My heart sank forever, and never recovered.

The next day he was late. We didn't step off until nearly ten AM. The ambush, a massive mix of RPG and machine gun fire, kicked off – as predicted – within sight of the main base. The rest was history, and certainly could've been worse. On other, less lucky, days it was. But I remember this one profound moment. When the first rocket exploded above us, both the colonel and I dove for limited cover behind a mound of rocks. I was terrified and exasperated. Just then we locked eyes and I gazed into his proverbial soul. The man was incapable of fear. He wasn't scared, or disturbed; he didn't care a bit about what was happening. That revelation was more terrifying than the ongoing ambush and would alter my view of the world irreparably.

Which brings us to some of the discomfiting morals – if such things exist – of this story.

American soldiers fight and die at the whims of career-obsessed officers as much they do so at the behest of king and country. Sometimes its their own leaders – as much as the ostensible "enemy" – that tries to get them killed. The plentiful sociopaths running these wars at the upper and even middle-management levels are often far less concerned with long-term, meaningful "victory" in places like Afghanistan, than in crafting – on the backs of their soldiers sacrifices – the illusion of progress, just enough measurable "success" in their one year tour to warrant a stellar evaluation and, thus, the next promotion. Not all leaders are like this. I, for one, once worked for a man for whom I – and all my peers – would run through walls for, a (then) colonel that loved his hundreds of soldiers like they were his own children. But he was the exception that proved the rule.

The madness, irrationality, and absurdity of my colonel was nothing less than a microcosm of America's entire hopeless adventure in Afghanistan. The war was never rational, winnable, or meaningful. It was from the first, and will end as, an exercise in futility. It was, and is, one grand patrol to my own unnecessary outpost, undertaken at the wrong time and place. It was a collection of sociopaths and imbeciles – both Afghan and American – tilting at windmills and ultimately dying for nothing at all. Yet the young men in the proverbial trenches never flinched, never refused. They did their absurd duty because they were acculturated to the military system, and because they were embarrassed not to.

After all, lower caters to higher


malek , 36 seconds ago link

Sounds like the retired Major never watched "Cross of Iron" directed by Sam Peckinpah

I am Groot , 1 minute ago link

The Major totally failed to mention the Patriot Act and the removal of US Constitutional rights from Americans based on a false flag attack that cold bloodily murdered 3,000 people and cost the taxpayers over 10 trillion dollars.

Pvt Joker , 15 minutes ago link

Sounds just Vietnam.

hoffstetter , 8 minutes ago link

Just to put it in perspective, the US has been in Afghanistan for 18 years and has lost less than 3000 troops and just over 20000 wounded. The US was in Vietnam 20 years and loss nearly 60000 troops and 150000 wounded. This not to diminish the misery of those that served in either war, but not really comparable in scope.

MalteseFalcon , 7 minutes ago link

We accomplished the same in both cases.

ScreaminLib , 18 minutes ago link

You did what you had to do, Major. You were a good shabbos goy for world financial oligarchy but now they don't need you any more so go shoot heroin up your veins or jump off a ******* building, but you dare not even so much as ask for a "thank you" from the financial oligarchy!

[Sep 06, 2019] Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes

Notable quotes:
"... @gulfgal98 ..."
"... It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment. ..."
"... literal medical necessity ..."
"... @humphrey ..."
"... My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs? ..."
Sep 06, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes


gjohnsit on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 5:25pm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demonstrated what the term "ugly American" meant the other day when he bragged about his defeat of the International Criminal Court.

"Americanism means taking care of our own," said Pompeo.
"We stopped international courts from prosecuting our service members," Pompeo continued, adding that the potential probe "was an outrage."
...
Pompeo confirmed earlier this year that the administration would revoke or deny visas for ICC personnel who try to investigate or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes. A month later, in April, the administration followed through and revoked prosecutor Bensouda's visa for entry into the U.S.

Just because you defeated justice doesn't mean the crimes go away.
However, it does mean that there is no incentive to stop committing war crimes.
That brings us to today's news from Yemen .


The UK, US, France and Iran may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there, UN experts say.
A new report warns the countries they could be held responsible for aiding or assisting the commission of violations.
The Western powers provide weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, while Iran backs the Houthi rebels.
...
The UN says the four-year conflict has claimed the lives of at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population - 24 million people - in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.

Yemen has gotten a significant amount of much needed attention in recent years, but just across the Gulf of Aden another humanitarian disaster of gigantic size is happening in near total silence and obscurity.

"In the absence of humanitarian assistance, up to 2.1 million people across Somalia face severe hunger through December," the UN warned, citing the 2019 Post-Gu report's conclusion that this would bring the total number of Somalis expected to be food insecure, to 6.3 million by year's end.

1 million children are expected to be malnourished in Somalia by year's end.

Much like Yemen, the United States is busy committing war crimes in Somalia as well.

The United States may have committed war crimes as it bombed al-Shabab militants in Somalia, a new report Amnesty International alleges...
They found that the airstrikes killed farmers, women and an eight-year-old girl, whom the group assessed had no ties to al-Shabab.

"Due to the nature of the attacks, the U.S. government is violating international humanitarian law and these violations may amount to war crimes," Hassan said.
While the United States has been bombing Somalia for more than a decade, the Trump administration has accelerated the attacks.

The insurgency there is fueled by Somali rage over now decades-long American interference in their country.
Why Americans cannot bring themselves to care about Somalia is something I will never understand.

Meanwhile in Libya things have gone from bad to worse .

"Unless action is taken in the near term, it is highly likely that the current conflict will escalate into full civil war," Guterres said on Thursday in his latest report on the UN Support Mission in Libya.

AFRICOM says that a civil war would "give existing terrorist elements in Libya oxygen."
The leading instigator of the fighting is General Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, after the defeat of the Libyan troops he was commanding in 1987, he offered his services to the CIA , which backed him for years as he awaited the opportunity to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
Is it really any surprise that Trump loves him ?


An airstrike by Khalifa Haftar's forces hit a migrant detention center east of Tripoli yesterday and killed at least 44 people and wounded up to 130. Haftar and his forces are mainly backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and this airstrike is part of the assault on the Libyan capital that Trump reportedly endorsed when it began. The Trump administration is now shielding Haftar from condemnation by the Security Council by blocking the statement promoted by the U.K.

The ICC plans to investigate these war crimes, but since the Trump Administration won't even allow a condemnation, and considering how much Washington hates the ICC, i wouldn't count on this investigation going very far.

We need to

Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.

Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that gorilla.

The Liberal Moonbat on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 7:51pm
We, the American people, need to grab that gorilla by the balls

@gulfgal98 and CRUSH THEM.

The idea that POMPEO is "outraged" is...well, he's a Nazi. So is anybody who thinks that way (lookin' at you, Dubya & Friends).

THEY ARE DETERMINED TO OBLITERATE THE ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY, THE CENTURY THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT PRECISELY BECAUSE, FOR A BRIEF MOMENT IN TIME, IT CAST OFF AND STOOD AGAINST THAT VERY MENTALITY.

Men like him belong in their own torture-camps...or a short distance under them.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

NUREMBERG II: JUDGMENT DAY.

It is what they most dread.
It is the least they deserve.
It is what the entire world - the American people most of all - NEEDS NOW.
It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment.

FIAT JUSTICIA, RUUAT CAELUM: "Let there be Justice, though the Heavens may fall".

I believe that Justice (REAL Justice, not just the way it's been redefined by some as "goodies for my clique"), delivered in a timely, precise, and reliable manner, is nothing short of a literal medical necessity - and the truth is, Caelum IS Ruuating PRECISELY BECAUSE there has been no Justicia.

Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.

Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that gorilla.

humphrey on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 8:42pm
One thing.

There would be a construction boom at The Hague building new prisons to accommodate all the war criminals.

Le Frog on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 10:06pm
Somewhere, a private prison executive's

@humphrey heart beat a little faster in excitement and anticipation at the idea of securing the contracts for this.

There would be a construction boom at The Hague building new prisons to accommodate all the war criminals.

Daenerys on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 10:13pm
"Taking care of our own"

Our own what? Criminals I guess. *snort*

//www.youtube.com/embed/_n5E7feJHw0?modestbranding=0&html5=1&rel=0&autoplay=0&wmode=opaque&loop=0&controls=1&autohide=0&showinfo=0&theme=dark&color=red&enablejsapi=0

wendy davis on Fri, 09/06/2019 - 11:23am
this is great, gjonsit;

thank you. i look forward to reading it more carefully later, especially your link on somalia. i remember bill clinton's hypocritical R2P only too well.. which precious Somalian mineral was the hegemon really after?

pindar's revenge on Fri, 09/06/2019 - 4:55pm
Forgive me, a nitpick

In the book The Ugly American, the ugly guy was actually the good guy who understood and respected local culture; he was just ugly and unsmooth. The "pretty" Americans were the villains. IIRC, it's been over 50 years. Might be worth re-reading.

Are we surprised? This is the Pax (or Bellus?) Americana. Since the USSR folded, the UN is toothless and GodGun$Gut$ dominates the world with endless war -- or thinks it does; after all, one in six humans is Chinese.

My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs?

[Sep 06, 2019] Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes

Notable quotes:
"... @gulfgal98 ..."
"... It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment. ..."
"... literal medical necessity ..."
"... @humphrey ..."
"... My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs? ..."
Sep 06, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes


gjohnsit on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 5:25pm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demonstrated what the term "ugly American" meant the other day when he bragged about his defeat of the International Criminal Court.

"Americanism means taking care of our own," said Pompeo.
"We stopped international courts from prosecuting our service members," Pompeo continued, adding that the potential probe "was an outrage."
...
Pompeo confirmed earlier this year that the administration would revoke or deny visas for ICC personnel who try to investigate or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes. A month later, in April, the administration followed through and revoked prosecutor Bensouda's visa for entry into the U.S.

Just because you defeated justice doesn't mean the crimes go away.
However, it does mean that there is no incentive to stop committing war crimes.
That brings us to today's news from Yemen .


The UK, US, France and Iran may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there, UN experts say.
A new report warns the countries they could be held responsible for aiding or assisting the commission of violations.
The Western powers provide weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, while Iran backs the Houthi rebels.
...
The UN says the four-year conflict has claimed the lives of at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population - 24 million people - in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.

Yemen has gotten a significant amount of much needed attention in recent years, but just across the Gulf of Aden another humanitarian disaster of gigantic size is happening in near total silence and obscurity.

"In the absence of humanitarian assistance, up to 2.1 million people across Somalia face severe hunger through December," the UN warned, citing the 2019 Post-Gu report's conclusion that this would bring the total number of Somalis expected to be food insecure, to 6.3 million by year's end.

1 million children are expected to be malnourished in Somalia by year's end.

Much like Yemen, the United States is busy committing war crimes in Somalia as well.

The United States may have committed war crimes as it bombed al-Shabab militants in Somalia, a new report Amnesty International alleges...
They found that the airstrikes killed farmers, women and an eight-year-old girl, whom the group assessed had no ties to al-Shabab.

"Due to the nature of the attacks, the U.S. government is violating international humanitarian law and these violations may amount to war crimes," Hassan said.
While the United States has been bombing Somalia for more than a decade, the Trump administration has accelerated the attacks.

The insurgency there is fueled by Somali rage over now decades-long American interference in their country.
Why Americans cannot bring themselves to care about Somalia is something I will never understand.

Meanwhile in Libya things have gone from bad to worse .

"Unless action is taken in the near term, it is highly likely that the current conflict will escalate into full civil war," Guterres said on Thursday in his latest report on the UN Support Mission in Libya.

AFRICOM says that a civil war would "give existing terrorist elements in Libya oxygen."
The leading instigator of the fighting is General Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, after the defeat of the Libyan troops he was commanding in 1987, he offered his services to the CIA , which backed him for years as he awaited the opportunity to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
Is it really any surprise that Trump loves him ?


An airstrike by Khalifa Haftar's forces hit a migrant detention center east of Tripoli yesterday and killed at least 44 people and wounded up to 130. Haftar and his forces are mainly backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and this airstrike is part of the assault on the Libyan capital that Trump reportedly endorsed when it began. The Trump administration is now shielding Haftar from condemnation by the Security Council by blocking the statement promoted by the U.K.

The ICC plans to investigate these war crimes, but since the Trump Administration won't even allow a condemnation, and considering how much Washington hates the ICC, i wouldn't count on this investigation going very far.

We need to

Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.

Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that gorilla.

The Liberal Moonbat on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 7:51pm
We, the American people, need to grab that gorilla by the balls

@gulfgal98 and CRUSH THEM.

The idea that POMPEO is "outraged" is...well, he's a Nazi. So is anybody who thinks that way (lookin' at you, Dubya & Friends).

THEY ARE DETERMINED TO OBLITERATE THE ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY, THE CENTURY THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT PRECISELY BECAUSE, FOR A BRIEF MOMENT IN TIME, IT CAST OFF AND STOOD AGAINST THAT VERY MENTALITY.

Men like him belong in their own torture-camps...or a short distance under them.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

NUREMBERG II: JUDGMENT DAY.

It is what they most dread.
It is the least they deserve.
It is what the entire world - the American people most of all - NEEDS NOW.
It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment.

FIAT JUSTICIA, RUUAT CAELUM: "Let there be Justice, though the Heavens may fall".

I believe that Justice (REAL Justice, not just the way it's been redefined by some as "goodies for my clique"), delivered in a timely, precise, and reliable manner, is nothing short of a literal medical necessity - and the truth is, Caelum IS Ruuating PRECISELY BECAUSE there has been no Justicia.

Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.

Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that gorilla.

humphrey on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 8:42pm
One thing.

There would be a construction boom at The Hague building new prisons to accommodate all the war criminals.

Le Frog on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 10:06pm
Somewhere, a private prison executive's

@humphrey heart beat a little faster in excitement and anticipation at the idea of securing the contracts for this.

There would be a construction boom at The Hague building new prisons to accommodate all the war criminals.

Daenerys on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 10:13pm
"Taking care of our own"

Our own what? Criminals I guess. *snort*

//www.youtube.com/embed/_n5E7feJHw0?modestbranding=0&html5=1&rel=0&autoplay=0&wmode=opaque&loop=0&controls=1&autohide=0&showinfo=0&theme=dark&color=red&enablejsapi=0

wendy davis on Fri, 09/06/2019 - 11:23am
this is great, gjonsit;

thank you. i look forward to reading it more carefully later, especially your link on somalia. i remember bill clinton's hypocritical R2P only too well.. which precious Somalian mineral was the hegemon really after?

pindar's revenge on Fri, 09/06/2019 - 4:55pm
Forgive me, a nitpick

In the book The Ugly American, the ugly guy was actually the good guy who understood and respected local culture; he was just ugly and unsmooth. The "pretty" Americans were the villains. IIRC, it's been over 50 years. Might be worth re-reading.

Are we surprised? This is the Pax (or Bellus?) Americana. Since the USSR folded, the UN is toothless and GodGun$Gut$ dominates the world with endless war -- or thinks it does; after all, one in six humans is Chinese.

My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs?

[Sep 06, 2019] Syria air defnece systems

Sep 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Krollchem , Sep 6 2019 2:41 utc | 108

SmoothieX12@55

I was just pointing out that the S-300 would be a waste of resources based on the comparative effectiveness of the various Russian made missiles during the April 14th 2018 FUKUS attack on Syria. In this instance, of the 103 missiles launched, the Syrian missile defense forces shot down 71 and the S-300 had the poorest kill ratio of the defensive missiles fired and the Pantsier-S1/S2 had the highest kill ratio. As I remember the BUK-M2 systems came in a close second. Am I incorrect?

I recognized that I should have cited the UNZ.com articles rather than Zero Hedge after I pressed send.

My understanding was that the combined Syrian/Russian defense system includes the following launchers as of mid 2018. Perhaps it is not complete, in which case I would appreciate any corrections.

I also understand that radar tracking systems are what really causes FUKUS to pause in their tracks. Any comments on the Chinese quantum computing detection systems?

S-400 (SA-21) systems:
There are two S-400 complexes guarding Khmeimim consisting of 16 missile launchers per complex (32 launch ready missiles range 350 km)
http://www.janes.com/article/74500/second-russian-s-400-in-syria-confirmed

S-300 (SA-20) systems
Russia has seven S-300VM missile systems defending Tartus and aboard some warships (range 350 km)
http://theiranproject.com/blog/2016/11/16/seven-russian-s-300-air-missile-defense-systems-deployed-syria/

Bastion (K-300P) anti-ship coastal systems (Yakhonts)Russia has deployed perhaps two batteries of 18 launchers at their naval bases (72 launch ready missiles – range 350 km) Russia also has K-300P systems on it Project 11356 frigates
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/179014/bastion-missile-proves-land-attack-capability-in-syria%3A-tass.html
Syria has two batteries consisting of 18 launchers which carry two 3M55E Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles. (72 launch ready missiles -range 350 km)
http://defense-update.com/20111203_syria-receives-yakhont-missiles.html

Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler)
Russia has Kalibr long range missiles on all their frigates either 3M-54E1/3M-14E: (300 km range) or 3M-54/3M-54T: (660 km range)
http://www.defensereview.com/us-navy-aircraft-carriers-vulnerable-to-ss-n-27b-sizzler-anti-ship-missile/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Kalibr

Pantsier
Russia had previously provided 40 Pantsier-1 missile systems to Syria with 12 missiles loaded per system (480 launch ready missiles – range 20 km)
https://www.therussophile.org/russia-delivered-40-pantsir-s1-air-defense-systems-to-syria-state-media.html/

Subsequently, Russia has also deployed an unknown number of Pantsir S2 air defense systems to its Khmeimim airbase in Syria (range of about 40 km)
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/31/weapons-tested-syria-russia-pantsir-s2-mobile-air-defense-missile-gun-system.html
The Pantsier-2 may have been upgraded to add four directed sub-rockets to each missile for a total of 48 missiles per Pantsier launcher.
Buk-M2E (SA-11)
Russia has an unknown number of Buk-M2E systems and perhaps the new Buk-M3 in Syria.
Syria has received a total of 48 launchers of Buk-M2 surface-to-air missiles. (192 launch ready missiles – range 40 km). I believe that there is a BUK-M3 variant under development that carries more launch ready missiles per vehicle.
http://www.todaynews24h.com/israel-continued-air-strikes-damascus-buk-m2-of-syria-where/

S-125 (SA-3) (Pechora-2M)
Syria has about 145 Pechora and 12 Pechora-2M each with four missiles per launcher. (628 launch ready missiles- range 32 km).
Same as was used by Yugoslav Army 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade to shoot down a F-117
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora

S-200 systems (SA-5) (upgraded)
Syria has two S-200 batteries consisting of 44 launchers at Kweires airport (range 350 km). A Syrian S-200 missile was used to shoot down an Israeli F-16.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_%28missile%29

Kvadrat (SA-6)
Syria has 195 2K12s systems with three missiles per launcher. (585 launch ready missiles – range 22 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K12_Kub

Osa (SA-8)
Syria had 14 batteries consisting of 60 launchers with six short range missiles per launcher. (360 launch ready missiles – range 15 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K33_Osa

Tor-M2E (SA-15D)
Russia has installed both the land based systems (SA-9) and integrated them in their ships at sea (SA-N-9). The launchers come with either 8 or 16 missiles with a range of 16 km

Syria has a number of the older Tor-M1(V) systems with 4-8 launch ready missiles – range 12 km.

Iskander (SS-26)
Russia has at least one Iskander nuclear capable ballistic missile systems in Syria -range 400-500 km. These are ship killers along with the Zircon missiles to take out carriers.
http://defense-update.com/20170106_iskander-in-syria.html
9K35 Strela-10 (SA-13)
Syria has 35 launchers – four missiles per launcher, reload time 3 minutes- range 5 km
http://military.wikia.com/wiki/9K35_Strela-10

[Sep 04, 2019] US army now and then: Today s soldiers aren t too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome

Sep 04, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

VietnamVet , September 3, 2019 at 11:13 pm

This discussion avoids comparing society in the mid-19th century and today. It really isn't that long ago. I've lived through almost half of it. Except for officers most of the soldiers I served with were conscripted or enlisted because of the draft. In a war your choices are limited. If they were in the march, driving wagons, armed to the teeth, they were soldiers; no matter how they got there.

Today's volunteer Army most of the soldiers and contractors are there because they couldn't get a better job unless they are adrenaline junkies or psychopaths. The current neoliberal economy purposefully exploits people and the environment to make a profit. Today's soldiers aren't too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome. Perhaps, "warriors" isn't that much of a misnomer.

[Sep 04, 2019] We will destroy Lebanon... Michael Katz, MoD of Israel in Tweet yesterday - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Sep 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Jack , 01 September 2019 at 01:02 PM

Sir

I'm willing to wager that Trump will order the US military to enter that war on the side of Bibi.

IMO, Bibi knows Trump is weak to zionist & neocon instigated media hysteria. This will be his "war president" moment. He'll have the full backing of Chuckie and Nancy and the rest of the Congressional crew as AIPAC calls in their check. I recall well in the heat of the Russia Collusion media hysteria when he ordered the missile strike in Syria how the media were calling it his presidential moment.

I believe Bibi for his own domestic political reasons as well as knowing that Trump is a fully bought and paid for Zionist asset has been probing what he can instigate that will cause the US to do his work. My question to this committee of military experts is what will this war look like? How will Syria and Iran respond, since both have an obligation to Hezbollah? And what will Putin do with his forces in the middle of a war zone?

walrus , 01 September 2019 at 01:02 PM
I wonder if the Israeli Government has decided that time is not on their side, leading to a decision to act now?

The game changer for Israel would be the resolution of the Syrian civil war.

That would result in a battle hardened and capable SAA being free to operate along the Southern border and on the flank of any Israeli incursion into Lebanon.

Then there is the possibility of Syria extending its air defense network to include Lebanon.

Then there is the question of money to be made in reconstructing Syria, building transport infrastructure for the Iran to Mediterranean leg of OBOR as well as perhaps other projects- this economic activity increases the political power of Syria, Iran, Lebanon and China.

All in All, perhaps Bibi has decided to go now.

blue peacock , 01 September 2019 at 06:16 PM
Col. Lang

Is there any circumstance that you see where the US will not get militarily involved if thousands are killed in Israel even if it is in response to an Israeli provocation?

It would seem that the pressure on any US president would be immense. Hezbollah after all has been demonized for so long as an Islamic terrorist organization. The support for military intervention here would be universal and bipartisan. And the ziocon media would be in full on escalation propaganda mode showing images of Israeli kids in rubble and malevolent images of the evil Nasrallah.

The likely only opposition voices would be Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and Tulsi Gabbard and they will be maligned quickly as irrelevant.

Mathias Alexander -> blue peacock... , 02 September 2019 at 02:43 AM
The support would be bipartisan but would it be universal?
Tulsi Gabbard will fold like a cheap suit.
blue peacock said in reply to Mathias Alexander... , 02 September 2019 at 11:38 AM
Universal means the majority across all geographies from the two coasts to the mid-west and south. The people have been conditioned for decades that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.

The only way to judge a person is how they acted in the past under similar conditions. Tulsi has shown courage of conviction in the past in opposing the very popular Obama's Syria policy of supporting & arming Al Qaeda when it was not popular to do that and she's paying for it by being labeled an Assad apologist among the establishment. And resigning from the DNC to endorse Bernie.

Now of course you are entitled to your own opinion which doesn't have to be based on any facts.

jdledell , 01 September 2019 at 06:21 PM
If the IDF general command has any say in the matter they are telling Bibi - DO NOT wage a total war in Lebanon. The only way Israel can keep Hezballah defanged is to occupy most of Lebanon - something the IDF and it reliance on reserve soldiers is NOT equiped to do except for a very short time. Southern Lebanon is crisscrossed with hundreds of tunnels, an issue where IAF saturation bombing proved to be ineffective. The IDF and their tanks were hit with withering fire from the rear and IDF operational discipline broke down quickly. There is no cohesion between the Professional soldiers in the IDF and the reservists and this makes large scale operations very difficult. Among the professional IDF, you would be hard pressed to find a single soldier who wants to fight Hezballah again.

I think Trump would gladly join Israel in a war in Lebanon and that would turn the tide in Israel's favor temporarily. However, Hezballah would not give a moments peace to any Israeli or U.S. soldier on the ground in Lebanon and the entire population of Lebanon would support Hezballah to throw the invaders out of the country. It would be a bloody occupation for however long it lasted.

jdledell said in reply to milomilo... , 02 September 2019 at 09:55 AM
One of my nephews is an F-16 pilot in the IAF and there is significant concerns about Hezballah's limited air defense capabilities. Israeli intelligence on Hezballah's capabililiies and location is very poor. The IAF has lost several planes in Syria in recent years and are loath to fly over Lebanon proper. The usual tactic is for the IAF planes to fly out to sea and fire missiles from there. Without good intelligence the IAF bombing runs usually end up churning up a lot of dirt.
Fred , 01 September 2019 at 08:00 PM
So the IDF has to penetrate the first line, which they barely managed the first time, then they face a second line of prepared defenses? How much recent combat experience do they have? If I recall correctly at least some of the Lebanese have served in Syria in one capacity or another. It certainly wasn't West Bank occupation duty.
ISL , 01 September 2019 at 09:37 PM
Dear Colonel,

It seems as if Israel is ready to re-fight the last war, and Hezbollah has prepared for the next. More importantly, if war is politics by other means, I see no clear Israeli political objectives nor any indication as to why they think a do over of 2006 will lead to a better outcome.

Absent contributing an occupation force for Lebanon, what would US contribute? Bombing targets in Lebanon? Israel will have taken out all significant targets in a few days and long term bombing changes little. I am sure Bolton is whispering in Trumps ear that Hezbollah will surrender once the might of the US enters the fray.

stumpy , 02 September 2019 at 05:20 PM
Given this discussion, it throws a bit more weight on the side of the recent air strikes by IAF in Iraq and Lebanon as an initial nibble, weighing responses from various parties in order to adjust course.

I'm quite confident that there are enough munitions that are deliverable from unmanned systems to waste Hizbulla's defenses.

The question to be weighed is whether Hizbullah can count on Israel's uncertainty as a deterrent to a massive attack against Lebanon. The Samson effect cuts both ways if Iran jumps in. Unless tptb decide to go with theatre-level weaponry, what is left of Israel even if Iran and Lebanon are squashed?

Even more interesting, if Trump jumps in with his typically flaccid braggadocio, does his action endanger Israel by falling short of the killer punch?

turcopolier , 02 September 2019 at 05:36 PM
stumpy

"I'm quite confident that there are enough munitions that are deliverable from unmanned systems to waste Hizbullah's defenses. "

Do you have any qualifications with which to make such a judgment? What unmanned weapons so you mean?

stumpy said in reply to turcopolier ... , 02 September 2019 at 08:01 PM
Sir, cruise missiles and drones. I read.
ISL said in reply to stumpy ... , 04 September 2019 at 12:33 AM
stumpy, If Israeli saturation bombing of Lebanon achieved nothing in 2006 (except defeat), why exactly do you argue it will have an effect this time?

Moreover, there likely will be a highly complex EW environment, with which Israel has no experience. Did you notice at all what happened to the US Tomahawk volley? Those missiles you admire or worship (missiles - what a novel idea), without IDF on the ground for spotters and to consolidate gains (and die) will push dirt.

Try and name ANY case where air power has been decisive politically without ground forces. You cant for a reason.

[Sep 04, 2019] Veterans Mattis Spent Career Tending the Status Quo The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental stagnation? ..."
"... You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're "how" thinkers not "if" thinkers. ..."
"... This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside. ..."
"... Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day against the forces of change in modern warfare ..."
"... "[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests." ..."
"... "By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says Macgregor. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy op-ed written by former secretary of defense James Mattis, his first public statement since his resignation in December. The article is adopted from his forthcoming book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead , out this week.

The former Pentagon chief opens a window into his decision making process, explaining that accepting President Trump's nomination was part of his lifelong devotion to public service: "When the president asks you to do something, you don't play Hamlet on the wall, wringing your hands. So long as you are prepared, you say yes." Mattis's two years at DoD capped off 44 years in the Marine Corps, where he gained a popular following as a tough and scholarly leader.

Mattis received widespread praise from the foreign policy establishment when he resigned in protest over President Trump's directive for a full U.S. military withdrawal from Syria and a partial withdrawal from Afghanistan. "When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution," he writes.

But did Mattis really offer "concrete solutions and strategic advice" regarding America's two decades of endless war? spoke with four military experts, all veterans, who painted a very different picture of the man called "Mad Dog."

"I think over time, in General Mattis's case a little over 40 years, if you spend that many years in an institution, it is extremely hard not to get institutionalized," says Gil Barndollar, military fellow-in-residence at the Catholic University of America's Center for the Study of Statesmanship. Barndollar served as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps and deployed twice to Afghanistan. "In my experiences, there are not too many iconoclasts or really outside-the-box people in the higher ranks of the U.S. military."

It's just that sort of institutionalized thinking that makes the political establishment love Mattis. "[A] person with an institutional mind-set has a deep reverence for the organization he has joined and how it was built by those who came before. He understands that institutions pass down certain habits, practices and standards of excellence," wrote David Brooks in a hagiographic New York Times column .

But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental stagnation?

"The problem is, from at least the one-star the whole way through, for the last two decades, you've seen them do nothing but just repeat the status quo over and over," observes Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, who served 21 years in the U.S. Army and deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. "I mean every single general that was in charge of Afghanistan said almost the same boilerplate thing every time they came in (which was nearly one a year). You see the same results, nothing changed."

"And if those guys took someone from a major to a two-star general, we'd probably have a lot of better outcomes," he adds.

Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, agrees:

You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're "how" thinkers not "if" thinkers.

Barndollar says: "The vast majority of military leaders, up to and including generals at the three-, four-star level, are not operating at the strategic level, in terms of what that word means in military doctrine. They're not operating at the level of massive nation-state resources and alliances and things like that. They're at the operational level or often even at the tactical level."

This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside.

The only component of national security policy Mattis discusses in his op-ed is America's system of alliances, which he believes is the key to our preeminence on the world stage. "Returning to a strategic stance that includes the interests of as many nations as we can make common cause with, we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupy together," he writes.

"Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day against the forces of change in modern warfare," counters Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who served 28 years in the U.S. Army. "He lives in denial of the technological breakthroughs that make the World War II force structure (that he as SecDef insisted on funding) an expensive tribute to the past."

Mattis muses that the Department of Defense "budget [is] larger than the GDPs of all but two dozen countries." Yet having acknowledged that disparity, how can such underpowered foreign nations possibly contribute to American security?

"He has that line in there about bringing as many guns as possible to a gun fight. What are those guns?" asked Barndollar. For example, the British Royal Navy is the United States' most significant allied naval force. But the United Kingdom has only seven vessels stationed in the Persian Gulf and they're "stretched to the absolute limit to do that."

"Our problem has been double-edged," says Davis of America's reliance on others. "On the one hand, we try to bludgeon a lot of our allies to do what we want irrespective of their interests as an asset. And then simultaneously, especially in previous administrations, we've almost gone too far [in] the other direction: 'we'll subordinate our interests for yours.'"

"[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests."

Sjursen says:

Mattis's view is the old Einstein adage: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Well that's all he's proposed. He has no new or creative solutions. For him, it's stay the course, more of the same, stay in place, fight the terrorists, maintain the illegitimate and corrupt governments that we back. That's what he's been talking about for 18 years. It's all the same interventionist dogma that's failed us over and over again since September 12, 2001.

"In the two years he was in office, what did he do that changed anything? He was a caretaker of the status quo. That's the bottom line," says Davis, adding, "you need somebody in that job especially that is willing to take some chances and some risk and is willing to honestly look at 18 consecutive years of failure and say, 'We're not doing that anymore. We're going to do something different.' And that just never happened."

Barndollar is more generous in his estimation of Mattis: "He needs to be lauded for standing for his principles, ultimately walking away when he decided he could no longer execute U.S. national security policy. I give him all the credit for that, for doing it I think in a relatively good manner, and for trying to do his best to stay above the fray and refuse to be dragged in at a partisan level to this point."

Mattis ends his Wall Street Journal op-ed by recounting a vignette from the 2010 Battle of Marjah, where he spoke with two soldiers on the front lines and in good cheer. But his story didn't sit well with Sjursen, who says it encapsulates Mattis' inability to ask the bigger questions: "He never talks about how those charming soldiers with the can-do attitude maybe shouldn't have been there at all. Maybe the mission that they were asked to do was ill-informed, ill-advised, and potentially unwinnable."

All this suggests that a fair evaluation of Mattis is as a soldier who is intelligent but unoriginal. A homegrown patriot, but one who'd like to plant the Stars and Stripes in Central Asia forever. A public servant, but one who would rather resign than serve the cause of restraint.

"By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says Macgregor.

Hunter DeRensis is a reporter for The National Interest . Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis .

[Sep 04, 2019] America's-Own Ministry Of Truth Unleashes The Military To Fight Disinformation

Notable quotes:
"... The Soviets tried to police thought but it was an embarrassing failure. What makes America think they can achieve better results? ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

When "disinformation" is redefined to include all potentially polarizing stories that don't conform to the establishment narrative, reality is discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved pablum ...

... ... ...

But perhaps the worst part about all of this is that the government itself, including the Pentagon, has an extensive history of running fake social media profiles to collect data on persons of interest , including through the NSA's JTRIG information-war program revealed in the Snowden documents. Agents regularly deploy reputational attacks against dissidents using false information. Fake identities are used to cajole unsuspecting individuals into collaborating in fake FBI "terror" plots, a phenomenon which might once have been called entrapment but is merely business as usual in the post-9/11 U.S.SA.

All of this begs the question: how will DARPA determine the "intent" behind any meme or bit of information? Will they punish journalists who push fakes for the political establishment? Probably not. This is where the "impact" and "intent" fields come in handy for them: fakes from "trusted sources" will be let through, while fakes and real stories designed to "undermine key individuals and organizations" (dissent and those who seek freedom from the political class) will be terminated before they have an impact on the thoughts of others. When "disinformation" is redefined to include all potentially polarizing stories that don't conform to the establishment narrative, reality is discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved pablum.


beijing expat , 40 minutes ago link

The Soviets tried to police thought but it was an embarrassing failure. What makes America think they can achieve better results? Rather than risk the embarrassment of failure, perhaps the pentagon should simply exterminate the human population and replace us with robots programmed to consume and obey. Consume and obey. That's all they want from us. And in refusing to do so, the people have failed the ruling class.

07564111 , 39 minutes ago link

Plan B ;-)

TheFQ , 32 minutes ago link

Or GULAGS...

[Sep 04, 2019] A Debauched Culture Leads to a Debauched Foreign Policy

The author should use the word "neoliberal" instead of "debauched"
Notable quotes:
"... When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control. ..."
"... In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power. ..."
"... The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy? ..."
"... Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution. ..."
"... Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism ..."
"... I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it. ..."
"... The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out. ..."
"... We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us. ..."
"... It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment. ..."
"... The problem is that we are led by sociopaths. ..."
"... This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted. ..."
"... I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
TAC are no doubt familiar with the truism that "politics is downstream of culture." This maxim, which is undoubtedly true, should not, however, only be applied to social issues. In fact, culture shapes our public policy very broadly, far more than do dispassionate "policymakers" exercising careful reason and judgment. The nature of our governance tends to reflect the cultural and philosophical orientation of our elites, and this orientation is increasingly debauched.

When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control.

All the great religious and philosophical traditions understood that there is a part of our nature that can get out of control and a divine part that can exert control. A culture thus becomes debauched when elites lose the sense that they need to rein themselves in, that "there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over" their appetites, as Walter Lippmann put it. In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power.

The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy?

Let's start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home? One might surmise, for example, that their lack of self-control might cause them to spend federal money as a means of keeping themselves in power. They might also attempt to bribe their constituents by promising a variety of domestic programs while also pledging that the programs will be funded out of the pockets of others. If they were really debauched, they might even borrow money from future generations to pay for these incumbency protection initiatives. They might run up staggering debt for the sake of their expedient political needs and promise that "the rich" can provide for it all. In short, the hallmark domestic policy of a debauched democracy is, and has always been, class warfare.

It should be pointed out that class warfare is not simply a creation of demagogues on the left. Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution.

While most conservatives might agree about the dangers of class warfare, it is on the foreign policy front where they seem most debauched themselves. They remain stuck in a vortex of GOP clichés, with standard references to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, leaders who were closer in their time to the American Civil War than we are to them now. For many of these "conservatives," every contemporary authoritarian leader is the progeny of Hitler and any attempt to establish cordial relations is a rerun of Munich 1938.

As with domestic policy, the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others with no particular nexus to the national interest. A debauched foreign policy might just look like the decision to invade Iraq -- a war whose supporters offered numerous justifications, including alleged weapons of mass destruction, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism. Yet in hindsight, its real cause seems to have been the simple desire by our leaders to impose their will. In a debauched democracy, class warfare is the paradigmatic domestic policy and profligate war making is the paradigmatic foreign policy.

Given that self-control and restraint are the hallmarks of a genuinely conservative foreign policy -- because they remain humble about what human nature can actually achieve -- one should receive the recent conference on national conservatism with some skepticism . The retinue of experts who spoke generally espoused a foreign policy that sought dominion over others -- in other words, a continuation of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. This may be nationalism, but it seems not to be conservatism.

One hopes that the leaders of this new movement will re-consider their foreign policy orientation as they have increasingly formidable resources to draw upon. The creation of the Quincy Institute and the rise of an intellectually formidable network of foreign policy "restrainers" provide hope.

Given that culture is king, however, these intellectuals may want to keep top of mind that restraint is not simply a policy option but a character trait -- a virtue -- that needs to be developed in leaders who are then elevated. Prudent policies are no doubt essential but the most important challenge in politics is, and always will be, attracting and encouraging the best leaders to rule. Our system often does the opposite. This is at root a cultural problem.

William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University of America, and author of the new book Democracy and Imperialism .


Chris in Appalachia 21 hours ago

Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism. The two opposing teams loathe each other.

Other than that, a good analysis.

Wayne Lusvardi 19 hours ago
I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it.

Moreover, has the author never heard of the concept "reasons of state"?: a purely political reason for action on the part of a ruler or government, especially where a departure from openness, justice, or honesty is involved (e.g. "the king returned that he had reasons of state for all he did"). In an existential emergency, would the leader of a nation be justified in using amoral means to save his nation; but in all other circumstances should rely on conventional Christian morality as the default position? This is what Pres. Truman apparently did when he dropped a-bombs on two Japanese cities. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer was apparently involved with in the assassination attempt on Hitler. What Moses was embroiled with when he slayed 3,000 of his "debauched" followers in the Exodus from Egypt.

The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out.

The opponent who beat her in the election promised the opposite and pretty much has delivered on his promises. Just how is the current administration "unrestrained" other than he has not fulfilled pacifist's fantasies of pulling out of every foreign country and conflict? Such pull outs have to be weighed on a case by case basis to determine the cost to human life and world order. If the current administration has a policy it is that our allies have to fight and fund their own wars and conflicts rather than rely on the U.S. to fight their wars for them.

The article is full of inflationary clichés ('politics is downstream of culture', 'class warfare', etc. And just how does the author connect the dots between pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was elected to nothing and held no power over anyone, and our "debauched' foreign policy? Correlation is not causation but there isn't even a correlation there.

tweets21 12 hours ago
The more one reads opinions of Intellectuals , and as anyone with half a brain knows, to never believe a Politician, I am always reminded, after considerable research why I personally choose Realism . Realism is certainly not new and has some varied forms. Realism re-surfaced leading up to and during WW 2.
chris chuba 11 hours ago
"...the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others"


I love this.

We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us.

This reminds me of a Nick Pemberton article when he wrote ...

"We still play the victim. And amazingly we believe it ... We believe we can take whatever we want. We believe that this world does not contain differences to be negotiated, but foes to be defeated."

I could never get this out of my head.

It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment.

Trump the adulterer was the one who decided against bombing because he did not have a taste for blood while the pious were eager for it.

TruthsRonin 10 hours ago
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth."
-Matthew 5:5

"Meek" is the wrong word/translation. In the original Greek, the word is "preais" and it does not mean docile and submissive. Rather the word means gentleness blended with restrained strength/power.

The passage should read, "Blessed are those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed: for they shall inherit the Earth."

Sid Finster 10 hours ago
The problem is that we are led by sociopaths.
fedupindian 10 hours ago
There is a simpler explanation of what has happened to the US. When it comes to human beings, the only thing you need to remember is Lord Acton's dictum: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted.

The same thing is true domestically in the US. A small ethnic minority gave 50% and 25% of the money spent by the Democrats and Republicans in the last presidential election. That gives them huge influence over the foreign policy of the country. Best of all, no one else can question what is going on because classic tropes etc. Give a small group absolute power, get the swamp.

PAX 9 hours ago
I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package.

The destruction of main core Christianity has not helped stem this tide (subtle Happy Holidays, CE, BCE, etc.) . Brave women and men must arise and sewerize (drain the swamp) this mob of miscreants defiling our belief system. .They have a right to exist but not dictate by subterfuge and fake news our values as they have been doing.

NotCatholic 11 hours ago
I find it interesting the author is at Catholic u. I wonder how he feels about the Crusades or the Inquisition as an example of debauchery of power.
Joe R. 8 hours ago
Remove the OP pic of the Marines NOW, and fix the rest of your whine later.

This is America, we have no "betters" and our "gov't" has never, and will never, be comprised of anything other than our idiot ay-whole neighbors who needed a job, whose sole job it is to govern the machinations of gov't and not us, as an un-self-governed Society is otherwise un-governable.

And [due to human nature and physics (of which neither has or will change in the entire history of humanity)] sometimes you have to go to war at the slightest of hints of provocation in order to achieve "illimitably sustainable conflict" of "Society" [J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012] not have to haphazardly fight minute to minute of every day.

If when Political objects are unimportant, motives weak, the excitement of forces small, a cautious commander tries in all kinds of ways, without great crises and bloody solutions, to twist himself skillfully into peace through the characteristic weakness of his enemy in the field and in the cabinet, we have no right to find fault with him, if the premise on which he acts are well founded and justified by success;

still we must require him to remember that he only travels on forbidden tracks, where the God of War may surprise him; that he ought always to keep his eye on the enemy, in order that he may not have to defend himself with a dress rapier if the enemy takes up a sharp sword ”.

(Clausewitz, “On War” pg. 137)

Loosely paraphrased: " peaceable resolution to conflict is only effective, and should only be sought and relied upon, when it is certain that the other party will never resort to arms, with the implication that that is never " [J.M.Thomas R., TERMS, 2012 Pg. 80]

Weakness is provocative don't provoke your enemies. Quit whining.

LFC 8 hours ago
Let’s start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home?

Let's see. They'd likely repeatedly cut taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations and skyrocket deficits. They'd likely increase military spending to insane levels to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They'd likely perform wide scale deregulation on polluting industries. They'd ignore all inconvenient science, especially that which didn't support the fossil fuel industry. They'd likely avoid meaningful action on a healthcare system that is more broken and expensive than any other OECD nation. Then they'd look for targets, the "others", to bash and attack in attempt to hide the real world consequences of what they were doing.

Why would they do this? They do it for campaign contributions, "a means of keeping themselves in power."

Clyde Schechter 6 hours ago
"...in other words, a continuation of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. "

And the Clinton administration before it, and the Obama and Trump administrations following it.

Stephen J. 5 hours ago
I believe we are in the hands of:
The Demons of “Democracy”

The demons of “democracy” speak of “peace”
While their selling of weapons does not cease
Hypocrites from hell who posture on the world stage
When they should be in a gigantic prison cage

Evil reprobates in positions of power
Anything that’s good they devour
Destroying countries and families too
This is the satanic work they do

Fancy titles are given to their names
Such is the state of a system insane
Madness and filth has become “normal”
Nobody speaks or asks: “Is it moral”?

Principals and ethics, they are of them, devoid
Speaking of decency and truth has them annoyed
Pimping for war is their diabolical expertise
Killing and bombing is the forte of this demonic sleaze

Training and supporting terrorists, they do this as well
Will nobody arrest this treacherous crew from hell?
These people are devils and full of hypocrisy
We need to be freed from these, demons of “democracy”...

[much more info on this at link below]

http://graysinfo.blogspot.c...

[Sep 04, 2019] What We Still Do Not Know About Russiagate by Stephen F. Cohen's

Notable quotes:
"... It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation. ..."
"... Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? ..."
"... Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. ..."
"... Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why. ..."
"... Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? ..."
"... the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits. ..."
"... First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.) ..."
"... At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.thenation.com

It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation.

Even leaving aside the misperception that Russia is the primary threat to America in world affairs, no aspect of this allegation has turned out to be true, as should have been evident from the outset. Major aspects of the now infamous Steele Dossier, on which much of the allegation was based, were themselves not merely "unverified" but plainly implausible.

Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? Nonetheless, the American mainstream media and other important elements of the US political establishment relied on Steele's allegations for nearly three years, even heroizing him -- and some still do, explicitly or implicitly.

Not surprisingly, former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion" between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. No credible evidence has been produced that Russia's "interference" affected the result of the 2016 presidential election in any significant way. Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996.

Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why.

Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This too is not believable, as I pointed out previously . Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being another.)

But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer might be because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive, advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.

So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not. Barr has already leveled procedural charges against James Comey, head of the FBI under President Obama and briefly under President Trump, but the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits.

The FBI is no longer the fearsome organization it once was and thus not hard to investigate, as Barr has already shown. The others, particularly the CIA, are a different matter, and Barr has suggested they are resisting. To investigate them, particularly the CIA, it seems, he has brought in a veteran prosecutor-investigator, John Durham.

Which raises other questions. Are Barr and Durham, whose own careers include associations with US intelligence agencies, determined to uncover the truth about the origins of Russiagate? And can they really do so fully, given the resistance already apparent? Even if so, will Barr make public their findings, however damning of the intelligence agencies they may be, or will he classify them? And if the latter, will President Trump use his authority to declassify the findings as the 2020 presidential election approaches in order to discredit the role of Obama's presidency and its would-be heirs?

Equally important perhaps, how will mainstream media treat the Barr-Durham investigation and its findings? Having driven the Russiagate narrative for so long and so misleadingly -- and with liberals perhaps finding themselves in the incongruous position of defending rogue intelligence agencies -- will they credit or seek to discredit the findings?

It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable, and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.

There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.)

At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.

This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .

Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .

[Sep 04, 2019] Military Intervention Isn t Humanitarian by Daniel Larison

Libya war was a pure oil grab. Pretexts always can be found.
Notable quotes:
"... Is intervention likely to impel more violence in the long term? Do policymakers actually know enough about the situation on the ground to make the "right" decisions? Is the American public willing to commit itself to years-long reconstruction efforts? Honest answers here may not sit well with idealism. In many instances, the most moral act is not to act at all. ..."
"... The most telling part of Power's career in government was that she served as ambassador to the U.N. at a time when the U.S. was enabling and supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and as part of the administration she had nothing to say about the crimes being committed against Yemeni civilians by coalition forces with U.S. military assistance and weapons. ..."
"... As Bessner notes, she doesn't have much to say about the abuses of U.S. clients in her book. She has been eager to advocate for using force against hostile or pariah regimes when they commit atrocities, but when client states use American weapons to commit the same atrocities while enjoying full U.S. backing Power didn't so much as utter a protest. After she left government and Trump became president, Power criticized U.S. support for the war, but when she was in a position to challenge a monstrous policy from inside the administration she apparently said nothing. ..."
"... And no one with enough intellectual honesty to mention that she was among the greatest enablers of Yemenis' suffering yet before the said "Tyrant" (who might be a tyrant to anyone but her social class) entered the office. Profiles in cowardice, all of them. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Daniel Bessner has written a very interesting review of Sar's memoir, The Education of an Idealist . Here he focuses on her narrow thinking about "humanitarian" intervention:

If you accept Power's premises, then humanitarian intervention boils down to a purely philosophical inquiry: Is it right to save lives if one has the capacity to do so? The answer, of course, is yes. The problem, though, is that intervention is not a thought experiment; it takes place in a world of brutal realities. In particular, humanitarian forces confront radical uncertainty. Is intervention likely to impel more violence in the long term? Do policymakers actually know enough about the situation on the ground to make the "right" decisions? Is the American public willing to commit itself to years-long reconstruction efforts? Honest answers here may not sit well with idealism. In many instances, the most moral act is not to act at all.

Can military intervention ever be humanitarian? It may be possible in theory, but as Bessner notes it doesn't work that way in practice. "Humanitarian" interventionists want the wars they support to be judged by their intentions to save lives and not by the results of ensuing chaos, instability, and violence. Taking sides in foreign conflicts inevitably means deciding that our government should end the lives of some people that have done nothing to us because we have concluded that it is the right thing to do. That takes for granted that our government has the right to act as judge and executioner in other people's wars simply because we have the power to affect the outcome. When we think about "humanitarian" intervention this way, we can see that it is driven by the worst kind of arrogant presumption. The first question we should ask is this: what gives us the authority to interfere in another country's internal conflict? We should also ask ourselves what gives us the right to cast aside international law whenever we deem it necessary. Isn't "humanitarian" intervention in practice little more than international armed vigilantism?

The Libyan war is one example of just such a "good" intervention that pretty clearly caused more harm than it prevented. It also violated most of the requirements of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine that was invoked to justify it. Like more than a few other die-hard Libyan war supporters, Power remains convinced that it was the right decision, because she doesn't ask the questions that would force her to confront the harm that the intervention did to Libya and the surrounding region. Bessner comments:

Power never really asked these questions, because ultimately, as the historian Stephen Wertheim has argued, she considers humanitarian intervention a categorical imperative (as long as it doesn't involve U.S. allies, of course).

That last qualification is an important one, and it gets at the heart of what is wrong with "humanitarian" interventionism in the U.S. and the West. If a government is considered to be on "our" side, it can commit war crimes with impunity, devastate whole countries, and starve tens of millions of people, and the most vocal "humanitarian" interventionists will usually have nothing to say about it. I have remarked on several occasions that "humanitarian" interventionists just ignored the catastrophe in Yemen despite the fact that it was the world's worst man-made humanitarian disaster, and it has only been in the last year or two that any of them have spoken up about it now that it is Trump's policy.

The most telling part of Power's career in government was that she served as ambassador to the U.N. at a time when the U.S. was enabling and supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and as part of the administration she had nothing to say about the crimes being committed against Yemeni civilians by coalition forces with U.S. military assistance and weapons.

As Bessner notes, she doesn't have much to say about the abuses of U.S. clients in her book. She has been eager to advocate for using force against hostile or pariah regimes when they commit atrocities, but when client states use American weapons to commit the same atrocities while enjoying full U.S. backing Power didn't so much as utter a protest. After she left government and Trump became president, Power criticized U.S. support for the war, but when she was in a position to challenge a monstrous policy from inside the administration she apparently said nothing.

Bessner observes that railing against hostile and pariah states while letting clients off the hook makes no sense if the goal is to minimize the harm to civilians:

Her approach does not make much sense from a pragmatic perspective either: U.S. officials have the highest likelihood of ending human rights abuses in countries that depend on us; there is little point in spending political capital in a mostly quixotic attempt to transform antagonists like North Korea.

Of course, it is much safer politically to denounce the states with which our government has no ties or influence, and it is much easier to remain silent about the crimes of client states that have significant clout in Washington. The point here is not just that Power failed her own test when she served in government, but that the impulse to intervene on "humanitarian" grounds amounts to agitating for war against certain governments while giving U.S. clients a free pass to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with our government's blessing.

Alex (the one that likes Ike) 5 hours ago

There's yet one more reason to why she wasn't saying anything about Yemen when in office beside the one that it were her guys who directed that war then. Perhaps less phony, but, I'd rather say, more tragic. It's much easier to criticize someone for neglecting his duties than not to neglect those duties when you've got them yourself.

I almost see those lemmings on her Twitter chirping: 'Oh, you're so brave, you're standing up to the Terrible Orange Tyrant.' (Not that the "Tyrant" was even aware that she's standing up to him).

And no one with enough intellectual honesty to mention that she was among the greatest enablers of Yemenis' suffering yet before the said "Tyrant" (who might be a tyrant to anyone but her social class) entered the office. Profiles in cowardice, all of them.

[Sep 04, 2019] US army now and then: Today s soldiers aren t too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome

Sep 04, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

VietnamVet , September 3, 2019 at 11:13 pm

This discussion avoids comparing society in the mid-19th century and today. It really isn't that long ago. I've lived through almost half of it. Except for officers most of the soldiers I served with were conscripted or enlisted because of the draft. In a war your choices are limited. If they were in the march, driving wagons, armed to the teeth, they were soldiers; no matter how they got there.

Today's volunteer Army most of the soldiers and contractors are there because they couldn't get a better job unless they are adrenaline junkies or psychopaths. The current neoliberal economy purposefully exploits people and the environment to make a profit. Today's soldiers aren't too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome. Perhaps, "warriors" isn't that much of a misnomer.

[Sep 04, 2019] Israel's Many Wars by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pat Buchanan continues to be one of the few publicly visible political analysts currently active who dares to tell it like it is when it comes to Israel's power in America. His article last week "Will Israel's War Become America's War" as always gets to the heart of the problem, i.e. that the completely contrived "special relationship" with Israel could easily lead the United States into another totally unnecessary war or even a series of wars in the Middle East.

Pat starts with "President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran after the shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a war. But the same cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu." He observes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing re-election on September 17 th , and though most polls indicate that he will win, the opposition to him is strong based on his personal corruption and his pandering to the country's most extreme right-wing parties. So Bibi is concerned that he might lose and even go to jail and there is nothing like a little war to make a leader look strong and righteous, so he is lashing out at all his neighbors in hopes that one or more of them will be drawn into what would be for Israel, given its massive military superiority, a manageable confrontation.

Buchanan sums up Netanyahu's recent escalation, writing that on "Saturday, Israel launched a night attack on a village south of Damascus to abort what Israel claims was a plot by Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force Sunday, two Israeli drones crashed outside the media offices of Hezbollah in Beirut. Israel then attacked a base camp of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in north Lebanon. Monday, Israel admitted to a strike on Iranian-backed militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. And Israel does not deny responsibility for last month's attacks on munitions dumps and bases of pro-Iran militias [also] in Iraq. Israel has also confirmed that, during Syria's civil war, it conducted hundreds of strikes against pro-Iranian militias and ammunition depots to prevent the transfer of missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon."

So, Israel has staged literally hundreds of attacks against targets in Lebanon, Syria and now Iraq while it is also at the same time shooting scores of unarmed demonstrators inside Gaza every Friday. Netanyahu has also threatened both perennial foe Iran and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. As the Jewish state is not at war with any of those countries it is engaging in war crimes. Both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force are vowing revenge.

Pat Buchanan goes on to make the case that Netanyahu is willy-nilly pulling the United States into a situation from which there is no exit. Indeed, one might well conclude that the trap has already been sprung as the Trump Administration is reflexively blaming Israel's actions on Iran. The Jewish state's escalation produced a telephone call to Bibi by American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promising that the United States would unconditionally support Israel. Vice President Mike Pence also joined in , boasting of a "great conversation" with Netanyahu and tweeting that "The United State fully supports Israel's right to defend itself from imminent threats. Under President @realDonaldTrump, America will always stand with Israel!"

So, if a war in the Middle East does begin one can count on a number of developments in Washington, all of which favor Netanyahu. As Pompeo and Pence have made clear, the Trump Administration already accepts that whatever Israel does is fully justified and there are even reports that the White House will endorse Israeli annexation of all the illegal settlements on the West Bank at some point either before or immediately after the upcoming Knesset election to help Bibi. And don't look for any dissent from even the most extreme views developing inside the White House or the State Department. The president has completely surrendered to the Israel Lobby while National Security Adviser John Bolton, Pence and Pompeo are all outspoken supporters of war with Iran. And nearly all the important government posts dealing with the Middle East are staffed by Jewish Zionists, to include the president's son-in-law and two Donald Trump lawyers. The most recent addition to that sorry line-up is Peter Berkowitz, who has been appointed head of the Policy Planning Staff at State. Berkowitz studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is co-founder and director of the "Israel Program on Constitutional Government."

And Congress would also be singing the "amen" chorus in support of U.S. intervention to help the country it has ridiculously but nevertheless repeatedly described as America's "best friend and closest ally." The occupied mainstream media would echo that line, as would the millions of Christian Zionists and every one of the more than 600 American Jewish organizations that in one way, shape or form support Israel.

Buchanan warns that the U.S. could find itself in real trouble, particularly given the attacks on Iraq, where Washington still has 5,000 troops, hugely outnumbered by the local pro-Iranian militias. And American aircraft carriers could find themselves vulnerable if they dare to enter the Straits of Hormuz or Persian Gulf, where they would be in range of the Iranian batteries of anti-ship missiles. He concludes that a war for Israel that goes badly could cost Trump the election in 2020, asking " have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not of ours?"

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Bragadocious , says: September 3, 2019 at 1:33 am GMT

The president has completely surrendered to the Israel Lobby while National Security Adviser John Bolton

To be fair, Trump never promised to curb Israeli aggression during his campaign. He promised to back them and that's what he's doing. So this suggestion that "he's letting us all down" is just silly. Now, on other stuff, yeah, you can make a case. And let's be real, if Jeb Bush or Bernie Sanders or Hillary were in office they'd be backing "our ally in the Middle East" too.
Lot , says: September 3, 2019 at 2:00 am GMT
Iran is involved in four different civil wars: Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. Yet Jihadi Phil wants to blame Israel for mideast instability!
anon [328] Disclaimer , says: September 3, 2019 at 2:47 am GMT
@Lot Iran was invited by Syrian legit gov. Lebanon was prevented from total rout by Hezbollah from the actions of the evil Zionist .Hezbollah sought and received help to confront evil Zionist. Who ever asked the Jews to show up in ME anywhere in the ME? Who? Yemen is a war that ahs been fought by Houthis . Houthis has been there for centuries They are fighting a war instigated by Israeli vassal Saudi . Iraq has been turned into dust by Jew run USA attack It is slowly coming to life.

Now don't read the script from the middle Start from the beginning . Start from the beginning ad be ready for the end . End will not be written by devious Jewish country .

renfro , says: September 3, 2019 at 3:34 am GMT
Firing Giraldi was the American Conserative's lose.

Consider this article:

Two Cheers for Israel
They're having children and defending their culture without apology. The West could learn a thing or two.

By Scott McConnell
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/two-cheers-for-israel/

"'But there is an even more important reason to give two cheers for Israel and to think of it, despite its excesses, as exemplary: Israel is nationalist."'

Maybe McConnell is paid to praise Israel or maybe he just your typical simple minded tunnel vision conservative. I gotta say my kind of conservative values, or maybe they should be called traditional values will likely stay the same but what wont stay the same is my voting for any of these conservative stupids.
I'm a registered Independent voter independent because I believed Americans should be independent of 'political parties' and not follow them like sheep, but vote for the closest thing they can get to a candidate of good character, some brains and a sense of fairness for the people. I voted for the actual America first GOP presidents, the elder Bush I and Nixon, otoh I also voted for the Dem America first presidents Kennedy and Carter.

Independent voters like myself make up 37% of registered voters in the US .that makes both the dems and repubs 'minority parties' ..neither of them can win without us.
Independent voters got to be independent because they paid more attention to the big picture and issues in politics overall than the followers of the parties .most of them are more 'traditional', including objecting to US entanglement with foreign nations. .the exact opposite of current GOP conservatism.
So it is absolute nitwittery to try and attract traditional voters by championing Israel as a model for US nationalism. Israel gives nationalism a bad name. It is asking us to step in a pile of steaming cow shit to pattern the US after Israel.

Kirt , says: September 3, 2019 at 4:50 am GMT
A lot of these Israeli provocations are, as noted, Netanyahu electioneering. Hence, they are likely to stop or be diminished (the Gaza border massacres excepted) if Bibi either wins the election and can form a new government or loses and is driven from power with the opposition forming a new government. Worst case scenario is a continuation of the present situation with Bibi unable to form a government and having to fight yet another election. This would result in still further Israeli escalation until finally Iran or Hezbollah retaliates and the US is dragged in. Or he might just formally annex the West Bank and drive out the Palestinians to the applause of Trump and his supporters.

There are other dangers as well, especially the collapse of Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a result of their defeat in Yemen. The US is sending 5,000 troops to SA just in time to defend the House of Saud from a possible overthrow or to fight on behalf of one part of that sociopathic family against another part.

Sean , says: September 3, 2019 at 5:43 am GMT

"President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran after the shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a war. But the same cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu." He observes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing re-election on September 17th, and though most polls indicate that he will win, the opposition to him is strong based on his personal corruption and his pandering to the country's most extreme right-wing parties. So Bibi is concerned that he might lose and even go to jail and there is nothing like a little war to make a leader look strong and righteous, so he is lashing out at all his neighbors in hopes that one or more of them will be drawn into what would be for Israel, given its massive military superiority, a manageable confrontation.

It's a good analysis, but a little different to the subjugation of US interests to Israeli ones that is normally talked about inasmuch Netanyahu personal advantage is the key factor. I don't think many people in Israel would approve of Netanyahu doing something so obvious as getting Israel into an inconclusive war just before an election. Especially as the war is one that might bring the US in but would be unlikely to motive the US to destroy the Iranian regime, wiche had time to make their facilities (nuclear) too duplicated and dispersed for airstrikes to work.

The Palestinians are the ones Israelis are happy to get tough with, even the supposedly leftist Ehud Barak has said the Palestinians of Gaza must be deterred more. Talk of war with Iran is just that, it really is, unless they do something stupid.

For Israel, getting the US to totally crush Iran would be great, but that will require America to be provoked by Iran, which is something they are loath to do. Iran is not going to fight a war they cannot possibly hope to win if they can help it, and they have said there will not be one. I don't think Bolton is any influence on Trump, and Pompeo is a never-Trumper turned Trump boot licker rather that a force in the administration in his own right.

He concludes that a war for Israel that goes badly could cost Trump the election in 2020, asking " have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not of ours?"

Trump never loses sight of his own self interest. A war before the Israeli election is not going to help Trump win reelection, and he did say recently he was open to talks with Iran, which left a distraught Netanyahu unsuccessfully trying to get through to Trump and gave Ehud Barack one of his few opportunities to criticise the utility for Israel of Netanyahu's relationship with Trump.

Sean O'Farrell , says: September 3, 2019 at 6:01 am GMT
@Biff The U.S. military should more aptly be called the Israeli Foreign Legion.

[Sep 02, 2019] CounterPunch

Notable quotes:
"... As for the Israelis, they don't want the man who thinks he might be "King of Israel" talking to the Hitlerite Persians. They suddenly sprayed Iran's local Middle East proxies with drone-fired rockets – in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – just in case the wretched, financially broken and inflation-doomed Iranians were tempted to chat to the crackpot in the White House. But the Israelis wasted their ammunition. Rouhani is not mad. America has to drop its sanctions against Iran if Trump wants to talk, he said. ..."
"... And when Rouhani made it clear that he was not interested in "photo-ops" – an obvious allusion to the pictures of Trump and Little Rocket Man – what did the po-faced Washington Post ..."
"... Indeed, had Ahmadinejad's further political ambitions not been firmly crushed by his country's "supreme leader", Ayatollah Khamenei, we might just have witnessed a meeting between two of the world's leading political nutcases. Ahmadinejad, it may be recalled, was the Iranian who claimed that a holy cloud was suspended over his head for 20 minutes when he addressed the United Nations in New York. Now that is a phenomenon which Trump may also have experienced – although at least he had the good sense not to tell us of it. ..."
"... In the first eight months after Rouhani became president in 2013, the Iranian state hanged at least 537 people. In January of 2014, he had, according to a report in the Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat ..."
"... When the shah of Iran wanted to acquire nuclear technology in 1974, according to documents in the US National Security Archive, he said that Iran had an "inalienable right" to the nuclear cycle and that it would not accept obligations "dictated by the nuclear-have nations". ..."
"... In theory, what Macron is trying to do, if Le Monde ..."
"... But what Macron is really doing – which is what almost every EU leader is doing – is trying to preserve the peace of the Middle East long enough for the Americans to elect a serious, intelligent, boring and moderately honest political leader to replace the mentally unbalanced and very dangerous current holder of the highest office in the US. ..."
"... Robert Fisk writes for the Independent , where this column originally appeared. ..."
Sep 02, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

September 2, 2019 The Crazed, Rogue Leader is in Washington Not Tehran by Robert Fisk

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

History in the Middle East is unkind to us westerners. Just when we thought we were the good guys and the Iranians were the bad guys, here comes the ghostly, hopeless possibility of a Trump-Rouhani summit to remind us that the apparent lunatic is the US president and the rational, sane leader who is supposed to talk to him is the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran . All these shenanigans are fantasy, of course – like the "imminent" war between America and Iran – of which more later.

As for the Israelis, they don't want the man who thinks he might be "King of Israel" talking to the Hitlerite Persians. They suddenly sprayed Iran's local Middle East proxies with drone-fired rockets – in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – just in case the wretched, financially broken and inflation-doomed Iranians were tempted to chat to the crackpot in the White House. But the Israelis wasted their ammunition. Rouhani is not mad. America has to drop its sanctions against Iran if Trump wants to talk, he said.

It still amazes me that we have to take all this stuff at face value. No sooner had Trump waffled on about Rouhani being "the great negotiator" than we saw all the White House correspondents dutifully taking this nonsense down in their notebooks – as if the American president was presidential, as if the old dream-bag was real, as if what he was saying had the slightest bearing on reality.

And when Rouhani made it clear that he was not interested in "photo-ops" – an obvious allusion to the pictures of Trump and Little Rocket Man – what did the po-faced Washington Post tell us in its subsequent report? Why, that Rouhani had "dashed hopes of a potential meeting with his US counterpart". Ye Gods! What "hopes" do they still have in their homegrown crackpot president after these two and a half years of his threats and lies and racism? Have they learned nothing?

It's as if – for the American media – Trump is unhinged in Washington but a Kissinger the moment he lands in Biarritz (or London or Riyadh or Panmunjom or a Scottish golf course, or perhaps, one day, Greenland). And Rouhani – who may be a "great negotiator" but is also a very ruthless man – is therefore supposed to play the role of Iran's previous president, the raving, crazed, Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Indeed, had Ahmadinejad's further political ambitions not been firmly crushed by his country's "supreme leader", Ayatollah Khamenei, we might just have witnessed a meeting between two of the world's leading political nutcases. Ahmadinejad, it may be recalled, was the Iranian who claimed that a holy cloud was suspended over his head for 20 minutes when he addressed the United Nations in New York. Now that is a phenomenon which Trump may also have experienced – although at least he had the good sense not to tell us of it.

Ahmadinejad, you may also remember, was the president whose claim to have won the 2009 presidential elections brought millions of protestors onto the streets of Iranian cities until they were brutalised and imprisoned into submission. His cheeky smile, chipmunk eyes and Spanish armada beard could not persuade Iranians that the "alternative facts" of his presidential victory were real.

Everyone knew that Ahmadinejad would never be given a finger on any nuclear button – many doubted if he knew the difference between nuclear physics and electricity – but he provided at the time a hate figure to rival Gaddafi or any other of the ravers of the Middle East.

But now Trump wears Ahmadinejad's international mantle of insanity and the Iranian presidential seat is today held by a far more pragmatic individual. For let's not be romantic about Hassan Rouhani . Back in 1999, when he was a humble deputy chief of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Rouhani condemned pro-democracy demonstrators as " muhareb " and " mofsad " (corrupt on earth) – opponents of the Islamic Republic, whose punishment would be death.

In the first eight months after Rouhani became president in 2013, the Iranian state hanged at least 537 people. In January of 2014, he had, according to a report in the Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat , visited Ahwaz to deal with "a number of sensitive files" left untouched by Ahmadinejad. These included Hashem Shaabani and Hadi Rashedi – both human rights activists in the minority Arab community in southwest Iran – who had been condemned to death for "waging war on God", "spreading corruption on earth" and "questioning the principle of velayat-e faqih" (guardianship of the jurist).

Shaabani's poetry, in both Persian and Arabic, was famous; he was a founder of an institute which encouraged Arabic literature and culture among Iranians. Rouhani signed off on the executions; Shaabani and Rashedi were hanged in a still-unidentified prison.

But it is Rouhani's negotiating skill which has apparently impressed Trump, who also has little time for minorities. And when you recall that one of Trump's Republican predecessors in the White House, Ronald Reagan, arranged for the Israelis to deliver missiles to Iran in 1985 in return for the release of US hostages in Beirut, you can see why Trump might think it strange that Rouhani would turn down a meeting with him. After all, during the Iran-Contra affair the then Iranian speaker of parliament, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was deeply involved in the enterprise.

But even if Rouhani was fool enough to flirt with Trump's offer – which he was not – his fate would have been similar to the poet Shaabani's if he had dared to talk to the US president without the full restoration of the nuclear treaty.

It doesn't take much spreading of "corruption on earth" in Iran – let alone disavowing the views of the Supreme Leader Khamanei – to catapult a learned cleric into prison. Having learned from his foreign minister in Biarritz what the American deal was supposed to be, Rouhani wisely did not touch it. The US had broken the nuclear treaty and reimposed sanctions – so Trump would have to rejoin the treaty signatories and lift sanctions for any hope of a meeting with the president of the Islamic Republic.

Of course, the Iranians will no more go to war with America than America will go to war with Iran. We all know that – except for those who blast us all with "brink-of-war" scenarios in the Gulf. We've been through Iranian ship-minings in 1987 without declarations of war. Besides, what's so new about an Iran insisting on its "sovereign" right to peaceful nuclear power?

When the shah of Iran wanted to acquire nuclear technology in 1974, according to documents in the US National Security Archive, he said that Iran had an "inalienable right" to the nuclear cycle and that it would not accept obligations "dictated by the nuclear-have nations".

Which is pretty much what Iran did accept in the nuclear agreement which Trump tore up on behalf of the United States. And I still have a clipping from The Times of November 1972, in which my then colleague David Housego was reporting from Tehran that the shah had declared that Iran's defensive frontiers extended beyond the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean!

In five years, the shah calculated, his arms build-up would make Iran the largest military power in the Middle East. The shah ruled with torture and executions, was crazed about the dangers of communism, and power-mad to the extent of celebrating his empire's rule in 1971 with what he called "the biggest party on earth" in the ruins of Persepolis. How Trump would love to have been there.

Well, Macron may be able to turn himself into the "Great G7 Intermediary", although all others who have tangled with Iran have been brought low by the experience. Think poor old Jimmy Carter, destroyed by the hostage-takers at the US embassy in Tehran. Think Reagan, almost brought low by Irangate. Think Colonel Oliver North. Or envoy Robert McFarlane. Or Terry Waite. Or Barack Obama, for that matter, his Iranian policy torn up by Trump.

In theory, what Macron is trying to do, if Le Monde has got it right, is persuade Trump to allow Iran's principal petroleum importers to continue buying oil from the Islamic Republic. This includes Turkey, China, Japan, India and South Korea. In return, Iran would itself return to the original nuclear agreement. That's the message Macron sent back to Tehran with Iran's foreign minister, who airbussed into Biarritz for his briefest of meetings with the French president.

But what Macron is really doing – which is what almost every EU leader is doing – is trying to preserve the peace of the Middle East long enough for the Americans to elect a serious, intelligent, boring and moderately honest political leader to replace the mentally unbalanced and very dangerous current holder of the highest office in the US.

Well, good luck to the Americans. For at present, they are confronting not the lunatic rogue state which Messers Bolton and Pompeo have nightmared up for Trump, but a nation governed by bravely defiant, ruthless, and – yes – devious men. For Iranians understand America far better than Americans will ever understand Iran.

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk writes for the Independent , where this column originally appeared.

[Sep 02, 2019] Falling From Grace The Decline Of The US Empire

The USA centered global neoliberal empire falls from grace at alarming speed.
Just the discussion of this possibility would be unthinkable in 90th -- the period of triumphal advance of neoliberalism all over the globe. So thinks did change although it is unclear what is that direction of the social change -- neo-fascism or some kind of return to the New Del Capitalism (if so who will replace previous, forged by Great Depression political alignment between trade unions and management against the financial oligarchy, which financial oligarchy managed to broke using neoliberalism as the Trojan horse and bribing CEOs)
Om a was original fascist movements were also a protest against the rule of financial oligarchy. Even anti-Semitism in Germany was a kind of perverted protest against financial oligarchy as well. They were quickly subverted and in Germany anti-Semitism degenerated into irrational hatred and genocide, , but the fact remains. Just looks at NSDAP program of 1920 . Now we have somewhat similar sentiments with Wexner and Meta group in the USA. To say that they do not invoke any sympathy is an understatement.
The problem with empires that they do not only rob the "other people". They rob their own people as well, and rob them hard. The USSR people were really robbed by Soviet military industrial complex and Soviet globalist -- to the far greater extent then the USA people now. People were really as poor as church rats. Epidemic of alcoholism in the USA resembles the epidemic of narcoaddtion in the USA --- both are signs of desire then there is no jobs and now chances.
Like the collapse of the USSR was the result of the collapse of bolshevism, the collapse of the USA can be the result of the collapse of neoliberalism. Whether it will take 10 or 50 years is unclear, but the general tendency is down.
The competitors has grown much strong now and they want their place under then sub. That means squeezing the USA. Trump did agrat job in alientaing the US and that was probably the most important step is dismantling the USA empire that was taken. Add to that trade war with China and we have the situation that is not favorable to the USA politically in two important parts of the globe.
Add to this Brexit and we have clear tendency of states to reassert their sovereignty, which start hurting the USA based multinationals.
The only things that work in favor of the USA is that currently there is no clear alternative to neoliberalism other then some kind of restoration of the New Deal capitalism or neo-fasist dictatorship.
Notable quotes:
"... Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social cohesion of El Salvador. ..."
"... Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance. It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything. ..."
"... Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. ..."
"... You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at all, so we could finally be free people. ..."
"... And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that would be a huge positive step forward. ..."
Sep 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed."

Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it's one that I've kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.

I'm from a British family, one that left the UK just as the British Empire was about to begin its decline. They expatriated to the "New World" to seek promise for the future.

As I've spent most of my life centred in a British colony – the Cayman Islands – I've had the opportunity to observe many British contract professionals who left the UK seeking advancement, which they almost invariably find in Cayman. Curiously, though, most returned to the UK after a contract or two, in the belief that the UK would bounce back from its decline, and they wanted to be on board when Britain "came back."

This, of course, never happened. The US replaced the UK as the world's foremost empire, and although the UK has had its ups and downs over the ensuing decades, it hasn't returned to its former glory.

And it never will.

If we observe the empires of the world that have existed over the millennia, we see a consistent history of collapse without renewal. Whether we're looking at the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, or any other that's existed at one time, history is remarkably consistent: The decline and fall of any empire never reverses itself; nor does the empire return, once it's fallen.

But of what importance is this to us today?

Well, today, the US is the world's undisputed leading empire and most Americans would agree that, whilst it's going through a bad patch, it will bounce back and might even be better than ever.

Not so, I'm afraid. All empires follow the same cycle. They begin with a population that has a strong work ethic and is self-reliant. Those people organize to form a nation of great strength, based upon high productivity.

This leads to expansion, generally based upon world trade. At some point, this gives rise to leaders who seek, not to work in partnership with other nations, but to dominate them, and of course, this is when a great nation becomes an empire. The US began this stage under the flamboyant and aggressive Teddy Roosevelt.

The twentieth century was the American century and the US went from victory to victory, expanding its power.

But the decline began in the 1960s, when the US started to pursue unwinnable wars, began the destruction of its currency and began to expand its government into an all-powerful body.

Still, this process tends to be protracted and the overall decline often takes decades.

So, how does that square with the quote, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed"?

Well, the preparation for the fall can often be seen for a generation or more, but the actual fall tends to occur quite rapidly.

What happens is very similar to what happens with a schoolyard bully.

The bully has a slow rise, based upon his strength and aggressive tendency. After a number of successful fights, he becomes first revered, then feared. He then takes on several toadies who lack his abilities but want some of the spoils, so they do his bidding, acting in a threatening manner to other schoolboys.

The bully then becomes hated. No one tells him so, but the other kids secretly dream of his defeat, hopefully in a shameful manner.

Then, at some point, some boy who has a measure of strength and the requisite determination has had enough and takes on the bully.

If he defeats him, a curious thing happens. The toadies suddenly realise that the jig is up and they head for the hills, knowing that their source of power is gone.

Also, once the defeated bully is down, all the anger, fear and hatred that his schoolmates felt for him come out, and they take great pleasure in his defeat.

And this, in a nutshell, is what happens with empires.

A nation that comes to the rescue in times of genuine need (such as the two World Wars) is revered. But once that nation morphs into a bully that uses any excuse to invade countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, its allies may continue to bow to it but secretly fear it and wish that it could be taken down a peg.

When the empire then starts looking around for other nations to bully, such as Iran and Venezuela, its allies again say nothing but react with fear when they see the John Boltons and Mike Pompeos beating the war drums and making reckless comments.

At present, the US is focusing primarily on economic warfare, but if this fails to get the world to bend to its dominance, the US has repeatedly warned, regarding possible military aggression, that "no option is off the table."

The US has reached the classic stage when it has become a reckless bully, and its support structure of allies has begun to de-couple as a result.

At the same time that allies begin to pull back and make other plans for their future, those citizens within the empire who tend to be the creators of prosperity also begin to seek greener pastures.

History has seen this happen countless times. The "brain drain" occurs, in which the best and most productive begin to look elsewhere for their future. Just as the most productive Europeans crossed the Pond to colonise the US when it was a new, promising country, their present-day counterparts have begun moving offshore.

The US is presently in a state of suspended animation. It still appears to be a major force, but its buttresses are quietly disappearing. At some point in the near future, it's likely that the US government will overplay its hand and aggress against a foe that either is stronger or has alliances that, collectively, make it stronger.


Basil1931 , 30 minutes ago link

The greatest (so called) threats to America- the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, ISIS, ( fill in the blank for the latest overseas bogeyman-of-the-week ) pale into a wisp beside the ongoing disintegration of American traditional family life. Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social cohesion of El Salvador.

Ms No , 38 minutes ago link

You also cant warn people about the collapse of empire either. People notoriously go into denial about it and it shocks the **** out of everybody. Since empires bluff and bluster at the end its all to easy for people want to believe.

Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance. It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything.

ohm , 55 minutes ago link

Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. if you think that the world would enter the age of Aquarius and peace will rule the planet you are extremely naive and stupid. If you think that the Chinese would be more benign rulers you are mistaken. The only reason China doesn't use its military to dominate other countries is because it is kept in check by the US.

HillaryOdor , 46 minutes ago link

You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at all, so we could finally be free people.

And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that would be a huge positive step forward.

In the real world, Chinese terrorists are just as bad as American terrorists. Despite the most popular hypnosis gripping the American psyche, you can't have liberty or justice as long as either one is in charge. Whether the Chinese would be worse is debatable. It's not like America has some great track record to compete against. Their reign has been a complete disaster for human rights.

ohm , 41 minutes ago link

We don't need any empire ruling the world.

Agreed. But wishing that something isn't going to happen doesn't stop it from happening.

HillaryOdor , 34 minutes ago link

Pretending you are better off under the current arrangement doesn't make it so.

Pretending you have any control over the future of world politics doesn't make it so.

simpson seers , 43 minutes ago link

'Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it '

for starters, peace would replace it, fake phoney ******.......

ohm , 42 minutes ago link

Why? Do you have a historical example?

ohm , 42 minutes ago link

Why? Do you have a historical example?

SHsparx , 37 minutes ago link

Expecting the inevitable and hoping for something are two different things.

Ms No , 29 minutes ago link

If China became the new empire we wouldnt live under it. It would be at least 100 years out. This empire will screw everybody epically first, plus we have decline weather patterns with super solar grand minimum. Also those people's who may see that next empire will deal with whatever circumstances present themselves and they wont give one **** what we think about it.

Basically power has kept moving west. Nobody will forget the depravity of this one. If written about accurately this one will be remembered most for the medical tyranny and intentional damage it did to human beings through injections and modified good supply, as well as moral depravity and proxy sadistic terrorism. Remember empire backed terrorist groups trafficked children and harvested organs. You can miss it if you want, few will.

ultramaroon , 11 minutes ago link

I do not _hope_ for an end of the American Empire, and I dread what is going to replace it. Howsoever, no empire lasts forever, and our empire is near its end. The Chinese are relentlessly cruel, and that's in their genotype. I probably won't live to see them take over the scraps and bits and pieces of our former empire. Those who are alive and in the prime of their lives when that happens will suffer unimaginably while they live, and their blood will cry out from the grave after they die. It makes me so heart-sick I can't bear to think about it for long, but our progeny will be forced to live it without let or hindrance.

Ms No , 8 minutes ago link

Lets find out the whole details of what they have done to our biology and our children's first before we say how cruel China might be. For starters look at what US and British did in Africa compared to China and Russia's involvement there. They are doing deals and not killing anybody, same with Venezuela.

SmallerGovNow2 , 1 hour ago link

Where else you going to go? What nation ISN'T broke? Europe is going to hell. So is South America. Africa has always been hell. Asia? Look what's going down in Hong Kong. China's broke. Make no mistake, the USA is in decline. But so is the rest of the world...

SmallerGovNow2 , 1 hour ago link

I'd say it's a race to the bottom but it's really that everyone is falling off the cliff at the same time...

perikleous , 1 hour ago link

regardless of what is printed China is not falling, they have a plan and have only advanced it. The debt side will not hurt them because they have been poor before and they have a route to success. They do not have resources but the industrial side is needed everywhere in the world. We are talking about a nation that literally prospered off of our garbage and resells it back to us! Think about it we use something up and pay them to take it away, they recycle it and resell it to us again and moved a nation 4x our population forward!

You really think debt will hurt them, especially the way the US determines debt! A huge portion of it is in the infrastructucture in China and along the BRI which will have returns over time, just as if we in the states rebuilt all our infrastructure by living wage employment rather than MIC investment!

Argentumentum , 1 hour ago link

Yes, all are broke. Assisted suicides of countries all over the world. Emphasise on "assisted".

Nations have been demoralized (the US most certainly, check Yuri Bezmenov) we are in destabilization phase already, collapse has to be next, it is unavoidable now. This will not end well, ignore at your own risk!

I am not talking about countries, just some Life Hedge Regions left in the world. People with brains and resources, you don need a Life Hedge Property! Away from Northern Hemisphere, away from Ring of Fire, etc... Get in touch. lifehedge(at) protonmail.com

He–Mene Mox Mox , 1 hour ago link

What got America into trouble was when Americans who thought of themselves as being "exceptional" became exceptionally stupid. The best and the brightest have already left America. Any wonder why we now depend on Russia to send our astronauts up on their rockets into space, or depend on China, South Korea, and Japan for our electronic products, or why better health care is found in other places outside the U.S., why our educational system has become poorer than what it was 60 years ago, etc.,?

perikleous , 1 hour ago link

When we decided to financialize everything and make nothing but investments we crippled our advancement.

When we decided to take the brightest minds in the world and recruit them into the US and then rather than advance the world with true science, we offer them lucrative money to enter financial markets to use their knowledge in that field.

We take the ones with morals and principles that choose to actually remain in science and then corrupt them over time with money/fame to regurgetate whatever their contractor chooses or lose funding for their projects.

We have corrupted every aspect of advancement and now just use our fake printed money to force the desperate to bend to our will.

SmallerGovNow2 , 1 hour ago link

Where do you see this better health care?

And you're saying the best and brightest left the USA for Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan? I don't think so...

Dump , 1 hour ago link

Good read on the subject of empires Sir John Glubb - The fate of empires and Search for survival.

We are probably near the end of the American Empire. And a fascinating by product of the HK protests is that we may well be near the end of Chinese Communism.

The Herdsman , 1 hour ago link

Nothing moves forward in a straight line. They move up and down. Empires are no exception. The Romans had their ups and downs throughout the course of their empire. You never know when a down cycle is the end but people who want it to end will always write articles like this.

American dominance might be drawing to an end....or it might be gearing up to go another 200 years. Nobody knows so it's a waste of time to speculate.

[Sep 01, 2019] Is Tulsi Gabbard Right About Syria She's Not Wrong by Peter Harris

Peter Harris continently forget that the USA is imperial power with expansionist, imperial goals in the Middle East (Iraq war was about oil) and unrelenting support of Israel. Which in turn is a destabilizing force in the Middle East. The only state with not no accepted borders which recently annexed Holland heights.
Sep 01, 2019 | nationalinterest.org
recent history of engineering the downfall of foreign regimes. Second, the U.S. military's top priority should be to eliminate terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. From these two premises, a third foundation of Gabbard's foreign policy can be inferred: that the United States must sometimes tolerate the existence of brutal foreign governments, especially if they share a common interest in fighting the same terrorist groups as America.

None of these are radical assumptions about American foreign policy. Indeed, Gabbard's anti-interventionism is tightly aligned with the prevailing zeitgeist in U.S. politics. According to polling data, voters today are opposed to U.S. involvement in Yemen , supportive of a withdrawal from Afghanistan , and roughly evenly split on the question of whether the United States should cease operations in Syria. Military veterans are among those most critical of the so-called "forever wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Gabbard's insistence that the U.S. military should focus on counterterrorism rather than regime change is also well within the mainstream of political opinion. In this regard, Gabbard is not unlike the last Democratic occupant of the Oval Office. After all, it was Barack Obama who, as a candidate for the presidency, explicitly coupled his headline promises to end the Iraq War and shrink America's overall military footprint with a commitment to ramp up the fight against Al Qaeda and their Taliban enablers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

... ... ..

Peter Harris is an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University. You can follow him on Twitter: @ipeterharris .

[Sep 01, 2019] Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg Consortiumnews

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Sep 01, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg August 29, 2019 • 37 Comments

A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion, is largely accurate, but the story is not over, says Sam Husseini.

By Sam Husseini
Special to Consortium News

T wo-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as "Pride and Prejudice," so her playing the lead in the new film "Official Secrets," scheduled to be released in the U.S. on Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the time span being depicted -- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq -- is one of the most dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.

It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun, played by Knightley, is so little known. Having followed this story from the start, I find this film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to date–"to date" because the wider story still isn't over.

Katharine Gun worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act -- a juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

Gun was charged for exposing -- around the time of Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs – a top secret U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying "surge" against other U.N. Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully forced through a trumped up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [See recent interview with Gun .]

Katherine Gun The leaked memo, published by the British Observer , was big news in parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and helped prevent Bush and Blair from getting the second UN Security Council resolution they said they wanted. Veto powers Russia, China and France were opposed as well as U.S. ally Germany.

Washington invaded anyway of course -- without Security Council authorization -- by telling the UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq and issuing a unilateral demand that Saddam Hussein leave Iraq in 48 hours -- and then saying the invasion would commence regardless .

'Most Courageous Leak' It was the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, where I work ( accuracy.org ), Norman Solomon, as well as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who in the U.S. most immediately saw the importance of what Gun had done. Ellsberg would later comment: "No one else -- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: Tell secret truths at personal risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it. Hers was the most important -- and courageous -- leak I've ever seen, more timely and potentially more effective than the Pentagon Papers."

Of course, no one knew her name at the time. After the Observer broke the story on March 1, 2003, accuracy.org put out a series of news releases on it and organized a sadly, sparsely attended news conference with Ellsberg on March 11, 2003 at the National Press Club , focusing on Gun's revelations. Ellsberg called for more such truth telling to stop the impending invasion, just nine days away.

Though I've followed this case for years, I didn't realize until recently that accuray.org's work helped compel Gun to expose the document. At a recent D.C. showing of "Official Secrets" that Gun attended, she revealed that she had read a book co-authored by Solomon, published in January 2003 that included material from accuracy.org as well as the media watch group FAIR debunking many of the falsehoods for war.

Daniel Ellsberg on the cover of Time after leaking the Pentagon Papers

Gun said: "I went to the local bookshop, and I went into the political section. I found two books, which had apparently been rushed into publication, one was by Norman Solomon and Reese Erlich, and it was called Target Iraq . And the other one was by Milan Rai. It was called War Plan Iraq . And I bought both of them. And I read them cover to cover that weekend, and it basically convinced me that there was no real evidence for this war. So I think from that point onward, I was very critical and scrutinizing everything that was being said in the media." Thus, we see Gun in "Official Secrets" shouting at the TV to Tony Blair that he's not entitled to make up facts. The film may be jarring to some consumers of major media who might think that Donald Trump invented lying in 2017. Gun's immediate action after reading critiques of U.S. policy and media coverage makes a strong case for trying to reach government workers by handing out fliers and books and putting up billboards outside government offices to encourage them to be more critically minded.

Solomon and Ellsberg had debunked Bush administration propaganda in real time. But Gun's revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to invade Iraq, they were violating international law to blackmail whole nations to get in line.

Mainstream reviews of "Official Secrets" still seem to not fully grasp the importance of what they just saw. The trendy AV Club review leads : "Virtually everyone now agrees that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a colossal mistake based on faulty (at best) or fabricated (at worst) intelligence." "Mistake" is a serious understatement even with "colossal" attached to it when the movie details the diabolical, illegal lengths to which the U.S. and British governments went to get other governments to go along with it.

Gun's revelations showed before the invasion that people on the inside, whose livelihood depends on following the party line, were willing to risk jail time to out the lies and threats.

Portrayal of The Observer

Other than Gun herself, the film focuses on a dramatization of what happened at her work; as well as her relationship with her husband, a Kurd from Turkey who the British government attempted to have deported to get at Gun. The film also portrays the work of her lawyers who helped get the Official Secrets charge against her dropped, as well as the drama at The Observer , which published the NSA document after much internal debate.

Observer reporter Martin Bright, whose strong work on the original Gun story was strangely followed by an ill-fated stint at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has recently noted that very little additional work has been done on Gun's case. We know virtually nothing about the apparent author of the NSA document that she leaked -- one "Frank Koza." Other questions persist, such is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign governments to get UN votes or for other purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?

Observer reporter Ed Vulliamy is energetically depicted getting tips from former CIA man Mel Goodman. There do seem to be subtle but potentially serious deviations from reality in the film. Vulliamy is depicted as actually speaking with "Frank Koza," but that's not what he originally reported :

"The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous extension, and hung up."

There must doubtlessly be many aspects of the film that have been simplified or altered regarding Gun's personal experience. A compelling part of the film -- apparently fictitious or exaggerated -- is a GCHQ apparatchik questioning Gun to see if she was the source.

Little is known about the reaction inside the governments of Security Council members that the U.S. spied on. After the invasion, Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser spoke in blunt terms about U.S. bullying -- saying it viewed Mexico as its patio trasero , or back yard -- and was Zinser was compelled to resign by President Vicente Fox. He then, in 2004 , gave details about some aspects of U.S. surveillance sabotaging the efforts of the other members of the Security Council to hammer out a compromise to avert the invasion of Iraq, saying the U.S. was "violating the U.N. headquarters covenant." In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash .

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept in 2016 boasted of how the NSA "during the wind-up to the Iraq War 'played a critical role' in the adoption of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The work with that customer was a resounding success." The relevant document specifically cites resolutions 1441 and 1472 and quotes John Negroponte , then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: "I can't imagine better intelligence support for a diplomatic mission." (Notably, The Intercept has never published a word on " Katharine Gun ." )

Nor were the UN Security Council members the only ones on the U.S. hit list to pave the way for the Iraq invasion. Brazilian Jose Bustani, the director-general of the international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. was ousted in an effective coup by John Bolton in April of 2002 . Bolton is now national security adviser.

"Official Secrets" director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says that his depiction of the Gun case is like the "tip of an iceberg," pointing to other deceits surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven until now. Peace activist David Swanson, for instance, derided his film on drones, " Eye in the Sky ." At a D.C. showing of "Official Secrets," Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as being discredited. But that's simply untrue.

Keira Knightley appears as Katherine Gun in Official Secrets (Courtesy of Sundance Institute.)

Leading presidential candidate Joe Biden -- who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but presided over rigged hearings on in 2002 – has recently falsified his record repeatedly on Iraq at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone. Those refusing to be held accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi .

Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the Iraq invasion. But as the Gun case helps show, there was no legitimate case for invasion and the Bush administration had done virtually everything, both legal and illegal, to get UN authorization.

Many who supported the invasion try to distance themselves from it. But the repercussions of that illegal act are enormous: It led directly or indirectly to the rise of ISIS, the civil war in Iraq and the war in Syria. Journalists who pushed for the Iraq invasion are prosperous and atop major news organizations, such as Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt. The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The Observer , Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News.

The British government -- unlike the U.S.– did ultimately produce a study ostensibly around the decision-making leading to the invasion of Iraq, the Chilcot Report of 2016. But that report -- called "devastating" by the The New York Times made no mention of the Gun case . [See accuracy.org release from 2016: " Chilcot Report Avoids Smoking Gun ." ]

After Gun's identity became known, the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen, the founder of FAIR, to work with program director Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent individuals to support Gun . The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be have been a nightmare.

Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public Accuracy and founder of VotePact.org . Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini .

If you enjoyed this original article please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.

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David G , August 31, 2019 at 19:49

Saw the film today. Solid work; recommended.

Did her ultimate court appearance really go down in such a dramatic fashion? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if it did: English courtroom proceedings may not deliver better justice than U.S. ones, but they're definitely more entertaining.

William , August 31, 2019 at 19:06

U.S. Government officials should be indicted for war crimes. It is quite clear that U.S. officials conspired to ensure that an invasion
of Iraq would take place. The U.S. and Britain -- George Bush and Tony Blair -- initiated a war of aggression against Iraq, and under
international law should be tried for war crimes, just as numerous German officials were tried and convicted of war crimes.

No U.S. politician has called for investigation, and the main stream media has not touched this topic. It is unquestionably clear that
the U.S. congress is a collection of spineless, cowardly, corrupt, greedy men and women. They have allowed the U.S. to become a rogue,
criminal nation.

Vivek Jain , August 31, 2019 at 14:33

Must-read article by Phyllis Bennis:
The Roller Coaster of Relevance | The Security Council, Europe and the US War in Iraq
Institute for Policy Studies, 29 July 2004
https://www.tni.org/en/article/the-roller-coaster-of-relevance

Susan J Leslie , August 31, 2019 at 09:11

Katherine Gun is awesome! I heard her speak as part of a panel of whistleblowers – wish there were many more like her

michael , August 31, 2019 at 08:15

Inequality.org reports that the majority of our top 1% are corporate executives. Finance, which reportedly accounted for 3% of our economy in 1980, now accounts for 30%. Many of the US's 585 billionaires have monopolies in their business domain, no different from the Robber Barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. "Stability is more important than democracy", the market hates uncertainty, and our foreign policies, determined by think tanks staffed and funded by our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, will continue to push for the greed of our Richest. "Democracy" is a just a hypocritical bon mot for stealing and destroying.
The Republicans have always supported these people. What is worrisome is that the Democrats have come to the same place as the GOP, since donations– pay-to-play- lead to re-elections. The Democrats have deserted the Poor and working class, since they have no money for pay-to-play. Our 17 technologically advanced Stasis work in concert with Congress, our entitled government bureaucrats, and their lapdog main stream media to "make things happen" for our Richest. How long before people like Assange, Katherine Gunn, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Binney, Kiriakou etc learn that it pays to keep their mouths shut? Transparency and whistleblowing is punished. Maybe other approaches are needed?

Tony , August 31, 2019 at 07:26

Very interesting to see what inspired her to act the way that she did.

Of course, the supporters of the war had various motives.
But one motive behind President Bush's plan was revealed by Russ Baker in his book 'Family of Secrets' page 423.

He recalls a conversation with Bush family friend and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. He says that he told him:

"He (George W. Bush) was thinking about invading in 1999."

Bush apparently said:

"If I have a chance to invade if I had that much (political) capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed, and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

So there we have it, he thought that a war would boost his presidency.

David G , August 31, 2019 at 05:16

"The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The Observer, Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News."

That's a repulsive little nugget I would never have known otherwise.

Thanks to Sam Husseini for this account. The film is playing in my town, at least for this coming week; I plan to get to it.

RomeoCharlie29 , August 30, 2019 at 19:24

This is a really interesting story and one I knew nothing about, although I was one who opposed the Iraq war because to me it was obvious the whole WMD issue was bullshit. Now I understand the perception that that war was an American/ Brit thing but you might recall that America's deputy Sheriff in the Pacific, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, was Gung ho for the war and committed Australian troops to the ill-fated endeavour with the result that our country has subsequently become a target for ISIS inspired terrorism. Australia's Opposition Leader at the time, Simon Crean led a vocal opposition to the war but "Little Johnny" as we called him was not to be denied. Incidentally I don't think he has ever admitted being wrong on this.

Xander Arena , August 30, 2019 at 18:15

Tip of an iceberg is right. Iraq was the second big lie of the 21st century. I wonder how the world will react to the University of Alaska Fairbanks report which proves fraud at NIST, and arguably reveals aiding and abetting of treason by the contractors who wrote NIST's analysis of the WTC7 destruction. The UAF report drops Tuesday 9/3/19, and chisels away at the big lie that preceded all the related Iraq deceit. BTW great article :)

Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:49

I enjoyed the article and learned some things, but it does seem a bit of Hollywood promotion at the same time.

If only Gun's sacrifice had stopped the invasion it would have been a sensation. As is, the UN did not sanction the invasion, making that effort a bit moot, and since the reveal of NSA bugging the world under Obama that dulls the sensibilities of those who might today have otherwise been shocked, shocked like the Gary Powers U-2 spy plane downing over the USSR and Ike being caught in a lie on TV.

But overall, knowing the downhill Gun's livelihood has taken over the 15 years makes the story more of a warning for whistle blowers than inspiration. Maybe Gun will be well compensated by the movie makers!

Neil E Mac , August 30, 2019 at 15:54

En fin!

bevin , August 30, 2019 at 14:13

One thing is certain: The Observer of 2019 would not publish a story like this. That is one of the major changes since 2003: the capitalist media has tightened up. There are no longer papers competing to attract readers at risk of cozy relations with the State. The Observer/Guardian today – since the Snowden revelations- does what it is told.

Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:16

"In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash."

Unfortunately -- or fortunately? -- this no longer seems to be credible when it comes to those who have gone ouit on a limb to challenge the Deep State, or the US version of the Deep State.

Can Bush and Blair be charged with crimes? In connection with the Third Reich there is AFAIK no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Well, Iraq was also full of 'humanity." These guys belong in The Hague. Or in Iraq, doing community service.

In connection with Ellsberg's reviewing the evidence and concluding there was no evidentiary justification for invading Iraq -- I wanna say, you didn't need to be Ellsberg or any kind of expert to see clearly that there was no evidence that justified invading Iraq. Millions of common folk could see this clearly. That is why over 14 million people worldwide demonstrated against the planned illegal invasion. That is why people like me when to NYC, to Washington, and also the front our local US Post Office in small towns all over the country to protest the country's being lied into war. And were greeted mostly with thumbs-up from the passers- and drivers-by.

The people knew it was all a pack of lies. It was the gullible PRESS that ginned up this show. Remember Judith what's her name at the NYT? These people also should be indicted as war criminals.

Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:19

Judith Miller, the NYTimes reporter who did maybe the most to make the invasion of Iraq, is the last name you were seeking.

SteveF , August 30, 2019 at 12:22

The timescales are interesting, we have the alleged US blackmail to get this illegal war 'approved' by the UN and in the same timescale we have the Jeffery Epstein story unfolding and the corresponding allegations that he was a CIA/Mossad agent operating honey traps to entangle the rich and famous.
The evil machinations of our governments are indeed breathtaking.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , August 30, 2019 at 11:56

Good gripping tale.

As we can see from so very many modern instances, it matters not at all that truth is on your side, if what you are doing is attacking those with money and power.

And there's an entire American establishment dedicated to keeping it just that way.

America's history of the last half century, at least so far as foreign relations and control of an empire, is almost entirely an artificial construct.

Absolutely no truth in everything from John Kennedy's assassination, which was intimately concerned with America's relationship with Cuba, and the despicable Vietnam War to 9/11 and the despicable Neocon Wars in the Middle East.

From hundreds of millions of printed newspapers and television broadcasts to speeches from prominent American politicians, you have tissue of lies not unlike that that was constantly being created by Oceania's Inner Party in 1984.

That's not even the slightest exaggeration, but, truly, are Americans in general the least concerned or bothered?

We have no evidence of significant concern. None.

The Democratic Party just weeded out the only candidate it had, brave and informed enough to speak to truth in some of these matters.

The ten left just represent varying degrees of hopelessness. On and on with weaving dreams about this or that creative social program while the resources and close attention dedicated to destruction in a dozen lands make them all impossible.

At the sae time, there is an almost complete lack of information and courage about anything that is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Israel, and in such massively important countries as China, Russia, and Iran.

Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are brave contemporary examples of the American establishment's methods for shutting down truth and punishing severely those who reveal it. While they have followers and supporters, I am always amazed at how relatively small their numbers are.

And we have remarkably few individuals like Manning or Assange, especially when you consider the scale and scope of America's many dark works. Mostly, we see only "willing helpers" carrying on with their sensitive, secretive careers in government.

In the Democratic nomination contest, the "star" liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, are virtually no different in these absolutely critical matters than a confirmed old puke of a war criminal like Joe Biden, someone who probably deserves recognition as father of Obama's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing project with drones and Hellfire missiles making legally-innocent people in a dozen countries just disappear. Biden has a long record of smarmy deeds and lack of courage and principles. He is, of course, most likely to get the nomination too.

Act, from America's CIA, no different in principle and in law to those of the old Argentine military junta's massive efforts at dragging people off the streets, drugging them, and throwing them out of planes over the ocean, something they did to thousands. Oh, and during that wonderful project there were no objections from America, only silence.

Aimee , August 30, 2019 at 22:31

Excellent post. Agree completely. Tulsi was our only hope and she never had a chance. We are doomed.

Coleen Rowley , August 30, 2019 at 23:29

Here are some of the reasons for the ever lessening concern over US-NATO-Israel-Saudi's (aka our current Empire's) wars: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/04/recipe-concocted-for-perpetual-war-is-a-bitter-one/ By the way my co-author and I tried unsuccessfully to get this published in about 15 different US papers before Robert Parry posted it on Consortiumnews.

Robert Edwards , August 30, 2019 at 11:17

It's time these liers and war criminals are brought to Justice – I know that's wishful , but sometimes wishes come true America must get back to a country run on integrity and honesty, otherwise all will be lost in the spiral of evil

JOHN CHUCKMAN , August 30, 2019 at 12:11

Sorry, but, oh please, America is lost. Has been so for a very long time.

Only tremendous outside influences like depression or war and the growth of competing states and the loss of the dollar's privileged status, are going to change the reality.

America's feeble democratic system is capable of changing almost nothing. After all, it was constructed with just that in mind.

john wilson , August 31, 2019 at 05:07

I think think the real worry is that these days they don't even bother to lie anymore and they just do what they want. Think Venezuela.

Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:42

"Other questions persist, such is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign governments to get UN votes or for other purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?"
This also stands out , as given what we now know is standard modus opendi of CIA / Mossad operations ,due to the Epstein arrest and ensuing information , who knows what is used to leverage other nations to follow along with US and in this case UK demands.Birds of a feather fly together.
Very good report by Sam Husseini.

Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:32

Absolutely. It is an obvious avenue now to investigate: How did the Epstein operation impact on the decision to invade Iraq? How were teh votes wrung out for the war authorization in October 2002?

Regarding Kerry, as a resident of Mass. I couldn't believe that Vietnam vet Kerry would vote Yes on the war authorization act. I called his office a number of time to beg him to vote no. Rumors emanated from within his office in Boston or wherever that phone calls from constituents were running 180 to 1 urging him to vote NO. But he voted YES anyhow.

I simply believe that Yalie Kerry didn't see what was up with the obvious lying that drove the runup to an illegal invasion. This is the kind of scenario where one now has to wonder -- and ask openly -- whether Kerry had been compromised in some way that made him vulnerable to blackmail. Why the hell else would he vote so stupidly?

Recall that Scott Ritter ran afoul of some kind of sex trap and so he, one of the most knowledgeable and outspoken critics of the fake WMD narrative, was effectively muzzled.

Did Kerry have a little skeleton in the closet somewhere?

The same could be asked of all the esp. Democratic legislators who voted YES. Because we now understand which state in the EAstern Med wanted the war most and profited the most from it. We now know how deep and how wide the tentacles of that state's intelligence service intrude into our own national sphere, our Congress, our own intelligence services, our media, and, most likely, our military. Epstein seems to been part f this web of pressure and blackmail.

Epstein is gone, but Ghislaine Maxwell apparently still runs free.
Let's bring her in for questioning specifically about pressure applied on the Oct. 2002 vote. (Although some speculate that she, too, is already dead.)

Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:23

At a time when despair in political affairs is very depressing ,it is very refreshing to see that the voices of reason are being vindicated.
I really want to see this film as this is the first time that I hear of the voice of Katherine Gun .Bless her heart for standing up and her efforts to warn of deception . Does the film make any mention of Dr.David Kelly's so-called suicide / murder ? Will have to wait ans see.
Thank you CN for once again coming through for your excellent report.

Pablo , August 30, 2019 at 10:15

Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell's Chief of Staff?) told me that Collin knew Bush was fabricating, but went to the U.N. as a "loyal foot soldier".

AnneR , August 30, 2019 at 08:25

Thank you, Sam Husseini, for this overview of the background – real story – to the film Official Secrets.

To be frank, I'd not heard of Katherine Gun's revelations at the time – not surprising because I don't think that the US MSM gave the leak any oxygen. They were all too gung-ho for the war.

While the film undoubtedly soft-pedals some of the story and likely doesn't reveal or make explicit as much as we'd all hope, I really do hope that it receives at least as much publicity (good) and viewing as that execrable film Zero dark Thirty which basically supported the CIA and its torturers. But somehow I doubt that.

TomR , August 31, 2019 at 06:19

Zero Dark Thirty is just about the worst bullshit fake narrative put out by the CIA that I've ever seen. I watched it but cringed with the dramatized fake narrative that the CIA is famous for – think the bullshit 9/11 US govt. narrative – if you or anyone else believes that totally bunkum govt. narrative – well, I feel sorry for you.

Druid , August 31, 2019 at 17:28

Im a good- movie buff. I avoided Zero Dark Thirty. Not a farthing for those lies

Sylvia Bennet , August 30, 2019 at 07:51

I applaud Keira Knightley and all who were involved in bringing this story to the public. It is vital that more people who have the eyes and ears of the public speak out on these issues. Sadly, most of them keep their heads below the parapet. With the Main Stream Media colluding with corrupt corporations and governments to lie or distort the truth, we need decent people with influence to step up before it is too late.

Toxik , August 30, 2019 at 02:42

Looked at my local theaters and Official Secrets will not be shown.

jmg , August 29, 2019 at 18:39

Katharine Gun's case can also be very relevant for Julian Assange's defense:

"Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer evidence. . . . The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any records of advice about the legality of the war that it had received during the run-up to the war. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny as the defence were expected to argue that trying to stop an illegal act (that of an illegal war of aggression) trumped Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act 1989. . . . In 2019 The Guardian stated the case was dropped 'when the prosecution realised that evidence would emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful.'"

Katharine Gun – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun

So Katharine Gun, like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, etc., by revealing corruption and crimes, maybe didn't obey the code of silence of organized crime, government sector, but that's not a law.

For example, the US Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information, explicitly outlaws any classification that covers up crimes or embarrassing information.

This means that whistleblowers like Katharine Gun or Chelsea Manning, and investigative journalists like Julian Assange are the ones defending the law here, while the US and UK governments are the criminals.

lindaj , August 29, 2019 at 22:10

Hear, Hear!

Me Myself , August 30, 2019 at 12:11

The espionage act has and would protect those who were responsible for the war I believe.

If we could Abrogate the espionage act it would make are representatives more accountable.

I was unaware of Katherine Gun she is clearly a standout person and will join the ranks of are most respected truthers.

WTF Burkie , August 31, 2019 at 14:05

Our not are.b.c. burkhart

evelync , August 30, 2019 at 13:34

And the secrecy, apparently, is required in the name of "national security" .that's what I was told by a Harvard JFK School of Government associate when I emailed 200+ of 'em to express my outrage over their withdrawal of Chelsea Manning's honorary degree when Pompeo and Morrell bullied them. I responded with – that's INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE at Harvard – as a "respected" educational institution you should be front and center critiquing foreign policy instead of helping to bury the wrongdoing ..no wonder voters didn't trust the establishment candidates in 2016 but the DNC was too much a part of it all to see or care what was going on. Except for Tulsi Gabbard who resigned at DNC VP in protest for what was being done to the Sanders campaign and to endorse Sanders instead of Clinton. The DNC knee capped the campaign of the one person who had won peoples' trust for his honesty.

We have incompetent people with no moral fiber making terrible decisions and burying the mistakes under secrecy, a fear based "code of silence", as you say.

Biden touts his being chosen by Obama for VP; therefore "he's qualified".
Since Clinton and Biden were the most dangerously ambitious critics of Obama, I think he may have chosen to add them to his administration as VP and Sec of State to practice "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" .but his decision was very costly to the lives of people around the world including the Caribbean and South American countries whose wealth our oligarchs coveted.
And as far as Honduras is concerned those political choices by Obama sadly explains refugees fleeing from that violent country even now ..thanks to our failing to declare the 2009 Coup a "military coup". One of Clinton's "hard choices". Obama and Biden went along with that of course.
Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire" tells the sordid tale of how waterboarding was used long before Bush II – used on the freedom fighters for their independence in the Philippines after the Spanish American War and we took over as imperialists ..
Most people, I think, don't know all the gruesome details of our aggression but they now know enough to be troubled by it. Few political candidates have the backbone to criticize wrongheaded foreign policy.
I'm disappointed that Tulsi Gabbard won't be permitted to join Bernie Sanders at the September 12 2019 "debate" as the only ones who speak out on how wrong for this country and the world our foreign policies have been. This courageous woman should be heard.
When Bernie was challenged in the 2016 Miami debate on his enlightened views on Cuba and other Caribbean and South American countries, Clinton used Cold War rhetoric to attack him. She was shocked, I tell you, shocked that he would not grind his heel on the Cuban people. I wondered at the time whether she really believed the crap she was selling or just put on a good political show for the national security state.

We so need transparency if we want to be a real democracy.

Sam F , August 30, 2019 at 21:06

Very true that transparency is essential to democracy. That also requires lifelong monitoring of officials and their relatives for paybacks and other influence. But (for example) Florida has an Sunshine Act that merely moves the bribes into other channels, and may be the most corrupt state. I am investigating extensive racketeering there involving state officials stealing conservation funds. They can be quire careless because their party runs the entire state including state and federal judiciary, and instantly approves whatever their rich "donors" want to steal. But the FBI and DOJ refuse to take action when given the evidence on a silver platter – no doubt because they are appointed by the same party. Theft is their sacred right and duty, to protect their country from its people.

michael , August 31, 2019 at 07:30

Florida's Sunshine laws were on display at Epstein's only trial, much of it still sealed from public view.

[Aug 31, 2019] A few more words on neocon war propaganda

Aug 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Donald , August 31, 2019 at 8:35 am

A few more words

"Saddam Hussein has WMD's."

"Assad (and by implication Assad's forces alone) killed 500,000 Syrians."

"Israel is just defending itself."

I can't squeeze the dishonesty about the war in Yemen into a short slogan, but I know from personal experience that getting liberals to care when it was Obama's war was virtually impossible. Even under Trump it was hard, until Khashoggi's murder. On the part of politicians and think tanks this was corruption by Saudi money. With ordinary people it was the usual partisan tribal hypocrisy.

[Aug 31, 2019] Clinton s vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq puts her in the cold-blooded murderer class.

Aug 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Anarcissie , , August 31, 2019 at 11:38 am

Clinton’s vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq puts her in the cold-blooded murderer class. By the standards of the Nuremberg Trials, many of the people in power at that time were and are war criminals, and Clinton was certainly one of the people who could be charged with war crimes. (But I suppose she could have pleaded ignorance, incompetence, and indolence in mitigation.) All of this is completely out in the open.

I don’t know if it should be considered ‘corruption’, however. A crime against humanity is not exactly corrupt if the perpetrators and almost everyone else believe the perpetrators ought to be doing the crime, that it is their duty, their job. It might be better if they were corrupt, if they slacked off. But Clinton, going by some of her other well-known activities, seems to have been enthusiastically industrious at getting people killed — or maimed, tortured, terrorized, raped, starved, impoverished, and the other normal works of war. Not that this makes her much different from a lot of other people.

https://eus.rubiconproject.com/usync.html

https://c.deployads.com/sync?f=html&s=2343&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2019%2F08%2Fbill-black-is-it-cynical-to-believe-the-system-is-corrupt.html%23comments

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Oh , August 31, 2019 at 10:18 am

“Money talks and everything else walks”. Don’t kid yourself; money is the driver.

Ian Perkins , August 31, 2019 at 10:26 am

“We came, we saw, he died. Tee hee hee!”
“Did it have anything to do with your visit?”
“I’m sure it did.”
From a non-legal perspective at least, that makes her an accessory to murder, doesn’t it?

[Aug 31, 2019] Another Operation Idlib Dawn Update - TTG - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Aug 31, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Another Operation Idlib Dawn Update - TTG SAA-Tiger-Forces-in-southern-Raqqa

Things have been going swimmingly for the SAA for the last couple of weeks. Initial SAA operations were characterized by slow going with jihadi counterattacks often succeeding. This was to be expected. The jihadis have been concentrating in the Idlib area for years, replenishing, refitting and preparing defenses. SAA operations were frequently halted by unexplainable ceasefires. But the combined air attacks by Syrian and Russian air assets and SAA indirect fire finally took their toll on the jihadis. The result was the encirclement of Khan Sheikhoun and all the jihadis south of there. The resulting cauldron was quickly reduced leaving the Turkish observation post at Morek surrounded by SAA and Russian troops. I bet the Turks feel silly sitting there. Operation Idlib Dawn continues.

-- -- -- -- --

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have secured the key town of al-Tamanah in the southeastern countryside of Idlib. In the early hours of August 30, the army was able to besiege the remaining militants inside the town after capturing the northeastern hill of Soukaiyate and the northwestern hill of Sidi Ali. After securing the town, the SAA began a new push in the western direction, capturing the hilltops of Jabal Saghir, Turki and Sidi Jaffar.

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the al-Qaeda-affiliated Wa Harid al-Muminin operations room and the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation (NFL) attempted to hold onto their positions in al-Tamanah and its surroundings with their full strengths.

Pro-government sources are now claiming that the SAA will continue its operation and advance towards the city of Ma`arat al-Nu`man. However, this is yet to be confirmed. (South Front)

-- -- -- -- --

Al Tamanah lies about six miles east of Khan Shaikhoun. Its capture by the SAA secures the recent gains spearheaded by the Tiger Force or I should say the SAA's new 25th Special Forces Division as the Tiger Force is now called. As part of the new name, the 25th is now fully integrated into the SAA command rather than being a militia force affiliated with Syrian Air Force Intelligence. This is a wise move undoubtedly orchestrated by the Russian advisors. There is no change in leadership within the 25th and probably no major organizational changes. What this does is normalize the Tiger Force and improve command/control and logistical support.

The real question is what's next for Operation Idlib Dawn. Will the SAA move to take Kabani and the al Ghaab Plain or will the 25th Division spearhead a drive up the M5 to Ma`arat al-Nu`man? I don't know and neither do the jihadis. That's the way it should be. Slap a violent surprise on those sons of bitches.

Today the Russian Reconciliation Center announced another one sided ceasefire. These are exasperating to this observer. However, there may be a good reason for this. The Khan Sheikhoun cauldron collapsed quickly, perhaps too quickly. I saw no reports of jihadis streaming northward to avoid the encirclement. Perhaps they went to ground in tunnels, caves and among the locals. This hidden enemy must be dug out and exterminated in order to eliminate the possibility of an ugly surprise when the SAA does move north to liberate more of Idlib governorate.

I hope the SAA doesn't move too cautiously, though. The jihadi defenses appear to be rapidly collapsing and their ability to counterattack appears to be near gone. The SAA should not allow them to recover once again. Fortune favors the bold.

TTG

https://southfront.org/syrian-army-secures-al-tamanah-captures-three-new-hilltops-west-of-it-map-photos/

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/tiger-forces-renamed-and-placed-under-command-of-syrian-army/

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/ceasefire-announced-in-northern-syria-after-syrian-army-captures-new-town-in-idlib/


Unhinged Citizen , 31 August 2019 at 12:09 AM

I was waiting for this update!

Footage by ANNA News of the fighting culminating in the capture of KS doesn't really indicate any major resistance by the jihadists groups. It's my suspicion that they were either permitted to slip out of the cauldron or simply did so using seeing the greater operational situation and given several days that the M5 highway remained open to them.

And let's hope the integration of the Tigers gets them into some sort of regular uniform and equipment, because they look like a raggedy-ass militia with their worn down vehicles and technicals.

The Syrian army around Kabani has showed poor, un-inspired leadership and their elements near Kabani have spent months with no progress. Very frustrating.

The Twisted Genius -> Unhinged Citizen... , 31 August 2019 at 09:14 AM
Unhinged, the last thing I want to see is the Tiger Force soldiers saddled with 50 lbs of body armor and battery operated gizmos. That raggedy-ass light infantry working with the thermal sight equipped T-90 tanks and field modified technicals is a deadly combination. I'd be proud to serve with them as they are.
JohninMK said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 31 August 2019 at 10:32 AM
More helmets would seem a prudent move.
Johnb , 31 August 2019 at 02:50 AM
I would guess the ceasefires are to do with the politics of the operation, at some point an awful lot of Jihadi's are logically going to be rounded up, what's to be done with them ? Turkey appears to have closed its borders to any retreat into Turkey. I understand that a significant number of those left are foreign fighters, are they to be sent back whence they came, will the home state be willing to accept them, China might for the ~18k Uigher, or will they. Hard choices, difficult politics.
Ghost Ship , 31 August 2019 at 05:16 AM
As Clausewitz said "war is the mere continuation of politics by other means", now the Russians and Syrians (no Iranians, Hezbollah, Iraqi PMU or Yemeni Houthis) will go back to doing the "politics". Yesterday's protests at the al-Bab Crossing are the start of that. Erdogan has shown he'll cast all the jihadists aside except perhaps for TIP, so they can stay in Idlib and face certain death, they can try going underground in Turkey, or they can establish ratlines and escape back to the whence they came -provided that's not Russia, do the Russians care?
As for the encirclement south of Khan Sheikyhun, leaving the door open for a few days allowed all the jihadists to escape - I seem to recall looking at a map of the conflict before going to work one day and finding that the encirclement had ceased to exist except for the Turkish outpost when I got home that evening. HTS had quite obviously failed to make their promised stand. They have lost in Syria and they know it. Like East Aleppo and Douma, there will be no last minute "miracles" but they'll most likely remember who failed them in the end.
BTW, I bet Erdogan regrets that he allowed that Russian jet to be shot down. The subliminal message, "don't fuck with the Russians".
turcopolier , 31 August 2019 at 09:14 AM
Ghost Ship

It was actually WEST Aleppo that the R+6 re=took from the jihadis. The government never lost control of EAST Aleppo. I remain convinced that the basic motivating factor for Erdo and co. is neo-Ottoman irredentism in Syria and he will settle for what he can get there. If Idlib is not possible, then something less, all the while talking about terrorists. The recent retirement of several Turkish generals who did nt wish to serve in Syria says a lot.

Ghost Ship said in reply to turcopolier ... , 31 August 2019 at 09:58 AM
Aleppo offensive

As for Erdogan, I agree he's suffering a severe case of neo-Ottoman irredentism. I think Putin is supplying suitable medication.

turcopolier , 31 August 2019 at 09:30 AM
johnB

Jihadis captured in Syria? I suggest drum-head courts martial in the field. These creatures wish to face God and abjure the rights of Man. They should be sent to what they imagine will be their reward.

turcopolier , 31 August 2019 at 09:40 AM
TTG

The campaign to re-capture the whole province should continue apace. "A beaten enemy must be pursued." IMO an effort in the Ghaab Plain should be a secondary line of advance with the main effort along the axis of the M5. The government has a lot of militia forces that can be used to clean up behind the spearheads.

JohninMK , 31 August 2019 at 10:35 AM
The reports I saw at the time said that the terrorists were streaming south out of Khan Sheikyhun as the town was cut off, so your assumption that they went to ground could be a good one.
ISL , 31 August 2019 at 10:35 AM
TTG, moon of alabama (b) suggests Turkey has cut off weapons to the idlib jihadi's and is clearly attempting to prevent entry into Turkey (being invited to purchase Su-57s after the US blocked Turkey from joining the F-35 boondoggle seems to have swung the current Turkish allegiance).

Good point of many militia's for cleanup allowing pursuit. Do you think the situation is such that hard pursuit would create a culmination point?

----
Separately, I wonder if the wooing of Turkey was a strategic Russian goal (and thus Syria's by default) that drove the decision to very slowly and cautiously liberate Idlib while busing jihadi's from around the country there as Reconciliation ceasefires - I recall Colonel Lang had recommended speedy liberation of Idlib to block the Turkish land grab.

OTH, the US has certainly done its best to push Turkey away in its (Israeli favored) policy of supporting the Kurds (and ineffectively harassing Assad from the east - ineffective as the US seldom now conducts aerial operations worth braggin' about these months - too much Russian EW.

IMO US strategic mistakes have been to Israel's (short-term) advantage.

[Aug 31, 2019] Clever Tactics "Add Oil" to Hong Kong Protests (and not "Hidden Hands" by Lambert Strether

Notable quotes:
"... So, a well-meaning Westerner suggests Gene Sharp's well-known 198 Methods of Non-Violent Action to a HKer, who politely informs him that Sharp's work is already available in Chinese ..."
"... You don't have to wait for your CIA handler to vouchsafe The Sacred Texts. Very sophisticated and tested protest tactics are all available on the Internet, if you research the media coverage of Tahrir Square, los indignados in Spain, the state capital occupations in the United States, Occupy proper, the Carré Rouge in Quebec, and many, many other examples (including the Umbrella movement organic to Hong Kong). It's not all Maidan -- which is on the Internet too, and I don't regard it was useful to forcefit all protests into that model. ..."
"... If they have factories in China now, and they are the invisible hands, I think they (and their factories) would be in trouble already, as in 'now,' and they don't have to worry about being extradited in the future. ..."
"... Me neither. That's a concern. However, there is the idea that "you taught me" that non-violence doesn't work (in 2014), "you" being the Chinese government. There is also the idea that the Mainland is no more agreement-capable than the United States," since they have no intention of adhering to the Basic Law on matters like universal suffrage . If the attitude among a great mass of the protestors is that they have nothing to lose, some sort of Masada-like scenario seems likely. ..."
"... And exactly whose interests would that serve? The interests of the students? The interests of Hong Kong generally? Answering that question will begin to take you down the rabbit hole. ..."
"... Now, it is true that "color revolution" in strong form seems to have lost some credibility, and that, if I may characterize the discourse collectively, we see a strategic retreat to formulations like "I'm sure the protestors have legitimacy," but they're still "manipulated," because, by gawd, that's what the US does. ..."
"... And then we get NGOs (been around for years) and Jimmy Lai (been around for years). Constants, that is, where the protests are a variable (which is why the heavy-breathing GrayZone post about xenohobia doesn't impress me all that much). ..."
"... So will this protest end the way Occupy ended here in "democratic" USA? One has to suspect the secessionist aim that is one of the apparent motives will not be rewarded. ..."
"... US funding and influence was quite well-attested then, for those who were paying attention. Oddly, or not, there seems to be no Victoria Nuland-equivalent for HK. One could argue, of course, that there's an invisible Nuland, but Occam's Razor eliminates that. I never followed Ukraine closely, I admit, partly because Ukraine is fabulously corrupt, and partly because (like Syria) it seemed impossible to separate fact from fiction on the ground. (The only rooting interest I have in Ukraine is their wonderful enormous airplanes.) I think for HK we have a lot more well-attested information. That's what the post is about, in fact. ..."
"... There is video of HKers using 3-person surgical tubing catapults to return to sender tear gas cannisters. I've seen pranksters use these "slingshots" to lob water balloons into unsuspecting civilians, but they are much better suited to return cannisters to the police. ..."
"... I know enough about HK to be a little suspicious of the motives of *some* protestors, but I'm in awe of their inventiveness and raw courage. And believe me, to protest publicly in HK/China requires real physical courage that is not required anywhere in the west, anyone who thinks otherwise is entirely clueless about the nature of the Chinese government and what it is capable of. ..."
"... The fact that neo-con elements in the US are happy about the protests is entirely irrelevant, it really is. Its like saying that when RT had approving articles about Occupy or Black Lives Matter that this proves the Russians were behind it. It really is that stupid and US centric an opinion. ..."
"... But here's the rub. Can you imagine what would happen if this all happened in a western country? Imagine this happening in New York for example. Actually we don't. The authorities came down on the Occupy Wall Street movement like a ton of bricks so we had a taste of what would happen. ..."
"... I am not saying that the Chinese government is right but I can understand their position here. They give Hong Kong a 'special deal' and the rest of China will want their own special deals. ..."
"... Just like the Chinese elites, the U.S. elites don't want to deal with the citizenry, and protest is something that shocks them. ..."
"... What really makes most HK skeptics suspicious is the way the media and the political establishment in the West are constantly slathering the students there with pure, unadulturated praise, while lambasting us skeptics as 'conspiracy theorists'. So comparisons of HK to Maidan are indeed apt. And please contrast the media's treatment of this protest with their (non-)treatment of the gilets jaunes movement in France. On that rare occasion when the MSM did deign to mention the gilets jaunes , they always faithfully accused them of 'racism' and 'anti-semitism'. But note how the HK protesters get pass for using Pepe the Frog as their symbol! ..."
"... The idea of protest is to disrupt the system and generally gum up the works, raising the costs of the offending campaign, hopefully to the point where the material and reputational damage makes the whole thing no longer worth pursuing. This is the end game. ..."
"... To paraphrase Noam Chomsky: Elites want a smoothly-running system of oppression. There is no reason to give them this gift. ..."
"... In general, the techniques described here seem unreliable and dangerous if masking your identity from surveillance is vital. The idea that you are going to identify and precisely target every video camera that can see you, 100% of the time, esp. in a moving and rapidly changing environment, seems extremely naive. Video cameras are small, cheap, inconspicuous, and easy to disguise. All that's needed by the opponent is a single video frame that shows your face clearly. ..."
Aug 30, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Let me start out with a sidebar on "add oil" (加油), which you see all over the coverage of the Hong Kong protests: It originated, says the OED , as a cheer at the Macau Grand Prix in the 1960s, meaning "step on the gas" (which is good to know, because I thought that the underlying metaphor was adding cooking oil to a wok preparatory to frying). It translates roughly to " go for it !" Here, an apartment block encourages the protesters by chanting it:

Interestingly, "add oil!" was also used as a cheer by the 2014 Umbrella movement , which should tell you that Hong Kong has considerable experience in running a protest.

Sidebar completed, this post will have a simple thesis: The people of Hong Kong have considerable experience in running protests, and we don't need to multiply invisible entities ("hidden hands") to give an account of what they're doing. For example, it's not necessary to postulate that the participants in the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests consulted CIA handlers on tactics; their tactics are often available, in open source , on the Internet; other tactics are based on Hong Kong material culture , things and situations that come readily to hand and can be adapted by creative people (which the protesters clearly are).

I started thinking about this post when I read this tweet:

Andreas Fulda ‏ @ AMFChina Aug 27 More Copy link to Tweet Embed Tweet

Wow, amazing! This campaign is on fire I was wondering if someone could volunteer and translate the attached 198 methods of nonviolent action into Cantonese? It would be great to share a Cantonese version with @ lihkg_forum Link below is safe! https://www. aeinstein.org/nonviolentacti on/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/ pic.twitter.com/4kh6ORUnai

So, a well-meaning Westerner suggests Gene Sharp's well-known 198 Methods of Non-Violent Action to a HKer, who politely informs him that Sharp's work is already available in Chinese .

Clearly, #genesharptaughtme is alive and well! (In fact, I remember Black Lives Matter using the same hashtag.)

I am well-aware of Gene Sharp's equivocal role as a defense intellectual -- in strong form, the Godfather of "color revolutions" -- but at this point Sharp's influence is attenuated. Out here in reality, information on non-violent strategy and tactics has gone global, like everything else.

You don't have to wait for your CIA handler to vouchsafe The Sacred Texts. Very sophisticated and tested protest tactics are all available on the Internet, if you research the media coverage of Tahrir Square, los indignados in Spain, the state capital occupations in the United States, Occupy proper, the Carré Rouge in Quebec, and many, many other examples (including the Umbrella movement organic to Hong Kong). It's not all Maidan -- which is on the Internet too, and I don't regard it was useful to forcefit all protests into that model.

So, I'm going to go through a few of the tactics used in the 2019 Hong Kong protests: Umbrellas, Laser Pointers, Lennon Walls, and a Human Chain. For each tactic, I will throw it into the open source bucket, or the material culture bucket; in either case, there need be no "hidden hand." Also, I find protest tactics fascinating in and of themselves; I think a movement is healthy if its tactics are creative, and when they are so no longer, the movement has not long to live. (For example, Black Lives Matter started to disintegrate as a national movement when the college die-ins stopped (and when the liberal Democrats co-opted it by elevating Deray.) To the tactics!

Umbrellas

Umbrellas were already a symbol of protest in Hong Kong, from the Umbrella Movement of 2014. Here we see umbrellas being used to shield protestors from surveillance cameras (although they can also be used as shields against kinetic effects).

In concept, the testudo (tortoise) formation dates to Roman times:

One can indeed see that Maidan protestors using literal shields:

However, I would classify umbrella tactics as deriving from Hong Kong's material culture ; Hong Kong is sub-tropical ; there are typhoons; there is rain, fog, drizzle; and there is also the sun. Massed umbrellas scale easily from the tens to the hundreds; they create a splendid visual effect en masse ; and they are available in any corner shop. So, it is not necessary to postulate an entity translating Maidan's heavy medieval shields to Hong Kong umbrellas; the protestors would have worked out the uses of umbrellas themselves, adapting the tools that come to hand to the existing conditions.

Laser Pointers

Hong Kong, under Mainland influence, is increasingly a surveillance state; it makes sense that HKers would give considerable thought to surveillance, and how to avoid it, in the normal course of events. How much more so protestors:

I would classify the laser pointers tactic open source , since that's how I found out that yes, laser poinerns can knock out surveillance cameras . Again, there's no need to postulate that some unknown entity gave the protesters the idea; anybody with a little creativity and some research skills could come up with it, given the proper incentives (like being arrested, say).

Lennon Walls

Here is a Lennon Wall ("you may say I'm a dreamer") in Hong Kong: Lennon Walls originated in Prague after John Lennon's murder in 1980 : ( The 2014 Umbrella movement also used them .) But these are Lennon Walls with Chinese characteristics:

The idea that one may "post" anything has been actualized with Post-It Notes, giving HK walls a digital, pixelated look:

And the authorities have just begun to tear them down: Reminds me of the NYPD bulldozing the Zucotti Park library, sadly.

I would classify Lennon Walls in both categories: They originated, conceptually, in Prague (so open source ) but they are well adapted for massed protest in the material culture of Hong Kong. (Like massed umbrellas, massed PostIt notes scale easily from the tens to the thousands; they create a splendid visual effect en masse ; and they are available in any corner shop.)

Human Chain

Here is a poster publicizing "the Hong Kong Way," a human chain across Hong Kong: Here is the beautiful result:

I would classify "the Hong Kong Way" as open source , since the idea originated from " the Baltic Way ," where some two million people joined hands to form a human chain across the three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

Conclusion

Just to tweak the "It's a color revolution!" crowd, here's an image of HKers watching a movie about Maidan:

I hope I have persuaded you that (a) this Maidan movie is open source "; knowledge of Maidan as a worthy object of study, that (b) by Occam's Razor, it doesn't take a CIA handler to tell this to HKers, and that (c) if the HKers end up building catapults , they will be adapted to Hong Kong's material culture (i.e., probably not medieval in appearance or structure).[1]

NOTES

[1] The HKers may also be sending a message to the authorities: If Maidan is what you want, bring it!



TooSoonOld , , August 30, 2019 at 5:40 pm

Maciej Cegłowski has written a first-hand account that helped me understand some of the tactics the protesters employ. I see he's written a follow-on piece, too.
https://idlewords.com/2019/08/a_walk_in_hong_kong.htm

MyLessThanPrimeBeef , , August 30, 2019 at 6:46 pm

Another claim is that rich Hong Kongers are behind the protests, fearing extradition.

If they have factories in China now, and they are the invisible hands, I think they (and their factories) would be in trouble already, as in 'now,' and they don't have to worry about being extradited in the future.

I'm doubtful of that claim as well.

PlutoniumKun , , August 31, 2019 at 4:40 am

I've read that claim too, and for the reasons you state and others it doesn't pass the smell test, its simply not credible.

pjay , , August 30, 2019 at 8:11 pm

Ok. I really did not want to post any more comments on Hong Kong, or China for that matter, here at NC. But I am genuinely puzzled, and I have to say concerned, about the way this issue has been framed here. One does not have to accept the argument that *either* (1) the protests are completely spontaneous and genuine; *or* (2) the protests are mainly the product of CIA manipulation of otherwise clueless dupes (a whole lot of them apparently!). This is a false dichotomy. None of the critics of the mainstream Hong Kong narrative that I am familiar with take a position any where close to (2). It is a straw-man position if applied to most reputable "skeptics."

Rather, the argument I have seen most often among these skeptics (including some commenters here) is that, while the protests *were* authentic and directed at real issues of concern to protesters, there have also been efforts on the part of Western agents to manipulate this situation. This included support of particular, strategically significant leaders and groups and, of course, control of the Western media narrative. We have pictures and stories in even the mainstream press of US officials and representatives of western NGOs meeting with such individuals. Hell, we have US politicians bragging about it. These connections are pretty clear, whether or not HKers can find Gene Sharp's work on the internet.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/17/hong-kong-protest-washington-nativism-violence/

I have no doubt that many HKers are opposed to mainland rule, so China hands here need not lecture me condescendingly on that issue. On the other hand, I have no doubt that Chinese officials are justified in suspecting covert action by the CIA to stir things up even more (though a lot of the activity is actually pretty overt). Looking at the postwar actions of the US and its allies all over the world, including China in the past, they would have to be idiots not to. And they are not idiots.

RubyDog , , August 30, 2019 at 8:56 pm

Good post. As usual, reality is far more complex and not reducible to simplistic either/or narratives. Protest, rebellion, and unrest are endemic in Chinese (and world) history. In a globalized and interconnected modern world, of course there is widespread awareness and cross fertilization of movements. The "West" did not start this fire, though no doubt they are doing some fanning of the flames.

What worries me is that I do not understand the endgame of the protesters. If you are facing a power far greater than your own, guerilla tactics are in order, but you have to know when to declare victory and back off for awhile. They seem to want to keep pushing and pushing until another Tienanmen may become inevitable.

Anon , , August 30, 2019 at 11:02 pm

The HK protesters recognize that they have enough bodies to literally bring parts of the city to a halt. Soon the authorities will realize that they don't have enough police to maintain order and some sort of compromise will be in order.

Imagine if 200 cars stopped on an LA freeway. Traffic would be halted for hours before enough tow trucks could be put in service. Bodies in the street (cars on the freeway) can be enough to stop "business as usual".

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 3:03 am

> I do not understand the endgame of the protesters

Me neither. That's a concern. However, there is the idea that "you taught me" that non-violence doesn't work (in 2014), "you" being the Chinese government. There is also the idea that the Mainland is no more agreement-capable than the United States," since they have no intention of adhering to the Basic Law on matters like universal suffrage . If the attitude among a great mass of the protestors is that they have nothing to lose, some sort of Masada-like scenario seems likely.

As for the rest of the comment, meh. It's simultaneously an initial withdrawal of the debunked "color revolution" theory, and a mushy reformulation of same in different terms ("no doubt that Chinese officials are justified in suspecting covert action by the CIA"). Either you believe that the Hong Kong protests are organic in origin and execution, or you don't. See my comment here .

Harry , , August 31, 2019 at 6:05 am

My sympathy for the HK protesters is somewhat impaired by their antipathy for mainlanders and mainlander immigration to HK. Its worth reading Carl Zha on Tiananmen. I thought i knew what happened in Tiananmen, but it turned out i didn't.

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 6:10 am

I'm a bit leery of Chongqing native Carl Zha and his sudden elevation. Let's remember that the Mainland is just as sophisticated in its information campaigns as the US. For example, a claim that he has revealed what really happened, as we say, at Tien An Man, without an explanation what his views are is a red flag to me. (In the worse case scenario, disinformation is infesting the NC comments section.) No, I'm not going to "just listen to the YouTube" because I don't have time to devote to it, as opposed to reading a transcript quickly.

Also, weird flex on "immigration."

PlutoniumKun , , August 31, 2019 at 8:52 am

I've just come across Zha once or twice and I certainly would not consider him a reliable source. The 'official' narrative around Tiannanman in China (as taught to Chinese people) has changed more than once, his seems to match the current version. This doesn't mean he is lying or wrong, I'm just suspicious about anyone who claims to know the 'truth' about such a chaotic and charged event, and some of the things he has written is simply not a reflection of what Chinese people I know think about it.

Its worth pointing out of course that almost all the evidence suggests that the Chinese intelligence penetration of the US has been far more competent than vice versa. The narrative that somehow the CIA was behind Tiananmen (which even MoA has pushed) and the current protests simply strains all credulity. There is no doubt they would provide any help they could to anti-government movements within China, but there is no evidence that they've done anything more than promote a few fringe dissidents.

harry , , August 31, 2019 at 11:56 am

Zha (to my recollection) did not suggest the CIA was behind Tiananmen. He did suggest that the amount of violence and the cause of the violence was not as reported in the West. There was little corroboration though. That said, he had quite an interesting take on the lone man with shopping bag stopping tank column. Perhaps it is common knowledge but he suggested that event took place on the day after Tiananmen, when the tanks were trying to head back to base. Just cos he said that don't make it true of course. But it did make me ask how i know what i think i know.

Harry , , August 31, 2019 at 12:11 pm

I apologize for not outlining his views. I thought it better to just suggest him as a possible reference and allow people to come to their own conclusions. I came across him cos I follow Mark Ames on twitter. I know of Ames cos I spent time in Moscow in the 90s. So I considered it a good recommendation -- but hardly foolproof. Zha suggests that students in Tienamin set a bus on fire in the square (of heavenly peace?) which unfortunately contained a number of PLA soldiers who were burned alive. I have no way of knowing whether this account is true. However he also suggested the iconic man in front of tank column took place on the following day. Which was news to me, and seemed quite plausible when you consider the interaction. But I have no reason to believe this anymore than I should believe the BBC or CNN. Its just that where I have listened to the BBC on subjects I am personally familiar with, they have occasionally been rather "economical" with inconvenient truths. Mr Zha has the advantage of Ames recommendation, a clean slate, and an interesting but unproven assertion.

His take on HK protests is that they have become rather violent, with the aim being to prompt a violent response from the Chinese authorities.

HKers appear to view themselves as distinct from mainlanders, and do not seem to welcome mainland immigration. Fascinating to see british colonial flags brandished when telling Mandarin speakers to "go home". But even here I am relying on the translations applied by the makers of the videos. I dont speak Cantonese or Mandarin.

Seamus Padraig , , August 31, 2019 at 7:19 am

They seem to want to keep pushing and pushing until another Tienanmen may become inevitable.

And exactly whose interests would that serve? The interests of the students? The interests of Hong Kong generally? Answering that question will begin to take you down the rabbit hole.

Plenue , , August 30, 2019 at 9:28 pm

(2) seems to be Olga's position. She's repeatedly demonstrated a disregard for 'gullible youth'.

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 2:54 am

> But I am genuinely puzzled, and I have to say concerned, about the way this issue has been framed here. One does not have to accept the argument that *either* (1) the protests are completely spontaneous and genuine; *or* (2) the protests are mainly the product of CIA manipulation of otherwise clueless dupes (a whole lot of them apparently!). This is a false dichotomy. None of the critics of the mainstream Hong Kong narrative that I am familiar with take a position any where close to (2). It is a straw-man position if applied to most reputable "skeptics."

Nonsense. If you say that the HK protests were a "color revolution," which was the original claim ( following Moon of Alabama here , with the most frequent analogy being Ukraine, #2 ("clueless dupes") is exactly what you're saying.

So, I'm not "straw manning" at all, but replying directly to a criticism expressed here. Please follow the site more closely before you mischaracterize what I wrote.

Now, it is true that "color revolution" in strong form seems to have lost some credibility, and that, if I may characterize the discourse collectively, we see a strategic retreat to formulations like "I'm sure the protestors have legitimacy," but they're still "manipulated," because, by gawd, that's what the US does.

And then we get NGOs (been around for years) and Jimmy Lai (been around for years). Constants, that is, where the protests are a variable (which is why the heavy-breathing GrayZone post about xenohobia doesn't impress me all that much).

The formulation employed in your comment is even weaker:

there have also been efforts on the part of Western agents to manipulate this situation. This included support of particular, strategically significant leaders and groups and, of course, control of the Western media narrative.

I don't know what "efforts by" even means. (I mean, there were "efforts by" various odd Russians to meet with Trump, but no hotel was build, and so, so what?) Nor do I think that editorials in the Times have the slightest influence either on the Hong Kong protestors or the Mainland. I can't imagine why anybody would take them seriously.

What I am here to say is that the HK protests are organic to HK. They are organized and directed by HKers, many of whom have a lot of experience protesting. There is no need to multiply entities -- whether in strong form the CIA or in very weak form "the connections are pretty clear" -- to give an account of them. Now, as I said here, I'm sure Five Eyes are "sniffing around." Probably Taipei, Japan, Indonesia, even the French and the Dutch; anyone with an interest in events in the South China Sea. But IMNSHO the protestors have full agency . (It's also hard to avoid that there's a whiff of colonialism here, too: How is it possible that mere Chinese people could achieve such things without Western help?

And so, like clockwork -- I've noticed this in other comments that start out with the weak form of "manipulation" and end up with the strong form of "control" -- we come right back to that claim!

On the other hand, I have no doubt that Chinese officials are justified in suspecting covert action by the CIA to stir things up even more (though a lot of the activity is actually pretty overt)

(So "overt" that you can't even link to whatever the activity might be. Fine.) First, we come back to the Mandy Rice-Davies rule: They would say that, wouldn't they? Second, so I wasn't straw-manning at all, then, was I? Third, after I went to the trouble of applying Occam's Razor to your claims, you just repeat them!

NOTE * "We have pictures and stories in even the mainstream press of US officials and representatives of western NGOs meeting with such individuals." The picture is in a hotel ffs. Pretty low level of operational security, if you ask me.

Carolinian , , August 30, 2019 at 8:37 pm

So will this protest end the way Occupy ended here in "democratic" USA? One has to suspect the secessionist aim that is one of the apparent motives will not be rewarded.

RBHoughton , , August 30, 2019 at 8:49 pm

This is frankly quite superficial but, if anyone has 30 minutes spare, they can learn the history behind today's Hong Kong riots here :

https://youtu.be/17f9yoorTu8

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 3:26 am

I've often inveighed against YouTube links that don't summarize the content. In this case, those interested in "connecting the dots" and following the money might be interested to know that the videocaster, Sarah Flounders, is a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party :

The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist -- Leninist political party in the United States founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them their support for Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party in 1948, the positive view they held of the Chinese Revolution led by Mao Zedong and their defense of the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary, all of which the SWP opposed.

I don't know what the Chinese word for "tankies" is, or even if there is one, but we seem to have one such here. Here from their newspaper, Workers World, an article originally written in 1993, reprinted in 2019 :

Immediately before and during the Tienanmen Square days, China appeared to be in danger of disintegrating into warlordism. This was overcome and the decentralizing process that threatened to emerge was eliminated. That was a victory of socialism.

The question of how far the Chinese government can go with the capitalist reforms will certainly be up for review, notwithstanding a constitutional provision meant to make the reforms a permanent feature in Chinese society.

One fact has certainly emerged: the millions who left the rural areas for the great cities of China and were absorbed into the proletariat have given the Chinese government and Communist Party the opportunity to strengthen the socialist character of the state. The growth of the proletariat is the objective factor most needed for the building of socialism.

I don't think its surprising that Flounders and the WWP would retail the mainland line.

The Rev Kev , , August 30, 2019 at 9:56 pm

I guess that this comes about seeing what happened to all the young people who supported the Ukrainian "revolution" for a free, just society. Twice! How did that work out for them? How is the Ukraine going these days? What did they say when they found out that that so-called "revolution" last time had a $5 billion 'Made-in-the-USA' sticker on it? Conspiracy theory at the time. Recorded fact now.

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 6:24 am

> Conspiracy theory at the time. Recorded fact now.

Not so. US funding and influence was quite well-attested then, for those who were paying attention. Oddly, or not, there seems to be no Victoria Nuland-equivalent for HK. One could argue, of course, that there's an invisible Nuland, but Occam's Razor eliminates that. I never followed Ukraine closely, I admit, partly because Ukraine is fabulously corrupt, and partly because (like Syria) it seemed impossible to separate fact from fiction on the ground. (The only rooting interest I have in Ukraine is their wonderful enormous airplanes.) I think for HK we have a lot more well-attested information. That's what the post is about, in fact.

John A , , August 31, 2019 at 7:47 am

Re similarities or otherwise with Kiev, we will have to wait and see if there is any sniper crowd killings in HK as with the 'Heavenly Hundred' in Kiev. At the time, the shootings were blamed on the government, but compelling evidence since points to US backed snipers from Georgia.

Harry , , August 31, 2019 at 12:23 pm

Compelling might be pushing a point. There is certainly evidence, and some of it is quite persuasive. However I dont consider some Georgians snipers on Italian tv compelling evidence.

Anon , , August 30, 2019 at 10:54 pm

RE: Catapult

There is video of HKers using 3-person surgical tubing catapults to return to sender tear gas cannisters. I've seen pranksters use these "slingshots" to lob water balloons into unsuspecting civilians, but they are much better suited to return cannisters to the police.

I did a brief search on the Internet for some video but couldn't find it.

Anon , , August 30, 2019 at 11:08 pm

okay, here's a link:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7319925/Demonstrators-use-slingshots-hurl-rocks-police-station-Hong-Kong.html

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 6:39 am

The Maidan catapult had its own Twitter account. Here's what it looked like:

I doubt very much that a catapult designed by HKers would look like this; it is not constructed of materials that come readily to hand. (And perhaps massed slingshots would be more effective anyhow.)

(I can't read any languages written in Cyrillic, so I defer to any readers who can on my interpretation.)

VietnamVet , , August 30, 2019 at 11:30 pm

Endless wars. Smoke filled skies. Hurricanes, drought, flooding. No purpose in life. Incarceration, surveillance and insurmountable debt. Arrogant incompetence.

Change is coming. People need hope. A movement will be born.
"Bring it on" -- "Pa'lante" in Spanish.

Hurray For The Riff Raff -- Pa'lante

"And do my time, and be something
Well I just wanna prove my worth --
On the planet Earth, and be, something"

"To all who had to hide, I say, iPa'lante!
To all who lost their pride, I say, ¡Pa'lante!
To all who had to survive, I say, ¡Pa'lante!"

"To my brothers, and my sisters, I say, ¡Pa'lante!"

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

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 3:11 am

So "Pa'lante" is how you say "add oil" in Spanish!

Alex morfesis , , August 31, 2019 at 11:52 am

Para Alante. Pa'lante for forward/move forward/go forward/go to the front/continue/keep pushing forward/don't stop

Different Spanish interpretations depending on which blend of the language your ears become attuned to .mine flow from cuban, with a twist of Puerto Rican/Newrican, a dabble of dominican, some mexican icing and a little Columbian sprinkles on top

PlutoniumKun , , August 31, 2019 at 4:36 am

Thank you for this Lambert. Perhaps its my perspective of coming from a small country, but I find the anti-HK protestor comments I see here and elsewhere baffling coming from supposed progressives. Sometimes, really, its not all about the US, or even US Imperialism.

I know enough about HK to be a little suspicious of the motives of *some* protestors, but I'm in awe of their inventiveness and raw courage. And believe me, to protest publicly in HK/China requires real physical courage that is not required anywhere in the west, anyone who thinks otherwise is entirely clueless about the nature of the Chinese government and what it is capable of.

The fact that neo-con elements in the US are happy about the protests is entirely irrelevant, it really is. Its like saying that when RT had approving articles about Occupy or Black Lives Matter that this proves the Russians were behind it. It really is that stupid and US centric an opinion.

As to the questions about the endgame, I really don't know, and I suspect the protestors don't know either. My own opinion is that this is as much a nationalist movement as a political one. Many HKers see themselves as a nation with one foot in the east and one in the west and want to preserve this status, but nobody has to my knowledge articulated how they can achieve this. Many of them have a romantic notion of what western 'freedoms' mean, but not quite as romantic as people think, as so many HKers have lived in the US or UK or elsewhere and are not entirely politically naive. But they sure as hell know they do not want to live in an autocratic State led by Beijing, and they are perfectly entitled to that view.

The Rev Kev , , August 31, 2019 at 5:03 am

Your last part of your comment makes the protestors sound like the Brexiteers of the Far Fast. People who want radical change but are uncertain how to go about it and with no clear aim in mind. They may not want to live in an autocratic State led by Beijing but according to the map that I use, Hong Kong is within the borders of China. They are not going to get independence and they cannot go back to the way things were so they had better sort out what it is they want their relationship to Beijing to be before it is decided for them.

PlutoniumKun , , August 31, 2019 at 5:18 am

And thats exactly what they are doing. What are they supposed to do, just let their appointed leaders decide for them?

The Rev Kev , , August 31, 2019 at 5:33 am

No. But their five demands don't sound like a winning combination. It doesn't make them sound even serious about full-fledged change-

1-The complete withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill
2-The government to withdraw the use of the word "riot" in relation to protests
3-The unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them dropped
4-An independent inquiry into police behaviour
5-Implementation of genuine universal suffrage

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 6:04 am

> 5-Implementation of genuine universal suffrage

That's a demand that Mainland China adhere to the Basic Law that transferred Hong Kong from British sovereignty to PRC sovereignty. What's unserious about that?

The Rev Kev , , August 31, 2019 at 6:20 am

Agreed about that last demand but it is the outlier on that list. Demands 2, 3 and 4 sound like they are trying to 'prepare the battlefield' for the next series of protests by undermining the ability of the Hong Kong Police to do their work. Demand 1 is just fulfilling the casus belli for this series of protests.

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 6:30 am

> 'prepare the battlefield' for the next series of protests by undermining the ability of the Hong Kong Police to do their work

In what sense is that not serious? (I'll say again that I think the HKers want what they think is liberal democracy as the US/UK may once be said to have had it this is not a proletarian revolution. Hence, the presence of billionaire Lai is unproblematic, despite heavy breathing at Grey Zone.)

In what sense is asking for one's first demand not serious? Is it more serious to write it off?

The Rev Kev , , August 31, 2019 at 6:57 am

I realize that this is not a popular line of thought but I believe that you do have to consider all aspects of such a big event to be fair. I mean, even Paul Joseph Watson came out with a video supporting the protests-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVu9b6mcWos

But here's the rub. Can you imagine what would happen if this all happened in a western country? Imagine this happening in New York for example. Actually we don't. The authorities came down on the Occupy Wall Street movement like a ton of bricks so we had a taste of what would happen.

I am not saying that the Chinese government is right but I can understand their position here. They give Hong Kong a 'special deal' and the rest of China will want their own special deals.

PlutoniumKun , , August 31, 2019 at 8:09 am

Hong Kong already has its own special deal, 'one nation, two systems' is the official slogan from Beijing. Its Beijing that is backing away from this, not the protestors.

The Rev Kev , , August 31, 2019 at 8:53 am

That's right. A 50-year deal and China was not in much of a position to do a lot about it. Times change and I guess that the Chinese feel that it is time to redress the wrongs of the past according to their lights. I wonder if Macau has the same issues.

Carolinian , , August 31, 2019 at 9:16 am

So if China is, as accused, reneging on the "two systems" then where are the protestors on the "one nation"? To some of us it appears that these young people simply don't want to be a part of China. If true then that's an aim that goes far beyond mere reform.

And the reason USG involvement matters is that some of us don't believe the US should be meddling in other countries -- even ones as unfree as China. The protestors could reassure about the purity of their aims by renouncing US support or the sanctions that some Republicans in Congress are threatening rather than waving US and British flags.

PlutoniumKun , , August 31, 2019 at 9:41 am

A 50-year deal and China was not in much of a position to do a lot about it.

Where on earth did you get that idea? It was actually China's idea, promoted by Deng Xiaoping -- part of their strategy to woo Taiwan and ease the concerns of their neighbours. Plus, it made perfect sense for them economically.

Lambert Strether Post author , , August 31, 2019 at 6:06 am

> The fact that neo-con elements in the US are happy about the protests is entirely irrelevant, it really is. Its like saying that when RT had approving articles about Occupy or Black Lives Matter that this proves the Russians were behind it. It really is that stupid and US centric an opinion.

The NYT wrote some editorials! ZOMG!!!!!

DJG , , August 31, 2019 at 10:57 am

PK: Thanks. You mention coming from a small country, and I think it would benefit all U.S. peeps here to adjust their perspectives accordingly. Good advice.

Second is dispelling the typical "Don't know much about history" attitude in the U S of A. I notice how Lambert Strether ties together several recent organic protest movements. (Should we also throw in Iranian protests after the presidential election in 2009, Taksim protests in Istanbul, and Greek protests against austerity? All of which were organic and fit these models -- the chants from the apartment building remind me of the videos of call and response at night in Iranian cities during those protests.)

Americans like to act as if every event is brand new. And the "don't know much about about history" attitude means being "nonjudgmental" -- which means having no control to assess facts and not much concern for critical thinking.

One question to be asked here would be: How can protest in the U S of A be raised to the HK or Taksim level of disruption?

Just like the Chinese elites, the U.S. elites don't want to deal with the citizenry, and protest is something that shocks them.

And the endgame? The endgame is protest. What comes next? We may be in an era where more protest is needed. Time to study again the disruptions of 1848?

Harry , , August 31, 2019 at 6:53 am

https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1167480860804710400?s=19

Seamus Padraig , , August 31, 2019 at 7:29 am

What really makes most HK skeptics suspicious is the way the media and the political establishment in the West are constantly slathering the students there with pure, unadulturated praise, while lambasting us skeptics as 'conspiracy theorists'. So comparisons of HK to Maidan are indeed apt. And please contrast the media's treatment of this protest with their (non-)treatment of the gilets jaunes movement in France. On that rare occasion when the MSM did deign to mention the gilets jaunes , they always faithfully accused them of 'racism' and 'anti-semitism'. But note how the HK protesters get pass for using Pepe the Frog as their symbol!

Whom the media cover and how they cover them will always tell you a lot about who is really behind a protest movement and who really stands to benefit from it.

Seamus Padraig , , August 31, 2019 at 7:34 am

Let me start out with a sidebar on "add oil" (加油), which you see all over the coverage of the Hong Kong protests: It originated, says the OED, as a cheer at the Macau Grand Prix in the 1960s, meaning "step on the gas" (which is good to know, because I thought that the underlying metaphor was adding cooking oil to a wok preparatory to frying). It translates roughly to "go for it!"

I have noticed that Germans often the phrase Gas geben (to floor it, to accelerate) with roughly the same colloquial meaning of 'to get a move on'.

XXYY , , August 31, 2019 at 10:42 am

I do not understand the endgame of the protesters.

The idea of protest is to disrupt the system and generally gum up the works, raising the costs of the offending campaign, hopefully to the point where the material and reputational damage makes the whole thing no longer worth pursuing. This is the end game.

To paraphrase Noam Chomsky: Elites want a smoothly-running system of oppression. There is no reason to give them this gift.

DJG , , August 31, 2019 at 10:59 am

XXYY: Yes. And there were a few essays recently about disobedience. The question isn't why people disobey. The true question is: Why is the mass of citizens so obedient?

XXYY , , August 31, 2019 at 11:23 am

During the Occupy protests one continually heard this question: What do they want?!?!

Leaving aside the fact that a group of 5000 people carrying large signs generally makes answering this question pretty easy, there seemed to be a limited ability to grasp the idea that protest is in fact an end .

I think we have somehow been seduced or indoctrinated with the idea that if you do A, it must be strictly in service of getting B. Often the motivations are just inchoate rage or anger, and often the intention is just to call attention to something or just f*ck sh*t up!

As we saw with Occupy, a major turning point in US history and society and the origin of much that was to come, it's fine to just trust the universe to helpfully spin your actions in ways your never could have predicted.

cbu , , August 31, 2019 at 10:55 am

The protest will end with the Hong Kong government invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinance.

John k , , August 31, 2019 at 1:03 pm

To what end? That doesn't boost the number of cops. China brings in the tanks? That maybe ends hk usefulness to China as offshore financial center and certainly ends rapprochement with Taiwan.

IMO China's instinct for heavy handed response has led them to a series of mistakes. Perhaps the trade war has them on edge.

XXYY , , August 31, 2019 at 11:11 am

Re: https://www.wikihow.com/Blind-a-Surveillance-Camera

In general, the techniques described here seem unreliable and dangerous if masking your identity from surveillance is vital. The idea that you are going to identify and precisely target every video camera that can see you, 100% of the time, esp. in a moving and rapidly changing environment, seems extremely naive. Video cameras are small, cheap, inconspicuous, and easy to disguise. All that's needed by the opponent is a single video frame that shows your face clearly.

A much better approach to work on seems like trying to obscure your own identifying features. Obviously people are doing this with masks, hoods, goggles, hard hats, umbrellas, and everything else.

One thing I haven't seen too much about is strategies specifically intended to defeat facial recognition technology. AI-based recognizers seem to be extremely brittle; small and even undetectable modifications to the source data seem to be able to throw them off completely (e.g. https://mashable.com/2017/11/02/mit-researchers-fool-google-ai-program/ ). One can imagine these approaches being deployed deliberately as camoflauge or a "disguise". Obviously the problem would be finding robust techniques.

[Aug 30, 2019] Israeli Daily Warns American Jews of Trump's Downfall by Gilad Atzmon

I am not sure that the three names mentioned means anything to most Americans. But the name Abelson probably is better known. And now Wexner and his Meta group were added.
Primitive anti-Semitism lost attraction in the USA as people are better educated now and generally are able to distinguish between bankers and particular tribe (inability to see the difference was one factor that fueled anti-Semitism in Europe in the past). If you wish anti-Semitism was displaced by Russophobia, which now is a politically correct anti-Semitism.
Aug 27, 2018 | dissidentvoice.org
Haaretz delivered a warning today to American Jewry. "If Trump falls, the testimonies of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg could spark an anti-Semitic Backlash."

Many have passed through the Trump Administration's revolving door and faded away quietly but those who may bring the president down are "the lawyer-fixer (Michael Cohen), the smut-dealing publisher (David Pecker) and the numbers whiz who knows it all (Alan Weisselberg)." Prominent Haaretz correspondent Chemi Shalev is honest enough to openly acknowledge that "the trio's public profile is a Jewish stereotype."

Shalev dared to write the article every other political analyst has dreaded putting into words let alone text. "The name of the lawyer who implicated Donald Trump in the commission of federal crimes is Cohen. The name of the publisher who has agreed to tell investigators how he turned his newspaper into a clearinghouse for Cohen's payments to women is Pecker. And the name of the accountant who has been granted immunity in order to testify about the role played by the Trump Organization in Cohen's endeavors is Weisselberg. The common denominators of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, beside their willingness to do whatever it takes for Trump in the past and their apparent willingness to inform on him now , is that all three are indisputably and recognizably Jewish."

If you wonder why no one in America was courageous enough to write about Trump being betrayed by his closest Jewish aids, Shalev's answer is "anyone who does so risks being accused of generalizing, if not actively encouraging anti-Semitism." But this is just the first stage in this saga according to Haaretz 's correspondent. "Somewhere down the line. The racist, supremacist and neo-Nazi element of Trump's base is already drooling at the impending opportunity of enlisting disgruntled rank and file Trump fans in a battle against the Jewish conspiracy aimed at their idol."

Shalev realises that Trump's days are numbered. And he believes the actions of Cohen, Pecker and Wiesselberg make Trump's political survival unlikely. "Cohen's admissions in a New York courtroom last week that his payments to porn's Stormy Daniels and Playboy's Karen MacDougal were made in accordance with Trump's instructions have cast the President as a criminal who violated campaign finance laws. Pecker's testimony could reportedly make clear that the two payments were part of a nefarious system. And Weisselberg's account, though currently limited to Cohen's payments, could pave the way to exposure of the long line of alleged misdeeds carried out by Trump as real estate mogul, franchising czar, reality star, presidential candidate and commander in chief."

When Trump was elected some saw him as the "First Jewish President," At the moment it looks as if it his Trump's closest Jewish aides who may provide the final nails in his presidential coffin. Enacting astute Jewish pre traumatic instinct, Shalev notes that "Trump repeatedly and profusely praises Paul Manafort, who isn't Jewish, for remaining loyal despite the past and future convictions awaiting him. Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, who sound like a stand-up's Jewish law firm, are, by implication, part of the vast conspiracy that seeks to bring the President down and to undermine the voters' verdict."

Shalev uses the clearest possible language. "If Trump emerges unscathed, a scenario that seems increasingly unlikely, fears of anti-Semitic backlash could recede. If Trump is impeached, or forced to resign, or impaired in any other way, shape or form, the outrage against his incriminators and their common heritage could turn into a clear and present danger for American Jews." You ask, 'what about Israel?' Shalev doesn't shy away from the question. "The American right's adoration of Israel won't be an obstacle: Many of Trump's constituents, like Netanyahu's, can easily ignore the common bonds between Israel and its greatest Diaspora. Israel is the country of proud and nationalistic Jew-heroes that man the West's forward outpost against radical Islam and who play a critical role in advancing the End of Days."

Maybe the above explains the Trump administration's indication yesterday that it is set to announce it rejects Palestinian 'right of return.' If Shalev is correct then the message here could be interpreted as follows -- we are still supporting Israel, Zionism, we are totally anti Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims but we don't trust Jews either. This is, in fact, a common Zionist anti Semitic position. I.e., 'We like and support Jews as long as they are somewhere else, preferably Zion.'

According to Shalev, "from the moment Cohen turned his back on Trump, and more so since Pecker and Weisselberg apparently joined him, the neo-Nazi network is busy preparing the flip side of the coin, the analogy that could impress Trump's followers, if he falters: The three are portrayed as successors to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to authorities." I guess that you have noticed that while Shalev seems to be comfortable pointing at the ethnicity of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg he seems to refer to Goyim who do the same as 'neo-Nazis' and 'supremacists.'

Shalev writes that before Trump's elections, "American Jewish organizations were quick to call out Trump for the suspected anti-Semitic messages in his statements and campaign." But their voices receded "with the prodding of Netanyahu and the vouching of Sheldon Adelson Trump's disturbing words were swept under the carpet of his decidedly pro-Israeli polices."Trump's allegedly Jew-hating supporters were somehow ignored by the American media.

However, this may change very soon. "The Jewishness of the three former Trump aides who have now decided to testify against him could mar the artificial tranquility and, in a worst-case scenario, spark a dangerous wave of anti-Semitism. American Jewish leaders would do well to prepare for such a stormy day, as would Netanyahu, who has placed all of his prestige on Trump and the American right."

Shalev sarcastically suggests that "if Netanyahu is forced to choose between the administration's pro-settler, anti-Palestinian policies and his duty to fight anti-Semitism and stand up for beleaguered American Jews, they (America Jews) would do well to start seeking their salvation elsewhere."

Havoc ahead, sums it up.

[Aug 30, 2019] Trump and Christians United for Israel

Edited for clarity...
Aug 30, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: August 29, 2019 at 3:54 pm GMT

@anonymous The Christian Zionists, exemplified by John Hagee and his "Christians United for Israel." for years, from the pulpi has pleaded for the bombing of Iran. He is Netanyahu's Useful Idiot.

The 60-70 million strong Christian Zionists are Trump's base. He has no hope of being re-elected without them. Thus, Trump is just as beholden to these dispensationalists as he is to Adelson and Netanyahu. The same can be said for the entire republican party.

[Aug 30, 2019] Hollywood reboots Russophobia for the New Cold War by Max Parry

See also National Security Cinema The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood by Matthew Alford
Aug 30, 2019 | www.unz.com

It is apparent that the caricature of the Soviet Union in both productions is really a stand-in for the present-day Russian government under Vladimir Putin. As only American exceptionalism could permit, Hollywood did not hold the same disdain for his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, whose legacy of high inflation and national debt have since been eliminated. In fact, most have forgotten that the same filmdom community outraged about Russia's supposed interference in the 2016 U.S. election made a celebratory movie back in 2003, Spinning Boris , which practically boasted about the instrumental role the West played in Yeltsin's 1996 reelection in Russia.

The highly unpopular alcoholic politician benefited from a near universal media bias as virtually all the federation's news outlets came under the control of the 'oligarchs' (in America known simply as billionaires) which his economic policies of mass privatization of state industry enriched overnight.

Yeltsin initially polled at less than 10% and was far behind Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov until he became the recipient of billions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thanks to his corrupt campaign manager, Anatoly Chubais, now one of the most hated men in all of Russia. After the purging of votes and rampant ballot-box stuffing, Yeltsin successfully closed the gap between his opponent thanks to the overt U.S. meddling.

Spinning Boris was directed by Roger Spottiswoode, who previously helmed an installment in the James Bond series, Tomorrow Never Dies . The 1997 entry in the franchise is one of thousands of Hollywood films and network television shows exposed by journalists Matthew Alford and Tom Secker as having been influenced or directly assisted by the Pentagon and CIA in their must-read book National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood. Based on evidence from documents revealed in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, their investigation divulges the previously unknown extent to which the national security complex has gone in exerting control over content in the film industry. While it has always been known that the military held sway over movies that required usage of its facilities and equipment to be produced, the level of impact on such films in the pre-production and editing stages, as well as the control over non-military themed flicks one wouldn't suspect to be under supervision by Washington and Langley, is exhaustively uncovered.

As expected, Hollywood and the military-industrial complex's intimate relationship during the Cold War is featured prominently in Alford and Secker's investigative work. It is unclear whether HBO or Netflix sought US military assistance or were directly involved with the national security state in their respective productions, but these are just two recent examples of many where the correlated increase in geopolitical tensions with Moscow is reflected. The upcoming sequel to DC's Wonder Woman set to be released next year , Wonder Woman 1984, featuring the female superhero " coming into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s ", is yet another. Reprising her role is Israeli actress and IDF veteran is Gal Gadot as the title character, ironically starring in a blockbuster that will demonize the Eurasian state which saved her ethnicity from extinction. Given the Pentagon's involvement in the debacle surounding 2014's The Interview which provoked very real tensions with North Korea, it is likely they are at least closely examining any entertainment with content regarding Russia, if not directly pre-approving it for review.

Ultimately, the Western panic about its imperial decline is not limited to assigning blame to Moscow. Sinophobia has manifested as well in recent films such as the 2016 sci-fi film Arrival where the extra-terrestrials who reach Earth seem more interested in communicating with Beijing as the global superpower than the U.S. However, while the West forebodes the return of Russia and China to greater standing, you can be certain its real fear lies elsewhere. The fact that Chernobyl and Stranger Things are as preoccupied with portraying socialism in a bad light as they are in rendering Moscow nefarious shows the real underlying trepidation of the ruling elite that concerns the resurgence of class consciousness. The West must learn its lesson that its state of perpetual war has caused its own downfall or it could attempt a last line of defense that would inevitably conscript all of humanity to its death as the ruling class nearly did to the world in 1914 and 1939.

[Aug 30, 2019] Obama's Unending Wars Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State by Jeremy Kuzmarov

Aug 16, 2019 | www.powells.com
Ron Ridenour, August 16, 2019 (view all comments by Ron Ridenour)

Obama's Unending Wars is impeccably researched, revealing the reality of Barak Obama's devastating eight years in the White House, built by African slaves. Obama became rich doing the white neo-colonialists bidding by warring against more countries at once than any white president. True to Franz Fanon's classic work, the author peals the imperial white mask off the black skin of Obama, whose father was a Kenyan black man. Jeremy Kuzmarov documents how the drone president stood for seven aggressive wars, and put into practice the George Bush AFRICOM plan to dominate the African continent. Obama convinced or forced the governments of 53 of Africa's 54 governments to accept US military bases/facilities and troops. US military will thereby directly assist US's agricultural-multinationals to rape the continent once again.

Writing to white and black readers sans condensation, Kuzmarov shows how many white progressives and former revolutionaries, who, in their anxiety to reject any racist appearance, embraced this warmongering president. Obama also convinced most African-Americans to give him leeway to do them justice, which he never did. And now, for the first time in history, a large percentage of black people in the US support the white Establishment's wars for profit.

[Aug 29, 2019] Giuliani Renews Push For Biden Investigation

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has long pushed for Kiev to investigate Vice President Joe Biden's attempt in 2016 to get the country's top prosecutor removed at a crucial moment during an ongoing investigation into Burisma Holdings -- the Ukrainian natural gas company advised at the time by Biden's son Hunter. ..."
"... As the The New York Times reported previously, during the final year of the Obama presidency, Vice President Joe Biden "threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine's leaders did not dismiss the country's top prosecutor" -- Viktor Shokin -- "who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite." ..."
Aug 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

... ... ...

Also interesting is that Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has long pushed for Kiev to investigate Vice President Joe Biden's attempt in 2016 to get the country's top prosecutor removed at a crucial moment during an ongoing investigation into Burisma Holdings -- the Ukrainian natural gas company advised at the time by Biden's son Hunter.

As the The New York Times reported previously, during the final year of the Obama presidency, Vice President Joe Biden "threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine's leaders did not dismiss the country's top prosecutor" -- Viktor Shokin -- "who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite."

Crucially last week Giuliani was reported to have again raised the issue with Ukrainian officials , according to CNN .

As CNN cynically put it in its latest report , this suggests "the former New York mayor is making a renewed push for the country to investigate Trump's political enemies."

But then again maybe it's as simple as the US not actually having a deep national security interest in propping up Ukraine's military at a moment when international missile treaties with Russian are unraveling and the war in Donbass is at a bloody stalemate.

The looming potential for a controversial cut in aid to Ukraine will make Trump's upcoming meeting with still relatively new "political outsider" President Volodymyr Zelenskyy set for next week all the more interesting. A final decision on the military aid is expect after this crucial meeting.


geno-econ , 1 hour ago link

More reason for Pappy Biden to pull out of race. Now he does not stand a chance to defeat Trump because Hunter corruption in Ukraine and China will be center stage during election. Obviously "lock them up " will be the battle cry. With China's latest backpedaling on tariff retaliation, Trump can only be defeated from within Republican party by new impeachable revelations.

CatInTheHat , 1 hour ago link

Ukraine was a Kagan/Nuland obammy/Biden coup special. Another **** adventure.

CatInTheHat , 1 hour ago link

Kolomoisky a ***.

Big surprise There.

CatInTheHat , 1 hour ago link

Yeah, if you only knew that the big beneficiary to the IMF Loan in Argentina was none other than Orange *** oligarch donor Paul Singer.

Same thing happened in Ukraine. Poroshenko was not only the recipient of an IMF loan bailout but lots of US "aid" too.

Something bout them Joos.

CatInTheHat , 2 hours ago link

Wait, so does the US still want to split China and Russia?

At G7 Macron and Trump both were talking up Putin and wanting to allow Russia back into G8.

Then i read another interesting article about Macron inviting Putin to France:

"The dynamics of the New Cold War might undergo a dramatic transformation if the geopolitical game-changer of a “New Detente” between Russia and the West succeeds, which is becoming increasingly possible as proven by recent events.

President Putin’s meeting earlier this week with his French counterpart in Paris saw Macron repeatedly emphasizing Russia’s European identity in a clear sign that this rapprochement is making visible progress. Macron is motivated to play the role of mediator between the US and Russia for two main reasons, namely that he wants to position France as a possible replacement to inevitably post-Merkel Germany as the EU’s leading country and also to reach an accommodation with Moscow in Africa after the completion of the country’s “ African Transversal ” earlier this summer began to threaten Paris’ interests in the continent. Putin responded extremely positively and reminded Macron of their two Great Powers’ decades-long shared desire to forge “a common Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok”, reaffirming that Russia regards itself more as a European country than a “Eurasian” or Asian one, which has important implications for International Relations.

The Neo-NAM

What The US Really Wants From Russia ” is for it to recalibrate its recent “Eurasian” turn towards China in exchange for much-needed sanctions relief that could help it survive its two ongoing systemic transitions in the political ( post-Putin 2024 , or PP24) and economic (“ Great Society “/” National Development Projects “) spheres, which was likely discussed during Pompeo’s trip to Sochi in May and thus enabled the author to “ Predict The Possible Details Of A ‘New Detente’ “. The US doesn’t have any unrealistic expectations about the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership and is very well aware that Putin announced earlier this year that the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union will work towards integrating with China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), so a repeat of the Old Cold War-era “Sino-Soviet Split” probably isn’t in the cards, but what’s much more feasible is for the US to encourage Russia to become the leader of a new Non-Aligned Movement ( Neo-NAM ) that could “ balance ” between China and the West exactly like Mr.

Oleg Barabanov — a programme director at Russia’s top think tank, the Valdai Club — suggested in his policy paper a few months ago titled “ China’s Road to Global Leadership: Prospects and Challenges for Russia “.

“Politically Inconvenient” Truths

Both the Mainstream and Alternative Medias had hitherto exaggerated the nature of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership for their own reasons, with the former wanting to portray it according to the paradigm of the so-called “Russian threat” in order to justify a more muscular American military buildup against them while the latter imagined that the two were “allies” jointly working together without any disagreements whatsoever in order to accelerate the emerging Multipolar World Order that would presumably be “anti-American”. The reality of their relations is a lot less sexy and it’s that Russia was pushed into reorientating its strategic focus as a result of the West’s anti-Russian sanctions following Crimea’s reunification, which served as the catalyst for Moscow’s decision to embrace Beijing. Russia probably wouldn’t have undertaken this move had it not been for American pressure, but it felt compelled to since it didn’t want to remain a “junior partner” in the US’ “New World Order”, instead endeavoring to return to its historical role as a Great Power among equals.

In pursuit of this, it’s much easier for Russia to simply reintegrate into a reformed “New World Order” than to build an entirely new one from scratch alongside China, which is why the possibility of a “New Detente” is so enticing to its leadership, though provided of course that the West is sincere in finally treating Russia as an equal Great Power"

https://www.globalresearch.ca/new-detente-proceeding-apace-china-should-very-concerned/5686937

One doubts The US sincerity and for good reason. This might be why US backing off Ukraine. US has always wanted to split China and Russia.

thereasonableinvestor , 2 hours ago link

#Unequal: Rich Sanders, Biden and Obama Lecture Average Americans on Income Inequality

CatInTheHat , 1 hour ago link

BASTARDS! If i had a DIME for every time Obama EXPLOITED vulnerable Americans for his road and pony show I would be a rich woman.

I'll never forget Obama interview in prison with a few younger African American kids. Talkin to then as if he knew what they were going through. His black *** raised WHITE and who had ZERO clue what it was to live black and supporting the very oppressive system that jailed them in the first place. All that after he bailed out banks and then QE under the Fed for his wealthy CITI, Goldman and *** friends.

Master manipulator.

[Aug 29, 2019] Trump Mulls Pulling $250M In Ukraine Aid As Giuliani Renews Push For Biden Investigation

Notable quotes:
"... "seriously considered for the past several weeks cutting $250 million the United States is providing in military assistance to Ukraine." ..."
Aug 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Could President Trump be poised to dramatically draw back the heavy US military and foreign aid investment in Ukraine that his administration inherited from the Obama White House? Since the US-backed coup against Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovich on the back of the Euromaidan protests in 2014, Washington has given Ukraine over $1 billion in security assistance to bolster its national armed forces as they clash with pro-Russian separatists in the country's east.

And now CNN reports a possible drastic reversal: President Trump has "seriously considered for the past several weeks cutting $250 million the United States is providing in military assistance to Ukraine." The original Politico report which broke the news said the White House has already notified Congress and multiple US agencies of its intent to cut the aid.


BrownTiger , 6 minutes ago link

Pull all military aid. This war is not wanted by Ukrainians or ethnic Russians. 75% Ukraine wants peace, but Poroshenko government forced war so they continue stealing foreign aid. People voted Zelenskey on his promise to end the war, jail the thief's This war is forced by corrupt oligarchs with a help of Bidens money laundering on the people of Ukraine. The public opinion in Ukraine is overwhelmingly to end the war, but government and the corrupt continue to fight it.

Captain Nemo de Erehwon , 32 minutes ago link

Poor Ukraine. One wants to pull it for not firing those investigating Biden-related companies. The other for not investigating them.

Someone Else , 48 minutes ago link

Pull ALL military aid to Ukraine and watch that Donbass war end overnight.

They only fight it because we give them the weapons and insist that they do.

alamac , 44 minutes ago link

...and instigate undemocratic coups that install anti-Russian oligarchs, and support the Nazi Azov Battalion, and little things like that...But it's bound to be Russia's fault somehow.

Someone Else , 36 minutes ago link

I am quite aware that it was an undemocratic coup d'etat. I was in Ukraine in 2014 when everything was unfolding. The coup d'etat was organized via Facebook from the US Embassy. people were paid to show up but nobody was to show up until there were guarantees from enough people that there would be a certain minimum attendance.

That uprising was as natural as styrofoam.

earleflorida , 55 minutes ago link

Changing 1 to 0 - Rick and Morty [season 3]

Anderson Coopers Gerbil , 57 minutes ago link

Stopped at CNN reports

alamac , 43 minutes ago link

Me too. GMTA

Robin D. Hood , 1 hour ago link

Saw this and thought it was worth passing along.

Citing Israel, French Freemasons warns members not to attend Jewish community events

By Cnaan Liphshiz August 29, 20199:00 am

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/citing-israel-french-freemasons-warn-members-not-to-attend-jewish-community-events/amp

https://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/rabbi-bright-is-quebec-masons-first-jewish-grand-chaplain

Robin D. Hood , 1 hour ago link

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/08/29/pompeo_us_will_give_israel_diplomatic_legal_and_military_resupply_support_in_any_war_with_iran_however_long.html

http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/www/Masonry/Reports/israel.html

Robin D. Hood , 1 hour ago link

Of course the jewish orgs didn't get his "remains".

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/how_to_conduct_a_masonic_funeral.htm

I maintain he is alive and the French Connection (including Canada) is in on this.

Robin D. Hood , 58 minutes ago link

Secretive Bilderberg Meeting Draws Pompeo and Kushner

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/world/pompeo-bilderberg-meeting.amp.html

alamac , 1 hour ago link

That's assuming the war state would let him pull the money.

Seems to me like anytime Trump mentions dialing back hostilities anywhere with anybody at any time for any reason, the corporate media and war-loving Congressworms start shreiking doom, the military turtles up and ignores him, and nothing changes. Maybe this time will be different, but I doubt it.

Just sayin'.

earleflorida , 2 hours ago link

Ukraine president proposes Honcharuk as new PM, Prystaiko as foreign minister

Sammy Kislin , Giuliano , and the 'Rothschild's ( The Rothschild Archive Trust ) Trust'.... aka. jewkrainia

H ow Poroshenko embezzled and exported $8 billion from Ukraine!!!

Manafort and Former Ukrainian President Made $40 Billion ...

and trump will give him amnesty as term ends

Ukraine's Ousted Regime Made $40 Billion Disappear And No and America supports such integrity with moar foreign aide and imf/wb loans

Itchy and Scratchy , 2 hours ago link

'Foreign Aid is giving money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries!' - Dr R Paul

voice_of_majority , 2 hours ago link

Just theater for distraction of the sheeple. 250mil or 1 bil does not even equate to tiny drop in a bucket. Why don't they talk about 34 billion given to an ethnic group in the Middle East.

johnnycanuck , 2 hours ago link

trump's neocons are all in a lather about a Chinese company's bid to purchase a majority stake in a Ukrainian aircraft engine company. I think they sent Pompeo over just recently to ride roughshod on the new Ukie admin to get the deal blocked, so this flap might be another way to pressure them

As for Burisma Holdings, if you pry the rock off of that be prepared to see a whole lot of **** roaches scatter including Ihor Kolomoisky, the character who the newly installed President of Ukraine worked for in the TV series where he played the part of President. Kolomoisky owned Burisma through his Privat Bank which also underwent some extraordinary upheaval not long ago, which is typical of Ihor's past dealings.

You could spend hours researching Ihor as I did and I guarantee you'd find it a real eye opener. Robert Parry of Consortium News described him thusly:

In the never-never land of how the mainstream U.S. press covers the Ukraine crisis, the appointment last year of thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to govern one of the country's eastern provinces was pitched as a democratic "reform" because he was supposedly too rich to bribe, without noting that his wealth had come from plundering the country's economy.

In other words, the new U.S.-backed "democratic" regime, after overthrowing democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych because he was "corrupt," was rewarding one of Ukraine's top thieves by letting him lord over his own province, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, with the help of his personal army.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/24/ukraines-oligarchs-turn-on-each-other/

According to articles on the web he holds at least 3 known citizenship's. Swiss, Ukrainian and Israeli.

[Aug 29, 2019] https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/26/suddenly-western-regime-changes-keep-failing/

Aug 29, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Aiwl

Restricting the freedom of Xinjiang jihadis is a thorn in the backside of the criminals in Washington as they see their ability to brainwash, recruit and train more terrorists from the area is hugely reduced.

One of the cancers that needs to be eliminated is the propaganda device called VOA, voice of america. It needs to be dealt with and eliminated from all Asian countries. Even today, in VietNam, there are brainaltered creatures who listen to VOA and believe that the US is a force for freedom and democracy.

vexarb

Andre: "Suddenly "

You wrote of course "Suddenly" as shorthand for 7 years of blood sweat and tears by the Axis of Resistance (Syria, Hezb'Allah, Iran and Russia). Preceded by decades of individual resistance before these Allies came together in a united front.

"A thousand years is but the blink of an eyelid to The Lord". -- Old Testament

mark
Cue more crocodile tears for "the poor Uighurs" from the same people who killed half a million Iraqi children under 5 in Iraq.
mark
I'm just a suspicious of stories about 6 million moslem Uighurs in concentration camps being turned into lamp soap and shades from the same people who are currently waging a hybrid war against China, and who are obviously so, so concerned about the welfare of moslems.
uncle tungsten
The USA is soooo concerned about theUighurs that it totally forgot to reserve some concern for the Venezuelan people that it is currently starving and denying national wealth to so they can purchase hospitals, expand education services build new infrastructure etc.

The USA has so much concern that even its poodle over the Atlantic at airstrip one has stolen the Venezuelan people's gold so they cannot improve health services, expand education etc etc. The five eyes look on approvingly and should any vassal blink then the USA will simply push up the price of oil as punishment. That increase will not affect the USA as it continues to stripmine the wealth of its future generations to achieve self sufficiency right now.

[Aug 29, 2019] The US had 8,500 troops in Afghanistan in June 2019

Aug 29, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Antonym

The poorest country in Asia – Afghanistan – has totally collapsed under NATO occupation.

Complete BS! It is the continued Pakistani ISI influence in Afghanistan presently though their Haqqani Taliban network plus ISIS that is terrorizing Afghanistan, including intentional bombings of wedding parties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadahan_wedding_bombing & https://www.apnews.com
/b5ceb0cfb33d4d73aaaadf5eee19fe9d

The Pakistani army wants Afghanistan as "strategic depth" in case of a conflict with India.

Tony
Ah! So the US-led invasion, with it's endless stream of weak US-approved 'governments', has had nothing to do with Afghanistan's continued instability then. Got it!!!
Antonym
The US had 8,500 troops in Afghanistan in June 2019, peanuts compared to the Taliban (60,000) or the Pakistani Army (650,000) next door. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_06/20190625_2019-06-RSM-Placemat.pdf

Pakistan is the only overland supply route available for the US military; roads via Iran and Russia are politically out. All their fuel, ammo and food towards Afghanistan is under Pakistani ISI control from 1978 till now, with the interruption of 2009 – 2015 . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_logistics_in_the_Afghan_War#History

mark
Afghanistan has been the victim and playground for Neocon intrigue for years.
A liberal, progressive left wing regime that furthered women's rights and social provision was destroyed by Uncle Sam in its own interests to weaken Russia.
Bin Laden and his splendid chaps were put on the CIA payroll for the purpose.
The result was a long running bloodbath with 28,000 Russian and 1,4 million Afghan dead.
Followed by years of civil war, US invasion and the imposition of a narco warlord puppet government on the country.
Tony
Hasn't Afghanistan gone from having hardly any opium production prior to the US-led invasion, to currently being the source of something like 99% of the world's source for heroin?
mark
The Cocaine Import Agency runs the coke trade out of South America.
Might as well run the heroin trade out of Afghanistan as well.
Martin Usher
Have you considered that the Pakistan of 1980 may not be the same country with the same players as the Pakistan of 2019? Also, when you get a weak/chaotic government then its quite likely that different factions or forces within a country may pursue widely different goals?

[Aug 28, 2019] why Magnier isn't using his platform to point out Netanyahu's irresponsible, self-serving actions. Netanyahu will NOT pay a price for his craven machinations - which could mean Israeli dead and injured and/or another war in Lebanon - when even "critics" like Magnier dress them up as heroic acts of patriotism

Notable quotes:
"... etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment of over-commitment. ..."
"... "Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in Northern Syria.'" ..."
Aug 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Aug 26 2019 20:36 utc | 133

Magnier on Nuttyahoo's escalating provocations encapsulates the most recent series of events, although he doesn't attempt to link the actions to the upcoming elections. Hezbollah threatened direct retaliation against Occupied Palestine; Iraq chose to blame the Outlaw US Empire; Syria remained silent; the G-7 said nothing. The recent proposal by Iran to refurbish one pipeline and build another to Syria's coastline would certainly become a Zionist target. So, for the project to have the proper security, Occupied Palestine needs to be liberated. Nasrallah isn't known as a bluffer, while Nuttyahoo's prone to be too aggressive. Do the Zionists see the current situation as possibly the final time they have some sort of an advantage as Magnier seems to imply and attack since they know the Outlaw US Empire won't?

Sasha , Aug 26 2019 20:53 utc | 136

But, in spite of the whole US paleo-conservative spectre, along with "alt-right", always telling us it is Israel who forces the US to wage war in the ME...now, Israeli politics and experts, say the last attacks on Irak, Syria and Lebanon have been made only as electoral maneuver by Netanyahu and not only, but have stated that it is the US who wants Israel doing their dirty job in the ME...This, reported by Al Manar ....not a Jewish source....
In his speech on August 25, the secretary general of Hezbollah made a double promise: the Resistance will now attack the drones of Israel and attack the Israeli troops not in Shebaa but in Lebanon itself. For those Israeli generals who experienced the 2006 war and the ups and downs of Syria, these are not just warnings. These soldiers even seem to have been sensitive to Nasraláh's warning that Netanyahu's attacks are intended to win votes for the next election and avoid imprisonment. "The current threat to Israel, which is even more serious than terrorism, missiles and Iran, is the collapse of the interior of Israel," warned former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

"By the way, Netanyahu's air operations against Syria, Lebanon and Iraq pursue internal political goals, which is very unfortunate", said Moshe Yaalon, a leader of the Blue and White opposition coalition and former Israeli Minister of Military Affairs, according to the agency Palestinian Maa.

"The threat of the collapse of the interior of Israel is even more serious than the missiles and Iran. The destruction of democracy and corruption within government apparatus will lead us to collapse", said Ehud Barak in a video posted on his Twitter page.

"The attack on Syria was not a preventive action and will harm Israel," Barak told Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, having apparently understood the warning issued by Nasralá.

Other Israeli experts share this opinion. Yaari Ehud, an Israeli journalist and expert in the Middle East said on Channel 12 of Israeli television that Netanyahu and his security cabinet "perpetrated these attacks on behalf of the US" and run the risk of "exposing Israel." "In fact, the missions that Americans refuse to do, they entrust them to Israel. We have been commissioned to do the dirty work at the risk of jeopardizing our security, "he added before saying", Tel Aviv will pay for it."

Who is lying? The Israelis or the Americans? Or both?

See here Nasrallah more angry than long time ago...

While Israel claims having targetted an Iranian military base in Damascus, it seems that what it targetted were two milennials from Hezbollah, Hassan and Yasser , friends since childhood, who were also Engineering students in Iran...

Jackrabbit , Aug 27 2019 3:03 utc | 148

karlof1 @133: Magniers latest

Mangier writes a follow-up to his post that I criticized @29. I think that his latest post also falls well short of his vaunted reputation.

Magnier's interpretation of events lauds Netanyahu's chess playing. He compares inconsequential attacks with past strategic actions (almost gleefully as he describes those past glories at some length) .

He makes broad, unsupported statements like:

It should be recognized that Israel's assessment of the reaction of Iran's allies in Syria and Iraq is spot on.
And repeats that Israel is hitting "hundreds" of sites FOUR TIMES. Making it seem as though the Israeli campaign is much greater than it really is. AFAICT those attacks have actually been spread out over more than a year.

Yet it's all preliminary to this gem:

Netanyahu forced Hezbollah's leader to threaten Israel ...
Forced? Really? AFAICT the red lines in Lebanon have been clear for a long time. Each side will defend theirs.

Which leaves me scratching my head as to why Magnier isn't using his platform to point out Netanyahu's irresponsible, self-serving actions. Netanyahu will NOT pay a price for his craven machinations - which could mean Israeli dead and injured and/or another war in Lebanon - when even "critics" like Magnier dress them up as heroic acts of patriotism.

somebody , Aug 27 2019 8:53 utc | 160
Will Israel's War Become America's War?
Netanyahu's widening of Israel's war with Iran and its proxies into Lebanon and Iraq -- and perhaps beyond -- and his acknowledgement of that wider war raise questions for both nations.

Israel today has on and near her borders hostile populations in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq. Tens of millions of Muslims see her as an enemy to be expelled from the region.

While there is a cold peace with Egypt and Jordan, the Saudis and Gulf Arabs are temporary allies as long as the foe is Iran.

Is this pervasive enmity sustainable?

As for America, have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not of ours?

bevin , Aug 27 2019 13:03 utc | 167
On a not completely different subject-that of the Empire's demise- there is a Tom Luongo article at Strategic Culture, which is pretty good.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/27/first-many-cauldrons-form-middle-east/
It ends
"So, the cauldron around Israel is forming. With the Saudis in deep trouble, Egypt refusing to go along with any of Trump's plans – Arab NATO, the Kushner Deal of the Century – the game board has fundamentally shifted against them.

"N etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment of over-commitment.

"Now the counter attack will commence, I suspect, with brutal precision"

Uncle Jon , Aug 27 2019 17:05 utc | 177
@bevin 167

Elijah Magnier paints a different picture with Israel having the upper hand and being able to act with impunity.

https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/3421-netanyahu-dares-to-hit-iran-backyard.html

I don't quite agree with his assessment and conclusions. He is grossly underestimating the axis of resistance and their will to push back. Also, Israelis are overestimating the American support, no matter what. Not if it is going to cost them American lives. Hitting a few ammo depots in isolation is one thing, but getting Americans to die for Israeli intransigence is another. Not much stomach for that here in US, no matter how much they push the special relationship.

Israelis are playing backgammon while Iran and axis playing chess, being a grandmaster at that. Check mate will be ugly.


dh , Aug 27 2019 17:17 utc | 179
@177 Israel shouldn't take American support for granted. According to this article some Evangelicals are starting to have second thought...

"Why do we have pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ values, and we do not have more freedom to protect our faith? We are persecuted now," Yanko says about evangelical Christians like herself. "[Jews] say, 'We've got America. We control America.' That's what I know."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anti-semitic-beliefs-spreading-among-192155642.html

karlof1 , Aug 27 2019 20:10 utc | 191
If true, big time trouble :

"Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in Northern Syria.'"

Is it a feint to get SAA to cease Idlib Dawn and drive the Zionists out, or are Zionist drones really being flown from there? Regardless, it's time to end the Kurd's games, drive out the Outlaw US Empire and all other illegal forces and reclaim Syrian sovereignty. Iraq must do the same.

S , Aug 28 2019 1:20 utc | 227 Jackrabbit , Aug 28 2019 2:11 utc | 228
Well, as if we needed any more proof of a Netanyahu's attempt to increase tensions for craven political benefit, there's Michael Snyder (via ZeroHedge): Fighting Escalates Dramatically As Both Sides Prepare For "The Final War" Between Israel And Iran , in which he claims that:
Over the past several days, Israel has attempted to prevent attacks by Iranian forces and their allies by striking targets in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq.
Really? AFAIK, Israel hasn't described specific attacks that were thwarted.

Snyder then uses Iraqi and Hezbollah's anger at Israel's acts of war (cause, um ... that's what they are) as examples of pre-crime hatred that justifies Netanyahu's Israel's attacks.

Netanyahu's self-serving deviousness has blown up his face. Hasbara media assets are busy trying to recover the high ground. IMO their attempt to do so will fail miserably as it's transparent and thus digs the hole deeper. Leading to the question: Will Netanyahu accept defeat at the polls or will he continue with the dirty tricks (at the risk of war)?

<> <> <> <> <> <> <>

The above should be read in conjunction with my criticism of Magnier @29 and @148.

psychohistorian , Aug 28 2019 3:36 utc | 231
@ Jackrabbit #228 about Netanyahu...thanks

I read in the past 24 hours somewhere that Pence has also been speaking about how the US needs to help Israel protect itself from being attacked......

It is way past time to bring the pimple to a head and deal with it.

[Aug 28, 2019] It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR

Notable quotes:
"... Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him. ..."
"... Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid. ..."
Aug 28, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Zaphod Braden 5 hours ago

It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR.

Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him.

Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret of their desire for the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic.

Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid.

Sheldon Adelson BRIBED Trump and the Republicans .... This does not include the "favorable and unusual" so-called loans granted Kushner and ?Trump?

Who is notorious for being in financial difficulty and is desperately hiding his taxes. Trump has lots of energy for defending his tax returns but very little for defending Our borders.

Trump's lawyers will appeal and fight this tooth and nail for his Taxes. But when some P.O.S. "judge" treasonously rules against defending this Nation's borders from Invaders Trump just shruggs and submits. Makes empty threats about where to put the Invaders, and goes back to putting ISRAEL FIRST.

[Aug 28, 2019] Iranian foreign minister tells Euronews about his discussion with Macron

Aug 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

FSD , Aug 26 2019 19:14 utc | 128

Will Trump's intimations about meeting with Rouhani win the footrace? His competitor? Israel's determination to get the Mideast theater of WW3 started in earnest. Racking up two declarations of war in as many days (Lebanon and Iraq) ain't too shabby a head-start. The game is to deprive Trump of the initiative. The Israelis are smelling capitulation and a fresh outbreak of post-JCPOA yakking. The time is now. Trump had better get with the program. He still has a chance to look like Presidential Instigator. Failing that, he'll just have to be dragged in unceremoniously and then scramble post facto to look like Instigator. It's a PR dilemma. His military's already there, poised for action. This may be the first war to launch right over the head -and better judgement- of JCS Head Dunsford himself. False flag momentum is a funny thing. The time couldn't be riper for war to get a jump on cooler heads.

After all, War has its own thoughts on the matter and will only let human beings dither for so long before taking the helm and asserting its own predilections:

"Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came." --Lincoln Second Inagural


karlof1 , Aug 26 2019 20:36 utc | 133

Magnier on Nuttyahoo's escalating provocations encapsulates the most recent series of events, although he doesn't attempt to link the actions to the upcoming elections. Hezbollah threatened direct retaliation against Occupied Palestine; Iraq chose to blame the Outlaw US Empire; Syria remained silent; the G-7 said nothing. The recent proposal by Iran to refurbish one pipeline and build another to Syria's coastline would certainly become a Zionist target. So, for the project to have the proper security, Occupied Palestine needs to be liberated. Nasrallah isn't known as a bluffer, while Nuttyahoo's prone to be too aggressive. Do the Zionists see the current situation as possibly the final time they have some sort of an advantage as Magnier seems to imply and attack since they know the Outlaw US Empire won't?
Sasha , Aug 26 2019 22:05 utc | 141
Iranian foreign minister tells Euronews about his discussion with Macron.

Sets the record straight...

Vasco da Gama , Aug 26 2019 23:02 utc | 143
@141

Iran for Multilateralism and Rule of Law, trusting themselves to abide by JCPOA, even if, as defined as failing, an invitation to Europeans to decide not be tempted by the US to remove themselves from their only future, and an appeal to the US to honour the responsibility of their veto sit on the UNSC where the lengthiest document was signed.

...

Good link Sasha.

[Aug 27, 2019] How to Enlarge NATO The Debate inside the Clinton Administration, 1993 95

The main problem was the the USA elite after the dissolution of the USSR was hell-bent on world dominance. And Clinton was in the vanguard of this trend.
Clinton has pretty destructive, toxic legacy, is not he? He and his administration essentially acted as a short sited and greedy gangster and he sowed the teeth of dragon into US-Russia relations.
Clinton tried to exploit Russian weakness during this period to the fullest extent possible,. This is the policy similar to policy of GB toward Germany after WWI. In short Clinton was a typical imperialist from the very beginning and like all subsequent Presidents valued international treaties and obligation only when they benefited the USA. The stance that illegal bombing of Serbia only confirmed. At this point by Nuremberg standards he and all top official ion his administration and first of all Madeline not so bright Albright became war criminals. The fact they they were not prosecuted is just a historical aberration stemming from the dominant USA position at this time.
Essentially Clinton transformed NATO into aggressive alliance which is an expansion of the USA military.
Notable quotes:
"... As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement were when and how ..."
Aug 27, 2019 | www.mitpressjournals.org

Newly available sources show how the 1993–95 debate over the best means of expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization unfolded inside the Clinton administration. This evidence comes from documents recently declassified by the Clinton Presidential Library, the Defense Department, and the State Department because of appeals by the author.

As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement were when and how . The sources make apparent that, during a critical decision making period twenty-five years ago, supporters of a relatively swift conferral of full membership to a narrow range of countries outmaneuvered proponents of a slower, phased conferral of limited membership to a wide range of states.

Pleas from Central and Eastern European leaders, missteps by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and victory by the pro-expansion Republican Party in the 1994 U.S. congressional election all helped advocates of full-membership enlargement to win.

The documents also reveal the surprising impact of Ukrainian politics on this debate and the complex roles played by both Strobe Talbott, a U.S. ambassador and later deputy secretary of state, and Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian foreign minister.

Finally, the sources suggest ways in which the debate's outcome remains significant for transatlantic and U.S.-Russian relations today.

... ... ...

In other words, the Bush administration performed the first “ratcheting down” of options, a process not without its costs. It raised the question, controversial to this day, of whether the Bush administration promised Moscow that, in exchange for tolerating the extension of NATO across a united Germany, the alliance would not seek further expansion eastward. Opinions on this topic range from absolutely not to absolutely yes.15

... ... ...

Without advance warning, Yeltsin decided to vent his frustrations publicly at the Budapest summit with Clinton in attendance. The Russian president accused the United States, in the interest of NATO expansion, of risking a “‘cold peace’” to follow the Cold War.108 On the flight back from Budapest to Washington, Talbott recalled that the president “was furious at his foreign-policy team for dragging him across the Atlantic to serve as a punching bag for Yeltsin.”

... ... ...

The shift in U.S. thinking unsurprisingly contributed to more tensions with Moscow, as evidenced by Talbott's subsequent negotiations. Kozyrev tried to convince Talbott that a better idea would be to transform NATO into “a collective security organization rather than a vehicle for containment” by amending the North Atlantic Treaty.122 Talbott rejected the idea, saying “no way are we going to entertain the possibility of redefining NATO in any way that compromises its basic mission.”123 Put bluntly, “We're not in the business of having to ‘compensate’ Russia or buy it off. Russia is not doing us a favor by allowing NATO to expand.”124

...Finally, interacting with the other five factors was President Clinton's increasing sympathy to the appeals of CEE leaders, which inclined him toward those aides pushing for full Article 5 expansion, and his personal optimism that Russia would eventually tolerate enlargement.

...In Perry's view, arms control—most notably, START II, which would have eliminated two-thirds of the U.S. and Russian arsenals, but never went into effect—ended up being “‘a casualty of NATO expansion’” and of fighting between the Kremlin and the Duma.139 START III suffered a similar fate, not even progressing to a signing. Looking back in 2015, Perry concluded: “The downsides of early NATO membership for Eastern European nations were even worse than I had feared.”140

.... Viewed from twenty-five years on, with U.S.-Russian confrontation on the rise, democracy crumbling in Hungary and Poland, and U.S. tanks returning to Europe, there is room for doubt. Given that the window of opportunity for changes is now firmly shut, however, NATO must make the best of the status quo; for the foreseeable future, confrontation with Russia is once again the order of the day.

[Aug 26, 2019] Israel's Ban on Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Backfires: it increase questioning of the USA aid to Israeli by Marjorie Cohn

Netanyahu policies toward Palestinians are actually a threat to Israel. Having implacable enemy, completely alienated population within the borders is not that any state desires.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid: $3.8 billion annually. AIPAC is the chief Israel lobby in the United States and a consistent apologist for Israel's oppressive policies toward the Palestinians. ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders said , "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage," adding, "And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel." ..."
"... Israel had approved the Tlaib/Omar trip last month. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said , "Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America," Israel would not deny entry "to any member of Congress." ..."
"... But Donald Trump reportedly told several of his advisers that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should bar Tlaib and Omar because they supported BDS. Hours after Israel cancelled the trip, Trump tweeted , "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people." ..."
"... In These Times. ..."
"... UN Security Council Resolution 242 describes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the [1967] conflict." ..."
"... Tampa Bay Times ..."
"... "The absence of chatter from the Democrats obviously reflects the misgivings that the Democratic base has about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel," Philip Weiss and Michael Arria wrote at Mondoweiss ..."
"... The outrageous exclusion of members of Congress from Israel-Palestine has focused unprecedented attention on the Israeli occupation and the BDS movement. This is the time to pressure congressional representatives to rethink their uncritical support for Israel and the $3.8 billion annually the United States provides to Israel. ..."
Aug 26, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Trump and Netanyahu thought they were pulling a fast one on two U.S. congresswoman, but it has blown up in their faces, as Marjorie Cohn explains.

By Marjorie Cohn Truthout D uring Congress's August recess, a group of 41 Democratic and 31 Republican congressmembers traveled to Israel on a delegation sponsored by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC subsidizes congressional trips to Israel in order to further the "special relationship" between Israel and the United States.

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid: $3.8 billion annually. AIPAC is the chief Israel lobby in the United States and a consistent apologist for Israel's oppressive policies toward the Palestinians.

Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, had planned their own "Delegation to Palestine," scheduled to begin on August 17. Tlaib, who was born in the U.S., planned to travel to the West Bank to visit her 90-year old Palestinian grandmother, whom she hasn't seen for a decade. But, aided and abetted by Donald Trump, Israel withdrew permission for the trip unless Tlaib agreed to remain silent about Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians. She refused to abide by the gag order and the trip was cancelled.

Tlaib said in a statement , "Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother's heart. Silencing me with treatment to make me feel less-than is not what she wants for me – it would kill a piece of me that always stands up against racism and injustice." She added, "Being silent and not condemning the human rights violations of the Israeli government is a disservice to all who live there, including my incredibly strong and loving grandmother."

Tlaib during her campaign. (Wikimedia)

Omar, who expressed "strength and solidarity" with Tlaib in a tweet, told reporters, "[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu's decision to deny us entry might be unprecedented for members of Congress. But it is the policy of his government when it comes to Palestinians. This is the policy of his government when it comes to anyone who holds views that threaten the occupation." She tweeted, "We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us."

Israel's refusal to allow members of the U.S. Congress entry into Israel-Palestine without muzzling them backfired. It has garnered widespread criticism, even by AIPAC , and focused the national discourse on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which Tlaib and Omar support.

Omar, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said , "It is my belief that as legislators, we have an obligation to see the reality there for ourselves. We have a responsibility to conduct oversight over our government's foreign policy and what happens with the millions of dollars we send in aid." She says the U.S. must ask Netanyahu's government to "stop the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land and ensure full rights for Palestinians if we are to give them aid."

Sen. Bernie Sanders said , "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage," adding, "And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel."

Tlaib and Omar Planned to Witness Occupation

Tlaib and Omar were scheduled to meet with members of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and Palestinian and leftist Israeli activists and nonprofits, as well as international human rights organizations in Jerusalem and the West Bank. They were also set to confer with members of Breaking the Silence, a group of former members of the Israel Defense Forces who now actively oppose Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. Omar tweeted that the goal of the delegation "was to witness firsthand what is happening on the ground in Palestine and hear from stakeholders -- our job as Members of Congress."

The visit by Tlaib and Omar "was to be something else" in contrast to the AIPAC delegation, James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute , wrote in the Forward. Tlaib and Omar "weren't going to focus on officials," according to Zogby. "They were going to expose the reality of Palestinian daily life under occupation. They were going to visit the Wall that separates Palestinians from their lands. They were going to refugee camps now cut off from US funding. They were going to see how Hebron has been horridly deformed by a settler invasion and military occupation."

Israel had approved the Tlaib/Omar trip last month. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said , "Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America," Israel would not deny entry "to any member of Congress."

But Donald Trump reportedly told several of his advisers that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should bar Tlaib and Omar because they supported BDS. Hours after Israel cancelled the trip, Trump tweeted , "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people."

The Israeli government agreed to allow Tlaib to visit her grandmother, provided she agree in writing not to discuss her support for BDS. But after emotional conversations with her family, Tlaib refused to submit to the condition that she not discuss the Israeli occupation.

Tlaib "was forced to make a choice between her right to visit her grandmother and her right to political speech against Israeli oppression," Sandra Tamari wrote at In These Times. Tamari has been barred from seeing her family in Palestine for more than 10 years because of her advocacy for Palestinian freedom and justice. Tlaib "ultimately chose the collective over the personal: She refused Israel's demeaning conditions that would have granted her a 'humanitarian' exception to enter Palestine, so long as she refrained from advocating for a boycott of Israel during her visit," Tamari added.

What Is the BDS Movement?

In 2005, Palestinian civil society -- including 170 Palestinian unions, political parties, refugee networks, women's organizations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and other Palestinian civil society bodies -- issued a call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

BDS is a nonviolent movement for social change in the tradition of boycotts of South Africa and the southern United States. It is aimed at ending Israel's illegal occupation. In 1967, Israel took control of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by military force. UN Security Council Resolution 242 describes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the [1967] conflict."

Security Council adopts Res. 242, Nov. 1967 (Getty)

But Israel continues its illegal occupation and exercises total control over the lives of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Israel regulates the ingress and egress of the people, as well as the borders, airspace, seashore and waters off the coast of Gaza. Israel expels Palestinians from their homes and builds illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel's 2014 massacre in Gaza led to the deaths of 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, and the wounding of 11,231 Palestinians. These actions likely constituted war crimes, according to the UN Human Rights Council's independent, international commission of inquiry.

Former UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, Flavia Pansieri, said that human rights violations "fuel and shape the conflict" in the occupied Palestinian territories and "[h]uman rights violations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are both cause and consequence of the military occupation and ongoing violence, in a bitter cyclical process with wider implications for peace and security in the region."

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, writing in the Tampa Bay Times , cited the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which "describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians." Tutu wrote, "This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable."

The call for BDS describes boycotts, divestment and sanctions as "non-violent punitive measures" that should last until Israel fully complies with international law by (1) ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the barrier wall; (2) recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3) respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.

What Are Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions?

The BDS movement has had a major impact on Israel. BDS was a critical factor in the 46 percent reduction in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Individuals and entities who have heeded the call for divestment include George Soros, the Bill Gates Foundation, TIAA-CREF public sector pension fund, Dutch pension giant PGGM and Norwegian bank Nordea.

Several churches, including the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ and many Quaker meetings, have divested from companies the BDS movement has targeted. The security services company G4S is planning to sell its subsidiary in Israel because the Stop G4S campaign resulted in a loss of millions of dollars in contracts. The withdrawal of French multinational utility company Veolia from Israel led to billions of dollars in lost contracts.

Tutu, who finds striking parallels between apartheid South Africa and Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, supports BDS. He has called on "people and organizations of conscience to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard," which profit "from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians."

Twenty-seven states have enacted legislation targeting boycotts of Israel, but activists have successfully defeated anti-boycott laws in several states. These bills are unconstitutional infringements on protected First Amendment activity.

In banning Tlaib and Omar, Israel relied on its 2017 law prohibiting entry to any non-Israeli citizen who "has knowingly published a public call to engage in a boycott" against Israel "or has made a commitment to participate in such a boycott."

And the United States' overwhelming support for Israel is reflected in a resolution the House of Representatives adopted on July 23. H. Res. 246 , which passed easily on a 398-17 vote, opposes the BDS movement. Tlaib and Omar voted against the resolution.

Questioning U.S. Aid to Israel

Interestingly, although the Republicans on the AIPAC trip tweeted vociferously about their visit, there was near silence on Twitter from the Democratic members of the delegation, although the group had given Netanyahu a standing ovation. "The absence of chatter from the Democrats obviously reflects the misgivings that the Democratic base has about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel," Philip Weiss and Michael Arria wrote at Mondoweiss . "A recent survey shows that a majority of Democrats support sanctions against Israel over settlements, even as the House votes overwhelmingly to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign."

The outrageous exclusion of members of Congress from Israel-Palestine has focused unprecedented attention on the Israeli occupation and the BDS movement. This is the time to pressure congressional representatives to rethink their uncritical support for Israel and the $3.8 billion annually the United States provides to Israel.

Copyright Truthout . Reprinted with permission. Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. She is a contributor to the new book, Reclaiming Judaism From Zionism: Stories of Personal Transformation .

[Aug 26, 2019] CONFIRMED US Still Training Large Number of Rebels in Southern Syria - 21st Century Wire

Aug 26, 2019 | 21stcenturywire.com

DAMASCUS – The Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) of the US-led international coalition fighting Daesh* has confirmed to Sputnik that the coalition was training the armed rebel group, Maghawir al-Thawra, near Syria's Al-Tanf, stressing that the group was efficient in countering Daesh.

"Coalition partner forces in the vicinity of Al-Tanf, Syria are the Maghawir al-Thawra. The MaT has demonstrated its effectiveness in interdicting Daesh and maintaining security within the Al-Tanf de-confliction zone. We will continue to train and advise coalition forces in the vicinity of Al-Tanf in pursuit of the enduring defeat of Daesh and to set conditions for regional stability", the CJTF-OIR said, commenting on Rudskoy's statement.

The Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, said on Monday that the United States was training 2,700 militants from the Syrian opposition group in the vicinity of the 55-kilometre (34-mile) US-controlled zone around its unauthorised military base in Syria's Al-Tanf .

Rudskoy also stated that the US Air Force was sending some of the militants to the east bank of the Euphrates River upon completing the training.

According to the chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, the militants were tasked with carrying out attacks targeting government forces and also destroying oil and gas infrastructure facilities.

In December of last year, US President Donald Trump stated that he had decided to withdraw troops from Syria promising to bring about 2,000 US servicemen back home. The reason for the move, according to him, was the defeat of the Daesh terrorist group in Syria. However, no exact deadline for the return of the troops has been revealed by US officials yet.


Richard Aahs Michael 22 days ago ,

Yes, and to think we started it.

EmilyEnso Richard Aahs 21 days ago ,

Depressing reading.
Horrific actually
https://www.zerohedge.com/n...

Michael Richard Aahs 22 days ago ,

We have the power to bring peace and prosperity to that region or unleash the dogs of war. We chose the latter while China is choosing the former.
soon China's commercial presence in the Middle East will eclipse America. I hope that happens soon for the good of everyone.

verner 24 days ago • edited ,

typical of the dysfunctional states of A, throwing good money (well well) after bad when it's hard to accept defeat and defeat they will face, in Afghanistan, in Iran and in Syria and in Yemen and in Venezuela. tough to be the party that has a) listed the greatest number of wars and also lists the greatest number of defeats. but, on the other hand, perpetual war is good for shareholders in the mic but not so much for the average tax paying under-educated american.

all they, the washington dc morons, need to do is to let go of the squatters, to tend for themselves and spend half of the pentagon cash at home, in infrastructure projects and health services and education and matters will be rectified in heartbeat. but no, not as long as the washington dc morons have sold out the country to the squatters and their fifth columns, like sheldon adelson and athers of that ilk.

[Aug 25, 2019] Netanyahu might create some problems for Trump re-election, if the US voters decide the the President is too cozy with Isreal

Notable quotes:
"... According to the Times of Israel newspaper, Netanyahu is now officially lobbying for a public statement by US President Donald Trump to back Israel's annexation of the West Bank. ..."
"... Although the White House refused to comment on the story, and an official in Netanyahu's office claimed that it was "incorrect", the Israeli right is on the fast track of making that annexation possible. ..."
"... Netanyahu had, himself, hinted at that possibility in August during a visit to the illegal settlement of Beit El. "We come to build. Our hands will reach out and we will deepen our roots in our homeland – in all parts of it," Netanyahu said, during a ceremony celebrating the expansion of the illegal settlements to include 650 more housing units. ..."
Aug 25, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

According to the Times of Israel newspaper, Netanyahu is now officially lobbying for a public statement by US President Donald Trump to back Israel's annexation of the West Bank.

Although the White House refused to comment on the story, and an official in Netanyahu's office claimed that it was "incorrect", the Israeli right is on the fast track of making that annexation possible.

Encouraged by US Ambassador David Friedman's comment that "Israel has the right to retain some of the West Bank", more Israeli officials are speaking boldly and openly regarding their intentions of making that annexation possible.

Netanyahu had, himself, hinted at that possibility in August during a visit to the illegal settlement of Beit El. "We come to build. Our hands will reach out and we will deepen our roots in our homeland – in all parts of it," Netanyahu said, during a ceremony celebrating the expansion of the illegal settlements to include 650 more housing units.

Unlike Netanyahu, former Israeli justice minister and leader of the newly-formed United Right, Ayelet Shaked, didn't speak in code. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, she called for the full annexation of Area C, which constitutes nearly 60 percent of the West Bank. "We have to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria," she said, referring to the Palestinian land using biblical designations.

Public Security, Strategic Affairs and Information Minister Gilad Erdan, however, wants to go the extra mile. According to Arutz Sheva and The Jerusalem Post, Erdan has called for the annexation of all illegal settlements in the West Bank and the ouster of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas as well.

Now situated at the center of Israeli politics, Jewish settlers are enjoying the spectacle as they are being courted by all major political parties. Their increased violence in the West Bank is a form of political muscle-flexing, an expression of dominance and a brutish display of political priorities.

"There's only one flag from the Jordan to the sea – the flag of Israel," was the slogan of a rally involving over 1,200 Jewish settlers who roamed the streets of the Palestinian city of Hebron (Al-Khalil) on August 14. The settlers, together with Israeli soldiers, stormed al-Shuhada street and harassed Palestinians and international activists in the beleaguered Palestinian city

... ... ...

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB.

[Aug 25, 2019] Khan Shaykhun and all surrounding villages are now liberated

Aug 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

BM , Aug 25 2019 15:02 utc | 4

Syria - Army Cuts Off Khan Shaykhun - Russia Bombs Turkish Reinforcement

Khan Shaykhun and all surrounding villages are now liberated. There was little resistance left as most of the Jihadis had slipped out of the encirclement before it closed. The Syrian army is now concentrating forces to go further north towards Maarat al-Numan. The preparing bombing campaign is ongoing.

Last night Israel bombed a Hezbullah workshop south of Damascus. Three Hizbullah engineers were killed and two were wounded. Additionally an Israeli short-range drone landed on Hizbullah's media office in Beirut, Lebanon. A second drone, probably sent to destroy the first one, appeared and exploded. No one was hurt. The drone operators must have been relatively nearby, most likely on some boat off Beirut.

Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah addressed Israel in his July 12 speech: "You kill one of our own in Syria and we will respond and respond from Lebanon." Nasrallah, who tends to hold his promises, is due to speak today at 17:00 local time. Expect some fireworks ...

Maj. Danny Sjursen: We're Listening to the Wrong Voices on Syria - TruthDig

August 21 - Anti-China Cult Gets U.S. Government Money - Runs Large Pro-Trump Ad Campaign

August 23 - U.S. Says Israel Bombed Iraq - With Update Elijah Magnier reports that Israel is most likely behind this: Who is Behind Blowing up Ammunition Warehouses in Iraq? Iran is the Target. I still have my doubts about that.

August 24 - U.S. Decoupling From China Forces Others To Decouple From U.S.

The text of Mark Carney's Jackson Hole speech: The Growing Challenges for Monetary Policy in the current International Monetary and Financial System

Khan Shaykhun and all surrounding villages are now liberated. There was little resistance left as most of the Jihadis had slipped out of the encirclement before it closed. The Syrian army is now concentrating forces to go further north towards Maarat al-Numan. The preparing bombing campaign is ongoing.

At the time the cauldron was not yet closed, I think the most natural reflection from outside would be that the SAA wanted to hold as many of the Jihadis in the cauldron as possible and then remove them from the balance sheet of the military equation, as it were. That, if I understand correctly, is how a cauldron would traditionally be used. But seeing as the Jihadis had built up extra-strong defences on their southern boundary (and all the Idleb boundaries?) and were relying heavily on the success of those defences, I would take it that the SAA aim was in fact somewhat different - let the jihadis escape from the cauldron so that the cauldron can be quickly stabilised, and the breach of the defences quickly set is stone so that reserve forces can quickly push northwards from Khan Shaykhun where the defenses are minimal, and thereby quickly roll up a large area of jihadi-occupied territory without problems of remaining jihadis in their rear. The M5 is then simultaneously transport medium for the roll-up, raison de non-être for major defences, transport medium for reinforcements and for defence against re-occupation, and vehicle for the next cauldron - everything to the east of the M5 (up to ... no idea). Expect the next cauldron pretty soon, I say, probably a big one. The reserve forces have been waiting immediately to the south of the first cauldron, I understand, now they will swing into action through Khan Shaykhun.

pppp , Aug 25 2019 15:17 utc | 5

@BM
Yes, it is not the situation where SAA kept a cauldron not fully closed for a couple days. See earlier Idlib campaign. It seems to implement a "golden bridge to escape"

[Aug 25, 2019] The G7 Should Pressure China but Find a Solution with Russia The National Interest

Aug 25, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

[Aug 25, 2019] Think about who gets rich off of the Venezuela regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. by Kei Pritsker

Notable quotes:
"... The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest. ..."
"... The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world. ..."
"... Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the United States and its allies. ..."
"... This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows: ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.mintpressnews.com

Think about who gets rich off of the Venezuela regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.

By Kei Pritsker @keipritsker

9 Comments

https://cdn.jwplayer.com/players/ufxBptWt-YuKiCfZc.html

Transcript -- This video was produced as part of a MintPress News and Grayzone collaboration -- Of all the reasons to plot an elaborate and risky coup, there's one reason that always stands out: profit. Money makes the world go around and in far more ways than we might think. Here are the top five special interest groups and institutions that seek to benefit from the U.S. backed coup in Venezuela.

Number 1: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which wants to saddle the Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF

The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.

The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world.

Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the United States and its allies.

This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows:

In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the IMF overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies, making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.

Number 2: The Oil Industry, out to control the oil reserves

There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the U.S. to overthrow the Maduro government, especially when National Security Advisor John Bolton openly states this on national television.

Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. in 2007. He's no stranger to advocating for the interests of the fossil-fuel industry.

Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves by far and Washington won't let that wealth go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia, China, or Iran.

And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players -- companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in Washington successfully advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign natural resources.

Number 3: The Military-Industrial Complex, working to military dominance and arm another U.S. puppet

One of the most bizarre things about America is that we've created one of the world's largest private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs or beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out of the government in the form of subsidies -- or in the case of the military industrial complex, a foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism or defending democracy.

You can see that wherever the U.S. goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind every multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the profits.

Once our military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know no U.S. ally or puppet state is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s -- then they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.

With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting U.S. military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next target.

As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these needs.

After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and occupation are no longer viable strategies, owing to negative public opinion. So Washington sought to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.

Number 4: "Humanitarian" NGOs to create and implement the alibi

Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power institutions that attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through propaganda laced with words like freedom, democracy, and human rights.

These NGOs are given the full blessing of the U.S. government and the two often work in tandem. Don't believe me? Take it from former CIA case officer Phillip Agee.

The US Agency for International Development's (USAID) regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the 2002 coup), Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever U.S. foreign policy sets its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet that goal as well as make a quick buck along the way.

For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan Guaidó's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the notorious Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances talking about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be overthrown.

Unsurprisingly, HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of characters.

The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the U.S.'s war on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.

Number 5: Think Tanks selling reports that tell the MIC what it wants to hear

Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking reports meant to justify their desired goal, the delegitimization of socialist governments and the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.

The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in overthrowing the Venezuelan government. In 2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional referendum in Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaidó, and his clique known as Generation 2007.

These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to amplify the message their donors have given them. Here's an article in the Washington Post written by a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute saying the U.S.'s failure to intervene in Venezuela has caused the Maduro government to destabilize the region.

Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no exception.

As the U.S. continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind. Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.

Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.

Top photo | A worker counts Venezuelan bolivar notes at a parking lot in Caracas, Venezuela May 29, 2018. Marco Bello | Reuters

Kei Pritsker is a journalist and activist located in Washington DC. Kei focuses on international politics and economics. He previously worked as a producer at RT America.

[Aug 24, 2019] Accomplices : Freeland and Pompeo Take Questions on China, Venezuela [Russia] and More...

Aug 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

John Gilberts , Aug 22 2019 22:26 utc | 42

Accomplices : Freeland and Pompeo Take Questions on China, Venezuela [Russia] and More...

https://youtu.be/7x49zorP1gI

"Today, Canada and United States are indispensable allies..."

[Aug 24, 2019] Putin strongly objects to the USA start of production of midrange rockets which can be used from Romania s and Poland s existing launching facilities

While this is a Russian site with specific audience, comments show that people reject the USA policy which might creates problems for the USA in the future. Not the USA neoliberal/neocon elite cares.
This decisions just had shown to the whole would that Trump is a clown capable of twitting, not much more. Other people make key decisions for the county.
Aug 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Drew Hunkins , August 23, 2019 at 13:33

off topic:

Putin's taking the gloves off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAfyftONbFY&list=LLWzo4sS343MNLWEG7VvwJ_Q&index=3&t=222s

Franz Bauer , 1 day ago

The deep state that controls the US are lying criminal psychopaths. Any agreements and treaties negotiated with them aren't worth the time or paper they are written on.

Narayana Narayana , 1 day ago

We love honourable putin's each decision because he always gives with legal proof. Love you honourable putin and Russia people. From India.

rafael albizu , 1 day ago (edited)

Super hypersonic russian rockets need just 5 minutes to hit target, & they're in Russian land, not in foreign usurped countries

Brian Ahern , 1 day ago

all.putin wants world peace but the Americans whats to tell everyone what to do and start wars what.they.sould buid a wall.around america stop them getting out

394pjo , 1 day ago (edited) div tabindex="0" role="artic

le"> We can certainly expect Poland and Romania to be targeted with Nuclear munitions at the very least. There will likely be an official Russian announcement of this fact as well. In the event of a breakout of hostilities with Nato then Russia will target the military infrastructure in both countries and vaporise them immediately. Unfortunately a very large number of Polish and Romanian civilians will be caught in the blasts. That will be tragic of course.

pulaat , 1 day ago

I live in the Netherlands and I am on the side of Russia. Europe is disgusting for not condemning the USA intentions. Eu will regret it. When bombs fall on Europe because of these incompetent leaders we will not forget.

Drew Hunkins , 1 day ago div tabindex="0" role="art

icle"> The Western public MUST, MUST become very familiar pronto with the few intellectuals, scholars, journalists, writers and authors who have been at the forefront for global peace and world justice for decades! It's our only hope! Right now the only sane voice on the national stage is Tulsi Gabbard. People must start reading: John Pilger, James Petras, Diana Johnstone, Stephen Lendman, Ray McGovern, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek, Michael Parenti, Stephen Cohen, The Saker, Caitlin Johnstone, Paul Craig Roberts.

Techno Tard , 1 day ago

Good one U.S.A. government! Lets try to instigate a fkn war where we can actually be attacked on our home land!

Luis martins , 1 day ago (edited)

tit-for-tat that was the right words from Putin

Madaleine , 1 day ago

USA a decadent nation run by global mafia . Cannot trust what they say , is proven by their actions Sold their soul to the devil for money and power. Yet they will fail God is in charge!

Drew Hunkins , 1 day ago div tabindex="0" role="articl

e"> The double standard in the West is breathtaking. It's as simple as the Golden Rule: merely try to imagine the reaction in New York, London, Washington, Paris, Chicago, Boston if Russia or China were to do the exact same thing in southern Canada or the Caribbean. The Washington military empire builders could possibly destroy humanity with their reckless and imperial behavior. They simply cannot accept any sovereign nation-states that 1.) give the finger to Wall Street or the idea of the uni-polar world Washington's intent on establishing, or 2.) gives diplomatic support to the Palestinians or is even a mild thorn in the side of Israel. For further reading, see the following scholars, intellectuals, journalists and writers: James Petras, Diana Johnstone, John Pilger, Stephen Lendman, Michael Parenti, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek and a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.

George Mavrides , 1 hour ago

US ramping up for a war before dollar collapse. However, a war against Russia and China is not one they can win.

JimmyRJump , 1 day ago (edited) div tabindex="0" role="articl

e"> Under Trump the USA are rapidly steering towards an open dictatorship, something they've been doing for years but more covertly. The USA have always been shouting the loudest about democracy and freedom but that's just a façade while they bully the world and their own people into submission. The curtain is falling faster and faster now. Oh, and ask the American Natives what the Americans do with treaties...

orderoutofchaos621 , 20 hours ago

The US does not want friendship with Russia, it seeks to either control it or destroy it. Since the first option isn't going to happen, it's obvious what's next and it'll start with more sanctions, expanding NATO into Georgia and Ukraine and placing nuclear missiles on Russia's Eastern and Western border.

Bernt Sunde , 1 day ago div class=

"comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> All it takes, is 1 single warhead fired from ex. Poland to reach Moscow. How many launchers do USA have placed in these countries near Russia? Is Moscow more than 500 KM away from any NATO border? If the enemy sets up catapults outside your city walls, isn't that a clear sign the enemy intend to fire those catapults against your walls? So what do you do? Do you sit and wait? Or do you take out the catapults before they break down your walls? As far as any strategist see this, it can be only one solution for survival.

joshron99 , 1 day ago div class="c

omment-renderer-text-content expanded"> During FDR's 'Pearl Harbor' speech he said, "It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago." There are echoes of this speech in Putin's words ( 02:18 ) and the type of treachery referred to by Roosevelt applies to the American exit from the INF. America has become a nation holding "a big stick" and loudly shouting about it (contrary to an earlier Roosevelt's advice). The White House acknowledged (and the NYT reported) that we are involved in seven wars right now (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger). We have 38 "named" foreign military bases as well as upwards of 600 overseas military installations of some sort including "lily pads," i.e., "cooperative security locations" and an undisclosed number of "black" locations. Our military budget is pushing towards a trillion dollars per year ($717 billion this year). We are threatening small countries such as Venezuela with military action (and yes, something needs to be done for the good of the people there but that should not include an American military attack which President Trump, our Secretary of State ("and his colleague") have said is "on the table." And now, we are dumping nuclear weapons treaties. We have truly become a country which "lives by the sword." Good luck to us all.

Deon Richards , 10 hours ago

Okay , so this is a broadcast of the President of Russia speaking to his security council right , this is official researched factual intel ....has to be on that level ...right . Now to the few negative responses I have come across ,what intel do you have and where did you get it...

Mad Rooky , 4 hours ago

Poland and Romania wanted to be on the safe side, but now they are getting a crosshair painted on their countries. What irony.

Drew Hunkins , 1 day ago

Instead of addressing and trying to ameliorate this most dangerous development, let's instead focus on Trump's idiotic and diversionary comments and tweets about buying Greenland or some such other nonsense.

[Aug 24, 2019] Accomplices : Freeland and Pompeo Take Questions on China, Venezuela [Russia] and More...

Aug 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

John Gilberts , Aug 22 2019 22:26 utc | 42

Accomplices : Freeland and Pompeo Take Questions on China, Venezuela [Russia] and More...

https://youtu.be/7x49zorP1gI

"Today, Canada and United States are indispensable allies..."

[Aug 23, 2019] the CIA army and it's threat to human rights and an obstacle to peace in Afghanistan

Afghan version of death squads...
Notable quotes:
"... Throughout, the militias reportedly have committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human rights abuses. " ..."
Aug 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

aye, myself & me , Aug 22 2019 23:05 utc | 48

Been reading an interesting report from Brown University's Watson Institute about "the CIA army and [it's] threat to human rights and an obstacle to peace in Afghanistan."
"Afghan paramilitary forces working with the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have long been a staple in the US war on terrorism in Afghanistan and the border region with Pakistan. The problems associated with these militias take on new significance given the recent momentum in talks between the US government and the Taliban about the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. Whose interests do the militias represent? How can they be integrated into a peace agreement – if at all? Will their use value for the US in future counterterrorist operations outweigh the case for closing them down in the service of human rights and a sustainable peace?

The militias are at least nominally controlled by their CIA paymaster, but to what extent will the operations of the CIA be monitored and streamlined with overall US policy towards Afghanistan?

The CIA-supported militias are a particularly troublesome version of the regionally based militias in Afghanistan that have developed over the years around local strongmen with external support. The present units originate in the 2001 invasion, when US military forces and the CIA organized Afghan militias to fight Islamist militants. Almost two decades later, the CIA is still running local militias in operations against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

Throughout, the militias reportedly have committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human rights abuses. "

[My emphasis]

Appears making peace with Afghanistan will be as elusive as any of the other American regime's various 'wars' and invasions.


O , Aug 23 2019 0:12 utc | 55

@aye, myself & me | Aug 22 2019 23:05 utc | 54

"Afghanistan seems doomed to suffer from factionalism long after all NATO/CIA forces are removed as the longstanding goal for the Outlaw US Empire is to deter Eurasian unity, which is why Afghanistan was invaded in the first place." Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2019 23:32 utc | 58

I would say it is more about the drugs and minerals.

During the 1980s, the CIA's secret war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan helped transform the Afghani-Pakistani borderlands into a launchpad for the global heroin trade. "In the tribal area," the US state department reported in 1986, "there is no police force. There are no courts. There is no taxation. No weapon is illegal Hashish and opium are often on display."

By then, the process of guerrilla mobilisation to fight the Soviet occupation was long under way. Instead of forming its own coalition of resistance leaders, the CIA had relied on Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and its Afghan clients, who soon became key players in the burgeoning cross-border opium traffic. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan

Months before 9/11 The Taliban was eradicating the poppy fields and the empire was not going to let that continue to happen. In 2001: Taliban's Ban On Poppy A Success, U.S. Aides Say https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/taliban-s-ban-on-poppy-a-success-us-aides-say.html

Ahmed Wali Karzai was a drug trafficker on the CIA payroll who happens to be the half brother of Hamid Karzai the US puppet to lead Afghanistan

The fact that Afghanistan sits on lucrative natural resources was recognized indirectly back in 2010 when the Afghan ministry of mines rolled out a $1b (!) estimate of what the country might have, and The New York Times quoted a source in the US Administration as saying that Afghanistan's list of reserves included copper, gold, cobalt, and even lithium on which the present-day industry is heavily dependent. A Pentagon memo actually described Afghanistan's potential lithium holdings as big enough to make it the "Saudi Arabia of lithium". Somehow, the news flew below the radars of most watchers worldwide.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-pentagon-s-map-of-afghanistan-an-eldorado-of-mineral-wealth-and-natural-resources/32265

Uncle Jon , Aug 23 2019 0:34 utc | 58
@Karlof1 58

Afghanistan war was more about TAPI pipeline and securing a friendly government to sign the contracts and then protect UNOCAL´s investment throughout. Also,ENRON at the time had their eyes on this and had bet the farm on it before they folded, among other reasons. That´s why as soon as the Taliban fell out of favor for one reason or another, Hamid Kharzai and Zalmay Khalilzad, UNOCAL agents were placed in charge of the country.

It didn't come to be of course, since the Taliban had other ideas. This was also ensured with a little help from friends in Russia and China. The article below is from 2002 but sheds a lot of light on the actual events of the day.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2002/01/10/bush-enron-unocal-and-the-taliban/

Now the focus has shifted to stopping BRI. But US empire will never lose sight of their original investment, nor the reserves in Caspian.

I agree to a degree that US will continue with their divide and conquer policies long after they pull out. However, if the Taliban who will eventually rule the country can be shown a different way of life by China and Russia which would lead to new roads, hospitals, schools and normal farming as oppose to death an destruction, opium and Tribalism, we might actually see a major change in Afghanistan.

Too optimistic? Perhaps, but the air is ripe.

TAPI might eventually be built, but not for UNOCAL. Have no doubt the Chinese will offer a much sweeter deal all around.

O , Aug 23 2019 0:56 utc | 59
Posted by: Uncle Jon | Aug 23 2019 0:34 utc | 65

Yea I forgot to add the gas pipeline as well to my comment on 62. Every war is about resources.

[Aug 22, 2019] Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison

Highly recommended!
The problem with Trump is that everything in him is second rate. Even bulling. and many americans were aware of that and voted for him just because that thought that Hillary was worse. Much worse.
Actually Madeleine (not so bright) Albright was of the same mold... Gangster style bulling and extortion as the only Modus operandi
And Daniel Larison is correct: when Trump faces strong backlash he just declare the partner in negotiation "terrible" and walks out and try to justify his defeat ex post facto.
Notable quotes:
"... As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation. ..."
"... The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender. ..."
"... he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up. ..."
"... "Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas." ..."
"... The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price. ..."
"... "Trump has always been a lousy negotiator." ..."
"... But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself. ..."
Aug 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Michael Hirsh reminds us that Trump has always been a lousy negotiator:

Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer who interviewed him many times, agrees with Lapidus that there is no discernible difference in the way Trump negotiates today, as president, compared to his career in business. "His style involves a hostile attitude and a bullying method designed to wring every possible concession out of the other side while maximizing his own gain," D'Antonio said. "As he explained to me, he's not interested in 'win-win' deals, only in 'I win' outcomes. When I asked if he ever left anything on the table as a sign of goodwill so that he might do business with the same party in the future he said no, and pointed out that there are many people in the world he can work with, one at a time."

As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation.

The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender.

He seems particularly obsessed with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) because the trade-off inherent in any agreement made with Iran was that they would regain access to frozen assets, and he ignorantly equates this with "giving" them money. The fact that the JCPOA heavily favored the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 doesn't interest Trump. Iran was allowed to come away with something at the end, and even the little bit they were able to get is far too much for him. This is one reason he has been so closely aligned with Iran hawks over the last four years, and it helps explain why he endorses absurd, unrealistic demands and "maximum pressure" of collective punishment. He is doing more or less the same thing he has always done, and he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up.

Here is another relevant point from the article:

"Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas."

The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price.


JSC2397 8 hours ago

Pulling off that "greatest trick" was amazing easy, actually: all Trump and his creatures had to do was go on the assumption that most Americans will readily believe what they see on television. Especially when it jibes with their prejudices.
david 8 hours ago
"Trump has always been a lousy negotiator."

But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself.

Martin Ranger 6 hours ago
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it."

While I agree with pretty much all of the article, let us not forget that a majority of Americans was not, in fact, fooled.

Zsuzsi Kruska 6 hours ago
He can negotiate, but the thugs in Wash. don't want to. They are doing everything they can to start a war somewhere.
me 5 hours ago
Americans are certainly paying a price Benjamin Franklin warned about. But as for other countries, theirs is due strictly to their own doing, for relying excessively on the goodwill of America and turning a blind-eye to our imperialism. Quite frankly, up to now, US allies have been enablers.
Gary Rosenberg 5 hours ago
Add to that, " When someone hits me, I hit them back ten times harder."
This is not what we teach our children. It is a miserable way to live, or to run a country. No wonder the President is longer referred to as "the leader of the free world." He gave up that title. These are sad days.
d_hochberg 3 hours ago
Yes, he is utterly incompetent on his main selling point, his supposed skill at negotiating. It is very inconvenient having Trump as our standard-bearer.
Alan Vanneman 3 hours ago
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it."

Actually, the people who voted for Trump and who support him now love him for being a bully. That's what they want. They want a Tony Soprano as their president, a guy who will go out and beat up all the people they hate. They don't want "negotiation". They want a guy who has a baseball bat and knows how to use it. What's "interesting" is that despite all of Trump's appeals to violence, and his willingness to support violence (for example, Saudi Arabia), he largely shrinks from it himself. We've seen far fewer Tomahawks than one might have expected, particularly considering the great press he received the first time around. Will we continue to be lucky? I hope so, but it's hard to be optimistic.

[Aug 22, 2019] What Happened to Putting Americans First by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... President Trump said Wednesday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democratic candidates are "very disloyal to Israel," expanding on his remarks from the previous day and dismissing criticism that his remarks were anti-Semitic. ..."
"... "I think if you vote for a Democrat, you are very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people," Trump said in an exchange with reporters outside the White House before departing for an event in Kentucky. ..."
"... The president is using explicit anti-Semitic rhetoric here, and he is attacking most American Jews because they are not loyal to a foreign country. ..."
"... Because Trump has made a habit of indulging the Israeli government and giving Netanyahu everything he wants regardless of the consequences for the U.S., he apparently assumes that this is the attitude everyone else should have. ..."
"... Trump's attacks are the latest example of how Israel and U.S. policy towards Israel have been made into part of the domestic culture war where being a "pro-Israel" hard-liner is associated with nationalism at home. "Pro-Israel" nationalists imagine that they have more in common with hard-liners in other countries than they do with their fellow citizens, and they see no contradiction in being aggressively nationalist here while also subordinating U.S. interests overseas to the preferences of a small client state. ..."
Aug 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Trump repeated his outrageous anti-Semitic statement earlier today:

President Trump said Wednesday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democratic candidates are "very disloyal to Israel," expanding on his remarks from the previous day and dismissing criticism that his remarks were anti-Semitic.

"I think if you vote for a Democrat, you are very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people," Trump said in an exchange with reporters outside the White House before departing for an event in Kentucky.

There wasn't really any doubt about what Trump meant the first time when he launched this attack on the vast majority of American Jews, and now he has removed any doubt that might have remained. The president is using explicit anti-Semitic rhetoric here, and he is attacking most American Jews because they are not loyal to a foreign country.

Because Trump has made a habit of indulging the Israeli government and giving Netanyahu everything he wants regardless of the consequences for the U.S., he apparently assumes that this is the attitude everyone else should have. This is the twisted logic of the "pro-Israel" hawk who assumes that Jewish people everywhere should be "loyal" to Israel and should be condemned if they are deemed not to be. It turns the old anti-Semitic attack upside down, but retains the same ugly core of singling out fellow citizens as disloyal because of their identity and vilifying them for political purposes. In one of the more disgraceful episodes of Trump's presidency, he once again denounces Jewish Americans for putting America and our values first.

Trump's attacks are the latest example of how Israel and U.S. policy towards Israel have been made into part of the domestic culture war where being a "pro-Israel" hard-liner is associated with nationalism at home. "Pro-Israel" nationalists imagine that they have more in common with hard-liners in other countries than they do with their fellow citizens, and they see no contradiction in being aggressively nationalist here while also subordinating U.S. interests overseas to the preferences of a small client state.

Paul Pillar touched on some of this in his recent article :

First, viewpoints that do not prevail in domestic political competition are seen not just as losing arguments regarding the best way to pursue the national interest but rather as not a worthy part of the nation at all. Second, some foreign interests are seen not just as allies or means that can be used to pursue the U.S. national interest but rather as objects of affection or identity in their own right. These two developments are two sides of the same coin. The more that the concept of a national interest breaks down domestically into a sharp division between one viewpoint to be cherished and an opposing one to be scorned, the more natural a step it is to identify with like-minded elements overseas rather than with one's own fellow citizens.

It isn't possible to put America and Americans first when the president and his allies are determined to take the side of a foreign government against American citizens and members of Congress. If we want a foreign policy that actually serves the American interest, we can't tolerate political leaders that attack fellow Americans to score points with foreign leaders and cast hateful aspersions against minorities in the name of promoting a relationship with another country. Trump is incapable of conducting such a foreign policy, and these anti-Semitic outbursts are the latest reminder of why he can't.


Ready for 2020 16 hours ago

A lot of us voted for Trump hoping for an America First president. Instead we got a self-described "King of Israel". Screw that.
Sydney 16 hours ago
From MAGA to MIGA, or was it always MIGA? MAGA is easier to sell to disillusioned American voters who are fed up with the establishment.
Ben's List 12 hours ago
It has become common knowledge that some American politicians and officials cater to Israel for the money and votes, but it's still shocking to have Trump lay it all out so starkly. Nonetheless, at least now we know how things are, and we can decide where we stand.

I've voted Republican most of my adult life, for Tea Party candidates in 2010, and Trump in 2016, but all I want now is to get this disgusting freak out of the White House. Him and his establishment GOP enablers.

[Aug 22, 2019] Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison

Highly recommended!
The problem with Trump is that everything in him is second rate. Even bulling. and many americans were aware of that and voted for him just because that thought that Hillary was worse. Much worse.
Actually Madeleine (not so bright) Albright was of the same mold... Gangster style bulling and extortion as the only Modus operandi
And Daniel Larison is correct: when Trump faces strong backlash he just declare the partner in negotiation "terrible" and walks out and try to justify his defeat ex post facto.
Notable quotes:
"... As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation. ..."
"... The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender. ..."
"... he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up. ..."
"... "Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas." ..."
"... The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price. ..."
"... "Trump has always been a lousy negotiator." ..."
"... But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself. ..."
Aug 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Michael Hirsh reminds us that Trump has always been a lousy negotiator:

Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer who interviewed him many times, agrees with Lapidus that there is no discernible difference in the way Trump negotiates today, as president, compared to his career in business. "His style involves a hostile attitude and a bullying method designed to wring every possible concession out of the other side while maximizing his own gain," D'Antonio said. "As he explained to me, he's not interested in 'win-win' deals, only in 'I win' outcomes. When I asked if he ever left anything on the table as a sign of goodwill so that he might do business with the same party in the future he said no, and pointed out that there are many people in the world he can work with, one at a time."

As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation.

The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender.

He seems particularly obsessed with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) because the trade-off inherent in any agreement made with Iran was that they would regain access to frozen assets, and he ignorantly equates this with "giving" them money. The fact that the JCPOA heavily favored the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 doesn't interest Trump. Iran was allowed to come away with something at the end, and even the little bit they were able to get is far too much for him. This is one reason he has been so closely aligned with Iran hawks over the last four years, and it helps explain why he endorses absurd, unrealistic demands and "maximum pressure" of collective punishment. He is doing more or less the same thing he has always done, and he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up.

Here is another relevant point from the article:

"Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas."

The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price.


JSC2397 8 hours ago

Pulling off that "greatest trick" was amazing easy, actually: all Trump and his creatures had to do was go on the assumption that most Americans will readily believe what they see on television. Especially when it jibes with their prejudices.
david 8 hours ago
"Trump has always been a lousy negotiator."

But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself.

Martin Ranger 6 hours ago
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it."

While I agree with pretty much all of the article, let us not forget that a majority of Americans was not, in fact, fooled.

Zsuzsi Kruska 6 hours ago
He can negotiate, but the thugs in Wash. don't want to. They are doing everything they can to start a war somewhere.
me 5 hours ago
Americans are certainly paying a price Benjamin Franklin warned about. But as for other countries, theirs is due strictly to their own doing, for relying excessively on the goodwill of America and turning a blind-eye to our imperialism. Quite frankly, up to now, US allies have been enablers.
Gary Rosenberg 5 hours ago
Add to that, " When someone hits me, I hit them back ten times harder."
This is not what we teach our children. It is a miserable way to live, or to run a country. No wonder the President is longer referred to as "the leader of the free world." He gave up that title. These are sad days.
d_hochberg 3 hours ago
Yes, he is utterly incompetent on his main selling point, his supposed skill at negotiating. It is very inconvenient having Trump as our standard-bearer.
Alan Vanneman 3 hours ago
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it."

Actually, the people who voted for Trump and who support him now love him for being a bully. That's what they want. They want a Tony Soprano as their president, a guy who will go out and beat up all the people they hate. They don't want "negotiation". They want a guy who has a baseball bat and knows how to use it. What's "interesting" is that despite all of Trump's appeals to violence, and his willingness to support violence (for example, Saudi Arabia), he largely shrinks from it himself. We've seen far fewer Tomahawks than one might have expected, particularly considering the great press he received the first time around. Will we continue to be lucky? I hope so, but it's hard to be optimistic.

[Aug 22, 2019] The US Can't 'Get' Iran to 'Shut Down' Its Nuclear Program

That's how polls distort public opinion and promote militarism...
Aug 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
survey shows that most Americans don't want war with Iran. Only 18% of all American adults favor military action against Iran, and even among Republicans that number is just 25%. 78% favor economic and diplomatic efforts. That's fine as far as it goes, and it shows that there is very little support for a new war at this time. The framing of the question is the bigger problem and makes the results from the poll much less useful.

The poll asks, "What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its nuclear program -- take military action against Iran, or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic efforts?" The question assumes that it is within our government's power to "get Iran to shut down its nuclear program," when the experience of the last twenty years tells us that it is not. The nuclear negotiations that produced the JCPOA show beyond any doubt that there are limits to what Iran is willing to concede on this point. It is good that most Americans prefer non-military options to pursue this fantastical goal, but the assumption that Iran will one day "shut down" its nuclear program is completely unrealistic. On the contrary, the more pressure that the U.S. puts on Iran in an attempt to force such a shutdown, the more inclined Iran's government is to build up its program.

If Iran's nuclear program remains peaceful, there is no need for them to shut it down. The long-term goal of the JCPOA has been to demonstrate to the satisfaction of all parties that Iran's nuclear program is and will remain peaceful, and then at that point Iran will be treated like any other member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The U.S. doesn't need to do anything to "get" Iran to do this because the goal of shutting down the program is a foolish and impossible one. Perceiving Iran's possession of a peaceful nuclear program as a problem to be solved is one of the reasons why our debate over Iran policy is so warped and biased in favor of coercive measures. The idea that Iran has to "shut down" a program that it is legally entitled to have under the NPT is bizarre, but it is obviously a common view here in the U.S.

The question is misleading in another way, since it suggests that military action could be effective in forcing Iran to "shut down" the program. In reality, attacking Iran's nuclear facilities would at most set back the program, but it would give the Iranian government a strong incentive to develop and build a deterrent that would discourage the U.S. from launching more attacks in the future. Attacking a country when it doesn't have nuclear weapons is a good way to encourage them to acquire those weapons as quickly as possible.

That makes the results to the follow-up question all the more dispiriting. The poll also asks, "Suppose U.S. economic and diplomatic efforts do not work. If that happens, do you think the United States should -- or should not -- take military action against Iran?" Once again, the question assumes that getting Iran to "shut down" its nuclear program is both a legitimate and realistic goal. If non-military measures "do not work," there is additional support for military action from a depressing 42% of those who initially favored "economic and diplomatic efforts." Put them together with the initial supporters of military action, and you have a narrow majority of all American adults that thinks the U.S. should take military action:

The 42% of those who favor military action if nonmilitary efforts fail translates to 35% of all U.S. adults. Combining that group with the 18% who favor military action outright means a slim majority of Americans, 53%, would support military action against Iran if diplomatic and economic efforts are unsuccessful.

There is a disturbingly high level of support for launching an illegal attack on another country for something it is legally permitted to have. The assumption that "economic and diplomatic efforts" will be "unsuccessful" if they don't force Iran to abandon its nuclear program helps to push respondents to give that answer, but they wouldn't endorse a military option if they hadn't been led to think that Iran's nuclear program is an intolerable danger. That is partly because of the bad framing of the questions, but it is also a product of decades of relentless propagandizing about a supposed threat from Iran's nuclear program that is completely divorced from reality. We need better poll questions on this subject, but we also need better, more informed debate about Iran and we have to stamp out the threat inflation that poisons and distorts the public's perceptions of threats from other states.

[Aug 22, 2019] Chaotic Unpredictable Iran Vows Oil Routes Won't Be Safe If It Can't Export

Aug 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The White House policy of taking Iranian oil exports to "zero" still has a long way to go, thanks in no small part to China , and also despite Pompeo touting this week that US sanctions have removed nearly 2.7 million barrels of Iranian oil from global markets.

US frustration was evident upon the release of the Adrian Darya 1, with Gibraltar resisting Washington pressures to hand over the Iranian vessel, given as its en route to Greece, American officials are now warning that they will sanction anyone who touches the tanker .

Seizing on Washington's frustration as part of its own "counter-pressure" campaign of recent weeks, Iran has again stated if it can't export its own oil, it will make waterways unsafe and "unpredictable" for anyone else to to so .

[Aug 21, 2019] Difference between Obama and bioden is somewhat similar to difference between Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy

Aug 21, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Biden (D)(2): "Biden's Complicity in Obama's Toxic Legacy" [ Counterpunch (Re Silc)]. "Central to [Biden's] narrative is the presentation of the difference between Trump and Obama as akin to the difference between Hitler and Gandhi. A better analogy – especially when it comes to foreign policy – would be the difference between John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who was known for dressing up as a clown at public events, and Ted Bundy, the tall, handsome serial killer who enticed his victims into his car with his charm and good looks." • I picked out the sickest burn, if we still say that, but the article as whole is quite a bill of particulars.

[Aug 21, 2019] Obama How Many Times Is Biden Gonna Say Something Stupid

Aug 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

... ... ...

Obama reportedly asked his senior staff to "fix this problem with Biden" - something they never quite got a handle on. Thus, Biden went on embarrassing the top of his ticket during both private fundraisers with big-time donors, and with the general public.

The bitterness only escalated from there, especially as Biden began making more frequent gaffes on the campaign trail. In the final week of September alone, Biden "equated paying higher taxes with patriotism," told voters both he and Obama were opposed to coal -- contrary to their platform – and second guessed the campaign's messaging strategy.

In the wake of such gaffes, Obama purportedly told his staff to "fix this problem with Biden," but refrained from getting involved himself. All of that changed two weeks before Election Day, when Biden claimed at a fundraiser that Obama, if elected, would stare down an international crisis in his first six-months.

The prophesy would not have stirred much concern, except Biden gave the impression to those in attendance and the media that he was "showing off" for wealthy donors, and the crisis in question would be "generated."

"Mark my words," Biden told the crowd. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

Biden's inability to stop making cracks about Obama's 'lack of experience' infuriated the candidate in a way that even the sharpest jabs from Hillary never quite managed to do. Halperin and Heilemann described how, during one call not long after the above-mentioned remark, a furious Obama fumed about "how many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?"

On Obama's nightly call, the candidate hit the ceiling. ([Chief strategist David] Axelrod was already up there, needing to be peeled off, having let fly a string of F-bombs when he first found out what Biden had said.) 'Golly, man!' Obama said, with more anger in his voice than 'gollys' normally carry. He was, in fact, as pissed off as most people on the call had ever heard him, more so than he'd been at even the wickedest jabs from Hillary Clinton. 'How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?'"

Not long after, Obama set up a private call with Biden where he laid into his running mate, accusing him of failing to 'have his back.'

A couple of days later, Obama phoned Biden and laid into him. You were supposed to have my back, he said, not be out there creating problems...More than that, though, what rankled Obama was that Biden hadn't bothered to pick up the phone and apologize. Worse, Biden didn't say that he was sorry when Obama called; he showed no remorse for his...comments or understanding that they posed a real political problem.

All of this is why Obama reportedly told Biden during a private call before the 76-year-old launched his campaign that he 'didn't need to do this.'

"You don't have to do this, Joe, you really don't," Obama told Biden before the 76-year-old formally launched his campaign in April.

For Democratic primary voters, this is definitely something worth keeping in mind.

[Aug 21, 2019] Syria - Army Cuts Off Khan Shaykhun - Russia Bombs Turkish Reinforcement

Aug 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Aug 19 2019 23:00 utc | 26

I'm inclined to agree with James @ 21 and some others that President Erdogan would like to cut the takfiris in Idlib province loose, since most of them are not originally Turkish citizens anyway but have come from Central Asia and western China (Xinjiang province) on false Turkish passports and moreover brought their families and are bringing them up in their extremist ways. The foot-dragging delay that Turkey has made over the past year or so in clearing out Idlib, to the extent that the Russians and Syrians must have lost patience with Ankara as far back as last century, could be explained by Turkey's reluctance and inability to take these Central Asians and Uyghurs into its own territory and resettle them without their causing problems for its own people.

Turkey's purchase of the S-400 missile defence systems from Russia probably makes little difference to the situation in Idlib or northern Syria because the systems are designed to defend against NATO weapons, not Russian ones. Also, where have the systems been placed in Turkey? Are they around the capital Ankara or Erdogan's hometown Istanbul or the country's borders? If they are around the city where Erdogan spends most of his time, then he is afraid of another US-made coup against him.

Canthama , Aug 19 2019 23:05 utc | 27

The turkish regime military convoy was roughly for show, no one believe 28 vehicles would change a thing against thousands of SAA soldiers and well equipped, the Turkish regime gambled and lost big time, but on the eyes of their terrorists it may actually worked out, at least to some of them...on the other side, expect terrorists to kill each other as well, the loss of all northern Hama will cost them immensely, this was a frontline built for years, a sort of terrorists' maginot line, which si gone for good, meaning Inside Idlib Province there is no major frontlines, which tends to equate to faster liberation at lower cost by the SAA.

The pincer move was instrumental and well executed by the SAA, forcing the terrorists to flee the cauldron which is exactly what happened today.

The turkish backed terrorists were badly defeated in the past 2-3 days but they are still a dangerous force, equipped by Turkey with thousands of ATGM/TOWs and MANPADS, the offensive will continue, though there is a delay from Kabanah, without controlling Kabanah the SAA can not attempt a larger pincer move...down the hill from Kabanah on the M4 and a new frontline to be open near Saraqib.

God bless the SAA and its heroes, alive or martyred, they are doing a favor to all humanity.

Stever , Aug 19 2019 23:12 utc | 28

ISIS Is Regaining Strength in Iraq and Syria

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/politics/isis-iraq-syria.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Can anyone make sense of this NYTimes propaganda piece - the usual suspect Eric Schmitt is one of the authors. They really don't want the US to leave.

Perhaps someone here with a NYTimes account can provide a good response if they put comment up?

Hoarsewhisperer , Aug 19 2019 23:27 utc | 30
One imagines that the Yankees squatting on Syria's oil resources will be 'reviewing their options'. It'd be Karmic if Syria's Spook Service could persuade some jihadis to eliminate the Yankee cancer in return for amnesty/ repatriation...
Bobby , Aug 19 2019 23:42 utc | 31
If I am advising Mr President Assad , I will tell him to inform Putin and Iran leaders to help him get all of his lands including Adlib , north eastern Syria by putting pressure on Turkey and the USA . Or he will go and meet with Mr Trump , May be he will get a better deal with a peace with Israel and the USA .
He and the Syrian people will be better off with this scenario unless immediate help from Iran and Russia to do as above and supply the country with petroleum and basic needs .
The Syrian citizens waiting hours to get basic life support including gasoline for their cars and heat for their homes.
Enough is enough , it seems to me that Putin and Khamenei have other interests .
vk , Aug 19 2019 23:51 utc | 32
Turkey's problem (since Erdogan's rise to power) is the same as Germany's: it still thinks it has a viable shot at being an empire (which, in the modern sense of the word would mean one of the "poles" in the new multipolar order).

At least Germany has the Euro Zone and a legacy of a (for now) strong export base in value terms. Turkey is just a neoliberal banana republic a la Brazil who happened to be blessed with what may be the best geopolitical geographic position of our post-war era.

Kadath , Aug 20 2019 0:18 utc | 34
@ Stever #28,

I would say the article is trying to do two things, embarrass Trump by implying that he "failed to destroy Isis" and remind Americans that they must stay in Iraq and Syria forever to "fight" Isis. Imperial thinking and Trump Derangement syndrome have infected the political class completely now, they simply are incapable of thinking of anything except expanding the empire and taking down what Trump represents to his blue collar followers.

durlin , Aug 20 2019 0:24 utc | 35
To Stever, read Operation Gladio, Oded Yinon Plan and Operation Timber Sycamore, this is all for the benefit of Israhell.
Igor Bundy , Aug 20 2019 0:24 utc | 36
Russain aviation terrorize Militants

TANKS- 37 Destroyed, captured, or damaged.

BMPs- 18 Destroyed, captured, or damaged.

TRUCKS- 9 Destroyed, captured, or damaged

APCs- 29 Destroyed, captured, or damaged.

BULLDOZERS- 4 Destroyed, captured, or damaged

MLRS SYSTEMS/VEHICLES- 8 Destroyed, captured, or damaged.

MOTORBIKES- 4 Destroyed, captured, or damaged.

TECHNICALS- 117 Destroyed, captured, or damaged.

UNKNOWN VEHICLES- 12 Destroyed, captured, or damaged. 5 Armored.

PANTERA APCs- 3 Destroyed, captured, or damaged. (correct name provided by u/Woofers_MacBarkFloof)

BVP-1 TYPES- 2 Destroyed, captured, or damaged

2S1 GVOZDIKA- 1 Destroyed, captured, or damaged

LARGE ARTILLERY- 3 Destroyed, captured, or damaged.

HUMVEES- 2 Destroyed, captured, or damaged

O , Aug 20 2019 0:52 utc | 39
"The leader of Faylq al-Sham, a 'Syrian rebel' group controlled by the Turkish intelligence service, was escorting the Turkish army convoy in a technical. He was killed. No Turkish soldiers were harmed. The convoy stopped and will have to return to Turkey. The tanks and the ammunition will not reach the jihadis in Khan Shaykhun."


What comical bullshit was it not just last month Turkey and Russia furthering partnershship were going to "tip the scales in the Middle East?"


"Senators are now urging President Donald Trump to slap sanctions on Turkey. Erdogan "has chosen a perilous partnership
with (Putin) at the expense of Turkey's security, economic prosperity and the integrity of the NATO alliance," four senators, including chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a bipartisan statement last week."


It seems Jen, James and AtaBrit have brains Erdy letting his hired guns get killed on purpose so he does't have to pay them anymore and keeps his hands cleaned when they are forever removed from the payroll.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/how-us-sanctions-on-turkey-over-russian-s400-deal-could-backfire.html

What Turkey's S-400 missile deal with Russia means for Nato
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48620087

Jen , Aug 20 2019 1:10 utc | 40
Atabrit @ 29:

I must confess I hadn't made the connection you seem to have made - that a second US-made coup against Erdogan would be made by the very takfiris he has cultivated over the years, among others. The purchase of the S-400 missile defence systems might therefore be one part of a strategy Erdogan is creating to protect himself against a hydra monster he helped create.

AtaBrit , Aug 20 2019 1:35 utc | 41
@Jen | 40
Not sure where the S-400s will be placed or whom they'll be used against - might just be a showpiece purchase for Russia - but the issue of the jihadists swarming into Turkey is ooenly discussed in Turkey and is definitely a security threat. (Of course no one in Turkey openly makes the connection that they are indeed Turkey's own proxies!))))
Gerard , Aug 20 2019 1:56 utc | 42
Now that the SAA are making big gains retaking Idlib it's time to use Chemical Weapons so Trump can launch another missile attach.
J Swift , Aug 20 2019 3:23 utc | 43
I concur that Ergodan is the quintessential weasel and will say anything and use anyone if he thinks it will help him gain power (or at this point, hang on to it). I don't believe he wants these radical head choppers in Turkey, he wants them to die while looking like he's "got their back." When I hear that a terrorist leader was killed but not a single Turk, it really smells like this was theater from the start, and the Turkish military may well have tipped off the Russians with all the details of this little excursion, asking them to please take out the lead vehicle but nothing else so that they could go home. This would also explain the presence of RuAF in the attack--normally if there was a risk of accidentally striking Turks, the Russians would probably prefer the SAAF carry out the strike, but if the fix was in, and what was needed was ultra-high precision, you'd want Russian's and their most accurate guided weapons for the strike.

I can't help but notice over and over that the terrorists seem absolutely unable to grasp the concept of defense-in-depth. They fight like the devils they are from their Western-prepared tunnels and front lines, but once broken and relying upon their own skills, they seem to have nothing.

james , Aug 20 2019 3:25 utc | 44
@43 j swift... i concur... same take as mine, lol... erdogan better watch his ass.. mind you, he probably has russia watching it for him..
michaelj72 , Aug 20 2019 5:20 utc | 47
the plot thickens

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russian-su-35-jets-allegedly-intercepted-turkish-warplanes-over-idlib/

almasdar news reports that 2 Russian fighter jets intercepted and forced to retreat some Turkish war planes from over the southern countryside of the Idlib Governorate , near the action at Khan Sheikhoun - those turks skidaddled from Syria pretty fast.

I don't think these comments about the military re-supply attempt by the turks to the jihadists being a ruse of some sort are not accurate

chu teh , Aug 20 2019 6:00 utc | 50
BM @ 5:57
wiki "A technical is a light improvised fighting vehicle, typically an open-backed civilian pickup truck or four-wheel drive vehicle mounting a heavy weapon, such as a machine gun, anti-aircraft gun, rotary cannon, anti-tank weapon, anti-tank gun, ATGM, mortar, howitzer, multiple rocket launcher, or recoilless rifle, etc"
chu teh , Aug 20 2019 6:05 utc | 51 Grieved , Aug 20 2019 6:14 utc | 52
@46 Jen - "wherewithal to be able to survive or figure out things on their own"

They're not on their own. Officers of the empire are with them, to the extent they can guide them, preserve them and re-deploy them. That extent is not absolute. There will be losses.

It would be useful to see analysis on the strength and demographics of the irregular terrorist forces available for the use of the rich and privileged throughout this world and time. That would make a nice discussion.

Larchmonter over at the Saker says that the US has a quarter of a million terrorist/contractors at its disposal. As we have seen, it tries to save all the fighters it can, but only as a resource for further mayhem. And it seems the impressive logistical capacity of the Pentagon exists in part to move these pawns across the entire board at need. And my thought is that we seem to live in an age where these people will fight because they have nowhere else to go, no matter their previous situation, and no matter how harsh the present terms. So that force cannot be dissipated except by death.

This said, it also seems clear that an indigenous fighting force such as the SAA - aided by its allies with all their various weapons - cannot any longer be overcome by all these contractors, if this is all there are.

If all the world can supply is 250,000 amoral fighters to be brought into fighting shape as an army - and a hunch tells me this is all the world can supply - then all the aggravations can be slapped aside by the locals, such as Hezbollah and the Houthi and the SAA and the PMU of Iraq. Not to mention the IRGC of Iran and the PLA of China and the Russian Armed Forces.

And all these national and indigenous forces are joining together in mutual security pacts.

~~

Frankly, many of us were surprised and overwhelmed by the size of the ISIS force when it first appeared in its Toyota caravan of plunder - because who could have thought a non-state actor such as the CIA could afford such an army? But I think this will not take any of the general staffs of the axis by surprise in the future, and the goal will be to whittle down the numbers of these forces at every chance.

And eventually there will be more dead of these tormented beings than alive.

And there will be the peace.

imo , Aug 20 2019 7:07 utc | 53
@52 "It would be useful to see analysis on the strength and demographics of the irregular terrorist forces available for the use of the rich and privileged throughout this world and time. That would make a nice discussion."

Attended a conference back a decade where at a German professor set out his stats and thesis on the (at the time) ME issues. The major correlation with 'troubles' was to the number of 2nd+ born males. 1st born are kept back to get the 'farm' and continue lineage etc. The remainder are sent off to find their fortune or disappear etc. Sounded plausible at the time and supported by fertility stats. Once 1st son and lineage is at risk then peace magically breaks out. I never followed it up but if would be interesting to see the demographics of the current round of ME and European invasions. Odds-on they are mainly 2nd-3rd sons on the loose etc. Happy to be corrected with facts.

Clueless Joe , Aug 20 2019 8:27 utc | 56
imo - 53
"The major correlation with 'troubles' was to the number of 2nd+ born males. 1st born are kept back to get the 'farm' and continue lineage etc. The remainder are sent off to find their fortune or disappear etc. Sounded plausible at the time and supported by fertility stats. Once 1st son and lineage is at risk then peace magically breaks out."
To an extent, this is what fuelled the crusades back between 1100 and early 1200s - then the toll of both crusades and growing inter-European wars put a stop to it -, and what fuelled Spanish conquest of America (and most possibly previous Reconquista).
Arioch , Aug 20 2019 9:18 utc | 60
I can't help but notice over and over that the terrorists seem absolutely unable to grasp the concept of defense-in-depth.

Posted by: J Swift | Aug 20 2019 3:23 utc

D-i-D is a rather expensive gadget.
Actually they had it, in the prime time of ISIS.
Remember 2015 - many months, after arraiving - Russian AirForce was doing what? Bombing out the depots, the logistic paths, the storngholds. While frontlines were more or less standing still. RAF did not offered air support for gorund offensive. It was just boringly and methodically blasting depots. IOW RuAF was wipoing off that very defense in depth.

Will ISIS pretend a state again and defence into D-i-D infrastructure again - what you would see is probably the same as it was in 2015: frontlines stop moving and "heavy gear" starts flying like Tu-22M, Tu-95 and Kalibr.
Since D-i-D installations does not fight back to the bombs falling from a-high, it would actually a good think to Syria and friends if wakhabi would try to rebuild their D-i-d thingies.

Arioch , Aug 20 2019 9:49 utc | 61
This said, it also seems clear that an indigenous fighting force such as the SAA - aided by its allies with all their various weapons - cannot any longer be overcome by all these contractors, if this is all there are.

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 20 2019 6:14 utc

It is not about "any longer", they never could. They are by their origin guerilleros, who can inflict "thousand cuts" but can not claim land control like regular armies do.

It was why US and French army had to war in Libya, destroying Libyan army before "rebels" could take power, calling their invasion "no fly zones".
It was why US invaded Iraq, where Hussein (Baathist like Assad and remnant of the same United Arab Republic dream) and his army never let ISIS (maiden name Al Qaeda in Iraq, before west-helped rebranding) raise their head up, so USA had to destroy that army.
It was why NATO invaded Serbia to gave Kosovo Liberation "Army" air support.
It was why USA and friends did and still occasionally do bomb Syrian army units and installations, and Clinton made war with Russia promise part of her public election interview, using the same fake term from Libyan war.

Insane bloodthirsty headchoppers are good to terrorize civilians and held them captive, and that is what western Army can no do so well because they need to pretend wearing "white gloves". But to do it efficiently they need to be matched agaisnt civilians, not against army. And that is where NATO kicks in, preemptively destroying everyone who would offer resistance to Al Qaeda and co. Then they resupply Al Qaeda on their military bases, like they did in Mosul in summer 2014, when SAA seemed to overcome initial Al Qaeda inroads and started to pushing them outside.

AtaBrit , Aug 20 2019 10:24 utc | 64
@michaelj72 | 47
Turkey is a master of distraction so I'd wait and see what happens. Don't forget that Erodgan creates an entire parallel reality for Turkish consumption- hence complete media control - , this may be part of it. (Remember Bahceli's comment about Erdogan "bombing empty mountains" in NIraq?)

@C I eh? | 18
Interesting point about Erdogan transitioning. We are already seeing signs of another transformation. There was even talk about a new AK Party. Need to remember that he is first and foremost a mafia head. He will protect himself and his own. Also he doesn't have many scapegoat candidates left, but Bahceli himself may be next ...)))

michaelj72 , Aug 20 2019 10:47 utc | 65
yes my sentence @47 should read:

"I don't think these comments about the military re-supply attempt by the turks to the jihadists being a ruse of some sort are accurate"

AtaBrit @64
there certainly are difference between what leaders say for public/domestic consumption and what they then say and then do for real/to other world leaders or in private.

Russia is the cat, and Erdogan is the king of rats ....trying to run around/outsmart or outflank the cat at Khan Shaykhun. I doubt it will work... the Russian and syrian militaries drew the line by bombing that convoy

another source - Aug 19, 2019 13:11:49
https://en.muraselon.com/2019/08/syrian-air-force-strikes-turkish-convoy-in-south-idlib-videos/

"...Muraselon News has learned that a Turkish Army convoy, accompanied by Ankara-backed insurgents, attempting to reach the city of Khan Sheykhun was engaged by the Syrian Air Force as it passed south from Marat al-Numan on the M5 Highway in south Idlib

Sources report that an unspecified number of militants from the Free Syrian Army's Rahman Legion were caught in the strikes by Syrian warplanes and killed. It is unknown if Turkish service personnel were harmed....."


jared , Aug 20 2019 13:55 utc | 82
I thought Turkey's interest in this was in protecting against infiltration by the kurds?
I don't see why they would have interest in harrassing Syria, unless it were to serve interests of U.S.
Though I gather Erdogan is a bit of an opportunist.

Any info re. status of Syrian northeast?
Is that where Syria will move next or is that untouchable for the near term?

[Aug 21, 2019] China warns of next jihadist wave in Syria. Indicates a new wave of groups are being resurrected (as in sleeping cells), to commit crimes.

Aug 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

jordi , Aug 20 2019 14:50 utc | 85

It is important to fix the wrong article title. Russia did not bomb Turkey reinforcement column. According to Syrian sources, it is the Syrian Arab Army's AirForce which "bombed the road" in which a column of vehicles from Turkey was present. Nevertheless Turkey AirForce was also lurking around Idlib. Later followed / intercepted by Russia Su-35 .

Currently huge operations are being conducted. See at: Russian Air Force unleashes large attack on ISIS in eastern Syria . This leads to think, Russia and Syria are willing to break the situation and start cleansing the region of "bad rebels".

It is also curious the following warning: China warns of next jihadist wave in Syria . Indicates a new wave of groups are being resurrected (as in sleeping cells), to commit crimes. Interesting to see how China enters the international arena in openly talking about this in public. Maybe willing to even enter the conflict in Syria to fight a group of "chinese muslims that might be around there". This could put pressure in Turkey, as everybody else is willing to fight "bad rebels", instead of using the conflict [for another purpose?].

[Aug 21, 2019] Further US sanctions on Russia. Russian gdp growth is very low now, forecasts are about mere 1,2 % per anum, and thus Russia's share of world GDP is declining

Notable quotes:
"... EU is the power, that took part in creating narco-haven in Kosovo, murdering children of Iraq, building sex slaves markets in Libya, destroying what was left of democracy in Ukraine. EU power is diminishing? Let it crash and burn if you ask me. ..."
Aug 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Arioch , Aug 20 2019 14:22 utc | 83

> Further US sanctions on Russia. Russian gdp growth is very low now, forecasts are about mere 1,2 % per anum, and thus Russia's share of world GDP is declining.

Posted by: Passer by | Aug 20 2019 13:15 utc

You think "harming Russia" is a good answer to question "how does it boost USA the hegemon?". Well, let's suppose it...

Problem then is, Russia does not care that much about nominal GDP and even about PPP GDP. It is "average temperature in hospital", where some patients are in 41C fever and others in 4C morgue, but on average they all have that healthy 36,6C.

However, even for those sanctions that did hit Russia and EU hard (and those were enacted mostly in 2015), under the "China-Russia double helix" model, economic soft power is Chinese responsibility, so targetting EU and Russia economically was perhaps a mis-aiming, like would be targetting China militarily.

Also, take a single line - "congress obliges Trump to enlist Russian officials for sanctions" and do the search in both pro-Clinton Google and in DDG. first page of Google has zero relebvant results. DDG however starts with

Trump Administration Sends Congress List of Possible Russia ...
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/politics/trump-russia-sanctions.html

Congress has tied Trump's hands on Russian sanctions - Vox
www.vox.com/2017/7/29/16061878/trump-russian-sanctions-sign

Congress Forces Trump to Sanction Russia - Fash the Nation
fashthenation.com/2018/03/congress-forces-trump-to-sanction-russia/

Trump Finally Imposes Russia Sanctions That Congress Ordered ...
www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-finally-imposes-russia-sanctions-that-congress-ordered-months-ago/

Is 2017 so far ago that we already forgot it? Trump has no freedom of choice to sanction Russia or not. It is not his authority to make this choice. Trump is ordered to sanction and he would do. If he has any leeway, it is to how specifically sanction, but even that choice is framed into UIS domestic politic fuel, as a vehicle to fry Trump over being "Putin's shil" and looking "not enough" into evil Russians.

> China postponed for overtaking the US in gdp MER to 2032 from 2024.

Estimations are just that, estimations. Guesses into the future mixed with propaganda. If you don't buy Trump's tweets about "China begging for deal" and Obama's about "Russian economy in tatters" - why to buy these estimations?

> Indian growth downgraded - which taken together with China means slowing down Asia's rise.

Pro-American Modi in power of India was a definite win for USA. But I do not think Trump did it in 2016. Such events are grown for years and years of undercover works.

Same for the Brazil fiasco, which i perceive was much heavier blow upon BRICS than Modi. But Brazilian coup was in preparation yet before Trump's oath. May 2016 was the FINAL act, prepared months before: nytimes.com/interactive/2016/world/americas/brazil-dilma-rousseff-impeachment.html

> Iran in recession - long term growth is low - it means that Iran's share of the world economy is now declining. This will lower Iranian influence in the long term.

Long term? like Trump is planning for long term? Would he, like Putin, still be American president in 2016+18=2034 ?
Well, maybe. However does it boost much US the hegemon position today?

Also notice how this pushes Iran back to Russian bucket. Before JCPOA Iran was flirting with "Lesser Satan" a lot, promising to buy russian airliners, promising to barter Iranian goods (oil and others) for Russian goods, thus de facto letting Russia be quasi-monopolistic seller of Iranian goods on world market for any margin Russia would manage to extract. All those hints and kinda-plans were squashed instantly after JCPOA. Iran rushed to trade with EU directly, to buy Boeing and Airbis jets.... But was shot into the leg before it started. I think China would also find their way to be "big helping brother" to Iranian economy, on some conditions of course.

> Venezueala in deep recession

True, and this is again fitting the isolationist bill, to a degree. If Team Trump ready to exclude USA from global trade - it would have to secure oil supply. Enslaving a nearby oil-containing nation would do.

Additionally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States–Venezuela_relations lists 2014 as start of economic sanctions against Venezuela. So, Trump has inherited "office of Venezuelan affairs" from Cinton/Obama. And... he brought it to light and headlines by making that idiotic wannabe-coup. The sh*t that previously USA did silently pretending whitegloved "shining beacon", Trump exposed.

Did it really made USA position better in 2018 than it was in 2014? I doubt. To me it seemes more like T.T. accelerated things and "threw it all on the table" making Venezuela "hit the rock bottom". Now Venezuela can adjust to the new brave world, while USA would probably not be in position to tighten its grip - it already burned all the reserves and in so clumsy way, that Bolton and Co became a laughing stock. If anything, it exposed that while most gov't there would be paying lip service to USA, none would go with something material. France invaded with USA Libya, Germany invaded with USA Serbia, but none enlisted to invade Venezuela with USA.

> In Latin America most governments are now US puppet governments.

Brazil was indeed a huge blow into the BRICS dream. But i see it more of that indirect, covert "soft power" that USA secret services prepared and rushed to implement before Trump.

> Weakened the EU, via support for Brexit and other ways - it means that the euro will not be a viable alternative for replacing the dollar

Basically turning EU elites against USA and splitting "Western Hegemony" into rivaling factions.

From multipolar view circa 2010, would it be much difference for, say, Russia or China or Iran, whether USD or EUR would be "reserve currency"?

After Alexander of Macedonia died his empire split to pieces, and some of those pieces soon started warring. Did this enhance Greek hegemony or reduced it?

When COMECOM and Warsaw Pact disbanded did it enhanced Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe or reduced it? But it slashed exports of those lands, Bulgaria is not more agriculture super-power it used to be, "Ikarus" bus is still often meet in Moscow street but in the "remnants of old times still able to run" kind, Poland is no more producing ocean-grade ships. So, was it enhancing USSR share of world economy then?

Also, didn't he kind of forced EU elites into Chinese OBOR camp? That said, similarly Russia was forced towards China in 2013-2014 by Western lunacy, so i would not say it was Trump's novelty to push EU eastwards.

EU was in with US in looting Libya, EU was in with US in looting Serbia, now US calls for EU to join in "patrolling" Persian Gulf and response is... like the one about invading Venezuela. Hegemon became stronger?

> Trade wars seem to be hitting EU's export dependent economy pretty hard.

And i wish to see more of those wars not less. Won't you? EU is the power, that took part in creating narco-haven in Kosovo, murdering children of Iraq, building sex slaves markets in Libya, destroying what was left of democracy in Ukraine. EU power is diminishing? Let it crash and burn if you ask me.

> Turkey has serious economic problems - partly due to the US again - which again means slowing down multipolarity

Wasn't in 2012 Turkey part of Hegemon entourage neck-deep in bloody ISIS affair?
Wasn't Turkey for decades be knockign into closed EU membership doors?
Wasn't Turkey send their people into Germany to intertwine and cross-influence?

Turkey as part of multipolarity? Maybe. But exactly because it was prohibited from what they see their place in global western world. However i am not very sure that would West offer "larger piece" to Turkey in their crippling hegemony, turkey would not turn back yet again. Goog thing, it would be hard to do as few believe western promises today, but again, didn't Trump (but other western politicians too, and including many pre-Trump) invested into making West glaringly "not agreement-capable" in but everyone's view?

Trump could smash Turkey and instate Kudistan.
Trump could smash Kurds and make amends with Erdo.
Instead Trump is breaking pots with both. Neither Kurds not Turks no trust "the shining beacon".

> Overall situation - the US share in the world economy is declining at slower rates than before

Won't this mean Trump's economic policy is if limited success?

> the retarding of growth of everyone else, which means defacto slowing down multipolarity and the replacement of the US dollar

That may be what some faction of Team Trump counting upon. But i have reservations.
Uni-polarity is not about economic growth. It is about trading on One True Market, hegemon's one.
And when everything goes down, another factors start to weigh in. Like elasticity of demand and replacement with cheaper substitutes. Like, if i need a tooling for my house, i would perhaps want to purchase Japanese Makita or German Bosh. Those are famous brands with decades of well earned reputation. But if i only can salivate on them, then perhaps i can go with some cheaper Chinese knock-off? Or perhaps to blow the dust from my grandpa's old tool and purchase nothing at all? If i can buy genuine American Levi's it is a fad, but if i can, then perhaps i will make it in Turkey-made or China-made or Philipinnes-made or even Syria-made jeans? You know, their cut is not that fitting as European or American, but perhaps we can deal with it for the price? If in Russia i can no more buy Czech or German beer as before 2014, then perhaps i can sooth myself with apple cidre from semi-eastern Altai region of Russia? And then, will my gov't still had the same need for USD for those adjusted trade transactions, as it used to?

[Aug 20, 2019] Something about Trump impeachment

Aug 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bill Jones , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT

Ah, Phillip, You know damn well that starting wars is one thing that guarantees no impeachment ;-). Israel is the other.

[Aug 20, 2019] Trump administration hostlity to Russia

Aug 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Passer by , Aug 20 2019 16:54 utc | 97

Posted by: Arioch | Aug 20 2019 14:22 utc | 83

>Problem then is, Russia does not care that much about nominal GDP and even about PPP GDP

GDP does matter, lowering the GDP of certain country weakens the country. Other factors matter too, such as demographics or landmass and natural resources.

>targetting EU and Russia economically was perhaps a mis-aiming

I would not call it misaiming, Europe has one of the largest economies in the world and the Euro is the second most important currency in the World. As long as Russia and the EU attack each other - it is a win for the US.

>Also, take a single line - "congress obliges Trump to enlist russian officials for sanctions"

It is not simply Congress, the Trump Admin is hawkish on Russia by itself. Pompeo and Bolton are anti-russian and were instrumental in the US leaving the INF. The pressure against Nord Sream is greater than during the Obama Admin, Second Fleet was activated for containing Russia, a russian consulate was captured in pretty brutal manner, etc. Recently, another set of sanctions were enacted by the Trump Admin.

>Estimations are just that, estimations. Guesses into the future mixed with propaganda.

I'm not dismissive of growth estimates and forecasts, this is the job of various companies, organisations and universities. Overall things could be predicted roughly, for example via demographics, median age of population, labour force growth, total factor productivity. The OECD for example is an international organisation working on such forecasts. They can get the rough shapes of growth patterns right - for example it is pretty clear that India or China would be growing faster than, let say, Germany or the US. And this is what their forecasts show. So these are not guestimates.

>Pro-American Modi in power of India was a definite win for USA. But i do not think Trump did it in 2016. Such events are grown for years and years of undercover works.

This is not what i had in mind. While this is true, you did not take into account the prefidy of the US Government, which is working to retard indian economic growth via tarrifs and by trying to remove the WTO perks for developing countries. Even when Modi is frendly to the US, this is still not enough, because the growth of Asia, including India, threatens the dollar.

>Well, maybe. However does it boost much US the hegemon position today?

Iranian economy was booming after the JCPOA was signed. If the Plan remained, Iran would be stronger than today. The whole point is to retard iranian economic growth, which would be far stronger without the sanctions.

>Also notice how this pushes Iran back to Russian bucket

Even back in 2015, Iran did not stop being an israeli adversary, which means that the US would have targeted it one way or another. Plus the US was not in position to gain much from the iranian market, due to their still strained relations caused by the israeli lobby in the US, which caused all types of sabotage in the Iran - US trade relations, the process of removal of sanctions, etc. A big beneficiary from the JCPOA was the EU, and the main losses from the sactions (outside from Iran) were for the EU again. Retarding the EU economy via blocking its trade with Iran (or Russia) is a benefit for the US.

>Venezueala in deep recession. True, and this is again fitting the isolationist bill, to a degree.True, and this is again fitting the isolationist bill, to a degree.

This isn't about isolationism, but about retarding the economy of the rest of the world, and especially of still uncontrolled countries. The point is to preserve the share of relative power the US has, or to slow down its decline as much as possible.

>Now Venezuela can adjust to the new brave world

The point is that Venezuela would be growing far faster without sanctions, thus the US is weakening the independent multipolar world and slowing down its rise.

>Did it really made USA position better in 2018 than it was in 2014?

Obviously. Venezuela today, vis a vis the US, is weaker in relative power terms than in 2014. For the US its better to wreck Venezuela's economy than to allow it to flourish and expand its influence.

>Basically turning EU elites against USA and splitting "Western Hegemony" into rivaling factions.

They are not turning them against the US, that's the point. Europe is too much of a puppet of the US. The US causes various conficts on Europe's perifery in order to turn it against Russia and make it dependent on itself. Divide and Rule.

>would it be much difference for, say, Russia or China or Iran, whether USD or EUR

Yes, Europe is less hawkish than the US overall. If it was up to Europe JCPOA will still be here and there would be no trade wars with China.

>Also, didn't he kind of forced EU elites into Chinese OBOR camp

Its more about economic weakness. Those in Europe with poor economy signed up for BRI - such as eastern Europe and Italy. The big 3 - Germany, France and the UK refuse to join BRI (which is different than AIIB) as of now. I do not see greater western european - China cooperation today than before 5 years. The EU commission declared China a european rival.

>EU was in with US in looting Libya, EU was in with US in looting Serbia, now US calls for EU to join in "patrolling" Persian Gulf and response is... like the one about invading Venezuela. Hegemon became stronger?

The iranian issue has always been a red card for Europe as it fears a really big war in the Gulf. There is nothing new in that. If you are going to talk about "now", the EU did join the US against Syria, its sanctions against Syria still remain, and it does support removing Maduro from power. It did put sanctions against Venezuela, although not at the same level as the US. It is no friend of the Maduro Government.

>And i wish to see more of those wars not less. Won't you?

Currently the result of them is weakeing multipolarity by retarding growth in most of the world. They have negative impact on the global economy.

>EU is the power, that took part in creating narco-haven in Kosovo, murdering children of Iraq, building sex slaves markets in Libya, destroying what was left of democracy in Ukraine. EU power is diminishing? Let it crash and burn if you ask me.

Yes, but the US does not want to crush and burn the EU, it simply wants to make it weak and dependent on itself. A colony.

>Wasn't in 2012 Turkey part of Hegemon entourage neck-deep in bloody ISIS affair?

The more players around, the better. Strong Turkey will be more independent from the US, the US understand that, this is why it want weak Turkey

>Trump could smash Turkey and instate Kudistan.

Trump can not directly smash Turkey, the moment an attempt like this is made is the moment Turkey will invite Russia and China into the country. Rather, a hybrid war is being waged on Turkey, with the aim of weakening Erdogan and replacing him with a reliable puppet.

> Overall situation - the US share in the world economy is declining at slower rates than before Won't this mean Trump's economic policy is if limited success?

No. There is nothing better than this that could be done to stop the US relative decline, it depends on the cards one has to play. Economic convergence process and technological diffusion, driven by globalisation, means that it is impossible the fully stop the rise of the developing world. But if the US did not react like it reacted, and just stayed on its hands, i think its power would have been gone in 2 - 3 years.

>Uni-polarity is not about economic growth.

It is also about the economy and growth. You can't have unipolarity if you don't have the largest economic, as well as military power. One needs to have the largest economy to rule the world (among other things), or they will fail. You can't have it without the dollar dominance as well.

[Aug 20, 2019] The trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied by cover-ups and stonewalling by James Bovard

While the USA run the show, EU was complicit in this war.
Notable quotes:
"... The American Conservative, ..."
"... In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts ..."
"... Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites." ..."
"... a Council of Europe investigative report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation. ..."
Aug 20, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

In a 2011 review for The American Conservative, I scoffed, "After NATO planes killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo were slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO's 'peace' produced a quarter million Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees."

In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts .

Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites."

The New York Times reported that the trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied by cover-ups and stonewalling: "Past investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo have been undermined by witnesses' fears of testifying in a small country where clan ties run deep and former members of the KLA are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy high posts in the government." American politicians almost entirely ignored the scandal. Vice President Joe Biden hailed former KLA leader and Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in 2010 as "the George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council of Europe investigative report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation.

Clinton's war on Serbia opened a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and pundits portrayed that war as a moral triumph, it was easier for subsequent presidents to portray U.S. bombing as the self-evident triumph of good over evil. Honest assessments of wrongful killings remain few and far between in media coverage.

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy , The Bush Betrayal , Terrorism and Tyranny , and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at www.jimbovard.com This essay was originally published by Future of Freedom Foundation .

[Aug 20, 2019] Trump's Persian-Gulf Car Crash Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... the Iranian economy is in a free fall with oil exports down as much as 90 percent from mid-2018 levels. As far as Iran is concerned, this means that it's already at war with the United States and has less and less to lose the longer the U.S. embargo goes on. ..."
"... MBS, as he's known, celebrated by launching an air war in neighboring Yemen two months later – and then disappearing on a week-long vacation in the Maldives – and by funneling hundreds of U.S.-made TOWs (anti-tank guided missiles) to Syrian rebels under the command of Al-Nusra, the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, for use in an offensive in that country's northwest province of Idlib. ..."
"... For the Saudis, it was a neo-medieval crusade whose goal was to topple two religio-political allies of Iran, the Alawite-dominated government in Damascus and Yemen's Houthis, who adhere to a non-Iranian form of Shi'ism that is no less anathema to the Sunni Wahhabist theocracy in Riyadh. ..."
"... Just two days after the start of the Saudi air assault in Yemen, Obama meanwhile telephoned Salman to assure him of U.S. support. When asked why America would back a war by one of the Middle East's richest countries against the very poorest, another anonymous U.S. official told The New York Times (April 2, 2015): ..."
"... "If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." ..."
"... The Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers and tone down criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say yes to Saudi aggression. ..."
"... The American empire was possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible clients. Even while making peace with Iran, Obama thus green-lit Saudi wars that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria and another 100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, the 2015 nuclear negotiations, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others. ..."
"... Announcing his presidential bid in June 2015, he launched into a typical Trumpian rant against China, Japan, Mexico – and Obama's nuclear talks. "Take a look at the deal he's making with Iran," he said. "He makes that deal, Israel maybe won't exist very long." A month later, he tweeted that the agreement, just inked in Vienna, "poses a direct national security threat." Two months after that, he told a Tea Party rally in Washington: ..."
"... Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all. Under intense pressure from neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats such as Russiagate attack dog Rep. Adam Schiff demanding stepped-up opposition with Iran , Trump did an about-face. In May 2017, he flew to Riyadh, announced an unprecedented $110-billion arms deal, and proclaimed himself the kingdom's newest BFF – best friend forever. ..."
"... He echoed the Saudis by accusing Iran of funding "terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region" and backed a Saudi blockade of neighboring Qatar. When ISIS launched a bloody assault on central Tehran in early June that killed 12 people and injured 42, the only White House response was to declare that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." ..."
"... It was Democrats who, in a typical attempt to outflank Trump on the right, introduced legislation in June 2017 by forcing him to impose penalties on Russia, North Korea, and Iran as well. But after repudiating the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal) in May 2018, Trump upped sanctions even more in November – not only against the Iranian government but against some 700 individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels. After Iran shot down a $130-million U.S. surveillance drone last month, Trump imposed sanctions on "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his office, and his closest associates. Two weeks ago, he imposed penalties on Mohammad Javad Zarif , Iran's U.S.-educated foreign minister. ..."
"... It was a gesture of contempt for the very idea of diplomacy. So what happens next? The problem is that re-starting negotiations would not be enough. Instead, Iran has demanded that the U.S. remove all sanctions and apologize before agreeing to a new round of talks. Since this would be tantamount to re-authorizing the JCPOA, it's unlikely in the extreme. While Trump is known for changing his mind in a flash, a course correction of this magnitude is hard to imagine. ..."
"... The pro-Israel Lobby owns both Republican and Democrat Russiagate enthusiasts and is the source of near hysterical demands for opposition with Iran. ..."
"... But in June 1914, clearly there were multiple political and military leaders in Europe for whom war was far from inconceivable. War was simply a question of timing and so it would be better to have a war when the circumstances were most propitious. "I consider a war inevitable", declared senior German generals such as Helmuth von Moltke the Younger in 1912. "The sooner the better". ..."
"... such blatant and reprehensible behavior carries risks for everyone but mostly the targets of our barbaric behavior seems never to enter the President, his neocon handlers' and his rabid supporters' minds. ..."
"... "If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." That is unmitigated nonsense. Why not be honest. We don't want to stop it. ..."
"... To "stop it", Uncle Sam would have to first cease being a part of it. The bombing of Yemen came courtesy of U.S. mid-air refueling efforts, targeting "intelligence", and "made in America" weaponry. The blockade (starvation) of Yemen is also a duel accompaniment. It's supposed to look like a Saudi "thing", but in actuality, it's just more Uncle Sam doing his thing. Obama called it "leading from behind". ..."
Aug 20, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Trump has taken an insane U.S. policy towards Iran and make it even crazier, writes Daniel Lazare.

By Daniel Lazare
Special to Consortium News

T raffic accidents normally take just a second or two. But the coming collision in the Persian Gulf, the equivalent of a hundred-vehicle pile-up on a fog-bound interstate , has been in the works for years. Much of it is President Donald Trump's fault, but not all. His contribution has been to take an insane policy and make it even crazier.

The situation is explosive for two reasons. First, the Iranian economy is in a free fall with oil exports down as much as 90 percent from mid-2018 levels. As far as Iran is concerned, this means that it's already at war with the United States and has less and less to lose the longer the U.S. embargo goes on.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RmPTycekYJg?feature=oembed

Second, after Trump denounced the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord from the moment he began his presidential run , it's all but impossible at this point for him to back down. The result is a classic collision between the immovable and the unstoppable with no apparent way out.

How did the world bring itself to the brink of war? The answer, ironically, is by bidding for peace.

The process began in early 2015 just as the nuclear talks were entering their final stages. Despite last-minute hand-wringing , it was clear that success was in sight simply because the participants – China, France, Russia, Germany, Britain, the European Union, Iran and the U.S. – all wanted it.

Saudi Proxy War

But other regional players felt differently, Saudi Arabia first and foremost. The kingdom's survival strategy depends on its special relationship with America, its patron since the 1940s. Hence, it was panic-stricken by anything smacking of a U.S. rapprochement with its long-standing arch-enemy Iran. The upshot was a proxy war in which the Saudis set out to roll back Iranian power by striking out at pro-Iranian forces.

The offensive began after a new Saudi monarch ascended the throne in January 2015. King Salman, a doddering 79-year-old reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's , immediately handed over the reins to his favorite son, 29-year-old Muhammad bin Salman, whom he named deputy crown prince and minister of defense. MBS, as he's known, celebrated by launching an air war in neighboring Yemen two months later – and then disappearing on a week-long vacation in the Maldives – and by funneling hundreds of U.S.-made TOWs (anti-tank guided missiles) to Syrian rebels under the command of Al-Nusra, the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, for use in an offensive in that country's northwest province of Idlib.

For the Saudis, it was a neo-medieval crusade whose goal was to topple two religio-political allies of Iran, the Alawite-dominated government in Damascus and Yemen's Houthis, who adhere to a non-Iranian form of Shi'ism that is no less anathema to the Sunni Wahhabist theocracy in Riyadh.

President Barack Obama went along. With regard to Syria, an unidentified "senior administration official" told The Washington Post that while the White House was "concerned that Nusra has taken the lead," all he would say in response to U.S.-made missiles winding up in Al-Qaeda hands was that it was "not something we would refrain from raising with our partners." (See " Climbing into Bed with Al-Qaeda ," May 2, 2015.)

Just two days after the start of the Saudi air assault in Yemen, Obama meanwhile telephoned Salman to assure him of U.S. support. When asked why America would back a war by one of the Middle East's richest countries against the very poorest, another anonymous U.S. official told The New York Times (April 2, 2015):

"If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." But plainly the nuclear negotations were key. The Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers and tone down criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say yes to Saudi aggression.

The upshot has been Saudi wars claiming hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria and another 100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, Obama's efforts to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others.

Over-Extended Empire

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama with King Salman bin Abdulaziz at Erga Palace in Riyadh, Jan. 27, 2015. (White House/Pete Souza/Flickr)

The American empire was possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible clients. Even while making peace with Iran, Obama thus green-lit Saudi wars that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria and another 100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, the 2015 nuclear negotiations, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others.

The results were so devastating in a region torn by war, sectarianism, and economic collapse that Trump could not possibly make them any worse – except that he did.

Announcing his presidential bid in June 2015, he launched into a typical Trumpian rant against China, Japan, Mexico – and Obama's nuclear talks. "Take a look at the deal he's making with Iran," he said. "He makes that deal, Israel maybe won't exist very long." A month later, he tweeted that the agreement, just inked in Vienna, "poses a direct national security threat." Two months after that, he told a Tea Party rally in Washington:

"Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran . They rip us off, they take our money, they make us look like fools, and now they're back to being who they really are. They don't want Israel to survive, they will not let Israel survive, [and] with incompetent leadership like we have right now, Israel will not survive."

Iran's Landmark Concession

It was all nonsense. Rather than threatening the Jewish state, the treaty represented a landmark concession on Iran's part, since Israel, with an estimated 80 to 90 nuclear warheads in its arsenal and enough fissile material for a hundred more, would maintain its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East indefinitely. As for "our money," the $150 billion in various foreign accounts were actually Iranian assets that had been frozen for years – a sum, moreover, that was closer to $56 billion once Iran settled its foreign debts. Once sanctions were lifted, it was hardly unreasonable that such assets be restored.

Still there was hope. While railing against Iran, Trump also taunted the Saudis for their role in 9/11: "Who blew up the World Trade Center?" he told Fox & Friends. "It wasn't the Iraqis, it was Saudi [Arabia]." He repeatedly assailed the 2003 invasion of Iraq – even if he exaggerated his own role in opposing it – and criticized Obama for supporting Saudi-backed jihadis seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"Assad is bad," he said in an October 2015 interview . "Maybe these people could be worse."

Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all. Under intense pressure from neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats such as Russiagate attack dog Rep. Adam Schiff demanding stepped-up opposition with Iran , Trump did an about-face. In May 2017, he flew to Riyadh, announced an unprecedented $110-billion arms deal, and proclaimed himself the kingdom's newest BFF – best friend forever.

He echoed the Saudis by accusing Iran of funding "terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region" and backed a Saudi blockade of neighboring Qatar. When ISIS launched a bloody assault on central Tehran in early June that killed 12 people and injured 42, the only White House response was to declare that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

But back in September 2003, some 60,000 Iranian soccer fans had observed a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the World Trade Center while then-President Mohammad Khatami declared on nationwide TV:

"My deep sympathy goes out to the American nation, particularly those who have suffered from the attacks and also the families of the victims. Terrorism is doomed, and the international community should stem it and take effective measures in a bid to eradicate it."

Yet all the Trump administration could say was that Iran had it coming.

It was Democrats who, in a typical attempt to outflank Trump on the right, introduced legislation in June 2017 by forcing him to impose penalties on Russia, North Korea, and Iran as well. But after repudiating the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal) in May 2018, Trump upped sanctions even more in November – not only against the Iranian government but against some 700 individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels. After Iran shot down a $130-million U.S. surveillance drone last month, Trump imposed sanctions on "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his office, and his closest associates. Two weeks ago, he imposed penalties on Mohammad Javad Zarif , Iran's U.S.-educated foreign minister.

Crowd at Tea Party rally listening to Donald Trump denounce the Iran Nuclear Agreement, Sept. 9, 2015. (YouTube)

It was a gesture of contempt for the very idea of diplomacy. So what happens next? The problem is that re-starting negotiations would not be enough. Instead, Iran has demanded that the U.S. remove all sanctions and apologize before agreeing to a new round of talks. Since this would be tantamount to re-authorizing the JCPOA, it's unlikely in the extreme. While Trump is known for changing his mind in a flash, a course correction of this magnitude is hard to imagine.

Thus, the confrontation is set to continue. Iran may respond by seizing more oil tankers or downing more drones, but the problem is that the U.S. will undoubtedly engage in tit-for-tat escalation in response until, eventually, some kind of line is crossed.

If so, the consequences are unpredictable. U.S. firepower is overwhelming , but Iran is not without resources of its own , among them anti-ship ballistic missiles, mobile short-range rockets that can hit naval targets, plus heavily-armed high-speed boats, mini-subs, and even " ekranoplans ," floating planes designed to skim the waves at 115 miles per hour. Such weaponry could prove highly effective in the 35-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz. Iran also has allies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has an estimated 130,000 missiles and rockets in its own arsenal, Assad's battle-hardened military in Syria, Yemen's Houthis, and pro-Iranian forces in Shi'ite-majority Iraq.

The upshot could be a war drawing in half a dozen countries or more. A confrontation on that scale may seem inconceivable. But, then, war seemed inconceivable in the wake of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in June 1914.

Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique and blogs about the Constitution and related matters at D aniellazare.com .


Jeff Davis , August 20, 2019 at 12:42

America is Israel's b*tch.

The American experiment is over. A variety of corporate/neoliberal interests and foreign interests have hollowed it out, and soon, when every last bit of loot has been extracted, the dried up husk of the Empire will collapse. There is no saving it because the looters are still in control. Their control is unbreakable because buying Congress is such a minor and manageable expense for them, and the Congressmen/women are simply incapable of setting aside personal interest and personal ambition for the good of the country. Incapable, because if they ever chose country over their own careers , the "owners" -- ie donors/looters -- would find someone to replace them. There is no way out until it comes crashing down.

Don Bacon , August 20, 2019 at 11:33

Iran whipped the US in Syria, cementing the 'Shia crescent' from Tehran to Beirut, which gives Iran the mantle of ME leadership. Washington had to respond to that fact because it threatens the US and its Carter-Doctrine position as the predominate ME power. So don't blame Israel.

Zhu , August 20, 2019 at 05:44

You forgot to mention pressure from Religious Right Republicans, eager for the Rapture, the Return of Jesus, etv., etc. Christism Zionists in short.

Broompilot , August 20, 2019 at 01:19

I find it interesting that there is no mention of Netanyahu appearing before Congress or the U.N. drawing silly looking pictures of bombs. Or Netanyahu claiming he had jacked some new documents from Iran proving they had a nuclear weapons program. Or Netanyahu disrespecting Obama with his appearance in Congress. Or Bibi's landing in L.A. with a motorcade that screwed up traffic all over town to demonstrate who is really important in this country. Reading this piece you would think this is 95% about Saudis and has very little to do with Israel. There is no doubt that the gulf monarchies do not want successful representative governments breaking out on their borders and giving their citizens ideas, but I doubt they have anything resembling the Israeli lobbies and their influence operating in the U.S. with the power to influence Iran policy.

AnneR , August 20, 2019 at 08:23

True, Broompilot. And I too awaited throughout the article for Mr Lazare to discuss the really existing and marked part that Israel has played and is playing in all of the more recent destruction in neighboring countries, and that illegitimate state's huge influence on this country's politics, military actions (in the MENA countries when those actions might benefit Israel), administration decisions (not to mention the cooperation among US and Israeli secret services *and* electronic-internet companies which anyway themselves both derive from the military and remain closely entwined with it).

Most US presidents – and seemingly all US Congresses – since WWII have aided and abetted Israel and its appalling human rights record which never ends and continues with impunity. But Trump is perhaps more so than most if only because his daughter, a convert to Judaism, is married to an ardent Zionist, and buddy-buddy to Netanyahu. Lazare hints at Trump's pro-Zionism (whatever its basis) but leaves it there.

Marko , August 19, 2019 at 22:50

"Trump's Persian-Gulf Car Crash"

When you view foreign policy as a Demolition Derby competition , as Trump and the neocons do , this is called "Winning !"

Gregory Herr , August 19, 2019 at 20:44

The war of terrorism waged upon the people of Syria didn't come about because the U.S. was "possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible clients", or because the "Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers and tone down criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say yes to Saudi aggression."

Washington's Long War on Syria (Stephen Gowans) began well before Obama, Yahoo, Erdogan, and Petraeus set up rat lines of weaponry and training for terrorists in Jordan and Turkey. The current iteration of "topple thru terror" was in the offing, with or without Saudi "impetus".

Syria stands in the way of Greater Israel and Wall Street/central bank dominance.

Obama "went along" alright. But it wasn't the Saudis he was "appeasing".

Obama should have normalised relations with Iran and disavowed all the b.s. rhetoric about them. His "deal" had "made to be broken" written all over it because of his rhetoric. All done in bad faith with the Path to Persia kept open.

Jeff Harrison , August 19, 2019 at 18:30

The big problem is that the US is convinced that it knows what it's doing when, in fact, it is clueless. The US also is perpetually optimistic when it has nothing upon which to base said optimism. It's not as if we've actually defeated anybody in the Middle East. Revoltin' Bolton may think he's scaring people with aircraft carriers and B52s but you'll notice that Iran snatched the British tanker and the Iraqi tanker after the US moved it's carrier and bombers into the Gulf. They also shot down our drone in the same time frame.

We're playing a losing strategy.

Jeff Davis , August 20, 2019 at 12:11

We're playing a losing strategy because America is Israel's bitch.

The American experiment is over. A variety of corporate/neoliberal interests and foreign interests have hollowed it out, and soon, when every last bit of loot has been extracted, the dried up husk of the Empire will collapse. There is no saving it because the looters are still in control. Their control is unbreakable because buying Congress is such a minor and manageable expense for them, and the Congressmen/women are simply incapable of setting aside personal interest and personal ambition for the good of the country. Incapable, because if they ever chose country over their own careers , the "owners" -- ie donors/looters -- would find someone to replace them. There is no way out until it comes crashing down.

Don Bacon , August 19, 2019 at 18:29

"It was all nonsense. Rather than threatening the Jewish state, the treaty represented a landmark concession on Iran's part,. . ."

Calling the Obama agreement a treaty is nonsense, rather it was an agreement involving only the executive branch and not the Senate as required by the Constitution for treaties. Obama needed an achievement for his presidential library, so he waited until his term was almost over to do what he could have done, with Brazil and Turkey, in 2010. Therefore Trump had every right to overturn an agreement made by his hated predecessor, with the knowledge that the Senate never would have approved it since they are all corrupted.

This is another example (Bush-43 on Iraq withdrawal was another) of what the US has come to. This so-called "rules-based democracy" has become a stomping ground for the "commander-in-chief" to display his executive privilege and do any damned thing he takes a mind to, including war, with nary a peep from the so-called "checks and balance" folks who are supposed to be looking after US democracy, but aren't.

robert e williamson jr , August 19, 2019 at 16:18

I found this a Jeff Morely's Deep State Blog https://deepstateblog.org/2019/08/19/iraq-curbs-uk-s-flights-after-reported-israeli-attacks/#comment-1308

These actions by Israel should be expected as well as the Iranian response, which could very easily be war.

All the result of having an idiot at the wheel of the ship of state. Trump and his supporter will own it if it happens.

The Israeli government know no limits or no shame, a very dangerous group for the rest of the world to have to deal with.

Trump needs to be impeached no earlier than one month before the next presidential election and exiled to Israel like the turn coat he is.

Robyn , August 19, 2019 at 19:14

That link didn't work, try this one:

https://deepstateblog.org/2019/08/19/iraq-curbs-u-s-flights-after-reported-israeli-attacks/

Abe , August 19, 2019 at 15:45

"Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all."

It never existed.

A clueless Lazare has been repeatedly informed of the fact in the comments of his CN articles.

Now he's feebly wondering "if".

"Under intense pressure from neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats such as Russiagate attack dog Rep. Adam Schiff demanding stepped-up opposition with Iran, Trump did an about-face."

The pro-Israel Lobby owns both Republican and Democrat Russiagate enthusiasts and is the source of near hysterical demands for opposition with Iran.

Trump has never been under "intense pressure" and has not done "an about-face" because he has always been avowedly "1000 percent" pro-Israel.

A worse than clueless Lazare has been repeatedly informed of the fact in the comments of his CN articles.

Lazare apparently finds lots of things "hard to imagine", even "inconceivable".

But in June 1914, clearly there were multiple political and military leaders in Europe for whom war was far from inconceivable. War was simply a question of timing and so it would be better to have a war when the circumstances were most propitious. "I consider a war inevitable", declared senior German generals such as Helmuth von Moltke the Younger in 1912. "The sooner the better".

Current Israeli leadership holds such a view. The Trump administration foreign policy purchased by the pro-Israel Lobby reflects this view.

But for the obviously very well informed but perpetually clueless Lazare, it all somehow remains "inconceivable"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIP6EwqMEoE

Abe , August 19, 2019 at 16:56

Vigorous efforts by the pro-Israel Lobby keep the US committed to a succession of classic blunders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmT0_hKSUrw

Abe , August 20, 2019 at 00:24

Trump has walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and has performed numerous other services, including threatening war on Iran, precisely because the Israelis wanted them done.

Don't confuse Trump's servility to the pro-Israel Lobby for "isolationism".

The arrogant aggression of the Trump-Bolton-Pompeo troika is bought and paid for by Israel.

Herman , August 19, 2019 at 14:39

Depressing. Having defended Trump because attacks were directed at the President of the United States, any president, it is hard to support a man whose every move is a political calculation. That such blatant and reprehensible behavior carries risks for everyone but mostly the targets of our barbaric behavior seems never to enter the President, his neocon handlers' and his rabid supporters' minds.

One comment in this depressing article caught my eye.

"If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." That is unmitigated nonsense. Why not be honest. We don't want to stop it. The We, of course, being our decision makers and a too large segment of our brainwashed electorate.

Gregory Herr , August 19, 2019 at 19:52

To "stop it", Uncle Sam would have to first cease being a part of it. The bombing of Yemen came courtesy of U.S. mid-air refueling efforts, targeting "intelligence", and "made in America" weaponry. The blockade (starvation) of Yemen is also a duel accompaniment. It's supposed to look like a Saudi "thing", but in actuality, it's just more Uncle Sam doing his thing. Obama called it "leading from behind".

[Aug 20, 2019] Idlib and foreign jihadists

Aug 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ghost Ship , Aug 20 2019 17:17 utc | 102

Most powerfully, the SAA demonstrated today with squeezing the Hama salient that when it decides to move there is fuck all that the jihadists can do to stop it. In historical terms this is akin to the Battle of St Quentin Canal back in WW1 where part of the British Fourth Army including British and Australian divisions with two US divisions tore a 17km gap in the strongest part of the Hindenberg Line and demonstrated that the Imperial German Army was fucked, as the western allies could pretty much to what they wanted where and when they decided.

There will be no race to capture Idlib City as that will mean taking a lot of jihadists prisoner and why should the Syrians have to deal with the foreign jihadists? Instead, war will be replaced with politics and the foreign jihadists will be "encouraged" to return to their own countries. Either that or take the war to Turkey because of Erdogan's complete failure to support them. And all the other countries that failed the jihadists will be "remembered" sometime in the future.

As for the Russians, the jihadists will remember that the Russian intervention in Syria was trivial in the scheme of things (less than a hundred aircraft?) and that if the jihadists try to mess with Russia again, will understand what a full-blown intervention by Russia will look like.

There might be some holdouts in Idlib but they will be dealt with, and today the balance of power in the Middle East and also the world tilted notably in favour of "the axis of evil" (yet another example of American projection because the United States and its poodles are the real axis of evil!

[Aug 20, 2019] When, If Ever, Can We Lay This Burden Down by Pat Buchanan

Pat lost its touch with reality " Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes and confrontations with almost too many nations to count." That's what empires do. Why he can't understand this simple fact?
Aug 20, 2019 | www.unz.com
Pat Buchanan 800 Words 30 Comments Reply

Friday, President Donald Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S. withdrawal from America's longest war.

U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has cost 2,400 American lives.

Following the meeting, Trump tweeted, "Many on the opposite sides of this 19 year war, and us, are looking to make a deal -- if possible!"

Some, however, want no deal; they are fighting for absolute power.

Saturday, a wedding in Kabul with a thousand guests was hit by a suicide bomber who, igniting his vest, massacred 63 people and wounded 200 in one of the greatest atrocities of the war. ISIS claimed responsibility.

Monday, 10 bombs exploded in restaurants and public squares in the eastern city of Jalalabad, wounding 66.

Trump is pressing Khalilzad to negotiate drawdowns of U.S. troop levels from the present 14,000, and to bring about a near-term end to U.S. involvement in a war that began after we overthrew the old Taliban regime for giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.

Is it too soon to ask: What have we gained from our longest war? Was all the blood and treasure invested worth it? And what does the future hold?

If the Taliban could not be defeated by an Afghan army, built up by the U.S. for a decade and backed by 100,000 U.S. troops in 2010-2011, then are the Taliban likely to give up the struggle when the U.S. is drawing down the last 14,000 troops and heading home?

The Taliban control more of the country than they have at any time since being overthrown in 2001. And time now seems to be on their side.

Why have they persevered, and prevailed in parts of the country?

Motivated by a fanatic faith, tribalism and nationalism, they have shown a willingness to die for a cause that seems more compelling to them than what the U.S.-backed Afghan government has on offer.

They also have the guerrillas' advantage of being able to attack at times and places of their own choosing, without the government's burden of having to defend towns and cities.

Will these Taliban, who have lost many battles but not the war, retire from the field and abide by democratic elections once the Americans go home? Why should they?

The probability: When the Americans depart, the war breaks out anew, and the Taliban ultimately prevail.

And Afghanistan is but one of the clashes and conflicts in which America is engaged.

Severe U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have failed to bring down the Nicholas Maduro regime in Caracas but have contributed to the immiseration of that people, 10% of whom have left the country. Trump now says he is considering a quarantine or blockade to force Maduro out.

Eight years after we helped to overthrow Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya is still mired in civil war, with its capital, Tripoli, under siege.

Yemen, among the world's humanitarian disasters, has seen the UAE break with its Saudi interventionist allies, and secessionists split off southern Yemen from the Houthi-dominated north. Yet, still, Congress has been unable to force the Trump administration to end all support of the Saudi war.

Two thousand U.S. troops remain in Syria. The northern unit is deployed between our Syrian Kurd allies and the Turkish army. In the south, they are positioned to prevent Iran and Iranian-backed militias from creating a secure land bridge from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut.

In our confrontation with Iran, we have few allies.

The Brits released the Iranian tanker they seized at Gibraltar, which had been carrying oil to Syria. But when the Americans sought to prevent its departure, a Gibraltar court ruled against the United States.

Iran presents no clear or present danger to U.S. vital interests, but the Saudis and Israelis see Iran as a mortal enemy, and want the U.S. military rid them of the menace.

Hong Kong protesters wave American flags and seek U.S. support of their demands for greater autonomy and freedom in their clash with their Beijing-backed authorities. The Taiwanese want us to support them and sell them the weapons to maintain their independence. The Philippines wants us to take their side in the dispute with China over tiny islets in the South China Sea.

We are still committed to go to war to defend South Korea. And the North has lately test-fired a series of ballistic missiles, none of which could hit the USA, but all of which could hit South Korea.

Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes and confrontations with almost too many nations to count.

In how many of these are U.S. vital interests imperiled? And in how many are we facing potential wars on behalf of other nations, while they hold our coat and egg us on?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."

Copyright 2019 Creators.com.

[Aug 20, 2019] For the US its better to wreck Venezuela's economy than to allow it to flourish and expand its influence

Aug 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Aug 20 2019 18:26 utc | 107

"For the US its better to wreck Venezuela's economy than to allow it to flourish and expand its influence.."
Not necessarily. The US is gambling that it will beat Venezuela. But if it doesn't, if Venezuela simply outlasts the imperialist sanctions, it will emerge much stronger.
In recent years there has been a drift towards compromise with the US in Venezuela. Chavez was always very generous towards his opponents and this has continued. As a result the old Creole ruling class has been relatively undisturbed. It has retained its power over the media, for example and left in a position to sabotage the economy through its control of supermarkets, banks and commerce. It has retained its landholdings and maintained its agribusiness.

And now, in cahoots with the imperialists, it has come out against the government and chavismo. Its racist, neo fascist propensities and its contempt for its own countrymen and women- the poor and the working class- have been revealed. While the people are fighting to defend themselves against imperialism, Guido and the Venezuelan right, the capitalist class have made their positions very obvious. Given any sort of opportunity they will smash the social security and food security networks that keep the poor from starvation. They will privatise- Honduras style- and death squads will roam the working class districts torturing and killing.
In short the people of Venezuela have been shown exactly what to expect if the US wins. And the allies of the US have been revealed to be the country's worst enemies: traitors and Quislings.

In the end, if the US does not replace the Maduro government, it will find itself much worse off. All its Fifth Columnist friends will be in exile or hiding. All their wealth will have been distributed to the poor or nationalised.


And the US will have one more sworn and permanent enemy, the people of Venezuela.

[Aug 20, 2019] Impeachment Time by Philip Giraldi

Some comments are edited for clarity...
This is a very weak article full of emotion but does not clarifing anything. Zionisn is just far right Jewish nationalism colored by the occupation of Palestine. Nothing special about it and in a sense critique of Israel for Zionism falls short. whether Zionists control the USA via fifth column or the USA elite thinks that Zionist policies in Middle East are perfectly compatible with the USA geopolitical goals in the region remains to be seen. I suspect the latter.
In this case calling Trump Zionist puppet completely misses the point. The USA and Israel currently are fellow travelers. That might change in the future.
Incident with Representative [Ilhan] Omar and Representative [Rashida] Tlaib is just a minor insident and should be trated as such.
Notable quotes:
"... The likelihood that Donald Trump will be impeached (and it's the House of Representatives that impeaches, not the Senate) for any action that pleases Israel is zero. ..."
"... "Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?" Because we've been swindled by two "antiwar" candidates in a row already. We don't want to be slow learners, do we? ..."
"... If the Zionist Enterprise and Uncle Sam (and their apologists) are resentful about the strategic depth Iran has created in Syria they should not have supported a bunch of whack job head choppers like HTS, Al Qaeda, ISIL, etc., etc. Blow back pure and simple like 9/11 and US intervention in Afghanistan. ..."
"... On November 22, 1963, our last Constitutional Government was overthrown in a Coup D'état, with our last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy , assassinated in a hail of bullets. ..."
"... You really have to have a lot of chutzpah to claim that Trump isn't presidential. After 32 years of Clinton, Bush II, Obama? What is wrong with you, Phil? ..."
"... I like Giraldi generally, that said the whole "acting Presidential" thing is way, way overrated -- that's what we've had for decades an "actor" reading a teleprompter, part of the Uniparty team selected to screw average normal Americans of all races ..."
"... As though the ziostate is a separate country from the Imperialist States of Amerikastan, instead of a parasitic twin. And as though the Imperialist States of Amerikastan is in any way innocent of the crimes of the ziostate. ..."
"... Old pensioners , even younger are political, pathetic amateurs.. Amateurs or worse. Daily declarations of never ending and growing up and up "Uber Love" for Israel means what ? Emptiness , absence of any ability ? ..."
"... Looks like President and administrations become more and more lost and lost their way in our world ? Can not USA acts and even understand, on its own, what is going on around?? ..."
"... They push Iran and Russia together,after they did the same with China, Venezuela /with 6 millions of Columbians in there/, and Turkey, before.. USA lost Syria ..."
"... And if you need a good reason to not impeach Trump here it is: Mike Pence would become President. ..."
"... Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal ..."
"... The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations. ..."
"... "Hey, let's buy Greenland!", "Let's send a guy to Mars!". Swear to God, every day's a new adventure with this guy. ..."
"... Ignoring someone is the strongest form of bullying. BDS is this stupid path that will lead to violence just like picking up a stick in the first place. The way to deal with Israel and the Empire is by demanding the declassification of all historical secrets, and having an open conversation. We haven't done this for a century as a society. ..."
"... When that happens, it will become clear Israel has always been a colonial project of European and Jewish elites (at the top the %es warrant the statement), that human rights interventions have been designed with neo-colonial intentions in mind from the get-go (after all the creation of Israel was the first such neo-colony), and that the only way to solve this issue is through full on decolonisation. ..."
"... Trump is an idiot and a puppet of Israel. Our Congress is controlled by Israel. Trump isn't Presidential is true. But Giraldi once again seems to be clueless of all the underhanded foreign policy games Obama played. Obama is a cool Crime Lord if there ever was one. ..."
"... The CIA and the other Intelligence agencies protected Obama because he let them do whatever they wanted. Obama's fiasco in Libya was covered up and according to my friends in the CIA is one the greatest foreign policy failures in American history. But Giraldi once again ignores this type of stuff. ..."
"... Pence is also an idiot and nutbag ZioChristian. What Giraldi doesn't seem to understand is that even though Trump is an idiot etc. look at the Democrats and what does the populace see? For many they see that he is less evil than all the Democrats running. ..."
"... First I was glad to see Tlaib had the smarts to tell the Likudniks to pound sand with their new invitation. It would to me, quickly evolve into a fiasco (probably as soon as she got off her flight). Good move by the Rep. If this is a zero-sum game, she wins not Trump/Netanyahu. ..."
"... I see no stomach for impeachment during the election cycle. As well as no chance for a senate conviction. Vile crook that he is, he was elected. Now it's up to voters to make that decision again. Yes on a personal level he's terrible but if we are lucky he won't do catastrophic damage. Like Bush. ..."
"... I agree with Mr. Giraldi entirely on this matter. Unfortunately, given that the Democratic Party is determined to present voters with less than reasonable alternatives, I am fully confident that we will be enjoying another four-year term with this imbecilic, Zionist bootlick as our head-of-state ..."
"... But it is true that Trump -- like every President since LBJ -- has become an obsequious waterboy for the Zionist mafia. For me, this marks Trump's greatest failure. Wasn't he going to 'Make America Great Again'? How can a nation be great if it is not sovereign? ..."
"... A guy with interesting views about the end of the world probably shouldn't be put in a position where he could actually end it. ..."
"... Business as usual for US Presidents for at least 70 years, perhaps at least 120 years. Under the principles of equity, these would not justify impeachment. ..."
"... I really hate to admit this but you may be correct. I do think Trump is anti-war. But he's too erratic and nobody should trust him. Netanyahu is gaming him but I don't think he trusts Trump either. ..."
"... Impeachment is inherently political and there are plenty of good reasons to impeach Trump as there were to impeach Obama, Bush II, Clinton and for that matter such all time greats as Lincoln and FDR. There are better reasons not to impeach him. If impeachment fails it paves the way for a backlash that would lead to Trump's re-election by a landslide and more subservience to Israel than ever. ..."
"... If it succeeds, he is followed by Pence and more subservience to Israel than ever. And if a Democrat other than Tulsi Gabbard gets elected in 2020, keep in mind that the Democratic establishment is solidly pro-Israel as well. Only among some of the Democratic rank-and-file is there any opposition to doing the bidding of the Israeli government. ..."
"... Haven't you Bush-Cheney-Trump Republicans noticed that every four years Americans rent a pig in a poke for the next four years. ..."
Aug 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

It is astonishing to observe some Americans twisting themselves into pretzels so they can continue to make excuses to explain the bizarre behavior of President Donald Trump on the world stage. The line most commonly heard is that he has "kept us out of new wars." The reality is somewhat different. He has kept us in old wars in Afghanistan and Syria that he could have ended while also needlessly ratcheting up tension with countries like Russia, Venezuela, Iran and China that could easily escalate into armed conflict. The situation with Moscow is particularly dangerous as President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that his country's defense doctrine includes going nuclear if there is an attack on Russia by a superior force.

But the most frightening aspect of the current situation is the feeling that the man whose finger is on America's nuclear trigger is not quite sane. The steady stream of insulting and vulgar tweets that seem to serve as a substitute for more substantial mental activity reveals a man who is profoundly ignorant, completely narcissistic and hopelessly insecure. To say the least, Trump is not presidential. He is not even rational except in a conniving, manipulative fashion intended to embarrass his adversaries and place them on the defensive. And his enemies list appears to include all Americans who are not "with him."

The Constitution of the United States in Articles I and II details the procedure for impeachment by the Senate of a president who commits "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." I believe that threshold has finally been crossed. It was crossed last Thursday when President Trump telephoned either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or some other senior Israeli government official before, one hour later, tweeting the following: "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Representative [Ilhan] Omar and Representative [Rashida] Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel and all Jewish people. And there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!"

Netanyahu then followed Trump's lead with a series of tweets of his own, banning the visit of the two congresswomen because "Only a few days ago, we received their itinerary for their visit in Israel, which revealed that they planned a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel's legitimacy. For instance: they listed the destination of their trip as Palestine and not Israel the itinerary of the two Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it."

The two women are in fact the only two congressional supporters of the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use economic pressure to convince Israel to end its brutal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, meaning that the other 533 members of congress are not so inclined. BDS supporters have been blocked from travel to Israel under an anti-boycott law passed by the Knesset in March 2017, suggesting that free speech in Israel is conditional.

Even though BDS is a non-violent protest movement, it has been condemned by the U.S. Congress and also by nearly all Jewish groups in America, quite possibly because it is having a real impact in an environment where legitimate criticism of Israel is effectively forbidden. There is considerable irony in the fact that Jewish groups have in the past used boycotts to advance their own tribal interests while condemning the use of the same tactic when it is employed against Israeli oppression.

The Israeli ban was subsequently partially lifted to allow Tlaib to travel to the occupied West Bank to visit her 90 year old grandmother, but the congresswoman indicated that she has refused the offer as she is being treated "like a criminal." Clearly, Netanyahu and Trump saw political benefit coming out of the exchange. Netanyahu is facing re-election in two weeks and will be able to boast of his demonstrated ability as a "strong leader" to obtain maximum support for anything he does from the White House. Trump is also already running for re-election next year and is working hard to make Israel an issue, labeling the Democrats as the party that is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. He will also expect Netanyahu to do him favors as appropriate closer to the actual U.S. election.

So much for the view from the two heads of government. The other perspective, and why the president should be impeached, is that Trump's decision was, as usual, to propagate a disgusting and deliberate lie that is also extremely damaging to actual United States interests as well as to our form of government.

To put it in simplest terms, President Trump is conniving with a foreign government headed by a war criminal to block the entry of and also demonize two congresswomen whose political views differ from his own. He is endangering the women, who have already received death threats, by expanding on the lies that are being circulated about them due to their criticism of Israel's appalling human rights record.

Netanyahu, for his part, would prefer that prominent observers not be able to report on the actual conditions prevailing on the West Bank and in Gaza. Indeed, Israel's occupation of much of the West Bank is an ongoing crime that is carefully hidden from most foreign visitors. Netanyahu's government already carefully manages the summer recess annual pilgrimage by members of Congress, such as the one that ended last week where 31 Republicans and 41 Democrats made the journey to kiss the prime minister's ring. And it should be noted that as Omar and Tlaib are only two of a handful of Democratic lawmakers who dare to criticize Israel, their impact on party policy is decidedly limited, rendering even more incomprehensible the panic over their travels.

There are a number of other things wrong with what took place between Trump and Netanyahu vis-à-vis the two congresswomen. First of all, Israel is the top recipient of U.S. military aid at more than $3 billion each year. It also profits from trade arrangements, co-production projects and charitable contributions from American Jews and Christian Zionists that amount to an estimated three times that much annually. That members of Congress should have the right, even the obligation, to visit Israel to see where all that money goes should be unquestioned and it has, indeed, been unchallenged prior to this incident. Tlaib and Omar are the first congressmen to be denied entry to Israel. That Trump apparently orchestrated the entire incident in connivance with a foreign government in support of his own political ambitions and that foreign power's narrow interests is a clear abuse of executive power.

To be sure, numerous Democrats have decried the Israeli decision, but they have tended to frame it in such a way as to praise Israel while also slamming Trump. They note, in a friendly way, that it will hurt Israel's otherwise pristine image as an upstanding democracy and close ally, both of which assertions are in any event demonstrably false. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that was typical, saying "As one who loves Israel, I am deeply saddened by the news that Israel has decided to prevent Members of Congress from entering the country. Last month, Israeli Ambassador Dermer stated that, 'Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any Member of Congress into Israel.' This is a sad reversal and is deeply disappointing. I pray that the Government of Israel will reverse that denial. Israel's denial of entry to Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar is a sign of weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great State of Israel. The President's statements about the Congresswomen are a sign of ignorance and disrespect, and beneath the dignity of the Office of the President."

Senator Bernie Sanders was one of the few legislators to actually approach the heart of the matter, saying "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage. And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on -- and I've been there many, many times -- but if he doesn't want members to visit, maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel."

Even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) disapproved of the decision, stating in a tweet that "We disagree with Reps. Omar and Tlaib's support for the anti-Israel and anti-peace BDS movement, along with Rep. Tlaib's calls for a one-state solution. We also believe every member of Congress should be able to visit and experience our democratic ally Israel firsthand."

One of the few Republicans to enter into the discussion was Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who characteristically tweeted what amounted to an attack on the congresswomen, stating that it was a mistake for the Israeli government to deny them entry because "Being blocked is what they really hoped for all along in order to bolster their attacks against the Jewish state."

Trump's attack on the two congresswomen comes on top of another bizarre foreign policy related intervention. It involved sending his official hostage negotiator Robert O'Brien to Stockholm on the taxpayers' dime to obtain freedom for an American rap musician ASAP Rocky who was in jail after having gotten into a fight with some local boys. Trump did not actually know Rocky, but he was vouched for by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, both of whom have had nice things to say about the president. Trump also exercised his usual disregard for standard diplomatic courtesy by tweeting furiously against Sweden's prime minister, Stefan Lofven, over Rocky's detention. The negotiator was instructed to threaten Sweden that if they did not release Rocky there would be "negative consequences" for the bilateral relationship.

And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are:

Trump has twice attacked Syria with cruise missiles based on flawed intelligence without a declaration of war and without Damascus representing an actual threat. That is a war crime and the stationing of American soldiers in Syria without the consent of that country's government is also illegal. The Trump administration's "Justice" Department is seeking to extradite truth-teller Julian Assange of WikiLeaks so he can be locked up for life or killed in prison like Jeffrey Epstein. America's Secretary of State and National Security Advisors are implementing policies that impose punitive sanctions that have served to starve or otherwise kill thousands of Venezuelans, Iranians and Yemenis. Far from being Russian President Vladimir Putin's patsy, Trump has unnecessarily escalated tensions with Moscow more than any American president since the end of the cold war by moving NATO troops up to the Russian border and arming Ukraine, putting our nation and much of the world at risk of a nuclear exchange whether by accident or design. Trump has unnecessarily withdrawn from an Iranian nuclear agreement and from two arms treaties with Russia, all of which enhanced the national security of the United States. The Trump administration has continued to lavish support on the Middle East's two kleptocracies Saudi Arabia and Israel, endorsing everything they do. The tilt towards Israel, including U.S. recognition of sovereignty over illegally occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, has been particularly unfortunate as it could lead to a major war in the region with the U.S. placed right in the middle of the conflict.

Finally, there are certainly some who oppose getting rid of Trump because it would give us Mike Pence as acting president. True enough, and Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world, but how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


obwandiyag , says: August 19, 2019 at 10:32 pm GMT

Sorry. But he didn't start any wars, and didn't heat any up either. He couldn't end them, although he is basically anti-war, because you know why.
A123 , says: August 19, 2019 at 10:53 pm GMT
Let me help. What you are actually advocating is better represented by this:

GIRALDI Endorses MIKE PENCE for President

Did you forget that the VP takes the Presidency if the sitting President is impeached?

Do you really believe that PENCE would be better than Trump on foreign policy?

__________

He has kept us in old wars in Afghanistan and Syria that he could have ended

Trump has drawn down troops from Afghanistan.

The primary issue with pulling troops out of Syria is Iran, although Turkey and the deep state bureaucracy are also complicating factors. Hopefully, Iran's impending exit from Syria will allow Trump to also exit.

Iranian troops are in conflict with Assad and they are rapidly wearing out its welcome in Syria (1):

the Iranian Revolutionary Guards "took over the al-Nurain Mosque and houses around it on Korniche Street in the city, where they prevented civilians, members of regime forces, and NDF from entering or passing through the area, without orders from the command forces located in al-Mayadin."

Iran is also intentionally provoking Russia and undermining Putin's credibility (2):

due to the permanent infiltration efforts conducted by Iran and Hizbullah, a very unique situation has unfolded on the ground. Hizbullah and pro-Iranian proxies' checkpoints, coordinated by the regime's Fourth Division deployed in the area, have been erected almost adjacent to the Russian checkpoints. Pro-Iranian patrols have been patrolling the area in the very same axis patrolled by the Russians. As a result, frictions between the Russian and the pro-Iranian proxies occur from time to time, creating tensions between Moscow and Tehran.

It is now a test of wills between Ayatollah Khamenei and Putin, and it is pretty clear that Putin is going to win.

PEACE

____

(1) https://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iranian-Revolutionary-Guard-forces-Assad-supporters-out-of-checkpoint-596661

(2) http://jcpa.org/article/the-iranian-conquest-of-syria/

Aletho , says: Website August 19, 2019 at 11:09 pm GMT
It's not saying much but Trump seems to be the sanest of the bunch. Even Sanders wants more militarism. His support for Israel, though less overtly obnoxious, achieves the same end result. I could possibly exclude Gabbard. Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?
Diversity Heretic , says: August 19, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMT
The likelihood that Donald Trump will be impeached (and it's the House of Representatives that impeaches, not the Senate) for any action that pleases Israel is zero.
Kelso , says: August 19, 2019 at 11:48 pm GMT
Tulsi Gabbard should embrace the BDS movement and move ahead of the other candidates. This is in spite of her ill-advised vote recently to condemn BDS. It would be a dramatic about face -- she will be vilified no matter what she does, but she will please a large and growing segment of the electorate, not unlike Ross Perot's Independence Party.
Twodees Partain , says: August 19, 2019 at 11:57 pm GMT
"Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world, but how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?"

Mike Pence could be worse than Hillary Clinton without half trying. For that matter, he could be worse than GW Bush without breaking a sweat. You underestimate him, Phil.

Twodees Partain , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:00 am GMT
@Aletho

"Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?" Because we've been swindled by two "antiwar" candidates in a row already. We don't want to be slow learners, do we?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:11 am GMT
@A123

If the Zionist Enterprise and Uncle Sam (and their apologists) are resentful about the strategic depth Iran has created in Syria they should not have supported a bunch of whack job head choppers like HTS, Al Qaeda, ISIL, etc., etc. Blow back pure and simple like 9/11 and US intervention in Afghanistan.

Durruti , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
Giraldi

No more excuses for a train-wreck foreign policy

Yes, The entire post November 22, 1963 American Government, with only a few exceptions should be Impeached.

On November 22, 1963, our last Constitutional Government was overthrown in a Coup D'état, with our last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy , assassinated in a hail of bullets.

If you (Giraldi), read Unz' article on the subject of the Coup, and just who performed the Coup, or a dozen other articles to the point, you should understand that our post-constitutional government has been increasingly controlled by Foreign Zionist Banking Oligarchs. Our so-called 'elected Representatives' function as bought Minions of the Rothschilds , and live in fear of their MOSSAD and puppet CIA police.

I assume you have read your own articles on the subject of just who controls the USA. Or do I have to cite them for you?

You advocate an Impeachment Process to be brought against Casino Trump . And who, pray tell, will do the impeaching? You are advocating an effort that lends a certain Legitimacy to a pathetic Puppet government, long at the service of the Zionist World Order. Do you dream that the pathetic band of almost 537 Traitors are up to the task?

You expect a Congress, perhaps led by the Democrap Gangers, to begin the process of removing the current Hollywood actor ("You're Fired"), in a pretend Constitutional Process performed by a Pretend Constitutional Government.

Ron Unz -- er. Philip Giraldi, our Yellow Brick Road to Liberty involves, of necessity, a Restoration of Our Republic, with a restoration of our Constitution, with a restoration of our honor, and a restoration of our Beloved Nation's Sovereignty.

But I will deal with you as a well meaning and brave American, a friend. If you have a way to trigger, or begin the process of impeachment of Casino Trump, even in the Pretend World we will have to live in to swallow the Show, I and my friends will do all we can to follow your lead.

This is your article and your lead. Hell! We might get lucky. On with the show. You will not fight alone.

Now. if your article is just an intellectual appeal to the powers that be (whomever they are), to advance an impeachment show for us to passively observe, a show where nothing essential will change, and nothing will be learned, then our Citizens will have no option but to continue following the Foreign Zionist controlled Democrap & Republicant Gangs to Hell.

Durruti

restless94110 , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:41 am GMT
You really have to have a lot of chutzpah to claim that Trump isn't presidential. After 32 years of Clinton, Bush II, Obama? What is wrong with you, Phil?

You evidently are a one-issue guy with a hitherto serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

You've know joined the ranks of The Mooch and that lunatic Kristol.

Hope you enjoy the company you keep.

getaclue , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:06 am GMT
I like Giraldi generally, that said the whole "acting Presidential" thing is way, way overrated -- that's what we've had for decades an "actor" reading a teleprompter, part of the Uniparty team selected to screw average normal Americans of all races

Ppersonally not having been a Trump fan ever -- I like the fact that he doesn't act like an actor teleprompter reading robot and that he swings back at the lying Propagandist Mainslime Media and Dems who are complete insane lunatics at this point (I was a Dem myself for 40 years and even voted for Obama the first time -- no more.

They are actively plotting to destroy the country by importing "replacement" illegal aliens to vote for them as sane people won't and Identity "hate whitey" politics -- why would any sane "white" person vote for them?).

Do I like all Trump is doing? No. His Israel "love" and Javanka etc .But who exactly would Mr. Giraldi recommend we support/vote for that has any possible chance of getting elected who is not a pre-selected Uniparty stooge/traitor? Trump is all we got, and by his wide range of obvious enemies we can tell he is also obviously not fully "on board" with the cretins of the Deep State -- and those who "run" things view him as a threat, gotta like that .

Precious , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:17 am GMT
If I have to choose between Trump and those two harpies then Trump is in. Those two women are fake Americans who should go back to where they came from.
Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 2:24 am GMT
As though the ziostate is a separate country from the Imperialist States of Amerikastan, instead of a parasitic twin. And as though the Imperialist States of Amerikastan is in any way innocent of the crimes of the ziostate.
Paw , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:28 am GMT
@getaclue Elites do not let anybody from the younger generation up , through filter. Old pensioners , even younger are political, pathetic amateurs.. Amateurs or worse. Daily declarations of never ending and growing up and up "Uber Love" for Israel means what ? Emptiness , absence of any ability ?

Looks like President and administrations become more and more lost and lost their way in our world ? Can not USA acts and even understand, on its own, what is going on around??

They push Iran and Russia together,after they did the same with China, Venezuela /with 6 millions of Columbians in there/, and Turkey, before.. USA lost Syria ..And what about Yemen ? At the same time they expose Israel, towards many dangerous developments in that area around .And in the whole world.. Negativity against Israel is growing..

They/together/ never solve and end, this horrible situation with Palestine.. Sanction are deadly weapon against all children and their future everywhere..Are the they blind ? As well ? Have They declared sanctions on their own sights ??

Colin Wright , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 4:35 am GMT
' And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are '

And if you need a good reason to not impeach Trump here it is: Mike Pence would become President.

Charles Martel , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:36 am GMT
What's that coming out of your ears, Mr. Giraldi?

Your ridiculous, TDS-fueled list of President Trump's alleged sins does not include a single high crime or misdemeanor. It merely states your despicable preference for a world run by Mohammedans and a country run by the likes of those Mohammedan Congress-snakes.

Repeat these words in front of your local imam -- hopefully as the blood spurts from a camel's throat on Eid; it earns you extra points and a delicious camel steak.

"There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet."

Until you do that, we will know that you lack the courage of your convictions.

WWebb , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
Question:

Would changing potus or any puppet make any real difference, at all, when the clear cancerous origin of the decline of the usa, and in fact, the entire western world is not completely eliminated?

With US Liberty, JFK, and 911 in mind, here is an opportunity to expose and eliminate.

Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal

The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.

by Whitney Webb

https://www.mintpressnews.com/category/epstein-investigation/

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:54 am GMT
"Hey, let's buy Greenland!", "Let's send a guy to Mars!". Swear to God, every day's a new adventure with this guy. The Gonzo Presidency, like going to Vegas with Hunter S. Thompson.
Ilya G Poimandres , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:59 am GMT
Ignoring someone is the strongest form of bullying. BDS is this stupid path that will lead to violence just like picking up a stick in the first place. The way to deal with Israel and the Empire is by demanding the declassification of all historical secrets, and having an open conversation. We haven't done this for a century as a society.

When that happens, it will become clear Israel has always been a colonial project of European and Jewish elites (at the top the %es warrant the statement), that human rights interventions have been designed with neo-colonial intentions in mind from the get-go (after all the creation of Israel was the first such neo-colony), and that the only way to solve this issue is through full on decolonisation.

niteranger , says: August 20, 2019 at 5:06 am GMT
Trump is an idiot and a puppet of Israel. Our Congress is controlled by Israel. Trump isn't Presidential is true. But Giraldi once again seems to be clueless of all the underhanded foreign policy games Obama played. Obama is a cool Crime Lord if there ever was one.

He is most likely a product of his mother and other relatives being in the CIA chain if you investigate thoroughly. The CIA and the other Intelligence agencies protected Obama because he let them do whatever they wanted. Obama's fiasco in Libya was covered up and according to my friends in the CIA is one the greatest foreign policy failures in American history. But Giraldi once again ignores this type of stuff.

America is a Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. Our leaders are just players in the game. Trump realizes he is not in charge of the foreign policy and most of the Intelligence Agencies have gone rogue. They answer to the Corporations of the World not to Nations. Just look at the debacle of the FBI and the Trump investigation. Who was in charge and what were they trying to do? They were trying to prevent Trump from becoming president and the NSA who were monitoring everything did what? Just like William Binney former NSA intelligence officer stated how far they have gone in their own game plan against the citizens of the USA.

Pence is also an idiot and nutbag ZioChristian. What Giraldi doesn't seem to understand is that even though Trump is an idiot etc. look at the Democrats and what does the populace see? For many they see that he is less evil than all the Democrats running.

Once again this seems like a rather naive analysis from someone with the credentials of Giraldi.

Wally , says: August 20, 2019 at 5:29 am GMT
@obwandiyag I wonder why Obama, the Clintons, Bush 1&2, etc. get no "good reasons to impeach" list.

Trump is small beer in comparison. Generally you do good work, Phil Giraldi, but this time your avoiding the big picture . while you ignore the 2016 alternative, Hillary.

Regards.

Mark James , says: August 20, 2019 at 5:58 am GMT
First I was glad to see Tlaib had the smarts to tell the Likudniks to pound sand with their new invitation. It would to me, quickly evolve into a fiasco (probably as soon as she got off her flight). Good move by the Rep. If this is a zero-sum game, she wins not Trump/Netanyahu.

I see no stomach for impeachment during the election cycle. As well as no chance for a senate conviction. Vile crook that he is, he was elected. Now it's up to voters to make that decision again. Yes on a personal level he's terrible but if we are lucky he won't do catastrophic damage. Like Bush.

# As an aside just a note on Sen. Gillibrand calling for forgiveness in the cases of Al Franken and Mark Halperin. The NY'er is a skilled politician but this is a bit too obvious. Would she be calling for second chances if their surnames were Smith and Jones? I don't think so. Not in the current atmosphere of 'me to.'
She was doing this to make amends for damage done to her among liberals and Jews. Not because she has second thoughts, about whether she was wrong about them initially.

Bardon Kaldian , says: August 20, 2019 at 6:29 am GMT
OK, who else instead of Trump? Crickets ..
Oleaginous Outrager , says: August 20, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT

To say the least, Trump is not presidential.

So what you're sayin', Phil, is we need more drone strikes.

Nicolás Palacios Navarro , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 7:29 am GMT
I agree with Mr. Giraldi entirely on this matter. Unfortunately, given that the Democratic Party is determined to present voters with less than reasonable alternatives, I am fully confident that we will be enjoying another four-year term with this imbecilic, Zionist bootlick as our head-of-state .
Olifant , says: August 20, 2019 at 7:38 am GMT
My take on Trump is that he knows something that not every politician knows: to bring down those who are the greatest threat to your country, you sometimes have to give them all they want and more, after which you'll shed crocodile tears at the news of their demise. Just give them more rope!
mark green , says: August 20, 2019 at 7:42 am GMT
Interesting article (as usual) by Philip Giraldi. I'm not sure that I'm ready to throw in the towel on Trump however -- though I'm getting close.

As for Trump, he is far more of a leader and independent thinker than his VP, so the idea of having Zio-devout, 'end-of-times' Pence take over for Trump seems rash.

But it is true that Trump -- like every President since LBJ -- has become an obsequious waterboy for the Zionist mafia. For me, this marks Trump's greatest failure. Wasn't he going to 'Make America Great Again'? How can a nation be great if it is not sovereign?

Trump is manifesting some of the usual, toxic symptoms and embracing some of the bizarre, extra-national 'values' that make a politician 'mainstream' in America.

These values include 1) eager capitulation to the Zionist community involving all 'matters of concern' to World Jewry, and 2) don't forget the first part.

These crypto-Zionist 'values' however cause immense and toxic distortions in US policies, our nation's intellectual climate, and American culture in general. This is no small matter. As a consequence, the issue of oversized Jewish influence in the West is not supposed to be addressed -- much less critically examined and dealt with.

If a problem cannot be addressed, how can it be understood and contained?

It can't.

... ... ...

Exhibiting a 'hostility' towards Israel or discharging a virulent 'whiff' of anti-Semitism can easily become a political death sentence. This is power. This is Jewish-Israeli power.

Americans exist in a heavily monitored, strategically censored, post-Holocaust, pro-Zionist, white-guilt-tripping, fabricated kosher wonderland. Therefore, do say the right thing. Never say the wrong thing. Never. Indelicate speech has how been criminalized. That's BAD.

Preemptive bombing and wholesale annihilation on the other hand has been sanctified. Democracy! It's all very strange and twisted. But perfectly normal now.

If nothing else, 'reckless and insane' Trump's steady and deliberate subservience to the Zionist establishment proves how astonishingly powerful they are.

Anonymous [172] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 8:31 am GMT

Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world, but how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?

You've answered your own question. A guy with interesting views about the end of the world probably shouldn't be put in a position where he could actually end it.

Lot , says: August 20, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
@A123 Giraldi shows that ultimately anti-Semite nutcases will always side with America's enemies as long as they attack Israel.

Turning Minnesota into New Somalia he doesn't care, Ilhan Omar is solid on the JQ!

22pp22 , says: August 20, 2019 at 8:46 am GMT
With any other president but Trump, you would be doing Israel's fighting in Iran RIGHT NOW.
The Alarmist , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:02 am GMT

I believe that threshold has finally been crossed. It was crossed last Thursday when President Trump telephoned either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or some other senior Israeli government official before, one hour later, tweeting the following .

Not a crime, not an impeachable offence.

The other perspective, and why the president should be impeached, is that Trump's decision was, as usual, to propagate a disgusting and deliberate lie

Impeaching a politician for lying; now that's rich!

that is also extremely damaging to actual United States interests as well as to our form of government.

Trump would be at the end of a very long line if you are talking about his collaboration with Israel.

beneath the dignity of the Office of the President.

Still no crime or impeachable offence there. Dignity of the Office of the President? The Rubicon was crossed a long time ago.

And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are .

Business as usual for US Presidents for at least 70 years, perhaps at least 120 years. Under the principles of equity, these would not justify impeachment.

anarchyst , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:32 am GMT
I must disagree with Mr. Giraldi on this one. Trump is smart like a fox. He KNOWS the machinations and dirty dealings of the jews as he has had to deal with jews all of his life. There is a saying: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". It is possible that Trump is doing just that.

Trump KNOWS that the "deep state" is real and has "eliminated" those who do not "toe the line" and is smart enough to know that. Trump's "weak spot" is the appointment of his son-in-law Kushner to handle his "foreign policy" arrangements. All in all, Trump IS "getting things done".

Mark James , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:53 am GMT
@22pp22

With any other president but Trump, you would be doing Israel's fighting

I really hate to admit this but you may be correct. I do think Trump is anti-war. But he's too erratic and nobody should trust him. Netanyahu is gaming him but I don't think he trusts Trump either. Bottom line is Trump doesn't think spending the money is worth it and not even the Israel lobby can convince him (we hope). Bottom line is everyone who deals with him thinks he's nuts. Sooner or later that's going to catch up and bite us.

Anonymous [172] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:56 am GMT
@Olifant So that's how 44D chess is played? You give the enemy so much support and resources that they just seize up from all the goodies? Sounds legit.

Man, I wish I was smart enough to play on that level.

Sean Breathnach , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:05 am GMT
@Rich Yes I agree, it's all about the Benjamin's. Neither of the two women are anti-white or anti-American but it sounds like you in fact are a racist, just like Trump.
Realist , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:07 am GMT
@anarchyst

All in all, Trump IS "getting things done".

All in all, the Deep State IS "getting things done". FIFY. Trump like most elected officials serves at the pleasure of the Deep State.

Amon , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:09 am GMT
Holy smokes is there a lot of MAGA boomers railing in defence of Trump. The orange clown should have been booted out of office on the very day he invited the swamp to infest his government.
Amon , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:13 am GMT
@Olifant The only thing Trump knows is how to obey his jewish handler(Jared) and his daughter.

Would not surprise me if Orange Clown and Epstein had fun with Ivanka on a joint fligth decades ago.

Kolya Krassotkin , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:18 am GMT
@restless94110 Add Bush I to your list of un-presidential Presidents. As to the Mooch, every time I see him on TV, I change the channel.

We already have Andy and Chris Cuomo: Two goombahs are company, three a crowd.

Whitewolf , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:33 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

OK, who else instead of Trump? Crickets ..

That lapdog Guido or whatever his name is that they had lined up for Venezuela? He's already house trained so it would be a smooth transition.

BuelahMan , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:00 am GMT
@Olifant It is this idiotic hope that puts you on equal footing with any Clintonista, Bushie, Obama Maniac or Drumpfter.

They are all the same idiotic "believers". No. Trump is owned lock, stock and barrel by Chabad sect. To suggest anything different is foolish or obvious deception.

Antares , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
This is why I'm happy with Trump:

-- France wants cooperation with Russia.
-- Germany wants cooperation with Russia.
-- Russia should rejoin G8, according to these European countries.

-- American's hubris is now plain to see for everyone.
-- Israel's hubris is now plain to see for everyone.

-- We are not going to buy expensive American LNG.
-- Our gas will not flow through Ukraine.

Before Trump this was unthinkable! I don't know how that would work out with Pence. Changing foolishness for pure evil is risky. Please let us hate Trump but don't get rid of him!

Herald , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:13 am GMT
@Wally What is the point of giving reasons to impeach the Clintons and Bushes, when it is Trump who is the incumbent of the White House? Your post makes absolutely no sense and seems little more than a feeble attempt at giving cover in regard to Trump's erratic behaviour.
Exile , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:32 am GMT
Trump letting the neocons back into the White House, particularly giving the egregious Bolton the NSA chair, was a much more momentous event than mean tweets or interference in the Squad Qwainz travel plans. Syria and Iran sabre-rattling and ham-fisted destabilization efforts in Venezuela and Hong Kong are a lot worse than this as well. None of it is impeachment-worthy.

Phil's venting here. No one's more critical of Trump's Zio-cucking than I am, but talking about impeachment over this or any of the other aggregate offenses he lists isn't serious. Phil's not writing a Hopkins Russiagate /sarc piece but it comes across like one.

The entire US Congress is Israeli-occupied territory (h/t Pat Buchanan). Mossad's latest blackmailer of America's Davos-tier was just strangled to death in custody. If Zio-cuckery is impeachable, we might as well call a new constitutional convention and send all three branches packing. That's the ugly truth and worrying over the Qwainz is just a trivial sideshow distraction for the cucks and anti-cucks alike.

Anon [382] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
November 2020 is roughly 15 months away. I watched a Trump rally on Fox the other night. He was sharp as a razor. Even when speaking impromptu on a few subjects, he didn't misspeak or struggle for or with words. One might not like a great deal of what he does, but he is quite in control of his faculties.
Barnaby , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT
@Kelso Agreed. Tulsi needs to get off the fence and make a clear statement regarding Israel and her own plans, if any, to deal with Zionist influence on the US gov.
Bill Jones , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT
Ah, Phillip, You know damn well that starting wars is one thing that guarantees no impeachment. Israel is the other.
RoatanBill , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:23 pm GMT
It's not President Trump that needs impeaching, it's the entire Federal Government that should be excised from the planet. It's the system, not any particular individual that's the real problem. It's the concentration of power and the usurpation of control by unelected bureaucrats commonly referred to as the 'deep state' that threatens the entire world.

"The way to get rid of corruption in high places is to get rid of high places." -- Frank Chodorov

Get rid of Trump and a new moron will take his place. We need to get rid of the Nancy Pelosi's and the Chuck Shumer's along with the monstrosities like the NSA, CIA, Air Force, Army, Raytheon, etc so the people of the 50 states can separately decide on how they want to proceed. It is the monopoly of the Fed Gov that's the real problem not any particular pinhead.

Kirt , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT
Impeachment is inherently political and there are plenty of good reasons to impeach Trump as there were to impeach Obama, Bush II, Clinton and for that matter such all time greats as Lincoln and FDR. There are better reasons not to impeach him. If impeachment fails it paves the way for a backlash that would lead to Trump's re-election by a landslide and more subservience to Israel than ever.

If it succeeds, he is followed by Pence and more subservience to Israel than ever. And if a Democrat other than Tulsi Gabbard gets elected in 2020, keep in mind that the Democratic establishment is solidly pro-Israel as well. Only among some of the Democratic rank-and-file is there any opposition to doing the bidding of the Israeli government.

therevolutionwas , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT
Pence could be much worse than Trump; he could be Trump unleashed to do what Trump only threatened. Trump is just the tail of the dog anyway. It is the power of the deep state that needs to be diminished, and there are many peaceful ways to accomplish that.
DESERT FOX , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:50 pm GMT
Trump is a wholly owned promoter of zionism and a puppet of the zionists who has sold out America and Americans who thought they were getting a change from the warmongers and the MIC and the zionist control over the zio/US government only to find they elected a Trojan Horse of zionism who will do anything his zionist overlords tell him to do.

JFK was the last patriot POTUS and that is why he was shot in full view of the American people, shot as an example that the satanic overlords of America were still in charge!

If interested read the book JFK, the CIA and Vietnam by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, can be had on amazon.

anon [393] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:54 pm GMT
@Lot Attacking Israel involves attacking the system which supports Israel. It is 1 pragmatic . It is 2 moral and 3 ethical to do so when it is found out that these forces have been lassoed roped penned and put into serving parasitic Israel 24/7 . At least the offspring of the skates will have a better future .

Don't you agree a lot and not only to 123 .

anon [393] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:55 pm GMT
@Charles Martel I told you not to read that Scofield Bible again but you didn't listen . Not only that you also sat down bowed head listening to fat misshaped Hagee in your local CUFI outlet . Don't do that . Get some crayons and start drawing Star of David on your viagra worked dick . There is Canadian nurse who I knew in Detroit , used to talk a lot about My Brothers Keeper . May be she also knew the real keeper Epstein . Lot of kept .
Moi , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@obwandiyag Come to think of it, Trump is a perfect president for a violently insane and amoral nation. Sweet Lord Yeshua!
Charles , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
No one (who I ever hear or read) who claims Trump should be impeached knows what that even means. Similarly to being indicted, being impeached means a political figure stands trial. Being impeached guarantees nothing -- Bill Clinton was impeached and naturally it turned into a farce, whether he was provably guilty of what he was accused or not. Even more importantly there's the little matter of having a REASON to impeach. Hating an individual -- even when that person is an oddball, as is certainly the case with Trump -- because that person behaves eccentrically in your eyes is not and never will be "impeachable".
Anon [300] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:04 pm GMT
Phil, here's the thing: on the evil scale of 1 to 10 Trump is a 9.5, but everyone else around him is a 9.9 or 10. So we are stuck with the fool for now.
anon [393] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:09 pm GMT
Accidental war is possible but the trend is towards more shouting and screaming followed by climb down. Unless Pompeo fat or Bolton walrus drown accidentally or intentionally in some Israeli supplied water , war remains a possibility , Even the frowning might not help . It can be blamed on Iran . Israel might supply the water if it feels Pomeo might get tired of being told what to do and start telling the truth behind war against Iran .

The real concern is recession . If that hurts Trump's re-election , he might do something stupid . He might buy the water from Israel with trillions of dollars ( just the advice on how to initiate the war against Iran but AIPAC-Likud charges for that ) and drown the USA . There is no climbdown. Iran will be in ruins . Trump will be the president . America has seen it's last president .

Another ' Richard Pearle ' will say to Americans "Pompeo and Bolton didn't do the job and Neither Trump did as was told . They didn't listen . We tried to help but they couldn't carry out . They are not Roosevelt Churchill or Reagan . We were mistaken , "

Paul Bustion , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:20 pm GMT
Trump has not broken any laws, even though his behavior is inappropriate. Even if he colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, he did not break any laws in doing so. Even though his collaboration with Israel is inappropriate, he did not break any laws in collaborating. Neither in the case of collaborating with Russia nor with Israel did he commit treason against the USA or accept illegal campaign contributions from their governments, which would be the only way the collaboration would be illegal. So there is no legal basis on which to impeach him. Additionally, there is a principle of sovereign immunity that, in fact if not in theory, has some limited application to the president, it would not be possible to successfully remove a president from office, even if he was guilty of a crime, unless it was an extremely serious one. So trying to impeach Trump would be a complete waste of time. Impeaching Trump would be even more ridiculous than impeaching Clinton was.
War for Blair Mountain , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:21 pm GMT
And the CANNON FODDER occupation of the shithole Afghanistan will continue apace during the reign of the OLD FARTING BOOMER GRANNY POTUS Elizabeth Warren .on the advice of Irish Skank Samantha Powers and the midget mulato negro Susan Rice .
Hossein , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMT
Sorry you Goys are all doomed. The next president ,Democrat or the orangegutan will continue to bow before the real emperor, Netanyahu.

The only way to get rid of virus of Zionism is to implement a real American constitutional government where loyalty will be 100% to the US and not to foriegn governments. Best of luck to all of you Goys.

nsa , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT
@Hossein "Best of luck to all of you Goys" New improved motto for the hapless MAGAstinians ..Make America Goy Again.
follyofwar , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:05 pm GMT
@Wally I concur, Wally, exept for your use of the term "small beer." Love him or hate him, there's nothing small beer about Mr. Trump.

It seems to me that those advocating for Trump's impeachment could, unwittingly, guarantee his re-election. Most, I think, don't like a legally elected president to be impeached over policy differences. Using that criteria, every president could be impeached.

Mr. Giraldi asks if VP Pence could "possibly be worse than Donald Trump." Emphatically I say that he not only COULD be, but quite likely WOULD be. One example: Trump should have never sent such a huge naval presence into the Persian Gulf, but, who knows, Pence may have done so even sooner. And, after that Iranian shoot down of the US drone, would Pence, an Israel-first neocon in good standing, have held back from retaliating?

Lastly, I find it a little odd that Mr. Giraldi uses the Omar/Tlaib incident as grounds for impeachment. Trump was ill-advised to say what he did (sadly a nearly daily occurrence), but that seems like a minor incident, similar in severity to the republicans ridiculous attempt to impeach Clinton over lying about Lewinsky's semen stained blue dress. The easy way to get rid of Trump is the way this country usually does it -- vote him out of office at the ballot box, not make him a martyr by trying to get rid of him a few months before next November's election. Besides, the Senate will never convict.

DESERT FOX , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:16 pm GMT
In regards to impeachment, we patriots are screwed, Pence is just as bad as Trump , and in regards to the elections for POTUS , the demon-rats and the republi-cons are the same zionist controlled bullshit, until Americans wake up to that fact, nothing will change. The demon-rats are the zio/US version of the bolsheviks and the republi-cons are a farce!
wayfarer , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:17 pm GMT
Israel, the rich selfish beggar nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Boy

rich: abundant possessions, especially material wealth.
selfish: unquiet with one's own well-being without regard for others.
beggar: one who lives by asking for gifts or charity.

anon [401] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
Netanyahu asked US lawmakers in June to condemn Tlaib, Omar for BDS support. In missive to Democratic leaders predating row over ban, Netanyahu wrote that the congresswomen were the 'antithesis to strong support for Israel' https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-asked-us-lawmakers-to-condemn-tlaib-omar-for-bds-support-in-june/

Now Trump has done more for Israel as per request of Israel, US media and some in Israeli media are blaming Trump for wrecking"bipartisan support" to Israel and for endangering "special relationship"

Thats the way Zionist work . They prod they force they bribe or blackmail and get the things done .Then they blame the perpetrator for doing what Israel has been asking them them do.

Iran war will be another example of 'wrecking bipartisan relationship" or "special relationship being endangered " by the Zionist media because of the danger of Israel would be pointed out correctly to be the mastermind to be the payer to be the controller to be the open and only figure forcing some corrupt lawmakers do it

Charles Martel , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:38 pm GMT
@anon Warning: prions in camel steaks have an adverse effect on peoples' brains to the extent that they can't frame a coherent thought. Lay off the steaks!

Meanwhile, here's a little Eid present for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkS2f3DyDr4

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT
@therevolutionwas "It is the power of the deep state that needs to be diminished, and there are many peaceful ways to accomplish that."

Enlighten us, please!

Buzz Baldrin , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
Haven't you Bush-Cheney-Trump Republicans noticed that every four years Americans rent a pig in a poke for the next four years.

Four years later, the voters can extend the rental or rent a new pig.

No accountability, other than impeachment, which like the presidential election, is political.

By impeaching Sheldon Adelson's pet pig, Americans hold the Bitter Twitter accountable for risking an accidental or insane nuclear exchange with Russia. Hold him accountable for exploding the national debt to create an asset bubble for the finance racket. And hold him accountable for flooding the country with legal and illegal immigrants and prisoners released to keep up with the Kardashians.

That's why Philip Giraldi is right about impeachment. Where his critics show their ignorance is their certainty that the process automatically leads to Pence. It could easily lead to the Nixon alternative. The bipartisan impeachment of Nixon was the last step of a negotiated deal as Watergate unfolded. First Agnew resigned. Then Nixon and the House made Gerald Ford vice president. "We gave Nixon no choice but Ford," House Speaker Carl Albert recalled later (Ford's Wikipedia page).

In the last act, Tricky Dick resigned in return for a pardon. The danger of Pence begs for a similar outcome.

Wally , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT
@follyofwar Thanks.

-- Comparatively speaking, Trump is indeed small beer next to the warmongering of Hillary 'forcefully ending the Russian presense in Syria' Clinton, for example.

-- And while Trump blusters about places like Iran, he's nowhere close to McCain school of 'attack now, ask questions later'.

-- Trump's "sending" of naval forces is hardly the same as actually attacking with those forces.

-- BTW, the impeachment of Clinton was based upon his lying under oath concerning his sexual abuse of Gennifer Flowers, not about his semen on Lewinsky.

-- Trump's re-election is guaranteed. Hell, he now has a +50% rating with Hispanics and there are more & more some blacks who are tired of being on the neo-Marxist plantation and are seeing through their game.

Che Guava , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:10 pm GMT
Well Doc Giraldi, as an outsider, I understand your disgust and change of tack. However, although I don't know about Tlaib, she seems rather sensible, unlike her three insane allies. Also, Omar is a multiple violator of your U.S. immigration law. That is a fact. Easy to ascertain. It is only by many others of the same stripe being dumped in the same area, many also liars, and I would not doubt, many voters intimidated by people with whom she is conected (the large Somali population dumped there and/or brainwashing, from mainly Jewish sources) other voters had no say in her election.

So. impeach Trump on the grounds you state, it would be great for your USA. It would never be permitted. He is the greatest dupe of your colonial masters in Israel to date. You would know that. Likewise, ejection of Omar from her seat and deportation for immigration fraud are perfectly legal and sane, and will never happen.

Ragno , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
I must have missed the part where Giraldi offered up a list of replacement politicians who, as President, who could be relied upon to put illegal immigration on the front burner (until Trump, that was a grand total of ZERO) ..rework the insane, suicidal sweetheart deal we had previously arranged with China .and could credibly give Israel and its countless agents, apologists and apparatchiks throughout the West, what-for.

All things considered, two out of three ain't bad.

Hey, nobody (except the neverTrumpers who intend to shit all over him and his family the very moment he's out of office, the same as any michaelmoore would) is happy about Trump's kowtowing to Team Shmuel certainly nobody in his "base" is crazy about this setup .but I have the oddest feeling that Trump assiduously licks those Hebraic hindquarters as the Cost of Doing Business (ie, the only reliable Assassination Insurance an American President can hope to purchase).

In the end, it's all about the art of the deal; and from Robert Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein and all points between, history tells us that the greatest ability any power-broker can demonstrate is survivability . Ask Bubba.

Priss Factor , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 3:12 pm GMT
Trump and his opponents are all scum. Trump is a 'racist' in the sense that he favors Zionist supremacism over the much-oppressed Palestinians. He also praises criminal blacks while having done nothing for whites. But of course, NYT is okay with Trump's pro-Zionist bigotry.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ydD8HagdO9U?feature=oembed

Zumbuddi , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT
@Buzz Baldrin As I type this I am listening to Mike Pence lead an all-star cast to discuss the Trump-PENCE space initiative (s), including the 6th branch of DoD, the Space Force.

It should be excitin g but it is terrifying: DoD is "unified" with the intelligence agencies & space force -- to ensure a total, space-based surveillance state.

US will collaborate "with its allies" -- i.e. Israel. Pence's quasi-religious delusions, and the broadly shared Abrahamic ideology: that Abrahamics possess the RIGHT idea, and have not only the RIGHT but the obligation to impose that ideology on all mankind -- will have at his ready access the most powerful & intrusive technology.
Those technologies will be militarized.

It would be a mistake to misunderestimate the ambition, cunning, and delusional vision of Mike Pence.

Precious , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:26 pm GMT
@Realist "Trump like most elected officials serves at the pleasure of the Deep State." If that were true, there would have been no Spygate coup. The Deep State doesn't quite have the lock on US elections you think it does.
Germanicus , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:33 pm GMT
I am actually thinking, Trump is a true gift. He keeps showing the US unmasked, raw, vile and criminal as it is, and in good company with the criminal jewish entity.
What has been done for decades, masked and filtered away as democracy BS, freedom defending BS, "american values" aka corruption, intimidation and threats, is becoming under Trump just blatantly obvious for every one to see. The US administration are a mafia, a crime syndicate that spreads tumors with its military.
Robjil , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:37 pm GMT
@Bill Jones The attempted impeachment of Clinton was timed around the talk of war against Yugoslavia. He wasn't impeached.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/was-bill-clinton-impeached

With television cameras rolling, on February 12, 1999 the whole world watched as the senators stood up to vote inside the chamber. 55 Senators voted "not guilty" on the charge of perjury. The Senate split 50/50 against Clinton when it came to the charge of obstruction of justice. This meant that the 2/3 majority was not achieved, the President was acquitted and allowed to serve out the rest of his term of office up until January 2001.

A month later and twelve days after his get of Dodge card was given to him, the war on Yugoslavia was put in place.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-s-war-of-aggression-in-yugoslavia-who-are-the-war-criminals/2144

Twenty years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. "The operation was code-named "Allied Force " -- a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker" according to Nebosja Malic.

Impeachment is the branding rode for Z Puppet Presidents by the our warmongering ZUS rulers. Our "presidents" are treated like cattle too, just like us little people.

[Aug 20, 2019] Something about Trump impeachment

Aug 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bill Jones , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT

Ah, Phillip, You know damn well that starting wars is one thing that guarantees no impeachment ;-). Israel is the other.

[Aug 20, 2019] Tulsi A Living Reminder of Iraq s Liars and Apologists by David Masciotra

Notable quotes:
"... Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them. ..."
"... The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best." That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history. ..."
"... As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion. ..."
"... Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before." ..."
"... The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans. ..."
"... As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq. ..."
"... Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security." He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous, to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question. ..."
"... The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes? ..."
"... Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic war. ..."
Aug 02, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them.

Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American military personnel perished in the war. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, toxicologist at the University of Michigan, has organized several research expeditions to Iraq to measure the contamination and pollution still poisoning the air and water supply from the tons of munitions dropped during the war. It does not require any expertise to assume what the studies confirm: disease is still widespread and birth defects are gruesomely common. Back home, it is difficult to measure just how many struggle with critical injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best." That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history.

As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion.

Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before."

The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans.

As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq.

Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security." He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous, to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question.

Far worse than the worship of Mueller is the refusal to scrutinize the abysmal foreign policy record of Joe Biden, currently the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Of the Democrats in the Senate at that time, Biden was the most enthusiastic of the cheerleaders for war, waving his pompoms and cartwheeling in rhythm to Dick Cheney's music. Biden said repeatedly that America had "no choice but to eliminate the threat" posed by Saddam Hussein. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his blustering was uniquely influential.

The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes?

Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic war.

Polling well below Biden in the race is the congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. She alone on the Democratic stage has made criticism of American militarism central to her candidacy. A veteran of the Iraq war and a highly decorated major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, Gabbard offers an intelligent and humane perspective on foreign affairs. She's called the regime change philosophy "disastrous," advocated for negotiation with hostile foreign powers, and backed a reduction in drone strikes. She pledges if she becomes president to end American involvement in Afghanistan.

When Chris Matthews asked Gabbard about Biden's support for the Iraq war, she said, "It was the wrong vote. People like myself, who enlisted after 9/11 because of the terrorist attacks, were lied to. We were betrayed."

Her moral clarity is rare in the political fog of the presidential circus. She cautions against accepting the "guise of humanitarian justification for war," and notes that rarely does the American government bomb and invade a country to actually advance freedom or protect human rights.

Gabbard's positions are vastly superior to that of the other young veteran in the race, Pete Buttigieg. The mayor of South Bend recently told New York that one of his favorite novels is The Quiet American , saying that its author, Graham Greene, "points out the dangers of well-intentioned interventions."

Buttigieg's chances of winning the nomination seem low, and his prospects of becoming a literary critic appear even lower. The Quiet American does much more than raise questions about interventions: it is a merciless condemnation of American exceptionalism and its attendant indifference to Vietnamese suffering.

Americans hoping for peace won't find much comfort in the current White House either. President Trump has made the world more dangerous by trashing the Iran nuclear deal, and his appointment of John Bolton, a man who makes Donald Rumsfeld look like Mahatma Gandhi, as national security advisor is certainly alarming.

America's willful ignorance when it comes to the use of its own military exposes the moral bankruptcy at the heart of its political culture. Even worse, it makes future wars all but inevitable.

If no one can remember a war that ended merely nine years ago, and there's little room for Tulsi Gabbard in the Democratic primary, how will the country react the next time a president, and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declare that they have no choice but to remove a threat?

Norman Solomon, journalist and founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, knows the answer to that question. He provides it in the title of his book on how the media treats American foreign policy decisions: War Made Easy .

David Masciotra is the author of four books, including Mellencamp: American Troubadour (University Press of Kentucky) and Barack Obama: Invisible Man (Eyewear Publishing).

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Walter a day ago

Where ae the people who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Should they be tried for lying to the American public? 4500 troops killed and over $1.1 TRILLION wasted with no good results .With hundreds of thousands of Iraq's killed. .
Clyde Schechter Walter a day ago
Where are they, indeed? They are still running US foreign policy; that's where they are. They are pundits in all the major media; that's where they are.

I cannot even imagine what historians will say about the uncanny persistence of these charlatans' influence in this era after a consistent record of disastrous, abysmal misadventures.

JeffK from PA Walter 17 hours ago
You don't have to look too hard to find them. Bolton, Pompeo, and other neocons are hiding in plain sight. The Military Industrial Complex is embedded in our foreign policy like a tick on a dog.
Sid Finster JeffK from PA 13 hours ago
Why not start with Bush and Blair?
IanDakar Sid Finster 10 hours ago
Because you'd be knocking out a storm trooper instead of the emperor, at least as far as Bush goes. Same for why the focus is on Bolton rather than simply Trump.

I CAN see an argument that Trump/Bush knew what they were doing when they brought those people in though. f you feel that way and see it more of an owner of a hostile attack dog then yeah, you'd want to include those two too.

JeffK from PA Sid Finster 10 hours ago
Cheney. Pure evil.
Sid Finster Walter 13 hours ago
Nuremberg provides an instructive precedent. Start at the top with Bush and Blair keep going on down.
Disqus10021 Sid Finster 11 hours ago
Recommended viewing: the 1961 movie "Judgment at Nuremberg".
L Walter 12 hours ago
One might wonder where that intelligence was gathered, and then maybe we could find out why these wars have been happening.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) a day ago
Here stands Tulsi. A woman, who, unlike their conventional troupe, can win this election. They reject her because... what? Moar war? She's not the member of the Cult? Or it's simply some sort of collective political death wish?
Anonne Alex (the one that likes Ike) 12 hours ago
They reject her because she had the temerity to speak truth to power and supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 race. She stepped down from her position as Vice Chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders. She has real courage, and earned their wrath. She's not perfect but she's braver and stronger than almost the entire field. Only Bernie is on par.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) Anonne 9 hours ago
And Bernie is the one they also hate, maybe a little bit less openly. Thus they reject those who can win the election. It's either a self-destructiveness or they think that it's better to keep on losing than to rebuild the party into what it needs to be.
Nelson Alex (the one that likes Ike) 8 hours ago
What do you mean "they"? Anyone is free to support her campaign.
former-vet a day ago • edited
Democrats and the Republican establishment, both, love war. It wasn't a coincidence that Hillary Clinton chose Madeleine Albright to be a keynote speaker at "her" party convention ("we think the deaths of a half million children are worth it"). Liberals know that there isn't really any "free" free, and that taxing the rich won't match their dreams -- it is the blood and bones of innocent foreigners that must pay for their lust. Establishment Republicans are more straightforward: they simply profit off the death and destruction.

This is why Trump is being destroyed, and why Tulsi is attacked. If only "she" (the one who gloated over Khameni's murder) had been elected, we'd be in a proxy war with Russia now! A real war with Iran! This is what the American people want, and what they'll likely get when they vote another chicken-hawk in come 2020.

Sid Finster former-vet 13 hours ago
Agree, except that Trump is not governing as a non-interventionist.

About the only thing one can say is that his is a slightly less reckless militarist than what the political class in this country wants.

Nelson former-vet 8 hours ago
Khameni is still alive. You're thinking of Gaddafi.
Fayez Abedaziz a day ago
Tulsi, like Sanders is a 'danger' to everything Israel wants.
So, all...all the main 'news' networks and online sites don't like them and give more coverage to the same old Dem bull peddlers like ignorant Booker and the lousy opportunist low IQ Kamala Harris and Gillibrand.
TomG 17 hours ago • edited
Manafort and his ilk can be tried and convicted for their lies. I guess if the lie is big enough we grant a pass on any need for prosecution. Justice for all? I don't think so.

Max Blumenthal posted a powerful piece at Consortium News (7/31/2019) about Biden's central and south American mis-adventures. Biden still extols his own policies however disastrous. The hubris of the man is worse than nauseating.

Great article, Mr. Masciotra.

OrvilleBerry 14 hours ago
Whether one thinks Gabbard has a shot at the nomination or not, it's important to keep her on the stage in the next round of debates. Go to Tulsi2020.com and give her just one dollar (or more if you can)
so she has enough unique contributors to make the next round. And if you get polled,early on give her your vote.
Strawman 12 hours ago
The moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic war.

Perfectly encapsulates the collective puerility of the American electorate. Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his grave.

Disqus10021 12 hours ago • edited
The total US costs related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to be considerably larger than $1.1 trillion, according to this study:
https://www.hks.harvard.edu...
Try $4-$6 trillion, according to the author of the study.

Long after I, Andrew Bacevitch and Hillary Clinton have gone to our reward, there will still be thousands of wounded warriors from these US Middle East adventures dependent on VA benefits for their survival and competing with civilian seniors for government handouts. A war with Iran would make the US fiscal situation that much worse.

The religious folks who were so anxious to protect family values only a few years ago seem to have their heads in the sand when it comes to the financial future of today's young Americans.

A few weeks ago, I made a token contribution to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign to help her qualify for the July Democratic debates. She will need more new contributors to qualify for the next round of debates.

david 12 hours ago
"The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago,..."

Ahh..., really? So why do we still have over 5000 soldiers in Iraq?

christopher kelly police ret. 11 hours ago
Tulsi was marvelous in knocking out Harris.
Zsuzsi Kruska 10 hours ago
Tulsi hasn't a chance of the nomination, but she's exposing things and maybe more people will get a clue about what's really going on with American lives and taxes being squandered for the profit of the few who benefit from these atrocities and wars abroad, done in the name of all Americans.
Eric 10 hours ago
Donated my $3 to Tulsi yesterday. She's the only Democrat I would vote for and she needs to stay in this race as long as possible.
Steve Naidamast 10 hours ago
Being a supporter of Tulsi Gabbard for the very reasons that the author writes, has me agreeing with everything he has promoted in his piece.

However, to answer his own question as to why Americans are lured into commenting on such innocuous and foolish things in such an important election such as Biden's touching of women, is answered by the author's own prose.

He states that Americans are only provided such nonsense from the press that is monitoring the election process. What else can people talk about? And even if many Americans are clearheaded enough to understand the charade of the current Democratic debates, what or who will actually provide legitimate coverage with the exception of online sites as the American Conservative, among others?

If most Americans were actually thinking individuals, Tulsi Gabbard would be a shoo-in for the presidency in 2020. However, given the two factors of a highly corrupted mainstream press and too many Americans not studying enough civics to understand what is going on around them, it is highly unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard will even get close to the possibility of being nominated...

JeffK from PA 10 hours ago
Cheney, mentioned in the article, was pure evil. I voted for GB2 for two reasons. 1) He was a very good Texas governor. He actually got anti-tax Texas to raise taxes dedicated to support education, in return for stricter standards for teachers. A good trade since Texas public schools were awful. 2) Dick Cheney. I thought he was the adult in the room that would provide steady and reliable guidance for Bush.

Boy was I wrong about Cheney. "Deficits don't matter". Just watch the movie Vice. Christian Bale does an incredible job portraying the pure evil of Cheney and the Military Industrial Complex. The movie is chilling to watch. And it is basically true. Politifact does a good job of scoring the accuracy of Cheney's role in the Bush administration as portrayed in the movie.

https://www.politifact.com/...

Mccormick47 10 hours ago
The trouble is, Conservatives promoting Gabbard and Williamson as their preferred candidates poisons their chances of staying in the race.
Mark Thomason 9 hours ago
I remember a friend of mine, a proud Marine, saying before the Iraq War, "Well, they better find some WMD for all this."

They didn't. That should matter.

[Aug 19, 2019] Trump's Foreign Policy All Coercion, No Diplomacy

Aug 19, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Trump's Foreign Policy: All Coercion, No Diplomacy By Daniel Larison August 19, 2019, 1:54 PM

U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, President Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton at the NATO Foreign Ministerial in Brussels, Belgium on July 12, 2018. [State Department photo/ Public Domain] Matt Lee reports on the Trump administration obsessive use of sanctions:

Call it the diplomacy of coercion.

The Trump administration is aggressively pursuing economic sanctions as a primary foreign policy tool to an extent unseen in decades, or perhaps ever. Many are questioning the results even as officials insist the penalties are achieving their aims.

It is true that the Trump administration is using economic coercion as its default approach to almost everything, but there doesn't appear to be any diplomacy involved. There is such a thing as "coercive diplomacy," but there is no evidence that Trump and his officials understand the first thing about it. An administration that genuinely wanted to secure lasting diplomatic agreements with other states would apply pressure only as a means to a specific, achievable goal, but with this administration they are waging purely destructive economic wars that the targeted states cannot end without capitulating. The "maximum pressure" description implies an unwillingness to relieve pressure short of the other side's surrender.

It is not just that it is a "combination of more sticks and fewer carrots." The Trump administration's policies are all punishment and no reward. In the case of Iran, it could hardly be otherwise when the administration chose to penalize Iran with sanctions for daring to comply with a multilateral nonproliferation agreement. Iran behaved constructively and acceded to the demands of the P5+1 four years ago, and in return for their cooperation they have been subjected to a grueling economic war despite fully complying with their commitments. When our government punishes another state for doing what previous administrations wanted them to do, no amount of punishment could force that state to trust our government a second time.

The administration approaches each case in the same way: they impose penalties, they make threats, they offer no incentives, and they make outrageous, far-fetched demands that no government would ever accept. Trump handles the trade wars in much the same way that he handles the "maximum pressure" campaigns against intransigent governments, and he fails every time because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement and therefore refuses to compromise. Trump's "diplomacy" is no diplomacy at all, but a series of insults, sanctions, tariffs, and threats that achieve nothing except to cause disruption and pain. Unsurprisingly, a pressure campaign that is aimed at toppling a government or forcing it to give up everything it has cannot be successful on its own terms as long as the targeted government chooses to resist, and the stakes for the targeted government will always higher than they are for the administration. In a contest of wills, the party that is fighting to preserve itself has the advantage.

[Aug 19, 2019] War Party Hates Putin Loves al-Qaeda by Justin Raimondo

Late Justin Raimondo was an astute analyst of events in Syria... This is his analysys from 2015. It is still cogent as of August 2019.
Notable quotes:
"... "War on terrorism" turns into cold war against Russia ..."
"... By the way, according to the Pentagon's own testimony before a congressional committee, only sixty "vetted" fighters were sent into Syria to take on both Assad and ISIS. And while they denied, at first, that their pet "moderates" betrayed Washington and handed over most of their weapons and other equipment to al-Qaeda in return for "safe passage," the Pentagon later admitted it . ..."
"... [I]t is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade ..."
"... It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you'll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them. ..."
"... "I'd like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it's a big question: who's playing who here? The recent incident where the most 'moderate' opposition group handed over their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that. ..."
Oct 02, 2015 | original.antiwar.com

"War on terrorism" turns into cold war against Russia

Posted on August 19, 2019 August 18, 2019 In both Yemen and Syria, the War Party has found an ally that they can get behind, you know, one that really supports our values: al-Qaeda. From time to time they have even managed to get President Trump to go along with this nonsense – presumably due to the baleful influence of John Bolton. (See Ron Paul's recent discussion of recent developments.) It is worth a look back at an earlier high-points in this strange alliance between the West and al-Qaeda against Russia and Syria. Justin's column from four years ago (October 2, 2015) analyzes it in depth.

Originally published October 2, 2015

As Russian fighter jets target al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, the Western media is up in arms – and in denial . They deny the Russians are taking on ISIS – and they are indignant that Putin is targeting al-Qaeda , which is almost never referred to by its actual name, but is instead described as " al-Nusra ," or the more inclusive " Army of Conquest ," which are alternate names for the heirs of Osama bin Laden.

And there are no ideological lines being drawn in this information war: both the left and the right – e.g. the left-liberal Vox and the Fox News network – are utilizing a map put out by the neoconservative "Institute for the Study of War" to "prove" that Putin isn't really attacking ISIS – he's actually only concerned with destroying the "non-ISIS" rebels and propping up the faltering regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The premise behind this kind of propaganda is that there really is some difference between ISIS and the multitude of Islamist groups proliferating like wasps in the region: and that, furthermore, al-Qaeda is "relatively" moderate when compared to the Islamic State. Yes, incredibly, the US and British media are pushing the line that the al-Qaeda fighters in Syria, known as al-Nusra, are really the Good Guys.

Didn't you know that we have always been at war with Eastasia?

There is much whining , this [Thursday] morning, that a supposedly US-"vetted" group known as Tajammu al-Aaza has felt Putin's wrath – but when we get down into the weeds, we discover that this outfit is fighting alongside al-Qaeda:

"Jamil al-Saleh, a defected Syrian army officer who is now the leader of the rebel group Tajammu al-Aaza, told AlSouria.net that the Russian airstrikes targeted his group's base in al-Lataminah, a town in the western Syrian governorate of Hama. That area represents one of the farthest southern points of the rebel advance from the north and is therefore a crucial front line in the war. An alliance of Syrian rebel factions, including both the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and groups considered by Washington to be more moderate, successfully drove Assad regime forces out of the northern governorate of Idlib and are now pushing south into Hama."

By the way, according to the Pentagon's own testimony before a congressional committee, only sixty "vetted" fighters were sent into Syria to take on both Assad and ISIS. And while they denied, at first, that their pet "moderates" betrayed Washington and handed over most of their weapons and other equipment to al-Qaeda in return for "safe passage," the Pentagon later admitted it . Furthermore, we were told that these were the only "vetted" fighters actually in the field, but now we are confronted with "Tajammu al-Aaza," which – it's being reported – is deploying US-supplied missile guidance systems against Syrian government forces.

So a handful of "vetted" fighters suddenly turns into an entire armed force – one which, you'll note, has effectively merged with al-Qaeda.

The lies are coming at us so fast and thick in the first 24 hours of the Russian strikes that we face a veritable blizzard of obfuscation. They range from the egregious – alleged photos of "civilian casualties" that turn out to be fake – to the more subtle: a supposed Free Syrian Army commander is reported killed by a Russian air strike, and yet it appears that very same commander was kidnapped by ISIS last year . We are told that the town of Rastan, the site of Russian strikes, isn't under the control of ISIS – except it was when ISIS was executing gay men there .

The Russians make no bones about their support of Assad: in his speech to the United Nations, Putin stated his position clearly: "We think it's a big mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian authorities and government forces who valiantly fight terrorists on the ground." On the other hand, the objectives of the Western alliance in Syria aren't so clear: on the one hand, Washington claims to be directing the main blow against ISIS, but its claims of success have been greatly exaggerated . Yet we have spent many millions arming and training "vetted" rebels who have been defecting to ISIS and al-Qaeda in droves.

It's almost as if we're keeping ISIS around so as to put pressure on Assad to get out of Dodge. As Putin put it in his UN speech :

" [I]t is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade .

" It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you'll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them.

"I'd like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it's a big question: who's playing who here? The recent incident where the most 'moderate' opposition group handed over their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that. "

The reality is that there are no "moderates" in Syria, and certainly not among the rebel Islamist groups: they're all jihadists who want to impose Sharia law, drive out Christians, Alawites, and other minority groups, and set up an Islamic dictatorship. These are our noble "allies" – the very same people who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and against whom our perpetual "war on terrorism" was launched.

[Aug 19, 2019] Rest assured "The Great War" did not mean "The Splendid war"

Aug 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

It was the World's largest war at that time and surpassed WW II in many statistics, although probably not "tonnage of bombs dropped". That latter was WW II, not surpassed until the Gulf War when USAF used up all it's old arsenal (the better to let more contracts, my dear).
To be fair, military aviation was in its infancy then. The slaughter on the Western front broke England's Social Structure and paved the way for the destruction of the British Empire. Four other empire's died as a consequence of WW I (German, Austrian, Russian, and Turkish)
Note: "Kaiser" derives from "Caesar" which was an Imperial title of the late Roman Empire besides being Gaius Julius Caesar's family name). Promises made to both Arabs and Jews by the two-faced British Foreign Office paved the way for today's Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
It was a shattering event which tend to occur at 100 year intervals. The one previous was the Napoleonic Wars. I forget the one before that. War of the Spanish succession? And coincidentally, we are now living a hundred years later in the Middle east Forever war, which I fully expect to have similar consequences. The rights and civil liberties of free Americans are already a casualty.

The Great War set the stage for the Great Depression. I think a similar depression occurred after the War of 1812 (Napoleonic War in Europe). I'd have to consult a history text to see about others, but our 1970's economic travails were mirrored after the Civil war and the dot com bust is eerily similar to the Depression of 1890.

There is a theory that wars and revolutions occur at two cycles of approximately 100 and 170 years based on temperature and rainfall cycles. Every 500 years they coincide in a 5-3 resonance and whole civilizations fall or are transformed. Toynbee's 1000 year cycles can be seen as two such resonances. Following his analysis, the first crisis turns the civilization inwards and autocratic. The second breaks it entirely. Religions change too. I forget how. My Toynbee is packed away. does anyone here know what were the religious changes? Interestingly, the next 500 year supercycle fell in 2000 AD, so we are now in the first major crisis of Western Technical Civilization? (my name for the Renaissance and beyond, usually prosaically called "Modern"). this should turn WTC inward and autocratic, eventually dying in the next event around 2500 AD which should entire the collapse of civilization and a great folk-wandering sparked by environmental collapse. (loss of Eurasian pasture in the case of 500AD, turning steppe peoples westward (China was having a civilization peak, no way were the Huns turning east. In fact, they were expelled from China.

Ain't history fun? unless you are living it.

[Aug 19, 2019] There Once Was a President Who Hated War. American elites used to see war as a tragic necessity. Now they're completely addicted to it by Stephen M. Walt

Notable quotes:
"... Stephen M. Walt ..."
"... Steven A. Cook ..."
"... Jeffrey Lewis ..."
Aug 18, 2019 | foreignpolicy.com
A statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his dog Fala are seen at the FDR Memorial September 20, 2012 in Washington, DC. KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

Along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt is often hailed as one of the United States' greatest presidents. FDR gave Americans hope during the Great Depression, created key institutions like Social Security that remain broadly popular today, led the country to victory in World War II, and created a broad political coalition that endured for decades. He made mistakes -- as all presidents do -- but it's no wonder he's still regarded with reverence.

On Aug. 14, 1936 -- 83 years ago -- FDR gave a speech at Chautauqua in upstate New York, fulfilling a promise he had made at his inauguration in 1933. It is a remarkable speech, where FDR lays out his thoughts on the proper American approach to international affairs. He explains his "good neighbor" policy toward Latin America, along with his belief that although a more liberal international trade may not prevent war, "without a more liberal international trade, war is a natural sequence."

For me, the most remarkable feature of this speech is Roosevelt's blunt, vivid, and passionate denunciation of war, expressed with a candor that is almost entirely absent from political discourse today. After making it clear that "we are not isolationists, except insofar as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war," he acknowledges that "so long as war exists on Earth, there will be some danger that even the nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war."

But then he goes on:

"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line -- the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."

Roosevelt then reminds his listeners that war can result from many causes (including, in a passage that surely speaks to us today, "political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds"). He hopes to preserve U.S. neutrality should conflict erupt elsewhere and warns against the few selfish men who would seek to embroil the country in war solely to reap war profits. To make sure the country does not foolishly choose profits over peace, he calls for the "meditation, the prayer, and the positive support of the people of America who go along with us in seeking peace."

Yet, for all that, FDR leaves no doubt that the American people will defend themselves and their interests if war is forced on them. In his closing paragraph, he declares: "If there are remoter nations that wish us not good but ill, they know that we are strong; they know that we can and will defend ourselves and defend our neighborhood." And it is precisely what Roosevelt ultimately did.

Seriously, can you think of a recent U.S. president who spoke of war and peace in similar terms, with equal passion and frankness?

Bill Clinton was no militarist, but he was so worried about being labeled a dove that he kept boosting defense spending, firing off cruise missiles without thinking, and blindly assuming that exporting democracy, expanding trade, and issuing open-ended security guarantees would suffice to bring peace around the world. And when he had a golden opportunity to broker a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace, he whiffed.

By contrast, George W. Bush was a swaggering frat boy who brought wars to several places and peace nowhere. He liked to pose in a nifty flight suit and give high-minded, tough-talking speeches, but the unnecessary wars he launched killed hundreds of thousands of people and severely damaged America's global position.

Barack Obama may have agonized over every targeted killing and major military decision, but he also ramped up the drone war, sent additional troops to Afghanistan to no good purpose, helped turn Libya into a failed state, and tacitly backed the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (!), his acceptance speech focused as much on defending America's role in the world -- including its widespread use of military force -- as it did on extolling the virtues of peace and the measures that must be taken to advance it.

Ironically, though Donald Trump loves military parades, flybys, and the other visible trappings of military power, he seems rather leery of war. Like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought and received five separate deferments from the draft during Vietnam, Trump (or his father) apparently saw military service as something that only less fortunate people ought to participate in. As president, he does seem to recognize that starting some new war could hurt him politically, even as his more hawkish advisors keep pushing him in that direction. And we've yet to hear him extolling the virtues of peace as candidly as Roosevelt did in 1936.

Look, you don't have to tell a realist like me that we live in an imperfect world and that perpetual peace is a pipe dream. But the difficulty of the task is precisely why it merits serious attention. Yet instead of embracing peace as a virtue, U.S. politicians go to great lengths to show how tough they are and how ready they are to send Americans into harm's way in order to take out some alleged enemy. But how often do they talk about trying to understand the complex origins of most contemporary conflicts? How often do they try to empathize with the United States' adversaries, not in order to agree with them but so as to understand their position and to figure out a way to change their behavior without resorting to threats, coercion, or violence? How often do prominent politicians say, as Roosevelt did, that they "hate war"?

As I've said before , the U.S. disinterest in peace isn't just morally dubious; it's strategically myopic.

The United States should not shrink from fighting if such fighting is forced on it, but it should be the country's last resort rather than its first impulse. The United States is remarkably secure from most external dangers, and apart from political malfeasance at home (see: the Trump administration), the only thing that could really screw things up in the short term is a big war. War is bad for business (unless you're Boeing or Lockheed Martin), and it tends to elevate people who are good at manipulating violence but not so good at building up institutions, communities, or companies. When you're already on top of the world, encouraging the use of force isn't prudent; it's dumb. Peace, in short, is almost always in America's strategic interest.

Which makes it even more surprising that the word has mostly vanished from Americans' strategic vocabulary, and here I think two big factors are responsible. First, fewer politicians (and especially presidents) have "seen war" in the way that Roosevelt had. Harry Truman did, and so did Dwight D. Eisenhower (obviously), John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Needless to say, none of the post-Cold War presidents ever saw war in the same way.

Equally important, both the political class and the public have been imbibing an intoxicating brew of militarist rhetoric, imagery, and argument for decades. Americans cheer the troops at baseball games, wave giddily at thunderous aerial flybys, and finance all of their military adventures by borrowing money so that no one has to make obvious sacrifices now.

In Roosevelt's era, Americans were still reluctant to "go abroad in search of monsters to destroy," but they fought with unexpected ferocity when attacked. They were slow to anger but united in response. The situation today is the exact opposite -- they are quick on the trigger provided that none of them have to do very much once the bullets are flying. Instead of seeing war as a tragic necessity that is to be avoided if at all possible, Americans regard it as a rather sanitary "policy option" that takes place in countries most of them cannot locate and is conducted primarily by drones, aircraft, and volunteers. Americans fight all the time but without clear purpose or firm resolve. As one would expect, they usually lose, although others often pay a much larger price than they do.

There are faint signs that this situation is changing, after nearly 25 years of mostly failed adventures abroad. The foreign-policy elite may have acquired a certain addiction to war , but longtime addicts sometimes decide to turn their lives around and kick the habit. As noted above, Trump hasn't started any new wars yet, and his various Democratic challengers aren't pushing for more war either. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard have pretty fair ( but not perfect ) records on this broad issue, and each has been vocal in opposing U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Pete Buttigieg wants the United States to rely less on military force in some places (but not others), Kamala Harris has been mostly silent on the issue, and the other leading candidates have more mixed records. Don't forget that Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War, and both Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar lean in more hawkish directions.

I'm waiting for one of them to start talking openly and intelligently about peace. What is needed to promote it, and how can the United States use its still considerable power to keep itself out of war and to help others escape its destructive clutches? If any of the 2020 candidates decide to tackle this issue head-on, they might start by reading what a great president once said, 83 years ago.

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. View
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Tags: Peace , U.S. Foreign Policy , United States , Voice , War

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Voices There Once Was a President Who Hated War Stephen M. Walt Erdogan Plays Washington Like a Fiddle Steven A. Cook A Mysterious Explosion Took Place in Russia. What Really Happened? Jeffrey Lewis ❌

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[Aug 19, 2019] The Deeper Meaning in a Lost War -- Strategic Culture

Aug 19, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

It's pretty clear. Saudi Arabia has lost, and, notes Bruce Riedel, "the Houthis and Iran are the strategic winners". Saudi proxies in Aden – the seat of Riyadh's Yemeni proto-'government' – have been turfed out by secular, former Marxist, southern secessionists. What can Saudi Arabia do? It cannot go forward. Even tougher would be retreat. Saudi will have to contend with an Houthi war being waged inside the kingdom's south; and a second – quite different – war in Yemen's south. MbS is stuck. The Houthi military leadership are on a roll , and disinterested – for now – in a political settlement. They wish to accumulate more 'cards'. The UAE, which armed and trained the southern secessionists has opted out. MbS is alone, 'carrying the can'. It will be messy.

So, what is the meaning in this? It is that MbS cannot 'deliver' what Trump and Kushner needed, and demanded from him: He cannot any more deliver the Gulf 'world' for their grand projects – let alone garner together the collective Sunni 'world' to enlist in a confrontation with Iran, or for hustling the Palestinians into abject subordination, posing as 'solution'.

What happened? It seems that MbZ must have bought into the Mossad 'line' that Iran was a 'doddle'. Under pressure of global sanctions, Iran would quickly crumble, and would beg for negotiations with Trump. And that the resultant, punishing treaty would see the dismantling of all of Iran's troublesome allies around the region. The Gulf thus would be free to continue shaping a Middle East free from democracy, reformers and (those detested) Islamists.

What made the UAE – eulogised in the US as tough 'little Sparta' – back off? It was not just that the Emirs saw that the Yemen war was unwinnable. That was so; but more significantly, it dawned on them that Iran was going to be no 'doddle'. But rather, the US attempt to strangulate the Iranian economy risked escalating beyond sanctions war, into military confrontation. And in that eventuality, the UAE would be devastated. Iran warned explicitly that a drone or two landed into the 'glass houses' of their financial districts, or onto oil and gas facilities, would set them back twenty years. They believed it.

But there was another factor in the mix. "As the world teeters on the edge of another financial crisis", Esfandyar Batmanghelidj has noted , "few places are being gripped by anxiety like Dubai. Every week a new headline portends the coming crisis in the city of skyscrapers. Dubai villa prices are at their lowest level in a decade, down 24 percent in just one year. A slump in tourism has seen Dubai hotels hit their lowest occupancy rate since the 2008 financial crisis – even as the country gears up to host Expo 2020 next year. As Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah reported in November of last year, Dubai has begun to "lose its shine," its role as a center for global commerce "undermined by a global tariff war -- and in particular by the US drive to shut down commerce with nearby Iran"".

An extraneous Houthi drone landing in Dubai's financial zone would be the 'final nail in the coffin' (the expatriates would be out in a flash) – a prospect far more serious than the crisis of 2009, when Dubai's real estate market collapsed, threatening insolvency for several banks and major development companies, some of them state-linked – and necessitating a $20 billion bailout.

In short, the Gulf realised MbS' confrontation project with Iran was far too risky, especially with the global financial mood darkening so rapidly. Emirati leaders faced off with MbZ, the confrontation ideologue – and the UAE came out of Yemen formally (though leaving in situ its proxies), and initiated outreach to Iran, to take it out of that war, too.

It is now no longer conceivable that MbS can deliver what Trump and Netanyahu desired . Does this then mean that the US confrontation with Iran, and Jared Kushner's Deal of the Century, are over? No. Trump has two key US constituencies: AIPAC and the Christian Evangelical 'Zionists' to 'stroke' electorally in the lead up to the 2020 elections. More 'gifts' to Netanyahu in the lead into the latter's own election campaign are very likely also, as a part of that massaging of domestic constituencies (and donors).

In terms of the US confrontation with Iran, it seems that Trump is turning-down the volume on belligerence toward Iran, hoping that economic sanctions will work their 'magic' of bringing the Islamic Republic to its knees. There is no sign of that however – and no sign of any realistic US plan 'B'. (The Lindsay Graham initiative is not one).

Where does that leave MbS in terms of US and Israeli interests? Well, to be brutal, and despite the family friendships 'expendable', perhaps? The scent of an eventual US disengagement from the region is again hanging in the air.

The deeper meaning in the 'lost Yemen war', ultimately, is an end to Gulf hopes that 'magician' Trump would undo the earlier Gulf panic that the West would normalise with Iran (through the JCPOA), thus leaving Iran as the paramount regional power. The advent of Trump, with all his affinity towards Saudi Arabia, seemed to Gulf States to promise the opportunity again to 'lock in' the US security umbrella over Gulf monarchies, protecting these states from significant change, as well as leaving Iran 'shackled', and unable to assume regional primacy.

A secondary meaning to Yemen is that Trump and Netanyahu's heavy investment in MbS and MbZ has proved to be chimeric. These two, it turned out were 'naked' all along. And now the world knows it. They can't deliver. They have been bested by a ragtag army of tough Houthi tribesmen.

The region now observes that 'war' isn't happening (although only by the merest hair's breadth): Trump is not – of his own volition – going to bomb Iran back to the 1980s. And Gulf States now see that if he did, it is they – the Gulf States – who would pay the highest price. Paradoxically, it has fallen to the UAE, the prime agitator in Washington against Iran, to lead the outreach toward Iran. It represents a salutary lesson in realpolitik for certain Gulf States (and Israel). And now that it has been learned, it is hard to see it being reversed quite so easily.

The strategic shift toward a different security architecture is already underway, with Russia and China proposing an international conference on security in the Persian Gulf: Russia and Iran already have agreed joint naval exercises in in the Indian Ocean and Hormuz, and China is mulling sending its warships there too, to protect its tankers and commercial shipping. Plainly, there will be some competition here, but Iran has the upper hand still in Hormuz. It is a powerful deterrent (though one best threatened, but not used).

Of course, nothing is assured in these changing times. The US President is fickle, and prone to flip-flop. And there are yet powerful interests in the US who do want see Iran comprehensively bombed. But others in DC – more significantly, on the (nationalist) Right – are much more outspoken in challenging the Iran 'hawks'. Maybe the latter have missed their moment? The fact is, Trump drew back (but not for the stated reasons) from military action. America is now entering election season – and it is fixated on its navel. Foreign policy is already a forgotten, non-issue in the fraught partisan atmospherics of today's America.

Trump likely will still 'throw Israel a few bones', but will that change anything? Probably, not much. That is cold comfort – but it might have been a lot worse for the Palestinians. And Greater Israel? A distant, Promethean hope.

[Aug 19, 2019] Can Ukraine gradually put Western Ukrainian nationalists in it proper place

Aug 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

,

, , , , Beckow , says: Next New Comment August 18, 2019 at 7:33 pm GMT
@Kiza

miscalculation that the rotten West will help them instead of use them to create a festering sore on Russian border for just a few billion dollars in loans.

A possibly a fatal miscalculation for Ukraine, but there is also an ideology involved. In Maidan-Ukrainians case that ideology is Ukrainian nationalism combined with a servile Western worship of almost cargo-cult level. An odd combination that has led to odd result.

West wanted Zelensky to win, the question is why. Tactically, Zelensky neutralized large Russia-leaning block of voters: the 70% vote would have gone somewhere and they were not going to vote for Poroshenko or Tymoshenko. So that misdirection was successful. But what was the point? Let's look at what Zelensky is actually doing (not the throw-away comedy and rhetoric): he is trying to allow sale of Ukrainian land to foreign investors. My guess is that he will push it through and that will his main legacy. Buying up Ukrainian arable land has been a wet dream for many in the West since 1991. Zelensky could deliver on it, and then move on.

In 3-5 years we could have an interesting scenario in Ukraine with land (its main wealth) owned by foreign investors and a large % of population with Russian or Polish and other EU passports. As always with ideology, the result is the exact opposite of what that ideology claims: the dictatorship of proletariat impoverished and killed proletariat, Nazis dramatically shrunk German lebensraum, liberals obsession with ' liberty and universal brotherhood ' is leading to censorship, suppression and group hostilities. But here we are and the ideological idiocy that Maidan-Ukrainians embraced might not be reversible. This is not good for anybody.

Beckow
August 18, 2019 at 11:04 pm GMT • 100 Words @AnonFromTN

EU might decide to send its US overlords to Hell and pay Russia to take the hand grenade away from the monkey.

How would EU go against its overlord? Even if EU would try, the existential nihilism in Kiev will prevent compromise. Ideologues can't admit that their 'idea' didn't work, they prefer destroying everything around. West is also at this point incapable of admitting an error – they literally can't do it, the lying has to go on. That means that even groundwork for any possible compromise can't be put in place. This is all the way down with fireworks and it won't be pretty.

There is such a thing as a catastrophic error and the last 5 years in Ukraine comes pretty close to it. That is not really fixable. The monkey night as well use the grenade.

[Aug 18, 2019] Can Ukraine gradually put Western Ukrainian nationalists in it proper place

It's very sad that Ukraine is just a pawn in dirty geopolitical games of the USA, the EU and Russia.
Notable quotes:
"... In 3-5 years we could have an interesting scenario in Ukraine with land (its main wealth) owned by foreign investors and a large % of population with Russian or Polish and other EU passports. As always with ideology, the result is the exact opposite of what that ideology claims: the dictatorship of proletariat impoverished and killed proletariat, Nazis dramatically shrunk German lebensraum, liberals obsession with ' liberty and universal brotherhood ' is leading to censorship, suppression and group hostilities. But here we are and the ideological idiocy that Maidan-Ukrainians embraced might not be reversible. This is not good for anybody. ..."
"... For Ukraine these are all irreversible losses, but from Western perspective, these are little victories: Russia was forced to spend more. As the West does not give a hoot about Ukraine, the US and its vassals can freely celebrate these victories. ..."
"... So, it all depends on the point of view. The West never cared about aborigines, so their point of view does not come into its calculations. ..."
"... Currently prevailing mood in Russia is that Ukraine, whoever is the power there, gets nothing, nada, zilch. ..."
"... But Ukrainian authorities worked pretty hard to achieve it, and now Ukraine has to live with this new reality. It won’t be pretty. The US was simply following its standard policy: leave a pile of shit, declare victory, and leave, waiting for someone else to clean up. ..."
"... Now there is only one way Russia would clean up: if the EU pays full price for it. As this is unlikely, the aborigines are going to bear the brunt of the consequences. ..."
Aug 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Beckow , says: Next New Comment August 18, 2019 at 7:33 pm GMT

@Kiza

miscalculation that the rotten West will help them instead of use them to create a festering sore on Russian border for just a few billion dollars in loans.

A possibly a fatal miscalculation for Ukraine, but there is also an ideology involved. In Maidan-Ukrainians case that ideology is Ukrainian nationalism combined with a servile Western worship of almost cargo-cult level. An odd combination that has led to odd result.

West wanted Zelensky to win, the question is why. Tactically, Zelensky neutralized large Russia-leaning block of voters: the 70% vote would have gone somewhere and they were not going to vote for Poroshenko or Tymoshenko. So that misdirection was successful. But what was the point?

Let's look at what Zelensky is actually doing (not the throw-away comedy and rhetoric): he is trying to allow sale of Ukrainian land to foreign investors. My guess is that he will push it through and that will his main legacy. Buying up Ukrainian arable land has been a wet dream for many in the West since 1991. Zelensky could deliver on it, and then move on.

In 3-5 years we could have an interesting scenario in Ukraine with land (its main wealth) owned by foreign investors and a large % of population with Russian or Polish and other EU passports. As always with ideology, the result is the exact opposite of what that ideology claims: the dictatorship of proletariat impoverished and killed proletariat, Nazis dramatically shrunk German lebensraum, liberals obsession with ' liberty and universal brotherhood ' is leading to censorship, suppression and group hostilities. But here we are and the ideological idiocy that Maidan-Ukrainians embraced might not be reversible. This is not good for anybody.

AnonFromTN , says: Next New Comment August 18, 2019 at 9:39 pm GMT

Why does the Saker think that Ze had any choice? He is a puppet, a stuffed shirt brought to ”power” by Kolomoisky and allied oligarchs. The only goal was to chase Porky and allied thieves from the trough to be able to steal more.

Now, the people of Ukraine had choice. But they blew it again, like many times before: each Ukrainian “president” is worse than his predecessor. As the saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you…” Ukrainians let themselves be fooled six times already, so there is no doubt where the shame goes.

It was said that the nationalism is the last resort of a scoundrel. But it isn’t the only one. Nationalism, stupid unrealistic dreams to feed sheeple, fairy tales about aggression, and the war create perfect smokescreen for blatant thievery. It continues unabated, ever since 1991.

Russia does need to make its choice. But it is complicated by the role of Russian thieves (polite word is oligarchs) in current Russian state. Putin kicked some out. The remaining ones have enough brains to figure that they need a strong state to protect them, lest their loot be stolen by Western thieves. So, they are a step ahead of Ukrainian thieves who did not tumble even to this simple realization. But no more than one step ahead.

The economic reality is that Russian state does not have the resources to restore Ukraine, even if sane forces come to power there. So, Ukraine would likely keep festering, losing millions of working age people (like today), possibly losing chunks of territory (as the joke has it, whoever remains in Ukraine pays off the debt). The problems of that huge Somalia can only be solved by concerted effort of many European countries and Russia. This is not on the cards, at least not until Ukies create yet another Chernobyl. Then the EU might decide to send its US overlords to Hell and pay Russia to take the hand grenade away from the monkey. I don’t think Putin will live long enough to see that happen.

Beckow , says: Next New Comment August 18, 2019 at 11:04 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN

…EU might decide to send its US overlords to Hell and pay Russia to take the hand grenade away from the monkey.

How would EU go against its overlord? Even if EU would try, the existential nihilism in Kiev will prevent compromise. Ideologues can’t admit that their ‘idea’ didn’t work, they prefer destroying everything around. West is also at this point incapable of admitting an error – they literally can’t do it, the lying has to go on. That means that even groundwork for any possible compromise can’t be put in place. This is all the way down with fireworks and it won’t be pretty.

There is such a thing as a catastrophic error and the last 5 years in Ukraine comes pretty close to it. That is not really fixable. The monkey night as well use the grenade.

AnonFromTN says: August 18, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Beckow

Minsk agreement was an incredibly generous deal, if Poroshenko had half a brain he would had jumped on it and today Donbas would be a remote backwater with autonomy.

That would be true if Porky was interested in Ukraine. As it is, his only interest and loyalty was and is his personal loot. To keep stealing, he (and allied thieves) needed the smokescreen of war, fairy tales of “aggression”, and pipe dreams of “greater Ukraine” for the sheeple. He succeeded in his thievery for five years. Now another gang of thieves pushed his gang from the trough. End of story.

annamaria says: August 18, 2019 at 11:47 pm GMT • 100 Words

@Bardon Kaldian

Are you a teenager unaware of the history of the Maidan regime-change “revolution?”
Here are two most influential Ukranian parties-participants in the “revolution:”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoboda_(political_party)

The Svoboda Party was founded in 1991 as the Social-National Party of Ukraine … It is widely considered a fascist..party….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Sector

Time has described it [the Right Sector Party] as a “radical right-wing group … a coalition of militant ultra-nationalists” with an ideology that “borders on fascism”.

Die Welt, The New York Times, and Le Monde Diplomatique have described some of Right Sector’s constituent groups as radical right-wing, neofascist, or neo-Nazi…

https://www.globalresearch.ca/conspiring-neo-nazi-parties-washington-eu-role-kiev-coup/5684545

AnonFromTN says: August 19, 2019 at 12:56 am GMT • 300 Words

@Beckow

You are a pessimist (or a fatalist). I agree that EU is shamefully subservient to the US, but when some of their core interests are at stake, even slavish EU can show some teeth. Just think of Nord Stream-2: the US is jumping out of its skin to damage this project, but Germany stands remarkably firm.

From Western point of view, Ukie provocation was not a complete failure (even though it’s a catastrophic failure from Ukrainian point of view): Russia had to spend a lot to develop the production of military things it used to import from Ukraine, like ships, ship engines, helicopter engines, spaceship control systems, etc.

Now that it acquired the capability to produce these things, there will be no going back regardless who rules Ukraine: it’s industries that used to export to Russia are doomed. These include such giants as Nikolaev shipbuilding plant, Motor Sich in Zaparozie, Antonov aircraft building plant in Kiev, etc. The same goes for transit.

It is not just natural gas transit everybody talks about. Russia used to transport ammonia to Odessa, where it was partially exported and partially converted into fertilizers. The plant that used to do that is dead.

Ukraine tried to sell it for $5 billion under Yanuk and got no takers, about a year ago it tried to sell it for 10% of that price, and got no takers again.

There also used to be substantial Russian payments for transport via the railway going across Eastern Ukraine.

Russia built an alternative bypassing Ukraine, so they might as well dismantle the rails on their route.

For Ukraine these are all irreversible losses, but from Western perspective, these are little victories: Russia was forced to spend more. As the West does not give a hoot about Ukraine, the US and its vassals can freely celebrate these victories.

So, it all depends on the point of view. The West never cared about aborigines, so their point of view does not come into its calculations.

AnonFromTN says: August 19, 2019 at 1:13 am GMT • 100 Words

@Andrei Martyanov

That’s true, when it comes to resources, there are always alternatives how to spend them.

Currently prevailing mood in Russia is that Ukraine, whoever is the power there, gets nothing, nada, zilch.

Considering how closely Ukrainians are related to Russians, this feat wasn’t easy.

But Ukrainian authorities worked pretty hard to achieve it, and now Ukraine has to live with this new reality. It won’t be pretty. The US was simply following its standard policy: leave a pile of shit, declare victory, and leave, waiting for someone else to clean up.

Now there is only one way Russia would clean up: if the EU pays full price for it. As this is unlikely, the aborigines are going to bear the brunt of the consequences.

[Aug 18, 2019] Ukie nationalism vs Otto von Bismarck by The Saker

Saker is naive and badly educated. It is stupid to call Ukraine an oligarchy. All countries on Earth are oligarchies. The real question is which group of oligarchs is in power. In case of Ukraine those are privatization sharks, the worst kind of neoliberal financial scum. Often real criminals.
Otto von Bismarck created a powerful German state which exists to this day. While vassal of the USA it is still a state now. And Merkel role in EuroMaidan definitely reminds Drang nach Osten in neoliberal packaging. Neocolonialism in its pure form
Ukraine is just a pawn in a bigger geopolitical game of the USA and EU against Russia. That explains in the current state of Ukrainian economics and the level of Ukrainian population sufferings. Ukrainian nationalist paradoxically served as the fifth column for the neoliberal oligarchy. The phenomenon similar to the US nationalists role under Trump.
At the same time despite dismally low standard of living Ukrainian population is showing great resilience in the current hardships and infrastructure while completely worn out still works. But Ukraine is now completely Latin-Americanized, which was the goal of the USA from the very beginning for all Soviet space. Ukraine now is a debt slave of the West which is completely opposite to any nationalist movement goals.
According to Wikipedia just 5% of population lives of less than $5.50 a day. That's baloney. In reality the percentage is probably two-three times times higher (average monthly pension is typically less then $1500 grivna which is less then $60) so most of pensioners live on less then $2 a day. 8 million of the approximately 12 million of Ukrainian pensioners were receiving the minimum pension of 1312 (around $50) while medium pension amounted to 1886 UAH (Pensions in Ukraine - Wikipedia) And 12 million is 28% of Ukrainian population (around 42-43 million total down from 45.55 before EuroMaydan ). It is declining around 200 persons daily. On average there are 462,052 births and 662,571 deaths in Ukraine per year.
While pensioners are definitely starving the situation at least stabilized with grivna around 25 per dollar (something like 300% after the EuroMaydan). So Nuland advantures cost dearly for average Ukrainian.
Notable quotes:
"... These guys are a minority, a pretty small one even, but they have enough muscle and even firepower to threaten any nominal Ukrainian leader. ..."
Aug 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

As I have indicated in a recent article , the Ukraine is not a democracy but an oligarchy : ever since 1991 the most prosperous Soviet republic was mercilessly plundered by an entire class (in the Marxist sense of the word) of oligarchs whose biggest fear has always been that the same "horror" (from their point of view) which befell Russia with Putin, would eventually arrive at the Ukraine.

Here we need to make something clear: this is NOT, repeat, NOT about nationality or nationalism. The Ukrainian oligarchs are just like any other oligarchs: their loyalty is to their money and nothing else. If you want to characterize these oligarchs, you could think of them as culturally "post-Soviet" meaning that they don't care about nationality, and even though their prime language is Russian, they don't give a damn about Russia or Russians (or anybody else, for that matter!). Since many of them are Jews, they have a network of supporters/accomplices in Israel of course, but also in the West and even in Russia. In truth, these guys are the ultimate "internationalists" in their own, toxic, kind of way.

Some fine specimens of "ochlocrats"

The other significant force in the Ukraine is the West Ukrainian (Galician) Nazi death-squads and mobs. Their power is not a democracy either, but an ochlocracy . These guys are a minority, a pretty small one even, but they have enough muscle and even firepower to threaten any nominal Ukrainian leader.


Korenchkin , says: August 15, 2019 at 7:42 am GMT

Can you stop with the Ukronazi crap, what kind of Nazi Government has a Jewish PM and Jewish President ?
Azov guys dying in Donbass and the street thugs in Kiev are just cannon fodder, they don't run shit

The majority of Ukranians don't want to be in this conflict, I don't see the point in demonizing all of them because of some fascist larpers

Malla , says: August 15, 2019 at 12:44 pm GMT
People need to move on from the past and stop all that hating others for some past deeds. Polish or Western Ukrainian hatred for Russians, Russian hatred for Germans, Chinese & Korean hatred for the Japanese, Indian hatred for the British or the Chinese, Black South African hatred for Afrikaners. All these are counter productive for the people and are emotions which can be whipped up by the elites to have commoners die like cannon fodder at worst or to take away attention towards a past historic enemy to hide their own corruption/ incompetence at best.
People need to see things from the other side as well.

As far as the Satanic Zio elite pigs, they will use any ideology as long as it serves them. Democracy, Communism, anti-Communism, Islamic fundamentalism, anti-Islam, Jingoistic Nationalism, Anti-Nationalism/One Worldism, feminism, Hindutva, Buddhist fundamentalism (Sri Lanka BBS and the secret Zionist hand), Neo-Conservatism, Leftism, Colonialism, anti-Colonialism as long it suits them. They use them and discard them away when needed. But this seems to be the most extreme case ever. For the first time the Zio elites are using National Socialism as an ideology to serve them. The ideology which was probably the greatest enemy and threat to the Zio elites, in human history. Freakin crazy!!!

Mr. Hack , says: August 15, 2019 at 2:39 pm GMT
More grist for Saker's suckers. The Galicians (and Ukro-Nazi Jews) are behind everything. In Saker's simplistic mind the Galicians have infiltrated all of Ukrainian society and run the whole show, when in fact this is just a bunch of nonsense. Well, at least Saker is putting to use his favorite Ukrainian pejorative do I really need to repeat it again, ad nauseum?
Colin Wright , says: Website August 15, 2019 at 4:38 pm GMT
' Russia will always remain the reality check on their delusions. This was as true in the distant 13th century as it is nowadays '

It's nit-picking, but you might want to edit that sentence slightly.

In the thirteenth century, both the Ukrainians and the Russians faced more dire threats than each other.

Colin Wright , says: Website August 15, 2019 at 4:53 pm GMT
@Mr. Hack ' Ukro-Nazi Jews '

You have to admit that's an impressive combination.

Adûnâi , says: August 15, 2019 at 6:17 pm GMT
"The other significant force in the Ukraine is the West Ukrainian (Galician) Nazi death-squads and mobs."

Where are death camps for the Jews? Where are racial laws that expel non-Ukrainians? Where is the propaganda of eugenics and healthy lifestyle? Where are construction projects bringing in jobs, and state-subsidized recreation tours?

Ukraine is a Jew-driven shithole that has nothing to do with National Socialism. They don't even honour the sacrifice of the SS Galizien.

"but what they are genuinely fantasizing about is the territory, and only the territory. As for the 2 million-plus virulently anti-Nazi people currently living on these lands, they simply want them either dead or expelled)."

A lie. Currently, more than a half of those "expelled" have migrated inside Ukraine. A stark contrast to Croatia where the Serbs were driven out of the country, and their land given to Croats.

Again, Ukraine is suicidal and full of civic nationalism, nothing about it is blood-based.

"They and their Polish supporters want Russia to break apart in numerous small state-lets which they (or, in their delusional dreams, the Chinese) could dominate."

Why do you consider this as a negative for the Russian people? The current Russian state is in its death throes as much as the US and France – the ethnic Russians are dying out, fleeing and being replaced. Any alternative might prove out more hopeful.

"In contrast, the LDNR forces seem to be doing pretty well, and their morale appears to be as strong as ever (which is unsurprising since their military ethos is based in 1000 years of Russian military history)."

I have to remind you that the Donbass was colonized far more recently than Ukraine – in the 18-19th centuries. What "ancient" traditions?

"but Novorussia also is a never healing wound in the side of Nazi-occupied Ukraine"

The Donbass has never been part of Novorussia which is to the west, from Dniepropetrovsk to Odessa. Admittedly, Novorussia's colonists were mostly from Ukraine – it is clearly seen on the language maps.

"The problem with this slogan is that there is simply no way the (relatively small) Galician population can ever succeed in permanently defeating their much bigger (and, frankly, much smarter) Jewish, Polish or Russian neighbors."

Khmelnitsky managed to do just that – 100k dead Jews. And he's on the Ukrainian currency. Too bad modern "Nazi" Ukrainians have elected a Jew President. This is not the Khmelnitsky uprising, this is Kiev under the Khazar Khaganate before Oleg came from the North.

AP , says: August 15, 2019 at 10:45 pm GMT
It's a of nonsense as usual. This piece is quickly refuted:

ever since 1991 the most prosperous Soviet republic

People who spread this myth are ignorant or liars. It's a common one, though.

In 1990 Ukraine's per capita GDP was $1570.

Russia's was $3485.
Belarus was $2124.

So in Soviet times, Ukraine was the poorest of the three Slavic Soviet Republics. It still is, the position hasn't changed. It's just fallen further behind.

::::::::

Everything else is just as nonsensical, I won't even bother to detail it, most of the commenters here are as dumb/ignorant/dishonest (take your pick) as the author pretends to be.

Curmudgeon , says: August 15, 2019 at 11:15 pm GMT
I don't know where Saker sources his history. Lenin had nothing to do with the creation of Ukraine.

I live in Western Canada, where Ukrainians come starting in the late 19th century. I'm not referring to the primarily German speaking Mennonites that left South Central Ukraine, in the 1870s, fleeing religious persecution. By WWI, more than 200,000 were in Western Canada from all parts of Ukraine. They considered themselves Ukrainians, not Russians, or Galicians. They were, and to a great extent, still are Ukrainian nationalists. There continues to be friction with Polish and German local populations, although prior to the "rebirth" of Ukraine, it had largely subsided. Recent Russian immigrants are shunned as much as the "Poles" and "Germans". Politically, they are generally left of center, and have been since their arrival, although in recent decades more have become "conservative" (whatever that means these days). A long ago former Russian Jewish co-worker who was a late 60s "escapee" from the USSR, told me that he would never vote for one of our political parties, because there were "too many Ukrainians" in the party. I asked a "Ukrainian" friend, who I had known since grade school, what that meant. His explanation was that there had always been tensions between Jews and Ukrainians, for centuries, because of what Ukrainians believed was exploitation by the Jews. Other "Ukrainians" and "Jews" have confirmed this.

The reality is, that most people in most countries just want to live their lives in peace, with a job good enough to provide a decent home and food for the family. That 70% of Ukrainians want that is not surprising, it's normal. That doesn't mean they aren't nationalists, and it doesn't mean they are Nazis. However screwed up they are in trying to do so, Ukrainians are struggling to retain their identity and culture. IMO, they are up against internationalist forces from all sides, and none are interested in letting that happen.

Beckow , says: August 16, 2019 at 1:22 am GMT
@Curmudgeon The Nazi name-calling is over the top, and not just with regard to Ukraine or Galicia. Historical grievances or revisions are not 'Nazism'. Too many people look at Ukraine and over-interpret the nostalgia for Bandera or simple national self-assertion.

But I think Saker is right about where this is going. Russian side has local dominance and that will not change. The only game in town for the last 5 years has been to see if the Western squeeze of Russia will work faster than the Russian squeeze of Ukraine. By now it is obvious that it won't.

Kiev has made some fatal mistakes. E.g. Minsk agreement was an incredibly generous deal, if Poroshenko had half a brain he would had jumped on it and today Donbas would be a remote backwater with autonomy . So? The state would be intact, taxes would be paid, passports centrally issued, etc The eastern European dynamic is that any population always ends up disliking its immediate rulers – how long before local leaders in Donbas would be challenged by some younger corruption fighters.

The whole Maidan thing was also terribly mismanaged – at its core it was about getting the best potential deal for Ukraine with EU (and Russia). In the middle of the negotiation suddenly Maidanistas decided that symbols are more important than reality and basically folded in front of EU. Consequently Russia walked. Thus Kiev got justa bout the worst possible combination on non-EU and deep hostility with Russia. Smarter guys would had handled it much better, playing both sides against each other – raising the stakes.

And let's not even get started on Crimea, while Ukies ate stale cookies, they lost overnight their most valuable possession – they couldn't anticipate it? Being able to anticipate is a key to intelligence and in playing any game.

So we can talk about what or who is driving modern Ukraine, oligarchs, Galicians, Jews, Kiev thugs, Canadians – it doesn't matter, what matters is that they are incompetent. From Yushenko to Zelensky they are amateurs driven by emotion and greed. There is no state-forming force, there is no true Ukrainian nationalism that would play up Ukraine's strengths and manage its weaknesses. Saker is basically right – they are in a no-win cul-de-sac, at this point any move will make their situation worse. Their best (only?) hope is a collapse of Russia. Now, how likely is that?

bevin , says: August 16, 2019 at 1:33 am GMT
@Korenchkin " what kind of Nazi Government has a Jewish PM and Jewish President ?"
Israel.
Felix Keverich , says: August 16, 2019 at 8:23 am GMT
@peterAUS This is not a real nation. There is no such thing as "genuine Ukrainian nationalists".

AP doesn't count – the dude lives in Canada! So Galician nutters is all you get.

Korenchkin , says: August 16, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMT
@Felix Keverich Autism of this degree does not pop out of nowhere
You had Cossacks and Mercenaries from the Ukraine joining up with the Poles, Swedes, Napoleon, Germans and others. Calling diaspora nationalists stupid is all fine and dandy but the constant bickering between people in current Ukraine and in Russia stinks of divide and conquer (which is what Ukraine vs Russia conflicts always were)

Calling them stupid and calling their ethnicity fake(which they make an actual effort to preserve, such as it is) stinks of hypocrisy when so many Great Russians were willing to tear their country, religion and people apart in 1917 and join up with the Bolsheviks in the rape and pillaging

You'd probably get far more progress calling them a branch of Russian civilization, you can cite Belarus and Siberian Ukraine as examples
It's easy to dogpile on some poor Hohol since they will always be on the defensive, but it's much harder to understand him and admit your own faults while not backing down from your standpoint that you are both one people

Serbs often made the same mistakes with Montenegro, and the result is the modern day shitfest where both it and Ukraine are run by hostile US puppets

peter mcloughlin , says: August 16, 2019 at 3:58 pm GMT
The Saker is correct that reality and pragmatism are essential 'when trying to figure out what is going on and what might happen next.' It is a hard calculation to make in a world increasingly chaotic and dark. The Minsk Accord is probably the only glimmer of light for Ukraine, but then all the lights – across the world – are going out.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Andrei Martyanov , says: Website August 16, 2019 at 5:36 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon

However screwed up they are in trying to do so, Ukrainians are struggling to retain their identity and culture. IMO, they are up against internationalist forces from all sides, and none are interested in letting that happen.

What you posted is called a generic "to be against everything bad, for everything good". Living in a world of unicorns and having rainbows as result of bowel movement is, of course, a worthy aspiration but reality with Ukraine is a teeny-weeny bit more complicated than mere attempts to "retain their identity and culture". I'll give you a hint, vast swaths of Ukrainian population (including in the East Ukraine) believe, as an example, that Ukrainian civilization precedes a Sumerian one. Many, very many, also still believe that valiant Ukrainian Armed Forces still fight, for the 5th year in a row, mighty Russian Army in the East. We are talking here about down right mental breakdown on a national level, granted, as I always say, modern Ukraine did happen, that is coalesced, as a political nation.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website August 16, 2019 at 5:58 pm GMT
@Beckow

There is no state-forming force, there is no true Ukrainian nationalism that would play up Ukraine's strengths and manage its weaknesses

There is one–modern Ukraine is a "anti-Russia" project, that is also a foundation of its state ideology and, I may add, mythology.

mejohnr1 , says: August 16, 2019 at 7:37 pm GMT

In the thirteenth century, both the Ukrainians and the Russians faced more dire threats than each other.

In the 13th century there were no Ukrainians or Ukraine. There was Russia though, Rus'. Imagine a US state becoming independent today, from the rest of the US.. like Ohio.. and people are going to say "the first man on the moon was an Ohioan (Armstrong), not an American. Sorry, doesn't work like that..

Commentator Mike , says: August 18, 2019 at 8:10 am GMT
@Colin Wright

' Ukro-Nazi Jews '

You have to admit that's an impressive combination.

Yes, but it wasn't the Saker who invented it; it does seem to reflect what's going on there. My only criticism is that he has given more prominence to the Nazis than the Jews, unless we consider "oligarchs" as a synonym for Jews.

Bardon Kaldian , says: August 18, 2019 at 8:39 am GMT
When I see words like "Nazis" in relation to Ukrainians, I know that article is sh!t & not worth reading.
Commentator Mike , says: August 18, 2019 at 8:42 am GMT
@peterAUS

why he writes like that/we have such posts here?

Like you have said in the past he is taking the Russian side. I think it's a fairly good analysis of the situation if you go beyond his propagandistic terminology and what he leaves unsaid. Russia really doesn't want to engage directly in the conflict but its best policy would be to bide its time and to encourage more pro-Russian separatism in Odessa and all other regions along the coast so as to eventually cut off Ukraine from access to the sea altogether. That would serve Russian interests best and strengthen its position against NATO, the EU, and the rump Ukraine, for whatever is to follow. It's a shame for any real Ukranian nationalists but then they should have been smarter than to join all those colour revolutions on Maidan organised by the CIA, Soros, Jewish oligarchs, etc.

That's a frozen conflict for now. Let's have another article on UR about the latest from the US sponsored colour revolution in Hong Kong and what are the best measures that PR China can take to quell the riots. And it's about time they took back Formosa, but it won't be as easy as the Russian takeover of Crimea, unless they can send a million Red Army guards there disguised as tourists to stage a silent putsch.

Tom Welsh , says: August 18, 2019 at 10:38 am GMT
"As I have indicated in a recent article, the Ukraine is not a democracy but an oligarchy "

Like the USA, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India

None of those countries have ever been democracies in any sense of the word.

Robjil , says: August 18, 2019 at 11:24 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian Neonazis is a good term for the people used in the Ukrainian ZUS coup. That is the people that was used to gain control of Ukraine for ZUS.

This coup in Ukraine, woke me up.

V. Nuland's war cry to bless the coup was "F–k The EU"

She used Neonazis to take over Ukraine.

Wait. She is Jewish. I guess the 6 million story must be bogus. She admitted it, since if the 6 million story was real. She would have a great fear of a tidal wave of anti-S'ism overcoming her and her people. She had no fear. Thus, the 6 million story was proved to be false by V. Nuland. Thanks V. Nuland for freeing the world of that nightmarish propaganda that has saddled humanity for seventy odd years.

Secondly, she told the world the reality of J. Supremacism by stating " F..k the EU". The world thought that ZUS loved the EU as its sister in world domination. I guess not. Would V. Nuland ever say "F..k Israel"? I think not.

Thanks V. Nuland. A new Queen Esther or Queen Victoria.

Robjil , says: August 18, 2019 at 11:37 am GMT
@Tom Welsh Yes, ZUS ukraine is being run just like the rest of us in the west.

The little people are considered "deplorable" and treated that way.

At least, ZUS ukraine is not be over run by people fleeing ZUS wars and coups.

I guess since ZUS ukraine is not in good shape for these fleeing people.

ZUS ukraine is in the same shape as the nations that the fleeing people come from.

So there is no reason for them to go to ZUS ukraine.

GMC , says: August 18, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
Yep, agree with Saker – I lived there before , during and now after the Maidan and he's spot on with most of everything – he has been, since the beginning. Zelinsky has a dozen or more bosses and he has Zero experience in what he's doing. . Zionist Bankers and their arms dealers, Nato, Banderas gang,Washington, US Navy, Monsanto/Bayer, Royal Dutch {shell oil }, Dupont, Lilly Pharma, Cargill, and the list could go on. He'll be lucky if he isn't in Diapers by the time his term is up, otherwise he will be rich. I see that Poroshanster is being called out for taking 8 billion bucks out of Ukie-Ville. I wonder how much Trump and his family will end up stealing?. Thanks Unz Review.
Kiza , says: August 18, 2019 at 1:10 pm GMT
@Beckow

Thus Kiev got justa bout the worst possible combination on non-EU and deep hostility with Russia. Smarter guys would had handled it much better, playing both sides against each other – raising the stakes.

As usual, you nailed it Beckow.
Also, Saker often misunderstands things but he is right that Ukraine is in a one way street mainly because of the out-of-this-World miscalculation that the rotten West will somehow help them instead of use them to create a festering sore on Russian border for just a few billion dollars in loans. It is the rest of Ukraine, excluding Donbas, that will have to pay off these war loans already stolen by the oligarchs.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: August 18, 2019 at 1:56 pm GMT

https://www.youtube.com/embed/d2xCLqQnnjs?feature=oembed

Bill Jones , says: August 18, 2019 at 2:23 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike I recall that at the time of the Zionist coup (We do remember Ms Noodleman's : "fuck the EU" don't we?) Ukrainian Nazi's were a leading force in kicking things off.
Skeptikal , says: August 18, 2019 at 2:43 pm GMT
@Mr. Hack "In Saker's simplistic mind the Galicians have infiltrated all of Ukrainian society and run the whole show, "

This was not what I read.
The Saker said that oligarchs and Nazi militia groups have enough power to impose their will and their agenda on the rest of the population.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website August 18, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

When I see words like "Nazis" in relation to Ukrainians, I know that article is sh!t & not worth reading.

This is because you don't know what Raguli(stan) is and you cannot possibly know, because there are no "books" written yet which would encapsulate this whole phenomenon. Of course, Ukies have no relation to Fichte and Volkskrieg. Other than that you will find an attentive audience among local ignoramuses.

[Aug 18, 2019] The fundamental problem in politics is not the opposition of wickedness, but the restraint of righteousness. Hillary has always loved to kill people is distant lands

Aug 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

stevek , 18 minutes ago link

Hillary has always loved to kill people. Its in her (evil) blood.

Creative_Destruct , 22 minutes ago link

"This damn Serbian war is a symbol of all that is wrong with the righteous approach to the world and to problems within this nation."

Story of the last several decades (fill in the blank with your pick of the name of a US war or a SJW cause):

This damn _________ war is a symbol of all that is wrong with the righteous approach to the world and to problems within this nation.

Kissinger had many flaws, but he hit the nail on the head when he said:

"The fundamental problem in politics is not the opposition of wickedness, but the restraint of righteousness"

TheDayAfter , 1 hour ago link

We all know the Hypocrisy of that War. Clinton had to distract the masses from MonicaGate and Hillary had to prove to the MIC that she could be beneficial to them.

Result : Those Kosovo Albanians had a state handed to them, and instead of building it(with uncle Sam's and EU help) as prosperous country, they used their weapons and "expertise" in becoming the low level gangsters of Europe. Every Europol analysis points to the direction of Kosovo Albanians as the criminal thugs in prostitution and drug trade and protection rackets. The largest percentage of a single ethnic group in European jails is that of Albanians.

TeaClipper , 1 hour ago link

The most unjust and illegal of wars in the late 20c.

There was only one reason to bomb white Christian brothers in Serbia thereby aiding the Muslim of Kosovo and Albania, and that was Russia, which by that stage had got its act together and dealt with the traitorous oligarchs who had sold their country out to the west.

Hillary and her cronies no doubt lost a lot of money when the Russians shut their rat lines down.

I hope I live long enough to see those fuckers swing, and Tony Blair, Alistair Campnell and Peter Mandelson as well.

PKKA , 3 hours ago link

Again, your Muslims are to blame for everything. Muslims are all different. And it is necessary to separate the faithful Muslims from the bandits who are only covered by Muslim slogans.
NATO and your godless government are to blame!

An Afghan Freedom Fighter in Donbass - ENG SUBTITLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc2KeSkl5H0

Joe A , 3 hours ago link

It happened at the time of the Lewinsky affair and the possible impeachment of Clinton. They needed a distraction.

Milosevic btw. agreed to all conditions imposed on the FR of Yugoslavia except for one condition that nobody would accept: the full and unhindered access to the territory of FRY by NATO troops. That effectively meant an occupation. Nobody would agree to that. NATO and Albright deliberately came up with that condition for they knew it was unacceptable. Even Kissinger said that condition was over the top. NATO and Albright wanted that war. Serbia btw. saved Albright twice when she was still a little Slovakian Jewish girl whose family found refuge twice in Serbia. Once they escaped the Nazis that way and the second time the communists.

NATO thought they would need 48 hours but they needed 78 days and Milosevic only gave in after NATO switched from hitting military targets to civilian targets: Hospitals, commuter trains, civilian industry, an open market, random houses in random villages. After Milosevic pulled out his troops out of Kosovo, the KLA started killing Serbs and moderate Albanians, not to mention engage in organ trafficking (...). As the article said, well over 200k Serbs, moderate Albanians, Roma and other minorities were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo.

The US also used cluster bombs and DU weapons. Of the 4000 Italian KFOR troops that went into Kosovo after the bombing, 700 are dead from cancer and leukemia with several hundreds more seriously ill. The American KFOR troops wore hazmat suits. The Italians did not have them and were not warned. Today, many people in southern Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo itself are sick and dying.

HoyeruNew , 3 hours ago link

yes just like USA tried to help Vietnam against communists... by killing 2 million Vietnamese. and tried to help Korea by killing 20 % of the population. and by helping Iraq get rid of "bad" Saddam Hussein by killing 2 million Iraqies.

Oh, the Americans are oh so helpfiul!

ItsDanger , 2 hours ago link

Not disagreeing with you but lets remember that communists were killing a lot of people in other areas not long before those wars in SE Asia. May have been a wash in the end.

seryanhoj , 1 hour ago link

13 million gallons of agent orange dropped on Vietnamese forests was our way of saying we love you. The genetic deformities are still widespread.

So glad they kicked the US out of there.

Magnum , 3 hours ago link

That conflict led to hundreds of thousands of BOSNIANS moving to USA. Gotta keep the refugees flowing no matter what....

JoeBattista , 3 hours ago link

Bring back the draft. On the whole Americans have no idea what the carnage of combat produces. Combat vets do. And the ones that aren't natural psychopaths never want to experience it again. This volunteer army we have is over loaded with a them. A military draft will actually bring some sort civilian control.

seryanhoj , 1 hour ago link

They killed the draft so they would no longer be embarrassed by student protests and having to mow them down.

It worked. Today's snowflakes don't care about slaughter , only mini verbal aggressions against perverts.

seryanhoj , 1 hour ago link

Such ********. Do the millions we kill have any human rights? It's been going on for 4000 years. Ruthless pursuit of empire and fabricating phony justifications.

He–Mene Mox Mox , 3 hours ago link

Hillary seems to enjoy killing people. If it wasn't Gaddaffi, it was all the people on her body bag count, and now it's known she encouraged killing people in Serbia. Someone needs to take that old cow out into the center of the town and burn her at the stake.

Red Corvair , 4 hours ago link

Partially true, otherwise as usually excellent Dr. Paul, ... The Pandora's box situation was opened years before Clinton's bombing of Serbia, which was part of a larger scheme started nearly a decade before.

That was when the US armed the religious extremists in Bosnia, in order to bring war, "civil war" and chaos, and disintegration, the way they more recently tried to do with Syria, or "succeeded" in doing in Libya, bringing chaos and open-air slave markets in a country that was one of the most developed on the African continent under Gaddafi (a truth that was so easily erased by propaganda).

And the whole neocon scheme started two decades before, with the Zbigniew Brzezinski doctrine, when the US started arming the mujahedin in Afghanistan, provoking the trap for the Soviet invasion of 1979, which was the real opening of US neocon's Pandora's box we are regrettably so familiar with by now. We've all fallen in that old neocon/military-industrial-congressional-complex trap by now. And there seems to be no end in sight to those eternal wars "for civilization" (the old colonial trope dressed under new fatigues). Unless serious societal and political changes take place in the US to put an end to the US "imperial" death drive.

[Aug 18, 2019] US Bullies Its Way Into Dispute, Moves to Seize Iranian Tanker by Barbara Boland

Notable quotes:
"... "Designed to provoke Tehran: Just as #Iran-UK-#Gibraltar were set to have #Grace1 tanker released today, #Trump admin moves in to spoil the effort. Will become another source of tension in Europe-US relations over Iran policy," Ellie Geranmayeh, Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted . ..."
"... As TAC previously reported , the legal rationale for detaining the Iranian vessel and its crew is questionable, because Iran is not a member of the European Union and thus can not violate EU sanctions. ..."
"... "The UK had no legal right to enforce those sanctions," writes Gareth Porter, and the seizure "was a blatant violation of the clearly defined global rules that govern the passage of merchant ships through international straits." ..."
Aug 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

British Gibraltar ordered the ship's release to ease tensions. Washington wasn't having any of it.

A ship approaches supertanker Grace 1 off the coast of Gibraltar on July 6, 2019. – Iran demanded on July 5, 2019 that Britain immediately release an oil tanker it has detained in Gibraltar, accusing it of acting at the bidding of the United States. Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP) (Photo credit should read JORGE GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images)

Despite eleventh hour efforts on the part of the U.S. to detain the Grace 1 Iranian oil tanker seized by the Royal Navy in July, the vessel was released Thursday. Gibraltar's Chief Minister said he had accepted a pledge from Iran that if the tanker was released, it would not be taken to Syria.

The Grace 1 was seized last month by the British Royal Navy for alleged European Union sanctions violations. The British claimed that Iran was using the tanker to ship oil to Syria.

Before the last minute U.S. legal action, authorities in Gibraltar had announced they would release the Grace 1 and drop legal actions against the ship's captain and crew in order to ease tensions.

The U.S. application was scheduled to be heard later on Thursday by the Gibraltar Supreme Court. The U.S. Department of Justice sought to extend the detention of the oil tanker, but the Gibraltar Supreme Court later dropped the detention order, essentially moving evaluation of the U.S. request to another government agency for consideration, according to CBS. In the mean time, the tanker is free to leave.

The U.S. filing seems to confirm reports that the U.S. urged the British detention of the Iranian ship in July.

" Having failed to accomplish its objectives through its #EconomicTerrorism -- including depriving cancer patients of medicine -- the US attempted to abuse the legal system to steal our property on the high seas," tweeted Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. "This piracy attempt is indicative of Trump admin's contempt for the law."

After the British decision to detain the Grace 1 in July, Iran seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero as it traveled through the Strait of Hormuz.

Tensions with Tehran have escalated since the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and resumed economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Without citing specific evidence, the U.S. has blamed Iran for recent attacks on other oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

"Designed to provoke Tehran: Just as #Iran-UK-#Gibraltar were set to have #Grace1 tanker released today, #Trump admin moves in to spoil the effort. Will become another source of tension in Europe-US relations over Iran policy," Ellie Geranmayeh, Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted .

As TAC previously reported , the legal rationale for detaining the Iranian vessel and its crew is questionable, because Iran is not a member of the European Union and thus can not violate EU sanctions.

"The UK had no legal right to enforce those sanctions," writes Gareth Porter, and the seizure "was a blatant violation of the clearly defined global rules that govern the passage of merchant ships through international straits."

It is unclear whether UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will support Washington's maximum pressure campaign against Iran. But the American decision to pursue its case in Gibraltar's courts may indicate that Britain is unwilling to further escalate tensions with the Islamic Republic.

Barbara Boland is 's foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC.

[Aug 18, 2019] The Destruction Is the Point [ of Trump policy toward Iran] by Daniel Larison

How current prices correlate with Pompeo statement that "We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market." ? Something really strange is happening here.
Notable quotes:
"... Given these statements, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Pompeo is not being entirely honest when he claims the maximum pressure campaign is succeeding. Rather than leveling with the American people and making an argument about why the administration is persisting with the policy in spite of the lack of progress, he has chosen to deceive the public in order to defend a dangerous policy. ..."
"... Pompeo has made a habit of deceiving the public as Secretary of State on a range of issues from Yemen to North Korea, but for the most part he has been allowed to get away with that. ..."
"... When Pompeo has been asked for proof that the sanctions are "working," he cannot point to any positive change in the Iranian government's behavior, and instead he boasts about the harm that has been done to Iran's economy and its people: ..."
"... We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market. ..."
"... Pompeo is deception, lies, absolute dishonesty. But of course that is the mark of the trump regime in general terms. ..."
Aug 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Nicholas Miller has delivered a devastating response to Pompeo's pitiful propaganda op-ed from earlier this month:

Given these statements, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Pompeo is not being entirely honest when he claims the maximum pressure campaign is succeeding. Rather than leveling with the American people and making an argument about why the administration is persisting with the policy in spite of the lack of progress, he has chosen to deceive the public in order to defend a dangerous policy.

Pompeo has made a habit of deceiving the public as Secretary of State on a range of issues from Yemen to North Korea, but for the most part he has been allowed to get away with that. He probably thinks that there is no price to be paid for constantly lying and misrepresenting things to the public and Congress, and so he keeps doing it.

The more important reason why Pompeo keeps deceiving the public is that he is also eager to please the president, and so he has to keep claiming success for failing policies because reports of success are what the president wants to hear. When Pompeo's ridiculous op-ed came out last week, one of the common questions that many people asked was, "Who is the audience for this?" The point these people were making was that the "argument" in the op-ed was so facile and nonsensical that it can't possibly have been intended to persuade anyone, so the purpose of it had to be to placate Trump and reassure him that the policy "works."

Miller does an outstanding job picking apart Pompeo's various claims and using Pompeo's previous contradictory claims against him, and he shows that the Secretary's defense of "maximum pressure" is a joke to any minimally informed person. But as far as Pompeo is concerned, all that matters is that Trump sticks with the policy. When Pompeo has been asked for proof that the sanctions are "working," he cannot point to any positive change in the Iranian government's behavior, and instead he boasts about the harm that has been done to Iran's economy and its people:

I remember, David – I'm sure no one in this room, but many here in Washington said that American sanctions alone won't work. Well, they've worked. We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market.

Miller addressed Pompeo's use of economic damage as proof of the policy's success this way:

Using economic damage to gauge the success of sanctions is like using body counts to measure success in counter-insurgency -- it's an indicator that your policy is having an effect, but does not necessarily imply you're any closer to achieving strategic objectives.

For a hard-liner like Pompeo, continuing with a destructive and bankrupt policy is a matter of ideology and an expression of hostility towards the targeted country. It doesn't matter to hard-liners if the policy actually achieves anything as long as it does damage, and so they take pride in the damage that they cause without any concern for the consequences for the U.S. and Iran. Rational critics of this policy rightfully object that this is just aimless destruction, but the destruction is the point of the policy.


Sid Finster 3 days ago

The current administration, like its predecessors, is not merely incompetent, it is actively malicious.
Zsuzsi Kruska Sid Finster 3 days ago
It only appears incompetent until you discover who benefits, and it isn't the majority of Americans. Who has benefited so far? The Plutocrats, oligarchs, Israel, Saudi, MIC, Big Oil, Big Rx, immigration related services. This is just a partial list, but guess who it doesn't include?
maninthewilderness Sid Finster 3 days ago
Perhaps it's a precondition for being the administration.
Littleredtop 3 days ago
Any nation that allows "freedom of speech" has made the assumption that either everyone is honest or everyone is smart enough to know bull sh !t when they hear it.
Taras77 3 days ago
Pompeo is deception, lies, absolute dishonesty. But of course that is the mark of the trump regime in general terms.

[Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko trace to Steele dossier is a real shocker.
Notable quotes:
"... On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. ..."
"... If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI. ..."
"... What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr. ..."
"... FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble. ..."
"... It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from... ..."
"... So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination.. ..."
"... I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations? ..."
"... So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? ..."
"... Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment. ..."
"... They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose. ..."
"... Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'??? ..."
"... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort. ..."
"... So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election! ..."
"... The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement, became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good. ..."
Aug 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

There are many moving pieces in the drama surrounding the Deep State attempt to kill the Trump Presidency. God Bless Judicial Watch. I think most of the key evidence that has surfaced came courtesy of Tom Fitton, Chris Farrell and their team of tireless workers.

I want to bring you back to Mr. Felix Sater . He was part of Bayrock, which worked closely with Donald Trump's organization and, most importantly of all, was an FBI Confidential Human Source since December of 1998.

Thanks to Judicial Watch we have a new dump of Bruce Ohr emails, which include several from his wife, Nellie. There are 330 pages to wade thru (you can see them here ). There is one item in particular I encourage you to look at:

On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly "linked to Trump" include: a Russian involved in a "gangland killing;" an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly "buys up banks and pumps them dry"; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their name to the Trump Institute, promoting its "get-rich-quick schemes"; a man who poured him a drink; and others.

The spreadsheet starts on page 301. If you search the document for the name Felix Sater, he will pop up. Now here is the curious and, I suppose, reassuring thing about this document--Nellie Ohr did not have a clue that Felix Sater was an active FBI informant. We can at least give the FBI credit for protecting Sater's identity from Nellie Ohr and, more importantly, her husband, DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI.

One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed.

Shifting gears, there are two very important pieces recently posted at The Conservative Tree House that I encourage you to read:

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/quirky-angle-overstock-ceo-patrick-byrne-2016-fbi-activity-was-political-espionage/#more-168122 https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/federal-judge-completely-rejects-doj-argument-orders-archey-declarations-descriptions-of-comey-memosreleased/ The first piece focuses on CEO Patrick Byrne and the role he played in trying to entrap and portray Marina Butina as a Russian agent.

What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.

You can find this information in the Bruce Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured. Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence agent. It was a damn lie.

I do not ever want to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is entrapped and unfairly prosecuted in Russia.

We have done the same damn thing that we have accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful.

The second piece is the ultimate feel good piece. Kudos to its author, Sundance.

He details how a Federal Judge, infuriated by the FBIs stupidity and mendacity, tells the Bureau to go pound sand. The FBI is frantically trying to prevent the Archey Declarations from being revealed thanks to a lawsuit brought by CNN (finally, CNN did something right).

The Archey Declarations provide a detailed description of the memos written and illegally removed from FBI Headquarters by that sanctimonious twit, Jim Comey. More shoes will be dropping in the coming days.

It appears that Inspector General Horowitz is going to present at least one report on Jim Comey and one report on the FISA abuse by the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble.

Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today ( see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June 20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's team the right to destroy computers and emails.

It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

The fix was in more than a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending prosecution of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server.

Jim Comey lied when he declared that could not prove "intent."

I am sure that those of you who have never held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie.

But anyone who knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS material on an unclassified server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this mistakenly.


Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... ,

Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from...

So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination..

creating Phase 2..Operations..

"The Washington Free Beacon ".Has an Editor in Chief ..who is William Kristols Son In Law..And William Kristols ..Father....Irving Kristol..is Called..."the God Father of Neo Conservatism". William Kristol..was a John McCain supporter..

Thus Fusion GPS..retained Nellie Ohr..(strangly..NO Wiki Profile) who apparently had to Use her husbnd Bruce Ohrs Clearances,,to continue Her Collaberation with Fusion GPS..

By June 2016 the Strategy was to bring in Christopher Steele..who was know to Bruce Ohr back to 2006.. Strange.. NO early life BIOS for Bruce or Nellie Ohr..

Jack , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Larry

Do you believe the current DOJ under Barr will really investigate and convene a grand jury to hear testimony from Comey, Brennan and Clapper?

And what do you make of the fact that Epstein who was on suicide watch either was murdered or killed himself while in custody?

akaPatience , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations?

The Gateway Pundit item about the ridiculously unfair and unethical deals made in Hillary Clinton's email scandal investigation is just further proof of how the Clinton taint infected the FBI. "Crooked" is a very apt epithet, that's for sure. I'd love to know how much Bill and Hill raked in during her Sec'y. of State racketeering.

Fred , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?
plantman , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
You say: "One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed."

This is true, but it is also true that Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment.

They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose.

Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'???

Keith Harbaugh , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Let me just add this piece by John Solomon: "New evidence shows why Steele, the Ohrs and TSA workers never should have become DOJ sources" by John Solomon, 2019-08-15
...
Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort.

Why is that significant? Tymoshenko and Hillary Clinton had a simpatico relationship after the former secretary of State went out of her way in January 2013 to advocate for Tymoshenko's release from prison on corruption charges.

So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election!
...
The tales of Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Yulia Tymoshenko, and those DEA and TSA agents raise a stark warning:

The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement,
became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good.

That's a problem sorely in need of fixing.

oldman22 said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... 17 August 2019 at 01:16 AM

The person responsible for securing the release of Yulia Tymoshenko was Chancellor Merkel. Further, that USA opposed Tymoshenko.

quote
As for one of the leaders of the war party in Kiev, Merkel has privately and publicly endorsed every claim of Yulia Tymoshenko, promoting her release from prison and protecting her campaigns for war against Russia, even though – according to the high-level German source – “they [Chancellery, Foreign Ministry] have known for years that [Tymoshenko] was a crook.”
endquote

There is a lot more detail Tymoshenko's corruption and Merkel's rescue here:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/john-helmer-the-political-motivation-of-chancellor-merkels-embrace-of-yulia-tymoshenko-and-war.html

(republished from John Helmer's website, includes a great cartoon worth viewing)

If you want more sources for this story,google
"Merkel, Tymoshenko, prison"

[Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Aug 17, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war, the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.

So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo, betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two inches to the east.

Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't fools, and they're good-hearted, but they become resentful. They're worried about being attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily, we are under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being put out that Russia somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous, warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We put our military alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.


Disturbed Voter , July 30, 2018 at 6:32 am

Real politik. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Don't start fights in the first place. The idea that American leadership is any better than mid-Victorian imperialism, is laughable.

Jerri-Lynn Scofield , July 30, 2018 at 8:15 am

Here's the RNN link to part one: The Russia "National Security Crisis" is a U.S. Creation .

integer , July 30, 2018 at 7:12 am

AARON MATE: We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about

Few appear to be aware that Bill Browder is single-handedly responsible for starting, and spreading, the rumor that Putin's net worth is $200 billion (for those who are unfamiliar with Browder, I highly recommend watching Andrei Nekrasov's documentary titled " The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes "). Browder appears to have first started this rumor early in 2015 , and has repeated it ad nauseam since then, including in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 . While Browder has always framed the $200 billion figure as his own estimate, that subtle qualifier has had little effect on the media's willingness to accept it as fact.

Interestingly, during the press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Putin claimed Browder sent $400 million of ill-gotten gains to the Clinton campaign. Putin retracted the statement and claimed to have misspoke a week or so later, however by that time the $400 million figure had been cited by numerous media outlets around the world. I think it is at least possible that Putin purposely exaggerated the amount of money in question as a kind of tit-for-tat response to Browder having started the rumor about his net worth being $200 billion.

Blue Pilgrim , July 30, 2018 at 11:39 am

The stories I saw said there was a mistranslation -- but that the figure should have $400 thousand and not $400 million. Maybe Putin misspoke, but the $400,000 number is still significant, albeit far more reasonable.

Putin never was on the Forbes list of billionaires, btw, and his campaign finance statement comes to far less. It never seems to occur to rabid capitalists or crooks that not everyone is like them, placing such importance on vast fortunes, or want to be dishonest, greedy, or power hungry. Putin is only 'well off' and that seems to satisfy him just fine as he gets on with other interests, values, and goals.

integer , July 30, 2018 at 12:03 pm

Yes, $400,000 is the revised/correct figure. My having written that "Putin retracted the statement" was not the best choice of phrase. Also, the figure was corrected the day after it was made, not "a week or so later" as I wrote in my previous comment. From the Russia Insider link:

Browder's criminal group used many tax evasion methods, including offshore companies. They siphoned shares and funds from Russia worth over 1.5 billion dollars. By the way, $400,000 was transferred to the US Democratic Party's accounts from these funds. The Russian president asked us to correct his statement from yesterday. During the briefing, he said it was $400,000,000, not $400,000. Either way, it's still a significant amount of money.

JohnnyGL , July 30, 2018 at 2:54 pm

I hadn't heard about the revision/edit to the $400M, thanks!

Seems crazy to think how much Russo-phobia seems to have been ginned up by one tax-dodging hedgie with an axe to grind.

Procopius , July 31, 2018 at 1:11 am

There's something weird about the anti-Putin hysteria. Somehow, many, many people have come to believe they must demonstrate their membership in the tribe by accepting completely unsupported assertions that go against common sense.

Eureka Springs , July 30, 2018 at 7:58 am

In a sane world we the people would be furious with the Clinton campaign, especially the D party but the R's as well, our media (again), and our intel/police State (again). Holding them all accountable while making sure this tsunami of deception and lies never happens again.

It's amazing even in time of the internetz those of us who really dig can only come up with a few sane voices. It's much worse now in terms of the numbers of sane voices than it was in the run up to Iraq 2.

CenterOfGravity , July 30, 2018 at 12:52 pm

Regardless of broad access to far more information in the digital age, never under estimate the self-preservation instinct of American exceptionalist mythology. There is an inverse relationship between the decline of US global primacy and increasingly desperate quest for adventurism. Like any case of addiction, looking outward for blame/salvation is imperative in order to prevent the mirror of self-reflection/realization from turning back onto ourselves.

integer , July 30, 2018 at 9:28 am

we're not to believe we're not supposed to believe we're supposed to believe

Believe whatever you want, however your comment gives the impression that you came to this article because you felt the need to push back against anything that does not conform to the liberal international order's narrative on Putin and Russia, rather than "with an eagerness to counterbalance the media's portrayal of Putin". WRT to whataboutism, I like Greenwald's definition of the term :

"Whataboutism": the term used to bar inquiry into whether someone adheres to the moral and behavioral standards they seek to impose on everyone else. That's its functional definition.

Rojo , July 30, 2018 at 12:25 pm

Invoking "whataboutism" is a liberal team-Dem tell.

Amfortas the Hippie , July 30, 2018 at 2:20 pm

aye. I've never seen it used by anyone aside from the worst Hill Trolls.
Indeed, when it was first thrown at me, I endeavored to look it up, and found that all references to it were from Hillaryites attempting to diss apostates and heretics.

Jonathan Holland Becnel , July 30, 2018 at 8:22 pm

Eh, probably

John Oliver, whos been completely sucking lately with TDS, did a semi decent segment on Whataboutism.

Eureka Springs , July 30, 2018 at 9:52 am

The degree of consistency and or lack of hypocrisy based on words and actions separates US from Russia to an astonishing level. That is Russia's largest threat to US, our deceivers. The propaganda tables have turned and we are deceiving ourselves to points of collective insanity and warmongering with a great nuclear power while we are at it. Warmongering is who we are and what we do.

Does Russia have a GITMO, torture Chelsea Manning, openly say they want to kill Snowden and Assange? Is Russia building up arsenals on our borders while maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and conducting several wars at any given moment while constantly threatening to foment more wars? Is Russia dropping another trillion on nuclear arsenals? Is Russia forcing us to maintain such an anti democratic system and an even worse, an entirely hackable electronic voting system?

You ready to destroy the world, including your own, rather than look in the mirror?

rkka , July 30, 2018 at 9:52 am

You're talking about extending Russian military power into Europe when the military spending of NATO Europe alone exceeds Russia's by almost 5-1 (more like 12-1 when one includes the US and Canada), have about triple the number of soldiers than Russia has, and when the Russian ground forces are numerically smaller than they have been in at least 200 years?

" to put their self-interests above those of their constituents and employees, why can't we apply this same lens to Putin and his oligarchs?"

The oligarchs got their start under Yeltsin and his FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, whose policies were so catastrophic that deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year by the late '90s, with no end in sight. Central to Yeltsin's governance was the corrupt privatization, by which means the Seven Bankers came to control the Russian economy and Russian politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semibankirschina

Central to Putin's popularity are the measures he took to curb oligarchic predation in 2003-2005. Because of this, Russia's debt:GDP ratio went from 1.0 to about 0.2, and Russia's demographic recovery began while Western analysis were still predicting the death of Russia.

So Putin is the anti-oligarch in Russian domestic politics.

Blue Pilgrim , July 30, 2018 at 12:17 pm

"While it's true that power corrupts"

I know of many people who sacrifice their own interests for those of their children (over whom they have virtually absolute power), family member and friends. I know of others who dedicate their lives to justice, peace, the well being of their nation, the world, and other people -- people who find far greater meaning and satisfaction in this than in accumulating power or money. Other people have their own goals, such as producing art, inventing interesting things, reading and learning, and don't care two hoots about power or money as long as their immediate needs are met.

I'm cynical enough about humans without thinking the worst of everyone and every group or culture. Not everyone thinks only of nails and wants to be hammers, or are sociopaths. There are times when people are more or less forced into taking power, or getting more money, even if they don't want it, because they want to change things for the better or need to defend themselves.
There are people who get guns and learn how to use them only because they feel a need for defending themselves and family but who don't like guns and don't want to shoot anyone or anything.

There are many people who do not want to be controlled and bossed around, but neither want to boss around anyone else. The world is full of such people. If they are threatened and attacked, however, expect defensive reactions. Same as for most animals which are not predators, and even predators will generally not attack other animals if they are not hungry or threatened -- but that does not mean they are not competent or can be dangerous.

Capitalism is not only inherently predatory, but is inherently expansive without limits, with unlimited ambition for profits and control. It's intrinsically very competitive and imperialist. Capitalism is also a thing which was exported to Russia, starting soon after the Russian Revolution, which was immediately attacked and invaded by the West, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. Soviet Russia had it's own problems, which it met with varying degrees of success, but were quite different from the aggressive capitalism and imperialism of the US and Europe.

Not every culture and person are the same.

BenX , July 30, 2018 at 3:28 pm

The pro-Putin propaganda is pretty interesting to witness, and of course not everything Cohen says is skewed pro-Putin – that's what provides credibility. But "Putin kills everybody" is something NOBODY says (except Cohen, twice in one interview) – Putin is actually pretty selective of those he decides to have killed. But of course, he doesn't kill anyone, personally – therefore he's an innocent lamb, accidentally running Russia as a dictator.

rkka , July 31, 2018 at 9:11 am

The most recent dictator in Russian history was Boris Yeltsin, who turned tanks on his legislature while it was in the legal and constitutional process of impeaching him, and whose policies were so catastrophic for Russians (who were dying off at the rate of 900k/yr) that he had to steal his re-election because he had a 5% approval rating.

But he did as the US gvt told him, so I guess that makes him a Democrat.

Under Putin Russia recovered from being helpless, bankrupt & dying, but Russia has an independent foreign policy, so that makes Putin a dictator.

Plenue , July 30, 2018 at 3:54 pm

"Does any sane person believe that there will ever be a Putin-signed contract provided as evidence? Does any sane person believe that Putin actually needs to "approve" a contract rather than signaling to his oligarch/mafia hierarchy that he's unhappy about a newspaper or journalist's reporting?"

Why do you think Putin even needs, or feels a need, to have journalists killed in the first place? I see no evidence to support this basic assumption.

The idea of Russia poised to attack Europe is interesting, in light of the fact that they've cut their military spending by 20%. And even before that the budgets of France, Germany, and the UK combined well exceeded that of Russia, to say nothing of the rest of NATO or the US.

Putin's record speaks for itself. This again points to the absurdity of claiming he's had reporters killed: he doesn't need to. He has a vast amount of genuine public support because he's salvaged the country and pieced it back together after the pillaging of the Yeltsin years. That he himself is a corrupt oligarch I have no particular doubt of. But if he just wanted to enrich himself, he's had a very funny way of going about it. Pray tell, what are these 'other interpretations'?

"The US foreign policy has been disastrous for millions of people since world war 2. But Cohen's arguments that Russia isn't as bad as the US is just a bunch of whattaboutism."

What countries has the Russian Federation destroyed?

witters , July 31, 2018 at 1:30 am

Here is a fascinating essay ["Are We Reading Russia Right?"] by Nicolai N. Petro who currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. His books include, Ukraine
in Crisis (Routledge, 2017), Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian Foreign Policy, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997). A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is the recipient of Fulbright awards to Russia and to Ukraine, as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington,
D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, he served as special assistant for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to scholarly publications
on Russia and Ukraine, he has written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian (UK), The Nation, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly. His writings have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The National Interest.

I warn you – it is terrifying!

http://npetro.net/resources/Petro-FF+Spring+2018.pdf

Carolinian , July 30, 2018 at 8:55 am

Thanks for so much for this. Great stuff. Cohen says the emperor has no clothes so naturally the empire doesn't want him on television. I believe he has been on CNN one or two times and I saw him once on the PBS Newshour where the interviewer asked skeptical questions with a pained and skeptical look. He seems to be the only prominent person willing to stand up and call bs on the Russia hate. There are plenty of pundits and commentators who do that but not many Princeton professors.

Thye Rev Kev , July 30, 2018 at 9:04 am

It has been said in recent years that the greatest failure of American foreign policy was the invasion of Iraq. I think that they are wrong. The greatest failure, in my opinion, is to push both China and Russia together into a semi-official pact against American ambitions. In the same way that the US was able to split China from the USSR back in the seventies, the best option was for America to split Russia from China and help incorporate them into the western system. The waters for that idea have been so fouled by the Russia hysteria, if not dementia, that that is no longer a possibility. I just wish that the US would stop sowing dragon's teeth – it never ends well.

NotTimothyGeithner , July 30, 2018 at 9:45 am

The best option, but the "American exceptionalists" went nuts. Also, the usual play book of stoking fears of the "yellow menace" would have been too on the nose. Americans might not buy it, and there was a whole cottage industry of "the rising China threat" except the potential consumer market place and slave labor factories stopped that from happening.

Bringing Russia into the West effectively means Europe, and I think that creates a similar dynamic to a Russian/Chinese pact. The basic problem with the EU is its led by a relatively weak but very German power which makes the EU relatively weak or controllable as long as the German electorate is relatively sedate. I think they still need the international structures run by the U.S. to maintain their dominance. What Russia and the pre-Erdogan Turkey (which was never going to be admitted to the EU) presented was significant upsets to the existing EU order with major balances to Germany which I always believed would make the EU potentially more dynamic. Every decision wouldn't require a pilgrimage to Berlin. The British were always disinterested. The French had made arrangements with Germany, and Italy is still Italy. Putting Russia or Turkey (pre-Erdogan) would have disrupted this arrangement.

John Wright , July 30, 2018 at 11:11 am

>which is oddly not easy to locate on its site

It appeared to me that Aaron Mate knew he was dealing with a weak hand by the end of the interview.

When Mate stated "it's widely held that Putin is responsible for the killing of journalists and opposition activists who oppose him."

There are many widely held beliefs in the world, and that does not make them true.

For example, It was widely held, and still may be believed by some, that Saddam Hussein was involved in the events of 9/11.

It is widely believed that humans are not responsible, in any part, for climate change.

Mate may have been embarrassed when he saw the final version and as a courtesy to him, the interview was made more difficult to find.

pretzelattack , July 30, 2018 at 11:35 am

iirc he didn't say it was true.

Elizabeth Burton , July 30, 2018 at 7:18 pm

The Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a clear majority. The US overran Hawaii with total disregard for the wishes of the native population. Your comparison is invalid.

vato , July 31, 2018 at 3:37 am

"Putin's finger prints are all over the Balkan fiasco".How is that with Putin only becoming president in 2000 and the Nato bombing started way beforehand. It's ridiculous to think that Putin had any major influence at that time as govenor or director of the domestic intelligence service on what was going during the bombing of NATO on Belgrad. Even Gerhard Schroeder, then chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, admitted in an interview in 2014 with a major German Newspaper (Die Zeit) that this invasion of Nato was a fault and against international law!

Can you concrete what you mean by "fingerprints" or is this just another platitudes?

ewmayer , July 31, 2018 at 6:05 pm

"Somebody called it Trump derangement syndrome."

I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].

Symptoms include:

o Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently absurd MSM propaganda. For example, the meme that releasing factual information about actual election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging of its own nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;

o Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on and lying to the American people, spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer Brennan;

o Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples of "norms-respecting Republican patriots";

o Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating Russian stooge.

[Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko trace to Steele dossier is a real shocker.
Notable quotes:
"... On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. ..."
"... If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI. ..."
"... What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr. ..."
"... FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble. ..."
"... It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from... ..."
"... So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination.. ..."
"... I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations? ..."
"... So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? ..."
"... Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment. ..."
"... They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose. ..."
"... Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'??? ..."
"... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort. ..."
"... So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election! ..."
"... The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement, became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good. ..."
Aug 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

There are many moving pieces in the drama surrounding the Deep State attempt to kill the Trump Presidency. God Bless Judicial Watch. I think most of the key evidence that has surfaced came courtesy of Tom Fitton, Chris Farrell and their team of tireless workers.

I want to bring you back to Mr. Felix Sater . He was part of Bayrock, which worked closely with Donald Trump's organization and, most importantly of all, was an FBI Confidential Human Source since December of 1998.

Thanks to Judicial Watch we have a new dump of Bruce Ohr emails, which include several from his wife, Nellie. There are 330 pages to wade thru (you can see them here ). There is one item in particular I encourage you to look at:

On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly "linked to Trump" include: a Russian involved in a "gangland killing;" an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly "buys up banks and pumps them dry"; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their name to the Trump Institute, promoting its "get-rich-quick schemes"; a man who poured him a drink; and others.

The spreadsheet starts on page 301. If you search the document for the name Felix Sater, he will pop up. Now here is the curious and, I suppose, reassuring thing about this document--Nellie Ohr did not have a clue that Felix Sater was an active FBI informant. We can at least give the FBI credit for protecting Sater's identity from Nellie Ohr and, more importantly, her husband, DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI.

One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed.

Shifting gears, there are two very important pieces recently posted at The Conservative Tree House that I encourage you to read:

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/quirky-angle-overstock-ceo-patrick-byrne-2016-fbi-activity-was-political-espionage/#more-168122 https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/federal-judge-completely-rejects-doj-argument-orders-archey-declarations-descriptions-of-comey-memosreleased/ The first piece focuses on CEO Patrick Byrne and the role he played in trying to entrap and portray Marina Butina as a Russian agent.

What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.

You can find this information in the Bruce Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured. Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence agent. It was a damn lie.

I do not ever want to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is entrapped and unfairly prosecuted in Russia.

We have done the same damn thing that we have accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful.

The second piece is the ultimate feel good piece. Kudos to its author, Sundance.

He details how a Federal Judge, infuriated by the FBIs stupidity and mendacity, tells the Bureau to go pound sand. The FBI is frantically trying to prevent the Archey Declarations from being revealed thanks to a lawsuit brought by CNN (finally, CNN did something right).

The Archey Declarations provide a detailed description of the memos written and illegally removed from FBI Headquarters by that sanctimonious twit, Jim Comey. More shoes will be dropping in the coming days.

It appears that Inspector General Horowitz is going to present at least one report on Jim Comey and one report on the FISA abuse by the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble.

Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today ( see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June 20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's team the right to destroy computers and emails.

It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

The fix was in more than a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending prosecution of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server.

Jim Comey lied when he declared that could not prove "intent."

I am sure that those of you who have never held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie.

But anyone who knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS material on an unclassified server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this mistakenly.


Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... ,

Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from...

So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination..

creating Phase 2..Operations..

"The Washington Free Beacon ".Has an Editor in Chief ..who is William Kristols Son In Law..And William Kristols ..Father....Irving Kristol..is Called..."the God Father of Neo Conservatism". William Kristol..was a John McCain supporter..

Thus Fusion GPS..retained Nellie Ohr..(strangly..NO Wiki Profile) who apparently had to Use her husbnd Bruce Ohrs Clearances,,to continue Her Collaberation with Fusion GPS..

By June 2016 the Strategy was to bring in Christopher Steele..who was know to Bruce Ohr back to 2006.. Strange.. NO early life BIOS for Bruce or Nellie Ohr..

Jack , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Larry

Do you believe the current DOJ under Barr will really investigate and convene a grand jury to hear testimony from Comey, Brennan and Clapper?

And what do you make of the fact that Epstein who was on suicide watch either was murdered or killed himself while in custody?

akaPatience , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations?

The Gateway Pundit item about the ridiculously unfair and unethical deals made in Hillary Clinton's email scandal investigation is just further proof of how the Clinton taint infected the FBI. "Crooked" is a very apt epithet, that's for sure. I'd love to know how much Bill and Hill raked in during her Sec'y. of State racketeering.

Fred , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?
plantman , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
You say: "One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed."

This is true, but it is also true that Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment.

They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose.

Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'???

Keith Harbaugh , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Let me just add this piece by John Solomon: "New evidence shows why Steele, the Ohrs and TSA workers never should have become DOJ sources" by John Solomon, 2019-08-15
...
Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort.

Why is that significant? Tymoshenko and Hillary Clinton had a simpatico relationship after the former secretary of State went out of her way in January 2013 to advocate for Tymoshenko's release from prison on corruption charges.

So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election!
...
The tales of Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Yulia Tymoshenko, and those DEA and TSA agents raise a stark warning:

The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement,
became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good.

That's a problem sorely in need of fixing.

oldman22 said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... 17 August 2019 at 01:16 AM

The person responsible for securing the release of Yulia Tymoshenko was Chancellor Merkel. Further, that USA opposed Tymoshenko.

quote
As for one of the leaders of the war party in Kiev, Merkel has privately and publicly endorsed every claim of Yulia Tymoshenko, promoting her release from prison and protecting her campaigns for war against Russia, even though – according to the high-level German source – “they [Chancellery, Foreign Ministry] have known for years that [Tymoshenko] was a crook.”
endquote

There is a lot more detail Tymoshenko's corruption and Merkel's rescue here:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/john-helmer-the-political-motivation-of-chancellor-merkels-embrace-of-yulia-tymoshenko-and-war.html

(republished from John Helmer's website, includes a great cartoon worth viewing)

If you want more sources for this story,google
"Merkel, Tymoshenko, prison"

[Aug 17, 2019] Unleashing country-wide epidemic of Russophenia and anti-Russian hysteria as well as stifling debate regarding the US policy toward a nation armed with thousands of nuclear weapons might be not such a huge folly as some think

Aug 17, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

RAP999 2 years ago ,

Look at the bright side. If the Russkies nuke Washington and NYC think how much better off the rest of the country will be.

[Aug 17, 2019] America s Benevolent Bombing of Serbia by James Bovard

By all measures Clinton is a war criminal... Hilary is a female sociopath or worse.
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of 1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" ..."
"... The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom fighters" in 1999. ..."
"... Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." ..."
"... Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo. After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks. ..."
Aug 16, 2019 | www.fff.org

Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton commenced bombing Serbia in the name of human rights, justice, and ethnic tolerance. Approximately 1,500 Serb civilians were killed by NATO bombing in one of the biggest sham morality plays of the modern era. As British professor Philip Hammond recently noted, the 78-day bombing campaign "was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what it called 'dual-use' targets, such as factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an attempt to terrorise the country into surrender."

Clinton's unprovoked attack on Serbia, intended to help ethnic Albanians seize control of Kosovo, set a precedent for "humanitarian" warring that was invoked by supporters of George W. Bush's unprovoked attack on Iraq, Barack Oba-ma's bombing of Libya, and Donald Trump's bombing of Syria.

Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo, and there is an 11-foot statue of him standing in the capitol, Pristina, on Bill Clinton Boulevard. A commentator in the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper noted that the statue showed Clinton "with a left hand raised, a typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding documents engraved with the date when NATO started the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999." It would have been a more accurate representation if Clinton was shown standing on the corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the U.S. bombing campaign.

Bombing Serbia was a family affair in the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of 1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" A biography of Hillary Clinton, written by Gail Sheehy and published in late 1999, stated that Mrs. Clinton had refused to talk to the president for eight months after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. She resumed talking to her husband only when she phoned him and urged him in the strongest terms to begin bombing Serbia; the president began bombing within 24 hours. Alexander Cockburn observed in the Los Angeles Times,

It's scarcely surprising that Hillary would have urged President Clinton to drop cluster bombs on the Serbs to defend "our way of life." The first lady is a social engineer. She believes in therapeutic policing and the duty of the state to impose such policing. War is more social engineering, "fixitry" via high explosive, social therapy via cruise missile . As a tough therapeutic cop, she does not shy away from the most abrupt expression of the therapy: the death penalty.

I followed the war closely from the start, but selling articles to editors bashing the bombing was as easy as pitching paeans to Scientology. Instead of breaking into newsprint, my venting occurred instead in my journal:

The KLA

The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom fighters" in 1999. The previous year, the State Department condemned "terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army." The KLA was heavily involved in drug trafficking and had close to ties to Osama bin Laden. Arming the KLA helped Clinton portray himself as a crusader against injustice and shift public attention after his impeachment trial. Clinton was aided by many congressmen eager to portray U.S. bombing as an engine of righteousness. Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values."

In early June 1999, the Washington Post reported that "some presidential aides and friends are describing [bombing] Kosovo in Churchillian tones, as Clinton's 'finest hour.'" Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo. After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks.

In a speech to American troops in a Thanksgiving 1999 visit, Clinton declared that the Kosovar children "love the United States because we gave them their freedom back." Perhaps Clinton saw freedom as nothing more than being tyrannized by people of the same ethnicity. As the Serbs were driven out of Kosovo, Kosovar Albanians became increasingly oppressed by the KLA, which ignored its commitment to disarm. The Los Angeles Times reported on November 20, 1999,

As a postwar power struggle heats up in Kosovo Albanian politics, extremists are trying to silence moderate leaders with a terror campaign of kidnappings, beatings, bombings, and at least one killing. The intensified attacks against members of the moderate Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, have raised concerns that radical ethnic Albanians are turning against their own out of fear of losing power in a democratic Kosovo.

American and NATO forces stood by as the KLA resumed its ethnic cleansing, slaughtering Serbian civilians, bombing Serbian churches, and oppressing non-Muslims. Almost a quarter million Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and other minorities fled Kosovo after Clinton promised to protect them. In March 2000 renewed fighting broke out when the KLA launched attacks into Serbia, trying to seize territory that it claimed historically belonged to ethnic Albanians. UN Human Rights Envoy Jiri Dienstbier reported that "the [NATO] bombing hasn't solved any problems. It only multiplied the existing problems and created new ones. The Yugoslav economy was destroyed. Kosovo is destroyed. There are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed now."

U.S. complicity in atrocities

Prior to the NATO bombing, American citizens had no responsibility for atrocities committed by either Serbs or ethnic Albanians. However, after American planes bombed much of Serbia into rubble to drive the Serbian military out of Kosovo, Clinton effectively made the United States responsible for the safety of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo. That was equivalent to forcibly disarming a group of people, and then standing by, whistling and looking at the ground, while they are slaughtered. Since the United States promised to bring peace to Kosovo, Clinton bears some responsibility for every burnt church, every murdered Serbian grandmother, every new refugee column streaming north out of Kosovo. Despite those problems, Clinton bragged at a December 8, 1999, press conference that he was "very, very proud" of what the United States had done in Kosovo.

I had a chapter on the Serbian bombing campaign titled "Moralizing with Cluster Bombs" in Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton–Gore Years (St. Martin's Press, 2000), which sufficed to spur at least one or two reviewers to attack the book. Norman Provizer, the director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership, scoffed in the Denver Rocky Mountain News, "Bovard chastises Clinton for an illegal, undeclared war in Kosovo without ever bothering to mention that, during the entire run of American history, there have been but four official declarations of war by Congress."

As the chaotic situation in post-war Kosovo became stark, it was easier to work in jibes against the debacle. In an October 2002 USA Today article ("Moral High Ground Not Won on Battlefield") bashing the Bush administration's push for war against Iraq, I pointed out, "A desire to spread freedom does not automatically confer a license to kill . Operation Allied Force in 1999 bombed Belgrade, Yugoslavia, into submission purportedly to liberate Kosovo. Though Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic raised the white flag, ethnic cleansing continued -- with the minority Serbs being slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground in the same way the Serbs previously oppressed the ethnic Albanians."

In a 2011 review for The American Conservative, I scoffed, "After NATO planes killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo were slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO's 'peace' produced a quarter million Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees."

In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts. Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites."

The New York Times reported that the trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied by cover-ups and stonewalling: "Past investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo have been undermined by witnesses' fears of testifying in a small country where clan ties run deep and former members of the KLA are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy high posts in the government." American politicians almost entirely ignored the scandal. Vice President Joe Biden hailed former KLA leader and Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in 2010 as "the George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council of Europe investigative report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation.

Clinton's war on Serbia opened a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and pundits portrayed that war as a moral triumph, it was easier for subsequent presidents to portray U.S. bombing as the self-evident triumph of good over evil. Honest assessments of wrongful killings remain few and far between in media coverage.

This article was originally published in the July 2019 edition of Future of Freedom .

Category: Foreign Policy & War

James Bovard is a policy adviser to The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a USA Today columnist and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, Playboy, American Spectator, Investors Business Daily, and many other publications. He is the author of Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty (2017, published by FFF); Public Policy Hooligan (2012); Attention Deficit Democracy (2006); The Bush Betrayal (2004); Terrorism and Tyranny (2003); Feeling Your Pain (2000); Freedom in Chains (1999); Shakedown (1995); Lost Rights (1994); The Fair Trade Fraud (1991); and The Farm Fiasco (1989). He was the 1995 co-recipient of the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the recipient of the 1996 Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. His book Lost Rights received the Mencken Award as Book of the Year from the Free Press Association. His Terrorism and Tyranny won Laissez Faire Book's Lysander Spooner award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. Read his blog . Send him email .

[Aug 17, 2019] Candidates Must Commit to Immediate US Withdrawal From Afghanistan by Marjorie Cohn

Aug 15, 2019 | truthout.org
In July 30, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported that the Afghan government and international military forces, primarily the United States , caused most of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2019. That's more killings than those perpetrated in the same time period by the Taliban and ISIS combined.

Aerial operations were responsible for 519 civilian casualties (356 deaths and 156 injuries), including 150 children (89 deaths and 61 injuries). That constitutes a 39 percent increase in overall civilian casualties from aerial attacks. Eighty-three percent of civilian casualties from aerial operations were carried out by the international forces.

The targeting of civilians amounts to war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

... ... ...

Team Trump's deadly actions are a continuation of the Bush and Obama administrations' commission of the most heinous crimes in Afghanistan. On April 12, the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber found a "reasonable basis" to believe that the parties to the Afghan conflict, including the U.S. military and the CIA, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, most of them occurring between 2005 and 2015. They include "the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other forms of sexual violence pursuant to a policy approved by the U.S. authorities."

The chamber, however, refused to open a formal investigation into those crimes, as recommended by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. In concluding that "an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan at this stage would not serve the interests of justice," the chamber questioned the feasibility of such a probe. An investigation would be "very wide in scope and encompasses a high number of alleged incidents having occurred over a long time period," the chamber wrote. It noted the extreme difficulty in gauging "the prospects of securing meaningful cooperation from relevant authorities for the future" and found "the current circumstances of the situation in Afghanistan are such as to make the prospects for a successful investigation and prosecution extremely limited."

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.

[Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Aug 17, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war, the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.

So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo, betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two inches to the east.

Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't fools, and they're good-hearted, but they become resentful. They're worried about being attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily, we are under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being put out that Russia somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous, warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We put our military alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.


Disturbed Voter , July 30, 2018 at 6:32 am

Real politik. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Don't start fights in the first place. The idea that American leadership is any better than mid-Victorian imperialism, is laughable.

Jerri-Lynn Scofield , July 30, 2018 at 8:15 am

Here's the RNN link to part one: The Russia "National Security Crisis" is a U.S. Creation .

integer , July 30, 2018 at 7:12 am

AARON MATE: We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about

Few appear to be aware that Bill Browder is single-handedly responsible for starting, and spreading, the rumor that Putin's net worth is $200 billion (for those who are unfamiliar with Browder, I highly recommend watching Andrei Nekrasov's documentary titled " The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes "). Browder appears to have first started this rumor early in 2015 , and has repeated it ad nauseam since then, including in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 . While Browder has always framed the $200 billion figure as his own estimate, that subtle qualifier has had little effect on the media's willingness to accept it as fact.

Interestingly, during the press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Putin claimed Browder sent $400 million of ill-gotten gains to the Clinton campaign. Putin retracted the statement and claimed to have misspoke a week or so later, however by that time the $400 million figure had been cited by numerous media outlets around the world. I think it is at least possible that Putin purposely exaggerated the amount of money in question as a kind of tit-for-tat response to Browder having started the rumor about his net worth being $200 billion.

Blue Pilgrim , July 30, 2018 at 11:39 am

The stories I saw said there was a mistranslation -- but that the figure should have $400 thousand and not $400 million. Maybe Putin misspoke, but the $400,000 number is still significant, albeit far more reasonable.

Putin never was on the Forbes list of billionaires, btw, and his campaign finance statement comes to far less. It never seems to occur to rabid capitalists or crooks that not everyone is like them, placing such importance on vast fortunes, or want to be dishonest, greedy, or power hungry. Putin is only 'well off' and that seems to satisfy him just fine as he gets on with other interests, values, and goals.

integer , July 30, 2018 at 12:03 pm

Yes, $400,000 is the revised/correct figure. My having written that "Putin retracted the statement" was not the best choice of phrase. Also, the figure was corrected the day after it was made, not "a week or so later" as I wrote in my previous comment. From the Russia Insider link:

Browder's criminal group used many tax evasion methods, including offshore companies. They siphoned shares and funds from Russia worth over 1.5 billion dollars. By the way, $400,000 was transferred to the US Democratic Party's accounts from these funds. The Russian president asked us to correct his statement from yesterday. During the briefing, he said it was $400,000,000, not $400,000. Either way, it's still a significant amount of money.

JohnnyGL , July 30, 2018 at 2:54 pm

I hadn't heard about the revision/edit to the $400M, thanks!

Seems crazy to think how much Russo-phobia seems to have been ginned up by one tax-dodging hedgie with an axe to grind.

Procopius , July 31, 2018 at 1:11 am

There's something weird about the anti-Putin hysteria. Somehow, many, many people have come to believe they must demonstrate their membership in the tribe by accepting completely unsupported assertions that go against common sense.

Eureka Springs , July 30, 2018 at 7:58 am

In a sane world we the people would be furious with the Clinton campaign, especially the D party but the R's as well, our media (again), and our intel/police State (again). Holding them all accountable while making sure this tsunami of deception and lies never happens again.

It's amazing even in time of the internetz those of us who really dig can only come up with a few sane voices. It's much worse now in terms of the numbers of sane voices than it was in the run up to Iraq 2.

CenterOfGravity , July 30, 2018 at 12:52 pm

Regardless of broad access to far more information in the digital age, never under estimate the self-preservation instinct of American exceptionalist mythology. There is an inverse relationship between the decline of US global primacy and increasingly desperate quest for adventurism. Like any case of addiction, looking outward for blame/salvation is imperative in order to prevent the mirror of self-reflection/realization from turning back onto ourselves.

integer , July 30, 2018 at 9:28 am

we're not to believe we're not supposed to believe we're supposed to believe

Believe whatever you want, however your comment gives the impression that you came to this article because you felt the need to push back against anything that does not conform to the liberal international order's narrative on Putin and Russia, rather than "with an eagerness to counterbalance the media's portrayal of Putin". WRT to whataboutism, I like Greenwald's definition of the term :

"Whataboutism": the term used to bar inquiry into whether someone adheres to the moral and behavioral standards they seek to impose on everyone else. That's its functional definition.

Rojo , July 30, 2018 at 12:25 pm

Invoking "whataboutism" is a liberal team-Dem tell.

Amfortas the Hippie , July 30, 2018 at 2:20 pm

aye. I've never seen it used by anyone aside from the worst Hill Trolls.
Indeed, when it was first thrown at me, I endeavored to look it up, and found that all references to it were from Hillaryites attempting to diss apostates and heretics.

Jonathan Holland Becnel , July 30, 2018 at 8:22 pm

Eh, probably

John Oliver, whos been completely sucking lately with TDS, did a semi decent segment on Whataboutism.

Eureka Springs , July 30, 2018 at 9:52 am

The degree of consistency and or lack of hypocrisy based on words and actions separates US from Russia to an astonishing level. That is Russia's largest threat to US, our deceivers. The propaganda tables have turned and we are deceiving ourselves to points of collective insanity and warmongering with a great nuclear power while we are at it. Warmongering is who we are and what we do.

Does Russia have a GITMO, torture Chelsea Manning, openly say they want to kill Snowden and Assange? Is Russia building up arsenals on our borders while maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and conducting several wars at any given moment while constantly threatening to foment more wars? Is Russia dropping another trillion on nuclear arsenals? Is Russia forcing us to maintain such an anti democratic system and an even worse, an entirely hackable electronic voting system?

You ready to destroy the world, including your own, rather than look in the mirror?

rkka , July 30, 2018 at 9:52 am

You're talking about extending Russian military power into Europe when the military spending of NATO Europe alone exceeds Russia's by almost 5-1 (more like 12-1 when one includes the US and Canada), have about triple the number of soldiers than Russia has, and when the Russian ground forces are numerically smaller than they have been in at least 200 years?

" to put their self-interests above those of their constituents and employees, why can't we apply this same lens to Putin and his oligarchs?"

The oligarchs got their start under Yeltsin and his FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, whose policies were so catastrophic that deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year by the late '90s, with no end in sight. Central to Yeltsin's governance was the corrupt privatization, by which means the Seven Bankers came to control the Russian economy and Russian politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semibankirschina

Central to Putin's popularity are the measures he took to curb oligarchic predation in 2003-2005. Because of this, Russia's debt:GDP ratio went from 1.0 to about 0.2, and Russia's demographic recovery began while Western analysis were still predicting the death of Russia.

So Putin is the anti-oligarch in Russian domestic politics.

Blue Pilgrim , July 30, 2018 at 12:17 pm

"While it's true that power corrupts"

I know of many people who sacrifice their own interests for those of their children (over whom they have virtually absolute power), family member and friends. I know of others who dedicate their lives to justice, peace, the well being of their nation, the world, and other people -- people who find far greater meaning and satisfaction in this than in accumulating power or money. Other people have their own goals, such as producing art, inventing interesting things, reading and learning, and don't care two hoots about power or money as long as their immediate needs are met.

I'm cynical enough about humans without thinking the worst of everyone and every group or culture. Not everyone thinks only of nails and wants to be hammers, or are sociopaths. There are times when people are more or less forced into taking power, or getting more money, even if they don't want it, because they want to change things for the better or need to defend themselves.
There are people who get guns and learn how to use them only because they feel a need for defending themselves and family but who don't like guns and don't want to shoot anyone or anything.

There are many people who do not want to be controlled and bossed around, but neither want to boss around anyone else. The world is full of such people. If they are threatened and attacked, however, expect defensive reactions. Same as for most animals which are not predators, and even predators will generally not attack other animals if they are not hungry or threatened -- but that does not mean they are not competent or can be dangerous.

Capitalism is not only inherently predatory, but is inherently expansive without limits, with unlimited ambition for profits and control. It's intrinsically very competitive and imperialist. Capitalism is also a thing which was exported to Russia, starting soon after the Russian Revolution, which was immediately attacked and invaded by the West, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. Soviet Russia had it's own problems, which it met with varying degrees of success, but were quite different from the aggressive capitalism and imperialism of the US and Europe.

Not every culture and person are the same.

BenX , July 30, 2018 at 3:28 pm

The pro-Putin propaganda is pretty interesting to witness, and of course not everything Cohen says is skewed pro-Putin – that's what provides credibility. But "Putin kills everybody" is something NOBODY says (except Cohen, twice in one interview) – Putin is actually pretty selective of those he decides to have killed. But of course, he doesn't kill anyone, personally – therefore he's an innocent lamb, accidentally running Russia as a dictator.

rkka , July 31, 2018 at 9:11 am

The most recent dictator in Russian history was Boris Yeltsin, who turned tanks on his legislature while it was in the legal and constitutional process of impeaching him, and whose policies were so catastrophic for Russians (who were dying off at the rate of 900k/yr) that he had to steal his re-election because he had a 5% approval rating.

But he did as the US gvt told him, so I guess that makes him a Democrat.

Under Putin Russia recovered from being helpless, bankrupt & dying, but Russia has an independent foreign policy, so that makes Putin a dictator.

Plenue , July 30, 2018 at 3:54 pm

"Does any sane person believe that there will ever be a Putin-signed contract provided as evidence? Does any sane person believe that Putin actually needs to "approve" a contract rather than signaling to his oligarch/mafia hierarchy that he's unhappy about a newspaper or journalist's reporting?"

Why do you think Putin even needs, or feels a need, to have journalists killed in the first place? I see no evidence to support this basic assumption.

The idea of Russia poised to attack Europe is interesting, in light of the fact that they've cut their military spending by 20%. And even before that the budgets of France, Germany, and the UK combined well exceeded that of Russia, to say nothing of the rest of NATO or the US.

Putin's record speaks for itself. This again points to the absurdity of claiming he's had reporters killed: he doesn't need to. He has a vast amount of genuine public support because he's salvaged the country and pieced it back together after the pillaging of the Yeltsin years. That he himself is a corrupt oligarch I have no particular doubt of. But if he just wanted to enrich himself, he's had a very funny way of going about it. Pray tell, what are these 'other interpretations'?

"The US foreign policy has been disastrous for millions of people since world war 2. But Cohen's arguments that Russia isn't as bad as the US is just a bunch of whattaboutism."

What countries has the Russian Federation destroyed?

witters , July 31, 2018 at 1:30 am

Here is a fascinating essay ["Are We Reading Russia Right?"] by Nicolai N. Petro who currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. His books include, Ukraine
in Crisis (Routledge, 2017), Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian Foreign Policy, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997). A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is the recipient of Fulbright awards to Russia and to Ukraine, as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington,
D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, he served as special assistant for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to scholarly publications
on Russia and Ukraine, he has written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian (UK), The Nation, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly. His writings have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The National Interest.

I warn you – it is terrifying!

http://npetro.net/resources/Petro-FF+Spring+2018.pdf

Carolinian , July 30, 2018 at 8:55 am

Thanks for so much for this. Great stuff. Cohen says the emperor has no clothes so naturally the empire doesn't want him on television. I believe he has been on CNN one or two times and I saw him once on the PBS Newshour where the interviewer asked skeptical questions with a pained and skeptical look. He seems to be the only prominent person willing to stand up and call bs on the Russia hate. There are plenty of pundits and commentators who do that but not many Princeton professors.

Thye Rev Kev , July 30, 2018 at 9:04 am

It has been said in recent years that the greatest failure of American foreign policy was the invasion of Iraq. I think that they are wrong. The greatest failure, in my opinion, is to push both China and Russia together into a semi-official pact against American ambitions. In the same way that the US was able to split China from the USSR back in the seventies, the best option was for America to split Russia from China and help incorporate them into the western system. The waters for that idea have been so fouled by the Russia hysteria, if not dementia, that that is no longer a possibility. I just wish that the US would stop sowing dragon's teeth – it never ends well.

NotTimothyGeithner , July 30, 2018 at 9:45 am

The best option, but the "American exceptionalists" went nuts. Also, the usual play book of stoking fears of the "yellow menace" would have been too on the nose. Americans might not buy it, and there was a whole cottage industry of "the rising China threat" except the potential consumer market place and slave labor factories stopped that from happening.

Bringing Russia into the West effectively means Europe, and I think that creates a similar dynamic to a Russian/Chinese pact. The basic problem with the EU is its led by a relatively weak but very German power which makes the EU relatively weak or controllable as long as the German electorate is relatively sedate. I think they still need the international structures run by the U.S. to maintain their dominance. What Russia and the pre-Erdogan Turkey (which was never going to be admitted to the EU) presented was significant upsets to the existing EU order with major balances to Germany which I always believed would make the EU potentially more dynamic. Every decision wouldn't require a pilgrimage to Berlin. The British were always disinterested. The French had made arrangements with Germany, and Italy is still Italy. Putting Russia or Turkey (pre-Erdogan) would have disrupted this arrangement.

John Wright , July 30, 2018 at 11:11 am

>which is oddly not easy to locate on its site

It appeared to me that Aaron Mate knew he was dealing with a weak hand by the end of the interview.

When Mate stated "it's widely held that Putin is responsible for the killing of journalists and opposition activists who oppose him."

There are many widely held beliefs in the world, and that does not make them true.

For example, It was widely held, and still may be believed by some, that Saddam Hussein was involved in the events of 9/11.

It is widely believed that humans are not responsible, in any part, for climate change.

Mate may have been embarrassed when he saw the final version and as a courtesy to him, the interview was made more difficult to find.

pretzelattack , July 30, 2018 at 11:35 am

iirc he didn't say it was true.

Elizabeth Burton , July 30, 2018 at 7:18 pm

The Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a clear majority. The US overran Hawaii with total disregard for the wishes of the native population. Your comparison is invalid.

vato , July 31, 2018 at 3:37 am

"Putin's finger prints are all over the Balkan fiasco".How is that with Putin only becoming president in 2000 and the Nato bombing started way beforehand. It's ridiculous to think that Putin had any major influence at that time as govenor or director of the domestic intelligence service on what was going during the bombing of NATO on Belgrad. Even Gerhard Schroeder, then chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, admitted in an interview in 2014 with a major German Newspaper (Die Zeit) that this invasion of Nato was a fault and against international law!

Can you concrete what you mean by "fingerprints" or is this just another platitudes?

ewmayer , July 31, 2018 at 6:05 pm

"Somebody called it Trump derangement syndrome."

I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].

Symptoms include:

o Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently absurd MSM propaganda. For example, the meme that releasing factual information about actual election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging of its own nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;

o Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on and lying to the American people, spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer Brennan;

o Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples of "norms-respecting Republican patriots";

o Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating Russian stooge.

[Aug 17, 2019] The Anti-Russia Inquisition Intensifies by Ted Galen Carpenter

Images and links to video removed.
The title sounds like it was written yesterday, despite the fact the article is two years ago. That suggest that Russophobia is the official policy of both parties. Why they are trying to remove Trump, who folded after thee month in power, is less clear. May be the crimes they committed are such that anybody in power then Clinton gang is very dangerous for them.
Please looks also at selected comments. They are definitely sounds as written yesterday.
Notable quotes:
"... Congressional Democrats and their media allies have renewed their offensive in the past two weeks. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) even argues that the evidence already amassed seems to be enough to warrant President Trump's impeachment. It was especially notable that no prominent Democrat denounced such an inflammatory accusation. Indeed, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee appear to be escalating their concept of what constitutes a thorough investigation, now insisting that any contact by advisers to the Trump campaign with any Russian official be subject to scrutiny. ..."
"... They and their neoconservative allies also insist on a laser-like focus on the alleged misdeeds of the Trump people and nothing else. ..."
"... Such an outrageous accusation might have made even the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy blush. That it came from a prominent Republican also suggests that the current bout of Russophobia is not purely a partisan phenomenon. The broader implications are extremely worrisome. A campaign appears to be underway to intimidate and silence critics of the current policy toward Russia, and even policy regarding NATO. ..."
"... The track record on previous group think on such decisions as the military interventions in Vietnam, Iraq, and Libya also confirms that it can produce truly tragic results. Creating a similar situation of stifling debate regarding U.S. policy toward a nation armed with thousands of nuclear weapons is the essence of folly. ..."
May 07, 2017 | nationalinterest.org

or a brief period in April, it appeared that the campaign that Democrats and neo-conservative Republicans were waging for a comprehensive investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election had peaked and was beginning to ebb. The Trump administration's decision to launch missile strikes against a Syrian air base despite Russian President Vladimir Putin vehement objections to the assault on his ally, quieted accusations that Trump was Putin's puppet. Indeed, hawks in both parties praised Trump for taking action in Syria, and the president's supporters at Fox News and elsewhere contended that the U.S. attack discredited the notion that he was guilty of appeasing Russia.

But the hiatus in the allegations of collusion was only temporary. Worse, the resurgent anti-Russia hysteria has broader, ominous implications for U.S. foreign policy and the health of political discourse in the United States.

Congressional Democrats and their media allies have renewed their offensive in the past two weeks. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) even argues that the evidence already amassed seems to be enough to warrant President Trump's impeachment. It was especially notable that no prominent Democrat denounced such an inflammatory accusation. Indeed, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee appear to be escalating their concept of what constitutes a thorough investigation, now insisting that any contact by advisers to the Trump campaign with any Russian official be subject to scrutiny.

They and their neoconservative allies also insist on a laser-like focus on the alleged misdeeds of the Trump people and nothing else. The current scandal erupted full force when leaked reports from the U.S. intelligence community that newly installed National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and discussed sensitive issues, including the ongoing U.S. economic sanctions against Russia, thus apparently undermining the Obama administration's policies. Flynn's action showed poor judgment, and his attempt to conceal the contact from Vice President Mike Pence, was even worse. A recent Washington Post article contends that Flynn went ahead with his meeting even though senior Trump campaign officials cautioned against it and warned him that it was almost certain that U.S. intelligence agencies were electronically monitoring Kislyak and all of his contacts.

Examining Flynn's behavior is appropriate, but even that investigation should focus not only on his questionable Russia contacts but on the leak of the intelligence report outing him. Indeed, an intelligence official's unmasking the identity of an American citizen in that fashion constitutes a felony. However, except for perfunctory statements from a few Democratic members of Congress that such an illegal leak also needed to be investigated, little interest has emerged in actually doing so.

Such an outrageous accusation might have made even the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy blush. That it came from a prominent Republican also suggests that the current bout of Russophobia is not purely a partisan phenomenon. The broader implications are extremely worrisome. A campaign appears to be underway to intimidate and silence critics of the current policy toward Russia, and even policy regarding NATO.

Attempting to enshrine Washington's group think on crucial issues is unhealthy for any democratic system. The track record on previous group think on such decisions as the military interventions in Vietnam, Iraq, and Libya also confirms that it can produce truly tragic results. Creating a similar situation of stifling debate regarding U.S. policy toward a nation armed with thousands of nuclear weapons is the essence of folly.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest, is the author of 10 books, the contributing editor of 10 books, and the author of more than 650 articles on international affairs.


nicksorokin 2 years ago ,

Mr. Carpenter makes the excellent point that political sobriety, rational thought and action, and responsible dialogue is missing from the cadre of drum beating anti-Trump die hearts, who are using the made-up Trump collusion story to destroy the Trump presidency.
Their kamikaze style political tactics will end badly for the democrats, who will be pulverized during the next election for neglecting the people’s business in favor of political scandal, turmoil and extremist partisan behavior.
Keep it up Chuck, you are working overtime to insure greater Republican gains.

RedBaron9495 2 years ago ,

Actually, I am an agent of all people who disapprove of Washington’s willingness to use nuclear war in order to establish Washington’s hegemony over the world, but let us understand what it means to be a “Russian agent.”

It means to respect international law, which Washington does not. It means to respect life, which Washington does not. It means to respect the national interests of other countries, which Washington does not. It means to respond to provocations with diplomacy and requests for cooperation, which Washington does not. But Russia does. Clearly, a “Russian agent” is a moral person who wants to preserve life and the national identity and dignity of other peoples.

RussG 2 years ago ,

Aren't people in the US getting tired of the Russia bashing? Really. And don't the Russia bashers know that the longer this goes on, without evidence, the public is slowly waking up to the truth. Now to blame Russia for the US failings in Afghanistan is beyond ridiculous. Keep it up, kiddies.

greg789 2 years ago ,

Neo-cons and Democrats - Traitors all.

dsafd asdfasdf 2 years ago ,

Russian troll! Carpenter paid by putin! Lock him up! Send him back to Moscow!

deliaruhe 2 years ago ,

The success of the web of lies that got 65 to 75 percent of Americans to believe that Saddam had WMD and was responsible for 9/11 only encourages these regime-change lunatics. All they have to do now is articulate the equivalent of Bush’s “We cannot wait for the smoking gun, which might come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” — i.e., we don’t need evidence, we just need to generate enough fear — and they’ll have all the public support they could possibly need to commence with their program of regime change at home, followed by regime change in Russia. That’s the diabolical beauty of governing a population through the politics of fear — which has been the practise since the beginning of the first Cold War.

johnnydavis1 2 years ago ,

It's interesting that the Democrats and the media didn't seem very interested in Hillary Clinton's foreign ties (and the money she received), or the potential blackmail that could have been tied to any of her "missing" emails that the Russians and others probably have.

toolateformost johnnydavis1 2 years ago ,

Its interesting that you are ignoring the traitor in the white house.
Trump will look great in orange

Wyrdless toolateformost 2 years ago ,

Do you have any evidence?

toolateformost Wyrdless 2 years ago ,

I can't share it with you because it's classified and I don't (unlike Trumps administration) believe in sharing sensitive information with Russian stooges.

Wyrdless toolateformost 2 years ago ,

LOL, love the sarcasm

Kizar_Sozay 2 years ago ,

The media is upset the Russians (allegedly) did what American journalists should have been doing.

St Reformed 2 years ago ,

Russia [aka Soviet Union] was simply a "red herring" (pun intended) during the Cold War days when the Left always blamed American first. Now post-Soviet autocratic Russia is a lethal menace behind every GOP trash can. The irony is so rich.

VoteOutIncumbents 2 years ago ,

I am old enough to have a conscious memory of the end days of the McCarthy smears. This seems a lot like that. Wild charges, no evidence. Senator McCarthy always "had" a list of 57, 95, or 212 active communists in the State Department, he just never got around to disclosing names. Evidence? The Democrats don't seem to need it. Just investigate, investigate, investigate. Anything to distract from the true reasons for Clinton's loss. The party of FDR wrote off the white working class. They thought they'd have enough minority and female voters to win. They didn't.

odys 2 years ago ,

Oh, oh. Mike Rogers, Obama's head of the NSA is testifying that the NSA did NOT have high confidence that the wusskies interfered to help Trump win. I wonder if Boris Badanoff and Natasha threatened him and his family?

odys 2 years ago • edited ,

Maybe we should call in moose and squirrel.

Look, Democrats just cannot bring themselves to accept the blame for their loss, no surprise, they truly believe they are on the right side of history, Cuba, North Korea, and venezuela not withstanding. But the aging cold warriors, like McNasty, pine for the days when people used to seek their opinion on the USSR.

dannyboy116 2 years ago ,

Thank you for an excellent article. Building a sense of hysteria against the one country in the world with as many nuclear weapons as us is truly foolish and dangerous.

Robert 2 years ago ,

And the best part in this fishing expedition of democRATS and politicized government agencies is that they have found NOTHING, only the daily, weekly and monthly fabrications cooked backstage by MSM and accomplices agents leaning or part of Obanus regime..

The Dead Rabbits 2 years ago ,

Really good piece. So why does DC go bonkers over Russia but not deeper and more problematic connections of politicians and public figures such as with Turkey, China, or Israel? It's all about the emails and Hillary's lame excuses.

R. Arandas 2 years ago ,

I find it ironic because during the Cold War, it was generally Republicans who opposed the Soviet Union and its foreign policy the most strongly, with both language and action, while Democrats favored conciliation with American rivals. Nowadays, however, conservatives seem more pro-Russia while liberals seem much more hostile.

Wyrdless 2 years ago ,

Let's be realistic, given the enormous number of leaks about Trump, if there was anything to this we would know by now.

That's why I say :. Bring on the investigation!

It will just end in the entire media/Dem establishment looking bad.

Also:. Why would Putin want a US president that has a very aggressive pro drilling stance and who wants a larger US military?

I would imagine it's the last thing he wants. Putin would probably *VASTLY* prefer Sanders who is anti-energy, anti-military and honeymooned in Moscow during the cold war as a political statement.

Drinas Philip K 2 years ago ,

Buhaha You assume that I am a russian/live in Russia because I dare (oh, by the Gods what a sacrilege!) to support russian foreign policy..
This alone is a good example of the delusional and zealot-like nature of russophobes such as you..
Learn my uneducated "friend" that I live in an EU country, born and raised here-and judging by the median US salary there is a great chance I make more $$ than you..But then again only a cretin would judge a country based solely on these metrics..(Well, a cretin and a russophobe in your case..)

Wakko 2 years ago ,

Americans don't see it, but this anti-russian craze is creating serious pressures in Europe, where voters more and more consider EU governments' blind following of U.S. foreign policy as dangerous to their interests. Contrary to U.S. establishment, we Europeans are not supremacists who believe that only their opinions and ways are the right ones and the whole world needs to bow down to them. Remember what is the basis of democracy? It's pluralism of opinions and civilised discussion. If Washington continues this ideological war for longer time, it may cause serious problems for NATO.

[Aug 17, 2019] Operation Idlib Dawn Update - TTG - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Aug 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

plantman ,

This fight in the so-called DMZ has been going on for some time. I find it impossible to believe that these Sunni militants are not getting logistical support from outside.(Washington or Ankara??) Otherwise, how could a group of no-account jihadists be able to stave off a conventional military for so long??

And once the zone is cleared of jihadis, then what?? Will Putin support an attack on the Turkish units that are holding territory in North syria?

No way.

Putin has done an admirable job preventing the jihadist alliance (US-Turkey-S Arabia??) from toppling the Assad government and turning the country into another Libya, but the borders in the North and east have already been redrawn by the invaders. It doesn't look to me like that will change. But I could be wrong.

The Twisted Genius -> plantman... , 14 August 2019 at 12:21 PM
Plantman, of course the jihadis are being resupplied, rearmed and reinforced through Turkey. It's been that way since the beginning. Didn't you see the M-16 with night sight captured from the jihadis in the video. There have been many photos of the brand new Turkish APCs filled with jihadis.

I doubt the SAA will attack the Turkish observation posts, but they will choke them out and make the Turks life a living hell if they don't withdraw. It may take a long time, but I'm fairly confident Damascus will eventually regain control over all Syrian territory. Ten towns in Raqqa governorate signed on with Damascus recently. More will follow as the FUKUS alliance proves its fecklessness.

JP Billen , 14 August 2019 at 01:04 PM
Any thoughts on the next cauldron after Khan Sheikoun? I see there have been a lot of airstrikes softening up defenses on secondary roads on the way to Maarat al-Nu'man - parallel to the M5 on its western side. If so, that would put two more Turkish OPs in the pot.

Jihadis are bragging they shot down a Syrian AF Sukhoi near Khan Sheikoun. Sounds like propaganda to compensate for their loss of so much territory there.

JP Billen said in reply to JohninMK... , 16 August 2019 at 11:13 AM
Yes, I finally saw that the Syrian AF has confirmed they lost radar contact with it. There are conflicting reports though from the jihadis about how it was shot down, one said MANPAD, another said HMG.

The SU-22 is a 50+ year old design still flying. And since 2011 the Syrian AF has been flying more sorties with the SU-22 than these aircraft were designed to handle. Many "failed and crashed or simply wore out and had to be grounded."

So I wonder if the one lost just now in Idlib is one of the ten Iranian SU-22s that were gifted to the Syrian AF in early 2015? Those ten were some of the same aircraft that the Iraqi Air Force flew to Iran during the 1991 war for safekeeping. Iran confiscated them as war reparations. And five years ago the IRGC restored ten to operational condition by raiding spares from hangar queens and gave them to the Syrian AF along with spares and maintenance support.

English Outsider , 14 August 2019 at 02:11 PM

Great update, TTG! Seems like the terrorists are leaving Khan Shaykhun fast. So if there's any evidence of the poison gas incident left, or witnesses, they may not have time to remove it or eliminate the witnesses. It would be good to get that incident finally cleared up.

The Russian reconciliation teams are reported to be working out of the airbase, not on the ground. Is that a dud report or are they tackling reconciliation differently in Idlib? Just wonder how the civilian leaders would be getting to the airbase through it all.

Grazhdanochka , 14 August 2019 at 03:05 PM
A SyAAF Su-22 has been lost in South Idlib Area, Pilot Captured by those on the Ground - Hopefully he can be rescued through talks or force. I would not envy his Fate.

What I do wonder is - having taken many losses of late - but having had a long period of relative quiet to refit and reinforce - how serious could those in the 'Cauldron' resist or is it better to leave the Door open for a contested withdrawl through Khan Sheykhun? (with those from Tal Sukayk moving north to At Tamanyah first)

Normally I think the approach best (unless overwhelming means is available) - is to leave the Lid off the Pot, encouraging a withdrawl - that you contest. But Khan Sheykhun has it seems few Elevations near by to guard its approach or exit, and no doubt Civil Traffic will be heavy as Civilians try avoid the likely battle... So mining the exit and attacking light forces is a major Issue...

I just worry how many might be in that Area around Murak etc, that may again slow down the advance of SAA forces that ideally would like to move North into the interior of Enemy Lines.

JP Billen said in reply to Grazhdanochka... , 14 August 2019 at 06:46 PM
Grazhdanochka -

With a Lid on the Pot the TKK troops near Morek would be surrounded. The Turkish government would have to beg the Russians to protect them and help with an evacuation. Assad and many in Damascus would probably love to humiliate Erdogan.

turcopolier , 14 August 2019 at 05:22 PM
All

IMO with the jihadis retreating in disarray the SAA should pursue them north along the M5 corridor, leading with the armored teams and conducting a series of shallow double envelopments as they move north. the important thing is to keep up the pace and the pressure using Syrian and RU air to create a "pont au feu" (bridge of fire) over which the advance can continue. If you will pardon a historical conceit, this would be much like Sherman's advance to Atlanta from north Georgia.

Grazhdanochka said in reply to turcopolier ... , 14 August 2019 at 06:36 PM
Whilst I agree a lot, the Issue with this is two Fold.

Depth of Force - These Forces may already have a good motivation to stay and fight given prexistant positions.. - which if sufficient Number - may reduce that advance we all desire beyond... allowing the bulk to dig in again...

Making sure any advance does not indeed promote them to stand fast as opposed to continual withdrawal - A good part of this depends on the depth of SAA Forces


walrus , 14 August 2019 at 06:32 PM
What happens if a heavily armed Jihadi rump retreats and finds itself with its back on the Syrian-turkish border? Is Erdogan going to let these bastards retreat into Turkish territory with weapons and units intact? I would have thought not because they then could threaten the region if they get loose. There are a lot of European, and American tourists all over Turkey who are potential targets.

I would hope that the Turkish Army would seal the border, providing an anvil against which the jihadis can be crushed.

I also think we are due for a White helmet compassion attack shortly. You know - poison gas/barrel bombing/hospitals/dead children etc. Probably timed for the weekend talk shows.

Barbara Ann -> walrus ... , 15 August 2019 at 10:39 AM
Idlib could yet prove to be Erdogan's nemesis. Will he escalate to protect the TAF forces in the OP's once they start (soon) to be cut off? Russia has surely anticipated this possibility and neutralized the threat. Alternatively, if the jihadis see TAF forces pulling out and realize they have been betrayed, will they let them do so unimpeded, or perhaps look for some hostages to force Turkey's hand?

I can't imagine Erdogan will let the takfiris back into Turkey, for the reasons you set out. But if Turkish forces are used to kill them in order to prevent this, Turkey itself could immediately become Global Jihad enemy #1.

The time bomb of close to 4m Syrian refugees is a third third problem. Hostility towards their guests has been increasing in Turkey and a flood of yet more from Idlib may result in outright violence directed against them and maybe even the government. This would be far from the image of Turkey as Leader of the Islamic World which the Sultan wishes to portray. What a mess.

Turkish press still has almost nothing on Idlib despite the recent advances by the SAA, Syrian column inches are all taken up with speculations about the Safe Zone plans. Previously, Turkish press has played up Turkey's role in protecting the Ummah in Syria. The relative silence now suggests to me that Erdogan will seek to cut his losses in Idlib. Russia has the ability to make this excruciatingly difficult, or not. I'd therefore expect Erdogan to be forced to accept terms dictated by Russia/SAG in due course and the longer he delays the worse those terms will be for Turkish interests in NW Syria.

BraveNewWorld -> walrus ... , 16 August 2019 at 12:36 AM
I suspect if the Jihadis are routed in Turkey they will ether be flown to the new safe zone or flown out of the country, likely to do some work around Libya.
Mathias Alexander -> BraveNewWorld... , 16 August 2019 at 02:15 AM
Likely to be some work in Central Asia destabilizing Iran/ Russia/China.
Unhinged Citizen , 15 August 2019 at 09:11 AM
I hope that the leveled Khan Shaykhoun is paved over and the Syrians erect a 500 m statue of Hafez extending the middle finger in the general direction of Turkey, for its role in the gas attack hoax.
Ishmael Zechariah -> Unhinged Citizen... , 15 August 2019 at 11:56 PM
Unhinged,
The operation to eliminate Assad was not of Turkish origin, even though the current regime took an active and enthusiastic part in it. FYI, the plot is still alive. The FUKUS-I gang is still trying to oust Assad through their PKK/PYG proxies. The game might get even more interesting when/if the SAA finally meets PKK/PYG and their "advisors".
Ishmael Zechariah
Jane , 16 August 2019 at 01:22 AM
It would be useful to know just which groups they are fighting and where. Is HTS heavily involved, Ahrar al Sham or what? Where are the Chechens or other foreign groupings now?
Mathias Alexander -> Jane ... , 16 August 2019 at 02:17 AM
" Where are the Chechens or other foreign groupings now?"
Central Asia?
Jane said in reply to Mathias Alexander... , 16 August 2019 at 11:40 PM
When last heard from, they were in Idlib except for those who fight with ISIS. In Idlib, the Chechen jihadis heard that the Russian MP unit which was tasked with interaction with the civilian populations in areas retaken by the SARG [as they did in Aleppo] was in fact made up of [obviously loyalist] Chechens [and other Muslims from the RF], they went on the attack and the SAA and Russians had to go in and save them.

Neither the Uighurs nor the Central Asians have anywhere to retreat to, which is also the case for the Chechens. I would assume that they would be more inclined to fight alongside the AQ types rather than the "Syrian" groups, but I do not know. From what I recall earlier, these were each separate ethnic units that fought with but not necessarily under the central jihadi organizations.

In the former ISIS-land, the dead RF jihadis left behind many orphans. The RF sent in native speakers of all the Caucasian languages to determine their origin. With the help of DNA, they were able to get many back into their families back home. Where there are living mothers, I don't know if the RF has a systematic policy of what to do with these widows.

The Twisted Genius -> Jane ... , 16 August 2019 at 03:24 PM
Jane, HTS is taking the brunt of the beating in southern Idlib/northern Hama. Turkey is now moving NLF jihadis down from Afrin to reinforce the Khan Sheikhoun front. The NLF is a coalition of jihadis closely aligned with Turkey. The HTS has its roots in Syrian al Qaeda/al Nusra. NLF and HTS jihadis fight each other when they're not fighting the SAA.
Jane said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 16 August 2019 at 11:22 PM
A plague on all their houses.
Philippe Truze , 17 August 2019 at 10:20 AM
The Colonel is mentioning the "FUKUS" alliance in northern Syria, but I am not sure that there is still a willingness to fight the Syrians and the Russians among the French component of this "force". Macron knows that the French public opinion is fed up with this war and does not believe anymore the French mainstream medias reports. Many Frenchs are in favor of getting some sort of agreement with the Russians (if not with Assad) to get rid of the jihadists, especially the 1 to 2 thousands French warriors amongst them. Nobody - not even Macron - want them to be rapatriated in France for trial, preferring the issue to be delt with local (syrian, irakis) authorities, whatever severe would be the punishments. Only the "islamo-gauchistes" (islamo-leftits) are defending this "solution". Sometimes I have the feeling that the French are siding the US in northern Syria only by fidelity to an old ally, rather than to defend some French interests - a part the long time alliance between the the French socialists et the Muslim Brothers, against the secular regimes of Libya, Egypt, and Syria, since the Suez Operation en 1956. Macron and Putin will meet on august 19th, in southern France. We will see if there is an official inflexion of the French policy in this region.
JP Billen said in reply to Philippe Truze... , 17 August 2019 at 12:03 PM
In fairness, it was TTG and Ishmael Zechariah that mentioned FUKUS, and not the Colonel.

There is no "willingness to fight the Syrians and the Russians" in the US and the UK as well as in France. In the past we unfortunately did have that willingness. But only through ill-chosen proxies who have now been either incorporated into the ranks of HTS, or who have fled the country to become refugees, or are dead.

[Aug 17, 2019] Unleashing country-wide epidemic of Russophenia and anti-Russian hysteria as well as stifling debate regarding the US policy toward a nation armed with thousands of nuclear weapons might be not such a huge folly as some think

Aug 17, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

RAP999 2 years ago ,

Look at the bright side. If the Russkies nuke Washington and NYC think how much better off the rest of the country will be.

[Aug 17, 2019] Long Range Attack On Saudi Oil Field as a good news for Yemen and for oil producing nations in need of an oil price rise.

Notable quotes:
"... The field's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis' drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai's busy international airport within their range. ..."
"... The outcome was a forgone conclusion. The smash, destroy, and destabilize campaign in the region could have only come from the most powerful lobby in the US. We all know who that is. ..."
Aug 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines. This today was the decisive attack:

Drones launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside Saudi Arabia's sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a "limited fire" in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry.
...
The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones targeting the field in their "biggest-ever" operation. He threatened more attacks would be coming.
New drones and missiles displayed in July 2019 by Yemen's Houthi-allied armed forces

bigger

Today's attack is a check mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets within that range:

The field's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis' drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai's busy international airport within their range.

Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them, analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range. The Houthis have used drones, which can be difficult to track by radar, to attack Saudi Patriot missile batteries, as well as enemy troops.

The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state. The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will. There is a lesson to learn from that. But it is doubtful that the borg in Washington DC has the ability to understand it.

The outcome was a forgone conclusion. The smash, destroy, and destabilize campaign in the region could have only come from the most powerful lobby in the US. We all know who that is.


Jen , Aug 17 2019 20:45 utc | 3

I'm afraid the only lesson the Borg in Washington will learn is to continue squandering US resources and manpower on pursuing and inflicting chaos and violence in the Middle East. Clown prince Mohammed bin Salman will not learn anything either other than to bankrupt his own nation in pursuing this war.

Israel has driven itself into its own existential hell by persecuting Palestinians over 70+ years and doing a good job of annihilating itself while denying its own destruction. If Israel can do it, the Christian crusaders dominating the govts of the Five Eyes nations supporting Israel will follow suit in propping up an unsustainable fantasy. Samson option indeed.

Tonymike , Aug 17 2019 20:46 utc | 4
I am sure that the Suads will be looking to their zionist allies to supply them with the Iron Dome system that the US military just wasted millions of tax payer dollars and purchased several days ago. The irony of that system is that is was overwhelmed several times when the Palestinian freedom fighters launched a wave of home made rockets at Occupied Palestine. I hope the Sauds learn a lesson..doubt it though.
donkeytale , Aug 17 2019 20:53 utc | 6
This is good news for Yemen and...for oil producing nations in need of a price rise.
ebolax , Aug 17 2019 21:02 utc | 13
let me throw something out there. Israel has entrenched itself in the US political and media systems. There is no logical path to eliminate or reduce that influence, and thus perhaps the plan that has been hatched is to strengthen Iran to the point that it can confront Israel.
karlof1 , Aug 17 2019 21:07 utc | 14
I anticipated just this sort of event 2+ months ago to go along with the tanker sabotaging to expand on b's thesis about Iran having the upper hand in the current hybrid Gulf War. The timing of this new ability dovetails nicely with the recent Russian collective security proposal, with the Saudis being the footdraggers in agreeing about its viability due to its pragmatic logic. So, as I wrote 2 days ago, we now have an excellent possibility of seeing an end to this and future Persian Gulf Crises along with an idea that can potentially become the template for an entire Southwest Asian security treaty, whose only holdout would be Occupied Palestine. The Outlaw US Empire is effectively shutout of the entire process. And as I also wrote, it's now time for the Saudis to determine where their future lies--with Eurasia or with a dying Empire.
KC , Aug 17 2019 21:11 utc | 15
@Tonymike

So the U.S. bought the Iron Dome stuff from Israel? I guess that means we paid for it twice, eh? Glad to know my tax dollars are hard at work "keeping us safe."

Wonder what they might be planning for with that one?

karlof1 , Aug 17 2019 21:18 utc | 18
Ian Seed | Aug 17 2019 20:55 utc | 7--

The Yemenese military had lots of technological capabilities remaining from the Cold War along with factories, technicians and raw materials. For example, Yemen's aerospace forces allied with the Houthi and are the ones producing and shooting the missiles and drones. One doesn't need to import a complete drone; technical blueprints on a floppy, CD-ROM, DVD, thumb-drive, are all that's required. The humanitarian crisis due to food and medicine shortages played on the minds of people such that an image of a poor, backward, non-industrial capable society was generated that wasn't 100% correct.

Sasha , Aug 17 2019 21:47 utc | 24
What to say? Poetic justice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGrUz-rdxxM

Ancient cultures are not so easy to erradicate so as to loot their resources.
A lesson the peoples without culture must learn.....

fx , Aug 17 2019 21:59 utc | 25
And of course, this makes the threat by Iran to hit back against military and industrial installations on the other side of the Persian Gulf that much stronger.
Really?? , Aug 17 2019 22:10 utc | 28
13

It would be rich indeed if Iran were to be the entity that ultimately manages to loosen the stranglehold that the Zionists have on the USA Congress, media, president, donors to political parties, etc.

Sasha , Aug 17 2019 22:31 utc | 33
A graphic idea of the distance in the map...

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1162850455954874369

Photos of the Houthis drones and rockets arsenal...published last month...Someone possibly thought it was fake...

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1147940696705392642

jerichocheyenne , Aug 17 2019 22:39 utc | 34
I can imagine the shale oil producers smiling right now...100 a barrel oil will be just what they need! Cost-push inflation leading to a return of bell bottoms and leisure suits. No wonder all these 70's band retreads are touring again :)
karlof1 , Aug 17 2019 23:11 utc | 37
Michael Droy | Aug 17 2019 22:40 utc | 35--

So, poor Yemen wasted via siege warfare waged by NATO since 2015 though its Saudi, UAE and terrorist proxies that came very close to success, finds the initiative to counterattack with what little it has at its disposal--All accusations of Iranian help have never been proven --and thanks to the Outlaw US Empire's threats against Iran force UAE to withdrawal and seek peace with Iran with Saudi soon to follow. And the situation is all Iran's fault?! Note the date above--it precedes Trump's election, his illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA and institution of the illegal sanctions regime against Iran.

Europe is on board with Russia's collective security proposal. Europe had representatives at the meet between Khamenei and the Houthi negotiator. Europe--even the UK--still working to salvage the JCPOA via the non-dollar trade conduit. And you conclude that the Outlaw US Empire "might actually get European support to attack Iran."

eagle eye , Aug 17 2019 23:21 utc | 38
First Afghanistan, then Yemen. Maybe the western media's imaging of these people as towel headed, sandal wearing primatives is just a tad misguided......

[Aug 16, 2019] Punishing the World With Sanctions by Philip Giraldi

Aug 16, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

August 15, 2019 © Photo: Flickr Sanctions are economic warfare, pure and simple. As an alternative to a direct military attack on a country that is deemed to be misbehaving they are certainly preferable, but no one should be under any illusions regarding what they actually represent. They are war by other means and they are also illegal unless authorized by a supra-national authority like the United Nations Security Council, which was set up after World War II to create a framework that inter alia would enable putting pressure on a rogue regime without going to war. At least that was the idea, but the sanctions regimes recently put in place unilaterally and without any international authority by the United States have had a remarkable tendency to escalate several conflicts rather than providing the type of pressure that would lead to some kind of agreement.

The most dangerous bit of theater involving sanctions initiated by the Trump administration continues to focus on Iran. Last week, the White House elevated its extreme pressure on the Iranians by engaging in a completely irrational sanctioning of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The sanctions will have no effect whatsoever and they completely contradict Donald Trump's repeated assertion that he is seeking diplomacy to resolving the conflict with Iran. One doesn't accomplish that by sanctioning the opposition's Foreign Minister. Also, the Iranians have received the message loud and clear that the threats coming from Washington have nothing to do with nuclear programs. The White House began its sanctions regime over a year ago when it withdrew from the JCPOA and they have been steadily increasing since that time even though Iran has continued to be fully compliant with the agreement. Recently, the US took the unprecedented step of sanctioning the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is part of the nation's military.

American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made clear that the sanctions on Iran are intended to cause real pain, which, in fact, they have succeeded in doing. Pompeo and his accomplice in crime National Security Advisor John Bolton believe that enough pressure will motivate the starving people to rise up in the streets and overthrow the government, an unlikely prospect as the American hostility has in fact increased popular support for the regime.

To be sure, ordinary people in Iran have found that they cannot obtain medicine and some types of food are in short supply but they are not about to rebel. The sanctioning in May of Iranian oil exports has only been partially effective but it has made the economy shrink, with workers losing jobs. The sanctions have also led to tit-for-tat seizures of oil and gas tankers, starting with the British interception of a ship carrying Iranian oil to Syria in early July.

Another bizarre escalation in sanctions that has taken place lately relates to the Skripal case in Britain. On August 2 nd , Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a package of new sanctions against Moscow over the alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in March 2018. The order "prohibit[s] any United States bank from making any loan or providing any credit except for loans or credits for the purpose of purchasing food or other agricultural commodities or products." The ban also includes "the extension of any loan or financial or technical assistance by international financial institutions," meaning that international lenders will also be punished if they fail to follow Washington's lead.

The sanctions were imposed under the authority provided by the US Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act adopted in 1991, which imposes penalties for use of chemical weapons. Novichok, which was reportedly used on the Skripals, is a chemical weapon developed in the labs of the Soviet Union, though a number of states are believed to currently have supplies of the agent in their arsenals. Russia can appeal the sanctions with 90 days by providing "reliable assurance" that it will not again use chemical weapons.

Russia has strenuously denied any role in the attack on the Skripals and the evidence that has so far been produced to substantiate the Kremlin's involvement has been less than convincing. An initial package of US-imposed sanctions against Russia that includes the export of sensitive technologies and some financial services was implemented in August 2018.

Venezuela is also under the sanctions gun and is a perfect example how sanctions can escalate into something more punitive, leading incrementally to an actual state of war. Last week Washington expanded its sanctions regime, which is already causing starvation in parts of Venezuela, to include what amounts to a complete economic embargo directed against the Maduro regime that is being enforced by a naval blockade.

The Venezuelan government announced last Wednesday that the United States Navy had seized a cargo ship bound for Venezuela while it was transiting the Panama Canal. According to a government spokesman, the ship's cargo was soy cakes intended for the production of food. As one of Washington's raisons d'etre for imposing sanctions on Caracas was that government incompetence was starving the Venezuelan people, the move to aggravate that starvation would appear to be somewhat capricious and revealing of the fact that the White House could care less about what happens to the Venezuelan civilians who are caught up in the conflict.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez condemned the move as "serious aggression," and accused the Trump Administration of trying to impede Venezuela's basic right to import food to feed its people.

One of the most pernicious aspects of the sanctions regimes that the United States is imposing is that they are global. When Washington puts someone on its sanctions list, other countries that do not comply with the demands being made are also subject to punishment, referred to as secondary sanctions. The sanctions on Iran's oil exports, for example, are being globally enforced with some few exceptions, and any country that buys Iranian oil will be punished by being denied access to the US financial and banking system. That is a serious penalty as most international trade and business transactions go through the dollar denominated SWIFT banking network.

Finally, nothing illustrates the absurdity of the sanctions mania as a recent report that President Trump had sent his official hostage negotiator Robert O'Brien to Stockholm to obtain freedom for an American rap musician ASAP Rocky who was in jail after having gotten into a fight with some local boys. The Trumpster did not actually know the lad, but he was vouched for by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, both of whom have had nice things to say about the president. The negotiator was instructed to tell Sweden that if they did not release Rocky there would be "negative consequences." Who can doubt that the consequences would undoubtedly have included sanctions?

It has reached the point where the only country that likes the United States is Israel, which is locked into a similar cycle of incessant aggression. To be sure Donald Trump's rhetoric is part of the problem, but the indiscriminate, illegal and immoral use of sanctions, which punish whole nations for the presumed sins of those nations' leaders, is a major contributing factor. And the real irony is that even though sanctions cause pain, they are ineffective. Cuba has been under sanctions, technically and embargo, since 1960 and its ruling regime has not collapsed, and there is no chance that Venezuela, Iran or Russia's government will go away at any time soon either. In fact, real change would be more likely if Washington were to sit down at a negotiating table with countries that it considers enemies and work to find solutions to common concerns. But that is not likely to happen with the current White House line-up, and equally distant with a Democratic Party obsessed with the "Russian threat" and other fables employed to explain its own failings.

[Aug 14, 2019] Russiagate as a smoke screen for the struggle between two powerful groups of the US elite

Apr 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Apr 1, 2019 5:14:39 PM | 93 ">link

@ bevin #90

But that doesn't bother Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and their mob. They think quarter by quarter. Immediate gratification is the name of their game. They know that "in the long run we are all dead". And they don't care what happens then.

Your viewpoint is the same as that of Jonathon Cook. He says "Russiagate" was a faction fight between two groups of the Power Elites.

One wanted to keep 'putting the lipstick on the pig' which is predatory Capitalism, and the other wants to let it all hang out and rape the planet NOW.

Just as there was a clueless "liberal" cheering group for Mueller, the Looters have a fan club among the "right". Both sets of the applauding groups are just puppets. And of course neither has recognized their true role in the unfolding dramas.

[Aug 14, 2019] Neocon Joe Biden and the USA involvement in Ukraine

Add to this his involvement in Ukraine...
Notable quotes:
"... “It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression,” Nixon wrote, “that we are prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its knees. Russia is a great country that deserves to be treated with appropriate respect.” ..."
"... Nixon was either lying or was outright delusional. The collective West can not operate in terms of friendship. The only motive behind any western foreign policy has always been to gain absolute power with no limits or borders. It happens that Russia is viewed as the only nation that can stop that western culture of domination and offer a multi polar world order, respected national sovereignty and mutual trust. Therefore the animosity towards Russia is inevitable, no matter what, as long as Russia exists. Any other view is a sort of wishful thinking. ..."
"... The constantly escalated lie of America about Russia's aggression is needed to knock out 2% of the military budget from satellites for the purchase of actually American weapons, to support the American military industrial complex. ..."
"... Russia enjoys escalation dominance in its own sphere, all the way up to the use of nukes in defense. America cannot possibly justify using that same kind of escalation, which means America will be the first to blink and then withdraw. ..."
Aug 13, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly sided with opposition groups in Russia and expressed sympathy with mass anti-government demonstrations whose organizers made no secret of their objective to remove Putin from power. In March 2011, Vice President Joe Biden told Russian opposition leaders that it would be "bad for the country and for himself" if Putin attempted to run for president the following year, according to the later murdered Putin critic Boris Nemtsov. I have spoken with people who were present at Biden's meeting with the Russian opposition, and there was no question in their mind that Biden fully intended to pressure Putin not to run again. Biden and Clinton were not acting out of turn; the Obama administration put its money where its mouth was, giving millions of dollars to political opposition groups in Russia. Today, leading Democrats are demanding that Russia refrain from intervening in the 2020 elections, but what implications do such demands have for America's own willingness to take sides in Russian political disputes?

... ... ..

Last but not least, we must be willing to be clear that we are not beholden to shaping American policy exclusively to align with the whims of our allies. Relationships between former iron curtain states are remarkably complex and fraught with centuries of painful history, making them prone to conflict with one another. It is precisely these parochial European conflicts which George Washington strongly advised against being involved in, stating in his farewell address that America should be wary of entangling, "our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice."

WASHINGTON ALSO spoke about those, "ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens," who become so enamored with the causes of their favorite countries that they not only lose perspective of American interests, but are even prepared to accuse those who disagree with them of a lack of patriotism and, in modern times, of being a Putin lackey. One does not need to be a supporter of President Trump to understand that these pseudo-patriots do not serve American interests or American values well. In April 2019, 73 percent of the Ukrainian people rejected President Petro Poroshenko, who ran on a nationalist, anti-Russian platform. While few American and European experts were willing to acknowledge that the Poroshenko government was corrupt, inept, and, according to Ukrainian media, willing to use money to influence the American political process, they were suddenly willing to make such pronouncements as soon as the election results were solidified. America cannot allow the designation of an "ally" to make any states immune from disagreement or criticism. When the stakes are as high as nuclear war, America cannot afford to conduct foreign policy based on the whims of its domestic constituencies or the sentiments of those very "deluded" citizens about whom Washington warned.

Great American presidents of the past knew how to be loyal allies, but to do it in a calibrated and deliberative fashion. President Dwight D. Eisenhower fully understood the importance of the transatlantic alliance, having fought to preserve it in World War II, yet in 1956 he refused to support Britain and France during the Suez Crisis when doing so went against America’s national interest. Similarly, despite being a genuine friend to Israel, Ronald Reagan was willing to condemn it for going overboard in Lebanon in 1982. But today, to suggest that America is not obliged to support with blood and treasure the actions of our allies and friends is considered morally unacceptable. That is why whenever Baltic states, Georgia and Ukraine have any disagreement with Russia, America automatically denounces Russia as the aggressor, regardless of the historical background, geopolitical context, and even, as in the case of Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008, who attacked whose troops first.

America and Russia appear unlikely to resolve their hostilities any time soon. America has a long tradition of standing tall and being prepared to be ruthless in the defense of its interests, but also in being careful not to unnecessarily entangle itself in the conflicts of others. If the United States starts treating Putin’s Russia like it is Hitler’s Germany, moves from supporting Ukrainian and Georgian sovereignty to encouraging these states to conduct hostile policies towards Moscow, and strengthens NATO’s military position in the Baltics, Russia may feel confronted by an existential threat.

Dimitri K. Simes, publisher and CEO of the National Interest, is president of the Center for the National Interest.


minsredmash10 hours ago • edited ,

“It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression,” Nixon wrote, “that we are prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its knees. Russia is a great country that deserves to be treated with appropriate respect.”

Nixon was either lying or was outright delusional. The collective West can not operate in terms of friendship. The only motive behind any western foreign policy has always been to gain absolute power with no limits or borders. It happens that Russia is viewed as the only nation that can stop that western culture of domination and offer a multi polar world order, respected national sovereignty and mutual trust. Therefore the animosity towards Russia is inevitable, no matter what, as long as Russia exists. Any other view is a sort of wishful thinking.

To save us all from the nuclear catastrophe it is important to remember what Putin once said:

""We are not interested in the world without Russia" (c)

Just don't make sudden moves.

Лайм Баюнa day ago ,

The constantly escalated lie of America about Russia's aggression is needed to knock out 2% of the military budget from satellites for the purchase of actually American weapons, to support the American military industrial complex. This lie began with the already proven European aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia. And the RETURN of the Crimea during the anarchy arranged by America coup in Ukraine. America uses Goebbels propaganda.

Kevin Blankinshipa day ago ,

Part of the problem is that the establishment Republicans got heady beginning in the early 1990s, thinking that America is omnipotent and can always get its way in the world. Nowhere was this sentiment stronger than the business elite. This arrogance continues in our foreign policy with those like John Bolton who figure that firepower is always the answer. The good news is that this sentiment peaked during the George W. Bush years, when Iraq taught the lesson that solutions are often not quick-and-easy.

Volodimir2 days ago ,

I think the proper title of the article should be "Russia continue to be delusional about Ukraine"

Dimitri's is the perfect example of how Russian propaganda wants to cast events in the Ukraine: " In April 2019, 73 percent of the Ukrainian people rejected President Petro Poroshenko, who ran on a nationalist, anti-Russian platform "

While it is obvious Ukrainians showed Poroshenko the location of the exit door, the main reason was not his so-called anti-Russian nationalistic platform, but corruption and inability to accelerate necessary reforms.

If the resentment against so called nationalism and anti-Russian policies were material, then the pro-Russian block will have significantly more votes than it managed to gain.

Dmitri here follows Russian dogma and equates pro Ukrainian to anti Russian. Any move in Ukraine to advance Ukrainian language, history and culture - in a sense a sort of affirmative action policy - equates to anti Russian nationalism.

And this delusion needed to be fixed in order for Russia to be able to start moving back towards normalcy in relationship with its neighbors.

VadimKharichkov Volodimira day ago ,

Volo, you don't know how public perception works - if you pour dirt on somebody who has wide respect and sound reputation - it backfires. By badmouthing Dimitri Simes you basically show how foolish you are. You may not feel like it in your little make-believe Ukranian banderite world - but this is how it is in reality.

Besides, Volo, we both know you're Poroshenko supporter and you supported him because of his nationalistic anti-Russian stance. So why pretend he's out because he's inefficient manager? Also, there is a so-called Fallacy of a Single Cause, which you seem to follow. Obviously, there were many reasons for Poroshenko's fall, yet chief among them being ultra-nationalism and administrative ineptitude

Yeap, educate yourself on the list of logical fallacies . As I've said, I'm glad I'm a good influence on you

Gary Sellars Volodimir2 days ago ,

"And this delusion needed to be fixed in order for Russia to be able to start moving back towards normalcy in relationship with its neighbors."

You can't have normalcy when Ukraine is still ruled on the streets by armed facist ultra-nationalist scumbags. Once these criminals are disarmed and jailed awaiting trial then normalcy will have a chance.

maxime begin Gary Sellarsa day ago ,

Seriously?! You really not see the reality... you swallow everything Putin told you... take time and learn a bit about history, stop to be the little good soldier and became a human!

Gary Sellars maxime begin19 hours ago ,

Yes, seriously. The armed nationalists are a damngerous force in Ukraine and the elected politicans are quite rightly scared of these radicals. People die in Ukraine if they speak out openly against the Nationalist militants, ask Oles Buzina... oh wait, we can't cuz they killed him.

Speaking out against the Ukro nationalists in 2019 is like speaking out against the Russian mafia in the 90s and 00s. It's a great way to get yourself killed.

Sean.McGivens Gary Sellars2 days ago ,

"Russia’s grievances, real or imagined, are not justifications for the United States abandoning the pursuit of its own interest and allowing Russian domination of Eurasia.

But the United States has no legitimate interests in the former Soviet Union. For the US to think otherwise is to be power drunk and blinded by imperial greed.

It scares to me see that so many of my ignorant countrymen in America seem to have a sense of manifest destiny regarding the former Soviet land mass. This myopic America policy is going to lead to disaster for the US. That's because Russia enjoys escalation dominance in its own sphere, all the way up to the use of nukes in defense. America cannot possibly justify using that same kind of escalation, which means America will be the first to blink and then withdraw.

Volodimir Sean.McGivens2 days ago • edited ,

" That's why Ukraine must absolutely ... "
It is amusing how Russians automatically assume authority to boss other people around.

Gary Sellars Volodimir2 days ago ,

It is amusing how Banderites always blame others for their own failures and utter irrelevance. You violently siezed Ukraine and proceeded to make a slaughterhouse and a basket-case out of her, but its always someone elses fault... what a good little empty-headed stormtrooper for Empire you are....

Gary Sellars2 days ago • edited ,

The author likes to write about US "defense of its interests" but what about when those "interests" are in direct opposition to the real interests of the nations and peoples in those distant lands? Why should the self-declared and often selfish desires of the US elites be used as justification for political, financial or outright military aggression? Are we really going to accept law-of-the-jungle in global relations where the strong & wealthy get to attack the weak & impoverished simply because doing so is ostensibly in their "interests"? A burglar ransacks your house while you're out and kills your dog in the process cuz its in his "interest', but that doesn't make it OK.

Somewhere we need to accept that morality and ethics should be the primary guide as to how we interact with others. Unfortunately the US elites have long since abandoned any such constraints or considerations as they aren't really compatible with building a global hegemony and crushing all resistance to their rule.

Gary Sellars3 days ago • edited ,

"Putin is not blindly militaristic, but always considers the consequences of his actions, even if he has not always managed to anticipate them correctly (as was the case with Russian interference in U.S. elections)."

"Russia’s interference in the American political process was serious and real"

Gimmee a break.... Russian "interference".... The author feels the need to insert this debunked shibboleth into his article? Surely there isn't a free-thinking individual alive who still belives this hogwash?

katzen777 Jesse Morelanda day ago ,

Yeah, he did. Biden bragged about it. Stop this "Russia's paranoia" nonsense, you keep on clinging to it until it's proven to be truth in some memoir of an ex-cia chief or US offical. Just like with NATO not expanding that was portrayed as a myth until it appeared they really promised it to Gorbachev.

Radical Pragmatist Jesse Moreland3 days ago ,

America and its European allies supported the ousting of Yanukovych in 2014

It was a lot more than simple "support". The U.S., led by State Department Nitwit Vulgarian Victoria Nuland and her barrel of CIA monkeys directly organized and enabled the Maidan coup debacle. All the U.S. had to do was wait for the next presidential election in Ukraine. But no, the Global Cop Gorilla had to stick its fat greasy thumb into someone else's soup yet again.

And the Russians knew that following the ham-fisted coup the U.S. would direct its new puppet President in Ukraine to eject them from their historic naval base in Sevastopol that Russia had occupied for more than 200 years. Ironically, no U.S. facilitated coup, no annexation of Crimea.

The Global Cop Gorilla wrecks everything that it touches. The one perverse benefit of the Trump presidency is that U.S. foreign policy pathology is now so visible to the rest of the planet

mal Sergey3 days ago ,

"At the next revolution, the present rulers would either give up power peacefully or follow the fate of Chaushesqu or Qaddafi."

You mean Russians want NATO to bomb Moscow so that Russian people could get the honor of being sold on the slave markets like Libyan people are today? https://www.reuters.com/art...

Qaddafi is indeed a cautionary tale, just not the one you think it is.

[Aug 13, 2019] Our Overly Militarized Foreign Policy Gets Even Worse

Aug 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Daniel Benaim and Michael Walid Hanna explain that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East hasn't changed much at all under Trump, but there has been a reduction in diplomatic engagement:

For all the headlines, the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is fairly consistent. Despite the administration's intention, laid out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, to refocus the U.S. military on great-power competition, the U.S. footprint in the Middle East remains relatively constant, and seemingly permanent. Instead, what has changed is the scale of civilian effort that, in most previous administrations, would have accompanied such a military presence. The Trump administration has left numerous vacancies for key civilian positions unfilled for long stretches, slashed aid programs, and focused on high-level personal relations at the expense of broader ties. Altogether, its approach has not been typified by either retrenchment or interventionism but by what Barry Posen, writing in Foreign Affairs, has called "illiberal hegemony" -- military superiority shorn of diplomatic stewardship.

Benaim and Hanna are right about this, and their article is a welcome corrective to the many false claims that Trump is "retreating" from the region. The administration's disdain for diplomacy and aid has been impossible to miss over the last two and a half years, and they have combined that with more or less continuing the military deployments and missions that they inherited. What that means in practice is that the U.S. remains entangled in the affairs of the region, but our government's involvement leans even more heavily towards the military. That leaves every other kind of engagement underfunded, understaffed, and neglected. Since our foreign policy is already excessively militarized, this makes a bad problem worse. Benaim and Hanna note this later in the article:

This approach also exacerbates the long-standing problem of overreliance on the military as the central tool of U.S. Middle East policy. Even on a diplomat's best days, regional leaders are well aware of the "consul effect" -- the contrast between well-resourced American military commanders and their relatively impoverished diplomatic colleagues. Further marginalizing diplomats costs them influence, access, and bargaining power, while positioning the military and intelligence communities as the only effective U.S. institutional actors in the region.

Given the reality that the U.S. military presence hasn't been reduced, and has actually increased in some places over the last two years, how is it that we keep hearing about U.S. "retreat" and "withdrawal" as if these were happening? Client states have an incentive to whine about possible "abandonment" no matter what the U.S. does. Either they complain about an "abandonment" that has supposedly already happened, or they warn against a possible "abandonment" that might take place in the future. The whining serves the purpose of putting pressure on every administration to maintain existing commitments and then to add more. Then there are pundits and analysts at home that constantly fret about U.S. "withdrawal" as a way of agitating for increased involvement. Then there are the supporters of the president that want to pretend that the "withdrawal" is really happening in order to credit the president for doing something he hasn't done. Add them all up, and you get an unfounded consensus that the U.S. is "retreating" when virtually nothing has changed. In the case of Trump, there is an additional factor of taking the president's rhetoric at face value while ignoring what his administration is doing. Trump boasts about some things that never happened and never will happen, and for some reason he is blamed/credited for things he never does while his real policies often escape close scrutiny.

Put simply, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East is largely unchanged and has even escalated to some degree under Trump, but all other kinds of engagement get short shrift. Far from disentangling the U.S. from its excessive commitments in the region, Trump has embraced our worst clients and deepened our government's involvement in the worst way for the sake of arms sales and whipping up anti-Iranian sentiment. This is the exact opposite of what should be happening, and it is antithetical to a foreign policy that extricates U.S. forces from the region.

[Aug 13, 2019] Delusions About Russia by Dimitri K. Simes

Ukraine was a litmus test as for US relations with Russia. From that point for Russia the USA represent an eminent threat for the integrity of the country. In other words the most dangerous adversary which wants to put Russia on its knees by whatever means possible, although Putin politically and diplomatically calls it partner.
And the role Dick Cheney protégé Victoria Nuland played in this tragic for both countries (as well as Ukraine) event still need to be clearly analyzed.
It is now clear that Nuland and her neocon fringes in Obama administration sawed dragon teeth into very fertile ground...
Notable quotes:
"... "It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression," Nixon wrote, "that we are prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its knees. ..."
"... As with every divorce, there are contrasting narratives about who bears what responsibility for the dissolution of this once promising relationship. However, it is clear that America's foreign policy establishment, including members of both Congress and the Trump administration, is currently plagued by the tension between its habitual desire to assume the worst of Russia and its simultaneous reluctance to respond to the magnitude of Moscow's challenge in a serious fashion. ..."
"... The same experts who are terrified of confrontation with North Korea, with its rudimentary nuclear arsenal, or Iran, which has no nuclear arsenal at all, take a remarkably cavalier approach towards the prospect of a clash with Russia. ..."
"... It also runs the risk of inadvertently creating a new danger in the form of providing additional incentives for Moscow and Beijing to cooperate with each other against America. As a recent Pentagon white paper observed, Russian president Vladimir Putin could try to play the "China card" to the detriment of America. ..."
Aug 13, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

TWENTY-SIX years ago at a national policy conference in Los Angeles co-hosted by his foundation, Richard M. Nixon observed that one of America's most fundamental foreign policy objectives was to build a new international order after the collapse of the Soviet Union which included the newly-democratic Russia as a partner. He stated,

In discussing Russia, it is first necessary to dispel a myth. The Russians did not lose the Cold War. The Communists did. The United States and our allies played a crucial role in containing communism and in rolling it back, but it was democratic Russia that gave the knockout blow to communism on December 14th in 1991. So therefore, we should treat Russia today not as a defeated enemy but as an ally and a friend who joined with us in defeating communism in Russia.

Nixon warned that if Russia's experiment with democracy and association with the West were to fail, Russia could fall victim to, "a more authoritarian, aggressive nationalism, which, shorn of the failed faith of communism, might be an even greater threat to the West than the old Soviet totalitarianism."

Subsequently, in the book Beyond Peace , which served as the last political message of his life, Nixon made a strong case that, while ending the Cold War on American terms was a historic accomplishment, the lasting legacy of this feat would be determined by America's success in incorporating Russia into the community of democratic free market nations. "It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression," Nixon wrote, "that we are prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its knees. Russia is a great country that deserves to be treated with appropriate respect." Nixon's observations were prophetic. They make it clear that the turn that contemporary events have taken was not inevitable even if it was foreseeable. Nixon not only sought reconciliation with Russia, but was also convinced that given sufficient foresight and diplomatic tact Washington could achieve it.

TODAY, IT can be stated with certainty that America has failed at this task. America's new strategic doctrine views Russia as a major threat to the United States due to its military prowess, hybrid warfare capabilities, and global drive to undermine the American-led liberal world order. As with every divorce, there are contrasting narratives about who bears what responsibility for the dissolution of this once promising relationship. However, it is clear that America's foreign policy establishment, including members of both Congress and the Trump administration, is currently plagued by the tension between its habitual desire to assume the worst of Russia and its simultaneous reluctance to respond to the magnitude of Moscow's challenge in a serious fashion.

When I hear media pundits and members of Congress describe Russia as a major adversary and, at the same time, speak and act as though America is immune to the threat posed by the Russian military, I often wonder whether they know something that I do not. The same experts who are terrified of confrontation with North Korea, with its rudimentary nuclear arsenal, or Iran, which has no nuclear arsenal at all, take a remarkably cavalier approach towards the prospect of a clash with Russia. While this view is common among the national security establishment, it reflects a serious misunderstanding of Russia's military strength, its national character and, above all, the way its history continues to shape its foreign policy decisions. It also runs the risk of inadvertently creating a new danger in the form of providing additional incentives for Moscow and Beijing to cooperate with each other against America. As a recent Pentagon white paper observed, Russian president Vladimir Putin could try to play the "China card" to the detriment of America.

In hindsight, it is clear that the post-Soviet political order in Eastern Europe was never properly settled by Russia and the West, and that the agreements that emerged after the Cold War were too ambiguous to offer any real clarity. For instance, the 1994 Budapest Agreement, which both Russia and the United States signed, guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine, but also promised the protection of Ukrainian sovereignty, which Russia perceived as a commitment from the West not to interfere in Ukraine's internal political affairs. Therefore, when America and its European allies supported the ousting of Yanukovych in 2014, Russia viewed this as illegal Western interference, which provided Moscow with both the opportunity and the right to defend its interests in Crimea and Donbass.

In recent years, Putin has unveiled his Avangard hypersonic ICBM system and new RS-28 Sarmat heavy ballistic missile (both of which are allegedly capable of overcoming any U.S./NATO missile defenses), and warned that, if push comes to shove, Russia is prepared to stand against a military challenge from the West even if doing so meant escalating to nuclear war. These warnings were coupled with the deployment of new brigades to Ukraine's borders starting in 2014 and major improvements of Russia's military capabilities near the Baltic region. Yet again, these moves were treated as something requiring a vigorous response, but ultimately not increasing the risk of a military clash. NATO viewed its commitment to restraint as self-evident, so why would the Kremlin fear Western aggression? And if so, why would anybody seriously fear a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West?

... ... ...

UNFORTUNATELY, THE threat of unintentional conflict escalation is not a hypothetical one. Russian and American troops often operate in the same areas of combat in Syria, and U.S. combat aircraft and personnel were involved in a devastating attack on Russian paramilitaries in 2018. In that particular case, Russia gave no advanced warning that Russian fighters were involved, and later downplayed the incident by noting the fundamental difference between the death of Russian private military contractors and an attack against its regular forces. But many experts on both sides privately acknowledge that this incident was a close call that easily could have resulted in rapid escalation. With more and more NATO ships and planes operating in close proximity to Russian territory and their Russian counterparts boldly challenging them to prove their own determination, the potential for a clash in the air or on the seas is becoming more and more real. Yet Congress has had no meaningful discussions about how the sinking of one ship or downing of one plane could result in accidental nuclear war between Russia and the United States.

... ... ...

This shift was marked by the growing disillusionment with both the West and democracy that became prevalent during the end of the Yeltsin era after the bitter experience of Russia's economic demise and NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia. Tsipko writes, “I agree with those who believe that it is the very national character that is to some extent the cause of the militarization of conscience.” He adds, “It is important to understand that militarization of conscience brings the killing of the instinct of self-preservation. It is not just expecting death, but creating a cult of death, making it sacred.”

... ... ...

Nonetheless, Tsipko’s observations reveal much about how Russia might respond to a confrontation with America and its allies. If the survival of the country, dignity of the Russian civilization and, yes, legitimacy of the regime are at stake, Russia may be prepared to accept much higher risks and absorb much greater losses than would be acceptable to Western democracies.

Russia’s sense of isolation and victimhood are also rooted in an understanding of the collapse of the Soviet Union that differs wildly from the common Western narrative. Many Russians view their country as a modern equivalent of Weimar Germany, dismembered by victorious powers who are responsible for the economic catastrophe, human suffering and great humiliation of the Russian people. Most Russian citizens identify with Putin’s statement that, “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” and believe that, “for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.” While neither Putin nor the majority of Russians view the recreation of the USSR as either feasible or desirable, the wounds of the Soviet collapse clearly remain quite fresh and continue to influence attitudes towards the West.

... ... ...

Accordingly, most Russians deeply resented being treated as a defeated country by the West. After the Cold War, Russians anticipated that they would be viewed not as a vanquished adversary, but instead as a courageous ally who played an indispensable role in destroying the Soviet bloc to achieve a common victory in the Cold War. By repeatedly siding against Moscow in each of its post-Cold War disputes with its new neighbors, the West treated Russia like a defeated state that had accepted an unconditional surrender and was now trying, in disregard of its legal obligations, to establish hegemony over its neighbors. The Russian political elites, initially strongly pro-Western, felt betrayed and offended. They saw a diktat from the West.

Many Russians also hold that insidious actions by Western powers greatly contributed to the Soviet collapse. There is very little evidence to support this claim; as late as August 1991, President George H.W. Bush argued against Ukraine’s seeking full independence, stating that “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aide those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.” Yet the Russian political class has increasingly persuaded itself that its country was intentionally destroyed by Western powers, masquerading as friends of the USSR during perestroika while secretly attempting to sabotage the Soviet state. It is through the prism of those beliefs that one must look to understand how Russia might act in the event of a military confrontation with the West.

[Aug 13, 2019] I woke up when Vicky Nuland blessed our Kiev coup in 2014 with "F..k the EU".

Aug 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Robjil , says: August 13, 2019 at 10:42 am GMT

@niteranger I woke up when Vicky Nuland blessed our Kiev coup in 2014 with "F..k the EU".

[Aug 13, 2019] The only area UAE and Saudi Arabia agree is "Yemen must be open to their (Sunni) type Islamist extremists".

Aug 13, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm , August 13, 2019 at 04:41 AM

Shaky UAE-Saudi Arabia alliance over Yemen:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/13/trumps-arab-allies-turn-each-other/?noredirect=on&utm_campaign=EBB%20081319&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sailthru

The only area they agree is "Yemen must be open to their (Sunni) type Islamist extremists".

US is siding with big oil in the thousand odd year schism.

[Aug 13, 2019] To be fair, the US has a fantastic record of f***ing up countries with aerial bombs. The part which the Saudis failed to understand is that the US isn't next to any of these countries...

Aug 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Aug 12 2019 14:53 utc | 98

@JW #40
To be fair, the US has a fantastic record of f***ing up countries with aerial bombs. The part which the Saudis failed to understand is that the US isn't next to any of these countries...

Yemen has a population slightly lower than Texas. Imagine, Washington bombing Texas, only filled with Texans that have more and heavier weapons(?).
The question mark is because I am not entirely certain that Yemenis are more heavily armed than Texans, but certainly they're at least as fierce defending themselves.

[Aug 13, 2019] The new war is essentially economic; it is a war of sanctions and limiting free movement of ship movements around the globe. It is a war of tankers and oil platforms.

Aug 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Aug 12 2019 3:09 utc | 51

@2 BM

Wow, that is an outstanding tour d'horizon from Magnier you linked. This is a keeper to show others who may be amenable to learning about today's Middle East balance of forces, and how it has been arrived at.

Succinct yet very comprehensive, the piece not only catches up the histories of recent years, but provides an analysis of today and the near-to-mid-term future - both military and geopolitical. It speaks of the various lessons learned along the way, including the lessons being absorbed in real time today as the confrontation between Iran and the US has barely yet begun and yet racked up totally instructive scores.

The new war is essentially economic; it is a war of sanctions and limiting free movement of ship movements around the globe. It is a war of tankers and oil platforms. It is a starvation war where no one can threaten the enemy with a return to the "stone age" because the firepower is now universally available . Yemen is the best example: the threat of bombing Dubai forced the Emirates to seek Iranian mediation to prevent a missile attack against them. The Houthis, despite years of Saudi bombing of Yemen, have also managed to bomb Saudi airports, military bases and oil stations in the heart of Saudi Arabia, using cruise missiles and armed drones. [My emphasis]

And Hezbolllah has cemented its standing with nations in the region, expanded its skill from guerrilla and small-theater to nation-size theater, and this:

It has run intensive courses in the use of its drones, used its precision missiles with accuracy, produced thousands of highly trained Special Forces and it has fought an enemy (al-Qaeda) that is much more motivated to fight to the death than any Israeli Special Forces units. [My emphasis]

Israel is essentially paralyzed. Even to the extent, as Magnier relates, of being careful to warn Hezbollah drivers before bombing its supply trucks, because "Israel wanted to avoid human casualties among Hezbollah officers, fully aware of the price of retaliation. " My emphasis again.

The bad guys have fallen behind - as we know, but as Magnier illustrates so clearly in this appraisal, with his review of the initial western strategies just a few years ago and how they have all been rendered null. Even the US now is an antique target for modern missile and drone technology - and the battle-hardened skill with these weapons definitely resides with the Levant axis rather than with the imperialists and their dogs.

The future? This:

Gaza, along with Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad, are all highly equipped by Tehran with sufficient missiles to inflict real damage on Israel and on US forces deployed in the Middle East. Israel is playing around by targeting various objectives tactically but with no real strategic purpose- only for Netanyahu to keep himself busy and train his Air Force, and to gain publicity in the media. Soon, when Syria recovers and Iraq is stronger, the Israeli promenade will have to cease. Hezbollah in Lebanon may also find a way in the near future to keep its irregular but organised army busy by firing anti-air missiles against Israeli jets and imposing new rules of engagement.

Here's the link again:
From 2006 to 2019: after failures in Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen, war is no longer an option for Israel

Great job, Elijah J. Magnier!

[Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Highly recommended!
That suggest that FBI actions were influenced by Obama administration and CIA to much greater expent thatn we assuned.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

In reviewing these 302s there are some salient points I want to bring to your attention.

First, Christopher Steele was terminated as an FBI Confidential Human Source at the end of September 2016 for leaking to the press. That should have put an end to the relationship. Instead, the FBI starts using Bruce Ohr, the number four guy at the Department of Justice, as a cutout. Absolutely no justification for this kind of behavior by the FBI. It is, at a minimum, unethical and creates a real problem if any of the info collected from Ohr was to be used in a court proceeding. Something known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" would kick in and the so-called evidence proffered by Ohr would be inadmissible or unusable because of Steele's previous lies to the FBI.

Second, Glenn Simpson played a huge role in helping spread anti-Trump propaganda generated by Steele. In fact, it was Simpson's insistence on Steele speaking with the press that got Steele terminated as an FBI source.

Third, the FBI knew by mid-December 2016 that Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, was working with Simpson and Steele. This too should have set off alarm bells about the potential conflicts of interest and unethical conduct.

Fourth, evidence used ultimately against Paul Manafort came from Nellie Ohr. If this was not disclosed to Manafort's attorney's there is a likely Brady violation, which bolster's Manafort's prospects for an appeal.

Fifth, Steele and Simpson made several claims of fact about Russia ties to the Trump campaign that were later proven to be false. For example, stating that Michael Cohen was in Prague meeting the Russians. Important to note that Christopher Steele produced the final report of the so-called dossier bearing his name on 13 December 2016 yet this information was "passed" to Ohr one day prior to the date on the report.

Sixth, the "debriefing" of Ohr on 12 December 2016 also provided the foundation for going after Marina Butina. (See Sara Carter's excellent update on this case here ). The false information from Steele/Simpson via Bruce Ohr became the pretext for launching an investigation of Butina, who was working for a wealthy Russian banker, Alexander Torshin. This too turns out to have been a fabrication. I believe this provides Butina's attorneys more ammunition for arguing prosecutorial misconduct and failure to provide critical Brady material.

Seventh, Ohr's report that Simpson and Steele were communicating with the State Department, including Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and Kathleen Kavalec makes it clear that State Department was used as a front to pass on info from the questionable Steele Dossier. This information was used in the FISA warrant and provided a seemingly reliable justification for spying on Carter Page (see the Page FISA warrant here .)

And finally, Fusion GPS, which was hired on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, was regularly communicating and coordinating with Obama's Department of Justice and Department of State. This was a complete abuse of power.

Now, here is the summary of the 302s:

11/22/2016 (entered on 12/19/2006)

Ohr met with Steele in 2007 (not sure of date) at a conference.

July 30, 2016 Steele met Ohr for breakfast. Steele claimed Carter Page had met with Russian Sechin at a conference.

States that Glenn Simpson hired Steele and Ohr's wife to dig up dirt on Trump's connections to Russia.

Noted that reporting was going to the Clinton Campaign, Jonathan Winer and the FBI.

Ohr met with Steele in late September and was told about Alfa Bank ties to Trump and the Sergei Millian organization.

Noted that Steele was desperate to stop Trump and to thwart the Kremlin.

Ohr knew that Glenn Simpson and "others" were meeting with Victoria Nuland.

12/05/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (drafted on 12/12/2016)

Glenn Simpson directed Christopher Steele to speak to the press, including David Corn at Mother Jones.

Ohr provided FBI info on Manafort Chronology prepared by his wife.

12/12/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (Drafted on 12/14/2016)

Ohr states, per Simpson, that Cohen replaced Manafort and Page as the contact with the Russians.

Says that Cohen met with Russians in Prague.

Claims that Torshin is a Russian mobster and is trying to infiltrate the NRA and was pushing money to Trump.

Simpson opined that Sergei Millian was an SVR officer and a link to Trump.

12/20/2016 (entered on 12/27/2016)

Thumb drive with Nelly Ohr's research passed to FBI.

1/23/2017 (entered on 1/31/2017) (drafted on 1/25/2017)

Simpson tells Ohr a source will be outed in the coming days.

Steele claims he met with a McCain staffer prior to October 2016

1/25/017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Ohr spoke with Steele on 25 January 2017.

1/27/2017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Steele told Ohr he wanted to keep lines of communication open.

02/06/2017 (entered on 02/08/2017)

Ohr contacted by Steele via What'sApp on 31 January 2017. Was reacting to firing of Sally Yates. Worried that if Ohr got fired he would have no one to talk to.

"Interviewing agents asked Ohr to ask Steele if he would be comfortable getting the name of an FBI agent."

Ohr reminded agents that Steele had spoken several times prior to 2016 Presidential election with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. Ohr identified one of the sources for Steele's report as a Ukranian.

02/14/2017 (entered on 02/15/2017)

Ohr tells FBI about Steele's concerns about his business. Identifies other lawyer (name blacked out) he is working with. Steele is preparing a proposal to re-establish his business releationship with the FBI.

05/08/2017 (entered on 05/10/2017)

Steele tells Ohr that he is worried about Comey's upcoming testimony. Ohr tells Steele what Comey will say and Steele is "happy."

Ohr said that Glenn Simpson would be visiting Steele soon.

Jonathan Winer was bringing a letter to Steele.


walrus , 11 August 2019 at 04:43 PM

this is treason.
PRC90 , 11 August 2019 at 08:24 PM
As an aside, note the similarities between Steele and Downer. Both carried some imprimatur of credibility based on prior government service, and popped up from no where and returned to relative obscurity after producing a document that was able to be immediately misused by others for the same purpose.

I'd wondered why anyone would want to involve Downer in these events, the man is a moron. However, one of his greatest strengths is producing wonderful well written reports, and to that extent would appear to have been chosen well.

confusedponderer , 12 August 2019 at 05:52 AM
It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining - that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably bringing in her ... regime change experience aquired in the Ukraine.

I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?

https://orf.at/static/images/site/news/20131250/ukraine_klitschko_usa_body_a.4532409.jpg

As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+ billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper - i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.

That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent observer.

Thanks for sharing and elaborating.

Patrick Armstrong , 12 August 2019 at 08:48 AM
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from beginning to end?

The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance.

Any ideas?
One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out over such a long time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an effect.

My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.

But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that they're not exploded.

turcopolier , 12 August 2019 at 09:02 AM
PA

Unless there are a lot of indictments none of this will matter.

plantman , 12 August 2019 at 11:39 AM
So, state department honchos--Victoria Nuland, Kavalec and Sally Yates (DOJ)--all had some knowledge of what was going on, right? And so did national security advisor Susan Rice.

Doesn't that prove that Obama must have been in the loop?

I think it does.

Second, how much of Nellie Ohr's russia research actually ended up in the steele dossier? I think that it is very unlikely that Chris Steele maintained his sketchy connections in Russia after the seismic political changes in the early 2000s. It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives.

notamusedobserver -> plantman... , 12 August 2019 at 04:42 PM
The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used..

[Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Highly recommended!
That suggest that FBI actions were influenced by Obama administration and CIA to much greater expent thatn we assuned.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

In reviewing these 302s there are some salient points I want to bring to your attention.

First, Christopher Steele was terminated as an FBI Confidential Human Source at the end of September 2016 for leaking to the press. That should have put an end to the relationship. Instead, the FBI starts using Bruce Ohr, the number four guy at the Department of Justice, as a cutout. Absolutely no justification for this kind of behavior by the FBI. It is, at a minimum, unethical and creates a real problem if any of the info collected from Ohr was to be used in a court proceeding. Something known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" would kick in and the so-called evidence proffered by Ohr would be inadmissible or unusable because of Steele's previous lies to the FBI.

Second, Glenn Simpson played a huge role in helping spread anti-Trump propaganda generated by Steele. In fact, it was Simpson's insistence on Steele speaking with the press that got Steele terminated as an FBI source.

Third, the FBI knew by mid-December 2016 that Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, was working with Simpson and Steele. This too should have set off alarm bells about the potential conflicts of interest and unethical conduct.

Fourth, evidence used ultimately against Paul Manafort came from Nellie Ohr. If this was not disclosed to Manafort's attorney's there is a likely Brady violation, which bolster's Manafort's prospects for an appeal.

Fifth, Steele and Simpson made several claims of fact about Russia ties to the Trump campaign that were later proven to be false. For example, stating that Michael Cohen was in Prague meeting the Russians. Important to note that Christopher Steele produced the final report of the so-called dossier bearing his name on 13 December 2016 yet this information was "passed" to Ohr one day prior to the date on the report.

Sixth, the "debriefing" of Ohr on 12 December 2016 also provided the foundation for going after Marina Butina. (See Sara Carter's excellent update on this case here ). The false information from Steele/Simpson via Bruce Ohr became the pretext for launching an investigation of Butina, who was working for a wealthy Russian banker, Alexander Torshin. This too turns out to have been a fabrication. I believe this provides Butina's attorneys more ammunition for arguing prosecutorial misconduct and failure to provide critical Brady material.

Seventh, Ohr's report that Simpson and Steele were communicating with the State Department, including Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and Kathleen Kavalec makes it clear that State Department was used as a front to pass on info from the questionable Steele Dossier. This information was used in the FISA warrant and provided a seemingly reliable justification for spying on Carter Page (see the Page FISA warrant here .)

And finally, Fusion GPS, which was hired on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, was regularly communicating and coordinating with Obama's Department of Justice and Department of State. This was a complete abuse of power.

Now, here is the summary of the 302s:

11/22/2016 (entered on 12/19/2006)

Ohr met with Steele in 2007 (not sure of date) at a conference.

July 30, 2016 Steele met Ohr for breakfast. Steele claimed Carter Page had met with Russian Sechin at a conference.

States that Glenn Simpson hired Steele and Ohr's wife to dig up dirt on Trump's connections to Russia.

Noted that reporting was going to the Clinton Campaign, Jonathan Winer and the FBI.

Ohr met with Steele in late September and was told about Alfa Bank ties to Trump and the Sergei Millian organization.

Noted that Steele was desperate to stop Trump and to thwart the Kremlin.

Ohr knew that Glenn Simpson and "others" were meeting with Victoria Nuland.

12/05/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (drafted on 12/12/2016)

Glenn Simpson directed Christopher Steele to speak to the press, including David Corn at Mother Jones.

Ohr provided FBI info on Manafort Chronology prepared by his wife.

12/12/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (Drafted on 12/14/2016)

Ohr states, per Simpson, that Cohen replaced Manafort and Page as the contact with the Russians.

Says that Cohen met with Russians in Prague.

Claims that Torshin is a Russian mobster and is trying to infiltrate the NRA and was pushing money to Trump.

Simpson opined that Sergei Millian was an SVR officer and a link to Trump.

12/20/2016 (entered on 12/27/2016)

Thumb drive with Nelly Ohr's research passed to FBI.

1/23/2017 (entered on 1/31/2017) (drafted on 1/25/2017)

Simpson tells Ohr a source will be outed in the coming days.

Steele claims he met with a McCain staffer prior to October 2016

1/25/017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Ohr spoke with Steele on 25 January 2017.

1/27/2017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Steele told Ohr he wanted to keep lines of communication open.

02/06/2017 (entered on 02/08/2017)

Ohr contacted by Steele via What'sApp on 31 January 2017. Was reacting to firing of Sally Yates. Worried that if Ohr got fired he would have no one to talk to.

"Interviewing agents asked Ohr to ask Steele if he would be comfortable getting the name of an FBI agent."

Ohr reminded agents that Steele had spoken several times prior to 2016 Presidential election with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. Ohr identified one of the sources for Steele's report as a Ukranian.

02/14/2017 (entered on 02/15/2017)

Ohr tells FBI about Steele's concerns about his business. Identifies other lawyer (name blacked out) he is working with. Steele is preparing a proposal to re-establish his business releationship with the FBI.

05/08/2017 (entered on 05/10/2017)

Steele tells Ohr that he is worried about Comey's upcoming testimony. Ohr tells Steele what Comey will say and Steele is "happy."

Ohr said that Glenn Simpson would be visiting Steele soon.

Jonathan Winer was bringing a letter to Steele.


walrus , 11 August 2019 at 04:43 PM

this is treason.
PRC90 , 11 August 2019 at 08:24 PM
As an aside, note the similarities between Steele and Downer. Both carried some imprimatur of credibility based on prior government service, and popped up from no where and returned to relative obscurity after producing a document that was able to be immediately misused by others for the same purpose.

I'd wondered why anyone would want to involve Downer in these events, the man is a moron. However, one of his greatest strengths is producing wonderful well written reports, and to that extent would appear to have been chosen well.

confusedponderer , 12 August 2019 at 05:52 AM
It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining - that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably bringing in her ... regime change experience aquired in the Ukraine.

I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?

https://orf.at/static/images/site/news/20131250/ukraine_klitschko_usa_body_a.4532409.jpg

As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+ billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper - i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.

That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent observer.

Thanks for sharing and elaborating.

Patrick Armstrong , 12 August 2019 at 08:48 AM
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from beginning to end?

The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance.

Any ideas?
One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out over such a long time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an effect.

My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.

But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that they're not exploded.

turcopolier , 12 August 2019 at 09:02 AM
PA

Unless there are a lot of indictments none of this will matter.

plantman , 12 August 2019 at 11:39 AM
So, state department honchos--Victoria Nuland, Kavalec and Sally Yates (DOJ)--all had some knowledge of what was going on, right? And so did national security advisor Susan Rice.

Doesn't that prove that Obama must have been in the loop?

I think it does.

Second, how much of Nellie Ohr's russia research actually ended up in the steele dossier? I think that it is very unlikely that Chris Steele maintained his sketchy connections in Russia after the seismic political changes in the early 2000s. It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives.

notamusedobserver -> plantman... , 12 August 2019 at 04:42 PM
The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used..

[Aug 12, 2019] Argentine president suffers crushing defeat in key primaries ahead of general election

Is this the end of the neoliberal counterrevolution in Argentina ? Moor did its duty moor has to go -- Macri converted Argentina into the Debt slave again and now to get out of this situation is nest to impossible.
Aug 12, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , August 12, 2019 at 05:52 AM

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-08-12/Argentine-president-suffers-crushing-defeat-in-key-primaries--J5Ov4caLvi/index.html

August 12, 2019

Argentine president suffers crushing defeat in key primaries ahead of general election

Argentina's President Mauricio Macri suffered a crushing defeat as people voted in party primaries on Sunday ahead of October's general election.

Given that all of the recession-hit South American country's major parties have already chosen their presidential candidates, the primaries effectively served as a nationwide pre-election opinion poll.

Center-left nominee Alberto Fernandez led by around 15 points after partial results were revealed. Center-right Pro-business Macri admitted it had been "a bad election."
The first round of the presidential election will be held on October 27, with a run-off – if needed – set for November 24.

With 87 percent of polling station results counted, Fernandez had polled 47.5 percent with Macri on a little more than 32 percent and centrist former finance minister Roberto Lavagna a distant third on just 8.3 percent.

Macri had been hoping to earn a second mandate, but his chances appear all but over.

If Fernandez was to register the same result in October, he would be president as Argentina's electoral law requires a candidate to gain 45 percent for outright victory, or 40 percent and a lead of at least 10 points over the nearest challenger.

Inflation and poverty

"We've had a bad election and that forces us to redouble our efforts from tomorrow," said Macri, whose popularity has plunged since last year's currency crisis and the much-criticized 56 billion U.S.-dollar bail-out loan he secured from the International Monetary Fund.

"It hurts that we haven't had the support we'd hoped for," he added.

Argentina is currently in a recession and posted 22 percent inflation for the first half of the year – one of the highest rates in the world. Poverty now affects 32 percent of the population.

Backed by the IMF, Macri has initiated an austerity plan that is deeply unpopular among ordinary Argentines, who have seen their spending power plummet.

The peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year. The Buenos Aires stock exchange actually shot up eight percent on Friday amid expectation that Macri would do well in Sunday's vote.

anne -> anne... , August 12, 2019 at 06:22 AM
IMF loan of $56 billion:

Then;

Austerity,

Inflation rate 22% from January to June 2019,

Poverty rate 32%,

Peso lost 50% in value in 2018.

anne -> anne... , August 12, 2019 at 07:03 AM
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=onpw

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico, 1992-2018

(Percent change)


https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=onpx

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico, 1992-2018

(Indexed to 1992)

anne , August 12, 2019 at 04:01 PM
An important task now is to understand why the IMF assistance to Argentina proved damaging to the economy from the beginning; the data showed the damage being done. However, there was almost no mention of the problems that developed outside Argentina and there was surprise when the failure of the economy was reflected in the serious vote against the current president.

Of course, Joseph Stiglitz watched the same sort of problems unfold in Argentina almost 20 years ago and was severely criticized for discussing them. How did the problems recur so readily now? Why is IMF national assistance seemingly so dangerous economically?

[Aug 12, 2019] Nuland involvement in creating Russiagate narrative and the color revolution against Trump

State Department was a real neocon rats nest, no question about it.
Notable quotes:
"... It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining - that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably bringing in her ... regime change experience acquired in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

confusedponderer , 12 August 2019 at 0 5:52 AM

It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining - that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably bringing in her ... regime change experience acquired in the Ukraine.

I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?

https://orf.at/static/images/site/news/20131250/ukraine_klitschko_usa_body_a.4532409.jpg

As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+ billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper - i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.

That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent observer.

Thanks for sharing and elaborating.

Patrick Armstrong , 12 August 2019 at 08:48 AM
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from beginning to end?

The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance.

Any ideas? One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out over such a long time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an effect.

My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.

But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that they're not exploded.

notamusedobserver -> plantman... , 12 August 2019 at 08:48 AM
The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used..

[Aug 12, 2019] Nearly 100 US military arrive in Turkey to create security zone in Syria

Aug 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sasha , Aug 12 2019 19:27 utc | 126

@Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 12 2019 18:52 utc | 121
What if Hudson's correct and Trump's trying to demilitarize and greatly reduce the Outlaw US Empire..

Facts do not correlate with that illusory hopes you, and for what it seems Hudson too, still hold..

Nearly 100 US military arrive in Turkey to create security zone in Syria

We all know what is to be expected from a "security zone" secured by both, Turkey and USA, as a sample, Idlib, Al Tanf, Raqqa, and so on...We happen to have the brains to understand, at this heights, the same than for "humanitarian intervention", just the opposite...

Then all the current and agressive intends of "colour revolutions" in the making in HK and Russia does not match with "greatly reduce Outlaw Empire" at all, neither do the former intend of coup d état in Venezuela, looting of all Venezuelan assets, and current blockade for starvation and deprivation of everything, included medical essentials, plus the same in Yemen, and continuing without stop for decades now in Cuba...

Why do you, man, along with quite a bunch of others, after all what we have seen and read, try to again whitewash Trump?
Are you, by any casuality, also one of those beneficiaires, as it is Pat Lang, of the super tax cut The Donald has awarded to the highest incomes?( no need to be a billionaire, like all Trump´s friends, it´s enough with having done about six ciphers/year while in the US military or the MIC...

[Aug 07, 2019] X-37B space plane and evil Russians

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 6:05 am

National Interest via Antiwar.com: The U.S. Air Force's Secret X-37B Space Plane: A War Machine?
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-air-forces-secret-x-37b-space-plane-war-machine-69861

The U.S. Air Force's Secret X-37B Space Plane: A War Machine?..

The fifth and latest X-37B mission could send the mini-shuttle over large portions of Russian territory for the first time

####

I don't like Axe and these NI clickbaity/excitable articles, but several things spring to mind. considering it flies lower than any satellited and takes advantage of aerodynamic drag to manoeuver (much more efficiently) quickly than any satellite and is testing thermal systems, is this also could be used in future as an Orbital Bomber, i.e. loaded up with nukes and dropped on new targets as needed and at short notice? It doesn't need to make economic sense if it adds capabilities and there is profit to be made by LM/Boeing/Whomever.

My other thought, is the USA dumb enough to fly this low over Russia which would be asking for it to be shot down? I doubt it, but stupid seems to be the rule rather than the except in the US. We've already seen over the Gulf of Hormuz that there is a de facto and recognized disctinction between shooting down an unmanned drone (Globalhawk) and a manned spy plane (P-8a), particularly near, by or over someone else's borders. The X-37 is certainly no satellite and even for most of the Cold War the US did not fly a spy plane over the Soviet Union (apart from when they had the Brits do it for them instead – sic Gary Powers).

Still, it's interesting that it's popped up now despite being in the news over the last few years, yet another news item treated as a curiousity rather noted by Defense correspondents as yet another potential US treaty violation Optics, innit?

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 6:34 pm
I'd like to see Russia put up a giant flying garage, maneuver the X-37B into it, close the door and take it. Keep it for about a week, and then send it back with a bear painted on the side, wrapped in a giant diaper, with a poster in the window that reads "Crazy Igor's Clearance Sale; Novichok Half Off! Everything Must Go!". And when the Americans opened the door to retrieve the payload, a concealed audio player would play "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" in farts. Trolled enough?

[Aug 07, 2019] Snowden about litmus test of whether the country obey the rule of the law or is ruled by criminals

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

yalensis August 2, 2019 at 12:38 pm

Snowden: "When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals."

[Aug 07, 2019] On Saker critique of Tulsi

Notable quotes:
"... The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West utterly alone. ..."
"... The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense) and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting. ..."
Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer August 6, 2019 at 6:30 pm

The Saker is back on his high horse – criticizing Gabbard for not going down in flames as she tries to navigate the myriad of traps laid out the the US Government and MSM.

http://thesaker.is/what-tulsi-gabbards-caving-in-to-the-israel-lobby-really-shows/

The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West utterly alone.

The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense) and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting.

[Aug 07, 2019] On September 13, 2018, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took to the floor of the House to rebuke the administration, accusing President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence of protecting "al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria," all the while "threatening Russia, Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists."

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 6:09 am

East-West Committee via Antiwar.com: Re-posting: Interview with Tulsi Gabbard
https://eastwestaccord.com/re-posting-interview-with-tulsi-gabbard/

james carden

August 1, 2019

On September 13, 2018, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took to the floor of the House to rebuke the administration, accusing President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence of protecting "al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria," all the while "threatening Russia, Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists."
####

Plenty more timely reminder at the link.

[Aug 07, 2019] Gabbard's sister is absolutely right

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star July 31, 2019 at 10:22 pm

https://www.foxnews.com/media/tulsi-gabbards-sister-hammers-biased-and-unfair-cnn-before-second-debate-even-gets-underway
Gabbard's sister is absolutely right.
Tulsi was more or less ignored by the CNN DNC programmed moderators throughout the Detroit debate last night.
It was clear that Biden was the senile soup du jour to be force fed down the vox populi throats of the
American electorate.
Northern Star August 1, 2019 at 4:38 am

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WMT5-C3igZ4?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Tulsi v Copmala

Tulsi. 1
Copmala. 0

Patient Observer August 1, 2019 at 2:10 pm
https://www.rt.com/usa/465579-kamala-harris-destroyed-tulsi/

In under a minute, Gabbard shredded Harris to pieces for jailing more than 1,500 nonviolent marijuana offenders while admitting in a radio interview that she had smoked marijuana in college, and for her "tough-on-crime" stances. "She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor and she fought to keep the cash bail system in place," Gabbard continued, leaving Harris unable to counter.

The MSM is having a difficult time ignoring her. She may have a chance. I will make another donation to her campaign.

Northern Star August 2, 2019 at 3:04 am
A careful detailed analysis of the Detroit debate TAB* put on Copmala by Tulsi:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WiDrd73kacY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

TAB: Total Ass Beating

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 2:44 pm
She beat Harris like a red-headed stepchild. Her monotonous reiteration "I'm proud of my record" reminded me of the Breakfast Moment in Happy Gilmour, when Shooter McGavin mocks Happy for daring to challenge him in golf.

Shooter: "Oh, you're on. But you're in big trouble, pal. I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast."

Happy: "You eat pieces of shit for breakfast??"

Shooter: "No".

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wMAhCCZDwtU?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

thern Star August 2, 2019 at 4:31 am Very cogent..
A lot of the crucial but easily overlooked put on the table.
Never underestimate the significance of the obvious!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DBtKMo5PVH4?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Like Reply August 2, 2019 at 5:05 am Shouda' seen this coming Tulsi is a Russian puppet!
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/01/progressives-say-kamala-harris-team-inventing-conspiracies-about-tulsi-gabbard

Like Reply August 2, 2019 at 4:44 pm I think a lot of people DID see that coming, to the extent that the only behavior acceptable today in the American political milieu is a rehash of that sophomore's question, "Can you say in one sentence or less what makes America the Greatest Country In The World?" The American media typically pleats that 'the system is broken', but not during election season. Then, America is the greatest and running on all cylinders, and the successful candidate is the one who will convince voters that, rather than fix the whatever system, he/she/ze/zir (it's only a matter of time) will take a system that is the best in the world and make itr squeeze out even more happiness and satisfaction for Americans. Anyway, if you go off-message with that, you are under the soulless influence of the Russians.

Anyway, it looks as if the democrats have gone to the well too often with that Russian bullshit, and people are starting to get impatient with the cop-out – it's just an excuse for having no good answer. You can always say, "X is because Russia". I think Harris just bit the dust, and will lose a lot of support over this and gradually drop out. I got a kick out of the "Gabbard is a non-issue, and won't even make the second debates" or something to that effect. Whoever smugly said that was apparently asleep when a Ukrainian comedian who plays a president on TV won the presidency in a landslide. The incumbent once thought it was safe to laugh politely at him, because he was a non-issue, too.

I saw this story also on the same site, although it was not necessary to click on it, for obvious reasons.

"A salute to the bravery of Olga Misik, 17, who during recent bloody protests for free Moscow elections sat before Putin's armed-to-the-teeth goons and calmly read aloud the Russian constitution, including Article 31 affirming the right to peaceful political assembly. She was later arrested and allegedly beaten. "Injustice always concerns everyone," said Olga, who takes the long view of repression. "Today the Moscow City Duma, tomorrow the governor of the region It is only a matter of time."

'Bloody protests for free Moscow elections'?? They were bloody? Really? and the issue was free Moscow elections? Not candidates being allowed to run despite having been disqualified for not reaching the signatory threshold? The game of coming up with enough signatures to demonstrate a valid support base is an old one, trawling the obituaries and all manner of dodges to come up with enough for people who don't really have any support, but want a soapbox from which to squawk their message and then say they were cheated of victory by the Kremlin. Putin's armed-to-the-teeth goons? Really? American police called to control demonstrations are unarmed? Since when? Does arming them make them goons? I can't see their teeth – how does the reporter know they are armed to the teeth? Olga takes the long view of repression, does she? From the jaded pinnacle of 17? I'm surprised they did not ask her views on gay sex – she's old enough. Just.

Embarrassing western hyperbole – a Russian review of the PISA tests that descended to the same level might read, "A salute to the simple-mindedness of the Amerikantsi 'students', who must have gone to school at a mental institution, or been taught by the homeless lunatics that abound in and around Amerikantsi cities. Once again they managed to score so poorly that one might reasonably wonder if they arrived at the testing institution by accident, thinking instead that they were being taken to see one of the violence-and-profanity-riddled Amerikantsi movies that pollute the television and cause the Amerikantsi schoolchildren to shoot each other as if they lived inside a video game where it is not real blood. It's difficult to imagine a sensible explanation for such a dismal performance, in which they finished below the OECD average in every category."

But you won't see anything like that in a Russian newspaper, or hear it on a Russian news program. Because they don't act like the country is run by hysterical 12-year-olds. However, if the Americans want to pin their new hopes for Putin's political immolation on some 17-year-old attention-junkie bint, they should knock themselves out. They are merely hardening Russian opinion against them, and they may not care but some day they will. And then they will wail, "Why do they hate us? It must be because of our freedom!"

I was particularly intrigued by the mention of the Democrats getting caught fabricating fake Russian troll accounts to pretend the Russians were trying to influence some state election or other, I forget what, supposedly reported in the Times. I didn't see that, and I don't recall anyone mentioning it here.

Like Reply Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 3:10 pm A very cogent argument for (a) keeping the debates agenda-free and independently managed, and (2) a less-insane democratic party.

[Aug 07, 2019] Taibbi via Antiwar.com: The rise and fall of superhero Robert Mueller

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 5:31 am

Taibbi via Antiwar.com: The rise and fall of superhero Robert Mueller
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-superhero-robert

The testimony of Robert Mueller should have marked the end of a national nightmare. Instead, a new legend was born

This myth died on television .

Mueller on the stand was a potted plant. Reporters saw Moses and Jesus. If you need evidence we're in a religious mania, look no further. This was a pure exercise in restoring an idol for worship

In mid-March, just before Mueller's probe wrapped up, CNN found a whopping zero percent of Americans identified "Russian investigation" as their primary concern heading into 2020. The network wrote (emphasis mine):..,

ussiagate should be dead. Instead, it's gaining new life, with impeachment looking like the New Testament phase of the religion
####

Much, much more at the link.

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 5:11 pm
Every time I read a piece by Matt Taibbi, I ask myself, "Why don't you read Matt Taibbi more often?" By God, he can write – I nearly horked up a lung when he described John Brennan as a 'paranoid outpatient'. His descriptions of the frantic dissembling amongst the Democrats create passages in which you can actually smell the despair and incoherent rage, like burnt hair.

The whole Mueller testimonial dirge will turn out to have only divided Americans further. Republicans will chuckle with satisfaction at watching Mueller fly into a window like a careless jackdaw, while Democrats will sense that something crazy happened but that this is a time for blind loyalty. And never the twain shall meet. The fact that that was supposed to be East and West makes the irony but more pronounced.

[Aug 07, 2019] Gaslighting Americans with Russiagate

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

I figured that since 'gaslighting' is a relatively new term, and although I already had a general idea what it meant from context, it would be best to look it up. I was surprised to learn the concept of ' gaslighting ' has been around since 1938.

"a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's belief."

In America's case, gaslighting – like charity – begins at home, and the full force of US government efforts to convince the skeptical that America is more powerful and influential than ever, is still kicking ass and taking names, is felt by Americans.


Mark Chapman July 31, 2019 at 10:40 am

I repeat the assessment of Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity (VIPS), to the effect that the hack – if you can call it that – could not have been carried out over the internet, as the data-transfer rate was far too high. In fact, it had all the fingerprints of a portable device such as a thumb drive, coupled directly to the server at a convenient USB port. And then Democratic staffer Seth Rich died, with no convincing explanation for his death. Conservative American techhies tried to explain it away with a barrage of bullshit about how that level of bandwidth could be realized over the internet and how various tags and suchlike proved it was the Russians, but the Russians certainly would know better by now than to leave those kinds of traces, and the US intelligence agencies are quite proud of their ability to insert identifiers to make a transmission appear to have originated someplace else. It's kind of like how Israel and the Ukrainian SBU destroyed people's faith in voice intercepts.

Further musing, from the sublime

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-01/if-there-really-was-evidence-russian-hacking-nsa-would-have-it

To the attempt-to-have-one's-cake-and-eat-it, decidedly less sublime.

https://thefederalist.com/2017/03/21/russians-did-not-hack-election/

The latter reference, despite its hopeful headline, merely argues the election was not 'hacked'; it was 'meddled with', and since the Russians wanted Trump to win, they probably did get up to mischief, we're pretty sure.

This one even speculates that Russia wants American voters to know it can hack them anytime it likes.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/election-cybersecurity/

The electorate is now so polarized, demoralized and witless with fear and fury that voting in America is merely a knee-jerk homage to democracy. Nobody will be remotely surprised if the winner is not who they voted for, even if everyone says "Hey! I voted for him/her too!!" They will just look at each other, nod significantly, and whisper "The Russians". And when you think about it, that's just about where the US government wants them, except for the part about their legitimacy being conferred by Vladimir Putin. That's going to be a hard one for the winner to spin away.

et Al August 1, 2019 at 4:27 am
US intelligence agencies are quite proud of their ability to insert identifiers to make a transmission appear to have originated someplace else. ..

Yes, the famous 'Vault 7' set of NSA tools that were leaked, including a reversing tool so that they can check if someone is trying to pass off their sneaky cyber stuff as American when it's not.

Northern Star July 31, 2019 at 3:17 pm
"PART II: Gaslighting
Author's Note: Because "NATO" these days is little more than a box of spare parts out of which Washington assembles "coalitions of the willing", it's easier for me to write "NATO" than "Washington plus/minus these or those minions".

Both Devastating .Absolutely spot on devastating: (Above is excerpt from the first link)

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2018/07/16/psychoanalysing-nato-projection-and-gaslighting/

"The majority of Americans accept mass murder under the pretext of the right to protect, because their ability to form rational and reasoned opinions has been engineered out of them. This is now the definition of US exceptionalism. It is their ability to manipulate the world into accepting their lawlessness and global hegemony agenda. In seeking to impose its own image upon our world the US has drifted so far from its founding principles, one wonders how they will ever return to them. They have employed a recognised form of torture to ensure capitulation to their mission of world domination which entails the mental, physical and spiritual torture of target civilian populations.

In conclusion, the US has indeed achieved exceptionalism. The US has become an exceptional global executioner and persecutor of Humanity. Imperialism is a euphemism for the depths of abuse the US is inflicting upon the people of this world."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47139.htm

Mark, Your piece is every bit as eloquent and relentless in denouncing the *absolutely* unredeemable, thus subject to that demanded by moral economy.

[Aug 07, 2019] Integrity Initiative forthcoming reviews of forthcoming Assange book: Luke Harding can be relied on to add his 2 cents' worth of conspiracy paranoid garbage, Shaun Walker will be parsing the book for dill references and non-Russia experts like Marina Hyde and Natalie Nougat-head will want a crack as well at reviewing the book.

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jennifer Hor August 2, 2019 at 1:01 pm

Look out for the bad reviews from The Fraudian's writers: Luke Harding can be relied on to add his 2 cents' worth of conspiracy paranoid garbage, Shaun Walker will be parsing the book for dill references and non-Russia experts like Marina Hyde and Natalie Nougat-head will want a crack as well at reviewing the book.

Probably the only half-decent reviews will be from Mary Dejevski and Prof. Stephen Cohen but theirs will be buried in a back page or inaccessible behind an Error 404 wall.

[Aug 07, 2019] It's the 6th Division now!

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 3:48 am

It's the 6th Division now!

The Register: New British Army psyops unit fires rebrandogun, smoke clears to reveal I'm sorry, Dave
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/01/british_army_shows_us_its_cyber_ring/

This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it

6 (UK) Division is the new organisational home for the Army's "asymmetric edge", comprising all things "Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Information Operations, Electronic Warfare, Cyber and Unconventional Warfare".

Launched this morning, 6 Div is a rebranding of the formation formerly known as Force Troops Command, which covered a hotchpotch of Royal Signals, Intelligence Corps and other units, including the infamous 77 Brigade
####

Don't forget to hit the comments for hilarity!

Also, the timing of the announcement says plenty, i.e. slipping it in to the news stream when people have already gone on holiday and all the BREXIT and other bollocks. I've not seen this reported on the tv in the UK – which is currently facing severe flooding etc.

et Al August 2, 2019 at 4:07 am
Is it just me or is all the PPNN reporting that 'Putin's support has dropped to levels not seen since 2011!'. Of course they don't actually give you any numbers and cherry pick dodgy poll numbers but there really is this Pavlovian reaction anytime there is a demonstration in Russia, like undertakers gathering at an allegedly dangerous road crossing waiting for some cyclist to be dragged under a trash lorry so that they can tut tut and then profit from the cyclist's misfortune. Nix that, the PPNN are just professional versions of MacBeth's witches, something which they don't understand is a story .
Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 3:01 pm
Putin is in as much danger of being unceremoniously chucked out of office as he is of choking to death on his grandmother's knitting. The west is ever hopeful, and dutifully rallies to the glorification of every new dissident firebrand, but whether or not they know it, they are just going through the motions. The only group, and I mean the only one, that would benefit from Putin's overthrow would be the disaffected kreakliy and the poncy forgotten semi-intellectuals. They would be feted by the west as political visionaries, and perhaps given minor government positions to satisfy their vanity. But who else would make out like a bandit? The military? Hardly – the west, after years of giggling about Russia's decrepit military, lapsed into an uneasy silence on the subject just about the time that long-distance Kalibr cruise-missile attack took place from the Caspian Sea into Syria, and a west given meddling-room would want to disband the Russian military, if anything, down to a token force of absolutely-trustworthy sycophants who would probably be issued with American weapons. The oligarchs? Hardly – western business would be snapping up former state assets while simultaneously carrying out an 'anti-corruption drive' under the new President's imprimatur. Small businesses? Hardly – corporate interest would be in melding large state interests into the Corporate Borg, and their method is to squeeze out small business in order to expand market share. The people? Hardly – Russia would be a convenient place to move all the refugee immigrants from that entire hemisphere, while the stubborn loyalty of the population to Putin would not be forgotten.

It is no coincidence that it is always the same people who show up to bitch and carp about how dreadful Putin is, and how Russia needs American-style freedom and democracy and non-stop Pride parades and all the trappings of fresh admission to Club West. They are the only people who would stand to benefit from driving Putin out. Nobody else is interested.

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 4:50 pm
They're just trying to get some mileage out of Olga what's-her-name, and make it look like a drop in Putin's poll numbers happened exactly at the moment this young political firebrand emerged. Pretty sad, really, but you can't tell 'em, and it wouldn't make any difference. They have to try, it's the same instinct that makes a dog lick its nose if you smear cheese on it. The western media would rush to interview and endorse a talking Russian toad if it said "I hate Putin".

[Aug 07, 2019] Nut Yahoo put particular pressure on t-Rump to drop Turkey from the F-35 program because Turkey was 'no longer reliable and too close to the Russians'.

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 5:44 am

BTW, the i-Sreali papers are claiming that it was Nut&Yahoo who put particular pressure on t-Rump to drop Turkey from the F-35 program because Turkey was 'no longer reliable and too close to the Russians'.

This is curious because Nut&Yahoo (and others) valued Russian links but in the last few years others have spoken openly that Russia was more of a hindrance than a help. So it looks like the desperate 'election/no-election/election' Nut&Yahoo has shifted significantly his ground – or should that be burning his bridges . After all, if he and others cannot be bothered, then the calculation in Moscow changes too.

Which leads us to a stragtegic shift/realignment, i.e. heading in to the unknown which is quite a risky bet more so Tel Aviv/Washington than Moscow.

If you are interested in reading history, looking for clear events marking big shi(f)ts in international relations is part of the sothsaying and speculation. Is this one of them?

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 5:16 pm
That might well be true, but only a fucking retard would have listened to him unless he was proposing some kind of deal in which Israel would either buy another 100 F-35's (a joke in itself, since it buys most of its American-made 'defense' equipment with American taxpayers' money), or somehow otherwise make up for the financial loss. Not to mention that every F-35 cancellation – for whatever reason – increases the pressure on other uncertain buyers who have heard whispers about what a flying Coke machine it is to drop out. This is supposed to be America's front-line fighter for the next thirty years, allowing for upgrades. And they just lost a couple of Billion in sales, and made the undelivered future airframes more expensive, because the money realized from sold aircraft is supposed to go straight back into production.

[Aug 07, 2019] Snowden about litmus test of whether the country obey the rule of the law or is ruled by criminals

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

yalensis August 2, 2019 at 12:38 pm

Snowden: "When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals."

[Aug 07, 2019] X-37B space plane and evil Russians

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 6:05 am

National Interest via Antiwar.com: The U.S. Air Force's Secret X-37B Space Plane: A War Machine?
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-air-forces-secret-x-37b-space-plane-war-machine-69861

The U.S. Air Force's Secret X-37B Space Plane: A War Machine?..

The fifth and latest X-37B mission could send the mini-shuttle over large portions of Russian territory for the first time

####

I don't like Axe and these NI clickbaity/excitable articles, but several things spring to mind. considering it flies lower than any satellited and takes advantage of aerodynamic drag to manoeuver (much more efficiently) quickly than any satellite and is testing thermal systems, is this also could be used in future as an Orbital Bomber, i.e. loaded up with nukes and dropped on new targets as needed and at short notice? It doesn't need to make economic sense if it adds capabilities and there is profit to be made by LM/Boeing/Whomever.

My other thought, is the USA dumb enough to fly this low over Russia which would be asking for it to be shot down? I doubt it, but stupid seems to be the rule rather than the except in the US. We've already seen over the Gulf of Hormuz that there is a de facto and recognized disctinction between shooting down an unmanned drone (Globalhawk) and a manned spy plane (P-8a), particularly near, by or over someone else's borders. The X-37 is certainly no satellite and even for most of the Cold War the US did not fly a spy plane over the Soviet Union (apart from when they had the Brits do it for them instead – sic Gary Powers).

Still, it's interesting that it's popped up now despite being in the news over the last few years, yet another news item treated as a curiousity rather noted by Defense correspondents as yet another potential US treaty violation Optics, innit?

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 6:34 pm
I'd like to see Russia put up a giant flying garage, maneuver the X-37B into it, close the door and take it. Keep it for about a week, and then send it back with a bear painted on the side, wrapped in a giant diaper, with a poster in the window that reads "Crazy Igor's Clearance Sale; Novichok Half Off! Everything Must Go!". And when the Americans opened the door to retrieve the payload, a concealed audio player would play "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" in farts. Trolled enough?

[Aug 07, 2019] The universal Mk.41 launchers can also fire nuclear capable Tomahawk cruise missiles at Russia from much closer ranges = less reaction time = reduced deterrence effect = increases the chance of nuclear first strike against Russia, and thus

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 5:16 am

al-Beeb s'Allah: INF nuclear treaty: Nato 'to avoid arms race' after US-Russia pact ends
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49207281

####

Yet again, lying by omission . Their 'Defense Correspondent' Jonathan Marcus notes briefly that W. Bush pulled out of the ABM Treaty in 2002 and that Russia announce pulling out of it in 2007 but does not explain why, i.e. the combination of the following:

a) expanding these 'defensive' ABM sites to the lo-land of Po-land & also Romania

b) the universal Mk.41 launchers can also fire nuclear capable Tomahawk cruise missiles at Russia from much closer ranges = less reaction time = reduced deterrence effect = increases the chance of nuclear first strike against Russia, and thus

c) denied/refused Russia any means to verify the non-use of nukes for the launchers just saying 'Trust us!' which is complete bs considering all the previous promises made and not kept.

None of the linked articles therein mention Russia's objections. But then Marcus is only a 'Defence correspondent' (such small details clearly aren't important in the grand scheme of things) and he can always get a future job at NATO as a Spokesman like previous BBC journos Oana Lungescu & Mark Laity. In a fight between Jonathan Marcus & Mark Urban, who do you think would replace Oana? Or someone else? They all do sterling government service

et Al August 3, 2019 at 4:10 am
Oooh, looky here! The BBC inches itself up the line which if crossed would constitute journalism . Why don't they just jump on in? It's safe as long as your patrons – Da Gov – and the intelligence services don't go after you (Hello 'Guardian'!):

al-Beeb s'Allah: INF nuclear treaty: Trump says new pact should include China
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49213892

In an earlier statement, Russia's foreign ministry said the US decision to withdraw was "a grave mistake".

It also accused America of violating the treaty by deploying MK-41 launchers in Europe, capable of firing intermediate-range cruise missiles
####

So the plus is, above they actually link to the Russian Foreign Ministry statement, but no further. The big minus is that they wrote far, far more about Russia's 'violations'.

That t-Rump thinks Russia, let alone China is excited about joining a new deal, hahahahahahahah!

We also discover that go to and favorite 'defense expert' (MGU Candidate of Sciences Biology degree!) for the Pork Pie News Networks Pavel Felgenhauer is not dead!

[Aug 07, 2019] Neoliberals are promising to privatize garbage collection and sewer system! Which will huge help to Venezuela. After that, setting up slave markets, just like in Tripoli!

Notable quotes:
"... Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela? ..."
Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star August 2, 2019 at 7:14 am

Mega corrupt economic cockroach/ghoul/scavenger:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross
.
Pontificates on Venezuela's future

Northern Star August 2, 2019 at 7:18 am
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-01/u-s-commerce-secretary-lays-out-sweeping-plan-to-help-venezuela
yalensis August 2, 2019 at 12:36 pm
"In a post-Maduro Venezuela, the U.S. will remove sanctions, foster pro-market and pro-business reforms and help rebuild confidence, Ross said. An immediate priority will be providing humanitarian aid, while a medium-term focus will be rolling back socialism, Ross said."

They are even promising to privatize garbage collection and sewer system! In the medium-term focus, of course. Immediate focus on reign of terror, while handing out tins of spam to the swarming masses. After that, setting up slave markets, just like in Tripoli!

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 6:59 pm
Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela?

I hope somebody else will help them out. I'd dearly love to see Venezuela get on its feet without American assistance, and then tell the entire Yoo Ess of Aye to kiss its ass. No more heavy crude for your refineries, maybe you can turn them into basket shops, what say? No thanks; we'll buy our food elsewhere, if it's all the same to you. Oh, and Bolsonaro? Eat a bag of shit. Invite your Colombian buddy over for dinner

Northern Star August 2, 2019 at 10:19 pm
IMF loan for Venezuela will make things 'all better' ? Really?
https://www.publicfinanceinternational.org/news/2018/08/imf-loans-can-be-debt-trap
Northern Star August 2, 2019 at 10:32 pm
What would more than likely be the outcome of the IMF solution for Venezuela according to the clown referenced in the link I posted (supra)
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/greece-bailout-imf-europe/567892/
Mark Chapman August 3, 2019 at 4:29 am
Pertinent, bitter and frightening – thanks for posting it. A useful reference.
Mark Chapman August 3, 2019 at 4:21 am
Yes, I meant to remark on that as well. It's funny that the western regime-change model relies on countries loaned huge amounts of money to be enslaved by their honesty, and actually pay it back.

[Aug 07, 2019] Poroshenko asked the USA help in fighting criminal cases against him in Ukraine

Notable quotes:
"... Poroshenko has previously been involved in eleven criminal cases, in particular, as regards his abuse of power and his official position in the distribution of posts in "Tsentrenergo", his treason in connection with the incident in the Kerch Strait, his usurpation of judicial power and his misappropriation of the TV channel "Direct", his falsification of documents in the formation of Deputy factions in 2016, and his illegal appointment of a government, and the seizure of power. ..."
"... In addition, as a witness, he was questioned about civilian deaths during the Euromaidan protests in 2014. ..."
"... I could see them having a quiet word with Zelenskiy, maybe leave the old man out of it, what do you say? But Washington is already accused – with substantial justification, I would say – of running the show in Ukraine, and there are limits to how much obvious interfering it can do; especially after Biden's bragging about getting the state prosecutor fired. ..."
Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile, July 31, 2019 at 9:08 pm

Порошенко попросил у США помощи с уголовными делами на Украине, пишут СМИ

Poroshenko has asked the US for help with criminal cases in the Ukraine, writes media
05:31
MOSCOW, 1 Jul – RIA Novosti.
The former President of the Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is in Istanbul, where he has turned to American companies to lobby for protection from criminal cases, reports " Ukraine News " with reference to sources.

It has been noted that in the Ukraine changes have been made as regards the criminal cases against Poroshenko. In particular, in May 2019, the former-president's lawyer Igor Golovan stated that these criminal cases would not entail any legal consequences, but now Poroshenko's entourage realizes that the criminal prosecution of the former president has noticeably intensified and may have consequences.

Therefore, according to the newspaper, in Turkey Poroshenko has started to lobbying U.S. companies, in particular, the BGR group, for assistance in resolving these cases.

"He is well aware that everything that happens in the RRG (State Bureau of investigation – trans. ed.) is taken very seriously, and he intends to defend himself against attacks. He can, for example, be expecting public support in Washington if there is an attempt made to arrest him", said the source.

In addition, the publication cites the words of Ukrainian political scientist Alexei Yakubin, who has noted that Poroshenko could repeat the "Saakashvili scenario".

"For example, he'll leave for treatment in London, where part of his entourage has entrenched itself. But this model complicates the public protection of his business assets within the country, which assets might be seized", he said.

The case against Poroshenko

Poroshenko has previously been involved in eleven criminal cases, in particular, as regards his abuse of power and his official position in the distribution of posts in "Tsentrenergo", his treason in connection with the incident in the Kerch Strait, his usurpation of judicial power and his misappropriation of the TV channel "Direct", his falsification of documents in the formation of Deputy factions in 2016, and his illegal appointment of a government, and the seizure of power.

In addition, as a witness, he was questioned about civilian deaths during the Euromaidan protests in 2014.

Poroshenko himself, speaking at the party congress of "European Business", said that he is responsible only before the Ukrainian people and is not afraid of persecution.

Mark Chapman August 1, 2019 at 2:44 am
Quite right, old man; keep your chin up. I daresay they're staying in quite prestigious digs in Istanbul, as befits visiting royalty. He seems to be labouring under a misapprehension that he is valuable somehow to Washington, whereas that would only be true if Washington were unwilling to work with Zelenskiy, and wanted him out of the way.

So far as I can see, Washington is quite satisfied with Zelenskiy, while the people would not countenance a Poroshenko return. So he's not really much use, is he? Especially if the USA wishes to publicly support Zelenskiy's supposed battle with official corruption.

I could see them having a quiet word with Zelenskiy, maybe leave the old man out of it, what do you say? But Washington is already accused – with substantial justification, I would say – of running the show in Ukraine, and there are limits to how much obvious interfering it can do; especially after Biden's bragging about getting the state prosecutor fired.

Mark Chapman August 1, 2019 at 5:34 pm
Yes, I was sort of getting at the probability that Clan Poroshenko is just installed in a very nice hotel. I doubt he will want to be plunking down money for an actual property so long as the status of his assets still in Ukraine is still up in the air. I should imagine the Ukrainian government will take steps, if it has not already, to prevent his simply withdrawing their cash value.
Moscow Exile August 1, 2019 at 8:52 am
Same story from TASS [Eng]:

1 AUG, 14:07
In Saakashvili's shoes? Poroshenko asks US lobbyists to shield him from criminal charges
According to Vesti Ukraine, the ex-president sought help from the BGR Group, whose senior adviser is US Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker


Trust me!

yalensis August 1, 2019 at 4:24 pm
The thing about the pindosi, though, is that they always hedge their bets .
I vangize that they will pressure Zel to pardon Porky. So that they have a spare.
I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am.
Mark Chapman August 1, 2019 at 5:45 pm
I doubt it, simply because it would kick the timbers right out from under Zelenskiy's anti-corruption platform, which is the issue on which he was voted in, and there would be no way to do it under the radar. The Ukrainian people must be following Porky's flight with great interest, and inferring that it means he has something to hide. Therefore an abrupt discontinuing of the pursuit, and a refocusing elsewhere, would tell them accountability is not attributed to the powerful and wealthy. Which is uhhh exactly the opposite of Zelenskiy's message.

[Aug 07, 2019] Why Should Iran Be Cherished and Defended by Andre Vltchek

It's mostly about the control of Mid East oil and Israel status in the region ...
And despite all those positive things mentioned bellow Iran is still a theocratic state. It is definitely not Saudi Arabia but still..
Notable quotes:
"... Despite the embargos and terrible intimidation from the West, it still sits at the threshold of the "Very high human development", defined by UNDP; well above such darlings of the West as Ukraine, Colombia or Thailand. ..."
"... Trump is President of the US. He is responsible for the actions of the US in foreign affairs. Trump is a willing sycophant of the Deep State. ..."
"... Yet another article, pointing out that there is no reason for the US to attack Iran. Yes, there is. Iran is an enemy of Israel (although with the US behind them, there isn’t much they can actually do), and Israel wants Iran destroyed. The influence of Israel in American politics is enormous. THAT is the reason. Please stop the head-scratching over why oh why the US would want to destroy Israel. Everyone knows why. ..."
"... Iran’s real “crime” is twofold: 1) It sells oil in denomiations other than the US dollar; and 2) If allowed its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it would be producing vast amounts of low cost molybdenum and/or technetium which are used in medical testing, which would cut into the lucrative US market. ..."
"... There is some truth to claims about Iran’s belligerence…the Russians aren’t thrilled about everything they’re doing in Syria, which includes Shia colonizing in regions they’ve seized, which is a sign of attempting to entrench their agenda in that suffering country…and hence the continuing Israeli attacks, which nobody appreciates… ..."
"... In Iran, sources confirm that “…Russia offered to sell one million barrels daily for Iran, and to replace the European financial system with another if needed. ..."
"... There is also the issue of the illegality of Trump tearing up the deal…which was adopted [unanimously] by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231… ..."
"... The US signed that resolution…and let us remember that UNSC resolutions are INTERNATIONAL LAW…they are LEGALLY BINDING on all UN member states… ..."
"... So the US is breaking international law…the sanctions are illegal also, since only the UNSC had the legal authority to impose sanctions… ..."
"... The US’ disregard for the supreme international legal order…along with Israel similarly flouting UNSC resolutions for 50 years to pull out of the occupied territories…is simply unacceptable… ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

As I pen this short essay, Iran is standing against the mightiest nation on earth. It is facing tremendous danger; of annihilation even, if the world does not wake up fast, and rush to its rescue.

Stunning Iranian cities are in danger, but above all, its people: proud and beautiful, creative, formed by one of the oldest and deepest cultures on earth.

This is a reminder to the world: Iran may be bombed, devastated and injured terribly, for absolutely no reason. I repeat: there is zero rational reason for attacking Iran.

Iran has never attacked anyone. It has done nothing bad to the United States, to the United Kingdom, or even to those countries that want to destroy it immediately: Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Its only 'crime' is that it helped devastated Syria. And that it seriously stands by Palestine. And that it came to the rescue of many far away nations, like Cuba and Venezuela, when they were in awful need.

I am trying to choose the simplest words. No need for pirouettes and intellectual exercises.

Thousands, millions of Iranians may soon die, simply because a psychopath who is currently occupying the White House wants to humiliate his predecessor, who signed the nuclear deal. This information was leaked by his own staff. This is not about who is a bigger gangster. It is about the horrible fact that antagonizing Iran has absolutely nothing to do with Iran itself.

Which brings the question to my mind: in what world are we really living? Could this be tolerable? Can the world just stand by, idly, and watch how one of the greatest countries on earth gets violated by aggressive, brutal forces, without any justification?

I love Iran! I love its cinema, poetry, food. I love Teheran. And I love the Iranian people with their polite, educated flair. I love their thinkers. I don't want anything bad to happen to them.

You know, you were of course never told by the Western media, but Iran is a socialist country. It professes a system that could be defined as "socialism with Iranian characteristics". Like China, Iran is one of the most ancient nations on earth, and it is perfectly capable of creating and developing its own economic and social system.

Iran is an extremely successful nation. Despite the embargos and terrible intimidation from the West, it still sits at the threshold of the "Very high human development", defined by UNDP; well above such darlings of the West as Ukraine, Colombia or Thailand.

It clearly has an internationalist spirit: it shows great solidarity with the countries that are being battered by Western imperialism, including those in Latin America.

I have no religion. In Iran, most of the people do. They are Shi'a Muslims. So what? I do not insist that everyone thinks like me. And my Iranian friends, comrades, brothers and sisters have never insisted that I feel or think the same way as they do. They are not fanatics, and they do not make people who are not like them, feel excluded. We are different and yet so similar. We fight for a better world. We are internationalists. We respect each other. We respect others.

Iran does not want to conquer anyone. But when its friends are attacked, it offers a helping hand. Like to Syria.

In the past, it was colonized by the West, and its democratic government was overthrown, in 1953, simply because it wanted to use its natural resources for improving the lives of its people. The morbid dictatorship of Shah Pahlavi was installed from abroad. And then, later, again, a terrible war unleashed against Iran by Iraq, with the full and candid support of the West.

I promised to make this essay short. There is no time for long litanies. And in fact, this is not really an essay at all: it is an appeal.

As this goes to print, many people in Iran are anxious. They do not understand what they have done to deserve this; the sanctions, the US aircraft carriers sailing near their shores, and deadly B-52s deployed only dozens of miles away.

Iranians are brave, proud people. If confronted, if attacked, they will fight. And they will die with dignity, if there is no other alternative.

But why? Why should they fight and why should they die?

Those of you, my readers, living in the West: Study; study quickly. Then ask this question to your government: "What is the reason for this terrible scenario?"

Rent Iranian films; they are everywhere, winning all festivals. Read Iranian poets. Go eat Iranian food. Search for images of both historic and modern Iranian cities. Look at the faces of the people. Do not allow this to happen. Do not permit psychopathic reasoning to ruin millions of lives.

There was no real reason for the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. The West perpetrated the most terrible imperialist interventions, ruining entire nations.

But Iran -- it all goes one step further. It's a total lack of logic and accountability on the part of the West.

Here, I declare my full support to the people of Iran, and to the country that has been giving countless cultural treasures to the world, for millennia.

It is because I have doubts that if Iran is destroyed, the human race could survive.

[First published by NEO -- New Eastern Outlook]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are ...


Jonny C , says: July 28, 2019 at 6:16 pm GMT

Thousands, millions of Iranians may soon die, simply because a psychopath who is currently occupying the White House wants to humiliate his predecessor, who signed the nuclear deal.

Certainly war with Iran is not because Trump wants to humiliate Obama. There is very serious pressure on Trump to go to war with Iran, and that pressure comes from sources including Sheldon Adelson, Netanyahu, John Bolton, and elements within the military industrial complex and oil industries both of which would be able to capitalize on such a misadventure. It is very possibly Trump’s misgivings about a war with Iran (in spite of the idiotic rhetoric) that is keeping the US from attacking Iran.

While I agree with your sentiment in this article, it is unfortunate to make over-simplifications that cheerlead a false narrative that one person is to blame for a complex problem that spans party lines and presidencies. It was much to Obama’s credit to enter into the agreement with Iran, and the opposition to doing so obviously runs much deeper than Trump’s desire to make Obama look bad.

Thomm , says: July 28, 2019 at 7:01 pm GMT
One thing that everyone on UR agrees on is that there is absolutely no benefit for America to attack Iran.

Iran is the most overrated threat ever. The MI-complex has spent 40 years pushing a narrative so that they can profit from a large war.

Jonny C , says: July 28, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT
@Andre Vltchek Yes, you can’t say everything in every piece that you write, and for expediency there is simplification. You can get away with it by saying “among other things, Trump’s desire to humiliate Obama may lead us into a devastating war.” But the way you wrote it certainly insinuates that it is in fact Trump and his personal psychopathy driving the country towards war. In that, I think you are mistaken. The jury is not out on this one yet, and Trump’s resistance to war with Iran is a thread of hope keeping it from happening. I am not trying to split hairs. It is important because there is a tendency to focus on the face in the white house and not on the forces that are behind the mischief. It also probably gets more likes among a broader audience who want to blame Trump or Obama when they are more like two leaves being blown by a strong wind than the leader of the free world or any other nonsensical title given to the president. Take it for a slight literary critique and not for any disagreement with the overall sentiment or quality of the article.
anonymous [251] • Disclaimer , says: July 28, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT
@Birchleg

It was at that point I knew this wasn’t an intellectually honest essay. You don’t even need to go back six months to see what a peaceful little lamb Iran is, as it attacked merchant ships in the Straight of Hormuz. Perhaps your intended audience is ignorant to facts, but Iran is, by no means, a country of innocent intent.

What would USA do if Iranian or any other non-friendly nation surrounded USA, including sending heavily armed ships into its harbors?

This Could Be Part Of The Reason Iran Is So Darn Defensive
Robert Johnson Jan. 3, 2012, 9:38 AM
Facebook Icon The letter F.
https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-surrounded-by-us-military-bases-2011-12

This map from Democratic Underground puts a star on every U.S. military base in the region, and aside from the Caspian area to the North, American forces pretty much have Tehran surrounded (via Informed Comment).

[Non-violent resistance is not necessarily futile, but a feint]: We cannot delude ourselves.
People ask, What about nonviolent, peaceful forms of resistance? And you know, the answer is, There is no such thing as nonviolence.
Nonviolence is a form of disruption and only works if you are facing those who are constrained in their use of violence, or works best if you can use your enemy’s violence against them.

Take for example, Dr. Martin Luther King . . . [he learned from Gandhi and others that] nonviolence is a mechanism of goading your opponent into being violent.
Once they become violent, you can call on your friends to be even more violent against them. And he knew he could goad the sheriff into behaving violently and stupidly, and then the FBI would descend on them.
You know, we always want to delude ourselves that war is not the answer. It would be good if that were true, but unfortunately it is very often the key answer, the only answer. https://www.c-span.org/video/?323264-1/the-worth-war&start=599

USA is being deliberately provocative, goading Iran to throw the first punch, whereupon USA will “descend on them.”

It’s not the first time USA & its allies have used the tactic.

The Alarmist , says: July 29, 2019 at 9:11 am GMT
I dunno … If the West was going to attack, it should have happened several weeks ago, if not earlier. Do you think Trump’s stand-down of an attack allegedly in progress was to save a couple hundred Iranian lives, or might it make more sense that it became clear a couple hundreds or thousands of coalition lives were at serious risk? The leadership knows this will be far messier than Iraq if it goes kinetic, and they would prefer to continue to starve Iran into submission while making a lot of noise about the ‘evil and suicidal death-cult’ regime in Tehran.
peter mcloughlin , says: July 29, 2019 at 9:34 am GMT
Andre Vltchek gives a passionate defence of Iran, and the reasons for not attacking it. I agree there are ‘doubts that if Iran is destroyed, the human race could survive.’ If the US, and its allies, were to destabilize Iran to such an extent as to threaten regime change China and Russia would have to intervene. The world should avoid war on Iran, even if it is for selfish reasons. All the indications point to world war.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Anon [363] • Disclaimer , says: July 29, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT
@anonymous Because the JIDF/Zionist has the modus operandi of falsifying consensus. Large numbers of seemingly reasonable people all pushing the same view point has the unconscious effect of making an unwary reader adopt that same viewpoint. Of course, they’re hoping you dont go trawling through their comment history or else the whole thing blows up.
Realist , says: July 29, 2019 at 10:32 am GMT
@Jonny C

While I agree with your sentiment in this article, it is unfortunate to make over-simplifications that cheerlead a false narrative that one person is to blame for a complex problem that spans party lines and presidencies.

Trump is President of the US. He is responsible for the actions of the US in foreign affairs. Trump is a willing sycophant of the Deep State.

Realist , says: July 29, 2019 at 10:36 am GMT
@anonymous

People need to realize that it’s been a RedBlue puppet show of the same empire since – for purposes of Iran – 1953. Blaming one politician as opposed to the other plays right into the hands of those who want to run the world from Washington.

The past can not be changed. Trump is responsible for the here and now.

SteveK9 , says: July 29, 2019 at 3:37 pm GMT
Yet another article, pointing out that there is no reason for the US to attack Iran. Yes, there is. Iran is an enemy of Israel (although with the US behind them, there isn’t much they can actually do), and Israel wants Iran destroyed. The influence of Israel in American politics is enormous. THAT is the reason. Please stop the head-scratching over why oh why the US would want to destroy Israel. Everyone knows why.
Curmudgeon , says: July 29, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
The Iran never attacked anyone narrative has long been a favourite. What is buried somewhere in cyberspace, is an article written over 20 years ago about the causes of the Iraq – Iran war. The article laid out several instances of Iranian revolutionaries attacking several Iraqi border towns. It also pointed out that Iraq’s original invasion into Iran stopped about 8 miles into Iran, apparently understanding that it was never going to defeat Iran territorially. The article also stated that Iraq was egged on by the US to attack, in hopes to dislodge the new regime. However, it was the Shah who attacked Iraq in the 70s over the Shat al Arab waterway. The subsequent peace agreement settled the issue. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/03/07/archives/iraq-and-iran-sign-accord-to-settle-border-conflicts-iraq-and-iran.html

One reason given by Iraq for its invasion of Iran, post revolution, was that it viewed the border attacks by Iranian revolutionaries, as a refutation of the treaty.

Iran’s real “crime” is twofold:
1) It sells oil in denomiations other than the US dollar; and
2) If allowed its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it would be producing vast amounts of low cost molybdenum and/or technetium which are used in medical testing, which would cut into the lucrative US market.

Brabantian , says: July 29, 2019 at 7:39 pm GMT
The USA-Israel-Nato menaces to Iran are criminal horseshite BUT –

Iran is horrifyingly brutal toward its own citizens, one of the most savage of all countries in per capita executions of its own people, sometimes hanging 100 people or so in a month, typically done by slow-torture hanging, often in groups of 6 or 8 people in public squares.

It seems that usually, Iran does not even try to break the neck of its hanging victims with a long drop, which can induce a merciful coma before the victim dies, typically some 15 minutes to an hour later. As is often observed in Iran, smaller people such as women typically die more slowly, their lighter weight leading to a longer period of torturous choking.

And Iran has a bunch of other Islamic barbarisms … Iran burying women alive up to their necks, only their veiled heads above the ground, and stoning them to death; the floggings and amputations, sometimes the victim marked for death is flogged bloody before being hanged from a crane etc

But André Vltchek thinks Iran is a great place …

Iran is also a bizarre social experiment in extreme social dysfunctionality, with the ‘temporary marriage’ provision in Shia religious practice that is essentially legalised prostitution. Not only can Iranians have 4 wives as the Sunnis do, one of those can be a ‘wife for the weekend’, legally, provided you go to the imam to be officially ‘married’ … you can then divorce Monday morning, e.g., by saying the word ‘talaq’ 3 times. Iranian women sometimes advertise themselves as ‘temporary wives’ (not ‘prostitutes’ of course!) for a small marital ‘gift’ of € 60 or so.

Between temporary marriage, and Iran’s practice of educating its women – often ‘bad’ for Muslim fertility – Iran’s birth rate has collapsed even more than in much of Europe.

A great shame the US CIA overthrew the secular socialist Iranian government in 1953. May the Iranian people be soon free of both Western-Israeli menace, and their own mad mullahs.

peterAUS , says: July 29, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
@Brabantian Good comment.

Have to say this was new to me:

…‘temporary marriage’ provision in Shia religious practice that is essentially legalised prostitution. Not only can Iranians have 4 wives as the Sunnis do, one of those can be a ‘wife for the weekend’, legally, provided you go to the imam to be officially ‘married’ … you can then divorce Monday morning, e.g., by saying the word ‘talaq’ 3 times. Iranian women sometimes advertise themselves as ‘temporary wives’ (not ‘prostitutes’ of course!) for a small marital ‘gift’ of € 60 or so.

May the Iranian people be soon free of both Western-Israeli menace, and their own mad mullahs.

Well, the price for the later is the former, apparently.

renfro , says: July 29, 2019 at 11:00 pm GMT
@Jonny C

Yes, you can’t say everything in every piece that you write, and for expediency there is simplification. You can get away with it by saying “among other things, Trump’s desire to humiliate Obama may lead us into a devastating war.” But the way you wrote it certainly insinuates that it is in fact Trump and his personal psychopathy driving the country towards war. In that, I think you are mistaken.

I don’t see it that way…..Vltchek has been around unz for a while…..so it would not be wrong for him to assume most of unz knows the real forces behind Trump and the Iran war push.

... ... ...

FB , says: • Website July 30, 2019 at 2:49 pm GMT
@Brabantian You come off sounding like a Soros acolyte by parroting ‘human rights porn’ that is largely fabricated bullshit…and disseminated by the usual NGO suspects and their MSM partners…

That’s not to say there is no merit to your basic beef…Iran is a theocracy…religious fanaticism has been a curse on humanity over the ages…religion in general really…

Iran does execute a lot of people…Vltchek is overly enthusiastic about Iran…I would say probably because he sympathizes a lot with their essentially ‘socialist’ approach [as do I]…but Iran is no angel…

But then who is…?…US cops gun down 1,000 people a year…

Also some mitigating facts to consider…a lot of the criminals Iran executes are drug traffickers…Afghanistan next-door is heroin central…run by the CIA with help from their ISIS private army…

This is nothing new…the deep state of empire has been running the global drug racket for a couple of centuries now…and using it as a geopolitical weapon against perceived ‘enemies’…going back to the opium wars that were used by the British to ‘crack open’ China…and today aimed against Russia, Central Asia and Iran…not to mention ‘neutralizing’ large swaths of the domestic population by turning them into drug zombies…

Iran’s drug laws are not nearly as draconian as in other jurisdictions in the Muslim world…capital punishment goes only for those caught with over 30 grams of hard drugs like heroin…which is far bigger than user amounts…the death sentence is not applied for first offenders, or even for repeat offenders of 30 to 100 grams…so really it is the hardcore traffickers that are getting offed…I have no problem with that…[neither do leaders like the Philippines’ Duterte who is much less tolerant than Iran…]

There is some truth to claims about Iran’s belligerence…the Russians aren’t thrilled about everything they’re doing in Syria, which includes Shia colonizing in regions they’ve seized, which is a sign of attempting to entrench their agenda in that suffering country…and hence the continuing Israeli attacks, which nobody appreciates…

They are also spurning Russian offers of help…

In Iran, sources confirm that “…Russia offered to sell one million barrels daily for Iran, and to replace the European financial system with another if needed.

Iran has refused…why…?

[Probably because they resent Russia for pressuring them to reign in their activities in Syria…it just shows the all or nothing mentality of religious fanatics…]

All in all it is crazy to think that religious zealotry can lead to anything good…it never has…

But there is a bigger principle here… it’s their country…

Nobody gives us the right to tell them how to live their lives…certainly compared to Saudi Barbaria and the other gulf theocracies…not to mention serial criminal Israel…nobody has good cause to be pointing fingers at Iran…

There is also the issue of the illegality of Trump tearing up the deal…which was adopted [unanimously] by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231…

The US signed that resolution…and let us remember that UNSC resolutions are INTERNATIONAL LAW…they are LEGALLY BINDING on all UN member states…

So the US is breaking international law…the sanctions are illegal also, since only the UNSC had the legal authority to impose sanctions…

The US’ disregard for the supreme international legal order…along with Israel similarly flouting UNSC resolutions for 50 years to pull out of the occupied territories…is simply unacceptable…

So let’s not lose sight of the ball…this has nothing to do with Iran’s domestic behavior…and everything to do with serial criminal USA…

Fool's Paradise , says: July 30, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
@SteveK9 Yes, SteveK9, but you meant, of course, to say “why oh why the US would want to destroy Iran”–not Israel. Israel has been trying to maneuver Uncle Sam into a shooting war with Iran for a decade or more. Israel’s American neocons have succeeded in getting America to destroy Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran is the last country standing in the way of Israel’s total dominance of the Middle East. No Israel, no war, it’s as simple as that.
Commentator Mike , says: August 3, 2019 at 3:31 pm GMT
@Brabantian Standard muslim stuff. It’s their country so up to them what they do. But Iran was cooperating with Al Qaida in Bosnia in the 1990s chopping heads of Christians and atheists. In fact they were aligned with USA and NATO there but now US is using that involvement against them as proof of “terrorism” activity.

https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-guard-s-general-says-they-were-in-bosnia-disguised-as-aid-workers/29886373.html

And here’s Andre praising them. It was well known that they were supplying weapons disguised as humanitarian aid but US and NATO did nothing to stop them at the time.

Talha , says: August 3, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike There was an embargo on any weapons getting through to Bosnia at the time. The Bosnians were massively outgunned by the Serbs that had possession of almost all the serious hardware after the break up of Yugoslavia. The Muslim world was not about to let this discrepancy go unanswered.

AQ at that stage was still mostly the “foreign legion” global defense initiative that was the initial vision of Shaykh Abdullah Azzam so it’s not surprising the Iranians were cooperating with them at the time. It would later progressively warp into the terrorism outfit over time in the 90’s especially with the African embassy bombings.

Peace.

peterAUS , says: August 3, 2019 at 7:17 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike Maybe you could take a look at what is going on there as we speak.
As European, you could do it. Americans and the rest of colonists can’t.

Let’s just say there is a significant Iranian presence in Bosnia.

Serbs and Croats in the region won’t be displeased should the regime in Tehran get smashed into pieces. Really small pieces.

Make of that what you will.

Commentator Mike , says: August 4, 2019 at 7:09 am GMT
@peterAUS PeterAUS,

The problem with the Balkans is that there is so much hatred and animosity between the various white ethnicities, because of historical reasons, that they have a blind spot for the much greater danger posed to them all by the massive demographic changes taking place in the world. And if that kind of intra-white hatred were to spread to the rest of Europe it will be even harder to salvage anything of the white European sovereignty.

Actually one can work even within those hatreds unless they’re given a chance to flare up, and obviously certain forces work on doing just that, as we have seen in Ukraine. Oh yes, and the Muslims aren’t helping much to bring peace about in that region.

Commentator Mike , says: August 4, 2019 at 8:41 am GMT

Go eat Iranian food.

Thanks but no thanks. Since Supreme Commander Al Baghdadi ordered muslims to get us by any and every means I strictly avoid eating anywhere muslims work, cook, or serve, despite liking their food. Didn’t you hear of the three Albanian Kosovars who were arrested in Italy plotting a bombing campaign? They worked as waiters in Venice, Italy’s tourist hub. I pity those tourists who went through their restaurant before the Kosovars decided to move onto bigger actions. And he did mention poison, whatever, even spitting.

peterAUS , says: August 4, 2019 at 7:08 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike True.

Especially:

The problem with the Balkans is that there is so much hatred and animosity between the various white ethnicities, because of historical reasons, that they have a blind spot for the much greater danger posed to them all by the massive demographic changes taking place in the world.

As for this:

And if that kind of intra-white hatred were to spread to the rest of Europe it will be even harder to salvage anything of the white European sovereignty.

Smart observation.

[Aug 06, 2019] India Might Come To Regret Today s Annexation Of Jammu And Kashmir

Notable quotes:
"... India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya or Syria. ..."
"... Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America. ..."
"... America's Future Is with India and Israel: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-future-india-israel-21629 ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter , Aug 5 2019 19:59 utc | 50

Imperial divide and conquer strategy. Global strife aids imperialists. Russia, China, Iran unity threatens global Anglo Zionists.

Consequently, the logical progression is to welcome India into Anglo Zionist alliance with more aid to their extremists (Modi) Emboldening extremists is always the way to war.

somebody , Aug 5 2019 21:25 utc | 56

Posted by: fx | Aug 5 2019 20:31 utc | 53

Not really. India supports Baloch nationalists. This destabilizes Pakistan, Iran and the Taliban.

China/Pakistan port of Gwadar is in Balochistan. There seems to be a Saudi, US, Israel, India proxy war against China/Iran/Pakistan/Russia .

It is not that simple as Saudi sells oil to China, and India, Saudi plus Israel are on speaking terms with Russia plus Saudi bankrolls Pakistan and US policies might change completely if Trump loses 2020.

Of course all bets are off should Modi manage to provoke a Hindu-Moslim civil war involving Pakistan.

Hoarsewhisperer , Aug 6 2019 4:48 utc | 79
Since I was at the age of having a political opinion, Jammu and Kashmir were part of a collection of areas under constant conflict.
...
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Aug 5 2019 18:13 utc | 44

Thanks for the reminder. Your use of the term 'constant conflict' reminded me of a military doctrine I stumbled upon in the early Noughties which was called Constant Conflict. The only thing I could remember about it, today, was that it was written by a psychopath and I did NOT like what the author was proposing.

I went looking for a piece of prose called Constant Conflict and found a reference to the piece I was looking for at...
https://katehon.com/article/ralph-peters-concept-constant-conflict

It's dated 16.04.2016 and names the author as Retired Lieutenant Colonel of United States Army Ralph Peters and summarises the crux of Peters' thesis and and his background/mission statement. It also provides enough info to find the original 1997 article here...
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/97summer/peters.htm

The article concludes thus and there's a footnote...
...
"The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline."
---
Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master's degree in international relations. Over the past several years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books. This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.

Reviewed 8 May 1997.

AK74 , Aug 6 2019 5:24 utc | 82
India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya or Syria.

Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America.

So perhaps India should emulate its fellow "democratic" ally of America and adopt the same ethnic cleansing tactics in Kashmir that the Land of the Free has deployed against Native tribes throughout the Indigenous lands that America currently occupies--from the Trail of Tears of the past to the DAPL pipeline protests today.

America's Future Is with India and Israel: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-future-india-israel-21629

somebody , Aug 6 2019 6:26 utc | 83
Posted by: AK74 | Aug 6 2019 5:24 utc | 83

Any colonial knows that patrons play all sides.

[Aug 06, 2019] The Declining Empire Of Chaos Is Going Nuts Over Iran

Notable quotes:
"... Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. ..."
"... As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".) ..."
"... Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker. ..."
"... With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals. ..."
"... These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict. ..."
"... The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias. ..."
"... In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies. ..."
"... Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces. ..."
"... An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake. ..."
"... With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. ..."
"... Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran. ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In 2014 we were almost at the point of no return in Ukraine following the coup d'etat supported and funded by NATO and involving extremist right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The conflict in the Donbass risked escalating into a conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation, every day in the summer and autumn of 2014 threatening to be doomsday. Rather than respond to the understandable impulse to send Russian troops into Ukraine to defend the population of Donbass, Putin had the presense of mind to pursue the less direct and more sensible strategy of supporting the material capacity of the residents of Donbass to resist the depredations of the Ukrainian army and their neo-Nazi Banderite thugs. Meanwhile, Europe's inept leaders initially egged on Ukraine's destabilization, only to get cold feet after reflecting on the possibility of having a conflict between Moscow and Washington fought on European soil.

With the resistance in Donbass managing to successfully hold back Ukrainian assaults, the conflict began to freeze, almost to the point of a complete ceasefire, even as Ukrainian provocations continue to this day.

Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. Russian intervention in 2015 managed to save the country with no time to spare, destroying large numbers of terrorists and reorganizing the Syrian armed forces and training and equipping them with the necessary means to beat back the jihadi waves. The Russians also ensured control of the skies through their network of Pantsir-S1, Pantsir-S2, S-300 and S-400 air-defence systems, together with their impressive jamming (Krasukha-4), command and control information management system (Strelets C4ISR System) and electronic-warfare technologies (1RL257 Krasukha-4).

As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".)

Since Trump became president, the rhetoric of war has soared considerably, even as the awareness remains that any new conflict would sink Trump's chances of re-election. Despite this, Trump's bombings in Syria were real and potentially very harmful to the Syrian state. Nevertheless, they were foiled by Russia's electronic-warfare capability, which was able to send veering away from their intended target more than 70% of the latest-generation missiles launched by the British, French, Americans and Israelis.

One of the most terrifying moments for the future of humanity came a few months later when Trump started hurling threats and abuses at Kim Jong-un , threatening to reduce Pyongyang to ashes. Trump, moreover, delivered his fiery threats in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker.

With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.

The difference between the case of Iran and the aforementioned cases of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea is precisely the direct involvement of these two lobbies in the decision-making process underway in the US.

These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict.

What readers can be assured of is that in the cases of Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and Iran, the US is unable to militarily impose its geopolitical or economic will.

The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias.

In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies.

In North Korea, the country's tactical and strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence discourages any missile attack. Any overland attack is out of the question, given the high number of active as well as reserve personnel in the DPRK army. If the US struggled to control a completely defeated Iraq in 2003, how much more difficult would be to deal with a country with a resilient population that is indisposed to bowing to the US? The 2003 Iraq campaign would really be a "cakewalk" in comparison. Another reason why a missile attack on North Korea is impossible is because of the conventional power that Pyongyang possesses in the form of tens of thousands of missiles and artillery pieces that could easily reduce Seoul to rubble in a matter of minutes. This would then lead to a war between the US and the DPRK being fought on the Korean Peninsula. Moon Jae-in, like Merkel and Sarkozy in the case of Ukraine, did everything in his power to prevent such a devastating conflict.

Concerning tensions between the US and Iran and the resulting threats of war, these should be taken as bluster and bluff. America's European allies are heavily involved in Iran and depend on the Middle East for their oil and gas imports. A US war against Iran would have devastating consequences for the world economy, with the Europeans seeing their imports halved or reduced. As Professor Chossudovsky of the strategic think tank Global Research has so ably argued , an attack on Iran is unsustainable, as the oil sectors of the UAE and Saudi Arabia would be hit and shut down. Exports would instantly end after the pipelines going West are bombed by the Houthis and the Strait of Hormuz closed. The economies of these two countries would implode and their ruling class wiped out by internal revolts. The state of Israel as well as US bases in the region would see themselves overwhelmed with missiles coming from Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Iran. The Tel Aviv government would last a few hours before capitulating under the pressure of its own citizens, who, like the Europeans, are unused to suffering war at home.

Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces.

An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake.

With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. And finally, US military planners do not intend to suffer a humiliating defeat in Iran that would reveal the extent to which US military power is based on propaganda built over the years through Hollywood movies and wars successfully executed against relatively defenceless countries. Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is telling that Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Riyadh have to resort to numerous but ultimately useless provocations against Iran, as they can only rely on hybrid attacks in order to economically isolate it from the rest of the world.

Paradoxically, this strategy has had devastating consequences for the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency together with the SWIFT system. In today's multipolar environment, acting in such an imperious manner leads to the acceleration of de-dollarization as a way of circumventing sanctions and bans imposed by the US.

A reserve currency is used to facilitate transactions. If the disadvantages come to exceed the benefits, it will progressively be used less and less, until it is replaced by a basket of currencies that more closely reflect the multipolar geopolitical reality.

The warmongers in Washington are exasperated by their continuing inability to curb the resilience and resistance of the people in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Donbass, countries and regions understood by the healthy part of the globe as representing the axis of resistance to US Imperialism.


Batman11 , 14 minutes ago link

A multi-polar world became a uni-polar world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis Fukuyama said it was the end of history.

That didn't last long, did it?

The US came up with a great plan for an open, globalised world.

China went from almost nothing to become a global superpower.

It was a great plan for China, which is now the problem for the US.

Batman11 , 24 minutes ago link

The cry of US elites can be heard across the world.

Mummy.

What's gone wrong?

I am used to always getting my own way.

Thought.Adjuster , 55 minutes ago link

If Folks would just accept a unipolar World, we could all live together in peace.

ZeroPorridge , 6 minutes ago link

Monopoly means utter slavery.

Like in a living body, each cells on their own, grouped by function, none really being the boss of the rest.

uhland62 , 1 hour ago link

America must always threaten someone with war. Syria, Iran, Venezuela, China, Russia, so many to choose from.

Conflicts must never be resolved; they must always kept simmering, so a hot war can be triggered quickly. All Presidents are turned in the first three months after sworn in.

Jazzman , 1 hour ago link

Without required air superiority they are what? Say it! Say it loud!

Dude-dude , 49 minutes ago link

It's what happens as empires mature. Governance becomes bloated, corrupt and inept (often leading to wars). Maturity time has become significantly reduced due to the rate of information technology advance. America is five years away from going insolvent according to most models and forecasts. All new debt after 2024 will be used to pay the interest on existing debts and liabilities. There is simply no stopping it. The US already pays close to 500 billion in annual interest on debts and liabilities. Factor in a 600 billion or 700 billion dollar annual military budget, and unrestrained deficit spending clocking in at over a trillion, and, well, it isn't going to work for long. Considering most new well paying jobs are government jobs... The end is either full socialism / fascism (folks still don't get how similar these are), a currency crisis and panic, depression and institutional deterioration. The only good news to libertarians I guess - if you can call it good - is that the blotted government along with the crony corporations will mostly and eventually collapse. Libertarian governance might not be a choice by an electorate, it might simply become fact in the aftermath.

-- ALIEN -- , 3 hours ago link

As the falling EROEI of oil gets worse; countries will collapse... It's all downhill from here

...what few are left.

Lokiban , 3 hours ago link

I guess Trump eventually will understand this lesson in politics that friendship, mutual respect and helping each other accomplishes way way more then threatening countries to be bombed back into the stoneage.
Noone likes to do a cutthroat deal enforced upon them by thuggery. Trump's got to learn that you can't run politics like you do your bussinesses, it's not working unles that was his plan all this time, to destroy America.

NumbersUsa , 3 hours ago link

"The Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.

These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict."

Excellent and Factual points! Thank You!

Scaliger , 3 hours ago link

https://www.jta.org/2019/07/01/united-states/the-israel-projects-ceo-is-leaving-amid-advocacy-groups-fundraising-difficulties

Minamoto , 3 hours ago link

America is increasingly looking like Ancient Rome towards the end. It is overstretched, nearly insolvent, fewer allies want to be allies, it's population is sick, physically and mentally. Obesity, diabetes, drug use/addiction make it impossible for the Pentagon to meet recruitment goal. Mental illness causes daily mass killing. The education system is so broken/broke that there is little real education being done. Americans are among the most ignorant, least educated and least educate-able people in the developed world.

Militarily, the USA can bomb but that's about it... defeats upon defeats over the past two decades demonstrate the US military is a paper tiger of astonishing incompetence.

Boeing can't make planes anymore. Lockheed is not much better. Parts of the F-35 are made by Chinese subsidiaries. The most recently built aircraft carrier cannot launch fighter jets.

-- ALIEN -- , 3 hours ago link

We gots NASCAR, big trucks, free TV, fast food, and endless ****.

Go 'Merica!

Justin Case , 2 hours ago link

Recent estimates indicate that more than 550,000 people experience homelessness in the US on any given night, with about two-thirds ending up in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, and one-third finding their way to unsheltered locations like parks, vehicles, and metro stations. According to the Urban Institute, about 25% of homeless people have jobs.

I find that it is difficult for me to wrap my head around pain and suffering on such an immense scale. Americans often think of the homeless as drug-addicted men that don't want to work, but the truth is that about a quarter of the homeless population is made up of children.

foxenburg , 2 hours ago link

Seriously, why would Iran want to hijack a German ship? Iran took the UK one in retaliation for the Brits seizing the one at Gibraltar. Had that not happened, no Brit ships in the Persian Gulf would have been touched. This is all a carefully engineered USA provocation designed to, inter alia, increase tension in the Persian Gulf, put more nails in coffin of JCPOA...and most importantly give UK an excuse, as remaining signatory, to call for the original UN sanctions on Iran to be snapped-back.

terrific , 4 hours ago link

Federico, let me explain it simply: the U.S. is allied with Israel, and Iran hates Israel. Why, I don't know (nor do I care), but that's why the U.S. needs to keep Iran in check.

Grouchy-Bear , 4 hours ago link

You are confused...

Israel hates Iran and it is Israel that needs to be kept in check...

CatInTheHat , 4 hours ago link

Yet CONGRESS just passed the largest defense bill in history. The WAR industry is bankrupting us financially spiritually and morally.

A war is coming. But upon whom this time (or STILL?), because with President Bolton and Vice President Adelson in power, China Iran or Russia or maybe all three, are open options.

Ofelas , 4 hours ago link

Interview with a Russian I saw 2 years ago "USA wants to create local conflicts on foreign shores, ...on our borders, we will not allow that to happen and make the war international" I will translate: Russia will not be pulled in to some stupid small war draining their resources while the US sits comfortable, they will throw their missiles around - no escape from nuclear winter.

libtears , 3 hours ago link

Us pays more in interest than defense spending now. You'll need to factor that into your predictions

UBrexitUPay4it , 3 hours ago link

If spending has reached the limit now, during peacetime....what will happen during a protracted war? Even if it stays conventional, it would appear that a huge war effort, comparable to WWII, just won't be possible. The US seems to be in a pre-war Britain position, but there isn't a friendly giant across the water to bail them out with both cash and resources.

Either things become insane in fairly short order, or wiser heads will prevail and the US will step back from the brink. Do we have any wiser heads at the moment?

I keep seeing John Bolton's moustache, Andi am not filled with confidence.

[Aug 06, 2019] Half-d>ecent NYT article about Tulsi

I would not call this article decent. At best it is half-decent ;-) This is a typical NYT anti-Tulsi propaganda but it does make several relent observation buried in the sea of anti-Tulsi crapola.
Notable quotes:
"... “We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather than with, you know, a police baton,” she says. ..."
"... While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American intervention abroad. ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star August 3, 2019 at 2:55 am

Decent NYT article about Tulsi:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard-2020-presidential-race.html?ref=oembed

Aug. 2, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We're Doomed by Nellie Bowles

Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that she believes has wrought horror on the world, and she wants its citizens to remember that.

She is from Hawaii, and she spends each morning surfing. But that is not what she talks about in this unlikely campaign. She talks about the horror.

She lists countries: Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq. Failure after failure, she says. To drive the point home, she wants to meet on a Sioux tribe reservation in North Dakota, where, she explains, the United States government committed its original atrocity.

“These Indigenous people have been disrespected, mistreated with broken promises and desecrated lands,” Ms. Gabbard says.

... ... ...

But her run, and the unusual cross-section of voters she appeals to — Howard Zinn fans, anti-drug-war libertarians, Russia-gate skeptics, and conservatives suspicious of Big Tech — signifies just how much both parties have shifted, not just on foreign policy. It could end up being a sign that President Trump’s isolationism is not the aberration many believed, but rather a harbinger of a growing national sentiment that America should stand alone.

To Ms. Gabbard, it is the United States that has been the cruel and destabilizing force.

... ... ...

“We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather than with, you know, a police baton,” she says.

... ... ...

While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American intervention abroad.

... ... ...

Ms. Gabbard says she is driven by the feeling that death could come at any moment, which she realized at age 10 but which became more intense in Iraq.

“My first deployment was at the height of the war in 2005. We were 40 miles north of Baghdad. And there was a huge sign by one of the main gates that just read: ‘Is today the day?’” she says. “It was such a stark reminder that my time could come at any moment. That any day could be my last.”

She is not sure who put the sign up or why. But it was this message of potentially imminent doom that she wanted to leave the audience with at the second Democratic debate.

“As we stand here tonight,” she told the crowd. “There are thousands of nuclear missiles pointing right at us, and if we were to get an attack, we would have 30 minutes, 30 minutes, before we were hit.”

Ms. Gabbard continued.

“There is no shelter. This is the warmonger’s hoax. There is no shelter. It’s all a lie.”

>

[Aug 06, 2019] Did Tulsi Gabbard succumb to the Israel Lobby ot this was taktical move?

Politics is a drity business. The last think any aspiring politician wants is to fight on two fronts. For example against forign wars and Isreal lobby. that's creates Doublespeak situation for candidates like Tulsi...
Notable quotes:
"... But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and, of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard. ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Originally from: Tulsi Gabbard R.I.P., by Paul Craig Roberts - The Unz Review

It is unfortunate that Tulsi Gabbard succumbed to the Israel Lobby. The forces of the Empire saw it as a sign of weakness and have set about destroying her.

The ruling elite see Gabbard as a threat just as they saw Trump as a threat. A threat is an attractive political candidate who questions the Empire's agenda. Trump questioned the hostility toward Russia orchestrated by the military/security complex. Gabbard questions the Empire's wars in the Middle East. This is questioning that encroaches on the agendas of the military/security complex and Israel Lobby. If fear of Israel is what caused Gabbard to vote the AIPAC line on the bill forbidding criticism of Israel, she won't be able to stick to her line against Washington's aggression in the Middle East. Israel is behind that aggression as it serves Israeli interests.

But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and, of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard.

Gabbard, who in the second "debate" between Democratic Party candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, took down the despicable Kamala Harris with ease, was promptly labeled "an Assad apologist" and a conspiracist with Russia to put herself as a Putin agent in the White House. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/08/01/crazed-democrats-now-claim-it-is-tulsi-gabbard-who-is-in-conspiracy-with-putin/

Wars in the Middle East against Israel's enemies and preparation for major wars against Iran, Russia, and China are the bread and butter for the powerful US military/security complex lobby. All that is important to the military/security complex is their profits, not whether they get all of us killed. In other words, their propaganda about protecting America is a lie. They endanger us all in order to have enemies in order to justify their massive budget and power.

Those of us who actually know, such as myself and Stephen Cohen, have been warning for years that the orchestrated hostility against Russia is producing a far more dangerous Cold War than the original one. Indeed, beginning with the criminal George W. Bush regime, the arms control treaties achieved at great political expense by US and Soviet leaders have been abandoned by Washington. The lastest treaty to be discarded by Washington in service to the military/security lobby is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) negotiated by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbechev. This treaty banned missiles that Washington could place in Europe on Russia's border with which to attack Russia with little or no reaction time, and Russian missiles that could be used to attack Washington's NATO puppet states in Europe and UK. The treaty resulted in the elimination of 2,692 missiles and a decade of verification inspections that satisfied both parties to the agreement. But suddenly Washington has pulled out of the treaty. The main purpose of pulling out of the treaty is to enable the military/security complex to develop and produce new missiles at the taxpayers' expense, but Washington also sees a military advantage in withdrawing from the INF treaty.

Washington, of course, blames the US withdrawal on Russia, just as Washington blames every country that Washington intends to attack. But it is completely obvious even to a moron that Russia has no interest whatsoever in abandoning the treaty. Russian intermediate-range missiles cannot reach the United States. Russia has no reason to attack Europe, which has no military forces of any consequence. It is the American nuclear missiles on European soil that are the problem

Washington, however, does gain by tearing up the INF treaty. At Europe's risk, not America's, Washington's intermediate-range nuclear misslies stationed in Europe on Russia's borders permit a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia. Because of proximity, the warning time is only a couple of minutes. Washington's crazed war planners believe that so much of the Russian retaliatory capacity would be destroyed, that Russia would surrender rather than retaliate with diminished forces and risk a second attack.

Putin stresses this danger as does the Russian military. US missiles on Russia's border puts the world on a hair trigger. Aside from the fact that a nuclear attack on Russia is the likely intent of the criminal neoconservatives, nuclear warning systems are notorious for false alarms. During Cold War I, both sides worked to build trust, but since the criminal Clinton regime Washington has worked to destroy all trust between the two dominant nuclear powers. All that is required to obliterate life on earth, thanks entirely to the crazed fools in Washington, is one false alarm received by the Russians. Unlike past false alarms, next time the Russians will have no choice but to believe it.

Intermediate-range nuclear missiles leave no time for a phone call between Putin and Trump. The Russian leader who has suffered hundreds of diplomatic insults, demonization of his person and his country, illegal sanctions, endless false accusations, and endless threats cannot assume that the warning is false.

The idiots in Washington and the presstitutes have programmed the end of the world. When the alarm goes off, the Russian leader has no choice but to push the button.

Any remaining doubt in the Russian government of Washington's hostile intentions toward Russia has been dispelled by Trump's National Security Advisor, the neocon warmonger John Bolton. Bolton recently announced that the last remaining arms control agreement, START, will not be renewed by Washington in 2021.

Thus, the trust built between the nuclear powers that began with President John F. Kennedy and reached its greatest success with Reagan and Gorbachev has been erased. It will be lucky if the world survives the destruction of trust between the two major nuclear powers.

ORDER IT NOW

The American government in Washington has been made so utterly stupid by its arrogant hubris that it has no comprehension of the dangerous situation that it, and it alone, has created. We are all at risk every minute of our lives because of the power, of which President Eisenhower warned us more than a half century ago to no avail, of the US military/security complex, an organized powerful force determined and able to destroy any American president who would threaten their budget and power by making peace.

Donald Trump is a strong personality, but he has been cowed by the Israel Lobby and the military/security complex. As reigning president, Trump sat there Twittering while an attack orchestrated by the military/security complex and the Democratic Party, with 100% cooperation from the American media, tried to portray him as a Russian agent as grounds for his impeachment.

A strong personality in what is allegedly the most powerful office in the world who allows his entire first term to be wasted by his opponents in an attempt to frame him and drive him from office is all we need to know about the likely fate of Tulsi Gabbard.

[Aug 06, 2019] Trump Imposes Economic Embargo on Venezuela by Jason Ditz

Notable quotes:
"... This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. ..."
Aug 05, 2019 | news.antiwar.com

US will freeze all Venezuelan assets

President Trump signed an executive order late Monday imposing a full economic embargo against Venezuela , freezing all government assets in the US and forbidding all transactions of any Venezuelan officials.

This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

The order cites human rights abuses, and the fact that President Maduro is still in power in Venezuela, even though the US recognized opposition leader Guaido as the rightful ruler of the country.

This is the latest US effort to try to impose regime change in Venezuela, after a failed military coup earlier this year. It's not clear how broadly the US intends to enforce the sanctions, for example if they intend to use military force to prohibit naval trade from the Venezuelan coast

[Aug 06, 2019] The fact that, even after the backdown on the extradition proposal, the protesters continued escalating their demands to the point of demanding current HK leader Carrie Lam's removal, demonstrates that there is far more to the protesters' agenda than the extradition proposal. Add to that the fact that protesters receive cash payments for protesting (with the amounts jacked up if protesters destroy or damage things) and a CIA operative, Brian Kern, has been identified as a ring-leader, and it is apparent that a Color Revolution regime-change operation is in full swing.

Aug 06, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star August 1, 2019 at 7:41 pm

I think the grievances of the students against the Chinese government had merit. Moreover yielding to continuing the status quo ante or reversion to Brit colony status were not the only possible outcomes. The former happens to be the case but things need not have gone
that way.
https://www.history.com/topics/china/tiananmen-square

Like

Mark Chapman August 1, 2019 at 8:11 pm
That's probably true, but there is often inflexibility on the part of the protesters as well, and in cases where they believe they have international backing – spelled U.S.A. – their demands rarely allow much room for compromise. The government must step down and yield governing power, usually to a group of ideologues and liberal activists, and the next step is well-known to everyone. The American 'advisers' are sent in, and state institutions are rapidly dismantled and privatized for international investment, as happened in Yeltsin's Russia.

In this case, the students wanted 'more democracy', and that right there suggests they really did not have any clear goals but change.

Like

yalensis August 2, 2019 at 3:04 am
So true. When protesters claim to want "more democracy" but cannot even define what "democracy" means, then it's clear they don't know what they are talking about, and probably just American stooges.

Like

Jen August 1, 2019 at 8:49 pm
People in HK do have many grievances but many of their problems, like the insanely high property prices, the shortage of housing for people who are not billionaires, the pollution, the crappy infrastructure, the lack of jobs in any industry apart from buying and selling property, the dismal job prospects of people who have been through an education system that relies on rote learning and slaving through scads of homework, are problems arising from the capitalist system they still retain. Unfortunately, for most of its 20-year rule since the hand-back in 1997, the HK govt has been inept in handling most of these problems.

The thing that sparked this year's protests was the proposed extradition bill that would establish appropriate extradition arrangements between Hong Kong and every other state or territory that it currently does not have extradition agreements with, and this included Mainland China, Macau and Taiwan, in the wake of the 2018 St Valentine's Day murder in which a 20-year-old HK woman was strangled by her 19-year-old HK boyfriend while holidaying in Taiwan, who then stuffed her body into a suitcase and left it at a train station in Taiwan while he returned to HK. The man is currently in jail on charges relating to stealing the woman's money after her death (he took all her ATM cards and used them) and he is due to be freed this coming October. The HK govt has currently delayed a second reading of the extradition bill but haven't withdrawn it entirely, which was one of the protesters' demands.

The fact that, even after the backdown on the extradition proposal, the protesters continued escalating their demands to the point of demanding current HK leader Carrie Lam's removal, demonstrates that there is far more to the protesters' agenda than the extradition proposal. Add to that the fact that protesters receive cash payments for protesting (with the amounts jacked up if protesters destroy or damage things) and a CIA operative, Brian Kern, has been identified as a ring-leader, and it is apparent that a Color Revolution regime-change operation is in full swing.

https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/07/08/confucius-laozi-and-buddha-are-humbly-winning-against-the-imperial-west-in-troubled-hong-kong/

Like

Moscow Exile August 1, 2019 at 10:38 pm
The cops in Hong Kong Crown Colony were unbelievably corrupt. I worked with a former Hong Kong policeman, a British European (the HK Crown Colony police had British senior officers and Chinese "other ranks") who joined the force "to see the world". He was an idealist and resigned. He could not stand the corruption that he witnessed there. His father, by the way, was the local cop where I lived: the "village bobby", so to speak, complete with standard issue Raleigh bicycle and cycle clips, who was a decent, friendly bloke.

[Aug 06, 2019] I love the caveat in assessing the USA GDP

Notable quotes:
"... “Any US claims to economic stability – the stock market is roaring like a chained tiger, unemployment is at near-record lows – must be balanced against the fact that the country owes its entire GDP plus a considerable amount in accumulated debt. ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Cortes July 31, 2019 at 10:29 pm

... ... ...

I love the caveat in

“Any US claims to economic stability – the stock market is roaring like a chained tiger, unemployment is at near-record lows – must be balanced against the fact that the country owes its entire GDP plus a considerable amount in accumulated debt.

And growing, if the source is reliable, at 36% faster than the US economy.”

[Aug 06, 2019] India Might Come To Regret Today s Annexation Of Jammu And Kashmir

Notable quotes:
"... India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya or Syria. ..."
"... Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America. ..."
"... America's Future Is with India and Israel: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-future-india-israel-21629 ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter , Aug 5 2019 19:59 utc | 50

Imperial divide and conquer strategy. Global strife aids imperialists. Russia, China, Iran unity threatens global Anglo Zionists.

Consequently, the logical progression is to welcome India into Anglo Zionist alliance with more aid to their extremists (Modi) Emboldening extremists is always the way to war.

somebody , Aug 5 2019 21:25 utc | 56

Posted by: fx | Aug 5 2019 20:31 utc | 53

Not really. India supports Baloch nationalists. This destabilizes Pakistan, Iran and the Taliban.

China/Pakistan port of Gwadar is in Balochistan. There seems to be a Saudi, US, Israel, India proxy war against China/Iran/Pakistan/Russia .

It is not that simple as Saudi sells oil to China, and India, Saudi plus Israel are on speaking terms with Russia plus Saudi bankrolls Pakistan and US policies might change completely if Trump loses 2020.

Of course all bets are off should Modi manage to provoke a Hindu-Moslim civil war involving Pakistan.

Hoarsewhisperer , Aug 6 2019 4:48 utc | 79
Since I was at the age of having a political opinion, Jammu and Kashmir were part of a collection of areas under constant conflict.
...
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Aug 5 2019 18:13 utc | 44

Thanks for the reminder. Your use of the term 'constant conflict' reminded me of a military doctrine I stumbled upon in the early Noughties which was called Constant Conflict. The only thing I could remember about it, today, was that it was written by a psychopath and I did NOT like what the author was proposing.

I went looking for a piece of prose called Constant Conflict and found a reference to the piece I was looking for at...
https://katehon.com/article/ralph-peters-concept-constant-conflict

It's dated 16.04.2016 and names the author as Retired Lieutenant Colonel of United States Army Ralph Peters and summarises the crux of Peters' thesis and and his background/mission statement. It also provides enough info to find the original 1997 article here...
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/97summer/peters.htm

The article concludes thus and there's a footnote...
...
"The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline."
---
Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master's degree in international relations. Over the past several years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books. This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.

Reviewed 8 May 1997.

AK74 , Aug 6 2019 5:24 utc | 82
India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya or Syria.

Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America.

So perhaps India should emulate its fellow "democratic" ally of America and adopt the same ethnic cleansing tactics in Kashmir that the Land of the Free has deployed against Native tribes throughout the Indigenous lands that America currently occupies--from the Trail of Tears of the past to the DAPL pipeline protests today.

America's Future Is with India and Israel: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-future-india-israel-21629

somebody , Aug 6 2019 6:26 utc | 83
Posted by: AK74 | Aug 6 2019 5:24 utc | 83

Any colonial knows that patrons play all sides.

[Aug 06, 2019] The Declining Empire Of Chaos Is Going Nuts Over Iran

Notable quotes:
"... Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. ..."
"... As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".) ..."
"... Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker. ..."
"... With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals. ..."
"... These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict. ..."
"... The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias. ..."
"... In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies. ..."
"... Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces. ..."
"... An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake. ..."
"... With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. ..."
"... Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran. ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In 2014 we were almost at the point of no return in Ukraine following the coup d'etat supported and funded by NATO and involving extremist right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The conflict in the Donbass risked escalating into a conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation, every day in the summer and autumn of 2014 threatening to be doomsday. Rather than respond to the understandable impulse to send Russian troops into Ukraine to defend the population of Donbass, Putin had the presense of mind to pursue the less direct and more sensible strategy of supporting the material capacity of the residents of Donbass to resist the depredations of the Ukrainian army and their neo-Nazi Banderite thugs. Meanwhile, Europe's inept leaders initially egged on Ukraine's destabilization, only to get cold feet after reflecting on the possibility of having a conflict between Moscow and Washington fought on European soil.

With the resistance in Donbass managing to successfully hold back Ukrainian assaults, the conflict began to freeze, almost to the point of a complete ceasefire, even as Ukrainian provocations continue to this day.

Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. Russian intervention in 2015 managed to save the country with no time to spare, destroying large numbers of terrorists and reorganizing the Syrian armed forces and training and equipping them with the necessary means to beat back the jihadi waves. The Russians also ensured control of the skies through their network of Pantsir-S1, Pantsir-S2, S-300 and S-400 air-defence systems, together with their impressive jamming (Krasukha-4), command and control information management system (Strelets C4ISR System) and electronic-warfare technologies (1RL257 Krasukha-4).

As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".)

Since Trump became president, the rhetoric of war has soared considerably, even as the awareness remains that any new conflict would sink Trump's chances of re-election. Despite this, Trump's bombings in Syria were real and potentially very harmful to the Syrian state. Nevertheless, they were foiled by Russia's electronic-warfare capability, which was able to send veering away from their intended target more than 70% of the latest-generation missiles launched by the British, French, Americans and Israelis.

One of the most terrifying moments for the future of humanity came a few months later when Trump started hurling threats and abuses at Kim Jong-un , threatening to reduce Pyongyang to ashes. Trump, moreover, delivered his fiery threats in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker.

With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.

The difference between the case of Iran and the aforementioned cases of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea is precisely the direct involvement of these two lobbies in the decision-making process underway in the US.

These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict.

What readers can be assured of is that in the cases of Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and Iran, the US is unable to militarily impose its geopolitical or economic will.

The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias.

In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies.

In North Korea, the country's tactical and strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence discourages any missile attack. Any overland attack is out of the question, given the high number of active as well as reserve personnel in the DPRK army. If the US struggled to control a completely defeated Iraq in 2003, how much more difficult would be to deal with a country with a resilient population that is indisposed to bowing to the US? The 2003 Iraq campaign would really be a "cakewalk" in comparison. Another reason why a missile attack on North Korea is impossible is because of the conventional power that Pyongyang possesses in the form of tens of thousands of missiles and artillery pieces that could easily reduce Seoul to rubble in a matter of minutes. This would then lead to a war between the US and the DPRK being fought on the Korean Peninsula. Moon Jae-in, like Merkel and Sarkozy in the case of Ukraine, did everything in his power to prevent such a devastating conflict.

Concerning tensions between the US and Iran and the resulting threats of war, these should be taken as bluster and bluff. America's European allies are heavily involved in Iran and depend on the Middle East for their oil and gas imports. A US war against Iran would have devastating consequences for the world economy, with the Europeans seeing their imports halved or reduced. As Professor Chossudovsky of the strategic think tank Global Research has so ably argued , an attack on Iran is unsustainable, as the oil sectors of the UAE and Saudi Arabia would be hit and shut down. Exports would instantly end after the pipelines going West are bombed by the Houthis and the Strait of Hormuz closed. The economies of these two countries would implode and their ruling class wiped out by internal revolts. The state of Israel as well as US bases in the region would see themselves overwhelmed with missiles coming from Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Iran. The Tel Aviv government would last a few hours before capitulating under the pressure of its own citizens, who, like the Europeans, are unused to suffering war at home.

Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces.

An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake.

With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. And finally, US military planners do not intend to suffer a humiliating defeat in Iran that would reveal the extent to which US military power is based on propaganda built over the years through Hollywood movies and wars successfully executed against relatively defenceless countries. Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is telling that Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Riyadh have to resort to numerous but ultimately useless provocations against Iran, as they can only rely on hybrid attacks in order to economically isolate it from the rest of the world.

Paradoxically, this strategy has had devastating consequences for the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency together with the SWIFT system. In today's multipolar environment, acting in such an imperious manner leads to the acceleration of de-dollarization as a way of circumventing sanctions and bans imposed by the US.

A reserve currency is used to facilitate transactions. If the disadvantages come to exceed the benefits, it will progressively be used less and less, until it is replaced by a basket of currencies that more closely reflect the multipolar geopolitical reality.

The warmongers in Washington are exasperated by their continuing inability to curb the resilience and resistance of the people in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Donbass, countries and regions understood by the healthy part of the globe as representing the axis of resistance to US Imperialism.


Batman11 , 14 minutes ago link

A multi-polar world became a uni-polar world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis Fukuyama said it was the end of history.

That didn't last long, did it?

The US came up with a great plan for an open, globalised world.

China went from almost nothing to become a global superpower.

It was a great plan for China, which is now the problem for the US.

Batman11 , 24 minutes ago link

The cry of US elites can be heard across the world.

Mummy.

What's gone wrong?

I am used to always getting my own way.

Thought.Adjuster , 55 minutes ago link

If Folks would just accept a unipolar World, we could all live together in peace.

ZeroPorridge , 6 minutes ago link

Monopoly means utter slavery.

Like in a living body, each cells on their own, grouped by function, none really being the boss of the rest.

uhland62 , 1 hour ago link

America must always threaten someone with war. Syria, Iran, Venezuela, China, Russia, so many to choose from.

Conflicts must never be resolved; they must always kept simmering, so a hot war can be triggered quickly. All Presidents are turned in the first three months after sworn in.

Jazzman , 1 hour ago link

Without required air superiority they are what? Say it! Say it loud!

Dude-dude , 49 minutes ago link

It's what happens as empires mature. Governance becomes bloated, corrupt and inept (often leading to wars). Maturity time has become significantly reduced due to the rate of information technology advance. America is five years away from going insolvent according to most models and forecasts. All new debt after 2024 will be used to pay the interest on existing debts and liabilities. There is simply no stopping it. The US already pays close to 500 billion in annual interest on debts and liabilities. Factor in a 600 billion or 700 billion dollar annual military budget, and unrestrained deficit spending clocking in at over a trillion, and, well, it isn't going to work for long. Considering most new well paying jobs are government jobs... The end is either full socialism / fascism (folks still don't get how similar these are), a currency crisis and panic, depression and institutional deterioration. The only good news to libertarians I guess - if you can call it good - is that the blotted government along with the crony corporations will mostly and eventually collapse. Libertarian governance might not be a choice by an electorate, it might simply become fact in the aftermath.

-- ALIEN -- , 3 hours ago link

As the falling EROEI of oil gets worse; countries will collapse... It's all downhill from here

...what few are left.

Lokiban , 3 hours ago link

I guess Trump eventually will understand this lesson in politics that friendship, mutual respect and helping each other accomplishes way way more then threatening countries to be bombed back into the stoneage.
Noone likes to do a cutthroat deal enforced upon them by thuggery. Trump's got to learn that you can't run politics like you do your bussinesses, it's not working unles that was his plan all this time, to destroy America.

NumbersUsa , 3 hours ago link

"The Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.

These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict."

Excellent and Factual points! Thank You!

Scaliger , 3 hours ago link

https://www.jta.org/2019/07/01/united-states/the-israel-projects-ceo-is-leaving-amid-advocacy-groups-fundraising-difficulties

Minamoto , 3 hours ago link

America is increasingly looking like Ancient Rome towards the end. It is overstretched, nearly insolvent, fewer allies want to be allies, it's population is sick, physically and mentally. Obesity, diabetes, drug use/addiction make it impossible for the Pentagon to meet recruitment goal. Mental illness causes daily mass killing. The education system is so broken/broke that there is little real education being done. Americans are among the most ignorant, least educated and least educate-able people in the developed world.

Militarily, the USA can bomb but that's about it... defeats upon defeats over the past two decades demonstrate the US military is a paper tiger of astonishing incompetence.

Boeing can't make planes anymore. Lockheed is not much better. Parts of the F-35 are made by Chinese subsidiaries. The most recently built aircraft carrier cannot launch fighter jets.

-- ALIEN -- , 3 hours ago link

We gots NASCAR, big trucks, free TV, fast food, and endless ****.

Go 'Merica!

Justin Case , 2 hours ago link

Recent estimates indicate that more than 550,000 people experience homelessness in the US on any given night, with about two-thirds ending up in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, and one-third finding their way to unsheltered locations like parks, vehicles, and metro stations. According to the Urban Institute, about 25% of homeless people have jobs.

I find that it is difficult for me to wrap my head around pain and suffering on such an immense scale. Americans often think of the homeless as drug-addicted men that don't want to work, but the truth is that about a quarter of the homeless population is made up of children.

foxenburg , 2 hours ago link

Seriously, why would Iran want to hijack a German ship? Iran took the UK one in retaliation for the Brits seizing the one at Gibraltar. Had that not happened, no Brit ships in the Persian Gulf would have been touched. This is all a carefully engineered USA provocation designed to, inter alia, increase tension in the Persian Gulf, put more nails in coffin of JCPOA...and most importantly give UK an excuse, as remaining signatory, to call for the original UN sanctions on Iran to be snapped-back.

terrific , 4 hours ago link

Federico, let me explain it simply: the U.S. is allied with Israel, and Iran hates Israel. Why, I don't know (nor do I care), but that's why the U.S. needs to keep Iran in check.

Grouchy-Bear , 4 hours ago link

You are confused...

Israel hates Iran and it is Israel that needs to be kept in check...

CatInTheHat , 4 hours ago link

Yet CONGRESS just passed the largest defense bill in history. The WAR industry is bankrupting us financially spiritually and morally.

A war is coming. But upon whom this time (or STILL?), because with President Bolton and Vice President Adelson in power, China Iran or Russia or maybe all three, are open options.

Ofelas , 4 hours ago link

Interview with a Russian I saw 2 years ago "USA wants to create local conflicts on foreign shores, ...on our borders, we will not allow that to happen and make the war international" I will translate: Russia will not be pulled in to some stupid small war draining their resources while the US sits comfortable, they will throw their missiles around - no escape from nuclear winter.

libtears , 3 hours ago link

Us pays more in interest than defense spending now. You'll need to factor that into your predictions

UBrexitUPay4it , 3 hours ago link

If spending has reached the limit now, during peacetime....what will happen during a protracted war? Even if it stays conventional, it would appear that a huge war effort, comparable to WWII, just won't be possible. The US seems to be in a pre-war Britain position, but there isn't a friendly giant across the water to bail them out with both cash and resources.

Either things become insane in fairly short order, or wiser heads will prevail and the US will step back from the brink. Do we have any wiser heads at the moment?

I keep seeing John Bolton's moustache, Andi am not filled with confidence.

[Aug 05, 2019] Remembering the Philippine War by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95) ..."
"... Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling. ..."
"... The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96) ..."
Aug 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Andrew Bacevich calls for reckoning with the consequences of American colonial empire in the Philippines:

Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within "our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized on the National Mall in Washington.

Bacevich is right when he says that the Philippine War has been "almost entirely expunged from American memory today." It is significant that one of the only times in recent years that the Philippine War was remembered was so that it could provide fodder for the counterinsurgency fad among pro-war pundits. Max Boot was one of the chief advocates for counterinsurgency warfare, and he has cited the brutal occupation campaign in the Philippines as an example of how to win such wars. Greg Bankoff counted the costs of the "small war" in the Philippines that Boot praised in his book The Savage Wars of Peace , and he described them in this response to a positive review of the book back in 2002:

Start with the description of the war itself as "small." Granted, the United States suffered only some 7,000 casualties, dead and wounded. But estimates of Filipino mortality range from 200,000 persons upward. This is hardly small, especially considering that the total Filipino population at the time was around seven million. Nor is it accurate to say the war ended in 1902, unless one accepts the terms of President Theodore Roosevelt's November 1902 Brigandage Act, which redefined any band of more than three men as bandits and subjected them to 20 years imprisonment or the death penalty. In fact, guerrilla warfare continued until 1907, waged by popular revolutionary leaders who refused to accept the colonial yoke anew -- men such as Luciano San Miguel (who died on the battlefield of Corral-na-Bato in March 1903), Macario Sakay (who was hanged on September 13, 1907) and Julian Montalan (who was sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to Palawan until 1921). No, the war did not actually end in 1902, but the U.S. colonial authorities conveniently branded everything subsequent to that as ladronism, simple thievery.

Bankoff warned later in the same piece that "a distorted reconstruction of that past is likely to preview an equally distorted future." Looking back seventeen years later at our multiple protracted wars, all of them enthusiastically supported by Boot and fellow neo-imperialists, we have to conclude that the future was horribly distorted in part by this willingness to lionize and whitewash the Philippine War as a model for U.S. foreign policy. Like that war, our ongoing wars have inflicted horrific losses on the local populations, they are completely divorced from the security of the United States, and the people we are fighting are fighting us because our forces are in their country.

If Boot's distorted history has contributed to the distortion of our foreign policy, we could do worse than to begin by finding better reconstructions of the past. Daniel Immerwahr has done some important work in studying the consequences of our colonial empire on the people in the territories that our government took over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His book How to Hide an Empire recounts the history of how the U.S. obtained its overseas territories, how it abused them, and how it has created a very different kind of empire over the last seventy years.

Immerwahr recounts some of the opposition to the Philippine War from members of the Anti-Imperialist League:

As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95)

He also describes the tactics that U.S. forces used in the war:

Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling.

The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96)

If we hope to change U.S. foreign policy and repudiate empire, we have to remember first how we acquired it and the Americans that organized to oppose it.

P.S. Another similarity between the Philippine War and the wars of the last two decades is the length of the actual fighting. Immerwahr writes:

Stretching from the outbreak of hostilities in 1899 to the end of military rule in Moroland in 1913, it is, after the war in Afghanistan, the longest war the United States has ever fought. (p. 107)

[Aug 05, 2019] Don t Underestimate Iran s Ability to Fight a Bloody War

Aug 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Don't Underestimate Iran's Ability to Fight a Bloody War They already proved themselves against Iraq during the 1980s -- and they're far stronger today. By Pouya Alimagham August 6, 2019

Circa 1980's; an Iranian soldier wearing gas mask during Iran-Iraq War. Iraq used chemical weapons against military and civilian targets throughout the eight year war. Declassified reports indicate that Saddam Hussein had international assistance in obtaining the weapons, including from the U.S. and U.K, and the CIA assisted in targeting. (Creative Commons/Wikipedia) On July 29, President Trump tweeted: "Just remember, Iranians never won a war, but never lost a negotiation." In just 12 words, Trump leveled a multi-layered, ahistorical insult against both his predecessor, Barack Obama, and Iran.

More importantly, the remarks betray a dangerously ignorant understanding of Iran that could result in another careless Middle East war of choice.

The tweet invokes a clichéd, colonial-era stereotype that Iranians, like other Middle Eastern peoples, are wily swindlers -- rapacious, greedy bazaar merchants who aim to take advantage of honest and unsuspecting Westerners. Trump is hardly the first American leader to dabble in such denigrating stereotypes. Wendy Sherman, a senior State Department official and former lead negotiator who helped forge the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, infamously quipped that Iranians could not be trusted because they have "deception in their DNA."

The president deployed the stereotype of Iranian cunning to imply that they tricked a naïve president, Barack Obama, into signing a flawed nuclear deal. According to the world's foremost nuclear security experts , however, the accord was ensuring Iran's compliance, thereby preventing a nuclear weapons program -- that is, until Trump subverted the agreement in 2018.

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More importantly, Trump's words underscore the idea that Iranians are cowardly and militarily ineffectual, but make up for such unflattering character flaws by swindling their foes during negotiations to achieve victory.

Iran's last war, however, should dispel any notion of cowardice and military weakness -- a history President Trump and anti-Iran hawks like National Security Adviser John Bolton must face with clear eyes if the United States is to avoid another needless, catastrophic war in the Middle East.

Iraq Invades Iran

In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran faced one of its most vulnerable moments in modern times. During the revolutionary upheaval, many arms depots were raided and weapons were distributed to volunteers ready to deliver the monarchy its coup de grace .

After the watershed moment, the Revolutionary Council feared that, given the Anglo-American coup in 1953 through the Iranian military, Iran's generals could not be trusted. The subsequent purge resulted in the decimation of the country's military leadership. Moreover, political infighting between revolutionary factions also led to unrest. To make matters worse, militant students were fearful that the U.S. was planning to undermine the revolution through a coup -- as it did the nationalist government of Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 -- so they resolved to ward off any such attempts. Consequently, they seized the U.S. embassy and held its personnel hostage. The international community responded by isolating Iran for its blatant disregard for international norms.

Capitalizing on Iran's internal post-revolutionary chaos, military disarray, and international isolation, Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of his neighboring rival on September 22, 1980. Shortly after, Iran's internal power struggle between the various revolutionary factions erupted into open warfare.

So devastating was the power struggle that many of the leading personalities of the Iranian Revolution died in assassinations and bomb blasts, including Iran's president and prime minister. Thus, the Iranian state was forced to fight on two battlefronts -- internally against its challengers and externally against Iraqi invaders. The government did not, however, collapse under the weight of its domestic rivals and foreign aggressors. In fact, the war enlivened Charles Tilly's timeless words: "War makes states."

Iranian Resilience

The Iranian state harnessed a powerful ideology that intertwined nationalism with Islamic revolutionary zeal in order to prompt Iranians to close rank behind it, marshaling hundreds of thousands of soldiers to liberate Iranian territory occupied by the Iraqi military. By May 24, 1982, and after tens of thousands of deaths, Iran freed the border city of Khorramshahr after a brutal two-year siege.

Soon after Khorramshahr's liberation, the invading Iraqis were on the defensive, and Saddam's wartime financiers, namely Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, offered Iran a multi-billion dollar reparations package to end the war. Iran's leader refused, declaring that the only way the war would end was with Saddam Hussein's bloody demise. He then spearheaded the conflict onto Iraqi soil for the first time. Time captured the moment by phrasing the counter-invasion as " Iran on the march ."

Iran Versus the World

Iraq enjoyed the support of the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and the Arab League -- with the exception of Syria and Libya -- and even used chemical weapons on Iranian troops. Yet Iran persisted despite such horrible odds, and hundreds of thousands continued to go to the battlefront knowing it was possible that they, too, could fall victim to Iraq's horrific chemical weapons.

The violence dragged on for eight bitter years, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century -- with an Iranian death toll estimated between half a million to a million. To put that staggering number into perspective, the conservative estimate exceeds the total American loss of life in World War II.

The war's conclusion was a failure in Iranian eyes, as it did not end in Saddam Hussein's overthrow and Iraqis and the region would continue to suffer at his hands. Two years later, he refused to demobilize his million-man army to a jobless future in a war-ravaged economy, and instead dispatched them across Iraq's border again -- this time to Kuwait.

Yet neither did Iran lose the war. In fact, it was the first conflict since the two 19th-century wars with Czarist Russia in which Iran did not lose any territory. Above all, the country survived a genocidal conflict -- and survival was its own victory.

Iran Today

Today, Iran's population is more than double what it was in 1980 -- estimated at roughly 83 million . After lacking military support from abroad during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran now has extensive domestic weapons manufacturing capabilities. Also unlike 1980, it has more allies in the region. In other words, if Iran fought so stubbornly under such dire circumstances during the '80s, it will only fight more effectively today. It has already proven itself militarily by coordinating the fight alongside the U.S. to defeat ISIS in Iraq while simultaneously working with Russia to help the Syrian government win an unrelenting civil war.

The Iranian military budget may be a fraction of America's, but the Trump administration -- especially anti-Iran hawks John Bolton and Mike Pompeo -- should consider this history and current reality objectively. If they don't, if they continue to underestimate Iran the same way the Bush administration did with a far weaker Iraq in 2003, they risk another war of choice. Indeed, on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney infamously stated : "I think it will go relatively quickly weeks rather than months." To be sure, history has been unkind to his rosy assessment.

Thinking a war with Iran will be over before it begins -- or that it will, as Senator Tom Cotton boasted , not require more than "two strikes, the first strike and the last strike" -- is the first step towards another needless, ruinous war.

Pouya Alimagham is a historian of the modern Middle East at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and author of the forthcoming Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings (Cambridge University Press). Follow him on Twitter @iPouya .

[Aug 05, 2019] Remembering the Philippine War by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95) ..."
"... Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling. ..."
"... The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96) ..."
Aug 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Andrew Bacevich calls for reckoning with the consequences of American colonial empire in the Philippines:

Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within "our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized on the National Mall in Washington.

Bacevich is right when he says that the Philippine War has been "almost entirely expunged from American memory today." It is significant that one of the only times in recent years that the Philippine War was remembered was so that it could provide fodder for the counterinsurgency fad among pro-war pundits. Max Boot was one of the chief advocates for counterinsurgency warfare, and he has cited the brutal occupation campaign in the Philippines as an example of how to win such wars. Greg Bankoff counted the costs of the "small war" in the Philippines that Boot praised in his book The Savage Wars of Peace , and he described them in this response to a positive review of the book back in 2002:

Start with the description of the war itself as "small." Granted, the United States suffered only some 7,000 casualties, dead and wounded. But estimates of Filipino mortality range from 200,000 persons upward. This is hardly small, especially considering that the total Filipino population at the time was around seven million. Nor is it accurate to say the war ended in 1902, unless one accepts the terms of President Theodore Roosevelt's November 1902 Brigandage Act, which redefined any band of more than three men as bandits and subjected them to 20 years imprisonment or the death penalty. In fact, guerrilla warfare continued until 1907, waged by popular revolutionary leaders who refused to accept the colonial yoke anew -- men such as Luciano San Miguel (who died on the battlefield of Corral-na-Bato in March 1903), Macario Sakay (who was hanged on September 13, 1907) and Julian Montalan (who was sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to Palawan until 1921). No, the war did not actually end in 1902, but the U.S. colonial authorities conveniently branded everything subsequent to that as ladronism, simple thievery.

Bankoff warned later in the same piece that "a distorted reconstruction of that past is likely to preview an equally distorted future." Looking back seventeen years later at our multiple protracted wars, all of them enthusiastically supported by Boot and fellow neo-imperialists, we have to conclude that the future was horribly distorted in part by this willingness to lionize and whitewash the Philippine War as a model for U.S. foreign policy. Like that war, our ongoing wars have inflicted horrific losses on the local populations, they are completely divorced from the security of the United States, and the people we are fighting are fighting us because our forces are in their country.

If Boot's distorted history has contributed to the distortion of our foreign policy, we could do worse than to begin by finding better reconstructions of the past. Daniel Immerwahr has done some important work in studying the consequences of our colonial empire on the people in the territories that our government took over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His book How to Hide an Empire recounts the history of how the U.S. obtained its overseas territories, how it abused them, and how it has created a very different kind of empire over the last seventy years.

Immerwahr recounts some of the opposition to the Philippine War from members of the Anti-Imperialist League:

As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95)

He also describes the tactics that U.S. forces used in the war:

Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling.

The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96)

If we hope to change U.S. foreign policy and repudiate empire, we have to remember first how we acquired it and the Americans that organized to oppose it.

P.S. Another similarity between the Philippine War and the wars of the last two decades is the length of the actual fighting. Immerwahr writes:

Stretching from the outbreak of hostilities in 1899 to the end of military rule in Moroland in 1913, it is, after the war in Afghanistan, the longest war the United States has ever fought. (p. 107)

[Aug 05, 2019] The war in Afghanistan has reached new levels of insanity as a UN report shows US forces are killing more civilians than ISIS and Taliban combined

Aug 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Matt Agorist via TheFreeThoughtProject.com,

The war in Afghanistan has reached new levels of insanity as a UN report shows US forces are killing more civilians than ISIS and Taliban combined.

For the last several decades, the US government has openly funded, supported, and armed various terrorist networks throughout the world to forward an agenda of destabilization and proxy war. It is not a secret, nor a conspiracy theory -- America arms bad guys . The situation has gotten so overtly corrupt that the government admitted in May the Pentagon asked Congress for funding to reimburse terrorists for their transportation and other expenses. Seriously. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. A new report from the United Nations shows the US and its allies in Afghanistan have killed more innocent men, women, and children than the group they claim are the bad guys, the Taliban.

The now 18-year-old quagmire in Afghanistan is raising serious questions and once again, it appears that the civilians are taking the brunt of the hit -- not the ostensible enemy.

According to a report in the NY Times:

In the first six months of the year, the conflict killed nearly 1,400 civilians and wounded about 2,400 more. Afghan forces and their allies caused 52 percent of the civilian deaths compared with 39 percent attributable to militants -- mostly the Taliban, but also the Islamic State. The figures do not total 100 percent because responsibility for some deaths could not be definitively established.

The higher civilian death toll caused by Afghan and American forces comes from their greater reliance on airstrikes, which are particularly deadly for civilians. The United Nations said airstrikes resulted in 363 civilian deaths and 156 civilian injuries.

"While the number of injured decreased, the number of civilians killed more than doubled in comparison to the first six months of 2018, highlighting the lethal character of this tactic," the United Nations report said, referring to airstrikes.

Naturally, the US military calls this report by the UN anti-American propaganda.

"We assess and investigate all credible allegations of noncombatant casualties in this complex environment, whereas others intentionally target public areas, use civilians as human shields and attempt to hide the truth through lies and propaganda," Colonel Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for the United States military, said.

The line between the ostensible "good guys" and the "bad guys" has gotten so blurred that the good guys are now openly supporting the bad while simultaneously killing more innocent people than the bad ones. It's a story straight out of The Onion, but in real life.

While the idea of the US government paying to support terrorists or killing more civilians than terrorists may seem like a crazed notion it has become so overt in recent years that legislation was specifically introduced for the sole purpose of banning the the flow of money to terrorist organizations.

However, given the insidious history of the American empire and its creation and fostering of terrorist regimes across the globe, it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of politicians would refuse to sign on to a law that requires them to 'Stop Arming Terrorists.' And, in 2017, that is exactly what happened.

The text of the bill was quite simple and contained no hidden agendas. It merely stated that it prohibits the use of federal agency funds to provide covered assistance to: (1) Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or any individual or group that is affiliated with, associated with, cooperating with, or adherents to such groups; or (2) the government of any country that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) determines has, within the most recent 12 months, provided covered assistance to such a group or individual.

The only thing the bill did was prohibit the US government from giving money and weapons to people who want to murder Americans and who do murder innocent men, women, and children across the globe. It is quite possibly the simplest and most rational bill ever proposed by Congress. Given its rational and humanitarian nature, one would think that representatives would have been lining up to show their support. However, one would be wrong and in the five months after it was proposed, just 13 members of Congress signed on as co-sponsors.

Not only is the United States refusing to stop arming terrorists, but now they are becoming more violent than the terrorists they claim to fight. At what point do the American people wake up to this insanity?

Sadly, it appears that the American people couldn't care less about innocent men women and children being slaughtered with their tax dollars on the other side of the planet. They only seem to pay attention to the area when one of these people -- whose seen their children blown to a fine red mist by a US drone strike -- acts out in a retaliatory way. But instead of understanding that this is blowback caused by US foreign policy, Boobus Americanus thinks these people simply "hate our freedom."

Terrorism is necessary for the state. War, is the health of the state.

Without the constant fear mongering about an enemy who 'hates our freedom', Americans begin questioning things. They challenge the status quo and inevitably desire more freedom. However, when they are told that boogeymen want to kill them, they become immediately complacent and blinded by their fear.

While these boogeymen were once mostly mythical, since 9/11, they have been funded and supported by the US to the point that they now pose a very real threat to innocent people everywhere. As the horrific attacks earlier this year in Sri Lanka illustrate, terrorists are organizing and spreading.

Terrorists groups have been exposed inside the UK as well for having ties to the British government who allowed them to freely travel and train with ISIS-linked groups because those groups were in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, who the West wanted to snub out.

It's a vicious cycle of creating terrorists, killing innocence, and stoking war. And, unless something radical happens, it shows no signs of ever reversing.

The radical change that is necessary to shift this paradigm back to peace is for people to wake up to the reality that no matter which puppet is in the White House, the status quo remains unchanged.

Trump is proving that he can lie to get into power and his supporters ignore it. If you doubt this fact, look at what Trump did by calling out Saudi Arabia for their role in 9/11 and their support for terror worldwide prior to getting elected. He now supports these terrorists and his constituency couldn't care less.

This madness has to stop. Humanity has to stop being fooled by rhetoric read from teleprompters by puppets doing the bidding of their masters. If Americans aren't shaken out of this stupor by the idea that the US military and its allies are now killing more innocent people than the Taliban and ISIS -- combined -- perhaps


herbivore , 15 minutes ago link

But we love them anyway. They are our heroes, bravely fighting for our freedoms in Afghanistan. Unless we kill the Afghanis over there, they'll come here to kill us. Sure, sometimes our boys kill innocents, but come on, we all know there are no innocent Muslims. Even if they're kids, they'll eventually grow up to be terrorists so better to kill them sooner than later. USA! USA! Woof! Woof!

Blankone , 25 minutes ago link

What kind of person, really, joins the US military today?

It was shown long ago that the Iraq war was based upon lies. Killing civilians, bombing hospitals, air attacks on weddings, stabbing captured and unconscious enemy in the throat (and getting away with it), clearly there is no threat to the US to justify the killing ...

But the actual killers are getting a bit of a surprise. Women are being promoted past them and over them. The PC rules are ruining the boys club and even their language is monitored. The officers don't give a damn other than progressing to full colonel at least, retiring with a nice pension and then working for high pay for the private defense companies. The killers think they will be admired, but they are just tools and may even be pushed out.

ChaoKrungThep , 19 minutes ago link

Yep. No rape fun, no genocide, can't even bayonet a pregnant girl without the CO gettin' pissed. I'm joining the circus.

bismillah , 31 minutes ago link

Interestingly, through all the US bombing and killing, the population of Afghanistan has increased from about 19 million in 2001 to about 37 million today, nearly doubling during the senseless US attacks on their culture and people.

Fantasy Free Economics , 34 minutes ago link

Sometimes much can be learned by asking simple questions. Why? Simple questions most often have answers. Complex questions emerge because folks can't bear to hear the answers to the simple ones. A simple question that would be good to ask now is. Why are we fighting in Afghanistan? http://quillian.net/blog/your-punishment-for-believing-lies/

artistant , 38 minutes ago link

ALL wars are EVIL. Period .

[Aug 03, 2019] Looks like the> US withdrawal from the JCPOA with Iran might have been co-ordinated with the western European signatories

Aug 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ghost Ship , Aug 3 2019 10:55 utc | 72

BTW, it has become very clear to me that the US withdrawal from the JCPOA with Iran was co-ordinated with the western European signatories (France, United Kingdom, Germany and EU) so that "maximum pressure" can be maintained on Iran while F/UK/DE/EU do nothing to honour their commitments at the same time making it appear that it's Iran in breach rather than the US/F/UK/DE/EU. Iran is aware of this and taking action to ensure its preservation . War is coming and F/UY/DE/EU will be involved on the side of the Great Satan.

[Aug 03, 2019] Would Biden Derail Trump's Election Strategy by Hunter DeRensis

Aug 03, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

With the exception of criminal justice reform Trump proved to be very weak, impulsive and inefficient President. His neocon foreign policy team is disgusting and his team includes several Iraq war relics - who by Nierenberg tribunal standard are war criminals. His economic team is 100% pure neoliberals and criminals, who managed to escaped justice. They are completely hostile to the interests of working people and lower middle class who ensured Trump victory in 2016. He capitulation to neocon and licking Israel lobby are disgusting an. he completely betrayed his 2016 agenda becoming kind of Republican Barak Obama.

Also, if the economics slides into recession due to his "containment of China" steps his re-election changes will diminish significantly.

But I strongly doubt that Biden can win against Trump. Warren probably can, but not Biden. also bind is an Iraq war supporter and as such is yet another war criminal.

Trump's personality and campaign strategy have always favored offense over defense, putting opponents back on their heels through a barrage of attacks. Facing a moderate candidate would complicate that.

After the second round of Democratic debates earlier this week, President Donald Trump hosted a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, that provides a window into his reelection strategy. "But there never has been a movement like this. This is a movement the likes of which they've never seen before, maybe anywhere, but certainly in this country," Trump said, embracing his designation as leader of a populist movement. "You came from the mountains, and the valleys, and the rivers, and you came, I mean look, from wherever you came from, there were a lot of you."

It was non-urban areas that elected Trump in 2016, and it will likely have to be what wins him reelection in 2020. Despite losing the popular vote by three million, Trump won a solid margin in the electoral college by marginally increasing vote tallies in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

"I was watching the so-called debate last night. And I also watched the night before. That was long, long television. And the Democrats spent more time attacking Barack Obama than they did attacking me, practically," said Trump.

[Aug 03, 2019] Democratic Party under Clinton and Obama was converted into the party of war and neocolonialism

Aug 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

nottheonly1 , Aug 2 2019 19:08 utc | 9

While I am aware of Eric Zuesse being somewhat controversial to some people, I do concur with his assessment of the party that should be stripped of the 'Democratic' prefix. There is nothing democratic in this organization and its members are either willful stooges, or the most gullible people on earth - responsible for heinous crimes against humanity under the cover of 'humanitarian aid'.

To even consider to allow this organization to continue in its deception of the American electorate, shows the deepest infiltration of foreign influence, for whom this deception is not only natural, but also compulsive. You may have guessed it, it's not the Russians.

The Democratic Party's AIPAC Candidates

However, an article by the Strategic Culture Organization, linked to on MOA yesterday

The 'Special Relationship' is collapsing , goes even further. It makes obvious the unholy filth that has been plaguing humanity for a very long time. And while some may find it questionable, it turns out that the Queen does appear to be the longest sitting Fascist in the history of mankind.

Sometimes it is necessary to connect the dots beyond personal beliefs in regards to the real conspiracy against working people all over the world.

[Aug 03, 2019] Democratic party now is a war party. As such it does not need to win the elections to stay in power

Aug 03, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Emma Peele , August 2, 2019 at 16:05

Pro war democrats are now using the Russian ruse to go after anti war candidates like Gabbard.

It's despicable to even insinuate Gabbard is working for Putin or had any other rationale for going to Syria than seeking peace.

This alone proved Harris unfit for the presidency.

Her awful record speaks for itself.

[Aug 03, 2019] Obama s election and betrayal was probably the last successful bait and switch maneuver by Clinton wing of Democratic Party before it disintegrated in 2016

Notable quotes:
"... The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win and their efforts largely end with the election. ..."
Aug 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Aug 3 2019 15:24 utc | 99

oglalla @85

Yes!

Bemildred @87:

Well you don't trust any of them, but you vote for the ones pushing policy you want to see happen, and you vote for the ones that try to make that happen, and you abandon them immediately if they renege.

Obama's election and betrayal proved that this strategy doesn't work.

Tulsi is not anti-war', she's anti- dumb wars . Just as Colin Powell was ('Powell Doctrine' LOL). Just as Obama was ("don't do stupid stuff"). Just as Trump is (amid howls of "isolationist!" LOL).

The fact is, every candidate will salute the flag as soon as the requisite false flag outrage occurs.

Furthermore, even if you ardently support Tulsi because she voices something that appears to be anti-war, you have to contend with passionate supporters of other candidates: those who want a candidate of color, those who want an older more experienced candidate, those who want a women candidate; those who want a socialist candidate, etc. In this way the electorate is played against each other and in the end the establishment's favored candidate emerges naturally as the "democratic choice" (with the help of establishment money and media support) .

Relying on voting for change is not enough . There has to be independent Movements for each fundamental change: Democracy, Anti-war; Economic fairness. Like the Yellow Vest Movement.

The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win and their efforts largely end with the election.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

[Aug 03, 2019] ENOUGH AND NOT TOO MUCH By Patrick Armstrong - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Aug 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

ENOUGH AND NOT TOO MUCH By Patrick Armstrong

Russianbear

(First published at Strategic Culture Foundation, I put it here to see what the Committee thinks about it )

Moscow will not engage in an exhausting arms race, and the country's military spending will gradually decrease as Russia does not seek a role as the "world gendarme," President Vladimir Putin said. Moscow is not seeking to get involved in a "pointless" new arms race, and will stick to "smart decisions" to strengthen its defensive capabilities, Putin said on Friday during an annual extended meeting of the Defense Ministry board. "Intelligence, brains, discipline and organization" must be the cornerstones of the country's military doctrine, the Russian leader said. The last thing that Russia needs is an arms race that would "drain" its economy, and Moscow sure does not want that "in any scenario," Putin pointed out.

RT, 22 December 2017

It's easy to forget it today, but the USSR was, in its time, an "exceptionalist" country. It was the world's first socialist country – the " bright future "; it set an example for all to follow, it was destined by History. It had a mission and was required by History to assist any country that called itself "socialist". The USSR had bases and interests all over the world. As the 1977 USSR Constitution said :

the Soviet state, a new type of state, the basic instrument for defending the gains of the revolution and for building socialism and communism. Humanity thereby began the epoch-making turn from capitalist to socialism.

A novus ordo seclorum indeed.

Russia, however, is just Russia. There is no feeling in Moscow that Russia must take the lead any place but Russia itself. One of the reasons, indeed, why Putin is always talking about the primacy of the UN, the independence of nation states, the impermissibility to interfere in internal activities – the so-called " Westphalian " position – is that he remembers the exceptionalist past and knows that it led to a dead end . Moscow has no interest in going abroad in search of internationalist causes.

Internationalism/exceptionalism and nationalism: the two have completely different approaches to constructing a military. The first is obsessed with " power projection ", " full spectrum superiority ", it imagines that its hypertrophied interests are challenged all over the planet. Its wants are expensive, indeterminate, unbounded. The other is only concerned with dealing with enemies in its neighbourhood. Its wants are affordable, exact, finite. The exceptionalist/interventionist has everything to defend everywhere; the nationalist has one thing to defend in one place. It is much easier and much cheaper to be a nationalist: the exceptionalist/interventionist USA spends much more than anyone else but always needs more ; nationalist Russia can cut its expenditure .

The USSR's desire to match or exceed the USA in all military areas was a contributing factor to the collapse of its alliance system and the USSR itself. Estimates are always a matter for debate, especially in a command economy that hid its numbers (even when they were calculable), but a common estimate is a minimum of 15% of the USSR's production went to the military. But the true effort was probably higher. The USSR was involved all over the world shoring up socialism's "bright future" and that cost it at home.

Putin & Co's "bright future" is for Russia only and the world may do as it wants about any example or counterexample it may imagine there. While Putin may occasionally indulge himself by offering opinions about liberalism and oped writers gas on about the Putin/Trump populism threat , Putin & Co are just trying to do what they think best for Russia with, as their trust ratings suggest (in contrast with those of the rulers of the "liberal" West), the support and agreement of most Russians.

The military stance of the former exceptionalist country is all gone. As the USSR has faded away, so have its overseas bases and commitments: the Warsaw Pact is gone together with the forward deployment of Soviet armies; there are no advisors in Vietnam or Mozambique; Moscow awaits with bemusement the day next January when the surviving exceptionalist power and its minions will have been in Afghanistan twice as long as the USSR was. The United States, still exceptionalist, still imagining it is spreading freedom and democracy, preventing war and creating stability , has bases everywhere and thinks that it must protect "freedom of navigation" to and from China in the South China Sea. It has yet to learn the futility of seeing oneself as The World's Example.

Putin & Co have learned: Russia has no World-Historical purpose and its military is just for Russia. They understand what this means for Russia's Armed Forces:

Moscow doesn't have to match the US military; it just has to checkmate it.

And it doesn't have to checkmate it everywhere, only at home. The US Air Force can rampage anywhere but not in Russia's airspace; the US Navy can go anywhere but not in Russia's waters. It's a much simpler job and it costs much less than what Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev were attempting; it's much easier to achieve; it's easier to plan and carry out. The exceptionalist/interventionist has to plan for Everything; the nationalist for One Thing.

Study the enemy, learn what he takes for granted and block it. And the two must haves of American conventional military power as it affects Russia are 1) air superiority and 2) assured, reliable communications; counter those and it's checkmated: Russia doesn't have to equal or surpass the US military across the board, just counter its must haves .

Russia's comprehensive and interlocking air defence weaponry is well known and well respected: it covers the spectrum from defences against ballistic missiles to small RPVs, from complex missile/radar sets to MANPADS; all of it coordinated, interlocking with many redundancies. We hear US generals complaining about air defence bubbles and studies referring to Russia's " anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) exclusion zones ". Russian air defence has not been put to the full-scale test but we have two good indications of its effectiveness. The first was the coordinated RPV attack on Russian bases in Syria last year in which seven were shot down and six taken over , three of them landed intact . Then, in the FUKUS attack of April 2018, the Russians say the Syrian AD system (most of which is old but has benefited from Russian coordination) shot down a large number of the cruise missiles. ( FUKUS' claims are not believable ).

The other area, about which even less is known are Russian electronic warfare capabilities: " eye-watering " says a US general; " Right now in Syria we are operating in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet from our adversaries. They are testing us everyday, knocking our communications down, disabling our EC-130s, etcetera ." Of course, what the Americans know is only what Russia wants them to know. There is speculation about an ability to spoof GPS signals . AEGIS-equipped warships seem to have trouble locating themselves ( HNoMS Helge Ingstad ) or avoiding being run into ( USS Lake Champlain , USS John McCain , USS Fitzgerald ). Bad seamanship may, of course, be the cause and that's what the US investigations claim . So more rumour than fact but a lot of rumour.

In the past two or three decades US air power has operated with impunity; it has assumed that all GPS-based systems (and there are many) will operate as planned and that communications will be free and clear. Not against Russia. With those certainties removed, the American war fighting doctrine will be left scrabbling.

But AD and EW are not the only Russian counters. When President Bush pulled the USA out of the ABM Treaty in 2001 , Putin warned that Russia would have to respond. Mutual Assured Destruction may sound crazy but there's a stability to it: neither side, under any circumstance, can get away with a first strike; therefore neither will try it. Last year we met the response : a new ICBM, a hypersonic re-entry vehicle, a nuclear-powered cruise missile with enormous flight time and a similar underwater cruise missile. No defence will stop them and so MAD returns. A hypersonic anti-shipping missile will keep the US Navy out of Russian waters. And, to deal with the US Army's risible ground forces in Europe , with or without NATO's other feeble forces , Russia has re-created the First Guards Tank Army . Checkmate again.

No free pass for US air power, strained and uncertain communications, a defeated ground attack and no defence against Russian nuclear weapons. That's all and that's enough.

And that is how Moscow does it while spending much less money than Washington. It studies Washington's strengths and counters them: "smart decisions". Washington is starting to realise Russia's military power but it is blinded and can only see its reflection in the mirror: the so-called " rising threat from Russia " would be no threat to a Washington that stayed at home.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

- Sun Tzu


ted richard , 02 August 2019 at 04:19 PM

he is of course correct in his over all views. russian missile and EW technology is already, today, at least a generation ahead of what the pentagon fields for combat. rendering effective pentagon military power projection neutered against both russia and china as well as any ally they choose to support (think syria for sure, iran?, venezuela?)

the problem washington faces is they sold out the federal government decades ago to banking and corporate interest which as time has proven repeatedly are NOT aligned with the best interests of the american citizenry, and like anyone who sups with the devil a bargain is a bargain, once taken there is no going back.

the problem for washington is that banking and corporate interests require plunder to operate properly as currently structured. maximize short term gain for private ownership while either put off long terms costs (pollution etc) well into the future or like in 2008 socialize the losses across the entire tax payer (a euphemism for serf) base while handily keeping all those fed vomited bailouts private.

as russia, china, iran, venezuela erect signs backed up by force saying.."this is a plunder free zone" and, what with unencumbered assets becoming ever harder to locate for anglo american capitalism a crisis is emerging as forward motion (real growth) slows to a crawl or goes below zero which renders all the debt entangled corporations, especially governments and citizens susceptible to gravity once the trigger of ''no confidence''' hits the public consciousness. increasing debt is directly correlated to decreasing growth need to sustain the debt load. like unsuccessfully dieting a vicious circle.

all russia and china have to do to prevail over washington and its empire at this point is WAIT.... while keeping their swords bright and their domestic intentions true (by taking care of their own).

gravity once widespread public no confidence emerges will do all heavy lifting.

The Twisted Genius , 02 August 2019 at 04:25 PM
Excellent analysis, Patrick. It shows what can be accomplished when you don't blow your whole wad on force projection and seeking full spectrum dominance at the same time. Seeking dominant capability at our borders and territorial waters is doable, but projecting that all over the world is a losing proposition. The Russian strategy reminds me of the Swiss defensive model.

BTW, while the Russian bears and our Grizzlies are both brown bears, they are different species.

Patrick Armstrong -> The Twisted Genius ... , 02 August 2019 at 06:07 PM
I've always been intrigued by Switzerland -- more guns than anywhere but pretty peaceful; really understands neutrality (which is actually a pretty cold-blooded position). I remember reading some time ago that Switzerland General Guisan (hah! name just came to me, ultimate senility is at least a week away!) told the Germans that, if they invaded, the Swiss would blow the tunnels thereby rendering Switzerland useless to an invader.

Never seen so many measelshafts as there. (You old Cold Warriors might recognise the term from Germany back in The Day (not entirely sure of the spelling).

But definitely a country that minds its own business but makes sure its more expensive to conquer than it's worth. Finland is (or was) another example. (Which is why it's so disappointing to see the current rulers in Helsinki sucking up to NATO.)

Faugh Sir! Wikipedia says a clades not a species.

Patrick Armstrong -> MP98... , 02 August 2019 at 06:11 PM
Well, many of us will live to see whether that's correct or not. My assumption is that China is so arrogant (Middle Kingdom means between Heaven and Earth) that they really don't care what the rest of us do as long as business happens.

But ya gotta admit that the USA/UK/West/Whatever-you-want-to-call-it rule has been pretty disastrous.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jihadists+us+embassy+poll+tripoli&t=ffnt&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fa.abcnews.go.com%2Fimages%2FInternational%2Fatm_libya_140901_16x9_992.jpg

MP98 said in reply to Patrick Armstrong ... , 02 August 2019 at 10:58 PM
Got me there.
The western alliance - since the fall of the USSR - has been pretty useless if not downright dangerous.
As for China, they may have gone too far in that "inscrutable oriental" act and begun to believe their own BS.
Dao Gen said in reply to MP98... , 02 August 2019 at 10:57 PM
Throughout its long history China has never tried to dominate foreign countries. It never tried to conquer Japan, for example, which had some very productive silver and gold mines. On the other hand, the Mongols tried twice (unsuccessfully) to invade Japan during their short period of dominance. China did try meddle in Korean politics and use Korea as a buffer zone, though a few times the Koreans threw them out. China also tried to secure buffer zones in the west and south. Even now, though, they seem to feel that they are destined to be the world's middle country, and they don't seem to have a hankering to invade or directly control foreign areas to gain Lebensraum, even though they have a huge population. And they have no tradition of global colonialism. It is not in the culture or the economic history.

As for the New Silk Road, it does not seem to be as self-serving and manipulative as the DoS and Pompeo are constantly claiming. China has an ancient continuous culture, and the Chinese seem to know full well by now that lasting prosperity only happens when all parties prosper. Mutual dependence and mutual recognition are a deep part of Chinese and all east Asian cultures, though the Japanese samurai ethic briefly went berserk and disregarded that wisdom back in the 1930s! The Chinese spirit of innovation-within-tradition and dynamic business management (including state management) is also likely to keep them confident in their own ability to be creative and cutting edge, so they will probably be less likely to try to suppress other economies the way Trump is trying to do. I imagine Chinese leaders are hoping that mutual prosperity and interdependence will make ideologies like "full spectrum dominance" risible relics of the past. Culture is long, turbulence happens.

Linda , 02 August 2019 at 05:36 PM
I really learned a lot from this article. Thank you for posting
Tom Wonacott , 02 August 2019 at 06:01 PM
Moscow will not engage in an exhausting arms race, and the country's military spending will gradually decrease as Russia does not seek a role as the "world gendarme," President Vladimir Putin said

While Vladimir Putin is one of the most astute observers of foreign policy in the world (running circles around Obama and Trump), he is also a politician. I sincerely doubt that Russia gradually plans on decreasing spending on their military in any meaningful way. That is for home consumption because about 35-40 percent of Russians live on $300 per month or less. Putin's popularity is also dropping even though it remains quite high (Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia -- New Series: Nearly 40 Percent of Russians Subsist on Less than... https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/nearly-40-percent-of-russians-subsist.html?spref=tw):

Thirty-seven percent of Russians life on 19,000 rubles or less a month, Rosstat says, a figure that works out to a subsistence of ten US dollars or a less a day, 23.2 percent live on less than 15,000 rubles a month (under seven dollars a day); and 12 percent have incomes under 10,000 rubles a month (five dollars a day).
Patrick Armstrong -> Tom Wonacott... , 02 August 2019 at 06:17 PM
I'm coming to think that you are that rare species of a POLITE troll. Russians like VVP, they trust him and buy the package. And they get it that Russia is under attack (they aren't living in a news bubble. They see Western stuff.)

Nobody in the West comes anywhere close to his numbers.

PS Paul Goble just prints anti-Putin stuff and is mostly entertainment.

PPS. check my link to SIPRI on reductions.

rkka said in reply to Tom Wonacott... , 02 August 2019 at 07:26 PM
After 8 years of the governance of Boris Yeltsin & the Free Market Reformers, 30% of Russians were living on $1.50/day or less as their country unstoppably descended into social catastrophe & strategic irrelevance.

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/302220/

The place has since transformed, much for the better.

LA Sox Fan , 02 August 2019 at 07:44 PM
What happened to the USSR and it's empire should serve as a warning to the USA. We have two huge oceans defending us, yet we spend more to maintain our far flung empire than the USSR ever did. One day, the taxpayers of this country are no longer going to pay for an empire that they don't profit from.
ISL , 02 August 2019 at 10:05 PM
thanks for the analysis - a shame the general did not expand on what Russian capabilities iN EW were eye watering.

Interesting "The first was the coordinated RPV attack on Russian bases in Syria last year in which seven were shot down and six taken over, three of them landed intact." According to the article, the drones were controlled from 100 km distant. This really doesnt sound like jihadi technology. So very interesting that Russia was able to take over the RPVs which were either US or Israeli...

ISL said in reply to ISL... , 03 August 2019 at 11:17 AM
should have added the citation from your piece:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201801081060595102-russia-drone-attack-hmeimim/

John Minehan , 03 August 2019 at 07:31 AM
The US (with those two oceans as its eastern and western boundaries) is a maritime power.

We are also still a sufficiently important maritime power that we have some level of responsibility for maintaining freedom of the seas (as with the issues with the pirates operating out of Puntland in southern Somalia in the late 2000s), a situation that has existed (in some form) since the Roman Republic made the Med "Mare Nostrum."

Russia has always been (mostly) a land power.

Given this, the US (even if it does not "seek to fight monsters" in Nietzsche's terms) has the Force Projection task thrust upon it in a way Russia doesn't.

Even if we sought to be non-interventionist (as I think we should), we still have more on our plate than Russia. (The PRC has the same inherent problem.)

Since we have a force projection mission thrust upon us as a maritime power, full spectrum dominance (in at least the areas where our ships operate) is an implied task.

So, I think the two thoughts I have about this article are:

1) we have broader defense needs than the Russians, based on being a maritime power; and

2) since our plate is already full, it makes little sense to add to that burden.

Bill H -> John Minehan... , 03 August 2019 at 10:21 AM
Britain is an island. Australia, while designated a continent, is also an island. Please compare their "maritime power" status to ours, their defense spending as a percentage of gdp to ours, and their number of foreign bases to ours, and explain.
John Minehan said in reply to Bill H ... , 03 August 2019 at 11:00 AM
Please compare those things to similar sized maritime nations and evaluate this in the context of the former preeminence of the Royal Navy and its adjunct forces.

For extra credit consider the likelihood that the Royal Navy is to some degree an adjunct of the US Navy,

John Minehan , 03 August 2019 at 10:18 AM
This is interesting: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/03/russia-separatism-vladimir-putin-227498

As, for example, the history of the Western Roman Empire indicates (with the possible exception of the Five Good Emperors and the early Tetrarchy during and immediately following the reign of Diocletian), authoritarian states have some problems with succession.

Putin seems to have more of a "read" than any other world leader on the global stage right now, but the answer to who follows him is likely be: "To the strongest."

Patrick Armstrong -> John Minehan... , 03 August 2019 at 11:01 AM
Not very interesting. Russia was "finished" 2 decades ago and the same stuff is endlessly recycled.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/05/russia-is-finished/302220/
John Minehan said in reply to Patrick Armstrong ... , 03 August 2019 at 02:22 PM
Russia is interesting, in a lot of ways.

Putin has been a smarter, more discerning leader than most presently on the world stage and that has lent credibility. He has an advantage, as a retired LTC in the old KGB of having some level of training and experience in both geo-politics and reading people and assessing strengths and weaknesses.

On the other hand, the demographics may actually be worse than the US or the EU (See, e.g., https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP162/index2.html.)

Even given that, Russia has a decided advantage over many places in terms of natural resources and in controlling what may be thought of as "global key terrain" (Mackinder's "Heartland").

They have a kind of lasting Jominian advantage. With BRI/OBOR, they are somewhat in the position of the guy in the Western who owns the land the Railroad is going to come through (or, possibly, not).

Given its size, position and history, it is questionable if Russia is ever "finished," but while it has come back from its dire position 20 years ago, it still is notably weaker than it was in the 1980s. As Mr. Armstrong's article indicates that may matter less than fact it appears strong enough to advance its own interests.

[Aug 03, 2019] Officials Say US Headed Toward Blockade of Venezuela

Aug 03, 2019 | news.antiwar.com

US sees 'quarantine' as another path to imposing regime change

Jason Ditz Posted on August 2, 2019 August 2, 2019 Categories News Tags Trump , Venezuela An unnamed senior administration official says that the Trump Administration is seriously considering imposing a naval blockade on Venezuela , saying President Maduro has a "short window" to voluntarily resign before the US makes such a move.

Trump had recently told reporters he was considering a naval blockade or full "quarantine" of Venezuela as the latest effort to try to impose regime change, something the US announced it had recognized month ago but which so far hasn't happened.

President Maduro denounced the comments , and called on his ambassador to complain to the UN Security Council about the "illegal" US threat to blockade the Venezuelan coastline. Maduro added it was "clearly illegal."

Clearly illegal as a practical matter is likely to be very much beside the point for US policy. Previous indications were that Trump had become bored with Venezuela because of the lack of progress, and it's likely he'll only try to impose a regime change in this manner if he believes it will work.

[Aug 03, 2019] Gareth Porter on John Bolton's Role in the Iranian Tanker Crisis The Scott Horton Show

Jul 30, 2019 | scotthorton.org

Scott interviews Gareth Porter about John Bolton's most recent efforts to raise tensions with Iran. He and Scott speculate about Iran's ability to disrupt international trade in the region by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that they would do so given the risks of inciting more serious conflict as a result.

Discussed on the show:

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on the national security state, and author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare . Follow him on Twitter @GarethPorter and listen to Gareth's previous appearances on the Scott Horton Show.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs , by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT , by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State , by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com ; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom ; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott ; and LibertyStickers.com .

Donate to the show through Patreon , PayPal , or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

[Aug 02, 2019] On the nature of Trump affilliation with Zionists

Aug 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dissident , says: July 29, 2019 at 10:37 pm GMT

@Miro23

Trump wasn't their candidate (which suggests that he's clean), and (so far) he hasn't enabled a war with Iran, so what happens with him is an open question.

I wonder what makes you (or anyone) so sure that "Trump wasn't their candidate". From the time that he announced his candidacy in 2015 to the present moment, I have never found implausible the possibility that the President may be controlled opposition. Or, more mundanely, simply the self-promoting carnival barker that just about all evidence strongly suggests that he always was. How closely have you looked at Mr. Trump's actual record, starting from before he announced?

And, to what extent, since becoming President, has Mr. Trump actually opposed the Globo-Homo agenda?

Miro23 , says: July 30, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
@Dissident

Trump wasn't their candidate (which suggests that he's clean), and (so far) he hasn't enabled a war with Iran, so what happens with him is an open question.

I wonder what makes you (or anyone) so sure that "Trump wasn't their candidate".

The Deep State, Empire, Zio-Glob, or whatever you want to call it, was obviously 100% behind Hillary Clinton. She and her husband were totally blackmailable, and the media fury when she lost was something to see.

For his part, Trump looked surprised (and not too happy) that he won. It's clear that he has links to the Deep State, but he was set up to lose (the media from the start presenting him as the joke candidate – the irrelevant clown). The script was for serious, boring and ineffectual Jeb Bush to lose to the heroic champion of Social Justice, and first woman President Hillary Clinton.

When Trump actually found himself President (and could see the trouble he was in) – for survival, he fully committed to Israel and the Zionists. The idea was that they would defend him , against their Cultural Bolshevik cousins in the US. The Adelsons and the Israelis love him while the US Cultural Bolshevik Jews hate him.

The US public are just extras in this show. If he cared about them he would do something about 9/11 – which he won't. He's a high rise developer from New York and knows better than anyone that 9/11 was all fakery. Here's his first public reaction (on the day):

[Aug 02, 2019] In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class

Aug 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: July 30, 2019 at 1:16 pm GMT

@Miro23 No, some saw this well in advance:

"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."

Linh Dinh, "Orlando Shooting Means Trump for President," @ The Unz Review (June 12, 2016).

anonymous [239] Disclaimer , says: July 30, 2019 at 2:01 pm GMT
Note how the 'free press' of the US has been not only complicit in all this every step of the way but is coordinated with it, staying silent about things in front of its nose and launching propaganda campaigns on cue. Obviously the media is in close cooperation with elements of the political establishment. Oh, but we have the freest media in the world. I know so because I read it in the newspaper.

[Aug 02, 2019] Neo-Nazi Azov National Corps march/rally in Odessa to celebrate the 5th year anniversary of the far-right's instituting "Ukrainian order" [Kaganat of Nuland] in the city via the massacre of 40+ people in the Trade Unions House on May 2, 2014

Aug 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: August 2, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT

@Fran Taubman "Neo-Nazi Azov National Corps march/rally in Odessa to celebrate the 5th year anniversary of the far-right's instituting "Ukrainian order" [Kaganat of Nuland] in the city via the massacre of 40+ people in the Trade Unions House on May 2, 2014."

https://twitter.com/mossrobeson__/status/1124048873226481669/video/1

annamaria , says: August 2, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT
@Fran Taubman Zionist project in Ukraine: "Some of the people in the group [supporters of the Kiev regime installed by Nuland-Kagan] were wearing ultra-nationalist Right Sector movement insignia, were armed with chains and bats and carried shields."
https://www.rt.com/news/156592-odessa-activists-burnt-alive/

[Aug 02, 2019] Barr will start a criminal investigation on Obama, for attempting to swing the 2016 election using the deep sate, after Labor Day!

Aug 02, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> im1dc... , July 25, 2019 at 05:59 PM

Barr will start a criminal investigation on Obama, for attempting to swing the 2016 election using the deep sate, after Labor Day!

If CNN were not running the DEM debates someone would ask Biden "what did you know when about the FBI malfeasances?"

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to ilsm... , July 26, 2019 at 06:55 AM
The investigations into
the Russia investigations, explained
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/29/18634410/russia-investigations-barr-trump-explained
via @voxdotcom - May 29, 2019

"INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS," President Donald Trump tweeted in April, days before the Justice Department released the Mueller report to the public.

Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have argued throughout the years-long investigation into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia that the entire probe began based on shoddy intelligence and that federal law enforcement illegally spied on members of the campaign.

But now that special counsel Robert Mueller's probe has concluded -- and Trump has a particularly receptive attorney general running the Justice Department -- the push to "investigate the investigators" has moved from rhetoric to reality.

There are several reviews of the Russia probe currently underway, both of which predate Barr. They include one by the Justice Department's internal watchdog, whose findings are expected in the coming weeks, and another inquiry overseen by Utah federal prosecutor John Huber, which was prompted by Republican complaints about the Russia probe and the handling of Hillary Clinton-related scandals.

Attorney General William Barr is also conducting his own inquiry. Barr tapped the US attorney for Connecticut to help examine the origins of the Russia probe.

But media reports suggest the AG is closely invested in this process. And last week, the president gave Barr's inquiry a substantial boost. At Barr's request, Trump signed a memo ordering US intelligence agencies to cooperate with Barr and giving the AG sweeping powers to declassify intelligence documents as part of his audit. ...

im1dc -> ilsm... , July 26, 2019 at 08:25 AM
Try to keep up, ilsm.

Barr already has an investigation on Obama.

It can't go anywhere because there is no there there.

Recall of Trump's Birther lie and you have Barr's anti-DEM/Obama/Hillary/Mueller BS.

ilsm -> im1dc... , July 26, 2019 at 07:24 PM
there is so much more to the Steele dossier and the crooked FISA.....

there are a number of former FBI and CIA operators who should be wearing tracking bracelets.

why Mueller never looked in to the reasons there is so much spied data on Trump?

kurt -> ilsm... , July 30, 2019 at 01:48 PM
You mean the FISA warrant that happened a full 4 months prior to Steele Dossier even existing? None of what you claim here makes sense unless you are trying to justify these (and other) illegal acts by POTUS.
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to ilsm... , July 27, 2019 at 05:29 AM
Trump Tries to Think Up Crime
by Obama, Comes Up With 'Wrote Book'
NY Mag - Jonathan Chait

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/trump-investigate-obama-book.html

... Trump believes that everybody is a crook and views demands that he follow the law as mere hypocrisy. Here he pivots immediately from his rage that he is being asked to comply with basic ethical norms -- in this same interview Trump threatened to raise tariffs on French wine, a move that would benefit Trump's own winery -- to insinuations that President Obama probably committed financial crimes, too.

Trump's claim that Republicans never investigated Obama is especially bizarre. Congress held eight separate investigations on Benghazi alone. The redundancy was deemed necessary because conservatives simply refused to accept findings that no scandal had taken place.

Trump, reaching for evidence that Obama probably did something just as unethical as Trump did, comes up with Obama's book. You can almost see the wheels turning in Trump's brain as he tries to summon some damning piece of evidence about his predecessor. ...

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , July 28, 2019 at 06:36 PM
Nixon did not use federal employees or money and was several layers above the break-in.

Obama at best can plead, I did not know........ which could only fly if Hillary and Holder were in charge.

kurt -> ilsm... , July 30, 2019 at 01:50 PM
None of this makes sense. The FISA warrant came after a Trump staffer drunkenly bragged about getting info from Russia. This has already been investigated by the FBI. Hint: Hannity, Levine, and Savage are propaganda mouthpieces. Stop listening to them.

[Aug 02, 2019] 1952: Mosaddeq Nationalization of Iran's Oil Industry Leads to Coup

Aug 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

James N. Kennett , says: August 1, 2019 at 12:41 am GMT

@lysias

I wonder how Eisenhower was persuaded to permit the 1953 coup in Iran.

The British wanted to preserve BP's oil concessions in Iran, but MI6 was not powerful enough to stage a coup without help from the CIA. So the Brits pretended that Mosaddegh leaned towards the Soviets, and the Americans pretended to believe them.

After the coup, the Shah's government transferred the majority of BP's rights to American oil companies. It would have been much better for the Brits if they had done a deal with Mosaddegh.

renfro , says: August 2, 2019 at 5:29 am GMT
@James N. Kennett 1952: Mosaddeq Nationalization of Iran's Oil Industry Leads to Coup

Time Magazine's Man of the Year cover for 1951. Mohammad Mosaddeq
]
Iranian President Mohammad Mosaddeq moves to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in order to ensure that more oil profits remain in Iran. His efforts to democratize Iran had already earned him being named Time Magazine's Man of the Year for 1951. After he nationalizes it, Mosaddeq realizes that Britain may want to overthrow his government, so he closes the British Embassy and sends all British civilians, including its intelligence operatives, out of the country.

Britain finds itself with no way to stage the coup it desires, so it approaches the American intelligence community for help. Their first approach results in abject failure when Harry Truman throws the British representatives out of his office, stating that "We don't overthrow governments; the United States has never done this before, and we're not going to start now."

After Eisenhower is elected in November 1952, the British have a much more receptive audience, and plans for overthrowing Mosaddeq are produced. The British intelligence operative who presents the idea to the Eisenhower administration later will write in his memoirs, "If I ask the Americans to overthrow Mosaddeq in order to rescue a British oil company, they are not going to respond. This is not an argument that's going to cut much mustard in Washington. I've got to have a different argument. I'm going to tell the Americans that Mosaddeq is leading Iran towards Communism." This argument wins over the Eisenhower administration, who promptly decides to organize a coup in Iran (see August 19, 1953). [Stephen Kinzer, 7/29/2003]

Entity Tags: Dwight Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, Muhammad Mosaddeq

Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, US-Iran (1952-1953)

[Aug 01, 2019] In Oct it will be 18 full years in Afghanistan. The US is not a learning organization.

Aug 01, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> im1dc... , August 01, 2019 at 04:22 AM

In Oct it will be 18 full years in Afghanistan. The US is not a learning organization.

If you trust the media, you trust the hugely funded propaganda machine that makes Goebbels look stone age primitive.

I am a bit sensitive this week, I am finishing Gloria Emerson's "Winner and Losers" scratching a lot of scars from Vietnam. Not easy reading if you changed your mind once the blither was exposed.

Somewhere over Delong's it was recommended and amazon had a hardcover for $1.56........

Bottomline from Winners and Losers: The blither is reminiscent and much of the news topics the same.

[Jul 31, 2019] Craig Murray worked on the laws of the sea. He calls the British heist of an Iran tanker illegal

Jul 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Petri Krohn , Jul 28 2019 19:46 utc | 2

Other issues:

Craig Murray worked on the laws of the sea. He calls the British heist of an Iran tanker illegal:
Tanker Seizures and the Threat to the Global Economy from Resurgent Imperialism

We still do not know how, when and where the Iranian tanker was captured. There are two mutually exclusive narratives.

1) Grace 1 "freely navigated into UK territorial waters" as Jeremy Hunt claims.

2) The capture of Grace 1 was ordered by the US long before Grace 1 entered the Strait. Panama revoked the ship's registration and Gibraltar changed its sanction laws.

Would the US know weeks in advance that Grace 1 is about to stop in Gibraltar? On the other hand, If Grace 1 had known that its registration had been revoked, would it not have avoided British waters.

I suspect Grace 1 was captured out on the Atlantic, days before the news was made public. The Royal Marines would then reprogram the automatic identification system (AIS) to show Gibraltar as the destination. We still have not heard from the crew. What is their story?

Thanks for the link to Craig Murray 's article. I have been collecting sources and analysis on the tanker seizures here .

Jen , Jul 28 2019 23:08 utc | 8

Petri Krohn @ 2:

If you know which shipping company owns a certain cargo ship or tanker, you can usually look up that company's database and find the ship's scheduled voyage. This is crucial knowledge because usually cargo ships will be carrying several lots of cargo to be offloaded at ports along the way, and new cargo taken on at the same time, so importers and exporters need to know exactly when the ship docks at X place and when it leaves. It would be very easy for the UK or the US to know in advance when the Grace 1 docks at Gibraltar; they only need to know who owns the tanker, find the owner's website and look up the schedules of all the owner's ships.

See here an example of how a company can choose a ship and a schedule that fits in with its import / export schedules. Another example here.

In fact the Grace 1 tanker might not have been the specific target; as long as there was a ship purportedly carrying Iranian oil passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, it would have been fair game. So all the British would have needed to know is which tanker or tankers from the Middle East would have been scheduled to dock in at Gibraltar and they get that information from the relevant port authorities.

[Jul 30, 2019] Empires in decline tend to behave badly

Notable quotes:
"... Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior. ..."
Jul 30, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

"Empires in decline tend to behave badly. Indeed, whether British, French or Russian, the twilight years of imperialism often brought brutal repression of subjects abroad, the suppression of civil liberties at home and general varieties of brutality toward foreigners, be they refugees or migrants.

Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior.

Aggressive wars of choice have ushered in rampant torture, atrocities in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the citizenry...

It's all connected. The empire -- all empires -- eventually come home."

Maj. Danny Sjursen, An American Tragedy: Empire at Home and Abroad

[Jul 30, 2019] Russia accuses US of hijacking ISIS oil trade in Syria

Notable quotes:
"... "Russia's Defence Ministry: US private military companies (w 3500+ mercenaries deployed) are busy plundering Syrian oil facilities under the guise of the international anti-terrorist coalition - this crude is being illegally sold and the revenues used to train more militants." ..."
Jul 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

psychohistorian , Jul 30 2019 2:28 utc | 56

Below is a ZH link about a potential Iran/Russia naval exercise in the Gulf

Iran, Russia Planning Joint Naval Drill In Contested Gulf Waters

This seems to say the relations between Iran and Russia are strong(er)

james , Jul 30 2019 2:37 utc | 57

syria

these messages from russia to the usa are getting more frequent.. how long before the shit hits the fan??

Russia accuses US of hijacking ISIS oil trade in Syria

karlof1 , Jul 30 2019 3:04 utc | 60
james @57--

Yep it sure seems like the Outlaw US Empire has taken over Daesh's oil smuggling racket. Here's more from the Russian Bear's mouth :

"Russia's Defence Ministry: US private military companies (w 3500+ mercenaries deployed) are busy plundering Syrian oil facilities under the guise of the international anti-terrorist coalition - this crude is being illegally sold and the revenues used to train more militants."

Meanwhile, another tweet advances an unconfirmed possibility of some sort of treaty to be signed tomorrow by Iran and Russia's Ministry of Defense. I shall watch for confirmation.

[Jul 30, 2019] Mystery Airstrikes On Iraqi Camp Were Israeli Stealth Jets In Anti-Iran Escalation

Jul 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Mystery Airstrikes On Iraqi Camp Were Israeli Stealth Jets In "Anti-Iran" Escalation

by Tyler Durden Tue, 07/30/2019 - 13:50 0 SHARES

Regional experts had immediately suspected the possibility of an Israeli air raid after a pro-Iranian militia arms depot in Iraq was obliterated during a mysterious attack on July 19 , and another reported follow-up attack this past Sunday.

The attack happened around 80 km from the Iranian border and 40 km north-east of Baghdad at Camp Ashraf, former home to the Iranian exile group Mojahedin-e Khalq, but now reportedly in the hands of Iranian intelligence and paramilitaries.

Speculation was rampant in the days that followed as to the source of the 'mysterious' air strikes - or what was also initially reported as a drone strike - however, some pointed the finger at an American operation targeting Iranian militants inside Iraq.

Israeli F-35 stealth fighters. File image: Israeli Defense Forces

But now Israeli and regional media, citing western diplomats, have confirmed it was a nearly unprecedented Israeli operation on Iraqi soil -- representing a major escalation and expansion of Israel's anti-Iran operations.

Israel reportedly launched a total of two separate air strike operations on the camp using its US-supplied F-35 stealth fighter jets.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz :

Israel has expanded the scope of its anti-Iranian attacks and struck targets in Iraq , the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Tuesday.

According to the report, which cites anonymous Western diplomats, Israel struck Iranian warehouses storing arms and missiles at Camp Ashraf , north-east of Baghdad, twice in the past month.

On July 19, the base was struck by an Israeli F-35 fighter jet, the sources added. The base was allegedly attacked again on Sunday.

The report alleges the primary target included a shipment of Iranian ballistic missiles which recently entered Iraq via the nearby Iranian border.

And though not confirmed, the report further claimed that "Iranian advisers" had been injured in the series of airstrikes.

Israel has over the past couple of years conducted "hundreds" of attacks inside Syria, which defense officials have claimed were primarily against Iranian and Hezbollah bases, but if this month's air strikes on Camp Ashraf are confirmed Israeli assaults, it would constitute a major widening in terms of the scope of Tel Aviv's "anti-Iran" targeting operations.

The news is also sure to enrage officials in Baghdad, who will mount protests defending Iraqi sovereignty. Israel hasn't mounted a known significant attack on Iraqi soil since the days of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

[Jul 30, 2019] The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy The American Conservative

Jul 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy Andrew Bacevich on his new left-right group, which is going hammer and tongs against the establishment on foreign policy. By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos July 30, 2019

Andrew J. Bacevich participates in a panel discussion at the U.S. Naval War College in 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Christian S. Eskelund/Released) For the last month, the foreign policy establishment has been abuzz over the new kid on the block: the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , named for John Quincy Adams. Adams, along with our first president George Washington, warned of foreign entanglements and the urge to go abroad in "search of monsters to destroy," lest America's fundamental policy "insensibly change from liberty to force . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit ."

Those in the foreign policy Blob have had different reactions to the "upstart" think tank. These are the preeminent organizations that stand imperious in size and square footage, but have lacked greatly in wisdom and clarity over the last 20 years. Quincy will stand apart from them in two significant ways: it is drawing its intellectual and political firepower from both the anti-war Left and the realist and restraint Right. And it is poised to support a new "responsible statecraft," one that challenges the conditions of endless war, including persistent American militarism here and abroad, the military industrial complex, and a doctrine that worships primacy and a liberal world order over peace and the sovereignty of other nations.

Quincy, which is rolling out its statement of principles this week (its official launch will be in the fall), is the brainchild of Trita Parsi, former head of the National Iranian-American Council, who saw an opening to bring together Left and Right academics, activists, and media disenchanted by both sides' pro-war proclivities. Together with Vietnam veteran and former Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (also a longtime TAC contributor), the Carnegie Endowment's Suzanne DiMaggio, Columbia University's Stephen Wertheim, and investigative journalist Eli Clifton, the group wants to serve as a counterweight to both liberal interventionists like the Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations, and the war hawks and neoconservatives of the Heritage Foundation and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

They've already taken hits from both sides of the establishment, dismissed brusquely as naive , or worse, isolationist (that swipe from neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose now-defunct Weekly Standard once ran a manifesto headlined "The Case for American Empire" ). The fact that Quincy will be funded by both George Soros on the Left and the Charles Koch Foundation on the Right has brought some rebuke from unfriendlies and even some friendlies. The former hate on one or the other powerful billionaire, while the latter are wary of Soros' intentions (he's has long been a financial supporter of "soft-power" democracy movements overseas, some of which have encouraged revolution and regime change).

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But Quincy's timing couldn't be more perfect. With a president in the White House who has promised to draw down U.S. involvement overseas (with the exception of his Iran policy, he has so far held to much of that pledge), and national conservatives coming around to TAC's long-held worldview on realism and restraint (and an increasing willingness to reach across the aisle to work with like-minded groups and individuals), Quincy appears poised to make some noise in Washington.

According to the group's new statement of principles , "responsible statecraft" 1) serves the public interest, 2) engages the world, 3) builds a peaceful world, 4) abhors war, and 5) is democratic.

Andrew Bacevich and Trita Parsi expanded on this further in a recent Q&A with TAC.

(Full disclosure: the author is on Quincy's steering committee and TAC also receives funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.)

TAC : Quincy's principles -- and thus it's name -- are rooted in the mission of "responsible statecraft." Can you give me a sense of what that means in practical terms, and why you settled on this phrasing for the institute?

AB: With the end of the Cold War, policy elites succumbed to an extraordinary bout of hubris, perhaps best expressed in the claim that history had designated the United States as its "indispensable nation." Hubris bred recklessness and irresponsibility, with the Iraq war of 2003 as Exhibit A. We see "responsible statecraft" as the necessary antidote. Its abiding qualities are realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement. While the QI is not anti-military, we are wary of war except when all other alternatives have been exhausted. We are acutely conscious of war's tendency to produce unintended consequences and to exact unexpectedly high costs.

TAC : Quincy is a trans-partisan effort that is bringing together Left and Right for common cause. Is it a challenge?

AB: It seems apparent to us that the myriad foreign policy failures and disappointments of the past couple of decades have induced among both progressives and at least some conservatives a growing disenchantment with the trajectory of U.S. policy. Out of that disenchantment comes the potential for a Left-Right coalition to challenge the status quo. The QI hopes to build on that potential.

TAC : Two of the principles take direct aim at the current foreign policy status quo: responsible statecraft abhors war, and responsible statecraft is democratic (calling out a closed system in which Americans have had little input into the wars waged in their names). How much of what Quincy aims to do involves upending conventional norms, particularly those bred and defended by the Washington "Blob"?

AB: In a fundamental sense, the purpose of the QI is to educate the American people and their leaders regarding the Blob's shortcomings, exposing the deficiencies of old ideas and proposing new ones to take their place.

TAC: That said, how much blowback do you anticipate from the Washington establishment, particularly those think tanks and individuals whose careers and very existence depend on the wheels of militarism forever turning?

AB : Plenty. Proponents of the status quo are entrenched and well-funded. Breaking old habits -- for example, the practice of scattering U.S. military bases around the world -- will not come easily.

TAC : There has been much ado about your two primary funders -- Charles Koch and George Soros. What do you say to critics who suggest you will be tied to/limited by their agendas?

AB: Our funding sources are not confined to Koch and Soros and we will continue to broaden our support base. It's not for me to speak for Koch or Soros. But my guess is they decided to support the QI because they support our principles. They too believe in policies based on realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement.

TAC : Better yet, how did you convince these two men to fund something together?

TP: It is important to recognize that they have collaborated in the past before, for instance on criminal justice reform. This is, however, the first time they've come together to be founding funders of a new entity. I cannot speak for them, but I think they both recognize that there currently is a conceptual deficit in our foreign policy. U.S. elite consensus on foreign policy has collapsed and the void that has been created begs to be filled. But it has to be filled with new ideas, not just a repackaging of old ideas. And those new ideas cannot simply follow the old political alignments. Transpartisan collaboration is necessary in order to create a new consensus. Koch and Soros are showing tremendous leadership in that regard.

TAC : The last refuge of a scorned hawk is to call his critics "isolationist." It would seem as though your statement of principles takes this on directly. How else does Quincy take this often-used invective into account?

AB : We will demonstrate through our own actions that the charge is false.

TAC : Critics (including James Traub, in his own piece on Quincy ) say that Washington leaders, once in office, are "mugged by reality," suggesting that the idea of rolling back military interventions and avoiding others sounds good on paper but presidents like Barack Obama had no choice, that this is all about protecting interests and hard-nosed realism. The alternative is a bit naive. How do you respond?

AB: Choices are available if our leaders have the creativity to recognize them and the gumption to pursue them. Obama's patient and resolute pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal affirms this possibility. The QI will expose the "we have no choice" argument as false. We will identify and promote choice, thereby freeing U.S. policy from outmoded habits and stale routines.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is e xecutive editor at . Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC

[Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Ukraine became a geopolitical pawn. In signing up with the US and EU, there is one guaranteed loser – the Ukrainian people.
Notable quotes:
"... His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the Donbass rebels and with Moscow, ..."
"... But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian citizens. ..."
"... Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence. ..."
"... Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question -- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold War. ..."
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com . ..."
Jul 29, 2019 | www.thenation.com

The election of Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who won decisively throughout most of the country, represents the possibility of peace with Russia, if it -- and he -- are given a chance. His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the Donbass rebels and with Moscow, notably provisions associated with the European-sponsored Minsk Accords. Zelensky, on the other hand, has made peace (along with corruption) his top priority and indeed spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on July 11. The nearly six-year war having become a political, diplomatic, and financial drain on his leadership, Putin welcomed the overture.

But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian citizens. (Washington has previously had some shameful episodes of collusion with these Ukrainian neo-Nazis .) As for Putin, who does not fully control the Donbass rebels or its leaders, he "can never be seen at home," as I pointed out more than two years ago , "as 'selling out' Russia's 'brethren' anywhere in southeast Ukraine." Indeed, his own implacable nationalists have made this a litmus test of his leadership.

Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence.

Our hope should be that Trump breaks with that long-standing bipartisan policy, as he did with policy toward North Korea, and puts America squarely on the side of peace in Ukraine. (For now, Zelensky has set aside Moscow's professed irreversible "reunification" with Crimea, as should Washington.) A new US policy must include recognition, previously lacking, that the citizens of war-ravaged Donbass are not primarily "Putin's stooges" but people with their own legitimate interests and preferences, even if they favor Russia. Here too Zelensky is embarking on a new course. Poroshenko waged an "anti-terrorist" war against Donbass: the new president is reaching out to its citizens even though most of them were unable to vote in the election.

Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question -- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold War.

This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .

[Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson

Highly recommended!
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
Feb 01, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial institutions.

This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.

The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together – the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.

The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.

Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy.

In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic" country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization. The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.

A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.

This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least irony as its dialectical path unfolds.

For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.

The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.

Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.

After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.

Dismantling International Law and Its Courts

Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish violators).

Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.

At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism. It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.

Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." [1]

Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."

That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."

What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."

The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.

Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT

Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.

Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe, and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall Street banks were normally name as paying agents.

That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown, the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United States and anywhere else they were able.

This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.

But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions – a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check that the depositor had written.

England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."

Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."

This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine. [4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1. [5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.

If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way to defend itself.

Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.

Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT. But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.

On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe.

I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership. For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants of death.

The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.

The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.

It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.

Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.

It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated." [5]

Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts, against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks like this will be a year of global fracture.

It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're our bastards."

Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.

The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.

Footnotes

[1] "It Can't be Fixed: Senior ICC Judge Quits in Protest of US, Turkish Meddling," January 31, 2019.

[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross, "Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.

[3] ibid

[4] Corina Pons, Mayela Armas, "Exclusive: Venezuela plans to fly central bank gold reserves to UAE – source," Reuters, January 31, 2019.

[5] Constanze Stelzenmüller, "America's policy on Europe takes a nationalist turn," Financial Times, January 31, 2019.

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is "and forgive them their debts": Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year< Jointly posted with Hudson's website


doug , February 1, 2019 at 8:03 am

We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Yes we do. no escape? that I see

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 9:43 am

Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.

If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.

We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians. Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I read somewhere that the Czarist Imperial Army had a saying . . . "Quantity has a Quality all its own".

... ... ...

Cal2 , February 1, 2019 at 2:54 pm

Drumlin,

If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver them, they have my support and more power to them.

That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.

If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump can have it, because it won't be any worse.

I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think more and more people are going to vote the same way.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 8:56 pm

Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran, etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems, etc.

And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl up out of it.

My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic Emirate of Jihadistan.

Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.

The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton or Obama all over again.

Quanka , February 1, 2019 at 8:29 am

I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?

The Rev Kev , February 1, 2019 at 8:43 am

Here is a bit more info on it but Trump is already threatening Europe if they use it. That should cause them to respect him more:

https://www.dw.com/en/instex-europe-sets-up-transactions-channel-with-iran/a-47303580

LP , February 1, 2019 at 9:14 am

The NYT and other have coverage.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/world/europe/europe-trade-iran-nuclear-deal.amp.html

Louis Fyne , February 1, 2019 at 8:37 am

arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption (by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.

For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline, natural gas or tube socks either.

Mel , February 1, 2019 at 9:18 am

It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.

Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority.

integer , February 1, 2019 at 8:43 am

Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.

What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?

Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times.

James , February 1, 2019 at 10:34 am

Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 2:39 pm

Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat the Clinton's-choice jihadis.

That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.

integer , February 1, 2019 at 8:09 pm

Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.

Stephen Gardner , February 1, 2019 at 9:02 am

Excellent article but I believe the expression is "cui bono": who benefits.

hemeantwell , February 1, 2019 at 9:09 am

Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question: is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 3:23 pm

Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.

whine country , February 1, 2019 at 9:15 am

It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.

a different chris , February 1, 2019 at 9:30 am

Unfortunately this

The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected

Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:

At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.

And this

So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.

Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant

But then came Venezuela.

Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually.

So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.

orange cats , February 1, 2019 at 11:22 am

"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."

I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL , February 1, 2019 at 1:41 pm

Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.

And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.

orange cats , February 1, 2019 at 3:47 pm

That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:

"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like me."

Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality: "The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.

No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.

skippy , February 1, 2019 at 8:09 pm

Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak in tongues about ev'bal forces.

timbers , February 1, 2019 at 12:26 pm

I don't agree, and do agree. The distinction is this:

If you fix a few of Hudson's errors, and take him as making the point that USD is losing it's hegemony, IMO he is basically correct.

Brian (another one they call) , February 1, 2019 at 9:56 am

thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?

Steven , February 1, 2019 at 10:23 am

Great stuff!

Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'. I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.

If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.

Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with its banking and financial institutions.

Oh , February 1, 2019 at 3:52 pm

The use of the stick will only go so far. What's the USG going to do if they refuse?

Summer , February 1, 2019 at 10:46 am

In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.

Yikes , February 1, 2019 at 12:07 pm

UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America, and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?

Ian Perkins , February 1, 2019 at 12:21 pm

Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.

Michael A Gualario , February 1, 2019 at 12:49 pm

Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 2:12 pm

" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "

What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard still exists.

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 3:41 pm

Wukchumni beat me to the suspicion that the gold isn't there.

The Rev Kev , February 1, 2019 at 7:40 pm

What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the 70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two years ago but look who was involved in that visit-

https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/after-40-years-fort-knox-opens-vault-to-civilians/466441331

And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at -- http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html

Summer , February 1, 2019 at 5:44 pm

A non-accountable standard. It's more obvious BS than what is going on now.

jochen , February 2, 2019 at 6:46 am

It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then) they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.

They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.

Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but that's what they do right now.

Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.

When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well I just tune out.

Susan the Other , February 1, 2019 at 2:19 pm

This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.

Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.

When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will allow greater competitive advantages.

No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public. It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 2:44 am

So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .

Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .

Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.

ChrisAtRU , February 1, 2019 at 6:02 pm

Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin – "US gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.

mikef , February 1, 2019 at 6:07 pm

" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for so long that they no longer remember how they got there.

Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176373/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_tweeting_while_rome_burns

Rajesh K , February 1, 2019 at 7:23 pm

I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together". Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.

This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.

Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?

Keith Newman , February 2, 2019 at 1:12 am

Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505 . There are lots and lots of others.

RBHoughton , February 1, 2019 at 9:16 pm

He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 1:11 am

The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.

Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters hate with Ideological purity.

/lasse , February 2, 2019 at 7:50 am

Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.

On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.

One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?

When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.

Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.

On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:26 am

Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:29 am

When the delusion takes hold, it is the beginning of the end.

The British Empire will last forever
The thousand year Reich
American exceptionalism

As soon as the bankers thought they thought they were "Master of the Universe" you knew 2008 was coming. The delusion had taken hold.

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:45 am

Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.

This is the US (46.30 mins.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba8XdDqZ-Jg

The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover it.

Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.

The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.

Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YTyJzmiHGk

The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 5:28 pm

It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged – Rubin did not blink an eye.

[Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began, before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings bumps. ..."
"... "This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here. ..."
"... Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's loyalties to Israel and Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that it wants to advance against those two countries. ..."
"... Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state. And so do all the other western mainstream news networks. ..."
"... From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad. ..."
"... I t was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack" on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity is now treated as a direct attack on the empire. ..."
"... This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack. ..."
"... This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government. It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the world. ..."
Jul 28, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball slammed her ex-employer's relentless promotion of the Russiagate conspiracy theory following the embarrassing spectacle of Robert Mueller's hearing before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on Wednesday.

"After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began, before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings bumps.

"This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here.

I actually heard some pundit on Chris Hayes last night opine that independent women in middle America were going to be swayed by what Mueller said yesterday. Are you kidding me? This is almost as bonkers and lacking in factual basis as that time Mimi Rocah said that Bernie Sanders is not pro-women because that was what her feelings told her. Rocah, by the way, a political prosecutor with no political background, is only opining at MSNBC because of her role in leading viewers to believe that any day now SDNY is going to bring down Trump and his entire family."

Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's loyalties to Israel and Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that it wants to advance against those two countries.

Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state. And so do all the other western mainstream news networks.

Consider the way the Syrian province of Idlib is being reported on right now, to pick one of many possible examples. Al-Qaeda-controlled Idlib is the final stronghold of the extremist militant groups that the US and its allies flooded Syria with in a premeditated campaign to effect regime change, and Syria and its allies are fighting to recapture the region. They are using methods that are identical to those commonly used by the US and its allies, yet the bombing campaigns of the US-centralized empire receive virtually no critical coverage while western mainstream outlets like CNN and the BBC are churning out brazenly propagandistic pieces about the evils of the Assad coalition's airstrikes.

"Civilians are dying in Idlib, just as they died in their thousands in recent US UK air strikes in eg Raqqa and Mosul," political analyst Charles Shoebridge observed on Twitter today. "The difference is that when it's (often unverified) claims that Russia or Syria are doing the killing, US UK media make it front page news."

There are many gaping plot holes in the Russiagate narrative that outlets like MSNBC have been bashing everyone over the head with, but the most obvious and easily provable of them is the indisputable fact that Donald Trump has escalated tensions against Russia more than any US president in decades. You never hear anyone talk about this self-evident fact in all the endless yammering about Russia, though, because it doesn't advance the agendas of either of America's two mainstream parties, and it doesn't advance the interests of US imperialism. Democrats don't like acknowledging the fact that Trump has been consistently and aggressively working directly against the interests of Moscow , and Trump supporters don't like acknowledging that their president is just as much of a neocon-coddling globalist as those they claim to oppose, so the war machine has gone conveniently unchallenged in manufacturing new cold war escalations against a nation they've had marked for destruction since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In a very interesting new Grayzone interview packed full of ideas that you'll never hear voiced on western mass media, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke openly about the various ways that Russia, China, and other nations who've resisted absorption into the blob of the US power alliance have been working toward the creation of a multipolar world. Ryabkov said other nations have been watching the way the dominance of the US dollar has been used to economically terrorize noncompliant nations into subservience by way of sanctions and other manipulations, with Washington expecting that the dollar and the US financial system will remain "the cardiovascular system of the whole organism."

"That will not be the case," Ryabkov said. "People will bypass, in literal terms. And people will find ways how to defend themselves, how to protect themselves, how to guarantee themselves against any emergencies if someone comes up at the White House or whatever, at the Treasury, at the State, and says 'Hey guys, now we should stop what is going on in Country X, and let's squeeze them out.' And this country sits on the dollar. So they will be done the moment those ideas will be pronounced. So China, Russia and others, we create alternatives that we will most probably continue using not just national currencies, but baskets of currencies, currencies of third countries, other modern barter schemes."

"We will use ways that will diminish the role of dollar and US banking system with all these risks of assets and transactions being arrested, being stopped," Ryabkov concluded.

That, right there, is the real reason you're being sold Russia hysteria today.

And it isn't just on the matter of financial systems in which the unabsorbed powers are uniting against the imperial blob. Russia and China just carried out their first joint air patrol on Tuesday, drawing a hostile response from imperial vassals Japan and South Korea.

"Russian and Chinese bombers on 'first' joint patrol in the Asia-Pacific region. The China-Russia alliance has become a reality and will last for long time," reads a post by one Russian Twitter commentator in response to the news.

The emergence of this alliance, which the Chinese government has warned Washington is 'not vulnerable to interference', has been something the west has feared for a long time. A Pentagon white paper published this past May titled "Russian Strategic Intentions" mentions the word "China" 108 times. Some noteworthy excerpts:

I think you get the picture. From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad. Analysts like the white paper's authors, and even The New York Times editorial board , have urged the drivers of US foreign policy to attempt to lure Moscow away from Beijing, the latter rightly perceived as the greater long-term threat to US dominance due to China's surging economic power. But diplomacy has clearly been ruled out toward this end, with only a steadily escalating campaign to shove Russia off the world stage now deemed acceptable.

It was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack" on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity is now treated as a direct attack on the empire.

This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack.

This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government. It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the world.

Reprinted with permission from Medium.com . Support Ms. Johnstone's work on Patreon or Paypal .

[Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Ukraine became a geopolitical pawn. In signing up with the US and EU, there is one guaranteed loser – the Ukrainian people.
Notable quotes:
"... His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the Donbass rebels and with Moscow, ..."
"... But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian citizens. ..."
"... Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence. ..."
"... Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question -- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold War. ..."
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com . ..."
Jul 29, 2019 | www.thenation.com

The election of Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who won decisively throughout most of the country, represents the possibility of peace with Russia, if it -- and he -- are given a chance. His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the Donbass rebels and with Moscow, notably provisions associated with the European-sponsored Minsk Accords. Zelensky, on the other hand, has made peace (along with corruption) his top priority and indeed spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on July 11. The nearly six-year war having become a political, diplomatic, and financial drain on his leadership, Putin welcomed the overture.

But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian citizens. (Washington has previously had some shameful episodes of collusion with these Ukrainian neo-Nazis .) As for Putin, who does not fully control the Donbass rebels or its leaders, he "can never be seen at home," as I pointed out more than two years ago , "as 'selling out' Russia's 'brethren' anywhere in southeast Ukraine." Indeed, his own implacable nationalists have made this a litmus test of his leadership.

Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence.

Our hope should be that Trump breaks with that long-standing bipartisan policy, as he did with policy toward North Korea, and puts America squarely on the side of peace in Ukraine. (For now, Zelensky has set aside Moscow's professed irreversible "reunification" with Crimea, as should Washington.) A new US policy must include recognition, previously lacking, that the citizens of war-ravaged Donbass are not primarily "Putin's stooges" but people with their own legitimate interests and preferences, even if they favor Russia. Here too Zelensky is embarking on a new course. Poroshenko waged an "anti-terrorist" war against Donbass: the new president is reaching out to its citizens even though most of them were unable to vote in the election.

Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question -- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold War.

This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .

[Jul 29, 2019] Evidence has emerged that the US State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Notable quotes:
"... Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department OV-10D Bronco ..."
"... . Descriptions of sex between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of these suits? ..."
"... So so disgusting. First there was the catholic church pedophile scandal. Then there is the Epstein scandal ..."
Jul 23, 2019 | www.unz.com

sally , says: July 23, 2019 at 8:22 am GMT

https://friendsforsyria.com/2019/07/21/u-s-state-department-tied-to-child-trafficking-operation-with-epstein/

according to this article ..the following

Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department OV-10D Bronco. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) registration database. Descriptions of sex between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of these suits?

mcohen , says: July 23, 2019 at 9:20 am GMT

So so disgusting. First there was the catholic church pedophile scandal. Then there is the Epstein scandal

... ... ...

Everything is broken.Time to call in the plumbers

[Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson

Highly recommended!
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
Feb 01, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial institutions.

This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.

The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together – the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.

The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.

Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy.

In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic" country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization. The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.

A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.

This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least irony as its dialectical path unfolds.

For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.

The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.

Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.

After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.

Dismantling International Law and Its Courts

Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish violators).

Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.

At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism. It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.

Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." [1]

Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."

That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."

What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."

The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.

Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT

Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.

Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe, and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall Street banks were normally name as paying agents.

That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown, the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United States and anywhere else they were able.

This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.

But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions – a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check that the depositor had written.

England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."

Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."

This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine. [4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1. [5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.

If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way to defend itself.

Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.

Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT. But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.

On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe.

I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership. For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants of death.

The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.

The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.

It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.

Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.

It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated." [5]

Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts, against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks like this will be a year of global fracture.

It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're our bastards."

Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.

The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.

Footnotes

[1] "It Can't be Fixed: Senior ICC Judge Quits in Protest of US, Turkish Meddling," January 31, 2019.

[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross, "Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.

[3] ibid

[4] Corina Pons, Mayela Armas, "Exclusive: Venezuela plans to fly central bank gold reserves to UAE – source," Reuters, January 31, 2019.

[5] Constanze Stelzenmüller, "America's policy on Europe takes a nationalist turn," Financial Times, January 31, 2019.

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is "and forgive them their debts": Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year< Jointly posted with Hudson's website


doug , February 1, 2019 at 8:03 am

We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Yes we do. no escape? that I see

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 9:43 am

Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.

If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.

We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians. Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I read somewhere that the Czarist Imperial Army had a saying . . . "Quantity has a Quality all its own".

... ... ...

Cal2 , February 1, 2019 at 2:54 pm

Drumlin,

If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver them, they have my support and more power to them.

That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.

If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump can have it, because it won't be any worse.

I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think more and more people are going to vote the same way.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 8:56 pm

Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran, etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems, etc.

And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl up out of it.

My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic Emirate of Jihadistan.

Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.

The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton or Obama all over again.

Quanka , February 1, 2019 at 8:29 am

I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?

The Rev Kev , February 1, 2019 at 8:43 am

Here is a bit more info on it but Trump is already threatening Europe if they use it. That should cause them to respect him more:

https://www.dw.com/en/instex-europe-sets-up-transactions-channel-with-iran/a-47303580

LP , February 1, 2019 at 9:14 am

The NYT and other have coverage.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/world/europe/europe-trade-iran-nuclear-deal.amp.html

Louis Fyne , February 1, 2019 at 8:37 am

arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption (by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.

For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline, natural gas or tube socks either.

Mel , February 1, 2019 at 9:18 am

It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.

Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority.

integer , February 1, 2019 at 8:43 am

Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.

What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?

Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times.

James , February 1, 2019 at 10:34 am

Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 2:39 pm

Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat the Clinton's-choice jihadis.

That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.

integer , February 1, 2019 at 8:09 pm

Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.

Stephen Gardner , February 1, 2019 at 9:02 am

Excellent article but I believe the expression is "cui bono": who benefits.

hemeantwell , February 1, 2019 at 9:09 am

Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question: is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 3:23 pm

Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.

whine country , February 1, 2019 at 9:15 am

It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.

a different chris , February 1, 2019 at 9:30 am

Unfortunately this

The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected

Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:

At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.

And this

So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.

Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant

But then came Venezuela.

Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually.

So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.

orange cats , February 1, 2019 at 11:22 am

"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."

I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL , February 1, 2019 at 1:41 pm

Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.

And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.

orange cats , February 1, 2019 at 3:47 pm

That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:

"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like me."

Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality: "The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.

No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.

skippy , February 1, 2019 at 8:09 pm

Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak in tongues about ev'bal forces.

timbers , February 1, 2019 at 12:26 pm

I don't agree, and do agree. The distinction is this:

If you fix a few of Hudson's errors, and take him as making the point that USD is losing it's hegemony, IMO he is basically correct.

Brian (another one they call) , February 1, 2019 at 9:56 am

thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?

Steven , February 1, 2019 at 10:23 am

Great stuff!

Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'. I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.

If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.

Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with its banking and financial institutions.

Oh , February 1, 2019 at 3:52 pm

The use of the stick will only go so far. What's the USG going to do if they refuse?

Summer , February 1, 2019 at 10:46 am

In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.

Yikes , February 1, 2019 at 12:07 pm

UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America, and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?

Ian Perkins , February 1, 2019 at 12:21 pm

Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.

Michael A Gualario , February 1, 2019 at 12:49 pm

Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 2:12 pm

" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "

What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard still exists.

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 3:41 pm

Wukchumni beat me to the suspicion that the gold isn't there.

The Rev Kev , February 1, 2019 at 7:40 pm

What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the 70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two years ago but look who was involved in that visit-

https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/after-40-years-fort-knox-opens-vault-to-civilians/466441331

And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at -- http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html

Summer , February 1, 2019 at 5:44 pm

A non-accountable standard. It's more obvious BS than what is going on now.

jochen , February 2, 2019 at 6:46 am

It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then) they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.

They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.

Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but that's what they do right now.

Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.

When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well I just tune out.

Susan the Other , February 1, 2019 at 2:19 pm

This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.

Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.

When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will allow greater competitive advantages.

No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public. It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 2:44 am

So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .

Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .

Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.

ChrisAtRU , February 1, 2019 at 6:02 pm

Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin – "US gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.

mikef , February 1, 2019 at 6:07 pm

" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for so long that they no longer remember how they got there.

Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176373/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_tweeting_while_rome_burns

Rajesh K , February 1, 2019 at 7:23 pm

I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together". Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.

This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.

Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?

Keith Newman , February 2, 2019 at 1:12 am

Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505 . There are lots and lots of others.

RBHoughton , February 1, 2019 at 9:16 pm

He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 1:11 am

The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.

Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters hate with Ideological purity.

/lasse , February 2, 2019 at 7:50 am

Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.

On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.

One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?

When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.

Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.

On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:26 am

Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:29 am

When the delusion takes hold, it is the beginning of the end.

The British Empire will last forever
The thousand year Reich
American exceptionalism

As soon as the bankers thought they thought they were "Master of the Universe" you knew 2008 was coming. The delusion had taken hold.

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:45 am

Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.

This is the US (46.30 mins.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba8XdDqZ-Jg

The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover it.

Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.

The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.

Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YTyJzmiHGk

The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 5:28 pm

It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged – Rubin did not blink an eye.

[Jul 29, 2019] Tehran Urges China To Buy More Iranian Oil As It Feasts On Saudi Crude

Notable quotes:
"... China's crude shipments from Iran totaled 855,638 tons last month, which averages to 208,205 barrels per day (bpd), compared with 254,016 bpd in May, according figures from the General Administration of Customs, cited in a recent Reuters report . ..."
"... Iran's Vice President Jahangiri made the appeal to Beijing and "friendly" countries to up their Iranian crude purchases in statements Monday. "Even though we are aware that friendly countries such as China are facing some restrictions, we expect them to be more active in buying Iranian oil ," Jahangiri reportedly told visiting senior Chinese diplomat Song Tao. He said this while also on Monday issuing a statement saying Iran stood ready to "confront" American aggression in the region and that multilateralism must be upheld. ..."
Jul 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Following China's crude imports from Iran plunging this summer, sinking almost 60% in June compared to a year earlier - which corresponded to Washington shutting down the waiver program in May - leaders in Tehran are urging China to buy more Iranian oil .

China's crude shipments from Iran totaled 855,638 tons last month, which averages to 208,205 barrels per day (bpd), compared with 254,016 bpd in May, according figures from the General Administration of Customs, cited in a recent Reuters report .

Iran's Vice President Jahangiri made the appeal to Beijing and "friendly" countries to up their Iranian crude purchases in statements Monday. "Even though we are aware that friendly countries such as China are facing some restrictions, we expect them to be more active in buying Iranian oil ," Jahangiri reportedly told visiting senior Chinese diplomat Song Tao. He said this while also on Monday issuing a statement saying Iran stood ready to "confront" American aggression in the region and that multilateralism must be upheld.

"The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to protect multilateralism and confront American hegemony," Jahangiri said , according to the IRIB news agency.

He added that Iran's recent move to breach uranium enrichment caps could be reversed should other parties return to upholding their side of the nuclear agreement.

Simultaneously, China's oil purchases from Iran's rival Saudi Arabia have soared to record volume , totaling 1.89 million barrels a day last month, according to numbers cited in Bloomberg . "Shipments from the OPEC producer made up almost a fifth of its total oil purchases in June and was 64% higher than the previous month," while at the same time "Imports from Iran fell to the lowest since May 2010," according to Bloomberg .

Meanwhile, in a crucial development related to Iran's trying to weather the severe US-led sanctions storm, a long anticipated plan for gasoline export has begun with an inaugural shipment to neighboring Afghanistan.

State media reported the following on Monday :

The Fars news agency said on Monday that a first consignment of export gasoline will start trading in Iran's Energy Exchange (IRENEX) later this week .

It said some 10,000 tons of gasoline with octane number of 91 will be available for sale to Afghanistan through IRENEX on Wednesday, adding that the trade will take place both in the Iranian rial and in major international currencies.

Iran's refining capacity has grown significantly over the past years as the country slashed fuel imports while also coping with increased domestic demand.

Officials have expressed hope that Iraq along with Afghanistan, as well as Caspian Sea countries would become main destinations for gasoline export.


Noob678 , 10 minutes ago link

India totally stop buying Iranian oil despite being an ally to Iran. China is still buying regardless of US sanction against their companies and CEOs.

cashback , 11 minutes ago link

A country knocking on the doors of other countries to be able to sell it's product to sustain it's economy and support it's population all the while "civilized, humane, peaceful, and law abiding" people in the west enjoying their lives at the expense of the very same people who they insult for not being able to stole the way they did, arguing and trying to convince everyone else how Mullah's are oppressing their people while they're trying to help.

Welcome to the civilized world.

schroedingersrat , 4 minutes ago link

We were never civilized outside the west's borders. The west pillages, murders, enslaves and plunders since the beginning of civilisation.

KekistanisUnite , 15 minutes ago link

China will buy more Iranian oil and so will Russia. They will have the last word whilst the US empire will be the laughing stock of the world (well it already is).

earthling1 , 26 minutes ago link

China and Russia will support Iran up to and including WW3.

Iran is a crucial link in the OBOR/New Silk Road, which in turn MUST succeed for the survival of all three nations.

If Iran falls victim to the global cabal, war is certain and Putin has already stated: if there is no mother Russia, there will be no world.

But don't worry friends, it will all be over with quicker than an asteroid out of nowhere.

None of us will ever see the end coming. Nothing to see or do here. Move along, be happy.

Blue2B , 28 minutes ago link

Cruelty and Stupidity are the hallmarks of moves this century.

"What's Iran to do? It seems straightforward. Respond in kind but no more than in kind to aggression on Iran's interests, make sure the craven Trumpists and allies realize Iran isn't kidding about shutting down resource shipments through the Persian Gulf and the destruction of the vast petroleum infrastructure in the Persian Gulf if Iran is attacked militarily, and above all remain cool headed and patient. The US empire is beginning to implode."

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/148138/Cruelty-and-stupidity-are-the-hallmarks-of-US-moves-this-century

Sofa King , 31 minutes ago link

OK so last week there was millions of barrels of Iranian oil sitting in storage tanks in China but has not officially changed hands because of sanctions. Today imports from Iran to China have plunged. Do you not see the correlation? It was in your own ******* article. Do you even read some of the **** you publish?

I miss Marla...**** was straight when she was around.

hola dos cola , 5 minutes ago link

See what you mean re: Marla. Nowadays most articles get published on the merit of fitting an agenda, beyond that content seems irrelevant. And I'm not sure 'Tyler' even knows there is an active comment section, if you see what I mean.

The Chinese have planned for (and thus probably will achieve) a SPR holding 90 days of oil. They are past 60, maybe already past 70 these days.

... ~not good~...

Real Estate Guru , 32 minutes ago link

Let's take a look at what is happening around the world....

China is in trouble.

Iran is in trouble.

Venezuela is in trouble.

The UK, France, etc is beat up for past mistakes.

Mexico is in trouble.

... ... ...

Deep Snorkeler , 34 minutes ago link

The Globe is Forming Trading Blocs Against Us

petrodollar privilege is under attack

American export goods are shunned

our friends pretend to like us

Trump's sanctions and trade wars are backfiring

America is obese and rotting

datbedank , 32 minutes ago link

Petrodollar is dead, get with the times!

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-03/how-petrodollar-quietly-died-and-nobody-noticed

Oil consumption is flat thanks to engine improvements. The turd world (Russia included) is nervous because their oil welfare is going to come to an end.

Deep Snorkeler , 30 minutes ago link

As an American, I feel embarrassed to walk the Champs Elysee.

He–Mene Mox Mox , 35 minutes ago link

It would be pretty tough for the U.S. to enforce any sanctions, if China agreed to buy more oil from Iran. And there is no way the U.S. can stop them, once the Belt and Road system is completed through the Middle East region. And since China has already lined up 152 countries to cooperate in the BRI, it is extremely difficult for the U.S. to deny them a shot at improving their economies, especially when it comes to the subject of Iran.

Edward Morbius , 39 minutes ago link

The "King of Debt" is also the "King of Tariffs (taxes)".

The "stable genius" is now going to to put tariffs on French wine. Epic jackassery.

frankthecrank , 42 minutes ago link

So much for the "China and Russia will save Iran" crowd's desperate assertions. Russia does not want VZ or Iranian crude on the market as it will push oil prices even lower. As I said, there will be no WW3 over Iran. There will be no grand assemblage of minor states over Iran. Iran is on its own.

[Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began, before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings bumps. ..."
"... "This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here. ..."
"... Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's loyalties to Israel and Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that it wants to advance against those two countries. ..."
"... Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state. And so do all the other western mainstream news networks. ..."
"... From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad. ..."
"... I t was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack" on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity is now treated as a direct attack on the empire. ..."
"... This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack. ..."
"... This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government. It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the world. ..."
Jul 28, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball slammed her ex-employer's relentless promotion of the Russiagate conspiracy theory following the embarrassing spectacle of Robert Mueller's hearing before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on Wednesday.

"After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began, before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings bumps.

"This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here.

I actually heard some pundit on Chris Hayes last night opine that independent women in middle America were going to be swayed by what Mueller said yesterday. Are you kidding me? This is almost as bonkers and lacking in factual basis as that time Mimi Rocah said that Bernie Sanders is not pro-women because that was what her feelings told her. Rocah, by the way, a political prosecutor with no political background, is only opining at MSNBC because of her role in leading viewers to believe that any day now SDNY is going to bring down Trump and his entire family."

Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's loyalties to Israel and Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that it wants to advance against those two countries.

Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state. And so do all the other western mainstream news networks.

Consider the way the Syrian province of Idlib is being reported on right now, to pick one of many possible examples. Al-Qaeda-controlled Idlib is the final stronghold of the extremist militant groups that the US and its allies flooded Syria with in a premeditated campaign to effect regime change, and Syria and its allies are fighting to recapture the region. They are using methods that are identical to those commonly used by the US and its allies, yet the bombing campaigns of the US-centralized empire receive virtually no critical coverage while western mainstream outlets like CNN and the BBC are churning out brazenly propagandistic pieces about the evils of the Assad coalition's airstrikes.

"Civilians are dying in Idlib, just as they died in their thousands in recent US UK air strikes in eg Raqqa and Mosul," political analyst Charles Shoebridge observed on Twitter today. "The difference is that when it's (often unverified) claims that Russia or Syria are doing the killing, US UK media make it front page news."

There are many gaping plot holes in the Russiagate narrative that outlets like MSNBC have been bashing everyone over the head with, but the most obvious and easily provable of them is the indisputable fact that Donald Trump has escalated tensions against Russia more than any US president in decades. You never hear anyone talk about this self-evident fact in all the endless yammering about Russia, though, because it doesn't advance the agendas of either of America's two mainstream parties, and it doesn't advance the interests of US imperialism. Democrats don't like acknowledging the fact that Trump has been consistently and aggressively working directly against the interests of Moscow , and Trump supporters don't like acknowledging that their president is just as much of a neocon-coddling globalist as those they claim to oppose, so the war machine has gone conveniently unchallenged in manufacturing new cold war escalations against a nation they've had marked for destruction since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In a very interesting new Grayzone interview packed full of ideas that you'll never hear voiced on western mass media, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke openly about the various ways that Russia, China, and other nations who've resisted absorption into the blob of the US power alliance have been working toward the creation of a multipolar world. Ryabkov said other nations have been watching the way the dominance of the US dollar has been used to economically terrorize noncompliant nations into subservience by way of sanctions and other manipulations, with Washington expecting that the dollar and the US financial system will remain "the cardiovascular system of the whole organism."

"That will not be the case," Ryabkov said. "People will bypass, in literal terms. And people will find ways how to defend themselves, how to protect themselves, how to guarantee themselves against any emergencies if someone comes up at the White House or whatever, at the Treasury, at the State, and says 'Hey guys, now we should stop what is going on in Country X, and let's squeeze them out.' And this country sits on the dollar. So they will be done the moment those ideas will be pronounced. So China, Russia and others, we create alternatives that we will most probably continue using not just national currencies, but baskets of currencies, currencies of third countries, other modern barter schemes."

"We will use ways that will diminish the role of dollar and US banking system with all these risks of assets and transactions being arrested, being stopped," Ryabkov concluded.

That, right there, is the real reason you're being sold Russia hysteria today.

And it isn't just on the matter of financial systems in which the unabsorbed powers are uniting against the imperial blob. Russia and China just carried out their first joint air patrol on Tuesday, drawing a hostile response from imperial vassals Japan and South Korea.

"Russian and Chinese bombers on 'first' joint patrol in the Asia-Pacific region. The China-Russia alliance has become a reality and will last for long time," reads a post by one Russian Twitter commentator in response to the news.

The emergence of this alliance, which the Chinese government has warned Washington is 'not vulnerable to interference', has been something the west has feared for a long time. A Pentagon white paper published this past May titled "Russian Strategic Intentions" mentions the word "China" 108 times. Some noteworthy excerpts:

I think you get the picture. From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad. Analysts like the white paper's authors, and even The New York Times editorial board , have urged the drivers of US foreign policy to attempt to lure Moscow away from Beijing, the latter rightly perceived as the greater long-term threat to US dominance due to China's surging economic power. But diplomacy has clearly been ruled out toward this end, with only a steadily escalating campaign to shove Russia off the world stage now deemed acceptable.

It was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack" on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity is now treated as a direct attack on the empire.

This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack.

This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government. It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the world.

Reprinted with permission from Medium.com . Support Ms. Johnstone's work on Patreon or Paypal .

[Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson

Highly recommended!
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
Feb 01, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial institutions.

This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.

The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together – the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.

The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.

Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy.

In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic" country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization. The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.

A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.

This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least irony as its dialectical path unfolds.

For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.

The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.

Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.

After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.

Dismantling International Law and Its Courts

Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish violators).

Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.

At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism. It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.

Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." [1]

Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."

That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."

What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."

The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.

Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT

Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.

Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe, and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall Street banks were normally name as paying agents.

That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown, the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United States and anywhere else they were able.

This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.

But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions – a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check that the depositor had written.

England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."

Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."

This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine. [4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1. [5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.

If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way to defend itself.

Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.

Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT. But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.

On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe.

I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership. For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants of death.

The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.

The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.

It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.

Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.

It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated." [5]

Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts, against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks like this will be a year of global fracture.

It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're our bastards."

Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.

The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.

Footnotes

[1] "It Can't be Fixed: Senior ICC Judge Quits in Protest of US, Turkish Meddling," January 31, 2019.

[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross, "Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.

[3] ibid

[4] Corina Pons, Mayela Armas, "Exclusive: Venezuela plans to fly central bank gold reserves to UAE – source," Reuters, January 31, 2019.

[5] Constanze Stelzenmüller, "America's policy on Europe takes a nationalist turn," Financial Times, January 31, 2019.

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is "and forgive them their debts": Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year< Jointly posted with Hudson's website


doug , February 1, 2019 at 8:03 am

We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Yes we do. no escape? that I see

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 9:43 am

Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.

If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.

We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians. Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I read somewhere that the Czarist Imperial Army had a saying . . . "Quantity has a Quality all its own".

... ... ...

Cal2 , February 1, 2019 at 2:54 pm

Drumlin,

If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver them, they have my support and more power to them.

That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.

If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump can have it, because it won't be any worse.

I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think more and more people are going to vote the same way.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 8:56 pm

Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran, etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems, etc.

And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl up out of it.

My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic Emirate of Jihadistan.

Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.

The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton or Obama all over again.

Quanka , February 1, 2019 at 8:29 am

I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?

The Rev Kev , February 1, 2019 at 8:43 am

Here is a bit more info on it but Trump is already threatening Europe if they use it. That should cause them to respect him more:

https://www.dw.com/en/instex-europe-sets-up-transactions-channel-with-iran/a-47303580

LP , February 1, 2019 at 9:14 am

The NYT and other have coverage.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/world/europe/europe-trade-iran-nuclear-deal.amp.html

Louis Fyne , February 1, 2019 at 8:37 am

arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption (by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.

For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline, natural gas or tube socks either.

Mel , February 1, 2019 at 9:18 am

It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.

Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority.

integer , February 1, 2019 at 8:43 am

Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.

What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?

Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times.

James , February 1, 2019 at 10:34 am

Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.

drumlin woodchuckles , February 1, 2019 at 2:39 pm

Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat the Clinton's-choice jihadis.

That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.

integer , February 1, 2019 at 8:09 pm

Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.

Stephen Gardner , February 1, 2019 at 9:02 am

Excellent article but I believe the expression is "cui bono": who benefits.

hemeantwell , February 1, 2019 at 9:09 am

Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question: is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 3:23 pm

Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.

whine country , February 1, 2019 at 9:15 am

It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.

a different chris , February 1, 2019 at 9:30 am

Unfortunately this

The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected

Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:

At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.

And this

So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.

Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant

But then came Venezuela.

Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually.

So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.

orange cats , February 1, 2019 at 11:22 am

"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."

I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL , February 1, 2019 at 1:41 pm

Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.

And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.

orange cats , February 1, 2019 at 3:47 pm

That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:

"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like me."

Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality: "The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.

No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.

skippy , February 1, 2019 at 8:09 pm

Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak in tongues about ev'bal forces.

timbers , February 1, 2019 at 12:26 pm

I don't agree, and do agree. The distinction is this:

If you fix a few of Hudson's errors, and take him as making the point that USD is losing it's hegemony, IMO he is basically correct.

Brian (another one they call) , February 1, 2019 at 9:56 am

thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?

Steven , February 1, 2019 at 10:23 am

Great stuff!

Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'. I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.

If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.

Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with its banking and financial institutions.

Oh , February 1, 2019 at 3:52 pm

The use of the stick will only go so far. What's the USG going to do if they refuse?

Summer , February 1, 2019 at 10:46 am

In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.

Yikes , February 1, 2019 at 12:07 pm

UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America, and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?

Ian Perkins , February 1, 2019 at 12:21 pm

Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.

Michael A Gualario , February 1, 2019 at 12:49 pm

Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 2:12 pm

" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "

What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard still exists.

Oregoncharles , February 1, 2019 at 3:41 pm

Wukchumni beat me to the suspicion that the gold isn't there.

The Rev Kev , February 1, 2019 at 7:40 pm

What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the 70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two years ago but look who was involved in that visit-

https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/after-40-years-fort-knox-opens-vault-to-civilians/466441331

And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at -- http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html

Summer , February 1, 2019 at 5:44 pm

A non-accountable standard. It's more obvious BS than what is going on now.

jochen , February 2, 2019 at 6:46 am

It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then) they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.

They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.

Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but that's what they do right now.

Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.

When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well I just tune out.

Susan the Other , February 1, 2019 at 2:19 pm

This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.

Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.

When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will allow greater competitive advantages.

No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public. It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 2:44 am

So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .

Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .

Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.

ChrisAtRU , February 1, 2019 at 6:02 pm

Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin – "US gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.

mikef , February 1, 2019 at 6:07 pm

" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for so long that they no longer remember how they got there.

Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176373/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_tweeting_while_rome_burns

Rajesh K , February 1, 2019 at 7:23 pm

I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together". Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.

This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.

Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?

Keith Newman , February 2, 2019 at 1:12 am

Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505 . There are lots and lots of others.

RBHoughton , February 1, 2019 at 9:16 pm

He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 1:11 am

The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.

Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters hate with Ideological purity.

/lasse , February 2, 2019 at 7:50 am

Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.

On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.

One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?

When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.

Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.

On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:26 am

Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:29 am

When the delusion takes hold, it is the beginning of the end.

The British Empire will last forever
The thousand year Reich
American exceptionalism

As soon as the bankers thought they thought they were "Master of the Universe" you knew 2008 was coming. The delusion had taken hold.

Sound of the Suburbs , February 2, 2019 at 10:45 am

Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.

This is the US (46.30 mins.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba8XdDqZ-Jg

The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover it.

Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.

The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.

Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YTyJzmiHGk

The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.

skippy , February 2, 2019 at 5:28 pm

It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged – Rubin did not blink an eye.

[Jul 28, 2019] Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing.... ..."
"... Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system??? ..."
"... The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme. ..."
Jul 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> catherine... , 27 July 2019 at 11:30 PM
Here are some insights into the minds of many movers and shakers in Russiagate:

Key US officials behind the Russia investigation have made no secret of their animus towards Russia.

"I do always hate the Russians," Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Russia probe, testified to Congress in July 2018. "It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life."

As he opened the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's ties to Russians in July 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: "fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians Bastards. I hate them I think they're probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages."

Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Russian nationals as a cause for alarm: "The Russians," Clapper said, "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were concerned."

In a May interview with Lawfare, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who helped oversee the Russia probe, explained the origins of the investigation as follows: "It was about Russia, period, full stop. When the [George] Papadopoulos information comes across our radar screen, it's coming across in the sense that we were always looking at Russia. we've been thinking about Russia as a threat actor for decades and decades."

https://www.thenation.com/article/questions-mueller-russiagate/

It was always about Russians no matter what they do or don't do. Large strata of US so called "elite" is obsessed with Russia. Not even China.

plantman , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM

I believe Larry Johnson is right when he says:

"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing....

My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???

Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???

Walrus , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM
The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme.

[Jul 28, 2019] Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing.... ..."
"... Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system??? ..."
"... The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme. ..."
Jul 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> catherine... , 27 July 2019 at 11:30 PM
Here are some insights into the minds of many movers and shakers in Russiagate:

Key US officials behind the Russia investigation have made no secret of their animus towards Russia.

"I do always hate the Russians," Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Russia probe, testified to Congress in July 2018. "It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life."

As he opened the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's ties to Russians in July 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: "fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians Bastards. I hate them I think they're probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages."

Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Russian nationals as a cause for alarm: "The Russians," Clapper said, "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were concerned."

In a May interview with Lawfare, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who helped oversee the Russia probe, explained the origins of the investigation as follows: "It was about Russia, period, full stop. When the [George] Papadopoulos information comes across our radar screen, it's coming across in the sense that we were always looking at Russia. we've been thinking about Russia as a threat actor for decades and decades."

https://www.thenation.com/article/questions-mueller-russiagate/

It was always about Russians no matter what they do or don't do. Large strata of US so called "elite" is obsessed with Russia. Not even China.

plantman , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM

I believe Larry Johnson is right when he says:

"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing....

My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???

Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???

Walrus , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM
The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme.

[Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
Jul 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.

As I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about election meddling :

"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.

"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.

"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."

It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :

Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer, "well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .

Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.

The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents.

There are only two possibilities:

  1. Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project to take out Trump, or
  2. Obama was kept in the dark.

Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?

On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump?


turcopolier , 26 July 2019 at 04:19 PM

All

My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision. As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.

Bill H , 26 July 2019 at 04:51 PM
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?" causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
Alexandria , 26 July 2019 at 07:02 PM
Bill H,

When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by the Internet Research Agency.

Jack said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:41 AM
TTG

You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?

What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?

Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe the Russians did?

uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have no idea what China did or is doing.

Larry Johnson -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 11:36 AM
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.

The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS. Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.

The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign. Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.

blue peacock said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:29 PM
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."

I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous accounts.

The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow journalism is as American as apple pie.

The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms of financing and dubiousness.

It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.

The Twisted Genius -> blue peacock... , 27 July 2019 at 01:42 PM
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations, misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
Fred -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 09:23 AM
TTG,

You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right? It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.

"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false. Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?

catherine , 27 July 2019 at 12:20 AM
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate. We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..

Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.

LondonBob , 27 July 2019 at 06:57 AM
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
J , 27 July 2019 at 12:27 PM
This has shown two things IMO

1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and

2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.

Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their jobs upholding our Constitution!

Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!

Mark Logan said in reply to J... , 27 July 2019 at 02:14 PM
J,

I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO, wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.

plantman , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM
I believe Larry Johnson is right when he says:

"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing....

My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???

Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???

rg , 27 July 2019 at 01:46 PM
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence, where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if it means "Trump's error".

And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".

Keep up your great work for this excellent website.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

How do you know "they lied their asses off?" Mueller's report stated that no American had conspired with the Russians,

[Jul 27, 2019] Hillary and Obama brought slavery back to Libya and ISIS and the largest refugee crisis since WW2 to Syria

Jul 27, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

emma peele , July 25, 2019 at 19:44

uh Hillary Clinton stood with Bush and lied the world into war. Hillary and Obama brought slavery back to Libya and ISIS and the largest refugee crisis since WW2 to Syria .
Dont forget genocide in Yemen ..

Hillary also supported disastrous free trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA and {TPP that brought back slavery} that harm workers on both sides of the borders

Hillary also toppled a democratically elected president in Honduras with Death Squads and Obama killed 40,000 innocent t people with Sanctions in Venezuela

They are fleeing Hillary and Obama's Terror spree ..and cheer on worse WW3 with Russia

Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network's Support For Endless War

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/01/03/reporter-quits-nbc-citing-networks-support-for-endless-war/

On Venezuela, Tucker Airs Anti-Trump Ideas While Maddow Wants John Bolton To Be More Hawkish

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/05/on-venezuela-tucker-airs-anti-trump-ideas-while-maddow-wants-john-bolton-to-be-more-hawkish/

boxerwar , July 25, 2019 at 22:12

c.. Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes, Emma Peele, Without a Doubt – and I absolutely adore your "Avengers" pseudonym !

Hillary's disgusting crimes, however, seem to me to be an attempt to ingratiate herself (and the Democrats) with the Ultra Hawkish Bush Era Republicans.
Who can ever forgive & forget her ghoulish pronouncement, "We came, we saw, He died!!"
(in reference to the ghoulishly brutal public murder of Libya's Qaddafi. {Qaddafi's "Green Book" was a well imagined Socio-Economic plan for for the economic liberation of Africa from the economic and cultural strictures of US, European Absolutist Brutal Dominion.} -- As it was, Libya, under Qaddafi, was a liberal, socialist society with free education, free health care for all citizens, and a nation with it's own currency , free from US/EURO manipulation and control.

-- This Is Why We Killed Him. --
This is US Command and Control World-Wide POLICY ! ! ! --
-- Anglo-Saxon Command and Control of the Whole Wide World and all it's resources Owned and Militarily Controlled by European Bankers

-- - EUROPEAN Bankers, Rothschild Criminal Banker WarMongers/ Wall Street and American Military Power --

These are They which Evilly Rule the World and Disparage or Murder (annihilate) All Others at their pleasure, and Trump is an evil antagonist with the personage of a King Leopold.

Please find "KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST' By Adam Hochschild

[Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
Jul 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.

As I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about election meddling :

"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.

"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.

"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."

It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :

Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer, "well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .

Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.

The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents.

There are only two possibilities:

  1. Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project to take out Trump, or
  2. Obama was kept in the dark.

Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?

On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump?


turcopolier , 26 July 2019 at 04:19 PM

All

My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision. As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.

Bill H , 26 July 2019 at 04:51 PM
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?" causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
Alexandria , 26 July 2019 at 07:02 PM
Bill H,

When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by the Internet Research Agency.

Jack said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:41 AM
TTG

You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?

What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?

Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe the Russians did?

uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have no idea what China did or is doing.

Larry Johnson -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 11:36 AM
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.

The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS. Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.

The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign. Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.

blue peacock said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:29 PM
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."

I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous accounts.

The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow journalism is as American as apple pie.

The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms of financing and dubiousness.

It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.

The Twisted Genius -> blue peacock... , 27 July 2019 at 01:42 PM
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations, misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
Fred -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 09:23 AM
TTG,

You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right? It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.

"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false. Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?

catherine , 27 July 2019 at 12:20 AM
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate. We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..

Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.

LondonBob , 27 July 2019 at 06:57 AM
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
J , 27 July 2019 at 12:27 PM
This has shown two things IMO

1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and

2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.

Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their jobs upholding our Constitution!

Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!

Mark Logan said in reply to J... , 27 July 2019 at 02:14 PM
J,

I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO, wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.

plantman , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM
I believe Larry Johnson is right when he says:

"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing....

My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???

Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???

rg , 27 July 2019 at 01:46 PM
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence, where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if it means "Trump's error".

And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".

Keep up your great work for this excellent website.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

How do you know "they lied their asses off?" Mueller's report stated that no American had conspired with the Russians,

[Jul 24, 2019] And now it might be Obama turn

Jul 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

MoreFreedom , 50 seconds ago link

I'm glad Democrats are hanging their hat on the fact that a president can be indicted when he's out of office for obstruction of justice. So they won't object when Barr indicts Obama.

[Jul 24, 2019] And now it might be Obama turn

Jul 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

MoreFreedom , 50 seconds ago link

I'm glad Democrats are hanging their hat on the fact that a president can be indicted when he's out of office for obstruction of justice. So they won't object when Barr indicts Obama.

[Jul 23, 2019] Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution

Highly recommended!
Ukrainian nation is a separate nation with a distinct and rich culture. You can call them Southern Russians but still they are distinct. That does not mean that Russian language should be suppressed and eliminated from schools, the policy advocated and implemented by Western Ukrainian nationalists. a better policy would to introduce English language from the first grade. Attempt to eliminate Russian is viewed by Eastern Ukrainians as the attempt of colonization (which it is) and in a long run can have the opposite effect like any colonization project.
Two languages can coexist. Ireland and Canada does not stop being distinct countries because they use English language. And very few people in Canada would support switching to French. Many prominent Russian writers have Ukrainian origin (Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov). Elimination of Russian destroy common cultural space (which enriches all participating nations not only Russia) establishing during the USSR years and shrink this common the cultural space.which for Ukraine mean complete domination in Ukrainian cultural space of US culture and Hollywood with all its excesses and warts.
The break of economic cooperation with Russia after EuroMaydan was Washington policy with willing implementers in the face of comprador column (Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko) and Western Ukrainian nationalists, which run the government after EuroMaydan. Among other thing this implies the attempt of colonization of Eastern Ukraine (via forceful Ukrainization) which backfired with the election of Zelensky.
Notable quotes:
"... Zelensky is of Jewish heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian. ..."
"... I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not interested ..."
"... But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?) ..."
"... Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by Kolomoisky. ..."
"... Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons, and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation... ..."
"... "A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign to replace Poroshenko." ..."
"... It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining countries that are not part of empire. look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded like a dirty rag. ..."
"... The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself). ..."
"... Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). ..."
"... Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky can safely be assumed. ..."
"... The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block. There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. ..."
"... Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has been blamed for the EU's Economic trap. ..."
"... what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer? ..."
"... The Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian industries. ..."
"... That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me ..."
"... As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would. ..."
"... "Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе за Украину" (which includes the interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here, https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html ..."
"... "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think." ..."
"... For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare (published in 2010; leaked in 2012): Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1994). ..."
"... The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949. ..."
"... While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated by a US embargo on wheat imports to China. ..."
"... Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS , no less. ..."
"... Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper. ..."
"... Is it a feature of the "rules based international order" that unelected NGOs can establish "red-lines" on policy and expect adherence? ..."
"... What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. ..."
"... there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al. ..."
"... This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control inter alia the University of Alberta. ..."
"... But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites, brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies. They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here. They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing, co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. ..."
"... "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?" They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change. ..."
"... The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square. ..."
"... The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs & co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS! ..."
"... I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. ..."
"... Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of coverage. ..."
"... Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. ..."
"... Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist Empire". ..."
"... I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us. Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc. The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me. http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/ ..."
"... In 2014, if I presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome. ..."
"... My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union, including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire. ..."
"... Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great care. It would probably require a study in itself.) ..."
"... On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.) ..."
"... The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak ..."
"... Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine, including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia, still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak Russian. ..."
"... The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this. ..."
"... As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians. I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now". That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national. ..."
"... All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it! ..."
"... It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the 1930s. ..."
"... From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan. ..."
"... There's plenty of sources documenting the Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't fake news. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/ ..."
"... Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black" drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand. ..."
"... Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world -- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism) ..."
"... Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest. ..."
"... It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because, even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. ..."
"... To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in 1992: www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html ..."
"... Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place: 'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'. And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine. ..."
"... Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be a thorn in the flesh. ..."
"... Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire? ..."
"... Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests? If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests? ..."
"... The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev. The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests. ..."
Jul 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution VanWoland , Jul 22 2019 18:55 utc | 1

The Ukraine, translated as 'the borderlands, lies between core Russia and the Europe's western states. It is a split country. Half the population speaks Russian as its first language. The industrialized center, east and south are culturally orthodox Russians. Some of its rural western parts were attached to the Ukraine only after World War II. They have historically a different culture.

The U.S., supported by the EU, used this split - twice - to instigate 'revolutions' that were supposed to bring the Ukraine onto a 'western' course. Both attempts were defeated when the Ukrainians had the chance of a free vote.

The 2004 run-off election for the president of the Ukraine was won by Viktor Yanukovych. The U.S. disliked the result. Its proxies in Ukraine alleged alleged fraud and instigated a color revolution. As a result of the 'Orange Revolution' the vote was re-run and the other candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was declared the winner. But five years later another vote defeated the U.S. camp. Yanukovych was declared the winner and became president.

In 2014 the European Union made an attempt to bind the Ukraine to its side through an association agreement. But what the EU offered to Ukraine was paltry and Russia countered it. Unlike the Ukraine, which continues to get robbed by its oligarchs ever since its 1991 independence, Russia was economically back and in a much better position. It offered billions in investments and long term loans. Much of Ukraine's industry depends on Russia and Russian gas was offered to the Ukraine for less than the international market price. Yanukovych, who originally wanted to sign the EU association, had no choice but to refuse it, and to take the much better deal Russia offered.

The U.S. and the EU intervened. They again launched a color revolution, but this time it was one that would use force. Militarily trained youth from Galicia in the west Ukraine was bused into Kiev to occupy the central Maidan place and to violently fight the police. Snipers from Georgia were brought in to fire on both sides. It was then falsely alleged that government forces were killing the 'peaceful protesters'.

Yanukovych lost his nerves and fled to Russia. After some illegal political maneuvers new elections were called up and the oligarch Petro Poroshenko, bought off by the 'west', was declared the winner. The unreconstructed fascists from Galicia took over. The population in the industrial heartland in east Ukraine, next to Russia's border, revolted against the new rulers. A civil war, not a 'Russian invasion' , ensued which the Ukrainian government largely lost. Lugansk and Donbas became rebel controlled statelets which depend of Russia. Russia took back Crimea, which in 1954 had been illegally gifted to Ukraine by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian.

To end the war in the east Ukraine, the French, German and Russian leaders pressed Poroshenko to sign a peace agreement with the eastern leaders. But the Minsk agreement was seen as a political defeat and Poroshenko never implemented it. The war in the east simmered on ever since. The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak. All opposition was harshly suppressed.

The oligarchs continue their plunder. Everything of value gets sold off to EU countries. The U.S. is allowed to build bases. Corruption, already endemic, further increased. The people came to despise Poroshenko.

In an attempt to regain support, Poroshenko launched a military provocation in the Kerch Strait which is under Russian control. The stunt was too obvious . Russia nabbed the sailors Poroshenko had send and confiscated their boats. No one came to Poroshenko's help.

One can watch the full story of the above in UKRAINE ON FIRE - The Real Story (vid), a just released 90 minutes long Oliver Stone documentary. An updated version of the documentary was supposed to run on the Ukraine TV station of pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. The TV stations was forced to cancel it after right-wing groups mortared its its building in Kiev.

On March 31 new elections were held. Volodymyr Zelensky, a TV comedian who played a teacher who accidentally became president, won the first round. Zelensky is of Jewish heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian.

Cont. reading: Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution Just wanted to point out - the documentary I believe you are referring to is "Revealing Ukraine."

It's a sequel of sorts to "Ukraine on Fire," which is three years old.


Patrick Armstrong , Jul 22 2019 19:01 utc | 2

An admirable summary.
What's next? There are three causes for cautious optimism
1. The elections were actually allowed to happen without Washington's interference; see 2
2. I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not interested
3. EU has its own problems.

But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?)

But you're absolutely correct to see this as the voters gain rejecting a "colour revolution"imposed from outside

bevin , Jul 22 2019 19:02 utc | 3
Fine work here, Bernhard. Analysis as clear and cool as a mountain stream. And now for the march of the Fascists led by the Iron Maidan of Galicia, Chrystia Freeland employing all Canada's power and credibility to restore the Galician Nazis from whose loins she came.
karlof1 , Jul 22 2019 19:09 utc | 4
Excellent review b, thanks! With the political sea change, Ukraine has an opportunity to progress, but somehow those pushing and believing their false narrative will need to be neutralized. It appears the best way forward is to implement the Minsk2 agreements and go forward from there.
Zanon , Jul 22 2019 19:16 utc | 6
Zelensky seems in some some cases to be fresh air

Zelensky's plan to purge Ukraine officials draws criticism
https://www.ft.com/content/f1f40060-a4ab-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1

But in the end, it is the same type of oligarchs, deep state that really have the final say in Ukraine.

Yonatan , Jul 22 2019 19:17 utc | 7
Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by Kolomoisky.

Kolomoisky will be looking for alternative sources of loot (eg reconstruction funds) which will only happen if the Donbass situation is wound down. Zelensky has unexpectedly announced that there will be a political solution to the issue of Russian sailors captured before the Kerch incident (and one factor in Russia's response to it) in exchange for those held in Russia. For all this to happen, the neo-Nazis will have to be defused, which may not be as difficult as it would appear as they are funded and orchestrated by the Ukraine oligarchs.

casey , Jul 22 2019 19:20 utc | 8
Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons, and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation...

"A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign to replace Poroshenko."

https://russia-insider.com/en/how-christine-lagarde-clinton-and-nuland-funded-massive-ukrainian-ponzi-scheme/ri27390

psychohistorian , Jul 22 2019 19:28 utc | 9
Thanks for the posting b

It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining countries that are not part of empire. look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded like a dirty rag.

gzon , Jul 22 2019 19:34 utc | 10
Ukraine needed to get out of the rut it has been in and look forward somehow, even if there are no great changes that happen in the country, much of the previous political heaviness seem gone, for now at least. It should be a good difference. Thanks for the report.
vk , Jul 22 2019 19:51 utc | 11
The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself).

Zelensky will have the same problem: he can pass how much bills he wants -- only those who the neonazi militias want to be implemented will be enforced. He needs to assemble a brand new Armed Forces -- with amateur volunteers if necessary -- if he wants to survive: his Jewish origin alone is already a death certificate for him in the eyes of the neonazis.

The other ace Zelensky has in his hand is the Donbass (Lughansk + Donestk). Those happen to be the most pro-Russian provinces and also, by far, the two most rich and industrialized ones. To make things even better, they also happen to be the two provinces that border with Russia. This peculiar geopolitic configuration is a gift of destiny that, for example, Brazil, didn't have.

Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). Russia just needs to wait.

Note: as for the toppled Lenin statues. Please, continue: in one of his birthdays, the Soviet population made a mass homage to him, gathering in the Red Square and writing him poems. He was very embarrassed and hated it -- his rationalization was that the Revolution's main actor was the poeple, not him, and that personality cult was the wrong way to perceive reality of the times.

Michael Droy , Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12
Good stuff.

2 quibbles. Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky can safely be assumed.

The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block. There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. This is why the Russians expected to be part of a negotiating group, and why eventually Yanukovych belatedly realised that EU association would lead direct to dissociation with ex-Soviet trading partners and an economic catastrophe for Ukraine. Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.

Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has been blamed for the EU's Economic trap.

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Jul 22 2019 20:13 utc | 13
Thing is, in Ukraine as much as in the US, EU, India, or wherever: For a Politician to make a campaign for a high political position, let alone the highest, one NEEDS Money. And where is a someone financing a politician, they make themselves vurnable. Thats the nature of it: No one will give you even a penny, let alone dozens of millions of dollars, if not for something in return. So someone HAS to put the money into him, and Kolomoisky is reported not only by NATO, but by Russian sources too.

Why do i say this? Because i want to have my point that everyone is corrupt, and the world is dystopia. No, not today: It is because those "civil organisations" already hinted, that they use Kolomoisky's financing as the attack vector, should the Ukraine dare to stray off from NATO course.

They said something of the likes of: "We heard of the allegations that Kolomoisky is having him in his pocket, and we always want to ensure that politics are not corrupted, so we will watch it". They said that AFAIK some days before the recent threath, so maybe there has been some signs he does not want to play ball with NATO.

But we will see.. With the US you never know, even more with Donald and his best buddy neocons.

William Gruff , Jul 22 2019 20:19 utc | 14
b says: "The Ukraine can not economically survive without good relations with Russia."

That is true, but what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer?

The Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian industries.

Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back in even after you've been a total jerk), but there will be no massive bailout and magical recovery. Eastern Ukraine will benefit from a peace dividend, but western Ukraine will have to be satisfied with European sex tourism, with Lvov remaining the gay prostitute capital of the continent.

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Jul 22 2019 20:20 utc | 15
@B: One Correction if i see it right: I think linked Documentary "Ukraine on fire" is NOT the new one, he already made a doc about Ukraine some time ago, and this is it.

The new one is Not released yet, i mean the one with the Interview you posted few days ago.

Here Ukraine on fire from 2016: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5724358/

The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released. Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Jul 22 2019 20:28 utc | 17

Sorry, last post: Please barflies, for those you want to support those documentarys, vote for them on IMDB and write reviews if you saw them. They are being attacked from NATO bots and voted down to C-Movie level. If you dont want BS like Fast & Furious have better ranking as those anti-mainstream docs, please take your time and support them!
They are pretty much the only documentarys in mainstream US media that tell the other side!
Clueless Joe , Jul 22 2019 21:01 utc | 19
That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me. One that should be imposed from outside if necessary, if some Ukrainians are foolish enough to pick a side - and, considering its geographical position, specially if some Ukrainians people want to move "West" full speed ahead, because the border with Russia will always be there.

As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would.

flankerbandit , Jul 22 2019 21:07 utc | 20
@ William Gruff
Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back in even after you've been a total jerk)...

Well said! There is a transcript of the Putin Interview by Oliver Stone on The Saker blog.

For example, I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are actually one people.

Putin adds that it's inevitable that Ukraine will eventually return to good relations with Russia.

Look, when these lands that are now the core of Ukraine, joined Russia, there were just three regions – Kiev, the Kiev region, northern and southern regions – nobody thought themselves to be anything but Russians, because it was all based on religious affiliation. They were all Orthodox and they considered themselves Russians. They did not want to be part of the Catholic world, where Poland was dragging them.

Putin is correct, as usual. He is playing the Long Game, just as China has done with Hong Kong and continues to do with Taiwan. The empire always uses divide and rule. But in the end, empires always bite the dust.

David Park , Jul 22 2019 21:09 utc | 21
In Ukrainian politics my preferences are with the present Russian viewpoint and not at all with the Ukrainian Nazis. Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Soviet_and_Western_denial

Is this all now forgiven, denied or forgotten or is it still the genesis of much of the anti-Russian feeling?

Don Karlos , Jul 22 2019 21:10 utc | 22
"Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе за Украину" (which includes the interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here, https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html
ben , Jul 22 2019 21:11 utc | 23
b said; "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think."

We'll all hope for the Zelensky people to salvage some sanity from another round of the empire's attacks. They'll never relent.

One would hope the Stone documentary would be seen here, in the U$A, but that's a distant dream. Should at least be on PBS, but, I doubt it.

As always b, thanks for the therapy, and historical background...

vk , Jul 22 2019 21:29 utc | 24
For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare (published in 2010; leaked in 2012): Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1994).

When used at the same time in the same place, they form what Korybko calls Hybrid Warfare (see his book).

c1ue , Jul 22 2019 21:55 utc | 26
@David Park #21

The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949.

While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated by a US embargo on wheat imports to China.

Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS , no less.

Jackrabbit , Jul 22 2019 22:19 utc | 29
b:
Some allege that Zelensky is under influence of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But so far there is little evidence to provide that.... Zelensky will likely try to move the country back to a balanced positions between the 'west' and Russia.
There's reason to be skeptical. Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish). President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish). Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.

"Yats is the guy" ... until he isn't but will the new guy bring real change or just pretend to?

JohninMK , Jul 22 2019 22:25 utc | 30
Curtis # 27

Not just a bridge between Russia and the EU, the natural partnership that the US really fears, but, look at the geography, it is the natural entry point into Europe for the new Silk Road from China. Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper.

jayc , Jul 22 2019 22:32 utc | 31
Is it a feature of the "rules based international order" that unelected NGOs can establish "red-lines" on policy and expect adherence?
bevin , Jul 22 2019 22:33 utc | 32
"Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians..."
The 'Holodomor' was not real. No such event occurred. There was no intention of starving Ukrainians, on the part of the CPSU. In fact most of the Soviet Union suffered from famines in these years, some regions much more than Ukraine. The causes of the famine were largely economic sanctions.

It is quite true that the Collectivisation campaigns were, in many ways disastrous, and carried out with great violence. But the Holodomor myth, invented by Nazi collaborators after 1945 and based on Goebbels's propaganda is Cold War anti-communist hate propaganda of the worst kind.
Wikipedia is extremely unreliable on matters such as this.

2.As to comedians running governments Hoarsewhisperer, don't forget Italy.

3. What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. At a time in which the USA's ability to dump grain on the world market is being employed to conduct terrorist economic warfare against disobedient countries, the surpluses Ukraine could make available are of cardinal importance. Then there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al.

bevin , Jul 22 2019 22:43 utc | 33
" The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS, no less."

c1ue@26

This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control inter alia the University of Alberta.

But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites, brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies. They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here. They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing, co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. It was with great relish that the Liberal Party used the former (and lifelong) Nazis to saplit the community post 1945.

bevin , Jul 22 2019 22:46 utc | 35
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?" They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change.
Evelyn , Jul 22 2019 23:25 utc | 37
bevin #35

re
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"

(a) Is it true that the population of Ukraine is .2% Jewish?
(b) Is it true that the .2% segment runs the country?
(c) Is it considered racist to ask why you find the two subject sentences indications of racism?

Piero , Jul 22 2019 23:29 utc | 38
Thanks for a great site!

However, for sake of good order, the EU association agreement proposal to Ukraine of Mr Baroso, was presented and rejected by Janukovitch beginning of November 2013. ( not 2014). The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square.

The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs & co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS!

kabobyak , Jul 22 2019 23:46 utc | 39
I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. I searched in vain a couple years later to find the archives of these films. Does anyone know if they still exist? I suspect if the filming was done by a coup-friendly Kiev TV station they will be kept under wraps unless some viewer recorded them, as there is a lot of incriminating evidence which could be exposed.

Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of coverage.

Here's hoping the pendulum has swung and we'll reclaim some sanity. Current trends don't favor this, however, and the US may go for the Samson option before conceding to a more multi-polar world. A smart lady (my wife) says we need 10% of people to accept a new idea or narrative before a critical mass can occur and it become the dominant narrative. The more people who understand the issues MOA and others educate about gives us a chance of countering the Empire's narrative control. Thanks to all for spreading the message and keep sharing with your friends.

Acar Burak , Jul 23 2019 0:13 utc | 40
@35 bevin
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change.

No, he does not just say "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?". He says:

Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish). President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish).

Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.

You can't ignore this "interesting" "fact" if it's the fact.

karlof1 , Jul 23 2019 0:32 utc | 41
TASS reports on election results. Zelensky's "Servant of the People party gets 42.45% of votes after 50% of ballots counted."

It seems reporting on ballot counting has ceased with no updates published today, all new reports I've read are from Sunday the 21st.

roza shanina , Jul 23 2019 0:35 utc | 42
@21 and @26 - regarding the Holodomor, It is true. Millions of people did die, but from what I can tell, it was a lot more complicated than how it is presented. Here's an article I found on Counterpunch Holodomor

I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war on the kulaks didn't help anything, and that lead to the Holodomor which is more genocide-porn used for the same purposes as a few other large scale killings I have heard about - to make sure we never forget, and more importantly, we never really find out what really happened, because it is S A C R E D.

I just finished an excellent book on the Ukraine crisis. Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War by Kees Van Der Pijl. In the book he says that the Holodomor was used by the Reagan administration in the second phase of the Cold War as a tool to demonize the Soviet Union. Sound Familiar? The author says the second phase of the Cold War was launched when detente was broken with the Soviet Union, any concessions made to domestic labor in the west was to be dismantled and the goal was regime change in Moscow which happened in 1991. The author really lays it out and explained the new, third phase of the Cold War which really kicked into gear in Kiev in the winter or 2014. I found that to be very interesting. I had never heard it put that way before. I can't recommend the book enough.

I just started Frontline Ukraine by Sakwa. Thank you, B and everyone in the MoA community. Please forgive any mistakes I may have made in describing my interpretation of van Der Pijl's book.

Indrid Cold , Jul 23 2019 0:39 utc | 43

Ukraine is such a unique disaster of a nation precisely because it is not really a nation at all, just a cobbled together mishmash of people with no history. There is no such thing as a Ukrainian ethnicity. Ukrainians are ethnic Russians, remnants of the poor souls conquered by the Poles after the Mongol invasion and treated like dirt for centuries. All through that horrid time they preserved their identity as Russian, but when the Polish state was removed from the map, bitter Polish academics pushed the tale that these people were somehow separate from Russians, i.e. Russia had no right to it's retaken territory. This new foreign composed identity was forced on them by both carrot and stick in the Austrian Empire, that occupied Galicia...leading to concentration camps for those who resisted it in WWI. And the saddest part of the tragedy was when the Soviets founded a Ukrainian republic, lending undeserved credence to this farce. There is no wonder the country is such a schizophrenic failure. They have no clear identity and their recent history is nothing but sniveling shame. What is really the difference between groveling before Nazi invaders or groveling before Nato invaders? Not much, and the end is the same.
roza shanina , Jul 23 2019 0:55 utc | 44
Holodomor link that works
Piotr Berman , Jul 23 2019 1:38 utc | 46
I think over 20% of Ukraine's population is "not Ukrainian".

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2019 21:59 utc | 28

It is quite complicated. For example, Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. His first language is Russian, and ancestry... Khazarian? If I recall, he shares first language, hometown and ancestry with Kolomoysky who was also his employer. What I am trying to say is that national identification is fluid in this region. You may have Russian nationalists who speak Ukrainian dialect at home, Ukrainian nationalists with rather incomplete knowledge of "their language" and many other combinations. That said, Ukrainian is a separate language that may be hard to understand by someone who knows only Polish or only Russian (but rather intelligible if you know both).

Occasionally I follow news on RusNext.ru, a news site that seems to be run by Donbass supporters who fluently translate from Ukrainian and, I guess, use Ukrainian words here and there.

BTW, the history of Ukraine is quite complicated, including "Polish Conquest" that in actuality happened as very complex cleaving and coalescing of fragmented states with key dynasties leaving no descendants BOTH in Poland and the Kingdom of Halich thus leaving both to the rule of a Hungarian king, to be later partitioned between his two daughters, while the less populated part of Ukraine was taken over by Lithuanians who had hard time defending their holdings from Tatars etc. After that, the polity of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adopted Polish as the common language of nobility, so most of the "cruel Polish lords" that Ukrainians fought with in 17th century were of Ruthenian (Russian?) origin, some claiming descent from Rurik (i.e. from the common dynasty of Rus lands). Compare with Irish and Scottish nobility adopting a Saxon-French mix as their vernacular (now known as English).

juliania , Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 47
I was just discovering the importance of internet world news information when the Maidan crisis unfolded, and many Ukrainians were putting photos and videos on various blogs about the horrible events leading up to and following the coup. Russia has made huge strides since - but we cannot forget that ordinary people who had the ability to send out information as it happened were to be highly praised for doing so. It wasn't sophisticated, I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire, a protest by a woman with a toddler at a speechgiving occasion. Unforgettable.

Ukraine should be proud of being the historic heart of Russia itself, the place where the State began. That's what Putin is talking about, and even more than Crimea Kiev is the historical homeland capital city for all Russians; it's part of their heritage. It's as if separatists in the US got themselves embedded in New York City and declared their independence of the rest of the country, being more aligned with Canada. (Oh, and everyone in that northern area now had to speak French.)

Anything can happen, I guess.

Jackrabbit , Jul 23 2019 1:51 utc | 48
bevin

cheap racist cracks

Wikipedia tells us that Jews are 0.2% of the population in Ukraine.

'Jewish' is not a race. It's a religion. Do you think that Israel is a country for semetic people ? LOL. No, it's a theocracy.

Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist Empire".

<> <> <> <> <> <>

Leads me to wonder if the State Department's recent global antisemitism efforts are mostly aimed at Ukraine.

If Ukraine itself made such efforts/expenditures it might would draw a backlash from the Ukrainian people. So the US does it and slyly declares it to be global so no one notices that it's directed at certain countries (mostly Ukraine?) that have Jewish leadership that's backed by US/NATO.

As part of the effort to take over Ukraine, US/NATO forged an anti-Russian alliance that included the anti-Jewish extreme-right in Ukraine as described by Ukraine and the "Politics of Anti-Semitism" (2014) :

The US and the EU are supporting the formation of a coalition government integrated by Neo-Nazis which are directly involved in the repression of the Ukrainian Jewish community.
. . .
Within the Western media, news coverage of the Neo-Nazi threat to the Jewish community in Ukraine is a taboo. There is a complete media blackout: confirmed by Google News search ... What is not mentioned is that these "radical elements" supported and financed by the West are Neo-Nazis who are waging a hate campaign against Ukraine's Jewish community.
. . .
According to the JP
[Jerusalem Post] , the issue is one of "transition", which will be resolved once a new government is installed .
"Despite his [Likhashov's] optimism fear pervades the local Jewish community, as it does the entire Ukraine, during the transition period."
No doubt Jews would not feel safe with rightists leading the government so arrangements were made (Democracy Works! LOL). We can surmise that the US State Dept has now formalized this with funding for a propaganda campaign that seeks to change their views and/or political slush fund to ensure election of Jewish candidates to high office?

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

Lozion , Jul 23 2019 2:10 utc | 50
Acar@39 The Globalists/Zionists Good 'Ole Pale of (re)Settlement included Crimea, home of the Karaites, hence manipulation of the Rusyns, and Neo-fascist Galicians & Podolians. A strange ethnic Divide et Impera nexus for sure..
Lozion , Jul 23 2019 2:12 utc | 51
..not to mention a revenge of Turkic Khazars on the Slavs of Rus, circa '900..
Lozion , Jul 23 2019 2:36 utc | 52
..revenge unmade by the various Orthodoxies, pneumatically inspired ;)
Acar Burak , Jul 23 2019 2:58 utc | 53
Pneumatically?!!
Lozi9n , Jul 23 2019 3:38 utc | 54
@51

"The pneumatics ("spiritual", from Greek πνεῦμα, "spirit") were, in Gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and hylics ("matter"). A pneumatic saw itself as escaping the doom of the material world via the transcendent knowledge of Sophia's Divine Spark within the soul."

Crux of the matter at hand..

Acar Burak , Jul 23 2019 3:47 utc | 55
I understand it as wind, but your definition is surely much more eloquent.
Paora , Jul 23 2019 4:20 utc | 56
@41 Roza Shanina

No one is disputing that famines occurred in Soviet Ukraine. These famines also occurred in Belarus and Russia. The extent to which the harsh form of collectivisation institutioned under Stalin contributed as opposed to climatic and other factors (Western sanctions, crop destroying pests etc) is a matter for debate. Grover Furr argues the latter forcefully in 'Blood Lies' (2014). The term "Holodomor" refers to an intentional policy of genocide against the "Ukrainian Nation" by evil Russians/Commies/Jews via intentional starvation. As bevin @32 points out, this concept originated in Nazi ideology. So yes, famine(s) occurred, but the "Holodomor" did not.

As for the author of the Counterpunch piece, Louis Proyect, he is an imperial apologist of the worst sort who delights in trolling any forum where anti-imperialists gather. If this appears to be an Ad Hominum attack, I think you have to be human to be a victim of one of those.

I also can't recommend the Van der Pijl book enough. Usually if I see a book recommended by someone who also links to a Louis Proyect article I would avoid it like the plague, but barflies please don't be discouraged! Van der Pijl is one of the premier exponents of (non-sectarian) Marxist International Relations, if you've been put off reading Marxist authors thanks to the likes of Proyect he is the perfect antidote. His "Global Rivalries - From The Cold War to Iraq" (2007) is also excellent, I would recommend you track that down if Sakwa has nothing much to add.

Global Research has an extract from "Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War" here:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-downing-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17-and-the-new-cold-war-with-russia/5638505


Jackrabbit , Jul 23 2019 4:52 utc | 57
Adding to my comments @29 and @46

TheGuardian: Who exactly is governing Ukraine? (2014)

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime minister
. . .
He has played down his Jewish-Ukrainian origins , possibly because of the prevalence of antisemitism in his party's western Ukraine heartland.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

SputnikNews (2017):

Yatsenyuk resigned in disgrace in April 2016 amid a massive corruption scandal that first broke in February, when economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius stepped down, complaining that the Yatsenyuk government was not genuinely committed to fighting corruption .

One of the many corrupt projects was Yats' border wall, which critics have said "wouldn't even stop a rabbit." LOL.
Joost , Jul 23 2019 7:03 utc | 58
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released. Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.

Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jul 22 2019 20:20 utc | 15


I just downloaded but got the Russian version without subtitles. I am unable to find the English version. For those that understand Russian, the magnet link for the download is:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:cbfd33adbd1d2bf3d48aade83a60507fe9f74241
If anyone can find the English version, please post the magnet link or infohash value, but I guess it has not yet been released.
uncle tungsten , Jul 23 2019 7:06 utc | 59
jackrabbit #all

Touche sir jackrabbit, well fielded.

snake , Jul 23 2019 7:30 utc | 60
by: bevin @ 32 < i am particularly interested to know the source of that 1932-1933 Holodomor propaganda.. .. claiming, not merely alleging, the genocidal deaths of 32 million Ukrainians.. Seems to me these fake claims that appear everywhere, have generally the same general sources, but are leaked at different places, in different formats, by different faces.. .. ?

I would like to see if it is possible to prove the source to be a coordinated amalgam of persons, and more particularly I am looking for the individual names that produce fake propaganda for a living, where did they study, who trained them, who hired them and so on.. Seems to me preparing, engineering or delivering fake anything that causes, or leads to war and death and destruction is a crime against humanity (CAH) with universal application because CAHs infringe inalienable human rights. There is a great need to make functional, on a world wide basis, the ICC.. Additionally the ICC cases have the potential to deliver the truth to History.

Iran, Russian, North Korea and China are positioned to impose ICC court jurisdiction, Nuclear Non Weapon Proliferation, and 3 vetos required to overrule the findings and mandates of a majority determination of the UN Security Council on all leaders and all nations and ruling bodies in the world. War, and in fact the decimation and destruction of the universe, is possible because these holes in the enforceable rule by law system exist. Fixing these three holes could have a massive long term effect on the peace and income distribution throughout the entire globe.

A forth such thing would be to internationalize all resources in the world, and to allocate ownership to them based on population and finally, the most important change of all, would be to internationalize education.. to grant one degree for all undergraduate education based on international subject matter examinations ( does not matter where or how the knowledge to pass is obtained, so universities and tutors can still play a massive part in instructing the masses), and one professional degree in law, one in medicine and one in engineering.. everyone would have to pass examinations and prove fluency in at least three culturally different, geographically different languages, and prove competency in mathematics at the differential and integral calculus level to be eligible to sit for an undergraduate degree and lawyers, doctors, scientist and engineers would be eligible to practice anywhere in the world, subject only to credential free, local regulation imposed because of local experience. Local regulation <= not supported by local experience would be overturned. None of this requires, demands, or needs a king or a president, it just needs to be a part of the human experience in the earth environment.

PJB , Jul 23 2019 8:20 utc | 62
Great summary b.
Needed somebody to just spell it out.

I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us. Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc. The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me.http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/

There's far more evidence Ukraine shot down MH17 than the Donbas rebels did. Go to www.consortiumnews.com and search 'MH17'

https://consortiumnews.com/?s=MH17

Talking with friends something has shifted for the average Joe and Jane. In 2014, if I presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome.

therobin , Jul 23 2019 8:59 utc | 63
@21 David Park, @26 c1ue, @32 bevin, @34 Ghost Ship, @41 roza shanina, @54 Paora, @58 snake

My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union, including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire. That alone should tell you something of its reliability. Proyect's piece is interesting, but it doesn't touch on the Western creation of the "Holodomor," the myth itself of the Soviet genocide aimed at Ukrainians.

Unfortunately, I'm unable right now to put my hands/keyboard on a good reference for this. If I'm able to locate one, I'll put it in a comment in an open thread.

Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great care. It would probably require a study in itself.)

* * * *

On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.)

Mykola Skrypnyk , and Ukrainization in the Soviet Union

CalDre , Jul 23 2019 9:48 utc | 64
The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak.
That's a bald-faced lie. Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine, including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia, still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak Russian.

The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this.

Stop spreading hate and lies. This is utter nonsense.

As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians. I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now". That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national.

You don't do anyone any favors by publishing lies.

CE , Jul 23 2019 9:56 utc | 65
All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it!
Jen , Jul 23 2019 10:10 utc | 66
It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the 1930s.

From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan.

The issue though is not so much the details of what actually occurred then as in the creation of a lie that deliberately equates Nazis with Soviets and thus Nazism with Communism, and ultimately socialism. If Nazism led to the Holocaust, then Communism and socialism must be demonstrated to have resulted in equally great horrors such as mass famines, starvation or incarcerating people in concentration camps on the basis of their religion. The current demonization of the Chinese govt over its supposed treatment of Falun Gong followers or Uyghurs follows this pattern.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 10:50 utc | 69
> Half the population speaks Russian as its first language.

83% according to US research in 2008 chart by Gallups

article

kabobyak , Jul 23 2019 11:26 utc | 70
CalDre @ 64

Accusing b of "spreading hate and lies"? There's plenty of sources documenting the Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't fake news. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 11:40 utc | 71
> The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language.

...and the ONLY one. ...and the language undeveloped, that lacked words for many modern realities, from helicopter to condom, so they all had to be invented rashly.

> It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya.

In Russia, Crimean Turks can teach their children, in beginner's school, in k'yrymchi language. It is one of three official languages of Crimean region. In Ukraine it was impossible then and it is impossible still.

> It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language

...that is only native to less than 20% of the population? Well, it is indeed a nature - of OCCUPIED countries. Like, Norman invasion into England, when elites had one language and serfs - another. And serf's language was slowly suffocated and replaced by foreign language of occupying elites. "If to live in comfort you have to rename every major city and tear down every ,ajor monument - you cam to live on someone's else land".

> whereby everyone in the country may communicate.

If that was the intention - then the language native to population's 83% would become official, like it is in Ireland. But not in Ukraine.

> As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption.

He was. So you say this makes illegal coup less illegal and bandit Poroshenko less bandit. How exactly? Or you just throw in irrelevant emotional hitpiece to accuse of "spreading lies" by which you mean "not spreading your favorite grievances" ?

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 11:49 utc | 73
> Yanukovych.... had no choice but to refuse [Deep and Comprehensive EuroAssociation]

But he did not. He asked to amend it, to re-negotiate it. He asked to add there compensation clause from EU to Ukrainian industries. Russia also asked for it to be re-negotiated, but Russia wanted re-negotiation from scratch into a trilateral treaty. Yanukovich only wanted money to support Ukrainian economic until his re-election.

Bad for him, but money he asked for "coincidently" were the same, as money Europe promised to Ukraine for removing of Nuclear weapon and Chernobyl nuclear power. When Ukraine delivered and asked for money - the 2nd maidan (2004) happened and both Kuchma and his heir Yanukovich flew down the drain. When Yanukovich was allowed to the throne in 2009 he conveniently forgot about that story. But the moment he asked EU for money, albeit under pretext of Association and markets, the 3rd maidan unleashed and Yanukovich went down the drain again. Guess, he had to learn his lesson without repeats?..

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 11:54 utc | 74
> Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.

Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12

Well, it took Russia to really START implementing trade inhibition, there were few rather vibrant "scandals" in spring and summer 2014 with Russia banning this or that food/alcohol form Ukraine, quoting safety hazards, to make Yanukovich understand this time it is for real.

Most probably Yanukovich was like Saakashvili in 2008, totally programmed that "Russia would not date" because "Russia is secretly ruled by Jews/NeoLibs/Washington/whatever". Russia dared. And then Yanukovich understood he was not selected to be a hero bringing Ukraine to Europe, but a scapegoat to absorb the fallout.

gzon , Jul 23 2019 12:22 utc | 75
So

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language

is biased also ? It isn't my argument at all, but I do understand that language is very important in terms of identity. There is quite a lot of history in that article to take into account, or argue over I suppose. As it is probably the "go to" reference for people outside of the region wanting to understand the question of languages in Ukraine, its content is relevant.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 12:24 utc | 76
> I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire

Posted by: juliania | Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 47

Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black" drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FtT0bRDN6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JZSfHri-wc
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Victory_Day,_2014#Mariupol

"In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he led his party to win 22 seats."
"In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Lyashko lost his parliamentary seat"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Lyashko

----------

One may also look for Olena Bilozerka, 2013 German "best international blogger." She is open and vocal part of Right Sector, though allegations were she is inflating political issues to hide marauding issues. She blogged back in 2014-02-16 about "next day" meeting of Right Sector representatives with Merkel "to report about implementation of our part of agreement and to be informed by Merkel about implementing her part" and regardless of "checking the watches" about armed assault upon government on 18.02, which indeed happened and was success.

Being open and vocal Nazi she then published many photo and video that were "omitted" by free world's free media.

Albeit as of now her English blog has much less content than her Ukrainian blog https://bilozerska-eng.livejournal.com/2014/
https://bilozerska.livejournal.com/2014/

vk , Jul 23 2019 12:30 utc | 77
This "how many people did Communism killed" question is tiresome. As I've already commented here in previous posts, there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened:

1) mass graves (this requires archaeology);
2) written contemporary accounts, and
3) census

In the "Holodomor" case, we only have "2", the most popular one in the West being that Welsh journalist who travelled to the USSR that time and, based on anecdotal evidence, "covered" the famine.

Wikipedia's article about the "Holodomor" only mentions one source mentioning concrete numbers: Wheatcroft, a rather obscure Australian academic who, to his merit, at least made up the effort to talk with people who had access to the Soviet archives.

The quoted list of his article clearly indicates Wheatcroft bases his numbers on indirect data. He uses the 1937 census in relation to 1926; in another article, he uses the quantity of grain stock in 1932. I could go on, but the important thing here is that this guy doesn't use any extraordinary sources. He certainly didn't go to the Ukraine to do archaeology. The Ukrainians themselves probably didn't do it either, because, so far, we have no accounts of mass graves in the region.

Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world -- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism). The often occured in the feudal world. They specially happened in tsarist Russia, which has a very peculiar and hostile climate and land composition for agriculture (only 15% of the USSR's territory was viable for agriculture even in the industrial era). They certainly are not a communist invention. We must avoid the "Belle Époque syndrome", that is, adopt the illusion late tsarist Russia was a paradise that was destroyed by evil Bolsheviks. Tsarist Russia was a very brutal world, were peasants died like flies every day: Gogol (who lived in Ukrainian territory) wrote a very funny and politically charged novel about it ("Dead Souls").

Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest.

Yes, forced collectivization probably caused excess deaths in 1932 -- but it's impossible to calculate how much more it caused in relation to a "normal" famine. Just because a famine happened during the Soviet era doesn't mean it was caused 100% because of socialism. Constant excess food production is a very recent phenomenon in human History, to state famines are the exception and not the rule is contemporary bias.

It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because, even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. Worst case scenario, this growth happened because birth rates were excessive in the urban areas at the expense of the rural areas -- an unlikely scenario, since in this case, we would register mass migration from the rural area to the urban area (because the hypothesis is that the famine was artificial, so the grains would be in the cities): they would either mass migrate or die trying, in which case we would have mass graves.

Mass graves are the decisive evidence for a genocide, indeed any mass extermination, because that would mean death was sudden. When the death process is slow and not synchronized, people have the time to bury/cremate their dead. That is the case even with some plagues (e.g. Antonine Plague). Mass graves are an indication people were killed more or less at the same time, in an artificial way, and in large quantities (since proper burials are expensive). In a deprived economy like the USSR, it is very unlikely all those bodies would be properly buried, let alone cremated, was a mass extermination taken place.

The holy grail of evidence for a genocide/mass extermination for any historian is when a witness points the place of the event and then archaeology finds out a mass grave. This evidently didn't happen in the case of "Holodomor".

Note: Gorbachev is a Russian who was born and raised in a village that borders modern Ukraine. His grandparents and parents were victims of the 1932 famine (they all survived). They continued committed with the Revolution and, according to Gorbachev's own accounts, he's was not raised believing the 1932 famine was exceptional.

vk , Jul 23 2019 12:40 utc | 78
About the "Stalin is a genocidal psychopath" question: it's funny, because forced collectivization was one of the few points where he and Trotsky agreed.

Whatever happened in macroeconomic reforms after Stalin consolidated power was a collective work, not the designs of only one man. And, although we can argue against the means, the fact was that they were successful: the USSR rose from the ruins of a second tier imperial power (late tsarist Russia) to a global superpower.

Ralph , Jul 23 2019 12:43 utc | 79
To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in 1992: www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html

Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place: 'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'. And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century - still in play.

Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be a thorn in the flesh.

Another important fact is the roman catholic church attack on Russia through ukraine & the split of the church in ukraine from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 12:44 utc | 80
> there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened

Four.

There can be comparison of available data in adjacent regions. In this specific case - in Poland-occupied Western Ukraine. Just "across the line".

Anecdotal evidence states it also had famine, so the famine was not anchored in USSR specific way of governing. Some rare online archives of then Poland newspapers photos report some UK delegations raising concerns, etc.

However, in USSR the famine was a state-acknowledge emergency. USSR prohibited moving foods out of Ukrainian SSR (and wheat was not the only food! everyone talks about grains, forgetting potato, fish, mushrooms, etc), broken many Western contracts to repay debts in grains (West was denying being paid in other assets and was decrying USSR savageness of refusing to export all the contracted grain with the same zeal it today decry USSR savageness of exporting at least some of grain), started importing grain from Persia (now Iran). This emergency let a lot of paper trail, which now is used to "prove" how evil Soviet government was (and, specifically, not Ukrainian SSR government but central government in Kremlin; and somehow this is stretched even further to "prove" murderous hatred being part of "Russian character").

In Poland, well, a dull matter of fact. Bad lack to be peasant, yet worst to be Ukrainian peasant. S-t happens. No paper trail - no "historic event" - no accusations. Don't try to fix famines - and you will not be accused of being part of it.

aspnaz , Jul 23 2019 13:01 utc | 81
Election apparatus is so easy to corrupt, yet people still vote! Crazy! And, so many elections have been rigged this way: People are so dumb! Why does nobody insist on independent, improved equipment? Conditioning makes people ignore the cheat under their noses.
William Gruff , Jul 23 2019 13:17 utc | 82
Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire?

By the way, do expect and don't be surprised when the same posters referred to above defend the empire's lawfare coup in Brazil, the attempted lawfare coup in South Africa, and the attempts to regime change Venezuela when b posts any articles on these issues.

As for holodomor, or the Maidan snipers, or the famine in China, one doesn't need details to identify fictions. One simply needs to use logic and reason. We need only question simple points if we suspect that the famine in Ukraine was a deliberate attempt to exterminate Ukrainians: Was it successfully completed, and if not then why not?

There are obviously still Ukrainians, so it wasn't successful. If we assume the famine was a deliberate attempt at extermination, then we must ask why was it stopped before it finished? Did some external factor force Stalin to call off the extermination before it was completed?

No, the famine was stopped by dramatically improved agricultural practices instituted by the Soviet Union. This cannot be reconciled with the claim that the famine was a deliberate attempt by the Soviet Union at extermination, so no matter how much we may cherish the myth of holodomor, to remain rational individuals we must let that myth go.

Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests? If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests?

The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev. The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests.

It is good to dig deeper into the details of all of these false narratives that we in the West have been fed, but those details are not absolutely necessary to know that the narratives are false.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 13:19 utc | 83
> I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war on the kulaks didn't help anything,

> and that lead to the Holodomor

Posted by: roza shanina | Jul 23 2019 0:35 utc | 42

1. If forced collectivization would lead to famine, there would had be no famines in 1920-s and in 1890-s, before the said collectivization but there were.

2. Before forced collectivization there were many years of attempts at unforced one. They failed for at least two reasons.

a) many of poor peasants "saw themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires". While being target of debt sharks (kulaks, public-devourers (мироеды)) they still only imagined the life as being sole owner of their however tiny patch of soil.

b) government attempts they saw as unwarranted advantages from aliens, city-dwellers, trade partners of hated kulaks, that to be took advantage of using any loopholes. Government tried to foster grassroots kolkhoz movements by offering bound credits - seeds, fertilizers, agriculture tools. Peasants started organizing "ten men" kolkhozes in springs, taking those credits, and then dissolving kolkhozes before gathering crops. "Faked bankruptcy" in modern parley. If you can have good sides without having bad sides - why opt for bad sides too?


Specifically in Ukraine it could also be boosted by the "national character" formed as dwellers of centuries-long battle ground between Poland, Russia and Turkey. No positive long-term planning, everything for instant profits disregarding any consequences. Any government are occupants and bandits, co-operating with them is futile and silly. We can see it today marching over once most rich and developed Soviet Republic. Why couldn't the same happen in 1930-s ?


3. However forced collectivization did achieved a lot. Remember the UK, where "sheep ate people", for example. Remember latifundists in Latin America. It is largely the same!

a) hugely increased labor efficiency in "village to city" trade metrics. "товарное зерно"
b) hugely increased labor efficiency in "men / area" ratio. Use of mechanic tractors and harvesters, etc. Unemployment among "just my hands" peasantry.
c) increased "capital concentration" provided for use of fertilizer, poisons, etc. Which contributed to the prior point.
d) now unemployed peasants moved to cities, populating newly built factories. This process was already going in 1900-s but much slower then. Emergent industrialization in the wake of WW2 - and a very successful one.
e) end of rural famines. One of the reason 1931 famine is so hyped - it was the last in the row. Would there be a comparable famine for example in 1970-s - and for political purposes it would had been much more useful against USSR. But there were none. "Golodomor" was the last famine, so it became the focal point.
e) end of city famines. Where atomized peasant families could not sustain even a horse or a cow, one of famines reasons, joint companies (kolkhozes) just like huge private agri-companies in UK or Argentina, relied upon chemistry and mechanizations, thus needed to trade with cities, thus were supplying cities with food. All the champions of Golodomor somehow overlook city famines that were cruel in early USSR in winters.

And one more quirk is almost total lack of photo-evidence behind "Golodomor".
When articles/books are illustrated, it is with photos from 1920-s famine in USSR or in USA, misattributed.
Allegedly, it is because in Soviet cruel diktatura even NKVD death squads could not make those photos even for secret important reports.
Reportedly it is because victims of "Goldomor" were dying "fatties", making less convincing images. The theories were made explaining why it was so, however there seems to be no any other famine known where those theories worked and people dying of hunger were abnormally thick.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 13:26 utc | 84
> Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them....?

Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 23 2019 13:17 utc | 83

Public debates are not for opponents, they are for public.

Internet debates are not only for participants, they are also for those who would google this page many years later

William Gruff , Jul 23 2019 13:40 utc | 85
To Arioch @84, I apologize. You are absolutely correct. Leaving trolls' posts unchallenged gives the casual reader the impression that those posts are unassailable; nevertheless, I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out. Posters such as yourself, vk, karlof1, etc who provide detailed and historically accurate corrections to the false narratives are necessary for the edification of lurkers and casual readers. I just hope that you don't measure the effectiveness of your posts by whether or not you change the trolls' minds.
Arioch , Jul 23 2019 14:00 utc | 86
> I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out

This can really work well with people sincerely lost by massive propaganda, people who succumbed to illusion they know, why they do not.

Wikipedia: The Socratic method, also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate, is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions. It is a dialectical method, involving a discussion in which the defense of one point of view is questioned; one participant may lead another to contradict themselves in some way, thus weakening the defender's point. This method is named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates and is introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus as midwifery (maieutics) because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding.

Sincere person, being guided by questions, would start researching and analyzing. And would not feel coerced.

But you know, trolls just ignore the questions and keeps hammering talking points by infinitely going back and repeating them "from starting point".

Avoiding positive argumentation, avoiding claiming something and limiting ourselves to questioning their weak points, we help them to create another impression: they have a bad theory when we have no theory at all. They are content with it.

So, putting out competing interpretation is no less important than showing their own unhonesty.

t people were able to look past the mistake and not overlook the van der pijl book. Thank you for letting me know of Mr. Proyect's reputation.

pantaraxia , Jul 23 2019 15:13 utc | 90
Missing from the comments regarding Ukrainian/Russian dynamics is recognition of the numerous attempts (dating back to the 17th century) of the Russification of the Ukraine, first by the Russian Empire and then by the Soviets.

Russification of Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification_of_Ukraine

ex:

( a reason for so many Russian-speaking Ukrainians??)

and from: Ukrainization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainization#Early_1930s_(reversal_of_Ukrainization_policies)

In the regions of southern Russian SFSR (North Caucasus and eastern part of Sloboda Ukraine included into RSFSR) Ukrainization was effectively outlawed in 1932.[18] Specifically, the December 14, 1932 decree "On Grain Collection in Ukraine, North Caucasus and the Western Oblasts" by the VKP(b) Central Committee and USSR Sovnarkom stated that Ukrainization in certain areas was carried out formally, in a "non-Bolshevik" way, which provided the "bourgeois-nationalist elements" with a legal cover for organizing their anti-Soviet resistance. In order to stop this, the decree ordered in these areas, among other things, to switch to Russian all newspapers and magazines, and all Soviet and cooperative paperwork. By the autumn of 1932 (beginning of a school year), all schools were ordered to switch to Russian. In addition the decree ordered a massive population swap: all "disloyal" population from a major Cossack settlement, stanitsa Poltavskaya was banished to Northern Russia, with their property given to loyal kolkhozniks moved from poorer areas of Russia.[19] in the 1937 Soviet Census compared to the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union.[18]

This perhaps explains the predominance of Russian in eastern Ukraine.

[Jul 23, 2019] Did John Bolton Light the Fuse of the UK-Iranian Tanker Crisis

Notable quotes:
"... Contrary to the official rationale, the detention of the Iranian tanker was not consistent with the 2012 EU regulation on sanctions against the Assad government in Syria. The EU Council regulation in question specifies in Article 35 that the sanctions were to apply only within the territory of EU member states, to a national or business entity or onboard an aircraft or vessel "under the jurisdiction of a member state." ..."
"... The notice required the Gibraltar government to detain any such ship for at least 72 hours if it entered "British Gibraltar Territorial Waters." Significantly, however, the video statement by Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo on July 4 explaining the seizure of the Grace 1 made no such claim and avoided any mention of the precise location of the ship when it was seized. ..."
"... There is a good reason why the chief minister chose not to draw attention to the issue of the ship's location: it is virtually impossible that the ship was in British Gibraltar territorial waters at any time before being boarded. The UK claims territorial waters of three nautical miles from its coast, whereas the Strait of Gibraltar is 7.5 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. That would make the limit of UK territory just north of the middle of the Strait. ..."
"... But international straits must have clearly defined and separated shipping lanes going in different directions. The Grace 1 was in the shipping lane heading east toward the Mediterranean, which is south of the lane for ships heading west toward the Atlantic and thus clearly closer to the coast of Morocco than to the coast of Gibraltar, as can be seen from this live view of typical ship traffic through the strait . So it is quite implausible that the Grace 1 strayed out of its shipping lane into British territorial waters at any time before it was boarded. ..."
"... Such a move clearly violates the global treaty governing the issue -- the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . Articles 37 through 44 of that agreement, ratified by 167 states, including the UK and the European Union, establish a "regime of transit passage" for international straits like the Strait of Gibraltar that guarantees freedom of navigation for merchant ships. The rules of that regime explicitly forbid states bordering the strait from interfering with the transit passage of a merchant ship, with very narrowly defined exceptions. ..."
"... The evidence indicates, moreover, that the UK's actions were part of a broader scheme coordinated with the Trump administration to tighten pressure on Iran's economy by reducing Iran's ability to export goods. ..."
"... On July 19, Reuters London correspondent Guy Falconbridge reported , "[S]everal diplomatic sources said the United States asked the UK to seize the vessel." ..."
"... Detailed evidence of Bolton deep involvement in the British plan to seize the Iranian tanker has surfaced in reporting on the withdrawal of Panamanian flag status for the Grace 1. ..."
"... The role of Panama's National Security Council signaled Bolton's hand, since he would have been the point of contact with that body. The result of his maneuvering was to leave the Grace 1 without the protection of flag status necessary to sail or visit a port in the middle of its journey. This in conjunction with the British seizure of the ship was yet another episode in the extraordinary American effort to deprive Iran of the most basic sovereign right to participate in the global economy. ..."
"... Back in 2013 2013 there was a rumour afoot that Edward Snowden, who at the time was stuck in the Moscow airport, trapped there by the sudden cancellation mid-flight of his US passport, was going spirited away by the President of Bolivia Evo Morales aboard his private jet. So what the US apparently was lean on it European allies to stop him. This they duly and dutifully did. Spain, France, and others denied overflight rights to the Bolivian jet, forcing it to turn back and land in Austria. There was even a report that once on the ground, the Spanish ambassador to Austria showed up and asked the Bolivian president if he might come out to the plain for a coffee--and presumably to have a poke around to see he could catch Snowden in the act of vanishing into the cargo hold. ..."
"... The rumor turned out to be completely false, but it was the Europeans who wound up with the egg on their face. Not to mention the ones who broke international law. ..."
"... Bolton persuaded the British to play along with the stupid US "maximum pressure" strategy, regardless of its illegality. (Maybe the British government thought that it would placate Trump after Ambassadorgate.) And then of course Pompeo threw them under the bus. It's getting hard to be a US ally (except for Saudi Arabia and Israel.) ..."
"... Spain lodged a formal complaint about the action, because it considers the sea around Gibraltar to be part of its international waters, "We are studying the circumstances and looking at how this affects our sovereignty," Josep Borell, Spain's acting foreign minister, said. So Gibraltar or Spanish waters? Gibraltar – Territorial Waters (1 pg): ..."
"... Worse than the bad behavior of Bolton, and the poodle behavior of Britain, is the utter failure of our press to provide us a skeptical eye and honest look at events. They've been mere stenographers and megaphones for power doing wrong. ..."
"... And this just in. A UK government official has just stated, related to the Iranian tanker stopped near Gibraltar, the UK will not be part of Trump's 'maximum pressure' gambit on Iran. We shall see if Boris Johnson is for or against that policy. ..."
"... John Bolton, war criminal. ..."
"... John Bolton has been desperate for a war with Iran for decades. This is just another escalation in his desperate attempt to get one. He's the classic neocon chicken hawk who is bravely ready to risk and sacrifice other people's lives at the drop of a hat. ..."
"... Since UK is abusing its control of Gibraltar by behaving like a thug, maybe it is better for the international community to support an independent state of Gibraltar, or at least let Spain has it. It will be better for world peace. ..."
"... While I agree with the gist of the article, remember that Bolton has no authority except that which is given to him. So stop blaming Bolton. Blame Trump. ..."
"... The provocations will go on and on until Iran shoots back and then Wash. will get the war it's been trying to start for some time now to pay back all those campaign donors who will profit from another war. ..."
"... The MIC needs constant wars to use up munitions so new ones can be manufactured. It's really just about business and politicians working together for mutual benefit to keep those contributions coming in. With all the other issues facing America, a war with Iran will just add to the end of the USA which is coming faster than you think. ..."
Jul 23, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Did John Bolton Light the Fuse of the UK-Iranian Tanker Crisis? Evidence suggests he pressured the Brits to seize an Iranian ship. Why? More war. By Gareth Porter July 23, 2019

While Iran's seizure of a British tanker near the Strait of Hormuz on Friday was a clear response to the British capture of an Iranian tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4, both the UK and U.S. governments are insisting that Iran's operation was illegal while the British acted legally.

The facts surrounding the British detention of the Iranian ship, however, suggest that, like the Iranian detention of the British ship, it was an illegal interference with freedom of navigation through an international strait. And even more importantly, evidence indicates that the British move was part of a bigger scheme coordinated by National Security Advisor John Bolton.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called the Iran seizure of the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero "unacceptable" and insisted that it is "essential that freedom of navigation is maintained and that all ships can move safely and freely in the region."

But the British denied Iran that same freedom of navigation through the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4.

The rationale for detaining the Iranian vessel and its crew was that it was delivering oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions. This was never questioned by Western news media. But a closer look reveals that the UK had no legal right to enforce those sanctions against that ship, and that it was a blatant violation of the clearly defined global rules that govern the passage of merchant ships through international straits.

The evidence also reveals that Bolton was actively involved in targeting the Grace 1 from the time it began its journey in May as part of the broader Trump administration campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran.

Contrary to the official rationale, the detention of the Iranian tanker was not consistent with the 2012 EU regulation on sanctions against the Assad government in Syria. The EU Council regulation in question specifies in Article 35 that the sanctions were to apply only within the territory of EU member states, to a national or business entity or onboard an aircraft or vessel "under the jurisdiction of a member state."

The UK government planned to claim that the Iranian ship was under British "jurisdiction" when it was passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to justify its seizure as legally consistent with the EU regulation. A maritime news outlet has reported that on July 3, the day before the seizure of the ship, the Gibraltar government, which has no control over its internal security or foreign affairs, issued a regulation to provide what it would claim as a legal pretext for the operation. The regulation gave the "chief minister" of the British the power to detain any ship if there were "reasonable grounds" to "suspect" that it had been or even that it was even "likely" to be in breach of EU regulations.

The notice required the Gibraltar government to detain any such ship for at least 72 hours if it entered "British Gibraltar Territorial Waters." Significantly, however, the video statement by Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo on July 4 explaining the seizure of the Grace 1 made no such claim and avoided any mention of the precise location of the ship when it was seized.

There is a good reason why the chief minister chose not to draw attention to the issue of the ship's location: it is virtually impossible that the ship was in British Gibraltar territorial waters at any time before being boarded. The UK claims territorial waters of three nautical miles from its coast, whereas the Strait of Gibraltar is 7.5 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. That would make the limit of UK territory just north of the middle of the Strait.

But international straits must have clearly defined and separated shipping lanes going in different directions. The Grace 1 was in the shipping lane heading east toward the Mediterranean, which is south of the lane for ships heading west toward the Atlantic and thus clearly closer to the coast of Morocco than to the coast of Gibraltar, as can be seen from this live view of typical ship traffic through the strait . So it is quite implausible that the Grace 1 strayed out of its shipping lane into British territorial waters at any time before it was boarded.

But even if the ship had done so, that would not have given the UK "jurisdiction" over the Grace 1 and allowed it to legally seize the ship. Such a move clearly violates the global treaty governing the issue -- the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . Articles 37 through 44 of that agreement, ratified by 167 states, including the UK and the European Union, establish a "regime of transit passage" for international straits like the Strait of Gibraltar that guarantees freedom of navigation for merchant ships. The rules of that regime explicitly forbid states bordering the strait from interfering with the transit passage of a merchant ship, with very narrowly defined exceptions.

These articles allow coastal states to adopt regulations relating to safety of navigation, pollution control, prevention of fishing, and "loading or unloading any commodity in contravention of customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations" of bordering states -- but for no other reason. The British seizure and detention of the Grace 1 was clearly not related to any of these concerns and thus a violation of the treaty.

The evidence indicates, moreover, that the UK's actions were part of a broader scheme coordinated with the Trump administration to tighten pressure on Iran's economy by reducing Iran's ability to export goods.

The statement by Gibraltar's chief minister said the decision to seize the ship was taken after the receipt of "information" that provided "reasonable grounds" for suspicion that it was carrying oil destined for Syria's Banyas refinery. That suggested the intelligence had come from a government that neither he nor the British wished to reveal.

BBC defense correspondent Jonathan Beale reported: "[I]t appears the intelligence came from the United States." Acting Spanish Foreign Minister Joseph Borrell commented on July 4 that the British seizure had followed "a demand from the United States to the UK." On July 19, Reuters London correspondent Guy Falconbridge reported , "[S]everal diplomatic sources said the United States asked the UK to seize the vessel."

Detailed evidence of Bolton deep involvement in the British plan to seize the Iranian tanker has surfaced in reporting on the withdrawal of Panamanian flag status for the Grace 1.

Panama was the flag state for many of the Iranian-owned vessels carrying various items exported by Iran. But when the Trump administration reinstated economic sanctions against Iran in October 2018, it included prohibitions on industry services such as insurance and reinsurance. This decision was accompanied by political pressure on Panama to withdraw Panamanian flag status from 59 Iranian vessels, many of which were owned by Iranian state-affiliated companies. Without such flag status, the Iranian-owned vessels could not get insurance for shipments by freighter.

That move was aimed at discouraging ports, canal operators, and private firms from allowing Iranian tankers to use their facilities. The State Department's Brian Hook, who is in charge of the sanctions, warned those entities last November that the Trump administration believed they would be responsible for the costs of an accident involving a self-insured Iranian tanker.

But the Grace 1 was special case, because it still had Panamanian flag status when it began its long journey around the Southern tip of Africa on the way to the Mediterranean. That trip began in late May, according to Automatic Identification System data cited by Riviera Maritime Media . It was no coincidence that the Panamanian Maritime Authority delisted the Grace 1 on May 29 -- just as the ship was beginning its journey. That decision came immediately after Panama's National Security Council issued an alert claiming that the Iranian-owned tanker "may be participating in terrorism financing in supporting the destabilization activities of some regimes led by terrorist groups."

The Panamanian body did not cite any evidence that the Grace 1 had ever been linked to terrorism.

The role of Panama's National Security Council signaled Bolton's hand, since he would have been the point of contact with that body. The result of his maneuvering was to leave the Grace 1 without the protection of flag status necessary to sail or visit a port in the middle of its journey. This in conjunction with the British seizure of the ship was yet another episode in the extraordinary American effort to deprive Iran of the most basic sovereign right to participate in the global economy.

Now that Iran has detained a British ship in order to force the UK to release the Grace 1, the British Foreign Ministry will claim that its seizure of the Iranian ship was entirely legitimate. The actual facts, however, put that charge under serious suspicion.

Gareth Porter is an investigative reporter and regular contributor to The American Conservative . He is also the author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.


john 17 hours ago

Honestly the Brits are such idiots, we lied them into a war once. They knew we were lying and went for it anyway. Now the are falling for it again. Maybe it is May's parting gift to Boris?
kouroi 17 hours ago
Same EU legislation only forbids Syria exporting oil and not EU entities selling to Syria (albeit with some additional paperwork). However, it doesn't forbid other non-EU states to sell oil to Syria. They are not behaving like the US. And this is also not UN sanctioned. In fact, UK is also acting against the spirit of JPCOA towards Iran. Speak about Perfidious Albion (others would say US lapdog).
Stephen54321 15 hours ago • edited
This story has certain familiar elements to it.

Back in 2013 2013 there was a rumour afoot that Edward Snowden, who at the time was stuck in the Moscow airport, trapped there by the sudden cancellation mid-flight of his US passport, was going spirited away by the President of Bolivia Evo Morales aboard his private jet. So what the US apparently was lean on it European allies to stop him. This they duly and dutifully did. Spain, France, and others denied overflight rights to the Bolivian jet, forcing it to turn back and land in Austria. There was even a report that once on the ground, the Spanish ambassador to Austria showed up and asked the Bolivian president if he might come out to the plain for a coffee--and presumably to have a poke around to see he could catch Snowden in the act of vanishing into the cargo hold.

The rumor turned out to be completely false, but it was the Europeans who wound up with the egg on their face. Not to mention the ones who broke international law.

Now we find that once again a European country had (apparently) gone out on a limb for the US--and wound up with egg on its face for trying to show its loyalty to the US in an all-too-slavish fashion by doing America's dirty work.

When will they learn?

Geoff Arnold 15 hours ago
Bolton persuaded the British to play along with the stupid US "maximum pressure" strategy, regardless of its illegality. (Maybe the British government thought that it would placate Trump after Ambassadorgate.) And then of course Pompeo threw them under the bus. It's getting hard to be a US ally (except for Saudi Arabia and Israel.)
cka2nd 14 hours ago
Does the British establishment have any self-respect at all, or do they really enjoy playing lapdog for the USA?
JPH 11 hours ago • edited
The very fact that the UK tried to present its hijack of Iran Oil as an implementation of EU sanctions dovetail well with Bolton's objective of creating another of those "international coalitions" without a UN mandate engaging in 'Crimes of Aggression".

The total lack of support from the EU for this UK hijack signals another defeat to both the UK and the neocons of America.

chris chuba 10 hours ago
Too bad there isn't an international version of the ACLU to argue Iran's legal case before the EU body. What typically happens is that Iran will refuse to send representation because that would in effect, acknowledge their authority. The EU will have a Kangaroo court and enter a vacant decision. This has happened numerous times in the U.S.

Would anyone in the U.S. or EU recognize an Iranian court making similar claims? Speaking of which, the entire point of UN treaties and international law is to prevent individual countries from passing special purpose legislation targeting specific countries. Why couldn't Iran pass a law sanctioning EU vessels that tried to use their territorial waters, what is so special about the EU, because it is an acronym?

britbob 9 hours ago
Spain lodged a formal complaint about the action, because it considers the sea around Gibraltar to be part of its international waters, "We are studying the circumstances and looking at how this affects our sovereignty," Josep Borell, Spain's acting foreign minister, said. So Gibraltar or Spanish waters? Gibraltar – Territorial Waters (1 pg): https://www.academia.edu/30...
Mark Thomason 8 hours ago
Worse than the bad behavior of Bolton, and the poodle behavior of Britain, is the utter failure of our press to provide us a skeptical eye and honest look at events. They've been mere stenographers and megaphones for power doing wrong.
JeffK from PA 5 hours ago
Fake News! Fake News! Fake News! <sarcasm off="">

Thanks for the investigative reporting. Trump has lied almost 11,000 times, so I think nobody expects the truth from The Trump Administration anytime soon. Especially if it goes against the narrative.

JeffK from PA 5 hours ago
And this just in. A UK government official has just stated, related to the Iranian tanker stopped near Gibraltar, the UK will not be part of Trump's 'maximum pressure' gambit on Iran. We shall see if Boris Johnson is for or against that policy.
EmpireLoyalist 4 hours ago
Job number one for Johnson - even before Brexit - must be to purge the neo-con globalists and anybody under their influence from Government.
Fran Macadam 4 hours ago
John Bolton, war criminal.
HenionJD Fran Macadam 2 hours ago
To be considered as such he would have to actually have been involved in a war. Give him a few more weeks and your charge will be valid.
Sid Finster 3 hours ago
OK, so why did the Brits go along with it? Are they so stupid as to not figure out that Iran might respond in kind, or did the Brits not also want war?
LFC 3 hours ago
John Bolton has been desperate for a war with Iran for decades. This is just another escalation in his desperate attempt to get one. He's the classic neocon chicken hawk who is bravely ready to risk and sacrifice other people's lives at the drop of a hat.
david 3 hours ago
Since UK is abusing its control of Gibraltar by behaving like a thug, maybe it is better for the international community to support an independent state of Gibraltar, or at least let Spain has it. It will be better for world peace.
Sid Finster 2 hours ago
While I agree with the gist of the article, remember that Bolton has no authority except that which is given to him. So stop blaming Bolton. Blame Trump.
Zsuzsi Kruska 2 hours ago
The provocations will go on and on until Iran shoots back and then Wash. will get the war it's been trying to start for some time now to pay back all those campaign donors who will profit from another war.

The MIC needs constant wars to use up munitions so new ones can be manufactured. It's really just about business and politicians working together for mutual benefit to keep those contributions coming in. With all the other issues facing America, a war with Iran will just add to the end of the USA which is coming faster than you think.

[Jul 23, 2019] Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution

Highly recommended!
Ukrainian nation is a separate nation with a distinct and rich culture. You can call them Southern Russians but still they are distinct. That does not mean that Russian language should be suppressed and eliminated from schools, the policy advocated and implemented by Western Ukrainian nationalists. a better policy would to introduce English language from the first grade. Attempt to eliminate Russian is viewed by Eastern Ukrainians as the attempt of colonization (which it is) and in a long run can have the opposite effect like any colonization project.
Two languages can coexist. Ireland and Canada does not stop being distinct countries because they use English language. And very few people in Canada would support switching to French. Many prominent Russian writers have Ukrainian origin (Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov). Elimination of Russian destroy common cultural space (which enriches all participating nations not only Russia) establishing during the USSR years and shrink this common the cultural space.which for Ukraine mean complete domination in Ukrainian cultural space of US culture and Hollywood with all its excesses and warts.
The break of economic cooperation with Russia after EuroMaydan was Washington policy with willing implementers in the face of comprador column (Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko) and Western Ukrainian nationalists, which run the government after EuroMaydan. Among other thing this implies the attempt of colonization of Eastern Ukraine (via forceful Ukrainization) which backfired with the election of Zelensky.
Notable quotes:
"... Zelensky is of Jewish heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian. ..."
"... I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not interested ..."
"... But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?) ..."
"... Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by Kolomoisky. ..."
"... Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons, and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation... ..."
"... "A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign to replace Poroshenko." ..."
"... It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining countries that are not part of empire. look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded like a dirty rag. ..."
"... The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself). ..."
"... Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). ..."
"... Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky can safely be assumed. ..."
"... The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block. There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. ..."
"... Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has been blamed for the EU's Economic trap. ..."
"... what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer? ..."
"... The Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian industries. ..."
"... That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me ..."
"... As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would. ..."
"... "Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе за Украину" (which includes the interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here, https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html ..."
"... "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think." ..."
"... For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare (published in 2010; leaked in 2012): Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1994). ..."
"... The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949. ..."
"... While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated by a US embargo on wheat imports to China. ..."
"... Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS , no less. ..."
"... Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper. ..."
"... Is it a feature of the "rules based international order" that unelected NGOs can establish "red-lines" on policy and expect adherence? ..."
"... What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. ..."
"... there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al. ..."
"... This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control inter alia the University of Alberta. ..."
"... But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites, brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies. They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here. They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing, co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. ..."
"... "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?" They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change. ..."
"... The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square. ..."
"... The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs & co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS! ..."
"... I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. ..."
"... Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of coverage. ..."
"... Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. ..."
"... Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist Empire". ..."
"... I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us. Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc. The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me. http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/ ..."
"... In 2014, if I presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome. ..."
"... My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union, including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire. ..."
"... Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great care. It would probably require a study in itself.) ..."
"... On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.) ..."
"... The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak ..."
"... Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine, including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia, still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak Russian. ..."
"... The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this. ..."
"... As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians. I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now". That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national. ..."
"... All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it! ..."
"... It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the 1930s. ..."
"... From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan. ..."
"... There's plenty of sources documenting the Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't fake news. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/ ..."
"... Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black" drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand. ..."
"... Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world -- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism) ..."
"... Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest. ..."
"... It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because, even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. ..."
"... To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in 1992: www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html ..."
"... Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place: 'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'. And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine. ..."
"... Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be a thorn in the flesh. ..."
"... Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire? ..."
"... Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests? If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests? ..."
"... The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev. The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests. ..."
Jul 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution VanWoland , Jul 22 2019 18:55 utc | 1

The Ukraine, translated as 'the borderlands, lies between core Russia and the Europe's western states. It is a split country. Half the population speaks Russian as its first language. The industrialized center, east and south are culturally orthodox Russians. Some of its rural western parts were attached to the Ukraine only after World War II. They have historically a different culture.

The U.S., supported by the EU, used this split - twice - to instigate 'revolutions' that were supposed to bring the Ukraine onto a 'western' course. Both attempts were defeated when the Ukrainians had the chance of a free vote.

The 2004 run-off election for the president of the Ukraine was won by Viktor Yanukovych. The U.S. disliked the result. Its proxies in Ukraine alleged alleged fraud and instigated a color revolution. As a result of the 'Orange Revolution' the vote was re-run and the other candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was declared the winner. But five years later another vote defeated the U.S. camp. Yanukovych was declared the winner and became president.

In 2014 the European Union made an attempt to bind the Ukraine to its side through an association agreement. But what the EU offered to Ukraine was paltry and Russia countered it. Unlike the Ukraine, which continues to get robbed by its oligarchs ever since its 1991 independence, Russia was economically back and in a much better position. It offered billions in investments and long term loans. Much of Ukraine's industry depends on Russia and Russian gas was offered to the Ukraine for less than the international market price. Yanukovych, who originally wanted to sign the EU association, had no choice but to refuse it, and to take the much better deal Russia offered.

The U.S. and the EU intervened. They again launched a color revolution, but this time it was one that would use force. Militarily trained youth from Galicia in the west Ukraine was bused into Kiev to occupy the central Maidan place and to violently fight the police. Snipers from Georgia were brought in to fire on both sides. It was then falsely alleged that government forces were killing the 'peaceful protesters'.

Yanukovych lost his nerves and fled to Russia. After some illegal political maneuvers new elections were called up and the oligarch Petro Poroshenko, bought off by the 'west', was declared the winner. The unreconstructed fascists from Galicia took over. The population in the industrial heartland in east Ukraine, next to Russia's border, revolted against the new rulers. A civil war, not a 'Russian invasion' , ensued which the Ukrainian government largely lost. Lugansk and Donbas became rebel controlled statelets which depend of Russia. Russia took back Crimea, which in 1954 had been illegally gifted to Ukraine by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian.

To end the war in the east Ukraine, the French, German and Russian leaders pressed Poroshenko to sign a peace agreement with the eastern leaders. But the Minsk agreement was seen as a political defeat and Poroshenko never implemented it. The war in the east simmered on ever since. The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak. All opposition was harshly suppressed.

The oligarchs continue their plunder. Everything of value gets sold off to EU countries. The U.S. is allowed to build bases. Corruption, already endemic, further increased. The people came to despise Poroshenko.

In an attempt to regain support, Poroshenko launched a military provocation in the Kerch Strait which is under Russian control. The stunt was too obvious . Russia nabbed the sailors Poroshenko had send and confiscated their boats. No one came to Poroshenko's help.

One can watch the full story of the above in UKRAINE ON FIRE - The Real Story (vid), a just released 90 minutes long Oliver Stone documentary. An updated version of the documentary was supposed to run on the Ukraine TV station of pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. The TV stations was forced to cancel it after right-wing groups mortared its its building in Kiev.

On March 31 new elections were held. Volodymyr Zelensky, a TV comedian who played a teacher who accidentally became president, won the first round. Zelensky is of Jewish heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian.

Cont. reading: Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution Just wanted to point out - the documentary I believe you are referring to is "Revealing Ukraine."

It's a sequel of sorts to "Ukraine on Fire," which is three years old.


Patrick Armstrong , Jul 22 2019 19:01 utc | 2

An admirable summary.
What's next? There are three causes for cautious optimism
1. The elections were actually allowed to happen without Washington's interference; see 2
2. I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not interested
3. EU has its own problems.

But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?)

But you're absolutely correct to see this as the voters gain rejecting a "colour revolution"imposed from outside

bevin , Jul 22 2019 19:02 utc | 3
Fine work here, Bernhard. Analysis as clear and cool as a mountain stream. And now for the march of the Fascists led by the Iron Maidan of Galicia, Chrystia Freeland employing all Canada's power and credibility to restore the Galician Nazis from whose loins she came.
karlof1 , Jul 22 2019 19:09 utc | 4
Excellent review b, thanks! With the political sea change, Ukraine has an opportunity to progress, but somehow those pushing and believing their false narrative will need to be neutralized. It appears the best way forward is to implement the Minsk2 agreements and go forward from there.
Zanon , Jul 22 2019 19:16 utc | 6
Zelensky seems in some some cases to be fresh air

Zelensky's plan to purge Ukraine officials draws criticism
https://www.ft.com/content/f1f40060-a4ab-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1

But in the end, it is the same type of oligarchs, deep state that really have the final say in Ukraine.

Yonatan , Jul 22 2019 19:17 utc | 7
Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by Kolomoisky.

Kolomoisky will be looking for alternative sources of loot (eg reconstruction funds) which will only happen if the Donbass situation is wound down. Zelensky has unexpectedly announced that there will be a political solution to the issue of Russian sailors captured before the Kerch incident (and one factor in Russia's response to it) in exchange for those held in Russia. For all this to happen, the neo-Nazis will have to be defused, which may not be as difficult as it would appear as they are funded and orchestrated by the Ukraine oligarchs.

casey , Jul 22 2019 19:20 utc | 8
Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons, and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation...

"A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign to replace Poroshenko."

https://russia-insider.com/en/how-christine-lagarde-clinton-and-nuland-funded-massive-ukrainian-ponzi-scheme/ri27390

psychohistorian , Jul 22 2019 19:28 utc | 9
Thanks for the posting b

It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining countries that are not part of empire. look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded like a dirty rag.

gzon , Jul 22 2019 19:34 utc | 10
Ukraine needed to get out of the rut it has been in and look forward somehow, even if there are no great changes that happen in the country, much of the previous political heaviness seem gone, for now at least. It should be a good difference. Thanks for the report.
vk , Jul 22 2019 19:51 utc | 11
The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself).

Zelensky will have the same problem: he can pass how much bills he wants -- only those who the neonazi militias want to be implemented will be enforced. He needs to assemble a brand new Armed Forces -- with amateur volunteers if necessary -- if he wants to survive: his Jewish origin alone is already a death certificate for him in the eyes of the neonazis.

The other ace Zelensky has in his hand is the Donbass (Lughansk + Donestk). Those happen to be the most pro-Russian provinces and also, by far, the two most rich and industrialized ones. To make things even better, they also happen to be the two provinces that border with Russia. This peculiar geopolitic configuration is a gift of destiny that, for example, Brazil, didn't have.

Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). Russia just needs to wait.

Note: as for the toppled Lenin statues. Please, continue: in one of his birthdays, the Soviet population made a mass homage to him, gathering in the Red Square and writing him poems. He was very embarrassed and hated it -- his rationalization was that the Revolution's main actor was the poeple, not him, and that personality cult was the wrong way to perceive reality of the times.

Michael Droy , Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12
Good stuff.

2 quibbles. Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky can safely be assumed.

The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block. There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. This is why the Russians expected to be part of a negotiating group, and why eventually Yanukovych belatedly realised that EU association would lead direct to dissociation with ex-Soviet trading partners and an economic catastrophe for Ukraine. Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.

Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has been blamed for the EU's Economic trap.

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Jul 22 2019 20:13 utc | 13
Thing is, in Ukraine as much as in the US, EU, India, or wherever: For a Politician to make a campaign for a high political position, let alone the highest, one NEEDS Money. And where is a someone financing a politician, they make themselves vurnable. Thats the nature of it: No one will give you even a penny, let alone dozens of millions of dollars, if not for something in return. So someone HAS to put the money into him, and Kolomoisky is reported not only by NATO, but by Russian sources too.

Why do i say this? Because i want to have my point that everyone is corrupt, and the world is dystopia. No, not today: It is because those "civil organisations" already hinted, that they use Kolomoisky's financing as the attack vector, should the Ukraine dare to stray off from NATO course.

They said something of the likes of: "We heard of the allegations that Kolomoisky is having him in his pocket, and we always want to ensure that politics are not corrupted, so we will watch it". They said that AFAIK some days before the recent threath, so maybe there has been some signs he does not want to play ball with NATO.

But we will see.. With the US you never know, even more with Donald and his best buddy neocons.

William Gruff , Jul 22 2019 20:19 utc | 14
b says: "The Ukraine can not economically survive without good relations with Russia."

That is true, but what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer?

The Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian industries.

Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back in even after you've been a total jerk), but there will be no massive bailout and magical recovery. Eastern Ukraine will benefit from a peace dividend, but western Ukraine will have to be satisfied with European sex tourism, with Lvov remaining the gay prostitute capital of the continent.

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Jul 22 2019 20:20 utc | 15
@B: One Correction if i see it right: I think linked Documentary "Ukraine on fire" is NOT the new one, he already made a doc about Ukraine some time ago, and this is it.

The new one is Not released yet, i mean the one with the Interview you posted few days ago.

Here Ukraine on fire from 2016: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5724358/

The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released. Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Jul 22 2019 20:28 utc | 17

Sorry, last post: Please barflies, for those you want to support those documentarys, vote for them on IMDB and write reviews if you saw them. They are being attacked from NATO bots and voted down to C-Movie level. If you dont want BS like Fast & Furious have better ranking as those anti-mainstream docs, please take your time and support them!
They are pretty much the only documentarys in mainstream US media that tell the other side!
Clueless Joe , Jul 22 2019 21:01 utc | 19
That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me. One that should be imposed from outside if necessary, if some Ukrainians are foolish enough to pick a side - and, considering its geographical position, specially if some Ukrainians people want to move "West" full speed ahead, because the border with Russia will always be there.

As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would.

flankerbandit , Jul 22 2019 21:07 utc | 20
@ William Gruff
Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back in even after you've been a total jerk)...

Well said! There is a transcript of the Putin Interview by Oliver Stone on The Saker blog.

For example, I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are actually one people.

Putin adds that it's inevitable that Ukraine will eventually return to good relations with Russia.

Look, when these lands that are now the core of Ukraine, joined Russia, there were just three regions – Kiev, the Kiev region, northern and southern regions – nobody thought themselves to be anything but Russians, because it was all based on religious affiliation. They were all Orthodox and they considered themselves Russians. They did not want to be part of the Catholic world, where Poland was dragging them.

Putin is correct, as usual. He is playing the Long Game, just as China has done with Hong Kong and continues to do with Taiwan. The empire always uses divide and rule. But in the end, empires always bite the dust.

David Park , Jul 22 2019 21:09 utc | 21
In Ukrainian politics my preferences are with the present Russian viewpoint and not at all with the Ukrainian Nazis. Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Soviet_and_Western_denial

Is this all now forgiven, denied or forgotten or is it still the genesis of much of the anti-Russian feeling?

Don Karlos , Jul 22 2019 21:10 utc | 22
"Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе за Украину" (which includes the interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here, https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html
ben , Jul 22 2019 21:11 utc | 23
b said; "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think."

We'll all hope for the Zelensky people to salvage some sanity from another round of the empire's attacks. They'll never relent.

One would hope the Stone documentary would be seen here, in the U$A, but that's a distant dream. Should at least be on PBS, but, I doubt it.

As always b, thanks for the therapy, and historical background...

vk , Jul 22 2019 21:29 utc | 24
For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare (published in 2010; leaked in 2012): Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1994).

When used at the same time in the same place, they form what Korybko calls Hybrid Warfare (see his book).

c1ue , Jul 22 2019 21:55 utc | 26
@David Park #21

The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949.

While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated by a US embargo on wheat imports to China.

Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS , no less.

Jackrabbit , Jul 22 2019 22:19 utc | 29
b:
Some allege that Zelensky is under influence of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But so far there is little evidence to provide that.... Zelensky will likely try to move the country back to a balanced positions between the 'west' and Russia.
There's reason to be skeptical. Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish). President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish). Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.

"Yats is the guy" ... until he isn't but will the new guy bring real change or just pretend to?

JohninMK , Jul 22 2019 22:25 utc | 30
Curtis # 27

Not just a bridge between Russia and the EU, the natural partnership that the US really fears, but, look at the geography, it is the natural entry point into Europe for the new Silk Road from China. Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper.

jayc , Jul 22 2019 22:32 utc | 31
Is it a feature of the "rules based international order" that unelected NGOs can establish "red-lines" on policy and expect adherence?
bevin , Jul 22 2019 22:33 utc | 32
"Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians..."
The 'Holodomor' was not real. No such event occurred. There was no intention of starving Ukrainians, on the part of the CPSU. In fact most of the Soviet Union suffered from famines in these years, some regions much more than Ukraine. The causes of the famine were largely economic sanctions.

It is quite true that the Collectivisation campaigns were, in many ways disastrous, and carried out with great violence. But the Holodomor myth, invented by Nazi collaborators after 1945 and based on Goebbels's propaganda is Cold War anti-communist hate propaganda of the worst kind.
Wikipedia is extremely unreliable on matters such as this.

2.As to comedians running governments Hoarsewhisperer, don't forget Italy.

3. What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. At a time in which the USA's ability to dump grain on the world market is being employed to conduct terrorist economic warfare against disobedient countries, the surpluses Ukraine could make available are of cardinal importance. Then there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al.

bevin , Jul 22 2019 22:43 utc | 33
" The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS, no less."

c1ue@26

This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control inter alia the University of Alberta.

But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites, brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies. They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here. They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing, co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. It was with great relish that the Liberal Party used the former (and lifelong) Nazis to saplit the community post 1945.

bevin , Jul 22 2019 22:46 utc | 35
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?" They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change.
Evelyn , Jul 22 2019 23:25 utc | 37
bevin #35

re
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"

(a) Is it true that the population of Ukraine is .2% Jewish?
(b) Is it true that the .2% segment runs the country?
(c) Is it considered racist to ask why you find the two subject sentences indications of racism?

Piero , Jul 22 2019 23:29 utc | 38
Thanks for a great site!

However, for sake of good order, the EU association agreement proposal to Ukraine of Mr Baroso, was presented and rejected by Janukovitch beginning of November 2013. ( not 2014). The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square.

The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs & co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS!

kabobyak , Jul 22 2019 23:46 utc | 39
I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. I searched in vain a couple years later to find the archives of these films. Does anyone know if they still exist? I suspect if the filming was done by a coup-friendly Kiev TV station they will be kept under wraps unless some viewer recorded them, as there is a lot of incriminating evidence which could be exposed.

Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of coverage.

Here's hoping the pendulum has swung and we'll reclaim some sanity. Current trends don't favor this, however, and the US may go for the Samson option before conceding to a more multi-polar world. A smart lady (my wife) says we need 10% of people to accept a new idea or narrative before a critical mass can occur and it become the dominant narrative. The more people who understand the issues MOA and others educate about gives us a chance of countering the Empire's narrative control. Thanks to all for spreading the message and keep sharing with your friends.

Acar Burak , Jul 23 2019 0:13 utc | 40
@35 bevin
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change.

No, he does not just say "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?". He says:

Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish). President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish).

Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.

You can't ignore this "interesting" "fact" if it's the fact.

karlof1 , Jul 23 2019 0:32 utc | 41
TASS reports on election results. Zelensky's "Servant of the People party gets 42.45% of votes after 50% of ballots counted."

It seems reporting on ballot counting has ceased with no updates published today, all new reports I've read are from Sunday the 21st.

roza shanina , Jul 23 2019 0:35 utc | 42
@21 and @26 - regarding the Holodomor, It is true. Millions of people did die, but from what I can tell, it was a lot more complicated than how it is presented. Here's an article I found on Counterpunch Holodomor

I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war on the kulaks didn't help anything, and that lead to the Holodomor which is more genocide-porn used for the same purposes as a few other large scale killings I have heard about - to make sure we never forget, and more importantly, we never really find out what really happened, because it is S A C R E D.

I just finished an excellent book on the Ukraine crisis. Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War by Kees Van Der Pijl. In the book he says that the Holodomor was used by the Reagan administration in the second phase of the Cold War as a tool to demonize the Soviet Union. Sound Familiar? The author says the second phase of the Cold War was launched when detente was broken with the Soviet Union, any concessions made to domestic labor in the west was to be dismantled and the goal was regime change in Moscow which happened in 1991. The author really lays it out and explained the new, third phase of the Cold War which really kicked into gear in Kiev in the winter or 2014. I found that to be very interesting. I had never heard it put that way before. I can't recommend the book enough.

I just started Frontline Ukraine by Sakwa. Thank you, B and everyone in the MoA community. Please forgive any mistakes I may have made in describing my interpretation of van Der Pijl's book.

Indrid Cold , Jul 23 2019 0:39 utc | 43

Ukraine is such a unique disaster of a nation precisely because it is not really a nation at all, just a cobbled together mishmash of people with no history. There is no such thing as a Ukrainian ethnicity. Ukrainians are ethnic Russians, remnants of the poor souls conquered by the Poles after the Mongol invasion and treated like dirt for centuries. All through that horrid time they preserved their identity as Russian, but when the Polish state was removed from the map, bitter Polish academics pushed the tale that these people were somehow separate from Russians, i.e. Russia had no right to it's retaken territory. This new foreign composed identity was forced on them by both carrot and stick in the Austrian Empire, that occupied Galicia...leading to concentration camps for those who resisted it in WWI. And the saddest part of the tragedy was when the Soviets founded a Ukrainian republic, lending undeserved credence to this farce. There is no wonder the country is such a schizophrenic failure. They have no clear identity and their recent history is nothing but sniveling shame. What is really the difference between groveling before Nazi invaders or groveling before Nato invaders? Not much, and the end is the same.
roza shanina , Jul 23 2019 0:55 utc | 44
Holodomor link that works
Piotr Berman , Jul 23 2019 1:38 utc | 46
I think over 20% of Ukraine's population is "not Ukrainian".

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2019 21:59 utc | 28

It is quite complicated. For example, Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. His first language is Russian, and ancestry... Khazarian? If I recall, he shares first language, hometown and ancestry with Kolomoysky who was also his employer. What I am trying to say is that national identification is fluid in this region. You may have Russian nationalists who speak Ukrainian dialect at home, Ukrainian nationalists with rather incomplete knowledge of "their language" and many other combinations. That said, Ukrainian is a separate language that may be hard to understand by someone who knows only Polish or only Russian (but rather intelligible if you know both).

Occasionally I follow news on RusNext.ru, a news site that seems to be run by Donbass supporters who fluently translate from Ukrainian and, I guess, use Ukrainian words here and there.

BTW, the history of Ukraine is quite complicated, including "Polish Conquest" that in actuality happened as very complex cleaving and coalescing of fragmented states with key dynasties leaving no descendants BOTH in Poland and the Kingdom of Halich thus leaving both to the rule of a Hungarian king, to be later partitioned between his two daughters, while the less populated part of Ukraine was taken over by Lithuanians who had hard time defending their holdings from Tatars etc. After that, the polity of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adopted Polish as the common language of nobility, so most of the "cruel Polish lords" that Ukrainians fought with in 17th century were of Ruthenian (Russian?) origin, some claiming descent from Rurik (i.e. from the common dynasty of Rus lands). Compare with Irish and Scottish nobility adopting a Saxon-French mix as their vernacular (now known as English).

juliania , Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 47
I was just discovering the importance of internet world news information when the Maidan crisis unfolded, and many Ukrainians were putting photos and videos on various blogs about the horrible events leading up to and following the coup. Russia has made huge strides since - but we cannot forget that ordinary people who had the ability to send out information as it happened were to be highly praised for doing so. It wasn't sophisticated, I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire, a protest by a woman with a toddler at a speechgiving occasion. Unforgettable.

Ukraine should be proud of being the historic heart of Russia itself, the place where the State began. That's what Putin is talking about, and even more than Crimea Kiev is the historical homeland capital city for all Russians; it's part of their heritage. It's as if separatists in the US got themselves embedded in New York City and declared their independence of the rest of the country, being more aligned with Canada. (Oh, and everyone in that northern area now had to speak French.)

Anything can happen, I guess.

Jackrabbit , Jul 23 2019 1:51 utc | 48
bevin

cheap racist cracks

Wikipedia tells us that Jews are 0.2% of the population in Ukraine.

'Jewish' is not a race. It's a religion. Do you think that Israel is a country for semetic people ? LOL. No, it's a theocracy.

Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist Empire".

<> <> <> <> <> <>

Leads me to wonder if the State Department's recent global antisemitism efforts are mostly aimed at Ukraine.

If Ukraine itself made such efforts/expenditures it might would draw a backlash from the Ukrainian people. So the US does it and slyly declares it to be global so no one notices that it's directed at certain countries (mostly Ukraine?) that have Jewish leadership that's backed by US/NATO.

As part of the effort to take over Ukraine, US/NATO forged an anti-Russian alliance that included the anti-Jewish extreme-right in Ukraine as described by Ukraine and the "Politics of Anti-Semitism" (2014) :

The US and the EU are supporting the formation of a coalition government integrated by Neo-Nazis which are directly involved in the repression of the Ukrainian Jewish community.
. . .
Within the Western media, news coverage of the Neo-Nazi threat to the Jewish community in Ukraine is a taboo. There is a complete media blackout: confirmed by Google News search ... What is not mentioned is that these "radical elements" supported and financed by the West are Neo-Nazis who are waging a hate campaign against Ukraine's Jewish community.
. . .
According to the JP
[Jerusalem Post] , the issue is one of "transition", which will be resolved once a new government is installed .
"Despite his [Likhashov's] optimism fear pervades the local Jewish community, as it does the entire Ukraine, during the transition period."
No doubt Jews would not feel safe with rightists leading the government so arrangements were made (Democracy Works! LOL). We can surmise that the US State Dept has now formalized this with funding for a propaganda campaign that seeks to change their views and/or political slush fund to ensure election of Jewish candidates to high office?

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

Lozion , Jul 23 2019 2:10 utc | 50
Acar@39 The Globalists/Zionists Good 'Ole Pale of (re)Settlement included Crimea, home of the Karaites, hence manipulation of the Rusyns, and Neo-fascist Galicians & Podolians. A strange ethnic Divide et Impera nexus for sure..
Lozion , Jul 23 2019 2:12 utc | 51
..not to mention a revenge of Turkic Khazars on the Slavs of Rus, circa '900..
Lozion , Jul 23 2019 2:36 utc | 52
..revenge unmade by the various Orthodoxies, pneumatically inspired ;)
Acar Burak , Jul 23 2019 2:58 utc | 53
Pneumatically?!!
Lozi9n , Jul 23 2019 3:38 utc | 54
@51

"The pneumatics ("spiritual", from Greek πνεῦμα, "spirit") were, in Gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and hylics ("matter"). A pneumatic saw itself as escaping the doom of the material world via the transcendent knowledge of Sophia's Divine Spark within the soul."

Crux of the matter at hand..

Acar Burak , Jul 23 2019 3:47 utc | 55
I understand it as wind, but your definition is surely much more eloquent.
Paora , Jul 23 2019 4:20 utc | 56
@41 Roza Shanina

No one is disputing that famines occurred in Soviet Ukraine. These famines also occurred in Belarus and Russia. The extent to which the harsh form of collectivisation institutioned under Stalin contributed as opposed to climatic and other factors (Western sanctions, crop destroying pests etc) is a matter for debate. Grover Furr argues the latter forcefully in 'Blood Lies' (2014). The term "Holodomor" refers to an intentional policy of genocide against the "Ukrainian Nation" by evil Russians/Commies/Jews via intentional starvation. As bevin @32 points out, this concept originated in Nazi ideology. So yes, famine(s) occurred, but the "Holodomor" did not.

As for the author of the Counterpunch piece, Louis Proyect, he is an imperial apologist of the worst sort who delights in trolling any forum where anti-imperialists gather. If this appears to be an Ad Hominum attack, I think you have to be human to be a victim of one of those.

I also can't recommend the Van der Pijl book enough. Usually if I see a book recommended by someone who also links to a Louis Proyect article I would avoid it like the plague, but barflies please don't be discouraged! Van der Pijl is one of the premier exponents of (non-sectarian) Marxist International Relations, if you've been put off reading Marxist authors thanks to the likes of Proyect he is the perfect antidote. His "Global Rivalries - From The Cold War to Iraq" (2007) is also excellent, I would recommend you track that down if Sakwa has nothing much to add.

Global Research has an extract from "Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War" here:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-downing-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17-and-the-new-cold-war-with-russia/5638505


Jackrabbit , Jul 23 2019 4:52 utc | 57
Adding to my comments @29 and @46

TheGuardian: Who exactly is governing Ukraine? (2014)

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime minister
. . .
He has played down his Jewish-Ukrainian origins , possibly because of the prevalence of antisemitism in his party's western Ukraine heartland.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

SputnikNews (2017):

Yatsenyuk resigned in disgrace in April 2016 amid a massive corruption scandal that first broke in February, when economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius stepped down, complaining that the Yatsenyuk government was not genuinely committed to fighting corruption .

One of the many corrupt projects was Yats' border wall, which critics have said "wouldn't even stop a rabbit." LOL.
Joost , Jul 23 2019 7:03 utc | 58
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released. Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.

Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jul 22 2019 20:20 utc | 15


I just downloaded but got the Russian version without subtitles. I am unable to find the English version. For those that understand Russian, the magnet link for the download is:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:cbfd33adbd1d2bf3d48aade83a60507fe9f74241
If anyone can find the English version, please post the magnet link or infohash value, but I guess it has not yet been released.
uncle tungsten , Jul 23 2019 7:06 utc | 59
jackrabbit #all

Touche sir jackrabbit, well fielded.

snake , Jul 23 2019 7:30 utc | 60
by: bevin @ 32 < i am particularly interested to know the source of that 1932-1933 Holodomor propaganda.. .. claiming, not merely alleging, the genocidal deaths of 32 million Ukrainians.. Seems to me these fake claims that appear everywhere, have generally the same general sources, but are leaked at different places, in different formats, by different faces.. .. ?

I would like to see if it is possible to prove the source to be a coordinated amalgam of persons, and more particularly I am looking for the individual names that produce fake propaganda for a living, where did they study, who trained them, who hired them and so on.. Seems to me preparing, engineering or delivering fake anything that causes, or leads to war and death and destruction is a crime against humanity (CAH) with universal application because CAHs infringe inalienable human rights. There is a great need to make functional, on a world wide basis, the ICC.. Additionally the ICC cases have the potential to deliver the truth to History.

Iran, Russian, North Korea and China are positioned to impose ICC court jurisdiction, Nuclear Non Weapon Proliferation, and 3 vetos required to overrule the findings and mandates of a majority determination of the UN Security Council on all leaders and all nations and ruling bodies in the world. War, and in fact the decimation and destruction of the universe, is possible because these holes in the enforceable rule by law system exist. Fixing these three holes could have a massive long term effect on the peace and income distribution throughout the entire globe.

A forth such thing would be to internationalize all resources in the world, and to allocate ownership to them based on population and finally, the most important change of all, would be to internationalize education.. to grant one degree for all undergraduate education based on international subject matter examinations ( does not matter where or how the knowledge to pass is obtained, so universities and tutors can still play a massive part in instructing the masses), and one professional degree in law, one in medicine and one in engineering.. everyone would have to pass examinations and prove fluency in at least three culturally different, geographically different languages, and prove competency in mathematics at the differential and integral calculus level to be eligible to sit for an undergraduate degree and lawyers, doctors, scientist and engineers would be eligible to practice anywhere in the world, subject only to credential free, local regulation imposed because of local experience. Local regulation <= not supported by local experience would be overturned. None of this requires, demands, or needs a king or a president, it just needs to be a part of the human experience in the earth environment.

PJB , Jul 23 2019 8:20 utc | 62
Great summary b.
Needed somebody to just spell it out.

I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us. Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc. The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me.http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/

There's far more evidence Ukraine shot down MH17 than the Donbas rebels did. Go to www.consortiumnews.com and search 'MH17'

https://consortiumnews.com/?s=MH17

Talking with friends something has shifted for the average Joe and Jane. In 2014, if I presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome.

therobin , Jul 23 2019 8:59 utc | 63
@21 David Park, @26 c1ue, @32 bevin, @34 Ghost Ship, @41 roza shanina, @54 Paora, @58 snake

My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union, including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire. That alone should tell you something of its reliability. Proyect's piece is interesting, but it doesn't touch on the Western creation of the "Holodomor," the myth itself of the Soviet genocide aimed at Ukrainians.

Unfortunately, I'm unable right now to put my hands/keyboard on a good reference for this. If I'm able to locate one, I'll put it in a comment in an open thread.

Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great care. It would probably require a study in itself.)

* * * *

On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.)

Mykola Skrypnyk , and Ukrainization in the Soviet Union

CalDre , Jul 23 2019 9:48 utc | 64
The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak.
That's a bald-faced lie. Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine, including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia, still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak Russian.

The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this.

Stop spreading hate and lies. This is utter nonsense.

As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians. I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now". That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national.

You don't do anyone any favors by publishing lies.

CE , Jul 23 2019 9:56 utc | 65
All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it!
Jen , Jul 23 2019 10:10 utc | 66
It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the 1930s.

From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan.

The issue though is not so much the details of what actually occurred then as in the creation of a lie that deliberately equates Nazis with Soviets and thus Nazism with Communism, and ultimately socialism. If Nazism led to the Holocaust, then Communism and socialism must be demonstrated to have resulted in equally great horrors such as mass famines, starvation or incarcerating people in concentration camps on the basis of their religion. The current demonization of the Chinese govt over its supposed treatment of Falun Gong followers or Uyghurs follows this pattern.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 10:50 utc | 69
> Half the population speaks Russian as its first language.

83% according to US research in 2008 chart by Gallups

article

kabobyak , Jul 23 2019 11:26 utc | 70
CalDre @ 64

Accusing b of "spreading hate and lies"? There's plenty of sources documenting the Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't fake news. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 11:40 utc | 71
> The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language.

...and the ONLY one. ...and the language undeveloped, that lacked words for many modern realities, from helicopter to condom, so they all had to be invented rashly.

> It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya.

In Russia, Crimean Turks can teach their children, in beginner's school, in k'yrymchi language. It is one of three official languages of Crimean region. In Ukraine it was impossible then and it is impossible still.

> It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language

...that is only native to less than 20% of the population? Well, it is indeed a nature - of OCCUPIED countries. Like, Norman invasion into England, when elites had one language and serfs - another. And serf's language was slowly suffocated and replaced by foreign language of occupying elites. "If to live in comfort you have to rename every major city and tear down every ,ajor monument - you cam to live on someone's else land".

> whereby everyone in the country may communicate.

If that was the intention - then the language native to population's 83% would become official, like it is in Ireland. But not in Ukraine.

> As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption.

He was. So you say this makes illegal coup less illegal and bandit Poroshenko less bandit. How exactly? Or you just throw in irrelevant emotional hitpiece to accuse of "spreading lies" by which you mean "not spreading your favorite grievances" ?

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 11:49 utc | 73
> Yanukovych.... had no choice but to refuse [Deep and Comprehensive EuroAssociation]

But he did not. He asked to amend it, to re-negotiate it. He asked to add there compensation clause from EU to Ukrainian industries. Russia also asked for it to be re-negotiated, but Russia wanted re-negotiation from scratch into a trilateral treaty. Yanukovich only wanted money to support Ukrainian economic until his re-election.

Bad for him, but money he asked for "coincidently" were the same, as money Europe promised to Ukraine for removing of Nuclear weapon and Chernobyl nuclear power. When Ukraine delivered and asked for money - the 2nd maidan (2004) happened and both Kuchma and his heir Yanukovich flew down the drain. When Yanukovich was allowed to the throne in 2009 he conveniently forgot about that story. But the moment he asked EU for money, albeit under pretext of Association and markets, the 3rd maidan unleashed and Yanukovich went down the drain again. Guess, he had to learn his lesson without repeats?..

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 11:54 utc | 74
> Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.

Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12

Well, it took Russia to really START implementing trade inhibition, there were few rather vibrant "scandals" in spring and summer 2014 with Russia banning this or that food/alcohol form Ukraine, quoting safety hazards, to make Yanukovich understand this time it is for real.

Most probably Yanukovich was like Saakashvili in 2008, totally programmed that "Russia would not date" because "Russia is secretly ruled by Jews/NeoLibs/Washington/whatever". Russia dared. And then Yanukovich understood he was not selected to be a hero bringing Ukraine to Europe, but a scapegoat to absorb the fallout.

gzon , Jul 23 2019 12:22 utc | 75
So

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language

is biased also ? It isn't my argument at all, but I do understand that language is very important in terms of identity. There is quite a lot of history in that article to take into account, or argue over I suppose. As it is probably the "go to" reference for people outside of the region wanting to understand the question of languages in Ukraine, its content is relevant.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 12:24 utc | 76
> I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire

Posted by: juliania | Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 47

Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black" drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FtT0bRDN6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JZSfHri-wc
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Victory_Day,_2014#Mariupol

"In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he led his party to win 22 seats."
"In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Lyashko lost his parliamentary seat"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Lyashko

----------

One may also look for Olena Bilozerka, 2013 German "best international blogger." She is open and vocal part of Right Sector, though allegations were she is inflating political issues to hide marauding issues. She blogged back in 2014-02-16 about "next day" meeting of Right Sector representatives with Merkel "to report about implementation of our part of agreement and to be informed by Merkel about implementing her part" and regardless of "checking the watches" about armed assault upon government on 18.02, which indeed happened and was success.

Being open and vocal Nazi she then published many photo and video that were "omitted" by free world's free media.

Albeit as of now her English blog has much less content than her Ukrainian blog https://bilozerska-eng.livejournal.com/2014/
https://bilozerska.livejournal.com/2014/

vk , Jul 23 2019 12:30 utc | 77
This "how many people did Communism killed" question is tiresome. As I've already commented here in previous posts, there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened:

1) mass graves (this requires archaeology);
2) written contemporary accounts, and
3) census

In the "Holodomor" case, we only have "2", the most popular one in the West being that Welsh journalist who travelled to the USSR that time and, based on anecdotal evidence, "covered" the famine.

Wikipedia's article about the "Holodomor" only mentions one source mentioning concrete numbers: Wheatcroft, a rather obscure Australian academic who, to his merit, at least made up the effort to talk with people who had access to the Soviet archives.

The quoted list of his article clearly indicates Wheatcroft bases his numbers on indirect data. He uses the 1937 census in relation to 1926; in another article, he uses the quantity of grain stock in 1932. I could go on, but the important thing here is that this guy doesn't use any extraordinary sources. He certainly didn't go to the Ukraine to do archaeology. The Ukrainians themselves probably didn't do it either, because, so far, we have no accounts of mass graves in the region.

Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world -- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism). The often occured in the feudal world. They specially happened in tsarist Russia, which has a very peculiar and hostile climate and land composition for agriculture (only 15% of the USSR's territory was viable for agriculture even in the industrial era). They certainly are not a communist invention. We must avoid the "Belle Époque syndrome", that is, adopt the illusion late tsarist Russia was a paradise that was destroyed by evil Bolsheviks. Tsarist Russia was a very brutal world, were peasants died like flies every day: Gogol (who lived in Ukrainian territory) wrote a very funny and politically charged novel about it ("Dead Souls").

Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest.

Yes, forced collectivization probably caused excess deaths in 1932 -- but it's impossible to calculate how much more it caused in relation to a "normal" famine. Just because a famine happened during the Soviet era doesn't mean it was caused 100% because of socialism. Constant excess food production is a very recent phenomenon in human History, to state famines are the exception and not the rule is contemporary bias.

It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because, even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. Worst case scenario, this growth happened because birth rates were excessive in the urban areas at the expense of the rural areas -- an unlikely scenario, since in this case, we would register mass migration from the rural area to the urban area (because the hypothesis is that the famine was artificial, so the grains would be in the cities): they would either mass migrate or die trying, in which case we would have mass graves.

Mass graves are the decisive evidence for a genocide, indeed any mass extermination, because that would mean death was sudden. When the death process is slow and not synchronized, people have the time to bury/cremate their dead. That is the case even with some plagues (e.g. Antonine Plague). Mass graves are an indication people were killed more or less at the same time, in an artificial way, and in large quantities (since proper burials are expensive). In a deprived economy like the USSR, it is very unlikely all those bodies would be properly buried, let alone cremated, was a mass extermination taken place.

The holy grail of evidence for a genocide/mass extermination for any historian is when a witness points the place of the event and then archaeology finds out a mass grave. This evidently didn't happen in the case of "Holodomor".

Note: Gorbachev is a Russian who was born and raised in a village that borders modern Ukraine. His grandparents and parents were victims of the 1932 famine (they all survived). They continued committed with the Revolution and, according to Gorbachev's own accounts, he's was not raised believing the 1932 famine was exceptional.

vk , Jul 23 2019 12:40 utc | 78
About the "Stalin is a genocidal psychopath" question: it's funny, because forced collectivization was one of the few points where he and Trotsky agreed.

Whatever happened in macroeconomic reforms after Stalin consolidated power was a collective work, not the designs of only one man. And, although we can argue against the means, the fact was that they were successful: the USSR rose from the ruins of a second tier imperial power (late tsarist Russia) to a global superpower.

Ralph , Jul 23 2019 12:43 utc | 79
To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in 1992: www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html

Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place: 'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'. And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century - still in play.

Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be a thorn in the flesh.

Another important fact is the roman catholic church attack on Russia through ukraine & the split of the church in ukraine from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 12:44 utc | 80
> there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened

Four.

There can be comparison of available data in adjacent regions. In this specific case - in Poland-occupied Western Ukraine. Just "across the line".

Anecdotal evidence states it also had famine, so the famine was not anchored in USSR specific way of governing. Some rare online archives of then Poland newspapers photos report some UK delegations raising concerns, etc.

However, in USSR the famine was a state-acknowledge emergency. USSR prohibited moving foods out of Ukrainian SSR (and wheat was not the only food! everyone talks about grains, forgetting potato, fish, mushrooms, etc), broken many Western contracts to repay debts in grains (West was denying being paid in other assets and was decrying USSR savageness of refusing to export all the contracted grain with the same zeal it today decry USSR savageness of exporting at least some of grain), started importing grain from Persia (now Iran). This emergency let a lot of paper trail, which now is used to "prove" how evil Soviet government was (and, specifically, not Ukrainian SSR government but central government in Kremlin; and somehow this is stretched even further to "prove" murderous hatred being part of "Russian character").

In Poland, well, a dull matter of fact. Bad lack to be peasant, yet worst to be Ukrainian peasant. S-t happens. No paper trail - no "historic event" - no accusations. Don't try to fix famines - and you will not be accused of being part of it.

aspnaz , Jul 23 2019 13:01 utc | 81
Election apparatus is so easy to corrupt, yet people still vote! Crazy! And, so many elections have been rigged this way: People are so dumb! Why does nobody insist on independent, improved equipment? Conditioning makes people ignore the cheat under their noses.
William Gruff , Jul 23 2019 13:17 utc | 82
Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire?

By the way, do expect and don't be surprised when the same posters referred to above defend the empire's lawfare coup in Brazil, the attempted lawfare coup in South Africa, and the attempts to regime change Venezuela when b posts any articles on these issues.

As for holodomor, or the Maidan snipers, or the famine in China, one doesn't need details to identify fictions. One simply needs to use logic and reason. We need only question simple points if we suspect that the famine in Ukraine was a deliberate attempt to exterminate Ukrainians: Was it successfully completed, and if not then why not?

There are obviously still Ukrainians, so it wasn't successful. If we assume the famine was a deliberate attempt at extermination, then we must ask why was it stopped before it finished? Did some external factor force Stalin to call off the extermination before it was completed?

No, the famine was stopped by dramatically improved agricultural practices instituted by the Soviet Union. This cannot be reconciled with the claim that the famine was a deliberate attempt by the Soviet Union at extermination, so no matter how much we may cherish the myth of holodomor, to remain rational individuals we must let that myth go.

Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests? If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests?

The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev. The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests.

It is good to dig deeper into the details of all of these false narratives that we in the West have been fed, but those details are not absolutely necessary to know that the narratives are false.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 13:19 utc | 83
> I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war on the kulaks didn't help anything,

> and that lead to the Holodomor

Posted by: roza shanina | Jul 23 2019 0:35 utc | 42

1. If forced collectivization would lead to famine, there would had be no famines in 1920-s and in 1890-s, before the said collectivization but there were.

2. Before forced collectivization there were many years of attempts at unforced one. They failed for at least two reasons.

a) many of poor peasants "saw themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires". While being target of debt sharks (kulaks, public-devourers (мироеды)) they still only imagined the life as being sole owner of their however tiny patch of soil.

b) government attempts they saw as unwarranted advantages from aliens, city-dwellers, trade partners of hated kulaks, that to be took advantage of using any loopholes. Government tried to foster grassroots kolkhoz movements by offering bound credits - seeds, fertilizers, agriculture tools. Peasants started organizing "ten men" kolkhozes in springs, taking those credits, and then dissolving kolkhozes before gathering crops. "Faked bankruptcy" in modern parley. If you can have good sides without having bad sides - why opt for bad sides too?


Specifically in Ukraine it could also be boosted by the "national character" formed as dwellers of centuries-long battle ground between Poland, Russia and Turkey. No positive long-term planning, everything for instant profits disregarding any consequences. Any government are occupants and bandits, co-operating with them is futile and silly. We can see it today marching over once most rich and developed Soviet Republic. Why couldn't the same happen in 1930-s ?


3. However forced collectivization did achieved a lot. Remember the UK, where "sheep ate people", for example. Remember latifundists in Latin America. It is largely the same!

a) hugely increased labor efficiency in "village to city" trade metrics. "товарное зерно"
b) hugely increased labor efficiency in "men / area" ratio. Use of mechanic tractors and harvesters, etc. Unemployment among "just my hands" peasantry.
c) increased "capital concentration" provided for use of fertilizer, poisons, etc. Which contributed to the prior point.
d) now unemployed peasants moved to cities, populating newly built factories. This process was already going in 1900-s but much slower then. Emergent industrialization in the wake of WW2 - and a very successful one.
e) end of rural famines. One of the reason 1931 famine is so hyped - it was the last in the row. Would there be a comparable famine for example in 1970-s - and for political purposes it would had been much more useful against USSR. But there were none. "Golodomor" was the last famine, so it became the focal point.
e) end of city famines. Where atomized peasant families could not sustain even a horse or a cow, one of famines reasons, joint companies (kolkhozes) just like huge private agri-companies in UK or Argentina, relied upon chemistry and mechanizations, thus needed to trade with cities, thus were supplying cities with food. All the champions of Golodomor somehow overlook city famines that were cruel in early USSR in winters.

And one more quirk is almost total lack of photo-evidence behind "Golodomor".
When articles/books are illustrated, it is with photos from 1920-s famine in USSR or in USA, misattributed.
Allegedly, it is because in Soviet cruel diktatura even NKVD death squads could not make those photos even for secret important reports.
Reportedly it is because victims of "Goldomor" were dying "fatties", making less convincing images. The theories were made explaining why it was so, however there seems to be no any other famine known where those theories worked and people dying of hunger were abnormally thick.

Arioch , Jul 23 2019 13:26 utc | 84
> Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them....?

Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 23 2019 13:17 utc | 83

Public debates are not for opponents, they are for public.

Internet debates are not only for participants, they are also for those who would google this page many years later

William Gruff , Jul 23 2019 13:40 utc | 85
To Arioch @84, I apologize. You are absolutely correct. Leaving trolls' posts unchallenged gives the casual reader the impression that those posts are unassailable; nevertheless, I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out. Posters such as yourself, vk, karlof1, etc who provide detailed and historically accurate corrections to the false narratives are necessary for the edification of lurkers and casual readers. I just hope that you don't measure the effectiveness of your posts by whether or not you change the trolls' minds.
Arioch , Jul 23 2019 14:00 utc | 86
> I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out

This can really work well with people sincerely lost by massive propaganda, people who succumbed to illusion they know, why they do not.

Wikipedia: The Socratic method, also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate, is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions. It is a dialectical method, involving a discussion in which the defense of one point of view is questioned; one participant may lead another to contradict themselves in some way, thus weakening the defender's point. This method is named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates and is introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus as midwifery (maieutics) because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding.

Sincere person, being guided by questions, would start researching and analyzing. And would not feel coerced.

But you know, trolls just ignore the questions and keeps hammering talking points by infinitely going back and repeating them "from starting point".

Avoiding positive argumentation, avoiding claiming something and limiting ourselves to questioning their weak points, we help them to create another impression: they have a bad theory when we have no theory at all. They are content with it.

So, putting out competing interpretation is no less important than showing their own unhonesty.

t people were able to look past the mistake and not overlook the van der pijl book. Thank you for letting me know of Mr. Proyect's reputation.

pantaraxia , Jul 23 2019 15:13 utc | 90
Missing from the comments regarding Ukrainian/Russian dynamics is recognition of the numerous attempts (dating back to the 17th century) of the Russification of the Ukraine, first by the Russian Empire and then by the Soviets.

Russification of Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification_of_Ukraine

ex:

( a reason for so many Russian-speaking Ukrainians??)

and from: Ukrainization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainization#Early_1930s_(reversal_of_Ukrainization_policies)

In the regions of southern Russian SFSR (North Caucasus and eastern part of Sloboda Ukraine included into RSFSR) Ukrainization was effectively outlawed in 1932.[18] Specifically, the December 14, 1932 decree "On Grain Collection in Ukraine, North Caucasus and the Western Oblasts" by the VKP(b) Central Committee and USSR Sovnarkom stated that Ukrainization in certain areas was carried out formally, in a "non-Bolshevik" way, which provided the "bourgeois-nationalist elements" with a legal cover for organizing their anti-Soviet resistance. In order to stop this, the decree ordered in these areas, among other things, to switch to Russian all newspapers and magazines, and all Soviet and cooperative paperwork. By the autumn of 1932 (beginning of a school year), all schools were ordered to switch to Russian. In addition the decree ordered a massive population swap: all "disloyal" population from a major Cossack settlement, stanitsa Poltavskaya was banished to Northern Russia, with their property given to loyal kolkhozniks moved from poorer areas of Russia.[19] in the 1937 Soviet Census compared to the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union.[18]

This perhaps explains the predominance of Russian in eastern Ukraine.

[Jul 22, 2019] All Hail Europe's Permanent Ruling Class

Notable quotes:
"... That said, Germany's military readiness directly relates to the invasion threat from Russia Europe actually faces. I.e., ZERO. Washington should take note but of course it won't because there is no money in it for the American Merchants of Death. And the Generals inside the Pentagon just have too much fun fear-mongering about illusory existential enemies. ..."
"... As Politico recently reported, "an investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest instrument that lawmakers can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight ..."
"... Yet another U.S. mirror image. Because that is exactly how inside baseball works in the Pentagon acquisition system. von der Leyen as a European Hack is no worse than the Washington / Pentagon Hacks on the other side of the Atlantic. Note, MIC lifer and Raytheon parasite Mark Esper currently sitting in the Big Seat in the Pentagon. You can be sure that DoD reform is way down on his bucket list. ..."
Jul 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Meet Ursula von der Leyen, the new president-elect of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.

Like all those soon to occupy positions of power in the EU, von der Leyen did not run in the recent European elections for the position she is about to hold. She did not participate in the debates in front of various national electorates. But she was chosen -- after the elections -- by the political class in Brussels, ostensibly for her faith in and loyalty to the European superstate, and personally to the German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Since 2013, von der Leyen has been the German defense minister. During that time, a parliamentary report exposed German planes that can't fly and guns that don't shoot. Fewer than a fifth of Germany's helicopters are combat ready. Luftwaffe revealed that most of its 128 Typhoon jets were not ready to leave ground. All of Germany's six submarines were out of commission.

Another report by the Rand Corporation , a think tank, revealed that it would take Germany a month to mobilize in the case of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States. Von der Leyen is very unpopular in the German army , but very popular with the Eurocrats. She's a fervent supporter of a European army and a "United States of Europe" -- the ultimate qualification for being president of the European Commission.

But there is more to the von der Leyen story. As Politico recently reported , "an investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest instrument that lawmakers can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight, and whether a network of informal personal connections facilitated those deals."

The scent of corruption is a common element among those who are to hold key positions in the European Union over the next few years. Josep Borrell, minister of foreign affairs for the socialist government of Spain, was fined 30,000 euros for insider trading. He is expected to hold the foreign policy post in the European Commission.

Christine Lagarde, most recently chief of the IMF, was involved in the case of an arbitration panel that awarded a massive payout to a French tycoon while she was the finance minister of France. A special court for ministerial misconduct found her guilty of "negligence" but "waived any punishment or criminal record, citing her 'international reputation' and role in dealing with 'the international financial crisis.'" A marvelously L'état, C'est Moi form of legal reasoning. Lagarde is expected to be the next president of the European Central Bank.

The common threads of corruption, incompetence, and lack of accountability are what unites a political class that has divorced itself from the concerns of the average European. In the last days before her confirmation, von der Leyen pursued a charm offensive that included a commitment to a "Green New Deal," a continuation of an open borders policy , and a further deepening and enlargement of the European superstate. This included the story of her having offered hospitality to a Syrian immigrant who "now speaks German fluently."

Emmanuel Macron: Trade Wars for Me, But Not for Thee Voters in Europe Just Smashed the Mainstream Establishment

Obviously von der Leyen would never have won the May elections running on an agenda like that. But of course, she never had to run a campaign to win the votes of the peoples of Europe. The campaign that she did run was premised on her having built "an extensive international network in politics and business," as another Politico story put it .

Von der Leyen thrived in the networking atmosphere of World Economic Forum meetings, where she "serves on the organization's board of trustees," Politico noted, adding, "She's also forged close ties to powerful figures outside the world of politics, most notably Bertelsmann, Europe's largest media company, which owns RTL, the Continent's largest commercial broadcaster, book publisher Random House and a stable of magazines."

A senior Green quoted for the article said her fluency in French has helped her establish a rapport with the French political class that is unrivaled in Berlin.

It's clear that von der Leyen's domestic record appears to have had little effect on her election -- what matters is that she is universally liked by the who's who. "What matters most in these circles is the personal connection," said an adviser to the leader of one of the EU's smaller member states.

Those who count and those who are to be ruled are not the same group of people. That seems to be the essence of modern European politics: a political class and ideological cult that masquerades as a competent technocratic elite, despite its long and disastrous history. Von der Leyen's terrible record as defense minister meant nothing. Neither did Lagarde's record as head of the IMF, where, for instance, the Greek debt crisis was transformed into a social catastrophe. The deciding factor was their dedication to something that "those who count" are committed to. Elections are merely a necessary, archaic ritual of legitimization.

Napoleon Linarthatos is a writer based in New York.


Parrhesia 10 hours ago

On Monday 22 July 1940, a major meeting was held at the Reich Economic Ministry in Berlin, under the chairmanship of Minister Walther Funk, to discuss a directive issued by Hermann Göring on 22 June, concerning the organization of a Greater European Economic Area under German leadership. The Germans were well advanced with their plans for a post-war settlement. One of the difficulties of planning lay in the fact that the Führer's aims and decisions were not yet known and the military measures against Britain were not yet concluded.

Plus ça change........

Lars 10 hours ago
What? A techno-managerial clique ruling the rest of us Great Unwashed (see "Deplorables")? It couldn't happen here, could it? It's OK if they went to the right schools, isn't it?
genocidal_maniac 10 hours ago
Too much use if the word disastrous. Disastrous is what Wilhelm II did to the German empire. This is not disastrous, but it is concerning like a rudderless ship.
Salt Lick 7 hours ago
Today's Holy Roman Empire.

Voltaire's comment back then still rings true."It was neither Holy, Roman nor an Empire."

Sid Finster 7 hours ago
Don't be asinine. Russia is not going to invade anything and has no claim on any part of western Europe. The only thing the German military is good for is for sucking up additional budgetary funds.
SteveM 6 hours ago
Another report by the Rand Corporation, a think tank, revealed that it would take Germany a month to mobilize in the case of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States.

For the sake of completeness, the Rand Corporation is actually a marketing arm of the Pentagon fully funded by the U.S. government.

That said, Germany's military readiness directly relates to the invasion threat from Russia Europe actually faces. I.e., ZERO. Washington should take note but of course it won't because there is no money in it for the American Merchants of Death. And the Generals inside the Pentagon just have too much fun fear-mongering about illusory existential enemies.

Of course that does not dismiss the charges of cronyism and corruption associated with Ursula von der Leyen. But re:

But there is more to the von der Leyen story. As Politico recently reported, "an investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest instrument that lawmakers can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight , and whether a network of informal personal connections facilitated those deals."

Yet another U.S. mirror image. Because that is exactly how inside baseball works in the Pentagon acquisition system. von der Leyen as a European Hack is no worse than the Washington / Pentagon Hacks on the other side of the Atlantic. Note, MIC lifer and Raytheon parasite Mark Esper currently sitting in the Big Seat in the Pentagon. You can be sure that DoD reform is way down on his bucket list.

The real story is that taxpayers on both NATO poles are played for chumps by the Power Elites.

[Jul 22, 2019] Russia cannot openly allow/defend Iran installing itself more fully in Syria because there would be retaliation/escalation by Israel , and it cannot say Iran should leave because it is a choice of Assad and Syrian government. So this plays out in the shadows.

Jul 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

gzon , Jul 22 2019 14:17 utc | 149

@ 147 Zanon

The Russia, Syria, Israel, Iran framework is hard to figure, I haven't managed to. I expect there are private understandings aimed at keeping escalation tamed, i.e. known compromises, but when Iran is understood to exceed them by choice, Russia does not defend from Israel .

Russia cannot openly allow/defend Iran installing itself more fully in Syria because there would be retaliation/escalation by Israel , and it cannot say Iran should leave because it is a choice of Assad and Syrian government. So this plays out in the shadows.

Zanon , Jul 22 2019 15:15 utc | 155

On israeli summit:

Syria deal requires Iranian pullback from Iraq and Lebanon, U.S. and Israel tell Russia
https://www.axios.com/syria-summit-russia-israel-bolton-iran-withdrawal-9d2bc7d9-be7d-434c-b5c7-e119375f8286.html

I hope Iran reject any call for more pull-out, we know what happend last summer when Russia on behalf of Israel managed to get some iranians out = more attacks by Israel.

snake , Jul 22 2019 16:06 utc | 166
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/22/601585/Syria-Russia-Idlib-airstrike-Maaret-alNuman-White-Helmets

Russia says it was not involved in the claimed to have happened Idlib airstrike ; its planes were not flying

[Jul 22, 2019] Cold War Success Cost America Its Place in the Global Order The National Interest

www.nakedcapitalism.com
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John Andris 2 hours ago ,

Fukuyama a "great scholar"? Bahahahahaha

commentwars 7 hours ago ,

After the cold war ended in the 1990s the US quickly became the worlds leading police state with mass incarceration, more of its own people in jail and prison then any nation in the history of mankind. Who are we now to preach about freedom to the world ?

Binaj 2 days ago ,

When dollar and yanks are gone,peace and prosperity will come

redeemed626 2 days ago ,

The primary weaknesses of liberal democracy and the capitalist order come from the decisions made by voters and captains of industry. When political and economic freedom create impoverishment, income disparity, racial strife, and nationalist xenophobia, the fruits of a free society die on the vine. I see the Yahoo News elderly guys and the Russian trolls are mystified by this obvious state of world affairs.

Mel Profit 2 days ago ,

One of the silliest pieces TNI has ever published.

toucheamigos 2 days ago • edited ,
Through our words and deeds, America demonstrates a positive alternative to political and religious despotism

A negative alternative.

Znaika toucheamigos 15 hours ago ,

The problem is that for many decades american "words" contradict american "deeds", and the whole world can easily see american double standards. That's why american "alternative" is negative, not positive. As an example (one of 100s) we can remember that famous 1939 phrase "Somoza may be a son of a b.., but he's our son of a b..."

toucheamigos 2 days ago ,

This article shows why America will lose eventually. It sill believes that ideals of human rights and democracy are good.

They are not. As a matter of fact they are source of most evil in this world. America creates its own enemies, so they will never end.

Gary Sellars toucheamigos 2 days ago • edited ,

Institutionalized group-think is the Great Enemy of any Empire. It leads to complacency and a refusal to see the world as it really it, and to view oneself as uniquely gifted and therefore exceptional and eternal.

Eventually this will become the prevailing wisdom in post-hegemony US just as it became so in post-Empire Britain or post-Soviet Russia.

Cool2HatE 2 days ago ,

Lets see, mistakes:
Iraq war, Kosovo war, NATO enlargement, let Russia economy crushed at 90's. Let Libya completely, Syria partially destroyed. Become arrogent see non-western nations low. Etc. etc.

We can tell post cold-war is about "end of freedom commercial" and get real "wild capitalism." China was mis-calculation. They decided to use it as cheap workforce and a not-formal colony which ended surprisingly otherwise.

All above talk is a naive try to turn back "freedom commercial" days. Best thing USA can teach now, how to kill people in every imaginable way.

Yuki 3 days ago ,

The post Cold War worst mistake of US was the EU enlargement, Russia could have become less paranoid and nationalist and perhaps a more solid democratic culture would have been established

Gary Sellars Yuki 2 days ago ,

"Democracy" is simply the rule of a small elite minority of organised people over a much greater majority of disorganised people. Russian "democracy" delivers what its people want to the same degree as US "democracy". In fact, judging by Putins much higher domestic approval numbers that the Trumpster, I'd say it delivers more...

Yuki Gary Sellars a day ago ,

Democracy" is simply the rule of a small elite minority of organised people over a much greater majority of disorganised people. This is "oligarchy", not "democracy", the regime that is running in Russia,China,NK and similar heavens of dictators.

toucheamigos Yuki 2 days ago ,

We will never have a democratic culture. We despise that system too much.

Yuki toucheamigos a day ago ,

Oh well, no problem if you not like democracy. you can live everyday with police that can arrest you at midnight, like in old Soviet times.

Gary Sellars 3 days ago ,

"The result was an economic boom, a wave of democratization, and victory in an existential struggle against Communism without yet another great-power global war. "

Victory? I assume you guys are aware that the Chinese are Communists?

Surely you didn't think that global completion over ideology and nationhood was resolved in the Cold War? That was just a single geopolitical skirmish, one game in a whole season. It ain't over till it over.... and its ain't done by a long shot.

Donald Smith Gary Sellars 3 days ago ,

"...are Communists?" Labels don't mean anything. They're huge, getting richer, have an historically motivated chip on their shoulder and want to assume the place in the world, particularly Asia, they feel is their due. They are sensitive to their public's opinion That we have a buffoon in charge is certainly an impediment; we're still involved in 'unforced error' wars the last appointed, incurious executive began as

Gary Sellars Donald Smith 2 days ago • edited ,

China is hard to classify in the traditional sense. Its government is what we would call "Communist", but its ruling ethos is essentially Confucianist , its social ideology is Socialist, but it uses market economics, mercantilism and Capitalism to generate wealth and pay for it all.

The Chinese are not fools. They have taken the best aspects of many ideologies and wielded them into a system that seems to work well for them. What Americans might feel about it is utterly superfluous.

Walter Tseng 3 days ago ,

Whether realizing or not, the author, quoting the National Security Strategy report of 2018, ironically described the US to a T when they wrote "For today, the dictator (the US) may be your friend, but tomorrow he will need you as an enemy (China)". & "... (the US) seek lifetime tenure (hegemony), expanding territories (bases) total authority (MAGA) & obedient subjects"!
.
The philanthropic & much admired champion has grown into an ugly dictator, bending the world to its will through soft & strong power. The global revulsion towards the misuse of hegemonic muscle is what caused the US to lose its place in the Global Order! Simple as that!

Begemot 3 days ago ,

To this panglossian peaen to the American imperial system and its promotion of democracy, human freedom and all other nice things against the dark forces represented by those other guys like Russia and China, let us consider a reality of American foreign policy that belies this tripe: US support of Saudi Arabia from 1945 to the present moment. I suggest that if any of what this writer proposes we believe is true about the motives underlying US foreign policy, then the theocratic and medieval regime Saudi Arabia would no longer exist. Yet it continues to exist and is a valued partner of America.

[Jul 21, 2019] Merchants of Death business uber alles" as the new interpretation of "Drain the Swamp" election time slogan by Trump administration

"Drain the swamp" now means good times for Raytheon.
Jul 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

rwe2late , 1 hour ago link

Draining the swamp means hiring the lobbyists

- Orwell

...err, I meant Trump.

War is Peace

- well, now that's Orwell

(and many others in government and elsewhere)

Klassenfeind , 2 hours ago link

The Donald Trump Administration is looking more and more like George W. Bush's Administration: a dumb clueless idiot surrounded by neocons.

Remember Donald Rumsfeld , Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton , George Tenet, Henry Paulson, Paul Wolfowitz , and **** Cheney from the George W Bush Administration?

Tell me Trumptards, what's so "different this time" about Donald Trump hiring Bolton, Pompeo, Mattis/Shanahan/Esper, Haley, Haspel and Mnuchin?

[Jul 21, 2019] Trump, election and GB provocation against Iran tanker

The key problem for Trump is reaction of China and Russia... If Russia supports Iran the USA attack onIran might well be the second Vietnam and KSA will probably seize to exit.
Notable quotes:
"... The bottom-line is this -- if Trump launches military strikes against Iranian military targets it is very likely he will ignite a series of events that will escalate beyond his control, expose him as a paper tiger full of empty bellicose threats and risk a war with other countries, including Russia and China. ..."
"... The "War" class in Washington and the media are exhorting tough action and doing all within their power to portray Iran as an imminent threat to the West. The mantra, "the must be stopped," is being repeated ad nauseam in all of the media echo changers. President Trump, regrettably, is ignorant of military history and devoid of strategic intelligence when it comes to employing military force. He reminds me of Lyndon Johnson during the early stages of the Vietnam War -- i.e., being exhorted to take action, increase forces and not back down rather than lose face on the international front. ..."
"... it is more likely the Brits intended this as a provocation, in coordination with some members of Trump's team, that would bait the Iranians to respond in similar fashion. Iran has taken the bait and given the Brits what Iran sees as a dose of its own medicine. ..."
"... There is a dangerous delusion within the Trump National Security team. They believe we are so dominant that Iran will not dare fight us. I prefer to rely on the sage counsel of Colonel Patrick Lang -- the Iranians are not afraid to fight us and, if backed into a corner, will do so. ..."
"... The tanker is too big to use the Suez canal and too big to discharge oil in a Syrian port. It was possibly going to a Mediterranean port, but Iran will not back-down to the UK. ..."
"... As the Saudi's appear to be losing their war with Yemen, the UAE has announced that they are not desirous of being in the middle of any US-Iran conflict. Qatar is doing a huge nat gas deal with Iran. ..."
"... A 50% reduction in oil & LNG output for greater than 3 months would crush already weakening Asian economies who are the manufactured products supply chain for most of the world and in particular the US. Will voters in Ohio, Wisconsin & Michigan cheer Trump's military strikes on Teheran when prices at Walmart double? ..."
"... I have no faith in Donald Trump when it comes to Israeli's interests. Embassy moved to Jerusalem check, Golan Heights check. Deal of the Century by his Anti-Christ Son-In-Law check. Not sure if that is a joke or not. ..."
"... "Trump's advisers have a demented obsession with Iran. They've been spoiling for a fight with Iran for decades. They have no idea how destructive it would be. It would make Iraq look like a tea party." ..."
"... Yes. A demented obsession that is not in US interests. Is it really in Saudi and Israeli interests when they may be hurt too? ..."
"... The same idiots running the show seem to believe that American oil and gas fracking makes it impervious to the loss of Middle Eastern oil (in fact, a secret motivation might be to save American frackers economically), but they forget that oil is a fungible commodity and always flows to the highest bidder. They could try of ban oil exports, but the Europe and Japan's economies would be utterly toast as there would be virtually no oil available to them, especially if Russia backed Iran and cut them off. ..."
"... Rather than blaming this on the media, neocons or the Pentagon, put the blame where it lies - with President Trump. Trump campaigned on tearing up the Iran nuclear agreement which he did once he was elected. The Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on Iran which are meant to inflict serious hardship on the Iranian people. Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo - both hawks from previous administrations. Trump is attempting to enforce the sanctions. Is there anyone else to blame but Trump? ..."
"... The use of the golden rule suggests problems with your logic. Would we sit still, for example, if Russia and/or China started fostering guerrilla movements in South America? Of course not. We would actively intervene in support of what we see as our local security imperatives. That appears to me to be all Iran is doing in its region. ..."
"... If the Gulf oilfields in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are heavily rocketed and put out of commission along with tanker loading docks and pipeline infrastructure, there won't be any oil to ship out of the Gulf anyway. ..."
"... The primary damage from a war with Iran will be economic. Oil flowing through the Staits will come to a halt and that will hit China, Japan and the rest of Asia very hard and their buying power will decrease significantly hurting our exports. Even though the U.S is self-sufficient in oil if oil prices hit $100+ on the world market look for the U.S. oil companies to increase their prices to approach the world price driving gas prices into the $5.00+/gallon range. Trump will undoubtably prohibit U.S oil exports but the damage to the economies world wide will still negatively impact the U.S. ..."
"... Post Scriptum: Signs of a dying paradigm as the western elite have gone into total sclerotic mode. Dangerous as a rabid dog. ..."
Jul 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Donald Trump appears to be on the verge of doing what the "Never Trumpers" could not--destroy his Presidency and make re-election impossible. It all boils down to whether or not he decides to launch military strikes on Iran. The bottom-line is this -- if Trump launches military strikes against Iranian military targets it is very likely he will ignite a series of events that will escalate beyond his control, expose him as a paper tiger full of empty bellicose threats and risk a war with other countries, including Russia and China.

The "War" class in Washington and the media are exhorting tough action and doing all within their power to portray Iran as an imminent threat to the West. The mantra, "the must be stopped," is being repeated ad nauseam in all of the media echo changers. President Trump, regrettably, is ignorant of military history and devoid of strategic intelligence when it comes to employing military force. He reminds me of Lyndon Johnson during the early stages of the Vietnam War -- i.e., being exhorted to take action, increase forces and not back down rather than lose face on the international front.

The media is busy pushing the lie that Iran launched an unprovoked "attack" on a British flagged ship. They ignore the British action two weeks ago, when the British Navy seized an Iranian flagged tanker heading to Syria. Britain justifies its action as just keeping the sanction regime in place. But it is more likely the Brits intended this as a provocation, in coordination with some members of Trump's team, that would bait the Iranians to respond in similar fashion. Iran has taken the bait and given the Brits what Iran sees as a dose of its own medicine.

There is a dangerous delusion within the Trump National Security team. They believe we are so dominant that Iran will not dare fight us. I prefer to rely on the sage counsel of Colonel Patrick Lang -- the Iranians are not afraid to fight us and, if backed into a corner, will do so.

I see at least four possible scenarios for this current situation. If you can think of others please add in the comments section.

... ... ...


Fred ,

"two weeks ago, when the British Navy seized an Iranian flagged tanker"

Via Associated Press:

Royal Marines took part in the seizure of the Iranian oil tanker by Gibraltar, a British overseas territory off the southern coast of Spain. Officials there initially said the July 4 seizure happened on orders from the U.S." .......

It gets even better than on orders from the U.S.
"Britain has said it would release the vessel, which was carrying more than 2 million barrels of Iranian crude, if Iran could prove it was not breaching EU sanctions"

We are supposed to believe that Syria is importing oil on ships which sail through the Straights of Gibraltar rather than getting oil from, say, Russia! or going from Iran (it is Iranian oil, so they say) through the Suez Canal? What did they do, sail around the continent of Africa to stage this?

So the brilliant minds at GCHQ that brought us Christopher Steele and the dossier have decided that they really, really, need to get rid of the Orange Man and they don't care how many Iranian or American lives it takes. I wonder just how many people the man not in the news, Jeffrey Epstein, had the dirty goods on and just which government was behind his operation.

Стивен said in reply to Fred ... ,
The tanker is too big to use the Suez canal and too big to discharge oil in a Syrian port. It was possibly going to a Mediterranean port, but Iran will not back-down to the UK.
Fred -> Стивен... ,
Stephen,

Thanks for the comment. I did a bit more research. It seems strange to me that Iran would use a ship to large for the canal to make such a shipment to Syria, if indeed that was where it was heading.

The Twisted Genius , 20 July 2019 at 08:10 PM
Larry, your intel about the JCS not advising caution is most disheartening. I wouldn't be surprised if the warmongers surrounding Trump are also telling him that his rally attending base is all for taking it to the raghead terrorists. That may not be far off. Sure those who support Trump for his professed aversion to adventurism will be appalled at war with Iran, but his more rabid base may follow him anywhere. Trump has no ideological need for war, but he does have a psychological need for adoration. That's not a good situation.
blue peacock said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 21 July 2019 at 10:09 AM
"...his rally attending base is all for taking it to the raghead terrorists.."

TTG

I have seen private surveys commissioned by a deep pocketed hedge fund of working class folks in the mid-west & the south. When the consequences of a military confrontation with Iran are described the overwhelming majority oppose it.

Larry is spot on. Trump will lose his re-election bid if he kowtows to Bibi & MbS. The short-term financial & economic effects would crush his base and the half-life of jingoism after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, & Syria will be rather short. Trump will be blamed by the "right" for cocking up teaching Iran a lesson and demonized by the "left "for getting us into another ME quagmire.

J -> The Twisted Genius ... , 21 July 2019 at 10:09 AM
How does one wake POTUS Trump to the reality that his NEOCONS and Israel Firsters in his Cabinet will destroy his Presidency if he doesn't jettison them out the door.
eakens , 20 July 2019 at 10:22 PM
There is an effort underway to undermine Israeli influence in the US, and I think the calculus might be to use the exact thing Israelis want most (war with Iran) to do that. I think the resurrection of the Epstein case is also part of that effort. Thus, war with Iran is inevitable.
Artemesia said in reply to eakens... , 21 July 2019 at 07:41 AM
"There is an effort underway to undermine Israeli influence in the US"

Is it an organized effort? Where do I sign up?

Rick Wiles heads TruNews, a Christian evangelical network. He's been outspoken in his criticism of zionism, calls out Christian zionists, and deplores that "the US has been taken over by zionists." To be sure, ADL has labeled Wiles an "antisemite." If TruNews survives, it may be part of game-changing.

Only from TruNews did I learn about HR1837, US-Israel united cyber command, "an alliance to direct energy space weapons"
https://www.trunews.com/stream/united-zionist-cyber-command-congress-forges-us-israel-alliance-in-direct-energy-space-weapons

"The Squad" mouthing rhetoric is weak tea to counteract Israeli's deep penetration of US military and other key institutions.

Petrel , 20 July 2019 at 11:00 PM
"From what I am hearing from knowledgeable sources [is that] no one on the Joint Chiefs of Staff at DOD are advising caution."

We should probably ignore the notion that the Joint Chiefs are bullish about a war with Iran -- the situation in the area is terrible for us and the Joint Chiefs know it.

For example, Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan have military understandings with Iran and the former is now installing advanced S-400 Russian missiles to defend itself from us. Furthermore, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Azerbajian and Armenia will not allow transit of war materiel or aircraft en-route to Iran. So how does the US project anything into that country?

Then again, US Central Command is located in Iran friendly Quatar, which merely hosts us and could require us to leave. How come? Wouldn't you know it, Quatar is developing a massive gas reserve with Iran in the Gulf, is now very, very friendly with big-brother Turkey and presently negotiating with Russia for S-400 missiles -- clearly against us.

Well, what about our Navy?

Alas, recent improvements in missiles have rendered our deep water Navy a liability -- not that the narrow Persian Gulf / Sea of Oman is deep in any case. (President Trump learned about our Navy's vulnerability to missile attack last year as the Pentagon quickly pulled our three carrier group force from Korea and parked those impressive ships on the south coast of Australia! )

Then there is Iran's near east client / ally Hezbollah, which has made clear that any bombing of Iran, a huge country, would trigger heavy missile attack on postage-stamp Israel.

The Neocons may have managed to silence public Pentagon doubts, but President Trump is clearly attempting to avoid military adventures. "No, the Iran downed drone was old and not that expensive." "The UK captured an Iranian tanker and the Iranians have reciprocated. The two should sit down and work the situation out."

JamesT , 20 July 2019 at 11:00 PM
I believe that Iran is going to want to avoid war if they can. Their program of adding precision guidance to Hezbollah missiles in Lebanon means that the longer they postpone war, the better for them. If they get to a point where they have 10,000 precision guided missiles in Lebanon then the next Israel-Lebanon war will force Israel into a humiliating defeat.

Eighty percent of Israel's water comes from water desalination plants - and then there are electricity generation plants, sewage treatment plants, and numerous other infrastructure targets that can be hit. Israeli civilians are soft and will cry uncle as soon as their air conditioning cuts out.

The neocons know that time is not on their side.

Castellio said in reply to JamesT ... , 21 July 2019 at 12:30 AM
It's your last line which is the most worrying.

Why not, then, have the Americans initiate the deed now... destroy Iran and Lebanon, and then, with France, the UK, Germany, Canada et al. spend billions to rebuild Israel, with the Palestinians being sent to Jordan (if not worse).

Israel has gambled on a broader war several times in the past, and they believe (despite the fiasco in Lebanon) that each was a win.

What do you do, when "time is not on your side?".

smoke , 20 July 2019 at 11:37 PM
When did this group, leading the charge overseas in D.C. for the past 20 years, once get it right, as far as assumptions and expectations of military necessities or outcomes? I am beginning to think this creating a greater danger out of a lesser mess is a feature, not a defect. If so, why? To what end? Or is the policy process that broken?
Fred -> smoke... , 20 July 2019 at 11:37 PM
Smoke,

Saddam ain't around any more, neither is Muammar Gaddafi. The neocons take those as great victories since the sacred state of Israel is safe from those two.

ted richard , 21 July 2019 at 06:50 AM
imo a war with iran is theatre and will not take place.

should iran be attacked imo you can kiss the UAE goodbye as well as most if not all of the Saudi oil infrastructre along the gulf. i would also expect a massive direct bombardment of israeli cities and other important targets from hezbollah starting with the massive ammonia storage system in haifa whose destruction would annihilate that entire region. all of useful israel is in the middle to upper third of the country closest to lebanon and easy reach for all of hezbollahs missiles.

the persian gulf upon the start of the war becomes the hotel california for any warship within. none would likely escape. and the coup de gra for iran is whether they have the ballistic missile reach and or can gain access to russian long range bombers fitted with kalibr or better cruise missiles able to smash diego garcia absolutely critical american relaestate in the indian ocean.

trump imo is not crazy and can read a map as well as anyone with help from his REAL pentagon military professionals.

we have not even gotten to what happens to all those oil and interest rate derivatives far out of the money right now in somewhat normal times. if war starts they go from notional to real fast and the western financial system implodes even with a force majeure declaration

my vote is no war.

Error404 , 21 July 2019 at 07:46 AM
An Iran war would indeed most probably kill off Trump's chance of re-election. The almost inevitable spike in the price of oil which it would bring about would have two implications:

1/ ROTW xUS manufacturing is already in recession, with services close to joining it in many countries. The US is clearly slowing down and appears headed on the same course. The global economy is in no shape to withstand even a relatively short-lived surge in oil prices.

2/ There is no knowing what lurks out there in the oil derivatives market, but the banking system - particularly the European banking system - is far too fragile to sustain another bout of counterparty risk aversion along the lines of 2007/08. (And amongst the trillions of gross derivatives exposure, one has to wonder just how many US and other banks are sitting across from Deutsche Bank oil positions and happily netting off the counterparty risk.)

Regretably, from my side of the Atlantic the US looks like a traditional imperial power, addicted to war and conquest and with a significant proportion of the population fetishizing (probably not a real verb) all things military. Whether Trump can be truly damaged by extending the 'forever war' to Iran depends very much on how it goes - and I doubt he has the knowledge required to think through all the plausible scenarios. We can be a lot more confident that carrying the blame for an unnecessary recession into the election campaign has a solid chance of sinking him.

Fred -> Error404... , 21 July 2019 at 11:00 AM
Error404,

Just what good has the past two decades of "war and conquest" done for America, whether flyover country, Jussie Smollett's "Maga Country" section of Chicago or the homeless encampments of Seattle, LA or Portland?

CK , 21 July 2019 at 09:59 AM
As the Saudi's appear to be losing their war with Yemen, the UAE has announced that they are not desirous of being in the middle of any US-Iran conflict. Qatar is doing a huge nat gas deal with Iran.

Bolton is heading to Japan to "mediate" the current economic disagreements between Japan and S. Korea.
Pompeo is declaring that the Iranian Ballistic Missile program is suddenly on the table. It would appear that the whole Iranian atomic bomb thing was smoke and mirrors and hasbara.

There is a deal available, preparation for making the deal will involve political kabuki, grand posturing, the beating of drums without rhythm and the flooding of the Old American Infotainment outlets with much wailing and whining about "the only democracy in the MENA."

A deal will eventuate that allows both the USA and Iran to move on, about a week before the 2020 presidential election. Or maybe not.

blue peacock , 21 July 2019 at 10:23 AM
I have a question for those of you well versed with Iranian military capability. What are the capabilities of Iranian ballistic missiles in terms of range, precision and payload lethality?

As Col. Lang has noted in the transition to war, before the US Navy gets its ducks in a row, that is the window of opportunity that Iran has to strike back. What damage could they inflict on oil & gas infrastructure including LNG, port & pipelines across UAE, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia?

A 50% reduction in oil & LNG output for greater than 3 months would crush already weakening Asian economies who are the manufactured products supply chain for most of the world and in particular the US. Will voters in Ohio, Wisconsin & Michigan cheer Trump's military strikes on Teheran when prices at Walmart double?

blue peacock , 21 July 2019 at 10:53 AM
All

As Larry notes "..President Trump, regrettably, is ignorant of military history and devoid of strategic intelligence when it comes to employing military force.." , but I believe he has good political instincts and as his Reality TV/Twitter presidency shows he has an excellent sense of how it plays both in the MSM and social media. He must know that while the "shock & awe" and "boom-boom" videos may give him an instant boost the stock market that he has rested his presidency on may not soar but in fact plummet. And he can't blame Jay Powell for that.

He must also instinctually know that November 2020 is a year away and a lot can go wrong as it is economically and in financial markets since he's been harping at the Fed to lower rates in supposedly the best economy evah. Uncertainty spikes volatility and the credit markets are already stressed particularly in offshore eurodollar funding which is an order of magnitude larger than mortgage credit markets were in 2007.

Maybe Rand Paul is his counter to the ziocon fifth column? I don't think he's that foolish to pull the trigger on Iran and sink his presidency when the Deep State & NeverTrumpers are out for his blood. He must know he'll lose immunity from legal jeopardy when he's no longer POTUS.

walrus -> blue peacock... , 21 July 2019 at 04:00 PM
As Col. Lang has repeatedly observed, the decisions to go to war do not necessarily follow economic, nor domestic political logic. It is therefore better to speculate on the players state of mind rather than looking at the aforesaid rational drivers like economics and votes.

Who knows what is being whispered in Trumps ear?

Noregs gard , 21 July 2019 at 10:57 AM
http://resistancenewsunfiltered.blogspot.com/
here you will find many of Nasrallah`s speeches and tv appearances with english subtitles..
Harlan Easley , 21 July 2019 at 11:46 AM
I have no faith in Donald Trump when it comes to Israeli's interests. Embassy moved to Jerusalem check, Golan Heights check. Deal of the Century by his Anti-Christ Son-In-Law check. Not sure if that is a joke or not.

Israeli wants Iran destroyed and their ability to pressure US Presidents to do their bidding all the way back to President Truman is 100% success. Trump so cravenly promotes the Zionist interest that I see no reason he will not pursue regime change in Iran to its logical conclusion.

The plan is ultimately Greater Israeli and the leaders of Iran are well aware of this.

Many comments say that Israeli will be badly damaged by any regional war. Why do you believe Israeli is just going to take the blows? Analysis is not advocacy as Col. Lang says.

My fear is the ultimate weapons of mass destruction are introduced into the Middle East.

Jack , 21 July 2019 at 11:48 AM
"Trump's advisers have a demented obsession with Iran. They've been spoiling for a fight with Iran for decades. They have no idea how destructive it would be. It would make Iraq look like a tea party."

@Tom_Slater_ on Sky https://t.co/A50M6bghj8


https://twitter.com/spikedonline/status/1152926344466063360?s=19

Yes. A demented obsession that is not in US interests. Is it really in Saudi and Israeli interests when they may be hurt too?

Flavius , 21 July 2019 at 12:01 PM
Option 1 - Diplomatic solution: The UK will do what it must do, ie what the US allows it to do. The GB Imperial project is no more and the UK is riding along somewhere in the wake of the Imperial City. Whatever influence it exerts on power there is by flattery or deception (Steele dossier.) Trump slapped the UK Ambassador out of Washington as if he were a fly. Moreover, the UK alone carries no stick to wield against Iran. Iran is no Falklands.

Options 2 thru 4 - some degree of military attack on Iran: as you point out, the return on investment for any kind of attack on Iran is highly unpredictable. It depends entirely on how Iran chooses to respond and whether it decides to roll the dice, go all in, and endure the onslaught, and inflict what damage it can where it can, which it very well may. Does anyone in Washington have an intel based fix on Iran's intentions when attacked? I doubt it.

Not a single intervention in the last 18 years, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya resulted in the anticipated outcome. Do they have rear view mirrors in Washington?

My weakly held expectation, especially now with the passing of a few days, is that Washington will decide to temporize and tell the UK to accept the humiliation, in effect kicking the can down the road. Everyone will know it is only doing what it has been told to do.

Of course they will announce more face saving sanctions. The Donald will hope that he will be able to gut it out to 2020 without having to make a decision that could blow him up, and likely would - but who knows? Iran will hope to gut it out to 2020 and in the interim pray to God that some Democrat floats back down to earth with some issues, like the Donald once espoused, that will be used to beat the Donald and send him and his family back to the upper East Side.

With the escalation game fully in play, it's going to be a close call.

GeneO , 21 July 2019 at 01:06 PM
LJ -

I find it a bit hard to believe that leaders like Dunford, Selva, Milley, Richardson, and the others on the Joint Chiefs are not advising caution. Milley, the next Chairman, for sure has advised caution at his recent Senate hearing. Dunford has only pushed for an international coalition Task Force to guard ships transiting the Strait. Selva and Richardson appear to be more worried about China.

Let us all hope that your knowledgeable sources are wrong.

The real danger is if Fred Fleitz gets to be DNI. If that happens be prepared for another scam like the Office of Special Plans a la Wolfowicz and Feith. Probably Bolton and/or PomPom already have one hiding in the basement ready to go.

GeneO , 21 July 2019 at 01:48 PM
Iran's FM Zarif made a peaceful impression during Fareed Zakaria's interview. But all the headlines focus on his one statement: "Start a war with Iran and we will end it" . Although those were NOT his words, what he said was "We will never start a war,...But we will defend ourselves, and anybody who starts a war with Iran will not be the one who ends it."

The question is whether he speaks for the hardliners.

Karl Kolchak , 21 July 2019 at 03:12 PM
You forgot to mention what will happen to the world economy if the Strait of Hormuz is closed to all shipping by Iranian missiles an mines. Stock marks would collapse and a deep recession if not depression would ensue quickly.

The same idiots running the show seem to believe that American oil and gas fracking makes it impervious to the loss of Middle Eastern oil (in fact, a secret motivation might be to save American frackers economically), but they forget that oil is a fungible commodity and always flows to the highest bidder. They could try of ban oil exports, but the Europe and Japan's economies would be utterly toast as there would be virtually no oil available to them, especially if Russia backed Iran and cut them off.

turcopolier , 21 July 2019 at 03:29 PM
Karl Kolchak

the strait would not stay closed long, ut there would be considerable economic damage while it is.

Tom Wonacott , 21 July 2019 at 03:36 PM
Rather than blaming this on the media, neocons or the Pentagon, put the blame where it lies - with President Trump. Trump campaigned on tearing up the Iran nuclear agreement which he did once he was elected. The Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on Iran which are meant to inflict serious hardship on the Iranian people. Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo - both hawks from previous administrations. Trump is attempting to enforce the sanctions. Is there anyone else to blame but Trump?

The scenario proposed by Moon of Alabama seems to be coming to fruition as an Iranian strategy to counter the sanctions - imposing hardships on the world economy by attacking western and Arab interests in the Middle East, but stopping short of a provocation which will require a military response ( https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/iran-decided-to-put-maximum-pressure-on-trump-here-is-how-it-will-do-it.html). Iran is not going to go quietly into the night.

Iran is also not entirely innocent in the affairs of the Middle East. Israel believes with some evidence that Iran is building forward bases in Syria - an unacceptable condition for Israel considering the thousands of missiles owned by Hezbollah and the ballistic missile testing by Iran. Iran is also supplying weapons directly to Hezbollah (as they always have). In addition, Iran is supplying weapons and (likely) ballistic missile technology to the Houthis. The Houthis have used ballistic missiles to attack the Saudis. Yemen is on the border of Saudi Arabia - and a (Shia) Houthi government is unacceptable to the Saudis. The Trump administration tore up the nuclear agreement because of the destabilizing political agenda of Iran (to US interests).

Trump campaigned on a more isolationist foreign policy so option 1 is still the most likely possibility for the moment (IMO).

walrus -> Tom Wonacott... , 21 July 2019 at 04:12 PM
The use of the golden rule suggests problems with your logic. Would we sit still, for example, if Russia and/or China started fostering guerrilla movements in South America? Of course not. We would actively intervene in support of what we see as our local security imperatives. That appears to me to be all Iran is doing in its region.
ex-PFC Chuck said in reply to Tom Wonacott... , 21 July 2019 at 06:57 PM
Your third paragraph is a stretch. Iran's actions that you describe are realistic (in the strategic sense of the word) responses to Israel's overt hostility, overwhelming superiority in air power and its possession of scores of nuclear weapons.
Antoinetta III , 21 July 2019 at 05:54 PM
I'm wondering if in case of war, Iran would need to "close the Gulf" at all.

If the Gulf oilfields in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are heavily rocketed and put out of commission along with tanker loading docks and pipeline infrastructure, there won't be any oil to ship out of the Gulf anyway.

Except Iran's own oil, of course.

Antoinetta III

jdledell , 21 July 2019 at 06:25 PM
The primary damage from a war with Iran will be economic. Oil flowing through the Staits will come to a halt and that will hit China, Japan and the rest of Asia very hard and their buying power will decrease significantly hurting our exports. Even though the U.S is self-sufficient in oil if oil prices hit $100+ on the world market look for the U.S. oil companies to increase their prices to approach the world price driving gas prices into the $5.00+/gallon range. Trump will undoubtably prohibit U.S oil exports but the damage to the economies world wide will still negatively impact the U.S.

Insurance on oil vessels will become almost impossible to get. The U.S will have to indemnify ship owners and I suspect many will not trust the U.S. to come through with the money for claims. Trump has a history of this and thus many ships will stay in port.

A war with Iran will not be won or lost militarily, but economically. Iran is 4 times the size of Iraq and has 3 times the population and I simply do not think we can successfully occupy the country. That being the case, I don't think the U.S can permanently prevent sabatoge in the Staits - meaning an oil induced recession will linger world wide for many years.

In a word - SNAFU

falcemartello , 21 July 2019 at 08:41 PM
UNO: increased false flag incident instigated by the anglo-zionist

DUE:Increased takfiri movements in Idlib and provocatiev attacks InnAleppo ,Hama Dara and Dier Ezurr as the Syrian Arab Army is consolidating around Northern Hama and Around Idlib .

TRE: More tanker siezures by the Nato cohorts and portraying Iran as breachoing the JCPCOA treaty. Nevr mentioning the breach of contract from the western alliance from Pax-Americana and its Western European vassals

Quattro Russia and China will be either utilised as middle men or further labelled as agressors and Iranian?Syrian?Yemeni apologist.

Post Scriptum: Signs of a dying paradigm as the western elite have gone into total sclerotic mode. Dangerous as a rabid dog.

[Jul 21, 2019] As Trump Backs Down, the Pips Squeak -- Strategic Culture

Jul 21, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Last week it was all fire and brimstone. The US was threatening more sanctions on Iran, the Brits were seizing oil tankers and Iran was violating the JCPOA.

This week things look different all of a sudden. An oil tanker goes dark while passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the story fails to get any real traction and the US allows Iranian Foreign Minister, recently sanctioned, to do his job at the United Nations.

Trump then holds a cabinet meeting where he reiterates that "We're not looking for regime change. We want them out of Yemen."

I thought National Security Advisor John Bolton said the US would apply pressure until "the pips squeak."

Where the pips are squeaking is on the Arabian Peninsula, not across the Persian Gulf in Bandar Abbas. Specifically, I'm talking about the United Arab Emirates. The UAE sent a delegation to Tehran recently that coincided with its partial withdrawal of troops from Yemen.

That meeting, according to Elijah Magnier , focused on Emirates realizing they are in the middle of this conflict, up to their skyscrapers.

"The UAE would like to avoid seeing their country transformed into a battlefield between the US and Iran in case of war, particularly if Trump is re-elected. The Emirates officials noted that the US did not respond to Iran's retaliation in the Gulf and in particularly when the US drone was downed. This indicates that Iran is prepared for confrontation and will implement its explicit menace, to hit any country from which the US carries out their attacks on Iran. We want to be out of all this ", an Emirates official told his Iranian counterpart in Tehran.

Iran promised to talk to the Yemeni officials to avoid hitting targets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as long as the UAE pulls out its forces from the Yemen and stops this useless war. Saudi Crown Prime Mohammad Bin Salman is finding himself without his main Emirates ally, caught in a war that is unwinnable for the Saudi regime. The Yemeni Houthis have taken the initiative, hitting several Saudi strategic targets. Saudi Arabia has no realistic objectives and seems to have lost the appetite to continue the war in Yemen.

So, with the Houthis successfully striking major targets inside Saudi Arabia and the UAE abruptly pulling forces out, the war in Yemen has reached a critical juncture. Remember, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a bill withdrawing support for the war back in March, which the White House had to veto in support of its fading hopes for its Israeli/Palestinian deal pushed by Jared Kushner.

But things have changed significantly since then as that deal has been indefinitely postponed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing a second election this fall after he failed to secure a stable coalition.

After that there was the failed economic conference in Bahrain in June where Kushner revealed the economic part of the plan to a half-empty room where only the backers of the plan showed any real support.

And that's the important part of this story, because it was Kushner's plan which was the impetus for all of this insane anti-Iran belligerence in the first place. Uniting the Gulf states around a security pact leveraging the U.S/Israeli/Saudi alliance was part of what was supposed to pressure the Palestinians to the bargaining table.

By placing maximum economic sanctions on both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran while continuing to foment chaos in Syria was supposed to force Israel's enemies to fold under the pressure which would, in turn, see the Palestinians surrender to the will of Kushner and Bibi.

The problem is, it didn't work. And now Trump is left holding the bag on this idiotic policy which culminated in an obvious provocation when Iran shot down a $220 million Global Hawk surveillance drone, nearly sparking a wider war.

But what it did was expose the US and not Iran as the cause of the current problems.

Since then Trump finally had to stand up and be the grown-up in the room, such as he is, and put an end to this madness.

The UAE understood the potential for Iran's asymmetric response to US belligerence. The Saudis cannot win the war in Yemen that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began. The fallout from this war has been to push Qatar out of the orbit of the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council, cutting deals with Iran over developing the massive North Pars gas field and pipelines to Europe.

And now the UAE has realized it is facing an existential threat to its future in any confrontation between Iran and the US

What's telling is that Trump is making Yemen the issue to negotiate down rather than Iran's nuclear ambitions. Because it was never about the nuclear program. It was always about Iran's ballistic missile program.

And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would have us believe that for the first time Iran's missile program is on the negotiating table. I have no idea if that's actually true, but it's a dead giveaway that it's what the US is after.

The main reason why Trump and Netanyahu are so angry about the JCPOA is the mutual outsourcing of the nuclear ballistic missile program by Iran and North Korea. North Korea was working on the warhead while Iran worked on the ballistic missile.

Trump tweeted about this nearly two years ago, confirming this link. I wrote about it when he did this. Nearly everything I said about North Korea in the blog post is now applicable to Iran. This was why he hated the JCPOA, it didn't actually stop the development of Iran and North Korea into nuclear states.

But tearing up the deal was the wrong approach to solving the problem. Stop pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons to the region, as Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif pointed out recently, is the problem . By doing this he took both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping off his side of the table.

Now he stands isolated with only the provocateurs – Israel, the U.K., Saudi Arabia – trying to goad him forward into doing something he doesn't want to do. And all of those provocations that have occurred in the past month have failed to move either Trump or the Iranians. They've learned patience, possibly from Putin. Call it geopolitical rope-a-dope, if you will.

I said last month that the key to solving Iran's nuclear ambitions was solving the relationship with North Korea. Trump, smartly, went there, doing what only he could do , talk with DPRK Chairman Kim Jong-Un and reiterate his sincere desire to end proliferation of nuclear weapons.

He can get Iran to the table but he's going to have to give up something. So, now framing the negotiations with Iran around their demands we stop arming the Saudis is politically feasible.

Trump can't, at this point, back down directly with Iran. Yemen is deeply unpopular here and ending our support of it would be a boon to Trump politically. Trading that for some sanctions relief would be a good first step to solving the mess he's in and build some trust.

Firing John Bolton, which looks more likely every day, would be another.

He's already turning a blind eye to Iranian exports to China, and presumably, other places. I think the Brits are acting independently trying to create havoc and burnish Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt's resume as Prime Minister against Boris Johnson. That's why they hijacked the oil tanker.

But all the little distractions are nothing but poison pills to keep from discussing the real issues. Trump just cut through all that. So did Iran. Let's hope they stay focused.

[Jul 21, 2019] Merchants of Death business uber alles" as the new interpretation of "Drain the Swamp" election time slogan by Trump administration

"Drain the swamp" now means good times for Raytheon.
Jul 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

rwe2late , 1 hour ago link

Draining the swamp means hiring the lobbyists

- Orwell

...err, I meant Trump.

War is Peace

- well, now that's Orwell

(and many others in government and elsewhere)

Klassenfeind , 2 hours ago link

The Donald Trump Administration is looking more and more like George W. Bush's Administration: a dumb clueless idiot surrounded by neocons.

Remember Donald Rumsfeld , Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton , George Tenet, Henry Paulson, Paul Wolfowitz , and **** Cheney from the George W Bush Administration?

Tell me Trumptards, what's so "different this time" about Donald Trump hiring Bolton, Pompeo, Mattis/Shanahan/Esper, Haley, Haspel and Mnuchin?

[Jul 20, 2019] America s Economic Blockades and International Law by Jeffrey D. Sachs

US unilitarism is the attempt to leverage the advantages obtained when the USSR collapsed. Those advantages will gradually expire.
Jul 20, 2019 | www.project-syndicate.org

Jeffrey D. Sachs Trump is often called an isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy is simply to rely more heavily on US economic power than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization – and embodies its own brand of illegality.

NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump has based his foreign policy on a series of harsh economic blockades, each designed to frighten, coerce, and even starve the target country into submitting to American demands. While the practice is less violent than a military attack, and the blockade is through financial means rather than the navy, the consequences are often dire for civilian populations. As such, economic blockades by the United States should be scrutinized by the United Nations Security Council under international law and the UN Charter.

When Trump campaigned for office in 2016, he rejected the frequent US resort to war in the Middle East. During the years 1990-2016, the US launched two major wars with Iraq (1990 and 2003), as well as wars in Afghanistan (2001), Libya (2011), and Syria (2012). It also participated in many smaller military interventions (Mali, Somalia, and Yemen, among others). While the Syrian War is often described as a civil war, it was in a fact a war of regime change led by the US and Saudi Arabia under a US presidential directive called Timber Sycamore .

None of these US-led wars (and others in recent history) achieved their political objectives, and the major conflicts have been followed by chronic violence and instability. The attempt to force Syria's Bashar al-Assad from power led to a proxy war – eventually involving the US, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates – that displaced over ten million Syrians and caused around a half-million violent deaths.

While Trump has so far eschewed a new war, he has continued US regime-change efforts by other means. Trump is often called an isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy, at least so far, has been to rely more heavily on US economic power than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization. And it constantly risks flaring into outright war, as occurred with Iran this month.

The Trump administration currently is engaged in three attempts at comprehensive economic blockades, against North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran, as well as several lesser blockades against countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua, and an intensifying effort to cut off China's access to technology. The blockade against North Korea is sanctioned, at least in part, by the UN Security Council. The blockade against Iran is in direct opposition to the Security Council. And the blockade against Venezuela is so far without Security Council engagement for or against. The US is attempting to isolate the three countries from almost all international trade, causing shortages of food, medicines, energy, and spare parts for basic infrastructure, including the water supply and power grid.

The North Korean blockade operates mainly through UN-mandated sanctions, and includes a comprehensive list of exports to North Korea, imports from North Korea, and financial relations with North Korean entities. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that ten million North Koreans are at risk of hunger, partly owing to sanctions. "[T]he unintended negative impact sanctions can have on agricultural production, through both direct and indirect impacts, cannot be ignored," the FAO warns. "The most obvious are restrictions on the importation of certain items that are necessary for agricultural production, in particular fuel, machinery and spare parts for equipment."

The draconian US sanctions on Venezuela have come in two phases. The first, beginning in August 2017, was mainly directed at the state oil company PDVSA, the country's main earner of foreign exchange; the second round of sanctions, imposed in January 2019, was more comprehensive, targeting the Venezuelan government. A recent detailed analysis of the first round of sanctions shows their devastating impact. The US sanctions gravely exacerbated previous economic mismanagement, contributing to a catastrophic fall in oil production, hyperinflation, economic collapse (output is down by half since 2016), hunger, and rising mortality.

US sanctions against Iran have been in place more or less continuously since 1979. The most recent and by far most draconian measures, introduced in August 2018 and intensified in the first half of this year, aim to cut Iran off from foreign trade. The US sanctions are in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 , which endorsed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. The effects have been devastating. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that Iran's economy will shrink by 10% between 2017 and 2019, with inflation reaching 30% this year. Medicines are in short supply .

One might expect that other countries would easily circumvent US sanctions. But the US has threatened to punish foreign companies that violate the sanctions and has used the dollar's global clout as a bludgeon, threatening to sanction foreign banks that finance trade with Iran. European companies have fallen into line, despite the European Union's express desire to engage economically with Iran. Over the longer term, it is likely that more ways will be found to circumvent the sanctions, using renminbi, ruble, or euro financing, yet the erosion of US sanctions will only be gradual.

Despite the intense economic pain – indeed calamity – inflicted on North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran, none of them has succumbed to US demands. In this sense, sanctions have proved to be no more successful than military intervention. North Korea has maintained, and most likely is expanding, its nuclear arsenal. The Iranian regime rejects US demands concerning its missile program and foreign policies. And Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro remains in power.

The US blockades have been carried out by presidential decree, with almost no public debate and no systematic oversight by Congress. This has been a one-man show, even more so than in the case of president-led wars, which trigger vastly more public scrutiny. Trump realizes that he can impose crippling sanctions abroad with almost no direct costs to the US public or budget, and with virtually no political accountability.

Military blockades are acts of war, and therefore subject to international law, including UN Security Council oversight. America's economic blockades are similar in function and outcome to military blockades, with devastating consequences for civilian populations, and risk provoking war. It is time for the Security Council to take up the US sanctions regimes and weigh them against the requirements of international law and peacekeeping. Jeffrey D. Sachs , Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia's Center for Sustainable Development and of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His books include The End of Poverty , Common Wealth , The Age of Sustainable Development , Building the New American Economy , and most recently, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism .

Nico Lau Jul 8, 2019
As long as a country neither conducts a genocide, nor attacks other countries, nobody should interfere in its internal affairs. If a country like Venezuela or Cuba goes broke due to its incompetent leadership, it should get help from the IMF etc. in exchange for reforms as happens with any other country. Other than that it is their business whether they want to be socialist, capitalist or whatever. That whole ideological crusade against leftist countries has to stop, it has cost millions of lives already.

And there is a simple way to stop Iran's activities in the Middle East: let's finally solve the conflict there after decades during which the West simply looked the other way when land, water and oil were stolen from the Palestinians and others.

In my view the US has long turned into a rogue state. The rest of the world has to prune that country by working together and isolating it. For instance, let's create a new global currency for commodities, the Com, in order to drive the dollar out.

Let's move the UN out of the US to a neutral, peaceful country, Switzerland for instance.

vivek iyer Jul 1, 2019
Sanctions are legal and based on national sovereignty and not a proper subject of scrutiny by an international body. Blockades are subject to international law. By calling something which is legal by another term which may involve illegality one is guilty of shedding false light.

Sachs thinks that if sanctions have the same effect as a blockade then sanctions are blockades. This is foolish. It is like saying 'since a woman can get pregnant either through consensual sex or through rape, it follows that all fathers are rapists'.

Trump is carrying on policies previously applied. He has made no great innovation. It appears likely that no 'regime change' will occur. That is why there is no real 'geopolitical' risk here. The effect of sanctions is to create a widening chasm between regime 'insiders' and the great mass of the people. This has a demoralizing effect and reduces the ability of the regime to use its brain-washed subjects for an aggressive purpose. In other words, sanctions reduce, not increase, the threat potential of a bitter adversary.

Petey Bee Jul 1, 2019
Current sanctions attempt to effectively have jurisdiction over third parties, i.e. not the US, who would trade with Iran. ( that, in full compliance with international law and a binding prior agreement to which the US is a party.) I am curious how you square that with "national sovereignty", unless that is something over which the US has a higher priority than third parties.
Robert Wolff Jun 30, 2019
As in all other times that are precursors to War, the laws of disparate nations mean nothing. We all have our own laws, to rule our own geopolitical nations, which disserve the interests of other geopolitical nations.

Most recently, the WTO admits it is insufficient to resolve trade disputes among nations, and must change its hypotheses. This is only another precursor admission that binding international laws are becoming irrelevant, and that we must "Start all over again", i.e. the rule of the strongest, which means one state must conquer another before we can reestablish "Common Rule."

... ... ...

Paul Daley Jun 29, 2019

Economic sanctions are not tantamount to acts of war and should not be treated that way at the UN Security Council or anywhere else. To do that would just leave acts of war as the only alternative in the case of serious disputes. But neither should nations necessarily cooperate with sanctions they see as poorly motivated or poorly designed. In those cases, the best response is usually technical -- new institutional arrangements that raise the costs or limit the effects of poorly justified unilateral sanctions.
Petey Bee Jun 28, 2019
The Trump administration is using sanctions like a resource that will soon expire.
Mirek Fatyga Jun 28, 2019
it is the beginning of the end for the special role of the US$ in the world economy. Dethroning the US$ has now become a matter of national security for 95% of the planet. Not that this would not have happened anyway, nothing lasts forever, but present events accelerate the process.

This can be good for the US in the long run, if painful at first. One sometimes quips about the curse of natural resources. US suffers from the similar curse of the Dollar, which is a natural resource of sorts, as it can be printed out of thin air, seemingly without consequences. The dethroning of the US$ will cause a pretty significant, perhaps shocking, drop in living standards given US social inequalities, but it may be beneficial in the long run by imposing some sobriety and discipline upon the political system. Then, it could also break up the country for good. May you live in interesting times, as the saying goes.

Paul Friesen Jun 28, 2019

Fortunately, the ability of the U.S. to do this is fading fast, as it loses its economic domination to China. So far, China has shown rather less tendency to meddle in the affairs of other countries, with the notable exceptions of certain territories which it regards as part of its territory. The world is slowly becoming fairer.

[Jul 20, 2019] On Iran, Why Not Rand

Notable quotes:
"... Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at ..."
"... , and a frequent contributor to ..."
"... That TAC columnists continue to hold out hope that Trump will revert to his 2016 form astounds me. ..."
"... It's like watching Obama cultists convince themselves that The Real Obama®, the hopey changey guy from 2008, will finally put in an appearance, even as he betrays them over and over again. ..."
Jul 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

If there is any direct communication between American and Iranian officials, it is hidden from public view. All of this has made Senator Rand Paul's initiative to open dialogue with Tehran urgent, necessary, and prudent.

According to a July 17 story in Politico , Paul recently pitched himself to President Trump as a possible presidential emissary to the Iranians -- someone who could sit down with Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and begin a conversation on the issues that have nearly resulted in military conflict. Trump apparently accepted Paul's pitch while the two were on the golf course last weekend. His decision, while not yet confirmed by the White House, suggests that Trump is slowly beginning to recognize the deficiencies of the maximum pressure policy that National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and outside counsels like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Mark Dubowitz have peddled for years. Far from forcing Tehran's surrender, economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation have yielded more Iranian aggression. Iran is now a wounded animal backed into a corner, ready to fight rather than submit. The chances of a clash have increased substantially.

In a town filled with tough talkers who see foreign policy as an extension of domestic politics, Rand Paul is one of those strange creatures who is willing to throw himself in front of a bus for the sake of preventing a war. His foes (of which there are many, from Bill Kristol and Lindsey Graham to Marco Rubio and Liz Cheney) use the lazy isolationist epitaph to paint him as a gadfly on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But at his core, Paul is neither a gadfly nor an isolationist. The junior senator from Kentucky is a non-interventionist who has the audacity to search for diplomatic solutions before doing what most of his colleagues on Capitol Hill would have long preferred -- involuntarily reaching for more punitive options.

This isn't the first time Paul has tried to create space for dialogue with a U.S. adversary. Last year, when so much as talking to a Russian was universally frowned upon by the political class, Paul flew to Moscow and delivered a letter on behalf of President Trump to Russian parliamentarians. A month later, he introduced an amendment that would have lifted travel restrictions on Russian lawmakers if Moscow did the same for their American counterparts. The amendment was a small and reasonable gesture that removed largely symbolic sanctions in order to encourage Americans and Russians to familiarize themselves with each other. It was lambasted in committee and killed .

Paul's latest initiative with Iran could run into the same brick wall. The fact that the arrangement was leaked to the media is an indication that somebody in the Trump administration is totally opposed to the idea and wants to bury any potential conversations with the Iranians before they begin. One can almost picture John Bolton, holed up in the White House basement, hearing the news and frantically ordering his minions on the National Security Council to expose it in the press.

There are also practical questions that need to be answered. With Zarif only in New York for another few days, does Paul have the time for a one-on-one meeting? Would the Iranians be interested in meeting with the senator, even if he does have the president's ear? Or is Khamenei, still seething over the administration's withdrawal from the nuclear deal and watching his government's oil exports disappear, dead set on banning any contact with the Americans for as long as Trump remains in the Oval Office?

It's Not Too Late for Trump to Ignore Bolton and Get Iran Right Is America Ready for John Bolton's War With Iran?

Organizing a backchannel with the Iranians could be difficult, in large measure because it will be fought tooth-and-nail by the usual suspects. But Rand Paul's potential role as an envoy should be pursued. After all, it isn't like the hawks have such a great track record.

Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at Reuters , and a frequent contributor to The American Conservative.


Sid Finster2 days ago • edited

That TAC columnists continue to hold out hope that Trump will revert to his 2016 form astounds me.

It's like watching Obama cultists convince themselves that The Real Obama®, the hopey changey guy from 2008, will finally put in an appearance, even as he betrays them over and over again.

Sid Finster2 days ago • edited
That TAC columnists continue to hold out hope that Trump will revert to his 2016 form astounds me.

It's like watching Obama cultists convince themselves that The Real Obama®, the hopey changey guy from 2008, will finally put in an appearance, even as he betrays them over and over again.

dbriz Sid Finster2 days ago
Your pessimism is certainly warranted and frequently seconded by Larison and others at TAC. Agreed. But, what choice do we have but to encourage proposals like this one and recognize that Trump, as infuriatingly inconsistent as he has been, needs to be encouraged when he does something sensible.

Rand at least seems to have his ear, no small feat.

Sid Finster dbriz2 days ago
I am not saying that such moves, if they come to pass, should not be encouraged.

But let's see if anything comes of it, or if the Boltons, Pompeos and Haspels of this world make sure that Rand fails and then chant "But we have to go to war because we tried so hard we tried everything ZOMG war war war!"

bbkingfish2 days ago
The best reason I can think of to choose to send someone other than Rand Paul to negotiate with Iran is that Paul was NOT one of the seven WPP senators who didn't sign Tom Cotton's odious open letter to Iran trying to put the kibosh on the Obama nuke deal with Iran.

Maybe try Corker, or Alexander or Murkowski...someone whom the Iranians might have some reason to trust.

I seriously doubt that Rand Paul has a whit more credibility in Tehran than Trump does, and why would he?. I can't think of a single reason why Iran should trust him.

Fayez Abedaziz2 days ago
Good and very to the point made in this article about the hawks, these neo-cons, these war lovers, not having a good track record.
They have a record of death and destruction and they could care less about people suffering.
Just why do they want America to continue attacking and threaten and make war on numerous nations?
Why...
Sid Finster Fayez Abedaziza day ago
Because most Americans have the memory and attention span of a mosquito.

[Jul 20, 2019] FBI's spreadsheet puts a stake through the heart of Steele's dossier

Jul 20, 2019 | thehill.com

But lest anyone be tempted to think Steele's 2016 dossier is about to be mysteriously revived as credible, consider this: Over months of work, FBI agents painstakingly researched every claim Steele made about Trump's possible collusion with Russia, and assembled their findings into a spreadsheet-like document.

The over-under isn't flattering to Steele.

Multiple sources familiar with the FBI spreadsheet tell me the vast majority of Steele's claims were deemed to be wrong, or could not be corroborated even with the most awesome tools available to the U.S. intelligence community. One source estimated the spreadsheet found upward of 90 percent of the dossier's claims to be either wrong, nonverifiable or open-source intelligence found with a Google search.

In other words, it was mostly useless.

"The spreadsheet was a sea of blanks, meaning most claims couldn't be corroborated, and those things that were found in classified intelligence suggested Steele's intelligence was partly or totally inaccurate on several claims," one source told me.

The FBI declined comment when asked about the spreadsheet.

The FBI's final assessment was driven by many findings contained in classified footnotes at the bottom of the spreadsheet. But it was also informed by an agent's interview, in early 2017, with a Russian that Steele claimed was one of his main providers of intelligence, according to my sources.

The FBI came to suspect that the Russian misled Steele, either intentionally or through exaggeration, the sources said.

The spreadsheet and a subsequent report by special prosecutor Robert Mueller show just how far off the seminal claims in the Steele dossier turned out to be.

For example, U.S. intelligence found no evidence that Carter Page, during a trip to Moscow in July 2016, secretly met with two associates of Vladimir Putin Igor Sechin and senior government official Igor Divyekin -- as part of the effort to collude with the Trump campaign, as Steele reported.

Page did meet with a lower-level Rosneft official, and shook hands with a Russian deputy prime minister, the FBI found, but it was a far cry from the tale that Steele's dossier spun.

Likewise, Steele claimed that Sechin had offered Page a hefty finder's fee if he could get Trump to help lift sanctions on Moscow: "a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return."

That offer, worth billions of dollars, was never substantiated and was deemed by some in U.S. intelligence to be preposterous.

The inaccuracy of Steele's intelligence on Page is at the heart of the inspector general investigation specifically because the FBI represented to the FISA court that the intelligence on Page was verified and strong enough to support the FISA warrant. It was, in the end, not verified.

Another knockdown of the dossier occurred when U.S. intelligence determined former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was not in Prague in the summer of 2016 when Steele claimed he was meeting with Russians to coordinate a hijacking of the election, the sources said.

Steele's theory about who in the Trump campaign might be conspiring with Russia kept evolving from Page to Cohen to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. None of those theories checked out in the end, as the Mueller report showed.

Again, Steele's intelligence was wrong or unverifiable.

The salacious, headline-grabbing claim that Russians had incriminating sex tapes showing Trump engaged in depraved acts with prostitutes also met a factual dead end when the FBI interviewed the Georgian-American businessman who claimed to know about them. Giorgi Rtskhiladze told investigators "he was told the tapes were fake," according to a footnote in the Mueller report. Rtskhiladze's lawyer subsequently issued a letter taking issue with some of Mueller's characterizations.

Steele had some general things right, of course, including that the Russians were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails. Of course, there were public reports saying so when Steele reported this.

But even then, his dossier's theory of how the hackers worked, who paid them and how they communicated with Trump was determined in the FBI spreadsheet and subsequent Mueller investigation to be far from accurate.

Even State officials, who listened to Steele's theories in October 2016 -- less than two weeks before his dossier was used to support the FISA request -- instantly determined he was grossly wrong on some points.

Any effort to use Steele's belated cooperation with the inspector general's investigation to prop up the credibility of his 2016 anti-Trump dossier or the FBI's reliance on it for the FISA warrant is deeply misguided.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a key defender of Trump, said he talked with DOJ officials after the most recent stories surfaced about Steele and was told the reporting is wrong. "Based on my conversations with DOJ officials, recent reports which suggest Christopher Steele's dossier and allegations are somehow deemed credible by DOJ, are simply false and not based on any confirmation from sources with direct knowledge of ongoing investigations," Meadows told me.

The FBI's own spreadsheet was so conclusive that it prompted then-FBI Director James Comey (no fan of Trump, mind you) to dismiss the document as " salacious and unverified " and for lead FBI agent Peter Strzok to text, " There's no big there there ." FBI lawyer Lisa Page testified that nine months into reviewing Steele's dossier they had not found evidence of the collusion that Steele alleged.

Two years later, Mueller came to the same conclusion: Steele's intelligence alleging a conspiracy was never verified.

The next time you hear a pundit suggesting Steele's dossier is credible or that the FBI's reliance on it as FISA evidence was justified, just picture all those blanks in that FBI spreadsheet.

They speak volumes as to what went wrong in the Russia investigation.

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .

[Jul 20, 2019] The European Union's New Executive Kowtows to the Left

Jul 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Ursula von der Leyen arrives clouded in scandal and ready to implement radical economic policies that will stifle growth.

like Jean-Claude Juncker, she arrives in Brussels with a record of negligence in her country of origin. Whereas Juncker was accused of failing in his duty to inform the Luxembourg Parliament of illegal wiretapping by the intelligence service, von der Leyen was denounced for mismanagement. In October 2018, when she was still Germany's minister of defense, she admitted that her department had made mistakes in awarding contracts to external consultants, amounting to several hundred million euros.

In 2012, Josep Borrell, former president of the European Parliament and former minister in various Spanish socialist governments, was forced to resign from his position as president of the European University Institute (UIE) following allegations of conflicts of interest. At that time, he was receiving €300,000 as a member of the board of directors of the Spanish sustainable energy company Abengoa, while at the same time promoting biofuels through the institute.

Nevertheless, alongside von der Leyen, Borrell is about to be confirmed as the new head of EU diplomacy. Another perfect candidate.

The scandal in Berlin is not the only reason the vote for Von der Leyen was narrow. It was also that socialists and environmentalists weren't given sufficient trade-offs (in their eyes). The European Union is all about distributing the large number of positions and policy priorities between the involved parties, and in this case, the left felt shafted.

The Nationalists Who Could Take Over the European Union Stopped Clocks: The European Union Gets War With Iran Exactly Right

A source from the PiS party (the ruling party in Poland) told journalist Oskar Górzyński of the media company Wirtualna Polska that it was a call from Chancellor Angela Merkel that tipped some Polish MEPs over. What did Mrs. Merkel promise them? More agricultural subsidies? The abandonment of the Article 7 sanction procedure against judicial reforms in Poland? Only Merkel knows that and she won't tell.

Bill Wirtz comments on European politics and policy in English, French, and German. His work has appeared in Newsweek, the Washington Examiner, CityAM, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Die Welt.

[Jul 20, 2019] The Decline of Our Nation's Generals by Andrew Bacevich

Jul 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

... ... ...

The clichés poured forth from Milley's lips with all the practiced smarminess of a car salesman promoting a new line of pickup trucks. But what does this mean in practice, Senator James Inhofe, Senate Armed Services Committee chair, wanted to know? What is General Milley's top priority?

"The very number one for me," Milley replied, "is the modernization, recapitalization of the nation's nuclear triad."

Now pause here for a moment. The triad -- the claim that the safety and security of the United States requires a nuclear strike force consisting of long-range bombers and long-range land-based missiles and missile-firing submarines -- represented fresh thinking some 60 years ago. That was when ICBMs and Polaris submarines were entering service to complement Strategic Air Command's fleet of B47s and B52s. If indeed "the fundamental character of war is changing rapidly," how can it be that Milley's conception of originality is to field glitzier versions of weapons dating back to when he was born? To make such a claim is on a par with arguing that what the U.S. Army needed in 1940 was more horses and the U.S. Navy more battleships.

It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.

Andrew Bacevich is TAC 's writer-at-large and a co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.


TomG 17 hours ago

"What they say is mostly drivel."

Pathetic, expensive, immoral, divisive, destructive drivel with no end in sight...

JohnT 17 hours ago
Wow! Finally! No retreat to the comfort of broad generalization like "the eilites" but rather a well considered, on target consideration of one of the individuals in a position of power and responsibility sufficient to make the absolutely necessary changes our remarkable nation's health demands. Thank you!
And, if the general can't make use of well a intended and considered constructive critique he is not the experienced, compassionate adult the task requires.
SteveM 15 hours ago
It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.


Professor Bacevich has this one exactly backwards. Notice that when the sanctified Pentagon Generals make their fear-monger saturated pronouncements there is zero pushback from either the Politicos or the lapdog MSM. It is not that they are not listening. It's that they fully concur because they are intimidated by anyone wearing Stars on their shoulders.

They accept the "drivel" of the Pentagon Brass by default. BTW, which also includes the includes the updated National Defense Strategy which has the U.S. playing belligerent Global Cop in perpetuity and wasting taxpayer dollars out the wazoo.

If anything, the Congress and MSM should be paying more serious attention to the obsolete and unaffordable pronouncements of the Generals and start questioning their own instinctive deference to Pentagon authority which permits the warped, fully militarized and largely failed U.S. foreign policy to continue as is.

interguru 15 hours ago
I am not the first person to note that the US is displaying more and more symptoms of a dying empire. To name a few; a broken political system, crony capitalism, a bloated military, use of mercenaries, and unpayable debt.

The other day, while watching some general being interviewed, I noticed another symptom. He, and other contemporary generals, have so many ribbons and metals on their chest that they could be melted down for ore. I found a site that lets me compare our beribboned commanders with those of yesteryear.

Civil War generals had few or no ribbons. World War I's General of the Armies Pershing displays two rows of narrow ribbons. By World War II General Eisenhower showed three ribbon rows. In 1950 General Bradley showed 6 rows ( you can see a detailed picture here ).

The pictures of today's generals and officers are bedazzling. Just one example, The page describing William J. Gainey, USA, Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman, JCS ( not even a general ), shows a picture with at least 8 rows of ribbons, with a list 24 lines long describing 56 awards after accounting for multiple awards.

As our military officers watch the country fall apart, at least they can fondle their decorations.

baldwin 15 hours ago
The role of the generals and admirals is to advise. They can not make the politicians listen.
Sid Finster 14 hours ago
The absolute last thing this country needs is celebrity generals, or even generals who hold power in the shadows as a sort of eminence grise.
Kent 14 hours ago
Andrew J Bacevich does more for the long-term military strength and international standing of the USA than much of the military and political leadership of this country. A true patriot.
bbkingfish 14 hours ago
Wow. That photograph of Gen. Milley illustrates the author's case beautifully. Worth a thousand words.
marku52 13 hours ago
That was amazing. "War is changing rapidly" coupled with "Most important: updating a 60 year old weapon system"

Not a single world about figuring out why every war since Gulf 1 has been an abject failure? Or the threat of our defense manufacturing infrastructure being sold by Wall Street to China? Not a word?

The man can really talk out of both sides of his mouth, can't he? Should do great on Capitol Hill...

Taras77 13 hours ago
Not sure how we got to this pathetic stage but my guess is that some of the pomposity is directly related to the armies of press following the generals around in Iraq, e.g. petraeus, et al
As a snarky comment, what in the world is with all of these "impressive" ribbons to the top of these generals' shoulders-from what I understand, about 70-80% of them are meaningless, only a few are for combat, valor, some are for merit, but are more or less automatic. Talk about grade creep, how about ribbon creep.
Ike had about one or two rows, all meaningful awards. Marshall had maybe one row, meaningful awards to a very competent general.

Those generals that came out of Iraq and Afghan were mostly mouth pieces for the press and the politicians, i.e. drivel. None of them could win a meaningful engagement without bombing the heck out of civilians and associated cities. In a word, pathetic.

Thomas Cass 12 hours ago
Unless politicians feel pressure to act on military matters in a way that honors their or their constituents' lived experiences, how are they to be incentivized to ask the right questions? Some flavor of draft to increase stakeholders among the citizenry, or a service requirement for government office, might realize the serious attention for which Mr. Bacevich protests here, and drive the selection of better leaders.
James B 11 hours ago
To me for, both the nation and the military, we need to have an update of the high tech weapon systems that the General talks about but we also need to have a reassessment of how we fight wars. The wars the US won are (in my mind) the Revolution and WWII. I think the Civil war was "lost" because although the US defeated the Confederacy it did not reunite the nation. WWI was said to be the war to end all wars - - that didn't happen. No question that both Korea and Vietnam were not won, despite the heroism of those fighting there - - those wars were handled by Washington politics. MacAuthor could have won Korea but was fired. The whole Vietnam was was managed by politics. Now to the middle east. Afghanistan is another example of political warfare as is Iraq and potentially Iran. I believe that a war can be partly won by high tech missiles, bombs, etc. but cannot be actually won except by occupying the ground. We did this in Europe with the troops giving out cigarettes and candy as they patrolled. That made them human to the previous "enemy". Our professional volunteer army doesn't have the manpower to do this. I believe we need to have a secondary low-tech army of drafted men and women who can be trained quickly to be able to follow commands, to use a rifle with accuracy, and to be able to reduce civilian conflict without violent response. The high tech folk require extended training, the low tech force is able to move in and actually win the war. How would this help the nation? It would force people to live and work with a diverse population and realize that we can be a single nation of people of different backgrounds and ethnicity. The "fly over land" people really aren't a bunch of idiot racist red-necks. The coastals are not (all) anxious to destroy America.
Kent James B 11 hours ago
The US didn't just win in WWII because we occupied the ground. We won because we showed the German people that we were happy to fire bomb entire ancient cities and indiscriminately kill their women and children without a second thought.

And we were the good ones to surrender to. The Russians were happy to kill them all, with the exception of a few pretty blonds who would henceforth bear strong Russian boys.

You can't win a war without utterly defeating an entire population. Which is why we can't win our wars. None of these people have done anything to really harm us. And the American people still have enough dignity to not just slaughter these people for no reason. We're not entirely evil, yet.

Steve Naidamast 10 hours ago
I have always wondered what such people mean when they say that the character of warfare is changing and the US has to adopt to such changes.

War is about 2 things; killing and destruction. That in a nutshell is the character of war. Anything else may describe the complexities of tactics and strategies or the causes of such conflicts but the actual features of any conflict are always the same.

The only thing that does change is the types of weapon systems used. The stupidity that has led militaries to use them hasn't changed since the dawn of time...

[Jul 20, 2019] Western Interests Aim To Flummox Russia

Notable quotes:
"... One pressure on Putin comes from the Atlanticist Integrationists who have a material stake in their connections to the West and who want Russia to be integrated into the Western world. ..."
"... We agree with President Putin that the sanctions are in fact a benefit to Russia as they have moved Russia in self-sufficient directions and toward developing relationships with China and Asia. ..."
"... It is a self-serving Western myth that Russia needs foreign loans. This myth is enshrined in neoliberal economics, which is a device for Western exploitation and control of other countries. Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists. ..."
"... Neoliberals argue that Russia needs privatization in order to cover its budget deficit. Russia's government debt is only 17 percent of Russian GDP. According to official measures, US federal debt is 104 percent of GDP, 6.1 times higher than in Russia. If US federal debt is measured in real corrected terms, US federal debt is 185 percent of US GDP. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/08/deteriorating-economic-outlook/ ..."
"... Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists. ..."
"... Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated" near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed. Too bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine face I, somehow, doubt it. ..."
"... This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is ... Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia. ..."
"... Trump is an ultra-zionist for Sheldon Adelson and prolongs & creates wars for the Goldman banking crimesyndicat. ..."
"... Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." ..."
"... You write about Russia but have not done your homework. Russia is very dependent on Western technology and its entire high-tech industry depends on the import of Western machinery. Without such machinery many Russian factories, including military ones, would stall. Very important oil industry is particularly vulnerable. ..."
Mar 03, 2017 | www.unz.com
An article by Robert Berke in oilprice.com, which describes itself as "The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News," illustrates how interest groups control outcomes by how they shape policy choices.

Berke's article reveals how the US intends to maintain and extend its hegemony by breaking up the alliance between Russia, Iran, and China, and by oil privatizations that result in countries losing control over their sovereignty to private oil companies that work closely with the US government. As Trump has neutered his presidency by gratuitously accepting Gen. Flynn's resignation as National Security Advisor, this scheme is likely to be Trump's approach to "better relations" with Russia.

Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China. Should Putin fall for such a scheme, it would be a fatal strategic blunder from which Russia could not recover. Yet, Putin will be pressured to make this blunder.

One pressure on Putin comes from the Atlanticist Integrationists who have a material stake in their connections to the West and who want Russia to be integrated into the Western world. Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent to Russians. Removing this insult has become important to Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.

We agree with President Putin that the sanctions are in fact a benefit to Russia as they have moved Russia in self-sufficient directions and toward developing relationships with China and Asia. Moreover, the West with its hegemonic impulses uses economic relationships for control purposes. Trade with China and Asia does not pose the same threat to Russian independence.

Berke says that part of the deal being offered to Putin is "increased access to the huge European energy market, restored western financial credit, access to Western technology, and a seat at the global decision-making table, all of which Russia badly needs and wants." Sweetening the honey trap is official recognization of "Crimea as part of Russia."

Russia might want all of this, but it is nonsense that Russia needs any of it.

Crimea is part of Russia, as it has been for 300 years, and no one can do anything about it. What would it mean if Mexico did not recognize that Texas and California were part of the US? Nothing.

Europe has scant alternatives to Russian energy. Russia does not need Western technology. Indeed, its military technology is superior to that in the West. And Russia most certainly does not need Western loans. Indeed, it would be an act of insanity to accept them.

It is a self-serving Western myth that Russia needs foreign loans. This myth is enshrined in neoliberal economics, which is a device for Western exploitation and control of other countries. Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.

The Russian central bank has convinced the Russian government that it would be inflationary to finance Russian development projects with the issuance of central bank credit. Foreign loans are essential, claims the central bank.

Someone needs to teach the Russian central bank basic economics before Russia is turned into another Western vassal. Here is the lesson: When central bank credit is used to finance development projects, the supply of rubles increases but so does output from the projects. Thus, goods and services rise with the supply of rubles. When Russia borrows foreign currencies from abroad, the money supply also increases, but so does the foreign debt. Russia does not spend the foreign currencies on the project but puts them into its foreign exchange reserves. The central bank issues the same amount of rubles to pay the project's bills as it would in the absence of the foreign loan. All the foreign loan does is to present Russia with an interest payment to a foreign creditor.

Foreign capital is not important to countries such as Russia and China. Both countries are perfectly capable of financing their own development. Indeed, China is the world's largest creditor nation. Foreign loans are only important to countries that lack the internal resources for development and have to purchase the business know-how, techlology, and resources abroad with foreign currencies that their exports are insufficient to bring in.

This is not the case with Russia, which has large endowments of resources and a trade surplus. China's development was given a boost by US corporations that moved their production for the US market offshore in order to pocket the difference in labor and regulatory costs.

Neoliberals argue that Russia needs privatization in order to cover its budget deficit. Russia's government debt is only 17 percent of Russian GDP. According to official measures, US federal debt is 104 percent of GDP, 6.1 times higher than in Russia. If US federal debt is measured in real corrected terms, US federal debt is 185 percent of US GDP. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/08/deteriorating-economic-outlook/

Clearly, if the massive debt of the US government is not a problem, the tiny debt of Russia is not a problem.

Berke's article is part of the effort to scam Russia by convincing the Russian government that its prosperity depends on unfavorable deals with the West. As Russia's neoliberal economists believe this, the scam has a chance of success.

Another delusion affecting the Russian government is the belief that privatization brings in capital. This delusion caused the Russian government to turn over 20 percent of its oil company to foreign ownership. The only thing Russia achieved by this strategic blunder was to deliver 20 percent of its oil profits into foreign hands. For a one-time payment, Russia gave away 20 percent of its oil profits in perpetuity.

To repeat outselves, the greatest threat that Russia faces is not sanctions but the incompetence of its neoliberal economists who have been throughly brainwashed to serve US interests.

Mao Cheng Ji , February 14, 2017 at 6:55 pm GMT \n

When Russia borrows foreign currencies from abroad, the money supply also increases, but so does the foreign debt. Russia does not spend the foreign currencies on the project but puts them into its foreign exchange reserves. The central bank issues the same amount of rubles to pay the project's bills as it would in the absence of the foreign loan. All the foreign loan does is to present Russia with an interest payment to a foreign creditor.

Yes, correct. But this is an IMF rule, and Russia is an IMF member. To control its monetary policy it would have to get out.

Lyttenburgh , February 14, 2017 at 6:57 pm GMT \n

Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent to Russians. Removing this insult has become important to Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.

Oh dear, neolibs at their "finest"!

This "theory" is simply not true. If anything, Russians don't want the sanctions to be lifted, because this will also force us to scrap our counter-sanctions against the EU. The agro-business in Russia had been expanding by leaps and bounds for the last two years. This persistent myth that "the Russians" (who exactly, I wonder – 2-3% of the pro-Western urbanites in Moscow and St. Pete?) are desperate to have the sanctons lifted is a self-deception of the West, who IS desparate of the fact that the sanctions didn't work.

Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.

Yes! Ulyukayev is, probably, feeling lonely in his prison. I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up?

WorkingClass , February 14, 2017 at 7:59 pm GMT \n

Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.

Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.

SmoothieX12 , Website February 14, 2017 at 8:56 pm GMT \n
@WorkingClass
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.

LOL! True. You forgot McCain, though.

SmoothieX12 , Website February 14, 2017 at 9:04 pm GMT \n
100 Words @Lyttenburgh
Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent to Russians. Removing this insult has become important to Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.
Oh dear, neolibs at their "finest"! This "theory" is simply not true. If anything, Russians don't want the sanctions to be lifted, because this will also force us to scrap our counter-sanctions against the EU. The agro-business in Russia had been expanding by leaps and bounds for the last two years. This persistent myth that "the Russians" (who exactly, I wonder - 2-3% of the pro-Western urbanites in Moscow and St. Pete?) are desperate to have the sanctons lifted is a self-deception of the West, who IS desparate of the fact that the sanctions didn't work.
Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.
Yes! Ulyukayev is, probably, feeling lonely in his prison. I say - why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up? ;)

I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up?

Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated" near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed. Too bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine face I, somehow, doubt it.

Priss Factor , February 14, 2017 at 10:38 pm GMT \n
100 Words

A silver-lining to this.

If the US continues to antagonize Russia, Russia will have to grow even more independent, nationalist, and sovereign. At any rate, this issue cannot be addressed until we face that the fact that globalism is essentially Jewish Supremacism that fears gentile nationalism as a barrier to its penetration and domination.

This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is ... Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia.

Same thing with this crap about 'white privilege'. It is a misleading concept to fool Americans into thinking that the main conflict is between 'privileged whites' and 'people of color'. It is really to hide the fact that Jewish power and privilege really rules the US. It is a means to hoodwink people from noticing that the real divide is between Jews and Gentiles, not between 'privileged whites' and 'non-white victims'. After all, too many whites lack privilege, and too many non-whites do very well in America.

Seamus Padraig , February 14, 2017 at 11:29 pm GMT \n
@SmoothieX12
I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up?

Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated" near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed. Too bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine face I, somehow, doubt it.

I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.

Seamus Padraig , February 14, 2017 at 11:34 pm GMT \n

Does PCR really think that Putin is stupid enough to fall for Kissinger's hair-brained scheme? I mean, give Putin a little bit of credit. He has so far completely outmaneuvered Washington on virtually ever subject. I'm sure he's clever enough to see through such a crude divide-and-rule strategy.

anonymous , February 15, 2017 at 4:17 am GMT

The Russians can't be flummoxed, they aren't children. Russia and China border each other so they have a natural mutual interest in having their east-west areas be stable and safe, particularly when the US threatens both of them. This geography isn't going to change. Abandoning clients such as Syria and Iran would irreversibly damage the Russian brand as being unreliable therefore they'd find it impossible to attract any others in the future. They know this so it's unlikely they would be so rash as to snap at any bait dangled in front of them. And, as pointed out, the bait really isn't all that irresistible. It's always best to negotiate from a position of strength and they realize that. American policy deep thinkers are often fantasists who bank upon their chess opponents making hoped-for predictable moves. That doesn't happen in real life.

SmoothieX12 , Website February 15, 2017 at 2:29 pm GMT \n
@Seamus Padraig

I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.

I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.

Partially, because Putin himself is an economic liberal and, to a degree, monetarist, albeit less rigid than his economic block. The good choices he made often were opposite to his views. As he himself admitted that Russia's geopolitical vector changed with NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia–a strengthening of Russia has become an imperative. This comeback was impossible within the largely "Western" monetarist economic model. Russia's comeback happened not thanks but despite Putin's economic views, Putin adjusted his views in the process, his economic block didn't. But many of them still remain his friends, despite the fact that many of them are de facto fifth column and work against Russia, intentionally and other wise. Eventually Putin will be forced to get down from his fence and take the position of industrialists and siloviki. Putin's present for Medvedev's birthday was a good hint on where he is standing economically today and I am beginning to like that but still–I personally am not convinced yet. We'll see. In many respects Putin was lucky and specifically because of the namely Soviet military and industry captains still being around–people who, unlike Putin, knew exactly what constituted Russia's strength. Enough to mention late Evgeny Primakov. Let's not forget that despite Putin's meteoric rise through the top levels of Russia's state bureaucracy, including his tenure as a Director of FSB, Putin's background is not really military-industrial. He is a lawyer, even if uniformed (KGB) part of his career. I know for a fact that initially (early 2000s) he was overwhelmed with the complexity of Russia's military and industry. Enough to mention his creature Serdyukov who almost destroyed Command and Control structure of Russia's Armed Forces and main ideologue behind Russia's military "reform", late Vitaly Shlykov who might have been a great GRU spy (and economist by trade) but who never served a day in combat units. Thankfully, the "reforms" have been stopped and Russian Armed Forces are still dealing with the consequences. This whole clusterfvck was of Putin's own creation–hardly a good record on his resume. Hopefully, he learned.

Vlad , February 17, 2017 at 8:44 am GMT \n
@Seamus Padraig

I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.

He has not done it already because he just cannot let go of his dream to have it as he did in 2003, when Russia Germany and France together blocked legality of US war in Iraq. Putin still hopes for a good working relationship with major West European powers. Italy France and even Germany.

He still hopes to draw them away from the US. However the obvious gains from Import substitution campaign make it apparent that Russia does benefit from sanctions, that Russia can get anything it wants in technology from the East rather than the West. So the break with Western orientation is in the making. Hopefully.

annamaria , February 17, 2017 at 3:50 pm GMT \n

You forgot to mention the "moderate" jihadis, including the operatives from NATO, Israel, and US. (It seems that the Ukrainian "patriots" that have been bombing the civilians in East Ukraine, also include special "patriots" from the same unholy trinity: https://www.roguemoney.net/stories/2016/12/6/there-are-troops-jack-us-army-donbass ). There has been also a certain asymmetry in means: look at the map for the number and location of the US/NATO military bases. At least we can see that RF has been trying to avoid the hot phase of WWIII. http://russia-insider.com/sites/insider/files/NATO-vs-Russia640.jpg

annamaria , February 17, 2017 at 4:11 pm GMT \n
200 Words @Priss Factor A silver-lining to this.

If the US continues to antagonize Russia, Russia will have to grow even more independent, nationalist, and sovereign.

At any rate, this issue cannot be addressed until we face that the fact that globalism is essentially Jewish Supremacism that fears gentile nationalism as a barrier to its penetration and domination.

This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is Jewish Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia.

Same thing with this crap about 'white privilege'. It is a misleading concept to fool Americans into thinking that the main conflict is between 'privileged whites' and 'people of color'. It is really to hide the fact that Jewish power and privilege really rules the US. It is a means to hoodwink people from noticing that the real divide is between Jews and Gentiles, not between 'privileged whites' and 'non-white victims'. After all, too many whites lack privilege, and too many non-whites do very well in America.

On the power and privilege that really rule the US:
"Sanctions – economic sanctions, as most of them are, can only stand and 'succeed', as long as countries, who oppose Washington's dictate remain bound into the western, dollar-based, fraudulent monetary scheme. The system is entirely privatized by a small Zionist-led elite. FED, Wall Street, Bank for International Settlement (BIS), are all private institutions, largely controlled by the Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan et al clans. They are also supported by the Breton Woods Organizations, IMF and World Bank, conveniently created under the Charter of the UN.
Few progressive economists understand how this debt-based pyramid scam is manipulating the entire western economic system. When in a just world, it should be just the contrary, the economy that shapes, designs and decides the functioning of the monetary system and policy.
Even Russia, with Atlantists still largely commanding the central bank and much of the financial system, isn't fully detached from the dollar dominion – yet."

http://thesaker.is/venezuela-washingtons-latest-defamation-to-bring-nato-to-south-america/

Anon , February 17, 2017 at 4:55 pm GMT \n
100 Words

"I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this (nationalize the "central bank) already".

I read about a rumor a few years ago that Putin has been warned that nationalizing the now private Russian central bank will bring absolutely dire consequences to both him and Russia. It is simply a step he cannot take.

How dire are the potential consequences? Consider that the refusal of the American government to reauthorize the private central bank in the US brought about the War of 1812. The Americans learned their lesson and quickly reauthorized the private bank after the war had ended.

Numerous attempts were made to assassinate President Andrew Jacksons specifically because of his refusal to reauthorize the private central bank.

JFK anyone?

Agent76 , February 17, 2017 at 6:07 pm GMT \n
100 Words

Here it is in audio form so you can just relax and just listen at your leisure.

*ALL WARS ARE BANKERS' WARS* By Michael Rivero https://youtu.be/WN0Y3HRiuxo

I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.

Priss Factor , February 17, 2017 at 7:31 pm GMT \n
1,000 Words

Here is proof that there is no real Leftist power anymore.

Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

If the Left really rules America, how come it is fair game to criticize, condemn, mock, and vilify Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Bakunin, Emma Goldman & anarchists, Castro, Che(even though he is revered by many, one's career isn't damaged by attacking him), Tito, Ceucescu, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gramsci, Eurgene Debs, Pete Seeger, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers, and etc.

You can say whatever you want about such people. Some will agree, some will disagree, but you will not be fired, blacklisted, or destroyed.

If the Left really rules, why would this be?

Now, what would happen if you name the Jewish Capitalists as the real holders of power?
What would happen if you name the Jewish oligarchic corporatists who control most of media?
What would happen if you said Jews are prominent in the vice industry of gambling?
What would happen if you named the Jewish capitalists in music industry that made so much money by spreading garbage?
What would happen if you said Jewish warhawks were largely responsible for the disasters in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?
And what would happen if you were question the MLK mythology and cult?
What would happen if you were to make fun of homos and trannies?
Now, keep in mind that blacks and homos are favored by Jews as their main allies.
(Some say the US is not a pro-minority nation, but it's still permissible to criticize, impugn, and vilify Chinese, Iranians, Muslims, Mexicans, Hindus, and etc. Trump was hard on China, Iran, Muslims, and Mexicans, and he got some flak over it but not enough to destroy him. Now, imagine what would have happened if he'd said such things about blacks, Africa, homos, Jews, and Israel? American politics isn't necessarily pro-minority. If it is, it should favor Palestinian-Americans just as much as Jewish-Americans. Actually, since there are fewer Palestinian-Americans than Jewish-Americans, the US, being pro-minority, should favor Palestinians over Jews in America. In reality, it is AIPAC that draws all the politicians. America is about Pro-Power, and since Jews have the Power and since Jews are a minority, it creates the false impression that the US is a minority-supremacist nation. But WHICH minority? Jews would like for us think that all minorities are represented equally in the US, but do Eskimos, Hawaiians, Guatemalans, Vietnamese, and etc. have the kind of power & protection that the Jewish minority has? Do we see politicians and powerbrokers flock to such minorities for funds and favors?)

So, what does it about the real power in America? So many 'conservatives' say the Left controls America. But in fact, an American can badmouth all true bonafide leftist leaders and thinkers(everyone from Lenin to Sartre). However, if an American were to badmouth Sheldon Adelson as a sick demented Zionist capitalist oligarch who wants to nuke Iran, he would be blacklisted by the most of the media. (If one must criticize Adelson, it has to be in generic terms of him a top donor to the likes of Romney. One mustn't discuss his zealous and maniacal views rooted in Zionist-supremacism. You can criticize his money but not the mentality that determines the use of that money.) Isn't it rather amusing how the so-called Liberals denounce the GOP for being 'extreme' but overlook the main reason for such extremism? It's because the GOP relies on Zionist lunatics like Adelson who thinks Iran should be nuked to be taught a lesson. Even Liberal Media overlook this fact. Also, it's interesting that the Liberal Media are more outraged by Trump's peace offer to Russia than Trump's hawkish rhetoric toward Iran. I thought Liberals were the Doves.

We know why politics and media work like this. It's not about 'left' vs 'right' or 'liberal' vs 'conservative'. It is really about Jewish Globalist Dominance. Jews, neocon 'right' or globo-'left', hate Russia because its brand of white gentile nationalism is an obstacle to Jewish supremacist domination. Now, Current Russia is nice to Jews, and Jews can make all the money they want. But that isn't enough for Jews. Jews want total control of media, government, narrative, everything. If Jews say Russia must have homo parades and 'gay marriage', Russia better bend over because its saying NO means that it is defiant to the Jewish supremacist agenda of using homomania as proxy to undermine and destroy all gentile nationalism rooted in identity and moral righteousness.
Russia doesn't allow that, and that is what pisses off Jews. For Jews, the New Antisemitism is defined as denying them the supremacist 'right' to control other nations. Classic antisemitism used to mean denying Jews equal rights under the law. The New Antisemitism means Jews are denied the right to gain dominance over others and dictate terms.
So, that is why Jews hate any idea of good relations with Russia. But Jews don't mind Trump's irresponsible anti-Iran rhetoric since it serves Zionist interest. So, if Trump were to say, "We shouldn't go to war with Russia; we should be friends" and "We should get ready to bomb, destroy, and even nuke Iran", the 'liberal' media would be more alarmed by the Peace-with-Russia statement. Which groups controls the media? 'Liberals', really? Do Muslim 'liberals' agree with Jewish 'liberals'?

Anyway, we need to do away with the fiction that Left rules anything. They don't. We have Jewish Supremacist rule hiding behind the label of the 'Left'. But the US is a nation where it's totally permissible to attack real leftist ideas and leaders but suicidal if anyone dares to discuss the power of super-capitalist Jewish oligarchs. Some 'leftism'!

We need to discuss the power of the Glob.

annamaria , February 17, 2017 at 9:42 pm GMT \n
300 Words @Quartermaster Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.

Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.

If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.

Roberts is the next best thing to insane.

This is rich from a Ukrainian nationalist ruled by Groysman/Kagans.
First, figure out who is your saint, a collaborationist Bandera (Babiy Yar and such) or a triple-sitizenship Kolomojski (auto-da-fe of civilians in Odessa). If you still want to bring Holodomor to a discussion, then you need to be reminded that 80% of Ukrainian Cheka at that time were Jewish. If you still think that Russians are the root of all evil, then try to ask the US for more money for pensions, education, and healthcare – instead of weaponry. Here are the glorious results of the US-approved governance from Kiev: http://gnnliberia.com/2017/02/17/liberia-ahead-ukraine-index-economic-freedom-2017/ "Liberia, Chad, Afghanistan, Sudan and Angola are ahead of Ukraine. All these countries are in the group of repressed economies (49.9-40 scores). Ukraine's economy has contracted deeply and remains very fragile."

Here are your relationships with your neighbors on the other side – Poland and Romania:
"The right-winged conservative orientation of Warsaw makes it remember old Polish-Ukrainian arguments and scores, and claim its rights on the historically Polish lands of Western Ukraine" http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/01/17/poland-will-begin-dividing-ukraine/
" the "Assembly of Bukovina Romanians" has recently applied to Petro Poroshenko demanding a territorial autonomy to the Chernivtsi region densely populated by Romanians. The "Assembly" motivated its demand with the Ukrainian president's abovementioned statement urging territorial autonomy for the Crimean Tatars." https://eadaily.com/en/news/2016/06/30/what-is-behind-romanias-activity-in-ukraine
And please read some history books about Crimea. Or at least Wikipedia:
"In 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. In 1954, the Crimean Oblast was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by Nikita Khrushchev (a Soviet dictator). In 2014, a 96.77 percent of Crimeans voted for integration of the region into the Russian Federation with an 83.1 percent voter turnout." You see, the Crimeans do not like Nuland-Kagan and Pravyj Sector. Do you know why?

Astuteobservor II , February 17, 2017 at 9:56 pm GMT \n
100 Words @Seamus Padraig Does PCR really think that Putin is stupid enough to fall for Kissinger's hair-brained scheme? I mean, give Putin a little bit of credit. He has so far completely outmaneuvered Washington on virtually ever subject. I'm sure he's clever enough to see through such a crude divide-and-rule strategy.

well it depends. if putin is just out for himself, I can see him getting in bed with kissinger and co. if he is about russia, he would not. that is how I see it. it isn't about if putin is smart or stupid. just a choice and where his royalty lies.

Lyttenburgh , February 17, 2017 at 9:58 pm GMT \n
100 Words @Quartermaster Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.

Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.

If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.

Roberts is the next best thing to insane.

Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine.

How so? #Krymnash

Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves.

If by "decline" you mean "expects this year a modest growth as opposed to previous years" then you might be right.

I've been reading about Russia's imminent collapse and the annihilation of the economy since forever. Some no-names like you (or some Big Names with agenda) had been predicting it every year. Still didn't happen.

Putin is almost down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.

Can I see a source for that?

If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.

False equivalence.

P.S. Hey, Quart – how is Bezviz? Also – are you not cold here? Or are you one of the most racally pure Ukrs, currently residing in Ontario province (Canada), from whence you teach your less lucky raguls in Nizalezhnaya how to be more racially pure? Well, SUGS to be you!

bluedog , February 17, 2017 at 10:03 pm GMT \n
@Quartermaster Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.

Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.

If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.

Roberts is the next best thing to insane.

Do you have any links to verify this that Russia is down to bedrock,from everything I read and have read Russia's do pretty damn good, or is this just some more of your endless antiRussian propaganda,,

Philip Owen , February 17, 2017 at 10:54 pm GMT \n

The US needed huge amounts of British and French capital to develop. Russia has the same requirement otherwise it will be another Argentina.

annamaria , February 17, 2017 at 11:00 pm GMT \n
500 Words

A scandal of a EU member Poland: http://thesaker.is/zmiana-piskorski-and-the-case-for-polish-liberation/
Two days after he [Piskorski] publicly warned that US-NATO troops now have a mandate to suppress Polish dissent on the grounds of combatting "Russian hybrid war," he was snatched up by armed agents of Poland's Internal Security Agency while taking his children to school on May 18th, 2016. He was promptly imprisoned in Warsaw, where he remains with no formal charges to this day."

With the Poland's entry into EU, "Poland did not "regain" sovereignty, much less justice, but forfeited such to the Atlanticist project Poland has been de-industrialized, and thus deprived of the capacity to pursue independent and effective social and economic policies Now, with the deployment of thousands of US-NATO troops, tanks, and missile systems on its soil and the Polish government's relinquishment of jurisdiction over foreign armed forces on its territory, Poland is de facto under occupation. This occupation is not a mere taxation on Poland's national budget – it is an undeniable liquidation of sovereignty and inevitably turns the country into a direct target and battlefield in the US' provocative war on Russia."

" it's not the Russians who are going to occupy us now – they left here voluntarily 24 years ago. It's not the Russians that have ravaged Polish industry since 1989. It's not the Russians that have stifled Poles with usurious debt. Finally, it's not the Russians that are responsible for the fact that we have become the easternmost aircraft carrier of the United States anchored in Europe. We ourselves, who failed by allowing such traitors into power, are to blame for this."

More from a comment section: "Donald Tusk, who is now President of the European Council, whose grandfather, Josef Tusk, served in Hitler's Wehrmacht, has consistently demanded that the Kiev regime imposed by the US and EU deal with the Donbass people brutally, "as with terrorists". While the Polish special services were training the future participants of the Maidan operations and the ethnic cleansing of the Donbass, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs made this official statement (02-02-2014): "We support the hard line taken by the Right Sector The radical actions of the Right Sector and other militant groups of demonstrators and the use of force by protesters are justified The Right Sector has taken full responsibility for all the acts of violence during the recent protests. This is an honest position, and we respect it. The politicians have failed at their peacekeeping function. This means that the only acceptable option is the radical actions of the Right Sector. There is no other alternative".

In short, the US has been the most active enabler of the neo-Nazi movement in Europe. Mrs. Clinton seemingly did not get a memo about who is "new Hitler."

Chuck Orloski , February 17, 2017 at 11:17 pm GMT \n
100 Words

Scranton calling Mssrs. Roberts and Hudson:

Do you happen to know anything about western financial giants' influence upon Russia's "Atlanticist Integrationists"?

It's low hanging fruit for me to take a pick, but I am thinking The Goldman Sachs Group is well ensconced among Russian "Atlanticist Integrationists."

You guys are top seeded pros at uncovering Deep State-banker secrets. In contrast, I drive school bus and I struggle to even balance the family Wells Fargo debit card!

However, since our US Congress has anointed a seasoned G.S.G. veteran, Steve Mnuchin, as the administration's Treasury Secretary, he has become my favorite "Person of Interest" who I suspect spouts a Ural Mountain-level say as to how "Atlanticist Integrationists" operate.

Speaking very respectfully, I hope my question does not get "flummoxed" into resource rich Siberia.

Thank you very much!

Bobzilla , February 17, 2017 at 11:46 pm GMT \n
@WorkingClass

Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.

Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead

.

Most likely the Spirit of Anti-Christ keeping them alive to do his bidding.

Bill Jones , February 18, 2017 at 12:39 am GMT \n
@Priss Factor Here is proof that there is no real Leftist power anymore.

Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

If the Left really rules America, how come it is fair game to criticize, condemn, mock, and vilify Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Bakunin, Emma Goldman & anarchists, Castro, Che(even though he is revered by many, one's career isn't damaged by attacking him), Tito, Ceucescu, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gramsci, Eurgene Debs, Pete Seeger, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers, and etc.

You can say whatever you want about such people. Some will agree, some will disagree, but you will not be fired, blacklisted, or destroyed.

If the Left really rules, why would this be?

Now, what would happen if you name the Jewish Capitalists as the real holders of power?
What would happen if you name the Jewish oligarchic corporatists who control most of media?
What would happen if you said Jews are prominent in the vice industry of gambling?
What would happen if you named the Jewish capitalists in music industry that made so much money by spreading garbage?
What would happen if you said Jewish warhawks were largely responsible for the disasters in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?
And what would happen if you were question the MLK mythology and cult?
What would happen if you were to make fun of homos and trannies?
Now, keep in mind that blacks and homos are favored by Jews as their main allies.
(Some say the US is not a pro-minority nation, but it's still permissible to criticize, impugn, and vilify Chinese, Iranians, Muslims, Mexicans, Hindus, and etc. Trump was hard on China, Iran, Muslims, and Mexicans, and he got some flak over it but not enough to destroy him. Now, imagine what would have happened if he'd said such things about blacks, Africa, homos, Jews, and Israel? American politics isn't necessarily pro-minority. If it is, it should favor Palestinian-Americans just as much as Jewish-Americans. Actually, since there are fewer Palestinian-Americans than Jewish-Americans, the US, being pro-minority, should favor Palestinians over Jews in America. In reality, it is AIPAC that draws all the politicians. America is about Pro-Power, and since Jews have the Power and since Jews are a minority, it creates the false impression that the US is a minority-supremacist nation. But WHICH minority? Jews would like for us think that all minorities are represented equally in the US, but do Eskimos, Hawaiians, Guatemalans, Vietnamese, and etc. have the kind of power & protection that the Jewish minority has? Do we see politicians and powerbrokers flock to such minorities for funds and favors?)

So, what does it about the real power in America? So many 'conservatives' say the Left controls America. But in fact, an American can badmouth all true bonafide leftist leaders and thinkers(everyone from Lenin to Sartre). However, if an American were to badmouth Sheldon Adelson as a sick demented Zionist capitalist oligarch who wants to nuke Iran, he would be blacklisted by the most of the media. (If one must criticize Adelson, it has to be in generic terms of him a top donor to the likes of Romney. One mustn't discuss his zealous and maniacal views rooted in Zionist-supremacism. You can criticize his money but not the mentality that determines the use of that money.) Isn't it rather amusing how the so-called Liberals denounce the GOP for being 'extreme' but overlook the main reason for such extremism? It's because the GOP relies on Zionist lunatics like Adelson who thinks Iran should be nuked to be taught a lesson. Even Liberal Media overlook this fact. Also, it's interesting that the Liberal Media are more outraged by Trump's peace offer to Russia than Trump's hawkish rhetoric toward Iran. I thought Liberals were the Doves.

We know why politics and media work like this. It's not about 'left' vs 'right' or 'liberal' vs 'conservative'. It is really about Jewish Globalist Dominance. Jews, neocon 'right' or globo-'left', hate Russia because its brand of white gentile nationalism is an obstacle to Jewish supremacist domination. Now, Current Russia is nice to Jews, and Jews can make all the money they want. But that isn't enough for Jews. Jews want total control of media, government, narrative, everything. If Jews say Russia must have homo parades and 'gay marriage', Russia better bend over because its saying NO means that it is defiant to the Jewish supremacist agenda of using homomania as proxy to undermine and destroy all gentile nationalism rooted in identity and moral righteousness.
Russia doesn't allow that, and that is what pisses off Jews. For Jews, the New Antisemitism is defined as denying them the supremacist 'right' to control other nations. Classic antisemitism used to mean denying Jews equal rights under the law. The New Antisemitism means Jews are denied the right to gain dominance over others and dictate terms.
So, that is why Jews hate any idea of good relations with Russia. But Jews don't mind Trump's irresponsible anti-Iran rhetoric since it serves Zionist interest. So, if Trump were to say, "We shouldn't go to war with Russia; we should be friends" and "We should get ready to bomb, destroy, and even nuke Iran", the 'liberal' media would be more alarmed by the Peace-with-Russia statement. Which groups controls the media? 'Liberals', really? Do Muslim 'liberals' agree with Jewish 'liberals'?

Anyway, we need to do away with the fiction that Left rules anything. They don't. We have Jewish Supremacist rule hiding behind the label of the 'Left'. But the US is a nation where it's totally permissible to attack real leftist ideas and leaders but suicidal if anyone dares to discuss the power of super-capitalist Jewish oligarchs. Some 'leftism'!

We need to discuss the power of the Glob.

Thanks for the digest of hasbarist crap.

Useful to have it all in one place..

annamaria , February 18, 2017 at 1:03 am GMT \n
100 Words

War profiteers (both of a dishonest character) have found each other: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-17/mccain-tells-europe-trump-administration-disarray http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-17/germany-issues-stark-warning-trump-stop-threatening-eu-favoring-russia
" Trump's administration was in "disarray," McCain told the Munich Security Conference, where earlier in the day Germany defense minister Ursula von der Leyen warned Trump to stop threatening the EU, abandoning Western values and seeking close ties with Russia, that the resignation of the new president's security adviser Michael Flynn over his contacts with Russia reflected deep problems in Washington."

What an amazing whoring performance for the war-manufacturers! And here is an interesting morsel of information about the belligerent Frau der Leyen: http://www.dw.com/en/stanford-accuses-von-der-leyen-of-misrepresentation/a-18775432
"Stanford university has said Ursula von der Leyen is misrepresenting her affiliation with the school. The German defense minister's academic career is already under scrutiny after accusations of plagiarism." No kidding. Some "Ursula von der Leyen' values" indeed.

Anonymous IX , February 18, 2017 at 2:42 am GMT \n
200 Words

I doubt we'll see little change from the Trump administration toward Russia.

From SOTT:

Predictable news coming out of Yemen: Saudi-backed "Southern Resistance" forces and Hadi loyalists, alongside al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), launched a new offensive against the Houthis in western Yemen on Wednesday.

This is not the first time Saudi-backed (and by extension, Washington-backed) forces have teamed up with al-Qaeda in Yemen .

Yemen is quickly becoming the "spark that lights the powder keg". The conflict has already killed, maimed and displaced countless thousands (thanks to the stellar lack of reporting from trustworthy western news sources, we can only estimate the scale of Saudi/U.S. crimes in Yemen), but now it seems that elements of the Trump administration are keen on escalation, likely in hopes of giving Washington an excuse to carpet bomb Tehran.

Apparently, we feel satisfied fighting with our old allies, al-Qaeda and Saudis.

I had hoped for much better from Trump.

Kiza , February 18, 2017 at 4:23 am GMT \n
200 Words

I think that the authors may be underestimating Putin in his determination to keep Russia and the Russian economy independent. For example, I find this rumoured offer of "increased access to the huge European energy market" very funny, for at least two reasons:
1) US wants to sell hydrocarbons (LPG) to the European market at significantly higher prices than the Russian prices, and
2) the current dependence of EU countries on the Russian energy would have never happened if there were better alternatives.

In other words, any detente offer that the West would make to Russia would last, as usual, not even until the signature ink dries on the new cooperation agreements. Putin does not look to me like someone who suffers much from wishful thinking.

The Russian relationship with China is not a bed of roses, but it is not China which is increasing military activity all around Russia, it is the West. Also, so far China has shown no interest in regime-changing Russia and dividing it into pieces. Would you rather believe in the reform capability of an addict in violence or someone who does not need to reform? Would the West self-reform and sincerely renounce violence just by signing a new agreement with Russia?

The new faux detente will never happen, as long as Putin is alive.

Max Havelaar , February 18, 2017 at 8:22 pm GMT \n
200 Words

Trump is an ultra-zionist for Sheldon Adelson and prolongs & creates wars for the Goldman banking crimesyndicat.

The only one stopping Trump is Putin or Russia's missile defenses.

Indeed, Putin's main inside enemy is Russia's central bank, or the Jewish oligarchs in Russia (Atlanticists). Also Russia needs to foster and encourage small&medium enterprises, that need cheap credit, to create competitive markets, where no prices are fixed and market shares change. These are most efficient resource users.

In the US, Wallstreet controls government = fascism = the IG Farben- Auschwitz concentration camps to maximize profits. This is the direction for the US economy.

Meanwhile in the EU, the former Auschwitz owners IG Farben (Bayer(Monsanto), Hoechst, BASF) the EU chemical giants, who have patented all natures molecules, are in controll again over EU. Deutsche bank et allies is eating Greece, Italy, Spain's working classes, using AUSTERITY as their creed.

So what is new? Nothing, the supercorporate-fascist elites are the same families, who 's morality is unchanged in a 100 years.

Anon , February 20, 2017 at 4:28 am GMT \n
@Priss Factor

Here is proof that there is no real Leftist power anymore.

Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

... ... ...

Sergey Krieger , February 20, 2017 at 12:20 pm GMT \n
@Seamus Padraig

I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.

I would really love to like Putin and I am trying but him protecting all those criminals and not reversing the history greatest heist of 90′s makes it impossible. While I am behind all his moves to restore Russian military and foreign policy, I am still waiting for more on home front. Note, not only the Bank must be nationalized. Everything, all industries, factories and other assets privatized by now must be returned to rightful owner. Public which over 70 years through great sacrifice built all of it.

Sergey Krieger , February 20, 2017 at 12:31 pm GMT \n
300 Words @SmoothieX12
I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.
Partially, because Putin himself is an economic liberal and, to a degree, monetarist, albeit less rigid than his economic block. The good choices he made often were opposite to his views. As he himself admitted that Russia's geopolitical vector changed with NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia--a strengthening of Russia has become an imperative. This comeback was impossible within the largely "Western" monetarist economic model. Russia's comeback happened not thanks but despite Putin's economic views, Putin adjusted his views in the process, his economic block didn't. But many of them still remain his friends, despite the fact that many of them are de facto fifth column and work against Russia, intentionally and other wise. Eventually Putin will be forced to get down from his fence and take the position of industrialists and siloviki. Putin's present for Medvedev's birthday was a good hint on where he is standing economically today and I am beginning to like that but still--I personally am not convinced yet. We'll see. In many respects Putin was lucky and specifically because of the namely Soviet military and industry captains still being around--people who, unlike Putin, knew exactly what constituted Russia's strength. Enough to mention late Evgeny Primakov. Let's not forget that despite Putin's meteoric rise through the top levels of Russia's state bureaucracy, including his tenure as a Director of FSB, Putin's background is not really military-industrial. He is a lawyer, even if uniformed (KGB) part of his career. I know for a fact that initially (early 2000s) he was overwhelmed with the complexity of Russia's military and industry. Enough to mention his creature Serdyukov who almost destroyed Command and Control structure of Russia's Armed Forces and main ideologue behind Russia's military "reform", late Vitaly Shlykov who might have been a great GRU spy (and economist by trade) but who never served a day in combat units. Thankfully, the "reforms" have been stopped and Russian Armed Forces are still dealing with the consequences. This whole clusterfvck was of Putin's own creation--hardly a good record on his resume. Hopefully, he learned.

Smoothie, you seem to have natural aversion towards lawyers
Albeit, the first Vladimir, I mean Lenin also was a lawyers by education still he was a rather quick study. Remember that military communism and Lenin after one year after Bolsheviks took power telling that state capitalism would be great step forward for Russia whcih obviously was backward and ruined by wars at the time and he proceeded with New Economic Policy and Lenin despite not being industry captain realized pretty well what constituted state power hence GOELRO plans and electrification of all Russia plans and so forth which was later turned by Stalin and his team into reality.

Now, Lenin was ideologically motivated and so is Putin. But he clearly has been trying to achieve different results by keeping same people around him and doing same things. Hopefully it is changing now, but it is so much wasted time when old Vladimir was always repeating that time is of essence and delay is like death knell. Putin imho is away too relax and even vain in some way, hence those shirtless pictures and those on the bike. And the way he walks a la "Я Московский озорной гуляка". As you said it looks like he is protecting those criminals who must be prosecuted and yes, many executed for what they caused.

I suspect in cases when it comes to economical development he is not picking right people for those jobs and it is his major responsibility to assign right people and delegate power properly, not to be forgotten to reverse what constitutes the history greatest heist and crime so called "privatization". Basically returning to more communal society minus Politburo.

There is a huge elephant in the room too. Russia demographic situation which I doubt can be addressed under current liberal order. all states which are in liberal state of affairs fail to basically procreate hence these waves of immigrants brought into all Western Nations. Russia cannot do it. It would be suicide which is what all Western countries are doing right now.

Boris N , February 20, 2017 at 8:58 pm GMT \n

Russia does not need Western technology. Indeed, its military technology is superior to that in the West.

You write about Russia but have not done your homework. Russia is very dependent on Western technology and its entire high-tech industry depends on the import of Western machinery. Without such machinery many Russian factories, including military ones, would stall. Very important oil industry is particularly vulnerable.

Some home reading (sorry, they are in Russian, but one ought to know the language if one writes about the country).

http://www.fa.ru/fil/orel/science/Documents/ISA%2014644146.pdf

http://rusrand.ru/analytics/stanki-stanki-stanki

[Jul 20, 2019] ... Not the men we thought we were ... - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jul 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

EEngineer , 13 May 2019 at 11:45 AM

I see the parallels, but not that one. I think the neocons hope to force the Iranians into making that "all-in" call though. Perhaps as the neocons see it, such a strike would magically rally the American populous to the war they so desire. Imperial conquest performed as a defensive reflex. So they needle nearly everyone in the hopes of triggering a replay of the WW2 saga which has taken on a mythical good vs evil aura in the US. Ironically, I would say it is the neocons who think they need to start a war with the Iranians so that they can be the men they think they are. The only thing still holding them back is the passive-aggressive need to make it look like someone, anyone, else started it so they can play the victim card once the body bags start coming home.
Ed Lindgren , 13 May 2019 at 11:51 AM
USN CDR A. H. McCollum was the man who conceived the so-called "Eight Action Plan" which he outlined in his Oct 7, 1940 memo. This was his proposal for the U.S. and Britain to initiate actions which would essentially force Japan into making a decision to wage war against the United States.

The key elements of the plan, as outlined in McCollum's memo, include the following:

A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore
B. Make an arrangement with the Netherlands for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies
C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek
D. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient
F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific[,] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil
H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire

Not too terribly different from the squeeze currently being placed on Iran by the team of Pompeo/Boton.

The text of the McCollum memo can be found here:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCollum_memorandum


turcopolier , 13 May 2019 at 12:09 PM
Lindgren

Was this plan approved by Roosevelt? the embargoes had been in effect for some time by then.

Ed Lindgren said in reply to turcopolier ... , 13 May 2019 at 05:40 PM
COL Lang -

The journalist Robert Stinnett in his now 20 year old book 'Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor' made the case that FDR was aware of McCollum's memorandum. I have not read Stinnett's book, but historians apparently doubted the veracity of Stinnett's thesis regarding FDR's knowledge of the McCollum memo.

You are correct that initial embargoes of essential defense materials went to effect under the Export Control Act during the summer of 1940. Additional items were added to the list of embargoed materials subsequent to October 1940, following the drafting of the McCollum memo.

Fred -> Ed Lindgren... , 14 May 2019 at 08:29 AM
So no FOR did not approve of that plan, but some guy wrote a book 20 years ago, one you didn't read. That's quite helpful in evaluating current war mongering over Iran today.
ex-PFC Chuck said in reply to Ed Lindgren... , 20 July 2019 at 07:33 AM
I read Day of Deceit a month ago and found Stinnett's analysis and sourcing quite convincing. He demolishes the standard narrative that the attack was a total tactical surprise and to a large extent a strategic one as well. Admiral Yamamoto's orders to maintain radio silence were honored very much in the breach, one of the worst offenders being the at-sea mission commander himself, Admiral Nagumo. Many individual ship captains continued reporting their positions at specified times of the day, as was their peacetime practice. This enabled the US, British and Dutch signals monitoring stations, which were sharing information in spite of the fact that the US was not yet a combatant, to triangulate and track the Japanese mission fleet from its assembly point near the Kurile Islands eastward to their launch position several hundred miles north of Oahu. Stinnett assembles a strong circumstantial case asserting this information was available to the intelligence circles in Washington DC and in the US radio detection/cryptanalysis stations at Corregidor, the Aleutian Islands, and Station H on Oahu itself, practically within sight of Admiral Kimmel's office, but it never made it to the admiral himself or to General Short. He got much of the supporting information through the FOIA process, but some of the most damning documents he cited he found by walking into various historical archive sites outside of the DC area and simply asking to see what they had. He makes the point that many of the documents he cites never saw the light of day during any of the three formal investigations of the affair: in the months immediately after the attack; shortly after the end of the war; and half a century later in the early 1990s. What he is unable to cite are documents that concretely connect the president, Admiral Stark the CNO, or General Marshall the Army Chief of Staff with knowledge of the available intelligence. Those known to have existed which might have been smoking guns that he sought via the FOIA were either still highly classified or were "unable to be found." However the circumstantial case that they must have known and been on board, in some cases reluctantly, is strong. For example, it is known that the McCollum memo gained the attention of FDR himself soon after it was published, and the White House chief usher's log documents that the commander had several meetings with the president. McCollum, a USNA graduate, had spent much of his childhood in Japan as the child of Christian missionaries and was almost natively fluent in the language as well as deeply steeped in the culture.
Willy B said in reply to turcopolier ... , 20 July 2019 at 11:29 AM
Col,

I don't know if it came from the McCollum memo or not, but at the ABC-1 meetings in early 1941, the British delegation proposed that the US take over the defense of Singapore from the Royal Navy, a proposal that was rejected by the American delegation.

The minutes of the ABC-1 meetings were published by the British National Archives some years ago and I have it somewhere on my hard drive but I couldn't give you a link. As I recall, it was interesting to see the American side rejecting the Singapore and other schemes to get the US to defend British colonial territories.

blue peacock , 13 May 2019 at 12:21 PM
Col. Lang

It would seem that the best strategic option for Iran is to lay low and absorb the economic squeeze. The Chinese are unlikely to support the oil sanctions, so they'll be able to continue to sell them until the US navy starts to interdict their tankers. But oil is fungible.....

It would also seem that their best military strategy is a defensive one. Obtaining the best air defense systems and significant medium-range missiles with high payload capacity and accuracy. At the very least they'll be able to give a black-eye while going down.

Of course the question is how the Ayatollah controls his fire breathing, martyrdom loving hawks who bristle at their treatment by the US, Israel & the Saudis. My sense is Bibi will get more itchy than the Ayatollah to take advantage of his perception of complete control of Trump.

EEngineer said in reply to blue peacock... , 13 May 2019 at 01:01 PM
I've wondered if the Chinese will use their own tankers to pick up Iranian oil or re-flag Iranian ones with Chinese colors as the US did for Kuwait during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980's.

I can see the neocons wanting open conflict with Iran, but I don't know if they would risk war with China.

John Minehan said in reply to blue peacock... , 19 July 2019 at 05:14 PM
I'm not sure how much control Iran has of its proxies (the Houthi rebels, Hezbollah, the Shia Militias in Iraq, etc.). That strikes me as a reason fo both the US/Britain AND Iran to go carefully and slowly.
turcopolier , 13 May 2019 at 12:23 PM
BP Merely logical
Tidewater said in reply to turcopolier ... , 13 May 2019 at 04:15 PM
Sir,

Nice map, I assume it can't be considered a chart. Maps make me think. Anyway, when I heard about the four tankers at Fujairah damaged by "sabotage" I took a look up at Qeshm island in front of Bandar Abbas (it looks to me like a shark) and wondered how far it was down to Fujairah. I get about 140 nautical miles.

I know that there are hardened sub-pens on the land side of Queshm Island probably out to the western end. Recently I have read comments speculating what the Iranian class of mini- or midget subs would be useful for. One learns that one use would be to deliver a sea-mine; another to launch the one torpedo it can carry; and another would be as a transport for naval commandos, or swimmers trained in demolition and mine warfare.

Then I remembered something. I took a look at the last place down on the right side of the map on the Iranian mangrove shore, Trask, once an old fishing port. Trask is also where the pipeline down from the CIS countries will end, and a large refinery, manufacturing, and shipping complex is planned. Since 2008, Trask has been developed for a number of military uses. First as a naval base which berths fast motor patrol boats of the kind that can launch missiles like the Qader, a sea-skimmer carrying a warhead of 200 kilos which can reach out to 186 miles; also as a drone base, complete with a rail launcher which could indicate proficiency in big stay-aloft reconnaisance drones, soon enough to be weaponized, if not already. Significantly, it is also a base for littoral-class submarines, which would include mini-subs design based on the North Korean Yono class, submarines that would be similar to the one that is thought to have sunk the ROKS Cheonan in 2011 with a torpedo. Travelling at nine or ten knots, the Iranian model of the Yono, the Ghadir, could make the crossing to Fujairah in about twelve hours. That's a distance of 127 miles or so.
It looks to me as if the stern location of the tanker the news videos show would not have been hit unless the ship backed into a mine. And it doesn't look like the kind of damage a naval mine would do. A naval mine would have made an enormous ten or twenty foot cavernous dent in that stern, at the least. What it looks like to me was that a swimmer or swimmers placed a sticky explosive or satchel charge. (?) I think it is meant as a warning. 'We can get you any time..."

There's another message. Fujairah and also the ports of Salalah, Sohar, and Duqm, in Oman, have been billing themselves as "the Gateway to the Arabian Gulf." (For that historical and scholarly insult alone they should pay.) Fujairah is the only one of the UAE that is on the eastern side of the Musandam Peninsula. It has been advertised as the emirate that would not be involved in a Gulf war. Out of range. Think again me buckaroos.

The United States has just signed an agreement in late March with Oman which allows US naval and air forces to use the new state- of-the art port facilities and airport at Duqm, down in the middle of the Oman coast, and also Salalah. Sultan Qaboos, a very impressive leader, one of the best, who happens to be gay (but the father of his country), balances carefully between the various powers he must deal with. Iran is already there in Oman and has the right to establish companies and to store materiel there, and to ship cargoes. Just as Iran does in Qatar, where two hundred trucks come across from Bushire every day and have since June 2017 since Trump the Brain gave the OK to Mohammed Bin Salman to lay siege to Qatar. Consider this: "Sohar Freezone has options for leasing pre-built warehouses and commercial offices, as well as 100% foreign ownership...and a One-Stop-Shop for all relevant permits and clearances." (From Overview--SOHAR Port and Freezone.) As to how you get this cargo to points south, that is an interesting question...

Russia will come in if push comes to shove. Russia will not countenance the idea of an America naval and drone base on the Caspian, which is what will happen if Iran is bombed flat. Russia will second pilots to the Iranians and will send bombers like the Tu-95 Bear or the Backfire capable of carrying the KH-101 which will carry Iranian markings etc. These bombers, with enormous range, could wreck havoc on Diego Garcia, and could destroy a carrier group.

The Iranians show us now that they were the ones who invented the game of chess. Trump can look at China, and then he can look at Fujairah, and he can see the American economy going down... The Iranian move is worthy of a grand master...

Tidewater said in reply to Tidewater... , 13 May 2019 at 04:56 PM
Tidewater to Tidewater,

Ouch. The place is called Jask.

ancientarcher said in reply to Tidewater... , 14 May 2019 at 06:08 AM
Great comment!
I think transferring a Tu-95 bomber will be a bit too much since the Iranians don't have much of an air force. But missiles will do the job anyways, so why bother with planes. You don't need to hit Diego Garcia, Israel is close enough. So is Al Udeid. Plus there will be attacks on all US bases spread across Iraq and I suspect Syria. There is no shortage of targets for sure for the Iranians, it this leads to war.
By the way, Chess was invented in India not ancient Persia. So was the numeral system which is now called Arabic numerals (the Arabs have been trying to give their names to stuff which is not theirs for a long time now) including the decimal system and negative numbers.
Tidewater said in reply to ancientarcher... , 14 May 2019 at 05:00 PM
Thank you for your comment. You remind me that I have a group of expensive, unread books about that part of the world. I may never read them, the way things are going.

I want to stress that Russia and Iran have already worked out the diplomatic agreements which allow Russia to have based bombers at Hamadan, from which attacks were made on Isis in Syria. In other words, Russia knows the way. The question is, is Russia going to stand by and do nothing while the United States bombs Iran back to the stone ages, as it did in North Korea during the Korean conflict? I find that hard to believe. I assume that at some point Russia will, as Russia has previously done in other conflicts, or places, such as in Yemen, in the 1970s and early 80's, assign pilots, and transfer planes ostensibly to the control of the Iranian military.

Diego Garcia is an atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is a critical anchorage for prepositioning supply ships for any land operations, such as the invasion of Iraq; it is also a support facility, where submarines and other ships can get repairs. It is also an airbase, where B-2 bombers might be assembling as I write, though given everything else that is NOT happening, I assume that is doubtful. Speaking in a general way, the distance from the Persian Gulf, Muscat, or Bahrain, say, to Diego Garcia, is about 2600 or 2700 miles.

If Russia seconded a squadron of bombers such as the TU-22M3 (NATO reporting name Backfire C) under the aegis of Iran, and based them out of Bandar Abbas, Iran will have gotten a lot of reach out into the Indian Ocean, since the Backfire has a combat radius of about 1300-1500 miles.
The missile it will be carrying would be the standard Russian cruise missile--it is not hypersonic-- but it is a sea-skimmer, with a range of about 1550 miles. This is the KH-101/102 (nuclear). It seems certain to me that the Backfire can get the KH-101 (Raduga) missile out there; as can the Blackjack and the Bear. The mission of four or five bombers delivering each about eight missiles could be to sink some of those prepositioning ships; and to wreck the drone base/the airfield, and certain warehouse facilities. There is another thing such an attack could do. Diego Garcia has more than ample rainfall. As things stand today, it has never had a better fresh water supply system. Pipes and water storage, all has been greatly improved. Fresh water for two to three thousand support personnel and base activities is not a problem. I don't think Diego Garcia even needs to have a desalination system. There is one thing, though. Diego Garcia is built on a series of coral reefs, the one stacked on the other in geologic history as ocean levels rose 300 feet from 13,000 years ago. The coral beneath the island is permeated with salt water. The fresh water aquifers of the atoll sit on top of the salt water in what are called "lenses". These lenses hold an enormous amount of water kept stable and tappable by isostatic pressure, I am guessing. If an attack were made by JDAM missiles in areas determined from studies of the island to have these lense aqufiers, and if the missiles went deep into them before exploding, then I think the entire fresh water structure of the island could be ruined. The lenses would be penetrated and ruined. Salt water would permeate, mix and spread through the aquifer. It would become like Basra Governate, which now has an evil polluted salt brine aquifer where once it had fresh water. (And which means that there is already considerable migration from southern Iraq into Kurdish areas around Irbil, to the north.)

eaken , 13 May 2019 at 01:29 PM
Iran should publicly invite Trump to Tehran without his posse.
Artemesia said in reply to eaken... , 14 May 2019 at 03:26 PM
Iran should arrange with Italy for a meeting in Rome with Putin, Xi Jinping, and Trump. The Donald could take the role of Churchill in that meeting, who got an inkling that he was the odd-man out.
Six months later, Mark Clark went to Rome alone rather than execute the British - American pincer plan.

Historian Andrew Buchanan argues that Clark was ordered to take that action by FDR himself in a meeting with Clark at Bernard Baruch's plantation in North Carolina https://www.c-span.org/video/?322137-1/discussion-us-engagement-italy-world-war-ii US forces in control of Rome shut out all diplomats, including Churchill's representatives, from the diplomacy that then took place that determined Italy's future; USA became, effectively, in charge of Mediterranean and trade routes to Levant and North Africa.

Israel and its US lobbies, Jewish & Christian, have GOT to be reined in, or the American empire is on its way to the dustbin of history.

Tidewater said in reply to Artemesia... , 15 May 2019 at 03:40 PM
That historian Andrew Buchanan does not know that Bernard Baruch's plantation was off of Winyah Bay on Waccamaw Neck across from Georgetown, SOUTH Carolina, is, in my view, a red flag about his scholarship. The plantation, Hobcaw Barony, was for FDR, in 1944, a month-long retreat which made it, in effect, the southern White House. Buchanan obviously doesn't know anything at all about southerners in FDR's administration and the New Deal. I cannot help but wonder if Buchanan has ever looked at the papers of James Francis Byrnes, which are held at the University of South Carolina. My guess is that Byrnes might have made some comment about significant matters which happened at Hobcaw, including the visit of General Clark. Shrewd, devious Byrnes is a fascinating figure. (His handiwork is the Santee-Cooper hydroelectric project which you get a glimpse of on I-95 as you drive over lake Marion there, created by damming the Santee. It provided electricity for the whole depression hit state of South Carolina.) Byrnes knew them all, including Stalin. Also, it ought to be noted that Buchanan himself says that there is not a shred of evidence that at Hobcaw FDR personally ordered Mark Clark to disobey the clear orders of Field Marshall Alexander and break away from what could have been a decisive victory and instead go into Rome. It ought to be noted as well that Buchanan's argument that by putting into power the more left-wing politician Ivanoe Bonomi instead of the British backed General Pietro Badoglio, it meant that the communist partisans in northern Italy therefore accepted the new government and willingly laid down their arms, whereas under Badoglio and the King they might not have. I don't think they had a choice; and I wonder if they actually didn't maintain a clandestine arsenal thereafter. They were by no means ready to quit. A quick look at Wikipedia tells us that it was Churchill's government that persuaded Bonomi, who came in in June and was ready to quit by November, to stay on. He did so. The communists were a powerful force in Italy all the way up almost into the 1980s--it was the Red Brigade which kidnapped and murdered Aldo Moro, for example. Further, as a reaction , to the communist threat, there is the whole question of "strategic tension" which gave Italy the "years of lead"-- years of terror bombings by the right, such as the Bologna train station bombing, the bombing of the passenger plane which fell off of Ustica, and the whole mysterious thing that was Gladio. Michael Scammel in 'Koestler', his biography of the writer Arthur Koestler, gives an account of the near hysteria in western Europe in 1948 after the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. "The coup fulfilled Koestler's direst predictions and worst fears: there was no room for a third force in Europe anymore--not, at least, in countries where the Communists were strong. In France, rife with rumors of a coup of its own and convulsed by increasingly violent strikes, he found a populace growing more jittery by the day. Malraux talked darkly of a plot to foment civil war and publicly threatened "a reorganization of the Resistance" to oppose communism. Charles "Chip" Bohlen, the new American ambassador, talked wildly about dropping an atom bomb on Baku, and newspapers were full of the threat of a new world conflict." (Page 311.) Koestler, when he left Europe for the United States, actually believed that Europe was going to go communist. That Europe was a lost cause.

This is not to say that I am disagreement with what you are saying overall. I find Andrew Buchanan someone new and interesting. Very provocative. Perhaps he overreaches. Don't know enough, really, to make the call. Thank you for the introduction to him. Hobcaw Barony is now a large natural preserve for environmental, oceanographic and coastal studies. Remarkable story about how the foundation was created, mostly by Baruch's daughter, who must have worked a lifetime on it. Sixteen thousand acres on a neck of land that has the Atlantic ocean on one side and marshes and Winyah Bay on the other. It's worth a visit.

ted richard , 13 May 2019 at 01:37 PM
if the true goal of the neocons is war, provoked upon iran then any naval battle group which includes a usa carrier sent into the persian gulf is the match the neocons are looking for once they decide to ''remember the maine'' to it sending it to the bottom, then use that false flag as their pretext.

if its obvious to me wouldn't you suppose its obvious to the pentagon?

O'Shawnessey , 13 May 2019 at 01:39 PM
An apt comparison, no doubt, to "The Day of Deceit."

Then there is the high probability that, even if Iran shows restraint and plays the long game, a provocation in the manner of "Assad gasses his own people" will be arranged for them.

Even so, time is not on the side of the US Entity. How much longer can the Fed's fraudulent T-bill scheme keep running? My sense is that they wouldn't be weaponizing the dollar if they had other actual weapons to hand.

Jack , 13 May 2019 at 01:58 PM
Sir

What real choices do the Iranians have? It would be foolish on their part to launch any kind of military action.

LA Sox Fan -> Jack... , 19 July 2019 at 06:43 PM
While some may think military action from Iran is foolish, a slow death from sanctions isn't going to be something Iran chooses either.
catherine , 13 May 2019 at 01:59 PM

No sooner 'warned' then done. Who did it?

Saudi Arabia said two of its oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and described it as an attempt to undermine the security of crude supplies amid tensions between the United States and Iran.
The reports come as the US warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and as the US is deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Gulf to counter what it called "threats from Tehran".

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/saudi-oil-tankers-sabotaged-ships-uae-coast-190513055332524.html

ancientarcher , 13 May 2019 at 01:59 PM
Exceptionally good argument. I would also posit that the element of religious belief makes the argument even more potent.
I can't help but think back to more recent instances where the neocons were basically daring the other party to do something - anything. Ukraine in 2014 and Syria later on, come to mind. They had been waiting for the Russians to send in their troops to Ukraine after which they could have totally choked the economy. They also waited for mistakes from Assad, which he wisely avoided.
Similarly, Iran will be wise to avoid reacting in any way to these provocations. Since these provocations are meant to provoke a reaction, if the Iranians bite their lips and hold their hands, they would do more to hurt the neocons than by reacting blindly as the situation and their nature perhaps goads them towards.
D , 13 May 2019 at 03:08 PM
I humbly suggest you watch this series. Unfortunately, I don't know Persian so I can't help with translation. I watched these series with my sister in law who is a Persian Jew with an excellent command of Farsi; the videos are pretty informative.

https://youtu.be/LUHY17zF-9g?t=789

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LersWbaymTM
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUHY17zF-9g
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abODp1BeuAg
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePDXnAe_zm4
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNboW6WcC3U

Rocketrepreneur , 13 May 2019 at 03:08 PM
Pat,
I share your concern, but for the neocons I fear that they see that backing Iran into a position where it has nothing to lose with a war is a feature, not a bug.
~Jon
walrus , 13 May 2019 at 03:43 PM
Time is not on America's side

In my opinion, the critical element is the forthcoming deployment of advanced Russian and Chinese systems such as the Sarmat heavy ICBM, scheduled I think for 2021, new submarines, etc., etc. and I am not even talking about joint Russo/sino developments.

As Col. Lang/Gingrich explained, we are talking economics here. But unlike Japan, the Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese and associated economies under the stimulus of OBOR are only going to get stronger if left to themselves. The American economy, in my opinion, is no longer capable of replacing ageing infrastructure, matching Russo Chinese military technical capabilities, fielding a million man Army and supporting allies like Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Japan, Poland, etc. without beggaring its population.

To put that another way, the American economic marvel of military production came off a low base with millions of underemployed work hungry people available as a result of the depression. I don't think those conditions obtain today.

Hence the Washington logic of picking off the weakest of the Axis - Iran, right now.

Fred -> walrus ... , 13 May 2019 at 07:51 PM
You mean a million H1B visa holders and 20 million illegal immigrants aren't our strength? Who knew! Maybe we should outsource more manufacturing to China, that'll teach the bastards to mess with us!
ISL said in reply to walrus ... , 19 July 2019 at 07:46 PM
Good points, I would correct:

The "American Political class," rather than the US economy - solutions are available and affordable, but not within the current US political and economic and legal and hence power structures.

FIRE take up too much of the US economy and the best and brightest and has bought the political class hook, line and Epstein.

LJ , 13 May 2019 at 04:09 PM
The chances of war diminished?

https://ejmagnier.com/2019/05/13/from-karbala-to-al-fujairah-an-act-of-sabotage-may-end-prospects-of-a-summer-war-in-the-middle-east/

Eliot said in reply to LJ... , 13 May 2019 at 08:14 PM
LJ

"the chances of war..."

Those damn fools.

This makes war more likely.

- Eliot

Eliot , 13 May 2019 at 04:30 PM
Walrus,

"The American economy, in my opinion, is no longer capable of replacing ageing infrastructure, matching Russo Chinese military technical capabilities"

I was in Russia for the first time last summer. I loved it, but I was surprised by how poor they are. Our debt load aside, they have do have more limited resources.

Sylvia 1 said in reply to Eliot ... , 14 May 2019 at 10:35 AM
I would love to know more about what you mean about Russian poverty. I was there last September and will return again. I would not say the same.
rho , 13 May 2019 at 04:48 PM
I think the key difference is that Japan was isolated on its continent when it made the decision to go to war. (only being allied with Nazi Germany and Italy, which were so far away that the alliance made little difference to Japan's economic situation in 1941)

Going to war must appear more attractive when you have your back against the wall than when you have regional allies who are still willing to support you politically and economically in a meaningful way.

E Publius , 13 May 2019 at 05:17 PM
I have to admit Colonel that this post reminded me of an April 29th profile in the New Yorker of John Bolton. Several days ago after reading the lengthy New Yorker piece I realized how slowly but surely, the Trump admin has been consistently heading toward outright madness with the gradual departure of people like Tillerson, J. Kelly, and Mattis from the office. It was mentioned in the piece how Gen. Mattis thwarted multiple outright crazy attempts by McMaster (who is now at FDD shilling for the "Long War" strategy; once a neocon, always a neocon), Bolton and Mira Ricardel aimed at declaring war against Iran. Now that there are a few key vacant positions in the administration such as the UN Ambs, Homeland Sec, a few at the State Dep, and most importantly at the Pentagon, shouldn't these vacancies act as major restraining factor against war or the Trump admin "is" stupid enough to go full war mode regardless? IMO some things still just do not add up. just wondering...
Christian J Chuba , 13 May 2019 at 07:06 PM
Just curious about something. I hear news stories that we are sending the Lincoln inside the Persian Gulf. That seems like it would negate a lot of our advantage if we actually did fight Iran. It would be in range of every anti-ship missile they have as well as most of their navy which is designed specifically for the Gulf and not much of a blue water navy. Why wouldn't we keep it just outside the Gulf in the open water where our carrier and escorts would seemingly have a bigger advantage?

I don't want a fight and I'm not pretending that I understand naval tactics, but this just seems a bit odd to me.

VietnamVet , 14 May 2019 at 01:16 AM
Colonel,

The damage was above the water line and a slash as if perhaps a missile but did not penetrate the oil bunkers. It does not look like a limpet mine. There are no reports of airplanes or ships but is described as sabotage. It is unlikely to be a false flag. Media reporting has been muted. Simply that it is being investigated. But as pointed out here before there is no stockpiling of supplies needed for an invasion of Iran by a million-man army. Inside the Persian Gulf is the last place the Commander of the Carrier Group wants to be if war breaks out. My guess is that the sabotage to four tankers was a signal of what the Revolutionary Guards could do if they really wanted to and as a counter to ultra-mad man U.S. diplomacy and sanctions. Lloyd's of London must raise their insurance rates. This will raise oil prices at the same time as prices rise due to Mid-West flooding, China's African Swine Fever outbreak, and the imposing of a 25% tariff on Chinese imports. All sorts of bad things are happening at once. Rather than 2003's misleading Shock and Awe propaganda, the 2019 Iranian war drums indicate total incompetence.

Eric Newhill , 14 May 2019 at 09:25 AM
The Imperial Japanese believed that Americans were soft and that US troops would crumble when faced with the mighty spirit of Bushido. They were ultimately banking on that mistaken conclusion. I don't think the Iranians have any such delusions.

I don't see how Iran can do anything more than make some trouble that is minor in the big scheme of things - and which will dig their hole deeper - and then lose.

I don't approve of what is being done, but I think the current Iranian regime could be destroyed if the neocons have their way; albeit with US casualties and great material and financial expense. I don't like how US troops and sailors may be used as bait by the neocons.

Eric Newhill said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 14 May 2019 at 10:12 AM
I should add that to my mind the real question is what would follow in the wake of war. Would the Iranians be happy to be free of the Islamic Revolutionary govt? Or would they go on for generations with wounded pride that demands revenge, like the Palestinians? I think the latter. In which case war/regime change solves nothing. I'm willing to bet the neocons, as usual, have their own delusions about flowers, candy, purple thumbs, smiling faces and freedom.
John Minehan said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 19 July 2019 at 08:26 PM
They had a front row seat for OIF and what came after. I suspect they have a good feeling for our capability and weaknesses . . . whether they can exploit that or not, might be the issue.
turcopolier , 14 May 2019 at 10:03 AM
Eric Newhill - IMO you are underestimating how much damage Iran could do to the fleet in a transition to war situation before the US Navy got its ducks in line and crushed them. As for the illusion about US willingness to fight, all our opponents have believed the same thing before the house fell on them.
Eric Newhill said in reply to turcopolier ... , 14 May 2019 at 10:17 AM
Sir,
Oh, I understand what Iran could do. As you know, it has been war gamed and the US Navy gets hit pretty hard.

But Iran still loses. Each hit the US Navy takes, strengthens the resolve to crush Iran that much harder.

Again, I am in no way approving of what I think may happen. I have been told by someone I know well in the DIA that we are doing to war with Iran sooner or later. The first time I was told this was when Obama was still in office. Then I was told that the election of Trump has changed nothing. Make what you will of that.

blue peacock said in reply to turcopolier ... , 20 July 2019 at 01:58 AM
Col. Lang

"in a transition to war situation before the US Navy got its ducks in line and crushed them" what damage could Iranian ballistic missiles do to UAE, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia? Could they devastate oil & gas, LNG, port and pipeline infrastructure sufficiently that it would take a year to re-build back to full capacity?

It seems it would be a lose-lose proposition for everyone including Trump's re-election prospects. I have seen private surveys of working class people in the mid-west and the south who by an overwhelming majority oppose a war with Iran when informed about some of the potential consequences.

turcopolier , 14 May 2019 at 11:12 AM
Eric Newhill

People in the information parts of the USIC do not know what the US government may do, but they all have opinions.

turcopolier , 14 May 2019 at 11:13 AM
Eric Newhill

We won the Pacific War as well but if you were entombed alive in the bowels of USS Arizona that did nit mean much to you.

Eric Newhill , 19 July 2019 at 05:26 PM
Well, Sir, unfortunately I think you called this one spot on.

IMO, if there's going to be war, then the Europeans and Brits should fight it. Their the ones most impacted (though I recognize that everyone in the global markets will feel the pain resulting from a closure of the straight).

Of course none of them will step up on their own and the US will have to do this. Still holding out hope that some kind of negotiation is possible, but becoming skeptical. The Iranians want to prove they are the men they thought they were. Still, maybe a good deal will satisfy that need.

LA Sox Fan -> Eric Newhill... , 19 July 2019 at 06:58 PM
The Bolton/neoconservative plan of starting a war with Iran is working perfectly. In a tit for tat action, Iran has captured one or more U.K. tankers. My hopes for avoiding a completely unnecessary war with Iran, one we have a fair chance of losing, are becoming slimmer and slimmer.
Walrus said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 19 July 2019 at 10:34 PM
Eric, I'm in Europe right now and I don't think any Europeans are prepared in the slightest to support a war with Iran. For starters, if Iran did not surrender instantaneously, an oil shortage will collapse the European and Chinese economies and that is only one of the minor, first order effects.

The question of "not being the men they thought they were" cuts both ways. Does the European union want to see war with Iran? No. Do the Europeans want to see Britain, egged on by the Neocons, take "a hard line" with Iran? No. Do the Europeans want to aid and abet the U. S. in fighting a war with Iran through NATO? No. Do they want to be "saved from Iran " by the U.S. galloping all over hemisphere as in 1944? No.

So do you really want to see NATO and American relationships with Europe, Russia and China, India and the rest of the world put under severe stress in a @#@# waving contest between Trump and the Mullahs? At the behest of Israel? Because that is what you are going to get.

Then there is the prospect of the Chinese and Russians retaliating, and I don't even want to go there.

The Mullahs have ruined the weekend for the leaders of each and every major nation. What will be happening this weekend in every capital is a series of committee meetings asking the same questions; What should our response to Iran be? What should our response to possible American action be? What is the likely effect of war with Iran on our energy supplies? What is the likely effect of war with Iran on our own security? What is the likely effect of war with Iran on our economy? Public servants will be working late into the night to answer these questions. The only thing for sure is that the price of gold is going to skyrocket when markets open and that a lot of troops are going to get warning orders about notice to move monday morning.

This is the same type of situation that started WW1. ....... So we decide to give those pesky Iranian Mullahs a good whupping because they had it coming. Should be easy, after all they are just more sand niggers, right? All of a sudden Russia drops an air defence regiment into Tehran, We lose aircraft. China let's North Korea off the leash and at the same time issues an ultimatum to Taiwan. Suddenly we are taking losses, have three war theatres going at the same time. What happens then?

I suppose you think nothing is going to affect the continental U.S., so who cares?


Charles Michael -> Eric Newhill... , 20 July 2019 at 08:19 AM
Eric newhill,

There I must disagree:
Nethanyaou is again in election campaign same goes for President Trump; IMHO no war for the newt 6 months and probably never.

A deal is possible ? maybe
but it should encompass the Syrian issue from where all this Iranian crisis is actually born-again.
For example Iran could agree to withdraw its troops from Syria if USA and partners did the same as Trump was considering.
This move would surely have some effect on the YPG position, thus on Turkey's activism along its frontier with Syria (Afrin being not included).


Entering in negociations for a JCPOA bis will not be acceptable for Iran if sanctions (some at least) are not lifted. My educated guess is that is precisely what's going on.

turcopolier , 19 July 2019 at 05:43 PM
JM

IMO the Houthis, the Hizbullah and Hamas are not proxies of Iran. They are allies.

John Minehan said in reply to turcopolier ... , 19 July 2019 at 08:19 PM
Much better choice of words than mine. Thus they are a significant wild card here, I would guess.
Harlan Easley , 19 July 2019 at 06:10 PM
When I read the Iranians captured a British Oil tanker it immediately reminded me of this article.
GeneO , 19 July 2019 at 06:18 PM
pl -

I was hoping yesterdays Zarif/Rand Paul discussion would lead to a ratcheting down of tensions. But the hardliners on both sides would hate to have that happen and will attempt to wreck any détente.

Did Zarif offer the idea of allowing more intrusive inspections of its nuclear program before or after his meeting with Paul? In any case some unnamed US officials said it was a non-starter. Probably the unnamed ones were the Mousetache-of-Idiocy and his minions?

Never should have cancelled JCPOA. Why should we have to do Israel/KSA/UAE's dirty work?

Timothy Hagios , 19 July 2019 at 07:50 PM
One recalls the immortal words of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "Absolutely no one could have predicted this."
ambrit , 19 July 2019 at 11:12 PM
Sir;
Isn't the "wild card" here the Israelis?
I can imagine an Iranian government, or perhaps the IRGC in a 'bitter ender' phase targeting Israel proper before they collapse. As the fate of Gerald Ball indicates, the Israelis are understandably paranoid about their regional competitors.
Christian Chuba , 19 July 2019 at 11:34 PM
Iranian grain ships stuck in Brazil due to U.S. sanctions
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-iran-sanctions/iran-grain-ships-stuck-in-brazil-without-fuel-due-to-u-s-sanctions-idUKKCN1UD2QM

We are now engaging in cartoon villainy in terms of trying to squeeze Iran into a tiny box. Iran cannot transact in dollars so they are reduced to bartering with Brazil for corn. Oops, even their urea export is sanctioned but that doesn't matter because we won't let Brazil sell them fuel oil to ship corn back to their home port. This is flat out evil.

Jim Ticehurst , 20 July 2019 at 12:04 AM
I wondering if the former Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejah ...2005 to 2013 and His "Apocalyptic Shiites" were put in the background...with disinformation about His falling out of Favor....So Iran could play strategic games with the P5+1 agreement IN 2015 especially with President Obama..
SysATI , 20 July 2019 at 12:06 AM
Eric Newhill

"But Iran still loses. Each hit the US Navy takes, strengthens the resolve to crush Iran that much harder."

Cm'on man... wake up and open your eyes...

The US hasn't won any war since... Eternity...
Do I have to remind you what happens in Afghanistan, in Irak or more recently in Syria ?

Well Iran is FIVE times bigger than Syria and is not a divided multicultural/multi-religious country. Do you think that anything you do could change the fact that those 80 something millions people will survive and will ALL be behind their leaders whoever he might be ?

If I was Iranian and even if the leader of the country was Adolf Hitler or some fanatic religious Abu Satanist al Muslim, I would still be behind him if my country was attacked by some foreign bully. My guess is that 99% of the Iranians think the same way....

Forget about allies like Hamas, Hezbollah or Houtis or even China and Russia.
Iran exists since 7000 BC and you really think that the new kid in the block with a couple hundred years of existence would be able to take it out ?
Given your history of military victories ???!!! Don't make me laugh...

Even if you naively believe that, do you think about the consequences of such a war ? Not on Iran, OK, you might level part of the country, but then what ?

Israel would most probably cease to exist. But so as the middle eastern Arab monarchies and most the world's oil industry, which we all depend on...

Which means that the whole planet will suffer for years to come...

If I can't feed my kids because my country can't get enough oil thanks to some nutcase in WDC guess how I'll feel about the US ?

Most of the world already hate you for a reason. If you want to be not just hated but treated like enemies where ever you go, go ahead, bomb Iran, start a war, have the whole world crumble...

And for what ???
Just "because you can" is not a valid answer...

"IMO, if there's going to be war, then the Europeans and Brits should fight it... Of course none of them will step up on their own and the US will have to do this."

Will HAVE TO do this ???!!!

Who the hell is forcing you not to mind your own business ?

Has Iran attacked the US ? Or Britain ? Or Europe ?
Or anyone else in the past several hundreds of years ?
No...


But.... Does the US oil industry would like the oil prices to go up ? YES !!!
Do the crazies in DC want to make more money by selling more weapons ? YES !!!
Do the crazies in Wahabistan hate the Shias and want to get rid of them ? YES !!!
Do the crazies in Israel want to get rid of a powerful neighbor ? YES !!!
Do even some crazies in the US want Israel to go in flames so that Jesus comes back ?

Unfortunately yes...

turcopolier , 20 July 2019 at 11:29 AM
Charles Michael
You are not correct. The Israelis have a deep psychopatholgy about Iranian ballistic missiles and a possible nuclear weapon that might - might exist someday. That has nothing to do with Syria.
David Habakkuk , 20 July 2019 at 01:29 PM
All,

I think the comment by 'Elliot' back in May reflects assumptions which are very deep-seated in the West, are questionable, and if wrong, could prove extraordinarily dangerous. So an extended response seems appropriate.

Of course the Russians have far more limited resources than the United States. What is important is to understand the implications of that fact for their strategic thinking.

On this I would strongly recommend two pieces at the top of the 'Russia' page on the 'World Hot Spots' section of the 'Army Military Press' site.

(See https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Special-Topics/World-Hot-Spots/Russia/ )

The first is a translation of a 2017 article from the journal of the 'Academy of Military Science', entitled 'Color Revolutions in Russia', by A.S. Brychkov and G.A. Nikonorov.

Among other things, this illustrates very well the rather central fact that Russian military strategists are very well aware that one of the things that wrecked the Soviet Union was the attempt to maintain permanent preparedness for a prolonged global war with a power possessing an enormously greater military-industrial potential.

As to the implications for contingency planning for war, these are spelt out in a piece, also published in 207, by the invaluable Major Charles K. Bartles of the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, entitled 'Recommendations for Intelligence Staffs Concerning Russian New Generation Warfare.'

At the risk of glossing his meaning overmuch, what is involved is a kind of 'higher synthesis' of the ideas of two figures who were on opposing sides of the arguments of the 'Twenties of the last century, Georgiy Isserson, the pioneering theorist of 'deep operations', and Aleksandr Svechin, who cautioned against an exclusive focus of the 'Napoleonic' strand in Clausewitz.

Both are quoted by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General Valery Gerasimov, in his crucial and much misunderstood address to the Academy of Military Science in February 2013, reproduced on the same page as the articles to which I have referred.

What Svechin was saying, in essence, was that an attentive reader of Clausewitz would realise that 'toujours la'audace' should be replaced as a motto by 'l'audace at the right place and time'.

It was crucial to be able to judge when an offensive approach was absolutely the right choice, and caution suicidal, and when the promise of a decisive victory was a snare and a delusion, and defensive and attritional responses appropriate.

(This argument crops up in many contexts: the 'Tabouleh Line' strategy adopted by Hizbullah, which Colonel Lang discussed in posts during and following the 2006 Lebanon War, and also that advocated by James Longstreet at Gettysburg, are classic examples of what Svechin would have seen as circumstances where a sound 'defensive' strategy was the key to victory.)

As regards contemporary Russian thinking, an implication is that one of things they have been trying to create is the ability, in appropriate situations, to use characteristics of 'deep operations' – surprise, speed, shock – in support of clearly limited objectives.

The kind of possibility involved was alluded to in the conversation between the 'Security Adviser' and the 'American Soldier' – seemingly involved on the ground in the 'deconfliction' process – which accompanied Seymour Hersh's June 2017 article in 'Die Welt' on the Khan Sheikhoun sarin incident the previous April, and the U.S. air strikes that resulted.

(See https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905618/We-got-a-fuckin-problem.html )

A key exchange:

'SA: There has been a hidden agenda all along. This is about trying to ultimately go after Iran. What the people around Trump do not understand is that the Russians are not a paper tiger and that they have more robust military capability than we do.

'AS: I don't know what the Russians are going to do. They might hang back and let the Syrians defend their own borders, or they might provide some sort of tepid support, or they might blow us the fuck out of the airspace and back into Iraq. I honestly don't know what to expect right now. I feel like anything is possible. The russian air defense system is capable of taking out our TLAMs. this is a big fucking deal...we are still all systems go...'

And that brings one to another critical strand in the approach of contemporary Russian strategic thinkers.

Not simply for war-fighting, but, critically, for 'deterring' the United States from escalating if the Russians do successfully achieve limited objectives, they have been concentrating on 'asymetric' involving focused investment in specific technologies.

So, Bartles explains that the Russian Ground Forces are 'significantly ahead' of the U.S. Army in electronic warfare, key objectives being to disrupt the demonstrated American capability for precision strikes, and also exploit the latent vulnerabilities involved in the dependence of so much equipment on GPS. (As an Army man, he does not discuss the interesting question of naval and air applications.)

And crucially, there has been a focus on developing a very wide range of missiles which 'missile defence' technologies are not going to be able to counter effectively in any forseeable future, and which have steadily increasing range, accuracy and lethality. One central purpose of this, which Gerasimov has spelt out in later addresses to the Academy of Military Science, also available on the page to which I have linked, is to provide non-nuclear 'deterrence' options.

It is, of course, always difficult to be clear as to what is, or is not, hype in claims made for new weapons systems. That said, it is I think at least worth reading some contributions by the Brussels-based American analyst Gilbert Doctorow.

In February, he produced a piece entitled 'The INF Treaty is dead: will the arms race be won this time by the most agile or by the biggest wallet?', and another, headlined 'The Kremlin's Military Posture Re-considered: strategic military parity with the U.S. or absolute military superiority over the U.S.'

(See https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2019/02/05/the-inf-treaty-is-dead-will-the-arms-race-be-won-this-time-by-the-most-agile-or-by-the-biggest-wallet/ ; https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2019/02/24/the-kremlins-military-posture-re-considered-strategic-military-parity-with-the-u-s-or-absolute-military-superiority-over-the-u-s/ .)

Certainly, a good many assertions Doctorow made merit being taken with a pinch of salt, if not a great deal more. However, before one empties the full salt-cellar over them, a few observations are worth making.

How much salt should be applied to Shoigu's assertion that the cost of the systems being developed is hundreds of times less than that of the systems being developed by the United States against Russia I cannot say.

Some questions are however worth putting. It would be interesting to be clearer than I am as to how relevant, or irrelevant, is the fact that for a long time now Russian universities have, frankly, wiped the floor with their Western counterparts in international programming competitions is one.

Another relevant range of issues relates to how expensive the 'software' component of the relevant weaponry actually produced, once it is developed. A third relates to that of how far the new missiles, with their greater range, can be effectively deployed, either by updating old platforms – like Soviet-era bombers – or by creating relatively low cost-ones.

And then of course one comes to the question of how the technical military issues interact with the 'geopolitics' involved. In recent years, a range of different Russian analysts have been claiming, in essence, that the 'Petrine' era of Russian history is over. Three examples, from Dmitri Trenin, Sergei Karaganov, and Vladislav Surkov, can be found at

https://carnegie.ru/2016/12/25/russia-s-post-soviet-journey-pub-66569 ; https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/pubcol/We-Have-Used-Up-the-European-Treasure-Trove-19769 ; https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/book/The-Loneliness-of-the-Half-Breed-19575 .

If, as Trenin argued back in 2016, Russia has moved from aspiring to become part of a 'Greater Europe' to seeing itself as a central part of a 'Greater Eurasia', then this has implications for how it should react to the asymetry which was central to Soviet views of INF in the 'Eighties.'

Put simply, INF in Europe can pose a 'decapitation' threat to Russia, while Russian INF do not do so to the United States.

At that time, the deployment of cruise and Pershing II helped to encourage a burgeoning awareness among important sections of the 'security intelligentsia' in Moscow of the extent to which their own security policies – of which the SS-20 deployment was just one of many examples – had created suspicion, fear and antagonism.

The conclusion – classically expressed in Georgiy Arbatov's joke about the terrible thing that Gorbachev was going to do to the United States, deprive it of an enemy – turned out hopelessly naive. The liquidation of the existing Soviet security posture did not lead to any lesssening of Western antagonism.

In his second piece, Doctorow has an interesting discussion of views expressed by Yakov Kedmi, the sometime 'refusenik' who became a pivotal figure in organising Russian Jewish emigration to Israel, and is now a regular guest on Russian television. And he writes:

'Perhaps Kedmi's most interesting and relevant observation is on the novelty of the Russian response to the whole challenge of American encirclement. He noted that for the past 200 or more years the United States considered itself secure from enemies given the protection of the oceans. However, in the new Russian military threat, the oceans will now become the most vulnerable point in American defenses, from which the decapitating strike can come.'

Putting the point another way. Potentially at least, the 'Greater Eurasia' as Trenin describes it includes the Western European countries – indeed, it appears to include Ireland. It is, obviously, enormously in the interest of the Russians to include these, in that doing so both makes it possible to isolate the 'Anglo-Saxons', and also to provide a counterweight to Chinese preponderance.

To do so however – and at this point I am moving towards my own speculations, rather than simply relying upon better-informed observers – requires a complicated balancing act.

On the one hand, the West Europeans – above all the Germans – have to be persuaded that if they persist in following with the 'Russia delenda est' agendas of traditional 'Anglo' Russophobes, and 'revanchists' from the 'borderlands', they should not think this is going to be cost-free.

But on the other, the promise has to be implied that, if they 'see sense' and realise that their future is with a 'Greater Eurasia', without their needing to 'remilitarise' in any serious way, then they will not be threatened militarily.

This balancing act, ironically, makes it absolutely imperative for the Russians not to threaten the Baltics – particularly given their historical links to Germany.

By the same token, it provides a particularly cogent reason for threatening to respond to new American IMF deployments in Europe with ones that target the United States.

[Jul 20, 2019] The UK's Dubious Role in the New Tanker War With Iran naked capitalism

Jul 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

https://c.deployads.com/sync?f=html&s=2343&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2019%2F07%2Fthe-uks-dubious-role-in-the-new-tanker-war-with-iran.html

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https://acdn.adnxs.com/ib/static/usersync/v3/async_usersync.html <img src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=16807273&cv=2.0&cj=1" /> Iran has also said that it will not only follow graded response to the sanctions, including possible exiting from the JCPOA, but also reconsider its participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a thinly veiled threat to follow in North Korea's footsteps. It is clear that Iran will fight the status quo arising out of Trump's maximum pressure policies in various ways, and not allow itself to be economically strangulated.

The UK's position has now become very dubious. Why did it seize Iran's supertanker Grace 1 in the Gibraltarwaters? Four of Grace 1 's officers, including the ship's captain, all Indians, have been charged in a Gibraltar court and are now out on bail.

In a new twist on this issue, we now know that Gibraltar changed its law underpinning the seizure just one day before it occurred . This adds weight to reports in Spain quoting government sources that the UK carried out the seizing of the tanker under U.S.instructions.

The argument that Grace 1 was carrying crude oil to Syria's Baniyas refinery, and so was violating European sanctions on Syria, sounds weak on various counts.The Gibraltar court's order mentions EU Regulation 36/2012 on sanctions on Syria as the basis for action against Grace 1 . Oil exports from Syria to the EU have been banned, but not oil imports to Syria under EU regulations. Also, imports to the Baniyas refinery are banned for machinery and equipment , not oil.

More important: In international trade, do countries through which transit takes place have the right to impose their laws on the merchandise in transit? For example, can pharmaceutical products from India, which arein consonance with Indian and the receiving country's laws, be seized in transit in Europe if they violate the EU's patent laws? Such seizures have happened , creating a trade dispute between India and the EU. The EU finally agreed not to seize such goods in transit. So can the EU extend its sanctions to goods in transit through its waters? Assuming the crude was indeed for Syria -- which Iran has denied -- do EU sanctions apply when transiting through Gibraltar waters? In short, was the UK imposing EU sanctions on Syria -- or U.S.sanctions on Iran?

There has also been another incident involving Iran and the UK in the developing Tanker War 2. This makes the UK's role even more suspect. Iran has denied the UK's story of its empty tanker Heritage being blocked by Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf. The U.S., which first broke the story, claimed it was five Iranian boats that tried to seize a British tanker. The UK authorities claimed that it was three Iranian boats that were impeding the tanker's journey, which were driven off by a British warship. The Iranians deny that any such incident took place. No video or satellite image of the incident has been made public, though a U.S.aircraft reportedly took video footage of the incident. In his Twitter feed, BBC's Defense Correspondent Jonathan Beale condemned the failure of the British government to release images of the incident: "UK MOD say they will NOT be releasing any imagery from incident in Gulf when @HMS_MONTROSE confronted #Iran IRGC boats. Shame as far as I'm concerned."

What remains unexplained is why the empty UK tanker switched off its transponder before the alleged incident for about 24 hours, particularly in the period when it was passing through the Strait of Hormuz -- or why an empty tanker was accompanied by a British warship. Was the UK baiting Iran by manufacturing a maritime incident in the Gulf?

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said on Twitter that after a phone call with Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, he offered to release the tanker Grace 1 on the condition that it will not send the oil to Syria. This still begs the question of the UK's locus in deciding the destination of Iranian oil -- or why Iran should accept EU sanctions.

[Jul 19, 2019] The 'Unconstitutional Animus' Against UK Labour Leader by Johanna Ross

Notable quotes:
"... A couple of weeks ago, The Times of London published an article about senior civil servants fearing U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was "too frail" to be prime minister. Reportedly they also thought he "lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda. ..."
"... This is the same civil service that is supposed to maintain complete neutrality and according to its code "must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests." ..."
"... Corbyn fought back, arguing that it was unacceptable that civil servants were briefing newspapers on an elected politician. He demanded an independent inquiry into who was spreading such fabrications in the press and "compromising the integrity of the civil service." ..."
"... Miller, who runs the Bristol-based Organisation for Propaganda Studies, said the scheme was found to be spreading its own disinformation and openly criticizing opposition leader Corbyn and his party. ..."
"... Miller said this was clear from the very beginning of the Integrity Initiative when it was regularly engaged in tweeting or retweeting attacks on Corbyn and his closest advisors. ..."
"... Miller calls the use of taxpayers' money to interfere in domestic politics an affront to democracy. ..."
"... Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and Corbyn supporter who was trying to investigate the Integrity Initiative, found himself suspended from the party after he was targeted with allegations of anti-Semitism. ..."
"... Corbyn's call for an independent investigation into the civil service leak to the press has also, as expected, been rejected by the government. ..."
"... If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Jews in Europe and the US have gone from being heavily discriminated against to having much more influence on government than their numbers warrant. I'm going to tell the Netanyahu joke to make my point. Don't know who to credit. Kudos anyway. "It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as he is as white as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan." ..."
"... If the Integrity Initiative really is shut down, the little Simon Bracey-Lane will be free to cross the pond and campaign for Bernie just like he did in 2015 / 2016. Nah, just kiddin', his cover is blown. But seriously, campaign managers for Tulsi Gabbard best be on guard against inflation from these snakes. ..."
"... This is a joke right. You say communist and you reference China, but in the last century it was ok to ship nearly the entire industrial base of Western Democracies to China so that a bunch of fat cat tycoons, investment bankers, hedge funders et al could become so rich they finally had enough money to purchase the U.S. Government, and it looks like the government of Britain too. ..."
"... This incessant accusation of antisemitism against anyone who supports justice for Palestinians does seem to be effective. A decade ago when I first noticed this smear tactic I assumed it would be self defeating on the part of the Zionists and their backers. It sort of seemed obvious that such a tactic would be self limiting with the broader world beginning to reject such slander. However, it seems the smear is more effective today than it was ten years ago. So depressing. Watching Corbyn's supporters ripping apart his own base in the Labour Party in an effort to appease the Israelis is appalling -- it seems the more that is conceded the more aggressive the Zionist become. Ten years ago it was proper to describe the West Bank as "occupied territory", soon it will be considered antisemitic to even go that far. ..."
"... in 2015, an unnamed, serving British general was quoted saying that if a Corbyn government implemented his well-established anti-imperial and anti-nuke agenda, "there would be mass resignations at all levels [of the military] and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html ..."
"... As Mayhew noted, 'the turning point' was the speech of George Marshall the US Secretary of State in June 1947. From 'the middle of 1947 onwards, decisions were taken towards uniting the free world, at the expense of widening the gap with the Communist world our immediate objective changed, from "one world" to "one free world"'. ..."
"... . That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery. ..."
Jul 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The 'Unconstitutional Animus' Against UK Labour Leader July 16, 2019 • 39 Comments

Johanna Ross spoke with David Miller, a propaganda researcher, after the recent publicity of U.K. civil service murmurings about Jeremy Corbyn's "fitness."

By Johanna Ross
in Edinburgh, Scotland
Special to Consortium News

A couple of weeks ago, The Times of London published an article about senior civil servants fearing U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was "too frail" to be prime minister. Reportedly they also thought he "lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."

This is the same civil service that is supposed to maintain complete neutrality and according to its code "must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests."

Corbyn fought back, arguing that it was unacceptable that civil servants were briefing newspapers on an elected politician. He demanded an independent inquiry into who was spreading such fabrications in the press and "compromising the integrity of the civil service."

Controversial BBC graphic seeking to link Corbyn to Russia.

For David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, who investigates concentrations of power and ways to hold them accountable, the idea that the British civil service may not be impartial in its operations is hardly surprising.

Far from ever being objective, he told Consortium News that the civil service now clearly has "an unconstitutional animus against a potential Corbyn government and has been briefing against it one way or another through various agencies for some time now."

Catalog of Smears

Indeed, the anti-Corbyn bias within the establishment has been obvious in the catalog of smears on Corbyn and his team since he came to the Labour leadership; from allegations of being a "Soviet sleeper" to being "anti-Semitic" and now to questions about his overall fitness.

David Miller: Faction fight against Corbyn. (University of Bristol)

Miller said most of the allegations were created by a number of organisations and individuals who are "involved in a faction fight with the Corbyn leadership."

Noam Chomsky, a leading U.S. social critic, is among those who have spoken out against what he termed a "witch hunt" against the Labour leader and his supporters.

Whether or not anti-Semitism exists in the party, Miller said the accusations are out of hand. "Almost everyone who says anything which is either critical of Israel or critical of the party's response to the anti-Semitism crisis is denounced as an anti-Semite," Miller said. "The question is how long will it be before everyone sees that the people who are involved in this have overreached themselves."

Attempts to undermine potential socialist governments are of course, not new.

Miller gives the example of the Zinoviev case – when a fake letter was published in the Daily Mail in 1924 just prior to the general election, suggesting Communists in Britain were taking orders from Moscow. The goal was clearly to undermine the British Labour movement.

Miller also points to the case of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. "Despite what may now be said by some elements of the security state," Miller said that British agencies were engaged in an active plot to undermine Wilson's elected government.

As another example, Miller offered the "Information Research Department," first proposed in 1947 and sold to the cabinet as a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda operation. In fact, Miller described it as a "secret, covert, anti-Communist propaganda operation which in the 70s was engaged in undermining the Wilson government."

Today, Miller said, similar agencies in the U.K. government are doing the same thing.

Harold Wilson in 1986. (Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Integrity Initiative

As an example, Miller cites the Integrity Initiative; organized by the government's Institute for Statecraft, which has a stated mission of countering "Russian disinformation and malign influence by harnessing existing expertise and establishing a network of experts, opinion formers and policy makers to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build national capacities to counter it." Its website is incidentally now empty pending an investigation into the "theft of its data" – after a hack exposed detail of the extent to which the government-funded program was itself engaged in disinformation.

Miller, who runs the Bristol-based Organisation for Propaganda Studies, said the scheme was found to be spreading its own disinformation and openly criticizing opposition leader Corbyn and his party.

"Corbyn has recently said in relation to the most recent criticism from the civil service that there are people in the establishment that are trying to undermine Corbyn, his office, his advisors and supporters of him," Miller said. "And that's what the Integrity Initiative was doing."

Cartoon published by Punch after the Zinoviev letter was released, depicting a Bolshevik campaigning for Ramsay MacDonald, head of the short-lived Labour government of 1924. (Wikimedia Commons)

Miller said this was clear from the very beginning of the Integrity Initiative when it was regularly engaged in tweeting or retweeting attacks on Corbyn and his closest advisors.

Miller calls the use of taxpayers' money to interfere in domestic politics an affront to democracy.

"A government-funded project was engaged in attacking the leader of the opposition," Miller said, "which is unconstitutional and something the U.K. civil service should not be involved in they crossed the line when they started attacking Corbyn. And when we look back on this period, the Integrity Initiative, its funding by the Foreign Office and its base in British military intelligence will be one of the strands of the activities which will be seen to have been a secret state campaign against the elected leader of the Labour party."

Miller would like to see an investigation into the attacks on Corbyn and whether they had been effectively funded by the Foreign Office, but doesn't hold out much hope of that happening.

Six months ago, Shadow Home Secretary Emily Thornberry demanded answers to how this could have happened, with no result.

And Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and Corbyn supporter who was trying to investigate the Integrity Initiative, found himself suspended from the party after he was targeted with allegations of anti-Semitism.

Corbyn's call for an independent investigation into the civil service leak to the press has also, as expected, been rejected by the government.

Johanna Ross is a freelance journalist based in the United Kingdom.

If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.


Michael McNulty , July 18, 2019 at 05:52

After he won the second round to remain Labour Party leader Corbyn should have left the party to form a new socialist party, taking his large following and their subscriptions with him. He would have had three years behind him with a new movement, one which would not have had the back-stabbers and poisoners he's having to deal with daily. It would have been quite established now and a real political force. I think the Labour Party is so polluted that the left must break away; it's the only way we can overturn the excesses and failures of neo-liberalism which for most people is a truly dreadful system.

Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 15:02

They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs, neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists. That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery.

Hopelb , July 17, 2019 at 21:52

Upvote!

Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 14:55

"lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."

It makes me wonder how Teresa May and her Cabinet, including the next PM, fares in such assessment. Nincompoops, loud mouths, poodles, and worshipers of woodoo economics.

James , July 17, 2019 at 14:22

I get it. Corbyn is Pro-Palestinian, anti-war and Pro-Worker so they are trying to get rid of him.

All I see are articles attacking him. Are there people/forces behind him supporting him? Is his support significant among other Labour MP's and the Public at large?

Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:11

The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic at this point and "everything is possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit, Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the worst type of rubble. No respect for monarchy, the Trident, necessity of low taxes on business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.

So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his victory will unleashed the unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and he hold dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.

Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:45

The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic lately and "everything is possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit, Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the worst type of rabble. No respect for the monarchy, the Trident, the necessity of low taxes on business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.

So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his victory would unleashed unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and that we hold dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.

Jeff Ewener , July 17, 2019 at 13:26

Gob-smacking. To call a man with the intelligence, experience, sensitivity & integrity of Jeremy Corbyn "unfit" to be the British Prime Minister, while a monstrosity like Boris Johnson is standing on the doorstep of Number 10 – just takes the breath away.

rosemerry , July 17, 2019 at 15:45

Not to mention the former "New Labour" leaders whose policies fell far away from the traditional policies Corbyn has held to and which caused so many Britons to support him as leader.

Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 11:49

Integrity? Are you joking? Corbyn has been anti-EU for 40 years. In fact, he is the only main party leader who voted leave in the last people's vote (aka the referendum). But he has tried to hid that fact. He has been sitting on the fence and playing politics with the issue. Many fools in Britain believe Corbyn is a remainer. A man of integrity would have explained to the British people his long held position on the EU and Brexit. But he didn't do that because he isn't a man of integrity. He wants to con his way into power and if he gets there (looking unlikely right now), he and his Stalinist henchpeople will wield that power ruthlessly.

Richard Kuper , July 17, 2019 at 12:37

Fascinating article. May we repost it on jvl.org.uk?

Eddie , July 17, 2019 at 12:36

Comment that I posted on the Malware article do not post.

Zenobia van Dongen , July 17, 2019 at 11:39

In English-speaking countries anti-Semitic is just a code word for pro-Islamic. Miller himself is deeply involved in efforts to make extremist Islam respectable and justifying terrorist indoctrination.

Simeon Hope , July 17, 2019 at 13:05

Okay, I'll take your comment as made in good faith but you will need to back it up with good evidence. Where is it?

Qui? , July 18, 2019 at 03:22

Palestinians are semites, as the rest of the Arabs. So who is the real antisemite now?

Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:37

A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.

Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 07:28

Is it indeed. Then your are a fool. Pol Pot was a communist who was against war and nukes and massive inequality. But implementing totalitarism by force didn't turn out well for the Cambodian people. And it wouldn't turn out well for the British people either. Except for Corbyn and his henchpeople of course.

dean 1000 , July 17, 2019 at 10:42

Jews in Europe and the US have gone from being heavily discriminated against to having much more influence on government than their numbers warrant. I'm going to tell the Netanyahu joke to make my point. Don't know who to credit. Kudos anyway. "It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as he is as white as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan."

Given the influence of US and European Jews it is well past time for them to stop screaming anti-semitism when someone has a divergent opinion. They should stop using Semitic people as human shields.

The left also likes to hurl anti-Semitism at political opponents when they don't have a relevant answer.

Unfounded criticism of Jews is anti-Jewish rather than anti-Semitic. Call it what it is.

Ron Striebig , July 17, 2019 at 06:26

As Albert Einstein says Capitalism is an Evil supported by those who are terrified of Jeremy Corbyn because like Jesus he is a true Socialist

Que Nelle , July 17, 2019 at 05:52

To be accused of antisemitism by zionists that champion the racist entity israel, is a badge of honor.

Vivian O'Blivion , July 17, 2019 at 03:30

If the Integrity Initiative really is shut down, the little Simon Bracey-Lane will be free to cross the pond and campaign for Bernie just like he did in 2015 / 2016. Nah, just kiddin', his cover is blown. But seriously, campaign managers for Tulsi Gabbard best be on guard against inflation from these snakes.

Hayman Fan , July 17, 2019 at 02:51

Guys be careful with this. Corbyn is a communist. He is surrounded by Stalinists. Their modus operandi is entryism + free stuff + perpetual attacks on cultural norms. They used to laud the USSR. Then Venezuala. Now China. If they ever manage to grab power, they will stamp on individual liberty. Just like China does. The Muslim vote is very important to them and whilst they despise conventional religions, they will happily 'buy' Muslim votes with anti Israeli and anti Semitic rhetoric. The loudest voices speaking up against Corbyn and his henchpeople are on the left. Be a little bit circumspect.

Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:36

A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.

Simeon Hope , July 17, 2019 at 13:09

Errr what ? Israel does enough on its own to show how anti-Arab and undemocratic it is without the need for Jeremy Corbyn to add anything. I'm a socialist. I support what Mr Corbyn is doing to promote socialism in the UK. There's not the slightest evidence he's an anti-Semite, and the tiny amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour party is dwarfed by what's emanating from the right against Jews and Muslims.

Just say no , July 17, 2019 at 13:58

This is a joke right. You say communist and you reference China, but in the last century it was ok to ship nearly the entire industrial base of Western Democracies to China so that a bunch of fat cat tycoons, investment bankers, hedge funders et al could become so rich they finally had enough money to purchase the U.S. Government, and it looks like the government of Britain too. That's where we are today.

There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly in the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality. What has happened to Jeremy Corbyn is horrifying and we have our own issues in the U.S. with the endless smears and lies regarding the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. We live in a world of fabrication, sanctions enough to go around for everyone. Even the little state of RI is sanctioned by Moody's for having the effrontery to pass a bill which "gives too much away to labor" but Moody's and the other ratings agencies gave triple AAA ratings to junk during the "great recession" plain and simple, and no one cared. We need a Nuremburg trial for Capitalism and all its practioners.

Piotr Berman , July 18, 2019 at 00:33

"You say communist and you reference China, "

You are wrong is several ways. First, "There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly in the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality." Corbyn was observed to be a threat the moment he was elected Labour leader, something that stumped large segments of "informed public". Due to the surprise element, the anti-Semitic angle was not exploited properly, with possible exception of some Zionist whack jobs who harranged him. Instead, two points were raised that really jolted my attention.

First, Corbyn was sooo extreme that he advocated discontinuation of Trident program and even, horror!, the entirety of British nuclear arms program. You could as well raise huge signs ?????? ?y???? ???????! on English shores.

Second, his bicycling habits were compared to China during the orthodox Communist year, when riding on non-descript bikes was heavily supported by pre-Capitalist leadership.

Mind you, a person of note may ride a bike without shame, but not the cheap and aged specimen favored by Corbyn. Finally, compromising photos were found showing Corbyn relaxing and revealing his red socks.

Paul Merrell , July 17, 2019 at 23:40

@ "Hayman Fan"

A rather dubious name, methinks. See https://preview.tinyurl.com/y3us8776

Sounds like you just couldn't stand not posting a troll comment on an article about your own activities, yes?

ToivoS , July 16, 2019 at 22:54

This incessant accusation of antisemitism against anyone who supports justice for Palestinians does seem to be effective. A decade ago when I first noticed this smear tactic I assumed it would be self defeating on the part of the Zionists and their backers. It sort of seemed obvious that such a tactic would be self limiting with the broader world beginning to reject such slander. However, it seems the smear is more effective today than it was ten years ago. So depressing. Watching Corbyn's supporters ripping apart his own base in the Labour Party in an effort to appease the Israelis is appalling -- it seems the more that is conceded the more aggressive the Zionist become. Ten years ago it was proper to describe the West Bank as "occupied territory", soon it will be considered antisemitic to even go that far.

David G , July 16, 2019 at 21:21

In addition, in 2015, an unnamed, serving British general was quoted saying that if a Corbyn government implemented his well-established anti-imperial and anti-nuke agenda, "there would be mass resignations at all levels [of the military] and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html

David G , July 16, 2019 at 21:07

" the 'Information Research Department,' first proposed in 1947 and sold to the cabinet as a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda operation."

"Anti-American" is a slip, right? I assume it was pro-American (or pro-USAian).

David Miller , July 17, 2019 at 04:17

My apologies, I was paraphrasing the work of Lyn Smith in her article on IRD in Millennium in 1980. It should really be 'anti capitalist'. According Smith the founder of IRD (Christopher Mayhew) put forward a plan to set up a cold war propaganda agency:

'Mayhew put forward his ideas: the campaign should be as positive as possible laying stress on the merits of Social Democracy but, he pointed out "we shouldn't appear as defenders of the status quo but should attack Capitalism and Imperialism along with Russian Communism" In fact at this early stage, the idea was more of a "third force" propaganda attacking Capitalism as well as communism (this, however, was not to last for, as later documents reveal, anti Communism soon cam to the fore).'(Covert British Propaganda: The Information Research Department: 1947-77, Millennium, 9(1), p68-9)

In fact the idea that it would be anti capitalist was a ruse used by Mayhew to deceive the left members of the British cabinet. As my colleague and I Will Dinan summarised in our book A Century of Spin (Pluto Press, 2008, p130-1):

IRD was not created with the knowing support of the Labour Cabinet. The author of the paper which went to the cabinet – Christoper Mayhew – was a Labour right winger and cold warrior. He dissembled to the cabinet about the purpose and function of the IRD by claiming that it was to be a 'Third Force' campaign, understood as policy intended by the left to be independent of both the US and the USSR. According to Mayhew himself:

I thought it was necessary to present the whole campaign in a positive way, in a way which Dick Crossman and Michael Foot would fi nd it hard to oppose. And they were calling for a Third Force so I recommended in the original paper I put to Bevin that we call it a Third Force propaganda campaign.

As Mayhew noted, 'the turning point' was the speech of George Marshall the US Secretary of State in June 1947. From 'the middle of 1947 onwards, decisions were taken towards uniting the free world, at the expense of widening the gap with the Communist world our immediate objective changed, from "one world" to "one free world"'.

It is interesting, in this light, to reflect what might/will happen once a Corbyn government is elected with – how should we put this – a minority of leftists in the cabinet.

David G , July 17, 2019 at 15:27

Very interesting! I guess the propagandists back then had a little more finesse than the idiotic bludgeoning the US/UK establishment is laying on us these days. Thanks for the clarification, David Miller!

Jeff Harrison , July 16, 2019 at 21:05

The British Political Class has the same problem as the American Political Class – No integrity, No Honesty, No ethics. Just the sort of bozos we need running countries.

Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 14:59

They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs, neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists. That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery.

[Jul 18, 2019] The more "effective" the sanctions, the closer to war

Jul 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

elkern , Jul 17 2019 16:08 utc | 31

Trailer Trash is exactly right about brittle supply chains. To "maximize Shareholder value" (the Prime Directive from Wall Street), corporations are maximizing (not optimizing) efficiency, at the expense of long-term priorities.

Summer Diaz is sorta right about what I might describe as US cultural/political obesity, but I don't look forward to living here after the shit hits the fan. There are lotsa crazy bastards with guns. We'll see real race war, starvation, all 4 Horsemen.

Re questions about Israel's fate in Marandi's scenario: I think it's smart that he/they don't talk about retaliation against Israel. Everybody knows that Iran has the ability to really hurt Israel (sans Nukes, they probably can't obliterate it); but this threat is much better left unsaid, just hanging in the air. Threatening Israel would be bad PR, decreasing chances that EU, Russia, & China can talk the US back from the brink of WWIII. And making sure Israel knows they're in danger - without bragging about it - gets (non-crazy) Zionists in USA to help prevent all-out war!

It's OK for Iran to talk about the threat to KSA, UAE, etc, because everybody hates them anyway, and cutting off the world's energy supply is their Doomsday Bomb. They need to remind the world that if the US attacks Iran, everybody loses.


karlof1 , Jul 17 2019 16:23 utc | 32

Three main antagonists have aimed at post-revolution Iran: The Outlaw US Empire, Occupied Palestine, and Saudi Arabia, the latter being the most recent and vulnerable, while the first two have already waged varying degrees of war with the Empire's Economic War having existed for 40+ years. The Levant's former Colonial powers--Turkey, France, UK--are feeble, and in Turkey's case is allied with Iran while being spurned by NATO and EU. Lurking in the background are Russia and China's designs for Eurasian Integration which only the Outlaw US Empire seeks to prevent as such integration benefits Saudi Arabia, Occupied Palestine, France and UK. Thus the only entity that might benefit from non-hybrid war with Iran is the Outlaw US Empire--Occupied Palestine's interests actually lie with becoming part of an Integrated Eurasia not in trying to impede it. And the same goes for the other nations occupying the Arabian Peninsula--but they all need to come to their senses by deeply examining their actual long term interests as Qatar seems to have done in its rapprochement with Iran.

But, just how would a non-hybrid conflict with Iran benefit the Outlaw US Empire if it consumes its regional allies? Would it bring more riches or create greater debt atop the human cost? Most analysts have pointed to the Empire's vulnerability upon the trashing of the current global economic structure. Indeed, the only visible benefit might accrue from slowing Eurasian Integration. Then there's the highly negative result to the Empire's global credibility which is already scrapping rock bottom and the likely end of Dollar Hegemony and the Free Lunch it's lived on for the past 70+ years. But what about the fulfillment of the Christian Rapture Myth? Sorry, but there should be no need to answer that fantastical, magical, thinking. Not a very good balance sheet is it as liabilities seem to vastly outweigh assets. Unfortunately, such logic is ignored by ideologues drunk on magical thinking. And these results don't take into consideration an escalation into global nuclear conflict that's in nobody's interest.

But as noted, Trump's up a tree and keeps climbing higher onto ever thinner, more precarious branches. Iran offered him a chance to climb down if he removes illegal sanctions and returns to JCPOA, which Pompeo promptly replied to with a lie that Iran would negotiate on its ballistic missiles, thus giving the overall goal away.

So, Trump can't/won't climb down and non-hybrid conflict would do great damage to Outlaw US Empire interests, which is where we were at July's beginning.

goldhoarder , Jul 17 2019 16:41 utc | 33
Iran will respond to a limited military strike with a massive and disproportionate counterstrike targeting both the aggressor and its enablers.
Which will be the green light for an even more violent & disproportionate counterstrike on Iran. Make no mistake - there are plenty of gung-ho Washington & Tel Aviv power brokers who want to trash Iran. And they will do it, given the chance. The above scenario is precisely what the war gods are hoping for.

I don't know about that. The US and Israel would really be opening up a can of worms. Any over reaction by the USA and Israel gives Russia, India, and China a precedent to follow. China might it easy to settle their difficulties with Taiwan. Kiev might go up in a mushroom cloud. The USA isn't the only country in the world with problems. If they don't play by the rules it just leads to more rule breakers.

arata , Jul 17 2019 16:47 utc | 34
An Alternate Scenario
There is a saying in Persian language called "Namad Maali" translates as "feltman massag", it means slow killing.
This proverb is very often used in contemporary Persian language but most of the people do not know the actual origin of the proverb.
There is an interesting legend behind it. Holagu Khan, a Mongol ruler, the grandson of Chengiz Khan conquered Baghdad on year 1258, and captured the Caliph Al-Mo'tasam, the last Caliph of Abbasid dynasty. Holagu decided to execute the Caliph and finish the 500 years Muslim caliphate.
Many statesmen begged him to hold on. They told him that the caliph is legitimate successor of prophet Mohammad. Caliphate is the pillar of the world, if you remove this pillar there will be sun eclipse, thunder storm and total darkness. Holagu, with his shamanistic believes fearing sky revenge was yielding, but he consulted his prime minister a Persian mullah, Nasir al-Din Tusi. Nasir told him do not worry, these are total nonsense, all of our great Shai twelve imams were direct descendants of prophet Mohammad, they were inherently innocent, while Abbasid are not direct descendants of prophet. See that our imams, eleven out of twelve, were martyred, there was no sun eclipse, no thunder storm, no darkness of the world.
Holagu was bold enough to carry out the execution. Other statesmen brought forward a group of astrologists who searched through their horoscopes and studied signs of stars and concluded that all the signs are catastrophic, if a drop of caliph's blood drops on earth, there will be a devastating thunder storm, rain of bloods pours down from sky and end of world ...
Holagu consulted Nasi again. Nasir being a great humorist, told him not worry, we can devise a pretty easy solution for your peace of mind, send the caliph to hot bath of feltman workshop, order to be wrapped in felt, they will give him a hot water bath with soap, they will roll him slowly over and over, as they are crafting a felt, his life will be ended peacefully in massage, without a drop of blood, meanwhile I will assign one of my intelligent apprentice who is familiar with sky ways ( Nasir was a great mathematician and Astronomer, he founded a famous observatory, he was inventor of trigonometry), to sit on the roof top of the feltman workshop, he will monitor any changes on sky if there is a minor change, he will signal to the feltman to release the caliph.
President Vladimir Khan has been giving warnings to Ayatollah do not burn JCPOA, do not close Strait of Hurmoz. Ayatollah is telling him do not worry we are giving a feltman massage. Just tell Xi khan do not lean his back against the wall street pillar, clean up your hands from future fund casino, the pillars are collapsing slowly.



jason , Jul 17 2019 17:13 utc | 35
the US and its allies are bluffing. don't get caught up in wars and rumors of it. the only way it was going to happen was if syria and iraq fell and both of them didn't.

when it didn't. they resort back to the usual MO, look busy.

OutOfThinAir , Jul 17 2019 17:31 utc | 36
A reminder from Iran that they can hit back.

Hopefully folks who can influence power have been reading the Guns of August.

Possible miscalculations are everywhere and the parties are no strangers to false flags and proxy actors.

So I'm crossing my fingers for strong back channel communications.

I'm not expecting outright major war. Perhaps a skirmish or two, but a negotiated deal is still the most likely outcome.

c1ue , Jul 17 2019 17:56 utc | 37
@C I eh? #14
I don't see China as the same situation as Russia.
The Russians who have largely supported Putin despite economic ill-effects from sanctions are, at best, 1 generation removed from 1991-1996 post-Soviet collapse privation. They remember the bad times and how to get through them.
The mainland Chinese today are 2 generation removed from the famines in the 50s and 60s, and furthermore there is a largely generational break due to the Cultural Revolution.
I don't see China collapsing, but I also don't see the mainstream population taking a oil-starvation induced economic collapse well at all, because the deal is social repression if the economy and standards of living continue to improve.
The difference is French cheese and EU fruits and vegetables - luxury goods vs. oil = energy = everything.
Uncle Jon , Jul 17 2019 17:57 utc | 38
There seems to be misconception about Kuwait, in particular.

Kuwaitis are fed up with the Saudis and are more Iranophile than anything. They see who is a true regional power.

Recently, I happen to be invited to a diplomatic function, welcoming a new Kuwaiti ambassador (Not in US). There were several businessmen associates of the new ambassador at that function. In an impromptu conversation, they professed their love for anything Iranian or Persian, from culture and history to food and the people, and their disdain for the Saudis and their ruling family.

In fact, one of them, much to my shock, uttered the circulating rumor that the ruling family in SA are actually Jews. He said everyone in the region knows about this open secret but afraid to talk about. That was a revelation for me coming from a Kuwaiti since I never did pay attention to those rumors.

I think in the event of a regional conflict, Kuwait will be spared by Iran. What would happen to the ruling family will be another story.

james , Jul 17 2019 18:04 utc | 39
thanks Seyed Mohammad Marandi.. i agree with your headline...

the usa is not agreement friendly.. everything is on their terms only... they rip up contracts when a new president doesn't like it, and make endless demands of others under threat, just like bullies do. they sanction countries and don't mind killing, starving and subjecting people in faraway lands to their ongoing and desperate means of domination.. nothing about the usa is friendly... they spend all their money on the military not just because it works so well for wall st and the corporations but because they think they can continue to bully everyone and anyone indefinitely.. they get support from the obvious suspects and all the other colonies of the usa - europe, canada and etc - turn a type of blind eye to it all, fearful they might be next if they step out of line.. thus, all these chattel countries fail in line with the usa regime sanctions...

basically, the prognosis isn't good.. none of the colonies are capable of speaking up to the usa regime, largely because they lack strong leadership and independence of thought in all this... we continue to slip towards ww3 and at present all the observing countries sit on their hands waiting for the next shoe to drop.. that is where we are at present with regard the ramp up to war on iran...

Harry Law , Jul 17 2019 21:24 utc | 60
The Gulf states know they would be in the front lines in any conflict, Saudi and UAE infrastructure destruction would mean Kings, Princes and Emir's scurrying from their destroyed countries because of their inability to sell oil and feed their people, as one Iranian General said.. the US bases in the region are not threats, "they are targets". Its true Iran has an army of 500,000, they also have millions of military aged men who would form militias and have the reputation of taking their shrouds with them into battle.
I think a major miscalculation by Trump, initiating this kind of scenario is unlikely, those other whack jobs Pence, Pompeo and Bolton are a cause for concern, just hear this nutcase Lindsey Graham threatening the Europeans....
"The United States should sanction "to the ground" European countries that continue to trade with Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal and refuse to join America's pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic, says top Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
"I will tell the Europeans, 'If you want to side with the Iranians, be my guest, but you won't use an American bank or do business with the American economy,'" Graham said".
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/16/601067/US-Graham-Trump-Iran-JCPOA-EU-sanction-to-ground
William Herschel , Jul 17 2019 21:39 utc | 61
Punitive sanctions against nations with a powerful military establishment have an incredibly poor track record. Germany after WWI. Japan prior to Pearl Harbor. And one might add Russia today. The more "effective" the sanctions, the closer to war.

But, of course, military planners in the U.S. and Israel have already picked out the targets for nuclear strikes during the very first wave of attacks on Iran. It will be nuclear first, ask questions later. Heil Trump has already said he will use nuclear weapons: "obliterate". But will even that work? I doubt it. Iran must expect nuclear attacks in the first wave. Yes, their urban populations will be destroyed, but their military? I doubt it.

Formerly T-Bear , Jul 17 2019 21:54 utc | 62
@ Harry Law | Jul 17 2019 21:24 utc | 60

The folks who now are called Iranian once fought the most militaristic society ever - the Spartans. There is likely a memory of that conflict still, and the lessons learned. They face a military that no longer remembers Vietnam or its lessons. Sanctions are an act of war, not military war but war against another who have been made into enemies nonetheless. Be mightily careful who you make your enemy, one sage reminds that you become like them. Look at those the U.S. has made enemy: Hitler and National Socialism; Mussolini and Fascism; Stalin and State Authoritarianism; Franco and Military Repression; and the list continues substantially, and then look at the U.S. in a distortion free mirror and what does one see?

Maracatu , Jul 17 2019 22:00 utc | 63
Taking into consideration the novel Rand Paul intervention, the likely way forward is this, and I'm sure it is what Putin (the master negotiator) has in mind: Trump blundered badly by throwing out the JCPOA, but he needs a way out that allows him to save face and even turn it into a partial "win". On the world stage (ie. for the public) it needs to look like Trump accedes to reinstate the JCPOA IN EXCHANGE for Iran withdrawing from Syria! This will not only save the nuclear deal, thereby reducing tensions, but it will force Israel to back down and shut up. Israel can't complain and Trump can sell it as an achievement of his, "without having to go to war". The US, of course will have to give Iran, Syria and Russia something in exchange: Iran and Russia ultimately bolstered their forces in Syria in order to save Assad. All things considered, Assad has won the war, so the reason for the bolstered Iranian and Russian presence no longer applies. What the US must agree to is to suspend its efforts to overthrow Assad (which Trump has been trying to do via the withdrawal of US troops in northern Syria), thereby returning the country to the status quo ante. The wild card in all of this, however, is Turkey's presence in Syria. Perhaps China can lend a helping hand on that issue?
Yeah, Right , Jul 17 2019 22:14 utc | 64
@35 "when it didn't. they resort back to the usual MO, look busy."

I agree with that comment, though I will add that for this Administration "looking busy" has a Keystone Cops look about it.

I mean, let's be real here: Norman Schwarzkopf did not make a single move against Iraq until he had well over 500,000 GI's at his command, and Tommy Franks was not willing to restart the Crash Boom Bang until he had built up his army to just shy of 500,000 soldiers.

And Iraq then was nowhere near as formidable as Iran is now.

Where are the troop buildups? Where is the CENTCOM army?
Nowhere. And no sign of it happening.

There is a real possibility that Bolton might get his way and start his dinky little war, only to find that the USA loses a great big war before he even manages to get out of bed.

CENTCOM is not ready for war, nowhere close to it, and for that reason alone Iran is correct to tell the USA that if Trump launches a "limited strike" then their response will be "it's on, baby".

Beibdnn. , Jul 17 2019 22:51 utc | 67
@ William Herschel 61. If the U.S. or anyone else uses any type of Nuclear weapons against Iran, a declared ally of Russia, it will result in an immediate and full scale Nuclear retaliation. This is a recent statement made by Vladimir Putin. Pompeo, Bolton et all are well aware of this. The U.S. might talk of using tactical nukes but despite their Hubris, even the most pro war in the Pentagon know what the results of that type of planned anihilation will have on the U.S. mainland. People like Lindsey Graham are merely empty vessels making a lot of noise.
karlof1 , Jul 17 2019 23:14 utc | 69
Why would Iran allow any Western nation to save face through negotiations or otherwise? Khamenei yesterday tweeted several statements that were later posted to his website:

"At this meeting, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran stressed that Western governments' arrogant behavior is the main obstacle in establishing ties and maintained: Western governments' major vice is their arrogance. If they face a weak government, their arrogance will be effective. But if that country knows the truth about them and resists, the Western governments will be defeated.

"Referring to problems rising between Iran and the European partners of the JCPOA, Ayatollah Khamenei said: Now, in the matters between us and the Europeans, the problems persist, because of their arrogance.

"The Leader of the Islamic Revolution highlighted Iran's commitment to the JCPOA -- also known as the Iran Deal -- and criticized European dignitaries of the deal for breaching it, saying: As stated by our Foreign Minister, who works hard, Europe has had eleven commitments, none of which it has met. The Foreign Minister, despite his diplomatic considerations, is clearly stating that. But what did we do? We acted based on our commitments, and even beyond that.

"Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that Iran continued to stay within the JCPOA despite the fact that the EU partners of the JCPOA as well as the British government violated the international plan of action and yet demanded Iran to stay with its promises: Now that we have started to reduce our commitments, they step forward. They are very insolent, and they have not abided by their eleven commitments. We have just started to reduce some of our commitments, and this process will surely continue."

The hypothetical suggestion Zarif made in his interview with NBC News was just that--hypothetical--as it had to spell out again for the apparently illiterate, deaf or both SoS Pompeo and BigLie Media presstitutes.

In his arrogance, Trump climbed up the tree he's now stuck within; and as I've pointed out again and again, Iran isn't going to help him in his climb down--they'll be no face saving for the arrogant Western nations. I mean, how clear can the Iranians make that?! They quite well understand the very real interests at stake I put forth in my comment @32. And the Turks on their own have upped the stakes with Erdogan assuring :

"that his country is prepared to leave NATO during a meeting with Russian Deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

"'I met twice with Turkish President Recep Erdogan and he told me personally that Turkey was willing to withdraw from NATO,' Zhirinovsky wrote."

Trump seems desperate for a way to climb down from his tree. Controversial Kentucky Senator Rand Paul apparently volunteered his services as an emissary to Iran , which Trump okayed but Paul's office is being mum about. As noted, Iran isn't going to talk unless tangible, visible concessions are made prior to any talks occurring--concessions Zarif and Rouhani have already stated as the minimum required: Ending all illegal sanctions and return to JCPOA.

Uncle Jon , Jul 17 2019 23:38 utc | 72
@karlof1 69

Iran just announced that they would be open to talk about ballistic missiles when US stops selling arms in the Middle East.

You have to hand it to the Iranians. In the one-up-manship game, they are a formidable opponent. Obviously, there is less than zero chance that would ever happen, but they are super smart in driving the message of US arrogance home. I am happy to see they don't take any shit from the Empire.

Master negotiators at work.

[Jul 17, 2019] Oil Is Driving the Iran Crisis by Michael T. Klare

Highly recommended!
Washington's aggression is part of a decades-long quest to control the spigot in the Persian Gulf.
Notable quotes:
"... As it happens, the world economy -- of which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would their country's nuclear supremacy. ..."
"... True, Washington fought wars in the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he told a nationwide TV audience. ..."
"... All told, 33.6 percent of world energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables. ..."
"... Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105 million barrels in 2040. ..."
"... More dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040, its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products. ..."
"... To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president in 1981, made the RDJTF into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East). ..."
"... When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging" mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later recall in his memoir Fighting for Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the Persian Gulf. ..."
"... Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a report on the geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much more explicit than that. ..."
"... As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | thenation.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com .

It's always the oil. While President Trump was hobnobbing with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Japan, brushing off a recent UN report about the prince's role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia and the Middle East, pleading with foreign leaders to support "Sentinel." The aim of that administration plan: to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

Both Trump and Pompeo insisted that their efforts were driven by concern over Iranian misbehavior in the region and the need to ensure the safety of maritime commerce. Neither, however, mentioned one inconvenient three-letter word -- O-I-L -- that lay behind their Iranian maneuvering (as it has impelled every other American incursion in the Middle East since World War II).

Now, it's true that the United States no longer relies on imported petroleum for a large share of its energy needs. Thanks to the fracking revolution , the country now gets the bulk of its oil -- approximately 75 percent -- from domestic sources. (In 2008, that share had been closer to 35 percent.) Key allies in NATO and rivals like China, however, continue to depend on Middle Eastern oil for a significant proportion of their energy needs.

As it happens, the world economy -- of which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would their country's nuclear supremacy.

This logic was spelled out clearly by President Barack Obama in a September 2013 address to the UN General Assembly in which he declared that "the United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests" in the Middle East. He then pointed out that, while the United States was steadily reducing its reliance on imported oil, "the world still depends on the region's energy supply and a severe disruption could destabilize the entire global economy."

Accordingly, he concluded, "We will ensure the free flow of energy from the region to the world." To some Americans, that dictum -- and its continued embrace by President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo -- may seem anachronistic. True, Washington fought wars in the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he told a nationwide TV audience.

But talk of oil soon disappeared from his comments about what became Washington's first (but hardly last) Gulf War after his statement provoked widespread public outrage . ("No Blood for Oil" became a widely used protest sign then.) His son, the second President Bush, never even mentioned that three-letter word when announcing his 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet, as Obama's UN speech made clear, oil remained, and still remains, at the center of US foreign policy. A quick review of global energy trends helps explain why this has continued to be so.

THE WORLD'S UNDIMINISHED RELIANCE ON PETROLEUM

Despite all that's been said about climate change and oil's role in causing it -- and about the enormous progress being made in bringing solar and wind power online -- we remain trapped in a remarkably oil-dependent world. To grasp this reality, all you have to do is read the most recent edition of oil giant BP's "Statistical Review of World Energy," published this June. In 2018, according to that report, oil still accounted for by far the largest share of world energy consumption, as it has every year for decades. All told, 33.6 percent of world energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables.

Most energy analysts believe that the global reliance on petroleum as a share of world energy use will decline in the coming decades, as more governments impose restrictions on carbon emissions and as consumers, especially in the developed world, switch from oil-powered to electric vehicles. But such declines are unlikely to prevail in every region of the globe and total oil consumption may not even decline. According to projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its " New Policies Scenario " (which assumes significant but not drastic government efforts to curb carbon emissions globally), Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are likely to experience a substantially increased demand for petroleum in the years to come, which, grimly enough, means global oil consumption will continue to rise.

Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105 million barrels in 2040.

Of course, no one, including the IEA's experts, can be sure how future extreme manifestations of global warming like the severe heat waves recently tormenting Europe and South Asia could change such projections. It's possible that growing public outrage could lead to far tougher restrictions on carbon emissions between now and 2040. Unexpected developments in the field of alternative energy production could also play a role in changing those projections. In other words, oil's continuing dominance could still be curbed in ways that are now unpredictable.

In the meantime, from a geopolitical perspective, a profound shift is taking place in the worldwide demand for petroleum. In 2000, according to the IEA, older industrialized nations -- most of them members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) -- accounted for about two-thirds of global oil consumption; only about a third went to countries in the developing world. By 2040, the IEA's experts believe that ratio will be reversed, with the OECD consuming about one-third of the world's oil and non-OECD nations the rest.

More dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040, its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products.

Where will Asia get its oil? Among energy experts, there is little doubt on this matter. Lacking significant reserves of their own, the major Asian consumers will turn to the one place with sufficient capacity to satisfy their rising needs: the Persian Gulf. According to BP, in 2018, Japan already obtained 87 percent of its oil imports from the Middle East, India 64 percent, and China 44 percent. Most analysts assume these percentages will only grow in the years to come, as production in other areas declines.

This will, in turn, lend even greater strategic importance to the Persian Gulf region, which now possesses more than 60 percent of the world's untapped petroleum reserves, and to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway through which approximately one-third of the world's seaborne oil passes daily. Bordered by Iran, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait is perhaps the most significant -- and contested -- geostrategic location on the planet today.

CONTROLLING THE SPIGOT

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the same year that militant Shiite fundamentalists overthrew the US-backed Shah of Iran, US policy-makers concluded that America's access to Gulf oil supplies was at risk and a US military presence was needed to guarantee such access. As President Jimmy Carter would say in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980,

The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow. Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president in 1981, made the RDJTF into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East).

Reagan was the first president to activate the Carter Doctrine in 1987 when he ordered Navy warships to escort Kuwaiti tankers, " reflagged " with the stars and stripes, as they traveled through the Strait of Hormuz. From time to time, such vessels had been coming under fire from Iranian gunboats, part of an ongoing " Tanker War ," itself part of the Iran-Iraq War of those years. The Iranian attacks on those tankers were meant to punish Sunni Arab countries for backing Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein in that conflict. The American response, dubbed Operation Earnest Will , offered an early model of what Secretary of State Pompeo is seeking to establish today with his Sentinel program.

Operation Earnest Will was followed two years later by a massive implementation of the Carter Doctrine, President Bush's 1990 decision to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Although he spoke of the need to protect US access to Persian Gulf oil fields, it was evident that ensuring a safe flow of oil imports wasn't the only motive for such military involvement. Equally important then (and far more so now): the geopolitical advantage controlling the world's major oil spigot gave Washington.

When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging" mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later recall in his memoir Fighting for Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the Persian Gulf.

Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a report on the geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much more explicit than that.

Of course, along with this "special responsibility" comes a geopolitical advantage: By providing this service, the United States cements its status as the world's sole superpower and places every other oil-importing nation -- and the world at large -- in a condition of dependence on its continued performance of this vital function.

Originally, the key dependents in this strategic equation were Europe and Japan, which, in return for assured access to Middle Eastern oil, were expected to subordinate themselves to Washington. Remember, for example, how they helped pay for Bush the elder's Iraq War (dubbed Operation Desert Storm). Today, however, many of those countries, deeply concerned with the effects of climate change, are seeking to lessen oil's role in their national fuel mixes. As a result, in 2019, the countries potentially most at the mercy of Washington when it comes to access to Gulf oil are economically fast-expanding China and India, whose oil needs are only likely to grow. That, in turn, will further enhance the geopolitical advantage Washington enjoyed as long as it remains the principal guardian of the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. How it may seek to exploit this advantage remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that all parties involved, including the Chinese, are well aware of this asymmetric equation, which could give the phrase "trade war" a far deeper and more ominous meaning.

THE IRANIAN CHALLENGE AND THE SPECTER OF WAR

From Washington's perspective, the principal challenger to America's privileged status in the Gulf is Iran. By reason of geography, that country possesses a potentially commanding position along the northern Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, as the Reagan administration learned in 1987–88 when it threatened American oil dominance there. About this reality President Reagan couldn't have been clearer. "Mark this point well: The use of the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf will not be dictated by the Iranians," he declared in 1987 -- and Washington's approach to the situation has never changed.

In more recent times, in response to US and Israeli threats to bomb their nuclear facilities or, as the Trump administration has done, impose economic sanctions on their country, the Iranians have threatened on numerous occasions to block the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic, squeeze global energy supplies, and precipitate an international crisis. In 2011, for example, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi warned that should the West impose sanctions on Iranian oil, "not even one drop of oil can flow through the Strait of Hormuz." In response, US officials have vowed ever since to let no such thing happen, just as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did in response to Rahimi at that time. "We have made very clear," he said , "that the United States will not tolerate blocking of the Strait of Hormuz." That, he added, was a "red line for us."

It remains so today. Hence, the present ongoing crisis in the Gulf, with fierce US sanctions on Iranian oil sales and threatening Iranian gestures toward the regional oil flow in response. "We will make the enemy understand that either everyone can use the Strait of Hormuz or no one," said Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, in July 2018. And attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz on June 13 could conceivably have been an expression of just that policy, if -- as claimed by the United States -- they were indeed carried out by members of the Revolutionary Guards. Any future attacks are only likely to spur US military action against Iran in accordance with the Carter Doctrine. As Pentagon spokesperson Bill Urban put it in response to Jafari's statement, "We stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows."

As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost.

If the United States goes to war with Iran, you are unlikely to hear the word "oil" uttered by top Trump administration officials, but make no mistake: That three-letter word lies at the root of the present crisis, not to speak of the world's long-term fate.

Michael T. Klare The Nation 's defense correspondent, is professor emeritus of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire College and senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington, DC. His newest book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change , will be published this fall.

[Jul 17, 2019] MAGA. Bow before Netanyahu and present America to the zionists on a silver tray. You MAGA red necks are becoming a joke.

Jul 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

DESERT FOX , says: July 17, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT

Trump is a zionist puppet and pretends to be doing something about illegal immigration but he has all the authority under the Constitution to close the border and stop the illegal immigration and since the zionists want open borders , Trump is not doing jackshit about stopping illegal immigration!

The zionists in control of the zio/US want open borders so that they can merge the zio/US with Mexico and zio/Canada into the North American Union similar to the European Union with a new currency the Amero similar to the Euro, and so the borders are going to remain a sieve !

Trump and Helliary and all the politicians , be they demonrats or republicons are all under zionist AIPAC control and the borders will remain a pathway to the destruction of America!

Patrikios Stetsonis , says: July 17, 2019 at 12:42 pm GMT
@follyofwar In case you did not hear it, Philip Giraldi is informing us:

25 Senators in Secret Meeting With Jewish Leaders to Plot Strategy Against Growing Anger Over Influence of Jewish Elites

"On June 5, 16 heads of Jewish organizations joined 25 Democratic senators in a private meeting, which, according to the Times of Israel, is an annual event.

As with last year, the meeting was chaired by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and included Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ed Markey (D-MA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bob Casey (PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-CT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Tom Udall (D-NM), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)".

https://russia-insider.com/en/25-senators-secret-meeting-jewish-leaders-plot-strategy-against-growing-anger-over-influence-jewish#.XSyfD369trM.email

Hossein , says: July 17, 2019 at 1:40 pm GMT
MAGA. Bow before Netanyahu and present America to the zionists on a silver tray. You MAGA red necks are becoming a joke.

[Jul 17, 2019] Merkel Ally Narrowly Elected To Top EU Post, Averting Major Institutional Crisis

Looks like EU sanctions will continue
Jul 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In light of historical events, it would be ironic if that particular twist comes back to bite Poland some day in the not too distant future.


TeethVillage88s , 10 hours ago link

Money, Money, Money,... Old Money, Factories, Russian Mercheant, German Industrialist, American Slave owner... Nord Deutscheland, Bremen, was heavily Communist... Family would understand the power of Communist Equality and Serfdom.

Von der Leyen's great-grandfather was the cotton merchant Carl Albrecht (1875–1952), who married Mary Ladson Robertson (1883–1960), an American who belonged to the Ladson family , a family of the southern aristocracy from Charleston, South Carolina . Her American ancestors had played a significant role in the British colonization of the Americas and the Atlantic slave trade .

admin user , 11 hours ago link

Merkel Ally Narrowly Elected To Top EU Post, Prolonging "Major Institutional Myopia"

FTFY

schroedingersrat , 12 hours ago link

Von der Leyen is a tool for the anglo-zio complex. Well done USA for installing your woman as head of the EU.

Aurelian77 , 13 hours ago link

She has SEVEN children. Very unusual for a European leader...

Davidduke2000 , 13 hours ago link

An old Soviet General said the EU is like the old Soviets , the leaders were not elected, they were appointed by others mostly their friends and the EU process is the same, fat cats appoint other fat cats instead of direct elections.

[Jul 17, 2019] Oil Is Driving the Iran Crisis by Michael T. Klare

Highly recommended!
Washington's aggression is part of a decades-long quest to control the spigot in the Persian Gulf.
Notable quotes:
"... As it happens, the world economy -- of which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would their country's nuclear supremacy. ..."
"... True, Washington fought wars in the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he told a nationwide TV audience. ..."
"... All told, 33.6 percent of world energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables. ..."
"... Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105 million barrels in 2040. ..."
"... More dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040, its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products. ..."
"... To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president in 1981, made the RDJTF into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East). ..."
"... When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging" mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later recall in his memoir Fighting for Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the Persian Gulf. ..."
"... Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a report on the geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much more explicit than that. ..."
"... As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | thenation.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com .

It's always the oil. While President Trump was hobnobbing with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Japan, brushing off a recent UN report about the prince's role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia and the Middle East, pleading with foreign leaders to support "Sentinel." The aim of that administration plan: to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

Both Trump and Pompeo insisted that their efforts were driven by concern over Iranian misbehavior in the region and the need to ensure the safety of maritime commerce. Neither, however, mentioned one inconvenient three-letter word -- O-I-L -- that lay behind their Iranian maneuvering (as it has impelled every other American incursion in the Middle East since World War II).

Now, it's true that the United States no longer relies on imported petroleum for a large share of its energy needs. Thanks to the fracking revolution , the country now gets the bulk of its oil -- approximately 75 percent -- from domestic sources. (In 2008, that share had been closer to 35 percent.) Key allies in NATO and rivals like China, however, continue to depend on Middle Eastern oil for a significant proportion of their energy needs.

As it happens, the world economy -- of which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would their country's nuclear supremacy.

This logic was spelled out clearly by President Barack Obama in a September 2013 address to the UN General Assembly in which he declared that "the United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests" in the Middle East. He then pointed out that, while the United States was steadily reducing its reliance on imported oil, "the world still depends on the region's energy supply and a severe disruption could destabilize the entire global economy."

Accordingly, he concluded, "We will ensure the free flow of energy from the region to the world." To some Americans, that dictum -- and its continued embrace by President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo -- may seem anachronistic. True, Washington fought wars in the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he told a nationwide TV audience.

But talk of oil soon disappeared from his comments about what became Washington's first (but hardly last) Gulf War after his statement provoked widespread public outrage . ("No Blood for Oil" became a widely used protest sign then.) His son, the second President Bush, never even mentioned that three-letter word when announcing his 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet, as Obama's UN speech made clear, oil remained, and still remains, at the center of US foreign policy. A quick review of global energy trends helps explain why this has continued to be so.

THE WORLD'S UNDIMINISHED RELIANCE ON PETROLEUM

Despite all that's been said about climate change and oil's role in causing it -- and about the enormous progress being made in bringing solar and wind power online -- we remain trapped in a remarkably oil-dependent world. To grasp this reality, all you have to do is read the most recent edition of oil giant BP's "Statistical Review of World Energy," published this June. In 2018, according to that report, oil still accounted for by far the largest share of world energy consumption, as it has every year for decades. All told, 33.6 percent of world energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables.

Most energy analysts believe that the global reliance on petroleum as a share of world energy use will decline in the coming decades, as more governments impose restrictions on carbon emissions and as consumers, especially in the developed world, switch from oil-powered to electric vehicles. But such declines are unlikely to prevail in every region of the globe and total oil consumption may not even decline. According to projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its " New Policies Scenario " (which assumes significant but not drastic government efforts to curb carbon emissions globally), Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are likely to experience a substantially increased demand for petroleum in the years to come, which, grimly enough, means global oil consumption will continue to rise.

Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105 million barrels in 2040.

Of course, no one, including the IEA's experts, can be sure how future extreme manifestations of global warming like the severe heat waves recently tormenting Europe and South Asia could change such projections. It's possible that growing public outrage could lead to far tougher restrictions on carbon emissions between now and 2040. Unexpected developments in the field of alternative energy production could also play a role in changing those projections. In other words, oil's continuing dominance could still be curbed in ways that are now unpredictable.

In the meantime, from a geopolitical perspective, a profound shift is taking place in the worldwide demand for petroleum. In 2000, according to the IEA, older industrialized nations -- most of them members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) -- accounted for about two-thirds of global oil consumption; only about a third went to countries in the developing world. By 2040, the IEA's experts believe that ratio will be reversed, with the OECD consuming about one-third of the world's oil and non-OECD nations the rest.

More dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040, its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products.

Where will Asia get its oil? Among energy experts, there is little doubt on this matter. Lacking significant reserves of their own, the major Asian consumers will turn to the one place with sufficient capacity to satisfy their rising needs: the Persian Gulf. According to BP, in 2018, Japan already obtained 87 percent of its oil imports from the Middle East, India 64 percent, and China 44 percent. Most analysts assume these percentages will only grow in the years to come, as production in other areas declines.

This will, in turn, lend even greater strategic importance to the Persian Gulf region, which now possesses more than 60 percent of the world's untapped petroleum reserves, and to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway through which approximately one-third of the world's seaborne oil passes daily. Bordered by Iran, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait is perhaps the most significant -- and contested -- geostrategic location on the planet today.

CONTROLLING THE SPIGOT

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the same year that militant Shiite fundamentalists overthrew the US-backed Shah of Iran, US policy-makers concluded that America's access to Gulf oil supplies was at risk and a US military presence was needed to guarantee such access. As President Jimmy Carter would say in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980,

The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow. Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president in 1981, made the RDJTF into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East).

Reagan was the first president to activate the Carter Doctrine in 1987 when he ordered Navy warships to escort Kuwaiti tankers, " reflagged " with the stars and stripes, as they traveled through the Strait of Hormuz. From time to time, such vessels had been coming under fire from Iranian gunboats, part of an ongoing " Tanker War ," itself part of the Iran-Iraq War of those years. The Iranian attacks on those tankers were meant to punish Sunni Arab countries for backing Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein in that conflict. The American response, dubbed Operation Earnest Will , offered an early model of what Secretary of State Pompeo is seeking to establish today with his Sentinel program.

Operation Earnest Will was followed two years later by a massive implementation of the Carter Doctrine, President Bush's 1990 decision to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Although he spoke of the need to protect US access to Persian Gulf oil fields, it was evident that ensuring a safe flow of oil imports wasn't the only motive for such military involvement. Equally important then (and far more so now): the geopolitical advantage controlling the world's major oil spigot gave Washington.

When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging" mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later recall in his memoir Fighting for Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the Persian Gulf.

Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a report on the geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much more explicit than that.

Of course, along with this "special responsibility" comes a geopolitical advantage: By providing this service, the United States cements its status as the world's sole superpower and places every other oil-importing nation -- and the world at large -- in a condition of dependence on its continued performance of this vital function.

Originally, the key dependents in this strategic equation were Europe and Japan, which, in return for assured access to Middle Eastern oil, were expected to subordinate themselves to Washington. Remember, for example, how they helped pay for Bush the elder's Iraq War (dubbed Operation Desert Storm). Today, however, many of those countries, deeply concerned with the effects of climate change, are seeking to lessen oil's role in their national fuel mixes. As a result, in 2019, the countries potentially most at the mercy of Washington when it comes to access to Gulf oil are economically fast-expanding China and India, whose oil needs are only likely to grow. That, in turn, will further enhance the geopolitical advantage Washington enjoyed as long as it remains the principal guardian of the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. How it may seek to exploit this advantage remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that all parties involved, including the Chinese, are well aware of this asymmetric equation, which could give the phrase "trade war" a far deeper and more ominous meaning.

THE IRANIAN CHALLENGE AND THE SPECTER OF WAR

From Washington's perspective, the principal challenger to America's privileged status in the Gulf is Iran. By reason of geography, that country possesses a potentially commanding position along the northern Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, as the Reagan administration learned in 1987–88 when it threatened American oil dominance there. About this reality President Reagan couldn't have been clearer. "Mark this point well: The use of the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf will not be dictated by the Iranians," he declared in 1987 -- and Washington's approach to the situation has never changed.

In more recent times, in response to US and Israeli threats to bomb their nuclear facilities or, as the Trump administration has done, impose economic sanctions on their country, the Iranians have threatened on numerous occasions to block the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic, squeeze global energy supplies, and precipitate an international crisis. In 2011, for example, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi warned that should the West impose sanctions on Iranian oil, "not even one drop of oil can flow through the Strait of Hormuz." In response, US officials have vowed ever since to let no such thing happen, just as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did in response to Rahimi at that time. "We have made very clear," he said , "that the United States will not tolerate blocking of the Strait of Hormuz." That, he added, was a "red line for us."

It remains so today. Hence, the present ongoing crisis in the Gulf, with fierce US sanctions on Iranian oil sales and threatening Iranian gestures toward the regional oil flow in response. "We will make the enemy understand that either everyone can use the Strait of Hormuz or no one," said Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, in July 2018. And attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz on June 13 could conceivably have been an expression of just that policy, if -- as claimed by the United States -- they were indeed carried out by members of the Revolutionary Guards. Any future attacks are only likely to spur US military action against Iran in accordance with the Carter Doctrine. As Pentagon spokesperson Bill Urban put it in response to Jafari's statement, "We stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows."

As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost.

If the United States goes to war with Iran, you are unlikely to hear the word "oil" uttered by top Trump administration officials, but make no mistake: That three-letter word lies at the root of the present crisis, not to speak of the world's long-term fate.

Michael T. Klare The Nation 's defense correspondent, is professor emeritus of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire College and senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington, DC. His newest book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change , will be published this fall.

[Jul 15, 2019] When the CIA organised the shooting down of the Russian bomber by a Turkish planes over Syria, this had nothing to do with Erdogan and everything to do with CIA assets in the Turkish Airforce.

Notable quotes:
"... What is true is that Turkey is a developing country with a low education level and as a result very gullible. The Erdogan-like ugly politicians use and abuse it. So yes, it might look like the people are vindictive and ready to go to war with anyone. But that's only in the 90% Erdogan owned media. ..."
"... Don't forget that 1/3 of the country is 100% behind Atatürk which moto was "yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh" (Peace in the country, peace in the world) so at least 30% of the Turks are totally against war. ..."
Jul 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kiza , Jul 14 2019 14:24 utc | 9

One needs to know a bit of the history of Turkey to understand what is going on now. In the briefest, Turkey is a rare medium power which was allowed to exist without being cut down by the big powers of Europe and now including US. There are several reasons why it was allowed this disliked status, the main one is its amazing geostrategic position of a bridge and a cross-road. The second one is its military proves second to none.

I would never say that Russia won a Turkey, it is not Russia's own achievement at all. But Russia and China are offering an alternative path to Turkey away from the West. The Europeans did not accept Turkey into EU and the US hubris thought that it could manipulate Turkey just as even bigger former European powers. The US simply does not understand Turkey at all, because history is generally an unimportant word in US and because US does not care to understand. Turkey is a corrupt country, but the corruption there does not work the same way as in Europe, mostly because of a tradition of strong nationalistic and imperialistic leaders that Turkey tends to have. This is why the US model of manipulation did not work there.

Russia needs Turkey and Turkey needs Russia right now. But the Turks are never to be trusted and the Russians should know this very well. The relationship between the two countries will always be a tug of war, and the Turks are good at any war. The moment the Turks do not need Russia any more, they will start expanding to the North and to the West (back to the Balkans). For Turks, what they conquered once, must be returned. It is not only Erdogan who is the wannabe neo-Ottoman sultan, all Turks are, all.

When the CIA organised the shooting down of the Russian bomber by a Turkish planes over Syria, this had nothing to do with Erdogan and everything to do with CIA assets in the Turkish Airforce. Yet, Putin blabbered at that time one of the stupidest statements ever - that "Erdogan/Turks knifed him in the back". Even if the Russians did not know that US controlled a good number of the Turkish Airforce generals, ONE NEVER OFFERS HIS BACK TO THE TURKS. Anyone who forgets this maxim whilst listening to the Turkish declarations of friendship, fully deserves the reward of the knife in the back. As a nation, the Turks are extremely militaristic and untrustworthy. This is how they managed to survive as a medium shark among the big sharks.


SysATI , Jul 14 2019 15:42 utc | 18

@kiza

"For Turks, what they conquered once, must be returned. It is not only Erdogan who is the wannabe neo-Ottoman sultan, all Turks are, all."

That is total bullshit...

What is true is that Turkey is a developing country with a low education level and as a result very gullible. The Erdogan-like ugly politicians use and abuse it. So yes, it might look like the people are vindictive and ready to go to war with anyone. But that's only in the 90% Erdogan owned media.

Don't forget that 1/3 of the country is 100% behind Atatürk which moto was "yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh" (Peace in the country, peace in the world) so at least 30% of the Turks are totally against war. Given proper explanations and looking at a few body bags, my guess is that at least another 30% would be very reluctant to send their kids to die.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_at_Home,_Peace_in_the_World )

So maybe 1/3 of the dumbest Turks, the hard core Erdogan voters, could be as you describe... That's very far from your "all the Turks" and their number is going down every day...

Look at the last election results... The 3 largest cities and 80% of the economic tissue of Turkey slipped out of the hands of Erdogan. And as the economy continues to crumble, more and more of his followers will flee the ship...

Are all the "Kiza" close minded as miss-informed as you are ? :)

Kiza , Jul 15 2019 0:50 utc | 48

@SysATI 18

Reading what you typed I had an impression that I was reading about US. Not everybody in US is for conquest and subjugation. Also, my "all Turks" really means the dominant majority of Turks and those who run the show. Should I change my view because of a cluster of secular Turks who blame Erdo and his provincial rednecks for everything?

However, one needs to look only at the Cyprus situation and Turkish drilling for oil in Cyprus to understand that it was you who typed total bullshit . But I would not expect anything different from a Turk (although I have met a few wonderful Turks, just as a few wonderful US people).

The bottom line is that as a nation Turkey is militaristic, hyper-nationalistic and aggressively expansionist , in short a neighbor that you would never wish. In this big picture, you few seculars mean absolutely nothing. As long as Turkey is under the current economic and financial pressure by US and Europe, it will behave. But as soon as it returns to economic prosperity, it will be back to its usual behavior. The Russians helping return economic prosperity to Turkey via oil, gas, trade are digging their own graves, but when did oligarchs care ?

Turkey is not the only such nation in this World. But it is because of such alpha-nations, the bullies, the takers, the imperialists (US, UK, France, Turkey, Germany, Japan ...) that the whole of humanity needs to keep spending resources on military defense instead of on betterment.

Kiza , Jul 15 2019 1:15 utc | 50

@DontBelieveEitherPr 20
Yours is a wonderful summary of the Turkish situation: "The ultra nationalistic sentiment in the whole country, through (sic) virtually all classes and affiliations , makes sure of that."

[Jul 11, 2019] Epstein, Trump and CIA

Jul 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Alexander P , Jul 10 2019 19:46 utc | 20

We do not know why Epstein resurfaced, there was no need to re-open the case unless 'they' wanted it to be reopened. Thus, there is definitely a deeper political purpose behind this. As I know the higher ups in both Democrat and Republican Party are in one way or another involved in this (both Clinton and Trump visited his island and I am sure many more prominent high ranking US career politicians), this could indeed be equally dangerous for either political party.

However, I don't think Trump needs convincing with regard to Iran he has been all in on that from day 1 of his presidency and never hesitated a moment to tear up the JCPOA. Bibi was right when he said there was never a US president as friendly towards Israel than Donald Trump. His actions have spoken louder than words. So for this case, we will just have to wait and see what pieces of information they allow the MSM to publish and we will know who they are after or what bigger political goal is at play.


jared , Jul 10 2019 20:03 utc | 27

Something does not smell right about this.
It's not like Epstein was some obscure issue or that Trump was uninformed about the case.
Who would allow a person with such baggage on the team?
And the issue was raised so no possibility it was over-looked.
Congress (including the now concerned repubs) had their shot at him, where was the indignation?
Looks like people were told to disregard the issue, until now.
Now like good soldiers they are all barking alert.
Looks like this guy was a plant, an insurance policy maybe.
Now that policy has been triggered - has Trump failed in playing his role?

Pft , Jul 10 2019 21:22 utc | 51

Trumps ex-pal Epstein linked to intelligence. Makes sense given he has Robert Maxwell's daughter doing the procuring. His was likely a black mail operation run by the intelligence agency

Trumps other ex-pal (partner) was also linked to intelligence. Bayrocks Felix Sater. I imagine some of their business practices could have landed Trump in jail unless like Felix he cooperated

Could Trump himself be a an intelligent asset? Perhaps under duress through his activities with Jeffrey and Felix.

If so, indeed the question is if its Israels or the US agency, or is there any difference now.

I don't pretend to know the answers.

Whats the end game?. Comeys daughter is one of the NY prosecutors.Dershowitz is an Israeli puppet and was behind getting the sealed files opened. Is Clinton and the Dems the target or is it meant to pressure Trump to go hard on Iran or risk something coming out? Something else?

I cant help but wonder why nobody choses to remind us about the case filed against Trump in 2016, where a woman claimed rape at age 13 at Epstein's apartment. Is wasn't covered much at the time either. Apparently silently withdrawn. Curious no? Not even the so called Deep State Media that everyone believes was against Trump. Theydon't seem to want to touch it now either. Maybe its just BS.

Of course, maybe just more distraction as they continue fleecing the bottom 90%

Mr. Lucky , Jul 10 2019 21:28 utc | 53

Epstein was/is Mossad. He ran honey traps for Israel.

This is one of the primary ways the Tribe controls US politicians.

This is how Deep State controls Trump, and why Trump betrayed every campaign promise, except the one to Israel.

Acosta was told to give Epstein a sweetheart deal and to stop the Federal investigation.

For his compliance, he was awarded the job of Labor Secretary in the Trump administration.

fastfreddy , Jul 10 2019 21:30 utc | 54

Billionaire, $6 B, Les Wexner, L Brands, Victoria's Secret.

from Wiki

Wexner had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner's financial assets. Wexner and Epstein parted when Epstein went to prison.[25] Wexner was believed to be the primary source of Epstein's wealth. [26]

fastfreddy , Jul 10 2019 21:45 utc | 62

I am trying to link Wexner with the Bronfman's (Seagrams Liquor Family) via a source other than the Mega Group (which may not be credible, IDK).Clare Bronfman and NEXIVM.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/

seagram-heiress-clare-bronfman-pleads-guilty-in-nxivm-sex-slave-case-825103/

https://www.wexnerfoundation.org/about-us/our-offices--staff


Looks like Epstein was running a high powered honey trap to ensnare Politicians, Lawyers, Government employees for the express purpose of promoting the "Greater Israel Project".

KC , Jul 10 2019 21:51 utc | 63

@fastfreddy - While I hesitate to engage in the ubiquitous Israel is at the root of all debacles conjecture, I think you might be onto something there. Sure would be interesting (now or when whatever shakes out of this) to compare the record on votes of importance to Israeli interests of any politician who gets implicated or indicted with who doesn't.

Alaric , Jul 10 2019 21:52 utc | 64

Protecting Epstein and his clients is secondary. The main goal is to protect his billionaire, Jewish, sponsors and whatever state sponsored him. The pleabs cannot know that their gov is corrupt but the bigger secret that must be kept is who is pulling the strings and how they are doing it.

Andrew Kreig , Jul 10 2019 22:02 utc | 68

Am enjoying the insights here and can share a few responses after years of reporting on Epstein, Clinton, Obama, Trump and Barr.

In response to lysias at #34 on Barr's intelligence and corruption cover-up background, here's a full history with links: "Trump Found His Roy Cohn In Deep State Fixer Bill Barr," May 27, 2019. https://www.justice-integrity.org/1659-trump-found-his-roy-cohn-in-deep-state-fixer-bill-barr

Regarding questions on Acosta by Jared at #27, here's a 2017 article showing that the facts were out about Acosta when the Senate confirmed him: "Did Trump Labor Pick Protect Trump, Rich Rapists, Tax Cheats, Crooked Bankers? Do We Find Out Wednesday?" March 14, 2017. http://ow.ly/hk8b309Uerm

Regarding MSM reluctance to mention rape of 12 and 13 year olds by Trump, as several commentators noted, here's a January 2017 wrap up of those matters with leading to other links: "Welcome To Waterbury: The city that holds secrets that could bring down Trump," Jan. 9, 2018. http://www.justice-integrity.org/1445-welcome-to-waterbury-the-city-that-holds-secrets-that-could-bring-down-trump. My colleague Wayne Madsen and I filed a FOIA action today at the U.S. Justice Department seeking further records.

Our view is that this is an intelligence / foreign policy operation and it's likely that Epstein's time has run out, an occupational hazard in that field. Further, Madsen and I have written separate books years ago documenting that all U.S. presidents after Carter -- but not yet Trump as proven -- have been covert assets of the CIA or FBI before -- stress that -- they entered politics. That's the way it is, and helps explain a lot of the complaints in comments above. Trump is in his own category of a corrupt stooge -- that's not necessarily better.

Can recommend excellent 2008 book "Flat Earth News" by longtime UK journalist Nick Davies that describes the deeply flawed nature of MSM from his perspective as a Guardian and other UK journalist, who aptly describes why lies and quarter-truths get printed. That's a longer story but the gist is what many here are suggesting.

last day of grace , Jul 10 2019 23:04 utc | 79

After years of study and many many books I believe the Mossad and CIA are one and the same. The Mossad is very useful when leaving sovereign footprints is verboten--and vice versa.

Jen , Jul 10 2019 23:06 utc | 80

"...'Belongs to intelligence' makes a lot of sense. The question is to which one. A lot of people will says "Mossad" but I don't believe that to be the (full) truth ..."

At the level that Jeffrey Epstein is operating, he is loyal primarily to himself but happily takes his reward from whichever intel agency at any time offers him the most or whose interests might prove the most lucrative for him.

And the interests of American, British, Israeli and other nations' intelligence agencies are surely so entwined that picking them apart is impossible. One thing for sure though: none of them serve the interests of the nations they supposedly work for.

last day of grace , Jul 10 2019 23:09 utc | 81

The function of the CIA/Mossad is to make sure the agenda and the narrative of the Deep State gets served. In that case one could truly blame Epstein's actions on individuals, or groups of individuals who dictate orders to the Mossad/CIA.

Really? , Jul 10 2019 23:31 utc | 85
@29

Epstein is CFR???
What???
HOw can that be?

Mr.Lucky , Jul 10 2019 23:37 utc | 86
Lozion:

I am not implying, I am stating that they absolutely have the goods on Trump.

His supporters knew he was a scum bag when they voted for him, but he promised to stop the invasion and they fell for it.

Why do you think that Trump did a 180 on every campaign promise once elected, except the promise to Israel?

Why do you think that Trump gave Acosta a job after the sweetheart deal?

Ask yourself another question: Why is happening as the election cycle is beginning?

Anyone who says Clinton is in trouble is delusional. Clinton is invincible.

They are going after Trump.

Really? , Jul 10 2019 23:39 utc | 89

"Something does not smell right about this."

Re timing, could it be connected to Mueller soon to be under oath and testifying?

could Mueller be a target of some kind?

jared , Jul 10 2019 23:50 utc | 93

Epstein reminds me of the Bill Browder affair. And the statement: To know who are the rulers not which are the ones you are not permitted to criticize. Or somethinh like that.

Alexander P. , Jul 11 2019 0:09 utc | 99
If indeed they are after Trump as he failed them on 'Iran', then it makes absolute sense that Dershowitz and Cernovich had the records unsealed as both are strong, strong Zionists and supporters of Israel. Getting a judge do the thing they need is just a formality. I agree with some writer above who asked, why the publicity if pressure can be applied in secret without the media being involved? But this may be the stated goal to bring Trump either completely in line now or publicly topple his presidency.

I get why @94 Really? and others would be sceptical at this stage but I know strong powers in the Zionist/Neo-con deep state want a direct confrontation with Iran for myriad number of reasons (stop the BRI, deal a blow to Syria and Hizbollah, take out Israel's No 1 enemy etc, shore up the Petrodollar), and Trump was still the most likely candidate to follow through with this, given his proximity to Zionism. So far he also has dully followed through with everything imaginable, except for actually attacking Iran.

Interesting development indeed. B. Clinton could be collateral damage, at this stage their power is overestimated in my opinion.

karlof1 , Jul 11 2019 0:11 utc | 100
Andrew Kreig @68--

Okay, An "intelligence op," but which one? The Epstein/Mueller link was made several months ago. I don't see any irregularities in the court judgement to order the unsealing as it's been ongoing for almost 2.5 years and involves odd bedfellows. Was Mueller even aware of the attempt to unseal Epstein's case? So many questions!

ekerbacker , Jul 11 2019 0:16 utc | 103

Arnon Milchan? He was Israeli. Should he be punished, absolutely. But you know who should be hung? Robert DeNiro. He knew Arnon Milchan was a spy and kept his mouth shut for decades. He is a POS of epic proportions.

Insofar as Epstein is concerned. It is all about timing. Mueller is set to testify and probably has skeletons in his closet with regards to Epstein's case. He is likely being told implicitly via the Epstein arrest to be on his best behavior by Barr, and Barr at this age probably can care less that Epstein is being sacrificed so he can make his point, particularly since Barr is probably the 2nd most powerful person in the USA right now.

Epstein was extremely likely an Israeli asset. The Israelis have through political power and force convinced many in the US IC that their ship is sailing in the same direction, and that they should be allowed to serve as the US's dog on a leash, and once in a while be unleashed to do what the US won't. So while he was an Israeli asset, his resources (that is compromising material) was often made available to the CIA, and thus Acosta was told that he is an intelligence asset.

The fireworks will start to fly if and when Epstein realizes he is being hung out to dry and won't be saved. But like almost every other case involving such rich and powerful people, don't hold your breath for justice to be served in the US.

Alexander P , Jul 11 2019 0:29 utc | 104
@96 and 33

What does protecting adolescent teenagers from predatory adults have to do with puritanism? Am I understanding this correctly that you advocate sex with minors as long as they have reached biological puberty? Never mind their mental maturity? So sexual relations involving young women is ok what about sexual relations with young men? This has nothing to do with a false pretentious morality but with the fact that teenagers have not yet reached the level of mental maturity that protects them from sexual exploitation that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, never mind their biological functions and ability to conceive or sire children. It is really puzzling that I even need to make these elaborations in here!

Debsisdead , Jul 11 2019 0:35 utc | 105
In many ways this thread is as sickening as the subject it discusses. All sorts of types left and right competing to show that they have the most insight into the forces behind the anal rape of a 12 year old girl See Andrew Kreig's excellent piece which does consider the horror of the acts, rather than just whether or not it plays into the particular vision of 'power politics' each poster invokes). In no instance does anyone express disgust at the actions of these low life scum other than for the corruption of the pols such as Acosta.
The glee which so many have displayed jumping into this horror story because it can be twisted and forced into their own particular theory about "how the world really works" while totally ignoring that these humans who were abducted at age eleven or twelve & then sold like cattle, now inhabit the netherworld of 'the great society' living in the fringes of prosperous cities in a ramshackle 'double wide', reveals a psychic corruption not a million miles away from that of the rapists.

This story is those young boys & girls, anyone who claims to want to use it to force the greedy rapists and warmongering grubs to face justice, will not succeed as long as they waste time speculating who works for who and who is really in control.

Prince Andrew still bludges off taxpayers despite being photographed with his arm around one of his victims, if you're english & really care about stopping this scum, instead of speculating on which shadowy 'palace spokesman suggested that the Daily Mail include the line "There is no suggestion that the duke had any sexual contact at the house, or knew what was allegedly going on there" you will find out how the at the time 17 y.o. Virginia Roberts feels about her public destruction now (A child the Mail described as an erotic masseuse - presumably to reduce the horror a normal human reacts to that pic whilst ensuring the victim is so humiliated she causes no further problem for "the royal family's" number one arms salesman). This victim first hung out with the andrew sleaze when she was 17 at the pimp's Florida hell hole where the age of consent is 18.

Concentrating on the effect on victims while protecting them from further harm will bring the creeps undone - nothing else will. It was only once people began to see past the priests claims that "the victims led me on" and considered the huge power imbalance that the catholic church came unstuck.
Most of all without humanity, there is no difference between any of us and the scum we criticise.

William Gruff , Jul 11 2019 0:55 utc | 106

Woohoo! Debsisdead isn't dead!

Now, to be on topic, why the insistence that Epstein finally getting outed for real is some mysterious intel op? The CIA has been screwing up left, right and center for years, so is it any surprise that one of their major kompromat operations is getting exposed? Their foolproof plan to install their tool Clinton in the White House in 2016 failed spectacularly and blew up in their faces, so tell me again how great they are at running covert ops? The CIA's own version of James Bond gets snuffed by the CIA's own death squads in Benghazi, but people still think the CIA has a clue what they're doing? The CIA's operatives in multiple embassies are being incapacitated by freakin' crickets and people think these clowns still somehow maintain some vestigial link to reality?

No, this is simply another massive screw-up by the establishment. This blind-sided the Deep State and so much took them by surprise that they were too late to get it clamped down in the mass media. If Epstein dies before the real dirt starts getting exposed then it proves me right and proves wrong all those who worship at the alter of the omnipotent Deep State.

[Jul 09, 2019] Nuland played a role in Russiaqate

Notable quotes:
"... it appears that Strzok is operating under some other authority. ..."
"... Downer walked his 'tip' over to Elizabeth Dibble, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy. Probably the day after the meeting at the Kensington wine room. Dibble passed the 'tip' on to her boss, Victoria Nuland, European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR) Assistant Secretary of state. ..."
"... Downer/Dibble/Nuland are the evaluating agency behind the evidence that the FISA document is based on. ..."
"... Downer has to lie, eventually, about his actions in re the report. ..."
"... This is why Halper was sent back into the fray, and the weird September meeting a month or so later in a private room at the Travelers Club took place with Papadopoulos ..."
Jul 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Bill refers to Bill Priestrap, the head of FBI's counter intelligence operations. Important to remember that Strzok worked for Priestrap at this point. Yet, it appears that Strzok is operating under some other authority.

Lisa Page then writes:

"Also, Andy spoke to ?????. He was out, he has a POC for you over then when you need it."

Strzok was on his way to London. My informed guess is that the ????? was CIA. POC means Point of Contact. Andy had a name of a CIA officer. The Chief of Station in London was Gina Haspel. I do not have a name for her Deputy. The nature of this case means that at least Haspel would have been witting.

The texts start again around noon Washington time, which means 4pm London time. At 13:36:19 (i.e., 1:36 pm EDT), Lisa writes:

"I worry OGC is making happy to glad changes which are nice to have but not legally necessary and which will derail this thing."

OGC refers to Office of General Counsel. What did Page fear would get "derailed?"

Strzok then writes:

Interesting fact. Guy we're about to interview was (BLANKED OUT)

... ... ...

Lisa then wrote:

Just checked yellow and there are two POCs for you from BOTH OGAs waiting there for you. Both may have already reached out.

Both OGAs? Other Government Agencies. Since there are two in question this is shorthand for CIA and NSA.

We know from a May 2019 piece by National Review, based on the Congressional interview with FBI DAD Jonathan Moffa, who was the section chief over counterintelligence analysis, that the FBI actions involved Confidential Human Sources, which were central to this so-called investigation:

The deputy assistant director at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jonathan Moffa, was involved with the Russia–Trump investigation from the start. He was asked, in a closed-door Capitol Hill interview on August 24, 2018, to describe his role: "I was the section chief over counterintelligence analysis during the period of the election," Moffa told lawmakers and staff. "And as a result, I had analysts who reported to me who supported the full range of the FBI's counterintelligence investigations and counterespionage investigations during that period. So in a sense, if there's a Russian-election-related investigation underway in the division at that point, personnel reporting to me are a part of it."

If the CIA and NSA had solid, reliable sources on the Russian angle, we would know that by now. Instead, when you look at the weak January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, you see a dearth of sources. It is all analytical speculation.

Which brings me to the newest piece to drop, CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller's Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia Meddling Claims .

Tidewater said in reply to Flavius... ,

My interpretation of the exchange between Strzok and Page is that the Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes has seen a problem with the Downer "tip" or report. What Downer has done is to break the Five Eyes intelligence agencies' procedural rules. Probably by law, certainly by bureaucratic regulations, he was required to send his "tip" about Papadopoulos back to Melbourne to the Australian national intelligence agency for processing. The Five Eyes agreement established the basic rule that the agency of the country that gathers the intelligence must be the agency that processes it. Reasons for this are security, quality control, and independent and unbiased evaluation of the product. This didn't happen. Downer walked his 'tip' over to Elizabeth Dibble, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy. Probably the day after the meeting at the Kensington wine room. Dibble passed the 'tip' on to her boss, Victoria Nuland, European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR) Assistant Secretary of state.

Downer's report was touted as an intelligence product. It's not. It doesn't have anything at all to do with intelligence. It is a state department product. Ben Rhodes must have noticed this problem. He is concerned. I think what has been decided is that it is now necessary that Halper make another attempt to compromise and incriminate Papadopoulos. The Downer report is flimsy and can be unravelled by judicial inquiry. There's an obvious chain of state department actors promulgating the Downer information. But it is being played as an intelligence product. That's why Lisa Page wants to know if Dibble is at the meeting. It would be better if state department just stays further away. Downer/Dibble/Nuland are the evaluating agency behind the evidence that the FISA document is based on. That's also why Page is relieved that Office of General Counsel (OGC) has just made it far more difficult to identify the people behind the Downer report. She sees the vulnerability.

Downer has to lie, eventually, about his actions in re the report. He tells 'The Australian', a newspaper, that "he officially reported" the Papadopoulos meeting back to Australia "the following day or a day or two after." Then after another interval, Joe Hockey, the Australian Ambassador, passed the information on to Washington. (My source on this is Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal and 'Undercover Huber' on Twitter.) This is a lie. He never reported what amounts to one man's denunciation of Papadopoulos to any intelligence agency. Downer went straight to Elizabeth Dribble at the US Embassy.

This is why Halper was sent back into the fray, and the weird September meeting a month or so later in a private room at the Travelers Club took place with Papadopoulos. It's besides the point, but I agree with everything Halper told the crazy Greek kid about British and American policy in the Mediterranean. Papadopoulos was, and is, no doubt, if he had a chance, ready to force the British out of Cyprus and move Incirlik to the island of Karpathos. He does not seem to understand that Mt. Troodos is the jewel in the crown. He wants to squeeze Turkey away from the natural gas fields which will soon enough be found on the Turkish continental shelf between Turkish North Cyprus and the Turkish mainland. The kid if a Greek at heart. Not entirely an American. He's got the ethnic thing. He hates Turks, like all Greeks. Downer and Halper were right! Funny. It's also funny that Downer went out of the way to have a photo made of himself and the Turkish ambassador in the time frame when he was dropping a shit bomb on the kid and on America.

[Jul 09, 2019] The real issue is the control of Iranian oil by the USA and EU

Notable quotes:
"... It is the Iranian (upper/middle class) exiles who hate and detest the revolutionary regime, because the regime has deprived them of the right to rule, that they thought was their hereditary ..."
"... But the Gulf States don't give a fig about that. They are concerned about the simple renaissance of Iranian power, which might deprive the Sunni potentates of their own position. ..."
"... Yes, it is precisely Iran's success that threatens the Gulf Autocrats, Israel, and Uncle Sugar, each for slightly different reasons, or perhaps the same reasons in different amounts. ..."
Jul 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Laguerre , Jul 8 2019 16:29 utc | 14

re Don 7

Crooke points out, correctly I believe, that the real issue is not nuclear, or the oft-repeated foolish "largest state sponsor of terrorism," it is the revolutionary basis of Iran's success in the Middle East, besting the Gulf dictators.
That bit about the revolution, I don't agree with. It's more the Iranian renaissance that the Gulf States fear.

Two separate aspects need to be distinguished:

1) It is the Iranian (upper/middle class) exiles who hate and detest the revolutionary regime, because the regime has deprived them of the right to rule, that they thought was their hereditary right. Even within Iran, upper/middle class people I met had the same attitude - a kind of hurt that they weren't running the country. The regime is of course populist.

2) But the Gulf States don't give a fig about that. They are concerned about the simple renaissance of Iranian power, which might deprive the Sunni potentates of their own position. The classic case is of course Bahrain, where the "king" is Sunni, and the vast mass of the population Shi'a, and they're kept down by force, supported by the guns of the US 5th fleet. But the case of Saudi is much more serious, because it's so much bigger, and every single oil well is sitting under the feet of the Shi'a, and there are none anywhere else, certainly not in the Saudi homeland of Najd, which is real camel-herder territory (to which we can expect the Saudi princes to return, if ever the poor suffering Shi'a ever manage a successful revolt).

I think Crooke confused the two issues a bit.

Bemildred , Jul 8 2019 16:43 utc | 16

Yes, it is precisely Iran's success that threatens the Gulf Autocrats, Israel, and Uncle Sugar, each for slightly different reasons, or perhaps the same reasons in different amounts.

Those being: it's Shiia, it's populist, and it was indeed a political revolution. And for all of them it represents a viable alternative to the way they wanted things to be. Now, I think, it's too late. Many will take note of what they have done and how, it will be studied.

[Jul 09, 2019] Iran's Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi has demanded an immediate release of an Iranian oil tanker seized by the British government, Fars reported.

Jul 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Jul 8 2019 17:16 utc | 23

@ UJ 21

As b mentioned, stay tuned for a major op. against the British East India Company.

from the Tehran Times:

TEHRAN – Iran's Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi has demanded an immediate release of an Iranian oil tanker seized by the British government, Fars reported.

"It seems that the British and Europeans are well aware of the Islamic Republic's reach and potential , and accordingly, it is to their own benefit that they immediately release this oil tanker, otherwise they should await the ramifications of their action," Raisi said on Monday.

[Jul 06, 2019] Why is Iran such a high priority for US elite? Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it. ..."
"... The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as related in a popular fairy tale. ..."
"... Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system. ..."
"... Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then. ..."
"... Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR. ..."
"... Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel to become the “western” power in the middle east. ..."
"... The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war. ..."
"... America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America. ..."
"... By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s absolute capitulation. ..."
"... For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations, but the US refused. ..."
"... Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention the most powerful Shia Muslim nation. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Joe Well, July 5, 2019 at 11:47 am

>>US President Donald Trump’s ruthless use of the centrality of his country’s financial system and the dollar to force economic partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic interdependence.

Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?

Lee, July 5, 2019 at 12:28 pm

Just spit-balling here: The Iranian leadership, with good cause, wants to diminish or eliminate the U.S. grip on the region and this subversive, potentially destabilizing sentiment resonates among the citizenry of various Middle Eastern countries.

There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it.

The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as related in a popular fairy tale.

This is hardly definitive and I’m sure others could elaborate.

workingclasshero, July 5, 2019 at 12:53 pm

Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system.

I’m sure this is obvious to most people at this kind of web site and is overly simplistic but i sense sometimes some people are shocked about the conflict with Iran and don’t get that basic dynamic of this conflict.

Underdog Revolutions, July 5, 2019 at 1:34 pm

Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then.

US elites never forgave them for it. Same reason they hate and punish Cuba, another country that poses no threat to anyone but its own citizens.

Peter Moritz, July 5, 2019 at 1:46 pm

Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?

Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR.

Mossadegh, by nationalising the oil supply until, played against the status and he was overthrown in a MI/CIA sponsored coup in 1953, leaving the Shah as the sole ruler in Iran till the revolution of 1979 when Iran came under theocratic rule and basically diminished the power the US had throughout the years of the Shah’s rule.

The US was also shown to be quite powerless -- short of an invasion -- to deal with the hostage crisis in the US embassy, which was finally after more than a year resolved with the help of Canada.

Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel to become the “western” power in the middle east.

The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war.

Here is a more in-depth look:

https://lobelog.com/the-real-causes-of-americas-troubled-relations-with-iran/

This U.S. approach towards Iran has been the result of its lack of an intrinsic interest in the country. The same was true of Britain. The late Sir Denis Right, the UK’s ambassador to Iran in the 1960s, put it best by writing that Britain never considered Iran of sufficient value to colonize it. But it found Iran useful as a buffer against the competing great power, the Russian Empire. Thus, British policy towards Iran was to keep it moribund but not dead, at least not as long as the Russian threat persisted.

America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America.

By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began.

Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s absolute capitulation.

For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations, but the US refused.

ChiGal in Carolina, July 5, 2019 at 6:38 pm

Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention the most powerful Shia Muslim nation.

[Jul 06, 2019] In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. ..."
"... They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. ..."
Jul 03, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com

Douglas K 3 days ago • edited

To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't like is religion.

Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.

In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution.

They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution).

So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they didn't include personified invisible spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....

[Jul 06, 2019] Why is Iran such a high priority for US elite? Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it. ..."
"... The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as related in a popular fairy tale. ..."
"... Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system. ..."
"... Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then. ..."
"... Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR. ..."
"... Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel to become the “western” power in the middle east. ..."
"... The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war. ..."
"... America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America. ..."
"... By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s absolute capitulation. ..."
"... For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations, but the US refused. ..."
"... Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention the most powerful Shia Muslim nation. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Joe Well, July 5, 2019 at 11:47 am

>>US President Donald Trump’s ruthless use of the centrality of his country’s financial system and the dollar to force economic partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic interdependence.

Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?

Lee, July 5, 2019 at 12:28 pm

Just spit-balling here: The Iranian leadership, with good cause, wants to diminish or eliminate the U.S. grip on the region and this subversive, potentially destabilizing sentiment resonates among the citizenry of various Middle Eastern countries.

There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it.

The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as related in a popular fairy tale.

This is hardly definitive and I’m sure others could elaborate.

workingclasshero, July 5, 2019 at 12:53 pm

Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system.

I’m sure this is obvious to most people at this kind of web site and is overly simplistic but i sense sometimes some people are shocked about the conflict with Iran and don’t get that basic dynamic of this conflict.

Underdog Revolutions, July 5, 2019 at 1:34 pm

Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then.

US elites never forgave them for it. Same reason they hate and punish Cuba, another country that poses no threat to anyone but its own citizens.

Peter Moritz, July 5, 2019 at 1:46 pm

Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?

Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR.

Mossadegh, by nationalising the oil supply until, played against the status and he was overthrown in a MI/CIA sponsored coup in 1953, leaving the Shah as the sole ruler in Iran till the revolution of 1979 when Iran came under theocratic rule and basically diminished the power the US had throughout the years of the Shah’s rule.

The US was also shown to be quite powerless -- short of an invasion -- to deal with the hostage crisis in the US embassy, which was finally after more than a year resolved with the help of Canada.

Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel to become the “western” power in the middle east.

The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war.

Here is a more in-depth look:

https://lobelog.com/the-real-causes-of-americas-troubled-relations-with-iran/

This U.S. approach towards Iran has been the result of its lack of an intrinsic interest in the country. The same was true of Britain. The late Sir Denis Right, the UK’s ambassador to Iran in the 1960s, put it best by writing that Britain never considered Iran of sufficient value to colonize it. But it found Iran useful as a buffer against the competing great power, the Russian Empire. Thus, British policy towards Iran was to keep it moribund but not dead, at least not as long as the Russian threat persisted.

America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America.

By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began.

Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s absolute capitulation.

For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations, but the US refused.

ChiGal in Carolina, July 5, 2019 at 6:38 pm

Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention the most powerful Shia Muslim nation.

[Jul 06, 2019] Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different.

Notable quotes:
"... Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17

Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different.

There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel. Honest.

Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.

... ... ...

[Jul 06, 2019] Many critics will blame Putin for betraying Assad, but I think he is merely showing that he is a master negotiator who recognizes the importance of 'good' relations with Turkey, and knows he will not get everything he wants in Syria

Notable quotes:
"... Buying S400 and losing F35 is a win win. ..."
"... Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even assistance with the maximum pressure campaign. ..."
"... Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold. ..."
"... Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose sanctions on Turkey and that will be that. ..."
"... Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the more sense. ..."
"... Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400 being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman too. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

plantman , 06 July 2019 at 11:30 AM

What is most interesting to me, is that the Russian air force is actually pounding Turkey's militant allies on the ground in Idlib, but both men (Erdogan and Putin) are still strengthening their ties thru Turkstream, Russian tourism and building of a nuclear power plant. Diplomacy seems to have surpassed conditions on the ground in Syria.

Also, Iran's leaders feel slightly betrayed by Putin's deference to Erdogan. They must believe (as I do) that Putin has agreed to allow Turkey to occupy parts of Syria following the war.

Turkey has been very consistent on this issue from the very beginning...and it has plans to resettle parts of N Syria with the nearly 3 million refugees it is housing in S Turkey.

Many critics will blame Putin for betraying Assad, but I think he is merely showing that he is a master negotiator who recognizes the importance of 'good' relations with Turkey, and knows he will not get everything he wants in Syria. Compromise with Turkey opens up a path to ending the war and for pressuring US-Turkey relations which continue to worsen as Washington continues to support a de facto Kurdistan in E Syria.

Sbin , 06 July 2019 at 12:50 PM

Buying S400 and losing F35 is a win win.

Letting a committee design an aicraft instead of aerospace engineers is a bad idea. Pentagon should cut their loss much like with the Zumwalt program.

Barbara Ann , 06 July 2019 at 12:50 PM

M K Bhadrakumar is a great source for following the frenetic pace of developments in Eurasian geopolitics and he covered this very topic yesterday (see link).

His view of where the Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even assistance with the maximum pressure campaign.

Whilst S-400 delivery is contrary to US/NATO wishes/policy, it makes sense to me that it gets treated as a second order issue in this context. Turkey also wants Iran out of Syria, but if pushed even further into a corner Turkey could make life difficult for the US on Iran and therefore even potentially endanger Trump's re-election chances.

Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold.

The slippery Sultan has pushed it to the limit, but the anti-Iran coalition now needs him - at least in the short term. My guess is he gets to keep his shiny new AD system.

Where Turkey chooses to put it is a very interesting question; facing its ancient enemy in the West, or perhaps sited to cover the Cyprus EEZ and its oil?

https://indianpunchline.com/trump-outflanks-iran-to-the-west-and-east/

JJackson , 06 July 2019 at 12:53 PM

Re. 2 and possibly 5.

Does anyone understand the F35 deal between the participating partner nations.
Wikipedia say Turkey is a level 3 partner which cost it $4.3 billion and that sales are handled via the Pentagon.

Who decides if a partner in the project can be denied the right to buy their product? What I did not see is what F35 components were produced in Turkey and if they stopped exports what redundancy their was in the system.

Can Turkey say fine I will take my $4.3 billion back as the Russians and Chinese have both made me very attractive offers?

JamesT -> JJackson... , 06 July 2019 at 05:03 PM

Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose sanctions on Turkey and that will be that.

Eugene Owens , 06 July 2019 at 01:14 PM

Regarding #1 and #2: S-400 is already in Algeria. And it will be in India by next year.

Reuters claims that Trump's good buddy King Salman signed a deal with Russia to buy S-400s.

Reuters also reported that Qatar was considering an S-400 purchase. So why is Pom-Pom only jumping on Turkey's back and not castigating the Saudis, Qataris, Algeriens, and Indians about the S-400? Keeping F-35 stealth capability from snooping by S-400s is the stated reason we don't want Turkey to have the S-400.

But when carrier based F35s are flying in the eastern Med, that stealth capability could be snooped on by the Algerien systems (or by Russian "field service reps" in Algeria with those systems). Ditto for the F35s in Italy. Could Israeli F35 stealth already be jeopardized by Russian system at Khmeimim AB in Syria?

#3 Idiots. But they are being used by Trump. He puts them up to it, so that he can pull back at the last minute and be Mr World Peace.

#4: State owned Rossiya TV lampooned Trump's Fourth of July celebration. Called it фигня (pronounced as 'fignya' and translates as bullshit). They mocked the tanks on display, said "the paint on these vehicles is peeling off. They have no cannons, and the optics were pasted on with adhesive tape" . Host Yevgeny Popov called the President "our Donald Trump" . Co-host Olga Skabeeva calls the parade "Putin's America" .

#5: See #3

#6 & 7: I was hoping #6 would stall #7, but I have serious doubts.

JamesT -> Eugene Owens... , 06 July 2019 at 04:44 PM

Eugene,

Is the S-400 in Algeria already? I have found reports that it was scheduled to be delivered in 2015 - but I can't find any reports on it actually being delivered. I don't think the Russians would have sold it to anyone other than Belarus and China until they had the S-500 ready to go.

Eugene Owens -> JamesT ... , 06 July 2019 at 09:48 PM

James -

Wiki says yes but their references to it are speculative.

Besides those there is a Business Insider article, German Edition, which claims Algeria has the S-400. It was dated last November.

Plus there is a report on Sputnik re S-400 in Algeria. But that is based on a MENAdefense.net article, which has photos (irrefutable they claim??) of several S-400 launchers in Algeria. Plus BAZ-64022 truck-tractors which are used with the S-400 and NOT the S-300. So maybe they do and are trying to hide the fact in order to avoid sanctions? Or maybe they have upgraded their S-300 PMU-2s to the PMU-3, which is a close match to the S-400. Or perhaps it is all propaganda?

Walrus , 06 July 2019 at 01:33 PM

Regarding the F35 and the S400, the obvious thing to do is to let them have both and swap information. We get S400 info and Russia gets F35 data.......except erdo will try and screw both of us.

The Twisted Genius , 06 July 2019 at 03:58 PM

I believe Putin's goal is to transform Turkey from a NATO state into an integral part of Russia's near abroad to eventually secure a guaranteed access to the Mediterranean and beyond and have a reliable buffer between Russia and Middle East. It's ensuring peace of mind, not rebuilding an empire.

JamesT -> The Twisted Genius ... , 06 July 2019 at 04:58 PM

TTG,

I think Putin's goal is more about forming a partnership with Turkey to build an energy corridor through Turkey to Europe. Control of this corridor, or at least membership in the alliance that controls this corridor, is a big deal from a geopolitical standpoint.

Thus Russia and Turkey can form something along the lines of an "OPEC on steroids" - Turkey can control who gets to pipe hydrocarbons to Europe and Russia can provide protection to those who wish to join their alliance (as they have already done for Syria).

Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the more sense.

What Turkey has to gain from such an arrangement is not only transit fees for the hydrocarbons, but also a chance to develop their economy - if Turkey is at the head of the line for receipt of hydrocarbons to Europe, they are at the head of the line for building industry and businesses which use those hydrocarbons as inputs (eg refineries, plastics, aluminum, chemical production).

CK -> The Twisted Genius ... , 06 July 2019 at 05:09 PM

Access to the Med is already guaranteed by treaty just as is access to the Black Sea. Access beyond the Med is controlled at the Suez and the pillars of Hercules.

Eugene Owens -> CK... , 06 July 2019 at 10:01 PM

CK -

Guaranteed during peacetime. During any hostilities you can throw that treaty out the window.

Which is why TTG is correct that Putin's goal is to get Turkey out of NATO. And he may doublecross Assad by blessing Turkey's permanent occupation (or annexation) of those four districts of northern Aleppo Province (i.e. Afrin, Azaz, al-Bab, & Jarabulus). As payment for getting out of NATO.

Lars , 06 July 2019 at 05:52 PM

Until you fix the problem with, according to a poll, 56% of American parents not wanting Arabic numerals taught to their children. I suspect that an equal number would not be able to find any of the mentioned places on a map.

Where those with crystal balls find certainty, I find something much less. We do know that containment polices can work very well, but any involvement in the world's longest contested area is not worth the cost, nor the risk. The US has already spent a fortune, with very little to show for it.

Maybe it is all about learning?

Mark Logan , 06 July 2019 at 05:52 PM

Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400 being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman too.

Yosemite Sam Bolton is probably being told to go out there and do his thing, and suffering from whip-lash when Trump yanks the carpet out from under them without apology. The poor dear must be like...

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

[Jul 06, 2019] I do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests were simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be.

Jul 06, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Herman , July 3, 2019 at 14:27

Went on Kunstler's website with the tasteless name and read comment about Hannity screaming to bomb Iran. And if Mr. Kunstler's facts are correct I imagine the Republicans will be saving Mueller's answers for the next election. Whatever Mr. Kunstler has to say, he says it well. What a mess. The way the bad guys have dug in and rigged the election process and the "News" business, it is difficult to imagine anything can change.

The controls of our society have become so efficient it is tempting to say what the hell and see if there is a good old film or an meaningful sporting event and let it go at that.

In saying that, it brings to mind the other CN article about anti-war sentiment and organizing against war and the war machine that has gone missing makes the point very well. I do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests were simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be.

Eddie S , July 4, 2019 at 10:01

"I do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests were simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be."

Yes, I know that the whole Iraq War-crime episode was an extremely disheartening episode to myself and millions of others who had marched in protest. It was horrible enough when the neo-cons were able to blatantly orchestrate an illegal invasion (with the obeisance of the long-cowed Democrats), but the RE-election of 'W' -- a year after the non-existence of the WMDs was proven by our OWN invading military -- was in a political sense worse because it showed that the majority of the US public was indifferent to illegal US invasions of other countries, so there would be little resistance in the future to these 'wars'.

It was only when the media was portraying the deaths & bad injuries to US soldiers occupying Iraq that a modest amount of public sentiment turned against the whole sordid episode.

So the tacit message was pretty clear to powers that be -- - as long as US troops aren't hurt, go-ahead and bomb-away those foreign men, women, and even children getting killed by them don't matter, especially if our military leaders offer-up oh-so-sincere apologies and state that 'these were unavoidable collateral civilian casualties because we only perform surgical strikes on terrorists' (and said in a most serious, gravitas-laden tone, so you KNOW they're telling the truth).

Windup , July 4, 2019 at 16:09

George wasn't 'elected' in the first place, let alone 're-elected'. I don't know if that makes you feel better. Maybe it does- at least about the American public (at that point in time anyway).

But it was certainly a forerunner to how we 'elect' our officials, which at this point is more blatantly fraudulent. At least to those of us not reading/watching msm.

[Jul 06, 2019] In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. ..."
"... They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. ..."
Jul 03, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com

Douglas K 3 days ago • edited

To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't like is religion.

Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.

In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution.

They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution).

So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they didn't include personified invisible spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....

[Jul 06, 2019] The Antiwar Movement No One Can See by Allegra Harpootlian

Notable quotes:
"... "Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization." ..."
"... Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army fell thousands of troops short of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017 Department of Defense poll that found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z. ..."
"... These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right alliance between two influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months, they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. ..."
"... In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill ultimately passed the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be vetoed by President Trump. That such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy." ..."
"... And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come. ..."
"... In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this." ..."
"... It is little recognized how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC while also taking heavy casualties. ..."
"... We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South. ..."
"... Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. ..."
"... President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions. ..."
Jul 02, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Originally from: TomDispatch.com

Peace activism is rising, but that isn't translating into huge street demonstrations, writes Allegra Harpootlian.

W hen Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017, Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest their instantly endangered rights. Conspicuously absent from the newfound civic engagement, despite more than a decade and a half of this country's fruitless, destructive wars across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, was antiwar sentiment, much less an actual movement.

Those like me working against America's seemingly endless wars wondered why the subject merited so little discussion, attention, or protest. Was it because the still-spreading war on terror remained shrouded in government secrecy? Was the lack of media coverage about what America was doing overseas to blame? Or was it simply that most Americans didn't care about what was happening past the water's edge? If you had asked me two years ago, I would have chosen "all of the above." Now, I'm not so sure.

After the enormous demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the antiwar movement disappeared almost as suddenly as it began, with some even openly declaring it dead. Critics noted the long-term absence of significant protests against those wars, a lack of political will in Congress to deal with them, and ultimately, apathy on matters of war and peace when compared to issues like health care, gun control, or recently even climate change .

The pessimists have been right to point out that none of the plethora of marches on Washington since Donald Trump was elected have had even a secondary focus on America's fruitless wars. They're certainly right to question why Congress, with the constitutional duty to declare war, has until recently allowed both presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to wage war as they wished without even consulting them. They're right to feel nervous when a national poll shows that more Americans think we're fighting a war in Iran (we're not) than a war in Somalia ( we are ).

But here's what I've been wondering recently: What if there's an antiwar movement growing right under our noses and we just haven't noticed? What if we don't see it, in part, because it doesn't look like any antiwar movement we've even imagined?

If a movement is only a movement when people fill the streets, then maybe the critics are right. It might also be fair to say, however, that protest marches do not always a movement make. Movements are defined by their ability to challenge the status quo and, right now, that's what might be beginning to happen when it comes to America's wars.

What if it's Parkland students condemning American imperialism or groups fighting the Muslim Ban that are also fighting the war on terror? It's veterans not only trying to take on the wars they fought in, but putting themselves on the front lines of the gun control , climate change , and police brutality debates. It's Congress passing the first War Powers Resolution in almost 50 years. It's Democratic presidential candidates signing a pledge to end America's endless wars.

For the last decade and a half, Americans -- and their elected representatives -- looked at our endless wars and essentially shrugged. In 2019, however, an antiwar movement seems to be brewing. It just doesn't look like the ones that some remember from the Vietnam era and others from the pre-invasion-of-Iraq moment. Instead, it's a movement that's being woven into just about every other issue that Americans are fighting for right now -- which is exactly why it might actually work.

An estimated 100,000 people protested the war in Iraq in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2007 (Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

A Veteran's Antiwar Movement in the Making?

During the Vietnam War of the 1960s and early 1970s, protests began with religious groups and peace organizations morally opposed to war. As that conflict intensified, however, students began to join the movement, then civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. got involved, then war veterans who had witnessed the horror firsthand stepped in -- until, with a seemingly constant storm of protest in the streets, Washington eventually withdrew from Indochina.

You might look at the lack of public outrage now, or perhaps the exhaustion of having been outraged and nothing changing, and think an antiwar movement doesn't exist. Certainly, there's nothing like the active one that fought against America's involvement in Vietnam for so long and so persistently. Yet it's important to notice that, among some of the very same groups (like veterans, students, and even politicians) that fought against that war, a healthy skepticism about America's 21st century wars, the Pentagon, the military industrial complex, and even the very idea of American exceptionalism is finally on the rise -- or so the polls tell us.

"Arlington West of Santa Monica," a project of Veterans for Peace, puts reminders of the costs of war on the beach in Santa Monica, California. (Lorie Shaull via Flickr)

Right after the midterms last year, an organization named Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness reported mournfully that younger Americans were "turning on the country and forgetting its ideals," with nearly half believing that this country isn't "great" and many eyeing the U.S. flag as "a sign of intolerance and hatred." With millennials and Generation Z rapidly becoming the largest voting bloc in America for the next 20 years, their priorities are taking center stage. When it comes to foreign policy and war, as it happens, they're quite different from the generations that preceded them. According to the Chicago Council of Global Affairs ,

"Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization."

Although marches are the most public way to protest, another striking but understated way is simply not to engage with the systems one doesn't agree with. For instance, the vast majority of today's teenagers aren't at all interested in joining the all-volunteer military. Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army fell thousands of troops short of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017 Department of Defense poll that found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z.

In addition, we're finally seeing what happens when soldiers from America's post-9/11 wars come home infused with a sense of hopelessness in relation to those conflicts. These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right alliance between two influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months, they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

And this may just be the tip of a growing antiwar iceberg. A misconception about movement-building is that everyone is there for the same reason, however broadly defined. That's often not the case and sometimes it's possible that you're in a movement and don't even know it. If, for instance, I asked a room full of climate-change activists whether they also considered themselves part of an antiwar movement, I can imagine the denials I'd get. And yet, whether they know it or not, sooner or later fighting climate change will mean taking on the Pentagon's global footprint, too.

Think about it: not only is the U.S. military the world's largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels but, according to a new report from Brown University's Costs of War Project, between 2001 and 2017, it released more than 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (400 million of which were related to the war on terror). That's equivalent to the emissions of 257 million passenger cars, more than double the number currently on the road in the U.S.

A Growing Antiwar Movement in Congress

One way to sense the growth of antiwar sentiment in this country is to look not at the empty streets or even at veterans organizations or recruitment polls, but at Congress. After all, one indicator of a successful movement, however incipient, is its power to influence and change those making the decisions in Washington. Since Donald Trump was elected, the most visible evidence of growing antiwar sentiment is the way America's congressional policymakers have increasingly become engaged with issues of war and peace. Politicians, after all, tend to follow the voters and, right now, growing numbers of them seem to be following rising antiwar sentiment back home into an expanding set of debates about war and peace in the age of Trump.

In campaign season 2016, in an op-ed in The Washington Post , political scientist Elizabeth Saunders wondered whether foreign policy would play a significant role in the presidential election. "Not likely," she concluded. "Voters do not pay much attention to foreign policy." And at the time, she was on to something. For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders, then competing for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton, didn't even prepare stock answers to basic national security questions, choosing instead, if asked at all, to quickly pivot back to more familiar topics. In a debate with Clinton, for instance, he was asked whether he would keep troops in Afghanistan to deal with the growing success of the Taliban. In his answer, he skipped Afghanistan entirely, while warning only vaguely against a "quagmire" in Iraq and Syria.

Heading for 2020, Sanders is once again competing for the nomination, but instead of shying away from foreign policy, starting in 2017, he became the face of what could be a new American way of thinking when it comes to how we see our role in the world.

In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill ultimately passed the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be vetoed by President Trump. That such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy."

Nor, strikingly enough, is Sanders the only Democratic presidential candidate now running on what is essentially an antiwar platform. One of the main aspects of Elizabeth Warren's foreign policy plan, for instance, is to "seriously review the country's military commitments overseas, and that includes bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq." Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel have joined Sanders and Warren in signing a pledge to end America's forever wars if elected. Beto O'Rourke has called for the repeal of Congress's 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that presidents have cited ever since whenever they've sent American forces into battle. Marianne Williamson , one of the many (unlikely) Democratic candidates seeking the nomination, has even proposed a plan to transform America's "wartime economy into a peace-time economy, repurposing the tremendous talents and infrastructure of [America's] military industrial complex to the work of promoting life instead of death."

And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come.

Get on Board or Get Out of the Way

When trying to create a movement, there are three likely outcomes : you will be accepted by the establishment, or rejected for your efforts, or the establishment will be replaced, in part or in whole, by those who agree with you. That last point is exactly what we've been seeing, at least among Democrats, in the Trump years. While 2020 Democratic candidates for president, some of whom have been in the political arena for decades, are gradually hopping on the end-the-endless-wars bandwagon, the real antiwar momentum in Washington has begun to come from new members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Ilhan Omar who are unwilling to accept business as usual when it comes to either the Pentagon or the country's forever wars. In doing so, moreover, they are responding to what their constituents actually want.

As far back as 2014, when a University of Texas-Austin Energy Poll asked people where the U.S. government should spend their tax dollars, only 7 percent of respondents under 35 said it should go toward military and defense spending. Instead, in a "pretty significant political shift" at the time, they overwhelmingly opted for their tax dollars to go toward job creation and education. Such a trend has only become more apparent as those calling for free public college, Medicare-for-all, or a Green New Deal have come to realize that they could pay for such ideas if America would stop pouring trillions of dollars into wars that never should have been launched.

The new members of the House of Representatives, in particular, part of the youngest, most diverse crew to date , have begun to replace the old guard and are increasingly signalling their readiness to throw out policies that don't work for the American people, especially those reinforcing the American war machine. They understand that by ending the wars and beginning to scale back the military-industrial complex, this country could once again have the resources it needs to fix so many other problems.

In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this."

Ilhan Omar @IlhanMN

We have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience or education if we continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. http://www. startribune.com/rep-ilhan-omar -with-perspective-of-a-foreigner-sets-ambitious-global-agenda/510489882/?om_rid=3005497801&om_mid=317376969&refresh=true

7,176 3:24 PM - May 28, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy Rep. Ilhan Omar, with 'perspective of a foreigner,' sets ambitious global agenda

From her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and with a growing international reputation, the former refugee is wading into debates over various global hot spots and controversies.

startribune.com

2,228 people are talking about this

A few days before that, at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing, Ocasio-Cortez confronted executives from military contractor TransDigm about the way they were price-gouging the American taxpayer by selling a $32 "non-vehicular clutch disc" to the Department of Defense for $1,443 per disc. "A pair of jeans can cost $32; imagine paying over $1,000 for that," she said. "Are you aware of how many doses of insulin we could get for that margin? I could've gotten over 1,500 people insulin for the cost of the margin of your price gouging for these vehicular discs alone."

And while such ridiculous waste isn't news to those of us who follow Pentagon spending closely, this was undoubtedly something many of her millions of supporters hadn't thought about before. After the hearing, Teen Vogue created a list of the "5 most ridiculous things the United States military has spent money on," comedian Sarah Silverman tweeted out the AOC hearing clip to her 12.6 million followers, Will and Grace actress Debra Messing publicly expressed her gratitude to AOC, and according to Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool, the NowThis clip of her in that congressional hearing garnered more than 20 million impressions.

Ocasio-Cortez calling out costs charged by military contractor TransDigm. (YouTube)

Not only are members of Congress beginning to call attention to such undercovered issues, but perhaps they're even starting to accomplish something. Just two weeks after that contentious hearing, TransDigm agreed to return $16.1 million in excess profits to the Department of Defense. "We saved more money today for the American people than our committee's entire budget for the year," said House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings.

Of course, antiwar demonstrators have yet to pour into the streets, even though the wars we're already involved in continue to drag on and a possible new one with Iran looms on the horizon. Still, there seems to be a notable trend in antiwar opinion and activism. Somewhere just under the surface of American life lurks a genuine, diverse antiwar movement that appears to be coalescing around a common goal: getting Washington politicians to believe that antiwar policies are supportable, even potentially popular. Call me an eternal optimist, but someday I can imagine such a movement helping end those disastrous wars.

Allegra Harpootlian is a media associate at ReThink Media , where she works with leading experts and organizations at the intersection of national security, politics, and the media. She principally focuses on U.S. drone policies and related use-of-force issues. She is also a political partner with the Truman National Security Project . Find her on Twitter @ally_harp .

This article is from TomDispatch.com .


Edwin Stamm , July 5, 2019 at 10:40

"How Obama demobilized the antiwar movement"
By Brad Plumer
August 29, 2013
Washington Post

"Reihan Salam points to a 2011 paper by sociologists Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, who find that antiwar protests shrunk very quickly after Obama took office in 2008 -- mainly because Democrats were less likely to show up:

Drawing upon 5,398 surveys of demonstrators at antiwar protests, interviews with movement leaders, and ethnographic observation, this article argues that the antiwar movement demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success in ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Heaney and Rojas begin by puzzling over a paradox. Obama ran as an antiwar candidate, but his first few years in office were rather different: "As president, Obama maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan. The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated.""

Rob , July 4, 2019 at 14:20

The author may be too young to realize that the overwhelming driving force in the anti-Vietnam War movement was hundreds of thousands of young men who were at risk of being drafted and sent to fight, die and kill in that godforsaken war. As the movement grew, it gathered in millions of others as well. Absent the military draft today, most of America's youth don't seem to give half a damn about the current crimes of the U.S. military. As the saying goes: They have no skin in the game.

bardamu , July 3, 2019 at 20:21

There has again been some shift in Sanders' public positions, while Tulsi Gabbard occupies a position that was not represented in '16, and HR Clinton was more openly bent on war than anyone currently at the table, though perhaps because that much of her position had become so difficult to deny over the years.

That said, Clinton lost to Obama in '08 because she could not as effectively deny her militarism. There was at the time within the Democratic Party more and clearer movement against the wars than there is now. One might remember the run for candidacy of Dennis Kucinich, for example. The 8 years of the Obama regime were a consistent frustration and disappointment to any antiwar or anticorporate voice within the Democratic Party, but complaints were muted because many would not speak against a Blue or a Black president. More than at any prior time, corporate media spokespersons could endorse radically pro-corporate positions and imply or accuse their opposition of racism.

That leaves it unclear, however, what any antiwar voices have to do with the Democratic Party itself, particularly if we take "the party" to mean the political organization itself as opposed to the people whom it claims to represent. The Party and the DNC were major engines in the rigging of the 2016 Democratic nomination–and also, lest we forget, contributors to the Donald Trump nomination campaign.

It should not escape us, as we search for souls and soulfulness among these remnants of Democratic Parties Past, that any turn of the party against war is surely due to Hillary Clinton's loss to presumed patsy candidate Donald Trump in 2016–the least and second-least popular major presidential contenders in history, clearly, in whichever order one wishes to put them.

There is some value in realism, then. So as much as one hates to criticize a Bernie Sanders in anything like the present field that he runs in, his is not a consistently antiwar position: he has gone back and forth. Tulsi Gabbard is the closest thing to an antiwar candidate within the Party. And under even under the most favorable circumstances, 2020 is at best not her year.

Most big money says war. scorched earth, steep hierarchy, and small constitution. Any who don't like it had best speak up and act up.

Jim Glover , July 3, 2019 at 17:43

I am for Tulsi, a Senator from Hawaii not a rep as this article says. Folk Music was in when the peace movement was strong and building, the same for Folk Rock who songs also had words you could get without Google.

So my way of "hoping" for an Anti-War/Peace Movement is to have a Folk Revival in my mind.

Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 14:11

The answer to the question why anti war movement is dead is so simple and obvious but apparently invisible to most Dems/libs/progressives (excuse my inability to discern the distinctions between labels). The answer points to our onetime "peace" president Obama. As far as foreign interventions go (and domestic spying, among other things) Obama had continued Baby Bush's policy. Even worse, Obama had given a bipartisan seal of approval (and legality) to most of Baby Bush's crimes. In other words, for 8 years, meaning during the "peace" president's reign, the loyal "lefty" sheeple have held their mouth when it came to war and peace.

Obama and the Dems have very effectively killed the ant war movement

P.Brooks , July 3, 2019 at 12:54

No More War

Don Bacon , July 3, 2019 at 12:29

The establishment will always be pro-war because there's so much money in it. Street demonstrations will never change that, as we recently learned with Iraq. The only strategy that has a chance of working is anti-enlistment. If they don't have the troops they can't invade anywhere, and recruitment is already a problem. It needs to be a bigger problem.

Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 11:51

Sorry, ALL of these Democrat wannabes save one is ignorant of foreign affairs, foreign policy and its destruction of what they blather on about – domestic vote-getting sky pies. Oh yes, free everything: schools, health care, social justices and services. It's as though the MIC has not stolen the money from the public's pockets to get rich by sending cheap fodder out there to get killed and wounded, amputated physically and mentally.

Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't stand the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men, because she drew a bad one. Huma was better company. Since she didn't know anything beyond the superficial, she did whatever the "experts" whispered in her ears: War! Obama was in the same boat. The target, via gaining total control of oil from Libya to Syria and Iran was her Putin hate. So her experts set up the Ukraine. The "experts" are the MIC/CIA and our fearless, brainless, corrupt military. They have whispered the same psychotic message since the Gulf of Tonkin. We've lost to everyone with whom we've crossed swords and left them devastated and America diminished save for the few.

So I was a Sanders supporter until he backed the warrior woman and I, like millions of others backed off of her party. It's still her party. Everyone just loves every victim of every kind. They all spout minor variations on the same themes while Trump and his neocons quietly install their right wing empire. Except for one who I spotted when she had the independence to go look for herself in Syria.

Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate to be the candidate who has a balance of well thought through, realistic foreign policy as well as the domestic non-extremist one. She has the hurdle of being a too-pretty woman, of being from the remotest state, and not being a screamer. Even this article, written about peace by a woman fails to talk about her.

Tulsi has the registered voter count and a respectable budget, but the New York Times which is policy-controlled by a few of Hillary's billionaire friends has consistently shut her out, because Tulsi left the corrupt Hillary-owned DNC to back Sanders and Hillary never forgave her.

If you want to know who is against Trump and war, take 5 minutes and listen to what she really said during the 1st debate where the CBS folks gave her little room to talk. It will change your outlook on what really is possible.

https://www.tulsi2020.com/a/first-democratic-debate

P.Brooks , July 3, 2019 at 13:53

Hi Anonymot; I also exited my Sanders support after over 100 cash donations and over a years painful effort. I will never call him Bernie again; now it is Sanders, since Bernie makes him sound cute and cute was not the word that came into my mind as Mr. Sanders missed his world moment at the democratic election and backed Hillary Clinton (I can not vote for EVIL). Sanders then proceeded to give part of my money to the DNC & to EVIL Hillary Clinton.

So then what now? Easy as Pie; NO MORE DEMOCRATS EVER. The DNC & DCCC used Election Fraud & Election Crimes blatantly to beat Bernie Sanders. Right out in the open. The DNC & DCCC are War Mongering more then the Republicans which is saying allot. The mass media and major Internet Plateforms like Goggle & Facebook are all owned by Evil Oligarchs that profit from WAR and blatantly are today suppressing all dissenting opinions (anti Free Speech).

I stopped making cash donation to Tulsi Gabbard upon the realization that the Democrats were not at all a force for Life or Good and instead were a criminal organization. The voting for the lessor of two EVILs is 100% STUPID.

I told Tim Canova I could not support any Democrat ever again as I told Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi is still running as a criminal democrat. If she would run independent of the DNC then I would start to donate cash to her again. End of my story about Tulsi. I do like her antiwar dialog, but there is no; so called changing, the DNC from the inside. The Oligarchs own the DNC and are not supportive of "We The People" or the Constitution, or the American Republic.

The end of Tim Canova's effort was he was overtly CHEATED AGAIN by the DNC's Election Fraud & Election Crimes in his 2018 run for congress against Hillary Clinton's 100% corrupt campaign manager; who congress seated even over Tim's asking them not to seat her until his law suites on her election crimes against him were assessed. Election crimes and rigged voting machines in Florida are a way of life now and have been for decades and decades.

All elections must be publicly funded. All votes must be on paper ballots and accessible for recounts and that is just the very minimums needed to start changing the 100% corrupted election system we Americans have been railroaded into.

The supreme Court has recently ruled that gerrymandering is OK. The supreme court has proven to be a political organization with their Bush Gore decision and now are just political hacks and as such need to be ELECTED not appointed. Their rulings that Money is Free Speech & that Corporations are People has disenfranchised "We the People". That makes the Supreme Court a tool to be used by the world money elite to overturn the constitution of the United States of America.

No More War. No More War. No More War.

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 16:40

Absolutely spot-on, superb comment, P .Brooks.

DW

Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 18:08

I saw the light (with what the Dems are really about) after Kucinich's candidacy. That made me one of the very few lefties in my circle not to have voted for Obama even the first time around. I hear a lot of talk about trying to reform the party from inside. Utter bu** sh**. "You cannot reform Mafia".

Ever since Kucinich, I have been voting Green. No, this is not a waste of my vote. Besides, I cannot be complicit to war crimes – that's what it makes anyone who votes for either of the two parties.

Steven , July 3, 2019 at 13:56

Wow you said a mouthful. It's worse than that its a cottage industry that includes gun running, drug running and human trafficking netting Trillions to the MIC, CIA and other alphabet agencies you can't fight the mark of the beast.

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:01

I fully back/endorse Gabbard, but

The battering of Bernie is not fair. He is NOT a Democrat, therefore him being able to get "inside" that party to run AS a Dem put him in a tenuous situation. He really had no option other than to support HRC lest his movement, everyone's movement, would get extra hammering by the neocons and status quo powers. He wouldn't be running, again, had he not done this. Yeah, it's a bad taste, I get it, but had he disavowed HRC would the outcome -Trump- been any different? The BLAME goes fully on the DNC and the Clintons. Full stop.

I do not see AOC as a full progressive. She is only doing enough to make it appear so. The Green New Deal is stolen from the Green Party and is watered down. Think of this as "Obama Care" for the planet. As you should know, Gabbard's Off Fossil Fuels Act (OFF) actually has real teeth in it: and is closer to the Green Party's positions.

I support movements and positions. PRIMARY is peace. Gabbard, though not a pacifist, has the right path on all of this: I've been around long enough to understand exactly how she's approaching all of this. She is, however, taking on EVERYONE. As powerful a person as she is (she has more fortitude than the entire lot of combined POTUS candidates put together) going to require MASSIVE support; sadly, -to this point- this article doesn't help by implying that people aren't interested in foreign policy (it perpetuates the blockout of it- people have to be reeducated on its importance- not something that the MIC wants), people aren't yet able to see the connections. The education will occur will it happen in a timely way such that people would elect Gabbard? (things can turn on a dime, history has shown this; she has the makeup that suggests that she's going to have a big role in making history).

I did not support Bernie (and so far have not- he's got ample support; if it comes down to it he WILL get my vote- and I've held off voting for many years because there's been no real "peace" candidate on the plate). Gabbard, however, has my support now, and likely till the day I die: I've been around long enough to know what constitutes a great leader, and not since the late 60s have we had anyone like her. If Bernie gets the nomination it is my prediction that he will have Gabbard high on his staff, if not as VP: a sure fire way to win is to have Gabbard as VP.

I'm going to leave this for folks to contemplate as to whether Gabbard is real or not:

http://www.brasilwire.com/holy-war/

[excerpt:]

In a context in which Rio de Janeiro's evangelical churches have been accused of laundering money for the drug trafficking gangs, all elements of Afro-Brazilian culture including caipoeira, Jango drumming, and participation in Carnaval parades, have been banned by the traffickers in many favelas.

[end excerpt]

"caipoeria," is something that Gabbard has practiced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw-njAmvZ80

"I trained in different martial arts since I was a kid including Capoeira -- an amazing art created by slaves in Brazil who were training to fight and resist against their slave masters, disguising their training with music, acrobatics, and dance. Yesterday I joined my friends Mestre Kinha and others at Capoeira Besouro Hawai'i for their batizado ceremony and some fun! " – Tulsi Gabbard December 9, 2018

The GOAL is to get her into the upper halls of governing power. If the people cannot see fit to it then I'll support Sanders (in the end) so that he can do it.

Harpootlian claims to see what's going on, but, unfortunately, she's not able to look close enough.

Anonymot, thank you for leading out here with Gabbard and her message.

michael , July 4, 2019 at 08:10

If Gabbard had the MSM coverage Buttigieg has received she probably be leading in the polls. It is surprising(?) that this supposedly anti-war author mentions corporatist Mayor Pete but not Gabbard.

David , July 4, 2019 at 19:55

She DOES (briefly)mention Gabbard, but she missed the fact that Gabbard is the most strongly anti-war candidate. She gets it entirely wrong about Buttigieg, who is strikingly pro-war, and supports getting in to a war with Iran.

Robert Harrow , July 3, 2019 at 15:54

And sadly, Ms. Gabbard is mired at the 1% mark in the polls, even after having performed so well in the debate.
This seems to me an indication of the public's lack of caring about our foreign wars.

antonio Costa , July 3, 2019 at 19:06

The reason she's "mired" is because a number of polls don't include her!! However they include, Marianne Williamson.

How's that for inverse totalitarianism par excellence .

Skip Scott , July 4, 2019 at 07:05

I did see one poll that had her at 2%. And given the reputation of many polling outfits, I take any professed results with a grain of salt. Tulsi's press coverage (what little she gets) has been mostly defamatory to the point of being libelous. If her strong performance continues in the primary debates despite all efforts to sabotage her, I think she could make a strong showing. That said, at some point she will have to renounce the DNC controlled democratic party and run as an Independent if she wants to make the General Election debates for 2020.

Piotr Berman , July 3, 2019 at 21:15

"Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't stand the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men "

If I were to psychologize, I would conjecture more un-gendered stereotype, namely that of a good student. He/she diligently learns in all classes from the prescribed textbooks and reading materials, and, alas, American education on foreign affairs is dominated by retirees from CIA and other armchair warriors. Of course, nothing wrong about good students in general, but I mean the type that is obedient, devoid of originality and independent thinking. When admonished, he/she remembers the pain for life and strives hard not to repeat it. E.g. as First Lady, Hillary kissed Arafat's wife to emulate Middle East custom, and NY tabloids had a feast for months.

Concerning Tulsi, no Hillary-related conspiracy is needed to explain the behavior of the mass media. Tulsi is a heretic to the establishment, and their idea is to be arbiters of what and who belongs to the "mainstream", and what is radical, marginal etc. Tulsi richly deserves her treatment. Confronted with taunts like "so you would prefer X to stay in power" (Assad, Maduro etc.) she replies that it should not be up to USA to decide who stays in power, especially if no better scenario is in sight. The gall, the cheek!

Strangely enough, Tulsi gets this treatment in places like The Nation and Counterpunch. As the hitherto "radical left" got a whiff of being admitted to the hallowed mainstream from time to time, they try to be "responsible".

Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:39

Yes! Thank You I was gritting my teeth reading this article #Tulsi2020

Eddie , July 3, 2019 at 11:42

The end of the anti-war movement expired when the snake-oil pitchman with the toothy smile and dark skin brought his chains we could beleive in to the White House. The so-called progressives simply went to sleep while they never criticized Barack Obama for escalating W. Bush's wars and tax cuts for the rich.

The fake left wing in the US remained silent when Obama dumped trillions of dollars into the vaults of his bankster pals as he stole the very homes from the people who voted him into office. Then along came the next hope and change miracle worker Bernie Sanders. Only instead of working miracles for the working class, Sanders showed his true colors when he fcuked his constituents to support the hated Hillary Clinton.

Let's start facing reality. The two-party dictatorship does not care about you unless you can pony up the big bucks like their masters in the oligarchy and the soulless corporations do. Unless and until workers end to the criminal stranglehold that the big-business parties and the money class have on the government, things will continue to slide into the abyss.

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:33

An informed awareness of imperialism must also include an analysis of how "technology" is used and abused, from the use of "superior" weaponry against people who do not have such weapons, from blunderbuss and sailing ships, to B-52s and napalm, up to and including technology that may be "weaponized" against civilian populations WiTHIN a society, be it 24/7 surveillance or robotics and AI that could permit elites to dispense with any "need", on the part of the elites, to tolerate the very existence of a laborung class, or ANY who earn their wealth through actual work, from maids to surgeons, from machine operators to professors.

Any assumption, that any who "work", even lawyers or military officers, can consider their occupation or profession as "safe", is to assume that the scapegoating will stop with those the highly paid regard as "losers", such comfortable assumption may very well prove as illusory and ephemeral as an early morning mist before the hot and merciless Sun rises.

The very notions of unfettered greed and limitless power, resulting in total control, must be recognized as the prime drivers of endless war and shock-doctrine capitalism which, combined, ARE imperialism, unhinged and insane.

michael , July 3, 2019 at 11:06

This article is weak. Anyone who could equate Mayor Pete or the eleven Democrat "ex"-military and CIA analysts who gained seats in Congress in 2018 as anti-war is clueless. Tulsi Gabbard is anti-regime change war, but is in favor of fighting "terrorists" (created mostly by our CIA and Israel with Saudi funding). Mike Gravel is the only true totally anti-war 'candidate' and he supports Gabbard as the only anti-War of the Democrats.
In WWI, 90% of Americans who served were drafted, in WWII over 60% of Americans who served were drafted. The Vietnam War "peace demonstrations" were more about the Draft, and skin-in-the-game, than about War. Nixon and Kissinger abolished the Draft (which stopped most anti-war protests), but continued carpet bombing Vietnam and neighboring countries (Operations Menu, Freedom Deal, Patio, etc), and Vietnamized the War which was already lost, although the killing continued through 1973. The abolition of the Draft largely gutted the anti-war movement. Sporadic protests against Bush/ Cheney over Afghanistan and Iraq essentially disappeared under Obama/ Hillary in Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Since their National Emergency proclamations no longer ever end, we are in a position to attack Venezuela (Obama), Ukraine (Obama), South Sudan (Obama), Iran (Carter, Clinton), Libya (Obama), Somalia (Obama), Yemen (Obama), Nicaragua (Trump) and even Burundi (Obama) and the Central African Republic (Obama). The continuing support of death squads in Honduras and other Latin American countries ("stability is more important than democracy") has contributed to the immigration crises over the last five years.
As Pelosi noted about Democratic progressives "there are like five of them". Obama not only failed to reverse any of the police state and warmongering of Bush/Cheney, he expanded both police state (arresting and prosecuting Chelsea Manning for exposing war crimes, as well as more whistleblowers than anyone in history), and wars in seven Arab Muslim countries. Black Americans, who had always been an anti-War bloc prior to Obama, converted to the new America. The Congressional Democrats joined with Republicans to give more to the military budget than requested by Trump. (Clinton squandered the Peace Dividend when the Soviet Union fell, and Lee Camp has exposed the $21 TRILLION "lost" by the Pentagon.)
The young author see anti-war improvements that are not there. The US is more pro-war in its foreign policies than at any time in its history. When there was a Draft, the public would not tolerate decades of war (lest their young men died). Sanctions are now the first attack (usually by National Emergencies!); the 500,000 Iraqi children killed by Clinton's sanctions (Madeline Albright: "we think it was worth it!") is just sadism and psychopathy at the top, which is necessary for War.

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:38

Superb comment, michael, very much agreed with and appreciated.

DW

Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 12:06

You are absolutely right. Obama and Hillary were the brilliant ideas of the MIC/CIA when they realized that NO ONE the Republicans put up after Bush baby's 2nd round. They chose 2 "victims" black & woman) who would do what they were told to do in order to promote their causes (blacks & get-filthy rich.) The first loser would get the next round. And that's exactly what happened until Hillary proved to be so unacceptable that she was rejected. We traded no new war for an administration leading us into a neo-nazi dictatorship.

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:04

Thank you for this comment!

Mickey , July 3, 2019 at 10:47

Tulsi Gabbard is the only peace candidate in the Democratic Party

Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:41

Absolutely! #Tulsi2020

peter mcloughlin , July 3, 2019 at 10:43

Many current crises have the potential to escalate into a major confrontation between the nuclear powers, similar to the Cuban missile crisis, though there is no comparable sense of alarm. Then, tensions were at boiling point, when a small military exchange could have led to nuclear annihilation. Today there are many more such flashpoint – Syria, the South China Sea, Iran, Ukraine to name a few. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a gradual movement towards third world war. Condemnation of an attack on Iran must include, foremost, the warning that it could lead the US into a confrontation with a Sino-Russian alliance. The warning from history is states go to war over interests, but ultimately – and blindly – end up getting the very war they need to avoid: even nuclear war, where the current trend is going.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:36

Many truly superb, well-informed, and very enlightening comments on this thread.

My very great appreciation to this site, to its authors, and to its exceptionally thoughtful and articulate commenters.

DW

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:20

I appreciate this author's perspective, research, and optimism.

Clearly, the young ARE far more open to embracing a future less warlike and hegemonic, while far too many of my generation are wedded to childish myth and fantasy around U$ driven mayhem.

However, I would suggest that vision be broadened beyond opposition to war, which opposition, while important, must be expanded to opposition to the larger issue of imperialism, itself.

Imperialism is not merely war, it includes economic warfare, both sanctions, internationally, and predatory debt loads, domestically, in very many nations of the world, as well as privatization of the commons (which must be understood to include all resources necessary to human existence).

Perpetual war, which profits only the few, is driven by precisely the same aims as pitting workers against each other, worldwide, in a "game" of "race to the bottom", creating "credit" rather than raising wages, thus creating life-long indebtedness of the many, which only benefits monopolized corporate interests, as does corporate ownership of such necessities as water, food production, and most channels of communication, which permits corporations to easily shape public perception toward whatever ends suit corporate purposes while also ensuring that deeper awareness of what is actually occurring is effectively stifled, deplatformed, or smeared as dangerous foreign fake news or as hidden, or even as blatant, racial or religious hatred.

Above all, it is critically important that all these interrelated aspects of deliberate domination, control, and diminishment, ARE talked about, openly, that we all may have better grasp of who really aligns with creating serious systemic change, especially as traditionally assumed "tendencies" are shifting, quickly and even profoundly.

For example, as many here point out, the Democrats are now as much a war party as the Republicans, "traditionally" have been, even as there is clear evidence that the Republican "base" is becoming less willing to go to war than are the Democratic "base", as CNN and MSNBC media outlets strive to incite a new Cold War and champion and applaud aggression in Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

It is the elite Democratic "leadership" and most Democratic Presidential hopefuls who now preach or excuse war and aggression, with few actual exceptions, and none of them, including Tulsi Gabbard, have come anywhere near openly discussing or embracing, the end of U$ imperialism.

Both neoliberal and neocon philosophies are absolutely dedicated to imperialism in all its destructive, even terminal, manifestations.

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:16

Exactly!

Gabbard has spoken out against sanctions. She understands that they're just another form of war.

The younger generations won't be able to financially support imperialist activities. And, they won't be, as the statements to their enlistment numbers suggest, able to "man the guns." I'm thinking that TPTB are aware of this (which is why a lot of drone and other automation of war machinery has been stepped up).

The recent alliance of Soros and Charles Koch, the Quincy Institute, is, I believe, a KEY turning point. Pretty much everything Gabbard is saying/calling for is this institute's mission statement: and people ought to note that Gabbard has been in Charles Koch's circle- might very well be that Gabbard has already influenced things in a positive way.

I also believe that all the great independent journalists, publishers (Assange taking the title here) and whistleblowers (Manning taking the title here) have made a HUGE impact. Bless them all.

O Society , July 3, 2019 at 09:48

The US government consistently uses psychological operations on its own citizens to manufacture consent to kill anyone and everyone. Meaningless propaganda phrases such as "Support Our Troops" and "National Security" and "War on Terror" are thrown around to justify genocides and sieges and distract us from murder. There is no left wing or in American politics and there has not been one since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. All we have is neoconservatives and neoliberals representing the business party for four decades. Killing is our business and business is good. Men are as monkeys with guns when it comes to politics and religion.

http://osociety.org/2019/07/03/the-science-of-influencing-people-six-ways-to-win-an-argument/

jmg , July 3, 2019 at 13:55

Seen on the street:

Support Our Troops
BRING THEM HOME NOW

https://media.salon.com/2003/03/the_billboard_bush_cant_see.jpg

Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 08:39

New

Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 08:42

New and better link here:
https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/7/e/7ebd2b61-aa29-49ac-9991-53a53da6a57f/3163D991E047042C0F52C929A2F60231.israel-syria-letter-5-21.pdf

Gregory Herr , July 3, 2019 at 21:40

One might be hard-pressed to find more outright perversions of reality in a mere two pages of text. Congratulations Congress, you have indeed surpassed yourself.

So it's those dastardly Russians and Iranians who are responsible for the destabilization of the Middle East, "complicating Israel's ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria." And apparently, it's the "ungoverned space" in Syria that has "allowed" for the rise of terrorist factions in Syria, that (we must be reminded) are ever poised to attack "Western targets, our allies and partners, and the U.S. homeland."

Good grief.

Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 08:29

Thank you Joe Lauria and Consortiumnews.

There is much wisdom and a good deal of personal experience being expressed on these pages. I especially want to thank IvyMike and Dao Gen. Ivy Mike you're so right about our troops in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, draftees and volunteers, they fought what was clearly an internal civil war fought valiantly, beyond that point, Vietnam was a political mess for all involved. And Dao Gen all of your points are accurate.

As for our legislators, please read the linked Foreign Affairs press release signed by over 400 leglislators On May 20th., 2019 that address "threats to Syria" including the Russia threat. Clearly it will take action by the People and Peace candidates to end this travesty of a foreign policy.

https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2019/5/nearly-400-lawmakers-call-on-trump-to-address-threats-in-syria

Is your legislator a signee of this list? All of mine are

James Clooney , July 3, 2019 at 10:11

Vietnam a war triggered by the prevention of a mandated election by the USA which Ho Chi Minh was likely to win, who had already recently been Premier of a unified Vietnam.

Sorry, being courageous in a vicious cause is not honorable.

Speaking a true history and responsibility is honorable.

Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 11:07

No need to be sorry James Clooney. I did not mention honor in my comment, I mentioned valiant (courage and determination). American troupes ultimately fight honorably for each other not necessarily for country. This was the message and evaluation of Captain Hal Moore To General Westmorland And Robert McNamera after the initial engagement of US troops and NVA and can be viewed as a special feature of the largely inaccurate DVD "We Were Soldiers And Young).

Karen , July 3, 2019 at 07:59

The veterans group About Face is doing remarkable work against the imperial militarization that threatens to consume our country and possibly the world. This threat includes militarization of US police, a growing nuclear arms race, and so-called humanitarian wars. About Face is also working to train ordinary people as medics to take these skills into their communities whose members are on the front lines of police brutality.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate with a strong, enlightened understanding of the costs of our many imperial wars Costs to ourselves in the US and costs to the people we invade in order to "save" them. I voted for McGovern in 1972. I would vote for Tuldi's Gabbard in 2020 if given the chance.

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:35

Vote for her now by supporting her*! One cannot wait until the DNC (or other party) picks the candidate FOR us. Anyone serious about peace ought to support her, and do it now and far into the future. I have always supported candidates who are champions for peace, no matter their "party" or whatever: I did not, though I wish that I had, support Walter Jones -of Freedom Fries fame- after he did a 180 (Gabbard knew Jones, and respected him); it took a lot of guts for him to do this, but his honest (like Ron Paul proved) was proven and his voters accepted him (and likely shifted their views along with him).

* Yeah, one has to register giving money, but for a lousy $1 She has yet to qualify for the third debate (need 130k unique donations): and yet Yang has! (nothing against him, but come on, he is not "Commander in Chief" material [and at this time it is, as Gabbard repeats, the single most important part of being president]).

Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:43

Strongly agree Only Tulsi

triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:14

Not surprising there was little or no antiwar sentiment in the newfound civic engagement after Trump's election, since the majority of those participating were supporters of the war criminals Obama, Clinton, and their corporate, war mongering DEM party. Those same people today, support Obama-chaperone Biden, or one of the other vetted corporate DEMs, including socialist-in-name-only Sanders, who signed the DEM loyalty oath promising to continue austerity for the poor, socialism for rich, deregulation, militarism, and global war hegemony. The only party with an antiwar blank was the Green Party, which captured >2% of the ~130 million votes in the rigged election- even though Stein is as competent as Clinton, certainly more competent than Trump, and the Green platform, unlike Sanders', explained how to pay for social and environmental programs by ending illegal wars in at least 7 countries, closing 1000 military command posts located all over earth, removing air craft carrier task forces from every ocean, cutting defense spending.

James Clooney , July 3, 2019 at 10:22

I believe the CIA operation "CARWASH" was under Obama, which gave us Ultra fascism in one of the largest economies in the world, Brazil.

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:02

Superb comment, trieke, and I especially appreciate your mention of Jill Stein and the Green Party.

It is unfortunate that the the Green New Deal, championed by AOC is such a pale and intentionally pusillanimous copy of the Green New Deal articulated by Stein, which pointedly made clear that blind and blythe economic expansion must cease, that realistic natural constraints and carrying capacity be accepted and profligate energy squandering come to an end.

That a sane, humane, and sustainable economic system, wholly compatible with ecological responsibility can provide neaningful endeavor, justly compensated, for all, as was coherently addressed and explained to any who cared to examine the substance of that, actual, and realistic, original, GND.

Such a vision must be part of successfully challenging, and ending, U$ imperialism.

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:53

And Trump likely signed a GOP pledge. It's all superficial crap, nothing that is really written in stone.

I LOVE Stein. But for the sake of the planet we have little time to wait on getting the Green Party up to speed (to the clasp the levers of power). Unless Gabbard comes out on top (well, the ultimate, and my favorite, long-shot would be Gravel, but reality is something that I have to accept) it can only really be Sanders. I see a Sanders nomination as being the next best thing (and, really, the last hope as it all falls WAY off the cliff after that). He would most certainly have Gabbard along (if not as VP, which is the best strategy for winning, then as some other high-ranking, and meaningful cabinet member). Also, there are a lot of folks that would be coming in on his coattails. It is THESE people that will make the most difference: although he's got his flaws, Ro Kana would be a good top official. And, there are all the supporters who would help push. Sanders is WAY better than HRC (Obama and, of course, Trump). He isn't my favorite, but he has enough lean in him to allow others to help him push the door open: I'll accept him if that's what it take to get Gabbard into all of this.

Sometimes you DO have to infiltrate. Sanders is an infiltrator (not a Dem), though he treads lightly. Gabbard has already proven her intentions: directly confronted the DNC and the HRC machine (and her direct attack on the MIC is made very clear); and, she is indirectly endorsed by some of the best people out there who have run for POTUS: Jill Stein; Ron Paul; Mike Gravel. We cannot wait for the Dems (and the MIC) to disarm. We need to get inside "the building" and disarm. IF Sanders or Gabbard (and no Gravel) don't get the nomination THEN it is time to open up direct "warfare" and attack from the "outside" (at this time there should be enough big defectors to start swinging the tide).

Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:34

Yes trieke, I voted for Stein in 2016, and I plan on voting Green Party again in 2020. I see too many fellow progressives/liberals/leftists (whatever the hell we want to call ourselves) agonizing about which compromised Democrat to vote-for, trying to weigh their different liabilities, etc. I've come to believe that my duty as a voter is to vote for the POTUS candidate/party whose stances/platform are closest to my views, and that's unequivocally the Green Party. My duty as a voter does NOT entail 'voting for a winner', that's just part of the two-party-con that the Dems & Reps run.

jmg , July 3, 2019 at 07:06

The big difference is that, during the Vietnam years, people could *see* the war. People talked a lot about "photographs that ended the Vietnam war", such as the napalm girl, etc.

The government noticed this. There were enormous pressures on the press, even a ban on returning coffin photos. Now, since the two Iraq wars, people *don't see* the reality of war. The TV and press don't show Afghanistan, don't show Yemen, didn't show the real Iraq excepting for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, who are in prison because of this.

And the wars go on:

"The US government and military are preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq war."

Dan Kennedy: Censorship of graphic Iraq war photographs -- 29 Jul 2008
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/29/iraqandthemedia.usa

jmg , July 3, 2019 at 18:36

For example, we all know that mainstream media is war propaganda now, itself at war on truth and, apart from some convenient false flags to justify attacks, they very rarely let the very people suffering wars be heard to wake viewers up, and don't often even show this uncensored reality of war anymore, not like the true images of this old, powerful video:

Happy Xmas (War Is Over! If You Want It)

So this is Xmas
And what have you done
-- John Lennon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY7gPcDFwQc

Dao Gen , July 3, 2019 at 05:20

mbob -- thank you -- has already put this very well, but it is above all the Dems, especially Obama and the Clintons, who killed the antiwar movement. Obama was a fake, and his foreign policy became even more hawkish after Hillary resigned as SoS. His reduction of Libya, the richest state in Africa, to a feudal chaotic zone in which slavery is once more prominent and his attempt to demonize Syria, which has more semi-democracy and women's rights than any of the Islamic kingdoms the US supports as its allies, and turn Syria into a jihadi terrorist hell, as well as Obama's bombing of other nations and his sanctions on still other nations such as Venezuela, injured and killed at least as many people as did GW Bush's invasion of Iraq. Yet where was the antiwar movement? In the 21st century the US antiwar movement has gained most of its strength from anti-Repub hatred. The current uptick of antiwar feeling is probably due mostly to hatred of Trump. Yet Trump is the first president since Carter not to invade or make a major attack on a foreign country. As a businessman, his policy is to use economic warfare instead of military warfare.

I am not a Trump supporter, and strong sanctions are a war crime, and Trump is also slow to reduce some of Obama's overseas bombing and other campaigns, yet ironically he is surely closer to being a "peace president" than Obama. Moreover, a major reason Trump won in 2016 was that Hillary was regarded as the war and foreign intervention candidate, and in fact if Hillary had won, she probably would have invaded Syria to set up her infamous "no-fly zone" there, and she might have bombed Iran by now. We might even be in a war with Russia now. At the same time, under Trump the Dem leadership and the Dem-leaning MSM have pursued an unabashedly neocon policy of attacking from the right Trumps attempts at detente with Russia and scorning his attempts to negotiate a treaty with N Korea and to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan. The main reason why Trump chose dangerous neocons like Bolton and Pompeo as advisors was probably to shield himself a little from the incessant and sometimes xenophobic attacks from the Dem leadership and the MSM. The Dem leadership seems motivated not only by hatred of Trump but also, and probably more importantly, by a desire to get donations from the military-industrial complex and a desire to ingratiate itself with the Intel Community and the surveillance state in order to get various favors. Look, for example, at Adam Schiff, cheerleader-in-chief for the IC. The system of massive collusion between the Dem party elite and the US deep state was not as advanced during the Vietnam War era as it is now. 2003 changed a lot of things.

The only Dem presidential candidates who are philosophically and securely antiwar are Gabbard and Gravel. Even Bernie (and even more so, Warren) can't be trusted to stand up to the deep state if elected, and anyway, Bernie's support for the Russiagate hoax by itself disqualifies him as an antiwar politician, while the Yemen bill he sponsored had a fatal loophole in it, as Bernie well knew. I love Bernie, but he is neither antiwar nor anti-empire. As for Seth Moulton, mentioned in the article, he is my Rep, and he makes some mild criticisms of the military, but he is a rabid hawk on Syria and Iran, and he recently voted for a Repub amendment that would have punished Americans who donate to BDS organizations. And as for the younger generation of Dems, they are not as antiwar as the article suggests. For every AOC among the newly elected Dems in 2018, there were almost two new Dems who are military vets or who formerly worked for intel agencies. This does not bode well. As long at the deep state, the Dem elite, and the MSM are tightly intertwined, there will be no major peace movement in the near future, even if a Dem becomes president. In fact, a Dem president might hinder the formation of a true antiwar movement. Perhaps when China becomes more powerful in ten or twenty years, the unipolar US empire and permanent war state will no longer look like a very good idea to a large number of Americans, and the idea of a peace movement will once again become realistic. The media have a major role to play in spreading truthful news about how the current US empire is hurting domestic living standards. Rather than hopey-hope wish lists, no-holds-barred reporting will surely play a big role.

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:05

Absolutely superb comment, Dao Gen.

DW

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:07

Another fine example of why I think there is hope! (some very sharp commentators!)

A strong leader can make all the difference. The example gets set from the top: not that this is my preference, just that it's the reality we have today. MLK Jr. was such a leader, though it was MANY great people that were in his movement/orbit that were the primary architects. I suppose you could say it's a "rally around the flag" kind of deal. Just as Trump stunned the System, I believe that it can be stunned from the "left" (the ultimate stunning would be from a Gravel win, but I'm thinking that Gabbard would be the one that has what it takes to slip past).

I really wish that people would start asking candidates who they think have been good cabinet members for various positions. This could help give an idea of the most important facet of an administration: who the POTUS selects as key cabinet members tells pretty much everything you need to know. Sadly, Trump had a shot at selecting Gabbard and passed on her: as much as I detest Trump, I gave him room in which to work away from the noecon/neolib death squads (to his credit he's mostly just stalemated them- for a rookie politician you could say that this has been an impressive feat; he's tried to instigate new wars but has, so far, "failed" [by design?]).

geeyp , July 3, 2019 at 01:19

"We saved more money today for the American people ." – Elijah Cummings. Yea? Well then, give it to us!! You owe us a return of our money that you have wasted for years.

mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17

Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different. There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel.
Honest. Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.

And this is the "new anti war movement." Yeah.

Tom Kath , July 3, 2019 at 00:04

Every extreme elicits an extreme response. Our current western pacifist obsession is no exception. By prohibiting argument, disagreement, verbal conflict, and the occasional playground "dust up" on a personal level, you seem to make the seemingly less personal war inevitable.

Life on earth is simply not possible without "a bit of biff".

James Clooney , July 3, 2019 at 09:38

An aware person may not react extremely to a extreme. USA slaughtered 5 to 10 million Vietnamese for no apparent reason other than projection of power yet the Vietnamese trade with the USA today.

Who prohibits argument? Certainly not those with little power; it's the militarily and politically powerful that crush dissent, (Tinamen Square , Occupy Wall Street). How much dissent does the military allow? Why is Assange being persecuted?

I believe even the most militant pacifist would welcome a lively debate on murder, death and genocide, as a channel for education and edification.

Antonio Costa , July 2, 2019 at 20:53

Weak essay. AOC hops from cause to cause. She rarely/ever says anything about US regime change wars, and the bombing of children. She's demonstrated no anti-war bona fides.

Only Tulsi Gabbard has forthright called for an end to regime change wars, the warmongers and reduction in our military.

The power is with the powerful. We'll not see an end to war, nor Medicare for All or much of anything regarding student debt. These are deep systemic problems calling for systemic solutions beginning with how we live on the planet(GND is a red herring), the GDP must become null and void if we are to behave as if plundering the planet is part of "progress". It needs to be replaced to some that focuses on quality of life as the key to prosperity. The geopolitics of the world have to simply STOP IT. It's not about coalitions between Russia and China and India to off-set the US imperialists. That's an old game for an empty planet. The planet is full and exceeding it capacity and is on fire. Our geopolitics must end!

Not one of these candidates come close to focusing on the systemic problem(s) except Gabbard's focus on war because it attacks the heart of the American Imperial Empire.

Maxime , July 3, 2019 at 09:24

I agree with you that you americans will probably not see the end of your system and the end of your problems any time soon.

BUT I disagree on that you seems to think it's inevitable. I'm not american, I'm french, and reading you saying you think medicare for all, no student debt and end to endless wars are systemic problems linked to GDP and the current economic system is well, amusing. We have medicare for all, in fact even better than your medicare, we have no student cost for our educating system, and still in both cases often better results than yours, even if we are behind some of our northern neighbors, but they don't pay for these either. And we don't wage endless wars, even if we have ourselves our own big war problems, after all we were in Lybia, we are in Syria, we are in Mali and other parts of Africa.

We also have a big militaro-industrial complex, in fact very alike the american one. But we made clear since much longer than we would not accept as much wars, in part because the lesson we got from WW2 and Cold War was to learn to live together with our hated neighbor. You know, the one the other side of the Rhine. Today France is a diplomatic superpower, often the head of the european spear onthe subject, we got feared elite military, and we are proud of that, but we would not even accept more money (in proportion) given to our military complex.

And you know the best news (for the americans)? we have an history of warmongering going back millenias. We learn to love Caesar and the "Guerre des Gaules", his invasion of Gauls. We learn how Franks invaded their neighbors and built the first post-roman Empire. We learn how crusaders were called Franks, how we built our nation and his pride on ashes of european continental english hopes and german holy empire aspirations. We learn how Napolean nearly achieved to built a new continental Empire, how we never let them passed at Verdun, and how we rose in the face of a tyran in 1944.

All of this is still in our history books, and we're still proud of it. But today, if most of us were to be asked what we were proud about recent wars France got into, it would be how our president vetoed USA when they tried to got UN into Irak and forced them to invade illegally, and without us.
I think my country's revelation was Algeria's independance war. One bloody and largely filled with war crimes and crimes against humanity. We're ashamed of it, and I think we, as a nation, learned from it that stopping wars on our soil wasn't enough. I still don't understand how americans can still wage wars after Vietnam, but I am not american. Still, even the most warmongering nation can learn. Let's hope you will be quicker than us, because we got millennias of bloody history before even the birth of USA.

Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:15

Thanks Maxime for a foreign perspective! I'm often curious what people in foreign countries think of our current politics in the US,especially when I read analysis/commentaries by US writers (even ones I respect) who say "Oh most of our allies think this or that" -- - maybe they're right or maybe they're wrong or somewhere in-between, but it's interesting getting a DIRECT opinion from a fellow left-of-center citizen from a foreign state.

I agree with your points that European countries like France almost all have their own bloody history including an imperial period, but the two big World Wars that killed SO many people and destroyed so many cities in Europe were so tragic and wasteful that I suspect they DO continue to act as a significant deterrent to the saber-rattling that the US war mongers are able to engage-in. For too many US citizens 'war' is just something that's mentioned & sometimes displayed on a screen, just like a movie/TV program/video-game, and there's a non-reality to it because it's so far away and seldom directly affects them. Geography has famously isolated us from the major death & destruction of war and enables too many armchair warriors to talk boldly and vote for politicians who pander to those conceits. In a not-so-subtle way, the US IS the younger offspring of Europe, where Europe has grown-up due to some hard lessons, while the US is going through its own destructive stage of 'lesson-learning'. Hopefully this learning stage will be over soon and won't involve a world war.

DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:48

Tulsi Gabbard is, indeed,pointing at part of a major organ of imperialism, Antonio Costa, yet habeas corpus, having the whole body of imperialism produced is necessary for the considered judgement of a people long terrorized by fictitious "monsters" and "demons", if they are to understand that shooting warfate is but one part of the heart, while the other is economic warfare. Both brutally destructive, even if the second is hidden from public awareness or dismissed as "a price worth paying". Imperialism pays no price (except "blow-back", which is merely "religious extremism" as explained by a fully complicit MSM).

And the "brain" behind it all?

That is corporate/military/political/deep state/media greed – and their desperate need/ambition for total, and absolute, control.

Only seeing the whole body may reveal the true size of the threat and the vicious nature of the real danger.

Some may argue that it is "too soon", "too early", or "too costly", politically, for Gabbard, even if she, herself, might see imperialism as the real monster and demon, to dare describe the whole beast.

Frankly, this time, Tulsi's candidacy, her "run" for President, is not likely to see her become the Dem nominee, most likely that will be Kamala Harris (who will happily do the bidding of brute power), rather, it is to lay the firm and solid foundation of actual difference, of rational perspective, and thoughtful, diplomatic international behavior.

To expose the whole, especially the role of the MSM, in furthering all the rest of the lumbering body of Zombie imperialism, would be far more effective in creating an substantial "opening" for alternative possibilities, even a new political party, next time.

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:31

I'm figuring that Warren and Harris will take one another out. Climbing to the top requires this. But, Gabbard doesn't stop fighting, and if there's a fighter out there it is her: mentally and physically she is the total package.

Sanders' 2016 campaign was ignored, he wasn't supposed to go anywhere, but if not for the DNC's meddling he would be POTUS right now (I have zero doubt over that). So too was Obama's climb from nowhere: of course, Obama was pushed up by the System, the System that is NOT behind Gabbard. And then there's the clown at the helm (Trump). I refuse to ignore this history.

Gababard is by no means out. Let's not speak of such things, especially when her campaign, and message, is just starting to burst out: the MSM is the last to admit the state of things unfavorable to the wealthy, but out on the Internet Gabbard is very much alive. She is the best candidate (with the best platform of visibility) for peace. She has all the pieces. One comment I read out on the internet (someone, I believe, not in the US) was that Gabbard was a gift to the Americans. Yes, I believe this to be the case: if you really look closely you'll see exactly how this is correct. I believe that we cannot afford to treat this gift with other than the utmost appreciation. Her sincerity when she says that she was/is willing to die for her fellow soldiers (in reference to LBGT folks, though ALL apply) is total. She is totally committed to this battle: as a warrior in politics she's proven herself with her support, the loyalty, for Sanders (at risk to her political career- and now look, she's running for POTUS, she continues to come out on top!).

IvyMike , July 2, 2019 at 20:14

I burned my draft card, grew my hair out, and smoked pot and was anti war as heck. But the peace demonstrations (and riots) in the 60's and 70's did not have much effect on how the U.S. Government prosecuted the Vietnam War. It is little recognized how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC while also taking heavy casualties.

We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South.

Then the politicians and Generals knew, given the super power politics surrounding the war, that we had lost. We had failed to recognize that we had not intervened in a Civil War, in truth Vietnam as a whole was fighting for freedom from Imperialism and we had no friends in the South, just a corrupt puppet government. Instead of getting out, Nixon made the unforgivable choice to slowly wind the war down until he could get out without losing, Peace With Honor the ultimate triumph of ego over humanity. Americans had a chance to choose a peace candidate in 1972, instead Nixon won with a big majority.

The military has never been able to admit they were defeated on the battlefield by North Vietnam, blaming it instead on the Liberal Media and the Anti War movement. Believing that lie they continue to fight unwinnable wars in which we have no national interest at stake. The media and the people no longer fight against war, but it never really made a difference when we did.

Realist , July 3, 2019 at 05:17

I too hoped for a miracle and voted for George. But then I always voted for the loser in whatever state I happened to be living in at the particular time. I think Carter was a rare winning pick by me but only once. I got disgusted with voting and sat out the Clinton campaigns, only returning to vote against the Bush juggernaut. In retrospect, Perot should have won to make a real difference. I sided with the winner in Obama, but the loser turned out to be America getting saddled with that two-faced hypocrite. Nobel Peace Prize winner indeed! (What did he spend the money on?) When you listen to their campaign promises be aware they are telegraphing how they plan to betray you.

triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:45

American people in mass need to hit reset button. A yellow vest-like movement made up of tens of millions of woke people, who understand the democrats and republicans are the left and right wing of the oligarch party,

US elections have been and continue to be rigged, and the US constitution was written to protect the property (such as slaves) of oligarchs from the people, the founding oligarchs feared real democracy, evident by all the safeguards they built into our government to protect against it, that remain in tact today.

We need a new 21st century constitution. Global capitalism needs to be greatly curtailed, or ended out right, replaced by ecosocialism, conservation, restoration of earth focussed society

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:38

And just think that back then there was also Mike Gravel. The CIA did their work in the 60s to kill the anti-war movement: killing all the great social leaders.

Why wars are "lost" is because hardly is there a time when there's an actual "mission statement" on what the end of a given war will look like. Tulsi Gabbard has made it clear that she would NOT engage in any wars unless there was a clear objective, a clear outcome lined out, and, of course, it was authorized by THE PEOPLE (Congress).

All wars are about resources. We cannot, however, admit this: the ruling capitalists won't allow that to be known/understood lest they lose their power.

Realist , July 3, 2019 at 04:59

Ya got all that right, especially the part about the analysts essentially declaring the war lost after Tet. I remember that offered a lot of hope on the campuses that the war would soon end (even though we lost), especially to those of us near graduation and facing loss of that precious 2S deferment. Yet the big fool marched on, getting my generation needlessly slaughtered for four or five more years.

And, yes, the 2 or 3 million dead Vietnamese did matter, to those with a conscience. Such a price to keep Vietnam out of Russia's and China's orbit. Meanwhile they set an independent course after kicking us out of their land and even fought a war with China. We should still be paying reparations for the levels of death and destruction we brought to a country half a world away with absolutely no means or desire to threaten the United States. All our wars of choice, starting with Korea, have been similar crimes against humanity. Turkey shoots against third world societies with no way to do us any harm. But every one of them fought ferociously to the death to defend their land and their people. Inevitably, every occupier is sent packing as their empire crumbles. Obviously, Americans have been too thick to learn this from mere history books. We will only learn from our tragic mistakes. I see a lot of lessons on the upcoming schedule.

James Clooney , July 3, 2019 at 08:36

USA did not "intervene" in a civil war. USA paid France to continue it's imperial war and then took over when France fled defeated. USA prevented a mandated election Ho Chi Minh would win and then continued western imperial warfare against the Vietnamese ( even though Vietnamese was/is bulwark against China's territorial expansion).

mauisurfer , July 2, 2019 at 20:12

The Watson study says: "Indeed, the DOD is the world's largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world.4"

This is a gross UNDERcount of emissions. It includes ONLY petroleum burned.
It does NOT count explosions from bombs, missiles, rockets, rifles, etc.

Perhaps someone could provide an estimate of this contribution to greenhouse gases???

triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:25

US military contribution to ecocide: https://climateandcapitalism.com/2015/02/08/pentagon-pollution-7-military-assault-global-climate/

Seer , July 3, 2019 at 16:35

Don't worry, Elizabeth Warren has a plan to operate the military on renewables! (she can continue to make sure her constituency, which is Raytheon, is well served)

From https://www.mintpressnews.com/shes-hot-and-shes-cold-elizabeth-warren-and-the-military-industrial-complex/253542/

Raytheon, one of the biggest employers in Warren's state, where it's headquartered, "has a positive relationship with Sen. Warren, and we interact with her and her staff regularly," Michael Doble, a spokesman for the company, said.

jo6pac , July 2, 2019 at 20:12

This awful news for the merchants of death and I'm sure they're working overtime to stop silliness;-). I do hope this isn't killed by those that love the endless wars.

Thanks AH

mbob , July 2, 2019 at 20:10

Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. Rather than support President Trump's efforts to end the Korean War, to reduce our involvement in the Middle East and to pursue a more peaceful path with Russia, the Democratic party (with very, very few exceptions) is opposed to all these things.

The Democratic party places its hatred for Trump above its professed love of peace.

President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions.

From a peace perspective, Trump looks comparatively great (provided he doesn't attack Iraq or invade Venezuela). But, since it's impossible to recognize Trump for anything positive, or to support him in any way, it's now impossible for Democrats to promote peace. Doing so might help Trump. It would, of necessity, require acknowledging Trump's uniqueness among recent US Presidents in not starting new wars.

Realist , July 3, 2019 at 03:28

I agree. mbob makes perfect sense in his analysis.

The Democrats must be brought back to reality with a sound repudiation by the voters, otherwise they are of no use to America and will have no long-term future.

James Clooney , July 3, 2019 at 09:56

Obama escalated Afghanistan when he had a popular mandate to withdraw. He facilitated the the Syrian rebellion in conjunction with ISIS funding Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He instigated the Zalaya (primarily Hillary) and the Ukraine rebellion.

Trump supports the Yemeni genocide.

But yes citizens have been directed to hate Trump the man/symptom rather than the enduring Imperial predatory capitalistic system.

James Clooney , July 3, 2019 at 10:02

Opps sorry; so many interventions and invasions, under Obama, special forces trained Malian general overthrew the democratically elected president of Mali, result, more war,death and destruction.

Robert , July 3, 2019 at 10:48

You are correct in your analysis. Allegra Harpootlian is searching for the peace lobby among Democrat supporters, where it no longer resides.

As a result of corporate-controlled mainstream media and their support for Democrat elites, Democrat supporters have largely been brainwashed into hatred for Donald Trump and everything he stands for. This hatred blinds them to the far more important issue of peace.

Strangely, there is huge US support to remove troops from the ME, but this support resides with the overwhelming majority of Donald Trump voters. Unfortunately, these are not individuals who typically go to peace demonstrations, but they are sincere in bringing all US troops home from the ME. Donald Trump himself lobbied on this, and with the exceptions of his anti-Iranian / pro-Israel / pro-Saudi Arabia stance and withdrawal from JCPOA, he has not only backed down from military adventurism, but is the first President since Eisenhower to raise the issue of the influence of the military-industrial complex.

In the face of strong opposition, he is the first President ever to enter North Korea and meet with Kim Jong Un to discuss nuclear weapons. Mainstream media continues its war-mongering rhetoric, attacking Trump for his "weakness" in not retaliating against Iran, or in meeting "secretly" with Putin.

Opposition to Trump's peace efforts are not limited to MSM, however, but are entrenched in Democrat and Republican elites, who attack any orders he gives to withdraw from the ME. It was not Trump, but Democrat and Republican elites who invited NATO's Stoltenberg to speak to Congress in an attempt to spite Trump.

In essence, you have President Trump and most of his supporters trying to withdraw from military engagements, with active opposition from Democrats like Adam Schiff, and Republican elites, actively promoting war and military spending.

DJT is like a less-likeable Inspector Clouseau. Sometimes ineptitude is a blessing. You also have a few Republicans, like journalist Tucker Carlson of Fox News, and Democrats, like Tulsi Gabbard, actively pushing the message of peace.

Erelis , July 3, 2019 at 20:45

I think you got it. The author is right in the sense that there is an anti-war movement, but that movement is in many ways hidden. As bizarre as it may seen counter to CW wisdom, and in some way ironically crazy, one of the biggest segments of anti-war sentiment are Trump supporters. After Trump's decision not to attack Iran, I went to various right wing commentators who attacked Trump, and the reaction against these major right wing war mongers was to support Trump. And with right wing commentators who supported Trump, absolute agreement. These is of course based on my objective reading reading and totally subjective. But I believe I am right.

This made me realize there is an untapped anti-war sentiment on the right which is being totally missed. And a lack of imagination and Trump derangment syndrome which blocks many on the anti-war Left to see it and use it for an anti-war movement. There was an article in The Intercept that looked research on the correlation between military deaths and voting preference. Here is the article:

STUDY FINDS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HIGH MILITARY CASUALTIES AND VOTES FOR TRUMP OVER CLINTON
https://theintercept.com/2017/07/10/study-finds-relationship-between-high-military-casualties-and-votes-for-trump-over-clinton/

And the thing is that Trump was in many ways the anti-war candidate. And those areas that had high military death rates voted for Trump. I understand the tribal nature of political affiliation, but it seems what I have read and this article, there may be indeed an untapped anti-war stance with Trump supporters.

And it really just challenges my own beliefs that the major obstacle to the war mongers are Trump supporters.

Helga I. Fellay , July 3, 2019 at 11:09

mbob – I couldn't have said it better myself. Except to add that in addition to destroying Libya, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama, ably assisted by Hillary Clinton, also destroyed Honduras and the Ukraine.

Anarcissie , July 3, 2019 at 11:55

Historically, the Democratic Party has been pro-war and pro-imperialism at least since Wilson. The hatred for Trump on their part seems to be based entirely on cultural issues -- he is not subservient enough to their gods.

But as for antiwar demonstrations, it's been proved in the streets that they don't accomplish anything. There were huge demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, but it ground on until conservatives got tired of it. At least half a million people demonstrated against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and no one important cared. Evidently more fundamental issues than the war of the moment are involved and I think that is where a lot of people are turning now. The ruling class will find this a lot harder to deal with because it's decentralized and widely distributed. Hence the panic about Trump and the seething hatred of Sanders.

mbob , July 3, 2019 at 18:15

I attempted to make three points in my post. First, Democrats are now pro-war. Second, solely regarding peace, Trump looks better than all other recent Presidents because he hasn't started any new wars. Third, the inability of Democrats (or the public as a whole) to give Trump the benefit of a doubt, or to support him in any way, is contrary to the cause of peace.

Democrats should, without reservation, support Trump's effort to end the Korean War. They should support Trump's desire to improve relations with Russia. They don't do either of those things. Why? Because it might hurt them politically.

Your comment does not challenge the first two points and reinforces the third.

As for Yemen, yes, Trump is wrong. Democrats rightly oppose him on Yemen -- but remarkably tepidly. Trump is wrong about a lot of things. I don't like him. I didn't vote for him. But I will vote for him if Democrats nominate someone worse than him, which they seem inclined to do. (Gabbard is better than Trump. Sanders probably. Maybe Warren. Of the three, only Warren receives positive press. That makes me skeptical of her.)

Trump stood up to his advisors, Bolton and Pompeo, regarding both Iran and Venezuela. Obama, on the other hand, did not. He followed the advice of his advisors, with disastrous consequences.

Piotr Berman , July 4, 2019 at 07:02

Trump standing up to his nominees:

>>In addition to Tuesday's sanctions, the Treasury Department issued an advisory to maritime shipping companies, warning them off transporting oil to Syria or risking their property and money seized if kept with financial institutions that follow U.S. sanctions law.

"The United States will aggressively seek to impose sanctions against any party involved in shipping oil to Syria, or seeking to evade our sanctions on Iranian oil," said Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a release. "Shipping companies, insurers, vessel owners, managers, and operators should all be aware of the grave consequences of engaging in sanctionable conduct involving Iranian oil shipments."<<

Today British marines seized a tanker near Gibraltar for the crime of transporting oil to Syria. And Trumpian peaceful military seized Syrian oil fields. Traditional war is increasingly augmented by piracy, which is less bloody, but trades outright carnage for deprivation of civilians. Giving "measured praise" for that makes me barf.

[Jul 06, 2019] Ilargi: Memo to the US The Winds Are Shifting

Notable quotes:
"... Yes. It's piracy. USA a Pirate Nation. UK a useful part of the gang. ..."
"... I mean, empires have always been expansionist, violently expansionist. I mean, this is bad, but the empire is the empire. What bothers me is the lying. The filthy unbelievable lies emanating from the likes of Hillaria Terroristica and Pompeus Maximus and even from Obama the Salesman emperor, Emperor Tex Bush the second, and our current Carnival Barker Emperor Trumpius the Rube Caller. Let alone the generals lying thru their teeth. ..."
"... There should have a new slogan for this international cabal -- "Strength through Chaos". To be precise, OUR strength through THEIR chaos. ..."
"... You could safely leave out anywhere in the Americas, I think, after reading Confessions of an Economic Hitman . Less bombs, same benevolent results. The US/Mexican Border comes to mind, filled with refugees from Guatemala and Honduras. ..."
"... I very much agree with Illargi on this. Nothing good can come from the "heroic" seizure of the tanker. Mission accomplished: we are more idiotic every passing day. ..."
"... The purpose, and effect, of empire is theft. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Posted on July 5, 2019 by Yves Smith

By Raúl Ilargi Meijer, editor of Automatic Earth. Originally published at Automatic Earth

How do you define terror? Perhaps, because of the way the term has evolved in the English language, one wouldn't call the west 'terrorists' per se, but 'we' are certainly spreading terror and terrorizing very large groups of people. Yeah, bring on the tanks and parade them around town. Add a marching band that plays some war tunes.

The 'official' storyline : at the request of the US, Gibraltar police and UK marines have seized an oil tanker in Gibraltar. The super-tanker, 1000 feet (330 meters) long, carrying 2 million barrels, had stopped there after sailing all around the Cape of Good Hope instead of taking the Suez canal on its way, ostensibly, from Iran to Syria.

And, according to the storyline as presented to and in the western press, because the EU still has sanctions on Iran, the British seized the ship. Another little detail I really appreciate is that Spain's acting foreign minister, Josep Borrell, said Madrid was looking into the seizure and how it may affect Spanish sovereignty since Spain does not recognize the waters around Gibraltar as British.

That Borrell guy is the newly picked EU foreign policy czar, and according to some sources he's supportive of Iran and critical of Israel. Them's the webs we weave. He's certainly in favor of Palestinian statehood. But we're wandering

Why did the tanker take that giant detour along the African coastline? Because potential problems were anticipated in the Suez canal. But also: why dock in Gibraltar? Because no problems were anticipated there. However, the US had been following the ship all along, and set this up.

A trap, a set-up, give it a name. I would think this is about Iran, not about sanctions on Syria; that's just a convenient excuse. Moreover, as people have been pointing out, there have been countless arms deliveries to Syrian rebels in the past years (yes, that's illegal) which were not seized.

The sanctions on Syria were always aimed at one goal: getting rid of Assad. That purpose failed either miserably or spectacularly, depending on your point of view. It did achieve one thing though, and if I were you I wouldn't be too sure this was not the goal all along.

That is, out of a pre-war population of 22 million, the United Nations in 2016 identified 13.5 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance; over 6 million are internally displaced within Syria, and around 5 million are refugees outside of Syria. About half a million are estimated to have died, the same number as in Iraq.

And Assad is still there and probably stronger than ever. But it doesn't even matter whether the US/UK/EU regime change efforts are successful or not, and I have no doubt they've always known this. Their aim is to create chaos as a war tactic, and kill as many people as they can. How do you define terror, terrorism? However you define it, 'we' are spreading it.

That grossly failed attempt to depose Assad has left Europe with a refugee problem it may never be able to control. And the only reason there is such a problem is that Europe, in particular Britain and France, along with the US, tried to bomb these people's homelands out of existence. Because their leaders didn't want to conform to "our standards", i.e. have our oil companies seize and control their supplies.

But while you weren't looking some things changed, irreversibly so. The US and Europe are no longer the undisputed and overwhelming global military power they once were. Russia has become a target they cannot even consider attacking anymore, because their armies, assembled in NATO, wouldn't stand a chance.

China is not yet at the 'might' level of Russia, but US and NATO are in no position to attack a country of 1.4 billion people either. Their military prominence ended around the turn of the century/millennium, and they're not going to get it back. Better make peace fast.

So what we've seen for a few decades now is proxy wars. In which Russia in particular has been reluctant to engage but decisive when it does. Moscow didn't want to let Assad go, and so they made sure he stayed. Syria is Russia's one single stronghold in the Middle East, and deemed indispensable.

Meanwhile, as over half of Syrians, some 11 million people, have been forced to flee their homes, with millions of them traumatized by war, 'we' elect to seize a tanker allegedly headed for a refinery in the country, so we can make sure all those people have no oil or less oil for a while longer.

So the refugees that do have the courage and will to return will find it that much harder to rebuild their homes and towns, and will tell those still abroad not to join them. At the same time Assad is doing fine, he may be the target of the sanctions but he doesn't suffer from them, his people do.

Yes, let's parade some tanks around town. And let's praise the heroic UK marines who seized an utterly defenseless oil tanker manned by a bunch of dirt-poor Philippinos. Yay! There is probably some profound irony that explains why Trump and Bolton and Pompeo want a military parade at the very moment the US military must concede defeat in all theaters but the propaganda one.

Still there it is. The only people the US, the west, can still credibly threaten, are defenseless civilians, women, children. The leaders of nations are out of reach. Maduro, Assad, let alone Putin or Xi.

Happy 4th of July. Not sure how independent you yourself are, but I can see a few people who did achieve independence from western terror. Just not the poor, the ones that count. But don't look at the tanks, look at the wind instead. The winds are shifting.


Clive , July 5, 2019 at 4:32 am

The EU has been a sticking plaster and a shot of Novocain at the open wound that is Gibraltar. Without that stabilising influence, that plaster is about to be ripped off and a slash of neat peroxide is about to be poured onto it.

Watch for more -- unpleasant -- developments coming soon on this one.

The Rev Kev , July 5, 2019 at 5:44 am

I wondered about that myself. There could be an unspoken message now out that the UK gets to say who gets to use the Straits of Gibraltar. I am sure that the Spanish would see no problem with that. One thing is sure. That is a few more countries that the UK has completely antagonized now which will come back to bite it post-Brexit.

Colonel Smithers , July 5, 2019 at 6:20 am

Thank you and well said, Gentlemen, Clive, the Reverend and the author, and to Yves for sharing.

The winds are indeed shifting, but as long as defeat is not obvious in the propaganda theatre, that's all that matters.

The NC community, especially Anonymous 2, David and Harry, have often written about the calibre of civil servants in the Treasury with regard to Brexit, it's the same with the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

Middle East experts, often termed "Arabists", have left, often forced out for ideological reasons. They would have cautioned against such adventures. The newer and younger breed of Foreign Office officials, e.g. the co-author of the dodgy / sexed up (WMD) dossier Matthew Rycroft, and some veterans like John Scarlet, now retired and consulting with former Tory MP James Arbuthnott (whose wife "presided" over Assange's recent hearing), are far more ideological (neo con) and willing to blur the boundaries between impartial advice and enabling what politicians want. There are few, if any regional, specialists at the Foreign Office any more.

Sadly, it's the same with the officer corps, more ideological, enablers and less, if at all, cognizant of the strategic implications of such actions.

As the above happens, HMG becomes more and more dependent on advice from the likes of US neo con think tanks, especially the Henry Jackson Society. Unlike at the Treasury and Bank of England, so far, no such neo cons and neo liberals have been imported from the former colonies by the Foreign Office.

As both Clive and the Reverend conclude, watch out for more unpleasant developments things that come back to bite the UK.

PlutoniumKun , July 5, 2019 at 9:23 am

Maybe there is something else behind it, but it does seem to be a very clumsy operation – its annoyed a lot of important people (not least in Spain) at just the time when this isn't needed for the UK. I wonder if the neocon element in Whitehall is using the interregnum in power to seek to bind the UK even more firmly to the US post Brexit.

Alex Cox , July 5, 2019 at 1:56 pm

"Russia has become a target they cannot even consider attacking anymore, because their armies, assembled in NATO, wouldn't stand a chance."

I am not sure the current crop of politicians and bureaucrats in the UK (or the US) know this.

As the Colonel observes, people with specialist knowledge are being replaced with ideologically-motivated enablers. And the Pentagon and its NATO assets stress their ability to wage a "limited" nuclear war

animalogic , July 6, 2019 at 6:11 am

"China is not yet at the 'might' level of Russia, but US and NATO are in no position to attack a country of 1.4 billion people either."

Indeed. And I would suggest China's "might level" is very close to not only Russia's but the US's. Just as a for instance: the PLAN (Peoples' Liberation Army Navy) has instituted probably the largest ship building program in history. All its newer vessels are equal to or (significantly?) better than comparable US types.

JBird4049 , July 6, 2019 at 8:17 pm

All this war talk about just how fabulously strong, or not, this and that polity is annoyingly ignorant; let's look at the reality that China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, would all be facing strong food shortages without any harvest failures. With even moderate shortfalls, add in the rest of the world as countries start scrambling for food to stockpile even those who are completely self sufficient. The United States has destroyed it industrial base so much that it cannot provide all the parts, tools, white goods, clothing, etc that it needs just to function daily. I have not checked Russia's economy, but I suspect that like the UK, or any European country it needs other countries to survive.

One of the reasons that the British almost lost World War One, that Germany did, and the nations that used to be the Austro-Hungarian Empire did so poorly after that war was the breaking up of all those trade connections. Everyone was gung-ho on war or independence, but no-one has made any plans whatsoever on to run their economy(ies) after the first few years of war or peace. And no, sticking it all on the Germans did not work either.

skippy , July 5, 2019 at 6:58 am

I'm starting to get that last election feeling where previous sorts went a bit curious when confronted with the choices and the past went poof . strangest thing[s]

cnchal , July 5, 2019 at 5:38 am

Peace though procurement malpractice. The current batch of military hardware is so much garbage that when the President wants to use the "superb" pieces of crap (F35 and the new boats are prime examples) a general will have to become the sacrificial lamb and give the president the news that this stuff is for show only.

Bill Smith , July 5, 2019 at 6:15 am

The Israelis claim to like the F-35 and to have used it in Syria to attack Syrian Air Defense installations after the Syrian Air Defense installations fired at their other manned aircraft.

That's something of an endorsement of it's capabilities. How much I don't know.

PlutoniumKun , July 5, 2019 at 9:04 am

It has been claimed that an F-35 was damaged beyond repair on one attack . I don't know if anyone has got to bottom of these claims. It does seem a bit hard to accept that a bird strike could have led to the scrapping of an entire airframe.

I think the issue of Israeli use of US aircraft is complex – the US seems to have pressurised Israel to drop its own aircraft, the Lavi , and it may well have been that giving Israel priority with the F-35 was part of the quid quo pro over that. For many countries, choosing the F-35 seems to owe more to politics than defence considerations.

jrkrideau , July 6, 2019 at 6:39 pm

I have, for some time, been of the opinion that one of the (relatively minor) reasons that Turkey went with the S-400's is that it gets them out of the F-35 contract without legal financial penalties. I bet the reports of the Turkish crews training in the US have been scathing.

I have wondered if the Saab JAS 39 Gripen or the Su-57 might be good contenders.

I think it was RT that reported the other day that Russia is planning on starting full production of the Su-57 in 2020. Given that it was speculated that production of the Su-57 was too expensive with the Russian Federation as the only customer, I wonder who might be interested. China? Renewed Indian interest? Turkey ?

Personally, I think we in Canada should ask Sukho to submit a bid for our fighter replacement program.

drumlin woodchuckles , July 5, 2019 at 6:29 pm

Israelis may have been instructed to say that as a favor in return for all the aid.

cnchal , July 6, 2019 at 6:37 am

> But this time I thought how awful it would be to hear those monsters and know they were loaded with missiles and there was no safe place to hide.

Around here there is a boat race where the military flies jets for show and quite a few years ago, on a Saturday,while I was tinkering in the garage, this one pilot, and he or she must have been having a grand old time, really put on a show. For half an hour to an hour the neighborhood was subjected to the most thunderous roar, it made my skin crawl and hair stand up, and I started thinking about and getting a tiny taste of the terror people that are actual targets of this machine get.

On Sunday, there was no "air" show. So many people bitched and complained about Saturday the military or show organizers called it off. Phone calls to stop the jets does not work in the middle east, however.

Synoia , July 6, 2019 at 3:33 pm

Drones appear effective. They certainly were at Gatwick.

Sharkleberry Fin , July 5, 2019 at 6:33 am

Am I supposed to feel sorry for the sanction-busting war profiteers losing their illicit cargo? Or am I supposed to feel sorry for Assad not being able to top off the gas tank on his human rights violating war wagon?

Nobody's cool with the jingoism coming from the White House. But if the tanks come out for only just this one very special episode of the Apprentice, the people of earth have dodged a very obnoxious golden BB.

pjay , July 5, 2019 at 7:24 am

" war profiteers." " human rights violating war wagon " Hmm. Those phrases call certain images and actors to mind. Iran? Syria? No, that's not it

timbers , July 5, 2019 at 8:09 am

You're supposed to feel sorry for millions America killed in Syria and many other nations, and the tens of millions she displaced from their homes.

According to the U.N., Nobel Peace prize winning Obama caused the greatest refugee crisis since WW2 with all the browned skinned nations he bombed until America ran out of bombs and then he made more and bombed again – Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Ukraine who have I missed there so many .

Said another way, The War on Terror IS terrorism.

About 10 years I started to realize the U.S. is an Evil Empire, a force for evil in the world.

Happy 4th.

And may the bombing continue until there is peace. There are so many countries this great nation has not yet bombed. Maybe we're just getting warmed up.

timbers , July 5, 2019 at 12:42 pm

Google "UN says greatest refugee crisis since world war" and you'll annual reports starting about 2014 till about 2017 – the Apex of the Obama wars – each year replacing the previous year as all time records as humanitarian disasters.

Carolinian , July 5, 2019 at 8:39 am

Interesting word "illicit" meaning "outside the law." So exactly what law gives the Americans and their faithful poodles the authority to do this?

Gibraltar was once the playground of the Barbary Pirates so it is an appropriate venue for the hegemon to engage in a little piracy of its own. But Ilargi may be right that the winds are shifting and bullies will get their comeuppance.

divadab , July 5, 2019 at 10:57 am

Yes. It's piracy. USA a Pirate Nation. UK a useful part of the gang.

I mean, empires have always been expansionist, violently expansionist. I mean, this is bad, but the empire is the empire. What bothers me is the lying. The filthy unbelievable lies emanating from the likes of Hillaria Terroristica and Pompeus Maximus and even from Obama the Salesman emperor, Emperor Tex Bush the second, and our current Carnival Barker Emperor Trumpius the Rube Caller. Let alone the generals lying thru their teeth.

It makes the whole enterprise ridiculous – no one but the stupidest and most brainwashed believes the filthy liars. Terrible that our ruling class are traitors to the country – because why lie unless you have no respect for those ruled? Lie to the stupid cattle – let them repeat the lies and laugh at their stupidity.

Carolinian , July 5, 2019 at 12:58 pm

The Iranians are calling it piracy and now claim the right to seize any British oil tanker in their waters. Perhaps they have passed "sanctions" against the Brits or the EU.

I'm thinking of passing some sanctions myself under my sovereign powers and seizing some stuff. Hey why not? EU says it's ok.

Oh , July 5, 2019 at 8:48 am

Sanctions are for OUR profiteers, not their. We impose them so that our corporations and profiteers can benefit from higher blackmark prices. When others cut into the profit it will not be tolerated.

skippy , July 5, 2019 at 7:16 am

I think the glass jaw is appropriate, long time PR machinations are finding it harder to peddle, considering the outcomes, hence the need for rather vulgar public displays of military Sergeant Major marching up and down the field too imbue greatness on the unwashed by proxy whilst swirling down the gurgler.

This is made even more surreal by grandiose gestures of minuscule proportions magnified way beyond their scope in the big scheme of things sans a modern news cycle.

For some ridiculous reason I keep envisioning all the new data on shipwrecks during the east indies company era and the findings .. silly me

Stephen Haust , July 5, 2019 at 7:32 am

I still don't understand why so many "commentators" have to try discussing
important topics without considering basic facts.

There are classes of ships called, for instance, Panamax or now specifically Suezmax.
These are the largest vessels that can transit said canals. The Panama Canal has locks
of a specific size and therefore there is a hard limit. Suezmax is a bit harder to define
because, without locks, it can vary some.

But there is a maximum and at just a first glance this vessel is at least near it.

"Why did the tanker take that giant detour along the African coastline? Because
potential problems were anticipated in the Suez canal." Well, yes. But which problems.
There seem to be many, starting with the fact that the Grace 1 is under the Iranian
flag. But besides that, it is not at all unusual for a vessel of that size to sail around the
Cape. There are many reasons. I, myself, have made a longer passage in a smaller
vessel – 13100 nautical miles from Kharg Island in Iran to New Brunswick
(Irving refinery). Around the Cape. Nobody was particularly surprised.

Reminiscent of all those US "journalists" piling on to an Aeroflot flight to Havana in
search of Edward Snowden. They, and the world, were certain he was aboard, until
the craft flew over downtown Miami.

Synoia , July 5, 2019 at 10:24 am

Cargos are sold and resold in transit, and thus destinatipns change.

I once was on a Tanker destined for Houston. The voyage then became a trip to the Persian Gulf.

Stephen Haust , July 5, 2019 at 5:47 pm

Yes, that would be unusual but according to the articles of engagement
it could happen.

More relevant though is that there are lots of reasons for
a loaded tanker to take an indirect route not necessarily having
much to do with the ownership of the cargo. The "tanker trackers"
don't seem to be unduly surprised by the itinerary. Happens every
day.

Incidentally, I was once on a tanker sailing from Providence, RI
with orders to "steam due south until you hear from us". That could
have led to some interesting results. In the event, however, we
ended up in India after a change in engagements. The return leg
of that voyage was the 13100 mile passage I mentioned earlier.
Another time I thought I was going somewhere in the Caribbean and
ended up on a circumnavigation. Hey, it's normal. Let's not get too
excited about somebody who wants to go around the Cape instead
of risking Suez.

By the way, my experiences all occurred under the US flag so why
try to find some strange dirt on the Iranians when they are only
doing what everybody else does.

Stephen Haust , July 5, 2019 at 7:38 am

Well, maybe Panamanian flag. But please, folks, can't we just "engage
brain before operating mouth".

Amusingly here CNN has outpaced NC in the field of journalistic accuracy.
They went and asked somebody who might know a little.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/04/uk/tanker-syria-gibraltar-intl-gbr/index.html

Awww! Them sneaky bastards.

The Rev Kev , July 5, 2019 at 10:30 am

I don't think that you get it. The US seized a North Korean ship a few weeks back and now the US had the UK seize an Iranian ship on 'suspicions'. Do you really want to see an international situation for trade where ships can be seized as political pawns and sold? Or maybe airplanes as well? The big insurance companies certainly want to know. The Iranians are saying that they now have the right to seize a British ship in retaliation. Will the Brits sell that captured ship? Will they sell the oil aboard or take it back to the UK for their own use? Do we really want to see a widespread return to Prize Laws again?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_(law)

a different chris , July 5, 2019 at 7:52 am

Can we give you some sort of award for admitting you made a mistake with your first post, and then admonishing us to "engage brain before operating mouth" ?

I mean that is a classic.

sierra7 , July 5, 2019 at 5:22 pm

"Game of Thrones" LOL!! The more time changes the more it stays the same!
It's "piracy" if "they" do it to us (or our co-conspirators); it's "legal sanctions" if we do "it" to "them".

What a farcical, lying, two-faced world we live in!

Mike , July 5, 2019 at 8:44 am

There should have a new slogan for this international cabal -- "Strength through Chaos". To be precise, OUR strength through THEIR chaos.

Has this been the "plan" for this period since the end of World War Two? Even if it is not a "conspiracy", but rather a "concatenation of interests", what difference does this terminology make to those suffering the boot heel?

JCC , July 5, 2019 at 1:58 pm

You could safely leave out anywhere in the Americas, I think, after reading Confessions of an Economic Hitman . Less bombs, same benevolent results. The US/Mexican Border comes to mind, filled with refugees from Guatemala and Honduras.

Neither the Reagan Years (and those years before) nor the Obama Years have been a picnic for many that live anywhere in CA (other than possibly CR and Panama). Not that most of those running those countries are in any way innocent, particularly those that we funneled arms and money to.

ex-PFC Chuck , July 5, 2019 at 11:36 am

". . but for the most part, the U.S. was fairly benevolent and . .

I suggest you read yesterday's post entitled, " Michael Hudson Discusses the IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness ." That may lead to your rethinking the excerpt quoted above.

John Merryman. , July 5, 2019 at 11:55 am

The term, "ugly Americans" is fairly old.

Synoia , July 5, 2019 at 10:30 am

Cargos are sold and resold in transit, and thus destinatipns change.

I once was on a Tanker destined for Houston. The voyage then became a trip to the Persian Gulf.

Ignacio , July 5, 2019 at 11:08 am

I very much agree with Illargi on this. Nothing good can come from the "heroic" seizure of the tanker. Mission accomplished: we are more idiotic every passing day.

rjs , July 5, 2019 at 1:44 pm

re: Why did the tanker take that giant detour along the African coastline?

in case anyone else has not yet noted it, super tankers, VLCCs that can carry as much as 2 million barrels, cannot get through the Suez canal, which is limited to oil tankers in the aptly named "Suezmax" class, less than half that size

Tim , July 5, 2019 at 9:26 pm

Yeah this is not a well educated writer. Contradicts his own story at one point, and no the US can't afford to get into a major war,but that does mean they lose either, the other side would still lose more.

Tyronius , July 5, 2019 at 3:28 pm

The winds change are blowing, indeed. Is that the fog of war on the horizon, or the smokestacks of progress? Neither is good for the environment but as they say, fight one battle at a time.

America's War On Terror has long since become the War OF Terrorism and it's good to see the rest of the world has not only caught on but is doing something about it. Great Britain went quietly and prospered. Will America do the same or will it struggle against the inevitable? I suspect a bit of both. We do love to kill poor innocent brown people, after all. It's what we're best at.

Time to find another line of work. Surely we can find something more productive to do?

RBHoughton , July 5, 2019 at 9:32 pm

The war on terror is a war on non-combatants. Its western terrorists, spooks and soldiers, against Asian terrorists, Muslims.The other form of terrorism against non-combatants is nuclear war – that's when the military attacks civilian targets like we did in WWII in Hamburg and Dresden and Tokyo but using more destructive ordinance.

Can we say, in light of the regular failures of our initiatives overseas, that we the people are expecting something that is not intended. We imagine war is fought to achieve unconditional surrender and bring the humiliated enemy to our feet begging for life but perhaps these attacks in the Middle East and North Africa are not for a military victory at all but to take away the natural resources of those countries, using the fog of war to conceal our purpose?

Oregoncharles , July 6, 2019 at 12:20 am

The purpose, and effect, of empire is theft.

Eclair , July 6, 2019 at 6:44 am

Putting that on my approved list of bumper stickers. Or, maybe sticking it on the bathroom mirror as a daily reminder.

[Jul 06, 2019] >China calls Trump's bluff; Trump blinks on sanctions threat - caucus99percent

Jul 06, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

China calls Trump's bluff; Trump blinks on sanctions threat

span ed by gjohnsit on Fri, 07/05/2019 - 4:37pm

Trump made it perfectly clear: No one will buy Iranian oil and still do business with America. That includes China .

Two Trump administration officials said on Friday that neither a wind-down period nor a short-term waiver on China's oil purchases from Iran are being contemplated after Washington surprised Iran's customers on Monday by demanding they halt the purchases by May 1 or face sanctions.
The administration has been clear to China, Iran's top oil consumer, about no additional waivers to the sanctions after the ones granted last November, one of the senior officials said.

No additional waivers. No wind-down period.
It's clear and final.

Do you know who else is clear and final? China .

China is buying Iranian oil in defiance of US sanctions and providing what Tehran hopes will be a financial lifeline for the country's buckling economy.

Although Beijing customs data show crude purchases from Iran are down month-on-month, China is still importing Tehran's oil despite US measures designed to cut exports to "zero".

Last week the Chinese received their first delivery of an Iranian oil cargo since the Trump administration in May scrapped exemptions on Iranian sanctions.

So Trump is a big, tough, strongman. So what do you think he's going to do when he's challenged?
He's going to fold .

But according to three U.S. officials, the department's Iran czar, Brian Hook, and his team of negotiators have discussed granting China a waiver to a 2012 law intended to kneecap the Iranian oil industry. The alternative is allowing China, which recently welcomed a shipment of approximately a million barrels of Iranian oil, openly to defy U.S. sanctions.
...
The 2012 Iran Freedom and Counterproliferation Act targeted the Iranian shipping, shipbuilding and energy sectors, requiring states or companies that wish to import Iranian oil and conduct business with the U.S. to obtain waivers from the U.S. government. A separate law targeted purchases, rather than imports of that oil.

Officials say the State Department is discussing an arrangement that would allow China to import Iranian oil as payment in kind for sizable investments of the Chinese oil company Sinopec in an Iranian oil field -- and administration officials have offered to issue a waiver for the payback oil in official correspondence between the State Department and Sinopec, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The waiver is merely a face-saving measure. China is going to continue to defy the sanctions one way or another.
And if China gets a waiver then India will too.
As it stands, India has halted buying Iranian oil, but that has just pushed them into buying more Russian oil .

[Jul 05, 2019] Globalisation- the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world - World news by Nikil Saval

Highly recommended!
Globalization was simply the politically correct term for neocolonialism.
Jul 14, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

... ... ...

Over the last two years, a different, in some ways unrecognizable Larry Summers has been appearing in newspaper editorial pages. More circumspect in tone, this humbler Summers has been arguing that economic opportunities in the developing world are slowing, and that the already rich economies are finding it hard to get out of the crisis. Barring some kind of breakthrough, Summers says, an era of slow growth is here to stay.

In Summers's recent writings, this sombre conclusion has often been paired with a surprising political goal: advocating for a "responsible nationalism". Now he argues that politicians must recognise that "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good".

One curious thing about the pro-globalisation consensus of the 1990s and 2000s, and its collapse in recent years, is how closely the cycle resembles a previous era. Pursuing free trade has always produced displacement and inequality – and political chaos, populism and retrenchment to go with it. Every time the social consequences of free trade are overlooked, political backlash follows. But free trade is only one of many forms that economic integration can take. History seems to suggest, however, that it might be the most destabilising one.

... ... ...

The international systems that chastened figures such as Keynes helped produce in the next few years – especially the Bretton Woods agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) – set the terms under which the new wave of globalisation would take place.

The key to the system's viability, in Rodrik's view, was its flexibility – something absent from contemporary globalisation, with its one-size-fits-all model of capitalism. Bretton Woods stabilised exchange rates by pegging the dollar loosely to gold, and other currencies to the dollar. Gatt consisted of rules governing free trade – negotiated by participating countries in a series of multinational "rounds" – that left many areas of the world economy, such as agriculture, untouched or unaddressed. "Gatt's purpose was never to maximise free trade," Rodrik writes. "It was to achieve the maximum amount of trade compatible with different nations doing their own thing. In that respect, the institution proved spectacularly successful."

Partly because Gatt was not always dogmatic about free trade, it allowed most countries to figure out their own economic objectives, within a somewhat international ambit. When nations contravened the agreement's terms on specific areas of national interest, they found that it "contained loopholes wide enough for an elephant to pass", in Rodrik's words. If a nation wanted to protect its steel industry, for example, it could claim "injury" under the rules of Gatt and raise tariffs to discourage steel imports: "an abomination from the standpoint of free trade". These were useful for countries that were recovering from the war and needed to build up their own industries via tariffs – duties imposed on particular imports. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 1990, world trade grew at an annual average of nearly 7% – faster than the post-communist years, which we think of as the high point of globalisation. "If there was a golden era of globalisation," Rodrik has written, "this was it."

Gatt, however, failed to cover many of the countries in the developing world. These countries eventually created their own system, the United Nations conference on trade and development (UNCTAD). Under this rubric, many countries – especially in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia – adopted a policy of protecting homegrown industries by replacing imports with domestically produced goods. It worked poorly in some places – India and Argentina, for example, where the trade barriers were too high, resulting in factories that cost more to set up than the value of the goods they produced – but remarkably well in others, such as east Asia, much of Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where homegrown industries did spring up. Though many later economists and commentators would dismiss the achievements of this model, it theoretically fit Larry Summers's recent rubric on globalisation: "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good."

The critical turning point – away from this system of trade balanced against national protections – came in the 1980s. Flagging growth and high inflation in the west, along with growing competition from Japan, opened the way for a political transformation. The elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were seminal, putting free-market radicals in charge of two of the world's five biggest economies and ushering in an era of "hyperglobalisation". In the new political climate, economies with large public sectors and strong governments within the global capitalist system were no longer seen as aids to the system's functioning, but impediments to it.

Not only did these ideologies take hold in the US and the UK; they seized international institutions as well. Gatt renamed itself as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the new rules the body negotiated began to cut more deeply into national policies. Its international trade rules sometimes undermined national legislation. The WTO's appellate court intervened relentlessly in member nations' tax, environmental and regulatory policies, including those of the United States: the US's fuel emissions standards were judged to discriminate against imported gasoline, and its ban on imported shrimp caught without turtle-excluding devices was overturned. If national health and safety regulations were stricter than WTO rules necessitated, they could only remain in place if they were shown to have "scientific justification".

The purest version of hyperglobalisation was tried out in Latin America in the 1980s. Known as the "Washington consensus", this model usually involved loans from the IMF that were contingent on those countries lowering trade barriers and privatising many of their nationally held industries. Well into the 1990s, economists were proclaiming the indisputable benefits of openness. In an influential 1995 paper, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner wrote: "We find no cases to support the frequent worry that a country might open and yet fail to grow."

But the Washington consensus was bad for business: most countries did worse than before. Growth faltered, and citizens across Latin America revolted against attempted privatisations of water and gas. In Argentina, which followed the Washington consensus to the letter, a grave crisis resulted in 2002 , precipitating an economic collapse and massive street protests that forced out the government that had pursued privatising reforms. Argentina's revolt presaged a left-populist upsurge across the continent: from 1999 to 2007, leftwing leaders and parties took power in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of them campaigning against the Washington consensus on globalisation. These revolts were a preview of the backlash of today.


Rodrik – perhaps the contemporary economist whose views have been most amply vindicated by recent events – was himself a beneficiary of protectionism in Turkey. His father's ballpoint pen company was sheltered under tariffs, and achieved enough success to allow Rodrik to attend Harvard in the 1970s as an undergraduate. This personal understanding of the mixed nature of economic success may be one of the reasons why his work runs against the broad consensus of mainstream economics writing on globalisation.

"I never felt that my ideas were out of the mainstream," Rodrik told me recently. Instead, it was that the mainstream had lost touch with the diversity of opinions and methods that already existed within economics. "The economics profession is strange in that the more you move away from the seminar room to the public domain, the more the nuances get lost, especially on issues of trade." He lamented the fact that while, in the classroom, the models of trade discuss losers and winners, and, as a result, the necessity of policies of redistribution, in practice, an "arrogance and hubris" had led many economists to ignore these implications. "Rather than speaking truth to power, so to speak, many economists became cheerleaders for globalisation."

In his 2011 book The Globalization Paradox , Rodrik concluded that "we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination, and economic globalisation." The results of the 2016 elections and referendums provide ample testimony of the justness of the thesis, with millions voting to push back, for better or for worse, against the campaigns and institutions that promised more globalisation. "I'm not at all surprised by the backlash," Rodrik told me. "Really, nobody should have been surprised."

But what, in any case, would "more globalisation" look like? For the same economists and writers who have started to rethink their commitments to greater integration, it doesn't mean quite what it did in the early 2000s. It's not only the discourse that's changed: globalisation itself has changed, developing into a more chaotic and unequal system than many economists predicted. The benefits of globalisation have been largely concentrated in a handful of Asian countries. And even in those countries, the good times may be running out.

Statistics from Global Inequality , a 2016 book by the development economist Branko Milanović, indicate that in relative terms the greatest benefits of globalisation have accrued to a rising "emerging middle class", based preponderantly in China. But the cons are there, too: in absolute terms, the largest gains have gone to what is commonly called "the 1%" – half of whom are based in the US. Economist Richard Baldwin has shown in his recent book, The Great Convergence, that nearly all of the gains from globalisation have been concentrated in six countries.

Barring some political catastrophe, in which rightwing populism continued to gain, and in which globalisation would be the least of our problems – Wolf admitted that he was "not at all sure" that this could be ruled out – globalisation was always going to slow; in fact, it already has. One reason, says Wolf, was that "a very, very large proportion of the gains from globalisation – by no means all – have been exploited. We have a more open world economy to trade than we've ever had before." Citing The Great Convergence, Wolf noted that supply chains have already expanded, and that future developments, such as automation and the use of robots, looked to undermine the promise of a growing industrial workforce. Today, the political priorities were less about trade and more about the challenge of retraining workers , as technology renders old jobs obsolete and transforms the world of work.

Rodrik, too, believes that globalisation, whether reduced or increased, is unlikely to produce the kind of economic effects it once did. For him, this slowdown has something to do with what he calls "premature deindustrialisation". In the past, the simplest model of globalisation suggested that rich countries would gradually become "service economies", while emerging economies picked up the industrial burden. Yet recent statistics show the world as a whole is deindustrialising. Countries that one would have expected to have more industrial potential are going through the stages of automation more quickly than previously developed countries did, and thereby failing to develop the broad industrial workforce seen as a key to shared prosperity.

For both Rodrik and Wolf, the political reaction to globalisation bore possibilities of deep uncertainty. "I really have found it very difficult to decide whether what we're living through is a blip, or a fundamental and profound transformation of the world – at least as significant as the one that brought about the first world war and the Russian revolution," Wolf told me. He cited his agreement with economists such as Summers that shifting away from the earlier emphasis on globalisation had now become a political priority; that to pursue still greater liberalisation was like showing "a red rag to a bull" in terms of what it might do to the already compromised political stability of the western world.

Rodrik pointed to a belated emphasis, both among political figures and economists, on the necessity of compensating those displaced by globalisation with retraining and more robust welfare states. But pro-free-traders had a history of cutting compensation: Bill Clinton passed Nafta, but failed to expand safety nets. "The issue is that the people are rightly not trusting the centrists who are now promising compensation," Rodrik said. "One reason that Hillary Clinton didn't get any traction with those people is that she didn't have any credibility."

Rodrik felt that economics commentary failed to register the gravity of the situation: that there were increasingly few avenues for global growth, and that much of the damage done by globalisation – economic and political – is irreversible. "There is a sense that we're at a turning point," he said. "There's a lot more thinking about what can be done. There's a renewed emphasis on compensation – which, you know, I think has come rather late."

[Jul 05, 2019] The World Bank and IMF 2019 by Michael Hudson and Bonnie Faulkner

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers ..."
"... It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent on the United States ..."
"... American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got to lose." ..."
"... The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president ..."
"... Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market, and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat in Latin America. ..."
"... The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments problems ..."
"... The IMF enables its wealthy constituency to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss ..."
"... Wall Street speculators have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style. ..."
"... When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. ..."
"... Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products. ..."
"... Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries. ..."
"... This control by the U.S. financial system and its diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism. ..."
"... The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires holding their money in Switzerland ..."
"... The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF so vicious an institution. ..."
"... America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other. ..."
"... You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap in Korea and other Asian countries. ..."
"... This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight. ..."
"... Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors. ..."
"... But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's called "grandfathering". ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

"The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers."

I'm Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter: Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show: The IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness . Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

His most recent books include " and Forgive them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year "; Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy , and J Is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception . He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt , among many other books.

We return today to a discussion of Dr. Hudson's seminal 1972 book, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire , a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank, with a special emphasis on food imperialism.

... ... ...

Bonnie Faulkner : In your seminal work form 1972, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire , you write: "The development lending of the World Bank has been dysfunctional from the outset." When was the World Bank set up and by whom?

Michael Hudson : It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent on the United States. To make sure that no other country or group of countries – even all the rest of the world – could not dictate U.S. policy. American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got to lose."

The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president. He later became Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (1953-60). McNamara was Secretary of Defense (1961-68), Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy and Under Secretary of Defense (1989-2005), and Robert Zoellick was Deputy Secretary of State. So I think you can look at the World Bank as the soft shoe of American diplomacy.

Bonnie Faulkner : What is the difference between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the IMF? Is there a difference?

Michael Hudson : Yes, there is. The World Bank was supposed to make loans for what they call international development. "Development" was their euphemism for dependency on U.S. exports and finance. This dependency entailed agricultural backwardness – opposing land reform, family farming to produce domestic food crops, and also monetary backwardness in basing their monetary system on the dollar.

The World Bank was supposed to provide infrastructure loans that other countries would go into debt to pay American engineering firms, to build up their export sectors and their plantation sectors by public investment roads and port development for imports and exports. Essentially, the Bank financed long- investments in the foreign trade sector, in a way that was a natural continuation of European colonialism.

In 1941, for example, C. L. R. James wrote an article on "Imperialism in Africa" pointing out the fiasco of European railroad investment in Africa: "Railways must serve flourishing industrial areas, or densely populated agricult5ural regions, or they must open up new land along which a thriving population develops and provides the railways with traffic. Except in the mining regions of South Africa, all these conditions are absent. Yet railways were needed, for the benefit of European investors and heavy industry." That is why, James explained "only governments can afford to operate them," while being burdened with heavy interest obligations. [1] What was "developed" was Africa's mining and plantation export sector, not its domestic economies. The World Bank followed this pattern of "development" lending without apology.

The IMF was in charge of short-term foreign currency loans. Its aim was to prevent countries from imposing capital controls to protect their balance of payments. Many countries had a dual exchange rate: one for trade in goods and services, the other rate for capital movements. The function of the IMF and World Bank was essentially to make other countries borrow in dollars, not in their own currencies, and to make sure that if they could not pay their dollar-denominated debts, they had to impose austerity on the domestic economy – while subsidizing their import and export sectors and protecting foreign investors, creditors and client oligarchies from loss.

The IMF developed a junk-economics model pretending that any country can pay any amount of debt to the creditors if it just impoverishes its labor enough. So when countries were unable to pay their debt service, the IMF tells them to raise their interest rates to bring on a depression – austerity – and break up the labor unions. That is euphemized as "rationalizing labor markets." The rationalizing is essentially to disable labor unions and the public sector. The aim – and effect – is to prevent countries from essentially following the line of development that had made the United States rich – by public subsidy and protection of domestic agriculture, public subsidy and protection of industry and an active government sector promoting a New Deal democracy. The IMF was essentially promoting and forcing other countries to balance their trade deficits by letting American and other investors buy control of their commanding heights, mainly their infrastructure monopolies, and to subsidize their capital flight.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Now, Michael, when you began speaking about the IMF and monetary controls, you mentioned that there were two exchange rates of currency in countries. What were you referring to?

MICHAEL HUDSON : When I went to work on Wall Street in the '60s, I was balance-of-payments economist for Chase Manhattan, and we used the IMF's monthly International Financial Statistics every month. At the top of each country's statistics would be the exchange-rate figures. Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market, and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat in Latin America.

The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments problems.

The World Bank and American diplomacy have steered them into a chronic currency crisis. The IMF enables its wealthy constituency to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss. It makes loans to support capital flight out of domestic currencies into the dollar or other hard currencies. The IMF calls this a "stabilization" program. It is never effective in helping the debtor economy pay foreign debts out of growth. Instead, the IMF uses currency depreciation and sell-offs of public infrastructure and other assets to foreign investors after the flight capital has left and currency collapses. Wall Street speculators have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style.

When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. We're talking about enormous penalty rates in domestic currency for these countries to pay foreign-currency debts – basically taking on to finance a non-development policy and to subsidize capital flight when that policy "fails" to achieve its pretended objective of growth.

All hyperinflations of Latin America – Chile early on, like Germany after World War I – come from trying to pay foreign debts beyond the ability to be paid. Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products.

A really functional and progressive international monetary fund that would try to help countries develop would say: "Okay, banks and we (the IMF) have made bad loans that the country can't pay. And the World Bank has given it bad advice, distorting its domestic development to serve foreign customers rather than its own growth. So we're going to write down the loans to the ability to be paid." That's what happened in 1931, when the world finally stopped German reparations payments and Inter-Ally debts to the United States stemming from World War I.

Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries. So if they do something that U.S. diplomats don't approve of, it can pull the plug financially, encouraging a run on their currency if they act independently of the United States instead of falling in line. This control by the U.S. financial system and its diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism.

BONNIE FAULKNER : How do exchange rates contribute to capital flight?

MICHAEL HUDSON : It's not the exchange rate that contributes. Suppose that you're a millionaire, and you see that your country is unable to balance its trade under existing production patterns. The money that the government has under control is pesos, escudos, cruzeiros or some other currency, not dollars or euros. You see that your currency is going to go down relative to the dollar, so you want to get our money out of the country to preserve your purchasing power.

This has long been institutionalized. By 1990, for instance, Latin American countries had defaulted so much in the wake of the Mexico defaults in 1982 that I was hired by Scudder Stevens, to help start a Third World Bond Fund (called a "sovereign high-yield fund"). At the time, Argentina and Brazil were running such serious balance-of-payments deficits that they were having to pay 45 percent per year interest, in dollars, on their dollar debt. Mexico, was paying 22.5 percent on its tesobonos .

Scudders' salesmen went around to the United States and tried to sell shares in the proposed fund, but no Americans would buy it, despite the enormous yields. They sent their salesmen to Europe and got a similar reaction. They had lost their shirts on Third World bonds and couldn't see how these countries could pay.

Merrill Lynch was the fund's underwriter. Its office in Brazil and in Argentina proved much more successful in selling investments in Scudder's these offshore fund established in the Dutch West Indies. It was an offshore fund, so Americans were not able to buy it. But Brazilian and Argentinian rich families close to the central bank and the president became the major buyers. We realized that they were buying these funds because they knew that their government was indeed going to pay their stipulated interest charges. In effect, the bonds were owed ultimately to themselves. So these Yankee dollar bonds were being bought by Brazilians and other Latin Americans as a vehicle to move their money out of their soft local currency (which was going down), to buy bonds denominated in hard dollars.

BONNIE FAULKNER : If wealthy families from these countries bought these bonds denominated in dollars, knowing that they were going to be paid off, who was going to pay them off? The country that was going broke?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, countries don't pay; the taxpayers pay, and in the end, labor pays. The IMF certainly doesn't want to make its wealthy client oligarchies pay. It wants to squeeze ore economic surplus out of the labor force. So countries are told that the way they can afford to pay their enormously growing dollar-denominated debt is to lower wages even more.

Currency depreciation is an effective way to do this, because what is devalued is basically labor's wages. Other elements of exports have a common world price: energy, raw materials, capital goods, and credit under the dollar-centered international monetary system that the IMF seeks to maintain as a financial strait jacket.

According to the IMF's ideological models, there's no limit to how far you can lower wages by enough to make labor competitive in producing exports. The IMF and World Bank thus use junk economics to pretend that the way to pay debts owed to the wealthiest creditors and investors is to lower wages and impose regressive excise taxes, to impose special taxes on necessities that labor needs, from food to energy and basic services supplied by public infrastructure.

BONNIE FAULKNER: So you're saying that labor ultimately has to pay off these junk bonds?

MICHAEL HUDSON: That is the basic aim of IMF. I discuss its fallacies in my Trade Development and Foreign Debt , which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism . These two books show that the World Bank and IMF were viciously anti-labor from the very outset, working with domestic elites whose fortunes are tied to and loyal to the United States.

BONNIE FAULKNER : With regard to these junk bonds, who was it or what entity

MICHAEL HUDSON : They weren't junk bonds. They were called that because they were high-interest bonds, but they weren't really junk because they actually were paid. Everybody thought they were junk because no American would have paid 45 percent interest. Any country that really was self-reliant and was promoting its own economic interest would have said, "You banks and the IMF have made bad loans, and you've made them under false pretenses – a trade theory that imposes austerity instead of leading to prosperity. We're not going to pay." They would have seized the capital flight of their comprador elites and said that these dollar bonds were a rip-off by the corrupt ruling class.

The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires holding their money in Switzerland. The details were published in the "Legarde List." But the IMF said, in effect that its loyalty was to the Greek millionaires who ha their money in Switzerland. The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF so vicious an institution.

BONNIE FAULKNER : So these loans to foreign countries that were regarded as junk bonds really weren't junk, because they were going to be paid. What group was it that jacked up these interest rates to 45 percent?

MICHAEL HUDSON : The market did. American banks, stock brokers and other investors looked at the balance of payments of these countries and could not see any reasonable way that they could pay their debts, so they were not going to buy their bonds. No country subject to democratic politics would have paid debts under these conditions. But the IMF, U.S. and Eurozone diplomacy overrode democratic choice.

Investors didn't believe that the IMF and the World Bank had such a strangle hold over Latin American, Asian, and African countries that they could make the countries act in the interest of the United States and the cosmopolitan finance capital, instead of in their own national interest. They didn't believe that countries would commit financial suicide just to pay their wealthy One Percent.

They were wrong, of course. Countries were quite willing to commit economic suicide if their governments were dictatorships propped up by the United States. That's why the CIA has assassination teams and actively supports these countries to prevent any party coming to power that would act in their national interest instead of in the interest of a world division of labor and production along the lines that the U.S. planners want for the world. Under the banner of what they call a free market, you have the World Bank and the IMF engage in central planning of a distinctly anti-labor policy. Instead of calling them Third World bonds or junk bonds, you should call them anti-labor bonds, because they have become a lever to impose austerity throughout the world.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Well, that makes a lot of sense, Michael, and answers a lot of the questions I've put together to ask you. What about Puerto Rico writing down debt? I thought such debts couldn't be written down.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's what they all said, but the bonds were trading at about 45 cents on the dollar, the risk of their not being paid. The Wall Street Journal on June 17, reported that unsecured suppliers and creditors of Puerto Rico, would only get nine cents on the dollar. The secured bond holders would get maybe 65 cents on the dollar.

The terms are being written down because it's obvious that Puerto Rico can't pay, and that trying to do so is driving the population to move out of Puerto Rico to the United States. If you don't want Puerto Ricans to act the same way Greeks did and leave Greece when their industry and economy was shut down, then you're going to have to provide stability or else you're going to have half of Puerto Rico living in Florida.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Who wrote down the Puerto Rican debt?

MICHAEL HUDSON : A committee was appointed, and it calculated how much Puerto Rico can afford to pay out of its taxes. Puerto Rico is a U.S. dependency, that is, an economic colony of the United States. It does not have domestic self-reliance. It's the antithesis of democracy, so it's never been in charge of its own economic policy and essentially has to do whatever the United States tells it to do. There was a reaction after the hurricane and insufficient U.S. support to protect the island and the enormous waste and corruption involved in the U.S. aid. The U.S. response was simply: "We won you fair and square in the Spanish-American war and you're an occupied country, and we're going to keep you that way." Obviously this is causing a political resentment.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You've already touched on this, but why has the World Bank traditionally been headed by a U.S. secretary of defense?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Its job is to do in the financial sphere what, in the past, was done by military force. The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers.

In this case the loss of life occurs in the debtor countries. Population growth shrinks, suicides go up. The World Bank engages in economic warfare that is just as destructive as military warfare. At the end of the Yeltsin period Russia's President Putin said that American neoliberalism destroyed more of Russia's population than did World War II. Such neoliberalism, which basically is the doctrine of American supremacy and foreign dependency, is the policy of the World Bank and IMF.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why has World Bank policy since its inception been to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves? And if this is the case, why do countries want these loans?

MICHAEL HUDSON : One constant of American foreign policy is to make other countries dependent on American grain exports and food exports. The aim is to buttress America's agricultural trade surplus. So the first thing that the World Bank has done is not to make any domestic currency loans to help food producers. Its lending has steered client countries to produce tropical export crops, mainly plantation crops that cannot be grown in the United States. Focusing on export crops leads client countries to become dependent on American farmers – and political sanctions.

In the 1950s, right after the Chinese revolution, the United States tried to prevent China from succeeding by imposing grain export controls to starve China into submission by putting sanctions on exports. Canada was the country that broke these export controls and helped feed China.

The idea is that if you can make other countries export plantation crops, the oversupply will drive down prices for cocoa and other tropical products, and they won't feed themselves. So instead of backing family farms like the American agricultural policy does, the World Bank backed plantation agriculture. In Chile, which has the highest natural supply of fertilizer in the world from its guano deposits, exports guano instead of using it domestically. It also has the most unequal land distribution, blocking it from growing its own grain or food crops. It's completely dependent on the United States for this, and it pays by exporting copper, guano and other natural resources.

The idea is to create interdependency – one-sided dependency on the U.S. economy. The United States has always aimed at being self-sufficient in its own essentials, so that no other country can pull the plug on our economy and say, "We're going to starve you by not feeding you." Americans can feed themselves. Other countries can't say, "We're going to let you freeze in the dark by not sending you oil," because America's independent in energy. But America can use the oil control to make other countries freeze in the dark, and it can starve other countries by food-export sanctions.

So the idea is to give the United States control of the key interconnections of other economies, without letting any country control something that is vital to the working of the American economy.

There's a double standard here. The United States tells other countries: "Don't do as we do. Do as we say." The only way it can enforce this is by interfering in the politics of these countries, as it has interfered in Latin America, always pushing the right wing. For instance, when Hillary's State Department overthrew the Honduras reformer who wanted to undertake land reform and feed the Hondurans, she said: "This person has to go." That's why there are so many Hondurans trying to get into the United States now, because they can't live in their own country.

The effect of American coups is the same in Syria and Iraq. They force an exodus of people who no longer can make a living under the brutal dictatorships supported by the United States to enforce this international dependency system.

BONNIE FAULKNER : So when I asked you why countries would want these loans, I guess you're saying that they wouldn't, and that's why the U.S. finds it necessary to control them politically.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a concise way of putting it Bonnie.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why are World Bank loans only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency of the country to which it is lending?

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a good point. A basic principle should be to avoid borrowing in a foreign currency. A country can always pay the loans in its own currency, but there's no way that it can print dollars or euros to pay loans denominated in these foreign currencies.

Making the dollar central forces other countries to interface with the U.S. banking system. So if a country decides to go its own way, as Iran did in 1953 when it wanted to take over its oil from British Petroleum (or Anglo Iranian Oil, as it was called back then), the United States can interfere and overthrow it. The idea is to be able to use the banking system's interconnections to stop payments from being made.

After America installed the Shah's dictatorship, they were overthrown by Khomeini, and Iran had run up a U.S. dollar debt under the Shah. It had plenty of dollars. I think Chase Manhattan was its paying agent. So when its quarterly or annual debt payment came due, Iran told Chase to draw on its accounts and pay the bondholders. But Chase took orders from the State Department or the Defense Department, I don't know which, and refused to pay. When the payment was not made, America and its allies claimed that Iran was in default. They demanded the entire debt to be paid, as per the agreement that the Shah's puppet government had signed. America simply grabbed the deposits that Iran had in the United States. This is the money that was finally returned to Iran without interest under the agreement of 2016.

America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other.

This prompted Russia to create its own bank-transfer system, and is leading China, Russia, India and Pakistan to draft plans to de-dollarize.

BONNIE FAULKNER : I was going to ask you, why would loans in a country's domestic currency be preferable to the country taking out a loan in a foreign currency? I guess you've explained that if they took out a loan in a domestic currency, they would be able to repay it.

MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Whereas a loan in a foreign currency would cripple them.

MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes. You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap in Korea and other Asian countries.

This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight.

But for Latin America and other countries, much of their foreign debt is held by their own ruling class. Even though it's denominated in dollars, Americans don't own most of this debt. It's their own ruling class. The IMF and World Bank dictate tax policy to Latin America – to un-tax wealth and shift the burden onto labor. Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You say that: "While U.S. agricultural protectionism has been built into the postwar global system at its inception, foreign protectionism is to be nipped in the bud." How has U.S. agricultural protectionism been built into the postwar global system?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Under Franklin Roosevelt the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 called for price supports for crops so that farmers could earn enough to invest in equipment and seeds. The Agriculture Department was a wonderful department in spurring new seed varieties, agricultural extension services, marketing and banking services. It provided public support so that productivity in American agriculture from the 1930s to '50s was higher over a prolonged period than that of any other sector in history.

But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's called "grandfathering". The Americans said: "We already have this program on the books, so we can keep it. But no other country can succeed in agriculture in the way that we have done. You must keep your agriculture backward, except for the plantation crops and growing crops that we can't grow in the United States." That's what's so evil about the World Bank's development plan.

BONNIE FAULKNER : According to your book: "Domestic currency is needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive." Why can't infrastructure costs be subsidized to keep down the economy's overall cost structure if IMF loans are made in foreign currency?

MICHAEL HUDSON : If you're a farmer in Brazil, Argentina or Chile, you're doing business in domestic currency. It doesn't help if somebody gives you dollars, because your expenses are in domestic currency. So if the World Bank and the IMF can prevent countries from providing domestic currency support, that means they're not able to give price supports or provide government marketing services for their agriculture.

America is a mixed economy. Our government has always subsidized capital formation in agriculture and industry, but it insists that other countries are socialist or communist if they do what the United States is doing and use their government to support the economy. So it's a double standard. Nobody calls America a socialist country for supporting its farmers, but other countries are called socialist and are overthrown if they attempt land reform or attempt to feed themselves.

This is what the Catholic Church's Liberation Theology was all about. They backed land reform and agricultural self-sufficiency in food, realizing that if you're going to support population growth, you have to support the means to feed it. That's why the United States focused its assassination teams on priests and nuns in Guatemala and Central America for trying to promote domestic self-sufficiency.

BONNIE FAULKNER : If a country takes out an IMF loan, they're obviously going to take it out in dollars. Why can't they take the dollars and convert them into domestic currency to support local infrastructure costs?

MICHAEL HUDSON : You don't need a dollar loan to do that. Now were getting in to MMT. Any country can create its own currency. There's no reason to borrow in dollars to create your own currency. You can print it yourself or create it on your computers.

BONNIE FAULKNER: Well, exactly. So why don't these countries simply print up their own domestic currency?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Their leaders don't want to be assassinated. More immediately, if you look at the people in charge of foreign central banks, almost all have been educated in the United States and essentially brainwashed. It's the mentality of foreign central bankers. The people who are promoted are those who feel personally loyal to the United States, because they that that's how to get ahead. Essentially, they're opportunists working against the interests of their own country. You won't have socialist central bankers as long as central banks are dominated by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements.

BONNIE FAULKNER : So we're back to the main point: The control is by political means, and they control the politics and the power structure in these countries so that they don't rebel.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. When you have a dysfunctional economic theory that is destructive instead of productive, this is never an accident. It is always a result of junk economics and dependency economics being sponsored. I've talked to people at the U.S. Treasury and asked why they all end up following the United States. Treasury officials have told me: "We simply buy them off. They do it for the money." So you don't need to kill them. All you need to do is find people corrupt enough and opportunist enough to see where the money is, and you buy them off.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that "by following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail." What is food blackmail?

MICHAEL HUDSON : If you pursue a foreign policy that we don't like -- for instance, if you trade with Iran, which we're trying to smash up to grab its oil -- we'll impose financial sanctions against you. We won't sell you food, and you can starve. And because you've followed World Bank advice and not grown your own food, you will starve, because you're dependent on us, the United States and our Free World Ó allies. Canada will no longer follow its own policy independently of the United States, as it did with China in the 1950s when it sold it grain. Europe also is falling in line with U.S. policy.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that: "World Bank administrators demand that loan recipients pursue a policy of economic dependency above all on the United States as food supplier." Was this done to support U.S. agriculture? Obviously it is, but were there other reasons as well?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Certainly the agricultural lobby was critical in all of this, and I'm not sure at what point this became thoroughly conscious. I knew some of the World Bank planners, and they had no anticipation that this dependency would be the result. They believed the free-trade junk economics that's taught in the schools' economics departments and for which Nobel prizes are awarded.

When we're dealing with economic planners, we're dealing with tunnel-visioned people. They stayed in the discipline despite its unreality because they sort of think that abstractly it makes sense. There's something autistic about most economists, which is why the French had their non-autistic economic site for many years. The mentality at work is that every country should produce what it's best at – not realizing that nations also need to be self-sufficient in essentials, because we're in a real world of economic and military warfare.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why does the World Bank prefer to perpetrate world poverty instead of adequate overseas capacity to feed the peoples of developing countries?

MICHAEL HUDSON : World poverty is viewed as solution , not a problem. The World Bank thinks of poverty as low-priced labor, creating a competitive advantage for countries that produce labor-intensive goods. So poverty and austerity for the World Bank and IMF is an economic solution that's built into their models. I discuss these in my Trade, Development and Foreign Debt book. Poverty is to them the solution, because it means low-priced labor, and that means higher profits for the companies bought out by U.S., British, and European investors. So poverty is part of the class war: profits versus poverty.

BONNIE FAULKNER : In general, what is U.S. food imperialism? How would you characterize it?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Its aim is to make America the producer of essential foods and other countries producing inessential plantation crops, while remaining dependent on the United States for grain, soy beans and basic food crops.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Does World Bank lending encourage land reform in former colonies?

MICHAEL HUDSON : No. If there is land reform, the CIA sends its assassination teams in and you have mass murder, as you had in Guatemala, Ecuador, Central America and Columbia. The World Bank is absolutely committed against land reform. When the Forgash Plan for a World Bank for Economic Acceleration was proposed in the 1950s to emphasize land reform and local-currency loans, a Chase Manhattan economist to whom the plan was submitted warned that every country that had land reform turned out to be anti-American. That killed any alternative to the World Bank.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Does the World Bank insist on client governments privatizing their public domain? If so, why, and what is the effect?

MICHAEL HUDSON : It does indeed insist on privatization, pretending that this is efficient. But what it privatizes are natural monopolies – the electrical system, the water system and other basic needs. Foreigners take over, essentially finance them with foreign debt, build the foreign debt that they build into the cost structure, and raise the cost of living and doing business in these countries, thereby crippling them economically. The effect is to prevent them from competing with the United States and its European allies.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Would you say then that it is mainly America that has been aided, not foreign economies that borrow from the World Bank?

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's why the United States is the only country with veto power in the IMF and World Bank – to make sure that what you just described is exactly what happens.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why do World Bank programs accelerate the exploitation of mineral deposits for use by other nations?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Most World Bank loans are for transportation, roads, harbor development and other infrastructure needed to export minerals and plantation crops. The World Bank doesn't make loans for projects that help the country develop in its own currency. By making only foreign currency loans, in dollars or maybe euros now, the World Bank says that its clients have to repay by generating foreign currency. The only way they can repay the dollars spent on American engineering firms that have built their infrastructure is to export – to earn enough dollars to pay back for the money that the World Bank or IMF have lent.

This is what John Perkins' book about being an economic hit man for the World Bank is all about. He realized that his job was to get countries to borrow dollars to build huge projects that could only be paid for by the country exporting more – which required breaking its labor unions and lowering wages so that it could be competitive in the race to the bottom that the World Bank and IMF encourage.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You also point out in Super Imperialism that mineral resources represent diminishing assets, so these countries that are exporting mineral resources are being depleted while the importing countries aren't.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. They'll end up like Canada. The end result is going to be a big hole in the ground. You've dug up all your minerals, and in the end you have a hole in the ground and a lot of the refuse and pollution – the mining slag and what Marx called the excrements of production.

This is not a sustainable development. The World Bank only promotes the U.S. pursuit of sustainable development. So naturally, they call their "Development," but their focus is on the United States, not the World Bank's client countries.

BONNIE FAULKNER : When Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire was originally published in 1972, how was it received?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Very positively. It enabled my career to take off. I received a phone call a month later by someone from the Bank of Montreal saying they had just made $240 million on the last paragraph of my book. They asked what it would cost to have me come up and give a lecture. I began lecturing once a month at $3,500 a day, moving up to $6,500 a day, and became the highest-paid per diem economist on Wall Street for a few years.

I was immediately hired by the Hudson Institute to explain Super Imperialism to the Defense Department. Herman Kahn said I showed how U.S. imperialism ran rings around European imperialism. They gave the Institute an $85,000 grant to have me go to the White House in Washington to explain how American imperialism worked. The Americans used it as a how-to-do-it book.

The socialists, whom I expected to have a response, decided to talk about other than economic topics. So, much to my surprise, it became a how-to-do-it book for imperialists. It was translated by, I think, the nephew of the Emperor of Japan into Japanese. He then wrote me that the United States opposed the book being translated into Japanese. It later was translated. It was received very positively in China, where I think it has sold more copies than in any other country. It was translated into Spanish, and most recently it was translated into German, and German officials have asked me to come and discuss it with them. So the book has been accepted all over the world as an explanation of how the system works.

BONNIE FAULKNER : In closing, do you really think that the U.S. government officials and others didn't understand how their own system worked?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Many might not have understood in 1944 that this would be the consequence. But by the time 50 years went by, you had an organization called "Fifty Years Is Enough." And by that time everybody should have understood. By the time Joe Stiglitz became the World Bank's chief economist, there was no excuse for not understanding how the system worked. He was amazed to find that indeed it didn't work as advertised, and resigned. But he should have known at the very beginning what it was all about. If he didn't understand how it was until he actually went to work there, you can understand how hard it is for most academics to get through the vocabulary of junk economics, the patter-talk of free trade and free markets to understand how exploitative and destructive the system is.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Michael Hudson, thank you very much.

MICHAEL HUDSON : It's always good to be here, Bonnie. I'm glad you ask questions like these.

I've been speaking with Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show has been: The IMF and World Bank: Partners in Backwardness. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His 1972 book, Super Imperialism : The Economic Strategy of American Empire , a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank, the subject of today's broadcast, is posted in PDF format on his website at michael-hudson.com. He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt , which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism. Dr. Hudson acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide on finance and tax law. Visit his website at michael-hudson.com.

Guns and Butter is produced by Bonnie Faulkner, Yarrow Mahko and Tony Rango. Visit us at gunsandbutter.org to listen to past programs, comment on shows, or join our email list to receive our newsletter that includes recent shows and updates. Email us at [email protected] . Follow us on Twitter at #gandbradio.

[Jul 05, 2019] Bolton Isn't Quitting by DANIEL LARISON

Jul 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Tom Wright makes some good observations about Trump's foreign policy here, but I think he underestimates Bolton's determination to cling to power:

It's hard to see how Bolton can stay. Trump has long known that Bolton wanted war more than he does. He sidelined him on North Korea and overruled him on Iran. For his part, Bolton has privately attacked Pompeo, long a Trump favorite, as falling captive to the State Department bureaucracy and has predicted that the North Korea policy will fail.

Bolton has given an unusually large number of interviews to reporters and has been rewarded with positive profiles lauding his influence and bureaucratic prowess. Those of us who predicted that he would cling to the post of national security adviser, as it would be the last job he'd ever get, may have been wrong. In fact, Bolton looks and sounds as if he is preparing to exit on his own terms. Better that than being sent on a never-ending tour of the world's most obscure places. For Bolton, leaving because he's too tough for Trump is the perfect way to save face. Otherwise, he may be remembered as the man who presided over one of the weakest national security teams in modern American history and someone whose myopic obsessions -- like international treaties or communism in Venezuela -- meant the United States lost precious time in preparing for the national security challenges of the future.

Bolton has been allowed to drive Iran policy to the brink of war, and I can't believe that he would voluntarily leave the position he has when he still has a chance of getting the war with Iran that he has been seeking for years. It is true that Bolton was sent to Mongolia to keep him out of sight during the president's visit with Kim at the DMZ, but where is the proof that Trump has abandoned the maximalist demands that Bolton has long insisted on? On Iran, Trump is still reciting hawkish talking points, sanctioning anything that moves, and occasionally making more deranged threats against the entire country. Unless Trump decides to get rid of Bolton, I don't see why Bolton would want to leave. He gets to set policy on the issue he has obsessed over for decades, and he gets to pursue a policy of regime change in all but name. Bolton will probably be happy to let Pompeo have all the "credit" for North Korea policy, since there is none to be had, and he'll keep stoking the Iran obsession that has already done so much harm to the Iranian people and brought the U.S. dangerously close to a war it has no reason to fight.

Banishing Bolton to Mongolia was briefly entertaining for those of us that can't stand the National Security Advisor, but it doesn't mean very much if administration policies aren't changing. Since Bolton is the one running the policy "process," it seems unlikely that there will be any real change as long as he is there. For whatever reason, Trump doesn't seem willing to fire him. Maybe that's because he doesn't want to offend Sheldon Adelson, a known Bolton supporter and big Trump donor, or maybe it's because he enjoys having Bolton as a lightning rod to take some of the criticism, or maybe it's because their militaristic worldviews aren't as dissimilar as many people assume. It doesn't really matter why Trump won't rid himself of Bolton. What matters is that Bolton is supposedly "humiliated" again and again by Trump actions or statements, and then Bolton gets back to promoting his own agenda no matter what the president does.

For that matter, Bolton's absence from the DMZ meeting may have been exactly what he wanted. Graeme Wood suggested as much just the other day:

Carlson has inserted himself into the frame of this bizarre and impromptu diplomatic trip, and that is exactly where the Boltonites want him: forever associated with a handshake that will be recorded as a new low in the annals of presidential gullibility.

Many observers have assumed that Bolton won't be able to stay in the administration at different points over the last several months. When Trump claimed that he didn't want regime change in Iran, that was supposed to be a break with Bolton. The only hitch is that Bolton maintains this same fiction that they aren't trying to bring down the Iranian government when they obviously are. The second summit with North Korea and the possibility of some initial agreement caused similar speculation that Bolton's influence was waning, and then he managed to wreck the Hanoi summit by getting Trump to make demands that he and everyone else must have known were unacceptable to the North Koreans. Every time it seems that Bolton's maximalism is giving way to something else, Bolton gets the last laugh.

Demolishing the architecture of arms control has been one of Bolton's main ambitions throughout his career. He has already done quite a bit of damage, but I assume he will want to make sure that New START dies. Bolton likely will "be remembered as the man who presided over one of the weakest national security teams in modern American history and someone whose myopic obsessions -- like international treaties or communism in Venezuela -- meant the United States lost precious time in preparing for the national security challenges of the future," but as long as he has the chance to pursue those obsessions and advance his agenda I don't think he's going to give it up. He is an abysmal National Security Advisor, a fanatic, and a menace to this country, and I would love it if he did resign, but I just don't see it. I doubt that Bolton cares about "saving face" as much as he does inflicting as much damage as he can while he has the opportunity. The only thing that Bolton believes in quitting is a successful diplomatic agreement that advances U.S. interests. That is why it is necessary for the president to replace him, because I don't see any other way that he is going to leave.

Lily Sandoz6 hours ago

Bolton quitting? Heck! He's just getting started. Britain, on orders from Bolton, detained an Panamanian flagged supertanker heading to Syria with Iranian oil. Spanish officials said the Grace 1, was seized by British patrol ships off Gibraltar, and boarded by Royal Marines and detained on Wash.'s orders.

Bolton's power is becoming unlimited because Trump and the rest of the gov. is doing nothing to stop his agenda, which most of Wash., must share, of starting a war with Iran, N. Korea, or anywhere else he can stir up trouble.

It's so obvious Wash. wants Iran to fire the first shot in order to go to war and make political donors like Sheldon Adelson happy, as well as Netanyahu who has more to say about US foreign policy than the American people who just want to stop the wars and concentrate on the issues and problems here at home.

After all, it's OUR MONEY going to finance all the atrocities abroad that the war industry and other countries benefit from. Unbelievable stuff going on in Wash. and seems everyday it gets worse and more absurd.

[Jul 05, 2019] Moscow's policy to Washington as "strategic patience"

Jul 05, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Despite the lack of concrete results from the Trump-Putin meeting, Moscow does not appear discouraged. Much of the Russian commentary after the meeting emphasized that meetings such as the one in Osaka will sooner or later yield tangible results.

Leonid Kalashnikov, chairman of the Russian State Duma's Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States, stated during a discussion on Russian state television, "As a result of some summit, we'll somehow accomplish something one way or another. There's no escaping it."

He added, "[The Americans] roared and yelled after the 1917 revolution, but by 1930 almost all diplomatic ties were restored. They will probably deal with Crimea the same way."

Professor Dmitry Suslov from the Higher School of Economics expressed a similar perspective to the National Interest prior to the Trump-Putin meeting. He told me that Moscow is confident that if it stays on course, then Washington will at some point come around.

"I don't think Russia will considerably harden its position; it most certainly will not make any concessions," he said. "Russia will just wait until the United States will begin to change its policy [towards Russia] by its own initiative for domestic- and foreign-policy reasons."

Suslov called this approach "strategic patience."

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Earlier this year, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, described Moscow's policy to Washington as "strategic patience" in an interview with Russian foreign-policy monthly International Affairs .

He stated that it was the Americans themselves, "who at one time used the term 'strategic patience,' which seems appropriate to describe the line that, it seems, should be pursued in relations with Washington for the foreseeable future," by Russia.

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The term "strategic patience" was commonly used to describe the Obama administration's approach towards North Korea. Under the policy, Washington would avoid escalating against Pyongyang, but also refrain from making any concessions unless North Korea made the first move.

According to Suslov, Russia's "strategic patience" approach is based on two assumptions. First, political polarization inside the United States will eventually subside. Once a new domestic consensus emerges in the United States, it will be easier for whoever is in the Oval Office to pursue a normalization of ties with Russia.

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Second, the United States will realize over the next five to ten years that it cannot simultaneously confront both China and Russia. Beijing's growing economic and military power will incentivize the United States to make a play for better relations with Russia.

What does Russia plan on doing until such a shift in Washington's attitude towards Moscow occurs, assuming it happens at all? Suslov explained that Russia's primary objective for now is damage control.

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"It is essential that we work with the United States to control the conflict and prevent a direct military confrontation," he said. "To do that, it is critical to meet to discuss questions of strategic stability and regional conflicts."

In the case of Europe, there are some signs that Moscow's "strategic patience" game plan is yielding some dividends. Last week, Parliamentary Association of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted to reinstate Russia's membership without any concessions on the Kremlin's part. Russia had been suspended from the European human-rights organization after its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

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Should allies of newly inaugurated Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky triumph in the country's parliamentary elections on July 21, the former comedian who ran on the platform of restarting dialogue with Russia may feel emboldened to move in that direction.

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As the 2020 election season heats up, Washington is quite unlikely to pursue any significant outreach towards Russia. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress view the Kremlin with suspicion, and the attitude of the general public is not much more favorable. Nevertheless, Moscow is betting that somewhere down the line, Washington will change its mind about Russia. All it has to do is keep the door open and wait.

Dimitri Alexander Simes is a contributor to the National Interest .

[Jul 05, 2019] Ivanka and Jared are going to be a liability for the reelection of Trump

Notable quotes:
"... But to me, she looks like – among other things – a clever manipulator in her, relatively short radius. Yet, although the US is no.1. as world power, she is no match for any real world politician, anywhere. Not just now; anytime in the future. ..."
"... Her "visibility" is a confluence of a few fleeting influences. Basically, fate has favored her for the time being (I'm not talking about morals etc.). But, to think that she's capable of much more is to entertain the idea that Trump is, all the time, playing 6-dimensional chess. ..."
"... Ivanka took her conversion to Judaism to an almost insane level. This comes from the Rabbi's involved in her conversion. She is an even more hard core Zionist than "daddy dearest", if that is even humanly possible ..."
"... Two days ago I commented on Breitbart that good or bad G20, Trump looked foolish toting Ivanka along. Response: Oh yeah, he should have brought AOC, that would have been much better, you idiot. Me: So Trump's only choice was Ivanka or AOC? None of the hundreds of attorneys or diplomats who have devoted careers to international trade negotiations? ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Alarmist, July 5, 2019 at 7:56 am GMT 100 Words

Meow!

Because however loud the calls for Ivanka's ouster have gotten . Ivanka just digs those stilettoes in. She won't be budged. She refuses to take a hint.

Amazing how deaf fathers can be when it comes to their daughters. Surprising he didn't dispose of Jared by making him Secy of Education or some shizzle like that.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 9:03 am GMT

Ivankita and Jaredcito are going to be a liability for the reelection of daddy . Does`t Ivankita realizes it ?

Felix Krull , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 9:27 am GMT

Here's a solid surmise: Trump dare not cross his daughter who is intent on riding his coattails to things far greater.

That is the most naive surmise I've ever heard. Do you also believe that Trump bombed Syria because Ivanka got mopey over some snuff photos?

Bardon Kaldian , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 10:15 am GMT

Ilana seems to think, referencing Wolff (and arguing with his position), that IKT is a sort of Machiavellian (although inexperienced) woman greedy for power who, well, should not be underestimated.

Of course no one should be underestimated.

But to me, she looks like – among other things – a clever manipulator in her, relatively short radius. Yet, although the US is no.1. as world power, she is no match for any real world politician, anywhere. Not just now; anytime in the future.

She seems to be one of those people who are lucky for a period of time, but soon disappear from the scene. Her "visibility" is a confluence of a few fleeting influences. Basically, fate has favored her for the time being (I'm not talking about morals etc.). But, to think that she's capable of much more is to entertain the idea that Trump is, all the time, playing 6-dimensional chess.

Of course- not. Life is not like that.

Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 12:35 pm GMT

Trump's(Ivanka)Hebrew name is "Yael." In the Book of Judges, a woman named Yael came upon the enemy king Sisera, who had fled from battle with the Isralites. She fed and sheltered him until he fell asleep. Then she killed him by using a mallet to drive a tent peg into his skull.

Ivanka took her conversion to Judaism to an almost insane level. This comes from the Rabbi's involved in her conversion. She is an even more hard core Zionist than "daddy dearest", if that is even humanly possible. Ivanka believes she is now a chosenite of the highest order and is therefore destined to rule over all us insignificant little Goys. Yael's greatest concern is rising antisemitism here in the US of Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ivanka-trump-concerned-about-rising-anti-semitism-drop-in-israel-support/

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT

Many of our MAGApedes still think Ivanka's great because Trump is God Emperor.

Two days ago I commented on Breitbart that good or bad G20, Trump looked foolish toting Ivanka along. Response: Oh yeah, he should have brought AOC, that would have been much better, you idiot. Me: So Trump's only choice was Ivanka or AOC? None of the hundreds of attorneys or diplomats who have devoted careers to international trade negotiations?

Response: I would take Ivanka over any single "professional" negotiator of the past 30 years – hands down.

I think the sage commenters at Unz underestimate just how entrenched God Emperor's fanatic support remains. And apparently this support extends to Jarvanka.

Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 12:55 pm GMT

Let us not forget the words of General George Cornwallis in 1781.

"Your churches will be used to teach the Jew's religion and in less than two hundred years, the whole nation will be working for divine world government. That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire. All religions will be permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of the Grand Architect of Freemasonry."

Did this man nail it or what?

https://www.henrymakow.com/the_united_states_is_a_masonic.html

Jacques Sheete , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read lives." (p. 287)

In the words of a speaker at a secret B'nai Brith meeting in Paris in 1936:

"Yet it remains our secret that those Gentiles who betray their own and most precious interests, by joining us in our plot should never know that these associations are of our creation and that they serve our purpose

"One of the many triumphs of our Freemasonry is that those Gentiles who become members of our Lodges, should never suspect that we are using them to build their own jails, upon whose terraces we shall erect the throne of our Universal King of Israel; and should never know that we are commanding them to forge the chains of their own servility to our future King of the World."

Republic , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 2:33 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read poke to Washington in 1781

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Williams_(engineer)

He spent most of the period from 1770 to 1785 in England

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Cornwallis,_1st_Marquess_Cornwallis

Cornwallis never met Washington

Cornwallis, apparently not wanting to face Washington, claimed to be ill on the day of the surrender, and sent Brigadier General Charles O'Hara in his place to surrender his sword formally. Washington had his second-in-command, Benjamin Lincoln, accept Cornwallis' sword

[Jul 05, 2019] Globalisation- the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world - World news by Nikil Saval

Highly recommended!
Globalization was simply the politically correct term for neocolonialism.
Jul 14, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

... ... ...

Over the last two years, a different, in some ways unrecognizable Larry Summers has been appearing in newspaper editorial pages. More circumspect in tone, this humbler Summers has been arguing that economic opportunities in the developing world are slowing, and that the already rich economies are finding it hard to get out of the crisis. Barring some kind of breakthrough, Summers says, an era of slow growth is here to stay.

In Summers's recent writings, this sombre conclusion has often been paired with a surprising political goal: advocating for a "responsible nationalism". Now he argues that politicians must recognise that "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good".

One curious thing about the pro-globalisation consensus of the 1990s and 2000s, and its collapse in recent years, is how closely the cycle resembles a previous era. Pursuing free trade has always produced displacement and inequality – and political chaos, populism and retrenchment to go with it. Every time the social consequences of free trade are overlooked, political backlash follows. But free trade is only one of many forms that economic integration can take. History seems to suggest, however, that it might be the most destabilising one.

... ... ...

The international systems that chastened figures such as Keynes helped produce in the next few years – especially the Bretton Woods agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) – set the terms under which the new wave of globalisation would take place.

The key to the system's viability, in Rodrik's view, was its flexibility – something absent from contemporary globalisation, with its one-size-fits-all model of capitalism. Bretton Woods stabilised exchange rates by pegging the dollar loosely to gold, and other currencies to the dollar. Gatt consisted of rules governing free trade – negotiated by participating countries in a series of multinational "rounds" – that left many areas of the world economy, such as agriculture, untouched or unaddressed. "Gatt's purpose was never to maximise free trade," Rodrik writes. "It was to achieve the maximum amount of trade compatible with different nations doing their own thing. In that respect, the institution proved spectacularly successful."

Partly because Gatt was not always dogmatic about free trade, it allowed most countries to figure out their own economic objectives, within a somewhat international ambit. When nations contravened the agreement's terms on specific areas of national interest, they found that it "contained loopholes wide enough for an elephant to pass", in Rodrik's words. If a nation wanted to protect its steel industry, for example, it could claim "injury" under the rules of Gatt and raise tariffs to discourage steel imports: "an abomination from the standpoint of free trade". These were useful for countries that were recovering from the war and needed to build up their own industries via tariffs – duties imposed on particular imports. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 1990, world trade grew at an annual average of nearly 7% – faster than the post-communist years, which we think of as the high point of globalisation. "If there was a golden era of globalisation," Rodrik has written, "this was it."

Gatt, however, failed to cover many of the countries in the developing world. These countries eventually created their own system, the United Nations conference on trade and development (UNCTAD). Under this rubric, many countries – especially in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia – adopted a policy of protecting homegrown industries by replacing imports with domestically produced goods. It worked poorly in some places – India and Argentina, for example, where the trade barriers were too high, resulting in factories that cost more to set up than the value of the goods they produced – but remarkably well in others, such as east Asia, much of Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where homegrown industries did spring up. Though many later economists and commentators would dismiss the achievements of this model, it theoretically fit Larry Summers's recent rubric on globalisation: "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good."

The critical turning point – away from this system of trade balanced against national protections – came in the 1980s. Flagging growth and high inflation in the west, along with growing competition from Japan, opened the way for a political transformation. The elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were seminal, putting free-market radicals in charge of two of the world's five biggest economies and ushering in an era of "hyperglobalisation". In the new political climate, economies with large public sectors and strong governments within the global capitalist system were no longer seen as aids to the system's functioning, but impediments to it.

Not only did these ideologies take hold in the US and the UK; they seized international institutions as well. Gatt renamed itself as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the new rules the body negotiated began to cut more deeply into national policies. Its international trade rules sometimes undermined national legislation. The WTO's appellate court intervened relentlessly in member nations' tax, environmental and regulatory policies, including those of the United States: the US's fuel emissions standards were judged to discriminate against imported gasoline, and its ban on imported shrimp caught without turtle-excluding devices was overturned. If national health and safety regulations were stricter than WTO rules necessitated, they could only remain in place if they were shown to have "scientific justification".

The purest version of hyperglobalisation was tried out in Latin America in the 1980s. Known as the "Washington consensus", this model usually involved loans from the IMF that were contingent on those countries lowering trade barriers and privatising many of their nationally held industries. Well into the 1990s, economists were proclaiming the indisputable benefits of openness. In an influential 1995 paper, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner wrote: "We find no cases to support the frequent worry that a country might open and yet fail to grow."

But the Washington consensus was bad for business: most countries did worse than before. Growth faltered, and citizens across Latin America revolted against attempted privatisations of water and gas. In Argentina, which followed the Washington consensus to the letter, a grave crisis resulted in 2002 , precipitating an economic collapse and massive street protests that forced out the government that had pursued privatising reforms. Argentina's revolt presaged a left-populist upsurge across the continent: from 1999 to 2007, leftwing leaders and parties took power in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of them campaigning against the Washington consensus on globalisation. These revolts were a preview of the backlash of today.


Rodrik – perhaps the contemporary economist whose views have been most amply vindicated by recent events – was himself a beneficiary of protectionism in Turkey. His father's ballpoint pen company was sheltered under tariffs, and achieved enough success to allow Rodrik to attend Harvard in the 1970s as an undergraduate. This personal understanding of the mixed nature of economic success may be one of the reasons why his work runs against the broad consensus of mainstream economics writing on globalisation.

"I never felt that my ideas were out of the mainstream," Rodrik told me recently. Instead, it was that the mainstream had lost touch with the diversity of opinions and methods that already existed within economics. "The economics profession is strange in that the more you move away from the seminar room to the public domain, the more the nuances get lost, especially on issues of trade." He lamented the fact that while, in the classroom, the models of trade discuss losers and winners, and, as a result, the necessity of policies of redistribution, in practice, an "arrogance and hubris" had led many economists to ignore these implications. "Rather than speaking truth to power, so to speak, many economists became cheerleaders for globalisation."

In his 2011 book The Globalization Paradox , Rodrik concluded that "we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination, and economic globalisation." The results of the 2016 elections and referendums provide ample testimony of the justness of the thesis, with millions voting to push back, for better or for worse, against the campaigns and institutions that promised more globalisation. "I'm not at all surprised by the backlash," Rodrik told me. "Really, nobody should have been surprised."

But what, in any case, would "more globalisation" look like? For the same economists and writers who have started to rethink their commitments to greater integration, it doesn't mean quite what it did in the early 2000s. It's not only the discourse that's changed: globalisation itself has changed, developing into a more chaotic and unequal system than many economists predicted. The benefits of globalisation have been largely concentrated in a handful of Asian countries. And even in those countries, the good times may be running out.

Statistics from Global Inequality , a 2016 book by the development economist Branko Milanović, indicate that in relative terms the greatest benefits of globalisation have accrued to a rising "emerging middle class", based preponderantly in China. But the cons are there, too: in absolute terms, the largest gains have gone to what is commonly called "the 1%" – half of whom are based in the US. Economist Richard Baldwin has shown in his recent book, The Great Convergence, that nearly all of the gains from globalisation have been concentrated in six countries.

Barring some political catastrophe, in which rightwing populism continued to gain, and in which globalisation would be the least of our problems – Wolf admitted that he was "not at all sure" that this could be ruled out – globalisation was always going to slow; in fact, it already has. One reason, says Wolf, was that "a very, very large proportion of the gains from globalisation – by no means all – have been exploited. We have a more open world economy to trade than we've ever had before." Citing The Great Convergence, Wolf noted that supply chains have already expanded, and that future developments, such as automation and the use of robots, looked to undermine the promise of a growing industrial workforce. Today, the political priorities were less about trade and more about the challenge of retraining workers , as technology renders old jobs obsolete and transforms the world of work.

Rodrik, too, believes that globalisation, whether reduced or increased, is unlikely to produce the kind of economic effects it once did. For him, this slowdown has something to do with what he calls "premature deindustrialisation". In the past, the simplest model of globalisation suggested that rich countries would gradually become "service economies", while emerging economies picked up the industrial burden. Yet recent statistics show the world as a whole is deindustrialising. Countries that one would have expected to have more industrial potential are going through the stages of automation more quickly than previously developed countries did, and thereby failing to develop the broad industrial workforce seen as a key to shared prosperity.

For both Rodrik and Wolf, the political reaction to globalisation bore possibilities of deep uncertainty. "I really have found it very difficult to decide whether what we're living through is a blip, or a fundamental and profound transformation of the world – at least as significant as the one that brought about the first world war and the Russian revolution," Wolf told me. He cited his agreement with economists such as Summers that shifting away from the earlier emphasis on globalisation had now become a political priority; that to pursue still greater liberalisation was like showing "a red rag to a bull" in terms of what it might do to the already compromised political stability of the western world.

Rodrik pointed to a belated emphasis, both among political figures and economists, on the necessity of compensating those displaced by globalisation with retraining and more robust welfare states. But pro-free-traders had a history of cutting compensation: Bill Clinton passed Nafta, but failed to expand safety nets. "The issue is that the people are rightly not trusting the centrists who are now promising compensation," Rodrik said. "One reason that Hillary Clinton didn't get any traction with those people is that she didn't have any credibility."

Rodrik felt that economics commentary failed to register the gravity of the situation: that there were increasingly few avenues for global growth, and that much of the damage done by globalisation – economic and political – is irreversible. "There is a sense that we're at a turning point," he said. "There's a lot more thinking about what can be done. There's a renewed emphasis on compensation – which, you know, I think has come rather late."

[Jul 05, 2019] How Christine Lagarde, Clinton and Nuland Funded a Massive Ukrainian Ponzi Scheme

Notable quotes:
"... Kolomoisky is the man who controls the recently elected Jewish president Zelensky -- a comedian. ..."
"... Let's not forget that Theresa May is the one who has worked assiduously on trying to overcome the results of the British referendum. She does not believe in democracy. ..."
"... This man most certainly made a substantial offshore payment to Largarde or her companies or her lawyers. That is how it works everywhere. ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Alfred , July 5, 2019 at 7:38 am GMT 200 Words

Christine Lagarde is a convicted criminal

Christine Lagarde: IMF chief convicted over payout

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38369822

She robbed the French taxpayer of some 404 billion Euros. The fact that she is not in prison while protesters are being injured weekly by the French police tells you a lot about why these people are protesting.

Since then, she has continued with her corrupt behaviour by greatly enriching the Ukrainian/Israeli oligarch Kolomoisky -- who robbed his own bank.

How Christine Lagarde, Clinton and Nuland Funded a Massive Ukrainian Ponzi Scheme

https://russia-insider.com/en/how-christine-lagarde-clinton-and-nuland-funded-massive-ukrainian-ponzi-scheme/ri27390

Kolomoisky is the man who controls the recently elected Jewish president Zelensky -- a comedian.

I think the writer pays too much to the attire of May and Lagarde -- The pearls, the tweed and gingham suits -- when their corruption is totally 21st century. Let's not forget that Theresa May is the one who has worked assiduously on trying to overcome the results of the British referendum. She does not believe in democracy. Replies: @Logan , @George F. Held

Paul , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 10:43 am GMT

@Paul

One of the functions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is imposing austerity measures on the people of poor countries seeking bailouts, so perhaps choosing a corporate lawyer to run it is fitting.

Alfred , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
@Logan ness tampering. After a high-profile case against public prosecutor Éric de Montgolfier, he was sentenced in 1995 by the Court of Appeals of Douai to 2 years in prison, including 8 months non-suspended and 3 years of deprivation of his civic rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Tapie

This man most certainly made a substantial offshore payment to Largarde or her companies or her lawyers. That is how it works everywhere.

Do you think they cannot close down all the secretive island tax-havens tomorrow if they really wished to do so?

Heavens, they have cut Iran from SWIFT but they have never done anything about the BVI etc.

[Jul 05, 2019] The Debt Neocons Owe to the Atheist Left -

Notable quotes:
"... Almost exactly one year before his death in 2011, Christopher Hitchens reaffirmed his support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and predicted that a "confrontation" with "theocratic Iran" was all but inevitable. ..."
"... The Rage Against God ..."
"... When Hitchens called the Iranian government a "messianic regime" that was motivated purely by religious fanaticism and was "enslaving and ruining a formerly great civilization," he lent his voice to the multitude of neoconservatives who insist that the Tehran regime cannot be reasoned with. If Iran's leaders are nothing more than jabbering jihadists who have imposed themselves on the Iranian people against their will, then any war against Iran would be a war of liberation. ..."
"... Peter Hitchens describes his brother's hawkish neoconservative foreign policy as a natural outgrowth of Christopher's youthful Bolshevism, saying that he "continued to be utopian long after he should've stopped, and that's what got him into the mess over the Iraq war." In The Rage Against God ..."
"... If humanity's woes are entirely the result of a particular ideology (whether that ideology is capitalism or religion), then those who sustain that ideology must be exterminated. Hitchens' foreign policy will reach its endpoint only when, to quote the 18th-century French radical Denis Diderot, "the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest," with Hitchens himself deciding who falls into each of those categories. ..."
"... The neocon foreign policy can thus be read as an inheritance from atheistic leftism and, as Peter Hitchens reminds us, is in direct conflict with both Christianity and conservatism. ..."
"... Grayson Quay is a freelance writer and M.A. at Georgetown University. ..."
"... The intellectual founder of neo-conservatism, Leo Strauss, was also an atheist. Strauss, being Jewish, fled Europe with the rise of the Nazi's, but he also admired that form of governence. Strauss believed that a population had to be united in order for a society to flourish. And the best way to do that was through religion and patriotism. So the national leadership should always extol God and military power, and there must always be an enemy with which to go to war. ..."
"... eternal; war for eternal conquest ..."
"... Blood Meridian ..."
"... Who set the terms you demand that I use? Trotsky certainly saw himself in a very different light than did decant, average Russians, and Trotsky also demand that people use his terms exactly as he wanted them used to discuss anything that might be about him. ..."
"... American Neocons are no different. ..."
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... Well, as an atheist myself I do agree that utopian atheists are amongst the most dangerous people on earth. ..."
"... That's why I prefer Trump over Hillary. Anything is better than an utopian atheist (or progressive warmonger if you like). ..."
"... Do you really believe rapists, pedos, abusers of women and children and so forth only exists in religious communities? Come on. Are you living in Israel? Because then I can understand where that is coming from. You feel threatened as a secular Jew by the Orthodox Jews is my guess. ..."
"... I'm a leftist and atheist but calling Hitchens, or Dawkins, or Sam Harris, or Maher as typical "leftist atheists" is like calling Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden a leftist. They're not, they're jerks and would be jerks no matter what they believed in or lacked belief in. ..."
"... "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." ..."
"... Religion was used as both a justification for slavery and as a justification for the Civil rights movement. It's obvious it justified neither and people just used the parts of their religion that applied to their goals as a means to rally fellow believers to their cause. ..."
"... Finally, if you're going to use Hitchens' atheism as an explanation for his militaristic views then how do you explain the overt religiosity of the Bush Administration which waged those idiotic wars? Was it their faith that is responsible for that? ..."
"... As theologian Jeffery Burton Russell put it: "Perhaps even the devil has persuaded himself that he is doing the right thing." ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Almost exactly one year before his death in 2011, Christopher Hitchens reaffirmed his support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and predicted that a "confrontation" with "theocratic Iran" was all but inevitable.

Now, nine years later, his prediction is perilously close to coming true. But if we recognize the biases that underlie the famous atheist's assessment of the geopolitical situation, it quickly becomes clear that his hawkish worldview could never lead to peace and is in fact a recipe for perpetual, and perpetually escalating, war.

When I recently watched Hitchens' 2009 debate with Christian apologist William Lane Craig over the existence of God, I noted that although Hitchens' logos failed to measure up to Craig's philosophical expertise, on the level of pathos , Hitchens's stark recounting of the horrors of religious violence and oppression could not be easily discounted, even by a lifelong Christian like myself.

Eventually, though, Hitchens began to overplay his hand, blaming Russian ultranationalism and the continuing cult of Stalin on the Orthodox Church and the Holocaust on Christian anti-Semitism without so much as gesturing toward either the Soviet Union's religious persecutions or the eugenics movement that was vehemently, and almost exclusively, opposed by such religious intellectual giants as G.K. Chesterton. Hitchens even compared North Korea's totalitarian regime to the Christian conception of heaven, failing to acknowledge either the explicit atheism of juche ideology or the Christian insistence that no political leader is worthy of the reverence we owe to God.

The whole thing began to remind me of an exchange between the Catholic columnist Ross Douthat and the atheist Bill Maher on an episode of Real Time . In response to Maher's assertion that most atrocities are motivated by religion, Douthat countered, "Not in the 20th century. Not in the Soviet Union. Lot of dead bodies there. Not a lot of Christians, except among the dead bodies." To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't like is religion.

Hitchens' own atheism seems to have followed a similar trajectory. In a 2005 column on the Iraq war titled "A War to Be Proud Of," Hitchens insisted that Francis Fukuyama's utopian "end of history" was "over before it began" and castigates Western democracies for failing throughout the 1990s to crack down on human rights abuses in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia. His clear message was that if Fukuyama's predictions of perpetual peace in a secular, liberal, democratic world were to be realized, we must be willing to shed blood. This language of millenarian warfare is particularly ironic coming from a man who criticized Israel for encroaching on Palestinian land in an attempt (at least in Hitchens' view) to inaugurate their own messianic age.

Christopher's younger brother, the Anglican conservative Peter Hitchens, offered an important corrective to this atheistic utopian aggression when he wrote in his 2010 book The Rage Against God , "The only general lesson that can be drawn from these differing wars," some overtly religious and some not, "is that man is inclined to make war on man when he thinks it will gain him power or wealth or land." If religion is the cause of all war, then the sooner it is stamped out the better. But if violence and oppression stem from human nature rather than from superstition or clerical brainwashing, then the elder Hitchens' commitment to attributing all the world's ills to religious fanaticism (as defined by none other than Christopher Hitchens himself) can lead only to endless warfare against an ever-expanding list of enemies.

Eulogizing Christopher Hitchens in a 2011 New Yorker piece , author George Packer noted that his late subject's "molten anti-clericalism burned so hot that he turned it without a second thought at a secular, totalitarian Iraqi dictator." Hitchens himself scoffed at the idea of describing Saddam Hussein as "secular," but perhaps he would have regretted that assertion had he lived to see the supposedly fanatical Baath regime replaced by the truly theocratic ISIS. Or maybe not. Maybe he would have insisted that America bring the boot of secular civilization down once again, harder this time. It matters not that, as the Cato Institute's Doug Bandow has observed, this sort of regime change "rarely yield[s] liberal, pro-Western regimes." The floggings will continue until civilization improves.

Echoes of Hitchens' foreign policy are still audible in the current debate surrounding Iran. When Hitchens called the Iranian government a "messianic regime" that was motivated purely by religious fanaticism and was "enslaving and ruining a formerly great civilization," he lent his voice to the multitude of neoconservatives who insist that the Tehran regime cannot be reasoned with. If Iran's leaders are nothing more than jabbering jihadists who have imposed themselves on the Iranian people against their will, then any war against Iran would be a war of liberation.

Peter Hitchens describes his brother's hawkish neoconservative foreign policy as a natural outgrowth of Christopher's youthful Bolshevism, saying that he "continued to be utopian long after he should've stopped, and that's what got him into the mess over the Iraq war." In The Rage Against God , Peter even goes so far as to claim that "utopian atheism" is "common among neoconservatives." In light of this statement, professing Christians who agree with the elder Hitchens' views on foreign policy would do well to question whether they also agree with his godless, leftist premises.

If humanity's woes are entirely the result of a particular ideology (whether that ideology is capitalism or religion), then those who sustain that ideology must be exterminated. Hitchens' foreign policy will reach its endpoint only when, to quote the 18th-century French radical Denis Diderot, "the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest," with Hitchens himself deciding who falls into each of those categories.

But if human suffering is, at least in part, the result of our own inherent defects (or sins, if you like), then those who set foreign policy would do well to purge themselves of all utopian inclinations before launching any sort of military intervention. The neocon foreign policy can thus be read as an inheritance from atheistic leftism and, as Peter Hitchens reminds us, is in direct conflict with both Christianity and conservatism.

Grayson Quay is a freelance writer and M.A. at Georgetown University.


Kent 4 days ago

The intellectual founder of neo-conservatism, Leo Strauss, was also an atheist. Strauss, being Jewish, fled Europe with the rise of the Nazi's, but he also admired that form of governence. Strauss believed that a population had to be united in order for a society to flourish. And the best way to do that was through religion and patriotism. So the national leadership should always extol God and military power, and there must always be an enemy with which to go to war.

Of course, the actual national leaders should be atheists. I'm always surprised that even Christian intellectuals chose to "fuse" with Jewish, atheistic philosophies like neo-conservatism (Strauss) and libertarianism (Hayek, Rand) to form the modern Republican Party.

At least conservative Christians haven't been told to believe there is something special about Israel. That would start sounding like a conspiracy.

Micha_Elyi Kent 3 days ago

Avoid the grocer's apostrophe, Kent.
The plural of 'Nazi' is 'Nazis', not "Nazi's".

Sid Finster Micha_Elyi 2 days ago

Noting errors in punctuation while failing to address substance is a worse sin than bad punctuation, Micha.

Roderick Mills Kent 3 days ago

Strauss was not an atheist. He believed in the Jewish race.

GaryH 4 days ago

Not so long ago, during the heady days of our Great Quest to Topple the New and Possibly Worse Hitler Saddam Hussein (who orchestrated 9/11, according to all kinds of people), I was far from alone in being shut out of commenting on 'conservative' sites for making points along the lines of this article.

Neoconservatism is not 'conservatism; in any sense that has value. Neoconservatism is partially Leon Trotsky- Marxism refashioned into eternal; war for eternal conquest Capitalism. And it is partially, probably more than the Trotsky part, nothing more than an updating of the British Empire's drive to war across the globe every year in order to control at least partially every corner of the globe, in order the male the elites that control the Empire ever richer.

The 'God of War' philosophy that drives Cormac McCarthy's Judge Holden in Blood Meridian (it cannot be overstressed that the Judge is a rather obvious Satan figure) is the philosophy that drives Neoconservatism.

GaryH Micha_Elyi 2 days ago

Who set the terms you demand that I use? Trotsky certainly saw himself in a very different light than did decant, average Russians, and Trotsky also demand that people use his terms exactly as he wanted them used to discuss anything that might be about him.

American Neocons are no different.

You tell us what would be the meaning of Neoconservative that is "consistent with the use of the term in American political discourse since the 1970s..." Then you tell us who controlled that discourse to the advantage of whom, toward what ends.

Douglas K 3 days ago • edited
To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't like is religion.

Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.

In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution).

So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they didn't include personified invisible spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....

OriginalRS Douglas K 3 days ago • edited

This is simply stupid, the excuse-makings of all atheists who want to insist the religious cause violence. You're mistaking religion with atheists REPLACING God with THEIR political "religion".

Which allows them to kill with abandon seeing as how there is no good and evil in their world. Only differing results for differing 5 year plans and their assessments of the results.

Micha_Elyi Douglas K 3 days ago

Don't accept Maher's misuse of the One True Scotsman fallacy.

Mark B. 3 days ago

Well, as an atheist myself I do agree that utopian atheists are amongst the most dangerous people on earth. I would prefer religious people (even Orthodox Christians, brrr) over them any time of the day. That's why I prefer Trump over Hillary. Anything is better than an utopian atheist (or progressive warmonger if you like).

Like the saying goes: nothing has brought more evil in the world then good intentions delivered by the sword. Or, as the Devil said to Faust: I am part of a force that always wants to do good but always brings evil. Right now in history, it's atheistic progressivism that fit that bill.

koila maoh Mark B. 3 days ago

Proper education with atheism is fine. When education isnt as relevant you have more rapists, pedos, crimes, abuse against women and children, and this only exists in religious communities, I'm more fearful living with them.. When you dumb down education, it allows overbreeding, more religious voters, which vote in more of these religious politicians trying to push their religious agenda even with church and state suppose to be separated.; some of these politicians when I see them brag about "rape" being ok by gods plan... when they are religious, now tell me again..whos sane...

There are good higher educated cities and countries with higher atheist ratio and LOWEST rates of above, crime, pedos, abuse, rape, etc...better quality of life compared to religious...

Mark B. koila maoh 2 days ago

Do you really believe rapists, pedos, abusers of women and children and so forth only exists in religious communities? Come on. Are you living in Israel? Because then I can understand where that is coming from. You feel threatened as a secular Jew by the Orthodox Jews is my guess.

You have a good point however. There are certainly cities and countries like you describe. But I was talking not about atheists in general (which I am myself) but about utopian atheists. Those who believe they must eradicate God and religion all together in this world in the name of social justice and the progressive sexual-gender-racial revolution. Those who believe so-called universal rights should be delivered by force and might worldwide. Those who believe they know better what's good for Christians than Christians themselves.

It is a crucial distinction to me. Those atheists are not my atheists, spoken as an atheist.

Mr Atheist 3 days ago

I'm a leftist and atheist but calling Hitchens, or Dawkins, or Sam Harris, or Maher as typical "leftist atheists" is like calling Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden a leftist. They're not, they're jerks and would be jerks no matter what they believed in or lacked belief in.

And William Lane Craig is constantly underestimated even if I disagree entirely with his position. He wins against the prepared, and utterly destroys the unprepared and makes them look ridiculous as they flounder. Always good to watch.

stevek9 3 days ago

Wars are fought because leaders lust for power, glory, wealth. Religion is just one of many tools used to manipulate the people of a nation into supporting war.

Patriotism is another. Here is a quote by Hermann Goering:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

StupidGit 3 days ago • edited

It seems a bit of a stretch to claim one's atheism accounts for their justification of militarism just as it is a stretch to claim one's faith accounts for the same. Maybe it's just that people like to find things to justify their terrible ideas?

Religion was used as both a justification for slavery and as a justification for the Civil rights movement. It's obvious it justified neither and people just used the parts of their religion that applied to their goals as a means to rally fellow believers to their cause.

I'm an atheist. I enjoyed Hitchens when he spoke about free speech and I've read many of his books but he never got me on his side regarding war and fount his "angry atheist" approach very annoying. If anything, hearing his arguments for war made me a more critical thinker because it was coming from someone I respected and agreed with on other issues - it made me question my reasons for being against the wars and better understand my own rationale since I couldn't just use group think as a crutch.

Finally, if you're going to use Hitchens' atheism as an explanation for his militaristic views then how do you explain the overt religiosity of the Bush Administration which waged those idiotic wars? Was it their faith that is responsible for that?

This would be a much more informative article if it tried less to place blame on atheism and focused more on how we all use our ideologies to justify our actions - whether good or bad.

As theologian Jeffery Burton Russell put it: "Perhaps even the devil has persuaded himself that he is doing the right thing."

[Jul 05, 2019] The World Bank and IMF 2019 by Michael Hudson and Bonnie Faulkner

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers ..."
"... It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent on the United States ..."
"... American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got to lose." ..."
"... The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president ..."
"... Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market, and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat in Latin America. ..."
"... The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments problems ..."
"... The IMF enables its wealthy constituency to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss ..."
"... Wall Street speculators have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style. ..."
"... When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. ..."
"... Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products. ..."
"... Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries. ..."
"... This control by the U.S. financial system and its diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism. ..."
"... The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires holding their money in Switzerland ..."
"... The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF so vicious an institution. ..."
"... America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other. ..."
"... You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap in Korea and other Asian countries. ..."
"... This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight. ..."
"... Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors. ..."
"... But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's called "grandfathering". ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

"The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers."

I'm Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter: Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show: The IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness . Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

His most recent books include " and Forgive them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year "; Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy , and J Is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception . He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt , among many other books.

We return today to a discussion of Dr. Hudson's seminal 1972 book, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire , a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank, with a special emphasis on food imperialism.

... ... ...

Bonnie Faulkner : In your seminal work form 1972, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire , you write: "The development lending of the World Bank has been dysfunctional from the outset." When was the World Bank set up and by whom?

Michael Hudson : It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent on the United States. To make sure that no other country or group of countries – even all the rest of the world – could not dictate U.S. policy. American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got to lose."

The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president. He later became Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (1953-60). McNamara was Secretary of Defense (1961-68), Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy and Under Secretary of Defense (1989-2005), and Robert Zoellick was Deputy Secretary of State. So I think you can look at the World Bank as the soft shoe of American diplomacy.

Bonnie Faulkner : What is the difference between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the IMF? Is there a difference?

Michael Hudson : Yes, there is. The World Bank was supposed to make loans for what they call international development. "Development" was their euphemism for dependency on U.S. exports and finance. This dependency entailed agricultural backwardness – opposing land reform, family farming to produce domestic food crops, and also monetary backwardness in basing their monetary system on the dollar.

The World Bank was supposed to provide infrastructure loans that other countries would go into debt to pay American engineering firms, to build up their export sectors and their plantation sectors by public investment roads and port development for imports and exports. Essentially, the Bank financed long- investments in the foreign trade sector, in a way that was a natural continuation of European colonialism.

In 1941, for example, C. L. R. James wrote an article on "Imperialism in Africa" pointing out the fiasco of European railroad investment in Africa: "Railways must serve flourishing industrial areas, or densely populated agricult5ural regions, or they must open up new land along which a thriving population develops and provides the railways with traffic. Except in the mining regions of South Africa, all these conditions are absent. Yet railways were needed, for the benefit of European investors and heavy industry." That is why, James explained "only governments can afford to operate them," while being burdened with heavy interest obligations. [1] What was "developed" was Africa's mining and plantation export sector, not its domestic economies. The World Bank followed this pattern of "development" lending without apology.

The IMF was in charge of short-term foreign currency loans. Its aim was to prevent countries from imposing capital controls to protect their balance of payments. Many countries had a dual exchange rate: one for trade in goods and services, the other rate for capital movements. The function of the IMF and World Bank was essentially to make other countries borrow in dollars, not in their own currencies, and to make sure that if they could not pay their dollar-denominated debts, they had to impose austerity on the domestic economy – while subsidizing their import and export sectors and protecting foreign investors, creditors and client oligarchies from loss.

The IMF developed a junk-economics model pretending that any country can pay any amount of debt to the creditors if it just impoverishes its labor enough. So when countries were unable to pay their debt service, the IMF tells them to raise their interest rates to bring on a depression – austerity – and break up the labor unions. That is euphemized as "rationalizing labor markets." The rationalizing is essentially to disable labor unions and the public sector. The aim – and effect – is to prevent countries from essentially following the line of development that had made the United States rich – by public subsidy and protection of domestic agriculture, public subsidy and protection of industry and an active government sector promoting a New Deal democracy. The IMF was essentially promoting and forcing other countries to balance their trade deficits by letting American and other investors buy control of their commanding heights, mainly their infrastructure monopolies, and to subsidize their capital flight.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Now, Michael, when you began speaking about the IMF and monetary controls, you mentioned that there were two exchange rates of currency in countries. What were you referring to?

MICHAEL HUDSON : When I went to work on Wall Street in the '60s, I was balance-of-payments economist for Chase Manhattan, and we used the IMF's monthly International Financial Statistics every month. At the top of each country's statistics would be the exchange-rate figures. Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market, and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat in Latin America.

The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments problems.

The World Bank and American diplomacy have steered them into a chronic currency crisis. The IMF enables its wealthy constituency to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss. It makes loans to support capital flight out of domestic currencies into the dollar or other hard currencies. The IMF calls this a "stabilization" program. It is never effective in helping the debtor economy pay foreign debts out of growth. Instead, the IMF uses currency depreciation and sell-offs of public infrastructure and other assets to foreign investors after the flight capital has left and currency collapses. Wall Street speculators have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style.

When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. We're talking about enormous penalty rates in domestic currency for these countries to pay foreign-currency debts – basically taking on to finance a non-development policy and to subsidize capital flight when that policy "fails" to achieve its pretended objective of growth.

All hyperinflations of Latin America – Chile early on, like Germany after World War I – come from trying to pay foreign debts beyond the ability to be paid. Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products.

A really functional and progressive international monetary fund that would try to help countries develop would say: "Okay, banks and we (the IMF) have made bad loans that the country can't pay. And the World Bank has given it bad advice, distorting its domestic development to serve foreign customers rather than its own growth. So we're going to write down the loans to the ability to be paid." That's what happened in 1931, when the world finally stopped German reparations payments and Inter-Ally debts to the United States stemming from World War I.

Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries. So if they do something that U.S. diplomats don't approve of, it can pull the plug financially, encouraging a run on their currency if they act independently of the United States instead of falling in line. This control by the U.S. financial system and its diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism.

BONNIE FAULKNER : How do exchange rates contribute to capital flight?

MICHAEL HUDSON : It's not the exchange rate that contributes. Suppose that you're a millionaire, and you see that your country is unable to balance its trade under existing production patterns. The money that the government has under control is pesos, escudos, cruzeiros or some other currency, not dollars or euros. You see that your currency is going to go down relative to the dollar, so you want to get our money out of the country to preserve your purchasing power.

This has long been institutionalized. By 1990, for instance, Latin American countries had defaulted so much in the wake of the Mexico defaults in 1982 that I was hired by Scudder Stevens, to help start a Third World Bond Fund (called a "sovereign high-yield fund"). At the time, Argentina and Brazil were running such serious balance-of-payments deficits that they were having to pay 45 percent per year interest, in dollars, on their dollar debt. Mexico, was paying 22.5 percent on its tesobonos .

Scudders' salesmen went around to the United States and tried to sell shares in the proposed fund, but no Americans would buy it, despite the enormous yields. They sent their salesmen to Europe and got a similar reaction. They had lost their shirts on Third World bonds and couldn't see how these countries could pay.

Merrill Lynch was the fund's underwriter. Its office in Brazil and in Argentina proved much more successful in selling investments in Scudder's these offshore fund established in the Dutch West Indies. It was an offshore fund, so Americans were not able to buy it. But Brazilian and Argentinian rich families close to the central bank and the president became the major buyers. We realized that they were buying these funds because they knew that their government was indeed going to pay their stipulated interest charges. In effect, the bonds were owed ultimately to themselves. So these Yankee dollar bonds were being bought by Brazilians and other Latin Americans as a vehicle to move their money out of their soft local currency (which was going down), to buy bonds denominated in hard dollars.

BONNIE FAULKNER : If wealthy families from these countries bought these bonds denominated in dollars, knowing that they were going to be paid off, who was going to pay them off? The country that was going broke?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, countries don't pay; the taxpayers pay, and in the end, labor pays. The IMF certainly doesn't want to make its wealthy client oligarchies pay. It wants to squeeze ore economic surplus out of the labor force. So countries are told that the way they can afford to pay their enormously growing dollar-denominated debt is to lower wages even more.

Currency depreciation is an effective way to do this, because what is devalued is basically labor's wages. Other elements of exports have a common world price: energy, raw materials, capital goods, and credit under the dollar-centered international monetary system that the IMF seeks to maintain as a financial strait jacket.

According to the IMF's ideological models, there's no limit to how far you can lower wages by enough to make labor competitive in producing exports. The IMF and World Bank thus use junk economics to pretend that the way to pay debts owed to the wealthiest creditors and investors is to lower wages and impose regressive excise taxes, to impose special taxes on necessities that labor needs, from food to energy and basic services supplied by public infrastructure.

BONNIE FAULKNER: So you're saying that labor ultimately has to pay off these junk bonds?

MICHAEL HUDSON: That is the basic aim of IMF. I discuss its fallacies in my Trade Development and Foreign Debt , which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism . These two books show that the World Bank and IMF were viciously anti-labor from the very outset, working with domestic elites whose fortunes are tied to and loyal to the United States.

BONNIE FAULKNER : With regard to these junk bonds, who was it or what entity

MICHAEL HUDSON : They weren't junk bonds. They were called that because they were high-interest bonds, but they weren't really junk because they actually were paid. Everybody thought they were junk because no American would have paid 45 percent interest. Any country that really was self-reliant and was promoting its own economic interest would have said, "You banks and the IMF have made bad loans, and you've made them under false pretenses – a trade theory that imposes austerity instead of leading to prosperity. We're not going to pay." They would have seized the capital flight of their comprador elites and said that these dollar bonds were a rip-off by the corrupt ruling class.

The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires holding their money in Switzerland. The details were published in the "Legarde List." But the IMF said, in effect that its loyalty was to the Greek millionaires who ha their money in Switzerland. The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF so vicious an institution.

BONNIE FAULKNER : So these loans to foreign countries that were regarded as junk bonds really weren't junk, because they were going to be paid. What group was it that jacked up these interest rates to 45 percent?

MICHAEL HUDSON : The market did. American banks, stock brokers and other investors looked at the balance of payments of these countries and could not see any reasonable way that they could pay their debts, so they were not going to buy their bonds. No country subject to democratic politics would have paid debts under these conditions. But the IMF, U.S. and Eurozone diplomacy overrode democratic choice.

Investors didn't believe that the IMF and the World Bank had such a strangle hold over Latin American, Asian, and African countries that they could make the countries act in the interest of the United States and the cosmopolitan finance capital, instead of in their own national interest. They didn't believe that countries would commit financial suicide just to pay their wealthy One Percent.

They were wrong, of course. Countries were quite willing to commit economic suicide if their governments were dictatorships propped up by the United States. That's why the CIA has assassination teams and actively supports these countries to prevent any party coming to power that would act in their national interest instead of in the interest of a world division of labor and production along the lines that the U.S. planners want for the world. Under the banner of what they call a free market, you have the World Bank and the IMF engage in central planning of a distinctly anti-labor policy. Instead of calling them Third World bonds or junk bonds, you should call them anti-labor bonds, because they have become a lever to impose austerity throughout the world.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Well, that makes a lot of sense, Michael, and answers a lot of the questions I've put together to ask you. What about Puerto Rico writing down debt? I thought such debts couldn't be written down.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's what they all said, but the bonds were trading at about 45 cents on the dollar, the risk of their not being paid. The Wall Street Journal on June 17, reported that unsecured suppliers and creditors of Puerto Rico, would only get nine cents on the dollar. The secured bond holders would get maybe 65 cents on the dollar.

The terms are being written down because it's obvious that Puerto Rico can't pay, and that trying to do so is driving the population to move out of Puerto Rico to the United States. If you don't want Puerto Ricans to act the same way Greeks did and leave Greece when their industry and economy was shut down, then you're going to have to provide stability or else you're going to have half of Puerto Rico living in Florida.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Who wrote down the Puerto Rican debt?

MICHAEL HUDSON : A committee was appointed, and it calculated how much Puerto Rico can afford to pay out of its taxes. Puerto Rico is a U.S. dependency, that is, an economic colony of the United States. It does not have domestic self-reliance. It's the antithesis of democracy, so it's never been in charge of its own economic policy and essentially has to do whatever the United States tells it to do. There was a reaction after the hurricane and insufficient U.S. support to protect the island and the enormous waste and corruption involved in the U.S. aid. The U.S. response was simply: "We won you fair and square in the Spanish-American war and you're an occupied country, and we're going to keep you that way." Obviously this is causing a political resentment.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You've already touched on this, but why has the World Bank traditionally been headed by a U.S. secretary of defense?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Its job is to do in the financial sphere what, in the past, was done by military force. The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers.

In this case the loss of life occurs in the debtor countries. Population growth shrinks, suicides go up. The World Bank engages in economic warfare that is just as destructive as military warfare. At the end of the Yeltsin period Russia's President Putin said that American neoliberalism destroyed more of Russia's population than did World War II. Such neoliberalism, which basically is the doctrine of American supremacy and foreign dependency, is the policy of the World Bank and IMF.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why has World Bank policy since its inception been to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves? And if this is the case, why do countries want these loans?

MICHAEL HUDSON : One constant of American foreign policy is to make other countries dependent on American grain exports and food exports. The aim is to buttress America's agricultural trade surplus. So the first thing that the World Bank has done is not to make any domestic currency loans to help food producers. Its lending has steered client countries to produce tropical export crops, mainly plantation crops that cannot be grown in the United States. Focusing on export crops leads client countries to become dependent on American farmers – and political sanctions.

In the 1950s, right after the Chinese revolution, the United States tried to prevent China from succeeding by imposing grain export controls to starve China into submission by putting sanctions on exports. Canada was the country that broke these export controls and helped feed China.

The idea is that if you can make other countries export plantation crops, the oversupply will drive down prices for cocoa and other tropical products, and they won't feed themselves. So instead of backing family farms like the American agricultural policy does, the World Bank backed plantation agriculture. In Chile, which has the highest natural supply of fertilizer in the world from its guano deposits, exports guano instead of using it domestically. It also has the most unequal land distribution, blocking it from growing its own grain or food crops. It's completely dependent on the United States for this, and it pays by exporting copper, guano and other natural resources.

The idea is to create interdependency – one-sided dependency on the U.S. economy. The United States has always aimed at being self-sufficient in its own essentials, so that no other country can pull the plug on our economy and say, "We're going to starve you by not feeding you." Americans can feed themselves. Other countries can't say, "We're going to let you freeze in the dark by not sending you oil," because America's independent in energy. But America can use the oil control to make other countries freeze in the dark, and it can starve other countries by food-export sanctions.

So the idea is to give the United States control of the key interconnections of other economies, without letting any country control something that is vital to the working of the American economy.

There's a double standard here. The United States tells other countries: "Don't do as we do. Do as we say." The only way it can enforce this is by interfering in the politics of these countries, as it has interfered in Latin America, always pushing the right wing. For instance, when Hillary's State Department overthrew the Honduras reformer who wanted to undertake land reform and feed the Hondurans, she said: "This person has to go." That's why there are so many Hondurans trying to get into the United States now, because they can't live in their own country.

The effect of American coups is the same in Syria and Iraq. They force an exodus of people who no longer can make a living under the brutal dictatorships supported by the United States to enforce this international dependency system.

BONNIE FAULKNER : So when I asked you why countries would want these loans, I guess you're saying that they wouldn't, and that's why the U.S. finds it necessary to control them politically.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a concise way of putting it Bonnie.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why are World Bank loans only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency of the country to which it is lending?

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a good point. A basic principle should be to avoid borrowing in a foreign currency. A country can always pay the loans in its own currency, but there's no way that it can print dollars or euros to pay loans denominated in these foreign currencies.

Making the dollar central forces other countries to interface with the U.S. banking system. So if a country decides to go its own way, as Iran did in 1953 when it wanted to take over its oil from British Petroleum (or Anglo Iranian Oil, as it was called back then), the United States can interfere and overthrow it. The idea is to be able to use the banking system's interconnections to stop payments from being made.

After America installed the Shah's dictatorship, they were overthrown by Khomeini, and Iran had run up a U.S. dollar debt under the Shah. It had plenty of dollars. I think Chase Manhattan was its paying agent. So when its quarterly or annual debt payment came due, Iran told Chase to draw on its accounts and pay the bondholders. But Chase took orders from the State Department or the Defense Department, I don't know which, and refused to pay. When the payment was not made, America and its allies claimed that Iran was in default. They demanded the entire debt to be paid, as per the agreement that the Shah's puppet government had signed. America simply grabbed the deposits that Iran had in the United States. This is the money that was finally returned to Iran without interest under the agreement of 2016.

America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other.

This prompted Russia to create its own bank-transfer system, and is leading China, Russia, India and Pakistan to draft plans to de-dollarize.

BONNIE FAULKNER : I was going to ask you, why would loans in a country's domestic currency be preferable to the country taking out a loan in a foreign currency? I guess you've explained that if they took out a loan in a domestic currency, they would be able to repay it.

MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Whereas a loan in a foreign currency would cripple them.

MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes. You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap in Korea and other Asian countries.

This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight.

But for Latin America and other countries, much of their foreign debt is held by their own ruling class. Even though it's denominated in dollars, Americans don't own most of this debt. It's their own ruling class. The IMF and World Bank dictate tax policy to Latin America – to un-tax wealth and shift the burden onto labor. Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You say that: "While U.S. agricultural protectionism has been built into the postwar global system at its inception, foreign protectionism is to be nipped in the bud." How has U.S. agricultural protectionism been built into the postwar global system?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Under Franklin Roosevelt the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 called for price supports for crops so that farmers could earn enough to invest in equipment and seeds. The Agriculture Department was a wonderful department in spurring new seed varieties, agricultural extension services, marketing and banking services. It provided public support so that productivity in American agriculture from the 1930s to '50s was higher over a prolonged period than that of any other sector in history.

But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's called "grandfathering". The Americans said: "We already have this program on the books, so we can keep it. But no other country can succeed in agriculture in the way that we have done. You must keep your agriculture backward, except for the plantation crops and growing crops that we can't grow in the United States." That's what's so evil about the World Bank's development plan.

BONNIE FAULKNER : According to your book: "Domestic currency is needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive." Why can't infrastructure costs be subsidized to keep down the economy's overall cost structure if IMF loans are made in foreign currency?

MICHAEL HUDSON : If you're a farmer in Brazil, Argentina or Chile, you're doing business in domestic currency. It doesn't help if somebody gives you dollars, because your expenses are in domestic currency. So if the World Bank and the IMF can prevent countries from providing domestic currency support, that means they're not able to give price supports or provide government marketing services for their agriculture.

America is a mixed economy. Our government has always subsidized capital formation in agriculture and industry, but it insists that other countries are socialist or communist if they do what the United States is doing and use their government to support the economy. So it's a double standard. Nobody calls America a socialist country for supporting its farmers, but other countries are called socialist and are overthrown if they attempt land reform or attempt to feed themselves.

This is what the Catholic Church's Liberation Theology was all about. They backed land reform and agricultural self-sufficiency in food, realizing that if you're going to support population growth, you have to support the means to feed it. That's why the United States focused its assassination teams on priests and nuns in Guatemala and Central America for trying to promote domestic self-sufficiency.

BONNIE FAULKNER : If a country takes out an IMF loan, they're obviously going to take it out in dollars. Why can't they take the dollars and convert them into domestic currency to support local infrastructure costs?

MICHAEL HUDSON : You don't need a dollar loan to do that. Now were getting in to MMT. Any country can create its own currency. There's no reason to borrow in dollars to create your own currency. You can print it yourself or create it on your computers.

BONNIE FAULKNER: Well, exactly. So why don't these countries simply print up their own domestic currency?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Their leaders don't want to be assassinated. More immediately, if you look at the people in charge of foreign central banks, almost all have been educated in the United States and essentially brainwashed. It's the mentality of foreign central bankers. The people who are promoted are those who feel personally loyal to the United States, because they that that's how to get ahead. Essentially, they're opportunists working against the interests of their own country. You won't have socialist central bankers as long as central banks are dominated by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements.

BONNIE FAULKNER : So we're back to the main point: The control is by political means, and they control the politics and the power structure in these countries so that they don't rebel.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. When you have a dysfunctional economic theory that is destructive instead of productive, this is never an accident. It is always a result of junk economics and dependency economics being sponsored. I've talked to people at the U.S. Treasury and asked why they all end up following the United States. Treasury officials have told me: "We simply buy them off. They do it for the money." So you don't need to kill them. All you need to do is find people corrupt enough and opportunist enough to see where the money is, and you buy them off.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that "by following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail." What is food blackmail?

MICHAEL HUDSON : If you pursue a foreign policy that we don't like -- for instance, if you trade with Iran, which we're trying to smash up to grab its oil -- we'll impose financial sanctions against you. We won't sell you food, and you can starve. And because you've followed World Bank advice and not grown your own food, you will starve, because you're dependent on us, the United States and our Free World Ó allies. Canada will no longer follow its own policy independently of the United States, as it did with China in the 1950s when it sold it grain. Europe also is falling in line with U.S. policy.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that: "World Bank administrators demand that loan recipients pursue a policy of economic dependency above all on the United States as food supplier." Was this done to support U.S. agriculture? Obviously it is, but were there other reasons as well?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Certainly the agricultural lobby was critical in all of this, and I'm not sure at what point this became thoroughly conscious. I knew some of the World Bank planners, and they had no anticipation that this dependency would be the result. They believed the free-trade junk economics that's taught in the schools' economics departments and for which Nobel prizes are awarded.

When we're dealing with economic planners, we're dealing with tunnel-visioned people. They stayed in the discipline despite its unreality because they sort of think that abstractly it makes sense. There's something autistic about most economists, which is why the French had their non-autistic economic site for many years. The mentality at work is that every country should produce what it's best at – not realizing that nations also need to be self-sufficient in essentials, because we're in a real world of economic and military warfare.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why does the World Bank prefer to perpetrate world poverty instead of adequate overseas capacity to feed the peoples of developing countries?

MICHAEL HUDSON : World poverty is viewed as solution , not a problem. The World Bank thinks of poverty as low-priced labor, creating a competitive advantage for countries that produce labor-intensive goods. So poverty and austerity for the World Bank and IMF is an economic solution that's built into their models. I discuss these in my Trade, Development and Foreign Debt book. Poverty is to them the solution, because it means low-priced labor, and that means higher profits for the companies bought out by U.S., British, and European investors. So poverty is part of the class war: profits versus poverty.

BONNIE FAULKNER : In general, what is U.S. food imperialism? How would you characterize it?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Its aim is to make America the producer of essential foods and other countries producing inessential plantation crops, while remaining dependent on the United States for grain, soy beans and basic food crops.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Does World Bank lending encourage land reform in former colonies?

MICHAEL HUDSON : No. If there is land reform, the CIA sends its assassination teams in and you have mass murder, as you had in Guatemala, Ecuador, Central America and Columbia. The World Bank is absolutely committed against land reform. When the Forgash Plan for a World Bank for Economic Acceleration was proposed in the 1950s to emphasize land reform and local-currency loans, a Chase Manhattan economist to whom the plan was submitted warned that every country that had land reform turned out to be anti-American. That killed any alternative to the World Bank.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Does the World Bank insist on client governments privatizing their public domain? If so, why, and what is the effect?

MICHAEL HUDSON : It does indeed insist on privatization, pretending that this is efficient. But what it privatizes are natural monopolies – the electrical system, the water system and other basic needs. Foreigners take over, essentially finance them with foreign debt, build the foreign debt that they build into the cost structure, and raise the cost of living and doing business in these countries, thereby crippling them economically. The effect is to prevent them from competing with the United States and its European allies.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Would you say then that it is mainly America that has been aided, not foreign economies that borrow from the World Bank?

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's why the United States is the only country with veto power in the IMF and World Bank – to make sure that what you just described is exactly what happens.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Why do World Bank programs accelerate the exploitation of mineral deposits for use by other nations?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Most World Bank loans are for transportation, roads, harbor development and other infrastructure needed to export minerals and plantation crops. The World Bank doesn't make loans for projects that help the country develop in its own currency. By making only foreign currency loans, in dollars or maybe euros now, the World Bank says that its clients have to repay by generating foreign currency. The only way they can repay the dollars spent on American engineering firms that have built their infrastructure is to export – to earn enough dollars to pay back for the money that the World Bank or IMF have lent.

This is what John Perkins' book about being an economic hit man for the World Bank is all about. He realized that his job was to get countries to borrow dollars to build huge projects that could only be paid for by the country exporting more – which required breaking its labor unions and lowering wages so that it could be competitive in the race to the bottom that the World Bank and IMF encourage.

BONNIE FAULKNER : You also point out in Super Imperialism that mineral resources represent diminishing assets, so these countries that are exporting mineral resources are being depleted while the importing countries aren't.

MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. They'll end up like Canada. The end result is going to be a big hole in the ground. You've dug up all your minerals, and in the end you have a hole in the ground and a lot of the refuse and pollution – the mining slag and what Marx called the excrements of production.

This is not a sustainable development. The World Bank only promotes the U.S. pursuit of sustainable development. So naturally, they call their "Development," but their focus is on the United States, not the World Bank's client countries.

BONNIE FAULKNER : When Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire was originally published in 1972, how was it received?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Very positively. It enabled my career to take off. I received a phone call a month later by someone from the Bank of Montreal saying they had just made $240 million on the last paragraph of my book. They asked what it would cost to have me come up and give a lecture. I began lecturing once a month at $3,500 a day, moving up to $6,500 a day, and became the highest-paid per diem economist on Wall Street for a few years.

I was immediately hired by the Hudson Institute to explain Super Imperialism to the Defense Department. Herman Kahn said I showed how U.S. imperialism ran rings around European imperialism. They gave the Institute an $85,000 grant to have me go to the White House in Washington to explain how American imperialism worked. The Americans used it as a how-to-do-it book.

The socialists, whom I expected to have a response, decided to talk about other than economic topics. So, much to my surprise, it became a how-to-do-it book for imperialists. It was translated by, I think, the nephew of the Emperor of Japan into Japanese. He then wrote me that the United States opposed the book being translated into Japanese. It later was translated. It was received very positively in China, where I think it has sold more copies than in any other country. It was translated into Spanish, and most recently it was translated into German, and German officials have asked me to come and discuss it with them. So the book has been accepted all over the world as an explanation of how the system works.

BONNIE FAULKNER : In closing, do you really think that the U.S. government officials and others didn't understand how their own system worked?

MICHAEL HUDSON : Many might not have understood in 1944 that this would be the consequence. But by the time 50 years went by, you had an organization called "Fifty Years Is Enough." And by that time everybody should have understood. By the time Joe Stiglitz became the World Bank's chief economist, there was no excuse for not understanding how the system worked. He was amazed to find that indeed it didn't work as advertised, and resigned. But he should have known at the very beginning what it was all about. If he didn't understand how it was until he actually went to work there, you can understand how hard it is for most academics to get through the vocabulary of junk economics, the patter-talk of free trade and free markets to understand how exploitative and destructive the system is.

BONNIE FAULKNER : Michael Hudson, thank you very much.

MICHAEL HUDSON : It's always good to be here, Bonnie. I'm glad you ask questions like these.

I've been speaking with Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show has been: The IMF and World Bank: Partners in Backwardness. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His 1972 book, Super Imperialism : The Economic Strategy of American Empire , a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank, the subject of today's broadcast, is posted in PDF format on his website at michael-hudson.com. He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt , which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism. Dr. Hudson acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide on finance and tax law. Visit his website at michael-hudson.com.

Guns and Butter is produced by Bonnie Faulkner, Yarrow Mahko and Tony Rango. Visit us at gunsandbutter.org to listen to past programs, comment on shows, or join our email list to receive our newsletter that includes recent shows and updates. Email us at [email protected] . Follow us on Twitter at #gandbradio.

[Jul 05, 2019] Moscow's policy to Washington as "strategic patience"

Jul 05, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Despite the lack of concrete results from the Trump-Putin meeting, Moscow does not appear discouraged. Much of the Russian commentary after the meeting emphasized that meetings such as the one in Osaka will sooner or later yield tangible results.

Leonid Kalashnikov, chairman of the Russian State Duma's Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States, stated during a discussion on Russian state television, "As a result of some summit, we'll somehow accomplish something one way or another. There's no escaping it."

He added, "[The Americans] roared and yelled after the 1917 revolution, but by 1930 almost all diplomatic ties were restored. They will probably deal with Crimea the same way."

Professor Dmitry Suslov from the Higher School of Economics expressed a similar perspective to the National Interest prior to the Trump-Putin meeting. He told me that Moscow is confident that if it stays on course, then Washington will at some point come around.

"I don't think Russia will considerably harden its position; it most certainly will not make any concessions," he said. "Russia will just wait until the United States will begin to change its policy [towards Russia] by its own initiative for domestic- and foreign-policy reasons."

Suslov called this approach "strategic patience."

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Earlier this year, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, described Moscow's policy to Washington as "strategic patience" in an interview with Russian foreign-policy monthly International Affairs .

He stated that it was the Americans themselves, "who at one time used the term 'strategic patience,' which seems appropriate to describe the line that, it seems, should be pursued in relations with Washington for the foreseeable future," by Russia.

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The term "strategic patience" was commonly used to describe the Obama administration's approach towards North Korea. Under the policy, Washington would avoid escalating against Pyongyang, but also refrain from making any concessions unless North Korea made the first move.

According to Suslov, Russia's "strategic patience" approach is based on two assumptions. First, political polarization inside the United States will eventually subside. Once a new domestic consensus emerges in the United States, it will be easier for whoever is in the Oval Office to pursue a normalization of ties with Russia.

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Second, the United States will realize over the next five to ten years that it cannot simultaneously confront both China and Russia. Beijing's growing economic and military power will incentivize the United States to make a play for better relations with Russia.

What does Russia plan on doing until such a shift in Washington's attitude towards Moscow occurs, assuming it happens at all? Suslov explained that Russia's primary objective for now is damage control.

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"It is essential that we work with the United States to control the conflict and prevent a direct military confrontation," he said. "To do that, it is critical to meet to discuss questions of strategic stability and regional conflicts."

In the case of Europe, there are some signs that Moscow's "strategic patience" game plan is yielding some dividends. Last week, Parliamentary Association of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted to reinstate Russia's membership without any concessions on the Kremlin's part. Russia had been suspended from the European human-rights organization after its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

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Should allies of newly inaugurated Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky triumph in the country's parliamentary elections on July 21, the former comedian who ran on the platform of restarting dialogue with Russia may feel emboldened to move in that direction.

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As the 2020 election season heats up, Washington is quite unlikely to pursue any significant outreach towards Russia. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress view the Kremlin with suspicion, and the attitude of the general public is not much more favorable. Nevertheless, Moscow is betting that somewhere down the line, Washington will change its mind about Russia. All it has to do is keep the door open and wait.

Dimitri Alexander Simes is a contributor to the National Interest .

[Jul 04, 2019] The role of having world reserve currency in the unleashing the USA militarism

Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

J. Gutierrez, July 2, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMT 600 Words @Commentator Mike

Hey Mike,

There is an article on here by Michael Hudson, an economist who wrote about U.S. control of the World Bank and IMF since 1948. He claims that the U.S. wages war because it gets other countries to unwittingly finance them and the trade deficit. After WWII the U.S. forced European countries to pay their war debt, by selling corporate assets, reducing barriers and reduce their social programs. They had 3/4 of the world gold reserves because of those loans during the war. Korea and Vietnam reduced their gold reserves to 10 billion by the late 60's and were forced to get out off the Gold Standard. The French Banks that had a big presense in Indochina sending their dollars to the French Central Bank and they were trading dollars for gold. Nixon stopped it.

The dollar gave U.S. the means to have other countries finance their trade deficit, all their wars and the military buildup. By ending the Gold backed dollar they forced the countries that had U.S. debt dollars to purchase U.S. Treasury Bonds. As the U.S. debt grew so did the dollars being held by those countries and the purchase of Treasury Bonds. The U.S. does not allow countries holding those dollars to buy US property or buy Corporations and risk being acused of commiting an act of war. So they are forced to buy U.S. debt while the US uses its dollars to buy other countries resources with those worthless dollars.

The U.S. forces countries that default on their loans to pay penalties and huge interest payments while the U.S. debt goes un checked and growing without the threat of being in default...

[Jul 04, 2019] Looks like Trump lost anti-war right

Notable quotes:
"... I won't be voting Trump again and fall for that sting. Will vote Tulsi whether she's on ballot or not. ..."
Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

freedom-cat says: July 2, 2019 at 2:52 pm GMT 100 Words

Presidential elections are a joke. It's best to vote for 3rd candidate to express your opposition to the Status quo: I won't be voting Trump again and fall for that sting. Will vote Tulsi whether she's on ballot or not.

She will never make it as she is too honest about foreign policy and the USA lies.

[Jul 04, 2019] 'Credibility' Is Just an Excuse to Launch Attacks

Notable quotes:
"... All of this is "theater," distractions and moot points. No country is going to invade America or "take away our freedoms." America already is the "safest" nation on the earth due to geography and our massive nuclear deterrence. This would be even more true if America did not stir up every hornet nest is the world. Ironically, the one thing that can make our country less safe is continuing with all the "meddling" we now specialize in. ..."
"... If we stopped pursuing our "national interests," the "interests" of 99.9 percent of Americans would be enhanced. ..."
Jul 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Andrew Bacevich takes aim at the bogus hawkish "credibility" argument:

But does making threats and then dropping bombs enhance credibility? If so, notwithstanding Obama's and Trump's own occasional qualms, the United States would have amassed vast stores of the stuff over the past 30 years or so. Presidents since Ronald Reagan, including Obama and Trump, have followed up threats with bombs on myriad occasions. Targeted nations have included Libya, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen, with the punitive action episodic in some cases and sustained in others. No nation in recent memory has dropped more pieces of ordnance on more countries than has the United States. Indeed, no other nation comes close.

Over those same 30 years, however, America's standing as a global leader has declined. It turns out in practice that credibility is less a function of using force than of demonstrating prudence. Yet somewhere between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, those charged with formulating U.S. policy decided that the dictates of prudence need not apply to the actions of the world's one and only indispensable nation. In recent decades, the abiding feature of American statecraft has been grandiosity, with military activism camouflaging a loss of strategic realism.

Resorting to force frequently over the last several decades has not made the U.S. more respected, trusted, or reliable in its commitments. When hawks warn that a "failure" to strike this or that country could undermine our "credibility," they want us to believe that hostile states will think they can get away with attacking our allies and that our allies will fear that our government won't come to their assistance. They continually confuse decisions about whether to initiate hostilities against other states with decisions about whether to respond to aggression in defense of allies, but this just calls attention to the fact that the military intervention they want has nothing to do with our security or the security of our allies.

"Failing" to bomb Syria in 2013 did not put any of our allies in greater danger, and I suspect more than a few of our allies were glad that our government refrained from committing more illegal acts of war. Backing off from an illegal attack on Iran has not encouraged rivals to be more aggressive, but the possibility of starting a war over a drone alarmed our allies that our government was once again prepared to plunge into an unnecessary war because of a crisis of Trump's own making. Other states do not believe our government to be unwilling to back up threats, especially when it concerns something that genuinely affects the U.S. and our allies, but many of them do worry that our government is overeager to pick fights and look for reasons to use force when alternatives are available. Like a trigger-happy vigilante, our government uses force all the time for any reason and frequently for no good reason at all. "Credibility" is just the most convenient excuse.

It is significant that the "credibility"-worshipers that complain when the U.S. doesn't attack another country have little or nothing to say about the effect on our reputation when the president reneges on international agreements negotiated in good faith. "Credibility" fans don't particularly care if other states don't trust our promises when it relates to anything else, but they are livid when a president doesn't seize every opportunity to rain down death and destruction on other countries. I submit that no one making "credibility" arguments really believes them, but they use these arguments to stoke fear that "inaction" (i.e., not killing people) might be more dangerous than "action" (i.e., killing those people). "Failing" to bomb another country doesn't have negative consequences for the U.S. (how could it?), but reneging on diplomatic commitments is likely to make other governments less likely to trust our promises and less likely to enter into agreements with our government in the future. Hawks don't have much of a problem with the latter because they aren't interested in making diplomatic agreements, but they are very worried that the U.S. "misses" the chance to launch an attack because they want to get the U.S. embroiled in new conflicts. "Credibility" is the ready-made excuse to launch attacks when no U.S. interests are at stake, and it can be reused over and over to sell gullible people on wars we don't need. The price of those wars is then paid by the people in the affected countries and our military. It's time to stop buying into the incredible "credibility" argument.

FL_Cottonmouth a day ago • edited

"Credibility," in interventionist/unilateralist parlance, is no different from "street cred." They're no different from thugs.

Bill In Montgomey a day ago

All of this is "theater," distractions and moot points. No country is going to invade America or "take away our freedoms." America already is the "safest" nation on the earth due to geography and our massive nuclear deterrence. This would be even more true if America did not stir up every hornet nest is the world. Ironically, the one thing that can make our country less safe is continuing with all the "meddling" we now specialize in.

If we stopped pursuing our "national interests," the "interests" of 99.9 percent of Americans would be enhanced.

[Jul 04, 2019] Bush Sr. and his CIA drug dealing

Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

J. Gutierrez says: July 2, 2019 at 9:36 pm GMT 500 Words @Harold Smith

With all due respect Mr. Smith things have really gone down hill after Bush Sr. I'm talking about direct attacks on the rights of American citizens. Bush Sr. (R) with his CIA drug dealing with the help of Noriega. He purchased weapons with the proceeds to arm terrorist guerrilla groups in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton (D) helped Bush Sr. as governor of Arkansas by covering up any investigation targeting the operation and laundering their money through a state owned bank. Bush Jr. (R) secured lands in Afghanistan in order to restart athe heroine trade by growing poppy fields to process and ship back to the US. Obama (R) made sure the Mexican drug cartels were well armed in order to launch a drug war that supported the Merida Initiative, which allowed armed DEA, CIA and Mercenaries into Mexican territory. Trump (R) will be the clean up hitter that will usher in the dollar collapse.

Mr. Smith do you really believe it is a coincidence that Rep 8 yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 8yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 3 yrs are voted in? Please sir, don't fool yourself because in the next election I will bet money the orange fool will be president for another 4 years unless the owners don't want him there. But we can safely say that history tells us he will. All I'm saying that people like you, waiting for someone to throw you a rope because you've fallen into deep water are waiting on a rescue boat that doesn't care if you drown.

Your best bet for change was thrown away when Dr. Ron Paul failed to be nominated. Us dumb asses in Mexico didn't need another election fraud this time around! The people started YouTube channels that reported the "real" news (Chapucero – Quesadillas de Verdades – Charro Politico – Sin Censura, etc.). Those channels made a big difference, countering the negative reporting by Mexican and US MSM that the Presidential Candidate for MORENA as "Leftist", "Communist", "Socialist", "Like Hugo Chavez", "Dangerous", etc.

With all of the US propaganda, Mexican propaganda, the negative MSM and Elite financing, Mexicans knew they had to get out and vote in record numbers and they did! Otherwise a close election was seen as another loss and the end of Mexico as a country. People were ready to fight and die if necessary. They had seen the Energy Reforms forced down our throat by the corrupt PRI/PAN parties (Mex version o DEM/REP), with the help of Hillary Clinton and the US State Department. They drafting the changes needed to the Mexican Constitution to allow a vote. Totally against the Law in Mexico and I'm sure the laws of the US.

There is a saying that goes something like, "If you're not ready to die for Freedom, take it out of your Vocabulary"!

We were!!!

[Jul 04, 2019] Nobody has gotten things more right, even before the wars developed Justin Roimondo predicted a war with Iraq even before Sept 11, 2001, and it's aftermath into sectarian violence

Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Biff says: July 2, 2019 at 4:49 am GMT 100 Words

Don't want to drift off topic, but the person who wins the Antiwar debate is this guy:

https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2019/06/30/antiwar-com-now-what/

If Ron Unz is reading I might suggest he could do a little something to cover the passing of probably one of the best Antiwar writers(Justin Raimondo) of this generation. Nobody has gotten things more right, even before the wars developed – he predicted a war with Iraq even before Sept 11, 2001, and it's aftermath into sectarian violence. His archives are second to none in naming the names of who steered the war machine into the Middle East and across the globe. I could gone on, but the link does a better job.
RIP Justin.

[Jul 04, 2019] Amazing how for these Americans, even this Tulsi, the lives of US soldiers are more important than countless civilians they murder during the course of their wars. But even that is a lie. They don't even care about their own soldiers once they're of no use to them any more, if you consider the rate of alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, homelessness, mental health issues, and suicide among the veterans.

Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Commentator Mike says: July 2, 2019 at 6:54 am GMT 300 Words

Amazing how for these Americans, even this Tulsi, the lives of US soldiers are more important than countless civilians they murder during the course of their wars. But even that is a lie. They don't even care about their own soldiers once they're of no use to them any more, if you consider the rate of alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, homelessness, mental health issues, and suicide among the veterans.

And also, when it serves their purpose, then suddenly the life of some innocent somewhere half way round the world getting abused by a government they dislike becomes important, and the human rights card is played so they can go and kill more than they save. I thought that to these leftist American politicians everyone is equal so why don't they express concern about how many Afghans they have killed over there?

Oh yes, but if they left them alone there wouldn't be those columns of young Afghans making their way to the West for these liberals to practice their empathy and hospitality on. And who would be guarding those poppy fields and ensuring maximum production for pharmaceutical companies and the black market? And when an Afghan immigrant like Omar Mateen sets off on a murder spree on US soil who is to blame?

Do they even question their wars, or their immigration policy, or Islamic culture of intolerance, or anything at all? Some may then question gun laws, but even that is another lie, because guns are as as available as ever. No they just shrug their shoulders as its just part and parcel, and it's only good for the media to keep people in fear and sell their sensational news.

And if you question any of this then you're most likely to be called a racist or supremacist or whatever vile word they can conjure up with which to browbeat you.

[Jul 04, 2019] any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law

Wars are necessary for the maintaining and expanding the US controlled neoliberal empire. Wars is the health of military industrial complex.
The Deep State will bury any candidate who will try to change the USA forign policy. Looks what happened to Trump. He got Russiagate just for vey modest proposal of detente with Russia (of course not only for that, but still...)
Notable quotes:
"... The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they lied us into. ..."
Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

alexander says: July 2, 2019 at 8:57 pm GMT 400 Words

Those are interesting proposals but wishful thinking: wars are necessary for Electing Tulsi Gabbard as our next Commander in Chief will not solve our biggest problems alone.

Her candidacy, I believe , must be augmented by two new laws which should be demanded by the taxpayer and enforced by her administration on "day one".

The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they lied us into.

If they lied us into war .they pay for it NOT the US taxpayer.

The second is " The Terror Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ also retroactive to 2001, it states that any and all individuals found to have engaged in plotting, planning, or staging "false terror events" will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all of the assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit to pay down the cost of our War on Terror.

Americans should not have to sacrifice one cent of their tax dollars to pay for their own defrauding by "staged" or "phony" terror events.

I believe that were Tulsi to be elected, she should set up two new task forces designed especially for these reasons, Try to think of them as the " Office of Special Plans" IN REVERSO.!.

Moreover she should hold weekly press briefings to notify the taxpayer of her progress, and also how much of our 23 trillion in losses , FROM THEIR LIES, she has been able to recoup.

Getting these two initiatives up and running is the most potent force the taxpayers have in cleaning out the fraud and larceny in DC, .ending our illegal wars overseas .. and (finally)holding our "establishment elite " accountable for "LYING US INTO THEM"

It is way overdue for the American Taxpayer to take back control of our government from those who ALMOST BANKRUPTED OUR ENTIRE NATION BY LYING US INTO ILLEGAL WARS.

It is not enough any more just to complain or "kvetch" about our problems .put on your thinking caps .and start coming up with solutions and initiatives .start fighting for your freedom, your finances and your future.

Elect the leaders YOU WANT and tell them exactly what you want them to do!

Tulsi has promised us all "SERVICE OVER SELF"

There you go !

I say that means not only ENDING our ILLEGAL, CRIMINAL WARS .but GETTING AS MUCH OF OUR MONEY BACK from those who lied us into them !

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WAR FRAUD it is $23,000,000,000,000.00. in "heinous debt" .overdue!

OORAH !

[Jul 04, 2019] Daesh oil vs Iran oil

Jul 04, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jul 4 2019 18:20 utc | 29

SyrianaAnalysis founder Kevork Almassian spins the tanker arrest thusly:

"While #ISIS was stealing the Syrian oil & selling it to #Turkey, the so-called #US led coalition (#UK included) against Daesh wasn't interested in stopping the theft of #Syria's oil.

"But today the UK stopped an oil tanker delivering energy to the Syrian people."

Quite witty, IMO. Note the EU-3 all supported the terrorist invasion of Syria, the destruction of Libya, and NATO's accusing Iran of sponsoring terrorism.

Pompeo's new slogan: Terrorism daily baby!


james , Jul 4 2019 17:10 utc | 11

Spain's caretaker Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said the British targeted the tanker on a request from the US. He added that Spain, which considers the waters off Gibraltar as its own, was assessing the implications of the operation.

Iran has reportedly acknowledged ownership of the cargo. Its foreign ministry summoned the British ambassador in Tehran to protest the "unlawful seizure of the Iranian tanker," according to the IRNA news agency.

According to Reuters, the MT Grace 1 has been used by Iran in the past to ship crude to Singapore and China in defiance of unilateral sanctions imposed against Iran by the US. The current trip allegedly started in Iran's port of Bandar Assalyeh, thought the papers state that the crude was loaded in the Iraqi port of Basra.

In seizing the tanker under the pretext of sanctions on Syria, the EU seems to be at least partially siding with Washington, which is trying to cripple the Iranian economy through harsh economic sanctions. The pressure campaign was escalated after the US broke its commitment under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

"Maybe the EU was trying to show that it was siding with the Americans, playing its part in anti-Iranian policy? We know that the Trump administration has been critical of the European countries," Ali Rizk, a Middle East-based journalist and writer, told RT.

"And it's likely a demonstration against Syria. It all helps an ongoing plan of parting Syria with its allies."

https://www.rt.com/news/463379-iran-crude-tanker-gibraltar/

Ant. , Jul 4 2019 17:13 utc | 12

@1 Allegedly(?), this oil tanker sailed from Basra in Iraq (not Iran) and remarkably went around Africa rather than sail through the Suez, and further it allegedly also turned it's transponder off(?)... as usual, we'll have to wait for real facts to emerge. It's still quite unusual to intercept an oil tanker so blatantly when much more nefarious shipments are going on.

Seems to me certain western governments do whatever they want, and no longer care about international legalities.

gzon , Jul 4 2019 17:28 utc | 18

Grace1 tanker was being tracked for a long time

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-sanctions-oil-exclusive/exclusive-how-iran-fuel-oil-exports-beat-u-s-sanctions-in-tanker-odyssey-to-asia-idUSKCN1R10G9

is from three months ago.

She is now Panama flagged (presumably) Russian owned

IMO number 9116412
Name of the ship GRACE 1
Type of ship CRUDE OIL TANKER
MMSI 355271000
Gross tonnage 156880 tons
DWT 273769 tons
Year of build 1997
Builder HYUNDAI HEAVY INDUSTRIES - ULSAN, SOUTH KOREA
Flag PANAMA
Class society LLOYD'S SHIPPING REGISTER
Manager & owner RUSSIAN TITAN SHIPPING LINES - DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Former names MERIDIAN LION until 2013 Mar
OVERSEAS MERIDIAN until 2011 Jun
MERIDIAN LION until 2006 Feb

The reason for holding the ship is given as breaking EU sanctions on Syria. Not JCPOA related (in principle).

Here is a short but incomplete primer on Gibraltar territorial waters. The even more extreme Spanish view is that only the port is Gibraltarian, or simply that Gibraltar is Spanish.

https://www.quora.com/As-Gibraltar-is-surrounded-by-Spanish-waters-can-Spain-block-any-ship-coming-from-or-to-Gibraltar


gzon , Jul 4 2019 17:48 utc | 23

Just to note Grace1 is anchored off the south east of Gibraltar, within the 3 mile Gibraltar limit now, I don't know if she was stopped inside that zone, or why she would venture into that 3 mile zone. In short it will be important to know what position she was when boarded, the only info I have is that she veered hard to port into the Gibraltar 3 mile limit, but am not sure if before or after being boarded. The Spanish government has said it tolerates Gibraltar "acting in its waters" in this case because the action was based on EU sanctions.

[Jul 01, 2019] Putin: I hope that sanity will prevail in the end

Notable quotes:
"... "Question: Mr President, you have given an extensive overview of different topics. A short time after you last met with Donald Trump, the Americans introduced new sanctions against Russia. Could you tell if you received some reassurances from Donald Trump that no new sanctions will follow this time, or do you think sanctions may be imposed again? Or are you confident that there will no more sanctions? ..."
"... "Vladimir Putin: I have no idea. This is not our business; it is up to the United States to think about how they should build relations with Russia. I think we have mutual understanding that we should somehow get out of the situation that has emerged so far. But this is the same as with our colleagues and partners from the UK. It is an abnormal situation, it must be simply rectified; we must somehow find the strength to turn the page, to move on and to look to the future. It is the same in relations with the United States. ..."
"... "Let me reiterate, I meet with US businesspeople, including at the St Petersburg Economic Forum. 550 people went there. They want to work. That means jobs, that means goals the President of the United State is trying to achieve. I actually said in that interview that after the globalisation processes led to such big growth of the world economy, even the middle class in the United States felt they were left behind. While large corporation made huge profits, their management got a lot of advantages as did their partners, the middle class did not, not very much. Wages remained the same, and the standard of living began to grow a little. Jobs are needed and conditions to raise real incomes of US citizens. To achieve that they need to expand cooperation and work with everyone, including Russia. ..."
"... "They restricted the operation of their companies in the Russian market. We made calculations across some European countries, and it really amounts to lost profits. Cutting exports (our imports are their exports) amounts to tens of billions of euros. That means jobs, either job cuts or jobs that were not created. The same applies to the United States. I hope that sanity will prevail in the end." ..."
"... That is a polite way of saying that sanity is not prevailing at the moment. Putin pointing out that there is nothing Russia can do about the current relationship between the US and Russia leaves no illusions as to who the insane party is. It is not within Russia's power to make America sane. There are no magic words they can utter to fix what ails the US. ..."
"... Globalization is simply a neoliberal economic substitute for colonialism. ..."
"... Neoliberals contrary to popular opinion do not believe in self-regulating markets as autonomous entities. They do not see democracy as necessary for capitalism. ..."
"... The neoliberal globalist world is not a borderless market without nations but a doubled world (economic -global and social- national) . The global economic world is kept safe from democratic national demands for social justice and equality, and in return each nation enjoys cultural freedom. ..."
"... Neoliberals see democracy as a real problem. Democracy means the unwashed masses can threaten the so called market economy (in fact manipulated and protected markets) with worker demands for living wages and equality and consumer demands for competitive pricing and safe products. Controlling both parties with money prevents that. ..."
"... In fact, neoliberal thinking is comparable to that of John Maynard Keynes in one respect : "the market does not and cannot take care of itself". ..."
"... Neoliberals insulate the markets by providing safe harbor for capital, free from fear of infringement by policies of progressive taxation or redistribution. They do this by redesigning government, laws, and other institutions to protect the market. ..."
"... For example the stock market is propped up by the Feds purchases of futures, replacing the plunge protection teams intervention at an even more extreme level. Manipulation of economic statistics by the BLS also serve a similar purpose. ..."
"... What you described is precisely a symptom of falling profitability. Financialisation, for example, only increases when the "real economy" is not profiting enough anymore. ..."
"... "If you try to understand how so many jobs have disappeared, the answer that you come up with over and over again in the data is that it's not trade that caused that -- it's primarily technology," Eighty percent of lost jobs were not replaced by workers in China, but by machines and automation. That is the first problem if you slap on tariffs. What you discover is that American companies are likely to replace its more expensive workers with machines." ..."
"... More evidence for Marx's Law: the USA was a victim of its own success, not of its own failures, nor because of alien enemies. ..."
Jul 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jun 30, 2019 4:46:37 PM | 39

In case there are others aside from myself interested in the G-20 outcomes, here are a few links to what IMO's important. Go here to get the links to the three main documents G-20 produced: "G20 Osaka Leaders Declaration," "Osaka declaration on digital economy," and "G20 Osaka leaders' statement on preventing exploitation of the internet for terrorism and violent extremism conductive to terrorism (VECT)." Pepe Escobar's recap . Transcript of Putin's post G20 news conference.

I hoped when I added the presser link to the Putin interview thread and hinted there were connections between them that another line of analysis would develop, but it seems participants were way to immersed/invested in the liberalism debate to bother.

From the press conference, I'd like to point-out one of the Q&As related to the illegal sanctions regime, economic development and how they interact with Trump's 2016 Campaign Pledges as we begin the 2020 election cycle:

"Question: Mr President, you have given an extensive overview of different topics. A short time after you last met with Donald Trump, the Americans introduced new sanctions against Russia. Could you tell if you received some reassurances from Donald Trump that no new sanctions will follow this time, or do you think sanctions may be imposed again? Or are you confident that there will no more sanctions?

"Vladimir Putin: I have no idea. This is not our business; it is up to the United States to think about how they should build relations with Russia. I think we have mutual understanding that we should somehow get out of the situation that has emerged so far. But this is the same as with our colleagues and partners from the UK. It is an abnormal situation, it must be simply rectified; we must somehow find the strength to turn the page, to move on and to look to the future. It is the same in relations with the United States.

"I told you that we reasserted our wish to support the business community's proposal regarding tools for the support of business initiatives. But it shows that the incumbent Administration has intentions to somehow continue with this abnormal situation. I spoke about our trade with the United States and with some other partners. Obviously, $25 billion in trade does not meet our interests and does not reflect our potential.

"That is why I have no idea if they will do anything or not. At any rate, one thing is sure – we are not going to ask for anything. No means no. And if there is interest, we will respond in kind and will do everything we can to turn the situation around.

"Let me reiterate, I meet with US businesspeople, including at the St Petersburg Economic Forum. 550 people went there. They want to work. That means jobs, that means goals the President of the United State is trying to achieve. I actually said in that interview that after the globalisation processes led to such big growth of the world economy, even the middle class in the United States felt they were left behind. While large corporation made huge profits, their management got a lot of advantages as did their partners, the middle class did not, not very much. Wages remained the same, and the standard of living began to grow a little. Jobs are needed and conditions to raise real incomes of US citizens. To achieve that they need to expand cooperation and work with everyone, including Russia.

"They restricted the operation of their companies in the Russian market. We made calculations across some European countries, and it really amounts to lost profits. Cutting exports (our imports are their exports) amounts to tens of billions of euros. That means jobs, either job cuts or jobs that were not created. The same applies to the United States. I hope that sanity will prevail in the end."

It appears that Trump needs to end his Trade and Sanctions Wars (although all the illegal sanctions aren't his doing) in order to bolster his reelection chances. The questions are, Will the sanction hawks like Mnuchin try to impede such a policy change since it seems to be required for domestic politics and How will D-Party candidates treat the issue, particularly as several are hooked on Russiagate Koolaid?

And do please note the question about the interview at the end, Putin's answer and how he put in within the context of the G20!

William Gruff , Jun 30, 2019 5:32:28 PM | 45

Great quote of Putin by karlof1 @39. That final sentence says much, though:

"I hope that sanity will prevail in the end"

That is a polite way of saying that sanity is not prevailing at the moment. Putin pointing out that there is nothing Russia can do about the current relationship between the US and Russia leaves no illusions as to who the insane party is. It is not within Russia's power to make America sane. There are no magic words they can utter to fix what ails the US.

William Gruff , Jun 30, 2019 8:47:27 PM | 82
A minor correction to dh-mtl @59 where it was claimed "[The globalists] lost power from the mid-1930s to 1980."

The globalists were never actually out of power in the US. Instead they were confronted with a massive upsurge in radical organized labor that threatened to remove them from power. The globalists had to make very significant concessions to buy time for that labor uprising to subside. That happened to take almost half a century, but throughout that period the globalists retained power, though in a somewhat weakened form. They are back at full strength now

Other than that dh-mtl's analysis seems accurate.

dh-mtl , Jun 30, 2019 9:13:22 PM | 86
donkeytale | Jun 30, 2019 8:14:48 PM | 79 says:

'But to say any one nation "produced" the current global market economic system is a bit like saying Yahweh created all the heavens and the earth in 6 days.'

I never suggested that 'one nation' produced this global system.

What I was suggesting is that perhaps the financial elites who benefit from, as you describe it, a 'financial system created by and for the wealthiest elites wherever they may call home', and who controlled Reagan and Clinton and W and Obama, Blair and Cameron and Macron and Merkel and Aznar in Spain, etc., etc., and hundreds of MEPs in the European parliament, and who created the U.S. Deep State, control virtually all of western main-stream media, and who place their people in control of institutions such as the World Bank, and IMF, and UN and WTO and BIS, and who decide the fate of the world every year at Davos and the Bilderberg conference, might have had something the do with creating the laws and treaties that created that system.

This sounds like a pretty effective political system to me, though definitely not democratic.

karlof1 , Jul 1 2019 4:06 utc | 104
pretzelattack @100--

Carter agreed to appoint Volker in order to save the bondholders by destroying the domestic economy with interest rates over 20% which is what actually cost him the 1980 election. In 1978, McNamara was sent off to the World Bank to work in tandem with IMF to begin the imposition of the euphemized Structural Adjustment Programs--the globalized version of Neoliberalism.

dh-mtl , Jul 1 2019 4:08 utc | 105
donkeytale | Jun 30, 2019 9:51:00 PM | 90 says:

'the Trump-nationalists and Brexiteers do not offer an effective solution to problem of wealth inequality which is your complaint'.


Wealth inequality is not my complaint. My point is that 'dictatorship', whether it be in the hands of 'wealthy global elites', military or other, cannot achieve acceptable outcomes for a large, complex, modern society, and that excessive wealth inequality is a sure indicator of dictatorship.

The Trump-nationalists and Brexiteers may not have an effective solution. But they are convinced that what has been going on in their societies over the past 30 plus years has definitely not worked for them either. My analysis is that they are trying to return to the conditions in which the outcomes were much better for them.

My own conviction is that acceptable outcomes for a society can only be achieved when the political leaders are working on behalf of the society as a whole, rather than for a narrow privileged group, and especially a group that has little or no allegiance to the nation-state, whose boundaries define the society.

When the political leaders are truly working on behalf of the population as a whole, there is a wide variety of policy options that can work. Trial and error over time will ensure that the policy options that are most appropriate for a particular society and its circumstances will eventually emerge.

Pft , Jul 1 2019 5:38 utc | 114

Globalization is simply a neoliberal economic substitute for colonialism.

Neoliberals contrary to popular opinion do not believe in self-regulating markets as autonomous entities. They do not see democracy as necessary for capitalism.

The neoliberal globalist world is not a borderless market without nations but a doubled world (economic -global and social- national) . The global economic world is kept safe from democratic national demands for social justice and equality, and in return each nation enjoys cultural freedom.

Neoliberals see democracy as a real problem. Democracy means the unwashed masses can threaten the so called market economy (in fact manipulated and protected markets) with worker demands for living wages and equality and consumer demands for competitive pricing and safe products. Controlling both parties with money prevents that.

In fact, neoliberal thinking is comparable to that of John Maynard Keynes in one respect : "the market does not and cannot take care of itself".

The neoliberal project did not liberate markets so much as protect them by protecting capitalism against the threat of democracy and to reorder the world where borders provide a captive market

Neoliberals insulate the markets by providing safe harbor for capital, free from fear of infringement by policies of progressive taxation or redistribution. They do this by redesigning government, laws, and other institutions to protect the market.

For example the stock market is propped up by the Feds purchases of futures, replacing the plunge protection teams intervention at an even more extreme level. Manipulation of economic statistics by the BLS also serve a similar purpose.

Another example is getting government to accept monopoly capitalism over competitive capitalism and have appointed judges who believe illegal collusion is nothing more than understandable and legal "conscious parallelism"

... ... ...

vk , Jul 1 2019 12:54 utc | 132
@ Posted by: Lochearn | Jun 30, 2019 9:33:07 PM | 89

What you described is precisely a symptom of falling profitability. Financialisation, for example, only increases when the "real economy" is not profiting enough anymore.

It's important to highlight that the tendency of the profit rate to fall doesn't necessarily means a company is losing money, but just that the profit rate is secularly decreasing. Since it's a tendency, it also doesn't mean this fall happens linearly: capital still operates in cycles. However, over the long term, profit rates will fall, no matter what.

vk , Jul 1 2019 13:22 utc | 135
About the deindustrialization process in the USA since the 1970s:

The G20 and the cold war in technology

The biggest reason Trump can't bring back home these manufacturing jobs is because they have been lost in large part to the success of 'efficiency' in the US Over the past three-and-a-half decades, manufacturers have shed more than seven million jobs while producing more stuff than ever. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reported in The Manufacturing Footprint and the Importance of U.S. Manufacturing Jobs that

"If you try to understand how so many jobs have disappeared, the answer that you come up with over and over again in the data is that it's not trade that caused that -- it's primarily technology," Eighty percent of lost jobs were not replaced by workers in China, but by machines and automation. That is the first problem if you slap on tariffs. What you discover is that American companies are likely to replace its more expensive workers with machines."

More evidence for Marx's Law: the USA was a victim of its own success, not of its own failures, nor because of alien enemies.

gzon , Jul 1 2019 21:32 utc | 168

Karlof 156 cont.

When we speak of unadulterated capitalism and capital, we start with the most basic capital we have, our hands. If I go and LABOUR by planting a tree and caring for it, the fruit I consider mine. I might give those away at choice, or exchange them for something else of value. That something eventually became known as money, a commonly recognised unit, it's strength being that it could not be replicated, and its worth accepted in a wider market by others. The fruit of a persons labour was transmitted to descendants and family in tradition, in a society that respected that tradition. The whole process is very very personal, including where extended business starts appearing.

Now, you want me to both accept taxation, where to not compete is a losing proposition, and to accept that finance is able to conjure up replica money using that taxation as basis, with which I have to compete with own earnings that are steadily purposefully diluted - I take it very very very personally. What are you going to offer me, subsidy from the pooled value now under your control ? Because it is a social and "fair" management of reality ? Communism and socialism do not work, they remove the most natural good incentives a person can have to actually go out and achieve anything, they dull what are otherwise lively common understandings, they diminish societies that otherwise have open appreciation for the effort of others. They try to own those, and they end up as dictatorships to try to impose an own ideological dream. The same can be said of crony capitalism, which approaches fascism.

That is why I subscribe to minarchic classical liberal notions of organisation, with hard money and transparency of finance, as compromise. You know Iran and Saudi are gold backed, don't you. You can figure out from that part of what is going on, maybe.

[Jul 01, 2019] In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new anti-war foreign-policy think tank in Washington

Jul 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

donkeytale , Jun 30, 2019 8:01:00 PM | 74


Maracatu , Jun 30, 2019 8:08:59 PM | 75

Someone pinch me and tell me I'm not dreaming! If this is true (my knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss it), then it is HUGE! EARTH SHATTERING !
In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new foreign-policy think tank in Washington. It will promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. (...) It will be called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. (...) Among (Trita) Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran, and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich. "The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
james , Jun 30, 2019 10:31:39 PM | 95
caitlin johnstones latest - New Soros/Koch-Funded Think Tank Claims To Oppose US Forever War

i thought it was april fools for a second, until i then thought it is probably a pile of steaming b.s. but hey - if it can be used as fertilizer to grow a few brains in an otherwise constant 24/7 war party mindset, i am up for it... call me when something actually happens as a result of any soros-koch stink tank agenda..

[Jul 01, 2019] On Friday, Russia signalled its commitment to secure Iran's oil and banking sectors, should the EU's INSTEX clearing mechanism not be working effectively by July 7

Jul 01, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Trump's Iran Policy Dangerously Flawed Assumptions, With No Plan 'B' by Alastair Crooke

Ultimately, Trump will find himself in a corner in which he never wished to find himself: It may already be too late. He is there.

Professor Russell-Mead tells us "that the key to the president's Iran policy is that his nose for power [and Trump is a keen judge of power, R-M insists] is telling him Iran is weaker, and the US stronger than the foreign-policy establishment believes What Mr. Trump wants is a deal with Iran that matches his sense of the relative power of the two countries " (emphasis added).

"At the level of public diplomacy, [Trump] is engaging in his standard mix of dazzle and spin[turning American politics into the Donald Trump Show, with the country and the world fixated on his every move, speculating feverishly about what will come next, R-M suggests] And at the level of power politics he is steadily and consistently tightening the screws on Iran: arming its neighbors and assuring them of his support, tightening sanctions, and raising the psychological pressure on the regime.

"Mr. Trump well understands the constraints under which his Iran policy is working. Launching a new Middle East war could wreck his presidency. But if Iran starts the war, that's another matter. A clear Iranian attack on American or even Israeli targets could unite Mr. Trump's Jacksonian base like the attack on Pearl Harbor united America's Jacksonians to fight Imperial Japan."

Russell-Mead's analysis probably has it right. But there is more to it than that: Trump's approach is based on some further underlying key assumptions: Firstly, that, with the Iranian economy tanking, and inflation soaring (Trump repeats this unfounded assertion frequently), the Iranian revolutionary system will either implode, or approach Washington, on its knees, asking for a new nuclear deal.

Two: Trump can afford to wait out this impending implosion, and just lever up the economic pressures in the meanwhile. Three: Trump claims that a war with Iran would be short: "I'm not talking boots on the ground," he said . "I'm just saying if something would happen, it wouldn't last very long". And four: Trump said, (and appears to believe), that he wouldn't need an "exit strategy" in the event of a war with Iran, which suggests that he may really think that the war would be limited to a brief air campaign, and then it would be over.

What to say? Well, only that all of these assumptions are almost certainly wrong – and, as Daniel Larison in The American Conservative notes , "if the US president thinks that a war with Iran "wouldn't last very long," he is probably going to be more willing to start it. Iran hawks are already predictably emphasizing that attacking Iran wouldn't be like Iraq or Afghanistan, and they are saying that in part to overcome Trump's apparent reservations about getting bogged down in a protracted conflict". Iran indeed would not be like Afghanistan or Iraq, but in an entirely different way to that claimed by the hawks.

Well, Iran will not be imploding economically: On Friday, Russia signalled its commitment to secure Iran's oil and banking sectors, should the EU's INSTEX clearing mechanism not be working effectively by 7 July (when Iran's window to Europe on this issue closes). Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that Moscow is ready to help Iran export its crude and ease restrictions on its banking system should Europe fail to make INSTEX a viable mechanism. China too, has stated that "normal energy dealings" with Tehran are in accordance with law, and should be respected. The Governor of the Central Bank of Iran said this week that Iran has "climbed past the peak of sanctions. Our oil exports are on the rise", Hemmati said .

If the 'implosion hypothesis' is flawed, so too is the claim that Iran will come begging for a new nuclear deal from Mr Trump. Here, by way of illustration, is the (Iranian) account of what the Supreme Leader said to Prime Minister Abe:

"During the meeting with Abe Shinzo (on 13 June), the latter told Ayatollah Khamenei that "I would like to give you a message from the President of the United States".

"Ayatollah Khamenei responded by pointing to the US ingenuity and untrustworthiness, and argued, "We do not doubt your [Abe's] sincerity and goodwill. However, regarding what you mentioned about the President of the US, I do not consider Trump as a person worth exchanging any message with and I have no answer for him, nor will I respond to him in the future ."

"[But] what I am going to say, is said to you as the Japanese Prime Minister, and because we consider Japan a friend of ours

"Ayatollah Khamenei noting Shinzo's assertion that the US intends to prevent Iran's production of nuclear weapons said, "We are opposed to the nuclear weapons and my religious Fatwa bans production of nuclear weapons; but you should know that if we intended to produce nuclear weapons, the US could do nothing; and its non-permission [would] not be any obstacle."

"The Supreme leader, in response to the message that "the United States is not after regime change in Iran", insisted that "Our problem with the United States is not about regime change. Because even if they intend to pursue that, they won't be able to achieve it When Trump says that he is not after regime change, it is a lie. For, if he could do so, he would. However, he is not capable of it."

"Ayatollah Khamenei similarly referred to the Japanese prime minister's remarks regarding the United States' request to negotiate with Iran about the nuclear issue, and said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran negotiated for 5 to 6 years with the United States and the Europeans -- the P 5+1 -- which led to an agreement. But the United States disregarded and breached this definite agreement. So, does common sense permit negotiations with a state that has thrown away everything that was agreed upon?"

"He pointed to the forty years of hostility that the US has showed to the Iranian nation and its continued hostility, and said, "We believe that our problems will not be solved by negotiating with the US, and no free nation would ever accept negotiations under pressure."

And 'pressures' are precisely what the US is adding: i.e. increasing pressures, rather than easing them – which stands probably as the sine qua non to resuming negotiations with Iran. But then Trump holds to the view that America is entitled – by virtue of its greater power – to negotiate with others only when the counterparties are under 'maximum pressure'. Plainly, he has not been briefed well on the Iranian history of stoically enduring far worse and violent cataclysms. Nor, that Iranians can draw on a stratum of spiritual resilience from the narrative of Imam Hussein at times of crisis.

How so? The notion of an 'Iran on the cusp of collapse' is a meme being peddled by various disgruntled Iranian exiles, and by the MEK, as well as by prominent hawks in the US. But equally – and importantly, given Trump's own family predilections – this narrative of 'just one push' and the Iranian Revolution 'is over' is being constantly urged by Netanyahu. (Other Israelis are not so happy at their PM's open and avid support for Trump's policy on Iran – recalling how Israel (and Netanyahu) were accused of having pushed for the 2003 Iraq war).

So. If the assumption that Iran will either collapse, or capitulate under economic pressure, is false; and that the presumption that 'no exit strategy' is required, because Iran is weak and the US is militarily strong (implying that a short, quick air strike would settle matters) – is similarly flawed, where then are we headed?

If these underlying assumptions continue to pass without serious challenge, then, as time passes, Iran will neither have imploded, nor capitulated, as presaged; but rather, it will have continued to send calibrated, incrementally ascending 'messages' to demonstrating the potential costs of pursuing such a policy – with the pain being experienced principally by those US allies who continually advocate for harsh US 'measures' against Iran.

Ultimately, Trump will find himself in a corner in which he never wished to find himself: It may already be too late. He is there. Either having to react militarily to Iranian 'messages', with all the potential for asymmetric Iranian counterstrikes and ratchetting escalation: A prospect from which instinctively he recoils, because he fears this route of indecisive military tit-for-tat may not play out well for him in terms of the 2020 elections. And even could risk his Presidency.

Or, a humiliating, concessionary journey of return into a process closely mirroring the (despised) JCPOA – whatever be its new name: And hope to call the defeat as 'victory'.

Quite possibly, President Putin may have it in mind to lay out some of this prospective landscape when he met with Trump at Osaka. We probably won't be told. We'll never know.

[Jul 01, 2019] Tour d'horizon - 1 July 2019

Notable quotes:
"... This Turkish process of acquiring northern Syria is greatly assisted by the continuing Bolton/Pompeo/neocon policy of regime change in Syria ..."
"... I don't see why Turkey would outright annex northern Syria instead of creating puppet regimes there. They didn't annex northern Cyprus either, and the population there are ethnic Turks. ..."
"... Annexation of northern Syria would bring even more Arabs and Kurds into the Turkish polity, which must be a nightmare for any Turkish nationalist ..."
"... It's not clear to me that "Islamic solidarity" will be stronger than Turkish nationalism. ..."
Jul 01, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

... ... ...

5. Turkey - The Neo-Ottomans are in the process of devouring large parts of northern Syria. This process is something like an anaconda slowing engulfing a large animal. We are now in the phase of this devouring in which there is a lot of nonsense about de-militarized zones, supposed cease fires, entrenched Turkish "observation posts" placed so as to keep the SAA and friends from getting at HTS and the other jihadis in Idlib Province.

If successful this will be followed by plebiscites and petitions by local puppet government for annexation.

This Turkish process of acquiring northern Syria is greatly assisted by the continuing Bolton/Pompeo/neocon policy of regime change in Syria. Under the sway of this policy we continue to do our best to impede the reconstruction of Syria and refugee return with all sorts of baloney in the MSM about Syrian government atrocities against returning Syrians. We also are doing everything possible to discourage a Syria Kurd-Syrian government rapprochement. IMO Trump has delegated attention on this to the neocons in his house and should take this function away from them in this area.

... ... ...

TI ,

"This Turkish process of acquiring northern Syria"

I don't see why Turkey would outright annex northern Syria instead of creating puppet regimes there. They didn't annex northern Cyprus either, and the population there are ethnic Turks.

A significant part of the Turkish public already seems to be very unhappy about the presence of large numbers of Syrian refugees in Turkey and doesn't like the idea at all that they will eventually acquire Turkish citizenship.

Annexation of northern Syria would bring even more Arabs and Kurds into the Turkish polity, which must be a nightmare for any Turkish nationalist (the higher birth rates of Turkey's Kurdish minority as compared to ethnic Turks are already somewhat of a demographic time bomb).

It's not clear to me that "Islamic solidarity" will be stronger than Turkish nationalism.

[Jun 30, 2019] First Democratic debate Demagogy on social issues, silence on war by Patrick Martin

This is WSWS with their outdated dreams of "working class dictatorship" but some points and observation are very apt and to the point.
Notable quotes:
"... The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy ..."
"... Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ..."
"... She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times ..."
"... The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama. ..."
"... If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia. ..."
"... On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Four hours of nationally televised debates Wednesday and Thursday among 20 Democratic presidential candidates demonstrated the gigantic disconnect between the claims of this pro-war, pro-corporate party to be driven by concerns for the well-being of working people and the reality of poverty and oppression in America, for which the Democratic Party is no less responsible than the Republicans.

The stage-managed spectacle mounted by NBC marked the formal beginning of an electoral process dominated by big money and thoroughly manipulated by the corporate-controlled media.

The attempt to contain the growing left-wing opposition in the working class and channel it behind the second oldest capitalist party in the world necessarily assumed the form of lies and demagogy. For the most part, the vying politicians, all of them in the top 10 percent on the income ladder, made promises to provide healthcare, jobs, decent schools, tuition-free college and a clean environment for all, knowing full well they had no intention of carrying them out.

No one -- neither the millionaire media talking heads asking the questions nor the candidates -- dared to mention the fact that that Democratic Party has just voted to give Trump an additional $4.9 billion to round up, detain and torture hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including children, in the growing network of concentration camps being set up within the US. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things, and this one demonstrates the complicity of the Democratic Party in the fascistic policies of the Trump administration.

The second night of the debate featured the front-runners, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden has a long record of reactionary politics, including in the Obama administration. Sanders is continuing in this election his role in 2016 of channeling growing support for socialism into the framework of a right-wing party.

The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy. The African-American senator was lauded for attacking Biden for statements boasting of his ability in the past to collaborate with segregationist senators and his past opposition to busing for school integration.

It was Harris who adopted the most transparently bogus posture of left-radicalism in Thursday night's debate, repeatedly declaring her agreement with Bernie Sanders and raising her hand, along with Sanders, to support the abolition of private health insurance in favor of a single-payer system. By Friday morning, however, she had reversed that stand, claiming she had "misheard" the question and declaring her support for the continuation of private insurance.

Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times , who want the Democratic campaign to be dominated by racial and gender politics so as to mobilize the party's wealthy upper-middle class base and divert and divide the mass working class anger over social inequality.

Many of the candidates fondly recalled the Obama administration. But those eight years saw the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the super-rich in American history. The pace was set by the initial $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which was expanded to uncounted trillions in the course of 2009, combined with the bailout of the auto companies at the expense of the autoworkers, who suffered massive cuts in benefits and a 50 percent cut in pay for new hires, rubber-stamped by the United Auto Workers.

The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama.

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado attacked Biden for claiming credit for a bipartisan budget deal in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Far from a genuine compromise, he said, the deal "was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush tax cuts permanently," as well as putting in place major cuts in social spending which continue to this day. Bennet neglected to mention that he had voted for the deal himself when it passed the Senate by a huge majority.

It was remarkable, under conditions where President Trump himself declared that the United States was only 10 minutes away from launching a major assault on Iran earlier this month, that the 20 Democratic candidates spent almost no time discussing foreign policy.

In the course of four hours, there were only a few minutes devoted to the world outside the United States. The silence on the rest of the world cannot be dismissed as mere parochialism.

Many of the Democratic presidential candidates are deeply implicated in either the policy-making or combat operations of US imperialism. The 20 candidates include two who were deployed as military officers to Iraq and Afghanistan, Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard; Biden, vice president for eight years and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and five senators who are members of high-profile national security committees: Harris and Bennet on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand on the Armed Services Committee, and Cory Booker on the Foreign Relations Committee.

If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia.

In the handful of comments that were made on foreign policy, the Democratic candidates struck a belligerent note. On Wednesday, four of the ten candidates declared the main global threat to the United States to be China, while New York Mayor Bill de Blasio opted for Russia. Many candidates referred to the need to combat Russian interference in the US election -- recycling the phony claims that Russian "meddling" helped Trump into the White House in 2016.

On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders.

[Jun 30, 2019] Barak and CIA

Jun 30, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

You have probably seen the bumper sticker that says: "Shit Happens." Some people are just lucky, I suppose, and odd coincidences mark their lives.

When he was just out of Columbia College and working for a reputed CIA front company, Business International Corporation, Barack Obama had a chance encounter with a young woman, Genevieve Cook, with whom he had a 1-2 year relationship.

Like Obama and at about the same time, Cook just happened to have lived in Indonesia with her father, Michael Cook, who just happened to become Australia's top spook, the director-general of the Office of National Assessments, and also the Ambassador to Washington.

Of course, Obama's mother, as is well-known, just happened to be living in Indonesia with Barack and Obama's step-father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian military officer, who had been called back to Indonesia by the CIA supported General Suharto three months before the CIA coup against President Sukarno. Suharto subsequently slaughtered over a million Indonesian Communists and Indonesian-Chinese.

As is also well-known, it just so happened that Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, trained in the Russian language, after teaching English in the US Embassy in Jakarta that housed one of the largest CIA stations in Asia, did her "anthropological" work in Indonesia and Southeast Asia financed by the well-known CIA conduits, USAID and the Ford Foundation.

Then there is Cook's stepfather, Philip C. Jessup, who just happened to be in Indonesia at the same time, doing nickel-mining deals with the genocidal Suharto government.

Anyway, "shit happens." You never know whom you might meet along the way of life.

[Jun 30, 2019] Clinton's savage bombing of Serbia that had killed so many Serbian children and other innocents had been code-named "Operation Noble Anvil."

Jun 30, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

The hostess at the seaside restaurant had an eastern European accent, so he asked her where she was from. She said, "Belgrade, Serbia." He told her he was sorry for what the U.S. government led by Bill Clinton had done to her country and that he considered Clinton a war criminal. She said the bombing in 1999 was terrifying, and even though she was young at the time, she vividly remembered it.

It traumatized her, her parents, and her family. Then she smiled and said that in the month she had been in the U.S. for her summer job, all the Americans she had met had been so friendly. He welcomed her to the U.S., and as he was walking away, he remembered that Clinton's savage bombing of Serbia that had killed so many Serbian children and other innocents had been code-named "Operation Noble Anvil."

He wondered what kind of "noble" people would think of innocent children as anvils: "heavy usually steel-faced iron blocks on which metal is shaped," and did the friendly Americans accept Clinton's sick lies when he ended his March 24, 1999 war address to the American people with these words: "Our thoughts and prayers tonight must be with the men and women of our armed forces, who are undertaking this mission for the sake of our values and our children's future. May God bless them, and may God bless America."

[Jun 30, 2019] Aggressive US Lies and Misleads to Justify War on Iran by William Boardman

Notable quotes:
"... The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and international skepticism attests. ..."
"... Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown. ..."
"... Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something of an argument that began: ..."
"... He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out. Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf. They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share. Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. ..."
"... Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. ..."
"... There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were, they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack ..."
"... Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But he's not done with the disinformation exercise: ..."
"... The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification ..."
Jun 26, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.

This is only the latest in a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests, and they should be understood in the context of 40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.

-- US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announcement , June 13, 2013

The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and international skepticism attests.

Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown.

First, what actually happened, as best we can tell five days later? In the early morning of June 13, two unrelated tankers were heading south out of the Strait of Hormuz, sailing in open water in the Gulf of Oman, roughly 20 miles off the south coast of Iran. The tankers were most likely outside Iran's territorial waters, but within Iran's contiguous zone as defined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea . At different times, some 30 miles apart, the two tankers were attacked by weapons unknown, launched by parties unknown, for reasons unknown. The first reported distress call was 6:12 a.m. local time. No one has yet claimed responsibility for either attack. The crew of each tanker abandoned ship soon after the explosions and were rescued by ships in the area, including Iranian naval vessels, who took the Front Altair crew to an Iranian port.

Even this much was not certain in the early afternoon of June 13 when Mike Pompeo came to the lectern at the State Department to deliver his verdict:

It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.

Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something of an argument that began:

This assessment is based on intelligence .

He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out. Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf. They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share. Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. After intelligence, Pompeo continued:

This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used .

Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. He went on:

This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation

The "level of expertise needed" to carry out these attacks on a pair of sitting duck tankers does not appear to be that great. Yes, the Iranian military probably has the expertise, as do the militaries of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, or others with a stake in provoking a crisis in the region. And those who lack the expertise still have the money with which to hire expert surrogates. The number of credible suspects, known and unknown, with an interest in doing harm to Iran is easily in double figures. Leading any serious list should be the US. That's perfectly logical, so Pompeo tried to divert attention from the obvious:

This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping .

There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were, they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack. The one example was the May 12, 2019, attack on four ships at anchor in the deep water port of Fujairah. Even the multinational investigation organized by the UAE could not determine who did it. The UAE reported to the UN Security Council that the perpetrator was likely some unnamed "state actor." The logical suspects and their surrogates are the same as those for the most recent attack.

Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But he's not done with the disinformation exercise:

This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.

The whole proxy group thing is redundant, covered by "the level of expertise needed" mentioned earlier. Pompeo doesn't name any proxy group here, he doesn't explain how he could know there's no proxy group that could carry out such an attack, and he just throws word garbage at the wall and hopes something sticks that will make you believe – no evidence necessary – that Iran is evil beyond redemption:

Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation, and an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension by Iran.

The attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been provoked by the US and its allies. The US has long been a clear threat to international peace and security, except when the US was actually trashing peace and security, as it did in Iraq, as it seems to want to do in Iran. There is, indeed, "an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension," but it's a campaign by the US. The current phase began when the Trump administration pulled out of the multinational nuclear deal with Iran. The US wages economic warfare on Iran even though Iran continues to abide by the Trump-trashed treaty. All the other signatories and inspectors confirm that Iran has abided by the agreement. But Iran is approaching a point of violation, which it has been warning about for some time. The other signatories allow the US to bully them into enforcing US sanctions at their own cost against a country in compliance with its promises. China, Russia, France, GB, Germany, and the EU are all craven in the face of US threats. That's what the US wants from Iran.

Lately, Trump and Pompeo and their ilk have been whining about not wanting war and claiming they want to negotiate, while doing nothing to make negotiation more possible. Iran has observed US actions and has rejected negotiating with an imperial power with a decades-long record of bad faith. Lacking any serious act of good faith by the US, does Iran have any other rational choice? Pompeo makes absolutely clear just how irrational, how dishonest, how implacable and untrustworthy the US is when he accuses Iran of:

40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.

This is Big Lie country. Forty years ago, the Iranians committed their original sin – they overthrew one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, imposed on them by the US. Then they took Americans hostage, and the US has been playing the victim ever since, out of all proportion to reality or justice. But the Pompeos of this world still milk it for all it's worth. What about "unprovoked aggression," who does that? The US list is long and criminal, including its support of Saddam Hussein's war of aggression against Iran. Iran's list of "unprovoked aggressions" is pretty much zero, unless you go back to the Persian Empire. No wonder Pompeo took no question on his statement. The Big Lie is supposed to be enough.

The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification. Democrats should have objected forcefully and continuously long since. Democrats in the House should have put peace with Iran on the table as soon as they came into the majority. They should do it now. Democratic presidential candidates should join Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren in forthrightly opposing war with Iran. Leading a huge public outcry may not keep the president from lying us into war with Iran any more than it kept the president from lying us into war with Iraq. But an absence of outcry will just make it easier for this rogue nation to commit a whole new set of war crimes.

Intellectually, the case for normal relations with Iran is easy. There is literally no good reason to maintain hostility, not even the possibility, remote as it is, of an Iranian nuclear weapon (especially now that Trump is helping the Saudis go nuclear). But politically, the case for normal relations with Iran is hard, especially because forty years of propaganda demonizing Iran has deep roots. To make a sane case on Iran takes real courage: one has to speak truth to a nation that believes its lies to itself.

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This article was first published in Reader Supported News . Read other articles by William .

[Jun 30, 2019] Mainstream Media Outraged! That US Missiles Are In Unknown Libyan Rebel Hands

Jun 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The New York Times is outraged, just outraged! -- that US anti-tank missiles have been found in "unknown" Libyan rebel hands . Of course, when tons of American military hardware was covertly sent to al-Qaeda linked "rebels" fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and when those same weapons were later transferred to the anti-Assad insurgency in Syria , many of them no doubt used by ISIS and al-Nusra Front, the mainstream media didn't find much to complain about. But now the "scandal" is being uncovered in 2019?

Currently, it's the UN-backed government in Tripoli which finds itself on the receiving end of deadly accurate high-tech US-made weapons systems, according to the Times :

Libyan government fighters discovered a cache of powerful American missiles , usually sold only to close American allies, at a captured rebel base in the mountains south of Tripoli this week.

The four Javelin anti-tank missiles, which cost more than $170,000 each, had ended up bolstering the arsenal of Gen. Khalifa Hifter , whose forces are waging a military campaign to take over Libya and overthrow a government the United States supports.

Markings on the missiles' shipping containers indicate that they were originally sold to the United Arab Emirates, an important American partner, in 2008.

... ... ...

The Times report noted further, "If the Emirates transferred the weapons to General Hifter, it would likely violate the sales agreement with the United States as well as a United Nations arms embargo ."

Gen. Haftar -- who solidified control of Eastern Libya over the past two years and swept through the south early this year, has sought to capture Tripoli and seize military control of the entire country, with the support of countries like the UAE and France, but is strongly opposed by Turkey and most European countries.

Haftar has long been described by many analysts as "the CIA's man in Libya" -- given he spent a couple decades living in exile a mere few minutes from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia during Gaddafi's rule.

He was inserted back onto the Libyan battlefield before Gaddafi's eventual capture and field execution at the hands of NATO supported Islamist fighters in 2011. The NYT offered further details of the US weapons recovered this week as follows :

Markings on the missile crates identify their joint manufacturer, the arms giants Raytheon and Lockheed Martin , and a contract number that corresponds with a $115 million order for Javelin missiles that was placed by the United Arab Emirates and Oman in 2008.

Again, isn't it a little late for the mainstream media to somehow only now discover and care about the "scandal" of major US weapons systems in "unknown rebel hands" ?

For a trip down memory lane, and to review just what Obama and Hillary's original Libya war has wrought, see Dan Sanchez's 2015 essay, "Where Does ISIS Get Those Wonderful Toys?"


VZ58 , 12 minutes ago link

The CIA knows where these weapons are. All POTUS' know where these weapons are. The Israelis know where these weapons are. The Saudis and UK know where these weapons are. What is the problem?

ardent , 15 minutes ago link

"It does not take a genius to figure out that the United States...

has no vital interests at stake in places like Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq.

Who is driving the process and benefiting? Israel is clearly the intended

beneficiary... " – Philip Giraldi, Former CIA officer.

TheNeosNeo , 1 hour ago link

" "We take all allegations of misuse of U.S. origin defense articles very seriously," a State Department official said in a statement following the Javelin anti-tank missile recovery.

"We are aware of these reports and are seeking additional information. We expect all recipients of U.S. origin defense equipment to abide by their end-use obligations," the statement continued. "

Hilarious. Do they expect the "unknown" rebels to just return them? If they're unknown, how do tehy know they're rebels?

AriusArmenian , 1 hour ago link

The US is supplying Haftar through its vassals and proxies in the Middle East.

And remember that Haftar is a CIA asset.

madashellron , 1 hour ago link

But i guess they're not worried under Obama thousands of these missiles were supplied to Islamic Terrorists in Syria. And now Trump gave the green light to supply more missiles to Turkish Islamic Terrorists in Syria. That are slaughtering Thousands of Syrian soldiers with these missiles.

[Jun 30, 2019] Khrushchev and Mao

Notable quotes:
"... Mao only understood power. He sensed Khrushchev as 'weak' and acted as if he wanted to be the new Stalin. He also made international statements that made the US-USSR relations much worse. He berated Khrushchev for seeking co-existence with the West and pressed on for more World Revolution. ..."
"... It was all so stupid. China and Russia could have gotten along well if not for Mao's impetuosity. Of course, Khrushchev could be reckless, contradictory, and erratic, and his mixed signals to the West also heightened tensions. Also, he was caught between a rock and a hard place where the Eastern Bloc was concerned. He wanted to de-Stalinize, but this could lead to events like the Hungarian Uprising. ..."
Jun 30, 2019 | www.unz.com

Priss Factor , says: Website June 29, 2019 at 12:04 am GMT

Abrams is giving the West too much credit for the Sino-Soviet rift of the late 5os and 60s.

That was NOT the doing of the CIA or Western Europe. It was 90% the fault of Mao who tried to shove Khrushchev aside as the head of world communism. Because Stalin had treated Mao badly, Khrushchev wanted to make amends and treated Mao with respect. But Mao turned out to be a total a-hole. There are two kinds of people: Those who appreciate friendly gestures and those who seek kindness as 'weakness'.

It's like Hitler saw Chamberlain's offer as weakness and pushed ahead. Being kind is nice, but one should never be kind to psychopaths, and Khrushchev was nice to the wrong person.

Mao only understood power. He sensed Khrushchev as 'weak' and acted as if he wanted to be the new Stalin. He also made international statements that made the US-USSR relations much worse. He berated Khrushchev for seeking co-existence with the West and pressed on for more World Revolution.

He also ignored Soviet advice not to attempt radical economic policies (that were soon to bring China to economic ruin -- at least Stalin's collectivization led to rise of industry; in contrast, Mao managed to destroy both agriculture and heavy industry).

When Stalin was alive, he didn't treat Mao with any respect, and Mao disliked Stalin but still respected him because Mao understood Power. With Stalin gone, Khrushchev showed Mao some respect, but Mao felt no respect for Khrushchev who was regarded as a weakling and sucker.

It was all so stupid. China and Russia could have gotten along well if not for Mao's impetuosity. Of course, Khrushchev could be reckless, contradictory, and erratic, and his mixed signals to the West also heightened tensions. Also, he was caught between a rock and a hard place where the Eastern Bloc was concerned. He wanted to de-Stalinize, but this could lead to events like the Hungarian Uprising.

Anyway, Putin and Xi, perhaps having grown up in less turbulent times, are more stable and mature in character and temperament than Mao and Khrushchev. They don't see the Russo-China relations as a zero sum game of ego but a way for which both sides can come to the table halfway, which is all one can hope for.

[Jun 29, 2019] Latest Weapon Of US Imperialism Liquified Natural Gas

Highly recommended!
See better discussion at platts.com "But US LNG could face problems of its own – the current low prices are forcing ever growing numbers of US producers into bankruptcy. According to a recent report by Haynes and Boone, 90 gas and oil producers in the US and Canada have filed for bankruptcy between January 2015 and the start of August 2016." So $2 price at Henry Hub should rise to at least $4 for companies to stay in business.
Notable quotes:
"... Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is produced domestically, the rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%. ..."
"... The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage. ..."
"... Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017. ..."
"... s mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines. This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources. ..."
"... This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe. ..."
"... Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG, a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security. ..."
"... The European countries do not appear to be dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" ..."
"... The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

One of the most important energy battles of the future will be fought in the field of liquid natural gas (LNG). Suggested as one of the main solutions to pollution , LNG offers the possibility of still managing to meet a country's industrial needs while ameliorating environmental concerns caused by other energy sources. At the same time, a little like the US dollar, LNG is becoming a tool Washington intends to use against Moscow at the expense of Washington's European allies.

To understand the rise of LNG in global strategies, it is wise to look at a graph (page 7) produced by the International Gas Union (IGU) where the following four key indicators are highlighted: global regasification capacities; total volumes of LNG exchanged; exporting countries; and importing countries.

From 1990 to today, the world has grown from 220 million tons per annum (MTPA) to around 850 MTPA of regasification capacity. The volume of trade increased from 20-30 MTPA to around 300 MTPA. Likewise, the number of LNG-importing countries has increased from just over a dozen to almost 40 over the course of 15 years, while the number of producers has remained almost unchanged, except for a few exceptions like the US entering the LNG market in 2016.

There are two methods used to transport gas.

The first is through pipelines, which reduce costs and facilitate interconnection between countries, an important example of this being seen in Europe's importation of gas. The four main pipelines for Europe come from four distinct geographical regions: the Middle East, Africa, Northern Europe and Russia.

The second method of transporting gas is by sea in the form of LNG, which in the short term is more expensive, complex and difficult to implement on a large scale. Gas transported by sea is processed to be cooled so as to reduce its volume, and then liquified again to allow storage and transport by ship. This process adds 20% to costs when compared to gas transported through pipelines.

Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is produced domestically, the rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%.

The construction of infrastructure to accommodate LNG ships is ongoing in Europe, and some European countries already have a limited capacity to accommodate LNG and direct it to the national and European network or act as an energy hub to ship LNG to other ports using smaller ships.

According to King & Spalding :

"All of Europe's LNG terminals are import facilities, with the exception of (non-EU) Norway and Russia which export LNG. There are currently 28 large-scale LNG import terminals in Europe (including non-EU Turkey). There are also 8 small-scale LNG facilities in Europe (in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Gibraltar). Of the 28 large-scale LNG import terminals, 24 are in EU countries (and therefore subject to EU regulation) and 4 are in Turkey, 23 are land-based import terminals, and 4 are floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs), and the one import facility in Malta comprises a Floating Storage Unit (FSU) and onshore regasification facilities."

The countries currently most involved in the export of LNG are Qatar (24.9%), Australia (21.7%), Malaysia (7.7%), the US (6.7%), Nigeria (6.5%) and Russia (6%).

Europe is one of the main markets for gas, given its strong demand for clean energy for domestic and industrial needs. For this reason, Germany has for years been engaged in the Nord Stream 2 project, which aims to double the transport capacity of gas from Russia to Germany. Currently the flow of the Nord Stream is 55 billion cubic meters of gas. With the new Nord Stream 2, the capacity will double to 110 billion cubic meters per year.

The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage.

Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017.

ENI's discovery has generated important planning for the future of LNG in Europe and in Italy.

Problems have arisen ever since Donald Trump sought to oblige Europeans to purchase LNG from the US in order to reduce the trade deficit and benefit US companies at the expense of other gas-exporting countries like Algeria, Russia and Norway. As mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines. This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources.

This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe.

But Europe finds itself in a decidedly uncomfortable situation that cannot be easily resolved. The anti-Russia hysteria drummed up by the Euro-Atlantic globalist establishment aides Donald Trump's efforts to economically squeeze as much as possible out of European allies, hurting European citizens in the process who will have to pay more for American LNG, which costs about a fifth more than gas from Russian, Norwegian or Algerian sources.

Projects to build offshore regasifiers in Europe appear to have begun and seem unlikely to be affected by future political vagaries, given the investment committed and planning times involved:

"There are currently in the region of 22 large-scale LNG import terminals considered as planned in Europe, except for the planned terminals in Ukraine (Odessa FSRU LNG), Russia (Kaliningrad LNG), Albania (Eagle LNG) – Albania being a candidate for EU membership – and Turkey (FSRU Iskenderun and FSRU Gulf of Saros).

Many ofthese planned terminals, including Greece (where one additional import terminal is planned – Alexandroupolis), Italy (which is considering or planning two additional terminals – Porto Empedocle in Sicily and Gioia Tauro LNG in Calabria) , Poland (FSRU Polish Baltic Sea Coast), Turkey (two FSRUs) and the UK (which is planning the Port Meridian FSRU LNG project and UK Trafigura Teesside LNG). LNG import terminal for Albania (Eagle LNG), Croatia (Krk Island), Cyprus (Vassiliko FSRU), Estonia (Muuga (Tallinn) LNG and Padalski LNG), Germany ( Brunsbüttel LNG), Ireland (Shannon LNG and Cork LNG), Latvia (Riga LNG), Romania (Constanta LNG), Russia (Kaliningrad LNG) and Ukraine (Odessa).

Nine of the planned terminals are FSRUs: Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the UK. "In addition, there are numerous plans for expansion of existing terminals, including in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Turkey and the UK."

Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG, a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security.

The European countries do not appear to be dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" This, however, is not the case with all allies. Germany is not economically able to interrupt Nord Stream 2. And even though the project has many high-level sponsors, including former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the project constantly seems to be on the verge of being stopped – at least in Washington's delusions.

Even Eni's discovery of the gas field in Egypt has annoyed the US, which wants less competition (even when illegal, as in the case of Huawei) and wants to be able to force its exports onto Europeans while maintaining the price of the LNG in dollars, thereby further supporting the US dollar as the world's reserve currency in the same manner as the petrodollar .

The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. The Europeans appear prepared to set whatever course the US has charted them, one away from cheaper gas sources to the more expensive LNG supplied from across the Atlantic. Given the investments already committed to receive this LNG, it seems unlikely that the course set for the Europeans will be changed.


Sputternik , 1 hour ago link

I live in Europe. I can honestly say that the people I know here prefer Russian gas. People are very ticked off about how the US meddled in their gas supply and the structuring of the pipelines. Most feel that even if US LNG WAS competitive with Russian gas price for now, that the US would in some way either increase prices or use it in some other way to control or manipulate the EU. And sentiment towards USA tends toward resentment and distrust. That's not to say they are necessarily pro-Russia, but definitely a wave of anti US is present.

phaedrus1952 , 46 minutes ago link

US LNG pricing is based on Henry Hub which today is under $2.30/mmbtu.

Even adding in liquefaction and shipping costs, the price to the end user is extremely low.

Henry hub is projected to be sub $3 for DECADES!

Combine the low price with spot deliveries (pipe usually demands long term contracting commitments), and US LNG actually has strong rationale for being accepted.

The statement above that US LNG cannot compete against Australia in Asia is preposterously false due to the VERY high buildout costs of the Aussie LNG infrastructure.

Next year, Oz's first LNG IMPORT terminal at Port Kembla may well be supplied with US LNG.

jaxville , 44 minutes ago link

The US has shown itself to be unreliable as a supplier of anything. Political posturing will always take precedence over any international transaction.

Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago link

Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia in your post can be said of the U.S. I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's their view on military bases.

The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to project power , e.g. to conduct expeditionary warfare , and thereby influence events abroad. Depending on their size and infrastructure, they can be used as staging areas or for logistical, communications and intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have resulted in overseas military bases being established in large numbers by world powers and the existence of bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and military goals.

And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases

Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The U.S. has 36 listed here with none of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.

FormerTurbineGuy , 2 hours ago link

Whilst the left wants to go full throttle towards Wind and Solar, no one knows that the natural gas lobby is behind these sources because both sources need a backup. While everyone talks "carbon footprint" they never discusses plant efficiency ( or in the terms of engines brake specific fuel consumption and turbine specific fuel consumption ) in terms of thermal efficiency. You know the boring stuff that plant operators stress over to make sure when your wife wakes up @ 3 in the morning to feed the baby, the lights do go on, and they are creating that wattage in an cost affective manner. With that said, the king of thermal efficiency i.e. burning a fuel to create electricity, is the Combined Cycle Natural Gas Power Plant. These plants combines a stationary gas turbine buring natural gas to spin a generator and a boiler on the back side capture the waste heat to create steam to spin a turbine to again add an input to the generator for a current state of the art of 61% efficiency . That means only 39% going up the stack or for steam cooling to get your "Delta T" for the steam cycle to work. This 61% is vs maybe in the mid 40's for a coal, oil plant or in the case of Nuclear just waste heat with nothing going out a stack. The greater wattage per fuel burned, and the modularization of these Combined Cycle Plants aka have a series of 100mw turbines and bring them on line as needed, make this a win-win IMHO for a massive refurbishing of our Utility base, with a host of benefits, before Gen 3 & Gen 4 Nuclear truly take off again. These plants could be a great stop gap before Gen 3 & 4 are a reality. All the macinations towards wind and solar and their disavantages aka being bird vegamatics, vistas being spoiled and huge swaths of land being used for panels make no sense vs energy density of efficient plants. We are the Natural Gas King, lets not flare it anymore, and really, really leverage it here, help allies, and use it for bringing bad behaving children of the world to the table ifyou will, if you want the candy, behave....

Anonymous IX , 1 hour ago link

Why do we have to treat other countries like we're the parent? We aren't. They are equal and fully functioning countries quite capable of determining their own political and economic future...which may involve not trading or interacting with the U.S. Particularly if we demand of them conditions we ourselves would never accede.

JeanTrejean , 3 hours ago link

To get cheap energy, is an advantage for the European Industry.

Why should we use expensiver energy ?

And, as I read ZH, the future of the US shale gas is far to be assured.

SoDamnMad , 3 hours ago link

The Lithuanian FSRU "Independence" which was delivered from Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2014 to the port of Klaipeda drove energy costs for heating through the roof and perhaps is one of the reasons the Prime Minister at the time only came in third in the latest presidential elections. You can stay reasonably warm, eat or have money for medicine and other necessities. Pick 2 ONLY. Thank you USSA

tuetenueggel , 3 hours ago link

Brainsick as Pompeo the US Pork without character.

As Long as Russia dlivery theier gas constantly and for a much better price then Us-Shale idiots, the ziocons only can lose. We Europeans are not very impressed.

Arising , 3 hours ago link

The biggest Capitalist economy on the planet needs to use mob tactics to push its over priced wares- seems 'long term' is not part of their hit-and-run operation.

Call me Al , 3 hours ago link

LNG = Liquefied natural gas, not liquid.

Now as for the article; apart from a few Eastern European Countries (The Ukraine, Poland etc.), I have seen no proof whatsoever, that Europe is shifting to US LNG.

As for "As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?""; I am sorry, but I think those days are over..... this can be seen in our Iranian stance, the 2 Russian pipelines - 1 being Nordstream II and the other Turk-stream, increased trade with Russia, joining the the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and so on and so on......

Kirk2NCC1701 , 3 hours ago link

Call me AI, both terms are acceptable.

Liquified refers to the processing.

Liquid refers to the state of the gas after processing.

earleflorida , 2 hours ago link

thankyou :)

tuetenueggel , 3 hours ago link

yeah, vasalls are not jumping any longer.

libfrog88 , 3 hours ago link

Slowly but surely the anti-Russia propaganda is dying. You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some people all of the time (libtards), but you can't fool all the people all of the time. Europeans (the citizens) will question why they should pay 20-30% more for their natural gas just to please America. Politicians better have an answer or change of policy if they want to be reelected.

[Jun 29, 2019] John Bolton is that you? on ZH? cooool, maybe pompeo will show up later?

Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

LaugherNYC , 2 hours ago link

You gotta love the SCI. This shallowly-disguised Russian propaganda arm writes in the most charming awkward idiomatic English, bouncing from a "false neutral" tone to a jingoistic Amercia-phobic argot to produce its hit pieces.

Russian propaganda acts like Claude Raines in "Casablanca" : "i am shocked, shocked to discover (geopolitics) going on here!" Geeeee, Europe and the US are in a struggle to avoid Europe relying on Russia for strategic necessities like fuel, even if it imposes costs on European consumers. If you have a dangerous disease, and your pharmacist is known for cutting off their customers' vital drugs to extort them, you might consider using another provider who not only doesn't cut off supplies, but also provides the police department that protects you from your pharmacist's thugs who are known to invade customers' homes using the profits from their own business.

The US provides the protective umbrella that limits Putin's adventurism. Russia cuts of Ukraine's gas supplies in winter to force them into submission. Gasprom is effectively an arm of the Russian military, weaponizing Russia's only product as a geopolitical taser. Sure, it costs more to transport LNG across the Atlantic and convert it back to gas, but the profits from that business are routinely funneled back to Europe in the form of US trade, contributions to NATO, and the provision of the nuclear umbrella that protects Europeans from the man who has publicly lamented the fall of the Soviet Union, called for the return of the former SSRs, and violated the IRM treaty to place nuclear capable intermediate-range missiles and cruise missiles within range of Europe and boasted about his new hypersonic weapons' theoretic capability to decapitate NATO and American decision-making within a few minutes of launch.

... ... ...

Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago link

Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia in your post can be said of the U.S. I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's their view on military bases.

The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to project power , e.g. to conduct expeditionary warfare , and thereby influence events abroad. Depending on their size and infrastructure, they can be used as staging areas or for logistical, communications and intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have resulted in overseas military bases being established in large numbers by world powers and the existence of bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and military goals.

And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases

Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The U.S. has 36 listed here with none of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.

[Jun 29, 2019] The Forever War Is So Normalized That Opposing It Is Isolationism by Caitlin Johnstone

Notable quotes:
"... More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good. ..."
"... Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option. ..."
"... A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled " Non-Interventionism is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense. ..."
"... "Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing nations." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic consequences." ..."
"... Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia". ..."
"... Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq. ..."
"... All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." – Henry Kissinger ..."
"... Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents? ..."
"... instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. ..."
"... funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America. ..."
"... if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important ..."
"... As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong: I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's also the fact that she's a CFR member ..."
"... Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out. ..."
"... All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

After getting curb stomped on the debate stage by Tulsi Gabbard, the campaign for Tim "Who the fuck is Tim Ryan?" Ryan posted a statement decrying the Hawaii congresswoman's desire to end a pointless 18-year military occupation as "isolationism".

"While making a point as to why America can't cede its international leadership and retreat from around the world, Tim was interrupted by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard," the statement reads.

"When he tried to answer her, she contorted a factual point Tim was making  --  about the Taliban being complicit in the 9/11 attacks by providing training, bases and refuge for Al Qaeda and its leaders. The characterization that Tim Ryan doesn't know who is responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is simply unfair reporting. Further, we continue to reject Gabbard's isolationism and her misguided beliefs on foreign policy . We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people."

Ryan's campaign is lying. During an exchange that was explicitly about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Ryan plainly said "When we weren't in there, they started flying planes into our buildings." At best, Ryan can argue that when he said "they" he had suddenly shifted from talking about the Taliban to talking about Al Qaeda without bothering to say so, in which case he obviously can't legitimately claim that Gabbard "contorted" anything he had said. At worst, he was simply unaware at the time of the very clear distinction between the Afghan military and political body called the Taliban and the multinational extremist organization called Al Qaeda.

More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good.

Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option.

This is entirely by design. This bit of word magic has been employed for a long time to tar any idea which deviates from the neoconservative agenda of total global unipolarity via violent imperialism as something freakish and dangerous. In his farewell address to the nation , war criminal George W Bush said the following:

"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."

A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled " Non-Interventionism is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense.

"Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent."

"A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing nations."

"A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic consequences."

Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia". Yet you'll see this ridiculous label applied to both Gabbard and Trump, neither of whom are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination, or even proper non-interventionists. Gabbard supports most US military alliances and continues to voice full support for the bogus "war on terror" implemented by the Bush administration which serves no purpose other than to facilitate endless military expansionism; Trump is openly pushing regime change interventionism in both Venezuela and Iran while declining to make good on his promises to withdraw the US military from Syria and Afghanistan.

Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq.

This is bullshit for a couple of reasons. Firstly, virtually no one is a pure pacifist who opposes war under any and all possible circumstances; anyone who claims that they can't imagine any possible scenario in which they'd support using some kind of coordinated violence either hasn't imagined very hard or is fooling themselves. If your loved ones were going to be raped, tortured and killed by hostile forces unless an opposing group took up arms to defend them, for example, you would support that. Hell, you would probably join in. Secondly, equating opposition to US-led regime change interventionism, which is literally always disastrous and literally never helpful, is not even a tiny bit remotely like opposing all war under any possible circumstance.

Another common distortion you'll see is the specious argument that a given opponent of US interventionism "isn't anti-war" because they don't oppose all war under any and all circumstances. This tweet by The Intercept 's Mehdi Hasan is a perfect example, claiming that Gabbard is not anti-war because she supports Syria's sovereign right to defend itself with the help of its allies from the violent extremist factions which overran the country with western backing. Again, virtually no one is opposed to all war under any and all circumstances; if a coalition of foreign governments had helped flood Hasan's own country of Britain with extremist militias who'd been murdering their way across the UK with the ultimate goal of toppling London, both Tulsi Gabbard and Hasan would support fighting back against those militias.

The label "anti-war" can for these reasons be a little misleading. The term anti-interventionist or non-interventionist comes closest to describing the value system of most people who oppose the warmongering of the western empire, because they understand that calls for military interventionism which go mainstream in today's environment are almost universally based on imperialist agendas grabbing at power, profit, and global hegemony. The label "isolationist" comes nowhere close.

It all comes down to sovereignty. An anti-interventionist believes that a country has the right to defend itself, but it doesn't have the right to conquer, capture, infiltrate or overthrow other nations whether covertly or overtly. At the "end" of colonialism we all agreed we were done with that, except that the nationless manipulators have found far trickier ways to seize a country's will and resources without actually planting a flag there. We need to get clearer on these distinctions and get louder about defending them as the only sane, coherent way to run foreign policy.

* * *

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I'm trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I've written) in any way they like free of charge.

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Vitor , 31 minutes ago link

It's like someone being labeled anti-social for stopping to bully and pick up fights.

Aussiekiwi , 49 minutes ago link

"If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."

Fascinating belief, has he been to Libya lately, perhaps attended an open air slave Market in a country that was very developed before the US decided to 'free' it.

Quivering Lip , 57 minutes ago link

Until Tulsi pimp slapped that Ryan guy I never heard of him. I would imagine I'll never here about him in another 2 months.

Toshie , 1 hour ago link

yeah , keep at it US Govt ;- keep fighting those wars overseas on behalf the 5th foreign column.

Keep wasting precious lives ,and the country's wealth while foreign rising powers like China are laughing all the way to the bank.

may you live in interesting times !

onasip123 , 1 hour ago link

War forever and ever, Amen.

Dr Anon , 1 hour ago link

When we weren't there, they flew planes into our buildings?

Excuse me mutant, but I believe we paid Israel our jewtax that year like all the others and they still flew planes into our buildings. And then danced in the streets about it. Sick people.

thisguyoverhere , 1 hour ago link

All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." – Henry Kissinger

Picture if you will Jesus. Seriously? Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents?

Do you see Jesus piloting a drone and killing Muslims, other non-believers, or anyone for that matter? Can you picture Jesus as a sniper?

Impossible.

Dougs Decks , 2 hours ago link

Soooo,,, If my favorite evening activity, is to sit on the front porch steps, while the dog and the cats run around, with my shotgun leaning up next to me,,, Is that Isolationist, or Protectionist,,,

Brazen Heist II , 2 hours ago link

You know the system is completely broken when they want to silence/kill/smear anybody talking sense and peace.

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

and isis are referred to as freedom fighters

Herdee , 2 hours ago link

The CIA and MI6 staged all the fake chemical incidents in Syria as well as the recent one in England. False Flags.

ardent , 2 hours ago link

What America needs is to get rid of all those Jewish Zionist Neocons leading us into those forever wars.

ALL MidEast terrorism and warmongering are for APARTHEID Israhell.

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. we can't do **** if we're glazed over in a nuclear holocaust. maybe Tulsi is lying through her teeth, but i am so pissed Trump went full neocon

Wild Bill Steamcock , 2 hours ago link

"Won't Get Fooled Again"- The Who

JD Rock , 2 hours ago link

funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America.

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

she did slam Netanyahu

WillyGroper , 2 hours ago link

saying & doing are different animals. she's powerless. more hope n chains.

KnightsofNee , 2 hours ago link

www.tulsigabbard.org

If you read her positions on various issues, a quick survey shows that she supports the New Green Deal, more gun control (ban on assault rifles, etc.), Medicare for all. Stopped reading at that point.

White Nat , 2 hours ago link

We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ~ Joseph Goebbels

New_Meat , 2 hours ago link

- Edward Bernays, relative of Sigmund Fraud, propagandist for Woodrow Wilson.

Back then, being a "propagandist" held no stigma nor antipathy.

fify

Debt Slave , 1 hour ago link

The better educated among us know exactly as to who Goebblels was referring to. Even a dullard should be able to figure out who benefits from all of our Middle East adventures.

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

"Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. "

Under military might WAS the old world order... Under the new world order the strength is in cyber warfare .

If under technology the profiteers can control the masses through crowd control ( which they can-" Department of Defense has developed a non-lethal crowd control device called the Active Denial System (ADS) . The ADS works by firing a high-powered beam of 95 GHz waves at a target that is, millimeter wavelengths. Anyone caught in the beam will feel like their skin is burning.) your spending power ( they can through e- commetce and digital banking) and isolation cells called homes ( they can through directed microwaves from GWEN stations).... We already are isolated and exposed at the same time.

That war is an exceptable means of engagement as a solution to world power is a confirmation of the psychological warfare imposed on us since the creation of our Nation.

Either we reel it in and back now or we destroy ourselves from within.

"

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important

metachron , 2 hours ago link

Idiot, Tulsi is a sovereign nationalist on the left. You have just never seen one before. If you were truly anti-globalist you'd would realize left and right are invented to divide us. The politics are global and national, so wake the **** up

Hurricane Baby , 3 hours ago link

Actually, I don't see where a few decades of US isolationism would be all that bad.

Fred box , 3 hours ago link

""War Is the U.S. Racket!"" They are not good at it, there "great at it". My entire life 63yrs,they been fighting someone or something. When times where rough in the 1800s,Hell! they fought themselves(Civil War. As I said b4 No one seems to ask, Where does the gold go of the vanquished foe? Truly Is A Well Practiced Racket.

Malleus Maleficarum , 3 hours ago link

Good article with several salient points, thought I would ask "what's wrong with a little isolationism?" Peace through internal strength is desirable, but good fences make good neighbors and charity begins at home!

The gradual twisting of language really is one of most insidious tactics employed by the NWO Luciferians. I think we'd all like to see the traitorous Neocons gone for good. Better yet, strip them of their American citizenship and ill-gotten wealth and banish them to Israel. Let them earn their citizenship serving in a front-line IDF rifle company.

As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong: I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's also the fact that she's a CFR member and avowed gun-grabber, to boot. Two HUGE red flags!

She almost strikes me as a half-assed 'Manchurian Candidate.' So, if she's elected (a big 'if' at this point) I ask myself 'what happens after the next (probably nuclear) false flag?' How quickly will she disavow her present stance on non-interventionism? How quickly and viciously will the 2nd Amendment be raped? Besides, I'm not foolish enough to believe that one person can turn the SS Deep State away from it's final disastrous course.

dunlin , 2 hours ago link

What's cfr? Duck duck gives lots of law firms.

tardpill , 2 hours ago link

council on foreign relations

tardpill , 2 hours ago link

the whos who of globalist satanists..

Sinophile , 32 minutes ago link

Mal, she is NOT a CFR member. You are misinformed.

Justapleb , 3 hours ago link

These word games were already in use looong ago. Tulsi Gabbard is using Obama's line about fighting the wrong war. She would have taken out Al Qaeda, captured Bin Laden, and put a dog leash on him. So that she could make a green economy, a new century of virtue signalling tyranny. No thanks.

Smi1ey , 3 hours ago link

Great article.

Go Tusli!

Go Caitlin!

I am Groot , 3 hours ago link

You beat me to that. Thanks for saving my breath.

Rule #1 All politcians lie

Rule #2 See Rule #1

Boogity , 3 hours ago link

Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out.

All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden.

I went to some of the so-called liberal websites and blogs and the only mention of Gabbard is in the context of her being a Putin stooge. This combined with the fact that virtually all establishment Republicans are eager to fight any war for Israel clearly shows that it will take something other than the ballot box to end Uncle Scam's endless wars.

[Jun 29, 2019] You can see Chabad as a CIA tool to get their foot into Eastern Europe/Russia in the 1990's

Jun 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

somebody , Jun 29, 2019 7:23:01 AM | 122

...Chabad is interesting. They are a network of independent open chassidist communities, charities and schools with strong bases in Brooklyn, Chabad Israel and Moscow, and lots of political and secret service connections. The do not finance themselves via membership fees but via donations. The founding Rabbi has died, so there is no one in control of this network except the - diverse - people who donate. There is no legal restriction on who may or may not call themselves Chabad and there is no controlling within the network. They seem to have a policy of restricting political interventions on "Jewish issues" and not to interfere in the politics of the host countries otherwise. So they don't mind being seen with Viktor Orban .
Abramovich - see non existant Russian oligarchs - funded a lot on the Russian side. On the US side they encourage real estate donations" and are connected to Jared Kushner.
In Israel they are close to the government and Netanyahu.

A network like this can be influenced/used by all sides that donate to it. So you can see Chabad as a CIA tool to get their foot into Eastern Europe/Russia in the 1990's, as a Russian influence campaign or an Israeli tool.

Should Russia stop its military backing of Iran, and should the US attack Iran against their interests, I am prepared to believe Israel succeeded. I very much doubt this will be the case.

[Jun 29, 2019] John Bolton is that you? on ZH? cooool, maybe pompeo will show up later?

Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

LaugherNYC , 2 hours ago link

You gotta love the SCI. This shallowly-disguised Russian propaganda arm writes in the most charming awkward idiomatic English, bouncing from a "false neutral" tone to a jingoistic Amercia-phobic argot to produce its hit pieces.

Russian propaganda acts like Claude Raines in "Casablanca" : "i am shocked, shocked to discover (geopolitics) going on here!" Geeeee, Europe and the US are in a struggle to avoid Europe relying on Russia for strategic necessities like fuel, even if it imposes costs on European consumers. If you have a dangerous disease, and your pharmacist is known for cutting off their customers' vital drugs to extort them, you might consider using another provider who not only doesn't cut off supplies, but also provides the police department that protects you from your pharmacist's thugs who are known to invade customers' homes using the profits from their own business.

The US provides the protective umbrella that limits Putin's adventurism. Russia cuts of Ukraine's gas supplies in winter to force them into submission. Gasprom is effectively an arm of the Russian military, weaponizing Russia's only product as a geopolitical taser. Sure, it costs more to transport LNG across the Atlantic and convert it back to gas, but the profits from that business are routinely funneled back to Europe in the form of US trade, contributions to NATO, and the provision of the nuclear umbrella that protects Europeans from the man who has publicly lamented the fall of the Soviet Union, called for the return of the former SSRs, and violated the IRM treaty to place nuclear capable intermediate-range missiles and cruise missiles within range of Europe and boasted about his new hypersonic weapons' theoretic capability to decapitate NATO and American decision-making within a few minutes of launch.

... ... ...

Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago link

Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia in your post can be said of the U.S. I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's their view on military bases.

The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to project power , e.g. to conduct expeditionary warfare , and thereby influence events abroad. Depending on their size and infrastructure, they can be used as staging areas or for logistical, communications and intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have resulted in overseas military bases being established in large numbers by world powers and the existence of bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and military goals.

And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases

Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The U.S. has 36 listed here with none of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.

[Jun 29, 2019] How Justin Raimondo Made Me a Braver Writer by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Notable quotes:
"... For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic" broadside at National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle. ..."
"... His penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled "Will the Real Moron Stand Up?" ..."
"... For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies") was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory. ..."
"... Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi, Jeff Huber and Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior member of the suicide squad. ..."
"... Why? You can read in detail here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who were detained by the FBI in New Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported. ..."
"... Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is ..."
"... Executive Editor at ..."
"... and former columnist at Antiwar.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC ..."
"... He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong, which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this, his life's work was important ..."
"... And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and everywhere else. RIP. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

June 28, 2019

The Antiwar.com co-founder, who died Thursday, was one of the toughest fighters for the cause. We all benefitted.

Justin Raimondo gives Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. (You Tube) WASHINGTON -- Justin Raimondo -- author, activist and consummate critic of the U.S. war machine–passed away at the age of 67 on Thursday. While many of you might know him as the co-founder and prolific columnist at Antiwar.com , he was once branded a "unpatriotic conservative" at the start of the Iraq War, and a potential "threat to national security" a year later.

For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic" broadside at National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle.

"He loved it," said Eric Garris, who co-founded Antiwar.com with Raimondo. Garris was his close friend and co-conspirator in dozens of political and anti-war campaigns from 1976 until his death yesterday. "Justin loved to be attacked -- he viewed it usually as a badge of honor."

Word of Raimondo's death didn't quite come as a surprise to people who had been following him online -- they knew he had been battling cancer for two years, and his volatile presence on Twitter had dropped off to an occasional flash, then nothing, for the last few months. His penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled "Will the Real Moron Stand Up?"

For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies") was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory.

"We were really very much in the wilderness," Garris recalled to me this morning. But Raimondo surged -- doing stints on Fox News, MSNBC, even CNN at the time. He wrote quite a bit for TAC too, from its inception through 2016. "He had the ability to reach people and/or piss them off so much. He was such a powerful force."

This is where I come in. Having begun writing for TAC in 2007 I was happy when Garris reached out in 2009 to see if I wanted to do some regular columns for Antiwar.com . As one of those "misfits among misfits," I can say that my decision to do so was both therapeutic (what better venue to rage against the machine?) and a most fulfilling stage in my career as a journalist. Some of us might recall the atmosphere in Washington during those times: stiflingly conformist and relentlessly punitive towards those who did not toe the line. Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi, Jeff Huber and Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior member of the suicide squad.

There was a moment I was put to the test. I was in the middle of my daughter's Girls Scout meeting in 2013 when I got a call from Garris. I stepped out in the hall. Would I please write a piece on Antiwar.com suing the FBI for secretly investigating Antiwar.com in the early days of the war, in part because of some of the things Justin had written and said? My mind reeled. Would bringing attention to this bring further heat on the website? Would it bring heat on me?

I read the FBI memo at the center of their planned lawsuit and agreed to write it. Frankly, I knew in my heart I wouldn't be worth my salt as a journalist if I went wobbly on this. The government had opened secret files on Garris and Raimondo, and at one point the FBI agent writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommended further monitoring of the website in the form of a "preliminary investigation to determine if [redaction] are engaging in, or have engaged in, activities which constitute a threat to national security."

Why? You can read in detail here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who were detained by the FBI in New Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported.

The ACLU had taken up their case, rightly, as an example of the government's hostile attitude against the 1st Amendment. The government had taken advantage of its new 9/11 authorities and the country's war-time footing to spy and harass dissidents just like the old days. Garris and Raimondo won, but their efforts to have all of the government records expunged is still tied up in appeals . Garris said Justin was at least able to see the latest June 12 hearing i n the Ninth Circuit.

"He saw the hearing and he got to see that what he was doing was worth something," Garris said, audibly choking back tears. When they met, Raimondo was a libertarian gay rights activist. Later on they would help convince Buchanan to run for president in 1992 and Raimondo led his campaign office in San Francisco (Garris said Buchanan had sent a touching note about Justin's death this morning). When gay protesters had surrounded and "assaulted" the San Francisco headquarters at the time, Garris recalled, Raimondo ran out loaded for bear. "He gave them the what-for," he said, laughing.

That was the image many of us are conjuring today. Raimondo the fighter. Raimondo the brave. Of course not everyone agreed with him. His enemies over the years have tarred him as a racist and anti-semite. On the other hand, he easily came to blows with his friends over a point of view or a passage in a column–a tweet even. His bridge-burning with colleagues and fellow travelers was notorious. "He was very vocal and contentious person who people either hated or loved or both," Garris told me. "I've gotten a lot of emails and comments today about him that said, you know I hated him but he was a hero."

But in the end, after 68 years of being a rebel and contrarian, he was forced to sheath the sword. He was just too sick. "He just fought and fought, to keep going to get the words out," Garris said. He last saw him on Saturday. They knew it would be the last time .

"I am going to miss him so much. My life would have been completely different if I hadn't met him."

I know I feel that way, and millions of readers and fans (and foes) do too. RIP.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Executive Editor at TAC and former columnist at Antiwar.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC


Fran Macadam 19 hours ago

I was hoping he could stay around. But let those of us who miss him redouble our efforts to the mission we shared so that it grows stronger in the wake of our loss.
Jim_Bovard 17 hours ago
This is a wonderful tribute, Kelley. Thanks for writing it. You have eloquently expressed what many people who knew Justin have felt.
Abdul Majeed Mohamed Shariff 5 hours ago
RIP. He was a great man.
America Firster 7 hours ago
Very sad to hear this. A brave human being.
Bill In Montgomey 7 hours ago
He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong, which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this, his life's work was important.
OriginalRS 9 hours ago • edited
Reading Reclaiming the American Right well over 10 years ago (but years after first being published), I was shocked at how intellectually challenging, substantiated with historical fact, and fascinating it was.

Clearly, I had let the Rush Limbaugh School of Total Immersion™, 3 hours a day, inform my views of what, exactly, the American Right, post-WWII really was and is and continues to be to this day a little too much, no offense to Rush and the golden EIB. I still like listening to him.

The scholarship in that book is FAR beyond any silly Jonah Goldberg tome, no matter how snazzy the title, from "Liberal Fascism" to his latest, with the copied James Burnham title, "Suicide of the West".

Raimondo was a incredibly well read, superbly talented writer who was self-taught on America's history in general and the post-WWII conservative history in particular.

And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and everywhere else. RIP.

on are zombies and stupid.
Have a good one, know what I mean...

MissingEmails 16 hours ago
I'll miss his acerbic prose. He was dedicated to the cause.
dbriz 16 hours ago
JR was a force of nature. A fine tribute. He will be missed.

[Jun 29, 2019] Have You Heard Of The CIA s Iran Mission Center by Vijay Prashad

Notable quotes:
"... To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program, and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach. ..."
"... What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike." ..."
"... D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them. ..."
"... D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here. These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular. ..."
"... It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ..."
"... These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Vijay Prashad via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

In 2017, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created a special unit -- the Iran Mission Center -- to focus attention on the U.S. plans against Iran . The initiative for this unit came from CIA director John Brennan, who left his post as the Trump administration came into office. Brennan believed that the CIA needed to focus attention on what the United States sees as problem areas -- North Korea and Iran, for instance. This predated the Trump administration.

Brennan's successor -- Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director for just over a year (until he was appointed U.S. Secretary of State) -- continued this policy. The CIA's Iran-related activity had been conducted in the Iran Operations Division (Persia House). This was a section with Iran specialists who built up knowledge about political and economic developments inside Iran and in the Iranian diaspora.

It bothered the hawks in Washington -- as one official told me -- that Persia House was filled with Iran specialists who had no special focus on regime change in Iran. Some of them, due to their long concentration on Iran, had developed sensitivity to the country.

Trump's people wanted a much more focused and belligerent group that would provide the kind of intelligence that tickled the fancy of his National Security Adviser John Bolton .

To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program, and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach.

It was D'Andrea who expanded the CIA's drone strike program, in particular the signature strike. The signature strike is a particularly controversial instrument. The CIA was given the allowance to kill anyone who fit a certain profile -- a man of a certain age, for instance, with a phone that had been used to call someone on a list. The dark arts of the CIA are precisely those of D'Andrea.

What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike."

D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them.

The initiative for this unit came from CIA director John Brennan, who left his post as the Trump administration came into office. Getty Image.

D'Andrea and the hawks edged out several Iran experts from the Iran Mission Center, people like Margaret Stromecki -- who had been head of analysis. Others who want to offer an alternative to the Pompeo-Bolton view of things either have also moved on or remain silent. There is no space in the Trump administration, a former official told me, for dissent on the Iran policy.

Saudi Arabia's War

D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here. These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular.

Kaplan blamed Iran for the creation of ISIS, for it was Iran -- Kaplan said -- that "used a terrible Sunni movement" to expand its reach from "Persia to the Mediterranean." Such absurdity followed from a fundamental misreading of Shia concepts such as taqiya, which means prudence and not -- as Kaplan and others argue -- deceit. Kaplan, bizarrely, shares more with ISIS than Iran does with that group -- since both Kaplan and ISIS are driven by their hatred of those who follow the Shia traditions of Islam.

It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Roule has offered his support to the efforts of the Arabia Foundation, run by Ali Shihabi -- a man with close links to the Saudi monarchy. The Arabia Foundation was set up to do more effective public relations work for the Saudis than the Saudi diplomats are capable of doing. Shihabi is the son of one of Saudi Arabia's most well-regarded diplomats, Samir al-Shihabi, who played an important role as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Pakistan during the war that created al-Qaeda.

These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran.

Evidence, reason. None of this is important to them. They will not stop until the U.S. bombers deposit their deadly payload on Tehran and Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz. They will do anything to make that our terrible reality.

This article was produced by Globetrotter , a project of the Independent Media Institute.

[Jun 29, 2019] EU Busts Iran Sanctions. Dollar No Longer Reserve for Oil Trades caucus99percent

Notable quotes:
"... India pays Iran for oil in gold. Europe would be smart to convert to the Yuan/gold convertible bond as a trading currency to use with Iran, and hold reserves in that. It's redeemable for gold at many settlement banks around the world. It was designed as a trading currency to use outside the SWIFT system. All the groundwork was painstakingly laid just for this purpose. ..."
"... Food for oil. What an insult. Europe wants it both ways. They should grow up and start leading the world instead of hiding behind Uncle Sams petticoat. ..."
"... Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ... ..."
"... Trump is a bull in a china shop. Someone will have to pick up the pieces and it won't be the one percent. YOU and I are expendable. ..."
"... Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ... ..."
"... Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the agreement. But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear what they can do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants. ..."
Jun 28, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

leveymg on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 4:41pm In a surprise move, the EU special purpose vehicle for trade with Iran (INSTEX) exercised its first trade today. The body was set up to facilitate exports of Iranian oil without U.S. dollars, avoiding a sanctions regime imposed unilaterally by the U.S.

Instex is now operational despite U.S. threats to European banks and officials of reprisal sanctions if they violated Iran sanctions.

Bloomberg had reported on May 7 the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker, issued a warning letter that Instex and anyone associated with it could be barred from the U.S. financial system if it goes into effect.

In defiance of U.S. pressure, Instex was set up by EU diplomats in January as a means to prevent total collapse of the Iranian nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The first official trades occurred today, in the shadow of the Group of 20 Summit meeting. https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/eu-claims-iran-deal-held-togethe...

A senior EU diplomat has said the first transactions were being made by a special purpose vehicle for trade with Iran at a meeting of the remaining members of the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna.

Friday's meeting in Vienna featured "constructive discussions," Helga Schmid, the head of the EU diplomatic service said, confirming the entity, named Instex, was making its first transactions.

"INSTEX now operational, first transactions being processed and more EU Members States to join. Good progress on Arak and Fordow [fuel enrichment] projects," she posted.

The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (Instex) is designed to facilitate trade of essential goods, such as food and medicine, mainly from the EU to Iran. A Chinese official said Beijing was open to using the facility.

The platform has been set up in France, with a German managing director in a coordinated European effort to counterbalance the US economic power displayed by its sanctions policy.

President Donald Trump last year pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which curbed Iran's nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.

According to today's report:

As the talks kicked off on Friday, seven EU nations expressed support for Instex and the JCPOA, asking Iran "to abide by and fully respect the terms and provisions of the nuclear agreement".

"We are working with France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as with the European External Action Service and the European Commission, to establish channels to facilitate legitimate trade and financial operations with Iran, one of the foremost of these initiatives being the establishment of Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges," read the statement from Austria, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Whether the declaration of support and first tranche of transactions will be enough to keep Iran committed to the 2015 nuclear deal is still in question.

leveymg on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 6:07pm
Here's more on how INSTEX works free from Dollar exchange

@Linda Wood

While major US media have so far ignored the story (anyone here surprised?), Deutsch Weldt (DW) confirms the report that INSTEX started operations today. https://www.dw.com/en/eu-mechanism-for-trade-with-iran-now-operational/a...

A linked background article explains how the special exchange will bypass U.S. sanctions and the U.S. currency controls over oil exports to Europe: https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-eu-taking-a-stand-through-legal-trading-wi...

Crucial for INSTEX's success will be whether participating states also develop mechanisms for European companies and their employees that protect them from the expected American sanctions and compensate for any damages incurred. The legislative instrument for this exists: The EU's blocking statute. It just needs to be updated to meet the new requirements.

Read more: US welcomes German firms' compliance on Iran sanctions

International transactions independent of the dollar

The knowledge and experience gained in the process could later be transferred to other areas, such as European initiatives in international monetary transactions. This expertise could then come in handy for establishing payment channels independent of the American financial system and the dollar, which the US also uses as a lever in its sanctions policy.

Two pieces of good news in two days, Tulsi Gabbard winning acknowledgement and respect in the debate, and this encouraging sign from Europe. A person could almost get used to thinking common sense is gaining ground. Thank you, leveymg, for posting this.

wendy davis on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 6:36pm
thanks for bringing

this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this link at RT.com that includes this baffling part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:

"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to Iranian media.

He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."

i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would mainly be for medicines and...food (?)

leveymg on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 9:50pm
If this is another Oil for Food thing, it's a nonstarter.

@wendy davis

Right now, it's unclear which way this is going to go. If Europe bows to American power, again, it will turn out very badly for everyone. Iraq times ten.

this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this link at RT.com that includes this baffling part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:

"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to Iranian media.

He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."

i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would mainly be for medicines and...food (?)

Pluto's Republic on Sat, 06/29/2019 - 2:25am
India has been trading with Iran

@wendy davis

...just fine. India pays Iran for oil in gold. Europe would be smart to convert to the Yuan/gold convertible bond as a trading currency to use with Iran, and hold reserves in that. It's redeemable for gold at many settlement banks around the world. It was designed as a trading currency to use outside the SWIFT system. All the groundwork was painstakingly laid just for this purpose.

Food for oil. What an insult. Europe wants it both ways. They should grow up and start leading the world instead of hiding behind Uncle Sams petticoat.

[edited to correct]

this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this link at RT.com that includes this baffling part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:

"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to Iranian media.

He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."

i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would mainly be for medicines and...food (?)

joe shikspack on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 9:20pm
this is excellent news ...

i'll throw in this bit that i read today which i think might make this a breakthrough:

'We only want to sell our oil,' Iran official says before nuclear talks

Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ...

Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the agreement. But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear what they can do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants.

"What is our demand? Our demand is to be able to sell our oil and get the money back. And this is in fact the minimum of our benefit from the deal," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "We are not asking Europeans to invest in Iran... We only want to sell our oil."

The Voice In th... on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 10:15pm
Be careful what you wish for.

@joe shikspack
Doing all oil business in dollars is the only thing holding up the dollar.

Trump is a bull in a china shop. Someone will have to pick up the pieces and it won't be the one percent. YOU and I are expendable.

i'll throw in this bit that i read today which i think might make this a breakthrough:

'We only want to sell our oil,' Iran official says before nuclear talks

Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ...

Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the agreement. But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear what they can do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants.

"What is our demand? Our demand is to be able to sell our oil and get the money back. And this is in fact the minimum of our benefit from the deal," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "We are not asking Europeans to invest in Iran... We only want to sell our oil."

[Jun 29, 2019] Latest Weapon Of US Imperialism Liquified Natural Gas

Highly recommended!
See better discussion at platts.com "But US LNG could face problems of its own – the current low prices are forcing ever growing numbers of US producers into bankruptcy. According to a recent report by Haynes and Boone, 90 gas and oil producers in the US and Canada have filed for bankruptcy between January 2015 and the start of August 2016." So $2 price at Henry Hub should rise to at least $4 for companies to stay in business.
Notable quotes:
"... Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is produced domestically, the rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%. ..."
"... The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage. ..."
"... Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017. ..."
"... s mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines. This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources. ..."
"... This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe. ..."
"... Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG, a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security. ..."
"... The European countries do not appear to be dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" ..."
"... The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

One of the most important energy battles of the future will be fought in the field of liquid natural gas (LNG). Suggested as one of the main solutions to pollution , LNG offers the possibility of still managing to meet a country's industrial needs while ameliorating environmental concerns caused by other energy sources. At the same time, a little like the US dollar, LNG is becoming a tool Washington intends to use against Moscow at the expense of Washington's European allies.

To understand the rise of LNG in global strategies, it is wise to look at a graph (page 7) produced by the International Gas Union (IGU) where the following four key indicators are highlighted: global regasification capacities; total volumes of LNG exchanged; exporting countries; and importing countries.

From 1990 to today, the world has grown from 220 million tons per annum (MTPA) to around 850 MTPA of regasification capacity. The volume of trade increased from 20-30 MTPA to around 300 MTPA. Likewise, the number of LNG-importing countries has increased from just over a dozen to almost 40 over the course of 15 years, while the number of producers has remained almost unchanged, except for a few exceptions like the US entering the LNG market in 2016.

There are two methods used to transport gas.

The first is through pipelines, which reduce costs and facilitate interconnection between countries, an important example of this being seen in Europe's importation of gas. The four main pipelines for Europe come from four distinct geographical regions: the Middle East, Africa, Northern Europe and Russia.

The second method of transporting gas is by sea in the form of LNG, which in the short term is more expensive, complex and difficult to implement on a large scale. Gas transported by sea is processed to be cooled so as to reduce its volume, and then liquified again to allow storage and transport by ship. This process adds 20% to costs when compared to gas transported through pipelines.

Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is produced domestically, the rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%.

The construction of infrastructure to accommodate LNG ships is ongoing in Europe, and some European countries already have a limited capacity to accommodate LNG and direct it to the national and European network or act as an energy hub to ship LNG to other ports using smaller ships.

According to King & Spalding :

"All of Europe's LNG terminals are import facilities, with the exception of (non-EU) Norway and Russia which export LNG. There are currently 28 large-scale LNG import terminals in Europe (including non-EU Turkey). There are also 8 small-scale LNG facilities in Europe (in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Gibraltar). Of the 28 large-scale LNG import terminals, 24 are in EU countries (and therefore subject to EU regulation) and 4 are in Turkey, 23 are land-based import terminals, and 4 are floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs), and the one import facility in Malta comprises a Floating Storage Unit (FSU) and onshore regasification facilities."

The countries currently most involved in the export of LNG are Qatar (24.9%), Australia (21.7%), Malaysia (7.7%), the US (6.7%), Nigeria (6.5%) and Russia (6%).

Europe is one of the main markets for gas, given its strong demand for clean energy for domestic and industrial needs. For this reason, Germany has for years been engaged in the Nord Stream 2 project, which aims to double the transport capacity of gas from Russia to Germany. Currently the flow of the Nord Stream is 55 billion cubic meters of gas. With the new Nord Stream 2, the capacity will double to 110 billion cubic meters per year.

The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage.

Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017.

ENI's discovery has generated important planning for the future of LNG in Europe and in Italy.

Problems have arisen ever since Donald Trump sought to oblige Europeans to purchase LNG from the US in order to reduce the trade deficit and benefit US companies at the expense of other gas-exporting countries like Algeria, Russia and Norway. As mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines. This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources.

This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe.

But Europe finds itself in a decidedly uncomfortable situation that cannot be easily resolved. The anti-Russia hysteria drummed up by the Euro-Atlantic globalist establishment aides Donald Trump's efforts to economically squeeze as much as possible out of European allies, hurting European citizens in the process who will have to pay more for American LNG, which costs about a fifth more than gas from Russian, Norwegian or Algerian sources.

Projects to build offshore regasifiers in Europe appear to have begun and seem unlikely to be affected by future political vagaries, given the investment committed and planning times involved:

"There are currently in the region of 22 large-scale LNG import terminals considered as planned in Europe, except for the planned terminals in Ukraine (Odessa FSRU LNG), Russia (Kaliningrad LNG), Albania (Eagle LNG) – Albania being a candidate for EU membership – and Turkey (FSRU Iskenderun and FSRU Gulf of Saros).

Many ofthese planned terminals, including Greece (where one additional import terminal is planned – Alexandroupolis), Italy (which is considering or planning two additional terminals – Porto Empedocle in Sicily and Gioia Tauro LNG in Calabria) , Poland (FSRU Polish Baltic Sea Coast), Turkey (two FSRUs) and the UK (which is planning the Port Meridian FSRU LNG project and UK Trafigura Teesside LNG). LNG import terminal for Albania (Eagle LNG), Croatia (Krk Island), Cyprus (Vassiliko FSRU), Estonia (Muuga (Tallinn) LNG and Padalski LNG), Germany ( Brunsbüttel LNG), Ireland (Shannon LNG and Cork LNG), Latvia (Riga LNG), Romania (Constanta LNG), Russia (Kaliningrad LNG) and Ukraine (Odessa).

Nine of the planned terminals are FSRUs: Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the UK. "In addition, there are numerous plans for expansion of existing terminals, including in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Turkey and the UK."

Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG, a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security.

The European countries do not appear to be dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" This, however, is not the case with all allies. Germany is not economically able to interrupt Nord Stream 2. And even though the project has many high-level sponsors, including former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the project constantly seems to be on the verge of being stopped – at least in Washington's delusions.

Even Eni's discovery of the gas field in Egypt has annoyed the US, which wants less competition (even when illegal, as in the case of Huawei) and wants to be able to force its exports onto Europeans while maintaining the price of the LNG in dollars, thereby further supporting the US dollar as the world's reserve currency in the same manner as the petrodollar .

The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. The Europeans appear prepared to set whatever course the US has charted them, one away from cheaper gas sources to the more expensive LNG supplied from across the Atlantic. Given the investments already committed to receive this LNG, it seems unlikely that the course set for the Europeans will be changed.


Sputternik , 1 hour ago link

I live in Europe. I can honestly say that the people I know here prefer Russian gas. People are very ticked off about how the US meddled in their gas supply and the structuring of the pipelines. Most feel that even if US LNG WAS competitive with Russian gas price for now, that the US would in some way either increase prices or use it in some other way to control or manipulate the EU. And sentiment towards USA tends toward resentment and distrust. That's not to say they are necessarily pro-Russia, but definitely a wave of anti US is present.

phaedrus1952 , 46 minutes ago link

US LNG pricing is based on Henry Hub which today is under $2.30/mmbtu.

Even adding in liquefaction and shipping costs, the price to the end user is extremely low.

Henry hub is projected to be sub $3 for DECADES!

Combine the low price with spot deliveries (pipe usually demands long term contracting commitments), and US LNG actually has strong rationale for being accepted.

The statement above that US LNG cannot compete against Australia in Asia is preposterously false due to the VERY high buildout costs of the Aussie LNG infrastructure.

Next year, Oz's first LNG IMPORT terminal at Port Kembla may well be supplied with US LNG.

jaxville , 44 minutes ago link

The US has shown itself to be unreliable as a supplier of anything. Political posturing will always take precedence over any international transaction.

Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago link

Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia in your post can be said of the U.S. I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's their view on military bases.

The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to project power , e.g. to conduct expeditionary warfare , and thereby influence events abroad. Depending on their size and infrastructure, they can be used as staging areas or for logistical, communications and intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have resulted in overseas military bases being established in large numbers by world powers and the existence of bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and military goals.

And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases

Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The U.S. has 36 listed here with none of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.

FormerTurbineGuy , 2 hours ago link

Whilst the left wants to go full throttle towards Wind and Solar, no one knows that the natural gas lobby is behind these sources because both sources need a backup. While everyone talks "carbon footprint" they never discusses plant efficiency ( or in the terms of engines brake specific fuel consumption and turbine specific fuel consumption ) in terms of thermal efficiency. You know the boring stuff that plant operators stress over to make sure when your wife wakes up @ 3 in the morning to feed the baby, the lights do go on, and they are creating that wattage in an cost affective manner. With that said, the king of thermal efficiency i.e. burning a fuel to create electricity, is the Combined Cycle Natural Gas Power Plant. These plants combines a stationary gas turbine buring natural gas to spin a generator and a boiler on the back side capture the waste heat to create steam to spin a turbine to again add an input to the generator for a current state of the art of 61% efficiency . That means only 39% going up the stack or for steam cooling to get your "Delta T" for the steam cycle to work. This 61% is vs maybe in the mid 40's for a coal, oil plant or in the case of Nuclear just waste heat with nothing going out a stack. The greater wattage per fuel burned, and the modularization of these Combined Cycle Plants aka have a series of 100mw turbines and bring them on line as needed, make this a win-win IMHO for a massive refurbishing of our Utility base, with a host of benefits, before Gen 3 & Gen 4 Nuclear truly take off again. These plants could be a great stop gap before Gen 3 & 4 are a reality. All the macinations towards wind and solar and their disavantages aka being bird vegamatics, vistas being spoiled and huge swaths of land being used for panels make no sense vs energy density of efficient plants. We are the Natural Gas King, lets not flare it anymore, and really, really leverage it here, help allies, and use it for bringing bad behaving children of the world to the table ifyou will, if you want the candy, behave....

Anonymous IX , 1 hour ago link

Why do we have to treat other countries like we're the parent? We aren't. They are equal and fully functioning countries quite capable of determining their own political and economic future...which may involve not trading or interacting with the U.S. Particularly if we demand of them conditions we ourselves would never accede.

JeanTrejean , 3 hours ago link

To get cheap energy, is an advantage for the European Industry.

Why should we use expensiver energy ?

And, as I read ZH, the future of the US shale gas is far to be assured.

SoDamnMad , 3 hours ago link

The Lithuanian FSRU "Independence" which was delivered from Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2014 to the port of Klaipeda drove energy costs for heating through the roof and perhaps is one of the reasons the Prime Minister at the time only came in third in the latest presidential elections. You can stay reasonably warm, eat or have money for medicine and other necessities. Pick 2 ONLY. Thank you USSA

tuetenueggel , 3 hours ago link

Brainsick as Pompeo the US Pork without character.

As Long as Russia dlivery theier gas constantly and for a much better price then Us-Shale idiots, the ziocons only can lose. We Europeans are not very impressed.

Arising , 3 hours ago link

The biggest Capitalist economy on the planet needs to use mob tactics to push its over priced wares- seems 'long term' is not part of their hit-and-run operation.

Call me Al , 3 hours ago link

LNG = Liquefied natural gas, not liquid.

Now as for the article; apart from a few Eastern European Countries (The Ukraine, Poland etc.), I have seen no proof whatsoever, that Europe is shifting to US LNG.

As for "As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?""; I am sorry, but I think those days are over..... this can be seen in our Iranian stance, the 2 Russian pipelines - 1 being Nordstream II and the other Turk-stream, increased trade with Russia, joining the the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and so on and so on......

Kirk2NCC1701 , 3 hours ago link

Call me AI, both terms are acceptable.

Liquified refers to the processing.

Liquid refers to the state of the gas after processing.

earleflorida , 2 hours ago link

thankyou :)

tuetenueggel , 3 hours ago link

yeah, vasalls are not jumping any longer.

libfrog88 , 3 hours ago link

Slowly but surely the anti-Russia propaganda is dying. You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some people all of the time (libtards), but you can't fool all the people all of the time. Europeans (the citizens) will question why they should pay 20-30% more for their natural gas just to please America. Politicians better have an answer or change of policy if they want to be reelected.

[Jun 28, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard vs Bolton

Highly recommended!
Jun 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

Chris Mallory , says: June 28, 2019 at 2:04 am GMT

Miss Gabbard just served two tours in the ME, one as enlisted in the HI National Guard.

Brave Mr. Bolton kept the dirty communists from endangering the US supply of Chesapeake crab while serving in the Maryland Guard. Rumor also has it that he helped Tompall Glaser write the song Streets of Baltimore. Some say they saw Mr. Bolton single handily defending Memorial Stadium from a combined VC/NVA attack during an Orioles game. The Cubans would have conquered the Pimlico Race Course if not for the combat skill of PFC Bolton.

[Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington. ..."
"... That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same. ..."
"... To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime. ..."
"... the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel). ..."
"... Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism. ..."
"... The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons. ..."
"... For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports. ..."
"... In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense ..."
"... When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels. ..."
"... Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests. ..."
"... Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons. ..."
"... Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes. ..."
"... However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs. ..."
"... Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington.

That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same.

To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime.

But as we have demonstrated previously, the best cure for high oil prices is the global market, not the Fifth Fleet. And the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel).

Stated differently, the American people have no dog in the political hunts of Washington's so-called allies in the region; and will be no worse for the wear economically if Washington were to dispense with its idiotic economic warfare against Iran's 4 million barrel per day oil industry and allow all exporters in the region to produce and sell every single barrel they can economically extract.

Viewed in the proper context, Iran's response to the new sanctions and intensified efforts to destroy their economy was readily warranted:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the new sanctions "outrageous and stupid." Mr. Khamenei, while the political leader of Iran, also is one of the world's leading authorities for Shia Muslims.

"Would any administration with a bit of wisdom [sanction] the highest authority of a country? And not only a political authority, a religious, social, spiritual one, and not the leader of Iran only, the leader of the Islamic revolution all over the world?" Mr. Rouhani said in a speech broadcast on state television.

He said it was "obvious" that the US was lying about wanting to negotiate with Iran: "You want us to negotiate with you again?" Mr. Rouhani said, "and at the same time you seek to sanction the foreign minister too?"

Iran also said these sanctions closed the door on diplomacy and threatened global stability, as American officials renewed efforts to build a global alliance against Tehran.

Unfortunately, it didn't take the Donald long to upchuck what amounted to a dangerous tantrum:

.Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!

Those words are utterly reckless and outrageous. The Donald is carrying water for the neocons, Bibi and the Saudis without really understanding what he is doing and in the process is betraying America First and inching closer to an utterly unnecessary conflagration in the Persian Gulf that will virtually upend the global economy.

Worst of all, as he escalates the confrontation with the Iranian regime, he espouses a pack of lies and distortions that do no remotely comport with the facts. For instance, the following tweet is absolutely neocon baloney:

.The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The US has not forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many more

The truth of the matter is that the Donald is referring to attacks on US forces by the Shiite militias in Iraq during Washington's misbegotten invasion and occupation of that woebegone nation during the last decades. The Shiite live there, constitute the majority of its electorate, didn't want America there in the first place, and now actually run the government that Washington placed in power and are totally opposed to Trump's confrontation with their Shiite compatriots in Iran.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Better still, it is crucial to understand that this entire dangerous escalation is owing to the fact that the Donald got into his thick head that utter nonsense that the Iran nuke deal was some kind of disaster, and from there walked-away from the deal and restarted a brutal economic war against Iran in the guise of sanctions.

But nothing could be further from the truth. The Donald's action to terminate the Iranian nuclear deal was a complete triumph for the War Party.

It gutted the very idea of America First because Washington's renewed round of sanctions constitute economic aggression against a country that is no threat to the US homeland whatsoever.

In fact, Iran did not violate any term of the nuke deal, and as we demonstrate below, scrupulously adhered to the letter of it. So the real reasons for Trump's abandonment of the nuke deal have everything to do with the kind of Imperial interventionism that is the antithesis of America First.

Trump's action, in fact, is predicated on the decades long neocon-inspired Big Lie that Iran is an aggressive expansionist and terrorism-supporting rogue state which threatens the security of not just the region, but America too.

But that's flat out poppycock. As we documented last week, the claim that Iran is the expansionist leader of the Shiite Crescent is based on nothing more than the fact that Tehran has an independent foreign policy based on its own interests and confessional affiliations – legitimate relationships that are demonized by virtue of not being approved by Washington.

Likewise, the official charge that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism is not remotely warranted by the facts: The listing is essentially a State Department favor to the Netanyahu branch of the War Party.

The fact is, the Iranian regime with its piddling $14 billion military budget has no means to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.

As Ron Paul cogently observed:

Is Iran really the aggressive one? When you unilaterally pull out of an agreement that was reducing tensions and boosting trade; when you begin applying sanctions designed to completely destroy another country's economy; when you position military assets right offshore of that country; when you threaten to destroy that country on a regular basis, calling it a campaign of "maximum pressure," to me it seems a stretch to play the victim when that country retaliates by shooting a spy plane that is likely looking for the best way to attack.

Even if the US spy plane was not in Iranian airspace – but it increasingly looks like it was – it was just another part of an already-existing US war on Iran. Yes, sanctions are a form of war, not a substitute for war.

The point is Washington's case is almost entirely bogus. To wit:

Mr. Trump also reiterated his demands Monday at the White House: "We will continue to increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium, development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies."

Let's see about those "dangerous activities and aspirations".

In fact, Iran has no blue water navy that could effectively operate outside of the Persian Gulf; its longest range warplanes can barely get to Rome without refueling; and its array of mainly defensive medium and intermediate range missiles cannot strike most of NATO, to say nothing of the North American continent.

Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism.

The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons.

For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports.

In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense. It is a testament to the manner in which the historic notion of national defense has morphed into Washington's arrogant claim that it constitutes the "Indispensable Nation" which purportedly stands as mankind's bulwark against global disorder and chaos among nations.

Likewise, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was an unfortunate albatross on the Persian people, but it was no threat to America's safety and security. The very idea that Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the rest of the world is a giant fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party and its Bibi Netanyahu branch in order to win political support for their confrontationist policies.

Indeed, the three decade long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose. Namely, it enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military mobilization.

When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels.

And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to come out of the beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!

To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa again the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.

That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests.

During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of the Persian nation. With the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret police force known as the Savak, which made the East German Stasi look civilized by comparison.

All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the Savak agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:

Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest, detain, brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own prisons in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places throughout the country as well.

Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah embarked on a massive civilian nuclear power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape with dozens of nuclear power plants.

He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from Western companies – and also fuel cycle support services such as uranium enrichment – in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.

At the time of the Revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion deposit languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the Shah to fund a ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of reactors.

Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons.

Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes.

However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.

Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.

To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off again/on again efforts by the Iranians to purchase dual use equipment and components on the international market, often from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's relentless efforts to block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.

Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics which inhabited the national security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin every attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret campaign to get the bomb.

The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear-mongering which came out of this neocon campaign are downright despicable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George H.W. Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury the hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held in Lebanon in 1989.

Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States and the West; and after the devastation of the eight year war with Iraq was wholly focused on economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.

It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even George Bush's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.

The Neocon Big Lie About Iranian Nukes And Terrorism

So the prisoner release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the CIA was assumed in 1991 by Robert Gates. As one of the very worst of the unreconstructed cold war apparatchiks, it can be well and truly said that Gates looked peace in the eye and then elected to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim by searching the globe for monsters to fabricate.

In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right hand man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan administration. Among the many untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his career when it blew-up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.

From his post as deputy national security director in 1989 and then as CIA head Gates pulled out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed-off the White House goodwill from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was both sponsoring terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.

Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple of War Party propaganda after the 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that Iran is an aggressive wanna be hegemon that is a fount of terrorism and is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.

That giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi Netanyahu's coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that Iran posses an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli politics that have kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades.

But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability. And compared to the latter's 100 odd nukes, Iran has never had a nuclear weaponization program after a small scale research program was ended in 2003.

That is not merely our opinion. It's been the sober assessment of the nation's top 17 intelligence agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates ever since 2007. And now in conjunction with a further study undertaken pursuant to the 2015 nuke deal, the IAEA has also concluded the Iran had no secret program after 2003.

On the political and foreign policy front, Iran is no better or worse than any of the other major powers in the Middle East. In many ways it is far less of a threat to regional peace and stability than the military butchers who now run Egypt on $1.5 billion per year of US aid.

And it is surely no worse than the royal family tyrants who squander the massive oil resources of Saudi Arabia in pursuit of unspeakable opulence and decadence to the detriment of the 30 million citizens which are not part of the regime, and who one day may well reach the point of revolt.

When it comes to the support of terrorism, the Saudis have funded more jihadists and terrorists throughout the region than Iran ever even imagined.

In fact, Iran is a nearly bankrupt country that has no capability whatsoever to threaten the security and safety of the citizens of Spokane WA, Peoria IL or anywhere else in the USA.

Its $460 billion GDP is the size of Indiana's and its 68,000 man military is only slightly larger than the national guard of Texas.

It is a land of severe mountains and daunting swamps that are not all that conducive to rapid economic progress and advanced industrialization. It has no blue water navy, no missiles with more than a few hundred miles of range, and, we must repeat again, has had no nuclear weapons program for more than a decade.

Moreover, Donald's incessant charge that the Obama Administration gave away the store during the nuke deal negotiations that led to the JCPA is just blatant nonsense. In fact, the Iranians made huge concessions on nearly every issue that made a difference.

That included deep concessions on the number of permitted centrifuges at Natanz; the dismantlement of the Fordow and Arak nuclear operations; the virtually complete liquidation of its enriched uranium stockpiles; the intrusiveness and scope of the inspections regime; and the provisions with respect to Iran's so-called "breakout" capacity.

For instance, while every signatory of the non-proliferation treaty has the right to civilian enrichment, Iran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges by 70% from 20,000 to 6,000.

And its effective spinning capacity was reduced by significantly more. That's because the permitted Natanz centrifuges now consist exclusively of its most rudimentary, outdated equipment – first-generation IR-1 knockoffs of 1970s European models.

Not only was Iran not be allowed to build or develop newer models, but even those remaining were permitted to enrich uranium to a limit of only 3.75% purity. That is to say, to the generation of fissile material that is not remotely capable of reaching bomb grade concentrations of 90%.

Equally importantly, pursuant to the agreement Iran has eliminated enrichment activity entirely at its Fordow plant – a facility that had been Iran's one truly advanced, hardened site that could withstand an onslaught of Israeli or US bunker busters.

Instead, Fordow has become a small time underground science lab devoted to medical isotope research and crawling with international inspectors. In effectively decommissioning Fordow and thereby eliminating any capacity to cheat from a secure facility – what Iran got in return was at best a fig leave of salve for its national pride.

The disposition of the reactor at Arak has been even more dispositive. For years, the War Party has falsely waved the bloody shirt of "plutonium" because the civilian nuclear reactor being built there was of Canadian "heavy water" design rather than GE or Westinghouse "light water" design; and, accordingly, when finished it would have generated plutonium as a waste product rather than conventional spent nuclear fuel rods.

In truth, the Iranians couldn't have bombed a beehive with the Arak plutonium because you need a reprocessing plant to convert it into bomb grade material. Needless to say, Iran never had such a plant – nor any plans to build one, and no prospect for getting the requisite technology and equipment.

But now even that bogeyman no longer exists. Iran removed and destroyed the reactor core of its existing Arak plant in 2016 and filled it with cement, as attested to by international inspectors under the JCPA.

As to its already existing enriched stock piles, including some 20% medical-grade material, 97% has been eliminated as per the agreement. That is, Iran now holds only 300 kilograms of its 10,000 kilogram stockpile in useable or recoverable form. Senator Kirk could store what is left in his wine cellar.

But where the framework agreement decisively shut down the War Party was with respect to its provision for a robust, comprehensive and even prophylactic inspections regime. All of the major provision itemized above are being enforced by continuous IAEA access to existing facilities including its main centrifuge complex at Natanz – along with Fordow, Arak and a half dozen other sites.

Indeed, the real breakthrough in the JCPA lies in Iran's agreement to what amounts to a cradle-to-grave inspection regime. It encompasses the entire nuclear fuel chain.

That means international inspectors can visit Iran's uranium mines and milling and fuel preparation operations. This encompasses even its enrichment equipment manufacturing and fabrication plants, including centrifuge rotor and bellows production and storage facilities.

Beyond that, Iran has also been subject to a robust program of IAEA inspections to prevent smuggling of materials into the country to illicit sites outside of the named facilities under the agreement. This encompasses imports of nuclear fuel cycle equipment and materials, including so-called "dual use" items which are essentially civilian imports that can be repurposed to nuclear uses, even peaceful domestic power generation.

In short, not even a Houdini could secretly breakout of the control box established by the JCPA and confront the world with some kind of fait accompli threat to use the bomb.

That's because what it would take to do so is absurdly implausible. That is, Iran would need to secretly divert thousands of tons of domestically produced or imported uranium and then illicitly mill and upgrade such material at secret fuel preparation plants.

It would also need to secretly construct new, hidden enrichment operations of such massive scale that they could house more than 10,000 new centrifuges. Moreover, they would need to build these massive spinning arrays from millions of component parts smuggled into the country and transported to remote enrichment operations – all undetected by the massive complex of spy satellites overhead and covert US ands Israeli intelligence agency operatives on the ground in Iran.

Finally, it would require the activation from scratch of a weaponization program which has been dormant according to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) for more than a decade. And then, that the Iranian regime – after cobbling together one or two bombs without testing them or their launch vehicles – would nevertheless be willing to threaten to use them sight unseen.

So just stop it!

You need to be a raging, certifiable paranoid boob to believe that the Iranians can break out of this framework box based on a secret new capacity to enrich the requisite fissile material and make a bomb.

In the alternative scenario, you have to be a willful know-nothing to think that if it publicly repudiates the agreement, Iran could get a bomb overnight before the international community could take action.

To get enough nuclear material to make a bomb from the output of the 5,000 "old and slow" centrifuges remaining at Natanz would take years, not months. And if subject to an embargo on imported components, as it would be after a unilateral Iranian repudiation of the JCPA, it could not rebuild its now dismantled enrichment capacity rapidly, either.

At the end of the day, in fact, what you really have to believe is that Iran is run by absolutely irrational, suicidal madmen. After all, even if they managed to defy the immensely prohibitive constraints described above and get one or a even a few nuclear bombs, what in the world would they do with them?

Drop them on Tel Aviv? That would absolutely insure Israel's navy and air force would unleash its 100-plus nukes and thereby incinerate the entire industrial base and major population centers of Iran.

Indeed, the very idea that deterrence would fail even if a future Iranian regime were to defy all the odds, and also defy the fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by their Supreme Leader, amounts to one of the most preposterous Big Lies ever concocted.

There is no plausible or rational basis for believing it outside of the axis-of-evil narrative. So what's really behind Trump's withdrawal from the JCPA is nothing more than the immense tissue of lies and unwarranted demonization of Iran that the War Party has fabricated over the last three decades.

Iran Never Wanted the Bomb

At bottom, all the hysteria about the mullahs getting the bomb was based on the wholly theoretically supposition that they wanted civilian enrichment only as a stepping stone to the bomb. Yet the entirety of the US intelligence complex as well as the attestation of George W. Bush himself say it isn't so.

As we have previously indicated, the blinding truth of that proposition first came in the National Intelligence Estimates of 2007. These NIEs represent a consensus of all 17 US intelligence agencies on salient issues each year, and on the matter of Iran's nuclear weapons program they could not have been more unequivocal:

"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.

"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

Moreover, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noted recently, the NIE's have not changed since then.

An equally important fact ignored by the mainstream media is that the key judgments of that NIE have been revalidated by the intelligence community every year since.

More crucially, there is the matter of "Dubya's" memoirs. Near the end of his term in office he was under immense pressure to authorize a bombing campaign against Iran's civilian nuclear facilities.

But once the 2007 NIEs came out, even the "mission accomplished" President in the bomber jacket was caught up short. As McGovern further notes,

Bush lets it all hang out in his memoir, Decision Points. Most revealingly, he complains bitterly that the NIE "tied my hands on the military side" and called its findings "eye-popping."

A disgruntled Bush writes, "The backlash was immediate ."I don't know why the NIE was written the way it was. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a good one."

Spelling out how the Estimate had tied his hands "on the military side," Bush included this (apparently unedited) kicker: "But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?"

So there you have it. How is it possible to believe that the Iranian's were hell-bent on a nuclear holocaust when they didn't even have a nuclear weapons program?

And why in the world is the Donald taking America and the world to the edge of a utterly unnecessary war in order to force a better deal when the one he shit-canned was more than serviceable?

The answer to that momentous questions lies with the Bombzie Twins (Pompeo and Bolton) and the malign influence of the Donald's son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu toady, Jared Kushner.

Rarely have a small group of fanatics more dangerously and wantonly jeopardized the security, blood and treasure of the American people.

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington. ..."
"... That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same. ..."
"... To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime. ..."
"... the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel). ..."
"... Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism. ..."
"... The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons. ..."
"... For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports. ..."
"... In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense ..."
"... When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels. ..."
"... Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests. ..."
"... Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons. ..."
"... Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes. ..."
"... However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs. ..."
"... Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington.

That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same.

To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime.

But as we have demonstrated previously, the best cure for high oil prices is the global market, not the Fifth Fleet. And the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel).

Stated differently, the American people have no dog in the political hunts of Washington's so-called allies in the region; and will be no worse for the wear economically if Washington were to dispense with its idiotic economic warfare against Iran's 4 million barrel per day oil industry and allow all exporters in the region to produce and sell every single barrel they can economically extract.

Viewed in the proper context, Iran's response to the new sanctions and intensified efforts to destroy their economy was readily warranted:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the new sanctions "outrageous and stupid." Mr. Khamenei, while the political leader of Iran, also is one of the world's leading authorities for Shia Muslims.

"Would any administration with a bit of wisdom [sanction] the highest authority of a country? And not only a political authority, a religious, social, spiritual one, and not the leader of Iran only, the leader of the Islamic revolution all over the world?" Mr. Rouhani said in a speech broadcast on state television.

He said it was "obvious" that the US was lying about wanting to negotiate with Iran: "You want us to negotiate with you again?" Mr. Rouhani said, "and at the same time you seek to sanction the foreign minister too?"

Iran also said these sanctions closed the door on diplomacy and threatened global stability, as American officials renewed efforts to build a global alliance against Tehran.

Unfortunately, it didn't take the Donald long to upchuck what amounted to a dangerous tantrum:

.Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!

Those words are utterly reckless and outrageous. The Donald is carrying water for the neocons, Bibi and the Saudis without really understanding what he is doing and in the process is betraying America First and inching closer to an utterly unnecessary conflagration in the Persian Gulf that will virtually upend the global economy.

Worst of all, as he escalates the confrontation with the Iranian regime, he espouses a pack of lies and distortions that do no remotely comport with the facts. For instance, the following tweet is absolutely neocon baloney:

.The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The US has not forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many more

The truth of the matter is that the Donald is referring to attacks on US forces by the Shiite militias in Iraq during Washington's misbegotten invasion and occupation of that woebegone nation during the last decades. The Shiite live there, constitute the majority of its electorate, didn't want America there in the first place, and now actually run the government that Washington placed in power and are totally opposed to Trump's confrontation with their Shiite compatriots in Iran.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Better still, it is crucial to understand that this entire dangerous escalation is owing to the fact that the Donald got into his thick head that utter nonsense that the Iran nuke deal was some kind of disaster, and from there walked-away from the deal and restarted a brutal economic war against Iran in the guise of sanctions.

But nothing could be further from the truth. The Donald's action to terminate the Iranian nuclear deal was a complete triumph for the War Party.

It gutted the very idea of America First because Washington's renewed round of sanctions constitute economic aggression against a country that is no threat to the US homeland whatsoever.

In fact, Iran did not violate any term of the nuke deal, and as we demonstrate below, scrupulously adhered to the letter of it. So the real reasons for Trump's abandonment of the nuke deal have everything to do with the kind of Imperial interventionism that is the antithesis of America First.

Trump's action, in fact, is predicated on the decades long neocon-inspired Big Lie that Iran is an aggressive expansionist and terrorism-supporting rogue state which threatens the security of not just the region, but America too.

But that's flat out poppycock. As we documented last week, the claim that Iran is the expansionist leader of the Shiite Crescent is based on nothing more than the fact that Tehran has an independent foreign policy based on its own interests and confessional affiliations – legitimate relationships that are demonized by virtue of not being approved by Washington.

Likewise, the official charge that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism is not remotely warranted by the facts: The listing is essentially a State Department favor to the Netanyahu branch of the War Party.

The fact is, the Iranian regime with its piddling $14 billion military budget has no means to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.

As Ron Paul cogently observed:

Is Iran really the aggressive one? When you unilaterally pull out of an agreement that was reducing tensions and boosting trade; when you begin applying sanctions designed to completely destroy another country's economy; when you position military assets right offshore of that country; when you threaten to destroy that country on a regular basis, calling it a campaign of "maximum pressure," to me it seems a stretch to play the victim when that country retaliates by shooting a spy plane that is likely looking for the best way to attack.

Even if the US spy plane was not in Iranian airspace – but it increasingly looks like it was – it was just another part of an already-existing US war on Iran. Yes, sanctions are a form of war, not a substitute for war.

The point is Washington's case is almost entirely bogus. To wit:

Mr. Trump also reiterated his demands Monday at the White House: "We will continue to increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium, development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies."

Let's see about those "dangerous activities and aspirations".

In fact, Iran has no blue water navy that could effectively operate outside of the Persian Gulf; its longest range warplanes can barely get to Rome without refueling; and its array of mainly defensive medium and intermediate range missiles cannot strike most of NATO, to say nothing of the North American continent.

Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism.

The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons.

For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports.

In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense. It is a testament to the manner in which the historic notion of national defense has morphed into Washington's arrogant claim that it constitutes the "Indispensable Nation" which purportedly stands as mankind's bulwark against global disorder and chaos among nations.

Likewise, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was an unfortunate albatross on the Persian people, but it was no threat to America's safety and security. The very idea that Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the rest of the world is a giant fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party and its Bibi Netanyahu branch in order to win political support for their confrontationist policies.

Indeed, the three decade long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose. Namely, it enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military mobilization.

When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels.

And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to come out of the beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!

To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa again the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.

That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests.

During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of the Persian nation. With the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret police force known as the Savak, which made the East German Stasi look civilized by comparison.

All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the Savak agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:

Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest, detain, brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own prisons in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places throughout the country as well.

Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah embarked on a massive civilian nuclear power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape with dozens of nuclear power plants.

He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from Western companies – and also fuel cycle support services such as uranium enrichment – in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.

At the time of the Revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion deposit languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the Shah to fund a ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of reactors.

Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons.

Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes.

However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.

Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.

To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off again/on again efforts by the Iranians to purchase dual use equipment and components on the international market, often from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's relentless efforts to block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.

Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics which inhabited the national security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin every attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret campaign to get the bomb.

The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear-mongering which came out of this neocon campaign are downright despicable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George H.W. Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury the hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held in Lebanon in 1989.

Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States and the West; and after the devastation of the eight year war with Iraq was wholly focused on economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.

It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even George Bush's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.

The Neocon Big Lie About Iranian Nukes And Terrorism

So the prisoner release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the CIA was assumed in 1991 by Robert Gates. As one of the very worst of the unreconstructed cold war apparatchiks, it can be well and truly said that Gates looked peace in the eye and then elected to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim by searching the globe for monsters to fabricate.

In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right hand man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan administration. Among the many untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his career when it blew-up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.

From his post as deputy national security director in 1989 and then as CIA head Gates pulled out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed-off the White House goodwill from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was both sponsoring terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.

Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple of War Party propaganda after the 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that Iran is an aggressive wanna be hegemon that is a fount of terrorism and is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.

That giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi Netanyahu's coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that Iran posses an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli politics that have kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades.

But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability. And compared to the latter's 100 odd nukes, Iran has never had a nuclear weaponization program after a small scale research program was ended in 2003.

That is not merely our opinion. It's been the sober assessment of the nation's top 17 intelligence agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates ever since 2007. And now in conjunction with a further study undertaken pursuant to the 2015 nuke deal, the IAEA has also concluded the Iran had no secret program after 2003.

On the political and foreign policy front, Iran is no better or worse than any of the other major powers in the Middle East. In many ways it is far less of a threat to regional peace and stability than the military butchers who now run Egypt on $1.5 billion per year of US aid.

And it is surely no worse than the royal family tyrants who squander the massive oil resources of Saudi Arabia in pursuit of unspeakable opulence and decadence to the detriment of the 30 million citizens which are not part of the regime, and who one day may well reach the point of revolt.

When it comes to the support of terrorism, the Saudis have funded more jihadists and terrorists throughout the region than Iran ever even imagined.

In fact, Iran is a nearly bankrupt country that has no capability whatsoever to threaten the security and safety of the citizens of Spokane WA, Peoria IL or anywhere else in the USA.

Its $460 billion GDP is the size of Indiana's and its 68,000 man military is only slightly larger than the national guard of Texas.

It is a land of severe mountains and daunting swamps that are not all that conducive to rapid economic progress and advanced industrialization. It has no blue water navy, no missiles with more than a few hundred miles of range, and, we must repeat again, has had no nuclear weapons program for more than a decade.

Moreover, Donald's incessant charge that the Obama Administration gave away the store during the nuke deal negotiations that led to the JCPA is just blatant nonsense. In fact, the Iranians made huge concessions on nearly every issue that made a difference.

That included deep concessions on the number of permitted centrifuges at Natanz; the dismantlement of the Fordow and Arak nuclear operations; the virtually complete liquidation of its enriched uranium stockpiles; the intrusiveness and scope of the inspections regime; and the provisions with respect to Iran's so-called "breakout" capacity.

For instance, while every signatory of the non-proliferation treaty has the right to civilian enrichment, Iran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges by 70% from 20,000 to 6,000.

And its effective spinning capacity was reduced by significantly more. That's because the permitted Natanz centrifuges now consist exclusively of its most rudimentary, outdated equipment – first-generation IR-1 knockoffs of 1970s European models.

Not only was Iran not be allowed to build or develop newer models, but even those remaining were permitted to enrich uranium to a limit of only 3.75% purity. That is to say, to the generation of fissile material that is not remotely capable of reaching bomb grade concentrations of 90%.

Equally importantly, pursuant to the agreement Iran has eliminated enrichment activity entirely at its Fordow plant – a facility that had been Iran's one truly advanced, hardened site that could withstand an onslaught of Israeli or US bunker busters.

Instead, Fordow has become a small time underground science lab devoted to medical isotope research and crawling with international inspectors. In effectively decommissioning Fordow and thereby eliminating any capacity to cheat from a secure facility – what Iran got in return was at best a fig leave of salve for its national pride.

The disposition of the reactor at Arak has been even more dispositive. For years, the War Party has falsely waved the bloody shirt of "plutonium" because the civilian nuclear reactor being built there was of Canadian "heavy water" design rather than GE or Westinghouse "light water" design; and, accordingly, when finished it would have generated plutonium as a waste product rather than conventional spent nuclear fuel rods.

In truth, the Iranians couldn't have bombed a beehive with the Arak plutonium because you need a reprocessing plant to convert it into bomb grade material. Needless to say, Iran never had such a plant – nor any plans to build one, and no prospect for getting the requisite technology and equipment.

But now even that bogeyman no longer exists. Iran removed and destroyed the reactor core of its existing Arak plant in 2016 and filled it with cement, as attested to by international inspectors under the JCPA.

As to its already existing enriched stock piles, including some 20% medical-grade material, 97% has been eliminated as per the agreement. That is, Iran now holds only 300 kilograms of its 10,000 kilogram stockpile in useable or recoverable form. Senator Kirk could store what is left in his wine cellar.

But where the framework agreement decisively shut down the War Party was with respect to its provision for a robust, comprehensive and even prophylactic inspections regime. All of the major provision itemized above are being enforced by continuous IAEA access to existing facilities including its main centrifuge complex at Natanz – along with Fordow, Arak and a half dozen other sites.

Indeed, the real breakthrough in the JCPA lies in Iran's agreement to what amounts to a cradle-to-grave inspection regime. It encompasses the entire nuclear fuel chain.

That means international inspectors can visit Iran's uranium mines and milling and fuel preparation operations. This encompasses even its enrichment equipment manufacturing and fabrication plants, including centrifuge rotor and bellows production and storage facilities.

Beyond that, Iran has also been subject to a robust program of IAEA inspections to prevent smuggling of materials into the country to illicit sites outside of the named facilities under the agreement. This encompasses imports of nuclear fuel cycle equipment and materials, including so-called "dual use" items which are essentially civilian imports that can be repurposed to nuclear uses, even peaceful domestic power generation.

In short, not even a Houdini could secretly breakout of the control box established by the JCPA and confront the world with some kind of fait accompli threat to use the bomb.

That's because what it would take to do so is absurdly implausible. That is, Iran would need to secretly divert thousands of tons of domestically produced or imported uranium and then illicitly mill and upgrade such material at secret fuel preparation plants.

It would also need to secretly construct new, hidden enrichment operations of such massive scale that they could house more than 10,000 new centrifuges. Moreover, they would need to build these massive spinning arrays from millions of component parts smuggled into the country and transported to remote enrichment operations – all undetected by the massive complex of spy satellites overhead and covert US ands Israeli intelligence agency operatives on the ground in Iran.

Finally, it would require the activation from scratch of a weaponization program which has been dormant according to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) for more than a decade. And then, that the Iranian regime – after cobbling together one or two bombs without testing them or their launch vehicles – would nevertheless be willing to threaten to use them sight unseen.

So just stop it!

You need to be a raging, certifiable paranoid boob to believe that the Iranians can break out of this framework box based on a secret new capacity to enrich the requisite fissile material and make a bomb.

In the alternative scenario, you have to be a willful know-nothing to think that if it publicly repudiates the agreement, Iran could get a bomb overnight before the international community could take action.

To get enough nuclear material to make a bomb from the output of the 5,000 "old and slow" centrifuges remaining at Natanz would take years, not months. And if subject to an embargo on imported components, as it would be after a unilateral Iranian repudiation of the JCPA, it could not rebuild its now dismantled enrichment capacity rapidly, either.

At the end of the day, in fact, what you really have to believe is that Iran is run by absolutely irrational, suicidal madmen. After all, even if they managed to defy the immensely prohibitive constraints described above and get one or a even a few nuclear bombs, what in the world would they do with them?

Drop them on Tel Aviv? That would absolutely insure Israel's navy and air force would unleash its 100-plus nukes and thereby incinerate the entire industrial base and major population centers of Iran.

Indeed, the very idea that deterrence would fail even if a future Iranian regime were to defy all the odds, and also defy the fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by their Supreme Leader, amounts to one of the most preposterous Big Lies ever concocted.

There is no plausible or rational basis for believing it outside of the axis-of-evil narrative. So what's really behind Trump's withdrawal from the JCPA is nothing more than the immense tissue of lies and unwarranted demonization of Iran that the War Party has fabricated over the last three decades.

Iran Never Wanted the Bomb

At bottom, all the hysteria about the mullahs getting the bomb was based on the wholly theoretically supposition that they wanted civilian enrichment only as a stepping stone to the bomb. Yet the entirety of the US intelligence complex as well as the attestation of George W. Bush himself say it isn't so.

As we have previously indicated, the blinding truth of that proposition first came in the National Intelligence Estimates of 2007. These NIEs represent a consensus of all 17 US intelligence agencies on salient issues each year, and on the matter of Iran's nuclear weapons program they could not have been more unequivocal:

"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.

"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

Moreover, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noted recently, the NIE's have not changed since then.

An equally important fact ignored by the mainstream media is that the key judgments of that NIE have been revalidated by the intelligence community every year since.

More crucially, there is the matter of "Dubya's" memoirs. Near the end of his term in office he was under immense pressure to authorize a bombing campaign against Iran's civilian nuclear facilities.

But once the 2007 NIEs came out, even the "mission accomplished" President in the bomber jacket was caught up short. As McGovern further notes,

Bush lets it all hang out in his memoir, Decision Points. Most revealingly, he complains bitterly that the NIE "tied my hands on the military side" and called its findings "eye-popping."

A disgruntled Bush writes, "The backlash was immediate ."I don't know why the NIE was written the way it was. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a good one."

Spelling out how the Estimate had tied his hands "on the military side," Bush included this (apparently unedited) kicker: "But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?"

So there you have it. How is it possible to believe that the Iranian's were hell-bent on a nuclear holocaust when they didn't even have a nuclear weapons program?

And why in the world is the Donald taking America and the world to the edge of a utterly unnecessary war in order to force a better deal when the one he shit-canned was more than serviceable?

The answer to that momentous questions lies with the Bombzie Twins (Pompeo and Bolton) and the malign influence of the Donald's son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu toady, Jared Kushner.

Rarely have a small group of fanatics more dangerously and wantonly jeopardized the security, blood and treasure of the American people.

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Jun 28, 2019] Bolton Gets Ready to Kill New START by Daniel Larison

Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
If Bolton gets his way, New START is not long for this world :

At the same time, the administration has signaled in recent days that it plans to let the New Start treaty, negotiated by Barack Obama, expire in February 2021 rather than renew it for another five years. John R. Bolton, the president's national security adviser, who met with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem this week, said before leaving Washington that "there's no decision, but I think it's unlikely" the treaty would be renewed.

Mr. Bolton, a longtime skeptic of arms control agreements, said that New Start was flawed because it did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery systems. "So to extend for five years and not take these new delivery system threats into account would be malpractice," he told The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet.

Like all of his complaints about arms control agreements, Bolton's criticisms of New START are made in bad faith. Opponents of New START have long pretended that they oppose the treaty because it did not cover everything imaginable, including tactical nuclear weapons, but this has always been an excuse for them to reject a treaty that they have never wanted ratified in the first place. If the concern about negotiating a treaty that covered tactical nuclear weapons were genuine, the smart thing to do would be to extend New START and then begin negotiations for a more comprehensive arms control agreement. Faulting New START for failing to include things that are by definition not going to be included in a strategic arms reduction treaty gives the game away. This is what die-hard opponents of the treaty have been doing for almost ten years, and they do it because they want to dismantle the last vestiges of arms control. The proposal to include China as part of a new treaty is another tell that the Trump administration just wants the treaty to die.

The article concludes:

Some experts suspect talk of a three-way accord is merely a feint to get rid of the New Start treaty. "If a trilateral deal is meant as a substitute or prerequisite for extending New Start, it is a poison pill, no ifs, ands or buts," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "If the president is seeking a trilateral deal as a follow-on to New Start, that's a different thing."

Knowing Bolton, it has to be a poison pill. Just as Bolton is ideologically opposed to making any deal with Iran, he is ideologically opposed to any arms control agreement that places limits on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The "flaws" he identifies aren't really flaws that he wants to fix (and they may not be flaws at all), but excuses for trashing the agreement. He will make noises about how the current deal or treaty doesn't go far enough, but the truth is that he doesn't want any agreements to exist. In Bolton's worldview, nonproliferation and arms control agreements either give the other government too much or hamper the U.S. too much, and so he wants to destroy them all. He has had a lot of success at killing agreements and treaties that have been in the U.S. interest. Bolton has had a hand in blowing up the Agreed Framework with North Korea, abandoning the ABM Treaty, killing the INF Treaty, and reneging on the JCPOA. Unless the president can be persuaded to ignore or fire Bolton, New START will be his next victim.

If New START dies, it will be a loss for both the U.S. and Russia, it will make the world less secure, and it will make U.S.-Russian relations even worse. The stability that these treaties have provided has been important for U.S. security for almost fifty years. New START is the last of the treaties that constrain the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and when it is gone there will be nothing to replace it for a long time. The collapse of arms control almost certainly means that the top two nuclear weapons states will expand their arsenals and put us back on the path of an insane and unwinnable arms race. Killing New START is irrational and purely destructive, and it needs to be opposed.


Taras77 a day ago

bolton is opposed to any treaty, to any agreement, whereby the other side can expect to obtain equally favorable terms-he wants the other side on their knees permanently without any expectation of compromise by the empire.
Sid Finster a day ago
I wonder how long it will take for Trump to finally figure out that Bolton and Pompeo regard him as expendable.

Whether Trump wins or loses in 2020 will not matter, as long as the neocons get what they want.

Tony 9 hours ago
John Bolton will not be satisfied until he has got us all killed.
He is an extremely dangerous man.

[Jun 28, 2019] A war would ensure Trump s reelection or speed up his demise and criminal procecution

It is interesting that Trump destiny now depends on geopolitical events he can't control namely actions of Iran and China. Trump foreign policy appears to be driven by a combination of resentment and arrogance -- not a good combination for survival of Trump and/or mankind
Was with Iran might result in high oil prices would kill the already anemic global growth and cause a recession (I guess the volatility in oil prices will go through the roof at that point), Iran can destabilize the global economy by destroying most of the oil production infrastructure around the gulf.
While Lyndon Johnson had chosen not running for reelection in 1968 because anti-war sentiment was high, G W Bush who was reelected and the USA have now contractor army and casualties without draft does not matter much.
Notable quotes:
"... More likely they attack Saudi Arabia directly. Same impact, more justifiable if not outright popular. No one likes Prince Bone Saw. ..."
"... Iran could take those 10 million barrels a day away in 15 minutes. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

China will play a large roll in whether trump get re-elected. If they decide they prefer his dysfunctional governance to his opponent, then they will engage in a trade deal that will allow to trump to declare victory. It will likely be a very superficial victory.

If they decide they would prefer to engage with a different administration, they will likely refrain from a trade deal until after the election.
Have you asked yourself why Putin preferred trump? The answer is not pretty (for trump, or the USA).


Iron mike says: 06/22/2019 at 7:36 am

This is probably an absurd point of view. But in my opinion, it might be in Iran's interest to drag the U.S into war, probably as indirectly as possible. That way they might significantly reduce the chance of Trump being re-elected. (Obviously lives will be sacrificed in this scenario)

The question is if it would work and would a Democrat president stop the war and go into the same JCPOA deal again. Who knows. Very unpredictable.

Westexasfanclup says: 06/22/2019 at 7:58 am
Well, Mike, as absurd IMO is that Iran would risk self-destruction to get rid of Trump. He's certainly a PITA for them, but closing the Strait of Hormuz to crash the global economy and to blame it on Trump wouldn't work: Trump could blame it all on Iran while keeping on cooking a controlled conflict with them, showing the world that the US doesn't depend on oil from any other continent.

This would be a very difficult situation for a Democrat to step in and to promise a better solution. The US would be relatively well off compared to Asia and Europe and even could emerge out of such a constellation relatively more powerful.

But it could also end up in a terrible mess. As you wrote: Who knows. Very unpredictable.

ProPoly says: 06/22/2019 at 8:36 am
More likely they attack Saudi Arabia directly. Same impact, more justifiable if not outright popular. No one likes Prince Bone Saw.
GuyM says: 06/22/2019 at 9:15 am
Nobody is his fan, but they need his oil,
Hightrekker says: 06/22/2019 at 7:11 pm
Yep-

Iran could take those 10 million barrels a day away in 15 minutes.

[Jun 28, 2019] Justin Raimondo, RIP (1951-2019)

Jun 28, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

On Thursday, June 27, Justin Raimondo passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. He was 67. Justin was a lifelong fighter for peace and liberty. In 1995, he co-founded Antiwar.com with Eric Garris.

He served as Antiwar.com's editorial director and top columnist, writing over 3,000 articles for the website. He can never be replaced and will be missed by countless numbers of fans and followers

[Jun 28, 2019] Bolton Gets Ready to Kill New START by Daniel Larison

Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
If Bolton gets his way, New START is not long for this world :

At the same time, the administration has signaled in recent days that it plans to let the New Start treaty, negotiated by Barack Obama, expire in February 2021 rather than renew it for another five years. John R. Bolton, the president's national security adviser, who met with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem this week, said before leaving Washington that "there's no decision, but I think it's unlikely" the treaty would be renewed.

Mr. Bolton, a longtime skeptic of arms control agreements, said that New Start was flawed because it did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery systems. "So to extend for five years and not take these new delivery system threats into account would be malpractice," he told The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet.

Like all of his complaints about arms control agreements, Bolton's criticisms of New START are made in bad faith. Opponents of New START have long pretended that they oppose the treaty because it did not cover everything imaginable, including tactical nuclear weapons, but this has always been an excuse for them to reject a treaty that they have never wanted ratified in the first place. If the concern about negotiating a treaty that covered tactical nuclear weapons were genuine, the smart thing to do would be to extend New START and then begin negotiations for a more comprehensive arms control agreement. Faulting New START for failing to include things that are by definition not going to be included in a strategic arms reduction treaty gives the game away. This is what die-hard opponents of the treaty have been doing for almost ten years, and they do it because they want to dismantle the last vestiges of arms control. The proposal to include China as part of a new treaty is another tell that the Trump administration just wants the treaty to die.

The article concludes:

Some experts suspect talk of a three-way accord is merely a feint to get rid of the New Start treaty. "If a trilateral deal is meant as a substitute or prerequisite for extending New Start, it is a poison pill, no ifs, ands or buts," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "If the president is seeking a trilateral deal as a follow-on to New Start, that's a different thing."

Knowing Bolton, it has to be a poison pill. Just as Bolton is ideologically opposed to making any deal with Iran, he is ideologically opposed to any arms control agreement that places limits on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The "flaws" he identifies aren't really flaws that he wants to fix (and they may not be flaws at all), but excuses for trashing the agreement. He will make noises about how the current deal or treaty doesn't go far enough, but the truth is that he doesn't want any agreements to exist. In Bolton's worldview, nonproliferation and arms control agreements either give the other government too much or hamper the U.S. too much, and so he wants to destroy them all. He has had a lot of success at killing agreements and treaties that have been in the U.S. interest. Bolton has had a hand in blowing up the Agreed Framework with North Korea, abandoning the ABM Treaty, killing the INF Treaty, and reneging on the JCPOA. Unless the president can be persuaded to ignore or fire Bolton, New START will be his next victim.

If New START dies, it will be a loss for both the U.S. and Russia, it will make the world less secure, and it will make U.S.-Russian relations even worse. The stability that these treaties have provided has been important for U.S. security for almost fifty years. New START is the last of the treaties that constrain the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and when it is gone there will be nothing to replace it for a long time. The collapse of arms control almost certainly means that the top two nuclear weapons states will expand their arsenals and put us back on the path of an insane and unwinnable arms race. Killing New START is irrational and purely destructive, and it needs to be opposed.


Taras77 a day ago

bolton is opposed to any treaty, to any agreement, whereby the other side can expect to obtain equally favorable terms-he wants the other side on their knees permanently without any expectation of compromise by the empire.
Sid Finster a day ago
I wonder how long it will take for Trump to finally figure out that Bolton and Pompeo regard him as expendable.

Whether Trump wins or loses in 2020 will not matter, as long as the neocons get what they want.

Tony 9 hours ago
John Bolton will not be satisfied until he has got us all killed.
He is an extremely dangerous man.

[Jun 28, 2019] What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea feel safe and protected by international law that is strictly honoured by all members of the international community

Jun 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jun 28, 2019 1:50:32 PM | 190

I'm about halfway through Putin's financial Times interview and suggest it be read by all. There is much to be gleaned from it with a view to the 2020 Election Cycle and candidate's positions. Just consider the following very small excerpt and its implications for policy formulation by candidates:

"What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea feel safe and protected by international law that is strictly honoured by all members of the international community . This is what we should be thinking about." [My Emphasis]

Putin's insights into Trump's 2016 election strategy, IMO, is very enlightening and essential reading as the conditions that contributed to Trump's victory have worsened under his tenure and can be used against him if wisely pursued.

[Jun 27, 2019] 'The Ugly Americans' From Kermit Roosevelt to John Bolton Iran Al Jazeera

Highly recommended!
Jun 27, 2019 | www.aljazeera.com

Sixty-six years later, I am witnessing how another "Ugly American" is walking in the footsteps of Roosevelt. His name is John Bolton, a chief advocate of the disastrous US invasion of Iraq, a nefarious Islamophobe, and former chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute. This infamous institution is known for spreading lies about Muslims - claiming there is a looming "jihadist takeover" that can lead to a "Great White Death" - to incite hatred against them and intimidate, silence, and alienate them.

In his diabolical plans to wage war on Iran, Bolton is taking a page from Roosevelt's playbook. Just as the CIA operative used venal Iranian politicians and fake news to incite against the democratically elected Iranian government, today his successor, the US national security adviser, is seeking to spread misinformation on a massive scale and set up a false flag operation with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant terrorist organisation. Meanwhile, he has also pressed forward with debilitating sanctions that are further worsening the economic crisis in the country and making the lives of ordinary Iranians unbearable.

... ... ...

Bolton is the dreadful residue of the pure violence and wanton cruelty that drive Zionist Christian zealots in their crusades against Muslims. He is the embodiment of the basest and most racist roots of American imperialism.

The regime he serves is the most naked and vulgar face of brutish power, lacking any semblance of legitimacy - a bullying coward flexing its military muscles. At its helm is an arrogant mercantile president, who - faced with the possibility of an impeachment - has no qualms about using the war machine at his disposal to regain political relevance and line his pockets.

But the world must know Americans are not all ugly, they are not all rabid imperialists - Boltons and Roosevelts. What about those countless noble Americans - the sons and daughters of the original nations that graced this land, of the African slaves who were brought to this land in chains, of the millions after millions of immigrants who came to these shores in desperation or hope from the four corners of the earth? Do they not have a claim on this land too - to redefine it and bring it back to the bosom of humanity?

[Jun 27, 2019] The Ongoing Restructuring of the Greater Middle East by C.J. Hopkins

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran. ..."
"... Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution. ..."
"... OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran.

Take a good look at this Smithsonian map of where the U.S.A. is "combating terrorism." Note how the U.S. military (i.e., global capitalism's unofficial "enforcer") has catastrophically blundered its way into more or less every nation depicted. Or ask our "allies" in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and so on. OK, you might have to reach them in New York or London, or in the South of France this time of year, but, go ahead, ask them about the horrors they've been suffering on account of our "catastrophic blunders."

See, according to this crackpot conspiracy theory that I would put forth if I were a geopolitical analyst instead of just a political satirist, there have been no "catastrophic policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn't have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.

Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people or the "sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful. Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for business or not.

Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution.

OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running.

This is what Iran and Syria are up against. This is what Russia is up against. Global capitalism doesn't want to nuke them, or occupy them. It wants to privatize them, like it is privatizing the rest of the world, like it has already privatized America according to my crackpot theory, of course.


peterAUS , says: June 25, 2019 at 10:08 pm GMT

if I were a geopolitical analyst, I might be able to discern a pattern there, and possibly even some sort of strategy.

Sounds good.
Some other people did it before, wrote it down etc. but it's always good to see that stuff.

it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East.
.there have been no "catastrophic policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn't have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people or the "sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful. Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for business or not.

Spot on.

Now .there IS a bit of oversight in the article re competing groups of people on top of that "Global capitalist" bunch.
It's a bit more complicated than "Global capitalism".

Jewish heavily influenced, perhaps even controlled, Anglo-Saxon "setup" .. or Russian "setup" or Chinese "setup".
Only one of them can be on the top, and they don't like each other much.
And they all have nuclear weapons.

"Global capitalism" idea is optimistic. The global overwhelming force against little players. No chance of MAD there so not that bad.NOPE IMHO.
There is a chance of MAD.

That is the problem . Well, at least for some people.

WorkingClass , says: June 26, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies. These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off the proles.

I was a union man in my youth. We liked Capitalism. We just wanted our fair share of the loot. The working class today knows nothing about organizing. They don't even know they are working class. They think they are black or white. Woke or Deplorable.

ALL OF US non billionaires are coming up on serious hard times. Serious enough that we might have to put aside our differences. The government is corrupt. It will not save us. Instead it will continue to work to divide us.

Reparations anyone?

animalogic , says: June 26, 2019 at 10:06 am GMT
Another great article by C J Hopkins.
Hopkins (correctly) posits that behind US actions, wars etc lies the global capitalist class.
"Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for business or not"
This is correct -- but requires an important caveat.
Intrinsic to capitalism is imperialism. They are the head & tail of the same coin.
Global capitalists may unite in their rapacious attacks on average citizens the world over. However, they will disunite when it comes to beating a competitor to a market.
The "West" has no (real) ideological differences with China, Russia & Iran. This is a fight between an existing hegemon & it's allies & a rising hegemon (China) & it's allies.
In many ways it's similar to the WW I situation: an established imperial country, the UK, & it's allies against a country with imperial pretensions -- Germany (& it's allies)
To put it in a nice little homily: the Capitalist wolves prefer to eat sheep (us) -- but, will happily eat each other should they perceive a sufficient interest in doing so.
Digital Samizdat , says: June 26, 2019 at 11:49 am GMT
@WorkingClass

Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.

In most key sectors, competition ends up producing monopolies or their near-equivalent, oligopolies. The many are weeded out (or swallowed up) by the few . The situation is roughly the same with democracy, which historically has always resulted in oligarchy, as occurred in ancient Rome and Athens.

Parfois1 , says: June 27, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
@WorkingClass

Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies. These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off the proles.

You are right in expecting that in Capitalism there would be competition – the traditional view that prices would remain low because of competition, the less competitive removed from the field, and so on. But that was primitive laisser-faire Capitalism on a fair playing field that hardly existed but in theory. Occasionally there were some "good" capitalists – say the mill-owner in a Lancashire town who gave employment to the locals, built houses, donated to charity and went to the Sunday church service with his workers. But even that "good" capitalist was in it for the profit, which comes from taking possession for himself of the value added by his workers to a commodity.

But modern Capitalism does not function that way. There are no mill-owners, just absentee investor playing in, usually rigged, stock market casinos. Industrial capitalism has been changed into financial Capitalism without borders and loyalty to worker or country. In fact, it has gone global to play country against country for more profit.

Anyway, the USA has evolved into a Fascist state (an advanced state of capitalism, a.k.a. corporatocracy) as Chomsky stated many years ago. Seen from abroad here's a view from the horse's mouth ( The Guardian is official organ of Globalist Fascism).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

[Jun 27, 2019] For a man who did whatever he could to avoid fighting in a war, Bolton certainly seems to love the concept.

Jun 27, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

Sally Snyder , June 27, 2019 at 08:18

Here is an interesting look at John Bolton's Three State Solution for the Middle East:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/john-boltons-three-state-middle-east.html

For a man who did whatever he could to avoid fighting in a war, he certainly seems to love the concept.

[Jun 27, 2019] What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... Just as Obama turned out to be a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, Trump has turned out to be a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya. ..."
"... Bolton is a neo-con, neo-cons are Trotskyites. They believe in an eternal revolution. Bolton believes in eternal war. ..."
"... Sid, the natural conclusion is that the 'deep state' is real, and for the most part runs the country. Whoever is President is less important than the goals of the American elite, most importantly the 'War Party' (the MIC and the IC) and Wall Street, but including Health Care. A side party of equal importance is the Israel Lobby. What happens in America is pretty much what the leaders of those groups want. ..."
"... Trump is too weak to push back on Bolton. He likes bluster. If starting a war will make Trump look macho, he very well might start one. Bolton wants war, Trump may let us stumble into one. ..."
"... "What will it take to get Bolton fired?" One phone call from Israel. Then again, one phone call from Israel would also stop Trump from firing him, and there's no reason to suspect that Bibi is anything other than ecstatic over Bolton's performance. ..."
"... Find out who "told" Donald Trump he HAD to hire Bolton (and Pompeo and others as well) and you'll probably learn the identity of the real puppet master pulling the strings in the "Deep State." It's simply impossible to believe Trump – who ran for president on a platform of "non-interventionism" – appointed this guy on his own volition. ..."
"... The headline asks, "What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired?" This is a great question. If he CAN'T be fired, this tells us who is really running our country. Another question along the same lines: What will it take to get America to cease its support of Saudi Arabia? ..."
"... The petodollar makes these wars possible; it also defends or preserves the Status Quo, which makes so many of our elite ultra wealthy and powerful. Our carte blanche support of Saudi Arabia is telling us something important just like Trump's appointment of Bolton told us something important. ..."
May 07, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
For someone "not playing along," Trump has obediently given Bolton and the Iran hawks practically everything they have wanted so far. He has gone much further in laying the groundwork for war with Iran than any of his predecessors, and the only reason that many people seem confident that he won't order an attack is their mistaken belief that he is a non-interventionist when all of the evidence tells us that he is no such thing. Trump presumably doesn't want to start a multi-year, extremely expensive war that could also throw the economy into a recession, but then every president that launches an illegal war of choice assumes that the war would be much easier and take less time than it does. No one ever knowingly opts for a bloody debacle. The absurdly optimistic hawkish expectations of a quick and easy triumph are always dashed on the rocks of reality, but for some reason political leaders believe these expectations every time because "this time it's different." There will come a point where Bolton will tell Trump that attacking Iran (or Venezuela) is the only way to "win," and Trump will probably listen to him just as he has listened to him on all of these issues up until now.

There is no question that Bolton should lose his job. Even if you aren't an opponent of Trump, you should be unhappy with the way Bolton has been operating for the last year. He has made a point of sabotaging administration policies he doesn't like, resisting decisions he doesn't agree with, and effectively reversing policy changes while pretending to be carrying out the president's wishes. His mismanagement of the policy process is a bad joke, and the reason he runs the National Security Council this way is so that he can stop views and information that don't suit his agenda from reaching the president. But Trump pays little or no attention to any of this, and as long as Bolton remains loyal in public and a yes-man in person he is likely safe in his job. If Bolton gets his wish and the U.S. starts a war with Iran, he may not be in that job for much longer, but the damage will have already been done. Instead of counting on Trump to toss Bolton overboard, Congress and the public need to make absolutely clear that war with Iran and Venezuela is unacceptable and Trump will be destroying his presidency if he goes down that path in either country.

Sid Finster says: May 7, 2019 at 10:53 am

Obama entered office in 2008 promising to close Guantanamo and end the stupid wars.

Not only did Obama fail to end a single war, he gave us new and stupider wars in Syria, Yemen and Ukraine, to name but three. Guantanamo is still open.

Just as Obama turned out to be a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, Trump has turned out to be a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya.

Kouros says: May 7, 2019 at 11:26 am

The banality of Evil, eh?!

No One Listens says: May 7, 2019 at 1:37 pm

" some reason political leaders believe these expectations every time because "this time it's different."

Like communists, political leaders think 'this time we'll get it right. Bolton is a neo-con, neo-cons are Trotskyites. They believe in an eternal revolution. Bolton believes in eternal war.

EarlyBird says: May 7, 2019 at 1:52 pm

As much of a disaster for American institutions Trump has been, I believe he does not want to go to war. The times are a'changin'. Average Americans have figured out that these wars are self-defeating nonsense. Trump knows that, and doesn't want to alienate the middle American types who support him and would go to war.

But he does want to sound and look tough, hence Bolton. The problem is that while Trump may believe he's just blustering, reneging on the nuclear deal, cranking back brutal sanctions and sending US flotillas to the Strait of Hormuz looks and feels like war to the Iranians.

We could stumble into a very big and ugly war like America stumbled into the ugly era of Trump. And Trump is the absolute last person I would want to serve as a commander in chief during war time.

SteveK9 says: May 7, 2019 at 1:57 pm

Sid, the natural conclusion is that the 'deep state' is real, and for the most part runs the country. Whoever is President is less important than the goals of the American elite, most importantly the 'War Party' (the MIC and the IC) and Wall Street, but including Health Care. A side party of equal importance is the Israel Lobby. What happens in America is pretty much what the leaders of those groups want.

Zgler says: May 7, 2019 at 2:52 pm

Trump is too weak to push back on Bolton. He likes bluster. If starting a war will make Trump look macho, he very well might start one. Bolton wants war, Trump may let us stumble into one.

Sid Finster says: May 7, 2019 at 3:59 pm

Of course the "Deep State", the "permanent government" the "Borg" or whatever you want to call it is real.

Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 ("kinder gentler nation") ran for office as a non-interventionist. Even Dubya promised a humbler foreign policy in 2000.

Once inaugurated, each candidate morphed into a foaming-at-the-mouth hawk.

I don't pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every president, but the results speak for themselves. I suspect without evidence that it is something like what we saw in "Yes, Minister".

Whine Merchant says: May 7, 2019 at 5:18 pm

The neo-cons are busy studying the Israeli playbook of declaring themselves surrounded and launching a preemptive strike. Pompeo's view is that the occupation of Iraq is/was so difficult because the US isn't as ruthlessly efficient as the IDF in the West Bank and allowed Iraq some self-governance.He won't allow that in the conquered Iran.

Step 1: send a doctored telegram to Kaiser Trump and leak it to the press.
Step 2: Get the GOP Senate to pass the "Gulf of Hormuz" declaration.
Step 3: sink a ship, perhaps one called USS Maine or USS Liberty.

Good night

Oleg Gark says: May 7, 2019 at 6:32 pm

Trump would fire Bolton in a heartbeat, but Adelson won't let him.

Oscar Peterson says: May 7, 2019 at 7:43 pm

"What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired?"

The first question is "What did it take to get Bolton hired?"

The answer to the author's question is that making Trump look bad (in a way that Trump recognizes) is what will get Bolton fired. But like Dick Cheney, Bolton has a very good sense of what a Richelieu needs to do to seem loyal and obedient to an idiot king. Rummy appended Bible verses to schemes that he wanted Bush to approve. Bolton does something similar, no doubt.

Westerbrook says: May 7, 2019 at 8:50 pm

"What will it take to get Bolton fired?" One phone call from Israel. Then again, one phone call from Israel would also stop Trump from firing him, and there's no reason to suspect that Bibi is anything other than ecstatic over Bolton's performance.

The mammoth "donations" from Adelson et al to Trump and the corrupt Republicans have paid off royally for Israel. With Trump and Bolton in the White House, Israel barely even needs a foreign ministry, a treasury, or a military anymore. Uncle Sam does it all for free.

Uncle Billy says: May 7, 2019 at 9:44 pm

Bolton needs a rabies shot. The man is a rabid neocon.

Deacon Blue says: May 8, 2019 at 9:40 am

Find out who "told" Donald Trump he HAD to hire Bolton (and Pompeo and others as well) and you'll probably learn the identity of the real puppet master pulling the strings in the "Deep State." It's simply impossible to believe Trump – who ran for president on a platform of "non-interventionism" – appointed this guy on his own volition.

Also, if it was so important to appoint Bolton, why would this be the case?

I think it's because – in the minds of those pulling the strings – it's crucial to them that America does the things Bolton wants to do.

That is, Bolton wasn't named National Security Advisor to do nothing.

Lessons?

1) Trump's not calling the important shots here.

2) Better buckle up your chinstrap.

Deacon Blue says: May 8, 2019 at 10:08 am

The headline asks, "What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired?" This is a great question. If he CAN'T be fired, this tells us who is really running our country. Another question along the same lines: What will it take to get America to cease its support of Saudi Arabia?

We know the answer to this one. NOTHING. Consider that

The answer (Saudi Arabia can do whatever it wants with no risk of incurring the wrath of America) begs the question: Why is "letting Saudi Arabia do whatever it wants" so important to America?

This answer, I believe, has everything to do with the vital role the petrodollar plays in maintaining the Status Quo.

If the Deep State is calling the shots, what is most important to the Deep State?

Answer: Protecting the U.S. dollar (fiat) printing press. Absent this printing press and the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, none of our current wars and future wars would even be possible.

And the fact we are willing to wage these wars sends a vital message to the nations of the world: We WILL use our military against anyone who threatens the Status Quo.

The petodollar makes these wars possible; it also defends or preserves the Status Quo, which makes so many of our elite ultra wealthy and powerful. Our carte blanche support of Saudi Arabia is telling us something important just like Trump's appointment of Bolton told us something important.

TheSnark says: May 8, 2019 at 12:04 pm

The only way people like Bolton get fired is the same way Bannon got dumped. It is when Trump sees on Fox News that they are getting more press coverage than him.

Tony says: May 9, 2019 at 8:13 am

The post of national security advisor needs to be subject to Senate confirmation.

Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration and Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Carter administration were both more powerful/influential than the respective secretaries of state, William Rogers and Cyrus Vance.

The Senate needs to assert itself and ensure that national security advisors are appointed in the same way as secretaries of state. This would help to a certain extent.

[Jun 27, 2019] Trump has filled his White House with CFR Neocon chickenhawks

And probably, if we just impeach the Walrus of Death nothing will change . Its a freight train to war. It moves slowly at first but its hell to try and stop.
Jun 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

This awesome demonstration of American resolve was meant to be punishment for the vicious slaughter of an expensive U.S. military drone, which was peacefully invading Iranian airspace, and not at all attempting to provoke the Iranians into blowing it out of the sky with a missile so the U.S. military could "retaliate."

The military-industrial complex would never dream of doing anything like that, not even to further the destabilization and restructuring of the Greater Middle East that they've been systematically carrying out the since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which more on that in just a moment.

[Jun 27, 2019] Monsters Walk the Earth. Why These Three Countries Are the Real Troika of Evil

Notable quotes:
"... For some odd reason, Donald Trump wants to be reelected president in 2020 in spite of the fact that he appears to be uncomfortable in office. A quick, successful war would enhance his chances for a second term, which is probably what Pompeo promised, but any military action that is not immediately decisive would hurt his prospects, quite possibly inflicting fatal damage. ..."
"... Trump apparently had an intercession by Fox news analyst Tucker Carlson, who may have explained that reality to him shortly before he decided to cancel the attack. Tucker is, for what it's worth, a highly respected critic coming from the political right who is skeptical of wars of choice, democracy building and the global liberal order. ..."
"... It is an interesting process to observe how Jewish oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson contribute tens of millions of dollars to the politicians who then in turn give the Jewish state taxpayer generated tens of billions of dollars in return. Bribing corrupt politicians is one of the best investments that one can make in today's America. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

... ... ...

The current foreign policy debate centers around what Washington's next moves in the Middle East might be. The decision-making will inevitably involve the US and its "close allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, which should not surprise anyone. While it is clear that President Donald Trump ordered an attack on Iran before canceling the action at the last minute, exactly how that played out continues to be unclear. One theory, promoted by the president himself, is that the attack would have been disproportionate, killing possibly hundreds of Iranian military personnel in exchange for one admittedly very expensive surveillance drone. Killing the Iranians would have guaranteed an immediate escalation by Iran, which has both the will and the capability to hit high value targets in and around the Persian Gulf region, a factor that may also have figured into the presidential calculus.

Trump's cancelation of the attack immediately produced cries of rage from the usual neoconservative chickenhawk crowd in Washington as well as a more subdued reiteration of the Israeli and Saudi demands that Iran be punished, though both are also concerned that a massive Iranian retaliation would hit them hard. They are both hoping that Washington's immensely powerful strategic armaments will succeed in knocking Iran out quickly and decisively, but they have also both learned not to completely trust the White House.

To assuage the beast, the president has initiated a package of "major" new sanctions on Iran which will no doubt hurt the Iranian people while not changing government decision making one iota. There has also been a leak of a story relating to US cyber-attacks on Iranian military and infrastructure targets, yet another attempt to act aggressive to mitigate the sounds being emitted by the neocon chorus.

To understand the stop-and-go behavior by Trump requires application of the Occam's Razor principle, i.e. that the simplest explanation is most likely correct. For some odd reason, Donald Trump wants to be reelected president in 2020 in spite of the fact that he appears to be uncomfortable in office. A quick, successful war would enhance his chances for a second term, which is probably what Pompeo promised, but any military action that is not immediately decisive would hurt his prospects, quite possibly inflicting fatal damage.

Trump apparently had an intercession by Fox news analyst Tucker Carlson, who may have explained that reality to him shortly before he decided to cancel the attack. Tucker is, for what it's worth, a highly respected critic coming from the political right who is skeptical of wars of choice, democracy building and the global liberal order.

The truth is that all of American foreign policy during the upcoming year will be designed to pander to certain constituencies that will be crucial to the 2020 presidential election. One can bank on even more concessions being granted to Israel and its murderous thug prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring in Jewish votes and, more importantly, money. John Bolton was already in Israel getting his marching orders from Netanyahu on the weekend and Pence was effusive in his praise of Israel when he spoke at the meeting in Orlando earlier in the week launching the Trump 2020 campaign, so the game is already afoot.

It is an interesting process to observe how Jewish oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson contribute tens of millions of dollars to the politicians who then in turn give the Jewish state taxpayer generated tens of billions of dollars in return. Bribing corrupt politicians is one of the best investments that one can make in today's America.

Trump will also go easy on Saudi Arabia because he wants to sell them billions of dollars' worth of weapons which will make the key constituency of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) happy. And he will continue to exert "maximum pressure" on Iran and Venezuela to show how tough he can be for his Make America Great audience, though avoiding war if he possibly can just in case any of the hapless victims tries to fight back and embarrass him.

So, there it is folks. War with Iran is for the moment on hold, but tune in again next week as the collective White House memory span runs to only three or four days. By next week we Americans might be at war with Mongolia.

[Jun 27, 2019] US sanctions against Iran amount to an act of war

Jun 27, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Scott Randall21 hours ago • edited

"...as Stratfor, put it, "Trump, fearing a much bigger escalation, got cold feet."

One is reminded of the scene from Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), a General in the Joint Chiefs comments disparagingly about Kennedy for keeping his finger "on the chicken switch" with regard to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Lyndon Johnson in the White House with Henry Cabot Lodge in 1963 declares: "Gentlemen, I want you to know I'm not going to let Vietnam go the way China did. I'm personally committed. I'm not going to take one soldier out of there 'til they know we mean business in Asia (he pauses) You just get me elected, and I'll give you your damned war ."

animalogica day ago
Another question exists: should the US resist the allure of military action against Iran, what can Iran do?
US sanctions against Iran amount to an act of war. Iran can bust sanctions up to some point -- but for how long? Will Iran suffer half a million dead children & elderly people as Iraq did in the 90's ? SHOULD Iran have to suffer such a criminally imposed loss of life?
Where is the way out of this insanity?
Iran won't negotiate with the US for the very good reason that the US clearly wants to sterilize Iranian sovereignty (ie the US won't accept ANY Iranian missiles -- that is, Iran has no right to self defense).
Sad to say, Trump does not need to launch military action against Iran, merely continue to economically terrorise Iran until it has NO choice but to initiate military action against its tormentors.
Ahson3 days ago
Trump being a demented fool that he is now says this:

https://www.presstv.com/Det...

This shows the deep divisions within the imperialist elites on what to do about Iran. They don't have a real plan. Just making it up as they go along.

Ahson3 days ago
The war on Iran will continue till kingdom come, until it falls. Its clear as day that both Russia and China back their Iranian allies against US provocations. China hasn't flinched under US threats to embargo Iranian crude, and continues to purchase it, and Russia has an oil swap agreement with Iran, where it buys Iranian oil and sells it as Russian on the international market. This must be a severe irritation to the imperialists in Washington and London as it renders their Iran sanctions regime practically toothless.

https://www.tasnimnews.com/...

Nobody should be surprised when the next US provocation unfolds, yet again taking us to the brink of disaster.

Ahson3 days ago • edited
Iranian fishermen are finding parts of the CIA drone exposing the lie that the drone was in 'international airspace':

https://www.presstv.com/Det...

Ahson3 days ago • edited
The imperialists are not backing down in their quest for subduing Iran. Seems like the idea here is to put as many large ships in harms way as possible....and provoke Iran to attack one of these......This will ensure the probability of miscalculation and/ or accidents becomes almost unavoidable. There must be regime change in Tehran, on the road to Beijing and Moscow:

https://sputniknews.com/mil...

John Upton • 3 days ago
Iran has every right to defend itself from US imperialisms constant violence, as is the case with China and Russia. It is also pleasing to see the almighty war machine get a bloody nose.

But we should never lose sight of the fact that it is always the working class that suffers the most in terms of death, injuries and destitution.
End all wars!
End production for profit and the Nation state upon which it is built!

John Upton • 3 days ago
America's history demonstrates that loss of (foreign) life is of little concern to those in power.
The Manhattan Project was established, and mightily financed because of reasonably well established fears that Nazi Germany was on track to build its own A-bombs.
With the defeat of Germany that fear was gone. Nevertheless, knowing full well that Imperial Japan had no such program, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vapourised. A clear demonstration that they, atomic weapons, WMD, worked and a warning to the Soviet Union that it too could be annihilated.
Robert Oppenheimer and others refused to take part in building an H-bomb for class and humane reasons. This fell on Truman's deaf ears.
American Imperialism is indifferent to death and destruction of billions.
As WSWS has stated, Trumps announcement that the loss of 150 Iranian lives is the the reason he pulled backs so much bilge.
FireintheHead3 days ago • edited
Trump is in a catch 22. When push has come to shove , he simply cannot sell another war to the US working class, and he knows it , and he's been well and truly spooked by the Iranian response.

All the US garbage of itself as ''victim'', all the 'good cop bad cop' routines are wearing thin. Nobody is buying it anymore , especially from a gangster.

Perhaps a predicted massive spike in global temperatures will clear out the collective cobwebs further.

Gracchus3 days ago
Good point about the possibility of Iran sinking a carrier. The Chinese have developed advanced anti-ship weapons that, if the results of a RAND corporation war game can be believed, will be able to neutralize carriers. This highlights the fact that, whatever the salesmen of advanced weaponry might say, it will not win wars alone. All of the smart weapons in the world have not ended the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan in the favour of American imperialism.

We can see an historical precedent in the British development of the dreadnought, the modern battleship, in the arms race that preceded WWI. Dreadnoughts were supposed to be the decisive super weapons of the day, but the British and German battle fleets remained in their moorings for most of the war for fear that these expensive ships would fall prey to torpedos. The sinking of the HMS Formidable in 1915 is a case in point. The only major engagement between dreadnoughts was at Jutland and it was inconclusive.

For all of the contemporary bluster about super weapons and the fetishism of smart bombs and cyber weapons, they will not decisively win a war alone. As in the world wars of the last century, the bourgeoisie will be forced to mobilize society for a war. This will mean bringing the working class - against its will - into the maelstrom.

Gracchus3 days ago • edited
Yet again the WSWS demonstrates the incredible foresight and clarity of Marxist analysis. I would like to extend my thanks to Comrade Andre and the editors of the WSWS for their indefatigable efforts to impart Marxist consciousness to the masses. For all of the naysayers who have attacked the WSWS as "sectarian" or as not involved in "practical work," need we point to anything other than the WSWSs explanation of the connection between eruption of American imperialism and the decline of the productive forces of that nation state? That analysis has placed the WSWS in the position of being better prepared politically for the consequences of war than the imperialists, as the latest farce in the Middle East demonstrates.

A quote from Trotsky will further emphasize my point:

"We will not concede this banner to the masters of falsehood! If our generation happens to be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind."

The spotless banner is in good hands.

Robert Seaborne Gracchus3 days ago
thank you Gracchus,
for your inspiring comment, I couldn't agree more with it.
dmorista3 days ago • edited
The official story, as usual, is a bunch of hooey. Trump wouldn't bat an eye over the death of 150 Iranians. In addition to the worries about losing an aircraft carrier: the military high command probably let him know that the much vaunted, and outlandishly expensive, force of F-35s, will quickly lose its effectiveness if exposed to probing by the high tech radars the Russians have developed, and that are used in conjunction with at least the S-400 antiaircraft and antimissile defense system. So the question is, if the stealth advantage of the F-35 is only good for a limited time, is this particular geostrategic confrontation worth using up that particular asset??

Then there is the whole question of whether the Iranians would close the Straits of Hormuz in response to a major air raid on their nuclear facilities; this leads to some much more important issues. Despite the blathering about "international waters" and "freedom of navigation" the facts are that the Straits of Hormuz are only 21 miles wide. So all the water in them is either in Iranian territory to the north or Omani to the south. They would be entirely within their rights, as elucidated in the International Law of the Sea, to close the straits after some sort of military strike against them (for what that is worth, which is something at least as far as public opinion outside of the U.S. is concerned). The Iranians have stated that if and when they close the straits they will announce it publicly, no subterfuge or secret operations will be involved.

Since nearly 30% of the World's oil moves through those straits cutting them off will cause an immediate spike in oil prices. Prices of $100 - $300 a barrel would be reached within a few days. If the Straits of Hormuz were closed for a longer period we could easily see prices rise to $1,000 a barrel according to Goldman Sachs projections (see Escobar article cited below). Anything over $150 a barrel would trigger an economic, industrial, and financial crisis of immense proportions around the world. The financial and speculative house of cards, that the ruling classes of the U.S.-led Finance Capital Bloc depends on for their dominance of world capital and markets, would likely come tumbling down. The amount of derivatives that are swirling about the planet and that are traded and created constantly is estimated to be from $1.2 - $2.5 Quadrillion. That's right from $1,200 - $2,500 Trillion or $1,200,000 - $2,500,000 Billion {remember Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who once said "a billion here and a billion there and first thing you know, You're talking BIG MONEY!!} (See "World Derivatives Market Estimated As Big As $1.2 Quadrillion Notional, as Banks Fight Efforts to Rein It In", March 26, 2013, Yves Smith, "Naked Capitalism", at < https://www.nakedcapitalism... >, and "Iran Goes for 'Maximum Counter-pressure' ", June 21, 2019, Pepe Escobar, "Strategic Culture Foundation", at < https://www.strategic-cultu... >, and "Global Derivatives: $1.5 Quadrillion Time Bomb", Aug 24, 2015, Stephen Lendman, Global Research, at
< https://www.globalresearch.... >). Just like during the 2007 - 2008 crisis the various elements of shadow banking, and speculation would collapse. Remember that total world production of and trade in actual products is only about about $70 - $80 Trillion, or perhaps less than 1/31st the size of the Global Derivatives markets.

All the world's elite capitalists, be they Western or Asian or from elsewhere, maintain homes in numerous places. One reason for this is so they have somewhere to go, if they need to flee from environmental and/or socioeconomic disaster and the resultant chaos in their primary place of residence. As we move ever deeper into this extremely severe and ongoing Crisis of Capitalism, these issues will continue to become more acute.

So we can rest assured that; in addition to the crazed war-mongers Bolton and Pompeo (and their supporters and backers) whispering in Trump's ear to "go ahead and attack the Iranians"; and in addition to the somewhat more sober counsel of General Dunford and other members of the top military command; that titans of finance capital were undoubtedly on the phone warning "Bone-Spur Don" that his digs in Manhattan and Florida might not be entirely safe if the worst were to happen in response to a military strike. The absurd story of Don worrying about 150 Iranians is so ludicrous that it did not even pass the smell test with the corporate controlled media for very long.

Irandle dmorista2 days ago
Oil reached $147 a barrel in 2007-08. That caused the so-called Great Recession.

As WSWS has pointed out there are few if any US options left but war.

Charlotte Ruse3 days ago
"Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic global consequences, including for the United States itself."

The military/security surveillance state is a trillion dollar enterprise that instigates conflicts to expand its profits. Militarism works hand-in-hand with the neoliberal corporatists who deploy the military to secure natural resources, wage slaves, and geostrategic hegemony. It should be noted, that the US imperialist agenda left unhindered after the dissolution of the Soviet Union only intensified.

However, in order for the US ruling class to achieve the "ultimate goal" of unilateral hegemony in the Middle East the military must confront Iran a powerful sizable country with economic and political ties to China and Russia. This is the dilemma confronting the warmongering psychopaths
who are influenced by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war.

What should traumatize the US population and awaken them from their hypnotic warmongering stupur created by propaganda proliferated on FOX, MSNBC, and CNN is that the United States came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had NOT seriously examined.

John Hudson3 days ago
There's a rumour going around that in preparation for the strike the US launched a massive cyber attack on Iran's air defence - and failed.
Ahson John Hudson3 days ago
Its no rumor:

https://sputniknews.com/mid...

Sebouh803 days ago
In light of these dangerous events it is obvious that a faction of the American ruling class circles including Trump were not prepared to face the consequences of a strike against Iran. That is precisely why Trump aborted the mission last Friday. Just yesterday Trump himself admitted for the first time that if it was up to John Bolton then we would be fighting the whole world. Today Pompeo has been sent to Middle East to broaden his alliance with Gulf Monarchical regimes most notably Saudi Arabia and UAE. It is aimed to prepare the ground for possible confrontation with Iran.
kurumba Sebouh802 days ago
Trump's comment re Bolton that the US "would fight the whole world" sums up what the US is really about. Take it from me, The US hates virtually every country save one: Israel. Illegal US Sanctions regimes now extend to almost 50% of the world's population. The US does not even like the advanced countries such as Europe and Japan. They tolerate them because of diplomatic support and large investment and trade ties. Outside that they have no affinity or connection. Until we all realise the true nature of The US and its exclusive cultural mindset [NFL, NBA, MLB etc etc], populations will merely continue to enable the US to attack and sanction everybody and anyone of their demented choosing. The tragedy is that if the other countries became united and were committed to ending this US terror by eg dumping the US Dollar as international reserve currency and sanctioning all US corporations, the US would face severe turmoil and its reign of endless terror brought to a sudden end.
Popart 20153 days ago • edited
"The strikes were called off at the last moment, amid deep divisions at the highest levels of the White House and the Pentagon over the consequences -- military, diplomatic and political -- of what would likely be the single most dangerous and reckless action of the entire Trump presidency."

I believe things simple didn't go as planned as an airplane was threatened to be taken down. Bolton was in Israel after that to most likely assure Netanyahu that a new attack would be conducted, Bolton Warned Iran Not to 'Mistake U.S. Prudence and Discretion for Weakness'...

https://www.nytimes.com/201...

Ahson3 days ago • edited
There needs to be a correction in the article on the older Raad system not having been used but instead the newer, 'Third of Khordad' system which brought down the MQ-4C Triton. Pictures/ Info on the Third of Khordad reveals that it is in effect an Iranian version of the Soviet Buk-M2 of the MH-17 downing fame which the western backed Kiev junta used from its hand me down Soviet weapons arsenal, to shoot down the ill fated Malaysian Airliner over the Ukraine. The system also is stark evidence of the close defense relationship between the Russians and the Iranians, confirming the suspicions in the west that whatever weaponry Putin transfers to Syria or Iraq is by default also available to Iran.
Andy Niklaus3 days ago
Great Perspective again to build antiwar movement in the global workingclass!
Ahson3 days ago • edited
Not to be outdone by his failure to bring Iran to its knees, Trump ordered a massive cyber attack on Iran's missile batteries and its command and control centers after rescinding the military order to physically attack Iran for downing the drone. The Iranians today announced the failure of this desperate US cyber attack:

https://www.presstv.com/Det...

This is in addition to the CIA placing an agent within the Iranian oil ministry for conducting sabotage. She has been arrested and faces the death penalty for espionage:

https://www.tasnimnews.com/...

The deep State in the US will not stop trying to subdue Iran until it capitulates. Iran must fall to Washington in order for the US to effectively counter and sabotage both Putin's Eurasian Integration and president Xi's BRI projects.

imaduwa3 days ago
Trump's alterration at this moment can be due to Iran's internal coherence against American imperialism. With santions being reinforced, one can anticipate more and more impovershment and quality of life geting lower unabated to the point that the basis for internal coherence gets eroded substantially. We saw working class uprisings in Iran recently and leadership accused imperialist as rabble-rousers to find a way out.That is why we need building SEP/IYSSE in Iran to hatch revolutionary force in Iran for Iran to join the peer in the rest of the world. Morsi in Egypt was overthrown by Sisi with the backing of US imperialism headed by Obama at that time. So is the imperialism and it will continue to work to weaken Iran as a force successfully confronting imperialism in the middle east currently. Let us therefore empower international working class to empower it to overthrow imperialism on one hand and Stalinism on the other hand. Russia too depend largely on its arms sale to maintain its economy. But human needs, not wepons, but basic needs including clean environment. Long live the socialist revolution in Iran and internationally. Death to imperialism. Thank you comrade Andre Damon.
jet1685 • 3 days ago
"The strikes were called off at the last moment, amid deep divisions at the highest levels of the White House and the Pentagon over the consequences -- military, diplomatic and political -- of what would likely be the single most dangerous and reckless action of the entire Trump presidency."
Economically it would be Armageddon. Although some think America does not rely on Mideast oil, the world economy does and America is a part of that despite what nationalists dream. Bolton is making threats from Israel and clearly some believe they stand to gain from war but militarily too it would be Armageddon. The Pentagon would answer the sinking of a carrier by nuking Iran to preserve American "credibility" i.e. fear. China and Russia would have to react, China at least to keep its oil supplied. India pushed against China could add more mushroom clouds not to mention Pakistan. Israel itself with Tel Aviv bombarded from Lebanon and maybe invaded unable to stop this might nuke Lebanon and maybe Tehran if any of it remains and Damascus besides. Just as ww1 started because military train timetables had to be followed there are nukewar plans in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing that won't take long. So world workers need to start our plan before others begin. Preemptive general strikes, antiwar and socialist revolutionary agitation and propaganda within imperialist rank and files and human blockades of war material networks should happen at an early date like now. Now also WikiLeaks should put out whatever it hasn't while people exist to read it. The rich are determined to kill Assange anyway and full wartime censorship is not far off.
erroll jet16853 days ago • edited
Some people have speculated that if the U.S. does attack Iran then Iran will launch missiles at Saudi Arabia's oil fields which will then send oil prices skyrocketing to $130 dollars a barrel. The article also notes that:

"While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote."

Apparently the good general cannot get too worked up at the sight of thousands and thousands of Iranian children, women, and old men who would be slaughtered and grievously wounded by U.S. bombs and the water supply which would be contaminated when those bombs would land at a nuclear power plant. But these horrific actions by the United States are of no consequence because, as Madeline Albright observed on a television a few decades ago, the deaths of a half million Iraqi children by the U.S. was worth it. It would appear that the lives of foreigners are of little consequence to those who are in power. Threatening to start a war against another country for the most specious of reasons is simply another reason why a malignant narcissist like Trump needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. Or perhaps Trump believes that the best way to improve his low poll numbers is to start dropping 500 lb. bombs on a country which does not in any remote way pose a threat to the United States.

"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and millions being spent on 'Defense'."-John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer

"Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god."-Jean Rostand [1894-1977], French philosopher and biologist

лидия3 days ago
When a FOX-news man is the most sane voice in USA foreign policy (regarding aggression against Iran and Venezuela) - it is the real madness!
лидия3 days ago
After Hezballah had booted Zionist colonizers out of Lebanon, Zionist apartheid had lost its image of "invincibility".
Now even ghetto Gaza is fighting back.
Irandle3 days ago
Spies? What is that in reference to?
Gerry Murphy Irandle3 days ago • edited
The CIA payrolled press whores like CNN's Christiane Amanpour for example a prime warmonger and there are countless others embedded in every western media source.
Ahson Gerry Murphy3 days ago
Ironically, Amanpour is Iranian background, an avowed revolution hater and a devoted Iranian Pahlavi monarchist. She's on the record for saying that she wants to see the Shah's exiled son back on the throne in Iran, serving US imperialism for the 'benefit of the Iranian nation'.
The Top-Hatted Commie3 days ago
The sinking of an aircraft carrier, especially one as well known as the USS Lincoln, would have been one of the biggest PR disasters for both Trump and the military. It probably would have sparked demands from the people to know how, despite pouring trillions of dollars into the mouths of greedy defense contractors for decades, a supposedly inferior military could so easily take down one of our ships.
piet The Top-Hatted Commie3 days ago
Khrushchev once said of the Sverdlov class cruisers built in the early 1950's that their only practical purpose was as targets for anti ship missile training because of how outdated they where considering they where armed with guns.

Maybe the anti-ship missile now stands at the point where it can make carriers obsolete similar to how the battleship was made obsolete by the carrier.

Robert Buell Jr piet3 days ago
There are some who argue that surface navies became obsolete in the 1950's with the advent of long range missiles. For many years now, China has been helping to build up Iranian area defences...

https://www.mei.edu/publica...

Ahson The Top-Hatted Commie3 days ago • edited
Cold war weapons are unsuitable for countering Iran's asymmetric warfare doctrine. A dozen or two highly advanced US warships are no match for a thousand missile boats and thousands of Iranian anti-ship missiles in the narrow confines of the shallow gulf.
Corwin Haught3 days ago • edited
Minutes or hours, or Trump never signed on to them, as the accounts from different US media outlets and Trump have differed at several points. Fog of war indeed.

[Jun 27, 2019] Dem candidates has roundly criticized Trump for his approach to Iran. Many of the leading candidates said last week's military confrontation spawned from a crisis of the president's own making, precipitated by his withdrawal from that landmark accord.

That's good line of attack on Trump. People do not want yet another war and they are against overinflated military expenditures. and Trump essentially behaves like a rabid subservant to Israel neocon in those area. So he might share the Hillary destiny in 2020
Jun 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Don Bacon , Jun 27, 2019 12:15:59 AM | 106
The Dem debaters want the failed JCPOA back, except one wants a more punitive one. So it's Obama/Trump redux with all of them, worthless people. We're less safe with Iranians . . .under the bed!

McClatchy

Klobuchar said that Trump's strategy on Iran had "made us less safe," after debate moderators took note of increased military tensions in the Strait of Hormuz last week. Washington has accused Iran of targeting shipping vessels, and Tehran acknowledged it shot down an unmanned U.S. drone on Thursday, nearly prompting Trump to order a retaliatory military strike. The 2015 nuclear deal "was imperfect, but it was a good deal for that moment," Klobuchar stated, characterizing the agreement's "sunset periods" – caps on Iran's enrichment and stockpiling of fissile material set to expire five to 10 years from the next inauguration– as a potential point of renegotiation.

The Democratic field has roundly criticized Trump for his approach to Iran. Many of the leading candidates said last week's military confrontation spawned from a crisis of the president's own making, precipitated by his withdrawal from that landmark accord.

But up until now, the Democratic candidates have not specified how they would salvage a deal that continues to fray – and that may collapse completely under the weight of steadily broadening U.S. sanctions by the time a new president could be sworn in.

Few Democrats had thus far hedged over adopting the agreement entirely should they win the presidency even if the deal survives that long. Leading candidates have characterized the nuclear agreement as "imperfect" and in need of "strengthening," suggesting subtle distinctions within the field over the potential conditions of U.S. re-entry into a pact. . . here


I've got a deal for them to salvage, get off your GD pedestals and say hello to the real world! . . .There, I feel better now.

[Jun 27, 2019] Short US-Iran war 'an illusion', Zarif tells Trump USA News Al Jazeera

Jun 27, 2019 | www.aljazeera.com

Iran's foreign minister has dismissed US President Donald Trump 's claim that a war between their countries would be short-lived, as Washington sought NATO's help to build an anti-Tehran coalition.

"'Short war' with Iran is an illusion," Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter on Thursday, a day after Trump said he did not want a war with Iran but warned that if fighting did break out, it "wouldn't last very long".

Tehran has accused the United States of "economic terrorism" and "psychological warfare" over the Trump administration's application of punishing sanctions after the US president last year unilaterally withdrew Washington from an historic nuclear deal with world powers. Under the 2015 agreement, Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

In his Twitter post, Zarif said the reimposed and tightened US sanctions "aren't an alternative to war - they are war".

[Jun 27, 2019] Iran Hawks Want to Create an Even Bigger Crisis by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... Iran hawks want to force Iran out of the deal to give them a pretext for conflict. These waivers are their latest target because without them other governments may be leery of cooperating on the nuclear projects that give Iran an incentive to remain in the deal. Iran has very few reasons to remain in the deal at this point, and canceling the waivers would likely be the last straw. This is what Bolton and his allies have been working towards all along. When the waivers came up for renewal this spring, the administration extended them, but now there is a real danger that they won't do that again. The last time this came up, Jarrett Blanc explained why extending the waivers is the obviously correct thing to do: ..."
"... Canceling the waivers would be another escalation by the Trump administration, and it would almost certainly prompt Iranian countermoves to further reduce or end their compliance with the deal. The Iran hawks in the administration may think they want a bigger crisis with Iran, but they may not like it when they get one. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Politico reports that the most rabid Iran hawks in the Senate and inside the administration are pushing to cancel the remaining waivers that enable international cooperation on civilian nuclear projects in Iran. Their explicit goal is to destroy the last pieces of the deal that the U.S. hasn't directly attacked yet.

The report has some interesting details, but the framing of the debate is awful:

Proponents of the nuclear deal have argued that the international nuclear projects facilitated by the waivers help give the U.S. greater visibility and intelligence into Iranian activities; critics say they give an international stamp of approval to Iran's illicit activities.

This is a great example of how ostensibly "neutral" reporting favors the side acting and arguing in bad faith. What "illicit activities" are supported by these waivers? There aren't any. The report makes it sound as if there are two equally valid, competing positions, but one of them is completely false. The hawks' objections to them have nothing to do with opposition to "illicit activities" and everything to do with their hatred for the deal. The activities that the waivers facilitate are endorsed by the JCPOA and a U.N. Security Council resolution.

They cannot be illicit because they are entirely consistent with Iran's obligations and international law. The U.S. has been providing these waivers up until now because of the obvious nonproliferation benefits that everyone derives from the deal, and the people that want to end the waivers are doing so because they don't care about nonproliferation.

Iran hawks want to force Iran out of the deal to give them a pretext for conflict. These waivers are their latest target because without them other governments may be leery of cooperating on the nuclear projects that give Iran an incentive to remain in the deal. Iran has very few reasons to remain in the deal at this point, and canceling the waivers would likely be the last straw. This is what Bolton and his allies have been working towards all along. When the waivers came up for renewal this spring, the administration extended them, but now there is a real danger that they won't do that again. The last time this came up, Jarrett Blanc explained why extending the waivers is the obviously correct thing to do:

Failing to renew the waivers would be indefensible. The fact that there is even an internal debate is illuminating: At least some Trump advisors want a crisis with Iran, and the sooner the better.

Withdrawing waivers for civil nuclear cooperation may sound less aggressive than steps like the overhyped Guard Corps designation, but it is one of the most dangerous steps the administration has left, threatening the international nuclear cooperation that is Iran's only remaining practical benefit from the deal.

Canceling the waivers would be another escalation by the Trump administration, and it would almost certainly prompt Iranian countermoves to further reduce or end their compliance with the deal. The Iran hawks in the administration may think they want a bigger crisis with Iran, but they may not like it when they get one.

[Jun 27, 2019] Iranian viewpoit in MoA blog

Jun 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Capt. Abdul Hassan , Jun 26, 2019 8:10:38 PM | 79

You Americans are for the most part cluelss.

Very few Americans have any realisation at all (certainly non that I have spoken to below the rank of Army Colonel or Navy Captain anyway) that a war with Iran will leave 100s of thousands if not millions of Americans dead, many capital ships at the bottom of the Gulf and the Med (think hard about how that will happen in the Med), and the US a broken 3rd world nation, if the states even stay together to maintain a 'US'.

You need to realise that the middle east (to include Cyprus and Turkey) will be cut off to you. No resupply, no support, no evac. There will be no troops left in the middle east to bring home after a few days of fighting exhaust all ammp and supplies and all positions are then overun or destroyed.

Every last troop in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan will be wiped out, and there will be no way at all of deploying any more troops (think why).

The shock to the weak American Psyche will be amplified by assymetrical spec ops / gorrilla warefare in every US city.

To begin with there will be gas station fires and power line cuts in every US town and city, followed by bridge collpases, interstate highway failures, railroad failures and then destruction, food and medical warehouse fires, forest fires, container port sabotage, cell phone and radio tower destruction, water mains destruction, sewage mains destruction, and of course contamination of water reservoirs - all of which are very simple and easy assymetrical attacks that can be rolled out nationwide by only by a few hundred well trained individuals (already well embedded).

Add these simple WW2 partisan style acts to other acts of sabotage against fire, ambulance, and police infrastruture (again, all very simple and easy assymetrical attacks) and the worst elements of your own society will continue and further amplify the conflageration.

The cities will implode and feed upon themselves, and when the carnage reaches a platau, or simply a stage that invites escalation, then the next phase begins - think MANPADS at every airport to bring down all relief flights and national guard units, ATGMs and HMG against military and police units, snipers against any opertunistic target - anywhere at any time.

There are further steps which I wont describe lest it give certain people ideas, but in the space of just 2 weeks the entire US could brought to its knees and made to realise that every nation on the earth, except the us, hates war and tries to avoid it.

If the US people think they can nuke Iran, kill millions more muslims, and then go back to watching the ball game they should think again.

The Iranians (and Russians and Chinese too) have been planning for a war with the US for decades.

The Iranians know full well that their cities will be nuked, but the Iranians believe the US is the embodyment of Satan (and they have lots of evidence to suggest this is indeed true) so they will fight without regard to life, to pain and to massive losses.

They, and there allies will utterly wipe out ever last US military unit in the middle east and bring the Continental US to its knees in ways few can yet imagine.

Yes, Iran will be glass, but the US will be ashes, or at least no longer a us - as much a victim of its own complexity and ignorance as any missiles or explosives used by Iranian spec ops.

A war with Iran will be the last war the US ever fights. It may 'win' but at what cost.


Don Bacon , Jun 26, 2019 9:34:15 PM | 86

@ Capt. Abdul Hassan 76
Thank you for that, very insighful, perhaps a little over the top, but right on.
Sunny Runny Burger , Jun 27, 2019 10:59:29 AM | 139
Don Bacon I think you're right and in addition the amendment won't matter because the exceptions are so encompassing nearly anything goes.

I'm going to crosspost the scenario (all I posted was the scenario, not the stuff afterwards):

1. US false flags in Iranian vicinity.
2. US military deaths due to provoked Iranian action.
3. US limited strikes.
4. US false flag Iranian dirty bomb in US city using surplus enriched material bought from Iran.
5. US submits evidence of Iranian nuclear attack in UNSC.
6. US attacks Iran using nuclear weapons.

A few (?) didn't buy 1 but the US got stuck on 2 so far and might get stuck on 3 as well.

How can one make 4 fail except to talk about it so people have a chance to think of it as a possibility when it happens?

5 is for "perception" and narrative, it doesn't matter if the UNSC doesn't agree with what the US says or the entire world ridicules the US or if the entire world starts marching like they "magically" and "spontaneously" did before the Iraq war (what was that about? Controlled opposition galore?).

Russia and China are repeatedly telling the US (and everybody else) what 6 will mean.

[Jun 27, 2019] Deal of the Century or Eon of Disasters by Jamal Kanj

Jun 27, 2019 | ahtribune.com

The Trumpian hyperbole marketing brand had generated unrealistic expectations for the "Deal of the Century." For over a year and a half, Jared Kushner promised but missed at least three dates to unveil the "secret" plan.

Assisted by two bono fide Zionists, Special Envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt and US Ambassador David Friedman, Kushner's lone political experience with Palestine/Israel is his family's tax deductible contributions to building "Jewish only colonies."

Kushner's predisposed conviction and his parochial bias were palpable in the June 2nd interview with Axios on HBO. In the interview, he opined that Palestinians were not "capable of governing" themselves or become free from Israeli occupation.

After more than a year of hyped promotion, Kushner's Zionist team revealed a scaled down version of Trump's "concrete plan." Evident in the leaked conference agenda, the goal of Kushner's gathering is not to offer economic support to Palestinians, but rather to provide a cover-up for opening the doors of Arab capitals to Israeli officials.

Israel gets the reward of the illusionary peace upfront while US tantalizes to Arabs a peace process that may never materialize. Deferring and circumventing political process is archetypical Israeli trademark strategy that seeks to harvest fruits before the tree blossoms. Hence, the fruits of the US proposed miniature workshop in Bahrain.

MORE...

In the Oslo Accord in 1993, the PLO agreed to recognize Israel, in advance, over 78% of historical Palestine. There was no reciprocal Israeli obligation toward the PLO on the remaining 22% (West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza).

A quarter of a century later, peace did not blossom and the only implemented sections of the Oslo Accords were the PLO recognition of Israel. In addition, it relieved Israel of administering the life of five million Palestinians, security coordination and outsourcing―free of cost―the security services to the Palestinian Authority.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to violate and effectively buried the Oslo Accords under new expansive "Jewish only colonies" changing the demographics of the population in areas allotted for the future Palestinian state.

Ten years following the Accord, George W Bush proposed a Road Map for peace. To placate Israeli reservations, Bush rewarded Israel, in advance, with an official American letter agreeing to annex "Jewish only colonies" in the West Bank as part of any future peace agreement.

Israel crushed Bush's Road Map under the bulldozers of yet more "Jewish only colonies." The American letter remains the sole outcome of the Road Map. Greenblatt and Friedman are using Bush's letter to advocate Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Kushner's economic peace is an age old Israeli contrived gas bubble intends to skirt compliance with international law and UN resolutions. Shimon Peres floated the idea to equivocate Israel's commitments under the Oslo Accords. Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revived it in 2009 to sidestep the American (Bush and Obama) administration's support for two-state solution.

Yet, for quarter of a century since the establishment of the Palestinian authority, Israel had systematically strangled the very economy it (and now Kushner) claims to champion.

Since 1993, the European Union invested billions of dollars in economic infrastructure, including an airport and seaport in Gaza. In 2002 after the failure of Camp David, Israel obliterated both facilities denying Palestinians access to trade and fishing.

To further stifle the economy, Israel erected walls separating farmers from their olive groves and farms, spiked the West Bank with intrusive military checkpoints encumbering the movement of goods, divided towns and cities and misappropriated tax money held on Palestinian imports.

Kushner and Israel's invented economic peace is a political shenanigan to sedate the bird cage (walled) economy, or leverage it in the form of collective punishment to suppress resistance and subjugate Palestinians.

Like Oslo Accords, the Road Map, and now ahead of rolling the political plan for the "Deal of Century", Trump conferred on Israel another advanced installment by recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, cut financial aid to Palestinians including UN organizations, and the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights without any Israeli concession.

In addition to normalizing contacts between Arabs attending the Manama workshop and Israel (another advanced installment), Kushner's plan would relegate the cost of the caged Palestinian economy to Arab countries, gifting Israel yet more freebies without negotiation.

Kushner economic peace workshop is a false allure to salve Palestinian (and Arab) capitulation before rolling out the eon of all political disasters. Jamal Kanj was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon ten years after the creation of the state of Israel. He moved to the United States in late 1977, and has been active in various local and national political organizations. Like so many other Palestinians, the life of Jamal Kanj has been an odyssey of conflict, displacement and resettlement and Jamal Kanj is expressing a lifetime experience with the Palestinian diaspora and struggle against and with the occupation through his writings. Jamal Kanj is columnist at several newspapers and websites.

[Jun 27, 2019] Trump's Underwhelming Deal for Palestine and the Gulf Monarchies' Complicated Ties with Israel Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... Telling was the 40-page proposal put out earlier this month by the White House, which used the terms "investment" and "financing" dozens of times, yet never once mentioned "occupation." Dan Kurtzer, who previously served as Washington's ambassador to Israel and Egypt and is now a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University, tweeted : "I would give this so-called plan a 'C' from an undergraduate student. The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing." ..."
"... Can anyone explain the complete inappropriateness & Cronyism of Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, in negotiating this sham of a Deal? This is the "Con of the Century" not the Deal of the Century? Jared Kushner never got out of Bibi's Bed & his flawed Plan is a $50 Billion dollar loan bribe, a LOAN not a Hand out & where this money is coming from, as it's not coming from America but supposedly from non-existent Arabian Financial sources is a mystery? ..."
"... An investor would have to be an utter idiot to put funds into Palestinian infrastructure because the Israelis would promptly destroy it in their next military incursion. Investment without rock solid perpetual peace is just money down the drain. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The U.S.-backed two-day "Peace to Prosperity" summit in Bahrain on Tuesday and Wednesday was designed to advance the Trump administration's vision for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But without any significant Palestinian representation at the summit, as well as the absence of any Israeli government officials, the gathering was ultimately little more than a face-saving effort on the White House's part following two years of the administration's "futile" peacemaking efforts.

The conference is understood to have laid the foundation for the "Deal of the Century." The details have yet to be released, although the White House claims it will unveil the plan following Israel's elections in September. Yet some details have leaked, leading the Palestinian Authority to declare it dead on arrival. Virtually all Palestinian factions are united in opposition to it.

Telling was the 40-page proposal put out earlier this month by the White House, which used the terms "investment" and "financing" dozens of times, yet never once mentioned "occupation." Dan Kurtzer, who previously served as Washington's ambassador to Israel and Egypt and is now a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University, tweeted : "I would give this so-called plan a 'C' from an undergraduate student. The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing."

The "workshop" in Bahrain began with President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner delivering a speech in which he unveiled a $50 billion economic package intended to "unleash" the Palestinians' potential as well as help develop neighboring Lebanon and Jordan. Kushner referred to a "bustling tourist center in Gaza" without acknowledging Israel's siege of the coastal strip and the dire humanitarian crises in the blockaded enclave. IMF Director Christine Lagarde spoke about applying lessons from Mozambique to Palestine. Steve Schwarzman, an American billionaire whose personal wealth exceeds Palestine's annual GDP, advised the Palestinians to follow the model of Singapore. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, hailed the "workshop" as an "attempt to jumpstart the Palestinian economy" and "improve the quality of life of Palestinians."

Unrealistic and Disingenuous

Undeniably, the White House's plans for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are as unrealistic as they are disingenuous. With an ongoing conflict and no clearly defined borders, it is at best naïve to imagine the Occupied Palestinian Territories fostering a climate that is ripe for foreign investment. Building a tourism sector and stimulating vibrant economic growth under occupation are also unrealistic. Whereas Kushner sought to first discuss the economic dimensions of the Palestinians' problems while saving meetings over the political ones for later, he fails to understand how Palestine's economic crises are linked to politics. Put simply, the Palestinians will not be able to achieve economic development through some foreign-driven technocratic plan without finding a solution to the political issues at the heart of the conflict.

The Palestinian view is that the White House is simply trying to liquidate their cause by buying them off with foreign money. Moreover, no experts believe that the Trump administration has the political or diplomatic capital to serve as a credible mediator between the Palestinians and Israel. The White House has absolutely no goodwill among Palestinians, particularly in the aftermath of the administration formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and slashing funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

As the first U.S. administration to officially reject the two-state solution as the basis for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the current White House represents an opportunity for Israel to cement its colonization of territory in land annexed during 1967. As such, the "Deal of the Century" is about the consolidation of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and a way toward establishing a "second homeland" for Palestinians in Jordan and/or Egypt. The Israeli UN ambassador's opinion piece in The New York Times , which called for a Palestinian "surrender" and was published just before the Bahrain summit kicked off, essentially summed up both the Israeli government and the Trump administration's views on the Palestinian question.

GCC-Israel Ties

Nonetheless, although the summit did not raise important questions about Palestinian-Israeli relations, it raised some about Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member-states and Israel's gradual normalization of ties. That this summit was held in Bahrain was not a major surprise considering that the archipelago kingdom has led the GCC in terms of moving toward normalization of relations with Israel.

Indeed, Bahrain's openness to closer relations with the Jewish state was on display in September 2017 when Prince Nasser bin Hamad al-Khalifa attended a multinational event in Los Angeles where two American rabbis stated that the king of Bahrain had voiced his opposition to the Arab League's economic boycott of Israel. As the "Peace to Prosperity" workshop began, the Bahraini Crown Prince welcomed delegates with a message that called the Bahraini capital, Manama, the Gulf's most religiously diverse city and referenced its tiny Jewish community. Notably, Bahrain's former Jewish ambassador to Washington, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, attended the summit.

Much like the dynamics which have brought other GCC member-states closer to Israel, a mutual perception of Iran as a threat is at the heart of Bahrain's interest in establishing warmer ties with Tel Aviv. Yet for Bahrain and other Arabian Peninsula monarchies -- until the Palestinian issue is resolved -- prospects for moving toward a full normalization of relations will remain complicated.

Whereas Kuwait stands out as the only country in the GCC that principally rejects this trend of Gulf states moving in the direction of normalizing ties with Israel, it is the GCC's only semi-democracy, thus this firm "pro-Palestinian" stance partially reflects pressures from Kuwaiti public opinion.

... ... ...


Rong Cao , June 27, 2019 at 13:53

Isn't GCC on the brink of the collapse a while ago when the US congress threatened to sue GCC for manipulate the oil prices? Guess now that the US has become a world major oil exporter, GCC has stood on its way. So the patriarchy inside GCC, namely Saudi Arabia, has been colluding with the US and Israel to pay $50 billion to Palestinians authority for the purchase of Israeli's occupied lands once for all. Indeed a deal of the century for President Trump.

KiwiAntz , June 27, 2019 at 04:28

Can anyone explain the complete inappropriateness & Cronyism of Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, in negotiating this sham of a Deal? This is the "Con of the Century" not the Deal of the Century? Jared Kushner never got out of Bibi's Bed & his flawed Plan is a $50 Billion dollar loan bribe, a LOAN not a Hand out & where this money is coming from, as it's not coming from America but supposedly from non-existent Arabian Financial sources is a mystery?

And in order to receive this blood money, Palestinian's only have to surrender what's left of their Country & the illegal settlements, any chance of a 2 State solution & other humiliating concessions to Apartheid Israel, such as any Sovereignty claims to their own Lands? And I state it's Palestinian's Land," THEIR COUNTRY" not the illegal, immoral Land Usurper called the Nation of Israel?

This Land of Palestine, illegally occupied since 1948 by repatriated Jews from a devastated, War ravaged Europe, as a bloodguilt reward from the Allies, for their failure in preventing the Holocaust & genocide of the Jews during WW2?The idiotic English came up with the disastrous plan to repatriate these European Jewish people to a already occupied Land called Palestine? And for the record, the Historical Jews lost their claims to these Lands, as was prophesied in the Bible following their rejection & complicity in the Death of the Messiah?

JC stated their "House (or Nation) would be abandoned to them" as a result of their rejection of him, being the Son of God! This was confirmed in the year 70 B.C.E when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, destroying all their records, the Temple & killing one million people with the survivors taken into captivity! The confirmation of the loss of Divine favour & Gods utter rejection of the Jewish Nation & people was that God allowed the Roman destruction to occur without any direct intervention on his part! That was the end of the Nation State of Ancient Israel! When this happened, it became inhabited by Arab Tribes & gradually became Palestine?

This Modern Day interpretation of a Nation State of Israel is a monstrosity, a human construct not a Theocratic Nation created by God!

This Plan is a utter waste of Time & other peoples money as Palestinian's want a Political solution as mandated by the UN, not a blood money, loan bribe by Trumps crony Capitalist, son in law, in league with Uncle Bibi Netanyahu!

Moi , June 27, 2019 at 02:40

An investor would have to be an utter idiot to put funds into Palestinian infrastructure because the Israelis would promptly destroy it in their next military incursion. Investment without rock solid perpetual peace is just money down the drain.

[Jun 27, 2019] 'The Ugly Americans' From Kermit Roosevelt to John Bolton Iran Al Jazeera

Highly recommended!
Jun 27, 2019 | www.aljazeera.com

Sixty-six years later, I am witnessing how another "Ugly American" is walking in the footsteps of Roosevelt. His name is John Bolton, a chief advocate of the disastrous US invasion of Iraq, a nefarious Islamophobe, and former chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute. This infamous institution is known for spreading lies about Muslims - claiming there is a looming "jihadist takeover" that can lead to a "Great White Death" - to incite hatred against them and intimidate, silence, and alienate them.

In his diabolical plans to wage war on Iran, Bolton is taking a page from Roosevelt's playbook. Just as the CIA operative used venal Iranian politicians and fake news to incite against the democratically elected Iranian government, today his successor, the US national security adviser, is seeking to spread misinformation on a massive scale and set up a false flag operation with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant terrorist organisation. Meanwhile, he has also pressed forward with debilitating sanctions that are further worsening the economic crisis in the country and making the lives of ordinary Iranians unbearable.

... ... ...

Bolton is the dreadful residue of the pure violence and wanton cruelty that drive Zionist Christian zealots in their crusades against Muslims. He is the embodiment of the basest and most racist roots of American imperialism.

The regime he serves is the most naked and vulgar face of brutish power, lacking any semblance of legitimacy - a bullying coward flexing its military muscles. At its helm is an arrogant mercantile president, who - faced with the possibility of an impeachment - has no qualms about using the war machine at his disposal to regain political relevance and line his pockets.

But the world must know Americans are not all ugly, they are not all rabid imperialists - Boltons and Roosevelts. What about those countless noble Americans - the sons and daughters of the original nations that graced this land, of the African slaves who were brought to this land in chains, of the millions after millions of immigrants who came to these shores in desperation or hope from the four corners of the earth? Do they not have a claim on this land too - to redefine it and bring it back to the bosom of humanity?

[Jun 27, 2019] For a man who did whatever he could to avoid fighting in a war, Bolton certainly seems to love the concept.

Jun 27, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

Sally Snyder , June 27, 2019 at 08:18

Here is an interesting look at John Bolton's Three State Solution for the Middle East:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/john-boltons-three-state-middle-east.html

For a man who did whatever he could to avoid fighting in a war, he certainly seems to love the concept.

[Jun 27, 2019] Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic global consequences, including for the United States itself."

Notable quotes:
"... A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war. ..."
"... "While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote." ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Charlotte Ruse3 days ago

"Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic global consequences, including for the United States itself."

The military/security surveillance state is a trillion dollar enterprise that instigates conflicts to expand its profits. Militarism works hand-in-hand with the neoliberal corporatists who deploy the military to secure natural resources, wage slaves, and geostrategic hegemony. It should be noted, that the US imperialist agenda left unhindered after the dissolution of the Soviet Union only intensified.

However, in order for the US ruling class to achieve the "ultimate goal" of unilateral hegemony in the Middle East the military must confront Iran a powerful sizable country with economic and political ties to China and Russia. This is the dilemma confronting the warmongering psychopaths
who are influenced by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war.

What should traumatize the US population and awaken them from their hypnotic warmongering stupur created by propaganda proliferated on FOX, MSNBC, and CNN is that the United States came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had NOT seriously examined.

erroll -> jet16853 days ago • edited
Some people have speculated that if the U.S. does attack Iran then Iran will launch missiles at Saudi Arabia's oil fields which will then send oil prices skyrocketing to $130 dollars a barrel. The article also notes that:

"While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote."

Apparently the good general cannot get too worked up at the sight of thousands and thousands of Iranian children, women, and old men who would be slaughtered and grievously wounded by U.S. bombs and the water supply which would be contaminated when those bombs would land at a nuclear power plant. But these horrific actions by the United States are of no consequence because, as Madeline Albright observed on a television a few decades ago, the deaths of a half million Iraqi children by the U.S. was worth it. It would appear that the lives of foreigners are of little consequence to those who are in power. Threatening to start a war against another country for the most specious of reasons is simply another reason why a malignant narcissist like Trump needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. Or perhaps Trump believes that the best way to improve his low poll numbers is to start dropping 500 lb. bombs on a country which does not in any remote way pose a threat to the United States.

"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and millions being spent on 'Defense'."-John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer

"Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god."-Jean Rostand [1894-1977], French philosopher and biologist

[Jun 27, 2019] The war has lasted over four years and the blockade has lasted almost as long. The Saudis are relying on mercenaries from as far away as South America, Nepal and parts of Africa. Yet not only are the Houthis still holding out but as you say, there are signs of Saudi collapse in Yemen.

Jun 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Jun 26, 2019 8:03:02 PM | 77

ADKC @ 66:

From the little I know about Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen, Yemen is still subject to a land / sea / air blockade. Saudi warships are patrolling Yemeni maritime territory. So that would probably nix any possibility of Iran sending any kind of support, humanitarian as well as military.

The war has lasted over four years and the blockade has lasted almost as long. The Saudis are relying on mercenaries from as far away as South America , Nepal and parts of Africa. Yet not only are the Houthis still holding out but as you say, there are signs of Saudi collapse in Yemen.

My hunch is that huge numbers of soldiers are defecting from the Saudi forces and bringing with them equipment, vehicles, ammunition, advice and logistics support to the Houthis. Among other things, this would account for large losses of Saudi military equipment and the enormous wastage. Perhaps some mercenaries have also switched sides. But as I have said here in past MoA comments forums, I can't prove that defections are occurring. Maybe I'm not using the "right" keywords on Google Chrome, DuckDuckGo or other search engines to find the information, or perhaps this particular narrative is a no-go zone.

Don Bacon , Jun 26, 2019 9:25:38 PM | 85

@ Jen 74
Thanks for your concern for Yemen, and reports from the area.
Please be aware that the outcome of military conflicts are more dependant upon the people affected than anything. It took the US three years to "pacify" Baghdad, because Iraqis didn't want Americans there, and they still don't as a matter of fact.
Yemenis don't want Saudi control of their land and that has more meaning than the Saudi mercenaries can bring to the conflict.
In the US Army, the infantry is "the Queen of battle." That's a fancy way of saying that the men engaged in the endeavor, on the ground, are the most important variable. That's why the Houthis in their flip-flops can destroy so many Saudi units. They care. The human element.

[Jun 27, 2019] The Ongoing Restructuring of the Greater Middle East by C.J. Hopkins

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran. ..."
"... Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution. ..."
"... OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran.

Take a good look at this Smithsonian map of where the U.S.A. is "combating terrorism." Note how the U.S. military (i.e., global capitalism's unofficial "enforcer") has catastrophically blundered its way into more or less every nation depicted. Or ask our "allies" in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and so on. OK, you might have to reach them in New York or London, or in the South of France this time of year, but, go ahead, ask them about the horrors they've been suffering on account of our "catastrophic blunders."

See, according to this crackpot conspiracy theory that I would put forth if I were a geopolitical analyst instead of just a political satirist, there have been no "catastrophic policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn't have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.

Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people or the "sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful. Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for business or not.

Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution.

OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running.

This is what Iran and Syria are up against. This is what Russia is up against. Global capitalism doesn't want to nuke them, or occupy them. It wants to privatize them, like it is privatizing the rest of the world, like it has already privatized America according to my crackpot theory, of course.


peterAUS , says: June 25, 2019 at 10:08 pm GMT

if I were a geopolitical analyst, I might be able to discern a pattern there, and possibly even some sort of strategy.

Sounds good.
Some other people did it before, wrote it down etc. but it's always good to see that stuff.

it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East.
.there have been no "catastrophic policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn't have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people or the "sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful. Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for business or not.

Spot on.

Now .there IS a bit of oversight in the article re competing groups of people on top of that "Global capitalist" bunch.
It's a bit more complicated than "Global capitalism".

Jewish heavily influenced, perhaps even controlled, Anglo-Saxon "setup" .. or Russian "setup" or Chinese "setup".
Only one of them can be on the top, and they don't like each other much.
And they all have nuclear weapons.

"Global capitalism" idea is optimistic. The global overwhelming force against little players. No chance of MAD there so not that bad.NOPE IMHO.
There is a chance of MAD.

That is the problem . Well, at least for some people.

WorkingClass , says: June 26, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies. These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off the proles.

I was a union man in my youth. We liked Capitalism. We just wanted our fair share of the loot. The working class today knows nothing about organizing. They don't even know they are working class. They think they are black or white. Woke or Deplorable.

ALL OF US non billionaires are coming up on serious hard times. Serious enough that we might have to put aside our differences. The government is corrupt. It will not save us. Instead it will continue to work to divide us.

Reparations anyone?

animalogic , says: June 26, 2019 at 10:06 am GMT
Another great article by C J Hopkins.
Hopkins (correctly) posits that behind US actions, wars etc lies the global capitalist class.
"Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for business or not"
This is correct -- but requires an important caveat.
Intrinsic to capitalism is imperialism. They are the head & tail of the same coin.
Global capitalists may unite in their rapacious attacks on average citizens the world over. However, they will disunite when it comes to beating a competitor to a market.
The "West" has no (real) ideological differences with China, Russia & Iran. This is a fight between an existing hegemon & it's allies & a rising hegemon (China) & it's allies.
In many ways it's similar to the WW I situation: an established imperial country, the UK, & it's allies against a country with imperial pretensions -- Germany (& it's allies)
To put it in a nice little homily: the Capitalist wolves prefer to eat sheep (us) -- but, will happily eat each other should they perceive a sufficient interest in doing so.
Digital Samizdat , says: June 26, 2019 at 11:49 am GMT
@WorkingClass

Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.

In most key sectors, competition ends up producing monopolies or their near-equivalent, oligopolies. The many are weeded out (or swallowed up) by the few . The situation is roughly the same with democracy, which historically has always resulted in oligarchy, as occurred in ancient Rome and Athens.

Parfois1 , says: June 27, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
@WorkingClass

Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies. These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off the proles.

You are right in expecting that in Capitalism there would be competition – the traditional view that prices would remain low because of competition, the less competitive removed from the field, and so on. But that was primitive laisser-faire Capitalism on a fair playing field that hardly existed but in theory. Occasionally there were some "good" capitalists – say the mill-owner in a Lancashire town who gave employment to the locals, built houses, donated to charity and went to the Sunday church service with his workers. But even that "good" capitalist was in it for the profit, which comes from taking possession for himself of the value added by his workers to a commodity.

But modern Capitalism does not function that way. There are no mill-owners, just absentee investor playing in, usually rigged, stock market casinos. Industrial capitalism has been changed into financial Capitalism without borders and loyalty to worker or country. In fact, it has gone global to play country against country for more profit.

Anyway, the USA has evolved into a Fascist state (an advanced state of capitalism, a.k.a. corporatocracy) as Chomsky stated many years ago. Seen from abroad here's a view from the horse's mouth ( The Guardian is official organ of Globalist Fascism).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

[Jun 27, 2019] Containment Plan How Trump Can Challenge China s Rising Power

This is just think tank swamp vapor. No real analysis, no real recommendation on adaption of the USA to the collapse of global neoliberal system (aka the USA empire)
Jun 27, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

At the heart of the alignment between China and Russia is their shared interest in undermining U.S. influence globally. The two countries are united in their mutual displeasure with the United States and the U.S.-dominated international order that they feel disadvantages them. But while Russia and China may have initially banded together in discontent, their repeated engagement on areas of mutual interest is fostering a deeper and enduring partnership.

It is clear that China will pose the greatest challenge to U.S. interests for the foreseeable future, but Beijing's increasing collaboration with Moscow will amplify that challenge.

... ... ...

Washington must come to terms with this China-Russia alignment and work to address and manage it. To contain the depth of alignment, Washington must look for opportunities to strain the seams in the Russia-China relationship. Russia and China may be drawing closer, but their interests -- and especially their approaches -- are not identical. Russia and China compete in the Middle East, for example, for military sales and nuclear energy deals. And their very different approaches to Europe could be a source of strain. In communicating with Beijing, Washington should underscore how Russian interference in these countries could generate instability that threatens China's growing economic interests.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is focused on combating China's unfair economic practices, a worthy undertaking. But any trade war "victory" will be incomplete if Washington does not address Beijing's challenge, in collaboration with Moscow, to the very fabric of the rules-based order that underpins continued U.S. global leadership and prosperity. Washington will be ineffective if it seeks to go it alone. Pushing back against the illiberal influence of an aligned Russia and China will require the collective heft of Allies and partners. The time is ripe to tackle this issue with America's European Allies. Europe has grown more attuned to -- and concerned about -- the threat that China poses and shares the U.S. imperative to compete with Russia and China.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a senior fellow and director of the Center for New American Security's Transatlantic Security Center.


Gerald Newton an hour ago • edited ,

The US has got to stop engaging in undeclared wars. Russia and China sit by as the US squanders trillions fighting undeclared wars.

jrmagtago an hour ago ,

just divide russia and china which is a solution to your problem.

jrmagtago an hour ago ,

just divide russia and china which is a solution to your problem.

rippled 7 hours ago ,

Contents of the article correlate extremely poorly with the title... I don't see even a semblance of a "containment plan" other than a vague outline that US should ask EU countries something as of yet unspecified...

The usual think tank vapour...

GUSSIE91 9 hours ago ,

Putin and Xi will unite in addition of its allies NK, Iran etc due to the US supremacy ....

[Jun 27, 2019] No One Believes the President's War Claims Anymore

Notable quotes:
"... The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war that deserved retaliation. ..."
"... The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views? ..."
"... Iran is preparing to breach the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more generally. ..."
"... Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting Saudi and American domination of the region. ..."
"... Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is practically excluded." ..."
"... They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

... ... ...

Iran predictably claimed that the drone was within its airspace. American officials asserted that it was in international airspace. Reported by The New York Times :

"a senior Trump administration official said there was concern inside the United States government about whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, or even the P-8A manned aircraft flown by a military aircrew, actually did violate Iranian airspace at some point. The official said the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike."

The point is worth repeating. The military was prepared to blast away when it wasn't even certain whether America was in the right. The episode brings to mind the 1988 shootdown of an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes . Initially the U.S. Navy justified its action, making a series of false claims about Iran Air Flight 655, which carried 290 passengers and crew members. Eventually Washington did admit that it had made a horrific mistake, though the Vincennes captain was later decorated.

The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war that deserved retaliation.

The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views?

Presumably the president believes that he can control his war-happy subordinates, using them as he sees fit. However, his overweening hubris ignores their power to set the agenda and influence his choices. Consider the basic question of objectives regarding Iran. Trump now says all he wants to do is keep nukes out of Tehran's hands: "Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon," he intoned after halting the proposed reprisal, adding that "restraint" has its limits. But the nuclear accord was drafted to forestall an Iranian nuclear weapon. Iran is preparing to breach the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more generally.

Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting Saudi and American domination of the region.

These mandates were an obvious non-starter -- what sovereign nation voluntarily accepts puppet status? In fact, Pompeo admitted that he didn't expect Iran to surrender, but instead hoped for a popular revolution. In recently stating that the administration would negotiate without preconditions, he added that Washington expected Iran to act like "a normal nation," meaning behaving just as he'd demanded last year. (Notably, there was no offer for America to act like a normal country.)

Sanctions: Trump's Cruel Substitute for an Actual Iran Policy A Century Later, the Versailles Treaty Still Haunts Our World

Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is practically excluded."

Once it became evident that no one would willingly back down and conflict was likely, Germany's Kaiser and Russia's Tsar tried to halt the rush to war. However, they found themselves hemmed in by the war plans created by their nominal subordinates. With Austria-Hungary mobilizing against Serbia, Russia had to act to protect the latter. Germany then faced a two-front war. Thus, to aid its ally in Vienna, the Germans had to mobilize quickly in an attempt to defeat France before Russia could put its massive army into the field. No one had sufficient time for diplomacy.

However, cousins Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas did engage in a last minute "Willy-Nicky" exchange of telegrams. Wilhelm warned Nicholas that general Russian mobilization would require Germany to act, with war the result. In response, the tsar switched from general to partial mobilization. But he was soon besieged by his top officials who insisted that the entire army had to be called up.

Understanding that general mobilization meant war, the tsar observed: "Think of the responsibility you are asking me to take! Think of the thousands and thousands of men who will be sent to their deaths." But he gave in, approving mobilization on the evening of July 30. Nicholas's concern was warranted. More than 1.7 million Russian soldiers, along with hundreds of thousands of civilians, died in the conflict. The ensuing Russian Civil War was even more deadly, indeed far more so for noncombatants, among them the tsar and his family.

Kaiser Wilhelm was equally at the mercy of the "France-first" Schlieffen Plan. To wait would be to invite destruction between the French and Russians, so he approved German mobilization on August 1. He predicted the war would lead to "endless misery," and so it did. In 1918, he was forced to abdicate and he lived out his life in exile.

Pompeo, Bolton, and like-minded officials tried and failed to force another war last week. Next time they may succeed in leaving the president with no practical choice but the one they favor. In which case he will find himself starting the very conflict that he had declared against.

Ongoing administration machinations -- exacerbated by the opportunity to manipulate a president -- offer an important reminder as to the Founders' wisdom. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention made clear their intention to break with monarchical practice, minimizing the president's authority. Congress was assigned the powers to raise armies, decide on the rules of war, issue letters of marque and reprisal, and ratify treaties. Most importantly, the legislative branch alone could declare war.

As commander-in-chief, the president could defend against attack, but he could not even order a retaliatory strike without congressional authority. Wrote James Madison to Thomas Jefferson: "The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature." Delegate James Wilson insisted that the Constitution was intended to "guard against" being hurried into war: "It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress, for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large."

Most important, placing the war power with Congress ensured that the people would be heard. Of course, even that is not enough today. Presidents have adeptly concocted "evidence" and misled the public, such as during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.

They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right.

However, the Iraq debacle has resulted in greater skepticism of presidential claims. The Trump administration's unsupported judgment that Iran was behind attacks on oil tankers was greeted at home and abroad with a demand for more evidence. People were conscious of having been repeatedly played by Washington and did not want a repeat. Many found the U.S. government no more trustworthy than Iranian authorities, a humbling equivalence. And given the doubts apparently voiced by Pentagon officials out of public view, such skepticism was well-founded.

Last week, Donald Trump declared, "I want to get out of these endless wars." Unlike his predecessors, the president apparently recognizes the temptation to sacrifice lives for political gain. However, alone he will find it nearly impossible to face down the bipartisan War Party. The best way to get out of endless wars is to not get in them in the first place. And that requires changing personnel and respecting the constitutional limits established by the nation's Founders.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire


Kent 8 hours ago

Unfortunately, the President is attempting to walk a tight-rope between peace and the most prominent funders of the GOP. Sheldon Adelson and his ilk are bent on the destruction of any nation that stands in the way of Israeli expansion. And of course military contractors need constant growth in tax-payer funding to support their margins and shareholder value. Hence the blustering to appease the aforementioned and keep the bribes flowing, while backing down to appease the base.

It would of course be in the interests of the base to oppose the bribe-taking to begin with, but I assume that must be beyond their intellectual capacity. Or perhaps they're simply in favor of it for ideological reasons.

Adriana Pena 14 hours ago
Please stop this "czar good, ministers bad" narrative when discussing Trump standing up to the war party.

Trump hired Bolton
Trump hired Pompeo
Trump made the torturer Gina the head of the CIA

For someone who does not want war, he managed to put war lovers in sensitive posts.

John Michener 15 hours ago
We might as well be honest about it. All politicians over simplify, shade the truth, and occasionally lie. But Trump's falsehoods are so continuous and extensive that there is no reason to believe anything he says - everything needs to be validated against external authorities - which is why he is so intent on tearing down all authorities that could contradict him.
Clyde Schechter 15 hours ago
This is another in the long line of stories we are reading here (and in other places) that Trump really doesn't want to get involved in a war but is being manipulated by Bolton, Pompeo and the national security apparatus. Sorry, but I don't buy it.

Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo. Even somebody as apparently dimwitted as Trump could not possibly have failed to notice that they were warmongers. Indeed, Bolton is probably the most extreme warmonger around: he has an extensive public record of advocating war with Iran for about two decades now. I cannot believe that even Trump was unaware of this. And even if he was, why hasn't he fired them? He doesn't need anybody's permission to do that. Let's get real: Trump is every bit the warmonger as the people he hires. His statements to the contrary are just more additions to his endless string of lies.

What's more, he has another way to avoid being cornered into starting a war. All he has to do in that circumstance is acknowledge that the constitution doesn't grant him that authority and toss the decision making to Congerss, where it legally belongs. But he has done nothing that suggests he acknowledges that constitutional delegation of authority--even though it could provide him a way out if he felt he needed one.

So, no. I don't believe for a minute that Trump wants to avoid war. Actions speak louder than words, especially Trump's words.

JJ 17 hours ago
You're falling for the "official" report that he called off the attack merely because 150 lives were at stake? Since when did he all of a sudden grow a conscious after the inexcusable defense he gave for our irresponsible military and intelligence ventures? He even bypasses Congress itself by his illegal presidential will to give weapons to the SAUDIS. The tyrannical, radical, scourge of humanity tribal savages turned psychopathic oligarchs that is the House of Saud.

Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves, Tucker Carson (a f*cking tv show host of all people) convinced a US president to not commit to another illegal war. Not because lives were at stake, heavens no. It's because going into a disastrous war with Iran would gauruntee his chances of not getting re-elected.

The American government is a living parody with no hope of redemption.

HenionJD 9 hours ago
The President's almost daily outpouring of gibberish gives one little confidence that the notion of 'the truth' holds any importance for him or his crew. Who needs historical precedents to establish a feeling of mistrust when even the simplest statements from the White House are so often needlessly loaded with misapprehensions, distortions and out right BS?
EliteCommInc. 15 hours ago
" He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views?"

I get this, position. You present an incredibly tough front as you press an entirely different goal. The problem is that the president has presented a very tough front himself. So when it appears to to actually be tough, he comes across as "not so much". It even provides opportunity to grand him fearful. In the scenario that I think is being played out or made to appear to play out --- the good cop, the reasonable cop has to sound reasonable all the time. He has to claim to be holding back the forces of evil that threaten to consume the target. But the president has been leading the way as "bad cop" so in the mind the targets, there are no good cops.

But in my view, all of this hoollla baaaloooey about Iran is a distraction to the real threat

the border. And the only common ground to be had is to enforce the law. That is why I think the president is weak. For all of the tough talk --- he folded -- again on immigration. Pretending to get concessions that is by agreement already expected from Mexico is the such naked weakness that launching hypersonic missiles obliterating Tehran would just give him sandals.

Uhhhh, no. I don't regret my vote. And and I still want the wall built and the laws enforced and the sovereignty of the US respected by guests and citizens alike,.

[Jun 27, 2019] Rand Paul Trump s Antiwar Counterweight by Jack Hunter

Notable quotes:
"... His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention. ..."
Jun 26, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com
Rand Paul: Trump's Antiwar Counterweight The president called off airstrikes against Iran, and we have the Kentucky senator and Tucker Carlson to thank.

The United States almost started a war with Iran only for President Donald Trump to change his mind at the last minute. Reports indicate that the usual suspect, National Security Adviser John Bolton, was the main advocate for airstrikes, with the backing of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA head Gina Haspel, as well as encouragement from Senate war hawks Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton . Earlier on Thursday, responding to news that Iran had reportedly downed an unmanned American drone, Trump said , "Look, I said I want to get out of these endless wars, I campaigned on that, I want to get out." Trump's cautiousness seemed as much a response to the Washington chorus crying for military action as the event itself. More importantly, if the swamp wants war -- who has the president's back in pushing peace?

This might be the most important question in American politics right now. Advertisement TAC 's Barbara Boland reported in early June that the purpose of wedging the now-outgoing Patrick Shanahan into his acting defense secretary position was to put Bolton at the top of the foreign policy food chain (the incoming Mark Esper could fill a similar role). "He's likely to default to whatever Pompeo or Bolton wants," retired U.S. Army colonel and defense analyst Douglas Macgregor said of Shanahan. "Pompeo and Bolton have agendas. They're not Trump's, but in the absence of strong leadership, Shanahan is unlikely to put up much resistance." In mid-June, Pompeo blamed alleged attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Iran.

TAC noted that Pompeo "did not cite specific evidence as to why the U.S. believes Iran, or its proxies, are responsible for the attacks." One oil tanker owner said the U.S. account was wrong . Some wondered whether this could be another Gulf of Tonkin incident. Despite claiming to not want a military confrontation since joining the Trump administration, it's no secret that Pompeo and Bolton have wanted war with Iran for some time .

Luckily -- as the world was reminded Thursday night -- one person who says he doesn't want war happens to be their boss. "I'm not somebody that wants to go in to war, because war hurts economies, war kills people most importantly -- by far most importantly," Trump told Fox News in mid-May when asked about Iran. The likely death toll was reportedly also a major factor in why the president called off airstrikes Thursday night.

Trump appears to understand the hawkish nature of the Washington foreign policy establishment that surrounds him. "Don't kid yourself, you do have a military industrial complex. They do like war," Trump told Fox News. "I say, 'I want to bring our troops back home,' the place went crazy . You have people here in Washington they never want to leave, they always want to fight." "No, I don't want to fight," Trump added.

Trump's impulses, if not always his policy actions, are generally anti-war. Unfortunately, most in his immediate orbit do not share those inclinations, with unrepentant Iraq war cheerleader Bolton topping the list. But as Bolton's influence reportedly grows , who is the only person the president talks to who shares his more restrained "America First" foreign policy vision?

"While Trump tolerates his hawkish advisers, the [Trump] aide added, he shares a real bond with Paul," Politico reported in August. "He actually at gut level has the same instincts as Rand Paul," the White House aide reportedly said. (I covered Politico 's revelations at the time for TAC. )

Politico noted, "Trump has stopped short of calling for regime change [in Iran] even though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Bolton support it, aligning with Paul instead, according to a GOP foreign policy expert in frequent contact with the White House." "'Rand Paul has persuaded the president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this person said, because adopting that position would instigate another war in the Middle East," Politico reported.

That was 10 months ago. Today, in addition to almost bombing Iran on Thursday, the saber rattling and accusations are ratcheting up along with the troop deployments , no doubt making Pompeo and Bolton happy and likely reflecting their handiwork. But despite these moves, Trump's gut still seems to be closer to Paul's realism than what Republican hawks seek. Politico reported on May 20, "The president has fashioned himself far more in the mold of Paul than the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was shocked by Trump's plans to pull out of Syria and only was able to convince Trump to leave a small force in the country."

Politico further noted: "Trump's hiring of John Bolton as national security adviser may have changed the approach inside the White House, but Trump's dovish core hasn't changed, senators said. Perhaps that can't prevent conflict with Iran if it strikes first, but they said they were confident that Trump's aggressive posture is far more about a Trumpian brand of diplomacy than it is about marching to war." Let's hope. Amid the constant tug-of-war for Trump's favor between his hawkish advisers and his realist champion s , the president still hasn't launched a war against Iran or anyone else. But Trump will continue to need sound minds and advice.

The Daily Beast reports that in addition to Paul's counsel, the president might also be getting the right encouragement from Tucker Carlson. "A source familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against taking military action against Iran," The Daily Beast notes. "And a senior administration official said that during the president's recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more 'hawkish members' of his administration." The president obviously needs all the backup he can get. Because unless I'm missing something and sane foreign policy thinkers like Andrew Bacevich or Jim Webb have had some secret correspondence with the president, there is almost no one else talking to Trump who wants to avoid war.

Rand Paul's continuing role as unofficial adviser to the president might be his most important. Some might ask what one man could possibly accomplish. Just ask John Bolton .

Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Senator Rand Paul.


Sid Finster a day ago

Do remind me, who appointed Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina, Abrams and the rest of the unindicted war criminals?

Who could fire all of the above with a single stroke of the pen, for any reason or no reason at all?

Who continues to sputter and rant about Iran, a country that scrupulously complied with the JCPOA until the United States unilaterally abrogated it?

Who continues to gleefully assist the Saudi and Emirati tyrants to commit genocide in Yemen?

Who blocked the sale of landmine removal equipment to Syria?

Trump, that's who. And that is only a partial list of his crimes. And now this [expletive deleted] wants a medal for not starting another stupid war?

Even taking his words at face value, what he did was the equivalent of waving a loaded gun in front of someone's house and threatening to shoot the occupants, then expecting to be praised because he was persuaded to not actually open fire.

Nate J Sid Finster 16 hours ago • edited
The problem is that the alternatives (95% of the establishment hawks in either party) would wave the gun, threaten to shoot, then actually pull the trigger.

Yeah, it's not great that Trump had to be persuaded out of military action, but praise the Lord that America has a president who *can* be persuaded out of militarism (and routinely has).

There's a lot of perfect being the enemy of good going around on this issue.

JPH a day ago • edited
The troika of evil (Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina) are set on ever more hemming in Trump's options. Trump simply has to get rid of these sociopaths or he will be forced into a war which will probably cost him both his reelection and legacy.
Adriana Pena JPH 11 hours ago
Just remember who it was who put that bloody troika in charge.

It would clarify things if people stopped this silly "czar good, ministers bad" narrative

Clyde Schechter a day ago
I cannot comprehend how people can be saying that Trump's instincts are against going to war. Yes, it's nice that Rand Paul gets to talk to the President, and Tucker Carlson, too. But the people that trump hired as his policy advisors are Bolton and Pompeo. Not only are they well known warmongers who have been on record for a long time as advocating regime change in Tehran, Bolton is probably the most extreme of them all. He practically makes Lindsay Graham look like a pacifist. How can you say that somebody who hired Bolton and Pompeo has anti-war instincts? It makes no sense. Even Trump's most ardent critics don't think Trump is that stupid . You have to assume that he basically endorses their approach, even if at a tactical level he might occasionally disagree.
Robert Clyde Schechter 20 hours ago
A part of the answer is that these were the only candidates available who were twisted enough to support Trump withdrawing from the Iran nuclear accord. Even within Israel, while Netanyahu was lying to Trump, Congress and Americans about Iran cheating on the deal, Israeli intelligence agencies and the IDF supported the nuclear accord and had enough assets in Iran to confirm that Iran was not cheating. According to the then head of the IDF, Gadi Eisenkot, the nuclear agreement simplified the defence of Israel and prevented Iran from getting nukes for another 10-15 years. Trump, unfortunately, had campaigned on withdrawing from the deal, and, in order to satisfy pressure from Netanyahu (and to the detriment of Israel's security), withdrew from it. My take is that Trump fundamentally disagrees with Bolton and Pompeo. He demonstrated this by calling off the attack on Iran and he demonstrated this by discounting the "threat" to the US by N Korea testing short-range missiles. My worry is that Bolton has positioned the US armada in place to deliberately create a hot zone just waiting for a spark, and he has assets in place to create false-flag attacks, some of which we have already seen (flying US drones over Iranian territory, placing bombs on oil tankers, or worse).
Dave Clyde Schechter a day ago
Maybe he had them there to create a deterrent effect and aid his strong arm negotiation tactics. Could also be it was just on the basis of recommendations by others in the establishment.

His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention.

swampwiz Dave 16 hours ago
As in good cop, bad cop?
Stefan Radivoyevitch a day ago
General Dunford also advised against war with Iran according to one article.

[Jun 27, 2019] Immediate spike in oil prices and derivatives market after attack in Iran can unpredictable consequences for the US and world economy

Notable quotes:
"... Despite the blathering about "international waters" and "freedom of navigation" the facts are that the Straits of Hormuz are only 21 miles wide. So all the water in them is either in Iranian territory to the north or Omani to the south. They would be entirely within their rights, as elucidated in the International Law of the Sea, to close the straits after some sort of military strike against them (for what that is worth, which is something at least as far as public opinion outside of the U.S. is concerned). The Iranians have stated that if and when they close the straits they will announce it publicly, no subterfuge or secret operations will be involved. ..."
"... Anything over $150 a barrel would trigger an economic, industrial, and financial crisis of immense proportions around the world ..."
"... The amount of derivatives that are swirling about the planet and that are traded and created constantly is estimated to be from $1.2 - $2.5 Quadrillion. That's right from $1,200 - $2,500 Trillion or $1,200,000 - $2,500,000 Billion {remember Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who once said "a billion here and a billion there and first thing you know, You're talking BIG MONEY!!} ..."
"... Just like during the 2007 - 2008 crisis the various elements of shadow banking, and speculation would collapse. Remember that total world production of and trade in actual products is only about about $70 - $80 Trillion, or perhaps less than 1/31st the size of the Global Derivatives markets. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.wsws.org

dmorista3 days ago • edited

The official story, as usual, is a bunch of hooey. Trump wouldn't bat an eye over the death of 150 Iranians. In addition to the worries about losing an aircraft carrier: the military high command probably let him know that the much vaunted, and outlandishly expensive, force of F-35s, will quickly lose its effectiveness if exposed to probing by the high tech radars the Russians have developed, and that are used in conjunction with at least the S-400 antiaircraft and antimissile defense system.

So the question is, if the stealth advantage of the F-35 is only good for a limited time, is this particular geostrategic confrontation worth using up that particular asset??

Then there is the whole question of whether the Iranians would close the Straits of Hormuz in response to a major air raid on their nuclear facilities; this leads to some much more important issues.

Despite the blathering about "international waters" and "freedom of navigation" the facts are that the Straits of Hormuz are only 21 miles wide. So all the water in them is either in Iranian territory to the north or Omani to the south. They would be entirely within their rights, as elucidated in the International Law of the Sea, to close the straits after some sort of military strike against them (for what that is worth, which is something at least as far as public opinion outside of the U.S. is concerned). The Iranians have stated that if and when they close the straits they will announce it publicly, no subterfuge or secret operations will be involved.

Since nearly 30% of the World's oil moves through those straits cutting them off will cause an immediate spike in oil prices. Prices of $100 - $300 a barrel would be reached within a few days. If the Straits of Hormuz were closed for a longer period we could easily see prices rise to $1,000 a barrel according to Goldman Sachs projections (see Escobar article cited below).

Anything over $150 a barrel would trigger an economic, industrial, and financial crisis of immense proportions around the world . The financial and speculative house of cards, that the ruling classes of the U.S.-led Finance Capital Bloc depends on for their dominance of world capital and markets, would likely come tumbling down.

The amount of derivatives that are swirling about the planet and that are traded and created constantly is estimated to be from $1.2 - $2.5 Quadrillion. That's right from $1,200 - $2,500 Trillion or $1,200,000 - $2,500,000 Billion {remember Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who once said "a billion here and a billion there and first thing you know, You're talking BIG MONEY!!} (See "World Derivatives Market Estimated As Big As $1.2 Quadrillion Notional, as Banks Fight Efforts to Rein It In", March 26, 2013, Yves Smith, "Naked Capitalism", at < https://www.nakedcapitalism... >, and "Iran Goes for 'Maximum Counter-pressure' ", June 21, 2019, Pepe Escobar, "Strategic Culture Foundation", at < https://www.strategic-cultu... >, and "Global Derivatives: $1.5 Quadrillion Time Bomb", Aug 24, 2015, Stephen Lendman, Global Research, at < https://www.globalresearch.... >).

Just like during the 2007 - 2008 crisis the various elements of shadow banking, and speculation would collapse. Remember that total world production of and trade in actual products is only about about $70 - $80 Trillion, or perhaps less than 1/31st the size of the Global Derivatives markets.

All the world's elite capitalists, be they Western or Asian or from elsewhere, maintain homes in numerous places. One reason for this is so they have somewhere to go, if they need to flee from environmental and/or socioeconomic disaster and the resultant chaos in their primary place of residence. As we move ever deeper into this extremely severe and ongoing Crisis of Capitalism, these issues will continue to become more acute.

So we can rest assured that; in addition to the crazed war-mongers Bolton and Pompeo (and their supporters and backers) whispering in Trump's ear to "go ahead and attack the Iranians"; and in addition to the somewhat more sober counsel of General Dunford and other members of the top military command; that titans of finance capital were undoubtedly on the phone warning "Bone-Spur Don" that his digs in Manhattan and Florida might not be entirely safe if the worst were to happen in response to a military strike. The absurd story of Don worrying about 150 Iranians is so ludicrous that it did not even pass the smell test with the corporate controlled media for very long.

Irandle dmorista2 days ago
Oil reached $147 a barrel in 2007-08. That caused the so-called Great Recession.

As WSWS has pointed out there are few if any US options left but war.

[Jun 27, 2019] The West's Trumped-Up Hatred of Iran Serves The Zionist Dream of a Greater Israel Dominating the Middle East by Stuart Littlewood

Notable quotes:
"... Any US attack on Iran in these circumstances could be a violation of the United Nations Charter, which only allows the use of military force in self-defense after an armed attack or with Security Council approval. ..."
"... UN Security Council resolution 487 of 1981 called on Israel "urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards". Israel has been allowed to ignore it for nearly 40 years. In 2009, the IAEA called on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, open its nuclear facilities to inspection and place them under comprehensive IAEA safeguards. Israel still refuses to join or allow inspections. ..."
"... When the CIA-engineered coup toppled Dr. Mossadeq, reinstated the Shah and his secret police, and let the American oil companies in, it was the final straw for the Iranians. The British-American conspiracy backfired spectacularly 25 years later with the Islamic Revolution of 1978-9, the humiliating 444-day hostage crisis in the American embassy and a tragically botched rescue mission. What should have been a sharp lesson for Western meddlers became a festering sore. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | ahtribune.com

Any US attack on Iran in these circumstances could be a violation of the United Nations Charter, which only allows the use of military force in self-defense after an armed attack or with Security Council approval.

Let's remind ourselves of earlier US aggression and dishonesty during the Iran-Iraq war, as recorded in Wikipedia:

In the course of escorts by the US Navy, the cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board. The American government claimed that Vincennes was in international waters at the time (which was later proven to be untrue), that the Airbus A300 had been mistaken for an Iranian F-14 Tomcat, and that Vincennes feared that she was under attack. The Iranians maintain that Vincennes was in their own waters, and that the passenger jet was turning away and increasing altitude after take-off. US Admiral William J. Crowe later admitted on Nightline that Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters when it launched the missiles. At the time of the attack, Admiral Crowe claimed that the Iranian plane did not identify itself and sent no response to warning signals he had sent. In 1996, the United States expressed their regret for the event and the civilian deaths it caused.

Trump now wants to impose further crippling sanctions on Iran and her people while the UK's Foreign Office minister Andrew Murrison has just been to Tehran calling for "urgent de-escalation" and cheekily criticising Iran's "regional conduct" and its threat to stop complying with the nuclear deal, which the US recklessly abandoned but the UK remains committed to.

Good news about Murrison, though. A medical man, he voted against the Iraq war but as a Navy reservist was called up to do a 6 month tour of duty there. Perhaps Murrison should go see Trump and ask:

Trump meanwhile has signed an executive order targeting Iran's leadership with hard-hitting new sanctions supposedly needed to deny their development of nuclear weapons. "Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon," Trump has decreed. He added: "We will continue to increased pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its asperations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium, development of ballistic missiles, engagement and support for terrorism, fuelling of foreign conflicts and belligerent acts...." Achingly funny. Who else could all that apply to, I wonder? Exactly. The Bully-Boy-in-chief himself and his best buddies in Tel Aviv.

Sowing the seeds of hatred

We have conveniently short memories when it comes to our abominable conduct towards the Iranians in 1951-53 when a previous Conservative government, in cahoots with the USA, snuffed out Iran's fledgling democracy and reinstated a cruel dictator, the Shah. This eventually brought about the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and created the deep distrust between Iran and the West. Is it not shameful that the present Conservative government is spoiling for another fight? Shouldn't the Foreign Office now focus on exerting influence through trade and co-operation?

The Iranian regime, like many others, may not be entirely to our liking but nor was Dr Mossadeq's democracy 65 years ago. Besides, what threat is Iran to Britain? And why are we allowing ourselves to be driven by America's mindless hatred?

When new recruits join British Petroleum (BP) they are fed romantic tales about how the company came into being. William Knox D'Arcy, a Devon man, studied law and made a fortune from the Mount Morgan gold-mining operations in 1880s Australia. Returning to England he agreed to fund a search for oil and minerals in Persia and began negotiations with the Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar in 1901. A sixty year concession gave D'Arcy the oil rights to the entire country except for five provinces in the north. The Persian government would receive 16% of the oil company's annual profits.

Mozzafar ad-Din was naive in business matters and unprepared for kingship when the time came. He borrowed heavily from the Russians and in order to pay off the debt he signed away control of many Persian industries and markets to foreigners. The deal D'Arcy cut was too sharp by far and would eventually lead to trouble.

He sent an exploration team headed by geologist George B Reynolds. In 1903 a company was formed and D'Arcy had to spend much of his fortune to cover the costs. Further financial support came from Glasgow-based Burmah Oil in return for a large share of the stock.

Drilling in southern Persia at Shardin continued until 1907 when the search was switched to Masjid-i-Souleiman. By 1908 D'Arcy was almost bankrupt. Reynolds received a last-chance instruction: "Drill to 1,600 feet and give up". On 26 May at 1,180 feet he struck oil.

It was indeed a triumph of guts and determination. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was soon up and running and in 1911 completed a pipeline from the oilfield to its new refinery at Abadan. But the company was in trouble again by 1914. The golden age of motoring hadn't yet arrived and the industrial oil markets were sewn up by American and European interests. The sulphurous stench of the Persian oil, even after refining, ruled it out for domestic use, so D'Arcy had a marketing problem.

Luckily Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was an enthusiast for oil and wanted to convert the British fleet from coal especially now that a reliable oil source was secured. He famously told Parliament: "Look out upon the wide expanse of the oil regions of the world!" Only the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company, he said, could protect British interests. His resolution passed and the British Government took a major shareholding in the company just in time, for World War One began a few weeks later.

During the war the British government seized the assets of a German company calling itself British Petroleum for the purpose of marketing its products in Britain. Anglo-Persian acquired the assets from the Public Trustee complete with a ready-made distribution network and an abundance of depots, railway tank wagons, road vehicles, barges and so forth. This enabled Anglo-Persian to rapidly expand sales in petroleum-hungry Britain and Europe after the war.

In the inter-war years Anglo-Persian profited handsomely from paying the Iranians a miserly 16%, and an increasingly angry Persia tried to renegotiate terms. Getting nowhere, they cancelled the D'Arcy agreement and the matter ended up at the Court of International Justice at The Hague. A new agreement in 1933 provided Anglo-Persian with a fresh 60-year concession but on a smaller area. The terms were an improvement for the Persians but still didn't amount to a square deal.

In 1935 Iran formally replaced Persia as the country's official name internationally and Anglo-Persian changed to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. By 1950 Abadan was the biggest oil refinery in the world and Britain, with its 51% holding, had affectively colonised part of southern Iran.

Iran's small share of the profits became a big issue and so did the treatment of its oil workers. 6,000 withdrew their labour in 1946 and the strike was violently put down with 200 dead or injured. In 1951 Anglo-Iranian declared £40 million profit after tax but handed Iran only £7 million. Meanwhile Arabian American Oil was sharing profits with the Saudis on a 50/50 basis. Calls for nationalisation were mounting.

As a result of the Persian Constitutional Revolution the first Majlis (parliament) was established in 1906 and the country became a constitutional monarchy with high hopes. By mid-century Iran not unreasonably wanted economic and political independence and an end to poverty. In March 1951 its Majlis and Senate voted to nationalise Anglo-Iranian, which had controlled Iran's oil industry since 1913 under terms disadvantageous to Iran. Respected social reformer Dr Mohammad Mossadeq was named prime minister the following month by a 79 to 12 majority. On 1 May Mossadeq carried out his government's wishes, cancelling Anglo-Iranian's oil concession due to expire in 1993 and expropriating its assets.

His explanation, given in a speech in June 1951 (M. Fateh, Panjah Sal-e Naft-e Iran , p. 525), ran as follows...

"Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries have yielded no results this far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence.

"The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization law provides that 25% of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate claims of the company for compensation It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is this allegation absurd; it is utter invention "

For this he would eventually be removed in a coup by MI5 and the CIA, imprisoned for 3 years then put under house arrest until his death.

Britain, with regime change in mind, orchestrated a world-wide boycott of Iranian oil, froze Iran's sterling assets and threatened legal action against anyone purchasing oil produced in the formerly British-controlled refineries. It even considered invading. The Iranian economy was soon in ruins.... sounds familiar, doesn't it? Attempts by the Shah to replace Mossadeq failed and he returned with more power, but his coalition was slowly crumbling under the hardships imposed by the British blockade.

At first America was reluctant to join Britain's destructive game but Churchill let it be known that Mossadeq was turning communist and pushing Iran into Russia's arms at a time when Cold War anxiety was high. It was enough to bring America's new president, Eisenhower, on board and plotting with Britain to bring Mossadeq down.

Chief of the CIA's Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt Jr, arrived to play the leading role in an ugly game of provocation, mayhem and deception. An elaborate campaign of disinformation began, and the Shah signed two decrees, one dismissing Mossadeq and the other nominating the CIA's choice, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as prime minister. These decrees were written as dictated by Donald Wilbur the CIA architect of the plan

The Shah fled to Rome. When it was judged safe to do so he returned on 22 August 1953. Mossadeq was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. He remarked

"My greatest sin is that I nationalised Iran's oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world's greatest empire With God's blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.

"I am well aware that my fate must serve as an example in the future throughout the Middle East in breaking the chains of slavery and servitude to colonial interests ."

His supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed. Zahedi's new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium to restore the flow of Iranian oil, awarding the US and Great Britain the lion's share - 40% going to Anglo-Iranian. The consortium agreed to split profits on a 50-50 basis with Iran but, tricky as ever, refused to open its books to Iranian auditors or allow Iranians to sit on the board.

A grateful US massively funded the Shah's government, including his army and secret police force, SAVAK. Anglo-Iranian changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954. Mossadeq died on 5 March 1967.

Apologise? Hell no Let's demonise Iran!

But the West's fun came to an abrupt halt with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and a great British enterprise that started heroically and turned nasty ended in tears.

The US is still hated today for reimposing the Shah and his thugs and demolishing the Iranians' democratic system of government, which the Revolution unfortunately didn't restore. The US is widely known by Iranians as Big Satan and its regional handmaiden Israel rejoices in the name Little Satan . Britain, as the instigator and junior partner in the sordid affair, is similarly despised.

Moreover, Iran harbours great resentment at the way the West, especially the US, helped Iraq develop its armed forces and chemical weapons arsenal, and how the international community failed to punish Iraq for its use of those weapons against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. The US, and eventually Britain, leaned strongly towards Saddam in that conflict and the alliance enabled Saddam to more easily acquire or develop forbidden chemical and biological weapons. At least 100,000 Iranians fell victim to them.

This is how John King writing in 2003 summed it up

"The United States used methods both legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The US supplied chemical and biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. The US supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when it was know that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents. The United States blocked UN censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology."

While Iranian casualties were at their highest as a result of US chemical and biological war crimes Trump was busy acquiring the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Trump Castle , his Taj-Mahal casino, the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and was refitting his super-yacht Trump Princess . What does he know, understand or care about Iran?

On the British side Foreign Secretary Jaremy Hunt was messing about at Oxford University; and the front-runner to fill our Prime Minister vacancy, Boris Johnson, former Foreign Secretary, was similarly at Oxford carousing with fellow Old Etonians at the Bullingdon Club. What do they know or care?

Which brings us to today Why are we hearing nonstop sabre-rattling against Iran when we should be extending the hand of reconciliation and friendship? And why are these clueless leaders demonising Iran instead of righting the wrongs? Because the political establishment is still smarting. And they are the new-generation imperialists, the political spawn of those Dr Mossadeq and many others struggled against. They haven't learned from the past, and they won't lift their eyes to a better future.

It's so depressing.

Economic sanctions: are they moral, or even legal?

The US and UK have led the charge on oil sanctions and other measures to make life hell for Iranians. But are they on safe legal ground?

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) in a statement on 26 November 2011, said they were deeply concerned about the threats against Iran by Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Referring to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IADL stated that those threats were unacceptable and dangerous not only for all the region but for the whole of humanity, and that Article 2.4 of the UN Charter forbids not only use of force but also the threat of force in international relations. The right of defence does not include pre-emptive strikes.

The IADL also pointed out that while Israel was quick to denounce the possible possession of nuclear weapons by others, it had illegally possessed nuclear weapons for many years. The danger to world peace was so great as to require the global eradication of all nuclear weapons, and to immediately declare the Middle East a nuclear free zone and a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction, as required by UN Security Council resolution 687.

Furthermore, Article 33 states that "the parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means..." Economic 'terror' tactics such as the vicious sanctions deployed by the US, UK and their allies – and the similar measures used by Britain and America in the 1950s to bring down the government of Dr Mossadeq and reinstate the Shah – are simply not part of the approved toolkit.

Remember the context

UN Security Council resolution 487 of 1981 called on Israel "urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards". Israel has been allowed to ignore it for nearly 40 years. In 2009, the IAEA called on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, open its nuclear facilities to inspection and place them under comprehensive IAEA safeguards. Israel still refuses to join or allow inspections.

The Zionist regime is reckoned by some to have up to 400 nuclear warheads at its disposal. It is the only state in the region that is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (Iran is). It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. As regards biological and chemical weapons, Israel has not signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In early 2012 the US intelligence community was saying that Iran hadn't got an active nuclear weapons programme, and Israeli intelligence agreed. The Director of the National Intelligence Agency, James Clapper, reported: "We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons..."

So the continual focus on Iran has been a deliberate distraction. We repaid Iranian co-operation in D'Arcy's oil venture with corporate greed and diplomatic double-cross. America and Britain are still smarting from the time when Iran democratically elected Dr. Mossadeq, who sensibly nationalized her vast oil resources. Up till then the grasping British were raking in far more profit from Iranian oil than the Iranians themselves.

Back in the 1920s the US State Department had described the oil deposits in the Middle East as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history". Ever since, its designs on Iraq and Iran have been plain to see and it is still ready to pounce on every opportunity.

When the CIA-engineered coup toppled Dr. Mossadeq, reinstated the Shah and his secret police, and let the American oil companies in, it was the final straw for the Iranians. The British-American conspiracy backfired spectacularly 25 years later with the Islamic Revolution of 1978-9, the humiliating 444-day hostage crisis in the American embassy and a tragically botched rescue mission. What should have been a sharp lesson for Western meddlers became a festering sore.

The quest for the energy prize is not over. But it is no longer just about oil. Zionist stooges in controlling positions in the West's corridors of power are pledged to ensure Israel remains the only nuclear power in the Middle East and continues to dominate the region militarily. And they are willing to spill Christian blood and spend Christian treasure in that cause.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton, recipient of the Defender of Israel Award last year and the Guardian of Zion Award the year before, is one such super-stooge. His stupefying remark: "No-one has granted Iran a hunting licence in the Middle East" typifies the arrogance of his ilk.

Stuart Littlewood worked on jet fighters in the RAF. Various sales and marketing management positions in manufacturing, oil and electronics. Senior associate with several industrial marketing consultancies. Graduate Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MInstM). BA Hons Psychology, University of Exeter.

[Jun 26, 2019] VIPS Memo to the President Is Pompeo's Iran Agenda the Same As Yours Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the nation. ..."
"... As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015. ..."
"... CIA malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The New York Times claims you were not informed.) ..."
"... The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he "really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently caught your eye. ..."
"... For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: ..."
Jun 21, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the nation.

DATE: June 21, 2019

MEMORANDUM FOR : The President.

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Is Pompeo's Iran Agenda the Same As Yours?

A fter the close call yesterday when you called off the planned military strike on Iran, we remain concerned that you are about to be mousetrapped into war with Iran. You have said you do not want such a war (no sane person would), and our comments below are based on that premise. There are troubling signs that Secretary Pompeo is not likely to jettison his more warlike approach, More importantly, we know from personal experience with Pompeo's dismissive attitude to instructions from you that his agenda can deviate from yours on issues of major consequence.

Pompeo's behavior betrays a strong desire to resort to military action -- perhaps even without your approval -- to Iranian provocations (real or imagined), with no discernible strategic goal other than to advance the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He is a neophyte compared to his anti-Iran partner John Bolton, whose dilettante approach to interpreting intelligence, strong advocacy of the misbegotten war on Iraq (and continued pride in his role in promoting it), and fierce pursuit of his own aggressive agenda are a matter of a decades-long record. You may not be fully aware of our experience with Pompeo, who has now taken the lead on Iran.

That experience leaves us with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to you and the country, including the contentious issue of alleged Russian hacking into the DNC. The sketchy "evidence" behind that story has now crumbled, thanks to some unusual candor from the Department of Justice. We refer to the extraordinary revelation in a recent Department of Justice court filing that former FBI Director James Comey never required a final forensic report from the DNC-hired cybersecurity company, CrowdStrike.

Comey, of course, has admitted to the fact that, amid accusations from the late Sen. John McCain and others that the Russians had committed "an act of war," the FBI did not follow best practices and insist on direct access to the DNC computers, preferring to rely on CrowdStrike reporting. What was not known until the DOJ revelation is that CrowdStrike never gave Comey a final report on its forensic findings regarding alleged "Russian hacking." Mainstream media have suppressed this story so far; we reported it several days ago.

The point here is that Pompeo could have exposed the lies about Russian hacking of the DNC, had he done what you asked him to do almost two years ago when he was director of the CIA.

In our Memorandum to you of July 24, 2017 entitled "Was the 'Russian Hack' an Inside Job?," we suggested:

"You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this.["This" being the evidence-deprived allegation that "a shadowy entity with the moniker 'Guccifer 2.0' hacked the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks ."] Our own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down."

Three months later, Director Pompeo invited William Binney, one of VIPS' two former NSA technical directors (and a co-author of our July 24, 2017 Memorandum), to CIA headquarters to discuss our findings. Pompeo began an hour-long meeting with Binney on October 24, 2017 by explaining the genesis of the unusual invitation: "You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk to you."

But Did Pompeo 'Really Want to Know'?

Apparently not. Binney, a widely respected, plain-spoken scientist with more than three decades of experience at NSA , began by telling Pompeo that his (CIA) people were lying to him about Russian hacking and that he (Binney) could prove it. As we explained in our most recent Memorandum to you, Pompeo reacted with disbelief and -- now get this -- tried to put the burden on Binney to pursue the matter with the FBI and NSA.

As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015.

CIA malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The New York Times claims you were not informed.)

If Pompeo failed to report back to you on the conversation you instructed him to have with Binney, you might ask him about it now (even though the flimsy evidence of Russia hacking the DNC has now evaporated, with Binney vindicated). There were two note-takers present at the October 24, 2017 meeting at CIA headquarters. There is also a good chance the session was also recorded. You might ask Pompeo about that.

Whose Agenda?

The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he "really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently caught your eye.

Had he pursued the matter seriously with Binney, we might not have had to wait until the Justice Department itself put nails in the coffin of Russiagate, CrowdStrike, and Comey. In sum, Pompeo could have prevented two additional years of "everyone knows that the Russians hacked into the DNC." Why did he not?

Pompeo is said to be a bright fellow -- Bolton, too–with impeccable academic credentials. The history of the past six decades , though, shows that an Ivy League pedigree can spell disaster in affairs of state. Think, for example, of President Lyndon Johnson's national security adviser, former Harvard Dean McGeorge Bundy, for example, who sold the Tonkin Gulf Resolution to Congress to authorize the Vietnam war based on what he knew was a lie. Millions dead.

Bundy was to LBJ as John Bolton is to you, and it is a bit tiresome watching Bolton brandish his Yale senior ring at every podium. Think, too, of Princeton's own Donald Rumsfeld concocting and pushing the fraud about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to "justify" war on Iraq, assuring us all the while that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Millions dead.

Rumsfeld's dictum is anathema to William Binney, who has shown uncommon patience answering a thousand evidence-free "What if's" over the past three years. Binney's shtick? The principles of physics, applied mathematics, and the scientific method. He is widely recognized for his uncanny ability to use these to excellent advantage in separating the chaff from wheat. No Ivy pedigree wanted or needed.

Binney describes himself as a "country boy" from western Pennsylvania. He studied at Penn State and became a world renowned mathematician/cryptologist as well as a technical director at NSA. Binney's accomplishments are featured in a documentary on YouTube, "A Good American." You may wish to talk to him person-to-person.

Cooked Intelligence

Some of us served as long ago as the Vietnam War. We are painfully aware of how Gen. William Westmoreland and other top military officers lied about the "progress" the Army was making, and succeeded in forcing their superiors in Washington to suppress our conclusions as all-source analysts that the war was a fool's errand and one we would inevitably lose. Millions dead.

Four decades later, on February 5, 2003, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, we warned President Bush that there was no reliable intelligence to justify war on Iraq.

Five years later, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, releasing the bipartisan conclusions of the committee's investigation, said this :

" In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."

Intelligence on the Middle East has still been spotty -- and sometimes "fixed" for political purposes. Four years ago, a U.S. congressional report said Central Command painted too rosy a picture of the fight against Islamic State in 2014 and 2015 compared with the reality on the ground and grimmer assessments by other analysts.

Intelligence analysts at CENTCOM claimed their commanders imposed a "false narrative" on analysts, intentionally rewrote and suppressed intelligence products, and engaged in "delay tactics" to undermine intelligence provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. In July 2015, fifty CENTCOM analysts signed a complaint to the Pentagon's Inspector General that their intelligence reports were being manipulated by their superiors. The CENTCOM analysts were joined by intelligence analysts working for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

We offer this as a caution. As difficult as this is for us to say, the intelligence you get from CENTCOM should not be accepted reflexively as gospel truth, especially in periods of high tension. The experience of the Tonkin Gulf alone should give us caution. Unclear and misinterpreted intelligence can be as much a problem as politicization in key conflict areas.

Frequent problems with intelligence and Cheney-style hyperbole help explain why CENTCOM commander Admiral William Fallon in early 2007 blurted out that "an attack on Iran " will not happen on my watch," as Bush kept sending additional carrier groups into the Persian Gulf. Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs, warned at the time that some Bush advisers secretly wanted an excuse to attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," she told Newsweek. Deja vu. A National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 concluded unanimously that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and had not resumed such work.

We believe your final decision yesterday was the right one -- given the so-called "fog of war" and against the background of a long list of intelligence mistakes, not to mention "cooking" shenanigans. We seldom quote media commentators, but we think Tucker Carlson had it right yesterday evening: "The very people -- in some cases, literally the same people who lured us into the Iraq quagmire 16 years ago -- are demanding a new war -- this one with Iran. Carlson described you as "skeptical." We believe ample skepticism is warranted.

We are at your disposal, should you wish to discuss any of this with us.

For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

[Jun 26, 2019] Pompeo is a MIC lobbyist, not a diplomat

Highly recommended!
Pretty harsh evaluation of Pompeo by usually very polite Chinese newspaper. And what is true that in no way Pompeo is a diplomat. He is a lobbyist for MIC, no more no less. Kind of Madeline Albright of different sex.
As Chinese journalist observed "Diplomacy is governed by international conventions, which require all countries to observe basic norms. Pompeo behaves like a gangster. He is abandoning the traditional US major-power diplomacy and defying the gentle style of diplomats. "
Notable quotes:
"... Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk. ..."
"... Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace. ..."
"... Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. ..."
"... Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value. ..."
Jun 26, 2019 | www.globaltimes.cn

Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to be a politically troublesome figure in the global arena. Washington stands at a critical juncture as it redesigns the national strategy blueprint within a Cold War framework. The highest-ranking US diplomat has single-handedly activated an outdated mindset, smashing it to the point of climax.

Known as an extreme hardliner at the White House, Pompeo has redefined the traditional understanding of the chief diplomat's role among the world's major powers with his signature reckless behaviour.

Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace.

During his visits to other nations, Pompeo has bad-mouthed and tried to suppress China, Russia, and Iran. His offensive remarks on China have destroyed the past China-US diplomatic language that was enjoyed for decades, preferring to use negligent words from his personal arsenal.

Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

His outspoken opinions on the recent events in Hong Kong was more of a Rubicon River crossing than someone was just merely speaking their mind. Rather than adhere to a big power game like his predecessors, Pompeo has transformed himself into anti-China flag on two legs.

The US relationship between China , Russia, and Iran will determine the future course of international relations. The condition of each relationship serves as a wind vane indicating stability or turbulence worldwide.

Pompeo is not only disrupting China, Russia, and Iran but also damaging the interests of other countries. His words and actions have jinxed the very notion of 21st-century peace.

It is understandable how the US could feel threatened, due to the pattern shift among world powers. However, Pompeo's goal has nothing to do with enhancing trust or easing concerns expressed by other countries. Instead, he wants to turn US insecurity into a form of visible hatred and increase hostility worldwide. He has consistently influenced stable international conditions to the point of deterioration.

"Make America Great Again" is not a one-man show. The notion, which is nothing more than an illiterate slogan, will never materialize and connect with the harmony enjoyed elsewhere throughout the world.

In the past decades, the US has engaged in too many wars and conflicts, while also issuing sanctions against foreign countries which were later drained of their national strength.

Pompeo has continued to push the US toward the flames of confrontation when dealing with major foreign powers. He has not helped Trump achieve earlier campaign promises, and on the contrary, he is making it difficult for the US president to keep them.

Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value.

Judging from the US and its Cold War reboot strategy, Pompeo has roamed too far outside of the perimeter and has officially lost his way. The US government has labelled China as its "strategic competitor." Meanwhile, Pompeo has ignited hostility from China.

Pompeo's words are by no means an accurate consensus of the US public who also want to enjoy a harmonious existence. By making volatile claims against China look reasonable, Pompeo has turned himself into a cheerleader of hatred, who uses slander and vitriol for pompoms.

Having a secretary of state of this calibre is a tragedy of US politics and the sorrow of international politics. The world needs to be exposed to the damage Pompeo has brought to humankind's peaceful existence. His destructive power should not be tolerated because of his title. He has repeatedly crushed diplomacy's constructive role while ignoring opportunities to ease international conflicts. He is a stain upon the professional honour of diplomacy. The global diplomatic community should detest his actions and join together in a crusade against him.

This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.

[Jun 26, 2019] Arms Dealers and Lobbyists Get Rich as Yemen Burns by Barbara Boland

Jun 25, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com

Arms Dealers and Lobbyists Get Rich as Yemen Burns See the Top 4 U.S. contractors' profits explode, all while their weapons have been used against civilian targets for years. June 25, 2019

And make no mistake: U.S. defense contractors and their lobbyists and supporters in government are getting rich in the process. "Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International, said to CNBC in February. But his statement vastly understates the role that defense contractors and lobbyists play in Washington's halls of power, where their influence on policy directly impacts their bottom lines. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have waged war against Yemen, killing and injuring thousands of Yemeni civilians. An estimated 90,000 people have been killed, according to one international tracker.

By December 2017, the number of cholera cases in Yemen had surged past one million , the largest such outbreak in modern history. An estimated 113,000 children have died since April 2018 from war-related starvation and disease. The United Nations calls the situation in Yemen the largest humanitarian crisis on earth, as over 14 million face starvation. The majority of the 6,872 Yemeni civilians killed and 10,768 wounded have been victims of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) .

Nearly 90 coalition airstrikes have hit homes , schools, markets, hospitals, and mosques since 2015, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2018, the coalition bombed a wedding, killing 22 people, including eight children. Another strike hit a bus , killing at least 26 children.

American-origin munitions produced by companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon were identified at the site of over two dozen attacks throughout Yemen. Indeed, the United States is the single largest arms supplier to the Middle East and has been for decades, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. From 2014 to 2018, the United States supplied 68 percent of Saudi Arabia's arms imports, 64 percent of the UAE's imports, and 65 percent of Qatar's imports. Some of this weaponry was subsequently stolen or sold to al-Qaeda linked groups in the Arabian Peninsula , where they could be used against the U.S. military, according to reports . The Saudi use of U.S.-made jets, bombs, and missiles against Yemeni civilian centers constitutes a war crime. It was an American laser-guided MK-82 bomb that killed the children on the bus; Raytheon's technology killed the 22 people attending the wedding in 2018 as well as a family traveling in their car; and another American-made MK-82 bomb ended the lives of at least 80 men, women, and children in a Yemeni marketplace in March 2016. Yet American defense contractors continue to spend millions of dollars to lobby Washington to maintain the flow of arms to these countries.

"Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other defense contractors see countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as huge potential markets," Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War , told TAC . "They see them as massive opportunities to make a lot of money; that's why they're investing billions and billions of dollars. This is a huge revenue stream to these companies." Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have all highlighted business with Saudi Arabia in their shareholder reports.

"Operations and maintenance have become a very profitable niche market for U.S. corporations," said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at Teal Group. He added that defense contractors can make as much as 150 percent more profit off of operations and maintenance than from the original arms sale. U.S. weapons supply 57 percent of the military aircraft used by the Royal Saudi Air Force, and mechanics and technicians hired by American companies repair and maintain their fighter jets and helicopters. In 2018 alone, the United States made $4.5 billion worth of arms deals to Saudi Arabia and $1.2 billion to the United Arab Emirates , a report by William Hartung and Christina Arabia found.

From the report : "Lockheed Martin was involved in deals worth $25 billion; Boeing, $7.1 billion in deals; Raytheon, $5.5 billion in deals; Northrop Grumman had one deal worth $2.5 billion; and BAE systems had a $1.3 billion deal." "Because of the nature of U.S. arms control law, most of these sales have to get government approval, and we've absolutely seen lobbyists weighing in heavily on this," Miles said. "The last time I saw the numbers, the arms industry had nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists.

They're not on the Hill lobbying Congress about how many schools we should open next year. They're lobbying for defense contractors. The past 18 years of endless wars have been incredibly lucrative for the arms industry, and they have a vested industry in seeing these wars continue, and not curtailing the cash cow that has been for them." The defense industry spent $125 million on lobbying in 2018. Of that, Boeing spent $15 million on lobbyists, Lockheed Martin spent $13.2 million , General Dynamics $11.9 million , and Raytheon $4.4 million , according to the Lobbying Disclosure Act website. Writes Ben Freeman:

According to a new report firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act have reported receiving more than $40 million from Saudi Arabia in 2017 and 2018. Saudi lobbyists and public relations professionals have contacted Congress, the executive branch, media outlets and think tanks more than 4,000 times. Much of this work has been focused on ensuring that sales of U.S. arms to Saudi Arabia continue unabated and blocking congressional actions that would end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Lobbyists, lawyers and public relations firms working for the Saudis have also reported doling out more than $4.5 million in campaign contributions in the past two years, including at least $6,000 to Trump. In many cases, these contributions have gone to members of Congress they've contacted regarding the Yemen war. In fact, some contributions have gone to members of Congress on the exact same day they were contacted by Saudi lobbyists, and some were made to key members just before, and even on the day of, important Yemen votes.
Over a dozen lobbying firms employed by defense contractors have also been working on behalf of the Saudi or Emiratis, efficiently lobbying for both the arms buyers and sellers in one fell swoop .

One of these lobbying firms, the McKeon Group, led by former Republican congressman and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Howard McKeon, represents both Saudi Arabia and the American defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK, MBDA, and L3 Technologies. Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman are the biggest suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, the McKeon Group took $1,697,000 from 10 defense contractors " to, among other objectives, continue the flow of arms to Saudi Arabia," reports National Memo. Freeman details multiple examples where lobbyists working on behalf of the Saudis met with a senator's staff and then made a substantial contribution to that senator's campaign within days of a key vote to keep the United States in the Yemen war.

American Defense International (ADI) represents the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's coalition partner in the war against Yemen, as well as several American defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, L3 Technologies, and General Atomics.

Not to be outdone by the McKeon Group, ADI's lobbyists have also aggressively pursued possible swing votes in the U.S. Senate for the hefty sum of $45,000 a month, paid for by the UAE . ADI lobbyists discussed the "situation in Yemen" and the "Paveway sale to the UAE," the same bomb used in the deadly wedding strike, with the office of Senator Martin Heinrich, a member of the Armed Services Committee, according to FARA reports .

ADI's lobbyists also met with Congressman Steve Scalise's legislative director to advise his office to vote against the congressional resolution on Yemen.

For their lobbying, Raytheon paid ADI $120,000 in 2018. In addition to the overt influence exercised by lobbyists for the defense industry, many former arms industry executives are embedded in influential posts throughout the Trump administration: from former Airbus, Huntington Ingalls, and Raytheon lobbyist Charles Faulkner at the State Department, who pushed Mike Pompeo to support arms sales in the Yemen war ; to former Boeing executive and erstwhile head of the Department of Defense Patrick Shanahan; to his interim replacement Mark Esper, secretary of the Army and another former lobbyist for Raytheon.

The war in Yemen has been good for American defense contractors' bottom lines. Since the conflict began, General Dynamics' stock price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon's from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing's from about $150 to $360, according to In These Times. Their analysis found that those four companies have had at least $30.1 billion in Saudi military contracts approved by the State Department over the last 10 years. In April, President Donald Trump vetoed a resolution that would have ended American support for the Saudi-UAE coalition war against Yemen. Such efforts have failed to meet the 60-vote veto-proof threshold needed in the Senate. There are a few senators who didn't vote for the War Powers resolution "that will probably vote for the Raytheon sales," Brittany Benowitz, a lawyer and former adviser to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told TAC. "I think you'll continue to see horrific bombings and as the famine rages on, people will start to ask, 'Why are we a part of this war?' Unfortunately, I don't think that will start to happen anytime soon." Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC


chris chuba a day ago

Yes indeed, we are the #1 arms exporter and very proud about it. Meanwhile, Rubio, Pompeo, et. al. are also proud about how they are finally clamping down on the nefarious arrangement that Venezuela and Cuba have to prop up their regimes.

Venezuela gives Cuba low cost oil and Cuba sends them about 25,000 doctors for free medical care to help prop up Maduro. Hmm ... sounds like one is exporting medical services in return for energy, pure, unabridged evil. Our second best export is misinformation and lies.

I know, someone will give the State Dept line that the doctors are underpaid and the oil is below market price. The point is that both countries export what they have more of in order to get what they need. This is the basics of any trade relationship. Both countries are better off after the transaction and now both countries are suffering because of our benighted intervention.

I keep wondering when God is going to punish us for our appalling arrogance, pride, and our unwavering faith in our own righteousness. God is certainly punishing me. I wish I was one of the blissfully ignorant.

Fran Macadam 2 days ago
The biggest business of America is war. The symptom of how all pervasive this has become is there is a new definition of defeat: the only war that is lost, is one that ends. The new victory is now war without end.
EliteCommInc. 2 days ago
If the Saudis have not yet routed the Houthis, I am doubt they ever will. Without invading the country and holding ground, I am unclear of the point of constantly bombing.

The Houthis won their civil conflict, best allow them to constitute a government and deal with it.

Sid Finster EliteCommInc. a day ago
The Saudis have invaded Yemen, but they and their mercenaries keep getting ambushed and ganked. The Yemeni tribes have a very long and successful history of guerrilla warfare.

Admittedly, it's mostly the mercenaries, as the Saudis don't like a centralized military in particular and don't like fighting opponents who can shoot back in general.

Nelson a day ago
"Such efforts have failed to meet the 60-vote veto-proof threshold needed in the Senate."

A veto override requires 2/3 of the votes, which is 67 in the Senate.

polistra24 a day ago
Not surprising. Dow = genocide, both internally and externally. Every added point on the Dow is built on a massive pile of carcasses.
LFC 18 hours ago
"Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International, said to CNBC in February.

Yeah and Wells Fargo were just practicing "innovation" that the financial companies have told us they need to do.

Lily Sandoz a day ago
The Republic is a total failure. It cares nothing for the Constitution the representatives are sworn to uphold and abide by. It's all about the symbiosis of power in gov. and money in business. Those two factions exchange what they other needs to gain more power and money at the expense of the taxpayers and countries abroad being destroyed. It's pretty simple if you ask 'cui bono' and then follow the money. This time following the money may take the USA/world to thermo-nuclear war which psychos like Bolton, Pompeo, Pence, Netanyahu, the MIC and all the other neo-cons want. Currently the war policy against Iran seems to be tied up in Christian-Zionist eschatology to bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Does it get any more loony than this? Metaphysics driving political and foreign policy is really a recipe for a disaster and may actually bring about loosing the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse on the world, but that's OK I guess because Wash. sees the 'big picture.'
Doom Incarnate a day ago
Seriously people.

Buy the stocks of those companies.

Sure what your government is doing is wrong. It should do something else. But in the meantime, there's no reason for you not to profit.

This is America after all and warfighting is good business.

Boo yaa!!!!

EliteCommInc. 2 days ago
Ohhh Here's my short response . . . .

https://247wallst.com/speci...

[Jun 26, 2019] VIPS Memo to the President Is Pompeo's Iran Agenda the Same As Yours Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the nation. ..."
"... As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015. ..."
"... CIA malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The New York Times claims you were not informed.) ..."
"... The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he "really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently caught your eye. ..."
"... For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: ..."
Jun 21, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the nation.

DATE: June 21, 2019

MEMORANDUM FOR : The President.

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Is Pompeo's Iran Agenda the Same As Yours?

A fter the close call yesterday when you called off the planned military strike on Iran, we remain concerned that you are about to be mousetrapped into war with Iran. You have said you do not want such a war (no sane person would), and our comments below are based on that premise. There are troubling signs that Secretary Pompeo is not likely to jettison his more warlike approach, More importantly, we know from personal experience with Pompeo's dismissive attitude to instructions from you that his agenda can deviate from yours on issues of major consequence.

Pompeo's behavior betrays a strong desire to resort to military action -- perhaps even without your approval -- to Iranian provocations (real or imagined), with no discernible strategic goal other than to advance the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He is a neophyte compared to his anti-Iran partner John Bolton, whose dilettante approach to interpreting intelligence, strong advocacy of the misbegotten war on Iraq (and continued pride in his role in promoting it), and fierce pursuit of his own aggressive agenda are a matter of a decades-long record. You may not be fully aware of our experience with Pompeo, who has now taken the lead on Iran.

That experience leaves us with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to you and the country, including the contentious issue of alleged Russian hacking into the DNC. The sketchy "evidence" behind that story has now crumbled, thanks to some unusual candor from the Department of Justice. We refer to the extraordinary revelation in a recent Department of Justice court filing that former FBI Director James Comey never required a final forensic report from the DNC-hired cybersecurity company, CrowdStrike.

Comey, of course, has admitted to the fact that, amid accusations from the late Sen. John McCain and others that the Russians had committed "an act of war," the FBI did not follow best practices and insist on direct access to the DNC computers, preferring to rely on CrowdStrike reporting. What was not known until the DOJ revelation is that CrowdStrike never gave Comey a final report on its forensic findings regarding alleged "Russian hacking." Mainstream media have suppressed this story so far; we reported it several days ago.

The point here is that Pompeo could have exposed the lies about Russian hacking of the DNC, had he done what you asked him to do almost two years ago when he was director of the CIA.

In our Memorandum to you of July 24, 2017 entitled "Was the 'Russian Hack' an Inside Job?," we suggested:

"You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this.["This" being the evidence-deprived allegation that "a shadowy entity with the moniker 'Guccifer 2.0' hacked the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks ."] Our own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down."

Three months later, Director Pompeo invited William Binney, one of VIPS' two former NSA technical directors (and a co-author of our July 24, 2017 Memorandum), to CIA headquarters to discuss our findings. Pompeo began an hour-long meeting with Binney on October 24, 2017 by explaining the genesis of the unusual invitation: "You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk to you."

But Did Pompeo 'Really Want to Know'?

Apparently not. Binney, a widely respected, plain-spoken scientist with more than three decades of experience at NSA , began by telling Pompeo that his (CIA) people were lying to him about Russian hacking and that he (Binney) could prove it. As we explained in our most recent Memorandum to you, Pompeo reacted with disbelief and -- now get this -- tried to put the burden on Binney to pursue the matter with the FBI and NSA.

As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015.

CIA malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The New York Times claims you were not informed.)

If Pompeo failed to report back to you on the conversation you instructed him to have with Binney, you might ask him about it now (even though the flimsy evidence of Russia hacking the DNC has now evaporated, with Binney vindicated). There were two note-takers present at the October 24, 2017 meeting at CIA headquarters. There is also a good chance the session was also recorded. You might ask Pompeo about that.

Whose Agenda?

The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he "really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently caught your eye.

Had he pursued the matter seriously with Binney, we might not have had to wait until the Justice Department itself put nails in the coffin of Russiagate, CrowdStrike, and Comey. In sum, Pompeo could have prevented two additional years of "everyone knows that the Russians hacked into the DNC." Why did he not?

Pompeo is said to be a bright fellow -- Bolton, too–with impeccable academic credentials. The history of the past six decades , though, shows that an Ivy League pedigree can spell disaster in affairs of state. Think, for example, of President Lyndon Johnson's national security adviser, former Harvard Dean McGeorge Bundy, for example, who sold the Tonkin Gulf Resolution to Congress to authorize the Vietnam war based on what he knew was a lie. Millions dead.

Bundy was to LBJ as John Bolton is to you, and it is a bit tiresome watching Bolton brandish his Yale senior ring at every podium. Think, too, of Princeton's own Donald Rumsfeld concocting and pushing the fraud about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to "justify" war on Iraq, assuring us all the while that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Millions dead.

Rumsfeld's dictum is anathema to William Binney, who has shown uncommon patience answering a thousand evidence-free "What if's" over the past three years. Binney's shtick? The principles of physics, applied mathematics, and the scientific method. He is widely recognized for his uncanny ability to use these to excellent advantage in separating the chaff from wheat. No Ivy pedigree wanted or needed.

Binney describes himself as a "country boy" from western Pennsylvania. He studied at Penn State and became a world renowned mathematician/cryptologist as well as a technical director at NSA. Binney's accomplishments are featured in a documentary on YouTube, "A Good American." You may wish to talk to him person-to-person.

Cooked Intelligence

Some of us served as long ago as the Vietnam War. We are painfully aware of how Gen. William Westmoreland and other top military officers lied about the "progress" the Army was making, and succeeded in forcing their superiors in Washington to suppress our conclusions as all-source analysts that the war was a fool's errand and one we would inevitably lose. Millions dead.

Four decades later, on February 5, 2003, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, we warned President Bush that there was no reliable intelligence to justify war on Iraq.

Five years later, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, releasing the bipartisan conclusions of the committee's investigation, said this :

" In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."

Intelligence on the Middle East has still been spotty -- and sometimes "fixed" for political purposes. Four years ago, a U.S. congressional report said Central Command painted too rosy a picture of the fight against Islamic State in 2014 and 2015 compared with the reality on the ground and grimmer assessments by other analysts.

Intelligence analysts at CENTCOM claimed their commanders imposed a "false narrative" on analysts, intentionally rewrote and suppressed intelligence products, and engaged in "delay tactics" to undermine intelligence provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. In July 2015, fifty CENTCOM analysts signed a complaint to the Pentagon's Inspector General that their intelligence reports were being manipulated by their superiors. The CENTCOM analysts were joined by intelligence analysts working for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

We offer this as a caution. As difficult as this is for us to say, the intelligence you get from CENTCOM should not be accepted reflexively as gospel truth, especially in periods of high tension. The experience of the Tonkin Gulf alone should give us caution. Unclear and misinterpreted intelligence can be as much a problem as politicization in key conflict areas.

Frequent problems with intelligence and Cheney-style hyperbole help explain why CENTCOM commander Admiral William Fallon in early 2007 blurted out that "an attack on Iran " will not happen on my watch," as Bush kept sending additional carrier groups into the Persian Gulf. Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs, warned at the time that some Bush advisers secretly wanted an excuse to attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," she told Newsweek. Deja vu. A National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 concluded unanimously that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and had not resumed such work.

We believe your final decision yesterday was the right one -- given the so-called "fog of war" and against the background of a long list of intelligence mistakes, not to mention "cooking" shenanigans. We seldom quote media commentators, but we think Tucker Carlson had it right yesterday evening: "The very people -- in some cases, literally the same people who lured us into the Iraq quagmire 16 years ago -- are demanding a new war -- this one with Iran. Carlson described you as "skeptical." We believe ample skepticism is warranted.

We are at your disposal, should you wish to discuss any of this with us.

For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

[Jun 26, 2019] Pompeo is a MIC lobbyist, not a diplomat

Highly recommended!
Pretty harsh evaluation of Pompeo by usually very polite Chinese newspaper. And what is true that in no way Pompeo is a diplomat. He is a lobbyist for MIC, no more no less. Kind of Madeline Albright of different sex.
As Chinese journalist observed "Diplomacy is governed by international conventions, which require all countries to observe basic norms. Pompeo behaves like a gangster. He is abandoning the traditional US major-power diplomacy and defying the gentle style of diplomats. "
Notable quotes:
"... Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk. ..."
"... Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace. ..."
"... Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. ..."
"... Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value. ..."
Jun 26, 2019 | www.globaltimes.cn

Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to be a politically troublesome figure in the global arena. Washington stands at a critical juncture as it redesigns the national strategy blueprint within a Cold War framework. The highest-ranking US diplomat has single-handedly activated an outdated mindset, smashing it to the point of climax.

Known as an extreme hardliner at the White House, Pompeo has redefined the traditional understanding of the chief diplomat's role among the world's major powers with his signature reckless behaviour.

Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace.

During his visits to other nations, Pompeo has bad-mouthed and tried to suppress China, Russia, and Iran. His offensive remarks on China have destroyed the past China-US diplomatic language that was enjoyed for decades, preferring to use negligent words from his personal arsenal.

Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

His outspoken opinions on the recent events in Hong Kong was more of a Rubicon River crossing than someone was just merely speaking their mind. Rather than adhere to a big power game like his predecessors, Pompeo has transformed himself into anti-China flag on two legs.

The US relationship between China , Russia, and Iran will determine the future course of international relations. The condition of each relationship serves as a wind vane indicating stability or turbulence worldwide.

Pompeo is not only disrupting China, Russia, and Iran but also damaging the interests of other countries. His words and actions have jinxed the very notion of 21st-century peace.

It is understandable how the US could feel threatened, due to the pattern shift among world powers. However, Pompeo's goal has nothing to do with enhancing trust or easing concerns expressed by other countries. Instead, he wants to turn US insecurity into a form of visible hatred and increase hostility worldwide. He has consistently influenced stable international conditions to the point of deterioration.

"Make America Great Again" is not a one-man show. The notion, which is nothing more than an illiterate slogan, will never materialize and connect with the harmony enjoyed elsewhere throughout the world.

In the past decades, the US has engaged in too many wars and conflicts, while also issuing sanctions against foreign countries which were later drained of their national strength.

Pompeo has continued to push the US toward the flames of confrontation when dealing with major foreign powers. He has not helped Trump achieve earlier campaign promises, and on the contrary, he is making it difficult for the US president to keep them.

Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value.

Judging from the US and its Cold War reboot strategy, Pompeo has roamed too far outside of the perimeter and has officially lost his way. The US government has labelled China as its "strategic competitor." Meanwhile, Pompeo has ignited hostility from China.

Pompeo's words are by no means an accurate consensus of the US public who also want to enjoy a harmonious existence. By making volatile claims against China look reasonable, Pompeo has turned himself into a cheerleader of hatred, who uses slander and vitriol for pompoms.

Having a secretary of state of this calibre is a tragedy of US politics and the sorrow of international politics. The world needs to be exposed to the damage Pompeo has brought to humankind's peaceful existence. His destructive power should not be tolerated because of his title. He has repeatedly crushed diplomacy's constructive role while ignoring opportunities to ease international conflicts. He is a stain upon the professional honour of diplomacy. The global diplomatic community should detest his actions and join together in a crusade against him.

This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.

[Jun 26, 2019] Downward Spiral of Neocon Dumbness

Jun 26, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

[Neocon] Ideologues are often willfully stupid, on both the right and the left. It serves them. Their selective blindness allows them to avoid thinking seriously about the world, and especially the state of their own souls.

Most of their lives are spent in the expedient serving and comfort of themselves. The good they do, the good things they may think, the public service that they may provide for others is generally inner directed. It is designed to make themselves feel good about themselves, and superior and apart from the masses, whom in their condescension they secretly despise.

Even their negative and disapproving emotions about others are self-serving, designed to elevate their views of themselves and their imagined aloofness and superiority. They are incapable of genuine repentance, because they blind themselves to their sins, and wash them away in their disgust with others whom they imagine are so much worse."

Jesse

[Jun 26, 2019] Black Markets Show How Socialists Can't Overturn Economic Laws Zero Hedge

Jun 26, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Black Markets Show How Socialists Can't Overturn Economic Laws

by Tyler Durden Tue, 06/25/2019 - 22:45 3 SHARES

Authored by Allen Gindler via The Mises Institute,

If we consider economics to be an objective science, its rules should also have universal significance and use, despite differences in societal order. However, socialists of the materialist camp are committed to the idea that common ownership of the means of production would change the way economic laws unfold under socialism. Basically, they reject the notion of the universality and objectivity of economic rules by suggesting that the laws would change along with a change to the social formation.

Thus, communists adhered to the Marxian idea that socialism would rectify a "surplus value" law, end the "exploitation" of workers, and efficiently regulate the production, distribution, and consumption aspects of the economy. They sought to eliminate the market regulatory mechanism and replace it with directives of the central planning authority. Bolsheviks enthusiastically got down to business: they eradicated private property, collectivized everything and everyone, and implemented an official planned economy.

Did it effectively turn off market relations as they thought it would?

No. In contrast to the common perception, socialism has been unable to kill the market economy. The market went underground and turned into a black market. Black markets existed in capitalist countries as well, but they worked underground because they dealt in illegal commodities and services. The black market under socialism served the same purpose, but the list of commodities and services included mostly items of everyday and innocent consumption that people under capitalism could easily purchase in stores. Virtually all groups of personal consumption products found their way to the black market at some time and in some places. Everything from jar lids to toilet paper was subject to black-market relations.

Despite the proclaimed planned economy, people were engaged in market relations on all levels and trusted more the price of the goods and services that were established by the market and not dictated by the government. The official exchange rate of the ruble to the dollar was 0.66 to 1 in 1980. But nobody except party nomenclature was able to enjoy such a favorable exchange rate. At the same time, the black market offered 4 rubles for 1 American dollar.

There was no production of jeans in the Soviet Union, but like all their peers abroad, Soviet youth wore jeans. The price was 180–250 rubles for a pair depending on the brand, which was almost twice as much as the monthly wage of an entry-level engineer. A visiting nurse charged 1 ruble for one injection if a patient lived below the fifth floor. The price reached 1.5 rubles for patients who lived on the fifth floor and up. A plumber happily repaired a faucet for just a bottle of vodka.

Two Prices for Everything

Therefore, in the Soviet Union, any significant goods had two price tags: one real and another virtual. The state set the first price through some obscure methods; the usual mechanism of supply and demand established the second price on the market. If you were lucky, after several hours of standing in a queue, you could purchase goods at the state price. However, due to the chronic lack of everything for everyone, the same product could be bought on the black market at a much higher price. The virtual price became real on the black market and reflected the actual value of the goods for the buyer. The presence of two price tags is a confirmation of the thesis of Ludwig von Mises regarding the impossibility of economic calculations under socialism. At the same time, this is proof of the immortality and immutability of the economic laws of the free market, even under a totalitarian regime. Therefore, two economic systems and two sets of prices co-exist under socialism.

People were forced to use the services of the black market, even under the penalty of severe punishment, including up to the death penalty. Almost the entire society was engaged in various corruption schemes to support a certain standard of living. There was a paradoxical situation when the shelves of the supermarkets were empty, but refrigerators at home were more or less full. The black market was filled with smuggled goods from abroad, as well as commodities produced in underground workshops. But more often, everyday products were specifically kept from retail to create a shortage and sell them on the black market at a speculative price. Socialism had undermined the normal flows of production, distribution, and consumption by ignoring the objective laws of economics. Nevertheless, an underground market and the intrinsic entrepreneurial spirit of the people helped them survive the socialist madness.

Regardless of the proclaimed successes of the Soviet economy reported by Communist party leaders, the socialist economy was unable to compete with its capitalist counterparts. Communists decided to create a system that somehow mimicked the work that a free market had successfully and automatically performed for centuries. Thus, they introduced socialist competition that was supposed to replace free market competition. Surely enough, it was an inadequate and unfortunate replacement. The rewards for winners in the capitalist competition were far higher than for the winners under socialism. For example, the capitalist winner enjoyed a significant increase in well-being.

Moreover, the principal winner of the free market competition was society as a whole. This is a natural feature of a free market economy and the main reason why the evolution of human societies selected this mode of production. A competition during socialism gave to the winners some publicity, a certificate of honor, maybe a trip to a "sanatorium" (that is, a health spa), and other bagatelles that people usually did not appreciate. But most importantly, society as a whole did not enjoy a significant improvement in well-being.

People were not sufficiently stimulated and were underpaid, which explained the lower labor productivity compared to capitalist countries. Moreover, this is despite the notion that the means of production, at last, belong to the workers themselves. People had a famous saying that can be considered the quintessence of Soviet-style socialism: "They [the government] pretend to pay, and we pretend to work."

Socialism is a set of systems that try to artificially inhibit the free flow of objective economic laws by creating subjective barriers in the form of specific legislation and punitive policies . Socialists mistakenly think that if they assault private property and market relations, the economic laws will also change. They have taken up the task which, in principle, has no rational solution. Nothing good comes from the idea of ignoring or violating the fundamental laws of economics. These laws still exist, regardless of opinions and neglect to recognize their real character and the impossibility of changing them.

Socialism disrupts the evolutionary process and leads society to a dead end. The desperate economic situation of ordinary folks in Venezuela , Cuba , and North Korea -- the remnants of socialist undertakings -- is a direct result of building a society in defiance of the natural action of the fundamental law of economics. As a rule, socialist regimes were buying time by employing slave labor, plunder, coercion, and everything else that an aggressive totalitarian regime could offer. However, in the end, the means of socialistic life support was exhausted, and than returning to the natural and healthy market relations, where the laws of economics work for the benefit of the human race.

The same laws of market economics have worked in different human societies: from pre-historic to post-industrial, but still socialists continue to entertain the idea of tampering with these forces of nature.

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[Jun 26, 2019] Cost of potential US war with Iran $250 oil another Afghanistan

Notable quotes:
"... Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs. ..."
"... even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation. ..."
"... On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure. ..."
"... To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping tight control over the entire country at the same time. ..."
Jun 26, 2019 | www.rt.com

Iran's downing of a US military surveillance drone last week predictably led to another flare-up in tense relations between Tehran and Washington. What could be the implications of a potential conflict between the two nations? Right after the Global Hawk UAV was shot down, the New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran, but then changed his mind.

Let's start by saying that the decision to launch a military operation against Iran (which is what this is really about), including the specific time and place, would have to be taken by a very small group of top US political and military officials. At such meetings, no leaks could possibly occur by definition.

Now, let's take a look at some of the details. The difference between a 'strike' and an 'operation' is quite significant, at the very least in terms of duration, and forces and equipment involved. It would be nice to know if the NYT actually meant a single airstrike or an entire air operation.

Also on rt.com US lapdog Jeremy Hunt prepping British public for war with Iran, just in case Trump asks

Amusingly enough, the publication reported that the strikes were scheduled for early morning to minimize the potential death toll among the Iranian military and civilians. It's worth pointing out that the US has never cared about the number of victims either among the military personnel or the civilian population of its adversaries.

Moreover, the purpose of any military conflict is to do as much damage to your enemy as possible in terms of personnel, military hardware and other equipment. This is how the goals of any armed conflict are achieved. Of course, it would be best if civilian losses are kept to a minimum, but for the US it's more of a secondary rather than a primary objective.

The US Navy and Air Force traditionally strike before dawn with one purpose alone – to avoid the antiaircraft artillery (both small and medium-caliber), as well as a number of air defense systems with optical tracking, firing at them. Besides, a strike in the dark hours of the day affects the morale of the enemy personnel.

Here we need to understand that Iran would instantly retaliate, and Tehran has no small capabilities for that. In other words, it would be a full-scale war. For the US, it wouldn't end with one surgical airstrike without consequences, like in Syria. And the US seems to have a very vague idea on what a military victory over Iran would look like.

Also on rt.com US will not 'stumble into' war with Iran by mistake. If it happens, it will be by design

There is no doubt that a prolonged air campaign by the US will greatly undermine Iran's military and economic potential and reduce the country to the likes of Afghanistan, completely destroying its hydrocarbon production and exports industries.

To say how long such a campaign could last would be too much of a wild guess, but we have the examples of Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when airstrikes lasted for 38 days, and Yugoslavia in 1991 when the bombing continued for 78 days. So, theoretically, the US could bomb Iran for, say, 100 days, wrecking the country's economy and infrastructure step by step.

However, the price the US would have to pay for starting such a military conflict may turn out to be too high.

For instance, Iran can respond to US aggression by launching intermediate and shorter-range ballistic missiles to target oil and gas fields and terminals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE.

Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs.

Firstly, it should be pointed out that even though the capabilities of US intelligence agencies are almost limitless, quite a few Iranian missile launching sites remain undiscovered. Secondly, US air defense systems in the Persian Gulf, no matter how effective, would not shoot down every last Iranian missile. And even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation.

On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure.

Also on rt.com $300 oil? US war with Iran spells catastrophe for global economy, expert tells RT

If such a scenario came true, that would bring inconceivable chaos to the global economy and would immediately drive up oil prices to $200-250 per barrel – and that's the lowest estimate. It is these implications that are most likely keeping the US from attacking Iran.

To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping tight control over the entire country at the same time.

For the record, the US failed to do that even in Afghanistan, which is several times smaller than Iran in terms of both territory and population. And almost 18 years of fighting later, the US has achieved next to nothing.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

[Jun 26, 2019] Lawrence Wilkerson Trump Is Deepening the 'Economic War' Against Iran naked capitalism

Jun 26, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

GREG WILPERT It's not clear what impact these new sanctions will have on Iran, but the sanctions that have already been imposed since the US withdrew from the JCPOA last year have had a serious effect on Iran's economy. According to oil industry analysts, Iranian oil exports have dropped from 2.5 million barrels per day in April 2013, to about 300,000 barrels per day currently. The latest sanctions come on the heels of heightened tensions. Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of attacking two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Then later that week, Iran downed an expensive US drone over the same strait saying that it had entered Iranian airspace. President Trump later revealed that the US was about to retaliate over the weekend with an airstrike against Iran, but Trump changed his mind in the last minute and launched a cyber-attack against Iranian military facilities instead. Joining me now to discuss the latest in the confrontation between the US and Iran is Colonel Larry Wilkerson. He is former Chief of staff to the Secretary of State Colin Powell, and now a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. Thanks for joining us again, Larry.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Good to be with you.

GREG WILPERT So let's start with the sanctions. As I said, it's far from clear whether these latest sanctions mean anything, but the earlier sanctions are certainly having an effect on Iran, shrinking its economy and causing shortages. Now Trump argued that he called off the airstrike on Iran because he had been told that up to 150 people could have been killed, and that this would have been a disproportionate response to shooting down their drone, but there are reports that Iranians are having trouble accessing lifesaving medicines, such as for cancer treatment. Now, what do you make of this rationale for calling off the airstrike but then at the same time intensifying sanctions?

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON There is no question that the sanctions we have on Iran -- and for that matter on North Korea, and on Venezuela, perhaps even still do on Venezuela -- constitute economic warfare. That's the reality that the world doesn't seem to want to address because the United States is so powerful and that their economies and financial networks are so wrapped up with us. That said, it's not like -- And the crassness of the United States with regard to these sanctions was about saved by none other than Madeleine Albright best when she was confronted with a number of Iraqi children who were dying as a result of the sanctions we had on Saddam Hussein. And she simply said, well I thought it was worth it. Worth it -- to kill all those children? The sanctions regimes we execute though, are a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more well-aimed, more precisely aimed these days.

I was very much associated with the ones on North Korea, ones on Iraq, the way we tried to smarten them up and so forth. The ones on Iran I think are having a very meaningful impact in terms of cutting down on Iran's ability to do everything that it does, including as you pointed out to sell oil. But that said, if Saddam Hussein could evade the sanctions that were on him to the extent that we now know he did, and we know from past experience how well the Kims evaded sanctions in North Korea and invented ways to get around them -- criminal activity like counterfeiting American hundred-dollar bills, for example. And other things that I know about sanctions, I would say the Iranians would be able to survive these no matter how tight we think we've made them. By and large, the Iranian government -- the Majlis, the judiciary, the Ayatollahs, the Guardian Council, the IRGC, the Quds Force -- they don't care about the Iranian people. That's one thing we ought to say more often and more frequently because it's true.

Corruption is so rife in Iran and all sanctions do is increase the money in the hands of those who are corrupt, like the IRGC and the Quds Force. So despite all these statistics and everything -- Look at oil, for example. ISIS, we now know, survived quite richly off its oil sales and we know that Turkey was behind most of the facilitation of those oil sales. The same thing is going to happen with Iran, so official statistics are really meaningless. That said, the sanctions are biting, but I don't think they're ever going to bite to the extent that someone's going to come forward like our Mr. Zarif and say, okay John. Okay Mike. Okay Donald. We're ready to talk. It is just not gonna happen.

Ashburn , June 26, 2019 at 1:50 pm

Even a so-called "surgical strike" on targets within Iran risks the Iranians closing the straight of Hormuz and blocking all oil shipments– somewhere between 20%- 30% or world's oil exports. World oil prices would skyrocket and the entire world's economy would be in chaos. Trillion$ in derivatives would instantly be at risk. There is no way the US military, or the Saudis can prevent this. I believe this is the real reason Trump supposedly cancelled the planned retaliatory strike for Iran's shoot-down of our drone.

Iran knows that sanctions on Iraq during the 90's killed over 500,000 Iraqi children. Even though Col. Wilkerson says Iran's leadership doesn't care about its people, they certainly care more than the US does and won't be willing to sit on their hands and watch this happen. They will resist with force if necessary and make the US and its subservient allies pay the price.

[Jun 25, 2019] Tulsi on Iraq war and Trump administration and some interesting information about Bolton

With minor comment editions for clarity...
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

J. Gutierrez says: June 24, 2019 at 5:37 pm GMT 300 Words

...Look at this man's video and remember he is a pervert, warmonger and a coward!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hs35O_TBbbU

Ma Laoshi , says: June 24, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez

...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.

The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim deserve better, given what we see around us.

Saka Arya , says: June 25, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT
@Malla

Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian invasion of Greece & the West

[Jun 25, 2019] The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook's Message: Trust Us, We're Unreliable

Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

@ jayc 57
US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal
Yes they did, and now they regret it.
In 2013 Ali Khamenei said: "Certainly, we are pessimistic about the Americans. We do not trust them. We consider the government of the United States of America as an unreliable, arrogant, illogical, and trespassing government,"

The JCPOA was not a unilateral deal between USA and Iran, it was a multilateral deal
That's correct de jure, but not de facto. The US all by itself is leading the current attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any significant support from other JCPOA participants.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 5:10:10 PM | 66

The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook...
______________________________________

Brian Hook is a "special" envoy in the sense that the "Special Olympics" are special.

Posted by: Ort | Jun 24, 2019 5:16:44 PM | 69

@68 Ort

Good one. Although Brian Hook is an insult to special olympians and humanity in general.

Posted by: Uncle Jon | Jun 24, 2019 5:22:51 PM | 71

[Jun 25, 2019] It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war

Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back.

Hugh Hewitt called it the "big blink," inviting Liz Cheney -- who is very much her father's daughter on foreign policy -- on his show to warn, "Weakness is provocative." Hewitt compared it to Barack Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria. "Much worse" argued Kori Schake in The Atlantic . Other reporting focused on a "total breakdown in process."

It was not a picture perfect approach to national security, to be sure. But it did sharply illustrate the Beltway's strange priorities. When Trump twice bombed Syria, few of those who fret about his erosion of constitutional norms or authoritarian tendencies protested his failure to seek congressional authorization as required by the Constitution. There was a much larger process-related panic when Trump said late last year he wanted to bring American troops home from Syria.

... ... ...

"How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?" Woodward quotes Trump as asking. One Post write-up folded these lines into a broader story about the White House's "nervous breakdown" and the national security team's impatience with the president. But these are morally serious questions, not exaggerated inaugural crowd size estimates.

[Jun 25, 2019] This Administration's handling of Iran is bellicose and stupid by W. James Antle III

Notable quotes:
"... It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war. ..."
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove" advisors? ..."
"... If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker. ..."
"... Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again. ..."
"... "It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster." ..."
"... the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution. ..."
"... And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war.

... ... ...

Adriana Pena a day ago
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
ron_goodman 2 days ago
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
Bill In Montgomey a day ago • edited
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the first place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian air space (or right on its border).

Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove" advisors?

=marco01= 2 days ago • edited
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning meetings/briefings.

If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker.

Ken T a day ago
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again.

But just because on this pass he happened to randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're supposed to congratulate him for finally "becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is the contortions his supporters put themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to everyone else.

Dave Sullivan 14 hours ago
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article is crop.
paradoctor 18 hours ago
I'm glad that he didn't, but I'm not glad that he almost did.
FL_Cottonmouth a day ago
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President," is a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used when Trump bombed Syria for the first time.

He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their restraint (on the contrary, they have created a crisis for no good reason and have brought us to the brink of war as a result) so much as he's criticizing the media for its warmongering.

The media is actually trying to bait the President into a unilateral act of war against another country that hasn't attacked us and couldn't threaten us even if it did.

Taras77 a day ago
"It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."

At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm Bolton, it is a matter of time before the situation blows up.

SteveM a day ago
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would be a truly presidential act."

However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this time. (And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and kill and destroy without question.)

So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution.

And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.

[Jun 25, 2019] This Administration's handling of Iran, as compared to the last, is anything but stupid.

Notable quotes:
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would be a truly presidential act." ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

UPC Arch Stanton a day ago

...This Administration's handling of Iran, as compared to the last, is anything but stupid. Unless, of course, you're of the opinion we should be going to war, and you're pissed that this President made the right decision at the right time. Nice try, because thinking the way you are is stupid.
Adriana Pena a day ago
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
ron_goodman 2 days ago
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
Bill In Montgomey a day ago • edited
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the first place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian air space (or right on its border).

Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future.

For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt.

By the way, who are his "dove" advisors?

John D. Thullen a day ago
Well, this article vanquished my very recent admiration for Michael Brendan Dougherty, acquired by way of Mr. Dreher.

"articulates a classical Augustinian just war argument ..."

That's like claiming Mrs O'Leary's cow that kicked over the lantern and burned Chicago to the ground was articulating the finer points of preventing forest fires originated by Smokey the Bear.

Do the writers here do a little physical stretching before contorting yourselves into pretzel shapes trying to justify every lantern Trump kicks over into poles of dry hay as he goes along?

Of course conservative Christians hate pulling back from imminent, and possibly nuclear war. When haven't they in American history?

=marco01= 2 days ago • edited
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning meetings/briefings.

If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker.

Ken T a day ago
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again. But just because on this pass he happened to randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're supposed to congratulate him for finally "becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is the contortions his supporters put themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to everyone else.
Dave Sullivan 14 hours ago
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article is crop.
paradoctor 18 hours ago
I'm glad that he didn't, but I'm not glad that he almost did.
FL_Cottonmouth a day ago
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President," is a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used when Trump bombed Syria for the first time. He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their restraint (on the contrary, they have created a crisis for no good reason and have brought us to the brink of war as a result) so much as he's criticizing the media for its warmongering. The media is actually trying to bait the President into a unilateral act of war against another country that hasn't attacked us and couldn't threaten us even if it did.
Emma Liame a day ago
thank you!!!
Taras77 a day ago
"It does not require Nostradamus-like
skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to
be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."

At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm bolton, it is a matter of time before the situation blows up.

SteveM a day ago
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this
pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would
deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would
be a truly presidential act."

However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this time. (And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and kill and destroy without question.)

So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution.

And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.

Jessica Ramer a day ago
This type of article is the reason I read The American Conservative. Thank you for addressing this important issue from a cautious and realistic perspective.

Although Donald Trump and I are on opposite sides of the fence on nearly every issue, I do prefer his restrained foreign policy instincts to the hawkish ones of Hillary Clinton.

Cascade Joe 2 days ago
One hundred thumbs up for this article.
Apex_Predator a day ago
"Neocons gonna neocon"

"In other breaking news, water is still wet!"

PeterTx52 a day ago
lots of anti-Trumper commenters
EliteCommInc. a day ago
Goodness you people and your Nobel prize obsession. The last guy got one he didn't deserve so I should get one too. Whether the decision was presidential or not is hinged on motive in my view.

If it was an assessment that if our drone did in fly over US airspace, then it represented a legitimate target for Iran - then certainly critical thinking as expressed has some merit to sound management.

If the matter was decided on the messiness of conflict and calculating one's political carreer, the level of sound management is simply not a factor.

MrNIKOLA 2 days ago
THIS is what white supremacy looks like: Punish Iran because one day in the far off future they may develop an atomic bomb but gift Israel $3 billion a year while it harbors hundreds of nukes. Meanwhile, pat head choppers like Saudi Arabia on the head -- As long as they buys billions in US weapons and force nations to use US dollars to buy oil.
Wardog00 MrNIKOLA a day ago
Do you realize that Iran is an Aryan nation, which would make them white? Israel is a Jewish nation, which most white supremacists hate. And Saudi Arabia is an Arab country, which would not make it a white country.
So how in the world is this what white supremacy looks like?

[Jun 25, 2019] It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him. Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret of their desire for the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic. Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid. ..."
"... Trump has diverted American resources to granting Sheldon Adelson's every wish for a FOREIGN nation. Trump has NOT fulfilled his DUTY and Promises to the American People as he has focused on Israel. Trump is attempting to embroil this Nation in a foreign war through blatant LIES. FIRST Trump claims scuba divers planted 90lb. Limpet mines 12 feet up the side of a ship while bobbing in the water! ..."
"... SECOND Iran shoots down US drone. I am surprised more are not shot down. Usually the US uses them against defenseless enemies, but that is apparently not the case with Iran. What if Russia starts flying drones over OUR coastline? ..."
"... CURE: Trump, Adelson, Kushner, Pompeo, Bolton, need to go on trial for treason. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

william chandler , 25 June 2019 at 04:16 PM

It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR.

Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him. Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret of their desire for the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic. Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid.

Sheldon Adelson BRIBED Trump and the Republicans .... This does not include the "favorable and unusual" so-called loans granted Kushner and ?Trump? who is notorious for being in financial difficulty and is desperately hiding his taxes.Trump has lots of energy for defending his tax returns but very little for defending Our borders. Trump's lawyers will appeal and fight this tooth and nail for his Taxes.

But when some P.O.S. "judge" treasonously rules against defending this Nation's borders from Invaders Trump just shruggs and submits.

Makes empty threats about where to put the Invaders, and goes back to putting ISRAEL FIRST.

CURE: Trump, Adelson, Kushner, Pompeo, Bolton, need to go on trial for treason.

[Jun 25, 2019] Trump may be in too deep to avoid war with Iran by Patrick Cockburn

Notable quotes:
"... But if a ground war is ruled out, then Iran is engaged in the sort of limited conflict in which it has long experience. A senior Iraqi official once said to me that the Iranians "have a PhD" in this type of part political, part military warfare. They are tactics that have worked well for Tehran in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria over the past 40 years. The Iranians have many pressure points against the US, and above all against its Saudi and Emirati allies in the Gulf. ..."
"... Saddam Hussein sought to throttle Iran's oil exports and Iran tried to do the same to Iraq. The US and its allies weighed in openly on Saddam Hussein's side – an episode swiftly forgotten by them after the Iraqi leader invaded Kuwait in 1990. From 1987 on, re-registered Kuwaiti tankers were being escorted through the Gulf by US warships. There were US airstrikes against Iranian ships and shore facilities, culminating in the accidental but very avoidable shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner with 290 passengers on board by the USS Vincennes in 1988. Iran was forced to sue for peace in its war with Iraq. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

But the dilemma for Trump is at a deeper level. His sanctions against Iran, reimposed after he withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, are devastating the Iranian economy. The US Treasury is a more lethal international power than the Pentagon. The EU and other countries have stuck with the deal, but they have in practice come to tolerate the economic blockade of Iran.

Iran was left with no choice but to escalate the conflict. It wants to make sure that the US, the European and Asian powers, and US regional allies Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, feel some pain. Tehran never expected much from the EU states, which are still signed up to the 2015 nuclear deal, and has found its low expectations are being fulfilled.

A fundamental misunderstanding of the US-Iran confrontation is shared by many commentators. It may seem self-evident that the US has an interest in using its vast military superiority over Iran to get what it wants. But after the failure of the US ground forces to win in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Somalia, no US leader can start a land war in the Middle East without endangering their political survival at home.

Trump took this lesson to heart long before he became president. He is a genuine isolationist in the American tradition. The Democrats and much of the US media have portrayed Trump as a warmonger, though he has yet to start a war. His national security adviser John Bolton and secretary of state Mike Pompeo issue bloodcurdling threats against Iran, but Trump evidently views such bellicose rhetoric as simply one more way of ramping up the pressure on Iran.

But if a ground war is ruled out, then Iran is engaged in the sort of limited conflict in which it has long experience. A senior Iraqi official once said to me that the Iranians "have a PhD" in this type of part political, part military warfare. They are tactics that have worked well for Tehran in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria over the past 40 years. The Iranians have many pressure points against the US, and above all against its Saudi and Emirati allies in the Gulf.

The Iranians could overplay their hand: Trump is an isolationist, but he is also a populist national leader who claims in his first campaign rallies for the next presidential election to "have made America great again". Such boasts make it difficult to not retaliate against Iran, a country he has demonised as the source of all the troubles in the Middle East.

One US military option looks superficially attractive but conceals many pitfalls. This is to try to carry out operations along the lines of the limited military conflict between the US and Iran called the "tanker war". This was part of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the US came out the winner.

Saddam Hussein sought to throttle Iran's oil exports and Iran tried to do the same to Iraq. The US and its allies weighed in openly on Saddam Hussein's side – an episode swiftly forgotten by them after the Iraqi leader invaded Kuwait in 1990. From 1987 on, re-registered Kuwaiti tankers were being escorted through the Gulf by US warships. There were US airstrikes against Iranian ships and shore facilities, culminating in the accidental but very avoidable shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner with 290 passengers on board by the USS Vincennes in 1988. Iran was forced to sue for peace in its war with Iraq.

Some retired American generals speak about staging a repeat of the tanker war today but circumstances have changed. Iran's main opponent in 1988 was Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iran was well on its way to losing the war, in which there was only one front


Pat Kittle , says: June 24, 2019 at 2:01 am GMT

Patrick Cockburn:

Patrick Clawson tells us whose really calling the shots for war with Iran:

-- ( https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=israel+lobby+submarine+patrick+clawson&view=detail&mid=4881C02C42F22ED6F6164881C02C42F22ED6F616&FORM=VIRE ]

(Hint: It's not Saudi Arabia & the UAE.)

Cheers!
-- Patrick Kittle

Carlton Meyer , says: Website June 24, 2019 at 4:32 am GMT
"Trump took this lesson to heart long before he became president. He is a genuine isolationist in the American tradition."

Mr. Cockburn does not understand the meaning of isolationist. Trump has been pro-empire since the day he took office.

I have better stuff in my blog:

June 22, 2019 – Iran

People familiar with US military history know what just happened off Iran. American aircraft and drones have violated Iranian airspace every week for years, either by accident or because American officers like to screw with them, especially when lots of high-level American officials want war with Iran. Complaints were filed and ignored, so the Iranians shot one down. Note there is no international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz. Half belongs to Iran and the other to UAE and Oman. It is an international waterway, so all ships have the right to transit, but aircraft require permission from one of these nations.

The American people are clueless about this stuff since most only know what our warmongering media tells them, as Jimmy Dore explains in this video. I was shocked and pleased that President Trump saw through this ruse and bravely did nothing. If we bomb Iran they will hit back, maybe openly with a missile barrage, or covertly using Shia militias in Iraq, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. The USA has tens of thousands of soldiers and contractors all over the Arab world. I'm sure local teams have spent years scouting targets and preparing to attack after a green light from Tehran. Trump wisely cancelled this chaos, at least until after his reelection.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MYhvOgN707k?feature=oembed

Robert Dolan , says: June 24, 2019 at 5:26 am GMT
"National security?"

Whose national security?

Iran is no threat to the United States.

We have no right to impose a "regime change" on Iran, no matter how much Israel
wants us to do so.

Israel should fight its' own wars.

We've had enough

Ma Laoshi , says: June 24, 2019 at 9:14 am GMT
"He is a genuine isolationist" Oh please; Mr. Cockburn, you're old enough to have heard of projection. There is nothing genuine about Trump's public persona, except for his greed and egotism. He's a world-class grifter and charlatan–i.e., still not to be underestimated. His calculation will probably be "Can I get re-elected without jumping into the breach? Then that's fine too. If the polls look awful, I'll roll the dice and be a War-Time President like Dubya."

At least, Mr. Cockburn understands that the "crippling sanctions" (the way Americans are always proud of those show that they're just knee-capping mafiosi) are leaving Iran no choice but to fight back. So the decision may not be in Donald's hands; he may be smarter than his media caricature, and yet not as smart as he thought.

Sally Snyder , says: June 24, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
Here is a article that takes a detailed look at Iran's military capabilities:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/06/irans-military-strength-2019-edition.html

Once American servicemen start dying for this rather nebulous cause, it will be the reaction of American voters that will ultimately determine the extent and duration of yet another Middle East military, nation re-engineering "adventure".

EliteCommInc. , says: June 24, 2019 at 4:32 pm GMT
"Note there is no international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz. Half belongs to Iran and the other to UAE and Oman. It is an international waterway, so all ships have the right to transit, but aircraft require permission from one of these nations."

You might want to examine the UNCLOS agreement. It's created some sticky issues in the South China Seas and in the straight in question, Iran and Oman are leaning very heavily on that the policy. In their view it is for use exclusively for noncombatant enterprise as part of their claim as territorial waters, they have a say in its use.

[Jun 25, 2019] Should Iran acquire nuclear bomb as a self-defense against attack of the USA

Jun 25, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Dr. Ip , June 24, 2019 at 03:53

Pakistan is nuclear, pal.
Israel is nuclear, pal.
India is nuclear, pal.
North Korea is nuclear, pal.
Nobody attacks their territory these days, pal.
But Iran chose a long time ago not to go nuclear, pal.
The American Mullahs want their oil money back and so have issued yet another fatwah through their Supreme Leader.

KiwiAntz , June 24, 2019 at 04:08

Old Geezer are you familiar with the term"Mutual Assured Destruction"? Any Nuclear attack will be met with a Nuclear response by the Country attacked! This isn't 1945 where America could nuke Japan & get away with it? It's 2019 & alot of Nations have the Nukes to deter US Nuclear attacks? That's MAD in a nutshell!

Zhu , June 24, 2019 at 06:03

Who says Iran is going nuclear, Gezzer? If he usual liars.

AnneR , June 24, 2019 at 09:31

So *what* if the Iranians developed nuclear weapons? (Not that they are going to – as they have stated over and over again. But then they are not as bloodthirsty as Anglo-Americans always seem to be.)

Frankly, if they had done so, the US-IS-UK would be a lot less eager to bomb their country into smithereens – all for the benefit of their more westerly neighbor (the middle country above). NK understands this. Unfortunately, Qaddafi didn't.

And again – I repeat: which nation state is it that *has* used such weapons: twice? Only one. (Not to mention that same country's eager use of depleted uranium – far from its shores, of course – in bullets and shells.) Charming.

heathroi , June 24, 2019 at 09:45

is that you, John?

Steve in DC , June 24, 2019 at 09:47

Iran should go nuclear. The US doesn't f#%* with countries that have the bomb. The sooner Iran can thwart Washington the better off the world will be. Washington will have to get another hobbyhorse.

Tick Tock , June 24, 2019 at 11:45

How many generations has your family been inbreeding? Was it part of the US Guvment plan to create the race of morons? Without a doubt it has been a success in making you, make Forrest Gump look like an Einstein. Keep posting at least it might keep you off the streets.

Ol' Hippy , June 24, 2019 at 11:58

They won't need to. All they have to do is barricade the Strait of Hormuz and collapse the world economy that relies on oil from the Gulf States. Never mentioned in the corporate(MSM) media circles that want war. The ensuing depression would be like no other, ever.

Paul Merrell , June 24, 2019 at 12:36

@ Old Geezer:

My friend, you've been getting too much of your news from Israel-influenced mainstream media. Iran has not had a nuclear weapons program since 2003 (if it had one even then, which is doubtful). That is the consensus position of all U.S. intelligence agencies, Mossad, and several european intelligence agencies. See the reference links in my article at https://relativelyfreepress.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-question-about-ron-wydens-intelligence.html

Moreover, as Don Bacon summarizes, Iran doesn't need nukes to hold the U.S. at bay.

Finally, Iran's unquestionable ability to close all shipping of oil through the Hormuz Strait (30 percent of the world's supply) means that Iran has the ability to bring the western economic system to its knees. Who needs nukes?

DH Fabian , June 24, 2019 at 13:08

Are China and Russia nuclear-armed countries, in a world that has largely come to see the US as an unpredictable and dictatorial threat? Possibly too great of a threat to allow it to continue?

Linda Furr , June 24, 2019 at 13:12

Who's the 'they'? US officials have already talked of nuclear attacks on areas of Iran. The great 'democracy' of USA just ain't so. Its criminal psychopathy comes straight from Israel – against most Americans' desires. Washington DC is sick.

[Jun 25, 2019] Not to in any way absolve Trump, but as long as Bolton and Pompeo are on the scene there will be blood

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Qualtrough , Jun 24, 2019 8:15:58 PM | 104

Not to in any way absolve Trump, but as long as Bolton and Pompeo are on the scene there will be blood. Bolton in particular should be in jail for crimes against humanity. He is a madman. Scary times.

[Jun 25, 2019] Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without Putting Israel on the Front Line.

Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Don Bacon , Jun 23, 2019 10:37:20 AM | 4

Oscar Peterson , Jun 23, 2019 10:13:46 AM | 2

This recent 19 May piece from Ha'aretz documents precisely the manipulation of American policy by Israeli charlatans and their agents of influence in the US. The title says it all just by itself: "Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without Putting Israel on the Front Line." It goes on to assess that:
"In this conflict, Israel is hoping to have its cake and eat it too. Ever since Trump was elected president two and a half years ago, Netanyahu has been urging him to take a more aggressive line toward Iran, in order to force it to make additional concessions on its nuclear program and disrupt its support for militant organizations.

"Trump acceded to this urging a year ago when he withdrew America from the nuclear agreement with Iran. That was followed by tighter sanctions on Iran, as well as publication of a plan by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo detailing 12 steps Tehran must take to satisfy Washington.

"But Israel isn't interested in being part of the front. That is why Jerusalem has issued so few official statements on the Iranian issue, and why Netanyahu has urged ministers to be cautious in what they say."

I'd say that passage captures the situation perfectly, and it just goes to show that when you want to know about what chicanery Israel and its lobby are up to in the US, you have to go and look at what Israelis are saying when they aren't particularly careful about who's observing. That sort of truth is sanitized from any MSM accounts in the US.

@ OP 2
Israel is an important part of Middle East US policy decisions but not the only part, and not the most important one. Going back to the Carter Doctrine, and before, the US has intended to be the top dog in the Middle East but instead, through its mistakes, has become second fiddle to Iran. The US and its allies have tens of thousands of troops with tons of military gear in the area and are still losing influence, replaced by Iran and its Shia Crescent. That must be reversed!

Lochearn , Jun 23, 2019 11:16:37 AM | 11

In Danielle Ryan’s article in RT's Op-ed “US will not ‘stumble into’ war with Iran by mistake. If it happens, it will be by design” she notes the prevalence of “strange terminology” used by mainstream media to describe how the US gets into wars. I have added to her list and checked that all have been used in the current US-Iran scenario. The US is in danger of being: “dragged into, sucked into, sliding into, stumbling into, slouching towards, lured into, bumbling into, blundering into and sleepwalking into” war with Iran.

Who are they trying to kid when they have already declared economic war on Iran, asphyxiating the Iranian economy, knowing full well that Iran has to respond.

John Bolton “sleepwalking” into war with Iran? He’ll be wide awake and so excited he’ll probably have to relieve himself.

NemesisCalling , Jun 23, 2019 11:23:57 AM | 12 Oscar Peterson , Jun 23, 2019 11:25:56 AM | 13
@Don Bacon #4
"Israel is an important part of Middle East US policy decisions but not the only part, and not the most important one. Going back to the Carter Doctrine, and before, the US has intended to be the top dog in the Middle East but instead, through its mistakes, has become second fiddle to Iran. The US and its allies have tens of thousands of troops with tons of military gear in the area and are still losing influence, replaced by Iran and its Shia Crescent. That must be reversed!"

Have to disagree with a good deal of this.

Israel's strategic preferences have indeed become the most important single influence on US Middle East policy. Up to a certain point in the past, that was not true, but it is now. The Carter Doctrine has, in effect, been undermined by the distortions that the ever-growing power of pro-Israel political Jewry in the US in both its neoconservative and Likudnik expressions are able to impose on our policy.

Neither big oil, nor Saudi Arabia, nor anything that could objectively be called US strategic considerations wields anything like the heft of political Jewry. And even metastasizing Christian Zionism is only an ideological adjunct to Zionism proper, primarily a function of the cultural damage stemming from Jewry's march through the institutions since WW II.

That said, I must also disagree that Iran has become "the top dog" in the Middle East. They are nowhere close, though, with their cultural and technological attainments, backed by oil and gas deposits, their long-term strategic position has a lot of promise. A "top dog" would not be in Iran's current underdog position vis-a-vis Israel and its US golem and having to fight back with the stratagems we are currently seeing.

The Shia crescent is essentially a myth, and Iran's ability to exercise dominating influence on Shia Arabs is largely a function of the hostility of Sunni Arabs to the Shia Arab empowerment of recent years. Yes, the US is losing influence, but that is mostly a function of our own policy dysfunction induced by dual-loyalist political Jewry and the Israel-Über-Alles strategic preferences it imposes.

ATH , Jun 23, 2019 11:34:04 AM | 14
@Don Bacon
That clarifies.
I do agree that Israel is one of the 2 important factors in US calculation in south-west Asia, the other being strategic leverage over big-league competitors. And, it is true that US military presence in the Persian Gulf has been the Carter doctrine's making - although one might argue the doctrine itself was created to fill the vacuum created with the departure of the British and the subsequent independence given to the southern Sheikhdoms. The issue with the current US strategy in the region is that it defies the reality with such an obstinance that it completely undermines its own goals. The origin of this obstinance is well known to everyone.
NJDuke , Jun 23, 2019 11:45:09 AM | 18 Don Bacon , Jun 23, 2019 11:52:24 AM | 19
Israel or no, failure is not an option for the US in the Middle East, especially Syria which was Hillary's Job-One during her SecState tenure.
AP, Dec 14, 2011--
US: Assad's Syria a 'dead man walking'
The State Department official, Frederic Hof, told Congress on Wednesday that Assad's repression may allow him to hang on to power but only for a short time. And, he urged the Syrian opposition to prepare for the day when it takes control of the state in order to prevent chaos and sectarian conflict.
"Our view is that this regime is the equivalent of dead man walking," said Hof, the State Department's pointman on Syria, which he said was turning into "Pyongyang in the Levant," a reference to the North Korean capital. He said it was difficult to determine how much time Assad has left in power but stressed "I do not see this regime surviving.". . . here

And Syria is only the most important US target country in the ME, the Iraq challenge still exists, Lebanon is important (receives some US military aid) and of course the old bugaboo Iran has become more vital than ever. Iran has a heavy political influence in Iraq and Syria, and that highway from Tehran to Beirut is a problem especially considering Iran ally (and "terrorist") Hezbollah. So. . .that's why 50,000+ US troops, an air force, and the Navy's Fifth fleet are there.

The main point is that the US world hegemon has to be strong everywhere, especially in Asia, and if it's forced out of anywhere it would set a bad example, going back to 'losing China.'

Oscar Peterson , Jun 23, 2019 11:55:55 AM | 20
@ATH #14
"The issue with the current US strategy in the region is that it defies the reality with such an obstinance that it completely undermines its own goals. The origin of this obstinance is well known to everyone."

Yes, I think that's the issue exactly, and Israel is at the heart of it all. We are undermining our own goals (and scoring own goals.) Your point here captures the current bottom line of US "strategy" in the region.

Don Bacon , Jun 23, 2019 12:01:08 PM | 21
"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses." . ."I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.". . .General Smedley Butler, USMC, two Congressional Medals of Honor, veteran of wars in Central America, Europe and China
Don Bacon , Jun 23, 2019 12:19:00 PM | 25
Is Israel responsible for the US enmity toward North Korea? the bombing of Libya and Somalia? Eighteen years in Afghanistan?
No. In the US, to quote Randolph Bourne (1918), war is the health of the state.
. . .With the shock of war, however, the State comes into its own again. The Government, with no mandate from the people, without consultation of the people, conducts all the negotiations, the backing and filling, the menaces and explanations, which slowly bring it into collision with some other Government, and gently and irresistibly slides the country into war. For the benefit of proud and haughty citizens, it is fortified with a list of the intolerable insults which have been hurled toward us by the other nations; for the benefit of the liberal and beneficent, it has a convincing set of moral purposes which our going to war will achieve; for the ambitious and aggressive classes, it can gently whisper of a bigger role in the destiny of the world. The result is that, even in those countries where the business of declaring war is theoretically in the hands of representatives of the people, no legislature has ever been known to decline the request of an Executive, which has conducted all foreign affairs in utter privacy and irresponsibility, that it order the nation into battle. Good democrats are wont to feel the crucial difference between a State in which the popular Parliament or Congress declares war, and the State in which an absolute monarch or ruling class declares war. But, put to the stern pragmatic test, the difference is not striking. In the freest of republics as well as in the most tyrannical of empires, all foreign policy, the diplomatic negotiations which produce or forestall war, are equally the private property of the Executive part of the Government, and are equally exposed to no check whatever from popular bodies, or the people voting as a mass themselves.
Oscar Peterson , Jun 23, 2019 12:54:22 PM | 36

@Don Bacon #25

"Is Israel responsible for the US enmity toward North Korea? the bombing of Libya and Somalia? Eighteen years in Afghanistan?"

First, I did not claim that every move the US makes is Israel-induced. I said that Israel is at the heart of our overall strategic dysfunction in the Middle East. Libya and Somalia are peripheral, and Afghanistan is not truly in the region at all.

But let's be clear that the rise of both al Quaeda and, as a follow-on, the Islamic State have been greatly facilitated by the resentment generated by the imposition of Jewish state on the region at the expense of the local Arabs. Both bin Laden and Zawahiri have mentioned the Zionist conquest and its wars as formative experiences.

And the rise of IS was a direct result of the US invasion of Iraq, itself induced by the overlapping strains of Jewish neoconservatism and Likudnik hyper-Zionism. The overthrow of Saddam created the political and strategic space for IS to emerge and thrive, and the concerted attempt to overthrow Assad--another Israeli strategic preference--weakened the Syrian state so much that it permitted the establishment of a "caliphate" which then invaded Iraq. This expanding dynamic played a role in Libya as well.

With regard to Saudi Arabia, we have to ask why the US put its weight behind the replacement of Muhammed bin Naif (MbN) with Muhammed bin Salman (MbS) when almost all the USG wanted to tell Salman that we preferred staying with the known and trusted MbN. Almost certainly, Trump's ignorant support of MbS originated with the pro-Israel Jews who dominate his thinking. MbS has been a bonanza for Israel but a disaster for us (and the region.)

And with regard to Afghanistan, the denuding of that theater to resource the Iraq-Iran-Syria invasion/regime change scheme demanded by Israel and its operatives in the US had a definitively negative outcome on US policy in Afghanistan from which, it is now clear, it will never recover.

In East Asia, the negative impact of US Israel-centric Middle East policy can be seen as well. The neocon/Likudnik-induced morass of Iraq into which we marched distracted us from the Asia-Pacific and particularly China's move into the South China Sea, which might have been deterred, if we weren't expending the overwhelming majority of our energy, attention and resources in the Middle East.

And since you bring up North Korea, the Israeli influence on US policy there is certainly secondary but definitely not zero. Israel and its lobby seek an ultra-hard line on any US negotiations with North Korea because they see it as an extension of Iran policy, so in their view, any concession to North Korea is a bad example for Iran. This contributes to impeding any possible negotiated solution to the complex of issues on the Korean Peninsula.

It is truly amazing how far the insidious reach of Israel, its nefarious lobby and the "Is-it-good-for-the-Jews?" obsessions of political Jewry extends into US foreign policy. Our current strategy is, as ATH noted, self-undermining. There really is no historical precedent for it.

jared , Jun 23, 2019 1:24:50 PM | 45
Regarding blatant/outsized influence of israel. Appears they are being treated as 51st state.
Kristan hinton , Jun 23, 2019 12:32:50 PM | 27
Consider that Israel and the USA are one entity.

After all, this is what our elected, alleged representatives posit when they state collectively, in unison, loudly, repeatedly, on their knees, that "the USA maintains an irrevocable bond with Israel".

That statement should bring the condescension and the wrath of the USA public.

For what reason would the USA maintain an "irrevocable bond" with ANY other nation?

Regardless of the fact that ISrael is an apartheid state by its own definition as "The Jewish State of ISrael".

Don Wiscacho , Jun 23, 2019 1:44:16 PM | 51

Don Bacon @41
Oscar Peterson @46

You both have valid points, but I've always believed it's the dog that wags its tail. Sure, if it was simply Palestine, one could expect different nuances of US policy. But any qualitative difference? I don't see it.
The US would still back undemocractic strong men who would treat American interests as paramount in return for US backing of their regime and turning a blind eye to their enrichment at the expense of the general population. The US would be hellbent against any pan-Arab nationalism or anything resembling socialism or sovereignty.
The proof? Well take a look at how the US treats the rest of the world.
The US and Israel have overlapping interests as it relates to the Middle East with the added accelerator of the many dual nationals in seats of power.

lysias , Jun 23, 2019 2:21:16 PM | 57 bevin , Jun 23, 2019 2:22:35 PM | 58
"Israel's strategic preferences have indeed become the most important single influence on US Middle East policy. Up to a certain point in the past, that was not true, but it is now. The Carter Doctrine has, in effect, been undermined by the distortions that the ever-growing power of pro-Israel political Jewry in the US in both its neoconservative and Likudnik expressions are able to impose on our policy."

Oscar Peterson is correct not because Israel's interests are of such importance-they really are not- but because US Foreign policy has become totally incoherent.
This is because it is entirely aimed at fund raisers and influencers of the electorate. It is founded on the theory that the United States can do whatever it pleases, and need never care about consolidating its power or defending its positions because it is far more powerful than all its potential rivals added together. This being the case its Foreign Policy becomes a saleable commodity, just as its armed forces-which can never be defeated- are at the disposal of the highest bidders.
Note to Psychohistorian: the open democracy website has an article on Costa Rica's public banking today.

james , Jun 23, 2019 2:23:49 PM | 59
with regard to iran, the usa is tied at the hip to israel.. that is a fact... now, maybe it can change, but i think phil at mondoweiss lays it out pretty clearly for anyone interested..

Trump’s climbdown on Iran is a defeat to the Israel lobby

as i see it, this is just temporary... israel is gunning hard for war on iran.. anyone who can't see that is in fact very blind..

meanwhile - Trump: “I have some hawks. John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time.“

bolton is in this position due the fact trump owed sheldon adelson one... at least trump can see it, but i don't know that he can avoid where this is going... that would be putting too much faith in a con artist - grifter..

eagle eye , Jun 23, 2019 6:40:30 PM | 139
Wage labourer, , 91.

I suggest you download Douglas Reed's comprehensive review of Zionism's activities in "The Controversy of Zion" over the period you describe from a singular perspective and read it thoroughly. IN fact I commend that book to everyone on this site. Reed was a correspondent through WW2 and before and his work is detailed and readable, with extensive references.

Get it here: https://www.controversyofzion.info/

[Jun 25, 2019] Jimmy Dore: CBS News "War Expert" Is Being Paid By Raytheon

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Stever , Jun 23, 2019 2:19:31 PM | 55

Jimmy Dore: CBS News "War Expert" Is Being Paid By Raytheon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYhvOgN707k

Via ZeroHedge:

"CBS News Analyst And Iran "War Mongering Maniac" Also Raytheon Board Member: Dore"

"How do you know the MSM is nothing more than the media wing of the military-industrial-complex? A Raytheon board member masquerading as an objective analyst is a good start."

"On Friday, CBS News analyst and retired Navy Admiral James Winnefeld Jr. slammed President Trump for calling off retaliatory strikes on Iran over a downed US drone, while insisting we must strike Iran or else the United States will "lose a lot of credibility."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-22/cbs-news-analyst-and-iran-war-mongering-maniac-also-raytheon-board-member-dore

[Jun 25, 2019] Iran Says New U.S. Sanctions Mean Diplomatic Path Closed 'Forever'

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Jun 25, 2019 1:39:41 AM | 140

The headline says it all:

Iran Says New U.S. Sanctions Mean Diplomatic Path Closed 'Forever'

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said financial restrictions would be imposed on Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif later this week. ............... Zarif, viewed as Iran's most skilled diplomat, was lead negotiator in the multi-party nuclear accord reached in 2015 under the Obama administration that Trump has since rejected.

If this was about a real estate deal in New York, Trump's bully-boy tactics might seem reasonable. Deliberately pissing off the real leader of Iran, and sanctioning their head diplomat means he doesn't want "negotiations". Only total surrender is permissible in light of his foolishness.

I've got a bad feeling about all of this. Time is running out for the apartheid Jewish state, and they're going to be mighty tempted to arrange for a bunch of US military men or women to be brought home in body bags. That's because they can't be absolutely positive one of the neocon Democrats will be in the White House soon.

[Jun 25, 2019] As foolish as it may seem, a war on Iran could be the perfect option that satisfies all power groups in the United States. The hawks would finally have their war against Tehran, the world economy would sink, and the blame would fall entirely on Trump.

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Uncle Jon , Jun 23, 2019 3:09:16 PM | 70

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/06/23/provoking-iran-could-start-a-war-and-crash-the-entire-world-economy/


A great article and an ominous one.


karlof1 , Jun 23, 2019 3:28:18 PM | 71

Behind the curtain :

"Trump is in danger of being crushed between a Fed that sees the US dollar's role as the world's reserve currency collapse, and the need for the Fed to blame someone not linked to the real causes of the collapse, that is to say, the monetary policies adopted through QE to prolong the post-crisis economic agony of 2008....

"As foolish as it may seem, a war on Iran could be the perfect option that satisfies all power groups in the United States. The hawks would finally have their war against Tehran, the world economy would sink, and the blame would fall entirely on Trump. The Donald, as a result, would lose any chance of being re-elected so it makes sense for him to call off possible strikes as he did after the US drone was shot out of the sky."

The author echoes my words from yesterday:

"I wonder if Europeans will understand all this before the impending disaster. I doubt it."

Regarding what I wrote about Sanders in my reply to Stever, here we have the Chancellery of the People's Republic of China spokesman, Hua Chun Ying:

"The American leaders say that 'the era of the commercial surrender of their country has come to an end', but what is over is their economic intimidation of the world and their hegemony.

"The United States must again respect international law, not arrogate to itself extraterritorial rights and mandates, must learn to respect its peers in safeguarding transparent and non-discriminatory diplomatic and commercial relations. China and the United States have negotiated other disputes in the past with good results and the doors of dialogue are open as long as they are based on mutual respect and benefits."

No, I didn't cite everything in the article. There's much more of importance there to read!

[Jun 25, 2019] Trump's action on Iran help to further diminish the USA credibility on international arena

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Harry Law , Jun 24, 2019 2:13:40 PM | 1

After a somewhat quiet weekend the Trump administration today engaged in another push against Iran.

Today the Treasury Department sanctioned the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It also sanctioned Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and his office! There will be no more Disney Land visits for them.

There is more to come:

Josh Rogin - @joshrogin - 16:18 utc - 24 Jun 2019

Mnuchin: "The president has instructed me that we will be designating [Iran's foreign minister Javad] Zarif later this week." cc: @JZarif

The Treasury Secretary will designate Javad Zarif as what? A terrorist? Zarif is quite effective in communicating the Iranian standpoint on Twitter and other social media. Those accounts will now be shut down.

The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, said today that Iran should respond to U.S. diplomacy with diplomacy. Sanctioning Iran's chief diplomat is probably not the way to get there.

All those who get sanctioned by the U.S. will gain in popularity in Iran. These U.S. measures will only unite the people of Iran and strengthen their resolve.

Iran will respond to this new onslaught by asymmetric means of which it has plenty.

On Saturday Trump said that all he wants is that Iran never gets nuclear weapons. But the State Department wants much more. Hook today said that the U.S. would only lift sanctions if a comprehensive deal is made that includes ballistic missile and human rights issues. Iran can not agree to that. But this is not the first time that Pompeo demanded more than Trump himself. Is it Pompeo, not Trump, who is pressing this expanded version to make any deal impossible?

Brian Hook is by the way a loon who does not even understand the meaning of what he himself says:

laurence norman @laurnorman - 10:53 utc - 24 Jun 2019

US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal with president who had 1 1/2 yr left in office. "They knew what they were getting into...They knew that there was a great possibility that the next president could come in & leave the deal." Note: US elections 17 months away

Those are two good arguments for Iran to never again agree to any deal with the 'non-agreement-capable' United States.

It seems obvious from the above that the Trump administration has no real interest in reasonable negotiations with Iran:

"The administration is not really interested in negotiations now," said Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department official who was involved in negotiations with Iranian officials during the Obama administration. "It wants to give sanctions more time to make the Iranians truly desperate, at which point it hopes the negotiations will be about the terms of surrender."

That is part of the strategy. But the real issue is deeper:

Max Abrahms @MaxAbrahms - 16:41 utc - 24 Jun 2019

Pro tip: Sanctions against #Iran aren't to retaliate for the downed drone or to punish tanker attacks or to improve the nuclear deal or to help the Iranian people but to foment revolution against the regime. The strategy is regime change with velvet gloves.

... ... ...

Pompeo was hastily sent to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Brian Hook is now in Oman and Bolton is in Israel. The U.S. will also pressure Europe and NATO to join a new 'coalition of the willing'. The UK will likely follow any U.S. call as it needs a trade deal to survive after Brexit.

Other countries are best advised to stay out.

Posted by b at 02:05 PM | Comments (183) Our leaders have gone out of their tiny minds, first Trump confirms our suspicions that the deal he wants must include those legal ballistic missiles, then that nutcase Hunt pledged to stand by the US in the event of conflict with Iran, you could not make it up.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is running against Boris Johnson for the Conservatives' leadership, has pledged to stand by the US even if its confrontation with Iran leads to a military conflict, according to The Daily Mail. https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201906241076032533-uk-foreign-secretary-hunt-admits-britain-could-follow-us-into-war-with-iran/

Trump is such a con man... He said he told Shinzō Abe, before the Japanese prime minister visited Tehran on 12 June: "Send the following message: you can't have nuclear weapons. And other than that, we can sit down and make a deal. But you cannot have nuclear weapons."

On further questioning he added the demand that Tehran should not have a ballistic missile programme, and suggested he wanted a tougher inspection regime.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/23/iran-may-pull-further-away-from-nuclear-deal-after-latest-sanctions

This whole saga is not about nuclear weapons, it is about those conventional ballistic missiles which Iran is manufacturing perfectly legally and changing the equation in the region. These are precision missiles and could turn Tel Aviv and Saudi oil infrastructure into rubble, US/Israel want to make Iran defenseless. It is not going to happen.


Sally Snyder , Jun 24, 2019 2:22:28 PM | 2

Here is a article that takes a detailed look at Iran's military capabilities:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/06/irans-military-strength-2019-edition.html

... ... ...

psychohistorian , Jun 24, 2019 2:25:50 PM | 3
Pompeo is a lying ass.

The US faced empire is the largest state sponsor of terror

The big lie technique works when all levels of communication are controlled. Otherwise it makes you the laughing stock, which Trump will be at the G20 before he leaves

Virgile , Jun 24, 2019 2:25:56 PM | 4
In dealing with Iran Pompeo & Bolton are following the infantile pattern that Israel uses with Palestinians and Hezbollah: Make them suffer so they turn against their leaders and provoke a regime change
It never worked because the middle easterners do not think like the Jews or Westerners. They are resilient and have little to loose. The more hardship they get from foreign and hostile powers the more they unite and resist. Despite the overwhelming persecution of the Palestinians by Israel and its western allies for 50 years they are still resisting. Iran is not different.
They are under siege for 30 years and still defiant.
Many US presidents and Boltons have passed and disappeared in oblivion after attempting and failing regime changes in the middle east. Trump is not different.
Joe , Jun 24, 2019 2:39:29 PM | 5
Well, the end is most certainly nigh. Figure the US or Israel will resort to using nuclear weapons which will result in Russia and China unleashing theirs. At least we can expect Wash DC to be obliterated. May solve one of our problems.
Expect all nuclear facilities, military bases, and major airports to be targeted. Hopefully, major population centers would be spared but doubt the US will reciprocate so expect all major metropolitan areas to also be targeted.
fastfreddy , Jun 24, 2019 2:44:14 PM | 6
Here is the double down on stupid which should have been expected.

Double sanctions, double demands, double threats, double censorship and the assemblage of a fake posse - aka the coalition of the lapdogs.

Who will join the coalition of dumbfuckery? Here are the coalition members from Dubya's Iraqi invasion in 2003:

Of the 48 countries on the list, three contributed troops to the invasion force (the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland). An additional 37 countries provided some number of troops to support military operations after the invasion was complete.

The list of coalition members provided by the White House included several nations that did not intend to participate in actual military operations. Some of them, such as Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Solomon Islands, did not have standing armies. However, through the Compact of Free Association, citizens of the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia are guaranteed US national status and therefore are allowed to serve in the US military. The members of these island nations have deployed in a combined Pacific force consisting of Guamanian, Hawaiian and Samoan reserve units. They have been deployed twice to Iraq. The government of one country, the Solomon Islands, listed by the White House as a member of the coalition, was apparently unaware of any such membership and promptly denied it.[5] According to a 2010 study, the Federal States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau (and Tonga and the Solomon Islands to a lesser extent) were all economically dependent on economic aid from the United States, and thus had an economic incentive to join the Coalition of the Willing.[6]

In December 2008, University of Illinois Professor Scott Althaus reported that he had learned that the White House was editing and back-dating revisions to the list of countries in the coalition.[7][8] Althaus found that some versions of the list had been entirely removed from the record, and that others contradicted one another, as opposed to the procedure of archiving original documents and supplementing them with later revisions and updates.[3]

By August 2009, all non-U.S./UK coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq.[9] As a result, the Multinational Force – Iraq was renamed and reorganized to United States Forces – Iraq as of January 1, 2010. Thus the Coalition of the Willing came to an official end.

psychohistorian , Jun 24, 2019 2:55:44 PM | 7
Thanks to fastfreddy with the Iraq related Coalition of the Willing history

Over on another thread it was noted that today Trump is trying to build another Coalition of the Willing to "protect" the shipping lanes.

My response was
@ Don Bacon and SRB with the comments about the crybaby defense over "protecting" shipping lanes

I think China will tell empire like I tell the guy in front of the Post Office wanting to protect my bicycle while I go in....."Why should I give you money to protect me from you?

karlof1 , Jun 24, 2019 2:57:31 PM | 8
100% Gangsterism. The Outlaw US Empire learned it cannot defeat Iran militarily, so it invites other nations to become outlaws too. The G-20's in 4 days. I'll wager Trump leaves before it's over having accomplished nothing other than absorbing abuse from most attendees. And just what will Trump do when this move fails as it will? IMO, he just dealt Sanders a great set of cards. The crowd expecting a repeat of Shock & Awe will grow smaller as they slowly realize the truth of my second sentence. Instead of climbing down the tree, Trump climbs higher onto thinner branches. What's more, Trump opens himself up to being challenged within the Republican Party for POTUS nominee as the Current Oligarchy cannot like this choice.

Here's Zarif's tweet in response:

"realDonaldTrump is 100% right that the US military has no business in the Persian Gulf. Removal of its forces is fully in line with interests of US and the world. But it's now clear that the #B_Team is not concerned with US interests -- they despise diplomacy, and thirst for war."

It appears Zarif concedes policy isn't made by Trump. The ignorance displayed in the thread's comments is astounding.

adrian pols , Jun 24, 2019 3:03:57 PM | 9
The only times I can think of when a country switched sides, ie: overthrew their leaders, was when they were caught in a squeeze between two other powers and decided to go with the winner. Example: Italy in 1943. External pressures causing people to overthrow their leaders? Essentially Nada.
Casey , Jun 24, 2019 3:08:09 PM | 10
So, what happens to derivatives if a shooting war ends up with the Straits closed? Escobar's recent piece on the derivatives implosion that would result from a shooting war suggests that the US/Saudi/Bibi axis is like a boys playing with matches around a can of gasoline or that they believe they have a work-around for the derivatives problem. I would like to know whether the BIS-types are on board with this fiasco or are trying to apply the brakes.
Harry Law , Jun 24, 2019 3:24:31 PM | 18
Bernie Sanders suggested that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was "the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the country." Bernie you ain't seen nothing yet, if those slavering imbeciles have anything to do with it. The costs [including long term costs] of the Iraq/Afghan wars [still ongoing] are estimated at 6 Trillion dollars. Here is what just one Trillion dollars looks like http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html
"Yet the nation's longest and most expensive war is the one that is still going on. In addition to nearly 7,000 troops killed, the 16-year conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost an estimated US$6 trillion due to its prolonged length, rapidly increasing veterans health care and disability costs and interest on war borrowing. On this Memorial Day, we should begin to confront the staggering cost and the challenge of paying for this war". http://theconversation.com/iraq-and-afghanistan-the-us-6-trillion-bill-for-americas-longest-war-is-unpaid-78241

[Jun 25, 2019] I'd say it's very likely Trump needs to be included on the list of those needing to hear Nasrallah.

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jun 23, 2019 4:11:31 PM | 94

I've replied to numerous people lacking knowledge that they must listen to Nasrallah when it comes to what will occur if the Outlaw US Empire or any other entity attacks Iran. This short clip is one of several I'm referring to. I'd say it's very likely Trump needs to be included on the list of those needing to hear Nasrallah.

[Jun 25, 2019] Tulsi on Iraq war and Trump administration and some interesting information about Bolton

With minor comment editions for clarity...
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

J. Gutierrez says: June 24, 2019 at 5:37 pm GMT 300 Words

...Look at this man's video and remember he is a pervert, warmonger and a coward!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hs35O_TBbbU

Ma Laoshi , says: June 24, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez

...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.

The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim deserve better, given what we see around us.

Saka Arya , says: June 25, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT
@Malla

Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian invasion of Greece & the West

[Jun 25, 2019] It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war

Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back.

Hugh Hewitt called it the "big blink," inviting Liz Cheney -- who is very much her father's daughter on foreign policy -- on his show to warn, "Weakness is provocative." Hewitt compared it to Barack Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria. "Much worse" argued Kori Schake in The Atlantic . Other reporting focused on a "total breakdown in process."

It was not a picture perfect approach to national security, to be sure. But it did sharply illustrate the Beltway's strange priorities. When Trump twice bombed Syria, few of those who fret about his erosion of constitutional norms or authoritarian tendencies protested his failure to seek congressional authorization as required by the Constitution. There was a much larger process-related panic when Trump said late last year he wanted to bring American troops home from Syria.

... ... ...

"How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?" Woodward quotes Trump as asking. One Post write-up folded these lines into a broader story about the White House's "nervous breakdown" and the national security team's impatience with the president. But these are morally serious questions, not exaggerated inaugural crowd size estimates.

[Jun 25, 2019] The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook's Message: Trust Us, We're Unreliable

Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

@ jayc 57
US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal
Yes they did, and now they regret it.
In 2013 Ali Khamenei said: "Certainly, we are pessimistic about the Americans. We do not trust them. We consider the government of the United States of America as an unreliable, arrogant, illogical, and trespassing government,"

The JCPOA was not a unilateral deal between USA and Iran, it was a multilateral deal
That's correct de jure, but not de facto. The US all by itself is leading the current attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any significant support from other JCPOA participants.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 5:10:10 PM | 66

The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook...
______________________________________

Brian Hook is a "special" envoy in the sense that the "Special Olympics" are special.

Posted by: Ort | Jun 24, 2019 5:16:44 PM | 69

@68 Ort

Good one. Although Brian Hook is an insult to special olympians and humanity in general.

Posted by: Uncle Jon | Jun 24, 2019 5:22:51 PM | 71

[Jun 25, 2019] 'Wars not diminishing' Putin's iconic 2007 Munich speech (FULL VIDEO)

It is interesting to listen to this speech again in view of Iran crisis, attempt to launch a regime change in Venezuela and trade war with Chins lunched by Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... McCain and some other Western officials could barely contain themselves in there. They never forgive Putin for that speech. This was the decisive moment relations between the US. and Russia started to deteriorate. ..."
"... The Wikileaks cables showed how aggressively NATO was working to bring in Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance despite what was being said in public during that time. ..."
"... Look at the dirty bitch Victoria Nuland smirking at 11:43 . She knew what the US was about to do in Ukraine. ..."
"... this was the best anti NWO speech ever. The moment I saw it back then I knew Russia will have many problems coming for the NWO scum. You know what happened right? ..."
Feb 10, 2017 | www.youtube.com

On February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin delivered his keynote speech at the Munich Security Conference, challenging the post-Cold War establishment. RT looks back a decade to see how accurate his ideas were.


Gerry Hiles , 2 years ago

Greetings from Australia. Viva Vladimir Vladimirovich, the only World leader I have ever truly admired ... I am not alone in this by any means.

Ryan Synyxh , 2 years ago

McCain and some other Western officials could barely contain themselves in there. They never forgive Putin for that speech. This was the decisive moment relations between the US. and Russia started to deteriorate.

The Wikileaks cables showed how aggressively NATO was working to bring in Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance despite what was being said in public during that time.

Wutang Clan , 2 years ago

Putin is no saint, but he is the only world leader that gets sincere admiration from the people all over the globe including me.

Nettythe1st , 1 year ago

'The Putin Interviews', where Putin is interviewed by Oliver Stone from 2015 - 2017, brought me here. This iconic speech was referred to by Oliver Stone in the interviews. The speech was certainly worth watching and I highly recommend watching 'The Putin Interviews'. You won't regret it.

Coleen StarlightPH , 2 years ago (edited)

I'm not Russian but he is my hero, my President and my dad!!! ^_^ And proud of him. This memorable speech was one of my favorites! He stood for what he believes in and he stayed true to it.


Doggy Dog Doggy , 2 years ago

wow amazing speech. the fact that he said it all right to the nwo satanic minions faces is heroic at its least and legendary at its most.

Zaki Aminu , 1 year ago (edited)

Hahahahahahahahaha! You can see the Western leaders here were in a state of profound SHOCK as they listened to this speech. They thought he was going to kow-tow to the West - and he did the EXACT OPPOSITE! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Stud Baird , 2 years ago div class="com

ment-renderer-text-content expanded"> wow awesome speech. words from a outstanding leader. Acting and standing for true Peace and prosperity. Unlike the UN and NWO whos only goal is to continue to create terrorism. create fear and drain any communities from being independent and free from there False saftey taxes and sanctions. not using the world currency exchange means there unable to falsely influence the world markets

John Schmit , 3 weeks ago

Apartheid Israel and warmongering US political elites are the primary existential threats to all of humanity.🤮😩

Don Sonny , 2 years ago div cl

American people should be highly alarmed at NATO actions , they are inching closer to Russia's borders trying to encircle Russia with military bases and missiles , this is done in preparation of an attack of the country being encircled, nato is lying and misleading its citizens and they dont worry about consequence of such a scenario which surely would trigger the third world war, American people and all nato member citizens should strongly push back against this , we need to consider the outcome of a nuclear power attacking and invading another nuclear power

Russia would surely use nuclear weapons to defend its country if overwhelmed, millions could perish in a day, we have to condemn and protest Nato plans for another world war before its too late, it will be our families suffering and dying not the elite that is pushing this conflict

GERRARD2083 , 2 years ago

Great speech from a great man, a man who truly loves fairness and democracy not the sugar coated type offered by the west. Did anyone notice that by 9:50 into his speech, a good number of them wanted out? McCain at some point couldn't even bring himself to look at Putin, What a pitiful fellow McCain is!!!!!

Sali Mall , 1 month ago
This speech needs to be re-posted . and disseminated .. it is very very current , more than ever... there is a section of world who simply do not know .
ED- Bitcoin SV Channel , 2 years ago div tabindex="0" role="ar

10 years passed and what Putin said back then is exactly what's happened and is still happening. I have great respect for Russia and I have no respect for US and their allies. Whole NATO sucks, is obsolete and is acting exactly like world's terrorists!

I have no respect for the majority of the American people as they are as responsible for the wars their corrupt capitalism controlled US government has done. American people went along with it for all these decades and they fought these wars for them anyway, they did not care if they bully other nations, kill innocent people...

daddymoon666 , 2 years ago

This guy has a better understanding of American history than that of Trump...

M S , 2 years ago

Look at the dirty bitch Victoria Nuland smirking at 11:43 . She knew what the US was about to do in Ukraine.

GANEVMUSIC , 2 years ago

this was the best anti NWO speech ever. The moment I saw it back then I knew Russia will have many problems coming for the NWO scum. You know what happened right?

[Jun 25, 2019] US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct, UN expert says

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 12:26:26 AM | 136

Let's talk human rights.

news report
Bloomberg, Jun 24, 2019
Pompeo is starting a commission on human rights to rethink what they are and how they should fit into U.S. foreign policy. . . here


Office of the high Commissioner
United Nations Human Rights
May 6, 2019
US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct, UN expert says

. . .On 17 April the United States banned the Central Bank of Venezuela from conducting transactions in US dollars after 17 May, and will cut off access to US personal remittances and credit cards by March 2020.

"It is hard to figure out how measures which have the effect of destroying Venezuela's economy, and preventing Venezuelans from sending home money, can be aimed at 'helping the Venezuelan people', as claimed by the US Treasury," the expert said.

His statements follow claims in a recent report published by the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research that 40,000 people may have died in Venezuela since 2017 because of US sanctions .

Jazairy also said he was concerned the US would not renew waivers for international buyers of Iranian oil, despite protests from NATO ally Turkey, among others. Washington has demanded that all remaining States which benefited from waivers stop purchases on May 1, or face sanctions.

"The extraterritorial application of unilateral sanctions is clearly contrary to international law," the expert said. " I am deeply concerned that one State can use its dominant position in international finance to harm not only the Iranian people, who have followed their obligations under the UN-approved nuclear deal to this day, but also everyone in the world who trades with them.

"The international community must come together to challenge what amounts to blockades ignoring a country's sovereignty, the human rights of its people, and the rights of third countries trading with sanctioned States, all while constituting a threat to world peace and security.

"I call on the international community to engage in constructive dialogue with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and the United States to find a peaceful resolution in compliance with the spirit and letter of the Charter of the United Nations before the arbitrary use of economic starvation becomes the new 'normal'." . . here

[Jun 25, 2019] Trump's one hundred percent pure Pinocchio behaviour

Trump contradicts Pompeo who contradicts Bolton who contradicts Trump
Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Christian J Chuba , Jun 24, 2019 3:39:32 PM | 25
Favorite lie Trump willing to meet w/no pre-conditions

100 Pinocchio's. He even says that he wants to negotiate about Iran's so-called nuclear weapons program. If the premise of the talks is that Iran has to abandon the JCPOA then how is this not a precondition?

Nothing left to sanction, what's next?

You will know that war is certain when the U.S. forbids Iranian tankers from leaving port (a blockade) so that they cannot even sell oil to China. Iran will rightly call this an act of war and declare that stopping a single tanker will result in them firing on a U.S. naval ship. The morons in the U.S. MSM will bleat and call this Iranian aggression even though it is the U.S. that is blocking the sacred right of 'international shipping'. The number one excuse we use to send our navy to the shores of China and Iran.

Arta , Jun 24, 2019 4:32:13 PM | 45

American way of diplomacy: impose sanction on Iran Foreign Minister, at the same time requesting negotiation with him

[Jun 25, 2019] By rejecting the JCPOA, the Americans rejected the UN and international law/agreements for the second time in 15 short years

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

jayc , Jun 24, 2019 6:01:16 PM | 85

Don Bacon #65
"The US all by itself is leading the current attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any significant support from other JCPOA participants."

The American's bluff was called way back in Obama's first term when Turkey and Brazil proposed a plan which would settle concerns over Iran's nuclear centrifuges. Sec State Clinton shut that down quickly, confirming the nuclear concerns were merely a pretext for a regime-change policy. That established, the overriding interest, internationally, became preventing a shooting war involving US and Iran -to which the negotiating of the JCPOA played a strong role. The Russians and Chinese were criticized for supporting this process, including the UNSC directed sanctions. But the process strengthened multilateral cooperation and highlighted the obvious downsides of a self-avowed hegemonic power. By rejecting the JCPOA, the Americans rejected the UN and international law/agreements for the second time in 15 short years. The overriding concern remains to expose the negative consequences of a hegemonic entity while avoiding, to the extent possible, an actual shooting war.

[Jun 25, 2019] Iran forces could attack the US in peripheral areas including especially Iraq

Notable quotes:
"... What usually stops the US are elections. The Vietnam War deeply threatened the US establishment and they "think" they learnt the lessons. ..."
"... The Russian military source says there is now active coordination between Russian and Iranian military staffs. "About coordination, of course there is participation of Russia in intelligence-sharing because of Bushehr and ISIS. We have a long and successful partnership with Iran, especially in terms of fighting against international terrorism." Two days after the drone incident, Russian specialist media published Iranian video footage of the movement of S-300's on trailer trucks. This report claims that although the S-300's are wheeled and motorized for rapid position changes, the use of highway transporters was intended to minimize road fatigue on the weapons. ..."
"... Iranian military sources have told western reporters they have established "a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East." ..."
"... The incident happened Thursday before U.S. markets opened. There was the usual confusion about exactly what happened most of the day and we had that odd statement by Trump just before Thursday market close to the effect that maybe a rouge Iranian general made a mistake in shooting down the (in this case: manned P-8A) in 'international waters'. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 9:23:37 AM | 177

Iran forces will attack the US in peripheral areas including especially Iraq. ..news reports...

U.S. officials are concerned that Iran has given the green light to Iranian-backed militias in Iraq to attack the more than 5,200 U.S. forces helping Iraqi Security Forces. And reflecting the unique situation in Iraq, some of those security forces are Iranian-backed militias that fall under the control of the Iraqi government.

For three days in a row this week, rockets have been fired at areas where U.S. forces or U.S. interests are located in Iraq. On Monday, rockets targeted Camp Taji, where the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS is training Iraqi security forces. On Tuesday, more rockets were fired at a compound in Mosul where U.S. troops are based. Then, another attack on Wednesday struck an oil facility near where ExxonMobil has employees.

Rocket attacks Wednesday on American and Turkish oil facilities in southern Iraq, which may have been carried out by Iranian-backed militias, are the latest example of how Iraq finds itself squarely in the middle of increasing tensions between its two closest partners, the United States and Iran.

Security measures were increased at one of Iraq's largest air bases that houses American trainers following an attack last week, a top Iraqi air force commander said Saturday. The U.S. military said operations at the base were going on as usual and there were currently no plans to evacuate personnel. The stepped-up Iraqi security measures at Balad air base, just north of the capital, Baghdad.

Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 9:27:36 AM | 178

@ Yeah, Right 1

Yes, correct, the US is over-extended, over-confident, and out-matched -- a bad mix.

Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 9:35:55 AM | 179
In Iran's immediate vicinity the US Navy is especially vulnerable. Iran has thousands of rockets and missiles, and knows how to use them, plus 34 submarines wirh 533mm torpedoes. There's the potential of over sixty torpedoes in the water in one salvo.

from USNI:

On Sunday, the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group with embarked 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility, joining the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group already on station in 5th Fleet.

As a result, the Navy now has 28,000 personnel deployed to the region. In comparison, the Navy currently has 24,000 personnel deployed to the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans, according to Navy data reviewed by USNI News.

"All of our training and our transit to 5th Fleet have made us prepared to respond to any crises across the range of military operations," Capt. Brad Arthur, commander of Amphibious Squadron 5 and the Boxer ARG/11th MEU team, said in a statement. . . here

Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 9:35:55 AM | 179 somebody , Jun 25, 2019 9:39:52 AM | 180
@Yeah, Right | Jun 25, 2019 9:06:21 AM | 175

What usually stops the US are elections. The Vietnam War deeply threatened the US establishment and they "think" they learnt the lessons.

- no conscripts
- as few dead soldiers as possibele - see Iraq or Afghanistan never mind the death of foreign civilians

So either others have to do the fighting (Syria) or the US bomb the country extensively to make it safe for their soldiers. They miscalculated on this in Iraq.

This here is John Helmer's take - who I assume, gets his information from the Russian military

The range of the new surveillance extends well beyond the S-300 strike distance of 200 kilometres, and covers US drone and aircraft bases on the Arabian peninsula, as well as US warships in (and under) the Persian Gulf and off the Gulf of Oman. Early warning of US air and naval-launched attacks has now been cut below the old 4 to 6-minute Iranian threshold. Counter-firing by the Iranian armed forces has been automated from attack warning and target location.

This means that if the US is detected launching a swarm of missiles aimed at Iran's air-defense sites, uranium mines, reactors, and military operations bunkers, Iran will launch its own swarm of missiles at the US firing platforms, as well as at Saudi and other oil production sites, refineries, and pipelines, as well tankers in ports and under way in the Gulf.

"The armed forces of Iran," said a Russian military source requesting anonymity, "have air defence systems capable of hitting air targets at those heights at which drones of the Global Hawk series can fly; this is about 19,000 to 20,000 metres. Iran's means of air defence are both foreign-purchased systems and systems of Iran's own design; among them, in particular, the old Soviet system S-75 and the new Russian S-300.

Recently, Iran transported some S-300's to the south, but that happened after the drone was shot down [June 20]. Russian specialists are working at Bushehr now and this means that the S-300's are also for protection of Bushehr."

... ... ...

The Russian military source says there is now active coordination between Russian and Iranian military staffs. "About coordination, of course there is participation of Russia in intelligence-sharing because of Bushehr and ISIS. We have a long and successful partnership with Iran, especially in terms of fighting against international terrorism." Two days after the drone incident, Russian specialist media published Iranian video footage of the movement of S-300's on trailer trucks. This report claims that although the S-300's are wheeled and motorized for rapid position changes, the use of highway transporters was intended to minimize road fatigue on the weapons.

Iranian military sources have told western reporters they have established "a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East."

... ... ...

In briefings for sympathetic western reporters, Iranian commanders are emphasizing the Armageddon option; that is, however weak or strong their defenses may prove to be under prolonged US attack, the Iranian strategy is not to wait. Their plan, they say, is to counter-attack against Arab as well as American targets as soon as a US missile attack commences; that's to say, at launch, not in-flight nor at impact.

The US cannot sustain any prolonged war with Iran (see elections, dead soldiers), nor can they risk an escalation of small attacks. Nor can they isolate Iran diplomatically.

Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 9:47:32 AM | 181
@ 180

The Russian military source says there is now active coordination between Russian and Iranian military staffs.

from Mehr News today

Heading a high delegation of Iran's Defense Ministry and the Army, Iranian Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General Ghasem Taghizadeh traveled to Moscow at the invitation of Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu on Tuesday morning.

He will hold talks with Russian Defense Minister and officials, as well as visit International Military-Technical Forum (ARMY-2019). . . here

PavewayIV , Jun 25, 2019 10:09:06 AM | 183
@imo@142 - Your remark about MMT and my reply have magically gelled (in my simian brain) for a grand unified conspiracy theory that explains a lot of oddities everyone has pointed out previously.

The plan for last Thurs/Fri:

The incident happened Thursday before U.S. markets opened. There was the usual confusion about exactly what happened most of the day and we had that odd statement by Trump just before Thursday market close to the effect that maybe a rouge Iranian general made a mistake in shooting down the (in this case: manned P-8A) in 'international waters'.

Worry, but not panic in the markets on Friday. Oil prices would still have jumped, but derivatives don't implode. War doesn't seem imminent. The public would have been admonished by Trump and the MSM to 'wait for the facts' before rushing to judgement (also calming the markets). Iran would have said nothing on Friday fearing the worse. It really couldn't have been planned better - plenty of time to start the buzz before the weekend but avert derivative Armageddon on Quad witching day.

Saturday is hate Iran a lot day:

The U.S. would hold off on any kind of confirmation until the weekend. CNN would immediately roll out videos of weeping children and widows of 'our brave heros' and document the impromptu memorials: pictures of the sailors, flowers, Teddy bears in camo, candles. Outraged politicians would call for Iranian blood. And, of course, oil prices would have skyrocketed.

The U.S. either conduct an attack on Iran this week or announce an impending one after sufficient grief was milked from the 38 deaths. Trump would be shown solemly saluting the flag-draped coffins in the C-5s arriving at Dover. If it *had* occurred in 'international waters', the U.S. Nave would have recovered everything and kept the Iran Navy away from the area. Casus belli - only a monster or traitor would dare question 'the facts'. Bibi would be shrieking nonstop about how he told us so and encourage us to hurry up and destroy Iran for them.

No sailors would have been hurt in this ruse:

I'm not making light of the thought of 38 dead U.S. sailors - none would have really died in this scenario. The P-8A would certianly have been stripped of it's radars and advanced electronics 'just in case'. Now there's plenty of extra room for those 38 frozen corpses dressed in the appropriate Navy flight uniforms. Load 'em up! A USN P-8A pilot somewhere safely ashore would be flying it via satellite just like regular drone pilots. Thanks, secret Honeywell mystery box in the electronics bay!

Iran would have been screwed:

Video of USN ships recovering those broken (and now unthawed) bodies from the Straits would have been required for the propaganda value. What could Iran say then? "We were targeting the drone in our airspace, not the P-8. Honest!" Too late of course. WAR:ON. Nobody would believe evil Iran.

Why even use a drone?

The drone would have to have been used for bait because Iran wouldn't intentionally shoot at a P-8A (stuffed with frozen bodies or not) flying the same non-threating routes in the middle of the Strait that they usually fly. The drone would also have been stripped but all it's remaining cameras to capture the horrible, intentinal massacre by Iran. The plan would have put that in Iranian airspace without explaining anything to Iran. It was suppose to draw SAM fire.

What could have gone wrong?

The U.S. must have had enough EW on both aircraft to ensure the MQ-4A became invisible to an approaching missile, which would eventually only seen the P-8A on it's terminal guidance radar, not the drone. Except the Iraqis fired a SAM that used IR for terminal guidance, not radar, ignoring whatever trick the U.S. used. The Iranian SAM may have also used a proximity fuse, detonating it near the drone anyway. "Damn you, sneaky Iranians and your primative IR-seeking SAMs with secret proximity fuses! Do you realize how much time and effort we put in with our F-35s to figuring out the required radar tricks for this elaborate scheme?"

Opening salvo:

This could also explain the bizzare 150 dead Iranian people figure Trump claimed. There would have been a pre-planned retalitory strike on the Iranian SAM sites, but only after market closed on Friday or on Saturday. An opening salvo only - total war would surely follow. The U.S. would offer some fake deal. Iran would be spared destruction if they got on their knees to their U.S. and Israeli masters. That just wouldn't ever happen, so WAR:ON. If the U.S. went ahead with the retaliory strike based only on the drone alone, then we would have looked like the bad guys.

How much might Iran have known?

Odd that the P-8A track wasn't also published by Iran. I wonder how they knew about the 35 frozen bodies or if they really thought there were 35 live crew? Guess we'll never know, and nobody would believe such a nutty claim by Iran now. Frozen bodies? Remote controlled P-8As? 'Bait drone'? Hah - sounds like somethig that crackhead Paveway would dream up! Things may have been differnt than this, but I think most people (here, anyway) were surprised by the initial bewilderment of the Trump administration and DoD.

"What? They actually shot the drone down, not the P-8? *%^&! Why did they do that? Get rid of the plane and dump those damn frozen bodies somewhere really deep. If you suspect anybody on our team might be the whistleblowoing type, report them our CIA cleaner pals to be disappeared. Hell, what do I care? My broker just called. I'm rich! F*ck the navy - I'm retireing. See ya!"

And where the hell do you get frozen bodies today that can pass for U.S. military? Does the Pentagon have a freezer of them somewhere for emergency use?

Some folks probably made some money [sigh...]

All I can say now is glad nothing happened as planned. I would give anything to know how many commanding elite in the U.S. military and in-the-know congress things were buying oil call options through proxies last week. Netanyahu and MbS were sure to have loaded up - they LOVE money.

psychohistorian , Jun 25, 2019 10:35:22 AM | 189
Is there consensus now that we are in WWIII?

Thanks to somebody above with the Russia is behind Iran facts that show that attacks on Iran are not possible but for show.

Thanks to PavewayIV with the curious scenario and confirmation that for some it is all about MONEY

I think the EU leaders are a bit conflicted in anticipation of the G20, eh? Are they going to join the Coalition of he Willing like their money boys tell them or do something else?

What a way to fight a war.......lets hope the fighting does not go stupider.

[Jun 25, 2019] Iran doesn't have to win a shooting war, it only has to buy enough time so that its forces can disrupt oil shipments

Existence of financial derivatives on oil (aka "paper oil") and the size of trade involving them in world markets changes the whole situation. The USA can shoot themselves in a foot even if the US armed forces would be able to completely destroy the Iraq army air defenses and bomb strategic targets.
Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
KA Hopkins , Jun 25, 2019 6:03:12 AM | 154
There seems to be a common theme in many articles that 'shock and awe' military strikes will force Iran's leaders into unconditional surrender. While the US has the capability to do this on its own, for political reasons the US is actively seeking coalition partners. The reality is it doesn't matter how many partners the US can convince to attack Iran. No matter how sophisticated Iran's cyber, missile or air defenses are, based on simple logistics Iran will eventually lose a shooting war against the US and any coalition partners. Iran knows this.

The real question when the bombing starts, is not the number of casualties that Iran can inflict on her enemies but how long before Iran realizes it will lose and calls on all of its asymmetric regional forces to attack in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, UAE, Saudi Arabia and the Straits of Hormuz.

Iran doesn't have to win a shooting war, it only has to buy enough time that its forces can disrupt oil shipments to China, India, Japan, South Korean and Europe to break the supply chains to the US. Currently the US imports/exports over 5T dollars per year, even impacting this by only 20% should cause the trillions in derivatives to crush the world economy. Given that war should always be the option of last resort is there still the possibility for negotiations?

Iran has too many examples of the promises of US and West not matching our actions. The current sanctions are crippling the economy and backing Iran into a corner. No matter what Iran does what guarantees can be provided that sanctions won't be reapplied. Absolutely none. The criteria constantly change. There is an old saying in martial arts, in a fight an opponent with no way out is far more formable than an opponent who can walk away.

Even a wide scale nuclear attack that wipes out a third of Iran's citizens in the ten major cities and a majority of the armed forces probably won't succeed. Once nuclear weapons are used, Iran's leaders are no longer constrained to any regional targets. If Russia and China jump in to the fray then it could get real, as in WWIII awfully quickly. Even without Russia and China getting involved, Iran's leaders just might consider 30M or more deaths acceptable if her enemies are crushed. There is precedent for this. Estimates put Russia's losses due to all causes in WWII at 25-30M people, and Russia called it a win.

So all the babble that Iran will fold in the face of 'shock and awe' is naïve. Iran can't win a shooting war but if can lose with style. To think that Iran can be defeated like Iraq is folly. Iran is not Iraq. Iraq is a local power, Iran is a regional one. Iran is too large to be attacked by ground forces. That leaves airpower. Once the bombs start to drop, all Iranian combat units have a minimum of 72 hours of war supplies. If the US and the coalition partners don't achieve, 'unconditional surrender' in the initial strikes then all bets are off for keeping the conflict local.

Many articles claim the tanker and pipeline attacks of the past two weeks are 'false flags'. Hopefully they were, because if they were not, then Iran has just proven it's ready and has the capability to strike anywhere in the region. Iran is quickly running out of options and has no choice but to continue escalating regional tensions until something gives. We are indeed living in interesting times.

[Jun 25, 2019] Iran is nearly western, much more so than neighbouring Arab countries and despite resentment people will rally to defend the republic

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Laguerre , Jun 24, 2019 6:21:31 PM | 89

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 4:58:26 PM | 59

Just to add on my recent visit to Iran. They are nearly western, much more so than neighbouring Arab countries. But there are curiosities which keep them apart, like the hijri solar calendar, which puts them in 1398, and the 1st of the year on 21st March. Impossible to calculate the western date without mechanical aid.

Most that I met were anti-regime. but then they were middle class. It's not the middle class which is voting for the regime. Rather it is a populist regime, like Trump's.


xLemming , Jun 24, 2019 6:37:12 PM | 92

@19 js

As a follower of Christ, and seasoned "fruit inspector"* I can confidently state the there is more godly wisdom & compassion for humanity displayed by Iran, Russia, Iraq, Syria & Palestine than ALL of the West & especially not by the likes of Pompeo, Pence, Robertson, etc

* "By their fruits you shall know them" NOT by words alone

xLemming , Jun 24, 2019 6:58:17 PM | 94
@48 op

This may be totally naive, but how about this... Iran gets a couple nukes from somewhere, ie. NK, Russia, Pakistan, India, Walmart... and announce it & put an end to this drawn out dance... and force Israel, US, etc to come to terms with it. This is a war after all, and Iran has been bullied long enough (as have we all)

Jen , Jun 24, 2019 7:12:57 PM | 95
Laguerre @ 88:

I admit I have never been to Iran though I've met people who have visited the country as tourists. I have done some reading on the country's history.

Being an Islamic theocracy, the fact that Iran uses the hijri calendar is no surprise. The calendar is actually a lunar calendar of 12 months that is at least a week or a fortnight shorter than the Gregorian calendar we normally use. (This explains why every year Ramadan starts earlier than it did the previous year.) 21st March on the other hand is Nowruz (Persian New Year) which among other things celebrates the spring equinox and is an inheritance from pre-Islamic Persia.

I have read some information about the bonyads (charitable foundations) owned / managed by the IRGC and other government organisations. These trusts (non-profit so they are exempt from taxation) invest huge amounts in Iran's industries. Just the other day I was commenting at another blog about a senior military guy in the Iranian armed forces, General Hossein Salami, who works with a huge IRGC-associated engineering firm that controls over 800 firms and employs over 25,000 mostly technical and engineering staff . The income that bonyads obtain from a firm like Salami's firm and others, which in Western countries would be considered "profit", is distributed among IRGC members (or members of the other government agencies that run them) in the form of subsidies for education up to and including college / university level, healthcare and other social services.

My understanding is that most people who are members of the IRGC come from working class families and especially families who lost breadwinners or other men of draft age during the Iraq-Iran war (1980 - 1988).

Middle class and upper middle class layers would be the hardest hit by US sanctions on Iran (they are the ones importing and buying overseas goods, and have the most contacts with the Iranian diaspora) and won't have the protection of subsidies provided by bonyads or other government organisations.

Grieved , Jun 24, 2019 7:59:24 PM | 99
I have to say I find this talk of "the mullahs" disturbing.

I never see any collateral to demonstrate that the religious layer of Iran is actually harmful to the people in any way. And on the contrary, everything I read about how the religious layer is part of the governing system and the culture and welfare of the nation seems pretty reasonable to me.

I keep coming back to the thought that this is after all the religion of the people of this country. It is the particular way in which they approach the sacredness of the universe. I'm not persuaded that it's more intelligent to regard the universe as being not-sacred.

To accept the benignity of religious people in positions of power and influence within a state, you have to accept the positive aspects of religion, as well as the negative aspects. This is where a lot of potential acceptance fails, of course.

~~

We keep hearing that it is the middle and upper classes that are disaffected with the government (although typically the term "regime" is used). But in this cold-hearted, neoliberal economic wasteland, surely the fact that the poor and the unprivileged are in support of their government is not a study in "populism" but rather a study in successful socialist principles at work?

And the link provided in the previous thread regarding Iran's leadership in the war on drugs stated that over 8,000 Iranian police have died fighting the flow of opium from Afghanistan. The position of the US in this trade is clear to everyone, and the reason to sanction Iran - precisely to shackle the Iranian interdiction of the drug flow - is also clear.

Iran strikes me very much as being like Cuba, in that its good works that yield no profit are greater than any that come from the western nations. Ir almost seems that only a socialist, revolutionary nation has freed itself from the shackles of greed enough to pursue actions purely from moral concern.

I like Khamenei. I envy a country that has a moral anchor such as he, a force that acts not as its captain but as its pilot.

~~

No particular point to make. Just some words in support of devotion to the sacred, and the moral strength to live a life, and direct a country, along moral lines, rather than criminal.

Arata , Jun 24, 2019 8:12:20 PM | 101
@| 95

The Shah came to power with USA + UK coup on 1953, he lacked legitimacy, that was his main problem, he was not an indepdendt legimtimate ruler.

Understanding Iran revolution and the long historical march is too complicated. On the surface and apperance it seems on political, ideoligical/ theoligical levels, but the movement is deeply in cultural and social level. Otherwise it would not be able to survive, resist and grow for 40 years. It may take another 40-50 years the movement bear fruits.

Uncle Jon , Jun 24, 2019 8:14:18 PM | 102
@ATH 97

The Shah was a tragic figure in many ways. You are correct about being the servant of his masters until he outgrew that and started having Persian Empire ambitions. Perhaps too soon for the politics of the era. The west of the 1970's preferred a King Hussein of Jordan. Quiet, unpretentious and cooperative.

The Shah was a super intelligent, extremely well informed and well-read, and a great debater. No journalist was a match for him, not even the crass and arrogant Mike Wallace. But inherently, he was a weak man with a character that did not match his ambitions. That weakness did not allow him to follow through with his plans and he had great plans for his country.

Having said that, IMHO, the Seven Sisters' decision to remove him, and him capitulating so easy, was one the biggest mistakes in modern geopolitics. Look what has happened since then. Furthermore, Dynasties and kings are in Persian DNA. I often laugh at the talk of democracy in Iran, as you cannot have 4-5 Iranians sit together and agree to disagree. One idea always has to come on top and the rest be damned.

Obviously, there are so many other factors and it would a lengthy discussion best to have over a nice Cuban cigar and a single Malt.

psychohistorian , Jun 24, 2019 8:47:00 PM | 112
@ C I eh? who wrote
"
Iran can pursue the strategy of Russia, patience and double dealing, indefinitely or till the cows come home.
"
Totally agree.

In the case of bullies the best offense is a good defense and Iran showed it has good defense to shoot down the spy plane and not the one with cannon fodder nearby

How many more bully nations other than Israel and the US are currently "active"?

None.

This is why the G20 will be interesting to see how much the global finance power struggle shows itself.....the cows are coming home perhaps....

karlof1 , Jun 24, 2019 9:33:02 PM | 118
As alluded to by several and directly pointed to by me, Iran's defensive capabilities have placed the Outlaw US Empire's King in check and have forced it to move into hiding on the board behind what amounts to nothing of substance. I think it an amazing admission that the self-proclaimed most powerful military EVER on Earth must ask for assistance to overthrow what is a popular Iranian government--a government and people in a strategic location within Eurasia on the cusp of initiating an geoeconomic/geopolitical system capable of upending the Empire's #1 policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance. What nation other than the usual co-outlaws will join in an action that is totally against its interests--what nation wants, desires, to be dominated by another?

As I see it, the next move on the global chess board will occur at the G-20, and the King will be placed in check again. However, the move required to get away from the check situation won't be as simple as was just done today. It will require complex finesse of a sort TrumpCo has yet to exhibit. It seems likely Trump will try to redirect attention away from his Iranian failure, but that won't alter the fact that he must move his King.

Jen , Jun 24, 2019 9:39:10 PM | 119
There has been much recent speculation about the restoration of monarchy in Iran in Western news media which would suggest this is something currently occupying the minds of the, uh, "best" and "brightest" brains over at Langley, Foggy Bottom and the bizarre ziggurat building at Vauxhall Cross in London.

One little problem that our Western news media and their feeders may have overlooked is that traditionally only men inherit the throne in Iran.

The current Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has only three daughters. His younger brother Ali Reza (committed suicide in January 2011) left behind one daughter.

There are two male survivors of the previous Qajar dynasty .

Realist , Jun 24, 2019 10:45:32 PM | 126
Iran strikes me very much as being like Cuba, in that its good works that yield no profit are greater than any that come from the western nations. Ir almost seems that only a socialist, revolutionary nation has freed itself from the shackles of greed enough to pursue actions purely from moral concern.

Posted by: Grieved | Jun 24, 2019 7:59:24 PM | 98

How does Iran strike you in this way? You have traveled in Iran? You have lived in Iran?

Do actually you give a fuck about Iran and Iranians? (Be honest. I mean care they way you care about your FAMILY.)

Iran has been kept artificaly retarded and its development plans halted. A million Iranians perished in a needless war. Iranians are forced to accept outrageous intrusions on Iran's sovereignty. Our best minds continue to leave. And now we're being threatened with nuclear bombardment.

"Winning"?

Why don't you wish that on your own people. Hah?

One imagines it must have been very alarming to the Global Mafia when the Shah of Iran announced the plans for the Port of Chabahar. Can you imagine a developed Iran, in good international standing, with a thriving modern port right on the Ohormozd [Hormoz] Strait? Do recent events jingle a bell somewhere there, Grieved?

"Socialist"

A welfare state is not the same thing as a "socialist" system.

IRI runs a welfare state to keep the lower classes on their side. They are hugely corrupted, even Ahmadinejad was screaming about it. It is not even remotely a secret.

The greed of the Mullahs is legendary. You clearly have never dealt with a member of that species. I suggest you acquaint yourself with Iranian's assessment of our clerical snakes.

[Obviously mature readers recognize that in any gross characterization we omit stating the obvious fact that "in most every grouping of people there are exceptional and principled members." We state this here for those who are not.]

Ninel , Jun 24, 2019 10:21:19 PM | 122

Poor Iranians! They are victims of both internal and external repression.

Kadath , Jun 24, 2019 11:03:49 PM | 128
re: 89 Laguerre

I highly doubt that Khamenei has even $0.01 worth of assets in the US, however the real purpose of sanctioning Khamenei and other Iranian government officials (supposedly including the Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif) is not to seize their assets but to make international diplomacy more difficult. For example, if Khamenei were to travel to Iraq to face to face discussions with the Iraqi Prime Minister the US would now have the legal framework to sanction any company involved in the travel arrangements, accommodations, insurance, etc... Sanctioning Javad Zarif is an especially dick move as he is one of the leading Iranian moderates and was in favor of the original JCPOA agreement. I suspect that when Javad Zarif tries to attend the next UN summit in New York the US will attempt to sabotage his travel based on these sanctions.

This is also more proof that the US wants a war with Iran as they are trying to crush the moderates within Iran in the hopes that 1) the hardliners will become ascendant within Iran and that they will pursue policies that will make it easier for the US to justify their eventual attack on Iran and 2) making it more difficult for senior government officials to travel aboard will make Iran's international diplomacy less effective in developing a international coalition in opposition to the war. China and Russia acting as proxies and advocates for Iran will be vital for future discussions

Krollchem , Jun 24, 2019 11:16:08 PM | 129
Realist@124

(1) "Iran has been kept artifically retarded and its development plans halted. A million Iranians perished in a needless war."
Do you realize that Iran was attacked by Saddam who was supported by the US and that the US provided Saddam with vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

(2) "One imagines it must have been very alarming to the Global Mafia when the Shah of Iran announced the plans for the Port of Chabahar."

Did you know that the Shah was installed on 19 August 1953 following the overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in Operation Ajax by the US and the United Kingdom?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

(3) "IRI runs a welfare state to keep the lower classes on their side."

Sounds like the US system where the two wings of the bird of prey are the Democrats and the Republicans (Upton Sinclair, 1904). Please read up on US Neofeudal Oligarchy before throwing stones at regimes that do not meet your ideological viewpoint.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune19/lessons-rome6-19.html

Yes I understand why the US would want to rape Iran and Venezuela for their energy resources. Without these pools of liquid energy the US Empire will collapse on itself. I suggest you read 1Pathfinding Our Destiny for a reality check on the US system.
https://www.oftwominds.com/Pathfinding-Our-Destiny-sample2.pdf

I suggest that you worry about the US Zionist "christian" endtimers seeking the rapture than the Iranian Mullahs.

/div> Realist, what are you asking for? Are you wishing for Ukraine's fate? Or Brazil's? Or El Salvador's? The political situation in Iran should be, by rights, an Iranian issue. I live in a country that spends trillions making life miserable for others, killing and maiming them but cannot afford to look after it's own people. This is by rights my problem, and I and my fellow citizens should be working to correct this imbalance. What advice do you have? What advice should I give you? We are caught in a terrible, foolish dance but have not the power, as individuals, to escape. This is life. Enjoy some tahdig. Railing against people here is not particularly enlightning for anyone.

Posted by: the pessimist , Jun 24, 2019 11:39:51 PM | 132

Realist, what are you asking for? Are you wishing for Ukraine's fate? Or Brazil's? Or El Salvador's? The political situation in Iran should be, by rights, an Iranian issue. I live in a country that spends trillions making life miserable for others, killing and maiming them but cannot afford to look after it's own people. This is by rights my problem, and I and my fellow citizens should be working to correct this imbalance. What advice do you have? What advice should I give you? We are caught in a terrible, foolish dance but have not the power, as individuals, to escape. This is life. Enjoy some tahdig. Railing against people here is not particularly enlightning for anyone.

Posted by: the pessimist | Jun 24, 2019 11:39:51 PM | 132

dltravers , Jun 24, 2019 11:41:31 PM | 133
IRI runs a welfare state to keep the lower classes on their side. They are hugely corrupted, even Ahmadinejad was screaming about it. It is not even remotely a secret.

The greed of the Mullahs is legendary. You clearly have never dealt with a member of that species. I suggest you acquaint yourself with Iranian's assessment of our clerical snakes.

I have had quite a few Iranians describe that situation to me. It is amazing how the Christian religious leadership gets bashed, mostly rightly so, and the Mullahs get a pass. I am sure they do get the job done shaking down the flock. Probably not as mullaevangelists on TV but there are other ways. I bet one could amass quite a flock of daughters to your harem.

A quick question: if there really were 35/38 American servicemen jammed into a P-8 and dangled before the Iranians like a juicy bait on a hook then how, exactly, are they going to view that display of casual recklessness w.r.t. their lives?

Wouldn't they be more than a little pissed off with the revelation that the Iranian military cared more about their mortal souls than did their own superiors in the US chain of command?

I was listening to a recent interview of Liberty survivors. One survivor just joined the group after retiring from the intelligence establishment. He was on the fantail after the ship got hit and described the whole thing including the Israeli torpedo boats flying their flags firing at the Liberty. Later at port he had to retrieve the dead. He was threatened by the naval brass to be silent and went on to work for them for the rest of his life.

DC is full of these guys "afraid for their careers and pension". Do not expect to much out of them.

col from OZ , Jun 25, 2019 12:08:56 AM | 134
Grieved
I agree with you summation of the Governance of Iran. The supreme Leader has a fatwa on the creating/ion of Nuclear weapons which he says is immoral. Well their you have it, a gaggle of US presidents who only live to breathe the threaten use of nuclear weapons upon 'their enemies', against a leader who wishers not the power of such a immoral weapon..

[Jun 25, 2019] If China have read Trumps global energy dominance strategy, they will know it is aimed at them.

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter AU 1 , Jun 24, 2019 5:41:08 PM | 78

@Oscar Peterson 48
Re China siding with the US if gulf oil is cut.

If China have read Trumps global energy dominance strategy, they will know it is aimed at them.

Trumps attacks on Venezuela and Iran are twofold.

One reason is Israel - both Iran and Venezuela are anti Israel, and the second it energy dominance -both countries have large reserves of no US controlled oil reserves.

Energy - oil and gas are China's Achilles heel. They must be imported from somewhere and China being the would No1 importer of oil, it is something that cannot be substituted by Russia overnight and possibly not even in the longer term..

[Jun 24, 2019] Trump Unleashes On Uber-Hawk Bolton We d Be Fighting The Whole World At One Time

That does not change the fact that Trump foreign policy is a continuation of Obama fogirn policy. It is neocon forign policy directed on "full spectrum dominance". Trump just added to this bulling to the mix.
Notable quotes:
"... When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter because I want both sides." ..."
"... I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now. ..."
"... Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House. ..."
"... Tucker's epic "bureaucratic tapeworm" comment: https://www.youtube.com/embed/-c0jMsspE7Y ..."
"... Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition." ..."
"... Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In a stunningly frank moment during a Sunday Meet the Press interview focused on President Trump's decision-making on Iran, especially last week's "brink of war" moment which saw Trump draw down readied military forces in what he said was a "common sense" move, the commander in chief threw his own national security advisor under the bus in spectacular fashion .

Though it's not Trump's first tongue-in-cheek denigration of Bolton's notorious hawkishness, it's certainly the most brutal and blunt take down yet, and frankly just plain enjoyable to watch. When host Chuck Todd asked the president if he was "being pushed into military action against Iran" by his advisers in what was clearly a question focused on Bolton first and foremost, Trump responded:

"John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"

Trump began by explaining, "I have two groups of people. I have doves and I have hawks," before leading into this sure to be classic line that is one for the history books: "If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"

During this section of comments focused on US policy in the Middle East, the president reiterated his preference that he hear from "both sides" on an issue, but that he was ultimately the one making the decisions.

When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter because I want both sides."

And in another clear indicator that Trump wants to stay true to his non-interventionist instincts voiced on the 2016 campaign trail, he explained to Todd that:

I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now.

It was the second time this weekend that Trump was forced to defend his choice of Bolton as the nation's most influential foreign policy thinker and adviser. When peppered with questions at the White House Saturday following Thursday night's dramatic "almost war" with Iran, Trump said that he "disagrees" with Bolton "very much" but that ultimately he's "doing a very good job".

Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House.

Tucker's epic "bureaucratic tapeworm" comment: https://www.youtube.com/embed/-c0jMsspE7Y

But Bolton hasn't had a good past week: not only had Trump on Thursday night shut the door on Bolton's dream of overseeing a major US military strike on Iran, but he's been pummeled in the media.

Even a Fox prime time show (who else but Tucker of course) colorfully described him as a "bureaucratic tapeworm" which periodically reemerges to cause pain and suffering.


Iconoclast422 , 15 seconds ago link

YOU TELL HIM BOSS. Only bomb one country at a time.

bizarroworld , 1 minute ago link

It's great that the biggest war mongers are the ones that not only never served but in the case of Bolton, purposely avoided serving. They should send that ****** to Iran so we can see just how supportive he is when he's actually in danger.

This guy is a worthless piece of **** and Trump's an idiot for hiring him.

Catullus , 1 minute ago link

Being a cheerleader for the Iraq war is as ridiculous as that ******* mustache. He's just letting neocons have a front row seat to power. That's how he's keeping them from jumping ship to become democrats. They have no principles. They're just power worshippers.

Moribundus , 2 minutes ago link

Do ya all remember when Trump took office? Losers use military strategy that is overwhelming bombardment b4 land attack. I thought that Donnie can not survive this pressure. Looks like now he is riding horse with banner in hands. Thumb up, MJT

thepsalmon , 2 minutes ago link

I was against going into the Middle East...$7 Trillion? So why is Jared trying to give away $50 Billion more? People thought they voted for MAGA, but they got Jared...MMEGA.

How about MJANYA?...Make Jared a New Yorker Again. Send Jared and Ivanka back to New York before it's $10 Trillion.

HenryJonesJr , 2 minutes ago link

Never understood why Trump allowed Bolton near the White House. Bolton is insane.

Joiningupthedots , 4 minutes ago link

WTF is wrong with Trump? He appointed Bolton and Pompeo......... OR DID HE?

SMOOCHY SMOOCHY CARLO , 4 minutes ago link

Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition."

ne-tiger , 4 minutes ago link

Holycrap trumptards: all get your 22 little pistols ready to die for your orange swamp mushroom?

ConanTheContrarian1 , 5 minutes ago link

Trump "unleashes"? For those who think, he also said Bolton is doing a good job. Crap headline. I think Solomon said, "In a multitude of counselors there is victory".

DingleBarryObummer , 4 minutes ago link

What kind of unprofessional dingus talks openly about employee issues? That's not how you run a organization. That's how you run a reality television show.

DingleBarryObummer , 5 minutes ago link

Bolton is just there to make Trump look like less of a Zionist tool in comparison.

Everybodys All American , 5 minutes ago link

Rid yourself of Bolton. The guy is a friggin megalomaniac and he's no fan of making America great. Move on from this idiot.

RedNemesis , 7 minutes ago link

Who would have thought that we now wish HR McMaster was back.

HillaryOdor , 9 minutes ago link

So why did you put him in your cabinet then you dumb ****? Was this actually news to you?

ConanTheContrarian1 , 8 minutes ago link

Because, you dumber ****, Trump wants to hear both sides, as was pointed out in the article.

DingleBarryObummer , 7 minutes ago link

Sides? I could hire Hobo Joe, the bum that huffs paint and drinks scotch out of plastic bottle while yelling at traffic by the intersection, as my advisor. He'd probably tell me to do some whacky stuff. But why would I do that?

HillaryOdor , 7 minutes ago link

There is no side to hear. Bomb everyone. That is John Bolton's side. It isn't worth hearing. The man shouldn't be drawing a paycheck. He shouldn't be drawing breath. He should be pushing up daisies. He the same as ISIS.

libertysghost , 6 minutes ago link

More easily controlled... Keep your enemies even closer, you may have heard.

HillaryOdor , 30 seconds ago link

Whatever you have to tell yourself to stay in the Trump delusion. What will the excuse be when they are at war with Iran?

Cognitive Dissonance , 1 minute ago link

Reading is fundamental....and certainly not needed to spout opinions. In fact, reading, combined with critical thinking, logic and reason, just gets in the way of forming opinions. Or should I say "repeating" other's opinions.

Commodore 1488 , 11 minutes ago link

John "The Pimp" Bolton wants American military to serve Israel.

FreeShitter , 7 minutes ago link

The military has been serving Israel for decades, you think this is new?

FreeShitter , 11 minutes ago link

"Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now."....Yes, just like your *** bosses wanted and needed and you dumb ******* sheep still think voting matters.

El_Puerco , 11 minutes ago link

Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population.

Democrats in Congress have the power to pull us back from the brink , but they need to act now. Once bombs start falling and troops are on the ground, there will be massive political pressure to rally around the flag.

[Jun 24, 2019] Beijing Slams Pompeo As Trade Talks Loom He Can No Longer Play Role Of Top US Diplomat

Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo is a rapture supremacist warmonger that is not good for anything. ..."
"... Not a fan of Pompeo, nor of any Secy of State that champions the cause of military adventurism instead of negotiations. We've had far too many Secys of State who have beat the drums of war instead of doing what the job entails.....being the nation's chief diplomatic negotiator. Pompeo is a bigger (chicken) hawk than the Secy of Defense for crying out loud. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Furthermore, Hu had some particularly harsh words for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, labeling the Secretary of State a "troublesome" figure in US-China relations and insisting that Pompeo "can no longer play the role of a top US diplomat between the two countries."

... ... ...

Beijing's attacks on the secretary of state come as Pompeo wrapped up a string of meetings in the Middle East with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince.

This isn't the first time Pompeo has earned the ire of Beijing. Last October, Pompeo became embroiled in a public confrontation with top Chinese official during what was supposed to be an amicable press conference in Beijing.


AriusArmenian , 1 hour ago link

Pompeo is a rapture supremacist warmonger that is not good for anything.

Bay Area Guy , 1 hour ago link

Not a fan of Pompeo, nor of any Secy of State that champions the cause of military adventurism instead of negotiations. We've had far too many Secys of State who have beat the drums of war instead of doing what the job entails.....being the nation's chief diplomatic negotiator. Pompeo is a bigger (chicken) hawk than the Secy of Defense for crying out loud.

brianshell , 1 hour ago link

China doesn't like Pompeo? We will bring in Bolton.

Thordoom , 1 hour ago link

Whenever i see Pompeo it reminds me that horror movie The Blob. The trailer for that movie is a perfect depiction of Pompeo.

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

[Jun 24, 2019] Foreign policy triumphs of Trump administration

Notable quotes:
"... Real men go to Teheran! ..."
"... Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Noirette , Jun 23, 2019 11:16:27 AM | 10

Trump strove for some foreign policy triumphs. The art of the deal!

Real men go to Teheran!

Except Trump and US forces aren't going anywhere at all and most certainly not to Iran. A real war in that theatre cannot be fought and won by the US. Nor can it be instigated and subsequently 'let drop' or 'become unimportant, trivial, with some claims of victory' for ex. Afghanistan. (very costly btw)

Iran has made it clear that economic sanctions are part of hybrid war, rightly so (but not, as I still claim, by making some minor attacks on tankers round about, to provoke a reaction, NO) -- at some point, one engages, if not: backing down is the only option.

Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured.

I think he got on super well with Kim (NK) who understood all this.

Leaves begging what-who-why is the projected aim, potential hoped result of the hybrid attack on Iran, and which parties (USA MIC, Fin. Trade Cos., Banking, FF industry, many other industries; Israel, KSA) support it (again, for what precise aim?) Or are against sanctions...

[Jun 24, 2019] Was global hawk drone a decoy to get a map of Iran air defense system

Notable quotes:
"... That could mean that it was there specifically for observation (of the P8, as much as Iranian defenses); and of course could mean that much of the equipment, particularly the active equipment, was no longer aboard ..."
"... Wouldn't be needed, after all, if the job was just to record what was hoped to be an Iranian reaction, and would want to minimize the amount of equipment potentially falling into enemy hands if things went bad. ..."
"... Secondly, the 35 souls on board the P8 comment by Iran was brilliant. For one thing, it put the US on the defensive and once again called world attention to the fact that the Iranians have striven to avoid loss of life (so much so that Trump even used it to partly save face on the whole thing). ..."
"... But either way, it is unquestionable that Iranian intelligence has penetrated the base, or operations, to a degree that must be causing all sorts of trepidation amongst the US hawks. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter AU 1 , Jun 23, 2019 2:32:07 PM | 61

Re the Boeing and the drone. With both planes apparently close together for the flight, they were not there for maritime surveillance. Iranians most likely only picked up floating debris initially and electronic hardware may be rovered later, but there is a possibility the drone was stripped of hardware for its job as decoy. 35 to 38 people on the Boeing are too many for a simple photoshoot.

The decoy entering Iranian airspace the beginnings of a US strike... it draws fire from multiple SAM sites, the Boeing P-8 videoing the shootdown to justify the strike while locating launch positions and directing immediate strikes onto these positions. Comes unstuck when Iran launches a single missile. Trump cancels the strike.
Re the Boeing - if the strike was planned in advance, as the pentagon does with its contingency plans the aircraft would have been equipped for detecting SAM sites.


Peter AU 1 , Jun 23, 2019 3:54:25 PM | 84

To add to my post @80, the US captured the missile strike on video. One of the pics put out by the Pentagon was of the drone exploding. This means they were videoing the drone at the moment the missile struck. The only reason for having a video camera filming the drone that I can see, is that the US expected it to be hit.
William Gruff , Jun 23, 2019 4:04:10 PM | 88
Peter AU 1 @80

Why have 35 (or, according to Trump 38) people on a spy plane that is normally crewed by 9?

Because you need double-digit numbers of American casualties to get Americans' attention.

As PavewayIV pointed out in a previous thread, the P-8 spy plane was to the east of the drone. That means it was between the missile launcher and the drone. The P-8 has a hundred times or more the radar cross section of the drone, despite them both being about the same size, so electronic countermeasures or not it stands out like a sore thumb relative to the drone to Iran's radar. It is impossible that these issues were overlooked by the people who put this mission together.

The Navy has a bunch of P-8s. They only had one RQ-4.

The conclusion is obvious:

The drone was there to collect evidence of the destruction of the P-8.

Peter AU 1 , Jun 23, 2019 4:19:06 PM | 96

William Gruff 88

I had noticed the directions in the in the video pics but had forgotten about that.
Makes it more complex as the crewed aircraft was to the east of the drone (closest to Iran), yet videoing the drone expecting it to be hit...
The video also had coordinates of the aircraft taking the video and the target aircraft (in this case the drone) I have not cross checked this with the Iranian coordinates and bringing them up on google maps did not show the positions in relation to Iranian airspace. That the US includes the coordinates in the pics makes me wonder if the information in the video shots has been changed - possibly by resetting the video recorder prior to the op.

J Swift | Jun 23, 2019 7:42:55 PM | 152

A couple of random thoughts on the drone/P8. Firstly, there was earlier a fair amount of debate on the stealthiness of the drone. I would just mention that the Iranians did not say it was a stealth drone they were tracking...they said it was in "stealth mode." I originally thought that was just an offhand reference to the craft turning off its transponder, making it somewhat less obvious although hardly a true stealth craft. But perhaps they meant that it was noted to be in fully passive mode with respect to its surveillance equipment.

That could mean that it was there specifically for observation (of the P8, as much as Iranian defenses); and of course could mean that much of the equipment, particularly the active equipment, was no longer aboard

Wouldn't be needed, after all, if the job was just to record what was hoped to be an Iranian reaction, and would want to minimize the amount of equipment potentially falling into enemy hands if things went bad.

Secondly, the 35 souls on board the P8 comment by Iran was brilliant. For one thing, it put the US on the defensive and once again called world attention to the fact that the Iranians have striven to avoid loss of life (so much so that Trump even used it to partly save face on the whole thing).

As Paveway IV commented, it could have technically been an empty, remotely controlled plane, in which case the Iranian reference to a highly unusual number of crewmen may have been a tongue-in-cheek jab at the Yanks--or there may have been an unusually high number of crewlambs, which might also have alerted the Iranian intelligence that a set-up was unfolding.

But either way, it is unquestionable that Iranian intelligence has penetrated the base, or operations, to a degree that must be causing all sorts of trepidation amongst the US hawks.

karlof1 | Jun 23, 2019 7:52:23 PM | 154

Jen @143--

As myself and others noted, the usual crew for P-8 is 7: two on the flight deck and 5 distributed at the 5 work stations. The plane's equipped with a bomb/torpedo/sonobouy bay as it's primary mission's ASW. Jamming in an additional 28-30 people would be rather difficult at best. IMO, the only way would be to remove all ordinance to make room for what could only be 3 Special Forces squads and their gear--they would paradive into Iran to do their thing, presumably. Otherwise, the plane wasn't a P-8. I don't recall the Iranians providing the plane type, although it's clear they could have since they readily identified the drone. That leaves us with the following:

  1. Iran's incorrect about the # of people they "saw" on other plane.
  2. USA's playing along with Iranian mistake, but added 3 more.
  3. Iran's correct. USA's lying about plane type.
  4. Iran's correct. USA correct, but altered mission and added troops.
  5. Iran's correct. USA correct; but if shadowing drone, why so many people--trial run?
  6. Iran's correct. Both US planes deliberately entered Iranian airspace to provoke a response that wasn't obtained earlier in the week as Zarif just informed. If so, why so many on non-drone?

There're probably more that could be obtained, but the above seem to be the most logical. It's also possible that Iran toppled the planes into its airspace using EW; although that possibility surprised PavewayIV, I'm not in the least. Regardless if there were 7, 35 or 38 people on the second plane, they all probably needed new trousers upon landing. I also wonder if the Iranian system actuates the radar-lock warning alarm giving the pilot a chance to evade? If I'm correct in my evaluation of Iran's system, it won't and the air crew won't have time to say a final prayer.

[Jun 24, 2019] US and Israel want to make Iran defenseless. It is not going to happen

It is all about dominance in the region...
Notable quotes:
"... This whole saga is not about nuclear weapons, it is about those conventional ballistic missiles which Iran is manufacturing perfectly legally and changing the equation in the region. These are precision missiles and could turn Tel Aviv and Saudi oil infrastructure into rubble, US/Israel want to make Iran defenseless. It is not going to happen. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Harry Law , Jun 23, 2019 7:41:48 PM | 151
Trump is such a con man... He said he told Shinzō Abe, before the Japanese prime minister visited Tehran on 12 June: "Send the following message: you can't have nuclear weapons. And other than that, we can sit down and make a deal. But you cannot have nuclear weapons."
On further questioning he added the demand that Tehran should not have a ballistic missile programme, and suggested he wanted a tougher inspection regime.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/23/iran-may-pull-further-away-from-nuclear-deal-after-latest-sanctions

This whole saga is not about nuclear weapons, it is about those conventional ballistic missiles which Iran is manufacturing perfectly legally and changing the equation in the region. These are precision missiles and could turn Tel Aviv and Saudi oil infrastructure into rubble, US/Israel want to make Iran defenseless. It is not going to happen.

[Jun 24, 2019] If the United States removes the existing ruling class, it is not clear that we would be able to build a functional government in the new Iran -- even if we airdropped billions upon billions of dollars onto the country.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump and the Trump administration have no credibility; lying is simply the nature of this administration. ..."
"... Nobody is going to believe anything put out by the US government for a long time. And yes, it's really sad when Iran or North Korea are deemed more credible than my own government. ..."
"... This whole affair is about nothing except smashing yet another nation because the apartheid Jewish state wants that to happen. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Jun 24, 2019 1:04:05 AM | 187

Just ran into an interesting little piece:

War with Iran?

Highlight:

Laying aside political and nationalistic biases, both the United States and Iran have credibility issues. While Iran is not known for its honesty, Trump and the Trump administration have no credibility; lying is simply the nature of this administration. As such, the matter cannot be settled by an appeal to credibility -- although, sadly, Iran seems to be less inclined to relentless lying than Trump.

Nobody is going to believe anything put out by the US government for a long time. And yes, it's really sad when Iran or North Korea are deemed more credible than my own government.

The author does miss the point here:

If the United States removes the existing ruling class, it is not clear that we would be able to build a functional government in the new Iran -- even if we airdropped billions upon billions of dollars onto the country.

This whole affair is about nothing except smashing yet another nation because the apartheid Jewish state wants that to happen.

[Jun 24, 2019] The Fact That Americans Need To Be Deceived Into War Proves Their Underlying Goodness

Notable quotes:
"... "Lying sometimes, not always lying, sometimes it's manipulations, but yeah," Merry replied. "America's warmaking history indicates that there's been significant instances of that kind of maneuvering, manipulations, and in some instances lying–Vietnam is a great example–to get us into wars that the American people weren't clamoring for." ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

John Smith , Jun 24, 2019 2:33:49 AM | 202

The Fact That Americans Need To Be Deceived Into War Proves Their Underlying Goodness by Caitlin Johnstone

<...>

Carlson's first guest, The American Conservative 's Robert Merry, plainly stated the likely reason for Bolton's deceitful manipulations, saying that Americans are typically reluctant to go to war and citing a few of the historical instances in which they were tricked into consenting to it by those who desire mass military violence.

"So, you're saying that there is a long, almost unbroken history of lying our way into war?" Carlson asked his guest rhetorically.

"Lying sometimes, not always lying, sometimes it's manipulations, but yeah," Merry replied. "America's warmaking history indicates that there's been significant instances of that kind of maneuvering, manipulations, and in some instances lying–Vietnam is a great example–to get us into wars that the American people weren't clamoring for."

Both men are correct. The US empire does indeed have an extensive and well-documented history of using lies, manipulations and distortions to manufacture consent for war from a populace that would otherwise choose peace, and a Reuters poll released last month found that only 12 percent of Americans favor attacking Iranian military interests without having been attacked first.

<...>

What we are watching with Iran is a war propaganda narrative failing to get airborne. It was all set up and ready to go, they had the whole marketing team working on it, and then it faceplanted right on the linoleum. This is what a failed narrative management campaign looks like. It is possible for us to see this more and more.

Today I have a lot more hope. It's becoming clear that the manipulations of the US war machine are becoming more and more obvious to more and more people and that everyday, regular Americans are reacting with a healthy amount of horror and revulsion. There was always the risk that the US population would already be sufficiently paced ahead of these revelations and there would be little to no reaction, but that didn't happen. Americans are seeing what they're doing, and they don't like it, and they don't want it.

And that makes me so happy. Come on Captain America. Save the day. The world is counting on you.

[Jun 24, 2019] Can the USA occupy Iran without reinstituting the military draft

Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

John Smith , Jun 24, 2019 6:04:07 AM | 219

If we're headed for regime change in Iran, get ready for a military draft. We'll need one. -- USA Today

Our leaders seem interested in toppling Iran's theocracy. But do they want a new U.S. military draft? Because make no mistake, that's what it will take.

<...>

Any serious effort to end the Iranian theocracy will not only require American troops, but will also almost certainly break our vaunted All-Volunteer Force If you like the idea of regime change in Iran, you had better love the idea of a new American draft.

We have seen for decades that American air power alone is insufficient to topple a government, [...]. Our Sunni Arab allies are stalemated in Yemen and distinctly averse to sending troops to Syria. The idea that they would invade or occupy Iran is risible. The Washington regime change crowd's preferred Iranian proxy is a hated cult called Mujahideen-e Khalq.

But if the mullahs are to be overthrown, it will be by American soldiers and Marines. Even if the Islamic Republic were to somehow collapse on its own, concerns about radiological material, the security of the Strait of Hormuz or another massive wave of refugees would probably drive the U.S.to intervene with ground troops.

U.S. politicians and generals sometimes like to point out that the volunteer military has successfully endured a decade and a half of sustained combat and a ceaseless cycle of deployments. This is not the whole story.

Despite the enormous amount of money expended there, Iraq was by historical measures a low-intensity war. Total combat deaths for American forces over eight years were about the size of a brigade, and losses in Afghanistan roughly half that. Yet a modest increase in force structure required the military to greatly lower its standards, doubling felony waivers for Army recruits from 2003 to 2006, for instance.

A massive increase in the use of civilian contractors (more than 50 times the ratio in Vietnam) also hid the volunteer system's cracks. The All-Volunteer Force was barely able to sustain two large, but low-casualty, campaigns -- neither of which has resulted in anything resembling a U.S. strategic victory.

Occupying Iran would be a challenge of an entirely different magnitude than Iraq or Afghanistan.

<...>

The force with which we would occupy Iran is also not as resilient as most Americans probably think. Even now, in a time when most troops are not seeing direct combat, the the volunteer force is struggling just to maintain numbers and standards. The Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy are each short of a full quarter of their required fighter pilots. The Army recently announced that it is already 12,000 recruits behind on its recruiting goal for 2018 and will not make mission.

The Pentagon stated last year that 71% of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve in the U.S. military, most for reasons of health, physical fitness, education, or criminality. The propensity of this age group to serve is even lower. The likely demands and casualties of a war in Iran would spell the end of the All-Volunteer Force, requiring the conscription of Americans for the first time since 1973.

There is ample evidence that American foreign policy elites haven't learned much from Iraq or Afghanistan; one need only look at the latest headlines from Libya or Syria. But perhaps even our modern Bourbons in Washington can grasp one simple lesson from the post-9/11 campaigns: Wars have an uncanny tendency to take on a life of their own.

Regime change in Iran would bring a host of consequences, many of them unknowable, but almost all of them negative for America and the region. There is one outcome we can be sure of, however: Occupying Iran would be the death of America's all-volunteer military and necessitate a return to a draft.

[Jun 24, 2019] Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without Putting Israel on the Front Line.

Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Oscar Peterson , Jun 23, 2019 10:13:46 AM | 2

This recent 19 May piece from Ha'aretz documents precisely the manipulation of American policy by Israeli charlatans and their agents of influence in the US. The title says it all just by itself: "Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without Putting Israel on the Front Line." It goes on to assess that:
"In this conflict, Israel is hoping to have its cake and eat it too. Ever since Trump was elected president two and a half years ago, Netanyahu has been urging him to take a more aggressive line toward Iran, in order to force it to make additional concessions on its nuclear program and disrupt its support for militant organizations.

"Trump acceded to this urging a year ago when he withdrew America from the nuclear agreement with Iran. That was followed by tighter sanctions on Iran, as well as publication of a plan by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo detailing 12 steps Tehran must take to satisfy Washington.

"But Israel isn't interested in being part of the front. That is why Jerusalem has issued so few official statements on the Iranian issue, and why Netanyahu has urged ministers to be cautious in what they say."

I'd say that passage captures the situation perfectly, and it just goes to show that when you want to know about what chicanery Israel and its lobby are up to in the US, you have to go and look at what Israelis are saying when they aren't particularly careful about who's observing. That sort of truth is sanitized from any MSM accounts in the US.

[Jun 24, 2019] Tony Blair was accused of the crime of aggression but the Judges said he could not be prosecuted

Notable quotes:
"... The Supreme Court Treason related to the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Harry Law , Jun 23, 2019 7:17:47 PM | 147

Karlof1@136

"The UNSC veto doesn't make the UN Charter null and void. Actions that violate it are still illegal/unconstitutional and able to be challenged in domestic courts". I agree it does not make the charter null and void, the question is how can aggressors be brought to book, Tony Blair was accused of the crime of aggression but the Judges said he could not be prosecuted see below. Thanks for the link to the Uniting for Peace resolution, I will read it tomorrow.
"Tony Blair should not face prosecution for his role in the 2003 Iraq war, the high court has ruled.

The lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and another senior judge, Mr Justice Ouseley, said on Monday that there was no crime of aggression in English law under which the former prime minister could be charged.

The decision blocks an attempt by a former Iraqi general, Abdulwaheed al-Rabbat, to bring a private war crimes prosecution against the former Labour leader.
The two judges recognised that a crime of aggression had recently been incorporated into international law, but said it did not apply retroactively". https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/31/tony-blair-prosecution-over-iraq-war-blocked-by-judges

karlof1 | Jun 23, 2019 8:19:37 PM | 156

Harry Law @149--

Thanks for your reply! I recall what an absolutely incensed Craig Murray wrote about that decision about Tony Blair--well beyond a travesty as it's a Capital Crime and not subject to statutes of limitation. The Supreme Court Treason related to the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire.

Going on 3 decades now, one of my primary questions is How to contain the Outlaw US Empire and make it into a law-abiding nation without blowing up the world. I've always recognized that it would take a global coalition to arrive at a genuine confrontation.

IMO, we're very close to that point; the G-20 will indicate just how close.

But even more importantly than the global coalition is the requirement for a political force within the Empire asking and acting on my question. The Maximum Pressure must come from internal and external sources for any positive outcome to be achieved. Since 2012, I've seen 2020 as THE inflection point. It seems I'm not alone.

[Jun 23, 2019] Provoking Iran Could Start A War And Crash The Entire World Economy

Jun 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Provoking Iran Could Start A War And Crash The Entire World Economy

by Tyler Durden Sun, 06/23/2019 - 15:25 2 SHARES Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Tensions in the Persian Gulf are reaching a point of no return . In recent weeks, six oil tankers have been subjected to Israeli sabotage disguised to look like Iranian attacks to induce the United States to take military action against the Islamic Republic. Some days ago Iran rightfully shot out of the sky a US Drone. In Yemen, the Houthis have finally started responding with cruise and ballistic missiles to the Saudis' indiscriminate attacks, causing damage to the Saudi international airport of Abha, as well as blocking, through explosive drones , Saudi oil transportation from east to west through one of the largest pipelines in the world.

As if the political and military situation at this time were not tense and complex enough, the two most important power groups in the United States, the Fed and the military-industrial complex, both face problems that threaten to diminish Washington's status as a world superpower .

The Fed could find itself defending the role of the US dollar as the world reserve currency during any conflict in the Persian Gulf that would see the cost of oil rise to $300 a barrel , threatening trillions of dollars in derivatives and toppling the global economy.

The military-industrial complex would in turn be involved in a war that it would struggle to contain and even win, destroying the United States' image of invincibility and inflicting a mortal blow on its ability to project power to the four corners of the world.

Just look at how surprised US officials were about Iran's capabilities to shot down an advanced US Drone:

"Iran's ability to target and destroy the high-altitude American drone, which was developed to evade the very surface-to-air missiles used to bring it down, surprised some Defense Department officials, who interpreted it as a show of how difficult Tehran can make things for the United States as it deploys more troops and steps up surveillance in the region."

The Fed and the defense of the dollar

The US dollar-based economy has a huge debt problem caused by post-2008 economic policies. All central banks have lowered interest rates to zero or even negative, thus continuing to feed otherwise dying economies.

The central bank of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, an entity hardly known to most people, has stated in writing that "the outstanding notional amount of derivative contracts is 542 trillion dollars." The total combined GDP of all the countries of the world is around 75 trillion dollars.

With the dimensions of the problem thus understood, it is important to look at how Deutsche Bank (DB), one of the largest financial institutions in the world, is dealing with this. The German bank alone has assets worth about 40 trillion dollars in derivatives, or more than half of annual global GDP.

Their solution, not at all innovative or effective, has been to create yet another bad bank into which to pour at least 50 billion dollars of long-term assets, which are clearly toxic.

Reuters explains :

"The bad bank would house or sell assets valued at up to 50 billion euros ($56 billion) – after adjusting for risk – and comprising mainly long-dated derivatives.

The measures are part of a significant restructuring of the investment bank, a major source of revenue for Germany's largest lender, which has struggled to generate sustainable profits since the 2008 financial crisis."

Thus, not only has Deutsche Bank accumulated tens of billions of dollars in unsuccessful options and securities, it seeks to obtain a profit that has been elusive since 2008, the year of the financial crisis. Deutsche Bank is full of toxic bonds and inflated debts kept alive through the flow of quantitative easing (QE) money from the European Central Bank, the Fed and the Japanese Central Bank. Without QE, the entire Western world economy would have fallen into recession with a chain of bubbles bursting, such as in public and private debt.

If the economy was recovering, as we are told by soi-disant financial experts, the central-bank rates would rise. Instead, rates have plummeted for about a decade, to the extent of becoming negative loans.

If the Western financial trend is undoubtedly heading towards an economic abyss as a result of the monetary policies employed after 2008 to keep a dying economy alive, what is the rescue plan for the US dollar, its status as a global-reserve currency, and by extension of US hegemony? Simply put, there is no rescue plan.

There could not be one because the next financial crisis will undoubtedly wipe out the US dollar as a global reserve currency, ending US hegemony financed by unlimited spending power. All countries possessing a modicum of foresight are in the process of de-dollarizing their economies and are converting strategic reserves from US or US-dollar government bonds to primary commodities like gold.

The military-industrial complex and the harsh reality in Iran

In this economic situation that offers no escape, the immediate geopolitical effect is a surge of war threats in strategic locations like the Persian Gulf. The risk of a war of aggression against Iran by the Saudi-Israeli-US axis would have little chance of success, but it would probably succeed in permanently devastating the global economy as a result of a surge in oil prices.

The risk of war on Iran by this triad seems to be the typical ploy of the bad loser who, rather than admit defeat, would rather pull the rug out from under everyone's feet in order to bring everybody down with him. Tankers being hit and then blamed on Iran with no evidence are a prime example of how to create the plausible justification for bombing Tehran.

Upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that the actions of Bolton and Pompeo seem to be aligned in prolonging the United States' unipolar moment, continuing to issue diktats to other countries and failing to recognize the multipolar reality we live in. Their policies and actions are accelerating the dispersal of power away from the US and towards other great powers like Russia and China, both of which also have enormous influence in the Persian Gulf.

The threat of causing a conflict in the Persian Gulf, and thereby making the price of oil soar to $300 a barrel, will not save US hegemony but will rather end up accelerating the inevitable end of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.

Trump is in danger of being crushed between a Fed that sees the US dollar's role as the world's reserve currency collapse, and the need for the Fed to blame someone not linked to the real causes of the collapse, that is to say, the monetary policies adopted through QE to prolong the post-crisis economic agony of 2008.

At the same time, with Trump as president, the neocon-Israeli-Saudi supporters see a unique opportunity to strike Iran, a desire that has remained unchanged for 40 years.

As foolish as it may seem, a war on Iran could be the perfect option that satisfies all power groups in the United States. The hawks would finally have their war against Tehran, the world economy would sink, and the blame would fall entirely on Trump. The Donald, as a result, would lose any chance of being re-elected so it makes sense for him to call off possible strikes as he did after the US drone was shot out of the sky.

While unable to live up to his electoral promises, Trump seems to be aware that the path laid out for him in the event of an attack on Iran would lead to his political destruction and probably to a conflict that is militarily unsustainable for the US and especially its Saudi and Israeli allies. It would also be the catalyst for the collapse of the world economy.

In trying to pressure Iran into new negotiations, Trump runs the risk of putting too much pressure on Tehran and giving too much of a free hand to the provocations of Pompeo and Bolton that could end up triggering a war in the Strait of Hormuz.

Putin and Xi Jinping prepare for the worst

Our current geopolitical environment requires the careful and considered attention of relevant heads of state. The repeated meetings between Putin and Xi Jinping indicate that Russia and China are actively preparing for any eventuality. The closer we get to economic collapse, the more tensions and chaos increase around the world thanks to the actions of Washington and her close allies.

Xi Jinping and Putin, who have inherited this chaotic situation, have met at least a dozen times over the last six months , more recently meeting at least three times over two months. The pressing need is to coordinate and prepare for what will inevitably happen, once again trying to limit and contain the damage by a United States that is completely out of control and becoming a danger to all, allies and enemies alike.

As Putin just recently said:

"The degeneration of the universalistic model of globalization and its transformation into a parody, caricature of itself, where the common international rules are replaced by administrative and judicial laws of a country or group of countries.

The fragmentation of global economic space with a policy of unbridled economic selfishness and an imposed collapse. But this is the road to infinite conflict, trade wars and perhaps not just commercial ones. Figuratively, this is the road to the final struggle of all against all.

It is necessary to draft a more stable and fair development model. These agreements should not only be written clearly, but should be observed by all participants.

However, I am convinced that talking about a world economic order such as this will remain a pious desire unless we return to the center of the discussion, that is to say, notions like sovereignty, the unconditional right of each country to its own path to development and, let me add, responsibility in the universal sustainable development, not just its own."

The spokesman of the Chancellery of the People's Republic of China, Hua Chun Ying, echoed this sentiment:

"The American leaders say that 'the era of the commercial surrender of their country has come to an end', but what is over is their economic intimidation of the world and their hegemony.

The United States must again respect international law, not arrogate to itself extraterritorial rights and mandates, must learn to respect its peers in safeguarding transparent and non-discriminatory diplomatic and commercial relations. China and the United States have negotiated other disputes in the past with good results and the doors of dialogue are open as long as they are based on mutual respect and benefits.

But as long as these new trade disputes persist, China informs the government of the United States of America and the whole world that it will immediately impose duties on each other, unilaterally on 128 products from the United States of America.

Also, we think we will stop buying US public debt. It's all, good night!"

I wonder if Europeans will understand all this before the impending disaster. I doubt it.

[Jun 23, 2019] Iran Goes for Maximum Counter-Pressure by Pepe Escobar

Derivatives exposure is Achilles spot of the USA in this conflict
Jun 23, 2019 | www.unz.com
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Sooner or later the US "maximum pressure" on Iran would inevitably be met by "maximum counter-pressure". Sparks are ominously bound to fly.

For the past few days, intelligence circles across Eurasia had been prodding Tehran to consider a quite straightforward scenario. There would be no need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if Quds Force commander, General Qasem Soleimani, the ultimate Pentagon bête noire, explained in detail, on global media, that Washington simply does not have the military capacity to keep the Strait open.

As I previously reported , shutting down the Strait of Hormuz

would destroy the American economy by detonating the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market; and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world's $80 trillion GDP and causing an unprecedented depression.

Soleimani should also state bluntly that Iran may in fact shut down the Strait of Hormuz if the nation is prevented from exporting essential two million barrels of oil a day, mostly to Asia. Exports, which before illegal US sanctions and de facto blockade would normally reach 2.5 million barrels a day, now may be down to only 400,000.

Soleimani's intervention would align with consistent signs already coming from the IRGC. The Persian Gulf is being described as an imminent "shooting gallery." Brigadier General Hossein Salami stressed that Iran's ballistic missiles are capable of hitting "carriers in the sea" with pinpoint precision. The whole northern border of the Persian Gulf, on Iranian territory, is lined up with anti-ship missiles – as I confirmed with IRGC-related sources.

We'll let you know when it's closed

Then, it happened.

Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Baqeri, went straight to the point ; "If the Islamic Republic of Iran were determined to prevent export of oil from the Persian Gulf, that determination would be realized in full and announced in public, in view of the power of the country and its Armed Forces."

The facts are stark. Tehran simply won't accept all-out economic war lying down – prevented to export the oil that protects its economic survival. The Strait of Hormuz question has been officially addressed. Now it's time for the derivatives.

Presenting detailed derivatives analysis plus military analysis to global media would force the media pack, mostly Western, to go to Warren Buffett to see if it is true. And it is true. Soleimani, according to this scenario, should say as much and recommend that the media go talk to Warren Buffett.

The extent of a possible derivatives crisis is an uber-taboo theme for the Washington consensus institutions. According to one of my American banking sources, the most accurate figure – $1.2 quadrillion – comes from a Swiss banker, off the record. He should know; the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) – the central bank of central banks – is in Basle.

The key point is it doesn't matter how the Strait of Hormuz is blocked.

It could be a false flag. Or it could be because the Iranian government feels it's going to be attacked and then sinks a cargo ship or two. What matters is the final result; any blocking of the energy flow will lead the price of oil to reach $200 a barrel, $500 or even, according to some Goldman Sachs projections, $1,000.

Another US banking source explains; "The key in the analysis is what is called notional. They are so far out of the money that they are said to mean nothing. But in a crisis the notional can become real. For example, if I buy a call for a million barrels of oil at $300 a barrel, my cost will not be very great as it is thought to be inconceivable that the price will go that high. That is notional. But if the Strait is closed, that can become a stupendous figure."

BIS will only commit, officially, to indicate the total notional amount outstanding for contracts in derivatives markers is an estimated $542.4 trillion. But this is just an estimate.

The banking source adds, "Even here it is the notional that has meaning. Huge amounts are interest rate derivatives. Most are notional but if oil goes to a thousand dollars a barrel, then this will affect interest rates if 45% of the world's GDP is oil. This is what is called in business a contingent liability."

Goldman Sachs has projected a feasible, possible $1,000 a barrel a few weeks after the Strait of Hormuz being shut down. This figure, times 100 million barrels of oil produced per day, leads us to 45% of the $80 trillion global GDP. It's self-evident the world economy would collapse based on just that alone.

War dogs barking mad

As much as 30% of the world's oil supply transits the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Wily Persian Gulf traders – who know better – are virtually unanimous; if Tehran was really responsible for the Gulf of Oman tanker incident, oil prices would be going through the roof by now. They aren't.

Iran's territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz amount to 12 nautical miles (22 km). Since 1959, Iran recognizes only non-military naval transit.

Since 1972, Oman's territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz also amount to 12 nautical miles. At its narrowest, the width of the Strait is 21 nautical miles (39 km). That means, crucially, that half of the Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian territorial waters, and the other half in Oman's. There are no "international waters".

And that adds to Tehran now openly saying that Iran may decide to close the Strait of Hormuz publicly – and not by stealth.

Iran's indirect, asymmetric warfare response to any US adventure will be very painful. Prof. Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran once again reconfirmed, "even a limited strike will be met by a major and disproportionate response." And that means gloves off, big time; anything from really blowing up tankers to, in Marandi's words, "Saudi and UAE oil facilities in flames".

Hezbollah will launch tens of thousands of missiles against Israel. As

Hezbollah's secretary-general Hasan Nasrallah has been stressing in his speeches, "war on Iran will not remain within that country's borders, rather it will mean that the entire [Middle East] region will be set ablaze. All of the American forces and interests in the region will be wiped out, and with them the conspirators, first among them Israel and the Saudi ruling family."

It's quite enlightening to pay close attention to what this Israel intel op is saying . The dogs of war though are barking mad .

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted to CENTCOM in Tampa to discuss "regional security concerns and ongoing operations" with – skeptical – generals, a euphemism for "maxim pressure" eventually leading to war on Iran.

Iranian diplomacy, discreetly, has already informed the EU – and the Swiss – about their ability to crash the entire world economy. But still that was not enough to remove US sanctions.

War zone in effect

As it stands in Trumpland, former CIA Mike "We lied, We cheated, We stole" Pompeo – America's "top diplomat" – is virtually running the Pentagon. "Acting" secretary Shanahan performed self-immolation. Pompeo continues to actively sell the notion the "intelligence community is convinced" Iran is responsible for the Gulf of Oman tanker incident. Washington is ablaze with rumors of an ominous double bill in the near future; Pompeo as head of the Pentagon and Psycho John Bolton as Secretary of State. That would spell out War.

Yet even before sparks start to fly, Iran could declare that the Persian Gulf is in a state of war; declare that the Strait of Hormuz is a war zone; and then ban all "hostile" military and civilian traffic in its half of the Strait. Without firing a single shot, no shipping company on the planet would have oil tankers transiting the Persian Gulf.


Justsaying , says: June 23, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT

American government arrogance under the control of sickos has not shied away from the belief that destroying countries that do not cave in to Washington's demand of "surrender or perish" -- an ultimatum made in Israel. Indeed it regards that despicable policy as an entitlement – to protect the "international community". Iran may well be the nation that will do away with the nations of turbaned lapdogs and absolute monarchs who have been kept in power by the dozens of US military bases in the area. Maybe a serious jolt of the global economy is long overdue, to bring the Washington dogs of perpetual war to come to their senses.

Was Iran succumbing to the JCPOA provisions and abiding by them not sufficient capitulation for the insane leaders in Washington?

Realist , says: June 23, 2019 at 9:55 am GMT
@joeshittheragman

I hope we don't go into another stupid war. Bring all our troops home from all around the world. Just protect this Republic. We're not the policemen of the world.

The Deep State would never allow that to happen.

alexander , says: June 23, 2019 at 10:56 am GMT
@joeshittheragman It astonishes me that people are still using the phrase "policemen of the world" to define US behavior.

The last time I recall The US even remotely acting as the "worlds's policeman" was in 1991, when we pushed Saddam out of Kuwait.

The Iraq 2003 "debacle", the Libya"shit show" and the Syria" fiasco" have all proven, over time, to be acts of wanton carnage and illegal aggression, . not "police work".

The United States, under Neocon tutelage , is no "policeman" .not by any stretch

It is more like a humongous version of "Bernie Madoff meets Son of Sam."

We have become a grotesque, misshapen empire .of lies fraud .,illegal war, .mass murder ..and heinous f#cking debt.

Policeman ?!? Hahaha.ha ..

RoatanBill , says: June 23, 2019 at 12:32 pm GMT
You have to hand it to the Iranians for basically announcing their intentions to destroy the US economy via the derivatives market that the US financial industry largely produced. Kill them with their own weapon.

A show down between the US and some entity is inevitable. Be it Iran, China or Russia, the US will be over extended and their very expensive weaponry will, I believe, come up wanting on all counts. The MIC has been scamming the country for decades. The military brass is just bluster. When it comes down to an actual confrontation, the US military will come up short as BS won't cut it.

Yes, they will destroy lots of stuff and kill lots of people but then their toys will run out and then what? Missiles will take out the aircraft carriers and the world will see that the emperor is naked.

Sean , says: June 23, 2019 at 12:39 pm GMT
@Parisian Guy America is backed by brute military force. That is why India has stopped buying Iranian oil, and sent ships to the Gulf to back America

http://www.aei.org/publication/iran-the-contrast-between-sovereignty-and-moral-legitimacy/

In June of 2014, as the forces of the Islamic State swept toward Baghdad, President Barack Obama began to recommit American military forces to Iraq. He also observed that "Iran can play a constructive role, if it sends the same message to the Iraqi government that we're sending, which is that Iraq only holds together if it is inclusive." In an instantly famous article by Atlantic magazine correspondent and White House amanuensis Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama indicated that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states had to learn to "share" the Middle East with Iran.

In imagining a kind of strategic partnership with Tehran, Obama is recycling a deeply held belief of late-Cold War "realists" like former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. "For U.S. strategy, Iran should be viewed as a potential natural partner in the region, as it was until 1979," when Shah Reza Pahlavi was toppled in the Khomeini revolution." "Envisioning 2030: U.S. Strategy for a Post-Western World," foresaw that "a post-Mullah dominated government shedding Shia political ideology could easily return to being a net contributor to stability by 2030

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/143606/Mearsheimer-S-Arabia-a-threat-not-Iran
"The truth is that it is the United States that is a direct threat to Iran, not the other way around. The Trump administration, with much prompting from Israel and Saudi Arabia, has its gunsights on Iran. The aim is regime change.

America does not seem to think the Iranian regieme can do anything except bluster as they are slowly smothered.

eah , says: June 23, 2019 at 1:07 pm GMT
@Parisian Guy I can't buy the derivatives stuff.

Famous last words -- review what Bernanke said just before subprime exploded: 2007 -- Bernanke: Subprime Mortgage Woes Won't Seriously Hurt Economy -- that said, I have no idea what will happen if Iran decides to interfere with shipping in the straits -- or how likely that is.

The biggest long-term threat to the US is the end of the petrodollar scheme -- due to its unmatched worldwide political and military hegemony, and 'safe haven' status, the dollar has largely been insulated from the consequences of what are in reality staggering, almost structural (at this point) US deficits -- but that can't and won't go on forever.

Jason Liu , says: June 23, 2019 at 1:13 pm GMT
Russia and China need to set up global deterrence against interventionism by western democracies.
eah , says: June 23, 2019 at 1:37 pm GMT
In 2018, U.S. net imports (imports minus exports) of petroleum from foreign countries averaged about 2.34 million barrels per day, equal to about 11% of U.S. petroleum consumption. This was the lowest percentage since 1957.

In reality, the US is today far less dependent on imported oil than most people probably imagine, and therefore far less vulnerable to any import supply issue.

DESERT FOX , says: June 23, 2019 at 2:07 pm GMT
Israel and the zio/US has interfered in Iran since the 1953 CIA/Mossad coup and at intervals ever since then and have brought this problem on by the zio/US and Israeli meddling in the affairs of Iran and an all out war via illegal sanctions which in fact are a form of war.

Iran has not started a war in over 300 years and is not the problem , the problem is the warmongers in the zio/US and Israel and will not end as long as the warmongers remain in power.

A good start to ending these problems would be to abolish the CIA!

Mike P , says: June 23, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
@MLK Yes, the sanctions on Iran are having an effect, and the recent Iranian actions acknowledge this; but that does not mean Iran is weak. Iran is telling the U.S. that it is NOT Venezuela or North Korea. Kim is all bark, but no bite; Trump was quite right to call him "little rocket man." Even he, with his singular lack of style and grace, is not doing this to the Iranian leadership.

The economic sanctions against Iran already constitute acts of war. The Iranians have just demonstrated that they can disrupt oil flow from the Middle East in retaliation, and not just in the Street of Hormuz. In addition, they have now shown that they can take down American aircraft, stealth or not, with precision. This means Iran is able and willing to strike back and escalate as it sees fit, both economically and militarily. If the U.S. don't relent, Iran WILL send the oil prices through the roof, and it will humiliate the U.S. on the world stage if they are stupid enough to go to war over it.

The Iranian messages are simple, clear, and consistent. Compare this to the confused cacophony that emerges from the clown troupe in Washington, and you can easily tell which side has been caught unawares by recent events.

This is a watershed moment for Trump – he will either assert himself, return to reason, and keep the peace; or he will stay aboard the sinking ship. No good options for him personally, of course; his choices are impeachment, assassination, or staying in office while presiding over the final act of the U.S. empire.

Johnny Walker Read , says: June 23, 2019 at 4:06 pm GMT
@Zumbuddi Let us never forget the "babies thrown from incubators" propaganda to help get it all started.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WkRylMGLPMU?feature=oembed

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website June 23, 2019 at 4:40 pm GMT
@Agent76

The US is committed to conflict not only most obviously against Iran, but also with Russia.

US, or rather a bunch of lunatics infesting Trump's Admin, might be committed, but it absolutely doesn't mean that the US has resources for that. In fact, US doesn't have resources to fight Iran, let alone Russia. By now most of it is nothing more than chest-thumping and posturing. Today Bolton's statement is a further proof of that.

denk , says: June 23, 2019 at 4:47 pm GMT

Instead, Bush saw that situation, within the unique moment of US no longer constrained by a rival superpower, as an opportunity to exert US global dominance.

The much derided Chomsky

There were once two gangsters in town, the USA and USSR, there's relative peace cuz each was constrained by the rival's threat.
NOW that the USSR is gone, the remaining gangster
is running amok with total impunity.

Now I dunno if the USSR was a 'gangster' ,
as for uncle scam, .. needs no introduction I presume ?

anon [356] Disclaimer , says: June 23, 2019 at 7:34 pm GMT
@peterAUS More to this downing .

"Iran's ability to target and destroy the high-altitude American drone, which was developed to evade the very surface-to-air missiles used to bring it down, surprised some Defense Department officials, who interpreted it as a show of how difficult Tehran can make things for the United States as it deploys more troops and steps up surveillance in the region.– "

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/world/middleeast/iran-us-drone.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

The Alarmist , says: June 23, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
@Wally It's all cashflow and OPM, on the hope of hitting the big-time when prices spike. A giant house of cards waiting to implode, and that is before one takes into account all the hugely negative externalities associated with fracking that give it any hope of profitability, which would vapourise if the costs of the externalities were charged to the operators.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/will-fracking-industry-debts-set-off-financial-tremors/

https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/CGEPReserveBaseLendingAndTheO

anon [770] Disclaimer , says: June 23, 2019 at 9:04 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon Fact:

According to preliminary data for 2018, oil demand surpassed 20 mmb/d for the first time since 2007 and will be just shy of the 2005 peak (20,524 mb/d versus 20,802 mb/d in 2005).

U.S. Oil Demand Recovers | CSIS | January 29, 2019
https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-oil-demand-recovers

Fact:


Source: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php

Cyrano , says: June 23, 2019 at 9:25 pm GMT
It's really tragic to see two brotherly ideologies Capitalism and Islam (both want to rule the world) go at each other throats in this manner. After all, they have fought shoulder to shoulder a holly jihad against socialism in such far flung places as Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria.

I think that based on this latest conflict, people can see what a principled country US is. People used to think that US hates only socialist revolutions. Until Iran's Islamic revolution came along – and US was against it too. So, it's safe to say that US are against ANY revolutions – be they Socialist or Islamic. I guess we can call them contra-revolutionaries.

Simply Simon , says: June 23, 2019 at 9:38 pm GMT
At least 95% of the American people do not want war with Iran. For that matter the same percentage did not want war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or Korea. But the powers that be do not ask the American people if they want to go to war, they just do it based on the authority they assume is theirs. Meanwhile, our elected representatives who do have the authority to start or prevent wars turn a deaf ear to their constituents because the voices they hear in protest are weak or muted. Let's face it, the wars since WWII have affected only a relatively minor segment of our population. A hell of a lot more people die in traffic accidents than on the battlefield so what's to get excited about. Keeping a large standing army, navy and air force is good for the economy, the troops have to be provided the latest best of everything and as for the troops themselves for many it's not a bad way to make a living with a retirement and health care system better than many jobs in the civilian sector. So my message to the American people is if you really do not want war with Iran you had better speak up louder than you are now.
anon [356] Disclaimer , says: June 23, 2019 at 9:40 pm GMT
CAN IRAN ENTER ITO NEGOTIATION WITH IRAN? IT CANT. BECAUSE ISRAEL WITH NO FOOT IN THE DOOR OF THE HELL IS WAGING THE WAR AND GETTING US PUNISHED .

UC Berkeley journalism professor Sandy Tolan, Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2002– [Richard] Perle, in the same 1998 article, told Forward that a coalition of pro-Israeli groups was 'at the forefront with the legislation with regard to Iran. One can only speculate what it might accomplish if it decided to focus its attention on Saddam Hussein.' Now, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has joined the call against Tehran, arguing in a November interview with the Times of London that the U.S. should shift its focus to Iran 'the day after' the Iraq war ends

[Hide MORE]
-- -- -
They want to foment revolution in Iran and use that to isolate and possibly attack Syria in [Lebanon's] Bekaa Valley, and force Syria out," says former Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Edward S. Walker, now president of the Middle East Institute. http://prospect.org/article/just-beginning
03/14/03
--

in 2003 Morris Amitay and fellow neocon Michael Ledeen founded the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, an advocacy group pushing for regime change in Iran . According to the website, it will be un-American,immoral and unproductive to engage with any segment of the regime .
During a may 2003 conference at the AEI on the future of Iran,Amitay sharply criticized the U.S State Department's efforts to engage the Islamic Republic ,claimed the criticism of Newt Gingrich did not go far enough . Amiaty was introduced by M Ledeen as the "Godfather" of AIPAC Amitay admitted that direct action against Iran would be difficult before 2004 election.

Nostalgia for the last shah's son, Reza Pahlavi ? has again risen," says Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer who, like Ledeen and Perle, is ensconced at the AEI. "We must be prepared, however, to take the battle more directly to the mullahs," says Gerecht, adding that the United States must consider strikes at both Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and allies in Lebanon. "In fact, we have only two meaningful options: Confront clerical Iran and its proxies militarily or ring it with an oil embargo." http://prospect.org/article/just-beginning March 14,2003

"Neoconservatives in the Bush Administration have long targeted Iran. Richard Perle, former Defense Policy Board member, and David Frum, of the neo-com Weekly Standard, co-authored "An End to Evil," which calls for the overthrow of the "terrorist mullahs of Iran." Michael Ladeen of the influential American Enterprise Institute argues that "Tehran is a city just waiting for us." http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/05/26/the-oil-connection/

According to the 2016 documentary Zero Days by director Alex Gibney, Israel's incessant public threats to attack Iran coupled with intense secret demands for cyber warfare targeting Iran were the catalyst for massive new US black budget spending

NSA Director (1999-2005) and CIA Director (2006-2009) Michael Hayden claimed in Zero Days that the goal of any Israeli air attack against Iran's nuclear facilities would be to drag the United States into war.
"Our belief was that if they [Israel] went on their own, knowing the limitations No, they're a very good air force, alright? But it's small and the distances are great, and the targets dispersed and hardened, alright? If they would have attempted a raid on a military plane, we would have been assuming that they were assuming we would finish that which they started. In other words, there would be many of us in government thinking that the purpose of the raid wasn't to destroy the Iranian nuclear system, but the purpose of the raid was to put us [the United States] at war with Iran." https://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2018/11/06/israel-and-the-trillion-dollar-2005-2018-us-intelligence-budget

KA , says: June 23, 2019 at 9:47 pm GMT
Emergence of ISIS is linked to US efforts to weaken Iran

-In "The Redirection", written in 2008(!) – years before the 2011 uprising, Seymour Hersh wrote of plans to use extremists in Syria.
Excerpts:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Nasr compared the current situation to the period in which Al Qaeda first emerged. In the nineteen-eighties and the early nineties, the Saudi government offered to subsidize the covert American C.I.A. proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hundreds of young Saudis were sent into the border areas of Pakistan, where they set up religious schools, training bases, and recruiting facilities. Then, as now, many of the operatives who were paid with Saudi money were Salafis. Among them, of course, were Osama bin Laden and his associates, who founded Al Qaeda, in 1988.
This time, "

Monty Ahwazi , says: June 23, 2019 at 10:00 pm GMT
@Simply Simon In the old days, the orders for the US government were coming down from the Tri-Lateral Commission and the 6-7 major companies. Rockefeller took the TLC underground ground with himself. The oil companies continue asking the US government for protecting the ME/NA resources. Then Neocons replaced the TLC which their focus was twofold.
1. Destabilize the regions for protecting Israel
2. Control the resources militarily
3. Keep the Chinese out and cut their access to the resources
Guess what, Chinese have penetrated the regions constructively and quietly. America with its unjustified fucking wars is being hated even more than 1953.
Monty Ahwazi , says: June 23, 2019 at 10:26 pm GMT
@KA Very true! Unfortunately the presidents were misinformed or uninformed about the proxies created by the CIA. The first created to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan manned and financed by the Saudis, recruited by Mossad and intelligence was provided by the CIA. Sound really really good to the Americans since it was free of charge with no loss of life! Then during the Iraq war its neighbor Syria was getting destabilized so the CIA replicated Al-Qaeda and formed a new gang which called themselves ISIS. The function of ISIS was to overthrow Al-Bashar of Syria. The secondary mission for both groups was to bug Iran from its western and eastern front.
Manning both of these groups with Sunnis was the biggest mistake that KSA, Mossad and the CIA made. See the Sunnis are not fighters without sophisticated weapons from the West. On the other Shiites can fight with a sword and empty handed if they have to. They remind me of VC's in Vietnam. The Shiites decimated the ISIS and most of AlQaeda now the US is trying to get credit for that but they know better now. So my recommendation to the US is please don't aggravate the Shiites otherwise they will embarrass us just the VC's
Avery , says: June 23, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT
@Monty Ahwazi { All insurance companies will drop their coverage of the oil tankers immediately.}

During the Iran-Iraq war, US re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers and ran them under US flag and protection through the straight.
Same thing can be done again.

And if insurance companies drop coverage, US Treasury will provide the coverage: some US insurance company will be "convinced" by US Gov to provide the coverage and US Treasury will guarantee _any_ losses incurred by the insurance company or companies.
US can always add to the national debt ( .i.e. print more dollars).

So, no: declaration won't do.
Only destroying stuff works.

{You guys sitting here and making up these nonsensical policies}

Nobody is making policy here: we are not a government.
We are exchanging opinions.

btw: where are you sitting?
Are your personal opinions considered 'policy', because you are ..what?

RobinG , says: June 23, 2019 at 11:01 pm GMT
@anon That was buried deep in the article. (Thanks for posting link.) Next lines, the NYT is skeptical of US claims. Too bad this isn't first pararaphs!)

Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, the Air Force commander for the Central Command region in the Middle East, said the attack could have endangered "innocent civilians," even though officials at Central Command continued to assert that the drone was over international waters. He said that the closest that the drone got to the Iranian coast was 21 miles.

Late Thursday, the Defense Department released additional imagery in an email to support its case that the drone never entered Iranian airspace. But the department incorrectly called the flight path of the drone the location of the shooting down and offered little context for an image that appeared to be the drone exploding in midair.

It was the latest attempt by the Pentagon to try to prove that Iran has been the aggressor in a series of international incidents.

RobinG , says: June 23, 2019 at 11:16 pm GMT
@Zumbuddi Thank you. If the US were a real [HONEST] policeman, they would have stopped Kuwait from stealing Iraqi oil. But no, Bush was a dirty cop, on the take.
Robjil , says: June 24, 2019 at 12:09 am GMT
@dearieme Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass. JFK was getting us out of Vietnam. In his time, there was not massive amounts of US troops in Vietnam, only advisors. JFK planned to get all the troops out after he was re-elected.

It was during Johnson's presidency that the Vietnam war became a huge war for the US. Johnson set up the Gulf of Tonkin false flag on August 2 1964. This started the huge draft of young men for Vietnam war that dragged on till the early 1970s.

Johnson also allowed Israel to do a false flag on the US on June 8 1967. Israel attacked the USS Liberty. 34 servicemen killed and 174 injured. Israel wanted to kill them all and blame it on Egypt, so US would nuke Egypt. Lovely nation is little Israel. The song " Love is all you need" by the Beatles was released on June 7 1967. Summer of Love, Hippies in San Francisco, all planned to get Americans into drugs and forget about what Israel is doing in the Middle East. It worked, nobody noticed what Israel did since we have a "free" 500 Zion BC press in the US in 1967 and we still do these days.

Pft , says: June 24, 2019 at 12:12 am GMT
Iran is pretty self sufficient with minimal foreign debt. Their Central Bank is under their control and works for the people. They should just hunker down and hope Trumps crew is out of a job after the elections next year

If the US strikes they can block the straits. However, the US would probably knock out the refineries so that will hurt

They shot down the drone because it was collecting intelligence on targets the US plans to strike. Thats defensive not provocative

If the US wants to go at Iran they will manufacture something. People are so dumbed down they can made to believe anything, as events 18 years ago and since have proven

Hopefully this is just distraction to cover up some nefarious plan to loot the working class some more. Or maybe getting the straits closed is part of the plan. Who knows?

renfro , says: June 24, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT
this might be the real story

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2019/06/22/why-trump-didnt-bomb-iran-449575

THE TICK TOCKS WHY TRUMP DIDN'T BOMB IRAN NYT'S PETER BAKER, MAGGIE HABERMAN and THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF:

"Urged to Launch an Attack, Trump Listened to the Skeptics Who Said It Would Be a Costly Mistake": "He heard from his generals and his diplomats. Lawmakers weighed in and so did his advisers. But among the voices that rang powerfully for President Trump was that of one of his favorite Fox News hosts: Tucker Carlson.
"While national security advisers were urging a military strike against Iran, Mr. Carlson in recent days had told Mr. Trump that responding to Tehran's provocations with force was crazy. The hawks did not have the president's best interests at heart, he said. And if Mr. Trump got into a war with Iran, he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye.

"The 150-dead casualty estimate came not from a general but from a lawyer, according to the official. The estimate was developed by Pentagon lawyers drafting worst-case scenarios that, the official said, did not account for whether the strike was carried out during daytime, when more people might be present at the targets, or in the dark hours before sunrise, as the military planned.
"That estimate was passed to the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, without being cleared with [Patrick] Shanahan or General [Joseph] Dunford. It was then conveyed to the president by the White House lawyers, at which point Mr. Trump changed his mind and called off the strike." NYT NYT A1
"That estimate was passed to the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, without being cleared with [Patrick] Shanahan or General [Joseph] Dunford. It was then conveyed to the president by the White House lawyers, at which point Mr. Trump changed his mind and called off the strike." NYT NYT A1

Iris , says: June 24, 2019 at 12:48 am GMT

Saddam was given plenty of time, and plenty of resolutions to pack up his troops and go home

.

Saddam was given the assurance by US ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie, that the USA supported his retaliatory action against Kuwait. Same usual trap and deliberate provocation; all the rest is obfuscation.

Thorfinnsson , says: June 24, 2019 at 12:52 am GMT
@AnonFromTN The loss of two American aircraft carriers appears to be the assumption you are making to guarantee an Iranian victory.

Such a loss is by no means assured.

The idea that American willpower will collapse in the event of the loss of two capital ships is your second assumption, and it's both a fanciful and dangerous assumption.

I'm not myself terribly impressed by American military power, but comparing naval combat to counterinsurgency operations is absurd.

Your economic assumptions appear to come from the permabear school. Actual economies and governments don't work that way. A major reduction in global supplies will result in compulsory conservation, rationing, price controls, etc. This was done in recent memory in the 1970s in both North America and Western Europe, when you were still behind the Iron Curtain and perhaps not aware.

Thorfinnsson , says: June 24, 2019 at 12:53 am GMT
@peterAUS Do you have any actual numbers?

Does anyone?

anon [284] Disclaimer , says: June 24, 2019 at 12:57 am GMT
@alexander Saddam was given plenty of time, and plenty of resolutions to pack up his troops and go home."

Efforts by Egypt to arrive an Arab initiated solution was ignored and dismissed by USA

Initial Saudi effort to find a face saving exit by Saddam was met with resistance and then a manufactured satellite image of Saddam massing his soldiers for invasion of Saudi was widely disseminated by US.

Saddam crimes was no less or more egregious than what Israel was enjoying with US dollars and with US support and with impunity ( It was still occupying Pastien and Parts of Syria and Lebanon )

It was Levy the Israeli FM who threatened that his country would attack Iraq if US did not.

War against Saddam was orchestrated by Jewish members of Thatcher and by Democrats of USA ) Solarz – NY Senator was one of the guys and the AIPAC whose president Mr. Dine confessed the crimes )

neprof , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:06 am GMT
@Robjil

Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass.

Should be required reading by all Americans.

anon [284] Disclaimer , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:08 am GMT
@alexander UN has been abused by USA taking the advantage of the collapse of Soviet . (This is what Wolf0owitz told Wesley Clarke in 1992 in Feb : This was the time we can and we should take care of these countries Iran Iraq Syria Libya and Yemen while Russia is still weakened and unable to help its erstwhile vassals states) .

USA had no right to ask Saddam to leave . Subsequent behaviors of USA has proved it.
Israel also in addition has no right to exist .

If correction had to come from Iran Hezbollah and Syria- then so be it. That news would be best thing that would happen to humanity within last 200 yrs .

KA , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:11 am GMT
@Robjil Wolfowitz has been trying to kill Saddam and dismember Iraq from 1979.

The rat got his hand the Cookie jar after Soviet collapsed.

( Ref- Sunshine Warrior NYT )

John Noughty , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:14 am GMT
@Jim Christian I hope you're right.
RobinG , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:16 am GMT
@alexander You're begging for a big "So What?"

There are UN resolutions about all kinds of things. Israel comes first to mind, of course. UN resolutions do not obligate military action.

anon [400] Disclaimer , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:20 am GMT
@Iris but -- but -- but (sputters Alexander the otherwise sage commenter), The UN -- that's the U-nited Nations!! fer pete's ache, Agreed!! ( Agreed is Diplomatese for: "Please stop twisting my arm; Please stop bankrupting my country; Please stop threatening to tell my wife -- ).

in other words, the UN is a toy and a ploy for someone like G H W Bush salivating at the once in a lifetime opportunity to exert world dominance -- 'scuse me: "Create a New World Order" -- in the context of a power vacuum / dissolution of the Soviet Empire, previously the only counterbalance to US superpower status.

No doubt the UN was got on board. It acted like the paid-for- judge and show-trial in a case the prosecutor had already rigged.
imho, what is more significant, and what it takes years to unearth, is the decision making and back-room dealing that came BEFORE the UN was induced to stamp its imprimatur.

Tony Blair endorsed Bush the Lesser's war on Iraq. Does that grant it legitimacy, or in any way explain why US waged that war?

peterAUS , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:23 am GMT
@Thorfinnsson

Do you have any actual numbers?

I don't care about numbers.
50 (proper) sea mines backed up by 20 air/land-sea missiles do the job. Block the Hormuz.
I am sure the regime in Tehran has that number.

Does anyone?

Don't think so.
Mines in particular.
While missiles could be tricky to produce even smart sea mines are not.
A lot of explosive-check.
A couple of sensors (acoustic/magnetic)-check.
A couple of hardened micro controller boards-check.
That's it.

In this very game there are, really, only two elements that interest me:
Tactical nukes.
Selective draft.

What hehe really interests me is the escalation from "tactical" to "strategic".

AnonFromTN , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:32 am GMT
@Thorfinnsson Let me make this clear: there won't be Iranian victory. Iran will pay a hefty price. There will be the defeat of the Empire, though, a major climb down. The worst (for the Empire) part would be that the whole world would see that the king has no clothes. Then the backlash against the Empire (hated by 6/7th of the Earth population) starts, and that would be extremely painful for everyone in the US, guilty and innocent alike (myself included).

Compulsory rationing and price controls were possible when the governments actually governed. When the whole governments and legislatures are full of corporations' marionettes, as is the case now in the US and EU, these measures are impossible. Profiteers will have their day. They will crush Western economies and therefore themselves, but never underestimate the blinding force of greed. The same greedy bastards are supplying the US military with airplanes that have trouble flying and with ships costing untold billions that break down in the Panama canal, of all places. The same greedy scum destroyed the US industry and moved all production to China, in effect spelling the doom of the only country that could have protected their loot from other thieves. That's the problem with greed: it makes people incredibly shortsighted.

Sergey Krieger , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:39 am GMT
@joeshittheragman You are parasites on the world neck. That's why your troops are all over the place.
anon [356] Disclaimer , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:48 am GMT
@alexander Is it true . possibly but so what ?

So what? That nice lessons are being imparted slowly to the Israeli slave USA.

USA does what other countries are accused of before invading . USA throws out any qualms any morality any legality . It uses UN . Right now it is illegally supplying arms to Saudi to Israel and to the rebels in Syria. These are the reasons US have gone to wars against other countries for. Now some countries are standing up and saying – those days are gone , you can't attack any country anymore just because someone has been raped or someone has been distributing Viagra.

alexander , says: June 24, 2019 at 1:48 am GMT
@RobinG I think you are right.

And so did George Bush Senior.

As a matter of fact, the whole world began to ask, you are willing to launch your military to eject Saddam from Kuwait Bravo! ..Now what are willing to do about Israels illegal seizure of Palestinian territory in the West bank .It is more or less the exact same crime, Isn't it?

George Bush Senior was the last US President in American History to withhold all loans to Israel, until it ceased and desisted from illegal settlement activity in the Palestinian Territories.

Many believe it was his willingness to hold Israel to the same standard as everyone else, which cost him his second term.

What do you think , Robin?

By-tor , says: June 24, 2019 at 2:02 am GMT
@Thorfinnsson Iran shot down a US Navy RQ-4A intel drone that cost $250: A model that is marketed as being hard to shoot down since it has an 11 mile high altitude ceiling and a long operational range. That a coastal AA missile battery knocked it down with one shot answers several questions.

[Jun 23, 2019] A modern example is the oligarchs who carved up the commons in a collapsing and disintegrating Soviet Union

Notable quotes:
"... It's not entrepreneurial; it's base rent-seeking and it was a violent act of forced approbriation by denying natural rights to others. ..."
Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

NotWithoutMyMonkey , 6 Mar 2012 06:27

@johncj

So easy to say when you so blithely ignore the historical injustices, the inequality of opportunity and the theft - the first person to claim a parcel of land as their own exclusive property was committing an act of theft.

It's not entrepreneurial; it's base rent-seeking and it was a violent act of forced approbriation by denying natural rights to others.

The subsequent claims to title are enforced by the threat of violence through the emergence of a pervasive state.

A modern example is the oligarchs who carved up the commons in a collapsing and disintegrating Soviet Union. Their's was an act of theft committed against society and the common good. Your definition of freedom is predicated on theft and is a denial of natural freedoms,

[Jun 23, 2019] Are Starvation Sanctions Worse Than Overt Warfare

Jun 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Starvation sanctions kill people.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have reportedly already died as a result of this administration's relentless assault on their economy; those human beings are no less dead than they would have been if the US had killed them by dropping cluster bombs on Caracas. Yet these deaths have received virtually no mainstream media coverage, and Americans, while they strongly oppose attacking Iran militarily , have had very little to say about Trump's attacks on the nation's economy. The economy which people use to feed their children, to care for their elderly and their sick.

I'm titling this essay "Starvation Sanctions Are Worse Than Overt Warfare", and I mean it. I am not saying that starvation sanctions are more destructive or deadly than overt military force in and of themselves; what I am saying is that the overall effect is worse, because there's no public accountability for them and because they deliberately target civilians.

If the US were to launch a barrage of Tomahawk missiles into an Iranian suburb with the goal of killing civilians, there'd be international outrage and the cohesion of the US-centralized power alliance would take a major hit. Virtually everyone would recognize this as an unforgivable war crime. Yet America will be able to kill the same number of civilians with the same deliberate intention of inflicting deadly force, and it would suffer essentially no consequences at all. There's no public or international pressure holding that form of violence at bay, because it's invisible and poorly understood.

It reminds me of the way financial abuse gets overlooked and under-appreciated in our society. Financial abuse can be more painful and imprisoning than physical or psychological abuse (and I speak from experience), especially if you have children, yet you don't generally see movies and TV shows getting made about it. In a society where people have been made to depend on money for survival, limiting or cutting off their access to it is the same as any other violent attack upon their personal sovereignty, and can easily be just as destructive. But as a society we haven't yet learned to see and understand this violence, so it doesn't attract interest and attention. That lack of interest and attention enables the empire to launch deadly campaigns targeting civilian populations unnoticed, without any public accountability. It's great that more people are starting to understand the cost of war, to the extent that we're even seeing US presidential candidates make opposing it central to their platforms, but this is happening at a time when overt warfare is becoming more obsolete and replaced with something subtler and more sinister. We must as a society evolve our understanding of what starvation sanctions are and what they do, and stop seeing them as in any way superior or preferable to overt warfare.

The fact that people generally oppose senseless military violence but are unable to see and comprehend a slow, boa constrictor-like act of slaughter via economic strangulation is why these siege warfare tactics have become the weapon of choice for the US-centralized empire. It is a more gradual way of murdering people than overt warfare, but when you control all the resources and have an underlying power structure which maintains itself amid the comings and goings of your officially elected government, you're in no hurry. The absence of any public accountability makes the need for patience a very worthwhile trade-off.

So you see this siege warfare strategy employed everywhere by the US-centralized empire:

The US-centralized power alliance is so powerful in its ability to hurt nations with financial influence that in 1990 when Yemen voted against a UN Security Council Resolution authorizing the attack against Iran, a senior US diplomat was caught on a hot mic telling the Yemeni ambassador, "That will be the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast." According to German author Thomas Pogge , "The US stopped $70 million in aid to Yemen; other Western countries, the IMF, and World Bank followed suit. Saudi Arabia expelled some 800,000 Yemeni workers, many of whom had lived there for years and were sending urgently needed money to their families."

That's real power. Not the ability to destroy a nation with bombs and missiles, but the ability to destroy it without firing a shot.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RM0uvgHKZe8

It's no wonder, then, that the drivers of this empire work so hard to continue growing and expanding it. The oligarchs and their allies in opaque government agencies no doubt envision a world where all noncompliant nations like Iran, Russia and China have been absorbed into the blob of empire and war becomes obsolete, not because anyone has become any less violent, but because their economic control will be so complete that they can obliterate entire populations just by cutting them off from the world economy whenever any of them become disobedient.

This is the only reason Iran is being targeted right now. That's why you'll never hear a factually and logically sound argument defending Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal; there is none. There was no problem with the JCPOA other than the fact that it barred America from inflicting economic warfare upon Iran, which it needed for the purpose of toppling the nation's government so that it can be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized empire.

And all the innocent human beings who die of starvation and disease? They don't matter. Imperial violence only matters if there are consequences for it. The price of shoring up the total hegemony of the empire will have been worth it .

[Jun 23, 2019] Argentina s Economic Misery Could Bring Populism Back to the Country by Peter S. Goodman

Notable quotes:
"... Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets. ..."
"... "It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people." ..."
"... The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow the pain. ..."
"... But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress. Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent ..."
"... Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing. ..."
"... Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered by social programs. ..."
"... In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember. ..."
"... "We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'" ..."
"... "When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us. Poor people feel abandoned." ..."
May 10, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

On the ragged streets of the shantytown across the road, where stinking outhouses sit alongside shacks fashioned from rusted sheets of tin, families have surrendered hopes that sewage lines will ever reach them.

They do not struggle to fashion an explanation for their declining fortunes: Since taking office more than three years ago, President Mauricio Macri has broken with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Argentina for much of the past century, embracing the grim arithmetic of economic orthodoxy.

Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets.

"It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people."

The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow the pain.

Mr. Macri's supporters heralded his 2015 election as a miraculous outbreak of normalcy in a country with a well-earned reputation for histrionics. He would cease the reckless spending that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts eight times. Sober-minded austerity would win the trust of international financiers, bringing investment that would yield jobs and fresh opportunities.

But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress. Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent.

Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing.

Far beyond this country of 44 million people, Mr. Macri's tenure is testing ideas that will shape economic policy in an age of recrimination over widening inequality. His presidency was supposed to offer an escape from the wreckage of profligate spending while laying down an alternative path for countries grappling with the worldwide rise of populism. Now, his presidency threatens to become a gateway back to populism. The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times

Image
The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times

As the October election approaches, Mr. Macri is contending with the growing prospect of a challenge from the president he succeeded, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who faces a series of criminal indictments for corruption . Her unbridled spending helped deliver the crisis that Mr. Macri inherited. Her return would resonate as a rebuke of his market-oriented reforms while potentially yanking Argentina back to its accustomed preserve: left-wing populism, in uncomfortable proximity to insolvency.

The Argentine peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year, prompting the central bank to lift interest rates to a commerce-suffocating level above 60 percent. Argentina was forced to secure a $57 billion rescue from the International Monetary Fund , a profound indignity given that the fund is widely despised here for the austerity it imposed in the late 1990s, turning an economic downturn into a depression.

For Mr. Macri, time does not appear to be in abundant supply. The spending cuts he delivered hit the populace immediately. The promised benefits of his reforms -- a stable currency, tamer inflation, fresh investment and jobs -- could take years to materialize, leaving Argentines angry and yearning for the past.

In much of South America, left-wing governments have taken power in recent decades as an angry corrective to dogmatic prescriptions from Washington, where the Treasury and the I.M.F. have focused on the confidence of global investors as the key to development.

Left-wing populism has aimed to redistribute the gains from the wealthy to everyone else. It has aided the poor, while generating its own woes -- corruption and depression in Brazil , runaway inflation and financial ruin in Argentina. In Venezuela, uninhibited spending has turned the country with the world's largest proven oil reserves into a land where children starve .

Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered by social programs.

In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember.

"We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'"

Cultivating wealth

... ... ...

In the beginning, there was Juan Domingo Perón, the charismatic Army general who was president from 1946 to 1955, and then again from 1973 to 1974. He employed an authoritarian hand and muscular state power to champion the poor. He and his wife, Eva Duarte -- widely known by her nickname, Evita -- would dominate political life long after they died, inspiring politicians across the ideological spectrum to claim their mantle.

Among the most ardent Peronists were Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who took office in 2007, remaining until Mr. Macri was elected in 2015.

Their version of Peronism -- what became known as Kirchnerism -- was decidedly left-wing, disdaining global trade as a malevolent force. They expanded cash grants to the poor and imposed taxes on farm exports in a bid to keep Argentine food prices low.

As the country's farmers tell it, Kirchnerism is just a fancy term for the confiscation of their wealth and the scattering of the spoils to the unproductive masses. They point to Ms. Kirchner's 35 percent tax on soybean exports.

"We had a saying," Mr. Tropini says. "'For every three trucks that went to the port, one was for Cristina Kirchner.'"

reduction in export taxes.

"You could breathe finally," Mr. Tropini, the farmer, says.

He was free of the Kirchners, yet stuck with nature. Floods in 2016 wiped out more than half of his crops. A drought last year wreaked even more havoc.

"This harvest, this year," he says, "is a gift from God."

But if the heavens are now cooperating, and if the people running Buenos Aires represent change, Mr. Tropini is critical of Mr. Macri's failure to overcome the economic crisis.

A weaker currency makes Argentine soybeans more competitive, but it also increases the cost of the diesel fuel Mr. Tropini needs to run his machinery. High interest rates make it impossible for him to buy another combine, which would allow him to expand his farm.

In September, faced with a plunge in government revenues, Mr. Macri reinstated some export taxes .

... ... ...

What went wrong?

... ... ...

In the first years of Mr. Macri's administration, the government lifted controls on the value of the peso while relaxing export taxes. The masters of international finance delivered a surge of investment. The economy expanded by nearly 3 percent in 2017, and then accelerated in the first months of last year.

But as investors grew wary of Argentina's deficits, they fled, sending the peso plunging and inflation soaring. As the rout continued last year, the central bank mounted a futile effort to support the currency, selling its stash of dollars to try to halt the peso's descent. As the reserves dwindled, investors absorbed the spectacle of a government failing to restore order. The exodus of money intensified, and another potential default loomed, leading a chastened Mr. Macri to accept a rescue from the dreaded IMF.

Administration officials described the unraveling as akin to a natural disaster: unforeseeable and unavoidable. The drought hurt agriculture. Money was flowing out of developing countries as the Federal Reserve continued to lift interest rates in the United States, making the American dollar a more attractive investment.

But the impact of the Fed's tightening had been widely anticipated. Economists fault the government for mishaps and complacency that left the country especially vulnerable.

.... ... ...

Among the most consequential errors was the government's decision to include Argentina's central bank in a December 2017 announcement that it was raising its inflation target. The markets took that as a signal that the government was surrendering its war on inflation while opting for a traditional gambit: printing money rather than cutting spending.

... ... ...

The government insists that better days are ahead. The spending cuts have dropped the budget deficit to a manageable 3 percent of annual economic output. Argentina is again integrated into the global economy.

"We haven't improved, but the foundations of the economy and society are much healthier," said Miguel Braun, secretary of economic policy at the Treasury Ministry. "Argentina is in a better place to generate a couple of decades of growth."

... ... ...

Their television flashes dire warnings, like "Danger of Hyper Inflation." Throughout the neighborhood, people decry the sense that they have been forsaken by the government.

Trucks used to come to castrate male dogs to control the packs of feral animals running loose. Not anymore. Health programs for children are less accessible than they were before, they said.

Daisy Quiroz, 71, a retired maid, lives in a house that regularly floods in the rainy season.

"When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us. Poor people feel abandoned."

... ... ...

Daniel Politi contributed reporting from Buenos Aires. Peter S. Goodman is a London-based European economics correspondent. He was previously a national economic correspondent in New York. He has also worked at The Washington Post as a China correspondent, and was global editor in chief of the International Business Times. @ petersgoodman

[Jun 23, 2019] Iranian UN envoy condemns unlawful destabilizing measures by US

Jun 20, 2019 | www.rt.com

Iran's envoy to the United Nations has called on the international community to end "unlawful destabilizing measures" by the US, declaring that while Iran does not seek war, it "reserves the right to counter any hostile act."

Iranian envoy to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi has condemned continuing US provocations that culminated Thursday morning in the downing of an American surveillance drone by the Iranian air force over Hormozgan province.

The drone "had turned off its identification equipment and [was] engaged in a clear spying operation," Ravanchi confirmed in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that the aircraft had ignored "repeated radio warnings" in order to enter Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz.

[Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.

"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.

"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with.

They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the region, and Iran won't stand for that."

At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.

[Jun 22, 2019] Why a U.S.-Iran War Could End Up Being a Historic Disaster by Doug Bandow

Highly recommended!
The current conflict is about the US hegemony in the region, not anything else.
The analysis is really good. I especially like "The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender"
That means that Doug Bandow proposals while good are completely unrealistic.
Notable quotes:
"... Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East. ..."
"... Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are? ..."
"... Washington did much to encourage a violent, extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn. ..."
"... The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace. ..."
"... Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well. Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran. ..."
"... Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism. ..."
"... Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington, ascendant in Tehran. ..."
"... Europeans also point to Bush administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War. Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response. ..."
"... Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the mother of all Mideast conflagrations. ..."
"... In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions, requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. ..."
"... Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires a freer society. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East.

Thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded and maimed U.S. personnel, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and millions of Iraqis displaced. There was the sectarian conflict, destruction of the historic Christian community, the creation of Al Qaeda in Iraq—which morphed into the far deadlier Islamic State—and the enhanced influence of Iran. The prime question was how could so many supposedly smart people be so stupid?

Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are?

The Iranian regime is malign. Nevertheless, despite being under almost constant siege it has survived longer than the U.S.-crafted dictatorship which preceded the Islamic Republic. And the latter did not arise in a vacuum. Washington did much to encourage a violent, extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn.

In 1953 the United States backed a coup against democratically selected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Washington then aided the Shah in consolidating power, including the creation of the secret police, known as SAVAK. He forcibly modernized Iran’s still conservative Islamic society, while his corrupt and repressive rule united secular and religious Iranians against him.

The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace.

Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well. Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran.

As Henry Kissinger reportedly once said, even a paranoid can have enemies. Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism.

The hostile relationship with Iran also has allowed Saudi Arabia, which routinely undercuts American interests and values, to gain a dangerous stranglehold over U.S. policy. To his credit President Barack Obama attempted to rebalance Washington’s Mideast policy. The result was the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It provided for an intrusive inspection regime designed to discourage any future Iranian nuclear weapons program—which U.S. intelligence indicated had been inactive since 2003.

However, candidate Donald Trump had an intense and perverse desire to overturn every Obama policy. His tight embrace of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ignored the advice of his security chiefs in denouncing the accord, and the Saudi royals, who Robert Gates once warned would fight Iran to the last American, also likely played an important role.

Last year the president withdrew from the accord and followed with a declaration of economic war. He then declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military organization, to be a terrorist group. (Washington routinely uses the “terrorist” designation for purely political purposes.) Finally, there are reports, officially denied by Washington, that U.S. forces, allied with Islamist radicals—the kind of extremists responsible for most terrorist attacks on Americans—have been waging a covert war against Iranian smuggling operations.

The president claimed that he wanted to negotiate: “We aren’t looking for regime change,” he said. “We are looking for no nuclear weapons.” But that is what the JCPOA addressed. His policy is actually pushing Tehran to expand its nuclear program. Moreover, last year Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech that the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian, who spent more than a year in Iranian prison, called “silly” and “completely divorced from reality.”

In a talk to an obsequious Heritage Foundation audience, Pompeo set forth the terms of Tehran’s surrender: Iran would be expected to abandon any pretense of maintaining an independent foreign policy and yield its deterrent missile capabilities, leaving it subservient to Saudi Arabia, with the latter’s U.S.-supplied and -trained military. Tehran could not even cooperate with other governments, such as Syria, at their request. The only thing missing from Pompeo’s remarks was insistence that Iran accept an American governor-general in residence.

The proposal was a nonstarter and looked like the infamous 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, which was intended to be rejected and thereby justify war. After all, National Security Advisor John Bolton expressed his policy preference in a 2015 New York Times op-ed titled: “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” Whatever the president’s true intentions, Tehran can be forgiven for seeing Washington’s position as one of regime change, by war if necessary.

The administration apparently assumed that new, back-breaking sanctions would either force the regime to surrender at the conference table or collapse amid political and social conflict. Indeed, when asked if he really believed sanctions would change Tehran’s behavior, Pompeo answered that “what can change is, the people can change the government.” Both Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations have recently argued that the Islamic Republic is an exhausted regime, one that is perhaps on its way to extinction.

However, Rezaian says “there is nothing new” about Tehran’s difficult Iranian economic problems. “Assuming that this time around the Iranian people can compel their government to bend to America’s will seems—at least to anyone who has spent significant time in Iran in recent decades—fantastical,” he said. Gerecht enthusiasm for U.S. warmaking has led to mistakes in the past. He got Iraq wrong seventeen years ago when he wrote that “a war with Iraq might not shake up the Middle East much at all.

Today the administration is using a similar strategy against Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. The citizens of these countries have not risen against their oppressors to establish a new, democratic, pro-American regime. Numerous observers wrongly predicted that the Castro regime would die after the end of Soviet subsidies and North Korea’s inevitable fall in the midst of a devastating famine. Moreover, regime collapse isn’t likely to yield a liberal, democratic republic when the most radical, authoritarian elites remain best-armed.

... ... ...

More important, Washington does not want to go to war with Iran, which is larger than Iraq, has three times the population, and is a real country. The regime, while unpopular with many Iranians, is much better rooted than Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Tehran possesses unconventional weapons, missiles, and allies which could spread chaos throughout the region. American forces in Syria and Iraq would be vulnerable, while Baghdad’s stability could be put at risk. If Americans liked the Iraq debacle, then they would love the chaos likely to result from attempting to violently destroy the Iranian state. David Frum, one of the most avid neoconservative advocates of the Iraq invasion, warned that war with Iran would repeat Iraqi blunders on “a much bigger sale, without allies, without justification, and without any plan at all for what comes next.”

Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington, ascendant in Tehran.

Carefully calibrated military action, such as tanker attacks, might be intended to show “resolve” to gain credibility. Washington policymakers constantly justify military action as necessary to demonstrate that they are willing to take military action. Doing so is even more important for a weaker power. Moreover, observed the Eurasia Group, Iranian security agencies “have a decades-long history of conducting attacks and other operations aimed precisely at undermining the diplomatic objectives of a country’s elected representatives.” If Iran is responsible, observed Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, then administration policy perversely “is rendering Iran more aggressive, not less,” thereby making the Mideast more, not less dangerous

Of course, Tehran has denied any role in the attacks and there is good reason to question unsupported Trump administration claims of Iranian guilt. The president’s indifferent relationship to the truth alone raises serious questions. Europeans also point to Bush administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War. Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response.

Other malicious actors also could be responsible for tanker attacks. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, ISIS, and Al Qaeda all likely believe they would benefit from an American war on Tehran and might decide to speed the process along by fomenting an incident. Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the mother of all Mideast conflagrations.

Rather than continue a military spiral upward, Washington should defuse Gulf tensions. The administration brought the Middle East to a boil. It can calm the waters. Washington should stand down its military, offering to host multilateral discussions with oil consuming nations, energy companies, and tanker operators over establishing shared naval security in sensitive waterways, including in the Middle East. Given America’s growing domestic energy production, the issue no longer should be considered Washington’s responsibility. Other wealthy industrialized states should do what is necessary for their economic security.

The administration also should make a serious proposal for talks. It won’t be easy. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared “negotiation has no benefit and carries harm.” He further argued that “negotiations are a tactic of this pressure,” which is the ultimate “strategic aim.” Even President Hassan Rouhani rejected contact without a change in U.S. policy. “Whenever they lift the unjust sanctions and fulfill their commitments and return to the negotiations table, which they left themselves, the door is not closed,” he said. In back channel discussions Iranians supposedly suggested that the U.S. reverse the latest sanctions, at least on oil sales, ending attempts to wreck Iran’s economy.

If the president seriously desires talks with Tehran, then he should demonstrate that he does not expect preemptive surrender. The administration should suspend its “maximum pressure” campaign and propose multilateral talks on tightening the nuclear agreement in return for additional American and allied concessions, such as further sanctions relief.

In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions, requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. Tehran has far greater interest in neighborhood security than the United States, which Washington must respect if the latter seeks to effectively disarm Iran. The administration should invite the Europeans to join such an initiative, since they have an even greater reason to worry about Iranian missiles and more.

Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires a freer society. That requires greater engagement, not isolation. Washington’s ultimate objective should be the liberal transformation of Iran, freeing an ancient civilization to regain its leading role in today’s world, which would have a huge impact on the region.

The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender. This approach has failed in every case. Washington has caused enormous economic hardship, but no target regime has capitulated. In Iran, like North Korea, U.S. policy sharply raised tensions and the chances of conflict.

War would be a disaster. Instead, the administration must, explained James Fallows, “through bluff and patience, change the actions of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited.” Which requires the administration to adopt a new, more serious strategy toward Tehran, and quickly.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.

[Jun 22, 2019] Why The Empire Is Failing The Horrid Hubris Of The Albright Doctrine by Doug Bandow

Highly recommended!
Bolton is just Albright of different sex. The same aggressive stupidity.
Notable quotes:
"... Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob... ..."
"... How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem appropriate. ..."
"... Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity. ..."
"... Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela. ..."
"... "If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." ..."
"... Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe. ..."
"... Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states. ..."
"... Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. ..."
"... The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government. This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious hypocrisy and bias, and more. ..."
"... At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia. ..."
"... Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established by Washington's far-sighted leaders. ..."
"... When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." ..."
"... For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal of Albright and her peers in The Blob. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Doug Bandow via National Interest,

Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob...

How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem appropriate.

Since 9/11, Washington has been extraordinarily active militarily -- invading two nations, bombing and droning several others, deploying special operations forces in yet more countries, and applying sanctions against many. Tragically, the threat of Islamist violence and terrorism only have metastasized. Although Al Qaeda lost its effectiveness in directly plotting attacks, it continues to inspire national offshoots. Moreover, while losing its physical "caliphate" the Islamic State added further terrorism to its portfolio.

Three successive administrations have ever more deeply ensnared the United States in the Middle East. War with Iran appears to be frighteningly possible. Ever-wealthier allies are ever-more dependent on America. Russia is actively hostile to the United States and Europe. Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity.

Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela.

U.S. foreign policy suffers from systematic flaws in the thinking of the informal policy collective which former Obama aide Ben Rhodes dismissed as "The Blob." Perhaps no official better articulated The Blob's defective precepts than Madeleine Albright, United Nations ambassador and Secretary of State.

First is overweening hubris. In 1998 Secretary of State Albright declared that

"If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."

Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe.

U.S. officials rarely were prepared for events that occurred in the next week or month, let alone years later. Americans did no better than the French in Vietnam. Americans managed events in Africa no better than the British, French, and Portuguese colonial overlords. Washington made more than its share of bad, even awful decisions in dealing with other nations around the globe.

Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states.

The U.S. record since September 11 has been uniquely counterproductive. Rather than minimize hostility toward America, Washington adopted a policy -- highlighted by launching new wars, killing more civilians, and ravaging additional societies -- guaranteed to create enemies, exacerbate radicalism, and spread terrorism. Blowback is everywhere. Among the worst examples: Iraqi insurgents mutated into ISIS, which wreaked military havoc throughout the Middle East and turned to terrorism.

Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. When queried 1996 about her justification for sanctions against Iraq which had killed a half million babies -- notably, she did not dispute the accuracy of that estimate -- she responded that "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Exactly who "we" were she did not say. Most likely she meant those Americans admitted to the foreign policy priesthood, empowered to make foreign policy and take the practical steps necessary to enforce it. (She later stated of her reply: "I never should have made it. It was stupid." It was, but it reflected her mindset.)

In any normal country, such a claim would be shocking -- a few people sitting in another capital deciding who lived and died. Foreign elites, a world away from the hardship that they imposed, deciding the value of those dying versus the purported interests being promoted. Those paying the price had no voice in the decision, no way to hold their persecutors accountable.

The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government. This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious hypocrisy and bias, and more.

This mindset is reinforced by contempt toward even those being aided by Washington. Although American diplomats had termed the Kosovo Liberation Army as "terrorist," the Clinton Administration decided to use the growing insurgency as an opportunity to expand Washington's influence. At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia.

However, initially the KLA, determined on independence, refused to sign Albright's agreement. She exploded. One of her officials anonymously complained: "Here is the greatest nation on earth pleading with some nothingballs to do something entirely in their own interest -- which is to say yes to an interim agreement -- and they stiff us." Someone described as "a close associate" observed: "She is so stung by what happened. She's angry at everyone -- the Serbs, the Albanians and NATO." For Albright, the determination of others to achieve their own goals, even at risk to their lives, was an insult to America and her.

Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established by Washington's far-sighted leaders.

As Albright famously asked Colin Powell in 1992:

"What's the use of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" To her, American military personnel apparently were but gambit pawns in a global chess game, to be sacrificed for the interest and convenience of those playing. No wonder then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell's reaction stated in his autobiography was: "I thought I would have an aneurysm."

When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." Although sixty-five years had passed, she admitted that "my mindset is Munich," a unique circumstance and threat without even plausible parallel today.

Such a philosophy explains a 1997 comment by a cabinet member, likely Albright, to General Hugh Shelton, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?" He responded sure, as soon as she qualified to fly the plane.

For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal of Albright and her peers in The Blob.

Anyone of these comments could be dismissed as a careless aside. Taken together, however, they reflect an attitude dangerous for Americans and foreigners alike. Unfortunately, the vagaries of U.S. foreign policy suggest that this mindset is not limited to any one person. Any president serious about taking a new foreign-policy direction must do more than drain the swamp. He or she must sideline The Blob.

* * *

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .

[Jun 22, 2019] How Madeleine Albright Got the War the U.S. Wanted by Gregory Elich

Notable quotes:
"... Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war. ..."
"... U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia. ..."
"... It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private. ..."
"... "Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'" Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii] ..."
"... As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern. ..."
"... Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states: ..."
"... Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region. ..."
"... Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii] ..."
"... The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air. ..."
"... The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii] ..."
"... Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise. ..."
"... Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich ..."
May 13, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Region: Europe , USA Theme: History , US NATO War Agenda

Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war.

The talks opened on February 6, 1999, in Rambouillet, France. Officially, the negotiations were led by a Contact Group comprised of U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill , European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch , and Russian diplomat Boris Mayorsky . All decisions were supposed to be jointly agreed upon by all three members of the Contact Group. In actual practice, the U.S. ran the show all the way and routinely bypassed Petritsch and Mayorsky on essential matters.

Ibrahim Rugova , an ethnic Albanian activist who advocated nonviolence, was expected to play a major role in the Albanian secessionist delegation. Joining him at Rambouillet was Fehmi Agani , a fellow member of Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright regularly sidelined Rugova, however, preferring to rely on delegation members from the hardline Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which had routinely murdered Serbs, Roma, and Albanians in Kosovo who worked for the government or opposed separatism. Only a few months before the conference, KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti spelled out his organization's vision of a future Kosovo as separate and ethnically pure:

"The independence of Kosovo is the only solution We cannot live together. That is excluded." [i]

Rugova had at one time engaged in fairly productive talks with Yugoslav officials, and his willingness to negotiate was no doubt precisely the reason Albright relegated him to a background role. Yugoslav Minister of Information Milan Komnenić accompanied the Yugoslav delegation to Rambouillet. He recalls,

"With Rugova and Fehmi Agani it was possible to talk; they were flexible. In Rambouillet, [KLA leader Hashim] Thaçi appears instead of Rugova. A beast." [ii]

There was no love between Thaçi and Rugova, whose party members were the targets of threats and assassination attempts at the hands of the KLA. Rugova himself would survive an assassination attempt six years later.

The composition of the Yugoslav delegation reflected its position that many ethnic groups resided in Kosovo, and any agreement arrived at should take into account the interests of all parties. All of Kosovo's major ethnic groups were represented in the delegation. Faik Jashari , one of the Albanian members in the Yugoslav delegation, was president of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative and an official in the Provisional Executive Council, which was Yugoslavia's government in Kosovo. Jashari observed that Albright was startled when she saw the composition of the Yugoslav delegation, apparently because it went against the U.S. propaganda narrative. [iii] Throughout the talks, Albright displayed a dismissive attitude towards the delegation's Albanian, Roma, Egyptian, Goran, Turkish, and Slavic Muslim members.

U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia.

After arriving at Rambouillet, the secessionist Albanian delegation informed U.S. diplomats that it did not want to meet with the Yugoslav side. Aside from a brief ceremonial meeting, there was no direct contact between the two groups. The Yugoslav and Albanian delegations were placed on two different floors to eliminate nearly all contact. U.S. mediators Richard Holbrooke and Christopher Hill ran from one delegation to the other, conveying notes and verbal messages between the two sides but mostly trying to coerce the Yugoslav delegation. [iv]

Luan Koka, a Roma member of the Yugoslav delegation, noted that the U.S. was operating an electronic jamming device.

"We knew exactly when Madeleine Albright was coming. Connections on our mobile phones were breaking up and going crazy." [v]

It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private.

Albright, Jashari said, would not listen to anyone.

"She had her task, and she saw only that task. You couldn't say anything to her. She didn't want to talk with us and didn't want to listen to our arguments." [vi]

One day it was Koka's birthday, and the Yugoslav delegation wanted to encourage a more relaxed atmosphere with U.S. mediators, inviting them to a cocktail party to mark the occasion.

"It was a slightly more pleasant atmosphere, and I was singing," Koka recalled. "I remember Madeleine Albright saying: 'I really like partisan songs. But if you don't accept this, the bombs will fall.'" [vii]

According to delegation member Nikola Šainović ,

"Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'" Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii]

From the beginning of the conference, U.S. mediator Christopher Hill "decided that what we really needed was an Albanian approval of a document, and a Serb refusal. If both refused, there could be no further action by NATO or any other organization for that matter." [ix] It was not peace that the U.S. team was seeking, but war.

As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern.

On the second day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the Yugoslav delegation with the framework text of a provisional agreement for peace and self-rule in Kosovo, but it was missing some of the annexes. The Yugoslavs requested a copy of the complete document. As delegation head Ratko Marković pointed out,

"Any objections to the text of the agreement could be made only after an insight into the text as a whole had been obtained."

Nearly one week passed before the group received one of the missing annexes. That came on the day the conference had originally been set to end. The deadline was extended, and two days later a second missing annex was provided to the Yugoslav delegation.[x]

When the Yugoslavs next met with the Contact Group, they were assured that all elements of the text had now been given to them. Several more days passed and at 7:00 PM on February 22, the penultimate day of the conference, the Contact Group presented three new annexes, which the Yugoslavs had never seen before. According to Marković, "Russian Ambassador Boris Mayorsky informed our delegation that Annexes 2 and 7 had not been discussed or approved by the Contact Group and that they were not the texts drafted by the Contact Group but by certain Contact Group members, while Annex 5 was discussed, but no decision was made on it at the Contact Group meeting." The Yugoslav delegation refused to accept the new annexes, as their introduction had violated the process whereby all proposals had to be agreed upon by the three Contact Group members. [xi]

At 9:30 AM on February 23, the final day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the full text of the proposal, containing yet more provisions that were being communicated for the first time. The accompanying note identified the package as the definitive text while adding that Russia did not support two of the articles. The letter demanded the Yugoslav delegation's decision by 1:00 PM that same day.[xii] There was barely time enough to carefully read the text, let alone negotiate. In essence, it was an ultimatum.

Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states:

"The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles."

Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region.

Twitter and the Smearing of Corbyn and Assange: A Research Note on the "Integrity Initiative"

The document called for a Western-led Joint Commission including local representatives to monitor and coordinate the implementation of the plan. However, if commission members failed to reach consensus on a matter, the Western-appointed Chair would have the power to impose his decision unilaterally. [xiv] Local representatives would serve as little more than window-dressing for Western dictate, as they could adopt no measure that went against the Chair's wishes.

The Chair of the Implementation Mission was authorized to "recommend" the "removal and appointment of officials and the curtailment of operations of existing institutions in Kosovo." If the Chair's command was not obeyed "in the time requested, the Joint Commission may decide to take the recommended action," and since the Chair had the authority to impose his will on the Joint Commission, there was no check on his power. He could remove elected and appointed officials at will and replace them with handpicked lackeys. The Chair was also authorized to order the "curtailment of operations of existing institutions." [xv]Any organization that failed to bend to U.S. demands could be shut down.

Chapter 7 of the plan called for the parties to "invite NATO to constitute and lead a military force" in Kosovo. [xvi]The choice of words was interesting. In language reminiscent of gangsters, Yugoslavia was told to "invite" NATO to take over the province of Kosovo or suffer the consequences.

Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii]

The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air.

The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii]

The agreement guaranteed that NATO would have "complete and unimpeded freedom of movement by ground, air, and water into and throughout Kosovo." Furthermore, NATO personnel could not be held "liable for any damages to public or private property." [xxiii] NATO as a whole would also be "immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal," regardless of its actions anywhere on the territory of Yugoslavia. [xxiv]Nor could NATO personnel be arrested, detained, or investigated. [xxv]

Acceptance of the plan would have brought NATO troops swarming throughout Yugoslavia and interfering in every institution.

There were several other objectionable elements in the plan, but one that stood out was the call for an "international" (meaning, Western-led) meeting to be held after three years "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo."[xxvi] It was no mystery to the Yugoslav delegation what conclusion Western officials would arrive at in that meeting. The intent was clearly to redraw Yugoslavia's borders to further break apart the nation.

U.S. officials knew the Yugoslav delegation could not possibly accept such a plan.

"We deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept," Madeleine Albright confided to a group of journalists, "because they needed a little bombing." [xxvii]

At a meeting in Belgrade on March 5, the Yugoslav delegation issued a statement which declared:

"A great deceit was looming, orchestrated by the United States. They demanded that the agreement be signed, even though much of this agreement, that is, over 56 pages, had never been discussed, either within the Contact Group or during the negotiations." [xxviii]

Serbian President Milan Milutinović announced at a press conference that in Rambouillet the Yugoslav delegation had "proposed solutions meeting the demands of the Contact Group for broad autonomy within Serbia, advocating full equality of all national communities." But "agreement was not what they were after." Instead, Western officials engaged in "open aggression," and this was a game "about troops and troops alone." [xxix]

While U.S. officials were working assiduously to avoid a peaceful resolution, they needed the Albanians to agree to the plan so that they could accuse the Yugoslav delegation of being the stumbling block to peace. U.S. mainstream media could be counted on to unquestioningly repeat the government's line and overlook who the real architects of failure were. U.S. officials knew the media would act in their customary role as cheerleaders for war, which indeed, they did.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook revealed the nature of the message Western officials were conveying to the Albanian delegation when he said,

"We are certainly saying to the Kosovo Albanians that if you don't sign up to these texts, it's extremely difficult to see how NATO could then take action against Belgrade." [xxx]

Western officials were practically begging the secessionists to sign the plan. According to inside sources, the Americans assured the Albanian delegation that disarmament of the KLA would be merely symbolic and that it could keep the bulk of its weaponry so long as it was concealed. [xxxi]

Albright spent hours trying to convince Thaçi to change his mind, telling him:

"If you say yes and the Serbs say no, NATO will strike and go on striking until the Serb forces are out and NATO can go in. You will have security. And you will be able to govern yourselves." [xxxii]

That was a clear enough signal that the intent was to rip the province away from Yugoslavia and create an artificial state. Despite such assurances, Thaçi feared the wrath of fellow KLA members if he were to sign a document that did not explicitly call for separation. When U.S. negotiators asked Thaçi why he would not sign, he responded:

"If I agree to this, I will go home and they will kill me." [xxxiii]

This was not hyperbole. The KLA had threatened and murdered a great many Albanians who in its eyes fell short of full-throated support for its policy of violent secession and ethnic exclusion.

Even NATO Commander Wesley Clark , who flew in from Belgium, was unable to change Thaçi's mind. [xxxiv] U.S. officials were exasperated with the Albanian delegation, and its recalcitrance threatened to capsize plans for war.

"Rambouillet was supposed to be about putting the screws to Belgrade," a senior U.S. official said. "But it went off the rails because of the miscalculation we made about the Albanians." [xxxv]

On the last day at Rambouillet, it was agreed that the Albanian delegation would return to Kosovo for discussions with fellow KLA leaders on the need to sign the document. In the days that followed, Western officials paid repeated visits to Kosovo to encourage the Albanians to sign.

So-called "negotiations" reconvened in Paris on March 15. Upon its arrival, the Yugoslav delegation objected that it was "incomprehensible" that "no direct talks between the two delegations had been facilitated." In response to the Yugoslavs' proposal for modifications to the plan, the Contact Group informed them that no changes would be accepted. The document must be accepted as a whole. [xxxvi]

The Yugoslav position, delegation head Ratko Marković maintained, was that "first one needs to determine what is to be implemented, and only then to determine the methods of implementation." [xxxvii]The delegation asked the Americans what there was to talk about regarding implementation "when there was no agreement because the Albanians did not accept anything." U.S. officials responded that the Yugoslav delegation "cannot negotiate," adding that it would only be allowed to make grammatical changes to the text. [xxxviii]

From the U.S. perspective, the presence of the Yugoslav delegation in Paris was irrelevant other than to maintain the pretense that negotiations were taking place. Not permitted to negotiate, there was little the Yugoslavs could do but await the inevitable result, which soon came. The moment U.S. officials obtained the Albanian delegation's signatures to the plan on March 18, they aborted the Paris Conference. There was no reason to continue engaging with the Yugoslav delegation, as the U.S. had what it needed: a pretext for war.

On the day after the U.S. pulled the plug on the Paris talks, Milan Milutinović held a press conference in the Yugoslav embassy, condemning the Paris meeting as "a kind of show," which was meant "to deceive public opinion in the whole world." [xxxix]

While the United States and its NATO allies prepared for war, Yugoslavia was making last-ditch efforts to stave off attack, including reaching out to intermediaries. Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos contacted Madeleine Albright and told her that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević had offered to engage in further negotiations. But Albright told him that the decision to bomb had already been made. "In fact," Pangalos reported, "she told me to 'desist, you're just being a nuisance.'" [xl] In a final act of desperation to save the people from bombing, Milutinović contacted Christopher Hill and made an extraordinary offer: Yugoslavia would join NATO if the United States would allow Yugoslavia to remain whole, including the province of Kosovo. Hill responded that this was not a topic for discussion and he would not talk about it. [xli]

Madeleine Albright got her war, which brought death, destruction, and misery to Yugoslavia. But NATO had a new role, and the United States further extended its hegemony over the Balkans.

In the years following the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, NATO was intent on redefining its mission. The absence of the socialist bloc presented NATO not only with the need to construct a new rationale for existence but also with the opportunity to expand Western domination over other nations.

Bosnia offered the first opportunity for NATO to begin its transformation, as it took part in a war that presented no threat to member nations.

Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise.

*

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Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich

[Jun 22, 2019] The Myopia of Interventionists by Daniel Lariso

Feb 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Andrew Bacevich recalls Madeleine Albright's infamous statement about American indispensability, and notes how poorly it has held up over the last twenty-one years:

Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."

In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping.

Albright's statement is even more damning for her and her fellow interventionists when we consider that the context of her remarks was a discussion of the supposed threat from Iraq. The full sentence went like this: "We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." Albright was making a general claim about our supposed superiority to other nations when it came to looking into the future, but she was also specifically warning against a "danger" from Iraq that she claimed threatened "all of us." She answered one of Matt Lauer's questions with this assertion:

I think that we know what we have to do, and that is help enforce the UN Security Council resolutions, which demand that Saddam Hussein abide by those resolutions, and get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, and allow the inspectors to have unfettered and unconditional access.

Albright's rhetoric from 1998 is a grim reminder that policymakers from both parties accepted the existence of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" as a given and never seriously questioned a policy aimed at eliminating something that did not exist. American hawks couldn't see further in the future. They weren't even perceiving the present correctly, and tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Iraqis would suffer because they insisted that they saw something that wasn't there.

A little more than five years after she uttered these words, the same wild threat inflation that Albright was engaged in led to the invasion of Iraq, the greatest blunder and one of the worst crimes in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy . Not only did Albright and other later war supporters not see what was coming, but their deluded belief in being able to anticipate future threats caused them to buy into and promote a bogus case for a war that was completely unnecessary and should never have been fought.

[Jun 22, 2019] Trump on Iran threat now and then

Oct 22, 2012 | www.unz.com

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!

11:43 AM 22 Oct 12 Twitter Web Client

[Jun 22, 2019] Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a statesman, an author, an A-level negotiator but at heart, he's one thing: an insult comic

Add to this that he is in the pocket of Israel lobby and that helps to explain most of his actions.
Jun 16, 2019 | www.politico.com

President Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a statesman, an author, an A-level negotiator, but at heart, he's one thing: an insult comic.

Every day in D.C. is a roast, the insults and belittling nicknames wielded like tiny comedy bullets. And if you haven't seen enough of the fusillade on Twitter, all you need to do is turn on late night TV. Television comedy has a strange, symbiotic relationship with the real political world, something between a feedback loop and a funhouse mirror....

... ... ...

[Jun 22, 2019] Tucker Carlson: John Bolton is a kind of bureaucratic tapeworm

Notable quotes:
"... "Try as you might, you can't expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself." ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Someone whose confidence Bolton does not enjoy is Carlson, a rival for Trump's ear. Carlson, a true believer, took to the airwaves to savage the ambassador Friday night. "John Bolton is a kind of bureaucratic tapeworm," Carlson said.

"Try as you might, you can't expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself."

[Jun 22, 2019] A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.

Jun 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

interlocutor , Jun 21, 2019 6:13:43 PM | 186

The Babylon Bee: Report: Internet Users Who Call For Attacking Other Countries Will Now Be Enlisted In The Military Automatically

https://babylonbee.com/img/articles/article-4404-1.jpg

U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.

People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.

"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get them there on the frontlines?"

"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts who are just there for the paycheck," he added.

Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly ceased.

Note: The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.

The Babylon Bee was created ex nihilo on the eighth day of the creation week, exactly 6,000 years ago. We have been the premier news source through every major world event, from the Tower of Babel and the Exodus to the Reformation and the War of 1812. We focus on just the facts, leaving spin and bias to other news sites like CNN and Fox News.

If you would like to complain about something on our site, take it up with God.

Unlike other satire sites, everything we post is 100% verified by Snopes.com.

[Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.

"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.

"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with.

They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the region, and Iran won't stand for that."

At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.

[Jun 22, 2019] The USA MSM uses Bolton and Pompeo bellicosity as clickbait to generate revenue for their business at the expense of whats best for the nation

Notable quotes:
"... Russia, China and the Europeans all want Iran to remain in JCPOA and Putin is worried about Iran acting irrationally. ..."
"... Asians all worried about the security of oil flows to Asia. Japan especially dependent on Middle East oil flows, even if they've moved out of Iranian purchases. ..."
"... The IRGC knuckle dragger in charge at Hormuz will get a medal or two, and a promotion. The U.S. is waging a total economic war on Iran. It cuts off all its exports and imports. Iran is fighting back by all means. It has no other choice. Iran now implements a "strategy of tension" that is designed to put "maximum pressure" on Trump. The tanker attacks, the mortars on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Houthi strikes an Saudi desalination plants and the shoot down of that drone are all part of that Iranian strategy. ..."
"... High Iranian officials, including its president, have multiple times announced: "If we can sell no sell oil than none of our neighbors in the gulf will be able to sell their oil." They mean that and they have the plans and means to achieve that. ..."
"... These strikes will continue, and will become stronger. I most cases Iran will have plausible deniability. That is easy to create when CentCom and the White House are know to lie left and right as they do. ..."
"... It is Trump, not Iran, who killed JCPOA. It is Trump, not Iran, who will be blamed for that war. ..."
"... Exactly! There's one striking characteristic of the "resistance" leaders, including Khamenei, Syrian President Assad, and Hezbollah's Nasrallah, and that is that they are reliable: they do what they say they are going to do. They have integrity, that quality so clearly absent from all US and Western European leaders, all beholden to their Ziodonors to assure reelection. ..."
"... Additionally, any standoff missile attack or "March of the B52s" will be met with immediate regional attacks on US (Saudi and Israeli) assets, military personnel and civilians that will destabilize the entire region and destroy the global economy. Not the best scenario for a reelection bid, is it? I'm with b. There is no knuckle dragger at Hormuz, only competent officers carrying out their orders. ..."
"... How blame is apportioned will matter little to Iran if it miscalculates one iota. Yes it cannot sit idle until it is strangled by economic sanctions. But neither can it escalate beyond the destruction of civil and military hardware alone. One dead American is all the neocons need. A counter strike would then be inevitable and the uncontrollable escalation they are counting on the likely result. ..."
"... Col. Lang has described here the catastrophic consequences for America's enemies when they have doubted its resolve. And the sure route to galvanizing that resolve is for Iran to escalate into targeting US forces. ..."
"... The only way this ends without a war which would be catastrophic for both sides is if Trump realizes the reality of the situation he is in and ditches the neocons right now. Iran has got its message across and must now desist to allow Trump breathing room to de-escalate. Let us pray that Suleimani and the Iranian leadership are men enough to understand that holding the moral high ground confers no advantage in warfare. ..."
"... Privately, phone calls to China and Russia begging for assurances of support ..."
"... This is delusional thinking. The Iranians realized a long time ago not to rely on other countries for assistance. Every Iranian knows not to trust Russians from history. China might be the only hope, not for support, but to convince that this war is as much about them. ..."
"... The Chinese should close Adelson's Macau casinos for health and safety violations. Zionist donors for Trump's election campaign are driving this. Adelson's boy Bolton needs removing before anything positive can happen, Tucker Carlson needs some help with his campaign to oust him. ..."
"... Could you explain how the concept that economic sanctions are a belligerent act of war is anti-American? This is a historical concept that you, as a teacher and student of military history, are well aware of. The Iranians are using the means that they have available to respond to these acts of war. ..."
"... They are not equipped to confront the US military directly, so they are using tactics to place pressure on the US in other areas, primarily by threatening the global economy by plausibly deniable acts against shipping in the Persian Gulf. This is a masterstroke right out of the pages of Sun Tze's Art of War. ..."
"... Trump has painted himself into a corner. He can offer sanctions relief if he wants to negotiate, or he can attack, and we can hope that the US military learned some of the lessons taught by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge 2002. ..."
"... The neocons are playing out provocations until Congress is forced to vote on War just before election. The provocations will continue -- Israel's Rational Institute & expert game theorists have done this so many times they're just going through the motions. Iranians have watched that game play out before and, perhaps, know how to handle provocations in a disruptive manner. ..."
"... Hook repeated, emphasized & repeated again that "finance is the basis of war," and US / Trump strategy is to "not to bankrupt Iran," but to "deny Iran access to financial ability to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and other of the #1 state sponsor of terror's proxies." ..."
"... The congressmen questioning Hook nodded sagely. None of them so much as hinted at the fact that the USA is so deep in debt it can never pay its way out. ..."
"... --One of the expectations of the JCPOA was that with sanctions lifted, Iran would enter into the mainstream economy, trading with states throughout the world. This normalization of commerce would constrain Iran from taking actions that would jeopardize its trade relationships. Why does Trump & the zioncons not wish Iran's commercial normalization to take place? Is it because Israel cannot stand the competition? ..."
"... -- by what right USA violates UN Charter demands that internal affairs of a member state must not be interfered with. Congressmen crowned themselves with laurel as they proclaimed that "the people of Iran are not our enemy; it is the government; we act on behalf of the Iranian people, especially Iranian women." ..."
"... Trump thinks that he can f*** Iran and sit it out? Not gonna happen. ..."
"... He gets that he cannot be an LBJ or a Harry Truman with the Albatross of an unwinnable war hung around his neck. ..."
"... But, I am afraid the chosen true believers on his staff do not believe nor care that Iran has prepared a massive disproportionate non-nuclear response that will destroy the global economy. ..."
"... John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have other agendas than the President's re-election and what is in the USA's national interests. We are not out of the woods. ..."
"... The IRGC knuckle dragger at Hormuz wisely and prudently targeted the unmanned drone and not the manned P8 aircraft. ..."
"... No, this action was appropriate in the face of our policy of maximum pressure to starve out the Iranian people and force a regime change. ..."
"... I applaud Trump's decision not to engage in a shooting war. The way he got to that decision was messy, but the final decision was right. Those calling him weak for not engaging in a war of choice are craven fools. Chief among those is Bolton. ..."
"... Trump should throw his ass and his mustache out of the WH before the sun goes down. Trump brought this situation upon himself with his pulling out of the JCPOA and initiating his "war" of maximum pressure. It is he who can deflate this crisis, not Kamenei. ..."
"... This is all one big PsyOp imo. The US has no popular support for an attack on Iran, internally or externally. We are going to attack, but want to make it seem like they showed restraint and have been left with no choice. ..."
"... And this nonsense about Iran allowing the US to make some window dressing attack on innocuous targets to save face/ All I can say is Iranians are not Arabs. ..."
"... PS -- C Span ramped up an orgy of war hysteria over Trump's threat, then stand-down over Iran's shoot-down of an un-manned drone. The public was, as usual, confined to a narrow frame of reference and range of responses: "Trump was a coward," vs. "Trump was wise." Congressmen who were interviewed emphasized that "no American was killed." ..."
"... No one mentioned that Lyndon Johnson called back flights sent to rescue crewmen on the USS Liberty when Israel attacked the ship, strafed the wounded and those in life boats. ..."
"... Everyone remembers the shootdown of Iranian Air flight 655 on July 3, 1988 by the guided missile cruiser Vincennes, under the command of the late Captain Will Rogers, in which 290 people were killed. President Reagan said America will never apologize. President Clinton ultimately paid the Iranians $130 million. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson seems like the only realist in the MSM. https://youtu.be/Rf2cS4g0pes ..."
"... It is no secret that the Neocons and the Israeli zionists (I am repeating myself here) do want a war between Iran and the United States. First, there were a few tanker attacks which were brushed off by Trump. Then this, which was more difficult to brush off. Is it possible that the drone actually went to Iranian airspace but GPS coordinates were spoofed (by insiders on the American side) so that Trump (and the administration) believed that it stayed in international airspace? ..."
"... Sorry. Here's the ink to Tucker on the Iran war brink. https://youtu.be/3PQW2tMMn2A ..."
"... Why did Donald Trump hire neocons Bolton & Pompeo as well as torturer Gina Haspel? Couldn't he find people who shared his views (at least what he said during the last campaign) that our ME regime change wars were a disaster that we shouldn't repeat? ..."
"... As Tucker noted in his segment yesterday Bolton & the neocons have been plotting a war with Iran for some time. They don't care if it sinks Trump's presidency. They have no loyalty to him only condescension. ..."
"... Yet as Tucker notes in his segment yesterday the neocons are "bureaucratic tapeworms" that some how manage to survive failure after failure with the same regime change prescriptions. Trump better wise up like right now or he can kiss his re-election goodbye. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

David Solomon , 21 June 2019 at 12:54 PM

Colonel Lang,

I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of Trump. However, if he does not start a war, he will end (in my mind, at least) as a vast improvement over his immediate predecessors.

Robert C said in reply to David Solomon... , 21 June 2019 at 08:56 PM
Wait a minute. Obama blew it with Libya. However,
-he reached a good deal with Iran
-he didn't bomb Syria when the crossed his "red line" and managed to make it look like the R controlled Senate made the decision .
-He didn't kiss Bibi's ring.
ted richard said in reply to David Solomon... , 21 June 2019 at 09:38 PM
look at a decent map of this area. the us naval base in Bahrain and air base Qatar are an Iranian missiles equivalent of firing from lower Manhattan to hit something in Hoboken.

The USA military assets within the Persian gulf have if war breaks out checked into the hotel California.

It is a logistical nightmare for the Pentagon to protect and resupply in the event of serious hostilities. Trump surely has been told by real us military professionals the giant hairball he takes on if he gets into a war with Iran and what it means for us servicemen station there and throughout the larger middle east.

it is unfortunate that the usa media uses fools like bolton and pompeo as clickbait to generate revenue fore their business at the expense of whats best for the nation but there it is... the msm has an agenda which is not at all in the service of the nation.

Harper , 21 June 2019 at 01:28 PM
Yes, a grown up has the right to change a decision. Now, ball is in Khomeini court. Abe asked him to release some Iranian-American prisoners. If Khomeini wants to lower threshold of conflict, he can do this gesture without losing any face. Humanitarian action.

Russia, China and the Europeans all want Iran to remain in JCPOA and Putin is worried about Iran acting irrationally.

See what kind of other pressure comes down on Iranians. Asians all worried about the security of oil flows to Asia. Japan especially dependent on Middle East oil flows, even if they've moved out of Iranian purchases. US more able to go it alone with extensive domestic and other sources.

blue peacock , 21 June 2019 at 01:36 PM
Col. Lang,

Khamenei should call Trump and setup a media spectacle of a summit in Switzerland. They can agree on the same deal as before but as long as the headline says "Iran agrees to not build nukes", Trump will be happy and Khamenei will be his new best pal.

The same playbook as KJU where nothing tangible is likely to happen except that KJU has stopped nuke & missile tests that create media hysteria among the Never Trumpers.

IMO, the ball hasn't left Trump's court. How long is he going to tolerate the neocons in his inner circle who are likely to keep coming up with another casus belli? Can he find some distance from being Bibi's lapdog? How long is he going to allow his conflicted son-in-law to meddle in the Middle East?

Trump must calculate the potential of where escalation leads and what a full on war with Iran and its allies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon means for his re-election campaign. Bernie is banging the table hard against any military action in Iran. The probability that 50,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania & Wisconsin changes sides the next election would be rather high in the event of an unpredictable full-scale war.

Christian J Chuba , 21 June 2019 at 01:56 PM
I hope Khamenei takes any offer Trump makes for direct talks. Trump is heavily influenced by the last person he meets.

I get that Khamenei doesn't want to meet on the premise that the JCPOA is flawed and must be changed but if he can get an audience on the basis of airing mutual grievances in an unfiltered environment, it would be an opportunity. Currently, the only people Trump talks to are Neocon loons. They are innumerable but the FDD seems to be the center of gravity.

I must say that Clifford May does sport quite the impressive beard, who wouldn't think that he's an expert on anything he talks about http://www.vipfaq.com/nested/c/l/Clifford_May-1.jpg

robt willmann , 21 June 2019 at 02:04 PM
In an interview with NBC News and Chuck Todd, Trump reiterates his position about a response being proportionate--

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-says-he-did-not-given-final-approval-iran-strikes-n1020386

Widowson , 21 June 2019 at 02:41 PM
I was shocked-- but not surprised-- to see visibly-pained CBS Pentagon flack David Martin on the boob tube this morning quoting an unnamed source that speculated that the reason Trump cancelled the bombing of Iran was that he got "cold-feet." Thank you, Vasili Arkhipov, for getting cold-feet, too! Madness, our nation is afflicted with madness.
b , 21 June 2019 at 02:47 PM
The IRGC knuckle dragger in charge at Hormuz will get a medal or two, and a promotion. The U.S. is waging a total economic war on Iran. It cuts off all its exports and imports. Iran is fighting back by all means. It has no other choice. Iran now implements a "strategy of tension" that is designed to put "maximum pressure" on Trump. The tanker attacks, the mortars on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Houthi strikes an Saudi desalination plants and the shoot down of that drone are all part of that Iranian strategy.

High Iranian officials, including its president, have multiple times announced: "If we can sell no sell oil than none of our neighbors in the gulf will be able to sell their oil." They mean that and they have the plans and means to achieve that.

These strikes will continue, and will become stronger. I most cases Iran will have plausible deniability. That is easy to create when CentCom and the White House are know to lie left and right as they do.

Trump has two choices.

He can pull back on the sanctions and other U.S. violations of JCPOA, or he can start a full war against Iran that will drown his presidency, put the world economy into a depression ($300/bl oil) and kill many U.S. soldiers.

It is Trump, not Iran, who killed JCPOA. It is Trump, not Iran, who will be blamed for that war.

frankie p said in reply to b ... , 21 June 2019 at 07:05 PM

Exactly! There's one striking characteristic of the "resistance" leaders, including Khamenei, Syrian President Assad, and Hezbollah's Nasrallah, and that is that they are reliable: they do what they say they are going to do. They have integrity, that quality so clearly absent from all US and Western European leaders, all beholden to their Ziodonors to assure reelection.

The Iranians will NOT contact Trump to arrange a meeting. The Iranians will NOT meet with Trump because the JCPOA is flawed. The Iranians will NOT meet with Trump after a brief suspension in sanctions to ask for permanent sanctions relief. The Iranians WILL meet with Trump when he lifts most or all of the sanctions in good faith and rejoins the JCPOA. Is it just a coincidence that the two ships attacked last week were carrying petrochemicals, just days after Trump and the US placed sanctions on the largest Iranian petrochemical producer? What is it about "If we cannot ship oil/petrochemicals, nobody can." that people don't understand?

Additionally, any standoff missile attack or "March of the B52s" will be met with immediate regional attacks on US (Saudi and Israeli) assets, military personnel and civilians that will destabilize the entire region and destroy the global economy. Not the best scenario for a reelection bid, is it? I'm with b. There is no knuckle dragger at Hormuz, only competent officers carrying out their orders.

Frankie P

Barbara Ann said in reply to b ... , 21 June 2019 at 07:46 PM
b

How blame is apportioned will matter little to Iran if it miscalculates one iota. Yes it cannot sit idle until it is strangled by economic sanctions. But neither can it escalate beyond the destruction of civil and military hardware alone. One dead American is all the neocons need. A counter strike would then be inevitable and the uncontrollable escalation they are counting on the likely result.

Col. Lang has described here the catastrophic consequences for America's enemies when they have doubted its resolve. And the sure route to galvanizing that resolve is for Iran to escalate into targeting US forces.

The only way this ends without a war which would be catastrophic for both sides is if Trump realizes the reality of the situation he is in and ditches the neocons right now. Iran has got its message across and must now desist to allow Trump breathing room to de-escalate. Let us pray that Suleimani and the Iranian leadership are men enough to understand that holding the moral high ground confers no advantage in warfare.

Fred -> b ... , 22 June 2019 at 11:06 AM
b,

Only two choices? That doesn't sound very realistic in the terms of actual options. How about leaving the sanctions in place? What prevents that?

Eric Newhill , 21 June 2019 at 03:32 PM
Publicly, much chest thumping over how Iran has the cowardly Great Satan on the run like a beaten dog. Privately, phone calls to China and Russia begging for assurances of support and attempted offers of negotiations with Trump complete with wildly unrealistic demands.
eakens said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 21 June 2019 at 06:57 PM
This is delusional thinking. The Iranians realized a long time ago not to rely on other countries for assistance. Every Iranian knows not to trust Russians from history. China might be the only hope, not for support, but to convince that this war is as much about them.
LondonBob said in reply to Jack... , 22 June 2019 at 04:19 AM
The Chinese should close Adelson's Macau casinos for health and safety violations. Zionist donors for Trump's election campaign are driving this. Adelson's boy Bolton needs removing before anything positive can happen, Tucker Carlson needs some help with his campaign to oust him.
turcopolier , 21 June 2019 at 05:44 PM
b

Your usual deeply bigoted anti-Americanism.

frankie p said in reply to turcopolier ... , 21 June 2019 at 07:23 PM
Could you explain how the concept that economic sanctions are a belligerent act of war is anti-American? This is a historical concept that you, as a teacher and student of military history, are well aware of. The Iranians are using the means that they have available to respond to these acts of war.

They are not equipped to confront the US military directly, so they are using tactics to place pressure on the US in other areas, primarily by threatening the global economy by plausibly deniable acts against shipping in the Persian Gulf. This is a masterstroke right out of the pages of Sun Tze's Art of War.

Trump has painted himself into a corner. He can offer sanctions relief if he wants to negotiate, or he can attack, and we can hope that the US military learned some of the lessons taught by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge 2002.

Artemesia said in reply to turcopolier ... , 21 June 2019 at 07:28 PM
At the risk of ---
I think b is on to something.

The neocons are playing out provocations until Congress is forced to vote on War just before election. The provocations will continue -- Israel's Rational Institute & expert game theorists have done this so many times they're just going through the motions. Iranians have watched that game play out before and, perhaps, know how to handle provocations in a disruptive manner.

Did you listen to Foreign Affairs subcommittee questioning State Department undersecretary Brian Hook? https://www.c-span.org/video/?461811-1/house-foreign-affairs-subcommittee-hearing-iran-policy

Hook repeated, emphasized & repeated again that "finance is the basis of war," and US / Trump strategy is to "not to bankrupt Iran," but to "deny Iran access to financial ability to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and other of the #1 state sponsor of terror's proxies."

The congressmen questioning Hook nodded sagely. None of them so much as hinted at the fact that the USA is so deep in debt it can never pay its way out. Nor was any congressman sage enough, or moral enough, or consistent enough, to question:

-- International policy pundits & think tankers opine that the greatest guarantee of peace is economic stability. US is deliberately seeking to destabilize Iran economically. To what end?

--One of the expectations of the JCPOA was that with sanctions lifted, Iran would enter into the mainstream economy, trading with states throughout the world. This normalization of commerce would constrain Iran from taking actions that would jeopardize its trade relationships. Why does Trump & the zioncons not wish Iran's commercial normalization to take place? Is it because Israel cannot stand the competition?

-- by what right USA violates UN Charter demands that internal affairs of a member state must not be interfered with. Congressmen crowned themselves with laurel as they proclaimed that "the people of Iran are not our enemy; it is the government; we act on behalf of the Iranian people, especially Iranian women."

When I visited Iran in 2008, "Iranian women" spoke with us and asked if we could please provide several days' warning before bombing Iran so that they could shelter their children. Iranian women are some of the toughest you'll meet.

-- what casus belli legitimizes aggression against Iran? Does the USA no longer subscribe to Just War theory? Several years ago I heard Notre Dame's Mary Ellen O'Connell discuss Just War theory with respect to Iran -- https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/jlia/vol2/iss2/6/. US claims to uphold "universal values" ring hollow if such basic steps in framing policy are ignored.

b -> turcopolier ... , 22 June 2019 at 12:10 AM
I deal in facts, not in 'deeply bigoted anti-Americanism'. Interesting that you do not want to recognize those facts. They are right before your eyes. Just I give it a day or two until the next 'incident' happens.

Trump thinks that he can f*** Iran and sit it out? Not gonna happen.

turcopolier -> b ... , 22 June 2019 at 09:39 AM
All

The question has been raised of my denigration of b. He has a long history on SST He is an excellent military analyst but the long and so far as I can remember unbroken record of interpreting EVERY situation as demonstrating the demonic nature of the US causes me to discount anything he writes on other than military subjects narrowly defined. IMO b's hostility to the US is a permanent burden that he carries.

Eric Newhill said in reply to turcopolier ... , 22 June 2019 at 10:54 AM
Sir,

Also, B's minions, who follow him around, have absorbed his anti-US attitude so completely it's like a religion to them.

Charlie Wilson -> turcopolier ... , 22 June 2019 at 01:40 AM
b is a hater, colonel. And his English sucks too!

Charlie

Eugene Owens said in reply to turcopolier ... , 22 June 2019 at 01:56 AM
Agree regarding b's anti America stance. Yet b's prediction that the guy in charge at Hormuz will get a medal and promotion is correct IMO.

Ditto for his prediction that Iranian attacks will continue with some measure of deniability.

VietnamVet , 21 June 2019 at 07:13 PM
Colonel,

The NYT report that Donald Trump ordered the attack and then pulled back is in Jimmy Carter's "been there done that" territory. Although a New Yorker and he never had to sit in a gasoline line, Donald Trump, personally and legally, cannot be a one term President. He is a political savant.

He gets that he cannot be an LBJ or a Harry Truman with the Albatross of an unwinnable war hung around his neck.

My assumption is that someone in the chain of command after the surveillance drone was shot down triggered a preplanned strike package that was stopped once it got to the President for approval. Once again global media moguls strike back at the nationalist President with Fake News.

But, I am afraid the chosen true believers on his staff do not believe nor care that Iran has prepared a massive disproportionate non-nuclear response that will destroy the global economy.

John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have other agendas than the President's re-election and what is in the USA's national interests. We are not out of the woods.

ex-PFC Chuck , 21 June 2019 at 07:14 PM
Do we know for sure Trump is the one who initially ordered the strike? Or did someone down the line interpret the rules of engagement (do I presume correctly that some such would be in place at the present time?) to allow him or her to order it?
turcopolier -> ex-PFC Chuck... , 22 June 2019 at 09:35 AM
All

In a situation of this degree of geo-political gravity, nobody in the chain of command below the CinC would have had the authority or temerity to attempt to order this strike package.

Neither Pompeo nor Bolton is in the chain of command and attempts by them to order such attacks would have been rejected by the military. BTW if Trump aborted the strikes only 10 minutes out from the targets he was cutting it too close. Communications can always fail.

The Twisted Genius , 21 June 2019 at 07:31 PM
The IRGC knuckle dragger at Hormuz wisely and prudently targeted the unmanned drone and not the manned P8 aircraft. Since it was the Iranians who recovered the wreckage, it will be hard for the US to maintain the drone was well outside Iranian airspace.

No, this action was appropriate in the face of our policy of maximum pressure to starve out the Iranian people and force a regime change.

I applaud Trump's decision not to engage in a shooting war. The way he got to that decision was messy, but the final decision was right. Those calling him weak for not engaging in a war of choice are craven fools. Chief among those is Bolton.

Trump should throw his ass and his mustache out of the WH before the sun goes down. Trump brought this situation upon himself with his pulling out of the JCPOA and initiating his "war" of maximum pressure. It is he who can deflate this crisis, not Kamenei.

eakens said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 22 June 2019 at 12:02 PM
This is all one big PsyOp imo. The US has no popular support for an attack on Iran, internally or externally. We are going to attack, but want to make it seem like they showed restraint and have been left with no choice.

I don't foresee the Iranians talking to Trump unless and until the US walks back its sanctions, or Trump himself goes and sits down with the Ayatollah.

And this nonsense about Iran allowing the US to make some window dressing attack on innocuous targets to save face/ All I can say is Iranians are not Arabs.

Artemesia , 21 June 2019 at 07:32 PM
PS -- C Span ramped up an orgy of war hysteria over Trump's threat, then stand-down over Iran's shoot-down of an un-manned drone. The public was, as usual, confined to a narrow frame of reference and range of responses: "Trump was a coward," vs. "Trump was wise." Congressmen who were interviewed emphasized that "no American was killed."

No one mentioned that Lyndon Johnson called back flights sent to rescue crewmen on the USS Liberty when Israel attacked the ship, strafed the wounded and those in life boats.

SAC Brat said in reply to Harlan Easley ... , 22 June 2019 at 01:13 PM
This seems like Professional Wrestling theater where you have the wrestlers hamming it up for the drama and you wonder what the script is. We only get to see what the camera frames.
NarcoRepublican , 21 June 2019 at 09:17 PM
I am thankful that our military acknowledges that our President is the Commander-in-Chief. He commanded, they obeyed. As for all the pundits on all sides, their lack of perspective or even understanding of history leaves me terrified. There seems to be no understanding of how Iran is capable of retaliation. An example:

Everyone remembers the shootdown of Iranian Air flight 655 on July 3, 1988 by the guided missile cruiser Vincennes, under the command of the late Captain Will Rogers, in which 290 people were killed. President Reagan said America will never apologize. President Clinton ultimately paid the Iranians $130 million.

Few remember what happened next -- some 8 months later, in March, 1989, Capt. Roger's spouse Sharon, was in her van stopped at a traffic light in San Diego. A pipe bomb went off under the back of the van. It was small -- she was unhurt, fortunately, but definitely shaken up, and the van did catch fire. Despite an intensive investigation, the FBI has never solved this case.

Never let us become so blind and arrogant in our strength that we are unable to conceive retaliation by those weaker.

blue peacock , 22 June 2019 at 01:47 AM
Tucker Carlson seems like the only realist in the MSM. https://youtu.be/Rf2cS4g0pes
ancientarcher , 22 June 2019 at 02:07 AM
Has anyone considered the possibility that the drone was sent there to be shot down by the Iranians?

It is no secret that the Neocons and the Israeli zionists (I am repeating myself here) do want a war between Iran and the United States. First, there were a few tanker attacks which were brushed off by Trump. Then this, which was more difficult to brush off. Is it possible that the drone actually went to Iranian airspace but GPS coordinates were spoofed (by insiders on the American side) so that Trump (and the administration) believed that it stayed in international airspace?

The Americans do seem to really believe that the drone was in international airspace and no one can make a point that it is to Iran's benefit to target an American asset in international airspace, especially now when tensions are so high. Iran has the most to lose in the event of a war with the Americans (no points for guessing which country has the most to win - Israel). And it is a coincidence that the guy heading the Iran mission Centre, Michael D'Andrea, was previously the head of drone operations. Or is it a coincidence?

What would I do if I were a neocon who wants war between the US and Iran, a war that Trump doesn't. For the start of hostilities, it is essential that both sides, US and Iran, feel that they are in the right - which of course this situation is. I would create a context, an excuse/rationale for the start of actual hostilities to the US administration (and of course for the consumption of the American public). Then I will make the case to Trump that we should have a 'limited' retaliation. I know that the Iranians will strike back after the 'small scale' bombing. And the Americans have to retaliate to that also. What chances are there that any retaliation by the Americans will not end up in total war with Iran??

Trump doesn't want war and probably saw through the machinations to get him to agree to a 'small' bombing campaign as retaliation that would surely lead to a larger conflagration and total war with Iran that the neocons want so much. This particular provocation was unsuccessful in its aim. However, I think that provocations by the neocons will continue and at an ever increasing pitch - enabled by the neocons within the administration and the Israelis. Trump doesn't want war but his administration filled with neocons does and they will find a way maneuver Trump into it. Israel will fight Iran till the last standing American in the Middle East.

blue peacock , 22 June 2019 at 02:15 AM
Sorry. Here's the ink to Tucker on the Iran war brink. https://youtu.be/3PQW2tMMn2A
blue peacock , 22 June 2019 at 01:17 PM
Why did Donald Trump hire neocons Bolton & Pompeo as well as torturer Gina Haspel? Couldn't he find people who shared his views (at least what he said during the last campaign) that our ME regime change wars were a disaster that we shouldn't repeat?

As Tucker noted in his segment yesterday Bolton & the neocons have been plotting a war with Iran for some time. They don't care if it sinks Trump's presidency. They have no loyalty to him only condescension.

Hopefully Trump learns from this near miss of a catastrophe for his presidency. But he has seemed weak and indecisive on these matters all along. He never fought back for example with all the tools at his disposal against the attempted coup by law enforcement & the intelligence agencies.

All he did was constantly tweet witch hunt. He's once again delegated it to Barr after Sessions sat on it.

He allowed Pompeo & Bolton to bring on fellow neocon Elliott Abrams who previously screwed up in Nicaragua to attempt another regime change in Venezuela, which has been another botched example of how everything that the neocons touch turns to shit.

Yet as Tucker notes in his segment yesterday the neocons are "bureaucratic tapeworms" that some how manage to survive failure after failure with the same regime change prescriptions. Trump better wise up like right now or he can kiss his re-election goodbye.

[Jun 22, 2019] Putin about the economic war being waged against Russia after the Ukraine Coup in 2014.

Notable quotes:
"... "Let's go back to economic issues. Many people link these difficulties with the Western sanctions. By the way, the European Union again extended them today. Sometimes, there are appeals to make peace with everyone. If Russia complied with the West's demands and agreed to everything, would this benefit our economy in any way?" ..."
"... "Second, what would this give us and what would it not give us, and what would we lose? Look, according to expert analyses, Russia fell short by about $50 billion as a result of these restrictions during these years, starting in 2014. The European Union lost $240 billion, the US $17 billion (we have a small volume of trade with them) and Japan $27 billion. All this affects employment in these countries, including the EU: they are losing our market... ..."
"... "Now, the attack on Huawei: where does it come from and what is its objective? The objective is to hold back the development of China, the country that has become a global rival of another power, the United States. The same is happening with Russia, and will continue to happen , so if we want to occupy a worthy place under the sun, we must become stronger, including, and above all, in the economy." [My Emphasis] ..."
"... Dealing with Putin's bolded remark is a question not just for Russia, China and Iran; it's a question for the entire world and harkens back to the words of George Kennan I cited a few days ago about the USA needing a policy to continue its economic dominance of the planet he uttered in 1947, the policy that became The Anti-Communist Crusade covering for its actual Super Imperialism policy to retain that dominance. ..."
"... What's happening is a titanic struggle to make the Outlaw US Empire cease pursuing that policy. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jun 21, 2019 6:34:03 PM | 189

I'd like barflies to ponder the following thought/probability: Radar Saturated Environment--radiation not from just individual, discreet, identifiable points, but from such a vast multitude that no single point can be discerned.

To further my brainstorming de-escalation, I'd like to point out what Putin said in his Direct Line yesterday about the economic war being waged against Russia in accordance with the Ukraine Coup in 2014. Pavel Zarubin asks:

"Let's go back to economic issues. Many people link these difficulties with the Western sanctions. By the way, the European Union again extended them today. Sometimes, there are appeals to make peace with everyone. If Russia complied with the West's demands and agreed to everything, would this benefit our economy in any way?"

I thought this a capital question very similar to Iran's dilemma. Putin's response is quite long, so I won't cite it all. Rather, I'll limit it to his initial reply and conclusion as they both deal with the Big Picture:

"First, what does it mean 'to make peace'? We have not fought with anyone and have no desire to fight with anyone.

"Second, what would this give us and what would it not give us, and what would we lose? Look, according to expert analyses, Russia fell short by about $50 billion as a result of these restrictions during these years, starting in 2014. The European Union lost $240 billion, the US $17 billion (we have a small volume of trade with them) and Japan $27 billion. All this affects employment in these countries, including the EU: they are losing our market....

"Now to the question of whether some things would be different if we give in and abandon our fundamental national interests. We are not talking about reconciliation here. Perhaps there will be some external signals, but no drastic change. Look, the People's Republic of China has nothing to do with Crimea and Donbass, does it? We are accused of occupying Donbass, which is nonsense and a lie.

But China has nothing to do with it, and yet the tariffs for Chinese goods are rising, which is almost the same as sanctions.

"Now, the attack on Huawei: where does it come from and what is its objective? The objective is to hold back the development of China, the country that has become a global rival of another power, the United States. The same is happening with Russia, and will continue to happen , so if we want to occupy a worthy place under the sun, we must become stronger, including, and above all, in the economy." [My Emphasis]

This year's Direct Line was as usual filled with domestic issues some that lead to foreign policy issues. The overall scope and distinctness of the minutia are as vast as Russia. I've followed these over the years and note they reveal Russia's strengths and fragilities. I'm tempted to cite more but will leave it to the reader to pursue, but after 90 minutes you still won't be finished because the transcript isn't yet complete, which while frustrating is also amazing.

Dealing with Putin's bolded remark is a question not just for Russia, China and Iran; it's a question for the entire world and harkens back to the words of George Kennan I cited a few days ago about the USA needing a policy to continue its economic dominance of the planet he uttered in 1947, the policy that became The Anti-Communist Crusade covering for its actual Super Imperialism policy to retain that dominance.

What's happening is a titanic struggle to make the Outlaw US Empire cease pursuing that policy.

[Jun 22, 2019] US Empire faces a growing international coalition against its actions, which results from sentiments made at the rather many recent international conferences that have already occurred in June that will be topped by G-20 in 8 days.

Notable quotes:
"... That admission along with the stark mostly unreported economic realities of any armed conflict in the Gulf region is what restrains the war mongers. The Money Power and the Current Oligarchy won't allow war is what I see. And that makes this Friday morning pleasant despite the fog. ..."
"... The risks are just too great (for what the US public is prepared to accept). And we've just seen it happen again. They might be able to screw themselves up to go through with it, and accept the losses and stalemate that will come, but it will do no good at all for Trump's re-election chances. ..."
"... Netanyahu has reiterated his desire for war with Iran -- a war that the US will fight–and is meeting with his Arab allies to help bring it about. As Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel on the front line. ..."
"... Listen to this horse manure coming from Brain Hook, "special" representative for Iran: "According to him, Washington was doing everything possible to defuse tensions with Iran and return the containment system in the region. ..."
"... The Zionists are smack dab in the middle of the front line with a massive crosshairs imprinted on their entirety. Occupied Palestine sits at Ground Zero, and it seems that the Zionists are finally waking up to the ultimate betrayal they'll experience at the hands of The Christian Rapturists -- they are to be Genocided in the pursuit of attempting to make a myth come to life. ..."
"... Watch the brilliant George Galloway on the consequences of war with Iran. Bottom line: only hardline Likudniks and FDD Likud USA types would approve such a disastrous move. ..."
"... If America attacks and destroys Iran after doing the same to Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, the Islamic religion should semi-officially adopt anti-Americanism until the Empire falls, and it would be totally deserved. If we all go in, let us get a good thrashing. ..."
"... It is true that Trump needs to fire acting President Bolton. Bolton who was appointed to the NSA by Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli/American oligarch, will not allow Trump to fire Bolton; otherwise, he loses millions of $$$$. The pressure is also from Adelson and his neocon ilk. ..."
"... Iran is a big country, and won't be defeated unless the people are ready to abandon the regime. They aren't as far as I can detect. The exiles, and the middle class in Iran, hate the regime. I've just had a lot of that poured into my ears, during my visit to Iran a month ago. The popular feeling though doesn't seem to have abandoned the regime. I think we can expect a nationalist resistance, if indeed Trump does attack Iran. ..."
"... China has been complying with US sanctions on Iran, for example this article notes that China stopped buying oil from Iran . US direct trade with Iran isn't so much as issue as the US stopping Europe and China from trading with Iran. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jun 21, 2019 12:01:59 PM | 86

The most important Item I've read so far this morning is this report on the Ufa, Russia Security Conference that was attended by both Iranian and Outlaw US Empire officials. The entire article requires reading, but this is the most relevant excerpt that has some links in the original I won't duplicate:

"Given current global events, the most significant attendees in Ufa are a senior US National Security Council member and the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani.

As of now, the only official news comes from Ali Shamkhani's words concerning the possibility of mediation with the US and the possibility of Iran acquiring weapons systems to fend off US threats. Shamkhani stated:

"'We currently face demonstrative threats. Nevertheless, when it comes to air defense of our country, we consider using the foreign potential in addition to our domestic capacities Mediation is out of question in the current situation. The United States has unilaterally withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has flouted its obligations and it has introduced illegal sanctions against Iran. The United States should return to the starting point and correct its own mistakes. This process needs no mediation.'

"'This [gradually boosting of uranium enrichment and heavy water production beyond the levels outlined in the JCPOA] is a serious decision of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] and we will continue doing it step by step until JCPOA violators move toward agreement and return to fulfilling their obligations. [If JCPOA participants do not comply with the deal, Iran will be reducing its commitments] step by step within legal mechanisms that the JCPOA envisions.'"

It was noted by b that the Outlaw US Empire faces a growing international coalition against its actions, which results from sentiments made at the rather many recent international conferences that have already occurred in June that will be topped by G-20 in 8 days.

That admission along with the stark mostly unreported economic realities of any armed conflict in the Gulf region is what restrains the war mongers. The Money Power and the Current Oligarchy won't allow war is what I see. And that makes this Friday morning pleasant despite the fog.

Laguerre , Jun 21, 2019 12:05:23 PM | 88

Posted by: Anon | Jun 21, 2019 8:04:55 AM | 29 (boring that it's yet another Anon, who can't be bothered to distinguish himself all from the other thousands of Anons)
the stage is now maximum restraint and effort at co-operation, which Iran will be expected to respect. That means one more act against US (or false flag by US) and strikes will occur. Not comparable to hostage crisis, here US is projecting being reasonable, even if you read that as being weak.
It's not me who reading the US as weak. It will be the attitude of the Iranians, who haven't forgotten the US failure in 1980 (April 24, 1980), as opposed to the US public for whom it is so many crises ago that they've forgotten. And the Iranians are right.

Trump hesitated, as every previous attempt to launch a strike on Iran has finished finally in a stand-down.

The risks are just too great (for what the US public is prepared to accept). And we've just seen it happen again. They might be able to screw themselves up to go through with it, and accept the losses and stalemate that will come, but it will do no good at all for Trump's re-election chances.

Mikael Kallavuo , Jun 21, 2019 12:19:06 PM | 91 jsb , Jun 21, 2019 12:20:15 PM | 92
Well it looks like Elijah Magnier has finally written the piece he was hinting at releasing yesterday. Here it is:
Iran is pushing US President Donald Trump to the edge of the abyss, raising the level of tensions to new heights in the Middle East. After the sabotage of four tankers at al-Fujairah and the attack on the Aramco pipeline a month ago, and last week's attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC – now categorized by the USA as a terrorist body) yesterday shot down a US Navy drone, sending two clear messages. The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war, no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US President has cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his electoral campaign.

According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump be allowed to bomb one, two or three clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out as winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy beach in Iran would trigger a missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.

...

Moreover, Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have increased their level of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary. According to sources, Iran's allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly organised, orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months.

Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the Middle East completely, not by targeting tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies or enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

...

Iran's economy is under attack by Trump's embargo on Iranian oil exports. Trump refuses to lift the embargo and wants to negotiate first. Trump, unlike Israel and the hawks in his administration, is trying to avoid a shooting war. Netanyahu has reiterated his desire for war with Iran -- a war that the US will fight–and is meeting with his Arab allies to help bring it about. As Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel on the front line.

b , Jun 21, 2019 1:23:18 PM | 107
Trump just confirmed my hunch that there was no final decision to strike.
Meet the Press @MeetThePress - 16:50 UTC - 21 Jun 2019

EXCLUSIVE: In an exclusive interview with Chuck Todd, President Donald Trump says he hadn't given final approval to Iran strikes, no planes were in the air.

Also Elijah Magnier's piece is out:

Iran and Trump on the edge of the abyss

The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war, no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US President has cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his electoral campaign. According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump be allowed to bomb one or two clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out as winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy beach in Iran would trigger a missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.
...
Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have increased their level of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary. According to sources, Iran's allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly organised, orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months.
...
Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the Middle East completely, not by targeting tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies or enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

The NYT reports that the CentCom claim that the drone was in international airspace is in doubt: Trump Stopped Strike on Iran Because It Was 'Not Proportionate'

Still, there remained doubt inside the United States government over whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, this one flown by a military aircrew, did violate Iranian airspace at some point, according to a senior administration official.
..
The delay by United States Central Command in publicly releasing GPS coordinates of the drone when it was shot down -- hours after Iran did -- and errors in the labeling of the drone's flight path when the imagery was released, contributed to that doubt, officials said.

A lack of provable "hard evidence" about the location of the drone when it was hit, a defense official said, put the administration in an isolated position at what could easily end up being the start of yet another war with a Middle East adversary -- this one with a proven ability to strike back.

Laguerre , Jun 21, 2019 1:29:48 PM | 109
b, how can you believe any of Trump's versions? I can't see that one is more trustworthy than another
Uncle Jon , Jun 21, 2019 2:53:41 PM | 131
Listen to this horse manure coming from Brain Hook, "special" representative for Iran: "According to him, Washington was doing everything possible to defuse tensions with Iran and return the containment system in the region.

However, Hook blamed Tehran for rising tension in the region because of the refusal of any diplomatic initiatives.

"Our diplomacy does not give Iran the right to respond with military force. Iran needs to meet diplomacy with diplomacy, not military force," the envoy added."

Diplomacy needs to be met with diplomacy......Really???

Iran should impose sanctions on all of SA, UAE and US oil exports. How's that for diplomacy Mr. Hook? In case you missed it that is exactly what they are doing. Meeting your brand of diplomacy head on.

We are living in the realm of absurd. How is it that we have left the welfare of our kids, families and the future of our country in the hands of these incompetent morons?

And why is the rest of the world sitting with their popcorn watching this horror show?

karlof1 , Jun 21, 2019 2:58:26 PM | 132
h @124--

After reading the wiki item on P-8s having a normal crew of 7, I got to thinking about the 35 number either being a botched translation or how many bodies were noted via thermal imaging radar, something I doubt Iran was thought to possess. As I wrote, Iran can see everything to its West, which is a very BigDeal.

I digested Magnier's latest. The following is an extremely important point:

"Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel on the front line ."

Except that is an impossibility. The Zionists are smack dab in the middle of the front line with a massive crosshairs imprinted on their entirety. Occupied Palestine sits at Ground Zero, and it seems that the Zionists are finally waking up to the ultimate betrayal they'll experience at the hands of The Christian Rapturists -- they are to be Genocided in the pursuit of attempting to make a myth come to life.

Every writer, Magnier, b, Escobar, and most all barflies, etc, are saying the decision lies with Trump. As I've written before and again above, I disagree. The decision to go to war with Iran rests with the Current Oligarchy running the Outlaw US Empire. And it's my belief that such a war will not bring them A Few Dollars More and instead make their Fistful of Dollars evaporate rapidly. thanks to their great outstanding, naked, risks. For perhaps the very first time, the Current Oligarchy is exposed to the risks involved in a war it initially though it could win. Last night, it seemed to awaken to the potential consequences and blinked. The Philadelphia refinery blast may be shear coincidence or not, but it also has likely helped since its right down the street from the Current Oligarchies penthouses.

Now, it's just about the time of day when the Houthis launch their attacks.

Blooming Barricade , Jun 21, 2019 4:14:14 PM | 155
Watch the brilliant George Galloway on the consequences of war with Iran. Bottom line: only hardline Likudniks and FDD Likud USA types would approve such a disastrous move.

If America attacks and destroys Iran after doing the same to Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, the Islamic religion should semi-officially adopt anti-Americanism until the Empire falls, and it would be totally deserved. If we all go in, let us get a good thrashing.
_____

George Galloway has warned the US and its allies in the Gulf that if they were to start "World War III" with an attack on Iran they will live to regret it because, unlike Iraq in 2003, they are capable of fighting back.

The Scottish firebrand, who famously took US lawmakers to task over the Iraq war when he testified in front of the senate in 2005, has given his take on the recent ratcheting-up of tension in the Gulf region after Iran shot down a US drone, which, it says, had entered its airspace.

Washington maintains its UAV was shot down while patrolling over international waters in an "unprovoked attack." On Friday President Donald Trump took to Twitter to claim the US were 10 minutes away from bombing three Iranian sites, before calling off the strikes.

Galloway believes that many Iranians would see it as a great "pleasure to fight the United States and its allies in the region."

In a stark warning to US allies such as Qatar, the UAE and Saudia Arabia, Galloway insisted that any country that allows "its land to be used for the launching for an American attack on Iran will itself be immediately in flames."

The former Labour MP concludes his passionate message to the world by declaring: "No more war. No more war in the Gulf. No war on Iran."

https://youtu.be/ejvTPVvj_IE

El Cid , Jun 21, 2019 4:36:44 PM | 160
It is true that Trump needs to fire acting President Bolton. Bolton who was appointed to the NSA by Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli/American oligarch, will not allow Trump to fire Bolton; otherwise, he loses millions of $$$$. The pressure is also from Adelson and his neocon ilk.
Laguerre , Jun 21, 2019 4:40:29 PM | 163
I don't think my opinion has changed. There've been several cases where they've been about to attack Iran, but then have drawn back. Spring 2018 (Israel), 2012, even the event of 1980, where they tried but failed. Trump's aborted attack is just another case.

Iran is a big country, and won't be defeated unless the people are ready to abandon the regime. They aren't as far as I can detect. The exiles, and the middle class in Iran, hate the regime. I've just had a lot of that poured into my ears, during my visit to Iran a month ago. The popular feeling though doesn't seem to have abandoned the regime. I think we can expect a nationalist resistance, if indeed Trump does attack Iran.

c1ue , Jun 21, 2019 4:54:59 PM | 165
@Oscar Peterson #151

China has been complying with US sanctions on Iran, for example this article notes that China stopped buying oil from Iran . US direct trade with Iran isn't so much as issue as the US stopping Europe and China from trading with Iran.

[Jun 22, 2019] Too many of Obama efforts were in sync with Repubs

Obama did what Clinton wing of Dems wanted him to do. Dem party is the party of Wall Street oligarchy now.
Notable quotes:
"... "...Obama has been trying hard: On 20 July 2011, Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com headlined " Bipartisan Plan Summary Charts Confirm Key Deficit 'Cuts ' Come From Imminent Social Security Pillage," and this conservative website expressed shock at how amazingly Republican this plan was , which Obama was trying to ram through. The "bipartisan" Obama had reached farther into Republican territory than Republican politicians had even dared. .." ..."
"... Obama's 'Mandate' To Slash Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security," ..."
"... So he had a mandate to cut social security, but not one to pass single payer? Remember when we heard that he wouldn't allow single payer advocates in the room with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that we later learned that he had already made a deal with before the democrats worked on the hideously flawed ACA? And remember how pissed off people were when they learned what we were getting? But when Bernie was saying that we deserved universal health care people asked him how he was going to pay for it. And people cheered when Herheinous said that " universal health care will never ever happen." ..."
"... Obama also killed the anti war movement when he lied about Gaddafi's troops raping women and invaded Libya and then Syria. During his tenure states lost close to 1,000 seats. Finally after Obomber waltzed out of the WH people were so pissed off at him that they voted for Trump or against Hillary. ..."
"... In the end, the Clintons ushered in anti-New Deal Neoliberalism -- economics based on the Right Wing principles of 'greed is good' and 'monopolies are good for America' because they are good for Empire's global hegemony. At the end of his term, President Clinton signed a bill that revoked the last of the New Deal regulations that once protected the People from predatory capitalism. No sooner did Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette leave the White House for good, than the capitalists swooped into the "free market" and began asset-stripping and wage-stripping the American people -- beginning with the working poor and Black homeowners. Personal debt took off on a parabolic climb and it continues today, clouding everyone's future. ..."
"... I knew Obama wanted to cut social security, but not as early as he did. ..."
"... "I made you guys rich" he said not too long ago to the bank CEOs. And now he's getting rewarded for doing that. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

aliasalias on Fri, 06/21/2019 - 3:58pm

Too many of Obama's efforts were in sync with Repubs'

@jbob @jbob @jbob @jbob wishes when they formed no opposition at all on matters like making sure GWB's tax cuts weren't allowed to sunset, in fact what Obama did was even worse, Bush's tax cuts had that sunset clause, not so with Obama he made them permanent .

This includes "Obama's Long Battle to Cut Social Security Benefits"

"Back in 2009, he came into office wanting to address the long-term financial issue of Social Security not by removing the annual earnings-cap of around $100,000 that pertained (and above which income was/is untaxed for Social Security, so that this change alone could solve the problem), but instead by reducing retirement benefits to seniors: cutting the benefits they receive.

This man, Obama, who went along with George W. Bush's taxpayer-bailouts for Wall Street rather than institute bailouts of Main Street (the public) and who thereby produced continuation of the economic crash for everyone other than the nation's wealthiest 1% or 5%, was also aiming to serve the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else when it comes to long-term changes of Social Security."
".....On 16 January 2009, four days before Obama became President, Michael D. Shear headlined in the Washington Post, "Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform, " and he reported about " a wide-ranging 70 minute interview with Washington Post reporters and editors," in which Obama endorsed efforts by congressional Republicans , and "the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats," to cut Social Security and Medicare. Progressives were already disturbed at what their friends in Congress were leaking to them about Obama's strong commitment to doing this, and so a few blog posts were issued to ring alarm bells publicly about it. Paul Rosenberg at openleft.com headlined on January 17th (three days before Obama's Inauguration), regarding "Obama's 'Mandate' To Slash Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security,"

Remember the "Cat food Commission"?

"...Obama has been trying hard: On 20 July 2011, Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com headlined " Bipartisan Plan Summary Charts Confirm Key Deficit 'Cuts ' Come From Imminent Social Security Pillage," and this conservative website expressed shock at how amazingly Republican this plan was , which Obama was trying to ram through. The "bipartisan" Obama had reached farther into Republican territory than Republican politicians had even dared. .."

The following day, July 21st, Paul Kane bannered in the Washington Post, "Debt Talks Bring Tensions Between Democrats, Obama to Surface," and he reported that even top Democrats in the Senate – Reid, Kerry, Cantwell, Mikulsky, Lautenberg, and Feinstein – were shocked that the Democratic President was leaving them entirely out of the loop in his budget negotiations, and was negotiating only with leading Republicans . "

https://washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/obamas-long-battle-cut-social-securi...

snoopydawg on Fri, 06/21/2019 - 11:10pm
Remember right after the Great Recession

@aliasalias

Obama froze the federal wage for two years. Why did he think that was a good idea? For the same reason he lowballed the money for us little folks and refused to help the 9 million people who were losing their homes while the banks continued to commit fraud which he still didn't stop or prosecute.

From the article..

Obama's 'Mandate' To Slash Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security,"

So he had a mandate to cut social security, but not one to pass single payer? Remember when we heard that he wouldn't allow single payer advocates in the room with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that we later learned that he had already made a deal with before the democrats worked on the hideously flawed ACA? And remember how pissed off people were when they learned what we were getting? But when Bernie was saying that we deserved universal health care people asked him how he was going to pay for it. And people cheered when Herheinous said that " universal health care will never ever happen."

Obama also killed the anti war movement when he lied about Gaddafi's troops raping women and invaded Libya and then Syria. During his tenure states lost close to 1,000 seats. Finally after Obomber waltzed out of the WH people were so pissed off at him that they voted for Trump or against Hillary.

Pluto's Republic on Fri, 06/21/2019 - 4:26pm
Just to cut to the chase at the outset:

...Bernie's dilemma is an easily-exploited structural distortion that occurs because the Left is forced to share a Political Party with the Centrists and Center-Right in order for their voice to be heard. That's not going to change until the Left changes it.

Democratic operatives and the Democratic party elite can easily push this attitude from the inside, in subtle ways. When Bernie brings up marching with MLK (because the Democratic Party is not about to tout his bio and lend credence to Bernie's story), the Dems simply roll their eyes and mumble, "Here we go again." Or, "That story never gets old... to Bernie."

The Democrats have a long history of bamboozling Blacks. Contemplate the breathtaking betrayal of Blacks by the Clinton administration. Black lives and families were destroyed by heinous, unjust laws and by Democratic policies that weaponized the criminal justice against them. This has shattered and traumatized Black families for generations.

In the end, the Clintons ushered in anti-New Deal Neoliberalism -- economics based on the Right Wing principles of 'greed is good' and 'monopolies are good for America' because they are good for Empire's global hegemony. At the end of his term, President Clinton signed a bill that revoked the last of the New Deal regulations that once protected the People from predatory capitalism. No sooner did Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette leave the White House for good, than the capitalists swooped into the "free market" and began asset-stripping and wage-stripping the American people -- beginning with the working poor and Black homeowners. Personal debt took off on a parabolic climb and it continues today, clouding everyone's future.

But returning to Democratic operatives for a moment, do you know why Black leaders completely defaulted to the Clinton Administration, and why they went on to plant the seed of Democratic Party bamboozlement in their followers? It was in this cauldron that the current DC shitshow was made:

In the early years, following Martin Luther King's death, progressive social programs were slowly put into place to convey onto Blacks some of the same Liberties that white population enjoyed in the US. Public institutions were rendered color blind, by law. Blacks who wanted a good education found it easier to gain admittance and to find government grants to help pay for it. For Blacks who wanted to start their own businesses, there were advisors who offered them support and small business loans. Buying a home suddenly became a real option in Black communities. New mortgage banks opened that helped millions of Black residents take ownership. Labor unions continued to lift many out of poverty, and lifted more into the Middle Class for the first time.

Behind the scenes, however, there was obstruction. The Reagan and Bush I administrations did not make it easy for Black leaders to access the funding that had been earmarked for these programs. The bureaucracy put up walls and slow-walked the processes, deadlines were frequently missed, documents were misplaced, and there was a general indifference to their requests. But the arrival of the Clinton administration changed all that. A group of Democrats opened a special 'window' where Black Leaders could finally get the money to run the programs -- with none the hassle. This was enormously helpful and strong bonds developed between the Democratic Party and Black community activists.

The Democratic Party assumed that they had corralled the Black Vote -- as if Blacks were vending machines. Put in the right platitudes and out would come the expected votes. But I wonder about that.... The rising generation Black journalists I've been reading since the 2016 election, paint a different picture of this political relationship. They are skeptical of the words that politicians use. To them, 'MLK' is just another public holiday. Invoking the name Martin Luther King does not put food on the table, or pay for college, or protect them from daily government abuses. I think they know exactly who Joe Biden is and they are aware that the Democratic Party feels entitled to their votes -- even when the Party isn't fighting for economic justice and basic human rights, like universal healthcare. Perhaps it is it's their turn to triangulate for awhile -- and see if the Neoliberal Party leadership is going to respect their needs.

snoopydawg on Fri, 06/21/2019 - 4:53pm
You saved me from writing about Obama again

@dkmich

Thanks. Especially after reading aliasalias' comment. I knew Obama wanted to cut social security, but not as early as he did.

"I made you guys rich" he said not too long ago to the bank CEOs. And now he's getting rewarded for doing that.

Biden too has made speeches about cutting it and they are making the rounds on Twitter, but too many people aren't hearing about it and think that he's just a lovable ole Joe who sometimes talks funny and sticks his foot in his mouth. He is not. He was a ruthless during his tenure in congress and not enough of those videos are getting out.

As too his not having a racist bone in his body just listen to his speech on busing. Sure sounded racist to me. Of all the people he could have talked about back when congress was sane why did he choose one of the biggest racists to bring up? Because even though he was racist he could work with him? Nah..

to me that Lewis the civil rights leader was now sated and fat and had been replaced by Lewis the toadying politician who would screw anyone including his own if it suited him. Whoopi the same. When people get fat and comfortable for too long, they forget who they are and don't care who they've become. As long as it involves more for them, whatever it is, is fine with them.

When Lewis was called out for endorsing Clinton over Bernie, Whoopi for criticizing AOC as not respectful of her betters, of course their critics were called racists. A lament that never seems to get too old to the folks using it. While the old folks, white racists, and black militants wallow in and continue to argue over the past, the kids are moving way beyond them. Interracial relationships and biracial people are leaving it all behind. Soon no one will know what race or ethnicity anyone is.

I really don't know how Bernie stands it. I couldn't do it, certainly not at age 77. How many years now has he dragged his old and sorry ass around the country trying to improve peoples lives? In return all he gets some dumb ass in the audience chastising him for having fought for her equality. Fuck her. Fuck them. Fuck them all. From the Clintons and the media to the whiny people with their shorts in a knot over this or that ONE thing he failed to make better that they can't cope with or overcome - ever.

Divide and conquer is exactly what it is all about. Those that have theirs vs those that don't and making sure it stays that way. I am so tired of them, their game, and the victims. At what point does a victim wise up and quit being a victim or willingly become a willing participant in the game?

This story really pisses me off. Can you tell?

[Jun 22, 2019] A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.

Jun 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

interlocutor , Jun 21, 2019 6:13:43 PM | 186

The Babylon Bee: Report: Internet Users Who Call For Attacking Other Countries Will Now Be Enlisted In The Military Automatically

https://babylonbee.com/img/articles/article-4404-1.jpg

U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.

People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.

"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get them there on the frontlines?"

"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts who are just there for the paycheck," he added.

Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly ceased.

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[Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.

"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.

"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with.

They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the region, and Iran won't stand for that."

At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.

[Jun 22, 2019] Trump on Iran threat now and then

Oct 22, 2012 | www.unz.com

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!

11:43 AM 22 Oct 12 Twitter Web Client

[Jun 22, 2019] Tucker Carlson: John Bolton is a kind of bureaucratic tapeworm

Notable quotes:
"... "Try as you might, you can't expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself." ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Someone whose confidence Bolton does not enjoy is Carlson, a rival for Trump's ear. Carlson, a true believer, took to the airwaves to savage the ambassador Friday night. "John Bolton is a kind of bureaucratic tapeworm," Carlson said.

"Try as you might, you can't expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself."

[Jun 22, 2019] Russia Will Help Iran With Oil, Banking If Europe's SPV Payment Channel Not Launched

Notable quotes:
"... Europe is being clobbered by the USA on multiple fronts - at little cost to the USA: 1- Russian sanctions; 2- Oil - sanctioning Iran raises oil price and risks a blowout of prices; 3- Gas - sanctioning companies working on Russian gas and pipelines ..."
"... It's about the financial derivatives Iran, the derivatives.. The Europeans, even if they desired honesty, are shackled by their financial shenanigans.. One bad move on their part, and the Potemkin contraption collapses, wiping out the western 1%. They're trapped, and unlike before, war is a lose for them and why? ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

...Russia on Friday announced it was ready to help Iran export its crude and ease restrictions on its banking system if Europe fails to launch its dollar-evading SPV, Instex (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) with Tehran, according to Interfax and PressTV .

The three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), unveiled late in January the direct non-dollar payment mechanism meant to safeguard their trade ties with Tehran following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and in the face of the "toughest ever" sanctions imposed by the United States against the Islamic Republic. In its initial stage, INSTEX would facilitate trade of humanitarian goods such as medicine, food and medical devices, but it will later be expanded to cover other areas of trade, including Iran's oil sales.

However, it has not resulted in any trade deals so far. In late May, the US threatened Europe with " loss of access to the US financial system " if it rolled out the SWIFT-evading SPV, which appears to have crushed Europe's enthusiasm to pursue alternative financial transactions with Tehran, forcing it to conceded to Washington (again).

Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Moussavi said European governments have failed to meet their expectations in implementing INSTEX to protect the JCPOA, criticizing their "lack of will" to deal with America's pressure against Tehran.


marcel tjoeng , 4 hours ago link

What this means is, China will have access to a lot cheaper oil than western market prices, including to the hilt subsidized, with colossal hidden losses, US shale oil. Well done Trump. The Tariffs, Americuhns are the ones paying for those as well. Imbeciles.

TigerK , 8 hours ago link

We are seeing a return to "Gun Boat Diplomacy"... Even THAT will not work.. ultimately. Brinkmanship, of this order reveals a Disturbed mind.. the US criminal elite psyche.. Or as Jidu KrishnaMurti said so aptly..The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.

The USA continues to publicize its belief.. that it is the viral of democracy.. And leader of the Free World. Hollow words.. which it will be forced to eat.. before too long. That time of confrontation.. is Not Far OFF !! This desperation is that of a deranged mind.. that is going down the tube.. breaking down.. A society in free fall..

Ms No , 10 hours ago link

This is exactly how it will always work out when psychopaths are in charge because normal society doesnt manage them.They come from all backgrounds but some genetic varieties of people seem to have YUGE problems with it. I also believe inbreeding has a role.

ExPat2018 , 11 hours ago link

Necessity is the mother of invention. The USA is helping by making people inventors

Nassim , 12 hours ago link

Europe is being clobbered by the USA on multiple fronts - at little cost to the USA: 1- Russian sanctions; 2- Oil - sanctioning Iran raises oil price and risks a blowout of prices; 3- Gas - sanctioning companies working on Russian gas and pipelines

Mat Cauthon , 13 hours ago link

Of course China will follow. Russia's SPFS is already in planning to be alongside China's CIPS for the Silk Road 2.0.

costa ludus , 13 hours ago link

It's not the actual physical oil Russia is helping Iran with, numbnuts -- it is brokering and facilitating the sale of oil without having the Jewish shysters in London and NY involved - the same reason the Chinese set up their own oil bourse.

SoDamnMad , 12 hours ago link

Costa. People don't understand the system. The Brits bad mouthed Russia over the Novichok false flag incident last winter and jumped on the sanction crap. But they gladly accepted a load of LNG from a Rotterdam energy broker to keep their asses from freezing. It was Yamal LNG from RUSSIA. Brokers take the energy (including world-wide trades) and sell it off taking a small bit from each "barrel"as their profit.

stuvian , 14 hours ago link

To succeed in establishing an alternative to SWIFT there will need to be a critical mass of nations buying in

madashellron , 15 hours ago link

I'm sure the Iranians already know this. The EU is just an extension of US power. They were never serious about allowing the free flow of trade with the Iranians. One must get rid of the EU if a real Peace plan with Iran is to take place. But this will never happen under Trump.

madashellron , 15 hours ago link

Russia to the rescue again, and again and again and again...

Brazen Heist II , 16 hours ago link

European politicians are cucks bribed to the teeth by the evil empire to toe the Zionist line. Europe is all but an emasculated world power. Pathetic. Kick US forces out and take a ******* stand against all this ******** America is stirring on Europe's doorstep. Refugees, terrorism, bad relations with Russia....all thanks to the Anglo Zionists. Europeans keep taking it. The Marshall Plan guilt-trip is working well.

John Hansen , 11 hours ago link

Lets face a fact, the US government has been occupying Europe and Japan militarily since the end of WWII. They aren't so much allies as vassals.

Ms No , 10 hours ago link

True but the Zionist banker noghtmare spread to the US from the British empire, so Europe has been perpetually screwed, thus all the world wars that took place there, etc.

Flash007 , 9 hours ago link

Psychopaths and parasites are "smart" at ******* over others, (((da juice))) are masters at it.

ILikeMeat , 10 hours ago link

Europe is not a power, it is an artificial construction with no real leadership.No military to back its decisions and a bunch of feminists and homos that make up its culturally diverse parliaments. European women act like men and the men act like women. There is no fight left in Europe..

messystateofaffairs , 16 hours ago link

China and Russia need to preserve Iran for the BRI which is the lifeline for everyone who has had a belllyfull of JewSA ********. China and Russia will facilitate Iranian trade and Iranian nuclear ICBM peacemakers will soon follow.

Cassandra.Hermes , 16 hours ago link

Trump is loosing, he scares Europeans and Turks but don't let be fooled, Americans are not allowed near Iranian border of Turkey, why do you think is that restriction?

Wahooo , 13 hours ago link

Because gold and oil are two of Turkey's main exports.

Scipio Africanuz , 16 hours ago link

It's about the financial derivatives Iran, the derivatives.. The Europeans, even if they desired honesty, are shackled by their financial shenanigans.. One bad move on their part, and the Potemkin contraption collapses, wiping out the western 1%. They're trapped, and unlike before, war is a lose for them and why?

Because the kinetic advantage is no longer with them, it's now in the East. Nevertheless, their innocent youth can still be salvaged, provided they desire salvage. No more impunity without retribution, cheers...

Thordoom , 16 hours ago link

So India stop importing Iranian oil in order to buy the same oil from Russia for much more since thy where buying that same oil from Iran at great discount. India looks to Russian crude as Iranian imports crash

https://www.rt.com/business/462396-india-russia-oil-supplies/

SoDamnMad , 12 hours ago link

Trump told Modi he would drop tariffs on Indian IT work unless they towed the line. Modi folded.

alexcojones , 17 hours ago link

Good old Vlad, Mr. Putin being a statesman again.Wish we had some of those in "our" country, said this old US veteran

johand inmywallet , 17 hours ago link

No country will win WWIII, everyone will lose.

Brazen Heist II , 16 hours ago link

Some deluded folks still think they have a first strike advantage. LOL No really, we can win this if you "trust" me.

[Jun 22, 2019] Who Survives The Iran Counter-Offensive

Notable quotes:
"... Trump is right that he can afford to be patient and now re-frame this as him being the magnanimous God-Emperor but what he's really doing is talking capital markets off a cliff. ..."
"... Because that's where the U.S. is the most vulnerable and where Iran's greatest leverage lies. This incident should have sent oil prices far higher than they did if the threat of war was real. ..."
"... Why? Because the markets discounted the U.S.'s stories immediately. There have been so many incidents like this that should have started a war in the past three years which turn out to be bogus that the market reaction was muted, at best. ..."
"... As Pepe Escobar lays out convincingly in his latest article, Iran's threats against global oil shipping aren't aimed at disrupting the global economy per se. There's plenty of oil stored in Strategic Reserves around the world to keep things operating during any U.S. military operation to destroy Iran's navy (which wouldn't take very long) and open the strait to oil traffic. ..."
"... It is that a disruption in the price of oil will force the unwinding of trillions in interest rate swap derivatives already at risk because of the tenuous hold on reality Deutsche Bank has, since DB clears a super-majority of all such derivative contracts for the whole of Europe. ..."
"... Last week I asked whether Trump's "B-Team" overplayed their hand in the Gulf of Oman , staging a potential false flag over some oil tankers to stop peace breaking out and arrest the slide in oil prices. Today everyone wants to think Iran overplayed its hand by attacking this drone. But given the amount mendacity and the motivations of the people involved, I'd say that it was yet another attempt by the enemies of peace to push us to the brink of a world war in which nothing good comes of it. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Luongo,

Iran has had enough. I think it's fair to say that after 60+ years of U.S. aggression towards Iran that the decision to shoot down a U.S. drone represents an inflection point in world politics.

In the first few hours after the incident the fog of war was thick. But a day later much of it has cleared thanks to Iran's purposeful poke at U.S. leadership by coming clean with their intentions.

Iran chose to shoot down this drone versus hitting the manned P-8 aircraft and then chose not to lie about it in public, but rather come forward removing any deniability they could have had.

me title=

They did this after President Trump's comments yesterday during a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau where Trump described the attack as "a big mistake" and "not intentional."

But it was intentional.

And the reason for this was that despite Trump's assurances yesterday there is considerable debate as to where the drone actually was. According to a report from the NY Times (and buried deep in a very long article):

Still, there remained doubt inside the United States government over whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, this one flown by a military aircrew, did violate Iranian airspace at some point, according to a senior administration official. The official said the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike -- which could under international norms be viewed as an act of war.

The delay by United States Central Command in publicly releasing GPS coordinates of the drone when it was shot down -- hours after Iran did -- and errors in the labeling of the drone's flight path when the imagery was released, contributed to that doubt, officials said.

A lack of provable "hard evidence" about the location of the drone when it was hit, a defense official said, put the administration in an isolated position at what could easily end up being the start of yet another war with a Middle East adversary -- this one with a proven ability to strike back.

This means a couple of things. First, it is likely that Trump was not properly briefed on the issue by his National Security Council, who were pushing him to strike back hard and who are itching to get the U.S. into an armed conflict with Iran.

Framing the attack as a mistake Trump was handing Iran the opportunity to de-escalate things. To me, this signaled that Trump was told through back channels this was an operation designed by us to put Iran in a no-win situation -- either allow encroachment of their airspace or shoot down a drone that would land in international waters.

Moreover, doubts as to the drone's position, remember, with a plane carrying actual ordnance on its wing, put Trump in a real bind.

And he knew it at the presser. That's the way Trump tried to frame this the way he did. Because the implications here are that he is being boxed in on all sides by his administration and his allies -- the Saudis, Israelis and the UAE -- and frogmarched to a war he doesn't want.

He wants Iran to heel but he doesn't know how to go about it.

That Iran then chose the next day to openly declare that they were not confused or misled and knew exactly what they were doing puts Trump in an even worse position.

Because an unmanned drone, as he said in his futile tweetstorm, is not worth going to war over, especially one whose position in in dispute.

And everyone knows it. Europe wouldn't condemn Iran here. No one did. Only the U.S. And that silence is deafening as Pompeo, Bolton and Haspel again over-extend themselves.

Trump is right that he can afford to be patient and now re-frame this as him being the magnanimous God-Emperor but what he's really doing is talking capital markets off a cliff.

Because that's where the U.S. is the most vulnerable and where Iran's greatest leverage lies. This incident should have sent oil prices far higher than they did if the threat of war was real.

Why? Because the markets discounted the U.S.'s stories immediately. There have been so many incidents like this that should have started a war in the past three years which turn out to be bogus that the market reaction was muted, at best.

It also tells you just how quickly the global economy is slowing down if a major military incident between Iran and the U.S. near the Strait of Hormuz only pushed the price of Brent Crude up to fill the gap on the weekly chart and confirm the recent low.

... ... ...

As Pepe Escobar lays out convincingly in his latest article, Iran's threats against global oil shipping aren't aimed at disrupting the global economy per se. There's plenty of oil stored in Strategic Reserves around the world to keep things operating during any U.S. military operation to destroy Iran's navy (which wouldn't take very long) and open the strait to oil traffic.

It is that a disruption in the price of oil will force the unwinding of trillions in interest rate swap derivatives already at risk because of the tenuous hold on reality Deutsche Bank has, since DB clears a super-majority of all such derivative contracts for the whole of Europe.

No one wants to see $300 per barrel oil. That Goldman Sachs is posting potential targets of $1000 per barrel tells you where they are positioning themselves, as if they know something? Goldman? Have insider knowledge?

Please! It is to laugh.

What we are looking at here is the ultimate game of brinkmanship. Trump is saying his maximum pressure campaign will break Iran in the end and if they go one step further (which they won't directly) he will eliminate them.

Iran, on the other hand, is stating categorically that if Trump doesn't allow Iran to trade than no one will. And that threat is a real one, given their regional influence. Incalculable financial and political damage can be done by Iran and its proxies around the region through attacks on oil and gas infrastructure. Governments will fall, markets will collapse. And no one gets out without scars.

It's the kind of stand-off that needs to end with everyone walking away and regrouping but is unlikely to do so because of entrenched interests on both sides and the historical grudges of the men involved.

What's important is to know that the rules of the game have changed. Iran has taken all the punches to the nose it will take from Trump without retaliating. When you corner someone and give them no way out you invite the worst kind of counter-attack.

Last week I asked whether Trump's "B-Team" overplayed their hand in the Gulf of Oman , staging a potential false flag over some oil tankers to stop peace breaking out and arrest the slide in oil prices. Today everyone wants to think Iran overplayed its hand by attacking this drone. But given the amount mendacity and the motivations of the people involved, I'd say that it was yet another attempt by the enemies of peace to push us to the brink of a world war in which nothing good comes of it.

I give Trump a lot of credit here for not falling into the trap set for him. He now has to begin removing those responsible for this quagmire and I'm sure that will be on the docket when he meets with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping next week at the G-20.

It starts with John Bolton and it ends with Mike Pompeo.

And if he doesn't replace them in the next six to eight weeks then we know Trump isn't serious about keeping us out of war. He's just interested in doing so until he gets re-elected

[Jun 22, 2019] this report on the Ufa, Russia Security Conference by both Iranian and Outlaw US Empire officials. The entire article requires reading, but this is the most relevant excerpt that has some links in the original I won't duplicate:

Jun 22, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

"Given current global events, the most significant attendees in Ufa are a senior US National Security Council member and the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani. As of now, the only official news comes from Ali Shamkhani's words concerning the possibility of mediation with the US and the possibility of Iran acquiring weapons systems to fend off US threats. Shamkhani stated:

"'We currently face demonstrative threats. Nevertheless, when it comes to air defense of our country, we consider using the foreign potential in addition to our domestic capacities Mediation is out of question in the current situation. The United States has unilaterally withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has flouted its obligations and it has introduced illegal sanctions against Iran. The United States should return to the starting point and correct its own mistakes. This process needs no mediation.'

"'This [gradually boosting of uranium enrichment and heavy water production beyond the levels outlined in the JCPOA] is a serious decision of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] and we will continue doing it step by step until JCPOA violators move toward agreement and return to fulfilling their obligations. [If JCPOA participants do not comply with the deal, Iran will be reducing its commitments] step by step within legal mechanisms that the JCPOA envisions.'"

It was noted by b that the Outlaw US Empire faces a growing international coalition against its actions, which results from sentiments made at the rather many recent international conferences that have already occurred in June that will be topped by G-20 in 8 days. That admission along with the stark mostly unreported economic realities of any armed conflict in the Gulf region is what restrains the war mongers. The Money Power and the Current Oligarchy won't allow war is what I see. And that makes this Friday morning pleasant despite the fog.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 21, 2019 12:01:59 PM | 86

Posted by: Anon | Jun 21, 2019 8:04:55 AM | 29 (boring that it's yet another Anon, who can't be bothered to distinguish himself all from the other thousands of Anons)
the stage is now maximum restraint and effort at co-operation, which Iran will be expected to respect. That means one more act against US (or false flag by US) and strikes will occur. Not comparable to hostage crisis, here US is projecting being reasonable, even if you read that as being weak.
It's not me who reading the US as weak. It will be the attitude of the Iranians, who haven't forgotten the US failure in 1980 (April 24, 1980), as opposed to the US public for whom it is so many crises ago that they've forgotten. And the Iranians are right. Trump hesitated, as every previous attempt to launch a strike on Iran has finished finally in a stand-down. The risks are just too great (for what the US public is prepared to accept). And we've just seen it happen again. They might be able to screw themselves up to go through with it, and accept the losses and stalemate that will come, but it will do no good at all for Trump's re-election chances.

Posted by: Laguerre | Jun 21, 2019 12:05:23 PM | 88

Posted by: Mikael Kallavuo | Jun 21, 2019 12:19:06 PM | 91 Well it looks like Elijah Magnier has finally written the piece he was hinting at releasing yesterday. Here it is:


Iran is pushing US President Donald Trump to the edge of the abyss, raising the level of tensions to new heights in the Middle East. After the sabotage of four tankers at al-Fujairah and the attack on the Aramco pipeline a month ago, and last week's attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC – now categorized by the USA as a terrorist body) yesterday shot down a US Navy drone, sending two clear messages. The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war, no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US President has cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his electoral campaign.

According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump be allowed to bomb one, two or three clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out as winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy beach in Iran would trigger a missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.

...

Moreover, Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have increased their level of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary. According to sources, Iran's allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly organised, orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months.

Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the Middle East completely, not by targeting tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies or enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

...

Iran's economy is under attack by Trump's embargo on Iranian oil exports. Trump refuses to lift the embargo and wants to negotiate first. Trump, unlike Israel and the hawks in his administration, is trying to avoid a shooting war. Netanyahu has reiteratedhis desire for war with Iran -- a war that the US will fight–and is meeting with his Arab allies to help bring it about. As Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel on the front line.


Posted by: jsb | Jun 21, 2019 12:20:15 PM | 92

Trump just confirmed my hunch that there was no final decision to strike.
Meet the Press @MeetThePress - 16:50 UTC - 21 Jun 2019

EXCLUSIVE: In an exclusive interview with Chuck Todd, President Donald Trump says he hadn't given final approval to Iran strikes, no planes were in the air.

Also Elijah Magnier's piece is out:

Iran and Trump on the edge of the abyss

The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war, no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US President has cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his electoral campaign. According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump be allowed to bomb one or two clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out as winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy beach in Iran would trigger a missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.
...
Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have increased their level of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary. According to sources, Iran's allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly organised, orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months.
...
Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the Middle East completely, not by targeting tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies or enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

The NYT reports that the CentCom claim that the drone was in international airspace is in doubt:
Trump Stopped Strike on Iran Because It Was 'Not Proportionate'

Still, there remained doubt inside the United States government over whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, this one flown by a military aircrew, did violate Iranian airspace at some point, according to a senior administration official.
..
The delay by United States Central Command in publicly releasing GPS coordinates of the drone when it was shot down -- hours after Iran did -- and errors in the labeling of the drone's flight path when the imagery was released, contributed to that doubt, officials said.

A lack of provable "hard evidence" about the location of the drone when it was hit, a defense official said, put the administration in an isolated position at what could easily end up being the start of yet another war with a Middle East adversary -- this one with a proven ability to strike back.


Posted by: b | Jun 21, 2019 1:23:18 PM | 107 b, how can you believe any of Trump's versions? I can't see that one is more trustworthy than another

Posted by: Laguerre | Jun 21, 2019 1:29:48 PM | 109

Listen to this horse manure coming from Brain Hook, "special" representative for Iran:

"According to him, Washington was doing everything possible to defuse tensions with Iran and return the containment system in the region.

However, Hook blamed Tehran for rising tension in the region because of the refusal of any diplomatic initiatives.

"Our diplomacy does not give Iran the right to respond with military force. Iran needs to meet diplomacy with diplomacy, not military force," the envoy added."

Diplomacy needs to be met with diplomacy......Really???

Iran should impose sanctions on all of SA, UAE and US oil exports. How's that for diplomacy Mr. Hook? In case you missed it that is exactly what they are doing. Meeting your brand of diplomacy head on.

We are living in the realm of absurd. How is it that we have left the welfare of our kids, families and the future of our country in the hands of these incompetent morons?

And why is the rest of the world sitting with their popcorn watching this horror show?

Posted by: Uncle Jon | Jun 21, 2019 2:53:41 PM | 131 h @124--

After reading the wiki item on P-8s having a normal crew of 7, I got to thinking about the 35 number either being a botched translation or how many bodies were noted via thermal imaging radar, something I doubt Iran was thought to possess. As I wrote, Iran can see everything to its West, which is a very BigDeal.

I digested Magnier's latest. The following is an extremely important point:

"Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel on the front line ."

Except that is an impossibility. The Zionists are smack dab in the middle of the front line with a massive crosshairs imprinted on their entirety. Occupied Palestine sits at Ground Zero, and it seems that the Zionists are finally waking up to the ultimate betrayal they'll experience at the hands of The Christian Rapturists--they are to be Genocided in the pursuit of attempting to make a myth come to life.

Every writer, Magnier, b, Escobar, and most all barflies, etc, are saying the decision lies with Trump. As I've written before and again above, I disagree. The decision to go to war with Iran rests with the Current Oligarchy running the Outlaw US Empire. And it's my belief that such a war will not bring them A Few Dollars More and instead make their Fistful of Dollars evaporate rapidly. thanks to their great outstanding, naked, risks. For perhaps the very first time, the Current Oligarchy is exposed to the risks involved in a war it initially though it could win. Last night, it seemed to awaken to the potential consequences and blinked. The Philadelphia refinery blast may be shear coincidence or not, but it also has likely helped since its right down the street from the Current Oligarchies penthouses.

Now, it's just about the time of day when the Houthis launch their attacks.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 21, 2019 2:58:26 PM | 132

Watch the brilliant George Galloway on the consequences of war with Iran. Bottom line: only hardline Likudniks and FDD Likud USA types would approve such a disastrous move.

If America attacks and destroys Iran after doing the same to Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, the Islamic religion should semi-officially adopt anti-Americanism until the Empire falls, and it would be totally deserved. If we all go in, let us get a good thrashing.
_____

George Galloway has warned the US and its allies in the Gulf that if they were to start "World War III" with an attack on Iran they will live to regret it because, unlike Iraq in 2003, they are capable of fighting back.

The Scottish firebrand, who famously took US lawmakers to task over the Iraq war when he testified in front of the senate in 2005, has given his take on the recent ratcheting-up of tension in the Gulf region after Iran shot down a US drone, which, it says, had entered its airspace.

Washington maintains its UAV was shot down while patrolling over international waters in an "unprovoked attack." On Friday President Donald Trump took to Twitter to claim the US were 10 minutes away from bombing three Iranian sites, before calling off the strikes.

Galloway believes that many Iranians would see it as a great "pleasure to fight the United States and its allies in the region."

In a stark warning to US allies such as Qatar, the UAE and Saudia Arabia, Galloway insisted that any country that allows "its land to be used for the launching for an American attack on Iran will itself be immediately in flames."

The former Labour MP concludes his passionate message to the world by declaring: "No more war. No more war in the Gulf. No war on Iran."

https://youtu.be/ejvTPVvj_IE

Posted by: Blooming Barricade | Jun 21, 2019 4:14:14 PM | 155

It is true that Trump needs to fire acting President Bolton. Bolton who was appointed to the NSA by Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli/American oligarch, will not allow Trump to fire Bolton; otherwise, he loses millions of $$$$. The pressure is also from Adelson and his neocon ilk.

Posted by: El Cid | Jun 21, 2019 4:36:44 PM | 160

I don't think my opinion has changed. There've been several cases where they've been about to attack Iran, but then have drawn back. Spring 2018 (Israel), 2012, even the event of 1980, where they tried but failed. Trump's aborted attack is just another case.

Iran is a big country, and won't be defeated unless the people are ready to abandon the regime. They aren't as far as I can detect. The exiles, and the middle class in Iran, hate the regime. I've just had a lot of that poured into my ears, during my visit to Iran a month ago. The popular feeling though doesn't seem to have abandoned the regime. I think we can expect a nationalist resistance, if indeed Trump does attack Iran.

Posted by: Laguerre | Jun 21, 2019 4:40:29 PM | 163

@Oscar Peterson #151
China has been complying with US sanctions on Iran, for example this article notes that China stopped buying oil from Iran .
US direct trade with Iran isn't so much as issue as the US stopping Europe and China from trading with Iran.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 21, 2019 4:54:59 PM | 165

[Jun 22, 2019] Why a U.S.-Iran War Could End Up Being a Historic Disaster by Doug Bandow

Highly recommended!
The current conflict is about the US hegemony in the region, not anything else.
The analysis is really good. I especially like "The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender"
That means that Doug Bandow proposals while good are completely unrealistic.
Notable quotes:
"... Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East. ..."
"... Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are? ..."
"... Washington did much to encourage a violent, extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn. ..."
"... The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace. ..."
"... Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well. Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran. ..."
"... Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism. ..."
"... Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington, ascendant in Tehran. ..."
"... Europeans also point to Bush administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War. Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response. ..."
"... Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the mother of all Mideast conflagrations. ..."
"... In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions, requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. ..."
"... Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires a freer society. ..."
Jun 22, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East.

Thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded and maimed U.S. personnel, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and millions of Iraqis displaced. There was the sectarian conflict, destruction of the historic Christian community, the creation of Al Qaeda in Iraq—which morphed into the far deadlier Islamic State—and the enhanced influence of Iran. The prime question was how could so many supposedly smart people be so stupid?

Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are?

The Iranian regime is malign. Nevertheless, despite being under almost constant siege it has survived longer than the U.S.-crafted dictatorship which preceded the Islamic Republic. And the latter did not arise in a vacuum. Washington did much to encourage a violent, extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn.

In 1953 the United States backed a coup against democratically selected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Washington then aided the Shah in consolidating power, including the creation of the secret police, known as SAVAK. He forcibly modernized Iran’s still conservative Islamic society, while his corrupt and repressive rule united secular and religious Iranians against him.

The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace.

Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well. Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran.

As Henry Kissinger reportedly once said, even a paranoid can have enemies. Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism.

The hostile relationship with Iran also has allowed Saudi Arabia, which routinely undercuts American interests and values, to gain a dangerous stranglehold over U.S. policy. To his credit President Barack Obama attempted to rebalance Washington’s Mideast policy. The result was the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It provided for an intrusive inspection regime designed to discourage any future Iranian nuclear weapons program—which U.S. intelligence indicated had been inactive since 2003.

However, candidate Donald Trump had an intense and perverse desire to overturn every Obama policy. His tight embrace of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ignored the advice of his security chiefs in denouncing the accord, and the Saudi royals, who Robert Gates once warned would fight Iran to the last American, also likely played an important role.

Last year the president withdrew from the accord and followed with a declaration of economic war. He then declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military organization, to be a terrorist group. (Washington routinely uses the “terrorist” designation for purely political purposes.) Finally, there are reports, officially denied by Washington, that U.S. forces, allied with Islamist radicals—the kind of extremists responsible for most terrorist attacks on Americans—have been waging a covert war against Iranian smuggling operations.

The president claimed that he wanted to negotiate: “We aren’t looking for regime change,” he said. “We are looking for no nuclear weapons.” But that is what the JCPOA addressed. His policy is actually pushing Tehran to expand its nuclear program. Moreover, last year Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech that the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian, who spent more than a year in Iranian prison, called “silly” and “completely divorced from reality.”

In a talk to an obsequious Heritage Foundation audience, Pompeo set forth the terms of Tehran’s surrender: Iran would be expected to abandon any pretense of maintaining an independent foreign policy and yield its deterrent missile capabilities, leaving it subservient to Saudi Arabia, with the latter’s U.S.-supplied and -trained military. Tehran could not even cooperate with other governments, such as Syria, at their request. The only thing missing from Pompeo’s remarks was insistence that Iran accept an American governor-general in residence.

The proposal was a nonstarter and looked like the infamous 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, which was intended to be rejected and thereby justify war. After all, National Security Advisor John Bolton expressed his policy preference in a 2015 New York Times op-ed titled: “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” Whatever the president’s true intentions, Tehran can be forgiven for seeing Washington’s position as one of regime change, by war if necessary.

The administration apparently assumed that new, back-breaking sanctions would either force the regime to surrender at the conference table or collapse amid political and social conflict. Indeed, when asked if he really believed sanctions would change Tehran’s behavior, Pompeo answered that “what can change is, the people can change the government.” Both Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations have recently argued that the Islamic Republic is an exhausted regime, one that is perhaps on its way to extinction.

However, Rezaian says “there is nothing new” about Tehran’s difficult Iranian economic problems. “Assuming that this time around the Iranian people can compel their government to bend to America’s will seems—at least to anyone who has spent significant time in Iran in recent decades—fantastical,” he said. Gerecht enthusiasm for U.S. warmaking has led to mistakes in the past. He got Iraq wrong seventeen years ago when he wrote that “a war with Iraq might not shake up the Middle East much at all.

Today the administration is using a similar strategy against Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. The citizens of these countries have not risen against their oppressors to establish a new, democratic, pro-American regime. Numerous observers wrongly predicted that the Castro regime would die after the end of Soviet subsidies and North Korea’s inevitable fall in the midst of a devastating famine. Moreover, regime collapse isn’t likely to yield a liberal, democratic republic when the most radical, authoritarian elites remain best-armed.

... ... ...

More important, Washington does not want to go to war with Iran, which is larger than Iraq, has three times the population, and is a real country. The regime, while unpopular with many Iranians, is much better rooted than Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Tehran possesses unconventional weapons, missiles, and allies which could spread chaos throughout the region. American forces in Syria and Iraq would be vulnerable, while Baghdad’s stability could be put at risk. If Americans liked the Iraq debacle, then they would love the chaos likely to result from attempting to violently destroy the Iranian state. David Frum, one of the most avid neoconservative advocates of the Iraq invasion, warned that war with Iran would repeat Iraqi blunders on “a much bigger sale, without allies, without justification, and without any plan at all for what comes next.”

Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington, ascendant in Tehran.

Carefully calibrated military action, such as tanker attacks, might be intended to show “resolve” to gain credibility. Washington policymakers constantly justify military action as necessary to demonstrate that they are willing to take military action. Doing so is even more important for a weaker power. Moreover, observed the Eurasia Group, Iranian security agencies “have a decades-long history of conducting attacks and other operations aimed precisely at undermining the diplomatic objectives of a country’s elected representatives.” If Iran is responsible, observed Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, then administration policy perversely “is rendering Iran more aggressive, not less,” thereby making the Mideast more, not less dangerous

Of course, Tehran has denied any role in the attacks and there is good reason to question unsupported Trump administration claims of Iranian guilt. The president’s indifferent relationship to the truth alone raises serious questions. Europeans also point to Bush administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War. Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response.

Other malicious actors also could be responsible for tanker attacks. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, ISIS, and Al Qaeda all likely believe they would benefit from an American war on Tehran and might decide to speed the process along by fomenting an incident. Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the mother of all Mideast conflagrations.

Rather than continue a military spiral upward, Washington should defuse Gulf tensions. The administration brought the Middle East to a boil. It can calm the waters. Washington should stand down its military, offering to host multilateral discussions with oil consuming nations, energy companies, and tanker operators over establishing shared naval security in sensitive waterways, including in the Middle East. Given America’s growing domestic energy production, the issue no longer should be considered Washington’s responsibility. Other wealthy industrialized states should do what is necessary for their economic security.

The administration also should make a serious proposal for talks. It won’t be easy. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared “negotiation has no benefit and carries harm.” He further argued that “negotiations are a tactic of this pressure,” which is the ultimate “strategic aim.” Even President Hassan Rouhani rejected contact without a change in U.S. policy. “Whenever they lift the unjust sanctions and fulfill their commitments and return to the negotiations table, which they left themselves, the door is not closed,” he said. In back channel discussions Iranians supposedly suggested that the U.S. reverse the latest sanctions, at least on oil sales, ending attempts to wreck Iran’s economy.

If the president seriously desires talks with Tehran, then he should demonstrate that he does not expect preemptive surrender. The administration should suspend its “maximum pressure” campaign and propose multilateral talks on tightening the nuclear agreement in return for additional American and allied concessions, such as further sanctions relief.

In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions, requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. Tehran has far greater interest in neighborhood security than the United States, which Washington must respect if the latter seeks to effectively disarm Iran. The administration should invite the Europeans to join such an initiative, since they have an even greater reason to worry about Iranian missiles and more.

Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires a freer society. That requires greater engagement, not isolation. Washington’s ultimate objective should be the liberal transformation of Iran, freeing an ancient civilization to regain its leading role in today’s world, which would have a huge impact on the region.

The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender. This approach has failed in every case. Washington has caused enormous economic hardship, but no target regime has capitulated. In Iran, like North Korea, U.S. policy sharply raised tensions and the chances of conflict.

War would be a disaster. Instead, the administration must, explained James Fallows, “through bluff and patience, change the actions of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited.” Which requires the administration to adopt a new, more serious strategy toward Tehran, and quickly.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.

[Jun 22, 2019] Why The Empire Is Failing The Horrid Hubris Of The Albright Doctrine by Doug Bandow

Highly recommended!
Bolton is just Albright of different sex. The same aggressive stupidity.
Notable quotes:
"... Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob... ..."
"... How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem appropriate. ..."
"... Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity. ..."
"... Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela. ..."
"... "If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." ..."
"... Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe. ..."
"... Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states. ..."
"... Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. ..."
"... The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government. This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious hypocrisy and bias, and more. ..."
"... At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia. ..."
"... Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established by Washington's far-sighted leaders. ..."
"... When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." ..."
"... For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal of Albright and her peers in The Blob. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Doug Bandow via National Interest,

Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob...

How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem appropriate.

Since 9/11, Washington has been extraordinarily active militarily -- invading two nations, bombing and droning several others, deploying special operations forces in yet more countries, and applying sanctions against many. Tragically, the threat of Islamist violence and terrorism only have metastasized. Although Al Qaeda lost its effectiveness in directly plotting attacks, it continues to inspire national offshoots. Moreover, while losing its physical "caliphate" the Islamic State added further terrorism to its portfolio.

Three successive administrations have ever more deeply ensnared the United States in the Middle East. War with Iran appears to be frighteningly possible. Ever-wealthier allies are ever-more dependent on America. Russia is actively hostile to the United States and Europe. Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity.

Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela.

U.S. foreign policy suffers from systematic flaws in the thinking of the informal policy collective which former Obama aide Ben Rhodes dismissed as "The Blob." Perhaps no official better articulated The Blob's defective precepts than Madeleine Albright, United Nations ambassador and Secretary of State.

First is overweening hubris. In 1998 Secretary of State Albright declared that

"If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."

Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe.

U.S. officials rarely were prepared for events that occurred in the next week or month, let alone years later. Americans did no better than the French in Vietnam. Americans managed events in Africa no better than the British, French, and Portuguese colonial overlords. Washington made more than its share of bad, even awful decisions in dealing with other nations around the globe.

Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states.

The U.S. record since September 11 has been uniquely counterproductive. Rather than minimize hostility toward America, Washington adopted a policy -- highlighted by launching new wars, killing more civilians, and ravaging additional societies -- guaranteed to create enemies, exacerbate radicalism, and spread terrorism. Blowback is everywhere. Among the worst examples: Iraqi insurgents mutated into ISIS, which wreaked military havoc throughout the Middle East and turned to terrorism.

Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. When queried 1996 about her justification for sanctions against Iraq which had killed a half million babies -- notably, she did not dispute the accuracy of that estimate -- she responded that "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Exactly who "we" were she did not say. Most likely she meant those Americans admitted to the foreign policy priesthood, empowered to make foreign policy and take the practical steps necessary to enforce it. (She later stated of her reply: "I never should have made it. It was stupid." It was, but it reflected her mindset.)

In any normal country, such a claim would be shocking -- a few people sitting in another capital deciding who lived and died. Foreign elites, a world away from the hardship that they imposed, deciding the value of those dying versus the purported interests being promoted. Those paying the price had no voice in the decision, no way to hold their persecutors accountable.

The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government. This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious hypocrisy and bias, and more.

This mindset is reinforced by contempt toward even those being aided by Washington. Although American diplomats had termed the Kosovo Liberation Army as "terrorist," the Clinton Administration decided to use the growing insurgency as an opportunity to expand Washington's influence. At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia.

However, initially the KLA, determined on independence, refused to sign Albright's agreement. She exploded. One of her officials anonymously complained: "Here is the greatest nation on earth pleading with some nothingballs to do something entirely in their own interest -- which is to say yes to an interim agreement -- and they stiff us." Someone described as "a close associate" observed: "She is so stung by what happened. She's angry at everyone -- the Serbs, the Albanians and NATO." For Albright, the determination of others to achieve their own goals, even at risk to their lives, was an insult to America and her.

Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established by Washington's far-sighted leaders.

As Albright famously asked Colin Powell in 1992:

"What's the use of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" To her, American military personnel apparently were but gambit pawns in a global chess game, to be sacrificed for the interest and convenience of those playing. No wonder then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell's reaction stated in his autobiography was: "I thought I would have an aneurysm."

When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." Although sixty-five years had passed, she admitted that "my mindset is Munich," a unique circumstance and threat without even plausible parallel today.

Such a philosophy explains a 1997 comment by a cabinet member, likely Albright, to General Hugh Shelton, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?" He responded sure, as soon as she qualified to fly the plane.

For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal of Albright and her peers in The Blob.

Anyone of these comments could be dismissed as a careless aside. Taken together, however, they reflect an attitude dangerous for Americans and foreigners alike. Unfortunately, the vagaries of U.S. foreign policy suggest that this mindset is not limited to any one person. Any president serious about taking a new foreign-policy direction must do more than drain the swamp. He or she must sideline The Blob.

* * *

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .

[Jun 22, 2019] How Madeleine Albright Got the War the U.S. Wanted by Gregory Elich

Notable quotes:
"... Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war. ..."
"... U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia. ..."
"... It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private. ..."
"... "Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'" Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii] ..."
"... As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern. ..."
"... Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states: ..."
"... Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region. ..."
"... Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii] ..."
"... The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air. ..."
"... The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii] ..."
"... Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise. ..."
"... Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich ..."
May 13, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Region: Europe , USA Theme: History , US NATO War Agenda

Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war.

The talks opened on February 6, 1999, in Rambouillet, France. Officially, the negotiations were led by a Contact Group comprised of U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill , European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch , and Russian diplomat Boris Mayorsky . All decisions were supposed to be jointly agreed upon by all three members of the Contact Group. In actual practice, the U.S. ran the show all the way and routinely bypassed Petritsch and Mayorsky on essential matters.

Ibrahim Rugova , an ethnic Albanian activist who advocated nonviolence, was expected to play a major role in the Albanian secessionist delegation. Joining him at Rambouillet was Fehmi Agani , a fellow member of Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright regularly sidelined Rugova, however, preferring to rely on delegation members from the hardline Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which had routinely murdered Serbs, Roma, and Albanians in Kosovo who worked for the government or opposed separatism. Only a few months before the conference, KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti spelled out his organization's vision of a future Kosovo as separate and ethnically pure:

"The independence of Kosovo is the only solution We cannot live together. That is excluded." [i]

Rugova had at one time engaged in fairly productive talks with Yugoslav officials, and his willingness to negotiate was no doubt precisely the reason Albright relegated him to a background role. Yugoslav Minister of Information Milan Komnenić accompanied the Yugoslav delegation to Rambouillet. He recalls,

"With Rugova and Fehmi Agani it was possible to talk; they were flexible. In Rambouillet, [KLA leader Hashim] Thaçi appears instead of Rugova. A beast." [ii]

There was no love between Thaçi and Rugova, whose party members were the targets of threats and assassination attempts at the hands of the KLA. Rugova himself would survive an assassination attempt six years later.

The composition of the Yugoslav delegation reflected its position that many ethnic groups resided in Kosovo, and any agreement arrived at should take into account the interests of all parties. All of Kosovo's major ethnic groups were represented in the delegation. Faik Jashari , one of the Albanian members in the Yugoslav delegation, was president of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative and an official in the Provisional Executive Council, which was Yugoslavia's government in Kosovo. Jashari observed that Albright was startled when she saw the composition of the Yugoslav delegation, apparently because it went against the U.S. propaganda narrative. [iii] Throughout the talks, Albright displayed a dismissive attitude towards the delegation's Albanian, Roma, Egyptian, Goran, Turkish, and Slavic Muslim members.

U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia.

After arriving at Rambouillet, the secessionist Albanian delegation informed U.S. diplomats that it did not want to meet with the Yugoslav side. Aside from a brief ceremonial meeting, there was no direct contact between the two groups. The Yugoslav and Albanian delegations were placed on two different floors to eliminate nearly all contact. U.S. mediators Richard Holbrooke and Christopher Hill ran from one delegation to the other, conveying notes and verbal messages between the two sides but mostly trying to coerce the Yugoslav delegation. [iv]

Luan Koka, a Roma member of the Yugoslav delegation, noted that the U.S. was operating an electronic jamming device.

"We knew exactly when Madeleine Albright was coming. Connections on our mobile phones were breaking up and going crazy." [v]

It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private.

Albright, Jashari said, would not listen to anyone.

"She had her task, and she saw only that task. You couldn't say anything to her. She didn't want to talk with us and didn't want to listen to our arguments." [vi]

One day it was Koka's birthday, and the Yugoslav delegation wanted to encourage a more relaxed atmosphere with U.S. mediators, inviting them to a cocktail party to mark the occasion.

"It was a slightly more pleasant atmosphere, and I was singing," Koka recalled. "I remember Madeleine Albright saying: 'I really like partisan songs. But if you don't accept this, the bombs will fall.'" [vii]

According to delegation member Nikola Šainović ,

"Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'" Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii]

From the beginning of the conference, U.S. mediator Christopher Hill "decided that what we really needed was an Albanian approval of a document, and a Serb refusal. If both refused, there could be no further action by NATO or any other organization for that matter." [ix] It was not peace that the U.S. team was seeking, but war.

As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern.

On the second day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the Yugoslav delegation with the framework text of a provisional agreement for peace and self-rule in Kosovo, but it was missing some of the annexes. The Yugoslavs requested a copy of the complete document. As delegation head Ratko Marković pointed out,

"Any objections to the text of the agreement could be made only after an insight into the text as a whole had been obtained."

Nearly one week passed before the group received one of the missing annexes. That came on the day the conference had originally been set to end. The deadline was extended, and two days later a second missing annex was provided to the Yugoslav delegation.[x]

When the Yugoslavs next met with the Contact Group, they were assured that all elements of the text had now been given to them. Several more days passed and at 7:00 PM on February 22, the penultimate day of the conference, the Contact Group presented three new annexes, which the Yugoslavs had never seen before. According to Marković, "Russian Ambassador Boris Mayorsky informed our delegation that Annexes 2 and 7 had not been discussed or approved by the Contact Group and that they were not the texts drafted by the Contact Group but by certain Contact Group members, while Annex 5 was discussed, but no decision was made on it at the Contact Group meeting." The Yugoslav delegation refused to accept the new annexes, as their introduction had violated the process whereby all proposals had to be agreed upon by the three Contact Group members. [xi]

At 9:30 AM on February 23, the final day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the full text of the proposal, containing yet more provisions that were being communicated for the first time. The accompanying note identified the package as the definitive text while adding that Russia did not support two of the articles. The letter demanded the Yugoslav delegation's decision by 1:00 PM that same day.[xii] There was barely time enough to carefully read the text, let alone negotiate. In essence, it was an ultimatum.

Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states:

"The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles."

Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region.

Twitter and the Smearing of Corbyn and Assange: A Research Note on the "Integrity Initiative"

The document called for a Western-led Joint Commission including local representatives to monitor and coordinate the implementation of the plan. However, if commission members failed to reach consensus on a matter, the Western-appointed Chair would have the power to impose his decision unilaterally. [xiv] Local representatives would serve as little more than window-dressing for Western dictate, as they could adopt no measure that went against the Chair's wishes.

The Chair of the Implementation Mission was authorized to "recommend" the "removal and appointment of officials and the curtailment of operations of existing institutions in Kosovo." If the Chair's command was not obeyed "in the time requested, the Joint Commission may decide to take the recommended action," and since the Chair had the authority to impose his will on the Joint Commission, there was no check on his power. He could remove elected and appointed officials at will and replace them with handpicked lackeys. The Chair was also authorized to order the "curtailment of operations of existing institutions." [xv]Any organization that failed to bend to U.S. demands could be shut down.

Chapter 7 of the plan called for the parties to "invite NATO to constitute and lead a military force" in Kosovo. [xvi]The choice of words was interesting. In language reminiscent of gangsters, Yugoslavia was told to "invite" NATO to take over the province of Kosovo or suffer the consequences.

Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii]

The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air.

The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii]

The agreement guaranteed that NATO would have "complete and unimpeded freedom of movement by ground, air, and water into and throughout Kosovo." Furthermore, NATO personnel could not be held "liable for any damages to public or private property." [xxiii] NATO as a whole would also be "immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal," regardless of its actions anywhere on the territory of Yugoslavia. [xxiv]Nor could NATO personnel be arrested, detained, or investigated. [xxv]

Acceptance of the plan would have brought NATO troops swarming throughout Yugoslavia and interfering in every institution.

There were several other objectionable elements in the plan, but one that stood out was the call for an "international" (meaning, Western-led) meeting to be held after three years "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo."[xxvi] It was no mystery to the Yugoslav delegation what conclusion Western officials would arrive at in that meeting. The intent was clearly to redraw Yugoslavia's borders to further break apart the nation.

U.S. officials knew the Yugoslav delegation could not possibly accept such a plan.

"We deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept," Madeleine Albright confided to a group of journalists, "because they needed a little bombing." [xxvii]

At a meeting in Belgrade on March 5, the Yugoslav delegation issued a statement which declared:

"A great deceit was looming, orchestrated by the United States. They demanded that the agreement be signed, even though much of this agreement, that is, over 56 pages, had never been discussed, either within the Contact Group or during the negotiations." [xxviii]

Serbian President Milan Milutinović announced at a press conference that in Rambouillet the Yugoslav delegation had "proposed solutions meeting the demands of the Contact Group for broad autonomy within Serbia, advocating full equality of all national communities." But "agreement was not what they were after." Instead, Western officials engaged in "open aggression," and this was a game "about troops and troops alone." [xxix]

While U.S. officials were working assiduously to avoid a peaceful resolution, they needed the Albanians to agree to the plan so that they could accuse the Yugoslav delegation of being the stumbling block to peace. U.S. mainstream media could be counted on to unquestioningly repeat the government's line and overlook who the real architects of failure were. U.S. officials knew the media would act in their customary role as cheerleaders for war, which indeed, they did.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook revealed the nature of the message Western officials were conveying to the Albanian delegation when he said,

"We are certainly saying to the Kosovo Albanians that if you don't sign up to these texts, it's extremely difficult to see how NATO could then take action against Belgrade." [xxx]

Western officials were practically begging the secessionists to sign the plan. According to inside sources, the Americans assured the Albanian delegation that disarmament of the KLA would be merely symbolic and that it could keep the bulk of its weaponry so long as it was concealed. [xxxi]

Albright spent hours trying to convince Thaçi to change his mind, telling him:

"If you say yes and the Serbs say no, NATO will strike and go on striking until the Serb forces are out and NATO can go in. You will have security. And you will be able to govern yourselves." [xxxii]

That was a clear enough signal that the intent was to rip the province away from Yugoslavia and create an artificial state. Despite such assurances, Thaçi feared the wrath of fellow KLA members if he were to sign a document that did not explicitly call for separation. When U.S. negotiators asked Thaçi why he would not sign, he responded:

"If I agree to this, I will go home and they will kill me." [xxxiii]

This was not hyperbole. The KLA had threatened and murdered a great many Albanians who in its eyes fell short of full-throated support for its policy of violent secession and ethnic exclusion.

Even NATO Commander Wesley Clark , who flew in from Belgium, was unable to change Thaçi's mind. [xxxiv] U.S. officials were exasperated with the Albanian delegation, and its recalcitrance threatened to capsize plans for war.

"Rambouillet was supposed to be about putting the screws to Belgrade," a senior U.S. official said. "But it went off the rails because of the miscalculation we made about the Albanians." [xxxv]

On the last day at Rambouillet, it was agreed that the Albanian delegation would return to Kosovo for discussions with fellow KLA leaders on the need to sign the document. In the days that followed, Western officials paid repeated visits to Kosovo to encourage the Albanians to sign.

So-called "negotiations" reconvened in Paris on March 15. Upon its arrival, the Yugoslav delegation objected that it was "incomprehensible" that "no direct talks between the two delegations had been facilitated." In response to the Yugoslavs' proposal for modifications to the plan, the Contact Group informed them that no changes would be accepted. The document must be accepted as a whole. [xxxvi]

The Yugoslav position, delegation head Ratko Marković maintained, was that "first one needs to determine what is to be implemented, and only then to determine the methods of implementation." [xxxvii]The delegation asked the Americans what there was to talk about regarding implementation "when there was no agreement because the Albanians did not accept anything." U.S. officials responded that the Yugoslav delegation "cannot negotiate," adding that it would only be allowed to make grammatical changes to the text. [xxxviii]

From the U.S. perspective, the presence of the Yugoslav delegation in Paris was irrelevant other than to maintain the pretense that negotiations were taking place. Not permitted to negotiate, there was little the Yugoslavs could do but await the inevitable result, which soon came. The moment U.S. officials obtained the Albanian delegation's signatures to the plan on March 18, they aborted the Paris Conference. There was no reason to continue engaging with the Yugoslav delegation, as the U.S. had what it needed: a pretext for war.

On the day after the U.S. pulled the plug on the Paris talks, Milan Milutinović held a press conference in the Yugoslav embassy, condemning the Paris meeting as "a kind of show," which was meant "to deceive public opinion in the whole world." [xxxix]

While the United States and its NATO allies prepared for war, Yugoslavia was making last-ditch efforts to stave off attack, including reaching out to intermediaries. Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos contacted Madeleine Albright and told her that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević had offered to engage in further negotiations. But Albright told him that the decision to bomb had already been made. "In fact," Pangalos reported, "she told me to 'desist, you're just being a nuisance.'" [xl] In a final act of desperation to save the people from bombing, Milutinović contacted Christopher Hill and made an extraordinary offer: Yugoslavia would join NATO if the United States would allow Yugoslavia to remain whole, including the province of Kosovo. Hill responded that this was not a topic for discussion and he would not talk about it. [xli]

Madeleine Albright got her war, which brought death, destruction, and misery to Yugoslavia. But NATO had a new role, and the United States further extended its hegemony over the Balkans.

In the years following the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, NATO was intent on redefining its mission. The absence of the socialist bloc presented NATO not only with the need to construct a new rationale for existence but also with the opportunity to expand Western domination over other nations.

Bosnia offered the first opportunity for NATO to begin its transformation, as it took part in a war that presented no threat to member nations.

Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise.

*

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Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich

[Jun 22, 2019] The Myopia of Interventionists by Daniel Lariso

Feb 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Andrew Bacevich recalls Madeleine Albright's infamous statement about American indispensability, and notes how poorly it has held up over the last twenty-one years:

Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."

In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping.

Albright's statement is even more damning for her and her fellow interventionists when we consider that the context of her remarks was a discussion of the supposed threat from Iraq. The full sentence went like this: "We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." Albright was making a general claim about our supposed superiority to other nations when it came to looking into the future, but she was also specifically warning against a "danger" from Iraq that she claimed threatened "all of us." She answered one of Matt Lauer's questions with this assertion:

I think that we know what we have to do, and that is help enforce the UN Security Council resolutions, which demand that Saddam Hussein abide by those resolutions, and get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, and allow the inspectors to have unfettered and unconditional access.

Albright's rhetoric from 1998 is a grim reminder that policymakers from both parties accepted the existence of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" as a given and never seriously questioned a policy aimed at eliminating something that did not exist. American hawks couldn't see further in the future. They weren't even perceiving the present correctly, and tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Iraqis would suffer because they insisted that they saw something that wasn't there.

A little more than five years after she uttered these words, the same wild threat inflation that Albright was engaged in led to the invasion of Iraq, the greatest blunder and one of the worst crimes in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy . Not only did Albright and other later war supporters not see what was coming, but their deluded belief in being able to anticipate future threats caused them to buy into and promote a bogus case for a war that was completely unnecessary and should never have been fought.

[Jun 22, 2019] http://www.unz.com/tsaker/trump-claims-he-canceled-an-airstrike-against-iran-at-the-very-last-minute/

Jun 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

The first thing to say here is that we have no means to know what really happened. At the very least, there are two possible hypotheses which could explain what took place:

1) a US provocation: it is quite possible that somebody in the US chain of command decided that Iran should be put under pressure and that having US UAV fly right next to, or even just inside, the international border of Iran would be a great way to show Iran that the US is ready to attack. If that is the case, this was a semi-success (the Iranians had to switch on their radars and attack the UAV which is very good for US intelligence gathering) and a semi-failure (since the Iranians were clearly unimpressed by the US show of resolve).

2) an Iranian provocation: yup, that is a theoretical possibility which cannot reject prima facie : in this scenario it was indeed the Iranians who blew up the two tankers last week and they also deliberately shot down the US UAV over international waters. The goal? Simple: to show that the Iranians are willing and ready to escalate and that they are confident that they will prevail.

Now, in the real world, there are many more options, including even mixes of various options. What matters is now not this, as much as Trump's reaction:

Now, whether this was a US provocation or an Iranian one – Trump's reaction was the only correct one. Why? Because the risks involved in any US "more than symbolic strike" would be so great as to void any rationale for such a strike in the first place. Think of it: we can be very confident that the Iranian military installations along the Persian Gulf and the southern border of Iran are highly redundant and that no matter how successful any limited US missile strike would have been, the actual military capabilities of Iran would not have been affected. The only way for the US to effectively degrade Iranian capabilities would be to have a sustained, multi-day, attack on the entire southern periphery of Iran. In other words, a real war. Anything short of that would simply be meaningless. The consequences of such an attack, however, would be, in Putin's words "catastrophic" for the entire region.

If this was an Iranian provocation, then it was one designed to impress upon the Empire that Iran is also very much "locked, cocked and ready to rock". But if that is the case, there is zero change that any limited strike would achieve anything. In fact, any symbolic US attack would only signal to the Iranians that the US has cold feet and that all the US sabre-rattling is totally useless.

I have not said such a thing in many months, but in this case I can only admit that Trump did the right thing. No limited attack also makes sense even if we assume that the Empire has made the decision to attack Iran and is just waiting for the perfect time. Why? Because the longer the Iranian feel that an attack is possible, the more time, energy and money they need to spend remaining on very high alert.

The basic theory of attack and defense clearly states that the attacking side can gain as a major advantage if it can leave the other side in the dark about its plans and if the costs of being ready for a surprise attack are lower than the costs of being on high alert (those interested in the role and importance of surprise attack in the theory of deterrence can read Richard Betts' excellent book "


peterAUS says: June 21, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT 100 Words

the longer the Iranian feel that an attack is possible, the more time, energy and money they need to spend remaining on very high alert.

Yep.
Men and material getting tired.
Tired men and material make mistakes.

Smart.

As I've said plenty of times before, the "beauty" of the setup is that TPTBs simply create a climate for a mistake resulting in loss of life of American personnel.
BANG.

Or, you put two combat forces next to each other and ramp up the tension.
Just a matter of time.

I am currently very slightly optimistic (48-52%) that the US will not attack Iran in the short term.
In the long term, however, I consider that an AngloZionist attack is a quasi certainty.

Yep.
Short term being 3 months (related to the first paragraph).

War for Blair Mountain , says: June 21, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT

Sean Hannity lives in the largest Mansion in Lloyd Neck I have driven past his Mansion to get a look as to just how big it is IT'S HUGE ..Lloyd Neck has the most expensive zip code in the US ..Hannity the Chicken-Hawk thinks he is even tougher Chicken-Hawk War Hawk now that he studies MMA Serra Brazilian Ji-jitsu on Jericho Turnpike ..Yesterday Sean Hannity"My philosophy is you hit me .I hit you back ten times harder" .of course, Sean will be hiding in his mega-Mansion in Lloyd Neck .as the US Cargo Planes land in Virginia with a 100 stainless steel coffins containing the bodies headless bodies of Native Born White American Working Class Young Men Donald and Melania step inside the cargo bay to view the stainless steel coffins ..

... ... ...

A123 , says: June 21, 2019 at 8:50 pm GMT

Military action needs to support the underlying political goals. And, the political goal is to stop the Iranian regime from threatening and destabilizing the region. Would killing 150+ Iranians help dislodge the violent regime? No. Thus, the proposed strike did not align with the political goal. Trump was right to cancel it.

Think of it as the Putin Playbook. Did Putin go for mass casualties when Turkey shot down one of its fighters in 2015? No. Both Putin and Trump show similar strength. Restraint against precipitous, ill conceived, and overly bloody actions.

_____

Trump realizes that the Iranian people are the victims of sociopath Kahmeni. There will be a response with minimal bloodshed. Instead it will focus on the regime. Deepening the divide between the Iranian people and their despotic leaders prepares the path for internal forces to replace those leaders.

Oil storage is a likely choice. The tanks are large and spilled oil is highly visible. It would demonstrate the inability of the regime to stop the U.S. Storage facilities are visible to the public, so the government would have trouble denying or misrepresenting the event. Port facilities would also be a good choice, although that would be harder to time for few to no casualties.

PEACE

El Dato , says: June 21, 2019 at 8:57 pm GMT

very slightly optimistic (48-52%)

That's going overboard on precision though. And what's with the oil refinery in Pennsylvania going up into balls of flame. I hope this won't get dragooned into an "Iranian sleeper cell attack".

2stateshmustate , says: June 21, 2019 at 9:12 pm GMT
@A123

Another Israeli telling Americans they will be welcomed in Iran with flower covered streets. This guy doesn't give a shit about the US.

Fran Macadam , says: June 21, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
The provocations have to be such that domestic acquiescence in elite war profit taking will not be disturbed. That requires a series of propaganda events ramping up for domestic consumption.
El Dato , says: June 21, 2019 at 9:46 pm GMT
https://news.antiwar.com/2019/06/21/trump-called-off-attack-on-iran-with-10-minutes-to-spare/

10 minutes from striking is worryingly close, and Trump's disclosures on the matter are troubling. Apparently it was only at this late hour that Trump came around to asking for specifics on how many Iranians his order would kill. The generals told him approximately 150.

This was the game-changer, and Trump was nominally ordering this attack over the shoot down of a single US surveillance drone, and he rightly noticed that killing 150 people was not very proportionate to that, fortunately, he called the attack off before the first missiles were fired.

Trump went on to issue a flurry of Tweets saying Iran would never be allowed to have nuclear weapons, which of course this entire almost-attack had not a thing to do with. He also bragged about how much damage the US sanctions have done to Iran and how weakened Iran already is.

Troublingly though, administration hawks were still able to get Trump to sign off on the attack earlier on Thursday, and his assurances on Twitter suggest that the loss of the single drone really didn't enter into it as a big issue for him. This raises ongoing concerns that having called off the Thursday attack, Trump might be sold on a lesser attack at any time, or at least something nominally different that gets carried out before he gets around to asking about the casualties.

HONK! HONK!

restless94110 , says: June 21, 2019 at 9:48 pm GMT
@A123

Why would you end your mis-analysis where you justify war with the word PEACE? Spelling it out in all CAPS? You are seriously proposing that the US has the right to judge the government of another country and to deliberately destabilize that country in order to oerturn its governemtn?

Do you realize that economic sanctions are considered to be acts of war? In other words, you support acts of war and think that is PEACE? Are you insane?

El Dato , says: June 21, 2019 at 9:51 pm GMT
@A123

Military action needs to support the underlying political goals. And, the political goal is to stop the Iranian regime from threatening and destabilizing the region.

Yeah. Makes total sense from an Israeli/Saudi perspective. When bullshit is all there is, Hollywood logic can be used to explain the world!

Trump realizes that the Iranian people are the victims of sociopath Kahmeni.

I hope you have been given a sheet with talking points, otherwise I pity you.

PEACE

Top Ironik.

El Dato , says: June 21, 2019 at 9:59 pm GMT
The Deep State never rests. Dual treason sandwich via Reuters for Mr. Trump. It's really like living in a Nazi regime, with Heydrich walking the corridors, blackmailing and manipulating and "disposing of" problem factors.

Iran's top national security official has denied a Reuters report claiming that Tehran had received a low-key message via Oman from the US warning of an imminent attack on the Islamic Republic.

"The US didn't send any message," Keyvan Khosravi, spokesman for the National Security Council, told Iranian television.

The comment dismissed a previous report by Reuters, which cited unnamed Iranian officials as saying that Donald Trump had warned Tehran of a military strike and also gave a time to respond. The message was reportedly delivered via Oman and followed the downing of a US spy UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) earlier in the week.

HEREDOT , says: June 21, 2019 at 10:06 pm GMT
A handful of psychopaths determine our destiny. What makes us different from animals?
Priss Factor , says: June 21, 2019 at 10:23 pm GMT
A political coitus interruptus. DR. STRANGELOVE lite.
kerdasi amaq , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:35 am GMT
Hmm, so they shot down a drone; would they be able to shoot down every American plane that entered their airspace? A good reason to call off the strike; if the Iranians had a missile lock on every American plane. Having all their planes shot down would be an even worse defeat for the United States than just calling off an attack. Putin checks Trump.
lavoisier , says: Website June 22, 2019 at 12:52 am GMT
@War for Blair Mountain

Sean Hannity is a PUSSY AND A FAGGOT!!!

Mostly just an idiot and a Zionist whore.

TheJester , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:10 am GMT
The Iranians might be deciding to stand firm against US sanctions and other provocations as de facto acts of war before the sanctions do materially impact the Iranian economy and its military capability.

Recall the chicanery through which the United States surreptitiously provoked Japan into attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor so that FDR, a committed Anglophile, could enter the European war through the back door to save his British friends.

1. Via economic sanctions, the United States and its European colonial allies systematically denied Japan the resources it needed to sustain its population and its industrial economy.

2. Japan decided that it would have to act to obtain those resources or, accept its eventual demise as a nation state.

3. FDR hinted to the Dutch that the newly-positioned naval resources at Pearl Harbor would attack and cut the Japanese lines-of-communication per chance Japan struck south to obtain oil, rubber, and other resources in Southeast Asia. This was intentionally leaked to the Japanese.

4. The United States monitored the locations and progress of the Japanese fleet en route to Pearl Harbor to protect its exposed flank per the above. Japanese naval resources were under a communications blackout. However, the Japanese merchant marine supporting those forces were not. The US monitored their locations as a proxy for the location of the Japanese fleet. The rest is history

The Iranians are in a similar position: either fight now at the peak of their military power or, fight for survival later at a significant economic and military disadvantage. Like the Japanese, the Iranians would be wise to do the former. This strategy optimizes their chances for national survival.

MarkinLA , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:32 am GMT
@kerdasi amaq

The first thing in is missiles that target air defense batteries. I doubt the US is worried about Iran shooting down every plane. The drone probably was flying a steady even course and took no evasive maneuvers unlike an attacking aircraft. The success rate of surface to air missiles is not very high.

MarkinLA , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:36 am GMT
@TheJester 1. Via economic sanctions, the United States and its European colonial allies systematically denied Japan the resources it needed to sustain its population and its industrial economy.

BS. The embargo was because Japan continued to occupy part of China. All they had to do was go back home. Did FDR do it to get us into the war? Maybe, but Hitler was under no obligation to declare war on the US since Japan did not declare war on the USSR when Hitler attacked the USSR.

Biff , says: June 22, 2019 at 3:03 am GMT

No limited attack also makes sense even if we assume that the Empire has made the decision to attack Iran and is just waiting for the perfect time. Why? Because the longer the Iranian feel that an attack is possible, the more time, energy and money they need to spend remaining on very high alert.

Then

this might also be a strategic PSYOP destined to lull the Iranians into a false sense of security. If that is the plan, it will fail: the Iranians have lived with a AngloZionist bullseye painted on their heads ever since 1979 and they are used to live under constant threat of war.

Make up your mind.

BengaliCanadianDude , says: June 22, 2019 at 3:32 am GMT
@A123

Tell your masters in Haifa that they really are not churning out the good ones. We see right through you.

Talha , says: June 22, 2019 at 5:11 am GMT

Trump Claims He Canceled an Airstrike Against Iran at the Very Last Minute

I one hundred percent support letting The Orange One continue on with his awesome cowboy delusions as long as it keeps a war from starting.

My reaction: "Wow, sir! You have such self-control! Those Iranians don't know how close they were to you just kicking them back to the Stone Age! It's great that the better (wiser and more patient) side of you won out in the end – you are awesome!"

Peace.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: June 22, 2019 at 5:34 am GMT
@A123

Iran – no aggressive use of force for over 200 years. Sorry, you're choosing the wrong people for your propaganda.

RobinG , says: June 22, 2019 at 5:44 am GMT
TUCKER CARLSON IS A HERO: Tucker: US came within minutes of war with Iran

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-c0jMsspE7Y?feature=oembed

RobinG , says: June 22, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT
@lavoisier https://politics.theonion.com/u-s-claims-drone-was-minding-own-business-on-its-way-t-1835695562

WASHINGTON -- Maintaining that the unmanned aerial vehicle was simply going about its day without posing a threat to anyone, U.S. Department of State officials claimed Thursday that one of their drones was minding its own business on its way to church when Iran attacked it out of nowhere. "This was an outrageous, unprovoked attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran on an innocent drone who merely wanted to attend mass in peace," said acting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, emphasizing the drone's upstanding moral character by pointing out its history of donating to charity, volunteering at soup kitchens, and making homemade cookies for school bake sales. "We're talking about a drone that sings in the church choir and coaches little league baseball games on the weekends -- an absolute pillar of the community. This is an upstanding family drone who did nothing to deserve any sort of attack. What kind of world do we live in where an innocent drone can't fly through Iranian air space on its way to church?" At press time, Department of Defense officials confirmed that their request for Iran to return the drone's body back to the U.S. for a proper burial had gone unanswered.

Miggle , says: June 22, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
@MarkinLA Read Frazier Hunt, The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur.

TheJester is right.

Yes, China was under Japanese occupation. The Chinese Communists were fighting the Japs. The USA was supporting the side that was not fighting the Japs but the Communists, being, the USA, fanatically anti-communist.

My guess is that the USA forced Japan into war because of the economic potential of China, i.e. they wanted to take Japan's place.

And the USA didn't side with Hitler but with the other side because they didn't know Indian independence would come immediately after the War. So they sided with the Brits because of the apparent economic potential of the British Empire. If India had gained independence just before the war the USA would have sided with Hitler, because then, without India, German Europe would have had a greater economic potential than the British Empire.

Alfred , says: June 22, 2019 at 6:18 am GMT
The Iranians claim that a manned spy plane was next to the drone (i.e. that it also was in their territory) but that they chose not to shoot it down since 35 soldiers were on board.

"Along with the American drone was an American P8 aircraft with 35 on board, and it was also violating our airspace and we could have downed it too," he said, adding, "But we did not do [shoot down] it, because our aim was to warn the terrorist forces of the US."

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13980331000471

To me, a total cynic, it looks like the Americans attempted a repeat of the incident when they deliberately misled their sailors so that they sailed into Iranian territorial waters. I guess they messed up the GPS for them.

"Iran releases video of captured American sailor crying "

https://nypost.com/2016/02/10/iran-releases-video-of-captured-american-sailor-crying/

I too would cry if I realised that my superiors had set me up as a sacrificial lamb.

Let's not forget the attempt to sink the USS Liberty. That was a joint operation between the US Deep State and Israel to try and get the US to attack Egypt.

"'But Sir, It's an American Ship.' 'Never Mind, Hit Her!' When Israel Attacked USS Liberty"

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/but-sir-its-an-american-ship-never-mind-hit-her-1.5492908

Popeye , says: June 22, 2019 at 6:19 am GMT
@TheJester But why were sanctions imposed on Japan? Because Japan was acting in violation of international law? Well yes due to Japanese imperial aggression against China. In 1935-40 Japan was no angelic virgin. It committed unprovoked aggression against China, committed massive war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yes FDR likely wanted to have USA enter the Pacific war to enable war against Hitler but the crippling sanctions against Japan had a legitimate basis. To punish Japan for aggression in China
Alfred , says: June 22, 2019 at 6:21 am GMT
It looks like the Americans are having a false flag feast.

The positions in Iraq – whether directly or indirectly connected to the US interests in Iraq – for example Baghdad, Basra and al-Taji base to Northwest of Baghdad and Nineveh operations command headquarters in Northern Iraq have come under Katyusha missile attacks in recent day, the Al-Akhbar newspaper reported.

The paper reiterated that the missile attacks have taken place as a result of recent regional tensions, and said that the US officials are trying to portray the attacks as messages by Iran after al-Fujaira and the Sea of Oman mishaps.

It noted that no group has claimed responsibility for the recent missile attacks on Iraqi cities.

Sources close to Hashd al-Sha'abi Commander Abu Mohandes al-Mahdi, meantime, categorically dismissed any accusations against the Iraqi popular and resistance forces, and said that the Americans themselves are most probably behind some of these attacks because some of the missiles are made in the US.

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13980331000382

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: June 22, 2019 at 6:58 am GMT
Has there been any mention of ahem the need for a Congressional declaration before the President can act as Commander-In-Chief?

Further evidence that the Constitution is dead.

Greg Bacon , says: Website June 22, 2019 at 8:19 am GMT
@HEREDOT Mr. Saker left out the inconvenient fact that while that drone was indeed flying over Iranian air space, a much larger target, the Poseidon P8 was flying nearby. The P8 is a converted Boeing 737, making for a much larger radar profile for that missile. The P8 has many ASW capabilities, and also can control drones.

It's usual crew numbers nine, but this one had 35 sacrificial lambs packed onboard, to be murdered by the (((Deep State))) to push Trump into the corner, with the (((MSM))) screaming that it was Iran's fault, no proof needed or lies fabricated–just like the illegal invasion of Iraq–to give Israel what it's demanding that its American colony do: Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.

My guess is that the American thugs behind this latest FF attempt were hoping the Iranian surface-to-air missile would of shifted its initial target–the drone– and went for the much larger P8.

That Butcher Boy Bolton and his fellow homicidal maniacs failed means that more Americans are being lined up in their cross-hairs, ready to be sacrificed for the glory of Apartheid Israel.

If that is the plan, it will fail: the Iranians have lived with a AngloZionist bullseye painted on their heads ever since 1979 and they are used to live under constant threat of war.

Wrong, Saker, the Iranians have been getting attacked by America and the Brits since we overthrew their democratically elected prez in 1953, because he had the audacity to think and say that the majority of Iran's oil revenues should be going to Iranians, not Wall Street .

Greg Bacon , says: June 22, 2019 at 8:23 am GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude Agreed. If Israel want to attack Iran, go ahead, but they won't, because they know they'd get their asses kicked unless Uncle Sucker was leading the way.

Or maybe Israel could send in its fearsome DIAPER BRIGADES to wreak havoc in Tehran?

The diaper reference is not a joke, it's fact that the IDF has issued combat nappies to their troops, who let loose their bladder anytime they engage REAL men with guns who shoot back. But let's give credit where its due, when it comes to shooting Palestinian kids with slingshots or medics, Israel is #1.

Rabbitnexus , says: June 22, 2019 at 8:25 am GMT
@peterAUS Iran has been living with the same threat since 1979. The result is a hugely popular military and IRGC which is one of the best career choices in the country. It's a way of life for the nation to be under siege by now and for Shia Muslims the idea of being ready to fight to the death always hovers due to the history of Islam with respect to the Sunni/Shia divide. This disagreement is extreme, to be a Muslim and understand it is to feel horror! ; and despair at the idea any reconciliation is even possible between the two sects and a shared history does not make for a shared point of view. Shias have always been outnumbered and it was us who were targeted for extreme violence in the end (or the begginning) when a dispute over leadership turned bitter. Successive Islamic powers have attempted to exterminate Shias and the latest incarnation of the Salafis begginning with Wahhabism (nurtured by the Rothschild controlled British SS at the end of the Ottoman Empire) and lately morphed into Takfirism which is Daesh and their ilk, have always sought out Shias first and foremost for attack.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is firstly an Islamic Republic in full revolutionary mode, (as opposed to 'fundamentalist') it is also in a close second the "Capital" of Shia Islam and what I have described is the history of Iran and the times the Persian state was not an Islamic one are no less a part of the historical memory of the nation. Even those times (which invariably ended in defeat for Persia) reinforce the idea that it is as an Islamic state Iran stands best chance of survival and the confidence that if they remain true to these principles they will prevail is backed by an unbroken history of successful defense as a righteous Islamic state. This may be beyond many of the younger generation and ignored by the wealthy older generation Iranians but it must be ingrained in the political and social cosnciousness of the political and religious and intellectual elite.

Iran is ready. They have always been ready in one sense. Saddan Hussein who attacked them when they were at their weakest and still lived to regret it could attest to that if he was still around to talk. That war in which the USA gave full and unconditional support to their protege Saddam who only became their enemy when he became a better man and leader later on in time, was a wake up call to Iranian leadership and the nation as one. They knew that they needed missiles and a very strong defensive posture and that is what they have. F^ck with them at your peril I say.

I doubt myself the USA will attack Iran, at least as long as they have ships and troops within 1000 miles of Iran. That includes towing their static aircraft carrier "Israel" out of range as well.

sally , says: June 22, 2019 at 8:34 am GMT
@2stateshmustate agree, the comment that "the USA is taking the events to the UN is loaded with false something or other..

Iran initiated the UN hearing AFAIK and IRAN says it will present evidence that it was the USA's intention.. to do the deeds ..<=personally, my feeling is neither Russia nor China will veto .. anything about these deeds.. the only veto will come from Article II of the COUS , present leader [one Mr. Trumpy]. who is elected not by popular vote of the govern people in America but instead by the hidden behind the scene, state to state vote of the electoral college.. .. <== you mean all that to-do every four years to elect a president: democrats vs republicans beating each other up, newspapers collecting billions in contribution dollars to publish fake I hate you slogans, and he saids, you saids: dey all be fake news, propaganda erotic ? yep.. sure enough is. dem guys dat rites dem Konstitutions ain't no dummies deys knows vat ve good fore dem. Read Article II, sections 2 and 3.. you see..
Popular vote elects the Article I folks ( 525 in all: 425 members of the house of congressional districts (Art. 1, Section 2), and 100 Senators (amendment 17, proposed 1912, approved 1913federal reserve(act of congress), income tax (amendment 16) both also 1913 ),

=>but Article I (section 2 and amendment 17 ) folks have no power to act.. as powerless buffoons ..they are authorized only to approve a few things, try cases of Treason, and make the laws, fund the actions, wants and needs demanded by Article II persons. It takes 2/3 of each a divided Senate and 2/3 of a divided House [Art. I, sec 7[2,3] to over-power the Art II privilege of veto.. and

==get this=> Article II persons are charged to enforce the law( Art II, section 2 [3] he[the President} shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Where is Hillary? I see no words making such duty to enforce the law optional (so does the AG have an option that the President does not, .) ?

misguided Saker ?

Zumbuddi , says: June 22, 2019 at 8:38 am GMT
@Fran Macadam . . . Timed to force Congress to vote on a declaration of war just before elections.
Zumbuddi , says: June 22, 2019 at 8:42 am GMT
@HEREDOT Have you ever seen an obese deer?
Rabbitnexus , says: June 22, 2019 at 8:53 am GMT
I am in full agreement with the author about who was most likely behind the attacks on the ships and how the two separate attacks were done. Even down to accepting the possibility Iran was behind some or all of this as provocation for the reasons given. If so it would mean they are hurting badly and need to bring things to a head fast. This does not fit with my observations of Iranian leadership which has always demonstrated a very long term and patient, typically oriental approach to logjams in diplomacy and nothing has happened to suggest they are suddenly feeling extremely more pain than previously. In short it is possible but I doubt it.

To my mind the things which speak against the Iranians having attacked the tankers the second time at least are substantial: Both ships were Japanese owned. This attack as such was against Japanese interests WHILST the Japanese PM (Japanese death cult and mafia associations and all) was making a historical visit to Tehran! What sort of dung for brains clowns would invite someone for dinner and then send the kids out to set fire to their car whilst they dined? Of course Washington would do something like this (shooting missiles at Syria whilst enjoying a lovely piece of cake with their Chinese ally ffs ) but Iran? Give me a break.

Secondly if Iran was guilty, how come the USA is lying like a cheap rug from the get go? The video the US Navy quickly produced is PROOF they are lying. The black and white imagery does NOT hide the distinctly different paint jobs on the ship depicted and the actual one involved. Whatever that video is, it is NOT a video of either of the ships involved in the second incident. So if Iran was guilty why is the USA using fabricated evidence to assert it?

The claim that the Iranians tried unsuccesfully to shoot down a Reaper drone which was according to the USA monitoring the ship BEFORE IT WAS ATTACKED was what stuck in my craw from the start. What the hell was a REAPER Drone doing monitoring that particular ship at that particular time? Is this a common practice? Reaper drones are NOT recon drones they carry hellfire missiles and kill things! When you consider the reports by the crew, as relayed by the Japanese company owner about a flying object just before the explosion and the pictures of the damage which clearly show fairly small holes about half way between the gunwale and waterline the conclusion these were small missiles is hard to avoid. Indeed HELLFIRE missiles would fit the bill nicely.

As for attacking Iran I do not believe that the USA will dare start anything, especially now, so long as they have troops and ships within range of Iranian missiles. Iranian missiles power is immense and an unknown because they do not know where it all is, and they do know much of it is very, very well hardened against attack. IF they do start a war with Iran whilst they have assets in the region, invluding "Israel" then they have completely lost their minds and I'd say the war will end very fast and hard for them. Not even going nuclear will do it. They are deluded if they think so. Nukes are not magic, they are just big bombs and even the radiation component is not a big deal these days. (few realise it but modern nukes are quite 'clean') Iran is a vast country and well dug in over millenia. However unleashing a full nuclear war against a non nuclear state will end the USA forever as a world citizen in every way. There is no solution for the USA except to make peace or back off. They can plan and scheme all they like but Allah is the best of planners.

Rabbitnexus , says: June 22, 2019 at 9:00 am GMT
@Fran Macadam Well if that line of turkeys pecking at the crumbs of provocations unfolding which purport to involve Iran keep on gobbling on cue they are going to realise too late they just walked into the slaughter house. Iran will send home many thousands of their boys and girls in body bags and sink their ships but the real hurt will be the end of the US economy. They'll be missing even allegorical crumbs when they only have dirt to eat.
El Dato , says: June 22, 2019 at 9:05 am GMT
@MarkinLA Japan continued to occupy part of China (and viciously so, clearly stamping on the foot of white-colonial interests with their homegrown late-comer colonialism) but i mainly started to challenge US power in the Pacific, and with strong determination.

Explainer:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/FTupV8o3mW4?start=7391&feature=oembed

China nowadays has this role. This is why the US is interested in a "first strike" nuclear posture. This is gonna be fun.

Sean , says: June 22, 2019 at 9:15 am GMT
Iran's War for higher Oil prices

Israel does not have the ability to deceive the US, and why would it need to with Trump in power? American fracking technology has greatly limited Iranian ability to cause trouble. If it was the Iranians that did the limpet mine attack on international shipping then what would their objective have been? Clearly they don't want more any real war or even more sanctions. What they do want is create demand for their oil and sell it at a good price. The price of oil is already up from the mere tension over the limpet mine and shootdown and had there been US military action oil prices would have gone much higher. I see this whole affair as a sign that the Iranian regieme is getting desperate, because America's slow smothering strategy is working. Iran wants to breack out of its current situation and Trump is walking them into that.

Israel will do nothing, the partisan supporters of Israel in the US can be kept quiet on the immigration Issue by throwing them a bone (as Trump has been doing). Iran want to rase oil prices and create demand for its oil, that is all. Hitting Iran, but quite lightly, is the best option for Trump if he wants to win reelection. And so he will hit Iran at a time of his choosing, which will probabally be closer to the election. The armed forces of America or any other country are not for enforcing international law or notions of fair play, but rather for defending that country's interests. Iran and Trump's agendas converge on a clash well short of all out war in the very near future.

The Alarmist , says: June 22, 2019 at 9:16 am GMT
Occam's Razor suggests Trump got news that the drone was indeed inside Iranian airspace and decided for once to call BS.

Besides, in the great scheme of things, one lost drone doesn't make up for the USS Vincennes killing 290 people on Iran Air 655 by shooting it down in Iranian Airspace. When the Empire warned that civil aircraft were not safe in the airspace, it wasn't the Iranian forces they were warning about.

El Dato , says: June 22, 2019 at 9:17 am GMT
@El Dato Pearl Harbor explained:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/FTupV8o3mW4?start=8008&feature=oembed

Miggle , says: June 22, 2019 at 9:19 am GMT
@Miggle Sorry, "My guess" covers all that follows. It's only my guess that the USA would have sided with Hitler if they'd known India would not be part of the British Empire.
Miggle , says: June 22, 2019 at 9:55 am GMT
@Colin Wright So, not insane, inzine.

Is there a difference?

Art , says: June 22, 2019 at 10:12 am GMT
Our hero Donald J Trump – a courageous man who saved 150 lives and avoided a war, will ride those lives into 2020.

There will be no war against Iran started by Trump.

Think Peace -- Art

EoinW , says: June 22, 2019 at 10:21 am GMT
@TheJester But it wasn't wise for the Japanese as they were completely defeated.

The key difference between Japan and Iran is that the Japanese Empire was an aggressor, endlessly invading its neighbours. Iran has not fought an offensive war in 40 years.

Also have to question you on the time element. Time is on the side of the Asian countries. It's countries, like Israel, who see this as peak time for military action. Iran has survived 40 years of sanctions and can certainly survive this time, especially with the support of Russia and China. Yet they still must react to military planes threatening their air space. Plus they have no control over oil tankers being targeted by third parties.

Amon , says: June 22, 2019 at 10:56 am GMT
The more I see of this, the more convinced I am that the US as a society is clinically insane.

Its borders are under attack by what can only be described as an invasion is taking place with millions off illegal immigrants pour across the border to commit crime, steal jobs or mooch of the welfare programs.

Its cities are decaying with armies of homeless, shit and drugs flooding the streets in ever greater numbers while the working class people flee in great waves.

Masked and armed criminals roam the streets of major US cities, attack anyone they deem to be a wrong thinker when not busy rioting, stealing and chanting for the deaths of others.

Its economy is in a bi-polar mood. On one hand the GDP is as high as ever with tons of new jobs getting created, on the other hand the physical economy is shrinking as stores closes and houses go unsold due to half the nation being unable to buy anything but food and clothes.

In the face of all of these problems, the US Government has decided to put its full attention on overthrowing the government of Venezuela and starting a war with Iran because somehow, those two nations who posed no danger to the US have been declared high priority targets that requires the full spectrum attention and political intervention by the US.

joeshittheragman , says: June 22, 2019 at 11:13 am GMT
@HEREDOT We can killed much more efficiently.
RVBlake , says: June 22, 2019 at 11:30 am GMT
@A123 "There will be a response with minimal bloodshed." Yes, we are noted for the delicate, nearly bloodless nature of our military reactions, merely focusing on regimes with the full-throated applause of the grateful populaces. It would be a cake-walk, to quote our valiant SecDef Rumsfeld prior to our 2003 Iraqi minimally bloody response.

And speaking of armchair generalship, I wonder where Trump's multi-starred consultant got the figure "150" in answer to the question of civilian casualties. This is the kind of clear-sighted strategic vision that has a U. S. victory in Afghanistan just around the corner, to quote our junior Clausewitz's.

SteveM , says: June 22, 2019 at 11:34 am GMT

But it is also plausible (if by no means certain) that at least two groups could have opposed such a strike:

1) The planners at CENTCOM and/or the Pentagon.

Yes, it's reported that the Pentagon advised Trump not to retaliate militarily for the drone shoot down.

Given advanced missile technologies, surface warships of any stripe are sitting ducks. I'm guessing that Iran has a plethora of missile batteries up and down its coast. If Iran launched a barrage of missiles simultaneously (10? 20? 30?) at a single surface warship in the Persian Gulf, what would be the probability that the ship's self-defense systems could neutralize them all?

If a single multi-billion dollar warship were sunk, the credibility of U.S. naval "power projection" would evaporate. In that context, the Pentagon's reluctance may be because they'd rather not establish that their hyper-expensive blue-water surface Navy is an anachronism.

alexander , says: June 22, 2019 at 11:49 am GMT
There is a very simple solution to all this, and the sooner it happens the better.

Everyone who conspired to defraud the US taxpayer into illegal wars (dating back to 2002), should be forced to pay for the cost of the wars they lied us into.

All the assets of these "deceivers" should be "seized" .to pay down the 22 trillion war debt their lies created.

If there is anything left over , it should be placed in an " Iran War Escrow Account ".

This would ensure that the burden of the war costs falls directly on "their" shoulders and NOT the US taxpayers.

This seems like a just and fair solution for everybody ., doesn't it ?

Justsaying , says: June 22, 2019 at 11:51 am GMT
@A123 If this is not proof of what some of these Washington criminals have on their agenda:

https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pompeo-says-iran-must-listen-us-if-they-want-their-people-eat-1208465

An authentic act of war before even before firing the first bullet. First, make the economy scream in the tradition of yet another thug masquerading as head of state (Nixon). Second, starve them into submission. Does the first Iraq war resulting in the death of an estimated half a million children denied essential medicines ring a bell? Venezuela is similarly being starved into surrender. Meanwhile Guaido is embezzling the humanitarian aid intended for his needy countrymen.

All said, the history of our country's lies and deception going back a long ways, more than speaks for itself.

anon [210] Disclaimer , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT
@War for Blair Mountain Remember, the Holy Hook states that Working Class Native Born White Christian American Male Canon Fodder " owe it to the Jews ."
Zero , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT
@Justsaying Of course, starvation is a favorite tactic of OUR international Communist overlords. They've used it for decades and killed hundreds of millions of people using it. It's cheap and easy.
Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:42 pm GMT

Trump Claims He Canceled an Airstrike Against Iran at the Very Last Minute

That is just bullshit.

Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT
@lavoisier

Mostly just an idiot and a Zionist whore.

Yes, and there are plenty of them.

sarz , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT
Saker, it would be good to see you spell out where you differ from Bernhard of Moon of Alabama's assumptions.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/white-house-pushes-trump-pulled-back-story-he-likely-never-approved-to-strike-iran.html

War for Blair Mountain , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:55 pm GMT
On direct orders from Donald Trump ..the US Military is illegally occupying the sovereign Nation of Syria .and Trump took a direct order from JEW ONLY ISRAEL to do this think about it

A case can be made that the US strategy is not to go to war with Iran .but rather, use the boogey man of Iran to justify a 100 year illegal US Military occupation of Syria on behalf of JEW ONLY ISRAEL .

The late Fat Cockroach Christopher Hitchens justified murdering thousands of Iraqis because it would be good for the Kurds Well, here is what I say:THE CRYPTO JEW KURDS WERE NEVER WORTH IT .Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq always meant an IDF presence in Northern Iraq

Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 12:58 pm GMT
@2stateshmustate Yep, A123 is as full of shit as you can get
Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:03 pm GMT
@restless94110

Why would you end your mis-analysis where you justify war with the word PEACE?

Spelling it out in all CAPS?

Because he's a really, really dumbass.

Do you realize that economic sanctions are considered to be acts of war?

He doesn't realize what planet he's on.

Are you insane?

He's just really low IQ.

Biff , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:09 pm GMT
@Anonymous

learn the difference between tactics and strategy.

Hey Bill Clinton, is that you?

Dictionary.com gives almost identical definitions for those terms, so tell us oh wise one – what's the difference?

Jacques Sheete , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT
@A123

And, the political goal is to stop the Iranian regime from threatening and destabilizing the region.

Oh, really! Tsk tsk.

Johnny Walker Read , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMT
The best analysis of the 225 million dollar MQ-4C drone(more expensive than the F-35) shoot down in my opinion is that of Jim Stone:
"The drone shot down was an MQ-4C, which is basically a more advanced clone of the Global Hawk. A better score for Iran than a Global Hawk. ADDITIONALLY IMPORTANT: Iran was the one that recovered the debris, the U.S. navy did not, which means Iran was telling the truth about where it was flying to begin with. If they got it, it fell on their turf. It is really blown to smithereens, a direct hit. That's good for Iran because it proves their missile systems can do it, but it is bad because they don't have any big pieces. Additionally, there was an American P-8 spy plane accompanying the drone, Iran was able to differentiate between the two, and hit the drone. The P-8 was a much easier target. Iran obviously opted not to hit it because killing it's crew would have meant war."

What everyone needs to be aware of here is "stealth" technology is a total farce, and can be defeated with long wave radar, basically the same system used by England during WWII. The drone shot down was considered a Max Stealth aircraft, same as the F-35. The F-35 and F-22 are basically "hanger queens"(many hours of maintenance required for every hour of flying time), and with their stealth capabilities being defeatable, they are pretty much worthless. Trump did not pull the trigger on this because he figured out the whole thing could go real bad real quick.

I urge all to read Jim Stones take on this mess: http://82.221.129.208/.wh7.html

Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
@alexander

Everyone who conspired to defraud the US taxpayer into illegal wars (dating back to 2002), should be forced to pay for the cost of the wars they lied us into.

Everyone who conspired to defraud the US taxpayer into illegal wars, their heirs and all who profited from (dating back to 1812), should be forced to pay for the cost of the wars they lied us into.

FIFY

Jacques Sheete , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:16 pm GMT
@Justsaying You are correct. This is economic and siege warfare. Flying bullets, etc., add to the drama and consequences, but the war on Iran began many years ago. The vicious clowns are up to the same old tricks, but bullshitting only the willing gulls.
Jacques Sheete , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:18 pm GMT
@Zero

Of course, starvation is a favorite tactic of OUR international Communist overlords.

Yup. It's what empires do, and they don't even give a flip if their own people have to go without either.

Jacques Sheete , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT
@El Dato

It's really like living in a Nazi regime

No, it's not. Clearly the Nazis were on the defensive . Lying Abe Lincoln was, in fact, much worse than the Nazis ever thought of being; in a totally different category even.

DESERT FOX , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:25 pm GMT
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years and is not a terrorist nation and does not export terrorism, that title belongs the the unholy trinity of the zio/US and Israel and Britain, the creators and funders and suppliers of AL CIADA aka ISIS and all the various off shoots thereof.

This war on Iran is a zionist project of the zionists who control the governments of the zio/US and zio/Britain as has been the case in every war in Iraq and Libya and Syria and Yemen and Lebanon , Israel has been the agent provocateur in every one of these wars!

The zionists have a goal of a satanic zionist NWO and are hell bent to get there if they have to kill off all the goyim and muslims to accomplish it and they are well on their way!

Read the book Blood In The Water by Joan Mellen on the zio/US and Israeli attack on the USS Liberty for a look at how these two terrorist nations operate!

Jacques Sheete , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:25 pm GMT
@HEREDOT

A handful of psychopaths determine our destiny. What makes us different from animals?

I don't think other animals have psychopaths of the same species ruling over them nor do they have hasbara clowns spouting sewage and doing worse 24/7, such as the alphanumeric zero, above.

Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
@Greg Bacon

Mr. Saker left out the inconvenient fact that while that drone was indeed flying over Iranian air space, a much larger target, the Poseidon P8 was flying nearby. The P8 is a converted Boeing 737, making for a much larger radar profile for that missile. The P8 has many ASW capabilities, and also can control drones.

If this is true the stupid bastards in control of this country better take note. If the missile, that Iran says they developed, is cabable of distinguishing between a P8 and a drone the US may have a big problem.

Johnny Walker Read , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT
@SteveM Yup, Trump called this off because he knew America could pay dearly for an attack on Iran.
Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT
@joeshittheragman Excellent answer.
Johnny Walker Read , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:33 pm GMT
This is what our Air Force would look like if it was based on war fighting and not making all in the MIC extremely rich.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/03/f-35-replacement-f-45-mustang-ii-fighter-simple-lightweight/
Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@MarkinLA

The embargo was because Japan continued to occupy part of China.

True, but China has been occupied by both the British and US in the past .and not too distant past.

Fool's Paradise , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMT
More likely, Trump and his Neocons knew that Iran had proof that the spy drone was shot down over Iran's territory, that the truth would come out after the U.S. strike, earning the world's condemnation and making Trump et al look like warmongering fools. That's what they are, of course, but it gave Trump the chance to pose as a big humanitarian, stopping the strike because, since it was only a plane, with no Americans on board, he didn't want to "disproportionately" kill anybody. Yeah. Just wait until the Israeli puppets send another plane with Americans on board, it'll give Israel and our traitorous Neocons the war they've been lusting after for a decade or more.
Realist , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:45 pm GMT
@Art LOL
Jacques Sheete , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:50 pm GMT
@MarkinLA

All they had to do was go back home.

Proof?

In fact it's my understanding that the Japanese were bending over backwards in an attempt to avoid war with the US but the Wall Street Commie catamite FDR and his henchmen foiled and insulted them at every turn. The story of how they were repeatedly humiliated would raise the hackles of the least sensitive among us.

The big picture is that the Wall Street and London Commies were aiming for world hegemony even at their own populations' expense, of course, and Japan and Germany had to be castrated even if populated and run by angels and innocent choir boys to ensure that they could be turned into industrial slave states. It's apparent that the scum of the Earth won't rest until they've accomplished their goals as we can clearly see here.

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
@War for Blair Mountain

Sean Hannity lives in the largest Mansion in Lloyd Neck I have driven past his Mansion to get a look as to just how big it is IT'S HUGE ..Lloyd Neck has the most expensive zip code in the US

A simple Google search reveals Hannity sold his Lloyd Neck home in 2014, and has lived in Oyster Bay for several years. Also, Lloyd Neck isn't even in Forbes' Top 50 Most Expensive Zip Codes; the list is headed by four communities in California and one in Florida.

I'm not saying Sean isn't a pussy and a faggot, but your facts are suspect.

Jacques Sheete , says: June 22, 2019 at 1:58 pm GMT
@Popeye Dear Sir,

This is the 21st century. Why do you persist in parroting nearly century-old war propaganda?

Current Commenter

[Jun 21, 2019] Washington's Mighty Warriors Draft Dodgers and Scoundrels

Jun 21, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, like his current boss, not due to any scruples regarding what was occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass.

[Jun 21, 2019] If oil ships stop transiting for any reason the western economic and banking system implodes as the notional value of all those trillions in derivatives (oil at least) become real once the price rise

Notable quotes:
"... iran and oman share the straits as they enter the indian ocean. these waters are THEIR territorial waters and have been agreed upon for decades by the world. 12 miles give or take for each side. there are NO international waters here. ..."
"... It would appear the Iranians tracked our drone essentially from time time of departure until its demise. The folks on the web would have us believe the Iranians used a $2,500 homemade missile to bring down a $120,000,000 drone. Let that soak in. Am I the only one wondering what else we are unaware? ..."
"... Iran's Air Defense Force has some really quirky own designed and manufactured, mostly Chinese and Russian knock-offs) air defense complexes with serious sensors. ..."
"... Rumor has it--Iran has a number of Yakhonts. Those are very bad news for anything on the surface in Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. ..."
Jun 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

ted richard ,

iran and oman share the straits as they enter the indian ocean. these waters are THEIR territorial waters and have been agreed upon for decades by the world. 12 miles give or take for each side. there are NO international waters here.

if oil ships stop transiting for any reason the western economic and banking system implodes as the notional value of all those trillions in derivatives (oil at least) become real once the price rises. not a shot need be fired to collapse the western world living standards and there is nothing the pentagon can do about even IF it could which it CAN'T.

peace is the only sane option IF the west wants to remain upright and obstensibly solvent.

ignore fools like bolton and pompeo.

fredw , 21 June 2019 at 07:08 AM
The Trump administration has to come up with an explanation for this. Otherwise everyone will believe that that the red phone rang. "Mr. Putin on the line, sir." Another ripe conspiracy theory waiting in the wings is that Iran turned on some unexpected radar and showed just what the planes were flying into. Some logical, plausible, and not too embarassing alternative story is needed. Fast.
jon stanley , 21 June 2019 at 07:25 AM
Let us hope Trump's alleged caution holds. For the moment, anyway. However, let us also hope wiser heads prevail in Iran. It seems clear to me (which I do not mistake for assuming I am automatically correct) that there has been a PATTERN of increased, violent actions coming from Iran. i.e. increased shelling of US positions, or, near them, anyway, in Iraq. Along with the tanker attacks and drone attacks, two, I might add. These seem calculated, at the moment, at avoiding US loss of life. So, they are playing around with us, testing us. This reflects, to me, ONE kind of thinking in Iran. However, there are other sides there, I believe.

And in the meantime Trump is, essentially, bereft of support within DC. Unless it be in the military. One side of the elite community hates Trump, but for the moment, goes along with him. Trying to push and prod him forward to their ends. The NeoCons and Never Trumpers. The other side basically loathes Trump and opposes whatever position he is taking. Reflectively. Thoughtlessly. This leaves him essentially alone. IN DC. He should get out of the Capital more often. To his Base. Away from the talking heads. In the meantime Iran should give pause for thought. They may think the world will be on their side, if only to oppose Trump. But they won't get much support other than soft and meaningless words, if they keep poking the Bear. And they just might get eaten...hard as a meal as that would be to digest.

fotokemist , 21 June 2019 at 08:05 AM
My poorly informed speculation drawing upon my career as a chemist (i.e., no military training or experience, the navy rejected me when I tried to join the NROTC in 1963) I am inclined to disbelieve our claims that our drone was in international air space. One commentator on MoA claimed there is no international air space over the Gulf of Hormuz. The relevant treaties address only marine access.

It would appear the Iranians tracked our drone essentially from time time of departure until its demise. The folks on the web would have us believe the Iranians used a $2,500 homemade missile to bring down a $120,000,000 drone. Let that soak in. Am I the only one wondering what else we are unaware?

Regarding the aborted attack, my suspicion is that someone informed Trump of the possibility of an unsuspected Iranian asset bringing down an F-22, or horrors, an F-35. Not likely to help our export programs.

Combined with the possibility that Iran can present convincing evidence that the drone penetrated their air space, Trump would be in a poor position to defend himself against war crime charges should he order an attack. Might not play well in the upcoming election cycle.

As a businessman, he could have decided the rewards of an attack did not justify these risks.

Other thoughts?

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> fotokemist... , 21 June 2019 at 12:05 PM
Regarding the aborted attack, my suspicion is that someone informed Trump of the possibility of an unsuspected Iranian asset bringing down an F-22, or horrors, an F-35. Not likely to help our export programs.

Certainly one of major considerations. Unlike Iraq's "integrated" (a propaganda cliche--antiquated should have been the term), Iran's Air Defense Force has some really quirky own designed and manufactured, mostly Chinese and Russian knock-offs) air defense complexes with serious sensors.

It also has Russian S-300PMU2. In general, Iran is nothing like Iraq, Libya or Syria before Russia intervened.

I would put Iran's medium range (up to 100 kilometers range and up to 20 kilometers altitude) AD capabilities as robustly good.

And then, of course, tactical-operational ballistic missiles with an easy reach anywhere in ME (Qatar rings the bell, among many other) and, finally, who knows how many (very-very many) and what capability anti-shipping missiles.

Rumor has it--Iran has a number of Yakhonts. Those are very bad news for anything on the surface in Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

fotokemist , 21 June 2019 at 08:24 AM
Make that Strait of Hormuz.
Fourth and Long , 21 June 2019 at 08:46 AM
Probably a face saving gesture - can seem tough and reasonable simultaneously. It's shaping up as de-escalation on both sides for now, which I deduce from recent press releases on behalf of Iranian authorities saying that they refrained from shooting down a US P-8 plane carrying 35 people, which was accompanying the unmanned drone which they acknowledge shooting down. So they're mirroring each other IMO - it's not going to escalate.
CK , 21 June 2019 at 08:46 AM
I believe that Nixon did the same thing in 1969 when North Korea shot down an ec121. Threaten with a nuke and then stand down.
Ishmael Zechariah -> Eric Newhill... , 21 June 2019 at 10:54 AM
Eric Newhill,
IMO,it is the izzies who are pushing for the destruction of Iran, with their BS about Amalek, their god-given title to Palestine, and their attempts to re-mold the ME in their image. The presence of Nasrallah&Co. and their rocket forces-mostly supplied by Iran-is the primary issue. Most of the current ills of the ME can be traced to the izzies. Think Syria.
While there is no doubt that US can pound Iran into the stone age without really working a sweat, she probably would not have gotten off w/o a few bruises for her pains. In addition, more importantly in my view, the izzies might have also gotten a few surprises.
My friends were glad to end last night with no emergencies on their watch. We were all very, very worried.
Ishmael Zechariah
joanna said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 21 June 2019 at 10:59 AM
yes, still playing guitar?

https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Iran/Pages/default.aspx

And what would you personally consider as more urgent, the inner US bolshevik threat the ones that made the deal or the outer Iranian one?

eakens said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 21 June 2019 at 11:49 AM
Flying a plane into their territory, getting shot down, and then not attacking and calling it an opportunity to deescalate. That's rich. The only thing these whole farcical attempt at diplomacy has proven from the day the deal was denounced as being a bad deal is that those at the top know little of Iran and Iranians. Nor do we want to know, since virtually every time I watch TV and they bring on an "expert" to talk about Iran, they are not only not Iranian but half the time Jewish.
Eric Newhill said in reply to eakens... , 21 June 2019 at 12:58 PM
eakens,
How do you know where the drone was when it was shot down? How do you know where the plane was?
robt willmann , 21 June 2019 at 09:28 AM
Trump has come out through the usual direct communication channel, saying the reason he called off a strike was that casualties were certain to occur and thus would not be proportionate to an unmanned drone--

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1142055375186907136

Bill Wade , 21 June 2019 at 09:28 AM
"On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!" Pres Trump tweet
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> Eric Newhill... , 21 June 2019 at 01:25 PM
Yes. Trump is more cool headed than a lot of people give him credit for being.

His actions have nothing to do with him being cool headed. He is very confused man as of today. But in this particular case we all may be thankful for none other than Tucker Carlson who, if to believe number of American sources, does advise Trump and that, in itself, is a really good news for everyone on the planet. In fact, if Trump wants second term, among many things he ought to do is to remove Bolton and appoint Tucker his NSA. Carlson surely is way more qualified for this job than Bolton. Come to think about it, Tucker could make a decent Secretary of the State too.

HawkOfMay , 21 June 2019 at 09:48 AM
I've always felt that President Trump is impulsive and that impulsiveness is one of the things that makes him unfit to be President. My question is not 'did he order airstrikes'. My question is 'did an adult in the room step in' or 'did he actually change his mind'. I suspect the answer to that question will break down along the typical partisan lines.

It does make clear that he has no overall plan or strategy in place. These actions demonstrate that our President is unpredictable. While unpredictability has its own value (perhaps especially in the political arena) I don't want to see miscalculations creep in when we are talking about getting involved in a new war in the ME.

Eugene Owens , 21 June 2019 at 10:03 AM
I thank Generals Dunford and Selva at the JCS for putting the brakes on Moron Bolton and SecState Pompous. Particularly General Selva who says protecting oil shipments thru the Strait is not our job; and who also pushed back hard against escalation in Venezuela in late April.

https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-selva-john-bolton-aides-meeting-venezuela-2019-5

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/06/18/dont-expect-the-us-to-secure-arabian-gulf-shipping-alone-top-general-says/

Eugene Owens , 21 June 2019 at 10:11 AM
fotokemist & Ted Richard -

The ships and aircraft of all nations, including warships, auxiliaries, and military aircraft, enjoy the right of unimpeded transit passage in the Strait and its approaches.

That is true elsewhere also. The international legal regime of transit passage exists not only at the Strait of Hormuz but also in the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dover Strait, the Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Strait of Malacca.

Fred , 21 June 2019 at 10:33 AM
Walrus,

Looks like impeachment for Russian collusion is off the table, Joe 'foot in mouth' Biden gets some cover and even Democrats in congress are talking about how the AUMF is outdated. Fixing the later, well that would take Pelosi allowing some legislation to come up for a vote.

Flavius , 21 June 2019 at 11:14 AM
Prudent move by the President. It is encouraging that he put in play the concept of proportionality. Although the scale of challenge represented by Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the Pueblo in 68 exceeded this event, Trump's reasoning in this situation demonstrated a level of akin sobriety that has all too frequently been lacking in the course of the last three presidencies. The lunatic fringes will no doubt find some way to undercut him, the left for their usual obscene political reasons and the neo-cons because they are neo-cons in service to their 'higher calling' but Trump by now has become accustomed to the craven antics of former; and hopefully this unfolding will so contrast his reasoning with the reasoning of his card carrying neo-con advisors that he will realize he needs to clean house for the next time.
jon stanley said in reply to Flavius... , 21 June 2019 at 03:54 PM
What "challenge" in Hungry? Ike made it clear, in 1944, never mind 1956, where our sphere of interest was. There was never any doubt in Ike's mind, anyway. And who had enough gravitas and knowledge to try and talk him out of his views? Czechoslovakia in 1968? Come on...we were a bit, cough, cough, distracted in 1968. That was never in question either. Pueblo? Come on..
blue peacock , 21 June 2019 at 01:15 PM
Jack posted an interesting tweet on another thread. It seems there may also be an alternate explanation on why Trump called off the attacks.

Apparently Iran was informed of the imminent attacks. They responded through Oman & Switzerland that they wouldn't play ball and any attack would escalate.

It is high time for Trump to eject the neocons from his administration.

Mark Logan , 21 June 2019 at 03:17 PM
There was a palpable lack of enthusiasm for a new war on FOX's programs last night.

IMO unless Trump comes to believe his re-election chances would be enhanced by a new war or the IRG conducts ops too violent to be ignored he is likely to keep it holstered.

[Jun 21, 2019] The shadow economy in the USSR how it all began

Jun 21, 2019 | weaponews.com

The question about the causes of the collapse and destruction of the Soviet Union – is not idle. It does not lose its relevance today, 22 years after occurred the death of the Soviet Union . Why? because some on the basis of this event concluded that, say, the capitalist model of the economy more competitive, more efficient and has no alternatives. American political scientist Francis Fukuyama after the collapse of the Soviet Union even hastened to declare that it was the "End of history": humanity has reached the highest and last stage of its development in the form of a universal, global capitalism. The relevance of studying the shadow economy, ssco opinion of this kind of political scientists, sociologists and economists, discussing the socialist economic model does not deserve attention.

Better to focus on improving the capitalist model of the economy, i. E. A model that targets all members of society to the enrichment, and a means of enrichment (profit) is the exploitation of one person by another. However, there are such "Natural" attributes of the capitalist model of social and income inequality, competition, cyclical crises, bankruptcies, unemployment and the like. All proposed improvements are aimed only at mitigating the inhuman consequences of capitalism that is reminiscent of utopian attempts to limit the appetite of a wolf devouring a sheep. We proceed from the fact that the key socio-economic characteristics of the socialist model are welfare for all members of society (goal), public ownership of the means of production (the main means), income generation solely for labor, planned nature of the economy, centralization of management, command positions of the state in the economy, the social consumption funds, the limited nature of commodity-money relations and so on. While this refers to the well-being not only in the form of products and services that are vital (biological) needs of the person.

This would also include public safety and defense, education, culture, conditions of work and rest. Of course, socialism – not only the economy and social relations. It also implies a certain type of political power, ideology, a high level of spiritually-moral development of society and another. High moral and spiritual requests should assume that there are higher goals in relation to socio-economic objectives.

But let's focus now is on the socio-economic aspect of the socialist model. So the erosion of the socialist model began long before the tragic events of december 1991, when it signed the infamous agreement on the division of the ussr in the bialowieza forest. It was already the final act of the political order. It is not only the date of death of the ussr, and date of full legalization of a new socio-economic model, which is called "Capitalism". However, implicitly capitalism germinated in the depths of soviet society for nearly three decades.

The soviet economy de facto has acquired the traits of a mixed. It combined socialist and capitalist structures. However, some foreign researchers and politicians said that de facto in the Soviet Union there was a complete restoration of capitalism in the 1960-ies – 1970-ies. The restoration of capitalism was linked to the emergence and development in the bowels of the ussr the so-called shadow or "Second" economy.

In particular, in the early 1960-ies member of the german communist party willy dickhut began publishing their articles, which stated that since coming to power in our country n. With. Khrushchev happened (not started, but it happened!) the restoration of capitalism in the ussr. The shadow economy functioned on the principles different from the socialist. Anyway, she was tied to corruption, embezzlement of state property, receipt of unearned income, in violation of the laws (or use of "Holes" in the legislation). Not to be confused with the shadow economy "Informal" economy, which is not contrary to the laws and principles of the socialist system, but complemented the economy "Official".

First of all, this self-employment – for example, the work of the farmer on the plot or the citizen in his summer cottage. And in the best of times (under stalin) widely developed the so-called fishing cooperation, which was occupied by production of consumer goods and services. In the Soviet Union state and party authorities chose to ignore the phenomenon of the shadow economy. No, of course, the police had uncovered and suppressed various operations in the sphere of the shadow economy. But the leaders of the ussr, commenting on this kind of history, fobbed off with phrases such as "Exception", "Some shortcomings", "Defects", "Bugs" and the like.

For example, in the early 1960-ies of the then first deputy of the ussr council of ministers anastas mikoyan has identified black market in the Soviet Union as "A handful of some dirty foam appearing on the surface of our society. "The shadow economy of the ussr: acincinnati some serious research shadow ("Second") economy in the ussr was conducted until the late 1980-ies. Abroad, such studies came first. First of all we should mention the work of american sociologist gregory grossman (university of california), which was called "Destructive independence. The historical role of genuine trends in soviet society".

She became widely known after was published in 1988 in the book "The light at the end of the tunnel" (university of berkeley, edited by stephen f. Cohen). However, the first article of grossman on this topic appeared in 1977 and was called "The second economy in the ussr (journal problems of communism, september-october 1977). You can also mention the book emigrated to the United States , the soviet lawyer konstantin simis "Corruption in the Soviet Union – the secret underground world of soviet capitalism", published in 1982. The author in the 1970-ies is closely in contact with some shady businessman, a lawyer which he performed at the trials.

However, quantitative assessments of shadow ("Second") economy k. Simes does not. Later appeared the work of american sociologists and economists of Russian origin Vladimir tremlia and michael alexeev. Since 1985, gregory grossman and Vladimir treml produce periodic collections of the "Second economy" of the ussr. Releases continued until 1993, only 51 were published a study involving 26 authors.

Many studies represented surveys of families of immigrants from the Soviet Union (a total of 1061 family). To studies have also used surveys of emigrants from other socialist countries, the official statistics of the ussr, publications in mass media and scientific journals of the Soviet Union . Despite the differences in some quantitative estimates of the individual authors, these differences were not fundamental. The differences arose due to the fact that some authors considered "Informal economy", the other – the shadow economy; however, their definitions of both economies could not match. Here are some results of these studies. 1.

In 1979 the illicit manufacture of wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages, as well as speculative resale of alcoholic beverages produced in the "First economy", provided the income, equal to 2. 2% of gnp (gross national product). 2. In the late 1970-ies in the ussr was flourishing black market gasoline. From 33 to 65% of purchases of gasoline in urban areas of the country, individual owners of cars had petrol sold by drivers of public enterprises and organizations (gasoline were sold at a price below the state). 3. In the soviet hairdresser 'left' incomes exceeded the amounts that customers have paid through cash.

This is just one example of what some state-owned enterprises de facto belonged to the "Second" economy. 4. In 1974 the share of employment in private and home gardens accounted for almost a third of the total working time in agriculture. And this was almost 10% of the total working time in the soviet economy. 5. In the 1970-ies, about a quarter of agricultural products produced on private plots, much of it was directed at kolkhoz markets. 6.

In the late 1970's, around 30% of all income of the urban population was obtained through various types of private activity – both legal and illegal. 7. By the end of 1970-ies the proportion of people employed in the "Second economy", reached 10-12% of the total workforce in the ussr. At the end of 1980-ies there appeared a number of works on the shadow and "Second" economy in the ussr. First and foremost is the publication of the soviet economist tatyana results and director of the research institute of the state planning commission valery rutgajzer. Here is the data from the t.

The results of the "Shadow economy of the ussr". The annual value of illegally produced goods and services in the early 1960-ies amounted to about 5 billion rubles, and in the end of 1980-ies was already reached 90 billion rubles. At current prices, the gnp of the ussr was (in billions of rubles): in 1960 – 195; in 1990, 701. Thus, the economy of the ussr for thirty years has increased 3. 6 times, and the shadow economy – 14 times.

If in 1960 the shadow economy relative to official gdp was 3. 4%, while by 1988 this figure rose to 20%. However, in 1990 it was equal to 12. 5%. This decline was due to changes in soviet legislation, which transferred to discharge a legal a range of economic activities, which were previously considered illegal. The number of employed in the shadow economy, estimated to be the results, in the beginning of 1960-ies was 6 million people, and in 1974 their number increased to 17-20 million people (6-7% of the population). In 1989, the such shadow was already 30 million people, or 12% of the population of the ussr. The threats and consequences of the development of the shadow economy in sssri american and soviet researchers pay attention to some features of the shadow economy and its impact on the overall situation in the Soviet Union .

[Jun 21, 2019] Is The U.S. Going To War With Iran

Youtube video...
May 28, 2019 | AJ+

Iran has been abiding by the nuclear agreement. So why does it feel like the Trump administration is edging the United States towards a war? #iran #iransanctions #trump


Jack Roth , 3 weeks ago

Israel is the biggest winner if USA goes to war with IRAN

Starman , 2 weeks ago

Ironic, politicians don't do any of the fighting but their soldiers do. The soliders don't know why are fighting and get killed, politicians do know why they are fighting but don't get killed. "War: A massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other" Paul Valery

Ali raza , 3 weeks ago

Saudi Arabia has made another 8 billion dollars weapon agreement with US. That means No WAR threat now till then next purchase agreement.

Tyler M , 5 hours ago (edited)

Its the old men who declare war but its are young men and woman that must face danger and death!!!god bless American armed forces!

Dunking Donut , 19 seconds ago

With America and Iran goes against each other, Iran will lose really bad because America is so big and stronger compare to a small country

Surrealist Idealist , 3 weeks ago

Bolton is such a traitorous, power-worshipping coward. He can only lie to himself about it by bullying others.

young yahye , 2 weeks ago

I feel bad for the brainwashed American citizens From school to military to sleeping ships that are entertained with consumption Very dumbed down society

Teta _98 , 1 day ago

Iran isn't easy USA they are not Iraq or Afghanistan .. USA will do very big mistake

Jai Nepal , 3 days ago div tabindex="0" role="article

"> This whole situation, is Americas last stand along with Saudi and their local cousins in Israel to maintain the Petro dollar system which , if Iran could trade its resources equitably would be finished...This is the system that pays for the thousands of US military bases surrounding China, Russia ,Iran etc...

that provides billions of dollars to maintain Israeli nuclear and military superiority in Palestine and Western Asia

..and maintains the Saudi monopoly and high crude prices, and so the Saudi dictator monarchist establishment...

Nobody is claiming Iran is perfect, yet lets see this for what it is..as with Trumps attacks , tariffs and sanctions leveled across global trade and industry...The desperate actions of a dying empire...

William Hanson , 3 hours ago

There is a reason is the Obama administration went back to negotiating. To keep them Iran busy while it was launching the Stuxnet Virus on the industrial control systems in Iran. Watch the documentary Zero Days. It is extremely eye opening.

VITA kyo , 1 day ago

BUSINESS IS WAR & WAR IS THE BEST BUSINESS .

JJ Sundra , 7 hours ago (edited) div tabindex="0" r

ole="article"> The World should stand together to stop this kind of bullying....! The Trump administration had already planned ... that it needs to invade IRAN to choke China, Korea, Japan & now India who gets their Oil from Iran. The unilateral tearing up of an International Agreement is evidenced that US will rather this World go to Hell and to give-up its No. 1 place in Commerce and Defence. This kind of arrogance & "superiorority" attitude is dangerous for one who claims the title "Sherif - of-the - World"..! USA via the Trump Administration is HELL BENT on invading IRAN. The tearing-up and dishonouring the wishes of the International Community in order to provoke IRAN to retaliate by also NOT complying with the provisions of the said Agreement is evidence that the USA had already decided to invade IRAN. They nearly did invade last year but probably decided that they can conspire to create more incidents to justify their attack. AN INVASION ON IRAN IS PRICELESS TO USA.... WHY..? 1) They get to plunder USD Tens/Hundreds of Trillions to enrich THEIR coffers/ economy. 2) IRAN has the 2nd largest oil reserves. Rebrand the Oil as "American Oil".. 3) Take control of the most important shipment ports in the world with regards to Oil Commodity.. 4) Get rid of Out-dsted Military wears and bill them to Saudi at a premium. 5) Introduce their latest Military Wears to the World and again Bill them to Saudi at a double premium ;and. - to get new orders from other countries. - to send a message to China of USA's military capabilities.. 6) To Warn China that it has a penchant to settle issues through the Military if negotiations do not work in favour of the USA.. 7) Choke East Asian countries who are a threat to USA's No. 1 position. 8 ) Take another step towards acknowledging ISREALS legitimate presence of the Middle East. 9) To help Isreal fulfill their prophesy to take control of the Middle East. Saudi will not know, what hits them when the time comes. 10) There is another 3 more serious points but I will leave it to you guys to challenge yourself to decipher it. 11) To put onto action his perspectives, opinion & views while he can, should he not be elected next Term. And if Trump is able to control the War, he will be popular enough to be elected next term. Or if the War gets out of hand, then the US Presidential Elections may be postpone. Therefore this invasion may be his best chance to continue on as President. THEREFORE, UNLESS THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY STEPS IN AND STRONGLY OBJECT TO THIS BULLYING... ;;; AMERICA WILL INVADE IRAN.....! USA PROVE ME & THE WORLD WRONG....

[Jun 21, 2019] Forget Trump's 'deal of the century'. Israel was always on course to annexation by Jonathan Cook

Israel is just another 'settlers" country. It might be successful or it might fail like South Africa and Rhodesia. The survival of Israel as the settler country hinges on the USA unconditional support as yet another (stealth) USA state, and the continuation of the role of the USA as the world hegemon and the center of the global neoliberal empire. . The USA position as for Israel might eventually change with the collapse of neoliberalism.
One problem that creates negative attitude to Israel around the world (according to BBC data only the USA and a couple of African countries having the majority of population that views Israel positively) is, as one commenter observed, the situation in which "The Children of the Holocaust survivors, born into Israel, have now become the "Holocaust-ers of Palestine"
Jun 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

When Israeli prime ministers are in trouble, facing difficult elections or a corruption scandal, the temptation has typically been for them to unleash a military operation to bolster their standing. In recent years, Gaza has served as a favourite punching bag.

Benjamin Netanyahu is confronting both difficulties at once: a second round of elections in September that he may struggle to win; and an attorney general who is widely expected to indict him on corruption charges shortly afterwards.

Netanyahu is in an unusually tight spot, even by the standards of an often chaotic and fractious Israeli political system. After a decade in power, his electoral magic may be deserting him. There are already rumblings of discontent among his allies on the far right.

Given his desperate straits, some observers fear that he may need to pull a new kind of rabbit out of the hat.

In the past two elections, Netanyahu rode to success after issuing dramatic last-minute statements. In 2015, he agitated against the fifth of Israel's citizens who are Palestinian asserting their democratic rights, warning that they were "coming out in droves to vote".

Back in April, he declared his intention to annex large chunks of the occupied West Bank, in violation of international law, during the next parliament.

Amos Harel, a veteran military analyst with Haaretz newspaper, observed last week that Netanyahu may decide words are no longer enough to win. Action is needed, possibly in the form of an announcement on the eve of September's ballot that as much as two-thirds of the West Bank is to be annexed.

Washington does not look like it will stand in his way.

Shortly before April's election, the Trump administration offered Netanyahu a campaign fillip by recognising Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized from Syria in 1967.

This month David Friedman, US ambassador to Israel and one of the chief architects of Donald Trump's long-delayed "deal of the century" peace plan, appeared to offer a similar, early election boost.

In interviews, he claimed Israel was "on the side of God" – unlike, or so it was implied, the Palestinians. He further argued that Israel had the "right to retain" much of the West Bank.

Both statements suggest that the Trump administration will not object to any Israeli moves towards annexation, especially if it ensures their favoured candidate returns to power.

Whatever Friedman suggests, it is not God who has intervened on Israel's behalf. The hands that have carefully cleared a path over many decades to the West Bank's annexation are all too human.

Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967.

That point is underscored by an innovative interactive map of the occupied territories. This valuable new resource is a joint project of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem and Forensic Architecture, a London-based team that uses new technology to visualise and map political violence and environmental destruction.

Titled Conquer and Divide , it reveals in detail how Israel has "torn apart Palestinian space, divided the Palestinian population into dozens of disconnected enclaves and unravelled its social, cultural and economic fabric".

The map proves beyond doubt that Israel's colonisation of the West Bank was never accidental, defensive or reluctant. It was coldly calculated and intricately planned, with one goal in mind – and the moment to realise that goal is fast approaching.

Annexation is not a right-wing project that has hijacked the benign intentions of Israel's founding generation. Annexation was on the cards from the occupation's very beginnings in 1967, when the so-called centre-left – now presented as a peace-loving alternative to Netanyahu – ran the government.

The map shows how Israeli military planners created a complex web of pretexts to seize Palestinian land: closed military zones today cover a third of the West Bank; firing ranges impact 38 Palestinian communities; nature reserves are located on 6 per cent of the territory; nearly a quarter has been declared Israeli "state" land; some 250 settlements have been established; dozens of permanent checkpoints severely limit movement; and hundreds of kilometres of walls and fences have been completed.

These interlocking land seizures seamlessly carved up the territory, establishing the walls of dozens of tightly contained prisons for Palestinians in their own homeland.

Two Nasa satellite images of the region separated by 30 years – from 1987 and 2017 – reveal how Israel's settlements and transport infrastructure have gradually scarred the West Bank's landscape, clearing away natural vegetation and replacing it with concrete.

The land grabs were not simply about acquisition of territory. They were a weapon, along with increasingly draconian movement restrictions, to force the native Palestinian population to submit, to recognise its defeat, to give up hope.

In the immediate wake of the West Bank's occupation, defence minister Moshe Dayan, Israel's hero of the hour and one of the architects of the settlement project, observed that Palestinians should be made "to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave – and we shall see where this process leads".

Although Israel has concentrated Palestinians in 165 disconnected areas across the West Bank, its actions effectively won the international community's seal of approval in 1995. The Oslo accords cemented Israel's absolute control over 62 per cent of the West Bank, containing the Palestinians' key agricultural land and water sources, which was classified as Area C.

Occupations are intended to be temporary – and the Oslo accords promised the same. Gradually, the Palestinians would be allowed to take back more of their territory to build a state. But Israel made sure both the occupation and the land thefts sanctioned by Oslo continued.

The new map reveals more than just the methods Israel used to commandeer the West Bank. Decades of land seizures highlight a trajectory, plotting a course that indicates the project is still not complete.

ORDER IT NOW

If Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply another stage in Israel's tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and bully them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long understood as "creeping annexation", carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the international community.

Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his "deal of the century".

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.


Sally Snyder , says: June 20, 2019 at 11:54 am GMT

Here is an article that clearly explains the pro-Israel bias in America's mainstream media:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-pro-israel-skew-in-american.html

This study shows us that the pro-Israel narrative has become so firmly entrenched in the American mainstream media that it is almost impossible for news consumers to discern the truth about the situation in Israel and Palestine. This has greatly benefitted Washington which has made it abundantly clear that it sides with Israel in this fifty year-old conflict.

Bardon Kaldian , says: June 21, 2019 at 10:19 am GMT

If Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply another stage in Israel's tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and bully them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long understood as "creeping annexation", carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the international community.

Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his "deal of the century".

This is probably true-and? I don't see Palestinians as a real people; they're just a bunch of Arabs & it is absolutely irrelevant whether they are in Syria, Egypt or Arabia. They themselves say they're not a "real" people:

https://youtu.be/FBPd28WYPFQ

On the other hand, real peoples like Uyghurs & Tibetans are swamped by the Chinese, which is a real tragedy & only, huh, Richard Gere complains.

So, what the big deal with "Palestinians"? Why would they have a "right to exist"on some shitty piece o land Jews seem to be obsessively addicted to in past 2 millennia?

And then, what with Amazonian Indians, Eskimos, Ostyaks, Okinawans, ..? What about expulsion of 13 million Germans in what are now parts of Poland, Czechia, Russia .?

Israelis should have expelled all of them in 1967. & there would be peace.

UncommonGround , says: June 21, 2019 at 10:20 am GMT
There is one point in the article that is not completely accurate. J. Cook writes: "Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967."

In fact, Ilan Pappe shows in his book "The biggest Prison on Earth" (2017) that plans to occupy the whole land were much older. The plans weren't made because Israel took Palestinian lands in 1967. Israel took lands in 1967 because of the plans to colonize it. Those plans were older.

So, Pappe says in a more general way in his book that " . since 1948 and even more since 1956, Israel's military and political elites was looking for the right historical moment to occupy the West Bank." (p. XIV). He also says more specifically: "The strategy was presented by the CoGS to the army on 1 May 1963 and was meant to prepare the army for controlling the West Bank as an occupied military area" (p. XIII).

All talk about "peace", about "coexistence", about a "two state solution" are (and were) made in bad faith. About Pappe's book: I don't want to reccomend it for a casual reading. It may be valuable historically because it deals with historical material from archives. But it's basically a book about the Israeli burocracy, about laws, rules which would make sure that Israel controls the conquested territory which it never thought of giving back. It's a dry book. He has other books that which are much more agreeable to read like his short book "Ten Myths About Israel".

[Jun 21, 2019] Guilty or Not, Iran's Fate Is in Trump's Hands

Jun 21, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

From the standpoint of Information Warfare, it is very critical when a new event happens to put forward one's version of the "truth" first before any other possible competing theories can arise. This could be why Pompeo or someone like him would chose to immediately come out with accusations thrown around as facts with no evidence to support them and no respect for the great Western concepts of "innocence until proven guilty" or the "right to a fair trial".

Pompeo's objective here is not the truth but to take that virgin intellectual territory regarding the interpretation of this issue before anyone else can, because once a concept has become normalized in the minds of the masses it is very difficult to change it and many people in Washington cannot risk blowing the chance to waste thousands of American lives invading Iran based on an ultimately false but widely accepted/believed narrative.

Not surprisingly foreign and especially Russian media has quickly attempted to counter the "Iran obviously did it" narrative before it becomes an accepted fact. Shockingly Slavic infowarriors actually decided to speak to the captain of a tanker that was hit to get his opinion rather than simply assert that Iran didn't do it because they are a long time buddy of Moscow. The captain's testimony of what happened strongly contradicts the version of reality that Washington is pushing. And over all Russia as usual takes the reasonable position of "let's gather the evidence and then see who did it", which is good PR for itself as a nation beyond this single issue.

In terms of finding the actual guilty party the media on both sides has thus far ignored the simple fact that if Iran wanted to sink a tanker it would be sunk. No civilian vessel is going to withstand an attack from a 21st century navy by having a particularly thick hull and the idea that the Iranians need to physically attach bombs to boats is mental. Physically planting bombs is for goofball inept terrorists, not a professional military. After all, even the West acknowledges that the Iranians use the best Russian goodies that they can afford and Russian 21 st century arms will sink civilian ship guaranteed. The Iranians have everything they need to smoke any civilian vessel on the planet guaranteed from much farther away than 3 feet.

If Iran's goal was to scare or intimidate the tanker they could have just shot at it with rifles or done something else to spook the crew and get a media response. When looked at from the standpoint of military logic, these "attacks" seem baffling as Iran could have just destroyed the boats or directly tried to terrorize them to make a statement.

[Jun 21, 2019] Washington's Mighty Warriors Draft Dodgers and Scoundrels

Jun 21, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, like his current boss, not due to any scruples regarding what was occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass.

[Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran'

Highly recommended!
Jun 20, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."

"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.

"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.

One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."

Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.

[Jun 20, 2019] The Trump regime wants another pointless war by Ryan Cooper

Highly recommended!
A very good analysis. Trump essentially morphed into Hillary or worse. Essentially the same type of warmonger and compulsive liar.
Notable quotes:
"... The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war. ..."
"... At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics. ..."
"... Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.) ..."
"... What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse . ..."
"... Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. ..."
"... At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further. ..."
"... On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next. ..."
"... Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | theweek.com

The Trump regime is attempting to gin up a war with Iran. First Trump reneged on Obama's nuclear deal with the country for no reason, then he slapped them with more economic sanctions for no reason, and then, pushed by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he moved massive military forces onto Iran's doorstep to heighten tensions further. Now, after a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman -- none of which were American -- that the administration blames on Iran, Pompeo says the U.S. is "considering a full range of options," including war. (Iran has categorically denied any involvement.)

The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war.

The New York Times ' Bret Stephens, for all his #NeverTrump pretensions, provides a good window into the absolute witlessness of the pro-war argument . He takes largely at face value the Trump administration's accusations against Iran -- "Trump might be a liar, but the U.S. military isn't," he writes -- and blithely suggests Trump should announce an ultimatum demanding further attacks cease, then sink Iran's navy if they don't comply.

Let me take these in turn. For one thing, any statement of any kind coming out of a Republican's mouth should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Two years ago, the party passed a gigantic tax cut for the rich which they swore up and down would " pay for itself " with increased growth. To precisely no one's surprise, this did not happen . Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was just one flagrant example of many who got elected in 2016 while lying through their teeth about their party's efforts to destroy ObamaCare and its protections for preexisting conditions.

At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics.

Republican accusations of foreign aggression should be subjected to an even higher burden of proof. The Trump regime has provided no evidence of Iranian culpability aside from a video of a ship the Pentagon says is Iranians removing something they say is a mine from an oil tanker -- but a Japanese ship owner reported at least one attack came from a " flying object ," not a mine. Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.)

What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse .

And though this may be a shock to Troop Respecters like Bret Stephens, the military's record of scrupulous honesty is not exactly spotless. It has lied continually about the state of the Afghanistan occupation, just as it did in Vietnam . It lied about the effects of Agent Orange on U.S. troops and Vietnamese civilians. It lied about Pat Tillman being killed by friendly fire. Military recruiters even sometimes lie about enlistment benefits to meet their quotas.

Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. False flag attacks on its own oil tankers sound outlandish, but we're talking about a ruthless dictatorship run by a guy who had a Washington Post columnist murdered and chopped into pieces because he didn't like his takes. And the Saudis have already been conducting a years-long war in Yemen with catastrophic humanitarian outcomes in order to stop an Iran-allied group from coming to power. It's by no means certain, but hardly outside the realm of possibility.

At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further.

But let's grant for the sake of argument that some Iranian forces actually did carry out some or all of these attacks. That raises the immediate question of why. One very plausible reason is that all of Trump's provocations have strengthened the hand of Iran's conservative hard-liners, who are basically the mirror image of Pompeo and Bolton. "It is sort of a toxic interaction between hard-liners on both sides because for domestic political reasons they each want greater tension," as Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the New York Times . This faction might have concluded that the U.S. is run by deranged fanatics, and the best way to protect Iran is to demonstrate they could choke off oil shipping from the Persian Gulf if the U.S. attacks.

This in turn raises the question of the appropriate response if Iran is actually at fault here. It would be one thing if these attacks came out of a clear blue sky. But America is very obviously the aggressor here. Iran was following its side of the nuclear deal to the letter before Trump reneged, and continued to do so as of February . So far the European Union (which is still party to the deal) has been unwilling to sidestep U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to threaten to restart uranium enrichment . So Iran is a medium-sized country with a faltering economy, hemmed in on all sides by U.S. aggression. Backing off the threats and chest-thumping might easily strengthen the hand of Iranian moderates, and cause them to respond in kind.

On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next.

Taken together, these factors strongly militate towards de-escalation and diplomacy even if Iran did carry out these attacks, which again, is not at all proven. The current standoff is almost entirely our fault, and Iranian forces are far from defenseless. America has a lot better things to do than indulge the deluded jingoist fantasies of a handful of armchair generals who want lots of other people to die in battle.

Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.

Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped.

[Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran'

Highly recommended!
Jun 20, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."

"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.

"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.

One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."

Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.

[Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran'

Highly recommended!
Jun 20, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."

"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.

"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.

One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."

Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.

[Jun 20, 2019] US gives military assistance to 70% of world dictoris whether they re using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden.

Notable quotes:
"... If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. ..."
Jun 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

We now know that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the crushing of Libya had nothing to do with "stopping a bad man."

If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden.

In fact, the U.S. gives military aid to 70 percent of the world's dictators . (One would hope that's only around the holidays though.)

[Jun 20, 2019] Trump Says DOJ Investigating Whether Obama Tapped His Phone

Jun 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Why won't Obama live in Chicago?

JD Rock , 2 hours ago link

too much diversity...

[Jun 20, 2019] US gives military assistance to 70% of world dictoris whether they re using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden.

Notable quotes:
"... If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. ..."
Jun 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

We now know that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the crushing of Libya had nothing to do with "stopping a bad man."

If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden.

In fact, the U.S. gives military aid to 70 percent of the world's dictators . (One would hope that's only around the holidays though.)

[Jun 20, 2019] Washington s Dr. Strangeloves: Is plunging Russia into darkness really a good idea?

Notable quotes:
"... ...What else did you expect other than the MIC/Intelligence Agencies/Pentagon/embedded war mongers handling this stuff? ..."
"... Gen. Buck Turgidson is most certainly going rogue. ..."
"... That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is a figurehead with no real power. ..."
Jun 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Not if_ But When , 11 minutes ago link

...What else did you expect other than the MIC/Intelligence Agencies/Pentagon/embedded war mongers handling this stuff?

SurfingUSA , 2 minutes ago link

Gen. Buck Turgidson is most certainly going rogue.

joego1 , 11 minutes ago link

It's all about the bankers bitches.

LetThemEatRand , 17 minutes ago link

...That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is a figurehead with no real power.

Of course it's been true for a long time, but it's a fairly recent phenomenon that a large number of Americans like it. Russiagate is another example.

Huge portions of America were cheering for the unseating of an elected President by unelected police state apparatus because they don't like him.

[Jun 20, 2019] Putin Says US Establishment Stops Trump From Improving Ties With Russia And 'Invents Fake News'

Jun 20, 2019 | www.newsweek.com

Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed the U.S. establishment for preventing an improvement in relations between Moscow and Washington.

During his annual televised question-and-answer session with members of the public, Putin was asked about the prospects for better ties if he met with President Donald Trump.

The Russian energy Ministry's department head Evgeny Grabchak, who faces U.S. sanctions, asked Putin on air if he would "want to meet with Trump."

Putin replied that dialogue with the U.S. was "always good" adding that Russia was "ready for this dialogue as long as our partners were too."

Putin went on: "But even if Trump wants to change anything, there are restrictions imposed by other organs of power. There is a part of the American establishment that continues to invent fake news. We have things to discuss with Trump in all areas, including the economy," Novaya Gazyeta reported.

[Jun 20, 2019] Frustrated Donald Trump 'Chewed Out' Staff for Failed Venezuela Coup, Thought His Officials 'Got Played' Report

Jun 20, 2019 | www.newsweek.com

However, when virtually no one in the upper circles of power in Caracas ended up backing Guaidó, Trump thought that his national security adviser John Bolton and his director for Latin American policy, Mauricio Claver-Carone, "got played" by the opposition and key Maduro officials, The Post reported.

Two senior White House officials told The Post that the president "chewed out the staff" after the failure on April 30 to shift Maduro from power and that now Trump's administration has no fixed strategy to remove him.

Trump had "always thought of" Venezuela "as low-hanging fruit" on which he "could get a win and tout it as a major foreign policy victory," the former official said. "Five or six months later . . . it's not coming together," the unnamed official added.

However, this was rejected by National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis who described the official's claims as, "patently false."

[Jun 20, 2019] The Trump regime wants another pointless war by Ryan Cooper

Highly recommended!
A very good analysis. Trump essentially morphed into Hillary or worse. Essentially the same type of warmonger and compulsive liar.
Notable quotes:
"... The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war. ..."
"... At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics. ..."
"... Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.) ..."
"... What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse . ..."
"... Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. ..."
"... At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further. ..."
"... On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next. ..."
"... Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | theweek.com

The Trump regime is attempting to gin up a war with Iran. First Trump reneged on Obama's nuclear deal with the country for no reason, then he slapped them with more economic sanctions for no reason, and then, pushed by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he moved massive military forces onto Iran's doorstep to heighten tensions further. Now, after a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman -- none of which were American -- that the administration blames on Iran, Pompeo says the U.S. is "considering a full range of options," including war. (Iran has categorically denied any involvement.)

The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war.

The New York Times ' Bret Stephens, for all his #NeverTrump pretensions, provides a good window into the absolute witlessness of the pro-war argument . He takes largely at face value the Trump administration's accusations against Iran -- "Trump might be a liar, but the U.S. military isn't," he writes -- and blithely suggests Trump should announce an ultimatum demanding further attacks cease, then sink Iran's navy if they don't comply.

Let me take these in turn. For one thing, any statement of any kind coming out of a Republican's mouth should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Two years ago, the party passed a gigantic tax cut for the rich which they swore up and down would " pay for itself " with increased growth. To precisely no one's surprise, this did not happen . Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was just one flagrant example of many who got elected in 2016 while lying through their teeth about their party's efforts to destroy ObamaCare and its protections for preexisting conditions.

At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics.

Republican accusations of foreign aggression should be subjected to an even higher burden of proof. The Trump regime has provided no evidence of Iranian culpability aside from a video of a ship the Pentagon says is Iranians removing something they say is a mine from an oil tanker -- but a Japanese ship owner reported at least one attack came from a " flying object ," not a mine. Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.)

What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse .

And though this may be a shock to Troop Respecters like Bret Stephens, the military's record of scrupulous honesty is not exactly spotless. It has lied continually about the state of the Afghanistan occupation, just as it did in Vietnam . It lied about the effects of Agent Orange on U.S. troops and Vietnamese civilians. It lied about Pat Tillman being killed by friendly fire. Military recruiters even sometimes lie about enlistment benefits to meet their quotas.

Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. False flag attacks on its own oil tankers sound outlandish, but we're talking about a ruthless dictatorship run by a guy who had a Washington Post columnist murdered and chopped into pieces because he didn't like his takes. And the Saudis have already been conducting a years-long war in Yemen with catastrophic humanitarian outcomes in order to stop an Iran-allied group from coming to power. It's by no means certain, but hardly outside the realm of possibility.

At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further.

But let's grant for the sake of argument that some Iranian forces actually did carry out some or all of these attacks. That raises the immediate question of why. One very plausible reason is that all of Trump's provocations have strengthened the hand of Iran's conservative hard-liners, who are basically the mirror image of Pompeo and Bolton. "It is sort of a toxic interaction between hard-liners on both sides because for domestic political reasons they each want greater tension," as Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the New York Times . This faction might have concluded that the U.S. is run by deranged fanatics, and the best way to protect Iran is to demonstrate they could choke off oil shipping from the Persian Gulf if the U.S. attacks.

This in turn raises the question of the appropriate response if Iran is actually at fault here. It would be one thing if these attacks came out of a clear blue sky. But America is very obviously the aggressor here. Iran was following its side of the nuclear deal to the letter before Trump reneged, and continued to do so as of February . So far the European Union (which is still party to the deal) has been unwilling to sidestep U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to threaten to restart uranium enrichment . So Iran is a medium-sized country with a faltering economy, hemmed in on all sides by U.S. aggression. Backing off the threats and chest-thumping might easily strengthen the hand of Iranian moderates, and cause them to respond in kind.

On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next.

Taken together, these factors strongly militate towards de-escalation and diplomacy even if Iran did carry out these attacks, which again, is not at all proven. The current standoff is almost entirely our fault, and Iranian forces are far from defenseless. America has a lot better things to do than indulge the deluded jingoist fantasies of a handful of armchair generals who want lots of other people to die in battle.

Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.

Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped.

[Jun 20, 2019] Bias, Lies Videotape Doubts Dog Confirmed Syria Chemical Attacks

Jun 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Bias, Lies & Videotape: Doubts Dog 'Confirmed' Syria Chemical Attacks Disturbing new evidence suggests 2018 incident might've been staged, putting everything else, including U.S. retaliation, into question. By Scott Ritter June 20, 2019

(By Mikhail Semenov /Shutterstock) Thanks to an explosive internal memo, there is no reason to believe the claims put forward by the Syrian opposition that President Bashar al-Assad's government used chemical weapons against innocent civilians in Douma back in April. This is a scenario I have questioned from the beginning.

It also calls into question all the other conclusions and reports by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) , which was assigned in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."

As you recall, the Trump administration initiated a coordinated bombing of Syrian government facilities with the UK and France within days of the Douma incident and before a full investigation of the scene could be completed, charging Assad with the "barbaric act" of using "banned chemical weapons" to kill dozens of people on the scene. Bomb first, ask questions later.

The OPCW began their investigation days after the strikes . The group drew on witness testimonies, environmental and biomedical sample analysis results, and additional digital information from witnesses (i.e. video and still photography), as well as toxicological and ballistic analyses. In July 2018, the OPCW released an interim report on Douma that said "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties," but that chlorine, which is not a banned chemical weapon, was detected there.

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The report cited ballistic tests that indicated that the canisters found at two locations on the scene were dropped from the air (witnesses blamed Assad's forces), but investigations were ongoing. The final report in March reiterated the ballistics data, and the conclusions were just as underwhelming, saying that all of the evidence gathered there provides "reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place," due in part to traces of chlorine and explosives at the impact sites.

Now, the leaked internal report apparently suppressed by the OPCW says there is a "high probability" that a pair of chlorine gas cylinders that had been claimed as the source of the toxic chemical had been planted there by hand and not dropped by aircraft. This was based on extensive engineering assessments and computer modeling as well as all of the evidence previously afforded to the OPCW.

What does this mean? To my mind, the canisters were planted by the opposition in an effort to frame the Syrian government.

The OPCW has confirmed with the validity of this shocking document and has offered statements to reporters, including Peter Hitchens, who published the organization's response to him on May 16.

The ramifications of this turn of events extend far beyond simply disproving the allegations concerning the events in April 2018. The credibility of the OPCW itself and every report and conclusion it has released concerning allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government are now suspect. The extent to which the OPCW has, almost exclusively, relied upon the same Syrian opposition sources who are now suspected of fabricating the Douma events raises serious questions about both the methodology and motivation of an organization that had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for "its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons."

In a response to Agence France-Presse (AFP) , OPCW director general Fernando Arias acknowledged there is an internal probe into the memo leak but that he continues to "stand by the impartial and professional conclusions" of the group's original report. He played down the role of the memo's author, Ian Henderson, and said his alternative hypotheses were not included in the final OPCW report because they "pointed at possible attribution" and were therefore outside the scope of the OPCW's fact finding mission in Syria.

Self-produced videos and witness statements provided by the pro-opposition Violations Documentation Center, Syrian Civil Defense (also known as the White Helmets), and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) , a non-profit organization that operates hospitals in opposition-controlled Syria, represented the heart and soul of the case against the Syrian government regarding the events in Douma. To my mind, the internal memo now suggests that these actors were engaging in a systemic effort to disseminate disinformation that would facilitate Western military intervention with the goal of removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.

This theory has been advanced by pro-Assad forces and their Russian partners for some time. But independent reporting on the ground since the Douma incident has sussed out many of the same concerns. From James Harkin, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism and a fellow at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center, who traveled to the site of the attacks and reported for The Intercept in February of this year:

The imperative to grab the fleeting attention of an international audience certainly seems to have influenced the presentation of the evidence. In the videos and photos that appeared that evening, most analysts and observers agree that there were some signs that the bodies and gas canisters had been moved or tampered with after the event for maximum impact. The Syrian media activists who'd arrived at the apartment block with the dead people weren't the first to arrive on the scene; they'd heard about the deaths from White Helmet workers and doctors at the hospital.

The relationship between the OPCW and the Syrian opposition can be traced back to 2013. That was when the OPCW was given the responsibility of eliminating Syria's declared arsenal of chemical weapons; this task was largely completed by 2014. However, the Syrian opposition began making persistent allegations of chemical weapon attacks by the Syrian government in which chlorine, a substance not covered by Syria's obligation to be disarmed of chemical weapons, was used. In response, the OPCW established the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."

The priority of effort for the FFM early on was to investigate allegations of the use of chlorine as a weapon. Since, according to its May 2014 summary, "all reported incidents took place at locations that the Syrian Government considers to be outside its effective control," the FFM determined that the success of its mission was contingent upon "identification of key actors, such as local authorities and/or representatives of armed opposition groups in charge of the territories in which these locations are situated; the establishment of contacts with these groups in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence that allows the mandate and objectives of the FFM to be communicated."

So from its very inception, the FFM had to rely on the anti-Assad opposition and its supporters for nearly everything. The document that governed the conduct of the FFM's work in Syria was premised on the fact that the mission would be dependent in part upon "opposition representatives" to coordinate, along with the United Nations, the "security, logistical and operational aspects of the OPCW FFM," including liaising "for the purposes of making available persons for interviews."

One could sense the bias resulting from such an arrangement when, acting on information provided to it by the opposition regarding an "alleged attack with chlorine" on the towns of Kafr Zeyta and Al-Lataminah, the FFM changed its original plans to investigate an alleged chlorine attack on the town of Harasta. This decision, the FFM reported, "was welcomed by the opposition." When the FFM attempted to inspect Kafr Zeyta, however, it was attacked by opposition forces, with one of its vehicles destroyed by a roadside bomb, one inspector wounded, and several inspectors detained by opposition fighters.

The inability to go to Kafr Zeyta precluded the group from "presenting definitive conclusions," according to the report. But that did not stop the FFM from saying that the information given to them from these opposition sources, "including treating physicians with whom the FFM was able to establish contact," and public domain material, "lends credence to the view that toxic chemicals, most likely pulmonary irritating agents such as chlorine, have been used in a systematic manner in a number of attacks" against Kafr Zeyta.

So the conclusion/non-conclusion was based not on any onsite investigation, but rather videos produced by the opposition and subsequently released via social media and interviews also likely set up by opposition groups (White Helmets, SAMS, etc.), which we know, according to their own documents, served as the key liaisons for the FFM on the ground.

All of this is worrisome. It is unclear at this point how many Syrian chemical attacks have been truly confirmed since the start of the war. In February of this year, the Global Policy Institute released a report saying there were 336 such reports, but they were broken down into "confirmed," "credibly substantiated," and "comprehensively confirmed." Out of the total, 111 were given the rigorous "comprehensively confirmed" tag, which, according to the group, meant the incidents were "were investigated and confirmed by competent international bodies or backed up by at least three highly reliable independent sources of evidence."

They do not go into further detail about those bodies and sources, but are sure to thank the White Helmets and their "implementing partner" Mayday Rescue and Violations Documentation Center, among other groups, as "friends and partners" in the study. So it becomes clear, looking at the Kafr Zeytan inspection and beyond, that the same opposition sources that are informing the now-dubious OPCW reports are also delivering data and "assistance" to outside groups reaching international audiences, too.

The role of the OPCW in sustaining the claims made by the obviously biased Syrian opposition sources cannot be understated -- by confirming the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma, the OPCW lent credibility to claims that otherwise should not -- and indeed would not -- have been granted, and in doing so violated the very operating procedures that had been put in place by the OPCW to protect the credibility of the organization and its findings.

There is an old prosecutorial rule -- one lie, all lies -- that comes into play in this case. With the leaked internal report out there, suggesting that the sources in the Douma investigation were agenda-driven and dishonest, all information ever provided to the OPCW by the White Helmets, SAMS, and other Syrian opposition groups must now, in my mind, be viewed as tainted and therefore unusable.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

JPH 8 hours ago

The OPCW reaction clearly considering the investigation into the leak instead of apologizing for not publishing this report is revealing its bias.

There has been a push from 'the West' to have the OPCW also attributing responsibility. Given the bias already on display this will further politicize the OPCW.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk...

As soon as such organizations become propaganda tools their credibility goes into the wind.

Given what we know of the Skripal hoax and the Tories attitude to the truth with their government funded 'Integrity Initiative' through the Institute of Statecraft' that exactly what the British Intelligence intended.

https://medium.com/@tomseck...

One may note the specific personal links through Orbis/Steele/Miller between the 'Integrity Initiative' and the fake 'Trump Dossier' and one ought to be alarmed by 'services' of a British intelligence out of control, but given the FBI/CIA involvement and exploitation of that fake 'Trump Dossier' it looks that the US has a quite similar problem.

john 11 hours ago
Our government lied to start a war! When has that always happened.

[Jun 20, 2019] Dominoes, Hegemonies, The Future Of Humanity

Jun 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

People, however, are supposed to have brains and are expected to be cognizant of what's happening around them and able to assess its implications on their wellbeing. Unfortunately, this rarely is the case, which may add credence to the theory that by settling into early agrarian communities, humans became more caring and supportive of each other, thus undermining the successful natural selection process by retaining idiot genes!

It is not as though the concept of danger is a new phenomenon. Ever since humans got over the fear of carnivorous beasts and learnt how to kill them, they have concentrated on killing each other. Hegemonic tendencies have existed for thousands of years; as early as the Sumerians and Assyrians and continued through to the colonization monsters of the past few hundred years.

STATUS OF HEGEMONY

Hegemonies come in different sizes; small, medium and big; an amusing "pecking order" whose interaction can be observed on the daily news broadcasts. It also comes in different styles; softly spoken but treacherous, generous with economic assistance but containing hidden strings to hang you, belligerent with a viscous warmongering streak and lastly, schizophrenic; oscillating between all the previous styles. There are also the would-be-hegemons if given half a chance.

More recently, the hegemony arena has, though knock-out matches, been narrowed down to one grand hegemon and a couple of runners-up, and the heat is now rising as the final tournament approaches – Let us hope it will not be too bloody and Armageddon-ish.

Despite that, many nations continue to dream of becoming hegemons. But at the same time, they continue to concentrate on their 'white dots' and disregard the likelihood that they are already in the crosshairs of a bigger hegemon.

They seem oblivious to the hegemonic ploys that undermine their political and economic structures through unending sanctions, onerous trade or military treaties, contemptuous disregard for local and international laws, negative and false news reporting, regime change tactics, false flag incidences, scaremongering, and outright threats that are occasionally translated into destructive military action. Like the proverbial deer, they are frozen in the headlights of the oncoming speeding car and wait until it is too late to save themselves.

What happened in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Somalia, Grenada, Venezuela, Argentine, Brazil, Cuba, Greece, Iran, North Korea and many other places are only the tip of the iceberg. What is likely to happen elsewhere is still being baked in the oven and will come out once done and ready. What is surprising is that, not only were the signs written on all the walls but, again, the victims failed to comprehend the messages and continued to stare at their 'white dots'!

Southeast Asia, South China Sea, Ex-Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South & Central America and Africa are all candidates for destabilization and possible splintering into smaller pieces – especially those that exhibit economic weakness or cracks in their demographic, ethnic, religious makeup and are rife with internal disharmony.

Even the European EU is now beginning to feel the brunt of the hegemon pressure of tariff and sanctions threats. Japan, Mexico, India and Canada too, have just got a taste of an ear pinching to remind them to dance to the grand hegemon's tune. Who is left? Not even Timbuktu!

What about the runner-up hegemons? What about the smaller hegemons? Well, all hegemons have the same strain of nasty genes. However, they are dormant and only begin to grow as their host's power increases. This, most likely, is a genetic relic from the early human hunters-gatherers' need for viciousness to survive. Maybe natural selection and/or wisdom will eventually weed out those nasty genes, but don't bet your farm or country on it.

IS ALL LOST?

Not necessarily, because all hegemons (big and small) also suffer from the same weaknesses and dis-harmonies that beset their victims, although they cunningly keep them secret. Powerful mass media and propaganda are used extensively to camouflage all the ills that would otherwise stumble their seemingly confident and steady footsteps. This means that they are as also vulnerable to the same ploys that they have repeatedly used on others.

Also, history confirms that all empires eventually collapse and disappear, regardless of how long they last. Some lasted over a thousand years, which may sound too long, but in the modern world of technology, digital communications, social media and financialized economies, the average lifespan of hegemons has been drastically cut short.

Empires and hegemons generally start with a strategic vision of expansion and moderate usurpation of other nations' resources; then, gluttony takes over at a rapidly increased pace.

But as the world and its resources are limited, they sooner or later bump into and clash with other hegemons; and are forced to change their tactics. As matters heat up, their tactics not only become shorter and shorter-term, but become ad hoc not fully thought through and, even haphazard – until they begin to shoot themselves in the foot.

This usually is an early sign of their demise (compare this to the Roman/Byzantine, Safavid Iran and Ottoman empires and their confusion with multi-front wars – in addition to their poor governance systems and economic mismanagement).

WHAT TO DO

In all events, we cannot wait out the hegemons to die out as the dinosaurs did; it would take far too long.

More realistically, we can address the modern hegemonic world threat via a two-pronged approach. The first is individual effort and the second is collective action.

Individual effort means to treat the sources of weakness and internal disharmony that make individual countries susceptible to hegemonic ploys. This requires the recreation of the governance systems to tackle all the maladies that drag nations down, including poor economic policies, corruption, inequality, ineffective representative systems, etc.

In short, seal the cracks that invite enemies to destabilize a country. It is not easy but is certainly better than being sucked dry off your freedom, resources and future.

As for collective action, this means getting together with other small and medium nations to form groups/alliances that can stand up to hegemons and resist, at least, their economic sanctions and threats. The Non-Aligned Movement was, and still is a good idea, but needs more teeth. Alternatively, new and more practical types of groupings could be envisaged and created – always conditional that no one nation, big or small, is allowed to become the group's hegemon.

Dominoes may be flimsy and unstable, but if laid in parallel rows and columns and closely bonded (zero-spaced), they become much more difficult to topple. So, don't be a lone domino dumbly staring at your 'white dots'!


Cloud9.5 , 50 minutes ago link

I don't see the cracks being filled. I certainly don't see them being filled by government. On the local level, our county has grown form a modest system that typically ran out of money before the year was out to a behemoth. Now the support staff outnumbers the teachers in our schools. The sheriff's office is massive. The child services center is huge. The salaries get better and better. The pensions get better. And, the taxes go up. The county is feeding off the retirees that have flooded in from the North. The fun starts when the Northern pension plans fail and the boomer die off kills the golden calf.

The the push will be to raise taxes to sustain a bloated bureacracy.

45North1 , 1 hour ago link

As Hegemonies expand, the costs to maintain the expansion eventually outweigh the financial rewards (look how much has been blown on Afghanistan). This is funded by neglecting the infrastructure and systems that made the Hegemonic entity powerful in the first place.

Hegemonies, as they reach peak expansion find that the costs of further expansion, let alone retaining their current Vassal entities exceeds their return on investment inflicting deficits. They rot from within as infrastructure decays and its citizens see no benefit. When a Hegemony needs to use as much tyranny to ensure that its vassal states and its own citizens are compliant...... its days are numbered.

Brazen Heist II , 3 hours ago link

What we need is an anti-imperialist movement.

Scipio Africanuz , 5 hours ago link

Until mankind relearns what made civilization possible (cooperation), then there's no hope. That's why Russia is advancing the Rule of Law (harmonious cooperation), and China, advancing OBOR (Economic liberation), in order to avoid the usual causes of conflict, economic deprivation.

They've both been there (empires), done it (hegemony), and got bruised badly too..

It'd be very difficult to practice hegemony now, in a densely interconnected world, but that doesn't mean nations won't possess some influence over others, influence being the key word, like a man's girlfriend possesses influence over him, or vice versa, but raw hegemony? Not likely..

Anyhow, what really ails humanity, is alienation from Divinity. Rich, famous, and powerful people have been known to terminally end their mortality despite having it all..

Our mission, is to restore that connection, so we can finally wake up, and ascend to explore, and multiply amongst the stars. But first things first, charity begins right here, on planet home, cheers...

francis scott falseflag , 5 hours ago link

t'd be very difficult to practice hegemony now

Yes indeed.

The coming 'paradigm shift', means the West and all its debt will metamorphize into Oceania, continue to fake its hegemony, and fool its population into thinking that they still are, what they once were.

Bollockinell , 6 hours ago link

Excellent article! Beautifully crafted and simple to understand. A refreshing view that, to my knowledge, has not been used before. Most importantly, an easy method for awakening the zombie classes.

Now we have the tool, let's begin using it. Black dots, dead ahead!

francis scott falseflag , 5 hours ago link

Trouble is that the alpha hegemon and the larger of the betas, all have a trove of nuclear weapons. I don't think the Sumerians and Assyrians had anything quite like that.

When today's promoters of hope and denial finally meet up with the invincible force of reality, sad very sad

[Jun 20, 2019] Bret Stephens, Warmonger

Jun 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Credit: MSNBC/YouTube Screenshot

The teaser for a recent Bret Stephens column in The New York Times accurately summarizes its contents: "If Iran won't change its behavior we should sink its navy."

We've done it before and, by golly, we can do it again. Stephens offers his readers this sanitized version of history to make his case: "On April 14, 1988, the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts, a frigate, hit an Iranian naval mine while sailing in the Persian Gulf. The explosion injured 10 of her crew and nearly sank the ship. Four days later, the U.S. Navy destroyed half the Iranian fleet in a matter of hours. Iran did not molest the Navy or international shipping for many years thereafter."

Stripped bare of context, that paragraph is factually correct. But stripping it of context, as Stephens does, transforms it into a form of untruth, not a blatant lie perhaps, but an exercise in sleight of hand. Indeed, the very purpose of his column is not to enlighten, but to deceive and manipulate.

Americans are susceptible to this sort of argument. We like to think that the Pearl Harbor attack came out of the blue, ignoring the years of escalating antagonism between the United States and Japan that preceded it. Our version of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis portrays it as an unprovoked act of aggression, conveniently forgetting U.S. efforts over the previous two years to overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro. And we prefer to divorce decades of muddled U.S. policies in the Middle East from the heinous crime of 9/11, pretending that the former played no role in inspiring the latter.

Yet bad history leads to bad policy. Stephens implicitly suggests that the incident involving the Samuel B. Roberts was itself an unprovoked attack. In fact, the story is a bit more complicated and those complications deserve reflection today.

Here is just some of the context that Stephens chooses to leave out.

Item: In 1988, Iran was in the eighth year of a war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq; Saddam had initiated that conflict by invading Iran, an unprovoked and illegal act of aggression.

Item: Beginning in December 1983, the United States had thrown its support behind the Iraqi dictator, providing him with battlefield intelligence and various types of material support; starting in 1985, in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan administration also began secretly providing arms to Iran.

Donald Trump Would Own a War With Iran Why Iran Could Launch a Limited Attack

Item: In 1984, Iraq had begun attacking ships involved in exporting Iranian oil; Iran responded in kind, attacking tankers belonging to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, countries that were bankrolling Saddam's war effort.

Item: On May 17, 1987, with the double-dealing of Iran-Contra having become public, an Iraqi fighter-bomber attacked the USS Stark, nearly sinking it and killing 37 American sailors; Secretary of State George Shultz blamed Iran for the incident, attributing it to a "basic Iranian threat to the free flow of oil and to the principle of freedom of navigation"; in fact, both Iran and Iraq were engaged in impeding the free flow of oil.

Item: That July, the U.S. Navy began escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers transiting the Persian Gulf; the Pentagon also began preparing for offensive operations, concentrating additional combat assets in the region.

Item: On September 21, 1987, U.S. forces initiated a campaign of escalating attacks directed at Iranian mine-laying vessels and oil platforms; the United States had now effectively become a full-fledged ally of Saddam Hussein.

Item: Months later, the Samuel Roberts inadvertently wandered into a field of floating mines; the resulting U.S. fatalities were 37 fewer than those killed on the USS Stark but the incident provided the needed pretext for the United States to respond four days later on April 18, 1988 with Operation Praying Mantis, which decimated Iran's minuscule navy.

Item, a notable footnote that goes unmentioned in Stephens' column: Not long thereafter, on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, a cruiser intruding into Iranian territorial waters, shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 civilians aboard; senior U.S. officials, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then lied about the circumstances leading to this incident; a U.S. Navy investigation charged Iran with "principal responsibility" for what it termed a "tragedy"; no apologies were forthcoming; Vice President George H.W. Bush said it best: "I will never apologize for the United States -- I don't care what the facts are."

Within weeks, the Iran-Iraq War ended in a UN-brokered ceasefire. The United States had enabled Saddam to survive. Two years later, America's erstwhile ally invaded and annexed Kuwait.

So, yes, in Operation Preying Mantis, U.S. forces did defeat the Iranian navy. Yet prevailing in this insignificant skirmish accomplished little apart from paving the way for further aggression by Saddam Hussein.

"Nobody wants a war with Iran," writes Stephens. Actually some people do want war, almost surely including President Trump's secretary of state and national security adviser. So, too, does Stephens himself. The deceptive history that he chooses to propagate can have no purpose except to promote armed conflict and to impede any understanding into America's role in planting the seeds of forever war.

Andrew Bacevich is 's writer-at-large.

stevek92 days ago • edited

Andrew is actually giving this story much more analysis than it deserves. Bret Stephens is a Zionist. What he writes is pure propaganda and has been for a long time. It's not worth 'analyzing', it's just more lies to convince Americans to destroy Israel's enemies.
chacmool2 days ago
For Bret Stephens, it is all about Israel. He doesn't mind the cost to the US of a war with Iran, if it benefits Israel.

[Jun 19, 2019] Trump has drained the swamp right into his administration

Notable quotes:
"... I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure. ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ken , Jun 19, 2019 3:57:37 PM | 23

..Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration.

Look at what we in the US have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the right. I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.

[Jun 19, 2019] Trump has drained the swamp right into his administration

Notable quotes:
"... I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure. ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ken , Jun 19, 2019 3:57:37 PM | 23

..Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration.

Look at what we in the US have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the right. I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.

[Jun 19, 2019] Washington's Dr. Strangeloves by Stephen F. Cohen

Notable quotes:
"... What is the significance of this story, apart from what it tells us about the graver dangers of the new US-Russian Cold War, which now includes, we are informed, a uniquely fraught "digital Cold War"? Not so long ago, mainstream liberal Democrats, and the Times itself, would have been outraged by revelations that defense and intelligence officials were making such existential policy behind the back of a president. No longer, it seems. There have been no liberal, Democratic, or for the most part any other, mainstream protests, but instead a lawyerly apologia justifying the intelligence-defense operation without the president's knowledge. ..."
"... As I have often emphasized, the long historical struggle for American-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) détente, or broad cooperation, has featured many acts of attempted sabotage on both sides, though most often by US intelligence and defense agencies. ..."
"... Now the sabotaging of détente appears be happening again. As the Times article makes clear, Washington's war party, or perhaps zealous Cold War party, referred to euphemistically by Sanger and Perlroth as "advocates of the more aggressive strategy," is on the move. ..."
"... Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world. No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia's electric grid -- to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight. ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.thenation.com

Occasionally, a revelatory, and profoundly alarming, article passes almost unnoticed, even when published on the front page of The New York Times . Such was the case with reporting by David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth , bearing the Strangelovian title "U.S. Buries Digital Land Mines to Menace Russia's Power Grid," which appeared in the print edition on June 16. The article contained two revelations.

First, according to Sanger and Perlroth, with my ellipses duly noted, "The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia's electric power grid. Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue " The operation "carries significant risk of escalating the daily digital Cold War between Washington and Moscow." Though under way at least since 2012, "now the American strategy has shifted more toward offense with the placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before." At this point, the Times reporters add an Orwellian touch. The head of the U.S. Cyber Command characterizes the assault on Russia's grid, which affects everything from the country's water supply, medical services, and transportation to control over its nuclear weapons, as "the need to 'defend forward,'" because "they don't fear us."

Nowhere do Sanger and Perlroth seem alarmed by the implicit risks of this "defend forward" attack on the infrastructure of the other nuclear superpower. Indeed, they wonder "whether it would be possible to plunge Russia into darkness." And toward the end, they quote an American lawyer and former Obama official, whose expertise on the matter is unclear, to assure readers sanguinely, "We might have to risk taking some broken bones of our own from a counter response. Sometimes you have to take a bloody nose to not take a bullet in the head down the road." The "broken bones," "bloody nose," and "bullet" are, of course, metaphorical references to the potential consequences of nuclear war.

The second revelation comes midway in the Times story: "[President] Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place 'implants' inside the Russian grid" because "he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials." (Indeed, Trump issued an angry tweet when he saw the Times report, though leaving unclear which part of it most aroused his anger.)

What is the significance of this story, apart from what it tells us about the graver dangers of the new US-Russian Cold War, which now includes, we are informed, a uniquely fraught "digital Cold War"? Not so long ago, mainstream liberal Democrats, and the Times itself, would have been outraged by revelations that defense and intelligence officials were making such existential policy behind the back of a president. No longer, it seems. There have been no liberal, Democratic, or for the most part any other, mainstream protests, but instead a lawyerly apologia justifying the intelligence-defense operation without the president's knowledge.

The political significance, however, seems clear enough. The leak to the Times and the paper's publication of the article come in the run-up to a scheduled meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 meeting in Japan on June 28–29. Both leaders had recently expressed hope for improved US-Russian relations. On May 4, Trump again tweeted his longstanding aspiration for a "good/great relationship with Russia"; and this month Putin lamented that relations " are getting worse and worse " but hoped that he and Trump could move their countries beyond "the games played by intelligence services."

As I have often emphasized, the long historical struggle for American-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) détente, or broad cooperation, has featured many acts of attempted sabotage on both sides, though most often by US intelligence and defense agencies. Readers may recall the Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit meeting that was to take place in Paris in 1960, but which was aborted by the Soviet shoot-down of a US spy plane over the Soviet Union, an intrusive flight apparently not authorized by President Eisenhower. And more recently, the 2016 plan by then-President Obama and Putin for US-Russian cooperation in Syria, which was aborted by a Department of Defense attack on Russian-backed Syrian troops.

Now the sabotaging of détente appears be happening again. As the Times article makes clear, Washington's war party, or perhaps zealous Cold War party, referred to euphemistically by Sanger and Perlroth as "advocates of the more aggressive strategy," is on the move. Certainly, Trump has been repeatedly thwarted in his previous détente attempts, primarily by discredited Russiagate allegations that continue to be promoted by the war party even though they still lack any evidential basis. (It may also be recalled that his previous summit meeting with Putin was widely and shamefully assailed as "treason" by influential segments of the US political-media establishment.)

Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world. No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia's electric grid -- to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight.

This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com . Ad Policy Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition.

[Jun 19, 2019] Declassified The Sino-Russian Masterplan To End U.S. Dominance In Middle East OilPrice.com

Notable quotes:
"... One of the first major confrontations with the US by Russia and the PRC was to be over the greater Middle East. The main reason was the advance negotiations with all key oil producers -- including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran -- on substituting the petrodollar with a basket of currencies where the yuan , the euro and the ruble dominate. Using the currency basket would enable the sellers and buyers to go around the US-imposed sanctions and quotas. Indeed, Beijing and Moscow were now enticing the oil producers with huge, long-term export deals which were both financially lucrative and politically tempting by offering guarantees for the well-being of the participating governments. ..."
"... The 26th of March 2018 will go in history as the most momentous day for the United States’ economy, China’s economy and the petrodollar and also for China’s status as an economic superpower. In that day China launched its yuan-denominated crude oil futures in Shanghai thus challenging the petrodollar for dominance in the global oil market. ..."
"... And with tensions escalating between Iran and the United States, Iran figures prominently in the Russia-China strategic partnership. It is an important link in the BRI. Moreover, Iran has recently become more confident in its ability to confront the United States by the joint guarantees of support it received from Russia and China in the event the US moved to strangle it and attempt a regime change. Iran’s understanding is that were the US to take military action against it, Russia and China would prevent an Iranian defeat even if there were major setbacks. ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | oilprice.com

One of the first major confrontations with the US by Russia and the PRC was to be over the greater Middle East. The main reason was the advance negotiations with all key oil producers -- including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran -- on substituting the petrodollar with a basket of currencies where the yuan , the euro and the ruble dominate. Using the currency basket would enable the sellers and buyers to go around the US-imposed sanctions and quotas. Indeed, Beijing and Moscow were now enticing the oil producers with huge, long-term export deals which were both financially lucrative and politically tempting by offering guarantees for the well-being of the participating governments.

The crux of the proposal is regional and includes flagrant disregard of the US sanctions on Iran.

However, the key to the extent of the commitment of both Beijing and Moscow lies in the growing importance and centrality of the New Silk Road via Central Asia.

Persia had a crucial rôle in the ancient Silk Road, and both the PRC and Russia now expect Iran to have a comparable key rôle in the New Silk Road.

The growing dominance of heritage-based dynamics throughout the developing world, including the greater Central Asia and the greater Middle East, makes it imperative for the PRC to rely on historic Persia/Iran as a western pole of the New Silk Road. It is this realization which led both Beijing and Moscow to give Tehran, in mid-May 2019, the original guarantees that Washington would be prevented from conducting a "regime change".

Therefore, even though both Russia and the PRC were not satisfied with the Iranian and Iran-proxy activities and policies in the Iraq-Syria-Lebanon area, it was far more important for them to support Iran, and also Turkey, in their confrontations with the US in order to expedite the consolidation of the New Silk Road.

Tehran and its key allies in "the Middle Eastern Entente" -- Turkey and Qatar -- are cognizant of the core positions of Russia and the PRC. Since mid-May, Tehran and, to a lesser extent, Ankara and Doha, were appraised by Moscow and Beijing of their overall direction of political decisions. Hence, since early June 2019, Tehran has felt confident to start building momentum of Iranian assertiveness and audacity.

Tehran has been raising its profile in the region.

Tehran insists that it is now impossible to make decisions, or do anything else, in the greater Middle East without Iran's approval. On June 2, 2019, the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, touted the new strategic posture of Iran. "The Islamic movement has affected the entire world and on top of that, it has succeeded in intimidating the American hegemony and Zionism," he said. Bagheri attributed the new influence of Iran to the acquisition of regional strategic depth; that is, reaching the shores of the Mediterranean

Mamdouh Salamehon June 18 2019

Some quarters in the West belittle the strategic partnership between China and Russia describing it as a “marriage of convenience”. They even had the temerity to urge President Putin to make a choice between China and the West.

President Putin will never sacrifice his strategic partnership with China for the West. Both Russia and China rank their ties as the “peak” in mutual history. This can be judged by two analytical frameworks: their converging visions of the future world order and their harmonized national interests.

The Chinese view on the world order at this historical juncture is shared and dovetailed by Putin’s Russia. Both sides hold the view that Washington’s alienation from both Beijing and Moscow is reflected by the deeply rooted fear of the US losing hegemonic status as the “only indispensable superpower”. The indications of the US fear are plenty. From Beijing’s point of view, they manifest themselves by the U.S. decision to restart a Cold War containment strategy of China and by the trade war it is waging against it. From Moscow’s perspective, US fears manifest themselves by the US attempts to undermine Russia’s dominance in global energy and also by the Western alliance pushing the Western sphere of influence towards the Russian border.

In sharp contrast to mutual suspicion and deteriorating relationship between Washington and Beijing, the Chinese-Russian tie has proved to be a stable strategic partnership built on mutual understanding, respect and national interests.

The Russia-China strategic alliance is destined to shape the global economy and the geopolitics of the world in the 21st century converting it from a unipolar to a multipolar world.

Relations between China, the world’s largest economy based on purchasing power parity (PPP) and Russia, the world’s energy superpower, are deepening at a time of profound change in the global geopolitical landscape.

Their tools are the petro-yuan and the Silk Road better known as the Belt &amp; Road Initiative (BRI).

The 26th of March 2018 will go in history as the most momentous day for the United States’ economy, China’s economy and the petrodollar and also for China’s status as an economic superpower. In that day China launched its yuan-denominated crude oil futures in Shanghai thus challenging the petrodollar for dominance in the global oil market.

Right now, China is the number one exporter on the globe, the largest crude oil importer in the world and also the world’s biggest economy. The Chinese would like to see global currency usage reflect this shift in global economic power. The petrodollar system provides at least three immediate benefits to the United States. It increases global demand for US dollars. It also increases global demand for US debt securities and it gives the United States the ability to buy oil with a currency it can print at will. In geopolitical terms, the petrodollar lends vast economic and political power to the United States. China hopes to replicate this dynamic.

The launching of the crude oil benchmark on the Shanghai exchange could mark the beginning of the end of the petrodollar. It is probable that the Chinese yuan will emerge as the world’s top reserve currency within the next fifteen years with the petro-yuan emerging as the top oil currency.

Another tool of the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership is BRI. The BRI is a massive undertaking involving investments programmes worth trillions of dollars, which will go toward connecting Asia and Europe by sea, rail, and road to promote more trade between the continents.

And with tensions escalating between Iran and the United States, Iran figures prominently in the Russia-China strategic partnership. It is an important link in the BRI. Moreover, Iran has recently become more confident in its ability to confront the United States by the joint guarantees of support it received from Russia and China in the event the US moved to strangle it and attempt a regime change. Iran’s understanding is that were the US to take military action against it, Russia and China would prevent an Iranian defeat even if there were major setbacks.

Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London

[Jun 19, 2019] War With Iran Would Make Trump A One-Term President The American Conservative

Jun 19, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

As President Donald Trump was in Florida kicking off his bid for a second term, his national security team was in Washington hatching plans that make that prospect much less likely.

The architects of the failed George W. Bush foreign policy rightly derided by Trump as a "big, fat mistake" on the campaign trail today exercise undue influence inside this White House. The end result could be a war with Iran.

Just as their last turn at the wheel wrecked the Bush presidency and eventually left Barack Obama in power alongside three-fifths Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the Republican Party's wildest hawks could now ensure that Trump is a one-term president. The president once understood this, telling Jeb Bush, "Your brother and his administration gave us Barack Obama . Abraham Lincoln couldn't have won."

Trump defeated Jeb, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio, running on a foreign policy of "America First" and repudiating a decade and a half of unwinnable wars. He then won in an upset over Hillary Clinton, who voted to invade Iraq, pushed "kinetic military action" in Libya, and otherwise hasn't seen a war she hasn't liked since Vietnam.

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Now Trump is on the precipice of ceding the war issue to his political opponents, as the border crisis metastasizes and the suburbs turn blue. Joe Biden would be the third Democratic presidential nominee to have voted for the Iraq war -- the exception, Obama, twice won the White House -- just as Chuck Schumer is the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have done so.

If Trump follows Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Bush retread national security advisor John Bolton into a preventive war with Iran, he will make Biden and Schumer look like Tulsi Gabbard -- and perhaps pave the way for a different Democratic nominee against whom the anti-Hillary playbook of 2016 will prove less useful.

The president began the year promising to end the war in Syria, which Congress never authorized in the first place, and wind down the war in Afghanistan. Alongside low unemployment, the job growth that followed deregulation and tax cuts, and remaking the Supreme Court in Antonin Scalia's image, keeping ISIS at bay without launching a new war in the Middle East -- though he has surely escalated some ongoing conflicts -- stands among his top accomplishments.

Perhaps that is the soft bigotry of low expectations, to use a Bush-era phrase, but in an era of forever war, it counts for something. That is, it will count for something until the Trump team invokes the congressional authorization of force used for the Afghan war to start a new one in Iran, a move too brazenly unconstitutional for even the Bush-Cheney contingent of old.

Donald Trump Would Own a War With Iran Bret Stephens, Warmonger

The cakewalk crowd has reemerged to assure us that pinprick strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities are possible and that the regime in Tehran will prove a paper tiger. But everywhere their promises have turned to ash. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or cheering throngs greeting America's finest as liberators. Groups ideologically similar to the Islamists who attacked us on 9/11 emerged from Iraq and Libya as more powerful, not less.

Iran has long been the unprincipled exception to Trump's opposition to Middle Eastern quagmires. His desire to undo the Obama presidency predisposed him to unraveling the nuclear deal and led him to folly in Yemen. Now it might prompt him to redo the foreign policy mistakes that toppled the Bush dynasty, paving the way for a socialist to become the next commander-in-chief.

Still, there remains a powerful voice inside the White House who could halt this march to war. "The president, who campaigned against getting the U.S. bogged down in unnecessary foreign wars, is considered the primary internal obstacle to a counterattack," Politico reports .

Not even Trump's opinion should matter most. The Constitution vests the power to declare war in Congress. To justify a new war based on an outdated resolution passed nearly 20 years ago to authorize retaliation against the 9/11 attackers would be an unconscionable power grab by the executive branch that lawmakers should not countenance. Yet time and again, Congress has shirked its constitutional duties.

The Democrats in the House have an opportunity to put their money where their mouths are . But maybe they won't. An Iraq-like war in Iran would go a long way toward accomplishing their main goal: making Donald Trump a one-term president.

W. James Antle III is the editor of .

[Jun 19, 2019] How John Bolton Controls The Administration And Donald Trump

Notable quotes:
"... There are two possibilities. Trump wants a war with Iran and what we see is a good cop, bad cop strategy in which Trump plays the good guy for his voters until some 'grave incident' happens that lets him says that he has no choice but to 'hit back' at Iran. The other scenario is that Trump is a fool and that the war hawks use him as their tool to implement their preferred policies. ..."
"... Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke says that the second scenario is the real one : ..."
"... Crooke describes how Bolton, and Netanyahoo behind him, outmaneuver the U.S. intelligence services over Iran. They stovepipe "intelligence" to the president and the media just like the crew of then Vice President Dick Cheney did in the run up to the war on Iraq: ..."
"... Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel – intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the credibility of the intelligence presented (shades of Cheney confronting the analysts down at Langley). ..."
"... Bolton and Pompeo are representative of Trump's rabid evangelical base and Israel. The kabuki friction towards the shared goals is just that. To the degree that we are hearing shrillness from these folk reflects the increasing failure of their tactics to maintain control of the global narrative. ..."
"... I'm definitely of the good cop/bad cop belief. It fits with the entirety of his campaign and presidency: say one thing, do another, and blame somebody else. Trump wanted Bolton for NSA since the campaign. Both Bolton and Trump have had a position of confrontation with Iran for a long time ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson is Trumps biggest doner "Adelson's promotion of Bolton dates back at least to the days immediately after Trump's November 2016 election. According to The New York Times, Adelson strongly supported Bolton for the position of deputy secretary of state as Trump was putting together his cabinet" https://lobelog.com/trumps-choice-of-bolton-satisfies-his-biggest-donor/ So Trump could find it difficult to sack Bolton. ..."
"... It just seems like Iraq deja vu: GWB was the ignorant, dumb public face masking Lukidniks controlling US policy then, DJT the face masking the same now. ..."
"... US bombs falling on Iran seems awfully close to Moscow in my view. I cannot help wondering if one of Putin's cards is his own red line: not allowing Likudniks to subjugate US military power for their "interests" wrt Iran. ..."
"... It's about 1500 miles from Tehran to Moscow. That's about equal to the distance between Kansas City and San Francisco. ..."
"... As B (and many other media ) pointed out: the crew of the Japanese tanker all said the ship was hit by an air borne projectile. This was not a mine. Seems obvious if US was interested in the truth, they would recover and identify the projectile. ..."
"... IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists) ..."
"... Sadly, I find that I disagree with both of b's latest theories: the "Iranian stealth attack" theory and the "President Bolton" theory. IMO these are propaganda narratives. ..."
"... "As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron". ..."
"... Now look at the U.S., the tanker was sitting their in broad daylight for about 10hrs and we couldn't even get ONE decent picture of an unexploded bomb sitting on the side of hull. And when the IRGC finally did show up, even our high resolution pictures were a joke and we are the SIGINT champions with hi-tech drones. Also, this means that the IRGC was able to slip into a port on the other side of the Persian Gulf and attack mines to 4 tankers undetected. ..."
"... By minimizing the Oman Gulf incidents, maybe it is way for the White House under Bolton's control to show that it is not impressed nor feeling threatened. it is also encouraging the perpetrators of the attacks to do more provocations and ideally to kill an American... ..."
"... That Iranian seaman who is alleged to have pulled off a possibly unstable, unexploded mine wearing nothing but a rubber life jacket thus endangering his life and all his crew mates and survivors in the small boat is the action of a lunatic. Or maybe it never happened. ..."
"... There's been a shift in the dialogue, to some degree, to a discussion of the overall US role in the Gulf area. ..."
"... A broadening of the security mission in the Gulf area would be a positive step. Imagine the navies of China, India and Japan taking a role! The price would be a removal of Iran sanctions, because these countries want Iran oil! . . .I can dream. ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jeff Bezos' blog, the Washington Post , has some bits on the discussion and infighting in the Trump administration about the march towards war on Iran. The piece opens with news of a new redline the Trump administration set out:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has privately delivered warnings intended for Iranian leaders that any attack by Tehran or its proxies resulting in the death of even one American service member will generate a military counterattack, U.S. officials said.
...
While such attacks were common during the Iraq War, Pompeo told Iraqi leaders in a message he knew would be relayed to Tehran that a single American fatality would prompt the United States to hit back.

That warning was sent in May when Pompeo visited Baghdad. The issue may soon become critical. Throughout the last days there were rocket attacks in Iraq against targets where U.S. personnel is present. The AFP correspondent in Baghdad lists six of them:

Maya Gebeily - @GebeilyM - 10:20 UTC - 19 Jun 2019

Timeline of attacks on US interests in #Iraq
Fri: Mortars hit Balad base, where US troops based
Sun: Projectiles hit #Baghdad mil airport
Mon: Rockets on Taji, where coalition forces based
Tues: Mortars on #Mosul ops HQ
Wed: Rockets on housing/ops center used by IOCs near #Basra

#IRAQ: @AFP learns there were at least *two* attacks near US oil interests in #Basra in last 24 hours - ExxonMobil + Baker Hughes, a GE Company Their senior staff are being evacuated.

At least some of these attacks came from areas where Islamic State underground groups are still active. The weapons used were improvised and imprecise.

That shows how stupid the red line is that Pompeo set out. He would attack Iran if an errant ISIS rocket by chance kills some U.S. soldier? That is nuts.

Back to the WaPo piece:

Speaking during a visit to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa on Tuesday, Pompeo said Trump "does not want war" but stressed the United States would act if assaulted. "We are there to deter aggression," he said.

The U.S. violated the nuclear agreement and is waging an economic war on Iran. That was the aggression that started the conflict. Anything that follows from that was caused by the Trump administration.

Colonel Pat Lang thinks that Pompeo was in Tampa to bring the military in line with his aggressive policies:

Ole First in his Class is down in Tampaland today jawboning the leaders of CENTCOM (Mideast), and SOCOM (badass commandos worldwide). Why is he there? The Secretary of State has no constitutional or legal role in dealing with the armed forces. That being the case one can only think that there is push-back from senior commanders over the prospect of war with Iran and that Trump has been persuaded to let him do this unprecedented visit to wheedle or threaten his way into their acquiescence.

WaPo again:

The sudden departure Tuesday of Patrick Shanahan, who has served as acting defense secretary since January, could further sideline the Pentagon, which has campaigned to reduce the potential for hostilities. Shanahan's withdrawal followed revelations of a complicated domestic dispute.

The 'complicated domestic dispute ' is not so complicate at all and the case is undisputed. In a several years long process Shanahan's ex-wife went crazy and physically attacked him and their kids. Finally one of the kids hit back at her with a baseball bat. In court Shanahan argued for a mild punishment for the kid. All the kids, mostly grown up now, are with him and do not want to see their mother. All that was documented by the police and by courts. Shanahan is not guilty of anything in that case. It was not a reason to resign.

Pat Lang believes that the real reason was Pompeo's trip to Tampa:

Shanahan withdrew his name from confirmation process today. IMO he did it because DJT let Pomp circumvent his authority.

The Pentagon was the last hold out against the aggressive anti-Iran policy says WaPo :

Concerns about an escalation are particularly pointed at the Pentagon, where the absence of a confirmed secretary has fueled worries that hawks in the White House and State Department could push the military beyond its specific mission of destroying the remnants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, raising the potential for conflict with Iran.

It has been reported several times and by different outlets that Trump is somewhat isolated from anti-war opinions in his administration. All he sees and hears is Fox News , Bibi Netanyahoo and John Bolton. The WaPo piece again confirms that:

Administration officials interviewed by The Washington Post said that national security adviser John Bolton has dominated Iran policy, keeping a tight rein on information that gets to the president and sharply reducing meetings in which top officials gather in the White House's Situation Room to discuss the policy.
...
The intensification of [the "maximum pressure"] campaign has triggered internal debates over how best to execute the president's orders. At the State Department this spring, an argument among officials over how hard to squeeze Iran with sanctions ended with those favoring the toughest possible approach prevailing. In particular, hard-liners at the White House squelched waivers that would have allowed Iran to keep selling oil after a May 1 deadline. White House aides also ended waivers that allowed Iran to swap its enriched uranium for natural uranium, an integral part of the nuclear deal.
...
While State Department officials sought to achieve a "sweet spot" that would weaken Iran through sanctions but not push so hard that Iran would withdraw from the nuclear deal, others have argued that Trump's goal is to destroy the accord at any cost and pursue a more expansive policy that seeks to cripple Iran's proxy forces throughout the region.

Pentagon and State Department officials have complained, however, about the difficulty of getting an adequate hearing for these debates under Bolton. As a result, arguments about policy frequently are not aired and do not reach the president. The process is "very exclusionary, and Bolton has very sharp elbows," the senior administration official said.
...
At the Pentagon, officials have quietly voiced concerns for months that the current trajectory might make military conflict a self-fulfilling prophecy.
...
One person familiar with the recent discussions said that Pentagon officials, including Shanahan, have been "the ones putting the brakes" on the State Department and the White House. "DOD is not beating the drums of war," the person said.

One can quibble with that. It is the regional military commander who always asks for more troops. More ships and more troops increase the chance for "accidents" and make a war more likely. That is why John Bolton uses each and every small incident to send more troops to the Middle East:

"Does the president want to send more troops? No. Will he be convinced to do it? Yes," the senior administration official said.

Trump, in contrast to some of his advisers, has seemed to downplay the significance of Iran's actions. In an interview published Tuesday by Time magazine, he said the recent oil tanker attacks were "very minor."

Trump is the president. He hired those people and is responsible for what they do. But does he know what they do?

There are two possibilities. Trump wants a war with Iran and what we see is a good cop, bad cop strategy in which Trump plays the good guy for his voters until some 'grave incident' happens that lets him says that he has no choice but to 'hit back' at Iran. The other scenario is that Trump is a fool and that the war hawks use him as their tool to implement their preferred policies.

Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke says that the second scenario is the real one :

The consensus on 'no conflict' unfortunately, may turn out to have been overly sanguine. This is not because Trump consciously desires war, but because the hawks surrounding him, particularly Bolton, are painting him into a corner – from which he must either back down, or double down, if Iran does not first capitulate.

And here is the point: the main Trump misconception may be that he does believe that Iran wants, and ultimately, 'will seek a deal'.

Crooke describes how Bolton, and Netanyahoo behind him, outmaneuver the U.S. intelligence services over Iran. They stovepipe "intelligence" to the president and the media just like the crew of then Vice President Dick Cheney did in the run up to the war on Iraq:

Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel – intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the credibility of the intelligence presented (shades of Cheney confronting the analysts down at Langley). And Bolton too, will represent Trump at the 'security summit' to be held later this month in Jerusalem with Russia and Israel. Yes, Bolton truly has all the reins in his hands: He is 'Mr Iran'.

'Mr Anti-Iran' is a more precise moniker. Or one may just call him President Bolton.

Posted by b on June 19, 2019 at 02:20 PM | Permalink


BraveNewWorld , Jun 19, 2019 2:39:12 PM | 2
The US is now saying that they will only protect ships in the gulf if the usual NATO suspects come along for the ride. If they do, then when the US attacks Iran they are committed for the regional war that follows. Bolton has done a great job of putting the band back together again.
so , Jun 19, 2019 2:45:26 PM | 3
Its all on Trump. No excuses. When the bodybags start to flow and the gas prices go to 8 or 9 dollars a gallon he will be toast. He'll never be able to show his face in public again without a small army around him. What a legacy.
Madison James , Jun 19, 2019 2:47:33 PM | 4
The similarities, to me, are a poor pantomime of Nixon and Kissinger. Milhaus was always the "madman" with his finger on the nuclear trigger which made the Nazi employment campaigner, Kissinger, seem like one to reason with if you didn't want nuclear annihilation.

There is an interesting book, "The Fire And The Fury", that has some insight into the administration. Trump never thought he would win and didn't intend to. He wanted to be "Crooked Hillary's" victim. Also, the book makes a great case for Israeli collusion, not Russia.

That said, the book makes a large showing of DJT's ignorance and indifference. Like many ignorant presidential hopefuls, I think DJT thought he could make a difference but we all know he's just a shill.

My favorite part of the book stated that DJT ate at Mickey D's because he's afraid of being poisoned, not because of a great love of fast food.

The present goobermint can run Donald up and down the flag pole and blame everything in the world on him and no one will know the difference.

ADKC , Jun 19, 2019 2:49:13 PM | 5
The war on Iran will be different to other US/Western wars.

Previously, it has only become apparent after the war has been going for some time (they never really end) that the war was a crime.

This time the whole of the US and the West knows full well that a war crime is being perpetrated. This will mean a definite end of the illusions that the West has held about it's self since WWII (or WWI). Can Empires and Civilisations continue if they no longer believe the stories they tell themselves?

Trump has not been fooled or misled, neither have the American people, neither the UK/European governments or peoples. We are destroying ourselves with this act.

Bolton has more brain cells than the entirety of the European peoples.

bjd , Jun 19, 2019 2:53:17 PM | 7
I bet soon we'll learn Shanahan was pushed out by the usual Bolton tactic of threats and extortion -- both on the personal and familial level.
Shanahan should blow the whistle -- soon!
uncle tungsten , Jun 19, 2019 2:54:09 PM | 8
Thanks b. Trump is likely both a fool and a barking mad President with a narcissistic personality. A dangerous mix open to malicious behaviour and vulnerable to manipulation. I have no doubt that he revels in the gravitas of it all, the Napoleonic pomp and ceremony etc. That the planet has to suffer this and Netanyahu and Pence Pentecostal ignorance is appalling.

There wont be any summit meeting between Iran and Trump, the insult would be intolerable and the outcome of no value to Iran. They know very well what the game is.

Bolton is just the killer for the job right where he is but will Trump find an equally malign player for his army? I am sure there is no shortage of 'suitable' candidates.

One bright side for the planet could well be a calamitous rise in oil price and a chaotic spin of global economic circumstances resulting in a drop in greenhouse gas emissions. On the dark side small pockets of survival.

bjd , Jun 19, 2019 2:56:57 PM | 9
@uncle tungsten (8)
One bright side for the planet could well be a calamitous rise in oil price and a chaotic spin of global economic circumstances resulting in a drop in greenhouse gas emissions. On the dark side small pockets of survival.

My thoughts exactly ;-)

psychohistorian , Jun 19, 2019 2:58:26 PM | 10
I am one of the supporters of the good cop/bad cop scenario.

While the existential question that has been on the table for some time is who owns the world of finance, here we are again following the spinning of the Iran plate by late empire.

Bolton and Pompeo are representative of Trump's rabid evangelical base and Israel. The kabuki friction towards the shared goals is just that. To the degree that we are hearing shrillness from these folk reflects the increasing failure of their tactics to maintain control of the global narrative.

Something stupid is coming and it will be sad.....very sad if is our extinction instead of difficult evolution.

james , Jun 19, 2019 3:04:49 PM | 11
thanks b... pompeo has the same agenda as israel with regard to attacks on the golan heights or americans - same messed up logic.. nothing like having your (usa-ksa-israel-uae) proxy army involved too.."these attacks came from areas where Islamic State underground groups are still active." the 500 lb gorilla is ''there to deter aggression''.. right!

as for trump.. the guy is a self serving twit and fool... perfect person to represent the usa at this point which is why so many hate him and like him, depending on where one lives.. whatever bolton does - it is on trump and the falling usa empire as i see it.. it can't fall soon enough..

Sorghum , Jun 19, 2019 3:10:30 PM | 12
I'm definitely of the good cop/bad cop belief. It fits with the entirety of his campaign and presidency: say one thing, do another, and blame somebody else. Trump wanted Bolton for NSA since the campaign. Both Bolton and Trump have had a position of confrontation with Iran for a long time. The fact that people still buy into the lies of *any* politician is a sad state of affairs. It sure does make the job of lying far easier.
Uncle Jon , Jun 19, 2019 3:16:20 PM | 13
@1 DG

Any tears for the Iranians or just like the Iraqis, their blood is not as red as the American soldiers?

Empathy: defined as getting our heads out of pseudo-patriotic asses and feel for the other side as well.

Peter AU 1 , Jun 19, 2019 3:18:17 PM | 14
Trump's tactical nukes mounted on Trident missiles will be ready in October - end of September according to the earlier news articles. I guess team Trump will be desperately trying to provoke a reaction from Iran so Trump can reluctantly use his nukes. (NPR specifically names Iran as a country that these may be used against). Good cop bad cop is Trump's game at the moment. He needs to be judged by the people he appoints and keeps on.
wagelaborer , Jun 19, 2019 3:23:21 PM | 15
DG @1
Don't feel too sorry for the American fatality. It will probably be a US soldier who volunteered to go overseas and kill for oil. Might be a female soldier. That would make for better press. Remember Nedā Āghā-Soltān? She was a beautiful Iranian woman, only 26 years old, shot in the head by a sniper in the 2009 Color (Green) Revolution attempt in Iran, a few blocks from the actual protests.

For some odd reason, a photographer was there to take pictures, and within a couple of hours, it was spread all over the world's media. We now call that "going viral". It takes a Mighty Wurlitzer to make a viral spread, I've noticed.

Uncle Jon , Jun 19, 2019 3:30:11 PM | 16
@15 wagelaborer

Neda Agha Soltan was shot in the chest.

karlof1 , Jun 19, 2019 3:40:10 PM | 18
"All he sees and hears is Fox News "

Tucker Carlson has interviewed Tulsi Gabbard several times and has generally been anti-war on many of his programs, and was certainly very anti-Russiagate. So, watching Fox News isn't as horrible as say CNN, NBC, MSNBC to name the three worst.

Yes, as I wrote on the last thread, Trump's boxed into several corners, Iran not being the only one. Really can't wait for the moment Pompeo clutches at his chest and crumples to the ground a la Morsi. Pompeo's clearly forgotten what Putin told him. Speaking of Putin, tomorrow he'll conduct the 17th edition of his Direct Line conversation with Russia's people and press. Information in Russian here :

"The programme will be broadcast live by Channel One, Rossiya 1, Rossiya 24, NTV, Public Television of Russia (OTR) and Mir TV, and by radio stations Mayak, Vesti FM and Radio Rossii."

Unfortunately, the start time isn't provided. Questions in Russian can be submitted at the above link.

For those that missed it, here's the Iranian limpet mine link I posted yesterday.

Would never have guessed there existed a Foundation for European Progressive Studies, but it does and its hosting a forum this Friday:

"On Friday #21June, #IAIEvent with @FEPS_Europe in #Brussels to mark the completion of our joint one-year research on #Europe-#Iran relations after the US withdrawal from the #JCPOA.

"With the participation of Seyed Sajjadpour, Deputy FM of Iran."

As far as the damage done to the two tankers, if an actual limpet mine of the sort Iran employs were used, the damage would be far more extensive than what was sustained. IMO, continuing attacks by the sort of kamikaze drones employed would be impossible to stop; and since the remains of the drone sink into the sea, virtually impossible to collect any evidence that might link Iran to the attack.

The Outlaw US Empire has no cards to play other than bluff and bluster.

Ma Laoshi , Jun 19, 2019 3:45:33 PM | 19
"That shows how stupid the red line is that Pompeo set out." Even b, one of the commenters I respect most, falls for the canard "Yanks R stoopid LOL". If you feverishly want an Iran war against the wishes of the majority of the planet, this is how it's done. Israel also drops some dud mortar shells into an empty patch on the Golan (itself or by proxy) any time it wants a mini casus belli in the Syria dossier.

I feel the Iranians have been pretty complicit propping up this image of Americans and Israelis as untouchable demigods, who only kill and can never be killed even once. The US should have gotten a steady stream of heroes coming home in boxes and wheelchairs the moment they crossed the Syrian border. Then the war fevers would've cooled considerably by now; that's how the Taliban made the orcs feel ... unwelcome in their slice of heaven. B opined at the time "This occupation is unsustainable", but nobody has properly contested it apart from a handful of ISIS holdouts. Eyes have been taken off balls it seems.

Pnyx , Jun 19, 2019 3:49:24 PM | 20
And again, no. That reminds of the old 'if the Führer knew'. No, Tronald is not - at least not in this sense - a fool. He has promoted these people now said to trick him into their respective position. Tronald is - and was - well informed about Boltons and Pompeo's views.

No, it's the first possibility that applies. Any moment now Act 3 is staged, an 'Iranian attack' on u.s. interests - and then Tronald will open Pandora's box - and suffer we will.

Laguerre , Jun 19, 2019 3:53:55 PM | 21
There were stories recently that Trump was about to sack Bolton. Whatever the truth of that, there's a fundamental problem that Trump doesn't want to spend his nights in the war room. He spends his time watching Fox News, tweeting, and his weekends at Mar-a Lago. A serious war is beyond him, and I think he'll say no, beyond a one night big bang.
murgen23 , Jun 19, 2019 3:56:40 PM | 22
May be the intention was never to sink the tanker - but just to draw attention with some heavy smoke. The limpet mines may exists in various size, so they may have intentionally used a small one for this. What were doing the IRGC along the tanker if not removing something from the hull. How do they even know there was something there of interest.
ken , Jun 19, 2019 3:57:37 PM | 23
The US has no leadership,,, just a bunch of mafioso hoods vying to be at the head of the Globalists table. The Europeons / West are little better going along to get a piece of the action... picture a Viking feast a few thousand years ago. Difference is we are the food they're devouring.

I am so happy 'b' explained the domestic violence attributed to Mr.Shanahan. I bit just like MSM wanted thinking he somehow abused his family. I imagine it was because it would have looked bad for the kind little woman.

Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration. Look at what we in the US have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the right. I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.

Harry Law , Jun 19, 2019 3:57:50 PM | 24
Jeremy Hunt said that no other state or non state actor could possibly be responsible for the tanker explosions. That is the most ignorant statement any potential Prime Minister could make. There are so many potential culprits, any one of whom would find it more than tempting to take Pompeo at his word and lob a bomb at a US base. The same scenario applied to Syria, the US positively encouraged a gas attack by the head choppers by declaring such an attack would mean US intervention. Sheldon Adelson is Trumps biggest doner "Adelson's promotion of Bolton dates back at least to the days immediately after Trump's November 2016 election. According to The New York Times, Adelson strongly supported Bolton for the position of deputy secretary of state as Trump was putting together his cabinet" https://lobelog.com/trumps-choice-of-bolton-satisfies-his-biggest-donor/ So Trump could find it difficult to sack Bolton.
AriusArmenian , Jun 19, 2019 3:59:50 PM | 25
If this is mostly correct then the US is heading into a huge strategic catastrophe with epic blow back. That many millions in the MENA will suffer is as usual of no consequence to Americans but this time America will suffer a rapid irreversible decline and will deserve it.
jdmckay , Jun 19, 2019 4:00:57 PM | 26
b: Thanks for posting Lang's take on Shanahan being "outed" by Pompeo. Kind'a makes sense, given bigger picture you paint of Israeli "interests" being "stovepiped" through Bolton to DJT. Nothing I heard/read last night or this morning touched on this, it was all different takes on poor/no Shanahan vetting.

The irony of Shanahan being "dumped" for what the record seems to support: he did nothing wrong, maybe even showed noteworthy restraint vs. trump f***ing porn stars, stiffing sub-contractors for years (etc. etc.) is mind numbing.

...

Madison James @ Jun 19, 2019 2:47:33 PM

Also, the book makes a great case for Israeli collusion, not Russia.

More like CEDING Iran policy authority to hard line Likud hawks, as B describes in this post:

Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel – intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the credibility of the intelligence presented ( shades of Cheney confronting the analysts down at Langley ).
(my emphasis)

It just seems like Iraq deja vu: GWB was the ignorant, dumb public face masking Lukidniks controlling US policy then, DJT the face masking the same now.

WRT war fears w/Iran: one little factoid rarely mentioned early on in Iraq "liberation"(did B write about this?): the PNAC crowd was openly advocating for a simultaneous military action towards Iran. Putin moved several battleships and destroyers right off the Iranian coast in a clear signal he would defend Iran. And that was the end of that.

Putin always holds his cards very close to his vest, but when he acts he does so decisively and with precision (aka his Syria military maneuvers). US bombs falling on Iran seems awfully close to Moscow in my view. I cannot help wondering if one of Putin's cards is his own red line: not allowing Likudniks to subjugate US military power for their "interests" wrt Iran.

ben , Jun 19, 2019 4:02:47 PM | 27
psycho @ 10 opined;"I am one of the supporters of the good cop/bad cop scenario."

Add me, to the believers column.

ADKC @ 5 said;"Trump has not been fooled or misled, neither have the American people, neither the UK/European governments or peoples. We are destroying ourselves with this act."

james @ 11 said;" it is on trump and the falling usa empire as i see it.. it can't fall soon enough.."

Yes, absolutely, to both above statements..

And I'll add another major player, to the joke, the U$A has become, the corporate MSM for it's failure to honestly inform the public of reality..

chu teh , Jun 19, 2019 4:16:07 PM | 28
...the IRGC along the tanker...
Could s/o kindly point-out a confirmation from Iran that [1] subject boat was operated/manned by the IRGC? I'll check back for your input; thanks in advance.
karlof1 , Jun 19, 2019 4:31:54 PM | 31
Magnier suggests watching this :

"This is a very balanced approach to the #US-#Iran crisis in the Gulf from an #EU point of view."

It links to a short CNN produced video. The few comments show the intensely high level of ignorance of my fellow Americans that are educational all by themselves.

Kristan hinton , Jun 19, 2019 4:37:46 PM | 32
It's about 1500 miles from Tehran to Moscow. That's about equal to the distance between Kansas City and San Francisco.

It is not in Russia's interest to have Iran attacked. Iran is a piece that offers a twofer to the Anglo Zio empire. It follows the edicts of the Yinon Plan and it antagonizes Russia.

joetv , Jun 19, 2019 4:38:38 PM | 33
If a war with Iran is orchestrated I will be very disappointed if Tel-Aviv is not destroyed. At some point in time Israel must pay for its' crimes.
I read today that an Egyptian news agency blamed Israel for the recent attacks on the 2 tankers. I find this heartening. However, I fear Israel is not beyond sinking an US naval vessel. re: USS LIBERTY. and albeit with Bolton's foreknowledge.
Shanahan was forced out. His family troubles pre-date today.
jdmckay , Jun 19, 2019 4:46:20 PM | 34
murgen23 @ Jun 19, 2019 3:56:40 PM:
May be the intention was never to sink the tanker - but just to draw attention with some heavy smoke. The limpet mines may exists in various size, so they may have intentionaly used a small one for this.

As B (and many other media ) pointed out: the crew of the Japanese tanker all said the ship was hit by an air borne projectile. This was not a mine. Seems obvious if US was interested in the truth, they would recover and identify the projectile.

Just for shits and giggles, a brief reminder of some of US "evidence" and false flags (all lies) in service of these "endeavors" previously:

- reading the several excellent books and released CIA docs of the CIA engineered Mosaddegh coup, among other things was CIA bombs set off in Mosques (this was before the Ayatollahs were political), then flooding media with "accesssments" Mosaddegh was responsable. Kermit Roosevelt literally boasted about this.

- Collin Powell's "clear and convincing" evidence of Sadam's mobile missile lauchers (aka mobile weather balloons). And the GWB admin's attempts to literally destroy Hans Blix' reputation, and as it turned out Blix was right about everything.

- Fake Satellite photos of Sadam's troops on Saudi border.

- "Incubator baby" lies to US Senate, swaying Desert Storm I approval by 1 vote (many senators said that fabrication was the difference in their vote). And this after Sadam's incursion into Kuwait was after 18 months of US vetoing Iraq UN resolutions seeking to condemn Kuwait's angle drilling into Iraq's largest southern oil fields.


That's just a few from memory. At what point do US lawmakers finally put all this together (especially given Bolton's association with those who drove GWB's Iraq invasion) and refuse to even consider the non persuasive evidence (not to mention contradictory... aka crew says air borne attack), remind their colleagues and America of the cost of these lies just in last 20 years, and DEMAND proof that can be verified with THEIR OWN EYES.

The surreal, Orwellian fog is descending again.

Jackrabbit , Jun 19, 2019 4:49:01 PM | 35
Judging from the headline and the quoting approvingly from "Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke", I'd say b believe in the "President Bolton" theory.

Like other commenters, I believe in the bad cop/good cop theory. In fact I wrote of this only yesterday ( here and here , and here ):

The media promote Doublethink ...
... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.
... such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving antagonist. Except that the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough negotiator", "protector", etc instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid drinkers) and MSM ignores those that talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity.

And it's not just Trump. Whenever a President does things that might cause cognitive dissonance, apologists and the feckless press explain it away as a positive or blame subordinates for "sabotaging" the hero President .

= = = =

IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists)

= = = =

I sense that there's now an effort to essentially 'shout down' or otherwise sideline those that argue that the attacks are more likely to be a false flag by an anti-Iranian organization (probably connected to Mossad or CIA) and question the efficacy of a Iranian strategy stealth attacks.

karlof1 and Peter AU 1 described the likely subterfuge of the US claim that Iran attached a "limpet mine". But I haven't seen much desire to discuss or spread their theory. Reporting by Israeli media (picked up worldwide) about USA plans to bomb Iran (really just rumors) have worked their magic and turned the page on the question of who attacked the ships. How convenient!

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Sadly, I find that I disagree with both of b's latest theories: the "Iranian stealth attack" theory and the "President Bolton" theory. IMO these are propaganda narratives.

Shakesvshav , Jun 19, 2019 4:50:45 PM | 36
Long article reproduced in Russia Insider includes reference to mysterious escalation in the northern part of the Persian Gulf: https://russia-insider.com/en/declassified-sino-russian-masterplan-end-us-dominance-middle-east/ri27290
joetv , Jun 19, 2019 4:50:58 PM | 37
there is some confusion amongst commenters here; as to what the Iranian boat was doing next to the tanker? The first thing one should ask is; what is the source of the video? and when was it taken? Next, the Iranians have been credited with rescuing the crew from at least 1 tanker, if not both. Which explains the large # of persons on a boat that usually operates with a crew of 5.
Jay , Jun 19, 2019 4:54:51 PM | 39
Except the 2007 "Iranian proxy" attacks on US forces illegally occupying Iraq were never proven. Meaning the fable of Iranians being behind attacks in Iraq is hardly new. The infamous Michael Gordon--the lead "reporter" on the "Judith Miller" fall 2002 Iraqi WMDs "reporting" in the NY Times--claimed that such "attacks" were proven in the pages of the NYT in March 2007. (He wasn't fired–only leaving the NYT after 30 years in 2017.)

Except his "reporting" made bogus claims like the Iraqis weren't able to follow armor penetrating shell designs that had been worked out in the 1920s.

In early 2007, there was a push by Cheney to strike Iran, the rumor is that W said "no". So Pompeo can't even lie as well as Cheney, in that the NY Times' main Pentagon reporter reported the 2007 events as fact at the time. (A secondary reporter, James Glanz also in Iraq in 2007, did manage to point out that the "Iranian" shells were marked in English and the US commanders provided nothing more than unsupported assertions regards the shells' origins. Glanz only writes for the NY Times about once every 6 months now.)

karlof1 , Jun 19, 2019 5:02:19 PM | 40
Houthis attack Jizan--on Red Sea just North of Yemen -- power plant with cruise missile causing large fire to erupt. Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman :

"There are big surprises coming soon, God willing, with higher sensitive impact on the Saudi regime, if its aggression continues."

Expect renewed attacks on oil infrastructure.

Not so long ago, it appeared the Saudi/UAE/Merc coalition had the initiative and was winning. That no longer appears to be the case with the invasion of Saudi territory by ground forces accompanied by missile and drone assaults that have reached as far as Riyadh. Earlier today, Southfront posted videos of two successful Houthi assaults that destroyed 11 armored vehicles and additional technicals--attacks Saudi appears incapable of stopping.

Apparently, Magnier knows more than he's written :

"In the coming days, I'll share more of #Iran's medium and long term plans to face the #US plans."

ben , Jun 19, 2019 5:04:42 PM | 41
Jrabbit @ 35 made this analogy;

"IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists)"

IMO, the perfect analogy. Maybe the U$A posters will "get it."

Lochearn , Jun 19, 2019 5:35:35 PM | 42
Bolton is Trump's Colonel House. House was influential in plucking Woodrow Wilson out of academia and getting him elected President in 1912 and then he moved into the White House with Wilson. He became in Wilson's words his "alter ego." House was right next to Wilson when he signed the Federal Reserve Act, something Wilson later said he bitterly regretted doing. House was a most shadowy figure – he wasn't even a real colonel -, having performed similar roles with various governors of Texas as if in preparation for his moment on the big stage – and a long moment it was with an allegedly decisive role in Versailles in 1919.

I saw warning signals back on the campaign trail when Trump was asked who he admired in politics and he replied after a pause John Bolton. Then I thought of Obama and Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff. It struck me that maybe all of us are susceptible to somebody who can get a hold on us, who can grasp our insecurities and ingratiate themselves into our thinking processes. The elites work on this. Jack Kennedy had his brother as his sort of alter-ego so there was no opportunity there – which is maybe why he got shot.

Hoarsewhisperer , Jun 19, 2019 5:38:47 PM | 43
Trump's father became so frustrated with Donald's bullying and reckless behavior that he packed him off to military academy to learn some manners and self-control. Legend has it that Trump thrived in that environment and graduated in 1964. He also studied economics and has a Law degree. One imagines that a military academy graduate must have learned something about governance, leadership, pecking orders, power plays and the US Constitution. Anyone who assumes DJT is stupid or naive probably needs to do some homework...
Harry Law , Jun 19, 2019 6:06:58 PM | 44
Hoarsewhisperer "Anyone who assumes DJT is stupid or naiive probably needs to do some homework". I think prospective Private Donald 'bone spurs' Trump would have made a good General, [too late now, he is too old] maybe one of the greatest Generals in history. If only he had signed up. /S
Seems Rex Tillerson was right about Trump and agrees with this HL Mencken quote.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron".

John Merryman , Jun 19, 2019 6:07:29 PM | 45
The Middle East a smoking ruin. Floods of Arab refugees pouring into Europe. Russia and China sitting back and waiting to pick up the pieces. Do those people actually think beyond the next step? I wouldn't want to be a European Jew for the next few decades. You can be burnt from the bottom up, as easily as from the top down. Lets just go kick the hornets nest, cause we are tough guys. Where. Are. The. Brain. Cells?
Don Bacon , Jun 19, 2019 6:10:31 PM | 46
TIME: President Trump Calls Alleged Iranian Attack on Oil Tankers 'Very Minor'
Ash , Jun 19, 2019 6:24:15 PM | 47
Does it really matter if the good cop/bad cop scenario is true or if Trump is just their useful idiot? Thus far, the difference is academic.
karlof1 , Jun 19, 2019 6:26:37 PM | 48
Promotion of War Crimes: Wheat as a Weapon : "A fellow at a think tank bankrolled by the US gov, NATO, and arms industry insists that 'wheat is a weapon' that can 'be used to apply pressure on the Assad regime.' "The impact this would have on civilians was not mentioned, of course."

Now we know what nation's responsible for the recent firing of wheat and other agricultural fields in Syria--The Outlaw US Empire of course: Never met a War Crime it didn't want to employ itself as current and historic evidence proves. Such people ought to be lobotomized.

Christian J Chuba , Jun 19, 2019 6:31:07 PM | 49
Iran did it, they are competent, we can't find our rear end

CENTCOM gave a scenario that finally made sense, they said that an IRGC boat approached the two tankers at night and attacked the 'mines'. This would explain why it was above the waterline and it would take great skill to do this with no injury and without being detected.

Now look at the U.S., the tanker was sitting their in broad daylight for about 10hrs and we couldn't even get ONE decent picture of an unexploded bomb sitting on the side of hull. And when the IRGC finally did show up, even our high resolution pictures were a joke and we are the SIGINT champions with hi-tech drones. Also, this means that the IRGC was able to slip into a port on the other side of the Persian Gulf and attack mines to 4 tankers undetected.

Prediction: if we do get into a fight with the Iranians we are in for a very rude awakening. All of this talk about their rusted out military is total BS. If ONLY that fool Tom Cotton would be the one to pay the price instead of some 20 yr old kid.

jared , Jun 19, 2019 6:33:55 PM | 50
Perhaps the admin senses that the end is approaching and are trying to wreak maximum havoc and damage while they are able. Like Bolton will serve in next admin.
Virgile , Jun 19, 2019 6:45:17 PM | 51
By minimizing the Oman Gulf incidents, maybe it is way for the White House under Bolton's control to show that it is not impressed nor feeling threatened. it is also encouraging the perpetrators of the attacks to do more provocations and ideally to kill an American...

It is an open invitations to whoever wants to harm Iran to come out more brutally.

AntiSpin , Jun 19, 2019 6:52:05 PM | 52
@ Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 19, 2019 5:38:47 PM | 43

". . . [Trump] studied economics and has a Law degree."

He has a BA in economics and was given an honorary law degree from Liberty so-called "University," a diploma mill dedicated to churning out brain-dead, right-wing religious fanatics.

Jackrabbit , Jun 19, 2019 6:56:28 PM | 54
Ash @47: does it really matter?

Yes, it does matter. Millions of American are ready to send their loved ones to die for "freedom and democracy" that propaganda claims USA champions. Trump as "useful idiot" just means that they elected the wrong guy. Trump as complicit in the dog and pony show means there is no democracy.

Smart people have already described how the system is rigged so that we have a "managed democracy" that mostly works for the "those that matter". Research from Princeton economists have described America as a plutocracy with an "inverted totalitarian" form of government. I have written many times at MoA of a adjunct to that theory: the faux populist leadership model. Obama and Trump are the poster boys for this, though it was mostly developed in the Clinton years.

Harry Law , Jun 19, 2019 7:03:21 PM | 55
That Iranian seaman who is alleged to have pulled off a possibly unstable, unexploded mine wearing nothing but a rubber life jacket thus endangering his life and all his crew mates and survivors in the small boat is the action of a lunatic. Or maybe it never happened.
Jonathan , Jun 19, 2019 7:03:25 PM | 56
Hoarsewhisperer @43,

What is the particular childish naïveté of Americans who believe that learning a system inevitably leads to a willingness to support and uphold it instead of exploiting it for personal gain?

You have to go back.

wagelaborer , Jun 19, 2019 7:14:03 PM | 57
Uncle Jon @16
You are right. My apologies. The optics would be horrible in my version.
oglalla , Jun 19, 2019 7:30:33 PM | 58
>> Posted by: blues | Jun 19, 2019 6:52:22 PM | 53

Do tell!

With trillion dollar deficits pre-recession, the fiscal situation looks dire. Once recession hits, tax revenue will plummet. Then, either they QE even more trillions or they cut the MIC (measured in terms of purchasing power, if not nominally). Or both. But, the rest of the world will suffer nominally as well. So, the dollar might remain a "cleaner dirty shirt".

It's a difficult environment to invest in. Everything seems pricey. But, with currency depreciation via QE, everything might become even pricier.

karlof1 , Jun 19, 2019 7:38:28 PM | 59
Harry Law @55--

Life jackets aren't rubber! Try and get the story straight! Plus, you missed that the limpet mine comes with a cloaking device that once placed onto the deck of any Iranian boat it's rendered invisible! Honestly, we spend a lot of time dreaming up these narratives, so the very least you can do is copy/paste properly!

On a serious note, I scanned a great many pictures of small boats and didn't come up with one example of the one shown in the video. Finding one ought to be easy since it has numerous unique features, most of which I commented upon. Has USN released a complete undoctored video of the limpet removal yet? I thought not. As with the incident with the Russian ship where USN didn't release the entire video taken from the stand-off helo because it proved USN at fault, there won't be any release of this other video for the same reason--it proves zip, nada, nothing.

Otherwise, I'd like to get myself one of those Iranian boats, minus the machine gun, as it looks like an excellent fishing platform, although it lacks a cuddy and below deck stowage room.

Don Bacon , Jun 19, 2019 8:00:57 PM | 60
There's been a shift in the dialogue, to some degree, to a discussion of the overall US role in the Gulf area.

Speaking to TIME, Trump argued that the Gulf of Oman[sic] is less strategically important for the United States now than it used to be, citing China and Japan as nations that still rely on the region for significant proportions of their oil. "Other places get such vast amounts of oil there," Trump said. "We get very little. We have made tremendous progress in the last two and a half years in energy. And when the pipelines get built, we're now an exporter of energy. So we're not in the position that we used to be in in the Middle East where some people would say we were there for the oil." . . here

Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a roundtable that countries that benefit most from the movement of oil through the Gulf need to take an active role in its security. . . ."The circumstances are very different now than they were in the 1980s," Selva said. "If you think back to the reflagging operation, the 'Tanker War,' as it was nicknamed, where we reflagged and escorted tankers so that they could flow in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, we got a substantial amount of our oil from the Persian Gulf.. . ."We are now in a position where the bulk of that oil goes to countries in Asia, and none of those countries have shown any predilection to pressing Iran to stop what they are doing. What was true in the 1980s, is not true today. We are not wholly dependent on the movement of Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari and Emirati oil in and out of the Gulf to sustain our economy.". . here

A broadening of the security mission in the Gulf area would be a positive step. Imagine the navies of China, India and Japan taking a role! The price would be a removal of Iran sanctions, because these countries want Iran oil! . . .I can dream.

Jen , Jun 19, 2019 8:01:59 PM | 61
Hoarsewhisperer @ 43

". . . [Trump] studied economics and has a Law degree."

Hot damn! And Dubya attended and graduated from Yale University (Bachelor of Arts, majoring in history) and later Harvard Business School (MBA).

Helena C , Jun 19, 2019 8:05:58 PM | 62
In the current circs (esp after announcement of the latest Red Line) why write only about the possibility of an ISIS missile landing on a US position being that it wd be "errant"?
Jen , Jun 19, 2019 8:07:16 PM | 64
Wage Laborer @ 15, 57, Uncle Jon @ 16:

After reading WL's comments, I had a vision of the photographer contacting the sniper by mobile phone and berating the fellow for killing Neda Agha Soltan in the head and telling him to find another beautiful young Iranian woman protester and to shoot her in the chest.

[Jun 19, 2019] The Warm War Russiamania at the Boiling Point by Jim Kavanagh

Notable quotes:
"... Theresa May's immediate conclusion that the Russian government bears certain and sole responsibility for the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals is logically, scientifically, and forensically impossible. ..."
"... Teresa May is lying, everyone who seconds her assertion of false certainty is lying, they all know they are lying, and the Russians know that they know they are lying. ..."
"... "War" is what they seem to want it to be. For the past 18 to 24 months, we've also been inundated with Morgan Freeman and Rob Reiner's ominous "We have been attacked. We are at war," video, as well as the bipartisan ( Hillary Clinton , John McCain ) insistence that alleged Russian election meddling should be considered an "act of war" equivalent to Pearl Harbor . Indeed, Trump's new National Security advisor, the warmongering lunatic John Bolton, calls it , explicitly "a casus belli , a true act of war." ..."
"... Even the military is getting in on the act. The nerve-agent accusation has been followed up by General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, accusing Russia of arming the Taliban! It's noteworthy that this senior American military general casually refers to Russia as "the enemy": "We've had stories written by the Taliban that have appeared in the media about financial support provided by the enemy." ..."
"... The economic war against Russian is being waged through a series of sanctions that seem impossible to reverse, because their expressed goal is to extract confession, repentance, and restitution for crimes ascribed to Russia that Russia has not committed, or has not been proven to have committed, or are entirely fictional and have not been committed by anyone at all. We will only stop taking your bank accounts and consulates and let you play games with us if you confess and repent every crime we accuse you of. No questions permitted. ..."
Apr 02, 2018 | www.counterpunch.org
Is it war yet?

Yes, in too many respects.

It's a relentless economic, diplomatic, and ideological war, spiced with (so far) just a dash of military war, and the strong scent of more to come.

I mean war with Russia, of course, although Russia is the point target for a constellation of emerging adversaries the US is desperate to entame before any one or combination of them becomes too strong to defeat. These include countries like Iran and China, which are developing forces capable of resisting American military aggression against their own territory and on a regional level, and have shown quite too much uppitiness about staying in their previously-assigned geopolitical cages.

But Russia is the only country that has put its military forces in the way of a U.S. program of regime change -- indirectly in Ukraine, where Russia would not get out of the way, and directly in Syria, where Russia actively got in the way. So Russia is the focus of attack, the prime target for an exemplary comeuppance.

Is it, then, a new Cold War, even more dangerous than the old one, as Stephen F. Cohen says ?

That terminology was apt even a few months ago, but the speed, ferocity, and coordination of the West/NATO's reaction to the alleged nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals, as well as the formation of a War Cabinet in Washington, indicates to me that we've moved to another level of aggression.

It's beyond Cold. Call it the Warm War. And the temperature's rising.

The Nerve of Them

There are two underlying presumptions that, combined, make present situation more dangerous than a Cold War.

One is the presumption of guilt -- or, more precisely, the presumption that the presumption of Russian guilt can always be made, and made to stick in the Western mind.

The confected furor over the alleged nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals demonstrates this dramatically.

Theresa May's immediate conclusion that the Russian government bears certain and sole responsibility for the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals is logically, scientifically, and forensically impossible.

False certainty is the ultimate fake news. It is just not true that, as she says: "There is no alternative conclusion other than the Russian state is culpable." This falsity of this statement has been demonstrated by a slew of sources -- including the developers of the alleged "Novichok" agent themselves, a thorough analysis by a former UN inspector in Iraq who worked on the destruction of chemical weapons, establishment Western scientific outlets like New Scientist (" Other countries could have made 'Russian' nerve agent "), and the British government's own mealy-mouthed, effective-but-unacknowledged disavowal of that conclusion. In its own words, The British government found: "a nerve agent or related compound," " of a type developed by Russia." So, it's absolutely, positively, certainly, without a doubt, Russian-government-produced "Novichok" .or something else.

Teresa May is lying, everyone who seconds her assertion of false certainty is lying, they all know they are lying, and the Russians know that they know they are lying. It's a

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lErlHLCNM_s?autoplay=0list=WL

It boggles the -- or at least, my -- mind how, in the face of all this, anyone could take seriously her ultimatum, ignoring the procedures of the Chemical Weapons Convention , gave Russia 24 hours to "explain" -- i.e., confess and beg forgiveness for -- this alleged crime.

Indeed, it's noteworthy that France initially, and rather sharply, refused to assume Russian guilt, with a government spokesman saying, "We don't do fantasy politics. Once the elements are proven, then the time will come for decisions to be made." But the whip was cracked -- and surely not by the weak hand of Whitehall -- demanding EU/NATO unity in the condemnation of Russia. So, in an extraordinary show of discipline that could only be ordered and orchestrated by the imperial center, France joined the United States and 20 other countries in the largest mass expulsion of Russian diplomats ever.

Western governments and their compliant media have mandated that Russian government guilt for the " first offensive use of a nerve agent " in Europe since World War II is to be taken as flat fact. Anyone -- like Jeremy Corbyn or Craig Murray -- who dares to interrupt the "Sentence first! Verdict afterwards!" chorus to ask for, uh, evidence, is treated to a storm of obloquy .

At this point, Western accusers don't seem to care how blatantly unfounded, if not ludicrous, an accusation is. The presumption of Russian guilt, along with the shaming of anyone who questions it, has become an unquestionable standard of Western/American political and media discourse.

Old Cold War McCarthyism has become new Warm War fantasy politics.

Helled in Contempt

This declaration of diplomatic war over the Skripal incident is the culmination of an ongoing drumbeat of ideological warfare, demonizing Russia and Putin personally in the most predictable and inflammatory terms.

For the past couple of years, we've been told by Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Boris Johnson that Putin is the new Hitler. That's a particularly galling analogy for the Russians. Soviet Russia, after all, was Hitler's main enemy, that defeated the Nazi army at the cost of 20+ million of its people -- while the British Royal Family was not un-smitten with the charms of Hitlerian fascism , and British footballers had a poignant moment in 1938 Berlin saluting the Fuhre.:

"War" is what they seem to want it to be. For the past 18 to 24 months, we've also been inundated with Morgan Freeman and Rob Reiner's ominous "We have been attacked. We are at war," video, as well as the bipartisan ( Hillary Clinton , John McCain ) insistence that alleged Russian election meddling should be considered an "act of war" equivalent to Pearl Harbor . Indeed, Trump's new National Security advisor, the warmongering lunatic John Bolton, calls it , explicitly "a casus belli , a true act of war."

Even the military is getting in on the act. The nerve-agent accusation has been followed up by General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, accusing Russia of arming the Taliban! It's noteworthy that this senior American military general casually refers to Russia as "the enemy": "We've had stories written by the Taliban that have appeared in the media about financial support provided by the enemy."

Which is strange, because, since the Taliban emerged from the American-jihadi war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and the Taliban and Russia have "enduring enmity" towards each other, as Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network puts it . Furthermore, the sixteen-year-long American war against the Taliban has depended on Russia allowing the U.S. to move supplies through its territory, and being "the principal source of fuel for the alliance's needs in Afghanistan."

So the general has to admit that this alleged Russian "destabilising activity" is a new thing: "This activity really picked up in the last 18 to 24 months When you look at the timing it roughly correlates to when things started to heat up in Syria. So it's interesting to note the timing of the whole thing."

Yes, it is.

The economic war against Russian is being waged through a series of sanctions that seem impossible to reverse, because their expressed goal is to extract confession, repentance, and restitution for crimes ascribed to Russia that Russia has not committed, or has not been proven to have committed, or are entirely fictional and have not been committed by anyone at all. We will only stop taking your bank accounts and consulates and let you play games with us if you confess and repent every crime we accuse you of. No questions permitted.

This is not a serious framework for respectful international relations between two sovereign nations. It's downright childish. It paints everyone, including the party trying to impose it, into an impossible corner. Is Russia ever going to abandon Crimea, confess that it shot down the Malaysian jet, tricked us into electing Donald Trump, murdered the Skripals, is secretly arming the Taliban, et. al .? Is the U.S. ever going to say: "Never mind"? What's the next step? It's the predicament of the bully.

This is not, either, an approach that really seeks to address any of the "crimes" charged. As Victoria Nuland (a Clintonite John Bolton) put it on NPR, it's about, "sending a message" to Russia. Well, as Russia's ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov said , with this latest mass expulsion of diplomats, the United States is, "Destroying what little remained of US-Russian ties." He got the message.

All of this looks like a coordinated campaign that began in response to Russia's interruption of American regime-change projects in Ukraine and especially Syria, that was harmonized -- over the last 18 to 24 months -- with various elite and popular motifs of discontent over the 2016 election, and that has reached a crescendo in the last few weeks with ubiquitous and unconstrained " enemization " [1] of Russia. It's hard to describe it as anything other than war propaganda -- manufacturing the citizenry's consent for a military confrontation.

Destroying the possibility of normal, non-conflictual, state-to-state relations and constituting Russia as "the enemy" is exactly what this campaign is about. That is its "message" and its effect -- for the American people as much as for the Russia government. The heightened danger, I think, is that Russia, which has for a long time been reluctant to accept that America wasn't interested in "partnership", has now heard and understood this message, while the American people have only heard but do not understand it.

It's hard to see where this can go that doesn't involve military conflict. This is especially the case with the appointments of Mike Pompeo, Gina Haspel, and John Bolton -- a veritable murderers' row that many see as the core of a Trump War Cabinet. Bolton, who does not need Senate confirmation, is a particularly dangerous fanatic, who tried to get the Israelis to attack Iran before even they wanted to, and has promised regime change in Iran by 2019. As mentioned, he considers that Russia has already given him a " casus belli. " Even the staid New York Times warns that, with these appointments, "the odds of taking military action will rise dramatically."

The second presumption in the American mindset today makes military confrontation more likely than it was during the Cold War: Not only is there a presumption of guilt, there is a presumption of weakness . The presumption of guilt is something the American imperial managers are confident they can induce and maintain in the Western world; the presumption of weakness is one they -- or, I fear, too many of them -- have all-too blithely internalized.

This is an aspect of the American self-image among policymakers whose careers matured in a post-Soviet world. During the Cold War, Americans held themselves in check by the assumption, that, militarily, the Soviet Union was a peer adversary, a country that could and would defend certain territories and interests against direct American military aggression -- "spheres of interest" that should not be attacked. The fundamental antagonism was managed with grudging mutual respect.

There was, after all, a shared recent history of alliance against fascism. And there was an awareness that the Soviet Union, in however distorted a way, both represented the possibility of a post-capitalist future and supported post-colonial national liberation movements, which gave it considerable stature in the world.

American leadership might have hated the Soviet Union, but it was not contemptuous of it. No American leader would have called the Soviet Union, as John McCain called Russia, just "a gas station masquerading as a country." And no senior American or British leader would have told the Soviet Union what British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told Russia last week: to "go away and shut up."

This is a discourse that assumes its own righteousness, authority, and superior power, even as it betrays its own weakness. It's the discourse of a frustrated child. Or bully. Russia isn't shutting up and going away, and the British are not -- and know they're not -- going to make it. But they may think the Big Daddy backing them up can and will. And daddy may think so himself.

Like all bullies, the people enmeshed in this arrogant discourse don't seem to understand that it is not frightening Russia. It's only insulting the country, and leading it to conclude that there is indeed nothing remaining of productive, non-conflictual, US-Russian "partnership" ties. The post-Skripal worldwide diplomatic expulsions, which seem deliberately and desperately excessive, may have finally convinced Russia that there is no longer any use trying. Those who should be frightened of this are the American people.

The enemy of my enemy is me.

The United States is only succeeding in turning itself into an enemy for Russians. Americans would do well to understand how thoroughly their hypocritical and contemptuous stance has alienated the Russian people and strengthened Vladimir Putin's leadership -- as many of Putin's critics warned them it would. The fantasy of stoking a "liberal" movement in Russia that will install some nouveau-Yeltsin-ish figure is dissipated in the cold light of a 77% election day. Putin is widely and firmly supported in Russia because he represents the resistance to any such scheme.

Americans who want to understand that dynamic, and what America itself has wrought in Russia, should heed the passion, anger, and disappointment in this statement about Putin's election from a self-described "liberal" (using the word, I think, in the intellectual tradition, not the American political, sense), Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT TV (errors in translation by another person):

Essentially, the West should be horrified not because 76% of Russians voted for Putin, but because this elections have demonstrated that 95% of Russia's population supports conservative-patriotic, communist and nationalist ideas. That means that liberal ideas are barely surviving among measly 5% of population.

And that's your fault, my Western friends. It was you who pushed us into "Russians never surrender" mode

[W]ith all your injustice and cruelty, inquisitorial hypocrisy and lies you forced us to stop respecting you. You and your so called "values."

We don't want to live like you live, anymore. For fifty years, secretly and openly, we wanted to live like you, but not any longer.

We have no more respect for you, and for those amongst us that you support, and for all those people who support you.

For that you only have yourself to blame.

In meantime, you've pushed us to rally around your enemy. Immediately, after you declared him an enemy, we united around him .

It was you who imposed an opposition between patriotism and liberalism. Although, they shouldn't be mutually exclusive notions. This false dilemma, created by you, made us to chose patriotism.

Even though, many of us are really liberals, myself included.

Get cleaned up, now. You don't have much time left.

In fact, the whole "uprising"/color revolution strategy throughout the world is over. It's been fatally discredited by its own purported successes. Everybody in the Middle East has seen how that worked out for Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and the Russians have seen how it worked out for Ukraine and for Russia itself . In neither Russia nor Iran (nor anywhere else of importance) are the Americans, with their sanctions and their NGOs and their cookies ,going to stoke a popular uprising that turns a country into a fractured client of the Washington Consensus. More fantasy politics.

The old new world Washington wants won't be born without a military midwife. The U.S. wants a compliant Russia ( and "international community") back, and it thinks it can force it into being.

Fear Knot

Consider this quote from The Saker , a defense analyst who was born in Switzerland to a Russian military family, "studied Russian and Soviet military affairs all [his] life," and lived for 20 years in the United States. He's been one of the sharpest analysts of Russia and Syria over the last few years. This was his take a year ago, after Trump's cruise missile attack on Syria's Al Shayrat airfield -- another instant punishment for an absolutely, positively, proven-in-a day, chemical crime:

For one thing, there is no US policy on anything.

The Russians expressed their total disgust and outrage at this attack and openly began saying that the Americans were "недоговороспособны". What that word means is literally "not-agreement-capable" or unable to make and then abide by an agreement. While polite, this expression is also extremely strong as it implies not so much a deliberate deception as the lack of the very ability to make a deal and abide by it. But to say that a nuclear world superpower is "not-agreement-capable" is a terrible and extreme diagnostic.

This means that the Russians have basically given up on the notion of having an adult, sober and mentally sane partner to have a dialog with.

In all my years of training and work as a military analyst I have always had to assume that everybody involved was what we called a "rational actor". The Soviets sure where. As were the Americans.

Not only do I find the Trump administration "not agreement-capable", I find it completely detached from reality. Delusional in other words.

Alas, just like Obama before him, Trump seems to think that he can win a game of nuclear chicken against Russia. But he can't. Let me be clear here: if pushed into a corner the Russian will fight, even if that means nuclear war.

There is a reason for this American delusion. The present generation of American leadership was spoiled and addled by the blissful post-Soviet decades of American impunity.

The problem is not exactly that the U.S. wants full-on war with Russia, it's that America does not fear it. [2]

Why should it? It hasn't had to for twenty years during which the US assumed it could bully Russia to stay out of its imperial way anywhere it wanted to intervene.

After the Soviet Union broke up (and only because the Soviet Union disappeared) the United States was free to use its military power with impunity. For some time, the U.S. had its drunken stooge, Yeltsin, running Russia and keeping it out of America's military way. There was nary a peep when Bill Clinton effectively conferred on NATO (meaning the U.S. itself) the authority to decide what military interventions were necessary and legitimate. For about twenty years -- from the Yugoslavia through the Libya intervention -- no nation had the military power or politico-diplomatic will to resist this.

But that situation has changed. Even the Pentagon recognizes that the American Empire is in a "post-primacy" phase -- certainly "fraying," and maybe even "collapsing." The world has seen America's social and economic strength dissipate, and its pretense of legitimacy disappear entirely. The world has seen American military overreach everywhere while winning nothing of stable value anywhere. Sixteen years, and the mighty U.S. Army cannot defeat the Taliban. Now, that's Russia's fault!

Meanwhile, a number of countries in key areas have gained the military confidence and political will to refuse the presumptions of American arrogance -- China in the Pacific, Iran in the Middle East, and Russia in Europe and, surprisingly, the Middle East as well. In a familiar pattern, America's resultant anxiety about waning power increases its compensatory aggression. And, as mentioned, since it was Russia that most effectively demonstrated that new military confidence, it's Russia that has to be dealt with first.

The incessant wave of sanctions and expulsions is the bully in the schoolyard clenching his fist to scare the new kid away. OK, everyone's got the message now. Unclench or punch?

Let's be clear about who is the world's bully. As is evident to any half-conscious person, Russia is not going to attack the United States or Europe. Russia doesn't have scores of military bases, combat ships and aircraft up on America's borders. It doesn't have almost a thousand military bases around the world. Russia does not have the military forces to rampage around the world as America does, and it doesn't want or need to. That's not because of Russia's or Vladimir Putin's pacifism, but because Russia, as presently situated in the political economy of the world, has nothing to gain from it.

Nor does Russia need some huge troll-farm offensive to "destabilize" and sow division in Western Europe and the United States. Inequality, austerity, waves of immigrants from regime-change wars, and trigger-happy cops are doing a fine job of that. Russia isn't responsible for American problems with Black Lives Matter or with the Taliban.

All of this is fantasy politics.

It's the United States, with its fraying empire, that has a problem requiring military aggression. What other tools does the U.S. have left to put the upstarts, Russia first, back in their places?

It must be hard for folks who have had their way with country after country for twenty years not to think they can push Russia out of the way with some really, really scary threats, or maybe one or two "bloody nose" punches. Some finite number of discrete little escalations. There's already been some shoving -- that cruise missile attack, Turkey's downing of a Russian jet, American attacks on Russian personnel (ostensibly private mercenaries) in Syria -- and, look, Ma, no big war. But sometimes you learn the hard way the truth of the reverse Mike Tyson rule: "Everyone has a game plan until they smack the other guy in the face."

Consider one concrete risk of escalation that every informed observer is, and every American should be, aware of.

The place where the United States and Russia are literally, geographically, closest to confrontation is Syria. As mentioned, the U.S. and its NATO ally, Turkey, have already attacked and killed Russians in Syria, and the U.S. and its NATO allies have a far larger military force than Russia in Syria and the surrounding area. On the other hand, Russia has made very effective use of its forces, including what Reuters calls "advanced cruise missiles" launched from planes, ships , and submarines that hit ISIS targets with high precision from 1000 kilometers.

Russia is also operating in accordance with international law, while the U.S. is not. Russia is fighting with Syria for the defeat of jihadi forces and the unification of the Syrian state. The United States is fighting with its jihadi clients for the overthrow of the Syrian government and the division of the country. Russia intervened in Syria after Obama announced that the U.S. would attack Syrian army troops, effectively declaring war. If neither side accepts defeat and goes home, it is quite possible there will be some direct confrontation over this. In fact, it's hard to imagine that there won't.

A couple of weeks ago Syria and Russia said the U.S. was planning a major offensive against the Syrian government, including bombing the government quarter in Damascus. Valery Gerasimov, head of Russia's General Staff, warned: "In the event of a threat to the lives of our servicemen, Russia's armed forces will take retaliatory measures against the missiles and launchers used." In this context, "launchers" means American ships in the Mediterranean.

Also a couple of weeks ago, Russia announced a number of new, highly-advanced weapons systems. There's discussion about whether some of the yet-to-be-deployed weapons announced may or may not be a bluff, but one that has already been deployed, called Dagger ( Kinzhal, not the missiles mentioned above), is an air-launched hypersonic cruise missile that files at 5-7,000 miles per hour, with a range of 1200 miles. Analyst Andrei Martyanov claims that: "no modern or perspective air-defense system deployed today by any NATO fleet can intercept even a single missile with such characteristics. A salvo of 5-6 such missiles guarantees the destruction of any Carrier Battle Group or any other surface group, for that matter." Air-launched. From anywhere.

The U.S. attack has not (yet) happened, for whatever reason (Sputnik reporter Suliman Mulhem, citing "a military monitor," claims that's because of the Russian warnings). Great. But given the current state of America's anxiously aggressive "post-primacy" policy -- including the Russiamania, the Zionist-driven need to destroy Syria and Iran, and the War Cabinet -- how unlikely is that the U.S. will, in the near future, make some such attack on some such target that Russia considers crucial to defend?

And Syria is just one theater where, unless one side accepts defeat and goes home, military conflict with Russia is highly likely. Is Russia going to abandon the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass if they're attacked by fascist Kiev forces backed by the U.S.? Is it going to sit back and watch passively if American and Israeli forces attack Iran? Which one is going to give up and accept a loss: John Bolton or Vladimir Putin?

Which brings us to the pointed question: What will the U.S. do if Russia sinks an American ship? How many steps before that goes full-scale, even nuclear? Or maybe American planners (and you, dear reader) are absolutely, positively sure that will never happen, because the U.S. has cool weapons, too, and a lot more of them, and the Russians will probably lose all their ships in the Mediterranean immediately, if not something worse, and they'll put up with anything rather than go one more step. The Russians, like everybody, must know the Americans always win.

Happy with that, are we? Snug in our homeland rug? 'Cause Russians won't fight, but the Taliban will.

This is exactly what is meant by Americans not fearing war with Russia (or war in general for that matter). Nothing but contempt.

The Skripal opera, directed by the United States, with the whole of Europe and the entire Western media apparatus singing in harmony, makes it clear that the American producers have no speaking role for Russia in their staging of the world. And that contempt makes war much more likely. Here's The Saker again, on how dangerous the isolation the U.S. and its European clients are so carelessly imposing on Russia and themselves is for everybody:

Right now they are expelling Russian diplomats en mass e and they are feeling very strong and manly.

The truth is that this is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg. In reality, crucial expert-level consultations, which are so vitally important between nuclear superpowers, have all but stopped a long time ago. We are down to top level telephone calls. That kind of stuff happens when two sides are about to go to war. For many months now Russia and NATO have made preparations for war in Europe. Very rapidly the real action will be left to the USA and Russia. Thus any conflict will go nuclear very fast. And, for the first time in history, the USA will be hit very, very hard, not only in Europe, the Middle-East or Asia, but also on the continental US.

Mass diplomatic expulsions, economic warfare, lockstep propaganda, no interest whatsoever in respectfully addressing or hearing from the other side. What we've been seeing over the past few months is the "kind of stuff that happens when two sides are about to go to war."

The less Americans fear war, the less they respect the possibility of it, the more likely they are to get it.

Ready or Not

The Saker makes a diptych of a point that gets to the heart of the matter. We'd do well to read and think on it carefully:

1/ The Russians are afraid of war. The Americans are not.

2/ The Russians are ready for war. The Americans are not.

Russia is afraid of war. More than twenty million Soviet citizens were killed in WWII, about half of them civilians. That was more than twenty times the number of Americans and British casualties combined. The entire country was devastated. Millions died in the 872-day siege of Leningrad alone, including Vladimir Putin's brother. The city's population was decimated by disease and starvation, with some reduced to cannibalism. Wikileaks calls it "one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history [and] possibly the costliest in casualties." Another million-plus died in the nine-month siege of Stalingrad.

Every Russian knows this history. Millions of Russian families have suffered from it. Of course, there was mythification of the struggle and its heroes, but the Russians, viscerally, know war and know it can happen to them . They do not want to go through it again. They will do almost anything to avoid it. Russians are not flippant about war. They fear it. They respect it.

The Americans are not (afraid of war). Americans have never experienced anything remotely as devastating as this. About 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War, 150 years ago. (And we're still entangled in that!) The American mainland has not been attacked by a significant military force since the War of 1812. Since then, the worst attacks on American territory are two one-off incidents (Pearl Harbor and 9/11), separated by seventy years, totaling about six-thousand casualties. These are the iconic moments of America Under Siege.

For the American populace, wars are "over there," fought by a small group of Americans who go away and either come back or don't. The death, destruction, and aroma of warfare -- which the United States visits on people around the world incessantly -- is unseen and unexperienced at home. Americans do not, cannot, believe, in any but the most abstract intellectual sense, that war can happen here , to them. For the general populace, talk of war is just more political background noise, Morgan Freeman competing for attention with Stormy Daniels and the Kardashians.

Americans are supremely insouciant about war: They threaten countries with it incessantly, the government routinely sells it with lies, and the political parties promote it opportunistically to defeat their opponents -- and nobody cares. For Americans, war is part of a game. They do not fear it. They do not respect it.

The Russians are ready for war. The Nazi onslaught was defeated -- in Soviet Russia, by Soviet Citizens and the Red Army -- because the mass of people stood and fought together for a victory they understood was important. They could not have withstood horrific sieges and defeated the Nazis any other way. Russians understand, in other words, that war is a crisis of death and destruction visited on the whole of society, which can only be won by a massive and difficult effort grounded in social solidarity. If the Russians feel they have to fight, if they feel besieged, they know they will have to stand together, take the hits that come, and fight to the finish. They will not again permit war to be brought to their cities while their attacker stays snug. There will be a world of hurt. They will develop and use any weapon they can. And their toughest weapon is not a hypersonic missile; it's that solidarity, implied by that 77%. (Did you read that Simonyan statement?) They may not be seeking it, but, insofar as anybody can be, they are ready to fight.

Americans are not (ready for war): Americans experience the horror of wars as a series of discrete tragedies visited upon families of fallen soldiers, reported in human-interest vignettes at the end of the nightly news. Individual tragedies, not a social disaster.

It's hard to imagine the social devastation of war in any case, but American culture wants no part of thinking about that concretely. The social imagination of war is deflected into fantastic scenarios of a super-hero universe or a zombie apocalypse. The alien death-ray may blow up the Empire State Building, but the hero and his family (now including his or her gender-ambivalent teenager, and, of course, the dog) will survive and triumph. Cartoon villains, cartoon heroes, and a cartoon society.

One reason for this, we have to recognize, is the victory of the Thatcherite/libertarian-capitalist "no such thing as society" ideology. Congratulations, Ayn Rand, there is no such thing as American society now. It's every incipient entrepreneur for him or herself. This does not a comradely, fighting band of brothers and sisters make.

Furthermore, though America is constantly at war, nobody understands the purpose of it. That's because the real purpose can never be explained, and must be hidden behind some facile abstraction -- "democracy," "our freedoms," etc. This kind of discourse can get some of the people motivated for some of the time, but it loses its charm the minute someone gets smacked in the face.

Once they take a moment, everybody can see that there is nobody with an army threatening to attack and destroy the United States, and if they take a few moments, everybody can see how phony the "democracy and freedom" stuff is and remember how often they've been lied to before. There's just too much information out there. (Which is why the Imperial High Command wants to control the internet.) Why the hell am I fighting? What in hell are we fighting for? These are questions everybody will ask after, and too many people are now asking before, they get smacked in the face.

This lack of social understanding and lack of political support translates into the impossibility of fighting a major, sustained war that requires taking heavy casualties -- even "over there," but certainly in the snug. American culture might be all gung-ho about Seal Team Six kicking ass, but the minute American homes start blowing up and American bodies start falling, Hoo-hah becomes Uh-oh , and it's going to be Outta here .

Americans are ready for Hoo-hah and the Shark Tank and the Zombie Apocalypse. They are not ready for war.

You Get What You Play For

"Russiagate," which started quite banally in the presidential campaign as a Democratic arrow to take down Trump, is now Russiamania -- a battery of weapons wielded by various sectors of the state, aimed at an array of targets deemed even potentially resistant to imperial militarism. Trump himself -- still, and for as long as he's deemed unreliable -- is targeted by a legal prosecution of infinite reach (whose likeliest threat is to take him down for something that has nothing to do with Russia). Russia itself is now targeted in full force by economic, diplomatic, ideological -- and, tentatively, military -- weapons of the state. Perhaps most importantly, American and European people, especially dissidents, are targeted by a unified media barrage that attacks any expression of radical critique, anything that "sows division" -- from Black Lives Matter, to the Sanders campaign, to "But other countries could have made it" -- as Russian treachery.

The stunning success of that last offensive is crucial to making a war more likely, and must be fought. To increase the risk of war with a nuclear power in order to score points against Donald Trump or Jill Stein -- well, only those who neither respect, fear, nor are ready for war would do such a stupid and dangerous thing.

It's impossible to predict with certainty whether, when, or with whom a major hot war will be started. The same chaotic disarray and impulsiveness of the Trump administration that increases the danger of war might also work to prevent it. John Bolton may be fired before he trims his moustache. But it's a pressure-cooker, and the temperature has spiked drastically.

In a previous essay , I said that Venezuela was a likely first target for military attack, precisely because it would make for an easy victory that didn't risk military confrontation with Russia. That's still a good possibility. As we saw with Iraq Wars 1 (which helped to end the "Vietnam Syndrome") and 2 (which somewhat resurrected it), the imperial high command needs to inure the American public with a virtually American-casualty-free victory and in order to lure them into taking on a war that's going to hurt.

But the new War Cabinet may be pumped for the main event -- an attack on Iran. Trump, Pompeo, and Bolton are all rabid proponents of regime-change in Iran. We can be certain that the Iran nuclear deal will be scrapped, and everyone will work hard to implement the secret agreement the Trump administration already has with Israel to "to deal with Iran's nuclear drive, its missile programs and its other threatening activities" -- or, as Trump himself expresses it: "cripple the [Iranian] regime and bring it to collapse." (That agreement, by the way, was negotiated and signed by the previous, supposedly not-so-belligerent National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster.)

Still, as I also said in the previous essay, an attack on Iran means the Americans must either make sure Russia doesn't get in the way or make clear that they don't care if it does. So, threatening moves -- not excluding probing military moves -- against Russia will increase, whether Russia is the preferred direct target or not.

The siege is on.

Americans who want to continue playing with this fire would do well to pay some respectful attention to the target whose face they want to smack. Russia did not boast or brag or threaten or Hoo-Hah about sending military forces to Syria. When it was deemed necessary -- when the United States declared its intention to attack the Syrian Army -- it just did it. And American10-dimensional-chess players have been squirming around trying to deal with the implications of that ever since. They're working hard on finding the right mix of threats, bluffs, sanctions, expulsions, "Shut up and go away!" insults, military forces on the border, and "bloody nose" attacks to force a capitulation. They should be listening to their target, who has not tired of asking for a "partnership," who has clearly stated what his country would do in reaction to previous moves (e.g., the abrogation of the ABM Treaty and stationing of ABM bases in Eastern Europe), whose country and family have suffered from wartime devastation Americans cannot imagine, who therefore respects, fears, and is ready for war in ways Americans are not, and who is not playing their game:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9QxWYIAtCMU

Notes.

[1] Ironically, given current drivers of Russiamania, this is a reference to remarks by Janet Napolitano. " The Enemization of Everything or an American Story of Empathy & Healing? "

[2] Though it's ridiculous that it needs to be said: I'm not talking here about the phony fear engendered by the media presentation of the "strongman," "brutal dictator" Vladimir Putin. This is part and parcel of comic-book politics -- conjuring a super-villain, who, we all know, is destined to be defeated. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Jim Kavanagh

Jim Kavanagh edits The Polemicist .

[Jun 19, 2019] A Proactive Russia and China Could Prevent US War with Iran by Paul Craig Roberts

Jun 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

There is so much disinformation that it is difficult to judge the Israeli news report below that the US is planning a military attack on Iran. Israel wants the US to attack Iran and the report could be an attempt to push events in that direction.

There is no valid reason for Washington to serve Israeli interests.

It would be extremely irresponsible for Washington to risk starting another war.

As Russian and Chinese interests could be threatened by a US war with Iran, the situation could become uncontrollable.

If there is a real prospect of a US attack on Iran, it would be a responsible action for Russia and China to block it in advance by taking a firm position.

U.N. officials: U.S. planning a 'tactical assault' in Iran

By SHLOMO SHAMIR/MAARIV ONLINE

06/17/2019

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

Is the US going to attack Iran soon?

Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.

According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to President Donald Trump.

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

"The bombing will be massive but will be limited to a specific target," said a Western diplomat.

[Jun 19, 2019] Trump MIGA bellicosity: the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran"

Neocon donors ask Trump for favors and he can't refuse... Trump foreign policy is a direct continuation of Bush II and Obama foreign policy and is dominated by neocons, who rule the State Department. Pomeo is a rabid neocon, to the right of Condoleezza Rice, Hillary and John Kerry. Actually anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli bias was clearly visible even during 2016 campaign, but few voters paid any attention. Now they should.
It is clear that Trump is the most pro-Israel President after Johnson.
Notable quotes:
"... In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. ..."
"... The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019]. ..."
"... Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation. ..."
"... But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019] ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

The most optimistic explanation: Trump intends to use immigration as an election issue in 2020. Yet his fecklessness in office will be as unappealing to many voters as the Democrats' extremism. [ Trump Is Vulnerable to Biden on Immigration , by Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, June 11, 2019] After all, Trump began his campaign vowing to solve the immigration problem almost exactly four years ago -- but essentially nothing has been done.

Instead, the president has been reduced to asking Mexico to solve our problem for us. He supposedly cut a deal with the Mexican government after threatening tariffs , but even that is in dispute. [ Mexico denies Trump's claim of secret concessions in deal , by Jill Colvin, Colleen Long, and Maria Verza, Associated Press, June 10, 2019] The president left powerful negotiating tools on the side, including, most importantly, a remittance tax . As in his dealings with Congress, the president insists on negotiating from weakness in his dealings with Mexico.

In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. [ Trump sanctions Iranian metals, Tehran's largest non-petroleum-related sources of export revenue , by Amanda Macias, CNBC, May 8, 2019]

Later that month, the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran" [ Trump threatens Iran With 'Official End' by Kenneth Walsh, US News and World Report, May 20, 2019].

The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019].

This has culminated in Iran's alleged attack on two tankers traveling in the Strait of Hormuz. [ Pompeo Says 'There's No Doubt' Iran Attacked 2 Tankers , by Daniella Cheslow, NPR, June 16, 2019] Congressman Adam Schiff, one of the president's most fervent opponents, agrees Iran is to blame [ Schiff agrees with Trump: 'No question' Iran attacked oil tankers , by Ronn Blitzer, Fox News, June 16, 2019], Senator Tom Cotton (who has a relatively strong immigration policy ) has gone so far as to call for direct military action. [ Senator Tom Cotton Calls For 'Retaliatory Military Strike,' Against Iran After Tanker Attacks, by Benjamin Fearnow, Newsweek, June 16, 2019]

Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation.

But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019]

This is not the same country that re-elected George W. Bush in 2004. The trust in institutions is gone; America is war-weary.

And regardless of who did it, who cares? What American interest is at stake? The Iraq War made the region more unstable ; an Iran War would unleash sectarian warfare all over again. [ Attacking Iran Would Unleash Chaos on the Middle East , by Robert Gaines and Scott Horton, National Interest, June 15, 2019]

We can't even say it's "about the oil" -- the United States is now the world's biggest oil producer and may soon be the world's top exporter [ US will soon threaten to topple Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil exporter: IEA by Tom DiChristopher, CNBC, March 11, 2019]. Who cares about Iran's oil?

There is also a deeper fundamental question. Our country is crumbling. The border is non-existent; entire communities are being overrun. There's something perverse about even entertaining a dangerous and costly military intervention halfway around the world. It's akin to a Roman emperor declaring he will conquer India while barbarians are crossing the Rhine.

President Trump ran on a policy of non-intervention and promised it even after being elected. [ Trump lays out non-interventionist U.S. military policy , by Steve Holland, Reuters, December 6, 2016] He repeatedly pushed back against efforts to get more deeply involved in Syria. He must now resist efforts to get involved in Iran, especially from those who may hint it will win him re-election.

[Jun 18, 2019] Pompeo plays 'I've Got A Secret" during an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face The Nation, responding to a request for evidence that Iran was behind a Taliban attack on a US convoy in Afghanistan

Jun 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Jun 18, 2019 10:13:32 AM | 111

Pompeo plays 'I've Got A Secret" during an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face The Nation, responding to a request for evidence that Iran was behind a Taliban attack on a US convoy in Afghanistan. Pompeo had painted the Taliban-claimed attack as one of "a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests."
QUESTION: One of the things when you were at the podium at the State Department earlier this week you presented as a fact was an attack that was carried out in Kabul in May. The Taliban said they carried it out, but you blamed Iran for it. What evidence do you have that Iran was behind that attack?
SECRETARY POMPEO: We have confidence that Iran instigated this attack. I can't share any more of the intelligence, but I wouldn't have said it if the Intelligence Community hadn't become convinced that this was the case.
QUESTION: So there's more that you can't share with us to back that up?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. That's correct. . . here

Juan Cole, an American academic and commentator on the modern Middle East and South Asia, takes a look at that charge.
Once Again Pompeo Displays Hopeless Ignorance of Sunni & Shiite, Iran and Taliban
. . .Pompeo painted the incident as one of "a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests."
Pompeo's statement is so embarrassing as to be cringe-worthy. It is either a lie in the service of war propaganda or a display of such bottomless ignorance on the part of America's chief diplomat as to be grounds for impeachment (or perhaps just consignment to an asylum). . . here

Pompeo -- Liar, liar, pants on fire.

[Jun 18, 2019] Can the US launch a war without a Secratary of Defence in place? W>ell, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves.

Jun 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Norwegian , Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 14

Purely euphemistic of course, though it actually did used to be called the Department of War.

Norwegian , Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 15

It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place.

Well, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves.

[Jun 18, 2019] Can the US launch a war without a Secratary of Defence in place? W>ell, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves.

Jun 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Norwegian , Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 14

Purely euphemistic of course, though it actually did used to be called the Department of War.

Norwegian , Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 15

It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place.

Well, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves.

[Jun 18, 2019] Schr dinger's Cat view on Pompeo interview to Fox News Saturday

Jun 18, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com

Schrodingers Cat 10 hours ago

"There is no doubt," Pompeo told "Fox News Sunday,"

This, from Sec. Mike Pompous, to the Apparatchik arm of the Administration. As if the American public, or the world, would/could believe anything out of the mouths of these pathetic, bombastic, buffoons.

mcsmcs

...We are supposed to believe the intelligence community about this, but not anything else apparently.

BassHunter

The trifecta of ignorant bellicosity (ie Trump/Bolton/Pompeo) have no credibility because they constantly and consistently lie about everything all the time. It is a situation of their own making. The true surprise here is that THEY are surprised that others refuse to believe them...

[Jun 18, 2019] Iran, Trump -- and what the crisis says about his lack of credibility - The Washington Post

Jun 18, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com

13 hours ago Would someone please explain to me why anyone would attempt to remove an unexploded mine from the side of a ship, and take it on board their own vessel? Seriously. Is this a case of waste not, want not?

It doesn't matter much, though, even if it's true. Nobody believes a word coming out of this administration. We are a global laughing stock run by pathological liars. Like thumb_up 5 Reply Link link Report

mcsmcs 12 hours ago They would take it because it could be traced back to the country that made it and/or put it there.

But it they could have taken it off and let it fall to the bottom of the ocean. Like thumb_up 1 Reply Link link Report

longretired 10 hours ago The other question is why was the min attached above the waterline? Mrine mines are designed to explode underwater.
Like thumb_up 1 Reply Link link Report Patti C 14 hours ago Trump and Pompeo are abhorrent. They have destroyed our foreign policy. No one in their right mind should be voting for Trump for a second term. This administration has no credibility nationally and internationally. Americans who support Trump are ruining our country and are voting against their interests over and over again. Wake up! Republicans and Mitch McConnell should be punished for the amoral Trump Administration. Democrats need to dominate in the 2020 elections! Democrats need to work with all communities across the country to save our democratic republic. Vote Democrats across the nation in 2020. 10 hours ago About what? He actually said the Government has determined. And we all know how unreliable this government is.

The intelligence community always has lots of dat . Like the lies about the Iraq war start, it did not support their assertions. 15 hours ago Odd the only countries siding with the US version of this incident are the ones who stand to gain from continuing to isolate Iran.
Saudi Arabia especially is not a fair player, as exemplified by their behavior in Sudan as well. 15 hours ago Simple. Reread The Boy Who Cried Wolf. When you have a narcissistic president who cannot speak the truth and goes around naked in The Emperor's New Clothes, his sycophantic appointees say, "Oh yes, you are wearing the most Beautiful new robe." Like thumb_up 4 Reply Link link Report Portia1992 15 hours ago The U.S. has zero credibility and should never be trusted. We are warmongers controlled by U.A.E., Saudi Arabia & Israel.
22 hours ago (Edited) This is how stupid we've become: My fear is the real reason we pulled out of a deal that was very effective at both keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons and incentivizing them to behave (for greater economic opportunities) is that Trump hates the fact that Obama developed the deal.

He's forever spoke of developing "a better deal" with regard to everything Obama did. He wanted a "better" healthcare plan to replace Obamacare too. But the very folks that voted for Trump (especially in places like Kentucky) benefited too greatly from "Obamacare" and loudly demanded that Trump not touch it.

Here we go again with Trump trying to screw things up (even if it means risking American military lives in a conflict that was COMPLETELY unnecessary when Trump took office).

It was never truly about what Iran was doing. They were behaving so well that all of our European allies cheered the former peace deal (IT WAS WORKING VERY WELL). Some of this is about Trump's weird love for Saudi Arabia (a bitter enemy of Iran).

But most of this is in Trump's bigoted head. Put simply, we are on the brink of war with a very nasty adversary mainly because Trump hates Obama and everything he did. Even our closest allies (that loved Obama) are not treated as well as Putin (who hated Obama, too). Like thumb_up 9 Reply Link link Report BassHunter 12 hours ago Bingo! Like thumb_up 1 Reply Link link Report NormaLee10 22 hours ago (Edited) Report from my last trip to Iran. I just love the Chinese sneakers I bought in Ahwaz (sorry Nike) Love the Russian fur hat I bought in Tabriz((sorry Gap) The high speed train, built by the Chinese, was a wonderful ride. . Thank you to the Russian Crew inviting us to tour their ship in the port near the Caspian. I get compliments on my Turkish scarves , my Indian cotton dresses. The new boutique hotel, refurbished by a German chain was great.
Just think, if the Dump would have stayed and expanded on the Nuclear agreement,he could have sent Ivanka over to pick up where she left off, designing a hotel in Kazakhstan , or stolen some designs off Persian carpets.
23 hours ago The U.S. lost all credibility under W, who claimed that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Not a single person in a gubbmint office has learned a damned thing since. Like thumb_up 6 Reply Link link Report decaff 23 hours ago So we watched W. Bush get into a huge mess in Iraq (actually it was Cheney). Just imagine the mess that the Orange Clown may get us into with Iran. (which benefits his relationships with Saudi Arabia).
Like thumb_up 5 Reply Link link Report Ralph Carlson 23 hours ago Trump is and always has been nothing more than a bully
Like thumb_up 4 Reply Link link Report RGR 23 hours ago This guy came in on a wild horse ride, Mexicans are rapists, etc...Pull out of the Iran deal (even though it appeared to be working)....and how he is helping the military (while taking money out of their budget for 'the wall').

TURNS OUT...he is the wild horse, and this one is not one that should be allowed out of the barn...

He is a fool...how long does it take to figure this out...his district in NY only voted 10% for him...they knew! Like thumb_up 5 Reply Link link Report Citizen of the Planet 1 day ago You are now witnessing the manifestation of 2 years of Trump's chest pounding and bullying. No one trusts us. No one. Nobody. Like thumb_up 6 Reply Link link Report Al Terego Oz 1 day ago Interesting how quickly it's gone from being possibly a mine to definitely a mine. Like thumb_up 3 Reply Link link Report Bimberg 22 hours ago Very soon Trump will announce that "It's mine, mine, mine!"
Like thumb_up 1 Reply Link link Report Pinky_the_Cat 1 day ago The reason Trump can't make a case for this is that there is no evidence.

There is so little evidence that Trump had to buy propaganda from Heritage.org . That is how thin this

[Jun 18, 2019] Another neocon reshuffling in Trump administration

Notable quotes:
"... Acting totally mad and indicating you don't care is a good way to defeat those who is your equal. Isn't this is exactly how the US government has been acting lately? ..."
"... Interesting this WaPost op/ed totally trashing Trump/Pompeo foreign policy and their utter inability didn't generate any further comment on the previous thread. Sure, it came from BezosPost, but it surely represents some powerful faction that's totally at odds with the directionlessness of Trump and Pompeo. ..."
"... Its June and you know who loves blood to be spilled in June, and right before July 4 you know. Look for a limited aerial strike per PCR, and then they hope Iran retaliates and gives an excuse for them to escalate. ..."
"... Americans are so brainwashed into buying into US militarism and exceptionalism that Trumps approval ratings will go up. Anyone criticizing the military or war is labelled anti-American and censored by Social Media. ..."
"... Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found another. Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT). ..."
"... Has Trump been misled by his advisors, when he twitted about the infamous video shot in the dark by modern means that would surprise the Iranians?I Mean ,because now it turns out to be made in clear daylight with the newly published images. Is Trump angry about being cheated or did he play with the game and was his twitted remark kind of an inside joke? ..."
"... Previously we had G.Haspel showing non-pertinent to the matter camera shots of duck and children to convince him into expelling a max number of Russian diplomats. ..."
"... I am sure there are many Americans interested to know who is in charge at the USA.. ..."
"... ... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction. ..."
"... Such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving antagonist. Except that the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough negotiator", "protector", etc instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid drinkers) and MSM ignores those that talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity. ..."
"... IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists). ..."
"... In light of what the WaPost published I linked to above regrading the utter lack in confidence in both Trump and Pompeo to conduct a rational foreign policy, I seriously doubt the change at SecDef will provide optimism for improvement. Some apparently think such dissent is just shadowplay; IMO, they are mistaken. And I will again note the dissent isn't just about Iran; rather, it's about the conduct of overall foreign policy, especially Trade Policy, which is eating into corporate profitability. ..."
"... That would be a terrible miscalculation from US leadership. The one reason why Pearl Harbour wasn't a lasting disaster for the US is that the carriers survived. What if Iran actually manages to sink a carrier air group? I mean, nukes and nearly untouchable power projection through aircraft carriers are the two main reasons why the US is still the supreme superpower around. Show people that the carriers can be taken out and actually begin to take them out, and plenty of people and countries will begin to consider leaving that mad army parading as a country to itself - not to mention some will soon openly rebel. ..."
"... The US has 50,000 troops and a carrier strike group "protecting American interests" in the Persian Gulf area of the Middle East. Somebody in government ought to tell us what those "interests" are, which require such an investment. That would be nice. ..."
"... The Guardian-- The Iran crisis was created in Washington. The US must be talked down ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Trump Fires Shanahan. Pompeo For Sec Def? Bolton To State?

Trump just fired his acting Secretary of Defense.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 16:59 UTC· 18 Jun 2019

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who has done a wonderful job, has decided not to go forward with his confirmation process so that he can devote more time to his family....

....I thank Pat for his outstanding service and will be naming Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, to be the new Acting Secretary of Defense. I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a fantastic job

On May 9 the White House announced that it would nominate Shanahan for the Secretary of Defense position. But it never sent the nomination request to Congress to have Shanahan confirmed. During the usual FBI background check before a confirmation, a 2010 domestic violence incident Shanahan was involved in came up . It seems that it now ended his short career at the Pentagon.

Shanahan had zero experience in the military. He is a former Boeing manager. A recent Politico portrait of Shanahan described him as weak leader who allowed the war hawks in National Security Council to directly talk with regional commanders without even informing him. He was no counterweight for Bolton and Pompeo who are eager to wage war on Iran.

Yesterday ABC News reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would meet with talk with the Central Command and Special Operations Command leaders without Shanahan being there. It was extremely unusual:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Florida on Monday to meet with leaders from U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command on Tuesday. The U.S. is considering "all options," including military force, to respond to Iran's reported attack on two oil vessels, Pompeo said on Sunday, raising concerns of a U.S. strike.
...
Pompeo will meet with CENTCOM and Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Tuesday to "discuss regional security concerns and ongoing operations," according to Ortagus, after calling several world leaders over the weekend to discuss America's evidence that Iran was behind last week's attacks.

There is no information what plans those talks were about.

Mark Knoller @markknoller - 16:45 utc - 18 Jun 2019

At @CENTCOM at @MacDill_AFB, @SecPompeo says he conferred with military commanders to coordinate State and Defense Dept policy on Iran.
Says US is serious about deterring Iran regime from further aggression in the region.
Says Pres Trump does not want war against Iran.

[Another very unusual sign is that the old war criminal Henry Kissinger visited the Pentagon yesterday and today .]

Trump already had difficulties to find a new Secretary of Defense. Shanahan was not his first choice. To now find a new candidate will be difficult.

It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place. Bolton and Pompeo obviously want a war on Iran and they try their best to instigate it. They need a new SecDef in place as soon as possible. Pompeo served five years as an officer in the U.S. army. He has extensive political experience. Would he want to become Secretary of Defense?

That would leave the Secretary of State position open for John Bolton to move in. The confirmation would be a bit difficult but the Senate is in Republican hands and might go with it. One of Bolton's cronies could then take over the National Security Advisor position. From the war-hawks' point of view it would be the ideal configuration to launch a big one.

Posted by b on June 18, 2019 at 02:03 PM | Permalink


Blue , Jun 18, 2019 2:11:15 PM | 1

Apparently, he is choosing Mark Esper https://sputniknews.com/us/201906181075942685-trump-mark-esper-shanahan-quits/
b , Jun 18, 2019 2:17:45 PM | 2
Esper was Trumps third choice for Secretary of Army. He only got the job after two preferred candidates did not want it.

He is now made acting Secretary because someone needs to do that job. But I doubt that Trump really wants him.

Bruce , Jun 18, 2019 2:30:23 PM | 3
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/12/john-boltons-long-goodbye/
John Kiriakou's sources indicate Bolton is on the way out. That would support speculation Trump is unhappy with a Sec of Def that cannot control Bolton/Pompeo.
Blue , Jun 18, 2019 2:35:34 PM | 4
@2 b,

Possibly true. I was only looking at this from Sputnick:

"The numerous US media stated that Secretary of the Army Mark Esper had been discussed as a possible alternative choice as defense secretary to Shanahan if Trump decided not to nominate him."

Jonathan Everett Gil , Jun 18, 2019 3:34:54 PM | 9
I have hard time believing that Bolton and Pompeo under consideration. Pompeo isn't gonna wanna leave his current job and as for Bolton John Kiriakou wrote last week that Trump is quietly working behind the scenes to find a replacement for him. If anything it might suggest that Trump is working to covertly reign in Bolton and Pompeo with another SecDef who can better control them.
b , Jun 18, 2019 3:38:38 PM | 10
Oh boy -
NYT
Besides Mr. Esper, who was confirmed as secretary of the Army in November 2017, officials said that Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Richard V. Spencer, the secretary of the Navy, are on the short list for defense secretary.

... and I thought I was to far out speculative with the above.

Stever , Jun 18, 2019 3:40:28 PM | 11

Jimmy Dore - Mike Gravel Smashes War Machine With Facts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ByAkTiwQEw

Yul , Jun 18, 2019 3:48:57 PM | 13
@ b

WRT Henry the warmonger. He was attending this :

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/06/05/2019-11628/defense-policy-board-notice-of-federal-advisory-committee-meeting

Norwegian , Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 15
It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place.

Well, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves.

Ash , Jun 18, 2019 4:07:34 PM | 16
Posted by: Norwegian | Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 14

Purely euphemistic of course, though it actually did used to be called the Department of War.

ralphieboy , Jun 18, 2019 4:07:46 PM | 17
"From the war-hawks' point of view it would be the ideal configuration to launch a big one." Gosh, and I thought that Hillary was the big warmonger...guess it would've only been worse under her.
KC , Jun 18, 2019 4:19:24 PM | 21
Obama didn't have a problem getting re-elected with all of his own secret foreign wars and dronings going on. If indeed Pimpeo and Bolt-On get their way, Trump will execute the same type of campaign against Iran except there will be no boots on the ground, even "advisors" given the relationship status of the countries surrounding Iran. The U.S. has exhausted its credibility and goodwill. So we'll be funding terrorists, perpetrating false flags, using drones to attack Iranian seagoing military vessels and launching the occasional "precision" cruise missile strike against alleged nuclear weapons and maybe even chemical weapons processing facilities.

If there is a land war, Israel will fight to the last American troop.

dus7 , Jun 18, 2019 4:31:33 PM | 23
Trump's list of Most Unsuitable Candidates for Higher Office is getting perilously short. Assuming our most famous U.S. billionaire capitalists are not interested, what are Cheney and Condoleezza doing these days? Erik Prince? Some aging Grand Wizard of the KKK? A random death row inmate? The mind boggles.
james , Jun 18, 2019 4:32:03 PM | 24
i said this on the last thread, but i would be curious for others feedback on it..

"think about it... is there going to be more money made and generated starting a war on iran, or not?? the choice is obvious for those into money... create mayhem and raise a lot of money off of it.. and what countries seem to excel at that??"

as for innocent people dying, that has never been a concern for those into money...

criag murray has a good article up from yesterday i read earlier today that is relevant..
The Broader View Reveals the Ugliest of Prospects

Clueless Joe , Jun 18, 2019 4:37:50 PM | 25
Just to see how far we've come, or how bad the situation is, I'd consider Kissinger going on his own to check things out with the top military brass to actually be a good sign. He's no fool and knows that war with Iran will only confirm to Russia and China that they have to stand together, strong, against the USA, and that they'd probably better back Iran up on this one. I wouldn't be surprised if Kissinger is back to his old ways, and that's it's a similar move to when he warned the generals to call him right away if Nixon ever gave the order to use nukes. The guy is slimy and ruthless, but knows the limits and doesn't plan to suicide half the planet.

Colonel Pat Lang assumes that Shanahan just resigns in disgust because Pompeo and Bolton are running the show without consulting with the military. Not sure which is right.

One can hope that the neo-con buddies overplayed their hands and that they just put Trump in such a shitty situation that he's going to tell them to go to Hell soon - hopefully before anyone does something *really* stupid. But right now, that's just that, hope.

NYT saying Pompeo is considered for SecDef might just be Pompeo and his neo-con buddies saying dumb shit and leaking false information to appear important, and trying to force Trump's hands. I really hope that's what happened - because then it would piss Trump off and he might be looking for a way of getting rid of him. If the leak is genuine, on the other hand, that's a terrible sign.

ken , Jun 18, 2019 4:46:16 PM | 26
@21 ADKC

Yes, I believe the US would use nukes if they think they could get away with it... that's how crazy works. Would the other nuclear powers step in,,, highly doubtful. If that happens then the US might even threaten them with annihilation. They would believe the US is sooo insane that it would really risk planet destruction and could decide to cave to the US wishes.

Acting totally mad and indicating you don't care is a good way to defeat those who is your equal. Isn't this is exactly how the US government has been acting lately?

Christian J Chuba , Jun 18, 2019 5:04:11 PM | 28
"I believe the US would use nukes if they think they could get away with it...that's how crazy evil works."

and Sean Hannity would say ... "never has a country had so much power and abused it so little, the Iranians [10 minute Litany of robotic talking point lies] left us no choice." Pompeo, Pence and Haley all declaring it the most righteous and justifiable act ever. Trump would close the border to any Iranian refugees and embargo any Iranians who survived just like he is doing to the Syrians and Venezuelans now.

These people are depraved.

ADKC , Jun 18, 2019 5:14:59 PM | 30
Isn't the Secretary of State the most senior member of the cabinet and regarded as more powerful that POTUS? The position where real power resides? How could a buffoon like Bolton even be considered for Secretary if State? Just another one of Trump's ricaldoodlelus appointments? What a lark!

Bolton graduated from Yale in 1970. I wonder if he is a member of the Skull & Bones? Or closely associated? If so, that makes him much, much more than a mere buffoon but, rather, the very embodiment of the Deep State's and neo-Con's war strategy; that would make Bolton a very, very dangerous person in a very, very powerful position.

Trump would appear to be nothing more than a facilitator.

Both George H.W & George W. Bush were bonesman. Cheney only went to Yale but didn't graduate. Far from Cheney being the controlling influence over George W. (as presented in media and movies) maybe Cheney was just following orders.

Marie Colville (did she ever really exist?) also appears to have been an alumni of Yale (was a fake background constructed?).

Supposedly, the Skull & Bones control Yale; what a very strange place. Anyone, associated with Yale (like Bolton) should be kept well away from power!

GeorgeV , Jun 18, 2019 5:16:30 PM | 31
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Just when you think the US of A's Generalissimo Bone Spur and President Chief Kaiser of Ignorance Arrogance, Stupidity and Hypocrisy (aka: Donald Trump) could not sink to any lower level of idiocy than he already has, he does so. What a country! Only in America!
fastfreddy , Jun 18, 2019 5:28:16 PM | 32
Shouldn't be difficult for Iran, if bmobed at all by US/NATO, to hit Israel - in a big way - from a number of geographic locations and a variety of methods. It would be major and catastrophic.

It poses too great a danger to good friends, with whom the USA maintains an "irrevocable bond", according to the US Congress, the Apartheid State of Israel.

wagelaborer , Jun 18, 2019 5:39:49 PM | 33
I guess Shanahan resigned so he could spend more time abusing his family. I find it interesting that one of the ships attacked, the Front Altair, had a crew of Russians and Filipinos. This was the crew saved by the Iranians. The US story is that they were picked up by a Dutch tanker and then kidnapped by the Iranians. Clearly, the Iranians still saved them, no matter who actually picked them up first.

If the Dutch had turned the crew over to the US, who believes that they would already be released? (The Iranians already released them).

I know that B thinks that this attack was from the Iranians, but the fact that one ship was Japanese, while Abe was in Tehran, and the other had a crew of Russians and Filipinos, both countries under attack from the US, makes me believe that those men were destined to be held for leverage.

Damn straight they were saved by the Iranians.

fx , Jun 18, 2019 5:40:11 PM | 34
For a preview of what things would look like with Pompeo and Bolton in those positions, I recommend a viewing of the movie Vice. (Vice, as in Cheney, working with Rumsfeld and narcissistic poodles such as Powell to start the current ME quagmire.)
Virgile , Jun 18, 2019 5:49:02 PM | 35
Trump went too far with Iran under the devilish advice and initiatives of Heckle and Jeckle... If he wants to stop the escalation with Iran, before it gets out of control, the only way is to move Pompeo to Sec of Defense where he will have to face the powerful and war-reluctant military. Trump would also simultaneously fire Bolton. Depending on the reactions of the neocons and Jewish lobby, he will then choose a new sec of state, 'brilliant' Jared Kushner?
wagelaborer , Jun 18, 2019 6:14:10 PM | 37
Sharon @ 36. I was going by this post....
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/todays-attacks-on-ships-in-the-gulf-of-oman-are-not-in-irans-interest.html#more

Posted by: paulll , Jun 18, 2019 6:16:14 PM | 38

I think the US has become very skilled at fighting wars without taking casualties. I think the air attacks in Syria - on Iranian forces - have made it pretty clear that Iran has no meaningful defense capabilities vs air attack. What Trump is probably counting on is a turkey shoot and I think that is exactly what it will be.
brian , Jun 18, 2019 6:16:25 PM | 39
What is Trump's motivation to be provocative with Iran?' Pelosi asks – and the answer is Adelson. Adelson called on the last president, Barack Obama, to nuke Iran in 2013 https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/motivation-provocative-adelson/ its a war for israel
Harry Law , Jun 18, 2019 6:34:19 PM | 41
We should take heart from readers comments in the New York Times in response to an article by the NYT Editorial Board.
There were 473 of them before the Times closed the discussion, and we could not find a single one that is supportive of war or of U.S. efforts to continue pressure on Iran. So Bret Stephens gets to spur on a war in his Times column, but the paper's readers are universally against the idea. Moreover, they hold the Times responsible and see through the equivocations in the editorial. Several point out that the press was the handmaiden of the Iraq disaster. https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/readers-newspaper-abetting/#comments

The US position is an attempt to keep hegemony over the region because both Israel and Saudi Arabia feel the US is losing it, and they are correct.

Trump walked away from the JCPOA at the behest of Israel with the accusation that it was a bad deal, the deal did in fact rule out enrichment of uranium above 3.5%, approx 90% enrichment is required to build a nuclear device.

The Ayatollah issued a decree to the effect that nuclear weapons were un-Islamic, therefore Iran should not have them.

The real reason Trump walked away was because Iran was in rapid production of highly accurate conventional ballistic missiles some of which would find their way to Hezbollah, the UN Resolution banned the building of missiles capable of carrying a nuclear payload, but not conventional warheads, to ban the latter would have rendered Iran defenseless, which was the whole idea of the Israeli and Saudi Arabian intervention.

Being incapable of defending itself is not something any state could countenance, that's why it will never happen, hence the stand off.

In my opinion there will be no war with Iran, too many losers, Saudi Arabia/UAE, Israel, the US fleet [in Bahrain] the US bases all over the Middle East, of course Iran and its friends could be destroyed [but at what cost?] The Strait of Hormus is bristling with Iranian anti ship missiles, the first sign of war would see the US fleet depart from Bahrain, the lumbering giant and vulnerable B52's based in Qatar would not get off the ground and US airbases in the region well within range if Iranian missiles would be reduced to rubble. As for any US carriers in the area and why US carriers are obsolete, especially in the Iranian situation here is an article by Gary Brecher from 10 years ago and very witty.. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/

karlof1 , Jun 18, 2019 6:39:05 PM | 42
Interesting this WaPost op/ed totally trashing Trump/Pompeo foreign policy and their utter inability didn't generate any further comment on the previous thread. Sure, it came from BezosPost, but it surely represents some powerful faction that's totally at odds with the directionlessness of Trump and Pompeo.

After so many fiascos, there seems to be very little appetite for armed conflict amongst the Vassals except for UK. There's lots of domestic uproar over Trump policies the tanker attacks have muted so far but won't go away anytime soon -- particularly the Concentration Camp charges, which are 100% correct, extremely damning and damaging.

Look at the situation from overseas. Escalating belligerency across the board aimed at enemies and allies alike is combined with visibly repressive, likely unconstitutional and, in the world's eyes, morally reprehensible actions toward vulnerable innocents from which horror stories occur on a daily basis. Oh, and don't forget Assange and the War against Truth. And your government is being asked to support TrumpCo's policies?! I bet plenty of leaders are biting their tongues. The G-20's in ten days.

Curtis , Jun 18, 2019 6:49:27 PM | 43
At least Gates resisted the Obama/Hillary mission to destroy Libya (worked with JCS to contact Gaddhafi's sons). Hillary put a stop to that. One wonders if Pompeo and Bolton are playing a multi-view game of picking a SecDef that they (and Kushner/Netanyau) approve of.
Curtis , Jun 18, 2019 6:55:29 PM | 44
Oops. It wasn't so much Gates as Kucinich leading that effort with the JCS. But Gates was hesitant in a TIME article about a meeting with Obama and KerryHillary to discuss possible military action against Iran. At the time, I figured it was posturing for Israel. I focused on the description of Kerry and Hillary as "interventionists."
Pft , Jun 18, 2019 7:01:27 PM | 45
This is rather ominous. Sounds a bit like cleaning house and removing potential witnesses who aren't will the program or may soon have a grudge to bear.

Its June and you know who loves blood to be spilled in June, and right before July 4 you know. Look for a limited aerial strike per PCR, and then they hope Iran retaliates and gives an excuse for them to escalate.

Americans are so brainwashed into buying into US militarism and exceptionalism that Trumps approval ratings will go up. Anyone criticizing the military or war is labelled anti-American and censored by Social Media. Declining IQ's and chronic illnesses due to vaccines and other environmental toxins will limit any protests. Besides, the military is the one way to get a free college education while getting paid to go to school. The young will continue lining up to serve and fight these threats to the American way of life. Shouting America First. MAGA. Waving their Made in China flag. God blesses US. Might makes right, etc

Puppet regimes in occupied Europe will go along. Fellow Fake wrestlers in China and Russia will make squeaky noises. So predictable

karlof1 , Jun 18, 2019 7:02:15 PM | 46
It dawned on me that those outside the Outlaw US Empire don't know about TrumpCo's Concentration Camps and the surrounding, escalating controversy. As I've written, conflation of Concentration with Death Camps and decades of propaganda are fueling the issue:

"'The Holocaust did not begin with the murder of six million Jews,' writer Bess Kalb tweeted in response to Cheney. 'It began with the same dehumanization, deportation, and internment we see today. You, sickeningly, invoke the Holocaust to minimize their suffering. Shame.'

As you might imagine given the level of Jewish/Zionist support, Cheney and the Republicans have made an enormous mistake.

Pft , Jun 18, 2019 7:07:54 PM | 47
Ort@27

"Come to think of it, unless Dick Cheney is busy with other priorities, he ought to be available for a reboot of Shock & Awe."

There are some who believe he is the unofficial President running things from his underground city built as part of the Continuity of Government that kicks in during National Emergencies such as the one declared 18 years ago and still in effect

Not 100% sure this is true but I suspect his voice is being heard

Don Bacon , Jun 18, 2019 7:08:32 PM | 48
President Trump made the announcement with a pair of midday tweets that Shanahan was withdrawing and that Army Secretary Mark Esper would take his place as acting Defense secretary

On Esper, in April Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced that the president nominated Army Gen. Mark Milley to serve as the next JCS chairman which would be effective in about September when General Joseph Dunford leaves after four years on the job. His predecessor was an Army general, so it was considered odd to select another Army general to be top dog.

Now, Esper is Army too and if he were nominated for SecDef that would shake some people. What about Air Force and Navy? What are they, chopped liver?

. . .more on Esper from The Hill:

Esper graduated from West Point in 1986 and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring. His Army career includes a combat tour in Iraq during the Gulf War. Several Republican senators have already said they'd support Esper should he be nominated.

. . .(but) Esper was a lobbyist at defense contractor Raytheon for seven years prior to becoming Army secretary. Esper's lobbyist past could bring up some of the issues that dogged Shanahan on potential conflicts of interest.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement that Esper "risk[s] being tainted by his previous work for a major defense contractor. The group's allegations against Shanahan in part prompted the inspector general investigation.

"While Esper may not have had sway over these types of deals as secretary of the Army, as acting secretary of Defense he will have potential influence over such deals, as well as over the controversial proposed merger of Raytheon and UTC to become the second largest defense company in the U.S.," Bookbinder said. "His ethics agreement -- and his ability to follow it -- will be something we will be watching closely." . . . here

Jackrabbit , Jun 18, 2019 7:11:25 PM | 49
SecDef: A Poisoned Chalice

Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found another. Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT).

Is it that he's not a strong manager or did he just play along to get his ticket stamped? I wouldn't be surprised if he's made the new CEO of Boeing (It's now clear that Boeing will have to do more to recover from their 737Max debacle) . Or perhaps he'll join a Defense-focused Private Equity firm, or simply sit on the Boards of several defense-related enterprises. Any of these will be better than accepting the Trump Administration's Poison Chalice.

Jackrabbit , Jun 18, 2019 7:11:49 PM | 50
SecDef: A Poisoned Chalice

Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found another. Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT).

Is it that he's not a strong manager or did he just play along to get his ticket stamped? I wouldn't be surprised if he's made the new CEO of Boeing (It's now clear that Boeing will have to do more to recover from their 737Max debacle) . Or perhaps he'll join a Defense-focused Private Equity firm, or simply sit on the Boards of several defense-related enterprises. Any of these will be better than accepting the Trump Administration's Poison Chalice.

willie , Jun 18, 2019 7:30:12 PM | 51
Has Trump been misled by his advisors, when he twitted about the infamous video shot in the dark by modern means that would surprise the Iranians?I Mean ,because now it turns out to be made in clear daylight with the newly published images. Is Trump angry about being cheated or did he play with the game and was his twitted remark kind of an inside joke?

Previously we had G.Haspel showing non-pertinent to the matter camera shots of duck and children to convince him into expelling a max number of Russian diplomats.

And much earlier it was pictures shown to Melania and him of dead or agonizing Syrian children that made him order missile attack on Syria. Is that the way he is being handled by his surroundings in his decision process? Is there a doctor around at the White House?

Peter AU 1 , Jun 18, 2019 7:33:05 PM | 52
Reading Harry Law's post @41, it looks like the US needs another Pearl Harbour to carry its people to war.
Plenty of Pearl Harbour type assets around the Persian Gulf. Problem for the US is getting Iran to react and hit some of these.
snake , Jun 18, 2019 8:06:12 PM | 53
Henry Law @ 41 and Peter Au 1 @ 52 might find the content of this link very interesting. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51773.htm

I am sure there are many Americans interested to know who is in charge at the USA..

Jackrabbit , Jun 18, 2019 8:17:51 PM | 54
willie @51: Has Trump been misled by his advisors ...

The media promote Doublethink

... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.

Such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving antagonist. Except that the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough negotiator", "protector", etc instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid drinkers) and MSM ignores those that talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity.

And it's not just Trump. Whenever a President does things that might cause cognitive dissonance, apologists and the feckless press explain it away as a positive or blame subordinates for "sabotaging" the hero President.

TLDR: stop falling for MSM false narratives .

Jackrabbit , Jun 18, 2019 8:24:14 PM | 56
snake @53: I am sure there are many Americans interested to know who is in charge at the USA..

IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists).

dltravers , Jun 18, 2019 8:38:10 PM | 57
They appointed a VP of Raetheon as Secretary of Defense which is appropriate because that is who is selling the US the missiles to demolish Iran.

US intelligence learns from a highly credible source that Iran's Revolutionary Guards have completed preparations for a large-scale assault on an important Saudi oil facility within days.

@DEBKA

You know this stuff is being fed to the military industrial congressional complex. It looks like they will start some limited bombing of Iran prior to the 2020 elections to get everyone waving their flags and shouting Hurahh.

Zachary Smith , Jun 18, 2019 8:50:30 PM | 58
@ Harry Law | Jun 18, 2019 6:34:19 PM #41

I hope there isn't a war, but there is one nation you didn't mention which doesn't figure it'll be hurt much by an outbreak of violence. A large number of goyim ending up dead doesn't bother them the least bit. I'd imagine the smashing of Iran would be worth receiving a few bombs on their stolen land. But not a lot, for if that happened they'd start waving around the nuke option and cause Trump to keep on till the job was done to their satisfaction.

Thanks for the old War Nerd link. If the situation with aircraft carriers was bad then, a 2019 update would show them to be even worse in the death-trap category. But we're still building them.

karlof1 , Jun 18, 2019 8:57:19 PM | 59
In light of what the WaPost published I linked to above regrading the utter lack in confidence in both Trump and Pompeo to conduct a rational foreign policy, I seriously doubt the change at SecDef will provide optimism for improvement. Some apparently think such dissent is just shadowplay; IMO, they are mistaken. And I will again note the dissent isn't just about Iran; rather, it's about the conduct of overall foreign policy, especially Trade Policy, which is eating into corporate profitability.

Which side will take the next move is the question now. Perhaps another Houthi attack on Saudi oil infrastructure, which present very soft, vulnerable targets. Perhaps a Houthi ballistic missile attack on UAE port facilities. The Idlib offensive will begin again after the non-ceasefire that saw continual al-Qaeda attacks and mounting Terrorist losses; perhaps, the long awaited push West from Aleppo will occur. But Syria is tangential to the Iranian confrontation. Maybe the EU will announce something significant that shows independent thinking? Time marches inexorably onward to the next event.

Clueless Joe , Jun 18, 2019 8:58:11 PM | 60
Peter AU1 - 52

That would be a terrible miscalculation from US leadership. The one reason why Pearl Harbour wasn't a lasting disaster for the US is that the carriers survived. What if Iran actually manages to sink a carrier air group? I mean, nukes and nearly untouchable power projection through aircraft carriers are the two main reasons why the US is still the supreme superpower around. Show people that the carriers can be taken out and actually begin to take them out, and plenty of people and countries will begin to consider leaving that mad army parading as a country to itself - not to mention some will soon openly rebel.

Grieved , Jun 18, 2019 9:11:23 PM | 61
@60 Clueless Joe - "..mad army parading as a country"

nice one. Good analysis too.

Don Bacon , Jun 18, 2019 9:18:28 PM | 62
The US has 50,000 troops and a carrier strike group "protecting American interests" in the Persian Gulf area of the Middle East. Somebody in government ought to tell us what those "interests" are, which require such an investment. That would be nice.
SharonM , Jun 18, 2019 9:18:37 PM | 63
Wagelaborer@37

I think that article is about Iran having a reason to do it, but I didn't read in it that "b" believed that Iran had done it. I took him as more musing about the possibility without believing it himself?

Don Bacon , Jun 18, 2019 9:24:03 PM | 64
The Guardian-- The Iran crisis was created in Washington. The US must be talked down
Unnecessarily aggressive, ill-considered – and deceptively presented – US policies have once again brought the Middle East to the brink of an accidental war very few want. America's European friends, including Britain, have an urgent responsibility to talk it down – and drag it back from the abyss.

[Jun 18, 2019] Sections

Jun 18, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Share Options Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Tumblr Comments 524 Link to homepage Resize Text Print Article

[Jun 18, 2019] Pompeo plays 'I've Got A Secret" during an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face The Nation, responding to a request for evidence that Iran was behind a Taliban attack on a US convoy in Afghanistan

Jun 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Jun 18, 2019 10:13:32 AM | 111

Pompeo plays 'I've Got A Secret" during an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face The Nation, responding to a request for evidence that Iran was behind a Taliban attack on a US convoy in Afghanistan. Pompeo had painted the Taliban-claimed attack as one of "a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests."
QUESTION: One of the things when you were at the podium at the State Department earlier this week you presented as a fact was an attack that was carried out in Kabul in May. The Taliban said they carried it out, but you blamed Iran for it. What evidence do you have that Iran was behind that attack?
SECRETARY POMPEO: We have confidence that Iran instigated this attack. I can't share any more of the intelligence, but I wouldn't have said it if the Intelligence Community hadn't become convinced that this was the case.
QUESTION: So there's more that you can't share with us to back that up?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. That's correct. . . here

Juan Cole, an American academic and commentator on the modern Middle East and South Asia, takes a look at that charge.
Once Again Pompeo Displays Hopeless Ignorance of Sunni & Shiite, Iran and Taliban
. . .Pompeo painted the incident as one of "a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests."
Pompeo's statement is so embarrassing as to be cringe-worthy. It is either a lie in the service of war propaganda or a display of such bottomless ignorance on the part of America's chief diplomat as to be grounds for impeachment (or perhaps just consignment to an asylum). . . here

Pompeo -- Liar, liar, pants on fire.

[Jun 18, 2019] The American Cult of Bombing and Endless War

Notable quotes:
"... Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many conflicts. ..."
"... Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval required). ..."
"... Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process? ..."
"... In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital," the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International . ..."
"... U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least 600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term effects of cluster munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may well have exceeded one million.) ..."
"... the U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger , as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to yet more destruction. ..."
"... Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results. ..."
"... Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year. ..."
"... No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured," bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to end. ..."
"... A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror: the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh insurgents to strike. ..."
"... Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam. ..."
"... Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational awareness ." ..."
"... Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial power projection than with national defense ..."
"... Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens wars rather than shortening them. ..."
"... Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures -- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those being bombed become more resilient and resolute. ..."
"... Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the moral high ground in war. ..."
"... all the happy talk about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results. ..."
"... War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own turf. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by William Astore via TomDispatch.com,

The American Cult of Bombing and Endless War

From Syria to Yemen in the Middle East, Libya to Somalia in Africa, Afghanistan to Pakistan in South Asia, an American aerial curtain has descended across a huge swath of the planet. Its stated purpose: combatting terrorism. Its primary method: constant surveillance and bombing -- and yet more bombing.

Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many conflicts.

Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval required).

Its reality for various foreign peoples: a steady diet of " Made in USA " bombs and missiles bursting here, there, and everywhere.

Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process?

For many of America's decision-makers, air power has clearly become something of an abstraction. After all, except for the 9/11 attacks by those four hijacked commercial airliners, Americans haven't been the target of such strikes since World War II. On Washington's battlefields across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, air power is always almost literally a one-way affair. There are no enemy air forces or significant air defenses. The skies are the exclusive property of the U.S. Air Force (and allied air forces), which means that we're no longer talking about "war" in the normal sense. No wonder Washington policymakers and military officials see it as our strong suit, our asymmetrical advantage , our way of settling scores with evildoers, real and imagined.

Bombs away!

In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital," the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International .

Meanwhile, since Donald Trump has become president, after claiming that he would get us out of our various never-ending wars, U.S. bombing has surged, not only against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq but in Afghanistan as well. It has driven up the civilian death toll there even as "friendly" Afghan forces are sometimes mistaken for the enemy and killed , too. Air strikes from Somalia to Yemen have also been on the rise under Trump, while civilian casualties due to U.S. bombing continue to be underreported in the American media and downplayed by the Trump administration.

U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least 600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term effects of cluster munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may well have exceeded one million.) Today's air strikes are more limited than in those past campaigns and may be more accurate, but never confuse a 500-pound bomb with a surgeon's scalpel, even rhetorically. When " surgical " is applied to bombing in today's age of lasers, GPS, and other precision-guidance technologies, it only obscures the very real human carnage being produced by all these American-made bombs and missiles.

This country's propensity for believing that its ability to rain hellfire from the sky provides a winning methodology for its wars has proven to be a fantasy of our age. Whether in Korea in the early 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s, or more recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger , as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to yet more destruction.

Such results are contrary to the rationale for air power that I absorbed in a career spent in the U.S. Air Force. (I retired in 2005.) The fundamental tenets of air power that I learned, which are still taught today, speak of decisiveness. They promise that air power, defined as "flexible and versatile," will have "synergistic effects" with other military operations. When bombing is "concentrated," "persistent," and "executed" properly (meaning not micro-managed by know-nothing politicians), air power should be fundamental to ultimate victory. As we used to insist, putting bombs on target is really what it's all about. End of story -- and of thought.

Given the banality and vacuity of those official Air Force tenets, given the twenty-first-century history of air power gone to hell and back, and based on my own experience teaching such history and strategy in and outside the military, I'd like to offer some air power tenets of my own. These are the ones the Air Force didn't teach me, but that our leaders might consider before launching their next "decisive" air campaign.

Ten Cautionary Tenets About Air Power

1. Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results.

2. Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. American air power pulverized both North Korea and Vietnam (not to speak of neighboring Laos and Cambodia ), yet the Korean War ended in a stalemate and the Vietnam War in defeat. (It tells you the world about such thinking that air power enthusiasts, reconsidering the Vietnam debacle, tend to argue the U.S. should have bombed even more -- lots more .) Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year.

3. No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured," bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to end.

Consider, for instance, the "decapitation" strikes launched against Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein and his top officials in the opening moments of the Bush administration's invasion of 2003. Despite the hype about that being the beginning of the most precise air campaign in all of history, 50 of those attacks, supposedly based on the best intelligence around, failed to take out Saddam or a single one of his targeted officials. They did, however, cause "dozens" of civilian deaths. Think of it as a monstrous repeat of the precision air attacks launched on Belgrade in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic and his regime that hit the Chinese embassy instead, killing three journalists.

Here, then, is the question of the day: Why is it that, despite all the "precision" talk about it, air power so regularly proves at best a blunt instrument of destruction? As a start, intelligence is often faulty. Then bombs and missiles, even "smart" ones, do go astray. And even when U.S. forces actually kill high-value targets (HVTs), there are always more HVTs out there. A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror: the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh insurgents to strike.

4. Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam. Fast-forward to our era and consider recent signals sent to North Korea and Iran by the Trump administration via B-52 bomber deployments, among other military "messages." There's no evidence that either country modified its behavior significantly in the face of the menace of those baby-boomer-era airplanes.

5. Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. Similarly, in the present moment, making operational and then maintaining Lockheed Martin's boondoggle of a jet fighter, the F-35, is expected to cost at least $1.45 trillion over its lifetime. The new B-21 stealth bomber will cost more than $100 billion simply to buy. Naval air wings on aircraft carriers cost billions each year to maintain and operate. These days, when the sky's the limit for the Pentagon budget, such costs may be (barely) tolerable. When the money finally begins to run out, however, the military will likely suffer a serious hangover from its wildly extravagant spending on air power.

6. Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational awareness ." It can instead prove to be a kind of delusion, while war practiced in its spirit often becomes little more than an exercise in destruction. You simply can't negotiate a truce or take prisoners or foster other options when you're high above a potential battlefield and your main recourse is blowing up people and things.

7. Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial power projection than with national defense . As such, it fuels imperial ventures, while fostering the kind of " global reach, global power " thinking that has in these years had Air Force generals in its grip.

8. Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens wars rather than shortening them. Consider Vietnam again. In the early 1960s, the Air Force argued that it alone could resolve that conflict at the lowest cost (mainly in American bodies). With enough bombs, napalm, and defoliants, victory was a sure thing and U.S. ground troops a kind of afterthought. (Initially, they were sent in mainly to protect the airfields from which those planes took off.) But bombing solved nothing and then the Army and the Marines decided that, if the Air Force couldn't win, they sure as hell could. The result was escalation and disaster that left in the dust the original vision of a war won quickly and on the cheap due to American air supremacy.

9. Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures -- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those being bombed become more resilient and resolute.

10. Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the moral high ground in war.

The Road to Perdition

If I had to reduce these tenets to a single maxim, it would be this: all the happy talk about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results.

For this reason, precision warfare is truly an oxymoron. War isn't precise. It's nasty, bloody, and murderous. War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own turf.

Who doesn't know the old riddle: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Here's a twenty-first-century air power variant on it: If foreign children die from American bombs but no U.S. media outlets report their deaths, will anyone grieve? Far too often, the answer here in the U.S. is no and so our wars go on into an endless future of global destruction.

In reality, this country might do better to simply ground its many fighter planes, bombers, and drones. Paradoxically, instead of gaining the high ground, they are keeping us on a low road to perdition.


Joiningupthedots , 11 minutes ago link

All off that may be true BUT.......

The myth of Tomahawk has already been dispelled

Countries with reasonable to excellent A2D2 are seriously avoided.

The solution is for Russia to sell equipment and training packages of A2D2 to any country that wants then at BE prices.

Thousands of decoys with spoof emitters and......

Planes take like 3 years to build and pilots take at least 5-6 years to train.

Do the math!

107cicero , 17 minutes ago link

From a marketing/profit perspective , BOMBS are the perfect product.

Insanely expensive, used once.

Rinse and repeat.

Theedrich , 1 hour ago link

In December of 2017, Daniel Ellsberg published a book, "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" . Among many other things, he revealed the actual Strangelovian nature of our military establishment. Most enlightening is his revelation that many in the high command of our nuclear triggers do not trust, or even have contempt for, civilian oversight and control of the military. They covertly regard the presidential leadership as naïve and inept, though it would be professional suicide to admit such an attitude openly.

Comes now 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕹𝖊𝖜 𝖄𝖔𝖗𝖐 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖘 with the revelation that the Pentagon's Cyber Command has attacked Russia's power grid with software "implants" designed to destroy that grid the instant a mouse click is given, thereby possibly initiating global war. Most alarmingly, the details of this secret action were kept from the President, lest he countermand the operation or leak it to the Russians.

So now we have a general staff that is conducting critical international military operations on its own, with no civilian input, permission or hindrances of any kind. A formula for national suicide, executed by a tiny junta of unelected officers who decide to play nuclear Russian roulette.

We seem to be ineluctably and irreversibly trapped in a state of national dementia.

He–Mene Mox Mox , 2 hours ago link

Just remember this: The U.S. had the technological advantage in Viet Nam, and blasted that country, along with Cambodia, and Laos, with 7.5 million tons of bombs, (more than the entire WWII campaign of 2.25 million tons), and the Vietnamese were still able to kick our *** out of the country by 1975.

Uskatex , 2 hours ago link

There is a 11th tenet: air force operations need airports or aircraft carriers, and these are very vulnerable to modern, high precision missiles. If the enemy has plenty of missiles, your fighters and bombers can be impeded to take off and land, or even be destroyed. Modern aircrafts need very sophisticated and working infrastructures to be operational.

In the case of a full war with Iran, I see all hostile bases and airports destroyed or damaged by Iranian, Hezbollah and Syrian missiles. They have tens of thousand of them - it is 30 years they have been accumulating missiles in prevision of a possible forthcoming war.

Groundround , 44 minutes ago link

You are right. Also, there are many nations with subs and probably more countries have acquired nukes than are willing to admit. I strongly suspect Iran already has nukes. If North Korea has them, I see no reason that Iran wouldn't be even further ahead. They have been under threat of US attacks for my entire lifetime. Anyway, I would not put it past some other countries to hit US coastal cities and then deny any knowledge about who did it. There are many capable and many people have been made enemies by our foreign policy. Surely these people have treaties to help each other should be attack. And why would they make these treaties public and antagonize the US military further. I'm sure there are many well kept secrets out there. We must evolve, or the US and Israel could find it is us against the world.

Wantoknow , 3 hours ago link

War is hell. It has always been so. The failure here is that since World War II all US wars have been fatuously political. Actions have not been taken to win but to posture about moral greatness and the ability to force the enemy to deal without destroying his capacity to resist.

How can you say the US lost in Vietnam when the entire country could have been removed from the face of the Earth? Yes the price of such removal would have been very high but it could have been done. Do such considerations mean that if one withdraws one has lost?

The US won the war in the Pacific but it is now considered an excessive use of force that the US used nuclear weapons to conclude the war. Perhaps the US did not use enough force then to successfully conclude the Vietnam war? Perhaps, it failed to field the right kind of force?

The definition of lost is an interesting one. The practical answer is that the US did lose in many places because it was unwilling to pay the price of victory as publicly expressed. Yet it could have won if it paid the price.

So an interesting question for military types is to ask how to lower the price. What kind of weapons would have been needed to quickly sweep the enemy into oblivion in Vietnam let us say, given the limits of the war? Could the war have been won without ground troops and choppers but with half a million computer controlled drones armed with machine guns and grenades flying in swarms close to the ground?

The factories to produce those weapons could have been located in Thailand or Taiwan or Japan and the product shipped to Vietnam. Since only machines would be destroyed and the drones are obviously meant to substitute for ground troops then how about a million or two million of the drones in place of the half a million ground troops? Could the US, with anachronistic technology to be sure, have won the war for a price that would have been acceptable to the US?

The idea here is that one constructs an army, robot or otherwise, than can destroy the enemy it is going to fight at a price which is acceptable. This is actually a form of asymmetric warfare which requires a thorough understanding of the enemy and his capabilities. The US did not enter Vietnam with such an army but with one not meant to serve in Vietnam and whose losses would be deeply resented at home. The price of victory was too high.

But this does not mean that the US cannot win. It only means that the commitment to win in a poorly thought out war must be great enough to pay the price of victory. This may be a stupid thing to do but it does not mean that it cannot be done. One cannot assume that the US will never again show sufficient commitment to win.

wildfry , 5 hours ago link

Victory means you get to write your own ******** version of history.The most devastating civilian bombing campaign in human history is not even mentioned in this article. The US fire bombing of 30 major cities in Korea with the death toll estimated at between 1.2 million and 1.6 million. I bet most US citizens aren't even aware of this atrocity or that the military requested Truman to authorize the use of nuclear warheads which he, thankfully, declined to do.

herbivore , 5 hours ago link

What does the word "victory" mean? It means whatever the rulers want it to mean. In this case, "victory" is synonymous with prolongation and expansion of warmaking around the world. Victory does not mean an end to combat. In fact, victory, in the classic sense, means defeat, at least from the standpoint of those who profit from war. If someone were to come up with a cure for cancer, it would mean a huge defeat for the cancer industry. Millions would lose their jobs. CEO's would lose their fat pay packages. Therefore, we need to be clearheaded about this, and recognize that victory is not what you think it is.

sonoftx , 5 hours ago link

Talked with a guy recently. He is a pilot. He flies planes over Afghanistan. He is a private contractor.

The program began under the Air Force. It then was taken over by the Army. It is now a private contractor.

There are approx 400 pilots in country at a time with 3 rotations. He told me what he gets paid. $200,000 and up.

They go up with a NSA agent running the equipment in back. He state that the dumbass really does not know what the plane is capable of. They collect all video, audio, infrared, and more? (You have to sense when to stop asking questions)

I just wanted to know the logistics of the info gathered.

So, the info is gathered. The NSA officer then gets with the CIA and the State Dept to see what they can release to the end user. The end user is the SOCOM. After it has been through review then the info is released to SOCOM.

So with all of this info on "goatherders" we still cannot pinpoint and defeat the "enemy"? No. Too many avenues of profit and deceit and infighting. It will always be. May justice here and abroad win in the end.

Concentrate on the true enemies. It is not your black, or Jewish, or brown, or Muslim neighbor. It is the owners of the Fed, Dow chemical, the Rockefellers, McDonnel Douglas and on and on and on and on and on and on..............

ardent , 6 hours ago link

The ROAD to perdition passes through APARTHEID Israhell.

"It does not take a genius to figure out that the United States... has no vital interests at stake in places like Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq. Who is driving the process and benefiting? Israel is clearly the intended beneficiary... " – Philip Giraldi, Former CIA officer.

Boogity , 6 hours ago link

As Dubya famously said they hate us for our freedoms not because we've been dropping bombs on 'em for a couple of decades.

HideTheWeenie , 6 hours ago link

Bombing and war tech looks pretty cool in movies and controlled demonstrations. On reality, it doesn't get you too far. Never has.

Boots on the ground is what wins wars and all the generals know that. So do our enemy combatants.

On the ground, your chances of dying are 5-10% of your chances of getting maimed or permanently disabled, which are pretty high.

Maybe that's why we're letting in all the illegals, so they can fight our next war(s).

[Jun 18, 2019] Gina Haspel What to Know About the New Director of the CIA

May 08, 2019 | fortune.com
Gina Haspel is facing a Congressional grilling as her confirmation hearings for the CIA director's position get underway.

Should she overcome it, she'll be the first woman to hold the director's job. It's a high profile position, but Haspel has been a pretty low profile person up until this point. So who is Trump's nominee to run the government's spy agency?

Haspel, who would replace new secretary of state Mike Pompeo , has been with the agency since 1985, spending much of her career undercover. She has received several awards, including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism and the Presidential Rank Award, the highest award in the federal civil service. She also has overseen the torture of some terror suspects , which is what critics and former ambassadors are worried about.

A 2017 New York Times report says Haspel, in 2002, oversaw the torture of two suspects at a secret prison in Thailand and later was involved in the destruction of videotapes documenting that torture.

One of those prisoners was waterboarded 83 times in a single month, had his head repeatedly slammed into walls , and endured other harsh methods before interrogators decided he had no useful information to provide, says the Times .

As a result of such torture, she was shifted out of her role as head of the CIA's clandestine service.

Haspel was picked to run the CIA's clandestine operations unit in 2013, but Senator Dianne Feinstein , who was the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, blocked the promotion because of Haspel's history of torture.

Within the agency, though, Haspel is reportedly widely respected – and has support from members of both the Bush and Obama administrations. Where she stands personally on issues such as extreme interrogation techniques is an unknown, as she has not offered any public comments on policy, as you would expect for an undercover officer.

And that's what Senators are hoping to learn more about as their questioning gets underway.

[Jun 18, 2019] War With Iran Would Become 'Trump's War' by Patrick J. Buchanan

It is not a secret that the USA have a very powerful MIC lobby that by-and-large defines the USA foreign policy. Israel can be considered as a yet another MIC lobbyist. This lobby in interesting in launching the war (especially pro-Israel faction of the MIC lobby)
The USA can definitely crush Iran military, but the cost might be higher that in case of Iraq. Also without occupation of the country that will not be anything like a decisive victory. In Iraq, the USA was helped by the fact that military quickly crumbed and was undermined by betrayals of several high ranking generals. Whether the same will be the case in Iran is difficult to predict.
Theocratic regimes tend to became more fragile with time, so at that stage is Iran now is difficult to predict without being in the country. So counting on the fragility of the regime might be a valid consideration. But the war typically unites nations so to exploit those weaknesses with war is more difficult task, then just waiting for the regime collapse.
That USA has at least two firm allied in such a war: Israel and Saudis.
Notable quotes:
"... It would widen the "forever war," which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 million people, three times as large as Iraq. It would become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the defining issue of George W. Bush's presidency. ..."
"... Trump's repudiation of the treaty was followed by his reimposition of sanctions and a policy of maximum pressure. This was followed by the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization. ..."
"... U.S. policy has been to squeeze Iran's economy until the regime buckles to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 12 demands, including an end to Tehran's support of its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ..."
"... Sunday, Pompeo said Iran was behind the attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and that Tehran instigated an attack that injured four U.S. soldiers in Kabul though the Taliban claimed responsibility. ..."
"... Tehran has denied any role in the tanker attacks, helped put out the fire on one tanker, and accused its enemies of "false flag" attacks to instigate a war. ..."
"... Writing in The Wall Street Journal Monday were Ray Takeyh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a neocon nest funded by Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson. In a piece titled, "America Can Face Down a Fragile Iran," the pair make the case that Trump should squeeze the Iranian regime relentlessly and not fear a military clash, and a war with Iran would be a cakewalk. ..."
"... "Iran's fragile theocracy can't absorb a massive external shock. That's why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has, for the most part, adhered to the JCPOA (the nuclear pact) and why he is likely angling for negotiation over confrontation with the Great Satan." ..."
"... This depiction of Iran's political crisis and economic decline invites a question: If the Tehran regime is so fragile and the Iranian people are so alienated, why not avoid a war and wait for the regime's collapse? ..."
"... Who wants a U.S. war with Iran? Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and who oppose every effort of Trump's to extricate us from those wars. ..."
"... Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked region that holds no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking, has become independent of that. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

War With Iran Would Become 'Trump's War'

Posted on June 18, 2019 June 17, 2019 President Donald Trump cannot want war with Iran.

Such a war, no matter how long, would be fought in and around the Persian Gulf, through which a third of the world's seaborne oil travels. It could trigger a worldwide recession and imperil Trump's reelection.

It would widen the "forever war," which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 million people, three times as large as Iraq. It would become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the defining issue of George W. Bush's presidency.

And if war comes now, it would be known as "Trump's War."

For it was Trump who pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal, though, according to U.N. inspectors and the other signatories – Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China – Tehran was complying with its terms.

Trump's repudiation of the treaty was followed by his reimposition of sanctions and a policy of maximum pressure. This was followed by the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization.

Then came the threats of U.S. secondary sanctions on nations, some of them friends and allies, that continued to buy oil from Iran.

U.S. policy has been to squeeze Iran's economy until the regime buckles to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 12 demands, including an end to Tehran's support of its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Sunday, Pompeo said Iran was behind the attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and that Tehran instigated an attack that injured four U.S. soldiers in Kabul though the Taliban claimed responsibility.

The war hawks are back.

"This unprovoked attack on commercial shipping warrants retaliatory military strikes," said Senator Tom Cotton on Sunday.

But as Trump does not want war with Iran, Iran does not want war with us. Tehran has denied any role in the tanker attacks, helped put out the fire on one tanker, and accused its enemies of "false flag" attacks to instigate a war.

If the Revolutionary Guard, which answers to the ayatollah, did attach explosives to the hull of the tankers, it was most likely to send a direct message: If our exports are halted by U.S. sanctions, the oil exports of the Saudis and Gulf Arabs can be made to experience similar problems.

Yet if the president and the ayatollah do not want war, who does?

Not the Germans or Japanese, both of whom are asking for more proof that Iran instigated the tanker attacks. Japan's prime minster was meeting with the ayatollah when the attacks occurred, and one of the tankers was a Japanese vessel.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal Monday were Ray Takeyh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a neocon nest funded by Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson. In a piece titled, "America Can Face Down a Fragile Iran," the pair make the case that Trump should squeeze the Iranian regime relentlessly and not fear a military clash, and a war with Iran would be a cakewalk.

"Iran is in no shape for a prolonged confrontation with the U.S. The regime is in a politically precarious position. The sullen Iranian middle class has given up on the possibility of reform or prosperity. The lower classes, once tethered to the regime by the expansive welfare state, have also grown disloyal. The intelligentsia no longer believes that faith and freedom can be harmonized. And the youth have become the regime's most unrelenting critics.

"Iran's fragile theocracy can't absorb a massive external shock. That's why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has, for the most part, adhered to the JCPOA (the nuclear pact) and why he is likely angling for negotiation over confrontation with the Great Satan."

This depiction of Iran's political crisis and economic decline invites a question: If the Tehran regime is so fragile and the Iranian people are so alienated, why not avoid a war and wait for the regime's collapse?

Trump seems to have several options:

One recalls: Saddam Hussein accepted war with the United States in 1991 rather than yield to Bush I's demand he get his army out of Kuwait.

Who wants a U.S. war with Iran? Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and who oppose every effort of Trump's to extricate us from those wars.

Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked region that holds no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking, has become independent of that.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com .

[Jun 17, 2019] Cotton warmongering on Iran is easily explainable by the fact that he is running low of AIPAC dollars again

Jun 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Notafanoyall a day ago

Mr. Cotton must be running low on those AIPAC dollars again. Nothing like some good ol' Iran-bashing to keep the coffers full.

[Jun 17, 2019] Cotton warmongering on Iran is easily explainable by the fact that he is running low of AIPAC dollars again

Jun 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Notafanoyall a day ago

Mr. Cotton must be running low on those AIPAC dollars again. Nothing like some good ol' Iran-bashing to keep the coffers full.

[Jun 17, 2019] Averting a Disastrous War with Iran by Daniel Larison

Jun 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

There is a report that the Trump administration may be preparing an attack on Iran:

Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.

According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to President Donald Trump.

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

If this report is true, that would mean that the worst of the Iran hawks in the administration are prevailing once again. The report goes on to say that "Trump himself was not enthusiastic about a military move against Iran, but lost his patience on the matter and would grant Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is pushing for action, what he wants." If that is true, that is an absurdly casual way to blunder into an unnecessary war. Trump should understand that if he takes the U.S. into a war against Iran, especially without Congressional authorization, it will consume the rest of his presidency and it should cost him his re-election. Starting an unnecessary war with Iran would go down as one of the dumbest, most reckless, illegal acts in the history of U.S. foreign policy.

Congress must make absolutely clear that the president does not have the authority to initiate hostilities against Iran. Both houses should pass a resolution this week saying as much, and they should block any funds that could be used to support such an action. There is no legal justification for attacking Iran, and if Trump approves an attack he would be violating the Constitution and should be impeached for it.

The risk of war with Iran is greater than it was six months ago, and it is much greater than it was two and a half years ago when Trump took office. The U.S. and Iran are in this dangerous position solely because of the determined efforts of Iran hawks in and around this administration to drive our country on a collision course with theirs. Those efforts accelerated significantly thirteen months ago with the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and the reimposition of sanctions, and things have been getting steadily worse with each passing month. It is not too late to avert the collision, but it requires the U.S. to make a dramatic change in policy very soon. Since we know we can't count on the president to make the right decision, Congress and the public need to make him understand what the political price will be if he makes the wrong one.

[Jun 16, 2019] It's hard to think of a bigger or more shameful betrayal by Arabs by fellow Arabs, or a more stupid policy by the US then Kushner proposals

Jun 16, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

And now we wait the all-time bad joke, the so-called 'Deal of the Century,' which Trump and his boys hope will get rich Arabs to buy off poor Palestinians in exchange for giving up lots more land to Israel.

It's hard to think of a bigger or more shameful betrayal by Arabs of fellow Arabs, or a more stupid policy by the US. But, of course, it's not a made-in-the-USA policy at all.

[Jun 16, 2019] When false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it becomes almost impossible to correct lies.

Jun 16, 2019 | www.politico.com

Leda Cosmides at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points to her work with her colleague John Tooby on the use of outrage to mobilize people: "The campaign was more about outrage than about policies," she says. And when a politician can create a sense of moral outrage, truth ceases to matter. People will go along with the emotion, support the cause and retrench into their own core group identities. The actual substance stops being of any relevance.

Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs, has found that when false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it becomes almost impossible to correct lies.

... ... ...

As the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain put it, “The great master fallacy of the human mind is believing too much.” False beliefs, once established, are incredibly tricky to correct. A leader who lies constantly creates a new landscape, and a citizenry whose sense of reality may end up swaying far more than they think possible.

[Jun 16, 2019] Kushner as a Colonial Administrator by Ramzy Baroud

Jun 11, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

Let's Talk About the "Israeli Model"

In a TV interview on June 2, on the news docuseries "Axios" on the HBO channel, Jared Kushner opened up regarding many issues, in which his 'Deal of the Century' was a prime focus.

The major revelation made by Kushner, President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law, was least surprising. Kushner believes that Palestinians are not capable of governing themselves.

Not surprising, because Kushner thinks he is capable of arranging the future of the Palestinian people without the inclusion of the Palestinian leadership. He has been pushing his so-called 'Deal of the Century' relentlessly, while including in his various meets and conferences countries such as Poland, Brazil and Croatia, but not Palestine.

Indeed, this is what transpired at the Warsaw conference on 'peace and security' in the Middle East. The same charade, also led by Kushner, is expected to be rebooted in Bahrain on June 25.

Much has been said about the subtle racism in Kushner's words, reeking with the stench of old colonial discourses where the natives were seen as lesser, incapable of rational thinking beings who needed the civilized 'whites' of the western hemisphere to help them cope with their backwardness and inherent incompetence.

Kushner, whose credentials are merely based on his familial connections to Trump and family friendship with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is now poised to be the colonial administrator of old, making and enforcing the law while the hapless natives have no other option but to either accommodate or receive their due punishment.

This is not an exaggeration. In fact, according to leaked information concerning Kushner's 'Deal of the Century,' and published in the Israeli daily newspaper, Israel Hayom , if Palestinian groups refuse to accept the US-Israeli diktats, "the US will cancel all financial support to the Palestinians and ensure that no country transfers funds to them."

In the HBO interview, Kushner offered the Palestinians a lifeline. They could be considered capable of governing themselves should they manage to achieve the following: "a fair judicial system freedom of the press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions."

The fact that Palestine is an occupied country, subject in every possible way to Israel's military law, and that Israel has never been held accountable for its 52-year occupation seems to be of no relevance whatsoever, as far as Kushner is concerned.

On the contrary, the subtext in all of what Kushner has said in the interview is that Israel is the antithesis to the unquestionable Palestinian failure. Unlike Palestine, Israel needs to do little to demonstrate its ability to be a worthy peace partner.

While the term 'US bias towards Israel' is as old as the state of Israel itself, what is hardly discussed are the specifics of that bias, the decidedly condescending, patronizing and, often, racist view that US political classes have of Palestinians – and all Arabs and Muslims, for that matter; and the utter infatuation with Israel, which is often cited as a model for democracy, judicial transparency and successful 'anti-terror' tactics.

According to Kushner a 'fair judicial system' is a conditio sine qua non to determine a country's ability to govern itself. But is the Israeli judicial system "fair" and "democratic"?

Israel does not have a single judicial system, but two. This duality has, in fact, defined Israeli courts from the very inception of Israel in 1948. This de facto apartheid system openly differentiates between Jews and Arabs, a fact that is true in both civil and criminal law.

"Criminal law is applied separately and unequally in the West Bank, based on nationality alone (Israeli versus Palestinian), inventively weaving its way around the contours of international law in order to preserve and develop its '(illegal Jewish) settlement enterprise'," Israeli scholar, Emily Omer-Man, explained in her essay 'Separate and Unequal'.

In practice, Palestinians and Israelis who commit the exact same crime will be judged according to two different systems, with two different procedures: "The settler will be processed according to the Israeli Penal Code (while) the Palestinian will be processed according to military order."

This unfairness is constituent of a massively unjust judicial apparatus that has defined the Israeli legal system from the onset. Take the measure of administrative detention as an example. Palestinians can be held without trial and without any stated legal justification. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been subjected to this undemocratic 'law' and hundreds of them are currently held in Israeli jails.

It is ironic that Kushner raised the issue of freedom of the press, in particular, as Israel is being derided for its dismal record in that regard. Israel has reportedly committed 811 violations against Palestinian journalists since the start of the 'March of Return' in Gaza in March 2018. Two journalists – Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein – were killed and 155 were wounded by Israeli snipers.

Like the imbalanced Israeli judicial system, targeting the press is also a part of a protracted pattern. According to a press release issued by the Palestinian Journalists Union last May, Israel has killed 102 Palestinian journalists since 1972.

The fact that Palestinian intellectuals, poets and activists have been imprisoned for Facebook and other social media posts should tell us volumes about the limits of Israel's freedom of press and expression.

It is also worth mentioning that in June 2018, the Israeli Knesset voted for a bill that prohibits the filming of Israeli soldiers as a way to mask their crimes and shelter them from any future legal accountability.

As for freedom of religion, despite its many shortcomings, the Palestinian Authority hardly discriminates against religious minorities. The same cannot be said about Israel.

Although discrimination against non-Jews in Israel has been the raison d'être of the very idea of Israel, the Nation-State Law of July 2018 further cemented the superiority of the Jews and inferior status of everyone else.

According to the new Basic Law, Israel is "the national home of the Jewish people" only and "the right to exercise national self-determination is unique to the Jewish people."

Palestinians do not need to be lectured on how to meet Israeli and American expectations, nor should they ever aspire to imitate the undemocratic Israeli model. What they urgently need, instead, is international solidarity to help them win the fight against Israeli occupation, racism and apartheid.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is an author and a journalist. He is athor of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story . He can be reached at [email protected] . Read other articles by Ramzy , or visit Ramzy's website .

This article was posted on Tuesday, June 11th, 2019 at 11:25pm and is filed under Apartheid , Benjamin Netanyahu , Colonialism , Discrimination , Donald Trump , Ethnic Cleansing , Freedom of Expression/Speech , Hypocrisy , International Law , Israel/Palestine , Jared Kushner , Justice , Land Theft , Media Censorship , Occupation , Political Prisoners , Racism , Resistance , Right of Return , Settler Colonization , Solidarity , United States , US Hypocrisy , US Lies , West Bank , Zionism .

[Jun 15, 2019] The Bully Who Cried "Iran!" by Daniel Larison

Jun 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Ali Vaez rebuts Mike Pompeo's terse, evidence-free statement accusing Iran of responsibility for the two tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman:

Pompeo delivered his remarks without providing any evidence to support his accusations, and then walked off the stage without taking any questions. The Secretary of State's credibility has already been shot to pieces by his frequent lies and misleading statements on a range of issues touching on everything from North Korea to Yemen to Iran, so he needed to clear an even higher bar than usual to back up his accusations. He didn't come close. Aside from misleading the public and Congress about important issues, Pompeo's serial fabrications have a real cost in that no one believes a word he says about anything. It might be the case that Pompeo is telling the truth for once, but if so it would be extremely unusual for him. I made that point earlier today:

I have previously discussed Pompeo's complete lack of credibility , and it is worth revisiting part of that post now:

Pompeo is the chief representative of the United States abroad besides the president, so his habit of making things up out of thin air and telling easily refuted lies can only harm our reputation, undermine trust, and cause even our allies to doubt our government's claims.

Pompeo is the bully who cried "Iran!" so many times that we have no reason to trust his anti-Iranian claims now. The fact that he and the National Security Advisor are so clearly slavering at the possibility of increased tensions with Iran gives us another reason to be skeptical. We assume that they are trying to turn even the smallest incident into an excuse for escalation, and so we naturally look at their claims of Iranian responsibility with great suspicion. Vaez's thread goes through Pompeo's statement very carefully and points out the serious flaws and falsehoods, of which there are quite a few.

Once again, we see Pompeo's tendency to pin the blame for anything and everything that happens in the region on Iran, and many of these are no more than unfounded assertions or deliberate distortions. For example, the Houthi attacks on Saudi pipelines and airports are a result of the ongoing war on Yemen and the Saudi coalition bombing of Yemeni cities and towns. All indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure are wrong and should be condemned, but we also need to remember that these attacks are the direct consequence of belligerent and destructive policies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE backed by the United States. If the Saudis and Emiratis stopped bombing Yemen tomorrow, the missile attacks on Saudi targets would almost certainly cease thereafter. Just as Pompeo won't acknowledge the administration's role in goading and provoking Iran, he refuses to acknowledge the role of the Saudi coalition's war in provoking Yemeni retaliation. He desperately tries to make Iran the culprit of every crime, but instead of proving Iran's guilt it only calls into question Pompeo's judgment and honesty.

Probably the most galling part of Pompeo's statement was his declaration that "Iran should answer diplomacy with diplomacy." What diplomacy would Iran be responding to? Does Pompeo think his list of preposterous demands delivered as a diktat last year counts as diplomacy? Does he think that waging relentless economic war on a country of eighty million people qualifies as diplomatic? The Trump administration has chosen the path of provocation and confrontation for at least the last thirteen months, and then they have the gall to fault Iran for its lack of diplomacy. If the administration had not trashed the most important diplomatic agreement that our government had with Iran and proceeded to penalize them for keeping up their end of the bargain, our two countries would not be as dangerously close to war as they are now. The administration bears responsibility for creating the heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran, and it is their obnoxious and destructive policy of collective punishment that has brought us to this point.


JR, says: June 14, 2019 at 2:24 am

Pompeo proudly stated "We lie, we cheat " and even thought funny too. Guess that's one of the rare moments his statement contained some truth at least.
JEinCA , says: June 14, 2019 at 4:09 am
This is fundamentally an internal Chinese dispute therefore it is none of our business just as our internal disputes are none of theirs.
Ken_L , June 14, 2019 at 4:49 am
You do have to admit, the blurred 30 second video of a boat next to the hull of a ship was absolutely DAMNING! It proved conclusively that the Iranians launched unprovoked attacks on helpless civilian oil tankers.

Innocent sailors would have left the limpet mines in place, so they could blow up and damage the tanker some more.

Christian J Chuba , says: June 14, 2019 at 8:26 am
It could have been Iran, I don't know. This would be an understandable response for a country under blockade. I would feel differently if people died.

People in Iran have died because of our illegal sanctions hindering flood relief and medical care while Pompeo and others laughs at them. This does not include the suffering imposed on the civilian population. I do not expect Iran to curl up into a ball and accept their punishment.

If this was an Iranian operation it demonstrates their competency as opposed to use wasting Jet fuel having F35's circling around.

This might be a shot over the bow, who knows?

Gary Williams , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:05 am
Iran means virtually nothing to the United States. They have nothing to do with our national interest. As far as the tankers being mined; I have to say my first thought is that we (i.e. the United States) did it so we could start a war. Very similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Viet Nam war.
Sid Finster , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:29 am
Deepfakes, hasn't there been a lot of talk about those lately?

And lies used to justify wars, haven't we heard those from the neocon crew before?

[Jun 15, 2019] False flags here, false flags there, false flags everywhere. All too further the aims of the masters of the universe

Jun 15, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Milton

Interesting that this Israeli-First traitor Clawson mentions Lincoln and Ft. Sumter. He finally admits what genuine historians of the Civil War long knew: Lincoln was a warmonger and tyrant, not an emancipator. The Civil war was fought to eliminate true freedom and equality in this country and it has been downhill ever since. The working class and soldier-class in America today are slaves in every sense of the word. Slaves to Zion. No wonder the certified warmonger and racist Lincoln is worshiped equally by Left and Right today, whilst genuine American patriots like Robert E. Lee have their legacy torn down. Lincoln was the proto-Neocon. Tom Dilorenzo summed up the real Lincoln when he wrote in Lincoln Unmasked:

"Imagine that California seceded from the union and an American president responded with the carpet bombing of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco that destroyed 90 percent of those cities. Such was the case with General Sherman's bombardment of Atlanta; a naval blockade; a blocking off of virtually all trade; the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes (as occurred in Atlanta in 1864); the destruction of most industries and farms; massive looting of private property by a marauding army; and the killing of one out of four males of military age while maiming for life more than double that number. Would such an American president be considered a 'great statesman' or a war criminal? The answer is obvious.

A statesman would have recognized the state's right to secede, as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, among other places, and then worked diligently to persuade the seceded state that a reunion was in its best interest. Agreat statesman, or even a modest one, would not have impulsively plunged the entire nation into a bloody war.

Lincoln's warmongering belligerence and his invasion of all the Southern states in response to Fort Sumter (where no one was harmed or killed) caused the upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas -- to secede after originally voting to remain in the Union. He refused to meet with Confederate commissioners to discuss peace and even declined a meeting with Napoleon III of France, who offered to broker a peace agreement. No genuine statesman would have behaved in such a way.

After Fort Sumter, Lincoln thanked naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in manipulating the South Carolinians into firing at Fort Sumter. A great statesman does not manipulate his own people into starting one of the bloodiest wars in human history."

mathias alexand
Here's a man who holds a press conference to announce a secret plan. Only in America.
Gezzah Potts
False flags here, false flags there, false flags everywhere. All too further the aims of the 'masters of the universe'. We know who was responsible for the tanker attacks. Who are the 3 countries absolutely desperate to take Iran down and install a completely pliant puppet regime answerable to Washington, Tel Aviv and to a lesser extent Riyadh. And creatures like Clawson, and all the other vermin can only see $$$$. Thats all they care about. Opening up more markets to further enrich themselves. I echo the other commenters also. The evil men stoop to for greed, power and control. Psychopaths.
harry law
The Foreign Office issued a statement saying: "It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible."
Unbelievable, The UK vassal will use this to as one more reason to evade their responsibilities in implementing the JCPOA.
Gezzah Potts
Well they would say that, wouldn't they. The UK vassal state will spout any peice of crap in their assigned role as vassal state. Australia is just as gushingly sycophantic and cravenly jellified.
mark
Maybe it's "highly likely."
Gezzah Potts
Like an apple is green? They must think we're complete amoeba's to believe this. Sigh.
William HBonney
A Riyadh/Tel Aviv conspiracy. Genius!
Gezzah Potts
Er . just a rough guess Bill going on the belligerent foaming at the mouth by people in those places along with the likes of Bolton and Pompeo. In fact, you can probably go all the way back to about 1980 or so.
mark
I think the real giveaway was when all three rogue states openly stated their intention of doing this 1,000 times over the past 10 years. That was the crucial clue Sherlock Holmes was looking for.
Wilmers31
And who funds the Washington Institute? Last time I looked the International Crisis Group existed thanks to Soros and is usually treated like a serious organisation.

Many Europeans are not in love with the idea of war with Iran, just to achieve obedience to the US. 90 million people is bigger than Germany.

wardropper
These are the shysters, the spivs and the con men of bygone times. They are the ones who lurked at street corners, waiting for someone to come along who was gullible enough to buy the Moon from them.
But, for some reason, they are all in politics today.
Now how could that be?

Only because there are people whom it currently suits to use shysters, spivs and con men in order to create enough chaos for us to want to give up and just let those people have their way.

I agree with Rhys below. There is no more disgusting example of sub-humanity to be found on earth than these warmongers.
To deal with them, however, we will have to realize that their "philosophy", if you can call it that, runs very deep. It didn't just enter their heads last week.
They are reared and trained in it.

It will be a tough battle.

wardropper
I should add that, in bygone times, the police and the law were usually able to deal with the shysters, spivs and con men, since their lack of conscience often gave them away.
The modern version, however, which has moved into politics, was shrewd enough to use a few decades of bribery and threats in order to build around itself a nice little shell, through which the law simply cannot penetrate, except on special occasions, mainly for show.
Rhys Jaggar
There is a big cabal of warmongers who stoke the fuel but never see action. I find those people more disgusting than anyone on earth.

Draft dodgers, academics, 'historians' etc etc.

Ball-less pricks is what I call them .

mark
All fully paid up members of the Bill Clinton Light Infantry.
William HBonney
Yeah, well I'm not a great fan of those who would appease Assad, Putin, Hussein, Gaddafi

You must be so proud.

andyoldlabour
The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.
The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets.
The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen.
William HBonney
The easiest, and perhaps best metric by which to judge a country, is 'do people aspire to live there? '.

I see you admire the Soviet Union, but at its dissolution, people were queuing to leave. And yet the US, and the UK, according to you, iniquitous places of tyranny, are oversubscribed. Could it be, that for all your implied erudition, you are merely a bellend?

axisofoil
You must be a big fan of CNN and the NYT. Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?
BigB
Well, even as a pacifist: if that is his sentiment – I hope he has sons or daughters in the military stationed in CENTCOM in Qatar. I bet he hasn't, though.
Rhisiart Gwilym
He should be right there on the frontline himself. That would straighten the disgusting creep's ideas out about the 'usefulness' of deliberately provoking war

[Jun 15, 2019] Game On Pompeo Blames Iran, Calls Attacks 'Threat to International Peace'

Notable quotes:
"... A few years ago, Sheldon Adelson wanted the US to drop a nuke on Iran. Video below. What Sheldon wants, Trump the errand-boy delivers. The fact that the US public is overwhelmingly against a war with Iran is completely irrelevant. ..."
"... Probably a 50/50 chance it was an American-Saudi-Israel false flag. ..."
"... Just like how the Reichstag Fire took place and by pure happenstance, the Nazis had the Enabling Act all ready to go. ..."
"... If I was a betting man I'd put my money on the "actual" culprits being Mossad, CIA, MI6 or any combination of the three. The Neocons and Zionists in Washington are traitors to our Constitutional Republic! Don't let them drag us into another foreign war for Israel! ..."
"... Remember the USS Liberty! Never Forget! ..."
"... This updated post from "Moon of Alabama" is definitely worth reading: "Today's Attacks On Ships In The Gulf Of Oman Are Not In Iran's Interest – Or Are They? (Updated)": https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/todays-attacks-on-ships-in-the-gulf-of-oman-are-not-in-irans-interest.html#more ..."
"... Maybe Colin Powell can come out of retirement and deliver the US/neocon presentation at the UN Security Council: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rp6WuTSTyS8 ..."
"... The only person whom I can recall endlessly deceiving on this is Benjamin Netanyahu, whom I recall making speech after speech claiming that Iran was just about to have nuclear weapons. He's been doing that for over a decade now. ..."
"... As for incentives/disincentives, Mossad doesn't have much disincentive. If they are caught, they and their friends in the USA will scream 'Fake News!'. ..."
"... Who wants war? Saudis to prop up oil prices and get Iran in trouble? Pompeo because he wants to bring on the Rapture and the return of JC? Donald Trump so he can be a "wartime president" stir up his base and please the military contractor donors? Netanyahu to distract from his corruption charges and weaken Iranian Islamists? Some really stupid underground hardliners in Iran? ..."
"... I forgot one more who wants war: Bolton because he is an immoral idiot who wants to strut. ..."
Jun 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Clyde Schechter, says: June 14, 2019 at 4:58 pm

Back in the 1960's as the Cuban missile crisis was brewing, JFK conferred with then French president Charles DeGaulle and offered to show him the reconnaissance pictures showing the Russian missiles in Cuba. DeGaulle is said to have replied "No, I do not need to see pictures. The word of the President of the United States is enough."

It's impossible to imagine anyone saying that today, unless they still believe in the tooth fairy.

David Harrell , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:50 pm
It very well could an act by a state that according to an elite Army warfare college, is "known to disregard international law to accomplish mission" and also a "wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."

What state? See "U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study," Washington Times, September 10, 2001.

Janwaar Bibi , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:11 pm
A few years ago, Sheldon Adelson wanted the US to drop a nuke on Iran. Video below. What Sheldon wants, Trump the errand-boy delivers. The fact that the US public is overwhelmingly against a war with Iran is completely irrelevant.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6sCW4IasWXc

Sydney , says: June 15, 2019 at 3:02 pm
Yes, Iran is to be blamed! Absolutely true, US President himself said so!

Let's look at some facts and then deductions. So, the US drone was following the Iranian boat. Iranians saw the drone, fired at it and missed. Regardless, they continued their "journey" to the tanker, all the while their supreme leader was trying to persuade Abe to help Iran.

Tump: It was Iran the terrorist nation, not leaders but the nation. Not long ago Trump lauded Iranians as very nice people. If the drone was there, why don't we see the beginning of the boat's journey and then where that boat with the mine went? According to Mr Pompeo and Mr Bolton, the nation of terrorists is not only evil but stupid too. Yet no other actor in the region has the sophistication to perform such an act (that is stupid act) – according to Mr.Pompeo. Hm who else, I wonder would be interested in bringing down Iran? I can't think even of one such actor.

Lily Sandoz , says: June 15, 2019 at 3:08 pm
Lest we forget. Gen. Wesley Clark's revelation. This was first revealed to General Wesley Clark in 1991 by neo-con Paul Wolfowitz. The seven countries which were to be invaded and blessed with regime change were Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, and the big prize, Iran with its wealth of resources and potential market of over 70 million persons.This same plan was revealed again to General Clark during a visit to the Pentagon ten days after 9-11, the event that presented the neo-cons, and no doubt others behind the scenes, with their Pearl Harbor, their justification to proceed with the plan, somewhat conveniently. You can see Clark say it in person on YouTube if you don't believe it.
grumpy realist , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:26 pm
The only thing missing is a bunch of Iranian passports "just accidentally found" near the ships with a big floating arrow pointing towards them, just in case we're clueless. If we get dragged into a bunfight with Iran because of this we deserve all the opprobrium anyone hurls at us–if only for our outright stupidity.
cdugga , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:35 pm
Who exactly wants the US to go to war with Iran? Iran?
Whitehead , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:52 pm
""This assessment is based on intelligence [I think we already know what the Saudis and Israelis want us to think], the weapons used [which were what again?], the level of expertise needed to execute the operation [more than what was needed to prove the existence of fake WMDs], recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping ['Iranian attacks' according to who, exactly?], and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication [so sophisticated there's no evidence they did it]," the Secretary said, without taking questions [or citing proof]"

He doesn't even bother with a Colin Powell style PowerPoint to convince us he believes any of the horsesh!t he's peddling. Real contempt for the American public.

Chris in Appalachia , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:57 pm
Probably a 50/50 chance it was an American-Saudi-Israel false flag.
Marky Mark , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:02 pm
It's always something maritime
USS Maine
The Maddox
Lusitania

Not a lot of witnesses, but heavy on consequences

mark_be , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:02 pm
Let's quote that fellow with the little moustache, shortly before he ordered the invasion of Poland: "I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn't matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth." To think that the only obstacle between peace and war is a president too stupid to understand that he brought this on himself.
EarlyBird , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:20 pm
It's very sad that I trust the word of the Ayatollah Khameni more than the President of the United States or any of his spokesman. The proxy which had the weapons, level of expertise needed to execute the operation, resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication is called the Central Intelligence Agency.
Kirt Higdon , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:32 pm
Reeks of false flag pretense by the neo-cons for war! Betting the US, Saudis or Israelis are responsible for this – perhaps all of them.
Sid Finster , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:37 pm
How utterly convenient! Abe is meeting with the Iranian leadership, what better time to attack Japanese tankers (what better time for Saudi Arabia, Israel and the neocons, that is)? Not 24 hours go by after the supposed attack and Pompeo already knows who did it and has a response ready. Why, it's almost like his mind were already made up! (But when it comes to, say, that Saudi prince who chops up journalists, it seems that we can never ever ever really know what happened!)

Just like how the Reichstag Fire took place and by pure happenstance, the Nazis had the Enabling Act all ready to go.

Sarcasm aside, everyone knows that Pompeo is lying, looking for an excuse to escalate tensions. The question is whether anyone will do anything about it.

Whine Merchant , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:44 pm
Jarred says that Bibi swears it wasn't Mossad, and Pompeo knows the pecking order in the White House, so he parrots the party line.
JEinCA , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:51 pm
If I was a betting man I'd put my money on the "actual" culprits being Mossad, CIA, MI6 or any combination of the three. The Neocons and Zionists in Washington are traitors to our Constitutional Republic! Don't let them drag us into another foreign war for Israel!

Remember the USS Liberty! Never Forget!

Gene Smolko , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:05 pm
Anyone believe this warmongering liar?
Krishnan Venkatram , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:09 pm
It is not unreasonable to smell a Bolton/MEK sized rat in this
dstraws , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:27 pm
And so it begins. An unwarranted accusation by a war-hawk, surprise.. surprise.
Myron K Hudson , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:28 pm
This is stupid and reckless enough to be the work of Saudi Arabia. Or Bolton and Pompeo.
Kurt Gayle , says: June 13, 2019 at 8:42 pm
Jason Ditz, the News Editor at Antiwar.com reports: "Pompeo's declaration of Iran's guilt was based chiefly on similar incidents happening in mid-May. John Bolton and Pompeo blamed Iran then, and since this was the same sort of thing, they blame Iran now. The problem is, they have offered no evidence Iran was responsible for the first incidents, let alone today's, and are just tying them all together. Pompeo rattled off a list of things to blame Iran for, including multiple incidents that were done by Yemen's Houthis, a rocket fired in Iraq that was never convincingly blamed on anyone, and an Afghanistan bombing that clearly was nothing to do with Iran at all."

Jason Ditz goes on to report: "The big questions are, as always, motive. Iran has no conceivable reason to attack such ships. In this case, one of the ships is even Japanese-owned. Japan is a very important trading partner of Iran, and Japan's prime minister Abe Shinzo is visiting Iran right now, trying to reduce tensions. Abe has also declared Iran to have no intention to make nuclear arms. This would be a preposterous move for Iran to even consider. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif declared that 'suspicious doesn't begin to describe' what happened, noting that the attacks were timed to when Japanese PM Abe Shinzo was meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader. Abe's meeting was also a subject of Pompeo's comments, as Pompeo falsely accused Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of having refused the meeting with Abe. In reality, the meeting took place, and Khamenei simply rejected a proposal to trade messages with President Trump. Pompeo went on to declare the attack on a Japanese ship during Abe's Iran visit as an Iranian 'insult to Japan.' This all rests on the US assumption of Iran's guilt, and as Zarif points out, makes the attack look suspiciously like it might have been carried out for the benefit of the anti-Iran narrative. "

https://news.antiwar.com/2019/06/13/two-tankers-attacked-in-gulf-of-oman/

Janwaar Bibi , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:01 pm
I read somewhere that the Iranians used weapons of mass destruction given to them by Saddam to attack the USS Maine in the Gulf of Tonkin, taking American lives on American soil.
Myx , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:15 pm
What was that headline in the Onion? "An attack on Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman is an attack on America itself?"
Inspector General , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:20 pm
Odd that just yesterday I watched the video entitled, "Debunking a Century of War Lies."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw0-ASR4sr8

I had forgotten that basically all wars are "protected by a bodyguard of lies," according to the video. Most poignant to me was the Iraqi woman pleading to Congress about Sadam Hussein's destruction of incubators, which George HW Bush later referenced as the "babies strewn about the floor like firewood." Except it was all fabricated by a PR firm!

Ken T , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:52 pm
cui bono ?

Is anyone really that delusional to believe that Iran is going to attack a Japanese tanker while the Japanese PM is meeting with the Ayatollah? The ONLY explanation that makes sense is that it was planned in the White House by Pompeo and Bolton. Whether it was with or without Trump's knowledge and approval is irrelevant. P & B have been openly salivating for any excuse to start a war with Iran, and Trump has given them free rein. It is a war crime, and all three are guilty.

PAX , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:09 am
The USS Liberty is spot on. That was our Versailles Treaty and Johnson ceded much of our foreign policy and intelligence to Israel – we capitulated and have continued to capitulate to Israel. Things are looking grim and look like a repeat of Iraq. What can stop this momentum to war?
Iron Felix , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:10 am
Well, it seems that just about 100% of those who comment here have this figured out. Once these things were a bit more sophisticated, but now the Empire doesn't seem to care if its schemes are blatantly transparent.

Abe has been closely consulting with Trump and the Iranians as a go-between to create the conditions which can allow Trump to save face now that Bolton's and Pompeo's campaign against Iran is a big fat failure.

It is clear who hopes to gain by this little stunt, which will not go anywhere. Abe is certainly not going to be fooled by any of this. Don't expect the WaPo or the NYT to expose this obvious false flag.

Jiyushugi , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:47 am
What a shame that more Americans haven't read 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', by William L. Shirer ..
Daath , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:08 am
Iran is a rather divided country, and some groups regard USA with as much hatred and suspicion as the neocons hold towards them. The responsible party might have been IRGC, intending to raise tensions enough to make their government's current fence-straddling act unviable and force them to scrap the JCPA.

I'd try to avoid the logic that it must have been Saudis/Israel/USA, because if it was Iran, the likes of Bolton would somehow be in the right. They're not. So far, Iran hasn't been the one responsible for the vast majority of provocations, and even if it elements on their side were did this, the chickenhawks running USA's national security won't bother to secure proof before escalating. It's not a secret that they want war and aren't particularly picky about how they get it.

Brian Villanueva , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:15 am
Saudi Arabia. The other agencies speculated here are off the mark: Israel would fear getting caught, CIA leaks like a sieve, MI6 has no incentive. But the Saudis? They have the combination of economic incentives, religious hatred, technical knowledge, advanced (American) weaponry, and who-gives-a-crap-if-we-get-caught attitude.
Deacon Blue , says: June 14, 2019 at 3:19 am
In these matters, I know who NOT to believe.
HenionJD , says: June 14, 2019 at 7:14 am
And I have a bridge to sell y'all.
Kent , says: June 14, 2019 at 8:50 am
Results:

1. US attacks Iran on false pretenses and the world knows it.

2. Iran destroys shipping through the Straits of Hormuz.

3. Gasoline goes to $10/gallon, if you can find it.

4. The world's economy collapses, with international debt collapse and a global run on banks.

5. Unemployment goes to 25% and prices go through the roof as the dollar collapses in value and the US can't afford to import Chinese products.

6. Bernie Sanders is elected president, and the US becomes a democratic socialist state.

Way to go there Donnie.

Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 8:52 am
This updated post from "Moon of Alabama" is definitely worth reading: "Today's Attacks On Ships In The Gulf Of Oman Are Not In Iran's Interest – Or Are They? (Updated)": https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/todays-attacks-on-ships-in-the-gulf-of-oman-are-not-in-irans-interest.html#more
Sam , says: June 14, 2019 at 8:53 am
Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program, might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments? (:
TheSnark , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:02 am
I have a question about the video footage supposedly showing Iranians removing a mine from a tanker. The quality of the picture is no better than that we saw back in the 1965 Tonkin Gulf incident, when N Vietnamese boats allegedly attacked a US Navy ship. But that was 54 years ago. In video technology today 1080p is a standard resolution, 4k is pretty common. Why is the US Navy still showing something that looks like it came from my Dad's 8mm home movie set-up?
Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:55 am
Maybe Colin Powell can come out of retirement and deliver the US/neocon presentation at the UN Security Council: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rp6WuTSTyS8
FJR - Atlanta , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:58 am
Even Jesse Smollett isn't buying this.
Sid Finster , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:23 am
Sam wrote:

"Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program, might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments? (:"

What "history of endless deception"? Every third party has confirmed that Iran has complied strictly with the JCPOA.

The United States, on the other hand, has a long track record of blatant lies to get the wars it seeks ..

Sid Finster , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:24 am
@The Snark:

To quote myself, sorry "how utterly convenient!" Haven't we been reading a lot about deepfakes lately?

Mark B. , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:46 am
@ Kent

Exactly what I am hoping for IF the US attacks Iran. All depends on the Iranian capabilities to cripple the flow of oil from the ME. So I say: Go Iran, make us pay! And don't forget to throw some missiles on the royal Saudi palace and Riyad. Make that a few dozen. Or hundred.

Barry , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:00 am
Sam

"Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program, might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments? (:"

The only person whom I can recall endlessly deceiving on this is Benjamin Netanyahu, whom I recall making speech after speech claiming that Iran was just about to have nuclear weapons. He's been doing that for over a decade now.

As for incentives/disincentives, Mossad doesn't have much disincentive. If they are caught, they and their friends in the USA will scream 'Fake News!'.

Mr. Bone Saw has got to be extremely cocky now.

And both of them could reasonably expect that if they succeed in triggering a US-Iran war, that even later exposure wouldn't matter.

Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:02 am
Yesterday (June 13th) Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a Democratic candidate for President in 2020, was interviewed by the Washington Post's Robert Costa. Here (at 23:58-28:06) is a brief excerpt of Rep. Gabbard's excellent views on US Iran policy:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/W0KGWFA_idU

Zgler , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:41 am
Who wants war? Saudis to prop up oil prices and get Iran in trouble? Pompeo because he wants to bring on the Rapture and the return of JC? Donald Trump so he can be a "wartime president" stir up his base and please the military contractor donors? Netanyahu to distract from his corruption charges and weaken Iranian Islamists? Some really stupid underground hardliners in Iran?

There are some plausible choices but none of them is the Iranian government.

Zgler , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:43 am
I forgot one more who wants war: Bolton because he is an immoral idiot who wants to strut.
DennisW , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:52 am
I frankly just don't believe anything coming form the US government anymore, especially warmongering neo-cons in charge of foreign policy, the Pentagon, and Deep State actors.

What on earth would Iran have to gain from attacking a Japanese oil tanker while their leader is meeting with the Japanese PM? More likely a false-flag CIA operation.

JeffK , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:00 pm
@TheSnark
June 14, 2019 at 9:02 am

"I have a question about the video footage supposedly showing Iranians removing a mine from a tanker. The quality of the picture is no better than that we saw back in the 1965 Tonkin Gulf incident, when N Vietnamese boats allegedly attacked a US Navy ship. But that was 54 years ago. In video technology today 1080p is a standard resolution, 4k is pretty common. Why is the US Navy still showing something that looks like it came from my Dad's 8mm home movie set-up?"

100%. When I heard on the news this morning that there was video showing Iranians, I thought "They have them". Then I saw the video. Now I call BS.

The Dean , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Are these the same guys that provided the irrefutable "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iran?
I am sure that since the Mossad provides us with intelligence in that area of the world, they are completely objective, and have the best interest of the American military at heart.
Taras 77 , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:26 pm
@Snark: I tend to agree that the video raises more questions: -what would be the purpose of a mine above the water line?
-why does it take a group of 10-20 people milling about on the bow to remove a mine?
-does 10-20 people really indicate a clandestine effort to remove a mine, more like a clusterf____?

As OffGuardian remarked, does the deep state (cia,mi6,mossad) really think we are that stupid?

Sydney , says: June 14, 2019 at 1:06 pm
Why would Iranians attack their own interests? Because they are "evil". Let's see: Front Altair is owned by John Frederiksen, the owner of the Frontline Tanker company, who moved Iranian oil for nearly 40 years including during the "tanker war" with Iraq siding with Iran. Mr Federiksen was called Khomeini's blood life.
What about the Japanese tanker? While the Supreme Leader of Iran was working on Abe to help Iran?
Who's evil, who's stupid?
balconesfault , says: June 14, 2019 at 1:21 pm
James Fallows
@JamesFallows
Here is the problem with running the kind of govt the US has recently:

When you ask people to *believe* you, or give your "assessments" the benefit of the doubt, there is no reason that they should.

Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:06 pm
"Outrage on Capitol Hill over 'completely unacceptable' US-funded scheme to shape Iran debate," The Independent, Wednesday, June 12, 2019:

"United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime. State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails. Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad. 'It's completely unacceptable that American taxpayer dollars supported a project that attacked Americans and others who are critical of the Trump administration's policy of escalation and conflict with Iran,' a senior Congressional aide told The Independent, on condition of anonymity. 'This is something that happens in authoritarian regimes, not democracies'."

The Independent article by Negar Mortazavi and Borzou Baragahi continues: "One woman behind the harassment campaign, a longtime Iranian-American activist, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the State Department over the years to promote 'freedom of expression and free access to information.' The campaign relentlessly attacked critics of the Iran policy on social media, including Twitter and Telegram messaging app, accusing them without evidence of being paid operatives of the regime in Tehran. A spokeswoman for the State Department told reporters on Monday that funding for the 'Iran Disinformation Project' had been suspended and is under review after it was reported that it went beyond the scope of its mandate by veering from countering propaganda from Iran to smearing domestic critics of White House policy. State Department officials disclosed to lawmakers they had granted $1.5 million for Iran Disinfo, which repeatedly targeted, harassed and smeared critics of Trump's tough stance against Iran on social media.

The Independent article noted: "Among those targeted were American activists, scholars, and journalists who challenged the Trump administration's 'maximum pressure campaign' against Iran. The revelation that US taxpayer money was being used to attack administration critics has now sparked a flurry of queries. 'There are still so many unanswered questions here,' Congresswoman Ilhan Omar wrote on Twitter. 'What rules are in place to prevent state-funded organisation from smearing American citizens? If there wasn't public outcry, would the Administration have suspended funding for Iran Disinfo?' Cold War-era US rules barring the use of government-funded propaganda against American citizens have been flouted for decades State Department officials speaking at the closed-door meeting admitted the project was out of bounds, according to Congressional staffers speaking to The Independent on condition of anonymity. Both Democratic and Republican Congressional staffers were highly critical of the project and questioned whether US officials should continue to work with the contractor, E-Collaborative for Civic Education. The State Department spokeswoman declined to outline steps to prevent such an operation in the future E-Collaborative for Civic Education, co-founded by Iranian American activist Mariam Memarsadeghi, is a long-time State Department contractor "

Foundation for Defence of Democracies and MEK involved in creating fake articles. The Independent continues:

"Congressional officials also confirmed to The Independent that one individual working for the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, an influential Washington organisation with hawkish views on Iran, is part of the E-Collaborative for Civic Education's Iran Disinformation Project Over the weekend, The Intercept revealed that a purported Iranian activist, who had published dozens of articles on Iran in prominent outlets such as Forbes and The Hill, does not exist and is a fake persona run by a team of operatives connected to a bizarre Iranian political cult. The "Heshmat Alavi" persona had a strong presence on Twitter and harassed Iranian journalists, academics, and activists who are critical of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq organisation, a one-time armed guerilla group now holed up in Albania. There is no known link between the Iran Disinfo programme and the fake persona. At least one was cited by the Trump administration as proof against the effectiveness of the Obama-era nuclear deal. Some of the MEK articles were also picked up by US government funded Voice of America's Persian-language service "

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-iran-congress-meeting-money-trump-conflict-a8954191.html

Kolya Krassotkin , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:06 pm
Let's not forget the lies our great-grandparents were told to inveigle us into WWI: "German troops are raping Belgian nuns" and "German troops are using Belgian babies for bayonet practice."

100 years from now a future historian, (probably Russian or Chinese), writing about the collapse of the US, will chronicle how the Americans gullibly believed the war propagandists asserting that Iran fired on oil tankers, which belonged to it trading partner, with the same sense of disbelief we now feel upon reading of the crazy assertions made about German troops.

Un Citoyen , says: June 14, 2019 at 3:10 pm
The Japanese ship's captain came out today and said that there was no way the ship was hit by a mine as US claimed, it was hit above sea level and sailors saw something hitting the vessel, like a torpedo.

Why on earth would Iran want to bomb a Japanese ship in the middle of a visit by the Japanese PM?

This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

The US under the rule of the neocons in the Trump admin, the Pence-Pompeo-Bolton trifecta, is a menace and a danger to the whole world. From Iran to Venezuela, Ukraine to North Korea, China to Russia, there isn't a country these neocon stooges don't want to pick a quarrel with. America has become the greatest threat to world peace.

pax , says: June 14, 2019 at 3:13 pm
Sam – When was the last time Iran invaded another country? Why is Israel pushing so hard for us to fight yet another war on their behalf. As Ron Paul said – if they want to fight Iran – let them, but we must stand aside as they duke it out. Israel has created enough Gold Star mothers in the US. Time to do their own fighting. Larsen and Giraldi make a lot of sense.

[Jun 15, 2019] WATCH US economist urges covert violence to provoke war with Iran

Notable quotes:
"... The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians. The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets. The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen. ..."
Jun 14, 2019 | off-guardian.org

WATCH: US economist urges covert violence to provoke war with Iran "I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down – someday one of them might not come up." Admin

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TzSjPDaSNMQ

Many believe war with the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the dream of some hardcore neocons in Washington since at least 2001. Back in 2012 former employee of the IMF and current economist for the World Bank, Patrick Clawson , provided fuel for this belief when he was videoed obliquely advocating using covert violence so that the US president "can get to war with Iran."

In a startlingly frank speech, Clawson makes it clear he believes (and apparently approves) that the US has a history of seeking war for profit, and of using provocations to goad its perceived enemies into starting such wars. Clawson highlights in particular the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 , which, he says, was deliberately engineered by president Lincoln in pursuit of an excuse to launch a war on the Southern secessionist states.

In light of the recent alleged attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, timed to coincide with the visit of the Japanese prime minister to Iran, and in light of Secretary of State Capone Pompeo's precipitate and predictable claim the attacks were likely perpetrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, this is an apposite time to recall this telling little incident.

Below see the transcript of Mr Clawson's remarks

Transcript

"I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough and it's very hard for me to see how the United States president can get us to war with Iran which leads me to conclude that if in fact compromise is not coming that the traditional way of America gets to war is what would be best for US interests

Some people might think that mr. Roosevelt wanted to get us in to the World War two as David mentioned. You may recall we had to wait for Pearl Harbor.

Some people might think mr. Wilson wanted to get us into World War One. You may recall he had to wait for the Lusitania episode

Some people might think that mr. Johnson wanted to send troops to Vietnam. You may recall they had to wait for the Gulf of Tonkin episode.

We didn't go to war with Spain until the USS Maine exploded, and may I point out that mr. Lincoln did not feel he could call off the federal army until Fort Sumter was attacked which is why he ordered the commander at Fort Sumter to do exactly that thing which the South Carolinians had said would cause an attack.

So if in fact the Iranians aren't going to compromise it would be best if somebody else started the war

But I would just like to suggest that one can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August 17th. We could step up the pressure. I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down – someday one of them
might not come up.

Who would know why?

We can do a variety of things if we wish to increase the pressure. I'm not advocating that but I'm just suggesting that a it's this is not a either-or proposition of, you know, it's just sanctions has to be has to succeed or other things.


DunGroanin

Always follow the money they made lots instantly from the firework display, it aint rocket science!

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-14/senators-switched-key-votes-bill-gulf-arms-ban-hours-after-tanker-attacks

mark
What do you expect from a Zionist Front like WINEP? They've been inciting wars for Israel for decades. "Getting the stupid goys to fight Israel's wars for decades."
Jen
If Patrick Clawson is typical of the kind of economist employed at the IMF and then promoted to a leading position at the World Bank, I dread to think of the calibre of people who also applied for his job in the past and were rejected. His speech is so garbled and full of unconscious slip-ups.
andyoldlabour
The US has convinced itself of its own so called "exceptionalism", where they can say anything out in the open, reveal their greatest desires, their unholy plans. There must be some "good" Americans who can stop this madness, or have they all become inflicted/infected with some hate virus?
Milton
Interesting that this Israeli-First traitor Clawson mentions Lincoln and Ft. Sumter. He finally admits what genuine historians of the Civil War long knew: Lincoln was a warmonger and tyrant, not an emancipator. The Civil war was fought to eliminate true freedom and equality in this country and it has been downhill ever since. The working class and soldier-class in America today are slaves in every sense of the word. Slaves to Zion. No wonder the certified warmonger and racist Lincoln is worshiped equally by Left and Right today, whilst genuine American patriots like Robert E. Lee have their legacy torn down. Lincoln was the proto-Neocon. Tom Dilorenzo summed up the real Lincoln when he wrote in Lincoln Unmasked:

"Imagine that California seceded from the union and an American president responded with the carpet bombing of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco that destroyed 90 percent of those cities. Such was the case with General Sherman's bombardment of Atlanta; a naval blockade; a blocking off of virtually all trade; the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes (as occurred in Atlanta in 1864); the destruction of most industries and farms; massive looting of private property by a marauding army; and the killing of one out of four males of military age while maiming for life more than double that number. Would such an American president be considered a 'great statesman' or a war criminal? The answer is obvious.

A statesman would have recognized the state's right to secede, as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, among other places, and then worked diligently to persuade the seceded state that a reunion was in its best interest. Agreat statesman, or even a modest one, would not have impulsively plunged the entire nation into a bloody war.

Lincoln's warmongering belligerence and his invasion of all the Southern states in response to Fort Sumter (where no one was harmed or killed) caused the upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas -- to secede after originally voting to remain in the Union. He refused to meet with Confederate commissioners to discuss peace and even declined a meeting with Napoleon III of France, who offered to broker a peace agreement. No genuine statesman would have behaved in such a way.

After Fort Sumter, Lincoln thanked naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in manipulating the South Carolinians into firing at Fort Sumter. A great statesman does not manipulate his own people into starting one of the bloodiest wars in human history."

mathias alexand
Here's a man who holds a press conference to announce a secret plan. Only in America.
Gezzah Potts
False flags here, false flags there, false flags everywhere. All too further the aims of the 'masters of the universe'. We know who was responsible for the tanker attacks. Who are the 3 countries absolutely desperate to take Iran down and install a completely pliant puppet regime answerable to Washington, Tel Aviv and to a lesser extent Riyadh. And creatures like Clawson, and all the other vermin can only see $$$$. Thats all they care about. Opening up more markets to further enrich themselves. I echo the other commenters also. The evil men stoop to for greed, power and control. Psychopaths.
harry law
The Foreign Office issued a statement saying: "It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible."
Unbelievable, The UK vassal will use this to as one more reason to evade their responsibilities in implementing the JCPOA.
William HBonney
A Riyadh/Tel Aviv conspiracy. Genius!
Gezzah Potts
Er . just a rough guess Bill going on the belligerent foaming at the mouth by people in those places along with the likes of Bolton and Pompeo. In fact, you can probably go all the way back to about 1980 or so.
mark
I think the real giveaway was when all three rogue states openly stated their intention of doing this 1,000 times over the past 10 years. That was the crucial clue Sherlock Holmes was looking for.
Wilmers31
And who funds the Washington Institute? Last time I looked the International Crisis Group existed thanks to Soros and is usually treated like a serious organisation.

Many Europeans are not in love with the idea of war with Iran, just to achieve obedience to the US. 90 million people is bigger than Germany.

wardropper
These are the shysters, the spivs and the con men of bygone times. They are the ones who lurked at street corners, waiting for someone to come along who was gullible enough to buy the Moon from them.
But, for some reason, they are all in politics today.
Now how could that be?

Only because there are people whom it currently suits to use shysters, spivs and con men in order to create enough chaos for us to want to give up and just let those people have their way.

I agree with Rhys below. There is no more disgusting example of sub-humanity to be found on earth than these warmongers.
To deal with them, however, we will have to realize that their "philosophy", if you can call it that, runs very deep. It didn't just enter their heads last week.
They are reared and trained in it.

It will be a tough battle.

wardropper
I should add that, in bygone times, the police and the law were usually able to deal with the shysters, spivs and con men, since their lack of conscience often gave them away.
The modern version, however, which has moved into politics, was shrewd enough to use a few decades of bribery and threats in order to build around itself a nice little shell, through which the law simply cannot penetrate, except on special occasions, mainly for show.
Rhys Jaggar
There is a big cabal of warmongers who stoke the fuel but never see action. I find those people more disgusting than anyone on earth.

Draft dodgers, academics, 'historians' etc etc.

Ball-less pricks is what I call them .

mark
All fully paid up members of the Bill Clinton Light Infantry.
andyoldlabour
The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.
The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets.
The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen.
William HBonney
The easiest, and perhaps best metric by which to judge a country, is 'do people aspire to live there? '.

I see you admire the Soviet Union, but at its dissolution, people were queuing to leave. And yet the US, and the UK, according to you, iniquitous places of tyranny, are oversubscribed. Could it be, that for all your implied erudition, you are merely a bellend?

BigB
Well, even as a pacifist: if that is his sentiment – I hope he has sons or daughters in the military stationed in CENTCOM in Qatar. I bet he hasn't, though.
Rhisiart Gwilym
He should be right there on the frontline himself. That would straighten the disgusting creep's ideas out about the 'usefulness' of deliberately provoking war

[Jun 15, 2019] US Secretary of State Pompeo alleged that Iran had attacked the tankers to raise the global price of oil

Jun 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Jun 13, 2019 1:52:29 PM | 104


ben , Jun 13, 2019 2:02:19 PM | 106

From an article in the Navy Times last summer:
Standing at the forefront of game-changing innovations in undersea warfare, Navy Cmdr. Scott Smith has only one small request. Don't call the Navy's fleet of unmanned undersea vehicles "drones." "It has a negative connotation," Smith said. "We think of drone strikes as taking out Taliban, and we're nowhere near that." Not yet, anyway. But the Pentagon is trying quickly to get there.

Last fall, the Navy named Smith as the first-ever commander of the new Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron 1, or UUVRON-1. It's spearheading the service's development and deployment of unmanned underwater vehicles. Called UUVs, they're are already being used for surveillance and to clear mines and map the ocean floor, according to Bryan Clark, a retired submariner who is now a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

So don't get it twisted, this ascendent FUKUS drone army is doubleplusgood; it's designed for mapping and minesweeping! Sort of like a bunch of little Indian Joneses! Of course the article does go on to brag:

There are even ongoing efforts to launch UUVs from Virginia-class submarines to conduct surveillance or deliver payloads. He said that over the next decade sailors should expect to use the underwater robots to bring sonar arrays and mines to the seabed, launch torpedoes or become torpedoes themselves to destroy enemy warships . Smith wants to see UUVs in all kinds of sizes to fill gaps in future missions. "Those missions that are too dangerous to put men on," Smith said.

It is absolutely side-splitting though that they think they can achieve Total Spectrum Dominance with these toys. Sorry, I'm looking for any old silver lining these days.

Posted by: sejomoje | Jun 13, 2019 1:59:56 PM | 10 5 No matter the culprit in this latest incident, I lay this current world unrest at the feet of our current empire.

The economic terrorism, imposed on other nations through U$ sanctions, is the real problem..

And ALL done, to enrich the already rich....

arby , Jun 13, 2019 2:08:02 PM | 109
"US officials, however, were quick to point the finger at Iran. "It's clear that Iran is behind the Fujairah attack. Who else would you think would be doing it? Someone from Nepal?" said US National Security Adviser John Bolton.

In turn, US Secretary of State Pompeo alleged that Iran had attacked the tankers to raise the global price of oil.

Tehran has denied any involvement and called for an investigation."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Two-Oil-Tankers-Come-Under-Attack-in-Sea-of-Oman-20190613-0002.html

karlof1 , Jun 13, 2019 2:39:14 PM | 116
Overlooked/ignored is this item of interest :

"On the previous day, a fire broke out on an Iranian oil platform of the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf and was subsequently contained and no fatalities were reported."

Recall the plot of the movie A Fistful of Dollars and another can of worms becomes possible.

rockstar , Jun 13, 2019 2:41:38 PM | 117
Pompeo is already blaming the attacks on Iran.

Whenever the US has their conclusion this quickly, before even the appearance of an investigation (as with MH17, and Syria "chemical" attacks), I feel it is almost certain that they are making $&!% up, and the reality is likely the opposite of what they have said.

Miranda , Jun 13, 2019 4:03:25 PM | 130
Both Israel and the Saudis are far too incompetent to carry out a sophisticated attack like this - see, ships didn't sink but a message was delivered nonetheless. Probable some military contractor idling in Syria was reassigned to do this.
Zanon , Jun 13, 2019 4:04:11 PM | 131
Now Pompeo have accused Iran, that is why I said it was idiotic to even dwell into that, we see now what it leads to.
Yonatan , Jun 13, 2019 4:14:38 PM | 134
Japanese-owned ship hit just as Abe visits Tehran? A warning to Japan to stop the rapprochement with Iran, or look to more damage to your ships.

Parallels with MH370/MH17 strikes against Malaysia for their temerity in finding the IDF guilty of war crimes.

Oscar Peterson , Jun 13, 2019 4:44:08 PM | 139
An obvious question is why the US is not providing evidence to support its claims.

On possible explanation is that there is no evidence.

Another would be that there is evidence but that if the US produced the evidence, then it would be constrained to "do something." In the scenario in which Iran is conducting these quasi-attacks to warn of impending greater escalation if the US continues to starve it, both sides want the other to initiate any violence, and the US doesn't really want the global economic chaos that hostilities would inevitably bring--especially in conjunction with the trade/tech war with China. Therefore, it is pulling its punches and withholding the evidence it has.

Iran may sense that given the US-China and US-Russia issues and the 2020 election, they had better escalate now or be slowly bled to death. But they would like the US to provide a pretext for Iran to take real action to block traffic into and out of the Persian Gulf. But the US wants to be able to portray Iran as the aggressor.

Hence the cat-and-mouse game ongoing. I have to admit, it does make a certain comprehensive sense.

librul , Jun 13, 2019 5:07:25 PM | 141
The Japanese Prime Minister was visiting Tehran at the time of the attack upon a Japanese tanker.

What a perfect time to attack a Japanese tanker.

Such a plan reeks of incompetence.

Incompetence is a finger print of the Saudis.

Reminder that they butchered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their own embassy. They mailed bombs (hidden in printers) to the US and Britain
and kept the tracking slips of the packages - nice plan ! All bombers must remember to save their tracking slips.

They tried to embarrass Iran by attacking a Japanese tanker while the Japanese Prime Minister was having a positive visit to Tehran.

Incompetence is a finger print of the Saudis.

james , Jun 13, 2019 5:08:43 PM | 142
the usa has produced 'phony' hard evidence in the past... it typically goes with false flags.. i am not saying this will come out of this, or that iran is not involved, but i lean strongly to the ramp up in a focus on the strait of hormuz as all part of a longer strategy of creating stress on iran and potentially dragging them into war.. either way as OP mentions in his last line @128...
karlof1 , Jun 13, 2019 5:12:47 PM | 145
Oscar Peterson @139&140--

Evidence versus claims. I give you the recent near collision between Russian and USN warships where USN claimed Russian fault whereas the evidence decisively proved otherwise. USN shut-up rather quickly and the incident went to the dust bin. In an earlier comment, I speculated that an IED-type device was used and that it was installed while the ships laded. Torpedoes were certainly not used, and the limpet mine assertion remains that until a forensic examination is done, and that won't happen until the ships return to a port where repairs can be made. Also, we have the much less reported attacks on Iranian ships and extraction infrastructure--the tit for tat where we'll only be treated to the tits as I commented in a trivial comment that disappeared. The upshot is, the Outlaw US Empire has scant credibility when it comes to making claims about anything sans extraordinary evidence. Iran, of course, knows that. But given the overall context, I doubt Iran's responsible and stand by my earlier prediction of a CIA/MI-6 proxy doing the deed.

Oscar Peterson , Jun 13, 2019 5:30:31 PM | 147
@karlof1 145

I agree that US credibility on many things is weak--especially in connection with Iran--but the point is that there is a plausible scenario in which Iran is ready to escalate--or threaten to escalate--to break out of the US stranglehold but needs to execute the escalation very carefully.

I also agree that the false flag scenario is still very much in play.

karlof1 , Jun 13, 2019 5:36:29 PM | 148
Here're links to a couple of things bouncing around the Twitterverse. The first is a video clip of Bolton Caitlin does an excellent job of unpacking again . It's actually a good thing this video was saved as it needs to be distributed once again.

The second is a pic of Bolton framed at the header by "Iran is going to attack us" and at the footer with "Even if we have to do it ourselves."

Both IMO are worthy of viral retweeting provided you have an account.

Curtis , Jun 13, 2019 5:54:05 PM | 150
DW interviewed a guy today who said it could be Iran but that it could also be a false flag by one of the Emirates. His interview didn't last long before they went to someone with more of the US voice. The whole time I was thinking they said it was a torpedo and we know Israel has at least one submarine. I wonder where it is right now. Meanwhile the official US statement sounds similar to early declarations about Russians hacking HRC's email: "We assess ..."
Curtis , Jun 13, 2019 5:57:00 PM | 151
librul 141
I thought the same thing. It's like the chemical weapons attack in Syria that happened on the same day the inspectors arrived. It's like the White Helmets being wherever HTS is. The alt media is the only arena where people say this sounds fishy.
Pnyx , Jun 13, 2019 6:01:47 PM | 152
You shouldn't be misled. Iran does not want war, because the leadership knows that it will definitely lead to gigantic damage in its own country. In Tronald's administration and elsewhere, on the other hand, there are people who absolutely want a war, the four B's in the first place. Tronald himself doesn't really want one, but is caught between a rock and a hard place. He absolutely wants to make the economy look positive until the next elections, but this is difficult because there are signs of recession everywhere in the world. An important factor is the price of oil. Despite the sanctions against Iran, it has not yet risen, the fracking industry, which produces what it can do due to its debts service necessities, continues to lose money at these prices. It will be difficult to avoid collapses. So Tronald may be willing to do more to push up the price of oil. For example, a nice little false flag action. The Relotius media are almost convinced, no wonder if even someone like B is wobbling.

But, people; the empire is the empire, we know how it works, that doesn't change. That's Tonkin 2.0.

El Cid , Jun 13, 2019 6:06:10 PM | 154
Cui Bono. Who wants to destroy Iran? Israel and Saudi Arabia. Cui Bono, merchants of war, and the bankers who fund and make war possible.
Peter AU 1 , Jun 13, 2019 6:10:51 PM | 155
IF the US or its proxies had pulled off these attacks as false flags, there would be dead and injured people and at least one or two sunken ships.

This looks very much like a message or warning to the financial world that has abandoned Iran due to US sanctions.

karlof1 , Jun 13, 2019 6:37:03 PM | 160 John Smith , Jun 13, 2019 7:06:54 PM | 161
Lucy Komisar:

State Dept admits it ran troll farm to smear critics of Iran policy.

The Independent:

United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime.

State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails. Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad.

<...>

John Smith , Jun 13, 2019 7:15:40 PM | 162
Edward R. Murrow on McCarthy, 1954
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEvEmkMNYHY
psychohistorian , Jun 13, 2019 7:17:57 PM | 163
Alright then, how is WWIII going for everyone? Everyone got their pith helmet at the ready?

I agree with the sentiments that think this is a warning to empire instead of false flag because no body bags

I feel sorry for those MoA barflies that continue to have some faith that Trump has a scintilla of humanism in him and continue to ask for some proof other than BS Q spewment. Show me ANY example of Trump showing compassion, empathy for other than his fellow war criminals he is rumored to pardon. Trump is a very hurt human being who is being used as such by those that control empire for their purposes. To the extent that he agrees to do their bidding, he is just another in a string of president war criminals of the US, since Jimmy Carter.

The world outside the West is playing the long game and the West is now very punch drunk and coming to the end of its run of empires. I read a posting from Reuters in the last 48 hours or so where some pundit was quoting folks "telling" China that they should not include private finance in this trade war thing......GRIN

The West is holding a very weak hand except for the extinction card. Will they play it because they are sore losers? Given what they have done to our planet, it would not surprise me for them to have the ultimate hubris to call the game over......sigh The Cosmos may be better for it but we have potential if we try.....

james , Jun 13, 2019 7:23:52 PM | 164
pat lang makes a good distinction on what is a us gov't assessment, verses an intel assessment..

@160 karlof1 / 161 john.. thanks for those links.. my position - all that is no surprise... i find it surprising some are surprised.. the usa is thick into propaganda at this point and said they would spend good money on war propaganda.. videos of bolton saying lying is okay aren't helpful to their cause though..

John Smith , Jun 13, 2019 7:38:58 PM | 167
Global Warfare: "We're Going to Take out 7 Countries in 5 Years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan & Iran.."

Video Interview with General Wesley Clark

https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-going-to-take-out-7-countries-in-5-years-iraq-syria-lebanon-libya-somalia-sudan-iran/5166

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D89TFRwXkAEPw3c.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8YtF76s-yM

John Smith , Jun 13, 2019 7:54:31 PM | 168
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 13, 2019 7:34:22 PM | 166

CENTCOM has issued a statement. Here's the meat:

"'We have no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East. We will defend our interests, but a war with Iran is not in our strategic interest, nor in the best interest of the international community.' --@CENTCOM spokesman Lt. Col. Earl Brown."

Seems the Pentagon has flipped the bird to Pompeo and Bolton, which happened before during BushCo.
--------------------------

Maybe such a war with Iran is not in the interests of the United States, but certainly in the interests of Israel.

Top US General Says American Troops Should Be Ready To Die For Israel

"Greater Israel": The Zionist Plan for the Middle East

dltravers , Jun 13, 2019 9:09:47 PM | 183
Trump goes to Japan and asks them to mediate with Iran.

Trump ratchets up the sanctions before and Abe visits Iran which does reflect his negotiating style. Iran allegedly hits a tanker while Abe is taking to Iran. Now Abe has to go back towing the US line, as usual, saying it was Iran's fault and he loses face being insulted by Iran. What a perfect way to step up the tensions and garner more UN support.

These events will continue and slowly get worse until the coup de gra, which would be something like the sinking of a large US naval vessel in the Persian gulf. The US peoples minds are not right yet and it will take time for their minds to be framed back into war.

During the Iran Iraq war the US re flagged Kuwait tankers during the Tanker War. We could easily see a new Tanker War but on a much lower lever driven by the third party actors who stand to profit.

War with Iran will be a disaster for everyone involved except one small nation that knows how to cover their tracks.

Iran will be demolished eventually. Those who gain from destroying Iran are behind


snake , Jun 13, 2019 9:26:36 PM | 184
presstv. published a video showing 44 people saved from two on fire sinking ships. I know how difficult it is to identify these people from their faces, especially a 44 crew member crowd but I think even stinkcom could manage to do that. The media BS about this incident suggest, who ever done it, is dealing with something that went very wrong.. Iran saves 44 sailors and shows them on TV.. the west claims, with no proof whatsoever, that the Iranians did not save these sailors even though the sailors are safe in Iran? Hmmm!
I suggest the reporters and journalist that reported this, be tasked to investigate the suspicious looking dark hole named "false flag". Its a possible threat to Israel and Saudia Arabia. Its approximate location is about 200 trillion light years due East from here.. The media are saying Iran and Russia teamed up to dig a hole in space, and once the Iran-Russian team managed to get the hole dug, they climbed deep inside of the hole and turned its lights off. The west is saying they flipped the switch in the WH to keep the Iranian-Russian team from claiming its "light out" success. When the reporters and journalist get back, I am sure we will be all ears to hear the how the Russian and Iranian team managed to make a hole in space, dark.
Grieved , Jun 13, 2019 9:49:43 PM | 185
I haven't seen this posted yet, Iran's Foreign Minister has given formal assurance that Iran is not behind this, and has pointedly commented that the whole episode is "very suspicious" since Abe was visiting:
'Suspicious doesn't begin to describe what happened': Iran's FM on tanker 'attacks' in Gulf of Oman

@karlof1 - I read the Luongo piece and I find it the most pivotal of all current commentary - largely because it's about the oil situation globally. Neither Iran nor Russia need the price of oil to go up in order to prosper - the US and Saudi Arabia do need the price to go up.

Having said that, I don't know that insurance rates rising are actually adding to the producer's revenue at the wellhead/refinery.

I do know that oil is self-regulating, in that whenever it gets around $100 a barrel and over, the global economy stalls and the demand for oil goes down, resulting in glut for a time and lower prices - not to mention global recession. As Luongo illustrates, right now the world is in a large glut. There's nothing to push the price up (which Trump desperately needs) except tightening production, which Saudi wants, but which Russia doesn't want to do.

~~

So imagine a world filled to the brim with bluster, and yet once again what actually moves on the ground (or below the waves) is actually very little. Enough bluster to scare everyone and increase leverage of the security apparatus, and just enough damage to inch the oil price up without crashing the global economy. Expect more such ratcheting.

Iran didn't do this latest episode. The US and Israel are the likely actors, with Saudi and UAE providing lunch money for the excursion. Also, the false flag works fine without dead bodies if the intent is not for a war with Iran - which the US military absolutely knows cannot be won - but to trigger oil prices up. At times, commercial interests take over, and ride the wave of military activity, and I suspect this one is about the money.

And these neocons, by the way, seem able to live on pure fantasy. I don't think they'll achieve a real war. They visibly make their points - increase their stature - in their peer group purely from grandstanding.

Grieved , Jun 13, 2019 9:59:53 PM | 186
It's worth linking the Tom Luongo piece again for a nice understanding of oil fundamentals in the region and the world currently. It's important to understand how illusory and temporary the US fracking phenomenon is:
Trump Thinks US Oil Is His Strength When It's His Achilles' Heel

As a commenter here (David on May 13) said recently, the US fracking industry's appalling indebtedness comes due in 2023. This is far enough through Trump's potential second term that he can blame everyone else and move on. I've made a personal note to expect a US economic plunge in that year.

To see Trump's acts as merely keeping the ponzi scheme going for as long as possible, and for as much short-term reward through the second term, is the best understanding of White House policy I think.

h , Jun 13, 2019 10:05:51 PM | 187
Grieved @184 thanks for that link. Just saw an update on Fox stating Iran has formally denied any part of this incident but can't find a solid Iranian news source to confirm.
Don Bacon , Jun 13, 2019 10:16:54 PM | 188
@ Pnyx 181
. . . for the usa it is not the same. Their homeland is far away, while Iran would suffer extreme devastation in the event of a war - whatever the final result. So I think it is absolutely unthinkable that Iran would do anything to increase the risk of war.

You don't understand -- every US death in war is now a news item. When 5 or 6 dies it's huge news. This is not Vietnam with 200 dying every week. Its different now. So if a thousand soldiers die in the beginning of a conflict with Iran it's HUGE. No American cares how many Iranians would die, but they DO care if Americans die, homeland or not. THAT's why the generals are against it too. . .PS: If the Iranians sink that carrier, it's 5,000+ American dead. Unacceptable.

So that's why Iran is free to dispute the aggression against them with some violent events. More power to them.

dh , Jun 13, 2019 10:21:23 PM | 189
I'm very disappointed in John Bolton. There should be another carrier group on the way by now. Is he losing his touch?
psychohistorian , Jun 13, 2019 10:31:02 PM | 190
I would think that if the Iranian's held the crew and took off an unexploded bomb that they can ask the crew how they might have gotten there......

Were the ships in Iran controlled waters such that the empire side could not retrieve the unexploded bomb? If that is the case then I suspect the unexploded bomb may show up in pictures we see that show where it might have come from.....

Isn't it grand watching our own sick soap opera?

james , Jun 13, 2019 10:43:19 PM | 191
@186 h... fars news is always a good place to start.. http://en.farsnews.com/

@188 dh... you might have to vote for a different lunatic then the last one you voted for in 2016!!

Don Bacon , Jun 13, 2019 11:06:34 PM | 195
from the grasping at straws mines department.
news report
Iran removed a mine from a ship, so that proves that Iran put it there!
The U.S. military has released a video it says implicates Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the latest violent incident the United States and its allies blame on Tehran.
The U.S. Central Command on June 13 said the video shows crews from IRGC boats removing what looks like an unexploded mine from the side of one of the two attacked oil tankers. . . here

the US has met its match, asking for a seizure at the UNSC --
Earlier in the day at the UN, U.S. acting Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called on the Security Council to confront the "clear threat" posed by Tehran in the region.
The attacks "demonstrate the clear threat that Iran poses to international peace and security," Cohen told reporters following the closed-door Security Council meeting.
Cohen said that "no proxy group in the area has the resources or the skill to act with this level of sophistication."
"Iran, however, has the weapons, the expertise, and the requisite intelligence information to pull this off," he said.
"I've asked the Security Council to remain seized of the matter and I expect that we will have further conversations about it, and how to respond in the days ahead," he added.

Loud chuckling was heard in Tehran.
Don Bacon , Jun 13, 2019 11:06:34 PM | 195 Anon , Jun 13, 2019 11:20:05 PM | 196
So this is what comes to mind...

Houthi or al. are responsible for first event. They target Saudi/Nor. ships.

Saudi et. al. target ships friendly to Iran.


Understand though that in these events there is a total asymmetry at play. That is to say that actions will not follow any logic we know of. The above is the closest I get to making sense BUT as far as I know each side might have been responsible for the actions that seemed most counterproductive to itself. Planners know the mindset of society, a false false flag is an option.

We are left with qui bono, and I think the reply to that is as reliant on the global geopolical and economic environment, as well as who will de facto gain the upper hand. It seems to me to be a form of psychological warfare where expansion of power is questioned by the appearance or reality of being goaded. This is not a good circumstance at all.

Don Wiscacho , Jun 13, 2019 11:44:26 PM | 197
A fluid situation for sure. I wish I had had the time to follow things more closely. Thanks karlof, Oscar for all the links and info.
Can't add anything substantial apart from a general maxim: when the Empire had proof the 'other' is to blame, they readily display said proof. When they are to blame... Skripols, Mari Marmara, MH17, etc.
psychohistorian , Jun 13, 2019 11:51:21 PM | 198
@ Anon who wrote
"
It seems to me to be a form of psychological warfare where expansion of power is questioned by the appearance or reality of being goaded. This is not a good circumstance at all.
"
The first part is confusing to me

I think you meant
Psychological warfare is going on
I assume you mean the West that is questioning "by the appearance or reality of being goaded".
Your "expansion of power" leaves me wanting the meat

Yes, China/Russia and aligned are collaborating in ways that reduces the power of empire but not necessarily in ways that translates into the same sort of power......That said, global private finance versus "socialism is the eye of the storm and everything else is proxy. We are not seeing the beginning of socialism but we are seeing the end of global private finance which I think your "expansion of power" misrepresents because one supports a few and the other supports all......maybe it would be clearer to say the elimination of power by a few and the assumption of the power by the many.

I think it is a good circumstance and way past due for our species to survive.

james , Jun 13, 2019 11:54:11 PM | 199
@193 dh... i thought you could... what happened? are you one of those long lost draft dodgers?

hey - maybe he can hide under his mustache if the bombs start falling? it is almost big enough... either that, or bugs bunny can grab it when he ain't watching.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ-BOqQw_TQ

Yeah, Right , Jun 13, 2019 11:55:49 PM | 200
@194 Is it my imagination or is that video showing a "limped mine" that is on THE OTHER SIDE of the ship than the one that is aflame?

If that is true - and it looks like it - then we have to assume that the Dastardly Iranians(tm) stuck limpet mines to both sides of that ship.

Why do that?

It maximizes your chances of being detected, and maximises the time it takes to attach the limpets, and with no discernible benefit.

Why do that, when speed and stealth are at a premium?

Don Wiscacho , Jun 14, 2019 12:12:46 AM | 205 David Gibson , Jun 14, 2019 12:57:54 AM | 206
MOA 14/06/19
If the strategic aim of the Imperialist powers is to still claim all of the Middle East oil and resources and to crush any movement towards independence then the stumbling block is Iran and Russia who have stood in their way vis-a-vie Syria.

NATO has succeeded in Iraq and Libya and almost succeeded in Syria but are still trying using the flip/flop position of Turkey and Idlib as a Castle in the game to defeat any independence movement out of US hegemony.

At this time no oil or chemicals have spilled into the Gulf waters. This is by design.
Whilst the comments pertaining to the main article are informative and useful most are getting bogged down and arguing about details and missing the overall global plans of the Imperialist plans.

The Imperialist plan remains the same whilst their tactics can and do change. Their bag of dirty tricks is quite bottomless and yes they think they can fight against any move for National Independence anywhere in the world.
Latin America most notably Venezuela, Africa with AFRICOM already using drones.

Australia, fully under MI6/CIA control. No defence of Assange an Australian Citizen, plus the coup against Gough Whitlam.
The UK, with either Boris, or Hunt being in bed with Donald, both lap dogs to the USA and like with Harold Wilson they won't allow Corbyn to become PM.

France with Macron the poodle trying to show he is as tough as Trump by being more stupid. We all know the situation of an Empire in decline. It isn't all about oil!

David Gibson , Jun 14, 2019 12:57:54 AM | 206 Jen , Jun 14, 2019 1:07:57 AM | 207
Psychohistorian @ 189:

The crews of both tankers were rescued by an Iranian rescue ship so I would say both tankers were in Iranian waters in the Gulf of Oman.

Link showing maritime borders of Iran in Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman

Peter AU 1 , Jun 14, 2019 1:20:37 AM | 208
Don Wiscacho
I take it that Abe on this exercise was no more than a US asset. Iran has stuck to the Nuke agreement and US has reneged so nothing to negotiate or mediate on Iran's side. Abe going to Iran as mediator means he was asking for concessions from Iran - that Iran make some moves to appease the US.
US is the type that if you give an inch, they take a mile. If Iran made one concession then US would take it as a sign of weakness and expect them to make more.
eagle eye , Jun 14, 2019 1:23:11 AM | 209
I might have missed mention of it in all the hullabaloo, but I have seen nothing of the US Navy response which would involve tracking down the perpetrators, and ensuring no further acts were committed.

It is that absence of obvious response which causes me to think that our host might be incorrect in his assessment, and that the perpetrator is a party the US Navy would sooner not apprehend.


All Forone , Jun 14, 2019 1:24:48 AM | 210
Iran would be crazy to take on the US so why provoke them. They stand to lose their oil then anyway. War is an economy and Everyone knows that Bolton is a war monger and that Iran is a thorn in Israels side and he needs an excuse to go to war. Also he can't use the WMD card again to start a war and JumpStart the US economy.
C , Jun 14, 2019 1:28:29 AM | 211
In 10 years we will know if it was the CIA, in order to justify the next war
james , Jun 14, 2019 1:32:07 AM | 212
@206 jen... on your link i get this message - No file by this name exists.
Big Tim , Jun 14, 2019 1:54:49 AM | 213
I have not followed this closely. There is real proof of "attack" and not accidental or set fire? There is video of a crew "abandoning ship? But then again, in 2019 there is no such thing as video or image proof, at least without expert verification.
John Carter , Jun 14, 2019 2:01:41 AM | 214
guys its BIG OIL... TRUMP approved Ethanol 15 for YEAR ROUND USE a few days ago... that means GAS PRICES would be cheaper for Americans as more corn instead of oil would be used in Automobiles. That drove OIL prices down! This attack on the two ships immediately drove CRUDE OIL up 2.87%!

It seems that TRUMP pissed off some very powerful big oil men & oil-rich Arab nations when he approved the E15!

Why blame Iran? No idea.
Why attack the ships owned by Japan while Shinzo Abe is there negotiating peace? No Idea.
Who carried out the attack? No Idea.

Mark2 , Jun 14, 2019 3:04:52 AM | 215
Interesting and sane interview on 'today program' news radio 4 bbc U.K. 7.50am ish.
Admiral Lord west - - - could be any US - proxy group in Middle East looking to gain by escalating US -Iran conflict !

He said it could well be ''a pro US group in Iran'' similar to the US backed opposition in Venezuela !

My view is this makes the most sense!
Probably given the nod by Bolton/Trump ect
Definitely funded and armed by US !
Just as in Venezuela.

Plus- bare in mind the main motive will be western public voter deception, same as anti Russia/ Skripal, Anti Syria / chloride. Venezuela/opposition.

Criminal psychopath profile tells us -> USA Trump.

Zanon , Jun 14, 2019 3:29:59 AM | 216
Meanwhile Twitter censorship thousands of iranian accounts. Pro-american accounts for war is of course never removed.

Twitter has announced that it is removing 4,779 accounts associated or backed by Tehran, the latest strike in the ongoing anti-Iran campaign perfectly timed to coincide with the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/461825-iran-trolls-gulf-tonkin-twitter/

Don Bacon

Iran removed a mine from a ship, so that proves that Iran put it there!

Indeed, that is the illogical proapganda MSM use now, very disturbing. Its Tonkin once again.

Not to mention, is it iranians? Is it a mine to begin with? Is that really how you handle a mine? Just pull it off with your bare hands around 10 plus people on a small boat?
Interesting also that US just happend to be there spying.

Hmpf , Jun 14, 2019 3:51:24 AM | 217
IRO that 'high-res' video footage from the usual suspects.

By coincidence they've had a surveillance drone or a chopper on location? Maybe, I don't know.
The Iranians do have the means to spot drones and choppers, we do know this ever since they hijacked and/or crashed RQ-170 and MQ-9 vehicles a couple of years back.
Are we to believe them - the Iranians - being that stupid to launching such an operation while knowing full well they are being watched by their main adversary?

Regarding technicalities:
Iran has got the know-how to build limpet mines? So it must have been done by Iranian forces? You don't say. Building a limpet mine is trivial. Get your hands on a bunch of Nd-magnets, a 3rd grade chemist cooking up a couple of kilos of a HEI composition, a mechanical engineer for the hardware and a physicist assisting in creating the fusing system and you're all set.

I, for one, am being positive Lichtenstein did it - most likely on direct orders of the ruling prince - after all there's chemists, physicists and mechanical engineers inhabiting that tiny speck of land.

Zanon , Jun 14, 2019 3:52:51 AM | 218
Would be intreresting if iranians actually picked up a mine though and it was an american made, israeli made mine. Iran has a big chance now to frame the incident.
Peter AU 1 , Jun 14, 2019 4:10:26 AM | 219
Japans oil imports by country for 2018.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/761568/japan-crude-oil-import-by-country/

"Japan expects a limited impact from the U.S. decision not to renew waivers previously granted on Iran oil import sanctions, the country's trade and industry minister said Tuesday."
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/23/business/meti-says-japan-foresees-little-impact-u-s-scrapping-iran-oil-waivers/#.XQNTg3r5XtQ

The majority of Japans oil imports come through the Hormuz Strait. Probably wasn't a good idea for Abe to trot off to Iran at Trump's bidding.

Mark2 , Jun 14, 2019 4:31:47 AM | 220
Good points zanon
To add - If the US start all-out War with Iran, how many refugees would that create ? millions !
And if so, would we blame them/ the victems and drive them back from safety to the conflict area, or do we blame the US and demand they compensate their victems.
If we are to return to a sane world, the perpetrators MUST pay the price and receive full punishment .
American politicians always say ' we will do what is in America's interest' and right there is the problem - - - not able to anticipate the outcome of there own actions !
Example - all recent conflict.
One definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and over again !!
Arioch , Jun 14, 2019 4:47:32 AM | 221
Meanwhile Russia committed new batch of tests for Arctic-specific anti-air missiles, TOR-M2DT

https://lenta.ru/news/2019/06/14/torm2dt/

Reportedly, shooting was proceeded at maneuvering targets and in radio warfare environment

Wolle , Jun 14, 2019 5:09:27 AM | 222
This picture shows something:
https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/2000/q75.png-lossy-75.webp-lossy-75.foil1/_www-heise-de_/tp/imgs/89/2/6/9/6/1/8/2/hormus-9703e11223eece26.JPG
(it's also in some other german online media portals)
Most likely the damage caused by small limpet mines.
This devices can't sink a tankship particularly with a double hull.
It was definitly not a torpedo, an anti ship missile or a huge sea mine.
An Iranian coast watch or rescue boat retrieved an unexploded limpet mine from the other ship(Front Altair). IMHO it's normal to remove dangerous things before starting rescue operations. The USN/CENTCOM claims Iran try to hide something. This is also quite common. ;-)
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/06/13/video-shows-iranians-removing-limpet-mine-tanker-centcom-says.html
Yeah, Right , Jun 14, 2019 6:33:20 AM | 223
@224 Bizarre. The photo shows the limped mine on the starboard side of the ship. The video from the Bainbridge shows the Iranians removing that limped mine on the port side of the ship.

The photo doesn't appear reversed - the name is clearly seen - so why would the US reverse the video?

somebody , Jun 14, 2019 6:34:19 AM | 224
Posted by: All Forone | Jun 14, 2019 1:24:48 AM | 209

Yes, they have been taking on the US for quite some time now. No, they are not crazy.

They have been doing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMaRO8NVfjc

In case you wonder - Iran is the guy who did NOT get his tongue stuck.

Curtis , Jun 14, 2019 6:44:24 AM | 225
Okay, not a torpedo. Now it's a mine. But wait a minute, the Japanese say something was flying above the water. The US shows a video of the Iranians removing a limpet mine. The Japanese contest the "assessment" of the US and the US video shows the Iranians removing a mine NOT placing one.
The story gets stranger as the neoclowns push for war.
TEP , Jun 14, 2019 7:08:29 AM | 226
@18 b
Spot on. Time will tell how risky that was .... for us all.
Jen , Jun 14, 2019 7:27:31 AM | 227
James @ 212:

Try this Payvand.com link .

The other Wikipedia-connected link was the best I could find and the Payvand.com link is about second-best.

Walter , Jun 14, 2019 8:37:51 AM | 228
If infact the Iranians did recover from either ship an explosive machine, a mine, flying machine, rocket, unexploded torpedo,etc, or indeed any forensic material, that and the debriefings of the crews will make for great political theater...that stuff is fairly festooned with serial numbers... "film at 11", as they used to say...
William Gruff , Jun 14, 2019 8:58:52 AM | 229
Imagine the consternation in Langley!

"What? Only three booms? But we gave those idiots we hired four mines to attach to that ship! Oh, cr@p, the place is swarming with drones by now. What do we do about the fourth mine now? Can we pretend the Cubans stole it from us with their killer crickets and gave it to Iran?

Frank , Jun 14, 2019 9:16:56 AM | 230
Moon of Alabama lost all credibility with this article. Israel has a huge online troll party going on blaming Iran for this. Attack 2 tankers tied to Japanese interests,while the Japanese Leader is conferring with Iran's leader, outside the mouth of the Persian Gulf is too much codswallop to swallow.
Great Blue , Jun 14, 2019 9:26:57 AM | 231
Two comments: "Blamed Iran but did not present any evidence" says it all. These incidents remind one of the Vietnam Gulf of Tonkin "incident" in which the US government claimed their forces were attacked by North Vietnam. Subsequently it was proven by the NSA and others that there was no attack. It was simply propaganda to give the Americans an excuse to escalate the war. It would surprise no one, if it turned out that the US or Saudi's hired black operatives to stage these attacks so that they could escalate tensions with Iran.

and.

It was previously reported that the limpet mine was still attached to the ship. So why didn't the US, in need of solid evidence, go to the ship and remove the mine thereby obtaining hard evidence that could be evaluated? Instead, the US did nothing, Iran undertook its removal not wanting it to explode which makes sense. Then the US used it's removal by others to suggest complicity. The US is either incompetent or just making plots up (lying as usual). Iran's removal of the mine means nothing.

librul , Jun 14, 2019 9:29:19 AM | 232
I came to this article fully expecting another update from b

Don't see it. Is it being proofread at this moment?

The latest word is that some of the crew saw "flying objects" "shortly before the explosion".

Drones?

ALSO, the explosions were above the waterline. Mines are not known to behave like flying fish and jump out of the water at ships.

Update pending?

Grieved , Jun 14, 2019 9:33:00 AM | 233
@196 Anon - I agree

@134 Yonatan - A little frightener to Japan - this makes great sense and should have been obvious. Thanks for pointing it out.

@198 psychohistorian - it was a mouthful, but actually makes sense. Anon is saying that under the guise of seeming to be provoked and acting purely in reaction (to the bad actions of Iran, etc), the US is actually exerting and expanding its power in the region, all the while making the narrative say that it's the other unruly elements causing the ruckus.

I agree with Anon that it's more a case that a psy-ops theater has intensified, which tells several departments of the empire that the game can get a little harsher, and they can get away with it. It doesn't hurt that increased violence and aggravation on the region will raise the price of oil, which fits US thinking. In fact, with Bolton accusing Iran of trying to raise the price of oil, we now know with virtual certainty that these words reflect a US intention somewhere in the mix.

[Sidebar: Funny how they never dropped that old propaganda thing of accusing the target of your own actions before the target can accuse you of this act. I suspect this is an ancient ploy of evildoers - when you can't seize the moral high ground because you have no place there, then you must steal the moral high ground. Plunder and occupation by another name.]

The warning to Japan to hold steady to its western mission is very plausible. And anything that happens can be blamed on Iran anyway - the perfect patsy for all kinds of mayhem. And still Israel would like to provoke the US military into a suicidal attack on Iran.

So, several incentives for several players, several actions, and more to come, all under the virtual fog of virtual war.

Great Blue , Jun 14, 2019 9:35:35 AM | 234
The US has claimed that the tanker attacks showed "a level of sophistication implicating a nation, not a random terrorist". Again this is pure bullshit and propaganda from the Trump bunch. I recall the attack on the guided missile carrier, USS Cole in which the ship was damaged and a number of sailors were killed. The USS Cole was attacked successfully by a small fiberglass boat loaded with C4. Successful yet hardly "sophisticated". The US has been selling limpet mines and other armaments to every whack job group and country for decades. That a few of these made it onto a small boat and were delivered to the tankers is hardly surprising and does not require any sophistication at all. So once again, we have deception, lies, and war mongering coming out of the Blight House and its Trumpian orifices.
jared , Jun 14, 2019 9:43:32 AM | 235
I am guessing those Iranian mine removers accidentally left passport behind?
Or was flag on boat and Iranian Guard uniforms were give-away.
Thank goodness for the I/C - you can never have enough intelligence (or war).
Brave heart , Jun 14, 2019 9:50:47 AM | 236
This is my first time commenting in this blog. With all due respect to the writer and the quality of his journalism, sometimes it is easy to miss the distinction between causality versus correlation between events.
We tend to find patterns where they might not exist. From Iranian perspective, it was the first time they were being sanctioned for petrochemical materials versus raw oil. Not a fan of any government, but I believe true journalism should stay away from any judgment or speculation.
Thanks for all the great articles and analyses.
james , Jun 14, 2019 10:17:56 AM | 237
@227 jen... that link doesn't work either... maybe it is something on my end?

@235 jared... sounds about right!!

William Kierath , Jun 14, 2019 10:18:58 AM | 238
Has anyone thought it might be in the interests of the US which has a Glut of oil and want's to keep the price up and the Stock Market up too?
james , Jun 14, 2019 10:20:25 AM | 239
craig murrays take on it - The Gulf of Credibility
Seby , Jun 14, 2019 10:24:00 AM | 240
UAE
Seby , Jun 14, 2019 10:24:59 AM | 241
I meant uae
dh , Jun 14, 2019 10:26:55 AM | 242
@237 Just delete the / at the end of the URL. Happens a lot for some reason.
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 10:30:09 AM | 243
"flying objects" = drones?
...from JapanToday
Operator of tanker says sailors saw 'flying objects' just before attack
The Japanese operator ship operator of one of two oil tankers attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday said that sailors on board its vessel, the Kokuka Courageous, saw "flying objects" just before the attack, suggesting the tanker wasn't damaged by mines.
That account contradicts what the U.S. military has said as it released a video it says shows Iranian forces removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the two ships in the suspected attack.
Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, Yutaka Katada, president of Kokuka Sangyo Co, said he believes the flying objects seen by the sailors could be bullets, and denied possibility of mines or torpedoes because the damages were above the ship's waterline. He called reports of mine attack "false." . . here

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 10:41:17 AM | 244
from a limpet-skeptic
The two tanker vessels attacked Thursday are adrift in the Gulf of Oman today as the U.S. military is directing everyone's attention to a newly released, low-resolution video that allegedly shows a group of people in a watercraft removing an unexploded mine from the damaged hull of the M/T Kokuka Courageous in broad daylight and in clear view of the U.S. Navy's guided-missile destroyer, USS Bainbridge.
U.S. Central Command claims the small watercraft in the video belongs to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps: "an IRGC Gashti Class patrol boat," according to one of two evening statements by CENTCOM officials.
Worth noting: The boat's clear and distinct connection to Iran or the IRGC, however, is not evident in the video itself. Nor is it clear from the video (1) where the boat came from, (2) who the occupants were, (3) whether what was allegedly removed was in fact a limpet mine (as the OSINT folks at Bellingcat pointed out this morning), or (4) where the boat went to after its occupants concluded their activity from the side of the Courageous. . . here
james , Jun 14, 2019 10:44:40 AM | 245
@242 dh... thanks... jens link now works.. i will remember that for the future...

willy b at sst's site comments - The Tanker Attacks In the Gulf of Oman: Cui Bono?

by Willy B

arby , Jun 14, 2019 10:56:48 AM | 246
James

I liked the first comment--

"

Isn't it amazing how the Enemy-of-the-day always does exactly what you want it to do when you want it to?

Posted by: Patrick Armstrong | 14 June 2019 at 10:15 AM "

james , Jun 14, 2019 10:57:57 AM | 247
'Flying Object' Struck Tanker in Gulf of Oman, Operator Says, Not a Mine nyt article....

@244 don bacon - your link isn't working..

comment from craig murray poster spencer eagle- "There's one glaring thing wrong about that US video of Iranians allegedly removing a limpet mine from that tanker, too many spectators. Even if they did plant the mine, no crew in their right minds would gather round as their colleague made safe a live mine from a bobbing boat."

james , Jun 14, 2019 10:59:00 AM | 248
@arby - lol... patrick is pretty insightful...
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 10:59:30 AM | 249
@james
link works for me
EricT , Jun 14, 2019 11:00:05 AM | 250
It would be interesting to checkout the Call Option and Oil contract activity prior to the attack.
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 11:00:19 AM | 251
from LongWarJournal
Yemen's Houthis target Saudi airports
Over the span of 24 hours, Yemen's Houthi insurgent movement has twice targeted the Abha international airport with missiles and suicide drones.
At least 26 people were wounded on Wednesday after the Houthis launched a cruise missile at the Abha airport. Video of the bombing released by Saudi Arabia shows the moment the missile struck the airport. The use of a cruise missile on a civilian infrastructure represents a major shift in the war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi insurgents.
Speaking to the Houthi-ran Al Masirah News, an official spokesman said that the strike came in response to Saudi aggression in Yemen and civilians should avoid "vital and military areas as they have become legitimate targets to us." . . here
james , Jun 14, 2019 11:03:13 AM | 252
@249 don.. i tried it again and it works.. weird... thanks..
Barbarossa , Jun 14, 2019 11:09:24 AM | 253
These tanker attacks have Butthead and Pompusass written all over them. Butthead and Pompusass - meglomania at its finest.
mk , Jun 14, 2019 11:12:47 AM | 254

I've just seen the Navy video. I've got some problems with the shadows. They seem too long.

The incident has supposedly happened at 4 pm local time. The location is almost exactly situated on the Tropic of Cancer, i.e now, Mid June, the sun creates almost vertically shadows at midday. At 4 pm, the angle should still be 60 degree or so. Correspondingly the shadows should still be very short. The shadows in the video to me appear to be created by a 30 degree sun angle at most. This is of course only a preliminary estimation.

Bottom line: The video doesn't match the supposed time and location of the incidence.

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 11:13:12 AM | 255
Trump says tanker attack 'has Iran written all over it' as Tehran denies involvement
"Iran did do it, and you know they did it because you saw the boat" . . here
and here's the boat. High-resolution it ain't.

Also lacking any resolution is what can the US do next, since its options are severely limited.
IMO Iran has the US by the short hairs. In fact Iran may provide an encore,just to rub it in.

Jackrabbit , Jun 14, 2019 11:14:48 AM | 256
Drone-delivered limpet mines?
Arioch , Jun 14, 2019 11:20:38 AM | 257
Correct map links from #206/207 and #227 were:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iranian_borders_in_Omans_and_Persian_Gulf_(Cro).PNG
http://www.payvand.com/news/16/jan/Farsi-Island-in-Persian-Gulf.jpg

Notice - they end with the file name, not with a folder name ( no "/" slash on the end ).

Dunno how people manage to insert that extra slash to the end.
Without it both links work ok.

Virgile , Jun 14, 2019 11:21:17 AM | 258
After hundred of sanctions on Iran, Trump is now faced with a tough decision.
1- Order military attacks on Iran and start a tit for tat escalation that would to a disaster in the region and hampers Trump re-election
2 Attack Iran's so called proxies: Hezbollah, Houthis, Syria then regional allies of the USA, ie the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel will get more of these 'mini attacks' that will disrupt oil supplies and Israel security. These attacks will show the world that Trump's big talk and economical sanctions are totally ineffective

I think that while Iran may not be responsible for the attacks in the Oman Gulf, I am sure that they condone them without hesitation. Who ever is doing it intentionaly or not is giving to Iran a posture that Trump will have to match.

That is why Trump's only choice other than war is to fire Bolton and scapegoat him at the risk of losing the Israeli lobby and the neocons support for his re election.
Yet if he wants to keep the Israeli lobbies support, Trump will need to have Netanyahu re-elected..
That is his only choice
Already foreign medias are demonizing Bolton as a prelude to his firing
Is John Bolton the most dangerous man in the world?

Zanon , Jun 14, 2019 11:22:51 AM | 259
Intersting that the boarding crew on one of the boat were russians, also a puzzle?

Don Bacon

US could of course do anything they want, as they have in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan - you name it.
Next thing could be an explosion on a military US frigate or something similar. We all know who would be blamed and call for US attacks would be real simple.

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 11:25:29 AM | 260
from CDR Salamander
Let's break that in to little bits.
1. No USA ships are involved.
2. No USA citizens are involved.
3. No USA territory or waters are involved.
4. All cargo was headed to Asia.
. . .This. Is. Not. Our. Problem.
What is Norway doing? Japan? They are both our allies, but they have the lead on this - not us.
Who really benefits from this? It isn't Iran. It certainly is not the USA.
Everyone needs to take a powder and take a step back.
This talk of military action this soon is insanity. This is irresponsible. . . here
Jackrabbit , Jun 14, 2019 11:28:20 AM | 261
If drone-delivered: the mines would be heavy so a long-range drone would be needed. However, if the drone took off from a near-by ship then then a less complex drone could be used. But a small ship lacks space for a runway. It would need some sort of launcher/catapult. Oh, here's one .

What ships were in the area?

Zanon , Jun 14, 2019 11:32:59 AM | 262
What is needed now is information what really happend - I dont see any info on what was actually happend but people that call for war.
Was it a mine? Missile? Torped? Grenade? Lets say it was a type of missile that was produced by nation X, who fired it?
Who/what was put there?
Was it an exercise that these ships accidently moved in to? - Was it an accident?
jared , Jun 14, 2019 11:38:34 AM | 263
@Don Bacon

Relates to security of transport through the straight.
If Iran were in fact responsible, would make me question their sanity.
Barring that they are insane, I cannot see how it could be Iran, could be anybody except Iran.
To state the obvious: Look at motive and opportunity.
If Trump were not insane/idiot, he might suggest that there are many with possible motive and that it should be carefully investigated before action or even comment is made - more babies from incubators and dead ducks. How stupid is Trump really.

UFO's Are Real! , Jun 14, 2019 11:41:32 AM | 264
"Our crew said that the ship was attacked by a flying object," Mr. Katada said of the incident on Thursday.

What kind of flying object? Apparently it is as of yet unidentified.

In other words, the NYT is reporting that the operator of the ship is claiming that the ship was hit by a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object.) Whoo, Whoo!

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 11:43:15 AM | 265
Iran tightens the screws....
from TehranTimes
B-Team launching 'sabotage diplomacy' against Iran, Zarif warns
TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday accused Washington of jumping "to make allegations against Iran without a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence" as two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday. . . here
Zanon , Jun 14, 2019 11:44:16 AM | 266
The propaganda war has already been won by the US, it is Iran Iran Iran and the MSM and even some people here talk about Iran having or might have some culpability. Meanwhile NO ONE could show any evidence or reason for the argument.
Think about that, how easily desinformation works and how illogical it really is.
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 11:52:41 AM | 267
@ jr 261
[Drone] would need some sort of launcher/catapult
Couldn't it be a rotary-wing drone like they sell at Verizon?
Oscar Peterson , Jun 14, 2019 11:58:43 AM | 268
@James 239

Murray makes good points--as usual. The bit out the Norwegian tanker's owners having a history of cooperation with the Iranian government is interesting.

@mk 254

The timeline in the CENTCOM release is interesting, claiming that the alleged IRGC craft arrived at the Japanese ship around 0800 but didn't take the "limpet mine" or whatever it was until 1600. If the boat were IRGC and was trying to remove evidence--a command-detonated explosive that failed to explode?--you'd think they would do it immediately. Also, I can't tell what kind of video the released clip is--EO or IR? It doesn't look like EO taken in daylight.


Zanon , Jun 14, 2019 12:01:02 PM | 269
Important comment at Craig Murray's blog:

The american admiral in charge is fanatically anti-iranian:


It is important to realize that Chief of Naval O[erations Admiral John Richardson, a creature of former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, is taking the lead in this warmongering against Iran.

He and Carter were opposed to the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration worked out with Tehran, and are now working to deneuclarize the Iranian regime.

Richardson had the Navy look allegedly for those two sunk subs found soon after they disappeared, the USS Scorpion and Thresther, when they were actually looking for the USS Batfish and Puffer which were sunk in 1982 in the Anglo-American War against Sweden soon after Ricgardson joined the submarine corps.

He is a full blown warmonger against America's alleged enemies.


https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/06/the-gulf-of-credibility/comment-page-1/#comment-874155
jared , Jun 14, 2019 12:03:46 PM | 270
I am surprised to see some posters and Bevin proposing that maybe it was Iran, at this point.
Seems premature. Though it is possible, barring substantial evidence, it would be my starting point that that is the least likely scenario.
And the jump to conclusion (as by Trump et al) suggests bias or motive.
Jackrabbit , Jun 14, 2019 12:04:09 PM | 271
There are also helicopter drones .

Here's another catapult drone and this video also shows drone recovery via wire from a mast .

Distance to target would be reduced by heavy mines but using multiple drones would help with that problem.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

It's not just the drone tech that's important. If you're going to do a 'op' like this where you want guaranteed non-attribution, then you've got to have the tech well tested and very reliable. A drone failure or mission foul-up could be devastating.

So, its not an off-the shelf drone and it's a hand-picked crew that has been trained on such a mission over months and it's "off the books" and it's carried out by an organization that can ensure secrecy (implying intelligence organization). Thus, a "state actor".

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:06:28 PM | 272
I think that concluding now that Iran didn't do it is a mistake.
> We don't know who did it.
> Tehran clearly indicated it had enough of the US aggressive baseless sanctions, and would do something.
> Tehran is controlling the discourse ("lack of evidence," etc).
> US (AKA world-power) choices are extremely limited; Iran's aren't.
jared , Jun 14, 2019 12:07:34 PM | 273
OT: Excellent posting by (in my layman's opinion) excellent site for info and comment and excellent author:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/06/01/brainwashing-in-action-pence-hails-virtue-of-certain-war/
h , Jun 14, 2019 12:10:52 PM | 274
Man, people still don't get Trump's voters.

Virgil suggests above that Trump's only choices to deal with this incident is to start a war or fire Bolton. He goes onto suggest if Trump fired Bolton he'd lose the neocon vote and Israel's support.

WRONG. Please go to conservative sites. Any of them. During the primaries and campaign. Read and learn for yourself what the conservative voter was demanding of the nominee in comment sections. Please. Folks make these declarations that are not true. Trump voters do not want war. Trump voters do not want regime changes. And Trump voters are as suspicious if not more so of Bolton than many here are.

Neocons aka Never Trumpers after the campaign took their toys and left the right side of the aisle. They embraced their kissing cousins the neo libs who own the Dem Party. Conservatives loathe the neocons. The neocons loathe conservatives.

Only warmongers and its profiteers want war - NeoCons and NeoLibs. The rest of us Americans - right, left, middle, indy, green whatever DO NOT WANT WAR WITH ANY DAMNED BODY.

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:12:11 PM | 275
@ Zanon 269
The american admiral in charge is fanatically anti-iranian:
The CNO has no authority over naval operations, that takes place in the combat commands, CENTCOM (Tampa) in this case.
jared , Jun 14, 2019 12:13:48 PM | 276
More on topic:
Voice of reason (nails it as usual)-
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/14/seven-reasons-to-be-highly-skeptical-of-the-gulf-of-oman-incident/
librul , Jun 14, 2019 12:17:30 PM | 277
@various

Isn't it amazing how the Enemy-of-the-day always does exactly what you want it to do when you want it to?

that about sums it up

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:19:18 PM | 278
Johstone linked @ 276
". . .the US has been provoking Iran with extremely aggressive and steadily tightening sanctions, which means that even if Tehran is behind the attacks, it would not be the aggressor and the attacks would most certainly not have been "unprovoked". Economic sanctions are an act of war; if China were to do to America's economy what America is doing to Iran's, the US would be in a hot war with China immediately. It could technically be possible that Iran is pushing back on US aggressions and provocations, albeit in a strange and neoconservatively convenient fashion."
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:19:50 PM | 279
sorry, Johnstone
jared , Jun 14, 2019 12:20:32 PM | 280
@h

Excellent comment.
But neocons and zionists are taking over the Trump agenda.
Trump supporters are becoming confused about what they support - they support Trump so they are increasingly defending this ziocon crap.

But your point is I think very excellent, the public (and Trumps original supporters in particular) does not want war (with the exception of some religious kooks, perhaps).

jared , Jun 14, 2019 12:23:05 PM | 281
@Don Bacon

Yes, it is possible.
But why would that be important to note, at this point?
Many things are possible.

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:26:40 PM | 282
Neocons aren't solely responsible for anything, but depended upon support form "liberals" AKA neo-libs for the various mistaken wars. That includes people like: Gore, Biden, Obama, and the Clintons.
Trump is anti-establishment for the most part so that is a good thing, in regard to Russia for one specific thing, but nothing in life is perfect.
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:29:02 PM | 283
@ jared 281
What are you talking about?
Zanon , Jun 14, 2019 12:32:15 PM | 284
Don Bacon

Trump has been as bad on Russia as the "establishment" - perhaps even worse, its a myth that Trump appease Russia.

Jackrabbit , Jun 14, 2019 12:33:48 PM | 285
I would remind everyone that the greatest pressure against US+allies strategy of economic strangulation of Iran and Syria is the current operation to retake Idlib.

Yesterday's attacks against shipping will almost certainly be used as an excuse to increase US troop levels and/or act belligerently in defense of their "interests" such as retaining Idlib.

From SST (see link provided by james @245):

As for what the US might do about it, the New York Times reports that yesterday morning, after the news of the attack began to break, there was a previously scheduled meeting in "the Tank" at the Pentagon, involving Shanahan, Dunford and other top officials to discuss threats in the Middle East and US troop levels. The Times reports that weeks prior Centcom chief Gen. McKenzie had actually asked for 20,000 troops but that Dunford expressed the fear that if that many were ordered to the Gulf, it would be provocative "and perhaps a sign that, despite denials, the Trump administration's real goal was regime change." [Note: 1,500 troops were reported to have been approved] Prior to yesterday's meeting Shanahan and Dunford were ready to make the case that Mr. Trump had told the Pentagon to reduce American forces and United States involvement in the current wars in the Middle East, and avoid direct confrontation with Iran ...
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:37:38 PM | 286
Now Tehran has the option to say to the US: Drop those thirteen demands and we'll talk.
It has other options also, now that the air has been cleared a bit.
Khamenei will have to approve whatever it is, and he's a realist
Peter AU 1 , Jun 14, 2019 12:39:52 PM | 287
https://www.bs-shipmanagement.com/en/media/emergency-response
14 June 2019
Media Statement
"Update - Kokuka Courageous incident – Gulf of Oman
The Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) managed product carrier Kokuka Courageous is now safely undertow in the Gulf of Oman heading towards Kalba Anchorage, UAE....

...The vessel was about 70 nautical miles from Fujairah and about 16 nautical miles from the coast of Iran
BSM is actively monitoring the situation in the Gulf of Oman and will issue another statement when we have further details."
....

A search of the internet brings up no photos whatsoever of this ship under tow or at any time after it was attacked... apart from the microsoft paint job. I guess the damage does not match the US narrative.

karlof1 , Jun 14, 2019 12:40:46 PM | 288
Seriously, a drone attaching a limpet mine?! Please use your brains before proposing something that ludicrous!

Why not look at what occurred in the Brent Oil Market for drones instead. This chart shows trading volume and price before and after event. What you see is a massive shorting followed by covering, followed by another short play, then further covering. Some entity(ies) made a lot of money with their prior knowledge of the event. The tankers didn't need to be sunk to drive that play; just a little Flare to provide visibility. How do I know what's depicted by the chart is shorting followed by covering? I've seen such behavior a great number of times before, particularly in the run-up to the massive financial takedown in 2007-8 when many mortgage writing firms were shorted massively so they could be bought-up for next to nothing. Such behavior has CIA/Mossad stamped all over it, which is what I thought to begin with.

Zack , Jun 14, 2019 12:41:54 PM | 289
Politico: Trump points the finger at Iran for oil tanker attacks

Pompeo:

Well, Iran did do it. You know they did it, because you saw the boat, I guess one of the mines didn't explode and it's probably got, essentially, Iran written all over it," he said. "And you saw the boat at night trying to take the mine off , and successfully took the mine off the boat and that was exposed. And that was their boat, that was them. And they didn't want the evidence left behind.

Trump:

While Trump added that Iran must not have known the U.S. has nighttime surveillance capabilities , a timeline from U.S. Central Command accompanying the video's release indicates the apparent mine removal happened in broad daylight , which would make the operation even more brazen."

Hmmmm........

These attacks could have only been the work of a sophisticated nation state actor. Specifically a sophisticated nation state actor that does not know that the US has "nighttime surveillance capabilities".

The US has officially jumped the shark.

Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:42:00 PM | 290
@ Zanon 284
Trump has been as bad on Russia as the "establishment"
Not by choice, I believe, and the US president is not a total dictator. Often he must do what he's told, especially when the establishment (especially the "intelligence" community) is out to get him, and they don't take prisoners.
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:45:57 PM | 291
@ karlof 288
Seriously, a drone attaching a limpet mine?! Please use your brains ..
Where did you read that?
A reference would be helpful.
Or are you kidding. Must be. So say so?
Don Bacon , Jun 14, 2019 12:48:41 PM | 292
The US has not only lost the narrative, it has royally screwed the pooch, getting in deeper and deeper with its falsehoods. Can a laughing-stock rule the world?
somebody , Jun 14, 2019 12:50:33 PM | 293
Posted by: h | Jun 14, 2019 12:10:52 PM | 274

I agree. Trump can only do this election wise if it is a quick campaign that lets him claim victory fast and does not involve dying US soldiers.

As is, there is a huge problem already for the US to leave Afghanistan.

Saudi might have been crazy enough to do it as they need serious help with the Houthis.
I doubt Israel is interested in a war that might get them into Hezbollah's crosshairs.

I don't think, by the way, that economic problems from the sanctions are forcing Iran, as there is this Chinese - Pakistan - Iran sea route. There is also a connection to Russia via the Caspian . And I don't doubt they have good relations to the -stans.

They simply own one of the most strategic places the world has to offer. With mountains .

And they have something like a 2500 year tradition of empire and strategy .


[Jun 14, 2019] Our old acquaintance Crowdstrike has gone public, and in its IPO debut, the stock surged to a market cap of over $12 Billion

Notable quotes:
"... Surprisingly, Crowdstrike's CEO – George Kurtz – does not have a background in the national intelligence services, or none that is immediately apparent. He seems to have worked mostly in private security, having gotten into it fairly early on, and is an accountant by trade; he seems to be the public face of the firm, and to be mostly involved in marketing. ..."
"... However, their president of services, Shawn Henry, is a former executive assistant director of the FBI, and I imagine its employees include quite a few former government spooks and ideologues. ..."
"... The other co-founder, though, is Dmitry Alperovitch. ..."
"... He's a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, a direct adviser to the US Department of Defense, connected to Hillary Clinton and runs a new corporation whose startup cash came from Google. There's something even bigger than Google – corporations now seem more and more to be merging into what are essentially mini-states within the state itself – and it is called Alphabet Capital, Google's parent company. The Chairman of Alphabet Capital is Eric Schmidt, and he was actively working for Hillary Clinton during the last election when she spectacularly failed to make the cut. ..."
"... Google, allegedly, is becoming more and more an arm of the Democratic Party in the USA. ..."
"... Wheels within wheels, and connections seen and unseen. Several security professionals and software developers have alluded to Crowdstrike's reports on international hacking as being full of shit – but the American enforcement and intelligence services seem content to outsource their cyber work more or less exclusively to Crowdstrike. And the results of its IPO suggest high confidence on the part of investors that it is going to become ever-more-closely allied to the US government, font of government grants and funding which can be hard to trace. ..."
"... For what it's worth, the Crowdstrike story that Russian cyber-meddling had knocked out 80% of Ukrainian artillery systems was deemed bogus by several other sources, including the Ukrainian Army. At its most basic, artillery systems are large ballistic rifles that drop artillery shells on a predetermined position by looking the reference up on a gridded map and inputting corrections for elevation and azimuth; there is nothing computer-connected about them. Somewhere near the nearest elevated position in relation to the target there is a spotter, who notes the fall of shot and calls the corrections; "left two, up fifty", or "in line, on for range; fire for effect". The latter would be followed by a barrage on what the spotter had identified as a direct hit by the spotting rounds. ..."
Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman June 12, 2019 at 10:31 am

Well, well; look at that. Our old acquaintance Crowdstrike has gone public, and in its IPO debut, the stock surged to a market cap of over $12 Billion – worth nearly as much as Symantec, which has been around for nearly 40 years. Up 83% in a single day. Gee; I wonder who's buying in? I guess we can look forward to more whispering about Russian cybercrime and internet invasion in the days to come. Stealing elections, even, maybe, hmmm?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/12/crowdstrike-ipo-stock-starts-trading-on-the-nasdaq.html

Surprisingly, Crowdstrike's CEO – George Kurtz – does not have a background in the national intelligence services, or none that is immediately apparent. He seems to have worked mostly in private security, having gotten into it fairly early on, and is an accountant by trade; he seems to be the public face of the firm, and to be mostly involved in marketing.

However, their president of services, Shawn Henry, is a former executive assistant director of the FBI, and I imagine its employees include quite a few former government spooks and ideologues.

https://www.crowdstrike.com/about-crowdstrike/executive-team/george-kurtz/

The other co-founder, though, is Dmitry Alperovitch.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/01/06/dnc-russian-hacking-conclusion-comes-google-linked-firm/

He's a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, a direct adviser to the US Department of Defense, connected to Hillary Clinton and runs a new corporation whose startup cash came from Google. There's something even bigger than Google – corporations now seem more and more to be merging into what are essentially mini-states within the state itself – and it is called Alphabet Capital, Google's parent company. The Chairman of Alphabet Capital is Eric Schmidt, and he was actively working for Hillary Clinton during the last election when she spectacularly failed to make the cut.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-24/what-crowdstrike-firm-hired-dnc-has-ties-hillary-clinton-ukrainian-billionaire-and-g

Google, allegedly, is becoming more and more an arm of the Democratic Party in the USA.

There is also another gap in play: The shrinking distance between Google and the Democratic Party. Former Google executive Stephanie Hannon is the Clinton campaign's chief technology officer, and a host of ex-Googlers are currently employed as high-ranking technical staff at the Obama White House. Schmidt, for his part, is one of the most powerful donors in the Democratic Party -- and his influence does not stem only from his wealth, estimated by Forbes at more than $10 billion.

Wheels within wheels, and connections seen and unseen. Several security professionals and software developers have alluded to Crowdstrike's reports on international hacking as being full of shit – but the American enforcement and intelligence services seem content to outsource their cyber work more or less exclusively to Crowdstrike. And the results of its IPO suggest high confidence on the part of investors that it is going to become ever-more-closely allied to the US government, font of government grants and funding which can be hard to trace.

Mark Chapman June 12, 2019 at 4:25 pm
Here's a colorful account of Crowdstrike's exploits and their alleged track record of coming up with convenient narratives on demand.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-russian-collusion-delusion-in-a-nutshell/

For what it's worth, the Crowdstrike story that Russian cyber-meddling had knocked out 80% of Ukrainian artillery systems was deemed bogus by several other sources, including the Ukrainian Army. At its most basic, artillery systems are large ballistic rifles that drop artillery shells on a predetermined position by looking the reference up on a gridded map and inputting corrections for elevation and azimuth; there is nothing computer-connected about them. Somewhere near the nearest elevated position in relation to the target there is a spotter, who notes the fall of shot and calls the corrections; "left two, up fifty", or "in line, on for range; fire for effect". The latter would be followed by a barrage on what the spotter had identified as a direct hit by the spotting rounds.

Kaspersky Labs also took Crowdstrike apart,

https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/kasperskys-war-on-crowdstrike-evangelist-dmitri-alperovitch/

and mention of Kaspersky reminded me the US government had used 'advice' from its security experts to determine Kaspersky products constituted a threat to US national security just like Huawei, a connection I have not seen made yet elsewhere.

Mmmm .I wonder if Crowdstrike is not being set up specifically to provide the US government with substantiation for banning technical products which have the potential to achieve dominant market share, but cannot be manipulated by Washington because they are owned by non-aligned countries?

[Jun 14, 2019] Originally, creation of the Arc of Crisis was proposed by Bernard Lewis as a means to divide and rule, which has always been the British Empire s mody operandi , and Zbigniew Brzezinski wanted to create an Arc of Crisis all along the southern border of the USSR and later, Russia

Notable quotes:
"... Except for Afghanistan, the "Arc of Crisis" hasn't been all that successful as far as creating instability to Russia's south, and it hasn't been all that successful in promoting Anglo-American hegemony either. However, it has been wildly successful in perpetuating the "arc of instability" that justifies US military spending, so the MIC is quite well satisfied with the policies whether the broader interests and security of the British and American people are served well by the policy or not. ..."
"... Interesting to note that Daesh only ever appear to be attacking the traditional enemies of the Zionist. ..."
"... Daesh are like another Gladio, but on steroids. ..."
Jun 14, 2019 | washingtonsblog.com
Southern 4 years ago • edited ,

Thanks for clarifying this - The roots of ISIS can be found in this article Creating an "Arc of Crisis": The Destabilization of the Middle East and Central Asia

Bill Rood Southern 4 years ago ,

Yes. Originally, creation of the "Arc of Crisis" was proposed by Bernard Lewis as a means to divide and rule, which has always been the British Empire's mody operandi , and Zbigniew Brzezinski wanted to create an "Arc of Crisis" all along the southern border of the USSR and later, Russia.

Except for Afghanistan, the "Arc of Crisis" hasn't been all that successful as far as creating instability to Russia's south, and it hasn't been all that successful in promoting Anglo-American hegemony either. However, it has been wildly successful in perpetuating the "arc of instability" that justifies US military spending, so the MIC is quite well satisfied with the policies whether the broader interests and security of the British and American people are served well by the policy or not.

Southern Bill Rood 4 years ago • edited ,

There are many different aspects to this, like from the moment that large numbers of prisoners on death row in S.A. were given the ultimatum for joining the FSA or decline and face certain execution.

Too often regions are deliberately being exploited by greedy individuals and mixed into politics.

Interesting to note that Daesh only ever appear to be attacking the traditional enemies of the Zionist.

Daesh are like another Gladio, but on steroids.

Check this out - letter from Raqqa

[Jun 14, 2019] Corrupt "good guys," Tax Justice Network kills podcast on Browder

Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al June 7, 2019 at 1:42 am

I followed the 'J'accuse News' tweet in response to Barnes's mea post culpa and came across this:

Corrupt "good guys," Tax Justice Network kills podcast on Browder
https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2019/05/corrupt-good-guys-tax-justice-network-kills-podcast-on-browder/

By Lucy Komisar
May 11, 2019

The Tax Justice Network, organized in 2003 to fight offshore tax evasion and corruption, has censored a podcast its founding director recorded when I spoke at the Offshore Alert Conference in November in London. I didn't write about this before now, because I though the TJN leaders might change their minds. But it turns out they are either cowardly or corrupt.
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Browder's tentacles run far, but only as far as his backers allow him, which leads me to ask 'what would it take for them to drop him'? Browder has a shelf-life and at some point he will be surplus to requirement .

Mark Chapman June 7, 2019 at 3:19 pm
That's a very sad story. You can really only take on someone like Browder when you have nothing to lose – it seems that as soon as you attract interest at an organizational level, it turns out that organization is afraid of losing its funding, and bows to the power which threatens to take it away. Note that he was not able to intimidate Nekrasov into not making his film, but he was able to browbeat theatres into not showing it.

Sooner or later it will all come crashing down for Browder. But The USA will protect him until they have something to replace the Magnitsky Act so they can continue to legally discriminate against Russia. If Browder goes down, the act he worked so hard to get on the books will be revealed as partisan bullshit, and nobody in the west wants that.

[Jun 14, 2019] 'Make Russia Prostrate Again' Is the Only Thing US Democrats and Republicans Can Agree on

Jun 14, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Despite the deep schism that separates America's deranged political duopoly, they do share a common foreign policy pet project, and that is to prevent Russia from ever shining again on the global stage in all fields of endeavor.

One of Donald Trump's main pledges on the 2016 campaign trail was to rekindle the dying embers of US-Russia relations, which had been undergoing a mini Ice Age under Barack Obama, his ballyhooed 'reset' notwithstanding. But before Trump was ever put to the test of romancing Russia, he was sidelined by one of the most malicious political stunts of the modern age.

It is only necessary to recall the 2016 Winter of Our Discontent when the Democratic leader sent 35 Russian diplomats and their families packing just before New Year's Eve in retaliation for Russia's alleged involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee's computers. Before Trump ascended the throne, those unfounded claims lit the fuse on 'Russiagate,' the debacle which continues to undermine not just US-Russia relations, but the entire US political system.

Yet would things have turned out any differently between Washington and Moscow had the Democrats graciously accepted defeat in 2016 without feeling the need to blame remote Russia? I am not sure.

Today, observers reason that the US Republicans have no choice but to 'get tough' on Russia in an effort to dispel Democrat-generated rumors of excessive coziness with the Kremlin. Last year, for example, Trump bested Obama on the Russia front when he expelled 60 Russian diplomats in response to an alleged assassination attempt on former British spy, Sergey Skripal; an astonishing move on the part of the US conservative, but with so much riding on the line was it really a surprise?

And what was it exactly that was 'riding on the line'? Aside from good relations between the world's two premier nuclear powers, not to mention thwarting nuclear Armageddon as Prime Minister Theresa May very unwisely issued an ultimatum to Russia over the matter, there is the question of hundreds of billions of dollars of business contracts – from gas supplies to military hardware. Tycoon Trump would sooner win over European gas supplies than the plains of Central Asia, for example, the geopolitical lynchpin so dear to the hearts of US policymakers, like the late Zbigniew Brzezinski. This is where so many people misread Donald Trump: His heart and mind is devoted to the business deals, not the military steals. But that doesn't necessarily make his moves are any less dangerous.

From President Trump's perspective, Russia is a 500-pound cigar-chomping guy at the negotiating table with an ego and stature equal to his own that must be vanquished lest The Deal be lost and he – Donald J. Trump, CEO and Founder of The Trump Organization – look like a second-rate negotiator and fraud. Similar to the methods a belligerent globalist, Trump the inveterate businessman will do anything to achieve leverage in the pursuit of profit.

This is where Trump was only too happy to oblige the British with their extremely suspect Skripal story because vilifying the Russians, once again, would give the US an upper hand in stealing business away from Moscow, most notably in the realm of European gas supplies. Presently, the Trump administration is trying hard to halt progress on Nord Stream 2, an ambitious 11 billion euro ($12.4 billion) project to construct a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.

Speaking from Kiev this week, US Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Washington, once again endorsing the spirit of free competition and enterprise, was preparing to introduce sanctions on foreign companies involved in the project.

But that's just the beginning.

To show how low the Americans would stoop to get a piece of this lucrative European market, which the Russian's have been dutifully supplying for many decades, they've gone for some dramatic rebranding , calling LNG supplies "freedom gas." You know, the byproduct of 'freedom fries.'

"Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America's allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy," said US Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes.

Dmitry Peskov, official spokesman of the Russian president, scoffed at such cynical attempts by Washington to strong-arm nations into accepting its preferred version of the 'free market.'

"Instead of fair competition they prefer to act like in Wild West times," Peskov told RT's Sophie Shevardnadze ahead of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). "They just show the gun and say that no, you guys here in Europe, you are going to buy our natural gas and we don't care that it is at least 30% more expensive than the gas coming from the Russians. This is the case."

Perhaps nowhere else is this effort to 'control the market' more evident than in the realm of military spending, and particularly among NATO states. Currently, European countries spend some $240 billion annually on military weapons and forces, while Russia spends just $66 billion each year. Yet for businessmen like Trump, that is not good enough. Employing the vacuous claim of an 'aggressive Russia,' Trump is passing around the proverbial hat, demanding that NATO members contribute an ever-higher amount of their GDP to military spending. At the same, the eastern border with Russia has become militarized like never before.

Here there is striking convergence on the part of the Democrats and Republicans when it comes to Russia. The Democrats under Barack Obama, accepting the baton passed to them by the Bush administration, dropped a US-made missile defense system in Romania, a stone's throw from the Russian border. Obama's assurances that the Russians would be allowed to participate in the project were casually forgotten. But the Russians, who know a thing or two about military strategy, did not forget. Last year, Vladimir Putin unveiled a number of daunting military breakthroughs, including hypersonic weapons, which the Russian leader explained were developed with the sole purpose of striking a strategic balance between the two nuclear superpowers. And if the world needs more of anything these days, it is certainly balance.

With such ploys in mind, it is easy to see why Moscow has little cause for celebration with either a Democrat or Republican in the White House. Both political parties have long viewed Russia not as a potential partner that could lend tremendous assistance in resolving some of the planet's most intractable problems, but rather as some Cold War foe that needs vilified and vanquished. Of course there is good reason for this decades-long duplicity. The double-pronged attack by the Democrats and Republicans allows Washington to continue to make strategic inroads against Russia, as well as China, while filling the corporate coffers at the same time. It is an age-old strategy – albeit a foolhardy one in an age of nuclear weapons – which is doomed to ultimate failure, if not disaster, if left unchecked. The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. Tags: NATO Perry Russia Trump US

[Jun 14, 2019] From Russian oil to rock'n'roll: the rise of Len Blavatnik

Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al June 7, 2019 at 3:28 pm

Financial Crimes: From Russian oil to rock'n'roll: the rise of Len Blavatnik
https://www.ft.com/content/c1889f48-871a-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2

He made a fortune in the chaotic world of 1990s Russian capitalism, then took a place at the heart of the British establishment

Striding the halls of an English stately home, dressed in full costume as Victorian prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, Len Blavatnik was celebrating his 60th birthday. Grammy-winner Bruno Mars sang. Guests -- some in frock coats, others dressed as Leo Tolstoy, Rasputin or Chinese emissaries -- mixed with rock stars, celebrities and business tycoons.

Themed as an imaginary conference chaired by Disraeli, the June 2017 party was emblematic of Blavatnik's extraordinary rise from his birth in Soviet Ukraine to one of the UK's richest people
####

A lot more at the link.

So why did Abramovic get the bum rush? He's kept his head down, not made waves, behaved himself and spent a lot of money in the UK (Chelsea FC) which the above FT article sniffs at as unworthy (snobs), but the Brit government still stiffed his visa and he hasn't been back to the UK even though he now also has I-sraeli citizenship that affords him visa-free entry to the UK. Is it because the UK and others need some oligarchs on the side just in case their dream comes true and they need to parachute in some reliable Russians? That wouldn't surprise me. Government in waiting. Maybe Abramovic said "No." Wrong answer.

moscowexile June 8, 2019 at 11:57 pm
Parachute in some reliable Russians ???

You mean "Sir" Leonard Blavatnik?

Леонид Валентинович Блаватник (Сэр Леонард Блаватник; англ. Sir Leonard Blavatnik или Len Blavatnik; род. 14 июня 1957, Одесса -- американский и британский предприниматель и промышленник еврейского происхождения. В 2015 году возглавил список богатейших людей Великобритании Russian Wiki

Leonid Valentinovich Blavatnik (Sir Leonard Blavatnik or Len Blavatnik); born 14 June 1957, Odessa – American and British entrepreneur and industrialist of Jewish ancestry. In 2015, headed a list of the richest people in Great Britain

[Jun 14, 2019] MI5 'unlawfully' handled bulk surveillance data, lawsuit reveals

Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al June 11, 2019 at 8:05 am

SkyNudes: MI5 'unlawfully' handled bulk surveillance data, lawsuit reveals
https://news.sky.com/story/mi5-unlawfully-handled-bulk-surveillance-data-lawsuit-reveals-11739729

The security service is accused of breaking the law and documents state the "the task [of complying with it] was too large".

"The documents show extraordinary and persistent illegality in MI5's operations, apparently for many years," said civil liberties organisation Liberty, which is bringing the case.

"The existence of what MI5 itself calls 'ungoverned spaces' in which it holds and uses large volumes of private data is a serious failure of governance and oversight, especially when mass collection of data of innocent citizens is concerned."
####

Incompetent? No. Don't give a shit? Yes.

It won't make a blind bit of difference as the security service have broad brush surveillance powers and the 'National Security' exception behind them. At least they are not handing over that data to their terrorist sponsoring Gulf brothers Oh, hang on, can't rule anything out!

[Jun 14, 2019] By this stage I wonder if all Skripals neighbours aren't all "ex" spooks

Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Cortes June 9, 2019 at 11:24 pm

A real shame that Dr David Kelly took his own life. I'm sure he'd have been able to shed light on the latest news from Wiltshire:

https://www.rt.com/uk/461463-novichok-bb-skripal-house/

By this stage I wonder if all the neighbours aren't all "ex" spooks from hither and yon. Who else would tolerate the nonsense they've been subjected to without reaching out to their learned friends? Good luck with putting a house on the market with that circus going on.

Moscow Exile June 10, 2019 at 3:29 am
Such stringent measures would surely not be taken by HM govt and British security if they had no evidence that those evil Russians had attempted to kill the Skripals with Novichok.

Stands ter reason, don't it?

Mark Chapman June 10, 2019 at 8:15 am
The whole premise just becomes more and more ridiculous – the house is now completely shrouded in tarpaulins, the roof has been removed, it has undergone extensive 'decontamination' – all, all of it obviously for show, for the yokels, because for weeks afterward police personnel guarded the residence while standing just feet away from the door handle which was supposedly the locus of infection. No chemical-warfare protection whatsoever was apparent; they didn't even wear gloves unless it was cold.

They might at least have made up some story that the Deadly Door Handle had been replaced, or even the entire door. Because everyone who went in or out of that house, and there must have been many, touched that door handle, at least some of them with their bare hand. And what ever became of the intrepid detective, Nick what's-his-name? Wasn't the state going to buy his home as well, even though he had scarcely been in it and had gone more or less straight to the hospital after being 'infected'? Only to make a miraculous and complete recovery in days, and then drop off the public radar?

Stupidity abounds. Yet the press just can't let it go, and let it mercifully drop out of sight. It would just be too embarrassing to tacitly admit the British government made it up from start to finish, the entire operation. If the Skripals actually were poisoned with something, and not just acting a role for the British government, then that part must have been HM-government-supplied as well, because nobody who has any experience with police procedure is going to believe they had a culprit and a complete history of the crime in only a couple of hours after its discovery, and a foreign state was responsible.

Murdock June 11, 2019 at 8:14 am
I don't want to be an alarmist but if I had to guess I would say our good friend Officer Nick is probably partying it up with Sergei, Yulia, and their pets in Hades.
Mark Chapman June 11, 2019 at 8:43 am
You never know. He sort of dropped out of the public eye, and of all of them he seemed to be the one whose story would be picked apart first, although all of them were improbable. And I'm sure many, many were interested in interviewing him and questioning him further.

He was released from hospital with no apparent ill effects more than a year ago, on March 23rd, 2018. According to the Telegraph , here,

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/15/police-officer-nick-bailey-returns-active-duty-10-months-salisbury/

he returned to active duty the beginning of 2019, but the story has his Chief confirming this, it is not Bailey himself. That same story remembers that Dawn Sturgess "fell ill in Amesbury months after the incident and died in hospital in July after coming into contact with a perfume bottle believed to have been used in the attack on the Skripals and then discarded." But the perfume bottle described as having been 'used in the attack on the Skripals' was brand-new and still in its store packaging, not to any appearance unusual except for that weird plastic aerator fastened to the bottle. Which, now that I think of it, was supposed to have been not attached to the bottle at all; Charlie Rowley's tale was that he broke the bottle trying to get the applicator on it, which is how he was exposed. But he still gave it to his paramour as a gift, and she was still apparently able to use it to spray herself.

Anyway, so far as I can make out, DS Nick Bailey returned to duty with his former police department last winter, and since then not a peep has been heard from him. The Skripals are still incognito, and Sergei has never been seen again since going into hospital.

Bailey's parents apparently threw a wobbler when the Beeb decided to run a two-part television drama on the attacks, which would doubtless reinforce and reconfirm the government line although it is meant to showcase the quiet courage and resourcefulness of 'ordinary heroes'.

https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/17673661.parents-of-ds-nick-bailey-hit-out-at-bbc-over-novichok-drama/

No statement from Bailey himself. Meanwhile, he is scheduled to lead off a charity walk for the local hospital on July 7th. So we will see.

https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/17697751.detective-sergeant-nick-bailey-to-start-stars-appeal-walk-for-wards/

[Jun 14, 2019] Molly McKew, the information-warfare goddess

Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

The Mueller Report, recently released, tried its best to imply that there was collusion even as it stated baldly that the investigation had yielded no evidence of collusion. But what struck me with the most force was the manner in which the Democrats – and the entire crowd which has so much invested in having had an illegitimate president foisted upon them by the Godless Russians – simply shook its head, took a deep breath and went right on blathering the same lunatic narrative. The Russians interfered with our democracy. Nothing is safe. Russia is the enemy of democracy, and will not suffer a democracy to live. Get the kids and pack up enough food for traveling, Mabel; we're headed for the mountains – it's "Red Dawn", babycakes.

Amazing as it will sound, America has learned nothing.

Part of it, of course, is America's belief in its own omnipotence; if something came out differently from the way it was planned to come out, then America was tricked. Hoodwinked, by unscrupulous actors. It cannot be that America is subject to the same vagaries and pressures and caprices as the rest of the world; America decides, and so it shall be. Part of it is the diligent pick-and-shovel work that America's political forces do to preserve that illusion; that America is an unstoppable force, so much more than just a big rich country.

So, the premise endures. Russian trolls, acting on the personal orders of Vladimir Putin, generated a storm of hateful social-media messages on race relations in America, in a coordinated strike which included Russian release of Hillary Clinton's personal emails, and America faltered. It scratched its head in doubt, and Donald Trump slipped past the worthy – and oh, so wronged – Mrs. Clinton to seize the presidency with his soiled hands.

Matt Taibbi did some excellent work on the subject , which I admit grudgingly, as I hoped to get something out on America's inability to learn from its mistakes before the heavyweights. Taibbi's writing will make you wonder whether you should laugh or cry, as you wonder how an influential country could survive the embarrassment of the past couple of years, encapsulated by a journalistic mantra which holds that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Russia is guilty as sin, and you can take that to the bank, so the very fact that Mueller will not leak any proof to us must mean that his findings are so devastating, so jaw-dropping, so "shut up !!" that they would break the media. The one possibility which was not considered a possibility at all was that there was nothing, and that the accusations had been fabrication and desperate damage control from the first.

But the frustrated narrative of Russian collusion is the only component which has been discredited to the point that Democrats and Russophobes of all political persuasions must admit there is no happy ending to the promise that Donald Trump was going to be fired so high he would need to go on oxygen. Mueller – probably deliberately – continued to hint that Russia had 'meddled' in the 2016 election, and that the effect had been important enough that democracy is under attack. No longer listening to anyone outside the party-faithful echo chamber, the Democrats now insist that US Attorney-General William Barr resign , for 'misleading the American people about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia".

"Barr's news conference ultimately did nothing to help Trump, because the public has eyes. Americans could read the damning evidence of obstruction of justice and communications with Russians for themselves and make their own judgements."

Democrats continue to try to make up in volume and intensity for the fact that there is no evidence at all of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, nor of obstruction of justice by Trump. The Republicans shout that the Democrats are on a senseless witch hunt, that the report makes clear there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians but are perfectly happy to agree that Russia meddled in the election. For his part, Mueller is happy to drop hints that both obstruction and collusion probably took place – he just couldn't find any proof.

All are loony. Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election at all, at least no further than Europe did. A lengthy list of European political leaders and former leaders publicly expressed their support for Mrs. Clinton's election to the office of President of the United States. In 2008, just one is recorded as having done so ; Mona Sahlin, leader of Sweden's Social Democrats. Interestingly, in the same list of endorsements of Mrs. Clinton in 2008 – right after "Adult Entertainment Artists" – is this one: under "Well-Known Individuals", "Businessman and television personality, Future Presidential Candidate & Rival for the United States presidential election 2016, future President of the United States Donald Trump" .

There's gratitude for you.

The Presidents of Taiwan, Chile, France and Ukraine, the former Presidents of Mexico, France, Kosovo and Ecuador, the Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic, France, Italy, New Zealand and Sweden and former Prime Ministers of Sweden, the UK, Canada, Australia and France all openly expressed their hope that Mrs. Clinton would be elected President of the United States. None of this was considered meddling. I don't recall any official endorsement from Russia, although the international English-speaking media helpfully informed us that Putin hoped Trump would win, because he felt Trump would be more approachable for concessions and because he disliked Mrs. Clinton. When Trump did win, despite wrong guesses by just about every political analyst on the planet, it was considered 'additional evidence' that meddling had taken place, instigated by you-know-who.

Perhaps, in highlighting just how stupid America is making itself look with this painfully stubborn insistence that Russia rolled it in 2016, it would be useful to take another look at what American partisans claimed to already know, and could prove as easily as demonstrating that if you put your hand on a hot stove, you will burn it.

One of my favourite American partisans is the Duchess of Displacement, the Baroness of Bulk, Molly McKew . We took a look at her work a long time ago , on the old blog – just before Trump commenced his term, in fact – or perhaps I should say his first term, since the barking madness of the political landscape in today's America makes it entirely possible he will serve a second, unbelievable as that may sound. In that article, we closed out like this; "Look, we're getting close to the end of this, and it's time for plain speaking. Americans are confused and don't know fact from fiction because their own government feeds them bullshit with a side of spin day in, day out, and you're part of it. There was no Russian interference in the American elections, and you know it." My take on what happened has not changed a bit.

McKew is still regarded – highly, I should imagine, by her feeble-minded peers – as an 'information-warfare expert'. Hardly amazing that she sees information-warfare attacks everywhere. Here's what she claimed to know about Russian election interference and general friggin' in the riggin', a little over a year ago. She bases her conclusions on Mueller's Grand Jury indictment, which was issued more than a year in advance of his report – an indictment in which Mueller claimed the Defendants (a variety of Russian advertising and research agencies operating both in Russia and the United States) " knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016."

You know the old quote about how easy it is to get a Grand Jury to indict someone or something.

Something McKew claims is now – meaning as of early 2018 – "undeniable" is that Russia had, and has "a broad, sophisticated system that can influence American opinion, which cost tens of millions of dollars spent over several years to build." She must be talking about RT , although I suggest her cost estimate is a little low. RT, which the west considers a 'propaganda network', cost $30 million to set up, in 2005. Its operating costs now are in the hundreds of millions annually, although 80% of the costs are incurred outside Russia, paying for partner networks who distribute its channels.

We kind of have to give her that one, because it is true that RT's coverage is often at odds with the bullshit du jour that CNN and NBC and FOX are spreading. Bullshit, for example, like CNN's non-stop yammering about the collusion that Mueller could find no evidence ever occurred, and said so. Bullshit like NBC News anchor Brian Williams' recollections about his helicopter being shot down in Iraq – echoes of Hillary 'sniper fire' Clinton – , which never happened . Williams is not a nobody; he was the nation's longest-serving and top-rated news anchor.

I submit, however, that the American people are not subjected to RT's 'propaganda and disinformation' about American propaganda and disinformation against their will; there is a button on the remote called "On/Off" that will free the American enslaved from malign Kremlin influence. Alternatively, they can switch to another channel. I would just point out, though, that if they switch to a popular US news channel, they are very likely to be listening to a broadcast which has been curated by its corporate owners, and who " are unlikely to report news that is broadly hostile to corporate capitalism and the American elite ." That's according to a report entitled "Corporate Control of the Media" (in the USA), printed in 2009.

Warming to her subject, McKew goes on to claim "The Russian efforts described in the indictment focused on establishing deep, authenticated, long-term identities for individuals and groups within specific communities. This was underlaid by the establishment of servers and VPNs based in the US to mask the location of the individuals involved. US-based email accounts linked to fake or stolen US identity documents (driver licenses, social security numbers, and more) were used to back the online identities. These identities were also used to launder payments through PayPal and cryptocurrency accounts. All of this deception was designed to make it appear that these activities were being carried out by Americans."

This might be a good point at which to suggest there is every reason to believe 'these activities' were carried out by Americans. Americans working for national intelligence agencies.

In March 2017, The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima had an article published which was entitled "WikiLeaks' latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations." It detailed, among other things, a cyber tool called "Marble Framework" . This could be used, it was claimed, to re-assign attribution of material posted on the internet so that it appeared, for forensic purposes, to have originated from a different source. Test samples, it was reported, were included in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi.

The report which encouraged President Trump to ask his CIA Director – Mike Pompeo, at the time, who is currently the National Security Advisor – what he knew about this was co-authored by Skip Folden, who for 25 years was the IT Program Manager for IBM. I think it is safe to say he has some credibility in the field of cyber-forensics. The authors of the report contended that the 'hack' of the DNC's server was not actually a hack at all, but the at-source copying of data directly from the server using a storage device, probably a thumb drive. The data transfer rate, the authors claimed, was far too rapid to have occurred over the internet.

Since then I have seen a couple of 'rebuttals' which claimed that under certain conditions – like if nobody else was using the internet during that time – such copying from a remote source was possible. I never saw anything like proof. Like someone demonstrating how it could be done. Much like the old 'clean pee swap' the completely-discredited McLaren Report claimed the Russians performed on athletes' urine samples; he claimed to know how it was done, but never demonstrated it, and appeared to be unable to do so, as it would have strongly supported his allegations.

Having taken us such an eye-blurring distance on the blarney rollercoaster, Molly at last falls apart. "So anyone trying to tell you there was little impact on political views from the tools the Russians used doesn't know. Because none of us knows. No one has looked . Social media companies don't want us to know, and they obfuscate and drag their feet rather than disclosing information. The analytical tools to quantify the impact don't readily exist. But we know what we see, and what we heard -- and the narratives pushed by the Russian information operation made it to all of our ears and eyes" , she tells us.

So if you saw advertising by Black Lives Matter, or perhaps some other civil-rights organization, pushing a false narrative that blacks are second-class citizens in their own country, then you were exposed to Kremlin propaganda. And it affected how you voted, if you're an American. How much? Nobody knows. What everybody does know, or should, is that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, although not the determinate vote in the electoral college – quite a trick for the Russians to manage.

Let's summarize. Americans were supposedly pushed into voting for Donald Trump by the misuse of stolen data which was all true. The DNC did conspire to rig the primary so that Clinton was the Democratic candidate rather than Bernie Sanders; the Chair of the DNC resigned in disgrace because of the revelations which came to light. Her replacement, Donna Brazile, admitted to having fed the primary debate questions to Clinton in advance , giving her an advantage over Sanders, who was unaware of them as he should have been. At its very core, the Democratic party is as corrupt as the Nigerian prince who keeps e-mailing me to help him hide his ill-gotten fortune. American intelligence and technical professionals with no discernible benefit in making their country look bad insist that no hacking of the DNC's server took place, and that the stolen information which kicked the Democrats' feet out from under them on the eve of the election was not hacked, but stolen by direct physical transfer from the server using a portable storage device. Wikileaks insisted the information it released did not come from the Russians. The serving American intelligence services at the time of the 2016 election had a secret program which was capable of mimicking the origin of posted information on social media so that forensic investigation would find traces of Russian authorship, or other non-American authorship. The CIA has vigorously denied any involvement whatsoever in various international events at the time they occurred, only to admit much later – when it would be pointless to punish it – that they did in fact play an influential role. Data from 2014 established that at that time, 27% of black Americans lived below the poverty line , compared with 11% of all Americans; 38% of black children lived in poverty compared with 22% of all American children. I have seen no compelling evidence that this situation has improved. According to the perfidious Kremlin mouthpiece RT, citing American sources, American blacks are incarcerated at a rate six times as high as the national average .

Molly McKew, the information-warfare goddess, tells us that it is 'undeniable' that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, by making Americans doubt the integrity of their political candidates. In the case of the Democrats – which is by no means intended to spare the Republicans – they were demonstrated by their own repeatedly-verified and admitted shenanigans to understand 'integrity' about as well as the average crab fisherman understands how to calculate the mass of the sun. Everything they were accused of doing, they did. Candidate Hillary Clinton unambiguously lied – as she has done on other occasions – about the security classification of her 'private' emails and completely fabricated consent of the State Department for her to maintain a private email server for the sending and receiving of official message traffic. America does have an uneven scale of justice, law enforcement and standard of living based on race. There is no proof at all which has so far been made public that any of those situations were reported, compelled, exacerbated or invented by Russia, or by anyone from Russia. According to persistent revelations from Kiev, the American Democratic party energetically sought dirt on candidate Trump from Ukrainian sources , not Russian. McKew closes her soliloquy on election interference by maintaining that while it is undeniable that Russian interference occurred, nobody knows the extent to which it influenced the vote, which resulted in a popular win for the candidate who lost the election.

Let me posit another reality. Russia played no part at all in the outcome of the 2016 election, although it certainly was a surprise to most. There is no proof even offered that there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials of any description, and no proof which could not have been fabricated that any coherent social-media campaign originating with Russian operatives took place, or that any such imaginary social-media campaign had anything to do with Trump's victory. The Democrats, by sticking to their ridiculous and incredible narrative of Russian masterminds warping American democracy, are setting themselves up for having their headlights sucked out again by the passing Trump juggernaut in the next election, when they will be totally out of excuses if they do not wake up and do some serious retrenching.

But we are probably going to have to wait for history to teach that lesson to Americans.

[Jun 13, 2019] For those who still look in occasionally on what is happening with Nord Stream II, the Americans are still blustering about killing it with new sanctions targeted against pipelaying vessels and those who finance them, insure them, and so on. Its typical dog-in-the-manger pressure is applied with a view to supplying Europe itself, with 'freedom gas'.

Jun 13, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman June 11, 2019 at 7:20 pm

For those who still look in occasionally on what is happening with Nord Stream II, the Americans are still blustering about killing it with new sanctions targeted against pipelaying vessels and those who finance them, insure them, and so on. Its typical dog-in-the-manger pressure is applied with a view to supplying Europe itself, with 'freedom gas'. That, of course, is not using energy as a weapon – just so we're clear. It's trying to force Europe to buy higher-priced American gas by using economics as a weapon.

Anyway, Germany is getting pretty fed up with it. Mutti Merkel has let the Americans know that they are not going to be able to stop the project. She has let it be known that the project already has European approval 'in principle', and that she is aware this is all about Ukraine and forcing Russia to continue gas transit through it and supplement its budget with transit fees. Germany's Ambassador to the United States, Emily Haber, has allegedly been even more pointed than that.

"In particular, according to Bild, the German Ambassador to the United States, Emily Haber, has sent a letter to the US Congress urging them to stop threatening Russian companies PJSC NOVATEK and PJSC Gazprom, operating in Germany, with new sanctions. In her words, such actions jeopardize the energy security of Germany and of the entire European Union.

In her letter, Emily Haber points out that since countries of the European Union have adopted amendments to the Gas Directive, the issue of blocking the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline is closed for Europe: "All countries that criticized the Nord Stream-2 approved this document " . Given the situation, the German diplomat described any further steps that Washington might take in order to hinder the development of the project as counterproductive and potentially threatening the energy security of the EU."

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2019/05/26/us-strives-to-supply-europe-with-its-own-gas/

Gosh; that reminds me – Chinese tariffs on American LNG more than doubled a couple of weeks ago. As of June 1st, the tariff went from 10% to 25%. Not having much of an effect, though – Chinese imports of American LNG have only dropped from 1.4 million tons during the first 4 months of last year to .3 million tons over the same period this year. The unclaimed LNG must be sold on the open market, and that drives the price down. Price has a direct effect on American production, and if it goes too low production must be reined in.

You're doing a great job, Mr. Trump – keep it up! Make America great again!

[Jun 13, 2019] A recent RAND Corporation research paper which delivers a detailed road map as to how the United States can destabilize Russia

Jun 13, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Warren June 13, 2019 at 9:02 am

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_nCBxfsNADo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Mark Chapman June 13, 2019 at 10:17 am
Astoundingly arrogant, not to mention immature. If Russia produced a study on how to destroy America, there would be screams of rage at the unmitigated evil which must motivate a national effort to wreck the economy of another, and cause misery and social collapse for millions of people who were completely innocent. But only the Exceptional Nation can discuss it impassively, as if the study were nothing more than a coffee-table book. Because, you know, it is destined to rule and to triumph over all. So many parallels to Rome, yes, yes.

Americans were blessed with a wonderful, rich and bountiful country. Instead of being content with it, the repellent US government has set its sights on world domination so as to draw upon global wealth to increase American personal wealth and influence. It really sees itself as sitting at the pinnacle of a global empire in which all other countries are either vassals or resources. And the American people, while you could not really call them complicit, are mostly sold on the notion that this is their birthright as Americans, and that anyone who tries to forestall its unfolding in this fashion is trying to upset the natural order of things. Americans cannot be content with simply having America – they have to own and control it all. Oddly enough, the very ambition which was attributed to the Communists.

Northern Star June 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm
Take a look at some of the most notable RAND members:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation#Notable_participants

I think that fairly well explains it

[Jun 13, 2019] The D-Day invasion came out of a protracted struggle between the US and Britain over the course of the war and the opening of a "second front," which the Soviet Union had called for over at least the previous two years

Jun 13, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star June 7, 2019 at 12:12 pm

@ME in particular:

Appears that wsws anticipated the concerns of you and others:

"The D-Day invasion came out of a protracted struggle between the US and Britain over the course of the war and the opening of a "second front," which the Soviet Union had called for over at least the previous two years.

One of the most striking features of the D-Day anniversary commemorations, in both the UK and France, was the deliberate exclusion of Russia from the events. Whatever the undoubtable role played by the Normandy invasion in the defeat of the Third Reich in World War II, the overwhelming sacrifices and impact of the Red Army, which was responsible for 80 percent of the casualties inflicted upon German forces is undeniable. While the combat deaths of nearly 300,000 US military personnel was staggering, their numbers pale in comparison to the unfathomable toll of 26 million Soviet dead, military and civilian.

It was the victories of the Red Army -- and behind it the antifascist resistance of the Soviet masses -- fighting along a front that extended over 1,000 miles, that pushed the US and Britain to carry out the D-Day invasion and finally open up the second front demanded by Moscow."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/07/pers-j07.html

Moscow Exile June 7, 2019 at 12:46 pm
The largest offensive launched during WWII and which ended in a Soviet victory was Operation Bagration, 23 June to 19 August 1944., in which the Soviet Union deployed 1,670,300 combat and support personnel, approximately 32,718 artillery pieces and mortars, 5,818 tanks and assault guns and 7,799 aircraft against the Nazis and, by doing so, inflicted the biggest defeat in German military history in that the Red Army destroyed 28 out of 34 divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line, thereby liberating Belorussia and Polish territory from the invader.

Compare and contrast:


D Day landings, 6 june, 1944

5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participated in the landings. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on D-Day,with 875,000 men disembarking by the end of June.

By July 21, Caen, a major objective for the allies, had still not fallen.

If Bagration had not taken place or had not ended in a decisive victory, the Germans would have wiped the floor with the allies in Normandy.

The German army never recovered from the crushing defeat that resulted from Bagration. The materiel and manpower losses sustained during Bagration amounted to almost 25% of German Eastern Front manpower, exceeding even the percentage of loss at Stalingrad.

These Nazi losses included many experienced soldiers, NCOs and commissioned officers, which at this stage of the war the Wehrmacht could not replace. An indication of the completeness of the Soviet victory is that 31 of the 47 German divisional or corps commanders involved were killed or captured.

In short: a Soviet defeat in the east would have meant either no allied invasion from the west or, if such an invasion had taken place without the Red Army being victorious in the east, the Nazis would have made short work of any western allied landings.

Moscow Exile June 7, 2019 at 12:50 pm
Where's Bagration gone above?

Try again!

Moscow Exile June 7, 2019 at 9:43 pm
The BBc on D-Day and Putin:

D-Day anniversary: Putin says lack of invitation 'not a problem'
6 June 2019

With this comment by Rosenberg, the BBC man in Moscow:

Why does Russia see D-Day differently to the West?
Analysis by Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow

When countries argue about the present, they often disagree about the past, too. Take D-Day – British Prime Minister Theresa May called it the day that "determined the fate of generations to come". But Russia's Foreign Ministry sees things rather differently.

"The Normandy landings did not have a decisive impact on the outcome of World War Two," said its spokesperson Maria Zakharova this week. "It was inevitable after the Red Army victories at Stalingrad and Kursk."

Moscow Exile June 7, 2019 at 9:48 pm
Zakharova is not correct in saying that the allies were defeated in the Ardennes, though they suffered a temporary reverse there. There was no way, however, that the Ardennes offensive, the last in the West undertaken by the Nazis, would have resulted in victory for the Hitlerites.

The allies were defeated at Arnhem though.

A total cock up resulting through poor intelligence work.

Northern Star June 8, 2019 at 10:54 am
"Zakharova is not correct in saying that the allies were defeated in the Ardennes, "

Ahhhh ME..ya' beat me to it. I was just now upon reading her comment going to point that out!!
General Weather-Blue Skies-enabled the Allies to get their Fighter bombers up and able to wreak havoc on the SS panzer formations and supply vehicles some of which were stalled on the roads having run out of petrol.
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/clear-skies-over-bastogne-pattons-prayers-answered/

Mark Chapman June 8, 2019 at 9:36 am
That implication that Russia might see things differently if it had not been insulted by Putin's not being invited was unworthy even of such a cheap-shot vehicle as the state-sponsored BBC. Western re-jigging of historical events to its own benefit and to assuming unto itself the role of modest hero relies on its readership being unable or unwilling to comprehend cause and effect. Naturally every citizen everywhere wants to believe his or her country was brave and resolute, and soldiers of the Allied nations indeed did fight bravely against the Nazis; it's brave just to show up and keep pressing forward when you know it is entirely possible and even likely that you will be killed. But there are plenty of western historical stipulations to the fact that the Soviet Union took the brunt of the Nazi attack, and was still taking it when the Normandy landings took place; during all that time, whilst the Allies were dithering and some were making their own pacts with Hitler, the Russians were getting pounded. Instead, the west and most offensively the British portray the German campaign against the Soviet Union as a falling-out among thieves, and squeak about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact until you can't hear anything else. Wartime leaders among the allies acknowledged the indispensable nature of the Soviet defense and counterattacks to the eventual victory. But we have seen a slow airbrushing-out of the entire Soviet role in the conflict. Which is cheap and unworthy. Once again, and mark my words, if it goers on it will result in a smug certainty among western leaders that the inheritors of the Soviet mantle are not really fighters, more sulkers, and would be a pushover in war. A cakewalk, you might say; everyone will be home in time for supper, done and dusted. And the world will learn to its grief, if it even survives such a cataclysm, where listening to bullshit led it.
Cortes June 7, 2019 at 2:16 pm
The incredible power of General Winter.

I just had another brief look at the Conclusions in David Glantz's "August Storm" in which General Winter again played a decisive role in Manchuria. Who can withstand the General's icy grasp?

Patient Observer June 7, 2019 at 3:17 pm
I had to look. There is a General Winter, Ormonde de l'Épée Winter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormonde_Winter

Mark Chapman June 8, 2019 at 8:59 am
Ormonde "the sword" Winter. Sounds kind of like a child destined to be a soldier. Or a letter-opener.
Jen June 8, 2019 at 2:23 pm
At least as a letter opener he'd be pushing the envelope. 🙂
Mark Chapman June 8, 2019 at 10:27 pm
Ha, ha!!!
Patient Observer June 7, 2019 at 3:13 pm
Quite a bit of research has confirmed British resistance to opening a second front for the purpose of keeping Nazi pressure on the Soviet Union if not its outright defeat. Eisenhower was, in particular, disgusted by the British describing their effort as a betrayal to the allied war effort. The examples of British treachery are endless.

Top US military leadership to me seemed generally competent in WW II. Their abhorrence of the nuclear attack on Japan reflected well on their morality and character.

Cortes June 7, 2019 at 4:55 pm
The War Diaries of Allanbrooke (CIGS) are a good read.

The assessment of Stalin by Allanbrooke is worth wading through a load of nonsense about Mme Chiang Kai Shek &c. And his recollection of Wavell making a poem about "No Second Front in '43" aboard the flight back from Moscow.

Northern Star June 8, 2019 at 11:05 am
"Their abhorrence of the nuclear attack on Japan reflected well on their morality and character."

Now THAT.. I didn't know but appears as if you are spot on corrrect:

"Truman was advised not to use the atomic bombs by such figures as Adm. William D. Leahy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. We know from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's diaries and other documents that the rush to use atomic bombs quickly, rather than follow other available courses, was intimately connected with the desire to end the conflict before the Soviet Union entered it on Aug. 15, 1945, and with the hope that the bomb would help in disputed European negotiations.
.But the central point was probably best put in General Eisenhower's blunt formulation: "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." GAR ALPEROVITZ Washington, Oct. 4, 1988 The writer is author of "Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam."

https://www.nytimes.com/svc/oembed/html/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F1988%2F10%2F29%2Fopinion%2Fl-a-bombing-of-japan-was-unnecessary-393488.html

Jen June 8, 2019 at 2:41 pm
There have been theories and rumours over the decades that the US exploded the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a warning to the Soviet Union, and had little or nothing to do with Japanese refusal to surrender (itself a lie – the Japanese had been offering surrender to the US over previous months before August 1945, if they could keep Emperor Hirohito, and the US flat-out rejected these surrender offers because it would only accept surrender on the condition that Japan accept a total US makeover of its government including the abolition of the monarchy which would effectively turn Japan into a US colony) or the talk about a US invasion of Japan which might result in the deaths of several million US servicemen.

At the time the Soviets had just declared war on Japan and were busy driving the Japanese out of Manchuria. The Japanese Army collapsed before the Soviet forces (the Soviets had better tank technology and Japan mainly relied on its navy rather than its army as its major attacking and defence force) and it was this that led Japan to formally surrender.

Patient Observer June 8, 2019 at 4:23 pm
My take on the nuclear attack in the order of importance:
– Message to the Soviet Union
– Opportunity for a "medical" experiment
– Revenge/racism
Patient Observer June 9, 2019 at 9:05 am
Updated – My take on the nuclear attack in the order of importance:
– Message to the Soviet Union
– Induce Japan to surrender to the US rather than to the Soviet Union
– Opportunity for a "medical" experiment
– Revenge/racism
Patient Observer June 8, 2019 at 4:20 pm
That isn't even half of it. These military leaders expected that the nuclear attacks would be considers as among the most barbaric war crimes of WW II. The NYT, however, was one of the bigger cheerleaders on the attack. I wonder if the NYT will apologize for its 60 years of support of a horrific war crime. Wait, what was I thinking? Of course not.
davidt June 8, 2019 at 4:51 pm
Interestingly, Freeman Dyson claims that it was not the use of the bomb that forced the surrender of Japan. Instead, he claims that it was the Soviets' declaration of war on Japan that decided the matter. He discusses this about 10 minutes into this lecture.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/zq4p2qbE684?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Warren June 7, 2019 at 1:32 pm

[Jun 13, 2019] Zelenskiy is Poroshenko Lite

Jun 13, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman, June 12, 2019 at 9:49 am

There appears to be no sense in further discussion of a possible softening of relations between Russia and Ukraine; it is evident from recent developments that Zelenskiy is only Poroshenko Lite, and while he might not have such a penchant for thieving and running businesses on the side – and might even make an honest effort to tackle domestic issues like corruption – when it comes to international affairs he is in lockstep with the US State Department.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ukraine-panel-jurisdiction-hear-russia-case-63625398

Kuh-yiv is once again trying to drag international arbitrators into the situation, and to get a ruling that Russia is encroaching upon Ukrainian mineral resources and fishing rights in the Black Sea and 'other waters'. It is a pretty obvious attempt to get an international ruling on the legality of Russia's claim to territorial waters off Crimea and in the Kerch Strait. Ukraine and its western backers know very well Russia would not recognize any such ruling if it were made, but then the United States would get its rule-of-law feathers all a-ruffle, and we would take another step closer to war.

Zelenskiy has also appointed former Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius to the supervisory board of the state defence conglomerate Ukroboronprom. So that's the Lithuanians back in government in Ukraine – can we look forward to Madame Jaresko making a reprise?

https://www.nytimes.com/svc/oembed/html/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Freuters%2F2019%2F06%2F12%2Fworld%2Feurope%2F12reuters-ukraine-president-defence.html

amb
Mark Chapman June 13, 2019 at 1:25 pm

I don't know that Zelenskiy is pursuing a 'Jewish agenda", and I saw no sign of it when he was just a performer; he did do that skit in leather pants and high heels, but it was pretty funny and I wouldn't say his public experiences with gender themes constituted a position on gay rights. Trudeau is obsessed with gay rights and human rights in general, to the extent that he outsources foreign policy to Chrystia Freeland, and I think we will notice pretty quickly if Zelenskiy starts acting too much like Trudeau.

I would agree, though, that Zelenskiy shows increasing comfort with being western-advised and directed. Consequently, I don't expect there will be any change in the enmity between Ukraine and Russia, although the nationalists seem to be quieter than they were under Poroshenko. Russia is certainly not going to give back Crimea and step aside while the eastern republics are forcibly re-integrated, and Zelenskiy claims he will accept nothing less.

The curious part is, Putin already stipulated that Moscow would not object to Ukraine joining the European Union. Oh, it was a different world then, and Ukraine was not a violent enemy embroiled in a civil war, of course. This was before the west's full-bore propaganda onslaught against Russia, when the possibility still existed that the EU and Eurasian Union could co-exist, trade and do business with one another, to mutual benefit and profit. That Portuguese prick Barosso shot that possibility dead, and now he has gone on to his earthly reward as non-executive Chairman of Goldman-Sachs International – another way of saying he has a job where he can do the crossword puzzle all day and still take home a paycheck that makes him wonder if he is dreaming. Who says crime doesn't pay? People who are afraid to try crime; that's who.

Anyway, Putin was cautious, but his words were not ambiguous – if the people of Ukraine genuinely want to join the EU, Russia, I think, would welcome this. And look where we are now: thousands of people dead, millions displaced, the Ukrainian economy in the toilet and new sanctions flying around every day, disrupting global supply chains and shutting off markets forever. Europe keeps signing on to another extension of sanctions, and Russia could not care less. Anything it has not already started up a domestic producer for, it has sourced elsewhere, and those markets are gone – European farmers are hopeful that sanctions will be lifted, but it will not make any real difference now if they are. European fruit growers and produce farmers are going to have to get used to the idea that the USA has pissed in their well, and those markets are not coming back.

Patient Observer June 13, 2019 at 1:48 pm
I disagree. The Anglo rulers employ the Zionist tribe as needed. Both are equally evil but not equally influential.

The new kid on the block is Asia; largely untainted by the Anglo world outside of Japan. The Anglos are a wily bunch and are plotting how to spread their cancer to Asia now that they have largely destroyed their current hosts. However, as I said before, China may have figured out how to tame money so the Anglos will have a tough time ahead. Moreover, Russia is finding new strength in its old values.

Warren June 13, 2019 at 4:11 pm

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Luol5YNt9k?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Northern Star June 13, 2019 at 4:26 pm
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/12/mali-j12.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sharpspring&sslid=MzM0MzIyNzE2NTUyBgA&sseid=M7SwtDA0MLYwNAQA&jobid=e12274cb-2208-4d70-b35e-ae32fe203a61

"The origins of the conflict must be sought most immediately in the 2011 NATO war in Libya, which, with the support of right-wing fundamentalist Islamist proxy forces, destroyed the government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The outcome of this war was the complete destruction of Libyan society. The country is now run by rival militia groups tied to the imperialist powers, who have kept the country in a state of civil war for nearly a decade since the NATO intervention.

Following the destruction of the Gaddafi regime, thousands of fighters poured out of Libya and across the Sahara, traveling to the Sahel region, including Mali. Various rival militias declared an independent or Islamic state in northern Mali.

Paris reacted in 2013 by launching a new war to occupy its former colony, one of the poorest countries in the world, to save the Bamako regime and destroy the northern Mali militias. For six years now, Paris has sunk deeper into a quagmire in Mali. President Emmanuel Macron has continued the war, codenamed Operation Barkhane, initiated by Socialist Party (PS) President François Hollande, involving an occupation force of 4,500 French troops and troops from five former French colonies in the Sahel: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

As it rapidly moves to re-militarize its foreign policy, Berlin also approved military operations in support of the French only two months after the initial French invasion. Last month, the German parliament voted overwhelmingly to extend the military occupation of the country with 1,100 soldiers until 2020, at a yearly cost of 400 million euros.

These operations have nothing to do with protecting the local population from Islamist militias, which were armed and funded by US and European intelligence agencies in Libya. They are aimed at propping up the puppet government in Bamako, suppressing the resistance of the impoverished rural population and workers to the government, and maintaining their control over the resource-rich region.

The imperialist intervention in Mali led directly to the growth of ethnic tensions between the predominantly Muslim Fulani community and the Dogons. There are widespread suspicions of state involvement in the ethnic conflicts that are now erupting. The Malian government has utilized the Dogon militia in the French-led war against Islamist militias, which have recruited disproportionately among the Fulani."

Sounds as if what's needed is a galvanizing 21st Century 'Mahdi' around whom black Africans could unify to bring about a replay of Dien Bien Phu for the French in Africa.
The victory celebration festivities could conclude with a 'Gordon in Khartoum' reenactment using one of the (volunteer) captured French command officers as the General.

[Jun 13, 2019] Congress Investigates the Iran Hawks' Creepy Smear Campaign by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no legitimate public interest: ..."
"... could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition. ..."
"... Take a look at previous secretaries of state - leading American foreign policy - Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation destroying policies and mass deaths. The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the European nations and America and Iran. ..."
"... Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games. Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry on the Iran deal. Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life, including American troops dying? Ah no ..."
"... "Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. " ..."
"... It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with serious consequences. ..."
Jun 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Negar Mortazavi and Borzou Daragahi report on the response in Congress to the scandal over State Department funding for the so-called Iran Disinformation Project:

United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime.

State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails. Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad.

"It's completely unacceptable that American taxpayer dollars supported a project that attacked Americans and others who are critical of the Trump administration's policy of escalation and conflict with Iran," a senior Congressional aide told The Independent, on condition of anonymity.

The State Department's Global Engagement Center erred from the beginning by entrusting the effort to counter Iranian regime propaganda to an outside contractor with such hard-line views. There was clearly a failure to supervise what the contractor was doing with the funding provided by the department, and the result was outsourcing the department's work to self-serving ideologues. Had it not been for the public outcry and investigations by several of the people being targeted by this department-funded operation, the department might not have realized what was being done with its own resources until much later and it might not have acknowledged the error at all.

The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no legitimate public interest:

E-Collaborative for Civic Education, co-founded by Iranian American activist Mariam Memarsadeghi, is a long-time State Department contractor.

It purports to promote democratic political life and empower civil society inside Iran, but it appears to have no presence inside the country and instead confines itself to engaging with Iranians in the Diaspora.

In this case, the engagement with Iranians in the diaspora amounted to shouting abuse at many of them and harassing those that didn't toe a certain ideological line. As the scandal proves, hard-line regime changers have a very warped idea of what qualifies as pro-regime rhetoric and who can be considered a regime supporter, and so it should come as no surprise that this operation turned its ire on the many Iranian-American professionals that didn't get with the hawkish program. This calls into question whether the department is capable of countering disinformation from foreign governments without indulging the worst and most hawkish people that want to use such efforts to settle scores against their fellow Americans. It is good that Congress is looking into how this particular scandal happened, but there have to be changes made to how the department runs the Global Engagement Center so that something like this can't happen again.

One of the absurdities of this smear campaign is that it has targeted the very journalists and analysts that have been far more effective in countering the Iranian government's false claims through their reporting and analysis. The Iran Disinformation Project went after these journalists and analysts because they refused to recite arguments in favor of regime change and war. They were targeted because they were independent and credible observers and critics of Iran and U.S. Iran policy, and that meant that they used their expertise and understanding of the country to question the wisdom and efficacy of sanctions and spoke out against the folly of military intervention. Iran hawks desperately need to discredit and smear people like this because they pose a major threat to the promotion of the hawks' agenda. Fortunately, their smear tactics aren't working very well these days.


Christian J Chuba , says: June 11, 2019 at 6:00 pm

How long before these Congressman are denounced as traitors by the likes of Tom Cotton. 'No one can challenge me, I was in Iraq, how dare they shoot at me, it's my country not theirs.'
Oleg Gark , says: June 11, 2019 at 6:22 pm
I think American citizens should engage their own State Department with lawsuits and criminal indictments. The legal discovery process should air the place out quite nicely.
Tourmaloony , says: June 11, 2019 at 7:20 pm
It's kind of odd that this is something that's being highlighted and looked into, considering the total lack of interest in charging Bolton, Dean, Giuliani, Ridge, and others for their material support to terrorists when they were promoting MEK when it was still on the FTO list.

Sorry, that was a long sentence.

Thanks for your efforts, Larison.

WorkingClass , says: June 11, 2019 at 9:08 pm
" .the department might not have realized what was being done with its own resources until much later and it might not have acknowledged the error at all."

Oh well. We all make mistakes. Or could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition.

Fayez Abedaziz , says: June 12, 2019 at 2:06 am
Take a look at previous secretaries of state - leading American foreign policy - Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation destroying policies and mass deaths. The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the European nations and America and Iran.

The above three were truly terrible people to have representing the U.S. They bullied and gloated about the deaths in other nations: see Albright defending the deaths of children in Iraq due to sanctions and Hillary laughing at the deaths and mayhem in Libya.

Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games. Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry on the Iran deal. Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life, including American troops dying? Ah no

rayray , says: June 12, 2019 at 2:19 pm
To your point, what I enjoyed about John Kerry was his full throated effort to bring back the ideal of what the State Department is supposed to be doing that is, using the mechanisms of diplomacy to make peace and increase communication.

All the other Sec States felt like they wished they were part of the military.

Burn Bag , says: June 12, 2019 at 4:47 pm
Don't give me this "Global Engagement Center" crap. Pompeo? "Global Engagement"?

It's simple. Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. The next step is obvious. Find who did it and throw them in prison.

Loadbearing , says: June 12, 2019 at 8:52 pm
@Burn Bag says

"Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. "

It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with serious consequences.

[Jun 12, 2019] Trump Threatens Merkel With Pipeline Sanctions, US Troop Cut by Josh Wingrove

This is a typical Trump. He understands that "protection of Germany" is a profitable "protection racket" for the USA, but still lies.
Notable quotes:
"... U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said during a visit to Ukraine in May that he expected Congress to prepare legislation to sanction companies involved in the pipeline's construction. ..."
Jun 12, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Trump Threatens Merkel With Pipeline Sanctions, U.S. Troop Cut - Bloomberg ‎June‎ ‎12‎, ‎2019‎ ‎12‎:‎34‎ ‎PM

'Germany Is Making a Tremendous Mistake by Relying on Pipeline,' says Trump 'Germany Is Making a Tremendous Mistake by Relying on Pipeline,' says Trump Close Share

Donald Trump upped his criticism of Germany on Wednesday as he threatened sanctions over Angela Merkel's continued support for a gas pipeline from Russia and warned that he could shift troops away from the NATO ally over its defense spending.

Echoing previous threats about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said he's looking at sanctions to block the project he's warned would leave Berlin "captive" to Moscow. The U.S. also hopes to export its own liquefied natural gas to Germany.

"We're protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars in money from Germany" for its gas, Trump told reporters at the White House during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

The comments were the latest sign of how U.S.-German ties have eroded in recent years. The U.S. president has repeatedly rebuked Merkel's government over the pipeline project, trade policies and defense spending. Germany, in turn, has criticized Trump's moves to abandon international agreements, including on climate change and Iran.

Though he didn't say which companies or governments could potentially face sanctions, Trump's comments about the pipeline generated a swift response from Moscow, which said the American president was engaging in "nothing other than blackmail and a form of unfair competition," according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Merkel and Trump met most recently last week during anniversary celebrations of the 1944 D-Day invasion. That gathering came days after the EU's longest-serving leader took Trump to task at a commencement address at Harvard University, urging students to "tear down walls" and not to treat "lies as truth." Without naming the U.S. leader, Merkel left little doubt as to whom she might mean to a crowd who cheered her on.

QuickTake: Why World Worries About Russia's Natural Gas Pipeline

U.S. opposition to the gas pipeline is bipartisan, out of concern that Russia could use its supplies of natural gas to exert pressure on Western European nations dependent on the fuel. U.S. lawmakers also fear that with an added northern pipeline for its gas, Russia could more easily cut off fuel to Ukraine, which is now a key transit country to Europe.

"Germany is making a tremendous mistake" by relying on the pipeline from Russia, Trump said during a joint news conference with Duda.

Regardless of the political controversy, the Nord Stream 2 project has faced delays and may not be ready to transport gas until the second half of 2020, according to a report made public by Denmark's Energy Agency.

Nord Stream 2 organizers argue a new pipeline is needed to guarantee supplies will continue to flow in the coming decades as EU domestic reserves shrink and import needs rise. Opponents of the project say it hurts the bloc's cohesion and weakens its Energy Union strategy aimed at integrating the region's gas and power markets, diversifying energy supplies and improving security.

Uniper SE, Engie SA, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, OMV AG and BASF SE's Wintershall are European partners of Russia's Gazprom PJSC in financing the project to expand Nord Stream by 55 billion cubic meters a year. Russia supplies a third of Europe's gas and has no plans to give up its share to the expanding list of competitors from Norway to the U.S.

Trump, speaking during the news conference Wednesday, said that Poland signed a contract to purchase an additional $8 billion of liquefied natural gas from U.S. companies, on top of $25 billion already under contract.

Trump said he'll meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Japan at the end of the month, though its not clear the pipeline project will be on their agenda.

Who's Dependent on Russian Gas?

About a third of Europe's gas comes from Russia

https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/17e9f70fa0444d53a0445e199c57eb22.html?brand=politics&webTheme=politics&web=true&hideTitles=true

2016 data. Source: Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said during a visit to Ukraine in May that he expected Congress to prepare legislation to sanction companies involved in the pipeline's construction.

Senators Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, have drafted a bill that would target U.S. sanctions at vessels laying the pipeline and deny U.S. visas to executives from companies linked to the ships. The legislation would also block transactions in U.S.-based property or interests belonging to those individuals and would penalize entities that provide insurance to the project.

In the latest sign of Trump's frustration over German defense spending, the president said he's discussed sending as many as 2,000 more U.S. troops to Poland -- and might take them from Germany since he believes Berlin isn't spending enough on defense as a partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. There are more than 30,000 U.S. troops in Germany.

Under an agreement reached during the Obama administration, NATO members committed to spending 2% of GDP on defense by the mid-2020s, a level only seven nations were estimated to have reached in 2018.

"Germany's at 1%, they should be at 2%," Trump said. According to NATO documents, spent about 1.2 percent of GDP on defense in 2018.

The U.S. already has a few thousand troops in Poland as part of its role in NATO. Trump's move, if carried out, would add to that, but it wasn't clear if the forces would be permanently based there or just rotated through.

-- With assistance by Daryna Krasnolutska, Nick Wadhams, Daniel Flatley, Stepan Kravchenko, Ewa Krukowska, and Vanessa Dezem

[Jun 11, 2019] What is the difference between "SETTLER COLONIALISM" and the concept of "LEBENSRAUM" ?

Notable quotes:
"... Article 2 (subsection 4)- "All members shall refrain .from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state ." ..."
"... During WWII, our notion of "settler colonialism" (from earlier era's) mutated into "Nazi Lebensraum" and subsequently became outlawed by the entire known world as a supreme evil. ..."
"... Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest" as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum". ..."
"... Today, when people refer to Israels "eastward" expansion (through conquest) of the Palestinian territories, .the term "Lebensraum" simply vanishes from the English vernacular. ..."
Jun 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

alexander , says: June 11, 2019 at 11:52 am GMT

Is it " SETTLER COLONIALISM" or is it "LEBENSRAUM" ?

I am sure Mr. Shenker is a bright man , and I wonder how he would distinguish the difference between these two ideas, don't you ?

Here is my understanding.

LEBENSRAUM (or literally "living space") was both the central and dominant principle driving Nazi Germany throughout WWII. Hitler believed that Eastern Europe had to be "conquered" in order to create a "Greater German Empire"otherwise known as " The Third Reich".

[a note to specialists on WWII .. This is most generally the accepted narrative by most of the world]

After WWII, both "war of aggression" and "territorial expansion through conquest" became the "supreme crimes"of the civilized world . and were ratified as such, in Article two of the UN charter.

Article 2 (subsection 4)- "All members shall refrain .from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state ."

SETTLER COLONIALISM is best understood as the westward expansion of European Nations throughout North (and South) America from the 15th century to the 19th century.

So what is the "essential" difference between the two ideas ?

The answer is simple "Dates"

When Europeans expanded "westward" into the "new world" three centuries ago , it wasn't considered a "CRIME" to do so by anybody.

During WWII, our notion of "settler colonialism" (from earlier era's) mutated into "Nazi Lebensraum" and subsequently became outlawed by the entire known world as a supreme evil.

Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest" as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum".

Why not ? Strange, ..isn't it ?

They, mysteriously, harken back (and utilize) the term "settler colonialism" as if to soften and muddy the criminality of the act .. by referencing an earlier era when such behavior wasn't considered a "crime".

Today, when people refer to Israels "eastward" expansion (through conquest) of the Palestinian territories, .the term "Lebensraum" simply vanishes from the English vernacular.

It just DISAPPEARS .

It is as though both its meaning , and the catastrophic horrors of WWII, never existed at all.

Can anyone explain this ?

Iris , says: June 11, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT
@alexander

Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest" as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum".

Very astute comment. "Chosen" semantics is part of the aggression war strategy.

[Jun 11, 2019] Luke Harding is back with one of his bullshit exclusives in the Guardian.

This is "Integrity Initiative" at work...
Jun 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Ghost Ship , Jun 11, 2019 11:01:51 AM | 134
That arsehole Luke Harding is back with one of his bullshit exclusives in the Guardian .
Leaked documents reveal Russian effort to exert influence in Africa
Exclusive: Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin leading push to turn continent into strategic hub, documents show
by Luke Harding and Jason Burke
The only thing you really need to know about the exposé:
The leaked documents were obtained by the Dossier Center, an investigative unit based in London. The centre is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman and exiled Kremlin critic.
The Guardian obviously has no shame for publishing such an article but then it has never explained the claims of Manafort meeting with Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. As for the article, my reaction was "so fucking what?".

The British French and Americans have fucked up large parts of Africa while the Soviet Union/Russia was indirectly responsible for eradicating that cancerous growth, the apartheid state of South Africa, a single act that was better than all the good things that the United Kingdom, France and the United States have ever done in Africa

[Jun 10, 2019] America Falls Out of Love With Mitt Romney's Foreign Policy

Notable quotes:
"... One of the major gripes from Democrats and many Republicans in Washington is that Trump doesn't care much for alliances. He treats friends like foes and foes like friends. This is a slogan tailor-made for a bumper sticker, but it's also what a significant swath of the establishment believes. ..."
"... Trump may deliver a speech in London and mouth nice words about the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom, but deep down he looks at everything as a transaction. He isn't the first commander-in-chief to fulminate in private about the stingy Europeans who don't provide their citizens with national defense capabilities befitting a Western power. But he is the first to openly, strongly, and repeatedly condemn them for it. ..."
"... The 45th president views trade predominantly as a balance sheet. South Korea, Mexico, Japan, the European Union -- it doesn't matter how long a country has been a friend to the United States. If the U.S. is running a trade deficit, then it must get tougher and demand fairer terms. ..."
"... Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists Robert Kagan's Jungle Book of Forever War ..."
"... The Washington establishment can't stand this approach. The president's critics and even some of his supporters regard it as overly simplistic, deliberately antagonistic, and plain rude. Romney is one of those people, and he said it outright on the Senate floor on June 4. ..."
"... Therein lies the Republican foreign policy dichotomy today. On one side are the Romneys, Marco Rubios, and Bret Stephenses of the world who continue to peddle stereotypical phrases like "U.S.-led liberal international order," and label any finger-wagging at U.S. allies as disrespectful, childish, and ultimately counterproductive. And then you have Trump, a far more nationalist figure who thinks the U.S. is being exploited by countries that should be thanking us for our help. ..."
"... Both sides, though, are also right in part. Mitt Romney correctly underscores that America's alliance system is one of our nation's greatest strengths. But Donald Trump is right that maintaining alliances for their own sake -- and without expecting anything tangible in return -- shouldn't be the objective, and may in fact perpetuate an unsustainable status quo. ..."
Jun 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Maria Dryfhout / Shutterstock.com When Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama in a presidential election that most Republicans believed was winnable, the former Massachusetts governor was quickly dismissed as an also-ran -- the GOP version of Michael Dukakis. He was no longer the handsome, older, savvy businessman who would turn the economy around, but a bumbling, privileged stiff who couldn't dislodge a vulnerable incumbent.

The stink of the 2012 defeat stuck to Romney during the 2016 GOP presidential primary, when then-candidate Donald Trump excoriated him for choking like a dog.

The tables have now turned slightly. Many Republicans now look at Romney not as a defeated nominee, but as a statesman of sorts. No doubt Never Trumpers like Bill Kristol and Rick Wilson are praying that Romney challenges the president in 2020 and brings the Republican Party back to the time when Trump was just another reality television star.

Romney, of course, already decided that a third presidential run wasn't worth it. Being a U.S. senator, however, was another story. So he ran for a seat in Utah and won overwhelmingly in 2018. Six months later, there he was on the Senate floor, giving his maiden address, subtly poking Trump in the ribs without saying his name.

He talked about everything you would expect him to talk about: morality, civility, decency, freedom, unity, free trade and alliances.

One of the major gripes from Democrats and many Republicans in Washington is that Trump doesn't care much for alliances. He treats friends like foes and foes like friends. This is a slogan tailor-made for a bumper sticker, but it's also what a significant swath of the establishment believes.

Trump may deliver a speech in London and mouth nice words about the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom, but deep down he looks at everything as a transaction. He isn't the first commander-in-chief to fulminate in private about the stingy Europeans who don't provide their citizens with national defense capabilities befitting a Western power. But he is the first to openly, strongly, and repeatedly condemn them for it.

The 45th president views trade predominantly as a balance sheet. South Korea, Mexico, Japan, the European Union -- it doesn't matter how long a country has been a friend to the United States. If the U.S. is running a trade deficit, then it must get tougher and demand fairer terms.

Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists Robert Kagan's Jungle Book of Forever War

The Washington establishment can't stand this approach. The president's critics and even some of his supporters regard it as overly simplistic, deliberately antagonistic, and plain rude. Romney is one of those people, and he said it outright on the Senate floor on June 4.

"It is in the United States' most vital interest to see a strong NATO, a strong Europe, stronger ties with the free nations of Asia and the subcontinent, and with every free country," the junior senator from Utah remarked . "We need to hold our friends closer, not neglect them or drive them away."

Therein lies the Republican foreign policy dichotomy today. On one side are the Romneys, Marco Rubios, and Bret Stephenses of the world who continue to peddle stereotypical phrases like "U.S.-led liberal international order," and label any finger-wagging at U.S. allies as disrespectful, childish, and ultimately counterproductive. And then you have Trump, a far more nationalist figure who thinks the U.S. is being exploited by countries that should be thanking us for our help.

Both sides have their faults. Trump's worldview is steeped in his decades-long career in real estate, marketing, and show business -- industries that prize the bottom lines of profit and ratings. This is reflected in his admiration for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a walking, talking diplomatic disaster if there ever was one. But outwardly, Salman exudes power and decisiveness -- and is more than happy to purchase tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military weapon systems with which to bomb his enemies.

Both sides, though, are also right in part. Mitt Romney correctly underscores that America's alliance system is one of our nation's greatest strengths. But Donald Trump is right that maintaining alliances for their own sake -- and without expecting anything tangible in return -- shouldn't be the objective, and may in fact perpetuate an unsustainable status quo.

There are few Republicans who have truly sought a happy medium between the Romney and Trump approaches on foreign policy. Most foreign policy on Capitol Hill is reflexive, hewing to shopworn internationalist talking points or hawkish posturing. In terms of what the American people want, however, Trump's preference for a greater degree of restraint and putting democracy promotion and regime change in the rear-view mirror appears to be winning out.

In the words of a February 2019 Eurasia Group Foundation report authored by New York University's Mark Hannah, the "desire for a more focused foreign policy is at odds with the more expansive role generally favored by foreign policy experts." The liberal hegemony Mitt Romney continues to preach like gospel on the Senate floor is fast becoming unpopular among the broader electorate.

It is clear now that there has never been a period in the modern era when the establishment Mitt Romney represents has lost so much of its appeal. It will be interesting to see whether Republican lawmakers, elected to represent their constituencies at home, begin to fall in line with the rest of America.

Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at Reuters , and a frequent contributor to .

Kent June 7, 2019 at 9:42 am

"It will be interesting to see whether Republican lawmakers, elected to represent their constituencies at home, begin to fall in line with the rest of America."

As someone deeply involved in Republican politics at the local level, I can tell you that this is far more difficult than the average person imagines. Running for Congress is vastly different than running for President. Here's how it works.

Suppose I'm Congressman Smith. A loyal vote for interventionist foreign policy, tax cuts, and globalism. I've been in Congress for 20 years and can summon unlimited amounts of campaign contributions from Lockheed, Raytheon, Goldman-Sachs and every private equity and hedge fund in the country. I also have a great relationship with the owners of my local newspaper and television stations, and key religious leaders in the region. They've all made a lot of money from me.

You want to run against me to help represent President Trump's views in Congress, which you strongly feel reflects the views of the community you desire to serve.

I am going to run unlimited advertising lying about my own views. I'm going to talk about how I strongly support Trump's views and highlight the few times I actually voted with him. You won't have the money to counter that. I'm also going to lie about your positions in every mass media outlet I can find, and you're not going to have the money to counter that either. Finally, I'm going to find a friend who is younger and better looking than you to run on YOUR platform. His sole purpose will be to split the vote for your platform, leaving me with a healthy plurality for a win.

In the one chance in a million you do win, all those powerful interests are going to make it far and away in your best interests to vote just like I did. Your unemployed brother is going to get a loan to take a big stake in a subcontractor to the F-35, where he will be given a vice-presidency for a million dollars a year. Your wife, the life-long homemaker, will suddenly become a very desirable and expensive asset to K-Street lobbyists. You'll be given a loan for that mansion on the beach, with the mortgage payments mysteriously being taken care of.

This is how our electoral system actually works. It's why you always seem stuck voting for the lesser evil. It's why nothing ever seems to change regardless of who you vote for. And the beauty of American style democracy is that you will play along with it every time.

Rossbach , , June 7, 2019 at 10:01 am
"But Donald Trump is right that maintaining alliances for their own sake -- and without expecting anything tangible in return -- shouldn't be the objective, and may in fact perpetuate an unsustainable status quo."

So, when is President Trump going to start acting as though he actually believes that? His foreign policy is almost as big a disaster as his immigration policy -- all talk and no action.

Dan Phillips , , June 7, 2019 at 12:49 pm
America's alliance system is not one of our greatest strengths. It is entirely a post-WWII contrivance. Prior to WWII, we had had only one formal treaty alliance, with France in the War for Independence. We don't need a happy medium between Romney and Trump. We need full throated nonintervention.

[Jun 10, 2019] Pompeo s promise to intervene against Corbyn should surprise no one by Catte Black

Jun 10, 2019 | off-guardian.org

alt media-verse is currently on fire with the news that the US State Dept's answer to Al Capone, Mike Pompeo, has been caught promising "Jewish leaders" to send the boys round to Jeremy Corbyn if he should get elected and subsequently prove to be uppity and out of line. According to the WaPo , who broke the story:

The remarks, which are contained in audio of a private meeting leaked to The Washington Post, make Pompeo the second senior U.S. official to comment on Britain's turbulent leadership succession in the past week.

During his meeting with Jewish leaders in New York, Pompeo was asked if Corbyn "is elected, would you be willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the U.K.?"

In response, Pompeo said, "It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gantlet and get elected. It's possible. You should know, we won't wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best," he said to fervent applause from attendees.

"It's too risky and too important and too hard once it's already happened," he said.

Of course the idea the "Jewish leaders" harbor any real fear that Jeremy Corbyn (Jeremy Corbyn!) is going to make life "difficult" for British Jews if elected is simply risible. They know, just as every moderately informed person knows, that that's absurd. They know Corbyn has no wish to make life difficult for anybody – except possibly the uber wealthy and the profiteer class.

They know the "antisemitism" fear is just a cover for the very very real fear that a Corbyn government will break the unwritten rules of modern western governance and reject the agenda of austerity, exploitation and perpetual war that has been creating huge profits and ideological thrills for the blessed few over the last twenty years.

They know that what Pompeo is promising is action to prevent this possibility coming about.

People are up in arms about this, and some seem quite shocked. Apparently the idea the neoliberal elites would try regime change or regime-control on a relatively prosperous western country was something they didn't previously think possible.

Unfortunately it's more than possible. The state apparatus of the different western nations are a tight bond of mutual regard and interest, just as likely to foment regime change on their own or their allies' elected representatives as on those of impoverished or "developing" countries, if they believe those representatives threaten the perceived interests of the state. Of course it isn't too often necessary, since the same western state apparatus also works to ensure that only governments that don't threaten perceived state interests manage to get elected. But, when the unthinkable happens, MI5 and the CIA are quite happy to step up to the plate and throw their own or their allies' democratic governments out the window. It's happened – or nearly happened – at least twice in the last fifty years.

In the 1960s the UK security agencies, senior military and members of the royal family were apparently contemplating a fullblown coup against Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.

In 1975 it was Australia's turn , when democratically elected reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam was overthrown in a bloodless constitutional coup organised jointly by the US and UK .

The old empire and the new have form in this regard, and this means no one should take Pompeo's words (spoken in private let's not forget) lightly.

It's also interesting to look at how the WaPo frames the revelation. There's no sense of outrage or surprise there. In fact it's an almost matter-of-fact piece, written with no awareness of its potential impact. Even those in the comments who object in some form are mostly doing it within the permissible current language of dissent – blaming Trump , because in these identity politics-saturated times, your morality resides in who or what you are NOT in what you do.

To the WaPo – and many of its readers – there's nothing intrinsically either wrong or surprising in the idea a US secretary of state should be overtly promising to interfere in the democratic governance of another country.

It's just what they do when they need to.

Barovsky

See Caitlin Johnson’s piece: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/10/uh-what-did-pompeo-mean-when-he-vowed-to-push-back-against-corbyn/

[Jun 09, 2019] The looming 100-year US-China conflict by Martin Wolf

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Across-the-board rivalry with China is becoming an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies. ..."
"... An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened. ..."
"... The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers, attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order. ..."
Jun 04, 2019 | archive.fo
The disappearance of the Soviet Union left a big hole. The "war on terror" was an inadequate replacement. But China ticks all boxes. For the US, it can be the ideological, military and economic enemy many need. Here at last is a worthwhile opponent. That was the main conclusion I drew from this year's Bilderberg meetings.

Across-the-board rivalry with China is becoming an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies.

Whether it is Donald Trump's organizing principle is less important. The US president has the gut instincts of a nationalist and protectionist. Others provide both framework and details. The aim is US domination. The means is control over China, or separation from China.

Anybody who believes a rules-based multilateral order, our globalised economy, or even harmonious international relations, are likely to survive this conflict is deluded. The astonishing white paper on the trade conflict , published on Sunday by China, is proof. The -- to me, depressing -- fact is that on many points Chinese positions are right.

The US focus on bilateral imbalances is economically illiterate. The view that theft of intellectual property has caused huge damage to the US is questionable . The proposition that China has grossly violated its commitments under its 2001 accession agreement to the World Trade Organization is hugely exaggerated.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

Accusing China of cheating is hypocritical when almost all trade policy actions taken by the Trump administration are in breach of WTO rules, a fact implicitly conceded by its determination to destroy the dispute settlement system .

The US negotiating position vis-à-vis China is that "might makes right". This is particularly true of insisting that the Chinese accept the US role as judge, jury and executioner of the agreement .

A dispute over the terms of market opening or protection of intellectual property might be settled with careful negotiation. Such a settlement might even help China, since it would lighten the heavy hand of the state and promote market-oriented reform.

But the issues are now too vexed for such a resolution. This is partly because of the bitter breakdown in negotiation. It is still more because the US debate is increasingly over whether integration with China's state-led economy is desirable. The fear over Huawei focuses on national security and technological autonomy.

[Neo]liberal commerce is increasingly seen as "trading with the enemy".

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

A framing of relations with China as one of zero-sum conflict is emerging. Recent remarks by Kiron Skinner, the US state department's policy planning director (a job once held by cold war strategist George Kennan) are revealing. Rivalry with Beijing, she suggested at a forum organised by New America , is "a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology, and the United States hasn't had that before".

She added that this would be "the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian". The war with Japan is forgotten.

But the big point is her framing of this as a civilizational and racial war and so as an insoluble conflict. This cannot be accidental. She is also still in her job. Others present the conflict as one over ideology and power.

Those emphasising the former point to President Xi Jinping's Marxist rhetoric and the reinforced role of the Communist party . Those emphasising the latter point to China's rising economic might. Both perspectives suggest perpetual conflict.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

This is the most important geopolitical development of our era. Not least, it will increasingly force everybody else to take sides or fight hard for neutrality. But it is not only important. It is dangerous. It risks turning a manageable, albeit vexed, relationship into all-embracing conflict, for no good reason. China's ideology is not a threat to liberal democracy in the way the Soviet Union's was. Rightwing demagogues are far more dangerous.

An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened.

Moreover, the rise of China is not an important cause of western malaise. That reflects far more the indifference and incompetence of domestic elites. What is seen as theft of intellectual property reflects, in large part, the inevitable attempt of a rising economy to master the technologies of the day. Above all, an attempt to preserve the domination of 4 per cent of humanity over the rest is illegitimate.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

This certainly does not mean accepting everything China does or says. On the contrary, the best way for the west to deal with China is to insist on the abiding values of freedom, democracy, rules-based multilateralism and global co-operation. These ideas made many around the globe supporters of the US in the past.

They still captivate many Chinese people today. It is quite possible to uphold these ideas, indeed insist upon them far more strongly, while co-operating with a rising China where that is essential, as over protecting the natural environment, commerce and peace.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

A blend of competition with co-operation is the right way forward. Such an approach to managing China's rise must include co-operating closely with like-minded allies and treating China with respect.

The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers, attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order.

Today's attack on China is the wrong war, fought in the wrong way, on the wrong terrain. Alas, this is where we now are.

[email protected]

[Jun 09, 2019] Trump's Venezuela Hallucination The American Conservative

Jun 09, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Trump was eager to boast about Moscow's withdrawal of its troops from Venezuela, but it turned out that he or someone else in the administration just made it up:

The Kremlin said on Tuesday it didn't know where U.S. President Donald Trump had got the idea Moscow had removed most of its military specialists from Venezuela, who it said continued to work there.

Trump tweeted on Monday that Russia had told the United States it had removed "most of their people" from Venezuela, where Moscow has maintained close military and economic ties with socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his ultimatum to remove their forces from the country. It isn't surprising that he would try to spin any development in his favor, but in this case it seems that he just invented something out of thin air so that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless. He has no genuine successes that he can talk about, so he has to have pretend victories instead. The original tweet is still up:

Claiming that "Russia informed" him of this thing that didn't happen makes it even sillier, because it immediately prompted the Russian government to announce that they couldn't have informed Trump about something that hadn't occurred. Now that Russia has corrected the record, the president looks even more ridiculous than usual.

This episode isn't that important by itself, but it shows how easily Trump can be convinced of the reality of things that haven't happened and how readily he will accept any story, no matter how unfounded it may be, if it flatters him and bolsters his agenda. That makes him unusually easy to manipulate and provoke, and it makes him an exceptionally easy mark for misinformation. That puts the president's decision-making completely at the mercy of the advisers that control what he sees and hears.


Collin, says: June 4, 2019 at 3:30 pm

that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless.

Not a Trump fan, but is Trump's Venezuela policy feckless? Or just Trump somehow understands that it is not our problem and/or military intervention is just a bad investment. For the life of me, I don't understand why Russia desires to part of the Venezuelan mess, but most of their interference is minimal in nature and really has little impact on the situation. I get the Bay Of Bolton was half assed coup that probably did more damage to Guaido chances for new elections. (Guaido is being painted as the Trump Imperialism candidate which is not popular.)

The big question is why this is not China's problem? At this point, Venezuela is completely with them.

EliteCommInc. , says: June 4, 2019 at 3:42 pm
"That puts the president's decision-making completely at the mercy of the advisers that control what he sees and hears."

Hmmmm . . . hard to challenge that.

rayray , says: June 4, 2019 at 3:51 pm
White House staff may have just taken Putin's name off the ship to make Trump feel better.
SteveM , says: June 4, 2019 at 4:01 pm
Re: "Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his ultimatum to remove their forces from the country."

Agree. But the larger subtext is that the U.S. now has zero credibility with anything . The assumption by every country on the planet has to be that the U.S. word is not worth squat.

Fat Pompeo with his big mouth, "We lie, cheat and steal" mind-dump says it all. The Russians are anything but saints, but they knew that the U.S. planned on having Russia ejected from its Crimean Naval Base in Sevastopol after the coup that Nitwit Nuland and her barrel of CIA monkeys engineered.

Similarly, the Russians know that if/when the U.S. puts sock puppet Guaido in power, they will ensure he stiffs the Russians out of all of their claims and assets in Venezuela.

The Russians don't want to wrestle with the Gorilla, but they have no other choice.

Myron K Hudson , says: June 4, 2019 at 6:14 pm
This new normal is frightening. The man has a tenuous grip on reality at best. Those profiting by it maintain that the Emperor has clothes.
Clyde Schechter , says: June 4, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Given the way the dealings with North Korea have gone, I expect that Trump will soon be announcing that Kim Jong-Un has destroyed all his nuclear weapons and pledged not to build any more. Needless to say, it will not have happened.

But, as they say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me. The question really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe everything he says when he lies so blatantly so often.

Carnie Barquer , says: June 4, 2019 at 8:10 pm
"That puts the president's decision-making completely at the mercy of the advisers that control what he sees and hears. "

And what a bunch those "advisers" are! Wackjobs, liars, convicted criminals, foreign agents and some are more than one of those things!

Mark Thomason , says: June 5, 2019 at 8:25 am
My guess is that Bolton lied to Trump, in order to make himself look better to Trump when pressed on his failures.

By the time that is known, events will have moved on so far even Trump doesn't care.

Kent , says: June 5, 2019 at 8:25 am
@Clyde Schechter,

"The question really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe everything he says when he lies so blatantly so often."

I don't know that they do. I tend to think that they just hate what has happened to the country since Reagan and Clinton so much that they just want Trump to keep bashing Congress over the head, even with stupidity.

Not to mention that humans have an innate exploitable weakness: the desire to transfer someone else's perceived greatness on to themselves. Hence the inclination of sports fans and adoration of the military.

So "Team America" is great, therefore I am great, and Trump represents us, therefore Trump is great.

Bannerman , says: June 5, 2019 at 1:45 pm
One should not wish ill on any other human being, even though i have contemplated several slapstick scenarios involving certain politicians, however

Donald Trump is in the process of discovering that one cannot ignore Reality, since it Bites, that live is not a reality TV show (the most unreal thing on television), and that chickens do indeed come home to roost.

Unfortunately, it's been a difficult learning curve, and pathetic boasts to the contrary, he has managed to turn both the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party into a pile of smoking rubble.

It conservatism can be rebuilt in a score of years, it would be a miracle. More like, a generation.

Kevin Zeese , says: June 7, 2019 at 11:04 am
Trump's Venezuelan policy is a series of hallucination's. This article just describes the most recent. It begins with the hallucination that Maduro is a dictator, when in reality he won an election in May 2018 with 67% of the vote in an election that more than 150 international election observers unanimously agreed met all international standards for democratic elections. It follows with the hallucination that the Venezuelan military would join the US in rising up against their elected president rather than support the constitutional government. It continues with the hallucination that the people of Venezuela would join a US-inspired coup against the president they had just re-elected rather than join a 2 million person plus civilian militia to defend against a US attack. And, it continues with the hallucination that Juan Guaido is the interim president when his self-appointment violated the Venezuelan Constitution and the United Nations and Venezuelan law recognize Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

The antidote of these ongoing hallucinatory experiences is for Trump to no longer trust his advisors and end the US coup attempt, which has already failed multiple times in Venezuela. John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliot Abrams have made Trump see hallucinations that are complete falsehoods. They have led the president into an embarrassing trap that he now needs to get out of. They have made Trump look like a fool.

It is time for Trump to take steps to normalize relations with Venezuela. That begins with a mutual Protecting Power Agreement between the US and Venezuela for Switzerland to be a Protecting Power of the US Embassy in Caracas and Turkey to be a Protecting of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC. Following from that the US and Venezuela should negotiate the sale of Venezuelan resources, primarily oil, in return for the end of the illegal unilateral coercive measures (inaccurately called sanctions) against Venezuela. Negotiating with Venezuela will be less expensive than a war that will become a quagmire that will end in failure after costing more than $1 trillion and causing chaos in the region. Then, Trump and Maduro should meet to chart a course that begins with mutual respect for the independence and sovereignty of each nation and then determines where the two nations interests are consistent with each other. It is time to leave the hallucinations behind and come back to reality.

delia ruhe , says: June 7, 2019 at 11:49 am
The ease with which Trump is manipulated and provoked can be added to the explanation of why Bibi is now in possession of Jerusalem and war against Iran is a high probability. That should terrify Americans.

[Jun 09, 2019] Romney Has Learned Nothing

Notable quotes:
"... Romney has learned that Trump came and Trump will go, but the neocons will still be there, firmly in control of Team R and Team D. Omnibelligerence they want, and omnibelligerence they shall have. ..."
"... Unfortunately, anti-Russian hysteria is now an article of faith among most Democrats as well. ..."
Jun 09, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

It is strange that Romney chose foreign policy as the focus of his first floor speech as a senator. As a presidential candidate, Romney repeatedly humiliated himself by making ridiculous and brain-dead foreign policy arguments. His criticism of New START was breathtaking in how ill-informed it was, and his foreign policy was fairly described as "omni-directional belligerence" for a reason. He has not significantly improved since then. All of the reports on Romney's speech describe him as "subtly" attacking Trump, which suggests that his attacks were not all that subtle if they were obvious to everyone. Then again, no one should expect subtlety from the man who wanted to attack Obama for the former president's supposed "apology tour" and titled his campaign book No Apology .

Romney asserted during the presidential campaign that Russia was our "number one geopolitical foe." This wasn't true when he said it in the 2012 campaign, and it still isn't today. Romney chose that line of attack because he saw Obama's policy of engagement with Russia as a vulnerability to exploit. If it was a vulnerability, Romney completely failed to take advantage of it, because he had absolutely nothing better to offer. The senator still can't bring himself to acknowledge that he was wrong about Russia, but now he wants to warn us that China may take their place:

Romney, who argued that China is poised to become America's "No. 1 geopolitical adversary," urged American leaders to fortify the U.S. against future Chinese expansion and to take steps to slow China's rising power.

The senator's eagerness to attack Obama for being soft on Russia led him into serious error. I don't see how trying to do the same thing on China will produce better results. Even if one agrees that China is America's foremost adversary, it doesn't follow that the best course is to pursue an openly confrontational policy towards them. Romney is still stuck reciting hawkish platitudes and congratulating himself for his wisdom. The junior senator from Utah has learned nothing after all these years, and there is no reason to expect that he ever will.

Most of Romney's new remarks are little more than boilerplate. What the senator doesn't and maybe can't acknowledge in his speech is how similar Trump's foreign policy is to his own. Both wrongly faulted Obama for neglecting "allies" (read Middle Eastern clients), both embraced the deranged idea of maintaining "no daylight" with those same clients, and since becoming a senator Romney has been a reliable vote for the worst of Trump's policies abroad. When the time came earlier this year to vote on S.J.Res. 7 to demand an end to U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen, Romney voted in lockstep with most of the other Senate Republicans. Even though his fellow Utah Republican was one of the co-sponsors, Romney predictably sided with the morally bankrupt hawks. One of the biggest attacks on our allies has come in the form of Trump's Iran policy with the decision to renege on the JCPOA, but of course Romney has no problem with that policy or the damage that it is doing to our relations with Germany, Britain, and France. His past statements about the nuclear deal are cringe-inducing in their ignorance. Here is one from May 2018:

Brief as it is, Romney's statement is riddled with errors. Iran had no "nuclear weapon program" last year or at any point for the last 16 years, so there was and is nothing to eliminate. Just as he did with New START, Romney dismissed the JCPOA as a "bad deal" not because of the content of the agreement but only because it was an agreement negotiated and completed under Obama. Romney is smarter, more polished, and more urbane than Trump, but his foreign policy judgment is just as appalling as the president's. When we cut through the senator's unimaginative endorsements of alliances and trade, we will remember why most American voters chose someone else when Romney was the Republican nominee for president


Sid Finster, says: June 7, 2019 at 10:27 am

Romney has learned that Trump came and Trump will go, but the neocons will still be there, firmly in control of Team R and Team D. Omnibelligerence they want, and omnibelligerence they shall have.

To be fair, Romney probably knew this before 2012 as well.

Donald , says: June 7, 2019 at 11:37 am
Unfortunately, anti-Russian hysteria is now an article of faith among most Democrats as well.
liberal , says: June 7, 2019 at 12:15 pm
By "elimination of Iran's nuclear weapon program", a reasonable reading (given that Iran has no actual nuclear weapon program) is the elimination of Iran's nuclear industry .

IIRC this would be a complete violation of the NNPT. Quoting from Wikipedia on the "bargain" in the NNPT

the NPT non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons and the NPT nuclear-weapon states in exchange agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals

[emphasis added]

Of course it's quite reasonable to argue that the US is in violation of the NNPT (apart from the Iran issue) because of that last part.

Taras 77 , says: June 8, 2019 at 12:21 am
The crux of the matter is not what romney believes or learned (or has not learned). It is what his neo con handlers want and will pursue. Romney is just a puppet, mouthpiece.

His 2012 campaign was controlled by the neo cons, as inept as it was. He played a large role in rapidly staffing trump admin with neo cons (see John Hay Initiative, founded by Brian Hook, pompeo's #2 currently).

Now, he is simply mouthing the neo con globalist line as directed.

swamp gas , says: June 9, 2019 at 9:04 am
There's really hardly anything left of the old GOP. It's now the party of Wall Street, Israel, permanent war, whopping deficits, outsourcing, cheap foreign labor, and executive branch bootlickers masquerading as congressmen. That's Romney to a t, the perfect profile for leading the GOP to final collapse, adding to the number of establishment conservative party wipeouts around the world.

[Jun 09, 2019] The looming 100-year US-China conflict by Martin Wolf

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Across-the-board rivalry with China is becoming an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies. ..."
"... An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened. ..."
"... The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers, attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order. ..."
Jun 04, 2019 | archive.fo
The disappearance of the Soviet Union left a big hole. The "war on terror" was an inadequate replacement. But China ticks all boxes. For the US, it can be the ideological, military and economic enemy many need. Here at last is a worthwhile opponent. That was the main conclusion I drew from this year's Bilderberg meetings.

Across-the-board rivalry with China is becoming an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies.

Whether it is Donald Trump's organizing principle is less important. The US president has the gut instincts of a nationalist and protectionist. Others provide both framework and details. The aim is US domination. The means is control over China, or separation from China.

Anybody who believes a rules-based multilateral order, our globalised economy, or even harmonious international relations, are likely to survive this conflict is deluded. The astonishing white paper on the trade conflict , published on Sunday by China, is proof. The -- to me, depressing -- fact is that on many points Chinese positions are right.

The US focus on bilateral imbalances is economically illiterate. The view that theft of intellectual property has caused huge damage to the US is questionable . The proposition that China has grossly violated its commitments under its 2001 accession agreement to the World Trade Organization is hugely exaggerated.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

Accusing China of cheating is hypocritical when almost all trade policy actions taken by the Trump administration are in breach of WTO rules, a fact implicitly conceded by its determination to destroy the dispute settlement system .

The US negotiating position vis-à-vis China is that "might makes right". This is particularly true of insisting that the Chinese accept the US role as judge, jury and executioner of the agreement .

A dispute over the terms of market opening or protection of intellectual property might be settled with careful negotiation. Such a settlement might even help China, since it would lighten the heavy hand of the state and promote market-oriented reform.

But the issues are now too vexed for such a resolution. This is partly because of the bitter breakdown in negotiation. It is still more because the US debate is increasingly over whether integration with China's state-led economy is desirable. The fear over Huawei focuses on national security and technological autonomy.

[Neo]liberal commerce is increasingly seen as "trading with the enemy".

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

A framing of relations with China as one of zero-sum conflict is emerging. Recent remarks by Kiron Skinner, the US state department's policy planning director (a job once held by cold war strategist George Kennan) are revealing. Rivalry with Beijing, she suggested at a forum organised by New America , is "a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology, and the United States hasn't had that before".

She added that this would be "the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian". The war with Japan is forgotten.

But the big point is her framing of this as a civilizational and racial war and so as an insoluble conflict. This cannot be accidental. She is also still in her job. Others present the conflict as one over ideology and power.

Those emphasising the former point to President Xi Jinping's Marxist rhetoric and the reinforced role of the Communist party . Those emphasising the latter point to China's rising economic might. Both perspectives suggest perpetual conflict.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

This is the most important geopolitical development of our era. Not least, it will increasingly force everybody else to take sides or fight hard for neutrality. But it is not only important. It is dangerous. It risks turning a manageable, albeit vexed, relationship into all-embracing conflict, for no good reason. China's ideology is not a threat to liberal democracy in the way the Soviet Union's was. Rightwing demagogues are far more dangerous.

An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened.

Moreover, the rise of China is not an important cause of western malaise. That reflects far more the indifference and incompetence of domestic elites. What is seen as theft of intellectual property reflects, in large part, the inevitable attempt of a rising economy to master the technologies of the day. Above all, an attempt to preserve the domination of 4 per cent of humanity over the rest is illegitimate.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

This certainly does not mean accepting everything China does or says. On the contrary, the best way for the west to deal with China is to insist on the abiding values of freedom, democracy, rules-based multilateralism and global co-operation. These ideas made many around the globe supporters of the US in the past.

They still captivate many Chinese people today. It is quite possible to uphold these ideas, indeed insist upon them far more strongly, while co-operating with a rising China where that is essential, as over protecting the natural environment, commerce and peace.

Martin Wolf chart on US/China

A blend of competition with co-operation is the right way forward. Such an approach to managing China's rise must include co-operating closely with like-minded allies and treating China with respect.

The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers, attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order.

Today's attack on China is the wrong war, fought in the wrong way, on the wrong terrain. Alas, this is where we now are.

[email protected]

[Jun 08, 2019] Meadows FBI Knew Within 60 Days That Russia Probe Built On A Foundation Of Sand

Notable quotes:
"... Obummer put it all together......Little mr community organizer.....He had nothing to lose as he wasn't going to be able to run again. ..."
"... Anyone shocked to find federal government employees lying, cheating and stealing? If so, see a doctor. ..."
"... Direct British interference in our elections will be swept under the rug. Nothing to see here. ..."
"... Mueller was central to flipping the House ..."
Jun 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Mark Meadows confirmed what many have suspected about the Trump-Russia for a long time; the FBI knew early on that the foundation of its counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign was built on 'a foundation of sand,' reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.

North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows (R) told Hannity Friday night that the FBI knew "within 60 days of them opening the investigation, prior to [Robert] Mueller coming on, the FBI and the [Department of Justice] knew that Christopher Steele was not credible, the dossier was not true, George Papadopoulos was innocent."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xMlICMbk1pk

Meadows did not elaborate on why he believes the FBI knew their investigation was built on a mountain of lies, however according to The Hill 's John Solomon last month, memos which were retroactively classified by the DOJ reveal that a high-ranking government official who met with Christopher Steele in October 2016 determined that information in the Trump-Russia dossier was inaccurate , and likely leaked to the media.

Meadows also suggested that the FBI had exculpatory information on Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who was fed the rumor that Russia had negative information on Hillary Clinton, and later bilked for said information by a Clinton-linked Australian diplomat. Papadopoulos would later be subject to a spying operation in which the FBI sent in two operatives to trick the Trump adviser in a failed business / honeypot operation.

The bureau opened its investigation of the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016, after receiving a tip about Papadopoulos from the Australian government. Within those two months, the FBI team leading the investigation received information from Steele's dossier. The FBI also dispatched a longtime FBI informant, Stefan Halper , to meet with Papadopoulos.

The pair met in London in mid-September 2016 after Halper offered Papadopoulos $3,000 to write a policy paper. Halper, a former Cambridge professor, was accompanied by a woman he claimed was his assistant, Azra Turk . She is reportedly a government investigator.

Meadows in the past has suggested the FBI had exculpatory information on Papadopoulos that showed the Trump aide was not working with Russia. - Daily Caller

The FBI relied on the Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, ostensibly allowing the Obama administration to surveil those Page was in contact with.


Slaytheist , 12 seconds ago link

The thin blue line is ******* blue as **** and too thin to be seen.

Thebighouse , 3 minutes ago link

Obummer put it all together......Little mr community organizer.....He had nothing to lose as he wasn't going to be able to run again.

PS....did you hear about the half a BILLION dollars in travel and security perks obummer ok's for himself into "retirement" on the taxpayers' dime? obummer is a puke. Fortunately, Trump undid that little executive order.

... ... ...

VWAndy , 4 minutes ago link

Declassify the contents of that laptop! Then we can start with the speedy trials and get to the hangings.

11th_Harmonic , 5 minutes ago link

There exists no trustworthy organization in the USG and its vassal appurtenances.

None.

onewayticket2 , 6 minutes ago link

60 days...?

Pretty sure they knew 60 days BEFORE the Mueller "investigation" started.....maybe 600. Depends when they first put F@#$%$ spies in the campaign

Gen. Ripper's Ghost , 6 minutes ago link

Anyone shocked to find federal government employees lying, cheating and stealing? If so, see a doctor.

J Mahoney , 7 minutes ago link

I wish I was George Papadopoulos -- he is going to be a multi millionaire from legal judgements against Comey, Brennen, US Govt, McCabe and hopefully, the Clintons and Obama. Every week in jail is an extra million....no wonder he didnt get a pardon. All those *** holes pensions should be made payable to all the injured parties--Stone, Papadopoulos, Flynn, Manafort, and all the Trumps that had to use so much of their time fighting false accusations.

Trader-Scholar , 1 minute ago link

And he married that hot Italian babe.

notfeelinthebern , 10 seconds ago link

They will never pay him any restitution, though he is the one who deserves it the most. They thought they were just dealing with stupid twerp who would grab the bait - using a boobalicious woman as the lure. Turns out he was sharper than the pros - says alot. The FBI thinks it is the sharpest ax in the shed, which has been proven otherwise...

Joiningupthedots , 10 minutes ago link

The glue that holds the 5 EYES together......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRxSxFj7kCg

Regardless of what they call themselves for expediency this is who they are.

notfeelinthebern , 13 minutes ago link

Now, if Barr only does not cover for Mueller because they are best buds, like he seemed to do when Mueller made that very queer statement a few weeks back, in what seemed to be an herculean effort to confuse the restless public even more.

spqrusa , 17 minutes ago link

Direct British interference in our elections will be swept under the rug. Nothing to see here.

tmosley , 15 minutes ago link

Confirmatiom bias. You have to say stuff like that in advance while also considering other situations that could cause the same outcome. Its not easy, but becomes easier with practice.

Duc888 , 15 minutes ago link

"I thought POTUS was going to declassify a bunch of this ******** and shine the light on the roaches"

....

VWAndy , 12 minutes ago link

Its not like Trump could run out of dirt to bury these crooks. We talking mountains of dirt.

Fishthatlived , 8 minutes ago link

Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it hasn't been declassified. And the roaches would have no desire to leak it.

theory , 21 minutes ago link

YOU MEAN......It took $40 Million Investigation, to tell us what we already knew : "FOUNDATION OF SAND".....Created by them, their boss, OBAMA, & his MOB Syndicate.....???

Amy G. Dala , 23 minutes ago link

When Trump threatened to declassify the FISA warrants and other docs, look who came out of the woodwork to protest. DOJ, "foreign allies" . . .

Hm . . .must be somewhere over the target with this kind of flack . . .

Cautiously Pessimistic , 24 minutes ago link

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

TotalMachineFail , 25 minutes ago link

The Former Bureau of Investigation knew from the start since it was in on the whole thing. It's not dissimilar from all the entrapment scenarios they used to be involved in when the agency existed desperately trying to pad the stats on how wonderful a job it was doing stopping terrorists.

Every activity for quite some time now, as with 100% of all now global former so called law enforcement, are felonies under color of law/authority. And now that the global judiciary were permanently relieved of duty and all courts dissolved nobody can pretend to either pull together a fake prosecution or ignore the sedition, treason and real crimes and pretend those don't deserve prosecution.

When did alleged so called prosecutors first delusionally pretend that only these jobs could move something along legally? No problems it will be disclosed publicly at your trials. ALL types of immunity were permanently eliminated longer ago than any have been working so don't hold a false sense of security.

Amy G. Dala , 19 minutes ago link

Yup, Mueller had a few goals. Drag it out to the midterms, compile a shitload of stats (dollars, docs, subpoenas), and produce an ambiguous report.

spqrusa , 15 minutes ago link

Mueller was central to flipping the House and stopping any immigration or MAGA legislation.

notfeelinthebern , 25 minutes ago link

The FBI knew their investigation was based on a mountain of lies because they were the ones who lied to get the fake investigation going. Does not take any monumental logic to state. I watched last night - it was Bongino sitting in for Sean. By the time you get done listening, you almost get a bit confused because they need to use so many words/mental snares to describe the actions that took place, when it is really that simple.

Zorba's idea , 27 minutes ago link

The mendacity of ALL the US Intelligence Communities under OShithead stinks...Expose all of it...Purge all of it...Burn all of it.

HoserF16 , 27 minutes ago link

Proof Positive! Comey and McCabe are PIECES OF ******* ****...

[Jun 08, 2019] Sanders burns Bill Kristol over 'foolish' pushing for Iraq war, asks where his apology is

May 28, 2019 | www.rt.com
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took a swipe at neoconservative Bill Kristol for his "foolish advocacy of the Iraq war," and questioned whether he had apologized to the country for it yet. Sanders was responding to a tweet Kristol sent that said, "#Never Sanders," and linked to a New York Times article about the longtime Vermont senator's opposition to war.

"Have you apologized to the nation for your foolish advocacy of the Iraq war?" Sanders tweeted , adding he makes "no apologies for opposing it."

Sanders' record of opposing wars like Vietnam and Iraq, and US meddling in Nicaragua, has recently been highlighted by the media as the 2020 presidential primaries approach.

pic.twitter.com/yZj2fC8xRB

-- #WithTheseHands 🙌🏻🙌🏼🙌🏽🙌🏾 Eowyn (@WestCoastGadfly) May 26, 2019

Has Biden apologized for his support of that war and so many others? Please answer my poll: https://t.co/Xxsa70K56o

-- (𝕊𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕝) 𝔻𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕔𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕪 ℕ𝕠𝕨! 🇺🇸 (@IStandWithIlhan) May 25, 2019

Feel the Bern, Bill. pic.twitter.com/LcouTg1XdG

-- Meghan McCain's Tears™ (@Smedley_Butler) May 25, 2019

NBC's Meet the Press came under fire last week for tweeting , "Sanders said he won't apologize for supporting anti-Vietnam War efforts and voting against the war in Iraq," which sparked ridicule among social media users and inspired Sanders to release a video in which he stood by his anti-war stance and promised to do everything to prevent a war with Iran.

I was right about Vietnam.

I was right about Iraq.

I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran.

I apologize to no one. pic.twitter.com/Lna3oBZMKB

-- Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 24, 2019

Kristol tweeted his 'never Sanders' diss after the former Burlington mayor introduced a petition to prevent "military action against Iran without congressional approval," something that likely upset Kristol, who has been calling for regime change in Iran for over 13 years.

Kristol refused to apologize over his comments, instead calling on Sanders to engage in a "real debate on US foreign policy."

Nope. I dislike quasi-Stalinist demands for apologies. I've defended and will defend my views on Iraq, and Syria, and Milosevic, and the Soviet Union, and more, as you defend yours. How about a real debate on U.S. foreign policy--I'll ask for no apologies!--on a campus this fall? https://t.co/AdC0CelINz

-- Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 26, 2019

A co-founder of the neoconservative think tank the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), Kristol called for regime change in Iraq in 1998 in a series of articles and a letter to then-President Bill Clinton. Following 9/11, PNAC encouraged the George W. Bush administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Kristol ardently supported the war in Iraq, which he claimed would be a "two-month war" and repeatedly argued for sending more troops there to rectify the failing invasion.

During the 2006 Lebanon war, Kristol suggested the US take the opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, asking, "Why wait?"

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[Jun 08, 2019] Judging by the comment thread, US Navy propaganda crew is hard at work

US navy plays dangerous games. Sooner or later Russia or China or Iran maybe, or any hot spot in the world - encounters the situation wherein the US both must and can be slapped.
Notable quotes:
"... Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off. ..."
"... This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the other side to back off. ..."
"... Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess. ..."
"... I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the time of the incident ..."
"... If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts above. ..."
"... "The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code Flag 'D' may be flown." ..."
"... In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough jargon to dazzle the journalists. ..."
"... There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes (ball-diamond-ball). ..."
Jun 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Peter AU 1 , Jun 7, 2019 5:09:13 PM | 66
Judging by the comment thread, these boys are hard at work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_communication_specialist
"Mass Communication Specialist (abbreviated as MC) is a United States Navy occupational rating. MCs practice human-centered design to develop creative communication solutions and align communication strategies and tactics to leadership's intent; conduct research and develop audience profiles; prepare, process, and print publications and media products; create sketches, storyboards, and graphics; design publications; produce still imagery, and written, audio, video, and multimedia information products; collect, analyze, and report media project and communication plan feedback and performance information; create media project plans; conduct community outreach, news media operations, leadership communication operations, and organizational communication operations; plan and direct communication campaigns and events and serve as communication advisors to commanders; and develop content strategies, create data stories, and ensure communication products and experiences are designed to enhance understanding and discoverability. MCs serve aboard ships, in expeditionary units and at shore commands in the United States and overseas.[1]"

Peter AU 1 , Jun 7, 2019 5:56:41 PM | 72
My guess is the Russian anti submarine ship was on a parallel course to keep track of the US attack submarines with the carrier group. US ship was sent out to push it away. As you say, the helicopter may have been sent out to capture some video or stills that could be used to back up the 'US is innocent' propaganda already planned.

One thought on this - If the Russian ship did not change course, with the US ship slowing under reverse thrust, the Russian ship most likely would have hit it somewhere near the center. A great video of a Russian ship aggressively ramming a 'peaceful and innocent' US ship.

Yonatan , Jun 7, 2019 6:03:30 PM | 74
A 1:49 video filmed from the US vessel. The cameraman was taking leisurely close in shots of the Russian vessel's comms systems. The two vessels were sailing close to parallel for all this time and there is a view of the infamous Russian sunbathers on the helicopter landing platform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5SDldfZ3dE

Abe Jonson , Jun 7, 2019 6:24:16 PM | 76
There was something on Press TV about the US ship getting too close to a Russian UUV undergoing trials / on a covert op which caused the Russian escort ship to intercept the US ship.

Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off.

This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the other side to back off.

Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess.

Krollchem , Jun 7, 2019 8:31:15 PM | 86
Robert@78

Apparently you didn't read "b" post and know nothing about Russian vs US ship construction:

"The crew of the Chancellorsville should call itself lucky. Russian ships are build with a strong bow to travel in icy waters. Had the Admiral Vinogradov not made the emergency turn to its right, its bow would have cut their ship in half."

There are a lot of other idiotic comments at the US Navy site: https://twitter.com/USNavy/status/1136978500185919488

eagle eye , Jun 7, 2019 8:43:30 PM | 87
I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the time of the incident

82 sums it up nicely. The Yanks f..ked up, yet again.

uncle tungsten , Jun 7, 2019 9:13:20 PM | 90
Posted by: Robert | Jun 7, 2019 5:41:03 PM | 70

My sympathies are with the crew too. The reckless heroics of the bridge gang are deplorable. These encounters do not happen at high speed. Minutes go by. Both vessels should have been aware of their potential for close encounter.

If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts above.

The Russians could easily have adjusted course to pass behind the yankee vessel. All these ships have more than adequate electronics and personnel to calculate converging course and time of encounter. That they chose to come so close could indicate a FU attitude or perhaps they were on a 'collision stations' maneuver in real time. It is also probable they were monitoring US communications systems that are limited in range and only detected up close. Understanding those systems enables one to build a jamming device. The crew on that vessel would have been mighty anxious too.

Hyped egos, poor training and warships are a very stupid mix. See the Forrestal debacle where the ships fire crew were wiped out in the first response and untrained sailors sprayed the deck with water rather than foam thus washing fuel below decks and setting the stern ablaze.

karlof1 , Jun 7, 2019 9:42:39 PM | 92
Here we have manual : Helicopter-Ship-Operations . From page 37, Section 5.4.1:

"The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO International
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code Flag 'D' may be flown."

"D" translates as "Keep clear of me." From COLREGS, "Day shapes" mentioned above would be "1 ball+1 diamond+1 ball" organized vertically, which translates as "Restricted in ability to maneuver" ( here ).

But none of what the Regs require is visible--none! Russia wins its case, and it was all too easy!

Carl Nyberg , Jun 7, 2019 10:14:19 PM | 94
In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough jargon to dazzle the journalists.

The failure to mention USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) had the appropriate day shapes flying is simply too in the weeds for the PAOs and admiral's staff who wrote the press release/story.

There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes (ball-diamond-ball).

Even if the officer of the deck & the helicopter control officer did fail to tell the signalman to do those things, the vast majority of signalmen would have reminded the OOD. Signalmen have relatively few things to pay attention to, so they are pretty self directed.

[Jun 08, 2019] Trump has gathered the US Jewish vultures to handle his "deal of the century'

Jun 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: June 7, 2019 at 1:56 am GMT

I had concerns about her ties to India and therefore Israel. But I doubt she would let Jews or Israelis run the US like Trump does.

Trump has gathered the US Jewish vultures to handle his "deal of the century' ..and that deal will be raping Palestine and as much of the ME as they can. Given the opportunity I don't know whose throat I'd cut first probably the little girlie fop Kushner.

White House invites key Trump business allies to Bahrain forum in search for a Middle East 'deal of the century' .. CNBC

[MORE]

The White House has invited some of President Trump's key business allies to an event in Bahrain intended to kick-start the administration's long-awaited Middle East peace plan. The Bahrain meeting will focus on the economic part of the "deal of the century," which has been led by Jared Kushner. Tom Barrack, CEO of real estate investment firm Colony Capital, will be heading to the event. Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman, BlackRock's Larry Fink and Goldman Sachs' Dina Powell were also invited.

Tom Barrack, a loyal supporter of the president and the CEO of real estate investment firm Colony Capital, will be heading to the event slated to start on June 25 at the Four Seasons in Bahrain's capital, Manama.

"Tom is pleased to be a participant in a well organized forum for the purpose of advancing the peace process in the Middle East," said his spokesman, Owen Blicksilver. "He has been a lifelong advocate of economic prosperity being a foundation stone of hope for the entire region especially its exploding young and largely unemployed population."

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Goldman Sachs' Dina Powell are among the heavy hitters who have been invited to the gathering dubbed "Peace to Prosperity," according to people familiar with the planning.

Schwarzman is likely to attend, one of the people said, while Fink will not be going due to previous commitments, a separate source added. It's unclear whether Powell, a former deputy national security advisor under Trump, will join the group.

Schwarzman is a top donor to Trump's reelection campaign. In 2017, he contributed $344,400 Trump's joint fundraising committee.
Blackstone, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs all have extensive ties to the Middle East, including offices in Dubai, Riyadh and Tel-Aviv.
A senior administration official did not deny that Schwarzman, Fink and Powell were invited to the forum.

The Trump White House and its associates have close ties to Bahrain. Reuters previously reported that the administration was pursuing a nearly $5 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to island nation in the Gulf. The president's outside lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, landed a security consulting contract with the country's Ministry of Interior, The Daily Beast reported.

A team of White House officials led by Kushner has been attempting to bring Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the negotiating table since the administration's earliest days. Last month, the White House announced the Bahrain summit, which was described at the time as a chance for attendees to "galvanize support for potential economic investments and initiatives that could be made possible by a peace agreement," with a particular focus on Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Palestinian business executives are turning down invitations to the event, which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has ripped.

"Trump's 'deal of the century' will go to hell, as will the economic workshop in Bahrain that the Americans intend to hold and present illusions," Abbas said last week.

Kushner, in a recent interview with Axios, fired back at the Palestinian government, and blamed the leadership for the loss of U.S. aid that was cut from the West Bank and Gaza.

"The actions we've taken were because America's aid is not entitlement. Right, if we make certain decisions which we're allowed to as a sovereign nation to respect the rights of another sovereign nation and we get criticized by that government, the response of this president is not to say, 'Oh, let me give you more aid,'" Kushner said.

Representatives from wealthy Gulf states the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be attending. Officials from Qatar are set to take part as well.

Barrack, who was the chairman of Trump's inaugural committee and is a grandson of Lebanese immigrants, has a long history of attempting to make inroads in the Middle East, particularly through advocating for business investments.

While Barrack is not running point on the Trump administration's efforts, he is still deeply involved in the process. He authored a white paper for the administration titled "The Trump Middle East Marshall Plan," which specifically mentions expanding U.S. and international business opportunities there as a way to unite the region.

[Jun 08, 2019] McMaster and 'Nuclear Blackmail' The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... Even more depressing, McMaster is author of the excellent book, "Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam". Now he's retailing lies of his own in pursuit of another war. ..."
"... The "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" subsists on donations intended to advance the foreign policy agendas of countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those are the kind of "democracies" they want America to "defend" ..."
Jun 08, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Daniel DePetris follows up on McMaster's crazy North Korea comments :

McMaster then proceeds to mount a hypothetical -- nuclear blackmail. "This regime could say [if U.S. forces] don't go off the Korean Peninsula, we're going to threaten the use of nuclear weapons," the retired general explained. And yet this, too, is riddled with nonsense, the biggest objection being that making such an ultimatum would court the very military confrontation with the United States he wants to avoid.

When McMaster was in the Trump administration, he floated many of the same arguments about why attacking North Korea should be an option. Those arguments didn't make any sense when he made them as National Security Advisor, and they haven't improved now that he has migrated to the inaccurately named Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). McMaster's latest statements confirm that his preventive war talk wasn't just empty rhetoric on his part when he worked for Trump. He was apparently deadly serious about entertaining a U.S. attack on North Korea, and he continues to talk about it as though it were a reasonable and legitimate policy option. The reporting that he and others in the administration had a "messianic fervor" about this seems to have been right.

It can't be stressed enough that launching an attack on North Korea would an outrageous act of aggression. It would put the U.S. in clear violation of the U.N. Charter and make our government an illegal aggressor just like North Korea was in 1950. McMaster was and still is promoting the idea that the U.S. should be willing to commit a massive crime against another country. Unfortunately, talk of preventive war against certain states is not just tolerated in Washington, but it is actively encouraged and embraced by many other hard-liners, including the current National Security Advisor, who is also in favor of launching an attack on North Korea. These hard-liners dismiss the possibility of deterring these states so that they can have an excuse to attack, but invariably the behavior they cite as evidence that a state can't be deterred is proof that they desire self-preservation and regime security above all else.

Hard-liners also like to warn about "nuclear blackmail" from other states, but they can't ever produce an example of a nuclear weapons state that has successfully engaged in such blackmail to extract concessions from others. It makes even less sense when we consider what would happen to the blackmailing state if it followed through on the threat. Threatening to launch a nuclear first strike to gain concessions from other governments wouldn't get that government what it wants, and carrying out the threat would result in the state's certain annihilation. There is no upside to engaging in "nuclear blackmail" and a huge downside. If "nuclear blackmail" worked, there would likely have been a lot more blackmail attempts by nuclear weapons state over the last seventy-four years, and more states would want to acquire nuclear weapons for this purpose. In reality, just about the only use that nuclear weapons have is to deter attacks from others, and that is pretty clearly why North Korea built their nuclear arsenal. Threatening them with attack just confirms them in their view that they have to retain them, and actually attacking them would be the only thing that is likely to prompt them to use them.


Corwin , says: June 5, 2019 at 2:05 pm

There's a scene in the movie Dr. Strangelove where all the powerful men were sitting in the war room discussing the possible state of the world after the nuclear attack. They start by lamenting the deaths of tens of millions of Americans, and that they might be the only leaders left to rebuild America. They then worked their way to moving to a bunker to make sure they were safe, then bringing in women who could help repopulate the country, and then making sure the women were beautiful and that there would be enough to get started on having lots of children right away. So in less than 2 minutes, they go from the end of civilization to having a harem for each of them. When powerful people can see a disaster as a chance to gain even more power, they will take it regardless of the consequences to anyone else. That's who they are.
Fran Macadam , says: June 5, 2019 at 3:30 pm
I must have missed when our own official policy renounced nuclear first strike. As far as I know, it's still "one of the options on the table." And now with the latest "low yield nuke" deployments in the pipeline, it gives the illusion that nuclear war can be a winning option to defend the heartland or expand the empire's overseas power.
Alan Vanneman , says: June 5, 2019 at 3:58 pm
Even more depressing, McMaster is author of the excellent book, "Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam". Now he's retailing lies of his own in pursuit of another war.
Basic Training , says: June 5, 2019 at 4:50 pm
"the inaccurately named Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)"

That name is a sick joke. The "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" subsists on donations intended to advance the foreign policy agendas of countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those are the kind of "democracies" they want America to "defend".

Taras 77 , says: June 5, 2019 at 5:07 pm
McMaster has literally gone off the edge since he was named as the head of a group over at the FDD group of warmongers -- they literally on a daily basis call for more war, attacks on Iran, and NK -- more tragically, they have access and influence with Bolton and Pompeo.
Sick beyond belief but that is where their money comes into play.

https://spectator.us/mcmaster-disaster/

Tony , says: June 6, 2019 at 8:38 am
The 'nuclear blackmail' argument is totally bogus. The United States had some 32,000 nuclear weapons when it was defeated in Indochina.

The Soviet Union also had many nuclear weapons when it left Afghanistan.

rayray , says: June 6, 2019 at 11:33 am
@Corwin

Loved that. Kubrick, George, and Southern just nailed it. I'm waiting for a writer brilliant and angry enough to do the same for today.

[Jun 07, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard Pushes No War Agenda – and the Media Is out to Kill Her Chances by Philip Giraldi

Trump betrayed anti-war votes. So he will not get the same voting blocks that he got in 2016.
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that war with Iran would be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines, total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier, what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?" ..."
"... Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N. She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran." ..."
"... In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast displayed a headline : "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood." ..."
"... Tulsi responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares oppose their warmongering." ..."
"... ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is loaded with a full complement of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation. ..."
"... for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform. It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States ..."
Jun 06, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Voters looking ahead to 2020 are being bombarded with soundbites from the twenty plus Democratic would-be candidates. That Joe Biden is apparently leading the pack according to opinion polls should come as no surprise as he stands for nothing apart from being the Establishment favorite who will tirelessly work to support the status quo.

The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.

Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.

In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that war with Iran would be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines, total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier, what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?"

Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N. She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran."

Clearly not afraid to challenge the full gamut establishment politics, Tulsi Gabbard had previously called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a personal trip to Damascus in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are serious about pursuing peace." She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the country as well as ending American interventions for "regime change" in the region.

In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby.

Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast displayed a headline : "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood."

The obvious smear job was picked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, television's best known Hillary Clinton clone, who brought it up in an interview with Gabbard shortly thereafter. He asked whether Gabbard was "softer" on Putin than were some of the other candidates. Gabbard answered: "It's unfortunate that you're citing that article, George, because it's a whole lot of fake news." Politico the reported the exchange and wrote: "'Fake news' is a favorite phrase of President Donald Trump ," putting the ball back in Tulsi's court rather than criticizing Stephanopoulos's pointless question. Soon thereafter CNN produced its own version of Tulsi the Russophile , observing that Gabbard was using a Trump expression to "attack the credibility of negative coverage."

Tulsi responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares oppose their warmongering."

Tulsi Gabbard had attracted other enemies prior to the Stephanopoulos attack. Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept described how NBC news published a widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."

But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge, which was exposed by no less than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."

ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is loaded with a full complement of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.

No doubt stories headlined "Tulsi Gabbard Communist Stooge" are in the works somewhere in the mainstream media. The Establishment politicians and their media component have difficulty in understanding just how much they are despised for their mendacity and unwillingness to support policies that would truly benefit the American people but they are well able to dominate press coverage.

Given the flood of contrived negativity towards her campaign, it is not clear if Tulsi Gabbard will ever be able to get her message across.

But, for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform. It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States

[Jun 07, 2019] The Policy of Creative Chaos America's Project for a Middle-East Holocaust by Mark Taliano

Jun 01, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Region: Middle East & North Africa Theme: Crimes against Humanity , US NATO War Agenda

The Project for a New Middle East[1] is a Project for a New Holocaust. It is happening now. The policy of "Creative Chaos"[2] underpins the "Middle East Holocaust". Empire willfully destroys the sovereignty and territorial integrity of prey nations such as Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, and beyond. Genocidal ethnic cleansing, mass murder and destruction are described benignly as "chaos" and as "creative".

Empire deploys meticulously planned strategies to fabricate sectarian and ethnic divides, and to balkanize prey nations. The notion, as expressed by Condoleeza Rice , that the Middle East should be divided into a "Sunni Belt" and a "Shia Belt"[3] objectifies peoples, diminishes their humanity, turns them into fictional "stock characters" defined exclusively by perceived religious affiliations, and deliberately fabricates ethnic and religious tensions, all of which serve as preconditions for imperialists to create chaos and the disintegration of strong nation-states into fractious vassal states, devoid of self-determination and sovereignty.

Empire sees non-compliant, self-governing, secular, pluralist, multi-confessional, democratic states as enemies. Syria is all of the above, and therefore an "enemy". Empire further destroys the "host" when it "opens the veins" of prey countries for resource plundering and criminal occupation. The oil-rich, strategically-located area East of the Euphrates is one such example.

When Empire supports the SDF against ISIS, it is polishing its fake image by creating the perception that it opposes ISIS, even as it re-introduces "rebadged" ISIS into the same battle grounds. Alternatively, as in the case of Raqqa, Empire "rescues" and redeploys ISIS elsewhere. Both terrorists and civilians are expendable in these demonic operations.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HxxKuFxvrQE

Empire rounds civilians up in terrorist-controlled concentration camps[4]. It "weaponizes" them by deliberately creating conditions of desperation which lend themselves to recruiting opportunities for new terrorist proxies. Daesh will never disappear as long as Empire is in control or seeking control globally.

As long as Western war propaganda remains ascendant, and Western populations remain oblivious, Westerners will continue to believe that these wars are humanitarian or in their national interests. In fact, the wars are anti-humanitarian, and they only represent narrow "special interests."

NATO's strongest weapon is its apparatus of "Perception Management". Without it, NATO and the imperialists would be exposed as the Supreme International War Criminals that they are.

Video: West's War Against Syria Is Packed in Lies and Deceptions

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria , Global Research Publishers, 2017.

[Jun 06, 2019] Facing the Facts Israel Cannot Escape ICC Jurisdiction by Ramzy Baroud

Notable quotes:
"... Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza's protests concluded that "it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel." ..."
"... Article 12 of the Rome Statute allows for ICC's jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the court. ..."
Jun 05, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org
The Chief Military Advocate General of the Israeli army, Sharon Afek, and the US Department of Defense General Counsel, Paul Ney, shared a platform at the 'International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict', which took place in Herzliya, Israel between May 28-30.

Their panel witnessed some of the most misconstrued interpretations of international law ever recorded. It was as if Afek and Ney were literally making up their own law on warfare and armed conflict, with no regard to what international law actually stipulates.

Unsurprisingly, both Afek and Ney agreed on many things, including that Israel and the US are blameless in all of their military conflicts, and that they will always be united against any attempt to hold them accountable for war crimes by the International Court of Justice (ICC).

Their tirade against the ICC mirrors that of their own leaders. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's anti-ICC position is familiar, last April, US President Donald Trump virulently expressed his contempt for the global organization and everything it represents.

"Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response," Trump said in a writing on April 12.

While Trump's (and Netanyahu's) divisive language is nothing new, Afek and Ney were entrusted with the difficult task of using legal language to explain their countries' aversion for international law.

Prior to the Herzliya Conference, Afek addressed the Israel Bar Association convention in Eilat on May 26. Here, too, he made some ludicrous claims as he absolved, in advance, Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians.

"A soldier who is in a life-threatening situation and acts to defend himself (or) others (he) is responsible for, is receiving and will continue receiving full back-up from the Israeli army," he said .

The above assertion appears far more sinister once we remember Afek's views on what constitutes a "life-threatening situation", as he had articulated in Herzliya a few days later.

"Thousands of Gaza's residents (try) to breach the border fence," he said, with reference to the non-violent March of Return at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel.

The Gaza protesters "are led by a terrorist organization that deliberately uses civilians to carry out attacks," Afek said.

Afek sees unarmed protests in Gaza as a form of terrorism, thus concurring with an earlier statement made by then-Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on April 8, 2018, when he declared that "there are no innocents in Gaza."

Israel's shoot-to-kill policy, however, is not confined to the Gaza Strip but is also implemented with the same degree of violent enthusiasm in the West Bank.

'No attacker, male or female, should make it out of any attack alive,' Lieberman said in 2015. His orders were followed implicitly, as hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem for allegedly trying to attack Israeli occupation soldiers or armed illegal Jewish settlers.

Unlike democratic political systems everywhere, in Israel the occupation soldier becomes the interpreter and enforcer of the law.

Putting this policy into practice in Gaza is even more horrendous as unarmed protesters are often being killed by Israeli snipers from long distances. Even journalists and medics have not been spared the same tragic fate as the hundreds of civilians who were killed since the start of the protests in March 2018.

Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza's protests concluded that "it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel."

In his attack on the ICC at the Herzliya Conference, Afek contended that "Israel is a law-abiding country, with an independent and strong judicial system, and there is no reason for its actions to be scrutinized by the ICC."

The Israeli General goes on to reprimand the ICC by urging it to focus on "dealing with the main issues for which it was founded."

Has Afek even read the Rome Statute? The first Article states that the ICC has the "power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as referred to in this Statute."

Article 5 elaborates the nature of these serious crimes, which include: "(a) The crime of genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; (d) The crime of aggression."

Israel has been accused of at least two of these crimes – war crimes and crimes against humanity – repeatedly, including in the February report by the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry.

Afek may argue that none of this is relevant to Israel, for the latter is not "a party to the Rome Statute," therefore, does not fall within ICC's legal jurisdiction.

Wrong again.

Article 12 of the Rome Statute allows for ICC's jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the court.

While it is true that Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Statute, Palestine has, since 2015, agreed to submit itself to the ICC's jurisdiction.

Moreover, in April 2015, the State of Palestine formally became a member of the ICC, thus giving the court jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed in the Occupied Territories since June 13, 2014. These crimes include human rights violations carried out during the Israeli war on Gaza in July-August of the same year.

Afek's skewed understanding of international law went unchallenged at the Herzliya Conference, as he was flanked by equally misguided interpreters of international law.

However, nothing proclaimed by Israel's top military prosecutor or his government will alter the facts. Israeli war crimes must not go unpunished; Israel's judicial system is untrustworthy and the ICC has the legal right and moral duty to carry out the will of the international community and hold to account those responsible for war crimes anywhere, including Israel.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is an author and a journalist. He is athor of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story . He can be reached at [email protected] . Read other articles by Ramzy , or visit Ramzy's website .

[Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk. It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.

German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time for CIA instead of Abwehr.

The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine. They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.

Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty to his country and its constitution.

Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.

It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.

Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.

Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.

Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost, Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew of to the FBI hands.

In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.

They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.

The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.

Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The head of FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested as the search of their premises revealed immense amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.

In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.

In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.

You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.

Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics, also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver. But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.

In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies; apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.

When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in, among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.

During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director, to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid contacts altogether.

Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further", a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.

While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.

In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over Europe. Another tool is The Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is blurred . And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.

In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them.

If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party, the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.

People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place.


Sean McBride , says: May 21, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT

Side note:

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.

These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.

Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.

Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.

Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.

Ding ding ding , says: May 21, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:

It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.

It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control.

– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world. That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing" treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article 46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation stipulating otherwise.

Endgame Napoleon , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:14 pm GMT
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on. The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.

The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at least, to understand how it works.

In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.

Digital Samizdat , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:40 pm GMT

In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.

FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.

Cyrano , says: May 21, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.

If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.

It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case.

And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.

The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.

Kirt , says: May 21, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.

An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture. This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock stars.

israel shamir , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:06 am GMT
@Kirt

Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA

Good explanation of freemasonry's decline, Kirt! As for popular culture – almost all latest cinema characters are spies – like Avengers))

anno nimus , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto them! they will have no place to hide or run to.

Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."

5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. 6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.

8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"

9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also, My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."

11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded me."

Antares , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:01 am GMT
Espionage depends on contra-espionage. We will never get that hold on Jewish spies as they can have on our spies.
Paul Bennett , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
Great article.

E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz. https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272

Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants.

John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.

Yarkob , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:52 am GMT
@Antares that's because the Mossad isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
MarkU , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.

Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3 of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?

I am open to any sensible alternative hypothesis.

Realist , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:48 am GMT
@Sean McBride

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Shit floats.

Sally , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:06 am GMT
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror.

Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.

Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed, distorted or destroyed.

Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/ <i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.

Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.

I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical, human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support of robin -hood terror.

Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained, certified mental case terrorist.

Anon [295] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:08 am GMT
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent because the agent merely enables action.

The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.

Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says, "print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.

While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html

http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm

joeshittheragman , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
Do Spies Run the World?
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
If they're Jewish spies – then yes.
Vojkan , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT
Not usually a big fan of Israel Shamir's pieces but this one on spooks is truly excellent. The article is spot on.
9/11 Inside job , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:37 am GMT
Spies do not run the world , they are merely agents of the "families" who use them to retain and increase their control ,power and wealth .
cowherd , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:46 am GMT
@Sean McBride And now Trump should have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
atlantis_dweller , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:26 am GMT
Don't agree.

[Should don't agree, agree, troll, and lol "buttons" for columns be added? I think it would be a nice extra].

mike k , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:49 am GMT
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately need to find out ..
Anon [421] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:41 pm GMT
@Sean McBride

Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint those three.

Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."

[Jun 05, 2019] Trumpies should bear in mind that Gallagher's own fellow Seals testified against him that's how depraved this guy Trump is pardoning is.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing , just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk. ..."
May 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro, says: May 20, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT

@Peter Akuleyev

Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing , just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk.

Here's Trump's hero ..

"One day, from his sniper nest, Chief Gallagher shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who was walking w/ other girls on the riverbank. She dropped, clutching her stomach, & the other girls dragged her away."

A mass murderer according to Senior Seals: "Would order needless risks, to fire rockets at houses for no apparent reason. He routinely parked an armored truck on a Tigris River bridge & emptied the truck's heavy machine gun into neighborhoods on twith no discernible targets."

"Platoon members said he spent much of his time in a hidden perch with a sniper rifle, firing three or four times as often as other platoon snipers. They said he boasted about the number of people he had killed, including women."

Two other snipers said, the chief shot an unarmed man in a white robe with a wispy white beard. They said the man fell, a red blotch spreading on his back."

Gallagher ordered a hatchet & a hunting knife" before 2017 deployment. He texted the man who made them (a Navy Seal veteran) shortly after arriving in Iraq: "I'll try and dig that knife or hatchet on someone's skull!"

May 2017, a SEAL medic was treating a wounded 15 y/o Islamic State fighter. "He's mine," Gallagher said. "Gallagher walked up without a word and stabbed the wounded teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him."

He didn't even try to hide the murder of the 15 y/o. He brought other seals around minutes later & took a photo over the body. Later, he texted the photo to a fellow SEAL in California: "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html

Now Trumpies bear in mind that Gallagher's own fellow Seals testified against him that's how depraved this guy Trump is pardoning is.

Here's Gallagher if you live in a stand your ground state and run into him shoot the bastard, he'll have his hunting knife on him so you can claim self defense.

. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D64_hykW4AEqObU.jpg

[Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk. It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.

German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time for CIA instead of Abwehr.

The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine. They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.

Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty to his country and its constitution.

Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.

It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.

Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.

Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.

Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost, Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew of to the FBI hands.

In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.

They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.

The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.

Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The head of FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested as the search of their premises revealed immense amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.

In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.

In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.

You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.

Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics, also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver. But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.

In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies; apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.

When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in, among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.

During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director, to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid contacts altogether.

Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further", a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.

While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.

In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over Europe. Another tool is The Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is blurred . And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.

In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them.

If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party, the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.

People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place.


Sean McBride , says: May 21, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT

Side note:

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.

These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.

Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.

Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.

Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.

Ding ding ding , says: May 21, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:

It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.

It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control.

– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world. That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing" treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article 46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation stipulating otherwise.

Endgame Napoleon , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:14 pm GMT
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on. The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.

The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at least, to understand how it works.

In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.

Digital Samizdat , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:40 pm GMT

In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.

FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.

Cyrano , says: May 21, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.

If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.

It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case.

And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.

The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.

Kirt , says: May 21, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.

An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture. This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock stars.

israel shamir , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:06 am GMT
@Kirt

Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA

Good explanation of freemasonry's decline, Kirt! As for popular culture – almost all latest cinema characters are spies – like Avengers))

anno nimus , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto them! they will have no place to hide or run to.

Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."

5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. 6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.

8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"

9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also, My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."

11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded me."

Antares , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:01 am GMT
Espionage depends on contra-espionage. We will never get that hold on Jewish spies as they can have on our spies.
Paul Bennett , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
Great article.

E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz. https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272

Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants.

John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.

Yarkob , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:52 am GMT
@Antares that's because the Mossad isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
MarkU , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.

Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3 of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?

I am open to any sensible alternative hypothesis.

Realist , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:48 am GMT
@Sean McBride

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Shit floats.

Sally , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:06 am GMT
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror.

Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.

Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed, distorted or destroyed.

Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/ <i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.

Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.

I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical, human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support of robin -hood terror.

Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained, certified mental case terrorist.

Anon [295] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:08 am GMT
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent because the agent merely enables action.

The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.

Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says, "print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.

While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html

http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm

joeshittheragman , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
Do Spies Run the World?
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
If they're Jewish spies – then yes.
Vojkan , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT
Not usually a big fan of Israel Shamir's pieces but this one on spooks is truly excellent. The article is spot on.
9/11 Inside job , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:37 am GMT
Spies do not run the world , they are merely agents of the "families" who use them to retain and increase their control ,power and wealth .
cowherd , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:46 am GMT
@Sean McBride And now Trump should have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
atlantis_dweller , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:26 am GMT
Don't agree.

[Should don't agree, agree, troll, and lol "buttons" for columns be added? I think it would be a nice extra].

mike k , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:49 am GMT
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately need to find out ..
Anon [421] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:41 pm GMT
@Sean McBride

Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint those three.

Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."

[Jun 05, 2019] 'First bullet' fired in the Gulf will make oil prices jump above $100 Tehran

Jun 05, 2019 | www.rt.com

A full-fledged war with Tehran will tank the US economy because the fighting will immediately make the price of oil skyrocket, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned. US leaders will not go to war against Tehran if they care for the economic wellbeing of their country, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, aide and adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told Fars News Agency.

The first bullet fired in the Persian Gulf will push the oil prices well above $100. It will be unbearable for the US and Europe, as well as American allies like Japan and South Korea.

Safavi, who has led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the past, stated that Washington prefers to wage "economic and psychological war" against the nation. The US knows there will be "significant costs" should a full-fledged conflict erupt, he said.

Also on rt.com 'Your forces will be exterminated!' Hezbollah warns US, Israel & Saudi Arabia not to attack Iran

The Pentagon had earlier announced plans to deploy marines and Patriot air defense missile systems to join an aircraft carrier strike group operating near the Persian Gulf. Officials in Tehran have been downplaying the military buildup by the US near its borders but vowed to strike back if attacked.

Last month, Iran partially suspended its commitments under the 2015 deal on its nuclear programs, known as the JCPOA. The step followed several rounds of sanctions reimposed on Iran by the US which withdrew from the agreement a year ago.

[Jun 05, 2019] Does Iran's Economic Fate Depend on a Lifeline From China?

Jun 05, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Posted on May 30, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I don't know enough about the structure of the Iranian economy to assess whether oil export revenue is as critical as this article suggests. Iran clearly needs foreign currency (exports) to buy imports like pharmaceuticals and any critical materials and products they don't produce domestically like chips.

I was under the impression that Iran had become pretty autarchical due to having been under sanctions for so long. But it may still have enough import dependence to prevent it from simply net spending. If the sanctions have indeed meaningfully reduced domestic productive capacity, "printing" would produce inflation pronto. The Western press says yes. However an academic who visited the country in the last year (but before the latest round) said they didn't see any signs of distress during several weeks there when he went about freely (and this individual spends most of his time in developing economies).

By Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter , a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (The New Press, 2007), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso, 2013), The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016) and Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017) . He writes regularly for Frontline, the Hindu, Newsclick, AlterNet and BirGün. Produced by Globetrotter , a project of the Independent Media Institute

It's hard to predict what will happen in the oil market as the U.S. sanctions on Iran tighten. For now, it looks like India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey will hold off from buying Iranian oil. These countries -- with China -- had been the main sources of Iran's foreign exchange. It is unlikely -- at the present time -- that India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey will break the U.S. siege on Iran. They have made it clear that they do not want to rattle the U.S. cage. Request for new waivers from the U.S. came to naught. India's government had said that it would reassess the purchases of cheap Iranian oil after the elections. It is likely that India will restart some buys, but certainly not enough to prevent economic collapse in Iran.

As the May deadline for the U.S. sanctions loomed, these countries bought vast amounts of oil from Iran to create their own buffer stocks. Revenues from the export of oil reached $50 billion for the Iranian financial year of 2018-19 (ending March 20). The oil sector contributed to 70 percent of Iran's exports. This income is essential for running Iran's government and paying its 4.6 million employees. The cost of the government is roughly $24 billion. With the collapse of sales to India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, Iran will have a very difficult time raising revenues to maintain its economy. The National Development Fund and the hard currency reserves have already begun to be depleted, with dollar holdings now in the tens of billions.

New Silk Road

Tehran has long been hoped that China would continue to buy Iranian oil and prevent the meltdown of Iran's economy and its government. There are two reasons why China would want to ignore U.S. sanctions and continue to buy Iranian oil. The first has to do with the fact that Iran's oil is cheap and of a quality that Chinese refiners prefer. The second has to do with Iran's crucial location along the line of China's Belt and Road as well as its String of Pearls initiatives. Chaos in Iran or a government in Tehran that is pliant to the United States would be unacceptable to Beijing. Roads, trains and pipelines -- the infrastructure of the Belt and Road Initiative -- are to run from the Chinese territory through Central Asia into Iran and then outward toward West Asia and -- via Turkey -- into Europe. Iran's centrality to this project should not be underestimated.

In the first few months of 2019, China bought about half of Iran's crude oil exports. It has become a crucial pillar for Iran, whose diplomats say quite openly that if China no longer buys Iran's oil or invests in Iran, the problems for the country will be grave. Massive oil buys from China in the weeks leading to the end of the U.S. waivers are, however, no indication of the continuation of this relationship. Chinese oil companies put in large orders to stockpile oil in anticipation of the cuts. Oil analysts suggest that the two major Chinese oil importers -- China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) have not put in any buys since the U.S. waivers expired.

Why China Is Not Buying Iranian Oil

China -- the world's fastest-growing consumer of oil -- continues to buy oil from the United States -- the world's fastest-growing producer of oil. These two countries are locked in a trade war, with tariffs rising on a raft of products from steel to soybeans. China has not placed any tariffs on U.S. crude oil imports, but it has reduced its purchases of U.S. oil by 80 percent. Despite China's withdrawal from the U.S. oil market, it has not closed the door on future purchases. Meanwhile, China has increased its oil purchases from Saudi Arabia by 43 percent in April. There is every indication that China will continue to increase its buys from the kingdom during the course of this year -- to substitute for Iranian oil and, perhaps, for U.S. oil. China has also been slowly increasing its natural gas imports from Australia, a tendency that is expected to rise.

New surveillance technology of tankers, low oil prices and more constraints on settling bills have made it difficult to smuggle oil out of Iran. Last year, smuggled oil out of Iran totaled a minuscule 0.3 million barrels per day. This is not enough to compensate for the oil purchases stopped by East and South Asian countries. U.S. sanctions, in this climate, have made tanker owners and insurers skittish about carrying Iranian oil.

Chinese firms are susceptible to this pressure. Nonetheless, the Liberian-flagged tanker Pacific Bravo is said to have loaded Iranian oil after the expiry of the waiver and is making its way to China. As of this writing, the tanker is off the coast of Sri Lanka. When it arrives in China and offloads its cargo, how will the U.S. respond?

Iran-Iraq-Syria

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was in Baghdad on May 26. He met with Iraq's Foreign Minister Mohamed al-Hakim, who said that Iraq's government does not believe that the "economic blockade" -- namely the U.S. sanctions -- was good for the region. "We stand with Iran in its position," Hakim said.

Earlier in May, Iraq's Oil Minister Thamer Gadhba said that his country would continue to buy Iran's natural gas -- essential for Iraq's electricity grid. This was despite U.S. pressure to cut natural gas purchases from Iran and to substitute this through a $14 billion deal with U.S. energy firms (including General Electric). Indications show that Iraq will not bend to U.S. pressure at this time. Nor will Iraq block Iranian oil from going to Syria by truck -- an energy source that is essential to Syria.

China's Shield

U.S. troops continue to arrive in the Gulf region, threatening Iran. Zarif and al-Hakim jointly said that this is a dangerous development. Pressure on Iran increases daily.

China has made it clear that it could buy Iranian oil if it can pay in yuan or euros, but it does not want to make Iran part of its dispute with the United States. The appetite to bring Iran onto the bargaining table with the United States does not exist in Beijing. Nor is Beijing willing to provide Iran with a protective shield.

But there are pressures on China not to ignore its own interests in the region. China built a large port in Gwadar, Pakistan, which was intended to circumvent the long transit of goods (and oil) from the Gulf through the Straits of Malacca to the South China Sea. But there are tensions here, as Baloch Liberation Army attacks mount on Chinese targets. One hundred and fifty kilometers west of Gwadar is the Iranian port of Chabahar, developed with Indian assistance. The United States -- at a request from the Afghan government -- has turned the other way to continued Indian involvement in that port, which includes transportation lines to the Afghan border through Iran. Iran has signaled that it would be interested in giving China a role in this port if India begins to drift away.

China has increased its engagement in West Asia, but not to the point of getting sucked into a conflict that it sees as unfortunate. What this means is that Iran cannot rely fully on China. And yet, China is the only antidote to the U.S. suffocation of Iran.

Global oil production is high, as are oil inventories. Oil prices, consequently, are low and will likely be lowered by reduced global demand. Projected low oil prices should raise more alarms in Tehran, since Iranian external revenues will decline and so too will its importance to Chinese importers. The only reason for China to throw a shield around Iran is to protect the Belt and Road Initiative. Not for the oil.


PlutoniumKun , May 30, 2019 at 2:58 am

I've no insights into the internal economy of Iran, but i would have assumed that the victory in Syria will take a lot of pressure off – its support for Assad cost Iran many billions in foreign currency which it can now hopefully wind down, especially as it looks like the Chinese and Qatari's will step up in providing recovery aid for Syria.

Another potential major source of revenue is Qatar, which is of course still in conflict with its Gulf neighbours. Qatar shares its vast off-shore gas reserves with Iran with a variety of secret protocols. It would hardly be a surprise if it turned out much of the gas they sell is in fact Iranian. The Saudis are dependent on Qatari gas for their electricity supply, so they could well be inadvertently providing funding for Iran.

But the biggest problem for Iran is surely consistent low oil prices and the fact that their main customers have built up very large stockpiles. Also, low prices for Irans other exports, such as plastics, fertilisers, copper and aluminium can't be helping. I believe climate change might also be impacting on their long term prospects for exporting agricultural produce, especially nuts and fruit. Iran future may be as dependent on avoiding drought as it is on rising oil prices.

Anon , May 30, 2019 at 9:43 am

Qatar does not export natural gas into KSA, however UAE (and Oman) is reliant on Qatari natural gas.
https://www.mei.edu/publications/energy-implications-gulf-crisis

PlutoniumKun , May 30, 2019 at 4:02 pm

Yes, sorry, my mistake, out of date information – KSA used to get natural gas from the South Pars field in Qatar prior to the LNG boom, but is seemingly now self sufficient for electricity generation. I was getting my pipelines mixed up.

Ignacio , May 30, 2019 at 4:34 am

I wonder whether the aggressive stance against Iran has more to do with blocking the Silk Road Initiative rather than just Iran herself and Iran's oil. Probably Xi Jinping feels this and will support Iran, in agreement with Prashad's statement in this sense. I also believe that some EU leaders share this view. Given the importance of Iran this migth result in an acceleration of the development of swift independent payment systems. We will see.

NotTimothyGeithner , May 30, 2019 at 8:40 am

Xi knows the Silk Road importance, and Obama's forgotten Pivot to Asia wasn't a feel good initiative.

I think US foreign policy types are hold deeply racist convictions. Iran is still the target because Iran dumped our man In Tehran. How dare those little people reject a US approved choice? Combined with an expat crowd of SAVAK every bit as deluded as the Cubans who came after the fall of Batista who have it on "good authority" they are about to be returned to power I mean democracy is about to flourish, the usual thugs in Washington have what they need to rant and rave.

As a counter narrative, the problem is Iran is another country I wouldn't normally worry about. I don't have a monthly premium I send to Iran or went to Iran's for school when I was a kid. Naturally only the SAVAK narrative gets pushed. Like anything, my guess is this is a bit of a last hurrah. 1979 was so long ago.

PlutoniumKun , May 30, 2019 at 8:43 am

I think part of the justification for a hardline on Iran is indeed to block the Silk Road initiative, but its a clumsy and stupid one if that's the case. You could argue that a more open Iran, trading freely with Europe and the US on its own terms would be much more cautious about being used as a transit hub for China. But Iran really has very little choice now but to make itself indispensable to China.

From what I understand from the business media, it seems the US really is taking a hard line on the EU's attempt to bypass the Swift system and most European companies are reluctantly falling in line with the sanctions. The EU may be given no choice but to accept the sanctions or overtly challenge them at every level – the latter being unlikely as it would need a unanimity and toughness the EU rarely shows, especially when it comes to the US.

MyLessThanPrimeBeef , May 30, 2019 at 4:28 pm

Xi feels this and will support Iran

The whole New Silk Road involves a lot of nations Xi will have to support, if not all the time, many times in the future.

That will keep Beijing busy could be opportunities to project power, I guess.

Brooklin Bridge , May 30, 2019 at 8:35 am

Interesting how this fits in or contrasts with the recent (and remarkably well written) article on What does it Mean to Live in a Multi Polar World? We May Be About to Find Out. It's clear from China's behavior as described in this present article that the United States still has considerable and, given how much it's been abused, remarkable clout. One can justifiably be boggled that the United States' indiscriminate weaponization of economic sanctions hasn't already exerted a devastating price internationally for US credibility that Trump – setting the world ablaze merely to distract his base and keep the virtually insane thugs in his administration happy – could care less about.

Regardless that Trump is merrily squandering (more blatantly but hardly having a monopoly over recent US Presidents) any residual US credibility in unilateral power being a beneficial force, the suggestion that "Even the historic tendency to focus on state power should be questioned in this moment," from the Multi Polar article, is well couched as a question rather than an assertion.

It seems inconceivable that Trump is aware of it, but his self serving conflagrational antics if they don't set off a major military conflict that could easily spread out of control, may be beneficial in the long run, but we're not there yet.

Mention of Russia and it's reaction is unfortunately missing from the article (or I missed it).

Ignacio , May 30, 2019 at 9:02 am

Yes, Trump looks not aware of much which doesn't fall within his narrow set of interests.Regarding Russia, what I've heard is that it has an ambivalent position. In one side Russia fears the US but in the other side migth somehow fear the increasing power of China. Regarding oil they won't protest high prices if this is a consequence of US politics, but Russia economically depends on Europe so they should be interested on diversification. And Russia's leadership hate climate change initiatives of course. Just to make things clearer hahahahahahah

Brooklin Bridge , May 30, 2019 at 9:48 am

Actually, the points you raise are exactly what would have been interesting to at least touch on in this article.

Re Russia, I suppose this article is more about oil consuming nations than oil producing ones, but since US hegemony and the apparent lack of push back is so intrinsic to the discussion, it would have been helpful to include some mention of Russia.

Also, as I look at it, my point that the US as a nation state still has clout can be turned on it's head and align more with the question mark raised in the Muilti Polar article if one argues that the US instigated conflict with Iran stems more from perceived interests of the oil and fossil fuel industries and that Washington or more specifically puppet Trump, fickle as he is, is simply going along to get along and trying at the same time to use it for his own ends as much as possible.

Ptb , May 30, 2019 at 9:15 am

I've been reading up on the natgas angle (Iran uses its big natgas supply mostly domestically, but this is related)

Pakistan seems willing to block the Iran connection for now – the unfinished Peace pipeline (natgas) is an indicator.

Also in natgas, Asian spot prices collapsed in the past year to the $4 range due to both LNG and pipeline supply racing ahead of demand (import terminals, power plants), and also Japan in the process of reactivating its nuke electric. Asian NG was around $10 when the gold rush started, post Fukushima. This is also part of the story.

At the same time, much seaborne LNG import capacity is being built in SE asia (Japan a big player in development apparently), due in mid 2020s. Together with Chinese and other NG plants being built to displace oil, this is supposed to drive prices to recover and probably overshoot in 4 years or so.

For now, the economic pressure on gas importers is unusually low, and pressure on gas exporters is higher. The US is still basically neutral in net import/export, which is the best way to be. It is not good for Iran, since their natgas export will not be developed until this market phase passes. It does make it harder for US energy exports to work as leverage over importers in general (China, India, Pak.).

Ignacio , May 30, 2019 at 12:30 pm

But the US wants to export " freedom gas "

Ptb , May 30, 2019 at 1:52 pm

Correction- NG plants to displace coal, not oil

RBHoughton , May 30, 2019 at 9:28 pm

I think this author is too influenced by the power of money and neglects the power of nationalism and justice. Hardship brings people together in a delightful way, a shared burden and a real sense of "we are all in this together" – the sense that Cameron tried and failed to activate in UK because society had been destroyed by Thatcher. The Iranian people are strengthened by sanctions. I expect Chinese energy purchases will increase when the railway connection is perfected and shipments are no longer exposed to maritime attack by pirates or governments.

I was glad to see this author characterise the sanctions as a blockade. We need to be straightforward in our terminology and Ron Paul was right to give them their proper name – blockade is an act of war, placing warships off another country's commercial ports to prevent trade in and out. Lat's be frank about that.

Why is the Baluchi Liberation Army focused on attacking China? How does that enhance the prospects of independence for Baluchistan? There has been nothing on this in the western press to my knowledge. It sounds like cover for a gang of crooks. Can anyone help?

[Jun 05, 2019] US Remains in Denial About How Many Civilians They Killed in Iraq and Syria

Jun 05, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Originally from: commondreams.org

The U.S.-led coalition that launched airstrikes against Iraq and Syria against ISIS admitted Friday that those attacks killed civilians, but the number they reported -- 1,302 deaths in a nearly five-year period -- was immediately dismissed as too low by the human rights organization Amnesty International.

"While all admissions of responsibility by the U.S.-led coalition for civilian casualties are welcome, the coalition remains deeply in denial about the devastating scale of the civilian casualties caused by their operations in both Iraq and Syria," the group's senior crisis response advisor, Donatella Rovera, said in a statement.

The coalition, in a statement announcing the findings of its internal review, said that of the "34,502 strikes between August 2014 and the end of April 2019" it found that "at least 1,302 civilians have been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes."

That number, while 1,302 people too many, is still far below projections from other organizations over the past.

"Even in cases where the coalition has admitted responsibility this has only happened after civilian deaths were investigated and brought to its attention by organizations such as Amnesty International and Airwars," said Rovera.

In April, a study by Amnesty and Airwars projected that 1,600 civilians died in coalition airstrikes in the Syrian city of Raqqa alone from June to October 2017, a number that, in four months, is higher than the coalition's total findings for over four years across two countries.

"We hope to finally see an honest assessment of the devastating impact that U.S. lethal strikes have had on the civilians in Raqqa," Daphne Eviatar, director of Amnesty's Security with Human Rights program, said at the time. "The public deserves to know how many civilian casualties our government is responsible for, and the survivors deserve acknowledgement, reparations, where appropriate, and meaningful assistance to rebuild their lives."

Friday's report indicates that despite calls for more detailed analysis and investigation, an honest assessment may not be a priority for the coalition.

[Jun 03, 2019] Bolton Brazenly Lies About Iran Again by DANIEL LARISON

Notable quotes:
"... From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran. ..."
"... This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA. ..."
"... Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies. ..."
"... It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy. ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

John Bolton repeats one of the Trump administration's biggest and most important lies:

Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.

Bolton and other administration officials have promoted the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for months. Unfortunately, members of Congress and the press have largely failed to call out these lies for what they are. There is no evidence to support the administration's claims, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, but if they can get away with saying these things without being challenged they may not need evidence to get the crisis that Bolton and others like him want.

In this case, the AP story just relays Bolton's false and misleading statements as if they should be taken seriously, and their headline trumpets Bolton's dishonest insinuations as if they were credible. This is an unfortunate case of choosing the sensationalist, eye-catching headline that misinforms the public on a very important issue. Bolton's latest remarks are especially pernicious because they use Iran's modest reactions to Trump administration sanctions as evidence of Iran's imaginary intent to acquire weapons. The U.S. has been trying to push Iran to abandon the deal for more than a year, and at the first sign that Iran begins to reduce its compliance in order to push back against the administration's outrageous economic warfare Bolton tries to misrepresent it as proof that they seek nuclear weapons. Don't fall for it, and don't trust anything Bolton says. Not only does he have a record of distorting and manipulating intelligence to suit his purposes, but his longstanding desire for regime change and his ties to the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) make him an exceptionally unreliable person when it comes to any and all claims about the Iranian government.

The story provides some context, but still fails to challenge Bolton's assertions:

Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran's ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed yellow-cake uranium [bold mine-DK].

Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that.

"There's no reason for them to do (higher enrichment) unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons," Bolton said.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the sanctions waivers that enabled Iran to ship its excess low-enriched uranium out of the country. They made it practically impossible for Iran to do what they have been reliably doing for years, and now Bolton blames Iran for the consequences of administration actions. The administration has deliberately put Iran in a bind so that they either give up the enrichment that they are entitled to do under the JCPOA or exceed the restrictions on their stockpile so that the U.S. can then accuse them of a violation. Left out in all of this is that the U.S. is no longer a party to the deal and violated all of its commitments more than a year ago. Iran has patiently remained in compliance while the only party to breach the agreement desperately hunts for a pretext to accuse them of some minor infraction.

Iran's record of full compliance with the JCPOA for more than three years hasn't mattered to Bolton and his allies in the slightest, and they have had no problem reneging on U.S. commitments, but now the same ideologues that have wanted to destroy the deal from the start insist on treating the deal's restrictions as sacrosanct. These same people have worked to engineer a situation in which Iran may end up stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than they are supposed to have, and then seize on the situation they created to spread lies about Iran's desire for nukes. It's all so obviously being done in bad faith, but then that is what we have come to expect from Iran hawks and opponents of the nuclear deal. Don't let them get away with it.

The reason that Iran is threatening to enrich its uranium to a higher level is that the U.S. has been relentlessly sanctioning them despite their total compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. The Trump administration has done all it could to deny Iran the benefits of the deal, and then Bolton has the gall to say that they have no other reason to reduce their compliance. Of course Iran does have another reason, and that is to put pressure on the other remaining parties to the deal to find a way to get Iran the benefits it was promised. It is a small step taken in response to the administration's own destructive policy, and it is not evidence of anything else. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, and it is grossly irresponsible to treat unfounded administration claims about this as anything other than propaganda and lies.


Kouros, says: May 29, 2019 at 10:58 am

From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran.

This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA.

Braced , says: May 29, 2019 at 3:24 pm

Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies.

Taras 77 , says: May 29, 2019 at 3:56 pm

It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy.

I think NK has it right to assert that Bolton is a defective human product.

But there he is stacking intell in trump's ear.

[Jun 03, 2019] Don t Fall for Pompeo s Empty Rhetoric by DANIEL LARISON

Neocon hawks are destroying US economics very effectively by supersizing military expenses and the costs of foreign wars.
Essentially Trump administration is acting in Israeli and Saudi interests in this case
Notable quotes:
"... Like many other phony administration offers to negotiate, Pompeo's proposal doesn't really include anything new or different. The administration is still insisting on the preposterous demands that the Secretary of State delivered last year. That is what Pompeo's "normal nation" reference means. In other words, the administration still expects Iranian capitulation, and they are willing to meet with Iranian officials to accept their surrender. ..."
"... Of course, this would not be a "conversation," which implies give-and-take between equals who speak to each other with respect. This would amount to something much more like a demarche where the U.S. tells Iran what it must do and then expects Iran's representatives to nod in agreement. ..."
"... Pompeo is an Iran hawk, but he is also a yes-man who seeks to curry favor with the president at all times. If he thinks that the president wants him to make diplomatic-sounding noises, he will make those noises, but it doesn't mean very much in terms of the administration's goals and means. ..."
"... Iran hawks are used to feigning interest in diplomacy while doing everything they can to undermine and poison it. As always, judge the administration by what it does and not what it happens to be saying at the moment. As long as the U.S. keeps its illegitimate sanctions in place and continues to make unrealistic and excessive demands, offers to talk are meaningless because the administration has already rendered negotiations useless. ..."
"... Pompeo is an unskilled purveyor of "smoke & mirrors" diplomacy: he thinks the world is unaware that preconditions with Iran have been in place since May 2018 when Trump unilaterally tore up the JCPOA followed by a slew of unprecedented sanctions against the Iranian people. ..."
"... Of course this statement is not for Iran, it is for the U.S. public to make the case for 'we tried' when in actuality, 'we lied'. ..."
Jun 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Pompeo made a statement about talks with Iran that is much less meaningful than it seems:

The United States is prepared to engage with Iran without pre-conditions about its nuclear program but needs to see the country behaving like "a normal nation", U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.

Iran dismissed the offer as "word-play".

Like many other phony administration offers to negotiate, Pompeo's proposal doesn't really include anything new or different. The administration is still insisting on the preposterous demands that the Secretary of State delivered last year. That is what Pompeo's "normal nation" reference means. In other words, the administration still expects Iranian capitulation, and they are willing to meet with Iranian officials to accept their surrender. The report continues:

"We are certainly prepared to have that conversation when the Iranians can prove that they want to behave like a normal nation," he told a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis.

Of course, this would not be a "conversation," which implies give-and-take between equals who speak to each other with respect. This would amount to something much more like a demarche where the U.S. tells Iran what it must do and then expects Iran's representatives to nod in agreement.

The Iranian government's dismissive response is to be expected. For one thing, the distrust between Washington and Tehran is immense, so Iran's government is bound to view any offer with suspicion. The Iranian government has already explained what the U.S. has to do if they want to talk about anything, and the administration has no intention of doing any of those things. As far as Iran is concerned, their nuclear program isn't up for discussion, so what would be the point of meeting with U.S. officials when the administration remains committed to its outrageous policy of economic warfare and collective punishment?

Pompeo is an Iran hawk, but he is also a yes-man who seeks to curry favor with the president at all times. If he thinks that the president wants him to make diplomatic-sounding noises, he will make those noises, but it doesn't mean very much in terms of the administration's goals and means.

Iran hawks are used to feigning interest in diplomacy while doing everything they can to undermine and poison it. As always, judge the administration by what it does and not what it happens to be saying at the moment. As long as the U.S. keeps its illegitimate sanctions in place and continues to make unrealistic and excessive demands, offers to talk are meaningless because the administration has already rendered negotiations useless.

There is an understandable temptation to seize on comments from administration officials as proof that they are giving up on a destructive and fruitless policy, but until the administration translates its rhetorical gestures into actions we should assume that the policy remains unchanged.


Procivic, says: June 3, 2019 at 2:10 am

Pompeo is an unskilled purveyor of "smoke & mirrors" diplomacy: he thinks the world is unaware that preconditions with Iran have been in place since May 2018 when Trump unilaterally tore up the JCPOA followed by a slew of unprecedented sanctions against the Iranian people.

The exodus of qualified State Department careerists can't be plugged by promoting the likes of Brian Hook.

Christian J Chuba , says: June 3, 2019 at 8:07 am

Of course this statement is not for Iran, it is for the U.S. public to make the case for 'we tried' when in actuality, 'we lied'.

[Jun 03, 2019] Trump's Iran Obsession Wrecked His Foreign Policy by DANIEL LARISON

Trump is trying to create a coalition of China Russia, India Iran and Turkey. That's an interesting foreign policy strategy,
Are we really trading Britain, Canada, Germany, and Japan for … Israel and Saudi Arabia ?
Notable quotes:
"... Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. ..."
"... He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it. ..."
"... I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign. ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Trump speaks at Washington rally against the Iran deal back in September 2015. Credit: Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA/Newscom

Andrew Bacevich comments on the recent escalation of tensions with Iran and what it tells us about Trump's presidency:

Again, the precise numbers are almost beside the point. In effect, Trump has drawn his own line in the sand, one that says: "We ain't leaving, no sir." His decision -- was it really his? -- is in effect a capitulation. Trump has deferred to the institutions, interests, and individuals intent on perpetuating the forever wars. Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare.

I agree with all of this. I would just add that this was a predictable outcome for a president who chose to make antipathy to Iran the centerpiece of his foreign policy. Trump could not extricate the U.S. from the region while simultaneously pursuing a more aggressive anti-Iranian policy than his predecessor. The pursuit of that anti-Iranian policy has had a great deal to do with the failure to bring U.S. involvement in multiple unnecessary wars to an end. This was not something foisted on him by others, but has been his own doing from the beginning. When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place. He has signed off on every aggressive anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi move he could. When faced with unprecedented Congressional opposition over the war on Yemen, he chose to use his veto for only the second time in his presidency to reject Congress' demand that he withdraw the U.S. from that war.

Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. It isn't possible to disentangle the U.S. from ceaseless war in the Middle East when the president abases himself to such an extent before despotic clients and takes their enemies as ours. The Iran obsession has defined and wrecked Trump's foreign policy, and it has led him to make most of the worst foreign policy decisions of his presidency.

Trump knows very little and had no foreign policy experience to speak of, and that made it extremely easy for hawkish advisers to fill his head with their own terrible ideas. Those advisers are undoubtedly responsible for egging Trump on to take destructive and aggressive actions, but ultimately it is Trump's responsibility for surrounding himself with people that everyone knew would give him such awful advice. No one made Trump choose Pompeo and Bolton. It was his own vanity and his preference for flattering yes-men that led him to choose such unworthy and dangerous people for important positions at the highest levels of the government. Trump doesn't have the wit, knowledge, or conviction to take U.S. foreign policy in a different, better direction, and to the extent that he occasionally has impulses that point in that direction they are just as easily canceled out and overwhelmed by even stronger, contradictory impulses that drive him toward confrontation and escalation. The war party prevailed because the president sided with them from the beginning, filled his administration with hard-liners, and fought against every effort in Congress to rein in and end our government's illegal and unauthorized involvement in the war on Yemen.


Whine Merchant, says: May 29, 2019 at 5:27 pm

Trump is not a Conservative, a Republican, a neo-con, nor even a RINO; he is a grifter, and belligerence toward Iran is where his greatest profit can be made.

Kouros , says: May 29, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Do not forget the family dinner, especially when Ivanka and Jared are present

midway , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:05 am

"When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place."

He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it.

Sid Finster , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:47 am

@midway: I suspect without any hard evidence that Bolton and Pompeo got and keep their jobs not because of dollars and sense, but something even more pathetic.

Namely, they flatter Trump and tell him he is "tough" in private, and do nothing to upstage Trump in public.

Anon1970 , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:53 am

midway: The really big campaign bucks were made possible by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision back in 2010. The conservatives on the court then probably never realized they were giving a handful of billionaires the power to have more influence on federal politics than they had ever had before. If the US stumbles into a war with Iran in the next couple of years, the little people wearing the MAGA caps will be worse off than ever.

Myron K Hudson , says: May 30, 2019 at 1:16 pm

"His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense."

Promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense it couldn't be put more clearly than that. An even greater shame: this isn't part of some "great game"; we're led by a man who wants to be seen as tough by men he sees as tough.

SteveK9 , says: May 31, 2019 at 11:28 am

I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign.

[Jun 03, 2019] MH17 attribution to Russia now looks like a classic false flag operation by Western intelligence services

Jun 03, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

I'd have to go with Zuesse's conclusion.

Have brought up Gabbard's sticking with the lies and false narratives regarding Russia and Ukraine, clearly one of her blind spots in her "antiwar" political campaign, that along with the massive and unrelenting war OF terror. That letter is a rather disgusting display of imperialist obfuscation by the duopoly political parties, fully supporting the lies about Maduro and what's happening in VS and in effect providing cover for future actions. You can't claim to be against military action while also lying about the reasons. Of course they can, that's how they prep the public for imperial advances. up 4 users have voted.


wendy davis on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 4:10pm

i'm not positive that

@Big Al

i totally endorse zuesse's theory, but oh my, he'd brought in a lot of moving parts at the time. paranoid conspiracy theory or 'coincidence theory', as some brilliant mofo used to ask. (i'l think of his name later.) the russian defense ministry's contentions are in conflict with zuesse's (buk missiles v. another jet with missiles), but i sure as hell know that the dutch report decision in advance was bullshit. i'd think that one would have to be willfully blind to accept it at face value, esp. if any of them like gabbard were on the defense and intel committees at the time. same with madurro's venezuela, to pretend that it's not mainly the egregious sanctions and blockades that are responsible for the estimated 40,000 citizens who've died for lack of medicines and food. and now their CLAP food delivery system is under attack...again.

i get that the intel they're fed is rubbish, but they all have the duty to look further than what lies they're spoon fed. CEPR has been incredibly valuable a resource for one, and it's pretty mainstream.

but he's right about one thing: yanukovitch was overthrown due to his refusal to sign the EU association memo, and when Imperialists speak of how 'russia stole crimea', or refuse to see why the separatists in the donbass formed their own independent nation-states, it's utter hypocrisy.

thanks for reading and commenting, big al.

oh, and do you know if tulsi's FP is still at her house.gov site? i looked at all her press releases that were dated after that offensive letter, but i'd found nothing new.

Big Al on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 4:55pm
Ya, I never got into it much.

@wendy davis I mean, there's the establishment/government narrative and there's the truth, that's about all I need to know. It's like that saying "trust, but verify". I say fuck that, "don't trust, and verify that".
I don't know about Gabbard's FP, she's done some housecleaning and avoided certain things since becoming the CFR's choice for 2024. Again, I've already done enough research, what, for over 3 years now?, to see what she's all about, something I failed to do in 2007/8 regarding Obama. Lo and behold, all the clues were there just waiting to be uncovered, but I wasn't in the same place as now.

Pluto's Republic on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 10:43pm
I believe the answer was best documented

@wendy davis

...by the Russians, who were not allowed to participate in the Dutch investigation. The information and data was presented to the Dutch and to the Western media in September 2018. Everything one could hope to see in physical evidence is here. There is additional evidence not in this article that adds to the details and forensics presented here.

https://www.rt.com/news/438596-mh17-downing-russian-briefing/

This information was not published in the West or in the Vassal State of Netherlands. The US possesses satellite photos of the incident. But it has classified those photos and refuses to release them.

As for means, motive and opportunity:

• MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, not over Russia.
• It was shot down with a missile owned by Ukraine, not by Russia.
• It had propaganda value for Ukraine and its CIA masters, none for
• The missile was fired from territory controlled by the neo nazi Kiev regime.

But the best evidence of what took place, as far as I'm concerned, is right here:

Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, falling in the rebel-held part of the country. The crash claimed the lives of 283 passengers and 15 crew members, most of them Dutch nationals. Russia was blamed by Western media in the first days after the tragedy, even before any evidence had been collected on the ground.

wendy davis on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 8:57am
excellent,

@Pluto's Republic

and thank you. your memory is prodigious, and having the 2018 RT news is srsly helpful, as is your M,M, & O formula. blame first, then fail to allow russia (and malaysia) to be able to run investigations. good to know as well that the malaysian minister knew of the serial numbers and that ukraine owned the missiles.

eric zuesse had said that even dutch journalists were raising havoc with the JIT back in the day. but just think what this false blame resulting in mega-sanctions began, then onto the skripals, russia-gate in many guises, and tra la la.

mr. wd laughed this mornin' and said he wishes he had a choice to vote for sergei lavrov for prez; i second that!

dunno if the EU still wants a compact with ukraine, but NATO sure wants the neo-nazi nation as a member. ping: if i have the energy and time, i'll try to find in zuesse's tome admissions by snipers in 2014, as well.

Lookout on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 5:03pm
Tulsi's issue page....

...is here -
https://www.tulsigabbard.org/

Must admit I didn't hunt down her Ukraine position, but my personal take is Obummer and the CIA set out to foment problems and managed to get a fascists regime elected in order to oppose Russia. The new Ukrainian president may take things in a more pro-Russia direction?

wendy davis on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 6:01pm
ach; not at her house.gov

@Lookout

site, at her election site. well, check out Russia , for now. and i do thank you; i was lookin' in all the wrong places. ; )i'll check out more soon as i have time, but zounds: russia: crimea, the nation's interference in our election, wooof. of course jill stein raised boatloads of bucks for recounts in three states on the basis of russian interference, later 'foreign interference' against the wishes of the green party board and her own running mate, so...there's that, but it was just a dodge against trump winning, not hillary. sorry, tulsi.

wendy davis on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 9:09am
my apologies

@Lookout

for being in such a hurry i hadn't even registered your speculation about zelenskiy, but nah, he wants crimea and the donbass self-declared republics that Putin stole from him...back. he's being lauded and applauded for 'standing up to KGB Putin'. ; )

and the IMF's bailin' em out again so they have enough to pay their NATO dues and join the EU. (just saw that tryin' to remember how to sorta spell the comic's name.)

jim p on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 7:32pm
The pilot's body, iirc,

maybe it was passengers', was returned to Malaysia ... but in a sealed coffin, that even family members were refused to open.

At the time an OSCE member was the first to arrive at the crash site. Some 20 minutes after the downing. The photos taken by him, or so it was attributed, showed round holes (not shrapnel) shot in the pilot area. Sorry I don't have any links handy on either of these, but I'm pretty sure this is correct.

wendy davis on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 8:29pm
thank you;

@jim p

as i understand it, the hole size was not in contention. but weather it had been the pilot or a passenger: '...but in a sealed coffin, that even family members were refused to open.'

is that perhaps a malaysian custom? is the truth out there somewhere?

jim p on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 12:17pm
The family was furious

@wendy davis and the government protested. The holes in the photo were in the cockpit and looked perfectly round.

wendy davis on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 12:31pm
as pluto &

@jim p

eric zuesse remind us, the holes in the cockpit were likely from machine guns on the ukrainian fighter jet sent to make sure the ukie buk missiles had (omg) killed the plane, which if i'm getting it right (a big IF) was changing direction as it went down. my apologies for not getting all the moving parts and claims right on this thread.

but the 21st century wire shows charts and evidence that the flight crew was ordered to change course by the air traffic control tower (as per the later censored bbc plus recordings).

Pluto's Republic on Sun, 06/02/2019 - 11:20pm
Many believed that a Ukraine fighter jet

@jim p

...was involved in the downing of MH17, which was the opinion of many aviation experts and others, who found bullet holes in the cockpit, wings, and fuselage. This in addition to Buk damage.

Recordings were captured by multiple sources of a frightened and stressed Ukrainian pilot, who radioed, "I shot the wrong plane!" He sounded as if he was commanded to shoot down a military target plane and was misled into shooting a passenger jet. That pilot, named Voloshyn, later committed suicide.

The typical recollection of the incident is:

A fighter was also sent up to 'make sure' the target plane was shot down. If I remember rightly, the plane was hit, but was still flying and it began to turn back. If the plane story (which I tend to believe) is true, it's at that point that the fighter jet opened fire on the cockpit and wings.

That would also account for Buk damage to the Boeing, as well as fighter machine gun damage to the cockpit.

You can find many references to this incident along with transcripts of the conversation between the fighter pilot and the ground base.

wendy davis on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 8:54am
that theory

@Pluto's Republic

certainly covers all the bases, doesn't it? good on ya, again, upside-down pluto.

wendy davis on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 12:40pm
i never found zuesse's

video confessions from the snipers at maidan (i assume ukrainians firing on protestors in front of the trades union building that was eventually...burned to the ground.

but this?

"For instance, Moscow said a theory was never tested that the airliner could have been downed by a fighter jet spotted by Russian radar stations near flight MH17. The theory was later proven false by the discovery of debris from the Buk rocket.

Though Russia doesn't possess those black boxes ( which, by chance, were handed by the pro-Russian separatists to the Malaysian Government's representative, and yet that Government handed them to Netherland's Government instead of to Russia's -- apparently trusting Netherlands more than trusting Russia or even themselves), Russia does possess, and publicly reveals, evidence that's conclusive on its own; and it is 100% consistent with Haisenko's reconstruction of the event, regardless whether a Buk was involved or not."

one of his links went to ' MH17 Verdict: Real Evidence Points to US-Kiev Cover-up of Failed False Flag ' July 25, 2014 , 21stcenturywire.com

"As MH17 moved into Ukrainian air space, it was moved by ATC Kiev approximately 200 miles north – putting it on a new course, heading directly into a war zone, a well-known dangerous area by now – one that's hosted a number of downed military craft over the previous 3 weeks. Robert Mark, a commercial pilot and editor of Aviation International News Safety magazine, confirmed that most Malaysia Airlines flights from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur would normally travel along a route significantly further south than the route MH17 was diverted onto.

Data on all airline flight records can be found here. The BBC reported on July 17th: " Ukraine's SBU security service has confiscated recordings of conversations between Ukrainian air traffic control officers and the crew of the doomed airliner, a source in Kiev has told Interfax news agency."

a great (and lengthy) collaborative investigation by 21st century wire. thanks, obomba, thanks, tulsi, thanks Pierre and vickie nuland. and even the new guy can't control his neo-nazis. but then again, at least yulia tymoshenko didn't win.

but NATO will add them to the roster soon, which is one of the reasons that the atlantic council had recommended him: to root out poroshenko's oligarchs' corruption.

wendy davis on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 5:20pm
no date given, but:
wendy davis on Mon, 06/03/2019 - 5:13pm
i found it,

but i almost wish i hadn't it's sooooo long and full of twists and turns, news reports, videos, but in general the theme is that mikhail saakashvilli hired them, then stiffed them.

' The "Snipers' Massacre" in Kiev -- Another False Flag? ', January 13, 2015 , granvillepost.com, eric zuesse

you may remember him best john Mccains buddy: 'today we are all georgians'? like ahmed chalabi, he's the proverbial bad penny who keeps returning in whatever guise needed (after expulsions), and the big news this week is that zelenskiy's reinstated his ukrainian citizenship after promising to give up his former ambitions and work with the new prez.

good gawd all-friday.

[Jun 03, 2019] Bolton Brazenly Lies About Iran Again by DANIEL LARISON

Notable quotes:
"... From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran. ..."
"... This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA. ..."
"... Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies. ..."
"... It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy. ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

John Bolton repeats one of the Trump administration's biggest and most important lies:

Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.

Bolton and other administration officials have promoted the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for months. Unfortunately, members of Congress and the press have largely failed to call out these lies for what they are. There is no evidence to support the administration's claims, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, but if they can get away with saying these things without being challenged they may not need evidence to get the crisis that Bolton and others like him want.

In this case, the AP story just relays Bolton's false and misleading statements as if they should be taken seriously, and their headline trumpets Bolton's dishonest insinuations as if they were credible. This is an unfortunate case of choosing the sensationalist, eye-catching headline that misinforms the public on a very important issue. Bolton's latest remarks are especially pernicious because they use Iran's modest reactions to Trump administration sanctions as evidence of Iran's imaginary intent to acquire weapons. The U.S. has been trying to push Iran to abandon the deal for more than a year, and at the first sign that Iran begins to reduce its compliance in order to push back against the administration's outrageous economic warfare Bolton tries to misrepresent it as proof that they seek nuclear weapons. Don't fall for it, and don't trust anything Bolton says. Not only does he have a record of distorting and manipulating intelligence to suit his purposes, but his longstanding desire for regime change and his ties to the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) make him an exceptionally unreliable person when it comes to any and all claims about the Iranian government.

The story provides some context, but still fails to challenge Bolton's assertions:

Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran's ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed yellow-cake uranium [bold mine-DK].

Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that.

"There's no reason for them to do (higher enrichment) unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons," Bolton said.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the sanctions waivers that enabled Iran to ship its excess low-enriched uranium out of the country. They made it practically impossible for Iran to do what they have been reliably doing for years, and now Bolton blames Iran for the consequences of administration actions. The administration has deliberately put Iran in a bind so that they either give up the enrichment that they are entitled to do under the JCPOA or exceed the restrictions on their stockpile so that the U.S. can then accuse them of a violation. Left out in all of this is that the U.S. is no longer a party to the deal and violated all of its commitments more than a year ago. Iran has patiently remained in compliance while the only party to breach the agreement desperately hunts for a pretext to accuse them of some minor infraction.

Iran's record of full compliance with the JCPOA for more than three years hasn't mattered to Bolton and his allies in the slightest, and they have had no problem reneging on U.S. commitments, but now the same ideologues that have wanted to destroy the deal from the start insist on treating the deal's restrictions as sacrosanct. These same people have worked to engineer a situation in which Iran may end up stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than they are supposed to have, and then seize on the situation they created to spread lies about Iran's desire for nukes. It's all so obviously being done in bad faith, but then that is what we have come to expect from Iran hawks and opponents of the nuclear deal. Don't let them get away with it.

The reason that Iran is threatening to enrich its uranium to a higher level is that the U.S. has been relentlessly sanctioning them despite their total compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. The Trump administration has done all it could to deny Iran the benefits of the deal, and then Bolton has the gall to say that they have no other reason to reduce their compliance. Of course Iran does have another reason, and that is to put pressure on the other remaining parties to the deal to find a way to get Iran the benefits it was promised. It is a small step taken in response to the administration's own destructive policy, and it is not evidence of anything else. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, and it is grossly irresponsible to treat unfounded administration claims about this as anything other than propaganda and lies.


Kouros, says: May 29, 2019 at 10:58 am

From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran.

This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA.

Braced , says: May 29, 2019 at 3:24 pm

Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies.

Taras 77 , says: May 29, 2019 at 3:56 pm

It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy.

I think NK has it right to assert that Bolton is a defective human product.

But there he is stacking intell in trump's ear.

[Jun 03, 2019] HARPER- POMPEO PRONOUNCES KUSHNER PLAN DOA

Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo has shown some unexpected political savvy by distancing himself from the doomed "peace plan," which appears to be little more than a scheme to buy Palestinian capitulation through a combination of promises of Arab money and political strong-arming from the Gulf States and Israel. ..."
Jun 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

On May 28, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in New York City for a closed-door meeting with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. In remarks that were covertly recorded and passed along to the Washington Post, Pompeo effectively declared that the Middle East peace plan conjured by First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner was a non-starter and would be rejected by most parties.

Instead of the "deal of the century" touted by President Donald Trump, Pompeo conceded that the peace scheme was a losing proposition. "I get why people think this is a deal that only Israel could love. I understand the perception of that. I just hope everyone will give the space to listen and settle in a bit." Pompeo continued his blunt remarks: "I don't want to call it failing. Call it whatever. I fail a lot, so it's not about using a word like that."

Pompeo admitted that the State Department is giving a good deal of attention to what to do next if the Kushner Plan flops.

Until Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu failed to put together a majority cabinet this week and had to call snap elections for September, it had been expected that the long-awaited Kushner Plan would be rolled out this month. Now the launch date is delayed until late September or early October after a new Israeli government is formed and sworn in.

Pompeo has shown some unexpected political savvy by distancing himself from the doomed "peace plan," which appears to be little more than a scheme to buy Palestinian capitulation through a combination of promises of Arab money and political strong-arming from the Gulf States and Israel.

[Jun 02, 2019] Trump 2020

Notable quotes:
"... Trump is Gambino family, Hillary (and Comey, et al) are Genoveses. All of them are sleaze, criminal, deep state. Samo-samo. Just one pile of dirt fighting another pile of dirt. ..."
Jun 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

sarz , 23 hours ago link

Trump has always had divided loyalties and has always talked out of two sides of his mouth. From day one the actual decision has been to be top *** rather than American. Israel and Goldman Sachs. Israel counts for far more with him than America. If he has to choose which Jews he has a problem. Then he goes for Zionists over banksters. It's when he can serve both with the same stroke that he's in his element. Like recognizing Golan as Israel, for both Bibi and Rothschilds, as land as as oil.

Trump is a *** in everything except the accident of his Scot Presbyterian mother. His father a Zionist ***. His first two wives and possibly his third, Jews. Possibly all his children, definitely all but one, Jews. His daughter Ivanka born a *** and then a fake convert to Judaism. To fake the Deplorables.

Trump is revelling in playing top ***, fighting wars for the Jews, while suckers write articles like this about his antiwar heart.

BankSurfyMan , 23 hours ago link

Trump 2020

SHsparx , 1 day ago link

Oh please stfu. Poor anti-war Trump being helplessly entangled in wars by the neocons he doesn't want to. He's the one that picked them lol. He's the one that openly admits he's beholden to Israel and the Saudis. He's the one that openly vowed during election he'd increase war machine spending. No one's making him do anything. He acts like he's antiwar with his words only to make chumps think he's anti-war.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

Comment from another ZHer re Trump:

"Has anyone noticed the neat escape-responsibility manoeuvre Trump uses? Past presidents have always consulted with their advisors and cabinet and presented a united front. Trump now deflects responsibility by investing his appointees with, evidently, independent powers which only he curtails. His cabinet apparently works independently from him. In some case, when necessary, they are directly responsible to him. In other cases, where unnecessary, they go "off the plantation" and make their own decisions...which, for some reason, he can't overrule. Pretty nifty."

SHsparx , 1 day ago link

Classic case of playing good cop/bad cop. Trump is the "good cop" so he can keep pacifying his idiot cult following, like the author of this article, and get reelected.

HRClinton , 15 hours ago link

Trump's behavior is easy to explain if you stick to basics. One of them is the Lincoln model of political deception:

"...and you can fool some of the people ALL of the time"

I believe that they are also referred to as the Dumbest Goyim.

The Persistent Vegetable , 1 day ago link

So there are two things I agree trump on and this is one of them. But even here his thought process doesn't make sense. If you're going to fight a war mongering bureaucracy why in the hell do you appoint war mongers as Sec of state and national security advisor? He's better off appointing a couple of ***** dems than these assholes. He ensures those agencies will fight him to the bitter end. He has yet to appoint one person who shares his philosophy and I'm sure they're out there.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

He has yet to appoint one person who shares his philosophy and I'm sure they're out there

His philosophy is the SAME as the neocons he has appointed. People didnt listen to what he said during the 2016 campaign:

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/MAGAZINE-where-does-donald-trump-stand-on-israel-1.5384623

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-israel-campaign-office-2016-9

"Why can't we use nuclear weapons?"

"Who knows?" -- when asked if, as president, he would start a war with China , New York Times interview, March 25, 2016

"When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water." -- threatening to go to war with Iran over rude hand gestures, Pensacola, Florida, Sept. 9, 2016

"This is the Trump theory on war. But I'm good at war. I've had a lot of wars of my own. I'm really good at war. I love war in a certain way. But only when we win." Fort Dodge, Iowa, Nov. 12, 2015

Demeter55 , 1 day ago link

He appointed these three amigos under orders from the only person who supports him. And now he lets them have enough rope to hang themselves, really make it obvious that they are incompetent, and then he can fire them and start fresh in 2020. Without alienating his support/money source.

All the so-called competent people turned up their noses at Trump, declining appointment to his administration. **** them! They obviously aren't as competent nor as patriotic as they thought they were. They have disqualified themselves, and good riddance!

The first truly competent, if reluctant appointee is Bill Barr. He does a good job, and some other, equally competent and country-loving personalities will come out of the crowd.

The only reason Betsy DeVos, the most incompetent Cabinet official in decades, hasn't been pink-slipped is her mercenary brother and her husband's Amway fortune. She needs to be encouraged out of office in 2020, if not before.

HRClinton , 15 hours ago link

Never forget that the Biggest Patriot is the Biggest Idiot . A bit of a malleable fool and thus a Useful Tool.

It takes more than physical bravery and allegiance to be a "Patriot".

It also takes a certain amount of (1)willful blindness , (2) moral hypocrisy and (3) need to submit to a well-organised hierarchy . Do you think that this country is lacking in such people?

TheRapture , 1 day ago link

Why people keep making excuses for Trump is beyond me.

Evaluate Trump not on hot air, but on action. Based on hot air Trump is completely inconsistent. Based on actual behavior Trump is a very consistent Israel-First neocon warmonger, and an extremely crude and corrupt one at that.

Wahooo , 1 day ago link

You nailed it. BTW, his cult makes excuses for him because it validates their original vote and all the justifications they've had over time.

As I've always said, had you asked any American 10 years ago if they thought Trump would be a good president, the answer would have been a unanimous "Are you ******* kidding? He'll no!"

ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 day ago link

As a mostly full-fledged member of his "cult", let me explain. Trump has the entirety of the Democrat party, half the Republican, and 2/3 of the judiciary against him. I'm amazed he's done as well as he has. He's canned a large number of sleazebags in the FBI, and many other functionaries in government suddenly decided they want to retire.

Just like an allstar offensive player lined up against an allstar defensive player will win some and lose some, so it is with Trump. You're full of ****.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

You cant have it both ways. As of his inauguration he became Commander in Chief, WITH ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT GOES WITH THAT TITLE.

He is either President of the US or he is not, there is NO grey area. He even said that he is "responsible for what happens in the US."

monty42 , 1 day ago link

The executive is only to act as Commander in Chief, raising armies and fighting wars, if the Legislature declares war. As it stands, the executive is a military despot, maintaining a standing armed force spread across the world and waging war without declaration or justification.

It's a self insulated circle, where those volunteering swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend it, but in reality they "just follow orders" regardless of how blatantly unconstitutional the whole process and D.C. regime is.

Yogapith , 1 day ago link

Most immature comment of the week. Thats the theory in a beautiful ideal world. But the reality is that very powerful entrenched interests are at play.

TheRapture , 1 day ago link

He's canned a large number of sleazebags in the FBI

The only deep state sleazebags fired that I can see were FBI execs involved in the coup against Trump. Trump's motive was not justice, it was vengeance and self-defense. You call that a house-cleaning?

Trump is Gambino family, Hillary (and Comey, et al) are Genoveses. All of them are sleaze, criminal, deep state. Samo-samo. Just one pile of dirt fighting another pile of dirt.

HRClinton , 15 hours ago link

Evaluate Trump not on hot air, but on action. Based on hot air Trump is completely inconsistent. Based on actual behavior Trump is a very consistent Israel-First neocon warmonger, and an extremely crude and corrupt one at that.

One of the early tells was that he's a philanderer, an adulterer, a cheapskate who doesn't pay his contractors, but fosters this image of philanthropy, and who found out that you can't *** Jewish bankers and get away with it. Unless you up the ante and tell them that you'll further their political agenda if they put him in the WH.

It's not difficult to analyze Trump, if you keep your own emotional needs out of it, and just look at the facts and behaviors. If you can't, then it says more about you than about Trump. Maybe people with a specific type of defect in their moral compass identify with the same defect in Trump's? It would explain a lot.

systemsplanet , 13 hours ago link

Who knows if Trump would have made a really great president. The Leftist denied Trump, and all Americans who voted for him, a chance to MAGA.

One thing is for certain, a large number of Americans want pay back for

it's a never ending list of reasons for millions of Patriots to get even.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

When will Americans stop shifting the blame for TRUMPS DECISIONS onto something/someone else????

HE HAS THE FINAL WORD. He even said so: " I am responsible for what happens in the United States."

Yogapith , 1 day ago link

Ideally. Reality is more complex and (((difficult))) unfortunately.

HRClinton , 14 hours ago link

Trump the ultimate showman and conman:

He pretends that he has a military background, but doesn't . Being shipped off to a Mil academy doesn't count, even if it's beneficial to a wild child.

He pretended to pay his bills, but doesn't . The list of Gypped/Jewed/Screwed contractors is a mile long, as is the list of bankers whom he forced into wild refinance, by using Bankruptcy laws as a weapon.

He pretended to be a faithful husband, but wasn't . Two of his 3 marriages ended because of adultery. He loves hot sluts who stroke his ego even better than his ****.

He pretended to look after the interests of Main St, but hasn't . Looking after Bibi & The Likudniks doesn't count, nor should Wall St sharks.

He pretended to seek true Justice, but hasn't . Why is Hillary & The Gang still free? Why did he disavow Assange?

He pretended to ramp down imperialism , but hasn't. He's ramped it UP.

He pretended to "Build the Wall", but hasn't . The Wall is the Fake Rabbit at the Greyhound races: Useful to get the stupid dogs to perform on command.

He pretended to mend fences with Russia, but hasn't . "Russiagate" has become a very useful ploy and cover to satisfy the MIC and Big Oil.

With all this overwhelming evidence, of people can't see him as he truly is, then the ONLY explanation left is that they are mentally deficient, psychologically defective, and/or in on (benefit from) his network of scams.

Lavrov , 1 day ago link

Why we did NOT have ww3 is beyond me in Syria.. Only once the GLOVES came off It happen the last time I wrote this it was taken OFF immediately.. A peace deal was sign Derazor The US Air Force came and Slaughter about 100 Syrian Army soldiers Apparentley There were 11 Russians soldiers Kill too.

This is a TRUE story The communication lines WERE OPEN The Russians were SCREAMING on the HOT phone to STOP. They never responded just kept bombing.

This gets INTERESTING now.. Where are the ORDERS coming from to the US air force to BOMB It was coming from Allepo. PUTIN order BOMB the HEAD QUARTERS of the COMMAND CENTRE giving these orders. 3 BUNKER BUSTER BOMBS came a FLYING in.

Under ground head quarters was DESTROY. There were roughly 30 military officers in that BUNKER EVAPORATED 5 mossad agents 5 US CIA agents 10 Saudi a few from Britan what ever. It was in ALL the NEWS PAPERS in Russia right across the Middle east Al Jezerra on the NEWS.

Not a word mention in ISRAHELL and JUSA. So if there was going to be WW3 that would of been the time. Thank God better heads prevail. Look like PUTIN threw down the gauntlet.

Lavrov , 1 day ago link

I forgot after the US stop bombing Derazor ******* IMMEDIATELY ISIS attack ******* IMMEDIATELY No that wasn't plan. Just a coinincidence yeah that's it

Let it Go , 1 day ago link

Trump did not come across as a warmonger during the presidential campaign. When America put Trump in office many of us were seeking a world where the leadership in Washington would focus on bringing both jobs and money home rather than squandering it on foreign wars.

What has been happening in Washington is proof that the power of the swamp is very resilient and may not be able to be drained. A strong case can be made that President Trump has become a hostage of those occupying the very swamp he promised to drain. More on this in the article below.

http://America Did Not Vote For More Death And Destruction!html

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

from 2016 campaign:

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/MAGAZINE-where-does-donald-trump-stand-on-israel-1.5384623

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-israel-campaign-office-2016-9

"Why can't we use nuclear weapons?"

"Who knows?" -- when asked if, as president, he would start a war with China , New York Times interview, March 25, 2016

"When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water." -- threatening to go to war with Iran over rude hand gestures, Pensacola, Florida, Sept. 9, 2016

"This is the Trump theory on war. But I'm good at war. I've had a lot of wars of my own. I'm really good at war. I love war in a certain way. But only when we win." Fort Dodge, Iowa, Nov. 12, 2015

Wahooo , 1 day ago link

All those folks are war mongers. You don't get into the Club unless you are.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

https://israeltodaynews.blogspot.com/2019/02/donald-trump-converted-to-judaism-two-years-ago.html

Yogapith , 1 day ago link

My opinion is that it will take a generation to clean it.

Boogity , 1 day ago link

Inquiring minds want to know if Jared let Orange grab Ivanka's ***** after attacking Syria.

motherjones , 1 day ago link

Both parties are War Parties, and Trump was "broke" long before he moved into the White House.

MrButtoMcFarty , 1 day ago link

Only six more years snowflakes!

KEEP AMERICA GREAT!

666D Chess , 1 day ago link

LOL. Did you mean keep Israel great?

Boogity , 1 day ago link

I bet you're going to be stylin' in that little red MIGA Yamaka during the 2020 campaign

hairy nose wombat , 1 day ago link

with or without frump... the U.S. is full-on fucked.

quidam101 , 1 day ago link

The bureaucrats run the government , not the elected politicians who come and go and spend more time collecting money to be reelected than ruling. All the democrat bureaucrats are against him what is he left with? The warmongers republicans of the Bush Reagan era.

[Jun 02, 2019] Russiagate Is The #1 Threat To US National Security, Cohen

Jun 01, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The systemwide US Russophobia that reached its nadir with Russiagate has created a "catastrophe" for both domestic politics and foreign relations that threatens the future of the American system, professor Stephen Cohen tells RT.

War with Russia could easily break out if the US insists on pursuing the policy of " demonization " that birthed Russiagate instead of returning to detente and cooperation, New York University professor emeritus of Russian history Stephen Cohen argues on Chris Hedges' On Contact. While NATO deliberately antagonized post-Soviet Russia by expanding up to its borders, the US deployed missile defense systems along those borders after scrapping an arms treaty, leaving President Vladimir Putin devoid of " illusions " about the goodwill of the West – but armed with " nuclear missiles that can evade and elude any missile defense system ."

" Now is the time for a serious, new arms control agreement. What do we get? Russiagate instead ."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-wc94DRFCik

Cohen believes the conspiracy theory – which remains front-page news in US media despite being thoroughly discredited, both by independent investigators and last month by special counsel Robert Mueller's report – is the work of the CIA and its former director, John Brennan, who are dead set against any kind of cooperation with Russia. Attorney General William Barr, who is investigating the FBI over how the 2016 counterintelligence probe began, should take a look at Brennan and his agency, Cohen says.

" If our intelligence services are off the reservation to the point that they can first try to destroy a presidential candidate and then a president we need to know it ," Cohen says.

" This is the worst scandal in American history. It's the worst, at least, since the Civil War ."

And the damage wrought by this " catastrophe " hasn't stopped at the US border.

The idea that Trump is a Russian agent has been devastating to " our own institutions, to the presidency, to our electoral system, to Congress, to the American mainstream media, not to mention the damage it's done to American-Russian relations, the damage it has done to the way Russians, both elite Russians and young Russians, look at America today , " Cohen declares.

"Russiagate is one of the greatest new threats to national security. I have five listed in the book. Russia and China aren't on there. Russiagate is number one."

And the potential damage it could still cause is enormous.

Source:RT


Im4truth4all , 48 minutes ago link

Amazing, 30 million dollars spent for an investigation that produced nothing and some believe that Russiagate is still reality. This paranoia is unbelievable except for a psychotic public - pathetic.

Dickweed Wang , 2 hours ago link

If the neo-con/Nazi assholes embedded in the M.I.C. and the US government continue down this road of demonizing and antagonizing Russia it is not going to end well for the people of the US. Putin and the rest of the Russian leadership have made it crystal clear that they are only going to be pushed so far. The problem is when Russia snaps they are going to do their damdest to try to cut the head of the snake off in one shot. There's a good chance they could actually pull that off.

Snout the First , 2 hours ago link

Just exactly what did Russia do to "meddle" in our election?

- Did Russia hack the voting machines and change votes?

- Did Russia make illegal campaign contributions to Republicans?

- Did Russia facilitate people voting who weren't eligible to vote?

What exactly did Russia do?

[May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion

Highly recommended!
This is similar to renaming "French fries" to "freedom fries" after 9/11. You can't overestimate stupidity of government bureaucrats. They now exceeded the USSR level.
May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Victor , May 30, 2019 3:12:19 PM | 10

US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion:

https://tinyurl.com/y5uyb28ghttps://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/05/open-thread-2019-30.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a48ab852200d#c6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a48ab852200d

[May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion

Highly recommended!
This is similar to renaming "French fries" to "freedom fries" after 9/11. You can't overestimate stupidity of government bureaucrats. They now exceeded the USSR level.
May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Victor , May 30, 2019 3:12:19 PM | 10

US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion:

https://tinyurl.com/y5uyb28ghttps://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/05/open-thread-2019-30.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a48ab852200d#c6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a48ab852200d

[May 31, 2019] China: the UN Security Council has not imposed any restrictions on the export of petroleum from Iran. Certain countries may impose unilateral sanctions against certain places on the basis of their own considerations. Those sanctions are outside the scope of the UN Security Council sanctions implemented by the HKSAR

May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , May 31, 2019 7:18:06 AM | 62

For those who think China is going to help the American Empire take down Iran and thus wreck their Belt and Road Initiative , please think again: HK ignores US sanctions on Iran as tanker heads east

Western corporate mass media is cherry-picking what China has said: "Restrictions imposed by the UN Security Council on Iran have been fully implemented in the HKSAR under the United Nations Sanctions [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – Iran] Regulation [Chapter 537BV of the Laws of Hong Kong]."

"Woohoo! China's on our side! They are backing US sanctions!" -gullible American mass media consumer

Fake western "journalists" leave out the very next three sentences: "However, the UN Security Council has not imposed any restrictions on the export of petroleum from Iran. Certain countries may impose unilateral sanctions against certain places on the basis of their own considerations. Those sanctions are outside the scope of the UN Security Council sanctions implemented by the HKSAR."

In other words, "Go f#$k yourselves, you exceptional fools!" , though of course the Chinese are too polite to say that outright.

[May 31, 2019] Trump's Iran Obsession Wrecked His Foreign Policy by DANIEL LARISON

Notable quotes:
"... Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare. ..."
"... "When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place." ..."
"... He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it. ..."
"... "His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense." ..."
"... I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign. ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Andrew Bacevich comments on the recent escalation of tensions with Iran and what it tells us about Trump's presidency:

Again, the precise numbers are almost beside the point. In effect, Trump has drawn his own line in the sand, one that says: "We ain't leaving, no sir." His decision -- was it really his? -- is in effect a capitulation. Trump has deferred to the institutions, interests, and individuals intent on perpetuating the forever wars. Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare.

I agree with all of this. I would just add that this was a predictable outcome for a president who chose to make antipathy to Iran the centerpiece of his foreign policy. Trump could not extricate the U.S. from the region while simultaneously pursuing a more aggressive anti-Iranian policy than his predecessor. The pursuit of that anti-Iranian policy has had a great deal to do with the failure to bring U.S. involvement in multiple unnecessary wars to an end. This was not something foisted on him by others, but has been his own doing from the beginning. When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place. He has signed off on every aggressive anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi move he could. When faced with unprecedented Congressional opposition over the war on Yemen, he chose to use his veto for only the second time in his presidency to reject Congress' demand that he withdraw the U.S. from that war.

Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. It isn't possible to disentangle the U.S. from ceaseless war in the Middle East when the president abases himself to such an extent before despotic clients and takes their enemies as ours. The Iran obsession has defined and wrecked Trump's foreign policy, and it has led him to make most of the worst foreign policy decisions of his presidency.

Trump knows very little and had no foreign policy experience to speak of, and that made it extremely easy for hawkish advisers to fill his head with their own terrible ideas. Those advisers are undoubtedly responsible for egging Trump on to take destructive and aggressive actions, but ultimately it is Trump's responsibility for surrounding himself with people that everyone knew would give him such awful advice. No one made Trump choose Pompeo and Bolton. It was his own vanity and his preference for flattering yes-men that led him to choose such unworthy and dangerous people for important positions at the highest levels of the government. Trump doesn't have the wit, knowledge, or conviction to take U.S. foreign policy in a different, better direction, and to the extent that he occasionally has impulses that point in that direction they are just as easily canceled out and overwhelmed by even stronger, contradictory impulses that drive him toward confrontation and escalation. The war party prevailed because the president sided with them from the beginning, filled his administration with hard-liners, and fought against every effort in Congress to rein in and end our government's illegal and unauthorized involvement in the war on Yemen.


Whine Merchant , says: May 29, 2019 at 5:27 pm

Trump is not a Conservative, a Republican, a neo-con, nor even a RINO; he is a grifter, and belligerence toward Iran is where his greatest profit can be made.

Kouros , says: May 29, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Do not forget the family dinner, especially when Ivanka and Jared are present

midway , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:05 am

"When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place."

He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it.

Sid Finster , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:47 am

@midway: I suspect without any hard evidence that Bolton and Pompeo got and keep their jobs not because of dollars and sense, but something even more pathetic.

Namely, they flatter Trump and tell him he is "tough" in private, and do nothing to upstage Trump in public.

Anon1970 , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:53 am

midway: The really big campaign bucks were made possible by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision back in 2010. The conservatives on the court then probably never realized they were giving a handful of billionaires the power to have more influence on federal politics than they had ever had before. If the US stumbles into a war with Iran in the next couple of years, the little people wearing the MAGA caps will be worse off than ever.

Myron K Hudson , says: May 30, 2019 at 1:16 pm

"His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense."

Promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense it couldn't be put more clearly than that. An even greater shame: this isn't part of some "great game"; we're led by a man who wants to be seen as tough by men he sees as tough.

SteveK9 , says: May 31, 2019 at 11:28 am

I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign.

[May 31, 2019] Jared Packs Unicorns and Rainbows For Mideast Trip by Ilana Mercer

Notable quotes:
"... For one, the Arabs know that Ivanka is calling the shots -- and that the president's fashion-focused daughter is behind the branding of the sexually androgynous, intellectually inchoate production that is Jared Kushner. If you think that's something Arabs respect, you don't know Shiite from Shinola . ..."
"... Then there's Bibi Netanyahu's ingenious, Israel First tactics. You have to be a special kind of dumb -- Jared and Ivanka dumb -- to imagine you can present Bibi with a plan to fix his part of the world. The Israeli prime minister will make the right noises and will have Jared for breakfast. ..."
"... As the Economist noted derisively -- its writers, too, are radicals in the mold of Jared and Ivanka -- Netanyahu is no radical. He is a reactionary nationalist. Temperamentally conservative," and "wary of change," as all true conservatives ought to be, Netanyahu "governs as if Israel needs no change." The Israeli prime minister has even passed nation-state legislation consecrating Israel as the home of the Jewish people. ..."
"... In case you're unfamiliar with Bibi's base -- supporters of Likud since the party's inception -- they are, "Voters from conservative religious and working-class backgrounds, Russian-speaking immigrants and Mizrahi Jews (who are descended from immigrants from the Arab world)." The political equivalent of Trump's deplorables. ..."
"... "We will forever live by the sword." Bibi's words in 2015. ..."
May 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

Let us begin with our debutant's Middle East peace plan, the thing his father-in-law calls "the deal of the century."

The notion of Jared solving the Israeli-Palestinian vexation is laughable, perhaps the dumbest thing ever. You just know this is a vain Ivanka move to brand the region and add it to her CV. (Ivanka, to those who don't know, is intent on riding to the presidency herself on her father's coattails.)

The Arabs slated to partake in the Kushner summit, Bahraini, Saudi and Emirati participants, are likely laughing the hardest.

For one, the Arabs know that Ivanka is calling the shots -- and that the president's fashion-focused daughter is behind the branding of the sexually androgynous, intellectually inchoate production that is Jared Kushner. If you think that's something Arabs respect, you don't know Shiite from Shinola .

Wily Arabs are hip to White House dynamics. They know who's running the West Wing and who to flatter. Some in the region have even given Donald Trump a dubious honorific , Abu Ivanka al-Amriki. Being known as "father of Ivanka the American" is, of course, no honor in the muscular, manly Middle East.

The timing of the Kushner peace plan is especially asinine. For all the upheaval in the region, the Palestinian Problem has nevertheless dropped off the geopolitical radar as an urgent matter to resolve.

For better or for worse, the two sides are locked in a deadly, tightly choreographed dance. The Palestinians rise in frustration and fury; the Israelis respond with overwhelming force. The world then offers-up perfunctory sympathy for the Palestinians. Everybody moves on.

It's just the way it is. The world has become desensitized to the plight of the Palestinians.

Take the Economist -- a liberal, pro-Palestinian, most excellent weekly. Its editors cogitated but briefly over the Israeli army's last use of excessive force against the M.O.P.E (Most Oppressed People Ever), concluding nonchalantly that, "Every state has a right to defend its borders." "It is time for Palestinians to take up genuine non-violence."

In other words, " Grow up, Palestinians. The stone-throwing was cute when your struggle was in its infancy ."

Understandably, the Palestinians will have no truck with the Trump administration.

Then there's Bibi Netanyahu's ingenious, Israel First tactics. You have to be a special kind of dumb -- Jared and Ivanka dumb -- to imagine you can present Bibi with a plan to fix his part of the world. The Israeli prime minister will make the right noises and will have Jared for breakfast.

Netanyahu has been busy befriending " once hostile neighbors and has gained the respect of world leaders ." Like himself, his new friends (the murderous Saudi regime is among them) don't seem to care much that Israel's "supposedly temporary occupation [of 4.5 million Palestinians] has become permanent conquest."

Don't blame me for dishing Middle Eastern realpolitik. These are just the facts and the deductions therefrom.

By the Economist's telling , Mr. Netanyahu's strategy toward the Palestinians is a finely honed "anti-solutionism." Netanyahu "has sought to convince Israelis that the conflict can be managed, if the right people are put in charge of managing it, and thus need not be solved."

From experience, Netanyahu knows that an "anti-solutionism" puts his army and him in control, to better deliver on the security needs of the Israelis. This makes Bibi even more of a mystery to the self-aggrandizing Kushners. After all, they are not acting in America's self-interest. A provincial leader who does just that is anathema to the mindset dominant in America.

Like him or not, the conservative, patriotic Bibi will not allow Jared Kushner to steer Israel in a radical direction. Instead, Bibi will likely let The American rattle on about radical change (which he, Jared, will not have to live through), and will quietly ignore him in favor of maintaining the safer status quo.

You see, the Israeli prime minister is a grizzled old warrior -- and a true populist, the kind that builds walls to protect his people and passes laws to safeguard their ancient patrimony.

Netanyahu and his new Sunni partners will make polite noises and then shrug off this Middle-East plan with a hearty laugh and some good arak , behind Jared's slender, sylphlike back.

As the Economist noted derisively -- its writers, too, are radicals in the mold of Jared and Ivanka -- Netanyahu is no radical. He is a reactionary nationalist. Temperamentally conservative," and "wary of change," as all true conservatives ought to be, Netanyahu "governs as if Israel needs no change." The Israeli prime minister has even passed nation-state legislation consecrating Israel as the home of the Jewish people.

But by golly, Bibi will give the first-couple-in-waiting good hospitality -- leading Ivanka and her poodle to "think" they succeeded in plastering their brand on the region. Then he'll send Ivanka's emissary packing, to be celebrated by his clueless American fans.

And the region will return to its old ways.

Bibi, moreover, reads his voters well. The appetite for the charade that are the Israeli-Palestinians peace talks has diminished. "The percentage of Israelis favoring talks with the Palestinians has dropped from over 70 percent to closer to 50 percent over the past decade. Among Mr. Netanyahu's supporters it is 30 percent."

In case you're unfamiliar with Bibi's base -- supporters of Likud since the party's inception -- they are, "Voters from conservative religious and working-class backgrounds, Russian-speaking immigrants and Mizrahi Jews (who are descended from immigrants from the Arab world)." The political equivalent of Trump's deplorables.

To sum, "should it ever to arrive," Mr. and Mrs. Kushner's peace plan "will be dead on arrival."

Americans like Jared and Ivanka don't know the past and show little respect for it. Netanyahu, however, understands history and what it portends for the future. "Because the Palestinian issue cannot be solved," Bibi's statecraft entails preparing his people for a reality they understand all too well:

"We will forever live by the sword." Bibi's words in 2015.

Let us wrap-up on a more mirthful note. Here's some stuff our oracular Mr. Jared has said about rainbows and unicorns in the Middle East: "Progress could 'look like a lot of different things." "Success 'can look like an agreement, it can look like a discussion, it could lead to closer cooperation, maybe resolve a couple of issues."

Now that's deep. Reality TV deep.

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She is the author of Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) & The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed " (June, 2016). She's on Twitter , Facebook , Gab & YouTube


Exile , says: May 31, 2019 at 2:06 am GMT

Solid assessment. Bibi’s ruthlessness in pursuit of his people’s interests is something I wish my people’s leaders would emulate. Instead, they buy into the Israeli gaslighting and flattery and beclown themselves with paens to “Judeo-Christianity,” “America’s greatest ally,” and “the ME’s only democracy.”

It’s debatable whether Bibi’s “forever war” is in fact in the best interests of Israeli Jews, but no one can credibly claim he’s a tool of foreign powers.

The Empire, on the other hand, is most definitely in thrall to a people whose American diaspora makes up less than 3% of its population.

Fidelios Automata , says: May 31, 2019 at 4:12 am GMT

I take issue with Mercer’s characterization of The Economist as “excellent.” It may have been at one time. I dropped my subscription decades ago when I realized it was a globalist propaganda rag.

Thinker , says: May 31, 2019 at 4:25 am GMT

I wish Trump would just keep his moron SIL on Israel-Palestinian affairs only. Who cares if he F’s it all up. It’d be no different from where it was 10, 20, 50 years ago. But everything Jared touches turns to shite, including his POS prison reform plan and atrocious immigration bill. Trump’s turned into a POS because he put his POS SIL in charge of everything, incl. his signature campaign issue, immigration.

Javanka is the worst thing to happen to America. Without these two treasonous rats Trump might have saved the country, now he’s just another swamp creature.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: May 31, 2019 at 4:33 am GMT

Netanyahu (and most Israelis) don’t want the problem be resoved, neither does Mahmoud Abbas (and most Palestinians). Abbas has already explicitly stated that he will not accept the plan whatever it is. Under such circumstances the only result of Jared’s and Ivanka’s mission might be that Ivanka will get some lucrative contracts for selling her designer shoes in the Middle East, like she did in China. God help us if ever this naive and ignorant woman will run for president!

renfro , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:14 am GMT

Shorter Ilana……’the dogs bark, the caravan moves on.’

Meanwhile Netanyahu is in deep doodoo. After winning the election he failed to form a majority party. So there will be a do over election. This means the PIECE Plan is dead for the time being.

The final round: Netanyahu versus Liberman

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/05/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-reuven-rivlin-likud-elections.html

renfro , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:26 am GMT

Here’s the Kushner, Greenblatt, Friedman peace plan. Its not new. Its a transfer plan.

The Jerusalem Summit

Assessment
1. The conventional-wisdom paradigm for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has failed woefully, bringing nothing but misery and despair to both sides – but particularly to the Palestinians as individual human beings.

[Hide MORE]
2. This conventional paradigm has attempted to solve the conflict by means of a Political Approach involving the establishment of a self governing Palestinian entity on territories in Judea Samaria and Gaza which have been under Israeli control since 1967 i.e. on the basis of a “Land for Peace” approach.

3. Dispassionate assessment of the history of the conflict and its current development will strongly suggest that persisting with attempts to attain a political solution on the basis the conventional paradigm are at best futile – and at worse harmful. Accordingly, alternative modes of resolution must be pursued.

B. Analysis

1. Analysis of Palestinian deeds and declarations over the years make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are in effect both unwilling and incapable of achieving and maintaining statehood.
(a) Palestinian Unwillingness: This is reflected in the fact that the Palestinians have rejected every single viable proposal which would have afforded them a state – from the 1947 partition plan to the 2000 Barak proposals.

(b) Palestinian Incapability: The Palestinian national movement has enjoyed conditions far more favorable than almost any other national independence movement since WW-II – widespread international endorsement of their cause, unmitigated support of a superpower in the decades of the Cold War, highly sympathetic coverage by the major media organizations, and over a decade of Israeli administrations who have acknowledged (and at times even identified with) the Palestinians declared national aspiration. In spite of this, the achievements of Palestinian national movement have been more miserable than almost any other national independence movement – bringing nothing but privation and penury to its people.
2. It is thus far easier to understand Palestinian conduct if one assumes that it is driven less by lack of Palestinian self determination and more by the very the existence of Jewish self determination; less by the aspiration to establish a Palestinian state and more by the aspiration to dismantle a Jewish state.

Read more….. http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/hs_short_eng.htm

3. The latter, and seemingly more plausible, explanation of Palestinian behavior – i.e. rejection of Jewish self determination and the dismantling of the Jewish nation state – reflects an agenda totally unacceptable by any international standards and thus must be branded as devoid of any legitimacy.

4. Accordingly if the accepted version of the Palestinian narrative – i.e. a desire for Palestinian self determination and the aspiration for Palestinian statehood – cannot be reconciled with the history of Palestinian behavior, this narrative also must be branded as devoid of any legitimacy.

5. This issue of legitimacy of narrative is crucial. Indeed the very fuel of the Political Paradigm involving the establishment of a Palestinian state is the perception – or rather the misperception – of the presently prevailing Palestinian narrative as legitimate.

C. Conclusion

1. The establishment of a Palestinian State must removed from the international agenda.

2. However, removing the issue of a Palestinian state from the international agenda will not eliminate the humanitarian predicament of Palestinians residing in Israeli-administered areas.

3. This is clearly an issue that must be addressed and resolved. But it must be addressed not in political terms but in humanitarian ones.

4. Thus, to successfully resolve the Palestinian problem, the Political Paradigm must be replaced by a Humanitarian Paradigm. This, however can only be done if the current Palestinian narrative, which fuels the Political Paradigm, is de-legitimized.
5. Thus, the de-legitimization of the Palestinian narrative becomes a vital prerequisite to any comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian issue.

D. Proposal

1. A comprehensive Humanitarian Approach to the Palestinian issue would entail three major elements:
(a) The dissolution of UNRWA – which will end the discriminatory treatment of the Palestinians with regard to their status as refugees;

(b) The termination of ethnic discrimination against Palestinians , living in the Arab world – which will end the discriminatory treatment of the Palestinians with regard to their status as residents;

(c) Generous relocation grants to Palestinians living in Israeli administered territories on an individual basis and not via any official Palestinian organization.

2. UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem. It is an anomalous organization which exists solely to deal with Palestinian refugees, while all the other refugees on the face of the globe are dealt with by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

3. The organizations not only deal differently with the refugees under their auspices, they each have different definitions for classifying an individual as a “refugee”.

4. This difference in definition has far-ranging consequences. For in contrast to the UNHCR definition, which results in a decline in the number of refugees over time, the UNRWA definition leads to an inflation of the number.

5. In fact, if the UNHCR’s otherwise universal definition were applied to the Palestinian case, the number of refugees would decline from 4-5 million to 200-300,000 i.e. by over 90%!!

6. It thus appears that UNWRA is perpetuating the very problem it was designed to eliminate.
7. Accordingly, the dissolution of UNRWA is an essential prerequisite for any comprehensive, durable settlement of the Palestinian issue.

8. With the dissolution of UNWRA, the remaining, and drastically reduced, number of Palestinian refugees, should be placed under the auspices of UNHCR – in accordance with the accepted practice for all other refugee groups on the face of the globe.

9. Those Palestinians no longer classed as refugees under the new arrangements, must be offered all the privileges afforded all other peoples resident in their current countries of domicile in the Arab world — including the right to acquire citizenship.

10. In order to do this, a vigorous diplomatic and media campaign must be mounted to induce Arab governments to end their harsh discriminatory behavior towards the millions of Palestinians domiciled in their countries and absorb them into their societies as fully fledged citizens. After all, even the Palestinians assert (in the opening paragraph of their National Covenant) that they are “part of the Arab Nation”.

11. As for the Palestinians resident in Israeli administered territory, there is only one reasonable and feasible alternative that will facilitate:
(a) extricating them from their dire humanitarian plight;
(b) free them from the yoke of generations of misrule by their leadership;
(c) ensure the survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews.

12. This is a generous relocation and resettlement package to allow them to build a new life for themselves and their families in countries preferably, but not necessarily exclusively, with similar religious and socio-cultural conditions.

13. In order to minimize the ability of organized Palestinian interest groups to impede the success of such an effort, the offer of financial inducement to emigrate must be “atomized” – i.e. made to individual Palestinian breadwinners on a one-to one personal level and not on a communal level via some formal Palestinian entity.
14. A survey conducted among the Palestinians in Nov. 2004 indicates that only about 15% of the Palestinian population resident in Israeli administered areas would reject such an offer outright. By contrast, over 70% would accept some form of material compensation as an inducement to emigrate permanently from the areas currently under Israeli administration (see http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/news.php?news=102 )
15. The economic cost of such a policy of generously financed humanitarian relocation and resettlement would be eminently affordable and would compare favorably with almost all other settlement proposals on the table today. Indeed, its total cost would be around 50% of the present total US outlay on the War in Iraq!!

16. Indeed, given Israel’s present level of GDP, it is an initiative that it could well undertake on its own over the next decade to a decade and a half. It should be realized that this is the period that has elapsed since the initiation of the Oslo process – which has brought nothing but failure and tragedy at the cost of billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

17. Of course, if the US, the EU and other developed nations were to contribute to this effort, it could be implemented in a far shorter space of time and with almost no burden on the world economy.

18. Quite the opposite, the Palestinians arriving in their new countries of domicile will not be impoverished refugees but reasonably affluent émigrés. The funds that they would be bringing with them would provide a considerable boost for the economies of these nations – most of which would be developing countries with a pressing need for such a substantial influx of funds.

E. Summary

The proposed initiative constitutes a “win-win” proposal which will:
Alleviate, and even eliminate, the humanitarian plight of individual Palestinians

Ensure the continued security and survival of Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish people

Provide a Significant Boost to the Economies of the Developing World

Transform poverty stricken refugees into affluent émigrés

Al Liguori , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 6:58 am GMT

How can one write meaningfully about the Kushners without mentioning that they are Chabadniks? To understand the significance, one must understand Jared’s family background and the virulent malevolence of supremacist Chabad. http://judaism.is/kushner.html

Bardon Kaldian , says: May 31, 2019 at 7:25 am GMT

“We will forever live by the sword.” Bibi’s words in 2015.

I knew there was a reason I always liked this guy….

joeshittheragman , says: May 31, 2019 at 9:46 am GMT

The Palestinians rise in frustration and fury; the Israelis respond with overwhelming force. The world then offers-up perfunctory sympathy for the Palestinians. Everybody moves on
——————————————————————————————————-
Interesting that after getting their butts kicked every time, when the smoke clears, there’s another Pal. kid is still throwing rocks at israeli soldiers. I don’t know how it will happen but somehow the Pals are going to win this thing.

neutral , says: May 31, 2019 at 9:57 am GMT

So much wrong with this, where to start. The Economist is not excellent, The Economist only supports Israel to have the right to protect its borders, Kusher is a jewish supremacist that has given absolute everything to Israel, the Arabs taking part in these ethnic cleansing talks are all corrupt puppets and how no real support in their countries.

This is all makes sense if one knows that this woman is an anti white jew. Its time to deport this anti white crusader back to South Africa, she was after all very eager to destroy the country the whites built, why should she not suffer the consequences of her actions and beliefs?

AryanMasterUberMan , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:14 am GMT

What I find curious about Israel is that they are backed by the world’s most powerful military force, they get infinite money, almost any high-tech military hardware they want, an international propaganda aparatus that exonerates them regardless of what they do, and an entire population that is militarized, and yet with all these advantages going on 70 years, these jews CANNOT even colonize a tiny desert strip of the Levant. Unbelievable. Really, how incompetent are jews? Forget Eretz Israel. That requires conquering people much more dangerous and resilient than poor Palestinian peasants. It’s like jews are incapable of building. Destruction is all they know.
Israel will fail.
Like their Soviet Union failed.
Everything a jew touches fails.

Realist , says: May 31, 2019 at 11:31 am GMT
@Thinker

Javanka is the worst thing to happen to America. Without these two treasonous rats Trump might have saved the country, now he’s just another swamp creature.

Trump is a denizen of the swamp….a Deep State sycophant. Javanka is allowed to be ‘treasonous’ by her daddy. You have the cart before the horse.

Old and grumpy , says: May 31, 2019 at 1:52 pm GMT
@AryanMasterUberMan

Can’t have the possibility that a Palestinian genocide bump the Holocaust from the headlines. As it is now every Jewish holiday, they can celebrate historic bloodshed with Palestinian bloodshed. Oh and not to forget, all those rock tossing kids have organs to be harvested for Israel’s growing transplant industry.

Brooklyn Dave , says: May 31, 2019 at 3:28 pm GMT

Brilliant article, Ilana. I love the term Abu Ivanka al Amriki. If that isn’t derisive, I don’t know what is. Trump has already turned off a part of his base in regard that Jared and Ivanka still having too much to say in the administration. The sooner he gets rid of them (don’t hold your breath), the better off the nation will be. The only pressure I can see Trump bending to in regard to Bimbo & Boy Bimbo is that of the military – one of the few institutions that he respects. Since Obama cleared the military of a lot of its good men, leaving it with career-minded slimeballs, one wonders who in the military would have to cojonees to put that kind of pressure on Trump? If Ivanka thinks having her eye on the presidency is realistic, she better think twice. I’d ALMOST contemplate voting for Ocasio-Cortez for a micro-second before I’d go that route. Unfortunately, the Palestinians are disposable. They have nothing to offer anyone in realpolitik. Muslims and Arabs will make all kinds of noise, but not seriously risk a thread of their wives’ burkhas. Only human compassion motivates activism on behalf of the Palestinians. Yes, Bibi will have Jared & Ivanka’s heads spinning and dazed by the time their plane lands back in the US. Ah well, such is realpolitik.

Anon [414] • Disclaimer , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:34 pm GMT

Jews had made a mess of Europe until WWII because they were always treated as the outsiders, not allowed to own land, etc., so they stuck together as a group for survival and to thrive. But things are different now, esp. in the US, they are outsiders no more. Why do Jews continue to stick together as a tribe, still refusing to assimilate, wanting the US to go to more wars on behalf of Israel, and encouraging open borders and multiculturalism so that they are not the only out group against a white majority. Why won’t they assimilate?

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all because of Israel. Israel needs for the diaspora to stay loyal to the tribe to ensure it’s survival. That’s why they are going out of their way to build the holocaust museum, because Judaism is losing its appeal as more Jews become secular, they need to keep them loyal to the tribe on a new religion: Holocaustianity.

As long as there is an Israel, Jews will never assimilate, and the world will always be in chaos. For the world to achieve peace, Israel Must DIE.

Al Liguori , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@TKK ltra-Orthodox Jewish Newspaper Edits Female World Leaders Out of Charlie Hebdo March
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ultra-orthodox-jewish-newspaper-edits-female-world-leaders-out-of-charlie-hebdo-march/
•IDF’s chief rabbi-to-be Eyal Karim permits raping women in wartime
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4827240,00.html
•etc. http://judaism.is/torah-on-women.html
druid55 , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:37 pm GMT
@Al Liguori

Definitely a shitty little country

Tired of Not Winning , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:16 pm GMT

Girly man a.k.a. Lucifer in the flesh’s Mideast Peace Plan is dead on arrival because China and Russia ain’t drinking his poisonous KoolAid, unlike his dumb FIL who chugs it by the bucket:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-28/china-russia-jointly-boycott-trumps-deal-century-mideast-peace-conference

“Everything Jared touches turns to gold,” Trump tells us. A guy that dumb and blind has no business being president.

Robert Dolan , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:41 pm GMT

The Kushners are full on criminals.

Ivanka and her idiot husband are the worst thing that ever happened to Donald Trump.

Trump could have been a contender. Instead…..he’s just another shabbos goy sellout bum.

Tired of Not Winning , says: June 1, 2019 at 12:27 am GMT

US Confirms It Updated Maps To Show Disputed Golan Heights As Israeli:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-31/us-confirms-it-updated-maps-show-golan-heights-israeli

Next, Trump will confirm US updated map showing Iran as part of Israel.

[May 31, 2019] "US Coalition Attacks Syrian Oil Transport Boats On Euphrates River"

May 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 31, 2019 at 7:10 pm GMT

And so it begins

"US Coalition Attacks Syrian Oil Transport Boats On Euphrates River"
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-31/us-coalition-attacks-syrian-oil-tankers-euphrates-river

[May 31, 2019] Europe's mercenaries to Syria

May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Mina , May 31, 2019 6:39:11 AM | 61

Europe's mercenaries to Syria (and their "joy divisions") and how to wash their hands with it
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48444604

[May 31, 2019] The Hidden Side of the Mueller Report by Tom Mysiewicz

Notable quotes:
"... There are numerous NGOs that act on behalf of Israel in the U.S., examples being CUFI, JINSA, AIPAC and the Chabad Lubbivitcher sect. ..."
"... For, if the real intention had been to "get" Trump post election -- and not make him a sympathetic character to the average American -- an investigation would have focused on the "Russian" mafia and their banks, Israeli intel, Trump's bankruptcies (and who got him out of them) and the Chabad Lubbavitcher sect. Does anyone really believe that a U.S. legislature that previously violated protocol and invited Bibi Netanyahu to the U.S. on its own -- and then gave him more than 15 standing ovations -- would impeach the man who gave Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel? This is sheer nonsense -- theater intended to sway the gullible public. ..."
"... In fact, Adelson even funds a major newspaper in Israel -- Israel Today -- that has helped keep Netanyahu in power. (The 85-year-old and his wife Miriam gave $82-million+ to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016.) But, alas, this alone is not enough to account for the election upset (if that was what it was.) ..."
"... In order for Trump to win, it would be necessary to swing a small percentage of disaffected white Americans from both parties. That small percentage (8%-10%) is now referred to as the "Alt Right." ..."
"... It should be remembered that, during the 2016 campaign, Hillary had discussed creating a private non-monitored hotline to Netanyahu when she was elected [12] ) ..."
"... So, the unhinged and unprecedented frothing-at-the-mouth rage towards Trump displayed by the worst of the Neocons (Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, etc.) is all part of the ruse? ..."
"... entire deep state apparatus, with international assistance swung into action with the phony Mueller investigation was a sure sign that Trump's platform was never going to be allowed. ..."
"... "When a public is stressed and confused, a big lie told repeatedly and unchallenged can become accepted truth." ~George Orwell ..."
"... As for Flynn: he knew about many of the misdeeds of the previous administration. They took advantage of a neophyte administration fending off Sally Yates Russian Collusion initiative via a corrupt FBI Director to pressure them to let Flynn go – a terrible newbie mistake telegraphing weakness to all his enemies. ..."
"... So that being said, what's his point. That Trump is exceptionally corrupt despite no collusion with Russia because he's controlled by Izzies? ..."
May 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Mueller Report is done, and from the digest made public, its conclusion of no collusion to "fix" the last election by the Russian or "other" foreign governments does not surprise me. I agree with this conclusion. These foreign governments would, presumably, include Israel. However, in the case of Israel, I believe this may be a question of semantics.There is, I believe, considerable evidence that non-governmental forces acting on behalf of Israel succeeded in placing an individual in charge of the U.S. who is currently redirecting the power and financial resources of the nation to almost entirely serve the interests of a foreign power. (And that entity is not Russia!)

There are numerous NGOs that act on behalf of Israel in the U.S., examples being CUFI, JINSA, AIPAC and the Chabad Lubbivitcher sect. There are many super-wealthy patrons of Israel and the Netanyahu government, such as Sheldon Adelson, that were involved in Trump's election. Finally there are shadowy private Israeli contractors, such as those referred to by Cambridge Analytica's Alexander Nix, and the so-called "Russian" mafia, which is reputedly controlled by individuals loyal to Israel. Trump apparently has had business proximity in the past to such entities and their bank. [1]

First indication along these lines can be deduced from special prosecutor Robert Mueller's indictment of General Michael Flynn [2]

. Flynn admits lying to FBI agents about his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, then-Russian Ambassador to the United States, in December 2016, when Trump was president-elect. Apparently acting on orders from Jared Kushner, Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law, Flynn contacted Kislyak to ask if Russia would delay or veto a UN Security Council vote criticizing Israeli settlements. It's certainly a stretch to see how aiding and abetting actions illegal under international law would benefit the U.S. or Trump's MAGA agenda.

Empirical evidence of the preceding and a good example of the type of Israelocentric policy making that came in with the election of Mr. Trump can be found in the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House . [2a] There author Michael Wolff relates an alleged conversation between former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes, the former CEO of Fox News. Bannon reportedly told Ailes that Trump, Bibi Netanyahu and Trump-Netanyahu backer Sheldon Adelson are in agreement with moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. The national interests of the U.S. and possible international ramifications of this act apparently were not considered.

Trump's reaction to Bannon's alleged statement: "When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."

"Donald Trump is the Zionist water boy in the Oval Office. Trump's collusion was never with the Russian government; it was always with the Bolshevik/Ashkenazi/Zionist mafia (the new Deep State) that has now ousted the old Clinton-Bush mafia (the old Deep State) from power. And that coup was stunningly successful and swift. Accordingly, Donald Trump has faithfully filled his administration with quintessential Zionist insiders -- including Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Elliot Abrams, Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, David Friedman, Jared Kushner, et al.," comments America's most courageous evangelist, Chuck Baldwin, "God help us." [3]

MAGA -- Make America Great Again -- was widely believed to be a spontaneous outpouring of authentic nationalistic sentiment embodied by President Donald Trump. Trump's election was initially welcomed by some countries as a government acting in the actual self-interest of the U.S. because it would be far more predictable than one acting for hidden interests. And Trump's election, promising to reduce the footprint of the U.S. abroad, offered the hope of rolling back the push toward a world war.

Alas, much as was the case with the so-called "Arab Spring", these hopes did not materialize and U.S. interventions overseas have grown. Often, these are somehow related to the interests of the Israeli state and its Likud government:

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal and placed new sanctions on Iran, in accordance with the wishes of Netanyahu and Sheldon Adelson. On April 22 nd , for instance, oil prices jumped 3% as the Trump administration promised to remove sanction waivers on Iran oil [4] -- which had allowed countries such as India to continue buying Iranian oil -- prompting threats from Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz for this violation of the nuclear disarmament treaty. American consumers could pay soaring prices on all their purchases for this act which demonstrably is connected to pre-election planning by backers of Israel with the Trump campaign. (Apparently fearing that this would cause a major rift with India, further alienate Turkey, and scuttle hopes of a trade agreement with China, Trump quietly reversed course to give these countries another year to comply, further demonstrating the Israelocentric monomania of the Neocon-Zionists vs. the actual interests of the U.S.) The ongoing negotiations with North Korea appear centered on its "giving up" Iranian nuclear and missile secrets -- as well as destroying its own offensive missile capabilities -- in return for normalization. Trump recently vetoed a bill to pull U.S. troops out of Yemen and their support of the Saudi aggression (apparently as part of a deal to have Saudi Arabia guarantee Arab support for Trump and Jared Kushner's new Mid-East "peace plan".) Trump's promises of reducing involvement in Syria appear stalled and the U.S. continues the de facto support of he partition of Syria (A future Kurdistan may well become a part of Eretz Israel in the future -- the Barzani brothers were trained by Israel and articles have appeared linking the Kurds to the genetics of the Israeli population) as well as the protection of the evacuation of key ISIS operatives. In South America, war is on the horizon as Neocons move to topple Venezuela -- going so far as to name an alternative president. Venezuela's heavy crude is key to diesel production and China has substantial claims on it (which might not be honored if they don't play ball with Trump.) And the restructuring of South America may also play a role in the creation of a "New Israel" in Patagonia -- a potential evacuation zone of Jews from Israel, the U.S., Canada and elsewhere in the event of war or national chaos -- where Israeli operatives are reported to be extremely active. [4a] Meanwhile, President Trump has destroyed the last vestiges of international law relating to conquest of territory by aggressive warfare, as in the case of the 1967 Mideast War. He has ceded control of territory so seized (recognizing Israeli conquest of East Jerusalem and Syria's Golan Heights) despite U.S. membership in the U.N., which was created to prevent such events in the future so as to make war less attractive. Was this done for any specific U.S. benefit? I think not. But it may have something to do with President Trump's "fabulous" new Mideast peace plan that is similar to Bill Clinton's fabulous new peace plan. Possibly to pressure Europe to support the redrawing of the Mid East, the Trump administration is expected to launch a tariff war with the EU starting this May. (This will apparently follow an expected superficial agreement with China during the same period.) And money for Israel has not been stinted either. Military aid for Israel apparently avoided the budget ax in Trump's 2020 fiscal plan sent to Congress. It includes the full $3.3-billion in assistance promised under a 10-year memorandum of understanding, despite spending cuts in other sectors affecting American interests throughout the proposal. [5]

While the interests of the Israeli ally have been thoroughly protected, in the economic sphere, Trump's MAGA has been something of a train wreck for Trump's populist supporters on main street. Their indebtedness has soared [6]

while the interest on savings (for the 40-something percent of those who have any) dropped to near zero. They got tax breaks that were temporary (as opposed to the massive permanent tax cuts for corporations who are often heavily indebted to large banks) and then, many learned they wouldn't be getting their usual annual tax refunds due to quirks in the tax law -- something that has hit the retail economy hard. Wall St. and the big banks have certainly prospered. U.S. Corporations were allowed to repatriate huge sums of money with no strings attached. And what did they do with this money? Did they invest in infrastructure, job training of Americans and building/retooling of factories as President Trump should have insisted? No, they used it for stock buybacks and acquisitions -- mostly paper shuffling -- that has kept the stock market propped up.

Trump's tariff war, meanwhile, has imposed new costs on average Americans -- not on the Chinese -- with industrial production dropping or remaining flat and U.S. trade deficits soaring. The ham-handed imposition of tariffs without corresponding domestic industrial capacity may also have destroyed some of America's backbone and staunch Trump supporters -- farmers on small- and mid-sized farms. Large amounts of corn and soybeans were placed in silos awaiting the end of Trump's "trade war". These have mostly been destroyed by record flooding and are NOT covered by crop insurance. Many of these farmers will go bankrupt and big agribusiness may ultimately take over their land. (And the "farm bailouts" announced by Trump will mainly go to large farms and big agribusiness -- including farms owned by Chinese interests!)

In a nutshell, Trump "jazzed" a brief economic recovery in the U.S. with massive tax cuts for big business and temporary cuts for voters (more bark than bite variety) while increasing the national debt, which these same overtaxed voters will ultimately be on the hook for. At the same time Trump "jawboned" the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy so interest rates wouldn't rise as a result of the vast increase in national indebtedness. He has laid the groundwork for eventual hyperinflation (or hyper-stagflation) that may well ruin more of his middle class voters after the 2020 election.

"Manufacturing production ( in March -- Ed. ) was flat after dropping in January and February. In the first three months of the year, factory output fell at an annual rate of 1.1%. Production of cars, truck and auto parts dropped 2.5% in March and 4.5% over the past year." [7] The Cass Freight Index, a measure of truck shipments indicative of overall economic activity is down for the fourth consecutive month year-over-year. [8] Sales of Class 8 trucks (18-wheelers) hit the ditch in January, with orders down 58 percent from a year ago hitting a level not seen since October 2016, near the end of the transportation recession, "when Class-8 truck orders had plunged to the lowest levels since 2009, and truck and engine manufacturers responded with layoffs," writes Wolf Richter. [9]

American businesses expanded in April at the slowest pace in 31 months, according to IHS Markit's survey of business executives. IHS Markit's flash PMI for services slipped to 52.9 from 55.3, while the manufacturing index was flat at 52.4. Any number over 50 signifies expansion. "The U.S. economy started the second quarter with its weakest expansion since mid-2016 as businesses reported a marked slowing in output, new orders and hiring," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit " [10]

"Manufacturing production has pivoted to the downside in the first quarter of the year, showing the revival in factories and output is sputtering for the first time since the Trump economics team took office," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. "The trade war and America First policies have not brought factories back home yet." [11]

What about immigration? While President Trump "talks the talk" he has failed to close the border as previous presidents have done and seems more interested in expanding the H1B program for large corporate interests instead of retraining Americans to fill at least some of the gap of necessary skills . He allows American soldiers to be captured and disarmed by the Mexican military inside U.S. borders (as happened recently without a proportionate response) and the rate of "catch and release" has soared due to lack of internment facilities. America is filled with unemployed (U6 -- the real unemployment rate -- is 3 times higher than the publicized rate and many of the real jobs are part time and multiple jobs can be held by a single person), homeless and homeless camps, yet we need hordes of unskilled labor pouring into the country? Trump proposes to dump refugees in sanctuary cities, which sounds nice until one realizes that these cities will simply give the refugees tickets to go elsewhere in America. (This already happens in some places in the U.S. where indigents are given tickets to go elsewhere.)

The empirical evidence is therefore clear. Trump's announced program vs. what he has actually delivered to nationalist voters who supported him is what a Hollywood Western town is to a real Western town: it is only a facade. (It should be remembered that Steve Bannon, one of the chief architects of the Trump victory, went from being a Goldman Sachs investment banker to being a Hollywood movie director!) The only plausible explanation? That the Neocon-Zionist power structure co-opted the authentic nationalist sentiments of Americans for their own ends and disguised this control with "Pepe": a neo-Nazi green frog "front man" wearing a red "MAGA" ball cap. It stands to reason that such potent and capable forces are the real source of President Trump's power.

Amazingly, Trump's approval rating remains surprisingly high despite the outcome. Part of this may be the unwillingness of average people to believe their vote counted for nothing and they are heading for the same outcome as if Hillary Clinton had been elected. Then there is something called the Galileo gambit (also called the "Galileo fallacy.") This informal logical fallacy is a way to convince listeners (or viewers) that a questionable leader (or his policies) are good despite evidence to the contrary. I believe this was accomplished using the Russian meddling meme and having the establishment media -- widely distrusted by Trump supporters -- pile on Trump. For, if the real intention had been to "get" Trump post election -- and not make him a sympathetic character to the average American -- an investigation would have focused on the "Russian" mafia and their banks, Israeli intel, Trump's bankruptcies (and who got him out of them) and the Chabad Lubbavitcher sect. Does anyone really believe that a U.S. legislature that previously violated protocol and invited Bibi Netanyahu to the U.S. on its own -- and then gave him more than 15 standing ovations -- would impeach the man who gave Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel? This is sheer nonsense -- theater intended to sway the gullible public.

To make a case for the election of Trump being a soft takeover of the U.S., it's necessary to examine how this might have been accomplished. It is child's play to hack Diebold voting machines for which no paper trails exist. But due to the nature of such rigging it would likely be impossible to prove, say, a hypothesis that Hillary had some machines in key states rigged and "someone's" black ops unrigged them. We also know one of Trump's major backers, the Zionist Sheldon Adelson, is also the main backer of Netanyahu in Israel. In fact, Adelson even funds a major newspaper in Israel -- Israel Today -- that has helped keep Netanyahu in power. (The 85-year-old and his wife Miriam gave $82-million+ to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016.) But, alas, this alone is not enough to account for the election upset (if that was what it was.)

America is pretty well divided by party and elections are typically very close. There is a block of Israeli-indoctrinated Pentecostal and "Christian Zionist" voters that could deliver 20% of votes. But many of these are already on the Republican rolls. In order for Trump to win, it would be necessary to swing a small percentage of disaffected white Americans from both parties. That small percentage (8%-10%) is now referred to as the "Alt Right."

And it is the Alt Right -- comprised of voters who might otherwise not have voted in the election -- that swung the election coupled with the divisive campaign of Hillary Clinton, which many middle class Americans found odious. (It must be remembered how quickly Trump backed off his "jail Hillary" meme at the conclusion of the election. Was this also play acting? It should be remembered that, during the 2016 campaign, Hillary had discussed creating a private non-monitored hotline to Netanyahu when she was elected [12] )

So, we may start with the genesis of this Alt Right movement. Which was in Israel. Breitbart News, the flagship of the Alt Right movement and a mouthpiece for the Trump campaign (and the eventual nesting place of Steve Bannon) was actually started by a Jewish lawyer and businessman, Larry Solov. [13]

In a 2015 post announcing the opening of Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau, Solov wrote that Breitbart News itself was conceived of in Israel, when Solov traveled to the Israeli state with Andrew Breitbart, the now-deceased founder of Breitbart and met with him and Bibi Netanyahu in planning sessions. (There are pictures of this event.)

"One thing we specifically discussed that night was our desire to start a site that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel. We were sick of the anti-Israel bias of the mainstream media and J-Street," he wrote. [14]

Breitbart's infatuation with Israel is eerily reminiscent of a similar situation in the 1930s. National Socialist propagandist Josef Goebbels ran a publication called the Algerminer in the 1930s prior to the Second World War. Goebbels was quite sympathetic to Zionist interests, sponsored a fact-finding trip to Palestine and had a commemorative coin issued in honor of this collaboration depicting a swastika on one side and a Jewish hexagram ("Mogen David") on the obverse. [15]

Subsequently, the so-called Transfer Agreement saw German Jews brought to Palestine on German ships. [16]

Andrew Breitbart subsequently died -- but not before Steve Bannon had him narrate one of his turgid Hollywood conservative documentaries and got on his and Larry Solov's "good side." Solov then tapped Bannon as Breitbart's successor and brought him on to run the website -- possibly also due to his links with the wealthy Mercer family. Bannon went on to transform Breitbart into the spearhead of Trump's campaign to disaffected Americans vis a vis the Alt-Right. (Although Bannon was reputed in a divorce proceeding to have once made a comment about "whiny Jews," he was given a kosheresque seal of approval by no less than the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. [17]

)

Bannon's masterful use of Breitbart's ideas and website pale in comparison with the impact of his creation of Cambridge Analytica in 2013 (with billionaire fund manager Robert Mercer) [18]

as a spinoff from Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL.) [19] SCL is a UK firm whose niche "specialties" were once described as psychological warfare , public diplomacy and influence operations.

Cambridge's first big success with "behavorial microtargeting" was swinging the Brexit vote in the U.K., a cause also championed by the Zionist politician Boris Johnson [20] (The Israeli press, not surprisingly, now raises the possibility of Israel becoming Britain's "window on the world" in the event of a hard Brexit! No doubt, Israel may ultimately benefit from the trade wars launched by President Trump as well. It has free trade arrangements with many nations.) Thanks to what's alleged to have been a massive data breach of some 50-million Facebook users, Cambridge was apparently able to corral the (private) data on the social media accounts of millions of American voters in swing states [21]

, allowing development of Trump's talking points and election materials directed at individual voters' "hot buttons" by a sophisticated AI program allegedly developed by company whistleblower Christopher Wylie with help getting the data from a company, Global Science Research (GSR), controlled by researcher Aleksandr Kogan of Cambridge University. [22] Kogan reportedly gave thousands of volunteers a personality test app (thisisyourdigitallife) and then used the Facebook platform (allegedly in violation of the terms of use) to find their friends and their friends' friends and so on much like Carnivore to create a relational database that grew into many tens of millions. In effect, this created the potential for psychological warfare to be used by Cambridge Analytica on the American voting public in order to "game" the election.

For its part, Cambridge claimed that it believed GSR had abided by the UK Data Protection Act and, as soon as it found out this was not the case, terminated the data and deleted the information. And that, after being paid $6.2-million by the Trump campaign, none of the consent-less data was used to elect Trump. (Reuters relates that the N.Y. Times interviewed half a dozen former employees and contractors and reviewed documents and records and claimed these indicate Cambridge retained the data and did use the data. Facebook, after receiving information that 270,000 people had downloaded Kogan's app and that data obtained without consent had not been deleted, then banned Cambridge Analytica and Wylie from using its platform. [23] )

What is even more disturbing is that foreign players may also have been involved in the 2016 election. While Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL ceased operations on May 2nd, 2018 (possibly to stymie investigations as to the extent of its activities for the Trump campaign and foreign governments) [24]

that cessation came after its former CEO Alexander Nix had some interesting things to say when recorded by TV Channel 4 with a hidden camera while making a sales presentation. [25] In addition to the usual allusions to prostitutes, shady characters, blackmail and the like, Nix carelessly " boasted of his ability to employ "Israeli companies" to gather intelligence on politicians Nix then went on to praise the ability of "Israeli" intelligence personnel in what can only be described as a power sales pitch to a would-be client." [26]

Like Bannon with his revelations to Wolff, Nix had gone too far and was quickly sacked pending an investigation. Had he committed the unforgivable sin of speaking the truth in an insecure venue??? According to a statement put out by CA at the time:

"In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix's recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation. We have asked Dr. Alexander Tayler to serve as acting CEO while an independent investigation is launched to review those comments and allegations." [27]

Much like exploding armor on tanks, Trump seemingly uses associates and then fires them to deflect criticism when they become compromised. In the case of the massive Cambridge data breach and its possible use to swing the election, Steve Bannon fared no better than General Flynn.

After Bannon's departure from the White House, quoting McClatchy Washington Bureau: " Bannon sold his stake in Cambridge Analytica -- the controversial data firm Donald Trump's campaign employed to reach voters with hyper-targeted online messaging -- in April, as required by his ethics requirement. But Bannon only notified the government of the sale in November, three months after he had left the White House and one month after McClatchy asked him if he still had an interest in the company. He was fined for the late report about the sale Bannon was supposed to sell his $1 million to $5 million stake in Cambridge Analytica while he served in the administration as part of his ethics agreement, but it was never clear until now if he had done so Under Federal law, late filers such as Bannon are fined $200. However, while the fine is small only a tiny percentage of such government-required reports are filed late. Obviously, most reports are timely filed because tardy filing could be an indication of some misfeasance or malfeasance. [28]

Notes

[1] https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/03/31/how-trump-became-the-russian-mafias-bitch/

[2] United States of America vs. Michael T. Flynn, Violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001

In a plea agreement, Flynn admitted that he had lied to Justice Dept. investigators, with regard to a resolution submitted by Egypt to the UNSC concerning sanctions on Israel for illegal settlement construction in Palestinian areas, he contacted the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. on December 22 nd , 2016 at the behest of a "very senior member of Trump's transition team" (believed to be Jared Kushner -- Ed.) and requested Russia vote against the resolution or at least delay it. He met again with the Russian Ambassador on December 23 rd and was informed Russia would not comply if the resolution came to a vote. https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download

[2a] Wolff, Michael, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, ISBN 978-1-250-15806-2, Henry Holt and Co. (2018)

[3] Baldwin further adds that (in addition to the Kushners -- Ed.) Trump's association with Jewish mafia billionaires is easily documented. I'm talking about men such as Alexander Mashkevich, Tevfik Arif (not Jewish by birth but a strong Zionist), Felix Henry Sater and Lev Avnerovich Leviev. Look them up for yourself. Jewish Zionist Wilbur Ross (Bilderberg), whom Trump appointed as Secretary of Commerce, was one of the Jewish billionaire Rothschild bankers who bailed Trump out of one of his bankruptcies. "Donald Trump, John Hagee, Zionism And The Chabad," by Chuck Baldwin, February 14, 2019

[4] http://fortune.com/2019/04/22/iran-oil-waivers-sanctions-trump/

[4a] For instance: https://www.mintpressnews.com/dark-secret-behind-british-billionaire-joe-lewis-parallel-state-in-argentina-patagonia/256068/

[5] https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/White-House-budget-plan-contains-33-billion-in-military-aid-for-Israel-583258

[6] Americans' credit spending was greater than ever in 2018, as debt levels reached record totals. Overall consumer debt reached $13.3 trillion in the last quarter of 2018, while the total amount of unpaid revolving debt hit $4.1 trillion.

"Consumer Debt Reaches $13 Trillion in Q4 2018," by Matt Tatham, 3 April 2019. https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/consumer-debt-study/

[7] https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2019-04-16/us-industrial-production-slipped-01-in-march

[8] https://macro.economicblogs.org/mish/2019/04/shedlock-trucking-cass-truck-shipment-index/

[9] http://www.mises.tv/power-market/transportation-boom-ends

[10] "IHS Markit PMI shows slowest U.S. economic growth in 31 months" by Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch, 18 April 2019. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ihs-markit-pmi-shows-somewhat-slower-us-economic-growth-in-april-2019-04-18

[11] "U.S. manufacturing mired in soft patch in first quarter" by Lucia Mutikani, Reuters, 16 April 2019

[12] Hillary apparently willing to anything behind the scenes to assist Netanyahu and the Zionists while pandering to Arab and Muslim supporters. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/clinton-in-newly-revealed-classified-emails-discussed-secret-comms-channel-with-israel

[13] The coexistence of anti-Semitism and right-Wing Zionism "in Trump's world make sense," said Todd Gitlin, the Columbia University sociologist and cultural commentator in an email to the Forward. https://forward.com/opinion/354344/steve-bannon-signals-coming-storm-for-jews-in-age-of-donald-trump/

[14] "Breitbart News Network: Born In The USA, Conceived In Israel," by Larry Solov, Breitbart News Network, 17 November 2015. https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2015/11/17/breitbart-news-network-born-in-the-usa-conceived-in-israel/

[15] https://northshorenumismaticsociety.org/little-known-medal-marks-nazi-zionist-co-operation-in-1933/

also: https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n54a28.html

[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transfer_Agreement

[17] Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the United States, in 2016 praised President-elect Donald Trump as a "true friend of Israel" and said he looks forward to working with incoming White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. "Israel has no doubt that President-elect Trump is a true friend of Israel "

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2016/11/17/israeli-ambassador-u-s-look-forward-working-steve-bannon/

[18] According to testimony given to British lawmakers by a company whistle blower, Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica was founded by billionaire Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon.

In other words, Bannon was likely a kingpin and not just a bit player in what transpired -- and probably the real reason he had to leave the White House. "Trump and Brexit: Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Gives Bombshell Testimony to British Lawmakers," by Pam and Russ Martens, Wall Street on Parade, 27 March 2018

[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica

[20] See "Brexit: A Bucket of Cold Water for You," by T. Mysiewicz, Renegade Tribune, 27 June 2016. http://www.renegadetribune.com/brexit-bucket-cold-water/

[21] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica/trump-consultants-harvested-data-from-50-million-facebook-users-reports-idUSKCN1GT02Y

also: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/17/facebook-trump-campaign-data-cambridge-analytica-423599

also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica

[22] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica/trump-consultants-harvested-data-from-50-million-facebook-users-reports-idUSKCN1GT02Y

[23] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge-analytica/

[24] Are Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group attempting to evade recent negative coverage, only to re-form and continue their work as part of a new entity? "The news Wednesday about the closure of Cambridge Analytica does not mention Emerdata or its subsidiary Firecrest Technologies All of the other UK SCL-related companies are still listed as active and have no pending filings .

The business purpose of Emerdata is not known, beyond the general description of "data processing, hosting and related activities". However, in a channel 4 News report, the SCL Group founder, Nigel Oakes, said it was his understanding that Emerdata was set up to acquire all of Cambridge Analytica and SCL.

"Cambridge Analytica is dead -- but its obscure network is alive and well," by Wendy Siegelman, The Guardian Weekly, 5 May 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/05/cambridge-analytica-scl-group-new-companies-names

[25] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ

[26] "The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Could Provide Hard Evidence of "Israeli" Meddling in Trump Election," by Adam Garrie, Global Policy and Analysis Think Tank, 20 March 2018

http://www.eurasiafuture.com/2018/03/20/the-cambridge-analytica-scandal-could-provide-hard-evidence-of-israeli-meddling-in-trump-election/

[27] "BREAKING: Cambridge Analytica CEO Suspended From Duty," by Adam Garrie, Global Policy and Analysis Think Tank, 20 March 2018

https://eurasiafuture.com/2018/03/20/breaking-cambridge-analytica-ceo-suspended-from-duty/

[28] "Bannon Sold His Stake in Cambridge Analytica, and was Fined for Late Ethics Report," Hamodia-The Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry, 20 February 2018

menters to Ignore ...to Follow Endorsed Only Trim Comments?

Biff , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:50 am GMT

The Mueller Report = Political Theatre

JimDandy , says: May 30, 2019 at 7:26 am GMT

So, the unhinged and unprecedented frothing-at-the-mouth rage towards Trump displayed by the worst of the Neocons (Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, etc.) is all part of the ruse?

Bardon Kaldian , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:59 am GMT

I don't get what's so "hidden" or new? Anyone who has read Walt & Mearsheimer knows just about everything.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 30, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT

"There is, I believe, considerable evidence that non-governmental forces acting on behalf of Israel succeeded in placing an individual in charge of the U.S. who is currently redirecting the power and financial resources of the nation to almost entirely serve the interests of a foreign power. (And that entity is not Russia!)"

Wow, I've been looking for an article with this level of truth since this latest cardboard cutout was ushered into office. You shills who will be screaming for evidence I suggest you watch the video below and then tell me Israhell is not in charge of American foreign policy.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A8JB7oSNUHM?feature=oembed

Chris Mallory , says: May 30, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT

Wait! We have had a president in the last 30 years who hasn't been a water boy for Israel? Even the "Muslim" Obama bent over for that insignificant nation.

The Alarmist , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT

Good thing the Brits and Australians were in the mix to add a layer of abstraction, eh?

homahr , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:16 pm GMT
@Short Everything

I think there are people on the alt-right who are both pro and anti Israel. Obviously the pro ones only love Israel because Israel likes killing brown people.

Agent76 , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:28 pm GMT

Apr 10, 2019 Congressman Adam Schiff's Russiagate Delusions Are Not Okay

Aaron Maté takes on the Grand Inquisitor of the Russiagate conspiracy, Rep. Adam Schiff, methodically dismantling his deceptive claims, one by one.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tXsHmoSdPkY?feature=oembed

14.05.2017 International Cyber Attack: Roots Traced to US National Security Agency

Over 45,000 ransomware attacks have been tracked in large-scale attacks across Europe and Asia - particularly Russia and China - as well as attacks in the US and South America. There are reports of infections in 99 countries. A string of ransomware attacks appears to have started in the United Kingdom, Spain and the rest of Europe, before striking Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines on May 12. According to Kaspersky Laboratory, Russia, Ukraine, India and Taiwan were hit hardest.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/05/14/international-cyber-attack-roots-traced-us-national-security-agency.html

AWM , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:55 pm GMT
@The Alarmist

Don't forget the Italians!

Al Liguori , says: • Website May 30, 2019 at 4:05 pm GMT

Multigenerational subservience of the Trumps to the Jews
http://www.chareidi.org/archives5777/voera/afredtrumpvrh77.htm

and yet many Jews are after Trump. Why is that? Now that you know about Trump's wicked friends, learn about Trump's wicked enemies Anti-Trump & Pro-Obama, the Pritzkers made Obama. "They're bigshots in Holocaustianity, pioneers of mortgage-backed derivatives & publish the genocidal Zohar."

Jorge Bergoglio @HereIsJorge
Carolyn Yeager , says: • Website May 30, 2019 at 4:22 pm GMT

It looks to me like the anti-Trump 'cranks' are getting the upper hand here at Unz Review. Tom Mysiewicz is known for writing articles of this type for Renegade Tribune, which presents the most highly conspiratorial view of world politics possible. Just because he can create 28 footnotes doesn't mean that any of them are credible or actually provide evidence for what he is proposing. In this article, most don't. For example, this paragraph:

Breitbart's infatuation with Israel is eerily reminiscent of a similar situation in the 1930s. National Socialist propagandist Josef Goebbels ran a publication called the Algerminer in the 1930s prior to the Second World War. Goebbels was quite sympathetic to Zionist interests, sponsored a fact-finding trip to Palestine and had a commemorative coin issued in honor of this collaboration depicting a swastika on one side and a Jewish hexagram ("Mogen David") on the obverse.[15]

Subsequently, the so-called Transfer Agreement saw German Jews brought to Palestine on German ships.[16]

I can confidently say that this simplified description and 'conclusion' misrepresents the actual situation at the time and also misrepresents Josef Goebbels intentions. It's the same with many of Mysiewicz's sources intended to back up his argument that Trump is a bought and paid for Israeli asset, and Israel rules the world. What's really going on is that the Jewish population in every country acts as Israeli assets, which gives them their power. And who is responsible for that? Let's look first at the English aristocracy.

Donald Trump is who he is. He has a long history as a public figure and he's been saying the same things for many years. The idea that he has set out to fool Americans in order to serve the interests of Israel and bring about total Jewish domination over us is not supported by the overall reality. The reality is that every U.S. president has limited power and is beset by opposition at all times (including the fierce Jewish Lobby). That is Democracy as we know it. Those who want to sell two-dimensional comic-book villains to their conspiracy-obsessed readers are doing us all a disservice.

homahr , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:00 pm GMT
@Dr. Krieger

Isn't Tommy Robinson and other British far-fight/alt-right people extremely pro-Israel?

Robert Dolan , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:07 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager Then he shit on his base and became the most insanely pro-Israel zealot we have ever seen. The southern border is wide open with thousands of invaders pouring in, and they are given WORK PERMITS. Trump was a shill to begin with, or they threatened him and his family so he caved. I kind of think he was a shill to begin with, that he was always a globalist piece of shit and he lied to us to get elected.

In any case, Trump actually is a two dimensional comic book villain that hires every neocon he can find and turns his back on people that believed in him.

It's sickening and it's given me great sorrow.

Prester John , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:43 pm GMT

Reagan had his Eleventh Commandment about not speaking ill of fellow Republicans. Herewith, the Twelfth: "Thou shalt not speak ill of Yisroel."

RobinG , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:48 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan lockquote>

" our June 8, 2019 Memorial Service will be held at the Navy Memorial, 701 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington DC 20004 at noon. I admit it would be more moving to have the service at Section 34, Arlington Cemetery, however, because of security, logistics, and cost issues, the Navy Memorial is the better choice. In any case, prayer and remembrance can occur anywhere the heart is."

U.S.S. Liberty Veterans Association
https://usslibertyveterans.org/pdfs/LVANewsletter-2019-04.pdf

Curmudgeon , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan

entire deep state apparatus, with international assistance swung into action with the phony Mueller investigation was a sure sign that Trump's platform was never going to be allowed.

Whether you like Bannon or not, his departure statement – the Trump presidency is dead – has been entirely accurate. The unanswered question is whether that was the plan all along, or whether Trump received an offer that he couldn't refuse. Until proof otherwise, my view is the latter. This was confirmed yesterday when I saw Mueller's bullshit political statement which was essentially, the President can't prove when he stopped beating his wife.

BADmejr , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
@homahr

Although the term "Alt Right" has gone out of style these days, the group to which it actually referred is NOT in any way pro-Israel. Tommy Robinson and his like were never Alt Right. The Alt Right is characterized by many things, and some disagree on these, but two things on which no one disagrees is regarding race realism and knowledge of the Jewish question, which means the Alt Right is "anti-semitic" in the eyes of its true enemies. Semitism causes anti-Semitism, and any who refuse to address the Jewish question, and especially those who shill for Israel are NOT Alt Right.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:45 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Again, some here are totally unable to face the truth. This is known as cognitive dissonance. If you suffer from this condition please seek help. Here is a good place to start.

"When a public is stressed and confused, a big lie told repeatedly and unchallenged can become accepted truth." ~George Orwell

https://www.sott.net/article/339728-Political-cognitive-dissonance-and-the-psychology-of-soft-slavery

anonymous [218] • Disclaimer , says: May 30, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Its been proven already Breitbart run by jews

Precious , says: May 30, 2019 at 8:57 pm GMT

Trump's tariff war, meanwhile, has imposed new costs on average Americans - not on the Chinese - with industrial production dropping or remaining flat and U.S. trade deficits soaring.

Not on the Chinese? That is news to them and everyone else

China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 28 years in 2018, with gross domestic product expanding 6.6%, down 0.2 percentage point from the previous year, according to data released Monday by the country's National Bureau of Statistics.

The last time economic growth was so tepid was 1990, when the economy slumped in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident. Last year, the economy was hampered by a drive to cut regional government and corporate debt, as well as China's trade war with the U.S.

In a nutshell, Trump "jazzed" a brief economic recovery in the U.S. with massive tax cuts for big business and temporary cuts for voters (more bark than bite variety) while increasing the national debt, which these same overtaxed voters will ultimately be on the hook for. At the same time Trump "jawboned" the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy so interest rates wouldn't rise as a result of the vast increase in national indebtedness. He has laid the groundwork for eventual hyperinflation (or hyper-stagflation) that may well ruin more of his middle class voters after the 2020 election.

There has never been hyperinflation in any Western nation other than the Weimar Republic. This has been going on since the Bretton Woods agreement. Trump has been dealing with a coup since he took office, when exactly did he have time to reform or replace our central bank with a new money standard and reform our banking laws? Was he supposed to start a recession the moment he took office so we could start tightening our belts and paying all our debts?

Wally , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:14 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

said:
"Wow, I've been looking for an article with this level of truth since this latest cardboard cutout was ushered into office. You shills who will be screaming for evidence I suggest you watch the video below and then tell me Israhell is not in charge of American foreign policy."

Yawn. As if Trump is any different from all the other Presidents who have bowed to Jew / Israeli interests. The alternative was Hillary.

Wally , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:24 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

Quit the strawman arguments. People here realize that Trump yields to Jew interests. The problem you and those like you have is that none of you have differentiated Trump from other Jew ass kissing Presidents. And given the for-Israel wars of Bush & Obama, it's fair to say that Trump is actually better in that regard.

You have also not explained why most Jews dislike Trump. Now please sit down.

FvS , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:25 pm GMT
@homahr

Israel can be useful to the Alt-Right in two ways.
1. As a destination for Jewish diaspora relocation.
2. The existence of the Jewish ethnostate serves as a talking point for white nationalists.

RobinG , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:12 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Does anyone actually "write for" Renegade Tribune? Seems like it's reposts from elsewhere, like this one from Another Day in the Empire (Kurt Nimmo)

Breitbart, Infowars: Defenders of Mass Murder and Ethnic​ Cleansing
http://www.renegadetribune.com/breitbart-infowars-defenders-of-mass-murder-and-ethnic%e2%80%8b-cleansing/

[MORE]
BaronAsh , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:48 pm GMT

A poor article (unusual with Unz).

First, apart from mentioning it's over in first paragraph, it has NOTHING to do with the Mueller report. It's a reasonable diatribe about how the Izzies have their hands on the American Presidential throat. Name me one President for whom that has not been the case since the 1950s. One: Obama (maybe). And what a totalitarian, police state disaster he was. Maybe in order to do all that he had to do an end run around most of the Izzy agents in the USG, or maybe it was a highly principled stand. But apart from him, nobody. Well, maybe Kennedy, actually, but look what they did to him?

As for Flynn: he knew about many of the misdeeds of the previous administration. They took advantage of a neophyte administration fending off Sally Yates Russian Collusion initiative via a corrupt FBI Director to pressure them to let Flynn go – a terrible newbie mistake telegraphing weakness to all his enemies.

So that being said, what's his point. That Trump is exceptionally corrupt despite no collusion with Russia because he's controlled by Izzies?

Rather feeble if you ask me. I expect better in Unz.

Robert Dolan , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Kusnher and Graham have drafted new immigration legislation for amnesty and higher levels of immigration. Trump SAYS what we want to hear, then does NOTHING.

Nothing about sanctuary cities. Nothing about E-verify. Nothing about birthright citizenship. Nothing about the Visa lottery. No wall to speak of, maybe a few miles. His fraud on immigration is handing the democrats permanent power and he has to know this.

Yes ..the nose has fought him at every turn, you're right about that.

But Israel got 38 billion dollars, while we get more mexicans.

I have lost all faith in the man.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 31, 2019 at 12:55 am GMT
@BaronAsh f promises made that are never kept.

Maybe I'm just tired of seeing the national dept continue to skyrocket.

Maybe I'm just tired of the crumbling infrastructure of my country being ignored while billions upon billions are given to other countries in the form of foreign aid.

Maybe I'm just tired of never ending wars that drain my country of blood and treasure.

Maybe I'm just tired of putting my faith in some politician promising the world and never delivering.

Maybe I'm just tired of the right/left, Republican/Democrat game.

Maybe I'm just tired of "settling" period.

Monty Ahwazi , says: May 31, 2019 at 1:07 am GMT

Just like the vague conclusions of the commission which investigated the 9/11 and didn't reveal the real story, Robert Mueller did the same by deceiving the people and didn't reveal the real story of his investigation into 2016 election. By announcing in detail yesterday as how the Russians manipulated the election in 2016 Mueller completely failed to describe that some of the Russians involved in meddling were Russian Zionists with ties to the Russian mobs! So far this is the 2nd event that they've gotten away with it. It's so sad to see the extend of their involvement in the US government affairs!!!!

Al Liguori , says: May 31, 2019 at 1:48 am GMT
@Wally

You have also not explained why most Jews dislike Trump.

See comment #15's Twitter links. Trump is a pawn (maybe a rook) in intra-tribal warfare: Prtitzker/Soros/Rothschild Jews v. Chabad Jews.

Toby , says: May 31, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT
@FvS

Israel shall be a light unto the nations

The State of Israel as a Light unto the Nations. In his writings and speeches, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) emphasized his vision of the state of Israel as a moral and social beacon to the whole world, and by that, in his view, it shall implement the vision of the prophets.

Carolyn Yeager , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 3:27 am GMT
@Robert Dolan come together. If you think any president can just do away with all these things you mention, you are very naive, even childish.

I remember during Trump's campaign, he was speaking to a small rally in the West, maybe California, and one man stood up and asked his position on Israel as a criminal, enemy nation (not his exact words). Trump seemed genuinely shocked, all he could say was, 'We all love Israel don't we? Israel is great, Israel is our friend' like that, then went on to someone else's question. Trump also praised Israel when he spoke to AIPAC and said then he would move the US embassy to Jerusalem. So you are cherry-picking things he said that fit your "poor me" scenario of being lied to.

eah , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:30 am GMT

A plot of the non-profits registered by Jews in the US over the last century reveals how they've made us slaves to Israel. There were four waves: 1) secure a homeland; 2) fund their homeland with our taxes; 3) guilt us with Holocaust education; 4) crush dissent with censorship

Tom Mysiewicz , [AKA "Author"] says: May 31, 2019 at 3:34 pm GMT
@JimDandy

The individuals you name are fanatical supporters of the Zionist state. Looking at what Mr. Trump has done to date vis a vis Israel, how can that not be the case, i.e., that their criticism was a ruse? Suggested reading is the Thomas Friedman book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" where he recounts how covert Arab assets of the Israelis were deliberately attacked in the Israeli press to increase their credibility on the Arab "street." If you read my article carefully–especially on the microtargeting of the disaffected white minority–you will see that such attacks by Neocons were necessary and entirely predictable.

Tom Mysiewicz , [AKA "Author"] says: May 31, 2019 at 4:19 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager sume to know the mind of Josef Goebbels I cannot make a conclusion on the actual, documented events..FACTS? It's documented that leading members of the Stern Gang (such as Shamir and Begin) were on the Axis side until well into 1942. Admiral Canaris provided the Jewish Lubbavitcher "Rebbe" Schneerson and his family safe passage in and out of the Warsaw Ghetto. What was he thinking–have you any telepathic revelations on the subject.

I base my conclusions on facts and observations. You, in light of what you said on tariffs, have another methodology. And, sadly, I am an "anti-Trump crank" who voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils and now regrets it. Mea culpa!

Tom Mysiewicz , [AKA "Author"] says: May 31, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@Chris Mallory r grasp of jurisprudence is remarkable. Do you allege Russia rigged voting machines or destroyed ballots? What, precisely did Russia do to swing the election in favor of Trump? This is nonsense. Except for the U.S., no state player–even Israel–would be so careless as to risk being implicated in such a scandal. Because that would swing public opinion against the interests of the offending state.

Trump cannot be prosecuted for any crimes related to this while in office, as Mueller pointed out. So these avenues were not pursued. Which is what I allude to in my article. A serious question: what is the definition of treason in the U.S. Constitution? I'm not sure there is one.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:42 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

I don't think any Unz readers need any more proof that Israel has ruled American foreign policy since Truman. There were just a couple refusals by Eisenhower and Kennedy to comply with Israel orders. But since November 1963 every president has been an Israel puppet.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:47 pm GMT
@Art

Sorry to say both "parties" are going to give the store away when it comes to Israel. Yes, even the sainted Tulsi Gabbard has taken her pull on the kosher sausage. https://www.youtube.com/embed/PxXcUNct18Q?start=500&feature=oembed

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:47 pm GMT
@Tom Mysiewicz

In America, the treasonous act must be done in time of war to aid the enemy.

Since we're not at war with Israel or Russia whatever anyone does to help those countries is not treason. All the Israeli and in the old days, Russian theft of military information and materials didn't fit the definition of treason since we weren't at war with those countries.

The constitution is whatever one federal state or even municipal Judge says it is.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:52 pm GMT
@Tom Mysiewicz

I have a book about Abu Nidal. He was a big anti Israel bogeyman for decades. The author claims the evil anti semitic Nidal was an Israeli operative all along. The purpose was to supply a bogey man to scare gullible American Jews into giving more and more money and lobby for the American tax payers to give even more to help Israel. He also allegedly gave Israel information about Palestinian activists.

It's pretty well known that even 100 years ago the Zionists had plenty of spies and operatives in the Arab organizations.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT
@Monty Ahwazi

Neither Mueller nor his 3 year investigation came up with one concrete, actual thing the Russians did to influence the election. So some Russians may might have set up a website that some American voters may, might have looked at. BFD

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT
@Corvinus ment point of view. You kept writing about collusion. Exactly what did Trump or his associates DO that constitutes collusion? 3 years of investigation and Mueller has found NOTHING that constitutes collusion.

For your simple minded incoherent self: for example the crime of theft. Something must be taken. Robbery, something must be taken from the physical person who owns or legally possesses it. Burglary burglar must go inside a building.

So, what exactly was the ACT of collusion? Mueller found nothing. The only people who are interested any more are the same old same old ultra liberals who hate Whites, Republicans , and Trump/

Corvinus , says: May 31, 2019 at 7:26 pm GMT
@Alden

This investigation is way above your intellectual pay grade. I dumbed down the comment especially for your ilk to understand what is going on. Just keep putting your hands over your face and say "Nothing to see here, move along".

Carolyn Yeager , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 7:43 pm GMT
@Tom Mysiewicz ere, but, unlike you, know enough about the background to not turn each individual piece of knowledge into a giant conspiracy of my own making. I have covered it all in my articles [for example https://carolynyeager.net/elie-wiesel-and-mossad-part-1%5D and my book https://carolynyeager.net/book-update-3rd-edition-now-available , a translation of Hermann Giesler's memoir of his close association with Hitler.

I am also, like Robin, not convinced that you are Tom Mysiewicz, but are likely just another anonymous crank. All the worse for T.M. is that is so.

Art , says: May 31, 2019 at 7:53 pm GMT
@Alden

But since November 1963 every president has been an Israel puppet.

But since November 1963 every president has been a reluctant Israel puppet.

That is except Trump – he has been an enthusiastic supporter (maybe Johnson also).

Art , says: May 31, 2019 at 8:26 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read . Yes, even the sainted Tulsi Gabbard has taken her pull on the kosher sausage.

Yes – it is sad.

Israeli security – Israeli security – Israeli security - those two words are part of Washington's DNA. Deny those words and lightening will strike you dead in DC. The fact is that Gabbard has served against mutual US/Israeli enemies – surly that has influenced her.

I am for Peace, even for Jews – I also do not want a blood bath in Israel. I still believe that Gabbard is anti war with Iran. A pure and total anti-Israel stance.

Think Peace - Art

Anon [262] • Disclaimer , says: May 31, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT

@Curmudgeon

He received the offer on election night. The real-time poll agglomerate I was following simply couldn't update Georgia and other states.. tv commentators were stuck in a loop.. then tv stations announced .. and the first words out of Trump's mouth were "sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business".

He had agreed not to prosecute Hillary in exchange for an easy recognition of his triumph. And so the enemy was free to persecute him..

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:17 pm GMT
@Monty Ahwazi

In 3 years Mueller did not find one administrative, civil or criminal city county state or federal law violation. Some Russians had a website on which was posted news about the election. BFD!!!!!!!

You're not an attorney are you? If you were,you'd know the difference between unproven allegations and some kind of law breaking,tort, sharp practice whatever that could be prosecuted or the grounds for a civil suit.

There's nothing in that report.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:28 pm GMT
@Monty Ahwazi us you've never been involved in any kind of litigation. Never heard of cause of action or violation of a law code. You're so naive you'll believe anything somebody named Mueller talks about on TV.

What exactly did Trump DO. What violation of an administrative civil or criminal code did Trump DO? Trump did nothing wrong and Mueller and the liberals know they found nothing. so they are just starting from scratch allover again hoping to convince idiots like you that there is something,anything.

So some Russians posted something on the internet. BFD

Boo Hoo,Trump didn't save us so now you hate him.

Art , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager – he is a total loser on immigration. Our country is going backwards.

Things just get worse – now he is penalizing our neighbor Mexico because he cannot lead America to an immigration solution.

We on our side of the issues, need to begin to see the whole picture of his administration – not just the opposition. He bears some responsibility for much of the crazed opposition.

He is the president – he needs to lead us to solutions – not spend his time saving his ego.

How much of our country's disfunction – is his personal disfunction?

Think Peace - Art

[May 31, 2019] The entire "revolution of dignity" fiasco has been rejected: whatever Ukraine the voters want, it's not the one Nuland Co gave them

May 31, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

UKRAINE ELECTION. He was invited everywhere, pressed the flesh with everyone, has a whole wall of ego pictures; in the end he was defeated by Anybody-At-All. I have no idea what Zelensky will turn out to be and I doubt anyone else does either. But the conclusion is that the entire "revolution of dignity" fiasco has been rejected: whatever Ukraine the voters want, it's not the one Nuland & Co gave them.

[May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion

Highly recommended!
This is similar to renaming "French fries" to "freedom fries" after 9/11. You can't overestimate stupidity of government bureaucrats. They now exceeded the USSR level.
May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Victor , May 30, 2019 3:12:19 PM | 10

US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion:

https://tinyurl.com/y5uyb28ghttps://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/05/open-thread-2019-30.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a48ab852200d#c6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a48ab852200d

[May 29, 2019] The Power Principle -- Video Documentary>

Notable quotes:
"... A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of today. ..."
"... This documentary is about the foreign policy of the United States. It demonstrates the importance of the political economy, the Mafia principle, propaganda , ideology, violence and force. ..."
May 25, 2012 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

The Power Principle: Video Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/embed/r5If2YaLtX4?rel=0

"Simply brilliant." - "This is probably the best film ever made about American foreign policy." - Spartacus - ICH Comment

A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of today.

This documentary is about the foreign policy of the United States. It demonstrates the importance of the political economy, the Mafia principle, propaganda , ideology, violence and force.

It documents and explains how the policy is based on the interest of major corporations and a tiny elite to increase profits and the United States governments own interests in maintaining and expanding it's imperialistic influence.

Inside the United States this has been made possible with a propaganda of fear for the horrible enemies like the Soviet Union, Communists and so on and a love for "free markets", "democracy", "freedom" and so on.

Externally (and increasingly internally) this has caused massive poverty and suffering, genocide, war, coups, crushed unions and popular movements and environmental destruction.

Posted May 25, 2012

[May 29, 2019] >Lubavitchers in the Israeli Mossad

Feb 11, 2014 | collive.com
0

Ex-chief of Israel's national intelligence agency Meir Dagan had an interesting answer to the question if Lubavitchers serve in the Mossad.

By COLlive reporter

Are there Lubavitcher chassidim serving in the Mossad?

This candid question was presented to Meir Dagan , the former director of the national intelligence agency of Israel, during a private meeting in Jerusalem, on Tuesday.

Dagan, who served under 3 prime ministers and was an officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was chatting with donors following the inauguration of a new career development center for frum Jews.

During the conversation about the employment of haredi Jews in the country's many security branches, Dagan was asked whether Lubavitchers serve in the Mossad.

His reply: "You will be surprised to know how many haredim serve in the Mossad."

Dagan added that aside from the employment of chassidim in a professional capacity, the Chabad organization provides spiritual assistance at Mossad's central commend in Tel Aviv.

"Chabad gets a Yashar Koach (kudos) because thanks to them the synagogue at the Mossad command was renovated and we now have a luxurious shul."

As reported in the past, Dagan had a friendly relationship with a Shluchim couple in Belarus when he underwent a successful liver transplant in 2012.

"The Chabad House in Minsk, (a city which) its Jewish history is known to all, became my home," said Dagan who was born on a train between the Soviet Union and Poland during the Holocaust. "Rabbi Schneur Deitsch and his wife will remain forever engraved in my heart."

The Rebbe's unknown ties to the head of the Mossad and their assistance to Chabad's educational and outreach activities in the Former Soviet Union were mapped out in the Hebrew book "The Rebbe and the Mossad," published in 1998.

The inside story of the Rebbe's involvement in Israel's security, as told by its defense and government leaders, is told in JEM's documentary film Faithful and Fortified – Volume 1.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/7456857?color=71bbcc

0

[May 28, 2019] Pompeo redefined Trumpism as Neoconservatism hijacking Made America great again slogan for the push for regime change in other countries> by William S. Smith

Notable quotes:
"... Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world." ..."
"... In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power again. ..."
"... continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism. ..."
"... Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of cant phrases like "Make America Great Again." ..."
"... Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders. ..."
"... Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations." ..."
"... Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else. ..."
"... He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's warning against permanent alliances? ..."
"... There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America. ..."
"... Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions, and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness. ..."
May 28, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Given contemporary events, one of the most interesting figures of the 18th-century French revolutionary period was Jacques-Pierre Brissot, a leader of the Girondins, the neoconservatives of revolutionary France.

Brissot believed that the animating universal ideals of the Revolution had made France, as one of his allies put it, "the foremost people of the universe," not just better than all earthlings, better even than Martians. Yet, despite France's position as the exceptional nation, the Girondins worried that universal ideals were under siege by a complex array of conspiracies hatched by the absolutist powers surrounding France.

The only way to confront these foreign conspiracies, he believed, was preemptive war. Robespierre, who hated Brissot, was skeptical. Robespierre believed that war would strengthen the monarchy, which was wobbly but still intact in 1791, and that foreign adversaries would be formidable military opponents. Robespierre famously quipped: "No one loves armed missionaries." In true neoconservative fashion, Brissot countered that the people of many nations who were longing for liberty, especially the Dutch and Flemish, would welcome France's revolutionary army with open arms. Sound familiar?

But, Brissot had a problem. When he rose to prominence in the Assembly in 1791, the monarchists and other traditionalists still held significant sway, and Louis XVI was still on the throne. How to persuade these traditional French nationalists to launch crusading wars to spread universal ideals when these retrogrades understood the only sound French foreign policy to be one that advanced France's interests, its raison d'état?

Brissot's solution was pure genius: mask wars for French national glory as the ideological crusade for universal liberty. As one scholar put it, Brissot argued that, "patriotic virtue would emanate out of these cosmopolitan ideals and their diffusion, thus allowing France to once again become a 'great nation.'" Brissot co-opted the language of traditional French nationalism paving the way for the Assembly and Louis XVI to embrace war with Austria and Prussia.

Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world."

In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power again.

But the clever neoconservatives, such as Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo, adopted the Brissot strategy. Continue the military crusade for universal ideals, continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism.

Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of cant phrases like "Make America Great Again."

In Pompeo's May 11 speech at the Claremont Institute, the bastion of the West Coast Straussians, the Brissot strategy was on full display and, understandably, was met with raucous cheering by the neoconservatives in the audience who understood that Pompeo and John Bolton had succeeded in hijacking Trump's foreign policy for neoconservatives, a significant accomplishment. While Trump's rhetoric is still the husk of American foreign policy, when it comes to core principles and political practice, "America First" is out, the " Freedom Agenda " is in. "Getting along" with other nations is out; regime change and belligerence is in.

Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders.

He argued that the "foreign policy of the early republic" could be characterized by three words: "realism, restraint, and respect." This is fine as far as it goes, but he then proceeded to define these terms in ways that would have made them unrecognizable to the Framers. Alexander Hamilton defined realism, Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations." Quoting Thomas Jefferson, he defined "restraint" as the willingness to go to war, because "the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." Finally, without a hint of irony as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group was steaming to the Persian Gulf in search of monsters to destroy, Pompeo quoted John Quincy Adams on the need for respect in international relations. Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else.

He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's warning against permanent alliances? What Washington really meant in his Farewell Address, Pompeo said, is to have many, many alliances "based on 'policy, humanity and interest.'" If he were president today, Washington would welcome America's alliances with Israel, Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea in order to make certain, for example, that "each Indo-Pacific nation can protect its sovereignty from coercion." Washington was really a neoconservative, you see.

There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America.

Pompeo's rhetoric represents the transvaluation of the Framers' foreign policy restraint into those of neoconservatism. It is hard to know if Trump is aware that his foreign policy principles have been hijacked, but given his apparent disdain of intellectual pursuits, the answer is probably in the negative.

Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions, and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness.

George Washington's view of Pompeo's puffed up triumphalism would be that a nation that hubristically pounds its chest and claims exceptional moral purity and righteousness may just be a nation that has lost its virtue. The American Framers were well aware that the great republican experiments in ancient Greece and Rome ended with prideful imperial overreach.

In 1792, when Louis XVI read, "in a flat, faltering voice," the war proclamation against Austria he understood it to be a death sentence for the French monarchy. We should know that if neoconservatives are able actually to carry out the wars that their ideology and will to power suggest, it would be a death sentence for the American republic.

William S. Smith is Research Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America

[May 28, 2019] Iran Won't Reward Trump's Aggression by DANIEL LARISON

Trump is sign of degeneration of the US political elite. Much like Pompeo and Bolton.
But his hostility to Iran is just desire to please people who control him and finance his re-election bid .
Notable quotes:
"... ran sees no prospect of negotiations with the United States, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday ..."
"... Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that there won't be any talks with the U.S. until our government rejoins the JCPOA. ..."
"... I don't see how Iranians could view Trump as anything other than a menace when one of his first acts as president was to declare all of them to be potential security threats with the unnecessary and cruel travel ban. His hostility to and contempt for Iran and its people have been intense and consistent for more than two years. ..."
"... When the president veers between "genocidal tweets" and disingenuous offers to talk, this doesn't come across as the work of a master negotiator but rather the impulsive babbling of a leader who can be easily enraged by the smallest and most inconsequential things that he happens to see on television ..."
"... Trump is not talking to Iran but his lackies in the U.S. MSM. They are seeing Iran as being fanatic and unreasonable in refusing to talk. This will be one of the justifications for war and permanent hostilities. ..."
"... I think you're wrong here. Trump doesn't hate or have contempt for Iranians. He's supremely indifferent to them. The hostility and contempt he has shown Iran and Iranians is meant to keep his major Israel and Saudi Arabia donors happy. That's been true from the beginning. Scores of millions in campaign contributions are riding on it. ..."
"... Increasingly, Donaldius Iohannes Trumpius reminds me of some latter day Roman emperor like Caligula or Nero. Absolute power, depravity, insatiable appetites for everything from power to money and women, a pathological lack of empathy, fawning courtiers – it's all there. ..."
May 28, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

In case there was any doubt, the Iranian government made clear that they were not interested in talking to Trump:

I ran sees no prospect of negotiations with the United States, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday , a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said a deal with Tehran on its nuclear program was possible.

Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that there won't be any talks with the U.S. until our government rejoins the JCPOA. That definitely won't happen under the current administration, so there has never been a realistic chance of starting up U.S.-Iranian negotiations in the near term. Everyone understands that, and that makes the president's random "offers" to talk all the more ridiculous. Iran has already been burned by Trump's decision to renege on the nuclear deal and wage economic war on the entire country, so there would have to be a major effort on the U.S. side to regain Iranian trust. The Trump administration would have to reverse course and undo every anti-Iranian thing that it has done over the last two years, and even then that would barely get the U.S. and Iran back to where they had been in 2017. Trump wouldn't ever do that because it would require him to admit being completely wrong.

Najmeh Bozorgmehr reports on how Iranians are adapting to life under U.S. economic warfare against them:

Iranian analysts tell me the US made one big mistake this time. It used almost all its non-military leverage against Iran over the wrong issue, because the country was not violating the 2015 nuclear accord. Iranians may despise their rulers but they are aware that the US is not righteous, either. How can they see Mr Trump as a saviour when he calls Iran "a nation of terror" and promises "the official end of Iran"?

I don't see how Iranians could view Trump as anything other than a menace when one of his first acts as president was to declare all of them to be potential security threats with the unnecessary and cruel travel ban. His hostility to and contempt for Iran and its people have been intense and consistent for more than two years. The complete lack of respect that Trump has shown to Iranian leaders and the Iranian people alike stands in sharp contrast to his fawning praise for the North Korean leader, and they cannot help but take that as an insult. It also isn't lost on the people being strangled by Trump's sanctions that they are being punished for abiding by an international agreement backed by the world's major powers while North Korea is celebrated after successfully defying the rest of the world by building up their nuclear arsenal and long-range missiles. Iran is being penalized because they trusted the U.S., and Trump has proven to them that this was a foolish thing for them to do. Why would they reward Trump's aggression and make the same mistake twice?

When the president veers between "genocidal tweets" and disingenuous offers to talk, this doesn't come across as the work of a master negotiator but rather the impulsive babbling of a leader who can be easily enraged by the smallest and most inconsequential things that he happens to see on television . As the North Koreans have also learned, no one can successfully negotiate with a person as unreliable and moody as Trump. No one in Iran's government is going to go out on a limb and take the political risk of engaging with the U.S. again after the last effort blew up in their faces, and Trump's mercurial instability guarantees that it would be a waste of everyone's time.


Sid Finster, says: May 28, 2019 at 12:00 pm

Why should Iran, when the United States will not abide by its agreements?

Christian J Chuba , says: May 28, 2019 at 1:20 pm

Trump is not talking to Iran but his lackies in the U.S. MSM. They are seeing Iran as being fanatic and unreasonable in refusing to talk. This will be one of the justifications for war and permanent hostilities.

Our own acts of aggression are completely ignored.

Horn City , says: May 28, 2019 at 1:57 pm

"His hostility to and contempt for Iran and its people have been intense and consistent for more than two years. "

I think you're wrong here. Trump doesn't hate or have contempt for Iranians. He's supremely indifferent to them. The hostility and contempt he has shown Iran and Iranians is meant to keep his major Israel and Saudi Arabia donors happy. That's been true from the beginning. Scores of millions in campaign contributions are riding on it.

Janwaar Bibi , says: May 28, 2019 at 2:18 pm

Increasingly, Donaldius Iohannes Trumpius reminds me of some latter day Roman emperor like Caligula or Nero. Absolute power, depravity, insatiable appetites for everything from power to money and women, a pathological lack of empathy, fawning courtiers – it's all there.

[May 28, 2019] Pompeo redefined Trumpism as Neoconservatism hijacking Made America great again slogan for the push for regime change in other countries> by William S. Smith

Notable quotes:
"... Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world." ..."
"... In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power again. ..."
"... continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism. ..."
"... Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of cant phrases like "Make America Great Again." ..."
"... Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders. ..."
"... Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations." ..."
"... Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else. ..."
"... He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's warning against permanent alliances? ..."
"... There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America. ..."
"... Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions, and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness. ..."
May 28, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Given contemporary events, one of the most interesting figures of the 18th-century French revolutionary period was Jacques-Pierre Brissot, a leader of the Girondins, the neoconservatives of revolutionary France.

Brissot believed that the animating universal ideals of the Revolution had made France, as one of his allies put it, "the foremost people of the universe," not just better than all earthlings, better even than Martians. Yet, despite France's position as the exceptional nation, the Girondins worried that universal ideals were under siege by a complex array of conspiracies hatched by the absolutist powers surrounding France.

The only way to confront these foreign conspiracies, he believed, was preemptive war. Robespierre, who hated Brissot, was skeptical. Robespierre believed that war would strengthen the monarchy, which was wobbly but still intact in 1791, and that foreign adversaries would be formidable military opponents. Robespierre famously quipped: "No one loves armed missionaries." In true neoconservative fashion, Brissot countered that the people of many nations who were longing for liberty, especially the Dutch and Flemish, would welcome France's revolutionary army with open arms. Sound familiar?

But, Brissot had a problem. When he rose to prominence in the Assembly in 1791, the monarchists and other traditionalists still held significant sway, and Louis XVI was still on the throne. How to persuade these traditional French nationalists to launch crusading wars to spread universal ideals when these retrogrades understood the only sound French foreign policy to be one that advanced France's interests, its raison d'état?

Brissot's solution was pure genius: mask wars for French national glory as the ideological crusade for universal liberty. As one scholar put it, Brissot argued that, "patriotic virtue would emanate out of these cosmopolitan ideals and their diffusion, thus allowing France to once again become a 'great nation.'" Brissot co-opted the language of traditional French nationalism paving the way for the Assembly and Louis XVI to embrace war with Austria and Prussia.

Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world."

In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power again.

But the clever neoconservatives, such as Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo, adopted the Brissot strategy. Continue the military crusade for universal ideals, continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism.

Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of cant phrases like "Make America Great Again."

In Pompeo's May 11 speech at the Claremont Institute, the bastion of the West Coast Straussians, the Brissot strategy was on full display and, understandably, was met with raucous cheering by the neoconservatives in the audience who understood that Pompeo and John Bolton had succeeded in hijacking Trump's foreign policy for neoconservatives, a significant accomplishment. While Trump's rhetoric is still the husk of American foreign policy, when it comes to core principles and political practice, "America First" is out, the " Freedom Agenda " is in. "Getting along" with other nations is out; regime change and belligerence is in.

Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders.

He argued that the "foreign policy of the early republic" could be characterized by three words: "realism, restraint, and respect." This is fine as far as it goes, but he then proceeded to define these terms in ways that would have made them unrecognizable to the Framers. Alexander Hamilton defined realism, Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations." Quoting Thomas Jefferson, he defined "restraint" as the willingness to go to war, because "the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." Finally, without a hint of irony as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group was steaming to the Persian Gulf in search of monsters to destroy, Pompeo quoted John Quincy Adams on the need for respect in international relations. Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else.

He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's warning against permanent alliances? What Washington really meant in his Farewell Address, Pompeo said, is to have many, many alliances "based on 'policy, humanity and interest.'" If he were president today, Washington would welcome America's alliances with Israel, Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea in order to make certain, for example, that "each Indo-Pacific nation can protect its sovereignty from coercion." Washington was really a neoconservative, you see.

There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America.

Pompeo's rhetoric represents the transvaluation of the Framers' foreign policy restraint into those of neoconservatism. It is hard to know if Trump is aware that his foreign policy principles have been hijacked, but given his apparent disdain of intellectual pursuits, the answer is probably in the negative.

Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions, and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness.

George Washington's view of Pompeo's puffed up triumphalism would be that a nation that hubristically pounds its chest and claims exceptional moral purity and righteousness may just be a nation that has lost its virtue. The American Framers were well aware that the great republican experiments in ancient Greece and Rome ended with prideful imperial overreach.

In 1792, when Louis XVI read, "in a flat, faltering voice," the war proclamation against Austria he understood it to be a death sentence for the French monarchy. We should know that if neoconservatives are able actually to carry out the wars that their ideology and will to power suggest, it would be a death sentence for the American republic.

William S. Smith is Research Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America

[May 27, 2019] The Pathology of John Bolton by Joe Lauria

In short Bolton is a neofascist.
Notable quotes:
"... Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN ..."
"... It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally. ..."
"... Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view. ..."
"... It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. ..."
"... Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq. ..."
"... We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it." ..."
"... Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election ..."
"... This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power. ..."
"... Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology. ..."
"... Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions. ..."
"... Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. ..."
"... It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles." ..."
"... The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it." ..."
"... Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks. ..."
"... But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views. ..."
"... Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi! ..."
"... To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS ..."
"... Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades. ..."
"... The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets! ..."
"... John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. ..."
"... Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, ..."
"... But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like. ..."
"... Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS! Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it." ..."
"... Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor. ..."
"... Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush! ..."
"... I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons ..."
"... The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation! ..."
"... I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. ..."
"... "Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees." ..."
"... Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes. ..."
"... They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel." ..."
"... The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today. ..."
May 23, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Special to Consortium News 129 Comments

John Bolton has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time he may have gone too far, writes Joe Lauria.

I knew John Bolton and interacted with him on a nearly daily basis with my colleagues in the press corps at United Nations headquarters in New York when Bolton was the United States ambassador there from August 2005 to December 2006.

Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN. But that turned out to be the point. It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally.

Bolton's most infamous quote about the UN followed him into the building. In 1994 he had said : "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

But a more telling comment in that same 1994 conference was when he said that no matter what the UN decides the U.S. will do whatever it wants:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VOINBs8eOdk?feature=oembed

Bolton sees such frank admissions as signs of strength, not alarm.

He is a humorless man, who at the UN at least, seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room. He once gave a lecture in 2006 at the U.S. mission to UN correspondents, replete with a chalk board, on how nuclear enrichment worked. His aim, of course, was to convince us that Iran was close to a bomb, even though a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate being prepared at the time said Tehran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

I thought I'd challenge him one day at the press stakeout outside the Security Council chamber, where Bolton often stopped to lecture journalists on what they should write. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?' I asked him.

"That's an interesting question," he told me, "but for another time and another place." It was a time and a place, of course, that never came.

More Than an Ideology

Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view.

He seemed perpetually angry and it wasn't clear whether it was over some personal or diplomatic feud. He seems to take personally nations standing up to America, binding his sense of personal power with that of the United States.

It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. He'd have been better off perhaps in the McKinley administration, before the days of PR-sugarcoating of imperial aggression. He's not your typical passive-aggressive government official. He's aggressive-aggressive.

And now Bolton is ordering 120,000 troops to get ready and an aircraft carrier to steam towards Iran.

Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq.

After Bolton's failed 2005 confirmation hearings, Tony Blinken, the then staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The New Yorker 's Dexter Filkins:

"We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it."

Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MbVtROU9J_E?feature=oembed

What is alarming about the above video is not so much that he justifies lying, but the example he gives: lying to cover up military plans like the invasion of Normandy. This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power.

Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology.

Regime Change for Iran

The U.S. national security adviser has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time John Bolton may have flown too high.

He was chosen for his post by a president with limited understanding of international affairs -- if real estate is not involved -- and one who loves to be sucked up to. Trump is Bolton's perfect cover.

But hubris may have finally bested Bolton. He had never before maneuvered himself into such a position of power, though he'd left a trail of chaos at lower levels of government. Sitting opposite the Resolute desk on a daily basis has presented a chance to implement his plans.

At the top of that agenda has been Bolton's stated aim for years: to bomb and topple the Iranian government.

Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times, on May 14 , it was he who "ordered" a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf. These were to be deployed "if Iran attacked American forces or accelerated its work on nuclear weapons."

Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions.

At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman, who had been undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, as had Bolton, predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it "would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran."

In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said on May 5 (May 6 in Tehran) that it would indeed restart partial nuclear enrichment. On the same day, Bolton announced the carrier strike group was headed to the Gulf.

Bolton Faces Resistance

If this were a normally functioning White House, in which imperial moves are normally made, a president would order military action, and not a national security adviser.

"I don't think Trump is smart enough to realize what Bolton and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are doing to him,"

former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel told RT's Afshin Rattansi this week.

"They have manipulated him. When you get the national security adviser who claims that he ordered an aircraft carrier flotilla to go into the Persian Gulf, we've never seen that. In the days of Henry Kissinger, who really brought sway, he never ordered this, and if it was ordered it was done behind closed doors."

Bolton claimed he acted on intelligence that Iran was poised to attack U.S. interests close to Iran.

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. An editorial on May 16 in the Saudi English-language news outlet, Arab News , called for a U.S. "surgical strike" on Iran. But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war.

The intelligence alleged Iran was fitting missiles on fishing boats in the Gulf. Imagine a government targeted by the most powerful military force in history wanting to defend itself in its own waters.

Bolton also said Iran was threatening Western interests in Iraq, which led eventually to non-essential U.S. diplomatic staff leaving Baghdad and Erbil.

It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles."

But this time the bully is being challenged. Federica Mogherini, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, resisted the U.S. on Iran when she met Pompeo in Brussels on May 13.

"It's always better to talk, rather than not to, and especially when tensions arise Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly today from us," said Mogherini. "We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible attitude to take – is and we believe should be, that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side."

The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it."

Ghika: No new threat from Iran. (YouTube)

British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika then said on May 14: "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria." Ghika was rebuked by U.S. Central Command, whose spokesman said, "Recent comments from OIR's Deputy Commander run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region."

A day later it was Trump himself, however, who was said to be resisting Bolton. On May 15 The Washington Post reported:

"President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S. officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran's leaders."

The Times reported the next day:

"President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict."

Then it was the Democrats who stood up to Bolton. On Tuesday Pompeo and Shanahan briefed senators and representatives behind closed doors on Capitol Hill regarding the administration's case for confronting Iran.

"Are they (Iran) reacting to us, or are we doing these things in reaction to them? That is a major question I have, that I still have," Sen. Angus King told reporters after the briefing. "What we view as defensive, they view as provocative. Or vice versa."

Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego told reporters after the briefing: "I believe there is a certain level of escalation of both sides that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The feedback loop tells us they're escalating for war, but they could just be escalating because we're escalating."

Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks.

Bolton was conspicuously absent from the closed-door briefing.

It's Up to Trump

Trump has pinballed all over the place on Iran. He called the Times and Post stories about him resisting Bolton "fake news."

"The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!" Trump tweeted on May 17.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!

77.7K 9:44 AM - May 17, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy
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Then he threatened what could be construed as genocide against Iran. "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" he tweeted on Sunday.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!

239K 4:25 PM - May 19, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy
128K people are talking about this

But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vc4vYWJfJnE?feature=oembed

On Monday he implied that the crisis has been drummed up to get Iran to negotiate.

"The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report ."

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report....

80.8K 1:30 PM - May 20, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy
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John Bolton must be stopped before he gets his war. It is beyond troubling that the man we have to count on to do it is Donald Trump.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .


Jym Allyn , May 26, 2019 at 19:27

Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is US." As in the lies that created the Vietnam war and the waste of 58,000 American soldiers and thousand of Vietnamese. Or the lie that Iran is our enemy when we funded and encouraged Saddam to attack them and destroyed their attempt to have a secular government.

Or the lie of the WMD's and the 9/11 attack which was funded by Saudi Arabia, and run by Saudis and NOT Iraq.

Or the lies of Afghanistan which was economically and culturally better off when it was controlled by the USSR...

John Hawk , May 26, 2019 at 16:56

Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi!

To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS.

It can't get any more delusional than this. Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades.

After all, deception is their game and they use it liberally, like feeding their agenda to Bolton as 'intelligence' info of the highest order. The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets!

Zhu , May 26, 2019 at 03:20

If Bolton were struck by lightning tomorrow morning, would anything change much? I doubt it. We Americans are as warlike as the ancient Assyrian. We've been slaughtering Indians, Koreans, SE Asians, Central Americans, and multiple Middle Eastern people for a looong time. It is flattering to blame this individual or th t country, but no. We, as a community, are all responsible to some degree. Even me, on the far side of the world.

Alex , May 25, 2019 at 21:50

Bolton's choosing destroyed IRAN but staying friends with Saudi Arabia it's so contradicting, and so obvious that he is influenced to behave this way is because Israelies influence. Saudy Kingdom using Bolton to get IRAN so Saudy will be only country promote Extreme version of Wahhabi Islam which is didn't existed In Islam's history.

So Bolton's obsession with destruction of Iran is ignorance as its best. September 11th suspects were most of them Saudy nationals, yet nobody wanted to talk about it, because there is irony that, George W Bush was and probably still doing business with Saudy. So how can you explain that to American people? No you can not.

Perhaps collectively hypnotism !

OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 02:58

" So how can you explain that to American people?"

Given that useful fools are useful, why would you want to?

" No you can not."

An illustration of the benefits of dumbing down do not accrue solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, facilitating the minimising of blowback during implementation of strategies based on "How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback", given that many believe that critical mass is a function of linear notions of 50% +1 and above; a further conflation of quantity with quality to which the opponents are prone.

William , May 25, 2019 at 19:06

John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. Put him in a strait jacket and keep him in a padded cell. He poses a threat to millions of people.

Eddie S , May 25, 2019 at 11:26

Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, IF it was assessed from a pro-peace perspective.

But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like.

Good article about a reprehensible politician.

renfro , May 25, 2019 at 11:18

"But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war. "
________________________________

Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS!
Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it."

Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor.

Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? If we attack Iran it will be for the Zionist and Saudis and we all know it.

Luther Bliss , May 25, 2019 at 10:57

Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush!

Remember it wasn't until Bush JR's second term that he asked his father, "What's A Neocon?" to which Pappy Bush replied, "Israel."

I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons.

The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation!

Mark , May 25, 2019 at 02:30

I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Bolton stands out for his extremity among extremists, but he's a means rather than the end. The agenda is something into which he bought, passionately by all indications, but which a paucity of other people created strictly to advance their own, tiny, exclusive clan, not for the benefit of the United States.

Hank , May 25, 2019 at 09:43

To think that this administration campaigned on a promise to restrict future wasteful and needless interventions and then hired this dinosaur of a warmonger makes my blood curl! Everyone with half a brain knows what Bolton's agenda is yet here he is leading the USA into a war at the behest of a foreign nation led by a felon and terrorist! The American people who want peace and their tax dollars invested into improving the USA have once again been stabbed in the back by a conniving administration. Will this cycle of non-democracy ever end? Until it does, future administrations will continue on just like previous ones- kowtowing to special interests, in particular the military/industrial mafia and the apartheid criminal state of Israel! All this massive business of holding "elections" in the USA, all the talk about "Russian collusion" and the REAL collusion is right there in front of us all- the US administration has once again COLLUDED to go back on a campaign promise and once again open the money trough for the military/industrialist pigs!

Mark , May 26, 2019 at 05:31

I get the idea, but it's necessary to look 'behind' back-stabbing, conniving, colluding administrations, and Bolton, and the military/industrial complex, and to bring Israel and some barely known U.S. history, at least back to World War I, explicitly to the fore for public scrutiny. That's a monumental task, to say the least, owing to American attention spans and the contrary interests of the powers that be.

Taras77 , May 24, 2019 at 20:24

Bolton has his own well funded PAC, from which he is free to "contribute" (bribe) sychophant congress individuals. What a situation for the fix for war.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/interests-pushing-for-hard-line-against-iran/

"Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees."

ricardo2000 , May 24, 2019 at 17:29

By far the most productive, and most verifiable, way to eliminate weapons is at a negotiating table. The easiest way to start a war is with ignorant blather.

O Society , May 24, 2019 at 16:09

Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes.

They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel."

Trump initially declined on Bolton because "he doesn't like Bolton's moustache."

Kool Aid drinkers and idiots. We're being lead by a cult of morons who worship the bombs, money, and a white separatist state.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html?gtm=bottom

Truth First , May 24, 2019 at 11:40

They don't call him, 'Bonkers' Bolton for nothin'.

Pedro Masculino Ghirotti , May 24, 2019 at 10:53

Nice piece Joe, but you just forgot to mention who Bolton actually works for, the Israelis.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , May 24, 2019 at 07:11

"Pathology." That's exactly the right word. But I think it has a wider application. See:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/john-chuckman-comment-why-trump-doesnt-rein-in-bolton-dismal-bolton-pompeo-and-abrams-are-part-of-the-price-trump-paid-for-political-support-against-threats-he-felt-and-getting-a-big-pile-of-ca/

old geezer , May 26, 2019 at 13:08

an accurate, concise review.

i doubt the iranians will test a nuke until after djt is out of office. after that you might wake up one morning and everything you knew before becomes quite obsolete.

my guess is israel has stealth cruise missiles with h bombs. it would be very foolish of them to not have them. those descendants of egyptian slaves are anything but foolish.

Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:33

@ CitizenOne: Thank you for your long comment. I agree with much of what you wrote, but would like to know why you claimed, "Iran is surely guilty of vowing the destruction of Israel " . According to what I've read, Iran has not initiated hostilities with any nation for over a century – a clear, peaceful contrast to the rogue states of Israel & the U.S. Are you referring to the long-ago-debunked claim that Iran claimed to 'wipe Israel off the map'?
(See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155 ? "So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors, the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague wish for the future.

"A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option – the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" – with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. ")

Or perhaps you're referring to Revolutionary Guard deputy leader Hossein Salami's warning that if Israel starts an aggressive war against Iran, it 'will end with {Israel's} elimination from the global political map'? IMHO, warning an extremely aggressive, self-obsessed, Apartheid-practicing rogue state against trying to attack your nation is wise ;-) .

I look forward to your response. Thanks very much.

Sam F , May 27, 2019 at 06:12

Sam: please use an identifier initial as I do, to prevent confusion.
I have asked you twice before; perhaps not the same person.
It is unfair to expect others to make the clarification, and easy to prevent.

O Society , May 23, 2019 at 21:15

Neoconservative war pigs riding the bomb and the belligerence of Empire

http://opensociet.org/2019/05/23/the-belligerence-of-empire/

mike k , May 23, 2019 at 18:55

How is it that crazies like Bolton can end up high in our government hierarchy? It is because the whole damned government is crazy through and through

Joe , May 23, 2019 at 20:48

His Dad probably made a huge donation to Yale just like Bush's Dad. That's what happens when the system is gamed.

Art Thomas , May 25, 2019 at 09:22

Yes, in my opinion. The state stripped of patriotic rhetoric and other obfuscations that keep us devoted to it is nothing more than a criminal gang that hides behind the law.

Some basic examples. 1. The law: taxation, the crime: theft. 2. The law: monetary credit expansion, i.e. debt financing, the crime: counterfeiting, i.e. creating money out of thin air. 3. The invasion of countries not a threat to the invading state. Etc. etc.

Tiu , May 23, 2019 at 18:30

If the US "political establishment" was working for America's benefit, things would look very different.
They are instead working on the "globalist" agenda, which will, if successful, destroy all nations as we know them today and what remains will be ruled over by a bunch of sociopaths who are the same group that has inflicted John Bolton on the world.
Bolton's a tool, a bit like a hammer, to get their project done. The Democrats have equivalent tools e.g. H R Clinton.

Mark Thomason , May 23, 2019 at 18:04

The problem is if he hasn't gone too far. If he gets his war.

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:53

John Bolton should get to ride the missile in the remake of Dr. Strangelove.

evelync , May 23, 2019 at 19:53

hah hah hah

I loved that movie :)

and yes Bolton is a perfect caricature of Slim Pickens AKA Dr Strangelove.

I also refer to him as Yosemite Sam

one difference for our current real life war monger is that the movie character was simply insane and didn't justify his craziness with explanations.

Bolton, OTOH, blames "national Security" and "the national interests" of this country .say what????

if we look at the horrific human costs and the enormous financial costs of the wars that were fought for U.S. "national interests" one would want to ask, once the rubble had cleared, what "interests" were actually served and whose "security" did they actually improve?
The answers always take us back to Eisenhower's MIC and Ray McGovern's MICIMATT (maybe I got a couple of these letters wrong?).
Whoever profited from the mayhem don't represent either our "national interest' or our "national security" IMO and yet those two phrases are used to shut down any discussion or criticism in the lead up .

whew

Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:20

Strictly about the movie – Slim Pickens plays the ranking officer on the B-52 (I think?) which is actually dropping the bomb. Dr Strangelove is a totally different character, one of a few played by Peter Sellers in that movie, and is a (mostly!) wheelchair-bound German scientist.

Jym Allyn , May 26, 2019 at 19:17

And the wheelchair bound psychopathic scientist of Dr. Strangelove was inspired by Kubrick meeting Henry Kissinger at a cocktail party and recognizing that Kissinger was the most evil person on this planet because he looked and sounded so responsible and rational.
Now that Saddam, bin Laden, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler are dead, Kissinger holds the record of the person still alive who has needlessly killed more people, both Americans and non-Americans, than any other person on this planet.
Hillary's idea of destabilizing Libya and creating a political vacuum there was from her training when working for Kissinger.

Abe , May 23, 2019 at 16:51

The Pathology:

John Bolton
Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Chairman of Gatestone Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former board member of Project for the New American Century (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former Adviser to Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/john-bolton/

Richard Goldberg – Aide to John Bolton at NSC (2019 – )
Former Senior Adviser at Foundation for Defense of Democracies (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/richard-goldberg/

Frederick Fleitz – Bolton's Former Chief of Staff at NSC (2018)
CEO of Center for Security Policy ( (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/frederick-fleitz/

Abe , May 23, 2019 at 19:32

The Pathology, Part Duh:

Mike Pompeo
Christian Zionist: "We will continue to fight these battles, it is a never ending struggle until the Rapture."
Associate of Center for Security Policy (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Sponsor of ACT! for America (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mike-pompeo/

Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:38

@ Abe: Thanks for the info!

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:42

John Bolton is obviously a very sick puppy.
This is patently obvious to any observer with the least desgree of psyhological sophistication and insight.
If he lived on your block and made such statements about his neighbors, or a woman living nearby, he would be looking at restraining orders.
He is an out-of-control abusive pig who belongs in an institution where a course of shock therapy might actually help him. I reckon any basic psychological test would find that he has a least borderline personality and at worst is actually insane and incapable of taking responsibility for the consequences of his action.
Bolton has permanent termporary insanity.
Letting this tortured, psychopathic individual run the military is itself an enormous crime, one of murderous negligence, one for which Trump truly should and could be impeached. Congress must take all possible steps to get this man out of the Executive Branch.

Threaten Trump with impeachment if he doesn't fire Bolton.
His appointment of Bolton is reckless negligence and endangers this country.

James , May 23, 2019 at 19:09

I wonder how good American politicians of the past, if there were any, would react to the appointment of this psychopath as what he is now. Whom should be blamed for it? Donald Trump? The pro-Israeli lobbies? Or the American nation? A glance at the man's face is enough to realize that he is deeply sick. To me, he doesn't look like a human being at all! He looks like a monkey out of a stuffy room. Why don't psychotherapists do anything about him? Shouldn't he be hospitalized for the safety/security of the world population? By the way, I wonder where Netanyahu, the psychopath's provoker, is. He has been very quiet for about a month or so. Maybe he is waiting for the war to ignite without getting himself directly involved in it. Let Americans and Iranians kill one another while he waits to pick up the fruit in the end.

Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:27

Where does the blame lie? Who hired him? Who's the chief of the executive branch? Who's a person who could actually fire him (as he's so famous for doing on reality TV shows) instead of wringing his hands on friendly TV networks declaring he doesn't want to actually go to war, but if he's 'forced' to, he'll erase Iran from the map?

Druid , May 26, 2019 at 03:16

He would have to get permission from Adelson and the Mercers first.

CitizenOne , May 24, 2019 at 20:52

Bolton and Pompeo are the only things keeping him from impeachment. As long as Trump satisfies the bloodthirsty war mongers and the insatiable appetite of the MIC and the Pro Israel lobby and the Oil Lobby or Koch Industries he cannot lose. So far Trump is bangin on all cylinders. I really think he knows what he needs to do to survive. All this impeachment talk is just fantasy by the left dreaming about getting him out of office "somehow".

bjd , May 23, 2019 at 16:13

That the mono-maniacal psychopath Bolton is a walking exhibit of the Dunning–Kruger effect is no surprise to me. It is extra frightening though.

Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:00

What was Bolton's day job before he started mucking around in politics and foreign policy? Master waterboarder or testicular electrificator in extraordinary renditions for the CIA? He seems the sort to have spent much time at Abu Ghraib, and not just to take notes. Honestly, his major goals seem to be the eradication of entire cultures and societies, which will somehow redound to the magnificence of the United States of America. Clearly a sociopathic personality. A lot in common with Cheney.

Jimmy G , May 23, 2019 at 15:57

Again the panic is stirred by .. The NYT! (The source of such good info regarding Russia gate) .
The statement regarding Bolton " ordering" anything is just one more example of the media and the intel bureaucrats trying to put the President in a jam politically . (Remember how a month ago we were invading Venezuela?)

Bolton is doing nothing more than getting enough rope to hang himself, and the military intelligence service, congressional and media Trumpophobes are willing to stir this to the very edge, and we all know Congress could (if it could act in good Constitutional faith, rather than pretending to be the judicial branch) unite for the good of this country and Trump would be amenable to whatever they came up with. Trump is far less of a warmonger than any POTUS we've had in a very long time.

Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:18

If Congress is the only branch of government with the constitutional power to declare a war, surely it has the power to FORBID the executive branch from fomenting such a war against their judgement.

In fact, wasn't the Boland Amendment such a legislative act passed with the intent of preventing the Reagan administration from pursuing military action in Central America, most notably Nicaragua and El Salvador?

What's to prevent the Congress, if it were so inclined (which I doubt it is) to instruct the president (especially if he seems trigger-happy) to refrain from initiating any unprovoked attacks upon Iran, Venezuela, North Korea or any other country, for that matter?

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:56

Ollie North worked for Reagan, didn't he?

RnM , May 25, 2019 at 17:27

Trump is very aware that 'Stache Bolton and Mike "Mumbles" Pompeo are significant threats to his re-election. Would not be surprised to see them removed before January.

CitizenOne , May 25, 2019 at 21:02

The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today.

I agree with your statement that Trump is far less vulnerable based on his history but I am sure that the war planners are always concocting special information diets that are carefully prepared to appeal to the particular tastes of the leader of the day. Whatever Trumps opinion is he will be surrounded by the hand picked lunatics of the day who will entice and enjoin him to agree with plans for war based on their carefully prepared menu of propaganda specifically designed to be appealing to the palate of whoever is in charge.

It is less certain that Trump's long history of opposing military action will have real staying power as he is served up courses of a sumptuous meal prepared specially for his palate designed to engage him in support for military action all over the World.

Trump is particularly susceptible to flattery and appeals to his greatness and his very stable genius. He wants to be the great leader and for that he needs a plan to deal with the geopolitical situation in many countries.

Trump is a man who knows what to do too.

He advised Germany that it was a puppet of Russia until he didn't
He advised Teresa May how to do Brexit the right way until he didn't
He announced to the World he had forged deep connections with North Korea until he didn't
He had high hopes for an alliance with Russia until he didn't.
He specified the right type of fire fighting to be used to fight the Notre Dame Cathedral fire until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the fight in Syria until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the war in Syria again until he didn't
He wanted to cut the military budget until he didn't

Ordinarily if we were in the middle of a democratic presidency the press would be raising the "flip flopper" argument every second of their available airtime.

Democrats are the flip floppers but never a republican even when he is. It all depends on the way the flips and the flops land. If they land on conservative positions then a flop or a flip never occurred. With republicans, flip flopping is just a corrective action to realign the president on the correct course. If it is a democrat then their hypocrisy and flip flopping are broadcast 24/7 and are portrayed a fundamentally disqualifying events which demonstrate a fundamental lack of principles and weakness of character deserving of condemnation. When errant republicans flip flop over to the "correct" vision they are welcomed with open arms into the fold.

Trump wants to be accepted so badly that the democrats hounding him are in fact herding him into the fold of the conservatives who will shelter him and support him at all costs and the media will never ever ever never call this flip flopping.

In short, if a political candidate shifts to the left his integrity will be destroyed as his character will be portrayed as weak and built on shifting sands. He will be deemed not to be trusted like some loose cannon.

On the other hand, if a political candidate shifts to the right he will be greeted as a prodigal son returning to the fold and will be welcomed with open arms.

So I am not as sure as you that Trump's background will be any indicator of his future ideas about how to succeed in the environment he is in where both democrats by their antagonism and republicans by their defense of him both push him over to the right.

He may once have been far less of a war hawk but politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing him further to the right every day.

Consortium News editor Joe Lauria may wish to contribute a follow up series of articles detailing the purity of pro-Israel Lobby pathology exemplified by Bolton, Pompeo, and the beyond troubling Trump preferably before the next war.

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 19:33

"the wider extent of pro-Israel Lobby pathology in the US government. "

That's it in a nutshell.

KiwiAntz , May 24, 2019 at 18:46

Thanks Joe for the great article. Bolton (aka the moustache) truly is a humourless, warmongering, depraved psycho? This is a cowardly man who dodged the Vietnam draft as he didn't want to die in some foreign patty field! But this lunatic has no qualms to send other peoples sons & daughters into a Iranian war zone as cannon fodder to satisfy his deluded & perverted bloodlust to destroy Iran? If "the moustache" wants a War with Iran he should be forced to fight on the frontlines with his troops along with POTUS Bonespurs Trump, another cowardly draft dodger? Let the moustache & the Dotard make a stand, like Jon Snow in the Battle of the bastards, sword in hand, facing down the so called Iranian, bogeyman enemy, but this would never happen as cowards & bastards like Bolton & Trump don't personally fight in the battles they start, they hide in safety in a Washington situation room, as far away from any War zone as possible! If Bolton gets his War with Iran, Trump will pay the price for this suicide mission because he would be blamed for the fallout of any Military defeat! America's already sorry record of Military humiliation & defeat in Regime change operations around the Globe would reach a crescendo if they ever dared to try to attack & overthrow Iran as it would be the endgame of the US Empire!

mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:28

Trump is just Israel's bitch.

incontinent reader , May 24, 2019 at 01:08

Good comment, Abe. We've missed you. Keep posting more of the same.

Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:37

We Americans were bloodthirsty long before Israel existed.

anon , May 25, 2019 at 06:35

What an absurd zionist troll post. Try it with someone dumb, Zhu.

Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 15:17

First Joe, McKinley did not implement American submission to British Imperialism, though it began with the end of Grant's administration as with the twice elected Groucher Cleveland, but it's confirmation as US policy began with Teddy Roosevelt. The Roosevelt Corollary destroyed JQA's Community of Principle in the Americas which should be known as the true Monroe Doctrine, contrary to popular opinion today which has incorrectly replaced the Monroe Doctrine with the Roosevelt Corollary (as Bolton is especially want to do). TR signalled the end of the Lincoln Era of American industrial development and global cooperation, which was best represented by Grant, the most overlooked of great Presidents (and perhaps we see similarities of Grant to Trump today). Bolton indeed is Captain Kangaroo, presiding over his Court as the Queen of No Hearts would in Alice's confrontation with British rule once she penetrates behind the facade of British Lockean empiricism. With insight only equalled to Lincoln's, who said "We can't fight two wars at once, so first the Confederacy and then the British," Trump has identified the fascist nexus within our government as that same British foe, a nexus led by Brennan, Rice, Clapper, Jarrett, et al, which works on behalf of what Eisenhower (another overlooked great President and General) called the Military Industrial Complex. The MIC is a British Intelligence deployment to fundamentally undermine our Constitution and put the US into a state of perpetual war and police surveillance. It is now over 70 years in the making, and is enforcing a new Cold War and attempted coup of our elected Government, and yet, it may have finally found its match, not just in Trump, but in Trump's intended cooperation with Putin of Russia and Xi of China. These three nations, along with Modi of India (just reelected) are a true threat to this rotten British system, from Fabian liberals to Bolton chickenhawks, the true enemy is this British System. If we move on that effectively, we may just have a chance to win this revolutionary moment now unfolding throughout the trans-Atlantic world. Let us return to JQA's community of principle for the entire world. Let us work with Trump to end this fascist British nexus. Let us celebrate our true heritage as Americans!

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:51

Your comments read with interesting and well taken.
BUT: The bottom line is that Trump hired Bolton (and Pompeo) and has wound him up and set him loose goosewalking across the globe.
Why?
The buck for Bolton's suicidal buffonery stops with Trump.
So, I can't see him as a genuine foe of the Deep State-MIC as you describe.

Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 18:10

Bolton is loyal to Trump, even though he is a failed chickenhawk. Look at McMaster, at the leaking, and outright betrayal of the President. Same with Tillerson, betrayal. Pompeo and Bolton have ridiculous views and bloated war rhetoric, but they're personally loyal, perhaps opportunistically, and even temporarily, but nonetheless right now they are, and when they're not, I bet they're gone. But Trump does control the policy. Look at North Korea, any war? Media said there would be, then worked to undermine a deal. Venezuela, war? They're talking in Norway now, how'd that happen? Syria, troops out? MIC, Dems and Media opposed, and Trump called them out for the first time since Eisenhower! Pompeo to Sochi to see Putin, progress. How'd that happen? Trump is fighting the MIC and too many good Americans are spinning so fast from the propaganda machine they can't see straight.

anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 18:40

Interesting, but it is easy for a president to fight the MIC: simply fire and arrest anyone who acts against efforts to control them. He could send any federal enforcement agency, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, reserves, national guard, or even the Coast Guard, Secret Service, DC police, or private guards to arrest them and prosecute any resisters as traitors. It is not one man against the MIC.

And they cannot assassinate him once he has announced that intention, without exposing their hand and unleashing a generation of purges and strict controls. If he is surrounded by traitors, he has only to say that and fire the lot of them. He could leak that anonymously to Wikileaks or tweet it and they would be terrified.

Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:48

Bolton has been working DC bureaucracy like a pro for decades. He's using Trump like a marionette while he runs circles around the amateur. He was helping orchestrate foreign wars of choice back when Trump was still playing a pretend boss on TV. Bolton has no loyalty except as a facade for those he needs to suck up to.

Your examples of non-wars are terrific. Trump is amazing! – because he's running the government so badly that the State Dept doesn't know what the Pentagon is doing doesn't know and vice versa. He chose to ignore the Iran nuclear deal, which had prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons. So now, the Iranians declare (out of self defense) that they're now going to pursue nuclear weapons. Trump then says that he doesn't want to attack Iran, but they must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. This is a circular argument exactly of the type the MIC uses to engage in war. Pompeo then indicates that laughable, ineffectual attempts at sabotage are most likely Iranian. This grave threat to our nation can't even do enough damage to an oil tanker to make it take on water.

Just because someone fails to do something doesn't mean that they were against it the whole time. Maybe they're just awful at it. Sure, Trump says some things that are heartening to the anti-war and anti-interventionist crowd. But the next day he'll say something heartening to rabid neocons. He needs to grow a spine, but it's far too late. He's a dandy, a spoiled rich kid fop who's never had to answer for his mishaps, because why, when you have inherited money and a stout legal team?

anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 19:06

The idea that "the MIC is a British Intelligence deployment" is fantastical, as the US MIC is several times the size of UK's entire MIC, and such a secret could never be kept. The US MIC has engaged UK secret agencies to subvert the US Constitution by serving as agents to pass intercepted US communications back to the US to pretend that the MIC didn't do it, or that it was foreign intel. But that is a long way from UK controlling the US MIC.

There are certainly confluences of interests between the US and UK oligarchies, but I see no basis for the contention that "American submission to British Imperialism began with the end of Grant's administration" when the US prosecuted Britain for building the Alabama etc. to break the Union blockade, and was outraged that Britain considered recognition of the Confederacy until it lost at Gettysburg. The US under TR was not submitting to anyone when it sent the Great White Fleet on tour, or when it seized Cuba and the Philippines. Nor under Wilson when it stayed out of WWI until very late in the war, despite the Lusitania loss. Nor under FDR when it stayed out of WWII until attacked, despite the passionate pleas of Churchill.

Some detailed argument with credible references would be needed to support those assertions.

Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:44

Scapegoating is real popular with lefties & rughties alike. American Exceptionalism forbids we ever accept respobility for what we've done.

Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:45

No, the rest of humanity is not any better.

anon4d2 , May 25, 2019 at 06:48

The commenter was searching for causes, and some UK conspiracy is simply too far from any available evidence. In fact it much appears to be a wild attempt to distract from the obvious causes including zionism, which you pretend is "scapegoating." No, zionism is a principle corrupting factor in US politics, especially foreign policy.

If you don't see that, you must start learning the evidence, rather than relying on the presumption that it is mere scapegoating. Otherwise you are serving their wrongful and racist tribal purposes, and others will presume that you know that.

Oscar Shank , May 26, 2019 at 07:24

Zhu knows it.

Vera Gottlieb , May 23, 2019 at 14:56

How much more peaceful the life on our entire planet would be if the Americans weren't around.

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:58

Extend that to all humans, and the head of PETA would support the project.

David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:16

I doubt that. Nature hates a void.

Bethany , May 24, 2019 at 17:50

Exactly. Very well put.

Abe , May 23, 2019 at 14:19

Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, the first director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), only served about one year of his second term.

Bustani was forced out by the U.S. government in April 2002 because he wanted international chemical weapons monitors inside Iraq and thus was seen as impeding the US push for war against Iraq. The US accused Bustani of "advocacy of inappropriate roles for the OPCW".

Since 2011, the United Nations has stood by a US-Saudi-Israeli Axis financed and armed the mercenary terrorist forces attacked Syria. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, major support for terrorist mercenaries has provided via NATO-member state Turkey, as well as Jordan. Israel has launched repeated air attacks and provided direct support for terrorist forces in Syria.

From July 2010 to 2018, the Director-General of the OPCW was Turkish career diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu. Uzumcu served ambassador to Israel from 1999 to 2002, and as the Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO between 2002 and 2004.

Turkey has been the primary channel for mercenary terrorist forces assaulting the Syrian state. The remaining terrorist forces in the Idlib Governorate continue to be supplied through Syria.

Since Uzumcu announced the creation of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria on 29 April 2014, not a single OPCW report has acknowledged these basic facts concerning the conflict in Syria.

Following a consensus recommendation by the OPCW Executive Council in October 2017. Spanish career diplomat Fernando Arias was appointed to replace Uzumcu as Director-General of the OPCW. Previously, Arias served as Ambassador of Spain to the Netherlands and the Permanent Representative of Spain to the OPCW. He also has served as Permanent Representative of Spain to the United Nations in New York.

Uzumcu, and now Bustani, obviously understand that the appropriate role of the OPCW is to provide propaganda support for "regime change" operations, and to say nothing contrary to the "narrative" endorsed by the US-Saudi-Israeli Axis.

David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:52

The OPCW has certainly disgraced themselves in Syria. What a sham.

Randal Marlin , May 23, 2019 at 13:48

John Bolton's questioner in the second clip should have made the distinction between deception used to lead the country into war, and deception used to pursue a war already constitutionally declared and already underway.
In the first case there is a violation of democratic principle. When the people are the ultimate sovereign, they need to be properly informed. They can agree to deception, like where and when D-Day will occur, during war; but not in the case of leading the people into war. Lying to Congress is always unacceptable, and those who do lie to Congress should be made to suffer serious penalties.

zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 02:13

I read a report that the aircraft carrier strike force and preparation of 120,000 US troops, to Persian Gulf was ordered sometime ago and that Bolton took advantage of that fact to make it look that 'Bolton ordered it'?

vinnieoh , May 24, 2019 at 10:54

What I'd read is that the carrier strike force and bomber detachment were previously scheduled: there had been a previous drawdown and this deployment represents a return to a level similar to the end of the Iraq war, and that does sound like Bolton/Pompeo opportunism. The 120,000 troops plan sounds like something Bolton prodded pentagon scribes to produce. How to interpret when Bolton says that then Trump denies it, and then a new troop deployment (1% of the previous) is announced/suggested/leaked? I see it as Trump taking his dogs out for a walk to snarl at the neighbors.

David G , May 23, 2019 at 13:07

"Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times, on May 14, it was he who 'ordered' a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf."

That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton, may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.

The National Security Advisor is, as the title states, merely an advisor – not confirmed by the Senate, and therefore not, in constitutional terms, an "officer of the United States" with the authority to carry out the policy of the government. Other than his assistant fetching him lunch, nobody in government should be following Bolton's orders at all while he holds this job.

But this is nothing new. I had the same concern, on an even larger scale, during the first Bush Jr. administration when Cheney was running around reshaping the government in his own warped image. Despite the Vice President's elected status, he has no executive power under the Constitution – no power at all, in fact, except when sitting as President of the Senate. There was a time when everyone knew that.

With all the perennial crowing we see about the greatness of the Constitution, and the mewling about how Trump is degrading it, it would be nice if Congress and the media could spare a moment to care about whether the people giving orders to the world's largest military and covert/intelligence apparatus are legally empowered to do so.

Ash , May 23, 2019 at 17:17

> That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton,
> may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.

It does kind of have an Alexander Haig flavor to it, doesn't it?

David G , May 23, 2019 at 22:08

When Bolton gets up and says "I'm in control here", I'm definitely finding a rock to hide under.

Zenobia van Dongen , May 23, 2019 at 13:06

The question that Joe Lauria asked of John Bolton, i.e. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?" seems to imply that Iran seeks revenge against the US for the CIA's 1953 coup d'état against prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq.
However the current leaders of Iran are not entitled to consider themselves the heirs of Mossadeq, nor are they morally justified in avenging him, since the CIA coup relied largely on support from the very same clerical establishment that now rules Iran. As a matter of fact in the 1950s and 60s Shia clerics in Iran were routinely considered CIA agents. Consequently the Iranian elite's pretense of carrying on Mossadeq's anti-imperialist struggle is profoundly hypocritical. I grant that the current reactionary clique that governs Iran defends Iran's sovereignty against US imperialism as Mossadeq did. But the underlying concept of the Iranian nation is profoundly different. The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution
Indeed, Iran has no hesitation in crushing underfoot the aspirations to independence of other nations. It ruthlessly conducts ethnic cleansing in Syria, commits assassinations in South America, and in general behaves with imperialist ruthlessness that is moreover unmitigated by any concern for human rights or international law.

vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 14:27

As to your last paragraph please provide proof for your allegations. As to your second paragraph you assume to know the meaning behind the question Mr. Lauria asked. Could it be possible (this I believe is more likely) that what Mr. Lauria meant or realizes that absent the '53 coup would there now be an Islamic theocracy ruling Iran?

Again making the disclaimer that I'm no expert on the region or Iran particularly I have followed many leads of reading and investigation to understand the ramifications of that seminal event (the '53 coup.) What I believe I've understood is that Iran prior to and until the '53 coup was on its own unique trajectory of reclaiming its sovereignty and rejecting its status as a (UK) colonial vassal. There seemed to be a somewhat fluid acceptance of the rising democratic movement of Mosaddeq et. al., a fading nod to the former royal house, and an acceptance of Shiite religiosity of some considerable social legitimacy.

So, three centers of power and influence working its unique way to an unique Iranian future.

With the US/UK engineered coup the imperialists destroyed the legitimate democratic evolution happening there. With the re-installation of the Shah Reza Pahlavi as the puppet ruler of the US, that traditional center of power and legitimacy was likewise forever delegitimized in the eyes of most Iranians. That sentiment was cemented with the creation of SAVAK by the US, UK, and Israel to be the iron fist of the Shah and his new imperial master.

That left only one center of power or authority which retained legitimacy in the eyes of Iranians – the Shiite theocrats, and that is why when Iranians kicked the US out it was the Islamic theocracy doing the booting. You are correct that there was at least one Shiite cleric (I've forgotten his name,) jealous and fearful of the rising influence of democratic governance, who is a known and recorded collaborator with the US/UK machinations of the coup. Without the help of the US/UK his part in the affair would probably have been inconsequential.

It is not Iran that is funding and establishing Islamic madrasses in Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere. It is the Wahhabist Sunnis and they preach intolerance and violent jihad. Furthermore, of the total global population of adherents of Islam, 75% are Sunni affiliated, and 25% are Shiite affiliated. Those percentages hold true in the immediate region of the ME as well. The repeated claims of Iranian desires of empire are a shibboleth emanating from KSA and UAE.

Nick , May 23, 2019 at 15:36

The leaders of the Islamic Revolution used Mossadegh's image to help get people on board against the Shah, The National Front was allowed to be a party again for a short time, and a Street in Tehran was renamed post-revolution for Mohammad Mossadegh. This was a cynical ploy by the Mullahs to get people on board with their revolution and make people believe that they were indeed the true heirs of Mossadegh and committed to democracy. It was all a sham. The National Front was made illegal again at some point in the 80s, and the street named for Mossadegh was renamed around the same time. These people are the heirs of the Shah whether they like it or not.

anon4d2 , May 23, 2019 at 16:59

Joe's question points out that, had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, there would have been a secular democratic government. That is true throughout the Mideast, where in the 1950s-70s the US supported radical Islamic movements that suppressed secular movements and overthrew secular governments, pretending that the USSR was moving in. There was no evidence of USSR interest there, as it was preoccupied with such factions in its central Asian republics, and apparently only some arms from the USSR in Egypt were ever found as "evidence."

Similar US actions have continued to date, almost 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the US always supporting fanatics against moderates like Assad and Ghaddafi, and pretending to support "democracy."

Compare the US support of Saudi Arabia, a fanatical fundamentalist monarchy engaged in terrorism throughout the region, including against their only neighbor that defends minority rights, Syria. Again falsely claiming the need to protect oil supply, which it can buy anywhere without bombing anyone, like any other oil buyer. Again falsely claiming to support democracy which it overthrows everywhere at the pleasure of its own oligarchy, always to "protect Israel" or attack socialism, which is always to get political bribes.

There is no evidence of any "ethnic cleansing" by Iran in Syria or elsewhere. Where do you get that idea? Iran is majority Shiah, defending the majority Sunni population of Syria from Sunni fundamentalists. You certainly have no evidence that Iran "commits assassinations in South America" or opposes "aspirations to independence of other nations" and made that up to deceive others. Your comments on this site have been knowingly false.

zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 03:44

The above, re the current Iranian religious govt, very informative, thankyou.
Re Joe's article I cannot take seriously that Trump is against war and the Deep State.
If Trumps rhetoric during his electioneering, supporting the middle class (deeply deprived after the US corporations abandoned them for low paid Chinese labour) was in any way honest he would not have chosen the cabinet he did (and keeps on choosing).
Trump has not chosen one cabinet member that would support that supposed sympathy for the middle class.
Reporting that assumes Trump is fighting for moderation (against his own cabinet) and to establish policies in the direction of that sympathy, is without evidence, it seems to me, regardless of what he might suggest to Fox News.

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 17:00

"The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909."
And the American government has equal respect for the Constitution.

David , May 23, 2019 at 12:56

Bolton didn't order a carrier group to the Persian Gulf. He doesn't have the authority. The carrier group left because of the deployment was already planned. Bolton does not have the power that has been ascribed to him. He is a grandiose clown who knows how to play the press. I don't think he will have his job six months from now.

David G , May 23, 2019 at 12:16

"At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it 'would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran.' In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said that it would indeed restart partial nuclear enrichment."

Two problems with this part of the article:

• The link in the main text here goes to an Intercept article about Bolton, but it has no mention of Tom Countryman, or even of Iran.

• It isn't accurate to say that Iran may now, or is saying it will, "resume" or "restart" nuclear enrichment, since it never ceased, nor did it ever commit to cease, such activity. The JCPOA merely imposed strict *limits* and monitoring on nuclear enrichment and stockpiling, some of which Iran is saying it will now depart from.

I also disagree with the imputation elsewhere in the article that Donald Trump has a good understanding of real estate. His disastrous, decades-long record in that business suggests otherwise. But I suppose some people will always believe what they see on TV.

lou e , May 23, 2019 at 12:06

Creeping fascism works like fishing with a rod and reel. You hook the fish and it runs off 100 ft of line . You reel in 50 ft and the fish takes 30 feet back. Do the Math! Some times burning down the village IS the only way to get rid of the infestation. Bit hard on the USSA, but as Ben Franklin put it you have a democratic republic IF ypu can Keep It.

Herman , May 23, 2019 at 11:56

Remember at an earlier time with Bolton, someone described him as a kiss up kick down kind of guy, i.e., a real jerk. I defended Trump against Russiagate because it was a threat to the office of the president. Unless, he gets his head straight, his "political" moves in the Middle East and Southwest Asia can spin out of control. He is not negotiating a new deal with some city to build another hotel, and his rhetoric makes him sound like that is the way he thinks he should act with other countries.

One can defend him by saying maybe it will work, but then maybe not and it is not a matter of your target taking his papers and leaving the room.

Great article, Mr. Lauria. Have you posted your resume on your site? Interested in your confrontation with Bolton.

Trump wants to be reelected more that being the President but in his defense we know what he will face if he decides to enter into honest negotiations. He's going to have a heck of a time finding people to cover his back. He can count on one presidential aspirant, Tulsi Gabbard but she's on the other side.

Jeff Harrison , May 23, 2019 at 11:42

If we have to rely on Thump for anything other than social controls, we're screwed.

David G , May 23, 2019 at 11:40

These personal reminiscences of Bolton at the U.N. by Joe Lauria unfortunately only confirm the man's very public record. The fact that such a creature has been accepted for so long in the heart of U.S. foreign "policy" is yet more evidence that the country's crisis of political culture started long before Trump came on the scene.

I don't quite accept the slight comfort implied in the formulations here that this time Bolton has "gone too far", or "flown too high", since to me they imply that there is some moral or rational bedrock that he has struck beneath which the establishment is not willing to go.

I don't think that's true, as a general proposition. For example, the U.S. continues less noisily but inexorably on its long-term collision course with China, which will be even more catastrophic than war with Iran, not to mention the ultimate one with the planet's environmental limits.

For me it's enough that, for a number of contingent reasons, Bolton's (and MBS's and Netanyahu's) lunge at Iran has fallen flat with both U.S. and European policy and media elites – for now, and I hope forever.

jessika , May 23, 2019 at 11:26

I just called WH 202-456-1111 to tell President Trump that Bolton should be fired; had to wait 8 min to talk. Trump certainly has lots of problems, but he'll have plenty more if he starts a war! Pox Americana!

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:58

Great idea.
I'll do the same.

vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:04

Thank you Mr. Lauria. I'm tending to believe that not only has Bolton flown too high, but Trump's predictable method of trying to get what he wants was completely miscalculated wrt Iran. There is no better treaty or deal to be had concerning keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The failures of the JCPOA that Trump is probably griping about all have to do with matters of Iran's necessary and legitimate right to security and self-defense. No sane nation would willingly give in to this bullying. Thanks again.

vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:44

Also, wrt Trump's predictable patterns, note that little if anything has changed regarding the US and the DPRK, so if he is a crafty and effective negotiator I'm having a hard time seeing it.

David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 18:22

Good example Vinnieoh. NK and SK are reaching out and (more importantly) shoving out the US. More winning.

I love Trump. He is useful. Fascism, NAFTA, generic racism you name it, he really shines a light on issues.

Here again. (Currently) SA, GAZA, Israel, Syria and of course Iran. Hell, the entire region. What a train wreck he is.

What about the dollar? The EU? Yikes.

By gosh this man could single handedly take down an empire! MAGA!

O Society , May 23, 2019 at 10:47

Well done, Joe Lauria. Of course our dilemma is Donald Trump says one thing and contradicts himself 5 minutes later. You could say he "changes his mind" but I do not think his mind is stable to begin with. He's far too nuts to put any faith in for "doing the right thing,"

Bolton and his neoconservative pox on the world serve the interests of the war machine and fossil fuel corporations. When will be rid of them? When We the People grow a set of testicles and throw them all into prison. Trump isn't going to save us, but he might let Bolton get us all killed.

Time for the people to rise.

http://opensociet.org/2019/05/19/the-interlocking-crises-of-war-climate-chaos

Piotr Berman , May 23, 2019 at 11:31

Seems that Trump is so small minded that what we observe cannot be explained mechanistically, we need quantum mechanics. Rather that a particular state of mind we have a stochastic distribution, wave patterns and spin.

Marc R Hapke , May 23, 2019 at 14:34

Great analogy

O Society , May 23, 2019 at 12:39

The expert says what's going on in Trump's mind is solipsism and I agree with him:

https://opensociet.org/2018/07/07/assault-on-reality-solipsism-whats-wrong-with-donald-trump-part-1/

Sam F , May 23, 2019 at 13:12

Yes, Joe Lauria has presented the problem very well.

A major factor is certainly the persuasiveness of the NSC and other MIC entities which surround the president, and comprise much of official DC. Try persuading anyone in the MIC that war is ever inappropriate: they are all full of extreme scorn and false accusations, and have endless "evidence" of threats behind every tree, and rationales to attack this or at least that, just to make "statements" and "warnings" to invisible foreign monsters. The MIC is a completely and permanently logic-proof subculture of bullying, which bullies every member of its own tribe to line up behind tyrants like Bolton and a million other puerile bullies devoid of humanity.

No doubt you know that this was all well understood by the founders of the US, who restricted federal military powers to repelling invasions and knew that any standing military was a threat to democracy. The Federalist Papers should be required reading in the US. All of those understandings were gradually lost after the War of 1812 and the 1820s, as the founders died off. As the US became confident that it could repel any invasion, it lost the sense of the necessity of unity and cooperation of regions, and Congress degenerated into a battle of intransigent factions leading to the completely unnecessary Civil War. With the ebullient emergence of the middle class, no effort was made to correct the defects of the Constitution in failing to protect the institutions of democracy from the rising power of economic concentrations. With WWI and WWII, the power of oligarchy over mass media was consolidated, and by WWII the oligarchy and MIC effectively controlled elections, mass media, and the judiciary, the tools of democracy. Democracy has been a facade ever since.

The US has zero security problems that the MIC has not created, and could at any time re-purpose 80% of the MIC to developing infrastructure in the poorest nations with positive effects upon its security. Had it done so since WWII, we would have rescued the poorest half of humanity from poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and disease, and would have had a true American Century. Instead we have killed over 20 million innocents and mortgaged the lives of our children to serve the infantile psychopaths of the MIC.

The solution is not only to eliminate the 2000-member NSC, cut the military by at least 80 percent, prohibit acts of war or surveillance by the executive branch, tax the rich so that no one has income above upper middle class, and demand amendments to the Constitution restricting funding of the mass media and elections to limited and registered individual donations. We also desperately need a fourth branch of federal government, which I am calling the College of Policy Debate, to conduct moderated textual debates of policy issues in all regions, protecting and representing every viewpoint, in which all views are challenged and must respond, and all parties must come to common terms. The CPD should produce commented debate summaries available to the public with mini-quizzes and discussion groups. Without that rational analysis and access to the core debates, we do not have a democracy at all, we are all no more than the fools and pawns of these oligarchy scammers, who must be actively excluded from all government capacities.

Sorry for the lecture.

Linda Wood , May 24, 2019 at 01:59

Please don't apologize, Sam F. Your brilliant and humane words give me hope at a time in which I am in shock at the blatancy of fascism in our government.

Doggrotter , May 23, 2019 at 10:33

Where is a drone strike when you need one?

OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 10:23

" seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room."

Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools.

Once upon a time there was a discussion of which of the opponents' should be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize – the list being relatively long.

After extensive analysis and discussion the short-list consisted of two opponents in alphabetical order Mr. John Bolton and Mr. Karl Rove.

However in light of the notion "Do you think your opponents are as stupid as you are? " the proposal question was left in abeyance, not only as a function of decorum but also through understanding that "Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools." and that even small dogs can seem tall when you are lying on your stomach.

OlyaPola , May 24, 2019 at 17:33

Since omniscience can't exist perhaps Mr. Bolton was/is subject to misrepresentation and misunderstanding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6vqPUM_FE&list=RDXIOSOlqMaj8&index=17

bobzz , May 23, 2019 at 10:12

"Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks."

What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships? Smells of another false flag.

Piotr Berman , May 23, 2019 at 11:46

I would not be so sure. A delicate signal that Iran has more capabilities concerning stopping in-out-Gulf traffic than naive people like Bolton realize has a sobering potential. By the way of contrast, what kind of black flag it is if it is instantly put in doubt, "we do not know" etc. When there were "chemical incidents" in Syria, no one in Washington claimed the need for more facts, uncertainty etc.

Instead, UAE initially denied that it happened at all, subsequently, together with KSA, they did not have any "certain knowledge". Somehow no government appears to promote the incident. Even USA.

BTW, the allegation that Iran is placing missiles on fishing boats staggers the mind. First of all, "missile boats" of which Iran has plenty are small ships, BUT NOT VERY small, ca. 500-800 tons, which are fast, 40 kt, but not as fast as their predecessors, torpedo boats (200-300 tons, 50-60 kt). They are still faster than any of the larger naval vessels, can trail them, and attack from small distance in the case of start of hostilities. That Iran places missiles on such boats can be learned from videos proudly provided by PressTV.ir.

Using "fishing boats" for that purpose is dubious, and the largest question mark would be: WHY? The reason that missile boats are larger and heavier than torpedo boats is that you need more stability to launch missiles than torpedoes. Then you need a radar etc. Placing missiles on fishing boats would be a waste of missiles. Hardly an escalation.

OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 12:47

"Hardly an escalation."

Perhaps you are being deflected by framing?

One of the escalations is the escalation of belief in, requirement of, and resort to, the dumbed-downess of the "target audience".

One of the salient questions being deflected is why, and as ever investigation requires some knowledge of Mr. Heisenberg and his principles.

mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:34

Perhaps the Iranians are putting missiles on fishing boats to stun the fish and catch them that way. Fishing boats aren't exactly very fast.

Thomas , May 23, 2019 at 12:21

Anyone who actually believes the oil tanker incidents were carried by Iran should seek an immediate consultation with their doctor. These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools and Iranians are not fools.

Brian , May 23, 2019 at 17:22

Exactly. According navel personnel, Iran has been using fishing boats to transfer rockets from land to it's vessels for years, supposedly because the gulf is too shallow. I don't have hydrographic maps of the area, anyone know if this is true?

Piotr Berman , May 23, 2019 at 23:33

Clearly, Persian Gulf has routes for the largest ships on Earth, but the supply bases for missiles may be away from ports, and it would make sense to place them so they are not easily accessible to a big ship navy, and in general, to disperse them.

Tim , May 26, 2019 at 06:43

"Thomas"

> These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools

Since neither you nor I know who did it, and there are a whole slew of plausible suspects, we don't know why they did it, either. So it is silly to claim they are fools.

Since the Saudis and UAE are in the midst of waging war on Yemen, the most obvious suspects are their enemies there, al-Ansara.

(And by the way, contrary to what another commentator claimed, it was not a "few dents", but a gaping hole in the hull just below the waterline. And since the local authorities spoke of an impact by an unidentified object, these were presumably torpedo strikes.)

OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 07:58

"What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships?"

Quite a few including but not limited to further data on the opponents' perception of what constitutes plausible belief for the opponents' target audience, and the opponents' increasing resort to, amplitude, scope and velocity of "misrepresentations".

As is the case with the benefits of dumbing down not accruing solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, the benefits of creation and implementation of "false flags" do not accrue solely to those engaged in "false flags", and are enhanced when the creators and implementers of "false flags" are immersed in amalga of projection and notions of sole/prime agency, facilitating potential benefits to many others not restricted to Iran.

[May 27, 2019] The Pathology of John Bolton by Joe Lauria

In short Bolton is a neofascist.
Notable quotes:
"... Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN ..."
"... It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally. ..."
"... Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view. ..."
"... It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. ..."
"... Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq. ..."
"... We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it." ..."
"... Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election ..."
"... This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power. ..."
"... Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology. ..."
"... Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions. ..."
"... Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. ..."
"... It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles." ..."
"... The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it." ..."
"... Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks. ..."
"... But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views. ..."
"... Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi! ..."
"... To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS ..."
"... Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades. ..."
"... The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets! ..."
"... John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. ..."
"... Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, ..."
"... But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like. ..."
"... Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS! Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it." ..."
"... Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor. ..."
"... Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush! ..."
"... I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons ..."
"... The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation! ..."
"... I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. ..."
"... "Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees." ..."
"... Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes. ..."
"... They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel." ..."
"... The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today. ..."
May 23, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Special to Consortium News 129 Comments

John Bolton has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time he may have gone too far, writes Joe Lauria.

I knew John Bolton and interacted with him on a nearly daily basis with my colleagues in the press corps at United Nations headquarters in New York when Bolton was the United States ambassador there from August 2005 to December 2006.

Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN. But that turned out to be the point. It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally.

Bolton's most infamous quote about the UN followed him into the building. In 1994 he had said : "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

But a more telling comment in that same 1994 conference was when he said that no matter what the UN decides the U.S. will do whatever it wants:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VOINBs8eOdk?feature=oembed

Bolton sees such frank admissions as signs of strength, not alarm.

He is a humorless man, who at the UN at least, seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room. He once gave a lecture in 2006 at the U.S. mission to UN correspondents, replete with a chalk board, on how nuclear enrichment worked. His aim, of course, was to convince us that Iran was close to a bomb, even though a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate being prepared at the time said Tehran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

I thought I'd challenge him one day at the press stakeout outside the Security Council chamber, where Bolton often stopped to lecture journalists on what they should write. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?' I asked him.

"That's an interesting question," he told me, "but for another time and another place." It was a time and a place, of course, that never came.

More Than an Ideology

Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view.

He seemed perpetually angry and it wasn't clear whether it was over some personal or diplomatic feud. He seems to take personally nations standing up to America, binding his sense of personal power with that of the United States.

It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. He'd have been better off perhaps in the McKinley administration, before the days of PR-sugarcoating of imperial aggression. He's not your typical passive-aggressive government official. He's aggressive-aggressive.

And now Bolton is ordering 120,000 troops to get ready and an aircraft carrier to steam towards Iran.

Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq.

After Bolton's failed 2005 confirmation hearings, Tony Blinken, the then staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The New Yorker 's Dexter Filkins:

"We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it."

Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MbVtROU9J_E?feature=oembed

What is alarming about the above video is not so much that he justifies lying, but the example he gives: lying to cover up military plans like the invasion of Normandy. This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power.

Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology.

Regime Change for Iran

The U.S. national security adviser has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time John Bolton may have flown too high.

He was chosen for his post by a president with limited understanding of international affairs -- if real estate is not involved -- and one who loves to be sucked up to. Trump is Bolton's perfect cover.

But hubris may have finally bested Bolton. He had never before maneuvered himself into such a position of power, though he'd left a trail of chaos at lower levels of government. Sitting opposite the Resolute desk on a daily basis has presented a chance to implement his plans.

At the top of that agenda has been Bolton's stated aim for years: to bomb and topple the Iranian government.

Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times, on May 14 , it was he who "ordered" a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf. These were to be deployed "if Iran attacked American forces or accelerated its work on nuclear weapons."

Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions.

At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman, who had been undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, as had Bolton, predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it "would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran."

In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said on May 5 (May 6 in Tehran) that it would indeed restart partial nuclear enrichment. On the same day, Bolton announced the carrier strike group was headed to the Gulf.

Bolton Faces Resistance

If this were a normally functioning White House, in which imperial moves are normally made, a president would order military action, and not a national security adviser.

"I don't think Trump is smart enough to realize what Bolton and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are doing to him,"

former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel told RT's Afshin Rattansi this week.

"They have manipulated him. When you get the national security adviser who claims that he ordered an aircraft carrier flotilla to go into the Persian Gulf, we've never seen that. In the days of Henry Kissinger, who really brought sway, he never ordered this, and if it was ordered it was done behind closed doors."

Bolton claimed he acted on intelligence that Iran was poised to attack U.S. interests close to Iran.

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. An editorial on May 16 in the Saudi English-language news outlet, Arab News , called for a U.S. "surgical strike" on Iran. But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war.

The intelligence alleged Iran was fitting missiles on fishing boats in the Gulf. Imagine a government targeted by the most powerful military force in history wanting to defend itself in its own waters.

Bolton also said Iran was threatening Western interests in Iraq, which led eventually to non-essential U.S. diplomatic staff leaving Baghdad and Erbil.

It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles."

But this time the bully is being challenged. Federica Mogherini, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, resisted the U.S. on Iran when she met Pompeo in Brussels on May 13.

"It's always better to talk, rather than not to, and especially when tensions arise Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly today from us," said Mogherini. "We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible attitude to take – is and we believe should be, that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side."

The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it."

Ghika: No new threat from Iran. (YouTube)

British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika then said on May 14: "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria." Ghika was rebuked by U.S. Central Command, whose spokesman said, "Recent comments from OIR's Deputy Commander run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region."

A day later it was Trump himself, however, who was said to be resisting Bolton. On May 15 The Washington Post reported:

"President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S. officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran's leaders."

The Times reported the next day:

"President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict."

Then it was the Democrats who stood up to Bolton. On Tuesday Pompeo and Shanahan briefed senators and representatives behind closed doors on Capitol Hill regarding the administration's case for confronting Iran.

"Are they (Iran) reacting to us, or are we doing these things in reaction to them? That is a major question I have, that I still have," Sen. Angus King told reporters after the briefing. "What we view as defensive, they view as provocative. Or vice versa."

Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego told reporters after the briefing: "I believe there is a certain level of escalation of both sides that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The feedback loop tells us they're escalating for war, but they could just be escalating because we're escalating."

Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks.

Bolton was conspicuously absent from the closed-door briefing.

It's Up to Trump

Trump has pinballed all over the place on Iran. He called the Times and Post stories about him resisting Bolton "fake news."

"The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!" Trump tweeted on May 17.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!

77.7K 9:44 AM - May 17, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy
34K people are talking about this

Then he threatened what could be construed as genocide against Iran. "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" he tweeted on Sunday.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!

239K 4:25 PM - May 19, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy
128K people are talking about this

But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vc4vYWJfJnE?feature=oembed

On Monday he implied that the crisis has been drummed up to get Iran to negotiate.

"The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report ."

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report....

80.8K 1:30 PM - May 20, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy
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John Bolton must be stopped before he gets his war. It is beyond troubling that the man we have to count on to do it is Donald Trump.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .


Jym Allyn , May 26, 2019 at 19:27

Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is US." As in the lies that created the Vietnam war and the waste of 58,000 American soldiers and thousand of Vietnamese. Or the lie that Iran is our enemy when we funded and encouraged Saddam to attack them and destroyed their attempt to have a secular government.

Or the lie of the WMD's and the 9/11 attack which was funded by Saudi Arabia, and run by Saudis and NOT Iraq.

Or the lies of Afghanistan which was economically and culturally better off when it was controlled by the USSR...

John Hawk , May 26, 2019 at 16:56

Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi!

To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS.

It can't get any more delusional than this. Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades.

After all, deception is their game and they use it liberally, like feeding their agenda to Bolton as 'intelligence' info of the highest order. The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets!

Zhu , May 26, 2019 at 03:20

If Bolton were struck by lightning tomorrow morning, would anything change much? I doubt it. We Americans are as warlike as the ancient Assyrian. We've been slaughtering Indians, Koreans, SE Asians, Central Americans, and multiple Middle Eastern people for a looong time. It is flattering to blame this individual or th t country, but no. We, as a community, are all responsible to some degree. Even me, on the far side of the world.

Alex , May 25, 2019 at 21:50

Bolton's choosing destroyed IRAN but staying friends with Saudi Arabia it's so contradicting, and so obvious that he is influenced to behave this way is because Israelies influence. Saudy Kingdom using Bolton to get IRAN so Saudy will be only country promote Extreme version of Wahhabi Islam which is didn't existed In Islam's history.

So Bolton's obsession with destruction of Iran is ignorance as its best. September 11th suspects were most of them Saudy nationals, yet nobody wanted to talk about it, because there is irony that, George W Bush was and probably still doing business with Saudy. So how can you explain that to American people? No you can not.

Perhaps collectively hypnotism !

OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 02:58

" So how can you explain that to American people?"

Given that useful fools are useful, why would you want to?

" No you can not."

An illustration of the benefits of dumbing down do not accrue solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, facilitating the minimising of blowback during implementation of strategies based on "How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback", given that many believe that critical mass is a function of linear notions of 50% +1 and above; a further conflation of quantity with quality to which the opponents are prone.

William , May 25, 2019 at 19:06

John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. Put him in a strait jacket and keep him in a padded cell. He poses a threat to millions of people.

Eddie S , May 25, 2019 at 11:26

Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, IF it was assessed from a pro-peace perspective.

But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like.

Good article about a reprehensible politician.

renfro , May 25, 2019 at 11:18

"But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war. "
________________________________

Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS!
Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it."

Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor.

Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? If we attack Iran it will be for the Zionist and Saudis and we all know it.

Luther Bliss , May 25, 2019 at 10:57

Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush!

Remember it wasn't until Bush JR's second term that he asked his father, "What's A Neocon?" to which Pappy Bush replied, "Israel."

I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons.

The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation!

Mark , May 25, 2019 at 02:30

I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Bolton stands out for his extremity among extremists, but he's a means rather than the end. The agenda is something into which he bought, passionately by all indications, but which a paucity of other people created strictly to advance their own, tiny, exclusive clan, not for the benefit of the United States.

Hank , May 25, 2019 at 09:43

To think that this administration campaigned on a promise to restrict future wasteful and needless interventions and then hired this dinosaur of a warmonger makes my blood curl! Everyone with half a brain knows what Bolton's agenda is yet here he is leading the USA into a war at the behest of a foreign nation led by a felon and terrorist! The American people who want peace and their tax dollars invested into improving the USA have once again been stabbed in the back by a conniving administration. Will this cycle of non-democracy ever end? Until it does, future administrations will continue on just like previous ones- kowtowing to special interests, in particular the military/industrial mafia and the apartheid criminal state of Israel! All this massive business of holding "elections" in the USA, all the talk about "Russian collusion" and the REAL collusion is right there in front of us all- the US administration has once again COLLUDED to go back on a campaign promise and once again open the money trough for the military/industrialist pigs!

Mark , May 26, 2019 at 05:31

I get the idea, but it's necessary to look 'behind' back-stabbing, conniving, colluding administrations, and Bolton, and the military/industrial complex, and to bring Israel and some barely known U.S. history, at least back to World War I, explicitly to the fore for public scrutiny. That's a monumental task, to say the least, owing to American attention spans and the contrary interests of the powers that be.

Taras77 , May 24, 2019 at 20:24

Bolton has his own well funded PAC, from which he is free to "contribute" (bribe) sychophant congress individuals. What a situation for the fix for war.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/interests-pushing-for-hard-line-against-iran/

"Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees."

ricardo2000 , May 24, 2019 at 17:29

By far the most productive, and most verifiable, way to eliminate weapons is at a negotiating table. The easiest way to start a war is with ignorant blather.

O Society , May 24, 2019 at 16:09

Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes.

They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel."

Trump initially declined on Bolton because "he doesn't like Bolton's moustache."

Kool Aid drinkers and idiots. We're being lead by a cult of morons who worship the bombs, money, and a white separatist state.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html?gtm=bottom

Truth First , May 24, 2019 at 11:40

They don't call him, 'Bonkers' Bolton for nothin'.

Pedro Masculino Ghirotti , May 24, 2019 at 10:53

Nice piece Joe, but you just forgot to mention who Bolton actually works for, the Israelis.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , May 24, 2019 at 07:11

"Pathology." That's exactly the right word. But I think it has a wider application. See:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/john-chuckman-comment-why-trump-doesnt-rein-in-bolton-dismal-bolton-pompeo-and-abrams-are-part-of-the-price-trump-paid-for-political-support-against-threats-he-felt-and-getting-a-big-pile-of-ca/

old geezer , May 26, 2019 at 13:08

an accurate, concise review.

i doubt the iranians will test a nuke until after djt is out of office. after that you might wake up one morning and everything you knew before becomes quite obsolete.

my guess is israel has stealth cruise missiles with h bombs. it would be very foolish of them to not have them. those descendants of egyptian slaves are anything but foolish.

Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:33

@ CitizenOne: Thank you for your long comment. I agree with much of what you wrote, but would like to know why you claimed, "Iran is surely guilty of vowing the destruction of Israel " . According to what I've read, Iran has not initiated hostilities with any nation for over a century – a clear, peaceful contrast to the rogue states of Israel & the U.S. Are you referring to the long-ago-debunked claim that Iran claimed to 'wipe Israel off the map'?
(See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155 ? "So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors, the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague wish for the future.

"A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option – the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" – with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. ")

Or perhaps you're referring to Revolutionary Guard deputy leader Hossein Salami's warning that if Israel starts an aggressive war against Iran, it 'will end with {Israel's} elimination from the global political map'? IMHO, warning an extremely aggressive, self-obsessed, Apartheid-practicing rogue state against trying to attack your nation is wise ;-) .

I look forward to your response. Thanks very much.

Sam F , May 27, 2019 at 06:12

Sam: please use an identifier initial as I do, to prevent confusion.
I have asked you twice before; perhaps not the same person.
It is unfair to expect others to make the clarification, and easy to prevent.

O Society , May 23, 2019 at 21:15

Neoconservative war pigs riding the bomb and the belligerence of Empire

http://opensociet.org/2019/05/23/the-belligerence-of-empire/

mike k , May 23, 2019 at 18:55

How is it that crazies like Bolton can end up high in our government hierarchy? It is because the whole damned government is crazy through and through

Joe , May 23, 2019 at 20:48

His Dad probably made a huge donation to Yale just like Bush's Dad. That's what happens when the system is gamed.

Art Thomas , May 25, 2019 at 09:22

Yes, in my opinion. The state stripped of patriotic rhetoric and other obfuscations that keep us devoted to it is nothing more than a criminal gang that hides behind the law.

Some basic examples. 1. The law: taxation, the crime: theft. 2. The law: monetary credit expansion, i.e. debt financing, the crime: counterfeiting, i.e. creating money out of thin air. 3. The invasion of countries not a threat to the invading state. Etc. etc.

Tiu , May 23, 2019 at 18:30

If the US "political establishment" was working for America's benefit, things would look very different.
They are instead working on the "globalist" agenda, which will, if successful, destroy all nations as we know them today and what remains will be ruled over by a bunch of sociopaths who are the same group that has inflicted John Bolton on the world.
Bolton's a tool, a bit like a hammer, to get their project done. The Democrats have equivalent tools e.g. H R Clinton.

Mark Thomason , May 23, 2019 at 18:04

The problem is if he hasn't gone too far. If he gets his war.

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:53

John Bolton should get to ride the missile in the remake of Dr. Strangelove.

evelync , May 23, 2019 at 19:53

hah hah hah

I loved that movie :)

and yes Bolton is a perfect caricature of Slim Pickens AKA Dr Strangelove.

I also refer to him as Yosemite Sam

one difference for our current real life war monger is that the movie character was simply insane and didn't justify his craziness with explanations.

Bolton, OTOH, blames "national Security" and "the national interests" of this country .say what????

if we look at the horrific human costs and the enormous financial costs of the wars that were fought for U.S. "national interests" one would want to ask, once the rubble had cleared, what "interests" were actually served and whose "security" did they actually improve?
The answers always take us back to Eisenhower's MIC and Ray McGovern's MICIMATT (maybe I got a couple of these letters wrong?).
Whoever profited from the mayhem don't represent either our "national interest' or our "national security" IMO and yet those two phrases are used to shut down any discussion or criticism in the lead up .

whew

Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:20

Strictly about the movie – Slim Pickens plays the ranking officer on the B-52 (I think?) which is actually dropping the bomb. Dr Strangelove is a totally different character, one of a few played by Peter Sellers in that movie, and is a (mostly!) wheelchair-bound German scientist.

Jym Allyn , May 26, 2019 at 19:17

And the wheelchair bound psychopathic scientist of Dr. Strangelove was inspired by Kubrick meeting Henry Kissinger at a cocktail party and recognizing that Kissinger was the most evil person on this planet because he looked and sounded so responsible and rational.
Now that Saddam, bin Laden, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler are dead, Kissinger holds the record of the person still alive who has needlessly killed more people, both Americans and non-Americans, than any other person on this planet.
Hillary's idea of destabilizing Libya and creating a political vacuum there was from her training when working for Kissinger.

Abe , May 23, 2019 at 16:51

The Pathology:

John Bolton
Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Chairman of Gatestone Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former board member of Project for the New American Century (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former Adviser to Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/john-bolton/

Richard Goldberg – Aide to John Bolton at NSC (2019 – )
Former Senior Adviser at Foundation for Defense of Democracies (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/richard-goldberg/

Frederick Fleitz – Bolton's Former Chief of Staff at NSC (2018)
CEO of Center for Security Policy ( (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/frederick-fleitz/

Abe , May 23, 2019 at 19:32

The Pathology, Part Duh:

Mike Pompeo
Christian Zionist: "We will continue to fight these battles, it is a never ending struggle until the Rapture."
Associate of Center for Security Policy (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Sponsor of ACT! for America (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mike-pompeo/

Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:38

@ Abe: Thanks for the info!

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:42

John Bolton is obviously a very sick puppy.
This is patently obvious to any observer with the least desgree of psyhological sophistication and insight.
If he lived on your block and made such statements about his neighbors, or a woman living nearby, he would be looking at restraining orders.
He is an out-of-control abusive pig who belongs in an institution where a course of shock therapy might actually help him. I reckon any basic psychological test would find that he has a least borderline personality and at worst is actually insane and incapable of taking responsibility for the consequences of his action.
Bolton has permanent termporary insanity.
Letting this tortured, psychopathic individual run the military is itself an enormous crime, one of murderous negligence, one for which Trump truly should and could be impeached. Congress must take all possible steps to get this man out of the Executive Branch.

Threaten Trump with impeachment if he doesn't fire Bolton.
His appointment of Bolton is reckless negligence and endangers this country.

James , May 23, 2019 at 19:09

I wonder how good American politicians of the past, if there were any, would react to the appointment of this psychopath as what he is now. Whom should be blamed for it? Donald Trump? The pro-Israeli lobbies? Or the American nation? A glance at the man's face is enough to realize that he is deeply sick. To me, he doesn't look like a human being at all! He looks like a monkey out of a stuffy room. Why don't psychotherapists do anything about him? Shouldn't he be hospitalized for the safety/security of the world population? By the way, I wonder where Netanyahu, the psychopath's provoker, is. He has been very quiet for about a month or so. Maybe he is waiting for the war to ignite without getting himself directly involved in it. Let Americans and Iranians kill one another while he waits to pick up the fruit in the end.

Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:27

Where does the blame lie? Who hired him? Who's the chief of the executive branch? Who's a person who could actually fire him (as he's so famous for doing on reality TV shows) instead of wringing his hands on friendly TV networks declaring he doesn't want to actually go to war, but if he's 'forced' to, he'll erase Iran from the map?

Druid , May 26, 2019 at 03:16

He would have to get permission from Adelson and the Mercers first.

CitizenOne , May 24, 2019 at 20:52

Bolton and Pompeo are the only things keeping him from impeachment. As long as Trump satisfies the bloodthirsty war mongers and the insatiable appetite of the MIC and the Pro Israel lobby and the Oil Lobby or Koch Industries he cannot lose. So far Trump is bangin on all cylinders. I really think he knows what he needs to do to survive. All this impeachment talk is just fantasy by the left dreaming about getting him out of office "somehow".

bjd , May 23, 2019 at 16:13

That the mono-maniacal psychopath Bolton is a walking exhibit of the Dunning–Kruger effect is no surprise to me. It is extra frightening though.

Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:00

What was Bolton's day job before he started mucking around in politics and foreign policy? Master waterboarder or testicular electrificator in extraordinary renditions for the CIA? He seems the sort to have spent much time at Abu Ghraib, and not just to take notes. Honestly, his major goals seem to be the eradication of entire cultures and societies, which will somehow redound to the magnificence of the United States of America. Clearly a sociopathic personality. A lot in common with Cheney.

Jimmy G , May 23, 2019 at 15:57

Again the panic is stirred by .. The NYT! (The source of such good info regarding Russia gate) .
The statement regarding Bolton " ordering" anything is just one more example of the media and the intel bureaucrats trying to put the President in a jam politically . (Remember how a month ago we were invading Venezuela?)

Bolton is doing nothing more than getting enough rope to hang himself, and the military intelligence service, congressional and media Trumpophobes are willing to stir this to the very edge, and we all know Congress could (if it could act in good Constitutional faith, rather than pretending to be the judicial branch) unite for the good of this country and Trump would be amenable to whatever they came up with. Trump is far less of a warmonger than any POTUS we've had in a very long time.

Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:18

If Congress is the only branch of government with the constitutional power to declare a war, surely it has the power to FORBID the executive branch from fomenting such a war against their judgement.

In fact, wasn't the Boland Amendment such a legislative act passed with the intent of preventing the Reagan administration from pursuing military action in Central America, most notably Nicaragua and El Salvador?

What's to prevent the Congress, if it were so inclined (which I doubt it is) to instruct the president (especially if he seems trigger-happy) to refrain from initiating any unprovoked attacks upon Iran, Venezuela, North Korea or any other country, for that matter?

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:56

Ollie North worked for Reagan, didn't he?

RnM , May 25, 2019 at 17:27

Trump is very aware that 'Stache Bolton and Mike "Mumbles" Pompeo are significant threats to his re-election. Would not be surprised to see them removed before January.

CitizenOne , May 25, 2019 at 21:02

The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today.

I agree with your statement that Trump is far less vulnerable based on his history but I am sure that the war planners are always concocting special information diets that are carefully prepared to appeal to the particular tastes of the leader of the day. Whatever Trumps opinion is he will be surrounded by the hand picked lunatics of the day who will entice and enjoin him to agree with plans for war based on their carefully prepared menu of propaganda specifically designed to be appealing to the palate of whoever is in charge.

It is less certain that Trump's long history of opposing military action will have real staying power as he is served up courses of a sumptuous meal prepared specially for his palate designed to engage him in support for military action all over the World.

Trump is particularly susceptible to flattery and appeals to his greatness and his very stable genius. He wants to be the great leader and for that he needs a plan to deal with the geopolitical situation in many countries.

Trump is a man who knows what to do too.

He advised Germany that it was a puppet of Russia until he didn't
He advised Teresa May how to do Brexit the right way until he didn't
He announced to the World he had forged deep connections with North Korea until he didn't
He had high hopes for an alliance with Russia until he didn't.
He specified the right type of fire fighting to be used to fight the Notre Dame Cathedral fire until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the fight in Syria until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the war in Syria again until he didn't
He wanted to cut the military budget until he didn't

Ordinarily if we were in the middle of a democratic presidency the press would be raising the "flip flopper" argument every second of their available airtime.

Democrats are the flip floppers but never a republican even when he is. It all depends on the way the flips and the flops land. If they land on conservative positions then a flop or a flip never occurred. With republicans, flip flopping is just a corrective action to realign the president on the correct course. If it is a democrat then their hypocrisy and flip flopping are broadcast 24/7 and are portrayed a fundamentally disqualifying events which demonstrate a fundamental lack of principles and weakness of character deserving of condemnation. When errant republicans flip flop over to the "correct" vision they are welcomed with open arms into the fold.

Trump wants to be accepted so badly that the democrats hounding him are in fact herding him into the fold of the conservatives who will shelter him and support him at all costs and the media will never ever ever never call this flip flopping.

In short, if a political candidate shifts to the left his integrity will be destroyed as his character will be portrayed as weak and built on shifting sands. He will be deemed not to be trusted like some loose cannon.

On the other hand, if a political candidate shifts to the right he will be greeted as a prodigal son returning to the fold and will be welcomed with open arms.

So I am not as sure as you that Trump's background will be any indicator of his future ideas about how to succeed in the environment he is in where both democrats by their antagonism and republicans by their defense of him both push him over to the right.

He may once have been far less of a war hawk but politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing him further to the right every day.

Consortium News editor Joe Lauria may wish to contribute a follow up series of articles detailing the purity of pro-Israel Lobby pathology exemplified by Bolton, Pompeo, and the beyond troubling Trump preferably before the next war.

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 19:33

"the wider extent of pro-Israel Lobby pathology in the US government. "

That's it in a nutshell.

KiwiAntz , May 24, 2019 at 18:46

Thanks Joe for the great article. Bolton (aka the moustache) truly is a humourless, warmongering, depraved psycho? This is a cowardly man who dodged the Vietnam draft as he didn't want to die in some foreign patty field! But this lunatic has no qualms to send other peoples sons & daughters into a Iranian war zone as cannon fodder to satisfy his deluded & perverted bloodlust to destroy Iran? If "the moustache" wants a War with Iran he should be forced to fight on the frontlines with his troops along with POTUS Bonespurs Trump, another cowardly draft dodger? Let the moustache & the Dotard make a stand, like Jon Snow in the Battle of the bastards, sword in hand, facing down the so called Iranian, bogeyman enemy, but this would never happen as cowards & bastards like Bolton & Trump don't personally fight in the battles they start, they hide in safety in a Washington situation room, as far away from any War zone as possible! If Bolton gets his War with Iran, Trump will pay the price for this suicide mission because he would be blamed for the fallout of any Military defeat! America's already sorry record of Military humiliation & defeat in Regime change operations around the Globe would reach a crescendo if they ever dared to try to attack & overthrow Iran as it would be the endgame of the US Empire!

mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:28

Trump is just Israel's bitch.

incontinent reader , May 24, 2019 at 01:08

Good comment, Abe. We've missed you. Keep posting more of the same.

Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:37

We Americans were bloodthirsty long before Israel existed.

anon , May 25, 2019 at 06:35

What an absurd zionist troll post. Try it with someone dumb, Zhu.

Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 15:17

First Joe, McKinley did not implement American submission to British Imperialism, though it began with the end of Grant's administration as with the twice elected Groucher Cleveland, but it's confirmation as US policy began with Teddy Roosevelt. The Roosevelt Corollary destroyed JQA's Community of Principle in the Americas which should be known as the true Monroe Doctrine, contrary to popular opinion today which has incorrectly replaced the Monroe Doctrine with the Roosevelt Corollary (as Bolton is especially want to do). TR signalled the end of the Lincoln Era of American industrial development and global cooperation, which was best represented by Grant, the most overlooked of great Presidents (and perhaps we see similarities of Grant to Trump today). Bolton indeed is Captain Kangaroo, presiding over his Court as the Queen of No Hearts would in Alice's confrontation with British rule once she penetrates behind the facade of British Lockean empiricism. With insight only equalled to Lincoln's, who said "We can't fight two wars at once, so first the Confederacy and then the British," Trump has identified the fascist nexus within our government as that same British foe, a nexus led by Brennan, Rice, Clapper, Jarrett, et al, which works on behalf of what Eisenhower (another overlooked great President and General) called the Military Industrial Complex. The MIC is a British Intelligence deployment to fundamentally undermine our Constitution and put the US into a state of perpetual war and police surveillance. It is now over 70 years in the making, and is enforcing a new Cold War and attempted coup of our elected Government, and yet, it may have finally found its match, not just in Trump, but in Trump's intended cooperation with Putin of Russia and Xi of China. These three nations, along with Modi of India (just reelected) are a true threat to this rotten British system, from Fabian liberals to Bolton chickenhawks, the true enemy is this British System. If we move on that effectively, we may just have a chance to win this revolutionary moment now unfolding throughout the trans-Atlantic world. Let us return to JQA's community of principle for the entire world. Let us work with Trump to end this fascist British nexus. Let us celebrate our true heritage as Americans!

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:51

Your comments read with interesting and well taken.
BUT: The bottom line is that Trump hired Bolton (and Pompeo) and has wound him up and set him loose goosewalking across the globe.
Why?
The buck for Bolton's suicidal buffonery stops with Trump.
So, I can't see him as a genuine foe of the Deep State-MIC as you describe.

Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 18:10

Bolton is loyal to Trump, even though he is a failed chickenhawk. Look at McMaster, at the leaking, and outright betrayal of the President. Same with Tillerson, betrayal. Pompeo and Bolton have ridiculous views and bloated war rhetoric, but they're personally loyal, perhaps opportunistically, and even temporarily, but nonetheless right now they are, and when they're not, I bet they're gone. But Trump does control the policy. Look at North Korea, any war? Media said there would be, then worked to undermine a deal. Venezuela, war? They're talking in Norway now, how'd that happen? Syria, troops out? MIC, Dems and Media opposed, and Trump called them out for the first time since Eisenhower! Pompeo to Sochi to see Putin, progress. How'd that happen? Trump is fighting the MIC and too many good Americans are spinning so fast from the propaganda machine they can't see straight.

anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 18:40

Interesting, but it is easy for a president to fight the MIC: simply fire and arrest anyone who acts against efforts to control them. He could send any federal enforcement agency, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, reserves, national guard, or even the Coast Guard, Secret Service, DC police, or private guards to arrest them and prosecute any resisters as traitors. It is not one man against the MIC.

And they cannot assassinate him once he has announced that intention, without exposing their hand and unleashing a generation of purges and strict controls. If he is surrounded by traitors, he has only to say that and fire the lot of them. He could leak that anonymously to Wikileaks or tweet it and they would be terrified.

Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:48

Bolton has been working DC bureaucracy like a pro for decades. He's using Trump like a marionette while he runs circles around the amateur. He was helping orchestrate foreign wars of choice back when Trump was still playing a pretend boss on TV. Bolton has no loyalty except as a facade for those he needs to suck up to.

Your examples of non-wars are terrific. Trump is amazing! – because he's running the government so badly that the State Dept doesn't know what the Pentagon is doing doesn't know and vice versa. He chose to ignore the Iran nuclear deal, which had prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons. So now, the Iranians declare (out of self defense) that they're now going to pursue nuclear weapons. Trump then says that he doesn't want to attack Iran, but they must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. This is a circular argument exactly of the type the MIC uses to engage in war. Pompeo then indicates that laughable, ineffectual attempts at sabotage are most likely Iranian. This grave threat to our nation can't even do enough damage to an oil tanker to make it take on water.

Just because someone fails to do something doesn't mean that they were against it the whole time. Maybe they're just awful at it. Sure, Trump says some things that are heartening to the anti-war and anti-interventionist crowd. But the next day he'll say something heartening to rabid neocons. He needs to grow a spine, but it's far too late. He's a dandy, a spoiled rich kid fop who's never had to answer for his mishaps, because why, when you have inherited money and a stout legal team?

anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 19:06

The idea that "the MIC is a British Intelligence deployment" is fantastical, as the US MIC is several times the size of UK's entire MIC, and such a secret could never be kept. The US MIC has engaged UK secret agencies to subvert the US Constitution by serving as agents to pass intercepted US communications back to the US to pretend that the MIC didn't do it, or that it was foreign intel. But that is a long way from UK controlling the US MIC.

There are certainly confluences of interests between the US and UK oligarchies, but I see no basis for the contention that "American submission to British Imperialism began with the end of Grant's administration" when the US prosecuted Britain for building the Alabama etc. to break the Union blockade, and was outraged that Britain considered recognition of the Confederacy until it lost at Gettysburg. The US under TR was not submitting to anyone when it sent the Great White Fleet on tour, or when it seized Cuba and the Philippines. Nor under Wilson when it stayed out of WWI until very late in the war, despite the Lusitania loss. Nor under FDR when it stayed out of WWII until attacked, despite the passionate pleas of Churchill.

Some detailed argument with credible references would be needed to support those assertions.

Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:44

Scapegoating is real popular with lefties & rughties alike. American Exceptionalism forbids we ever accept respobility for what we've done.

Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:45

No, the rest of humanity is not any better.

anon4d2 , May 25, 2019 at 06:48

The commenter was searching for causes, and some UK conspiracy is simply too far from any available evidence. In fact it much appears to be a wild attempt to distract from the obvious causes including zionism, which you pretend is "scapegoating." No, zionism is a principle corrupting factor in US politics, especially foreign policy.

If you don't see that, you must start learning the evidence, rather than relying on the presumption that it is mere scapegoating. Otherwise you are serving their wrongful and racist tribal purposes, and others will presume that you know that.

Oscar Shank , May 26, 2019 at 07:24

Zhu knows it.

Vera Gottlieb , May 23, 2019 at 14:56

How much more peaceful the life on our entire planet would be if the Americans weren't around.

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:58

Extend that to all humans, and the head of PETA would support the project.

David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:16

I doubt that. Nature hates a void.

Bethany , May 24, 2019 at 17:50

Exactly. Very well put.

Abe , May 23, 2019 at 14:19

Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, the first director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), only served about one year of his second term.

Bustani was forced out by the U.S. government in April 2002 because he wanted international chemical weapons monitors inside Iraq and thus was seen as impeding the US push for war against Iraq. The US accused Bustani of "advocacy of inappropriate roles for the OPCW".

Since 2011, the United Nations has stood by a US-Saudi-Israeli Axis financed and armed the mercenary terrorist forces attacked Syria. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, major support for terrorist mercenaries has provided via NATO-member state Turkey, as well as Jordan. Israel has launched repeated air attacks and provided direct support for terrorist forces in Syria.

From July 2010 to 2018, the Director-General of the OPCW was Turkish career diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu. Uzumcu served ambassador to Israel from 1999 to 2002, and as the Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO between 2002 and 2004.

Turkey has been the primary channel for mercenary terrorist forces assaulting the Syrian state. The remaining terrorist forces in the Idlib Governorate continue to be supplied through Syria.

Since Uzumcu announced the creation of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria on 29 April 2014, not a single OPCW report has acknowledged these basic facts concerning the conflict in Syria.

Following a consensus recommendation by the OPCW Executive Council in October 2017. Spanish career diplomat Fernando Arias was appointed to replace Uzumcu as Director-General of the OPCW. Previously, Arias served as Ambassador of Spain to the Netherlands and the Permanent Representative of Spain to the OPCW. He also has served as Permanent Representative of Spain to the United Nations in New York.

Uzumcu, and now Bustani, obviously understand that the appropriate role of the OPCW is to provide propaganda support for "regime change" operations, and to say nothing contrary to the "narrative" endorsed by the US-Saudi-Israeli Axis.

David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:52

The OPCW has certainly disgraced themselves in Syria. What a sham.

Randal Marlin , May 23, 2019 at 13:48

John Bolton's questioner in the second clip should have made the distinction between deception used to lead the country into war, and deception used to pursue a war already constitutionally declared and already underway.
In the first case there is a violation of democratic principle. When the people are the ultimate sovereign, they need to be properly informed. They can agree to deception, like where and when D-Day will occur, during war; but not in the case of leading the people into war. Lying to Congress is always unacceptable, and those who do lie to Congress should be made to suffer serious penalties.

zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 02:13

I read a report that the aircraft carrier strike force and preparation of 120,000 US troops, to Persian Gulf was ordered sometime ago and that Bolton took advantage of that fact to make it look that 'Bolton ordered it'?

vinnieoh , May 24, 2019 at 10:54

What I'd read is that the carrier strike force and bomber detachment were previously scheduled: there had been a previous drawdown and this deployment represents a return to a level similar to the end of the Iraq war, and that does sound like Bolton/Pompeo opportunism. The 120,000 troops plan sounds like something Bolton prodded pentagon scribes to produce. How to interpret when Bolton says that then Trump denies it, and then a new troop deployment (1% of the previous) is announced/suggested/leaked? I see it as Trump taking his dogs out for a walk to snarl at the neighbors.

David G , May 23, 2019 at 13:07

"Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times, on May 14, it was he who 'ordered' a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf."

That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton, may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.

The National Security Advisor is, as the title states, merely an advisor – not confirmed by the Senate, and therefore not, in constitutional terms, an "officer of the United States" with the authority to carry out the policy of the government. Other than his assistant fetching him lunch, nobody in government should be following Bolton's orders at all while he holds this job.

But this is nothing new. I had the same concern, on an even larger scale, during the first Bush Jr. administration when Cheney was running around reshaping the government in his own warped image. Despite the Vice President's elected status, he has no executive power under the Constitution – no power at all, in fact, except when sitting as President of the Senate. There was a time when everyone knew that.

With all the perennial crowing we see about the greatness of the Constitution, and the mewling about how Trump is degrading it, it would be nice if Congress and the media could spare a moment to care about whether the people giving orders to the world's largest military and covert/intelligence apparatus are legally empowered to do so.

Ash , May 23, 2019 at 17:17

> That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton,
> may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.

It does kind of have an Alexander Haig flavor to it, doesn't it?

David G , May 23, 2019 at 22:08

When Bolton gets up and says "I'm in control here", I'm definitely finding a rock to hide under.

Zenobia van Dongen , May 23, 2019 at 13:06

The question that Joe Lauria asked of John Bolton, i.e. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?" seems to imply that Iran seeks revenge against the US for the CIA's 1953 coup d'état against prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq.
However the current leaders of Iran are not entitled to consider themselves the heirs of Mossadeq, nor are they morally justified in avenging him, since the CIA coup relied largely on support from the very same clerical establishment that now rules Iran. As a matter of fact in the 1950s and 60s Shia clerics in Iran were routinely considered CIA agents. Consequently the Iranian elite's pretense of carrying on Mossadeq's anti-imperialist struggle is profoundly hypocritical. I grant that the current reactionary clique that governs Iran defends Iran's sovereignty against US imperialism as Mossadeq did. But the underlying concept of the Iranian nation is profoundly different. The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution
Indeed, Iran has no hesitation in crushing underfoot the aspirations to independence of other nations. It ruthlessly conducts ethnic cleansing in Syria, commits assassinations in South America, and in general behaves with imperialist ruthlessness that is moreover unmitigated by any concern for human rights or international law.

vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 14:27

As to your last paragraph please provide proof for your allegations. As to your second paragraph you assume to know the meaning behind the question Mr. Lauria asked. Could it be possible (this I believe is more likely) that what Mr. Lauria meant or realizes that absent the '53 coup would there now be an Islamic theocracy ruling Iran?

Again making the disclaimer that I'm no expert on the region or Iran particularly I have followed many leads of reading and investigation to understand the ramifications of that seminal event (the '53 coup.) What I believe I've understood is that Iran prior to and until the '53 coup was on its own unique trajectory of reclaiming its sovereignty and rejecting its status as a (UK) colonial vassal. There seemed to be a somewhat fluid acceptance of the rising democratic movement of Mosaddeq et. al., a fading nod to the former royal house, and an acceptance of Shiite religiosity of some considerable social legitimacy.

So, three centers of power and influence working its unique way to an unique Iranian future.

With the US/UK engineered coup the imperialists destroyed the legitimate democratic evolution happening there. With the re-installation of the Shah Reza Pahlavi as the puppet ruler of the US, that traditional center of power and legitimacy was likewise forever delegitimized in the eyes of most Iranians. That sentiment was cemented with the creation of SAVAK by the US, UK, and Israel to be the iron fist of the Shah and his new imperial master.

That left only one center of power or authority which retained legitimacy in the eyes of Iranians – the Shiite theocrats, and that is why when Iranians kicked the US out it was the Islamic theocracy doing the booting. You are correct that there was at least one Shiite cleric (I've forgotten his name,) jealous and fearful of the rising influence of democratic governance, who is a known and recorded collaborator with the US/UK machinations of the coup. Without the help of the US/UK his part in the affair would probably have been inconsequential.

It is not Iran that is funding and establishing Islamic madrasses in Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere. It is the Wahhabist Sunnis and they preach intolerance and violent jihad. Furthermore, of the total global population of adherents of Islam, 75% are Sunni affiliated, and 25% are Shiite affiliated. Those percentages hold true in the immediate region of the ME as well. The repeated claims of Iranian desires of empire are a shibboleth emanating from KSA and UAE.

Nick , May 23, 2019 at 15:36

The leaders of the Islamic Revolution used Mossadegh's image to help get people on board against the Shah, The National Front was allowed to be a party again for a short time, and a Street in Tehran was renamed post-revolution for Mohammad Mossadegh. This was a cynical ploy by the Mullahs to get people on board with their revolution and make people believe that they were indeed the true heirs of Mossadegh and committed to democracy. It was all a sham. The National Front was made illegal again at some point in the 80s, and the street named for Mossadegh was renamed around the same time. These people are the heirs of the Shah whether they like it or not.

anon4d2 , May 23, 2019 at 16:59

Joe's question points out that, had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, there would have been a secular democratic government. That is true throughout the Mideast, where in the 1950s-70s the US supported radical Islamic movements that suppressed secular movements and overthrew secular governments, pretending that the USSR was moving in. There was no evidence of USSR interest there, as it was preoccupied with such factions in its central Asian republics, and apparently only some arms from the USSR in Egypt were ever found as "evidence."

Similar US actions have continued to date, almost 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the US always supporting fanatics against moderates like Assad and Ghaddafi, and pretending to support "democracy."

Compare the US support of Saudi Arabia, a fanatical fundamentalist monarchy engaged in terrorism throughout the region, including against their only neighbor that defends minority rights, Syria. Again falsely claiming the need to protect oil supply, which it can buy anywhere without bombing anyone, like any other oil buyer. Again falsely claiming to support democracy which it overthrows everywhere at the pleasure of its own oligarchy, always to "protect Israel" or attack socialism, which is always to get political bribes.

There is no evidence of any "ethnic cleansing" by Iran in Syria or elsewhere. Where do you get that idea? Iran is majority Shiah, defending the majority Sunni population of Syria from Sunni fundamentalists. You certainly have no evidence that Iran "commits assassinations in South America" or opposes "aspirations to independence of other nations" and made that up to deceive others. Your comments on this site have been knowingly false.

zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 03:44

The above, re the current Iranian religious govt, very informative, thankyou.
Re Joe's article I cannot take seriously that Trump is against war and the Deep State.
If Trumps rhetoric during his electioneering, supporting the middle class (deeply deprived after the US corporations abandoned them for low paid Chinese labour) was in any way honest he would not have chosen the cabinet he did (and keeps on choosing).
Trump has not chosen one cabinet member that would support that supposed sympathy for the middle class.
Reporting that assumes Trump is fighting for moderation (against his own cabinet) and to establish policies in the direction of that sympathy, is without evidence, it seems to me, regardless of what he might suggest to Fox News.

Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 17:00

"The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909."
And the American government has equal respect for the Constitution.

David , May 23, 2019 at 12:56

Bolton didn't order a carrier group to the Persian Gulf. He doesn't have the authority. The carrier group left because of the deployment was already planned. Bolton does not have the power that has been ascribed to him. He is a grandiose clown who knows how to play the press. I don't think he will have his job six months from now.

David G , May 23, 2019 at 12:16

"At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it 'would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran.' In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said that it would indeed restart partial nuclear enrichment."

Two problems with this part of the article:

• The link in the main text here goes to an Intercept article about Bolton, but it has no mention of Tom Countryman, or even of Iran.

• It isn't accurate to say that Iran may now, or is saying it will, "resume" or "restart" nuclear enrichment, since it never ceased, nor did it ever commit to cease, such activity. The JCPOA merely imposed strict *limits* and monitoring on nuclear enrichment and stockpiling, some of which Iran is saying it will now depart from.

I also disagree with the imputation elsewhere in the article that Donald Trump has a good understanding of real estate. His disastrous, decades-long record in that business suggests otherwise. But I suppose some people will always believe what they see on TV.

lou e , May 23, 2019 at 12:06

Creeping fascism works like fishing with a rod and reel. You hook the fish and it runs off 100 ft of line . You reel in 50 ft and the fish takes 30 feet back. Do the Math! Some times burning down the village IS the only way to get rid of the infestation. Bit hard on the USSA, but as Ben Franklin put it you have a democratic republic IF ypu can Keep It.

Herman , May 23, 2019 at 11:56

Remember at an earlier time with Bolton, someone described him as a kiss up kick down kind of guy, i.e., a real jerk. I defended Trump against Russiagate because it was a threat to the office of the president. Unless, he gets his head straight, his "political" moves in the Middle East and Southwest Asia can spin out of control. He is not negotiating a new deal with some city to build another hotel, and his rhetoric makes him sound like that is the way he thinks he should act with other countries.

One can defend him by saying maybe it will work, but then maybe not and it is not a matter of your target taking his papers and leaving the room.

Great article, Mr. Lauria. Have you posted your resume on your site? Interested in your confrontation with Bolton.

Trump wants to be reelected more that being the President but in his defense we know what he will face if he decides to enter into honest negotiations. He's going to have a heck of a time finding people to cover his back. He can count on one presidential aspirant, Tulsi Gabbard but she's on the other side.

Jeff Harrison , May 23, 2019 at 11:42

If we have to rely on Thump for anything other than social controls, we're screwed.

David G , May 23, 2019 at 11:40

These personal reminiscences of Bolton at the U.N. by Joe Lauria unfortunately only confirm the man's very public record. The fact that such a creature has been accepted for so long in the heart of U.S. foreign "policy" is yet more evidence that the country's crisis of political culture started long before Trump came on the scene.

I don't quite accept the slight comfort implied in the formulations here that this time Bolton has "gone too far", or "flown too high", since to me they imply that there is some moral or rational bedrock that he has struck beneath which the establishment is not willing to go.

I don't think that's true, as a general proposition. For example, the U.S. continues less noisily but inexorably on its long-term collision course with China, which will be even more catastrophic than war with Iran, not to mention the ultimate one with the planet's environmental limits.

For me it's enough that, for a number of contingent reasons, Bolton's (and MBS's and Netanyahu's) lunge at Iran has fallen flat with both U.S. and European policy and media elites – for now, and I hope forever.

jessika , May 23, 2019 at 11:26

I just called WH 202-456-1111 to tell President Trump that Bolton should be fired; had to wait 8 min to talk. Trump certainly has lots of problems, but he'll have plenty more if he starts a war! Pox Americana!

Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:58

Great idea.
I'll do the same.

vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:04

Thank you Mr. Lauria. I'm tending to believe that not only has Bolton flown too high, but Trump's predictable method of trying to get what he wants was completely miscalculated wrt Iran. There is no better treaty or deal to be had concerning keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The failures of the JCPOA that Trump is probably griping about all have to do with matters of Iran's necessary and legitimate right to security and self-defense. No sane nation would willingly give in to this bullying. Thanks again.

vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:44

Also, wrt Trump's predictable patterns, note that little if anything has changed regarding the US and the DPRK, so if he is a crafty and effective negotiator I'm having a hard time seeing it.

David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 18:22

Good example Vinnieoh. NK and SK are reaching out and (more importantly) shoving out the US. More winning.

I love Trump. He is useful. Fascism, NAFTA, generic racism you name it, he really shines a light on issues.

Here again. (Currently) SA, GAZA, Israel, Syria and of course Iran. Hell, the entire region. What a train wreck he is.

What about the dollar? The EU? Yikes.

By gosh this man could single handedly take down an empire! MAGA!

O Society , May 23, 2019 at 10:47

Well done, Joe Lauria. Of course our dilemma is Donald Trump says one thing and contradicts himself 5 minutes later. You could say he "changes his mind" but I do not think his mind is stable to begin with. He's far too nuts to put any faith in for "doing the right thing,"

Bolton and his neoconservative pox on the world serve the interests of the war machine and fossil fuel corporations. When will be rid of them? When We the People grow a set of testicles and throw them all into prison. Trump isn't going to save us, but he might let Bolton get us all killed.

Time for the people to rise.

http://opensociet.org/2019/05/19/the-interlocking-crises-of-war-climate-chaos

Piotr Berman , May 23, 2019 at 11:31

Seems that Trump is so small minded that what we observe cannot be explained mechanistically, we need quantum mechanics. Rather that a particular state of mind we have a stochastic distribution, wave patterns and spin.

Marc R Hapke , May 23, 2019 at 14:34

Great analogy

O Society , May 23, 2019 at 12:39

The expert says what's going on in Trump's mind is solipsism and I agree with him:

https://opensociet.org/2018/07/07/assault-on-reality-solipsism-whats-wrong-with-donald-trump-part-1/

Sam F , May 23, 2019 at 13:12

Yes, Joe Lauria has presented the problem very well.

A major factor is certainly the persuasiveness of the NSC and other MIC entities which surround the president, and comprise much of official DC. Try persuading anyone in the MIC that war is ever inappropriate: they are all full of extreme scorn and false accusations, and have endless "evidence" of threats behind every tree, and rationales to attack this or at least that, just to make "statements" and "warnings" to invisible foreign monsters. The MIC is a completely and permanently logic-proof subculture of bullying, which bullies every member of its own tribe to line up behind tyrants like Bolton and a million other puerile bullies devoid of humanity.

No doubt you know that this was all well understood by the founders of the US, who restricted federal military powers to repelling invasions and knew that any standing military was a threat to democracy. The Federalist Papers should be required reading in the US. All of those understandings were gradually lost after the War of 1812 and the 1820s, as the founders died off. As the US became confident that it could repel any invasion, it lost the sense of the necessity of unity and cooperation of regions, and Congress degenerated into a battle of intransigent factions leading to the completely unnecessary Civil War. With the ebullient emergence of the middle class, no effort was made to correct the defects of the Constitution in failing to protect the institutions of democracy from the rising power of economic concentrations. With WWI and WWII, the power of oligarchy over mass media was consolidated, and by WWII the oligarchy and MIC effectively controlled elections, mass media, and the judiciary, the tools of democracy. Democracy has been a facade ever since.

The US has zero security problems that the MIC has not created, and could at any time re-purpose 80% of the MIC to developing infrastructure in the poorest nations with positive effects upon its security. Had it done so since WWII, we would have rescued the poorest half of humanity from poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and disease, and would have had a true American Century. Instead we have killed over 20 million innocents and mortgaged the lives of our children to serve the infantile psychopaths of the MIC.

The solution is not only to eliminate the 2000-member NSC, cut the military by at least 80 percent, prohibit acts of war or surveillance by the executive branch, tax the rich so that no one has income above upper middle class, and demand amendments to the Constitution restricting funding of the mass media and elections to limited and registered individual donations. We also desperately need a fourth branch of federal government, which I am calling the College of Policy Debate, to conduct moderated textual debates of policy issues in all regions, protecting and representing every viewpoint, in which all views are challenged and must respond, and all parties must come to common terms. The CPD should produce commented debate summaries available to the public with mini-quizzes and discussion groups. Without that rational analysis and access to the core debates, we do not have a democracy at all, we are all no more than the fools and pawns of these oligarchy scammers, who must be actively excluded from all government capacities.

Sorry for the lecture.

Linda Wood , May 24, 2019 at 01:59

Please don't apologize, Sam F. Your brilliant and humane words give me hope at a time in which I am in shock at the blatancy of fascism in our government.

Doggrotter , May 23, 2019 at 10:33

Where is a drone strike when you need one?

OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 10:23

" seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room."

Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools.

Once upon a time there was a discussion of which of the opponents' should be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize – the list being relatively long.

After extensive analysis and discussion the short-list consisted of two opponents in alphabetical order Mr. John Bolton and Mr. Karl Rove.

However in light of the notion "Do you think your opponents are as stupid as you are? " the proposal question was left in abeyance, not only as a function of decorum but also through understanding that "Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools." and that even small dogs can seem tall when you are lying on your stomach.

OlyaPola , May 24, 2019 at 17:33

Since omniscience can't exist perhaps Mr. Bolton was/is subject to misrepresentation and misunderstanding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6vqPUM_FE&list=RDXIOSOlqMaj8&index=17

bobzz , May 23, 2019 at 10:12

"Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks."

What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships? Smells of another false flag.

Piotr Berman , May 23, 2019 at 11:46

I would not be so sure. A delicate signal that Iran has more capabilities concerning stopping in-out-Gulf traffic than naive people like Bolton realize has a sobering potential. By the way of contrast, what kind of black flag it is if it is instantly put in doubt, "we do not know" etc. When there were "chemical incidents" in Syria, no one in Washington claimed the need for more facts, uncertainty etc.

Instead, UAE initially denied that it happened at all, subsequently, together with KSA, they did not have any "certain knowledge". Somehow no government appears to promote the incident. Even USA.

BTW, the allegation that Iran is placing missiles on fishing boats staggers the mind. First of all, "missile boats" of which Iran has plenty are small ships, BUT NOT VERY small, ca. 500-800 tons, which are fast, 40 kt, but not as fast as their predecessors, torpedo boats (200-300 tons, 50-60 kt). They are still faster than any of the larger naval vessels, can trail them, and attack from small distance in the case of start of hostilities. That Iran places missiles on such boats can be learned from videos proudly provided by PressTV.ir.

Using "fishing boats" for that purpose is dubious, and the largest question mark would be: WHY? The reason that missile boats are larger and heavier than torpedo boats is that you need more stability to launch missiles than torpedoes. Then you need a radar etc. Placing missiles on fishing boats would be a waste of missiles. Hardly an escalation.

OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 12:47

"Hardly an escalation."

Perhaps you are being deflected by framing?

One of the escalations is the escalation of belief in, requirement of, and resort to, the dumbed-downess of the "target audience".

One of the salient questions being deflected is why, and as ever investigation requires some knowledge of Mr. Heisenberg and his principles.

mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:34

Perhaps the Iranians are putting missiles on fishing boats to stun the fish and catch them that way. Fishing boats aren't exactly very fast.

Thomas , May 23, 2019 at 12:21

Anyone who actually believes the oil tanker incidents were carried by Iran should seek an immediate consultation with their doctor. These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools and Iranians are not fools.

Brian , May 23, 2019 at 17:22

Exactly. According navel personnel, Iran has been using fishing boats to transfer rockets from land to it's vessels for years, supposedly because the gulf is too shallow. I don't have hydrographic maps of the area, anyone know if this is true?

Piotr Berman , May 23, 2019 at 23:33

Clearly, Persian Gulf has routes for the largest ships on Earth, but the supply bases for missiles may be away from ports, and it would make sense to place them so they are not easily accessible to a big ship navy, and in general, to disperse them.

Tim , May 26, 2019 at 06:43

"Thomas"

> These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools

Since neither you nor I know who did it, and there are a whole slew of plausible suspects, we don't know why they did it, either. So it is silly to claim they are fools.

Since the Saudis and UAE are in the midst of waging war on Yemen, the most obvious suspects are their enemies there, al-Ansara.

(And by the way, contrary to what another commentator claimed, it was not a "few dents", but a gaping hole in the hull just below the waterline. And since the local authorities spoke of an impact by an unidentified object, these were presumably torpedo strikes.)

OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 07:58

"What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships?"

Quite a few including but not limited to further data on the opponents' perception of what constitutes plausible belief for the opponents' target audience, and the opponents' increasing resort to, amplitude, scope and velocity of "misrepresentations".

As is the case with the benefits of dumbing down not accruing solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, the benefits of creation and implementation of "false flags" do not accrue solely to those engaged in "false flags", and are enhanced when the creators and implementers of "false flags" are immersed in amalga of projection and notions of sole/prime agency, facilitating potential benefits to many others not restricted to Iran.

[May 25, 2019] The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan

Highly recommended!
Note Firefox does not pickup the user name in Zero hedge anymore. So user names in comments were omitted... BTW comments from Zerohedge reflect very well the level of frustration and confusion of common Americans with the neoliberal social system. Neoliberal elites clearly lost most of the legitimacy in 2016.
While this is pretty poignant critique of American empire it does not ask and answer the key question: "What's next?" The crisis of neoliberalism and the end of cheap oil probably will eventually crush the US led global empire and dollar as the reserve currency. Although it probably will be much slower and longer process then many expect.
Are we talking about 20, 40 or 80 years here?
But what is the alternative to the neoliberal and the US dominated global neolinberal empire established after dissolution of the USSR in 1991? That's the question.
Notable quotes:
"... Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct. ..."
"... There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty. ..."
"... Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments. ..."
"... Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. ..."
"... To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent. ..."
"... The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ..."
"... But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise ..."
"... The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role. ..."
"... In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China. ..."
"... Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form. ..."
"... How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted? ..."
"... Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner ..."
May 23, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the 'stone age' with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the US government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions, a whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities -- pounded into dust."

– Arundhati Roy

"As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities. "

― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism ."

― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket

"It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 31 March 1968

Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct.

Violence is the sole language of empire. It is this only currency it uses to enforce its precepts and edicts, both at home and abroad. Eventually this language becomes internalized within the psyche of the subjects. Social and cultural conditioning maintained through constant subtle messaging via mass media begins to mold the public will toward that of authoritarian conformity. The American Empire is emblematic of this process. There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty.

But the social conditioning of the American public has led toward a bizarre allegiance to its ruling class oppressors. Propaganda still works here and most are still besotted with the notion of America being a bastion of "freedom and democracy." The growing gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poor and the gutting of civil liberties are ignored. And blind devotion is especially so when it comes to US foreign policy.

Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments.

The persecution of Chelsea Manning, much like the case of Julian Assange, is demonstrative of this. It is a crusade against truth tellers that has been applauded from both sides of the American establishment, liberal and conservative alike. It does not matter that she helped to expose American war crimes. On the contrary, this is seen as heresy to the Empire itself. Manning's crime was exposing the underbelly of the beast. A war machine which targeted and killed civilians and journalists by soldiers behind a glowing screen thousands of miles away, as if they were playing a video game.

Indeed, those deadened souls pulling the virtual trigger probably thought they were playing a video game since this is how the military seduced them to serve in their ranks in the first place. A kind of hypnotic, addictive, algorithmic tyranny of sorts. It is a form of escapism that so many young Americans are enticed by given their sad prospects in a society that has denuded the commons as well as their future. That it was a war based on lies against an impoverished nation already deeply weakened from decades of American led sanctions is inconsequential....

... ... ...

Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. The imposed suffering on these nations has been twisted as proof that they are now in need of American salvation in the form of even more crippling sanctions, coups, neoliberal austerity and military intervention. As the corporate vultures lie in wait for the next carcass of a society to feed upon, the hawks are busy building the case for the continuation and expansion of capitalist wars of conquest.

Bolton and Pompeo are now the equivalent of the generals who carved up Numidia for the wealthy families of ancient Rome, with Trump, the half-witted, narcissistic and cruel emperor, presiding over the whole in extremis farce. Indeed, the bloated orange Emperor issued the latest of his decrees in his usual banal fashion, via tweet:

"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"

One can query when Iran, or any other nation has ever "threatened" the United States, but that question will never be asked by the corporate press who are also in service to Empire. They are, in fact, its mouthpiece and advocate. The US has at least 900 military bases and colonial outposts scattered around the planet, yet this is never looked at as imperialistic in the least by the establishment, including its media. Scores of nations lie in ruins or are besieged with chaos and misery thanks to American bellicosity , from Libya to Iraq and beyond. But the US never looks back in regret at any of its multiple forays, not even a few years back.

To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent.

... ... ...

American Empire knows no other language sans brutality, deceit and belligerence...

... ... ...

The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ...

But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise . After all, billions of dollars are spent to keep the bloated military industrial complex afloat in service to the ruling class while social and economic safety nets are torn to shreds...

Comments from The Belligerence Of Empire Zero Hedge

9 hours ago

Nowadays the US has a massive military and little else. And "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail" - Wesley Clark, Former US General.

14 hours ago

Twaddle. Capitalism has lifted out of poverty more people around the globe than all other "successful" systems combined; and in a fraction of the time. Education. Health. Wealth. Not to mention Arts and Sciences.

Go demand a refund for your liberal education. And stop spreading lies.

11 hours ago (Edited)

Poppycock! Capitalism has traded real sovereign wealth for fiat debt backed funny money at the barrel of a gun! You assholes have been forcing otherwise healthy communities into poverty for decades so you could steal their resources and molest their children! Why? Because children are the only people impressed by your tiny d!cks!

The white male gaze that drives child sex tourism Feelings of disempowerment lead to vulnerable families, children

The organization described the average sex tourist as a middle-aged white male from either Europe or North America who often goes online to find the " best deals. " One particular Web site promised "nights of sex with two young Thai girls for the price of a tank of gas."

Sowmia Nair, a Department of Justice agent, said the Thai government often "turns a blind eye" to child sex tourism because of the country's economic reliance on the tourist trade in general . He also said police officers are often corrupt.

" Police have been known to guard brothels and even procure children for prostitution," Nair said. "Some police directly exploit the children themselves."

A report from the International Bureau for Children's Rights said the majority of child prostitutes come from poor families in northern Thailand, referred to as the "hill tribes." With limited economic opportunities and bleak financial circumstances, these families, out of desperation, give their children to "recruiters," who promise them jobs in the city and then force the children into prostitution.

Sometimes families themselves even prostitute their children or sell them into the sex trade for a minuscule sum of money.

This is not by accident! This is by design!

14 hours ago

Capitalism has nothing to do with this. For the average American the empire is a losing proposition.

13 hours ago (Edited)

Empire good. Emperor bad. Kingdom good. King bad. Country good. President bad. Village good. Idiot bad.

13 hours ago (Edited)

Empire is cancer. Especially the present one that leaves a trail of failed states and antangonism in its wake.

16 hours ago

We are part of a scientific dictatorship - the 'Ultimate Revolution' Huxley spoke of in 1962 where the oppressed willingly submit to their enslavement. Social conditioning - promoted by continuous propaganda stressing that the state is their protector, reinforced by endless 'terrorist threats' to keep the masses fearful is but one part of the system.

The state no longer has to use threats and fear of punishment to keep the masses under control - the masses have been convinced that they are better off as slaves and serfs than they were as free men.

The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role.

18 hours ago

Capitalism and corporatism are not the same. When corporate interests effectively wield gov power, you have corporatism, not Capitalism.

14 hours ago

Corporatism=Fascism.

18 hours ago 'Muricanism is the gee-gaw of the chattering classes.

18 hours ago (Edited)

The US is its own worst enemy. They have no idea what they are doing. 2008 – "Oh dear, the global economy just blew up" Its experts investigate and conclude it was a black swan.

https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-13.52.41.png

It is a black swan if you don't consider debt. They use neoclassical economics that doesn't consider debt.

They can't work out why inflation isn't coming back and the real economy isn't recovering faster.

Look at the debt over-hang that's still left after 2008 in the graph above, that's the problem. The repayment on debt to banks destroy money pushing the economy towards debt deflation.

QE can't enter the real economy as so many people are still loaded up with debt and there are too few borrowers.

QE can get into the markets inflating them and the US stock market is now at 1929 levels. They have created another asset price bubble that is ready to collapse leading to another financial crisis.

We need a new scientific economics for globalisation, got any ideas?

What if we just stick some complex maths on top of 1920s neoclassical economics?

No one will notice.

They didn't either, but it's still got all its old problems.

The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics.

What's the problem?

  1. The belief in the markets gets everyone thinking you are creating real wealth by inflating asset prices.
  2. Bank credit pours into inflating asset prices rather than creating real wealth (as measured by GDP) as no one is looking at the debt building up

1929 and 2008 look so similar because they are; it's the same economics and thinking.

https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-13.52.41.png

What was just a problem in the 1920s in the US is now global.

At 25.30 mins you can see the super imposed private debt-to-GDP ratios.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAStZJCKmbU&list=PLmtuEaMvhDZZQLxg24CAiFgZYldtoCR-R&index=6

The 1920s problem in the US is now everywhere, UK, US, Euro-zone, Japan and China.

20 hours ago (Edited)

Capitalism is based on darwinian economic competition driven by a desire to accumulate material wealth. When a capitalist becomes sufficiently rich, he can (and does) buy politicians and armies to do his bidding. Ironically, although capitalism is based on the assumption of competition, capitalists actually hate competition and harbor the urge to put competitors out of business. The true goal of a capitalists is monopoly-- as long as it is them.

Imperialism is a logical (and historically predictable) expansion of capitalism.

18 hours ago

Capitalism may not be the path to peace, but just about every other ism, including socialism and communism delivered worse.

Attacking capitalism for common failings is off base.

15 hours ago

Socialism and ultimately communism appear when capitalism goes rampant, and it is normal for the socium to embrace socialism when the inequality becomes too large.

In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China.

So don't mistake the people's desire for equal world with totalitarian capitalism masked as socialism.

14 hours ago

the real issue is NO GROUP OF HUMANS can be trusted will any form of power. ever. period.

so it goes that no "xyz"ism" will ever work out for the whole. yet humans are social animals and seek to be in groups governed by the very people that strive to lead that exhibit sociopathic tendencies, which are the worst possible leaders. how fuked up is that?

so how can that work? it does for a while. then we end up in the same spot every time, turmoil, the forth turning.

the luck of life is the period of time you live during, where and what stage of human turmoil the society is in...

21 hours ago (Edited)

" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees".

Capitalism did all that huh? It had nothing to do with corrupt politicians in bed with corporations and banks. Now they even have the military singing the same stupidity. Governments make these messes, not capitalism. Someone who risked their life for a corrupt government giving the pieces of **** that put him there a free pass by blaming it on capitalism. What a moron. When politicians hear this stupidity, it's like music to their ears. They know they've successfully shifted the blame to a simple ISM. Governments want to blame the very thing that will fix all of this, for the sake of self-preservation.

18 hours ago

Every system acts to centralise power, even anarchism. So you say it was wealth that enabled what was to follow but it was really power.. something every -ism will centralise and enable.

22 hours ago

Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form.

16 hours ago

Really! Did you miss the Smedley Butler quote?

22 hours ago

Could you please distinguish between capitalism and political, monetary, fiscal, press, and legal aberrations that can occur in capitalist systems because of government sloth and malfeasance? Media monopoly, mass illegal immigration, and offshoring are not the essence of capitalism. And socialist systems can see hideous abuses.

Please read something more than **** and Jane adventures.

23 hours ago

"... is still the owner of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal."

===

Here is the list of all nine countries with nuclear weapons in descending order, starting with the country that has the most nuclear weapons at hand and ending with the country that has the least amount of nuclear weapons

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-with-nuclear-weapons/

23 hours ago

It is now building a $100 million dollar drone base in Africa...

====

China 'negotiates military base' in Djibouti | News | Al Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/05/150509084913175.html

China is negotiating a military base in a strategic port of Djibouti, the president said, according to the AFP news agency. The move raises the prospect of US and Chinese bases side-by-side in the ...

China May Consider These Countries For Its Next Overseas ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/10/10/china-is-most-likely-to-open-future-military-bases-in-these-3-countries/

Oct 10, 2017 · China and the small African nation of Djibouti reached an agreement in July to let the People's Liberation Army establish up its first overseas military base there. The base on Africa's east ...

China is building its first military base in Africa . America ...

https://www.theweek.com/articles/598367/china-building-first-military-base-africa-america-should-nervous

China is building its first military base in Africa . America should be very nervous. ... In Africa , China has found not just a market for money but for jobs and land -- crucial components of ...

23 hours ago (Edited)

Oh noes! 1 base in Africa.....meanwhile the empire has 800 outposts around the world and despite that, like a snowflake, is bitching about China's one.

Isn't it fascinating how the Chinese do not find it necessary to resort to retarded regime change projects and stoopid kikery to "win" influence? Easy peasy. Methinks the Anglo-Zionists can learn a trick or two from China.

23 hours ago

The empire of 800 outposts is puny compared to the 1960's and 1970's. I can provide the information if you'd like. Almost all the 800 have company sized or smaller contingents. Still, I'd like to see much of it dismantled. No world Policeman.

23 hours ago

The entire world is in favor of a more peaceful planet Earth, except the military-industrial complex. Ron Paul

War puts money in their pockets. Lots of money. It's in the trillions of dollars.

23 hours ago (Edited)

How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted?

Now you know why wars happen. If "we the people" can't stop this beast, another nation's military will.

21 hours ago

@BH II

Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner. The only way out of the morass is to find men of very high character to correctly lead the way out. America needs a Socrates.

[May 25, 2019] The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan

Highly recommended!
Note Firefox does not pickup the user name in Zero hedge anymore. So user names in comments were omitted... BTW comments from Zerohedge reflect very well the level of frustration and confusion of common Americans with the neoliberal social system. Neoliberal elites clearly lost most of the legitimacy in 2016.
While this is pretty poignant critique of American empire it does not ask and answer the key question: "What's next?" The crisis of neoliberalism and the end of cheap oil probably will eventually crush the US led global empire and dollar as the reserve currency. Although it probably will be much slower and longer process then many expect.
Are we talking about 20, 40 or 80 years here?
But what is the alternative to the neoliberal and the US dominated global neolinberal empire established after dissolution of the USSR in 1991? That's the question.
Notable quotes:
"... Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct. ..."
"... There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty. ..."
"... Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments. ..."
"... Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. ..."
"... To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent. ..."
"... The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ..."
"... But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise ..."
"... The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role. ..."
"... In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China. ..."
"... Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form. ..."
"... How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted? ..."
"... Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner ..."
May 23, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the 'stone age' with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the US government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions, a whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities -- pounded into dust."

– Arundhati Roy

"As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities. "

― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism ."

― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket

"It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 31 March 1968

Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct.

Violence is the sole language of empire. It is this only currency it uses to enforce its precepts and edicts, both at home and abroad. Eventually this language becomes internalized within the psyche of the subjects. Social and cultural conditioning maintained through constant subtle messaging via mass media begins to mold the public will toward that of authoritarian conformity. The American Empire is emblematic of this process. There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty.

But the social conditioning of the American public has led toward a bizarre allegiance to its ruling class oppressors. Propaganda still works here and most are still besotted with the notion of America being a bastion of "freedom and democracy." The growing gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poor and the gutting of civil liberties are ignored. And blind devotion is especially so when it comes to US foreign policy.

Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments.

The persecution of Chelsea Manning, much like the case of Julian Assange, is demonstrative of this. It is a crusade against truth tellers that has been applauded from both sides of the American establishment, liberal and conservative alike. It does not matter that she helped to expose American war crimes. On the contrary, this is seen as heresy to the Empire itself. Manning's crime was exposing the underbelly of the beast. A war machine which targeted and killed civilians and journalists by soldiers behind a glowing screen thousands of miles away, as if they were playing a video game.

Indeed, those deadened souls pulling the virtual trigger probably thought they were playing a video game since this is how the military seduced them to serve in their ranks in the first place. A kind of hypnotic, addictive, algorithmic tyranny of sorts. It is a form of escapism that so many young Americans are enticed by given their sad prospects in a society that has denuded the commons as well as their future. That it was a war based on lies against an impoverished nation already deeply weakened from decades of American led sanctions is inconsequential....

... ... ...

Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. The imposed suffering on these nations has been twisted as proof that they are now in need of American salvation in the form of even more crippling sanctions, coups, neoliberal austerity and military intervention. As the corporate vultures lie in wait for the next carcass of a society to feed upon, the hawks are busy building the case for the continuation and expansion of capitalist wars of conquest.

Bolton and Pompeo are now the equivalent of the generals who carved up Numidia for the wealthy families of ancient Rome, with Trump, the half-witted, narcissistic and cruel emperor, presiding over the whole in extremis farce. Indeed, the bloated orange Emperor issued the latest of his decrees in his usual banal fashion, via tweet:

"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"

One can query when Iran, or any other nation has ever "threatened" the United States, but that question will never be asked by the corporate press who are also in service to Empire. They are, in fact, its mouthpiece and advocate. The US has at least 900 military bases and colonial outposts scattered around the planet, yet this is never looked at as imperialistic in the least by the establishment, including its media. Scores of nations lie in ruins or are besieged with chaos and misery thanks to American bellicosity , from Libya to Iraq and beyond. But the US never looks back in regret at any of its multiple forays, not even a few years back.

To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent.

... ... ...

American Empire knows no other language sans brutality, deceit and belligerence...

... ... ...

The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ...

But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise . After all, billions of dollars are spent to keep the bloated military industrial complex afloat in service to the ruling class while social and economic safety nets are torn to shreds...

Comments from The Belligerence Of Empire Zero Hedge

9 hours ago

Nowadays the US has a massive military and little else. And "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail" - Wesley Clark, Former US General.

14 hours ago

Twaddle. Capitalism has lifted out of poverty more people around the globe than all other "successful" systems combined; and in a fraction of the time. Education. Health. Wealth. Not to mention Arts and Sciences.

Go demand a refund for your liberal education. And stop spreading lies.

11 hours ago (Edited)

Poppycock! Capitalism has traded real sovereign wealth for fiat debt backed funny money at the barrel of a gun! You assholes have been forcing otherwise healthy communities into poverty for decades so you could steal their resources and molest their children! Why? Because children are the only people impressed by your tiny d!cks!

The white male gaze that drives child sex tourism Feelings of disempowerment lead to vulnerable families, children

The organization described the average sex tourist as a middle-aged white male from either Europe or North America who often goes online to find the " best deals. " One particular Web site promised "nights of sex with two young Thai girls for the price of a tank of gas."

Sowmia Nair, a Department of Justice agent, said the Thai government often "turns a blind eye" to child sex tourism because of the country's economic reliance on the tourist trade in general . He also said police officers are often corrupt.

" Police have been known to guard brothels and even procure children for prostitution," Nair said. "Some police directly exploit the children themselves."

A report from the International Bureau for Children's Rights said the majority of child prostitutes come from poor families in northern Thailand, referred to as the "hill tribes." With limited economic opportunities and bleak financial circumstances, these families, out of desperation, give their children to "recruiters," who promise them jobs in the city and then force the children into prostitution.

Sometimes families themselves even prostitute their children or sell them into the sex trade for a minuscule sum of money.

This is not by accident! This is by design!

14 hours ago

Capitalism has nothing to do with this. For the average American the empire is a losing proposition.

13 hours ago (Edited)

Empire good. Emperor bad. Kingdom good. King bad. Country good. President bad. Village good. Idiot bad.

13 hours ago (Edited)

Empire is cancer. Especially the present one that leaves a trail of failed states and antangonism in its wake.

16 hours ago

We are part of a scientific dictatorship - the 'Ultimate Revolution' Huxley spoke of in 1962 where the oppressed willingly submit to their enslavement. Social conditioning - promoted by continuous propaganda stressing that the state is their protector, reinforced by endless 'terrorist threats' to keep the masses fearful is but one part of the system.

The state no longer has to use threats and fear of punishment to keep the masses under control - the masses have been convinced that they are better off as slaves and serfs than they were as free men.

The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role.

18 hours ago

Capitalism and corporatism are not the same. When corporate interests effectively wield gov power, you have corporatism, not Capitalism.

14 hours ago

Corporatism=Fascism.

18 hours ago 'Muricanism is the gee-gaw of the chattering classes.

18 hours ago (Edited)

The US is its own worst enemy. They have no idea what they are doing. 2008 – "Oh dear, the global economy just blew up" Its experts investigate and conclude it was a black swan.

https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-13.52.41.png

It is a black swan if you don't consider debt. They use neoclassical economics that doesn't consider debt.

They can't work out why inflation isn't coming back and the real economy isn't recovering faster.

Look at the debt over-hang that's still left after 2008 in the graph above, that's the problem. The repayment on debt to banks destroy money pushing the economy towards debt deflation.

QE can't enter the real economy as so many people are still loaded up with debt and there are too few borrowers.

QE can get into the markets inflating them and the US stock market is now at 1929 levels. They have created another asset price bubble that is ready to collapse leading to another financial crisis.

We need a new scientific economics for globalisation, got any ideas?

What if we just stick some complex maths on top of 1920s neoclassical economics?

No one will notice.

They didn't either, but it's still got all its old problems.

The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics.

What's the problem?

  1. The belief in the markets gets everyone thinking you are creating real wealth by inflating asset prices.
  2. Bank credit pours into inflating asset prices rather than creating real wealth (as measured by GDP) as no one is looking at the debt building up

1929 and 2008 look so similar because they are; it's the same economics and thinking.

https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-13.52.41.png

What was just a problem in the 1920s in the US is now global.

At 25.30 mins you can see the super imposed private debt-to-GDP ratios.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAStZJCKmbU&list=PLmtuEaMvhDZZQLxg24CAiFgZYldtoCR-R&index=6

The 1920s problem in the US is now everywhere, UK, US, Euro-zone, Japan and China.

20 hours ago (Edited)

Capitalism is based on darwinian economic competition driven by a desire to accumulate material wealth. When a capitalist becomes sufficiently rich, he can (and does) buy politicians and armies to do his bidding. Ironically, although capitalism is based on the assumption of competition, capitalists actually hate competition and harbor the urge to put competitors out of business. The true goal of a capitalists is monopoly-- as long as it is them.

Imperialism is a logical (and historically predictable) expansion of capitalism.

18 hours ago

Capitalism may not be the path to peace, but just about every other ism, including socialism and communism delivered worse.

Attacking capitalism for common failings is off base.

15 hours ago

Socialism and ultimately communism appear when capitalism goes rampant, and it is normal for the socium to embrace socialism when the inequality becomes too large.

In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China.

So don't mistake the people's desire for equal world with totalitarian capitalism masked as socialism.

14 hours ago

the real issue is NO GROUP OF HUMANS can be trusted will any form of power. ever. period.

so it goes that no "xyz"ism" will ever work out for the whole. yet humans are social animals and seek to be in groups governed by the very people that strive to lead that exhibit sociopathic tendencies, which are the worst possible leaders. how fuked up is that?

so how can that work? it does for a while. then we end up in the same spot every time, turmoil, the forth turning.

the luck of life is the period of time you live during, where and what stage of human turmoil the society is in...

21 hours ago (Edited)

" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees".

Capitalism did all that huh? It had nothing to do with corrupt politicians in bed with corporations and banks. Now they even have the military singing the same stupidity. Governments make these messes, not capitalism. Someone who risked their life for a corrupt government giving the pieces of **** that put him there a free pass by blaming it on capitalism. What a moron. When politicians hear this stupidity, it's like music to their ears. They know they've successfully shifted the blame to a simple ISM. Governments want to blame the very thing that will fix all of this, for the sake of self-preservation.

18 hours ago

Every system acts to centralise power, even anarchism. So you say it was wealth that enabled what was to follow but it was really power.. something every -ism will centralise and enable.

22 hours ago

Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form.

16 hours ago

Really! Did you miss the Smedley Butler quote?

22 hours ago

Could you please distinguish between capitalism and political, monetary, fiscal, press, and legal aberrations that can occur in capitalist systems because of government sloth and malfeasance? Media monopoly, mass illegal immigration, and offshoring are not the essence of capitalism. And socialist systems can see hideous abuses.

Please read something more than **** and Jane adventures.

23 hours ago

"... is still the owner of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal."

===

Here is the list of all nine countries with nuclear weapons in descending order, starting with the country that has the most nuclear weapons at hand and ending with the country that has the least amount of nuclear weapons

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-with-nuclear-weapons/

23 hours ago

It is now building a $100 million dollar drone base in Africa...

====

China 'negotiates military base' in Djibouti | News | Al Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/05/150509084913175.html

China is negotiating a military base in a strategic port of Djibouti, the president said, according to the AFP news agency. The move raises the prospect of US and Chinese bases side-by-side in the ...

China May Consider These Countries For Its Next Overseas ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/10/10/china-is-most-likely-to-open-future-military-bases-in-these-3-countries/

Oct 10, 2017 · China and the small African nation of Djibouti reached an agreement in July to let the People's Liberation Army establish up its first overseas military base there. The base on Africa's east ...

China is building its first military base in Africa . America ...

https://www.theweek.com/articles/598367/china-building-first-military-base-africa-america-should-nervous

China is building its first military base in Africa . America should be very nervous. ... In Africa , China has found not just a market for money but for jobs and land -- crucial components of ...

23 hours ago (Edited)

Oh noes! 1 base in Africa.....meanwhile the empire has 800 outposts around the world and despite that, like a snowflake, is bitching about China's one.

Isn't it fascinating how the Chinese do not find it necessary to resort to retarded regime change projects and stoopid kikery to "win" influence? Easy peasy. Methinks the Anglo-Zionists can learn a trick or two from China.

23 hours ago

The empire of 800 outposts is puny compared to the 1960's and 1970's. I can provide the information if you'd like. Almost all the 800 have company sized or smaller contingents. Still, I'd like to see much of it dismantled. No world Policeman.

23 hours ago

The entire world is in favor of a more peaceful planet Earth, except the military-industrial complex. Ron Paul

War puts money in their pockets. Lots of money. It's in the trillions of dollars.

23 hours ago (Edited)

How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted?

Now you know why wars happen. If "we the people" can't stop this beast, another nation's military will.

21 hours ago

@BH II

Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner. The only way out of the morass is to find men of very high character to correctly lead the way out. America needs a Socrates.

[May 24, 2019] The Geography of War No Iraq No iIran! by Brett Redmayne

Notable quotes:
"... No other country in the Middle East is as important in countering America's rush to provide Israel with another war than Iraq. Fortunately for Iran, the winds of change in Iraq and the many other local countries under similar threat, thus, make up an unbroken chain of border to border support. This support is only in part due to sympathy for Iran and its plight against the latest bluster by the Zio-American bully. ..."
"... For the Russo/Sino pact nations, or those leaning in their direction, the definition of national foreign interest is no longer military, it is economic. Those with resources and therefore bright futures within the expanding philosophy and economic offerings of the Russo/Sino pact have little use any longer for the "Sorrows of Empire." These nation's leaders, if nothing more than to line their own pockets, have had a very natural epiphany: War is not, for them, profitable. ..."
"... Lebanon and Syria also take away the chance of a ground-based attack, leaving the US Marines and Army to stare longingly across the Persian Gulf open waters from Saudi Arabia or one of its too few and militarily insignificant allies in the southern Gulf region. ..."
"... As shown in a previous article, "The Return of the Madness of M.A.D," Iran like Russia and China, after forty years of US/Israeli threats, has developed new weapons and military capabilities, that combined with tactics will make any direct aggression towards it by American forces a fair fight. ..."
"... When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war with Iran more than they want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren political prostitute instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war. ..."
"... I do particularly agree that elimination of Sadam was the greatest mistake US committed in Middle East. Devastating mistake for US policy. In the final evaluation it did create the most powerful Shi_ite crescent that now rules the Levant. Organizing failing uprising in Turkey against Erdogan was probably mistake of the same magnitude. Everything is lost for US now in the ME. ..."
"... The article evaluating the situation in ME is outstanding and perfect. Every move of US is a vanity. There is no more any opportunity to achieve any benefit for US. Who is responsible for all those screw ups ? US or Israel? ..."
"... However, the other side of the military coin is economic -- specifically sanctions on Iran (& China). Here ( I suspect) the US has prospects. Iran has said it has a "PhD" in sanctions busting. I hope that optimism is not misplaced. That US sanctions amount to a declaration of war on Iran is widely agreed. Sadly, it seems the EU in its usual spineless way will offer Iran more or less empty promises. ..."
"... I don't know if Russia and China have been showing restraint or still don't feel up to taking Uncle on very publicly or even covertly. The author assumes they might be willing to step up now for Iran, but the action in places like Syria suggests they might not. ..."
"... "War is a Racket" by Gen Smedley Butler (USMC – recipient of two Medals of Honor – no rear echelon pogue) is a must read. As true today as it was back when he wrote it. ..."
"... "The Axis of Sanity" – I like it, I like it! Probably quite closely related to the "reality-based community". ..."
"... "Karim al-Mohammadawi told the Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website that the US wants to turn Ain al-Assad airbase which is a regional base for operations and command into a central airbase for its fighter jets. ..."
"... He added that a large number of forces and military equipment have been sent to Ain al-Assad without any permission from the Iraqi government, noting that the number of American forces in Iraq has surpassed 50,000. ..."
"... Sea assault? Amphibious troop deployment? Are you serious? This is not WWII Normandy, Dorothy. That would be an unmitigated massacre. Weapons have improved a bit in the last 70 years if you have not noticed. ..."
"... first is a conspiracy of Israeli owned, Wall Street financed, war profiteering privatizing-pirate corporations These corporations enter, invade or control the war defeated place and privatize all of its infrastructure construction contracts from the defeated place or state (reason for massive destruction by bombing) and garner control over all the citizen services: retail oil and gas distribution, food supplies, electric power, communications, garbage and waste collection and disposal, street cleaning, water provisioning. traffic control systems, security, and so on.. Most of these corporations are privately owned public stock companies, controlled by the same wealthy Oligarchs that control "who gets elected and what the elected must do while in sitting in one of the seats of power at the 527 person USA. ..."
"... This article by Mr. Titley is the most hopeful article I've yet read demonstrating the coming death of US hegemony, with most of the rest of the civilized world apparently having turned against the world's worst Outlaw Nation. ..."
"... Netanyahu and the Ziocons better think twice about their longed for dream of the destruction of Iran. The Jews always push things too far. Karma can be a bitch. ..."
May 23, 2019 | www.unz.com

No other country in the Middle East is as important in countering America's rush to provide Israel with another war than Iraq. Fortunately for Iran, the winds of change in Iraq and the many other local countries under similar threat, thus, make up an unbroken chain of border to border support. This support is only in part due to sympathy for Iran and its plight against the latest bluster by the Zio-American bully.

In the politics of the Middle East, however, money is at the heart of all matters. As such, this ring of defensive nations is collectively and quickly shifting towards the new Russo/Sino sphere of economic influence. These countries now form a geo-political defensive perimeter that, with Iraq entering the fold, make a US ground war virtually impossible and an air war very restricted in opportunity.

If Iraq holds, there will be no war in Iran.

In the last two months, Iraq parliamentarians have been exceptionally vocal in their calls for all foreign military forces- particularly US forces- to leave immediately. Politicians from both blocs of Iraq's divided parliament called for a vote to expel US troops and promised to schedule an extraordinary session to debate the matter ."Parliament must clearly and urgently express its view about the ongoing American violations of Iraqi sovereignty," said Salam al-Shimiri, a lawmaker loyal to the populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr .

Iraq's ambassador to Moscow, Haidar Mansour Hadi, went further saying that Iraq "does not want a new devastating war in the region." He t old a press conference in Moscow this past week, "Iraq is a sovereign nation. We will not let [the US] use our territory," he said. Other comments by Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi agreed. Other MPs called for a timetable for complete US troop withdrawal.

Then a motion was introduced demanding war reparations from the US and Israel for using internationally banned weapons while destroying Iraq for seventeen years and somehow failing to find those "weapons of mass destruction."

As Iraq/Iran economic ties continue to strengthen, with Iraq recently signing on for billions of cubic meters of Iranian natural gas, the shift towards Russian influence- an influence that prefers peace- was certified as Iraq sent a delegation to Moscow to negotiate the purchase of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system.

To this massive show of pending democracy and rapidly rising Iraqi nationalism, US Army spokesman, Colonel Ryan Dillon, provided the kind of delusion only the Zio-American military is known for, saying,

"Our continued presence in Iraq will be conditions-based, proportional to need, in coordination with and by the approval of the Iraqi government."

Good luck with that.

US influence in Iraq came to a possible conclusion this past Saturday, May 18, 2019, when it was reported that the Iraqi parliament would vote on a bill compelling the invaders to leave . Speaking about the vote on the draft bill, Karim Alivi, a member of the Iraqi parliament's national security and defense committee, said on Thursday that the country's two biggest parliamentary factions -- the Sairoon bloc, led by Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Fatah alliance, headed by secretary general of the Badr Organization, Hadi al-Ameri -- supported the bill. Strangely, Saturday's result has not made it to the media as yet, and American meddling would be a safe guess as to the delay, but the fact that this bill would certainly have passed strongly shows that Iraq well understands the weakness of the American bully: Iraq's own US militarily imposed democracy.

Iraq shares a common border with Iran that the US must have for any ground war. Both countries also share a similar religious demographic where Shia is predominant and the plurality of cultures substantially similar and previously living in harmony. Both also share a very deep seeded and deserved hatred of Zio- America. Muqtada al-Sadr, who, after coming out first in the 2018 Iraqi elections, is similar to Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah in his religious and military influence within the well trained and various Shia militias. He is firmly aligned with Iran as is Fattah Alliance. Both detest Zio- America.

A ground invasion needs a common and safe border. Without Iraq, this strategic problem for US forces becomes complete. The other countries also with borders with Iran are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. All have several good reasons that they will not, or cannot, be used for ground forces.

With former Armenian President Robert Kocharian under arrest in the aftermath of the massive anti-government 2018 protests, Bolton can check that one off the list first. Azerbaijan is mere months behind the example next door in Armenia, with protests increasing and indicating a change towards eastern winds. Regardless, Azerbaijan, like Turkmenistan, is an oil producing nation and as such is firmly aligned economically with Russia. Political allegiance seems obvious since US influence is limited in all three countries to blindly ignoring the massive additional corruption and human rights violations by Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow .

However, Russian economic influence pays in cash. Oil under Russian control is the lifeblood of both of these countries. Recent developments and new international contracts with Russia clearly show whom these leaders are actually listening to.

Turkey would appear to be firmly shifting into Russian influence. A NATO member in name only. Ever since he shot down his first- and last – Russian fighter jet, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thumbed his nose at the Americans. Recently he refused to succumb to pressure and will receive Iranian oil and, in July, the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft/missile system. This is important since there is zero chance Putin will relinquish command and control or see them missiles used against Russian armaments. Now, Erdogan is considering replacing his purchase of thirty US F-35s with the far superior Russian SU- 57 and a few S-500s for good measure.

Economically, America did all it could to stop the Turk Stream gas pipeline installed by Russia's Gazprom, that runs through Turkey to eastern Europe and will provide $billions to Erdogan and Turkey . It will commence operation this year. Erdogan continues to purchase Iranian oil and to call for Arab nations to come together against US invasion in Iran. This week, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar renewed Turkey's resolve, saying his country is preparing for potential American sanctions as a deadline reportedly set by the US for Ankara to cancel the S-400 arms deal with Russia or face penalties draws near.

So, Turkey is out for both a ground war and an air war since the effectiveness of all those S-400's might be put to good use if America was to launch from naval positions in the Mediterranean. Attacking from the Black Sea is out since it is ringed by countries under Russo/Sino influence and any attack on Iran will have to illegally cross national airspace aligned with countries preferring the Russo/Sino alliance that favours peace. An unprovoked attack would leave the US fleet surrounded with the only safe harbours in Romania and Ukraine. Ships move much slower than missiles.

Afghanistan is out, as the Taliban are winning. Considering recent peace talks from which they walked out and next slaughtered a police station near the western border with Iran, they have already won. Add the difficult terrain near the Iranian border and a ground invasion is very unlikely

Although new Pakistani President Amir Khan has all the power and authority of a primary school crossing guard, the real power within the Pakistani military, the ISI, is more than tired of American influence . ISI has propagated the Taliban for years and often gave refuge to Afghan anti-US forces allowing them to use their common border for cover. Although in the past ISI has been utterly mercenary in its very duplicitous- at least- foreign allegiances, after a decade of US drone strikes on innocent Pakistanis, the chance of ground-based forces being allowed is very doubtful. Like Afghanistan terrain also increases this unlikelihood.

Considerations as to terrain and location for a ground war and the resulting failure of not doing so was shown to Israel previously when, in 2006 Hizbullah virtually obliterated its ground attack, heavy armour and battle tanks in the hills of southern Lebanon. In further cautionary detail, this failure cost PM Ehud Olmert his job.

For the Russo/Sino pact nations, or those leaning in their direction, the definition of national foreign interest is no longer military, it is economic. Those with resources and therefore bright futures within the expanding philosophy and economic offerings of the Russo/Sino pact have little use any longer for the "Sorrows of Empire." These nation's leaders, if nothing more than to line their own pockets, have had a very natural epiphany: War is not, for them, profitable.

For Iran, the geographic, economic and therefore geo-political ring of defensive nations is made complete by Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Syria, like Iraq, has every reason to despise the Americans and similar reasons to embrace Iran, Russia, China and border neighbour Lebanon. Syria now has its own Russian S-300 system which is already bringing down Israeli missiles. It is surprising that Lebanon has not requested a few S-300s of their own. No one knows what Hizbullah has up its sleeve, but it has been enough to keep the Israelis at bay. Combined with a currently more prepared Lebanese army, Lebanon under the direction of Nasrallah is a formidable nation for its size. Ask Israel.

Lebanon and Syria also take away the chance of a ground-based attack, leaving the US Marines and Army to stare longingly across the Persian Gulf open waters from Saudi Arabia or one of its too few and militarily insignificant allies in the southern Gulf region.

Friendly airspace will also be vastly limited, so also gone will be the tactical element of surprise of any incoming attack. The reality of this defensive ring of nations means that US military options will be severely limited. The lack of a ground invasion threat and the element of surprise will allow Iranian defences to prioritize and therefore be dramatically more effective. As shown in a previous article, "The Return of the Madness of M.A.D," Iran like Russia and China, after forty years of US/Israeli threats, has developed new weapons and military capabilities, that combined with tactics will make any direct aggression towards it by American forces a fair fight.

If the US launches a war it will go it alone except for the few remaining US lapdogs like the UK, France, Germany and Australia, but with anti-US emotions running as wild across the EU as in the southern Caspian nations, the support of these Zionist influenced EU leaders is not necessarily guaranteed.

Regardless, a lengthy public ramp-up to stage military assets for an attack by the US will be seen by the vast majority of the world- and Iran- as an unprovoked act of war. Certainly at absolute minimum Iran will close the Straits of Hormuz, throwing the price of oil skyrocketing and world economies into very shaky waters. World capitalist leaders will not be happy. Without a friendly landing point for ground troops, the US will either have to abandon this strategy in favour of an air war or see piles of body bags of US servicemen sacrificed to Israeli inspired hegemony come home by the thousands just months before the '20 primary season. If this is not military and economic suicide, it is certainly political.

Air war will likely see a similar disaster. With avenues of attack severely restricted, obvious targets such as Iran's non-military nuclear program and major infrastructure will be thus more easily defended and the likelihood of the deaths of US airmen similarly increased.

In terms of Naval power, Bolton would have only the Mediterranean as a launch pad, since using the Black Sea to initiate war will see the US fleet virtually surrounded by nations aligned with the Russo/Sino pact. Naval forces, it should be recalled, are, due to modern anti-ship technologies and weapons, now the sitting ducks of blusterous diplomacy. A hot naval war in the Persian Gulf, like a ground war, will leave a US death toll far worse than the American public has witnessed in their lifetimes and the US navy in tatters.

Trump is already reportedly seething that his machismo has been tarnished by Bolton and Pompeo's false assurances of an easy overthrow of Maduro in Venezuela. With too many top generals getting jumpy about him initiating a hot war with Iraq, Bolton's stock in trade-war is waning. Trump basks in being the American bully personified, but he and his ego will not stand for being exposed as weak. Remaining as president is necessary to stoke his shallow character. When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war with Iran more than they want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren political prostitute instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war.

In two excellent articles in Asia times by Pepe Escobar, he details the plethora of projects, agreements, and cooperation that are taking place from Asia to the Mid-East to the Baltics . Lead by Russia and China this very quickly developing Russo/Sino pact of economic opportunity and its intentions of "soft power" collectively spell doom for Zio-America's only remaining tactics of influence: military intervention. States, Escobar:

"We should know by now that the heart of the 21 st Century Great Game is the myriad layers of the battle between the United States and the partnership of Russia and China. The long game indicates Russia and China will break down language and cultural barriers to lead Eurasian integration against American economic hegemony backed by military might."

The remaining civilized world, that which understands the expanding world threat of Zio-America, can rest easy. Under the direction of this new Russo/Sino influence, without Iraq, the US will not launch a war on Iran.

This growing Axis of Sanity surrounds Iran geographically and empathetically, but more importantly, economically. This economy, as clearly stated by both Putin and Xi, does not benefit from any further wars of American aggression. In this new allegiance to future riches, it is Russian and China that will call the shots and a shooting war involving their new client nations will not be sanctioned from the top.

However, to Putin, Xi and this Axis of Sanity: If American wishes to continue to bankrupt itself by ineffective military adventures of Israel's making, rather than fix its own nation that is in societal decline and desiccated after decades of increasing Zionist control, well

That just good for business!

About the Author: Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 170 in-depth articles over the past eight years for news agencies worldwide. Many have been translated and republished. On-scene reporting from important current events has been an emphasis that has led to his many multi-part exposes on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, Keystone XL Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Erdogan's Turkey and many more. He can be reached at: live-on-scene ((at)) gmx.com. Prior articles can be viewed at his archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk


RealAmerican , says: May 23, 2019 at 11:40 pm GMT

When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war with Iran more than they want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren political prostitute instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war.

I believe you are far too generous in your estimation of his ability to distinguish between flavors of any type. Otherwise, your analysis is insightful and thorough.

Jim Christian , says: May 24, 2019 at 3:45 am GMT
The U.S. is in the same position today that we were aboard Nimitz back in 1980. Too far from Tehran to start a war or even to find our people. We are perhaps in even a far worse position in that today, Iran holds no hostages. There's nothing so 'noble' as 44 hostages to inspire war today. This here is merely at the behest of Israel and the deep state profit centers for mere fun and games and cash and prizes. Iran, overall, is nothing. Obama put Iran away for what, a billion-five? And Jared, Bolton and Pompeo dredged it all back up again? Care to guess the first-night expense of a shock and awe on Tehran? It's unthinkable.

I used to like Israel. The Haifa-Tel Av-iv-Jerusalem-Galili loop was pretty cool. The PLO hadn't quite started their game, we could move freely about the country. It's where the whole thing started. And, unlike Italy and Spain, they treated us Americans ok. They were somewhat war torn. But now? They're a destructive monolith, they're good at hiding it and further, they make disastrous miscalculations. Eliminating Saddam was huge. Turns out, Saddam was the only sane one. The last vestiges of Saddam's nuclear program went up in the attacks on the Osirak reactor that Israel bombed in 1981. Why did they push for the elimination of Saddam afterwards? Why the lies? Miscalculation.

This here with Iran won't travel further than threats and horseshit. I hope. Lots of bleating and farting. Someone agrees. Oil dropped three or four bucks today.

Alfred , says: May 24, 2019 at 4:56 am GMT
"the resulting failure of not doing so was shown to Israel previously when, in 2016 Hezbollah virtually obliterated its ground attack, heavy amour and battle tanks in the hills of southern Lebanon."

2006 please!

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: May 24, 2019 at 5:22 am GMT
I do particularly agree that elimination of Sadam was the greatest mistake US committed in Middle East. Devastating mistake for US policy. In the final evaluation it did create the most powerful Shi_ite crescent that now rules the Levant. Organizing failing uprising in Turkey against Erdogan was probably mistake of the same magnitude. Everything is lost for US now in the ME.

Threatening Iran is now simply grotesque.

Concerning the article. The article evaluating the situation in ME is outstanding and perfect. Every move of US is a vanity. There is no more any opportunity to achieve any benefit for US. Who is responsible for all those screw ups ? US or Israel?

animalogic , says: May 24, 2019 at 7:10 am GMT
Great article, cheered me up enormously.

However, the other side of the military coin is economic -- specifically sanctions on Iran (& China). Here ( I suspect) the US has prospects. Iran has said it has a "PhD" in sanctions busting. I hope that optimism is not misplaced. That US sanctions amount to a declaration of war on Iran is widely agreed. Sadly, it seems the EU in its usual spineless way will offer Iran more or less empty promises.

Apex Predator , says: May 24, 2019 at 7:37 am GMT
Is the author unaware of the nation of Saudi Arabia and the fact that they are new BFFs with Israel. They have come out quite openly they'd like to see Iran attacked. That whole Sunni Wahabism vs. Shia thing is a heck of alot older than this current skirmish.

Being that SA has a border w/ the Persian Gulf and that Kuwait who is even CLOSER may be agreeable to be a staging area, why the hand wringing about this nation & that nation, etc. The US would be welcome to stage an air and sea assault using Saudi bases followed up by amphibious troop deployment if need be. But given the proximity they could probably strong arm Kuwait to act as a land bridge, in a pinch.

So will we expect the follow up article discussing this glaring omission, or am I missing some great development re: S.Arabia's disposition and temperament regarding all this.

peter mcloughlin , says: May 24, 2019 at 8:21 am GMT
The transformed relationship between Russia and Turkey illustrates perfectly the shifting sands of strategic alliances as we cross the desert towards destiny. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
The Alarmist , says: May 24, 2019 at 8:24 am GMT
I don't know if Russia and China have been showing restraint or still don't feel up to taking Uncle on very publicly or even covertly. The author assumes they might be willing to step up now for Iran, but the action in places like Syria suggests they might not.

As for the costs of taking on Iran, while one cannot underestimate the cocksuredness of Uncle to take on Iran with a 2003 "Iraq will be a cakewalk" attitude, the resulting air war will likely not be as costly to Uncle as the author believes, but the thought of flag-draped coffins in the thousands will certainly deter a land invasion. If there is any action at all, it will be air interdiction and missile attack.

It is curious that Uncle has not already resorted to his favorite tactic of declaring a No-Fly zone already but instead merely hinted that airliner safety cannot be guaranteed; this is likely just another form of sanction since Iran receives money for each airliner that transits its airspace, and a couple of Uncle's putative allies supply Iran with ATC equipment and services.

Uncle's Navy has already demonstrated a willingness to shoot down an airliner in Iranian airspace, so it is no idle threat, kind of like the mobster looking at a picture of your family and saying, "Nice family you have there; it would be a shame if anything happened to them."

joeshittheragman , says: May 24, 2019 at 9:47 am GMT
"War is a Racket" by Gen Smedley Butler (USMC – recipient of two Medals of Honor – no rear echelon pogue) is a must read. As true today as it was back when he wrote it.
Tom Welsh , says: May 24, 2019 at 11:18 am GMT
"The Axis of Sanity" – I like it, I like it! Probably quite closely related to the "reality-based community".
Amerimutt Golems , says: May 24, 2019 at 11:29 am GMT

If the US launches a war it will go it alone except for the few remaining US lapdogs like the UK, France, Germany and Australia, but with anti-US emotions running as wild across the EU as in the southern Caspian nations, the support of these Zionist influenced EU leaders is not necessarily guaranteed.

Stasi " Merkel muss weg " (Merkel must go) is too weak to even think about taking Germanstan into such a foolish adventure.

Maybe the Kosher Kingdom of simpletons, especially under American-born Turkish "Englishman" (((Boris Kemal Bey))), another psycho like (((Baron Levy's))) Scottish warmonger Blair.

Walter , says: May 24, 2019 at 11:46 am GMT
built-up in Iraq geewhiz!

Iraqi MP: US after Turning Ain Al-Assad into Central Airbase in Iraq

FARSNEWS

"Karim al-Mohammadawi told the Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website that the US wants to turn Ain al-Assad airbase which is a regional base for operations and command into a central airbase for its fighter jets.

He added that a large number of forces and military equipment have been sent to Ain al-Assad without any permission from the Iraqi government, noting that the number of American forces in Iraq has surpassed 50,000.

Al-Mohammadawi said that Washington does not care about Iraq's opposition to using the country's soil to target the neighboring states.

In a relevant development on Saturday, media reports said that Washington has plans to set up military bases and increasing its troops in Iraq, adding the US is currently engaged in expanding its Ain al-Assad military base in al-Anbar province."

sarz , says: May 24, 2019 at 11:51 am GMT
The prime minister of Pakistan is IMRAN Khan, not AMIR Khan. Makes you wonder about all the other assertions.
The scalpel , says: Website May 24, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMT
@Apex Predator

The US would be welcome to stage an air and sea assault using Saudi bases followed up by amphibious troop deployment if need be. But given the proximity they could probably strong arm Kuwait to act as a land bridge, in a pinch.

Sea assault? Amphibious troop deployment? Are you serious? This is not WWII Normandy, Dorothy. That would be an unmitigated massacre. Weapons have improved a bit in the last 70 years if you have not noticed.

Also minor point, LOL, but Kuwait is a "landbridge" between Saudi Arabia and Iraq Unless you are proposing the US attacks Iraq (again!) which it would have to do to achieve a "landbridge" to Iran. Another good reason Iraq is acquiring the S-400.

More minor points: 1. South Iraq is ALL shiite. 2. Kuwait is SMALL i.e. a BIG target for thousands of missiles

sally , says: May 24, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova your question of responsibility is very intuitive.. two general answers.. both need deep analysis..

first is a conspiracy of Israeli owned, Wall Street financed, war profiteering privatizing-pirate corporations These corporations enter, invade or control the war defeated place and privatize all of its infrastructure construction contracts from the defeated place or state (reason for massive destruction by bombing) and garner control over all the citizen services: retail oil and gas distribution, food supplies, electric power, communications, garbage and waste collection and disposal, street cleaning, water provisioning. traffic control systems, security, and so on.. Most of these corporations are privately owned public stock companies, controlled by the same wealthy Oligarchs that control "who gets elected and what the elected must do while in sitting in one of the seats of power at the 527 person USA.

2nd is the impact of the laws that deny competition in a nation sworn to a method of economics (capitalism) that depends on competition for its success. Another group of massive in size mostly global corporations again owned from Jerusalem, NYC, City of London, etc. financed at wall street, use rule of law to impose on Americans and many of the people of the world, a blanket of economic and anti competitive laws and monopoly powers. These monopolist companies benefit from the copyright and patent laws, which create monopolies from hot thin air. These laws of monopolies coupled to the USA everything is a secret government have devastated competitive capitalism in America and rendered American Universities high school level teaching but not learning bureaucracies.

Monopolies and state secrets between insider contractors were suppose to deny most of the world from competing; but without competition ingenuity is lost. Monopoly lordships and state secrets were supposed to make it easy for the monopoly powered corporations to overpower and deny any and all would be competition; hence they would be the only ones getting rich.. But China's Huawei will be Linux based and Tin not Aluminium in design, far superior technology to anything these monopoly powered retards have yet developed especially in the high energy communications technologies (like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics). In other words copyrights, patents and the US military were suppose to keep the world, and the great ingenuity that once existed in the person of every American, from competing, but the only people actually forced out of the technology competition were the ingenious, for they were denied by copyright and patents to compete. Now those in power at the USA will make Americans pay again as the corporations that run things try to figure out how to catch up to the Chinese and Russian led Eastern world. Modi's election in India is quite interesting as both China and Russia supported it, yet, Modi says he is going to switch to the USA for copyrighted and patented stuff?

on the issue of continued USA presence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, ..

"Our continued presence in Iraq will be conditions-based, proportional to need, in coordination with and by the approval of the Iraqi government." <that's a joke, first off, I never desired to be in Iraq, and I do not desire USA military or American presence in Iraq, do You? <blatant disregard for the needs of America.. IMO. Bring the troops home. If the USA would only leave Iraq to the Iraqis and get to work making America competitive again they would once again enjoy a great place in the world. But one thing i can tell you big giant wall street funded corporations, and reliance on degree credentials instead of job performance, will never be the reason America is great.

follyofwar , says: May 24, 2019 at 12:28 pm GMT
This article by Mr. Titley is the most hopeful article I've yet read demonstrating the coming death of US hegemony, with most of the rest of the civilized world apparently having turned against the world's worst Outlaw Nation.

Trump has allowed madmen Bolton and Pompeo to get this country into an awful mess – all for the sake of Israel and the Zionists.

He needs to find a face-saving way to get out before Washington gets its long needed comeuppance. But how can Trump accomplish this as long as Bolton, in particular, continues to be the man who most has his ear? If Titley is correct, then Trump had better start listening to his military leaders instead.

Netanyahu and the Ziocons better think twice about their longed for dream of the destruction of Iran. The Jews always push things too far. Karma can be a bitch.

[May 23, 2019] Look at their prime creation of the new millennium: Barack Obama.

May 23, 2019 | www.unz.com

Olorin , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:53 pm GMT

@Sean McBride

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Because they serve those who dispense such power. That is their job.

And those whom they serve make sure that checky/balancey oversight–say in the form of chief executive of the United States of America, or an honest Congressman or journalist–is destroyed if it threatens not to align with those masters or even questions/reveals these individuals or these structures.

Look at how they've reacted to Donald Trump's trolling both before and while in office.

They make sure that "the intelligence bureaucracy" reifies that exclusionary principle in every hire, every action, every policy. Like many bureaucracies and institutions it becomes a factory for its own viral replication rather than anything that is traditionally considered "intelligence."

Look at their prime creation of the new millennium: Barack Obama.

[May 22, 2019] On War With Iran, It's Trump Versus the Founding Fathers

Highly recommended!
May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

War between the United States and Iran looms, even though the latter poses no threat to the former. President Donald Trump says he doesn't want war but for the Iranians to call him. Perhaps his entire campaign is an elaborate effort to scare Tehran to the negotiating table. Or perhaps he hopes to win political support by fomenting a foreign crisis. How ironic that would be: in 2011, Trump warned via tweet that "Barack Obama will attack Iran in the not too distant future because it will help him win the election."

However, the president already ran against the Islamic Republic, in 2016. Moreover, his words have been incendiary, threatening "the official end of Iran." Although U.S. intelligence officials admit that Tehran's confrontational rhetoric is largely a response to Washington's aggression, the administration's military moves are sharply increasing tensions as well as the possibility of a costly mistake or misjudgment.

The War Party is active again in the Imperial City. Before joining the administration, National Security Advisor John Bolton forthrightly called for an attack on the Islamic Republic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also demanded regime change in Iran. More recently, he admitted that sanctions were intended to induce the Iranian people to "change the government." While claiming not to seek war, he threatened retaliation for any attack by Iranian "proxy forces" and on "American interests."

Tehran has long been a favorite target of influential neoconservatives and ultra-hawks. The invasion of Iraq almost immediately led to calls for a turn to Tehran. Several years ago, Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy suggested staging a false flag operation: if "the Iranians aren't going to compromise," he said, "it would be best if somebody else started the war." Today, Senator Tom Cotton predicts an easy American victory.

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The Saudis also openly favor an American war against Iran. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates once quipped that Riyadh would fight Iran "to the last American.") A newspaper owned by the royal family last week called on Washington to "hit hard." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has worked tirelessly to inflate the Iranian "threat" and told a TV interviewer that he'd convinced Trump to abandon the nuclear deal.

Yet conflict with Iran would be a disaster, far worse than with Iraq. Even the Council on Foreign Relations' Max Boot, a vocal neoconservative and uber-hawk, has warned against this. And Americans would not be the only casualties. Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post reporter who spent more than a year in an Iranian prison, observed: "those who will suffer most have little say in the matter. It's the Iranian people who have borne the brunt of 40 years of enmity between the United States and the Islamic republic, and in the current standoff, they stand to lose the most yet again."

The possibility that the chief executive might rush or be pushed into such a disastrous war is exactly why the Founders obliged presidents to go to Congress for approval. The Constitution places the power to declare war in the hands of the legislature.

Yet modern presidents routinely claim monarchical powers, using the military without proper authority. Legislators often avoid taking responsibility for wars that might turn unpopular. But neither unconstitutional nor irresponsible behavior justifies chief executives doing the same.

Impeachment Should Be on the Table If Trump Bombs Iran Reminder: Trump, Not Bolton, is the President

Trump has proven no more faithful to the Constitution than his predecessors. For instance, Pompeo refused to commit the administration to going to Congress for the authority to attack Iran. (The secretary did the same when earlier questioned about the administration's military threats against Venezuela.) Pompeo suggested that the president might rely on the post-9/11 authorization for use of military force, an even more ludicrous reach than the Obama administration's appeal to the same measure for its fight against the Islamic State and strikes on Syria.

The refusal to obey the Constitution is evidence of weakness. In contrast, many of America's strongest chief executives recognized Congress's authority. George Washington declared: "The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."

Abraham Lincoln praised the Founders for recognizing war "to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Dwight Eisenhower was equally insistent on the need for legislative approval for war.

Delegates to the constitutional convention insisted they were not recreating the king of England or replicating his powers, especially to start wars. After all, war is the hallmark of unlimited government. Warned James Madison: "Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few."

The Founders knew this problem well, since a succession of European kings and queens had launched a succession of unnecessary and even frivolous conflicts. The price was paid in blood and treasure by the common folk. John Jay observed that kings were often led "to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people." Pierce Butler insisted that the president not be invested with the authority to start wars, like a monarch who enjoyed the "opportunity of involving his country in a war whenever he wished to promote her destruction."

Madison explained the principle incorporated in the Constitution: "Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free governments, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws."

Thus, the Constitution gives to Congress most military powers: raising an army, funding the military, issuing letters of marquee, approving rules of war, ratifying treaties, and, of course, taking America into war. Article 1, Section 8 (11) states: "Congress shall have the power to declare war." Observed Madison: the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that the power to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature."

Despite this history, some modern analysts bizarrely contend that Congress only ever gets to "declare" that the president had started a war. In fact, the Founders changed the operative word from "make" to "declare" merely to ensure that the commander-in-chief could respond to a surprise attack. They did not even believe the president could launch a reprisal without legal authority. They certainly didn't intend to enable the president to wander the globe smiting nations hither and yon at his sole discretion.

Despite their many disagreements, the Founders agreed on this point. The president commanded the military but could only prosecute wars authorized by Congress . Said George Mason, the chief executive "is not safely to be entrusted with" the power to start wars, which required "clogging rather than facilitating war." Thomas Jefferson cited the Constitution's "effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose." Explained James Wilson: "It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at large."

Even Alexander Hamilton, who leaned toward monarchy, emphasized that the commander-in-chief was just the "first general and admiral." The president's authority was "in substance much inferior to" that of Britain's monarch, and "would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war."

Trump is bound by the Constitution when confronting Iran. Indeed, the not insubstantial possibility of him and his officials lying America into another irresponsible war of choice is why the Founders placed the decision with Congress. Americans have learned at a high cost that presidents cannot be trusted to act like kings.

With a presidential election approaching, Americans should seriously ponder whether they want to entrust the presidency to someone who believes he's empowered to make war without constraint. It's time to choose a chief executive who's prepared to follow the Constitution.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire (Xulon Press). He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and a member of the California and Washington, D.C. bars.

[May 22, 2019] NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war." ..."
"... From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C. ..."
"... Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever). ..."
"... Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing. ..."
"... Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR existed. ..."
"... I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA) ..."
May 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake up. By Robert W. Merry May 22, 2019

President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday, November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. ( Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain, from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win world are gone.

For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential threat."

Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge," released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there." The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."

The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."

... ... ..

Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.

The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted, it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.

Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli -- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.

Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.

NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist. The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as well.

So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's, while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.

This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led, not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked, should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization itself.

And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course, any Russian provocations.

... ... ...

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century .

likbez, May 22, 2019

Great article. Thank you very much!

Pragmatic isolationalism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby.

But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exeptionalism ( which can be viewed as a form of far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:

From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C.

If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.

Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).

"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."

In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China. Rather than seeing far into the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often than not, they get even that wrong.

Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing.

Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.

There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)

In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR existed.

I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA)

[May 22, 2019] War with Iran could send oil prices to $250 per barrel

This is unfounded speculation. No facts.
Notable quotes:
"... The Iranian goal is to break the resolve of the US, given American military retreats from the Middle East in the past – Lebanon (1984), Iraq (2011), and Syria (presently) – and to increase the cost of Iranian oil sanctions on the global economy through additional disruptions to supply. ..."
"... This is obviously a dangerous game that could lead to real war, not just proxy war. As a result, it is important to explore the potential impact of both on the world oil market, despite the latter being significantly more likely than the former. ..."
"... On the deterrence front, the US has moved numerous military assets to the Persian Gulf region since the Trump administration's "no waiver" oil sanctions came into effect. These include: hastening the arrival of a carrier strike group; deployment of a bomber task-force; additional Patriot missiles; and as reported by The New York Times, drawing up plans to send up to 120,000 US troops to the Middle East, if Iran attacks US forces or rushes to develop nuclear weapons. ..."
May 21, 2019 | www.rt.com

As tensions between Iran and the US continue to escalate, analysts have begun to consider the likelihood and consequences of an Iran war. There has been much talk of an Iran War in recent weeks, but the likelihood of a war, whether intentional or accidental, is relatively small for the simple reason that the leaders of Iran and the US don't want one. President Donald Trump, who has been remarkably faithful to his campaign promises, to the chagrin of many, doesn't want another Iraq-like war – with a quick victory followed by a long defeat. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, doesn't want his revolution and country crushed by the massive military might of America.

This is not to say there aren't powerful individuals in the Trump administration – such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and possibly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – and regional allies – Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) – who want a war to bring about regime change in Iran, and who are willing to stir the pot in an attempt to make it happen.

Trump's personal preference for Iran may also be regime change, with a negotiated neutering of the Islamic Republic his next best outcome. But he probably would settle for long-term containment of Iran through his "maximum pressure" campaign, accepting that the Iranian regime would likely be able to sustain itself though skirting sanctions.

Iran has made huge geopolitical gains in the Middle East since the US inadvertently pushed Shiite-majority Iraq into the Iranian sphere of influence by imposing democracy on the country following the 2003 war. Tehran now directly or indirectly controls an arc of territory north of Saudi Arabia – Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – while supporting Houthi rebels to the south of the kingdom in Yemen.

Although US sanctions on Iran's oil and metal exports are unlikely to bring about regime change, they will make it significantly more difficult for the Islamic Republic to consolidate its territorial gains and sustain its regional proxy network, as the government will have to prioritize domestic spending to maintain social stability. Simply put, the sanctions make it more difficult for Iran to directly challenge its regional enemies, Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE and score additional foreign policy victories.

Despite an aversion to war with the US, it appears Khamenei has given Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran's powerful Quds Force and national hero, permission to encourage foreign militias aligned with Tehran to cause mischief for US and allied forces in the Middle East, and if possible, disrupt the flow of oil from the region through non-attributed actions.

The Iranian goal is to break the resolve of the US, given American military retreats from the Middle East in the past – Lebanon (1984), Iraq (2011), and Syria (presently) – and to increase the cost of Iranian oil sanctions on the global economy through additional disruptions to supply.

This is obviously a dangerous game that could lead to real war, not just proxy war. As a result, it is important to explore the potential impact of both on the world oil market, despite the latter being significantly more likely than the former.

US Perspective

Pompeo laid out the Trump administration's rationale and strategy for dealing with the Islamic Republic in "Confronting Iran," an article in the November-December 2018 issue of Foreign Affairs . He argued the deal the Obama administration and international community struck with Iran in 2015 – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – was fundamentally flawed as it failed to end the country's nuclear weapons ambition. Instead, the deal simply postponed Iran's nuclear ambitions while the regime continued its ballistic missile program to allow it to deliver a nuclear payload.

At the same time, the deal gave "Tehran piles of money, which the supreme leader has used to sponsor all types of terrorism throughout the Middle East (with few consequences in response) and which have boosted the economic fortunes of a regime that remains bent on exporting its revolution abroad and imposing it at home."

The core of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign are economic sanctions designed to "choke off revenues" to Iran to force its government to negotiate a "new deal" covering its nuclear activities, ballistic missile program and "malign behaviour" across the Middle East, while providing sufficient military deterrence to keep Tehran from lashing out at US forces and allies in the region.

Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, and has since ratcheted up economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic in August and November of last year, while going the full monty on Iranian crude and condensate exports at the beginning of May.

On the deterrence front, the US has moved numerous military assets to the Persian Gulf region since the Trump administration's "no waiver" oil sanctions came into effect. These include: hastening the arrival of a carrier strike group; deployment of a bomber task-force; additional Patriot missiles; and as reported by The New York Times, drawing up plans to send up to 120,000 US troops to the Middle East, if Iran attacks US forces or rushes to develop nuclear weapons.

It should be noted that a military buildup of this size would take months, and the 120,000 number is widely viewed as insufficient for a full-scale invasion of Iran. The Islamic Republic has been planning and building up asymmetric military capabilities to thwart a US attack since the 1990s, while the country is larger in size and population than Iraq. The US military plan reported by the New York Times did not call for a land invasion of Iran.

On May 14, Trump denied the New York Times report, but in characteristic fashion appeared to up the ante. "Now, would I do that? Absolutely," Trump said. "But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we would send a hell of a lot more troops than that."

But in the Foreign Affairs article Pompeo wrote that Trump does not want the US to go to war with Iran: "President Trump does not want another long-term US military engagement in the Middle East -- or in any other region, for that matter. He has spoken openly about the dreadful consequences of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 intervention in Libya."

Iranian Perspective

On May 14, Khamenei explicitly said that Iran does not want to go to war with the US, and suggested the same of America, as a war would be in neither country's interest.

"There won't be any war," he said. "Neither we nor they seek war. They know it will not be in their interest."

In terms of Iran's current situation, David Petraeus, ex-CIA director and America's former top general in the Middle East, possibly put it best.

"Certainly, if Iran were to precipitate that [a war], it would be a suicide gesture," Petraeus said on May 9. "It would be very, very foolhardy. And they know that."

The Islamic Republic has done an excellent job of marshaling relatively limited financial and military resources to expand its influence and control through the Middle East since 2003, but its defense budget of about US$16 billion – or a mere 3.7 percent of GDP – falls considerably short compared to regional rivals Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE on an individual basis, let alone a collective one. The military capabilities of the US dwarf those of Iran on every conceivable measure, which should come as no surprise since America's most recent defense budget is a massive US$686 billion.

Also on rt.com

Khamenei also said his country has no desire to negotiate with the US, given the Trump administration's extreme demands and unilateral breaking of the nuclear pact, and suggested the current crisis will likely be a long one, a view supported by Hassan Rouhani, the democratically elected president of Iran.

"The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance," Khamenei said.

Rouhani was even more explicit. Speaking to activists from a wide range of political factions on May 12, he said Iran is facing "unprecedented" pressure from US sanctions and suggested economic conditions may become worse than during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

"The pressures by enemies is a war unprecedented in the history of our Islamic revolution," Rouhani said, according to the state news agency IRNA. "But I do not despair and have great hope for the future and believe that we can move past these difficult conditions provided that we are united ."

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

See also

[May 22, 2019] The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards

May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jake says: Next New Comment May 22, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT 100 Words This is good writing: "The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards.

Jake says: Next New Comment May 22, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT Andropov's mother was Jewish.

[May 22, 2019] On War With Iran, It's Trump Versus the Founding Fathers

Highly recommended!
May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

War between the United States and Iran looms, even though the latter poses no threat to the former. President Donald Trump says he doesn't want war but for the Iranians to call him. Perhaps his entire campaign is an elaborate effort to scare Tehran to the negotiating table. Or perhaps he hopes to win political support by fomenting a foreign crisis. How ironic that would be: in 2011, Trump warned via tweet that "Barack Obama will attack Iran in the not too distant future because it will help him win the election."

However, the president already ran against the Islamic Republic, in 2016. Moreover, his words have been incendiary, threatening "the official end of Iran." Although U.S. intelligence officials admit that Tehran's confrontational rhetoric is largely a response to Washington's aggression, the administration's military moves are sharply increasing tensions as well as the possibility of a costly mistake or misjudgment.

The War Party is active again in the Imperial City. Before joining the administration, National Security Advisor John Bolton forthrightly called for an attack on the Islamic Republic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also demanded regime change in Iran. More recently, he admitted that sanctions were intended to induce the Iranian people to "change the government." While claiming not to seek war, he threatened retaliation for any attack by Iranian "proxy forces" and on "American interests."

Tehran has long been a favorite target of influential neoconservatives and ultra-hawks. The invasion of Iraq almost immediately led to calls for a turn to Tehran. Several years ago, Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy suggested staging a false flag operation: if "the Iranians aren't going to compromise," he said, "it would be best if somebody else started the war." Today, Senator Tom Cotton predicts an easy American victory.

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The Saudis also openly favor an American war against Iran. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates once quipped that Riyadh would fight Iran "to the last American.") A newspaper owned by the royal family last week called on Washington to "hit hard." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has worked tirelessly to inflate the Iranian "threat" and told a TV interviewer that he'd convinced Trump to abandon the nuclear deal.

Yet conflict with Iran would be a disaster, far worse than with Iraq. Even the Council on Foreign Relations' Max Boot, a vocal neoconservative and uber-hawk, has warned against this. And Americans would not be the only casualties. Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post reporter who spent more than a year in an Iranian prison, observed: "those who will suffer most have little say in the matter. It's the Iranian people who have borne the brunt of 40 years of enmity between the United States and the Islamic republic, and in the current standoff, they stand to lose the most yet again."

The possibility that the chief executive might rush or be pushed into such a disastrous war is exactly why the Founders obliged presidents to go to Congress for approval. The Constitution places the power to declare war in the hands of the legislature.

Yet modern presidents routinely claim monarchical powers, using the military without proper authority. Legislators often avoid taking responsibility for wars that might turn unpopular. But neither unconstitutional nor irresponsible behavior justifies chief executives doing the same.

Impeachment Should Be on the Table If Trump Bombs Iran Reminder: Trump, Not Bolton, is the President

Trump has proven no more faithful to the Constitution than his predecessors. For instance, Pompeo refused to commit the administration to going to Congress for the authority to attack Iran. (The secretary did the same when earlier questioned about the administration's military threats against Venezuela.) Pompeo suggested that the president might rely on the post-9/11 authorization for use of military force, an even more ludicrous reach than the Obama administration's appeal to the same measure for its fight against the Islamic State and strikes on Syria.

The refusal to obey the Constitution is evidence of weakness. In contrast, many of America's strongest chief executives recognized Congress's authority. George Washington declared: "The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."

Abraham Lincoln praised the Founders for recognizing war "to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Dwight Eisenhower was equally insistent on the need for legislative approval for war.

Delegates to the constitutional convention insisted they were not recreating the king of England or replicating his powers, especially to start wars. After all, war is the hallmark of unlimited government. Warned James Madison: "Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few."

The Founders knew this problem well, since a succession of European kings and queens had launched a succession of unnecessary and even frivolous conflicts. The price was paid in blood and treasure by the common folk. John Jay observed that kings were often led "to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people." Pierce Butler insisted that the president not be invested with the authority to start wars, like a monarch who enjoyed the "opportunity of involving his country in a war whenever he wished to promote her destruction."

Madison explained the principle incorporated in the Constitution: "Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free governments, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws."

Thus, the Constitution gives to Congress most military powers: raising an army, funding the military, issuing letters of marquee, approving rules of war, ratifying treaties, and, of course, taking America into war. Article 1, Section 8 (11) states: "Congress shall have the power to declare war." Observed Madison: the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that the power to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature."

Despite this history, some modern analysts bizarrely contend that Congress only ever gets to "declare" that the president had started a war. In fact, the Founders changed the operative word from "make" to "declare" merely to ensure that the commander-in-chief could respond to a surprise attack. They did not even believe the president could launch a reprisal without legal authority. They certainly didn't intend to enable the president to wander the globe smiting nations hither and yon at his sole discretion.

Despite their many disagreements, the Founders agreed on this point. The president commanded the military but could only prosecute wars authorized by Congress . Said George Mason, the chief executive "is not safely to be entrusted with" the power to start wars, which required "clogging rather than facilitating war." Thomas Jefferson cited the Constitution's "effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose." Explained James Wilson: "It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at large."

Even Alexander Hamilton, who leaned toward monarchy, emphasized that the commander-in-chief was just the "first general and admiral." The president's authority was "in substance much inferior to" that of Britain's monarch, and "would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war."

Trump is bound by the Constitution when confronting Iran. Indeed, the not insubstantial possibility of him and his officials lying America into another irresponsible war of choice is why the Founders placed the decision with Congress. Americans have learned at a high cost that presidents cannot be trusted to act like kings.

With a presidential election approaching, Americans should seriously ponder whether they want to entrust the presidency to someone who believes he's empowered to make war without constraint. It's time to choose a chief executive who's prepared to follow the Constitution.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire (Xulon Press). He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and a member of the California and Washington, D.C. bars.

[May 22, 2019] NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war." ..."
"... From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C. ..."
"... Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever). ..."
"... Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing. ..."
"... Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR existed. ..."
"... I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA) ..."
May 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake up. By Robert W. Merry May 22, 2019

President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday, November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. ( Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain, from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win world are gone.

For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential threat."

Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge," released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there." The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."

The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."

... ... ..

Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.

The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted, it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.

Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli -- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.

Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.

NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist. The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as well.

So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's, while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.

This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led, not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked, should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization itself.

And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course, any Russian provocations.

... ... ...

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century .

likbez, May 22, 2019

Great article. Thank you very much!

Pragmatic isolationalism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby.

But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exeptionalism ( which can be viewed as a form of far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:

From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C.

If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.

Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).

"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."

In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China. Rather than seeing far into the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often than not, they get even that wrong.

Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing.

Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.

There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)

In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR existed.

I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA)

[May 22, 2019] The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning

Notable quotes:
"... As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II. ..."
"... None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well. ..."
"... The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy. ..."
"... The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us. ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... Overlooked might be Germany's copycat foreign policy posturing too often hidden behind 'humanitarian' language. https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/projects/new-power-new-responsibility/the-paper/ ..."
"... Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us". ..."
"... This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia. ..."
"... One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological. ..."
"... Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension. Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake up. By Robert W. Merry May 22, 2019

President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday, November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. ( Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain, from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win world are gone.

For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential threat."

Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge," released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there." The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."

The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."

As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II.

America has been projecting significant power into Asia since the 1890s, when President William McKinley acquired Hawaii through annexation, then seized Guam and the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. For good measure, he cleared the way for the construction of the Panama Canal and continued his predecessors' robust buildup of the U.S. Navy. President Theodore Roosevelt then pushed the Canal project to actual construction, accelerated the naval buildup, and sent his Great White Fleet around the world as a signal that America had arrived on the global scene -- as if anyone could have missed that obvious reality.

With the total victory over Japan in World War II, America emerged as the hegemon of Asia, with colonies, naval bases, carrier groups, and strategic alliances that made it foolhardy for any nation to even think of challenging our regional dominance. Not even the Vietnam defeat, as psychologically debilitating as that was, could undercut America's Asian preeminence.

Now China is seeking to position itself to push America back into its own hemisphere. And judging from the language of the National Defense Strategy, America doesn't intend to be pushed back. This is a clash of wills, with all the makings of an actual military conflict.

But if China represents the greatest potential threat to America's global position, making an eventual war likely (though not inevitable), why is Washington not acting like it knows this? Why is it engaging in so many silly military capers that undermine its ability to focus attention and resources on the China challenge? While the National Defense Strategy paper suggests that U.S. officials understand the threat, America's actions reveal an incapacity to grapple with this reality in any concentrated fashion.

Here's a general idea of what a U.S. foreign policy under Trump might look like if it was based on a clear recognition of the China threat:

Iran: Since the end of the Cold War, the sheer folly of Trump's Iran policy has been exceeded only by George W. Bush's Iraq invasion. Barack Obama bequeathed to his successor a rare gift in the Iran nuclear deal, which provided an opportunity to direct attention away from Tehran and toward America's position in East Asia. In no way did it serve America's national interest to stir up tensions with Iran while the far more ominous China threat loomed. A policy based on realism would have seized that opportunity and used the channels of communication forged through the nuclear deal to establish some kind of accommodation, however wary or tenuous. Instead, America under Trump has created a crisis where none need exist.

Personnel: While the Iran policy might be difficult to reverse, a reversal is imperative. And that means Trump must fire National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. While their bully boy actions on the global stage seem to mesh with Trump's own temperament, the president also appears increasingly uncomfortable with the results, particularly with regard to their maximum pressure on Iran, which has brought America closer than ever to actual hostilities. Whether Trump has the subtlety of mind to understand just how destructive these men have been to his broad foreign policy goals is an open question. And Trump certainly deserves plenty of blame for pushing America into a zone of open hostility with Iran. But he can't extricate himself from his own folly so long as he has Bolton and Pompeo pushing him toward ever more bellicosity in ever more areas of the world. He needs men around him who appreciate just how wrongheaded American foreign policy has been in the post-Cold War era -- men such as retired Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor and former Virginia senator Jim Webb. Bolton and Pompeo -- out!

Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.

The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted, it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.

Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli -- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.

Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.

NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist. The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as well.

So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's, while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.

This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led, not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked, should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization itself.

And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course, any Russian provocations.

The Middle East: The United States should reduce its footprint in the region on a major scale. It should get out of Afghanistan, with assurances to the Taliban that it will allow that country to go its own way, irrespective of the outcome, so long as it doesn't pose a threat to the United States or its vital interests. U.S. troops should be removed from Syria, and America should stop supporting Saudi Arabia's nasty war in Yemen. We should make clear to Israel and the world that the Jewish state is a major U.S. ally and will be protected whenever it is truly threatened. But we should also emphasize that we won't seek through military means to alter the regional balance of power based on mere perceptions of potential future threats to countries in the region, even allies. The United States won't get drawn into regional wars unrelated to its own vital interests.

Far East: Once the other regional decks are cleared, America must turn its attention to Asia. The first question: do we wish to maintain our current position there, or can we accept China's rise even if it means a U.S. retreat or partial retreat from the region? If a retreat is deemed acceptable, then America should secure the best terms possible over a long period of tough and guileful negotiations. But if we decide to maintain regional dominance, then China will have to be isolated and deterred. That will mean a long period of economic tension and even economic warfare, confrontations over China's extravagant claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea and elsewhere, strong U.S. alliances with other Asian nations nurtured through deft and measured diplomacy, soaring technological superiority, and a continual upper hand in any arms race.

In this scenario, can war be averted? History suggests that may not be likely. But either way, America won't remain an Asian power if it allows itself to be pinned down in multiple nonstrategic spats and adventures around the world. Asia is today's Great Game and China is winning. That won't be reversed unless America starts playing.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century . MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Hide 27 comments 27 Responses to The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning

Fran Macadam, says: May 21, 2019 at 10:36 pm

None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well. That allows U.S. legal decisions to have extra territorial scope as the real international power, not now irrelevant toothless international institutions like the UN.
Whine Merchant , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:02 am
Nice summary, Mr Merry. Even the most die-hard Trumpet can find something to disagree upon with their Dear Leader while supporting everything else he does, but this clear and succinct outline leaves no where for the Deplorables to hide. Coupled with the China trade war fiasco, thias is pretty grim.

Of course, come 2020, all will be forgiven by the GOP, and even one criticism with be blasted with a twitter assault.

Fazal Majid , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:22 am
The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy.

Unfortunately our support for the treacherous Pakistanis has poisoned our relationship with India. In 1971, Nixon actually sent a carrier group in the Bay of Bengal to intimidate the Indians into stopping support for the Bangladeshis fighting a war of independence against the genocidal (West) Pakistan, and the Indians had to call on the Soviets to send nuclear submarines to deter that threat. Like all ancient nations, Indians have long memories. Ironically, that reckless action was in cahoots with China.

The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us.

likbez , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:29 am
Great article. Thank you very much!

Pragmatic isolationism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby. But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exceptionalism ( which can be viewed as a form of far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:

From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C.

If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.

Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).

"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."

In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China.

Rather than seeing far into the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often than not, they get even that wrong.

Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing.

Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant.

His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.

There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)

In this limited sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR used to exist.

I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA.)

Piero , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:06 am
Your current foreign policy simply seems to reflect the astonishing degree of violence that permeates your society, when observing you Americans from a place like Hong Kong or China it's really frightening, I would be more scared to visit the US than Liberia or Sierra Leone, with those innumerable ( armed ) nutcases roaming your streets, you are by now used to it, and it saddens me, thinking of how grateful we should be for all you have done in the distant past for so many countries in the world
Fayez Abedaziz , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:30 am
The blockheads advising know nothing Trump about history and geo-politics don't care a whit about the American people or what is ten years down the road. These people, Bolton, Pompeo and the joke-Kushner- are ego/power lovers and are doing the opposite of a sane policy to every part of the globe.
How the hell do you goad and threaten Russia, for example, for no good reason and how do you threaten Russia, which, like the U.S., with the push of several buttons can turn any city in the world to ashes, in minutes.

The American people are not only dumb as a wall, they don't care about foreign policy and they don't wanna know. The're looking at celebrities and looking at their smart phones for fun and weirdness. The phones are smarter than them and they pay the price when clown Trump does things like trade wars and so on.

Yeah, the average American, what prizes they are, as in they look and say,

Is that the actress there on the 'news' oh, what's she wearing is that the 'genius' athlete, what does that smelly guy say today hey, let's order food delivered so we can watch and tomorrow to the sports bar and

Kent , says: May 22, 2019 at 6:32 am
This article forgets to mention why it would be in the American people's interest to be the hegemon of East Asia. I can't think of any reason myself. Anyone?
JR , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:11 am
Thanks for this article.

Overlooked might be Germany's copycat foreign policy posturing too often hidden behind 'humanitarian' language. https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/projects/new-power-new-responsibility/the-paper/

Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us".

This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia.

The result is a thoroughly corrupt indebted Ukraine disenfranchising more than 60% of its population through imposing forced 'Ukrainization'.

Cavin , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:51 am
I agree with the article, but not the title. The article acknowledges two important points, but leaves out another.

First, it correctly acknowledges that our obsession with Iran is vastly disproportionate to the threat it poses. In fact, we would do well to scale back our adventurism in the Middle East. If China is winning in the Far East, it is largely because we have chosen to devote resources elsewhere.

Second, it correctly acknowledges that continued antagonizing of Russia by the West is needless. It is time to normalize relations with Russia, recognize its legitimate interest in having some buffer against the West, and repatriate Russian nationals who have recently immigrated to the West.

Third, the article fails to acknowledge that China, like Russia, is also entitled to some sphere of influence. And there is historic precedence for certain such claims. Those claims are tenuous when it comes to Japan and the Korean peninsula. But there is little reason why American Navy ships should be sailing right up to the borders of China, just as there is little reason why Chinese Navy ships should be sailing off the coast of Oregon. We also need to understand that provoking a trade war that slows the Chinese economy merely enhances the power of President Xi. Trump has given President Xi a massive political gift, and for no good reason. The trade imbalance is evidence of the strength of our economy, not a sign that we're losing out to China.

Grits Again , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:02 am
One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological.

If we are to compete effectively with China and other global players, if we are to have a balanced and effective foreign policy in general, we need to remove the Middle East blinders, get Israel and Saudi Arabia off our back, and start seeing the world as it is, rather than as Israel and Saudi Arabia pay our politicians to see it.

Collin , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:25 am
Simple questions: Why should we care? And how does all this soft power benefit the average citizens? And for all the China fears, they appear to react very rationally and avoid military conflicts.

Ok, it is true Chinese oil buying is probably keeping Iran in a better economic situation but again this seems more of a problem of Iran hawks not the average citizen. Honestly, I wish the US had more of treasury focused foreign policy and stop worrying about US power.

Mommsen the Younger , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:26 am
Excellent. Merry has it exactly. (Note: Have reread paragraph 9 several times and believe the copy editor fell asleep here)
Chris Cosmos , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:30 am
Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension. Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game.

Any rational analysis of the past couple of decades forces us to come to that conclusion. The reason why this whole scheme is unlikely to fail in the short and medium term is US military involvement in 150 countries has brought much of the world under Washington's control–or at least their ruling elites. The best China can do is provide an alternative to the Empire and live in some sort of harmony with it because China has not shown any intention of competing militarily with the US. Iran is a key part of the Silk Road project and that is the strategic reason for the attempt to crush or destroy Iran that is central to the strategy. The US wants to keep China and Russia out of Europe–that, if you look at policy, seems to be the main contest.

HenionJD , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:30 am
The conflict with Iran has assumed heightened importance because,at 70 years old, John Bolton has to face the possibility that he might die without having started a war somewhere.
Thaomas , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:32 am
The author misses two other two other components of of a proper China "containment" policy: Immigration and trade policy. The US should be actively trying to attract immigration of skilled young workers and entrepreneurs (including from China) and encouraging university graduates from abroad to remain. The US ought to join the TPP in order to increase our leverage in negotiating reductions in Chinese restrictions on trade and investment.
Sid Finster , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:47 am
Why would Russia want to make a deal with the United States, which cannot be trusted to keep its word, or even to act rationally in pursuit of its own interests?
TheSnark , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:20 am
Generally a good article, but it misses an important point. While China and Russia do have natural spheres of influence, the countries within those natural spheres hate being there.

Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam are naturally within China's influence, but they don't trust the Chinese at all, and surely don't want China to dominate their countries. And given they way the Chinese empire treats Tibetan and Uigurs, they have good reason for that.

Similarly in Eastern Europe, where Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic States might be in Russian sphere, but they sure don't want to be. The fact is that NATO did not aggressively seek them out for membership, those small countries begged to join NATO out of their historical fear of Russia.

While recognizing such spheres of influence, do we want to abandon friendly, democratic countries to a hostile, autocratic power? The Cold War model of Finland give some hope for a compromise, but it won't be easy to implement outside of Finland.

david , says: May 22, 2019 at 1:41 pm
This article is another vivid illustration of how disoriented and narrow-minded when a typical intelligent and well-meaning American is talking about China. For examples:

1. The author has no problem acknowledging specific geopolitical interests to accommodate Russia or even Iran, but when he comes to China, he fails completely to mention any of the legitimate interests China has in East Asia.

2. The author repeats the nonsensical China haters' allegation about China's threat to America, and China's intention to push American out of East Asia.

3. The author resorts back to a typical zero-sum or even cold-war style mentality when talking about overall China strategy, without even considering the possibilities that China and America can co-exist in a friendly manner, where all the peaceful competition between the two countries ultimately translating into net positive results that benefit the people of both countries and the world.

Unfortunately, our so-called "experts" in China are consistently failing Americans badly, because they lack the knowledge and perspective to think from the other side of the coin.

Steve , says: May 22, 2019 at 1:50 pm
I scrolled for quite a bit before finding Thaomas' comment about TPP. Leaving it will prove to be one of the Trump's admin's greatest blunders (which is saying something) and any column about China strategy that omits it is incomplete.
hooly , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:01 pm
So why exactly should Russia be accommodated and be allowed its sphere of influence and a 'defense perimeter' and not China? I don't get it. And why should the USA be allowed the fruits of its aggression in the form of an annexed and brutally conquered Hawaii? why can't Uncle Sam be satisfied with San Diego as a naval base?

The USA has the Monroe Doctrine giving it dominion over the Western Hemisphere, and China holds the Mandate of Heaven granting it hegemony over everything else. Can't the Dragon and the Eagle get along on that basis??

Ken Zaretzke , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:06 pm
In terms of geography, China vitally needs Russia in order to close off a corridor through which Muslims will flow to China. Without that cooperation from Russia, China will be seriously hobbled by unassimilable and hostile migrants in its south. At least symbolically, this will cripple its superpower claims.

The U.S. would be stupid not to seek an alliance with Russia, given Russia's geographical strengths, which also includes its proximity to the Arctic and therefore a legal claim to the oil and gas buried there.

Geography is Russia's long-term strength, and not incidentally is a reason why trying militarily to force Putin to surrender Crimea could easily lead to nuclear war, which might begin with tactical (battlefield) Russian nukes aimed at NATO garrisons in eastern Europe.

China isn't fated to win its contest with the U.S. if it must depend on Russia in order to become an unquestioned superpower. We need Russia for strategic security as much as Russia needs us for economic growth.

fabian , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:47 pm
Nice summary. In my view the US (not Trump) make a big mistake to throw Russia in the arms of China. It's not only its geopolitical situation that is the problem but the fact the it gives China unlimited access to natural resources. In a generation, if things goes the way they do now, the only saving grace for the US will be a failure of this partnership. Because if it works, by the sheer force of gravity it will swallow Europe. But betting on the adversary's failure is not a good strategy.
workingdad , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:08 pm
eh, keeping pressure on Iran keeps Saudi Arabia happy which means they stay in our sphere; as opposed to China's.

Until Venezuala wants to become part of the Oil-for-dollars system or we all drive electric cars and only oil for remote work and emergency military expeditions then we need the Saudis on our side.

Un Citoyen , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:58 pm
This kind of mentality is the reason why I think the demise of America is necessary to achieve world peace.

Why on God's green earth should America dominate East Asia? Last time I checked, America is NOT part of Asia. We are not even in the same hemisphere for crying out loud. Why can't we just leave Asia to the Asians?

When was the last time China invaded a country? Never. These are the same people who discovered Africa and America long before the Europeans, but only wanted to "do business" and trade. They already have 1.3 Billion mouths to feed, the last thing the Chinese government needs is more mouths to feed.

Meanwhile, when Washington thinks of invasion, all they think of is guns, tanks, battleships. The Chinese are already quietly invading and conquering the west -- through immigration. All along the East and West coasts, Chinese dominant cities and schools are popping up everywhere. America really is the stupidest country on earth sometimes. All brawn and no brain. We want to start wars with everybody in the name of protecting "American interests", while the rest of the world are already conquering us from within through immigration. Wake up America.

Ricardo Toledano , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:06 pm
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.

It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.

It's a reckless game for me.

Ricardo Toledano , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:06 pm
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.

It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.

It's a reckless game to me.

Tom Diebold , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:32 pm
I would assume that the US is "in" East Asia, to a significant extent, because Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have sought US security and defense guarantees. The US has not forced itself into the region. Korea has reasons to be concerned about China, due to its experiences during the Korean War, and Taiwan, which wishes to remain independent of Chinese control, is directly threatened by China.

As for other allies in the region, Philippine president Duterte's overtures, upon taking office, to China, and his especially disparaging remarks about the US while making an official visit to China, seem quite puzzling, given China's illegitimate seizing of Philippine territory in the West Philippine Sea. US relations with the Philippines needs to be reexamined in light of this development. While Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are first-level allies in the region, the Philippines is not.

[May 22, 2019] Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made. ..."
"... It is fitting that they have been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its obligations. ..."
"... Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits ..."
"... A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that he claims after every unsuccessful summit. ..."
"... The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

May 22, 2019, 1:16 PM

J.Bicking/Shutterstock One of the obvious consequences of violating the JCPOA is that the U.S. can't be trusted to negotiate anything else with Iran:

Zarif told CNN this week Iran had "acted in good faith" in negotiating the deal that Washington abandoned. "We are not willing to talk to people who have broken their promises.".

Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made.

It is fitting that they have been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its obligations.

Iran hawks are always complaining about the "fatally flawed" nuclear deal, but they are the ones that exploited what was perhaps its only true flaw, namely the built-in assumption that our government would observe the terms of the agreement in good faith as long as Iran did what it promised to do. Other major powers and Iran now know they shouldn't expect the U.S. to be a reliable partner in future talks, and they will reasonably conclude that offers to "talk" from the administration that seeks to destroy the JCPOA are just so much hot air.

As I was saying yesterday, Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits:

Trump has said Washington is not trying to set up talks but expects Tehran to call when it is ready. A U.S. official said last week Americans "were sitting by the phone", but had received no call from Iran yet

Foad Izadi, a political science professor at Tehran University, told Reuters that phone call is not coming.

"Iranian officials have come to this conclusion that Trump does not seek negotiations. He would like a phone call with Rouhani, even a meeting and a photo session, but that's not a real negotiation," Izadi said.

A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that he claims after every unsuccessful summit.

The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

SteveM May 22, 2019 at 2:47 pm

Related to "America the Untrustworthy" is the economic total war that the U.S. has declared on the rest of the planet. Very complex business relationships and supply chains are being destroyed. The Trump administration's objectives are to economically strangle China and Russia and do economic beat-downs on any country that gets in the way. No company or country wants to do business with that kind of political volatility. And what can't go on forever – won't.

What the idiots in Washington don't realize is that the Chinese and the Russians have suffered 100x mores deprivation than Americans. They will suck it up now and then do whatever it takes to decouple themselves economically from the United States. (See what happens in the U.S. when the Chinese tell Apple to pound sand.)

And to think that the Chinese don't have the organic capability to technically compete with the U.S. now is nuts. China has the resources and intellectual horsepower to compete with the U.S. regardless of what the arrogant "City on a Hill" exceptionalists in Washington think. And given that China has 5X the number of STEM grads, it's easy to do the math.

America the Untrustworthy on the economic front is telling the rest of the planet to find other partners because doing business with an erratic Gorilla is more trouble than its worth.

Scott , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:44 pm
At some point, Americans are going to be outraged when they realize that most of the world doesn't view us as someone to admire but rather a rogue nation.

We have lost so much standing under Trump

BD , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:53 pm
I wonder if it ever occurred to Trump–or any of his advisers–that pulling out of a deal for no other reason than "we didn't like the terms that everyone agreed to" (rather than noncompliance by Iran) only makes it impossible for anyone to trust a new deal he wants to make later. But I guess this is why it's unwise to govern based on what Fox and Friends tells you each morning.
Barry , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:20 pm
"A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. "

I don't think that any future president will be able to do this. Dubya was a shock to the rest of the world, in that they realized that there was indeed 'no there there'. Congress isn't helping.

Obama was a relief, but then along came Trump. At this point, all other countries know that (a) any competent Democratic President will be followed by a destructive and reckless GOP president, and (b) that the GOP Congress will aid and abet this.

A reputation for reliability has to be maintained.

Christian J Chuba , says: May 22, 2019 at 6:37 pm
And there is a 90 / 10 chance that we will break the agreement. This is not a Trump'ism, we never keep our word regardless of the Administration.
  1. Libya/Gaddafi GWB made the promise, Obama killed him.
  2. Saddam Hussein – Bush Sr. made the promise, get rid of WMD and live, GWB killed him.
  3. JCPOA – Obama made the agreement, Trump broke it.
  4. Russia – Bush Sr. promised not to expand NATO, Clinton expanded NATO like mad.

When have we ever kept an agreement?

[May 21, 2019] 2020 Elections: It's Militarism and the Military Budget Stupid! by Ajamu Baraka

May 17, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

U.S. ships are involved in provocative "freedom of navigation" exercises in the South China Sea and other ships gather ominously in the Mediterranean Sea while National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo along with convicted war criminal Elliot Abrams conspire to save the people of Venezuela with another illegal "regime change" intervention. But people are drawn to the latest adventures of Love and Hip-Hop, the Mueller report, and Game of Thrones. In fact, while millions can recall with impressive detail the proposals and strategies of the various players in HBO's latest saga, they can't recall two details about the pending military budget that will likely pass in Congress with little debate, even though Trump's budget proposal represents another obscene increase of public money to the tune of $750 billion.

This bipartisan rip-off could not occur without the willing collusion of the corporate media, which slants coverage to support the interests of the ruling elite or decides to just ignore an issue like the ever-expanding military budget.

The effectiveness of this collusion is reflected in the fact that not only has this massive theft of public money not gotten much coverage in the mainstream corporate media, but also it only received sporadic coverage in the alternative media. The liberal-left media is distracted enough by the theatrics of the Trump show to do the ideological dirty work of the elites.

Spending on war will consume almost 70% of the budget and be accompanied by cuts in public spending for education, housing, the environment, public transportation, jobs trainings, food support programs like food stamps and Meals on Wheels, as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Most of the neoliberal candidates running in the Democratic Party's electoral process, however, haven't spoken a word in opposition to Trump's budget.

The public knows that the Democratic Party's candidates are opposed to Trump's wall on the southern border, and they expect to hear them raise questions about the $8.6 billion of funding the wall. But while some of the Democrats may oppose the wall, very few have challenged the details of the budget that the U.S. Peace Council indicates . For example:

"$576 billion baseline budget for the Department of Defense; an additional $174 billion for the Pentagon's Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), i.e., the war budget; $93.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs; $51.7 billion for Homeland Security; $42.8 billion for State Department; an additional $26.1 billion for State Department's Overseas Contingency Operations (regime change slush fund); $16.5 billion for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (nuclear weapons budget); $21 billion for NASA (militarizing outer space?); plus $267.4 billion for all other government agencies, including funding for FBI and Cybersecurity in the Department of Justice."

The Peace Council also highlights the following two issues: First, the total US military and war budget has jumped from $736.4 billion to $989.0 billion since 2015. That is a $252.6 billion (about 35%) increase in five years. Second, thesimultaneous cuts in the government's non-military spending are reflected in the proposed budget.

Here are some of biggest proposed budget cuts:

+ $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years, implementing work requirements as well as eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds $1.2 trillion for a "Market Based Health Care Grant" -- that is, a block grant to states, instead of paying by need. It's not clear whether that would be part of Medicaid.

+ An $845 billion cut to Medicare over 10 years. That is about a 10 percent cut .

+ $25 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years, including cuts to disability insurance.

+ A $220 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) over 10 years , which is commonly referred to as food stamps, and includes mandatory work requirements. The program currently serves around 45 million people.

+ A $21 billion cut to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , an already severely underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation's poorest.

+ $207 billion in cuts to the student loan program, eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized student loans.

+ Overall, there is a 9 percent cut to non-defense programs , which would hit Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program , among others.

The working classes and oppressed peoples of the U.S. and around the world can no longer afford the unchallenged ideological positions of the Pentagon budget and the associated expenditures for so-called defense that are considered sacrosanct in the U.S. They cannot afford that much of the U.S. public is not concerned with issues of so-called foreign policy that the military budget is seen as part.

The racist appeals of U.S. national chauvinism in the form of "Make America Great" and the Democrats' version of "U.S. Exceptionalism" must be confronted and exposed as the cross-class, white identity politics that they are. The fact that supposedly progressive or even "radical" politics does not address the issue of U.S. expenditures on war and imperialism is reflective of a politics that is morally and political bankrupt. But it also does something else. It places those practitioners firmly in the camp of the enemies of humanity.

The objective fact that large numbers of the public accept that the U.S. can determine the leadership of another sovereign nation while simultaneously being outraged by the idea of a foreign power interfering in U.S. elections demonstrates the mindboggling subjective contradictions that exist in the U.S. For example – that an Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez can assert that she will defer to the leadership of her caucus on the issue of Venezuela or that Barbara Lee can vote to bring Trump's budget proposal out of committee or that Biden can proudly support Trump's immoral backing of a neo-fascist opposition in Venezuela and they will all get away with those positions – reveals the incredible challenge that we face in building an alternative radical movement for peace, social justice and people(s)-centered human rights.

So, we must join with U.S. Peace Council and the other members of the Anti-war, pro-peace, and anti-imperialist communities in the U.S. to "resist and oppose this military attack on our communities, our livelihoods and our lives." This is an urgent and militant first step in reversing the cultural support for violence and the normalization of war that currently exists in the U.S. Now is the moment to demand that Congress reject and reverse the Trump Administration's military budget and the U.S. Government's militaristic foreign policy. But now is also the moment to commit to building a powerful countermovement to take back the power over life and death from the denizens of violence represented by the rapacious 1%. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Ajamu Baraka

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine.

[May 20, 2019] "Us" Versus "Them"

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth. ..."
"... There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase. ..."
"... Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus. ..."
"... When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed. ..."
"... I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. ..."
"... If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. ..."
"... These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president. ..."
"... The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke. ..."
May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks

Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their assigned puppets.

Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.

Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion, pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP), rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.

There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase.

Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.

When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.

I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line, "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses, thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public. There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election. This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last election by referencing another famous cynic.

"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks

Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.

As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.

I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since 2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way. I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not their words.

Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.

I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive. Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have gotten it done when he controlled both houses.

The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.

I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.

With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered winning in present day America.

The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the day. Truthfulness not required.

The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human trait over two hundred years ago.

"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over 300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches, and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.

These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president.

The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning. What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).

If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.

In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine whether he can defeat the Deep State.


TerryThomas , 32 minutes ago link

"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus, despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism, cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here, too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer

666D Chess , 11 minutes ago link

Divide and conquer, not a very novel idea... but very effective.

Kafir Goyim , 32 minutes ago link

If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers

That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of it, but they're still pissed.

Rich Monk , 33 minutes ago link

These predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.

yellowsub , 42 minutes ago link

Ya'll a dumb fool if you think gov't as your best interests first.

legalize , 46 minutes ago link

Citation needed.

Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm swallowing it.

I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?

bshirley1968 , 51 minutes ago link

"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."

If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".

If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real leadership and not another political hack.

The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side" you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the minute they become them and not one of us.

Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.

Fish Gone Bad , 37 minutes ago link

Dark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at Arkancide.com and start counting the bodies.

Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that situation.

bshirley1968 , 31 minutes ago link

Don't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of **** as my governor for 12 years.

NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped bafoon.

Kafir Goyim , 28 minutes ago link

I don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.

Giant Meteor , 9 minutes ago link

Dennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..

Great theater..

Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream, vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now. If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.

Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest, but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect .. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.

Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" / current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..

666D Chess , 15 minutes ago link

Until the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for Trump and they were laughing their asses off.

HoodRatKing , 55 minutes ago link

The author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned nightmare..

Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive & risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.

I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life, own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore, laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to live in poverty & homelessness in.

At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not = a financial death sentence.

bshirley1968 , 39 minutes ago link

Sure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no electricity.....no running water......no roads....

There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.

The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke.

There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.

911bodysnatchers322 , 56 minutes ago link

This article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army

Giant Meteor , 25 minutes ago link

And yet, I'll never forget all the smiling faces at the gala wedding affair.

Happier times ..

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/us/politics/ex-ally-donald-trump-now-heaps-scorn-on-bill-clinton.html

And yes, thanks in advance for noting the link is from New York slime, but i believe the picture in this case anyway, was not photo shopped.

She is, (hillary) after all, good people, a real fighter ..

**** .. mission accomplished ..

ExPat2018 , 1 hour ago link

The greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful countries

You must have intelligent people

America doesn't have that anymore.

JuliaS , 1 hour ago link

Notice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds of obedient citizens.

911bodysnatchers322 , 54 minutes ago link

This article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions

istt , 1 hour ago link

The reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy, and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.

fersur , 1 hour ago link

There's an old saying; "Congress does 2 things well Nothing and Protest" said by Pence Live-Streamed 4 hours ago at USMCA America First speech !

Good, Bad and Ugly

The Good is President Trump works extreme daily hours trying his best !

The Bad is Haters miss every bit of whatever their President Trump does that is good !

The Ugly is Hater Reporters ignoring World events, scared of possibly shining President Trump fairly !

SHsparx , 1 hour ago link

You really are making it a bit too obvious, bro.

911bodysnatchers322 , 52 minutes ago link

The congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them barely read, though they probably can

SHsparx , 1 hour ago link

I still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.

Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago link

If we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants, liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny continues to grow and fester as a cancer.

Zoomorph , 1 hour ago link

In other words, those amendments are already lost... we're just waiting for the final dictate to come down.

Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago link

You may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.

SHsparx , 49 minutes ago link

@ Zeusky Babarusky

I couldn't agree with you more.

Unfortunately, it is what it is, which is why I used the word "dying."

Those two amendments are on their deathbed, and if a Dem gets in the house, that'll be the nail in the coffin.

bshirley1968 , 1 hour ago link

If you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your life.

I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's God.

I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life. There are worse things than dying.

Nephilim , 1 hour ago link

THEHAZELFLOCKOFCRANES

BRINDLED FOOT,

AUSTRALIAN.

caveofgoldcaveofold

Zoomorph , 1 hour ago link

"Why do we have wars?"

"Because life is war: fighting for survival, resources, and what is best in the world."

"Why do people say war is bad?"

"Because they are useful idiots who have been tricked by religion and/or weak degenerates who are too weary to participate."

delta0ne , 1 hour ago link

This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke! this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.

blind_understanding , 1 hour ago link

Last revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.

We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of England and the issued of the British-pound currency.

George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way of the phony revolution.

Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks, Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The same parasite remains within our government.

djrichard , 1 hour ago link

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-vi-children-of-an-absent-god/

It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution, and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.

To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while they are being manipulated.

[May 20, 2019] Venezuela Exposes the Myth of John Bolton's "Genius" by Martin Sieff

May 20, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

The fiasco of the latest obviously unsuccessful US attempt to topple twice democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro made a laughing stock of the US government throughout the world and is now exposing new splits in the Trump administration in Washington. It is also exposing a dangerous but also ridiculous myth that Washington has credulously swallowed for generations – the idea that National Security Adviser John Bolton is actually competent.

No one among the carefully trained castrated geldings of the US mainstream news media and their pseudo-liberal and libertarian outliers has ever dared to ask how able Bolton actually is. He is held in awe and even fear for his supposed brilliant intellect and for his undoubted energy and relentless determination to push the policies he supports with tunnel vision and fanatical relentlessness as hard as he can.

Yet given such undeniable "qualities" what is truly astonishing is how useless Bolton has been in pursuing his own primary foreign policy goals for more than 40 years. He failed to prevent the first president to take him seriously, Ronald Reagan to conduct sweeping nuclear arms reductions with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and to push ahead with Gorbachev to dismantle the Cold War. These policies were anathema to Bolton who prophesied – falsely – that war and catastrophe would flow from them. But Reagan ignored him and pushed them through anyway.

Now Bolton has destroyed Reagan's legacy of peace by convincing current President Donald Trump to scrap one of Reagan's greatest achievement, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

He succeeded in helping provoke the US invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq under President George W. Bush in 2003 but failed to persuade even Bush, Junior and his top foreign policy adviser, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pull out of any arms control treaties whatsoever.

Then, the Iraq misadventure was so appallingly bungled that Bolton failed to get any traction whatsoever for his priority project of toppling the government of Iran, even if it took a full scale war to do it.

In Washington, even Bolton's greatest critics among libertarians and paleo-conservatives have spoken for decades with awe of his supposed brilliant intellect, command of all details, endless energy and ability to read and keep track of everything. But now, the latest failed coup in Venezuela instead reveals an ignorant, simplistic rash adventurer and gambler who charges head on into dangerous situations and who relies on bullying and bluster alone to get his way.

Bolton showed none of the ruthless, devious subtlety of a Dwight D. Eisenhower in masterminding a coup and fragrant breach of international law without appearing to have anything to do with it (a skill which Ronald Reagan, though far less masterful than the revered Eisenhower also attempted in Iran-Contra).

Bolton's fingerprints were all over the hard-charging policy of propping up ridiculous Juan Guiado as America's cardboard cutout puppet to run Venezuela, even though he had no credibility whatsoever.

Bolton is in fact is an awesomely bad judge of choosing his own allies in other countries. His combination of recklessness and vanity means he is always a sucker for whatever smooth-talking sociopath can worm his way into his presence.

This explains how the late, unlamented Ahmed Chalabi was able to convince Bolton and his neocon friends that he (Chalabi)) would be welcomed by tens of millions of Iraqis as soon the US armed forces invaded ("liberated" was the politically approved term) his country and how Zalmay Khalizad, a catastrophic clown, was acclaimed as an infallible guru on Afghanistan.

Bolton is widely known to have no small talk, private interests, charm or social skills whatsoever. Far from confirming his "genius", as his many worshipful courtiers claim, this only confirms his haplessness.

If Bolton played poker he would be skinned alive. He cannot read people and being an obsessive courtier and flatterer himself, he always falls flat on his face for the flattery of others. The arch-manipulator is in reality the easiest of figures to manipulate.

Once the strange miasma of worshipful myth is stripped from Bolton, all the confusions and bungles of the April 30 Coup That Never Was in Venezuela become clear.

[May 20, 2019] May be tensions with Iran is the USA neocons strategy of containing China by depriving it economy of oil

China is Iran strategic ally. It will continue to buy Iranian oil.
May 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

charles 2 , May 20, 2019 at 6:43 am

Or maybe it is just one front: I.e. making globalisation difficult for the Chinese :
by pushing non Chinese Asians countries to de-integrate their supply chains with China and
by cutting its supply of oil though shortages induced by tensions in the Gulf.
The US knows that it can't be the sole superpower anymore any longer, so the strategy is to reverse globalisation so that no other global superpower (a Russian-Chinese with a dominating Persia in the Middle East) can emerge.
Far too early to say if the strategy will be successful or not.
As far as I am concerned, the silver linings would be that a long period of oil shortage could finally be the trigger to switch industrial infrastructure worldwide away from liquid and gaseous fossils, and that less globalised supply chain would be more robust to shocks, but if these silver linings were the ultimate goals, I could think of less adversarial ways to achieve that globally, with less money wasted on the military

jackson , May 20, 2019 at 8:41 am

The benefits of joint pricing mechanisms are also enormous. Currently, Iran has no choice because of the sanctions but to sell its oil – including from the shared fields – at massively reduced pricing that is comprised of its official selling price (OSP) minus the sanctions discount minus the incremental risk discount. This has resulted in Iran offering 'cost, insurance, and freight' cargoes for 'free on board' pricing, with the difference between the two covered by Iran. "Under this new agreement, Iranian oil from these shared fields will be sold based on Iraq's much higher three month moving average OSP pricing for cargoes, with no discounts at all, and the three month moving average for the effective spot market that Iraq has created and now controls," said the oil source.

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Geo , May 20, 2019 at 3:02 am

Thanks for the in-depth info. Lots to digest and research.

the US has acted in such bad faith so often in the early stages of conflicts that it's sensible to wonder how much of this account is accurate. It is very frustrating to be dealing with an informational hall of mirrors.

It's depressing to say but I when I read anything from domestic official sources or the media I can't help but think it's mostly lies. Not under the illusion that foreign actors are all righteous and benevolent, but as you said, our nation's track record with the truth in these scenarios is pretty tainted at this point. Just as we found out with Saddam and Qaddafi, these leaders have little reason to poke the dragon, and a lot of reason to build up defenses.

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PlutoniumKun , May 20, 2019 at 5:35 am

Interesting observations if true, and they certainly do make sense of a lot of the things that have been happening.

I see it hasn't dissuaded Trump though, this morning he is reported as doubling down on his threats to Iran. A big fear now is that Iran does not seem to be in the mood to give Trump the sort of symbolic 'win' he can use to climb down gracefully (and sack Bolton). The Saudi's can probably be scared into stepping back, but the Israeli's and the neocons want a hot war.

Its easy to see this gradually ratchet up step by step into an uncontrolled region wide conflict.

Ignim Brites , May 20, 2019 at 8:54 am

Not sure what to make of this article but the Anglo-American press is not providing much context for the recent ratcheting up of confrontation with Iran.

NotTimothyGeithner , May 20, 2019 at 10:11 am

The MSM is mostly stenographers and right leaning pundits. If no one tells them, they wouldn't know.

Also, the DC elites were pretty irked by Obama's Iran deal. They deferred to Obama and the Europeans who demanded the deal, but I think they live in a world where DC's enemies are the enemies of the American people who overwhelmingly supported the Iran deal. DC hasn't come to grips with this.

JBird4049 , May 20, 2019 at 12:20 pm

but I think they live in a world where DC's enemies are the enemies of the American people who overwhelmingly supported the Iran deal. DC hasn't come to grips with this.

Yes, because all pain, real blood and death, misery and horror that they cause in fighting what they assume putatively are "the American people's enemies" are never suffered by them, but only everyone else including the American people; all the financial benefits do go to them so it is all gain and no cost.

Ian Perkins , May 20, 2019 at 9:11 am

Will Lavrov and Wang Yi's guarantees prevent an Israeli nuclear attack on Iranian facilities, followed by US pledges to fully support Israel's right to self defence?

jackson , May 20, 2019 at 10:01 am

There are two kinds of weapons in the world offensive and defensive. The latter are cheaper, a fighter plane compared to a bomber. If a country does not (or cannot afford to) have offensive intent, it makes sense to focus on defense. It is what Iran has done. Moreover, its missile centered defense has a modern deadly twist -- the missiles are precision-guided. As an Iranian general remarked when questioned about the carrier task force: some years ago it would've been a threat he opined; now it's a target. Iran also has a large standing army of 350,000 plus a 120,000 strong Revolutionary Guard and Soviet style air defenses. In 2016 Russia started installation of the S-300 system. It has all kinds of variants, the most advanced, the S-300 PMU-3 has a range similar to the S-400 if equipped with 40N6E missiles, which are used also in the S-400. Their range is 400 km, so the Iranian batteries are virtually S-400s. The wily Putin has kept trump satisfied with the S-300 moniker without short-changing his and China's strategic ally. The latter continuing to buy Iranian oil.

Iran has friends in Europe also. Angela Merkel in particular has pointed out that Iran has complied fully with the nuclear provisions of the UN Security Council backed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action i.e. the Iran nuclear deal. She is mustering the major European powers. Already alienated with Trump treating them as adversaries rather than friends, they find Trump's bullying tiresome. President Macron, his poll ratings hitting the lowest, is hardly likely to engage in Trump's venture. In Britain, Theresa May is barely able to hold on to her job. In the latest thrust by senior members of her party, she has been asked to name the day she steps down.

So there we have it. Nobody wants war with Iran. Even Israel, so far without a post-election government does not want to be rained upon by missiles leaky as its Iron Dome was against homemade Palestinian rockets. Topping all of this neither Trump nor Secretary of State Pompeo want war. Trump is as usual trying to bully -- now called maximum pressure -- Iran into submission. It won't. The wild card is National Security Adviser John Bolton. He wants war. A Gulf of Tonkin type false flag incident, or an Iranian misstep, or some accident can still set it off. In Iran itself, moderates like current President Hassan Rouhani are being weakened by Trump's shenanigans. The hard liners might well want to bleed America as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thomas P , May 20, 2019 at 12:13 pm

I don't trust those air defenses too much, where have they ever performed well? The scary part is where Iran assumes that USA can through repeated air strikes wipe out their missiles. They will from the start find themselves in a "use them or lose them" scenario and may launch everything as response to even a limited US strike, since they can't know if it is limited or the beginning of a full scale attack, and I doubt Iran is willing to go down without doing everything it can to hurt their enemies. (Possibly excluding Israel which is crazy enough to go nuclear in response).

[May 20, 2019] On The Cusp Of War Why Iran Won't Fold

May 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. Glenn F sent along this story about recent events in the US-Iran conflict, many of which don't appear to have been reported in the English language press. Interestingly, the article takes the position that it is the Saudis that have been doing their best and largely succeeding in suppressing these reports.

Going into the weekend, it looked as if the US was trying to turn down the Iran threat meter a notch. Both Iran and the Saudis said they didn't want war but were prepared for one. Then a mystery rocket landed in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Oopsie. From the Wall Street Journal:

No major destruction was inflicted by the rocket, which landed near a museum displaying old planes and caused some damage to a building used by security guards, according to an official in the interior ministry.

The interior ministry official, who declined to be identified, said the rocket had landed around a kilometer from the U.S. Embassy inside Baghdad's Green Zone, where many other diplomatic missions and Iraqi government offices are located.

No group claimed responsibility. But security officials said security forces had found and seized a mobile rocket launcher in an area of Baghdad where Shiite militias, including some with close links to Iran, have a presence.

But also note this:

The Trump administration last week ordered a partial evacuation of its diplomatic missions in Baghdad and Erbil citing increased threats posed by Iran and its allies in Iraq. The Iraqi government has varying degrees of control over an array of armed groups, some of which are closely affiliated with Iran.

... ... ...

[May 20, 2019] EP.744 Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel -- Joe Biden's Conventional Wisdom is AMERICAN IMPERIALISM!

May 11, 2019 | www.youtube.com

On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel who discusses why he is joining the race to pull the debate to the left, the nature of his contenders such as Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders, US regime change attempts in Venezuela and escalating tension with Iran, Julian Assange's imprisonment in the UK and the US' extradition request. Next we speak to Chris Williamson MP, in his first international interview since being suspended by the Labour Party.

He discusses NHS privatisation by stealth with the new GP contracts due to be signed next week, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Trump's escalation against Iran and Julian Assange's on-going imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison.


Gary Salisbury , 1 week ago (edited)

Pompeo Finally Tells the Truth: 'We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal'" !! He makes me want to Puke !! His duplicity has no bounds !! A swamp dweller of NOTE !!

B. Greene , 1 week ago (edited)

Senator Gravel needs 100k unique contributions to qualify for the DNC debates. Help him shake things up with a $1 donation at: www.mikegravel.com

TrickyVickey , 1 week ago (edited)

Pompeo is a murderous "dictator pusher" for the military industrial complex.

harriet , 6 days ago (edited)

Love Mike gravel, honest, good, genuine person with pure heart and soul! Donate dollar to get him on the debates! Love Chris Williamson also a great men we need more people like these! This channel should have way more subs and views, great show!

Muzza Man , 1 week ago (edited)

The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling 297 billion barrels . They are going to be INVADED by the real world terrorists, the USA,BRITAIN, and their puppet allies !!!! Need I say more?

invisble man , 1 week ago

Joe Biden could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and sniff everybody and he would not lose any voters.

[May 20, 2019] Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by the United States

May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

psychohistorian , May 19, 2019 10:55:01 PM | 6

Below is my final Xinhuanet link about China/US relations

Chinese FM urges US to avoid further damage of ties in phone call with Pompeo

The take away quote
"
Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by the United States.
"
Empire is having its hand slapped back in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, ???

Where are they going to get their war on?

I see empire as a war junkie and they are starting to twitch in withdrawals which is dangerous but a necessary stage. Trumps latest tweets show that level of energy.

The spinning plates of empire are not wowing the crowds like before.....what is plan Z?

[May 20, 2019] US bullying caprices stain its credibility

Those are pretty strong words from the official agency...
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world. ..."
"... As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements. ..."
"... When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple." ..."
"... Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union. ..."
"... In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status. ..."
"... Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests. ..."
May 20, 2019 | www.xinhuanet.com

Source: Xinhua | 2019-05-20 17:11:21 | Editor: Xiang Bo

BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Modern international trade relations are based on credibility and the spirit of the contract. However,in the year-long China-U.S. trade negotiations, Washington repeatedly reneged on its promises and played "face changing" tricks, leaving stark stains on its credibility.

During Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's visit to Washington last May, Beijing and Washington agreed not to engage in a trade war. Only days later, the Trump administration said it will impose a 25-percent tariff on 50 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese imports which contain industrially significant technology.

Soon after the recent setbacks in China-U.S. trade consultations, the Trump administration, in the name of "national security," rolled out measures to hit Chinese tech firms. The White House's executive order will kill many business contracts between Chinese and U.S. firms.

The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world.

As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements.

These bullying behaviors have sent a clear signal: one can arbitrarily tamper with the original contracts regardless of cooperation partners' interests and concerns, as long as it has the power to do so. That is "the logic of gangsters" and "the law of jungle." Such bullying tactic has stirred global opposition, including from Washington's allies in Europe.

When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple."

Also, America's bullying actions have gone far beyond multilateral economic and trade realms.

Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union.

These self-serving moves have disgraced Washington's credibility as a responsible major country, and seriously eroded the foundation for international cooperation.

In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status.

Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests.

[May 20, 2019] "Us" Versus "Them"

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth. ..."
"... There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase. ..."
"... Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus. ..."
"... When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed. ..."
"... I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. ..."
"... If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. ..."
"... These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president. ..."
"... The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke. ..."
May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks

Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their assigned puppets.

Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.

Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion, pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP), rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.

There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase.

Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.

When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.

I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line, "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses, thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public. There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election. This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last election by referencing another famous cynic.

"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks

Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.

As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.

I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since 2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way. I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not their words.

Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.

I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive. Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have gotten it done when he controlled both houses.

The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.

I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.

With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered winning in present day America.

The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the day. Truthfulness not required.

The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human trait over two hundred years ago.

"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over 300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches, and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.

These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president.

The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning. What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).

If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.

In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine whether he can defeat the Deep State.


TerryThomas , 32 minutes ago link

"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus, despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism, cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here, too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer

666D Chess , 11 minutes ago link

Divide and conquer, not a very novel idea... but very effective.

Kafir Goyim , 32 minutes ago link

If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers

That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of it, but they're still pissed.

Rich Monk , 33 minutes ago link

These predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.

yellowsub , 42 minutes ago link

Ya'll a dumb fool if you think gov't as your best interests first.

legalize , 46 minutes ago link

Citation needed.

Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm swallowing it.

I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?

bshirley1968 , 51 minutes ago link

"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."

If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".

If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real leadership and not another political hack.

The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side" you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the minute they become them and not one of us.

Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.

Fish Gone Bad , 37 minutes ago link

Dark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at Arkancide.com and start counting the bodies.

Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that situation.

bshirley1968 , 31 minutes ago link

Don't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of **** as my governor for 12 years.

NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped bafoon.

Kafir Goyim , 28 minutes ago link

I don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.

Giant Meteor , 9 minutes ago link

Dennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..

Great theater..

Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream, vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now. If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.

Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest, but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect .. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.

Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" / current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..

666D Chess , 15 minutes ago link

Until the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for Trump and they were laughing their asses off.

HoodRatKing , 55 minutes ago link

The author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned nightmare..

Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive & risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.

I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life, own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore, laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to live in poverty & homelessness in.

At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not = a financial death sentence.

bshirley1968 , 39 minutes ago link

Sure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no electricity.....no running water......no roads....

There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.

The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke.

There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.

911bodysnatchers322 , 56 minutes ago link

This article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army

Giant Meteor , 25 minutes ago link

And yet, I'll never forget all the smiling faces at the gala wedding affair.

Happier times ..

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/us/politics/ex-ally-donald-trump-now-heaps-scorn-on-bill-clinton.html

And yes, thanks in advance for noting the link is from New York slime, but i believe the picture in this case anyway, was not photo shopped.

She is, (hillary) after all, good people, a real fighter ..

**** .. mission accomplished ..

ExPat2018 , 1 hour ago link

The greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful countries

You must have intelligent people

America doesn't have that anymore.

JuliaS , 1 hour ago link

Notice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds of obedient citizens.

911bodysnatchers322 , 54 minutes ago link

This article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions

istt , 1 hour ago link

The reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy, and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.

fersur , 1 hour ago link

There's an old saying; "Congress does 2 things well Nothing and Protest" said by Pence Live-Streamed 4 hours ago at USMCA America First speech !

Good, Bad and Ugly

The Good is President Trump works extreme daily hours trying his best !

The Bad is Haters miss every bit of whatever their President Trump does that is good !

The Ugly is Hater Reporters ignoring World events, scared of possibly shining President Trump fairly !

SHsparx , 1 hour ago link

You really are making it a bit too obvious, bro.

911bodysnatchers322 , 52 minutes ago link

The congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them barely read, though they probably can

SHsparx , 1 hour ago link

I still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.

Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago link

If we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants, liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny continues to grow and fester as a cancer.

Zoomorph , 1 hour ago link

In other words, those amendments are already lost... we're just waiting for the final dictate to come down.

Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago link

You may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.

SHsparx , 49 minutes ago link

@ Zeusky Babarusky

I couldn't agree with you more.

Unfortunately, it is what it is, which is why I used the word "dying."

Those two amendments are on their deathbed, and if a Dem gets in the house, that'll be the nail in the coffin.

bshirley1968 , 1 hour ago link

If you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your life.

I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's God.

I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life. There are worse things than dying.

Nephilim , 1 hour ago link

THEHAZELFLOCKOFCRANES

BRINDLED FOOT,

AUSTRALIAN.

caveofgoldcaveofold

Zoomorph , 1 hour ago link

"Why do we have wars?"

"Because life is war: fighting for survival, resources, and what is best in the world."

"Why do people say war is bad?"

"Because they are useful idiots who have been tricked by religion and/or weak degenerates who are too weary to participate."

delta0ne , 1 hour ago link

This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke! this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.

blind_understanding , 1 hour ago link

Last revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.

We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of England and the issued of the British-pound currency.

George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way of the phony revolution.

Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks, Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The same parasite remains within our government.

djrichard , 1 hour ago link

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-vi-children-of-an-absent-god/

It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution, and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.

To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while they are being manipulated.

[May 20, 2019] Venezuela Exposes the Myth of John Bolton's "Genius" by Martin Sieff

May 20, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

The fiasco of the latest obviously unsuccessful US attempt to topple twice democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro made a laughing stock of the US government throughout the world and is now exposing new splits in the Trump administration in Washington. It is also exposing a dangerous but also ridiculous myth that Washington has credulously swallowed for generations – the idea that National Security Adviser John Bolton is actually competent.

No one among the carefully trained castrated geldings of the US mainstream news media and their pseudo-liberal and libertarian outliers has ever dared to ask how able Bolton actually is. He is held in awe and even fear for his supposed brilliant intellect and for his undoubted energy and relentless determination to push the policies he supports with tunnel vision and fanatical relentlessness as hard as he can.

Yet given such undeniable "qualities" what is truly astonishing is how useless Bolton has been in pursuing his own primary foreign policy goals for more than 40 years. He failed to prevent the first president to take him seriously, Ronald Reagan to conduct sweeping nuclear arms reductions with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and to push ahead with Gorbachev to dismantle the Cold War. These policies were anathema to Bolton who prophesied – falsely – that war and catastrophe would flow from them. But Reagan ignored him and pushed them through anyway.

Now Bolton has destroyed Reagan's legacy of peace by convincing current President Donald Trump to scrap one of Reagan's greatest achievement, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

He succeeded in helping provoke the US invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq under President George W. Bush in 2003 but failed to persuade even Bush, Junior and his top foreign policy adviser, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pull out of any arms control treaties whatsoever.

Then, the Iraq misadventure was so appallingly bungled that Bolton failed to get any traction whatsoever for his priority project of toppling the government of Iran, even if it took a full scale war to do it.

In Washington, even Bolton's greatest critics among libertarians and paleo-conservatives have spoken for decades with awe of his supposed brilliant intellect, command of all details, endless energy and ability to read and keep track of everything. But now, the latest failed coup in Venezuela instead reveals an ignorant, simplistic rash adventurer and gambler who charges head on into dangerous situations and who relies on bullying and bluster alone to get his way.

Bolton showed none of the ruthless, devious subtlety of a Dwight D. Eisenhower in masterminding a coup and fragrant breach of international law without appearing to have anything to do with it (a skill which Ronald Reagan, though far less masterful than the revered Eisenhower also attempted in Iran-Contra).

Bolton's fingerprints were all over the hard-charging policy of propping up ridiculous Juan Guiado as America's cardboard cutout puppet to run Venezuela, even though he had no credibility whatsoever.

Bolton is in fact is an awesomely bad judge of choosing his own allies in other countries. His combination of recklessness and vanity means he is always a sucker for whatever smooth-talking sociopath can worm his way into his presence.

This explains how the late, unlamented Ahmed Chalabi was able to convince Bolton and his neocon friends that he (Chalabi)) would be welcomed by tens of millions of Iraqis as soon the US armed forces invaded ("liberated" was the politically approved term) his country and how Zalmay Khalizad, a catastrophic clown, was acclaimed as an infallible guru on Afghanistan.

Bolton is widely known to have no small talk, private interests, charm or social skills whatsoever. Far from confirming his "genius", as his many worshipful courtiers claim, this only confirms his haplessness.

If Bolton played poker he would be skinned alive. He cannot read people and being an obsessive courtier and flatterer himself, he always falls flat on his face for the flattery of others. The arch-manipulator is in reality the easiest of figures to manipulate.

Once the strange miasma of worshipful myth is stripped from Bolton, all the confusions and bungles of the April 30 Coup That Never Was in Venezuela become clear.

[May 19, 2019] Lawrence Wilkerson Warns The US Is Driving Down A Highway To War With China

Notable quotes:
"... More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the money keeps flowing. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Adam Dick via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration, warns in a new The Real News interview with host Sharmini Peries that the United States government is driving down a "highway to war" with China -- a war for which Wilkerson sees no sound justification.

The drive toward war is not undertaken in response to a real threat posed by China to the people of America. Instead, argues Wilkerson, the US government is moving toward war for reasons related to money for both the military and the broader military-industrial complex, as well to advance President Donald Trump's domestic political goals.

Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity's Academic Board, elaborates on the US military's money-seeking motivation to advance the new China scare, stating:

All of this right now, first and foremost, is a budget ploy. They want more money.

And that's largely because their personnel costs are just eating their lunch. And, second, it's an attempt to develop - and this has something to do with money too of course - another threat, another cold war, another feeding system .

The military just hooks up like it is hooking up to an intravenous, you know, an IV system and the money just pours out-slush fund money, appropriated money, everything else.

More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the money keeps flowing.

Watch Wilkerson's complete interview here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/42LauiK_rbY

* * *

Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

[May 19, 2019] Why The Takedown Of Heinz-Christian Strache Will Strengthen The Right

Notable quotes:
"... In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts. ..."
"... Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones. ..."
"... The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy. ..."
"... Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now. ..."
"... The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions. ..."
"... The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

During the last days a right wing politician in Austria was taken down by using an elaborate sting. Until Friday Heinz-Christian Strache was leader of the far right (but not fascist) Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and the Vice Chancellor of the country. On Friday morning two German papers, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel published (German) reports (English) about an old video that was made to take Strache down.

The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in east Europe. It's pro-Russian position has led to verbal attacks on and defamation of the party from NATO supporting and neoliberal circles.

In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts.

Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones.


A scene from the video. Source: Der Falter (vid, German)

During the six hour long party several schemes get proposed by the "Russian" and are discussed. Strache rejects most of them. He insists several times that everything they plan or do must be legal and conform to the law. He says that a large donation could probably be funneled through an endowment that would then support his party. It is a gray area under Austrian party financing laws. They also discuss if the "Russian" could buy the Kronen Zeitung , Austria's powerful tabloid, and use it to prop up his party.

The evening goes on with several bottles of vodka on the table. Starche gets a bit drunk and boosts in front of the "oligarch daughter" about all his connections to rich and powerful people. He does not actually have these.

Strache says that, in exchange for help for his party, the "Russian" could get public contracts for highway building and repair. Currently most of such contracts in Austria go to the large Austrian company, STRABAG, that is owned by a neoliberal billionaire who opposes the FPOe. At that time Strache was not yet in the government and had no way to decide about such contracts.

At one point Strache seems to understand that the whole thing is a setup. But his right hand man calms him down and vouches for the "Russian". The sting ends with Strache and his companion leaving the place. The never again see the "Russian" and her co-plotter. Nothing they talked about will ever come to fruition.

Three month later Strache and his party win more than 20% in the Austrian election and form a coalition government with the conservative party OeVP led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Even while the FPOe controls several ministries, it does not achieve much politically. It lacks a real program and the government's policies are mostly run by the conservatives.

Nearly two years after the evening on Ibiza, ten days before the European parliament election in which Strache's party is predicted to achieve good results, a video of the evening on Ibiza is handed to two German papers which are known to be have strong transatlanticist leanings and have previously been used for other shady 'leaks'. The papers do not hesitate to take part in the plot and publish extensive reports about the video.

After the reports appeared Strache immediately stepped down and the conservatives ended the coalition with his party. Austria will now have new elections.

On Bloomberg Leonid Bershidsky opines on the case:

Strache's discussion with the Russian oligarch's fake niece shows a propensity for dirty dealing that has nothing to do with idealistic nationalism. Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps. In the videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's.

I do not believe that the people who voted for the FPOe (and similar parties in other countries) will subscribe to that view. The politics of the main stream parties in Austria have for decades been notoriously corrupt. Compared to them Strache and his party are astonishingly clean. In the video he insists several times that everything must stay within the legal realm. Whenever the "Russian" puts forward a likely illegal scheme, Starche emphatically rejects it.

Bershidsky continues:

Strache, as one of the few nationalist populists in government in the European Union's wealthier member states, was an important member of the movement Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been trying to cobble together ahead of the European Parliament election that will take place next week. On Saturday, he was supposed to attend a Salvini-led rally in Milan with other like-minded politicians from across Europe. Instead, he was in Vienna apologizing to his wife and to Kurz and protesting pitifully that he'd been the victim of a "political assassination" -- a poisonous rain on the Italian right-winger's parade.
...
This leaves the European far right in disarray and plays into the hands of centrist and leftist forces ahead of next week's election. Salvini's unifying effort has been thoroughly undermined, ...

This is also a misreading of the case. The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy.

Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now.

But that Strache stepped down after the sudden media assault only makes him more convincing. The right-wing all over Europe will see him as a martyr who was politically assassinated because he worked for their cause. The issue will increase the right-wingers hate against the 'liberal' establishment. It will further motivate them: "They attack us because we are right and winning." The new far-right block Natteo Salvini will setup in the European Parliament will likely receive a record share of votes.

Establishment writers notoriously misinterpret the new right wing parties and their followers. This stand-offish sentence in the Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:

In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.

The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly snobbish but utterly false. The working class understands very well what the establishment parties have done to it and continue to do. The increasing vote share of the far-right is a direct consequence of the behavior of the neoliberal center and of the lack of real left alternatives.

Last week, before the Strache video appeared, Craig Murray put his finger on the wound:

The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions.

...

The rejection of the political class manifests itself in different ways and has been diverted down a number of entirely blind alleys giving unfulfilled promise of a fresh start – Brexit, Trump, Macron. As the vote share of the established political parties – and public engagement with established political institutions – falls everywhere, the chattering classes deride the political symptoms of status quo rejection by the people as "populism". It is not populism to make sophisticated arguments that undermine the received political wisdom and take on the entire weight of established media opinion.

If one wants to take down the far right one has to do so with arguments and good politics for the working class. Most people, especially working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money.

While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote for Strache's FBOe and similar parties. When one talks to these people issues of injustice and inequality always come up. The new 'populist' parties at least claim to fight against the injustice done to the common men. Unlike most of the establishment parties they seem to be still mostly clean and not yet corrupted.

In the early 1990s Strache actually flirted with violent fascists but he rejected their way. While he has far-right opinions, he and his like are no danger to our societies. If we can not accept that Strache and his followers have some legitimate causes, we will soon find us confronted with way more extreme people. The neoliberal establishment seems to do its best to achieve that.

Posted by b on May 19, 2019 at 01:10 PM | Permalink

[May 19, 2019] The OPCW, Douma, The Skripals

Notable quotes:
"... The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East. ..."
"... Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense. ..."
"... A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time. ..."
"... The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation. ..."
"... The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know. ..."
"... The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect. ..."
"... Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later). ..."
"... The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all. ..."
"... She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day. ..."
"... If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East. ..."
"... So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility? ..."
"... This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first. ..."
"... If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this. ..."
"... But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval. ..."
"... The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end. ..."
"... Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever. ..."
"... In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran. ..."
"... The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Off-Guardian.org,

In view of the latest revelations from the leaked report, which seem to prove that at least some elements of the Douma "chemical attack" were entirely staged, we want to take look back at the chaotic events of Spring 2018.

The following is an extract from an article by Catte originally published April 14th last year, which takes on a greater weight in light of certain evidence – not only that the Douma attack was faked, but that the OPCW is compromised.

You can read the whole article here .

* * *

PRIMARILY UK INITIATIVE?

The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East.

Since at least 2001 and the launch of the "War on Terror" the US has led the way in finding or creating facile excuses to fight oil wars and hegemonic wars and proxy wars in the region. But this time the dynamics look a little different.

This time it really looks as if the UK has been setting the pace of the "response".

The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a)about the verifiability of the attacks, and b)about the dangers of a military response suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure.

Trump's attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation. But he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense.

A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.

You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.

The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation.

The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed by Mattis have been heard from the lips of an UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?) voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.

Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma "attack", and the claims by Syria that the perps are in their custody, and a tentative storyline emerges. It's possible this time there were other considerations in the mix beside the usual need to "be seen to do something" and Trump's perpetual requirement to appease the liberal Russiagaters and lunatic warmongers at home. Maybe this time it was also about helping the UK out of a sticky problem.

THE SKRIPAL CONSIDERATION

Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according to plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn't this way. Since some time in mid to late March it's been clear the entire thing has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.

The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.

The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.

  1. It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it
  2. Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.
  3. It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in allusion and weasel-wording. Even the name of the "toxic substance" found in the Skripals' blood is omitted, and the only thing tying it to the UK government's public claims of "novichok" is association by inference and proximity.

Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later).

None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film or photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.

The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all.

She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.

Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative, snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can't completely control.

Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess? And how much did the Douma "gas attack" and subsequent drive for a concerted western "response" have to do with trying to fix that?

IS THIS WHAT HAPPENED?

If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East.

So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?

Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the Russians called them out and the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?

Did this cancelation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close scrutiny, and no second act for distraction?

So, did they push on with the now virtually useless "chemical attack", botch it (again), leaving a clear evidence trail leading back to them? Did they then further insist on an allied "response" to their botched false flag in order to provide yet more distraction and hopefully destroy some of that evidence?

This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first.

It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further geo-strategic interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed UK government is less appealing.

And it would explain why the "reprisals" when they came were so half-hearted.

If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this.

This is very bad.

But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.

This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it's unlikely that will happen.

So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn into this.

Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more "reprisals"? Or will this signal some other change in direction?

We'll all know soon enough.

* * *

Back to today...

...and while things have moved on, we're still puzzling over all the same issues.

All these questions stand, and are important, but more important than all of that is the lesson: They tried it before, and just because it didn't work doesn't mean they won't try it again.

Last spring, the Western powers showed they will deploy a false flag if they need too, for domestic or international motives. And they have the motives right now.

The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end.

Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever.

Britain had the most to gain, of all NATO countries, and that is still true. We don't know what they might do.

This time they might even receive greater support from France this time around – since Macron is facing a revolution at home and would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international distraction.

In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran.

That's not to say Syria is safe, far from it. They are always just one carefully place false-flag away from all-out war. Last year, Mattis (or whoever) decided war with Syria was not an option – that it was too risky or complicated. That might not happen next time.

Clearly, the US hasn't totally seen sense in terms of stoking conflict with Russia – as seen by the decision to pull out of the INF Treaty late last year. And further demonstrated by their attempts to overthrow Russia's ally Nicolas Maduro. Another ripe candidate for a false flag.

The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media.

But because recognising what they were trying to do last time , is the best defense when they try it again next time .

[May 18, 2019] Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning

Highly recommended!
May 15, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Abe , May 15, 2019 at 17:04

During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney claimed that he would not make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Romney blatantly pandered to the pro-Israel Lobby, including both Jewish Zionists and evangelical Christian Zionists.

In a telling exchange during a debate in December 2011, Romney criticized Newt Gingrich for making a disparaging remark about Palestinians, declaring: "Before I made a statement of that nature, I'd get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: 'Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?' "

Netanyahu met with Romney in 2011. The two men had worked together in the 1970s.

Martin S. Indyk, a leading figure in the pro-Israel Lobby who served as United States ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, said that whether intentional or not, Romney's statement implied that he would "subcontract Middle East policy to Israel."

"That, of course, would be inappropriate," added Indyk, a former director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who also served eight years as the founding Executive Director of the notorious pro-Israel warhawk "think tank" Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

For years, Netanyahu has mobilized pro-Israel Lobby groups and Congressional Republicans to pressure successive US administrations into taking a more confrontational approach against Iran.

"To the extent that their personal relationship would give Netanyahu entree to the Romney White House in a way that he doesn't now have to the Obama White House," Indyk said, "the prime minister would certainly consider that to be a significant advantage."

In March 2012, Romney spoke via satellite to a meeting of the AIPAC. Like other politicians backed by the pro-Israel Lobby, Romney vehemently criticized the Obama administration over its policies toward Israel.

Romney worked at at Boston Consulting Group from 1975 to 1977; Mr. Netanyahu was involved from 1976 to 1978. But a month after Netanyahu arrived, he returned to Israel to start an antiterrorism foundation in memory of his brother, an officer killed while leading the hostage rescue force at Entebbe, Uganda. An aide said he sporadically returned to the company over the rest of that two-year period.

Romney later decamped to Bain & Company, a rival of Boston Consulting. They did, however, maintain a significant link: at Bain, Mr. Romney worked closely with Fleur Cates, Netanyahu's second wife. (Cates and Netanyahu divorced in the mid-1980s, but she remained in touch with Romney.)

Netanyahu paid him a visit to Romney when the latter became the governor of Massachusetts. Netanyahu, who had recently stepped down as Israel's finance minister, regaled Romney with stories of how he had challenged unionized workers over control of their pensions and privatized formerly government-run industries. He encouraged Romney to look for ways to do the same.

"Government," Romney recalled Netanyahu saying, "is the guy on your shoulders."

As governor, Mr. Romney said, he frequently repeated the story to the heads of various agencies.

A few years later, Romney had dinner with Mr. Netanyahu at a private home in central Jerusalem. Before he left Israel, Romney set up several meetings with government officials in the United States for his old colleague. "I immediately saw the wisdom of his thinking," Romney claimed. Back in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney sent out letters to legislators requesting that the public pension funds they controlled sell off investments from corporations doing business with Iran.

Netanyahu maintained contact with Romney during the presidential campaign. When Newt Gingrich leaped to the top of the polls, an article in January 2012 explored why billionaire oligarch Sheldon Adelson was devoting millions of dollars to back Gingrich. It described Netanyahu and Adelson as close friends. Netanyahu's office quickly relayed a message to a senior Romney adviser, Dan Senor claiming that the Israeli prime minister had played no role in Adelson's decision to bankroll a Romney rival.

Fast forward to the 2016 US presidential election.

Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning.

Trump received the "Liberty Award" for his contributions to US-Israel relations at a 3 February 2015 gala hosted by The Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper, covering American and international Jewish and Israel-related news.

"We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent."
VIDEO minutes 2:15-8:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwBwBw7R-U

After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015.

Trump's questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.

Stage management of both the Trump administration and its Republican and Democratic "opposition" continues apace.

The Israeli government, via the machinations of the pro-Israel Lobby, is an ever more aggressively warmongering "guy on your shoulders".

"Russia-gate" really is about an immense conspiracy to "do things".

The primary "thing", the key pretext that Lazare and other CN contributors steadfastly ignore:

The "Russia-gate" fiction was specifically designed to divert attention from the reality of "Israel-gate".

[May 18, 2019] Is John Bolton the most dangerous man in the world? by Ben Armbruster

May 18, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

The US is closer to war with Iran than it has been since the Bush years, or perhaps ever. And Bolton is largely to blame

But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited.' Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters Donald Trump's national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with Iran .

We know this because he has been saying it for nearly two decades .

And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump's top foreign policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East of the past two weeks.

Just after one month on the job, Bolton gave Trump the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully boxing in Iran's nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton's drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.

Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, it can achieve a "better deal" that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.

And Bolton has no qualms about manipulating or outright ignoring intelligence to advance his agenda, which is exactly what's happening right now.

In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East, Bolton cited "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence. But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since said that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it "out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually was". Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week, saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.

What's even more worrying is that Bolton knows what he's doing. He's "a seasoned bureaucratic infighter who has the skills to press forcefully for his views" – and he has a long history of using those skills to undermine American diplomacy and work toward killing arms control agreements.

As a senior official in the George W Bush administration, he played key role in the collapse of the Agreed Framework, the Clinton-era deal that froze North Korea's plutonium nuclear program (the North Koreans tested their first bomb four years later).

He said he "felt like a kid on Christmas day" after he orchestrated the US withdrawal from the international criminal court in 2002. And now as a senior official in the Trump administration, he pushed for the US to withdrawal from a crucial nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

While it's unclear how much of a role he played in scuttling Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi last year, he publicly called for the so-called "Libya model" with the North Koreans (in other words, regime change by force). Just months before joining the administration, he tried to make the legal case for a preventive war against Pyongyang. And if you think he cares about the aftermath of war with North Korea, he doesn't. Bolton was reportedly "unmoved" by a presentation during his time in the Bush administration of the catastrophic consequences of such a war. "I don't do war. I do policy," he said then.

So far, Bolton has been successful in moving the United States toward his desired outcome with Iran – if getting the Pentagon to draw up plans to send 120,000 US troops to the region to confront Iran is any indication. There are hopeful signs that we can avoid war, as US officials and our European allies, seemingly alarmed by what Bolton is up to, are sounding the alarm about the Trump administration skewing intelligence on Iran.

But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited. The question, ultimately, is whether the president can stick to his instincts of avoiding more military conflict, or acquiesce to a man hellbent on boxing him into a corner with no way out other than war with Iran.

Ben Armbruster is the communications director for Win Without War and previously served as National Security Editor at ThinkProgress

[May 18, 2019] What is the representative of Allmighty Nation doing un Russia?

May 18, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Bianca , May 16, 2019 at 06:46

So, what is the representative of Allmighty Nation doing un Russia? Why bothering to hint on better relations? Noted in the press conference was the absence of Pompeo's moralizing, limiting itself on US position on issues. What is the point in this flying back and forth?

Yes, Iran -- and arms control. Venezuela -- and arms control. North Korea -- and arms control. I think they are paranoid about Russian weapons. And if Iranians by any chance have some of the new weaponry, providing perfect testing ground, would Russia own to that? What was obvious, no concessions on any issue from Moscow. Not even softened language.

This time, it is different. The economic and military power has shifted east, Europeans forever without a spine this time are spineless in all directions, and it will come as a shock to the establishment that the presumed animosity towards Iran in Gulf, will nowhere to be found. Wil Saudis host US troops against Iran, Doubt that deeply.

[May 18, 2019] If Washington were able to control everything, including "Big Prize" Iran, it would be able to dominate all Asian economies, especially China. Trump even said were that to happen, "decisions on the GNP of China will be made in Washington."

May 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter AU 1 , May 18, 2019 2:15:40 AM | link

Without the oil, Trump has lost. Pepe Escobar is starting to get the picture

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/05/17/the-dead-dont-die-they-march-to-war/

"If President Trump had ever read Mackinder -- and there's no evidence he did -- one might assume that he's aiming at a new anti-Eurasia integration pivot centered on the Persian Gulf. And energy would be at the heart of the pivot.

If Washington were able to control everything, including "Big Prize" Iran, it would be able to dominate all Asian economies, especially China. Trump even said were that to happen, "decisions on the GNP of China will be made in Washington."...

...Arguably the key (invisible) takeaway of the meetings this week between Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi, and then between Lavrov and Pompeo, is that Moscow made it quite clear that Iran will be protected by Russia in the event of an American showdown. Pompeo's body language showed how rattled he was.

What rattled Pomp: "Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, be it small-scale, medium-scale or any other scale, will be treated as a nuclear attack on our country. The response will be instant and with all the relevant consequences,"

Trump may not have read Mackinder but Kissinger sure would have.

[May 18, 2019] Under the neocon enforced regime of the US militarism winning the competition takes precedence over working together, and diplomacy is reduced to making and enforcing US demands.

May 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , May 18, 2019 10:26:39 AM | link

What we need is a true and functional global community of nations and people, where governments truly work together to balance out the stronger world powers.

The US national security state which enjoys a huge military budget and 800 overseas bases necessarily sees the world in a masculine competitive sense, not in a feminine cooperative sense. So winning the competition takes precedence over working together, and diplomacy is reduced to making and enforcing US demands.

from the recent US National Defense Strategy. . .

We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security. China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea. . . here

[May 18, 2019] Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning

Highly recommended!
May 15, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Abe , May 15, 2019 at 17:04

During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney claimed that he would not make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Romney blatantly pandered to the pro-Israel Lobby, including both Jewish Zionists and evangelical Christian Zionists.

In a telling exchange during a debate in December 2011, Romney criticized Newt Gingrich for making a disparaging remark about Palestinians, declaring: "Before I made a statement of that nature, I'd get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: 'Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?' "

Netanyahu met with Romney in 2011. The two men had worked together in the 1970s.

Martin S. Indyk, a leading figure in the pro-Israel Lobby who served as United States ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, said that whether intentional or not, Romney's statement implied that he would "subcontract Middle East policy to Israel."

"That, of course, would be inappropriate," added Indyk, a former director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who also served eight years as the founding Executive Director of the notorious pro-Israel warhawk "think tank" Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

For years, Netanyahu has mobilized pro-Israel Lobby groups and Congressional Republicans to pressure successive US administrations into taking a more confrontational approach against Iran.

"To the extent that their personal relationship would give Netanyahu entree to the Romney White House in a way that he doesn't now have to the Obama White House," Indyk said, "the prime minister would certainly consider that to be a significant advantage."

In March 2012, Romney spoke via satellite to a meeting of the AIPAC. Like other politicians backed by the pro-Israel Lobby, Romney vehemently criticized the Obama administration over its policies toward Israel.

Romney worked at at Boston Consulting Group from 1975 to 1977; Mr. Netanyahu was involved from 1976 to 1978. But a month after Netanyahu arrived, he returned to Israel to start an antiterrorism foundation in memory of his brother, an officer killed while leading the hostage rescue force at Entebbe, Uganda. An aide said he sporadically returned to the company over the rest of that two-year period.

Romney later decamped to Bain & Company, a rival of Boston Consulting. They did, however, maintain a significant link: at Bain, Mr. Romney worked closely with Fleur Cates, Netanyahu's second wife. (Cates and Netanyahu divorced in the mid-1980s, but she remained in touch with Romney.)

Netanyahu paid him a visit to Romney when the latter became the governor of Massachusetts. Netanyahu, who had recently stepped down as Israel's finance minister, regaled Romney with stories of how he had challenged unionized workers over control of their pensions and privatized formerly government-run industries. He encouraged Romney to look for ways to do the same.

"Government," Romney recalled Netanyahu saying, "is the guy on your shoulders."

As governor, Mr. Romney said, he frequently repeated the story to the heads of various agencies.

A few years later, Romney had dinner with Mr. Netanyahu at a private home in central Jerusalem. Before he left Israel, Romney set up several meetings with government officials in the United States for his old colleague. "I immediately saw the wisdom of his thinking," Romney claimed. Back in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney sent out letters to legislators requesting that the public pension funds they controlled sell off investments from corporations doing business with Iran.

Netanyahu maintained contact with Romney during the presidential campaign. When Newt Gingrich leaped to the top of the polls, an article in January 2012 explored why billionaire oligarch Sheldon Adelson was devoting millions of dollars to back Gingrich. It described Netanyahu and Adelson as close friends. Netanyahu's office quickly relayed a message to a senior Romney adviser, Dan Senor claiming that the Israeli prime minister had played no role in Adelson's decision to bankroll a Romney rival.

Fast forward to the 2016 US presidential election.

Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning.

Trump received the "Liberty Award" for his contributions to US-Israel relations at a 3 February 2015 gala hosted by The Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper, covering American and international Jewish and Israel-related news.

"We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent."
VIDEO minutes 2:15-8:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwBwBw7R-U

After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015.

Trump's questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.

Stage management of both the Trump administration and its Republican and Democratic "opposition" continues apace.

The Israeli government, via the machinations of the pro-Israel Lobby, is an ever more aggressively warmongering "guy on your shoulders".

"Russia-gate" really is about an immense conspiracy to "do things".

The primary "thing", the key pretext that Lazare and other CN contributors steadfastly ignore:

The "Russia-gate" fiction was specifically designed to divert attention from the reality of "Israel-gate".

[May 18, 2019] Is Trump a double dealer. Why Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

May 16, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

tom , May 16, 2019 at 15:23

Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

Lavrov responded first to the question. He said that there is no evidence that shows any Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He continued:

Speaking about the most recent US presidential campaign in particular, we have had in place an information exchange channel about potential unintended risks arising in cyberspace since 2013. From October 2016 (when the US Democratic Administration first raised this issue) until January 2017 (before Donald Trump's inauguration), this channel was used to handle requests and responses. Not so long ago, when the attacks on Russia in connection with the alleged interference in the elections reached their high point, we proposed publishing this exchange of messages between these two entities, which engage in staving off cyberspace incidents. I reminded Mr Pompeo about this today. The administration, now led by President Trump, refused to do so. I'm not sure who was behind this decision, but the idea to publish this data was blocked by the United States. However, we believe that publishing it would remove many currently circulating fabrications. Of course, we will not unilaterally make these exchanges public, but I would still like to make this fact known.

The communication channel about cyber issues did indeed exist. In June 2013 the Presidents of the United States and Russia issued a Joint Statement about "Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)". The parties agreed to establishing communication channels between each other computer emergency response teams, to use the direct communication link of the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers for cyber issue exchanges, and to have direct communication links between high-level officials in the White House and Kremlin for such matter. A Fact Sheet published by the Obama White House detailed the implementation of these three channels.

One inference from Lavrov's statement is that the "fundamental understanding on this matter" between the two presidents that has "not been fully implemented" is the release of the communications about cyberspace incidents. The Russians clearly think that a release of the communications with the Obama administration would exculpate them. That would also exculpate Trump from any further collusion allegations. Why then does the Trump administration reject the release? Who is blocking it?

Cont. reading: Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

https://www.moonofalabama.org/

[May 18, 2019] Is John Bolton the most dangerous man in the world? by Ben Armbruster

May 18, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

The US is closer to war with Iran than it has been since the Bush years, or perhaps ever. And Bolton is largely to blame

But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited.' Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters Donald Trump's national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with Iran .

We know this because he has been saying it for nearly two decades .

And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump's top foreign policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East of the past two weeks.

Just after one month on the job, Bolton gave Trump the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully boxing in Iran's nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton's drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.

Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, it can achieve a "better deal" that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.

And Bolton has no qualms about manipulating or outright ignoring intelligence to advance his agenda, which is exactly what's happening right now.

In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East, Bolton cited "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence. But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since said that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it "out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually was". Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week, saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.

What's even more worrying is that Bolton knows what he's doing. He's "a seasoned bureaucratic infighter who has the skills to press forcefully for his views" – and he has a long history of using those skills to undermine American diplomacy and work toward killing arms control agreements.

As a senior official in the George W Bush administration, he played key role in the collapse of the Agreed Framework, the Clinton-era deal that froze North Korea's plutonium nuclear program (the North Koreans tested their first bomb four years later).

He said he "felt like a kid on Christmas day" after he orchestrated the US withdrawal from the international criminal court in 2002. And now as a senior official in the Trump administration, he pushed for the US to withdrawal from a crucial nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

While it's unclear how much of a role he played in scuttling Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi last year, he publicly called for the so-called "Libya model" with the North Koreans (in other words, regime change by force). Just months before joining the administration, he tried to make the legal case for a preventive war against Pyongyang. And if you think he cares about the aftermath of war with North Korea, he doesn't. Bolton was reportedly "unmoved" by a presentation during his time in the Bush administration of the catastrophic consequences of such a war. "I don't do war. I do policy," he said then.

So far, Bolton has been successful in moving the United States toward his desired outcome with Iran – if getting the Pentagon to draw up plans to send 120,000 US troops to the region to confront Iran is any indication. There are hopeful signs that we can avoid war, as US officials and our European allies, seemingly alarmed by what Bolton is up to, are sounding the alarm about the Trump administration skewing intelligence on Iran.

But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited. The question, ultimately, is whether the president can stick to his instincts of avoiding more military conflict, or acquiesce to a man hellbent on boxing him into a corner with no way out other than war with Iran.

Ben Armbruster is the communications director for Win Without War and previously served as National Security Editor at ThinkProgress

[May 18, 2019] What is the representative of Allmighty Nation doing un Russia?

May 18, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Bianca , May 16, 2019 at 06:46

So, what is the representative of Allmighty Nation doing un Russia? Why bothering to hint on better relations? Noted in the press conference was the absence of Pompeo's moralizing, limiting itself on US position on issues. What is the point in this flying back and forth?

Yes, Iran -- and arms control. Venezuela -- and arms control. North Korea -- and arms control. I think they are paranoid about Russian weapons. And if Iranians by any chance have some of the new weaponry, providing perfect testing ground, would Russia own to that? What was obvious, no concessions on any issue from Moscow. Not even softened language.

This time, it is different. The economic and military power has shifted east, Europeans forever without a spine this time are spineless in all directions, and it will come as a shock to the establishment that the presumed animosity towards Iran in Gulf, will nowhere to be found. Wil Saudis host US troops against Iran, Doubt that deeply.

[May 17, 2019] Lavrov to Pompeo: And what's the US doing in the Eastern Hemisphere

May 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

That brings to mind the recent Arctic Council summit. Both Lavrov and Pompeo were there. Here's a significant exchange:

Lavrov: I believe you don't represent the South American region, do you?

Pompeo: We represent the entire hemisphere.

Lavrov: Oh, the hemisphere. Then what's the US doing in the Eastern Hemisphere, in Ukraine, for instance?

There was no response from Pompeo.

[May 14, 2019] The Propaganda Multiplier How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics

Highly recommended!
Images omitted.
Important article that shed some light on the methods of disinformation in foreign events used by neoliberal MSM
Notable quotes:
"... However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves. ..."
"... Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters. ..."
"... Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media. ..."
"... How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" : ..."
"... The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists. ..."
"... Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media: ..."
"... What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts: ..."
"... "In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298) ..."
Jun 01, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

By Swiss Propaganda Research Global Research, May 14, 2019 Swiss Propaganda Research Region: Europe , USA Theme: Media Disinformation

This study was originally published in 2016.

Introduction: "Something strange"

"How does the newspaper know what it knows?" The answer to this question is likely to surprise some newspaper readers: "The main source of information is stories from news agencies. The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions." (Höhne 1977, p. 11)

A Swiss media researcher points out:

"The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected." (Blum 1995, p. 9)

In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies are hardly known to the public:

"A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all In fact, they play an enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little attention has been paid to them in the past." (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)

Even the head of a news agency noted:

"There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public. Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be found at the source of the story." (Segbers 2007, p. 9)

"The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System"

So what are the names of these agencies that are "always at the source of the story"? There are now only three global agencies left:

  1. The American Associated Press ( AP ) with over 4000 employees worldwide. The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world's population every day.
  2. The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse ( AFP ) based in Paris and with around 4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the world.
  3. The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000 people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters , headquartered in New York.

In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. However, when it comes to international news, these usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and translate their reports.

The three global news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP, and the three national agencies of the German-speaking countries of Austria (APA), Germany (DPA) and Switzerland (SDA).

Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of news agencies with these words:

"News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts of this system." (Segbers 2007, p.10)

Small abbreviation, great effect

However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves.

The following figure shows some examples of source tagging in popular German-language newspapers. Next to the agency abbreviations we find the initials of editors who have edited the respective agency report.

News agencies as sources in newspaper articles

Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011 from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):

"Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a practice of 'spicing up' agency reports with little effort; for example, visualization techniques are used: unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and presented as comprehensive reports."

The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies critically:

"One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together with a few flourishes."

Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies. Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors said : "To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent agencies Reuters, AP and AFP."

In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually copied reports from New York, London and Paris.

Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013).

In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics, using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated with "controlled media" in authoritarian states.

The following graphic shows some examples from German and international publications. As you can see, despite the claimed objectivity, a slight (geo-)political bias sometimes creeps in.

"Putin threatens", "Iran provokes", "NATO concerned", "Assad stronghold": Similarities in content and wording due to reports by global news agencies.

The role of correspondents

Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters.

First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents). In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground permanently.

Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.

How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" :

"I'd imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important happened, they'd go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn't go off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an on-the-spot report. ()

The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the press releases, and I'd retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk you way through any crisis or summit meeting.

That's why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few different newspapers or click the news channels.

Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news agencies too slavishly. ()

The common idea about correspondents is that they 'have the story', () but the reality is that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of the conveyor belt, pretending we've baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we've done is put it in its wrapping. ()

Afterwards, a friend asked me how I'd managed to answer all the questions during those cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news, you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My friend had relalized that, for decades, what he'd been watching and listening to on the news was pure theatre." (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)

In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research, but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news agencies – the notorious "mainstream effect".

In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.

"What the agency does not report, does not take place"

The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.

Rather, the "Observatory" delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn "informed" hundreds of millions of readers and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange "Observatory" in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that was rarely asked.

The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in his book "The Business of News":

"A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is cited. () Behind the protective shield such a 'source' means for a news story, some people are quite inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always be attributed to the cited source." (Steffens 1969, p. 106)

Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens:

"News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is strictly required." (Steffens 1969, p. 32)

Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too "unimportant" – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: "What the agency does not report, does not take place." (Wilke 2000, p. 1)

America's "Righteous" Russia-gate Censorship. "Russia Bashing All the Time"

"Adding questionable stories"

While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent – even though they shouldn't actually be: "Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh active-researching ones." (Blum 1995, p. 16)

In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens warned of this danger:

"The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is. Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and becomes ever more credible." (Steffens 1969, p. 234)

Among the most active actors in "injecting" questionable geopolitical news are the military and defense ministries. For example, in 2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom Curley, made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would "ruin" the AP and him if the journalists reported too critically on the US military.

Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious stories sourced to some unnamed "informants" from "US defense circles".

Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media:

"With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread scenarios and deceptions. In this new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the secret services have become combatants in the information war. () The US military specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers. The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military." (Tilgner 2003, p. 132)

What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:

Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the Angolan war,

"The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression in Angola. So any kind of story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action, were propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another story, and it was kept going for weeks. () [But] it was all fiction."

Fred Bridgland looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: "We based our reports on official communications. It was not until years later that I learned a little CIA disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué, and it bore no relation at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room."

And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the Contra War in Nicaragua with these words:

"They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press came straight out of the toilet." (Hird 1985)

Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media, which can be "leaked" information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so efficient.

Through this "propaganda multiplier", dubious stories from PR experts working for governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with terms such as "apparent", "alleged" and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its effect taken place.

The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.

As the New York Times reported

In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in Great Britain and the US.

For example, news outlets like the New York Times or BBC have up to 100 foreign correspondents and other external employees. However, Middle East correspondent Luyendijk points out:

"Dutch news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times . We did that on the assumption that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on assistants and translators." (Luyendijk p. 47)

In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify ("military circles", "anonymous government officials", "intelligence officials" and the like) and can therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the geopolitical coverage in our media.

The following figure shows some examples of such citation based on the Syria coverage of the largest daily newspaper in Switzerland, Tages-Anzeiger. The articles are all from the first days of October 2015, when Russia for the first time intervened directly in the Syrian war (US/UK sources are highlighted):

Frequent citation of British and US media, exemplified by the Syria war coverage of Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in October 2015.

The desired narrative

But why do journalists in our media not simply try to research and report independently of the global agencies and the Anglo-Saxon media? Middle East correspondent Luyendijk describes his experiences:

"You might suggest that I should have looked for sources I could trust. I did try, but whenever I wanted to write a story without using news agencies, the main Anglo-Saxon media, or talking heads, it fell apart. () Obviously I, as a correspondent, could tell very different stories about one and the same situation. But the media could only present one of them, and often enough, that was exactly the story that confirmed the prevailing image." (Luyendijk p.54ff)

Media researcher Noam Chomsky has described this effect in his essay "What makes the mainstream media mainstream" as follows: "If you leave the official line, if you produce dissenting reports, then you will soon feel this. () There are many ways to get you back in line quickly. If you don't follow the guidelines, you will not keep your job long. This system works pretty well, and it reflects established power structures." (Chomsky 1997)

Nevertheless, some of the leading journalists continue to believe that nobody can tell them what to write. How does this add up? Media researcher Chomsky clarifies the apparent contradiction:

"[T]he point is that they wouldn't be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. () They have been through the socialization system." (Chomsky 1997)

Ultimately, this "socialization process" leads to a journalism that generally no longer independently researches and critically reports on geopolitical conflicts (and some other topics), but seeks to consolidate the desired narrative through appropriate editorials, commentary, and interviewees.

Conclusion: The "First Law of Journalism"

Former AP journalist Herbert Altschull called it the First Law of Journalism:

"In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298)

In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states themselves are dependent on the US dominated transatlantic economic and security architecture.

In addition, our leading media and their key people are – in the spirit of Chomsky's "socialization" – often themselves part of the networks of the transatlantic elite. Some of the most important institutions in this regard include the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission (see in-depth study of these networks ).

Indeed, most well-known publications basically may be seen as "establishment media". This is because, in the past, the freedom of the press was rather theoretical, given significant entry barriers such as broadcasting licenses, frequency slots, requirements for financing and technical infrastructure, limited sales channels, dependence on advertising, and other restrictions.

It was only due to the Internet that Altschull's First Law has been broken to some extent. Thus, in recent years a high-quality, reader-funded journalism has emerged, often outperforming traditional media in terms of critical reporting. Some of these "alternative" publications already reach a very large audience, showing that the „mass" does not have to be a problem for the quality of a media outlet.

Nevertheless, up to now the traditional media has been able to attract a solid majority of online visitors, too. This, in turn, is closely linked to the hidden role of news agencies, whose up-to-the-minute reports form the backbone of most news portals.

Will "political and economic power", according to Altschull's Law, retain control over the news, or will "uncontrolled" news change the political and economic power structure? The coming years will show.

Case study: Syria war coverage

As part of a case study, the Syria war coverage of nine leading daily newspapers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined for plurality of viewpoints and reliance on news agencies. The following newspapers were selected:

The investigation period was defined as October 1 to 15, 2015, i.e. the first two weeks after Russia's direct intervention in the Syrian conflict. The entire print and online coverage of these newspapers was taken into account. Any Sunday editions were not taken into account, as not all of the newspapers examined have such. In total, 381 newspaper articles met the stated criteria.

In a first step, the articles were classified according to their properties into the following groups:

  1. Agencies : Reports from news agencies (with agency code)
  2. Mixed : Simple reports (with author names) that are based in whole or in part on agency reports
  3. Reports : Editorial background reports and analyzes
  4. Opinions/Comments : Opinions and guest comments
  5. Interviews : interviews with experts, politicians etc.
  6. Investigative : Investigative research that reveals new information or context

The following Figure 1 shows the composition of the articles for the nine newspapers analyzed in total. As can be seen, 55% of articles were news agency reports; 23% editorial reports based on agency material; 9% background reports; 10% opinions and guest comments; 2% interviews; and 0% based on investigative research.

Figure 1: Types of articles (total; n=381)

The pure agency texts – from short notices to the detailed reports – were mostly on the Internet pages of the daily newspapers: on the one hand, the pressure for breaking news is higher than in the printed edition, on the other hand, there are no space restrictions. Most other types of articles were found in both the online and printed editions; some exclusive interviews and background reports were found only in the printed editions. All items were collected only once for the investigation.

The following Figure 2 shows the same classification on a per newspaper basis. During the observation period (two weeks), most newspapers published between 40 and 50 articles on the Syrian conflict (print and online). In the German newspaper Die Welt there were more (58), in the Basler Zeitung and the Austrian Kurier , however, significantly less (29 or 33).

Depending on which newspaper, the share of agency reports is almost 50% (Welt, Süddeutsche, NZZ, Basler Zeitung), just under 60% (FAZ, Tagesanzeiger), and 60 to 70% (Presse, Standard, Kurier). Together with the agency-based reports, the proportion in most newspapers is between approx. 70% and 80%. These proportions are consistent with previous media studies (e.g., Blum 1995, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013, Paterson 2007).

In the background reports, the Swiss newspapers were leading (five to six pieces), followed by Welt , Süddeutsche and Standard (four each) and the other newspapers (one to three). The background reports and analyzes were in particular devoted to the situation and development in the Middle East, as well as to the motives and interests of individual actors (for example Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State).

However, most of the commentaries were to be found in the German newspapers (seven comments each), followed by Standard (five), NZZ and Tagesanzeiger (four each). Basler Zeitung did not publish any commentaries during the observation period, but two interviews. Other interviews were conducted by Standard (three) and Kurier and Presse (one each). Investigative research, however, could not be found in any of the newspapers.

In particular, in the case of the three German newspapers, a journalistically problematic blending of opinion pieces and reports was noted. Reports contained strong expressions of opinion even though they were not marked as commentary. The present study was in any case based on the article labeling by the newspaper.

Figure 2: Types of articles per newspaper

The following Figure 3 shows the breakdown of agency stories (by agency abbreviation) for each news agency, in total and per country. The 211 agency reports carried a total of 277 agency codes (a story may consist of material from more than one agency). In total, 24% of agency reports came from the AFP; about 20% each by the DPA, APA and Reuters; 9% of the SDA; 6% of the AP; and 11% were unknown (no labeling or blanket term "agencies").

In Germany, the DPA, AFP and Reuters each have a share of about one third of the news stories. In Switzerland, the SDA and the AFP are in the lead, and in Austria, the APA and Reuters.

In fact, the shares of the global agencies AFP, AP and Reuters are likely to be even higher, as the Swiss SDA and the Austrian APA obtain their international reports mainly from the global agencies and the German DPA cooperates closely with the American AP.

It should also be noted that, for historical reasons, the global agencies are represented differently in different regions of the world. For events in Asia, Ukraine or Africa, the share of each agency will therefore be different than from events in the Middle East.

Figure 3: Share of news agencies, total (n=277) and per country

In the next step, central statements were used to rate the orientation of editorial opinions (28), guest comments (10) and interview partners (7) (a total of 45 articles). As Figure 4 shows, 82% of the contributions were generally US/NATO friendly, 16% neutral or balanced, and 2% predominantly US/NATO critical.

The only predominantly US/NATO-critical contribution was an op-ed in the Austrian Standard on October 2, 2015, titled: "The strategy of regime change has failed. A distinction between ‚good' and ‚bad' terrorist groups in Syria makes the Western policy untrustworthy."

Figure 4: Orientation of editorial opinions, guest comments, and interviewees (total; n=45).

The following Figure 5 shows the orientation of the contributions, guest comments and interviewees, in turn broken down by individual newspapers. As can be seen, Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and the Austrian newspaper Kurier presented exclusively US/NATO-friendly opinion and guest contributions; this goes for FAZ too, with the exception of one neutral/balanced contribution. The Standard brought four US/NATO friendly, three balanced/neutral, as well as the already mentioned US/NATO critical opinion contributions.

Presse was the only one of the examined newspapers to predominantly publish neutral/balanced opinions and guest contributions. The Basler Zeitung published one US/NATO-friendly and one balanced contribution. Shortly after the observation period (October 16, 2015), Basler Zeitung also published an interview with the President of the Russian Parliament. This would of course have been counted as a contribution critical of the US/NATO.

Figure 5: Basic orientation of opinion pieces and interviewees per newspaper

In a further analysis, a full-text keyword search for "propaganda" (and word combinations thereof) was used to investigate in which cases the newspapers themselves identified propaganda in one of the two geopolitical conflict sides, USA/NATO or Russia (the participant "IS/ISIS" was not considered). In total, twenty such cases were identified. Figure 6 shows the result: in 85% of the cases, propaganda was identified on the Russian side of the conflict, in 15% the identification was neutral or unstated, and in 0% of the cases propaganda was identified on the USA/NATO side of the conflict.

It should be noted that about half of the cases (nine) were in the Swiss NZZ , which spoke of Russian propaganda quite frequently ("Kremlin propaganda", "Moscow propaganda machine", "propaganda stories", "Russian propaganda apparatus" etc.), followed by German FAZ (three), Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung (two each) and the Austrian newspaper Kurier (one). The other newspapers did not mention propaganda, or only in a neutral context (or in the context of IS).

Figure 6: Attribution of propaganda to conflict parties (total; n=20).

Conclusion

In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading daily newspapers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the example of the Syrian war.

The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63 to 90%, excluding commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.

*

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English translation provided by Terje Maloy.

[May 14, 2019] iJews and the Left-i by Philip Mendes A Review, by Brenton Sanderson - The Unz Review

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena. ..."
"... Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters ..."
"... In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations. ..."
May 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Despite the Jewish domination of the American Left in the post-War period, Mendes notes that "most Americans do not appear to have adhered to the same anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish links with communism that dominated public opinion in parts of Europe." [80] Ibid ., 229.
(Philip Mendes, Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance (Melbourne, Victoria; Palgrave MacMillian, 2014), 250.)
As evidence of this, Mendes cites the decidedly muted public response to the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Despite the recognizably Jewish identity of the couple (given their name) and of all of their co-conspirators (David Greenglass, Ruth Greenglass, and Morton Sobell), and the fact the Rosenberg spy network consisted almost exclusively of Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the case "provoked remarkably little overt anti-Semitism." [81] Ibid ., 230.
Nor, he observes, did the "significant number of Jews -- including teachers and Hollywood actors -- who were victims of anti-communist purges" and the prominence of Jews amongst those subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, lead to a significant reaction. All public opinion polls conducted during this period showed a consistent decline in "anti-Semitism," and only a small minority of those surveyed (about 5 percent) identified Jews with communism. [82] Ibid .

The lack of any real backlash to Jewish prominence in the New Left is ascribed to various factors: that many members of the public were not aware of the Jewish background of many of the radical leaders; that these Jewish radicals were ostensibly "not campaigning about any specifically Jewish issues that would have focused attention on Jews per se;" and to the "general decline in anti-Semitism since World War Two." [83] Ibid ., 257. This latter shift in public opinion (unsurprisingly) coincided with the Jewish seizure of the commanding heights of American (and Western) culture in the 1960s, and the growing emergence of the culture of "the Holocaust." The combined effect was to banish overt critical discussion of Jewish power to the margins of public discourse. While Americans rejected communist activities during the Cold War, unlike in Europe, they did not widely equate communism with Jews (at least publicly), or view Jewish participation in leftist politics with particular concern.

Neoconservatism

Neoconservative leaders were among those who feared that the Jewish prominence in the New Left of the late 1960s and early 1970s would fuel a conservative backlash against Jewish radicalism. For example, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, attacked leading Jewish leftists as alleged self-hating Jews and completely unrepresentative of the Jewish community. [84] Ibid ., 22.

Mendes ascribes the defection of many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism in the 1970s to a growing misalignment between modern Leftist politics and Jewish ethnic interests: the key factor being "the creation of the State of Israel which transformed Jewish dependence from international to national forces." [85] Ibid ., viii.
With the advent of the state of Israel, Jewish interests were no longer exclusively represented by the universalistic agendas of the Left. According to Mendes: "Most Jews have lost their faith in universalistic causes because they do not perceive the Left as supportive of Jewish interests, and have turned instead to nationalist solutions." [86] Ibid ., 235.

The creation of a Jewish national entity featuring (thanks to US taxpayers) a strong and powerful army meant that Jews all over the world could look to the Zionist state to safeguard their interests, rather than depending on internationalist movements and ideologies (i.e. communism and the Soviet Union) which had often proven to be unreliable allies. Even many left-wing Jews, who might have been anti-Zionist prior to World War Two, shifted their position after the birth of Israel. For example, the long-time Austrian Jewish leftist Jean Amery commented in 1976:

There is a very deep tie and existential bond between every Jew and the State of Israel Jews feel bound to the fortunes and misfortunes of Israel, whether they are religious Jews or not, whether they adhere to Zionism or reject it, whether they are newly arrived in their host countries or deeply rooted there The Jewish State has taught all the Jews of the world to walk with their head high once more Israel is the virtual shelter for all of the insulted and injured Jews of the earth. [87] Ibid ., 236-37

The perceived anti-Zionism of the New Left from the 1967 onwards served to alienate many Jews and confirm their commitment to nationalist, rather than internationalist solutions. An additional factor was the 1967 Six Day War in the Middle East, which provoked fears of "another Holocaust," and galvanized even non-Zionist Jews in support of Israel. There were rallies in support of Israel throughout the Western world accompanied by large donations. American Jews held massive fundraising campaigns and reportedly raised 180 million dollars. Numerous volunteers travelled to Israel to support the Jewish State. In Australia, more than 20 per cent of a total Jewish population of 34,000 in Melbourne -- attended a public rally to express their support for Israel, and 2500 attended a youth rally. 750 young Jews volunteered to go to Israel. According to Taft,

there was a widespread, almost universal, absorption in the Middle East Crisis of June among the Jews of Melbourne. This absorption took the form of extreme concern about the safety of Israel, emotional upsets, obsessive seeking of news, constant discussion of events and taking spontaneous actions to support Israel's cause. [88] Ibid ., 238.

The rise of left-wing anti-Zionism after the Six Day War furthered alienated sections of Western Jewry from the social democratic Left. Another factor that pushed American Jews in a neoconservative direction, identified by Mendes, was the decline in Black–Jewish relations. The emergence of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s led to the removal of Jews from the leadership of organizations like the NAACP. Black hostility was viewed by some Jews as evidence of the failure of the strategy of courting non-White groups to advance Jewish interests. This ostensible failure prompted many Jews to concentrate on a narrower ethnic self-interest in the future. [89] Ibid ., 243.

This, in turn, contributed to the creation of "pragmatic alliances" with conservative political parties such as the Republicans and evangelical groups such as Christians United for Israel which "have been consistent supporters of Israel in the USA." An associated factor was that pro-Israel perspectives within Western countries increasingly emanated from mainstream conservatives, rather than from the moderate or radical Left. This occurred despite "many in these groups hold socially conservative views on issues such as abortion, homosexuality, the environment, multiculturalism, state support for the poor and disadvantaged, and refugees, which are anathema to many Jews." [90] Ibid ., 287.

Mendes makes the point that "These alliances were based solely on the latter's position of support for Israel, irrespective of their conservative views on social issues such as abortion, homosexuality and the welfare state, which were often sharply at odds with the more liberal opinions of most Jews." [91] Ibid ., 239.

Despite the defection on many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism, the great majority of American Jews still see their ethnic interests as basically aligning with the Democratic Party. Their willingness to prioritize their ethnic interests over their personal economic interests is reflected in the fact that "high numbers of affluent Jews compared to others of the same socioeconomic status still vote for moderate left parties that do not seem to favor their economic interests." Today, the structural factors which historically drew many Jews to the Left no longer exist. Most Jews sit comfortably in middle- or even higher-income categories. This "middle-classing" of Jews throughout the West has meant that the "Jewish proletariat that motivated Jewish identification with left-wing beliefs no longer exists." [92] Ibid ., 239. Consequently, "the specific link between Jewish experience of class oppression and adherence to left-wing ideology has ended." [93] Ibid ., 241.

Most Western Jews still support parties on the Left

Despite the widespread break with the radical Left over support for Israel, Jews nevertheless remain a “massively significant presence” in the Left in terms of their numbers and fundraising, their organizational capacity, and their impact on popular culture.[94]Ibid., 287. It was estimated that about a quarter of the world’s leading Marxist and radical intellectuals in the 1980s were still Jews, including Ernest Mandel, Nathan Weinstock, Maxime Rodinson, Noam Chomsky, Marcel Liebman, Ralph Miliband, and the founder of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida. Despite continuing to comprise much of the intellectual and financial backbone of the Left, today’s Jews, “an influential and sometimes powerful group, with substantial access to politics, academia and the media,” no longer must “rely on the Left to defend their interests and wellbeing.”[95]Ibid., 286.

The primary reason most Western Jews still vote overwhelmingly for parties on the left is the perceived threat posed by the “social conservatism” of parties further to the right of the political spectrum in nations whose majorities are European-derived and nominally at least Christian:

With the possible exception of ultra-orthodox groups, Jews seem to prefer social liberal positions on issues such as religious pluralism, abortion, feminism, illicit drugs, same-sex marriage, the science of climate change and euthanasia. Another significant factor is the long history of Christian anti-Semitism has led Jews to remain suspicious of any attempts by Christian religious groups to undermine the separation of church and state. This fear of organized religion [and of the White people who practice it] seems to explain the continued strong support of American Jews for the Democratic Party in presidential elections. A further complicating factor is the growing universalization of Jewish teachings and values, including the lessons of the Holocaust, in support of social liberal perspectives. … For example, Berman (2006) presents evidence that the younger Jewish generation in Australia have been influenced by the experience of the Holocaust into taking a strong stand against any forms of racial or religious discrimination. Many are active in campaigns for indigenous rights, and to support refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Middle Eastern countries seeking asylum in Australia.[96]Ibid., 288-89.

This advocacy is, of course, entirely hypocritical and cynical. While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena.

The ideological preoccupations of organized Jewry today are reflected in comments by Boston Globe writer, S.I. Rosenbaum, who insisted the main lesson of “the Holocaust” is “that white supremacy could turn on us at any moment,” and the strategy of appealing to the White majority “has never worked for us. It didn’t protect us in Spain, or England, or France, or Germany. There’s no reason to think it will work now.” The central question of Jewish political engagement in Western societies, she insists, is “how we survive as a minority population,” where the one great advantage American Jewry enjoys is that “unlike other places where ethno-nationalism has flourished, the U.S. is fast approaching a plurality of minorities.” Presiding over a coalition of non-Whites groups to actively oppose White interests is the Jewish ethno-political imperative: “If Jews are going to survive in the future, we will have to stand with people of color for our mutual benefit.”

Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters:

For decades, leftist Jews have been flooding the West with Third World immigrants, “Hey here’s a plan—lets dump a hundred thousand Somalis in the whitest parts of the U.S. That’ll save us from Fargo Hitler!” Inundating the West with non-White immigrants is seen by Jews as an insurance policy against “white supremacy.” The idea is that these immigrants will act as a wedge, diluting “white power” while remaining small enough to be manageable.

Jews have done this everywhere—playing two groups against each other as a way of assuring Jewish security. Let’s play Hamas against the Palestinian authority. Let’s play ISIS against Assad. … But today we live in a world in which even the lowliest bark-eater in the Kalahari can have internet access. It’s not as easy to fool entire groups anymore (individuals, sure, but not an entire race, ethnicity or faction). …

And now we Jews, so worried that Minnesota might become the Frozen Fourth Reich if left in the hands of evil whites, have created for ourselves a good old-fashioned golem in Ilhan Omar (and a bunch of the other Third World freshman congressthingies). Yeah, Omar hates whites. Yeah, she thinks white supremacy lurks behind every glass of milk and “OK” finger sign. But she hates Jews a hell of a lot more…

In a perfect world, the Rabbinical Rain Men would finally get the fuck over the Holocaust and end their war of hostility against the West. They’d see that whites are no longer the enemy, but indeed the opposite. They’d see that importing foreign mud to mold golem in traditionally white regions of the U.S is bad strategy.

Here Cole vividly restates Kevin MacDonald’s point in Culture of Critique that: “Although multiculturalist ideology was invented by Jewish intellectuals to rationalize the continuation of separatism and minority-group ethnocentrism in a modern Western state, several of the recent instantiations of multiculturalism may eventually produce a monster with negative consequences for Judaism.”[97]Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth‑Century Intellectual and Political Movements, (Westport, CT: Praeger, Revised Paperback edition, 2001), 313. The creation of this “monster” is ostensibly regarded by Jewish leaders and activists as a risk worth taking to demographically, politically and culturally weaken threatening White populations.

In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations.

Conclusion

While Jews and the Left offers a useful catalogue of Jewish involvement in radical political movements throughout the world over the last two centuries, it recycles many of the same apologetic tropes that permeate the work of other Jewish historians and intellectuals. Mendes mischaracterizes the Jewish identity and affiliations of important Jewish communist leaders (like Lazar Kaganovich), and offers no examination of their often-murderous actions. He provides feeble apologies for the Jewish practices that engendered hostility among the native peasantry in the Pale of Settlement. The inherent weakness of his position necessitates specious argumentation and desperate resort to that evergreen of Jewish apologetic historiography: the innate irrationality and malevolence of the European mind and character. This is the invariable fallback position in any quest to exculpate Jews from responsibility for the crimes of communism in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe. Though less inclined than Brossat and Klingberg in Revolutionary Yiddishland to glorify Jewish communist militants, Mendes is equally keen to evade, whitewash and excuse disproportionate Jewish involvement in some of the worst crimes of the twentieth century.

[May 14, 2019] Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan

Highly recommended!
Trump provided to be another Obama -- master of "bait and switch". His promise to disengage from foreign wars remains an unfulfilled promise. Due to thefact that he is owned by pro-Israel lobby he broung into his administrations such rabid neocons as chickenhawk Bolton and smug ruthless careerist masquerading as far-right zealot as Pompeo (and before them Haley). His promises to raise the standard of living of middles class (which is impossible without cutting the military budget) remains fake. He is a fake. The second fake after obama -- Republican Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come. ..."
"... According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid. ..."
"... In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years. ..."
Apr 10, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come.

According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid.

The Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts "smaller" poverty alleviation projects and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.

Rutherford Institute's founder and director John W. WhiteHead writes in his institute's website that the American nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments. He remarks:

"Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national security and urgent military needs".

He writes "you know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the government's fiscal year? Government agencies – including the Department of Defense – go on a 'use it or lose it' spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the next fiscal year".

"We are talking about $97 billion worth of wasteful spending"

He maintains that the nation's educational system is pathetic, the infrastructure is antiquated and growing more outdated by the day and the health system is overpriced and inaccessible to those who need it most.

The tax cuts on super-rich, outflow of huge sums in interest payment for debt and more spending are plunging the US economy into a new crisis, according to many authors. The US economy faces a deficit which means the spending especially on military and defence is far exceeding the tax revenues.

In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years.

According to a study regarding world powers' overseas military bases

In other words, the US possesses up to 95 per cent of the world's military bases . The Department of Defense says that its locations include 164 countries. Put another way, it has a military presence of some sort in approximately 84 percent of the nations on this planet.

The US Military Bases Abroad Are Disrupting the World Order

The annual cost of deploying US military personnel overseas, as well as maintaining and running those foreign bases, tops out at an estimated US$ 150 billion annually. The US bases abroad cost upwards of US$ 50 billion only for building and maintenance, which is enough to address pressing needs at home in education, health care, housing and infrastructure.

In 2017 and 2018, the world's largest military spenders were the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India. The UK took over France as sixth largest spender in 2018 while Japan and Germany stood at eighth and ninth positions.

In early 2018, Pentagon released a report saying that Afghan war costs US$ 45 billion to taxpayers in the preceding year. Of this amount, US$ 5 billion has been spent on Afghan forces, US$ 13 billion towards US forces in Afghanistan and the rest on economic aid.

But these costs are far lower than the time when the US military was highly engaged in Afghanistan. With nearly 100,000 soldiers in the country from 2010 to 2012, the price for American taxpayers surpassed US$ 100 billion each year. For now, there are around 16,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into Afghanistan, the US admits it failed in war against militants in Afghanistan.

In November 2018, another study published by CNBC reported that America has spent US$ 5.9 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001 including in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The study also reveals that more than 500,000 people have been killed in the wars and nearly 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.

The US has reportedly spent US$ 1.07 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001 which include Overseas Contingency Operations funds dedicated to Afghanistan, costs on the base budget of the Department of Defense and increase to the budget of the Department of Veteran Affairs.

In Afghanistan, the US costs of war in 2001 commenced with US$ 37.3 billion that soared to US$ 57.3 billion in 2007 and US$ 100 billion in 2009. The year with record spending was 2010 with US$ 112.7 billion that slightly plummeted to US$ 110.4 billion in 2011 but took downwards trend in the later years.

Due to skyrocketing military costs on the US government, Trump Administration recently decided to pack up some of its military bases in Afghanistan and Middle East to diminish expenditures, though it doesn't mean the wars would end at all.

According to Afghanistan Analysts Network, the US Congress has appropriated more than US$ 126 billion in aid for Afghanistan since financial year 2002, with almost 63 percent for security and 28 percent for development and the remainder for civilian operations, mostly budgetary assistance and humanitarian aid. Alongside the US aid, many world countries have pumped millions of dollars in development aids, but what is evident for insiders and outsiders is that a trickle of those funds has actually gone into Afghanistan's reconstruction.

With eighteen years into Afghan war, the security is deteriorating; Afghan air force is ill-equipped; poppy cultivation is on the rise; roads and highways are dilapidated or unconstructed; no mediocre hospital and health care has been established; weekly conflict causalities hit 150-250; electricity is still imported from Central Asian countries; economy remains dependent upon imports; unemployment rate is at its peak; more than three quarters of population live under poverty line and many, many more miseries persist or aggravate.

The US boasts of being the largest multi-billion dollar donor for Afghanistan, but if one takes a deeper look at the living standards of majority and the overall conditions, it can be immediately grasped that less than half of that exaggerated fund has been consumed. The US-made government of Afghanistan has deliberately been left behind to rank as the first corrupt country in the world. Thanks to the same unaddressed pervasive corruption, a hefty amount of that fund has been either directed back to the US hands or embezzled by senior Afghan officials.

Afghanistan's new Living Conditions Survey shows that poverty is more widespread today than it was immediately after the fall of Taliban regime, or in other words, in the early days of US invasion.

Next month, Kabul will host a Consultative Loya Jirga attended by around 2,000 representatives from Afghanistan which will cost the Afghan Ministry of Finance AF 369 million (equivalent to five million US$). Even as the past has proved that these events are only symbolic and further complicating the achievement of peace, a country with great majority under poverty line doesn't deserve to organize such costly gatherings.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Masud Wadan is a geopolitical analyst based in Kabul. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Salon.com

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Masud Wadan , Global Research, 2019

[May 14, 2019] The Propaganda Multiplier How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics

Highly recommended!
Images omitted.
Important article that shed some light on the methods of disinformation in foreign events used by neoliberal MSM
Notable quotes:
"... However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves. ..."
"... Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters. ..."
"... Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media. ..."
"... How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" : ..."
"... The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists. ..."
"... Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media: ..."
"... What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts: ..."
"... "In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298) ..."
Jun 01, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

By Swiss Propaganda Research Global Research, May 14, 2019 Swiss Propaganda Research Region: Europe , USA Theme: Media Disinformation

This study was originally published in 2016.

Introduction: "Something strange"

"How does the newspaper know what it knows?" The answer to this question is likely to surprise some newspaper readers: "The main source of information is stories from news agencies. The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions." (Höhne 1977, p. 11)

A Swiss media researcher points out:

"The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected." (Blum 1995, p. 9)

In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies are hardly known to the public:

"A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all In fact, they play an enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little attention has been paid to them in the past." (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)

Even the head of a news agency noted:

"There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public. Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be found at the source of the story." (Segbers 2007, p. 9)

"The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System"

So what are the names of these agencies that are "always at the source of the story"? There are now only three global agencies left:

  1. The American Associated Press ( AP ) with over 4000 employees worldwide. The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world's population every day.
  2. The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse ( AFP ) based in Paris and with around 4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the world.
  3. The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000 people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters , headquartered in New York.

In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. However, when it comes to international news, these usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and translate their reports.

The three global news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP, and the three national agencies of the German-speaking countries of Austria (APA), Germany (DPA) and Switzerland (SDA).

Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of news agencies with these words:

"News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts of this system." (Segbers 2007, p.10)

Small abbreviation, great effect

However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves.

The following figure shows some examples of source tagging in popular German-language newspapers. Next to the agency abbreviations we find the initials of editors who have edited the respective agency report.

News agencies as sources in newspaper articles

Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011 from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):

"Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a practice of 'spicing up' agency reports with little effort; for example, visualization techniques are used: unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and presented as comprehensive reports."

The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies critically:

"One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together with a few flourishes."

Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies. Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors said : "To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent agencies Reuters, AP and AFP."

In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually copied reports from New York, London and Paris.

Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013).

In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics, using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated with "controlled media" in authoritarian states.

The following graphic shows some examples from German and international publications. As you can see, despite the claimed objectivity, a slight (geo-)political bias sometimes creeps in.

"Putin threatens", "Iran provokes", "NATO concerned", "Assad stronghold": Similarities in content and wording due to reports by global news agencies.

The role of correspondents

Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters.

First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents). In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground permanently.

Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.

How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" :

"I'd imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important happened, they'd go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn't go off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an on-the-spot report. ()

The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the press releases, and I'd retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk you way through any crisis or summit meeting.

That's why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few different newspapers or click the news channels.

Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news agencies too slavishly. ()

The common idea about correspondents is that they 'have the story', () but the reality is that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of the conveyor belt, pretending we've baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we've done is put it in its wrapping. ()

Afterwards, a friend asked me how I'd managed to answer all the questions during those cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news, you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My friend had relalized that, for decades, what he'd been watching and listening to on the news was pure theatre." (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)

In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research, but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news agencies – the notorious "mainstream effect".

In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.

"What the agency does not report, does not take place"

The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.

Rather, the "Observatory" delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn "informed" hundreds of millions of readers and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange "Observatory" in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that was rarely asked.

The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in his book "The Business of News":

"A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is cited. () Behind the protective shield such a 'source' means for a news story, some people are quite inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always be attributed to the cited source." (Steffens 1969, p. 106)

Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens:

"News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is strictly required." (Steffens 1969, p. 32)

Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too "unimportant" – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: "What the agency does not report, does not take place." (Wilke 2000, p. 1)

America's "Righteous" Russia-gate Censorship. "Russia Bashing All the Time"

"Adding questionable stories"

While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent – even though they shouldn't actually be: "Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh active-researching ones." (Blum 1995, p. 16)

In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens warned of this danger:

"The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is. Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and becomes ever more credible." (Steffens 1969, p. 234)

Among the most active actors in "injecting" questionable geopolitical news are the military and defense ministries. For example, in 2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom Curley, made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would "ruin" the AP and him if the journalists reported too critically on the US military.

Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious stories sourced to some unnamed "informants" from "US defense circles".

Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media:

"With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread scenarios and deceptions. In this new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the secret services have become combatants in the information war. () The US military specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers. The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military." (Tilgner 2003, p. 132)

What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:

Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the Angolan war,

"The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression in Angola. So any kind of story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action, were propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another story, and it was kept going for weeks. () [But] it was all fiction."

Fred Bridgland looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: "We based our reports on official communications. It was not until years later that I learned a little CIA disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué, and it bore no relation at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room."

And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the Contra War in Nicaragua with these words:

"They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press came straight out of the toilet." (Hird 1985)

Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media, which can be "leaked" information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so efficient.

Through this "propaganda multiplier", dubious stories from PR experts working for governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with terms such as "apparent", "alleged" and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its effect taken place.

The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.

As the New York Times reported

In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in Great Britain and the US.

For example, news outlets like the New York Times or BBC have up to 100 foreign correspondents and other external employees. However, Middle East correspondent Luyendijk points out:

"Dutch news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times . We did that on the assumption that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on assistants and translators." (Luyendijk p. 47)

In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify ("military circles", "anonymous government officials", "intelligence officials" and the like) and can therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the geopolitical coverage in our media.

The following figure shows some examples of such citation based on the Syria coverage of the largest daily newspaper in Switzerland, Tages-Anzeiger. The articles are all from the first days of October 2015, when Russia for the first time intervened directly in the Syrian war (US/UK sources are highlighted):

Frequent citation of British and US media, exemplified by the Syria war coverage of Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in October 2015.

The desired narrative

But why do journalists in our media not simply try to research and report independently of the global agencies and the Anglo-Saxon media? Middle East correspondent Luyendijk describes his experiences:

"You might suggest that I should have looked for sources I could trust. I did try, but whenever I wanted to write a story without using news agencies, the main Anglo-Saxon media, or talking heads, it fell apart. () Obviously I, as a correspondent, could tell very different stories about one and the same situation. But the media could only present one of them, and often enough, that was exactly the story that confirmed the prevailing image." (Luyendijk p.54ff)

Media researcher Noam Chomsky has described this effect in his essay "What makes the mainstream media mainstream" as follows: "If you leave the official line, if you produce dissenting reports, then you will soon feel this. () There are many ways to get you back in line quickly. If you don't follow the guidelines, you will not keep your job long. This system works pretty well, and it reflects established power structures." (Chomsky 1997)

Nevertheless, some of the leading journalists continue to believe that nobody can tell them what to write. How does this add up? Media researcher Chomsky clarifies the apparent contradiction:

"[T]he point is that they wouldn't be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. () They have been through the socialization system." (Chomsky 1997)

Ultimately, this "socialization process" leads to a journalism that generally no longer independently researches and critically reports on geopolitical conflicts (and some other topics), but seeks to consolidate the desired narrative through appropriate editorials, commentary, and interviewees.

Conclusion: The "First Law of Journalism"

Former AP journalist Herbert Altschull called it the First Law of Journalism:

"In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298)

In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states themselves are dependent on the US dominated transatlantic economic and security architecture.

In addition, our leading media and their key people are – in the spirit of Chomsky's "socialization" – often themselves part of the networks of the transatlantic elite. Some of the most important institutions in this regard include the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission (see in-depth study of these networks ).

Indeed, most well-known publications basically may be seen as "establishment media". This is because, in the past, the freedom of the press was rather theoretical, given significant entry barriers such as broadcasting licenses, frequency slots, requirements for financing and technical infrastructure, limited sales channels, dependence on advertising, and other restrictions.

It was only due to the Internet that Altschull's First Law has been broken to some extent. Thus, in recent years a high-quality, reader-funded journalism has emerged, often outperforming traditional media in terms of critical reporting. Some of these "alternative" publications already reach a very large audience, showing that the „mass" does not have to be a problem for the quality of a media outlet.

Nevertheless, up to now the traditional media has been able to attract a solid majority of online visitors, too. This, in turn, is closely linked to the hidden role of news agencies, whose up-to-the-minute reports form the backbone of most news portals.

Will "political and economic power", according to Altschull's Law, retain control over the news, or will "uncontrolled" news change the political and economic power structure? The coming years will show.

Case study: Syria war coverage

As part of a case study, the Syria war coverage of nine leading daily newspapers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined for plurality of viewpoints and reliance on news agencies. The following newspapers were selected:

The investigation period was defined as October 1 to 15, 2015, i.e. the first two weeks after Russia's direct intervention in the Syrian conflict. The entire print and online coverage of these newspapers was taken into account. Any Sunday editions were not taken into account, as not all of the newspapers examined have such. In total, 381 newspaper articles met the stated criteria.

In a first step, the articles were classified according to their properties into the following groups:

  1. Agencies : Reports from news agencies (with agency code)
  2. Mixed : Simple reports (with author names) that are based in whole or in part on agency reports
  3. Reports : Editorial background reports and analyzes
  4. Opinions/Comments : Opinions and guest comments
  5. Interviews : interviews with experts, politicians etc.
  6. Investigative : Investigative research that reveals new information or context

The following Figure 1 shows the composition of the articles for the nine newspapers analyzed in total. As can be seen, 55% of articles were news agency reports; 23% editorial reports based on agency material; 9% background reports; 10% opinions and guest comments; 2% interviews; and 0% based on investigative research.

Figure 1: Types of articles (total; n=381)

The pure agency texts – from short notices to the detailed reports – were mostly on the Internet pages of the daily newspapers: on the one hand, the pressure for breaking news is higher than in the printed edition, on the other hand, there are no space restrictions. Most other types of articles were found in both the online and printed editions; some exclusive interviews and background reports were found only in the printed editions. All items were collected only once for the investigation.

The following Figure 2 shows the same classification on a per newspaper basis. During the observation period (two weeks), most newspapers published between 40 and 50 articles on the Syrian conflict (print and online). In the German newspaper Die Welt there were more (58), in the Basler Zeitung and the Austrian Kurier , however, significantly less (29 or 33).

Depending on which newspaper, the share of agency reports is almost 50% (Welt, Süddeutsche, NZZ, Basler Zeitung), just under 60% (FAZ, Tagesanzeiger), and 60 to 70% (Presse, Standard, Kurier). Together with the agency-based reports, the proportion in most newspapers is between approx. 70% and 80%. These proportions are consistent with previous media studies (e.g., Blum 1995, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013, Paterson 2007).

In the background reports, the Swiss newspapers were leading (five to six pieces), followed by Welt , Süddeutsche and Standard (four each) and the other newspapers (one to three). The background reports and analyzes were in particular devoted to the situation and development in the Middle East, as well as to the motives and interests of individual actors (for example Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State).

However, most of the commentaries were to be found in the German newspapers (seven comments each), followed by Standard (five), NZZ and Tagesanzeiger (four each). Basler Zeitung did not publish any commentaries during the observation period, but two interviews. Other interviews were conducted by Standard (three) and Kurier and Presse (one each). Investigative research, however, could not be found in any of the newspapers.

In particular, in the case of the three German newspapers, a journalistically problematic blending of opinion pieces and reports was noted. Reports contained strong expressions of opinion even though they were not marked as commentary. The present study was in any case based on the article labeling by the newspaper.

Figure 2: Types of articles per newspaper

The following Figure 3 shows the breakdown of agency stories (by agency abbreviation) for each news agency, in total and per country. The 211 agency reports carried a total of 277 agency codes (a story may consist of material from more than one agency). In total, 24% of agency reports came from the AFP; about 20% each by the DPA, APA and Reuters; 9% of the SDA; 6% of the AP; and 11% were unknown (no labeling or blanket term "agencies").

In Germany, the DPA, AFP and Reuters each have a share of about one third of the news stories. In Switzerland, the SDA and the AFP are in the lead, and in Austria, the APA and Reuters.

In fact, the shares of the global agencies AFP, AP and Reuters are likely to be even higher, as the Swiss SDA and the Austrian APA obtain their international reports mainly from the global agencies and the German DPA cooperates closely with the American AP.

It should also be noted that, for historical reasons, the global agencies are represented differently in different regions of the world. For events in Asia, Ukraine or Africa, the share of each agency will therefore be different than from events in the Middle East.

Figure 3: Share of news agencies, total (n=277) and per country

In the next step, central statements were used to rate the orientation of editorial opinions (28), guest comments (10) and interview partners (7) (a total of 45 articles). As Figure 4 shows, 82% of the contributions were generally US/NATO friendly, 16% neutral or balanced, and 2% predominantly US/NATO critical.

The only predominantly US/NATO-critical contribution was an op-ed in the Austrian Standard on October 2, 2015, titled: "The strategy of regime change has failed. A distinction between ‚good' and ‚bad' terrorist groups in Syria makes the Western policy untrustworthy."

Figure 4: Orientation of editorial opinions, guest comments, and interviewees (total; n=45).

The following Figure 5 shows the orientation of the contributions, guest comments and interviewees, in turn broken down by individual newspapers. As can be seen, Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and the Austrian newspaper Kurier presented exclusively US/NATO-friendly opinion and guest contributions; this goes for FAZ too, with the exception of one neutral/balanced contribution. The Standard brought four US/NATO friendly, three balanced/neutral, as well as the already mentioned US/NATO critical opinion contributions.

Presse was the only one of the examined newspapers to predominantly publish neutral/balanced opinions and guest contributions. The Basler Zeitung published one US/NATO-friendly and one balanced contribution. Shortly after the observation period (October 16, 2015), Basler Zeitung also published an interview with the President of the Russian Parliament. This would of course have been counted as a contribution critical of the US/NATO.

Figure 5: Basic orientation of opinion pieces and interviewees per newspaper

In a further analysis, a full-text keyword search for "propaganda" (and word combinations thereof) was used to investigate in which cases the newspapers themselves identified propaganda in one of the two geopolitical conflict sides, USA/NATO or Russia (the participant "IS/ISIS" was not considered). In total, twenty such cases were identified. Figure 6 shows the result: in 85% of the cases, propaganda was identified on the Russian side of the conflict, in 15% the identification was neutral or unstated, and in 0% of the cases propaganda was identified on the USA/NATO side of the conflict.

It should be noted that about half of the cases (nine) were in the Swiss NZZ , which spoke of Russian propaganda quite frequently ("Kremlin propaganda", "Moscow propaganda machine", "propaganda stories", "Russian propaganda apparatus" etc.), followed by German FAZ (three), Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung (two each) and the Austrian newspaper Kurier (one). The other newspapers did not mention propaganda, or only in a neutral context (or in the context of IS).

Figure 6: Attribution of propaganda to conflict parties (total; n=20).

Conclusion

In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading daily newspapers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the example of the Syrian war.

The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63 to 90%, excluding commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.

*

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English translation provided by Terje Maloy.

[May 14, 2019] Transcript Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Face the Nation

What is funny is that MARGARET BRENNAN is to the right of Pompeo. That's a real achievement. Pompeo probably was surprised that he was put on the defensive from his right-wing position by this warmongering female neocon.
May 05, 2019 | www.cbsnews.com
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got the whole world as your portfolio so let's move on to Venezuela and Russia. There was this phone call between Vladimir Putin and President Trump that just happened. The president described it to us in an Oval Office spray. Why didn't he bring up election interference on this phone call when he said he did discuss the findings of the Mueller Report which found sweeping and systematic Russian interference in 2016?

SEC. POMPEO: Well you'll have to ask the White House that question. The president's been very clear. The administration has taken great action. I wish the previous one had stopped the election interference that took place in 2016. They failed to do so. Between 2017 when President Trump came into office and 2018, we had a successful election year, a set of midterm elections. We're working diligently to ensure that the elections in 2020 aren't interfered with by Russia, by Iran, by North Korea or anyone else. We have enormous resource deployed against that challenge. And the American people should be sure that their government is working hard to keep our election safe and secure.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You said, this week, that Moscow has hundreds of people in Venezuela and you were very clear that you think it was Russia that convinced Nicolas Maduro not to get on a plane and to flee the country. Here's what the president said during his- after his phone call with Vladimir Putin.

*Take SOT*

MARGARET BRENNAN: There seems to be a difference in how the president described the situation and how you and Ambassador Bolton have described it.

SEC. POMPEO: No, no difference, no difference. The- the president has said, I think he in fact tweeted, that the Russians must leave Venezuela. We've asked every nation that is in- interfering with Venezuelan democracy- you've seen this. I- I was down on the border. We saw mothers who couldn't feed their children, fleeing the country. We saw families that had sick kids but couldn't get medicines, all sitting, was sitting within 50 miles of where we were located. And Maduro won't allow it to come in. The president's been very clear, we want the Cubans out. There are Iranians on the ground there. We want the Russians- we want everyone out so that the Venezuelan people can get the democracy they deserve. That includes Mr. Maduro leaving.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So when he says, the president says, "Putin is not looking to get involved at all in Venezuela," that is not the president accepting him at face value?

SEC. POMPEO: You'll- you'll have to leave- you'll have to look at--

MARGARET BRENNAN: He knows that that's not the case?

SEC. POMPEO: The- the president has tweeted that he wants the Russians out of Venezuela.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So he was just putting a positive spin on things in that moment?

SEC. POMPEO: We- we are working very diligently to ensure that Maduro leaves and we get free and fair elections in Venezuela. That will require the 2,300 Cuban security personnel, the- frankly, the people closest to Maduro who are protecting the in- tight security for Maduro, they've got to leave. We're working on that as well. We're working with the Cubans to try and get an outcome that will let the Venezuelans have this opportunity.

MARGARET BRENNAN: On this, I know you'll be meeting with the Russian foreign minister in the coming days. Is there a deal to be struck with Russia on this front? I mean, Russia benefits, right, by having Venezuelan oil off the market, by having a level of influence in America's backyard. Is the U.S. going to negotiate a deal with Russia on Venezuela?

SEC. POMPEO: I'll certainly bring up Venezuela, be one of many topics that Foreign Minister Lav- Lavrov and I speak about- speak about. Whether there's a particular deal that can be reached? Only time will tell.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who I know you know well tweeted this week, "Cuba, Russia sent troops to prop up Maduro in Venezuela while we talk and have sanctions. Where's our aircraft carrier?" He seems to be calling a bluff here on your mention and mention from others that military options aren't off the table. What is actually being considered here because you can't refer to the use of military force lightly. Is there an actual option that you are considering deploying in the coming days?

[May 14, 2019] Putin Says Time To Restore Ties After Pompeo, Lavrov Spar On Election Meddling, Venezuela Iran

May 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed a broad number of security related issues in Sochi on Tuesday ranging from nuclear arms control to ratcheting US tensions with Iran to Venezuela to Ukraine. Importantly, the two top diplomats traded warnings against election meddling and interference in their respective countries -- though we might add that Lavrov's message was packed with more sarcasm following the Mueller report clearing Trump of "collusion".

In response to Pompeo's reportedly warning Russia to never interfere in what he described as America's "sacred" elections, specifically warning against any 2020 presidential election interference, Lavrov shot back with: "We can discuss this topic forever, but until we have cold hard facts on the table, we cannot have a grown-up discussion about it," according to Russia's RT .

Speaking to reporters afterward, Lavrov said proudly that he had handed Pompeo a "memorandum" on US interference in Russia but didn't reveal its precise contents, only saying, "we're prepared to talk on this topic."

Though both expressed hope for improved ties between Washington and Moscow, Reuters characterized it as a testy and impatient exchange :

Visiting Russia for the first time as secretary of state, Pompeo publicly clashed with Lavrov on issues from Ukraine to Venezuela. After their meeting, both men said they had been far apart on many issues .

"I made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov... that interference in American elections is unacceptable. If the Russians were engaged in that in 2020 it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been ," he said.

"I'd encourage them not to do that. We would not tolerate that."

However, soon after the summit, Russian President Putin in public statements indicated his belief that "Trump is in the mood to restore ties with Russia."

He also indicated it's his own desire to "fully restore" Russia-US ties, according to the AP, and interestingly also praised the "quite objective" Mueller report in statements to reporters .

"As you know, just a few days ago, I had the pleasure of talking with the US president on the phone," Putin told Pompeo during the Tuesday summit in Sochi. "I got the impression that the [US] president was inclined to re-establish Russian-American relations and contacts to resolve together the issues that are of mutual interest to us."

Pompeo, for his part, appeared to say as much following the meeting, saying, "The United States stands ready to find common ground with Russia as long as the two of us can engage seriously on those issues."

Pompeo said further :

President Trump has made clear that his expectation is that we will have an improved relationship between our two countries. This will benefit each of our peoples. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in that direction.

However, Pompeo still went through a litany of disagreements he had with Russia, especially centering on multiple hot spots around the globe where the Trump administration has exercised a big stick approach.

At Lavrov-Pompeo presser, around 28:30, Lavrov says something significant: Russia recently offered to publish info from a US-Russia channel on cyberspace that he claims would address the allegations of Russian election meddling. He says the US declined: https://t.co/o4MbqQlwCy

-- Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) May 14, 2019

* * *

Below is a brief run-down of key points to the two briefed reporters on afterwards.

Nuclear treaty

At the top of the agenda, Lavrov signaled Russia could be open to a new arms control treaty after the recent US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, countered by Russia suspending its obligations under the Reagan-era pact which crucially served to keep missile build-up out of Europe.

Pompeo stressed China had to be part of any future sweeping deal, also considering rapid advances in defense technology. Lavrov expressed hope that any future agreements will be "positively received by both nations."

The New START nuclear arms reduction treaty will expire in February of 2021, giving greater impetus for both sides to work through the current impasse.

No common ground on Venezuela

Predictably the Venezuela hawk Pompeo slammed Russia's "interfering" in the Latin American country's internal affairs, adding also to that list China, Cuba and Iran.

"Maduro has brought nothing but misery to the Venezuelan people," Pompeo stated. "We hope that Russian support for Maduro will end." Lavrov defended the right of Venezuelans to choose their own president and refused to recognize US-declared "Interim President" Juan Guaido.

"Democracy cannot be done by force," Lavrov told reporters. "The threats that we hear against the Maduro government, threats that come from the mouths of US officials this has nothing in common with democracy."

* * *

No desire for war with Iran

"We fundamentally do not see a war with Iran," Secretary of State Pompeo said, but added: "We've made it clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked, we will certainly respond in an appropriate fashion."

On Tuesday President Trump denied a prior New York Times report which alleged the White House was planning to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should conflict erupt between Iran and the United States. The president called the report "fake news" but still added that should war actually break out he would send "a hell of a lot more," according to Reuters.

Lavrov stated that Russia hopes "reason will gain the upper hand," and added that Moscow opposed the US pullout of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), and further that Europe is right in attempting to stick to the deal.

Ukraine standoff

Pompeo informed Lavrov that the US hadn't budged in its position regarding Moscow's "illegal" annexation of the Crimea in 2014, saying economic sanctions would remain in place until Russia reverses course.

Following the Ukrainian election of comedian turned unlikely politician Volodymyr Zelensky, Pompeo said Russia should now "work with Ukraine's new president-elect to bring peace to eastern Ukraine," according to a paraphrase of Pompeo's words by Reuters, and further that Russian authorities should release Ukrainian sailors captured in last year's dangerous Kerch Strait incident .

[May 14, 2019] iJews and the Left-i by Philip Mendes A Review, by Brenton Sanderson - The Unz Review

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena. ..."
"... Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters ..."
"... In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations. ..."
May 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Despite the Jewish domination of the American Left in the post-War period, Mendes notes that "most Americans do not appear to have adhered to the same anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish links with communism that dominated public opinion in parts of Europe." [80] Ibid ., 229.
(Philip Mendes, Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance (Melbourne, Victoria; Palgrave MacMillian, 2014), 250.)
As evidence of this, Mendes cites the decidedly muted public response to the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Despite the recognizably Jewish identity of the couple (given their name) and of all of their co-conspirators (David Greenglass, Ruth Greenglass, and Morton Sobell), and the fact the Rosenberg spy network consisted almost exclusively of Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the case "provoked remarkably little overt anti-Semitism." [81] Ibid ., 230.
Nor, he observes, did the "significant number of Jews -- including teachers and Hollywood actors -- who were victims of anti-communist purges" and the prominence of Jews amongst those subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, lead to a significant reaction. All public opinion polls conducted during this period showed a consistent decline in "anti-Semitism," and only a small minority of those surveyed (about 5 percent) identified Jews with communism. [82] Ibid .

The lack of any real backlash to Jewish prominence in the New Left is ascribed to various factors: that many members of the public were not aware of the Jewish background of many of the radical leaders; that these Jewish radicals were ostensibly "not campaigning about any specifically Jewish issues that would have focused attention on Jews per se;" and to the "general decline in anti-Semitism since World War Two." [83] Ibid ., 257. This latter shift in public opinion (unsurprisingly) coincided with the Jewish seizure of the commanding heights of American (and Western) culture in the 1960s, and the growing emergence of the culture of "the Holocaust." The combined effect was to banish overt critical discussion of Jewish power to the margins of public discourse. While Americans rejected communist activities during the Cold War, unlike in Europe, they did not widely equate communism with Jews (at least publicly), or view Jewish participation in leftist politics with particular concern.

Neoconservatism

Neoconservative leaders were among those who feared that the Jewish prominence in the New Left of the late 1960s and early 1970s would fuel a conservative backlash against Jewish radicalism. For example, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, attacked leading Jewish leftists as alleged self-hating Jews and completely unrepresentative of the Jewish community. [84] Ibid ., 22.

Mendes ascribes the defection of many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism in the 1970s to a growing misalignment between modern Leftist politics and Jewish ethnic interests: the key factor being "the creation of the State of Israel which transformed Jewish dependence from international to national forces." [85] Ibid ., viii.
With the advent of the state of Israel, Jewish interests were no longer exclusively represented by the universalistic agendas of the Left. According to Mendes: "Most Jews have lost their faith in universalistic causes because they do not perceive the Left as supportive of Jewish interests, and have turned instead to nationalist solutions." [86] Ibid ., 235.

The creation of a Jewish national entity featuring (thanks to US taxpayers) a strong and powerful army meant that Jews all over the world could look to the Zionist state to safeguard their interests, rather than depending on internationalist movements and ideologies (i.e. communism and the Soviet Union) which had often proven to be unreliable allies. Even many left-wing Jews, who might have been anti-Zionist prior to World War Two, shifted their position after the birth of Israel. For example, the long-time Austrian Jewish leftist Jean Amery commented in 1976:

There is a very deep tie and existential bond between every Jew and the State of Israel Jews feel bound to the fortunes and misfortunes of Israel, whether they are religious Jews or not, whether they adhere to Zionism or reject it, whether they are newly arrived in their host countries or deeply rooted there The Jewish State has taught all the Jews of the world to walk with their head high once more Israel is the virtual shelter for all of the insulted and injured Jews of the earth. [87] Ibid ., 236-37

The perceived anti-Zionism of the New Left from the 1967 onwards served to alienate many Jews and confirm their commitment to nationalist, rather than internationalist solutions. An additional factor was the 1967 Six Day War in the Middle East, which provoked fears of "another Holocaust," and galvanized even non-Zionist Jews in support of Israel. There were rallies in support of Israel throughout the Western world accompanied by large donations. American Jews held massive fundraising campaigns and reportedly raised 180 million dollars. Numerous volunteers travelled to Israel to support the Jewish State. In Australia, more than 20 per cent of a total Jewish population of 34,000 in Melbourne -- attended a public rally to express their support for Israel, and 2500 attended a youth rally. 750 young Jews volunteered to go to Israel. According to Taft,

there was a widespread, almost universal, absorption in the Middle East Crisis of June among the Jews of Melbourne. This absorption took the form of extreme concern about the safety of Israel, emotional upsets, obsessive seeking of news, constant discussion of events and taking spontaneous actions to support Israel's cause. [88] Ibid ., 238.

The rise of left-wing anti-Zionism after the Six Day War furthered alienated sections of Western Jewry from the social democratic Left. Another factor that pushed American Jews in a neoconservative direction, identified by Mendes, was the decline in Black–Jewish relations. The emergence of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s led to the removal of Jews from the leadership of organizations like the NAACP. Black hostility was viewed by some Jews as evidence of the failure of the strategy of courting non-White groups to advance Jewish interests. This ostensible failure prompted many Jews to concentrate on a narrower ethnic self-interest in the future. [89] Ibid ., 243.

This, in turn, contributed to the creation of "pragmatic alliances" with conservative political parties such as the Republicans and evangelical groups such as Christians United for Israel which "have been consistent supporters of Israel in the USA." An associated factor was that pro-Israel perspectives within Western countries increasingly emanated from mainstream conservatives, rather than from the moderate or radical Left. This occurred despite "many in these groups hold socially conservative views on issues such as abortion, homosexuality, the environment, multiculturalism, state support for the poor and disadvantaged, and refugees, which are anathema to many Jews." [90] Ibid ., 287.

Mendes makes the point that "These alliances were based solely on the latter's position of support for Israel, irrespective of their conservative views on social issues such as abortion, homosexuality and the welfare state, which were often sharply at odds with the more liberal opinions of most Jews." [91] Ibid ., 239.

Despite the defection on many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism, the great majority of American Jews still see their ethnic interests as basically aligning with the Democratic Party. Their willingness to prioritize their ethnic interests over their personal economic interests is reflected in the fact that "high numbers of affluent Jews compared to others of the same socioeconomic status still vote for moderate left parties that do not seem to favor their economic interests." Today, the structural factors which historically drew many Jews to the Left no longer exist. Most Jews sit comfortably in middle- or even higher-income categories. This "middle-classing" of Jews throughout the West has meant that the "Jewish proletariat that motivated Jewish identification with left-wing beliefs no longer exists." [92] Ibid ., 239. Consequently, "the specific link between Jewish experience of class oppression and adherence to left-wing ideology has ended." [93] Ibid ., 241.

Most Western Jews still support parties on the Left

Despite the widespread break with the radical Left over support for Israel, Jews nevertheless remain a “massively significant presence” in the Left in terms of their numbers and fundraising, their organizational capacity, and their impact on popular culture.[94]Ibid., 287. It was estimated that about a quarter of the world’s leading Marxist and radical intellectuals in the 1980s were still Jews, including Ernest Mandel, Nathan Weinstock, Maxime Rodinson, Noam Chomsky, Marcel Liebman, Ralph Miliband, and the founder of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida. Despite continuing to comprise much of the intellectual and financial backbone of the Left, today’s Jews, “an influential and sometimes powerful group, with substantial access to politics, academia and the media,” no longer must “rely on the Left to defend their interests and wellbeing.”[95]Ibid., 286.

The primary reason most Western Jews still vote overwhelmingly for parties on the left is the perceived threat posed by the “social conservatism” of parties further to the right of the political spectrum in nations whose majorities are European-derived and nominally at least Christian:

With the possible exception of ultra-orthodox groups, Jews seem to prefer social liberal positions on issues such as religious pluralism, abortion, feminism, illicit drugs, same-sex marriage, the science of climate change and euthanasia. Another significant factor is the long history of Christian anti-Semitism has led Jews to remain suspicious of any attempts by Christian religious groups to undermine the separation of church and state. This fear of organized religion [and of the White people who practice it] seems to explain the continued strong support of American Jews for the Democratic Party in presidential elections. A further complicating factor is the growing universalization of Jewish teachings and values, including the lessons of the Holocaust, in support of social liberal perspectives. … For example, Berman (2006) presents evidence that the younger Jewish generation in Australia have been influenced by the experience of the Holocaust into taking a strong stand against any forms of racial or religious discrimination. Many are active in campaigns for indigenous rights, and to support refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Middle Eastern countries seeking asylum in Australia.[96]Ibid., 288-89.

This advocacy is, of course, entirely hypocritical and cynical. While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena.

The ideological preoccupations of organized Jewry today are reflected in comments by Boston Globe writer, S.I. Rosenbaum, who insisted the main lesson of “the Holocaust” is “that white supremacy could turn on us at any moment,” and the strategy of appealing to the White majority “has never worked for us. It didn’t protect us in Spain, or England, or France, or Germany. There’s no reason to think it will work now.” The central question of Jewish political engagement in Western societies, she insists, is “how we survive as a minority population,” where the one great advantage American Jewry enjoys is that “unlike other places where ethno-nationalism has flourished, the U.S. is fast approaching a plurality of minorities.” Presiding over a coalition of non-Whites groups to actively oppose White interests is the Jewish ethno-political imperative: “If Jews are going to survive in the future, we will have to stand with people of color for our mutual benefit.”

Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters:

For decades, leftist Jews have been flooding the West with Third World immigrants, “Hey here’s a plan—lets dump a hundred thousand Somalis in the whitest parts of the U.S. That’ll save us from Fargo Hitler!” Inundating the West with non-White immigrants is seen by Jews as an insurance policy against “white supremacy.” The idea is that these immigrants will act as a wedge, diluting “white power” while remaining small enough to be manageable.

Jews have done this everywhere—playing two groups against each other as a way of assuring Jewish security. Let’s play Hamas against the Palestinian authority. Let’s play ISIS against Assad. … But today we live in a world in which even the lowliest bark-eater in the Kalahari can have internet access. It’s not as easy to fool entire groups anymore (individuals, sure, but not an entire race, ethnicity or faction). …

And now we Jews, so worried that Minnesota might become the Frozen Fourth Reich if left in the hands of evil whites, have created for ourselves a good old-fashioned golem in Ilhan Omar (and a bunch of the other Third World freshman congressthingies). Yeah, Omar hates whites. Yeah, she thinks white supremacy lurks behind every glass of milk and “OK” finger sign. But she hates Jews a hell of a lot more…

In a perfect world, the Rabbinical Rain Men would finally get the fuck over the Holocaust and end their war of hostility against the West. They’d see that whites are no longer the enemy, but indeed the opposite. They’d see that importing foreign mud to mold golem in traditionally white regions of the U.S is bad strategy.

Here Cole vividly restates Kevin MacDonald’s point in Culture of Critique that: “Although multiculturalist ideology was invented by Jewish intellectuals to rationalize the continuation of separatism and minority-group ethnocentrism in a modern Western state, several of the recent instantiations of multiculturalism may eventually produce a monster with negative consequences for Judaism.”[97]Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth‑Century Intellectual and Political Movements, (Westport, CT: Praeger, Revised Paperback edition, 2001), 313. The creation of this “monster” is ostensibly regarded by Jewish leaders and activists as a risk worth taking to demographically, politically and culturally weaken threatening White populations.

In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations.

Conclusion

While Jews and the Left offers a useful catalogue of Jewish involvement in radical political movements throughout the world over the last two centuries, it recycles many of the same apologetic tropes that permeate the work of other Jewish historians and intellectuals. Mendes mischaracterizes the Jewish identity and affiliations of important Jewish communist leaders (like Lazar Kaganovich), and offers no examination of their often-murderous actions. He provides feeble apologies for the Jewish practices that engendered hostility among the native peasantry in the Pale of Settlement. The inherent weakness of his position necessitates specious argumentation and desperate resort to that evergreen of Jewish apologetic historiography: the innate irrationality and malevolence of the European mind and character. This is the invariable fallback position in any quest to exculpate Jews from responsibility for the crimes of communism in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe. Though less inclined than Brossat and Klingberg in Revolutionary Yiddishland to glorify Jewish communist militants, Mendes is equally keen to evade, whitewash and excuse disproportionate Jewish involvement in some of the worst crimes of the twentieth century.

[May 14, 2019] Why Everyone in the U.S. Who Counts Wants Julian Assange Dead naked capitalism

Notable quotes:
"... The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today. ..."
"... "Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all "respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?" ..."
"... Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as 'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers." ..."
May 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. Even though this post covers known territory, it seems worthwhile to encourage those of you who haven't watched the "Collateral Murder" footage to view the full version. It's important not only to keep the public (and that includes people in your personal circle) focused on what Assange's true hanging crime is in the eyes of the officialdom .and it ain't RussiaGate. That serves as a convenient diversion from his real offense. That effort has a secondary benefit of having more people watch the video.

By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at DownWithTyranny!

Before and after images of the van that came to pick up the bodies of eleven men shot to death by circling American helicopters in Iraq in 2007. Both children in the van were wounded. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," said one of the pilots. "That's right," replies another. From the video Collateral Murder .

Below is a full video version of Collateral Murder , the 2007 war footage that was leaked in 2010 to Wikileaks by Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. This version was posted to the Wikileaks YouTube channel with subtitles. It will only take about 15 minutes of your life to view it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HfvFpT-iypw

It's brutal to watch, but I challenge you to do it anyway. It shows not just murder, but a special kind of murder -- murder from the safety of the air, murder by men with heavy machine guns slowly circling their targets in helicopters like hunters with shotguns who walk the edges of a trout pond, shooting at will, waiting, walking, then shooting again, till all the fish are dead.

The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today.

"Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all "respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?"

Yes, Julian Assange the person can be a giant douche even to his supporters, as this exchange reported by Intercept writer Micah Lee attests. Nevertheless, it's not for being a douche that the Establishment state wants him dead; that state breeds, harbors and honors douches everywhere in the world . They want him dead for publishing videos like these.

Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as 'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers."

The Wikileaks page for the video is here . A transcript is here .

This was done in our name, to "keep us safe." This continues to be done every day that we and our allies are at "war" in the Middle East.

Bodies pile on bodies as this continues. The least we can do, literally the least, is to witness and acknowledge their deaths.

[May 14, 2019] Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan

Highly recommended!
Trump provided to be another Obama -- master of "bait and switch". His promise to disengage from foreign wars remains an unfulfilled promise. Due to thefact that he is owned by pro-Israel lobby he broung into his administrations such rabid neocons as chickenhawk Bolton and smug ruthless careerist masquerading as far-right zealot as Pompeo (and before them Haley). His promises to raise the standard of living of middles class (which is impossible without cutting the military budget) remains fake. He is a fake. The second fake after obama -- Republican Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come. ..."
"... According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid. ..."
"... In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years. ..."
Apr 10, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come.

According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid.

The Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts "smaller" poverty alleviation projects and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.

Rutherford Institute's founder and director John W. WhiteHead writes in his institute's website that the American nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments. He remarks:

"Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national security and urgent military needs".

He writes "you know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the government's fiscal year? Government agencies – including the Department of Defense – go on a 'use it or lose it' spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the next fiscal year".

"We are talking about $97 billion worth of wasteful spending"

He maintains that the nation's educational system is pathetic, the infrastructure is antiquated and growing more outdated by the day and the health system is overpriced and inaccessible to those who need it most.

The tax cuts on super-rich, outflow of huge sums in interest payment for debt and more spending are plunging the US economy into a new crisis, according to many authors. The US economy faces a deficit which means the spending especially on military and defence is far exceeding the tax revenues.

In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years.

According to a study regarding world powers' overseas military bases

In other words, the US possesses up to 95 per cent of the world's military bases . The Department of Defense says that its locations include 164 countries. Put another way, it has a military presence of some sort in approximately 84 percent of the nations on this planet.

The US Military Bases Abroad Are Disrupting the World Order

The annual cost of deploying US military personnel overseas, as well as maintaining and running those foreign bases, tops out at an estimated US$ 150 billion annually. The US bases abroad cost upwards of US$ 50 billion only for building and maintenance, which is enough to address pressing needs at home in education, health care, housing and infrastructure.

In 2017 and 2018, the world's largest military spenders were the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India. The UK took over France as sixth largest spender in 2018 while Japan and Germany stood at eighth and ninth positions.

In early 2018, Pentagon released a report saying that Afghan war costs US$ 45 billion to taxpayers in the preceding year. Of this amount, US$ 5 billion has been spent on Afghan forces, US$ 13 billion towards US forces in Afghanistan and the rest on economic aid.

But these costs are far lower than the time when the US military was highly engaged in Afghanistan. With nearly 100,000 soldiers in the country from 2010 to 2012, the price for American taxpayers surpassed US$ 100 billion each year. For now, there are around 16,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into Afghanistan, the US admits it failed in war against militants in Afghanistan.

In November 2018, another study published by CNBC reported that America has spent US$ 5.9 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001 including in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The study also reveals that more than 500,000 people have been killed in the wars and nearly 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.

The US has reportedly spent US$ 1.07 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001 which include Overseas Contingency Operations funds dedicated to Afghanistan, costs on the base budget of the Department of Defense and increase to the budget of the Department of Veteran Affairs.

In Afghanistan, the US costs of war in 2001 commenced with US$ 37.3 billion that soared to US$ 57.3 billion in 2007 and US$ 100 billion in 2009. The year with record spending was 2010 with US$ 112.7 billion that slightly plummeted to US$ 110.4 billion in 2011 but took downwards trend in the later years.

Due to skyrocketing military costs on the US government, Trump Administration recently decided to pack up some of its military bases in Afghanistan and Middle East to diminish expenditures, though it doesn't mean the wars would end at all.

According to Afghanistan Analysts Network, the US Congress has appropriated more than US$ 126 billion in aid for Afghanistan since financial year 2002, with almost 63 percent for security and 28 percent for development and the remainder for civilian operations, mostly budgetary assistance and humanitarian aid. Alongside the US aid, many world countries have pumped millions of dollars in development aids, but what is evident for insiders and outsiders is that a trickle of those funds has actually gone into Afghanistan's reconstruction.

With eighteen years into Afghan war, the security is deteriorating; Afghan air force is ill-equipped; poppy cultivation is on the rise; roads and highways are dilapidated or unconstructed; no mediocre hospital and health care has been established; weekly conflict causalities hit 150-250; electricity is still imported from Central Asian countries; economy remains dependent upon imports; unemployment rate is at its peak; more than three quarters of population live under poverty line and many, many more miseries persist or aggravate.

The US boasts of being the largest multi-billion dollar donor for Afghanistan, but if one takes a deeper look at the living standards of majority and the overall conditions, it can be immediately grasped that less than half of that exaggerated fund has been consumed. The US-made government of Afghanistan has deliberately been left behind to rank as the first corrupt country in the world. Thanks to the same unaddressed pervasive corruption, a hefty amount of that fund has been either directed back to the US hands or embezzled by senior Afghan officials.

Afghanistan's new Living Conditions Survey shows that poverty is more widespread today than it was immediately after the fall of Taliban regime, or in other words, in the early days of US invasion.

Next month, Kabul will host a Consultative Loya Jirga attended by around 2,000 representatives from Afghanistan which will cost the Afghan Ministry of Finance AF 369 million (equivalent to five million US$). Even as the past has proved that these events are only symbolic and further complicating the achievement of peace, a country with great majority under poverty line doesn't deserve to organize such costly gatherings.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Masud Wadan is a geopolitical analyst based in Kabul. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Salon.com

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Masud Wadan , Global Research, 2019

[May 14, 2019] Afghanistan, the Forgotten Proxy War. The Role of Osama bin Laden and Zbigniew Brzezinski - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Ce

May 14, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Afghanistan, the Forgotten Proxy War. The Role of Osama bin Laden and Zbigniew Brzezinski Part II By Janelle Velina Global Research, May 08, 2019 Region: Asia Theme: History , Intelligence , US NATO War Agenda In-depth Report: AFGHANISTAN

Read Part I from the link below.

Afghanistan, the Forgotten Proxy War

By Janelle Velina , April 30, 2019

Below is the second half and conclusion of "Afghanistan, the Forgotten Proxy War". While the previous sections examined the economic roots of imperialism, as well as the historical context of the Cold War within which to situate the Mujahideen, the following explores the anatomy of proxy warfare and media disinformation campaigns which were at the heart of destabilizing Afghanistan. These were also a large part of why there was little to no opposition to the Mujahideen from the Western 'left', whose continued dysfunctionality cannot be talked about without discussing Zbigniew Brzezinski. We also take a look at what led to the Soviet Union's demise and how that significantly affected the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and many other parts of the world. The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for four decades now, and it will reach its 40th year on July 3, 2019. The original "moderate rebel"

One of the key players in the anti-Soviet, U.S.-led regime change project against Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden , a Saudi-born millionaire who came from a wealthy, powerful family that owns a Saudi construction company and has had close ties to the Saudi royal family. Before becoming known as America's "boogeyman", Osama bin Laden was put in charge of fundraising for the Mujahideen insurgents, creating numerous charities and foundations in the process and working in coordination with Saudi intelligence (who acted as liaisons between the fighters and the CIA). Journalist Robert Fisk even gave bin Laden a glowing review, calling him a " peace warrior " and a philanthropist in a 1993 report for the Independent . Bin Laden also provided recruitment for the Mujahideen and is believed to have also received security training from the CIA. And in 1989, the same year that Soviet troops withdrew, he founded the terrorist organization Al Qaeda with a number of fighters he had recruited to the Mujahideen. Although the PDPA had already been overthrown, and the Soviet Union was dissolved, he still maintained his relationship with the CIA and NATO, working with them from the mid-to-late 1990s to provide support for the secessionist Bosnian paramilitaries and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the destruction and dismantling of Yugoslavia.

The United States would eventually turn Bin Laden into a scapegoat after the 2001 terrorist attacks, while still maintaining ties to his family and providing arms, training, and funding to Al Qaeda and its affiliates (rebranded as "moderate rebels" by the Western media) in its more recent regime change project against Syria, which started in 2011. The Mujahideen not only gave birth to Al Qaeda, but it would set a precedent for the United States' regime-change operations in later years against the anti-imperialist governments of Libya and Syria.

Reagan entertains Mujahideen fighters in the White House.

With the end to the cycle of World Wars (for the time being, at least), it has become increasingly common for the United States to use local paramilitaries, terrorist groups, and/or the armed forces of comprador regimes to fight against nations targeted by U.S. capital interests. Why the use of proxy forces? They are, as Whitney Webb describes , "a politically safe tool for projecting the U.S.' geopolitical will abroad." Using proxy warfare as a kind of power projection tool is, first and foremost, cost-effective, since paid local mercenaries or terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda will bear the burden of combat and casualties rather than American troops in places like Libya and Syria. For example, it costs much less to pay local paramilitaries, gangs, crime syndicates, terrorist groups, and other reactionary forces to perform the same military operations as U.S. troops. Additionally, with the advent of nuclear weapons it became much more perilous for global superpowers to come into direct combat with one another -- if the Soviet Union and the United States had done so, there existed the threat of "mutually assured destruction", the strong possibility of instantaneous and catastrophic damage to the populations and the economic and living standards of both sides, something neither side was willing to risk, even if it was U.S. imperialism's ultimate goal to destroy the Soviet Union. And so, the U.S. was willing to use any other means necessary to weaken the Soviet Union and safeguard its profits, which included eliminating the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan even if it had neither the intent nor the means of launching a military offensive on American soil. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had the means of producing a considerably large supply of modern weapons, including nuclear deterrents, to counter the credible threat posed by the United States. To strike the Soviet Union with nuclear missiles would have been a great challenge for the United States, since it would have resulted in overwhelming retaliation by the Soviet Union. To maneuver this problem, to assure the destruction of the Soviet Union while protecting the U.S. from similar destruction, the CIA relied on more unconventional methods not previously thought of as being part of traditional warfare, such as funding proxy forces while wielding economic and cultural influence over the American domestic sphere and the international scene. Furthermore, proxy warfare enables control of public opinion, thus allowing the U.S. government to escape public scrutiny and questions about legal authorization for war. With opposition from the general public essentially under control, consent for U.S.-led wars does not need to be obtained, especially when the U.S. military is running them from " behind the scenes " and its involvement looks less obvious. Indeed, the protests against the war on Vietnam in the United States and other Western countries saw mass turnouts.

And while the U.S.-led aggression in Vietnam did involve proxy warfare to a lesser degree, it was still mostly fought with American "boots-on-the-ground", much like the 2001 renewed U.S.-led aggression against Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In contrast, the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that began in 1979 saw little to no protest. The Mujahideen even garnered support from large portions of the Western left who joined the chorus of voices in the Western mainstream media in demonizing the PDPA -- a relentless imperialist propaganda campaign that would be repeated in later years during the U.S. wars on Libya and Syria, with the difference being that social media had not yet gained prominence at the time of the initial assault on Afghanistan. This leads to the next question: why recruit some of the most reactionary social forces abroad, many of whom represent complete backwardness?

In Afghanistan, such forces proved useful in the mission to topple the modernizing government of the PDPA, especially when their anti-modernity aspirations intersected with U.S. foreign policy; these ultra-conservative forces continue to be deployed by the United States today. In fact, the long war on Afghanistan shares many striking similarities with the long war on Syria, with the common theme of U.S. imperialism collaborating with violent Sunni extremists to topple the secular, nationalist and anti-imperialist governments of these two former 'Soviet bloc' countries. And much like the PDPA, the current and long-time government of the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party in Syria has made many strides towards achieving national liberation and economic development, which have included: taking land from aristocratic families (a majority of whom were Sunni Muslims while Shia Muslims, but especially Alawites, traditionally belonged to the lower classes and were treated as second class citizens in pre-Ba'athist Syria) and redistributing and nationalizing it, making use of Syria's oil and gas reserves to modernize the country and benefit its population, and upholding women's rights as an important part of the Ba'athist pillars.

Some of these aristocratic landlords, just like their Afghan counterparts, would react violently and join the Muslim Brotherhood who, with CIA-backing, carried out acts of terrorism and other atrocities in Hama as they made a failed attempt to topple the government of Hafez al Assad in 1982.

The connection between the two is further solidified by the fact that it was the Mujahideen from which Al Qaeda emerged; both are inspired by Wahhabist ideology, and one of their chief financiers is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as well as Israel, a regional imperial power and a key ally of the United States). In either case, these Wahhabi-inspired forces were vehemently opposed to modernization and development, and would much rather keep large sections of the population impoverished, as they sought to replace the PDPA and the Ba'athists with Sunni fundamentalist, anti-Shia, theological autocracies -- Saudi-style regimes, in other words.

These reactionary forces are useful tools in the CIA's anti-communist projects and destabilization campaigns against independent nationalist governments, considering that the groups' anti-modernity stance is a motivating factor in their efforts to sabotage economic development, which is conducive to ensuring a favourable climate for U.S. capital interests. It also helps that these groups already saw the nationalist governments of the PDPA and the Syrian Ba'ath party as their 'archenemy', and would thus fight them to the death and resort to acts of terrorism against the respective civilian populations.

Zbigniew Brzezinski stated in a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in response to the following question:

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

[Brzezinski]: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Once again, he makes it clear that the religious extremism of the Mujahideen fighters was not an issue for Washington because the real political value lay in eliminating the PDPA and putting an end to Soviet influence in the Greater Middle East, which would give the U.S. the opportunity to easily access and steal the country's wealth. And in order to justify the U.S. imperialist intervention in Afghanistan, as well as to obscure the true nature of the Mujahideen fighters, the intervention needed to be accompanied by a rigorous mass media campaign. The Reagan administration -- knowing full well that American mainstream media has international influence -- continued the war that the Carter administration started and saw it as an opportunity to "step up" its domestic propaganda war, considering that the American general public was still largely critical of the Vietnam War at the time.

As part of the aggressive imperialist propaganda campaign, anyone who dared to publicly criticize the Mujahideen was subjected to character assassination and was pejoratively labelled a "Stalinist" or a "Soviet apologist", which are akin to labels such as "Russian agent" or "Assadist" being used as insults today against those who speak out against the U.S.-backed terrorism in Syria. There were also careful rebranding strategies made specifically for Osama bin Laden and the Mujahideen mercenaries, who were hailed as "revolutionary freedom fighters" and given a romantic, exoticized "holy warrior" makeover in Western media; hence the title of this section. The Mujahideen mercenaries were even given a dedication title card at the end of the Hollywood movie Rambo III which read, "This film is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan"; the film itself added to the constructed romantic image as it portrayed the Mujahideen fighters as heroes, while the Soviet Union and the PDPA were portrayed as the cartoonish villains. The Rambo film franchise is well known for its depiction of the Vietnamese as "savages" and as the aggressors in the U.S. war on Vietnam, which is a blatant reversal of the truth .

The Hollywood blockbuster franchise would be used to make the Mujahideen more palatable to Western audiences, as this unabashed, blatantly anti-Soviet propaganda for U.S. imperialism attracted millions of viewers with one of the largest movie marketing campaigns of the time. Although formulaic, the films are easily consumable because they appeal to emotion and, as Michael Parenti states in Dirty Truths , "The entertainment industry does not merely give the people what they want: it is busy shaping those wants," (p. 111). Rambo III may not have been critically acclaimed , but it was still the second most commercially successful film in the Rambo series, grossing a total of $189,015,611 at the box office . Producing war propaganda films is nothing new and has been a long staple of the Hollywood industry, which serves capitalist and imperialist interests. But, since the blockbuster movie is one of the most widely available and distributed forms of media, repackaging the Mujahideen into a popular film franchise was easily one of the best ways (albeit cynical) to justify the war, maintaining the American constructed narrative and reinforcing the demonization campaign against Soviet Russia and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Now, outside of the cinema, CBS News went as far as to air fake battle footage meant to help perpetuate the myth that the Mujahideen mercenaries were "freedom fighters"; American journalists Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, although decidedly biased against the Soviet Union and its allies, documented this ruse in which the news channel participated. In terms of proxy warfare, these were just some of the ways used to distract from the fact that it was a U.S.-led war.

The dedication title card as it originally appeared at the end of the film Rambo III.

In Afghanistan, proxy forces provided a convenient cover because they drew attention away from the fact that U.S. imperialism was the root cause of the conflict. The insurgents also helped to demonize the targets of U.S. foreign policy, the PDPA and the Soviet Union, all the while doing the majority of the physical combat in place of the American military. In general, drawing attention away from the fact that it has been the United States "pulling the strings" all along, using proxy forces helps Washington to maintain plausible deniability in regard to its relationship with such groups. If any one of these insurgents becomes a liability, as what had happened with the Taliban, they can just as easily be disposed of and replaced by more competent patsies, while U.S. foreign policy goes unquestioned. Criminal gangs and paramilitary forces are thus ideal and convenient tools for U.S. foreign policy. With the rule of warlords and the instability (namely damage to infrastructure, de-industrialization, and societal collapse) that followed after the toppling of the PDPA, Afghanistan's standard of living dropped rapidly, leading to forced mass migrations and making the country all the more vulnerable to a more direct U.S. military intervention -- which eventually did happen in 2001.

Zbigniew Brzezinski: godfather of colour revolutions and proxy wars, architect of the Mujahideen

The late Brzezinski was a key figure in U.S. foreign policy and a highly influential figure in the Council on Foreign Relations. Although the Polish-American diplomat and political scientist was no longer the National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan's presidency, he still continued to play a prominent role in enforcing U.S. foreign policy goals in upholding Washington's global monopoly. The liberal Cold War ideologue's signature strategy consisted of using the CIA to destabilize and force regime-change onto countries whose governments actively resisted against Washington. Such is the legacy of Brzezinski, whose strategy of funding the most reactionary anti-government forces to foment chaos and instability while promoting them as "freedom fighters" is now a longstanding staple of U.S. imperialism.

How were the aggressive propaganda campaigns which promoted the Mujahideen mercenaries as "freedom fighters" able to garner support for the aggression against the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from so many on the Western left who had previously opposed the war on Vietnam? It was the through the CIA's use of 'soft-power' schemes, because leftist opinion also needed to be controlled and manipulated in the process of carrying out U.S. foreign and public policy. Brzezinski mastered the art of targeting intelligentsia and impressionable young people in order to make them supportive of U.S. foreign policy, misleading a significant number of people into supporting U.S.-led wars.

The CIA invested money into programs that used university campus, anti-Soviet "radical leftist activists" and academics (as well as artists and writers) to help spread imperialist propaganda dressed up in vaguely "leftist"-sounding language and given a more "hip", "humanitarian", "social justice", "free thinker" appeal. Western, but especially American, academia has since continued to teach the post-modernist "oppression theory" or "privilege theory" to students, which is anti-Marxist and anti-scientific at its core. More importantly, this post-modernist infiltration was meant to distract from class struggle, to help divert any form of solidarity away from anti-imperialist struggles, and to foster virulent animosity towards the Soviet Union among students and anyone with 'leftist' leanings. Hence the phenomenon of identity politics that continues to plague the Western left today, whose strength was effectively neutered by the 1970s. Not only that, but as Gowans mentions in his book, Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom :

"U.S. universities recruit talented individuals from abroad, instill in them the U.S. imperialist ideology and values, and equip them with academic credentials which conduce to their landing important political positions at home. In this way, U.S. imperial goals indirectly structure the political decision-making of other countries." (pp. 52-53)

And so we have agencies and think-tanks such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which has scholarly appeal and actively interferes in elections abroad -- namely, in countries that are targets of U.S. foreign policy. Founded in 1983 by Reagan and directed by the CIA, the agency also assists in mobilizing coups and paid "dissidents" in U.S.-led regime change projects, such as the 2002 failed attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, as well as helping to create aggressive media campaigns that demonize targeted nations. Another instance of this "soft power" tactic of mobilizing U.S.-backed "dissidents" in targeted nations are the number of Sunni Islamic fundamentalist madrassas (schools) sponsored by the CIA and set up by Wahhabi missionaries from Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan -- which started to appear in increasing numbers during the 1980s, reaching over 39,000 during the decade. Afghanistan's public education institutions were largely secular prior to the fall of Kabul in 1992; these madrassas were the direct, ideological and intellectual antitheses to the existing institutions of education. The madrassas acted as centres for cult-like brainwashing and were essentially CIA covert psychological operations (psy-ops) intended to inspire divisiveness and demobilize younger generations of Afghans in the face of imperial onslaught so that they would not unite with the wider PDPA-led nationalist resistance to imperialism.

The NED's founding members were comprised of Cold War ideologues which included Brzezinski himself, as well as Trotskyists who provided an endless supply of slurs against the Soviet Union. It was chiefly under this agency, and with direction provided by Brzezinski, that America produced artists, "activists", academics, and writers who presented themselves as "radical leftists" and slandered the Soviet Union and countries that were aligned with it -- which was all part of the process of toppling them and subjugating them to U.S. free market fundamentalism. With Brzezinski having mastered the art of encouraging postmodernism and identity politics among the Western left in order to weaken it, the United States not only had military and economic might on its side but also highly sophisticated ideological instruments to help give it the upper hand in propaganda wars.

These "soft power" schemes are highly effective in masking the brutality of U.S. imperialism, as well as concealing the exploitation of impoverished nations. Marketing the Mujahideen mercenaries as "peace warriors" while demonizing the PDPA and referring to the Soviet assistance as an "invasion" or "aggression" marked the beginning of the regular use of "humanitarian" pretexts for imperialist interventions. The Cold War era onslaught against Afghanistan can thus be seen as the template for the NATO-led regime change projects against Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria, which not only involved the use of U.S.-backed proxy forces but also "humanitarian" pretexts being presented in the aggressive propaganda campaigns against the targeted countries. It was not until 2002, however, that then-American UN representative Samantha Powers, as well as several U.S.-allied representatives, would push the United Nations to officially adopt the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) doctrine into the Charter -- which was in direct contradiction to the law that recognizes the violation of a nation's sovereignty as a crime. The R2P doctrine was born out of the illegal 78-day NATO air-bombing of Yugoslavia from March 24 to June 10, 1999. And although plans to dismantle Yugoslavia go as far back as 1984, it was not until much of the 1990s that NATO would begin openly intervening -- with more naked aggression -- starting with the funding and support for secessionist paramilitary forces in Bosnia between 1994-1995. It then sealed the 1999 destruction of Yugoslavia with with the balkanization of the Serbian province of Kosovo . In addition to the use of terrorist and paramilitary groups as proxy forces which received CIA-training and funding, another key feature of this "humanitarian" intervention was the ongoing demonization campaigns against the Serbs, who were at the centre of a vicious Western media propaganda war. Some of the most egregious parts of these demonization campaigns -- which were tantamount to slander and libel -- were the claims that the Serbs were " committing genocide " against ethnic Albanians. The NATO bombing campaign was illegal since it was given no UN Security Council approval or support.

Once again, Brzezinski was not the National Security Advisor during the U.S.-led campaign against Yugoslavia. However, he still continued to wield influence as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a private organization and Wall Street think tank. The Council on Foreign Relations is intertwined with highly influential NGOs who are essentially propaganda mouthpieces for U.S. foreign policy, such as Human Rights Watch, which has fabricated stories of atrocities allegedly committed by countries targeted by U.S. imperialism. Clearly, unmitigated U.S. imperial aggression did not end with the destruction of the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, nor with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The post-Cold War years were a continuation of U.S. imperialism's scramble for more spheres of influence and global domination; it was also a scramble for what was left of the former 'Soviet bloc' and Warsaw Pact. The dismantling of Yugoslavia was, figuratively speaking, the 'final nail in the coffin' of whatever 'Soviet influence' was left in Eastern Europe.

The demise of the Soviet Union and the "Afghan trap" question

Image on the right: Left to right: former Afghan President Babrak Karmal, and former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Karmal took office at around the same time (December 1979) the PDPA requested that Moscow intervene to assist the besieged Afghanistan.

The sabotage and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that only one global hegemon remained, and that was the United States. Up until 1989, the Soviet Union had been the barrier that was keeping the United States from launching a more robust military intervention in Afghanistan, as well as in Central and West Asia. While pulling out did not immediately cause the defeat of Kabul as the PDPA government forces continued to struggle for another three years, Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to withdraw Soviet troops arguably had a detrimental impact on Afghanistan for many years to come. Although there was no Soviet military assistance in the last three years of Najibullah's presidency, Afghanistan continued to receive aid from the USSR, and some Soviet military advisers (however limited in their capacity) still remained; despite the extreme difficulties, and combined with the nation's still-relatively high morale, this did at least help to keep the government from being overthrown immediately. This defied U.S. expectations as the CIA and the George H.W. Bush administration had believed that the government of Najibullah would fall as soon as Soviet troops were withdrawn. But what really hurt the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan's army was when the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1991; almost as soon as the dissolution happened and Boris Yeltsin (with U.S. backing) took over as Russia's president, the aid stopped coming and the government forces became unable to hold out for much longer. The U.S. aggression was left unchecked, and to this day Afghanistan has not seen geopolitical stability and has since been a largely impoverished 'failed state', serving as a training ground for terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. It continues to be an anarchic battleground between rival warlords which include the ousted Taliban and the U.S. puppet government that replaced them.

But, as was already mentioned above, the "Afghan trap" did not, in and of itself, cause the dismantling of the Soviet Union. In that same interview with Le Nouvel Observateur , Brzezinski had this to say in response to the question about setting the "trap":

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

[Brzezinski]: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Likewise with Cuba and Syria, the USSR had a well-established alliance with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, one of mutual aid and partnership. Answering Kabul's explicit request for assistance was a deliberate and conscious choice made by Moscow, and it just so happened that the majority of Afghans welcomed it. For any errors that Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary at the time, may have made (which do deserve a fair amount of criticism, but are not the focus of this article), the 1979 decision to intervene on behalf of Afghanistan against U.S. imperialism was not one of them. It is true that both the Soviet and the U.S. interventions were military interventions, but the key difference is that the U.S. was backing reactionary forces for the purposes of establishing colonial domination and was in clear violation of Afghan sovereignty. Consider, too, that Afghanistan had only deposed of its king in 1973, just six years before the conflict began. The country may have moved quickly to industrialize and modernize, but it wasn't much time to fully develop its military defenses by 1979.

Image below: Mikhail Gorbachev accepts the Nobel Peace Prize from George H.W. Bush on October 15, 1990. Many Russians saw this gesture as a betrayal, while the West celebrated it, because he was being awarded for his capitulation to U.S. imperialism in foreign and economic policy.

United States War Crimes. A Historical Review

Other than that, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Soviet Union imploded due to an accumulating number of factors: namely, the gradual steps that U.S. foreign policy had taken over the years to cripple the Soviet economy, especially after the deaths of Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov. How Gorbachev responded during the U.S.-led onslaught against Afghanistan certainly helped to exacerbate the conditions that led to the dissolution. After the deaths of Brezhnev and Andropov, the Soviet Union's economy became disorganized and was being liberalized during much of the 1980s. Not only that, but the Reagan administration escalated the arms race, which intensified after they had scrapped the 'detente' that was previously made in the mid-1970s. Even prior to Reagan's hardline, bombastic rhetoric and escalation against the USSR, the Soviet Union was already beginning to show signs of strain from the arms race during the late-1970s. However, in spite of the economic strains, during the height of the war the organized joint operations between the Soviet army and the Afghan army saw a significant amount of success in pushing back against the Mujahideen with many of the jihadist leaders either being killed or fleeing to Pakistan. Therefore, it is erroneous to say that intervening in Afghanistan on behalf of the Afghan people "did the Soviet Union in."

In a misguided and ultimately failed attempt to spur economic growth rates, Gorbachev moved to end the Cold War by withdrawing military support from allies and pledging cooperation with the United States who promised "peace". When he embraced Neoliberalism and allowed for the USSR to be opened to the U.S.-dominated world capitalist economy, the Soviet economy imploded and the effects were felt by its allies. It was a capitulation to U.S. imperialism, in other words; and it led to disastrous results not only in Afghanistan, but in several other countries as well. These include: the destruction of Yugoslavia, both wars on Iraq, and the 2011 NATO invasion of Libya. Also, Warsaw Pact members in Eastern Europe were no longer able to effectively fight back against U.S.-backed colour revolutions; some of them would eventually be absorbed as NATO members, such as Czechoslovakia which was dissolved and divided into two states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Without Soviet Russia to keep it in check, the United States was able to launch an unrestrained series of aggressions for nearly two decades. Because of his decision to withdraw from the arms race altogether, in a vain attempt to transform the Soviet Union into a social democracy akin to those of the Nordic countries, Gorbachev had deprived the Russian army of combat effectiveness by making significant cuts to its defense budget, which is partly why they were forced to evacuate. Not only that, but these diplomatic and military concessions with the United States gave them no benefit in return, hence the economic crisis in Russia during the Yeltsin years. Suffice to say, the Gorbachev-Yeltsin years are not remembered fondly in Russia and many regard Gorbachev as a traitor and Western agent who helped to bring the Soviet Union to its collapse. In more recent years, efforts are being made to assess the actions taken by Gorbachev with regards to Afghanistan; this includes going against and revising the resolution put forth by him which suggested that the USSR intervention was "shameful".

In short, Afghanistan did not cause the Soviet Union's demise even if it required large military spending. More accurately: it was Gorbachev's impulsive decision to quickly discard the planned economy in favour of a market economy in order to appease the United States, who made the false promise that NATO would not expand eastward. If there was a real "trap", it was this and Gorbachev played right into the hands of U.S. imperialism; and so, the Soviet Union received its devastating blow from the United States in the end -- not from a small, minor nation such as Afghanistan which continues to suffer the most from the effects of these past events. For many years, but especially since the end of WWII, the United States made ceaseless efforts to undermine the USSR, adding stress upon stress onto its economy, in addition to the psychological warfare waged through the anti-Soviet propaganda and military threats against it and its allies. Despite any advances made in the past, the Soviet Union's economy was still not as large as that of the United States. And so, in order to keep pace with NATO, the Soviet Union did not have much of a choice but to spend a large percentage of its GDP on its military and on helping to defend its allies, which included national liberation movements in the Third World, because of the very real and significant threat that U.S. imperialism posed. If it had not spent any money militarily, its demise would most likely have happened much sooner. But eventually, these mounting efforts by U.S. imperialism created a circumstance where its leadership under Gorbachev made a lapse in judgment, reacting impulsively and carelessly rather than acting with resilience in spite of the onslaught.

It should also be taken into account that WWII had a profound impact on Soviet leadership -- from Joseph Stalin to Gorbachev -- because even though the Red Army was victorious in defeating the Nazis, the widespread destruction had still placed the Soviet economy under an incredible amount of stress and it needed time to recover. Meanwhile, the convenient geographical location of the United States kept it from suffering the same casualties and infrastructural damage seen across Europe and Asia as a result of the Second World War, which enabled its economy to recover much faster and gave it enough time to eventually develop the U.S. Dollar as the international currency and assert dominance over the world economy. Plus, the U.S. had accumulated two-thirds of the world's gold reserves by 1944 to help back the Dollar; and even if it lost a large amount of the gold, it would still be able to maintain Dollar supremacy by developing the fiat system to back the currency. Because of the destruction seen during WWII, it is understandable that the Soviet Union wanted to avoid another world war, which is why it also made several attempts at achieving some kind of diplomacy with the United States (before Gorbachev outright capitulated). At the same time, it also understood that maintaining its military defenses was important because of the threat of a nuclear war from the United States, which would be much more catastrophic than the Nazis' military assaults against the Soviet Union since Hitler did not have a nuclear arsenal. This was part of a feat that U.S. imperialism was able to accomplish that ultimately overshadowed British, French, German, and Japanese imperialism, which Brzezinski reveals in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives : an unparalleled military establishment that, by far, had the most effective global reach which allowed the U.S. to "project forces over long distances", helping it to assert its global domination and impose its "political will". And what makes the American Empire distinct from the Japanese Empire, British Empire, and other European empires is that one of the bases for its ideology is the socially constructed international hierarchy of nations, and not races as was the case with the other aforementioned empires. This constructed international hierarchy of nations is more effective because it means not only greater expansionism, but also the greater ability to exercise global primacy and supremacy. More specific to Central Asia and the Middle East, the Wahhabist and Salafist groups propped up by the CIA were always intended to nurture sectarianism and discord in order to counter a mass, broad-based united front of nations against imperialism -- an example of divide-and-conquer, which is an age-old tradition of empire, except this time with Neoliberal characteristics.

Therefore, the Mujahideen against Afghanistan should not be thought of simply as "the Afghan trap", but rather as the U.S. subjugation and plundering of West and Central Asia and an important milestone (albeit a cynical one) in shaping its foreign policy with regards to the region for many years to come. If one thing has remained a constant in U.S. foreign policy towards West and Central Asia, it is its strategic partnership with the oil autocracy of Saudi Arabia, which acts as the United States' steward in safeguarding the profits of American petroleum corporations and actively assists Western powers in crushing secular Arab and Central Asian nationalist resistance against imperialism. The Saudi monarchy would again be called on by the U.S. government in 2011 in Syria to assist in the repeated formula of funding and arming so-called "moderate rebels" in the efforts to destabilize the country. Once again, the ultimate goal in this more recent imperial venture is to contain Russia.

Cold War 2.0? American Supremacy marches on

The present-day anti-Russia hysteria is reminiscent of the anti-Soviet propaganda of the Cold War era; while anti-communism is not the central theme today, one thing remains the same: the fact that the U.S. Empire is (once again) facing a formidable challenge to its position in the world. After the Yeltsin years were over, and under Vladimir Putin, Russia's economy eventually recovered and moved towards a more dirigiste economy; and on top of that, it moved away from the NATO fold, which triggered the old antagonistic relationship with the United States. Russia has also decided to follow the global trend of taking the step towards reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar , which is no doubt a source of annoyance to the U.S. capitalist class. It seems that a third world war in the near future is becoming more likely as the U.S. inches closer to a direct military confrontation against Russia and, more recently, China. History does appear to be repeating itself. When the government of Bashar al Assad called on Moscow for assistance in fighting against the NATO-backed terrorists, it certainly was reminiscent of when the PDPA had done the same many years before. Thus far, the Syrian Arab Republic has continued to withstand the destabilization efforts carried out by the Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups and Kurdish militias at the behest of the United States, and has not collapsed as Libya, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan did.

But what often gets overlooked is the repeated Brzezinskist formula of funding highly reactionary forces and promoting them as "revolutionaries" to Western audiences in order to fight governments that defy the global dictatorship of the United States and refuse to allow the West to exploit their natural resources and labour power. As Karl Marx once said , "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." Such a phenomenon is no accident or a mere mistake. The geopolitical instability that followed after the overthrow of the PDPA ensures that no sound, united, and formidable opposition against U.S. imperialism will emerge for an indefinite number of years; and it seems that Libya, where the Brzezinskist-style of regime change also saw success and which is now a hotbed for the slave trade, is on the same path as Afghanistan. This is all a part of what Lenin calls moribund capitalism when he discussed the economic essence of imperialism; and by that, he meant that imperialism carries the contradictions of capitalism to the extreme limit . American global monopoly had grown out of U.S. foreign policy, and it should go without saying that the American Empire cannot tolerate losing its Dollar Supremacy, especially when the global rate of profit is falling. And if too many nations reject U.S. efforts to infiltrate their markets and force foreign finance capital exports onto their economies in order to gain a monopoly over the resources, as well as to exploit the labour of their working people, it would surely spell a sharp decline in American Dollar hegemony. The fact that the United States was willing to go as far as to back mercenaries to attack the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and fight the Soviet Union, as well as to spend billions of dollars on a highly elaborate but effective propaganda campaign, shows a sign of desperation of the American Empire in maintaining its global hegemony.

Since the end of World War II the United States has been, and is by and large still, the overwhelming world-dominating power. It is true that the American Empire is in decline, in light of increasing trends towards "de-Dollarization," as well as the rise of China and Russia which pose as challenges to U.S. interests. Naturally, Washington will desperately try to cling on to its number one position in the world by accelerating the growth of its global monopolies -- whether it is through placing wholly unnecessary tariffs against competitors such as China, or threatening to completely cut Venezuelan and Iranian oil out of the global market -- even if it means an increasing drive towards World War III. The current global economic order which Washington elites have been instrumental in shaping over the past several decades reflects the interests of the global capitalist class to such an extent that the working class is threatened with yet another world war despite the unimaginable carnage witnessed during the first two.

When we look back at these historical events to help make sense of the present, we see how powerful mass media can be and how it is used as a tool of U.S. foreign policy to manipulate and control public opinion. Foreign policy is about the economic relationships between countries. Key to understanding how U.S. imperialism functions is in its foreign policy and how it carries it out -- which adds up to plundering from relatively small or poorer nations more than a share of wealth and resources that can be normally produced in common commercial exchanges, forcing them to be indebted; and if any of them resist, then they will almost certainly be subjected to military threats.

With the great wealth that allowed it to build a military that can "project forces over long distances," the United States is in a unique position in history, to say the least. However, as we have seen above, the now four decade-long war on Afghanistan was not only fought on a military front considering the psy-ops and the propaganda involved. If anything, the Soviet Union lost on the propaganda front in the end.

From Afghanistan we learn not only of the origins of Al Qaeda, to which the boom in the opioid-addiction epidemic has ties, or why today we have the phenomenon of an anti-Russia Western "left" that parrots imperialist propaganda and seems very eager to see that piece of Cold War history repeat itself in Syria. We also learn that we cannot de-link the events of the 2001 direct U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and what followed from those of 1979; Afghanistan's colonial-feudal past, its break from that with the 1978 Saur Revolution, and the U.S.-led Mujahideen are all as much of a part of its history (and the Greater Middle East, by extension) as the events of 2001. It cannot be stressed enough that it is those historical conditions, particularly as they relate to U.S. foreign policy, that helped to shape the ongoing conflict today.

Obviously, we cannot undo the past. It is not in the interests of the working class anywhere, in the Global South or in the Global North, to see a third world war happen, as such a war would have catastrophic consequences for everyone -- in fact, it could potentially destroy all of humanity. Building a new and revitalized anti-war movement in the imperialist nations is a given, but it also requires a more sophisticated understanding of U.S. foreign policy. Without historical context, Western mass media will continue to go unchallenged, weaning audiences on a steady diet of "moderate rebels" propaganda and effectively silencing the victims of imperialism. It is necessary to unite workers across the whole world according to their shared interests in order to effectively fight and defeat imperialism and to establish a just, egalitarian, and sustainable world under socialism. Teaching the working class everywhere the real history of such conflicts as the one in Afghanistan is an important part of developing the revolutionary consciousness necessary to build a strong global revolutionary movement against imperialism.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Originally published by LLCO.org on March 30, 2019. For the full-length article and bibliography, click here .

Janelle Velina is a Toronto-based political analyst, writer, and an editor and frequent contributor for New-Power.org and LLCO.org . She also has a blog at geopoliticaloutlook.blogspot.com .

All images in this article are from the author; featured image: Brzezinski visits Osama bin Laden and other Mujahideen fighters during training. The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Janelle Velina , Global Research, 2019

[May 14, 2019] Transcript Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Face the Nation

What is funny is that MARGARET BRENNAN is to the right of Pompeo. That's a real achievement. Pompeo probably was surprised that he was put on the defensive from his right-wing position by this warmongering female neocon.
May 05, 2019 | www.cbsnews.com
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got the whole world as your portfolio so let's move on to Venezuela and Russia. There was this phone call between Vladimir Putin and President Trump that just happened. The president described it to us in an Oval Office spray. Why didn't he bring up election interference on this phone call when he said he did discuss the findings of the Mueller Report which found sweeping and systematic Russian interference in 2016?

SEC. POMPEO: Well you'll have to ask the White House that question. The president's been very clear. The administration has taken great action. I wish the previous one had stopped the election interference that took place in 2016. They failed to do so. Between 2017 when President Trump came into office and 2018, we had a successful election year, a set of midterm elections. We're working diligently to ensure that the elections in 2020 aren't interfered with by Russia, by Iran, by North Korea or anyone else. We have enormous resource deployed against that challenge. And the American people should be sure that their government is working hard to keep our election safe and secure.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You said, this week, that Moscow has hundreds of people in Venezuela and you were very clear that you think it was Russia that convinced Nicolas Maduro not to get on a plane and to flee the country. Here's what the president said during his- after his phone call with Vladimir Putin.

*Take SOT*

MARGARET BRENNAN: There seems to be a difference in how the president described the situation and how you and Ambassador Bolton have described it.

SEC. POMPEO: No, no difference, no difference. The- the president has said, I think he in fact tweeted, that the Russians must leave Venezuela. We've asked every nation that is in- interfering with Venezuelan democracy- you've seen this. I- I was down on the border. We saw mothers who couldn't feed their children, fleeing the country. We saw families that had sick kids but couldn't get medicines, all sitting, was sitting within 50 miles of where we were located. And Maduro won't allow it to come in. The president's been very clear, we want the Cubans out. There are Iranians on the ground there. We want the Russians- we want everyone out so that the Venezuelan people can get the democracy they deserve. That includes Mr. Maduro leaving.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So when he says, the president says, "Putin is not looking to get involved at all in Venezuela," that is not the president accepting him at face value?

SEC. POMPEO: You'll- you'll have to leave- you'll have to look at--

MARGARET BRENNAN: He knows that that's not the case?

SEC. POMPEO: The- the president has tweeted that he wants the Russians out of Venezuela.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So he was just putting a positive spin on things in that moment?

SEC. POMPEO: We- we are working very diligently to ensure that Maduro leaves and we get free and fair elections in Venezuela. That will require the 2,300 Cuban security personnel, the- frankly, the people closest to Maduro who are protecting the in- tight security for Maduro, they've got to leave. We're working on that as well. We're working with the Cubans to try and get an outcome that will let the Venezuelans have this opportunity.

MARGARET BRENNAN: On this, I know you'll be meeting with the Russian foreign minister in the coming days. Is there a deal to be struck with Russia on this front? I mean, Russia benefits, right, by having Venezuelan oil off the market, by having a level of influence in America's backyard. Is the U.S. going to negotiate a deal with Russia on Venezuela?

SEC. POMPEO: I'll certainly bring up Venezuela, be one of many topics that Foreign Minister Lav- Lavrov and I speak about- speak about. Whether there's a particular deal that can be reached? Only time will tell.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who I know you know well tweeted this week, "Cuba, Russia sent troops to prop up Maduro in Venezuela while we talk and have sanctions. Where's our aircraft carrier?" He seems to be calling a bluff here on your mention and mention from others that military options aren't off the table. What is actually being considered here because you can't refer to the use of military force lightly. Is there an actual option that you are considering deploying in the coming days?

[May 13, 2019] Not Just Ukraine; Biden May Have A Serious China Problem As Schweizer Exposes Hunter s $1bn Deal

Highly recommended!
Neoliberal corruption in full display. As we see forms of nepotism evolve with time...
Notable quotes:
"... Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries. ..."
"... Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post . ..."
"... Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar private equity deals with Chinese government-owned entities. ..."
"... Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe Biden flew on Air Force Two to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial behemoth often used as a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a unique type of investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont Seneca Partners is a founding partner ..."
"... It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers . ..."
"... It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. ..."
"... The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont. ..."
"... "We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive, who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous." ..."
"... Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal. ..."
"... The vice president was bringing with him highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy. ..."
"... The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any background or experience in the energy sector. - New York Post ..."
"... Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. ..."
"... As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world. ..."
May 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2019 - 14:30 111 SHARES

Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries.

Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post .

" If it sounds shocking that a vice president would shape US-China policy as his son -- who has scant experience in private equity -- clinched a coveted billion-dollar deal with an arm of the Chinese government, that's because it is " - Peter Schweizer

Perhaps this is why Joe Biden - now on the 2020 campaign trail - said last week that China wasn't a threat.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/sD9d3TUYHNo

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a shot at Biden's comment during a speech at the Claremont Institute's 40th anniversary gala, saying "Look how both parties now are on guard against the threat that China presents to America -- maybe except Joe Biden."

Back to Hunter...

Schweizer connects the dots, writing that "without the aid of subpoena power, here's what we know :"

It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers .

Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership of, had any role in the deal with Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont name became increasingly involved with China.

Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. - New York Post

National Security implications

As Schweizer also notes, BHR became an "anchor investor" in the IPO of China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) in December 2014. The state-owned energy company is involved with the construction of nuclear reactors.

In April 2016, CGN was charged by the US Justice Department with stealing nuclear secrets from the United States , which prosecutors warned could cause "significant damage to our national security." CNG was interested in sensitive, American-made nuclear components that resembled those used on US nuclear submarines, according to experts.

More China dealings

It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.

Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments Limited was negotiating and sealing deals with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts. That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.

The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.

Chinese executives lauded the deal. - New York Post

"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was precisely the investment opportunity Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited and Gemini Investments. "We look forward to a strong and successful partnership."

That partnership planned to use Chinese money to scoop up US properties.

"We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive, who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous."

Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal.

Tying it back to Ukraine

While we have previously reported on the Bidens' adventures in Ukraine, Schweizer connects the dots rather well here ...

Consider the facts. On April 16, 2014, White House records show that Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner in the Rosemont Seneca deals, made a private visit to the White House for a meeting with Vice President Biden. Five days later, on April 21, Joe Biden landed in Kiev for a series of high-level meetings with Ukrainian officials . The vice president was bringing with him highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy.

The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any background or experience in the energy sector. - New York Post

Hunter was paid as much as $50,000 per month while Burisma was under investigation by officials in both Ukraine and elsewhere.

Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings.

Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko.

" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."

Joe Biden says that he had no idea Hunter was on the board of Burisma (for two years after he joined), and that the two never spoke about the Burisma investigation. The former VP claims that Shokin's removal was required due to his mishandling of several cases in Ukraine.

As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world.


Bastiat , 2 minutes ago link

Stick a fork in Creepy Uncle Sniffy.

Feel it Reel it , 8 minutes ago link

Biden is another scumbag Democrat Lawyer who's the original 'pay for play' politician...A 40+ year history in Political Office with Zero accomplishments except enriching himself and his family...A complete fraud and hypocrite liar.....Lawyers should have never been allowed to run for Office at any level.....Look at all the corruption that has been and is being exposed at the different bureaucracies...Virtually all the corruption has been willfully committed by Lawyers....Pathetic....

LOL123 , 16 minutes ago link

Interesting.... I put: "The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow an elected President because he stands in " the way of "profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected councils and retired instigators as facilitators of discord.

But came out:The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow an elected President because he stands in the profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected councils and retired instigators as facilitators of discord.

To make it sound as if it is Trump profiting.... By no means is that true... Its the " long term" Washington officals that have been profiting. Not a possible 8 year President.

My phone also wont let me thumbs up people i would like to but only a few and also replying is " verboten".

These algorhythms and blocks and censorship is an abuse of constitutional rights which is bad enough, but even worse is that these rights got monopolized by various corporations who bought stock in facebook/ googles options that was stolen from Leader technologies source code ( which Mark zukerberg couldnt write on a good day... He is a front guy and again we have British privy council involed with Clegg head of facebook now voice for Mark... Because Mark is a cut out).

This whole social media internet thing has been hijacked and weaponized by Washingtons same people as Dossier scandel... James Chandeler attorney and backstaber of Leader technology.

See leader technology vs facebook..... But i digress.

We have lost control of the internet.

https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/Michael-T-McKibben-AFI-backgrounder.html

Michael T. McKibben's career spans two phases: international Christian music ministry, and technology innovation. In 2006, he was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761 for what is now called "social networking."

Psadie , 21 minutes ago link

Biden & Kerry aren't the only ones with a China problem. "Secret Empires" also listed Mitch McConnell having a huge China problem through his wife's shipping company. I bet he doesn't run for re-election. Winning.

Bricker , 23 minutes ago link

Biden thinks he knows something about trade. If thats the case how did America get here?

We got here from career politicians selling America for votes.

#FuckBiden

cleg , 46 minutes ago link

China owns the Clintonista mob.

onewayticket2 , 43 minutes ago link

they all own one another - that's the essence of the problem in politics. and why they have tried so hard to get that outsider, trump, out of the country club.

Koba the Dread , 30 minutes ago link

China funded Bill Clinton's election campaigns through James Riady, an Indonesian Chinese man involved in hard drug smuggling and arms trafficking. The money was laundered through Little Rock banks and corporations. (See Victor Thorn's Hillary and Bill , all three volumes.)

JamcaicanMeAfraid , 48 minutes ago link

"Come on man! This is a joke! He's my son and he's a great buddy. I mean yeah he was drummed out of the Naval Reserve because of his cocaine habit, but come on man, you know, everybody does it! Just ask my good friend Barack, he's a clean, good looking darkie whose done his share of blow. And yeah Hunter fucked his dead brother's widow, but come on man! Have you seen her **** and ***. I might have made a move on her myself, but hey man I'm married."

Joe Biden, From the endless Fear and Mongering Presidential campaign of 2020.

JibjeResearch , 49 minutes ago link

How can a deal of such magnitude escape the Treasury FINCEN?

Get on it ... you IRS/SEC/FBI people!

Koba the Dread , 25 minutes ago link

IRS/SEC/FBI are not investigatory agencies. They are barrier agencies. They protect the anointed, letting them do as they wish, and stomp on anyone else who tries to get in on the gravy train.

Rico , 55 minutes ago link

ah, sociopaths in action...from an earlier post:

//

Sociopaths are the reason all governments, regardless of the particular 'ism', eventually fail...

Looking at human history, fascism is the most common form of government for humans. At least it is the most honest - that the sociopaths are ******* everyone else.... These days we try to hide it by lofty idealism that is incompatible with a predator/prey real world.....

Representative democracy, socialism and communism all fail and all fail for the same reason - sociopaths...

We should be honest with ourselves that there is a small, but statistically significant percentage of the human population that are sociopaths (and more are being born every generation). We can call them predators and we are the prey...any concentration of power attracts sociopaths regardless of the fancy label we put on the political system. Within a short time the system is inundated with sociopaths who invariably game the system to death for their own individual benefit....

Don't like the reality in which you find yourself? Stop voting for sociopaths, stop giving them power...

What political party or system even acknowledge the sociopath problem? That's right, none...so don't expect anything to change after the reset...the pleubs will chose a new sociopath for their leader, who will **** them, and things will go on as they always have...

Only way to combat this is to decentralize power as much as possible...this doesn't solve the sociopath problem, but it does spread them out and keeps them from ganging up together to **** over the peasants...but I won't hold my breath....

Fish Gone Bad , 1 hour ago link

I bet Hunter's tax records must be VERY interesting. Someone really needs to step up and show those bad boys.

pilager , 1 hour ago link

Yes, selling America out again.

TeethVillage88s , 52 minutes ago link

Is this a good time to take a look at 1) Front Men 2) Front Companies 3) Shell Companies 4) Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV/SPE) 5) Offshore Accounts, Offshore Donations, Offshore Campaign or PAC or Party Contributions, Paradise Papers, Panama Papers 6) USA as Tax Haven for foreign accounts 7) USA as an Empire 8) The Rise Of The Fourth Reich notes in book by Jim Marrs

[May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
May 10, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

... ... ...

Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' ( 5 ).

Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).

By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington.

Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.

The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture ( 9 ). So they were searching for any information or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone had his particular motive for striking the same victim.

The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton ( 10 ).

Ambitions of a 'deep state'?

The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.

Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing -- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).

The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'. 'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur ( 12 ).

Covert opposition to Trump

The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.

This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration?

The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II. That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose. Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.

The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy' and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'

Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.

No longer getting his way

But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers (trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'

At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions.

... ... ...

[May 13, 2019] Not Just Ukraine; Biden May Have A Serious China Problem As Schweizer Exposes Hunter s $1bn Deal

Highly recommended!
Neoliberal corruption in full display. As we see forms of nepotism evolve with time...
Notable quotes:
"... Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries. ..."
"... Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post . ..."
"... Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar private equity deals with Chinese government-owned entities. ..."
"... Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe Biden flew on Air Force Two to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial behemoth often used as a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a unique type of investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont Seneca Partners is a founding partner ..."
"... It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers . ..."
"... It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. ..."
"... The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont. ..."
"... "We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive, who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous." ..."
"... Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal. ..."
"... The vice president was bringing with him highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy. ..."
"... The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any background or experience in the energy sector. - New York Post ..."
"... Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. ..."
"... As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world. ..."
May 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2019 - 14:30 111 SHARES

Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries.

Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post .

" If it sounds shocking that a vice president would shape US-China policy as his son -- who has scant experience in private equity -- clinched a coveted billion-dollar deal with an arm of the Chinese government, that's because it is " - Peter Schweizer

Perhaps this is why Joe Biden - now on the 2020 campaign trail - said last week that China wasn't a threat.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/sD9d3TUYHNo

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a shot at Biden's comment during a speech at the Claremont Institute's 40th anniversary gala, saying "Look how both parties now are on guard against the threat that China presents to America -- maybe except Joe Biden."

Back to Hunter...

Schweizer connects the dots, writing that "without the aid of subpoena power, here's what we know :"

It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers .

Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership of, had any role in the deal with Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont name became increasingly involved with China.

Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. - New York Post

National Security implications

As Schweizer also notes, BHR became an "anchor investor" in the IPO of China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) in December 2014. The state-owned energy company is involved with the construction of nuclear reactors.

In April 2016, CGN was charged by the US Justice Department with stealing nuclear secrets from the United States , which prosecutors warned could cause "significant damage to our national security." CNG was interested in sensitive, American-made nuclear components that resembled those used on US nuclear submarines, according to experts.

More China dealings

It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.

Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments Limited was negotiating and sealing deals with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts. That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.

The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.

Chinese executives lauded the deal. - New York Post

"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was precisely the investment opportunity Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited and Gemini Investments. "We look forward to a strong and successful partnership."

That partnership planned to use Chinese money to scoop up US properties.

"We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive, who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous."

Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal.

Tying it back to Ukraine

While we have previously reported on the Bidens' adventures in Ukraine, Schweizer connects the dots rather well here ...

Consider the facts. On April 16, 2014, White House records show that Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner in the Rosemont Seneca deals, made a private visit to the White House for a meeting with Vice President Biden. Five days later, on April 21, Joe Biden landed in Kiev for a series of high-level meetings with Ukrainian officials . The vice president was bringing with him highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy.

The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any background or experience in the energy sector. - New York Post

Hunter was paid as much as $50,000 per month while Burisma was under investigation by officials in both Ukraine and elsewhere.

Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings.

Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko.

" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."

Joe Biden says that he had no idea Hunter was on the board of Burisma (for two years after he joined), and that the two never spoke about the Burisma investigation. The former VP claims that Shokin's removal was required due to his mishandling of several cases in Ukraine.

As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world.


Bastiat , 2 minutes ago link

Stick a fork in Creepy Uncle Sniffy.

Feel it Reel it , 8 minutes ago link

Biden is another scumbag Democrat Lawyer who's the original 'pay for play' politician...A 40+ year history in Political Office with Zero accomplishments except enriching himself and his family...A complete fraud and hypocrite liar.....Lawyers should have never been allowed to run for Office at any level.....Look at all the corruption that has been and is being exposed at the different bureaucracies...Virtually all the corruption has been willfully committed by Lawyers....Pathetic....

LOL123 , 16 minutes ago link

Interesting.... I put: "The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow an elected President because he stands in " the way of "profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected councils and retired instigators as facilitators of discord.

But came out:The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow an elected President because he stands in the profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected councils and retired instigators as facilitators of discord.

To make it sound as if it is Trump profiting.... By no means is that true... Its the " long term" Washington officals that have been profiting. Not a possible 8 year President.

My phone also wont let me thumbs up people i would like to but only a few and also replying is " verboten".

These algorhythms and blocks and censorship is an abuse of constitutional rights which is bad enough, but even worse is that these rights got monopolized by various corporations who bought stock in facebook/ googles options that was stolen from Leader technologies source code ( which Mark zukerberg couldnt write on a good day... He is a front guy and again we have British privy council involed with Clegg head of facebook now voice for Mark... Because Mark is a cut out).

This whole social media internet thing has been hijacked and weaponized by Washingtons same people as Dossier scandel... James Chandeler attorney and backstaber of Leader technology.

See leader technology vs facebook..... But i digress.

We have lost control of the internet.

https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/Michael-T-McKibben-AFI-backgrounder.html

Michael T. McKibben's career spans two phases: international Christian music ministry, and technology innovation. In 2006, he was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761 for what is now called "social networking."

Psadie , 21 minutes ago link

Biden & Kerry aren't the only ones with a China problem. "Secret Empires" also listed Mitch McConnell having a huge China problem through his wife's shipping company. I bet he doesn't run for re-election. Winning.

Bricker , 23 minutes ago link

Biden thinks he knows something about trade. If thats the case how did America get here?

We got here from career politicians selling America for votes.

#FuckBiden

cleg , 46 minutes ago link

China owns the Clintonista mob.

onewayticket2 , 43 minutes ago link

they all own one another - that's the essence of the problem in politics. and why they have tried so hard to get that outsider, trump, out of the country club.

Koba the Dread , 30 minutes ago link

China funded Bill Clinton's election campaigns through James Riady, an Indonesian Chinese man involved in hard drug smuggling and arms trafficking. The money was laundered through Little Rock banks and corporations. (See Victor Thorn's Hillary and Bill , all three volumes.)

JamcaicanMeAfraid , 48 minutes ago link

"Come on man! This is a joke! He's my son and he's a great buddy. I mean yeah he was drummed out of the Naval Reserve because of his cocaine habit, but come on man, you know, everybody does it! Just ask my good friend Barack, he's a clean, good looking darkie whose done his share of blow. And yeah Hunter fucked his dead brother's widow, but come on man! Have you seen her **** and ***. I might have made a move on her myself, but hey man I'm married."

Joe Biden, From the endless Fear and Mongering Presidential campaign of 2020.

JibjeResearch , 49 minutes ago link

How can a deal of such magnitude escape the Treasury FINCEN?

Get on it ... you IRS/SEC/FBI people!

Koba the Dread , 25 minutes ago link

IRS/SEC/FBI are not investigatory agencies. They are barrier agencies. They protect the anointed, letting them do as they wish, and stomp on anyone else who tries to get in on the gravy train.

Rico , 55 minutes ago link

ah, sociopaths in action...from an earlier post:

//

Sociopaths are the reason all governments, regardless of the particular 'ism', eventually fail...

Looking at human history, fascism is the most common form of government for humans. At least it is the most honest - that the sociopaths are ******* everyone else.... These days we try to hide it by lofty idealism that is incompatible with a predator/prey real world.....

Representative democracy, socialism and communism all fail and all fail for the same reason - sociopaths...

We should be honest with ourselves that there is a small, but statistically significant percentage of the human population that are sociopaths (and more are being born every generation). We can call them predators and we are the prey...any concentration of power attracts sociopaths regardless of the fancy label we put on the political system. Within a short time the system is inundated with sociopaths who invariably game the system to death for their own individual benefit....

Don't like the reality in which you find yourself? Stop voting for sociopaths, stop giving them power...

What political party or system even acknowledge the sociopath problem? That's right, none...so don't expect anything to change after the reset...the pleubs will chose a new sociopath for their leader, who will **** them, and things will go on as they always have...

Only way to combat this is to decentralize power as much as possible...this doesn't solve the sociopath problem, but it does spread them out and keeps them from ganging up together to **** over the peasants...but I won't hold my breath....

Fish Gone Bad , 1 hour ago link

I bet Hunter's tax records must be VERY interesting. Someone really needs to step up and show those bad boys.

pilager , 1 hour ago link

Yes, selling America out again.

TeethVillage88s , 52 minutes ago link

Is this a good time to take a look at 1) Front Men 2) Front Companies 3) Shell Companies 4) Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV/SPE) 5) Offshore Accounts, Offshore Donations, Offshore Campaign or PAC or Party Contributions, Paradise Papers, Panama Papers 6) USA as Tax Haven for foreign accounts 7) USA as an Empire 8) The Rise Of The Fourth Reich notes in book by Jim Marrs

[May 13, 2019] Something about Bolton past and sexual preferences

May 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: Website May 11, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Thanks for putting together this commentary J

Bolton a swinger ?

LOL that's a mental picture that's deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

J. Gutierrez , says: May 11, 2019 at 10:42 pm GMT
@FB Yeah brother that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.

Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.

Glad you enjoyed the piece take care brother

J. Gutierrez , says: May 12, 2019 at 1:05 am GMT
@SeekerofthePresence Thank you your comment is very much appreciated. But I'm definitely not a spokesman for moral truth, just the truth. I just watch in amazement from Mexico at what the US government has become. A den of the most vile people ever assembled in the world far worse than the people that demanded the crucification of Jesus Christ. We just went through a serious political conversion, but the people had to hit the streets for it to succeed. I just don't think the American people feel they are in a do or die situation, and they couldn't more wrong.

[May 13, 2019] John Bolton is the problem

May 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sunburst says: May 10, 2019 at 3:22 am GMT

U.S. Foreign Policy used to have only two instruments in dealing with rest of the world, namely carrots and sticks. Since the fall of Soviet Union and certainly after 9/11, only sticks remain. Now the World including the so-called allies are getting tired of the threats and start ignoring the Empire, hence the diminishing effectiveness, paving the way for polymorphic World. This transition is fraught with dangers as pointed out by the Author.

SeekerofthePresence , says: May 10, 2019 at 11:18 pm GMT

Lovely post by Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor on the end of empire:
"John Bolton is the problem"
"Trump's national security adviser is getting dangerous particularly to the president's ideals"
Douglas Macgregor
https://spectator.us/john-bolton-problem/

Could also be titled, "How to Exhaust an Empire."
Sun Tzu warned of the same demise in the "Art of War."
Didn't they used to teach that book at West Point?

FB , says: Website May 11, 2019 at 12:44 am GMT
@El Dato And also the 90 minute Trump-Putin phone call, where Venezuela was the main subject

From the way I understand Trump's comments afterward, it seems the military option is off the table the two presidents agreed that humanitarian aid is the priority

This is great news I have to give Trump credit here Justin Raimondo presciently opined a week ago that Trump may have been giving the 'walrus' just enough rope on Venezuela to hang himself

I have to wonder what Vlad whispered in carrot top's ear

'Come on man you can do it BE A BOSS '

LOL

J. Gutierrez , says: May 11, 2019 at 10:23 am GMT
When we take a close look at the American Government and it's elected officials, we can only come to one conclusion. The US is a thriving criminal enterprise that uses force to get what they want. The military's role is that of enforcers and the US President is no different than a Mafia Don. In no other time in US history has Government and Organized Criminal Gangs been so indistinguishable. George H.W. Bush with his New World Order announcements, his CIA drug dealing operations and military invasion of Panama to steal the drug cartel's money deposited in that county's banks, came close. Bill Clinton working with George H.W. Bush protecting drug shipments smuggled into Mena, AK, the cover up of murdered witnesses and numerous sexual assault allegations also came pretty close.

But when George W. Bush, Dick Chaney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld came into power, that was a Mafia if there was ever one. That group of criminals stole more money and murdered more people than any criminal organization in history. They even conned the American people into believing some rag-heads in Afghanistan hiding in caves did it. It was the first time since Pancho Villa that anyone attacked the US on its own soil. Not only did they steal all the gold stored in bank vaults located in the Twin Towers, but they put money on the stock market. In true gangster fashion the next move was to retaliate against the Muslim Mafia who was fingered by Mayer Lanski (Benjamin Nuttenyahoo) and their own paid snitches (MSM). It was time to hit mattresses and send their enforcers to get payback so the Purple Gang (Israel) can take over their territory.

There is a big difference between the US Government and the Mafia when it comes to war, the Mafia adheres to a strict code of ethics, they do not target their enemies families.

In 2016 the American people elected a true gangster from New York city. A known con man, a swindler, a tax evader and known associate of the criminal underground. A man with numerous court cases and 23 accusations of sexual assault. A man who was screwing a porn star while his wife was given birth. A man who's mentor was Roy Cohen a mob attorney and practicing homosexual who died of AIDS. A man that surrounded himself with the most perverted group of people in New York such as: Roger Stone a well known swinger and gay pride participant. Paul Manafort a convicted criminal and swinger who attended the same clubs as Stone along with their wives. They liked to watch their wives get screwed by other men. Lets not forget John Bolton who was exposed by Larry Flint for also being a swinger. His ex-wife accused him of forcing her to perform sex acts with multiple men at the same clubs the other 2 cuckolds attended. A Russian agent once commented that the best place to find government people to blackmail was the New York swingers scene.

Jeffery Epstein tops the list of perverted friends of Donald Trump. Epstein is the worst kind of perverted human being. The predator pedophile that uses his money to lure young girls into his sick world. Epstein holds the key to uncovering the nation wide pedophile ring that include some of the most famous people in the US. This is Trump's Mafia, a Mafia not like the Gambinos or Luchesis. A Mafia full of Perverts, Criminals, Pedophiles and Cuckolds. These are just a few of the people in Trump's circle of friends. If these are your leaders, what does that say about the American people!

My dad used to tell me tell me who you hang around with, and I'll tell you who you are! Every single person in DC government is compromised! And this incompetent Mafia of Perverts want you to believe that Madurro is a corrupt leader and Iran is a threat to the US!

[May 13, 2019] It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from sabotaging his foreign policy Mulshine

Bolton power over Trump is connected to Adelson power over Trump. To think about Bolton as pure advisor is to seriously underestimate his role and influence.
Notable quotes:
"... But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety. ..."
"... A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U. ..."
"... "Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," ..."
"... Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble. ..."
"... The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas. ..."
"... Tulsi for Sec of State 2020... ..."
"... Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win". ..."
"... You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years. ..."
"... I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. ..."
"... Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter. ..."
"... Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making. ..."
"... I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one. ..."
"... "Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats." ..."
"... Exceptions are: Korea? (Eisenhower); Grenada? (Reagan); Iraq? (Bush Sr.) ..."
"... So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks ..."
"... If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee? ..."
May 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from sabotaging his foreign policy | Mulshine

"I put that question to another military vet, former Vietnam Green Beret Pat Lang.

"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," said Lang of Trump.

But Lang, who later spent more than a decade in the Mideast, noted that Bolton has no direct control over the military.

"Bolton has a problem," he said. "If he can just get the generals to obey him, he can start all the wars he wants. But they don't obey him."

They obey the commander-in-chief. And Trump has a history of hiring war-crazed advisors who end up losing their jobs when they get a bit too bellicose. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley comes to mind."

" In Lang's view, anyone who sees Trump as some sort of ideologue is missing the point.

"He's an entrepreneurial businessman who hires consultants for their advice and then gets rid of them when he doesn't want that advice," he said.

So far that advice hasn't been very helpful, at least in the case of Bolton. His big mouth seems to have deep-sixed Trump's chance of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And that failed coup in Venezuela has brought up comparisons to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion during the Kennedy administration." Mulshine

--------------

Well, pilgrims, I worked exclusively on the subject of the Islamic culture continent for the USG from 1972 to 1994 and then in business from 1994 to 2006. I suppose I am still working on the subject. pl

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/05/its-time-for-trump-to-stop-john-bolton-and-mike-pompeo-from-sabotaging-his-foreign-policy-mulshine.html


JJackson , 12 May 2019 at 04:11 PM

What is happening with Trump's Syrian troop withdrawal? Someone seems to have spiked that order fairly effectively.
tony , 12 May 2019 at 05:12 PM
I don't get it I suppose. I'd always thought that maybe you wanted highly opinionated Type A personalities in the role of privy council, etc. You know, people who could forcefully advocate positions in closed session meetings and weren't afraid of taking contrary positions. But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety.

But these days it's the loudmouths who get these jobs, to our detriment. When will senior govt. leaders understand that just because a person is a success in running for Congress doesn't mean he/she should be sent forth to mingle with the many different personalities and cultures running the rest of the world?

A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U.

turcopolier -> tony... , 12 May 2019 at 06:55 PM
No. I would like to see highly opinionated Type B personalities like me hold those jobs. Type B does not mean you are passive. It means you are not obsessively competitive.
ex-PFC Chuck said in reply to tony... , 12 May 2019 at 08:06 PM
What do you expect when the boss himself is a loud-mouthed blowhard?
rho , 12 May 2019 at 06:34 PM
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed,"

Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble.

E Publius , 12 May 2019 at 06:55 PM
Interesting post, thank you sir. Prior to this recent post I had never heard of Paul Mulshine. In fact I went through some of his earlier posts on Trump's foreign policy and I found a fair amount of common sense in them. He strikes me as a paleocon, like Pat Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Scheuer, Doug Bandow, Tucker Carlson and others in that mold.

The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas.

My best hope is that Trump teams up with libertarians and maybe even paleocons to run his foreign policy. So far Trump has not succeeded in draining the Swamp. Bolton, Pompeo and their respective staff "are" indeed the Swamp creatures and they run their own policies that run against Trump's America First policy. Any thoughts?

Rick Merlotti said in reply to E Publius... , 13 May 2019 at 10:17 AM
Tulsi for Sec of State 2020...
jdledell , 13 May 2019 at 09:23 AM
Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win".

You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years.

Jack said in reply to jdledell... , 13 May 2019 at 02:14 PM
I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. I see he and his trade team not buckling to the Chinese at least not yet despite the intense pressure from Wall St and the big corporations.

Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter.

Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making.

rho said in reply to jdledell... , 13 May 2019 at 04:33 PM
jdledell

Just out of curiosity: Did the deal go through in the end, despite Trump's ire? Or was Trump so furious with the negotiating result of his Japanese partner that he tore up the draft once it was presented to him?

turcopolier , 13 May 2019 at 11:17 AM
jdledell

I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one.

Outrage Beyond , 13 May 2019 at 11:51 AM
Mulshine's article has some good points, but he does include some hilariously ignorant bits which undermine his credibility.

"Jose Gomez Rivera is a Jersey guy who served in the State Department in Venezuela at the time of the coup that brought the current socialist regime to power."

Wrong. Maduro was elected and international observers seem to agree the election was fair.

"Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats."

Exceptions are: Korea? (Eisenhower); Grenada? (Reagan); Iraq? (Bush Sr.)

O'Shawnessey , 13 May 2019 at 01:21 PM
So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks and shudders in its death throes underneath them, and at others it seems like they really have no idea what to do, other than engage in juvenile antics, snort some glue from a paper bag and set fires in the dumpsters behind the Taco Bell before going out into a darkened field somewhere to violate farm animals.

If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee?

turcopolier , 13 May 2019 at 01:21 PM
O'Shaunessy - He is an adviser who has no power except over his own little staff. The president has the power, not Bolton.

[May 13, 2019] Pompeo is a real piece of work

There were some reports quoted in Alexander Mercouris has a much rosier view of Trump's intentions that the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran. The Pentagon has found its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't defend themselves, and that's not Iran.
May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Republic , says: May 12, 2019 at 11:37 am GMT

@El Dato

Pompeo is a real piece of work

This thug is Secretary of State. He doesn't do diplomacy, he only issues threats.

follyofwar , says: May 12, 2019 at 12:58 pm GMT
@Republic Seems that Pomp-ass Pompeo is from the Queen Hitlary school of diplomacy.
KA , says: May 12, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
@Endgame Napoleon Americans probably don't understand Russia. Americans don't even mostly understand their own history. "

and they inquire why they hate us .

Don Bacon | May 11, 2019 11:56:00 AM | 23

@ ToivoS 16

the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran.

Yes, for the reasons I noted in my 4 above. The Pentagon has found its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't defend themselves, and that's not Iran. The recent US defeats in Iraq and Syria also sent a message. So the Pentagon is now content with aerial bombing of Afghanistan and Somalia while spending big bucks to (supposedly) contend with Russia and China, which of course is also out of the question when it comes to execution.

The Pentagon materiel acquisition system is riddled with corruption and poor management, the army is handicapped by low recruiting, drugs and obesity, the navy suffers from performance and maintenance problems, and the air force has been decimated by personnel problems and by an overly zealous procurement of useless F-35 prototypes. So bombers dropping bombs on villages in poor countries is as far as the Pentagon can go.

Taffyboy | May 11, 2019 5:07:56 PM | 62

On May 14/2019 Pompeo is to meet Lavrov in Sochi! ..."Pompeo is scheduled to meet with Putin and Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Sochi on May 14 to “discuss the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges.” Before that, he will meet with officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow."...

A messenger boy on the errant trip overseas from his handlers. Something to tell in person, mano a mano no less.

..."“On May 13, he will arrive in Russia to meet with his team at U.S. Embassy Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders and U.S. exchange alumni. Secretary Pompeo will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said."... That's rich, a nobody faces an unknown.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/443071-pompeo-to-travel-to-russia-meet-with-putin-next-week

Anyway...have a pleasant weekend, sir(B).

[May 13, 2019] Crappy little countries

This was true about Iraq war. This is true about Venezuela and Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books , Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. ..."
"... Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. ..."
"... Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back to 1959 . ..."
"... Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.) ..."
Apr 30, 2003 | www.leftbusinessobserver.com

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small c rappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
- Michael Ledeen , holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute

Actually, the U.S. had been beating Iraq's head against the wall for a dozen years, with sanctions and bombing. The sanctions alone killed over a million Iraqis, far more than have been done in by weapons of mass destruction throughout history. But Ledeen's indiscreet remark, delivered at an AEI conference and reported by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online , does capture some of what the war on Iraq is about.

And what is this "business" Ledeen says we mean? Oil, of course, of which more in a bit. Ditto construction contracts for Bechtel. But it's more than that - nothing less than the desire, often expressed with little shame nor euphemism, to run the world. Is there anything new about that?

The answer is, of course, yes and no. In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books , Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. Anderson, who's edited New Left Review for years, but who has almost no connection to actual politics attributed this strange explosion not to a popular outburst of anti-imperialism, but to a cultural antipathy to the Bush administration.

Presumably that antipathy belongs to the realm of the " merely cultural ," and is of no great political significance to Anderson. But it should be. U.S. culture has long been afflicted with a brutally reactionary and self-righteous version of Christian fundamentalism, but it's never had such influence over the state. The president thinks himself on a mission from God, the Attorney General opens the business day with a prayer meeting, and the Pentagon's idea of a Good Friday service is to invite Franklin Graham , who's pronounced Islam a "wicked and evil religion," to deliver the homily, in which he promised that Jesus was returning soon. For the hard core, the Iraq war is a sign of the end times, and the hard core are in power.

Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. Though the administration has been discreet, many of its private sector intellectuals have been using the words "imperialism" and " empire " openly and with glee. Not everyone of the millions who marched against the war in the months before it started was a conscious anti-imperialist, but they all sensed the intensification, and were further alarmed.

While itself avoiding the difficult word "empire," the Bush administration has been rather clear about its long-term aims. According to their official national security strategy and the documents published by the Project for a New American Century (which served as an administration-in-waiting during the Clinton years) their goal is to assure U.S. dominance and prevent the emergence of any rival powers. First step in that agenda is the remaking of the Middle East - and they're quite open about this as well. We all know the countries that are on the list; the only remaining issues are sequence and strategy. But that's not the whole of the agenda. They're essentially promising a permanent state of war, some overt, some covert, but one that could take decades.

Imperial returns?

Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back to 1959 .

Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.)

It now looks fairly certain that the U.S. will, in some form, claim some large piece of Iraq's oil. The details need to be worked out; clarifying the legal situation could be very complicated, given the rampantly illegal nature of the regime change. Rebuilding Iraq's oil industry will be very expensive and could take years. There could be some nice profits down the line for big oil companies - billions a year - but the broader economic benefits for the U.S. aren't so clear. A U.S.-dominated Iraq could pump heavily and undermine OPEC, but too low an oil price would wreck the domestic U.S. oil industry, something the Bush gang presumably cares about. Mexico would be driven into penury, which could mean another debt crisis and lots of human traffic heading north over the Rio Grande. Lower oil prices would be a boon to most industrial economies, but they'd give the U.S. no special advantage over its principal economic rivals.

It's sometimes said that U.S. dominance of the Middle East gives Washington a chokehold over oil supplies to Europe and Japan. But how might that work? Deep production cutbacks and price spikes would hurt everyone. Targeted sales restrictions would be the equivalent of acts of war, and if the U.S. is willing to take that route, a blockade would be a lot more efficient. The world oil market is gigantic and complex, and it's not clear how a tap could be turned in Kirkuk that would shut down the gas pumps in Kyoto or Milan.

Writers like David Harvey argue that the U.S. is trying to compensate for its eroding economic power by asserting its military dominance. Maybe. It's certainly fascinating that Bush's unilateralism has to be financed by gobs of foreign money - and he gets his tax cuts, he'll have to order up even bigger gobs. But it's hard to see what rival threatens the U.S. economically; neither the EU nor Japan is thriving. Nor is there any evidence that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about economic policy, domestic or international, or even thinking at all. The economic staff is mostly dim and marginal. What really seems to excite this gang of supposed conservatives is the exercise of raw state power.

Jealous rivals

And while the Bushies want to prevent the emergence of imperial rivals , they may only be encouraging that. Sure, the EU is badly divided within itself; it has a hard enough time picking a top central banker , let alone deciding on a common foreign policy. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is already semi-apologizing to Bush for his intemperate language in criticizing the war - not that Bush has started taking his calls. But over the longer term, some kind of political unification is Europe's only hope for acting like a remotely credible world power. It's tempting to read French and German objections to the Iraq war as emerging not from principle, but from the wounded narcissism of former imperial powers rendered marginal by American might. Separately, they'll surely hang. But a politically united Europe could, with time, come to challenge U.S. power, just as the euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.

(Speaking of the euro, there's a theory circulating on the net that the U.S. went to war because Iraq wanted to price its oil in euros, not dollars. That's grossly overheated speculation. More on this and related issues when LBO begins an investigation of the political economy of oil in the next issue.)

An even more interesting rivalry scenario would involve an alliance of the EU and Russia. Russia is no longer the wreck it was for most of the 1990s. The economy has been growing and the mildly authoritarian Putin has imposed political stability. Russia, which has substantial oil interests in Iraq that are threatened by U.S. control, strongly opposed the war, and at least factions within the Russian intelligence agency were reportedly feeding information unfriendly to the U.S. to the website Iraqwar.ru . There's a lot recommending an EU-Russia alliance; Europe could supply technology and finance, and Russia could supply energy, and together they could constitute at least an embryonic counterweight to U.S. power.

So the U.S. may not get out of Iraq what the Bush administration is hoping for. It certainly can't want democracy in Iraq or the rest of the region, since free votes could well lead to nationalist and Islamist governments who don't view ExxonMobil as the divine agent that Bush seems to. A New York Times piece celebrated the outbreak of democracy in Basra, while conceding that the mayor is a former Iraqi admiral appointed by the British. The lead writers of the new constitution are likely to be American law professors; Iraqis, of course, aren't up to the task themselves.

Certainly the appointment of Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner (Ret.) - one of the few superannuated brass not to have enjoyed a consulting contract with a major TV network - to be the top civilian official guiding the postwar reconstruction of Iraq speaks volumes. A retired general is barely a civilian, and Garner's most recent job was as president of SY Technology , a military contractor that worked with Israeli security in developing the Arrow antimissile system. He loves antimissile systems; after the first Gulf War, he enthused about the Patriot's performance with claims that turned out to be nonsense. He's on record as having praised Israel's handling of the intifada. If that's his model of how to handle restive subject populations, there's lots of trouble ahead.

lightness

In the early days of the war, when things weren't going so well for the "coalition," it was said that the force was too light. But after the sandstorm cleared and the snipers were mowed down, that alleged lightness became a widely praised virtue. But that force was light only by American standards: 300,000 troops; an endless rain of Tomahawks, JDAMs, and MOABs; thousands of vehicles, from Humvees to Abrams tanks; hundreds of aircraft, from Apaches to B-1s; several flotillas of naval support - and enormous quantities of expensive petroleum products. It takes five gallons of fuel just to start an Abrams tank, and after that it gets a mile per gallon. And filling one up is no bargain. Though the military buys fuel at a wholesale price of 84¢ a gallon, after all the expenses of getting it to the front lines are added in, the final cost is about $150 a gallon. That's a steal compared to Afghanistan, where fuel is helicoptered in, pushing the cost to $600/gallon. Rummy's "lightness" is of the sort that only a $10 trillion economy can afford.

The Bush gang doesn't even try to keep up appearances, handing out contracts for Iraq's reconstruction to U.S. firms even before the shooting stopped, and guarding only the oil and interior ministries against looters. If Washington gets its way, Iraq will be rebuilt according to the fondest dreams of the Heritage Foundation staff, with the educational system reworked by an American contractor, the TV programmed by the Pentagon, the ports run by a rabidly antiunion firm, the police run by the Texas-based military contractor Dyncorp , and the oil taken out of state hands and appropriately privatized.

That's the way they'd like it to be. But the sailing may not be so smooth. It looks like Iraqis are viewing the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. It's going to be hard enough to remake Iraq that taking on Syria or Iran may be a bit premature. But that doesn't mean they won't try. It's a cliché of trade negotiations that liberalization is like riding a bicycle - you have to keep riding forward or else you'll fall over. The same could be said of an imperial agenda: if you want to remake the world, or a big chunk of it, there's little time to pause and catch your breath, since doubt or opposition could gain the upper hand. Which makes stoking that opposition more urgent than ever.

Losing it all

There's a feeling around that Bush is now politically invulnerable . Certainly the atmosphere is one of almost coercive patriotism. That mood was nicely illustrated by an incident in Houston in mid-March. A teenager attending a rodeo failed to stand along with the rest of the crowd during a playing of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American," a dreadful country song that has become a kind of private-sector national anthem for the yahoo demographic, thanks to its truculent unthinking jingoism. A patriot standing behind the defiantly seated teen started taunting him, tugging on his ear as an additional provocation. The two ended up in a fight, and then under arrest.

There's a lot of that going around, for sure. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins get disinvited from events, websites nominate traitors for trial by military tribunal, and talk radio hosts organize CD-smashings. But things aren't hopeless. A close analysis of Greenwood's text might suggest why. The song's core argument is contained in its two most famous lines: "I'm proud to be an American/where at least I know I'm free." But the oft-overlooked opening reads: "If tomorrow all the things were gone/I'd worked for all my life," the singer would still be a grateful patriot. That's precisely the condition lots of Americans find themselves in. More than two million jobs have disappeared in the last two years. Millions of Americans have seen their retirement savings wiped out by the bear market, and over a million filed for bankruptcy last year. Most states and cities are experiencing their worst fiscal crises since the 1930s, with massive service cuts and layoffs imminent. In the song, such loss doesn't matter, but reality is often less accommodating than a song.

As the nearby graphs show, W's ratings are much lower than his father's at the end of Gulf War I, and his disapproval ratings much higher. Their theocratic and repressive agenda is deeply unpopular with large parts of the U.S. population. Spending scores of billions on destroying and rebuilding Iraq while at home health clinics are closing and teachers working without pay is potentially incendiary. Foreign adventures have never been popular with the American public (much to the distress of the ruling elite). An peace movement that could draw the links among warmongering, austerity, and repression has great political potential. Just a month or two ago, hundreds of thousands were marching in American streets to protest the imminent war. Though that movement now looks a bit dispirited and demobilized, it's unlikely that that kind of energy will just disappear into the ether.

[May 13, 2019] It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from sabotaging his foreign policy Mulshine

Bolton power over Trump is connected to Adelson power over Trump. To think about Bolton as pure advisor is to seriously underestimate his role and influence.
Notable quotes:
"... But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety. ..."
"... A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U. ..."
"... "Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," ..."
"... Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble. ..."
"... The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas. ..."
"... Tulsi for Sec of State 2020... ..."
"... Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win". ..."
"... You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years. ..."
"... I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. ..."
"... Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter. ..."
"... Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making. ..."
"... I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one. ..."
"... "Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats." ..."
"... Exceptions are: Korea? (Eisenhower); Grenada? (Reagan); Iraq? (Bush Sr.) ..."
"... So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks ..."
"... If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee? ..."
May 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from sabotaging his foreign policy | Mulshine

"I put that question to another military vet, former Vietnam Green Beret Pat Lang.

"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," said Lang of Trump.

But Lang, who later spent more than a decade in the Mideast, noted that Bolton has no direct control over the military.

"Bolton has a problem," he said. "If he can just get the generals to obey him, he can start all the wars he wants. But they don't obey him."

They obey the commander-in-chief. And Trump has a history of hiring war-crazed advisors who end up losing their jobs when they get a bit too bellicose. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley comes to mind."

" In Lang's view, anyone who sees Trump as some sort of ideologue is missing the point.

"He's an entrepreneurial businessman who hires consultants for their advice and then gets rid of them when he doesn't want that advice," he said.

So far that advice hasn't been very helpful, at least in the case of Bolton. His big mouth seems to have deep-sixed Trump's chance of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And that failed coup in Venezuela has brought up comparisons to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion during the Kennedy administration." Mulshine

--------------

Well, pilgrims, I worked exclusively on the subject of the Islamic culture continent for the USG from 1972 to 1994 and then in business from 1994 to 2006. I suppose I am still working on the subject. pl

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/05/its-time-for-trump-to-stop-john-bolton-and-mike-pompeo-from-sabotaging-his-foreign-policy-mulshine.html


JJackson , 12 May 2019 at 04:11 PM

What is happening with Trump's Syrian troop withdrawal? Someone seems to have spiked that order fairly effectively.
tony , 12 May 2019 at 05:12 PM
I don't get it I suppose. I'd always thought that maybe you wanted highly opinionated Type A personalities in the role of privy council, etc. You know, people who could forcefully advocate positions in closed session meetings and weren't afraid of taking contrary positions. But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety.

But these days it's the loudmouths who get these jobs, to our detriment. When will senior govt. leaders understand that just because a person is a success in running for Congress doesn't mean he/she should be sent forth to mingle with the many different personalities and cultures running the rest of the world?

A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U.

turcopolier -> tony... , 12 May 2019 at 06:55 PM
No. I would like to see highly opinionated Type B personalities like me hold those jobs. Type B does not mean you are passive. It means you are not obsessively competitive.
ex-PFC Chuck said in reply to tony... , 12 May 2019 at 08:06 PM
What do you expect when the boss himself is a loud-mouthed blowhard?
rho , 12 May 2019 at 06:34 PM
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed,"

Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble.

E Publius , 12 May 2019 at 06:55 PM
Interesting post, thank you sir. Prior to this recent post I had never heard of Paul Mulshine. In fact I went through some of his earlier posts on Trump's foreign policy and I found a fair amount of common sense in them. He strikes me as a paleocon, like Pat Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Scheuer, Doug Bandow, Tucker Carlson and others in that mold.

The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas.

My best hope is that Trump teams up with libertarians and maybe even paleocons to run his foreign policy. So far Trump has not succeeded in draining the Swamp. Bolton, Pompeo and their respective staff "are" indeed the Swamp creatures and they run their own policies that run against Trump's America First policy. Any thoughts?

Rick Merlotti said in reply to E Publius... , 13 May 2019 at 10:17 AM
Tulsi for Sec of State 2020...
jdledell , 13 May 2019 at 09:23 AM
Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win".

You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years.

Jack said in reply to jdledell... , 13 May 2019 at 02:14 PM
I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. I see he and his trade team not buckling to the Chinese at least not yet despite the intense pressure from Wall St and the big corporations.

Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter.

Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making.

rho said in reply to jdledell... , 13 May 2019 at 04:33 PM
jdledell

Just out of curiosity: Did the deal go through in the end, despite Trump's ire? Or was Trump so furious with the negotiating result of his Japanese partner that he tore up the draft once it was presented to him?

turcopolier , 13 May 2019 at 11:17 AM
jdledell

I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one.

Outrage Beyond , 13 May 2019 at 11:51 AM
Mulshine's article has some good points, but he does include some hilariously ignorant bits which undermine his credibility.

"Jose Gomez Rivera is a Jersey guy who served in the State Department in Venezuela at the time of the coup that brought the current socialist regime to power."

Wrong. Maduro was elected and international observers seem to agree the election was fair.

"Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats."

Exceptions are: Korea? (Eisenhower); Grenada? (Reagan); Iraq? (Bush Sr.)

O'Shawnessey , 13 May 2019 at 01:21 PM
So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks and shudders in its death throes underneath them, and at others it seems like they really have no idea what to do, other than engage in juvenile antics, snort some glue from a paper bag and set fires in the dumpsters behind the Taco Bell before going out into a darkened field somewhere to violate farm animals.

If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee?

turcopolier , 13 May 2019 at 01:21 PM
O'Shaunessy - He is an adviser who has no power except over his own little staff. The president has the power, not Bolton.

[May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
May 10, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

... ... ...

Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' ( 5 ).

Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).

By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington.

Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.

The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture ( 9 ). So they were searching for any information or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone had his particular motive for striking the same victim.

The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton ( 10 ).

Ambitions of a 'deep state'?

The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.

Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing -- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).

The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'. 'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur ( 12 ).

Covert opposition to Trump

The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.

This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration?

The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II. That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose. Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.

The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy' and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'

Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.

No longer getting his way

But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers (trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'

At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions.

... ... ...

[May 13, 2019] John Bolton is the problem

May 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sunburst says: May 10, 2019 at 3:22 am GMT

U.S. Foreign Policy used to have only two instruments in dealing with rest of the world, namely carrots and sticks. Since the fall of Soviet Union and certainly after 9/11, only sticks remain. Now the World including the so-called allies are getting tired of the threats and start ignoring the Empire, hence the diminishing effectiveness, paving the way for polymorphic World. This transition is fraught with dangers as pointed out by the Author.

SeekerofthePresence , says: May 10, 2019 at 11:18 pm GMT

Lovely post by Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor on the end of empire:
"John Bolton is the problem"
"Trump's national security adviser is getting dangerous particularly to the president's ideals"
Douglas Macgregor
https://spectator.us/john-bolton-problem/

Could also be titled, "How to Exhaust an Empire."
Sun Tzu warned of the same demise in the "Art of War."
Didn't they used to teach that book at West Point?

FB , says: Website May 11, 2019 at 12:44 am GMT
@El Dato And also the 90 minute Trump-Putin phone call, where Venezuela was the main subject

From the way I understand Trump's comments afterward, it seems the military option is off the table the two presidents agreed that humanitarian aid is the priority

This is great news I have to give Trump credit here Justin Raimondo presciently opined a week ago that Trump may have been giving the 'walrus' just enough rope on Venezuela to hang himself

I have to wonder what Vlad whispered in carrot top's ear

'Come on man you can do it BE A BOSS '

LOL

J. Gutierrez , says: May 11, 2019 at 10:23 am GMT
When we take a close look at the American Government and it's elected officials, we can only come to one conclusion. The US is a thriving criminal enterprise that uses force to get what they want. The military's role is that of enforcers and the US President is no different than a Mafia Don. In no other time in US history has Government and Organized Criminal Gangs been so indistinguishable. George H.W. Bush with his New World Order announcements, his CIA drug dealing operations and military invasion of Panama to steal the drug cartel's money deposited in that county's banks, came close. Bill Clinton working with George H.W. Bush protecting drug shipments smuggled into Mena, AK, the cover up of murdered witnesses and numerous sexual assault allegations also came pretty close.

But when George W. Bush, Dick Chaney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld came into power, that was a Mafia if there was ever one. That group of criminals stole more money and murdered more people than any criminal organization in history. They even conned the American people into believing some rag-heads in Afghanistan hiding in caves did it. It was the first time since Pancho Villa that anyone attacked the US on its own soil. Not only did they steal all the gold stored in bank vaults located in the Twin Towers, but they put money on the stock market. In true gangster fashion the next move was to retaliate against the Muslim Mafia who was fingered by Mayer Lanski (Benjamin Nuttenyahoo) and their own paid snitches (MSM). It was time to hit mattresses and send their enforcers to get payback so the Purple Gang (Israel) can take over their territory.

There is a big difference between the US Government and the Mafia when it comes to war, the Mafia adheres to a strict code of ethics, they do not target their enemies families.

In 2016 the American people elected a true gangster from New York city. A known con man, a swindler, a tax evader and known associate of the criminal underground. A man with numerous court cases and 23 accusations of sexual assault. A man who was screwing a porn star while his wife was given birth. A man who's mentor was Roy Cohen a mob attorney and practicing homosexual who died of AIDS. A man that surrounded himself with the most perverted group of people in New York such as: Roger Stone a well known swinger and gay pride participant. Paul Manafort a convicted criminal and swinger who attended the same clubs as Stone along with their wives. They liked to watch their wives get screwed by other men. Lets not forget John Bolton who was exposed by Larry Flint for also being a swinger. His ex-wife accused him of forcing her to perform sex acts with multiple men at the same clubs the other 2 cuckolds attended. A Russian agent once commented that the best place to find government people to blackmail was the New York swingers scene.

Jeffery Epstein tops the list of perverted friends of Donald Trump. Epstein is the worst kind of perverted human being. The predator pedophile that uses his money to lure young girls into his sick world. Epstein holds the key to uncovering the nation wide pedophile ring that include some of the most famous people in the US. This is Trump's Mafia, a Mafia not like the Gambinos or Luchesis. A Mafia full of Perverts, Criminals, Pedophiles and Cuckolds. These are just a few of the people in Trump's circle of friends. If these are your leaders, what does that say about the American people!

My dad used to tell me tell me who you hang around with, and I'll tell you who you are! Every single person in DC government is compromised! And this incompetent Mafia of Perverts want you to believe that Madurro is a corrupt leader and Iran is a threat to the US!

[May 13, 2019] Something about Bolton past and sexual preferences

May 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: Website May 11, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Thanks for putting together this commentary J

Bolton a swinger ?

LOL that's a mental picture that's deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

J. Gutierrez , says: May 11, 2019 at 10:42 pm GMT
@FB Yeah brother that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.

Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.

Glad you enjoyed the piece take care brother

J. Gutierrez , says: May 12, 2019 at 1:05 am GMT
@SeekerofthePresence Thank you your comment is very much appreciated. But I'm definitely not a spokesman for moral truth, just the truth. I just watch in amazement from Mexico at what the US government has become. A den of the most vile people ever assembled in the world far worse than the people that demanded the crucification of Jesus Christ. We just went through a serious political conversion, but the people had to hit the streets for it to succeed. I just don't think the American people feel they are in a do or die situation, and they couldn't more wrong.

[May 13, 2019] Pompeo is a real piece of work

There were some reports quoted in Alexander Mercouris has a much rosier view of Trump's intentions that the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran. The Pentagon has found its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't defend themselves, and that's not Iran.
May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Republic , says: May 12, 2019 at 11:37 am GMT

@El Dato

Pompeo is a real piece of work

This thug is Secretary of State. He doesn't do diplomacy, he only issues threats.

follyofwar , says: May 12, 2019 at 12:58 pm GMT
@Republic Seems that Pomp-ass Pompeo is from the Queen Hitlary school of diplomacy.
KA , says: May 12, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
@Endgame Napoleon Americans probably don't understand Russia. Americans don't even mostly understand their own history. "

and they inquire why they hate us .

Don Bacon | May 11, 2019 11:56:00 AM | 23

@ ToivoS 16

the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran.

Yes, for the reasons I noted in my 4 above. The Pentagon has found its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't defend themselves, and that's not Iran. The recent US defeats in Iraq and Syria also sent a message. So the Pentagon is now content with aerial bombing of Afghanistan and Somalia while spending big bucks to (supposedly) contend with Russia and China, which of course is also out of the question when it comes to execution.

The Pentagon materiel acquisition system is riddled with corruption and poor management, the army is handicapped by low recruiting, drugs and obesity, the navy suffers from performance and maintenance problems, and the air force has been decimated by personnel problems and by an overly zealous procurement of useless F-35 prototypes. So bombers dropping bombs on villages in poor countries is as far as the Pentagon can go.

Taffyboy | May 11, 2019 5:07:56 PM | 62

On May 14/2019 Pompeo is to meet Lavrov in Sochi! ..."Pompeo is scheduled to meet with Putin and Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Sochi on May 14 to “discuss the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges.” Before that, he will meet with officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow."...

A messenger boy on the errant trip overseas from his handlers. Something to tell in person, mano a mano no less.

..."“On May 13, he will arrive in Russia to meet with his team at U.S. Embassy Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders and U.S. exchange alumni. Secretary Pompeo will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said."... That's rich, a nobody faces an unknown.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/443071-pompeo-to-travel-to-russia-meet-with-putin-next-week

Anyway...have a pleasant weekend, sir(B).

[May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

Highly recommended!
In this case he looks like Bill Clinton impersonalization ;-) That's probably how Adelson controls Bolton ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions. ..."
May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: Website May 11, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Thanks for putting together this commentary J

Bolton a swinger ? LOL that's a mental picture that's deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

J. Gutierrez , says: May 11, 2019 at 10:42 pm GMT

@FB Yeah brother, that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby Bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.

Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.

Glad you enjoyed the piece take care brother.

[May 12, 2019] Charting a Progressive Foreign Policy for the Trump Era and Beyond

Highly recommended!
A really interesting discussion. the problem with discussion on new direction of the USA foreign policy is that forces that control the current forign policy will not allow any changes. Russiagate was in part a paranoid reaction of the Deep State to the possibility of detente with Russia and also questioning "neoliberal sacred truth" like who did 9/11 (to suggest that Bush is guilty was a clear "Red Flag") and critical attribute to forrign wars which feed so many Imperial servants.
BTW Trump completely disappointed his supporters in the foreign policy is continuing to accelerate that direction
May 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com

darren alevi 2 months ago

Here is how you chart a Progressive foreign policy stop treating the US intelligence agencies of the CIA and FBI as orgs of integrity. Ban all foreign lobbying so no foreign government can influence foreign policy.

Disband the Veto powers that the US holds over the UN security council. Prosecute former Presidents and Government officials for the illegal regime change wars.

Connect with other progressive politicians around the world such as Jeremy Corbyn, Jean Luc Melenchon and Moon Jae In. End the arms race and begin a peaceful space race to colonize the moon diverting funds from the military industrial complex into something fulfilling.

Peter Knopfler 2 months ago

What BULL while world under the fog of Berlin wall down, USA VP Bush attacks Panama 8000 Marines kills 3500 panamanians , gives the banks to CIA, therefore Panama papers. Another coup in Latin America. When V.P. Bush "we had to get over the Vietnam Syndrome". So Killing 3500 people , to get over the loser spirit, suicidal influence from Vietnam. SHAME USA more hate for Americans. And Now Venezuela, more Shame and Hate for Americans. Yankee go home, Gringo stay home is chanted once more.

Ron Widelec 2 months ago

We need an Anti-imperialist league like 100 ago. And an anti-war caucus in congress!

Michael 26CD 2 months ago

The audio is a little off especially for a couple speakers but this discussion is great. Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform, but in his typical dishonest fashion, he appointed people who are developing usable nukes like characters out of Dr. Strangelove. Nuclear weapons and climate change are both existential threats that all the world needs to act together to address.

asbeautifulasasunset 2 months ago

17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.

Jim R2 months ago

President Eisenhower's farewell address warned us of the very thing that is happening today with the industrial military complex and the power and influence that that entity weilds.

chickendinner2012, 2 months ago

End the wars, no more imperialism, instead have fair trade prioritizing countries that have a living wage and aren't waging war etc. No more supporting massive human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE etc. and we need to get three of the most aggressive countries the F UK US coalition that constantly invades and bombs everyone they want to steal from to stop doing war, stop coups, stop covert sabotage, stop sanctions.

asbeautifulasasunset, 2 months ago

17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.

carol wagner sudol2 months ago

Israel today has become a nazi like state. period. That says it all. This is heart-breaking. Gaza is simply a concentration camp.

Tom Hall, 2 months ago

All our post WWII foreign policy has been about securing maintaining and enhancing corporate commercial interests. What would seem to progressives as catastrophic failures are in fact monumental achievements of wealth creation and concentration. The billions spent on think tanks to develop policy are mostly about how to develop grand narratives that conceal the true beneficiaries of US foreign policy and create fear, uncertainty and insecurity at home and abroad.

[May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

Highly recommended!
In this case he looks like Bill Clinton impersonalization ;-) That's probably how Adelson controls Bolton ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions. ..."
May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: Website May 11, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Thanks for putting together this commentary J

Bolton a swinger ? LOL that's a mental picture that's deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

J. Gutierrez , says: May 11, 2019 at 10:42 pm GMT

@FB Yeah brother, that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby Bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.

Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.

Glad you enjoyed the piece take care brother.

[May 12, 2019] Why Further U.S.-China Economic War Seems Certain by Alan Tonelson

May 12, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Trade, however, doesn't represent the only U.S.-China economic activity whose profile has lowered recently. For example, since 2016, two-way foreign direct investment (purchases of so-called hard assets, like factories and real estate, as opposed to financial assets, like government bonds) has cratered by fully 70 percent. Most of the drop is due to an 80 percent decrease in Chinese investment in the United States, and the bulk of that decline came in 2018. But American direct investment in China peaked back in 2008, as the recession struck, hasn't come close to recovering since, and is also down slightly since 2012.

U.S.-China economic flows are still so great that they won't dry up completely. Nor should anyone expect the current unwinding to continue at its current pace. After all, China still boasts advantages in many manufacturing industries (which dominate bilateral trade) sure to sustain sales to American households and businesses. Chief among them are the scale of existing production complexes in China and the efficiencies that result, along with the wide range of cost-reducing subsidies these sectors receive from Beijing. Further, China can't expect to find foreign markets capable of replacing its sales to the United States, and therefore supporting its own ability to grow and maintain the employment levels vital for political stability. Nor will American businesses be able to totally blow off the enormous Chinese market and its own still-impressive growth.

.... ... ...

Nonetheless, the days are over when the United States -- or at least its political and business leaders -- saw mushrooming commerce with China as an expressway to greater national prosperity and higher profits, not to mention a powerful contributor to global well-being, security, and stability, and a means of democratizing China itself. With all these hopes dashed, Washington and the American business community will find ample reasons to keep looking for exits.

Alan Tonelson is the founder of RealityChek, a public policy blog focusing on economics and national security, and the author of The Race to the Bottom.

R. Arandas an hour ago ,

I do not necessarily support his course of action...but I feel that sometimes, doing the unexpected and unconventional thing can lead to new doors and new possibilities.

BigMike 17 hours ago ,

China's internal debt situation is so precarious that it can ill-afford a trade war with US. China has a trade surplus of $325 billion with the US. This kind of skewed number is totally unacceptable. By reneging on the provisional agreements over IP and other hurdles, China is playing with fire.

I am not a Trump supporter but I think his policy on China is right on the money. No other US president had the courage to address this issue.

[May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

Highly recommended!
In this case he looks like Bill Clinton impersonalization ;-) That's probably how Adelson controls Bolton ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions. ..."
May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: Website May 11, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Thanks for putting together this commentary J

Bolton a swinger ? LOL that's a mental picture that's deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time

J. Gutierrez , says: May 11, 2019 at 10:42 pm GMT

@FB Yeah brother, that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby Bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.

Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.

Glad you enjoyed the piece take care brother.

[May 12, 2019] Charting a Progressive Foreign Policy for the Trump Era and Beyond

Highly recommended!
A really interesting discussion. the problem with discussion on new direction of the USA foreign policy is that forces that control the current forign policy will not allow any changes. Russiagate was in part a paranoid reaction of the Deep State to the possibility of detente with Russia and also questioning "neoliberal sacred truth" like who did 9/11 (to suggest that Bush is guilty was a clear "Red Flag") and critical attribute to forrign wars which feed so many Imperial servants.
BTW Trump completely disappointed his supporters in the foreign policy is continuing to accelerate that direction
May 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com

darren alevi 2 months ago

Here is how you chart a Progressive foreign policy stop treating the US intelligence agencies of the CIA and FBI as orgs of integrity. Ban all foreign lobbying so no foreign government can influence foreign policy.

Disband the Veto powers that the US holds over the UN security council. Prosecute former Presidents and Government officials for the illegal regime change wars.

Connect with other progressive politicians around the world such as Jeremy Corbyn, Jean Luc Melenchon and Moon Jae In. End the arms race and begin a peaceful space race to colonize the moon diverting funds from the military industrial complex into something fulfilling.

Peter Knopfler 2 months ago

What BULL while world under the fog of Berlin wall down, USA VP Bush attacks Panama 8000 Marines kills 3500 panamanians , gives the banks to CIA, therefore Panama papers. Another coup in Latin America. When V.P. Bush "we had to get over the Vietnam Syndrome". So Killing 3500 people , to get over the loser spirit, suicidal influence from Vietnam. SHAME USA more hate for Americans. And Now Venezuela, more Shame and Hate for Americans. Yankee go home, Gringo stay home is chanted once more.

Ron Widelec 2 months ago

We need an Anti-imperialist league like 100 ago. And an anti-war caucus in congress!

Michael 26CD 2 months ago

The audio is a little off especially for a couple speakers but this discussion is great. Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform, but in his typical dishonest fashion, he appointed people who are developing usable nukes like characters out of Dr. Strangelove. Nuclear weapons and climate change are both existential threats that all the world needs to act together to address.

asbeautifulasasunset 2 months ago

17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.

Jim R2 months ago

President Eisenhower's farewell address warned us of the very thing that is happening today with the industrial military complex and the power and influence that that entity weilds.

chickendinner2012, 2 months ago

End the wars, no more imperialism, instead have fair trade prioritizing countries that have a living wage and aren't waging war etc. No more supporting massive human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE etc. and we need to get three of the most aggressive countries the F UK US coalition that constantly invades and bombs everyone they want to steal from to stop doing war, stop coups, stop covert sabotage, stop sanctions.

asbeautifulasasunset, 2 months ago

17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.

carol wagner sudol2 months ago

Israel today has become a nazi like state. period. That says it all. This is heart-breaking. Gaza is simply a concentration camp.

Tom Hall, 2 months ago

All our post WWII foreign policy has been about securing maintaining and enhancing corporate commercial interests. What would seem to progressives as catastrophic failures are in fact monumental achievements of wealth creation and concentration. The billions spent on think tanks to develop policy are mostly about how to develop grand narratives that conceal the true beneficiaries of US foreign policy and create fear, uncertainty and insecurity at home and abroad.

[May 12, 2019] Trump about to dump Bolton caucus99percent

May 12, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

Speaking of getting led around by the nose, we come to one Gina Haspel's great deceptions. This deception plays directly into the hands of Russiagaters. This woman, supposedly brought into CIA leadership in order to demolish the agency, is proving quite adept in perpetuating its reign of terror. Again, we have a neocon undermining Trump's prestige and authority.

[May 12, 2019] Gina Haspel Conned Trump with British Lies into Expelling Russian Diplomats over Skripal Case

Apr 17, 2019 | larouchepub.com

(EIRNS) -- The New York Times ran a story yesterday titled, "Gina Haspel Relies on Spy Skills To Connect with Trump. He Doesn't Always Listen." Based on interviews with former and current CIA agents who worked with CIA Director Haspel (but not interviewing her), the Times praises her skills and attempts to denigrate Trump, but they also retail a story about her and Trump which could cost Haspel deeply.

Following the March 2018 breaking of the Skripal poisoning story in England, the Times writes, Trump had initially "written off the poisoning as part of legitimate spy games, distasteful but within the bounds of espionage." Haspel, on the other hand, was backing London's demand for Trump to blame Russia immediately and expel dozens of Russian diplomats.

Writes the Times:

"During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy CIA director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the President that the 'strong option' was to expel 60 diplomats.

"To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the only victims of Russia's attack.

"Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives."

This appeal reportedly swayed Trump to go along with Haspel's advice.

If it sounds like the British "White Helmet" terrorists in Syria faking pictures of children being hit with chemical weapons to convince Trump to bomb Syrian targets, it is indeed precisely the same.

Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, an outspoken critic of these British imperial lies and atrocities, posted a response today to the Times garbage on his blog. He states first that yet another truth behind the Skripal lies was revealed recently by police, acknowledging that "the perfume bottle Charlie Rowley found was sealed and could not have been the container used on the Skripals." He goes on: "It took nine months for us to learn that, by a truly wonderful coincidence, the first person to find the Skripals ill on the bench was the Chief Nurse of the British Army."

But on the Haspel story in the Times, Murray is furious. "The problem is," he writes,

"there were no hospitalized children. No children have been reported as becoming ill following their duck feeding with the Skripals. We have heard from one of the parents that they were shown by the police extremely clear [closed-circuit surveillance] CCTV footage of the duck feeding, which has never been made public. Surely if the child had been hospitalized, the parent would have mentioned it?"

He quotes Dr. Stephen Davies of Salisbury Hospital, who wrote to the New York Times on March 14 stating clearly that no children had been hospitalized, and that every person who came to the hospital fearing they had been contaminated had no symptoms and tests turned out negative. Murray states:

"We also know that the duck feeding was the time that Boshirov and Petrov [the alleged Russian culprits] were physically closest to the Skripals. But this is the first time there has ever been any mention of any harm to the ducks. Dead ducks would have been noticed by the public."

It appears that the British Empire is the dead duck in this myth.

[May 11, 2019] From Russiagate to Gunboat Diplomacy by Branko Marcetic

Notable quotes:
"... Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to peddle half-baked innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security interest right here in our hemisphere." ..."
May 11, 2019 | jacobinmag.com

Russiagate hysteria is already being used to push Trump into an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. It's a disastrous result of a pointless delusion.

One of the things Russiagate skeptics found unsettling about the frenzy over supposed "collusion" was that it made war more likely. Not only did the now-debunked conspiracy theories and resulting political climate push officials into a more aggressive posture toward Russia, but once the Kremlin was returned to its status as the foreign policy elite's Big Bad, it was easy to imagine a situation where the threat of a Russian bogeyman could be used to justify any number of unrelated foreign adventures. This appears to be exactly what's happening with Venezuela right now.

First there was Fareed Zakaria, who two months ago tried to goad Trump into attacking Venezuela by pointing to Russia's support for Maduro. "Putin's efforts seem designed to taunt the United States," he said (it might also have something to do with the billions of dollars Russia sank into the country), making reference to the Monroe Doctrine. He asked if Washington would "allow Moscow to make a mockery of another American red line," warning that "if Washington does not back its words with deeds" the country could become another Syria. Zakaria concluded: "will Venezuela finally be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?"

More recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo charged that Russia had "invaded" Venezuela before claiming the Kremlin had dissuaded Maduro from fleeing the country at the last moment, something Pompeo has provided no evidence for but much of the media has treated as fact since.

National Security Advisor John Bolton has said that "this is our hemisphere" and "not where the Russians ought to be interfering." Democratic Sen. Doug Jones echoed this sentiment on CNN, praising the Trump administration for saying "all options are on the table" to deal with Venezuela, something he suggested may have to be acted on "if there is some more intervention [by] Russia."

The national press, taking a break from warning about Trump being a dangerous authoritarian, has been demanding to know why he hasn't been more aggressive toward the country over this.

Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to peddle half-baked innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security interest right here in our hemisphere."

He went on to claim that Russia had already placed nuclear missiles in the country, and that it could lead to a Cuban missile crisis-like conflict. There is no evidence this is true, and Díaz-Balart didn't provide any.

Of course, no coverage of the Trump administration's relations with Russia would be complete without a trip into Rachel Maddow's fractured psyche. After Trump repeated Putin's personal assurances that he wasn't interested in getting involved in Venezuela -- contradicting Pompeo and Bolton -- Maddow addressed the two officials :

Hey John Bolton, hey Mike Pompeo, are you guys enjoying your jobs right now? You each thought your job this week was to name and shame and threaten and counter Russian government involvement in Venezuela while saber-rattling about how everybody else better get out of the way because the US is really mad about it. Guys, turns out your actual job is figuring out how and why you work for a president who says whatever Vladimir Putin tells him.

Maddow went on to express her sympathy for one of the most unhinged warmongers in a city teeming with them ("I mean, John Bolton, God bless you"), and again seemed to suggest that Bolton's "job" of "push[ing] Russia back because of what they're doing in Venezuela" was the correct course of action.

It's now clear there is nothing -- not Trump's years-long belligerence toward Russia's Venezuelan ally, not his near-constant bellicosity toward Russia since taking office, not Robert Mueller's failure to indict a single person for conspiring with Russia, not even his report's explicit and implicit denial that any such conspiracy existed -- that will make these people give up the talking point that Trump is secretly in bed with Putin. If Mueller himself denied it, they would claim he was a Russian in disguise. It's simply too convenient an attack line, and too professionally embarrassing to admit otherwise.

There is also an Orwellian level of doublethink going on here. Russia, a Venezuelan ally, has sent personnel and equipment to the country with the consent of its government at a time when it's being threatened by multiple hostile regional powers. Meanwhile the US, one of those hostile powers, has for years been laying siege to the country and killing its people, trying to destabilize and oust its leadership, and even threatening to invade it.

Yet according to the media and political class, it's Russia's actions that are an unacceptable intrusion into another country's affairs -- an "invasion," even. They are holding up four fingers to your face and telling you you're seeing five.

Meanwhile, these same quarters, after spending close to three years hyperventilating about Russia's meddling in domestic US affairs -- an "act of war," in some minds -- have now seamlessly pivoted to cheering Trump as he attempts to engineer a change of Venezuela's government, even calling for him to possibly attack the country. This is glaringly hypocritical, but the Russiagate frenzy was never about principled outrage or any sort of moral consistency.

Lastly and most significantly, the rhetoric around Venezuela is now taking on an explicitly imperialistic character, in the most literal sense of that word. Zakaria invoked the Monroe Doctrine to urge Trump to intervene in Venezuela; National Security Advisor John Bolton "proudly proclaim[ed]" upon launching a fresh round of sanctions that "the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well," and one MSNBC guest insisted the Trump administration was "right in being completely flabbergasted" at Russia's presence in the country because "this is our hemisphere," echoing Bolton .

When these figures talk about "our hemisphere," they don't mean the hemisphere in which the US happens to be located; they mean this is literally their hemisphere. The US is the imperial power with dominion over this part of the world, and only it has the right to interfere in the countries that populate it.

Their objection is not that an outside power is involving itself in a Latin American country's business, but that this outside power isn't the one in Washington. The fact that the US has been doing this very thing for years in Russia's part of the world -- expanding NATO right up to its border, sending weapons to Ukraine -- goes conveniently unmentioned.

Russiagate skeptics were criticized for being hyperbolic in comparing that scandal to the bogus WMD tale that led to the Iraq War; the latter, after all, killed hundreds of thousands and destabilized an entire region. But the full consequences of Russiagate will not be felt immediately; they will unfold over time. And while floating the specter of Russia might not work this time, expect it to be used over and over in the coming years to justify all manner of military aggression .

[May 11, 2019] Spygate (aka Russiagate) was a program to entrap and smear Trump as a Putin stooge by top officials in the Obama administration, directly interfering in a presidential election.

May 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock , 11 May 2019 at 02:05 AM

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

― Upton Sinclair

As more evidence is being uncovered like the the Kathy Kavalec contemporaneous notes & email to FBI on her meeting with Steele, it is getting more & more apparent that there was a program to entrap and smear Trump as a Putin stooge by top officials in the Obama administration, directly interfering in a presidential election.

Mueller was conflicted right from the very beginning. The fact that Strzok, Page & Weisman were on his initial staff points to that conflict. Considering the inherent bias it should be instructive that they could not find any evidence and had to conclude that the Trump campaign did not collude with agents of the Russian government.

[May 11, 2019] Report How Fusion GPS and the Obama Administration Weaponized the Trump Dossier by Kristina Wong

Brennan role in weaponizing dossier now became more clear.
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier. ..."
"... The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product." ..."
"... A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire," Chalupa told CNN in July of this year. ..."
"... Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states: ..."
"... Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists. ..."
"... it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump." ..."
"... The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation. ..."
"... She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only" top secret meetings with President Obama about it. ..."
"... CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference. ..."
"... It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier. ..."
"... Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings. ..."
"... The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad." ..."
"... But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?" ..."
Dec 24, 2017 | www.breitbart.com

Did the Obama administration launch an investigation into the Trump campaign based solely off of unverified political opposition research? And was that "research" dressed up and given more credibility than it should have? It appears that way based on an investigation of open-source information by Tablet.

The outlet's investigation begins with a June 24, 2017, Facebook post by Mary Jacoby, the wife of Glenn Simpson, the former Wall Street Journal reporter who started Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier.

Jacoby, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who once shared bylines with Simpson, bragged how her husband was not getting the credit he deserved for the dossier.

"It's come to my attention that some people still don't realize what Glenn's role was in exposing Putin's control of Donald Trump," she wrote on Facebook. "Let's be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn."

Until this day, the dossier is often referred to as the "Steele dossier," named after the former British spy Christopher Steele who is believed to have authored the document.

Steele's background has been used by collusion-believers to argue that the document is credible. But Jacoby's post suggests that Steele might not have played as big of a role in the dossier as he is given credit.

Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier.

The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product."

Tablet also took a look at Simpson and Jacoby's work for the WSJ . In April 2007 -- in the lead-up to the 2008 election -- they co-wrote a story about Republican links to Russians.

In that story, titled "How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington," they detail how prominent Republicans helped open doors for "Kremlin-affiliated oligarchs and other friends of Vladimir Putin."

They reported on Viktor Yanukovich, who had paid political fixer Paul Manafort to introduce Yanukovich to powerful Washington, DC, figures. They later reported on May 14, 2008, that Manafort's lobbying firm was escorting Yanukovich around Washington. Yanukovich would later become president of Ukraine in 2010.

Tablet explains how their reporting may have been the origins of the Trump dossier:

So when the Trump campaign named Paul Manafort as its campaign convention manager on March 28, 2016, you can bet that Simpson and Jacoby's eyes lit up. And as it happened, at the exact same time that Trump hired Manafort, Fusion GPS was in negotiations with Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to see if there was interest in the firm continuing the opposition research on the Trump campaign they had started for the Washington Free Beacon. In addition to whatever sales pitch Simpson might have offered about Manafort, the Clinton campaign had independent reason to believe that research into Manafort's connections might pay some real political dividends: A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire," Chalupa told CNN in July of this year.

Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states:

Ex-Ukrainian President YANUKOVYCH confides directly to PUTIN that he authorised (sic) kick-back payments to MANAFORT, as alleged in western media Assures Russian President however there is no documentary evidence/trail.

Tablet notes that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would later find corruption by Manafort related to money laundering (before he joined the Trump campaign). It also points out that Tony Podesta -- Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's brother -- worked for Manafort at the time he represented Yanukovich. (The Podesta Group disbanded this year after those connections were made public, and the special counsel is reportedly investigating Podesta too.)

Tablet notes that while Simpson had begun working on the dossier on Trump collusion with Russia, he was also working for a Russian lawyer to undermine an American law called the Magnitsky Act and that Steele may have been hired to disguise that contradiction.

Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists.

Ohr -- Simpson's next hire -- also hadn't lived in Russia for decades and was "not a spy, or even a journalist." "In this world, she was definitely an amateur," Tablet writes.

"Presumably, as a result of all the above, much of the reporting in the dossier is recognizably the kind of patter that locals in closed or semi-closed societies engage in to impress expats -- the kind of thing you hear in a bar, or on the cab ride from the airport to the hotel," it says.

Tablet then goes into the bad shape of U.S. intelligence on Russia -- likely making officials less skeptical of the dossier even though, to date, they have not been able to confirm any of its allegations on collusion.

And Tablet notes that it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."

At that point, a tech firm had attributed the leaks to Russia but was not able to explain why. The FBI was looking at the leak but had not yet publicly determined political motivation.

"But the DNC and Clinton campaign did have an oppo-research firm under contract that was in the middle of putting together a file that would claim that the Russians were trying to get Trump elected," Tablet notes.

The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation.

But by late October, they had not yet found any evidence that showed Russia was working to elect Trump. So, ten days before the election, angry Clinton supporters and unnamed intelligence officials spoke to the New York Times in an October 31, 2016, story about what the investigation had found so far.

Jacoby would post that story in her June 24 Facebook post, slamming the FBI and accusing it of "ineptitude," while the CIA "hopped to and immediately worked to verify" the dossier.

She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only" top secret meetings with President Obama about it.

Thus, while the document could not be verified and was not used in any intelligence assessment because of its inability to be verified, it was now the topic of meetings with the president.

CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference.

Reid then wrote another letter to Comey after he reopened the investigation into Clinton's emails -- accusing him of letting Trump slide.

"It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government -- a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity," he wrote.

"I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public and yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information."

That "information" Reid was referring to was the dossier, according to Tablet:

According to David Corn's Oct. 31, 2016, article in Mother Jones , the Nevada lawmaker was referencing the findings of "a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence."

Corn now explains that the "former Western intelligence officer -- who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a U.S. firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients" is Christopher Steele. According to Corn, Steele said that "in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump."

It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier.

Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings.

"An envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried 'eyes only' instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides," the Washington Post reported on June 23, 2017.

"So was the Steele dossier in the envelope?" Tablet asks.

The Post writes that inside that envelope "was an intelligence bombshell" -- a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detained Putin's direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the presidential race, defeat or at least damage Hillary Clinton, and help elect Donald Trump.

The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad."

But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?"

Tablet writes:

Sources and methods are the crown jewels of the American intelligence community. And yet someone has just told a major American newspaper about a "report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that captured Putin's specific instructions." If the CIA had a human intelligence source that close to Putin, publication of the Post article could have exposed that source -- doing incalculable damage to American national security. He and many of his loved ones would then have presumably died horrible deaths.

Or, as Mary Jacoby surmised, it was her husband's handiwork that landed on the president's desk.

[May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com
Biden, Obama Officials Stood to Gain From Ukraine Influence By Jeff Carlson ( April 26, 2019 Updated: May 2, 2019 )

Newly released evidence suggests Ukraine played key role in creating Trump–Russia collusion narrative at behest of Obama officials

As Ukraine underwent dramatic changes in 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden played a critical role in the Obama administration's involvement in the revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Following the revolution, Biden would use his influence to help force the creation of the troubled National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Notably, during the 2016 election campaign, information leaked from NABU about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that helped to create the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the election.

Biden also would use the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor general. At the time, the prosecutor had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas giant that had appointed Biden's son, Hunter, as a board member.

President Donald Trump 's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently said, "Keep your eye on Ukraine." In his comments to the Washington Examiner , Giuliani highlighted the "plot to create an investigation of President Trump, based on a false charge of conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016 elections."

Obama Administration's 2014 Involvement

On or shortly before Feb. 4, 2014, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department, had a conversation with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, which was intercepted and leaked .

In the call, Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be discussing the ouster of Yanukovych and the installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister.

Nuland favored opposition leader Yatsenyuk over his main rivals Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok, telling Pyatt: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitschko and Tyahnybok on the outside."

Toward the end of the conversation , then-Vice President Biden was discussed as being willing to help cement the changeover in Ukraine:

Geoffrey Pyatt: "We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych, but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place."

Victoria Nuland: "So, on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [Biden's national security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need Biden, and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's willing."

Nuland and Pyatt met with Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko and Yatsenyuk, along with then-President Yanukovych, just days later on Feb. 7, 2014.

Events then moved swiftly. On Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was removed as president of Ukraine and fled to Russia. On Feb. 27, 2014, Yatsenyuk, the candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister of Ukraine. Klitschko was left out. Notably, Yatsenyuk would later resign in April 2016 amid corruption accusations.

Biden's Involvement in Ukraine

In April, Biden would get personally involved, as would his son, Hunter. On April 18, 2014, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors for Burisma–one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine.

Four days later, on April 22, 2014, Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine , offering his political support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government. Poroshenko, a billionaire politician, was elected as president of Ukraine on May 25, 2014.

Biden became close to both men and helped Ukraine obtain a four-year, $17.5 billion IMF package in March 2015.

In October 2016, Foreign Policy wrote a lengthy article, " What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe ," which described Biden's role in the removal of Ukraine's general prosecutor, Victor Shokin. Shokin, the choice of Poroshenko, was portrayed as fumbling a major corruption case and "hindering an investigation into two high-ranking state prosecutors arrested on corruption charges."

The United States pushed for Shokin's removal, and Biden led the effort by personally threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. In an interview with The Atlantic, Biden recalled telling Poroshenko: "Petro, you're not getting your billion dollars. It's OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand -- we're not paying if you do." Shokin was removed by Poroshenko shortly thereafter, in early 2016.

But according to reporting by The Hill, at the time of his firing, Shokin had been investigating Burisma. Shokin's investigation into Burisma had previously been disclosed in June 2017, by Front News International.

Burisma is owned by Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola Zlochevsky), the former minister of ecology for Ukraine. According to Front News , Zlochevsky issued a "special permit for the extraction of a third of the gas produced in Ukraine" to his own company, Burisma.

According to the Ukrainian nonprofit Anti Corruption Action Center, Zlochevsky owns 38 permits held by 14 different companies -- with Burisma accounting for the majority with 33 of the permits. Zlochevsky left Ukraine after Yanukovych fled to Russia during the Ukrainian Revolution known as Euromaidan.

Investigation Into Burisma

In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation at the behest of the UK prosecutors office, which was investigating money laundering allegations against Zlochevsky and had just frozen $23.5 million in assets allegedly belonging to him in early April 2014. Shokin, who wasn't appointed as general prosecutor until February 2015, wasn't yet involved in the case.

Ukrainian prosecutors refused to provide the UK with needed documents, and in January 2015, a British court ordered the assets unfrozen. This action was pointedly called out in a speech by Pyatt, who stated, "In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the UK authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people."

Instead of receiving cooperation from Ukrainian prosecutors, they "sent letters to Zlochevsky's attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was freed by the UK court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus."

On Feb. 10, 2015, Shokin was appointed prosecutor general of Ukraine, and he picked up the investigation into Burisma, which reportedly continued until his formal resignation in February 2016.

Around the same time that Zlochevsky's assets were being frozen in the UK, Burisma appointed Hunter Biden to its board on April 18, 2014. Hunter's compensation had never been disclosed by Burisma, which is a private company, but Ryan Toohey, a Burisma spokesman, told The New York Times that Biden's compensation was "not out of the ordinary" for similar board positions.

However, according to The Hill's reporting , Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular payments -- "usually more than $166,000 a month" -- from Burisma. The payments ran from the spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million.

The Hill article included a written answer from Shokin, who told Solomon that his investigation into Burisma had included plans for "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden."

According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, following Shokin's forced dismissal, the Burisma investigation was transferred to Sytnyk's NABU, which then reportedly closed the investigation sometime in 2016.

The Kyiv Post on March 27 published an editorial written by three members of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv that disputed Lutsenko's interview with The Hill. They claim that two cases relating to Burisma are still being investigated by NABU:

"Two cases regarding the extraction of licenses by Zlochevsky's companies and embezzlement of public funds at the ministry's procurements during Zlochevsky's Ministerial tenure remain active and are investigated by NABU."

They also claim that "none of the criminal proceedings against Burisma were closed by NABU." They acknowledged that the case concerning illegal issuance of licenses to extract natural resources were transferred to NABU in December 2015, but claim that SAP missed procedural deadlines for a lawsuit on canceling those licenses.

The politics within Ukraine are extremely complicated, and corruption is endemic, often leading to conflicting accounts of events.

US Pressure to Investigate Manafort

In January 2016, top Ukrainian corruption prosecutors and officials from Obama's National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) met in Washington, according to an April 26 article by The Hill.

The meeting, which was reportedly billed as "training," apparently also touched on two other matters -- the revival of a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine's Russia-backed Party of Regions and the closure of an ongoing Ukrainian investigation into Burisma.

According to The Hill's reporting, the Ukrainian Embassy confirmed that meetings were held, but said it "had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings."

A Jan. 22, 2016, NABU press release confirmed that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk was in Washington from Jan. 19 to 21.

At the same time as the NABU meeting with Obama officials, Vice President Biden also met with senior Ukrainian officials. On Jan. 21, 2016, Biden met with Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine. According to the White House release , the two leaders agreed "to continue to move forward on Ukraine's anti-corruption agenda."

Just six days earlier, on Jan 15, 2016, Biden had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, promising to commit $220 million in new assistance to Ukraine that year.

Notably, several months later, Sytnyk and Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko would publicly disclose the contents of the Ukrainian "black ledger" to the media, which implicated Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The revelation would force Manafort from the campaign.

Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael Isikoff and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition, Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS -- and its researcher, former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.

Another Ukrainian-related meeting also took place in January 2016 when Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American, informed an unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump campaign. Notably, this theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign in the summer of 2016. Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort's involvement in the Trump campaign.

How Chalupa knew to expect Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign in January remains unknown, but her forecast proved prescient, as Manafort reached out to the Trump campaign shortly after, on Feb. 29, 2016, through a mutual acquaintance, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. According to Manafort, he and Trump hadn't been in communication for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manafort's offer.

As The Epoch Times previously reported , on May 30, 2016, Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr sent an email to her husband, high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and three other DOJ officials to alert them of the discovery of the "Reported Trove of Documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' 'Black Cashbox.'" It was this discovery that led to Manafort's resignation from the Trump campaign in August 2016.

On Aug. 14, 2016, The New York Times published an article alleging that payments to Manafort had been uncovered from the Party of Regents' "black box" -- the 400-page handwritten ledger released by Leshchenko. The article proved to be a fatal blow for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign just days later.

NABU Ties to FBI

Following the successful overthrow of Yanukovych, Joe Biden had a direct hand in the formation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), as he personally "pushed for the creation of an independent anti-corruption bureau to combat graft," according to an Oct. 30, 2016, article by Foreign Policy .

NABU was formally established in October 2014 in response to pressure from not only the U.S. State Department and Biden, but also by the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.

Despite the international push, the fledgling anti-corruption unit took more than a year to actually become a functioning unit. During this time, NABU officials began establishing a relationship with the FBI. In early 2016, NABU Director Sytnyk announced that his bureau was very close to signing a memorandum of cooperation with the FBI and by February 2016 , the FBI had had a permanent representative onsite at the NABU offices.

On June 5, 2016, Sytnyk met with U.S. Ambassador Pyatt to discuss a more formalized relationship with the FBI and, on June 30, 2016, NABU and the FBI entered into a memorandum of understanding that allowed for an FBI office onsite at NABU offices to focus on international money laundering cases. The relationship was renewed for an additional two years in June 2017.

NABU has repeatedly refused to make the memorandum of understanding with the FBI public and went to court in 2018 to prevent its release. After receiving an unfavorable opinion from the Kyiv District Administrative Court, NABU appealed the ruling, which was overturned in its favor by the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal.

Sytnyk, along with parliamentarian Leshchenko, became the subject of an investigation in Ukraine and in December 2018, a Kyiv court ruled that both men "acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort's surname and signature were found in the so-called black ledger of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions," the Kyiv Post reported on Dec. 12, 2018.

The court noted the material was part of a pre-trial investigation and its release "led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state."

Leshchenko had publicly adopted a strong anti-Trump stance, telling the Financial Times in August 2016 that "a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy" and that it was "important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world." Leschenko noted that the majority of Ukrainian politicians were "on Hillary Clinton's side."

In December 2017, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko accused Sytnyk of allowing the FBI to conduct illegal operations in Ukraine, claiming that the "U.S. law enforcers were allegedly invited without the permission required and in breach of the necessary procedures." Lutsenko continued by asking, "Who actually let the foreign special service act in Ukraine?"

Taras Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst, also questioned the FBI's activities, writing that "some kind of undercover operations are being conducted in Ukraine with direct participation (or even under control) of the FBI. This means the FBI operatives could have access to classified data or confidential information."

Lutsenko called for an audit of NABU, claiming to "possess information of interest to the auditors" and was pushing for Sytnyk's resignation, along with that of Nazar Kholodnitskiy, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP). According to reporting by Euromaidan Press, Lutsenko's efforts failed "thanks to the reaction from Ukraine's American partners."

Michael Carpenter, an adviser to Joe Biden, personally issued a public warning to Lutsenko and others pushing for Sytnyk's removal, stating, "If the Rada votes to dismiss the head of the Anticorruption Committee and the head of the NABU, I will recommend cutting all U.S. government assistance to #Ukraine , including security assistance."

Sytnyk remains in his position as NABU's director.

Pinchuk's Ties to Leshchenko, Clintons

On April 11, 2019, Greg Craig, Obama's former White House counsel and a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, was indicted for lying about and concealing his work in Ukraine. Craig, who reportedly worked closely with Manafort, was paid more than $4 million to produce an "independent" report justifying Ukraine's trial and conviction of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Notably, Craig's name was not included in the "Black Ledger" leak from Leshchenko and Sytnyk.

The indictment notes that "a wealthy private Ukrainian" was fully funding the report. In a recent YouTube video , Craig publicly stated that "it was Doug Schoen who brought this project to me, and he told me he was acting on behalf of Victor Pinchuk, who was a pro-western, Ukrainian businessman who helped to fund the project."

"The Firm understood that its work was to be largely funded by Victor Pinchuk," Skadden wrote in recent FARA filings .

Pinchuk put out a statement on Jan. 21, denying any financial involvement:

"Mr. Pinchuk was not the source of any funds used to pay fees of Skadden in producing their report into the trial and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was in no way responsible for those costs. Neither Mr. Pinchuk nor companies affiliated with him have ever been a client of Skadden. Mr. Pinchuk and his team had no role in the work done by Skadden, including in the preparation or dissemination of the Skadden report."

Pinchuk is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He owns Credit Dnipro Bank, several ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Pinchuk has been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at severely below-market prices through political favoritism.

Between April 4 and April 12, 2016, Ukrainian parliamentarian Olga Bielkova had four meetings , with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Department), and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

FARA documents filed by Schoen showed that he was paid $40,000 a month by Pinchuk (page 5) -- in part to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with congressmen and media (page 10). It's unknown how many of these meetings, if any, took place.

Schoen also helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 19, 2015, how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko–a political rival of Yanukovych–from jail. And the relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons continued. According to the Kyiv Post :

"Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist."

Although exact numbers aren't clear, reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk's donations went to the Clinton organization.

Pinchuk also has ties to Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked the information on Manafort. Leshchenko had been a frequent speaker at the Ukrainian Breakfast , a traditional private event held at Davos, Switzerland, and hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and has also been pictured with Pinchuk at multiple other events.

[May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review. ..."
"... The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016. ..."
"... After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target. ..."
"... On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. ..."
"... Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant. ..."
"... The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. ..."
"... While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

FISA Abuse

Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page

Highly recommended!
The insurance policy was the false flag operation directed at establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. The key part was the appointment of Special Prosecutor in which McCabe played an important if not the decisive role.
Notable quotes:
"... The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

The Insurance Policy

Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recluses himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day.

McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president."

An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job.

On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

[May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com
Biden, Obama Officials Stood to Gain From Ukraine Influence By Jeff Carlson ( April 26, 2019 Updated: May 2, 2019 )

Newly released evidence suggests Ukraine played key role in creating Trump–Russia collusion narrative at behest of Obama officials

As Ukraine underwent dramatic changes in 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden played a critical role in the Obama administration's involvement in the revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Following the revolution, Biden would use his influence to help force the creation of the troubled National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Notably, during the 2016 election campaign, information leaked from NABU about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that helped to create the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the election.

Biden also would use the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor general. At the time, the prosecutor had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas giant that had appointed Biden's son, Hunter, as a board member.

President Donald Trump 's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently said, "Keep your eye on Ukraine." In his comments to the Washington Examiner , Giuliani highlighted the "plot to create an investigation of President Trump, based on a false charge of conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016 elections."

Obama Administration's 2014 Involvement

On or shortly before Feb. 4, 2014, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department, had a conversation with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, which was intercepted and leaked .

In the call, Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be discussing the ouster of Yanukovych and the installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister.

Nuland favored opposition leader Yatsenyuk over his main rivals Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok, telling Pyatt: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitschko and Tyahnybok on the outside."

Toward the end of the conversation , then-Vice President Biden was discussed as being willing to help cement the changeover in Ukraine:

Geoffrey Pyatt: "We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych, but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place."

Victoria Nuland: "So, on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [Biden's national security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need Biden, and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's willing."

Nuland and Pyatt met with Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko and Yatsenyuk, along with then-President Yanukovych, just days later on Feb. 7, 2014.

Events then moved swiftly. On Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was removed as president of Ukraine and fled to Russia. On Feb. 27, 2014, Yatsenyuk, the candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister of Ukraine. Klitschko was left out. Notably, Yatsenyuk would later resign in April 2016 amid corruption accusations.

Biden's Involvement in Ukraine

In April, Biden would get personally involved, as would his son, Hunter. On April 18, 2014, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors for Burisma–one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine.

Four days later, on April 22, 2014, Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine , offering his political support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government. Poroshenko, a billionaire politician, was elected as president of Ukraine on May 25, 2014.

Biden became close to both men and helped Ukraine obtain a four-year, $17.5 billion IMF package in March 2015.

In October 2016, Foreign Policy wrote a lengthy article, " What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe ," which described Biden's role in the removal of Ukraine's general prosecutor, Victor Shokin. Shokin, the choice of Poroshenko, was portrayed as fumbling a major corruption case and "hindering an investigation into two high-ranking state prosecutors arrested on corruption charges."

The United States pushed for Shokin's removal, and Biden led the effort by personally threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. In an interview with The Atlantic, Biden recalled telling Poroshenko: "Petro, you're not getting your billion dollars. It's OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand -- we're not paying if you do." Shokin was removed by Poroshenko shortly thereafter, in early 2016.

But according to reporting by The Hill, at the time of his firing, Shokin had been investigating Burisma. Shokin's investigation into Burisma had previously been disclosed in June 2017, by Front News International.

Burisma is owned by Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola Zlochevsky), the former minister of ecology for Ukraine. According to Front News , Zlochevsky issued a "special permit for the extraction of a third of the gas produced in Ukraine" to his own company, Burisma.

According to the Ukrainian nonprofit Anti Corruption Action Center, Zlochevsky owns 38 permits held by 14 different companies -- with Burisma accounting for the majority with 33 of the permits. Zlochevsky left Ukraine after Yanukovych fled to Russia during the Ukrainian Revolution known as Euromaidan.

Investigation Into Burisma

In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation at the behest of the UK prosecutors office, which was investigating money laundering allegations against Zlochevsky and had just frozen $23.5 million in assets allegedly belonging to him in early April 2014. Shokin, who wasn't appointed as general prosecutor until February 2015, wasn't yet involved in the case.

Ukrainian prosecutors refused to provide the UK with needed documents, and in January 2015, a British court ordered the assets unfrozen. This action was pointedly called out in a speech by Pyatt, who stated, "In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the UK authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people."

Instead of receiving cooperation from Ukrainian prosecutors, they "sent letters to Zlochevsky's attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was freed by the UK court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus."

On Feb. 10, 2015, Shokin was appointed prosecutor general of Ukraine, and he picked up the investigation into Burisma, which reportedly continued until his formal resignation in February 2016.

Around the same time that Zlochevsky's assets were being frozen in the UK, Burisma appointed Hunter Biden to its board on April 18, 2014. Hunter's compensation had never been disclosed by Burisma, which is a private company, but Ryan Toohey, a Burisma spokesman, told The New York Times that Biden's compensation was "not out of the ordinary" for similar board positions.

However, according to The Hill's reporting , Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular payments -- "usually more than $166,000 a month" -- from Burisma. The payments ran from the spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million.

The Hill article included a written answer from Shokin, who told Solomon that his investigation into Burisma had included plans for "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden."

According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, following Shokin's forced dismissal, the Burisma investigation was transferred to Sytnyk's NABU, which then reportedly closed the investigation sometime in 2016.

The Kyiv Post on March 27 published an editorial written by three members of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv that disputed Lutsenko's interview with The Hill. They claim that two cases relating to Burisma are still being investigated by NABU:

"Two cases regarding the extraction of licenses by Zlochevsky's companies and embezzlement of public funds at the ministry's procurements during Zlochevsky's Ministerial tenure remain active and are investigated by NABU."

They also claim that "none of the criminal proceedings against Burisma were closed by NABU." They acknowledged that the case concerning illegal issuance of licenses to extract natural resources were transferred to NABU in December 2015, but claim that SAP missed procedural deadlines for a lawsuit on canceling those licenses.

The politics within Ukraine are extremely complicated, and corruption is endemic, often leading to conflicting accounts of events.

US Pressure to Investigate Manafort

In January 2016, top Ukrainian corruption prosecutors and officials from Obama's National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) met in Washington, according to an April 26 article by The Hill.

The meeting, which was reportedly billed as "training," apparently also touched on two other matters -- the revival of a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine's Russia-backed Party of Regions and the closure of an ongoing Ukrainian investigation into Burisma.

According to The Hill's reporting, the Ukrainian Embassy confirmed that meetings were held, but said it "had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings."

A Jan. 22, 2016, NABU press release confirmed that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk was in Washington from Jan. 19 to 21.

At the same time as the NABU meeting with Obama officials, Vice President Biden also met with senior Ukrainian officials. On Jan. 21, 2016, Biden met with Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine. According to the White House release , the two leaders agreed "to continue to move forward on Ukraine's anti-corruption agenda."

Just six days earlier, on Jan 15, 2016, Biden had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, promising to commit $220 million in new assistance to Ukraine that year.

Notably, several months later, Sytnyk and Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko would publicly disclose the contents of the Ukrainian "black ledger" to the media, which implicated Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The revelation would force Manafort from the campaign.

Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael Isikoff and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition, Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS -- and its researcher, former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.

Another Ukrainian-related meeting also took place in January 2016 when Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American, informed an unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump campaign. Notably, this theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign in the summer of 2016. Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort's involvement in the Trump campaign.

How Chalupa knew to expect Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign in January remains unknown, but her forecast proved prescient, as Manafort reached out to the Trump campaign shortly after, on Feb. 29, 2016, through a mutual acquaintance, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. According to Manafort, he and Trump hadn't been in communication for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manafort's offer.

As The Epoch Times previously reported , on May 30, 2016, Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr sent an email to her husband, high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and three other DOJ officials to alert them of the discovery of the "Reported Trove of Documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' 'Black Cashbox.'" It was this discovery that led to Manafort's resignation from the Trump campaign in August 2016.

On Aug. 14, 2016, The New York Times published an article alleging that payments to Manafort had been uncovered from the Party of Regents' "black box" -- the 400-page handwritten ledger released by Leshchenko. The article proved to be a fatal blow for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign just days later.

NABU Ties to FBI

Following the successful overthrow of Yanukovych, Joe Biden had a direct hand in the formation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), as he personally "pushed for the creation of an independent anti-corruption bureau to combat graft," according to an Oct. 30, 2016, article by Foreign Policy .

NABU was formally established in October 2014 in response to pressure from not only the U.S. State Department and Biden, but also by the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.

Despite the international push, the fledgling anti-corruption unit took more than a year to actually become a functioning unit. During this time, NABU officials began establishing a relationship with the FBI. In early 2016, NABU Director Sytnyk announced that his bureau was very close to signing a memorandum of cooperation with the FBI and by February 2016 , the FBI had had a permanent representative onsite at the NABU offices.

On June 5, 2016, Sytnyk met with U.S. Ambassador Pyatt to discuss a more formalized relationship with the FBI and, on June 30, 2016, NABU and the FBI entered into a memorandum of understanding that allowed for an FBI office onsite at NABU offices to focus on international money laundering cases. The relationship was renewed for an additional two years in June 2017.

NABU has repeatedly refused to make the memorandum of understanding with the FBI public and went to court in 2018 to prevent its release. After receiving an unfavorable opinion from the Kyiv District Administrative Court, NABU appealed the ruling, which was overturned in its favor by the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal.

Sytnyk, along with parliamentarian Leshchenko, became the subject of an investigation in Ukraine and in December 2018, a Kyiv court ruled that both men "acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort's surname and signature were found in the so-called black ledger of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions," the Kyiv Post reported on Dec. 12, 2018.

The court noted the material was part of a pre-trial investigation and its release "led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state."

Leshchenko had publicly adopted a strong anti-Trump stance, telling the Financial Times in August 2016 that "a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy" and that it was "important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world." Leschenko noted that the majority of Ukrainian politicians were "on Hillary Clinton's side."

In December 2017, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko accused Sytnyk of allowing the FBI to conduct illegal operations in Ukraine, claiming that the "U.S. law enforcers were allegedly invited without the permission required and in breach of the necessary procedures." Lutsenko continued by asking, "Who actually let the foreign special service act in Ukraine?"

Taras Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst, also questioned the FBI's activities, writing that "some kind of undercover operations are being conducted in Ukraine with direct participation (or even under control) of the FBI. This means the FBI operatives could have access to classified data or confidential information."

Lutsenko called for an audit of NABU, claiming to "possess information of interest to the auditors" and was pushing for Sytnyk's resignation, along with that of Nazar Kholodnitskiy, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP). According to reporting by Euromaidan Press, Lutsenko's efforts failed "thanks to the reaction from Ukraine's American partners."

Michael Carpenter, an adviser to Joe Biden, personally issued a public warning to Lutsenko and others pushing for Sytnyk's removal, stating, "If the Rada votes to dismiss the head of the Anticorruption Committee and the head of the NABU, I will recommend cutting all U.S. government assistance to #Ukraine , including security assistance."

Sytnyk remains in his position as NABU's director.

Pinchuk's Ties to Leshchenko, Clintons

On April 11, 2019, Greg Craig, Obama's former White House counsel and a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, was indicted for lying about and concealing his work in Ukraine. Craig, who reportedly worked closely with Manafort, was paid more than $4 million to produce an "independent" report justifying Ukraine's trial and conviction of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Notably, Craig's name was not included in the "Black Ledger" leak from Leshchenko and Sytnyk.

The indictment notes that "a wealthy private Ukrainian" was fully funding the report. In a recent YouTube video , Craig publicly stated that "it was Doug Schoen who brought this project to me, and he told me he was acting on behalf of Victor Pinchuk, who was a pro-western, Ukrainian businessman who helped to fund the project."

"The Firm understood that its work was to be largely funded by Victor Pinchuk," Skadden wrote in recent FARA filings .

Pinchuk put out a statement on Jan. 21, denying any financial involvement:

"Mr. Pinchuk was not the source of any funds used to pay fees of Skadden in producing their report into the trial and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was in no way responsible for those costs. Neither Mr. Pinchuk nor companies affiliated with him have ever been a client of Skadden. Mr. Pinchuk and his team had no role in the work done by Skadden, including in the preparation or dissemination of the Skadden report."

Pinchuk is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He owns Credit Dnipro Bank, several ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Pinchuk has been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at severely below-market prices through political favoritism.

Between April 4 and April 12, 2016, Ukrainian parliamentarian Olga Bielkova had four meetings , with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Department), and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

FARA documents filed by Schoen showed that he was paid $40,000 a month by Pinchuk (page 5) -- in part to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with congressmen and media (page 10). It's unknown how many of these meetings, if any, took place.

Schoen also helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 19, 2015, how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko–a political rival of Yanukovych–from jail. And the relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons continued. According to the Kyiv Post :

"Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist."

Although exact numbers aren't clear, reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk's donations went to the Clinton organization.

Pinchuk also has ties to Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked the information on Manafort. Leshchenko had been a frequent speaker at the Ukrainian Breakfast , a traditional private event held at Davos, Switzerland, and hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and has also been pictured with Pinchuk at multiple other events.

[May 10, 2019] The key role of British intelligence in Spydate (aka Russiagate)

Notable quotes:
"... Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration. ..."
"... Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove. ..."
"... Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend. ..."
"... Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services. ..."
"... Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. ..."
"... Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations. ..."
"... Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia. ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Intelligence

UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.

Britain's GCHQ was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to meet personally with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.

Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.

As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove.

Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend.

Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services.

Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books.

Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.

The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.

Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.

In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.

Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?

Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.

Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele

Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.

<img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/10/Glenn-Simpson.jpg" alt="" width="185" height="220" /> Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.

Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele maintains contact with British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove , and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.

Steele appears to have been represented by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:

"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort. I will be with him next tuesday for a week."

Steele also appears to have lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently disclosed by the Washington Examiner:

"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool' of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."

Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler, who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, at which she discussed the Magnitsky Act .

Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.

A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.

Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.

Nellie Ohr
<img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/10/Nellie-Ohr-.jpg" alt="Nellie Ohr" width="185" height="252" />
Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.

Bruce and Nellie Ohr have known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr before and after the 2016 election.

Bruce Ohr had been in contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s -- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.

Spy Traps

In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.

Papadopoulos and Mifsud both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around November 2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly joined LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016, in Italy.

Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.

Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.

Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed as a chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.

Papadopoulos was introduced to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened to be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit remains unknown.

The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.

George Papadopoulos
<img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/10/George-Papadopoulos-1028769226-1200x1497.jpg" alt="George Papadopoulos" width="187" height="234" /> Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."

Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.

Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017, BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended target of these failed FISAs.

Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.

Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.

After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct. 21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.

Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.

Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case.

Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.

If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.

Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review. ..."
"... The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016. ..."
"... After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target. ..."
"... On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. ..."
"... Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant. ..."
"... The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. ..."
"... While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

FISA Abuse

Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page

Highly recommended!
The insurance policy was the false flag operation directed at establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. The key part was the appointment of Special Prosecutor in which McCabe played an important if not the decisive role.
Notable quotes:
"... The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

The Insurance Policy

Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recluses himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day.

McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president."

An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job.

On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

[May 10, 2019] In some respects, the neoliberal MSMs has played the most disingenuous of roles is Spygate (aka Russiagate)

May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Media

In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a series of payments to several as-of-yet- unnamed reporters .

The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In September 2016 , he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.

In mid-October 2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.

On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article " A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in court documents relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, " FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA warrant.

The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.

Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.

It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application.

According to the indictment , Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call.

The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.

In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.

Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly stated that evidence within the FISA application shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.

Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit their complicity.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] The role of Obama administration in spygate (aka Russiagate)

May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Obama Administration

The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.

Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.

The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.

An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017, MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the attorney general's office. According to congressional testimony by Horowitz:

"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information."

These new restrictions were put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters.

The New York Times recently disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.

At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The Intelligence Community assessment was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.

Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview why:

"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."

Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:

"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump that CNN reported on the dossier. It was later revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.

The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of intelligence unmaskings , the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.

The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division, led that effort .

Executive Order 13762

President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ. The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.

Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership. The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.

Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips, after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming under intense scrutiny.

The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian ambassador.

Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.

Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.

On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings appear to have been unexpected.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] Looks like Nuland participated in Spygate (aka Russiagate)

May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

State Department

The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 09, 2019] Russiagate Zealotry Continues to Endanger American National Security by Stephen F. Cohen

Notable quotes:
"... Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. ..."
"... What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the 1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812 ..."
"... I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take them out. ..."
"... Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it. ..."
"... Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States. But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that. Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for the beltway and their imperial pretensions. ..."
"... If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign, would you denounce that act? If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do such? ..."
May 09, 2019 | www.thenation.com
N ow in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "attack on American democracy" during the 2016 presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin "attack." As I have argued from the outset -- see my regular commentaries posted at TheNation.com and my recent book War With Russia? -- and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.

Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not "Putin's Russia," continue to inflict grave damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic members of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party and Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes of journalistic malpractice in modern times .

But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example in July 2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president had done since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy, Trump was widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another alarming example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of Russiagate zealots.

On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report. (As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of its members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.) A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela, where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood, ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.

To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only condemnation. To take some random examples:

§ Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked CNN's Chris Cuomo rhetorically on May 3, "Why does the president give the benefit of doubt to a person who attacked our democracy?" while assailing Trump for not confronting Putin with the Mueller report.

§ The same evening, CNN's Don Lemon editorialized on the phone call: "The president of the United States had just a normal old call with his pal Vladimir Putin. Didn't tell him not to interfere in the election. Like he did in 2016, like he did in 2018, like we know he is planning to do again in 2020 . You just don't seem to want us to know exactly what was said . Nothing to see when the president talks for more than an hour with the leader of an enemy nation. One that has repeatedly attacked our democracy and will do so again." (Lemon did not say on what he based the expanded, serial charges against Putin and thus against Trump or his allegation about the 2018 elections, which congressional Democrats mostly won, or his foreknowledge about 2020 or generally and with major ramifications why he branded Russia an "enemy nation.")

§ We might expect something more exalted from James Risen , once a critical-minded investigative reporter, who found it suspicious that "Trump and Putin were both eager to put the Mueller report behind them," even for the sake of needed diplomacy.

§ Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.)

§ Not surprisingly, a Washington Post opinion writer argued that the phone call meant "Trump is counting on Russian help to get reelected."

None of these "opinion leaders" mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military confrontation over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War. Indeed, retired admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and formerly associated with Hillary Clinton's campaign, all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures" such as cyberattacks.

Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper.

Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul."

It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security.

This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .

Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition.


Phillip Sawicki says: May 9, 2019 at 7:52 pm

What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the 1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812.

In case people have forgotten, The US sought to annex Canada. The Canadians resisted, and so then the US set up a false flag attack in 1845 to start the Mexican-American War. Hundreds of interventions in other countries, but if someone is alleged to have done so to us, it's a capital crime. What arrogance!

Victor Sciamarelli says: May 9, 2019 at 4:17 pm

I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take them out.

Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it.

Another point is that the downside of the policy elites' belief in "American exceptionalism" is that it is also a trap. They claim our "indispensable nation" rests upon values and principles such as the rule of law, respect for human rights, and freedom of speech, even though reality often tells us something different.

Thus, if Putin is a thug, if not a murderer, who attacked the US, undermined our democracy, and is an autocrat who cares nothing about our values and principles, then what place is there for diplomacy because you can't negotiate or compromise our immutable principles and values.
Another observation is we often hear the statement that, "All options are on the table." This sounds tough to an American mind because it includes nuclear weapons. All options means all options. Nonetheless, someone else might interpret this to mean you are not confident or certain that your conventional forces are capable of doing the mission and you are more likely or willing to resort to a nuclear weapon. This can make any confrontation whether in Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria, or Iran more dangerous that it needs to be.

In addition, Trump has sent an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East. The Guardian on May 6, 2019, stated that according to one report, information passed on by Israeli intelligence contributed to the US threat assessment.

If we are now approaching war based on Israeli intelligence then I think we are also approaching our Dr. Strangelove moment.

Jeffrey Harrison says: May 9, 2019 at 11:55 am

Arrogance, myopia. Those two words define the US today.

Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States. But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that. Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for the beltway and their imperial pretensions.

This Stavridis bozo is a prime example. "all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures" such as cyber attacks." I realize that we are in a post proof world where any claim, no matter how inane, is automatically taken as proven. No actual proof required. The "attack on our democracy" is based on this totally bogus claim (never proven) that Russia hacked into the DNC's e-mails (on a server that no law enforcement agency ever inspected to prove the claim of hacking) that undermined our democracy by revealing how corrupt and slimy the DNC actually is. All the while we're so myopic that we don't see the Republican party destroying our democracy from within with voter ID requirements for a non-existent problem, gerrymandering themselves into a permanent majority of a minority, voter suppression schemes such as purging voter rolls, closing polling places, and generally making it difficult for people to vote.

But this Stavridis bozo wasn't done yet. The Russians he claims perpetrated unprecedented measures such as cyber attacks. Really? The only cyber attacks that I'm actually aware of in the US were actually perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security who was playing bureaucratic turf games. The admiral's ignorance is in full display when he forgets the STUXTNET worm that absolutely was a cyber attack on Iran by the US and Israel, and that the NSA hacked the personal cell phone of Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of Germany, and the trick revealed by Ed Snowden that the NSA would open computer boxes destined for certain countries and install chips that would allow us to control the server, or that the only known backdoor in a piece of Hauwei equipment was installed there by the NSA.

I'm suspecting that we need to clean up our act a lot more that most of the rest of the world.

J McCormick says: May 8, 2019 at 11:57 pm

So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media and what I hear here is a call for respect for and deference to the office of the presidency.

If there is cause for concern and worry , and I fervently believe that there is , I leave it to others to offer up what they believe that cause might be.

History records that that the Congress relinquished powers that were properly theirs (trade, war powers) and now they so far appear impotent in the face of executive overreach when an effective check on the executive branch is critically needed.

Even if your opinion runs counter to mine I am reasonably certain we agree that dysfunction and chaos rule the day in Washington and beyond.

Clark Shanahan says: May 9, 2019 at 6:26 pm

"So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media"
Tell me, J., do you believe Russia is our adversary?
If so, when did they become such?

If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign, would you denounce that act? If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do such?

[May 09, 2019] John Kelly Said Trump's Family Needs To Be "Dealt With"

Notable quotes:
"... Those who have been following the Trump administration drama since the beginning might remember that, after initially welcoming Kelly as a "steady hand" and "adult in the room" who would bring order to a chaotic West Wing, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump swiftly turned on the former general, and their months-long power struggle become fodder for endless anonymously sourced reports and reprisals. ..."
"... That feud apparently left a bad taste in Kelly's mouth that just won't go away. Which is probably why, five months after being 'liberated' from the West Wing, Kelly felt comfortable publicly expressing his distaste for the two - in his own reserved way, not mentioning the couple by name - Trump Administration senior advisors during an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV . ..."
"... And in what sounded suspiciously like ingratitude toward his host, Kelly said he had removed a few "very disruptive" people from the administration after arriving in the West Wing, and was struck by the "intense personal ambition" of some of his staffers. ..."
May 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-08/kelly-revives-feud-javanka-says-trumps-family-needs-be-dealt

by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/08/2019 - 20:00 0 SHARES Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print John Kelly has had a few months to reflect on his tumultuous tenure as White House Chief of Staff. And though he's apparently forgiven the president for the angry tweets and public rebukes, which helped fuel persistent rumors about his impending firing, the former general still holds a grudge against his former West Wing antagonist: Javanka. Those who have been following the Trump administration drama since the beginning might remember that, after initially welcoming Kelly as a "steady hand" and "adult in the room" who would bring order to a chaotic West Wing, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump swiftly turned on the former general, and their months-long power struggle become fodder for endless anonymously sourced reports and reprisals.

That feud apparently left a bad taste in Kelly's mouth that just won't go away. Which is probably why, five months after being 'liberated' from the West Wing, Kelly felt comfortable publicly expressing his distaste for the two - in his own reserved way, not mentioning the couple by name - Trump Administration senior advisors during an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV .

Kelly told Rubenstein that members of the Trump family serving in the administration needed to be "dealt with" - even if Kelly wasn't the one to do it.

"They were an influence that has to be dealt with," Kelly said Tuesday during an interview on Bloomberg Television's "The David Rubenstein Show," when asked whether it was complicated to have the president's family working at the White House. "By no means do I mean Mrs. Trump - the first lady's a wonderful person."

The Marine general sat for the interview in Las Vegas, where he was attending Anthony Scaramucci's SALT conference (ironic because one of the first things Kelly did after arriving in the West Wing was fire Scaramucci over an unhinged rant published in the New Yorker where Scaramucci accused Steve Bannon of trying to "suck his own c*ck").

And in what sounded suspiciously like ingratitude toward his host, Kelly said he had removed a few "very disruptive" people from the administration after arriving in the West Wing, and was struck by the "intense personal ambition" of some of his staffers.

... ... ...

Watch the full interview below:

https://www.bloomberg.com/multimedia/api/embed/iframe?id=8dbaab6b-121a-494b-9a03-5389330a01de

He–Mene Mox Mox , 2 minutes ago link

I would have more respect for Kelly, if he bayoneted both Bolton and Pompeo on his way out the door. That would have been the "Marine" thing to do, and would have been a greater service to the country and the world.

[May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS) by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.

The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.

One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.

This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this. For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant.

By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:

" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: " Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."

The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research. This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets-- Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump.

Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums. . . .

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "

I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported.

Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive:

But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

Posted at 05:33 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink | Comments (9)


turcopolier , 07 May 2019 at 09:53 AM

Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
blue peacock said in reply to turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 11:19 AM
Col. Lang

I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock... , 07 May 2019 at 01:31 PM
bp,

The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but, there again, they may 'compose', which is not.

Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.

Alcatraz, perhaps?

blue peacock said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 08 May 2019 at 12:17 AM
David,

Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution" to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance. But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.

I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-pt-1/

akaPatience -> turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 05:27 PM
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos' ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved. No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Rick Merlotti , 07 May 2019 at 12:14 PM
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front.
O'Shawnessey , 07 May 2019 at 02:44 PM
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
sandra adie , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
akaPatience , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?

[May 08, 2019] Bolton Means Another War for Israel is Coming

Notable quotes:
"... War is likely to start in the Middle East as Iran, Lebanon and Syria are relatively soft targets with only limited capability to strike back. As neocon pundit Michael Ledeen put it , " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ." ..."
Mar 26, 2018 | ahtribune.com

Excerpt from the article by Philip Giraldi

Israel controls Trump

With the appointment of leading neoconservative John Bolton as National Security Advisor, the Zionist war-party takeover of the White House is nearly complete. With Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, Nikki Haley at the U.N. and now Bolton whispering in the President's ear, we have a fully endowed war cabinet that will make sure the Mullahs, Russkies and Rocket Man begin to pay attention. As Haley laid down the law in the United Nations recently, "Our patience is not unlimited."

Bolton, the point man for Israeli-American casino billionaire and GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson , will be the spark plug that ignites a new round of warfare on behalf of Israel. Bolton has long been planning to attack Iran. He secretly and illegally met with Israel's Mossad intelligence service in 2003-4 when he was in the State Department under George W. Bush to lay the groundwork for such a conflict. Today, right-wing Israelis are certainly cheering his appointment. Naftali Bennett, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, has already praised the move, calling Bolton "an extraordinary security expert, experienced diplomat and a stalwart friend of Israel".

War is likely to start in the Middle East as Iran, Lebanon and Syria are relatively soft targets with only limited capability to strike back. As neocon pundit Michael Ledeen put it , " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ." There have been numerous indications that Israel is preparing for war. Its planning clearly includes deliberately involving the United States in the conflict, turning American soldiers into de facto hostages, with U.S. casualties guaranteeing Washington's direct and immediate involvement in the fighting.

Largely unknown to the American public, the United States has just completed the largest ever joint military exercises with Israel even though it has no defense agreement or treaty with Tel Aviv. That is, in part, because military alliances are dependent on an attack on one partner mandating support from all parties to the agreement. Israel has balked at such an arrangement because it cannot define its own borders, which are constantly expanding.

The recent maneuvers featured scenarios in which U.S. troops fought Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians in a mock-up Arab village to defend Israel. Washington's particularly vulnerability vis-à-vis Israel derives from the recent opening of a U.S. permanent facility at Mashabim Air Base in the Negev Desert.

It is described as a base within a base, completely contained by an Israeli air force installation and operating "under Israeli military directives," meaning that if the facility is attacked Americans will likely die. It has no function in support of U.S. regional interests but is instead a shell facility with a few dozen airmen that can be ramped up considerably if Israel goes to war and calls for American assistance. Together with billions of dollars-worth of U.S. military equipment that is pre-positioned in Israel and can be used by the Israelis as needed, it is all about supporting Israeli war-making and has nothing to do with American security or defense interests except as a tripwire to bring about U.S. involvement.

For that reason, all of the above is something more than just the latest "we have to support Israel" gimmick. The American soldiers and airmen who are now based in Israel are the sacrificial lambs that will guarantee U.S. entry into a war that Israel intends to start, make no mistake about that.

When Israel attacks Syria and/or Lebanon, as it clearly intends to do, Hezbollah will retaliate with its missiles, some of which will surely be directed towards the Mashabim Air Base, which will be targeted to inhibit the base's ability to bomb Lebanon. And once Washington is well and truly engaged in what is referred to as "force protection," Israel will undoubtedly widen the conflict by drawing Iran in through attacks on that country's identified bases in Syria that are supporting the al-Assad government. The bigger war will suddenly become America's responsibility after Israel inevitably proves itself incapable of handling the escalation.

[May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS) by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.

The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.

One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.

This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this. For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant.

By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:

" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: " Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."

The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research. This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets-- Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump.

Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums. . . .

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "

I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported.

Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive:

But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

Posted at 05:33 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink | Comments (9)


turcopolier , 07 May 2019 at 09:53 AM

Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
blue peacock said in reply to turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 11:19 AM
Col. Lang

I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock... , 07 May 2019 at 01:31 PM
bp,

The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but, there again, they may 'compose', which is not.

Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.

Alcatraz, perhaps?

blue peacock said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 08 May 2019 at 12:17 AM
David,

Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution" to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance. But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.

I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-pt-1/

akaPatience -> turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 05:27 PM
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos' ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved. No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Rick Merlotti , 07 May 2019 at 12:14 PM
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front.
O'Shawnessey , 07 May 2019 at 02:44 PM
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
sandra adie , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
akaPatience , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?

[May 08, 2019] Reporter INSIDE Venezuelan Embassy Under Siege! w/Anya Parampil

May 08, 2019 | www.youtube.com

The Invisible Man , 18 hours ago

Funny how a comedian is the truth teller here. This is literally clown world

samslog , 17 hours ago

Brave woman. Solidarity from France. Thank you Jimmy!

crownretro , 17 hours ago (edited)

"They want to play government they way I used to play house as a little girl" Brilliant description of these puppets Stay strong Anya!

david august , 18 hours ago

Another day, another coup. Keep up the good work Jimmy.

Steve Warwick , 16 hours ago (edited)

Anya you're doing great journalism work on Venezuela, stay safe!

SFx , 17 hours ago

Uprising? The only uprising is the small one in Marco Rubio's pants.

MexicanosDelMundo , 17 hours ago

This is getting out of hand and increasingly dangerous...

Dave Saenz , 17 hours ago

They are trying to "WMD's" us into another war with their blatant lies.

RP McMurphy , 18 hours ago

50+ years of Allegiance to the Petrodollar...

luke maxwell , 16 hours ago

In a Time of Universal Deceit, Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act - George Orwell.

Katalin McCune , 18 hours ago

I think your videos are remarkable.

Otaku Senpai , 17 hours ago

Good job Dore. MSM sucks. Dont expect them to rreport this.

Gail Doyle , 16 hours ago

Not one other news source is reporting this! Thank you, Jimmy and Anya.

Z ZZ , 16 hours ago

Mike Pompeo. The fat and sweaty face of US faux humanitarianism.

vinm300 , 17 hours ago

23:21 look at Jimmy's face, he is 100% sympathetic to the protestors. That face is the definition of empathy.

R. Scott MacLeod , 17 hours ago

There is only one reason the media goes along with the military lap dogs....$$$$

Chris Petryk , 17 hours ago

can you have Anya on once a week, please? thank you

Johnny Espinal , 15 hours ago

its truly disgraceful how evil our government IS

Esen B. , 17 hours ago

US did the same to Russian consulate and embassies since launch of Russiagate.

Frank Cardoza , 17 hours ago

They wrote the book on corporate media lapdog-ism. in Venezuela years ago!

SNAKEPIT359 , 18 hours ago

As usual. When it suits, the rule book goes out the window. But equally when it suits they will quote rule after rule from the very same book when it suits their agenda.

david Urrea , 18 hours ago

Blowhorns can cause seizures the people inside need ear protection asap

[May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors

Highly recommended!
Apr 05, 2019 | dandelionsalad.wordpress.com

RT America on Apr 3, 2019

Chris Hedges, host of "On Contact," joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the role of the Democratic establishment in the "Russiagate" media frenzy. He argues that it was an unsustainable narrative given the actions of the White House but that the Democratic elite are unable to face their own role in the economic and social crises for which they are in large part to blame. They also discuss NATO's expansionary tendencies and how profitable it is for US defense contractors.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VkoH3l7c5cI

From the archives:

Barbara Mullin | April 7, 2019 at 10:29 AM

Years ago I kept hearing from the newsmedia that Russia was the "enemy".

Frontline had a show about "Putin's Brain". Even Free Speech TV shows like Bill Press and "The Nation" authors like Eric Alterman push the Hillary style warmongering and do nothing to expose the outright lies out there.

These are supposed to be thought outside of the corporate mainstream newsmedia. The emphasis only on Trump and Fox News is totally hypocritical.

[May 07, 2019] Syria - Russian And Syrian Airforce Prepare The Ground For An Attack On Idlib Province

May 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Krollchem , May 6, 2019 3:53:54 PM | link

The US and Great Britain are trying to economically cripple Syria via cutoff of oil supplies as "The Syrian government is scrambling to deal with its worst fuel crisis since the war began in 2011, aggravated by U.S. sanctions targeting oil shipments to Damascus."
https://www.apnews.com/a99a22ad2598474ca39a7d8cde560c31

"(Syrian) Prime Minister Emad Khamis, quoted in local press, said Iranian tankers supplying Syria had been halted due to U.S. sanctions on Tehran.
Oil tankers bound for Syria have been barred from using Egypt's Suez Canal for six months, he added."
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/sanctions-on-damascus-and-tehran-have-led-to-serious-fuel-shortages-in-syria/29880330.html

"Under the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Great Britain, no Iranian oil tankers are allowed to transit the Suez Canal if they are destined for a Syrian port, a Syrian military source told Al-Masdar News this morning."

"The source said Iranian oil tankers are allowed to enter Mediterranean waters if the ship is destined for Turkey; however, due to U.S. and U.K. sanctions, the vessels cannot transit again if they dock at a Syrian port."
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syria-says-iranian-oil-tankers-blocked-at-suez-canal-if-shipment-is-destined-for-syrian-port/

US news sources confirm the Syrian Prime Minister's statement.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sanctions-hit-irans-oil-lifeline-to-syria-11553267539

Thus the Egyptian government is apparently technically lying about their role in the sanction when they state "Egypt's government denied Wednesday banning the passage of oil tankers to Syria through the Suez Canal. Navigation in the canal is going according to international conventions and treaties that guarantee the right of safe navigation to all tankers without discrimination."
https://syrianobserver.com/EN/news/49720/cairo-denies-syrian-accusations-on-banning-iranian-oil-tanker-passage.html

Consequently, Iran is shipping Syria oil via tanker trucks.
"1200 Iranian tankers loaded with oil products reached Syria through Iraq in the past week," Al- Iraqia reports, adding, "The number of Iranian oil tankers are expected to reach 1500 per week, and after providing current Syrian needs, they will be fixed at 500 tankers per week."

"Syria consumes 100,000 barrels of oil a day and produces about 24,000 barrels, Mustapha Hammouriyyeh, head of the Syrian fuel distribution company, told Al-Ikhbariyya TV."
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-reportedly-shipping-oil-to-syria-overland-as-suez-not-accessible-/29883951.html

To try to get around US sanctions Iran has reflagged their oil tankers from Panama to Iran registry and in many cases have switched off their AIS transponders.
https://lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com/LL1126731/Iran-oil-exports-on-the-rise-as-national-tanker-fleet-reflags


Christian J Chuba , May 6, 2019 4:09:17 PM | link

Hospitals being bombed

A sign that this attack is serious is that already the propagandists are already crying about Hospitals being bombed ... https://www.yahoo.com/news/violence-escalates-northwest-syria-claiming-more-lives-112458233.html

After Idlib ...

The Syrians will be able to take back the oil fields from the 5%.

Krollchem , May 6, 2019 5:23:33 PM | link

james@24

Those that oppose US and Israeli world domination has to buy time and promote economic collapse within the Empire. Eventually the Sparta like militarism will bankrupt both countries. The wild card is Venezuela - if they can get their hands on this oil they, and their allies, can continue to spread chaos for a couple more decades. As it now stands the US proven oil reserves are between 36-39 billion barrels and the US is consuming that oil at a rate of about 4.3 billion barrels/year.

The US is also putting pressure on Turkey in hopes of deposing the current government that supports the GNA in Libya and opposes the gulf states and Saudi Arabia. Turkey needs the Iranian heavy crude for its Tupras refinery. Substituting heavy crude from Russia is an issue as Russia has already contracted with Italy and Greece to supply heavy crude to their refineries.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/04/turkey-iran-usa-ankara-seeks-alternative-sources-iranian-oil.html

psychohistorian , May 6, 2019 5:51:51 PM | link
B wrote
"The Syrian oilfields, which could produce enough to keep the country running, are under control of the U.S. proxy forces. The U.S. prohibited to sell that oil to the Syrian government."

It is about the money. It is another spinning plate trying to be war just like Iran, Venezuela, etc. And when the money music stops (which is only when enough nations stop buying US Treasuries) the elite are going to say that the poor should pay for those attempts at war.

I like the comment by frances above about the drunk on the canal boat and China/Russia/et al are trying to keep us alive, hoping the drunk passes out.....and we all get to watch and learn how not to run a world where the drunk owns the punch bowl.

[May 07, 2019] Why neoliberals and pro-Israel Democrats like Pelosi and Schumer are attacking Trump?

Trump does not touch their milt-cow --- the defense budget which now exceed one trillion (see America's Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think)
Trump does not touch their foreign policy: appointment of Bolton and Pompeo means complete and humiliating capitulation to neocons and globalists.
Trump was instrumental in reelecting Netanyahu and give several gifts to Israel.
Despite Hillary fiasco Pelosi managed to cling to power. Thanks to Mueller shenanigans which put deep suspicion on the results of 2016 election which were a crushing defeat of Clinton democrats (DemoRats - or neoliberal wing of Democratic Party) this neoliberal who most probably outlived her political usefulness was not replaced.
Why they are still attacking Trump. What is the logic behind this sustained effort to impeach him not matter what are the costs and with full understanding that President Pence is much worse ?
This is a real mystery of the US political life.
Notable quotes:
"... "What we've seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown, an inability to accept the bottom-line conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel's report," he said. ..."
May 07, 2019 | thehill.com

Republican pollster Conor Maguire said in an interview that aired Tuesday on "What America's Thinking" that the divide over special counsel Robert Mueller 's report into Russia's election meddling is an example of American political tribalism.

"It is really tribalism," Maguire, a senior strategist at WPA Intelligence, told Hill.TV's Jamal Simmons on Monday.

"You are either supporting or you're not based on your party," he continued. "Interesting to see independents really split pretty much 50-50 as well."

Democrats have continued to dive deeper into Mueller's probe into Moscow's election interference, demanding the full, unredacted report from Attorney General William Barr , and have called to hear from Mueller himself.

The rift has led to a growing gulf between House Democrats and the Justice Department, with House Judiciary Committee Democrats scheduling a vote to hold Barr in contempt.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday the case was closed related to Mueller's probe.

"What we've seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown, an inability to accept the bottom-line conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel's report," he said.

[May 07, 2019] What's in a Cartoon by Philip Giraldi

May 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Israel and its friends in Washington and New York never miss the opportunity to exploit the news cycle to tighten the screws a bit more, rendering any criticism of the Jewish state unacceptable or even illegal. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has been persistently demanding that what he describes as anti-Semitic speech be criminalized. Danon declared that "The time for talking and having a conversation is over. What Israel and the Jewish community around the world demand is action – and now."

How exactly Danon would enforce his definition of acceptable speech is not clear, but the demands to eliminate any negative commentary regarding the holocaust or on Israel and/or the behavior of diaspora Jews have been promoted for some time, resulting in laws in Europe that inflict harsh punish on those who dare to speak out. The latest incident in the campaign to eliminate the First Amendment in America took place oddly enough on the pages of the New York Times , which, in its international edition, ran a cartoon by a Portuguese cartoonist showing a dog with the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a leash leading a caricature of Donald Trump wearing a yarmulke and a blind man's glasses. The Netanyahu-dog had a tag on its collar featuring a Star of David.

There are several ways to interpret the cartoon. It is, of course, an insult to dogs to have them depicted in such a fashion as to suggest that they might behave like the monstrous Israeli Prime Minister. No dog would sink so low. One observer , commenting from a dog's point of view, noted that "We canines share that saying that 'the eyes are the window to the soul.' Look into our eyes and you'll see love and trust. Look into Netanyahu's eyes you see cunning and deceit so why stick his head on our body?"

On the other hand, one might see in the cartoon a serious message, that Netanyahu has been able to "wag the dog" with an ignorant and impulsive United States president who is so desirous of pandering to Jews both in Israel and in the U.S. that he is blind to his obligation to do what is best for the American people. Trump, who is the first president within memory not to own a dog, would rather stroke the head of the disgusting casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson than an intelligent and loyal Labrador retriever.


Paw , says: May 7, 2019 at 4:17 am GMT

This is nothing new. In communist country Czechoslovakia 1948-1989 media every day wrote, several times and they repeated it in TV about "with USSR all the time and never otherwise" And any criticism od the state and the Party was crime.
Fran Macadam , says: May 7, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT
The editorial cartoon was well within the usual and acceptable traditions of political comment. It depicted with the usual license for caricature a political figure being led down the garden path by another, and mocking him for it. What's the big deal?
Robert Dolan , says: May 7, 2019 at 6:43 am GMT
Trump has not built a wall.
We have more immigrants coming in than at any time in American history.
We experienced a record number of opioid deaths in 2018 and the drugs still flow freely.
Trump is attempting to force the US into multiple wars that are of no benefit to us.
Trump bumped stocks.
Trump is allowing all of his supporters (many of them now former supporters) to be banned from the internet.
Trump is allowing his supporters to be arrested and imprisoned for supporting him.
Trump is escalating tensions with Russia for no reason.
Trump has not pulled out of NATO.
Trump's replacement of NAFTA is the same thing as NAFTA.

Meanwhile, he has done more for Israel than any president ever in history.

Trump ended the Iran deal.
Trump attacked Assad over fake gassings.
Trump stopped aid to Palestine.
Trump hired John Bolton as his national security advisor.
Trump turned the US ambassador to the UN into a second Israeli ambassador to the UN.
Trump closed off all official communications and diplomatic relations with Palestine.
Trump sent $38 billion in US taxpayer money to Israel.
Trump made a $110 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel.
Trump refuses to pull troops out of Syria.
Trump somehow transferred the Syrian Golan Heights to Israel.
Trump is now apparently planning a war with Iran.

Paul , says: May 7, 2019 at 6:44 am GMT
"And yes, a few million Benjamins scattered around would have underlined why Trump misbehaves as he does."

The New York real estate man Donald Trump is always aware of what side his bread is buttered on. Follow the shekels!

Paul , says: May 7, 2019 at 7:00 am GMT
Donald Trump is considered off limits when doing Israel's bidding. On anything else he is considered fair game.
Been_there_done_that , says: May 7, 2019 at 8:25 am GMT
Would those knee-jerk critics have considered the political cartoon less outrageous or offensive if The Master was not blind and the head of the dog on the leash had the features of Donald Trump instead?
Harold Smith , says: May 7, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT
Actually the cartoon is somewhat misleading, IMO. It's unjustifiably generous to the orange clown, because what the orange clown does, he does knowingly and willingly, not because he's ignorant and impressionable. IOW, orange clown is evil, not blind.
Philip Giraldi , says: May 7, 2019 at 12:58 pm GMT
@JoaoAlfaiate Correct. I just posted this over on Facebook: Game over. The U.S. will now base its foreign policy, not on national interests, but on the interests of Israel and its cabal in the United States. This was an inevitable progression when you equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and then appoint a high government official to punish countries on that basis. And, one might add, the First Amendment is also under attack by the same folks to make illegal even the mildest criticism of Israel here at home. Will this ever end?

https://news.yahoo.com/u-may-review-ties-countries-deemed-anti-israel-142945941.html?fbclid=IwAR2j9eRtoo4DMMo5YZLBwFpB5Tvm79l1khxrImA_KdHr1Yi6y83HgaN-XTo

turtle , says: May 7, 2019 at 2:05 pm GMT
@Philip Giraldi

appoint a high government official to punish countries on that basis.

The Vice President of the U.S. has publicly declared his primary allegiance is to a foreign power.
Which foreign power is irrelevant.

Agent76 , says: May 7, 2019 at 2:08 pm GMT
May 30, 2018 The Occupation of the American Mind

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world -- except the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/dP0-YohJR-g?feature=oembed

[May 07, 2019] Venezuela and Binary Choice - Craig Murray

May 07, 2019 | craigmurray.org.uk

When a CIA-backed military coup is attempted by a long term CIA puppet, roared on by John Bolton and backed with the offer of Blackwater mercenaries, in the country with the world's largest oil reserves, I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing which side I am on.

Juan Guaido has been groomed for 15 years as a long-term CIA project. His coup attempt yesterday, which so far appears to have stalled, was the culmination of these efforts to return Venezuela's oil reserves to US hegemony.

It is strange how the urgent installation of liberal democracy by force correlates so often with oil reserves not aligned to the USA, as in Libya, Iraq or Venezuela, while countries with massive oil reserves which permit US military domination and align with the West and Israel can be as undemocratic as they wish, eg Saudi Arabia. Venezuela is an imperfect democracy but it is far, far more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia and with a much better human rights record. The hypocrisy of Western media and politicians is breathtaking.

Hypocrisy and irony are soulmates, and there are multiple levels of irony in seeing the "liberal" commentators who were cheering on an undisguised military coup, then complaining loudly that people are being injured or killed now their side is losing. Yesterday the MSM had no difficulty in calling the attempted coup what anybody with eyes and ears could see it plainly was, an attempted military coup. Today, miraculously, the MSM line is no coup attempt happened at all, it was just a spontaneous unarmed protest, and it is the evil government of Venezuela which attempts to portray it as a coup. BBC Breakfast this morning had the headline "President Maduro has accused the opposition of mounting a coup attempt" Yet there is no doubt at all that, as a matter of plain fact, that is what happened.

The MSM today is full of video of water cannons against "protestors" and a horrible video of a military vehicle ramming a group. But it has all been very carefully edited to exclude hours of footage of the same military vehicles being pelted and set alight with molotov cocktails, and shot at. The presentation has been truly shocking.

In any civilised country, attempting to mount a military coup would lead to incarceration for life, and that is what should now happen to Juan Guaido. The attempt by the West to protect their puppet by pretending the failed military coup never happened, must be resisted, if only in the cause of intellectual honesty.

The resort to violence forces binary choice. I have been and am a critic of Maduro in many respects. I believe the constitutional changes to bypass Parliament were wrong, and the indirectly elected Constituent Assembly is not a good form of democracy. Venezuela does have a rampant corruption problem. US sanctions exacerbate but are not the root cause of economic mismanagement. There are human rights failings. But Chavez made revolutionary changes in educating and empowering the poor, and it is a far better governed country for the mass of its population than it would ever be under a US installed CIA puppet regime. Maduro was legitimately elected. The attempt at violence forces a binary choice.

I know which side I am on. It is not Guaido and the CIA.

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[May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors

Highly recommended!
Apr 05, 2019 | dandelionsalad.wordpress.com

RT America on Apr 3, 2019

Chris Hedges, host of "On Contact," joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the role of the Democratic establishment in the "Russiagate" media frenzy. He argues that it was an unsustainable narrative given the actions of the White House but that the Democratic elite are unable to face their own role in the economic and social crises for which they are in large part to blame. They also discuss NATO's expansionary tendencies and how profitable it is for US defense contractors.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VkoH3l7c5cI

From the archives:

Barbara Mullin | April 7, 2019 at 10:29 AM

Years ago I kept hearing from the newsmedia that Russia was the "enemy".

Frontline had a show about "Putin's Brain". Even Free Speech TV shows like Bill Press and "The Nation" authors like Eric Alterman push the Hillary style warmongering and do nothing to expose the outright lies out there.

These are supposed to be thought outside of the corporate mainstream newsmedia. The emphasis only on Trump and Fox News is totally hypocritical.

[May 06, 2019] Trump's top three donors

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?" ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Trump's top 3 donors are:

  1. Sheldon Adelson
  2. Paul Singer
  3. Bernard Marcus

Are any of these 3 individuals "evangelical Christians?"
Or is there some other aspect of their identity/ heritage that they have in common?

Some might even go so far as to characterize the common leftist claim that fanatical GOP Israeli-Firstism is driven by evangelical Christians as a "long-debunked semitic canard."

Note also the alternative. Hillary's top donor was that notorious "evangelical Christian," Haim Saban.

Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?"

A lot of other "evangelical Christians" among Hillary's top donors, too.

... ... ...

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/top-five-clinton-donors-are-jewish-campaign-tally-shows-1.5453781

[May 06, 2019] Trump's top three donors

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?" ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Trump's top 3 donors are:

  1. Sheldon Adelson
  2. Paul Singer
  3. Bernard Marcus

Are any of these 3 individuals "evangelical Christians?"
Or is there some other aspect of their identity/ heritage that they have in common?

Some might even go so far as to characterize the common leftist claim that fanatical GOP Israeli-Firstism is driven by evangelical Christians as a "long-debunked semitic canard."

Note also the alternative. Hillary's top donor was that notorious "evangelical Christian," Haim Saban.

Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?"

A lot of other "evangelical Christians" among Hillary's top donors, too.

... ... ...

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/top-five-clinton-donors-are-jewish-campaign-tally-shows-1.5453781

[May 06, 2019] Think of bomb-bomb-bomb as OPEC by other means

Notable quotes:
"... ...The Saudi-led OPEC+ production cut strategy is still in place, but it is partly successful due to the negative repercussions of the sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. The high level of compliance with the agreement (128%) is based on the loss of these particular volumes. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Russia, are sticking to their roles, cutting as needed. Optimism about Iraq is based on uncertain assumptions, while Libya's overall situation is highly volatile. ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The removal of U.S. waivers for leading oil importers of Iranian oil and gas is putting the Tehran regime under severe pressure. While Trump's target of reducing Iranian production to zero is unrealistic, the impact of the sanctions is undeniable.

...The Saudi-led OPEC+ production cut strategy is still in place, but it is partly successful due to the negative repercussions of the sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. The high level of compliance with the agreement (128%) is based on the loss of these particular volumes. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Russia, are sticking to their roles, cutting as needed. Optimism about Iraq is based on uncertain assumptions, while Libya's overall situation is highly volatile.

...In the coming weeks, as analysts focus on production figures, storage volumes and demand, OPEC will be focusing on defusing pressure to increase production, while at the same time the Saudi-led faction will likely confront the Tehran-Venezuela (and possibly Iraqi) axis. Iran has openly threatened to undermine OPEC's stability if no support can be gathered before the June meeting. In several statements to the press, Iran's oil Minister has warned that OPEC is in danger of collapse. Tehran threatens at present to take all necessary measures to block oil and gas flows from OPEC members that are supporting the U.S. sanctions regime. At the same time, Tehran has warned to take measures against countries trying to fill in the supply gap left by Iran. Zanganeh reiterated the latter during a meeting with OPEC secretary general Barkindo in Tehran. Barkindo reacted by saying that OPEC will do its utmost to depoliticize oil and gas policies of the organization. OPEC's SG statements however look very bleak in light of the growing heat in the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

scraping_by , 4 hours ago link

Much of the shambolic belligerence and pointless aggression of Not-A-Neocon Trump can be seen as cutting down world oil production in service of higher prices for SA's royals and, a very distant second, US shale producers. Venezuela isn't an existential threat to the US, not like Goldman Sachs, but embargoes on oil would keep the price up. Iran's not an existential threat, but oil embargoes... Syria's not an existential threat but putting the oil on the black market...

Think of bomb-bomb-bomb as OPEC by other means.

[May 06, 2019] Trump is Zionist and neocon' that's why he hired Bolton, Pompeo and Abrams.

Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams are Trumps hires and only a moron could fail to recognise that they are neocons stuck in the regime change model of US foreign policy. Venezuela hasn't gone away and if history is any clue, they're going to double down on their initial stupidity. ..."
"... There is only one party, the Pentagon Party, and judging from their $750B budget, $20T 'accounting error', 60% of federal discretionary spend, zero audits and successful scare campaigns that are building up to another Cold War, I'd say they are doing just fine thank you very much. ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

curbjob , 1 hour ago link

The key for him now is to undo a lot of the damage that's been done by his staff, disloyal cabinet members and recalcitrant bureaucracy who are all wedded deeply to the old way things are done.

Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams are Trumps hires and only a moron could fail to recognise that they are neocons stuck in the regime change model of US foreign policy. Venezuela hasn't gone away and if history is any clue, they're going to double down on their initial stupidity.

medium giraffe , 46 minutes ago link

There is only one party, the Pentagon Party, and judging from their $750B budget, $20T 'accounting error', 60% of federal discretionary spend, zero audits and successful scare campaigns that are building up to another Cold War, I'd say they are doing just fine thank you very much.

As for Sheldon Adelson's pet chihuahua telling him to get stuffed? Well that would make for a very cold day in hell.

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
"... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
"... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC) writes:

"I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind. Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy, arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:

https://youtu.be/E96084YuYyE?t=812 .

His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).

I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"

"The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed doing in the Golan Heights!

"P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT

THE WHOLE MUELLER INVESTIGATION WAS A SCAM.

The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats, Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called contacts with Russians.

They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens before the election, so it is illegal.

What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?

They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was allegedly broken itself is illegal.

It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act

This law is a joke, because Trump never “negotiated” with any foreign govt. on behalf of the USA, and Russia is not having a dispute with the USA.

Most importantly, the Logan Act is unconstitutional.

That is why nobody has been prosecuted under it–for decades!

So any American who posts on rt.com or on an Iranian website suggesting peace is technically violating the Logan Act.

Any newspapers that publishes articles about Iran or Russia or Syria and suggesting peace or war is technically violating the Logan Act.

So why are all they not in jail?

Because the Logan Act is unconstitutional and it violates the first amendment.

Go, say, “I will talk to the Russian govt. all I want and promote world peace.”

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
ADDENDUM: NOBODY HAS EVER BEEN CONVICTED UNDER THE LOGAN ACT.

This is stated in the wikipedia article I put the link for above.

In fact, the wikipedia article also talks about its unconstitutionality.

Sin City Milla , says: May 2, 2019 at 5:11 am GMT
@Rational

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been ‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.

One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being ‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”

The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say.

[May 05, 2019] The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen

Highly recommended!
Pentagon serves Wall Street and is controlled by CIA which is actually can be viewed as a Wall Street arm as well.
Notable quotes:
"... This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. ..."
"... General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . ..."
"... The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence. ..."
"... If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. ..."
"... Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM. ..."
"... Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The two-star army general strode across the stage in his rumpled combat fatigues, almost like George Patton -- all that was missing was the cigar and riding crop. It was 2017 and I was in the audience, just another mid-level major attending yet another mandatory lecture in the auditorium of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The general then commanded one of the Army's two true armored divisions and had plenty of his tanks forward deployed in Eastern Europe, all along the Russian frontier. Frankly, most CGSC students couldn't stand these talks. Substance always seemed lacking, as each general reminded us to "take care of soldiers" and "put the mission first," before throwing us a few nuggets of conventional wisdom on how to be good staff officers should we get assigned to his vaunted command.

This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. Generals can be like that -- utterly "in-the-box," "can-do" thinkers. They take pride in how little they discuss policy and politics, even when they command tens of thousands of troops and control entire districts, provinces, or countries. There is some value in this -- we'd hardly want active generals meddling in U.S. domestic affairs. But they nonetheless can take the whole "aw shucks" act a bit too far.

General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . Of course, it was all cloaked in the macho bravado so common among generals who think that talking like sergeants will win them street cred with the troops. (That's not their job anymore, mind you.) He said nothing, of course, about the role of mid- and long-range nuclear weapons that could be the catastrophic consequence of an unnecessary war with the Russian Bear.

I got to thinking about that talk recently as I reflected in wonder at how the latest generation of mainstream "liberals" loves to fawn over generals, admirals -- any flag officers, really -- as alternatives to President Donald Trump. The irony of that alliance should not be lost on us. It's built on the standard Democratic fear of looking "soft" on terrorism, communism, or whatever-ism, and their visceral, blinding hatred of Trump. Some of this is understandable. Conservative Republicans masterfully paint liberals as "weak sisters" on foreign policy, and Trump's administration is, well, a wild card in world affairs.

The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence.

If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. More of the same is all they know: their careers were built on fighting "terror" anywhere it raised its evil head. Some, though no longer most, still subscribe to the faux intellectualism of General Petraeus and his legion of Coindinistas , who never saw a problem that a little regime change, followed by expert counterinsurgency, couldn't solve. Forget that they've been proven wrong time and again and can count zero victories since 2002. Generals (remember this!) are never held accountable.

Flag officers also rarely seem to recognize that they owe civilian policymakers more than just tactical "how" advice. They ought to be giving "if" advice -- if we invade Iraq, it will take 500,000 troops to occupy the place, and even then we'll ultimately destabilize the country and region, justify al-Qaeda's worldview, kick off a nationalist insurgency, and become immersed in an unwinnable war. Some, like Army Chief General Eric Shinseki and CENTCOM head John Abizaid, seemed to know this deep down. Still, Shinseki quietly retired after standing up to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Abizaid rode out his tour to retirement.

Trump Scores, Breaks Generals' 50-Year War Record Afghanistan and America's 'Indispensable Nation' Hubris

Generals also love to tell the American people that victory is "just around the corner," or that there's a "light at the end of the tunnel." General William Westmoreland used the very same language when predicting imminent victory in Vietnam. Two months later, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong unleashed the largest uprising of the war, the famed Tet Offensive.

Take Afghanistan as exhibit A: 17 or so generals have now commanded U.S. troops in this, America's longest war. All have commanded within the system and framework of their predecessors. Sure, they made marginal operational and tactical changes -- some preferred surges, others advising, others counterterror -- but all failed to achieve anything close to victory, instead laundering failure into false optimism. None refused to play the same-old game or question the very possibility of victory in landlocked, historically xenophobic Afghanistan. That would have taken real courage, which is in short supply among senior officers.

Exhibit B involves Trump's former cabinet generals -- National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelley, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis -- whom adoring and desperate liberals took as saviors and canonized as the supposed adults in the room . They were no such thing. The generals' triumvirate consisted ultimately of hawkish conventional thinkers married to the dogma of American exceptionalism and empire. Period.

Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM.

Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.

Helping Saudi Arabia terror bomb Yemen and starve 85,000 children to death? Mattis rebuked Congress and supported that. He never considered resigning in opposition to that war crime. No, he fell on his "courageous" sword over downgrading a losing 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Not to mention he came to Trump's cabinet straight from the board of contracting giant General Dynamics, where he collected hundreds of thousands of military-industrial complex dollars.

Then there was John Kelley, whom Press Secretary Sarah Sanders implied was above media questioning because he was once a four-star marine general. And there's McMaster, another lauded intellectual who once wrote an interesting book and taught history at West Point. Yet he still drew all the wrong conclusions in his famous book on Vietnam -- implying that more troops, more bombing, and a mass invasion of North Vietnam could have won the war. Furthermore, his work with Mattis on Trump's unhinged , imperial National Defense Strategy proved that he was, after all, just another devotee of American hyper-interventionism.

So why reflect on these and other Washington generals? It's simple: liberal veneration for these, and seemingly all, military flag officers is a losing proposition and a formula for more intervention, possible war with other great powers, and the creeping militarization of the entire U.S. government. We know what the generals expect -- and potentially want -- for America's foreign policy future.

Just look at the curriculum at the various war and staff colleges from Kansas to Rhode Island. Ten years ago, they were all running war games focused on counterinsurgency in the Middle East and Africa. Now those same schools are drilling for future "contingencies" in the Baltic, Caucasus, and in the South China Sea. Older officers have always lamented the end of the Cold War "good old days," when men were men and the battlefield was "simple." A return to a state of near-war with Russia and China is the last thing real progressives should be pushing for in 2020.

The bottom line is this: the faint hint that mainstream libs would relish a Six Days in May style military coup is more than a little disturbing, no matter what you think of Trump. Democrats must know the damage such a move would do to our ostensible republic. I say: be a patriot. Insist on civilian control of foreign affairs. Even if that means two more years of The Donald.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to Truthdig . His work has also appeared in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times , The Nation , Tom Dispatch , and The Hill . He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet .

[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

[May 05, 2019] Viva to another jolly little war by Eric Margolis

May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.

... ... ...

Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez and Maduro governments – and US economic sabotage. But my first law of international affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs and elect its own crooks or idiots.'

[May 05, 2019] Another Jolly Little War by Eric Margolis

Notable quotes:
"... We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory. ..."
"... Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found freedom and democracy. ..."
"... Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy. ..."
May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.

This week, leading US neocons openly threatened that if the CIA's latest attempts to stage a coup to overthrow Venezuela's Maduro government failed, Washington might send in the Marines.

Well, the coup was a big fiasco and the Venezuelan army didn't overthrow President Maduro. The CIA also failed to overthrow governments in Moscow, Tehran and Damascus. Its only 'success' to date has been in overthrowing Ukraine's pro-Moscow government and putting a bunch of corrupt clowns in its place at a cost near $10 billion.

The US has not waged a major successful war since World War II – unless you count invading Grenada, Panama and Haiti, or bombing the hell out of Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya. That's a sobering thought given the Pentagon's recent announcement that it is cutting back on little colonial wars (aka 'the war on terror') to get ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.

Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez and Maduro governments – and US economic sabotage. But my first law of international affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs and elect its own crooks or idiots.'

Now, however, the administration's frenzied neocons want to start a war against Venezuela, a large, developed nation of 32.7 million, at the same time we are threatening war against Iran, interfering all around Africa, and confronting Russia, China and perhaps North Korea. Large parts of the Mideast and Afghanistan lie in ruins thanks to our 'liberation' campaigns.

Invading Venezuela would not be much of a problem for the US military: half the population hates the current government and might welcome the Americans. Venezuela's military has only limited combat value. Right-wing regimes in neighboring Colombia and Brazil might join the invasion.

But what then? Recall Iraq. The US punched through the feeble Iraqi Army whose strength had been wildly exaggerated by the media. Once US and British forces settled in to occupation duties, guerilla forces made their life difficult and bloody. Iraqi resistance continues today, sixteen years later. The same would likely happen in Venezuela.

There is deep anti-American sentiment in Latin America that existed long before Col. Chavez. Recall, for example, the large anti-American riots that greeted Vice President Nixon's visit to Caracas in 1958.

'Yankees Go Home' is a rallying cry for much of Latin America. Blundering into Venezuela, another nation about which the Trump administration knows or understands little, would stir up a hornet's next. Their ham-handed efforts to punish Cuba and whip up the far right Cuban-American vote in Florida would galvanize anti-American anger across Latin America. Beware the ghost of Fidel.

ORDER IT NOW

Talks over Venezuela are underway between Washington and Moscow. Neither country has any major interest in Venezuela. Moscow is stirring the pot there to retaliate for growing US involvement in Russia's backyard and Syria. Both the US and Russia should get the hell out of Venezuela and mind their own business.

Instead, we hear crazy proposals to send 5,000 mercenaries to overthrow the Maduro regime. How well did the wide-scale use of US-financed mercenaries work in Iraq and Afghanistan? A complete flop. The only thing they did competently was wash dishes at our bases, murder civilians, and play junior Rambos.

For those who don't like the American Raj, a US invasion of Venezuela would mark a step forward in the crumbling of the empire. More aimless imperial over-reach, more lack of strategy, more enemies generated.
The big winner would, of course, be the Pentagon and military industrial complex. More billions spent on a nation most Americans could not find on a map if their lives depended on it, more orders for 'counter-insurgency' weapons, more military promotions, and cheers from Fox News and wrestling fans.

Worst of all, the US could end up feeding and caring for wrecked Venezuela. How did we do with storm-ravaged Puerto Rico? It's still in semi-ruin. Few want Venezuela's thick, heavy oil these days.

Venezuela could turn out to be a big, fat Tar Baby.


mijj , says: May 4, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT

> "half the population hates the current government and might welcome the Americans"

.. what? .. like in Lybia and Syria?

Verity , says: May 4, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
The "crackpot economic policies" of Chavez and Madero increased the health of the people through access to medical care, improved housing, brought the literacy rate to one of the highest in Latin Americs, added years to average lifespan among other things by emphasizing that the country's resources should improve the lives of Venezuela's citizens. This was accomplished by selling resources in the capitalistic market -crackpot I grant you. The American sanctions and the seizure of Venezuelan assets are all illegal under American law and Constitution given the treaties we have signed, but then if you want to know what those laws mean all you have to do is ask any Native American tribe.
Walter Duranty , says: May 4, 2019 at 4:23 pm GMT
Venezuela is a trillion dollar low-hanging fruit which the neo-cons lust after. It would finance another entire war in the middle east.
Walter Duranty , says: May 4, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT
Who would pay Eric Prince's 5000 Blackwater hired assassins? Would the cash come from the pirate booty war chest or would the citizens of America be stuck with the tab, once again?
The Scalpel , says: Website May 4, 2019 at 6:39 pm GMT
@Walter Duranty Something seems different. With Russian and Chinese intelligence help, the Guaido coup was a laughable joke. It made the US look like bozos. I think Venezuela and allies tipped their hand there, and it is a strong one. I fear the US may be walking into a trap
Galearis , says: May 4, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT
It is interesting but several Pentagon/military officers are saying the Pentagon is not enthusiastic about invading Venezuela. It is a rugged, jungle cloaked, country that is quite large and an American effort may end up being like the one in Vietnam.

Even Trump is not enthusiastic.
L.

peterAUS , says: May 4, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
@Walter Duranty You could be onto something here.

Or controlling Venezuela oil would help in a scenario where Teheran closes Hormuz.

It appears that for the current TPTBs in West Iran is what Carthage was to Rome.

Which points, again, to "them".

Weird times.

Bill Pilgrim , says: May 5, 2019 at 6:31 am GMT
I wonder how many are aware that Venezuela owns a majority of the oil company Citgo?
I wonder how many Americans know that for many years during Winter Citgo gave free heating oil to a large number of low income households in the US northeast? while our own government was cutting back on low income heating oil subsidies.
Dwayne Thundergrit , says: May 5, 2019 at 6:37 am GMT
We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory. Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found freedom and democracy. Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy.
peter mcloughlin , says: May 5, 2019 at 9:53 am GMT
It may be true that neither the US or Russia 'has any major interest in Venezuela', and that Putin may be 'stirring the pot'. The real danger is, and globally the evidence points to this, an eventual clash between the major nuclear powers (world war). It is ominous if Washington is getting for 'ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.'
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

[May 05, 2019] A sharp spike in oil prices is another danger with which the administration now lands itself. Together, US sanctions against Venezuela and Iran will take roughly 2 million barrels of oil a day out of the market

Notable quotes:
"... First, the new turn in the administration's Iran policy appears to mark a decisive defeat for President Donald Trump in his long-running battle with his foreign policy minders. It is now very unlikely Trump will achieve any of his policy objectives, a number of which represent useful alternatives to the stunningly shambolic strategies advanced by Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and other zealots in the administration. ..."
"... Second, this administration's foreign policy has steadily assumed an irrational character that may be unprecedented in U.S. history. This is perilous. The administration's near-paranoiac hostility toward Pyongyang and Moscow are cases in point. So is its evident indifference to alienating longstanding allies across the Atlantic and in Asia. As of this week, however, Pompeo's "down to zero" policy makes Iran the most immediate danger. ..."
"... The question is why this administration's foreign policies are so amateurish and discombobulated. Corollary question: Why is the president surrounded by policy advisers so thoroughly at odds with those of his objectives that are worthwhile? ..."
"... Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him. ..."
"... He was self-evidently behind the decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the announcement in March that Washington recognizes Israeli jurisdiction over the Golan Heights. ..."
"... It is unlikely anything is all done in connection with the embassy move and the Golan Heights decision. Both run diametrically counter to international law and both have significantly damaged U.S. credibility in the Middle East. Trump, in short, makes his own miscalculations, and they are as grave as any made by the Pompeo–Bolton axis. There are few wise heads in this administration. ..."
"... You guys fail to see that the notion that Trump and Co genuinely seek to "improve ties" with Russia is a key element of the larger "Russiagate" psyop, a truly laughable idea which is disproved not only by the longer term historical record, but also by the veritable mountain of evidence that has accrued since Trump came into office demonstrating that this administration has only EXACERBATED the empire's long running and profoundly anti-Russian foreign policy agenda. ..."
"... Irrational foreign policy? I wish the United States would just drop the charade and declare itself a global empire. What we see is the foreign policy of empire. Is this rational or isn't it? ..."
"... Current US foreign policy is aligned to impose maximum pressure on countries like Venezuela and Iran in order to pressure those governments and hopefully topple them with sanctions. The entire World is hungry for oil and the demand for oil is expanding at an exponential rate which in turn guides US foreign policy. ..."
The US Moves on Iran's Oil Market as an Expression of an Irrational Foreign Policy by Patrick Lawrence
April 29, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

65 Comments

Patrick Lawrence gauges the backfiring potential of Pompeo's withdrawal on Thursday of U.S. sanction waivers from eight major importers.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's announcement last week that no importer of Iranian oil will henceforth be exempt from U.S. sanctions is as risky as it is misguided. The withdrawal of waivers as of this Thursday effectively gives eight importers dependent on Iranian crude -- India, Japan, South Korea, China, Turkey, Taiwan, Italy, and Greece -- 10 days' notice to adjust their petroleum purchases.

This is now a full-court press: The intent is to cut off Iran's access to any oil market anywhere as part of the administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran. "We are going to zero," Pompeo said as he disclosed the new policy.

Nobody is going to zero. The administration's move will further damage the Iranian economy, certainly, but few outside the administration think it is possible to isolate Iran as comprehensively as Pompeo seems to expect.

Insights on Overreach

There are a couple of insights to be gleaned from this unusually aggressive case of policy overreach.

First, the new turn in the administration's Iran policy appears to mark a decisive defeat for President Donald Trump in his long-running battle with his foreign policy minders. It is now very unlikely Trump will achieve any of his policy objectives, a number of which represent useful alternatives to the stunningly shambolic strategies advanced by Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and other zealots in the administration.

Weakened by relentless "Russia-gate" investigations, for instance, the president has little chance now of improving ties with Moscow or negotiating with adversaries such as Iran and North Korea, as he has long advocated.

In a Face the Nation interview Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran would be open to bilateral talks under the right conditions. It was the second time in a week that Zarif made this point. But those around Trump, not least Bolton and Pompeo, are sure to block any such prospect -- or sabotage talks if they do take place, as they did Trump's second summit with Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader, in late February.

Second, this administration's foreign policy has steadily assumed an irrational character that may be unprecedented in U.S. history. This is perilous. The administration's near-paranoiac hostility toward Pyongyang and Moscow are cases in point. So is its evident indifference to alienating longstanding allies across the Atlantic and in Asia. As of this week, however, Pompeo's "down to zero" policy makes Iran the most immediate danger.

Persian Gulf Chokepoint

Iranian officials, including Zarif, now threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz, chokepoint of the Persian Gulf, if Iranian tankers are prevented from passing through it. This is an indirect warning that the Iranian military could confront the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which operates in the Gulf and adjacent waters.

A sharp spike in oil prices is another danger with which the administration now lands itself. Taken together, U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran are intended to take roughly 2 million barrels of oil a day out of the market.

Saudi Arabia has pledged to make up the lost supply, but many analysts question its ability to sustain an increase in output given the advancing depletion of its long-productive Ghawar field. Spare capacity among producers is already wafer-thin. Do we need to risk another oil crisis, given the flagging global economy?

Trump's foreign policy minders also risk alienating allies -- South Korea, Japan, India, the Europeans -- whose cooperation the U.S. needs on numerous other policy questions. In the case of China, the administration puts progress on a nearly complete trade deal and Beijing's leverage with North Korea in jeopardy.

There are other cases demonstrating the Trump administration's apparently thorough indifference to collateral damage and the animosity of allies. Since the U.S. abandoned the Paris climate pact and the 2015 accord governing Iran's nuclear program, the Europeans have hardly contained their anger; they are openly furious now about the tightened sanctions against Iran. The South Koreans, frustrated with Washington's intransigent stance toward Pyongyang, now search for ways to engage the North despite many layers of UN and U.S–imposed sanctions.

The question is why this administration's foreign policies are so amateurish and discombobulated. Corollary question: Why is the president surrounded by policy advisers so thoroughly at odds with those of his objectives that are worthwhile?

Trump arrived in Washington an outsider: This is where answers to these questions begin. This limited the New York dealmaker to a shallow pool from which to build his administration. His never-ending Russia-gate problem further handicaps him. This administration is among the most opaque in recent history, so certainties as to its internal workings are hard to come by. But Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him.

However his advisers arrived in the administration, they are a toxic combination of neoconservatives, many drawn from the Heritage Foundation , and evangelical Christians . Bolton is emblematic of the former, Pompeo of the latter. This is the current complexion of American foreign policy.

Zealots and Crusaders

Both camps are populated with zealots and crusaders; both cultivate irrational world views rooted in extremist ideology and sentiment. Bolton's obsession is the restoration of unchallenged U.S. supremacy. Pompeo is said to view adversaries such as North Korea and Iran as George W. Bush did : The U.S. is in an "end times" war with Gog and Magog, biblical manifestations of the evil abroad in the world.

To be clear, there is more wrong than right in the president's foreign policy thinking. He was self-evidently behind the decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the announcement in March that Washington recognizes Israeli jurisdiction over the Golan Heights.

"This is very important strategically for victory, heights, because you're up high, very important," Trump said over the weekend. "Fifty-two years ago this started [when Israel captured Golan from Syria in the 1967 war] and I did it quickly. Done. It's all done."

It is unlikely anything is all done in connection with the embassy move and the Golan Heights decision. Both run diametrically counter to international law and both have significantly damaged U.S. credibility in the Middle East. Trump, in short, makes his own miscalculations, and they are as grave as any made by the Pompeo–Bolton axis. There are few wise heads in this administration.

At the same time, Trump's desire to negotiate with adversaries -- Russia, Iran, North Korea -- is entirely defensible. But the "down to zero" Iran policy to take effect this week can be read as a signal of the president's failure to counter the foreign policy Manicheans who surround him.

There may be skirmishes to come, but the battle is over. We must now watch as extremist ideologues accelerate America's already evident decline as a global power -- along with its increasing isolation.

Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author, and lecturer. His most recent book is "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him @thefloutist. His web site is www.patricklawrence.us. Support his work via www.patreon.com/thefloutist .


Brian James , May 2, 2019 at 12:23

Apr 30, 2019 A New Mega Cartel Is Emerging In Oil Markets

China and India -- two of the world's largest oil importers and the biggest demand growth centers globally -- are close to setting up an oil buyers' club to have a say in the pricing and sourcing of crude oil amid OPEC's cuts and U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, Indian outlet livemint reports, citing three officials with knowledge of the talks.

https://youtu.be/lgkGNyd6pR4

vinnieoh , May 3, 2019 at 14:33

Thanks for that link, I'm sure I'll follow this. I feel the same apprehension the narrator's inflection seemed to convey in closing "We'll have to see where this leads." That apprehension is that this will push the war-mongers to accelerate the timetable for an attack on Iran.

Stuart Davies , May 1, 2019 at 09:00

Sorry to see that Consortium News still maintains their commitment to the ludicrous premise that Trump is "pro Russian" at heart:

" the new turn in the administration's Iran policy appears to mark a decisive defeat for President Donald Trump in his long-running battle with his foreign policy minders .Weakened by relentless "Russia-gate" investigations, for instance, the president has little chance now of improving ties with Moscow or negotiating with adversaries such as Iran and North Korea, as he has long advocated."

Utter nonsense. You guys fail to see that the notion that Trump and Co genuinely seek to "improve ties" with Russia is a key element of the larger "Russiagate" psyop, a truly laughable idea which is disproved not only by the longer term historical record, but also by the veritable mountain of evidence that has accrued since Trump came into office demonstrating that this administration has only EXACERBATED the empire's long running and profoundly anti-Russian foreign policy agenda.

O Society , April 30, 2019 at 13:20

Irrational foreign policy? I wish the United States would just drop the charade and declare itself a global empire. What we see is the foreign policy of empire. Is this rational or isn't it?

https://opensociet.org/2019/03/21/the-american-emperor-has-no-clothes/

elmerfudzie , April 30, 2019 at 13:16

Asymmetric warfare with Iran has already begun. Internet based "worms" and economic sanctions have, so far, been successfully coordinated in concert with our rather reluctant Western Occident allies. These attacks have been more or less been kept at bay. The alternative, direct military intervention would prove to be a new "holocaust" and would target roughly seventy separate nuclear research sites and dozens of scattered air force bases. The weapons of choice would be DU-38 munitions and huge bombs. DU has a proven record against fortified concrete and armored structures. It has an infamous reputation for leaving permanent, radioactive "ground shine" wherever used. Lest we all (never) forget the absolutely horribly deformed children born in southern Iraq who suffered prenatal exposure to radiation poisoning! In war, it's always the most vulnerable and innocent to suffer the most for example; Yemeni civilians.

The militant factions of our Pentagon and Congress (found within both sides of the political aisle) will continue to pursue the long range plan I outlined some time ago in a CONSORTIUMNEWS commentary. To recap it, this tug-of-war is not so much about trading in the USD as it is about a global oil glut. I believe it was Bandar bin Sultan who commented that, and I'm paraphrasing him here; there's plenty of relatively easy oil everywhere, the idea to grasp is, what countries will be permitted to extract and sell it? Thus, the global and persistent NeoCon plan seems to be to cap or severely restrict, Libyan, Iranian and Iraqi oil reserves, meanwhile making backroom deals that permit a few SCO, (reluctantly) Russian, Saudi, African and US/Canadian reserves to flourish on the open market. Venezuelan oil will act as the back up resource should, a regional nuclear war in the middle east result in irreversible damage to "friendly" refineries and ready access to them. Again, ground shine due to a deployment of neutron A-weaponry (N-Bombs)..most likely from Israel. Ah!, sweet treachery in times of war eh? Need I remind our CONSORTIUMNEWS readership of Hitlers last minute betrayal of Stalin? The Israelis want a "piece of the oil action" too!

Us , April 30, 2019 at 10:59

So sorry to see the country ripped apart. Hatful , boasting reprobates behind the steering wheel

vinnieoh , April 30, 2019 at 10:05

Thank you Mr. Lawrence for, if nothing else, hypothesizing or postulating why the Trump administration foreign policy is as you say, so amateurish and discombobulated. But I do agree with Drew Hunkins below that for whatever reasons(*), Trump himself has always vilified and mocked Iran. He is nothing if not a scurrilous opportunist, and threatening Iran just fits his personality as a bully. Very few if any of the other kids on the playground have the guts or integrity to come to Iran's defense.

It lightened my spirit just a little bit when you said that the Trump administration "is one of the most opaque in recent history." Why, just yesterday I heard our glorious leader say that his administration is the most transparent ever in American history. I wish that I should live long enough to see the use of such superlatives disappear from our discourse.

I somehow missed Mr. Zarif's several statements concerning a willingness to engage in bilateral talks. That is almost flabbergasting. Which Iranians could possibly believe there is an honest negotiator now anywhere close to the levers of power in DC? But Zarif continues to hold to and operate in the terms of classic diplomacy: do not close any doors forever, and; do not relinquish the high ground of sensibleness and integrity to your opponent. But, surely there aren't ANY Iranians who believe that the US would make any concessions, de-escalate any of our threats, or place a muzzle on our two rabid dog allies.

(*) It is my firm belief that the overwhelming motivation for much of what Trump does goes back directly to the annual DC correspondents dinner where Obama publicly and rightfully humiliated and mocked that fat-assed moron. And well he should have. It didn't miss my notice that Trump once again skipped that event. He will never attend – it was the absolute lowest point of his public life (so far), everybody laughing at him and that horrible skinny n####r twisting the rhetorical knife relentlessly. I'm reminded of a short story of Harlan Ellison's called "Stardust." I'll leave it to the curious to follow that lead. Narcissism as a genetic "addiction."

vinnieoh , April 30, 2019 at 10:17

Right after the 2016 election I posted something to the effect that perhaps we should ask native Americans if they think it is unusual that an unprincipled real estate speculator is now the captain of the state.

Zhu , April 30, 2019 at 01:22

Thanks for confirming that Pompeo is a Dispensationalist, eager for the End of the World.

Roberto , April 30, 2019 at 08:01

The neocons, Bolton and Pompeo, are not going to put an end to the world, because the Greek Islands need nothing from the United States. They only need a little gasoline for their cars and motor scooters. However, the neocons are going to put an end to the petrodollar, because no one on earth can trust the "out of control government" of the United States, any longer.

CitizenOne , April 30, 2019 at 01:06

During the Iraq war there were many calls from conservatives to not stop at the border with Iran. They supported a plan to roll US tanks and other offensive forces until they reached Tehran and obliterated it defeating the rogue nation and securing Iranian oil fields.

The scenario proposed today to strangle resource rich nations by war hawks is similar to the post war imaginings posed by Patton to keep on going until the US armed forces reached Moscow. It is similar to the plans of MacArthur to lay down a nuclear radiation barrier along North Korea's northern border with China to create a lethal ionizing radioactive zone or no mans land to prevent China from sending Chinese troops across the border.

Each one of these proposed but never implemented war strategies in hind sight would have probably netted the US great gains at minimal risk.

On one hand, the current administrations strategy and tactics to wage economic war against US "enemies" which are all rich with oil reserves seems like the right aggressive maneuvers to make easy wins for the USA. On the other hand the World has changed since those times.

Current US foreign policy is aligned to impose maximum pressure on countries like Venezuela and Iran in order to pressure those governments and hopefully topple them with sanctions. The entire World is hungry for oil and the demand for oil is expanding at an exponential rate which in turn guides US foreign policy.

There is thousands of years of history of nations including the US to takeover the riches of nations and profit from the resources.

... ... ...

[May 05, 2019] The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen

Highly recommended!
Pentagon serves Wall Street and is controlled by CIA which is actually can be viewed as a Wall Street arm as well.
Notable quotes:
"... This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. ..."
"... General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . ..."
"... The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence. ..."
"... If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. ..."
"... Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM. ..."
"... Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The two-star army general strode across the stage in his rumpled combat fatigues, almost like George Patton -- all that was missing was the cigar and riding crop. It was 2017 and I was in the audience, just another mid-level major attending yet another mandatory lecture in the auditorium of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The general then commanded one of the Army's two true armored divisions and had plenty of his tanks forward deployed in Eastern Europe, all along the Russian frontier. Frankly, most CGSC students couldn't stand these talks. Substance always seemed lacking, as each general reminded us to "take care of soldiers" and "put the mission first," before throwing us a few nuggets of conventional wisdom on how to be good staff officers should we get assigned to his vaunted command.

This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. Generals can be like that -- utterly "in-the-box," "can-do" thinkers. They take pride in how little they discuss policy and politics, even when they command tens of thousands of troops and control entire districts, provinces, or countries. There is some value in this -- we'd hardly want active generals meddling in U.S. domestic affairs. But they nonetheless can take the whole "aw shucks" act a bit too far.

General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . Of course, it was all cloaked in the macho bravado so common among generals who think that talking like sergeants will win them street cred with the troops. (That's not their job anymore, mind you.) He said nothing, of course, about the role of mid- and long-range nuclear weapons that could be the catastrophic consequence of an unnecessary war with the Russian Bear.

I got to thinking about that talk recently as I reflected in wonder at how the latest generation of mainstream "liberals" loves to fawn over generals, admirals -- any flag officers, really -- as alternatives to President Donald Trump. The irony of that alliance should not be lost on us. It's built on the standard Democratic fear of looking "soft" on terrorism, communism, or whatever-ism, and their visceral, blinding hatred of Trump. Some of this is understandable. Conservative Republicans masterfully paint liberals as "weak sisters" on foreign policy, and Trump's administration is, well, a wild card in world affairs.

The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence.

If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. More of the same is all they know: their careers were built on fighting "terror" anywhere it raised its evil head. Some, though no longer most, still subscribe to the faux intellectualism of General Petraeus and his legion of Coindinistas , who never saw a problem that a little regime change, followed by expert counterinsurgency, couldn't solve. Forget that they've been proven wrong time and again and can count zero victories since 2002. Generals (remember this!) are never held accountable.

Flag officers also rarely seem to recognize that they owe civilian policymakers more than just tactical "how" advice. They ought to be giving "if" advice -- if we invade Iraq, it will take 500,000 troops to occupy the place, and even then we'll ultimately destabilize the country and region, justify al-Qaeda's worldview, kick off a nationalist insurgency, and become immersed in an unwinnable war. Some, like Army Chief General Eric Shinseki and CENTCOM head John Abizaid, seemed to know this deep down. Still, Shinseki quietly retired after standing up to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Abizaid rode out his tour to retirement.

Trump Scores, Breaks Generals' 50-Year War Record Afghanistan and America's 'Indispensable Nation' Hubris

Generals also love to tell the American people that victory is "just around the corner," or that there's a "light at the end of the tunnel." General William Westmoreland used the very same language when predicting imminent victory in Vietnam. Two months later, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong unleashed the largest uprising of the war, the famed Tet Offensive.

Take Afghanistan as exhibit A: 17 or so generals have now commanded U.S. troops in this, America's longest war. All have commanded within the system and framework of their predecessors. Sure, they made marginal operational and tactical changes -- some preferred surges, others advising, others counterterror -- but all failed to achieve anything close to victory, instead laundering failure into false optimism. None refused to play the same-old game or question the very possibility of victory in landlocked, historically xenophobic Afghanistan. That would have taken real courage, which is in short supply among senior officers.

Exhibit B involves Trump's former cabinet generals -- National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelley, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis -- whom adoring and desperate liberals took as saviors and canonized as the supposed adults in the room . They were no such thing. The generals' triumvirate consisted ultimately of hawkish conventional thinkers married to the dogma of American exceptionalism and empire. Period.

Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM.

Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.

Helping Saudi Arabia terror bomb Yemen and starve 85,000 children to death? Mattis rebuked Congress and supported that. He never considered resigning in opposition to that war crime. No, he fell on his "courageous" sword over downgrading a losing 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Not to mention he came to Trump's cabinet straight from the board of contracting giant General Dynamics, where he collected hundreds of thousands of military-industrial complex dollars.

Then there was John Kelley, whom Press Secretary Sarah Sanders implied was above media questioning because he was once a four-star marine general. And there's McMaster, another lauded intellectual who once wrote an interesting book and taught history at West Point. Yet he still drew all the wrong conclusions in his famous book on Vietnam -- implying that more troops, more bombing, and a mass invasion of North Vietnam could have won the war. Furthermore, his work with Mattis on Trump's unhinged , imperial National Defense Strategy proved that he was, after all, just another devotee of American hyper-interventionism.

So why reflect on these and other Washington generals? It's simple: liberal veneration for these, and seemingly all, military flag officers is a losing proposition and a formula for more intervention, possible war with other great powers, and the creeping militarization of the entire U.S. government. We know what the generals expect -- and potentially want -- for America's foreign policy future.

Just look at the curriculum at the various war and staff colleges from Kansas to Rhode Island. Ten years ago, they were all running war games focused on counterinsurgency in the Middle East and Africa. Now those same schools are drilling for future "contingencies" in the Baltic, Caucasus, and in the South China Sea. Older officers have always lamented the end of the Cold War "good old days," when men were men and the battlefield was "simple." A return to a state of near-war with Russia and China is the last thing real progressives should be pushing for in 2020.

The bottom line is this: the faint hint that mainstream libs would relish a Six Days in May style military coup is more than a little disturbing, no matter what you think of Trump. Democrats must know the damage such a move would do to our ostensible republic. I say: be a patriot. Insist on civilian control of foreign affairs. Even if that means two more years of The Donald.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to Truthdig . His work has also appeared in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times , The Nation , Tom Dispatch , and The Hill . He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet .

[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

[May 05, 2019] The US is going to sanction itself into obscurity

As soon as nations learn to avoid dollar transactions that will dramatically weaken the USA neoliberal empire. Bulling using technology transfer prohibitions is not effective as Germany and Japan are now fully recovered from WWII destruction and post immediate threat to the USA technological hegemony.
May 05, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Joe Tedesky , April 29, 2019 at 22:01

We the people needn't worry about our vote for president in as much as we the people should investigate the people who surround our president's. Trump has been overtaken from his campaigns foreign policy rhetoric by the same cabal of those who have captured the other previous presidents from they're living up to their promises, whether by choice or by compromise. I wish that a presidential campaign requirement were that each presidential candidate would divulge the cabinet choices they would make as secretary's of our national agencies. I wish for a lot of things that never will happen but still it would be nice to know such substantial appointments as opposed to knowing about their personality disorders wish are always disclosed for further review and constant discussion.

I've said it before that the US is going to sanction itself into obscurity. These sanctioned nations are many and still growing if you include our allies. It's all sticks and no carrots. When it all collapses the collapse may be blamed on US arrogance and profit.

[May 05, 2019] Trump's foreign policy team, the Pompeo-Bolton axis represent the pro-Israel Lobby signature "toxic combination of neoconservatives and evangelicals

Notable quotes:
"... Patrick Lawrence avers that "Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him". There is absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Both Trump and Hillary Clinton (and all their rivals from the 2016 presidential campaign) are Israel-Firsters deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby. Trump's current policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton's equally pro-Israel policy agenda. At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared "We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." His bid for the presidency was announced soon after. ..."
"... Trump's whole "insurgent" campaign, including his purported break with GOP orthodoxy, questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were an elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning. ..."
"... Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution on 3 December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the United Nations Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Make no mistake, Israel and the pro-Israel Lobby exploit Trump and the GOP, as well as Clinton and the Democrats. ..."
"... The Russia-gate conspiracy theory, eagerly promoted by both key right and left pro-Israel Lobby figures (including Jewish and Christian Zionists, as well as sheepdog Sanders), is partly an effort to distract attention from the pro-Israel Lobby meddling in American electoral politics and its pernicious influence on US foreign policy. ..."
May 05, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Abe , April 30, 2019 at 22:26

Patrick Lawrence avers that "Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him". There is absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Both Trump and Hillary Clinton (and all their rivals from the 2016 presidential campaign) are Israel-Firsters deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby. Trump's current policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton's equally pro-Israel policy agenda. At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared "We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." His bid for the presidency was announced soon after.

Trump's whole "insurgent" campaign, including his purported break with GOP orthodoxy, questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were an elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning.

Trump's "1000 percent" efforts on behalf of Israel began immediately after the election, prior to his taking the oath of office.

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution on 3 December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the United Nations Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama administration.

Kushner reportedly dispatched former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to make secret contact with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 in an effort to undermine or delay the resolution, which condemned Israel for settlement construction. Saban told Kushner that "this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort, so thank you very much." Kushner thanked the audience at Brookings, a leading pro-Israel Lobby think tank, "It's really an honor to be able to talk about this topic with so many people who I respect so much, who have given so much to this issue."

During the keynote conversation, Kushner and Saban framed Middle East peace as a "real estate issue". Kushner acknowledged that "We've solicited a lot of ideas from a lot of places." Trump's understanding of "regional dynamics" in the Middle East clearly manifests "a lot of ideas" from pro-Israel war hawks from the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Make no mistake, Israel and the pro-Israel Lobby exploit Trump and the GOP, as well as Clinton and the Democrats.

The fracture between the Trump and Clinton contingents of the pro-Israel Lobby is rooted in the personal predilections of their major American Jewish oligarch donors. Billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the Koch Brothers of the pro-Israel Lobby.

Both Adelson and Saban are staunch supporters of the Israeli military, vehemently opposed to the global BDS movement against Israeli apartheid, and obsessed about starting war with Iran.

When Adelson and Saban shared the stage at the Israeli American Council's inaugural conference in Washington, D.C. in 2014, Saban quipped, "There's no right or left when it comes to Israel". Despite their shared pro-Israel Lobby objectives, Adelson and Saban had a fracas in 2015 over political tactics.

The Republican Party and Democratic Party campaign platforms in 2016 reflected right and left pro-Israel Lobby orientations. Even the Sanders sheepdog campaign was a far-left pro-Israel Lobby iteration.

The Russia-gate conspiracy theory, eagerly promoted by both key right and left pro-Israel Lobby figures (including Jewish and Christian Zionists, as well as sheepdog Sanders), is partly an effort to distract attention from the pro-Israel Lobby meddling in American electoral politics and its pernicious influence on US foreign policy.

Trump's "foreign policy team", the Pompeo-Bolton axis and myriad minions, precisely represent the pro-Israel Lobby signature "toxic combination of neoconservatives, many drawn from the Heritage Foundation [and other decidedly pro-Israel policy think tanks], and evangelical Christians".

Trump surrounded himself with pro-Israel Lobby "foreign policy Manicheans" devoted to an aggressive, militaristic agenda aimed at "securing the realm" for Israel.

The results are entirely predictable.

The Trump administration's foreign policies are not so much "shambolic", "amateurish and discombobulated" as monomaniacally pro-Israel, no matter how much damage is done to key US interests.

michael , April 30, 2019 at 18:57

Blaming Trump for moving the Embassy to Jerusalem seems disingenuous since Congress passed a law moving the Embassy to Jerusalem in 1995 (the Senate voted (93–5), and the House voted (374–37 in favor of the move). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Embassy_Act Clinton started a charade, justified by "National Security" and signed a waiver every six months to stall the move; the game continued under Bush II and Obama and even Trump, his first turn. But then "on June 5, 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of reunification of Jerusalem by 90-0. The resolution reaffirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act and called upon the President and all United States officials to abide by its provisions." Trump abided.

jessika , April 30, 2019 at 12:34

Absolutely JohnP is right, Kushner should be scrutinized for his pro-Israel positions. The ball should be on AIPAC and Israel but instead is on Russia even now. Trump is just the frontman for the activity of Adelson, Bibi, Bolton, Pompeo, Kushner: Bolton pushes for the neocons post Bush II; Pompeo for evangelicals in US who know nothing, as well as for neocons; Kushner for Israel Netanyahu politics. Trump is their foolish pawn. Iran is in crosshairs because of Israel.

dean 1000 , April 30, 2019 at 07:56

Trump got elected by running against the empire. What he is doing in the mid-east won't last. The demography and need for oil is against it. The birth pangs of a new mid-east started when Russia came to the aid of Syria. Does Bolton and Pompeo mean that Trump has been completely co-opted by the duopoly he ran against? His supporters say wait till 2020. Fat chance.

I agree with Joe Tedesky. Washington is going to sanction itself out of its empire. The end of empire is hardly the end of the US. The Brits didn't get single payer healthcare until the empire was gone. Will Washington make the same mistake?
A country the size of the US will not become obscure.

[May 05, 2019] James Petras

Notable quotes:
"... US global power is built on several significant facts. These include: the US victory in World War II, its subsequent advanced economy and dominant military position throughout five continents. ..."
"... The US advanced its dominance through a series of alliances in Europe via NATO; Asia via its hegemonic relationship with Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Taiwan as well as Australia and New Zealand in Oceana; Latin America via traditional client regimes; Africa via neo-colonial rulers imposed following independence. ..."
"... The most significant advance of US global power took place with the demise and disintegration of the USSR, the client states in Eastern Europe, as well as the transformation of China and Indo-China to capitalism during the 1980's. ..."
Apr 29, 2019 | www.unz.com

Introduction

US global power in the Trump period reflects the continuities and changes which are unfolding rapidly and deeply throughout the world and which are affecting the position of Washington.

Assessing the dynamics of US global power is a complex problem which requires examining multiple dimensions.

We will proceed by:

Conceptualizing the principles which dictate empire building, specifically the power bases and the dynamic changes in relations and structures which shape the present and future position of the US. Identifying the spheres of influence and power and their growth and decline. Examining the regions of conflict and contestation. The major and secondary rivalries. The stable and shifting relations between existing and rising power centers. The internal dynamics shaping the relative strength of competing centers of global power. The instability of the regimes and states seeking to retain and expand global power.

Conceptualization of Global Power

US global power is built on several significant facts. These include: the US victory in World War II, its subsequent advanced economy and dominant military position throughout five continents.

The US advanced its dominance through a series of alliances in Europe via NATO; Asia via its hegemonic relationship with Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Taiwan as well as Australia and New Zealand in Oceana; Latin America via traditional client regimes; Africa via neo-colonial rulers imposed following independence.

US global power was built around encircling the USSR and China, undermining their economies and defeating their allies militarily via regional wars.

Post WWII global economic and military superiority created subordinated allies and established US global power, but it created the bases for gradual shifts in relations of dominance.

US global power was formidable but subject to economic and military changes over time and in space.

US Spheres of Power: Then and Now

US global power exploited opportunities but also suffered military setbacks early on, particularly in Korea, Indo-China and Cuba. The US spheres of power were clearly in place in Western Europe and Latin America but was contested in Eastern Europe and Asia.

The most significant advance of US global power took place with the demise and disintegration of the USSR, the client states in Eastern Europe, as well as the transformation of China and Indo-China to capitalism during the 1980's.

US ideologues declared the coming of a unipolar empire free of restraints and challenges to its global and regional power. The US turned to conquering peripheral adversaries. Washington destroyed Yugoslavia and then Iraq – fragmenting them into mini-states. Wall Street promoted a multitude of multi-national corporations to invade China and Indo-China who reaped billions of profits exploiting cheap labor.

The believers of the enduring rule of US global power envisioned a century of US imperial rule.

In reality this was a short-sighted vision of a brief interlude.

The End of Unipolarity: New Rivalries and Global and Regional Centers of Power: An Overview

US global power led Washington into 'overreach', in several crucial areas: it launched a series of costly prolonged wars, specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had three negative consequences: the destruction of the Iraq armed forces and economy led to the rise of the Islamic State which overtook most of the country; the occupation in Afghanistan which led to the emergence of the Taliban and an ongoing twenty year war which cost hundreds of billions of dollars and several thousand wounded and dead US soldiers; as a result the majority of the US public turned negative toward wars and empire building

The US pillage and dominance of Russia ended, when President Putin replaced Yeltsin's vassal state. Russia rebuilt its industry, science, technology and military power. Russia's population recovered its living standards.

With Russian independence and advanced military weaponry, the US lost its unipolar military power. Nevertheless, Washington financed a coup which virtually annexed two thirds of the Ukraine. The US incorporated the fragmented Yugoslavian 'statelets' into NATO. Russia countered by annexing the Crimea and secured a mini-state adjacent Georgia.

China converted the economic invasion of US multi-national corporations into learning experiences for building its national economy and export platforms which contributed which led to its becoming an economic competitor and rival to the US.

US global empire building suffered important setbacks in Latin America resulting

from the the so-called Washington Consensus. The imposition of neo-liberal policies privatized and plundered their economies, impoverished the working and middle class, and provoked a series of popular uprising and the rise of radical social movements and center-left governments.

The US empire lost spheres of influence in some regions (China, Russia, Latin America, Middle East) though it retained influence among elites in contested regions and even launched new imperial wars in contested terrain. Most notably the US attacked independent regimes in Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia and Sudan via armed proxies.

The change from a unipolar to a multi polar world and the gradual emergence of regional rivals led US global strategists to rethink their strategy. The Trump regime's aggressive policies set the stage for political division within the regime and among allies.

The Obama – Trump Convergence and Differences on Empire Building

By the second decade of the 21 st century several new global power alignments emerged: China had become the main economic competitor for world power and Russia was the major military challenger to US military supremacy at the regional level. The US replaced the former European colonial empire in Africa. Washington's sphere of influence extended especially in North and Sub Sahara Africa: Kenya, Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Trump gained leverage in the Middle East namely in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Jordan.

Israel retained its peculiar role, converting the US as its sphere of influence.

But the US faced regional rivals for sphere of influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Algeria.

In South Asia US faced competition for spheres of influence from China, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Latin America sharp and abrupt shifts in spheres of influence were the norm. US influence declined between 2000 – 2015 and recovered from 2015 to the present.

Imperial Power Alignments Under President Trump

President Trump faced complex global, regional and local political and economic challenges.

Trump followed and deepened many of the policies launched by the Obama- Hillary Clinton policies with regard to other countries and regions . However Trump also radicalized and/or reversed policies of his predecessors. He combined flattery and aggression at the same time.

At no time did Trump recognize the limits of US global power. Like the previous three presidents he persisted in the belief that the transitory period of a unipolar global empire could be re-imposed.

Toward Russia, a global competitor, Trump adopted a policy of 'rollback'. Trump imposed economic sanctions, with the strategic 'hope' that by impoverishing Russia, degrading its financial and industrial sectors that he could force a regime change which would convert Moscow into a vassal state.

At the beginning of his Presidential campaign Trump flirted with the notion of a business accommodation with Putin. However, Trump's ultra-belligerent appointments and domestic opposition soon turned him toward a highly militarized strategy, rejecting military – including nuclear – agreements, in favor of military escalation.

Toward China, Trump faced a dynamic and advancing technological competitor. Trump resorted to a 'trade war' that went far beyond 'trade' to encompass a war against Beijing's economic structure and social relations. The Trump regime-imposed sanctions and threatened a total boycott of Chinese exports.

ORDER IT NOW

Trump and his economic team demanded China privatize and denationalize its entire state backed industry. They demanded the power to unilaterally decide when violations of US rules occurred and to be able to re-introduce sanctions without consultations. Trump demanded all Chinese technological agreements, economic sectors and innovations were subject and open to US business interests. In other words, Trump demanded the end of Chinese sovereignty and the reversal of the structural base for its global power. The US was not interested in mere 'trade' – it wanted a return to imperial rule over a colonized China.

The Trump regime rejected negotiations and recognition of a shared power relation: it viewed its global rivals as potential clients.

Inevitably the Trump regime's strategy would never reach any enduring agreements on any substantial issues under negotiations. China has a successful strategy for global power built on a 6 trillion-dollar world-wide Road and Belt (R and B) development policy, which links 60 countries and several regions. R and B is building seaports, rail and air systems linking industries financed by development banks.

In contrast, the US banks exploits industry, speculates and operates within closed financial circuits. The US spends trillions on wars, coups, sanctions and other parasitical activities which have nothing to do with economic competitiveness.

The Trump regime's 'allies' in the Middle East namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, are parasitic allies who buy protection and provoke costly wars.

Europe complains about China's increase in industrial exports and overlook imports of consumer goods. Yet the EU plans to resist Trump's sanctions which lead to a blind alley of stagnation!

Conclusion

The most recent period of the peak of US global power, the decade between 1989-99 contained the seeds of its decline and the current resort to trade wars, sanctions and nuclear threats.

The structure of US global power changed over the past seven decades. The US global empire building began with the US command over the rebuilding of Western European economies and the displacement of England, France, Portugal and Belgium from Asia and Africa.

The Empire spread and penetrated South America via US multi-national corporations. However, US empire building was not a linear process as witness its unsuccessful confrontation with national liberation movements in Korea, Indo China, Southern Africa (Angola, Congo, etc.) and the Caribbean (Cuba). By the early 1960's the US had displaced its European rivals and successfully incorporated them as subordinate allies.

Washington's main rivals for spheres of influence was Communist China and the USSR with their allies among client state and overseas revolutionaries.

The US empire builders' successes led to the transformation of their Communist and nationalist rivals into emergent capitalist competitors.

In a word US dominance led to the construction of capitalist rivals, especially China and Russia.

Subsequently, following US military defeats and prolonged wars, regional powers proliferated in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Regional blocs competed with US clients for power.

The diversification of power centers led to new and costly wars. Washington lost exclusive control of markets, resources and alliances. Competition reduced the spheres of US power.

In the face of these constraints on US global power the Trump regime envisioned a strategy to recover US dominance – ignoring the limited capacity and structure of US political , economic and class relations.

China absorbed US technology and went on to create new advances without following each previous stage.

Russia's recovered from its losses and sanctions and secured alternative trade relations to counter the new challenges to the US global empire. Trump's regime launched a 'permanent trade war' without stable allies. Moreover, he failed to undermine China's global infrastructure network; Europe demanded and secured autonomy to enter into trade deals with China, Iran and Russia.

Trump has pressured many regional powers who have ignored his threats.

The US still remains a global power. But unlike the past, the US lacks the industrial base to 'make America strong'. Industry is subordinated to finance; technological innovations are not linked to skilled labor to increase productivity.

Trump relies on sanctions and they have failed to undermine regional influentials. Sanctions may temporarily reduce access to US markets' but we have observed that new trade partners take their place.

Trump has gained client regimes in Latin America, but the gains are precarious and subject to reversal.

Under the Trump regime, big business and bankers have increased prices in the stock market and even the rate of growth of the GDP, but he confronts severe domestic political instability, and high levels of turmoil among the branches of government. In pursuit of loyalty over competence, Trump's appointments have led to the ascendancy of cabinet officials who seek to wield unilateral power which the US no longer possesses.

Elliot Abrams can massacre a quarter-million Central Americans with impunity, but he has failed to impose US power over Venezuela and Cuba. Pompeo can threaten North Kore, Iran and China but these countries fortify alliances with US rivals and competitors. Bolton can advance the interests of Israel but their conversations take place in a telephone booth – it lacks resonance with any major powers.

Trump has won a presidential election, he has secured concessions from some countries but he has alienated regional and diplomatic allies. Trump claims he is making America strong, but he has undermined lucrative strategic multi-lateral trade agreements.

US 'Global Power' does not prosper with bully-tactics. Projections of power alone, have failed – they require recognition of realistic economic limitations and the losses from regional wars.

alexander , says: May 5, 2019 at 1:41 pm GMT

This is a fine synopsis but it leaves out the most fundamental of issues.

The American People don't want to be an Empire, .never asked to be an Empire and despise, to the core, our ruling elites who defrauded us into becoming one.

We do live in an Empire now, to our chagrin, but it is (in truth) a malevolent empire .an Empire of Fraud, Belligerence .. and Heinous
F#cking Debt .

Show me one American, anywhere, who is happy about it .

Our ruling elites have "lied" us into multiple wars of "never ending" criminal aggression ..wars which have all but exterminated the solvency of the nation and reaped untold carnage and misery on tens of millions of people who never attacked us (and never intended to).

This "War Fraud", foisted upon us , has been a catastrophic disaster for our country and the world.

A "mind -bending, catastrophic, . disaster".

Every single belligerent "oligarch" , "plutocrat" and "establishment elite", who conspired to defraud us into these "illegal wars", should be rounded up and thrown in federal prison Every single penny of their assets should be seized to pay down the cost of wars they lied us into.

This is , hands down, the most meaningful step we could take, as a nation.

Not only would it change the direction of the world, almost overnight, but it would lay the groundwork for the United States to rebuild itself.

Once we make "Accountability for War Fraud" our nations highest priority, we can repair and rebuild.

If we don't, we won't and(tragically) might never be able to.

[May 05, 2019] The Establishment clowns Bolton, Pence and Pompeo will keep Trump on track in proving the the USA is lawless brutal empire

May 05, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Michael , April 30, 2019 at 18:40

America's word has never been taken seriously. Ever heard of our treaties with the Native Americans? Clinton abrogated the accords between Gorbachev and Reagan, that NATO would not move one inch to the East. Clinton set up the drunken Yeltsin as his puppet, interfering with Russia's elections and raping their economy.

Bush II desperately wanted to finish his father's Gulf War, ignoring the UN weapons inspectors. He also unilaterally pulled the US out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.

America promised Ghaddafi that if he did not pursue nuclear weapons and supporting terrorists (like Saudi Arabia and Israel), he would be left alone. Soon he was dead from bayonet rape with a gleeful chortling Hillary impressing American spooks with her "Libya Model", touted by Bolton, Pence and Pompeo to Kim's face.

Obama's deal with Iran was hated even more by Hillary (and most members of Congress) than by Trump, and was doomed when Obama left office (one of his few achievements, however fleeting).

The Establishment clowns Bolton, Pence and Pompeo will keep Trump on track.

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
"... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
"... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC) writes:

"I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind. Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy, arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:

https://youtu.be/E96084YuYyE?t=812 .

His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).

I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"

"The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed doing in the Golan Heights!

"P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT

THE WHOLE MUELLER INVESTIGATION WAS A SCAM.

The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats, Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called contacts with Russians.

They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens before the election, so it is illegal.

What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?

They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was allegedly broken itself is illegal.

It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act

This law is a joke, because Trump never “negotiated” with any foreign govt. on behalf of the USA, and Russia is not having a dispute with the USA.

Most importantly, the Logan Act is unconstitutional.

That is why nobody has been prosecuted under it–for decades!

So any American who posts on rt.com or on an Iranian website suggesting peace is technically violating the Logan Act.

Any newspapers that publishes articles about Iran or Russia or Syria and suggesting peace or war is technically violating the Logan Act.

So why are all they not in jail?

Because the Logan Act is unconstitutional and it violates the first amendment.

Go, say, “I will talk to the Russian govt. all I want and promote world peace.”

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
ADDENDUM: NOBODY HAS EVER BEEN CONVICTED UNDER THE LOGAN ACT.

This is stated in the wikipedia article I put the link for above.

In fact, the wikipedia article also talks about its unconstitutionality.

Sin City Milla , says: May 2, 2019 at 5:11 am GMT
@Rational

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been ‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.

One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being ‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”

The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say.

[May 04, 2019] Pompeo and Pemce chistianity is a joke

Notable quotes:
"... It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos. People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee. ..."
"... My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are “just like us.” They are not. ..."
"... Christian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc. ..."
May 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pompeo: "My Faith in Jesus Christ Makes a Real Difference"

Pompeo says God may have sent Trump to save Israel from Iran

"As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible," said Mr Pompeo ."I am confident that the Lord is at work here,"

Pence, a Catholic Evangelical who almost became a priest: "I made a commitment to Christ."

Christians? These Christians support a war on Yemen in which huge numbers of people are dying of mutilation, cholera, and starvation, a war they could stop with a telephone call. They similarly support butchery of Afghans from the air, massive killing in Syria, bombing of Somalis, and torture chambers around the world. Such is their Christianity. They lack even a shred of human decency. But they are Christians.


Rational , says: April 26, 2019 at 5:52 pm GMT

OLD TESTAMENT, THE ROOT OF CHRISTIANITY = PURE EVIL.

Thanks for the article, Fred. You are so right. But when I see the Pope kissing the feet of alien invaders and Pence groveling to Israel, I remember these:

The 18th-century Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason that “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible [i.e. the Old Testament] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God.” When he says Bible, Paine is referring to the OT.

See: http://www.evilbible.com

“Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” – VOLTAIRE

See online the book: “Crimes of Christianity” by Foote:

http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/contents.htm

“There is no text more barbaric than the Old Testament….–books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus*. The Quran pales in comparison.”–Jewish author Dr. Samuel Benjamin Harris.

*i.e. Torah, or OT.

Bragadocious , says: April 26, 2019 at 7:29 pm GMT
We have Pompeo, a malignant manatee looking to start wars in which he will not risk his flabby amorphous ass also parading his Christianity

Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of captain. Now he’s 55, so yes, he will not be risking his “flabby ass,” only his job.

Fred should really do more research, ‘cuz he just seems lazy.

Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada yada. I do find it odd that someone of his ilk believes in the Rapture; my only guess is that he’s playing to his (former) Kansas electoral base, and he can’t back out now. No way he believes this stuff.

As far as Impressive Humans go, Pompeo > Reed.

Anonymous [388] • Disclaimer , says: April 26, 2019 at 11:20 pm GMT
Protestantism is pseudo-Christianity. It started 1500 years after the Christian Church was founded and now has over 40K different splinter groups (denominations) in the U.S. alone. This Johnny-come-lately of heresies began because of greed and lust, and as usual, a Jewish revolutionary spirit (read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit ).

But on Trump’s über-neocon turn E. Michael Jones sums it up well in this Sputnik News interview of March 22, 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ByB3aT-jF_A?feature=oembed

Patrick , says: April 26, 2019 at 11:40 pm GMT
I am not in favor of christian zionism but the irrational has always played a prominent role in human politics, that being said I am a great fan of Fred Reed.
Anatoly Karlin , says: • Website April 27, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT
The one nice thing is that Israelophilia amongst young Americans rapidly drops off along with secularization and Europeanization of social attitudes, as well as of course greater diversity (Latinos couldn’t care less about creating Greater Israel). There was a recent survey which showed that even young Republicans are not much more pro-Israel than young Democrats. This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.

There’s a good chance that the Trump administration is a last hurrah for the Israel First agenda.

nickels , says: April 27, 2019 at 2:28 pm GMT
Christians didn’t invent hypocrisy, nor are they the only ones who apply it. However, they are the one group that knows and professes to do better, so they are easy target.
Christo , says: April 27, 2019 at 2:47 pm GMT
“Pence -a Catholic Evangelical” mutually exclusive terms . He is a former Catholic, and now, they just did not hold him underwater long enough. LOL
Amerimutt Golem , says: April 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
The closest to original Christianity is the Eastern Orthodox brand which is less corrupted compared to Romanism with its heavy doses of ‘pagan’ influences.

Christian Zionism is a fraud like most American heresies including those snake-handling ‘churches’, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Identity, Christian Science, Jehovah Witnesses plus countless Jim Jones-like cults.

In fact Luther, the founder of Protestantism, was initially a ‘Zionist’ till he saw the ‘light’, prompting him to pen On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) . The modern apostate Lutheran church has since been compromised.

Besides the ‘perks’ of being philo-Semitic are terrible. Take the Brits. After they failed to fulfill the fraudulent Balfour Declaration, Zionists turned nasty – terror groups like the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang resorted to letter bombs, blowing up hotels and hanging British troops with piano wire.

turtle , says: April 27, 2019 at 7:38 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Reed >> Pompeo
As a cadet @ West Point, Mr. Pompeo swore to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadet_Honor_Code

West Point’s Cadet Honor Code reads simply that

“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”

In modern times, he brags and laughs about having done all three as director of CIA:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OifY3sqrmXQ?feature=oembed

By contrast, Mr. Reed is one of these:
https://www.marines.com/who-we-are/our-values.html
DUCTUS EXEMPLO
A Latin term that means “lead by example,”
it’s about behaving in a manner that inspires others.

Don’t know about you, but I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying, cheating and stealing, just for starters.
He is also welcome to peddle his crazed religious beliefs somewhere else.
As an agnostic, I really do not give a rat’s ass what happens to the terrorist state of Israel.
Israel’s battles are not my battles, and I resent anyone attempting to tell me they are.
I also do have Iranian friends, but no Iranian enemies.
Notice to Mr. Pence:
Iran is not my enemy.
Israel’s enemies are not my enemies.
I do NOT “stand with Israel.”

The United States of America is a separate country from the State of Israel, with far different values.

I stand with the United States, the country of my birth, so long as it adheres to the principles embodied in its founding documents, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Lately, it does not appear to be doing much of that, no thanks to shitheads like Mr. Pompeo, and his compadre in crime, Mr. Bolton.

turtle , says: April 27, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin

This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.

I disagree. In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing. Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major constituency. I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970. None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense. Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.

Bragadocious , says: April 27, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
@turtle You’re pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie. Every intelligence outfit across the world lies. You think MI6 doesn’t lie, like every day of its life?

Since you’re so interested in Israel, you might want to know that Fred Reed is a total Johnny come lately on critiquing Israel. He used to make fun of people e-mailing him about Israel. In 2005, he wrote a hugely embarrassing positive review of a book claiming that Israel was getting a raw deal in the press because Palestinians were orchestrating the coverage. Imagine shilling for a book like that. Fred Reed did.

Anonymous [388] • Disclaimer , says: April 27, 2019 at 11:16 pm GMT
@turtle

In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major constituency.

I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.

It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos. People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee.

But the rapid demographic shift and the the decline of whites in large metro areas will certainly reduce future support for Israel and the U.S. kowtowing to Israel.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/70-of-school-districts-newest-students-are-immigrants-legal-status-unknown

70 percent of school district’s newest students are immigrants, legal status unknown

Seven of 10 new students in a Baltimore-Washington area school district are immigrants, their legal status unknown and their second language English, according to a series of new media reports about the impact of surging immigration on local communities.

A recent Baltimore Sun report said that of the 5,000 new students jamming Baltimore County schools in the past five years, 3,500 are “recent immigrants or children whose family speak another language.”

That has helped to double the percentage of students who speak English as a second language, part of a national trend.

turtle , says: April 27, 2019 at 11:20 pm GMT
@Bragadocious

You’re pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie.

I never said that, or believed it either. What I said:

I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying, cheating and stealing

Nor is Pompeo the only Pointer known to lie. There was a certain General Powell, for example. Perhaps the USMA should change their motto – truth in advertising, etc. FWIW, I had two close friends in HS who were both USMA, Class of 1970. I know for a fact neither of them would stoop to Mr. Pompeo’s level.

Since you’re so interested in Israel

My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are “just like us.” They are not.

Jus' Sayin'... , says: April 27, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin Christian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc.
wayfarer , says: April 28, 2019 at 12:11 am GMT
“Michele Bachmann and Alex Jones on Biblical Prophecy”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lBt-3X0A9OE?feature=oembed

turtle , says: April 28, 2019 at 3:39 am GMT
@Anonymous

People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee.

Yep.

Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 10:15 am GMT
Religion is used to control people.
Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT
@Bragadocious

Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada yada.

I would not consider a degree in engineering management a STEM degree

Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 10:39 am GMT
@turtle

Christian Zionism

Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0bU0HBZ7Nk

The Alarmist , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:14 am GMT

“This puts Evangelicals in the curious position of being pro-Israel but anti-Semitic.”

Tuning around Freesat in Europe, particularly the UK, get you get a lot of religious channels, mostly Muslim, but also more than a few Christian. One day I tuned past a Christian guy standing in front of a phone bank and a flag of Israel, asking for money while expressing his solidarity with Israel.

You make a good point Fred: They don’t care so much about the Jews, they just want to get their hands on the Holy Lands, even if it takes every Jewish and Muslim life they can throw at the problem.

The Alarmist , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:43 am GMT
@Bragadocious

“Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of captain.”

The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain (Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment … it is fulfilling the service requirement in exchange for a free-ride on the taxpayers teat. He conveniently ended his service just before he might have been dragooned into Gulf War 1, and if he did reserve time, it was while at Harvard Law; while many other reserve officers had their civvy careers interrupted by an increasing ops tempo of deployments that followed GW1, Mike did just fine.

Having been given seed money for his business by the Kochs and Bain Capital, he was plucked, like B. Hussein Obama, out of relative obscurity and fast-tracked to greatness. Kind of like a poorer George H.W. Bush.

The Alarmist , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
@Swede55 There was a Byzantium, but it wasn’t as Chi-Chi as Rome at the time of Christ. Making Rome the centre of the Gurch then would be like making it New York or DC now. I would be hard-pressed to see Christ himself embracing Rome as the seat of Christendom then, but it would not be much of a reach for his followers who wanted to be closer to the cosmopolitan action of the day.
Fran Macadam , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT
I guess you’d call me one of those detestable fundamentalists, Fred. You see, I take very seriously what Jesus says in the New Testament. The authority of the Son of God makes clear that His interpretations are the ones that those really transformed and following Him would model.

Now people who’ve never directly experienced things for themselves can be misled by others, who will use the disguise of faith. As for love of country, patriotism is also misused to become the first refuge of scoundrels: instead of loving your neighbors, used by them as Mark Twain pointed out to require hating others in countries further away.

But what happens when you find out you’ve been lied to? For me, having had some involvement with the military in the computer industry during the Cold War, it was clear after the Russians abandoned sovietism that the American corporations involved cared not a whit for liberty – war meant profits. Then came the lies justifying the Iraq war and all its cousins, along with the Abu Ghraib tortures approved to the highest levels – which because of my own involvement I knew had to follow the chain of command. Both religious leaders and political leaders approved of these tortures. But although I had believed these folks, the revelations and the excuses made did not jibe with my Savior’s clear speaking in scripture – quite the opposite. This was not the Jesus I know, nor the witness of the Holy Spirit who leads me.

Now these manifestations of political cooperation and human organizations calling themselves Christian, are self identifying. They claim the name Christian, but when they defy Christ’s own example and teaching, they are in fact anti-Christian, either self-deceived or knowingly deceiving others.

All along, there have been those who truly were following His path and taking up His cross, even where weeds choked the Gospel as best they could, and wolves moved among the sheep in disguise. Often those with the power to do so marginalized, persecuted and even tortured and murdered these, while masquerading as Christians while defying His every command.

I am evangelical, in that I would like to see others meet the real Jesus, not substitute false idols like the War Jesus constructed by merely human hands. But I also know that despite billions supposedly Christian, Jesus warned the path is narrow, the road to destruction broad, and that those taking up His cross would ever only be a minority – and that such a minority would be persecuted, even by religious authorities. Such folks cannot be conflated with membership rolls on institutional records, but are known to God.

My orientation of faith is identical to that of the anabaptists who were the Christians persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike, reformers who refused to take up arms against either. They often rescued their own pursuers, yet were rewarded with burning, drowning, throttling, dismemberment, along with wives and children by those who pretended they were serving Christ by doing so.

So I appreciate your pointing out how wicked it is to do evil things in the name of Christ, but I would like to remind you that just as the counterfeit can’t exist without the genuine, that there are those who won’t participate in these things, because they are determined to follow Christ, the Holy Spirit and the conscience this dictates, regardless of both those who hate Christ and those who worship a false Christ whose actions bear more resemblance to the methods of Satan himself.

Thanks Fred.

Anon [114] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 1:21 pm GMT
@Fran Macadam Nietzsche once wrote that the first, and also last, Christian had been Christ himself.
Thorfinnsson , says: April 28, 2019 at 1:24 pm GMT
@turtle The honor code at West Point was always taken seriously. Like so much else it has deteriorated lately, but it’s still observed.

Unfortunately, once the plebs graduate and become officers they enter the United States Army, in which lying is required to advance your career. The entire officer corps as a result is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the lying.

See John T. Reed on this, USMA Class of 1968: https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-blog-about-military-matters/61085187-is-military-integrity-a-contradiction-in-terms-part-1

John T. Reed refused to sign false reports as a junior officer in Vietnam, the result of which was that he was never promoted (highly irregular) and his commanding officer attempted to get him killed.

Fred Reed was an enlisted Marine, but he has said similar things about officers and especially brass.

Anon [114] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 1:25 pm GMT
@Fran Macadam This comment of yours suggests, to my mind, that Nietzsche was wrong. By a short stretch, but, luckily, still wrong.
Anon [100] • Disclaimer , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 2:53 pm GMT
They are hypochristians.
turtle , says: April 28, 2019 at 2:58 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson Thank you for the link to Mr. John T. Reed’s site.
He evidently embodies the sort of integrity we should expect from leaders, but seldom get.
Anon [163] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

they enter the United States Army, in which lying is required to advance your career. The entire officer corps as a result is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the lying.

That bears an awesome similarity with dating and romance. I wonder how come.

Anonymous [207] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 4:39 pm GMT
@The Anti-Gnostic The pro British Congress Party ruled for 6 decades.

Now look

Also, FYI

Indus Valley had first flush toilets anywhere in world..

FB , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 9:41 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin As usual Munchhausen Karlin immediately snags the stupidest comment award…without wasting undue time…

Does this dunce really know so fucking little…about just about everything…or is he simply retarded…?

His bear-trap logic relies on ‘a recent survey’…SMFH

FB , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT
Excellent piece by Mr Reed…he really tore a righteous strip of bacon off that walking side of pork Pompeo…

There are millions of evangelical Christians that fanatically support Israel for the reason of this end times nonsense, as stated in the article…so that is a very large base…and not all of them insist that Jews must convert…that is just one slice of a very wide spectrum…

In fact not all evangelical Christians support Israel…there is a very wide spectrum on the Israel issue…right up to those that see Iran and Russia [especially] in a positive light…which is encouraging…

These American Christians sympathize with Russia’s Christianity and also with the conservatism they see in Russian society, and the sobriety of Russian politics…I have no idea how the numbers stack up for these various slices of the spectrum…but the mainstream is probably along the lines of the Pences and Pompeos of the world…

Thorfinnsson , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT
@FB

……………..?

marylou , says: April 29, 2019 at 1:04 am GMT
@Fran Macadam yep.

Matthew 7:21-23

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
N

KenH , says: April 29, 2019 at 2:02 am GMT
Christian fundamentalism is full of whack jobs and Dr. Strangeloves and Pompeo and Pence are two shining examples. I just hope they don’t get us all blown to smithereens.

In Fred’s adopted nation a six year old was just caught in the crossfire of drug cartel gunfire in Cancun and has died of his injuries. This is hard to believe as Fred tells us that in addition to being a nation on the cutting edge of technology, it also has the most bookstores per square mile of any nation. So the bookish Mexican people should be reading books and not dealing drugs and shooting people, especially kids:
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/04/26/cartel-gunfire-in-cancun-kills-6-year-old-wounds-parents/

Mexico has 33K homicides annually but Fredrico gets peeved if American whites don’t want these problems in America.

Escher , says: April 29, 2019 at 8:28 am GMT
@Anatoly Karlin IMHO, it is very much a $$ thing (as someone said: “all about the Benjamins”)
dearieme , says: April 29, 2019 at 1:04 pm GMT
@Anonymous “the schism of Eastern Orthodoxy” is an odd way to put it; the Roman Catholics flounced out from the old church in the schism of 1054. Or to put it another way, the Pope flounced out from the other Patriarchs.

“Ss. Peter and Paul went to Rome”: Paul yes; he had no choice, being under arrest. Peter: of course he didn’t, that’s just another of those old religious fabrications.

If the earliest Christians had a True Home it was either Jerusalem or Galilee, of course.

dearieme , says: April 29, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT
@Brabantian “the 3 Abrahamic religions … all founded by the same kind of desert tribals used to life and death battles for control of a single watering hole.

Hardly. It would seem that the earliest Hebrews were probably settled villagers in the hills of Palestine. The earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee.

It’s not at all clear who the earliest Moslems were, since the initial conquerors were referred to as Saracens: the witness statements to their success make no reference to their having a distinct religion or distinct holy book. They do seem to have had a general called Mahomet, though, who had earlier been a merchant. Where they were from is also unclear. There’s a fair chance that they were originally from around Petra, which is on the edge of cultivation, not deep in the Arabian desert.

The Anti-Gnostic , says: • Website April 29, 2019 at 2:44 pm GMT
@Anonymous Congratulations!
The scalpel , says: • Website April 29, 2019 at 3:13 pm GMT
@turtle West Point honor grad here. Also a conscientious objector. It took me a bit to overcome my childhood indoctrination into the cult of imperialism, but before long, I realized that imperialism was in no way defending the people who reside in the USA.

http://thescalpel.net/underpantsl.html

The sad reality of current US culture is that West Point is extremely proud of lying, cheating, and stealing Pompeo, and considers me to be an embarrassment. The true mission of West Point is not “Duty, Honor, Country” as far as I can tell, but to bait idealistic young men and women into attending college there in an attempt to turn them into soulless, self-serving, corporate bag men like they did to Mike Pompeo.

(FWIW, my money is on Pompeo having somewhat cheated his way through West Point. I have seen it with my own eyes, and Pompeo does not seem that intelligent to me)

lysias , says: April 29, 2019 at 7:12 pm GMT
@Brabantian Jesus a desert tribal used to battles? Huh?
turtle , says: April 29, 2019 at 7:38 pm GMT
@The scalpel Good on you, Doctor.
The scalpel , says: • Website April 30, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH Christian fundamentalism is also full of con-artists who take the gullible for a ride. Pence seems quite dull. He might really believe that stuff. Pompeo is the wolf in sheep’s clothes. I have enough faith to at least hope that short of complete repentance (as likely as him getting knocked off a horse by God) – short of that, a special hell awaits him
FB , says: • Website April 30, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@The scalpel Porker Pompeo on a horse…?…being a horse lover that mental image sends shivers down my spine…

OTOH…a well placed back hoof to the nether regions of the ‘malignant manatee’ [classic coinage right there…thanks Mr Reed]…would be divinely appreciated…let us hope and, dare I say it, pray…

Truth , says: May 1, 2019 at 2:19 am GMT
@The Alarmist

The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain (Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment …

You know someone who was a colonel after 5 years?

The scalpel , says: • Website May 1, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT
@Truth Captain after 5 years is the most common result. The rank of Major is used as an incentive to stay in after one’s (typically 5 year) obligation. Looking at Plumpeo, I’d guess one of the reasons he got out was because he couldn’t pass his fitness tests
anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 12:34 pm GMT
@tex tickles If the Torah isn’t for Christians, why is it quoted 695 times and referenced a total of 4,105 times in the New Testament?

How many times do the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament? An index in the Jewish New Testament catalogs 695 separate quotations from the books of the Old Testament in the New (Jewish New Testament Publications, Jerusalem, 1989). There are many other passages where the Old Testament is referred to , as in cases where an Old Testament figure is mentioned, but no specific scripture is quoted. Depending on which scholar’s work you examine, the number of quotations and references in the New Testament to the Old may be as high as 4,105.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1979, Vol. I, p. 617

Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: May 1, 2019 at 12:48 pm GMT
The Inquisition: It’s prolly best to begin at the beginning, with Moses, the first, and deadliest, inquisitor.

Moses, the 1st inquisitor ordered killed 23 thousand one day (Exodus 32)

Moses, the 1st Inquisitor, ordered killed 24 thousand one day (Numbers 25).

Forty Seven Thousand ordered killed by The First Inquisitor, Moses, in two days, including women and children.

Non-Catholic historian Edward Peters:, in his work, “Inquisition” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, p. 87),

The Spanish Inquisition, in spite of wildly inflated estimates of the numbers of its victims, acted with considerable restraint in inflicting the death penalty, far more restraint than was demonstrated in secular tribunals elsewhere in Europe that dealt with the same kinds of offenses. The best estimate is that around 3000 death sentences were carried out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that in comparable secular courts.

++++++++++++++

Mr. Reed is an odd individual whose understanding of Christianity suffers from a lack of knowledge.

He seems to think that Christian Catholics have no right to defend themselves and he also suffers from the error of Presentism.

Of course, secular governments were far worse during the era when torture was acceptable and, of course, one must note that heretics were treated then as today’s traitors ought be treated.

If Germany had an Inquisition, wed have never heard of Hitler, but men like Fred hated that which men like Fred have never understood

anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@Anonymous Christianity itself, in all forms, is pseudo-Jewdaism, from the very start of it, even for you ever-kvetching Jew-worshiping Catholics.

• “ To the Jews ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship …’” Catechism of the Catholic Church
• “ We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews .” John 4:22
• “For it is we [Christians] who are the Circumcision.” Philippians 3:3

anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:08 pm GMT
@Patrick “Christian Zionism” has been woven into the fabric of the Jew-worshiping cult of Christianity, from the very beginning, with Jewish storytellers writing these Zionist principles the Jew Testament:

• Matthew 21:5 “Say to Daughter Zion , ‘See, your king comes to you.”
• John 12:15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion ; see, your king is coming.”
• Romans 9:33 “See, I lay in Zion a stone…”
• Romans 11:26 “The deliverer will come from Zion …”
• Hebrews 12:22 “Mount Zion , to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”
• 1 Peter 2:6 “See, I lay a stone in Zion .”
• Revelation 14:1 “Standing on Mount Zion , and with him 144,000.”

anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:13 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque The Inquisition started in 12th-century France . The Spanish Inquisition wasn’t the only region of Inquisition. Stop trying to minimize the horrors.
anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:19 pm GMT
@The scalpel Christianity was started by con -artists who take the gullible for a ride. As Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is con fidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” That sounds exactly like a sales pitch from con fidence man Bernie Madoff, another one of the Hebrews.
The Alarmist , says: May 1, 2019 at 2:05 pm GMT
@Truth No, but if you say Captain to a squid, they get confused.
anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
@dearieme The earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee? Bible says Syria; “Christians first in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26) Not surprisingly, it seems Muslims got their start from Syria too; as the Quran was substantially derived from Syriac Christian liturgy. ( Luxenberg, 2007 ) Let’s not forget Christians and Muslims from Syria both like to shout “Aloha Snackbar!”
Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: May 1, 2019 at 6:15 pm GMT
@anon And you did not mention the Roman Inquisition

You also did not mention the Jewish Inquisition in Europe.

I could go on…

Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: May 1, 2019 at 6:17 pm GMT
@anon Jews created Islam

http://www.culturewars.com/2018/Gardinerreview.htm

anon [417] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 7:03 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque Teachers refer to that as the “everybody’s doing it” excuse. Stay after class, to explain how those inquisitions too weren’t so awfully bad.
anon [417] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 7:05 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque Sadly, none of the three Abrahamic religions were started by Whites, who need their own native religion that better fits their evolutionary biology.
polaco , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:35 pm GMT
@anon Torture has never been anything out of the ordinary throughout history, when the police of the day took you in for questioning they wouldn’t offer treats in exchange for a confession, torture has been standard operating procedure, it was the normal, expected course of any investigation. Why don’t people blame the governments of today for what the countries they rule now used to do in the past?

If you can trust the History channel, there is no proof of an Iron Maiden device ever having been used, rather, it was used as a fear inducing object having a profound psychological impact.

Rich , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:42 pm GMT
@The scalpel Major after 5 years? When, during WW2? The War Between the States? Whether you agree with his politics, or not, being promoted to captain after 5 years in peace time is perfectly normal. The man was an athlete in high school, graduated first in his class at West Point, was an infantry officer then was on the Harvard Law Review before being elected to Congress. And not as a liberal pantywaist. Give him his due, the man’s led a remarkable life.
FB , says: • Website May 1, 2019 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Rich Wow…there’s really such a member [provisional at least] of the human race that actually admires the malignant manatee…?

Pompeo’s only possible use to humanity would be as a source of protein to a starving Yemeni family…[providing they can get over the pork part]…

Rich , says: May 2, 2019 at 1:21 am GMT
@FB Okay, you dislike the guy, doesn’t change his accomplishments. All without Affirmative Action.
The scalpel , says: • Website May 2, 2019 at 3:31 pm GMT
@Rich He found that affirmative action was not as good as lying, cheating, and stealing. I will grant that he is pretty smart, (though I am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in his West Point class without cheating.)

Take a smart person who wisely uses lying, cheating, and stealing without any remorse as a means to outcompete his friends and enemies alike, and you have someone who, with a little luck and without being caught, can slither their way to the top of some competetive hierarchies. These people are known as psychopaths, or more precisely, antisocial personality disorders.

Do I respect psychopaths? No. They generally are purely takers, and make very few contributions to humanity. Additionally, I would like to believe in things like truth, honor, and justice, and no matter how “successful” these psychopaths are, they are complete and utter failures on criteria I value. Then again, most government officials score very low on those scales. Sadly, it almost seems that they must in order to obtain such positions. We are governed by psychopaths.

Rich , says: May 2, 2019 at 6:16 pm GMT
@The scalpel What evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath? Look, you don’t like the guy’s politics, that’s okay, but why do you guys all of a sudden become Sigmund Freud and start psychoanalyzing people you’ve never met? It’s almost impossible to get through West Point cheating, lying or stealing. If anyone sees you doing anything even slightly dishonorable, they’ll rat you out faster than a Kapo would run to a German guard if he saw someone doing something wrong. The guy is obviously a very intelligent and hard working man who’s looked out at the world and drawn different conclusions than you. Doesn’t make him “evil” or a “psychopath”. Just makes him a powerful guy you don’t agree with.
turtle , says: May 2, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT
@The scalpel

am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in his West Point class without cheating.

Maybe not cheating, per se, but at least picking his (academic) battles.
In my experience, it is frequently the case (though not always) that those who major in “management” are those who cannot hack it in a technical discipline, or choose not to work quite that hard.
Evidently Harvard Law places great importance on undergraduate GPA.
Speculation:
An outstanding GPA in a soft major might carry more weight at Harvard than a lower GPA in a more demanding field. I emphasize this is speculation, as I do not actually know.

I do know that I scored 786 out of 800 on LSAT in 1970 and was not admitted to Harvard Law. My undergraduate grades at a small technical school farther down the Charles were only average among my peers.

Endgame Napoleon , says: May 2, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
All of the world’s religions can be associated with killings. They are either deeds of evil individuals, policy wrongs that do not involve direct murder, self defense or the defense of an attacked nation. Political policy can be rendered unto Cesar, while murder is accurately blamed on the individuals who do it. Mass murder is particularly evil, spawning military action that can affect innocents in other nations when it gets as heinous as the murdering of 3,000 innocent office workers on 9/11 by Muslims.

Sure, Christians have done some heinous & barbaric things over the centuries. After making a big deal of religion, Henry the Eighth beheaded some of his wives.

But when we get past what happened 500 years ago, we see a succession of evil mass murders committed in the recent past by non-Christian religious zealots, shouting Allah Akbar: the concert and nightclub massacres in France, England and America; the mass shooting of office workers on the American West Coast; the mass shootings & random mass stabbings in American Midwestern malls and in England; the Christmas market massacre in Germany; the mass murder of military personnel in office settings in the American South & the Midwest; the mass murder in Belgium; the bombing of a New England sporting event; the truck-ramming mass murders in France, Sweden and Canada; the mass murder of churchgoers in Sri Lanka, etc., etc, etc.

World wars have been started over only one incident, with much less extensive losses of life.

In some centuries, the beheading and stabbing by radical Islamic terrorists of two innocent, Danish girls, hiking in Morocco, or the beheading of an 85-year-old priest in the middle of mass might have provoked military action.

The murderers who did all of those evil deeds (and others) in the last few years knew that they were taking the chance of a military response that might hurt innocent people in the non-Christian countries that they purport to care about, and yet, they still did it, showing that they regarded potential casualties in Muslim lands as collateral damage.

The cause was the only thing that counted to them, not the people, even when the people were fellow Muslims.

bluedog , says: May 2, 2019 at 11:47 pm GMT
@Rich No they use to rat you out, but like all things that are subject to change they have to,now it wasen’t so long ago that they had the very large cheating affair at west point,and to put it bluntly the man is a lying,cheating,stealing(his words when he worked for the C.I.A.) whore that would do anything to further his cause of hurrying along the rapture, that he and Pence and Bolton dream about.!!!
Rich , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:12 am GMT
@bluedog Do you guys really think men who have risen to the heights Pompeo, Pence, and Bolton have, aren’t realists? Don’t you think that if they wanted to be ministers, they’d have followed a different path? I can’t read other people’s minds, but I sincerely doubt any of the three you mentioned is trying to bring about the “rapture”. That’s just silly. They simply see Israel as a close ally and some of the Islamic nations as enemies as well as seeing various other states as friends or enemies. You have your opinion on how the world should be run, I have mine and they have theirs, that’s just the way it.
FB , says: • Website May 3, 2019 at 2:39 am GMT
@Rich Pence, Pompeo realists…?

Are you living in Disneyland…?

You haven’t figured out yet that the more you are immune to reality, the better your chances in DC…?

Tell me one single thing that Pompeo or Pence has ever said or done that is even remotely connected to reality…

Trump is capable of spurts of realism, I’m convinced of that…but those impulses are quickly blocked and checked by the likes of Pompeo and Pence…

Look at the North Korea debacle…it was Porker Pompeo that torpedoed that last summit…Trump was going to remove him from the DPRK file, but Porker announces to the world that he ‘can’t’ be sidelined…directly contradicting the POTUS…how fucking ‘realistic’ is that…?

So once again the latest Korea initiative is set to sink, despite a president who is a realist…problem is he’s surrounded by complete fantasists like Pompeo…

The scalpel , says: • Website May 3, 2019 at 9:58 am GMT
@Rich “What evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath?”

Well, I have his behavior, which, owing to the fact that he is a public figure is, well, public knowledge. For one, he brags about his ability to lie,cheat, and steal. For two, he does those things without remorse.

Also,I have the DSM IV

https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.39.1.0025a

Read it yourself and see if you agree.

True, I don’t like his politics BECAUSE he is dangerous – a psycopath

The Scalpel , says: • Website May 3, 2019 at 12:21 pm GMT
@turtle You are correct. I was at West Point the same time as Plumpeo. In those days, there were 2 academic divisions MSE and BSL which stood for Math, Science, and Engineering and Behavioral Sciences and Leadership aka Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it). For MSE guys like me, when we had to take a BSL course like management, it was usually a breather and a relatively easy “A” versus our MSE courses, so you might have a point there.
turtle , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:15 pm GMT

I was at West Point the same time as Plumpeo.

Do you know the man personally? I do not know size of class at West Point.

Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it)

Sounds appropriate to me. In my opinion, Benjamin Nutandyahoo is another “piece of work” in the same mold .

Born in 1949
SB (Course IV – Architecture) MIT 1975
SM (Course XV – Management) 1976
Both IV & XV would be considered “soft” majors compared to School of Science or School of Engineering.
Just smart enough to think he can BS the rest of the world. Lives by making a career of deceit. At least one known alias.

No surprise he and Pompous-e-o are best buds.

turtle
Born 1949
SB MIT 1970 (School of Science)*
Graduated in June, turned 21 in September
Junior author of one published scientific paper for undergraduate work.

*I would state my Course #, but prefer to retain a degree of anonymity on this site. There are only a few possibilities, all of which are tougher than Architecture or the Sloan School. Sloanies actually had “coat and tie practice,” in which they were required to play “dress up” and carry a briefcase to class on certain days. Most of the rest of us thought that was rather silly.

Rich , says: May 3, 2019 at 10:26 pm GMT
@The scalpel If that’s what you’re going by, every single national leader throughout history is a psychopath. And maybe that’s true, but who cares? The world is what it is and we have to deal with its realities. You may be a pacifist, another may believe the Israelis are the problem, Pompeo and his fellows disagree with you. I don’t think that makes them any “crazier” than anyone else. And I have to give the man his due, he has done very well for himself.
anon [170] • Disclaimer , says: May 4, 2019 at 4:18 am GMT
@Anonymous

read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit

jewish revolutionary spirit = jews stirring up shit in your country

annamaria , says: May 4, 2019 at 4:20 am GMT
@G. Poulin It’s long to overdue to expose this fraud-in-Jesus. If Vatican excommunicates Tony Blair, the profiteer and mega-war criminal, and similar “Christian” arch-enemies of humanity, then your irritation would be vindicated. IF .

[May 04, 2019] The art of provocation and Sacral victims of Maidan

Color revolution is a military operation in which protesters are just a tip of the iceberg. the key players are Embassy staff, three letter agencies, NGOs, bought and foreign owned neoliberal press, some oligarchs (who might be pressed into submission with the threat of confiscating their assets), compradors and bought players within the government.
The initial crash with police was organized by one of such players (supposedly Lyovochkin). One of the key instruments were huge cash flows in diplomatic mail that feed the protest ("bombing country with dollars"). In a sense in any neoliberal republic color revolution is designed to be a success, the fact which EuroMaidan proved quite convincingly.
Ukraine actually was a very easy target. Yanukovich was essentially neutralized and paralyzed by threats from Biden. Security services were infiltrated and partially work for Americans. Several bought members of the government (Lyovochkon?) did their dirty job in organizing the necessity clashes with policy to feed the protest.
Notable quotes:
"... The script writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans. ..."
Feb 21, 2015 | vesti-ukr.com

Former Prime Minister Azarov explained his version of events on the Maidan. The script writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told the NTV about how coup d'état of February of the last year was organized. According to him, the script of the coup d'état was written at the U.S. Embassy.

"The main puppeteers were not on the Maidan," Azarov said. The protests started because of the decision of Ukrainian authorities to suspend the signing of the Association agreement with the EU.

"There was, of course, the enormous pressure from the leaders of the European Union, from several European countries. The meaning of this pressure was the fact that we must put aside all doubts and to sign this agreement," said the former Prime Minister. "They just needed an excuse, a reason to overthrow our government. Because we were frankly told: "If you do not you sign this agreement, it will sign another government, another President,"

In this regard, according to Azarov, they needed a provocation to start protest and such a provocation became the use of force on Independence square in Kiev, where supporters of European integration were staying for several nights. "The action was slow. The organizers understood that without the sacred victims they will be unable to ignite the crowd. Suddenly around 3 am several TV crews arrive, set lights, camera. What to shoot? This ordinary situation, when people spend the night at the square?" - said Azarov.

Ukrainian people were cynically played. According to Azarov at this moment "prepared by gunmen in masks" arrived to the square. They started beating on duty policemen with metal sticks. When police called reinforcements instigators quickly disappeared. And when riot police began detention, "they detain generally innocent people who spend night at the square as a part of peaceful protest."

Speaking about the negotiations Yanukovich with the opposition, Azarov noted that the current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk "every day spend most of his time in the American Embassy and following their instructions to the letter."

In the end, an agreement was signed between the President and opposition leaders on the peaceful resolution of the conflict, the guarantor which were several European countries, but no one except the Yanukovich, fulfilled their obligations. "I still do not understand, how foreign Ministers of Poland, Germany, France, which signed an agreement on February 21 feel themselves. In the history of diplomacy this agreement will be included as an example of the utmost degree of cynicism and deceit," said Azarov.

See also

[May 04, 2019] Pompeo and Pemce chistianity is a joke

Notable quotes:
"... It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos. People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee. ..."
"... My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are “just like us.” They are not. ..."
"... Christian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc. ..."
May 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pompeo: "My Faith in Jesus Christ Makes a Real Difference"

Pompeo says God may have sent Trump to save Israel from Iran

"As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible," said Mr Pompeo ."I am confident that the Lord is at work here,"

Pence, a Catholic Evangelical who almost became a priest: "I made a commitment to Christ."

Christians? These Christians support a war on Yemen in which huge numbers of people are dying of mutilation, cholera, and starvation, a war they could stop with a telephone call. They similarly support butchery of Afghans from the air, massive killing in Syria, bombing of Somalis, and torture chambers around the world. Such is their Christianity. They lack even a shred of human decency. But they are Christians.


Rational , says: April 26, 2019 at 5:52 pm GMT

OLD TESTAMENT, THE ROOT OF CHRISTIANITY = PURE EVIL.

Thanks for the article, Fred. You are so right. But when I see the Pope kissing the feet of alien invaders and Pence groveling to Israel, I remember these:

The 18th-century Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason that “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible [i.e. the Old Testament] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God.” When he says Bible, Paine is referring to the OT.

See: http://www.evilbible.com

“Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” – VOLTAIRE

See online the book: “Crimes of Christianity” by Foote:

http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/contents.htm

“There is no text more barbaric than the Old Testament….–books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus*. The Quran pales in comparison.”–Jewish author Dr. Samuel Benjamin Harris.

*i.e. Torah, or OT.

Bragadocious , says: April 26, 2019 at 7:29 pm GMT
We have Pompeo, a malignant manatee looking to start wars in which he will not risk his flabby amorphous ass also parading his Christianity

Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of captain. Now he’s 55, so yes, he will not be risking his “flabby ass,” only his job.

Fred should really do more research, ‘cuz he just seems lazy.

Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada yada. I do find it odd that someone of his ilk believes in the Rapture; my only guess is that he’s playing to his (former) Kansas electoral base, and he can’t back out now. No way he believes this stuff.

As far as Impressive Humans go, Pompeo > Reed.

Anonymous [388] • Disclaimer , says: April 26, 2019 at 11:20 pm GMT
Protestantism is pseudo-Christianity. It started 1500 years after the Christian Church was founded and now has over 40K different splinter groups (denominations) in the U.S. alone. This Johnny-come-lately of heresies began because of greed and lust, and as usual, a Jewish revolutionary spirit (read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit ).

But on Trump’s über-neocon turn E. Michael Jones sums it up well in this Sputnik News interview of March 22, 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ByB3aT-jF_A?feature=oembed

Patrick , says: April 26, 2019 at 11:40 pm GMT
I am not in favor of christian zionism but the irrational has always played a prominent role in human politics, that being said I am a great fan of Fred Reed.
Anatoly Karlin , says: • Website April 27, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT
The one nice thing is that Israelophilia amongst young Americans rapidly drops off along with secularization and Europeanization of social attitudes, as well as of course greater diversity (Latinos couldn’t care less about creating Greater Israel). There was a recent survey which showed that even young Republicans are not much more pro-Israel than young Democrats. This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.

There’s a good chance that the Trump administration is a last hurrah for the Israel First agenda.

nickels , says: April 27, 2019 at 2:28 pm GMT
Christians didn’t invent hypocrisy, nor are they the only ones who apply it. However, they are the one group that knows and professes to do better, so they are easy target.
Christo , says: April 27, 2019 at 2:47 pm GMT
“Pence -a Catholic Evangelical” mutually exclusive terms . He is a former Catholic, and now, they just did not hold him underwater long enough. LOL
Amerimutt Golem , says: April 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
The closest to original Christianity is the Eastern Orthodox brand which is less corrupted compared to Romanism with its heavy doses of ‘pagan’ influences.

Christian Zionism is a fraud like most American heresies including those snake-handling ‘churches’, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Identity, Christian Science, Jehovah Witnesses plus countless Jim Jones-like cults.

In fact Luther, the founder of Protestantism, was initially a ‘Zionist’ till he saw the ‘light’, prompting him to pen On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) . The modern apostate Lutheran church has since been compromised.

Besides the ‘perks’ of being philo-Semitic are terrible. Take the Brits. After they failed to fulfill the fraudulent Balfour Declaration, Zionists turned nasty – terror groups like the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang resorted to letter bombs, blowing up hotels and hanging British troops with piano wire.

turtle , says: April 27, 2019 at 7:38 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Reed >> Pompeo
As a cadet @ West Point, Mr. Pompeo swore to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadet_Honor_Code

West Point’s Cadet Honor Code reads simply that

“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”

In modern times, he brags and laughs about having done all three as director of CIA:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OifY3sqrmXQ?feature=oembed

By contrast, Mr. Reed is one of these:
https://www.marines.com/who-we-are/our-values.html
DUCTUS EXEMPLO
A Latin term that means “lead by example,”
it’s about behaving in a manner that inspires others.

Don’t know about you, but I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying, cheating and stealing, just for starters.
He is also welcome to peddle his crazed religious beliefs somewhere else.
As an agnostic, I really do not give a rat’s ass what happens to the terrorist state of Israel.
Israel’s battles are not my battles, and I resent anyone attempting to tell me they are.
I also do have Iranian friends, but no Iranian enemies.
Notice to Mr. Pence:
Iran is not my enemy.
Israel’s enemies are not my enemies.
I do NOT “stand with Israel.”

The United States of America is a separate country from the State of Israel, with far different values.

I stand with the United States, the country of my birth, so long as it adheres to the principles embodied in its founding documents, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Lately, it does not appear to be doing much of that, no thanks to shitheads like Mr. Pompeo, and his compadre in crime, Mr. Bolton.

turtle , says: April 27, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin

This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.

I disagree. In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing. Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major constituency. I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970. None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense. Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.

Bragadocious , says: April 27, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
@turtle You’re pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie. Every intelligence outfit across the world lies. You think MI6 doesn’t lie, like every day of its life?

Since you’re so interested in Israel, you might want to know that Fred Reed is a total Johnny come lately on critiquing Israel. He used to make fun of people e-mailing him about Israel. In 2005, he wrote a hugely embarrassing positive review of a book claiming that Israel was getting a raw deal in the press because Palestinians were orchestrating the coverage. Imagine shilling for a book like that. Fred Reed did.

Anonymous [388] • Disclaimer , says: April 27, 2019 at 11:16 pm GMT
@turtle

In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major constituency.

I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.

It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos. People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee.

But the rapid demographic shift and the the decline of whites in large metro areas will certainly reduce future support for Israel and the U.S. kowtowing to Israel.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/70-of-school-districts-newest-students-are-immigrants-legal-status-unknown

70 percent of school district’s newest students are immigrants, legal status unknown

Seven of 10 new students in a Baltimore-Washington area school district are immigrants, their legal status unknown and their second language English, according to a series of new media reports about the impact of surging immigration on local communities.

A recent Baltimore Sun report said that of the 5,000 new students jamming Baltimore County schools in the past five years, 3,500 are “recent immigrants or children whose family speak another language.”

That has helped to double the percentage of students who speak English as a second language, part of a national trend.

turtle , says: April 27, 2019 at 11:20 pm GMT
@Bragadocious

You’re pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie.

I never said that, or believed it either. What I said:

I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying, cheating and stealing

Nor is Pompeo the only Pointer known to lie. There was a certain General Powell, for example. Perhaps the USMA should change their motto – truth in advertising, etc. FWIW, I had two close friends in HS who were both USMA, Class of 1970. I know for a fact neither of them would stoop to Mr. Pompeo’s level.

Since you’re so interested in Israel

My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are “just like us.” They are not.

Jus' Sayin'... , says: April 27, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin Christian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc.
wayfarer , says: April 28, 2019 at 12:11 am GMT
“Michele Bachmann and Alex Jones on Biblical Prophecy”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lBt-3X0A9OE?feature=oembed

turtle , says: April 28, 2019 at 3:39 am GMT
@Anonymous

People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee.

Yep.

Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 10:15 am GMT
Religion is used to control people.
Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT
@Bragadocious

Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada yada.

I would not consider a degree in engineering management a STEM degree

Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 10:39 am GMT
@turtle

Christian Zionism

Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0bU0HBZ7Nk

The Alarmist , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:14 am GMT

“This puts Evangelicals in the curious position of being pro-Israel but anti-Semitic.”

Tuning around Freesat in Europe, particularly the UK, get you get a lot of religious channels, mostly Muslim, but also more than a few Christian. One day I tuned past a Christian guy standing in front of a phone bank and a flag of Israel, asking for money while expressing his solidarity with Israel.

You make a good point Fred: They don’t care so much about the Jews, they just want to get their hands on the Holy Lands, even if it takes every Jewish and Muslim life they can throw at the problem.

The Alarmist , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:43 am GMT
@Bragadocious

“Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of captain.”

The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain (Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment … it is fulfilling the service requirement in exchange for a free-ride on the taxpayers teat. He conveniently ended his service just before he might have been dragooned into Gulf War 1, and if he did reserve time, it was while at Harvard Law; while many other reserve officers had their civvy careers interrupted by an increasing ops tempo of deployments that followed GW1, Mike did just fine.

Having been given seed money for his business by the Kochs and Bain Capital, he was plucked, like B. Hussein Obama, out of relative obscurity and fast-tracked to greatness. Kind of like a poorer George H.W. Bush.

The Alarmist , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
@Swede55 There was a Byzantium, but it wasn’t as Chi-Chi as Rome at the time of Christ. Making Rome the centre of the Gurch then would be like making it New York or DC now. I would be hard-pressed to see Christ himself embracing Rome as the seat of Christendom then, but it would not be much of a reach for his followers who wanted to be closer to the cosmopolitan action of the day.
Fran Macadam , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT
I guess you’d call me one of those detestable fundamentalists, Fred. You see, I take very seriously what Jesus says in the New Testament. The authority of the Son of God makes clear that His interpretations are the ones that those really transformed and following Him would model.

Now people who’ve never directly experienced things for themselves can be misled by others, who will use the disguise of faith. As for love of country, patriotism is also misused to become the first refuge of scoundrels: instead of loving your neighbors, used by them as Mark Twain pointed out to require hating others in countries further away.

But what happens when you find out you’ve been lied to? For me, having had some involvement with the military in the computer industry during the Cold War, it was clear after the Russians abandoned sovietism that the American corporations involved cared not a whit for liberty – war meant profits. Then came the lies justifying the Iraq war and all its cousins, along with the Abu Ghraib tortures approved to the highest levels – which because of my own involvement I knew had to follow the chain of command. Both religious leaders and political leaders approved of these tortures. But although I had believed these folks, the revelations and the excuses made did not jibe with my Savior’s clear speaking in scripture – quite the opposite. This was not the Jesus I know, nor the witness of the Holy Spirit who leads me.

Now these manifestations of political cooperation and human organizations calling themselves Christian, are self identifying. They claim the name Christian, but when they defy Christ’s own example and teaching, they are in fact anti-Christian, either self-deceived or knowingly deceiving others.

All along, there have been those who truly were following His path and taking up His cross, even where weeds choked the Gospel as best they could, and wolves moved among the sheep in disguise. Often those with the power to do so marginalized, persecuted and even tortured and murdered these, while masquerading as Christians while defying His every command.

I am evangelical, in that I would like to see others meet the real Jesus, not substitute false idols like the War Jesus constructed by merely human hands. But I also know that despite billions supposedly Christian, Jesus warned the path is narrow, the road to destruction broad, and that those taking up His cross would ever only be a minority – and that such a minority would be persecuted, even by religious authorities. Such folks cannot be conflated with membership rolls on institutional records, but are known to God.

My orientation of faith is identical to that of the anabaptists who were the Christians persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike, reformers who refused to take up arms against either. They often rescued their own pursuers, yet were rewarded with burning, drowning, throttling, dismemberment, along with wives and children by those who pretended they were serving Christ by doing so.

So I appreciate your pointing out how wicked it is to do evil things in the name of Christ, but I would like to remind you that just as the counterfeit can’t exist without the genuine, that there are those who won’t participate in these things, because they are determined to follow Christ, the Holy Spirit and the conscience this dictates, regardless of both those who hate Christ and those who worship a false Christ whose actions bear more resemblance to the methods of Satan himself.

Thanks Fred.

Anon [114] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 1:21 pm GMT
@Fran Macadam Nietzsche once wrote that the first, and also last, Christian had been Christ himself.
Thorfinnsson , says: April 28, 2019 at 1:24 pm GMT
@turtle The honor code at West Point was always taken seriously. Like so much else it has deteriorated lately, but it’s still observed.

Unfortunately, once the plebs graduate and become officers they enter the United States Army, in which lying is required to advance your career. The entire officer corps as a result is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the lying.

See John T. Reed on this, USMA Class of 1968: https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-blog-about-military-matters/61085187-is-military-integrity-a-contradiction-in-terms-part-1

John T. Reed refused to sign false reports as a junior officer in Vietnam, the result of which was that he was never promoted (highly irregular) and his commanding officer attempted to get him killed.

Fred Reed was an enlisted Marine, but he has said similar things about officers and especially brass.

Anon [114] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 1:25 pm GMT
@Fran Macadam This comment of yours suggests, to my mind, that Nietzsche was wrong. By a short stretch, but, luckily, still wrong.
Anon [100] • Disclaimer , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 2:53 pm GMT
They are hypochristians.
turtle , says: April 28, 2019 at 2:58 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson Thank you for the link to Mr. John T. Reed’s site.
He evidently embodies the sort of integrity we should expect from leaders, but seldom get.
Anon [163] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

they enter the United States Army, in which lying is required to advance your career. The entire officer corps as a result is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the lying.

That bears an awesome similarity with dating and romance. I wonder how come.

Anonymous [207] • Disclaimer , says: April 28, 2019 at 4:39 pm GMT
@The Anti-Gnostic The pro British Congress Party ruled for 6 decades.

Now look

Also, FYI

Indus Valley had first flush toilets anywhere in world..

FB , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 9:41 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin As usual Munchhausen Karlin immediately snags the stupidest comment award…without wasting undue time…

Does this dunce really know so fucking little…about just about everything…or is he simply retarded…?

His bear-trap logic relies on ‘a recent survey’…SMFH

FB , says: • Website April 28, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT
Excellent piece by Mr Reed…he really tore a righteous strip of bacon off that walking side of pork Pompeo…

There are millions of evangelical Christians that fanatically support Israel for the reason of this end times nonsense, as stated in the article…so that is a very large base…and not all of them insist that Jews must convert…that is just one slice of a very wide spectrum…

In fact not all evangelical Christians support Israel…there is a very wide spectrum on the Israel issue…right up to those that see Iran and Russia [especially] in a positive light…which is encouraging…

These American Christians sympathize with Russia’s Christianity and also with the conservatism they see in Russian society, and the sobriety of Russian politics…I have no idea how the numbers stack up for these various slices of the spectrum…but the mainstream is probably along the lines of the Pences and Pompeos of the world…

Thorfinnsson , says: April 28, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT
@FB

……………..?

marylou , says: April 29, 2019 at 1:04 am GMT
@Fran Macadam yep.

Matthew 7:21-23

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
N

KenH , says: April 29, 2019 at 2:02 am GMT
Christian fundamentalism is full of whack jobs and Dr. Strangeloves and Pompeo and Pence are two shining examples. I just hope they don’t get us all blown to smithereens.

In Fred’s adopted nation a six year old was just caught in the crossfire of drug cartel gunfire in Cancun and has died of his injuries. This is hard to believe as Fred tells us that in addition to being a nation on the cutting edge of technology, it also has the most bookstores per square mile of any nation. So the bookish Mexican people should be reading books and not dealing drugs and shooting people, especially kids:
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/04/26/cartel-gunfire-in-cancun-kills-6-year-old-wounds-parents/

Mexico has 33K homicides annually but Fredrico gets peeved if American whites don’t want these problems in America.

Escher , says: April 29, 2019 at 8:28 am GMT
@Anatoly Karlin IMHO, it is very much a $$ thing (as someone said: “all about the Benjamins”)
dearieme , says: April 29, 2019 at 1:04 pm GMT
@Anonymous “the schism of Eastern Orthodoxy” is an odd way to put it; the Roman Catholics flounced out from the old church in the schism of 1054. Or to put it another way, the Pope flounced out from the other Patriarchs.

“Ss. Peter and Paul went to Rome”: Paul yes; he had no choice, being under arrest. Peter: of course he didn’t, that’s just another of those old religious fabrications.

If the earliest Christians had a True Home it was either Jerusalem or Galilee, of course.

dearieme , says: April 29, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT
@Brabantian “the 3 Abrahamic religions … all founded by the same kind of desert tribals used to life and death battles for control of a single watering hole.

Hardly. It would seem that the earliest Hebrews were probably settled villagers in the hills of Palestine. The earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee.

It’s not at all clear who the earliest Moslems were, since the initial conquerors were referred to as Saracens: the witness statements to their success make no reference to their having a distinct religion or distinct holy book. They do seem to have had a general called Mahomet, though, who had earlier been a merchant. Where they were from is also unclear. There’s a fair chance that they were originally from around Petra, which is on the edge of cultivation, not deep in the Arabian desert.

The Anti-Gnostic , says: • Website April 29, 2019 at 2:44 pm GMT
@Anonymous Congratulations!
The scalpel , says: • Website April 29, 2019 at 3:13 pm GMT
@turtle West Point honor grad here. Also a conscientious objector. It took me a bit to overcome my childhood indoctrination into the cult of imperialism, but before long, I realized that imperialism was in no way defending the people who reside in the USA.

http://thescalpel.net/underpantsl.html

The sad reality of current US culture is that West Point is extremely proud of lying, cheating, and stealing Pompeo, and considers me to be an embarrassment. The true mission of West Point is not “Duty, Honor, Country” as far as I can tell, but to bait idealistic young men and women into attending college there in an attempt to turn them into soulless, self-serving, corporate bag men like they did to Mike Pompeo.

(FWIW, my money is on Pompeo having somewhat cheated his way through West Point. I have seen it with my own eyes, and Pompeo does not seem that intelligent to me)

lysias , says: April 29, 2019 at 7:12 pm GMT
@Brabantian Jesus a desert tribal used to battles? Huh?
turtle , says: April 29, 2019 at 7:38 pm GMT
@The scalpel Good on you, Doctor.
The scalpel , says: • Website April 30, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH Christian fundamentalism is also full of con-artists who take the gullible for a ride. Pence seems quite dull. He might really believe that stuff. Pompeo is the wolf in sheep’s clothes. I have enough faith to at least hope that short of complete repentance (as likely as him getting knocked off a horse by God) – short of that, a special hell awaits him
FB , says: • Website April 30, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@The scalpel Porker Pompeo on a horse…?…being a horse lover that mental image sends shivers down my spine…

OTOH…a well placed back hoof to the nether regions of the ‘malignant manatee’ [classic coinage right there…thanks Mr Reed]…would be divinely appreciated…let us hope and, dare I say it, pray…

Truth , says: May 1, 2019 at 2:19 am GMT
@The Alarmist

The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain (Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment …

You know someone who was a colonel after 5 years?

The scalpel , says: • Website May 1, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT
@Truth Captain after 5 years is the most common result. The rank of Major is used as an incentive to stay in after one’s (typically 5 year) obligation. Looking at Plumpeo, I’d guess one of the reasons he got out was because he couldn’t pass his fitness tests
anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 12:34 pm GMT
@tex tickles If the Torah isn’t for Christians, why is it quoted 695 times and referenced a total of 4,105 times in the New Testament?

How many times do the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament? An index in the Jewish New Testament catalogs 695 separate quotations from the books of the Old Testament in the New (Jewish New Testament Publications, Jerusalem, 1989). There are many other passages where the Old Testament is referred to , as in cases where an Old Testament figure is mentioned, but no specific scripture is quoted. Depending on which scholar’s work you examine, the number of quotations and references in the New Testament to the Old may be as high as 4,105.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1979, Vol. I, p. 617

Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: May 1, 2019 at 12:48 pm GMT
The Inquisition: It’s prolly best to begin at the beginning, with Moses, the first, and deadliest, inquisitor.

Moses, the 1st inquisitor ordered killed 23 thousand one day (Exodus 32)

Moses, the 1st Inquisitor, ordered killed 24 thousand one day (Numbers 25).

Forty Seven Thousand ordered killed by The First Inquisitor, Moses, in two days, including women and children.

Non-Catholic historian Edward Peters:, in his work, “Inquisition” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, p. 87),

The Spanish Inquisition, in spite of wildly inflated estimates of the numbers of its victims, acted with considerable restraint in inflicting the death penalty, far more restraint than was demonstrated in secular tribunals elsewhere in Europe that dealt with the same kinds of offenses. The best estimate is that around 3000 death sentences were carried out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that in comparable secular courts.

++++++++++++++

Mr. Reed is an odd individual whose understanding of Christianity suffers from a lack of knowledge.

He seems to think that Christian Catholics have no right to defend themselves and he also suffers from the error of Presentism.

Of course, secular governments were far worse during the era when torture was acceptable and, of course, one must note that heretics were treated then as today’s traitors ought be treated.

If Germany had an Inquisition, wed have never heard of Hitler, but men like Fred hated that which men like Fred have never understood

anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@Anonymous Christianity itself, in all forms, is pseudo-Jewdaism, from the very start of it, even for you ever-kvetching Jew-worshiping Catholics.

• “ To the Jews ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship …’” Catechism of the Catholic Church
• “ We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews .” John 4:22
• “For it is we [Christians] who are the Circumcision.” Philippians 3:3

anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:08 pm GMT
@Patrick “Christian Zionism” has been woven into the fabric of the Jew-worshiping cult of Christianity, from the very beginning, with Jewish storytellers writing these Zionist principles the Jew Testament:

• Matthew 21:5 “Say to Daughter Zion , ‘See, your king comes to you.”
• John 12:15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion ; see, your king is coming.”
• Romans 9:33 “See, I lay in Zion a stone…”
• Romans 11:26 “The deliverer will come from Zion …”
• Hebrews 12:22 “Mount Zion , to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”
• 1 Peter 2:6 “See, I lay a stone in Zion .”
• Revelation 14:1 “Standing on Mount Zion , and with him 144,000.”

anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:13 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque The Inquisition started in 12th-century France . The Spanish Inquisition wasn’t the only region of Inquisition. Stop trying to minimize the horrors.
anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:19 pm GMT
@The scalpel Christianity was started by con -artists who take the gullible for a ride. As Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is con fidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” That sounds exactly like a sales pitch from con fidence man Bernie Madoff, another one of the Hebrews.
The Alarmist , says: May 1, 2019 at 2:05 pm GMT
@Truth No, but if you say Captain to a squid, they get confused.
anon [271] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
@dearieme The earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee? Bible says Syria; “Christians first in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26) Not surprisingly, it seems Muslims got their start from Syria too; as the Quran was substantially derived from Syriac Christian liturgy. ( Luxenberg, 2007 ) Let’s not forget Christians and Muslims from Syria both like to shout “Aloha Snackbar!”
Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: May 1, 2019 at 6:15 pm GMT
@anon And you did not mention the Roman Inquisition

You also did not mention the Jewish Inquisition in Europe.

I could go on…

Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: May 1, 2019 at 6:17 pm GMT
@anon Jews created Islam

http://www.culturewars.com/2018/Gardinerreview.htm

anon [417] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 7:03 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque Teachers refer to that as the “everybody’s doing it” excuse. Stay after class, to explain how those inquisitions too weren’t so awfully bad.
anon [417] • Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 7:05 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque Sadly, none of the three Abrahamic religions were started by Whites, who need their own native religion that better fits their evolutionary biology.
polaco , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:35 pm GMT
@anon Torture has never been anything out of the ordinary throughout history, when the police of the day took you in for questioning they wouldn’t offer treats in exchange for a confession, torture has been standard operating procedure, it was the normal, expected course of any investigation. Why don’t people blame the governments of today for what the countries they rule now used to do in the past?

If you can trust the History channel, there is no proof of an Iron Maiden device ever having been used, rather, it was used as a fear inducing object having a profound psychological impact.

Rich , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:42 pm GMT
@The scalpel Major after 5 years? When, during WW2? The War Between the States? Whether you agree with his politics, or not, being promoted to captain after 5 years in peace time is perfectly normal. The man was an athlete in high school, graduated first in his class at West Point, was an infantry officer then was on the Harvard Law Review before being elected to Congress. And not as a liberal pantywaist. Give him his due, the man’s led a remarkable life.
FB , says: • Website May 1, 2019 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Rich Wow…there’s really such a member [provisional at least] of the human race that actually admires the malignant manatee…?

Pompeo’s only possible use to humanity would be as a source of protein to a starving Yemeni family…[providing they can get over the pork part]…

Rich , says: May 2, 2019 at 1:21 am GMT
@FB Okay, you dislike the guy, doesn’t change his accomplishments. All without Affirmative Action.
The scalpel , says: • Website May 2, 2019 at 3:31 pm GMT
@Rich He found that affirmative action was not as good as lying, cheating, and stealing. I will grant that he is pretty smart, (though I am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in his West Point class without cheating.)

Take a smart person who wisely uses lying, cheating, and stealing without any remorse as a means to outcompete his friends and enemies alike, and you have someone who, with a little luck and without being caught, can slither their way to the top of some competetive hierarchies. These people are known as psychopaths, or more precisely, antisocial personality disorders.

Do I respect psychopaths? No. They generally are purely takers, and make very few contributions to humanity. Additionally, I would like to believe in things like truth, honor, and justice, and no matter how “successful” these psychopaths are, they are complete and utter failures on criteria I value. Then again, most government officials score very low on those scales. Sadly, it almost seems that they must in order to obtain such positions. We are governed by psychopaths.

Rich , says: May 2, 2019 at 6:16 pm GMT
@The scalpel What evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath? Look, you don’t like the guy’s politics, that’s okay, but why do you guys all of a sudden become Sigmund Freud and start psychoanalyzing people you’ve never met? It’s almost impossible to get through West Point cheating, lying or stealing. If anyone sees you doing anything even slightly dishonorable, they’ll rat you out faster than a Kapo would run to a German guard if he saw someone doing something wrong. The guy is obviously a very intelligent and hard working man who’s looked out at the world and drawn different conclusions than you. Doesn’t make him “evil” or a “psychopath”. Just makes him a powerful guy you don’t agree with.
turtle , says: May 2, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT
@The scalpel

am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in his West Point class without cheating.

Maybe not cheating, per se, but at least picking his (academic) battles.
In my experience, it is frequently the case (though not always) that those who major in “management” are those who cannot hack it in a technical discipline, or choose not to work quite that hard.
Evidently Harvard Law places great importance on undergraduate GPA.
Speculation:
An outstanding GPA in a soft major might carry more weight at Harvard than a lower GPA in a more demanding field. I emphasize this is speculation, as I do not actually know.

I do know that I scored 786 out of 800 on LSAT in 1970 and was not admitted to Harvard Law. My undergraduate grades at a small technical school farther down the Charles were only average among my peers.

Endgame Napoleon , says: May 2, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
All of the world’s religions can be associated with killings. They are either deeds of evil individuals, policy wrongs that do not involve direct murder, self defense or the defense of an attacked nation. Political policy can be rendered unto Cesar, while murder is accurately blamed on the individuals who do it. Mass murder is particularly evil, spawning military action that can affect innocents in other nations when it gets as heinous as the murdering of 3,000 innocent office workers on 9/11 by Muslims.

Sure, Christians have done some heinous & barbaric things over the centuries. After making a big deal of religion, Henry the Eighth beheaded some of his wives.

But when we get past what happened 500 years ago, we see a succession of evil mass murders committed in the recent past by non-Christian religious zealots, shouting Allah Akbar: the concert and nightclub massacres in France, England and America; the mass shooting of office workers on the American West Coast; the mass shootings & random mass stabbings in American Midwestern malls and in England; the Christmas market massacre in Germany; the mass murder of military personnel in office settings in the American South & the Midwest; the mass murder in Belgium; the bombing of a New England sporting event; the truck-ramming mass murders in France, Sweden and Canada; the mass murder of churchgoers in Sri Lanka, etc., etc, etc.

World wars have been started over only one incident, with much less extensive losses of life.

In some centuries, the beheading and stabbing by radical Islamic terrorists of two innocent, Danish girls, hiking in Morocco, or the beheading of an 85-year-old priest in the middle of mass might have provoked military action.

The murderers who did all of those evil deeds (and others) in the last few years knew that they were taking the chance of a military response that might hurt innocent people in the non-Christian countries that they purport to care about, and yet, they still did it, showing that they regarded potential casualties in Muslim lands as collateral damage.

The cause was the only thing that counted to them, not the people, even when the people were fellow Muslims.

bluedog , says: May 2, 2019 at 11:47 pm GMT
@Rich No they use to rat you out, but like all things that are subject to change they have to,now it wasen’t so long ago that they had the very large cheating affair at west point,and to put it bluntly the man is a lying,cheating,stealing(his words when he worked for the C.I.A.) whore that would do anything to further his cause of hurrying along the rapture, that he and Pence and Bolton dream about.!!!
Rich , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:12 am GMT
@bluedog Do you guys really think men who have risen to the heights Pompeo, Pence, and Bolton have, aren’t realists? Don’t you think that if they wanted to be ministers, they’d have followed a different path? I can’t read other people’s minds, but I sincerely doubt any of the three you mentioned is trying to bring about the “rapture”. That’s just silly. They simply see Israel as a close ally and some of the Islamic nations as enemies as well as seeing various other states as friends or enemies. You have your opinion on how the world should be run, I have mine and they have theirs, that’s just the way it.
FB , says: • Website May 3, 2019 at 2:39 am GMT
@Rich Pence, Pompeo realists…?

Are you living in Disneyland…?

You haven’t figured out yet that the more you are immune to reality, the better your chances in DC…?

Tell me one single thing that Pompeo or Pence has ever said or done that is even remotely connected to reality…

Trump is capable of spurts of realism, I’m convinced of that…but those impulses are quickly blocked and checked by the likes of Pompeo and Pence…

Look at the North Korea debacle…it was Porker Pompeo that torpedoed that last summit…Trump was going to remove him from the DPRK file, but Porker announces to the world that he ‘can’t’ be sidelined…directly contradicting the POTUS…how fucking ‘realistic’ is that…?

So once again the latest Korea initiative is set to sink, despite a president who is a realist…problem is he’s surrounded by complete fantasists like Pompeo…

The scalpel , says: • Website May 3, 2019 at 9:58 am GMT
@Rich “What evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath?”

Well, I have his behavior, which, owing to the fact that he is a public figure is, well, public knowledge. For one, he brags about his ability to lie,cheat, and steal. For two, he does those things without remorse.

Also,I have the DSM IV

https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.39.1.0025a

Read it yourself and see if you agree.

True, I don’t like his politics BECAUSE he is dangerous – a psycopath

The Scalpel , says: • Website May 3, 2019 at 12:21 pm GMT
@turtle You are correct. I was at West Point the same time as Plumpeo. In those days, there were 2 academic divisions MSE and BSL which stood for Math, Science, and Engineering and Behavioral Sciences and Leadership aka Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it). For MSE guys like me, when we had to take a BSL course like management, it was usually a breather and a relatively easy “A” versus our MSE courses, so you might have a point there.
turtle , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:15 pm GMT

I was at West Point the same time as Plumpeo.

Do you know the man personally? I do not know size of class at West Point.

Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it)

Sounds appropriate to me. In my opinion, Benjamin Nutandyahoo is another “piece of work” in the same mold .

Born in 1949
SB (Course IV – Architecture) MIT 1975
SM (Course XV – Management) 1976
Both IV & XV would be considered “soft” majors compared to School of Science or School of Engineering.
Just smart enough to think he can BS the rest of the world. Lives by making a career of deceit. At least one known alias.

No surprise he and Pompous-e-o are best buds.

turtle
Born 1949
SB MIT 1970 (School of Science)*
Graduated in June, turned 21 in September
Junior author of one published scientific paper for undergraduate work.

*I would state my Course #, but prefer to retain a degree of anonymity on this site. There are only a few possibilities, all of which are tougher than Architecture or the Sloan School. Sloanies actually had “coat and tie practice,” in which they were required to play “dress up” and carry a briefcase to class on certain days. Most of the rest of us thought that was rather silly.

Rich , says: May 3, 2019 at 10:26 pm GMT
@The scalpel If that’s what you’re going by, every single national leader throughout history is a psychopath. And maybe that’s true, but who cares? The world is what it is and we have to deal with its realities. You may be a pacifist, another may believe the Israelis are the problem, Pompeo and his fellows disagree with you. I don’t think that makes them any “crazier” than anyone else. And I have to give the man his due, he has done very well for himself.
anon [170] • Disclaimer , says: May 4, 2019 at 4:18 am GMT
@Anonymous

read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit

jewish revolutionary spirit = jews stirring up shit in your country

annamaria , says: May 4, 2019 at 4:20 am GMT
@G. Poulin It’s long to overdue to expose this fraud-in-Jesus. If Vatican excommunicates Tony Blair, the profiteer and mega-war criminal, and similar “Christian” arch-enemies of humanity, then your irritation would be vindicated. IF .

[May 04, 2019] That nonsense about a plane waiting to shuffle him off to Cuba was complete American lie.

Notable quotes:
"... "What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two about what happened in Chile." ..."
"... They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla), Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo), Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on. ..."
"... If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the Gringos. ..."
"... I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and development. ..."
"... Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work... in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they won't survive the summer. ..."
"... Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison, the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly illiterate. ..."
"... One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago. ..."
"... Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck". ..."
"... Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido ..."
"... Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible, no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in Russia. ..."
May 04, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jane , May 3, 2019 6:22:50 PM | link

Maduro needs to man up. He needs to recognize that this is ideological battle, not just a battle for his personal survival.


arby , May 3, 2019 6:31:16 PM | link

Jane @45

Where do you come up with the idea that Maduro is about his personal survival?

IMO, Maduro is quite genuine in taking his position and job very seriously and in no way is this about him.

That nonsense about a plane waiting to shuffle him off to Cuba was complete American lie.

Lochearn , May 3, 2019 6:35:01 PM | link
@ 36 William Gruff
"What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two about what happened in Chile."

They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla), Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo), Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on.

If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the Gringos.

Jane , May 3, 2019 6:41:36 PM | link
@arby 46

I really do not know Maduro. I do not know how ideologically grounded he is. But I heard stories about corruption and connections with drug syndicates. I hope that is not true. Otherwise, his apparent weakness will be exploited to the hilt by his ideological enemies.

Jen , May 3, 2019 6:50:02 PM | link
William Gruff @ 36, Lochearn @ 47:

I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and development.

virgile , May 3, 2019 6:51:23 PM | link
Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work...
in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they won't survive the summer.
karlof1 , May 3, 2019 7:26:19 PM | link
Jen @49--

Yes, most certainly wasn't lost on Chavez. The changes he made after 2002 to the military and other security-related areas of government are now serving Maduro well. If there was the sort of 5th Column anti-government feelings required of a coup, they would have manifested themselves when the armed demonstrations first began to beset Maduro in 2014, a year after Chavez's passing, which in essence is when the slow moving coup began. Condor and other operations were certainly used in educating higher level officers about the importance of loyalty to Constitutional methods and that one owes their allegiance to the Constitution not the individual just as it's supposed to be within the USA

Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison, the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly illiterate.

Piotr Berman , May 3, 2019 8:22:04 PM | link
One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago.

Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck".

Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido . First, the tales that the troubles were due to mismanagement and neglect look not so probable if you look at the timing of incidents: a wave of incidents at the time "convenient" for the "cause of Guaido" preceeded and followed by rather normal situation. Government surely spend effort to explain the incidents with transmission lines and transformer stations as vile sabotage, ruthlessly inflicting severe hardships on the entire population (including the middle class that should be the social base of Guaido).

Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible, no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in Russia.

Who supported 12 hours of revolution? Videos showed a motorcycle gang, few hundred of energetic young men who blocked a highway bridge and a smallish crowd of housewives and other non-violent type -- I must stress that I wholly approve non-violent types, but in part because this is not a coup material. Why so little? (a) Guaido was never popular, he was in a most histrionic of several opposition parties, popular mobilization without support of the rest of the opposition was a flop. (b) The first two episodes of his "revolution" did not approve his support, to the contrary. (c) On the gangland front that could provide armed muscle and provoke bloody incidents Maidan style, the government probably did some preparatory homework.

[May 04, 2019] Venezuela - Forensics Of A Clownish Coup

Notable quotes:
"... I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them .... The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills – very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill, take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave. We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will the Venezuelans. ..."
May 04, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Venezuela is not an easy target. Colonel (ret.) Larry Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, writes :

I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them .... The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills – very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill, take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave. We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will the Venezuelans.

The opposition is warry of a U.S. intervention :

Many believe U.S. troops could ignite internal conflicts within the military, irregular forces linked to Maduro and criminal cartels. Intervention would also undermine Guaidó's claim to be a grass roots Venezuelan leader by seeming to confirm that he's exactly what Maduro has claimed: A puppet of the United States.

A U.S. military intervention would "bring more problems than solutions, " said Carlos Valero, a Guaidó supporter in the National Assembly.
...
Political analyst Felix Seijas, director of the Delphos polling agency in Caracas, says fewer than a fifth of the Venezuelans he has surveyed this year support a military intervention. The numbers have gone up only slightly since the beginning of the year.

There were more warnings from Russia during a Trump-Putin phone call today :

While exchanging views on the situation around Venezuela, the President of Russia underscored that only the Venezuelans themselves have the right to determine the future of their country, whereas outside interference in the country's internal affairs and attempts to change the government in Caracas by force undermine prospects for a political settlement of the crisis.

The planning and decision making for the next phase of the U.S. attack on Venezuela will take time.

Meanwhile we can continue to analyze why the U.S. coup plan failed so devastatingly.

Cont. reading: Venezuela - Forensics Of A Clownish Coup

[May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
"... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
"... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
"... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
"... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
"... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
"... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
"... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
"... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
"... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director Andrew McCabe.


tom p , 2 months ago (edited)

FBI agents selling books about their sedition. Only in America.

TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.

TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

Anybody who has read the Strzok-Page text messages can see why Trump was investigated... The reason was BIAS.

Unknown Texan , 2 months ago

Conspiracy to overthrow a setting President and nothing will happen.

XIEXIE , 2 months ago

Why he didn't think the same about Hilary about all the obvious evidences! Such a embarrassment of FBI and DOJ!

G1 Sokool , 2 months ago

The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI.

Master Of Darkness , 2 months ago

HIGH TREASON !!!

R Coyote , 2 months ago (edited)

Bunch of narcissists in charge running a mock!

c17360 , 2 months ago

McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within!

ryvr madduck , 2 months ago (edited)

When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own.

Mile high P , 2 months ago

Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours.

SanAntonioSlim , 2 months ago (edited)

The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.

Keith McCormick , 2 months ago

America's first attempted coup. Pure sedition.

Steve Jones , 2 months ago

Time to sweep the leg of the corruption in the FBI

Ronald Cates , 2 months ago

IT All LEADS BACK TO HILLARY

MegaRudyray , 2 months ago

When you fire the director, then tell people "I believe Putin".....yes, they are going to start investigating you.

Phillip Sumpter , 2 months ago

May the pendulum finally, please swing the other way into combating the true collusion happening on the Left.

billsd13 , 2 months ago

No questions from 60 Minutes regarding the FISA warrant and how that was a product of the Clinton campaign, and no questions along those lines.

tmc che , 2 months ago (edited)

Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.

MWV , 2 months ago (edited)

Well, I believe McCabe was questioned during hearings and didn't he deny all this under oath??? How has he not been Roger Stoned yet?

Brian P , 2 months ago

Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts.

James Christianson , 2 months ago

Former deep state Berryboma crony. One of many slated for hanging. One of many. Along with Berryboma.

noemi barrios , 2 months ago

oh so we should believe the liar McCabe who lied to congress and is under grand jury indictment! throw him in jail with comey!

tamimerkaz , 2 months ago

McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe, Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.

bigwaverider , 2 months ago

McCabe is still at it. He's got Russian derangement syndrome.

Otie Brown , 2 months ago

So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? That is dangerous to a demoncracy. It is not legal at all.

Tobias Forge , 2 months ago

Just image if Hillary was able to steal the election ... We'd still have an FBI and Justice Department full of traitors to America.

[May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor

Highly recommended!
McCabe came out of this interview as pretty capable and dangerous person
This is a soft-gloves interview by NYT presstitute who was instrument in sustaining Russiagate color revolution.
McCabe in this interview admits that he pushed for the appointment of the special prosecutor.
McCabe applied double standard to Hillary investigation. Before that he run politically charges investigation of FIFA
This can be classified as McCabe led coup d'état. See also Alan Dershowitz Talks about Andrew McCabe's 60 Minuets Interview - YouTube
Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Andrew McCabe intervied by NYT´s Adam Goldman After Words C-span Feb 26 2019 - YouTube

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.

[May 03, 2019] Sanctions are just a tool in preparation for the war

May 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Randy , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:32 pm GMT

@Digital Samizdat

Sanctions are the foreign policy equivalent of obstruction of justice traps. Sanctions are initiated in the hope the sanctioned country then commits some actionable trepidation, a Casus belli. They say the first casualty of war is the truth but that casualty comes way before war starts and continues long after war ends.

[May 03, 2019] Trump lost anti-war right. Forever.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran. ..."
"... Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an act of war. ..."
"... Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually. ..."
"... Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to attack and hinder a foreign corporation. ..."
"... Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history. ..."
"... Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Scalper , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT

@A123 You Trump shills are chutzpah personified:

The U.S. missile strike on Shayrat Airbase on 7 April 2017 was the first time the U.S. became a deliberate, direct combatant against the Syrian government and marked the start of a series of deliberate direct military actions by U.S. forces against the Syrian government and its allies in May -- June 2017 and February 2018.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/trump-syria-missiles-assad-chemical-weapons

Trump *escalated* the war from covert support to insurgents to direct intervention and official *invasion* in Syria. This is the equivalent of going from financing and supporting a faction in a so called proxy war in say Vietnam to leading the US to go full Iraq WMD and become a warring and invading faction in the conflict. Again, this is an escalation.

The number of boots on the ground vs Obama's is data you just took out of your bottom. Sources for your cheap PR shilling? You don't have any because this statement of yours is a blatant lie.

Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/white-house-asked-pentagon-plans-strike-iran

Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an act of war.

Trump's administration ended the Iran deal without any objective reasons, ie Obama's effort to deescalate the Israel firsters driven Iran-US conflict

Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually.

Trump administration declared Golan Heights part of Israel brought US embassy to Jerusalem, increasing the tensions and animosity towards the US in the ME.

Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, increasing the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This includes non Arab country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took power.

Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to attack and hinder a foreign corporation.

Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history.

Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP.

Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.

Non intervention and "pacifist" policies the same. How many GOP supporters were against the Vietnam and Iraq war? Not many yeah.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:20 pm GMT
@A123 Here's your numbers TROLL.

Trump has dropped more bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries in a comparable period of time than any modern U.S. President. Presidents Bush, Obama and now [2017] Trump have dropped nearly 200,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Trump's rate of bombing eclipses both Bush and Obama; and Trump is on a pace to drop over 100,000 [180,000 to be precise] bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries during his first term of office -- which would equal the number of bombs and missiles dropped by Obama during his entire eight-year presidency.

Here's more perspective:

The United States Government, under the Trump administration, reportedly drops a bomb every 12 minutes, which means that 121 bombs are dropped in a day, and 44,096 bombs per year. The Pentagon's data show that during George W. Bush's eight years he averaged 24 bombs dropped per day, that is, 8,750 per year. Over the course of Obama's time in office, his military dropped 34 bombs per day, 12,500 per year. This shows that even though American presidents are all war criminals, Trump is the most vicious of them all.

Yes, Trump is dropping almost FOUR TIMES MORE BOMBS than Barack Obama and over FIVE TIMES MORE BOMBS than G.W. Bush -- which included military invasions of two countries.

We also know that Trump expanded America's wars in Afghanistan and Syria (and, no, he is NOT bringing U.S. troops home from Syria) and is ramping up America's war machine against Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia. And this does not even take into account the way Trump has given Benjamin Netanyahu's raunchy racist regime the green light to expand its wars against the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria and Iran or the U.S./Israeli proxy war (with Saudi Arabia taking the lead) in Yemen.

Then there is Somalia:

In the age of Donald Trump, wasn't that [the Battle of Mogadishu -- Black Hawk Down] a million presidencies ago? Honestly, can you even tell me anymore what in the world it was all about? I couldn't have, not without looking it up again. A warlord, starvation, U.S. intervention, 18 dead American soldiers (and hundreds of dead Somalis, but that hardly mattered) in a country that was shattering. President Clinton did, however, pull out those troops and end the disastrous mission -- and that was that, right? I mean, lessons learned. Somalia? Africa? What in the world did it all have to do with us? So Washington washed its hands of the whole thing.

And now, on a planet of outrageous tweets and murderously angry white men, you probably didn't even notice, but more than two years into the era of Donald Trump, a quarter-century after that incident, American airstrikes in yep, Somalia, are precipitously on the rise.

Last year's 47 strikes, aimed at the leaders and fighters of al-Shabaab, an Islamist terror outfit, more than tripled the ones carried out by the Obama administration in 2016 (themselves a modest increase from previous years). And in 2019, they're already on pace to double again, while Somali civilians -- not that anyone (other than Somali civilians) notices or cares -- are dying in significant and rising numbers.

And with 500 troops back on the ground there and Pentagon estimates that they will remain for at least another seven years, the U.S. military is increasingly Somalia-bound, Congress hasn't uttered a peep on the subject, and few in this country are paying the slightest attention.

So consider this a simple fact of the never-ending Global War on Terror (as it was once called): the U.S. military just can't get enough of Somalia. And if that isn't off the charts, what is? Maybe it's even worth a future book (with a very small print run) called not Black Hawk Down II but U.S. Down Forever and a Day.

And now that I've started on the subject (if you still happen to be reading), when it comes to the U.S. military, it's not faintly just Somalia. It's all of Africa.

After all, this country's military uniquely has a continent-wide Africa Command (aka AFRICOM), founded in 2007. As Nick Turse has often written for TomDispatch, that command now has its troops, thousands of them, its planes, and other equipment spread across the continent, north to south, east to west -- air bases, drone bases, garrisons, outposts, staging areas, you name it. Meanwhile, AFRICOM's outgoing commanding general, Thomas Waldhauser, only recently told Congress why it's bound to be a forever outfit -- because, shades of the Cold War, the Ruskies are coming! ("Russia is also a growing challenge and has taken a more militaristic approach in Africa.")

And honestly, 600-odd words in, this wasn't meant to be a piece about either Somalia or Africa. It was meant to be about those U.S. wars being off the charts, about how the Pentagon now feeds eternally at the terror trough, al-Shabaab being only a tiny part of the slop it regularly digests.

And, while America's wars are way up, according to Gallup, church attendance in America is way down:

As Christian and Jewish Americans prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, respectively, Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque at an all-time low, averaging 50% in 2018.

U.S. church membership was 70% or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an average of 68% in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change occurring since the start of the current decade.

Most interesting is this Gallup observation:

Although the United States is one of the more religious countries, particularly among Western nations, it is far less religious than it used to be. Barely three-quarters of Americans now identify with a religion and only about half claim membership in a church, synagogue or mosque.

The rate of U.S. church membership has declined sharply in the past two decades after being relatively stable in the six decades before that. A sharp increase in the proportion of the population with no religious affiliation, a decline in church membership among those who do have a religious preference, and low levels of church membership among millennials are all contributing to the accelerating trend.

Obviously, America's Jewish and Muslim populations pale compared to its Christian population. The vast decline of attendance to religious services, therefore, primarily means church attendance. Notice, also, that this steep decline commenced at the beginning of this century (2000) -- when G.W. Bush became President of the United States.

I tried to warn readers -- and listeners to my nationwide radio talk show -- that due to his insatiable war fever, G.W. Bush was going to forever warp the perception in people's minds of Christianity. And, sadly, I was absolutely right. After eight years of the warmongering G.W. Bush in the White House, millions of Americans came to associate Christianity with wars of aggression. As a result, the exodus out of America's churches began in earnest.

Enter Donald Trump.

As noted above, Trump has expanded Bush's war fever exponentially. But Trump has done more than that: He has aggressively put the United States smack dab in the middle of Israel's wars. It could even be argued that Donald Trump has turned the U.S. military into a proxy army for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Don't get me wrong: I am very cognizant of the fact that G.W. Bush's "war on terror" was nothing more than a proxy war for Israel. But the Israeli connection was covert and completely covered up. Not anymore. Donald Trump is unabashedly and explicitly partnering the mission of the U.S. military with that of the IDF. No wonder Benjamin Netanyahu promises to name a community in the Israel-seized, Israel-occupied Golan Heights after Donald Trump. (Trumplinka would fit Netanyahu's concentration-style occupation nicely.)

So, not only are millions of Americans now associating Christianity with G.W. Bush's wars of aggression, they are associating Christianity with Donald Trump's wars of aggression for the racist apartheid State of Israel. The result: the steepest decline in church attendance and church affiliation in U.S. history.

The longer evangelical Christians continue to support Donald Trump's radical pro-Israel, pro-war agenda, the deeper America will plunge into an anti-Christian country.

The good news is that all over America, people are waking up to the Israel deception. Support for the erroneous doctrine of dispensational eschatology is in a giant free fall; the myth of Zionist Israel being a resurrected Old Testament Israel is being repeatedly exposed; the attempts by Israel's toadies to characterize people whose eyes are open to the truth of Zionism as being "anti-Semitic" is losing more and more credibility by the day; and more and more people are becoming aware of the utter wickedness of the Zionist government in Israel. Plus, more and more people are beginning to understand the plight of the persecuted people (including Christian people) in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine.

Ron, maybe your shipmates on the USS LIBERTY didn't die in vain after all.

From an historical perspective, overextended wars are the downfall of any empire; from a financial perspective, warfarism is the precursor to an economically depressed middle class; and from a Scriptural/spiritual perspective, God cannot and will not bless a warmongering nation.

Let's be clear: God is not building a "Greater Israel." God is not building a third Jewish temple. God is not speaking through phony prophets who are attributing some sort of divine calling to Trump's pro-Israel warmongering. God is not blessing America because we are blessing Zionist Israel. Just the opposite: The more America aligns itself with Israel's belligerence, bullying and bombing of innocent people, the more God will deliver us over to becoming an antichrist country. After all, one cannot idolize and partner with antichrists without becoming one himself.

After Trump finishes this term in office, two-thirds of this young century will have seen a "Christian" warmonger in the White House. It is no coincidence that during this same period of time, wars are way up and church attendance is way down.
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3866/Americas-Wars-Are-Way-Up-Church-Attendance-Is-Way-Down.aspx

Anonymous [102] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT
Burning down the house. Driving like a madman on the road to nowhere has put the nation on a path to its own demise. Our foreign policy is a disaster that does nothing to promote democracy anywhere in the world. Our military has provided nothing but instability in the world since the end of world war 2. Ask yourself, why are we involved in so many useless wars that don't make the world a better place?
Don't you feel like we are being used by war hawks who see every skirmish as a threat to our national security? Why can't we cut out all the military BS and just trade with with nations that want to trade, and ignore those who want to kill each other. Let them figure it out on their own. Social Capitalism is the only policy we should be supporting.
Johnny Walker Read , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
America's foreign policy since the end of WWII. End of story.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/O66UKjCwmTw?feature=oembed

EliteCommInc. , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
"All statements of Trump do not count. All Trump statements are results from stress of torture by Democrats, and deep state."

When this president stated during the campaign,

that christians don't have to forgive their enemies, I rolled my eyes stated he wrong, and understood well he doesn't know what christianity means and supported him anyway

that he supported same sex marriage, I rolled my eyes, rebuffed the the silliness of his comments and understood, he is not a conservative and beyond that he doesn't know what christianity means

when it was uncovered that he had in fact had relations outside of marriage, I rolled my eyes, and understood that alone could be a disqualifying factor in light of the competition and supported him anyway

when some of the most respected departments of government leaders said he colluded with Russians, based on the evidence, I said "poppycock" and supported him anyway

when media swirled with tales of Russian bath houses and carousings abounded, I thought nonsense and supported hum anyway

when the rumors of underage girls and same sex parties and orgies seped into the main, I rolled my eyes and supported him anyway . . .

when he spouted off about Charlottesville prematurely, I supported him anyway . . .

when became clear he actually advocated torture, I choked, spat and supported him anyway, afterall he's not schooled in international relations and the consequences for our service personnel, much less apparently the basics of tortures effectiveness, especially in large scale strategies such as the US is engaged in

when it came to light he was completely ignorant of how our criminal justice system gets it wrong as exampled by the Cen 5 case, I supported him anyway . . .

I supported him in spite of his comments about the poor and people like me who supported him

There's a long list of tolerance is support of this president based on his advocacy regarding turning the attention to the US welfare . . .

And when he actually agreed that the Russians had sabotaged the US elections and even engaged in murder in the states of our European allies -- I knew, that in all liklihood the turn inward was dead.

Here' a man who beat all the odds because of stalwart support of people like me, who repeatedly bit the sides of our cheeks in the understanding that the returns would exceed the price only to discover that the man who beat the odds doesn't seem to have a spine to stand on ideologically which were the foundations of my advocacy: national security, less reckless spending, holding business and financial organizations accountable for misbehavior, investing in the US citizen, restructuring our trade deals to benefit the US, not merely shooting up tarrifs that would in turn be priced to the citizens the supposed tarrifs were intended to protect, tax cuts that actually gave middle americans less, no evidence of a draw down in our careless ME behaviors, i even gave him some room to deal with israel as perhaps a new way forward -- it's a new way alright – no pretense of acting as honest brokers – that's new, Immigration is worse and by worse he might as well be serving tea and crumpets at the border welcoming illegals . . .

If the man you elected to turn the corner actually becomes the vehicle for of what you elected him to reject and change, eventually one has to acknowledge that fact. he beat the deep state, he just either had not the courage, the integrity, or the ability, perhaps all three to withstand the victory and do the work. Of course he had opposition and not much of it very fair and nearly all of it damaging to the country. But he had support to stand against it -- he chose an easier path.

And while I support him still, I have no intention of pretending that he is fulfilling the mandate for which he was elected. I would be lying to myself and doing a disservice to him.

I have not changed, I knew he was a situational leader, I knew what that meant, but I voted for a particular agenda, he left the reservation on his own accord and the "deep state", the establishment", the democrats, the liberals, the libertarians, can only be held to blame for so much --

But several weeks ago, on top of a complete failure to ensure US order security, the armed forces paid homage to Mexicans on US territory by relinquishing their weapons and surrendering -- and given the tenure thus far -- - it devastatingly fitting that this occurred under this admin.

And in the midst of all this, he is pandering to those engaged in same sex behavior -- – deep state my eye . . .

the path of least resistance. I cling to the belief that having voting for any of the other candidates -- matters would have been far worse.

I make no apologies for being a conservative and Christian and holding a loyalty to the US.

I reject your whine, it had legs and even some salience still, but at this stage, very little.

Now he is bed with Sen. Rubio, Sen. Cruz and others on mucking around in SA -- I can only consider your comments as an attempt at humor.

[May 03, 2019] President Donald Trump is a blind man being led by a guide dog -- Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu,

May 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is using the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel and to keep the dollar-based global financial system operating to their benefit.

Republican Party politician whores are led by the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative foreign policy faction and the Democrat Party is led by the Jew-controlled Humanitarian Interventionist Harpy foreign policy faction.

Debt-based fiat currency systems must always expand or they implode.

Empires must expand or they implode.

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is stuck with a federal funds rate of 2.50 percent or so when the normal level is 6 percent.

Yellen was talking about 4 percent being the new normal level, but she was off by 1.5 percent.

Tweets from 2015:

anonymous [204] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 6:32 pm GMT
Tucker Carlson is another charlatan who still refuse to hold the Jewish mafia servant, Trump, responsible for the massacre in Venezuela. He is trying to please both sides to collect his $$$.

He is complicit in Trumps' crimes against Venezuelan people. Trump is a terrorist and mass murderer who tried to assassinate Maduro few months ago unsuccessfully. This does not dilute the fact that TRUMP IS AN ASSASSIN. All these criminals must be arrested and put on trial to be executed, if not possible then people must assassinate these scums who have no shame to starve millions of people to death by violating international laws to grab their land and resources. The world cannot wait. Their complicit, like Tucker Carlson, should be exposed all over the world. We are fed up with these criminals who received $$$$$ for their lies, continue to help the criminals at the Pentagon and WH.

Those criminals who spread the lies that Venezuela is Maduro's fault. Carlson and other CHARLATANS refuse to see the role of the US criminals against Venezuelan people for over 20 years, attacking the population, country's infrastructure well being, economic system and engaging in assassination , staging riot using their traitor pawns in the country to topple a legitimate government in order to steal Venezuela's RESOURCES where pays for the liars like Carlson's salary to spread his propaganda. The US criminals who have assassinated many leaders to bring down the governments around the world should be assassinated themselves along with their propagandists.

You criminals have been exposed all over the world and soon should go into your graves, one by one. These criminals including trump and Carlson, hold Chavez responsible for the chaos in the country and now Maduro, but ignore the US criminals acts even assassination of the leaders.

Carlson should stop supporting the Jewish mafia illiterate and mass murderer Trump and shut up on blaming Maduro, a victim of US brutality and its complicit media like Carlson.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/new-york-times-apologizes-anti-semitic-cartoon/5676246

[President Donald Trump as a blind man being led by a guide dog with the face of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, identified by a star-of-David collar.]

[May 03, 2019] Trish Regan Obama's intel ops may have been weaponized

May 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com

FBN's Trish Regan and Trump 2020 Strategic Communications Director Marc Lotter discuss a new report that the Obama administration sent spies to gather dirt on the Trump campaign in 2016.

FOX Business Network (FBN) is a financial news channel delivering real-time information across all platforms that impact both Main Street and Wall Street. Headquartered in New York -- the business capital of the world -- FBN launched in October 2007 and is the leading business network on television, topping CNBC in Business Day viewers for the second consecutive year. The network is available in more than 80 million homes in all markets across the United States. Owned by FOX, FBN has bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and London.


Jan Blackman , 2 hours ago

I hope Biden doesn't get away with his and his sons actions and all the illegal things they did in the Ukraine

TheCladi8or , 2 hours ago

When is that cockroach Obama gonna be squashed ? Really???? WHEN?

Rowdy , 2 hours ago (edited)

Barack Hussein O gave the order to Spy on the Trump Campaign and on President Trump. BHO is up to his Ears with all this Spying, Russia Gate, and making dirty deals with Ukraine.

jpm5243 , 2 hours ago

We already know Obama weaponized the IRS, the CIA and the DOJ... the Obamanation is corrupt to the core, so why would it be a surprise that he also weaponized the FBI?

MEDiAgamer , 2 hours ago (edited)

This is truly bigger than Watergate. Planned and order by the Clinton's. And for that I am sure!

Rowdy , 2 hours ago

Pencil Neck Adam Schiff is cleaning up all the CRAP left over from Barack Hussein O. This weasel is running interference and making all the noise he can against A.G. William Barr who is a good and decent man. God Bless A.G. Barr and his Family.

William D Smith , 2 hours ago (edited)

Obama weaponized just about all departments during his term. He used the EPA against farmers and land-owners. He used the IRS against conservative groups. He used the Intelligence groups against the American people, and the FBI and DOJ against anyone else that annoyed him. Obama and his people need to be investigated and if warranted, charged. But, this is what the left does.

Samuel I , 1 hour ago

Good Lord!! Obama.. Hillary.. Biden.. The FBI.. Then we have Omar, and Tlaib, and AOC getting all of the new praise. The media CONTINUES to cover it up. Amazing that the NYT ran it.

Joe Friday 2 hours ago

"what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

DEM's think, 'Obama anti-Trump crimes in Ukraine STAY IN UKRAINE'.

[May 03, 2019] Tucker Carlson Takes On Venezuela Intervention by Brad Griffin

Notable quotes:
"... As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams, things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain. ..."
"... The answer here is simple. When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered the murders inside those sovereign states -- ..."
"... He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least election were stifled until that moment. ..."
"... Sanctions and blockades are acts of war. Try doing it to Washington or one of its vassals, and watch the guns come out. ..."
"... Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it. Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation. ..."
"... All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer. ..."
"... Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly can someone not see that. ..."
"... Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another. The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas. ..."
"... Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet! ..."
"... America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords. ..."
"... Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture. ..."
"... If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion. ..."
"... Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus. ..."
"... The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change wars. ..."
"... I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the globalists. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

H/T Daily Stormer

Venezuela illustrates why a 3.0 movement is necessary.

The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change wars.

The Trump administration's interventions in Syria and Venezuela are victimizing mainly poor brown people in Third World countries. And yet, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is extremely animated and stirred up in a rage at the neocons who are currently running Blompf's foreign policy. Similarly, it has cheered on the peace talks between North Korea and South Korea.

Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real humanitarians while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol are less adverse to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die than the "racists"?


Endgame Napoleon , says: May 2, 2019 at 4:48 am GMT

It is ironic. There is also the issue of economic-based US interventionism, particularly in the oil-gifted nations mentioned. It's their oil. Since the US economy is oil-dependent -- and since fracking is a short-lived "miracle" of unprofitable companies that have already extracted the easy pickings -- it is the role of US leaders to make sure that we can buy oil from nations like Venezuela, keeping relations as good as possible for those means. But US leaders have no business telling them who should rule their country, much less stirring up trouble that can end up in bloodshed.

There's a comment on here about US forces and the Kurds in Syria, helping themselves to oil, while Syrians wait in long lines for gas in a country that is an oil fountain. I have no idea whether or not it is true, and since the US press would rather gossip than report, we'll probably never know. But since oil prices have gone up recently in the USA, it might be true, especially since politicians always want to pacify the serfs facing other unaffordable expenses, like rent. If true you can see how that would make the people in an oil-rich country mad.

lavoisier , says: Website May 2, 2019 at 12:44 pm GMT

Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real humanitarians while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol are less adverse to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die than the "racists"?

There is nothing ironic about your simple statement of fact. The humanitarians you mention are about as much interested in human rights as John Wayne Gacy. There is gold in them there hills, and their "friends" no longer control that gold. So we must go to war.

Rubio is running neck and neck in my mind as one of the most disgusting political whores of all time.

No simple accomplishment that.

follyofwar , says: May 2, 2019 at 2:01 pm GMT
@lavoisier

As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams, things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain.

Joe Stalin , says: May 2, 2019 at 4:31 pm GMT
V.I. Kydor Kropotkin: "Look, you want to save the world? You're the great humanitarian? Take the gun!"

[Hands James Coburn full-auto AR-15]

Dr. Sidney Schaefer: [firing machine gun] " Take that you hostile son of a bitch! " " The President's Analyst" (1967)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062153/

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mHQYPZqZ_kI?feature=oembed

conatus , says: May 2, 2019 at 5:21 pm GMT
Why not ship some AR-15s and and few million rounds with some 20 round clips?.Venezuela seized all private guns in 2012 to 'keep the people safe'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18288430

How is that working out now? Those are rocks those guys are throwing..right? Why not let THEM do the fighting and keep the guys from Ohio and Alabama here?

lavoisier , says: Website May 2, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT
@follyofwar Yeah, McCain immediately comes to mind as the front runner.
A123 , says: May 2, 2019 at 8:37 pm GMT

The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela

What Trump administration military intervention? Number of Boots on the ground:

It is quite amazing that Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] can take ZERO troops and falsely portray that as military intervention. In the real, non-deranged world -- Rational thought shows ZERO troops as the absence of military intervention.

Trying to use non-military sanctions to convince nations to behave better is indeed the exact opposite of military intervention. If the NeoConDem Hillary Clinton was President. Would the U.S. have boots on the ground in Iran And Venezuela?

Why is the Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] crowd so willing to go to war for Hillary while misrepresenting TRUMP's non-intervention?

Those who pathologicially hate Trump are simply not rational.

PEACE

EliteCommInc. , says: May 2, 2019 at 9:05 pm GMT
The answer here is simple. When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered the murders inside those sovereign states --

He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least election were stifled until that moment.

Until that moment foreign policy could have been shifted, but after that moment

-- fo'ge'd abou'd it.

Fidelios Automata , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:50 am GMT
Don't forget the genocide in Yemen. Wanting to exclude Yemenis from the USA means you're an evil racist, but turning a blind eye to mass murder is A-OK.
Biff , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:14 am GMT
@A123 Sanctions and blockades are acts of war. Try doing it to Washington or one of its vassals, and watch the guns come out.
wayfarer , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:28 am GMT
"Guiado Attempts a Coup in Venezuela."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WAvbX3A7igk?feature=oembed

"Venezuela Uprising Day Two."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/edvjV0HfRRo?feature=oembed

xwray-specs , says: May 3, 2019 at 5:52 am GMT
Gold, Black Gold and Pirates : all about wealth and people getting in the way of the 21st Century Privateers who will stop at nothing including overthrowing governments in Syria, Libya, Iraq and elsewhere.
Anon [358] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 6:11 am GMT
Our deep state sure hates losing elections don't they? The lengths they will go to nullify voter will is a sight.
Digital Samizdat , says: May 3, 2019 at 6:32 am GMT
@A123 Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it. Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation.

I appreciate the fact that Team Trump has not actually sent in the tanks yet, whereas Hellary probably would have by now. Believe me, that is probably one of the very few good arguments in favor of Trump at this point. But if we want to make sure that he never does attack, then now is the time to make some noise– before the war starts.

Paul , says: May 3, 2019 at 8:20 am GMT
We do not need yet another U.S. imperialist adventure in Latin America.
JEinCA , says: May 3, 2019 at 8:26 am GMT
All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer.

If we weren't on the brink of economic collapse I could never see the Washington Elites risking it all with a game of nuclear chicken with Russia and China over Ukraine and Taiwan.

Anonymous [578] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 8:49 am GMT
This commentator lost me when he decided Guaido was as socialist as Maduro. Nope. He would not have US backing were that the case. I checked out Telesur on Youtube on April 30 – its continued functioning was one sign the coup attempt had failed. The comments section was full of Guaido supporters ranting about how much they hated Chavistas and socialists and some were asking where Maduro was, probably trying to sustain the myth that he had fled.
PeterMX , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:05 am GMT
"When was the last time we successfully meddled in the political life of another country" The answer to that, Tucker, depends on who you ask. While Syria, Iraq and Libya were "failures" because we were told we would bring peace and prosperity to those countries, that was not the goal of the architects of those wars, neither was it oil. The primary goal was to pacify these countries and neuter them so they would not stand up to their neighbor and enemy Israel. And if they had to be destroyed to accomplish that, that's fine. Minus Egypt, those three countries were Israel's primary enemies in the three Arab-Israeli wars. Venezuela is not "another" war for oil, but it might be the first.
PeterMX , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:19 am GMT
@Endgame Napoleon

Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly can someone not see that.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:20 am GMT
@EliteCommInc. The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the yankees are nor european .

If the yankees were the allies of the europeans , why they should need hundreds of military occupation bases in Europe ? why they should impose on europeans self defeating trade sanctions against Russia ? , strange " allies " .

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:28 am GMT
@conatus you are late conatus , the russians are building in Venezuela a factory of Kalasnikov rifles , and Maduro is traing a militia of two million men , to help the army .

https://www.defensa.com/venezuela/fabricacion-venezuela-fusil-ruso-ak-103-comenzara-2019

War for Blair Mountain , says: May 3, 2019 at 11:52 am GMT
If JFK were alive ..and POTUS in 2019 he would give the order to overthrow the Maduro Goverment .
Johnny Smoggins , says: May 3, 2019 at 12:13 pm GMT
@conatus Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another. The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas.
Avery , says: May 3, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
@War for Blair Mountain {If JFK were alive ..and POTUS in 2019 he would give the order to overthrow the Maduro Goverment .}

JFK was alive way back then, when he gave the order to overthrow Castro and the result was the Bay of Pigs disaster. And – for better or worse – Cubans are still running their own country, not some foreign installed puppet.

'The order to overthrow Maduro' today would have the same disasterous end.
It should be obvious by now, that despite all the hardships, majority of Venezuelans don't want a foreign installed puppet.

Z-man , says: May 3, 2019 at 12:28 pm GMT
Tucker ' Iz Da Man' ! Unfortunately he has to skate a fine line to dodge the arrows* of the Cabal of the right and the Cabal of the left .

*Arrows? No, BULLETS.

War for Blair Mountain , says: May 3, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMT
US Military Intervention in Venazuela .
Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: May 3, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMT
What is really going on in Venezuela was anticipated long ago

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z1QVthvDhPo?feature=oembed

DESERT FOX , says: May 3, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMT
Carlson is right on Venezuela but was wrong on 911 truthers which he said back in September 2017, that 911 truthers were nuts! 911 which was done by Israel and the zionist controlled deep state lead to the destruction of the mideast for Israel and the zionist NWO!

Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet!

America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords.

One more thing, if Venezuela did not have oil the zio/US would not give a damn about it!

Jake , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture.

If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion.

Jews are a people who fit the opening sentence of the preceding paragraph. The WASP Elites fit the second sentence.

Fool's Paradise , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:19 pm GMT
If "no one is more opposed to destructive regime-change wars than the Alt-Right", it means that the Alt-Right are traditional conservatives, paleo-(as opposed to neo)conservatives. Real conservatives have always opposed getting into foreign wars that posed no threat to the U.S. They opposed Wilson lying us into WW1, Roosevelt lying us into WW2. When the neo-conservatives (American Jews loyal to Israel) got Washington under their thumb, we started our decades of disastrous regime-change wars based on lies, starting with the invasion of Iraq. Those neocon mf ers are still in charge.
DESERT FOX , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:46 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read Agree, the great zio/warlord got 5 deferments, but he will bomb any country the zionists put the hit on at the drop of a maga hat!

Trump is a zionist judas goat leading America to destruction for his zionist masters, and by the way his son-inlaw is mossad!

War is peace, ie the peace of the dead!

friendofanimals , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:52 pm GMT
Maduro was trading oil in non-Fed Reserve, Jew-Dollar just like Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria. can't have that .
Anonymous [392] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:02 pm GMT
An Alt Right 2.0 concept that is compassionate with the damage done by US war and economic exploitation against the poorest people of the world who are mostly brown people is an interesting concept.

But I think it will ultimately fail, since so many of the white people who make up the Alt Right are angry with minorities and see them as a lower race. And these white people are more interested in playing the victim card anyways.

TKK , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:07 pm GMT
@A123 You speak truth and cite facts, these loons go bananas.

Thank God they have no real power.

Hopefully they don't even own a hamster . probably would make the little fella read Mien Kempf.

Because a hamster reading is just as cogent and linear as their arguments.

They are frustrated they cannot find a way to blame the Jews! for Maduro being a greedy murdering sweathog who lets zoo animals starve while he looks like animated male cellulite.

Funny- in their prostrations to dictators ( these retards actually defend and admire Jong-Un) they conveniently have omitted Putin is cutting Russia from the WWW- the Internet.

They will have a Russia intranet.

Pointing out to the obtuse daily commenters that under the tyrants that practically fellate- they would be arrested and tortured for their Unz hissy fits and word diarrhea

-Does not compute.

TKK , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:16 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read All those words, and nary a coherent point made.

Nationwide radio talk show? Wow! What's the station name, number and air time?

If you listen to people with actual media shows, they don't call people TROLL just because they have a different opinion. They don't engage in female hysterical ranting because someone has a different idea about the mechanics of the world.

Who are your sponsors? I can't imagine you would not want the free publicity .

wayfarer , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
"Venezuela 'Coup Attempt' Footage They Don't Want You to See." https://www.youtube.com/embed/6OzF5ktFiCk?feature=oembed

"Massive Deception Coming From Corporate Media on Venezuela." https://www.youtube.com/embed/JjXzw51GZtc?feature=oembed

peter mcloughlin , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT
I agree, there is irony in labels, in trying to tell who is more disposed towards 'bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die'. Why do we fight? It is for power. Power (manifested as interest) has been present in every conflict of the past – no exception. It is the underlying motivation for war. Other cultural factors might change, but not power. Interest cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin, nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our principles, because that is what serves our interest. It is power, not any of the above concepts, that is the cause of war. And that is what is leading the world to nuclear Armageddon.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Johnny Walker Read , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:42 pm GMT
@TKK My sponsors are truth and America first. All Zionist hucksters are on my hit list. Again, I suggest you and yours consider "making aliyah".
https://www.nbn.org.il/
HallParvey , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:47 pm GMT
@A123

What Trump administration military intervention?

Number of Boots on the ground:
-- Syria -- Reduced vs. Obama, at most a few thousand
-- Iran -- ZERO
-- Venezuela -- Again ZERO

We will see in the future. Trump has to stir the pot. The foaming at the mouth media and his political opposition, in both parties, need something to blather on about. Jus like rasslin'. Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus.

Gapeseed , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
@TKK Oh, I see a point there, and it's an interesting one – openly Christian presidents discredit their Christianity by engaging in non-righteous wars. After contemplating the point, I don't think the foreign policy of W or Trump is anywhere close to being the primary factor in the decline in church attendance. After all, the Catholic Church and other denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals, the internet pulls people from God with private depravity, science offers compelling hows if not whys, entertainment options abound, and so on. Nonetheless, an orthodox and faithful Christian president committed to peace and not fighting for oil or foreign interests would be a thing to behold. With caveats relating to perceived sanity, that person would get my vote.
Anon [398] Disclaimer , says: Website May 3, 2019 at 2:52 pm GMT
But nothing seems to happen to the scumbags.
EliteCommInc. , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:00 pm GMT
"The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the yankees are nor european . "

These comments don't make any sense to me based on what I wrote. My comments have no bearing on whether the Russians are an actual threat or not. I see them as competitors with whom there are some places to come to some agreements. They doesn't mean I truth them.

Furthermore, my comments have no bearing on the territorial nature of Russian ethos. That's not the point. Europeans have been at each other since there were Europeans. From the Vikings and before to Serbia and Georgian conflicts. But none of that has anything to do with my comments.

You might want to read them for what they do say as opposed to what you would like them to say.

Agent76 , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
Jul 26, 2017 CIA director hints US is working to topple Venezuela's elected government

CIA Director Mike Pompeo indirectly admitted that the US is pushing for a new government in Venezuela, in collaboration with Colombia and Mexico.

Feb 22, 2019 An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela: Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur Expose Coup

On the eve of another US war for oil, Abby Martin debunks the most repeated myths about Venezuela and uncovers how US sanctions are crimes against humanity with UN investigator and human rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas.

EliteCommInc. , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT
"After all, the Catholic Church and other denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals . . ."

Not even to the tune of 4%, and I am being generous. The liberals have managed to make the Church look a den of NAMBLA worshipers -- hardly. In the west the Churches are under pressure from the same sex practitioners to reject scriptural teachings on the behavior, but elsewhere around the world, Catholic institutions, such as in Africa -- reject the notion.

The scandal is more fiction that reality --

A123 , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@TKK Thanks. Ignoring mindless trolls is a necessary skill for the site.
____

Given the end of the Mueller exoneration, both Trump and Putin are looking to strengthen ties. Thus it is:

-- Unlikely that Putin is heavily committed to helping Maduro. The numbers are too small for that. Also, what would Putin do with Maduro? The last thing Putin needs is a spoiler to the developing detente.

-- Much more likely the troops have a straightforward purpose. Brazilian military/aerospace technology would jump ahead 20 years if they could grab an intact S-300 system. Russia doesn't want a competitor in that market, so they have a deep interest in reclaiming or destroying S-300 equipment as Maduro goes down.

PEACE

Gapeseed , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:40 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc. You are certainly right. I have no doubt that the vast majority of priests are good men innocent of these charges, and that there are more public school sex scandals (by both raw numbers and percentage) then similar Church scandals. The scandals do have public currency and legs, though, and are one reason often cited as to why the pews are empty. I am at fault for helping to keep this ruinous perception alive with my online rhetoric, and thank you for pointing it out.
Wally , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT
@PeterMX Bingo!

' It's the oil ' canard has always been the excuse cultivated for suckers, and boy do suckers fall for it.

US oil companies have not received the big oil deals in countries where the US, at the behest of "that shitty little country", have interfered militarily. However, Russia, China, & to a limited degree, a few European companies have.

follyofwar , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:06 pm GMT
@PeterMX Bibi's biggest enemy, his main prize, has always been Iran. He is afraid that, if Trump refuses to do his bidding now, it may well be too late in an election year. One way or another Bolton and Pompeo are going to convince their token boss to green light a massive bombing campaign, especially if Iran attempts to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. It will happen this year if Trump fails to come to his senses.
Digital Samizdat , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:33 pm GMT
@Scalper In the first place, your bizarre partisan rant is a little out of place. There aren't too many QAnons here at Unz, and there are probably a fair number of regulars here who wouldn't even identify as Republicans or 'conservatives' (whatever that term means today).

Secondly, some of your talking points aren't even accurate:

Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, increasing the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This includes non Arab country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took power.

If Trump were truly to declare the Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization, a lot of Arab rulers would actually thank him. You see, the Brotherhood is actually illegal in most Arab countries today, precisely because it has a history of collaborating with foreign intelligence services such as MI6, the CIA and Mossad. More recently, it was strongly associated with failed régime-change projects in countries like Egypt and Syria; so with a few exceptions (like Qatar), the Brotherhood is not well liked by Arab rulers.

Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.

Traditionally leftist? Sure up until the Hart-Celler Act of 1965! The sad fact is, we don't an anti-immigration party in the US at all today. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have any interest whatsoever in halting–or even just slowing down–immigration.

follyofwar , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@PeterMX It's obvious that FOX is giving Tucker a lot of latitude. They continued to support him when advertisers left, and when accusations of racism emerged from a radio interview he'd done years ago with a shock jock. They dare not fire him as he has the largest and most fervent base of supporters on cable news. But Tucker knows that there is one big issue, the Elephant in the room, of which he dare not speak. It's that shitty little country calling the shots, whose name begins with an I.
Digital Samizdat , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:40 pm GMT
@Anonymous I think there may be more alt-righters opposed to foreign wars and exploitative 'free' trade treaties than you assume. Most of the alt-righters I know oppose the current régime's "invade the world, invite the world" policies (to borrow a phrase from our own Steve Sailer). But unlike the anti-imperialist left (with whom they often do ally), they usually argue against such policies based on popular self-interest rather than abstract universal morality. They usually choose to argue that being a mighty world empire has worked to the detriment of the majority of people in America; that the whole thing is just a scam to enrich and empower a small, corrupt élite.
joe webb , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
what goes unremarked here and elsewhere is the ethnic composition of Venezuela. From a few searches, Whites are only about one-third of V.

The Tipping Point for chaos is clear. Brazil is half White, Argentina is near 100 % White, ditto Chile. (Argentina ca. 1900 exterminated a large number its "Indigenous." ) The most stable of Latin America is Costa Rica, which is apparently about three quarters White.

Meanwhile the jewyorktimes reports the narco-traffickers in the Maduro administration.

Hopeless. Any Brown or Black Country is doomed. Brazil works cuz Whites know how to control the 45% mulattos and 5 % Blacks. For now anyway. Mexico is a narco-state with the only 9% Whites able to control the half breeds and Indigenous thru co-option. Wait for Mexico to blow up.

Joe Webb

Republic , says: May 3, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT
Tucker's viewpoints seem to indicate a split in the US ruling class. US Bipartisan Unity on Venezuela Starting to Crumble. which is very good news!
DESERT FOX , says: May 3, 2019 at 6:02 pm GMT
@joe webb The major drug runners in the world are the cia and the mossad and mi6.
twocalves , says: May 3, 2019 at 6:31 pm GMT
@Endgame Napoleon https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-30/us-troops-syria-long-haul-atop-lot-oil-resources-top-pentagon-official
tldr ; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East says us occupying syria, because we much stronger
DESERT FOX , says: May 3, 2019 at 6:49 pm GMT
@anonymous Agree, and the same can be said of Hannity, who is another warmonger for his zionist masters.
Mike P , says: May 3, 2019 at 7:11 pm GMT
@follyofwar

It's that shitty little country calling the shots, whose name begins with an I.

Yes, those gosh-darn Icelanders.

Anonymous [173] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 7:35 pm GMT

The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change wars.

That's an amazing point. I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the globalists.

Robjil , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:59 pm GMT
@Avery The Deep state/CIA did the Bay of Pigs. JFK was not informed about it before it happened. JFK was fighting the CIA and deep state throughout his presidency. He wanted to shatter the CIA into a million pieces. Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass. His peace speech on June 10, 1963 was too much for our deep state. That speech was the biggest triggers that set the motion for his assassination.
Realist , says: May 3, 2019 at 10:24 pm GMT
@War for Blair Mountain

US Military Intervention in Venazuela .

=

Unending Wounded Warrior Project Infomercials

Why do the naive people have to beg for donations ..make the warmongers pay.

Realist , says: May 3, 2019 at 10:26 pm GMT
@Jake

Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from them.

No they don't .They see power and wealth.

Acknowledging Gravity , says: May 3, 2019 at 10:45 pm GMT
Whatever anyone thinks about the Alt-Right it did expose a lot of things about our current era, our history, our politics, and power paradigms that once seen can not be unseen.

And what are you going to do about it? What can anyone really do, honestly?

Not too much at least in America. Eastern Europe still has a good chance.

In America, the trajectory and machinations of power have been set for a long time and revolutionary romanticism tends to work better for the Left than the Right. A quick look at the data easily reveals this.

So what do you do when you realize how so much of everything that's presented as real and true isn't real or true? And there are so many truly bad human beings with major power over our culture, politics, and society?

Well, when has that not been the case in human history? At some point, acknowledging all the black pills is sort of like accepting your human limits, your finitude, your genetics, the unanswered mysteries of existence, the nothingness of Earth in the grand scheme, and just basic gravity.

You could become a courageous online revolutionary and eventually trigger some unstable person to get things shut down and deplatformed.

Or you could organize with socially and psychologically healthy and mature adults who try to prioritize attainable and realistic goals and gain some moralizing victories that can buffer against the demoralizing defeats.

Luckily, out of the winter of our discontent have emerged many healthy tendrils of new growth.

[May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
"... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
"... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
"... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
"... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
"... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
"... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
"... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
"... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
"... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director Andrew McCabe.


tom p , 2 months ago (edited)

FBI agents selling books about their sedition. Only in America.

TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.

TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

Anybody who has read the Strzok-Page text messages can see why Trump was investigated... The reason was BIAS.

Unknown Texan , 2 months ago

Conspiracy to overthrow a setting President and nothing will happen.

XIEXIE , 2 months ago

Why he didn't think the same about Hilary about all the obvious evidences! Such a embarrassment of FBI and DOJ!

G1 Sokool , 2 months ago

The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI.

Master Of Darkness , 2 months ago

HIGH TREASON !!!

R Coyote , 2 months ago (edited)

Bunch of narcissists in charge running a mock!

c17360 , 2 months ago

McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within!

ryvr madduck , 2 months ago (edited)

When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own.

Mile high P , 2 months ago

Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours.

SanAntonioSlim , 2 months ago (edited)

The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.

Keith McCormick , 2 months ago

America's first attempted coup. Pure sedition.

Steve Jones , 2 months ago

Time to sweep the leg of the corruption in the FBI

Ronald Cates , 2 months ago

IT All LEADS BACK TO HILLARY

MegaRudyray , 2 months ago

When you fire the director, then tell people "I believe Putin".....yes, they are going to start investigating you.

Phillip Sumpter , 2 months ago

May the pendulum finally, please swing the other way into combating the true collusion happening on the Left.

billsd13 , 2 months ago

No questions from 60 Minutes regarding the FISA warrant and how that was a product of the Clinton campaign, and no questions along those lines.

tmc che , 2 months ago (edited)

Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.

MWV , 2 months ago (edited)

Well, I believe McCabe was questioned during hearings and didn't he deny all this under oath??? How has he not been Roger Stoned yet?

Brian P , 2 months ago

Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts.

James Christianson , 2 months ago

Former deep state Berryboma crony. One of many slated for hanging. One of many. Along with Berryboma.

noemi barrios , 2 months ago

oh so we should believe the liar McCabe who lied to congress and is under grand jury indictment! throw him in jail with comey!

tamimerkaz , 2 months ago

McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe, Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.

bigwaverider , 2 months ago

McCabe is still at it. He's got Russian derangement syndrome.

Otie Brown , 2 months ago

So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? That is dangerous to a demoncracy. It is not legal at all.

Tobias Forge , 2 months ago

Just image if Hillary was able to steal the election ... We'd still have an FBI and Justice Department full of traitors to America.

[May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor

Highly recommended!
McCabe came out of this interview as pretty capable and dangerous person
This is a soft-gloves interview by NYT presstitute who was instrument in sustaining Russiagate color revolution.
McCabe in this interview admits that he pushed for the appointment of the special prosecutor.
McCabe applied double standard to Hillary investigation. Before that he run politically charges investigation of FIFA
This can be classified as McCabe led coup d'état. See also Alan Dershowitz Talks about Andrew McCabe's 60 Minuets Interview - YouTube
Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Andrew McCabe intervied by NYT´s Adam Goldman After Words C-span Feb 26 2019 - YouTube

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.

[May 03, 2019] Obama Slammed Clinton's Scripted, Soulless Campaign For Loss To Cartoon Character Trump

Obama launched and coordinated the color revolution against Trump. He appointed Hillary as the Secreaty of Sate. He is a CIA-connected neocon scoundrel
Notable quotes:
"... Projection: Obama escalated the war on Russia with regime change in Ukraine in 2014. Is he ******* kidding here? ..."
"... Another projection. Clinton rigged the primary against Sanders. Obama tried to overthrow Trump. ..."
"... And they DID reject it soundly. Clinton is the same scummy NEOLIBERAL warmonger that Obama was. After 8 years of Citigroup, & other banksters that filled his cabinet as well as Obama's war crimes, accelerating wars in the Middle East, the American people finally realized what they do not want . ..."
"... I hope he lives with that REJECTION the rest of his miserable life! ..."
"... It is difficult to understand Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy, when he seemed to allow himself to be manipulated by her all along, ever since he worked out the deal to have her as his Secretary of State in 2008. ..."
"... Obama really allowed Clinton a lot of free reign, when she was Secretary of State too, something most other presidents would not have done. Maybe he knew something about her penchant for rage and revenge and didn't want to end up in her body bag count? ..."
"... Hillary was certainly very ill-suited for the diplomatic job as U.S. Secretary of State, and that was so well demonstrated during her first year of office ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker has published an updated edition of his book "Obama: The Call of History", and it includes several embarrassing details about President Obama's reaction to Donald Trump's historic electoral triumph, as well as Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy.

According to the Daily Mail, which published some of the excerpts on Friday, Obama interpreted Trump's victory as a "personal insult", and whined to his aides and family that the loss "stings" and that the American people had "turned on him" while bashing Clinton for "bringing her many troubles on herself."

As Baker wrote, as Obama saw it, the "real blame" for Clinton's loss "lay squarely with Clinton" - despite her many well-documented attempts to make every conceivable excuse, from blaming Bernie Sanders and his misogynistic "Bernie Bros" to misogynistic Trump supporters.

But as Obama vented, nobody forced Clinton to take money from Goldman Sachs, or set up an illicit private email server at her house in Chappaqua.

In a stinging passage Baker writes: 'To Obama and his team, however, the real blame lay squarely with Clinton.

'She was the one who could not translate his strong record and healthy economy into a winning message.

'Never mind that Trump essentially ran the same playbook against Clinton that Obama did eight years earlier, portraying her as a corrupt exemplar of the status quo.

'She brought many of her troubles on herself. No one forced her to underestimate the danger in the Midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan.

'No one forced her to set up a private email server that would come back to haunt her.

'No one forced her to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other pillars of Wall Street for speeches.

'No one forced her to run a scripted, soulless campaign that tested eighty-five slogans before coming up with 'Stronger Together'.

Feeling secure in Clinton's impending victory, Obama and his top aide Valerie Jarrett retreated to the White House movie theater to watch the Marvel Movie Dr. Strange. Michelle Obama went to bed early that night, but later in the evening, as results from Florida started coming in, Obama checked the results, and was suddenly struck by a sinking feeling.

He watched in abject horror as Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania - formerly Democratic strongholds.

In the weeks after Trump's victory, Obama vacillated from philosophical contemplation to rage, and complained to his speech writer Ben Rhodes that he was about to hand the nuclear codes over to a "cartoon character" and a "huckster straight out of Huckleberry Finn".

Obama tried to keep his cool in the weeks afterwards and texted his speechwriter Ben Rhodes: 'There are more stars in the sky than sand on the earth'.

But soon he was unable to contain his rage which escalated after he met Trump in the Oval Office.

Baker writes that despite being cordial in public he afterwards summoned Rhodes who told him that Trump 'peddles in b*******'

Rhodes said: 'That character has always been part of the American story. You can see it right back to some of the characters in Huckleberry Finn'.

Obama replied: 'Maybe that's the best we can hope for'.

As the weeks went by Obama went through 'multiple emotional stages', at times being philosophical and other times he 'flashed anger'.

He also showed a rare self-doubt and wondered if 'maybe this is what people want', Baker writes.

Obama told one aide: 'I've got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences. They can just have a cartoon'.

Of particular interest considering the Mueller report's findings, which have been endlessly relitigated since the redacted report was released last month, Baker explains Obama's decision not to come out harder against Russia during the campaign, after US intelligence warned about the Kremlin's attempts to 'interfere' in the US election.

As Baker tells it, Obama's "don't-do-stupid-shit" instincts made him reluctant to bash Russia over the meddling, as did his confidence that Clinton would surely prevail. As Obama saw it, if he made a big deal about Russian interference, Trump would simply complain to his voters that the whole election was rigged.

Baker's book also gives new insight into why Obama was so hesitant about criticizing Russia for meddling in the 2016 election before vote took place.

Obama was led by his 'cautious don't-do-stupid-s**t instincts' and feared that a forceful response would make Russia 'escalate' its operation.

Then there was the question of how Trump would react and Obama admitted that 'if I speak out more, he'll just say it's rigged'.

Obama wrongly assumed that Clinton would win the election and Obama said in one meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'backed the wrong horse'.

When it came time to meet his successor and start planning the transition, Obama was cordial. But he never could get past the unshakeable feeling that the American people had rejected his legacy.

Something that, given his continued sniping at Trump , probably stings to this very day.


Sparehead , 36 minutes ago link

Hmmm, first the NYT reports the story about the CIA's Papadopoulos "honey pot" spy, which they've been sitting on for two years while insisting the Trump campaign wasn't spied upon. They had to get the story out now, ahead of Horowitz' report. And now they're essentially giving permission to take out the knives against the Clintons to save the Obamas. The next few weeks or even years are going to be fun.

KingTut , 48 minutes ago link

Obama simply can't see himself clearly. He had no real talent for the job. He was the first black president, and everybody cut him slack because of that. His speeches to 'folks', delivered in a phony southern preacher accent were disingenuous at best. He compromimsed too far, until his programs didn't even make sense. He lived at an intellectual level, not even realizing now that the world does not run on theories or philosophies. It runs on actions.

His biggest error was indulging his a soft spot for Islam. As a complete social order that is religious, moral, financial, governmental and miltary, Islam has more in common with Marxism than Christianity.

Obama failed to understand that America has been set by history squarely against the Islamic social order. This is not about religion, it's about the correct way to run the world. We have the better way, the more successful way and it's going to stay that way.

That is why the people actually want Trump. Trump is deliberately not an intellectual, and focuses on direct uncompromsing action. And he tells you what he's doing a couple of times a day.

CatInTheHat , 1 hour ago link

"Baker's book also gives new insight into why Obama was so hesitant about criticizing Russia for meddling in the 2016 election before vote took place.

BECAUSE HE KNEW IT NEVER HAPPENED.

Obama was led by his 'cautious don't-do-stupid-s**t instincts' and feared that a forceful response would make Russia 'escalate' its operation.

Projection: Obama escalated the war on Russia with regime change in Ukraine in 2014. Is he ******* kidding here?

Then there was the question of how Trump would react and Obama admitted that 'if I speak out more, he'll just say it's rigged'.

Another projection. Clinton rigged the primary against Sanders. Obama tried to overthrow Trump.

Obama wrongly assumed that Clinton would win the election and Obama said in one meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'backed the wrong horse'.

No way he could believe that ****

"When it came time to meet his successor and start planning the transition, Obama was cordial. But he never could get past the unshakeable feeling that the American people had rejected his legacy."

And they DID reject it soundly. Clinton is the same scummy NEOLIBERAL warmonger that Obama was. After 8 years of Citigroup, & other banksters that filled his cabinet as well as Obama's war crimes, accelerating wars in the Middle East, the American people finally realized what they do not want .

I hope he lives with that REJECTION the rest of his miserable life!

LibertarianRevolutionary

Another book of lies to feed the sheeple. Author thinks we're all just plain stupid, and the people at the head of the demoncrat party are just 'good folks'.

He–Mene Mox Mox

It is difficult to understand Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy, when he seemed to allow himself to be manipulated by her all along, ever since he worked out the deal to have her as his Secretary of State in 2008.

It was reported 11 years ago that Obama was pressured to give Hillary an important paying job in his administration, because of her 2008 presidential campaign owed $8.7 million in unpaid debts. Didn't he have a strong enough character to know otherwise and resist her, or was he politically owing to her in someway? Obama really allowed Clinton a lot of free reign, when she was Secretary of State too, something most other presidents would not have done. Maybe he knew something about her penchant for rage and revenge and didn't want to end up in her body bag count?

Hillary was certainly very ill-suited for the diplomatic job as U.S. Secretary of State, and that was so well demonstrated during her first year of office in August 2009, when she opened up on an African-Congolese Boy's question to her: See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJEMX_iuCXE ...

Obama should have fired Hillary right then and there for that outburst......but didn't have the strong character to do it.

[May 03, 2019] The Obama administration for more than four years before the 2016 election allowed four contractors working for the FBI to illegally surveil American citizens

Notable quotes:
"... That report is going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and there are going to be criminal referrals in it. ..."
"... The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it... ..."
"... He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to [Attorney General] Bill Barr already. ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.realclearpolitics.com

It is about the rule of law and privacy. The Obama administration for more than four years before the 2016 election allowed four contractors working for the FBI to illegally surveil American citizens -- illegally. The FISA court has already found that. There is the Horowitz report coming out in May or possibly early June. There's another report that everyone has forgotten about involving James Comey alone. That will be out in two weeks. That report is going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and there are going to be criminal referrals in it.

The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it...

There's a hero in this story and it is not a lawyer. There is a hero. His name is Admiral Mike Rogers. He was the head of the National Security Agency.

He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to [Attorney General] Bill Barr already.

[May 03, 2019] Tucker Carlson: Before The Bombers Take Off, Let's Ask A Few Questions About Venezuela

Notable quotes:
"... Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever do. ..."
"... Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we prepared for that? ..."
May 02, 2019 | www.realclearpolitics.com

TUCKER CARLSON: There is much we don't know about the situation in Venezuela. What we do know is that Venezuela's current government has done a poor job of providing for its own people. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, yet it remains one of the most impoverished and the most dangerous places on the planet. That is beyond dispute.

Everything else is up for debate. Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever do.

But that has not stopped the geniuses in Washington. It has not even slowed them down. On Tuesday afternoon, on a bipartisan basis, they agreed that the United States ought to jump immediately, face-first, into the Venezuelan mess. When asked whether U.S. presence in Venezuela would make any difference, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida told Neil Cavuto the following: "Absolutely. I was down at the Venezuelan border last Wednesday. This is just pure genocide. Maduro is killing his own citizens."

When asked whether Venezuela was worth risking American troops' lives, Scott said, "Here is what is going to happen. We are in the process, if we don't win today, we are going to have Syria in this hemisphere. So, we can make sure something happens now, or we can deal with this for decades to come. If we care about families, if we care about the human race, if we care about fellow worldwide citizens, then we've got to step up and stop this genocide."

All right, I just want to make sure that it is clear. If you care about families and you care about the human race -- if you want to stop genocide -- you will send your children to Venezuela to fight right now, without even thinking about it, without even weighing the consequences. You will just do it. Assuming you are a good person, of course.

If you don't care about families or the human race -- if for some reason you despise human happiness and support genocide -- then you will want to join Satan's team and embrace isolationism, the single most immoral of all worldviews. That is what they're telling you. That is what they are demanding you believe.

Message received. We've heard it before. But before the bombers take off, let's just answer a few quick questions, starting with the most obvious: When was the last time we successfully meddled in the political life of another country? Has it ever worked? How are the democracies we set up in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and Afghanistan right now? How would Venezuela be different? Please explain -- and take your time.

Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we prepared for that?

Are we prepared to absorb millions of new Venezuelan migrants? All of them great people, no question, But many would have little education or skills or would not speak English.

Finally, how, exactly, is any of this good for the United States? Our sanctions on Venezuela have already spiked our gas prices. That hurts our struggling middle class more than virtually anything we could do. So what's is the point of doing that? So our lawmakers can feel like good people?

And if they are, indeed, good people, why do they care more about Venezuela than they care about this country, the one that they run? They are happy to send our military to South America at the first sign of chaos. But send U.S. troops to our own border to stem the tide of a hundred thousand uninvited arrivals a month? "No way," they tell us. "That is crazy talk!"

So, what is the thinking here?

[May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies. ..."
Jun 16, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

Originally appeared at Globalresearch

The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

America's hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.

The economic dimensions of this military agenda must be clearly understood. War and Globalization are intimately related. These military and intelligence operations are implemented alongside a process of economic and political destabilization targeting specific countries in all major regions of World.

Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies.

In turn, the demise of national sovereignty was also facilitated by the instatement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, evolving towards the global trading agreements (TTIP and TPP) which (if adopted) would essentially transfer state policy entirely into the hands of corporations. In recent years, neoliberalism has extend its grip from the so-called developing countries to the developed countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. Bankruptcy programs have been set in motion. Island, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, etc, have been the target of sweeping austerity measures coupled with the privatization of key sectors of the national economy.

The global economic crisis is intimately related to America's hegemonic agenda. In the US and the EU, a spiralling defense budget backlashes on the civilian sectors of economic activity. "War is Good for Business": the powerful financial groups which routinely manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war. A worldwide process of impoverishment is an integral part of the New World Order agenda.

Beyond the Globalization of Poverty

Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the "globalization of poverty": countries are transformed in open territories,

State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy, all of which ultimately leads to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire populations (refugee crisis).

This "second stage" goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of a process of outright destruction of human life.

In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.

The New World Order

Broadly speaking, the main corporate actors of the New World Order are

There is of course overlap, between Big Pharma and the Weapons industry, the oil conglomerates and Wall Street, etc.

These various corporate entities interact with government bodies, international financial institutions, US intelligence. The state structure has evolved towards what Peter Dale Scott calls the "Deep State", integrated by covert intelligence bodies, think tanks, secret councils and consultative bodies, where important New World Order decisions are ultimately reached on behalf of powerful corporate interests.

In turn, intelligence operatives increasingly permeate the United Nations including its specialized agencies, nongovernmental organizations, trade unions, political parties.

What this means is that the executive and legislature constitute a smokescreen, a mechanism for providing political legitimacy to decisions taken by the corporate establishment behind closed doors.

Media Propaganda

The corporate media, which constitutes the propaganda arm of the New World Order, has a long history whereby intelligence ops oversee the news chain. In turn, the corporate media serves the useful purpose of obfuscating war crimes, of presenting a humanitarian narrative which upholds the legitimacy of politicians in high office.

Acts of war and economic destabilization are granted legitimacy. War is presented as a peace-keeping undertaking.

Both the global economy as well as the political fabric of Western capitalism have become criminalized. The judicial apparatus at a national level as well the various international human rights tribunals and criminal courts serve the useful function of upholding the legitimacy of US-NATO led wars and human rights violations.

Destabilizing Competing Poles of Capitalist Development

There are of course significant divisions and capitalist rivalry within the corporate establishment. In the post Cold War era, the US hegemonic project consists in destabilizing competing poles of capitalist development including China, Russia and Iran as well as countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina.

In recent developments, the US has also exerted pressure on the capitalist structures of the member states of the European Union. Washington exerts influence in the election of heads of State including Germany and France, which are increasingly aligned with Washington.

The monetary dimensions are crucial. The international financial system established under Bretton Woods prevails. The global financial apparatus is dollarized. The powers of money creation are used as a mechanism to appropriate real economy assets. Speculative financial trade has become an instrument of enrichment at the expense of the real economy. Excess corporate profits and multibillion dollar speculative earnings (deposited in tax free corporate charities) are also recycled towards the corporate control of politicians, civil society organizations, not to mention scientists and intellectuals. It's called corruption, co-optation, fraud.

Latin America: The Transition towards a "Democratic Dictatorship"

In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s have in large part been replaced by US proxy regimes, i.e. a democratic dictatorship has been installed which ensures continuity. At the same time the ruling elites in Latin America have remoulded. They have become increasingly integrated into the logic of global capitalism, requiring an acceptance of the US hegemonic project.

Macro-economic reform has been conducive to the impoverishment of the entire Latin America region.

In the course of the last 40 years, impoverishment has been triggered by hyperinflation, starting with the 1973 military coup in Chile and the devastating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The implementation of these deadly economic reforms including sweeping privatization, trade deregulation, etc. is coordinated in liaison with US intelligence ops, including the "Dirty war" and Operation Condor, the Contra insurrection in Nicaragua, etc.

The development of a new and privileged elite integrated into the structures of Western investment and consumerism has emerged. Regime change has been launched against a number of Latin American countries.

Any attempt to introduce reforms which departs from the neoliberal consensus is the object of "dirty tricks" including acts of infiltration, smear campaigns, political assassinations, interference in national elections and covert operations to foment social divisions. This process inevitably requires corruption and cooptation at the highest levels of government as well as within the corporate and financial establishment. In some countries of the region it hinges on the criminalization of the state, the legitimacy of money laundering and the protection of the drug trade.

The above text is an English summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky's Presentation, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, May 17, 2016. This presentation took place following the granting of a Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities to Professor Chossudovsky by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)

[May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies. ..."
Jun 16, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

Originally appeared at Globalresearch

The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

America's hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.

The economic dimensions of this military agenda must be clearly understood. War and Globalization are intimately related. These military and intelligence operations are implemented alongside a process of economic and political destabilization targeting specific countries in all major regions of World.

Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies.

In turn, the demise of national sovereignty was also facilitated by the instatement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, evolving towards the global trading agreements (TTIP and TPP) which (if adopted) would essentially transfer state policy entirely into the hands of corporations. In recent years, neoliberalism has extend its grip from the so-called developing countries to the developed countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. Bankruptcy programs have been set in motion. Island, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, etc, have been the target of sweeping austerity measures coupled with the privatization of key sectors of the national economy.

The global economic crisis is intimately related to America's hegemonic agenda. In the US and the EU, a spiralling defense budget backlashes on the civilian sectors of economic activity. "War is Good for Business": the powerful financial groups which routinely manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war. A worldwide process of impoverishment is an integral part of the New World Order agenda.

Beyond the Globalization of Poverty

Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the "globalization of poverty": countries are transformed in open territories,

State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy, all of which ultimately leads to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire populations (refugee crisis).

This "second stage" goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of a process of outright destruction of human life.

In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.

The New World Order

Broadly speaking, the main corporate actors of the New World Order are

There is of course overlap, between Big Pharma and the Weapons industry, the oil conglomerates and Wall Street, etc.

These various corporate entities interact with government bodies, international financial institutions, US intelligence. The state structure has evolved towards what Peter Dale Scott calls the "Deep State", integrated by covert intelligence bodies, think tanks, secret councils and consultative bodies, where important New World Order decisions are ultimately reached on behalf of powerful corporate interests.

In turn, intelligence operatives increasingly permeate the United Nations including its specialized agencies, nongovernmental organizations, trade unions, political parties.

What this means is that the executive and legislature constitute a smokescreen, a mechanism for providing political legitimacy to decisions taken by the corporate establishment behind closed doors.

Media Propaganda

The corporate media, which constitutes the propaganda arm of the New World Order, has a long history whereby intelligence ops oversee the news chain. In turn, the corporate media serves the useful purpose of obfuscating war crimes, of presenting a humanitarian narrative which upholds the legitimacy of politicians in high office.

Acts of war and economic destabilization are granted legitimacy. War is presented as a peace-keeping undertaking.

Both the global economy as well as the political fabric of Western capitalism have become criminalized. The judicial apparatus at a national level as well the various international human rights tribunals and criminal courts serve the useful function of upholding the legitimacy of US-NATO led wars and human rights violations.

Destabilizing Competing Poles of Capitalist Development

There are of course significant divisions and capitalist rivalry within the corporate establishment. In the post Cold War era, the US hegemonic project consists in destabilizing competing poles of capitalist development including China, Russia and Iran as well as countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina.

In recent developments, the US has also exerted pressure on the capitalist structures of the member states of the European Union. Washington exerts influence in the election of heads of State including Germany and France, which are increasingly aligned with Washington.

The monetary dimensions are crucial. The international financial system established under Bretton Woods prevails. The global financial apparatus is dollarized. The powers of money creation are used as a mechanism to appropriate real economy assets. Speculative financial trade has become an instrument of enrichment at the expense of the real economy. Excess corporate profits and multibillion dollar speculative earnings (deposited in tax free corporate charities) are also recycled towards the corporate control of politicians, civil society organizations, not to mention scientists and intellectuals. It's called corruption, co-optation, fraud.

Latin America: The Transition towards a "Democratic Dictatorship"

In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s have in large part been replaced by US proxy regimes, i.e. a democratic dictatorship has been installed which ensures continuity. At the same time the ruling elites in Latin America have remoulded. They have become increasingly integrated into the logic of global capitalism, requiring an acceptance of the US hegemonic project.

Macro-economic reform has been conducive to the impoverishment of the entire Latin America region.

In the course of the last 40 years, impoverishment has been triggered by hyperinflation, starting with the 1973 military coup in Chile and the devastating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The implementation of these deadly economic reforms including sweeping privatization, trade deregulation, etc. is coordinated in liaison with US intelligence ops, including the "Dirty war" and Operation Condor, the Contra insurrection in Nicaragua, etc.

The development of a new and privileged elite integrated into the structures of Western investment and consumerism has emerged. Regime change has been launched against a number of Latin American countries.

Any attempt to introduce reforms which departs from the neoliberal consensus is the object of "dirty tricks" including acts of infiltration, smear campaigns, political assassinations, interference in national elections and covert operations to foment social divisions. This process inevitably requires corruption and cooptation at the highest levels of government as well as within the corporate and financial establishment. In some countries of the region it hinges on the criminalization of the state, the legitimacy of money laundering and the protection of the drug trade.

The above text is an English summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky's Presentation, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, May 17, 2016. This presentation took place following the granting of a Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities to Professor Chossudovsky by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)

[May 01, 2019] Freeland for the President of Galicia

May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Telescope | May 1, 2019 7:17:54 PM | 53

Make no mistake, Russia's move to start handing out passports to Donetsk and Luhansk inhabitants is intimately linked to events in Venezuela. And the fate of Ukraine rests on whether the US undertakes direct action vs Caracas or not.

The moment Bolton justified possible invasion by the duty to protect US citizens in Venezuela was also the moment Moscow made the final decision to create similar pretext for the dismantling of the Ukraine.

Russians had already proven their ability to take quick advantage of American moves against its allies by taking symmetrical action against vulnerable vassals of Washington. Kosovo was reciprocated by Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Takeover of Kiev - by severing of Crimea and Donbass. Invasion of Venezuela will inevitably result in Ukraine losing all of Black Sea coast and becoming completely unviable. And unlike US Special Forces, Russian troops will actually be greeted with flowers and genuine popular support in Kherson and Odessa.

Lozion , May 1, 2019 7:34:28 PM | 56

@53 telescope, yes and I suggest Freeland as head the left over rump state: Galicia Uber Alles:

https://www.therussophile.org/canadians-lose-ukraine-election-chrystia-freeland-for-president-of-galicia.html/

@37 Red Ryder: "But regime change is a lost art in Washington".

Great quote. Love it..

[May 01, 2019] Christya Freeland vs Victoria Nuland

Notable quotes:
"... Like Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her diplomatic immunity. ..."
"... Walter, it's simple; might is right. You don't fuck with the Empire. But hubris... ..."
Apr 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Virgile , Apr 30, 2019 1:50:42 PM | link

Guaido should be left free to make more failed coups to ridicule himself and loose the little credibility he has left.

Christya Freeland the Canadian Trump worshipper should shut up once for all. Like Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her diplomatic immunity.

She and her boss are a disgrace to Canadians.

Barovsky , Apr 30, 2019 5:26:29 PM | link

Posted by: Walter | Apr 30, 2019 4:49:30 PM | 112

Walter, it's simple; might is right. You don't fuck with the Empire. But hubris...

[May 01, 2019] Hope everyone saw Blitzer's interview with Pompeo! Pompeo stated that Maduro was getting ready to leave for Cuba; as in FLEE!,

Notable quotes:
"... If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works. ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Circe , Apr 30, 2019 5:59:33 PM | link

Omg!

Hope everyone saw Blitzer's interview with Pompeo! Pompeo stated that Maduro was getting ready to leave for Cuba; as in FLEE!, and his plane was on the tarmac and Pompeo claimed THE RUSSIANS TALKED HIM OUT OF IT! When asked whether the U.S. could guarantee Maduro safe passage to Cuba; Pompeo EQUIVOCATED! This is CRAZY.

Bolton also answered questions from the press earlier and lies were coming out of both sides of his mouth. Both Pompeo and Bolton refused to answer questions on details relating to U.S. involvement at this time but there were veiled threats all over the place.

If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works.

Sasha , Apr 30, 2019 6:00:20 PM | link

The only similarity of this chapuza coup with "Bay of Pigs" event, is in the quality of organizers, orchestrators and perpetrators of this new intend on coup in Venezuela, outright fascist pigs...

Some out there, of course, are excited, since they have felt nostalgias from their times at "Assault Brigades" and "Hunters Battalions".... Even though they try sometimes to disguise themselves as democrats and constitutionalists, it is in these times when they show all the way their real colors.

To talk about alleged repressions by socialist governments from the US, when they are currently oppressing every nation and peoples in the world who do not pledge to their interests, is not like calling the kettle black, but worst, and exercise of projection of Olympic size.

[May 01, 2019] Are we seeing the end of Pompeo and Bolton approaching after the humiliating failure of the latest coup d tat?

May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Virgile , May 1, 2019 8:59:36 PM | link

Are we seeing the end of Pompeo and Bolton approaching after the humiliating failure of the latest coup d'état? How long can Trump endure looking like à fool with these two incompetent advisors.

Pompeo and Bolton have blown up the North Korea dialog initiated by Trump? With the Venezuela circus, Trump will probably terminate their services .

"What absolute joy it is to picture the faces of the Three Stooges when they realized they had been snookered."

Really? , May 1, 2019 8:23:30 PM | link

Life imitates art: Similar to the two comedians who snookered Abrams and then Macron.

Ha ha ha. The vanity of these marks is so predictable that a pair of comedians can take them in easily and get them to divulge state secrets (there won't be a military invatins of Ven) on the phone! Same dynamic with Bolton & cie is pretty easy to imagine.

The guy is so full of himself and clueless---that kind of fool is easily taken in.

dh-mtl , May 1, 2019 8:16:38 PM | link
B, I fully agree with you that Guaido, and Pompeo, Bolton, Trump, etc., got snookered.

This, however, makes the situation all the more dangerous. People like these don't take public humiliation very well. Added to the frustration of not being able to act at will in their own hemisphere, they are likely to be beside themselves with fury.

Perhaps this is why Trump struck out at Cuba with threats of a total blockade.

They will not give up on Venezuela, and given their level of frustration and humiliation, their next actions could be both irrational and dangerous.

Posted by: telescope | May 1, 2019 7:17:54 PM | 53

Make no mistake, Russia's move to start handing out passports to Donetsk and Luhansk inhabitants is intimately linked to events in Venezuela. And the fate of Ukraine rests on whether the US undertakes direct action vs Caracas or not. The moment Bolton justified possible invasion by the duty to protect US citizens in Venezuela was also the moment Moscow made the final decision to create similar pretext for the dismantling of the Ukraine. Russians had already proven their ability to take quick advantage of American moves against its allies by taking symmetrical action against vulnerable vassals of Washington. Kosovo was reciprocated by Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Takeover of Kiev - by severing of Crimea and Donbass. Invasion of Venezuela will inevitably result in Ukraine losing all of Black Sea coast and becoming completely unviable. And unlike US Special Forces, Russian troops will actually be greeted with flowers and genuine popular support in Kherson and Odessa.

[May 01, 2019] The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead

May 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [271] Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 11:23 am GMT

@Thulean Friend The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead.

MIGA!

[May 01, 2019] Pompeo is perhaps green with envy, why Boris Johnson should keep the mantle of the most clownish top diplomat of a major state?

May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Piotr Berman , Apr 30, 2019 8:04:39 PM | link

Villains of the day: Random Guy, Pompeo, and nefarious band of willie, barovsky etc.

Pompeo is perhaps green with envy, why Boris Johnson should keep the mantle of the most clownish top diplomat of a major state? He can do better! But once the tall tale was said, it was duly echoed in supine media. NYT made a paragraph, and actually noted how Pompeo explained his alleged knowledge of Maduro preparing for departure: >>Pressed about the source of this information, Mr. Pompeo said it was drawn from "open-source material," and conversations with "scores and scores of people on the ground," including members of the military and opposition leaders. "He was headed for Havana," he said of Mr. Maduro.<< The Guardian made a separate article on the topic, with no notes of caution, damn the torpedoes, copy with full speed!

So "people on the ground" could have reliable, ha ha, info on the conversations between Maduro and "Russians". "Scores of people" were interviewed, hm., seems that the wily Maduro eschew a usual step of information blockade, letting the little golpistas -- and him -- look silly. I actually do not believe in those "scores of interviews", Most generously, there were that many conversations from which his people could "draw" a rumor prepared ahead of time, probably by his own Department.

Finally, the nefarious long linkers. Is it really THAT hard to learn how to make neat links this one ? Join lines and remove all spaces from the text below

[May 01, 2019] India and Europe stopped buying iranian oil. 1 billion $ of iranian oil stays blocked in China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in practise.

Notable quotes:
"... The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in practice. ..."
"... Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. ..."
"... Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either. ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Passer by , May 1, 2019 8:19:31 PM | link

"The Empire only appears to be strong. In reality it is weak, confused, clueless"

The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in practice.

Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. Almost all of Latin America now has pro-US governments. CIA linked Bolsonaro took over in Brazil. Turkey is in deep recession and Erdogan lost the big cities.

India is moving closer to the US. Europe remains a vassal. Russian economic growth is weak. The US won the trade war against China as Andrei Martyanov himself admitted.

Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either.

There is no doubt that they will be weaker in the future, but they will fight hard to stop this and gain time.

[May 01, 2019] The president has said he doesn t want to see this country wrapped up in endless wars and I agree with that -- Bernie Sanders

Notable quotes:
"... In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020 ..."
"... If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become. ..."
"... Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command. ..."
"... Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

Originally from: Who Will Be the War Candidate in 2020? by Manuel E. Yepe

"The president has said he doesn't want to see this country wrapped up in endless wars and I agree with that," Bernie Sanders said to the Fox News audience last week at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Then, looking directly at the camera, he added: "Mr. President, tonight you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia must not determine the military or foreign policy of this country."

Sanders was talking about a resolution on the War Powers Act that would put an end to U.S. involvement in the 5-year civil war in Yemen. This war has created one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world of our time, with thousands of children dead in the middle of a cholera epidemic and famine.

Supported by a Democratic Party united in Congress, and an anti-interventionist faction of the Republican Party headed by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed both houses of Congress.

But 24 hours after Sanders urged the President to sign it, Trump vetoed the resolution, describing it as a "dangerous attempt to undermine my constitutional authority."

According to journalist Buchanan J. Buchanan, “with enough Republican votes in both chambers to resist Trump’s veto, this could have been the end of the matter; but it wasn’t. In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020.”

If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.

In 2008, John McCain, hawk leader in the Senate, was defeated by the progressive Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the bellicose Hillary Clinton who had voted for authorizing the war in Iraq. In 2012, the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, who was much more aggressive than Obama in his approach to Russia lost.

However, in 2016, Trump presented himself as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war, an anti-interventionist, and promising to get along with Russian Vladimir Putin and getting out of the Middle East wars.

None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become.

Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command.

Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Trump has spoken of getting all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they are still there.

Although Sanders supports Israel, he says he is looking for a two-state solution, and criticizes Netanyahu’s regime.

Trump came to power promising to get along with Moscow, but he sent Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced the US withdrawal of the 1987 Treaty of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) subscribed by Ronald Reagan, who banned all ground-based nuclear intermediate range missiles.

When Putin sent a hundred Russian soldiers to Venezuela to repair the S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in the recent blackouts, Trump provocatively ordered the Russians to “get out” of the Bolivarian and Chavista country. According to Buchanan, the gravity center of U.S. policy is shifting towards Trump’s position in 2016. And the anti-interventionist wing of the Republican Party is growing.

The anti-interventionist wing of the Republican Party together with the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party in Congress are capable — as they were War Powers Act resolution on Yemen– to produce a new bipartisan majority.

Buchanan predicts that in the 2020 primaries, foreign policy will be in the center and the Democratic Party would have captured the ground with the catchphrase “no more wars” that candidate Donald Trump exploited in 2016.

[May 01, 2019] Does Juan Guaido realize what comes next

Notable quotes:
"... The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy. ..."
"... Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times, 1/29/19) gave his spiel: ..."
"... Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance. Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money. Hence the crisis. ..."
"... Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry ..."
"... The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014 ..."
"... The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than Afghanistan. ..."
"... It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump? ..."
May 01, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

gjohnsit on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 12:50pm Juan Guaido's U.S.-backed coup failed pitifully yesterday.

He called it the moment for Venezuelans to reclaim their democracy once and for all. But as the hours dragged on, opposition leader Juan Guaidó stood alone on a highway overpass with the same small cadre of soldiers with whom he launched a bold effort to spark a military uprising and settle Venezuela's agonizing power struggle...

The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy.

Guaido's mentor Leopoldo Lopez sought refuge in Chile's embassy in Caracas, while at least 25 pro-Juan Guaido troops asked Brazil for refuge. President Nicolas Maduro is actually in a stronger position now than a week ago. So does the U.S. give up this imperialist project? Nope.

We simply take it to the next level. Juan Guaido must die .

He has been a kind of a hapless figure so far. He calls for mass protests and no one shows up. I don't think he realizes right now that he is actually now worth more dead than alive not only to the CIA, but also to his own opposition people. A shot in the crowd or something like that to take Guaido out. It might shock you, Dr. Paul, but the CIA is pretty good at this kind of things.

Juan Guaido probably only has days or weeks to live.
I wonder if he realizes the danger he is in?

It's unlikely that the Trump Administration will wait long before putting a bullet in their CIA puppet.

"The President has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible. If that's what's required, that's what the United States will do," Pompeo said on Fox Business Network. "We're trying to do everything we can to avoid violence. We've asked all the parties involved not to engage in the kind of activity. We'd prefer a peaceful transition of government there, where Maduro leaves and a new election is held.

But the President has made clear, in the event that there comes a moment -- and we'll all have to make decisions about when that moment is -- and the President will have to ultimately make that decision. He is prepared to do that if that's what's required."

You don't think that

Maduro would imprison Guaido first?

Is Maduro not able to capture Guaido? Or is he protected by the US and unreachable?

Lookout on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 1:08pm
My guess is Maduro

@dfarrah
Thinks arresting Guaido triggers a US military invasion. Eric Prince is trying to put together a mercenary force if the US troops don't go in.

aliasalias on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 1:48pm
Right wing nuts are joined by faux 'liberals'

calling for the same results that Pompous, Bolton, tRump etc. advocate, the 'liberals' just use nicer language. (highlights are mine)

"...Francisco Rodríguez and Jeffrey D. Sachs (New York Times, 2/2/19) envision similar efforts for a "peaceful and negotiated transition of power," and (Ro) Khanna made sure to characterize Maduro as "an authoritarian leader who has presided over unfair elections, failed economic policies, extrajudicial killings by police, food shortages and cronyism with military leaders."

In other words, Maduro the Dictator must be overthrown -- but don't worry, the US would be diplomatic about it.

Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times, 1/29/19) gave his spiel:

Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance. Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money. Hence the crisis.

Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry (.

I picked the examples above from the article above but it would be a mistake to not point out that this is about all of the media but the NY Tool really stands out, of course Wapoop is never far behind.

However to not make this post too long I'll put up just two of the opening paragraphs and it gets a lot better...

"A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate media that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period (1/15/19–4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took an anti–regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position. Not a single commentator on the big three Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás Maduro stepping down from the Venezuelan government.

Of the 76 total articles, opinion videos or TV commentator segments that centered on or gave more than passing attention to Venezuela, 54 (72 percent) expressed explicit support for the Maduro administration's ouster. Eleven (14 percent) were ambiguous, but were only classified as such for lack of explicit language. Reading between the lines, most of these were clearly also pro–regime change. Another 11 (14 percent) took no position, but many similarly offered ideological ammo for those in support.

"

https://fair.org/home/zero-percent-of-elite-commentators-oppose-regime-c...

dfarrah on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 2:59pm
So people are stuck with

@aliasalias a choice between corrupt socialists and corrupt capitalists. Yay.

So now I'm watching tv, and oh noes, some guy says that Caracas is a war zone! But all I see is a bunch of people and some sort of smoke bombs going off. But no one yet is shooting. People are throwing rocks at some military vehicles.

The Aspie Corner on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 3:06pm
Krugman is a capitalist stooge.

@aliasalias I'm also willing to bet he was perfectly fine with the US ordering its client states in the Middle East to ramp up oil production to manipulate prices.

What I find particularly laughable is the fact that so many idiots on and offline think Venezuela is socialist despite the fact that their economy is 70 percent private, or mixed, like ours used to be before the capitalist pigs sold off the commons to the highest bidders piece by god damn piece.

Liberals and conservatives are just 2 sides of the same fascist coin at this point.

Battle of Blair... on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 2:04pm
Fight fire with fire

Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

leveymg on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 3:35pm
Most pathetic CIA coup attempt, yet.

Even after an effective multi-year economic embargo that's caused hyperinflation in Venezuela, and despite a plague of Stuxnet-like viruses that took down most of the country's electrical and communications grid, all the CIA has managed to do is make itself look ineffectual at what really matters. Same in Iran.

All we really still do well is wreck stuff, cause starvation, and cut down the supply of oil going to the world market.

The Agency doesn't really confuse and intimidate anyone, anymore, except The New York Times.

Cassiodorus on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 3:47pm
Is it just me?

Or is the American public missing the obvious? All I see from the folks advocating for a coup in Venezuela is that

1) people are starving,

2) Maduro is a "dictator" (supported by what evidence I don't know) and

3) something must be done. They have no evidence for the counter argument that

4) they are comprador elites who want nothing more than

5) to get their hands on PdVSA's oil after 6) their American sponsors take the lion's share and that

7) it's perfectly obvious that, apart from the end of the US-led embargo, nothing is going to get any better for the vast majority of Venezuelans if the comprador elites are allowed to take over the country. This is because their methods are

9) at least as dictatorial as those they accuse Maduro of employing. And then we have the undemocratic idea that

10) the United States government should somehow have a "say" in who rules Venezuela, a proposition that appears to have the open assent of most of the world's governments.

DonMidwest on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 3:43pm
Guaido got snookered

Venezuela - Guaidó Got Snookered - White House Starts Beating War Drums

Moon of Alabama has an excellent article.

Generals promised him that they were with him, but they were not.

US failed again. And the world knows it.

The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014. Yesterday morning the guards let him go. While the circumstances are not clear, the police chief responsible for the guards has been fired. López promised his followers that he would go to the Miraflores Presidential Palace. But he wasn't even able to leave eastern Caracas.

Yesterday evening López, with his wife and daughter, fled into the Chilean embassy. They seem to have disliked the accommodations. Two hours later they moved into the Spanish embassy.

While the embassy food may be good, it will be a quite different life than in their own comfortable mansion. A few of the soldiers who supported Guaidó took refuge in the Brazilian embassy. Guaidó is still free.

The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than Afghanistan. It has impenetrable jungles, mountains and slums that even Venezuelan troops do not dare to enter. It has a functioning army and halfway decent air defenses which were recently upgraded by Russian specialists.

It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump?

[May 01, 2019] War with Venezuela Is Unnecessary, Illegal, and Wrong by Daniel Larison

May 01, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

There are absolutely no vital U.S. interests at stake in Venezuela, and the Venezuelan government poses no threat to the United States. There is no way under these circumstances that military action could be "required," so when Pompeo suggests that it could happen we are clearly talking about a war of choice divorced from any U.S. security interests. It would be a war fought solely for the purpose of achieving regime change, and the only reason why the U.S. would do that is to vindicate the Trump administration's reckless blunder of taking sides in an internal political dispute. No Americans should die for the sake of Trump's ego or for the ambitions of hawkish senators.

Attacking the Venezuelan government would be a terrible error and a violation of international law. It would be a calamity for the people of Venezuela, who would bear many of the costs of turning their internal crisis into an international war, and it would likely cause more displacement and increase the number of people fleeing the country in the short term. I suspect it would also be a more difficult and costly war than most of us expect, and it would be a massive waste of U.S. resources and American lives in an unjustified and unnecessary war. If all that isn't enough, an unauthorized Venezuelan war would also be completely illegal under U.S. law. The American people have no appetite for a new war for regime change anywhere in the world, and there is not much support for it even in Congress. If Trump tries to take the U.S. to war in Venezuela, he will be in clear violation of the Constitution and should be impeached for it.


Collin , says: May 1, 2019 at 11:48 am

The thing I really don't understand about Venezuela here is why is this not China's problem while the US and Russia doing old cold war dance here? They are in debt to their eyeballs here with them.

At this point, Bolton and Pompeo are doing everything to suck President Trump into the battle for Venezuela and we must be not support military action. (I fear the talking heads at Fox News here.) Because it appears the people, or majority, of Venezuela are generally tiring of Maduro government but they do not want US military assistance. (Note any truth the CIA dropped weapons to the Guiadro forces? They do have US guns but this stuff get trade fairly easily without US government doing.)

Allen , says: May 1, 2019 at 12:34 pm
If America goes to war in Venezuela, Trump loses my vote in 2020. If we don't get out of at least one more unnecessary war like Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, etc, he's on thin ice. Getting OUT of foreign wars was one of his major campaign promises.
james , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:39 pm
It seems that wars of opportunity are the only kind we engage in over the past few decades. If we don't have a war with either Venezuela or Iran, I will be shocked and very relieved.
However, I am not optimistic. Our foreign policy seems to be completely controlled by NeoCons, arms merchants, and Saudi / Israeli interests, with no honest benefits to our own nation's security or strategic interests.

[May 01, 2019] Bay of piglets

May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 30, 2019 2:09:11 PM | link

Apologies to b, but today's Xymphora post really tickled my fancy.>

Bay of piglets, Tuesday, April 30, 2019

"Venezuelan coup attempt 'directly planned in Washington' – FM". Guido's cute little coup-let. If you stage a coup and nobody notices as it is so half-assed, is it really a coup? "Venezuela: Military Uprising in Caracas (in Development)".

"Venezuela - Bay of Pigs Redux?" (Lang). Obviously, the government can no longer tolerate Guido's shenanigans, which have become a public safety matter.

Emily Dickinson , Apr 30, 2019 4:53:38 PM | link

Apparently, both López and Guaidó have sought asylum in the Chilean embassy.

https://www.chiletoday.cl/breaking-venezuelan-opposition-leader-escapes-to-chilean-embassy/

I look forward to the embassy video showing them skateboarding in their quarters. I don't, however, believe any self-respecting cat will befriend either one of these tools.

Emily Dickinson , Apr 30, 2019 5:00:30 PM | link
Correction to 114 above. The Venezuela Analysis tweet linking to the Chile Today story claiming that both Guaidó and López had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy has been removed, and the story only claims that López is there. Miscommunication in a rapidly developing situation? In any case, surely Guaidó is seeking refuge SOMEplace.
wendy davis , Apr 30, 2019 5:10:07 PM | link
multiple sources are reporting similar information to telesur's update:

UPDATE: 3:11

pm Chile's Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Ampuero confirmed that Venezuelan opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez and his family requested asylum at the Chilean embassy in Caracas.

"Lilian Tintori and her daughter entered as guests of our diplomatic mission in Caracas. A few minutes ago her spouse, Leopoldo Lopez, joined his family in that place. Chile reaffirms commitment with Venezuelan democrats," Minister Ampuero tweeted.

that seems that this iteration of the coup has fizzled. stay tuned for what comes next.

[May 01, 2019] It seems Guaido and even L pez were used as pawns in this scheme by US intelligence

The difference with EuroMaydan is that there is no distinct region of the country which supports the opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country. ..."
"... The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens. ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Comandante , May 1, 2019 8:46:35 PM | 67 ">link

So called "coup" attempt was just a show for American and European audience consumption. You can easily tell by watching the Western coverage the last couple of days(CNN, fox, European news) and compare it to actual reality on the ground seen through interviews with Venezuelans and social media videos.

US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country.

It seems Guaido and even López were used as pawns in this scheme by US intelligence and/,or Venezuelan and Russian intelligence. You can tell by looking at their faces on photos taken that early morning and by the fact that López immediately ran to the Chilean embassy. They knew they'd been duped and used as pawns.

The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens.

Be aware US intelligence is running the show they don't spend 100 billion in Intelligence to let an idiot like Guaido run the show. Guaido is their dancing monkey. Watch the monkey dance. Dance monkey! Dance!

[May 01, 2019] Is the time for Washington-sponsored snipers on roooftops near?

Is Maduro put in Yanukovich situation by Washington. If so he is doomed...
Notable quotes:
"... Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests. Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed. ..."
"... The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the rebels. ..."
"... All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake. ..."
"... That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed insurrection-- however staged and phony. ..."
"... My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura (he'll be dead in a week I guess) ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Blue | Apr 30, 2019 3:16:56 PM | 89

Beware of snipers on the roof alla the Takism massacre in Turkey 1977 May Day with the Ecevit (leftist) gov't in power.
Of course Bengazi and Kiev come to mind as well.

Jackrabbit | Apr 30, 2019 12:00:05 PM | 37

Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests. Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed.
William Gruff , Apr 30, 2019 1:57:37 PM | link

Chevrus @44

Absolutely correct, Prince's mercs could not actually win territory and hold it. Their attack would just be a "bloody their nose" sort of thing that American psychos are so fond of. Basically Prince's attack dogs create chaos as long as they can get away with and when the Venezuelan military begins a methodical counterattack they retreat to Colombia. Beyond destabilizing the government somewhat I don't see what it could accomplish, though.

I think the concern raised by others is much more likely; that is snipers killing dozens or hundreds of people celebrating May Day in such a way that the mass media can spin it as the government's doing. Most Americans do not know what May Day is and will assume that any Venezuelan crowds their TVs show them will be Random Guaido's faithful flock protesting against Maduro. Guaranteed that's how the New York Langley Times will spin it tomorrow. If mystery snipers (CIA death squads) shoot up the festival-goers it will not be difficult to fool Americans into thinking that the mystery snipers are pro-Maduro forces trying to kill a few Guaidog supporters for some reason.

What further suggests this possibility is that the US State Department's astroturf Twitter army has been trying to force the meme that Random Guaido is actually a socialist and is more left than Maduro. This is to seed the idea among people who actually do know what May Day is about that Maduro would oppose May Day celebrations and thus reinforce the forced meme that Maduro loyalists are responsible for tomorrow's sniper attacks.

Still, selling it to the gullible American public is one thing. It is another entirely to fool the Venezuelans since many of them will be seeing this happen firsthand. If the Venezuelan people don't buy that the government is behind the sniper attacks then they will close up ranks around Maduro rather than throw their lot in with Guaidog's coup attempt.

Rob , Apr 30, 2019 2:05:04 PM | link

@jayc (68) Are the coup planners and advisors smart or dumb? In one sense, they are smart, because they can reason from some basic assumption and reach a conclusion that seemingly flows from the rules of logic. OTOH, they are dumb, because the basic assumption from which their reasoning begins is a steaming pile of crap. So, I vote for DUMB.
cassandra , Apr 30, 2019 2:17:21 PM | link
This is a very dangerous situation. Recall the leaked conversation between Cathering Ashton and Umas Paet, indicating that Maidan sniping was coming from the hotel occupied by the protestors.

https://thesantosrepublic.com/2014/03/06/kiev-snipers-estonia-confirms-leaked-nuland-call-yanukovych-innocent/

The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the rebels.

All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake.

Ort , Apr 30, 2019 2:35:42 PM | link
This is just to further confirm that this stunt is being hyped by US mass-media as if it is "the big one", i.e. that Guaidó and his "revolutionary" forces are practically storming the presidential palace.

I listen to the local all-news radio station at the top of the hour. It's a reliable indicator of the tune du jour being played on the mass-media Mighty Wurlitzer.

This morning, as noted, it was the "top story"-- and presented as if the long-anticipated nation-wide coup was raging. Despite the usual overwrought sensationalism, I suspected that there was less than met the ear: this local station didn't throw over to their parent network for a Special Report, as it typically would if the conflict had actually escalated into open rebellion.

"Special Report" mode is announced with dramatic theme music, and Team Coverage featuring the Usual Suspect celebrity network correspondents and a gaggle of house "experts".

So I correctly concluded that despite the breathless tone, this was much ado about little.
____________________________________________________

That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed insurrection-- however staged and phony.

It seems to have intentionally crossed a line to further test the Maduro government's patience and resolve.

I'm not one of those who finds fault with embattled statesmen for refusing to act precipitously in response to obvious provocations. Maduro and loyal Venezuelans know perfectly well that even a reasonable response to blatant illegal and illicit provocations may be used by the golpistas (which includes the US/Western sponsors and enablers) as a pretext for foreign intervention.

But the prudent policy of tolerance and forbearance cannot continue indefinitely in the face of outright treasonous provocations, since this will eventually be perceived as the government turning a blind eye, or winking at, the rule of law upon which it relies for legitimacy.

It's a difficult dilemma.

William Gruff | Apr 30, 2019 3:25:23 PM | 93

psychohistorian @87 said

"...with very few shots being fired."

This is an important point. The Russians and Chinese seem to have the psycho empire psychoanalyzed and are offering good guidance to Venezuela, assuming Venezuelans themselves are not also clued into how the psycho empire works.

In essence, America needs a pretext to attack. Americans need to maintain the delusion that they are the victims, and that it was their victims who forced America to attack against America's bogus peace-loving will.

The pretext doesn't need to be very convincing, but it needs to exist. For this reason it could be wiser to just leave Random Guaido alone, but arrest and court martial the military personnel who took part in this little stunt. Lopez should also be re-arrested and tried for violating the terms of his detention.

This arresting should be done by regular police for Lopez and military police for the military personnel who violated the chain of command. No shooting or even guns drawn. Just calmly take them into custody and let the legal process work on them.

NOBTS | Apr 30, 2019 3:34:39 PM | 96

Now that CIA poster boy Leopoldo is available to take charge Juan Doe is prime sniper fodder!

Tobin Paz | Apr 30, 2019 3:58:20 PM | 101

US Unconventional Warfare Manual - Plain Text

The Unconventional Warfare Manual sets out the techniques of subversion the US uses in targeting nation states that don't toe the line.

Although the document is of recent date, the policy has clearly existed for a long time. Based on Church Committee hearings, it has been estimated that the US has carried out tens of thousands of covert operations since WW2.

Michael Droy | Apr 30, 2019 6:06:43 PM | 133

Guaido is just an opportunity for Bolton to stir up trouble.

He has never been part of a CIA long term regime change plan. If he was then his wikipedia page would not have been created just 2 weeks before Trump recognised him as President (or at least it would have been manipulated to appear a lot older).

And he would have been mentioned in WaPo a hundred times in the last 2 years instead of only a week before Trump recognition.

My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura (he'll be dead in a week I guess).

[May 01, 2019] On Venezuela, America Should Check Its Regime Change Impulses at the Door

Notable quotes:
"... it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies? ..."
"... It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave markets? ..."
"... Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason? ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Kurt Gayle, says: May 1, 2019 at 1:23 pm

"Tulsi Gabbard: Say NO to the costly interventionist wars that have cost us trillions of dollars" March 12, 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PziNiTsFByU

Kouros , says: May 1, 2019 at 1:51 pm
Please refrain in using the term "democracy" so easily. US is a republic with the surface of elected representative system, and we know exactly how that works. See the election of Truman as VP instead of Wallace in 1944 or so or very recently the election of Hillary Clinton as democratic representative.

A true democracy is done via a sortition system that selects randomly from the roster of eligible citizens to represent the will of the people.

Imagine that in the Second Amendment instead of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" we would have: "A well educated Citizenry, being necessary to the security and well-being of a free, moral, and ethically sound State, the right of the people to get a sound Education in Philosophy, Ethics, Civics, Logic, Finance, and Health, shall not be infringed".

Bah, Utopia

Sid Finster , says: May 1, 2019 at 2:38 pm
Javier:

let me guess,

  1. it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies?
  2. It is China that is gleefully assisting the Saudi tyrants to commit genocide?
  3. It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave markets?
  4. Is China now that is frantically threatening war on Iran?
  5. Russia must have been responsible for supporting jihadists to turn Syria into another failed state, right?
  6. For that matter, is it Russia and China that are threatening war on the elected and UN recognized government of Venezuela?

Seriously, after America's long and bloody track record of failed and bloody interventions, it baffles me that anyone could say something so ridiculous.

cka2nd , says: May 1, 2019 at 3:57 pm
" fearmongering about the "Yankee" empire to the north."

What, this isn't justified?

Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason?

[May 01, 2019] Random Guyaid 's New Coup Attempt Turns Out to Be A Dangerous Joke

May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Chevrus , Apr 30, 2019 8:53:36 AM | link

Guaidó seems to have neither a base nor large scale military support nor access to significant military equipment. If that does not change this coup attempt is likely to fail within a few hours.

We may have jumped the shark in to the realm of the monthly coup attempt. Mostly a media event to see if they can get a buy-in. Didn't work? Not to worry we will try again next month!

Can you imagine a force of 5000 or so mercs staging a combat assault on a large and reasonably well armed country?

If it didn't involve so much killing and dying it would be amusing to watch the "private army" get pinned down and butchered.

Seriously without air cover it would turn into bloody squalor. Meanwhile Russia and perhaps China are likely providing signal intel fo the Venezuelan military and keeping a close eye on what the gringoes are up to. Much like the RAND document on destabilizing other nations it will probably be a slow bleed by sabotage and scarcity.


Geoff , Apr 30, 2019 8:59:52 AM | link

I can't see either Guaido, the US, or any other of the coup fomentors ceasing their attempts until they've achieved some kind of result. Guaido running around, and I can see the rationale behind allowing him to do so, is an ongoing problem. Too much is at stake for the powerful interests to let go of any of their global plans. People everywhere do not really matter all that much.
Kadath , Apr 30, 2019 9:07:34 AM | link
Looks like the Neo-Cons just replied with their unavoidable escalation, this smacks of desperation. I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams told Random Guy to announce a coup and even if it fails the US will protect him or use it as an excuse to invade. Once this coup fails Maduro should stick both of these traitors in a "real" prison and see if that loosens their tongues a bit, neither of these fools have experienced real hardship so just taking away their sliver spoons and private aircraft would convince them to rat out their fellow traitors
Sally Snyder , Apr 30, 2019 9:11:47 AM | link
As shown in this article, the New York Times has been highly biased in its coverage of the situation in Venezuela:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-new-york-times-its-anti-maduro-bias.html

While everyone is aware of the existence of fake news, we are less aware of how editorial conflicts of interest can be used to sway public opinion, particularly in the case of a highly influential and widely read newspaper like the New York Times.

Steve Keith , Apr 30, 2019 9:26:21 AM | link
Harvard Law School
Barack Obama, an alumni of Harvard Law School, was the United States President who ordered the destruction of Africa's richest, most literate and developed country, Libya, and reduced that country to rubble and a state of lawlessness. Thousands died.

The sovereign wealth fund of the oil rich country has disappeared without trace. Libya's premier medical facilities that were the envy of it's continent and it's neighbours in the Middle East have been destroyed, precisely at the time that it's citizens required them. Many of the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff, as highly trained as their counterparts in Europe, have also disappeared without trace, many presumed drowned in the waters of the Mediterranean trying to flee to save their lives. Libya is now the poorest state in Africa. The leader who had united it and raised the infrastructural standards to be on a par with the first world, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, never had his day in a court of any description, he was beaten, tortured and sodomised with a knife, before being murdered on the blood soaked streets by a mob.

We have to wonder what it is that they are teaching at the Harvard Law School? In the 1980's the tiny countries of Central America, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua suffered from their own brutal civil wars. Extreme, right wing governments and militias were either trying to hold onto power or to seize it for themselves from the impoverished indigenous citizenries who sought democracy and guarantees of their fundamental civil and human rights. The United States sent in Elliot Abrams, now to be found lurking in the jungles of Venezuela, to support the fascistic regimes in the brutal battle against their own civilians. Mr Abrams was another product of the esteemed Harvard Law School. By the end of his time there, hundreds of thousands of some of the world's poorest people and been murdered, their bodies tossed into mass graves if they were lucky. There was no rule of law, in spite of the fact that there were constitutions and courts, judges and the concept of jurisprudence.

The current Secretary of State of the United States, Mr Mike Pompeo, recently addressed an audience of American students and told them that his former department, the Central Intelligence Agency, of which he was the Director from 2017 until 2018, routinely "lied, cheated and stole" as and when it suited or the occasion demanded. Mike Pompeo is another American official who studied at and graduated from the Harvard Law School.

This Massachusetts institution has had scores of it's students graduate and pass through, onwards and upwards into positions of authority in the halls of power. It is difficult to see what ethical foundations were laid down in those formative years of studying the law in the seminars of that Cambridge campus. Three alumni of Harvard Law School who have recently served and continue to serve in some of the highest offices of the United States, have done irreparable damage to a number of countries and have done so by breaking every international law that existed to protect them. They did this unapologetically, in order, as Secretary of State Pompeo admitted in a rare moment of candour, to "cheat and steal" from defenceless nation states and their helpless populations.

Perhaps Harvard Law School is not the best place to send one's kids to learn about ethics, democracy and the rule of law.

EricT , Apr 30, 2019 9:27:59 AM | link
@ #3, for a second I thought you were describing the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Zico , Apr 30, 2019 9:43:41 AM | link
IF this coup succeeds, Moduro had it coming. He let the wannabe gangster roam free - bad move!

Seems the grandchildren of the plantation owners will get their plantations back after all.

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 30, 2019 9:44:30 AM | link
Couldn't help noticing that Guyaido looks like a frightened little bunny which just soiled its underwear or is about to. Lopez seems to be in a similar state of near-panic. I don't know why the govt doesn't just disappear them. They could be stuffed and embalmed and put on display in the National Museum as a reminder that abject stupidity isn't a virtue in Venezuela.
BM , Apr 30, 2019 10:11:45 AM | link
OK, both Random Guy and Lopez are openly committing armed insurrection and high treason. Now is the time to arrest both, try in the courts (public and televised) for high treason. Unlimited military force (as required) is fully justified in making the arrests. Not to do so is appeasing the criminal actions of a foreign force attempting to use violence to usurp the legitimate and democratically elected government of a sovereign state.

Until now there have been legitimate strategic grounds for holding off from arresting Random Guy. No longer. They must be crushed with the full force of the law backed by military power if necessary, and immediately prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Limit the prosecution in the first instance to Random Guy and Lopez, and to High Treason and military insurrection. All other charges and defendents can be tried later in a separate trial, but these two need a straightforward and legally watertight conviction as quickly as possible, so that there is then no rotting carcase of ambiguity left.

Cesare , Apr 30, 2019 10:27:16 AM | link
Trump won't be gaining any "wave" from attacking Venezuela. In fact, it stands to alienate a large part of his base and energize the meekly antiwar Democrats.

It might be moot since it looks like this putsch has failed to get more support, and if so Guadó will spend the next months in a cage.

Alaric , Apr 30, 2019 10:35:25 AM | link
Maduro didn't arrest random guy to deny the US an excuse to invade. The US was bluffing I think but simply ignoring random dudecwas wise at that point.

But things have changed now. Lopez and Guaidó must be arrested and tried now. Failure to do so would encourage additional coups.

This does indeed smack of desperation as a previous poster observed.

Cesare , Apr 30, 2019 11:22:37 AM | link
Remember the (if I remember correctly) supposed 1800+ Venezuelan soldiers being kept in hotels in Cucuta, Colombia across the border? This and the white house rejection of the Prince scheme show that some combination of the US, the Colombians, and Guaidó's people have had little faith in the route of using that as the core of a contra force. Now they might have to.

As for our boy Juan, presidente encargado, unless something drastic happens very soon, he'll be wishing for some black helicopters to show up and pluck him off that bridge. Unless, of course, being arrested is the plan. This may be a case of believing your own propaganda - the opposition claims it's 90% of Venezuela. Maybe Guaidó truly believed all he needed to do was orchestrate something like Prince's "dynamic" event and the army would rally to Altamira with the masses in tow.

About a month ago, when his motorcade went outside of his east Caracas haunts and got pelted by rocks, you had all the internet trolls denouncing it as staged.

You see, there are mafialike Chavista bosses, Cubans all, forcing the barrios to act like they hate their beloved interim president. Maybe instead of taking the hint and changing strategy, Juan believed his own spin.

Or maybe he did take the hint, and figures the struggle against Cuban oppression is better waged from the dock than the streets, where he can force action from his allies and supporters by claiming abuse. Time will tell.

Jackrabbit , Apr 30, 2019 12:00:05 PM | link
Cue the snipers on rooftops.

Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests. Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed.

Kadath , Apr 30, 2019 12:04:40 PM | link
The US media is really talking up this latest coup attempt by random guy, but I still don't see the meat on it. successful coups are fast moving and depend on quickly seizing key targets like media centers, power generators and most importantly of all seizing high value government officials. Currently, it looks like Random Guy just found some more random guys to stand around him and pose while he declares a coup. so this looks doomed to failure within a few more hours (6-8), what really matters is what does the US do once it fails, realistically, there aren't anymore sanctions they can put on Venezuela and Colombia has made it clear they won't send their own army in to fight the US's war.

That basically leaves just Erik Prince's planned mercenary army or a direct US invasion, previously Prince's plan had faced a lot of opposition so it is interesting that this failure of a coup is launched right now. If Trump was ever serious about not starting anymore stupid wars (and thus won't invade Venezuela before the 2020 elections) I imagine he'll now be more supportive of the idea of loaning money to Random Guy's backers so that they can buy Erik Prince's mercenaries and use them. Even if they use Prince's troops I doubt that they will succeed, Prince's mercenaries might be good at massacring civilians, but Venezuela has a massive civilian militia made up of the poorest citizens they will know right away what Random Guy's mercenaries will do to them and their families if their coup succeeds. So they will fight very, very hard. This could setup another Bay of Pigs type situation for the US and their mercenaries.

Red Ryder , Apr 30, 2019 12:26:14 PM | link
Several thoughts to keep in mind:

Trump will be lied to by CIA and NSC and State, so if he okays this or really wants this, it does not matter. He was couped and the Deep State uses him. He's happy being POTUS. That is all that matters to Trump.

The uprising will depend on hundreds of thousands in the streets, not several thousand.

The goal is hundreds of dead protesters.

Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial.

Looks like they are massing the people successfully.

The question for the moment is will the US agents and officers on the ground turn this into a Venezuelan Tiananmen 2. They certainly know how.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , Apr 30, 2019 12:28:27 PM | link
Imagine trying to overthrow your elected government at the behest of John Bolton?

If anyone in the United States pulled a stunt like this - and, remember, the US is packed with armed extremist loons like militias and survivalists and Aryan churches - they would be stormed with federal agents and soldiers and either dragged away to prison in chains or shot.

I am not exaggerating in the least. He would be charged with treason, and I think we all know, from our memories of how the United States has treated prisoners at Guantanamo what kind of treatment he would receive in prison for treason.

But the same United States not only thinks this is just fine to do in another country, they encourage it.

Simply the most lawless of all advanced nations, that's America. Utter contempt for rule of law and blind belief that American laws should overrule everything else everywhere.

So, what is Canada's Foreign Minister, Ms Chrystia Freeland - someone who has shamed Canada with her fervent support for Washington's illegal activities in Venezuela - doing today to assist Bolton and his unelected, self-appointed "president?"

Ripe Fruit , Apr 30, 2019 12:49:55 PM | link
If I were a Russian or Chinese strategist, I would be salivating at the thought of the US willfully creating another Vietnam right on its own doorstep and throwing the only Continent connected to it by a landbridge into complete upheaval and stark class warfare.

Class-based Civil War could easily spread to Brazil, Colombia, and beyond, throwing the lives of hundreds of millions of people into upheaval, all on Uncle Sam's dollar.

After the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and the Ukraine, the several million Latino refugees and the expenditure of another 6 trillion or so over the next decade should be enough to throw the US itself into Civil War and Coup territory and finish off its hegemony over EurAsia for good.

Don't give Maduro too much aid just yet. Sucker the US to commit its hand and go in, then, as elsewhere, give just enough aid to keep the US in perpetual zugzwang as it slowly bleeds itself to death.

Austerity and War for the Americas, OBOR and peaceful development for EurAsia.

This is too easy a call.

WJ , Apr 30, 2019 12:59:20 PM | link
Red Ryder @47

"Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial."

This might be exactly what the U.S. wants Maduro to do. The arrest and/or imprisonment of Guaido by the "repressive regime" could be the pretext for a sudden "popular uprising" to which the "Venezuelan State" (ie. CIA operatives and hired assassins) responds "violently." A small gathering in any city square suddenly disrupted by the gunfire death of a dozen or so innocents--all miraculously captured "live" on cell-phone video and streamed direct to social media--is all that it would take to give the US sufficient domestic support for any further action. I suspect this action would not take the form of direct US military action but rather the freeing of Erik Prince and his mercenaries upon the dirty brown socialist peasants.

Maduro surely has anticipated that his arrest of Guaido is likely to play into US hands. Guaido may be too stupid to know he is being used as live bait, or he may be simply being coerced by his handlers to undertake increasingly reckless actions until Maduro bites.

I think the best thing Maduro might do would be to arrange for a public meetin and reconciliation between him and Guaido away from his U.S. handlers. The US is not expecting that and would then have to explain why they are opposed to the peaceable reconciliation of the conflict. If Guaido feels he has become disposable to the US, he may not be disagreeable to some kind of pardon and face-saving but largely superficial compromise.

Noirette , Apr 30, 2019 1:20:22 PM | link
The Rovian dictat We make our own reality (mutter it in growling mafia accent) is shredded to confetti, or almost.

Look at Ukraine, a comedian who acts the part of a nobody guy propelled to a presidential position in a TV show, is elected as president in RL!

Coluche was a French comedian who stood for president, 1980. Polls showed 16 to 25% of the vote. (He was supported by Charlie Hebdo.. them again..)

His manager was murdered and Coluche withdrew.

He was then himself killed (1985) in mysterious, highly suspicious, circumstances. Won awards for Best Actor and died because.. a truck..

Beppe Grillo is another comedian who created a Pol Party, the 5 Star, Cinque Stelle, party in Italy (with another guy.) Grillo could not be elected, by law, because he has a conviction on his blotter, for manslaughter.

Random Guy-do is within this landscape a feeble contender - a clown who pretends to be serious! He has no acting credentials, nada. No self proclamation presence. A confused, hapless, manipulated placeholder.

No way that is going to end well. For him. Maybe night - school acting classes? Ouch.. Idk. Operation Freedom, anyone who takes that on is pushed offstage..

Better to be a real clown! One can live on (Grillo) or die an honorable death (Coluche)!

:) :)

carroll , Apr 30, 2019 1:20:29 PM | link
oil
WJ , Apr 30, 2019 1:21:48 PM | link
Venezuela's FM is wisely playing down the guilt of the thirty or so military personnel involved in the coup. Such personnel were first described as likely deceived or misled by Guaido and now the FM is explicitly claiming plan and execution of coup came from Washington. The military personnel were not involved in its planning and so can be treated mercifully. (Who knows if some of them weren't blackmailed to join in? We are dealing with the CIA after all.)
bevin , Apr 30, 2019 1:22:03 PM | link
MediaLens has this story today:
"A new report on April 25 by a respected think tank has estimated that US sanctions imposed on Venezuela in August 2017 have caused around 40,000 deaths."
The question for Canadians is whether Freeland and Trudeau are ready to take ownership for, say, 5,000 of those deaths..and counting. Toss them in with the thousands killed thanks to Canadian assistance in Ukraine and a share of the daily carnage in Yemen and the bloody nature of the Ottawa cabal begins to become clear.
RJPJR , Apr 30, 2019 1:28:41 PM | link
Posted by: Circe | Apr 30, 2019 11:50:18 AM | 33 wrote: "It sounds like Abrams connivance."

Abrams is NOT conniving. He is dead in the middle of it all, the planner, the string-puller, the manipulator.

Ghost Ship , Apr 30, 2019 1:28:55 PM | link
>>>> jsb | Apr 30, 2019 11:26:52 AM | 27
According to reports, a group from Venezuela's Sebin intelligence service freed Leopoldo Lopez from house arrest early Tuesday morning.

Lopez and Guaido could have been set up in a stunning black op. Get Lopez and Guaido to come out openly and claim they're running a coup which is treason. If they stayed out of jail previously will they stay out of jail now? Probably not.

BTW, it's interesting that today's events are being called a coup. The coupist, Guaid and Lopez, have maintained the fiction that Guaido is president of Venezuela so in their narrative, how can this be a coup implying they're the usurpers. Surely it should be a counter-coup, which it obviously isn't so someone has fucked up big time. Perhaps John Bolton and/or Elliott Abrams as they're both stupid and arrogant enough to do so.

Miss Lacy , Apr 30, 2019 1:31:36 PM | link
Another vomitona from Guido Gusano and his boy friend. They're clearly out past curfew and should head back to the dorm. Idiots.
AriusArmenian , Apr 30, 2019 1:38:10 PM | link
Now, finally, after letting the clown run around creating a lot of noise, now that they tried a hapless attempt at a military uprising will the government of Venezuela arrest, imprison, and put on trial for treason the moron Guaido and the idiot Lopez?
Christian J Chuba , Apr 30, 2019 1:38:40 PM | link
Where is the money we stole from Venezuela?

We keep hearing the Neocons saying that Maduro and his 'thugs' are thieves and robbing the 'Venezuelan people'. The Administration has stolen many of their assets like Citgo and given them to Guaido.

So where is that money, his bank account? I'd love to hear someone in the MSM ask Pompeo that question.

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 30, 2019 1:38:59 PM | link
DW is casting doubt on Guyaido's claim of "widespread support" based on DW's observation that there's very little visible evidence...
Domza , Apr 30, 2019 1:42:33 PM | link jayc , Apr 30, 2019 1:43:40 PM | link
Despite the sanctions, the Lima Group, the OAS, and the relentless public relations stunts, all the self-declared "government" has to show for itself is thirty recruits standing on a bridge. That's a poor result. Maybe all the smart think-tank people who dreamed up the Guaido charade aren't actually so smart, or place too much faith in PR optics as opposed to actual politics. The lack of smarts certainly characterizes the Venezuelan opposition - who would want these people to be in charge of anything?

Credit to Mexico for retaining clearly articulated principles, as displayed at OAS recently.

Miss Lacy , Apr 30, 2019 1:44:03 PM | link
to steve keith # 7 and anitspin # 12 - School of International Atrocities is just right. Remember Haaahvaaad gave us napalm which was field tested in North Korea, along with other such treats as Larry "Garbagemen" Summers, and MacGeorge "Green Ford Foundation" Bundy. " Fight fiercely Harvard, do...." ah yes, and Geo "Is Our Children Learning" Bushboy. Wonderful.

[May 01, 2019] Christya Freeland vs Victoria Nuland

Notable quotes:
"... Like Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her diplomatic immunity. ..."
"... Walter, it's simple; might is right. You don't fuck with the Empire. But hubris... ..."
Apr 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Virgile , Apr 30, 2019 1:50:42 PM | link

Guaido should be left free to make more failed coups to ridicule himself and loose the little credibility he has left.

Christya Freeland the Canadian Trump worshipper should shut up once for all. Like Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her diplomatic immunity.

She and her boss are a disgrace to Canadians.

Barovsky , Apr 30, 2019 5:26:29 PM | link

Posted by: Walter | Apr 30, 2019 4:49:30 PM | 112

Walter, it's simple; might is right. You don't fuck with the Empire. But hubris...

[May 01, 2019] The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead

May 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [271] Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 11:23 am GMT

@Thulean Friend The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead.

MIGA!

[May 01, 2019] Are we seeing the end of Pompeo and Bolton approaching after the humiliating failure of the latest coup d tat?

May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Virgile , May 1, 2019 8:59:36 PM | link

Are we seeing the end of Pompeo and Bolton approaching after the humiliating failure of the latest coup d'état? How long can Trump endure looking like à fool with these two incompetent advisors.

Pompeo and Bolton have blown up the North Korea dialog initiated by Trump? With the Venezuela circus, Trump will probably terminate their services .

"What absolute joy it is to picture the faces of the Three Stooges when they realized they had been snookered."

Really? , May 1, 2019 8:23:30 PM | link

Life imitates art: Similar to the two comedians who snookered Abrams and then Macron.

Ha ha ha. The vanity of these marks is so predictable that a pair of comedians can take them in easily and get them to divulge state secrets (there won't be a military invatins of Ven) on the phone! Same dynamic with Bolton & cie is pretty easy to imagine.

The guy is so full of himself and clueless---that kind of fool is easily taken in.

dh-mtl , May 1, 2019 8:16:38 PM | link
B, I fully agree with you that Guaido, and Pompeo, Bolton, Trump, etc., got snookered.

This, however, makes the situation all the more dangerous. People like these don't take public humiliation very well. Added to the frustration of not being able to act at will in their own hemisphere, they are likely to be beside themselves with fury.

Perhaps this is why Trump struck out at Cuba with threats of a total blockade.

They will not give up on Venezuela, and given their level of frustration and humiliation, their next actions could be both irrational and dangerous.

Posted by: telescope | May 1, 2019 7:17:54 PM | 53

Make no mistake, Russia's move to start handing out passports to Donetsk and Luhansk inhabitants is intimately linked to events in Venezuela. And the fate of Ukraine rests on whether the US undertakes direct action vs Caracas or not. The moment Bolton justified possible invasion by the duty to protect US citizens in Venezuela was also the moment Moscow made the final decision to create similar pretext for the dismantling of the Ukraine. Russians had already proven their ability to take quick advantage of American moves against its allies by taking symmetrical action against vulnerable vassals of Washington. Kosovo was reciprocated by Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Takeover of Kiev - by severing of Crimea and Donbass. Invasion of Venezuela will inevitably result in Ukraine losing all of Black Sea coast and becoming completely unviable. And unlike US Special Forces, Russian troops will actually be greeted with flowers and genuine popular support in Kherson and Odessa.

[May 01, 2019] Hope everyone saw Blitzer's interview with Pompeo! Pompeo stated that Maduro was getting ready to leave for Cuba; as in FLEE!,

Notable quotes:
"... If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works. ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Circe , Apr 30, 2019 5:59:33 PM | link

Omg!

Hope everyone saw Blitzer's interview with Pompeo! Pompeo stated that Maduro was getting ready to leave for Cuba; as in FLEE!, and his plane was on the tarmac and Pompeo claimed THE RUSSIANS TALKED HIM OUT OF IT! When asked whether the U.S. could guarantee Maduro safe passage to Cuba; Pompeo EQUIVOCATED! This is CRAZY.

Bolton also answered questions from the press earlier and lies were coming out of both sides of his mouth. Both Pompeo and Bolton refused to answer questions on details relating to U.S. involvement at this time but there were veiled threats all over the place.

If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works.

Sasha , Apr 30, 2019 6:00:20 PM | link

The only similarity of this chapuza coup with "Bay of Pigs" event, is in the quality of organizers, orchestrators and perpetrators of this new intend on coup in Venezuela, outright fascist pigs...

Some out there, of course, are excited, since they have felt nostalgias from their times at "Assault Brigades" and "Hunters Battalions".... Even though they try sometimes to disguise themselves as democrats and constitutionalists, it is in these times when they show all the way their real colors.

To talk about alleged repressions by socialist governments from the US, when they are currently oppressing every nation and peoples in the world who do not pledge to their interests, is not like calling the kettle black, but worst, and exercise of projection of Olympic size.

[Apr 30, 2019] What's Driving Bolton's Attacks on the "Troika of Tyranny"? by John Feffer

Apr 30, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

April 26, 2019

Photograph Source: US State Department – Public Domain

If you're in the market for a troika of tyranny, Donald Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo certainly fit the bill. Or, if you'd rather focus on countries not individuals, you might single out Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt as the three most likely candidates. Perhaps, if you're in a confessional mood, how about Christian fundamentalism, Jewish extremism, and Salafist Wahhabism?

A troika, for those who haven't read any 19th-century Russian novels recently, is a carriage drawn by three horses. So, the ultimate troika of tyranny, from the point of view of the planet as a whole, would feature the three horsemen of the ongoing apocalypse: climate change, nuclear proliferation, and global pandemic.

But no, that's not what National Security Advisor John Bolton had in mind when he talked last week of a "troika of tyranny." In a rehash of a speech he gave in November in Miami , Bolton declared last week that the "troika of tyranny -- Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua -- is beginning to crumble." Further laying on the insults, Bolton called Cuba's Miguel Díaz-Canel, Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega "the three stooges of socialism."

Ever since George W. Bush included Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in an "axis of evil," speechmakers have been in search of the holy grail of geopolitical matchmaking (for instance, Condoleezza Rice's "outposts of tyranny").

Bush's phrase, which proved so enduring, was an extraordinarily flawed piece of work. The three countries he grouped together had little to no relationship at the time. Iraq and Iran had fought a nearly decade-long war that left them bitter regional rivals. North Korea, which has no ideological affinity to either country, was probably included in the list so that it didn't appear anti-Islamic. This particular axis didn't have a leg to stand on.

Bolton's more alliterative phrase suffers from the same conceptual problems. Worse, it revives an anti-Communist crusade that could easily expand to include North Korea, China, and any left-leaning country (New Zealand?) that makes the mistake of looking at Bolton funny.

A New Monroe Doctrine?

Trump understands the world in terms of three types of leaders. There are the autocrats he like. There are the autocrats he doesn't like. And then there are all the rest: the democrats he doesn't respect.

Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel is one of those autocrats that Trump doesn't like. It's not Díaz-Canel's ideology that rubs the American president the wrong way. After all, Trump has no problem praising China's Xi Jinping or falling in love with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Rather, Cuba made the unpardonable error of negotiating a détente with Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama. So, by the logic of the Trump administration, Cuba is guilty by association.

Over the last two-plus years, Trump has rolled back the elements of the agreements that the Obama administration negotiated with Cuba that culminated in diplomatic recognition in July 2015. The Trump administration has restricted travel to the country, the amount of money that Cubans in America can remit to their families back home, and the deals that U.S. businesses can negotiate with Cuban counterparts. Also, the administration will now allow U.S. entities to file lawsuits against foreign companies operating on property appropriated by the state after the 1959 revolution.

The Obama policy was all about nudging Cuba in a particular direction. More people-to-people contact would increase the free flow of information. More business deals would encourage the growth of market activities. Meanwhile, unrestricted remittances would help Cubans deal with the myriad difficulties of everyday life.

The Trump administration isn't interested in nudging Cuba in a particular direction. Its punitive measures are designed to encourage regime change, pure and simple. The decision to allow lawsuits to go forward is aimed at scaring off European investors in particular who've been operating in Cuba despite decades of U.S. sanctions and embargo. In response, Spain wants the EU to challenge the new U.S. policy at the World Trade Organization.

Bolton never liked Cuba. When he was undersecretary of state for arms control in the George W. Bush administration, Bolton accused the country of making biological weapons. This accusation came only two months after Bush had inaugurated the "axis of evil," and Bolton was eager to shoehorn Cuba into the new group. But his efforts to designate the Caribbean island a "terrorist threat" -- and prepare the ground for yet another U.S. invasion -- foundered when a congressional investigation turned up no evidence of a biological weapons program in the country.

Now Bolton is excited to have a second chance to group Cuba with two other countries that have fallen afoul of the United States: Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Like the original members of the "axis of evil," they don't have much in common with one another. Cuba is avowedly Marxist in orientation, with a Third World agrarian spin. Venezuela, on the other hand, is a corrupt petro-state led by a leader who calls himself socialist but is really just a klutzy kleptocrat. Then there's Daniel Ortega, who was once a socialist revolutionary but has transformed himself into a Catholic dictator along the lines of Francisco Franco.

None of these countries poses even the remotest threat to the United States. They have dismal human rights records, but that hasn't been a concern for the Trump administration anywhere else in the world.

So, why is Bolton bothering to waste his rhetorical flourishes on the trio? The national security advisor claims that Cuba is propping up Maduro. He hints that Ortega's days are numbered. Is Bolton campaigning to revive what had once been the traditional U.S. approach to Latin America: invasion, occupation, regime change?

After all, his most recent "troika of tyranny" speech was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 17, 1961. And the audience for his speech was similarly chosen with care: the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association.

When it comes to Bolton, war is always a possibility pretty much anywhere in the world. But with the Trump administration focusing most of its wrath against Iran , the "troika of tyranny" speech is probably not the opening salvo of a new, hyper-militarist Monroe Doctrine.

Bolton likely has a longer game plan in mind.

Expanding the Troika

You can almost see the lips beneath the walrus moustache purse in displeasure when Donald Trump shakes hands with Xi Jinping, murmurs sweet nothings to Kim Jong Un, and has quiet confabs with Vladimir Putin.

John Bolton has never concealed his profound antipathy to the current government in North Korea. He wants to rewrite the one-China policy and is willing to use military force against Beijing as part of that effort. As for Russia, Bolton believes that Putin is a liar and Moscow represents a serious long-term strategic threat to the United States.

This, then, is the shadow "troika of tyranny" that John Bolton would roll out in a speech if only Donald Trump's personal predilections didn't get in the way.

But that isn't stopping the national security advisor from carefully preparing the ground to do just that as soon as Trump gets frustrated with Kim, Xi, and/or Putin.

Toward that end, Bolton carefully chose "troika" for his phrase: a Russian word that can later be repurposed to suggest that Moscow is in fact at the root of these problems. And Bolton is hammering away at the "socialist-communist" nature of the three Latin American countries, which will prove enormously useful later on when expanding the troika to include North Korea and China.

In the end, Bolton is after nothing short of a new Cold War.

Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are small countries with no desire or means to attack the United States. North Korea with its nuclear weapons, China with the world's second largest military, and Russia with its geopolitical ambitions, on the other hand, are much worthier adversaries.

Prolonged conflict with these three will keep militarists like Bolton in business for decades. As importantly, Bolton can use these larger confrontations to unravel all international institutions, all forms of international cooperation, in fact anything that smacks of an international community.

With all eyes focused these days on Trump and his myriad crimes, John Bolton's speeches are a reminder that even worse options are waiting in the wings. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: John Feffer

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus , where this article originally appeared.

[Apr 30, 2019] A neocon pretending to be a diplomat Pompeo trying to explain the difference between Israel annexation of Holan Heights and Crimea

Apr 30, 2019 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

Mao Cheng Ji says: April 25, 2019 at 3:01 pm

If you continue making outrageous false equivalence arguments, mister, you'll have have to spend time in a reeducation camp, I'm afraid.

It's been explained to you a million times already:

"Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the situation with recognizing Crimea as part of Russia differed from acknowledging Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

According to him, what US President Donald Trump did is to "recognize the reality on the ground." Pompeo stressed that Washington seeks to work on Middle East stability, noting that "America is a force for good in the region" and its intentions are noble."

[Apr 30, 2019] Spot the difference

Apr 25, 2019 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

PaulR 10 Comments Remember this story, which appeared on the BBC in September 2016?

The US ambassador to the UN has accused Russia of "barbarism" over the bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo. At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Samantha Power said Russia had told the council outright lies about its conduct in Syria. She said Russia and the Syrian regime were "laying waste to what is left of an iconic Middle Eastern city".

Samatha Power's accusations against the Russians were hardly unique. They were in fact pretty much the norm among American commentators throughout the battle for the Syrian city of Aleppo. For instance, Max Fisher of the New York Times wrote the following denunciation of Russian 'brutality':

The effects of Russia's bombing campaign in the Syrian city of Aleppo -- destroying hospitals and schools, choking off basic supplies, and killing aid workers and hundreds of civilians over just days -- raise a question: What could possibly motivate such brutality?

Observers attribute Russia's bombing to recklessness, cruelty or Moscow's desperate thrashing in what the White House has called a "quagmire."

But many analysts take a different view: Russia and its Syrian government allies, they say, could be massacring Aleppo's civilians as part of a calculated strategy, aimed beyond this one city.

Meanwhile, the 'brutal' and 'barbaric' methods of the Russians were contrasted with the relatively benign tactics of the American military. As Zack Beauchamp commented in Vox :

While the United States and its allies are waging a targeted air campaign against ISIS and other extremists, Russia and the Syrian government are launching an all-out assault on a single city, an assault heedless of the civilian casualties. Washington and its allies have killed innocents but work to avoid it. Russia and Syria -- which are carpet-bombing densely populated civilian areas with indiscriminate weapons like barrel bombs -- don't.

Americans weren't the only ones to take this line. Former British foreign minister Boris Johnson, for instance, remarked that Russia was becoming a 'pariah nation' due to its attacks on Aleppo, some of which, he claimed , were 'unquestionably a war crime'. And Mark Galeotti commented in Foreign Policy magazine, that:

Anyone trying to understand Russia's military strategy in Syria would be wise to examine the heavy-handed methods Vladimir Putin used during his first war as Russia's commander in chief, the bloody Second Chechn War. These are very different wars, fought in different ways by different forces, but they nonetheless highlight one central aspect of Putin's approach to fighting insurgents: the value of brutality.

Fair enough, you might say – a lot of innocent people died in Aleppo. According to Wikipedia :

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a pro-opposition non-governmental organization, reported that the Russian bombardments killed at least 1,640 civilians in the Aleppo area: 1,178 civilians died between 30 September 2015 and 1 August 2016, while additional 462 civilians were killed from 19 September 2016 until 30 November 2016.

It's impossible for me to validate these figures, which could be criticised for the fact that they come from a 'pro-opposition' organization. But for simplicity's sake, let's take them as reasonably accurate. Now let's compare them with something else – the numbers killed by air and artillery strikes carried out by American forces and their coalition allies in the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa. As I reported a year ago, when a team from the UNHCR entered Raqqa after its liberation from the forces of the Islamic State, its members recorded that they witnessed a 'level of destruction which exceeded anything they had ever seen before.' Since then, analysts have been trying to calculate the human cost of this destruction, and today we have the results. According to the BBC:

More than 1,600 civilians were killed in US-led coalition air and artillery strikes during the offensive to oust the Islamic State group from the Syrian city of Raqqa in 2017, activists say.

Amnesty International and monitoring group Airwars said they had carried out investigations at 200 strike locations Researchers spent about two months on the ground in the city, carrying out investigations at strike locations and interviewing more than 400 witnesses and survivors. They were able to directly verify the names of 641 victims, and there were very strong multiple sources for the rest, Amnesty said.

So, there we have it. In a campaign marked by 'war crimes', 'brutality', and 'barbarism', the Russians killed 1,600 civilians. Meanwhile, in the campaign for Raqqa, the Americans killed 1,600 civilians! Can you spot the difference? I can't.

Mao Cheng Ji says: April 25, 2019 at 3:01 pm
If you continue making outrageous false equivalence arguments, mister, you'll have have to spend time in a reeducation camp, I'm afraid.

It's been explained to you a million times already:

"Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the situation with recognizing Crimea as part of Russia differed from acknowledging Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. According to him, what US President Donald Trump did is to "recognize the reality on the ground." Pompeo stressed that Washington seeks to work on Middle East stability, noting that "America is a force for good in the region" and its intentions are noble."

Aule Valar says: April 25, 2019 at 4:50 pm
Ah, but the evil ISIS was using civilians as human shields in Raqqa, so noble Americans had no choice but to bomb them! Meanwhile, the freedom fighters in Aleppo totally didn't, so all civilians were maliciously slaughtered by evil Russians and Assadists! There is your difference, professor.
LeaNder says: April 27, 2019 at 7:29 am
Exactly. This why whataboutism is a term and pointless.
Provided you are not about whataboutisms more generally, and we might have the same thing in mind–I was close to responding too–historically the term might prove interesting. Once one takes a closer look.
LeaNder says: April 27, 2019 at 7:35 am
ok, before I am off again.
What is the precise relation between "human shields" and "collateral damage" of the human kind.

and or why are "precision bombs" more humanitarian then "barrel bombs", or lets say precision bombs with minor grades or uranium, beyond the PR, that is? And admittedly I am not an expert in weaponary.

Mikhail says: April 25, 2019 at 6:30 pm
The misguided moral supremacy at issue is nothing especially new as noted in this earlier piece:

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/01/11/misreading-trump-putin-and-us-russian-relations/

Concerning Russian action in Syria, John Brennan is referenced with a direct quote from him in a PBS NewsHour segment. Of course, he wasn't challenged at all.

When Nikki Haley was appointed America's ambassador to the UN, I said that she couldn't be any worse than Samantha Power. I take that back.

Power has her flaws as noted in these pieces:

https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/samantha-powers-new-principles-8751

http://silentcrownews.com/wordpress/?p=4712

Providing top quality analysis on a range of key foreign policy, historical, media and sports issues.

Guest says: April 26, 2019 at 8:32 am
This information about Raqqa was available at the time – social media as well as on non western channels.

The BBC were a part of the propaganda arm of the British govt smear campaign against Russia and Syria.

It was all part of the information war. The words used to describe Russia and Syria are to create images of uncivilised barbaric people. While the USA are in white hats (or white helmets in this case!!! )

As for Aleppo – pictures of how it looks now compared to Raqqa are as different as night and day almost.

dewittbourchier says: April 26, 2019 at 6:24 pm
Patrick Armstrong acidly noted how often 'the last hospital in Aleppo' was bombed by the Russians and/or Syrians.

But if we think about this objectively, 1,600 casualties deaths given the explosive power of the ordinance being dropped, the terrain being fought over, the positions the enemy were in both in Raqqa and Aleppo, and also the stakes involved, it would seem fairly clear that both cases meet the Law of Armed Conflict test of 'proportionality.'

However this does demonstrate why 'whataboutism' otherwise known as 'those who live in glass houses' continues to be so effective. In exaggerating or even lying about what was going on western politicians and commentators devalue concepts such as 'atrocity' or 'barbarism' and instead reaffirm the idea that these are not more or less objective concepts and just things that are thrown as invective at people who policy elites have decided, for one reason or another, they don't like. And in doing so policy elites undermine themselves in the long term as they lose credibility with everybody but themselves.

james says: April 29, 2019 at 7:11 pm
thanks for your work! i had noticed the amnesty international article on this from about 5 days ago.. i am sure the msm will do their best to keep it buried, as they wouldn't want those dear souls in the west to get an inkling of just how dishonest the war merchants and west are in their zeal to do more of the same

[Apr 30, 2019] Neoconservatism as a stupid strategy by clever people

Apr 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

somebody , Apr 30, 2019 6:36:29 AM | link

Posted by: Fantome | Apr 29, 2019 3:09:31 PM | 4

It IS a stupid strategy by clever people.

When the Soviet Union dissolved the US learnt they did not have the power to rule the world. It was a learning process a lot of people had to pay for.

When Putin stopped the Russian policy to go along with the United States after Libya that was it. There was a "new cold war" without the borders agreed in Yalta.

The United states have bled money in these wars financed by China. At present China and Russia are doing two things - isolate their economy from the World - Dollar - Economy by Western sanctions and integrate/protect the supply of oil Chinese industry depends on.

China - Huawei - have achieved the technological leading edge - in a way that some people in Germany think a planned market economy might be the model of the future. In any case close to everybody (exept Britain) has reverted to protecting their industries.

The United States are still dependent on China financing their debt, whilst China has found alternative routes to spend their money on the new Silk Road and Russia has developed (and tested) the technology to protect this road (I guess from the sales that are reported).

Whoever reenacted Baghdadi wants to goad the US into keeping up the small wars that do not decide anything but keep weakening the countries involved.
The time this could threaten Russia or China has passed.

If this is a threat to Turkey all it will do is drive Turkey closer to Russian protection.

My guess is the US are not behind this (they are NOT stupid and Trump wants to claim that ISIS is finished). But any combination of the countries whose status in today's world depends on US backing (or who dislike Turkey). Baghdadi has always been a secret service creature.

[Apr 30, 2019] Is Auntie Gina just the titular head of Al-CIA?

Notable quotes:
"... It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables. ..."
"... The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same way. ..."
"... {A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result of their personality or experience} ? ..."
"... They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism. In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the evidence - or at least they can make that claim. ..."
"... So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going. ..."
"... we're talking 1 and a half million dead so far in Iraq and Afghanistan...and that's being conservative. ..."
"... Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the Empire will be obliged to come in and "help". ..."
"... I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets. ..."
"... Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud. ..."
"... Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot. ..."
"... Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video." ..."
"... A history of Wahhabism which is a problem for the globe; https://ahtribune.com/religion/155-a-history-of-wahhabism.html The KSA, whose ass the empire kisses daily, is the main funder for these clowns. ..."
Apr 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

shaw , Apr 29, 2019 2:43:54 PM | link

What's the Wonder my dear?
Duh!
He is in CIA safe house in Al-Anbar.

ISI is looking for this CIA's "Patsy" hide out. Watch this space, he has blood of 14 Pakistani soldiers on his hands via Iran hit. We will end this MOSSAD Agent.

Sally Snyder , Apr 29, 2019 2:45:43 PM | link

As shown in this article, statistics show that the War on Terror has been a colossal failure:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/03/global-terrorism-and-failure-of-war-on.html

The one hundred thousand people that died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorist activities would certainly agree that the trillions of dollars that have been spent on the War on Terror has done very little to remove the spectre of terrorist activities from their homes, cities and nations.

CD Waller , Apr 29, 2019 3:06:16 PM | link
Are we sure the man in the film is Bahgdadi?

Sally Snyder: The war on terror is a war of terror and in that sense, though morally reprehensible and costly, has been success. Regime change and the destabilization of the Middle East has been the goal.

It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables.

Fantome , Apr 29, 2019 3:09:31 PM | link
@Sally Snyder[2]:

War on terror was the war on an entire civilization. Association/Replacement of the word terror was just for the public consumption. It's a simple strategy that makes the aggressors appear like the good guys who are there to defend themselves or the values they hold.

The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same way.

War on the civilizations yields massive benefits. It's the shortcoming of the model of the western civilization that it continuously requires massive input that can't be achieved by the legal means of business and trade.

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 29, 2019 3:19:34 PM | link
One wonders whose guest he is

Auntie Gina the tit ular head of Al-CIA-duh/ Al Qaeda/ ISIS?

{A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result of their personality or experience} ?

Jackrabbit , Apr 29, 2019 3:26:14 PM | link
They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism. In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the evidence - or at least they can make that claim.
Bemildred , Apr 29, 2019 3:35:23 PM | link
So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going.

They don't seem to be having that much success with getting that war going, so I expect the attacks will go on.

john , Apr 29, 2019 4:20:19 PM | link
Sally Snyder says:

The one hundred thousand people that died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorist activities...

look sister, we can't do much about the state of things, but we can at least relay a realistic account of the extent of the atrocity

we're talking 1 and a half million dead so far in Iraq and Afghanistan...and that's being conservative.

S , Apr 29, 2019 4:22:24 PM | link
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self declared caliph of ISIS, appeared in new video published today.

Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the Empire will be obliged to come in and "help".

frances , Apr 29, 2019 4:30:55 PM | link
From zerohedge's comments, both links worth a read:

preying mantis posted

who's your real daddy, Baghdadi?

Jackrabbit , Apr 29, 2019 5:06:26 PM | link
S @17: Time to deploy some good old terrorism ...

Erdogan knows what he's dealing with, his government used to be a member of the conspiracy.

This move by Baghdadi could backfire in a big way.

Got my popcorn ready.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , Apr 29, 2019 5:09:27 PM | link

I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets.

Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud.

Laskarina , Apr 29, 2019 5:13:11 PM | link
Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot.

The guy in recent picture looks like one of Rita Katz's actors.

Walter , Apr 29, 2019 6:01:01 PM | link
It is a show to threaten Turkey with the same as Sri Lanka (where they refine lots of Iranian crude...and more...look it up). Many ties to Iran/Sri Lanka....and to Turkey. Typical nazi thugs....bribes, arson, dynamite...and patsies...in this case maybe mossad actor? Why not> Cui Bono?

As to the locus of the actor? Paramount? Warner Bros? Probably not. Does it matter?

They're parading a ringer...don't fall for the gag. Erdo won't fall for it either.

Curtis , Apr 29, 2019 6:08:06 PM | link
Baghdadi has nice toys by his side and not just the AK-47 with the camo bit over the barrel. It looks like a camo case on night vision gear (or vidcam?) just below that, too. To quote the Joker: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

Ahh a new game of "where in the world is ..." except instead of bin Laden (or his stand-in) the guest in Pakistan living near a military base we have Baghdadi. Maybe Baghdadi lives in that area, too. (awaiting his execution for the media and masses). I doubt it though. I'm thinking Turkey or even Saudi Arabia.

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 29, 2019 6:08:52 PM | link
...
This move by Baghdadi could backfire in a big way.
Got my popcorn ready.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 29, 2019 5:06:26 PM | 19

It does seem unnecessarily cheeky/ fishy. If 'they' had fiendishly brilliant plan, why wouldn't they'd just do it and leave it to the intel wonks to figure out what went wrong? It's big news in the J-C International media. Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video."

ben , Apr 29, 2019 9:18:09 PM | link
A history of Wahhabism which is a problem for the globe; https://ahtribune.com/religion/155-a-history-of-wahhabism.html The KSA, whose ass the empire kisses daily, is the main funder for these clowns.

[Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté

Highly recommended!
"Russiagate without Russia" actually means "Isrealgate". This individual points that he mentions below does not matter. Russiagate was a carefully planned and brilliantly executed false flag operation run by intelligences agencies (with GB agencies playing an important in some episodes decisive role) and headed probably by Obama himself via Brennan. There were two goals: (1) to exclude any possibility of detente with Russia and (2) to block any Trump attempts to change the USA foreign policy including running foreign war that enrich Pentagon contractors and justify supersized budget for intelligence agencies. As such is was a great success.
The fact that no American was indicted and that Mueller attempt to prosecute Russian marketing agneces failed does not matter. The atmosphere is now posoned for a generation. Americans are brainwashed and residue of Russiagate will stay for a long, long time. Neocons Bolton and Pompeo now run Trump administration foreign policy with Trump performing most ceremonial role in foreign policy domain.
In this sense Skripals poisoning was another false flag operation, which was the logical continuation of Russiagate. And Magnitsky killing (with Browder now a primary suspect) was a precursor to it. Both were run from Great Britain.
It is actually interesting how Mueller report swiped under the carpet the role of Great Britain in unleashing the Russiagate hysteria.
Two important foreign forces in the 2016 US Presidential elections was the Israel lobby and Great Britain. Trump proved to be a marionette not of Russia but of Israeli lobby. so sad...
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later). ..."
Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible to believe that " The Walls Are Closing In " on the traitor / puppet / asset in the White House .

The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative -- and the expectations it fueled -- to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction. It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton, and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.

1. Russiagate Without Russia

The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two parties doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the report's release, The New York Times noted that among the "outstanding questions" that Mueller would answer were the nature of "contacts between Kremlin intermediaries and the Trump campaign."

Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later).

It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call. These powerful Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect." If top Russians did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they supposedly conspired with, perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.

To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a "Russiagate without Russia." Instead we have a series of interactions where Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to the Russian government. But none of these "links," "ties," or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting with a Kremlin intermediary. Russiagate promoters have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track every known instance in which someone in Trump's orbit interacted with " the Russians ," or someone who can be linked to them . There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian national -- but there is something xenophobic about implying as much.

2. Russiagate's Predicate Led Nowhere

The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation. During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos that "the Russians" had obtained "thousands of emails" containing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That information made its way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an intermediary between Trump and Russia .

But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says that Papadopoulos "understood Mifsud to have substantial connections to high-level Russian government officials," it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections. Since Mifsud's suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBI's initial Trump-Russia investigation, that is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators when they interviewed him in February 2017 -- but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. Thus, even the interaction that sparked the Russia-collusion probe did not reveal collusion.

3. Sergey Kislyak Had "Brief and Non-Substantive" Interactions With the Trump Camp

Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyak's interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events "were brief, public, and non-substantive." As for Kislyak's much ballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it "included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign." When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention, Mueller "did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."

The same goes for Kislyak's post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making "false statements and omissions" in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an election-related payoff or " quid pro quo " with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynn's indictment: What Flynn hid from agents was that he had "called Kislyak to request Russian restraint" in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration, and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting the absence of evidence that Flynn "possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive to end the FBI's inquiry into Flynn's conduct."

4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow

The November 2018 indictment of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy, for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trump's personal knowledge of his company's failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohen's admitted lies were proof that " Trump is compromised by Russia ," " full stop ."

But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen, the report notes, "requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with financing." The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, spoke with Cohen by phone after he e-mailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, "Cohen could not recall any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsel's] Office identify any evidence of direct follow-up."

5. and Trump Didn't Ask Cohen to Lie About It

The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also rejects a related impeachment-level "bombshell." In January, BuzzFeed News reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump "directed" Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to Mueller, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony," and that Cohen himself testified "that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow project would be or was false." In a de-facto retraction, BuzzFeed updated its story with an acknowledgment of Mueller's conclusion .

6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a "Waste of Time"

The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was widely dubbed the " Smoking Gun ." An e-mail chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." But the pitch did not come from the meeting's Russian participants, but instead from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented "publicist puff" to secure the meeting, because in reality, as he told NPR , "I had no idea what I was talking about."

Mueller noted that Trump Jr.'s response "showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]." The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a "waste of time," and requested that his assistants "call him to give him an excuse to leave." Accordingly, when "Veselnitskaya made additional efforts to follow up on the meeting," after the election, "the Trump Transition Team did not engage."

7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election

In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and discussing a Ukraine peace plan with a Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller, the FBI "assesses" that Kilimnik has unspecified "ties to Russian intelligence." To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed " the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion " and even the " Russian collusion smoking gun ."

Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," and, moreover, "did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts." Mueller noted that he "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing" the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated by proving his financial value to former and future clients.

Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First, Mueller did not join media pundits in asserting such about Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, "ties to Russian intelligence," Mueller offered up a list of " pieces of the Office's Evidence" that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him.

8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction

The Steele dossier -- a collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia criminal relationship -- played a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent politicians , pundits , and media outlets promoted it as credible .

The Mueller report, The New York Times noted last week , has "underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove." Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it "believes that [Russia's] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with" the Trump campaign. The Mueller report, however, could "not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."

The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy reported to much fanfare that Mueller's team "has evidence" that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen "never traveled to Prague."

After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report "did not establish that" the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was "undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia."

9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks

In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Mueller's indictment actually showed that Stone had no communications with WikiLeaks before the election and no privileged information about its releases . Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stone -- a fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its e-mail dumps.

Mueller's final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stone's pending trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign, and Stone -- and came up empty. New reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far their farcical efforts went. The Mueller team devoted time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Mueller's prosecutors "spent weeks coaxing, cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories," the Post reports. "At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself." It is unsurprising that this led Mueller's prosecutors to ultimately declare, according to Corsi's attorney, "We can't use any of this."

10. There Was No Cover-Up

The Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years; it puts to rest the most popular, recent one: that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a cover-up . According to the dominant narrative, Barr was somehow concealing Mueller's damning evidence , while Mueller, even more improbably, stayed silent.

One could argue that Barr's summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Mueller's report does "not exonerate" Trump. It was Mueller's decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees, it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Mueller's office assisted with Barr's redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged, extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the report's contents.

In the end, Mueller's report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and media establishments to be a work of fiction . The American public was presented with a far different picture from what was expected, because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of others. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day.

It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy theory ultimately collapsed. The scale of the wreckage, confirmed by Mueller's report, may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal.

[Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté

Highly recommended!
"Russiagate without Russia" actually means "Isrealgate". This individual points that he mentions below does not matter. Russiagate was a carefully planned and brilliantly executed false flag operation run by intelligences agencies (with GB agencies playing an important in some episodes decisive role) and headed probably by Obama himself via Brennan. There were two goals: (1) to exclude any possibility of detente with Russia and (2) to block any Trump attempts to change the USA foreign policy including running foreign war that enrich Pentagon contractors and justify supersized budget for intelligence agencies. As such is was a great success.
The fact that no American was indicted and that Mueller attempt to prosecute Russian marketing agneces failed does not matter. The atmosphere is now posoned for a generation. Americans are brainwashed and residue of Russiagate will stay for a long, long time. Neocons Bolton and Pompeo now run Trump administration foreign policy with Trump performing most ceremonial role in foreign policy domain.
In this sense Skripals poisoning was another false flag operation, which was the logical continuation of Russiagate. And Magnitsky killing (with Browder now a primary suspect) was a precursor to it. Both were run from Great Britain.
It is actually interesting how Mueller report swiped under the carpet the role of Great Britain in unleashing the Russiagate hysteria.
Two important foreign forces in the 2016 US Presidential elections was the Israel lobby and Great Britain. Trump proved to be a marionette not of Russia but of Israeli lobby. so sad...
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later). ..."
Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible to believe that " The Walls Are Closing In " on the traitor / puppet / asset in the White House .

The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative -- and the expectations it fueled -- to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction. It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton, and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.

1. Russiagate Without Russia

The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two parties doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the report's release, The New York Times noted that among the "outstanding questions" that Mueller would answer were the nature of "contacts between Kremlin intermediaries and the Trump campaign."

Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later).

It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call. These powerful Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect." If top Russians did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they supposedly conspired with, perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.

To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a "Russiagate without Russia." Instead we have a series of interactions where Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to the Russian government. But none of these "links," "ties," or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting with a Kremlin intermediary. Russiagate promoters have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track every known instance in which someone in Trump's orbit interacted with " the Russians ," or someone who can be linked to them . There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian national -- but there is something xenophobic about implying as much.

2. Russiagate's Predicate Led Nowhere

The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation. During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos that "the Russians" had obtained "thousands of emails" containing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That information made its way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an intermediary between Trump and Russia .

But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says that Papadopoulos "understood Mifsud to have substantial connections to high-level Russian government officials," it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections. Since Mifsud's suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBI's initial Trump-Russia investigation, that is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators when they interviewed him in February 2017 -- but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. Thus, even the interaction that sparked the Russia-collusion probe did not reveal collusion.

3. Sergey Kislyak Had "Brief and Non-Substantive" Interactions With the Trump Camp

Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyak's interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events "were brief, public, and non-substantive." As for Kislyak's much ballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it "included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign." When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention, Mueller "did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."

The same goes for Kislyak's post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making "false statements and omissions" in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an election-related payoff or " quid pro quo " with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynn's indictment: What Flynn hid from agents was that he had "called Kislyak to request Russian restraint" in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration, and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting the absence of evidence that Flynn "possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive to end the FBI's inquiry into Flynn's conduct."

4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow

The November 2018 indictment of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy, for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trump's personal knowledge of his company's failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohen's admitted lies were proof that " Trump is compromised by Russia ," " full stop ."

But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen, the report notes, "requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with financing." The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, spoke with Cohen by phone after he e-mailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, "Cohen could not recall any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsel's] Office identify any evidence of direct follow-up."

5. and Trump Didn't Ask Cohen to Lie About It

The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also rejects a related impeachment-level "bombshell." In January, BuzzFeed News reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump "directed" Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to Mueller, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony," and that Cohen himself testified "that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow project would be or was false." In a de-facto retraction, BuzzFeed updated its story with an acknowledgment of Mueller's conclusion .

6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a "Waste of Time"

The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was widely dubbed the " Smoking Gun ." An e-mail chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." But the pitch did not come from the meeting's Russian participants, but instead from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented "publicist puff" to secure the meeting, because in reality, as he told NPR , "I had no idea what I was talking about."

Mueller noted that Trump Jr.'s response "showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]." The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a "waste of time," and requested that his assistants "call him to give him an excuse to leave." Accordingly, when "Veselnitskaya made additional efforts to follow up on the meeting," after the election, "the Trump Transition Team did not engage."

7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election

In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and discussing a Ukraine peace plan with a Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller, the FBI "assesses" that Kilimnik has unspecified "ties to Russian intelligence." To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed " the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion " and even the " Russian collusion smoking gun ."

Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," and, moreover, "did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts." Mueller noted that he "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing" the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated by proving his financial value to former and future clients.

Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First, Mueller did not join media pundits in asserting such about Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, "ties to Russian intelligence," Mueller offered up a list of " pieces of the Office's Evidence" that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him.

8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction

The Steele dossier -- a collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia criminal relationship -- played a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent politicians , pundits , and media outlets promoted it as credible .

The Mueller report, The New York Times noted last week , has "underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove." Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it "believes that [Russia's] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with" the Trump campaign. The Mueller report, however, could "not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."

The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy reported to much fanfare that Mueller's team "has evidence" that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen "never traveled to Prague."

After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report "did not establish that" the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was "undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia."

9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks

In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Mueller's indictment actually showed that Stone had no communications with WikiLeaks before the election and no privileged information about its releases . Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stone -- a fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its e-mail dumps.

Mueller's final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stone's pending trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign, and Stone -- and came up empty. New reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far their farcical efforts went. The Mueller team devoted time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Mueller's prosecutors "spent weeks coaxing, cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories," the Post reports. "At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself." It is unsurprising that this led Mueller's prosecutors to ultimately declare, according to Corsi's attorney, "We can't use any of this."

10. There Was No Cover-Up

The Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years; it puts to rest the most popular, recent one: that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a cover-up . According to the dominant narrative, Barr was somehow concealing Mueller's damning evidence , while Mueller, even more improbably, stayed silent.

One could argue that Barr's summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Mueller's report does "not exonerate" Trump. It was Mueller's decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees, it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Mueller's office assisted with Barr's redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged, extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the report's contents.

In the end, Mueller's report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and media establishments to be a work of fiction . The American public was presented with a far different picture from what was expected, because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of others. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day.

It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy theory ultimately collapsed. The scale of the wreckage, confirmed by Mueller's report, may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal.

[Apr 29, 2019] Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along

Apr 29, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

JOHN CHUCKMAN , April 26, 2019 at 12:14

Worth reading, as are most things Jonathan Cook writes.

But I'm not sure I accept his notion of The Lobby's hold in the United States weakening in any way. Yes, there finally are a few people in Congress who speak truth for the first time ever. But look at the choke-hold Israel has on the county, despite those minor influences. Many of Trump's most senior appointments are people serving Israeli interests to a record degree -- Bolton, Pompeo, Abrahams, Kushner, and others.

And look at the things, not his to legally dispose of at all, that Trump has "given" Israel. It's shocking, but there are almost no voices in the United States saying so.

And by all accounts, Trump's big "peace plan" could have been written by members of Netanyahu's staff. There is no pretense of working with two sides to solve a problem involving two sides.

We have matters like Trump's "Syria withdrawal" reduced to dust under Israeli influence, for there is no other serious known interest keeping American military, illegally, in northwestern Syria.

Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along.

And the steady drumbeat against law-abiding Iran is becoming deafening.

There is only one interest pushing this pointlessly destructive policy, Israel with its intense desire to dominate its region and benefit from all the favor of the United States in doing so.

America's own long-term interests all dictate that it should work to establish good relations with Iran, a major and peaceful state with many things to offer in trade and friendship, but America cannot do so under Israel's withering influence. America just keeps flagellating itself to exhibit its reverence towards one small and extremely belligerent state.

Israel is under absolutely no threat from Iran. It's just empty rhetoric, an excuse for itself promoting threats and belligerence.

Imagine a non-nuclear state attacking a nuclear state such as Israel, one with a sizable arsenal? One, moreover, doubly protected by America's nuclear arsenal. It's a darkly laughable idea, but it is never laughed at by anyone in Washington, it is only ritualistically honored and repeated.

Israel's destructive viewpoint prevails in almost all important matters. Even much of America's intense Russophobia reflects stoking by Israeli interests. Israel simply views Russia, without saying so publicly, as a big stumbling block to the kind of American international dominance Israel would be very happy seeing.

There is not much to be hopeful about that I see. Perhaps, if Israel keeps so grotesquely over-playing its hand, there will be a backlash in the United States. But that's only a "perhaps." Americans, on the whole, just go right along with things, much resembling a herd of cattle quietly grazing in a pasture while just over the distant hills, vicious armies clash and threaten their future.

[Apr 29, 2019] 'Hard to imagine' how global market will react when US waivers on Iran oil expire Putin

Notable quotes:
"... The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with Iran. ..."
"... We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they are ready to pull out from the deal. ..."
"... He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition. ..."
Apr 29, 2019 | www.rt.com

It's hard to foresee how US efforts to bring Iranian oil exports to zero will play out in future, Vladimir Putin admitted, saying OPEC members should live up to their obligation to keep output as low as possible if it comes true. Russia has an agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut their output by 1.2 million barrels per day, which remains in effect until July of this year, Putin said. But the US waivers – which gave a host of countries an exemption from the existing anti-Iran sanctions – expire much earlier, he reminded.

I don't imagine how the global energy market will react to that.

In November, the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran's energy, shipbuilding and banking sectors in a bid to deprive Tehran of its main sources of revenue. But it simultaneously issued waivers to China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey – the main importers of Iranian crude – so that they can find alternative vendors of oil.

The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with Iran.

Commenting on the issue, Putin said he hopes the market will eventually avoid the deficit of Iranian oil and that Iran will still be able to sell it. The comment came on the heels of conflicting reports that Donald Trump persuaded Riyadh to ramp up oil output this lowering fuel costs; these reports were denounced by OPEC officials.

Nevertheless, there is "no evidence" that any country is going to withdraw from the OPEC+ agreement to drop oil outputs, Putin said.

We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they are ready to pull out from the deal.

He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition.

See also:

[Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
"... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
"... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
"... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
"... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
"... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
"... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
"... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
"... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
"... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
"... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
"... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
"... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
"... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
"... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
"... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
"... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019 20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States, including to this day, will be exposed.

The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.

"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."

The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians. It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth, or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.

Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done.

A New Cultural Paradigm

The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.

The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:

"I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the working level are great."

There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects for world peace, stated:

"Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."

This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.

It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.

The Truth Set Free

President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free.

The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence,

"The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."


DOCUMENTATION

While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.

The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here can be found on our website.

The Russian Hack That Wasn't

The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak, rather than a hack conducted over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency, becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0, who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.

Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.

The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab (DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.

The British Target Trump

According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence, the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's direction.

This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control.

Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum. Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.

In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.

In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend" of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.

A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations, and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.

Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier. They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing could be further from the truth.

MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare

On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst. He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the friend were having coffee.

The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.

Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.

As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.

Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia.

The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.

This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.

Sign the Petition: President Trump, Declassify the Docs on the British Role in Russiagate


Robert , April 24, 2019 at 14:35

"in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"

Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.

David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14

"This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."

Absolutely correct.

Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University, my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent that dark "art".

Eileen Kuch , April 24, 2019 at 18:13

Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University – his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.

CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15

Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.

There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since she could be bought. Trump can't.

What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.

Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.

Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly as possible.

So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.

The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.

They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.

In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they needed to try and hide what really happened.

So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.

'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.

Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.

The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.

1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.

2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.

Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with the elections. NONE.

They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.

So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion, Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..

Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?

Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.

There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.

That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!

So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?

He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.

The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.

His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.

Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.

They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.

The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.

It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.

The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

"Russia'.

So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?

A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.

And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)

B: Russians hacked the DNC.

That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.

Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.

It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the Presidency.

That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!

In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.

That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.

Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump Campaign'.

Let's go a bit deeper still.

Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?

After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.

If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP the real crime', what would happen?

They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.

They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all THEY were the criminals.

They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.

That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all that.

They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created LIE.

That LIE = the Insurance Policy.

What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.

Although true, that is only A.

They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying on him!

The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.

What's the punishment for Treason?

About Assange and Seth Rich.

Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.

Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.

If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.

No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.

Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48

While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.

Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.

boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13

RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
:::

Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
JUL 30, 2007

I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:

O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed, O'Neal said

In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:

News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.

If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.

Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as snipers, too.

If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire until the family forced them to do otherwise.
This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:

As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself, but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like, 'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'

(Maybe the Congress can )

////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force / and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.

\\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life" they've been alleged/assigned.

/// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
(WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???

!!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????

AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover

Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.

"Capitalism and Altruism
are incompatible
capitalism and altruism
cannot coexist in man,
or in the same society".

President Trump represents
Stark & Total Capitalism
Just as "Conservative Party"
Core is in The Confederacy
AKA; The RIGHT WING

The Right Wing of US Gov't
Is All About PRESERVING
Confederate States' Laws
Written by Thomas Jefferson

Prior to The Constitution, which
became the Received/Judicial
Constitutional Law of the Land in
The Republic of the "United States"

Elizabeth K. Burton , April 23, 2019 at 12:50

It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them down? They get weapons and start killing people.

There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit. Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation". Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.

The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters, the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."

In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.

Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14

Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner

Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38

Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know:
1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the campaign.

-daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.

Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36

The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.

It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.

War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.

Herman , April 22, 2019 at 11:09

The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory truth effect will include this truth.

Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00

>>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."

The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.

Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?

Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55

That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers.

All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.

Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21

I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.

[Apr 28, 2019] Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine

Highly recommended!
Apr 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

A123 , says: April 25, 2019 at 12:33 am GMT

Democratic party candidate Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine (1). Given that Biden is the most beatable name to come forward so far Trump and his administration will do nothing major to involve the U.S. with the internal affairs of Ukraine.

Macron and Merkel may wish to do something, but given personal unpopularity in their countries it is unclear what they can deliver.

For the next 12+ months nothing of any significance will happen. If the Dems are foolish enough to nominate Biden, it could become an issue next year. Trump and Putin would have aligned interests in stopping the Biden family's exploitation of Ukrainian resources.

____

(1) https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived

[Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
"... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
"... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
"... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
"... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
"... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
"... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
"... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
"... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
"... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
"... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
"... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
"... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
"... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
"... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
"... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
"... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019 20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States, including to this day, will be exposed.

The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.

"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."

The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians. It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth, or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.

Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done.

A New Cultural Paradigm

The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.

The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:

"I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the working level are great."

There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects for world peace, stated:

"Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."

This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.

It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.

The Truth Set Free

President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free.

The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence,

"The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."


DOCUMENTATION

While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.

The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here can be found on our website.

The Russian Hack That Wasn't

The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak, rather than a hack conducted over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency, becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0, who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.

Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.

The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab (DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.

The British Target Trump

According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence, the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's direction.

This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control.

Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum. Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.

In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.

In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend" of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.

A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations, and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.

Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier. They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing could be further from the truth.

MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare

On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst. He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the friend were having coffee.

The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.

Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.

As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.

Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia.

The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.

This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.

Sign the Petition: President Trump, Declassify the Docs on the British Role in Russiagate


Robert , April 24, 2019 at 14:35

"in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"

Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.

David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14

"This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."

Absolutely correct.

Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University, my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent that dark "art".

Eileen Kuch , April 24, 2019 at 18:13

Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University – his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.

CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15

Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.

There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since she could be bought. Trump can't.

What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.

Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.

Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly as possible.

So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.

The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.

They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.

In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they needed to try and hide what really happened.

So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.

'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.

Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.

The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.

1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.

2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.

Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with the elections. NONE.

They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.

So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion, Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..

Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?

Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.

There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.

That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!

So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?

He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.

The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.

His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.

Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.

They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.

The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.

It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.

The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

"Russia'.

So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?

A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.

And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)

B: Russians hacked the DNC.

That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.

Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.

It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the Presidency.

That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!

In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.

That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.

Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump Campaign'.

Let's go a bit deeper still.

Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?

After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.

If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP the real crime', what would happen?

They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.

They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all THEY were the criminals.

They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.

That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all that.

They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created LIE.

That LIE = the Insurance Policy.

What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.

Although true, that is only A.

They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying on him!

The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.

What's the punishment for Treason?

About Assange and Seth Rich.

Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.

Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.

If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.

No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.

Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48

While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.

Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.

boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13

RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
:::

Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
JUL 30, 2007

I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:

O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed, O'Neal said

In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:

News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.

If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.

Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as snipers, too.

If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire until the family forced them to do otherwise.
This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:

As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself, but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like, 'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'

(Maybe the Congress can )

////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force / and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.

\\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life" they've been alleged/assigned.

/// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
(WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???

!!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????

AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover

Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.

"Capitalism and Altruism
are incompatible
capitalism and altruism
cannot coexist in man,
or in the same society".

President Trump represents
Stark & Total Capitalism
Just as "Conservative Party"
Core is in The Confederacy
AKA; The RIGHT WING

The Right Wing of US Gov't
Is All About PRESERVING
Confederate States' Laws
Written by Thomas Jefferson

Prior to The Constitution, which
became the Received/Judicial
Constitutional Law of the Land in
The Republic of the "United States"

Elizabeth K. Burton , April 23, 2019 at 12:50

It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them down? They get weapons and start killing people.

There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit. Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation". Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.

The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters, the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."

In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.

Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14

Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner

Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38

Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know:
1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the campaign.

-daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.

Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36

The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.

It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.

War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.

Herman , April 22, 2019 at 11:09

The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory truth effect will include this truth.

Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00

>>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."

The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.

Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?

Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55

That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers.

All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.

Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21

I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.

[Apr 28, 2019] US Sanctions Got India to Ditch Iran, Will Washington Get It to Ditch Russia Too - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for by Andrew Korybko

So oil prices with rise which threaten Trump bid in 2020. Interesting times.
Notable quotes:
"... As is now known, however, appearances can be very misleading, and in actuality the same country that was vowing to "defy" the US actually ended up quietly implementing its new patron's will. ..."
Apr 24, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

The announcement by India's Oil Minister that his country will replace US-sanctioned Iranian oil imports with those from "major oil-producing countries" despite the dramatic Bollywood show that New Delhi has made up until this point out of "defying" US sanctions makes one seriously wonder whether India's preparing to ditch Russia next if the US imposes CAATSA sanctions against it over the S-400s.

Shattering The "Indian Illusion"

The " Indian Illusion " has been shattered after India's Oil Minister tweeted that his country will replace US-sanctioned Iranian oil imports with those from "major oil-producing countries" such as the Islamic Republic's hated GCC foes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE that America said will step up their exports in order to stabilize global prices after Washington announced that it won't renew its anti-Iranian oil sanction waivers. New Delhi made a dramatic Bollywood-like show over the past year out of "defying" US sanctions, with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announcing last May that India will only obey UNSC sanctions and not those unilaterally imposed by the US in contravention of international law.

The Oil Minister himself said back in October before the waivers were issued that India will continue buying Iranian oil in spite of the US sanctions, later crediting Prime Minister Modi a month later when the US eventually granted it the waiver. Adding "credibility" to the illusion that India's perception managers were masterfully creating, it was then reported that the country will use rupees instead of dollars when trading with Iran, a bold move that even fooled an RT columnist who headlined his op-ed on this development as a " response to US global bullying ".

As is now known, however, appearances can be very misleading, and in actuality the same country that was vowing to "defy" the US actually ended up quietly implementing its new patron's will.

[Apr 28, 2019] Rand think tank study suggest that the USA should flood the world with oil in order to overextend and unbalance Russia

Some pretty strange ideas if we are taking about oil. What they are smiling at RAND?
Notable quotes:
"... That evaluation is quite strange. The U.S. government does not produce oil. Private companies do so but only if they can make a profit. Increasing production beyond the global demand will decrease the oil price for all producers. All recent new U.S. production comes from shale oil. Optimistic estimates put the break even point for good shale oil fields at around $50 per barrel. Few fields can produce at lower costs. Most shale oil fields have a higher break even point. There is also a danger in suppressing oil prices. Many oil producing countries have U.S. friendly regimes. They need high oil prices to survive. Ruining them will not come cheap for the U.S. in geopolitical terms. ..."
"... of the 8 most promising suggestions - 6 of them are military... it seems to me these think tanks are great pr tools for the military industrial complex... who cares if the usa continues to move into 3rd world status as a nation, so long as more money for weapons can be acquired?? that is what these think tanks - rand and etc seem to want to foist on the public... it is all so very sad.. ..."
"... No, I think most US weapons procurement gives weapons that don't work as advertised, and wouldn't win wars anyway. I think it's one reason why the US military is largely only capable of spoiler wars, not actually conquering any place. (The other is the general unreliability of mercenary forces, which the US army basically is, however much they try to cultivate a militant Christian ethos.) ..."
"... I also do not believe spoiler wars help the country as a whole (as opposed to some of the owners) I think pretty much all a burden, immoral to boot and should be massively reduced. ..."
"... Even if you’re sure those companies are entirely private, if you print the current global reserve currency, can you not give “free” money to frackers and thereby make them more competitive than global peers? Sure, that’s flooding the market with an illegal subsidy. But, who can conduct proper accounting in opaque markets? ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
According to RAND the best option to overextend and unbalance is to produce more oil:
Expanding U.S. energy production would stress Russia's economy, potentially constraining its government budget and, by extension, its defense spending. By adopting policies that expand world supply and depress global prices, the United States can limit Russian revenue. Doing so entails little cost or risk, produces second-order benefits for the U.S. economy, and does not need multilateral endorsement.

That evaluation is quite strange. The U.S. government does not produce oil. Private companies do so but only if they can make a profit. Increasing production beyond the global demand will decrease the oil price for all producers. All recent new U.S. production comes from shale oil. Optimistic estimates put the break even point for good shale oil fields at around $50 per barrel. Few fields can produce at lower costs. Most shale oil fields have a higher break even point. There is also a danger in suppressing oil prices. Many oil producing countries have U.S. friendly regimes. They need high oil prices to survive. Ruining them will not come cheap for the U.S. in geopolitical terms.

The second best option says RAND is to increase sanctions of Russia. This also doesn't make much sense. Russia can produce everything it needs and it has free access to the world's largest markets, China and India.

The best military options listed by RAND are all useless. All the new weapon systems Russia has revealed over the last two years are way more capable than anything the U.S. is able to field. If the U.S., as RAND advocates, invest more in certain fields, it will only be to catch up. That does not impose any new costs on Russia.

... ... ...

In all I find it a bit impertinent to publicly argue for "overextending and unbalancing Russia". Where is the need to do such?

The study demonstrates again that strategic analysis by U.S. think tanks is woefully shallow-minded. The "experts" writing these have no deep understanding of Russia, or even of the economic-political complexity of the real world.

Four of the eight best options the RAND study found start with the words "Invest more in ...". It is a sign that the foremost motive its writers had in mind is to grab more taxpayer money. Fine. Give it to them already. Overextending and unbalancing the U.S. by more abstruse expenditure for weapon systems that do not work will neither hurt me nor Russia.

james | Apr 27, 2019 2:34:51 PM | 2

thanks b.. of the 8 most promising suggestions - 6 of them are military... it seems to me these think tanks are great pr tools for the military industrial complex... who cares if the usa continues to move into 3rd world status as a nation, so long as more money for weapons can be acquired?? that is what these think tanks - rand and etc seem to want to foist on the public... it is all so very sad..

@1 steven.. well, as i read you, you are essentially supporting a continuation of the usa pouring endless money into the military then, regardless the accuracy of the accounts on the new Russian weapons.. do i have that right?

psychohistorian | Apr 27, 2019 2:42:19 PM | 3

@ b who wrote

"In all I find it a bit impertinent to publicly argue for "overextending and unbalancing Russia". Where is the need to do such?"

Russia is not beholden to the God of Mammon/global private finance world and the need to do such is to affect that position

The West is ruled by those that own private finance and all major conflict is predicated on the forceful, if necessary, maintenance of that control.

Steven T Johnson | Apr 27, 2019 2:47:15 PM | 4

james@2

No, I think most US weapons procurement gives weapons that don't work as advertised, and wouldn't win wars anyway. I think it's one reason why the US military is largely only capable of spoiler wars, not actually conquering any place. (The other is the general unreliability of mercenary forces, which the US army basically is, however much they try to cultivate a militant Christian ethos.)

However, since I also do not believe spoiler wars help the country as a whole (as opposed to some of the owners) I think pretty much all a burden, immoral to boot and should be massively reduced.

... ... ...

oglalla | Apr 27, 2019 5:34:07 PM | 18

>> The U.S. government does not produce oil. Private companies do so but only if they can make a profit. Increasing production beyond the global demand will decrease the oil price for all producers.

Even if you’re sure those companies are entirely private, if you print the current global reserve currency, can you not give “free” money to frackers and thereby make them more competitive than global peers? Sure, that’s flooding the market with an illegal subsidy. But, who can conduct proper accounting in opaque markets?

Of course, the money is not “free”. Depreciating the currency, an inflation tax, shows up in lower-quality goods (like frankenfood— we cannot afford healthy food any more) and higher prices in everything. But, again, who’s counting? The BLS and the media? Yep.

[Apr 28, 2019] Trump's Latest Iran Sanctions Show an Unraveling of US Foreign Policy

Apr 28, 2019 | therealnews.com

April 22, 2019

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson says unilateral sanctions against Iran are illegal, and show the ascendancy of John Bolton; they intensify tension with China and threaten our international position

https://www.youtube.com/embed/i0KTa2uSRro?rel=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1

https://widget.spreaker.com/player?episode_id=17723879&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=false&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=true&hide-likes=true&hide-comments=true&hide-sharing=true&hide-download=false

The Trump administration is ramping up its campaign against Iran by announcing it will end waivers allowing eight countries to continue importing Iranian oil -- part of an attempt to drop Iranian oil exports to zero. This follows the Trump administration's categorization of part of Iran's army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, as a terrorist organization, and unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.

"This administration, for all intents and purposes in my view, is working against the interests of the United States," Colonel Larry Wilkerson told The Real News Network's Marc Steiner. China and Turkey have already said they will not abide by the U.S. ending of the waivers, but India will possibly follow along, all of which could lead to a more profound trade war.

The decision also represents the influence of National Security Advisor John Bolton, who was in favor of these sanctions, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wanted the waivers to continue.

Steiner noted that the sanctions violate international law and asked whether this brings the U.S. closer to war with Iran, or if the sanctions are "in lieu of war." Wilkerson explained that John Bolton wants war even if Trump does not, and that regardless, these oil sanctions are "economic warfare" -- an especially risky international gamble.

"We're getting away with it [only] because we are the most powerful country in the world, economically, financially, and militarily," Wilkerson said. "That's not always going to be the case."

Wilkerson suspects that countries such as China, Russia, or India will eventually respond to U.S. sanctions with their own, or make an end-run around them.

"I think we're going to see other nations objecting in ways we can't really calculate right now," Wilkerson said. "And by that I mean we're going to have everything from the Chinese attempting to use other means of exchange than the dollar to the Chinese and the Russians perhaps working together to build an entirely separate and functional financial network that will eventually supplant that of the United States."

He told Steiner that it appears as though the U.S. is "suicidal," lacking any interest in diplomacy, and continuing to distance itself from its allies.

"We just lost badly in Syria, and we lost to a triumvirate of Syria under Bashar al-Assad, Russia, and Iran. Look at what happened, what has happened in Iraq. We lost a lot of men and women there. We shed blood and treasure there for an utterly ill-conceived invasion, but nonetheless we did. Now Iraq is more or less under the influence of Iran. The only ally we have in the region that we can count on at any time is an authoritarian, brutal state under a boy king who's losing one war on one flank and alienated Qatar on the other," Wilkerson said. "It's all falling apart. We're losing everywhere I look in the world, losing badly to that man in Moscow who picks up the pieces and you know, goes to Cuba when Marco Rubio decides he doesn't like Cuba, goes to Venezuela when we decide we might have an option for Venezuela that will include military force. Putin is the strategist in the world right now picking up on every piece we drop -- and we're dropping too many." Story Transcript MARC STEINER Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Marc Steiner. Great to have you all with us. Trump is stepping up his campaign against Iran once again, announcing that he will end waivers that allowed eight countries to continue importing Iranian oil. He wants to drive Iranian oil exports to zero. All this comes on the heels of officially labeling the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization and of course, forcing the U.S. to unilaterally pull out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Well what course are we on? Are we inching toward a war with Iran? Are these intensified sanctions just an alternative to all-out war? How could the U.S. just unilaterally impose international sanctions? Doesn't that violate international law? Can he do it because the U.S. has a vital role in the international system of finance? Both Turkey and China have already announced they will not abide by Trump's unilateral declaration of sanctions. Does this intensify our trade war with China? We'll see. Joining us here at The Real News once again is Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Chief-of-staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, retired from U.S. Army, and is now Distinguished Adjunct Professor at the College of William and Mary where he teaches U.S. National Security. I welcome and good to have you back with us here on The Real News.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Good to be back again.

MARC STEINER So before we start, let's run this short piece by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and what he had to say about the intensifying of sanctions.

MIKE POMPEO Today I am announcing that we will no longer grant any exemptions. We're going to zero, going to zero across the board. We will continue to enforce sanctions and monitor compliance. Any nation or entity interacting with Iran should due it's diligence and err on the side of caution. The risks are simply not going to be worth the benefits. We've made our demands very clear to the Ayatollah and his cronies: end your pursuit of nuclear weapons, stop testing and proliferating ballistic missiles, stop sponsoring and committing terrorism, halt the arbitrary detention of U.S. citizens. Our pressure is aimed at fulfilling these demands and others and I will continue to accelerate until Iran is willing to address them at the negotiating table.

MARC STEINER So what's your instant analysis of what we've just seen here, what we're seeing, Larry?

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON First, the dispute within the administration -- much ballyhooed between Bolton and Pompeo and Brian Hook, Pompeo's main man on Iran -- is apparently over and Bolton won. Pompeo and Brian Hook were not in favor of going all the way on oil sanctions. They were in favor of continuing the waivers for countries like China and India, and so forth. So that means Bolton's won. That's an ominous victory in my mind. More ominous was Bolton and Pompeo and Pompeo in particular's testimony to the Congress about the "connections between al-Qaeda and Iran." I've been there done that. I remember when George Tenet very forcefully and powerfully in late January-early February of 2003, pointed out to Colin Powell who had just said, toss that stuff out of my presentation to the United Nations. It stinks. That stuff being, connections between al-Qaeda and Baghdad over 9/11. Pompeo essentially said to Rand Paul in questioning him in the Senate and elsewhere, that there were connections between al-Qaeda and Iran, and implied that those connections gave the president the right to go to war with Iran without having to go to the Congress of the United States. In other words, the original A.U.M.F. authorization for the use of military force issued after 9/11, pertained some seventeen to eighteen years later to Iran.

MARC STEINER And that's where you skin yourself. Most people who know this arena, know that area, the contradiction of saying Iran and al-Qaeda are one or are working with one another, just on its face doesn't make any sense.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Nonsense just as it was with Saddam Hussein. We all know now, but it was a very powerful thing for Colin Powell to tell the U.N. Security Council and even more powerful for him to tell the American people that. And that's what Trump and Bolton and Pompeo now are trying to duplicate: another specious case for war.

MARC STEINER So do you think -- speaking of that -- are we inching our way towards war with Iran, or do you think what we're seeing, these sanctions, are actually in lieu of war? What do you think the dynamic is here?

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON I don't think Trump wants war, but I know John Bolton does. So I have to imagine that there is going to be a come to Jesus meeting or some such resolution with Donald Trump if Bolton persists in wanting to use military force and Donald Trump doesn't. On the side of all of this, is Trump's new partner in crime, Bibi Netanyahu. We don't know what Bibi promised Donald Trump when Donald Trump weighed in on Bibi's election. I'm told by people who know these sorts of things in Israel, that had Trump not weighed in heavily for Bibi, that he might not have won, that it might have been a lot closer that it was, and it was pretty close anyway. So I don't know what Bibi promised Trump in return. It might be that he conducts whatever military operation is conducted with respect to Iran. Anything's possible here with these two characters.

MARC STEINER But the whole Bibi question is something we've spent a half-an-hour, hours just talking about what that relationship is, and who's driving whose foreign policy when it comes to Iran especially.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Yes. Gideon Levy in Haaretz was right when he said U.S.-Middle East policy is not made in Washington. It's made, he said Tel Aviv, but now he would say Jerusalem.

MARC STEINER So let me ask you another question. How can the United States just unilaterally impose international sanctions? I thought that's something the Security Council would have to do and people are writing this as a violation of international law. So from your perch when you were the Secretary of State and now, how does that play into all this?

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON I think it plays very dangerously. We are becoming -- through our manipulation of the Swiss system and other means in the world for financial transactions -- a pariah in the world. Very much despised and even hated in the world and increasingly, by our own friends and allies like Germany, France, Britain, and so forth. This manipulation of this system that we largely set up for tracking terrorist monies and so forth, has been turned into a very sophisticated weapon. It's economic warfare in anybody's book and the only reason we're getting away from it, you just hinted at. We're getting away with it because we are the most powerful country in the world -- economically, financially, and militarily. That's not always going to be the case and I suspect there are going to people like China, like Russia, like India, like other countries in the world, finally getting tired of this and start reciprocating and building other systems to go around ours.

MARC STEINER Stepping up the sanctions against Iran and saying nobody can buy any oil from Iran at all, zeroing them out -- China and Turkey have already said we're not abiding by this. You can't tell us how to run our economy and what we're doing. India is caught between a rock and a hard place. They don't want to go with this. Ten percent of their crude oil comes from Iran, but they're in a tough bind given who finances them as well. So how is this going to play out? This can lead to greater trade wars between China and the U.S. How do you see this all tumbling out, both in terms of Iran and our relationship with those other nations?

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON I think we're going to see other nations objecting in ways that we can't really calculate right now. By that I mean, we're going to have everything from the Chinese attempting to use other means of exchange than the dollar, to the Chinese and the Russians perhaps working together to build an entirely separate and functional financial network that will eventually supplant that of the United States. So this has enormous potential for backfiring, just like all the enemies we are creating in the world right now and the allies that we're distancing ourselves from. These are not positive moves by the United States. If I were on Mars looking down at the United States right now, and I were some wise Martian statesmen, and I was trying to figure out what the United States -- the current hegemon of the world -- was trying to do, I would think we were trying to commit suicide. It's as if we do not have any means of doing anything diplomatically or otherwise, that doesn't rebound to our discredit. Look at what's happened. We just lost badly in Syria and we lost to a triumvirate of Syria under Bashar al-Assad, Russia, and Iran. Look at what has happened in Iraq. We lost a lot of men and women there. We shed blood and treasure there for an utterly ill-conceived invasion, but nonetheless we did. Now Iraq is more or less under the influence of Iran. The only ally we have in the region that we can count on at any time is an authoritarian, brutal state under a boy-king who's losing one war on one flank, and alienated Qatar on the other. Our latest NATO in the Middle East just lost its most formidable partner, Egypt. It's all falling apart. We're losing everywhere I look in the world and losing badly to that man in Moscow who picks up the pieces and goes to Cuba when Marco Rubio decides he doesn't like Cuba. He goes to Venezuela when we decide we might have an option for Venezuela that would include military force. Putin is the strategist in the world right now, picking up on every piece we drop, and we're dropping too many.

MARC STEINER So very quickly here before we run out of time, one quick question. If you were sitting in the halls of power at this moment, and your job is Chief-of-staff or the Secretary of State, I'm curious what you would be saying to a president that said we have to do this. What would you say is the alternative? What would you be saying at this moment?

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Which one do you want to pick? [laughter] Kim Jong-un is going to fire a ballistic missile or he's going to do a nuclear test or both sometime around Christmas.

MARC STEINER Right.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON This administration for all intents and purposes, in my view, is working against the interests of the United States. So the first thing I would do is sit down and say, Mr. President, please before I walk out of here and go back to Foggy Bottom and retire from my position because you are going to fire me, I want to know what you think the national interests of the United States are. You said you were going to "make America great again." You are destroying America. You said you were going to bring jobs back. You have only brought the jobs back that the last three years of the Obama administration generated, because no president ever generates them instantly. So you haven't done anything yet that looks like it's in the interest of the United States and you've done a whole load of things that are clearly not in our interest, not the least of which is to drive our allies away and make many enemies whom you said all options are on the table confronting. Please, Mr. President. Tell me what you think our interests are.

MARC STEINER And with that, I want to say thank you once again. Colonel Larry Wilkerson, always a pleasure to have you here at The Real News. And thanks so much for your thoughts and wisdom.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Thank you.

MARC STEINER And I'm Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Thank you all for joining us. Take care.

[Apr 28, 2019] As a Russian, I feel disgust at our leaders who squandered all of Russia's historic influence on the Ukraine and gave up

That completely wrong. You can't prevent the "march of history" even if you understand that it is directed against you. The collapse of the USSR put in motion forces for the revolution of the results of WWII. And EuroMaydan like previously Baltic states "Maidans" were the direct result of this dissolution and changed balance of power in Europe with EU now being the dominant force and the USA dominant geopolitical force.
Still it is true that Ukraine EuroMaydan was the major Putin's defeat and the major victory of the US neocons in general and Obama as the President in particular. It might well be that this was inevitable as the trajectory of post-soviet republic is reliable move toward anti-Russian stance as a side effect of obtaining the independence, but still this was a defeat. It was actually Yanukovich who encouraged and helped to organized and finance far right forces and the Party in Ukraine. such a pro-Russian President as fame news media in the USA and GB like to describe him
Poroshenko was the USA SOB. The USA allowed Zelensky to run for office, and allowed him to win. Zelensky is most probably another USA SOB, although only time will tell. Comedians are usually are people with very high IQ who see the absurdity of the current life in Ukraine and Poroshenko regime more clearly then others. The question is whether he will be allowed to do something about it by the USA and EU, who control Ukraine both politically and financially. Biden story of dismissal of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine (who tried to procedure the firm Biden son got money from ) with ease tells us something about the nature of the current governance of Ukraine: is is not even a vassal state -- it is a colony.
Nuland success in pushing Ukrainian nationalists to arm uprising against Yanukovich (pissing EU which signed a treaty with Yanukovich about holding elections, which he would certanly lose, a day before) also can be explained that at this point the USA controlled vital centers of Ukrainian political power including intelligence agencies, several oligarchs (Poroshenko is one; Timoshenko is another) and, especially, media. In Ukraine Western NGO have the status of diplomatic missions (with corresponding immunity), so in no way such a country can be independent in any meaningful sense of this word.
But craziness, aggressiveness and recklessness of the US neocons, who now practice old imperial "might makes right" mode of operation, gives the world some hope. They most probably will burn the USA geological power it acquired after the dissolution of the USSR sooner then many expect. Like look at Bolton and Pompeo recent actions.
Notable quotes:
"... "For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to oligarch rule in Russia. Members of Putin's inner circle may be immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the all-powerful oligarchs that controlled Russia during former president Boris Yeltsin's time: stay out of politics." ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

Felix Keverich , says: April 25, 2019 at 7:27 am GMT

The main feeling about the entire topic of the Ukraine is one of total disgust, a gradual and painful realization of the fact that our so-called "brothers" are brothers only in the sense of the biblical Cain and the acceptance that there is nobody to talk to in Kiev.

Russia likes to fashion itself as a "great power". A real great power should have been able to insert itself in Ukrainian politics, regardless of any brotherly feelings – you know, like US did.

As a Russian, I feel disgust at our leaders who squandered all of Russia's historic influence on the Ukraine and gave up – poor neo-Soviet dinosaurs got completely outmaneuvered.

aleksandar , says: April 28, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@Kiza Read
Try to understand
Read it again
Try to understand
Read it again
Try to understand
"For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to oligarch rule in Russia. Members of Putin's inner circle may be immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the all-powerful oligarchs that controlled Russia during former president Boris Yeltsin's time: stay out of politics."

Vladimir Golstein, professor of Slavic studies at Brown University. He was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1979.

[Apr 28, 2019] The Real Men Go to Tehran delusion

Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 28, 2019 3:54:57 AM | link

Considering that this 'study' is an overblown version of the Real Men Go to Tehran delusion (which is STILL in the pondering phase) it's hard to ignore the trepidation revealed in an assessment divided into pseudo business-like categories of...

1. Likelihood of Success
2. Benefits
3. Costs & Risks

...when there are sufficient unresolved uncertainties to be fine-tuned to keep this plan bogged down in the pondering phase for even longer than the unconsummated Real Men Go To Iran nothing-burger.

[Apr 28, 2019] I found the photo of Fred Trump gifting New York real estate for a Torah study center particularly interesting as good Lutherans do that with such regularity.

Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Madrone , Apr 28, 2019 10:22:00 AM | link

Wake up, the Trump (Drumpf) family are crypto Jews, Drumpf women have been marrying Jews for generations. Well worth your time to read Miles Mathis on the family history, I found the photo of Fred Trump gifting New York real estate for a Torah study center particularly interesting as good Lutherans do that with such regularity.

http://mileswmathis.com/trump.pdf

[Apr 28, 2019] Pompeo: Friends, let me go on record: Anti-Zionism IS anti-Semitism. The Trump administration opposes it unequivocally and we will fight for it relentlessly," he made clear

Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Apr 28, 2019 1:21:07 PM | link

It may well be that Earnest read the New York Times.

Probably not. This character probably reads the Neocon York Times about as much as I do, which is not at all. The connection between the awful surge of "antisemitism" and violence by the rightwingnutters is already being made.

Dani Dayan, Consul General of Israel in New York, reached out to the Times to express his outrage regarding the cartoon. An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that Dayan in his conversations made it clear that the cartoon was unacceptable, and that the fact it appeared on the paper is an escalation of the latest trend of displaying antisemitic tropes in the American public sphere.

The horror of it all! It's time for Congress to get off its fat duff and pass those laws outlawing BDS in all shapes and forms! Time to crack down on forums like this one where criticism of Holy Israel is allowed to pollute the Internet Tubes. From our lard-ass End-Times Secretary of State:

"Friends, let me go on record: Anti-Zionism IS anti-Semitism. The Trump administration opposes it unequivocally and we will fight for it relentlessly," he made clear.

Writing anything except glowing hugs-and-kisses about God's Favorite Thieves and Murderers ought to be illegal. This site owner would quickly get his act together if he was given the "Galileo Treatment" of being shown videos from the Cuban Concentration Camp with scenes of the evildoers there being waterboarded.

One more thing to consider:

The New York Times retraction, however, was not an apology. It also left many questions unanswered as to how such an obviously anti-Semitic cartoon, not even associated with the story on the page it appeared on, could have passed the gauntlet of editors.

All those editors have cushy nice-paying jobs. When it's time to keep their mouths shut, they keep them shut. My tight-fitting tinfoil hat causes me to suspect the publication of this obviously factual cartoon was a cold-blooded business decision. Its mere existence will give the Neocon York Times a long spell of 'deniability' that it is always in bed with the the pissant Apartheid state in every way imaginable. I'd imagine this flea-bite of momentary discomfort will be very useful in the next two or so years as it shills for Trump's Deal of the Century as well as any other horrors advanced by the Wag-The-Dog state.

[Apr 28, 2019] Trump vs new Ukrainian President Zelensky

Apr 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

HJay , says: April 24, 2019 at 9:49 pm GMT

The real clown is not in Ukraine. He's in the Whitehouse. I voted for Trump and realized my mistake once Nikki Haley was appointed. I guess, if a clown is to be in office, it might as well be a real clown.

Hopefully this will be a step forward for Ukraine towards reclaiming the country from my US Dept. of State, the Bidens, and etc.

War for Blair Mountain , says: April 25, 2019 at 12:09 am GMT

@HJay You voted for a filthy cockroach….Clinton was the other filthy cockroach…not much of choice….

Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 9:32 am GMT

@Wally

However, Trump has accomplished a lot more than Hillary would have even considered doing, no doubt about it, take your pick:

Trump has done nothing on the important issues. Of course neither would have Hillary. I would not have voted for Hillary….nor will I for Trump…again.

Realist , says: April 28, 2019 at 9:35 am GMT
@War for Blair Mountain

You voted for a filthy cockroach….Clinton was the other filthy cockroach…not much of choice…

That’s the Deep State for you.

[Apr 28, 2019] Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine

Highly recommended!
Apr 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

A123 , says: April 25, 2019 at 12:33 am GMT

Democratic party candidate Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine (1). Given that Biden is the most beatable name to come forward so far Trump and his administration will do nothing major to involve the U.S. with the internal affairs of Ukraine.

Macron and Merkel may wish to do something, but given personal unpopularity in their countries it is unclear what they can deliver.

For the next 12+ months nothing of any significance will happen. If the Dems are foolish enough to nominate Biden, it could become an issue next year. Trump and Putin would have aligned interests in stopping the Biden family's exploitation of Ukrainian resources.

____

(1) https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived

[Apr 28, 2019] T>he latest "offer you can't refuse" conveyed by a gangster posing as diplomat, Consul Minimus Mike Pompeo, now essentially orders the whole planet to submit to the one and only arbiter of world trade: Washington by Pepe Escobar

The Trump administration once again has graphically demonstrated that "international law" and "national sovereignty" already belong to the Realm of the Walking Dead.
Notable quotes:
"... The full – frontal attack on Iran reveals how the Trump administration bets on breaking Eurasia integration via what would be its weakeast node; the three key nodes are China, Russia and Iran. These three actors interconnect the whole spectrum; Belt and Road Initiative; the Eurasia Economic Union; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the International North-South Transportation Corridor; the expansion of BRICS Plus. ..."
"... A plausible scenario involves Moscow acting to defuse the extremely volatile U.S.-Iran confrontation, with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense trying to persuade President Donald Trump and the Pentagon from any direct attack against the IRGC. The inevitable counterpart is the rise of covert ops, the possible staging of false flags and all manner of shady Hybrid War techniques deployed not only against the IRGC, directly and indirectly, but against Iranian interests everywhere. For all practical purposes, the U . S . and Iran are at war. ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

As if a deluge of sanctions against a great deal of the planet was not enough, the latest "offer you can't refuse" conveyed by a gangster posing as diplomat, Consul Minimus Mike Pompeo , now essentially orders the whole planet to submit to the one and only arbiter of world trade: Washington.

First the Trump administration unilaterally smashed a multinational, UN-endorsed agreement, the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal. Now the waivers that magnanimously allowed eight nations to import oil from Iran without incurring imperial wrath in the form of sanctions will expire on May 2 and won't be renewed. The eight nations are a mix of Eurasian powers: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece.

Apart from the trademark toxic cocktail of hubris, illegality, arrogance/ignorance and geopolitical/geo – economic infantilism inbuilt in this foreign policy decision, the notion that Washington can decide who's allowed to be an energy provider to emerging superpower China does not even qualify as laughable. Much more alarming is the fact that imposing a total embargo of Iranian oil exports is no less than an act of war.

Ultimate Neocon Wet Dream

Those subscribing to the ultimate U.S, neocon and Zionist wet dream – regime change in Iran – may rejoice at this declaration of war. But as Professor Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran has elegantly argued,

"If the Trump regime miscalculates, the house can easily come crashing down on its head."

Reflecting the fact Tehran seems to have no illusions regarding the utter folly ahead, the Iranian leadership -- if provoked to a point of no return, Marandi additionally told me -- can get as far as "destroying everything on the other side of the Persian Gulf and chasing the U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan. When the U.S. escalates, Iran escalates. Now it depends on the U.S. how far things go."

This red alert from a sensible academic perfectly dovetails with what's happening with the structure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- recently branded a "terrorist organization" by the United States. In perfect symmetry, Iran's Supreme National Security Council also branded the U.S. Central Command -- CENTCOM -- and "all the forces connected to it" as a terrorist group .

The new IRGC commander-in-chief is Brigadier General Hossein Salami, 58. Since 2009 he was the deputy of previous commander Mohamamd al-Jafari , a soft spoken but tough as nails gentleman I met in Tehran two years ago. Salami, as well as Jafari, is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war; that is, he has actual combat experience. And Tehran sources assure me that he can be even tougher than Jafari.

In tandem, IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri has evoked the unthinkable in terms of what might develop out of the U.S. total embargo on Iran oil exports; Tehran could block the Strait of Hormuz.

Western Oblivion

Vast swathes of the ruling classes across the West seem to be oblivious to the reality that if Hormuz is shut down, the result will be an absolutely cataclysmic global economic depression.

The War on Iran is Already Underway

Warren Buffett, among other investors, has routinely qualified the 2.5 quadrillion derivatives market as a weapon of financial mass destruction. As it stands, these derivatives are used -- illegally -- to drain no less than a trillion U.S. dollars a year out of the market in manipulated profits.

Considering historical precedents, Washington may eventually be able to set up a Persian Gulf of Tonkin false flag. But what next?

If Tehran were totally cornered by Washington, with no way out, the de facto nuclear option of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would instantly cut off 25 percent of the global oil supply. Oil prices could rise to over $500 a barrel, to even $1000 a barrel. The 2.5 quadrillion of derivatives would start a chain reaction of destruction.

Unlike the shortage of credit during the 2008 financial crisis, the shortage of oil could not be made up by fiat instruments. Simply because the oil is not there . Not even Russia would be able to re-stabilize the market.

It's an open secret in private conversations at the Harvard Club – or at Pentagon war-games for that matter – that in case of a war on Iran, the U.S. Navy would not be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Russian SS-NX-26 Yakhont missiles -- with a top speed of Mach 2.9 -- are lining up the Iranian northern shore of the Strait of Hormuz. There's no way U . S . aircraft carriers can defend a barrage of Yakhont missiles.

Then there are the SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic anti-ship missiles -- already exported to China and India -- flying ultra-low at 1,500 miles an hour with dodging capacity, and extremely mobile; they can be fired from a flatbed truck, and were designed to defeat the U . S . Aegis radar defense system.

What Will China Do?

The full – frontal attack on Iran reveals how the Trump administration bets on breaking Eurasia integration via what would be its weakeast node; the three key nodes are China, Russia and Iran. These three actors interconnect the whole spectrum; Belt and Road Initiative; the Eurasia Economic Union; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the International North-South Transportation Corridor; the expansion of BRICS Plus.

So there's no question the Russia-China strategic partnership will be watching Iran's back. It's no accident that the trio is among the top existential "threats" to the U.S., according to the Pentagon. Beijing knows how the U . S . Navy is able to cut it off from its energy sources. And that's why Beijing is strategically increasing imports of oil and natural gas from Russia; engineering the "escape from Malacca" also must take into account a hypothetical U . S . takeover of the Strait of Hormuz.

A plausible scenario involves Moscow acting to defuse the extremely volatile U.S.-Iran confrontation, with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense trying to persuade President Donald Trump and the Pentagon from any direct attack against the IRGC. The inevitable counterpart is the rise of covert ops, the possible staging of false flags and all manner of shady Hybrid War techniques deployed not only against the IRGC, directly and indirectly, but against Iranian interests everywhere. For all practical purposes, the U . S . and Iran are at war.

Within the framework of the larger Eurasia break-up scenario, the Trump administration does profit from Wahhabi and Zionist psychopathic hatred of Shi'ites. The "maximum pressure" on Iran counts on Jared of Arabia Kushner's close WhatsApp pal Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) in Riyadh and MbS's mentor in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed , to replace the shortfall of Iranian oil in the market. Bu that's nonsense -- as quite a few wily Persian Gulf traders are adamant Riyadh won't "absorb Iran's market share" because the extra oil is not there.

Much of what lies ahead in the oil embargo saga depends on the reaction of assorted vassals and semi-vassals. Japan won't have the guts to go against Washington. Turkey will put up a fight. Italy, via Salvini, will lobby for a waiver. India is very complicated; New Delhi is investing in Iran's Chabahar port as the key hub of its own Silk Road, and closely cooperates with Tehran within the INSTC framework. Would a shameful betrayal be in the cards?

China, it goes without saying, will simply ignore Washington.

Iran will find ways to get the oil flowing because the demand won't simply vanish with a magic wave of an American hand. It's time for creative solutions. Why not, for instance, refuel ships in international waters, accepting gold, all sorts of cash, debit cards, bank transfers in rubles, yuan, rupees and rials -- and everything bookable on a website?

Now that's a way Iran can use its tanker fleet to make a killing. Some of the tankers could be parked in -- you got it -- the Strait of Hormuz, with an eye on the price at Jebel Ali in the UAE to make sure this is the real deal. Add to it a duty free for the ships crews. What's not to like? Ship owners will save fortunes on fuel bills, and crews will get all sorts of stuff at 90 percent discount in the duty free.

And let's see whether the EU has grown a spine -- and really turbo-charge their Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) alternative payment network conceived after the Trump administration ditched the JCPOA. Because more than breaking up Eurasia integration and implementing neocon regime change, this is about the ultimate anathema; Iran is being mercilessly punished because it has bypassed the U.S. dollar on energy trade.

*

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Pepe Escobar , a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is " 2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .

[Apr 28, 2019] NYC subway system as a sign of deterioration of the USA as economic power

Parachuting Harvard mafia on Russia was a more powerful weapon and led to more destruction of Russian economy then direct bombardment would
Notable quotes:
"... Concerning the capability of wrecking finances of other states, USA is not a slouch, the most powerful weapon is economic advise. If I interpret news correctly, it were experts of Goldman Sachs that help Greek government to borrow about twice as much as they could handle in the long run. The wreckage in Russia was as impressive, but, alas, hard to repeat, so now it remains to carp about their "bad behavior". ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Piotr Berman , Apr 27, 2019 3:26:43 PM | link

I think that at least some weapon systems that USA makes or develops can be indeed superior. The most acute loss from the approach of "invest in over-extending and un-balancing the opponent" is that USA, while powerful, cannot do everything in the same time.

My favorite comparison chart is timeliness of subway systems in major metropolitan areas. Honestly, I cannot find it, because the search is swamped with the tales of woe of subway commuters in NYC. As befits the greatest financial center, cultural metropolis etc. etc., NYC has a transportation system that is comparable in its extend to other metropolitan areas like Tokyo, Paris or London. However, the performance is uninspiring. On the chart in NYT that I can't find out at the moment, only Mexico City had a lower percentage of train rides delayed by less than 10 minutes. I checked Moscow that has a larger subway system (compared to NY) and which was not on the chart. They pride themselves with frequency of delays that is 5 times smaller than in Paris (50 times smaller than in NYC?). Moscovites can actually plan their daily lives assuming that their commutes will arrive on time.

This is the most glaring example of a lost opportunity to take care of domestic needs, but the quality of education, healthcare etc. is mediocre compared with the rest of OECD, although there is always the southern neighbor that saves USA from being dead last.

Incidentally, NYC subway is not exactly underfunded, instead, it may have the most irrational management among major metropolitan areas which accurately reflects deficiencies of American political system. Bloated costs are pervasive across many areas, surely in military, healthcare and broadly meant policing, and their originate in lobbo-cracy, a plethora of lobbies grabbing chunks of monies either directly spent or (mis)regulated by the government. The activity of these lobbies is tightly regulated by elaborate rules, but the end effect is as if USA were pathetically corrupted (say, half as corrupted as Nigeria).

Piotr Berman , Apr 27, 2019 3:46:11 PM | link

Concerning the capability of wrecking finances of other states, USA is not a slouch, the most powerful weapon is economic advise. If I interpret news correctly, it were experts of Goldman Sachs that help Greek government to borrow about twice as much as they could handle in the long run. The wreckage in Russia was as impressive, but, alas, hard to repeat, so now it remains to carp about their "bad behavior".

Sanctions are also powerful when directed at small/medium size economies. Russia, although disparaged as "a smaller economy than Italy", but in actuality, Italy has "GDP per capity PPP" that is 40% larger than Russia, and Russia has 2.4 times larger population, so quite a bit larger economy in terms of "purchasing parity", and the most glaring domestic production deficiency are fruit and vegetables that, according to latest news, have a number of potential suppliers that are most glad when they can sell their produce.

[Apr 28, 2019] Trump Syria policies are the same as Obama policies

Notable quotes:
"... The United States and European Union (EU) maintain sanctions programs against Syria, and the United States will continue to maximize pressure on the Assad regime and impose additional financial costs on the regime and its network of financial and logistics facilitators. ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

English Outsider , 27 April 2019 at 07:08 PM

"The United States and its international partners continue to demonstrate resolve to disrupt support for the Assad regime by preventing the normalization of economic and diplomatic relations and the provision of reconstruction funding, as well as permanently denying the regime the use of chemical weapons.

The United States is committed to isolating the Assad regime and its supporters from the global financial and trade system in response to the continued atrocities committed by the regime against the Syrian people.

The United States and European Union (EU) maintain sanctions programs against Syria, and the United States will continue to maximize pressure on the Assad regime and impose additional financial costs on the regime and its network of financial and logistics facilitators."

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/syria_shipping_advisory_03252019.pdf

I believe measures are now being taken to evade these sanctions. Nevertheless the effect has apparently been great. The question is, why are these sanctions being imposed now and not at the time the alleged atrocities were said to have occurred?

[Apr 28, 2019] A literal handful of Russian attack jets turned the tide for the entire conflict despite hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry poured into Syria by the UAE, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia

Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Apr 28, 2019 12:34:04 PM | link

Lastly Syria: the presence of Russian military tech stopped the one-sided use of airpower, and a literal handful of Russian attack jets turned the tide for the entire conflict despite hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry poured into Syria by the UAE, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

It seems the lessons you are trying to teach are simply the wrong ones: Japanese shipping/American submarines - the reality was that Japan didn't have the manpower or the oil. Japan had 73 million people in 1940 vs. the US @132M (Germany had 90M).

Japan was significantly behind industrially, economically and technologically. Yes, the US was participating in Europe - but Japan was also attacking China (population 825M).

For that matter, it is very clear that Japan had significant provocation prior to Pearl Harbor in the form of an oil embargo imposed by the US US State Dept web site documenting embargo on Japan (sound familiar? US sanctions aren't anything new)

donkeytale , Apr 28, 2019 12:55:03 PM | link

c1ue

couple minor points of quibble....the "one-sided use of air power" before Russia intervened in Syria was...Syrian air power. The threat to Syria was on the ground not through the air. The Syrian army relinquished vast amounts of territory in battle before first Hezbollah than Russia rode to the rescue. Not too mention the US-backed Kurds in the battle to beat back ISIS.

Japan occupied eastern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula since the 19th century. They were fending off internal Chinese resistance by 1945 as an occupying force not "attacking" China.

Your points are well taken and mostly correct, although I might argue sanctions against Japan were warranted, much moreso than latter day US sanctions against Russia and Iran.

[Apr 28, 2019] The top five special interests groups and institutions that seek to benefit from a coup in Venezuela

Apr 28, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

April 16, 2019 globinfo freexchange

As the US continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind. Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.

Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.

Saddle the Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF

The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaido, stated that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaido spends the money and the poor and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.

The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and its rules in an increasingly globalized and US-dominated world.

Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the largest say are the ones with the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the United States and its allies.

This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called Washington Consensus. A set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by US think tanks, the IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department.

The Washington Consensus is as follows:

In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the IMF overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies, making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.

Control the oil reserves

There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the US to overthrow the Maduro government, especially when John Bolton openly states this on national television.

Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. in 2007. So, he is no stranger to advocating for the interests of the fossil-fuel industry.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world by far and Washington won't let that wealth go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia, China, or Iran.

And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players -- companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in Washington advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign natural resources.

Establish military dominance and arm your puppet

One of the most bizarre things about America is that it created one of the world's largest private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs or beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out of the government in the form of subsidies. Or, in the case of the military industrial complex, a foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism or defending democracy.

You can see that wherever the US goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind every multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the profits.

Once the US military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know no US ally, or puppet state, is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s. Then they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.

With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting US military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next target.

As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these needs.

After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and occupation were no longer viable strategies due to negative public opinion. Washington sought to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.

Create the humanitarian alibi

Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power institutions, which attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through propaganda laced with words like 'freedom', 'democracy', and 'human rights'.

These NGOs are given the full blessing of the US government and the two often work in tandem.

The US Agency for International Development's regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the 2002 coup), Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever US foreign policy sets its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet that goal as well as make a quick buck along the way.

For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan Guaido's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the notorious Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances, talking about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be overthrown.

Unsurprisingly, the HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of characters.

The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the US's war on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.

Buy the facts from the think tanks funded by the Military Industrial Complex

Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking reports meant to justify their desired goal: the delegitimization of socialist governments and the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.

The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan government. In 2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional referendum in Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaido, and his clique known as Generation 2007.

These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to amplify the message their donors have given them.

Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no different.

More:

http://content.jwplatform.com/players/ufxBptWt-YuKiCfZc.html

[Apr 27, 2019] Trump Drops The Other Iran Oil Shoe

Notable quotes:
"... Bolton says that this is all designed to make Iran be a "normal country," as if Saudi Arabia were such. ..."
Apr 27, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

Indeed, this looks like a potentially much more dangerous situation. If these major nations obey Trump (I suspect some will not), Iran might be tempted to take more aggressive action, with blocking the Straits of Hormuz among the more serious. This would really spike the price of oil, and quite possibly trigger a war. This may be what the Trump people want, with their real policy apparently being "regime change." However, so far the only regime change seems to be rising influence of hardliners, with a new hardline commander for the now sanctioned Revolutionary Guards being appointed. He has been talking about missiles getting fired on Israel from Lebanon by Hezbollah. Is this what Netanyahu really wants?

I think those who think the Iranian regime will easily be overthrown are more deluded than those who advocated invading Iraq (and some of them are the same people, see John Bolton especially). This has the potential of really seriously distracting people from the Mueller Report, but not at all in a good way.

... ... ...

Another Addendum: In WaPo this morning they report that the other three nations are Greece, Italy, and Taiwan, and that they have already stopped buying Iranian oil under US pressure. Also, apparently Japan has been stockpiling oil from there and has stopped further purchases already in anticipation of just this move by the US. OTOH, both China and Turkey are talking about not obeying the US order. No word out of either India or South Korea so far.

Bolton says that this is all designed to make Iran be a "normal country," as if Saudi Arabia were such. As it is, indeed the hawkish new leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has spoken publicly of possibly blocking the Straits of Hormuz, as I suggested they may well be contemplating.

[Apr 27, 2019] Beijing and Moscow share one very big objective: resist US dominance

Notable quotes:
"... The real test for having an “unprecedentedly high level” relationship would be to coordinate diplomatic campaigns against U.S. policies. Working together they are more likely to split off American allies and friends from unpopular initiatives, such as unilateral sanction campaigns. ..."
"... Lets all mindlessly repeat the platitudes of Thinktankistan entities like CATO... Russian economy is smaller than new York... Russian relies on oil sales and doesn't make anything.... These sock puppets must think we are imbeciles. ..."
"... He's an Atlantacist fool. Senior fellow at the CATO institute, pretty much says it all. His style is to drop the odd truth-bomb (like criticizing the ill-advised NATO expansion and US geopolitical belligerence) but he still sticks to the main planks of Euro-Atlantic narratives. ..."
Apr 27, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

...Beijing and Moscow share one very big objective: resist U.S. dominance. Washington expanded NATO up to Russia's borders; America's navy patrols the Asia-Pacific and treats those waters as an American lake. Elsewhere there is no issue upon which Washington fails to sanctimoniously pronounce its opinion and piously attempt to enforce its judgment.

Unfortunately, for quite some time Washington has seemed determined to give both China and Russia good cause for discontent. Instead, in response, Washington should do its best to eliminate behaviors which bring its two most important competitors together. Then the United States wouldn't need to worry what Presidents Putin and Xi were saying to one another .

Thus, Washington has done much to bring its two leading adversaries together. However, hostility is a limited basis for agreement. There is no military alliance, despite Chinese participation in a Russian military exercise last fall. Neither government is interested in going to war with America and certainly not over the other’s grievances. A shared sense of threat could change that, but extraordinarily sustained and maladroit U.S. policies would be required to create that atmosphere.

When the two countries otherwise act for similar purposes, it usually is independently, even competitively, rather than cooperatively. For instance, both are active in Cuba, contra Washington’s long-failed policy of starving the regime into submission. Beijing and Moscow also are both supporting Venezuela’s beleaguered Maduro government. However, China and Russia appear to be focused on advancing their own government’s influence, even against that of the other.

Both nations have a United Nations Security Council veto, though the PRC traditionally has preferred to abstain, achieving little, rather than cast a veto. However, working together they could more effectively reshape allied proposals for UN action. They could do much the same in other multilateral organizations, though usually without having a veto.

The real test for having an “unprecedentedly high level” relationship would be to coordinate diplomatic campaigns against U.S. policies. Working together they are more likely to split off American allies and friends from unpopular initiatives, such as unilateral sanction campaigns. Europe is more likely to cooperate if the PRC, valued for its economic connections, joined Russia, still distrusted for its confrontation with Ukraine and interference in domestic European politics. So far this former communist “axis” has been mostly an inconvenience for the United States, rather than a significant hindrance,

Still, that could change if the Trump administration makes ever more extraordinary assertions of unilateral power. Washington officials appear to sense the possibilities, having periodically whined about cooperation between China and Russia, apparently ill-prepared for any organized opposition to U.S. policies.

... ... ...

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .


Gary Sellars an hour ago ,

"China appears poised to absorb Russia’s sparsely populated east."

Good Lord, but when does this endless BS end? Seriously, no-one really believes this yet these clowns and fools keep trotting out these absurd canards.

"In a sense, the Putin-Xi meeting was much ado about nothing. The relationship revolves around what they are against, which mostly is the United States. They would have little to talk about other than the latest grievance about America to express or American activity to counter."

Yeah sure... no reason why Putin and Xi wouldn't want to talk about economic links given that Russia-China trade is now over $100B per year equivalent.... a figure reached more than 5 years earlier than Western "experts" had predicted, and which is growing very strongly.

Lets all mindlessly repeat the platitudes of Thinktankistan entities like CATO... Russian economy is smaller than new York... Russian relies on oil sales and doesn't make anything.... These sock puppets must think we are imbeciles.

Yuki 4 hours ago ,

Orwell predicted "It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference."

Gary Sellars TPForbes an hour ago ,

He's an Atlantacist fool. Senior fellow at the CATO institute, pretty much says it all. His style is to drop the odd truth-bomb (like criticizing the ill-advised NATO expansion and US geopolitical belligerence) but he still sticks to the main planks of Euro-Atlantic narratives.

[Apr 27, 2019] A surprisingly crude expression by Huntsman is in fact typical for Trump administration rhetoric with its "Might makes right" mentality of old imperialists

Looks like some people in Trump administration are completely unhinged and try to imitate the most clueless members of the US Congress.
But what you can expect from the State Department which is led by Pompeo ?
Huntsman should be awarded b the special medal "For the promotion of anti-Americanism in Russia"
Apr 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Ishmael Zechariah , 27 April 2019 at 11:00 AM

Colonel,
I would appreciate your comments about John Huntsman and his remarks " each of the carriers operating in the Mediterranean as this time represent 100,000 tons of international diplomacy", "Diplomatic communication and dialogue, coupled with the strong defenses these ships provide, demonstrate to Russia that if it truly seeks better relations with the United states, it must cease its destabilizing activities around the world." Strange words coming from a "diplomat". It might be informative to see the kind of a reception he will get when he returns to Russia as "ambassador".
Ishmael Zechariah
turcopolier , 27 April 2019 at 11:00 AM
IZ A surprisingly crude expression by Huntsman but, in fact, reality in this administration.

[Apr 27, 2019] Top German Journalist Admits Mainstream Media Is Completely Fake We All Lie For The CIA

Apr 27, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

03/28/2016 With the increasing propaganda wars, we thought a reminder of just how naive many Westerners are when it comes to their news-feed. As Arjun Walia, of GlobalResearch.ca, notes, Dr. Ulfkotte went on public television stating that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job.

He recently made an appearance on RT news to share these facts:

I've been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public.

But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia -- this is a point of no return and I'm going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do and have done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people, not only in Germany, all over Europe.

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
"... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
"... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
"... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School, are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's cooperation with it."

Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale and basically ineffective.

One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would be taking a very hard line against Moscow.

The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be sentenced tomorrow .

Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy. Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.

Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and return home.

FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing."

Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment, hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities, turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal investigators before and after her guilty plea.

Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.

Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.

Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.

Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it.

As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel. Noam Chomsky described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."

Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .

[Apr 26, 2019] How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost by John Solomon

Notable quotes:
"... Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine's chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me he attended some but not all of the January 2016 Washington meetings and couldn't remember the specific cases, if any, that were discussed. ..."
"... But he said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election . Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort -- a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions -- was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the U.S.-friendly NABU, after Manafort was named Trump's campaign chairman: "Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious." ..."
"... "I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort." ..."
"... Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures , such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych's party. But the Americans weren't interested: "They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else." ..."
"... According to Telizhenko, U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Ukraine's chief prosecutor in March 2016, as I previously reported. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down. ..."
"... The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington on Thursday confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions. ..."
"... But Telizhenko's claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ's own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, his wife, Nellie, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele. ..."
"... DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband and two DOJ prosecutors specializing in international crimes to the discovery of the "black ledger" documents that led to Manafort's prosecution. ..."
"... The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the FBI asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous. ..."
"... Now we have more concrete evidence that the larger Ukrainian government also was being pressed by the Obama administration to help build the Russia collusion narrative. And that onion is only beginning to be peeled. ..."
"... But what is already confirmed by Ukrainians looks a lot more like assertive collusion with a foreign power than anything detailed in the Mueller report . ..."
Apr 26, 2019 | thehill.com

As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia's most critical neighbor.

The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine's top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama's National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ).

That makes the January 2016 meeting one of the earliest documented efforts to build the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative and one of the first to involve the Obama administration's intervention.

Spokespeople for the NSC, DOJ and FBI declined to comment. A representative for former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice did not return emails seeking comment.

Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine's chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me he attended some but not all of the January 2016 Washington meetings and couldn't remember the specific cases, if any, that were discussed.

But he said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election . Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort -- a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions -- was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the U.S.-friendly NABU, after Manafort was named Trump's campaign chairman: "Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious."

Kholodnytskyy said he explicitly instructed NABU investigators who were working with American authorities not to share the ledger with the media. "Look, Manafort's case is one of the cases that hurt me a lot," he said.

"I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort."

"For me it was the first call that something was going wrong and that there is some external influence in this case. And there is some other interests in this case not in the interest of the investigation and a fair trial," he added.

Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Ukraine prosecutor general's international affairs office, said that, shortly after Ukrainian authorities returned from the Washington meeting, there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the Party of the Regions case.

"Yes, there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the ledger just appeared in public," he recalled.

Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures , such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych's party. But the Americans weren't interested: "They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else."

Manafort joined Trump's campaign on March 29, 2016, and then was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, 2016.

NABU leaked the existence of the ledgers on May 29, 2016. Later that summer, it told U.S. media the ledgers showed payments to Manafort, a revelation that forced him to resign from the campaign in August 2016.

A Ukrainian court in December concluded NABU's release of the ledger was an illegal attempt to influence the U.S. election. And a member of Ukraine's parliament has released a recording of a NABU official saying the agency released the ledger to help Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The other case raised at the January 2016 meeting, Telizhenko said, involved Burisma Holdings , a Ukrainian energy company under investigation in Ukraine for improper foreign transfers of money. At the time, Burisma allegedly was paying then-Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter as both a board member and a consultant. More than $3 million flowed from Ukraine to an American firm tied to Hunter Biden in 2014-15, bank records show .

According to Telizhenko, U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Ukraine's chief prosecutor in March 2016, as I previously reported. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington on Thursday confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions.

"Unfortunately, the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C., was not invited to join the DOJ and other law enforcement-sector meetings," it said. It said it had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings it did attend.

Ukraine is riddled with corruption, Russian meddling and intense political conflicts, so one must carefully consider any Ukrainian accounts.

But Telizhenko's claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ's own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, his wife, Nellie, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele.

Nellie Ohr and Steele worked in 2016 for the research firm, Fusion GPS, that was hired by Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to find Russia dirt on Trump. Steele wrote the famous dossier for Fusion that the FBI used to gain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Nellie Ohr admitted to Congress that she routed Russia dirt on Trump from Fusion to the DOJ through her husband during the election.

DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband and two DOJ prosecutors specializing in international crimes to the discovery of the "black ledger" documents that led to Manafort's prosecution.

"Reported Trove of documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' Black Cashbox," Nellie Ohr wrote to her husband and federal prosecutors Lisa Holtyn and Joseph Wheatley, attaching a news article on the announcement of NABU's release of the documents.

Bruce Ohr and Steele worked on their own effort to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who had a soured business relationship with him. Deripaska was "almost ready to talk" to U.S. government officials regarding the money that "Manafort stole," Bruce Ohr wrote in notes from his conversations with Steele.

The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the FBI asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous.

Previously, Politico reported that the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington assisted Clinton's campaign through a DNC contractor. The Ukrainian Embassy acknowledges it got requests for assistance from the DNC staffer to find dirt on Manafort but denies it provided any improper assistance.

Now we have more concrete evidence that the larger Ukrainian government also was being pressed by the Obama administration to help build the Russia collusion narrative. And that onion is only beginning to be peeled.

But what is already confirmed by Ukrainians looks a lot more like assertive collusion with a foreign power than anything detailed in the Mueller report .

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports

[Apr 26, 2019] Trump's Envoy to Ukraine is Paid by None Other Than Poroshenko Himself! by Nebojsa Malic

Notable quotes:
"... According to its filings to the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), BGR is a registered agent for none other than President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, whose ascension to Ukrainian presidency was brought about by the Maidan revolution of 2014, a coup cheered on most fervently by John McCain himself. ..."
"... It remains to be seen whether this relationship will change in June, when TV personality Volodymyr Zelensky takes office, having triumphed in a landslide runoff election this past weekend. Judging by Zelensky's official Facebook account of his February meeting with Volker – "a friend of Ukraine" with whom he "reached full understanding on all questions" – that seems unlikely, however. ..."
"... Turns out another McCain confidant, David Kramer , also works at Volker's institute, listed as "senior director for Human Rights and Democracy." Kramer was identified as the individual who during the 2016 campaign spread the "Steele Dossier" (accusing Trump of ties with Russia) to the press and a number of other people in Washington, including the "midwife of Maidan" herself, Victoria Nuland. ..."
Apr 26, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

US special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker is drawing a salary from John McCain's think tank, which is funded by George Soros and a DC lobbying firm working for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, among others.

Volker was appointed Special Representative for Ukraine negotiations in July 2017, by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and has been "mediating" the Ukrainian crisis on behalf of the US ever since in much the same way his colleague Elliott Abrams has been doing with Venezuela.

The twist is that Volker is doing this " on a voluntary basis without compensation" and "not taxing the taxpayers," drawing a salary from his day job as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership in Arizona. Named after the late and hawkish US senator John McCain, the think tank is dedicated to "advancing leadership in the United States and around the world." The two positions are very much aligned, Volker has said, allowing him to get his "hands dirty and actually solve our problems."

In practice, that means things like taking part in the "Occupied Crimea: 5 years of resistance" conference in Odessa – the same city where US-backed nationalists burned alive their political opponents in May 2014 – and parroting Bellingcat talking points on the Kerch Strait incident, themselves cribbed from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

This is not surprising, however, since the list of donors of the McCain Institute includes something called the "BGR Foundation." It shares the same Washington, DC address – and name – with Barbour Griffith Rogers, a high-profile lobbying firm that lists Volker as "Senior International Advisor" and former international managing director.

Volker is still listed as part of the team at BGR .

According to its filings to the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), BGR is a registered agent for none other than President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, whose ascension to Ukrainian presidency was brought about by the Maidan revolution of 2014, a coup cheered on most fervently by John McCain himself.

The "National Reforms Council of Ukraine," which officially retained BGR's services, is led by none other than Dmytro Shymkiv, "Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine," as per the filing BGR sent to the DOJ in January 2017.

It remains to be seen whether this relationship will change in June, when TV personality Volodymyr Zelensky takes office, having triumphed in a landslide runoff election this past weekend. Judging by Zelensky's official Facebook account of his February meeting with Volker – "a friend of Ukraine" with whom he "reached full understanding on all questions" – that seems unlikely, however.

Whose envoy?

Volker was very close to the late Senator McCain, who was himself intimately involved with the 2014 "revolution" in Kiev, visiting the demonstrators and personally sharing the stage with Socialist-Nationalist Party leader Oleg Tyahnibok, for example. McCain was even offered an advisory job with Poroshenko, back in 2015, but declined because that was not allowed under US law.

Turns out another McCain confidant, David Kramer , also works at Volker's institute, listed as "senior director for Human Rights and Democracy." Kramer was identified as the individual who during the 2016 campaign spread the "Steele Dossier" (accusing Trump of ties with Russia) to the press and a number of other people in Washington, including the "midwife of Maidan" herself, Victoria Nuland.

Among the McCain Institute's other donors are George Soros and his Open Society Foundations, as well as Saudi Arabia – though Volker had to disavow them last year, calling it a one-time donation and saying he won't accept any more Saudi cash after the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

All of this adds up to the question no one seems to have asked yet: Whose interests in Ukraine is Kurt Volker actually representing – those of the Trump administration, or those of his donors and the ghost of John McCain?

Reprinted with permission from RT .

[Apr 26, 2019] No, Ukraine's New President Zelenksiy Is Not Putin's Puppet by Kenneth Rapoza

No he is not. But he is the US puppet. Yet another neoliberal that will fleece Ukraine for the benefit of international financial oligarchy.
The article is a usual incompetent neocon/neolib garbage and does not demonstrate any knowledge of the Ukrainian political situation. But one paragraph does make sense. Zelensky was like Trump: he was elected because the other candidate was despicable corrupt warmonger
The level of connections of Zelensky to oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Soros is still unclear. Kolomoyskyi was rumored as one of the initiator and sponsors of Odessa massacre and the financier of pro-Nazi Azov battalion (he is now hiding from persecution for his financial crimes in Israel) .
The only question about Zelensky is whose puppet he is. Anyway Poor Ukraine is up top another round of stripping its wealth by oligarchs and foreign financial sharks, while the standard of living will deteriorate and stay of the same dismal level as now (essentially Central African poverty level).
Any attempt of Zelensky to escape the puppet status will be cut in short. In no way he can depose key officials from Nuland junta which came in power in 2014, or challenge the power of the US embassy over Ukraine. With Biden in the past routinely firing Ukrainian Chief Prosecutor, when he start digging on his son dealings in Ukraine.
Apr 26, 2019 | www.forbes.com

Poroshenko lost not because Zelenskiy was better. Although hard to measure, it is perceived by some in Ukraine's parliament that a vote for Zelenskiy was simply an anti-Poroshenko vote, rather than a truly pro-Zelenskiy one.

[Apr 26, 2019] Do those neocons in Trump administration see massive depression coming and ant to solve is with a new war?

Are they that suicidal?
Notable quotes:
"... Russia is preparing for war and I know the mood there. If it starts, it will start conventionally with strikes on US forces in Europe, especially naval assets in Med. Russia has a control of escalation there. US military knows this and already calculated the "weight" of the first salvo from Russian side on US Navy assets. ..."
"... Nothing would be gained for US interests in such a thing. It would merely be an example of the domination of the US by Zionist fantasies. ..."
"... IMO you are right in thinking that the present inhabitants of the leadership of the BORG are a sub-species of the classic Straussian ideology driven race. The Old Ones were driven by their madcap exotericism and were entertaining. These are merely imperialists. ..."
Apr 26, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

divadab , 25 April 2019 at 08:26 AM

What is gained for US interests to start a war that puts the entire middle east in flames? That causes oil prices to spike to over $200 a barrel? That kills probably hundreds of thousands and immiserates millions?

DO these guys see a massive depression coming and think the only way out is to go to war as in WW2? Is it population control? Surely there is a better way to get rid of surplus male population than total war - can't they figure out a way to game it so that warriors fight warriors and total populations are not destroyed?

This thing looks so wrong and counter-productive to me, stupid and evil and needing massive amounts of lies and propaganda to get people onboard. WHo benefits? I say no one but obviously I am wrong - the people who are prosecuting this thing seem to think that they and their sponsors will benefit mightily.....

turcopolier , 25 April 2019 at 08:29 AM
Russia would have to choose between acceptance and the risk of utter destruction. The US neocons would have already chosen for us if they were able to persuade Trump.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> turcopolier ... , 25 April 2019 at 02:22 PM
Russia would have to choose between acceptance and the risk of utter destruction. The US neocons would have already chosen for us if they were able to persuade Trump.

Russia is preparing for war and I know the mood there. If it starts, it will start conventionally with strikes on US forces in Europe, especially naval assets in Med. Russia has a control of escalation there. US military knows this and already calculated the "weight" of the first salvo from Russian side on US Navy assets.

turcopolier , 25 April 2019 at 02:22 PM
divadab

Nothing would be gained for US interests in such a thing. It would merely be an example of the domination of the US by Zionist fantasies.

turcopolier , 25 April 2019 at 08:50 AM
W Publius

IMO you are right in thinking that the present inhabitants of the leadership of the BORG are a sub-species of the classic Straussian ideology driven race. The Old Ones were driven by their madcap exotericism and were entertaining. These are merely imperialists.

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
"... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
"... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
"... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School, are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's cooperation with it."

Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale and basically ineffective.

One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would be taking a very hard line against Moscow.

The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be sentenced tomorrow .

Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy. Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.

Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and return home.

FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing."

Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment, hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities, turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal investigators before and after her guilty plea.

Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.

Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.

Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.

Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it.

As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel. Noam Chomsky described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."

Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .

[Apr 26, 2019] Biden's penchant for fascists was on display in the Yugoslavian civil war.

Apr 26, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Apr 25, 2019 3:45:08 PM | link

GeorgeV , Apr 25, 2019 2:50:04 PM | link

Smiling Joe Biden, the glad handler from Delaware, is nothing more than another neocon wolf in sheep's clothing. His tenure as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1993 resulted in the infamous Anita Hill debacle due to his failure to investigate Ms. Hill's allegations that then SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her several years earlier. The result was an embarrassing televised hearing that exposed Biden's incompetence, along with that of other members of the committee.

In the end, an unqualified right wing legal 'bump on the log' attained a seat as a Supreme Court justice. Later it was proven that Ms. Hill's claims were true, but the damage was done. BTW, Biden's penchant for fascists was on display in the Yugoslavian civil war.

Well known Twitter "bot" Ian56 has published a thread about Biden . I suggest people give it a looksee. Ian asks in his first entry:

"How the hell does the Oligarchy think they are going to get Creepy Joe Biden past the public? I mean the average American Joe is extremely dumb & ignorant, but even they are not that dumb."

I just posted the answer @11. Welcome to 1984. We are now officially at war with Eastasia!


Mike Maloney , Apr 25, 2019 5:02:05 PM | link

The good thing about Biden entering the race is that it complicates an already difficult path to the nomination for the slew of establishment candidates. Biden is not a first choice for the Democratic intelligentsia. Sample Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight regularly and you'll know that Kamala Harris and boy-mayor Buttigieg are the favorites. Of course, Trump would eat either whole.

I'm rooting for Sanders, not because I believe him to be uniquely authentic, but because he is the one who scares the shit out of the big-ticket donors who guide the Democratic Party.

Read last week's front-pager from Jonathan Martin. Guaranteed if Bernie walks away with the primary in a rout, you'll see prominent Dems back a third party candidate.

Fastfreddy , Apr 25, 2019 5:12:08 PM | link
FWIW/ There is a very brief youtube video of Biden proclaiming proudly that he is a Zionist.
NemesisCalling , Apr 25, 2019 7:02:38 PM | link
The fact that Biden survived the "GropeGate" stuff from a view weeks ago reinforces how the msm is cooking coverage or withholding it altogether.

Take a look at some video compilations of ol' Gropey-Joe as he is swearing in elected reps and photo-documenting the occasion.

Irrespective of his Obama-esque policies and status as standard-bearer for TPTB, the guy is just a straight up creep. And a particularly bad Catholic.

...

I agree that Sanders-Gabbard would absolutely destroy Trump and garner perhaps even more backing than Obama c. 2008.

I put the scary Socialist angle that is used against Sanders as carrying the same weight as the whole Crouching Blackman, Hidden Muslim thing that followed Obama during his run.

It is just hard to tell as to how sensible they (Sanders and Gabbard) would be allowed to be WRT FP.

But Trump had an opportunity to love his country. And he chose orherwise. SAD!

Jen , Apr 25, 2019 7:22:22 PM | link
As long as Hunter Biden is still a director of Burisma Holdings (which includes at least one other unpleasant individual on the Board of Directors), there is always a chance that elements within or connected to the Ukrainian government (even under Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Presidency, when he has his back turned on his fellow politicians), the previous Poroshenko government or Poroshenko himself, and / or the Maidan Revolution - Crowdstrike, Dmitri Alperovich and Chalupa sisters, we're looking at all of you - might try to derail any or all of the Democratic Party presidential candidates in attempts to have Joe Biden declared the official Democrat presidential contender in 2020. The only question is how openly brazen these people are going to be in order to save their pet project in Kiev before Ukraine erupts in civil war (and it won't be civil war in the Donbass area) and the entire country goes down in flames.

Maybe someone who really, really hates Biden in the Democrat camp could remind the DNC of this little episode where Biden threatened Poroshenko in 2016 that the US would pull US$1 billion in guarantees if the Porky one didn't pull his Prosecutor General.

As for the rest of the 20 candidates, I would prefer Tulsi Gabbard out of the lot. In this respect India's general elections, already under way, are going to be important. Gabbard needs to let go of Narendra Modi and his Hindutva BJP party - her friendship with Modi and his association with Hindutva are sure to come under scrutiny as will also any connections she and her office staff have with The Science of Identity Foundation organisation.

Copeland , Apr 25, 2019 7:45:32 PM | link

Joe Biden is hard wired to the corruption in the corporate DNC. The tell on this will be when the media starts to roll him out with the fanfare of a new model car. It is hard to imagine that he can inspire voters in the primaries. But if the sell goes overboard and it becomes obvious that the fixers are determined to hand him the nomination; then it will be a real poke in the eye, and another PSYOPS to grossly demoralize voters in this country. Biden is about as exciting as a glass of milk that's curdled overnight on the end table by the bed.

Posted by: Copeland | Apr 25, 2019 7:45:32 PM | link

Jackrabbit , Apr 25, 2019 8:23:55 PM | link
The Deep State wanted a MAGA nationalist to counter the challenge from Russia and China and that's what they got.

Sanders is a sheepdog/stooge that works for the Zionist establishment and Deep State just like Biden and a few others that are in the race. As much as you wag your 'tale', the stink remains.

Copeland , Apr 25, 2019 9:41:35 PM | link
The oligarchy reels out all tired scams over and over, until you want to cry out in anguish. Don't let them wear you down. Never capitulate. If Biden by some horrible chance has the winning hand, I'm guessing he will pick Gillibrand for his VP, a centrist of compromising kind, a shapeshifting clone to remind people of Hillary on some subconscious level. More of the same will fix us right up, on our journey to virtual political reality, and the end of humanity. These fucks will use the "little nukes" as they tuck us into bed.

[Apr 25, 2019] Bibi's best bet to solve his intractable Hezbollah problem is when his bitch Trump is in office

Apr 25, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock , 23 April 2019 at 04:24 PM

Col. Lang,

Bibi's best bet to solve his intractable Hezbollah problem is when his bitch Trump is in office. Nothing like getting for free the USAF to do the work his IAF can't do. Of course Trump can follow Dubya's footsteps and become the war president. Nothing like a neocon-inspired war to shore his support is what Bolton & Pompeo will advise and Adelson will be crooning too.

How do you think Hezbollah will react when the die is cast and the casus belli is manufactured? Would they preempt and launch all they have knowing they would have to go down when the tens of thousands of sorties of the USAF commence? Syed Nasrallah apparently has warned his commanders to expect an Israeli war this summer.

Would Putin & Xi sit it out & let Hezbollah go down in flames?

Unhinged Citizen said in reply to blue peacock... , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
"Would Putin & Xi sit it out & let Hezbollah go down in flames?"

That is almost certain. What the Russians have demonstrated is there absolute weakness in the face of US economic dominance and military might. These Chinese have demonstrated their inability to show any sort of political backbone, but suck in as much world capital as they possibly can in silence.

turcopolier , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
BP - If a massive heavy bomber strike is made on Hizbullah it may cripple Hizbullah's ability to lay down a lot of fire in Israel. This Hizbullahis must have figured this out. That creates a hair trigger possibility for a preemptive strike on Israel. This is a very dangerous situation. my crystal ball is cloudy. I have no idea what Putin and Xi might do. "Best in Show" is a great film depicting a wonderful breed.
Joe100 , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
How likely is it that the US could surprise Hizbullah with a massive strategic bombing strike?
Would not Russia see this coming and probably warn Hizbullah?

And does anyone her have a sense of the extent of area that would need to be covered and the density of Hizbullah fortifications within this area? Would it be plausible to cover the full extent of the threat to Israel in one strike?

Also, I recently read an article by an air force officer assigned to the MACV combat operations center during the siege of Khe Sanh. He indicated that intelligence was received that the NVA were going to try to tunnel under the Marine defense lines. This officer vaguely remembered that a bunker-busting/deep penetration weapon for B-52s was somewhere "in the inventory". It turned out some were in stock in Okinawa, so were relatively immediately available to use at Khe Sanh. So if these weapons (or something similar) remain available, their impact could potentially be greater on Hizbullah fortifications than what Col. Lang observed on his BDA.

turcopolier , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
joe100

The US is very good at OPSEC and IMO Hizbullah would have no warning at all until the bombs started to fall from way up in the sky. And unlike a lot of target system the Tabbouleh line cannot be moved without a lot of trouble. How big a target set? Essentially the width of Lebanon and three or four miles wide against what by now must be a fully developed picture of the arrray of targets. This will have been developed in full by now by DIA and the USAF targeting people. You people are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. And since Hizbullah is designated as a terrorist organization the AUMF would apply. The only thing protecting Hizbullah in Tabbouleh Line is fear of the reaction of the American people and that can be overcome by a supposed attack on Israel.

[Apr 25, 2019] Petro Poroshenko's Nationalism Cost Him the Presidency The National Interest

Apr 25, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Petro Poroshenko's Nationalism Cost Him the Presidency

This is one of the lessons that Western policymakers can learn from Poroshenko's crushing defeat.

by Nicolai N. Petro , vpurto 2 hours ago ,

Ukraine with the help of lunatics in the Washington, DC is moving to the right direction in order to become Malorussia soon. It will not take long. Chervonarussia a.k.a. Ruthenia in Hapsburg newspeak will take longer time. However, people in that region still identify themselves as Russinians (Русины). With coming dissolution of once Anglo-German-Dutch City-on-the-Hill into amorphous salad of different cultures and total loss internal cohesion we may see comparative bloodless transition to new era.

VadimKharichkov vpurto 29 minutes ago ,

Far-fetched. The US is too big and too important to fall or diminish quickly.

Swift Laggard II VadimKharichkov 4 minutes ago ,

the gfc tells us otherwise. a financial collapse is a probable scenario; leading to a prolonged depression. May not be the catastrophic vision our friend has in mind, but would be pretty bad. Even in today's great economy forty million are living in poverty. Another financial collapse could see that number double

Gary Sellars 11 hours ago ,

"What lessons can Western policymakers learn from Poroshenko's crushing defeat?"

A pointless question as the US/EU establishment don't seem to be able to accept the reality of what is happening, and won't accept any lessons as that might get in the way of the Neoliberal globalist expansionist agenda and undermine its supporting narratives.

Zelensky won't be a quantum improvement, but at least he isn't a raving Ultra-nationalist looney. He's not much more that the Ukro version of Frances Micron, a political light-weight foisted onto the public by the mostly-hidden hand of corrupt Oilgarchs. Ukraines rot from within will continue...

VadimKharichkov 18 hours ago ,

As most Russians, I don't have high hopes for Zelensky. Almost certainly, his campaign was bankrolled by oligarch Kolomoisky. So he will represent the interests of large money, not of Ukranian people. And he will have to deal with these crazy nationalists, which are over 25% of population. And the debts with IMF strings attached. He stood on his knees at the debate with Poroshenko - I think he will have to be forced to do that more often than that during his presidency.

Сергей Александров VadimKharichkov 14 hours ago ,

I don't have much faith in Zelensky either. I wish Ukraine had leader that represented population and could end war in Donbass.

Gary Sellars Сергей Александров 11 hours ago ,

Donbass will remain the festering wound in Ukraines side that weakens and eventually destroys the accursed Banderite state. Russia needs to keep up the pressure and ensure that the DPR/LPR can defend themselves against the Kiev regime and make sure the nationalist whack-jobs understand that any attempt to seizethe territory of Free Ukraine will result in a world of pain descending on their heads. Time is on Russia's side as the US loses focus, the EU loses interest, and the harsh realities of geo-politics and economics takes its toll on the bumbling tin-pot kleptocracy that Ukr has become.

Vladdy 19 hours ago ,

I'd like to wish Ukrainians better life with new president. But I'm afraid it's the same piece of sh**t as Parashenko.

Vladdy 19 hours ago ,

Parashenko is criminal. The same as Saakashvili. Both shelled peaceful living homes from artillery and with rockets. They both deserve to be hanged. But the West calls them "democrats".

Gary Sellars Vladdy 11 hours ago ,

Western policy is infinitely malleable and adaptable to whatever agenda they want to pursue. They will defend the Banderite madhouse in Ukropistan as a "democracy" (even as it makes war on its own people) yet insist that Venezuela is a dictatorship, despite the free and fair elections that return the Chavistas to power, time and time again. They will rail against Russia for being "corrupt" (even though they jail senior figures who still try to extract Yeltsin-era "tributes") yet strain their collectives necks as they look away from watching Ukr regime insiders conduct outright theft of IMF loan cash.

R. Arandas a day ago ,

Sometimes, too little pride in one's nation can be a problem, providing no sense of cohesion, purpose or unity. And sometimes, too much pride can also be equally problematic.

Lee Holland 2 days ago ,

Wonder how much the Russians interfered in this election?

Gary Sellars Lee Holland 11 hours ago ,

Define "interfered"? Reporting on Ukraine's corruption culture is "interference"? Now compare it to what the US is doing in Venezuela.

Do you people have no shame?????

Vladdy Lee Holland 19 hours ago ,

Look under your bed. How many Russian spies are there?

[Apr 25, 2019] Poroshenko as a proof the Obama was right wing politician, a neocon disguised as a democrat (or CIA-democrat in short)

Apr 25, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

ilsm , April 23, 2019 9:15 pm

pgl,

... ... ...

You read Mueller, his report is affirmation for your Trump Derangement Syndrome..

Mueller's report is babbling appealing to Clinton followers ultra nationalist far right wing views disguised as a democratic.

Read the rest. Lester Holt and Clinton could be Petro Poroshenko the strong man Obama's state dept imposed on Ukraine in 2014.

The Whittington thing on Mueller no indictment report which mind reads the Russians and trump aides.

https://niskanencenter.org/blog/reckoning-with-the-mueller-report-volume-one/

Is it liberal to complain about not being hard enough on Russia?

Interesting that Hillary Clinton said Trump was a "Russian puppet" (probably after Obama sent the FBI after the GOP campaign) and NBC's Holt (Nov 9 2016) said the US election was a Russian coup. Since when (except maybe if Joe McCarthy were a democrat).

A parallel maybe. In Ukraine since 2004 the popularly elected president was deposed twice by extreme right wing ultra nationalists. In 2014 the popular Yanukovych was deposed in the Maidan revolution with help from the US replaced with no election by Petro Poroshenko.

Sunday we hear that a comedian Zelenskiy soundly beat Poroshenko in a popular vote.

To this Poroshenko: "Poroshenko said on social media he thought Zelenskiy's win would spark celebrations in the Kremlin."

"They believe that with a new inexperienced Ukrainian president, Ukraine could be quickly returned to Russia's orbit of influence," he wrote.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-elections-comedian-volodymyr-zelenskiy-declares-victory-presidential-race-n996776

Clinton and Holt could be writing for Poroshenko, a far right wing ultra nationalist!

I worry a lot about Obama's spying on the Trump campaign and the supposed liberals in this country sounding like far right, ultra nationalist, looking for a new, expensive cold war!

[Apr 24, 2019] Bolton works for CIA.

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

Oh no its the Illuminati , says: April 23, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT

ChuckO,

Bolton? NSA? Do you mean NSC? Everything we hear about Bolton lately is ideological labeling as a so-called Neocon, more ambiguous bullshit, or tainting him by association with Israelis. Funny how everybody just forgot what Bolton did at the UN, when Bush shoehorned him in there without congressional consent. Bolton personally constipated the drafting of the Summit Outcome Document to remove awkward mentions of the magic word impunity. The old perv put up 700 amendments to obstruct the process.

Now, who cares that much about impunity? And why would it be such a big deal, unless you had impunity in municipal law but the whole world was committed to ending impunity? Cause if you think about it, that's what the whole world has been doing for 70 years, codifying the Pre-CIA Nuremberg Principles as international criminal law and developing state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts as customary and then conventional international law. Who doesn't want that?

CIA. Impunity is CIA's vital interest. They go to war to keep it all the time.

Bolton works for CIA.

DESERT FOX , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:22 pm GMT
@Oh no its the Illuminati See Col. L. Fletcher Proutys book The Secret Team , the CIA is the zionist chain dogs that rule America!
ChuckOrloski , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:54 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Wisely, DESERT FOX recalled Colonel Fletcher Prouty, and wrote: " the CIA is the zionist chain dogs that rule America!"

Dear DESERT FOX,

As you know, for some very dramatic time, Attorney Garrison held Clay Shaw's feet-to-the-fire while demonstrating the latter businessman's connection to the Israeli company, Permindex.

So naturally, a reasonable & respectful question arises, for which there is likely no available & conclusive determination.

Are CIA, Mossad, and M16 joined as one (1) ruling and globally unaccountable
"(Western) Zionist chain dog" link? Tough one, D.F., but am confident you can intelligently handle it. Thanks & salud!

DESERT FOX , says: April 23, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski From what I have read, MI6 is under zionist control and is the template for the CIA and the Mossad and is the controller of both the CIA and the Mossad and all three are under zionist control.

Another good book is The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman a former officer in MI6 and his videos on youtube.

[Apr 24, 2019] Pompeo Finally Tells The Truth 'We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal'

Apr 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Streamed live 14 hours ago

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have vowed to strangle Iran and cut off all oil exports. They claim it's because of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles and its support for terrorism. In a recent speech at Texas A&M University he finally told the truth about the CIA and the neocons - they lie and cheat and steal. So should we believe him now?

[Apr 24, 2019] Mike Pompeo and Julian Assange - Sealing the Fate of WikiLeaks

Apr 24, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

April 12, 2019 Back in April 2017, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this speech, he made some very pointed comments about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange that provide us with a glimpse into the mindset that currently inhabits the Department of State in particular and Washington as a whole and why the events of April 11th, 2019 occurred.
Here are some key quotes from the rather lengthy speech which looked at America's intelligence community. Early in the speech, he makes this comment:
" As a policy, we at CIA do not comment on the accuracy of purported intelligence documents posted online. In keeping with that policy, I will not specifically comment on the authenticity or provenance of recent disclosures.
But the false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be ignored. There are fictions out there that demean and distort the work and achievements of CIA and of the broader Intelligence Community. And in the absence of a vocal rebuttal, these voices -- ones that proclaim treason to be public advocacy -- gain a gravity they do not deserve." (my bolds)
It is important to note that Mr. Pompeo will not comment on the authenticity of documents that are disclosed by whistleblowers but that, in the next breath, he states that these documents are part of a false narrative that demean and distort the work of America's intelligence community.
He goes on to note that the CIA does admit to making mistakes and that it is accountable to the "free and open society that they help to defend" and that the CIA is willing to make its mistakes public to a degree that other nations cannot match.`
Here's what he has to say about WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange:
" And that is one of the many reasons why we at CIA find the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. Because while we do our best to quietly collect information on those who pose very real threats to our country, individuals such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves. As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security.
WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations.
It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. I n January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence -- the GRU -- had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia's primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.
Now, for those of you who read the editorial page of the Washington Post -- and I have a feeling that many of you in this room do -- yesterday you would have seen a piece of sophistry penned by Mr. Assange. You would have read a convoluted mass of words wherein Assange compared himself to Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. One can only imagine the absurd comparisons that the original draft contained.
Assange claims to harbor an overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America. But I assure you that this man knows nothing of America and our ideals. He knows nothing of our third President, whose clarion call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness continue to inspire us and the world. And he knows nothing of our 34th President, a hero from my very own Kansas, who helped to liberate Europe from fascists and guided America through the early years of the Cold War.
No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history.
We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes, they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values.
They do not care about the causes and people they claim to represent. If they did, they would focus instead on the autocratic regimes in this world that actually suppress free speech and dissent. Instead, they choose to exploit the legitimate secrets of democratic governments -- which has, so far, proven to be a much safer approach than provoking a tyrant.
Clearly, these individuals are not especially burdened by conscience. We know this, for example, because Assange has been more than cavalier in disclosing the personal information of scores of innocent citizens around the globe. We know this because the damage they have done to the security and safety of the free world is tangible. And the examples are numerous. " (my bolds)
Actually, when it comes to Russia and the "pass" that it has been given by WikiLeaks, Mr. Pompeo could not be more wrong. On September 19, 2017, WikiLeaks published its " Spy Files Russia " documents which provided insight into Russia's surveillance contractors. In the case of Russia, Russias communication providers are required by law to install components for surveillance which is provided by the FSB which are linked to the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. And, perhaps we can attribute WikiLeaks ability to release information on America's intelligence community because it is far more prone to leaks than the intelligence communities of other nations.
Mr. Pompeo also provided his audience with a direct link between WikiLeaks and terrorism:
" As for Assange, his actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned.
AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of life as well. That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of reprehensible ." (my bold)
Here is Mr. Pompeo's three part solution to the Assange "problem":
1.) It is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons.
2.) There are steps that we have to take at home -- in fact, this is a process we've already started. We've got to strengthen our own systems; we've got to improve internal mechanisms that help us in our counterintelligence mission. All of us in the Intelligence Community had a wake-up call after Snowden's treachery. Unfortunately, the threat has not abated. I can't go into great detail, but the steps we take can't be static. Our approach to security has to be constantly evolving. We need to be as clever and innovative as the enemies we face. They won't relent, and neither will we.
3.) We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now."
Let's close with two brief items. First, here's what the ACLU has to say about the arrest and potential American prosecution of Julian Assange:

Second, after Assange's arrest, Donald Trump had this to say about WikiLeaks:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ztxcRHCHj4
" I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing and I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a determination I would imagine mostly by the Attorney General who is doing an excellent job."
Here's what the President had to say about WikiLeaks during the 2016 Presidential election cycle:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xnEoVzLKNPw
While it may have taken a few days less than two years to complete his dream of getting rid of Julian Assange, it is abundantly clear from the CIA Director's speech that Mr. Assange's fate was sealed once Mike Pompeo had direct access Washington's power brokers no matter what Donald Trump had to say about WikiLeaks back in 2016. Fortunately for those of us on the outside that rely on WikiLeaks to learn more about the hidden secrets of governments and the corporate world, the group will continue to exist with or without its founder.
Posted by A Political Junkie at 8:30 AM Labels: Julian Assange , Mike Pompeo , Wikileaks 2 comments:

  1. Nick Ginex April 12, 2019 at 5:19 PM

    Dedicated to revealing facts that allows the public to "see" the truth is Julian Assange, a man of integrity that is lacking in many of our politicians. They say the "truth" hurts but it is the only way to gain wisdom to improve our world.

[Apr 24, 2019] Is case of US Iran sanctions China has a very difficult dilemma

Apr 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Schmoe , Apr 24, 2019 7:20:33 PM | link

China has quite a dilemna:

a) violate sanctions and risk severe penalties; or

b) go along with sanctions but if Iran pulls the pin on the world economy, China could very well completely crash economically, to the point that I wonder if there could be a revolution. Also, everyone knows about China's Muslim issues, Iran could say "it would be shame if someone armed those tens of million of Muslims you have".

I don't envy their position.

karlof1 , Apr 24, 2019 7:21:01 PM | link

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif has conducted an interview with Reuters saying Trump didn't want war but could be "lured into one." As usual, Reuters doesn't just provide a transcript of the interview, only publishing what it wants to publish. We'll need to await the official Iranian transcript to note what else was said and what was reported out-of-context.
karlof1 , Apr 24, 2019 7:30:49 PM | link
Schmoe @69--

China will ignore the illegal Outlaw US Empire diktat and carry on as before. If it's challenged, it has the means to defend itself and will. The Empire is beholden to China not the other way-round.

[Apr 24, 2019] The big fish are China and India. Those are the major users of iranian oil, and neither of them is likely to desist

Apr 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

nervos belli , Apr 24, 2019 1:17:03 PM | link

@39
Nobody cares what Italy and Greece need. They are good little vassals and will do what told. Turkey is of course a bigger problem, but might just be mostly overlooked and ignored.

The big fish are China and India. Those are the major users of iranian oil, and neither of them is likely to desist. What will the US do with them? Not possiple to financially sanction China.

That's why I think there will be lots of talk, but no action against anyone still buying iranian oil. Especially since Venezuela is not resolved. Nobody, not even the US, intends to march into Venezuela to "liberate" any oil wells any time soon.
While Maduro might some day collapse under his camarilla's corruption and his own incompetence, it will take a long time, probably years. Especially the opposition against him is similary incompetent. My guess is, it will take longer than Trump will be in office.

[Apr 24, 2019] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have vowed to strangle Iran and cut off all oil exports.

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: April 23, 2019 at 10:26 pm GMT

Apr 23, 2019 Pompeo Finally Tells The Truth: 'We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal'

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have vowed to strangle Iran and cut off all oil exports.

[Apr 24, 2019] Economic Sanctions - How Washington Attempts to Control the World

Jan 07, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com
For decades, Washington's favourite means of punishing nations that do not subscribe to its narrative has been through the imposition of economic sanctions. This has become particularly apparent with the ongoing and increasing sanctions against Iran, Russia and North Korea. While sanctions against these governments have garnered headlines for the past few years, in fact, there are far more sanctions that we rarely hear about.
In 1950, the Office of Foreign Assets Control was formed as part of the United States Department of the Treasury. OFAC administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions that are based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals. Sanctions have been imposed for the following reasons:
1.) terrorism
2.) international narcotics trade
3.) proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
4.) threats to national security, foreign policy and/or economy of the United States
Economic sanctions, in their most basic form, are defined as the withdrawal of trade and financial relations with a targeted nation for foreign and security policy purposes. Economic sanctions can take many forms including freezing of assets, arms embargoes, trade restrictions and bans, capital restraints, foreign aid reductions and travel bans. According to the Council on Foreign Relations , the United States uses economic and financial sanctions more than any other nation.
In the United States, sanctions can originate in either the Executive or Legislative branches of government. Presidents begin the process by issuing an Executive Order or EO which affords the president social powers to regulate commerce with a given entity. Under the EO, the president declares that there is a national emergency in response to "unusual and extraordinary" foreign threats, for instance, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States. In addition to Executive actions, Congress can also pass legislation to both modify and impose sanctions. Most sanctions programs are administered by the previously mentioned OFAC, however, other government departments may be involved including Homeland Security, Justice, State and Commerce.
On the OFAC website interested parties can search for information on federally mandated sanctions programs. Under each sanctions program there is an exhaustive listing of changes to the programs, guidelines that must be followed under penalty of law. There is also a listing of "General Licences" which are issued in order to authorize activities that would otherwise be prohibited under law. Here is a list from OFAC showing active sanctions programs and the date of their last update:

OFAC also tracks " Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) and Blocked Individuals ". This list contains the names of individuals and companies that are owned, controlled by or acting on behalf of targeted nations as well as the names of terrorists and narcotics traffickers that are not affiliated with any nation. The assets of these SDNs are blocked and American citizens and permanent residents are prohibited from doing business with them. Here is a very small sampling of SDNs from the PDF version of the complete listing:


In total, there are 1157 pages listing the names of over 6000 SDNs and blocked individuals.
Here is a specific person showing how difficult it is to ensure that you are not dealing with a SDN with an unknown number of aliases:

In this case, the SDGT following his name indicates that he is sanctioned under the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations.
OFAC can impose civil penalties on individuals and organizations that act in contradiction to the imposed sanctions. So far in 2018, there have been two penalties imposed as shown here for doing business with Iran:


...and here for doing business with Sudan:



During 2017 , 16 OFAC Enforcement Actions resulted in penalties of $119,527,845, up substantially from penalties totalling $21,609,315 in 2016.
Let's now look at the sanctions programs that are currently in place from the Council on Foreign Relations. Here is a graphic showing the current U.S. sanctions programs and their year of inception:

With this background on Washington's use of sanctions, let's look at what the World Economic Forum (WEF) has to say about the effectiveness of sanctions . The key factor in the effectiveness of sanctions is the size and capacity of the nation being sanctioned and the power of the sanctioning nation or coalition. Applying sanctions is a double-edged sword; for instance, in the case of Iran, China and Russia have stepped in to develop Iran's massive natural gas reserves whereas American oil companies are banned from investing and profiting from their potential investments in Iran. There are also longer term impacts of sanctions as show in this quote from the WEF:
" The consequences of this trend are evolving, but they potentially include companies' "de-globalization". That is, as companies are increasingly forced to think of themselves as tied to their home governments, they will think twice before investing in certain markets abroad. Other consequences include changes in traditional foreign trade patterns in line with new geopolitical alignments. Faced in 2006 with the Russian wine embargo, Georgia had to look for new markets in the West, where it was headed politically. When in 2014 Russia faced Western sanctions, it accelerated its rapprochement with China, the one major power that refused to condemn its actions and shared Moscow's opposition to US global dominance.
The outcome of these geo-economic campaigns is not a zero-sum game. The stronger economy backed by other forms of power can incur more damage on the target country than it will sustain in return, but it does not always alter the political behaviour of the government to be "punished". Sometimes sanctions can make that behaviour even more problematic. Ironically, the true winner may be a third party that jumps into the opening: European countries in the initial phases of US-Iran sanctions; China in the case of current Western sanctions against Russia; Russia in the case of the post-Tiananmen Western weapons ban on China; Turkey in the situation when EU pressure made Russia abandon its South Stream gas pipeline project. " (my bolds)
In many cases (i.e. Iran, Syria and North Korea), the ultimate desired impact of sanctions is to create an atmosphere where the targeted government is subjected to "regime change". As well, sanctions are generally less effective against nations that are adversaries since the sanctions may create a political climate where there is a stiffening of resolve of the people being punished by an outside power. We need look no further than the example of Vladimir Putin who, despite nearly five years of sanctions, still retains the backing of the majority of Russians as shown here :

One would think that Washington would have concluded that economic sanctions have not necessarily proven to be an effective means of getting its way in the world and, in fact, may have punished domestic businesses more than they punished foreign adversaries. The lessons taught by nearly 70 years of American economic isolation against Cuba are a prime example; while the sanctions have been painful, they resulted in a nation that has maintained its resolve in the face of economic difficulties and a leader that outlived and out ruled the reigns of U.S. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.

[Apr 24, 2019] Viable Opposition

Apr 24, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 23, 2019 US Power Wielding - Unconventional Warfare and Financial Power Back in December 2008, WikiLeaks released a relatively little-noted document " US Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare ". This 248-page, nine chapter publication was the September 2008 revision of the U.S. Army Field Manual 3-05.130, the keystone doctrine for Army special operations forces operations in unconventional warfare.
This document defines unconventional warfare as:
" Operations conducted by, with or through irregular forces against a variety of state and no-state opponents. "
These operations are conducted:
" ...in support of a resistance movement, an insurgency, and ongoing or pending conventional military operations "
Such operations have the following common conceptual core:
". ..working by, with, or through irregular surrogates in a clandestine and/or covert manner against opposing actors. "
In Chapter 2, the document outlines the instruments of United States national power which help the United States to achieve its national strategic objectives. These instruments of national power include diplomacy, information, intelligence, economic, financial, law enforcement and military. For the purposes of this posting, let's focus on one of these instruments as follows, the Financial Instrument of National Power . Here's how the document describes this instrument:
" The financial instrument of national power promotes the conditions for prosperity and stability in the United States and encourages prosperity and stability in the rest of the world. The Department of the Treasury (Treasury) is the primary federal agency responsible for the economic and financial prosperity and security of the United States and as such is responsible for a wide range of activities, including advising the President on economic and financial issues, promoting the President's growth agenda, and enhancing corporate governance in financial institutions. In the international arena, the Treasury works with other federal agencies, the governments of other nations, and the international financial institutions to encourage economic growth; raise standards of living; and predict and prevent, to the extent possible, economic and financial crises."
I like that " encourages prosperity and stability in the rest of the world ". That is true, unless you happen to live in a nation which doesn't share Washington's viewpoint. Just ask people living in one of many nations who are currently subject to one or another of Washington's long list of sanctions as shown here (current to mid-2017):

The document proceeds to note the following:
" T he application of economic or financial incentives is among the most powerful ideas in the U.S. arsenal of power. Although some U.S. adversaries are irreconcilable to accommodation with U.S. interests and must be engaged in other ways, many declared or potential adversaries can be persuaded or dissuaded by economic or financial means to become declared or potential allies (or at least neutralized) the ability of the United States government to affect the economic environment is enormous, and it has economic weapons at its disposal. Unconventional warfare planners must carefully coordinate the introduction and withholding of economic and financial assets into the Unconventional Warfare Operational Area (UWOA) with their interagency partners. For example, direct application of USAID grants to specific human groups can alter negative behaviors or cement positive affiliations. At the highest levels of diplomatic and financial interaction, the United States Government's ability to influence international financial institutions -- with corresponding effects to exchange rates, interest rates, credit availability, and money supplies -- can cement multinational coalitions for unconventional warfare campaigns or dissuade adversary nation-state governments from supporting specific actors in the UWOA. " (my bolds)
As you can see, the United States is willing to use financial blackmail including exchange and interest rate manipulation, credit availability and the supply of money to either persuade certain nations to join its unconventional warfare campaign or to dissuade adversarial nations from supporting the "other side" of an unconventional warfare strategy.
Here is a screen capture of page 2-8 of the document outlining how the United States can use financial incentives to manipulate other nations (ARSOF = Army Special Operations Forces and UW = Unconventional Warfare, DOS = Department of State, IC = Intelligence Community):

Note this sentence:
" Government can apply unilateral and indirect financial power through persuasive influence to international and domestic financial institutions regarding availability and terms of loans, grants, or other financial assistance to foreign state and nonstate actors ."
It is also interesting to note that the document clearly states that the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Bank for International Settlements are basically functioning as organizations that Washington can use to drive its global agenda and as yet another tool in America's quest for global hegemony. This isn't terribly surprising in the case of the World Bank since we find the following on its website:

In addition, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control whose sole responsibility is as follows:
". ..to administer and enforce economic and trade sanctions based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other threats the national security... "
...has a " long history of conducting economic warfare valuation to any Army Special Operations Forces unconventional warfare. ".
This Army manual, leaked over a decade ago by WikiLeaks, gives us a very clear view of how Washington uses financial manipulation through its influence on the World Bank, IMF, OECD and other "global" groups to wage unconventional warfare on any nation that doesn't share its view of how the world should function and that threatens America's control of the globe. The use of financial blackmail to bend countries to America's narrative and overthrow nations who do not succumb to America's wishes is not terribly surprising, however, it is interesting to actually see one key aspect of Washington's unconventional warfare methodology in print.

[Apr 24, 2019] Trump is a Zionist

Apr 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Circe , Apr 24, 2019 12:47:33 PM | link

@22 Ron Horn

You sir are delusional. Trump was dead set against taking down Iran and Venezuela from day one. Trump is a Zionist. I wish people would get that through their thick skulls.

There is no surprise here. Everything is rolling along on schedule according to plan. The Empire can now call the shots unilaterally. You have all allowed for this domination by trying to ridicule and shut down the discussion of Zionism's role in this outcome. We are not free! Millions of people around the world marched against the proposed invasion of Iraq and the Empire's vassals came running to help (I'm pointing especially to you, U.K., trying to take Corbyn down while welcoming the Orange Oaf for an official visit!). The WMD's were a hoax. Bolton admitted that regime change was always the goal, and same goes for Venezuela and Iran.

Trump is not a Zionist hostage suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Let me spell out the writing that has been on the wall from day one: TRUMP IS A ZIONIST. Trump is accelerating the ZEmpire's domination in every way imaginable. Trump die-hard supporters are Zionists of all stripes even if the more liberal ones try desperately to conceal that fact, and the rest are loyal donkeys with blinders on.

>>>>>>>>>>>

I don't expect Russia to come to Iran's rescue. a) Iran is a gas competitor. And b) Zionist Russian oligarchs are deep in Trump's corner.

Israel has been attacking Iran on Syrian soil with Putin's blessing.

I don't know what Putin's game is, but muti-polarity doesn't seem to be at the top of his list as it is with some of us here.

There is only one way to deal with ZUSA aggression: DETERRENCE.

Iran should stop being so prudish regarding nukes. Iran could have had a stockpile by now. Maybe North Korea can start doing business.

Peaceful means of resistance to Zionism do not work! Zionists are only satisfied with total domination and they are proving it.

We are not free. We are powerless. We have already been muzzled left an right and they are trying to legitimize restraint on our rights. We have no democracy. This has been happening while you were all sleeping.

Trump is an enforcer of Zionism and many of you are drunk uncle toms high on his neutralizing moonshine or stealth Zionists still peddling his Zionist bullshet as 4D chess.

Trump is a Zionist enforcer and is accelerating ZEmpire domination. They know the jig is up and time is of the essence. The goal is to make all resistance futile. Some of you here have been helping them achieve this goal, and now your 11th-hour shock and awe and armchair musings ring cheap and hollow.

You are chamberlains unable to call what is steering the Empire's domination by its name: ZIONISM.

How can you fight the enemy you refuse to acknowledge? So here we are, NEXT STOP: IRAN AND WAR.

ARRGH.

[Apr 24, 2019] Those who supported Trump are fools. Those who thought Mueller would find impeachable offenses are tools. We are all either fools or tools.

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

,

Wallbanger , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:15 pm GMT
What a joke. Trump is a Zionist. The "deep state" is Zionist. The trillionaires are Zionists.

Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. Continues the illegal wars in Syria and Yemen. Unilaterally declares the Golan Heights to be Israeli territory.

Kushner is Genie Energy. Cheney, et al. Stealing Syrian national wealth.

Trump is a tool.

Those who supported Trump are fools. Those who thought Mueller would find impeachable offenses are fools. We are all either fools or tools.

Adrian E. , says: April 23, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@Wallbanger Of course, Trump is pro-Zionist, and he hardly needed any pressure for this. Kushner is a close friend of Netanyahu, and we don't know anything about conflicts between Trump and Kushner.

But I think the Russiagate conspiracy theory still may have served important foreign policy goals.

I think it is important to distinguish between Israeli foreign policy and US neocon foreign policy, even though they are close allies. At least superficially, these are two rather different things, and to me, it is an open question to what degree these differences are only superficial.

US neocons follow the doctrine of „full spectrum dominance". This leads them to having military bases all over the world, stoking up conflicts, and destabilizing countries that have or want good relations with rivals like China and Russia. The idea that such „full spectrum dominance" will be used for the benefit of Israel certainly goes a long way for explaining why neocons think it is worth the price – after all, many US neocons are Jewish Zionists, and many of their lower-rank supporters are Christian Zionists. But their goal of „full spectrum dominance" goes beyond matters related to Israel, it leads to conflicts and tensions all over the world, Israel is just one of the motivating factors.

Israeli foreign policy is very different. It does not share the US' hostility towards other great powers. Israel has good relations with Russia and China. It refused to follow the US and the EU in sanctioning Russia, Netanyahu meets Putin regularly, and, like Trump with the Golan recognition, Putin also gave Netanyahu a present a short time before the elections (retrieving remains of an Israeli soldier who was missing since 1982 from Syria). Of course, Russia and Israel supported different sides in Syria, but they still seem to take into account each other's interest to some degree. Israel also has good relations and a strong economic partnership with China and participates in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The general principle seems to be that whenever there is a conflict and rivalry, Israel wants to have good relations and influence on both sides. There are some exceptions, in the Sunni-Shia conflict, Israel only has behind-the-scenes influence on the Sunni-Wahhabi side, but that is probably one of the reasons why good relations with Russia, which has closer contacts with Iran, are important to Israel. In the case of the conflict in Ukraine (which is quite relevant for Israel because many Israeli citizens are from Russia or Ukraine), Israel remained neutral and has strong connections to both sides. Such a policy of keeping good relations with as many powerful nations as possible obviously seems smart for a smaller (albeit in many respects very strong) country in a difficult part of the world.

Of course, the Israeli government is very much aware that there could hardly ever be a powerful country where Israel is as influential as it is in the US. Israel has some significant influence in Western Europe and Russia, criticizing Israel can be risky, and overall, these countries have rather pro-Israeli policies (as does, as far as I know, China). But they will never be as extremely pro-Israeli as the US. There are many votes in the UN were there is just Israel and the US on one side (sometimes together with some tiny micronations that depend on the US). Therefore, it is in Israel's interest that the US tries at all cost to gain influence relative to other great powers that are less extremely pro-Israeli. Thus, US neocons who drive the US towards a costly „full spectrum dominance" policy are unequivocally positive and worthy of support from the perspective of the Israeli government. But for Israeli foreign policy itself, due to risk management considerations, the priorities are different. The best-case scenario for them is that a) Israeli influence in the US remains strong and b) the US can achieve and maintain „full-spectrum dominance" for a long time. But they also know that this best-case scenario is far from assured, and therefore, they also consider good relations between Israel and potentially powerful countries like China and Russia important.

I think Trump's foreign policy ideas (before any pressure was applied to him) was quite close to the Israeli ideas (rather than the positions of the US neocons). Unlike Israel, he had some ideas about confronting China (mainly on trade), and certainly, he wanted pro-Israeli policies, but it seems he also wanted to have a general policy of „getting along" with relatively important countries rather than pursuing „full-spectrum dominance" wherever possible and stoking up proxy conflicts at every occasion. On the whole, it seems Trump wanted a US foreign policy that is closer to the Israeli one than to the one of US neocons. If Israel can „get along" with Russia, why shouldn't the US? The Israeli and international press does not scream „treason" every time Netanyahu and Putin meet (which they do quite often).

This idea of a normalization of US-Russian relations is what led to such strong opposition from US neocons. I think they all knew that it would never be in doubt that Trump's policies would be pro-Israeli. But that was not enough for them. According to them, the US, unlike Israel, has to have a strongly anti-Russian stance.

I think there are two plausible explanations, one that does involve Israel and one that does not. They may both be partially be true (probably, for some US neocons, it is more the one, while for others, it is more the other).

The first explanation is that US neocons who strongly identify with Israel, as I argued above, recognize that Israel should have good relations with Russia and China because of risk management considerations, but at the same time, Israel wants to have the US to have as much power as possible because it will never have as much influence in Russia and China as it has in the US. The Russia hysteria has helped increasing military spending (and Democrats going along with this), which may increase the chances of "full spectrum dominance" – and this dominance will, among other things, be used on behalf of Israel. In that case, it may have been a kind of misunderstanding. Trump may have thought that for neocons, it would be enough if he is pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian and has normal, non-hostile relations with Russia, as Israel has – ignoring that the roles Israel and the US should play according to the neocons are very different.

But I am not so sure if Israel would really have minded much if the US had normalized its relations with Russia. Netanyahu hardly ever was hostile towards Trump, he knew he was a reliable ally. Some may even think it weakens the ability of the US to support Israel if it gets entangled in conflicts and confrontations all over the world. So, I suppose that for many true Israel-firsters, Trump was hardly seen as a problem (as long as he is pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian, and there had hardly been any doubt that he is).

There also do not seem to be strong indications about Israeli involvement in Russiagate/Spygate. Some Israelis seem to have been involved in the entrapment of Papadopoulos, but it was not necessarily the Israeli government as a whole that was behind this (they may just have been needed because Israeli energy policy is one of the main specializations of Papadopoulos), and I think there are at least as strong indications of an Israeli involvement on the pro-Trump side.

Russiagate/Spygate mainly seems to be an affair of US and British intelligence services, not so much of Israel. Certainly, in the US, many neocons were strongly involved, but it may not have so much to do with Israel. While support of Israel is one of the reasons why some neocons passionately pursue „full-spectrum dominance", for many of them, this has probably become a goal in itself, even in cases in which it is not needed for Israel – partially for ideological reasons, partially because many of them profit from increased military spending.

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:40 pm GMT
@Rurik

The right ((neocons)), on the other hand, see Trump as a quisling to rally the hated white men into dying for greater Israel. The perfect Commander and Chief of the Janissaries for Zion.

i agree that initially it was always a possibility he was a neocon plant i.e. neocons couldn't get a war in Syria so decided to put up a candidate who'd promise stuff on trade and immigration to get into office but then ignore it all afterwards and just do neocon stuff but

1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and
2) neocons like Kristol hated him and did everything they could to stop him.

You might call them the Alan Dershowitz wing of the Jewish supremacists. I see that mug on Tucker Carlson defending Trump, and he's positively beaming.

right but he'd be beaming like that even more if he knew Trump was originally isolationist but now is compromised and compliant.

too early to tell for sure but my take is if neocons and the media now start going easier on him i think that will prove they got him and want to keep him in office.

(nb it doesn't change anything if he was always a shill or he wasn't but they got him – the end result is the same)

Rurik , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:06 pm GMT
@notanon

1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and

the only reason I was duped into voting for Dubya his first term, was because I was appalled at Clinton's flouting of international law when he bombed Serbia, and Dubya said specifically said he wasn't a "nation builder". Boy oh boy was I chumped by that one.

And we were all chumped by Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and serial war pig.

But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then wait until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.

So far, Trump hasn't started any new wars. So as Mr. Giraldi says, "one hopes"

if neocons and the media now start going easier on him

then we're toast

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.

If the media likes them, then they're as rotten as they come.

If the media hates them, (Ron Paul, Julian Assange

others..)

then there is likely at least something redeeming about them.

The main reason for (pathetically) clinging to some tiny, gossamer wisp of hope for Trump, is that ((they)) continue to be unhinged in their hysterical enmity for all things Trump.

But considering that he's basically giving them everything they want, (sans an all out war on Iran), it seems the main reason they still hate his guts, is because the despised rubes in flyover country still like him. And I suppose because of a few good judges and justices.

But as long as Bubba continues to proudly wear the hat, they're going to hate Donald Trump with a seething malevolence.

And I have to confess to getting great satisfaction by seeing these rats going apoplectic over Trump.

a guilty secret of mine is that everyday that this sick, twisted bitch

https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/4dbf746ee84f4a07be81d3e41d1e79c5?width=650

is *not* president, I smile inside.

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
@Rurik yes

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not

double yes

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT
@Rurik the other potentially relevant thing about Trump imo is he made some comments on 9/11 at the time about how strong the twin towers were (i forget the exact details) which could be construed as walking the edge of disbelief.

this may be related to Brennan in particular having such a hysterical reaction to Trump's candidacy.

Germanicus , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Rurik

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.

I would contend, this is not a reliable indicator. If they really dislike someone, they will simply not report anything at all. It would be a declared and enforced taboo to report.
Negative publicity is also publicity, and the guys behind the curtain know this.

Realist , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:46 pm GMT
@Rurik

But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then wait until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.

It won't change anything, but you won't feel betrayed.

the grand wazoo , says: April 23, 2019 at 9:30 pm GMT
To think that any indictments will come of this is naïve, and an understatement of the power of the deep state. The only thing that keeps Trump alive is his usefulness to Netanyahu, also known as Benji the NutnYahoo.

[Apr 24, 2019] Obama bait and switch maneuver

Apr 24, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

arcseconds 04.23.19 at 6:49 am 77

@Faustusnotes #68:

For anyone of a social democratic (or lefter) persuasion, and/or see war as something that should only be used as an absolute last resort (due to it invariably being a moral horror), then the Democrats have indeed been the lesser of two evils, and Republican-lite.

Take Obama for instance. He ran a cleverly ambiguous campaign where he sounded to many as being progessive and left, a breath of fresh air, something finally that would put a stop to limitless capitalism and unwind the Bush era. But in fact he's a 'centrist', which really means thoroughly neoliberal. He's prepared to file some of the sharp edges off capitalism, but he neither promised nor offered a genuine alternative to a lightly regulated free market.

I mean, look at his most famous legacy: the health care reforms. This is a thoroughly market-based solution that leaves the marketplace largely as it was. Nationalization was nowhere in sight. And the policy was based on one his elecotoral opponent enacted when he was governing Massachusetts! It is literally the case that voting in Democrats at the national level gets you the policy of Republican presidential candidates.

Also, he's quite happy to unilaterally blow up stuff, including innocent people, in other countries, in order to crush his enemies and to look good domestically. We have no problems in calling this 'evil' when our enemies do anything like this.

Brian 04.21.19 at 2:43 pm (no link)

I think the real question is not whether Trump is successful or not. That question is a red herring in American politics today. The real question is whether or not the Democratic "leadership" can allow nomination of a candidate that the Democrat rank and file want. Bernie Sanders should have won the nomination last time. But the superdelegate system gives a literal handful of mandarins the ability to fake the primary process. (I say that as someone who has significant issues with some of Sanders positions.)

Trump won because Hillary was a horrific candidate. Voters stayed home, disgusted. Trump won because the Obama administration didn't deliver hope nor change. He delivered a government of the corporate criminal bankers for them. Middle and working class America got screwed. Black people got screwed worst. Trump won because the utter corruption at the heart of the DNC was exposed for all to see in the emails. Trump win because of the Obama administration making a trade deal top secret classified and trying to force a vote through congress. Not seeing any point in voting, Democrats didnt.

All the evidence since shows the DNC leadership didn't learn anything. They are just as contemptuous of voters, just as manipulative with their window dressing as ever. The Democratic party is the party of endless war even more than the Republicans. It's a party that stopped every effort by Trump to wind down or end war posture with Russia and North Korea. There's now 2 parties in Netanyahu's pocket implementing Likuds insane middle east ideas.

Put some solar energy and LGBTQ butter on it with a side of women's rights bullshit and it's "Democrat". But the politicians are just as venal. The legislature just as wildly right wing war mongering.

The 1960's is long over. The Democratic party hasn't seen a new idea since and has converted to govern to the right of Nixon. Way to Nixon's right. The Democratic party is the tool of the Uber-ization of not just America, but the whole world. Flour and break the law to pauperize the working class, and suck money to a few in the SF Bay Area. That's policy now.

You can see it already. Sanders is ahead. But Buttigieg is being anointed. He's the perfect candidate. He's gay! He's out of the closet! And he's a corporate tool who can talk smoothly without speaking a clear word. Best of all, he has ZERO foreign policy experience or positions. So he'll be putty in the hands of the corporations that want endless war for profits. Wall Street wants him. And the street owns the Democratic party. Will he give a flying f*@k about the middle and working class? Will he be anything but another neo-liberal who can be differentiated from a neo-conservative only by mild difference in racism? (Overt vs.covert)

At least Buttigieg isn't Beto O'Rourke, the most completely empty skin in Congress. There's that.

All the evidence I see is no. The Democrat "leadership" don't understand. I predict a Trump win, or else a squeaker election that barely scrapes by with a win.

No matter what, the idiot Democrats won't get it. Pelosi will do her best to cast the Republicans anti-tax anti-government (federal) government culture war in concrete with balanced budget horse manure. The Democrats will continue to force a new cold war on Russia. They will keep backing companies that steal from the middle and working class. (Yes, Uber and Lyft are massive theft operations. They implemented taxi service without licenses. Those licenses cost a lot of money to those who bought them. They put the public at risk causing multiple deaths and assaults from unlicensed taxi drivers.)

Trump's appeal is that he at least talks a game of "f*@k you". Domestically it's all lies on all sides. He lies to everyone. But at least he doesn't lie smoothly like the "good Democrat" candidates do.

[Apr 24, 2019] Libya has lost their country to terrorist thugs, their infrastructure has been destroyed, their wealth has been stolen and continues to be stolen. They have had one million Libyans killed.

Apr 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

marie , Apr 24, 2019 7:37:02 PM | link

39

Understand this if nothing else, Khalifa Haftar is a terrorist hand puppet of the CIA. He is a thief, a liar, a thug, and a traitor to Libya. He threatens legitimate Libyans daily and uses the NSA listening equipment (brought into Libya in 2011) to target any Libya who speaks his name. Khalifa Haftar would not ever be supported by Russia. This lie has been perpetrated in the mainstream for years. Now they have stepped up their game and have stated that Russian mercenaries are in Libya supporting Haftar at the behest of the leader of Russia. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The Great Tribes have confirmed to me everything that I have written.

Libya has lost their country to terrorist thugs, their infrastructure has been destroyed, their wealth has been stolen and continues to be stolen. They have had one million Libyans killed....

It is the assets and geographical location that they would own. The ruination, destruction and death of Libya and her people are just acceptable collateral damage to achieve their evil agenda.

[Apr 24, 2019] The Colossal Failure in Afghanistan

Apr 18, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction or SIGAR just released the third edition of its High-Risk List to the 116th Congress of the United States and the Secretaries of both State and Defense. In this report, SIGAR identifies the most serious threats to the American government's $132 billion reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. This information is of particular interest and importance given that negotiations are currently underway to end the United States' involvement in Afghanistan, involvement that began on October 7, 2001, making this the longest military engagement in American history.
The report opens with this rather sobering summary of the past, present and future in Afghanistan:
" The $132 billion appropriated since 2002 for Afghanistan's reconstruction has been used to train and equip Afghan security forces, strengthen government institutions, promote the rule of law, protect women's rights, improve health and education, and stimulate economic development, among other objectives.
Yet the gains from our nation's investment in Afghanistan's reconstruction face multiple threats: continued insecurity, endemic corruption, weak Afghan institutions, the insidious impact of the narcotics trade, and inadequate coordination and oversight by donors.
While an equitable and sustainable peace agreement in Afghanistan could end much of the violence that presents the greatest threat to the reconstruction effort, a peace agreement may bring its own set of challenges to sustaining the gains that the United States, its Coalition partners, and the Afghan government have achieved over that time ." (my bold)
Here is a listing of the eight current high risk areas:
1.) Widespread Insecurity - whether a peace plan is put into place or not, Afghanistan is likely to continue to experience multiple violent extremist organizations. The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces require annual funding of between $4 billion and $5 billion to remain viable.
2.) Underdeveloped Civil Policing Capability - The United States has spent more effort reconstructing the Afghan National Army than on the Afghan National Police meaning that there is no strategy for a competent civil police force backed by rule of law. Sustaining a national police force will require significant foreign funding.
3.) Endemic Corruption - Corruption is endemic and forms a significant threat to the Afghan government. This means that reconstruction programs will continue to be subverted and are likely to fail. Here is a graphic from Transparency International showing where Afghanistan lies on the global spectrum when it comes to corruption:

Afghanistan has the world's 9th lowest corruption score as shown on this list:

4.) Sluggish Economic Growth - Afghanistan's legal economy is sluggish and there are numerous barriers to further economic growth.
5.) Illicit Narcotics Trade - Afghanistan remains the world's largest producer of opium poppies and had the two highest years of cultivation in 2017 and 2018. Funds from the illicit drug trade fund the Taliban, corrupt members of the Afghan government, military and police and also employ 600,000 Afghanis.
6.) Threats to Women's Rights - More than $1 billion has been spent since 2002 to advance the status of women in Afghanistan but gains made so far are fragile, particularly in rural areas, and are likely to be unprotected should the Taliban be part of a peace settlement.
7.) Challenge of Reintegration - The social, economic and political reintegration of tens of thousands of former fighters back into Afghan society will be difficult, particularly in light of the nation's weak economy and political uncertainty and distrust.
8.) Restricted Oversight - If a peace settlement includes reductions in foreign personnel providing oversight on foreign funded programs, problems in the nation will only increase thanks to high levels of corruption.
Let's look at some examples of where U.S. tax dollars have been spent in Afghanistan. Since 2001, an estimated $780 billion has been appropriated for Afghanistan including war funding, diplomatic and consular programs, military and embassy construction projects etcetera. Of this $738 billion or 95 percent of the total was obligated by the Department of Defense. Reconstruction costs make up 15 percent of total U.S. funds obligated for Afghanistan since 2001 and are broken down as follows:
1.) Security - $83.1 billion (63 percent of the total) to build up Afghan military and police. In fiscal 2019, 82 percent of the funds appropriated for Afghanistan reconstruction were spent on assisting the security sector. The "success" of this program can be put into perspective with this map showing the areas of Afghanistan that are under control of the Taliban, the original target of Operation Enduring Freedom:

2.) Governance and Economic Development - $33.9 billion (26 percent of the total). In fiscal 2018, only 12 percent of the funds appropriated for Afghanistan reconstruction were spent on improving the nation's economy.
3.) Counternarcotics Programs - $8.9 billion (7 percent of the total).
The remaining 4 percent of reconstruction funds have been spent to support civilian operations, humanitarian initiatives and in combating society-wide corruption.
Let's close by looking at a few quotes from the report that show just how dire the situation in Afghanistan still is nearly 18 years after Operation Enduring Freedom began and how unlikely a peace settlement is likely to change the situation on the ground:
1.) Failure to successfully reintegrate an estimated 60,000 Taliban fighters and their families, and other illegal armed groups, could undermine the successful implementation of any peace agreement.
2.) The opium trade plays a significant role in the Afghan economy and it is difficult to see how a peace accord between the Afghan government and the insurgency would translate into the collapse or contraction of the illicit drug trade. The country requires a growing economy or favorable economic conditions to provide farmers and former insurgents with legitimate employment and a reliable income to replace opium poppy cultivation. The Afghan government also needs to pursue major drug traffickers, which it has not done consistently or successfully. According to the Department of Justice, "certain influential people are above the law."
3.) Effective policing will require a force that gives citizens the presumption of innocence rather than anticipating and taking preemptive offensive operations against perceived threats. U.S. agencies, such as the Justice Department, currently lack the personnel numbers and para-military strength to accompany Afghan National Police trainees into high-threat districts.
4.) In a post-settlement environment, depending on the terms of an agreement, there may also be the challenge of integrating former Taliban fighters into the national security forces and society. These issues could become more acute should international financial and military support decline sharply before, during, or after peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
Let's close this sobering view of Afghanistan's future with an excerpt from the prepared remarks given by the the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John F. Sopko that accompanied the release of the report:
" If the U.S. reduces its presence in Afghanistan but feels compelled to provide significant financial support for reconstruction, there may be little choice but to provide a greater proportion of funding as on-budget assistance. But if that road is taken, assistance should be conditioned on an independent finding that adequate monitoring mechanisms and internal controls for the Afghan ministry or multilateral trust fund in question are in place.
If those conditions are lacking and assistance is provided anyway, we may as well set the cash ablaze on the streets of Kabul for all the good it will do.
I urge Congress to not just think about how much money should be given, but also to think about how that money will be provided and monitored. If the need for oversight is ignored or sidelined, both the American taxpayer and the Afghan people will suffer, even with a successful peace agreement." (my bold)
At the very least, it appears that 18 years of war has accomplished almost nothing when it comes to meaningful and permanent changes in Afghanistan despite the spending of hundreds of billions of hard-earned taxpayers' dollars.

[Apr 24, 2019] CIA and State Dept. want(ed) regime change in Syria but couldn't get public support for an invasion so they covertly supported Isis against Assad instead (mostly using Saudi as a proxy).

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT

@Wizard of Oz CIA and State Dept. want(ed) regime change in Syria but couldn't get public support for an invasion so they covertly supported Isis against Assad instead (mostly using Saudi as a proxy).

They don't want it to come out.

(of course it may go back further than that nb Brennan was CIA chief in Saudi in the run up to 9/11)

Jeff Davis , says: April 23, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz Jihadist groups were used to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, destroy Libya and Syria, and are currently employed to destabilize Iran. They are the primary instrument of the Oded Yinon plan. Unless you consider the United States to be the primary instrument, and the jihadist groups merely a tool.

Israel has subverted the United States, turning it into its poodle, it's slush fund, and it's mercenary military force.

For five thousand years the Jews, in their unique geopolitical condition as an internally cohesive yet dispersed ethnic group, have worked within their host nations and, by virtue of their talent, achieved prosperity and power. Then, in a repeating and easily predictable pattern, as a consequence of the power they achieve, arrogantly abuse the local majority, repeatedly provoking the historically-recorded reaction in its various forms: enslavement, expulsion, and attempted annihilation in Egypt; annihilation and dispersion by the Romans in Old Israel; in Spain and Portugal, the demand on pain of death to convert to Christianity; suppression by law throughout Europe during the Middle Ages; destruction of the Jewish Khazar Empire by the Russ in 979; and near annihilation by the Nazis in the last century.

There's a pattern here. People don't just wake up one day and say "We hate the Jews, let's kill them." There's a reason, a logical reason. Essentially, in the diaspora, the Jews exist in a condition of tribal competition with the local majority culture. That competition inevitably progresses to tribal conflict -- that is, war against the Jews. The pattern is logical and predictable: fueled by tribal ambition, enabled by tribal economic success that leads eventually to Jewish tribal overreach, which then results in a hostile majority-culture pushback. The Jews scream "Anti-Semitism" but the reality is that the particular case of Jews-vs-"The Other" tribalism with its Jewish exceptionalism and supremacism, inevitably leads to a showdown over power where the majority culture has political and numerical advantages.

The time is rapidly approaching when the 310 million non-Jewish Americans will realize that they've been made the tools of the Jews and the US society looted. Then the pattern of five thousand years will repeat itself yet again.

[Apr 24, 2019] It's complete fiction that the US is going after Venezuelan oil so as to confront Iran.

Notable quotes:
"... Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US continues to control the financial system. ..."
Apr 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

snedly arkus , Apr 24, 2019 4:06:05 PM | link

It's complete fiction that the US is going after Venezuelan oil so as to confront Iran. If Maduro goes so does Venezuela as civil war erupts and spreads to other countries. No oil company is going to put itself and it's employees in such a danger zone.

It is also complete fiction that Trump was against going after Venezuela as he has been on them almost from day one and every time Trump announces more sanctions or makes threats he's as giddy as a kid in a candy store and relishes handing out the pain. In one of his latest speeches to a gathering of the faithful he not only gleefully stomped on Venezuela but also announced the US is going to overthrow the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua.

Trump was barely in office when the US undid the efforts by Obama to normalize relations with Cuba and as of the first of the year put sanctions on Nicaragua.

This after NED and USAID last summer brought radicals from Nicaragua to DC for training in riots and rabble rousing. Which they did after returning home. In his speech Trump claimed that by overthrowing those governments this hemisphere will be the "only totally free hemisphere in the world". If the plan was to get Venezuelan oil so as to shut off Iran the US would have supported Maduro, Venezuela is no danger to US security, and offered to send in the best engineers to get the oil industry rolling. The US is now sanctioning the tankers so as to cut off even more revenue to Venezuela and deprive Cuba of oil.

Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US continues to control the financial system.

If the US does attack Iran it will be a Libya affair using only air power to cripple them and cause internal chaos.

[Apr 24, 2019] Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something.

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT

February 26, 2019 The Empire: Now or Never

Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America's international behavior. Really, the explanation is simple.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51174.htm

MARCH 13, 2019 'Imperialism on Trial' tour comes to Northern Ireland on March 19th and 21st

Next week, the Imperialism on Trial tour comes to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and will include an impressive line-up of speakers, including two former British Ambassadors, a former British soldier, an Irish Republican writer, and a veteran CIA analyst – each presenting their own analysis of world events, and interrogating the role played at home and abroad – by western powers.

https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/03/13/imperialism-on-trial-tour-comes-to-northern-ireland-on-march-19th-and-21st/

[Apr 24, 2019] The circus of horrors in the Kaganat of Nuland

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 24, 2019 at 7:11 pm GMT

The circus of horrors in the Kaganat of Nuland: https://thesaker.is/zelenskii-beat-poroshenko-what-will-happen-next/&#8230 ;

Israel and the Ukraine are now the two countries on the planet in which both the President [Zelenskii] and the Prime-Minister [Groisman] are Jews

just a day after his election Zelenskii is already making all sorts of anti-Russian statements.

since Zelenskii has no personal power base of any kind, Kolomoiskii will have him do exactly as he is told and Kolomoiskii can easily be told to behave by the Empire.

Here is a new ruler of Ukraine, the Israeli/Ukrainian/Swiss citizen Kolomoisky :

"Billionaire Ukrainian Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky Under Investigation by FBI" https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-ukrainian-oligarch-ihor-kolomoisky-under-investigation-by-fbi

The ethnically Jewish Kolomojsky has been the main financier of Azov Battalion :

The Azov Battalion was initially formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine. Azov Battalion -- which is accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations -- was incorporated into Ukraine's National Guard.

The New York Times called the battalion "openly neo-Nazi," while USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members' proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols

https://www.thenation.com/article/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/

[Apr 24, 2019] Integrity Initiative - Driving A Wedge Between Russia and the West

Images deleted.
Notable quotes:
"... RT has been able to capitalise on growing mistrust of western media among westerners. During the breaking of the coverage of many political scandals, RT articles aggressively raised issues that many felt were not being pursued by the western media, which is frequently seen as covering up non-PC stories. Many users believe that RT is willing to talk about incidents that western media will not, a belief that RT actively encourages. As such, many users of a both far-right and far-left disposition are willing to listen to RT, even being aware of RT's control by the government, rather than western media. ..."
"... On page four of this this interesting sentence we find the following sentence: " Driving a wedge between Russians and government is key. " ..."
"... It is interesting to see that Integrity Initiative was ahead of the game when it came to punishing Russia for its involvement in Crimea's move to independence from Ukraine to the point that their greatest hope was that there would be regime change in Russia. ..."
"... As you can see from these documents, Integrity Initiative, a government-funded, not-for-profit charity has a mandate to ensure that the West is immune to Russia's ongoing propaganda campaign by providing propaganda of its own. ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com
While it received relatively little coverage from the Western mainstream media establishment, a recent 42 megabyte upload on an Anonymous server provides us with an inside glimpse into the genesis of the Western anti-Russia narrative.
According to the documents, an organization (rather ironically) named Integrity Initiative with the moniker "Defending Democracy Against Disinformation" was organized to mobilize global public opinion against Russia and its agenda as you can see on the organization's "About" webpage:

The non-for-profit charity was set up in 2015 as a partnership of several independent organizations led by The Institute for Statecraft. It claims that it is dedicated to " education in good governance and to enabling societies to adapt to a rapidly changing world. ", a rather benign mission statement. In its first two years, it was funded by private individuals, however, funding for 2017 and 2018 was largely provided by governments, particularly the United Kingdom, reflecting the U.K.'s appreciation of the " importance of the threat, and a wish to support civil society programmes seeking to rebuild the ability of democratic societies to resist large scale, malicious disinformation and influence campaigns."
According to the documents a number of organizations including the United States Department of State, the U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), NATO, Facebook and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense were looking to fund the Integrity Initiative as you can see here:

Integrity Initiative states the following about its services:
" It is inevitable that a programme tackling disinformation in Europe finds itself spending much of its time addressing the activities of the Russian State, including those carried out through its intelligence services. The Kremlin has invested more operational thought, intent and resource in disinformation, in Europe and elsewhere in the democratic world, than any other single player. "

Not surprisingly, Integrity Initiative has comments on the leaking of its own documents by Anonymous:

" We note both the attempts by Russian state propaganda outlets to amplify the volume of this leak; and the suggestion by a major Anonymous-linked Twitter account that the Kremlin subverted the banner of Anonymous to disguise their responsibility for it...


It is of course a matter of deep regret that Integrity Initiative documents have been stolen and posted on line, still more so that, in breach of any defensible practice, Russian state propaganda outlets have published or re-published a large number of names and contact details. We have not yet had the chance to analyse all of the documents, so cannot say with confidence whether they are all genuine or whether they include doctored or false material.


Although it is clear that much of the material was indeed on the Integrity Initiative or Institute systems, much of it is dated and was never used. In particular, many of the names published were on an internal list of experts in this field who had been considered as potential invitees to future cooperation. In the event, many were never contacted by the Integrity Initiative and did not contribute to it. Nor were these documents therefore included in any funding proposals. Not only did these individuals have nothing to do with the programme – they may not even have heard of us. We are of course trying to contact all named individuals for whom we have contact details to ensure that they are aware of what has happened. "

With that background, let's look at four of the documents that were posted.

1.) A undated document discussing Russia's use of social media as a proxy for propaganda:

Note the following comments regarding Russia Today aka RT:

" RT has been able to capitalise on growing mistrust of western media among westerners. During the breaking of the coverage of many political scandals, RT articles aggressively raised issues that many felt were not being pursued by the western media, which is frequently seen as covering up non-PC stories. Many users believe that RT is willing to talk about incidents that western media will not, a belief that RT actively encourages. As such, many users of a both far-right and far-left disposition are willing to listen to RT, even being aware of RT's control by the government, rather than western media. "

Here is a page from the document which discusses the target audiences for Russian social media propaganda:

Note that the memo clearly states that Russian media outlets like RT and Sputnik are targeting an audience that is "distrusting of statecraft and major media groups.". I wonder why Westerners would be distrusting of their own media?

2.) A 2017 document outlining plans for developing an American arm of Integrity Initiative:

Note that the writer of the memo states that the West is badly in need of a reassertion of U.S. leadership and that America needs to rebuild its understanding of Russia and how to deal with it. It also notes that the international community needs to rebuild its understanding of Russia to ensure that Western governments get the popular support that democracies require (i.e. a strongly anti-populist movement).

3.) An undated document showing how Integrity Initiative is planning to expand "expert clusters" to other nations including Austria, Canada, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland among others:

4.) A January 2015 document showing Integrity Initiative's views on setting up anti-Russia sanctions with the goal of changing Russia's behaviour, peace in Ukraine, a return of Crimea and, most importantly, possible regime change in Russia:

On page four of this this interesting sentence we find the following sentence: " Driving a wedge between Russians and government is key. "

It is interesting to see that Integrity Initiative was ahead of the game when it came to punishing Russia for its involvement in Crimea's move to independence from Ukraine to the point that their greatest hope was that there would be regime change in Russia.

As you can see from these documents, Integrity Initiative, a government-funded, not-for-profit charity has a mandate to ensure that the West is immune to Russia's ongoing propaganda campaign by providing propaganda of its own. It's certainly a good thing that Integrity Initiative has the "real truth" and is willing to pressure us into seeing the global geopolitical quagmire with its 20/20 vision. Apparently, integrity in this post-truth era is in the eye of the beholder/purveyor.

[Apr 24, 2019] Mike Pompeo and Julian Assange - Sealing the Fate of WikiLeaks

Apr 24, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

April 12, 2019 Back in April 2017, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this speech, he made some very pointed comments about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange that provide us with a glimpse into the mindset that currently inhabits the Department of State in particular and Washington as a whole and why the events of April 11th, 2019 occurred.
Here are some key quotes from the rather lengthy speech which looked at America's intelligence community. Early in the speech, he makes this comment:
" As a policy, we at CIA do not comment on the accuracy of purported intelligence documents posted online. In keeping with that policy, I will not specifically comment on the authenticity or provenance of recent disclosures.
But the false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be ignored. There are fictions out there that demean and distort the work and achievements of CIA and of the broader Intelligence Community. And in the absence of a vocal rebuttal, these voices -- ones that proclaim treason to be public advocacy -- gain a gravity they do not deserve." (my bolds)
It is important to note that Mr. Pompeo will not comment on the authenticity of documents that are disclosed by whistleblowers but that, in the next breath, he states that these documents are part of a false narrative that demean and distort the work of America's intelligence community.
He goes on to note that the CIA does admit to making mistakes and that it is accountable to the "free and open society that they help to defend" and that the CIA is willing to make its mistakes public to a degree that other nations cannot match.`
Here's what he has to say about WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange:
" And that is one of the many reasons why we at CIA find the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. Because while we do our best to quietly collect information on those who pose very real threats to our country, individuals such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves. As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security.
WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations.
It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. I n January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence -- the GRU -- had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia's primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.
Now, for those of you who read the editorial page of the Washington Post -- and I have a feeling that many of you in this room do -- yesterday you would have seen a piece of sophistry penned by Mr. Assange. You would have read a convoluted mass of words wherein Assange compared himself to Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. One can only imagine the absurd comparisons that the original draft contained.
Assange claims to harbor an overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America. But I assure you that this man knows nothing of America and our ideals. He knows nothing of our third President, whose clarion call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness continue to inspire us and the world. And he knows nothing of our 34th President, a hero from my very own Kansas, who helped to liberate Europe from fascists and guided America through the early years of the Cold War.
No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history.
We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes, they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values.
They do not care about the causes and people they claim to represent. If they did, they would focus instead on the autocratic regimes in this world that actually suppress free speech and dissent. Instead, they choose to exploit the legitimate secrets of democratic governments -- which has, so far, proven to be a much safer approach than provoking a tyrant.
Clearly, these individuals are not especially burdened by conscience. We know this, for example, because Assange has been more than cavalier in disclosing the personal information of scores of innocent citizens around the globe. We know this because the damage they have done to the security and safety of the free world is tangible. And the examples are numerous. " (my bolds)
Actually, when it comes to Russia and the "pass" that it has been given by WikiLeaks, Mr. Pompeo could not be more wrong. On September 19, 2017, WikiLeaks published its " Spy Files Russia " documents which provided insight into Russia's surveillance contractors. In the case of Russia, Russias communication providers are required by law to install components for surveillance which is provided by the FSB which are linked to the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. And, perhaps we can attribute WikiLeaks ability to release information on America's intelligence community because it is far more prone to leaks than the intelligence communities of other nations.
Mr. Pompeo also provided his audience with a direct link between WikiLeaks and terrorism:
" As for Assange, his actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned.
AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of life as well. That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of reprehensible ." (my bold)
Here is Mr. Pompeo's three part solution to the Assange "problem":
1.) It is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons.
2.) There are steps that we have to take at home -- in fact, this is a process we've already started. We've got to strengthen our own systems; we've got to improve internal mechanisms that help us in our counterintelligence mission. All of us in the Intelligence Community had a wake-up call after Snowden's treachery. Unfortunately, the threat has not abated. I can't go into great detail, but the steps we take can't be static. Our approach to security has to be constantly evolving. We need to be as clever and innovative as the enemies we face. They won't relent, and neither will we.
3.) We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now."
Let's close with two brief items. First, here's what the ACLU has to say about the arrest and potential American prosecution of Julian Assange:

Second, after Assange's arrest, Donald Trump had this to say about WikiLeaks:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ztxcRHCHj4
" I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing and I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a determination I would imagine mostly by the Attorney General who is doing an excellent job."
Here's what the President had to say about WikiLeaks during the 2016 Presidential election cycle:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xnEoVzLKNPw
While it may have taken a few days less than two years to complete his dream of getting rid of Julian Assange, it is abundantly clear from the CIA Director's speech that Mr. Assange's fate was sealed once Mike Pompeo had direct access Washington's power brokers no matter what Donald Trump had to say about WikiLeaks back in 2016. Fortunately for those of us on the outside that rely on WikiLeaks to learn more about the hidden secrets of governments and the corporate world, the group will continue to exist with or without its founder.
Posted by A Political Junkie at 8:30 AM Labels: Julian Assange , Mike Pompeo , Wikileaks 2 comments:

  1. Nick Ginex April 12, 2019 at 5:19 PM

    Dedicated to revealing facts that allows the public to "see" the truth is Julian Assange, a man of integrity that is lacking in many of our politicians. They say the "truth" hurts but it is the only way to gain wisdom to improve our world.

[Apr 24, 2019] Which is the Greater Threat - Russia or the United States

Apr 24, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

I found it particularly interesting that nations like Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea which have traditionally been viewed as pro-American overwhelmingly found that the United States was a greater threat to their nation than Russia. Not surprisingly, only a very small 15 percent of Israelis felt that the United States was a greater threat compared to 28 percent who felt that Russia was a greater threat, however the percentage of Israelis that are concerned about American power is up from only 9 percent in 2013.

Looking back in time, more people now believe that the United States is a greater threat to their nation than in 2013 and 2017; in 2018, a median of 45 percent of all respondents believed that the United States was a major threat to their nation, up from 38 percent in 2017 and 25 percent in 2013.

... ... ...

Once again, it is interesting to observe that nations like France and Germany that have traditionally been viewed as pro-American have seen the highest increase in their assessment of the threat posed by American power.

The growing power and influence wielded by the United States is now rather widely viewed by the world as a far greater threat than the power and influence wielded by Russia, particularly when one looks back to 2013. Respondents in just over 70 percent of the 26 nations in the study feel that America forms a greater threat to their home nation than the much-vilified Russia, a result that is not terribly surprising given the events of the past two years in Washington.

[Apr 24, 2019] Trump: Stop buying Iranian oil or face sanctions

Apr 23, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Oil prices are on the rise after the United States announced a new crackdown on Iran's oil exports aiming to reduce them to zero.
Iran's threatening retaliation by blocking the Strait of Hormuz - the world's lifeline of oil from all Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.
The move has


K kaye , 10 hours ago

Can we sanction food from Pompeo? Looks like his jacket about to burst open...

noshadova , 11 hours ago

Why would the whole world be afraid of USA ? Ans. Greed and lack of integrity by the leaders !

Randy Pederson , 4 hours ago

The US are the only ones that are currently bombing multiple countries at the same time with no declaration of war.

SA SHA , 11 hours ago

Economic Sanctions === Economic Terrorist Attack Recent terrorist attacks indicate that the United States is using extremist organizations to provoke religious wars. The aim is to split Eurasia and make troubles for Europe. The United States is very afraid of peace in Eurasia, because it will make the United States a third world country.

[Apr 24, 2019] Pompeo Finally Tells The Truth 'We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal'

Apr 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Streamed live 14 hours ago

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have vowed to strangle Iran and cut off all oil exports. They claim it's because of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles and its support for terrorism. In a recent speech at Texas A&M University he finally told the truth about the CIA and the neocons - they lie and cheat and steal. So should we believe him now?

[Apr 23, 2019] Groupthink at the CIA by Philip Giraldi

Looks like tail wags the dog -- CIA controls the US foreign policy and in the last elections also played active role in promoting Hillary. A the level of top brass we have several people mentioned by Giraldi who are probably as dangerous as Allen Dulles was. Brennan is one example.
The parade of rogues that Philip describes is really alarming. Each with agenda that directly harms the USA as a country promoting the interest of military-industrial complex and neocon faction within the government...
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter. ..."
"... Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level would appear to be fully on board with that effort. ..."
"... Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was revealed in the press two weeks ago. ..."
"... Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of totally bereft of his senses. ..."
"... Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting attended by Pompeo, he told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent (one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down. ..."
"... And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration. Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been some Russian recruitment of Trump people. He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." ..."
"... Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan, and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time. ..."
"... Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia. ..."
"... The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like the British MI5. The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words. ..."
"... As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants of the Deep State. ..."
"... The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary to its purposes. ..."
"... The CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service, long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has done. ..."
"... The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. ..."
"... While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies, it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos, the bankster mafiosi. ..."
"... I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are – Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments. The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too well the truth about the Clintons and Obama. ..."
"... Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally oblivious to their own uselessness. ..."
"... How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries. On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN. ..."
"... Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began. ..."
"... Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside the group consensus. ..."
"... So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to face. ..."
"... Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set himself up for success in the next elections. ..."
"... What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink" in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles' thought pattern & subsequent action. ..."
"... To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically sworn in on a bible. ..."
Aug 01, 2017 | www.unz.com

Long ago, when I was a spear carrying middle ranker at CIA, a colleague took me aside and said that he had something to tell me "as a friend," that was very important. He told me that his wife had worked for years in the Agency's Administrative Directorate, as it was then called, where she had noticed that some new officers coming out of the Career Trainee program had red tags on their personnel files. She eventually learned from her boss that the tags represented assessments that those officers had exceptional potential as senior managers. He added, however, that the reverse appeared to be true in practice as they were generally speaking serial failures as they ascended the bureaucratic ladder, even though their careers continued to be onward and upward on paper. My friend's wife concluded, not unreasonably, that only genuine a-holes had what it took to get promoted to the most senior ranks.

I was admittedly skeptical but some recent activity by former and current Directors and Acting Directors of CIA has me wondering if something like my friend's wife's observation about senior management might indeed be true. But it would have to be something other than tagging files, as many of the directors and their deputies did not come up through the ranks and there seems to be a similar strain of lunacy at other U.S. government intelligence agencies. It might be time to check the water supply in the Washington area as there is very definitely something in the kool-aid that is producing odd behavior.

Now I should pause for a moment and accept that the role of intelligence services is to identify potential threats before they become active, so a certain level of acute paranoia goes with the job. But at the same time, one would expect a level of professionalism which would mandate accuracy rather than emotion in assessments coupled with an eschewing of any involvement in the politics of foreign and national security policy formulation. The enthusiasm with which a number of senior CIA personnel have waded into the Trump swamp and have staked out positions that contradict genuine national interests suggests that little has been learned since CIA Director George Tenet sat behind Secretary of State Colin Powell in the UN and nodded sagaciously as Saddam Hussein's high crimes and misdemeanors were falsely enumerated.

Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter.

Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level would appear to be fully on board with that effort.

The most recent inexplicable comments come from the current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, speaking at the Aspen Institute Security Forum. He began by asserting that Russia had interfered in the U.S. election before saying that the logic behind Russia's Middle Eastern strategy is to stay in place in Syria so Moscow can "stick it to America." He didn't define the "it" so one must assume that "it" stands for any utensil available, ranging from cruise missiles to dinner forks. He then elaborated, somewhat obscurely, that "I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find that something that's useful."

Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was revealed in the press two weeks ago.

Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of totally bereft of his senses. In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee back in May, he suggested that some Trump associates might have been recruited by the Russian intelligence service. He testified that "I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals."

In his testimony, Brennan apparently forgot to mention that the CIA is not supposed to keep tabs on American citizens. Nor did he explain how he had come upon the information in the first place as it had been handed over by foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians, and at least some of it had been sought or possibly inspired by Brennan unofficially in the first place. Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected, which admittedly was a longshot at the time. That is how Russiagate started.

Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting attended by Pompeo, he told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent (one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down.

A lesser known former CIA senior official is John McLaughlin, who briefly served as acting Director in 2004. McLaughlin was particularly outraged by Trump's recent speech to the Boy Scouts, which he described as having the feel "of a third world authoritarian's youth rally." He added that "It gave me the creeps it was like watching the late Venezuelan [President Hugo] Chavez."

And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration. Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been some Russian recruitment of Trump people. He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

I and others noted at the time that Putin and Trump had never met, not even through proxies, while we also wondered how one could be both unwitting and a recruited agent as intelligence recruitment implies control and taking direction. Morell was non-plussed, unflinching and just a tad sanctimonious in affirming that his own intelligence training (as an analyst who never recruited a spy in his life) meant that "[I] call it as I see it."

One could also cite Michael Hayden and James Clapper, though the latter was not CIA They all basically hew to the same line about Russia, often in more-or-less the same words, even though no actual evidence has been produced to support their claims. That unanimity of thinking is what is peculiar while academics like Stephen Cohen, Stephen Walt, Andrew Bacevich, and John Mearsheimer, who have studied Russia in some depth and understand the country and its leadership far better than a senior CIA officer, detect considerable nuance in what is taking place. They all believe that the hardline policies current in Washington are based on an eagerness to go with the flow on the comforting inside-the- beltway narrative that paints Russia as a threat to vital interests. That unanimity of viewpoint should surprise no one as this is more of less the same government with many of the same people that led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They all have a vested interested in the health and well-being of a fully funded national security state.

And the other groupthink that seems to prevail among the senior managers except Pompeo is that they all hate Donald Trump and have done so since long before he won the election. That is somewhat odd, but it perhaps reflects a fear that Trump would interfere with the richly rewarding establishment politics that had enabled their careers. But it does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of CIA employees. Though it is admittedly unscientific analysis on my part, I know a lot of former and some current CIA employees but do not know a single one who voted for Hillary Clinton. Nearly all voted for Trump.

Beyond that exhibition of tunnel vision and sheer ignorance, the involvement of former senior intelligence officials in politics is itself deplorable and is perhaps symptomatic of the breakdown in the comfortable bipartisan national security consensus that has characterized the past fifty years. Once upon time former CIA officers would retire to the Blue Ridge mountains and raise Labradors, but we are now into something much more dangerous if the intelligence community, which has been responsible for most of the recent leaks, begins to feel free to assert itself from behind the scenes. As Senator Chuck Schumer recently warned "Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community -- they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

exiled off mainstreet, August 1, 2017 at 5:06 am GMT

In jumping this fascist nihilist shark, the groupthinkers have closed themselves off from the logical conclusion to their viewpoint, which is final annihilation.

Dan Hayes, August 1, 2017 at 5:47 am GMT

Schumer's statement is true (and probably the only such one in his political career!).

annamaria, August 1, 2017 at 6:03 am GMT

Brennan, Morell, and Pompeo should better find ways to justify their salaries: the U.S. has suffered the greatest breach in cybersecurity on their watch:

" an enormous breach of the United States Security Apparatus by as many as 80 Democrat members of Congress (past and present). We rail on about the Russians and Trump, but t he media avoids providing nightly updates about these 5 spies that have compromised Congress ."

http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-awan-brothers-compromised-at-least-80-congregational-computers-and-got-paid-5-million-to-do-it-we-may-never-know-the-extent-of-the-breach/

"In total, Imran's firm was employed by 31 Democrats in Congress, some of whom held extremely sensitive positions on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Foreign Affair s."

polistra, August 1, 2017 at 6:17 am GMT

Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan, and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time.

Bruce Marshall, August 1, 2017 at 6:39 am GMT

And back to reality we have VIPS Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia.

That is war, World War Three and it would seem now that Congress is marching that way, but the report below hold the key to fighting back.

http://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2017/2017_30-39/2017-30/pdf/37-41_4430.pdf

One of the VIPS is William Binney fomer NSA Technical Director, an important expert. leading the group is Ray McGovern with some whit and grace, well yes how about some sanity, to which humor is important to the insight and to stay in the sights of what is clever thievery and worse. Much worse, and there is a twinkle in the eye when realize that it is straight forward.

And Congress could stop it tout sweet, but well old habits but they have taken an Oath of Office, so, so what, yeah they did go after Bernie, so will you challenge your elected officials, either do their sworn duty or resign, for what this sanctions bill against Russia and Iran is a declaration of war, not only against Russia and Iran, but a declaration of war against the United States. for there is no reason to do this against Russia when indeed there are great opportunities to get along, but war is the insanity as it is sedition and treason. Tell them that,

https://larouchepac.com/20170731/breaking-lyndon-larouche-crush-british-coup-against-president

Priss Factor, • Website August 1, 2017 at 7:01 am GMT

Moderate Rebels = Toothfairy Rebels

jilles dykstra, August 1, 2017 at 7:21 am GMT

I wonder if groupthink exists. In any organisation people know quite well why the organisation exists, what the threats are to its existence. If they think about this, I wonder.

The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like the British MI5. The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words. If indeed Trump changes USA foreign policy, no longer trying to control the world, the CIA is obsolete, as obsolete as NATO.

animalogic, August 1, 2017 at 7:44 am GMT

" but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter."

Not to defend the CIA, but didn't Rumsfeld, doubt the enthusiasm of the CIA for providing the slanted, bogus, "sexed up" intelligence the Executive required to make its "destroy Iraq now" case ? So Rumsfeld therefore set up an independent intelligence agency within the Defence Dept to provide/create the required "intelligence" ?

The Alarmist, August 1, 2017 at 7:45 am GMT

I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find that something that's useful."

Yeah, because that's what resource-constrained countries with limited ability to tap the global capital markets do. Methinks Mr. Pompeo is projecting his and the neocons' fantasies on the Russians.

Realist, August 1, 2017 at 10:14 am GMT

As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants of the Deep State.

CalDre, August 1, 2017 at 10:43 am GMT

If only Trump would really clean the swamp – particularly the neo-cons and other traitors and globalists. One can dream .

Wizard of Oz, August 1, 2017 at 11:04 am GMT

Being resistant to jargon and catch phrases it is only slowly that I have accepted that "Deep State" is not entirely pretentious waffle when used to describe aspects of the US. However I may not be your only reader PG who would appreciate a clear explanatory description of the American Deep State and how it works.

Here are some suggested parameters.

The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary to its purposes.
And its origins imply that it is not just one in a number of major influences ln government or those who vote for it.

So one has to acknowledge that in the US the Deep State has to be different in the important respect that levers of power are observably wielded by lobbies for the aged, gun owners and sellers, Israel, Wall Street, bio fuels, sugar and other ag, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, the arms industry, Disney and other Hollywood and media, health insurers and the medical profession, and I could go on.

These are all relevant to legal events like votes on impeachment or to hold up appointments. The CIA and FBI together completely united (and note how disunited 9/11 showed them to be) wouldn't remotely approach the old Turkish Deep State's ability to stage a coup. Are all of the putative elements of the Deep State together today as powerful as J.Edgar Hoover with his dirt files on everyone? (A contrast and compare exercise of today's presumed Deep State configuration and modus operandi with the simpler Hoover days might shine some light on who does what and how today. And how effectively).

To avoid lack of focus can a convincing account of the US Deep State be best given in terms of a plausible scenario for

  1. getting rid of Trump as President and/or
  2. maintaining the lunacy and hubris which has the US wasting its substance on totally unnecessary antagonistic relations with China and Russia and interference in the ME?

I would read such accounts with great interest. (Handwavers need not apply).

Jake, August 1, 2017 at 11:26 am GMT

Of course the US Deep State must hate Russia. First, Jews have a very long history of hating Russia and Russians. That never changed. The USSR was not Russia; the USSR was Marxism replacing Russia. Jews tended to love that. Rich Jews from across the world, from the US and the UK of most interest to us, sent money to support the Bolshevik Revolution.

Russia managed to survive the USSR and is slowly coming back around to Russian common sense from the Christian perspective. Neither Jews nor their WASP BFFs can ever forgive that. They want Russia to act now to commit cultural and genetic suicide, like Western Europe and the entire Anglosphere are doing.

Jake, August 1, 2017 at 11:32 am GMT

@polistra The CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service, long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has done.

The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency.

jacques sheete, August 1, 2017 at 11:36 am GMT

While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies, it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos, the bankster mafiosi.

We should always keep that in mind.

Jake, August 1, 2017 at 11:37 am GMT

@CalDre If only

But doing so would mean a voluntary end to playing the role of Sauron, determined to find and wear the One Ring to Rule Them All. The average Elite WASP, and his Jewish BFF, definitely would prefer to destroy the world, at least outside their gated compounds of endless luxury, than to step down from that level of global domination.

Philip Giraldi, August 1, 2017 at 12:02 pm GMT

@Wizard of Oz Wiz – Here is an article I did on the Deep State two years ago. It was one of the first in the US media looking at the issue. It would have to be updated now in light of Trump, but much of what it states is still more-or-less correct.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/deep-state-america/

Jake, August 1, 2017 at 12:09 pm GMT

@jacques sheete Yes, indeed.

But we need to make certain that your use of the word 'mafiosi' does not lead anyone to assume that group has more than a handful of Italians. Jews, WASPs, and continental Germanics each will outnumber Italians by at least 30 to 1.

Chris Bridges, August 1, 2017 at 12:46 pm GMT

I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are – Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments. The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too well the truth about the Clintons and Obama.

Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally oblivious to their own uselessness.

Well before he was elected I had a letter delivered to President Trump in which I outlined in detail what would happen to him if he did not immediately purge the CIA of these assholes. I know that at least some people on his staff read it but, of course, my advice was ignored. Trump has paid dearly for not listening to an ordinary CIA guy who wanted to give him a reality brief on those vicious snakes.

Proud_Srbin, August 1, 2017 at 1:00 pm GMT

Historical facts teach humanity that Anglo-Saxon group of Nations was built on slavery, thuggery and theft of other peace loving Civilizations. We Slavs are the New "niggers", hate is the glue that holds you "toGether".
People of color have been successfully conditioned and practice it as well.
Time will tell how well it holds when balloon bursts and 99% gets called to serve as cannon fodder.
Terrorizing UNARMED and WEAKER is not true test of "superiority" and "exceptionalism".
Tiny, extremely tiny minority of Anglo-Saxons and Satraps understand this.

Bernie voter, August 1, 2017 at 1:20 pm GMT

How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries. On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN.

Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began.

Beauracratic Mind, August 1, 2017 at 1:42 pm GMT

@jacques sheete

I wonder if groupthink exists.

It probably does as do group psychoses and group fantasies.. Anyone who's ever served in a beuaracracy knows that groupthink exists.

Take a bunch of mediocre minds. And, they do exist, as Garrison Keiler once famously made a joke out of with his line Welcome to Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.

Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside the group consensus. If everyone is wrong, then there is safety in the group. After all, if they are wrong, so was everyone else in the organization. Thus they are immune to attack and censure for being wrong. But if someone takes a position outside of the group consensus, that can be a career-ending move if they are wrong, as now everyone else will be in the I-told-U-So camp. And even if they are correct, they will still be hated and shunned just for being the person who pointed out to the group that they are wrong.

So, you take your typical average mind, and not only do they not have any great insights of their own, but they tend to stick to the group out of sheer survival and then when you take a mass of these mediocre minds you have 'groupthink'.

Eticon, August 1, 2017 at 2:00 pm GMT

@CalDre

If only Trump would really clean the swamp - particularly the neo-cons and other traitors and globalists. One can dream ....

What we've learned from Trump is that 'Draining the Swamp' will take more than an individual. It will take a political movement.

One sees this on the fringes of politics. Someone gets the idea of running for President, and they point out all that is wrong. But, they focus only on their own campaign, their own goal, and they thus gloss over the fact that they'll be outnumbered and powerless even if they win.

Seen this often on the Left. The most recent example is Bernie Sanders. Likewise, had Bernie been elected President, he too would face an entrenched establishment and media with only a small fraction of the Congress supporting him.

Change has to be built from the bottom up. There are no shortcuts. Electing a Trump, or a Nader or a Bernie does not lead to real change. Step one is to build the political movement such that it has real voting block power and which has already won voting majorities in the legislature before the movement achieves the election of a President.

What Trump has needed to be doing for this first two years is to form clear divisions that he could then take to his voters in the mid-term elections. He's needed to lay out his own agenda. So what if he loses votes in Congress? He then takes that agenda back to the voters in 2018 with a nationwide slate of Congressional candidates who support that agenda and runs a midterm campaign asking the voters to help him drain that swamp.

So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to face.

Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set himself up for success in the next elections.

ChuckOrloski, August 1, 2017 at 2:19 pm GMT

@Jake Hey Jake,

It is a serious error to consider President Trump "naive."

What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink" in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles' thought pattern & subsequent action.

To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically sworn in on a bible.

Mr. Trump is neither naive nor stupid. Sheldon Adelson would not donate $millioms to any POTUS wannabe who could not effectively lead the American Groupthink tradition. Subsequently, the political horror show is brought to you in the understandable form of the perpetually elusive Deep State which gets annual Academy Award.

Beware the fake, Jake!,

[Apr 23, 2019] Mapping The Countries With The Most Oil Reserves

Apr 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Benito_Camela , 33 minutes ago link

" Venezuela tops the list with 300.9 billion barrels of oil in reserve – but even this vast wealth in natural resources has not been enough to save the country from its recent economic and humanitarian crisis."

LOL, good one. It's BECAUSE of their vast wealth that they cannot operate a country free of external interference, internal sabotage and the world's biggest bully attacking its electrical generation and grid. We can't have a successful socialist economy with THAT much oil, now, can we? And while Maduro did make some mistakes with the economy, it wasn't enough to bring about this "economic and humanitarian crisis." No, that level of shitstorm requires the intervention of the Yoo Nited States of America and "experts" on the region like Elliot Abrams (why isn't he in jail again? Oh yeah never mind, two systems of law in this country) and Mike Pom-Pom-Peon.

If the U.S. hadn't attempted coup after coup after coup, and actually let Venezuela's little experiment in Chavismo socialism play out on its own, we'd probably be seeing a South American version of Libya - at one time the richest country in Africa with healthcare for everyone - before France and the Yooo Nited States decided to destroy it. Of course it's too much to ask for a blog called "Visual Capitalist" to acknowledge this, and it's also pretty much par for the course with the sour right who comes to ZH for their daily fix of liberal bashing and rah, rah America is great! And so are (((they))). Of course.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14263

Benito_Camela , 20 minutes ago link

You're way out of your depth on this topic. You wouldn't be able to point to a single thing that Maduro did which would have had long-lasting consequences such as what we are seeing now. Total moron - the Venezuelan masses wealth was stolen by the landed former Spanish colonialists and their offspring, who then were given all the good oil leases, and bailed on the country (sabotaged it on their way out - along with the food supply) as Chavez started giving wealth BACK to the masses. You know NOTHING about Venezuela and like many other things you parade around pretending to be some kind of expert while you're just a typical zionist moron.

The US and our buddies have been cutting VZ off from any external capital, but more importantly FREEZING their assets and preventing them from accessing THEIR OWN gold. If that was happening to one of our so-called allies, we'd be calling it THEFT. You idiot.

But let's play - find me a source that backs your assertions. Point to paragraph and sentence where your claims are laid out clearly for all to see. How did Maduro COMPLETELY **** up Venezuela? Your turn...

Benito_Camela , 19 minutes ago link

The Bolivarian Revolution, a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy while greatly improving health and other living conditions for millions of Venezuelans, drew worldwide acclaim. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation's economy as part of an agenda of socialist uplift, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela's oligarchs. The exportation of the Bolivarian Revolution, which included forging stronger, more peaceful inter-American relations and even the provision of free home heating oil for hundreds of thousands of needy people in the United States, made Chávez a marked man in Washington.

The administration of George W. Bush -- whom Chávez infamously called "the devil" in a speech before the United Nations -- backed a failed military coup against Chávez in 2002. The attempted coup was closely linked to prominent neoconservatives including Elliott Abrams , the disgraced Iran-Contra criminal who played a key role in covering up massacres committed by US-backed death squads in Central America and Otto Reich, a staunch supporter of Cuban exile terrorists who have killed at least hundreds of innocent men, women and children throughout the Americas. Two key coup plotters, Army commander Efraín Vasquez and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were trained at the US Army School of the Americas. The coup briefly ousted Chávez but loyalist forces and popular support restored his rule 47 hours later.

Barack Obama continued Bush's policy of demonizing Chávez, whose government he called "authoritarian." This, despite the fact that former president Jimmy Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the election-monitoring Carter Center, called Venezuela's election process "the best in the world." In 2015, Obama declared Venezuela an "extraordinary threat to national security," a bewildering assertion considering the country has never started a war in its history. The United States, on the other hand, has intervened in, attacked, invaded or occupied Latin American and Caribbean nations more than 50 times and, as Obama spoke, the US military was busy bombing seven countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. For decades, successive US administrations have also lavished Venezuela's neighbor Colombia -- which has been condemned for its government and paramilitary death squad massacres and deadly corporate-backed crackdowns on indigenous peoples and workers -- with billions upon billions of dollars in military and economic aid.

Benito_Camela , 17 minutes ago link

How would they reinstate that "talent" if it was being blocked and bribed not to go to Venezuela by....you know who?

Chavez purged the firm because it was the same rich elites running it and threatening to use it as a form of blackmail.

Failure to regrow human capital base? Is that a repeat of what you just said about PDVSA? What does that even mean?

What about the US sanctions, freezing of their access to their own money, coup attempts, sabotage, the rich cutting off the food supply chain, etc? Which of these things contributed more to the current state of VZ?

Benito_Camela , 15 minutes ago link

Here's a good resource to counter the lies/propaganda you've read:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/01/sorting-through-the-lies-about-venezuela/

President Chávez had to withstand three successive attempts to remove him -- the 2002 coup, 2002-03 bosses' lockout and the 2004 recall referendum. Five times he was elected president, never with less than 55 percent of the vote, and overall he won 16 of 17 elections and referendums in which his movement participated. The election system put in place by the Chávez government was declared by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's Carter Center to be " the best in the world ." None of this prevented the late president from being furiously denounced as a "dictator."

and

Government officials have repeatedly discovered vast quantities of consumer goods hidden in warehouses by local capitalists who are artificially causing shortages.

re: PDVSA

The latest, issued on January 28, freezes all property and interests of PDVSA subject to U.S. jurisdiction -- in other words, blocking Venezuela from any access to the profits generated by PDVSA's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, or any PDVSA activities in the United States. The Trump administration expects Venezuela to lose US$11 billion this year, The New York Times reports.

and Maduro being a "dictator"

President Maduro is repeatedly called a "dictator," an epithet endless repeated across the corporate media. But when a portion of the opposition boycotts, can it be a surprise that the incumbent wins? The opposition actually asked the United Nations to not send observers , a sure sign that they expected to lose a fair election despite their claims that the election would be rigged. Nonetheless, a coalition of Canadian unions, church leaders and other officials declared the election to be "a transparent, secure, democratic and orderly electoral and voting process."

So yeah, you're on the same side of this issue as Barack Obama, George Soros and Hillary Kkklinton. Hope you're happy with that company.

[Apr 22, 2019] Our Iran Policy Is Run By Fanatics

Apr 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Trump administration won't be issuing any more waivers to importers of Iranian oil:

The Trump administration is poised to tell five nations, including allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey, that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to import oil from Iran.

U.S. officials say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce on Monday that the administration will not renew sanctions waivers for the five countries when they expire on May 2.

Refusing to offer new sanctions waivers is the latest sign that Trump is once again giving in to the most extreme Iran hawks. When sanctions on Iran's oil sector went into effect last November, the administration initially granted waivers to the top importers of Iranian oil to avoid a spike in the price of oil, but that is now coming to an end. The economic war that the U.S. has been waging against Iran over the last year is about to expand to include some of the world's biggest economies and some of America's leading trading partners. It is certain to inflict more hardship on the Iranian people, and it will damage relations between the U.S. and other major economic powers, including China and India, but it will have no discernible effect on the Iranian government's behavior and policies. India, China, and Turkey are practically guaranteed to ignore U.S. demands that they eliminate all Iranian oil imports.

Josh Rogin reported on the same story:

The decision to end waivers has implications for world oil markets, which have been eagerly anticipating President Trump's decision on whether to extend waivers. The officials said market disruption should be minimal for two reasons: supply is now greater than demand and Pompeo is also set to announce offsets through commitments from other suppliers such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump spoke about the issue Thursday with the UAE's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no good reason as part of a regime change policy that can't and won't succeed. It cannot be emphasized enough that the reimposition of sanctions on Iran is completely unwarranted and represents a betrayal of previous U.S. commitments to Iran and our allies under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The decision to refuse any new sanctions waivers is a clear sign that the most fanatical members of the Trump administration have prevailed in internal debates and U.S. Iran policy is held hostage to their whims.


liberal, says: April 21, 2019 at 11:44 pm

Maybe Trump will reap the benefits of this if oil prices go up a lot and it torpedos his reelection in 2020.

One thing I'm really not clear on how are these proposed sanctions against third parties (e.g. Japan, etc etc) not a violation of trade agreements? Are there escape clauses in those agreements that allow the US to do these things, or is it merely that these other countries are (usually) not willing to rely on the trade agreements' protections because, at the end of the day, it would mean a trade war with the US, which they're not willing to countenance?

JR , says: April 22, 2019 at 6:27 am
One would be naive to expect any truth from Pompeo. Self satisfied creature considers this funny too. How deep can one sink..

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tsnAR3yqfQ0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

cosmo , says: April 22, 2019 at 7:19 am
Iran policy ??? What about foreign policy in general ?? Interventionism is NOT what Americans want, or can afford! No more lives & limbs (and dollars) for foreign countries!!
Dry Dock , says: April 22, 2019 at 8:34 am
"Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no good reason "

But there is a good reason. Forcing up oil prices is a shot in the arm for the Saudi economy. Remember "Israel first, and Saudi Arabia second". That formula explains most of Trump's foreign policy, the rest being a jumble of random impulses and the consequences of infighting among his advisors.

KXB , says: April 22, 2019 at 10:24 am
Gas is already $3.20 in the Chicago suburbs, and we are not into the summer driving season yet. Overseas – India is going to the poll. India imports most of its oil, and Iran is a major supplier. Yes, the Saudis have been trying to get India to switch over to more Saudi imports – but it would look like "strong" Modi is giving in to Trump and MBS.
TheSnark , says: April 22, 2019 at 10:59 am
We are going to sanction China for buying Iranian oil? Does anyone seriously think they are going to submit to that gracefully? Japan and Korea might, they are much smaller and stuck with us. But China?

And I seriously doubt that sanctioning India for buying Iranian oil will advance our strategic alliance with them, either.

[Apr 22, 2019] Mike Pompeo reveals true motto of CIA: 'We lied, we cheated, we stole'

This memorable statement is at 3:53 ;-)
Apr 22, 2019 | www.youtube.com

JR says: April 22, 2019 at 6:27 am

One would be naive to expect any truth from Pompeo. Self satisfied creature considers this funny too. How deep can one sink..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsnAR3yqfQ0

[Apr 22, 2019] Our Iran Policy Is Run By Fanatics

Apr 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Trump administration won't be issuing any more waivers to importers of Iranian oil:

The Trump administration is poised to tell five nations, including allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey, that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to import oil from Iran.

U.S. officials say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce on Monday that the administration will not renew sanctions waivers for the five countries when they expire on May 2.

Refusing to offer new sanctions waivers is the latest sign that Trump is once again giving in to the most extreme Iran hawks. When sanctions on Iran's oil sector went into effect last November, the administration initially granted waivers to the top importers of Iranian oil to avoid a spike in the price of oil, but that is now coming to an end. The economic war that the U.S. has been waging against Iran over the last year is about to expand to include some of the world's biggest economies and some of America's leading trading partners. It is certain to inflict more hardship on the Iranian people, and it will damage relations between the U.S. and other major economic powers, including China and India, but it will have no discernible effect on the Iranian government's behavior and policies. India, China, and Turkey are practically guaranteed to ignore U.S. demands that they eliminate all Iranian oil imports.

Josh Rogin reported on the same story:

The decision to end waivers has implications for world oil markets, which have been eagerly anticipating President Trump's decision on whether to extend waivers. The officials said market disruption should be minimal for two reasons: supply is now greater than demand and Pompeo is also set to announce offsets through commitments from other suppliers such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump spoke about the issue Thursday with the UAE's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no good reason as part of a regime change policy that can't and won't succeed. It cannot be emphasized enough that the reimposition of sanctions on Iran is completely unwarranted and represents a betrayal of previous U.S. commitments to Iran and our allies under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The decision to refuse any new sanctions waivers is a clear sign that the most fanatical members of the Trump administration have prevailed in internal debates and U.S. Iran policy is held hostage to their whims.


liberal, says: April 21, 2019 at 11:44 pm

Maybe Trump will reap the benefits of this if oil prices go up a lot and it torpedos his reelection in 2020.

One thing I'm really not clear on how are these proposed sanctions against third parties (e.g. Japan, etc etc) not a violation of trade agreements? Are there escape clauses in those agreements that allow the US to do these things, or is it merely that these other countries are (usually) not willing to rely on the trade agreements' protections because, at the end of the day, it would mean a trade war with the US, which they're not willing to countenance?

JR , says: April 22, 2019 at 6:27 am
One would be naive to expect any truth from Pompeo. Self satisfied creature considers this funny too. How deep can one sink..

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tsnAR3yqfQ0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

cosmo , says: April 22, 2019 at 7:19 am
Iran policy ??? What about foreign policy in general ?? Interventionism is NOT what Americans want, or can afford! No more lives & limbs (and dollars) for foreign countries!!
Dry Dock , says: April 22, 2019 at 8:34 am
"Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no good reason "

But there is a good reason. Forcing up oil prices is a shot in the arm for the Saudi economy. Remember "Israel first, and Saudi Arabia second". That formula explains most of Trump's foreign policy, the rest being a jumble of random impulses and the consequences of infighting among his advisors.

KXB , says: April 22, 2019 at 10:24 am
Gas is already $3.20 in the Chicago suburbs, and we are not into the summer driving season yet. Overseas – India is going to the poll. India imports most of its oil, and Iran is a major supplier. Yes, the Saudis have been trying to get India to switch over to more Saudi imports – but it would look like "strong" Modi is giving in to Trump and MBS.
TheSnark , says: April 22, 2019 at 10:59 am
We are going to sanction China for buying Iranian oil? Does anyone seriously think they are going to submit to that gracefully? Japan and Korea might, they are much smaller and stuck with us. But China?

And I seriously doubt that sanctioning India for buying Iranian oil will advance our strategic alliance with them, either.

[Apr 22, 2019] Brzezinski s Warning to America by Mike Whitney

Notable quotes:
"... What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book, Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition (decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos. ..."
"... Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future. ..."
"... Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order. ..."
"... "The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today" Thanks for the laugh. It was over with the passing of the 1947 National Security Act. ..."
"... It is not a coincidence that this anti-Russian climate of hatred started back when Putin showed up the left's president, Barack Obama, over Libya. ..."
"... political globalists who wanted a liberal world order but didn't think about the economic side of things much and so let their economic policy be decided by the central banking mafia ..."
"... You should think more about US being aced. Syria was a masterstroke, but so was Ukraine, and not for Russia. Russia lost an extremely valuable ally and a trully brother nation, maybe forever. Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia. ..."
"... You definitely missed last 25 years of Russian-Ukrainian relations. You also, evidently, have very vague understanding of the Ukrainian inner dynamics. I am not sure we can speak of "brother nation" because Ukraine as political nation (and she did form as such by early 2000s) can not be "brother nation" to Russia by definition. In fact, being anti-Russia is the only natural state of Ukrainian political nation ..."
"... As it turned out, Russia is doing just fine without Ukraine. In a long run, if what is called Ukraine today decides to commit suicide by the cop, she sure can try to place US military bases East of Dniepr and we will observe a rather peculiar case of fireworks. ..."
"... It would have been a total catastrophe for Russia had she lost Sebastopol; but so long as Crimea is safely in Moscow's hands, Ukraine is not make-or-break. Russia's global position now, in fact, is even stronger than it was in 2014. ..."
"... Western corporations have been competing with each other (for decades now) to offshore everything to reduce costs /increase profits. The idea is to sell at Western prices and produce at Eastern prices, and this arbitrage has reached crazy proportions. ..."
"... Jews also hate nationalism since it threatens their (minority) power and highlights dual loyalty (or no loyalty) so the Zio-Glob are on one side, and the public on the other, with little common ground between them. ..."
"... At least Brzezinski became well aware of this shift. So many of America's neo-conservatives have largely failed in expressing this defeat. Between Brzezinski and Boot, & the Others, they've all turned out to be fanatic ideologues. ..."
Apr 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today, is rapidly collapsing. The center of gravity is shifting from west to east where China and India are experiencing explosive growth and where a revitalized Russia has restored its former stature as a credible global superpower. These developments, coupled with America's imperial overreach and chronic economic stagnation, have severely hampered US ability to shape events or to successfully pursue its own strategic objectives. As Washington's grip on global affairs continues to loosen and more countries reject the western development model, the current order will progressively weaken clearing the way for a multipolar world badly in need of a new security architecture. Western elites, who are unable to accept this new dynamic, continue to issue frenzied statements expressing their fear of a future in which the United States no longer dictates global policy.

At the 2019 Munich Security Conference, Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, underscored many of these same themes. Here's an excerpt from his presentation:

"The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was Not only do war and violence play a more prominent role again: a new great power confrontation looms at the horizon. In contrast to the early 1990s, liberal democracy and the principle of open markets are no longer uncontested .

In this international environment, the risk of an inter-state war between great and middle powers has clearly increased .What we had been observing in many places around the world was a dramatic increase in brinkmanship, that is, highly risky actions on the abyss – the abyss of war .

No matter where you look, there are countless conflicts and crises the core pieces of the international order are breaking apart, without it being clear whether anyone can pick them up – or even wants to. ("Who will pick up the pieces?", Munich Security Conference )

Ischinger is not alone in his desperation nor are his feelings limited to elites and intellectuals. By now, most people are familiar with the demonstrations that have rocked Paris, the political cage-match that is tearing apart England (Brexit), the rise of anti-immigrant right-wing groups that have sprung up across Europe, and the surprising rejection of the front-runner candidate in the 2016 presidential elections in the US. Everywhere the establishment and their neoliberal policies are being rejected by the masses of working people who have only recently begun to wreak havoc on a system that has ignored them for more than 30 years. Trump's public approval ratings have improved, not because he has "drained the swamp" as he promised, but because he is still seen as a Washington outsider despised by the political class, the foreign policy establishment and the media. His credibility rests on the fact that he is hated by the coalition of elites who working people now regard as their sworn enemy.

The president of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, summed up his views on the "weakening of the liberal world order" in an article that appeared on the CFR's website. Here's what he said:

"Attempts to build global frameworks are failing. Protectionism is on the rise; the latest round of global trade talks never came to fruition. .At the same time, great power rivalry is returning

There are several reasons why all this is happening, and why now. The rise of populism is in part a response to stagnating incomes and job loss, owing mostly to new technologies but widely attributed to imports and immigrants. Nationalism is a tool increasingly used by leaders to bolster their authority, especially amid difficult economic and political conditions .

But the weakening of the liberal world order is due, more than anything else, to the changed attitude of the U.S. Under President Donald Trump, the US decided against joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. It has threatened to leave the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. It has unilaterally introduced steel and aluminum tariffs, relying on a justification (national security) that others could use, in the process placing the world at risk of a trade war .America First" and the liberal world order seem incompatible." ("Liberal World Order, R.I.P.", Richard Haass, CFR )

What Haass is saying is that the cure for globalisation is more globalization, that the greatest threat to the liberal world order is preventing the behemoth corporations from getting more of what they want; more self-aggrandizing trade agreements, more offshoring of businesses, more outsourcing of jobs, more labor arbitrage, and more privatization of public assets and critical resources. Trade liberalization is not liberalization, it does not strengthen democracy or create an environment where human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law are respected. It's a policy that focuses almost-exclusively on the free movement of capital in order to enrich wealthy shareholders and fatten the bottom line. The sporadic uprisings around the world– Brexit, yellow vests, emergent right wing groups– can all trace their roots back to these one-sided, corporate-friendly trade deals that have precipitated the steady slide in living standards, the shrinking of incomes, and the curtailing of crucial benefits for the great mass of working people across the US and Europe. President Trump is not responsible for the outbreak of populism and social unrest, he is merely an expression of the peoples rage. Trump's presidential triumph was a clear rejection of the thoroughly-rigged elitist system that continues to transfer the bulk of the nation's wealth to tiniest layer of people at the top.

Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future.

As we noted earlier, the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, which is the one incontrovertible fact that cannot be denied. Washington's brief unipolar moment –following the breakup of the Soviet Union in December, 1991 -- has already passed and new centers of industrial and financial power are gaining pace and gradually overtaking the US in areas that are vital to America's primacy. This rapidly changing economic environment is accompanied by widespread social discontent, seething class-based resentment, and ever-more radical forms of political expression. The liberal order is collapsing, not because the values espoused in the 60s and 70s have lost their appeal, but because inequality is widening, the political system has become unresponsive to the demands of the people, and because US can no longer arbitrarily impose its will on the world.

Globalization has fueled the rise of populism, it has helped to exacerbate ethnic and racial tensions, and it is largely responsible for the hollowing out of America's industrial core. Haass's antidote would only throw more gas on the fire and hasten the day when liberals and conservatives form into rival camps and join in a bloody battle to the end. Someone has to stop the madness before the country descends into a second Civil War.

What Haass fails to discuss, is Washington's perverse reliance on force to preserve the liberal world order, after all, it's not like the US assumed its current dominant role by merely competing more effectively in global markets. Oh, no. Behind the silk glove lies the iron fist, which has been used in over 50 regime change operations since the end of WW2. The US has over 800 military bases scattered across the planet and has laid to waste one country after the other in successive interventions, invasions and occupations for as long as anyone can remember. This penchant for violence has been sharply criticized by other members of the United Nations, but only Russia has had the courage to openly oppose Washington where it really counts, on the battlefield.

Russia is presently engaged in military operations that have either prevented Washington from achieving its strategic objectives (like Ukraine) or rolled back Washington's proxy-war in Syria. Naturally, liberal elites like Haass feel threatened by these developments since they are accustomed to a situation in which 'the world is their oyster'. But, alas, oysters have been removed from the menu, and the United States is going to have to make the adjustment or risk a third world war.

What Russian President Vladimir Putin objects to, is Washington's unilateralism, the cavalier breaking of international law to pursue its own imperial ambitions. Ironically, Putin has become the greatest defender of the international system and, in particular, the United Nations which is a point he drove home in his presentation at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 28, 2015, just two days before Russian warplanes began their bombing missions in Syria. Here's part of what he said:

"The United Nations is unique in terms of legitimacy, representation and universality .We consider any attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the United Nations as extremely dangerous. It may result in the collapse of the entire architecture of international relations, leaving no rules except the rule of force. The world will be dominated by selfishness rather than collective effort, by dictate rather than equality and liberty, and instead of truly sovereign nations we will have colonies controlled from outside."(Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly )

Putin's speech, followed by the launching of the Russian operation in Syria, was a clear warning to the foreign policy establishment that they would no longer be allowed to topple governments and destroy countries with impunity. Just as Putin was willing to put Russian military personnel at risk in Syria, so too, he will probably put them at risk in Venezuela, Lebanon, Ukraine and other locations where they might be needed. And while Russia does not have anywhere near the raw power of the US military, Putin seems to be saying that he will put his troops in the line of fire to defend international law and the sovereignty of nations. Here's Putin again:

"We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to be done and thus they don't need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands in their way .

We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember examples from our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences and caused degradation instead of progress.

It seems, however, that instead of learning from other people's mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export revolutions, only now these are "democratic" revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa already mentioned by the previous speaker. Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention indiscriminately destroyed government institutions and the local way of life. Instead of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters and total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life.

I'm urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you've done?" (Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly)

Here Putin openly challenges the concept of a 'liberal world order' which in fact is a sobriquet used to conceal Washington's relentless plundering of the planet. There's nothing liberal about toppling regimes and plunging millions of people into anarchy, poverty and desperation. Putin is simply trying to communicate to US leaders that the world is changing, that nations in Asia are gaining strength and momentum, and that Washington will have to abandon the idea that any constraint on its behavior is a threat to its national security interests.

Former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, appears to agree on this point and suggests that the US begin to rethink its approach to foreign policy now that the world has fundamentally changed and other countries are demanding a bigger place at the table.

What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book, Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition (decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos. Here's a short excerpt from an article

he wrote in 2016 for the American Interest titled "Toward a Global Realignment":

"The fact is that there has never been a truly "dominant" global power until the emergence of America on the world scene .That era is now ending .As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture .The United States is still the world's politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power.

America can only be effective in dealing with the current Middle Eastern violence if it forges a coalition that involves, in varying degrees, also Russia and China .

A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision. It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual realization in Russia that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe. China's increasing role in the Middle East should reflect the reciprocal American and Chinese realization that a growing U.S.-PRC partnership in coping with the Middle Eastern crisis is an historically significant test of their ability to shape and enhance together wider global stability.

The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome, can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility.

Since the next twenty years may well be the last phase of the more traditional and familiar political alignments with which we have grown comfortable, the response needs to be shaped now . And that accommodation has to be based on a strategic vision that recognizes the urgent need for a new geopolitical framework." ("Toward a Global Realignment", Zbigniew Brzezinski, The American Interest )

This strikes me as a particularly well-reasoned and insightful article. It shows that Brzezinski understood that the world had changed, that power had shifted eastward, and that the only path forward for America was cooperation, accommodation, integration and partnership. Tragically, there is no base of support for these ideas on Capital Hill, the White House or among the U.S. foreign policy establishment. The entire political class and their allies in the media unanimously support a policy of belligerence, confrontation and war. The United States will not prevail in a confrontation with Russia and China any more than it will be able to turn back the clock to the post war era when America, the Superpower, reigned supreme. Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order.


Walt , says: April 13, 2019 at 11:22 pm GMT

Zbig has fially admitted that America needs to become friends with Russia. We can not handle the world alone,but with Russia we would have 90% of the worlds nuclear weapons and vast geopolitical ifluence. Americans do hot have anything against Russia. It is the neocon cabal that is fostering conflict . Thet just can not get over the fact that they tried and failed to take control of Russia. They are trying to do so to the u.S.A.
Walt , says: April 13, 2019 at 11:24 pm GMT
Zbig is right. We need to be friends with Russia , not enemies.
China girl , says: April 14, 2019 at 2:30 am GMT
"2. Russia should become the real leader of the new process. (It has already become it but not yet aware of the fact.) The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible only through Russia. Only Russia in an alliance with the Muslim world can keep China in check without conflicts, helping it find its new place in the world as another super-power.

3. Leaders of Russia, America, Israel, Europe, Iran, India, and international financial capitals must initiate a dialogue over leaving this crisis behind and preventing events like those which swept America on September 11.

A time of change is upon us, and it's futile to wish we were living in some other era. We have to change ourselves and change the world "

Novaya Gazeta
No. 75
October 2001
THE THIRD FORCE OF WORLD WAR III

[MORE]

"THE AMERICANS DON'T REALIZE IT YET, BUT CHINA HAS WRITTEN ITS OWN SCRIPT FOR SQUEEZING THE UNITED STATES OFF THE WORLD STAGE. CHINA SUPPORTS ACTIONS OF THE WEST AIMED AT MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION OF RUSSIA AND THE MUSLIM WORLD. THE WEST, RUSSIA, ISRAEL, AND THE MUSLIM WORLD MUST WORK TOGETHER.

THE WESTERN SCRIPT

[ ]

"Using techniques of manipulating public opinion, the West is trying to establish the illusion of a global forces with the fascist- like ideology of Wahhabi fundamentalism. As far as the West is concerned, Wahhabi and Islam are the same thing. It is because of this that the essential terrorism of Wahhabi ideas is being formulated so simply for public consumption: all Muslims are terrorists by nature.

The preliminary objective of brainwashing (Islam is the basis of terrorism) is thus achieved. "

"This script becomes possible when we assume that some Western elites and secret services made a kind of covert pact with this still-unknown Player."

THE CHINESE SCRIPT

[ ]

" Throw a great deal of dollars into the market all at once, and the dollar will crash. A conflict with Taiwan may follow. It will be a conflict waged with American money, with American weapons, investment, and high technology. Add the nuclear factor here. Suffice it to recall the recent scandal when Chinese intelligence obtained all major nuclear secrets of the United States. "

Author: Viktor Minin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, http://www.wps.ru/e_index.html%5D

http://www.russialist.org/archives/5497-14.php

MarkinLA , says: April 14, 2019 at 3:24 am GMT
What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book, Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition (decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos.

So somebody put forth a deluded crack-pot idea that got great traction and made a lot of people very rich and powerful who want to stay that way, but the originator now says he was wrong and we should change. Yeah, those rich and powerful people just have to agree to give up some of that. How likely is that without a major catastrophe forcing them, given what we know about human nature?

Maybe the lesson is to have realistic ideas about foreign policy and relations in the future. Did anybody seriously believe countries with long histories like Russia and China were always going to be happy playing second fiddle to the US?

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 14, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT

Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future.

True, but their problem is compounded with their fear which is anchored in the past, whose real history blows all current, being discredited as I type this, narratives out of the water. This, plus most of them, Haas and CFR included, do not operate with actual facts and data.

anon [423] Disclaimer , says: April 14, 2019 at 12:45 pm GMT
"The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world"

Unfortunately, this is probably not entirely feasible considering the United States's inappropriately close relationship to Israel and the American government's radical stance of forcing LGBTQ issues; as San Jose proves, these people aren't simply going to leave you alone, but rather they will make you conform under threat. Probably what will happen in the future is a Japan-EU-Russia alliance that makes peace with the Middle East and contains the Chinese military as much as possible.

The US could very well find itself cut out at some point. It has already proved itself both reckless and incompetent with its handling of Iran, Israel, and Venezuela. Also, I suspect that neither ordinary EU citizens nor Asians will want to be ruled over by a group of POC racists who discriminate against Europeans, Asian males, and traditional families.

I think the rest of the world should begin considering alternate defense arrangements. The US cannot afford to defend their interests forever with an aging, shrinking white Caucasian population and a growing, less capable and less conscientious replacement population less willing to die in imperial wars. Increasingly, the US will be less capable of defending others in the Pacific from China as it Affirmative Actions its air force; Obama was trying to do that throughout the whole of the American military and accomplished his objective by lowering standards. I think this process should continue in the future with disastrous results.

In the future, Asia will try to make peace with China before they get too strong and China will reciprocate with generous territorial concessions in exchange for neutrality. For example, the Chinese may relinquish territorial claims in the Philippines in exchange for a treaty stating that the Philippines will not base the American military or buy weapons from them, but they would be allowed to buy weapons from third parties such as the Russians. A series of moves like this might dramatically weaken the American position in the region, allowing China to jumpskip to Africa and the Middle East more effectively. Perhaps a similar deal will be worked out with Taiwan: autonomy and a peace treaty in exchange for no weapon purchases or defense arrangements with the US, but Taiwan could still buy Russian weapons.

"Zbig has fially admitted that America needs to become friends with Russia."

As Karlin has noted, I don't see this happening in the near future, not with the insane levels of anti-Russian hate coming from the American left, some of which is just pure racial hatred of whites projected onto Russians.

bro3886 , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:08 pm GMT
All this is irrelevant in the long run. America will be a third-world country in 50 years or less. Imagine a government filled with AOCs, Omars, and Bookers, with a constituency that matches. Brazil of the North isn't going to be a superpower. We can look on that as a silver lining.
Republic , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:35 pm GMT

The United States will not prevail in a confrontation with Russia and China any more than it will be able to turn back the clock to the post war era when America, the Superpower, reigned supreme. Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order.

Very dangerous times are ahead. A declining superpower in late empire mode may make risky decisions. I wonder if America will have a Suez event in the upcoming decade? The 1956 Suez crisis heralded the rise of a new superpower and the eclipse of another one.

dearieme , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:37 pm GMT
@anon some of which is just pure racial hatred of whites projected onto Russians

That hadn't occurred to me. But can it be true?

Bill Jones , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
"The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today" Thanks for the laugh. It was over with the passing of the 1947 National Security Act.
Bill Jones , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMT
@Walt I don't know how fucked up you have to be to use "We" to refer to the murderous US State but you should seek competent professional psychiatric assistance, Soon.
anon [275] Disclaimer , says: April 14, 2019 at 3:42 pm GMT
"That hadn't occurred to me. But can it be true?"

The attitudes and political beliefs of your average Russian are very similar to many Red State conservatives, as has been noted on this webzine at least once in recent memory (and with an accompanying political map with similarities noted between American Blue and Red States compared with Russia). The American left projects its racist hate onto the Russians in response to those similarities.

It is not a coincidence that this anti-Russian climate of hatred started back when Putin showed up the left's president, Barack Obama, over Libya.

That also explains the left's hypocrisy on war: their tribe's racial leader, Obama, wanted war in Libya, so war is now good; Russia opposed it and later prevented war in Syria (which Obama wanted), so the Russians are now the bad guys. It's purely a matter of tribal affiliation and racial hate on the part of the American left.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 14, 2019 at 4:21 pm GMT
@Republic

I wonder if America will have a Suez event in the upcoming decade?

She already had it and one is unfolding right this moment. For an empire of this size and influence, granted declining dramatically, it takes a sequence of events. "Suez Moment" for Britain happened during WW II, the actual Suez crisis was merely a nominal conclusion to British Empire dying in WW II.

Anon [332] Disclaimer , says: April 14, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT
""Suez Moment" for Britain happened during WW II, the actual Suez crisis was merely a nominal conclusion to British Empire dying in WW II."

True. Syria might have been the American Suez Moment. We'll see in the coming years if we get a crisis that lays it all bare.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 14, 2019 at 5:22 pm GMT
@Anon

We'll see in the coming years if we get a crisis that lays it all bare.

Ongoing real Revolution in Military Affairs and US losing conventional (and nuclear) arms race is what unfolds right now. Realistically, Putin's March 1, 2018 Speech to Federal Assembly was also one of these moments -- as I said, the process is protracted and at each of its phases US geopolitical cards have been aced and trumped, NO pun intended.

notanon , says: April 14, 2019 at 6:04 pm GMT
when i read these people i get the impression there are two camps:

1) political globalists who wanted a liberal world order but didn't think about the economic side of things much and so let their economic policy be decided by the central banking mafia

and

2) The central banking mafia who understood globalization was simply their criminal looting of the West backed up by a big military who could be rented out from a corrupted political class.

it seems the first group still don't understand that it was the banking mafia's neoliberal economics
– currency debasement
– usury
– cheap labor
that destroyed their dream.

the same three things have been destroying civilizations for 3000 years.

notanon , says: April 14, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT

The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible only through Russia.

i think this is short-sighted. The global north needs to combine to contain the global south or the central banking mafia will eventually use them to destroy the north's genetic advantages and all our descendants will end up as 85 IQ slave-cattle.

Priss Factor , [AKA "Asagirian"] says: Website April 14, 2019 at 8:37 pm GMT
The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today, is rapidly collapsing.

Really? Where? US is still in Middle East and now threatens war with Iran. Venezuela is on the brink. Japan and EU are the ever loyal dogs of the US. If they've been upset with Trump, it's not because he wants to exert more influence but less.

Republic , says: April 14, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT
@Andrei Martyanov

the actual Suez crisis was merely a nominal conclusion to British Empire dying in WW II

The Atlantic charter signed aboard the HMS Prince of Wales, in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland on August 14, 1941 by FDR and Churchill was probably the moment when the old British empire traded places with the new global power, the United States. So you are correct in your analysis.

hgw , says: April 14, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT
@MarkinLA This is not really about history, it is about power. Many of the US allies have much longer histories, but that does not help them in the power department. China and Russia have enough power to stand only on their own two feet.
hgw , says: April 14, 2019 at 10:54 pm GMT
@Andrei Martyanov You should think more about US being aced. Syria was a masterstroke, but so was Ukraine, and not for Russia. Russia lost an extremely valuable ally and a trully brother nation, maybe forever. Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia.
Anon [341] Disclaimer , says: April 14, 2019 at 11:13 pm GMT

The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible only through Russia.

Sberbank calls on UAE businesses to invest in Russia, offers help

"According to the statement, the Gulf countries' total capital available for investment is estimated at more than $3.2 trillion but only "a small part" of capital earmarked for investing in Russia has actually gone into Russia-based projects."

"The Russian visitors set out Sberbank's technology strategy and described achievements by the Moscow-based lender in artificial intelligence development.

They also "pointed out interest in Islamic finance", the statement said."

http://emergingmarkets.me/sberbank-calls-on-uae-businesses-to-invest-in-russia-offers-help/

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 15, 2019 at 12:00 am GMT
@hgw

Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia.

You definitely missed last 25 years of Russian-Ukrainian relations. You also, evidently, have very vague understanding of the Ukrainian inner dynamics. I am not sure we can speak of "brother nation" because Ukraine as political nation (and she did form as such by early 2000s) can not be "brother nation" to Russia by definition. In fact, being anti-Russia is the only natural state of Ukrainian political nation.

There is another twist to all this–these are Russians now, who do not want to deal with Ukraine in any of her manifestations and, to rub the salt into the wound, Zbig was delusional when thought that denying Ukraine to Russia would spell the end of Russian "imperialism". As it turned out, Russia is doing just fine without Ukraine. In a long run, if what is called Ukraine today decides to commit suicide by the cop, she sure can try to place US military bases East of Dniepr and we will observe a rather peculiar case of fireworks.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 15, 2019 at 12:11 am GMT
@Republic

The Atlantic charter signed aboard the HMS Prince of Wales,in Placentia Bay,Newfoundland on August 14, 1941 by FDR and Churchill was probably the moment when the old British empire traded places with the new global power, the United States.

This happened in 1941 at secret ABC (America-Britain-Canada) consultations where Lord Halifax was trying to recruit American resources for defense of Britain's imperial interests. US "politely" declined. Big Three became Big Two and a Half at 1943 Tehran Conference at which Stalin was very specific that USSR wanted American as a head of Overlord.

All this pursuant to a strategic scandal between US and British Empire at Casablanca where General Stanley Embick of Marshall's OPD accused Britain in his memorandum of avoiding fighting main Nazi forces due to Britain's imperial interests. Churchill knew the significance of Tehran and suffered non-stop bouts of jealousy and suspicion towards FDR and Stalin.

I am sure Sir Winston knew that FDR wanted to meet Stalin without him. Stalin refused to do so without Churchill. As per "global power"–sure, except for one teeny-weeny fact (or rather facts), since WW II "global power" didn't win a single war against even more-or-less determined enemy.

Digital Samizdat , says: April 15, 2019 at 11:16 am GMT
@hgw

Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia.

It would have been a total catastrophe for Russia had she lost Sebastopol; but so long as Crimea is safely in Moscow's hands, Ukraine is not make-or-break. Russia's global position now, in fact, is even stronger than it was in 2014.

neutral , says: April 15, 2019 at 12:22 pm GMT
@bro3886

Brazil of the North

It will be much worse than Brazil, Brazil managed to cover up the reality that whites dominate politics and the economy (although there is a new push to copy the American affirmative action ideology). In America whites will not be able to do what is happening in Brazil, all politics will be non white dominated, likewise the woke corporate blue haired brigade will ensure that non whites dominate all companies, no exceptions allowed. The end result of this is predictable, Americans will be wishing they were like Brazil.

neutral , says: April 15, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@Republic No it was earlier, it was when it decided to declare war on the Third Reich. It decided that Poland was more important than keeping its empire.
Miro23 , says: April 15, 2019 at 2:07 pm GMT

Globalization has fueled the rise of populism, it has helped to exacerbate ethnic and racial tensions, and it is largely responsible for the hollowing out of America's industrial core.

Western corporations have been competing with each other (for decades now) to offshore everything to reduce costs /increase profits. The idea is to sell at Western prices and produce at Eastern prices, and this arbitrage has reached crazy proportions.

The US has in fact exported whole industrial sectors (with the jobs and innovation). Same in Europe with a company such as Decathlon (Europe's Nº1 sport goods supplier) entirely sourcing its products outside Europe.

Conclusion that if globalization fails, then so do these companies, and they have a massive incentive buy political protection from Western governments – which they are doing. Nationalism and America First are anathema to them and they have (amazingly) managed to built globalization and open frontiers into the ethos of the EU and US – with all the self-serving multicultural Save the World blah.

Jews also hate nationalism since it threatens their (minority) power and highlights dual loyalty (or no loyalty) so the Zio-Glob are on one side, and the public on the other, with little common ground between them.

This doesn't mean that it's impossible to stop outsourcing. If it happened, then Decathlon would either go bankrupt or have to switch production to Rumania or Portugal = higher prices, but at least the money would stay in Europe. Same with the other industries, and the first step has to be to cut down the power of the EU bureaucracy and Washington.

notanon , says: April 15, 2019 at 6:39 pm GMT
@neutral the banking mafia wanted war cos Hitler closed down the German branch of the central bank.

the rest was puppetry.

Willie , says: Website April 18, 2019 at 12:22 am GMT
Just prepare fort the impending surge in Totalitarian methods to halt the inevitable in the USA.
The rest of the world is not our playground.
Good luck.
Alfred , says: April 20, 2019 at 5:42 am GMT
@Andrei Martyanov Haas and CFR included, do not operate with actual facts and data.

Absolutely correct. Without an honest media, it is impossible to make good decisions.

Those Zionists who control the media in the West are deluding themselves. They will be the biggest losers when ordinary people finally wake up to the fact that they have been lied to for over 100 years – WW1, WW2, Palestine, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Russia, Crimea, MH-17, Skripals, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, 9/11 and many other instances.

Oristayne , says: April 20, 2019 at 6:36 am GMT
This is a phenomenal article. What an incredibly written piece; much respect to you Mike Whitney.
Ma Laoshi , says: April 20, 2019 at 7:20 am GMT
Not so fast. OK, so maybe Zbig had some second thoughts about the whole project in 2012. But didn't the same Zbig opine in 2015, at the start of Russia's Syria intervention, that the US should strike hard and fast before the Russkies managed to complete their buildup there? To me that sounded rather much like an unprovoked attack on Russian troops, who were legally in Syria at the invitation of its internationally recognized government.

Bottom line, for all of his far-too-long career Mr. Brzezinski has been exactly what one would expect from the spiritual father of al-Qaeda: a vile and reckless individual. Anyone looking that way for salvation needs some time out for reflection.

Iris , says: April 20, 2019 at 10:58 am GMT

This strikes me as a particularly well-reasoned and insightful article. It shows that Brzezinski understood that the world had changed, that power had shifted eastward,

This is an excellent article, which addresses the key historic driver of our time. By 2015, world GDP had already passed the threshold where the GDP share of the West had become lesser than the share of the Rest.

The major share of global wealth shifting towards Asia is an ineluctable historic re-alignment; it is a natural return to the long-term historic balance pre-Industrial Revolution.

Western politicians ' problem is that they don't want to "break the news" to their people that Western standards of living are going to degrade ineluctably over the coming years , because that would expose their incompetence, as well as highlight the need to address wealth inequality in the West .

It is easier instead to the blame the disenfranchised, pauperised citizens voting for Trump, Brexit, and other "extreme" political parties.

Ahuehuete , says: April 20, 2019 at 4:37 pm GMT
@bro3886 When you think about it, the USA is going to become the next South Africa.
Zbig , says: April 20, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT
Zbig was, and still is, even tho' he is dead now. He was the original zio-neocon illuminist satantic globalist elite.
Rubby2 , says: April 21, 2019 at 3:24 am GMT
@Walt

At least Brzezinski became well aware of this shift. So many of America's neo-conservatives have largely failed in expressing this defeat. Between Brzezinski and Boot, & the Others, they've all turned out to be fanatic ideologues.

Endgame Napoleon , says: April 21, 2019 at 11:48 pm GMT
@notanon Ralph Nader used to say the big issue is money in politics -- the money that "Congress Critters" use to get their government jobs at $174k. To get one of those government jobs, you don't have to understand something as complex as the banking system, which is made more opaque by the globalist neoliberals who want to maintain the Cheap Labor Lobby's beloved status quo.

You don't have to be Nomi Prins, someone who actually worked on Wall Street and knows its nooks and crannies, to get a Congress Critter job. You just have to be the right kind of pander bear with the right kind of faux outrage at selective moments.

The other problem is that -- like most of us in the general public -- Congress Critters have to rely on people in the financial system to navigate the terrain. It's a math-heavy field. Politicians have apparently always done this. They have created more than one era with too-big-to-fail institutions. That is what one of Prins' books describes.

But it does not matter whether it's bankers or the manufacturers, employing welfare-assisted illegal aliens or foreign nationals on foreign soil. And it does not matter that Congress Critters occasionally put the bigwigs on the hot seat as a PR stunt. They aren't going to do anything to actually change policy unless the corporate masters who fund their campaigns give them the go ahead. And they don't really even understand why.

[MORE]

If you think Congress Critters understand the global banking system, you should watch the banking committee hearing on C-SPAN, where they grilled the Treasury Secretary, dressing him down like he was a $10-per-hour call center worker. It makes for good theater.

Just like at a call center, the humiliation parade had nothing to do with the details of the work or getting anything done other than convincing voters that a bunch of fabulously wealthy legislators (every one) with a 212-day work year really care, especially about predatory factors in the financial system that supposedly affect only oppressed skin-pigmentation factions, located in their districts.

You vicariously enjoy rebellious facial expressions that you could never exhibit during a frequently absentee mom manager's tirades for fear of being fired from a churn job that does not cover the cost of rent that has risen by 72% over 25 years, even when you add any paltry commission for taking the trouble to always meeting your numbers. But that will be the extent of it. It is for show.

My favorite part was Empire-related; it involved the Rep. from Guam, a Congress Critter from one of US's far-flung territories. His mild and precise disposition made a strong contrast with the Chairwoman's fiery ambiguity. Since his questions were math-related and about specific budgetary matters, the Treasury Secretary seemed more frazzled than when he was receiving the emotional Sermon from the gavel-happy chairwoman.

Guam Rep asked the Treasury Secretary about a massive transference of funds from the budget, affecting things like the territory's education budget, trying to clarify whether the Earned Income Tax Credit was actually a "liability."

The language of most of our legislators reflects how bought off they are by the Cheap Labor Lobby. Which is why this Rep from Guam's straight-forward language was so refreshing.

By design, the "Child" "Tax" "Credit" and the Earned Income Tax Credit sound like things that would not subtract from the overall budget to me, too, but this is not money going to people who paid too much income tax. This is money that is credited back to people who make too little to pay income tax.

The moms often call it their "taxes," when explaining to you what they plan to spend it on. It is not education, Rep. from Guam. It is stuff like trips to the beach with a boyfriend and tattoos. That's doable for many low-wage mom workers since their major monthly bills are covered by government.

I enjoyed the Treasury Secretary's facial expressions at this point as well. It appeared to be two math types who didn't really thrive on the process of figuring out how to spin this fiscal irresponsibility, squirming in their chairs and / or looking kind of aghast at the absurdity of the situation.

It would have been nice if the Rep from Guam had been honest enough to narrow that down even more, explaining that the small amount of EITC money going to non-womb-productive, non-welfare-eligible citizens who mostly don't bother to claim such a paltry sum is the not the big issue.

It is the Refundable Child Tax Credit up to $6,431, not so much the smaller maximum EITC of up to $451. It is the big check, given as an additional reward to single-breadwinner, womb-productive households that also often receive free EBT food, reduced-cost rent, monthly cash assistance and free electricity when the single breadwinner works part-time, keeping her income under the earned-income limits for the programs.

He mentioned that Guam has a lot of poor workers like that, but so does the mainland. It is one of the big reasons for the impending collapse: undremployment of prime-aged citizens.

If it is due to technology, it is just because employers of office workers now mostly need data entry people since advanced software does most of the mid-level analytical work. And employers love to hire a near-100% womb-productive "diversity"of childbearing-aged moms with spousal income, rent-covering child support or welfare and refundable child tax credit cash who do not need decent pay or full-time hours. "It would mess them up with the government," as one all-mom employer put it.

Employers benefit from a welfare-fueled workforce that does not need higher pay. The Cheap Labor Lobby benefits. Congress Critters at $174k benefit via fat campaign war chests, but the many welfare-ineligible job seekers who need for pay alone to cover all household bills are screwed royally in this rigged system.

It is also screwing the SS Trust Fund that is no longer running surpluses and a lot of other things.

Guam Rep asked the Treasury Secretary if he was responsible and, specifically, what could he done to help restore fiscal order. Of course, the Treasury Secretary isn't responsible for the mid-allocation of funds. Pandering Congress Critters are. They have the "power of the purse" per US Constitution. The Treasury Sec. just tries to balance the books.

But it was nice that at least one of them showed some non-theatrical concern for finding out which of the six-figure Critters is responsible. He sounded like he wanted constructive action to stop the Neoliberal House of Cards from just putting more structurally unsound cards on the deck.

Good luck with that

[Apr 21, 2019] Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond

Highly recommended!
Powerful video about US propaganda machine. Based on Iraq War propaganda efforts. This is a formidable machine.
Shows quite vividly that most US politicians of Bush era were war criminal by Nuremberg Tribunal standards. Starting with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They planned the war of aggression against Iraq long before 9/11.
Apr 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Desolation Row , Apr 20, 2019 10:21:11 PM | link

Desolation Row | Apr 20, 2019 10:09:06 PM | 41

Psywar

Source: https://vimeo.com/14772678 @ 48:15

[Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers. ..."
"... Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer. ..."
"... The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway. ..."
"... No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way ..."
"... " ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people." ..."
"... All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests. ..."
"... A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter. ..."
"... "The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result " ..."
"... But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world. ..."
"... I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter! ..."
"... Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them. ..."
"... The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself. ..."
"... Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. ..."
"... That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it. ..."
"... [The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. ..."
"... Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran. ..."
"... Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington. ..."
"... Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say. ..."
"... Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse. ..."
"... Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.) ..."
"... Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress? ..."
"... Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies. ..."
Oct 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

Fran Macadam , October 20, 2017 at 3:08 pm GMT

A credible reading of the diverse facts, Mike.
Kirk Elarbee , October 20, 2017 at 8:27 pm GMT
Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/everyone-hacked-everyone-hacked-everyone-spy-spin-fuels-anti-kaspersky-campaign.html

utu , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:18 am GMT
Again Mike Whitney does not get it. Though in the first part of the article I thought he would. He was almost getting there. The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.

Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope.

Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer.

Pamela Geller: Thank You, Larry David

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/10/19/pamela-geller-thank-larry-david/

anon , Disclaimer Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:54 am GMT
OK.

The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway.

No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way

The one thing I am not positive about. If the elite really believe that Russia is a threat, then Americans have done psych ops on themselves.

The US was only interested in Ukraine because it was there. Next in line on a map. The rather shocking disinterest in investing money -- on both sides -- is inexplicable if it was really important. Most of it would be a waste -- but still. The US stupidly spent $5 billion on something -- getting duped by politicians and got theoretical regime change, but it was hell to pry even $1 billion for real economic aid.

ThereisaGod , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 6:37 am GMT
" ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people."

All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests.

jilles dykstra , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 6:46 am GMT
I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA, 1492 to the Present. A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops.
Logan , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 11:16 am GMT
@jilles dykstra

You should be aware that Zinn's book is not, IMO, an honest attempt at writing history. It is conscious propaganda intended to make Americans believe exactly what you are taking from it.

DESERT FOX , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 1:30 pm GMT
The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter.

Until that fact changes Americans will continue to fight and die for Israel.

TG , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 2:03 pm GMT
"The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result "

But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world.

I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter!

Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them.

Anonymous , Disclaimer Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 2:05 pm GMT
Whitney is another author who declares the "Russians did it" narrative a psyop. He then devotes entire columns to the psyop, "naww Russia didn't do it". There could be plenty to write about – recent laws that do undercut liberty, but no, the Washington Post needs fake opposition to its fake news so you have guys like Whitney in the less-mainstream fake news media.

So Brennan wanted revenge? Well that's simple enough to understand, without being too stupid. But Whitney's whopper of a lie is what you're supposed to unquestionably believe. The US has "rival political parties". Did you miss it?

Jake , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 2:32 pm GMT
The US is doing nothing more than acting as the British Empire 2.0. WASP culture was born of a Judaizing heresy: Anglo-Saxon Puritanism. That meant that the WASP Elites of every are pro-Jewish, especially in order to wage war, physical and/or cultural, against the vast majority of white Christians they rule.

By the early 19th century, The Brit Empire's Elites also had a strong, and growing, dose of pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic philoSemitism. Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.

So, by the time of Victoria's high reign, the Brit WASP Elites were a strange brew of hardcoree pro-Jewish and hardcore pro-Arabic/islamic. The US foreign policy of today is an attempt to put those two together and force it on everyone and make it work.

The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself.

Logan , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Grandpa Charlie

Fair enough. I didn't know that about the foreword. If accurate, that's a reasonable approach for a book.

Here's the problem.

Back when O. Cromwell was the dictator of England, he retained an artist to paint him. The custom of the time was for artists to "clean up" their subjects, in a primitive form of photoshopping.

OC being a religious fanatic, he informed the artist he wished to be portrayed as God had made him, "warts and all." (Ollie had a bunch of unattractive facial warts.) Or the artist wouldn't be paid.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/08/cromwell-portraitist-samuel-cooper-exhibition

Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so.

All I am asking is that American (and other) history be written "warts and all." The triumphalist version is true, largely, and so is the Zinn version. Gone With the Wind and Roots both portray certain aspects of the pre-war south fairly accurately..

America has been, and is, both evil and good. As is/was true of every human institution and government in history. Personally, I believe America, net/net, has been one of the greatest forces for human good ever. But nobody will realize that if only the negative side of American history is taught.

Wally , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:16 pm GMT
@Michael Kenny

Hasbarist 'Kenny', you said:

"There must be something really dirty in Russigate that hasn't yet come out to generate this level of panic."

You continue to claim what you cannot prove.

But then you are a Jews First Zionist.

Russia-Gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of "Russia-linked" social media ads, but the US mainstream media is determined to keep a straight face

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/10/robert-parry/jumping-the-shark/

Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet?

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-russia-story-falls-apart-is-skepticism-permissible-yet/

+ review of other frauds

Logan , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:20 pm GMT
@Jake

Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.

Thanks for the laugh. During the 19th century, the Sauds were toothless, dirt-poor hicks from the deep desert of zero importance on the world stage.

The Brits were not Saudi proponents, in fact promoting the Husseins of Hejaz, the guys Lawrence of Arabia worked with. The Husseins, the Sharifs of Mecca and rulers of Hejaz, were the hereditary enemies of the Sauds of Nejd.

After WWI, the Brits installed Husseins as rulers of both Transjordan and Iraq, which with the Hejaz meant the Sauds were pretty much surrounded. The Sauds conquered the Hejaz in 1924, despite lukewarm British support for the Hejaz.

Nobody in the world cared much about the Saudis one way or another until massive oil fields were discovered, by Americans not Brits, starting in 1938. There was no reason they should. Prior to that Saudi prominence in world affairs was about equal to that of Chad today, and for much the same reason. Chad (and Saudi Arabia) had nothing anybody else wanted.

Grandpa Charlie , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:25 pm GMT
@Michael Kenny

'Putin stopped talking about the "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade area long ago" -- Michael Kenney

Putin was simply trying to sell Russia's application for EU membership with the catch-phrase "Lisbon to Vladivostok". He continued that until the issue was triply mooted (1) by implosion of EU growth and boosterism, (2) by NATO's aggressive stance, in effect taken by NATO in Ukraine events and in the Baltics, and, (3) Russia's alliance with China.

It is surely still true that Russians think of themselves, categorically, as Europeans. OTOH, we can easily imagine that Russians in Vladivostok look at things differently than do Russians in St. Petersburg. Then again, Vladivostok only goes back about a century and a half.

Seamus Padraig , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:39 pm GMT
@utu

Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration.

I generally agree with your comment, but that part strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration. While relations with Russia certainly haven't improved, how have they really worsened? The second round of sanctions that Trump reluctantly approved have yet to be implemented by Europe, which was the goal. And apart from that, what of substance has changed?

Seamus Padraig , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Grandpa Charlie

That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era.

Ludwig Watzal , Website Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:46 pm GMT
It's not surprising that 57 percent of the American people believe in Russian meddling. Didn't two-thirds of the same crowd believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, too? The American public is being brainwashed 24 hours a day all year long.

The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it.

This disinformation campaign might be the prelude to an upcoming war.
Right now, the US is run by jerks and idiots. Watch the video.

anonymous , Disclaimer Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:50 pm GMT
Only dumb people does not know that TRUMP IS NETANYAHU'S PUPPET.

The fifth column zionist jews are running the albino stooge and foreign policy in the Middle East to expand Israel's interest against American interest that is TREASON. One of these FIFTH COLUMNISTS is Jared Kushner. He should be arrested.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/donald-trumps-likudist-campaign-against-iran/5614264

[The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.

Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.

Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it would be "terminated" if there was any renegotiation, according to Politico. He was calling Trump from Las Vegas, where he'd been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third major figure behind Trump's shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who has long been a close friend of Netanyahu's and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel Hayomto support Netanyahu's campaigns. He was Trump's main campaign contributor in 2016, donating $100 million. Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in Washington -- especially with regard to Iran.]

Miro23 , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 4:56 pm GMT
A great article with some excellent points:

Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington.

American dominance is very much tied to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency, and the rest of the world no longer want to fund this bankrupt, warlike state – particularly the Chinese.

First, it confirms that the US did not want to see the jihadist extremists defeated by Russia. These mainly-Sunni militias served as Washington's proxy-army conducting an ambitious regime change operation which coincided with US strategic ambitions.

The CIA run US/Israeli/ISIS alliance.

Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say.

They are given the political line and they broadcast it.

The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for the full implementation of an American police state. But what is more concerning, is that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people. That can only lead to trouble.

At some point Americans are going to get a "War on Domestic Terror" cheered along by the media. More or less the arrest and incarceration of any opposition following the Soviet Bolshevik model.

CanSpeccy , Website Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:11 pm GMT
@utu

On the plus side, everyone now knows that the Anglo-US media from the NY Times to the Economist, from WaPo to the Gruniard, and from the BBC to CNN, the CBC and Weinstein's Hollywood are a worthless bunch of depraved lying bastards.

Thales the Milesian , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:53 pm GMT
Brennan did this, CIA did that .

So what are you going to do about all this?

Continue to whine?

Continue to keep your head stuck in your ass?

So then continue with your blah, blah, blah, and eat sh*t.

You, disgusting self-elected democratic people/institutions!!!

AB_Anonymous , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:59 pm GMT
Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse.

The thing is, no matter how thick the mental cages are, and how carefully they are maintained by the daily massive injections of "certified" truth (via MSM), along with neutralizing or compromising of "troublemakers", the presence of multiple alternative sources in the age of Internet makes people to slip out of these cages one by one, and as the last events show – with acceleration.

It means that there's a fast approaching tipping point after which it'd be impossible for those in power both to keep a nice "civilized" face and to control the "cage-free" population. So, no matter how the next war will be called, it will be the war against the free Internet and free people. That's probably why N. Korean leader has no fear to start one.

Art , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 6:18 pm GMT
An aside:

All government secrecy is a curse on mankind. Trump is releasing the JFK murder files to the public. Kudos! Let us hope he will follow up with a full 9/11 investigation.

Think Peace -- Art

Mr. Anon , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:07 pm GMT
@utu

The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.

Good point. That was probably one of the objectives (and from the point of view of the deep-state, perhaps the most important objective) of the "Russia hacked our democracy" narrative, in addition to the general deligitimization of the Trump administration.

Art , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:11 pm GMT
And, keep in mind, Washington's Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and CIA-trained.

Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.)

Are committees of six congressman and six senators, who meet in secret, just avoiding the grave constitutional questions of war? We the People cannot even interrogate these politicians. (These politicians make big money in the secrecy swamp when they leave office.)

Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress?

Spying is one thing – covert action is another – covert is wrong – it goes against world order. Every year after 9/11 they say things are worse – give them more money more power and they will make things safe. That is BS!

9/11 has opened the flood gates to the US government attacking at will, the various peoples of this Earth. That is NOT our prerogative.

We are being exceptionally arrogant.

Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies.

Think Peace -- Art

Rurik , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:12 pm GMT
@Ben10

right at 1:47

when he says 'we can't move on as a country'

his butt hurt is so ruefully obvious, that I couldn't help notice a wry smile on my face

that bitch spent millions on the war sow, and now all that mullah won't even wipe his butt hurt

when I see ((guys)) like this raging their inner crybaby angst, I feel really, really good about President Trump

MAGA bitches!

Mr. Anon , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:15 pm GMT
@jilles dykstra

I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA

A Peoples History of the USA? Which Peoples?

Tradecraft46 , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 8:04 pm GMT
I am SAIS 70 so know the drill and the article is on point.

Here is the dealio. Most reporters are dim and have no experience, and it is real easy to lead them by the nose with promises of better in the future.

[Apr 21, 2019] Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. ..."
"... The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player. ..."
"... Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance. ..."
"... Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline. ..."
"... Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. ..."
"... A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions ..."
"... Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination. ..."
Oct 28, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. Alternative social forces, like the ones behind Trump's presidential triumph, only have a limited impact on domestic and ultimately on foreign policy. A conceptual detour and a brief on history and on Trump's domestic setting when he was elected will help clarifying these theses.

Beyond the different costumes that it wears (dealing with ideology, international law, and even religion), foreign policy follows domestic policy. The domestic policy actors are the social forces at work at a given point of time, mainly the economic agents and their ambitions (in their multiple expressions), including the ruling power elite. Society's aspirations not only relate to material welfare, but also to ideological priorities that population segments may have at a given point of time.

From America's initial days until the mid 1800s, there seems to have been a broad alignment of US foreign policy with the wishes of its power elite and other social forces. America's expansionism, a fundamental bulwark of its foreign policy from early days, reflected the need to fulfill its growing population's ambitions for land and, later on, the need to find foreign markets for its excess production, initially agricultural and later on manufacturing. It can be said that American foreign policy was broadly populist at that time. The power elite was more or less aligned in achieving these expansionist goals and was able to provide convenient ideological justification through the writings of Jefferson and Madison, among others.

As the country expanded, diverging interests became stronger and ultimately differing social forces caused a significant fracture in society. The American Civil War was the climax of the conflicted interests between agricultural and manufacturing led societies. Fifty years later, a revealing manifestation of this divergence (which survived the Civil War), as it relates to foreign policy, is found during the early days of the Russian Revolution when, beyond the ideological revulsion of Bolshevism, the US was paralyzed between the agricultural and farming businesses seeking exports to Russia and the domestic extractive industries interested in stopping exports of natural resources from this country.

The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player.

Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance.

Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline.

Trump won his presidency because he was able to get support from the country's growing frustrated white population. His main social themes (bringing jobs to America by stopping the decline of its manufacturing industry, preventing further US consumer dependence on foreign imports and halting immigration) fitted well with the electors' anger. Traditional populist themes linked to foreign policy (like Russophobia) did not play a big role in the last election. But whether or not the Trump administration can align with the ruling power elite in a manner that addresses the key social and economic needs of the American people is still to be seen.

Back to foreign policy, we need to distinguish between Trump's style of government and his administration's actions. At least until now, focusing excessively on Trump's style has dangerously distracted from his true intentions. One example is the confusion about his initial stance on NATO which was simplistically seen as highly critical to the very existence of this organization. On NATO, all that Trump really cared was to achieve a "fair" sharing of expenditures with other members and to press them to honor their funding commitments.

From immigration to defense spending, there is nothing irrational about Trump's foreign policy initiatives, as they just reflect a different reading on the American people's aspirations and, consequently, they attempt to rely on supporting points within the power elite which are different from the ones used in the past.

Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. A far-reaching lesson, although still being ignored, is that China's economic might is showing that capitalism as understood in the West is not winning, much less in its American format. It also shows that democracy may not be that relevant, as it is not necessarily a corollary or a condition for economic development. Perhaps it even shows the superiority of China's economic model, but this is a different matter.

As Trump becomes more aware about his limitations, he has naturally reversed to the basic imprints of America's traditional foreign policy, particularly concerning defense. His emphasis on a further increase in defense spending is not done for prestigious or national security reasons, but as an attempt to preserve a job generating infrastructure without considering the catastrophic consequences that it may cause.

On Iran, Obama's initiative to seek normalization was an attempt to walk a fine line (and to find a less conflictive path) between supporting the US traditional Middle East allies (mainly the odd combination of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and recognizing Iran's growing aspirations. Deep down, Obama was trying to acknowledge Iran's historical viability as a country and a society that will not disappear from the map, while Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, may not be around in a few years. Trump's Iran policy until now only represents a different weighing of priorities, although it is having far reaching consequences on America's credibility as a reliable contractual party in international affairs.

In the case of Afghanistan, Trump's decision to increase boots on the ground does not break the inertia of US past administrations. Aside from temporary containment, an increasing military presence or a change in tactics will not alter fundamentally this reality.

Concerning Russia, and regardless of what Trump has said, actions speak more than words. A continuous deterioration of relations seems inevitable.

Trump will also learn, if he has not done so already, about the growth of multipolar forces in world's events. Russia has mastered this reality for several years and is quite skillful at using it as a basic tool of its own foreign goals. Our multipolar world will expand, and Trump may even inadvertently exacerbate it through its actions (for instance in connection with the different stands taken by the US and its European allies concerning Iran).

While fulfilling the aspirations of the American people seems more difficult within the existing capitalist framework, there are also growing apprehensions coming from America's power elite as it becomes more frustrated due to its incapacity of being more effective at the world level. America's relative adolescence in world's history will become more and more apparent in the coming years.

A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions. The US has never suffered the consequences of an international conflict in its own backyard. The American Civil War, despite all the suffering that it caused, was primarily a domestic event with no foreign intervention (contrary to the wishes of the Confederation). The deep social and psychological damage caused by war is not part of America's consciousness as it is, for instance in Germany, Russia or Japan. America is insensitive to the lessons of history because it has a very short history itself.

Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination.

Oscar Silva-Valladares is a former investment banker that has lived and worked in North and Latin America, Western & Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the Philippines and Western Africa. He currently chairs Davos International Advisory, an advisory firm focused on strategic consulting across emerging markets.


Related

[Apr 21, 2019] Whenever someone inconveniences the neoliberal oligarchy, the entire neoliberal MSM mafia tells us 24 x7 how evil and disgusting that person is. It's true of the leader of every nation which rejects neoliberal globalization as well as for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Highly recommended!
Apr 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Have you ever noticed how whenever someone inconveniences the dominant western power structure, the entire political/media class rapidly becomes very, very interested in letting us know how evil and disgusting that person is? It's true of the leader of every nation which refuses to allow itself to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized power alliance, it's true of anti-establishment political candidates, and it's true of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Corrupt and unaccountable power uses its political and media influence to smear Assange because, as far as the interests of corrupt and unaccountable power are concerned, killing his reputation is as good as killing him. If everyone can be paced into viewing him with hatred and revulsion, they'll be far less likely to take WikiLeaks publications seriously, and they'll be far more likely to consent to Assange's imprisonment, thereby establishing a precedent for the future prosecution of leak-publishing journalists around the world. Someone can be speaking 100 percent truth to you, but if you're suspicious of him you won't believe anything he's saying. If they can manufacture that suspicion with total or near-total credence, then as far as our rulers are concerned it's as good as putting a bullet in his head.

Those of us who value truth and light need to fight this smear campaign in order to keep our fellow man from signing off on a major leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia, and a big part of that means being able to argue against those smears and disinformation wherever they appear. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any kind of centralized source of information which comprehensively debunks all the smears in a thorough and engaging way, so with the help of hundreds of tips from my readers and social media followers I'm going to attempt to make one here. What follows is my attempt at creating a tool kit people can use to fight against Assange smears wherever they encounter them, by refuting the disinformation with truth and solid argumentation.

This article is an ongoing project which will be updated regularly where it appears on Medium and caitlinjohnstone.com as new information comes in and new smears spring up in need of refutation.

[Apr 21, 2019] As a journalist, I find it quite amazing that there's no question raised with Pelosi, with Schumer, with any of the leading Democrats. What is going on? You attack Trump for everything. How come you don't attack him for giving Netanyahu a blank check to do what he wants?

Apr 21, 2019 | www.truthdig.com

So, you have a very odd circumstance where we have a lot of discussion about Russia's influence here. They have got nothing. They have sanctions, nothing. As a journalist, I find it quite amazing that there's no question raised with Pelosi, with Schumer, with any of the leading Democrats. What is going on? You attack Trump for everything. How come you don't attack him for giving Netanyahu a blank check to do what he wants? It must be frustrating to an observer like yourself, no?

[Apr 21, 2019] The US Deserves Its Own Nuremberg Trials

Mar 23, 2019 | www.truthdig.com

Gordon begins her comparison by exploring the main charge levied against Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, which was committing a crime against peace due to Germany's breach of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which, she explains, "essentially outlawed war." American prosecutors in the mid-20th century insisted that this initial crime was the unlawful act from which all other crimes committed by the Nazis originated.

"By comparison," the author tells Scheer, "I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make an unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq.

"It's very clear from the documentary record that exists that the main reason people were being tortured [by the U.S. before the Iraq War began] was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq," Gordon says.

Throughout the so-called war on terror, the ethics expert says, the U.S. has also violated several rules set forth in just-war theory, including what constitutes collateral damage and proportionality, in its slaughter of countless Iraqi civilians.

"We took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed and cosmopolitan countries in that part of the world -- which was Iraq -- and we essentially did what [U.S. military officials] used to say they wanted to do to North Vietnam: bombed it back to the Stone Age," Gordon says.

Listen to Scheer and Gordon discuss a range of moral issues that Americans for several generations have swept under the rug as the government both openly and secretly commits crimes in their name abroad. You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player.

Robert Scheer: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence. The intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, it's Rebecca Gordon. And she has her doctorate in ethics and social theory. I teach ethics at USC; you teach at the University of San Francisco, which is a Catholic school, so presumably with all their difficulties they're still concerned about ethics. And actually we have a good pope, in major ways, who's dealing with the subject I want to talk to you about: the ethics of war making, and the violence that has been unleashed on the world. And you wrote two very important books, maybe the most important in some ways. One is called Mainstreaming Torture, and another is called American Nuremberg. So the question I want to ask you, you know, because we've always treated the crimes of others, particularly the Germans, the worst crimes of modern history, as an aberration in the development of the human race. Those people went berserk, crazy, and they were evil; now we have another category, Muslims are evil, they do terrible things. We're recording this on a day where in New Zealand, some 48 people trying to practice their religion were killed. So we see a lot of crime against Muslims, as there was obviously a lot of crimes against Jews and other people. And in your writing, you're very clear that the crimes of Nuremberg, of the Nazis, are a low level of evil. But the real question is, the Germans are so much like Americans. They were–largest number of immigrants in this country were Germans; they're a white, Anglo-Saxon population; they're highly educated, probably the highest level of music and science at that point. And can it happen here?

Rebecca Gordon: And that, of course, is the question many of us have been asking at least since the election of 2016, and probably before that. And the answer in some ways, of course, is that it did happen here with the invasion of the Americas by people from Europe, and the destruction of all the peoples who were living here at the time. So there has been a genocide on this continent and in South America that, you know, we just forget about, because it happened a while ago. But coming to Nuremberg, what I was trying to do in the book is to say how important the principle was that was established at Nuremberg, which is that international law is real law. And when you break international law, there are genuine consequences, and people can and should be held accountable. So what I looked at was the conduct of this so-called War on Terror in the post-September 11th period, and asked: Could the United States be accused of the same categories of crimes for which the Nazi leadership were held accountable? And there were three categories that were established by the prosecution, and these were crimes against peace; ordinary war crimes, which had already been well described in the body of international law; and a new category, crimes against humanity, which was created in order to take in the enormity of what had been done in Europe by the Nazis. But what was very interesting is that it was Americans who insisted that the first of these crimes should be crimes against peace. So what's that? That means making an aggressive war. It means starting a war that was not a war of self-defense, that was not a war of so-called necessity, but making an aggressive war. Why was that illegal? It was illegal because Germany and the United States and many other countries in Europe had signed a treaty in 1928 called the Kellogg–Briand Treaty, which essentially outlawed war. It said that nations will not use war to settle their disputes. And the argument that the U.S. prosecutors made was that all the other crimes that the Germans committed actually sprang from this first crime of making this aggressive, unnecessary, illegal war. And so by comparison, I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make an unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq. And just as the Nazi crimes arose from this making of a war that was wrong and illegal, the U.S. crimes–and specifically now because my area of expertise is torture, I look at the reasons why the United States became involved in torture. And in the beginning, it's very clear from the documentary record that exists, that the main reason people were being tortured, both in the CIA dark sites and also at Guantanamo under the Department of Defense, was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al-Qaeda, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq. And so the other crimes–

RS: But wait, let's be very clear about that. This would be like the Nazis saying, Jewish bankers destroyed our economy and colluded with Western powers, and therefore made life untenable in Germany. That was the vicious scapegoating argument to justify Nazi expansion and destruction of other societies. So this thing of whether Bush–you know, it's kind of become part of folklore–they lied us into the war in Iraq. But what you're saying, and very clearly, the very idea of going to war in Iraq over the 9/11 incident, which not only did Saddam Hussein have–

RG: Nothing to do with.

RS: –nothing to do with, but actually he was opposed to Al-Qaeda, and it was the one country where Al-Qaeda could not operate in, was Iraq. But instead of going to war with Pakistan, or going to war, you know, elsewhere–no. We–

RG: Or Saudi Arabia.

RS: Well, of course, Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers–

RG: Came from.

RS: –came from. You could actually make an argument to go into–hey, you attacked us, you supplied the money and so forth. No, we whitewashed the Saudi Arabia thing and went to war with Iraq. So your analogy, listeners should understand, is very precise. It is inventing an excuse, a defensive excuse, to engage an offensive invasion.

RG: Exactly. And from that spring all of these other kinds of crimes. So then I look at ordinary war crimes, and if you go over the Geneva Conventions and the various other laws of war, you can see that there are a number of categories of crimes. Many of them have to do with failing to make the distinction between civilians and fighters, combatants. And of course the Bush-Cheney administration very early on decided to create a third, nonexistent category called unlawful combatants. But this designation doesn't exist in the International Red Cross's understanding; it doesn't exist in the Geneva Convention's. It was just a convenient way of saying this particular group of people, whoever it is that we choose to capture, detain forever, torture–they have no legal standing in the world. They exist outside of international law.

RS: So let me pick up on that also. And I don't want to lose the earlier thread of the invention of war, and connecting with this incredibly important work you've done on torture. And you made the statement, which I think people should ponder: the reason we were torturing these people was not to get information about a future attack. We already had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and everything, we knew everything about it, and so forth. The real reason for it was to invent an alibi for the invasion, to get somebody to say Saddam Hussein was backing them. And I think that's a very important–a reason, by the way, to read your book, Mainstreaming Torture ; let me give a plug here. But this other argument is also interesting, the whole idea of the noncombatant. And we are doing this interview at a time when Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, is in prison–

RG: Yes.

RS: –again, because they want to fabricate a story about WikiLeaks and all that, and get everybody off the hook for all of the crimes and torture and everything they've done. But the interesting thing is, if you look at what did WikiLeaks–and they were just like in the position of the Washington Post with the Pentagon Papers, they're the publisher–what did Chelsea Manning reveal? She revealed the death of noncombatants, including journalists. So why don't you develop that a little bit, because that is so critical to the moment, that no one–no one has been prosecuted for those attacks that she revealed with the data. But she is now sitting in prison.

RG: And this is, of course–the fate of whistleblowers all over the world, and certainly in this country, is exactly that. That the matters that they have revealed disappear in a story that becomes about the crimes of the revealer. And of course in the war in Iraq, there was tremendous amounts of civilian death. And it falls into a number of categories; one category is those people who had actually been detained and were being held by U.S. forces. And for example at Abu Ghraib, we know–which is the prison outside of Baghdad that had been Saddam Hussein's major torture site, and which the U.S. decided in its wisdom would be the perfect place to hold detainees, and where we know a group of reservists ended up torturing people. But the real torture was going on upstairs, by the employees of various C.I.A. contractors, and by the C.I.A. itself. And that's where people actually died. So there's that whole category of people, but that's a much smaller category than the category of ordinary civilians whose lives were either ended or destroyed by the regular U.S. use of warfare in places like Fallujah and other cities. So that we took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed, and cosmopolitan countries in that part of the world–which was Iraq–and we essentially did what they used to say they wanted to do to North Vietnam, bombed it back to the Stone Age. And so in just war theory, there are these rules about discriminating between combatants and noncombatants, and you are permitted a certain number of civilian deaths as long as they are side effects of your attempt to go after some legitimate military target. And this is called collateral damage; it's, collateral means on the side, right? But in fact, in Iraq, we don't know because there are many different counts, but anywhere between 500,000 and a million people have died in the U.S. invasion and occupation in Iraq. And when you lay that against the 3,000 people who died on September 11th, none of whom were killed by anyone even from Iraq, you also see that we have violated another rule of just war theory, which is proportionality. We have destroyed human life out of all proportion.

RS: And let me just–you know, it's so difficult to grapple with these questions. And you are teaching at one of the major Catholic universities here.

RG: It's a Jesuit university, and that's a little different. And these are the left-wing Jesuits.

RS: I'm not putting down your school. [Laughter] Hey, I teach ethics at the University of Southern California–

RG: Enough said.

RS: –and clearly, yes, we are ethically challenged at this moment. I was about to actually celebrate the pope in this regard. And so there is a certain necessity for being consistent in the application of these principles, or they mean nothing.

RG: Exactly.

RS: And I think that's the body of your life's work, to remind us of that. So in a sense, you are at a good place where you're teaching. I'm just wondering, how is this disregarded so widely? I mean, people make a big deal about don't kill the unborn child. You know, I could see arguments about that. But if that's the beginning of a consistent, pro-life position, yes, it makes certain sense. If it's the end of a pro-life position, and then you end welfare and you don't care what happens to the baby and so forth, you're into a deep immorality. And it seems to me you're at a very interesting place. Because for better or worse, this pope seems to be the only one able to challenge, let's call it U.S. imperialism or imperial ventures, on a moral basis.

RG: I think that's right. He certainly is doing a better job of that than either of his last two predecessors.

RS: Or the major–

RG: Other major, yeah. No, I think that's right. And I think, you know, it's interesting that at USF, we have Reserve Officers' Training Corps. We have people who are training to be second lieutenants when they leave university in the U.S. Army. And I have had students tell me, I had a student from Guam who told me, you know, Professor Gordon, I know that when they send me to basic training, they're going to try to take me apart and change me from being a person into being a soldier. And I just want you to know that I'm not going to let them do that to me. He said, but you know, ROTC was my ticket off the island, and I have a duty now to follow through with my promise. And I just, my heart broke for him. Because what they do to you in basic training is actually a slightly lighter version of what they do when they train torturers. Everyone who becomes a torturer–and people don't just torture on a whim; people are trained to be torturers. And part of that training involves being brutalized first yourself, and having survived that ordeal, you emerge with this sense of yourself as an elite person who therefore has the right, as a superior being, and now the skills, to turn around and abuse and torture people who come along behind you. And the U.S. has its own methods of training, and its own locations where this happens.

RS: [omission for station break] I'm back after our break with Professor and Doctor Rebecca Gordon. And we were just talking about how we train people to be torturers. And this is fascinating, because if you don't consider this question, that you're getting basically good people to do horrible things, you're missing the whole point. But I just want to say something about the good German. Because the basic appeal of Hitler was the solid–you know, he was going to make Germany great again. And this is, I'm not demonizing Germans here, but Donald Trump's father was obviously familiar with this in his lineage, in that tradition. And the whole appeal, even though this dictator Hitler was this funny-looking guy, hardly the Aryan model–was to a notion of order. And even in the concentration camps, keeping direct bookkeeping of how many teeth you pulled and gold you found in the teeth, and so forth. But it's not–manners. They had the manners. And what bothers me about the very simplistic Trumpwashing that we're going through now, that Trump is uniquely evil–it's all about manners. He's crude, he's boorish, he's a misogynist, he says these things, he does these things, he grabs people's private parts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's not his crime. His crime is he's continuing a tradition of bombing people who we have no right to bomb. And so I want to push this a little bit more, the whole question of manners. Because what Nuremberg did is unmask the manners. And this was also true in the Eichmann trial that Hannah Arendt talked about, when she talked about the banality of evil. Evil can be masked by manners. Smile while you learn to kill, right?

RG: That's exactly right. And I especially know, when you talk about the meticulous records that they kept, this is a hallmark of torture regimes all over the world. This very careful record-keeping, this documentation of the work that's been done–because there's no shame about the work. The process of becoming a torturer includes developing a sense of yourself as doing something uniquely courageous, uniquely necessary, a unique sacrifice that you as the torturer, more in sorrow than in anger, are being forced to do by the tremendous evil that confronts you. And so you're absolutely right that especially among upper-class liberals in the United States, the objection to Trump is his manner, and his manner is crude and obnoxious, as you say. But what he's really doing is not only continuing to kill people, and in fact increasing the number of drone strikes, for example, over the already great number that the Obama administration–

RS: A man of impeccable manners. Barack Obama. I even feel that way about Bill Clinton. When Bill Clinton's on television, I smile. I like him. He's warm, he's encouraging. And then I forget, he's the guy that ended the welfare system, for example. Yes.

RG: Exactly. Exactly right. And you know, Trump is now with his, I don't know if you've taken a look at his so-called budget, but he's planning to take away our Medicare and Medicaid, just in case you might have wanted to have healthcare. Obviously, that's dead on arrival. But nonetheless, the point is that he is masking what he is actually doing by distracting us with this bombastic display. And in fact, one of his officials in the EPA actually recently said exactly that, that they've been able to make all these regulatory changes because every time it looks as though the press is going to notice, Trump fires off a tweet, and everybody's like, ooh, shiny!

RS: This is a really important point. Because if you look at the Nuremberg Trial or you look at the Eichmann trial, these people all hid behind manners. They were well spoken, they were well educated, and they were following a Charlie Chaplinesque figure, a ludicrous figure; Hitler was certainly a, yes, he was a more ludicrous figure than Trump, in terms of manners and style and everything. But his popularity was largely based on being a sort of comic figure, in a way. He inspired a whole nation of logical, scientific, well-educated–probably the best-educated population in the world. And so I've had this experience, I've talked to people in the business community and they say well, you know, but Trump is good for business. And we did have a mess before, and then look at what's happened to unemployment, and so forth and so on. And so we are really at the limit of manners as a guide. And that's really what Nuremberg is about. Nuremberg was unmasking manners. Now, we didn't continue after that; we had the brief Eichmann trial. But what we didn't really ever do in this country–and this is why I want people to listen or to read your book, better to read it, although listening is great–we never really took apart the Nazi experience. Because we wanted the ex-Nazis and other Germans to be our allies in the Cold War. So we have never had that investigation of how an incredibly well-educated, Christian, law-and-order nation goes into madness.

RG: Not only that, we never did what the next step was supposed to be, which is establish a venue in which U.S. war crimes could also be examined in World War II. And there were a number of people who developed the Nuremberg principles, and worked on the original trial, who really honestly believed that this would be the prelude to establishing an international court for trying offenses committed during war, and expected that the United States would in fact be held accountable, not only for the firebombing of German cities, but for the destruction of up to 60 Japanese cities which were constructed of wood and paper and reduced to ashes, in a campaign that really very few people in this country even know about. Although Robert McNamara actually describes it in that excellent documentary–

RS: The Fog of War , yeah.

RG: -- The Fog of War.

RS: And it's excellent because you see that McNamara was involved in designing the bombing of Japan and Germany. But also, I mean–like, we talk about Korea. Oh, North Korea, animals, and Kim Il-sung and his progeny–nobody I ever run into knows we leveled every single structure in North Korea during the Korean War. Again, a war that was not needed; it was an attempt to get a Chinese communist who had come to power the year before. I mean, it's bizarre. Then you look at what we did to North Vietnam, and the carpet bombing, and everything. So this is critical. American exceptionalism–I've mentioned this a number of times on this podcast–to my mind, is a really, it's the most profound problem that American people have to face.

RG: It's a vicious idea. And it's been taken up in different ways by both the liberal democratic world, and by the, you know, the hard right in this country. The idea that by definition, the United States can do no wrong, because we are the leader of the so-called free world. Which is a locution I don't even understand anymore, given that we're not competing anymore with the unfree communist world that supposedly we were in opposition to. But the idea that–and this was the argument, actually, that the Bush administration made about torture. By definition, the United States is a country that does not torture. Therefore, whatever it is that you are observing, it cannot be torture, because that would be a logical contradiction, because we are the nation that doesn't do that. And it's almost impossible to enter into that understanding of the world, because no amount of evidence that you can present to the person who believes that is going to break that worldview. And so American exceptionalism allows us not only to have military bases in over 100 countries around the world; not only to conduct secret wars that the people in this country don't even know about–we just suddenly woke up and said, oh my gosh, we're having a war in Somalia! Who knew. And not to mention Yemen–I was very heartened to see that the Senate had actually voted with the House to reprimand the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia in Yemen. But leave that aside. This whole idea that we are a unique bearer of human rights and democracy in the world–it's very hard to break, because it's a concealed, hermetically sealed worldview that people imbibe in grade school. And they imbibe it as they grow up, and it takes a lot of effort to break through. And one of the sad things that I see, especially with younger people that I've worked with in organizations like War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, is that once you've broken through, it then becomes very hard to imagine that the United States is not permanently and always going to be the hegemon. It almost, having made the effort and understood the danger the U.S. actually presents to the world, it becomes almost impossible to recognize when the U.S. actually loses one. And I think it's very important we claim our victories.

RS: Well you know, you hit it clearly with this, the abandonment by the Democratic Party of any serious oppositional role. [With] control of the House now, there should be hearings about what are we doing in these different countries. And instead they're actually criticizing Trump for being, kind of selling out by getting out of Afghanistan, or not fighting more aggressively in Syria. And we've actually sort of lost the peace movement, in a way, is a theme I get back to once in a while here. And we forget, actually, most of the terrible wars since World War II have been fought under democrats, and financed enthusiastically. So I want to get back to basic moral principles, because they don't mean anything if you're not consistent. You have to call out people on the left or on the right, you have to call out war crimes, you have to call out the attacks on homosexuals, black people, Jewish people–anybody, any other, and so forth. It's something that Jesus reminded us of in the tale of the Good Samaritan, if you can believe that Luke is the word of God, and not the others, [Laughter] where the Good Samaritan doesn't appear. I don't want to get into your whole Catholic university thing here. But it's interesting to me, this notion of consistency. Because it's painful to be consistent. It requires examining the motives of people you voted for. And this was the problem of Germany: people forget Hitler was elected. People forget Germany had all the trappings of a–

RG: Of a democracy.

RS: –of a democracy. And more important, the conceit that somehow education–education, and manners–will prevent genocide is a lie. Maybe it's time to recognize this whole notion of American greatness is the end of thought; if you are by definition great, there's nothing to question. And it seems to me that main religions that we've had, their one demand that they have in common is you must question not only your nation's morality, but your own. The devil is in you. We have to struggle with this devil, we have to struggle with these forces. Yet as a nation, we think America the beautiful absolves us all. And that's what you're saying in your torture book. That basically, you take these young recruits that have a very limited knowledge of our history, and you convince them that they are the agents, really, of a higher power.

RG: Absolutely right. And in doing that, you pervert the very virtues that we say the United States is supposed to represent. The virtue of courage, for example, becomes the courage to suppress your squeamishness at causing pain to another human being. And justice becomes the idea that you give the punishment first and the trial later, if ever. Right? And this is exactly what we see in the way our detainees have been treated. And honestly, another locus of this that we don't often recognize is what goes on on the U.S. soil prisons and jails in this country, where we have 2.2 million people locked up in cages, and where torture is a regular feature of prison life. It's no accident that the reservists who were downstairs at Abu Ghraib, they were from West Virginia, and most of them in their civilian life were prison guards. They were corrections officers. And there's a famous email that one of the ringleaders, Charles Graner, sent home which said: The Christian in me knows it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me loves to see a grown man piss himself. And that is exactly the attitude of the people who are caging up 2.2 [million] largely, vastly disproportionately, black and Latino, Latinx, people in this country today. And so torture actually is a red thread that runs through the entire history of the United States, beginning with the Native American population. Slavery itself would not have been as successful as it was at allowing the amassing of capital–which is, you know if you're a good Marxist, the congealed labor of these unpaid, captive people, who when they got to the United States, or what was not even yet the United States, would not work unless, the farmers figured out, they were caused physical pain. And it was the use, the concerted, intentional, well-documented use of physical pain in the cotton fields a century later that forced people to develop a physical technology of their bodies that allowed them, in the course of 40 years, to multiply by eight times the amount of cotton a human being could pick in a day, because the alternative was to have the skin taken off your back with a whip.

RS: You know, increasingly in my life I have been a bad Marxist. And I've embraced some truths that seemed to come out of these religions that, growing up, really frightened me or were intimidating, and also were on the wrong side. But let's take it back to the pope, let's take it back to the Jesuit school, University of San Francisco, where you teach. There's a wisdom that I daresay Karl Marx did not sufficiently embrace. It is that we all have a capacity for evil. That we have virtue; we care, we bring children into this world, we nurture them, we care about others, we can cry over a refugee. On the other hand, the 2.2 million–I've been on Death Row quite recently interviewing Kevin Cooper, who I believe is an innocent man. And fortunately, the governor of California has suspended the death penalty, and I think Gavin Newsom deserves great credit for his courage. But–and it is a cage, and we don't care; we don't care about these people. And we don't care about the people we bomb, and we don't care–they're expendable, they're throwaway people. You want them out of sight, out of mind. It's very deliberate. And the problem is, if Marxism were accurate [Laughter]–I don't know, not too many people care, anyway, but since the two of us are talking about it–you know, if it was just the economic motive, we'd probably do better. The libertarians, for instance–to the degree that they're right, they're right, yes. But the wars don't make sense. And growing that cotton that way didn't ultimately make sense. And slavery didn't make sense. Except–except if we have a barbaric part of our nature, if we have a need to exploit others. Not just for economic reasons; if power corrupts. And this, not to quote Marx, but to quote Jefferson or Washington, these people who came to power in this great experiment of ours, with all its contradictions–I repeat this ad nauseum on these podcasts. All their, yes, white, male, I got it, I got it, slave owners, the whole thing–they were on to a wisdom about their own corruption. And the reason we have the First Amendment, the reason we have all the amendments, the reason we have separation of powers, is that power corrupts.

RG: Absolutely.

RS: And what comes through in these torture stories and so forth–I talked, I have one student, just like you, I've had students go off to these wars. I had one who ended up at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo, a reserve officer. He was outside with the families. I'm not going to compromise his privacy. But he told me what shook him up was he was being told all these things about the people inside the jail, but his job was to herd the families that were trying to visit. And he could not deny that there was some kind of humanity going on with these people inside, or why would all these people care so much about them. And I think we need to be reminded of our own capacity for evil. I think that's what Nuremberg was about, that the people who commit evil don't present as evil and are not inherently more evil than we are.

RG: Exactly.

RS: And we have to struggle with this. And the good liberals who accommodate this, and say well, you know, Barack Obama had to do this with the drones, and governor so-and-so had to kill these people even though he didn't believe in the death penalty–we have to challenge that. Because that is the fount of evil.

RG: So, my favorite virtue, Aristotle calls it phronesis, or practical wisdom. St. Thomas Aquinas calls it prudentia, prudence. But what it really is, is that capacity of the mind that allows you to actually understand the moral questions that are in front of you. And not to be fooled by the fog of American exceptionalism, by the distraction of a Trumpian tweet, but to be able to actually examine and really see, in this case, the effects of U.S. policy on actual human beings around the world. And this requires a kind of courage to be willing to accept that your own self-understanding, and the understanding of your people, your country, might be wrong. But it also requires a willingness to look, to actually see and examine what's in front of you. And if there's one virtue I would like to see developed, and that I try to develop in my own students, it's this virtue of practical wisdom, where you actually are responsible for what the effects of your actions can reasonably be foreseen to be. And this is something that we in the United States really don't have. It's trained out of us, we don't have it. And part of it, yes, is that capacity to understand that the ability to do evil things exists in all of us, and it's also to understand that when you multiply that capacity by the technological and economic power that a country like the United States has, the results–well, the results

[Apr 21, 2019] Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond

Highly recommended!
Powerful video about US propaganda machine. Based on Iraq War propaganda efforts. This is a formidable machine.
Shows quite vividly that most US politicians of Bush era were war criminal by Nuremberg Tribunal standards. Starting with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They planned the war of aggression against Iraq long before 9/11.
Apr 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Desolation Row , Apr 20, 2019 10:21:11 PM | link

Desolation Row | Apr 20, 2019 10:09:06 PM | 41

Psywar

Source: https://vimeo.com/14772678 @ 48:15

[Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers. ..."
"... Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer. ..."
"... The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway. ..."
"... No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way ..."
"... " ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people." ..."
"... All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests. ..."
"... A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter. ..."
"... "The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result " ..."
"... But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world. ..."
"... I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter! ..."
"... Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them. ..."
"... The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself. ..."
"... Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. ..."
"... That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it. ..."
"... [The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. ..."
"... Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran. ..."
"... Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington. ..."
"... Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say. ..."
"... Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse. ..."
"... Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.) ..."
"... Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress? ..."
"... Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies. ..."
Oct 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

Fran Macadam , October 20, 2017 at 3:08 pm GMT

A credible reading of the diverse facts, Mike.
Kirk Elarbee , October 20, 2017 at 8:27 pm GMT
Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/everyone-hacked-everyone-hacked-everyone-spy-spin-fuels-anti-kaspersky-campaign.html

utu , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:18 am GMT
Again Mike Whitney does not get it. Though in the first part of the article I thought he would. He was almost getting there. The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.

Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope.

Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer.

Pamela Geller: Thank You, Larry David

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/10/19/pamela-geller-thank-larry-david/

anon , Disclaimer Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:54 am GMT
OK.

The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway.

No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way

The one thing I am not positive about. If the elite really believe that Russia is a threat, then Americans have done psych ops on themselves.

The US was only interested in Ukraine because it was there. Next in line on a map. The rather shocking disinterest in investing money -- on both sides -- is inexplicable if it was really important. Most of it would be a waste -- but still. The US stupidly spent $5 billion on something -- getting duped by politicians and got theoretical regime change, but it was hell to pry even $1 billion for real economic aid.

ThereisaGod , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 6:37 am GMT
" ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people."

All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests.

jilles dykstra , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 6:46 am GMT
I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA, 1492 to the Present. A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops.
Logan , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 11:16 am GMT
@jilles dykstra

You should be aware that Zinn's book is not, IMO, an honest attempt at writing history. It is conscious propaganda intended to make Americans believe exactly what you are taking from it.

DESERT FOX , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 1:30 pm GMT
The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter.

Until that fact changes Americans will continue to fight and die for Israel.

TG , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 2:03 pm GMT
"The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result "

But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world.

I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter!

Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them.

Anonymous , Disclaimer Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 2:05 pm GMT
Whitney is another author who declares the "Russians did it" narrative a psyop. He then devotes entire columns to the psyop, "naww Russia didn't do it". There could be plenty to write about – recent laws that do undercut liberty, but no, the Washington Post needs fake opposition to its fake news so you have guys like Whitney in the less-mainstream fake news media.

So Brennan wanted revenge? Well that's simple enough to understand, without being too stupid. But Whitney's whopper of a lie is what you're supposed to unquestionably believe. The US has "rival political parties". Did you miss it?

Jake , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 2:32 pm GMT
The US is doing nothing more than acting as the British Empire 2.0. WASP culture was born of a Judaizing heresy: Anglo-Saxon Puritanism. That meant that the WASP Elites of every are pro-Jewish, especially in order to wage war, physical and/or cultural, against the vast majority of white Christians they rule.

By the early 19th century, The Brit Empire's Elites also had a strong, and growing, dose of pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic philoSemitism. Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.

So, by the time of Victoria's high reign, the Brit WASP Elites were a strange brew of hardcoree pro-Jewish and hardcore pro-Arabic/islamic. The US foreign policy of today is an attempt to put those two together and force it on everyone and make it work.

The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself.

Logan , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Grandpa Charlie

Fair enough. I didn't know that about the foreword. If accurate, that's a reasonable approach for a book.

Here's the problem.

Back when O. Cromwell was the dictator of England, he retained an artist to paint him. The custom of the time was for artists to "clean up" their subjects, in a primitive form of photoshopping.

OC being a religious fanatic, he informed the artist he wished to be portrayed as God had made him, "warts and all." (Ollie had a bunch of unattractive facial warts.) Or the artist wouldn't be paid.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/08/cromwell-portraitist-samuel-cooper-exhibition

Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so.

All I am asking is that American (and other) history be written "warts and all." The triumphalist version is true, largely, and so is the Zinn version. Gone With the Wind and Roots both portray certain aspects of the pre-war south fairly accurately..

America has been, and is, both evil and good. As is/was true of every human institution and government in history. Personally, I believe America, net/net, has been one of the greatest forces for human good ever. But nobody will realize that if only the negative side of American history is taught.

Wally , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:16 pm GMT
@Michael Kenny

Hasbarist 'Kenny', you said:

"There must be something really dirty in Russigate that hasn't yet come out to generate this level of panic."

You continue to claim what you cannot prove.

But then you are a Jews First Zionist.

Russia-Gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of "Russia-linked" social media ads, but the US mainstream media is determined to keep a straight face

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/10/robert-parry/jumping-the-shark/

Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet?

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-russia-story-falls-apart-is-skepticism-permissible-yet/

+ review of other frauds

Logan , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:20 pm GMT
@Jake

Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.

Thanks for the laugh. During the 19th century, the Sauds were toothless, dirt-poor hicks from the deep desert of zero importance on the world stage.

The Brits were not Saudi proponents, in fact promoting the Husseins of Hejaz, the guys Lawrence of Arabia worked with. The Husseins, the Sharifs of Mecca and rulers of Hejaz, were the hereditary enemies of the Sauds of Nejd.

After WWI, the Brits installed Husseins as rulers of both Transjordan and Iraq, which with the Hejaz meant the Sauds were pretty much surrounded. The Sauds conquered the Hejaz in 1924, despite lukewarm British support for the Hejaz.

Nobody in the world cared much about the Saudis one way or another until massive oil fields were discovered, by Americans not Brits, starting in 1938. There was no reason they should. Prior to that Saudi prominence in world affairs was about equal to that of Chad today, and for much the same reason. Chad (and Saudi Arabia) had nothing anybody else wanted.

Grandpa Charlie , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:25 pm GMT
@Michael Kenny

'Putin stopped talking about the "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade area long ago" -- Michael Kenney

Putin was simply trying to sell Russia's application for EU membership with the catch-phrase "Lisbon to Vladivostok". He continued that until the issue was triply mooted (1) by implosion of EU growth and boosterism, (2) by NATO's aggressive stance, in effect taken by NATO in Ukraine events and in the Baltics, and, (3) Russia's alliance with China.

It is surely still true that Russians think of themselves, categorically, as Europeans. OTOH, we can easily imagine that Russians in Vladivostok look at things differently than do Russians in St. Petersburg. Then again, Vladivostok only goes back about a century and a half.

Seamus Padraig , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:39 pm GMT
@utu

Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration.

I generally agree with your comment, but that part strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration. While relations with Russia certainly haven't improved, how have they really worsened? The second round of sanctions that Trump reluctantly approved have yet to be implemented by Europe, which was the goal. And apart from that, what of substance has changed?

Seamus Padraig , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Grandpa Charlie

That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era.

Ludwig Watzal , Website Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:46 pm GMT
It's not surprising that 57 percent of the American people believe in Russian meddling. Didn't two-thirds of the same crowd believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, too? The American public is being brainwashed 24 hours a day all year long.

The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it.

This disinformation campaign might be the prelude to an upcoming war.
Right now, the US is run by jerks and idiots. Watch the video.

anonymous , Disclaimer Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 3:50 pm GMT
Only dumb people does not know that TRUMP IS NETANYAHU'S PUPPET.

The fifth column zionist jews are running the albino stooge and foreign policy in the Middle East to expand Israel's interest against American interest that is TREASON. One of these FIFTH COLUMNISTS is Jared Kushner. He should be arrested.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/donald-trumps-likudist-campaign-against-iran/5614264

[The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.

Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.

Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it would be "terminated" if there was any renegotiation, according to Politico. He was calling Trump from Las Vegas, where he'd been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third major figure behind Trump's shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who has long been a close friend of Netanyahu's and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel Hayomto support Netanyahu's campaigns. He was Trump's main campaign contributor in 2016, donating $100 million. Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in Washington -- especially with regard to Iran.]

Miro23 , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 4:56 pm GMT
A great article with some excellent points:

Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington.

American dominance is very much tied to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency, and the rest of the world no longer want to fund this bankrupt, warlike state – particularly the Chinese.

First, it confirms that the US did not want to see the jihadist extremists defeated by Russia. These mainly-Sunni militias served as Washington's proxy-army conducting an ambitious regime change operation which coincided with US strategic ambitions.

The CIA run US/Israeli/ISIS alliance.

Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say.

They are given the political line and they broadcast it.

The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for the full implementation of an American police state. But what is more concerning, is that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people. That can only lead to trouble.

At some point Americans are going to get a "War on Domestic Terror" cheered along by the media. More or less the arrest and incarceration of any opposition following the Soviet Bolshevik model.

CanSpeccy , Website Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:11 pm GMT
@utu

On the plus side, everyone now knows that the Anglo-US media from the NY Times to the Economist, from WaPo to the Gruniard, and from the BBC to CNN, the CBC and Weinstein's Hollywood are a worthless bunch of depraved lying bastards.

Thales the Milesian , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:53 pm GMT
Brennan did this, CIA did that .

So what are you going to do about all this?

Continue to whine?

Continue to keep your head stuck in your ass?

So then continue with your blah, blah, blah, and eat sh*t.

You, disgusting self-elected democratic people/institutions!!!

AB_Anonymous , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 5:59 pm GMT
Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse.

The thing is, no matter how thick the mental cages are, and how carefully they are maintained by the daily massive injections of "certified" truth (via MSM), along with neutralizing or compromising of "troublemakers", the presence of multiple alternative sources in the age of Internet makes people to slip out of these cages one by one, and as the last events show – with acceleration.

It means that there's a fast approaching tipping point after which it'd be impossible for those in power both to keep a nice "civilized" face and to control the "cage-free" population. So, no matter how the next war will be called, it will be the war against the free Internet and free people. That's probably why N. Korean leader has no fear to start one.

Art , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 6:18 pm GMT
An aside:

All government secrecy is a curse on mankind. Trump is releasing the JFK murder files to the public. Kudos! Let us hope he will follow up with a full 9/11 investigation.

Think Peace -- Art

Mr. Anon , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:07 pm GMT
@utu

The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.

Good point. That was probably one of the objectives (and from the point of view of the deep-state, perhaps the most important objective) of the "Russia hacked our democracy" narrative, in addition to the general deligitimization of the Trump administration.

Art , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:11 pm GMT
And, keep in mind, Washington's Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and CIA-trained.

Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.)

Are committees of six congressman and six senators, who meet in secret, just avoiding the grave constitutional questions of war? We the People cannot even interrogate these politicians. (These politicians make big money in the secrecy swamp when they leave office.)

Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress?

Spying is one thing – covert action is another – covert is wrong – it goes against world order. Every year after 9/11 they say things are worse – give them more money more power and they will make things safe. That is BS!

9/11 has opened the flood gates to the US government attacking at will, the various peoples of this Earth. That is NOT our prerogative.

We are being exceptionally arrogant.

Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies.

Think Peace -- Art

Rurik , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:12 pm GMT
@Ben10

right at 1:47

when he says 'we can't move on as a country'

his butt hurt is so ruefully obvious, that I couldn't help notice a wry smile on my face

that bitch spent millions on the war sow, and now all that mullah won't even wipe his butt hurt

when I see ((guys)) like this raging their inner crybaby angst, I feel really, really good about President Trump

MAGA bitches!

Mr. Anon , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 7:15 pm GMT
@jilles dykstra

I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA

A Peoples History of the USA? Which Peoples?

Tradecraft46 , Next New Comment October 21, 2017 at 8:04 pm GMT
I am SAIS 70 so know the drill and the article is on point.

Here is the dealio. Most reporters are dim and have no experience, and it is real easy to lead them by the nose with promises of better in the future.

[Apr 21, 2019] Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. ..."
"... The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player. ..."
"... Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance. ..."
"... Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline. ..."
"... Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. ..."
"... A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions ..."
"... Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination. ..."
Oct 28, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. Alternative social forces, like the ones behind Trump's presidential triumph, only have a limited impact on domestic and ultimately on foreign policy. A conceptual detour and a brief on history and on Trump's domestic setting when he was elected will help clarifying these theses.

Beyond the different costumes that it wears (dealing with ideology, international law, and even religion), foreign policy follows domestic policy. The domestic policy actors are the social forces at work at a given point of time, mainly the economic agents and their ambitions (in their multiple expressions), including the ruling power elite. Society's aspirations not only relate to material welfare, but also to ideological priorities that population segments may have at a given point of time.

From America's initial days until the mid 1800s, there seems to have been a broad alignment of US foreign policy with the wishes of its power elite and other social forces. America's expansionism, a fundamental bulwark of its foreign policy from early days, reflected the need to fulfill its growing population's ambitions for land and, later on, the need to find foreign markets for its excess production, initially agricultural and later on manufacturing. It can be said that American foreign policy was broadly populist at that time. The power elite was more or less aligned in achieving these expansionist goals and was able to provide convenient ideological justification through the writings of Jefferson and Madison, among others.

As the country expanded, diverging interests became stronger and ultimately differing social forces caused a significant fracture in society. The American Civil War was the climax of the conflicted interests between agricultural and manufacturing led societies. Fifty years later, a revealing manifestation of this divergence (which survived the Civil War), as it relates to foreign policy, is found during the early days of the Russian Revolution when, beyond the ideological revulsion of Bolshevism, the US was paralyzed between the agricultural and farming businesses seeking exports to Russia and the domestic extractive industries interested in stopping exports of natural resources from this country.

The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player.

Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance.

Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline.

Trump won his presidency because he was able to get support from the country's growing frustrated white population. His main social themes (bringing jobs to America by stopping the decline of its manufacturing industry, preventing further US consumer dependence on foreign imports and halting immigration) fitted well with the electors' anger. Traditional populist themes linked to foreign policy (like Russophobia) did not play a big role in the last election. But whether or not the Trump administration can align with the ruling power elite in a manner that addresses the key social and economic needs of the American people is still to be seen.

Back to foreign policy, we need to distinguish between Trump's style of government and his administration's actions. At least until now, focusing excessively on Trump's style has dangerously distracted from his true intentions. One example is the confusion about his initial stance on NATO which was simplistically seen as highly critical to the very existence of this organization. On NATO, all that Trump really cared was to achieve a "fair" sharing of expenditures with other members and to press them to honor their funding commitments.

From immigration to defense spending, there is nothing irrational about Trump's foreign policy initiatives, as they just reflect a different reading on the American people's aspirations and, consequently, they attempt to rely on supporting points within the power elite which are different from the ones used in the past.

Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. A far-reaching lesson, although still being ignored, is that China's economic might is showing that capitalism as understood in the West is not winning, much less in its American format. It also shows that democracy may not be that relevant, as it is not necessarily a corollary or a condition for economic development. Perhaps it even shows the superiority of China's economic model, but this is a different matter.

As Trump becomes more aware about his limitations, he has naturally reversed to the basic imprints of America's traditional foreign policy, particularly concerning defense. His emphasis on a further increase in defense spending is not done for prestigious or national security reasons, but as an attempt to preserve a job generating infrastructure without considering the catastrophic consequences that it may cause.

On Iran, Obama's initiative to seek normalization was an attempt to walk a fine line (and to find a less conflictive path) between supporting the US traditional Middle East allies (mainly the odd combination of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and recognizing Iran's growing aspirations. Deep down, Obama was trying to acknowledge Iran's historical viability as a country and a society that will not disappear from the map, while Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, may not be around in a few years. Trump's Iran policy until now only represents a different weighing of priorities, although it is having far reaching consequences on America's credibility as a reliable contractual party in international affairs.

In the case of Afghanistan, Trump's decision to increase boots on the ground does not break the inertia of US past administrations. Aside from temporary containment, an increasing military presence or a change in tactics will not alter fundamentally this reality.

Concerning Russia, and regardless of what Trump has said, actions speak more than words. A continuous deterioration of relations seems inevitable.

Trump will also learn, if he has not done so already, about the growth of multipolar forces in world's events. Russia has mastered this reality for several years and is quite skillful at using it as a basic tool of its own foreign goals. Our multipolar world will expand, and Trump may even inadvertently exacerbate it through its actions (for instance in connection with the different stands taken by the US and its European allies concerning Iran).

While fulfilling the aspirations of the American people seems more difficult within the existing capitalist framework, there are also growing apprehensions coming from America's power elite as it becomes more frustrated due to its incapacity of being more effective at the world level. America's relative adolescence in world's history will become more and more apparent in the coming years.

A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions. The US has never suffered the consequences of an international conflict in its own backyard. The American Civil War, despite all the suffering that it caused, was primarily a domestic event with no foreign intervention (contrary to the wishes of the Confederation). The deep social and psychological damage caused by war is not part of America's consciousness as it is, for instance in Germany, Russia or Japan. America is insensitive to the lessons of history because it has a very short history itself.

Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination.

Oscar Silva-Valladares is a former investment banker that has lived and worked in North and Latin America, Western & Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the Philippines and Western Africa. He currently chairs Davos International Advisory, an advisory firm focused on strategic consulting across emerging markets.


Related

[Apr 21, 2019] Whenever someone inconveniences the neoliberal oligarchy, the entire neoliberal MSM mafia tells us 24 x7 how evil and disgusting that person is. It's true of the leader of every nation which rejects neoliberal globalization as well as for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Highly recommended!
Apr 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Have you ever noticed how whenever someone inconveniences the dominant western power structure, the entire political/media class rapidly becomes very, very interested in letting us know how evil and disgusting that person is? It's true of the leader of every nation which refuses to allow itself to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized power alliance, it's true of anti-establishment political candidates, and it's true of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Corrupt and unaccountable power uses its political and media influence to smear Assange because, as far as the interests of corrupt and unaccountable power are concerned, killing his reputation is as good as killing him. If everyone can be paced into viewing him with hatred and revulsion, they'll be far less likely to take WikiLeaks publications seriously, and they'll be far more likely to consent to Assange's imprisonment, thereby establishing a precedent for the future prosecution of leak-publishing journalists around the world. Someone can be speaking 100 percent truth to you, but if you're suspicious of him you won't believe anything he's saying. If they can manufacture that suspicion with total or near-total credence, then as far as our rulers are concerned it's as good as putting a bullet in his head.

Those of us who value truth and light need to fight this smear campaign in order to keep our fellow man from signing off on a major leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia, and a big part of that means being able to argue against those smears and disinformation wherever they appear. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any kind of centralized source of information which comprehensively debunks all the smears in a thorough and engaging way, so with the help of hundreds of tips from my readers and social media followers I'm going to attempt to make one here. What follows is my attempt at creating a tool kit people can use to fight against Assange smears wherever they encounter them, by refuting the disinformation with truth and solid argumentation.

This article is an ongoing project which will be updated regularly where it appears on Medium and caitlinjohnstone.com as new information comes in and new smears spring up in need of refutation.

[Apr 20, 2019] Is Trump for Detente or Militarism - RAI with Stephen Cohen (2-5)

Notable quotes:
"... Great points, Mr. Cohen....this protracted attack on Russia via the phoney "Russiagate" investigation has set back relations with Russia for years to come. ..."
"... That Trump represents a thinking that the post Soviet reality is not of a uni-superpower world, but one of a multi-polar world dominated by US economic empire. ..."
"... After reading "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century" in 2005, I came to the idea that the most dangerous section of the American elite were those that posited this uni-superpower world order idea; ..."
"... The problem is the incorrigible Big C (Capital) that wanted to eat away Russian minerals that Putin stopped in national interest. Any subsequent cooperation from the Russian side was probably was only for strategic cooperation with the U.S. to have world peace. ..."
"... Not a word in Cohen's appraisal about US criminality. Jay was pushing in that direction. I hope they get around to the criminality of the Deep State Mafia. ..."
"... Despite all the chaos and the moral panics that keep rocking the White House, Trump's three National Security Advisors - Flynn, McMaster, Bolton - had one core commonality: they want war with Iran. Watching the sinister neo-con Jim Woolsey betray the frothing neo-con Flynn to Joe Biden was a comedy of neo-con infighting. A major part of Russiagate was the older 'Atlanticist' neo-cons boxing in the boorish 'Trumpist' neo-cons. Whether Atlantic Council or US-homegrown both flavors of neo-conservatism want war with Iran. ..."
Apr 20, 2019 | therealnews.com

PAUL JAY: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.

And we're continuing our series of discussions with Stephen Cohen. And his biography is down below the video player, and you really should watch the first few segments anyway and you'll get where we are. Thanks for joining us again.

STEPHEN COHEN: Thank you.

PAUL JAY: So I've watched several of your interviews. You've done Larry King and others, and you've been positive about Trump's attitude towards sort of a detente, lowering tensions with Russia. And in terms of my personal view, I think you're right. I think anything that lowers tensions between two nuclear powers is a good thing, and I think this self-righteous American attitude towards Putin and Russia– when you look at the scale of crimes committed by countries internationally, there is nothing that Russia has done that compares to the Iraq war, and go on and on with the United States has done, and to have some self-righteous attitude Two, it's clear it's so hypocritical to worry about political rights in Russia, because it's clear in terms of U.S. foreign policy if you can ally with Saudi Arabia, the Israeli occupation, and you name it how many dictators the United States has supported over the years, it's not about democracy.

So whatever Trump's intent is, I think I agree that this is a good thing. I actually think Trump framed it quite well himself, where he said, "Russia is not our adversary, they're our competitor, the way other big capitalist countries are our competitors." I think all that makes sense. Where I push back is I think you need to add that one of the prime reasons Trump wants to diminish tensions with Russia–assuming he really does, because some of the people that work for him, Nikki Haley in the UN and others, have said as outrageous stuff about Russia as any Democrat has said.

All that being said, I think the Trump presidency is one of the most dangerous presidencies ever, and he is planning and his whole foreign policy agenda has been regime change in Iran. And I think that if they don't accomplish that through economic warfare against Iran, with John Bolton there, the possibility of some kind of at least bombing attack on Iran before 2020 is very possible. One of the reasons I think he wants to lower tensions with Russia is so he can go after China. His acting defense secretary justified this new military expenditure, the new budget, the 765 billion dollar budget, with three words, "China, China, China." Their strategic vision–and you can see this in Steve Bannon's interviews and language–is diminish the tensions with Russia, go after Iran and go after China. And I think one needs to say this, otherwise it kind of looks like Trump is some kind of peacenik. And far from it, I think they're militarists.

STEPHEN COHEN: Not sure what the question is, though. Is it about–

PAUL JAY: Well, my question is, I think when you are saying positive things about Trump diminishing tensions with Russia, which I think is correct, but I think you need to add this guy does not have peaceful intentions, he's very dangerous.

STEPHEN COHEN: I live in a social realm–to the extent that I have any social life at all anymore– where people get very angry if I say, or anybody says, anything positive about Donald Trump. When Trump was campaigning in 2016, he said, "I think it would be great to cooperate with Russia." All of my adult life, my advocacy in American foreign policy–I've known presidents, the first George Bush invited me to Camp David to consult with him before he went to the Malta Summit. I've known presidential candidates, Senators and the rest, and I've always said the same thing. American national security runs through Moscow, period. Nothing's changed.

In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons–Putin announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they're real–that can elude any missile defense. We spent trillions on missile defense to acquire a first strike capability against Russia. We said it was against or Iran, but nobody believed it. Russia has now thwarted us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to missiles. And Putin has said, "It's time to negotiate an end to this new arms race," and he's 100 percent right. So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had already become convinced–and I spell this out in my new book, War with Russia?–that we were in a new cold war, but a new cold war more dangerous than the preceding one for reasons I gave in the book, one of them being these new nuclear weapons.

So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment–that would have been probably around the summer of 2016–just on this one point, because none of the other candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia. And as I told you before, Paul, all my life I've been a detente guy. Detente means cooperate with Russia. I saw in Trump the one candidate who said this is necessary, in his own funny language. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit or utter a more supreme statement of anti-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians, who put a lot of stock in soul. To say somebody has no soul and then go on to equate him with Hitler, I found that so irresponsible. I didn't vote for Trump, but I did begin to write and broadcast that this was of vital importance that we have this discussion, that we needed a new detente because of the new and more dangerous Cold War.

Since he's been president, I think he's been ineffective in regard to pursuing detente with Russia for a couple of reasons. I think that the people who invented Russiagate were the enemies of detente, and they piled on. So they've now demonized Russia, they've crippled Trump. Anything he does diplomatically with Putin is called collusion. No matter what Mueller says, it's collusion. This is anti-democracy, and detente is pursued through democracy. So whatever he really wants to do–it's hard to say–he's been thwarted. I think it's also one of the reasons why he put anti-detente people around him.

PAUL JAY: Why didn't he pull out of the arms treaty?

STEPHEN COHEN: So this is a separate issue now, and a complicated one. We have been in violation–let's be clear for folks which treaty we're talking about. We're talking about the so-called Intermediate-Range Treaty. This band of deployment of missiles that could fly roughly from 500, I think, to 3000 miles, they were exceedingly dangerous. The American ones have been based in Europe. They were very dangerous because they tested high-alert systems. They flew low, fast, they could elude radar. They were dangerous. Reagan and Gorbachev abolished them in 1987, correct? Now, stop and think for a minute, Paul. What Reagan and Gorbachev did in 1987 was the first ever, ever in history, act of nuclear abolitionism. They abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons. That was a sacred act. It needed to be cherished and preserved forever, no matter what difficulties emerged.

But then comes the history, and we need to remember the history. In 2002, the second President Bush withdrew the United States unilaterally from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, correct? Now, this treaty was related, because it forbid the deployment of so-called missile defense in a way that either side, American or Russian, could think that it had such great missile defense, it had a first strike capability. And everybody agreed nobody should think that. Mutually assured destruction had kept us safe in the nuclear age. But if Russia or the United States gets a first strike capability, then you don't have assured mutual destruction, and some crazy person might be tempted to risk it. So how did the Russians react to that? They began to develop–as I said before, when we began to deploy missile defense–a new generation of weapons. In other words, you're getting this classic action, reaction, action, reaction that drove the previous nuclear arms race, and now it's happening again.

So that brings us to Trump's decision. We don't know yet where it's going to lead, because Trump has said we're withdrawing. He said the Russians have been in violation. But in fact, we've been in violation since we deployed the missile defense systems. Just for the record, by the way–and professor Theodore Postol at MIT has been very good about this–these missile defense installations that we've installed around Russia, land, air, and sea, can actually fire cruise missiles. They are in violation of that Intermediate-Range Treaty, so we've been in systematic violation. Pushes come to shove, we withdrew, the Russians have now withdrawn. But Trump has said two things that are interesting and maybe correct, that technically the treaty was out of date because of the new weaponry. And secondly, who has the most cruise missiles? China. 30 years ago in 1987, it was only the United States and Russia, the Soviet Union. But now China, because of its vast regional presence, has all these intermediate range missiles.

So Trump says offhandedly, maybe in a Tweet, "Have you ever looked at the military budget of Russia, China, and the United States? It's obscene. We should cut it." What does that mean? What does that mean? It's a good idea, right? Then he said, "We can't have such a treaty without China." The Russians know this too, so let us hope that what they're stumbling toward is a new, modernized intermediate-range ban that would include China. China, however, will never sign it. But if they begin the negotiations and China doesn't deploy any more during the negotiations, and the negotiations go on indefinitely, we are safer than we now are. Now, do I think that Trump is cunning and thought this up? I'm not sure, but he's got China on the mind, and I don't quite agree with you that–he's got a kind of dualistic attitude toward China. It's a threat, but every time he makes a new trade deal with China, he brags on it that it's great for us.

You would agree with that, right? He's always talking about, "We're going to have this wonderful trade agreement with China, it's going to be so good for us." So in his mind, Trump's mind, China is kind of potentially–in his businessman mind–this big economic plus that he alone is going to get right. Let him try.

PAUL JAY: I don't know how much of this policy at all is Trump or not Trump. I think the brains behind a lot of this policy now is Bolton and some of the other neocon crazies around him.

STEPHEN COHEN: But Trump has been saying the same thing about cooperating with Russia long before he took on Bolton. There's two ways to look at this.

PAUL JAY: But his attitude towards China–

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, just stay for one minute on Russia, because the China thing is worth talking about too. But he says, almost alone, for the first time–how long has it been since we had a president really pursue detente? It's been a very long time. Obama called it a reset, but it was fraudulent. It was basically saying to the Russians, "Give us everything, and we aren't going to give you anything." It was doomed from the beginning. Plus, they wagered that Putin wouldn't return to the presidency. Do you know, by the way, speaking of meddling, that Biden went to Moscow and told Putin not to return to the presidency in 2012?

PAUL JAY: No.

STEPHEN COHEN: Wrap your head around that a minute. The vice president of the United States goes to Moscow and tells Putin, who's now prime minister because he termed out, but he could return, "We don't think you should return to the presidency." So you know what I'm wondering, I'm wondering whether Biden's calling up Putin today and asking Putin whether Biden should get into the presidential race here. I mean, what the hell? What the hell? And we talk about meddling? So the point about Trump, to finish this, is for the first time in many, many years, a presidential candidate, one that I didn't vote for and didn't care for, had said it's necessary to cooperate with Russia.

PAUL JAY: OK, but I've got to contextualize it. Because it's not enough–because first of all, Trump's a big liar, and everyone, from beginning to end, for real.

STEPHEN COHEN: Politicians lie, Paul. Welcome to the world,

PAUL JAY: No, but I think he lied on Russia.

STEPHEN COHEN: About what?

PAUL JAY: Well, on two things. I think number one–I think two things drove his Russia–

STEPHEN COHEN: Let me get my word in. Then I'll give it to you, I promise I'll pass it right to you, because this is going to set you up beautifully. When he said, Trump, 2016, "It's necessary to cooperate with Russia," there are two ways to interpret that. He was wise and smart, or the Kremlin had something on him.

PAUL JAY: No, I don't think either of those are true.

STEPHEN COHEN: And then we go straight to Russia.

PAUL JAY: Neither of those are true.

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I'm not saying you say that, but that's the way it was taken.

PAUL JAY: No, I think there's two things drove the Russia thing. Number one, they wanted sanctions lifted because Tillerson and the American oil companies, especially Exxon, wanted a big energy play in Russia, and they needed to lift the sanctions to do it, and Tillerson was all positioned for it. And if it hadn't been for this whole Russiagate stuff, they would have sailed along, had a detente, lifted the sanctions, and had a whole realm of new energy.

STEPHEN COHEN: You mean under Trump.

PAUL JAY: Under Trump. And I think that would have been a good thing. I'm not critiquing that in the sense that anything that reduces tensions between the United States and Russia is a good, thing normalizing, even if it's exploitive and ripping off the Russian people in their oil, I don't care. The nuclear threat is so paramount, anything that reduces those tensions are good. But these are not peacenik intentions.

STEPHEN COHEN: Where do we disagree? You've lost me.

PAUL JAY: I'm not saying we necessarily disagree on this. The second part of it is–and this is where I think is the dangerous part. Because I think sometimes when Trump and Putin get together and talk quietly, part of that conversation could well be about Iran. Because when they had the first big round of sanctions on Iran, Russia supported them, Russia came in on it. And if your foreign policy objective–and clearly it is, between whether it was Flynn, or whether it was Mattis, or whether it was Bolton, all of them are "regime change in Iran is the prime objective." And if you want to do that, wouldn't you want Russia to at the very least step back a little bit?

STEPHEN COHEN: I got you now, I see where you're going.

PAUL JAY: Number one. And number two, the big strategic guns are focused on China. So if you want to focus on China, wouldn't it be nice to have a strategic normalization with Russia, try to split Russia from China? Because in their minds, the real enemy is not Russia, the real enemy is a superpower economy–

STEPHEN COHEN: In whose mind?

PAUL JAY: Much of the American foreign policy establishment, both Democrat and Republican.

STEPHEN COHEN: The real enemy is ?

PAUL JAY: China. Because that's the global economy, that's going to be the competing superpower.

STEPHEN COHEN: Let's say you're right.

PAUL JAY: And that doesn't in any way say it's still, in the final analysis, a good thing if Trump can diminish these tensions. But let's give it the whole context.

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, but it doesn't–I'm not sure what the whole context is. It seems to me you just said to me that Trump or these people were playing for Russia's support against Iran in China.

PAUL JAY: As one piece of this, yeah.

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, if so, it's a fool's folly. Russia is leaving the West. I mean, it can't leave the West geopolitically, because Russia is so big, it's half in the West and a half in the un-West geographically. But American foreign policy, NATO expansion, the unwise policies made in Brussels and Washington, are driving Russia from the West.

PAUL JAY: No doubt.

STEPHEN COHEN: And when you leave the West, where do you end up, Paul?

PAUL JAY: They are pushing exactly the kind of a line–

STEPHEN COHEN: Where do you go?

PAUL JAY: Well, with China, of course.

STEPHEN COHEN: And not only China, where else? All major powers that are not members of NATO, including Iran. So when Putin came to power, he was very much in the tradition of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. He wanted a strategic alliance with the United States. Who was the first person to call up Bush after 9/11? Putin. And he said, "George, anything." And if you go back and look at what the Russians did to help the American ground war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, whether you think it was a good idea or not, that ground war, Russia did more to save American lives–Russian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan–than any NATO country did.

PAUL JAY: No, Iran did more than any NATO country to help America.

STEPHEN COHEN: But Russia had assets, unbelievable assets, and corridors for transportation, and even an army, the Northern Alliance, that it kept in Afghanistan. It gave it all to the United States. Putin wanted a strategic alliance with the United States, and what did he get in return? He got from Bush, the second Bush, more NATO expansion right to Russia's borders, and as I mentioned before, American withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which had been the bedrock of Russian nuclear security for 30 or 40 years. He got betrayed, and they use that word, "We were betrayed by Washington." This is serious stuff.

The pivot away from the West begins there and continues with these crazy policies that Washington has pursued toward Russia. It doesn't mean that Russia is gone forever from the West, but if you look at the billions of dollars of investment, you look at which way the pipelines flow, you look at Russia–Putin meets like six times a year, maybe more, with the leader of China. They've each called each other their best friend in politics. Trump meets with Putin and we think, "Oh my god, how can he meet with him." I mean, it's normal.

PAUL JAY: Netanyahu just met with Putin; nobody said a word.

STEPHEN COHEN: But the point here is that Russia has been torn between East and the West forever. Its best policy, in its own best interest, is to straddle East and West, not to be of the East or the West, but it's impossible in this world today. And U.S.-led Western policy since the end of the Soviet Union, and particularly since Putin came to power in 2000, has persuaded the Russian ruling elite that Russia can not count any longer, economically, politically, militarily, on being part of the West. It has to go elsewhere. So all this talk about wanting to win Russia to an American position that's anti-Iranian and anti-Chinese is conceived in disaster and will end in disaster. They should think of some other foreign policy.

PAUL JAY: I agree, but I think that's what Trump's–the people around Trump that wanted the detente–

STEPHEN COHEN: We should get new people.

PAUL JAY: Well

STEPHEN COHEN: I'll tell you truthfully, if Trump really wants to cooperate with Russia for the sake of American national security, if we forget all this Russiagate stuff and we say, "The guy is a little dim, but his ideas are right, you've got to cooperate with Russia," he has to get some new advisors. Because the people around him don't have a clue how to do it.

PAUL JAY: I don't think that is the intent, the intent is make money. I don't think there's any other intent. Make money for arms manufacturers, fossil fuel–

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, hope dies with us. I just don't see that constant bashing of Trump demeaning him, though it's so easy to do, helps us think clearly about American national interests.

PAUL JAY: I don't think bashing Trump by dredging up the demons of the Cold War is anything but war mongering. On the other hand, I don't think we should create any illusions about who Trump is.

STEPHEN COHEN: So let me give you the part with a paradox. We shouldn't have any illusions about who Trump is, that seems like–

PAUL JAY: Or who the system is, really.

STEPHEN COHEN: OK. So let's say–I mean, that seems a sensible point of view. But let me ask you a question. Why was it that American presidents since Eisenhower could do detente with Soviet communist leaders, and they weren't demonized after Stalin, but we're not permitted–and certainly Trump is not permitted–to do detente with a Russian Kremlin anti-communist leader, which Putin is? Did we like the communists better than the anti-communists in the Kremlin?

PAUL JAY: No. I'll give you what I think, it's just a layman's opinion. I think the foreign policy establishment, the elite, they were absolutely furious that after all these decades of trying to overthrow the Soviet Union, and they finally accomplish–although I think it was mostly an internal phenomenon, but still–and then they get Yeltsin and they have open Wild West, grabbing all these resources. I think they were really pissed that a state emerged, led by Putin, that said, "Hold on, it may be oligarchs, but they're going to be Russian, and you Americans aren't going to have a free-for–all, taking up the resources and owning the finance. We're not going to be a third world country to your empire."

STEPHEN COHEN: That's correct.

PAUL JAY: And they're pissed off at that.

STEPHEN COHEN: They, meaning ?

PAUL JAY: The Americans.

STEPHEN COHEN: Our people.

PAUL JAY: Our people. Well, I don't want to even take ownership for it.

STEPHEN COHEN: Don't run away. I don't know your age–

PAUL JAY: I'm 67.

STEPHEN COHEN: So we've established that I'm older than you.

PAUL JAY: No doubt. But you look younger, and I'm pissed at that.

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, that's a separate subject.

PAUL JAY: You've got more hair.

STEPHEN COHEN: I've got more hair. You've distracted me. What we share, despite the age difference, is that we grew up at a time when we were told–whether you or I believed it or not, but our generations, two generations, were told we are against Russia because it's communist. We were told that for decade after decade after decade. Now, Russia, the Kremlin, is not communist, it's anti-communist, and we're still against Russia. How do Russian intellectuals and policy-makers interpret that turnabout, that it was never about communism, it was about Russia? There's a saying in Russia formulated by a philosopher, his name was Zinoviev, he passed on but he was very influential, they were shooting–meaning the West–they were shooting at communism, but they were aiming at Russia.

And the view, very widespread among the Russian policy intellectual class today, is that Washington, in particular, will never accept Russia as an equal great power in world affairs, regardless of whether Russia is communist or anti-communist. And if that is so, Russia has to entirely reconceive its place in the world and its thinking about the West. And that point of view is ascending in Russia today due to Western policy. But just remember the view that all during the previous Cold War, they claim they were shooting at communism, but it was really Russia. And they still are today.

PAUL JAY: Yeah, I agree with that. I just–

STEPHEN COHEN: But we don't–you and I may agree, but we don't want Russians to think that way.

PAUL JAY: But I think the view coming out of World War II about being the global hegemon, the superpower, what that also means is you can't have any adversarial regional powers. And whether it's Russia or Iran, if you're not in the smaller American sphere of influence, the umbrella, you can't be there.

STEPHEN COHEN: It's funny you say that. I mean, I'm not a Putin apologist or a Trump apologist, but I do like intellectual puzzles. If you're saying that we have to give up our thinking about a multipolar world, so to speak, that there'll be other regional superpowers or great powers, then isn't Trump the first American president who seems to be OK with that? I don't see in Trump much a demand that we be number one.

PAUL JAY: Oh, I think Make America Great Again?

STEPHEN COHEN: But he didn't say Make American Number One Again. Maybe that's what he means, but you don't have Trump–

PAUL JAY: I don't think it kind of matters what the hell Trump thinks or says. And I think–

STEPHEN COHEN: Have you heard Trump say this thing that Obama and Madeleine Albright ran around saying for years, that American is "the indispensable nation?" Do you know how aggravated that made other states in the world? I mean, stop and think about it. Who runs around saying "we're indispensable?" I haven't heard Trump say that, maybe he has.

PAUL JAY: I just don't think we should put too much weight into whatever Trump says. I think he's a vehicle, he's a vessel.

STEPHEN COHEN: You take what you can get these days.

PAUL JAY: He's a vessel, first and foremost, for the arms manufacturers, for the fossil fuel industry. He's a vessel for right-wing evangelical politics. He's not a philosopher king. He's not a peacenik.

STEPHEN COHEN: You have to have priorities.

PAUL JAY: I think he's rather banal.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, probably, but you have to have priorities. My priority in international affairs is to avoid a military conflict with Russia. In my book, my new book, War with Russia?, when I start writing that book in 2013, I never intended to give it that title. But as I worked and watched events unfold since 2013 to 2019, for the first time in my long career, I thought war with Russia was possible. I didn't even think there was going to be a war–as I remember it, I don't remember it vividly–during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today, I assure you, the new Cold War is fraught with multiple Cuban Missile Crises. Take your pick; in the Baltic area where NATO is building up, in Ukraine where we've got ourselves involved in a proxy war, in Georgia where NATO is trespassing again as we talk, in Syria where American and Russian forces are flying and fighting on the ground in close proximity. By the way, Trump was absolutely right in withdrawing those–what were they–3000 Americans in Syria because whatever, Russia had killed just one of them.

With Trump in the White House, the trip wires, a war between nuclear Russia and nuclear America, are far greater and more multiple than they have ever been. That's the danger. Therefore, at this moment, if Trump says it's necessary to cooperate with Russia, on that one issue we must support him. It's existential at this moment. And believe me, and believe me, people love to hate on Putin in this country; "Putin's evil, Putin's bad." It's nonsense. Putin is a recognizable leader in Russia's tradition. Putin, as you said I think before, came to power wanting an alliance with the United States. He's spoken of his own illusions publicly. Leaders very rarely admit they ever had an illusion, rights, it's not something they do. He is reproached in Russia, reproached in Russia, for still having illusions about the West. You know what they say about him in high places in Russia? "He's not proactive, he just reacts, he waits for the West to do something abysmal to Russia, and then he acts. Why doesn't he first see what's coming?" What do they cite? They cite Ukraine.

PAUL JAY: Well, that's the next segment, because my question to you is going to be, "Did Putin make a mistake in Crimea?" So please join us for the continuation of our series of interviews with Stephen Cohen on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network.


Pax et Bonum 2 days ago ,

In a country where the media runs the lives of gullible citizens, it is easy to believe that all the moves are being made for the peace and well being of all. Behind the curtains, a narcissistic and egotistic machine is hard at work trying to sell war for peace. This business only benefits a few and causes great suffering on others ... but who am I kidding, no one cares, as long money is being made ... no one really cares!

0040 Pax et Bonum 2 days ago ,

The US Constitution and other supporting documents have long stymied attempts at direct democracy in the US. Beware of anyone claiming to be a strict Constitutionalist ! They hate democracy and embrace slavery in all its disguises.

Marilynne L. Mellander 19 hours ago ,

Great points, Mr. Cohen....this protracted attack on Russia via the phoney "Russiagate" investigation has set back relations with Russia for years to come....of course, even here in Bezerkeley, there were signs posted everywhere before the 2016 election: "Hillary=WWIII (just sayin')".....even the libs around here knew the Clinton cabal wanted a war with Russia ASAP

Michael Holloway 18 hours ago ,

That Trump represents a thinking that the post Soviet reality is not of a uni-superpower world, but one of a multi-polar world dominated by US economic empire.

I think that's true.

After reading "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century" in 2005, I came to the idea that the most dangerous section of the American elite were those that posited this uni-superpower world order idea; an impossibility in this age of technology (one in which even small economies like Canada could lead the world in nuclear physics understandings and implementation, and one where our collective wealth of scientific understanding and method, plus systems management, can 'leap' a large agrarian/industrial economy (China) to a 2nd generation industrial world power in 50 years, proves that understanding).

gchakko 20 hours ago ,

I haven't read the first part. But what the second part reveals is not that unravelling. American power is despotic. No principles. Money gain only. Russia turned democratic after enlightened brains like Yuri Andropov (Jewish-born ex-KGB Chief), old fox Andrei Gromyko, Gorbachev plus- plus, decided to change the system. In other words, Russia was willing for openness. But American oligarchs wanted to usurp Russian wealth with a hand stroke after Soviet State implosion.

Second, why did Rothschild-Rockefeller Banker vassals like Henry Kissinger, Schultz under Edward Teller influence, sabotage the Reagan-Gorbachev understanding to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely in Reykjavik, insisting unilateral Star Wars capability for the U.S. to remain as sole Superpower.

The problem is the incorrigible Big C (Capital) that wanted to eat away Russian minerals that Putin stopped in national interest. Any subsequent cooperation from the Russian side was probably was only for strategic cooperation with the U.S. to have world peace.

Steve belongs to that lone group of handful, distinguished U.S. intellectuals who see problems as they are in eventual meaningfulness for objective U.S. politics. I admire his talent and courage and support him.

George Chakko, former U.N. correspondent, now retiree in Vienna, Austria.
Vienna, 20/04/2019 06:05 am CET

Fat 18 hours ago ,

Not a word in Cohen's appraisal about US criminality. Jay was pushing in that direction. I hope they get around to the criminality of the Deep State Mafia.

That is the narrative that will get the most results. Trump is greedy and the neocons have already attacked him on two fronts: Russiagate and his need for money. He will likely do what the New World Order folks want him to do. Russiagate will turn out to be a benefit as long as he sticks with the program that the Neocons want. Who has pushed the US hard to get into war with Russia? Hilary, Obama, Cheney, now Bolton --all New World Order soldiers who will commit any crime to rule the world. This is what we are facing.

Jack Lomax a day ago ,

Trump like every POTUS since JFK does the bidding of the Zionist masters. Every POTUS except Nixon and Carter that is, and they were demonised and side tracked respectively. Nixon for his feral decision to recognise China and Jimmy Carter for being a dangerous liberal. But Trump is a normal run of the mill POTUS minus the PR masking tape. Perhaps the system has decided that the nice respectable masking tape is now an unnecessary add-on and every future president (if there are any or many) will do the will of Wall St and Tel Aviv as openly as does Trump and the msm will assure us that this is good and necessary. Good fo the economy and necessary to protect the poor suffering Jewish nation from the anti Semitic hatred of the deluded Palestinian lovers

nina sakun a day ago ,

and finally i think Putin is for Russian greatness, trump is for money for himself and his family, but also for a white America if that can fit in with his money making schemes.

mikjall • a day ago ,

I'm sorry, but Paul Jay, whom I sincerely admire, though with some reservations, sounds in this--very important--interview as if he were suffering from attention deficit syndrome. You see it most of all in the transcript. Stephen Cohen attempted to keep the discussion coherent and focused, and Paul injected irrelevancies. Paul, please keep your eye on the ball. Stephen Cohen is presenting an important message. It's OK to disagree with it, if you have coherent reasons, but it's important even if it's wrong.

michael nola a day ago ,

I think it's a mistake to take Trump at his word on anything that doesn't directly benefit himself. He is two things; an economic animal and a con man, and his motives are no more complicated than those of a cat. Unlike HRC, Bolton, Cheney Bush etc. he's no ideologue for war, however, I don't think he has any deep seated dislike of it either, so taking him at his word, either for or against any military action is foolish; basically, he's running a con and seeing where it goes, especially if there's any money in it for him or his family, a very obvious characteristic of his relationship with the Saudis and his continuing support of their genocidal war in Yemen, a gift he inherited from our Nobel Peace Prize president.

In the long run, there will be no stopping an alliance between the PRC and Russia, especially given our political elites' inability to see we are living in a world they can no longer dominate through an institution, the military, that few have ever been in, and those of Vietnam war draft eligibility, avoided at all costs, and they will continue that losing effort until the combined economic might of those nations and their geographic location on the world's most important land mass, Eurasia, and its proximity to resource rich Africa, eventually bring about the downfall of the American Empire.

antiparasites 2 days ago ,

1) Trump personally doesn"t want wars, never mind a war with Russia, though he's no philosopher or angel.

2) the neolibs, who almost had Russia in the bag before Putin came to power, have been pissed off at Putin and want regime change in Russia.

3) the same neolibs also want to pit russia, iran, and china against each other, in order to complete and maintain their New World Order.

4) the same neolibs panicked at Trump's election victory but has reined him in since with Russiagate. so whatever Trump wants matters not at the moment.

5) the same neolibs have miserably failed in their pursuit of 2) and 3) because of the alliance of the three, russia, china, and iran. now the entire arab world has declared independence from the US of Israel, because they now see an alternative bloc of russia, china, and iran to work with.

all the above are true. more and more people see the truth and reject the neolibs that the DNC leadership represents.

Trump will be reelected in 2020, if he fires bolton / pompeo / mnuchin / abrams etc. so far, he's been all bark but no bite, which is a good sign.

Yo 2 days ago ,

Ever noticed how contradictory people you know can be? Ever noticed how contradictory in yourself, in your own attitudes and deeds you can be? So why be surprised that Trump can be Stephen Cohen's Trump as much as Paul Jay's Trump? No problem really :-)

Luther Blissett • 2 days ago ,

There is no contraction between Cohen's observation that Trump is a voice of sanity on Russia (it just shows how bad US discourse on Russia is) and Jay's concern that detente with Russia is part of larger plan for war (economic, kinetic or hybrid) against Iran and China.

Real or fake, Trump's isolationism has produced no more peace than Obama's tepid liberalism did and Trump's veto of a bipartisan resolution to forced an end to American military involvement in Yemen has shown any arguments for an 'anti-war' Trump were pure self-delusion.

Despite all the chaos and the moral panics that keep rocking the White House, Trump's three National Security Advisors - Flynn, McMaster, Bolton - had one core commonality: they want war with Iran. Watching the sinister neo-con Jim Woolsey betray the frothing neo-con Flynn to Joe Biden was a comedy of neo-con infighting. A major part of Russiagate was the older 'Atlanticist' neo-cons boxing in the boorish 'Trumpist' neo-cons. Whether Atlantic Council or US-homegrown both flavors of neo-conservatism want war with Iran.

0040 2 days ago ,

Wonderful article with Mr Jay playing the role of village idiot ? Mr Cohen speaks with extreme clarity on Russia, which is totally unacceptable in for profit America by all sides, where arms sales are us. In regards to Crimea , I'd ask Mr Jay, did Bush 1 make a mistake in Panama where we killed 4 thousand civilians in keeping China from acquiring an interest in the Panama canal?

Doug Latimer 2 days ago ,

There are so many contradictions under the tent of Killer Clown's circus that it really isn't possible to make clear sense of them, is there?

I'll just say that he absolutely pimps "Amerika über alles", as it's the putrid patriotic red white and blue meat he throws his base.

Does he buy his own sales pitch? He does whatever his tiny but tricky little mind tells him is to his benefit. He'd be perfectly happy as a Russian oligarch or Saudi prince (as long as Putin or MBS let him bloviate to his heart's content).

His only allegiance is to the state of his ego and bank account.

[Apr 20, 2019] Is Russian 'Meddling' an Attack on America - RAI with Stephen Cohen

Notable quotes:
"... Sanctions are road rage. When you don't have a real policy, you do sanctions. But what's the logic of the sanctions? The sanction is we put this punishment on you. But when you change your behavior we will remove the punishment. Isn't that what we say with sanctions? Therefore sanctions have to be discussed if you're going to have diplomacy. So I would expect an American president to say to the Kremlin we need to have a lot of discussions, including the discussion of sanctions. The ones we've imposed. ..."
"... Actually, by now, depending on what comes next, I don't think the Kremlin cares very much. They've coped very nicely with the sanctions. Though it's hurting their ability to roll over their loans with Western banks, it's true. But generally speaking, they've managed. And Europe wants the sanctions ended, because it's hurt European manufacturers, I think there's 9,000 German firms that were or are making a profit in Russia. It's hurt European -- we have almost no trade with Russia, the United States. Sanctions is -- hurting Europe. ..."
"... Flynn was a professional intelligence officer. Let's repeat that. A professional intelligence officer. He knew everybody was listened to. It didn't bother him. The president had told him to have conversations with the Russian ambassador. There was a tradition of doing this. He had nothing to hide. ..."
"... The psychopaths in the Clinton campaign had no concern that the Russiagate meme would cause enormous consequences in the US relationships with important governments around the globe. Hillary Clinton attempted to damage Trump, the candidate that she wished for the Republicans to nominate, by alleging he was "Putin's puppet." More importantly, Clinton wanted to change the subject from her corruption that was evidenced in her leaked emails (likely by the murdered Seth Rich to Assange). The emails, among other things, proved that she and her toady Debbie Wasserman Schultz et al schemed to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... It's about Russian interference alright, but not in the election, rather with Washington's hegemonic ambitions in Eastern Europe (Ukraine), then in the Middle East (Syria) and now in South America (Venezuela). Charles Krauthammer's "unipolar moment" is over, the Bear is back. ..."
Apr 20, 2019 | therealnews.com

PAUL JAY: Welcome to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. And I'm Paul Jay.

People that follow this show know I particularly like to interview people that stick their neck out and stick to their guns for what they believe in, what they're fighting for. And our next guest is someone who's done both of those things under a lot of pressure. So this is the story, to begin with, of Stephen Cohen. Stephen is emeritus professor of politics at Princeton University, professor emeritus of Russian studies and history at New York University, and his most recent book: War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russia. Thanks for joining us again.

STEPHEN COHEN: Thanks, Paul.

PAUL JAY: So a lot of people were rather happy with Barr's summary of the Mueller report. And as we sit here talking today we haven't seen the Mueller report, it hasn't been given to Congress yet, and it may even happen tomorrow. We don't know. And it may change what we think of what I'm about to ask, but I don't think it's going to change too much about what I'm going to ask.

Obviously President Trump's pretty happy so far with the no collusion argument. And that was pretty clear from what Mueller said; what Barr says Mueller said. There's a quote from Mueller in Barr's summary. But I thought some people who've been critical of Russiagate were a little bit too happy about this, because the more important, I thought, substance of what Mueller says is that, in fact, Russia did interfere in the elections. And he takes it very seriously. And the more important part of Russiagate narrative, I don't think, was ever the collusion part. In fact, we all knew Mueller was not heading down any big collusion road anyway, because as you pointed out in one of your interviews, I don't know if it was Larry King, you know, you could see from how other people were being charged, Manafort and others, there was no breadcrumb leading you to a collusion argument with Trump. The real problem is the underlying idea is that this is an existential threat to American democracy, and Mueller more or less confirms that.

And I thought people shouldn't be so happy about that part of it, because the substantial argument -- and I'll quote you again -- is that whatever they did it was low-level stuff. It happens all the time between these countries. They all interfere in each other's elections. And then it gets raised to the existential level. That's the problem. And Mueller more or less confirms that.

STEPHEN COHEN: You are absolutely right, only not right enough. This expression, which has become a truth in the media and for too many politicians that "Russia attacked America during the 2016 presidential election" is both exceedingly dangerous and a complete falsehood. Why is it dangerous? Because if a great power is attacked, that great power has to eventually attack back, counterattack. This is a ticking time bomb in relations with Russia. No attack on America occurred in 2016. I was awake, present, and observant. I saw no missiles descending on our country. No Russian paratroopers. No Russian submarines. No Russian combat planes. Nothing. It's a complete fiction.

It's a form, I guess, of hyperbole. Did the Russians meddle? Some Russians? I don't know. I'm not even sure the Kremlin knew anything about it. But the Russiagate story is that Putin decided he wanted Trump to be in the White House. So he attacked American elections and rigged it. So Trump is now in the White House. I don't know how many people actually believe this. But too many continue to say it, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC. Too many influential news outlets are putting out an exceedingly dangerous fiction which is a form of warmongering. It didn't happen, but they won't let go of it.

So I agree with you. There was no attack on America. But they're keeping this up. Was there meddling? As you say, sure. So let's do the -- briefly -- the history of Russian-American meddling in each other's politics. Where would you like to begin? Should we begin with the American intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918? I mean, Wilson sent about 8,000 American troops to try to help overthrow the new red Communist government. Was that meddling? Really, is it meddling? You tell me. Sounds like meddling to me.

PAUL JAY: It's armed intervention.

STEPHEN COHEN: It's armed intervention. All right. What about, to leap forward, 1996? I was in Moscow, I observed it. Then-president of post-Soviet Russia Boris Yeltsin stood no chance of being reelected. No chance whatsoever. He was like 3 percent in the polls. But the Clinton administration desperately needed to keep him in power. So they meddled, big time. They sent electoral experts -- not unlike, by the way, Paul Manafort. Guys who make a living advising other countries about how to rig elections. We've got lots of them who do this for big money. So they set up in the presidential hotel. You could see them. Clinton arranged, I think, it was $10 billion, I may be wrong there, IMF loan to Yeltsin so Yeltsin could pay pensions and salaries he hadn't paid for five years. I mean, we did the whole -- I mean this was a massive intervention into Russia's election. And basically we kept Russia, Yeltsin, in the presidency. Is that meddling? Is that meddling?

PAUL JAY: Yeah, of course.

STEPHEN COHEN: What happened with Russian meddling in 2016, compared to the kind of meddling both sides have done, was jaywalking. The only reason it became one of the worst scandals, and I think most damaging in American history, because of the loathing for Trump and because the Clinton people couldn't accept that she was defeated fair and square. So they made up a story. You know, there's this book Shattered which tells about how they sat around and said we'll blame it on the Russians. However, it's exceedingly unpatriotic. It's warmongering. It's damaging our institutions of the presidency.

I mean, if it's true -- for example, let's say it's true that the Kremlin can put Trump in the White House. Then evidently our electoral system in this country is not reliable. And why not a governor, or a senator, or a member of the Congress that Putin likes? And what about the next one? I think it's going to erode confidence in our electoral system on the part of American voters. And what about the presidency itself? I mean, people actually say that a Kremlin puppet sits in the presidency. Do they think that the damage done to the institution of the presidency is going to end when Trump leaves? And do they think Republicans aren't going to do something similar to the next Democratic president?

And the media's scandalous coverage of this, abandoning their own standards. I mean, you don't get your virginity back quite that easily. I mean, they've got a lot to atone for, but at the moment they're not even prepared to say they did anything wrong. Just the other day the heads of these -- CNN, the executive editor of the New York Times and the Washington Post -- all said they thought their coverage of Russiagate had been great. I mean, really? Really? I mean, that's like a brain surgeon missing cancer, and then saying he thought he did a good job. I mean, it's preposterous.

So we have a major problem here. And the myth -- there was no Russian attack. The Russians meddled. Mainly what made the meddling different from the kind of meddling that went on, for example, when there were Russian-backed American communist parties, for example, in this country, is social media. It was a social media thing.

And a final point. Let's say that the Russians -- they didn't -- launched a major social media attack to distort the thinking of American voters, and were successful. Because that's one of the premises, right? People are saying that, right?

PAUL JAY: Yeah.

STEPHEN COHEN: What does that say for American voters? What contempt people have for American voters. So-called American Democrats have contempt for American voters. And now what are they doing? They're out busy censoring social media so that we won't get any information that might disorient an American voter. You can't -- if you don't believe that the electorate will reach a rational decision in voting by whatever interests individual voters have, you're not a democrat. I don't mean a member of the Democratic Party. You're not a democratic person. If you don't believe in voters you can't be a democratic person. Then you're an authoritarian.

PAUL JAY: The story that got completely lost as they focused on low-level meddling that was mostly -- that I think anyone can determine rather ineffective -- was the Cambridge Analytica story, and Bannon, and the use of troll farms, American-controlled troll farms, to do this targeted social media manipulation. And that's out there, including an arm of Cambridge Analytica which helped shape the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. And the role of Robert Mercer, who funded Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and originally backed Cruz, and then helped create Trump as president, I mean, that's the real story of the Trump presidency. Not this low-level meddling. And they've never really told that story in mainstream media. We did a whole documentary on it on The Real News. This whole thing's been lost about the real kind of sinister dark side to the 2016 elections.

STEPHEN COHEN: What worries me more, though, is the way Russiagate, Russiagaters, the zealots of Russiagate, have criminalized contacts with Russia. I think that this Clinton organization -- what's it called, Center for American Progress, or something, CAP, which has a website called Thought Progress or something -- has some posted 150 Trump-related contacts with Russia. I mean, I've had most of those contacts with Russia. I mean, I've had contacts with Russian intelligence agents. One was a good friend of mine. Five or six of them I worked with in a historical archive, and we did smoking breaks and lunch breaks together, and we talked. I mean, I've had all sorts of contacts in my nearly 50 years of dealing with Russia. There was a time when contacts were supposed to be good because it was a way of understanding and avoiding conflict. Part of detente. Part of diplomacy. But Russiagate, the allegations -- and I don't believe any of them, by the way -- the allegations have criminalized contacts.

Incidentally, as we talk, this young Russian woman, Marina Butina -- sometimes pronounced here BuTIna, but it's BUtina, B-U-T-I-N-A -- has been sitting in an American prison for more than six months, most of it in solitary, for doing nothing other than what many Americans do in Russia, and that is go around talking about how good the American political system is to Russia, Russians. She went around bragging on Putin and the Russian political system here. For that she's been kept in prison, and was, as Russians say, finally broken. Literally. That's how Russians break people. They lock you away to you confess. We call confession a plea. So she -- and she's still in prison, even though she pled.

What did she plead guilty to? Coming here and advocating Russian perspectives without registering as a foreign agent. This is a Soviet practice, Paul. One of the things that worries me is that Russiagate has generated too many Soviet-style practices by American authorities. The use of informers. People who were sent to inform on members of Trump's team, like Papadopoulos, for example. Holding people's families hostage. I mean, Mueller held General Flynn's son hostage, essentially, until Flynn pled. And Flynn never should have pled guilty. Never. In fact, he said the other day he regretted it.

Let's talk about Flynn, for example, to see how bogus this is. Flynn was taped, as he knew he would be, making contact after Trump was elected, before Trump came President, with the Russian ambassador, correct? That was how the story began.

PAUL JAY: And they had to know they were being listened to.

STEPHEN COHEN: Of course they [inaudible].

PAUL JAY: Or he should have.

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, so you would say if he knew he was being listened to, why would he go forward and have this meeting, or discussions, with the Russian ambassador? Because Trump had told him to do it. And the reason is very simple to anyone who knows even a little history. At least since Nixon -- maybe since Eisenhower and Kennedy -- but at least since Nixon, every American president-elect has made a so-called back channel connection with the Russians, with the Kremlin, before taking office. End of story. And we know -- I mean, Kissinger did it for Nixon.

PAUL JAY: But Nixon did it with the North Vietnamese, and Johnson called it treason.

STEPHEN COHEN: I don't care. The point of it is it's become traditional standard practice for the president-elect to reach out to the Russians to say basically chill out, we're going to discuss everything. I mean, you got to remember what happened. I mean, this was dangerous. Obama, to his eternal disgrace, threatened the Russians with a cyberattack. He threatened them. He said we've implanted in your infrastructure some kind of cyber thing.

PAUL JAY: And passed sanctions.

STEPHEN COHEN: But forget the sanctions. Forget the sanctions. He threatened them with a secret attack on their infrastructure. Did it mean their medical system? Did it mean their banking system? Did it mean their nuclear control system? And then the nitwit Vice President -- Obama's -- goes out and tells jokes about it on late night TV. Yeah, hey, we got him. What kind of behavior is this?

So I think Trump did absolutely the right thing. He told General Flynn, after Obama had made this reckless statement, but after Trump was elected, but not yet president, told Flynn, go tell the Russians not to overreact to what Obama said. Don't do anything crazy. We'll sort this out when I take office. I personally am grateful he did that, because there were people in Moscow arguing to Putin that they had to wage some kind of counterattack first. I mean, this was a very dangerous moment that Obama created, unnoticed in this country. Unreported on.

But not only was it the tradition that the president-elect made contact with the Russians. Backdoor. Everyone had done it. But in this case it was essential, because the crazies in Moscow were urging Putin to do something based on what Obama had said. By the way, who's vanished. On the question of Russiagate, Obama has disappeared himself. I mean Russiagate began on Obama's watch as president. You'd think he'd have something to say. He hadn't said a word.

PAUL JAY: But let me counter. I mean, I think the sanctions Obama put on Russia for Russia's meddling in the U.S. elections was uncalled for; aggressive, and so on. And a continuation of a bunch of aggressive policy. But their argument is Obama was the president, and the sanctions had been implemented. And Trump was saying to Putin, don't worry, we're going to get rid of them.

STEPHEN COHEN: No there's no record. This is-

PAUL JAY: I thought that was Flynn's conversation.

STEPHEN COHEN: No. No. What Flynn told Kislyak, so far as we know, I haven't heard the tape, was do not overreact to this statement by Obama that your infrastructure is going to be attacked, and we will discuss everything, maybe he said including sanctions, when Trump takes the White House.

Now, let's back up a minute. Why shouldn't we discuss sanctions? The logic -- I don't believe in sanctions. They're road rage. I mean, as we talk, a few nitwit senators are up on the Hill trying to think up some new sanctions. And if you ask them what they're sanctioning Russia for today, they couldn't tell you. Everything. In fact, they do tell you. It's called for Putin's malign behavior in the world. It's not about Crimea anymore. It's not about voter interference. It's just basically he's a malign character, and you can't have too many sanctions.

Sanctions are road rage. When you don't have a real policy, you do sanctions. But what's the logic of the sanctions? The sanction is we put this punishment on you. But when you change your behavior we will remove the punishment. Isn't that what we say with sanctions? Therefore sanctions have to be discussed if you're going to have diplomacy. So I would expect an American president to say to the Kremlin we need to have a lot of discussions, including the discussion of sanctions. The ones we've imposed.

Actually, by now, depending on what comes next, I don't think the Kremlin cares very much. They've coped very nicely with the sanctions. Though it's hurting their ability to roll over their loans with Western banks, it's true. But generally speaking, they've managed. And Europe wants the sanctions ended, because it's hurt European manufacturers, I think there's 9,000 German firms that were or are making a profit in Russia. It's hurt European -- we have almost no trade with Russia, the United States. Sanctions is -- hurting Europe.

PAUL JAY: Well, let's get back to Flynn. How could he not know that's being listened to? And I guess they assume that this was not abnormal for an incoming president to have a conversation like this.

STEPHEN COHEN: Flynn was a professional intelligence officer. Let's repeat that. A professional intelligence officer. He knew everybody was listened to. It didn't bother him. The president had told him to have conversations with the Russian ambassador. There was a tradition of doing this. He had nothing to hide.

PAUL JAY: OK. There's a part of this that I don't think we're going to agree on, and we're going to talk about that in the next-

STEPHEN COHEN: I don't even know you were disagreeing with me. Those are just facts I gave you.

PAUL JAY: I didn't disagree up until this point. We might agree on something and then disagree in the next segment. So please join us for the next segment of our series of interviews with Stephen Cohen.


Infarction 4 days ago ,

Stephen Cohen: "... [B]ecause of the loathing for Trump and because the Clinton people couldn’t accept that she was defeated fair and square. So they made up a story. You know, there’s this book Shattered which tells about how they sat around and said we’ll blame it on the Russians."

The psychopaths in the Clinton campaign had no concern that the Russiagate meme would cause enormous consequences in the US relationships with important governments around the globe. Hillary Clinton attempted to damage Trump, the candidate that she wished for the Republicans to nominate, by alleging he was "Putin's puppet." More importantly, Clinton wanted to change the subject from her corruption that was evidenced in her leaked emails (likely by the murdered Seth Rich to Assange). The emails, among other things, proved that she and her toady Debbie Wasserman Schultz et al schemed to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders.

0040 Infarction 3 days ago ,

In fact Billary won the "election" by 3 million votes. But since we are not a democracy it did not matter. Trump was appointed by America's elites, claiming otherwise just serves the status quo. I'm sure Mr Cohen knows that?

Putin Apologist 4 days ago ,

It's about Russian interference alright, but not in the election, rather with Washington's hegemonic ambitions in Eastern Europe (Ukraine), then in the Middle East (Syria) and now in South America (Venezuela). Charles Krauthammer's "unipolar moment" is over, the Bear is back.

antiparasites 4 days ago ,

right on point, Mr. cohen, right on the money. looking forward to the next installment.

RandyM 4 days ago ,

Just a question Paul. Who is "too happy" that no collusion was found? Can you name names? Russiagate debunkers like Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Mate may feel vindicated, but I don't see happiness in the fact that the whole episode probably helps Trump.

antiparasites RandyM 4 days ago ,

truth should set good people free and thus make them very happy. you're not too happy? well then you know what you are.

Marko 4 days ago ,

"But I thought some people who’ve been critical of Russiagate were a little bit too happy about this, because the more important, I thought, substance of what Mueller says is that, in fact, Russia did interfere in the elections..."

If there was interference , it was , as Cohen says , on the level of jaywalking in its seriousness. What would really constitute "an existential threat to American democracy" is if this whole affair began and continued as a fabricated-from-whole-cloth stitch-up of a candidate and then sitting President , orchestrated and implemented at the highest levels of the CIA , FBI , Justice and State Depts. , etc., and possibly all the way up to ex-Pres. Obama. If the origin of this whole mess is ever investigated properly , as it should be , I hope TRNN will cover it and the ramifications of its findings at least as thoroughly as it has the hoax itself , and will invite Stephen Cohen back to contribute to that analysis. You certainly won't hear from him on the MSM , where such honesty and clarity of thought are effectively banned.

EarthView 4 days ago ,

Where is part 2? What is it that Paul Jay disagrees with Cohen? Sanctions are utterly stupid. ALL sanctions against all countries should be removed, including those on Russia, Iran, Venezuela, China and even North Korea. No self-respecting counties will submit to the ridiculous demands of the terrorist empire because of sanctions.

0040 EarthView 3 days ago ,

Sanctions, embargoes, and tariffs, are a forms of taxation that harm the masses in the state that applies them, while their rulers blame others for the resulting shortages and higher prices.

antiparasites EarthView 4 days ago ,

fewer and fewer parties are concerning themselves about the US sanctions. not "even" north korea, according to their latest communique. maybe that's why cohen says "forget the sanctions."

Mark Swanson 3 days ago ,

Okay, Mr. Cohen spends a lot of time trashing the Clintons but is almost an apologist for the Trump administration. He states correctly that the U.S. has meddled in Russian politics in the past, notably in the 1920s and 1990s, which we probably shouldn't have done but that does not make it okay for the Russians to do the same to us. His position seems to be, tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye, so what, forget it. He dismisses, with contempt, the idea that Russia meddled at all, but no one knows how much they meddled or what the effects were because no one has looked into it.

Mr. Cohen states that Russia did not attack the U.S. by which he means militarily with troops and missles. Obviously, that is true but so what. Is cyberassault not something the U.S. should worry about? Also Mr. Cohen seems to imply that Vladimir Putin is not that bad as leaders go, despite the poisonings, the assassinations, the imprisonment of critics and banning of political opponents, and most egregious, the invasion of the Ukraine and occupation of Crimea. He seems to think invading other countries is okay and that the Europeans don't care because sanctions against Russia cause them economic hardship. I suspect that many Europeans care very much about European countries invading each other. He criticizes President Obama for placing sanctions on Russia and states that Obama did so because the U.S. doesn't have a strategy regarding Russia. How does he think the U.S. should respond? What does he think U.S. policy should be towards Russia?

Mr. Cohen defends Michael Flynn stating all new administrations contact Russia to reassure them. Maybe so but that doesn't explain why Mr. Flynn failed to register as a lobbyist for Turkey. Mr. Mueller would not have been able to hold Mr. Flynn's son "hostage" if neither Flynn or his son had not done something illegal. Cohen also defends Ms. Butina even though she was in contact with the National Rifle Association.

Altogether I don't find Mr. Cohen persuasive because of his dismissive arrogance of everything supporting the Russiagate scandal. At this point no on is in a position to accurately critique Russiagate until the report by Mr. Mueller is released.

It would have helped his case if he had expressed as much contempt for the Trump Administration as he did of the Clinton and the Democrats such as some acknowledgement that Trump is a dispicable, cruel, vicious and pathological narcissist. It also did not help that Mr. Jay seemed embarrassed to question or critique Mr. Cohen's assertions. Unfortunately in making his points Mr. Cohen takes too much information out of context and leaves out far too many details of the Russiagate scandal.

Paul McArthur Mark Swanson 3 days ago ,

I think if you listen more to professor Cohen (try Stephen Cohen John Batchelor show) , you find acknowledgement of all of Trumps faults as well that you accurately described and realize his "dismissive arrogance" relates to his informed knowledge of the Russiagate scandal.

Oracle Mark Swanson 3 days ago ,

I couldn’t have put it any more coherently. I don’t find Mr. Cohen persuasive at all, particularly after watching the Russian intelligence and counter intelligence cohort at the House Intelligence Committee hearing. (They were extremely knowledgeable.) After hearing them, this guy seems unbelievable to me. But! Paul got his anti-Mueller report guy. At this point, this country is like a boulder ready to roll down a cliff and finish democracy for good. Two of the issues I found ironic was that Mr. Cohen 1) feels that Democrats must not think voters are very smart if they are swayed by the Social Networks (ha!) and 2) he really believes (straight face) that our voting system and elections in this country are solid and uncorrupted. Where has he been? Thank you, Mark Swanson, for your eloquent analysis.

Marilynne L. Mellander 19 hours ago ,

Finally - an interview with someone who doesn't suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome - great stuff!!

TomG 3 days ago ,

So simple yet so true, "Sanctions are road rage. When you don't have effective policy, you implement sanctions."

Maricata • 4 days ago ,

The NYT or WAPO, both, are CIA outlets that ALWAYS lied to the world

miomyo 4 days ago ,

I say, now is the time to invest in tinfoil.

0040 4 days ago ,

An historically factual and informative article once again based based on a false premise. Trump was not elected. Billary won the election by 3 million votes. Trump was appointed POTUS by the Electoral College, as Bush2 was appointed by the SCOTUS and then employed a government official in Ohio to stuff electronic ballot boxes to secure himself a second term, and the US media forced fed to desperate but credulous Americans the empty suit Obomber turned out to be to. The US is not and has never been a Democracy, more a police state run by Plutocrats . Mr Cohen simply trumpets the corporate approved narrative offering incrementalism for obedience. Kissinger and friends, investment advisers to most of the worlds tyrants, continues to facilitate Putin's end run around US sanctions helping him invest his enormous fortune.

antiparasites 0040 4 days ago ,

you don't like the rules? then change the rules first. Trump won the election fair and square, following the rules. if the rules had been different, voters and candidates would have behaved totally differently as well in terms of campaign strategies and voting. Trump could have won the popular vote by a landslide. ever thought about that? no.

0040 antiparasites 3 days ago ,

The rules are , there are no longer any rules just the cloying greed of our rulers, whose minions will promote/support any lie in their service.

[Apr 20, 2019] Here is an interesting interpretation of Trumps selection of cabinet and advisor positions

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments. ..."
"... I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. ..."
"... A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies). ..."
Nov 20, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Patient Observer , November 19, 2016 at 8:41 am

Here is an interesting interpretation of Trump's selection of cabinet and advisor positions:

https://sputniknews.com/politics/201611191047623363-trump-administration-analysis/

It is not about politics, but Trump's peculiar management style, Timofey Bordachev, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Russia's High School of Economics, told RIA Novosti.

"Those who have been studying the business biography of the newly elected president have noted that he has always played off his high-ranking employees against each other. While doing so he remained above the fight," he said.

And

Gevorg Mirzayan, an assistant professor of the Political Science department at the Financial University in Moscow pointed out two purposes for the nominations.

"Trump needs to consolidate the Republican Party, hence he should nominate representatives of different party groups to key positions in his administration to win the support of the whole party," he told RIA Novosti. Surveillance © Photo: Pixabay Trump National Security Team Reportedly Wants to Dismantle Top US Spy Agency The second purpose is to form an administration that doesn't look too "dovish" or too "hawkish" to be able to avoid further accusations of excessive loyalty towards Moscow, he suggested. Thus without an image of a 'dove" who neglects the national interests, he will be able to normalize Russian-American relations, the expert said.

The above brings rationality to the diverse selections made by Trump.

However, the black swan event will be an economic collapse (fast or protracted over several years). That will be the defining event in the Trump presidency. I have no inkling how he or those who may replace him would respond.

Jen , November 19, 2016 at 12:18 pm
I had guessed myself that Trump was going to run the government as a business corporation. Surrounding himself with people of competing viewpoints, and hiring on the basis of experience and skills (and not on the basis of loyalty, as Hillary Clinton might have done) would be two ways Trump can change the government and its culture. Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments.

If running the US government as a large mock business enterprise brings a change in its culture so it becomes more open and accountable to the public, less directed by ideology and identity politics, and gets rid of people engaged in building up their own little empires within the different departments, then Trump might just be the President the US needs at this moment in time.

Interesting that Russian academics have noted the outlines of Trump's likely cabinet and what they suggest he plans to do, and no-one else has. Does this imply that Americans and others in the West have lost sight of how large business corporations could be run, or should be run, and everyone is fixated on fake "entrepreneurship" or "self-entrepreneur" (whatever that means) models of running a business where it's every man, woman, child and dog for itself?

Patient Observer , November 19, 2016 at 5:21 pm Patient Observer , November 19, 2016 at 5:21 pm
I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. Trump may have noted how Putin did an incredible turnaround of Russia and it all started with three objectives: restore the integrity of the borders, rebuild the industrial base and run off the globalists/liberals/kreakles. I am certainly not the first one to say this and I think that there is a lot of basis for that analysis. However, Trump will have a far more difficult challenge and frankly I don't think he has enough allies or smarts to pull it off.

A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies).

[Apr 20, 2019] What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a surprise.

Apr 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Apr 18, 2019 5:09:48 PM | 7 ">link

Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?

Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:

The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.

Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military. NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)

What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.

"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.

After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA to send over some flypaper!

I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff, either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive Outsiders.

[Apr 19, 2019] Pompeo Appoints Fox News Neocon as Spokesperson by Kurt Nimmo

Apr 04, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
And the neocon-ization of the Trump administration continues. While The Donald is packing away Big Macs and Diet Cokes, his neocon secretary of state is appointing likeminded warmongers.

me title=

From Bezos' propaganda mill, The Washington Post :

Ortagus has been a fixture of the GOP foreign policy establishment for more than a decade. She has served as a press officer at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a financial intelligence officer at the Treasury Department and an intelligence officer in the US Naval Reserve. She has also worked with several political campaigns, as well as a political action committee, and has experience working on Wall Street and in foreign policy consulting.
In addition to working with spooks and a federal agency that undermines elections and foments coups in foreign lands, Ortagus "served on the boards" at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a coven of warmongers run by Kimberly Kagan, wife of notorious neocon Frederick Kagan.

ISW is funded by the death merchants -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp, and others -- and it pushes the concept of the indispensable nation engaged in forever war around the world, a conflict promoted in the name of "democracy," which is code for mass murder campaigns waged by the financial elite in its quest for total domination and theft of everything valuable on planet Earth.

Naturally, some folks over on the so-called "New Right" support the appointment of an ardent neocon -- a former pretty face from Fox News -- at the State Department, thus demonstrating they are little different than establishment Republicans, or for that matter Democrats.

[Apr 19, 2019] A child could see through the fake "chemical attack" supposedly launched by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:29 pm GMT

Justin Raimondo has just done a U turn on 'president' Dump

' doesn't this prove I was wrong about Trump and his movement all along?

I was very wrong to discount the role of character, personality, and intelligence: Trump is simply not fit to be President '

Raimondo's reaction to Dump's incredible imbecility re the Syria 'chemical attacks '

' A child could see through the fake "chemical attack" supposedly launched by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria '

Yes anyone watching that white helmets footage is immediately cringing for those poor kids being abused as props in a macabre stage play

How stupid is Dump anyway ? That's the question

[Apr 19, 2019] Raimondo: So Trump is not just stupid, and crazy he is also a coward.

Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

densa , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:45 pm GMT

Raimondo:

So he's not just stupid, and crazy – he's also a coward. He refuses to confront the War Party head on, despite his campaign trail rhetoric. Just the other day he was telling crowds in Ohio how we were on the way out of Syria because "we have to take care of our own country." The crowd cheered. Would he go back to that same audience and tell them we need to intervene in a country that's been wracked by warfare for years, with no real hope of a peaceful settlement? Of course not.

Coulter:

He is a shallow, lazy ignoramus who just wants Goldman Sachs to like him.

We get words; the neocon banker NY scum, running and ruining this world on the fast track since 9-11, get action. They also own the congressional swamp with its amazingly high approval rating of 15%. They own the former liberal left, now the Resistance, that can turn out half a million bleeding hearts in pussy hats but the same oddly can't be bothered to protest war.

Although I believe the timing of the raid on Trump's lawyer's office to be convenient to help persuade him to ignore his base and appease his owners, at this point I won't be troubled when they throw him away.

[Apr 19, 2019] The USA> creation of political Islam and supporting islamist fighters in Afhanistan created preconditions for the 9/11

So the USA helped to re-install medieval treatment of woman in Afghanistan and then called it progress toward human rights...
Notable quotes:
"... But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well. ..."
Apr 18, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Behind the Omar Outrage Suppressed History of 9-11 By Max Blumenthal

Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal.

... ... ...

To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.

Taliban 'Unimportant'

Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters.

These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.

These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.

"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant."

To some in Washington, the Taliban were a historical footnote. To others, they were allies of convenience. As a top State Department diplomat commented to journalist Ahmed Rashid in February 1997, "The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There be [the Saudi-owned oil company] Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that."

CIA Cover-ups and Blowback

Back in the U.S., some people fueled the blowback from the Afghan proxy war. The Blind Sheikh was given a special entry visa by the CIA as payback for the services he provided in Afghanistan, allowing him to take over the al-Kifah Center in New York City, which had functioned as the de facto U.S. arm of Al Qaeda's Services Bureau. Under his watch and with help from bin Laden, some people and lots of aid were shuttled to the front lines of U.S. proxy wars in Bosnia and Chechnya while the Clinton administration generally looked the other way.

Though the Blind Sheikh was eventually convicted in a terror plot contrived by a paid informant for the FBI, some people in federal law enforcement had been reluctant to indict him. "There was a whole issue about [Abdel-Rahman] being given a visa to come into this country and what the circumstances were around that," one of his defense lawyers, Abdeed Jabara told me. "The issue related to how much the government was involved with the jihadist enterprise when it suited their purposes in Afghanistan and whether or not they were afraid there would be exposure of that. Because there's no question that the jihadists were using the Americans and the Americans were using the jihadists. There's a symbiotic relationship."

During the 1995 trial of members of the Blind Sheikh's New York-based cell, another defense lawyer, Roger Stavis, referred to his clients before the jury as "Team America," emphasizing the role they had played as proxy fighters for the U.S. in Afghanistan. When Stavis attempted to summon to the witness stand a jihadist operative named Ali Abdelsauod Mohammed who had trained his clients in firearms and combat, some people ordered Mohammed to refuse his subpoena. Those people, according to journalist Peter Lance, were federal prosecutors Andrew McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.

The government lawyers were apparently fretting that Mohammed would be exposed as an active asset of both the CIA and FBI, and as a former Army sergeant who had spirited training manuals out of Fort Bragg while stationed there during the 1980s. So Mohammed remained a free man, helping Al Qaeda plan attacks on American consular facilities in Tanzania and Kenya while the "Day of the Planes" plot began to take form.

In early 2000, some people gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to prepare the most daring Al Qaeda operation to date. Two figures at the meeting, Saudi citizens named Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, were on their way to the United States. While in Kuala Lumpur, the duo's hotel room was broken into by CIA agents, their passports were photographed, and their communications were recorded. And yet the pair of Al Qaeda operatives was able to travel together with multiple-entry visas on a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles. That's because for some reason, some people from the CIA failed to notify any people at the FBI about the terror summit that had just taken place. The "Day of Planes" plot was moving forward without a kink.

In Los Angeles, some people met Hazmi and Midhar at the airport, provided the two non-English speakers with a personal caretaker and rented them apartments, where neighbors said they were routinely visited each night by unknown figures in expensive cars with darkened windows. Those people were Saudi Arabian intelligence agents named Omar Bayoumi and Khaled al-Thumairy.

Crawford , Texas

It was not until August 2001 that Midhar was placed on a terrorist watch list. That month, some people met at a ranch in Crawford, Texas, and reviewed a classified document headlined, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US." The bulletin was a page-and-a-half long, with detailed intelligence on the "Day of Planes" plot provided by Ali Mohammed, the Al Qaeda-FBI-CIA triple agent now registered as "John Doe" and disappeared somewhere in the federal prison system. Those people reviewed the document for a few minutes before their boss, President George W. Bush, moved on to other matters.

According to The Washington Post , Bush exhibited an "expansive mood" that day, taking in a round of golf. "We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die, and it could be in the U.S.," CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black warned days later. Bush did not meet with his cabinet heads again to discuss terrorism until Sept. 4.

A week later, on Sept. 11, some people did something.

They hijacked four civilian airliners and changed the course of American history with little more than box cutter blades in their hands. Fifteen of those 19 people, including Hazmi and Midhar, were citizens of Saudi Arabia. They were products of a Wahhabi school system and a politically stultifying society that had thrived under the protection of a special relationship with the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. had showered theocratic allies like Saudi Arabia with aid and weapons while threatening secular Arab states that resisted its hegemony with sanctions and invasion. The Saudis were the favorite Muslims of America's national security elite not because they were moderate, which they absolutely were not, but because they were useful.

In the days after 9/11, the FBI organized several flights to evacuate prominent Saudi families from the U.S., including relatives of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, Islamophobia erupted across the country, with even mainstream personalities such as TV news anchor Dan Rather taking to the airwaves to claim without evidence that Arab-Americans had celebrated the 9/11 attacks.

Unable to find a single operational Al Qaeda cell in the country, the FBI turned to an army of paid snitches to haul in mentally unstable Muslims, dupes and idlers like the Lackawanna 6 in manufactured plots. Desperate for a high-profile bust to reinforce the "war on terror" narrative, the bureau hounded Palestinian Muslim activists and persecuted prominent Islamic charities like the Holy Land Foundation, sending its directors to prison for decades for the crime of sending aid to NGOs in the occupied Gaza Strip.

As America's national security state cracked down on Muslim civil society at home, it turned to fanatical Islamist proxies abroad to bring down secular and politically independent Arab states. In Libya, the U.S. and UK helped arm the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a longtime affiliate of Al Qaeda, using it as a proxy to depose and murder Muammar Gaddafi. As that country transformed from a stable, prosperous state into an Afghanistan-style playground for rival militias, including a chapter of the Islamic State, the Obama administration moved to do the same to Damascus.

In Syria, the CIA armed an outfit of supposedly "moderate rebels" called the Free Syrian Army that turned out to be nothing more than a political front and weapons farm for an array of extremist insurgent factions including Al Qaeda's local affiliate and the Islamic State. The latter two groups were, of course, products of the sectarian chaos of Iraq, which had been ruled by a secular government until the U.S. came knocking after 9/11.

The blowback from Iraq, Libya and Syria arrived in the form of the worst refugee crises the world has experienced since World War II. And then came the bloodiest terror attack to hit the UK in history – in Manchester. There, the son of a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member, who traveled to Libya and Syria on an MI6 ratline, slaughtered concert-goers with a nail bomb.

Cataclysmic social disruptions like these were like steroids for right-wing Islamophobes, electrifying Trump's victorious 2016 presidential campaign, a wing of the Brexit "Leave" campaign in the UK, and far-right parties across Europe. But as I explain in "The Management of Savagery," these terrifying trends were byproducts of decisions undertaken by national security elites more closely aligned with the political center – figures who today attempt to position themselves as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance.

Which people did which things to drag us into the political nightmare we're living through? For those willing to cut through the campaign season bluster, Ilhan Omar's comments dare us to name names.

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling " Republican Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," " The Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of Savagery ," published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including " Killing Gaza " and " Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions. 36 comments for "Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of 9/11"


Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24

The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase "leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.

bill haymes , April 19, 2019 at 05:20

everyone who has not examined ALL THE EVIDENCE of 9/11 WITH AN OPEN MIND is imo simply whistling in the wind

Anarcissie , April 19, 2019 at 11:12

I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century, when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire, would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies, economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the other.

After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became 'justifying bin Laden' or 'spitting on the graves of the dead' so you couldn't talk about it.

But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well.

Abe , April 18, 2019 at 23:23

Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of the pro-Israel Lobby

Max Blumenthal's article and his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (2019), is an impressive exercise in burying the leads.

Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's national security state.

Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That country is, of course, Israel."

frank scott , April 18, 2019 at 22:55

i really like her and support her but if she just had the good sense to have simply said "some people did something terrible" none of the present chapter of "islamophobia" would be acted out..no matter how much we think we know about the real truth(?) what happened that day did not blow up the white house, congress or the ruling class of america but nearly three thousand pretty ordinary folks yes, just like what "we" do repeatedly, but nevertheless, and considering the overwhelming mind fuck that went on with replaying the tragedy on tv for days so that millions across the nation were put in shock, we need to be just a little more considerate and possibly understanding both about how many people might feel and how some people might use any opportunity to perform this second rate islamophobia, which is a tiny fractional form of the original monstrous behavior that has destroyed nations, governments and millions of people in the islamic world..that is islamophobia, not the reactionary crap that passes for it which should be as understandable – under the circumstances – as terrorism!

Zhu , April 18, 2019 at 22:32

It should have been obvious that our government had made enemies around the world & that some would attempt revenge some day. Instead, we all thought that what we did to other people could never happen to us.

Joe Tedesky , April 18, 2019 at 21:41

This is a must read for the skeptics who doubt any questioning of the official 9/11 Commission Report. This investigative reporting by Max Blumenthal is another good reason to read the Consortium.

hetro , April 18, 2019 at 17:18

Max Blumenthal's emphasis on "somebody did something" in echo to Ilhan Omar's comments, plus his emphasis on what has been "suppressed," will hopefully lead on to further disclosures of what took place for the 9/11 event.

Anyone who watches the Omar video will see she is mainly emphasizing a disgraceful demonizing of Muslims in general. Additionally, what has brought on all the hatred to her, she did not speak with the "quasi-theological understanding" that demands the official narrative, with hushed tones, while speaking of the event:

Max Blumenthal above:

". . . by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

It would be a fine thing for CN, despite Mr. Parry's former reservations, to open up enquiry into further discussion of what has been "suppressed"–or at the very least to the very serious questions that have not yet been answered on that horrible day.

OlyaPola , April 18, 2019 at 14:17

"Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal."

All processes of suppression tend to spread that which is being suppresed facilitating de-suppression of much that is being suppressed leaving a residual.

Framing and access to sources may continue the lack of perception of this residual and hence facilitate misrepresentation through ommission.

"Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."

Restriction of frame is a tool of obfuscation and choice of point of initiation a tool of misrepresentation.

During the early 1970's due to internal factors primarily but not wholly in the period of 1964 to 1970, the Politburo of the Soviet Union agreed detente on the bases of spheres of influence with the United States of America facilitating the creation of a greater assay of and reliance upon the US dollar fiat currency, further butressed by commodity arrangements including but not restricted to the petro-dollar, in part to underpin the United States of America economic recovery including recovering their control over their perceived threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.

In reaction/attempt at circumvention in 1973 Mitsui-Mitsubishi representing the zaibatsu sought to jointly develop the Trans-Siberian railway, the port of Nahodka and other industrial options including in Japan primarily in Northern Honshu and in Hokkaido with the Soviet Union but this project was terminated by the Politburo, the reason given being potential threats from China after confrontation including on the Amur and the need to build BAM (Baikal-Amur Railway) to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – the projects rejected were ancestor of the present OBOR project with differing participants re-explored from 1993 onwards.

These opportunities and trajectories in the 1970's were explained to the Politburo in the 1970's but rejected by the Politburo.

The Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan by the Afghani government and hence never "invaded" Afghanistan.

The Politburo accepted the invitation of the Afghani government despite the advice of those practiced in strategic evaluation – the illusion that the Politburo was practiced in strategic evaluation endured in an ideological half-life post August 1968 but increasingly was ignored in practice.

During the 1970's there was an oscillating aspect of contrariness and attempt to regain perceived control in many of the decision of the Politburo led by the man who loved medals and awards Mr. Brezhnev.

Consequently the Politburo and the Soviet Union was complicit in facilitating opportunities for " Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."

However the targets of these operations were not restricted to the Soviet Union but included as part of an ongoing "strategy" "to underpin the United States of America economic recovery/maintainence including recovering/maintaining their control over their perceived threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan." and the location of these efforts were chosen the middle of Central Asia in reaction to experiences in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Israel post 1973.

The above are necessarily thumbnails in confirmation and extension of the not widely perceived causation/facilitation/ history/trajectories/time horizons which may aid perception, as may testing the hypotheses that Ms. Omar is being attacked for challenging myth irrespective of which myth she attempts to challenge.

[Apr 19, 2019] Jimmy Carter: US 'Most Warlike Nation in History of the World' by Brett Wilkins

Apr 19, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

The only US president to complete his term without war, military attack or occupation has called the United States "the most warlike nation in the history of the world."

During his regular Sunday school lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter revealed that he had recently spoken with President Donald Trump about China. Carter, 94, said Trump was worried about China's growing economy and expressed concern that "China is getting ahead of us."

Carter, who normalized diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing in 1979, said he told Trump that much of China's success was due to its peaceful foreign policy.

"Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody?" Carter asked.
"None, and we have stayed at war." While it is true that China's last major war -- an invasion of Vietnam -- occurred in 1979, its People's Liberation Army pounded border regions of Vietnam with artillery and its navy battled its Vietnamese counterpart in the 1980s. Since then, however, China has been at peace with its neighbors and the world.

Carter then said the US has been at peace for only 16 of its 242 years as a nation. Counting wars, military attacks and military occupations, there have actually only been five years of peace in US history -- 1976, the last year of the Gerald Ford administration and 1977-80, the entirety of Carter's presidency. Carter then referred to the US as "the most warlike nation in the history of the world," a result, he said, of the US forcing other countries to "adopt our American principles."

China's peace dividend has allowed and enhanced its economic growth, Carter said. "How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?" he asked. China has around 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of high speed rail lines while the US has "wasted, I think, $3 trillion" on military spending. According to a November 2018 study by Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, the US has spent $5.9 trillion waging war in Iraq,

Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nations since 2001.

"It's more than you can imagine," Carter said of US war spending. "China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way."

"And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure you'd probably have $2 trillion leftover," Carter told his congregation. "We'd have high-speed railroad. We'd have bridges that aren't collapsing, we'd have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of say South Korea or Hong Kong."

While there is a prevalent belief in the United States that the country almost always wages war for noble purposes and in defense of freedom, global public opinion and facts paint a very different picture. Most countries surveyed in a 2013 WIN/Gallup poll identified the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, and a 2017 Pew Research poll found that a record number of people in 30 surveyed nations viewed US power and influence as a "major threat."

The US has also invaded or bombed dozens of countries and supported nearly every single right wing dictatorship in the world since the end of World War II. It has overthrown or attempted to overthrow dozens of foreign governments since 1949 and has actively sought to crush nearly every single people's liberation movement over that same period. It has also meddled in scores of elections, in countries that are allies and adversaries alike. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Brett Wilkins

Brett Wilkins is editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace.

[Apr 19, 2019] The USSR was a kind of guarantor of sanity of the USA elite, supressing built-in suisidal tendences. With it gove they went off the rail

For Western world, especially people of the USA, the collapse of the USSR was really geopolitical catastrophe, as Putin once put it. It unleaseshed cannibalistic instincts of neoliberal elite.
Apr 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Drew Hunkins , April 18, 2019 at 12:39

" "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski "

Yeah, I can.

There never would have been a war on Iraq in 1991 nor an obliteration of Iraq in 2003, which has lasted until the present day. The destruction of Yugoslavia never would have taken place and the wars and proxy wars on Syria and Libya would have only existed in the twisted and depraved imaginations of the Zionist and militarist psychos in our midst.

TINA never would have been an imperative and the working people of the Western world (primarily the U.S.) wouldn't be in a race to the bottom as it comes to wages, healthcare insurance, poverty levels, infant mortality, life-expectancy, union power in the workplace, secure retirements, and outlandish housing costs. With the demise of the USSR the millionaire capitalist-investor class really took the gloves off and saw no reason to provide the working masses with certain life-affirming policies, it was time to really sock it to the bottom 90%.

Despite some its faults, the world's people have been paying dearly for the demise of the USSR.

For further reading on what I've outlined above:
"Blood Lies" by Grover Furr
"Blackshirts and Reds" by Michael Parenti
"Fool's Crusade" by Diana Johnstone
"Against Empire" by Michael Parenti
essays and articles by Paul Craig Roberts
essays and articles by Andre Vltchek

Al Pinto , April 18, 2019 at 13:31

In short, without an antidote, the US does what the neocons and Israel decide to do. Welcome to the world of "my way, or the highway" cowboy mentality

Rob Roy , April 18, 2019 at 20:26

Actually, people in the USSR lived lives of constant fear (they call it the “Time of Terror”) that their friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers, even their children, would “tattle” on them and they would wind up in the torture chambers. They lived in stark, nearly unbearable poverty; the only comfort was that they all were in the same godforsaken boat. Communism might be a good idea on paper, but in reality, because of the ignorance of the bureaucratic leadership, it was a dismal failure.

The demise of the USSR would have no effect whatsoever on the hegemonic madness of the US which, under the guiding light of the Monroe Doctrine (established way before the USSR), carries on destroying one country after another. I would ask, “What would the world do without the USA?” Live in a much more peaceful world for sure. As for Omar, I wish her the fortitude to continue telling the truth. Again, Max Blumenthal proves himself one of the world’s best reporters.

OlyaPola , April 19, 2019 at 05:33

“constant fear”

The years of 1928 to 1953 were not constant since there were the years 1954 and subsequent.

Drew Hunkins , April 19, 2019 at 10:22

That’s not true Rob Roy. You’re parroting Western capitalist talking points. A whole host of brand new scholarly literature has hit the shelves in just the last few years proving the USSR was nowhere near as horrible as the Washington imperialist media made it out to be. In fact, under Stalin the Soviet Union made substantial gains in women’s rights, literacy, healthcare and industrial wages. Also, had it not been for Stalin’s agrarian plan there would have been more famines and more severe famines.

And as everyone knows, if Stalin never crash course industrialized the country they never would have defeated Nazi Germany.

Far from the USSR being a police-state it was often seen as a giant trough in which, for example, rent wouldn’t be paid and no one would come around to collect it.

Please see the following books for a truth trip: “Blood Lies” by Grover Furr and “Stalin, Waiting for the Truth” by Grover Furr. Also, Michael Parenti’s “Blackshirts and Reds is excellent.

Dump Pelousy , April 18, 2019 at 20:52

Micheal Perenti is the best. He was the Truth To Power voice before 9/11, before all the yuppie reporters sold their souls for “access” and a talking heads show. I watched it happen in slow motion with great dismay.

mp66 , April 18, 2019 at 22:23

Spot on. The western owner class was forced to share at least one plate with the rest of the population to make the west appear superior in material terms, and with that incentive or threat gone, there is no more need for a plate, few crumbs under the table should be sufficient. But as usual, greed goes along with stupidity, they forgot that doing so for decades undermines the stability of the system. Trump, Brexit, trade wars, abrogations of treaties, blatant disregard for bare basics of international law etc. are just symptoms of deeper discontent across the globe.

[Apr 19, 2019] Haftar's LNA has won this war, though many battles will be fought ahead, the LNA has brought a very united support from Egypt, KSA and UAE and with that it brings France, Russia and now the US in supporting it, either as opportunistic, individual agenda or simply to speed up the peaceful process.

Apr 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Canthama , Apr 19, 2019 4:17:22 PM | link

The military offensive against Tripoli is more political than in fact a military offensive to overwhelm the enemy. Of course battles are fought but just the fact that heavy weapons (tanks, artillery etc...) were not used in the first few weeks could indicate that the attack was somehow aiming to be fast, to aim fo tribal allegiance shifts or just to make a point. Only in the past week or so we have seen tanks and air strikes taking place, which seems an escalation of the conflict.

Haftar's LNA has won this war, though many battles will be fought ahead, the LNA has brought a very united support from Egypt, KSA and UAE and with that it brings France, Russia and now the US in supporting it, either as opportunistic, individual agenda or simply to speed up the peaceful process.

The fact is the GNA is becoming seriously isolated, very few support besides Turkey, Qatar and Italy, all the indication that there is a good chance for Tripoli to saved from destruction in a mix of military/political solution in weeks to come. Key tribal vocal and on the ground support, like Zittan's, will be crucial for this peace process.
Then Misrata will be a totally different animal, here Muslin Brotherhood/al Qaeda and ISIS are packed and strong, support from Turkey and Qatar is abundant, there is no peaceful solution for Misrata, only annihilation of the filthy terrorists, like in Idlib in Syria.


Circe , Apr 19, 2019 5:07:48 PM | link

Trump is supporting Haftar because he is STILL a CIA asset and to keep Russia's hands off Libya. Haftar is also friends with the Egyptian Zionist Sissy and likewise, MbinSaw.

So now, there's only one smart thing for Putin to do; support THE OTHER SIDE. If he doesn't do this, the U.S. has a CIA stooge ruling Libya, who is friends with all its allies including the most lunatic state of the 3 -- Israel, though all three are ruled by despot nutjobs.

Putin should at worst remain neutral or support the other side to mess with Trump's geo-engineering.

Now that Putin and Kim will be holding a summit soon; it would be nice to see Putin f...ck up U.S. plans in Libya too!

It's about putting up roadblocks to the Empire's geopolitical grab. That's the way you balance power. If ever war breaks out, you want to have as many allies, friendly air space and allied ports as possible. It doesn't mean a World War will happen again, but it could, and geostrategy is good INSURANCE. The U.S. will never be Russia's natural ally, not even close, therefore Putin better play it smart always planning for the worst while hoping for the best.

Alas, I'm not sure what Putin's thinking lately allowing the lunatic state to attack Iranian military assets in Syria! Too many Zionist oligarchs in Putin's sphere. One day Putin will utter Caesar's last words: Et tu, Brute? Because you sure as hell can't trust a Zionist when it comes to securing your own power!

Curtis , Apr 19, 2019 5:27:20 PM | link
So if we want to find who to blame for the increase in oil/gas prices, we should look at Trump's actions?

AP points to a "rogues' gallery of militias" fighting "Hifter"
https://apnews.com/76313fb7c3654a1a9270bbd7b4bd96f2

But only the LNA and GNA are mentioned. I thought there were 3 governments in Libya - one west, one east, and one pushed by the UN. Wikipedia's Libyan Civil War entry adds the National Salvation Army to the LNA and GNA. But the NSA may no longer play a part with the militias rising to the fore. And do the militias support the UN-backed GNA? From what I've read the militias are working together against "one-man rule" of Haftar.

ADKC , Apr 19, 2019 5:30:50 PM | link
Circe @12

Libya is a broken country, Haftar brings stability, the end of the militias, Islamists and slavery. Haftar has already won that is why the US are now supporting him.

Russia has had a long standing dialogue with Haftar. Haftar will probably gain some sort of independence by balancing these conflicting powers (Russia and US). The US will get oil at the price they want (need) but I expect that Russia will gain most from Haftar coming out on top.

Haftar was part of the revolution that brought Gadaffi to power - I doubt that he is a CIA poodle.

Circe , Apr 19, 2019 5:42:32 PM | link
Haftar was part of the revolution that brought Gadaffi to power - I doubt that he is a CIA poodle.

Posted by: ADKC | Apr 19, 2019 5:30:50 PM

Hogwash. You left out the part where Haftar joined the revolution that deposed and murdered Gaddafi after returning to Libya from Langley! Haftar is a ruthless power-lusting butcher and not trustworthy at all!

Circe , Apr 19, 2019 5:42:32 PM | link karlof1 , Apr 19, 2019 6:35:39 PM | link
Prestigious Valdai Club offers two new papers about the Libya situation, "Tripoli: Haftar's Blitzkrieg Failed. What's Next?" from today, and "Libya: Tug of War and Foreign Policy Aspects" from yesterday.

Keep abreast of this important Think Tank's numerous papers, presentations and discussions by watching its Twitter account for announcements.

ADKC , Apr 19, 2019 6:36:56 PM | link
Circe @16

Yes he was part of the forces that overthrew Gaddafi and also connected to the CIA - I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I would very much prefer Gaddafi to still be in power - Libyans almost certainly feel the same (the vast majority felt the same when the uprising happened).

But Haftar has won and the alternative to Haftar is criminal gangs and Islamist militias. So what choice is there really? Haftar brings a much greater likelihood of peace and stability. But, he won't be bringing back the life that Libyans had when Gaddafi was in charge.

It appears that he instigated his war in 2015 without the agreement/support of US & CIA and this may well indicate that he is his own person - but this might just be a smokescreen. Regardless, what real choice is there for ordinary Libyans - continuing war, chaos and conflict or accepting that Haftar has won?

Circe , Apr 19, 2019 7:05:43 PM | link
ADKC@18

But Haftar has won and the alternative to Haftar is criminal gangs and Islamist militias. So what choice is there really?

Wrong. It's not an either Haftar or terrorists situation, dynamic whatever. This falsehood is UAE, SAUDI bullshet propaganda. Wahhabism is trying to take over Libya and Sudan! Wherever the Saudis are involved trouble follows lest you forget Syria and Yemen!

Haftar is bad for Libya PERIOD. More proof is that before Trump called Haftar to offer his support, he spoke with UEA's MBZ. It all stinks! Leave Libya alone -- hands off! All foreign influence out! That's the best option.

financial matters , Apr 19, 2019 7:08:35 PM | link
Nice to see Russia and the US on the same side actually fighting real terrorism. This is a win against the deep state.
Piotr Berman , Apr 19, 2019 7:11:45 PM | link
The US doesn't care what murderous thug is in charge.
Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Apr 19, 2019 3:22:46 PM | 9

My first thought was -- now they are telling us?

Of course, HRC put it nicely in a debate with Trump: "you will never see me singing praises for a dictator or strongmen who does no love America." Qaddafi, RIP, did not love America, so he had to go once an opportunity emerged. Maduro does not love America. Sisi may have a kind word now and then etc.

Circe , Apr 19, 2019 7:13:50 PM | link
@20 financial matters

This is not a win against anything or a fight against real terrorism. Quit the bull propaganda!

[Apr 19, 2019] US creation of political Islam and supporting islamist fighters in Afhanistan created preconditions for the 9/11

Notable quotes:
"... But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well. ..."
Apr 18, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Behind the Omar Outrage Suppressed History of 9-11 By Max Blumenthal

Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal.

... ... ...

To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.

Taliban 'Unimportant'

Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters.

These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.

These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.

"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant."

To some in Washington, the Taliban were a historical footnote. To others, they were allies of convenience. As a top State Department diplomat commented to journalist Ahmed Rashid in February 1997, "The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There be [the Saudi-owned oil company] Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that."

CIA Cover-ups and Blowback

Back in the U.S., some people fueled the blowback from the Afghan proxy war. The Blind Sheikh was given a special entry visa by the CIA as payback for the services he provided in Afghanistan, allowing him to take over the al-Kifah Center in New York City, which had functioned as the de facto U.S. arm of Al Qaeda's Services Bureau. Under his watch and with help from bin Laden, some people and lots of aid were shuttled to the front lines of U.S. proxy wars in Bosnia and Chechnya while the Clinton administration generally looked the other way.

Though the Blind Sheikh was eventually convicted in a terror plot contrived by a paid informant for the FBI, some people in federal law enforcement had been reluctant to indict him. "There was a whole issue about [Abdel-Rahman] being given a visa to come into this country and what the circumstances were around that," one of his defense lawyers, Abdeed Jabara told me. "The issue related to how much the government was involved with the jihadist enterprise when it suited their purposes in Afghanistan and whether or not they were afraid there would be exposure of that. Because there's no question that the jihadists were using the Americans and the Americans were using the jihadists. There's a symbiotic relationship."

During the 1995 trial of members of the Blind Sheikh's New York-based cell, another defense lawyer, Roger Stavis, referred to his clients before the jury as "Team America," emphasizing the role they had played as proxy fighters for the U.S. in Afghanistan. When Stavis attempted to summon to the witness stand a jihadist operative named Ali Abdelsauod Mohammed who had trained his clients in firearms and combat, some people ordered Mohammed to refuse his subpoena. Those people, according to journalist Peter Lance, were federal prosecutors Andrew McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.

The government lawyers were apparently fretting that Mohammed would be exposed as an active asset of both the CIA and FBI, and as a former Army sergeant who had spirited training manuals out of Fort Bragg while stationed there during the 1980s. So Mohammed remained a free man, helping Al Qaeda plan attacks on American consular facilities in Tanzania and Kenya while the "Day of the Planes" plot began to take form.

In early 2000, some people gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to prepare the most daring Al Qaeda operation to date. Two figures at the meeting, Saudi citizens named Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, were on their way to the United States. While in Kuala Lumpur, the duo's hotel room was broken into by CIA agents, their passports were photographed, and their communications were recorded. And yet the pair of Al Qaeda operatives was able to travel together with multiple-entry visas on a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles. That's because for some reason, some people from the CIA failed to notify any people at the FBI about the terror summit that had just taken place. The "Day of Planes" plot was moving forward without a kink.

In Los Angeles, some people met Hazmi and Midhar at the airport, provided the two non-English speakers with a personal caretaker and rented them apartments, where neighbors said they were routinely visited each night by unknown figures in expensive cars with darkened windows. Those people were Saudi Arabian intelligence agents named Omar Bayoumi and Khaled al-Thumairy.

Crawford , Texas

It was not until August 2001 that Midhar was placed on a terrorist watch list. That month, some people met at a ranch in Crawford, Texas, and reviewed a classified document headlined, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US." The bulletin was a page-and-a-half long, with detailed intelligence on the "Day of Planes" plot provided by Ali Mohammed, the Al Qaeda-FBI-CIA triple agent now registered as "John Doe" and disappeared somewhere in the federal prison system. Those people reviewed the document for a few minutes before their boss, President George W. Bush, moved on to other matters.

According to The Washington Post , Bush exhibited an "expansive mood" that day, taking in a round of golf. "We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die, and it could be in the U.S.," CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black warned days later. Bush did not meet with his cabinet heads again to discuss terrorism until Sept. 4.

A week later, on Sept. 11, some people did something.

They hijacked four civilian airliners and changed the course of American history with little more than box cutter blades in their hands. Fifteen of those 19 people, including Hazmi and Midhar, were citizens of Saudi Arabia. They were products of a Wahhabi school system and a politically stultifying society that had thrived under the protection of a special relationship with the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. had showered theocratic allies like Saudi Arabia with aid and weapons while threatening secular Arab states that resisted its hegemony with sanctions and invasion. The Saudis were the favorite Muslims of America's national security elite not because they were moderate, which they absolutely were not, but because they were useful.

In the days after 9/11, the FBI organized several flights to evacuate prominent Saudi families from the U.S., including relatives of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, Islamophobia erupted across the country, with even mainstream personalities such as TV news anchor Dan Rather taking to the airwaves to claim without evidence that Arab-Americans had celebrated the 9/11 attacks.

Unable to find a single operational Al Qaeda cell in the country, the FBI turned to an army of paid snitches to haul in mentally unstable Muslims, dupes and idlers like the Lackawanna 6 in manufactured plots. Desperate for a high-profile bust to reinforce the "war on terror" narrative, the bureau hounded Palestinian Muslim activists and persecuted prominent Islamic charities like the Holy Land Foundation, sending its directors to prison for decades for the crime of sending aid to NGOs in the occupied Gaza Strip.

As America's national security state cracked down on Muslim civil society at home, it turned to fanatical Islamist proxies abroad to bring down secular and politically independent Arab states. In Libya, the U.S. and UK helped arm the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a longtime affiliate of Al Qaeda, using it as a proxy to depose and murder Muammar Gaddafi. As that country transformed from a stable, prosperous state into an Afghanistan-style playground for rival militias, including a chapter of the Islamic State, the Obama administration moved to do the same to Damascus.

In Syria, the CIA armed an outfit of supposedly "moderate rebels" called the Free Syrian Army that turned out to be nothing more than a political front and weapons farm for an array of extremist insurgent factions including Al Qaeda's local affiliate and the Islamic State. The latter two groups were, of course, products of the sectarian chaos of Iraq, which had been ruled by a secular government until the U.S. came knocking after 9/11.

The blowback from Iraq, Libya and Syria arrived in the form of the worst refugee crises the world has experienced since World War II. And then came the bloodiest terror attack to hit the UK in history – in Manchester. There, the son of a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member, who traveled to Libya and Syria on an MI6 ratline, slaughtered concert-goers with a nail bomb.

Cataclysmic social disruptions like these were like steroids for right-wing Islamophobes, electrifying Trump's victorious 2016 presidential campaign, a wing of the Brexit "Leave" campaign in the UK, and far-right parties across Europe. But as I explain in "The Management of Savagery," these terrifying trends were byproducts of decisions undertaken by national security elites more closely aligned with the political center – figures who today attempt to position themselves as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance.

Which people did which things to drag us into the political nightmare we're living through? For those willing to cut through the campaign season bluster, Ilhan Omar's comments dare us to name names.

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling " Republican Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," " The Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of Savagery ," published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including " Killing Gaza " and " Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions. 36 comments for "Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of 9/11"


Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24

The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase "leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.

bill haymes , April 19, 2019 at 05:20

everyone who has not examined ALL THE EVIDENCE of 9/11 WITH AN OPEN MIND is imo simply whistling in the wind

Anarcissie , April 19, 2019 at 11:12

I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century, when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire, would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies, economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the other.

After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became 'justifying bin Laden' or 'spitting on the graves of the dead' so you couldn't talk about it.

But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well.

Abe , April 18, 2019 at 23:23

Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of the pro-Israel Lobby

Max Blumenthal's article and his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (2019), is an impressive exercise in burying the leads.

Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's national security state.

Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That country is, of course, Israel."

frank scott , April 18, 2019 at 22:55

i really like her and support her but if she just had the good sense to have simply said "some people did something terrible" none of the present chapter of "islamophobia" would be acted out..no matter how much we think we know about the real truth(?) what happened that day did not blow up the white house, congress or the ruling class of america but nearly three thousand pretty ordinary folks yes, just like what "we" do repeatedly, but nevertheless, and considering the overwhelming mind fuck that went on with replaying the tragedy on tv for days so that millions across the nation were put in shock, we need to be just a little more considerate and possibly understanding both about how many people might feel and how some people might use any opportunity to perform this second rate islamophobia, which is a tiny fractional form of the original monstrous behavior that has destroyed nations, governments and millions of people in the islamic world..that is islamophobia, not the reactionary crap that passes for it which should be as understandable – under the circumstances – as terrorism!

Zhu , April 18, 2019 at 22:32

It should have been obvious that our government had made enemies around the world & that some would attempt revenge some day. Instead, we all thought that what we did to other people could never happen to us.

Joe Tedesky , April 18, 2019 at 21:41

This is a must read for the skeptics who doubt any questioning of the official 9/11 Commission Report. This investigative reporting by Max Blumenthal is another good reason to read the Consortium.

hetro , April 18, 2019 at 17:18

Max Blumenthal's emphasis on "somebody did something" in echo to Ilhan Omar's comments, plus his emphasis on what has been "suppressed," will hopefully lead on to further disclosures of what took place for the 9/11 event.

Anyone who watches the Omar video will see she is mainly emphasizing a disgraceful demonizing of Muslims in general. Additionally, what has brought on all the hatred to her, she did not speak with the "quasi-theological understanding" that demands the official narrative, with hushed tones, while speaking of the event:

Max Blumenthal above:

". . . by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

It would be a fine thing for CN, despite Mr. Parry's former reservations, to open up enquiry into further discussion of what has been "suppressed"–or at the very least to the very serious questions that have not yet been answered on that horrible day.

OlyaPola , April 18, 2019 at 14:17

"Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal."

All processes of suppression tend to spread that which is being suppresed facilitating de-suppression of much that is being suppressed leaving a residual.

Framing and access to sources may continue the lack of perception of this residual and hence facilitate misrepresentation through ommission.

"Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."

Restriction of frame is a tool of obfuscation and choice of point of initiation a tool of misrepresentation.

During the early 1970's due to internal factors primarily but not wholly in the period of 1964 to 1970, the Politburo of the Soviet Union agreed detente on the bases of spheres of influence with the United States of America facilitating the creation of a greater assay of and reliance upon the US dollar fiat currency, further butressed by commodity arrangements including but not restricted to the petro-dollar, in part to underpin the United States of America economic recovery including recovering their control over their perceived threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.

In reaction/attempt at circumvention in 1973 Mitsui-Mitsubishi representing the zaibatsu sought to jointly develop the Trans-Siberian railway, the port of Nahodka and other industrial options including in Japan primarily in Northern Honshu and in Hokkaido with the Soviet Union but this project was terminated by the Politburo, the reason given being potential threats from China after confrontation including on the Amur and the need to build BAM (Baikal-Amur Railway) to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – the projects rejected were ancestor of the present OBOR project with differing participants re-explored from 1993 onwards.

These opportunities and trajectories in the 1970's were explained to the Politburo in the 1970's but rejected by the Politburo.

The Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan by the Afghani government and hence never "invaded" Afghanistan.

The Politburo accepted the invitation of the Afghani government despite the advice of those practiced in strategic evaluation – the illusion that the Politburo was practiced in strategic evaluation endured in an ideological half-life post August 1968 but increasingly was ignored in practice.

During the 1970's there was an oscillating aspect of contrariness and attempt to regain perceived control in many of the decision of the Politburo led by the man who loved medals and awards Mr. Brezhnev.

Consequently the Politburo and the Soviet Union was complicit in facilitating opportunities for " Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."

However the targets of these operations were not restricted to the Soviet Union but included as part of an ongoing "strategy" "to underpin the United States of America economic recovery/maintainence including recovering/maintaining their control over their perceived threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan." and the location of these efforts were chosen the middle of Central Asia in reaction to experiences in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Israel post 1973.

The above are necessarily thumbnails in confirmation and extension of the not widely perceived causation/facilitation/ history/trajectories/time horizons which may aid perception, as may testing the hypotheses that Ms. Omar is being attacked for challenging myth irrespective of which myth she attempts to challenge.

[Apr 19, 2019] The situation in Syria is concerning. The CIA is implementing an intense strategy of sabotage against any form of energy supply. The aim is to prevent reconstruction and therefore make life impossible for its people.

Apr 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bart Hansen , Apr 19, 2019 3:57:48 PM | link

The situation in Syria is concerning. Meyssan has a piece on the geopolitics of oil. An excerpt:

"The attitude of the White House towards Syria is different, insofar as this country is currently unable to exploit its reserves, and Russia is allowing time to pass. The aim is to prevent reconstruction and therefore make life impossible for its people. The CIA is implementing an intense strategy of sabotage against any form of energy supply. The majority of the population, for example, has no more gas for heating their homes, nor for cooking purposes."

War by other means...

[Apr 19, 2019] Why Russiagate Will Never Go Away by Rob Urie

With 240,000 people employed by DHS to find terrorists, terrorists will be found
Apr 19, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

Given that Russia's economy today is smaller than Italy's and its military budget wouldn't buy a toilet seat or hammer in the U.S. military procurement system, the question of why Russia would seem a great mystery outside of history. And left unstated is that the U.S. defense industry needs enemies to survive. 'Radical Islam,' an invention of oil and gas industry flacks that turned out to be serviceable for marketing Tomahawk missiles and stealth fighter jets as well, lost some of its luster when ISIS and Al Qaeda came over to 'our side.' And humanitarian intervention ain't what it used to be with Libya reduced to rubble and open-air slave markets now dotting the landscape.

From 1948 through the early 1990s Russia was Pennywise the evil clown, helping to sell bananas, nuclear weapons and cut-rate underwear around the globe wherever American empire alighted. Costumed 'communists,' locals paid a day-rate to dress up and shout whatever slogans conveyed evil most effectively, were a staple of CIA interventions from Iran to Guatemala to the streets of New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Never mind that the slayer of monsters is more monstrous than an army of evil clowns, as the Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans, Chileans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Yemenis and on and on, were to learn.

The big why (?) here would suggest an eternal mystery were it not for the arithmetic we learned as tykes. The U.S. has an annual military budget that is larger than the next seven evil empires combined. Killing people and blowing shit up is what America does. Stated reverse-wise, what is the point of being able to end all human life on earth more than once? Yet the U.S. can do it 3X -- 5X or 30X -- 50X, depending on which analysis is chosen. And while it would be anti-historical to remove mal-intent as motive, an alternative explanation of the militarization of the police is 'overstock,' that there is nothing else to do with the stuff that the Pentagon produces.

This would seem a tremendous waste of resources under any reasonable theory of their efficient use (e.g. capitalism). The explanation of 'national defense' reads as legitimate until history is brought back in. For a few thousand years, the argument against maintaining a standing army was that standing armies tend to get used. Preparations for armed conflict facilitate armed conflict. The mobilizations for WWI and WWII were mobilizations, not drawdowns from existing military inventory. There is something to be said for wars requiring large expenditures of time, effort and resources from everyone for whom they are undertaken. Otherwise, they are likely to be started lightly.

The U.S. has long been the most militaristic nation in the world. This probably doesn't read right to most Americans. 'We' are a peace-loving nation that only sends in the military as a last resort, goes the myth. And 'we' changed the name from the Department of War to the Department of Defense. It was early in the twentieth century that U.S. General Smedley Butler proclaimed that 'war is a racket' (racket = organized crime) as he described his military career as a ' gangster for capitalism .' The business of war in support of capitalism had long been a business in its own right, just ask Wall Street.

When the George W. Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security following 9/11, the obvious question from people who thought about such things was: what are these people going to do all day? With daily briefings presented to Mr. Bush entitled ' Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S. 'before 9/11, the only intelligence failure, if that is what it was, occurred in the White House. Mr. Bush's entourage had been rumbling about going back to Iraq to 'finish the job' since the end of his father's war. How much of a leap was it then to assume that Mr. Bush's WMD scam was a pretext for re-invading Iraq?

But the question isn't rhetorical. With 240,000 people employed by DHS to find terrorists, terrorists will be found. The basic insight is that justifying one's employment is crucial to keeping it. In this light, the FBI counter-terrorism unit spent its time since 2001 enticing poor and desperate people to claim each other as terrorists. The first person to point out that there are no terrorists would be the first to receive a pink slip. And the same is true of government contracting. Brave entrepreneurs who feed at the trough of military largesse need to justify their existences. If they don't, some other proud patriot will step forward and do so. A logic of necessity becomes a legitimating belief system More broadly, one could argue that manufacturing terrorists has been the strategic goal of U.S. military operations for much of the last century. If you bomb enough villages and wedding parties, people will fight back. Wasn't this the implied storyline of anti-communist agitprop like Red Dawn and anti-Muslim agitprop like Zero Dark Thirty -- if you invade 'our' country and / or bomb 'our' villages and wedding parties, we will fight back. As a business proposition, the more people that are killed, the more legitimate the operation is made to appear. Make the weapons, then employ hundreds of thousands of people to explain why 'we' need to bomb villages. Then make more weapons. page1image256

Graphic: Time Magazine was the voice of post-War liberalism in the 1970s -- it reflected the opinions emanating from American officialdom through a faux-critical lens. This cover featuring Muammar Gaddafi presaged the Obama administration's destruction of Libya by 35 years. The main difference then was relative honesty about U.S. motives -- 'Oil' was the lede in 1973, where 'humanitarian' concerns drove the American propaganda effort in 2011. Note: 'Arab' was replaced by 'Muslim extremist' following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Source: Time, Inc.

Propaganda theory is relevant here because of the ease with which the Russiagate story was sold -- all evidence, no matter how contradictory, was claimed to point in only one direction. Contrariwise, Russia isn't the Soviet Union. America's political leaders have long supported strongmen and dictators. The biggest threat to free and fair elections in the U.S. is American oligarchs followed by Israel. The Democrat running in the 2016 presidential election openly manipulated the 1996 Russian presidential election. Russia today is a neoliberal petrostate. Vladimir Putin is admired in Russia because he booted out corrupt American 'advisors' who were looting the country. In other words, Russia today isn't Russia!

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and ostensible end of the first Cold War, a ' peace dividend ' of reduced military spending was expected to fund increased domestic spending, the classic 'guns versus butter' formulation shifted in favor of butter. A drop to pre-WWII levels of military spending would have meant 95%+ of the military-industrial complex went away. Following a very brief drop in the rate of growth of military spending in the early 1990s, a recession caused by the looting of Savings & Loans and its aftermath led to the argument that 'the economy' couldn't withstand a reduced military. September 11 th , 2001 was the best day ever for U.S. military contractors. America was back in the business of industrial-scale slaughter.

Early on, the American defense industry tried a few new enemies on for size. The George W. Bush administration's WMD scam targeted an audience that had been primed by several decades of anti-Muslim propaganda (see Time cover above) tied to oil geopolitics. The only WMDs found in Iraq had come from the Reagan administration in its effort to keep Iraq warring with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Current American amnesia over the genesis of Islamophobia is quaint. The New York Times has been demonizing Muslims since the 1970s . It was hardly incidental that 'reporting' on the Iraq war contained breathless descriptions of newly created instruments of mass slaughter.

However, there were two tacks that propelled the Iraq War forward. Humanitarian intervention had been the liberal formulation for selling the carpet bombing of civilian populations as in the interest of those being bombed. The term was used for the aerial bombardment of civilian populations in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-1990s. And it was the back-up explanation for the American war against Iraq -- to remove an evil dictator in order to liberate the people of Iraq. It was also used to justify the U.S. / NATO bombing of Libya in 2011. To the certain dismay of the defense industry, none of those interventions retained the patina of good intentions once it became known that the target nations had been functionally destroyed.

Russiagate has been a godsend for those who profit from destruction. As the story goes, the wily Russian bear, led by an evil dictator and newly trained in the technologies of modernity, set loose a witch's brew of inter-continental ballistic internet messages to sow dissent amongst the brothers and sisters of die Vaterland united by their common bond of loving America. For younger readers, the claim that foreign 'agitation' motivated the Civil Rights and anti-War movements, and more broadly, the American Left, has been a mainstay of CIA and FBI propaganda since these agencies were created. Old playbooks are good playbooks?

Those with a sense of humor, if humor includes installing a drunken buffoon to head a nuclear armed foreign power, might offer that 'Trump' is the English translation of 'Yeltsin.' In 1996 the American President colluded with people inside the Russian government to overturn the democratic will of the Russian people to install Boris Yeltsin as President of Russia. Yuk, yuk -- an unstable jackass was installed to head a foreign government. The 'payback' narrative no-doubt motivated true belief amongst some American officials after 2016. But alas, as with bombed villages and wedding parties, unless you just will not stop fucking with other people, they generally have other things to do than plot revenge.

None of the propagators of the phony WMD stories suffered from passing off state propaganda as news. The New York Times and Washington Post found themselves on the winning side of the 'fake news' scam to shut down the opposition press. Even Judith Miller, brief heroine of the free press for being 'stove-piped' by Dick Cheney, went on to a well-paid gig at Fox News, wrote an autobiography that more than just her immediate family read and now lives as a 'celebrity.' Heroes of the #Resistance like David Corn, Rachel Maddow and Michael Isikoff have the proceeds from book sales and television appearances to sustain them until their services are needed to sell the next scam-with-a-purpose.

The economic role of American defense spending will lead to endless iterations of WMD and Russiagate scams until the Pentagon is shut down. And that's the good part. The wars that these scams support are the bane of humanity. Their true costs, in terms of lives destroyed, appear to be meaningless to people living in twenty-room houses who want to live in thirty room houses. Winding down the warfare state would be less politically fraught if people had non-murderous ways of paying their bills. But how was this not understood as the warfare state was being built?

Finally, apologists for Russiagate claim that it has been nowhere near as dangerous as WMD lies. Let's see: a cadre of national security officials spent two-and-one-half years claiming that it has secret evidence that the President of the U.S. colluded with the leader of a foreign government to assume power and then use his office for the benefit of that foreign leader. Following, the domestic press claimed that the U.S. 'was under attack' and 'was at war' with this foreign power. Meanwhile, the U.S. went about arming anti-Russian militias on Russia's border while unilaterally abrogating a short-and-intermediate range nuclear weapons treaty after publicly announcing that it was 'modernizing' its stockpile of short-and-intermediate-range nuclear weapons.

Respectfully, this has all been a tad less than constructive.

Join the debate on Facebook

Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book Zen Economics is published by CounterPunch Books. More articles by: Rob Urie

[Apr 19, 2019] The USSR was a kind of garantor of sanity of the USA elite, suppressing built-in suicidal tendences. With it gone they went off the rail

For Western world, especially people of the USA, the collapse of the USSR was really geopolitical catastrophe, as Putin once put it. It unleashed cannibalistic instincts of neoliberal elite.
Apr 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Drew Hunkins , April 18, 2019 at 12:39

" "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski "

Yeah, I can.

There never would have been a war on Iraq in 1991 nor an obliteration of Iraq in 2003, which has lasted until the present day. The destruction of Yugoslavia never would have taken place and the wars and proxy wars on Syria and Libya would have only existed in the twisted and depraved imaginations of the Zionist and militarist psychos in our midst.

TINA never would have been an imperative and the working people of the Western world (primarily the U.S.) wouldn't be in a race to the bottom as it comes to wages, healthcare insurance, poverty levels, infant mortality, life-expectancy, union power in the workplace, secure retirements, and outlandish housing costs. With the demise of the USSR the millionaire capitalist-investor class really took the gloves off and saw no reason to provide the working masses with certain life-affirming policies, it was time to really sock it to the bottom 90%.

Despite some its faults, the world's people have been paying dearly for the demise of the USSR.

For further reading on what I've outlined above:
"Blood Lies" by Grover Furr
"Blackshirts and Reds" by Michael Parenti
"Fool's Crusade" by Diana Johnstone
"Against Empire" by Michael Parenti
essays and articles by Paul Craig Roberts
essays and articles by Andre Vltchek

Al Pinto , April 18, 2019 at 13:31

In short, without an antidote, the US does what the neocons and Israel decide to do. Welcome to the world of "my way, or the highway" cowboy mentality

Rob Roy , April 18, 2019 at 20:26

Actually, people in the USSR lived lives of constant fear (they call it the “Time of Terror”) that their friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers, even their children, would “tattle” on them and they would wind up in the torture chambers. They lived in stark, nearly unbearable poverty; the only comfort was that they all were in the same godforsaken boat. Communism might be a good idea on paper, but in reality, because of the ignorance of the bureaucratic leadership, it was a dismal failure.

The demise of the USSR would have no effect whatsoever on the hegemonic madness of the US which, under the guiding light of the Monroe Doctrine (established way before the USSR), carries on destroying one country after another. I would ask, “What would the world do without the USA?” Live in a much more peaceful world for sure. As for Omar, I wish her the fortitude to continue telling the truth. Again, Max Blumenthal proves himself one of the world’s best reporters.

OlyaPola , April 19, 2019 at 05:33

“constant fear”

The years of 1928 to 1953 were not constant since there were the years 1954 and subsequent.

Drew Hunkins , April 19, 2019 at 10:22

That’s not true Rob Roy. You’re parroting Western capitalist talking points. A whole host of brand new scholarly literature has hit the shelves in just the last few years proving the USSR was nowhere near as horrible as the Washington imperialist media made it out to be. In fact, under Stalin the Soviet Union made substantial gains in women’s rights, literacy, healthcare and industrial wages. Also, had it not been for Stalin’s agrarian plan there would have been more famines and more severe famines.

And as everyone knows, if Stalin never crash course industrialized the country they never would have defeated Nazi Germany.

Far from the USSR being a police-state it was often seen as a giant trough in which, for example, rent wouldn’t be paid and no one would come around to collect it.

Please see the following books for a truth trip: “Blood Lies” by Grover Furr and “Stalin, Waiting for the Truth” by Grover Furr. Also, Michael Parenti’s “Blackshirts and Reds is excellent.

Dump Pelousy , April 18, 2019 at 20:52

Micheal Perenti is the best. He was the Truth To Power voice before 9/11, before all the yuppie reporters sold their souls for “access” and a talking heads show. I watched it happen in slow motion with great dismay.

mp66 , April 18, 2019 at 22:23

Spot on. The western owner class was forced to share at least one plate with the rest of the population to make the west appear superior in material terms, and with that incentive or threat gone, there is no more need for a plate, few crumbs under the table should be sufficient. But as usual, greed goes along with stupidity, they forgot that doing so for decades undermines the stability of the system. Trump, Brexit, trade wars, abrogations of treaties, blatant disregard for bare basics of international law etc. are just symptoms of deeper discontent across the globe.

[Apr 19, 2019] What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a surprise.

Apr 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Apr 18, 2019 5:09:48 PM | link

Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?

Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:

The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.

Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military. NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)

What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.

"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.

After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA to send over some flypaper!

I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff, either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive Outsiders.

[Apr 19, 2019] The UK government and the media, had lost all moral authority

Not only they lost all moral authority. UK MSM became openly neofascist in some areas exceeeding the press of Third Riech and the USSR in distortions and falsifications. .
Notable quotes:
"... Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV. ..."
"... In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do' ..."
Apr 17, 2019 | craigmurray.org.uk
Charles Bostock , April 17, 2019 at 11:40

Even if the Skripal affair WAS staged, you shouldn't get too excited about it. In fact, you should be rather pleased because it would demonstrate that the tired, incompetent old UK is still capable of mounting an operation of which young, vigorous, competent Russia would be proud.

The UK can fake events with the best of them! I would find that reassuring rather than deplorable because it's a nasty world out there.

John2o2o , April 17, 2019 at 19:07

I shouldn't be anything. The whole thing shames the UK and is an insult to Russia and it's people.

Tony_0pmoc , April 17, 2019 at 11:44

The Government and the media, have not been telling the whole truth for a long time. Sometimes they blatantly lie. Most people still believe most of what they say, as there is an in-built trust of authority, for some very good historical reasons. The Skripal story, made it obvious to a large number of people, that some of it could not be true. Most still believe it or din't take much notice. The arrest of Julian Assange made it clearer, to an even larger number of people, that the government and the media, had lost all moral authority. Still many people didn't take much notice, or were convinced by the lies in the media, that he was a rapist and should be in jail.

The lies and corruption from government, is now increasingly out in the open. I believe that this is deliberate. I also think that it is exceedingly dangerous for society for multiple reasons. We are conditioned to accept authority as our moral guide. They act as an example of acceptable behaviour. If society as a whole, behaved like government, all trust would break down. Virtually all functions of society are based on trust. Without such trust, nothing will work.

Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV.

I believe this has all been pre-planned, and it will result in a disastrous effect on all society, unless something happens to bring the governments and media back to truth and sanity. I have no idea what that might be, but I expect it will not be pleasant.

The following was an early warning of the mass insanity affecting The US Government. It has spread like a highly infectious disease.

In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'

[Apr 19, 2019] Bernie Steals the 'No More Wars' Issue From Trump by Patrick J. Buchanan

Trump betrayed anti-war republicans. As the result he lost any support of anti-war Republicans. That can't be revered as he proved to be a marionette of Israel lobby. How that will influence outcome of 2020 elections remains to be seen.
Apr 19, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

"The president has said that he does not want to see this country involved in endless wars . I agree with that," Bernie Sanders told the Fox News audience at Monday's town hall meeting in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Then, turning and staring straight into the camera, Bernie added: "Mister President, tonight you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia should not be determining the military or foreign policy of this country."

Sanders was talking about a War Powers Act resolution that would have ended U.S. involvement in the five-year civil war in Yemen that has created one of the great humanitarian crises of our time, with thousands of dead children amidst an epidemic of cholera and a famine.

Supported by a united Democratic Party on the Hill, and an anti-interventionist faction of the GOP led by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed both houses of Congress.

But 24 hours after Sanders urged him to sign it, Trump, heeding the hawks in his Cabinet and National Security Council, vetoed S.J.Res.7, calling it a "dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities."

With sufficient Republican votes in both houses to sustain Trump's veto, that should have been the end of the matter.

It is not: Trump may have just ceded the peace issue in 2020 to the Democrats. If Sanders emerges as the nominee, we will have an election with a Democrat running on the "no-more-wars" theme Trump touted in 2016. And Trump will be left defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.

Does Trump really want to go into 2020 as a war party president? Does he want to go into 2020 with Democrats denouncing "Trump's endless wars" in the Middle East? Because that is where he is headed.

In 2008, John McCain, leading hawk in the Senate, was routed by a left-wing first-term senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the more hawkish Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize the war in Iraq.

In 2012, the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who was far more hawkish than Obama on Russia, lost.

Yet in 2016, Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war and an anti-interventionist who wanted to get along with Russia's Vladimir Putin and get out of these Middle East wars.

Looking closely at the front-running candidates for the Democratic nomination of 2020 -- Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker -- not one appears to be as hawkish as Trump has become.

Trump pulled us out of the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry and re-imposed severe sanctions.

He declared Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, to which Tehran has responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist organization. Ominously, the IRGC and its trained Shiite militias in Iraq are in close proximity to U.S. troops.

Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that dealt with Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to the Palestinians, recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967, and gone silent on Bibi Netanyahu's threat to annex Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Sanders, however, though he stands by Israel, is supporting a two-state solution and castigating the "right-wing" Netanyahu regime.

Trump has talked of pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet the troops are still there.

Though Trump came into office promising to get along with the Russians, he sent Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced a pullout from Ronald Reagan's 1987 INF treaty that outlawed all land-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela -- ostensibly to repair the S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in recent blackouts -- Trump, drawing a red line, ordered the Russians to "get out."

Biden is expected to announce next week. If the stands he takes on Russia, China, Israel, and the Middle East are more hawkish than the rest of the field, he will be challenged by the left wing of his party and by Sanders, who voted "no" on the Iraq war that Biden supported.

The center of gravity of U.S. politics is shifting towards the Trump position of 2016. And the anti-interventionist wing of the GOP is growing.

And when added to the anti-interventionist and anti-war wing of the Democratic Party on the Hill, together, they are able, as on the Yemen War Powers resolution, to produce a new bipartisan majority.

Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the Democratic Party will have captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate Donald Trump occupied in 2016.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

[Apr 19, 2019] Pompeo Appoints Fox News Neocon as Spokesperson by Kurt Nimmo

Apr 04, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
And the neocon-ization of the Trump administration continues. While The Donald is packing away Big Macs and Diet Cokes, his neocon secretary of state is appointing likeminded warmongers.

me title=

From Bezos' propaganda mill, The Washington Post :

Ortagus has been a fixture of the GOP foreign policy establishment for more than a decade. She has served as a press officer at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a financial intelligence officer at the Treasury Department and an intelligence officer in the US Naval Reserve. She has also worked with several political campaigns, as well as a political action committee, and has experience working on Wall Street and in foreign policy consulting.
In addition to working with spooks and a federal agency that undermines elections and foments coups in foreign lands, Ortagus "served on the boards" at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a coven of warmongers run by Kimberly Kagan, wife of notorious neocon Frederick Kagan.

ISW is funded by the death merchants -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp, and others -- and it pushes the concept of the indispensable nation engaged in forever war around the world, a conflict promoted in the name of "democracy," which is code for mass murder campaigns waged by the financial elite in its quest for total domination and theft of everything valuable on planet Earth.

Naturally, some folks over on the so-called "New Right" support the appointment of an ardent neocon -- a former pretty face from Fox News -- at the State Department, thus demonstrating they are little different than establishment Republicans, or for that matter Democrats.

[Apr 18, 2019] Ask yourself "Is this creature sane or rational?"

Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 18, 2019 4:05:55 AM | link

John Bolton was interviewed on PBS Newshour on March 17. Look it up and watch it and ask yourself "Is this creature sane or rational?"

[Apr 18, 2019] I've suggested Trump has elevated Pompeo and Bolton and Pence because he was forced to do so.

Notable quotes:
"... I was pleasantly surprised to see that Team Trump not only had an intoxicating dream, but also a very logical and disciplined strategy to win the election. Trump kept up a cracking pace and worked tirelessly to the end of the campaign season. It's no wonder that his supporters are reluctant to desert such an inspirational candidate. ..."
Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 18, 2019 4:05:55 AM | link

I've suggested Trump has "elevated" Pompeo and Bolton and Pence because he was forced to do so. It's even scarier if the old (soon-to-be-73) fart has drunk the kool-aid and wants to be a prime mover in the End Times. From all I've read of late the man is gullible enough to buy into such a scheme.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 17, 2019 2:30:23 PM | 6

Opinions vary. I beg to differ about Trump being gullible.

I neither knew nor cared who "Donald Trump" was until he became a candidate for POTUS, and I never watched The Apprentice for more than 3 seconds, and then only by accident.

But I liked his campaign antics right from the start. And I wasn't alone. To me, he came across as the sharpest knife in the drawer, by a big margin. Putting himself forward as the Drain the Swamp candidate was worthy of close attention for two reasons:

  1. It took balls to stick his neck out so defiantly
  2. Of far greater significance was the fact that here was an AmeriKKKan Presidential candidate claiming to have an MLK-ish dream and a PLAN to achieve it.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Team Trump not only had an intoxicating dream, but also a very logical and disciplined strategy to win the election. Trump kept up a cracking pace and worked tirelessly to the end of the campaign season. It's no wonder that his supporters are reluctant to desert such an inspirational candidate.

Given that he entered the race with an undisclosed plan to win the election and won it, it's quite likely that his undisclosed plan to Drain The Swamp has a good chance of being equally successful.
-------
Talking about undisclosed plans, Trump is the only person in the Known Universe with a Drain The Swamp plan so it's only sensible to assume that he's the best person to decide how to achieve it. 3D Chess sounds cute but reverse psychology sounds far more practical. It's been apparent for some time that the individuals who pop their heads above the parapet to promote and justify the Swamp's insanely counter-intuitive plans, have scornfully rejected the Human concepts of decency and morality. They also believe too much of their own bullshit.
Trump has already given them several opportunities to spout their drivel publicly and they've enthusiastically grabbed each one with indecent haste, despite the obvious idiocy and illegality.

John Bolton was interviewed on PBS Newshour on March 17. Look it up and watch it and ask yourself "Is this creature sane or rational?"

Circe , Apr 18, 2019 8:27:00 AM | link

@77 oo goo gachoo

So then you want Trump to win, because you can't honestly compare Trump to Sanders! It's just not intellectually honest!

Hoarsewhisperer @73

Pure Trumpjuice swilling rubbish, as usual. I guess you sleep all day and miss the news because after all the shet Trump has pulled, he couldn't be better for maintaining the Swamp than he is. Reversse pyschology, my ass! You must think you have the power to make others see what even you don't see. News flash, you sound more ridiculous every day. I ask myself why I bother to engage such nonsense. I think it's because I know ONLY Zionists still support Trump the way you do and I just can't let you push that kind of dishonest crap and let you dream you're getting away with it. People whose perception I respect 100 times more than you are now knocking that Trump excuse bullset you're peddling: like reverse psychology and dimensional chess. Honestly? You think anyone but the Zionist West Bank choir you're preaching to buys that kind of dishonest garbage?

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/13/trump-supporters-are-hurting-assange-with-their-4-d-chess-talk/

Now quit with the Trump propaganda.

[Apr 18, 2019] Neocon inspired conflict has allowed the Russian Federation to mediate almost every conflict on the globe restores counterbalancing the belligerence of the United States.

Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Apr 18, 2019 3:49:30 PM | link

As if to balance the article cited @30, there's this "Moscow's Strategy: To Win Everywhere, Every Time" by Federico Pieraccini. Blowback at Neocon inspired conflict has allowed "[t]he ability of the Russian Federation to mediate and be present in almost every conflict on the globe restores to the country the international stature that is indispensable in counterbalancing the belligerence of the United States."

The result that Pieraccini sees isn't as much Multipolar as a reversion to a bipolar world:

"Trump's 'America First' policy, coupled with the conviction of American exceptionalism, is driving international relations towards two poles rather than multipolar ones, pushing China, Russia and all other countries opposed to the US to unite in order to collectively resist US diktats."

One wonders if certain Senators will awaken to the reality of the world their policies have created or if they'll continue smoking their own Projection.

[Apr 18, 2019] Ask yourself "Is this creature sane or rational?"

Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 18, 2019 4:05:55 AM | link

John Bolton was interviewed on PBS Newshour on March 17. Look it up and watch it and ask yourself "Is this creature sane or rational?"

[Apr 18, 2019] The result of Yeltsin neoliberal mafia rule was the largest after 1941-1945 kill off of Russians in modern history: Yeltsin plus Harvard Business School being responsible for many more deaths than even the intoxicated propagandist Robert Conquest ever dreamed of.

Notable quotes:
"... Skripal was just one more effort to tighten sanctions against Putin's allies in the Russian oligarchy and isolate Trump from foreign policy initiatives not approved by the Deep State. ..."
"... The significance of the NY Times story, then, is that, inadvertently it reinforces the reality that in the matter of Russiagate and Trump all roads lead to London, the Tory Establishment, which has been living off US-Russian tensions for seventy years and security agencies doing what the CIA cannot do for itself. ..."
Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Apr 17, 2019 9:13:07 AM | link

Craig Murray has a piece on this today. There is nothing very new in what he writes but he sees the significance of this story, which is not about ducks or children or Donald Trump's personality but a concerted and thorough campaign, carried out largely by British state actors, to deepen the 'west's' isolation of Russia.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

The real story of both the Cold War and the continually recurring propaganda stories about the "millions" of "victims of communism" is that the Soviet Union was manipulated throughout its history by capitalist control over the international economy. Like a demonic organist capitalist governments pulled out all the stops to control the moods and the policies of a state that the Bolsheviks never did get to rule.

In the end the Politburo gave in and did what the 'west' had always been wanted which is to hand over the country, lock, stock and population to the cannibals of capital.

The result being what was probably, after the 1930-45 war, the largest kill off of Russians in modern history: Yeltsin plus Harvard Business School being responsible for many more deaths than even the intoxicated propagandist Robert Conquest ever dreamed of.

It is that total control over Russia, through the manipulation of its economy, and the direction of its capitalists, that is behind the long series of sanctions, which are being added to every day: their purpose is to re-invent Yeltsinism, re-empower the Fifth Column in the Kremlin, and, in a stroke, re-establish the inevitable and eternal hegemony of the Washington centered Empire.

In this work the assistance of the 'cousins'in MI6 and GCHQ, plus the entire British military establishment has been crucial in a period in which the subservience of POTUS to the Deep State was, thanks to the underestimation of his electoral chances, very much in question. During a period in which Trump had to be tamed and brought under control the UK Establishment's assistance in coming up with a series of highly publicised interventions was crucia l.

Lysias points out that Haspel had acted as the CIA's Head of Station in London in 2016. It was in London that the entire "Russiagate" nonsense was put together, with British based actors continually prodding Congress, the media and the Democrats to act on revelations regarding Papadopolous, Mifsud, Stefan Halper.

Skripal was just one more effort to tighten sanctions against Putin's allies in the Russian oligarchy and isolate Trump from foreign policy initiatives not approved by the Deep State. The significance of the NY Times story, then, is that, inadvertently it reinforces the reality that in the matter of Russiagate and Trump all roads lead to London, the Tory Establishment, which has been living off US-Russian tensions for seventy years and security agencies doing what the CIA cannot do for itself.

[Apr 18, 2019] Is the USS Ship of Fools Taking on Water

Way to brave predictions, I think... I think he grossly underestimates durability of neoliberal state like the USA. May be in 20 years the USA will really start experiencing huge problems like he described due to the end of cheap oil". But before that only huge exogenous shock can crash such a society.
Notable quotes:
"... It will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip the entire system into a defunct state. ..."
"... And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement; Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the store are digging around in dumpsters ..."
"... well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market is doing so well. ..."
"... But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever. ..."
"... While, on the surface, people support ideas like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on. ..."
"... Since I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. ..."
"... Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever. ..."
"... with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the nation’s money, I am not optimistic… ..."
"... The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and war–world war. ..."
"... In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away. ..."
"... But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life, capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global South and developing nations in general. ..."
"... Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical power. ..."
"... He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s. ..."
"... All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time. ..."
Apr 18, 2019 | thesaker.is

The Saker: You recently wrote an article titled " Is the USS Ship of Fools Taking on Water? " in which you discuss the high level of stupidity in modern US politics? I have a simple question for you: do you think the Empire can survive Trump and, if so, for how long?

Dmitry Orlov: I think that the American empire is very much over already, but it hasn't been put to any sort of serious stress test yet, and so nobody realizes that this is the case. Some event will come along which will leave the power center utterly humiliated and unable to countenance this humiliation and make adjustments. Things will go downhill from there as everyone in government in media does their best to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. My hope is that the US military personnel currently scattered throughout the planet will not be simply abandoned once the money runs out, but I wouldn't be too surprised if that is what happens.

The Saker: Lastly, a similar but fundamentally different question: can the USA (as opposed to the Empire) survive Trump and, if so, how? Will there be a civil war? A military coup? Insurrection? Strikes? A US version of the Yellow Vests?

Dmitry Orlov: The USA, as some set of institutions that serves the interests of some dwindling number of people, is likely to continue functioning for quite some time. The question is: who is going to be included and who isn't? There is little doubt that retirees, as a category, have nothing to look forward to from the USA: their retirements, whether public or private, have already been spent. There is little doubt that young people, who have already been bled dry by poor job prospects and ridiculous student loans, have nothing to look forward to either.

But, as I've said before, the USA isn't so much a country as a country club. Membership has its privileges, and members don't care at all what life is like for those who are in the country but aren't members of the club. The recent initiatives to let everyone in and to let non-citizens vote amply demonstrates that US citizenship, by itself, counts for absolutely nothing. The only birthright of a US citizen is to live as a bum on the street, surrounded by other bums, many of them foreigners from what Trump has termed "shithole countries."

It will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip the entire system into a defunct state.

And once the fracking bubble is over and another third of the population finds that it can no longer afford to drive, that might force through some sort of reset as well. But then the entire system of militarized police is designed to crush any sort of rebellion, and most people know that. Given the choice between certain death and just sitting on the sidewalk doing drugs, most people will choose the latter.

And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement; Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the store are digging around in dumpsters; concerned citizens demanding that migrants be allowed in, then calling the cops as soon as these migrants set up tents on their front lawn or ring their doorbell and ask to use the bathroom; well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market is doing so well.

At this rate, when the end of the USA finally arrives, most of the people won't be in a position to notice while the rest won't be capable of absorbing that sort of upsetting information and will choose to ignore it. Everybody wants to know how the story ends, but that sort of information probably isn't good for anyone's sanity. The mental climate in the US is already sick enough; why should we want to make it even sicker?


Chris Cosmos on April 17, 2019 , · at 11:23 am EST/EDT

I love Orlov’s wit and general cynical attitude as it mirrors mine (perhaps not the wit). I think he seems to understand the Ukraine and Russia relatively well though I’m not in a position to question him on that but I do know something about the politics of NATO/EU/USA and their intentions and that Orlov gets.

But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever.

If anything the economy actually is “better” not as good as the cooked statistics indicate but things have improved for people I know in that area. Americans, despite the obvious propaganda nature of the media still are true-believers in the official Narrative because meaning and myth always trumps reality.

While, on the surface, people support ideas like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on.

Since I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. Americans strut around but feel powerless and don’t have a plan or think they can have a plan because they lack the conceptual frameworks to understand that their leadership is thoroughly rotten.

Having said that, I agree with Auslander, Americans don’t need the central government and would do better, initially, in a highly chaotic situation and establish their own order in their communities and rig up a new set of arrangements very quickly.

In some ways the fall of Washington would be the best thing to ever happen in my country.

B.F. on April 17, 2019 , · at 5:29 pm EST/EDT
Chris Cosmos

I am afraid you are wrong. Orlov does understand the US, just like I do, as I have lived in the US. Yes, Orlov has been predicting the collapse of the US, and it will happen. I would like to direct your attention to the following video (the second part is very interesting):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ryA1x6fll34

Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever.

Anonymous on April 17, 2019 , · at 7:08 pm EST/EDT
“The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. ”

Maybe, but actually I would say most regions of the USA have some kind of “old tradition” —and a lot nicer ones than that of the old racist South. I’ll take New England and the Maritimes any day over the steamy South where the kudzu creeps over I mean *everything*, the snakes proliferate, and you can’t survive the summer without AC 24/7.

Check out American Nations, by Colin Woodard.

Katherine

FB on April 17, 2019 , · at 11:45 am EST/EDT
Well…I just started in on this piece and already I have a major beef…Orlov’s notion that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was good for Russia…

China was [and arguably still is] an empire of diverse regions, ethnicities and religions…but how is that holding China back today, or during previous centuries of imperial glory…?

Clearly China doesn’t fit into Orlov’s idea of an empire as a ‘wealth pump’ that sucks from the periphery to enrich the center…this is true of course of exploitation-based imperial projects such as western colonialism…but is clearly not applicable to the Chinese model, which has been both the biggest and most durable empire in human history…so that is a big hole in Orlov’s ‘theory’…

It is true that the USSR was a fundamentally different kind of empire from the exploitative western colonialism…and it is also true that it ultimately did not succeed…although it managed to accomplish almost incomprehensible progress in modernization, science and technology…and industrialization…the foundations of Russian strength today rest squarely on the foundations put in place during the Stalin era…

Elsewhere on this site there is a brilliant series of essays by Ramin Mazaheri about the tumultuous cultural revolution of the 1960s…and why it was necessary…Russia also needed a cultural revolution around this time…the system needed to be rejigged to better serve the people…in living standard…fairness and justice…opportunity for social advance…etc…

But it never happened…instead the system became more sclerotic than ever…and the welfare of the people stagnated…at the very moment in time when the capitalist west, especially the United States, was able to reign in the appetites of its parasite class and provide the people with a decent share of its [largely ill-gotten, by means of global finance colonialism] gains…[during the postwar decades, the share of national wealth of the 0.1 percent fell to an all time low of about 7 percent…about a quarter of historic, and current levels]…

This was the golden age in the US…well paying jobs in industry were plentiful and the company president made perhaps ten times what the shop floor worker took home…a second household income was completely unnecessary…university education at state colleges was practically free…

The life of the Soviet citizen in the1960s was not too far behind…Stalin’s five year plans in the1930s had created an industrial powerhouse…it was Russia’s ability to produce that allowed it to prevail over Germany in the existential war…and despite the devastation of the people, cities and countryside Russia was able to quickly become a technological superpower…as an aerospace engineer I have a deep appreciation of the depth and breadth of Russian technical achievements and the basic scientific advances that made that possible…the US was laughably left in the dust, despite having skimmed the cream of Nazi Germany’s technical scientific talent…and contrary to what US propaganda would have the people believe…

... ... ...

Of course the massive Chinese empire has been adapting like this for centuries, if not millennia…Russia with the Soviet Union only needed to make similar smart adjustments…instead they threw out the baby with the bathwater…let’s see where Russia goes from here, but with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the nation’s money, I am not optimistic…

But back to Orlov…let’s see where he goes after starting off very clumsily. .

Anonymous on April 17, 2019 , · at 12:52 pm EST/EDT
The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and war–world war.

In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away.

As collapse intensifies, these Anglo American entities led by the USA will surely lash out in even more aggressive wars to maintain their unipolar world order that they have ruled over since the fall of the Soviet Union. The use of tactical nuclear weapons, bio-warfare, and other "exotic" weapons should not be ruled out.

At base, the Anglo Americans possess an inbred sense of economic entitlement. They whine like snowflakes about the foreign outsourcing of jobs or "illegal immigrants stealing our jobs" as a chauvinistic demand for a greater share of the economic spoils of imperialism.

But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life, capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global South and developing nations in general.

And God forbid that the Anglos lose their parasitic way of life and (horror) are compelled to live like the vast majority of humanity in the developing world from Africa to Asia to Latin America to the Middle East.

The disaffected middle classes and labor aristocracy of the Anglosphere will comprise the grassroots basis for 21st-century fascism, similar to how these socio-economic classes were the grassroots support for the German Third Reich or Mussolini's Italy in the 1930s-40s.

Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical power.

As Martin Lee has put it, the Beast reawakens.

Boswald Bollocksworth on April 17, 2019 · at 9:37 pm EST/EDT

He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s.

All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time.

The US capacity to meddle overseas will wither, after all how well can a submarine filled with drag queens and single mothers operate? And who’d be willing to endure shelling for a monstrosity like contemporary America?

But the domestic system is brilliantly designed, not going anywhere.

[Apr 17, 2019] Haspel is not the "underling". Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. ..."
"... In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy. ..."
"... Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway. ..."
Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Apr 16, 2019 4:41:41 PM | link

"If Trump were not in on the schemes he would just fire his underlings!"

This sentiment indicates a failure to understand the power dynamics at play here. Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.

In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy.

Trump cannot fire Haspel or Pompeo. They can fire him, though, and with a sniper's bullet if they want.

Unfortunately for the oligarchy, that would cause additional complications at a time when they have lots of tricky and inexplicably unstable (for them) operations ongoing, which is why they are just steering Trump around instead of replacing him. And Trump is willfully cooperating, even if they are not filling him in on the plans.

Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway.

[Apr 17, 2019] The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status

Highly recommended!
Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Apr 16, 2019 7:26:23 PM | link

Ah yes, Prescient observation regarding Venezuela:

"The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status."--John McEvoy

So, lets employ this maxim to Russiagate and the Skripal Saga and the respective national media. In the first case, the Russian public's completely ignored unless it's a member of the so-called opposition while Putin and Russia get slandered constantly. The same treatment goes for the UK media and a case could be made that the two act in tandem, implying innerconnectivity between their spy agencies as suspected.

[Apr 17, 2019] What Are We to Make of Gina Haspel by Publius Tacitus

Notable quotes:
"... That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. ..."
"... Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes. ..."
"... Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye and gave him a paycheck. ..."
"... I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men. ..."
"... Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using it on POWs. ..."
"... just reinforces the feeling that those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better light. ..."
"... A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and will not go away unless she come clean. ..."
Mar 19, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Before Gina became the Chief of Staff for Rodriguez, what role did she play in the waterboarding of two AQ operatives in Thailand? It appears that she was at least witting of what was going on. Did she have the authority to decide what measures to apply to the two? Did she make such decisions?

Those are facts still to be determined. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But there are others who I respect that are adamant in opposing her nomination. The only thing I know for sure is that her nomination will be a bloody and divisive political battle. If it comes down to embracing waterboarding as an appropriate method to use on suspected terrorists, then a majority of Americans are supportive of that practice and will cheer the appointment of Haspel.

That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. It is true that one man's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter.

Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes.

Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye and gave him a paycheck.


Cee , 18 March 2018 at 12:55 PM

PT,

I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men.

No to her confirmation.

steve , 18 March 2018 at 01:11 PM
IIRC, Haspel was the chief of staff to whom Rodriguez refers. That does not sound like a bit player. Would you say that Kelly is a bit player in the Trump admin? As you say, we should know the facts, but so far it looks like she both participated in torture and in its cover-up.

Steve

tv , 18 March 2018 at 01:11 PM
Is waterboarding "torture?" It does not draw blood nor leave any physical damage. Psychological damage? These ARE admitted terrorists.
BillWade , 18 March 2018 at 01:20 PM
With all the crap going on at the FBI, the last thing we need now is a divisive candidate for any top level government position (torture advocacy is divisive for many of us).

A woman, a lesbian, who cares as long as they are a capable and decent law-abiding individual.

Publius Tacitus -> tv... , 18 March 2018 at 01:23 PM
Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using it on POWs.

And where do you get "admitted" terrorists from? In America, even with suspected terrorists, there is the principle of innocent until proven guilty. At least we once believed in that standard.

Apenultimate said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 March 2018 at 01:26 PM
And I very much respect you for your position on this (it is this American's view as well).

What amazes me (and yet doesn't) is the example of Rodriguez's supposed introspection "How bad could this be?" Really?!? That just strikes me as not having any feel for the media, US citizenry, or even common sense, and just reinforces the feeling that those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better light.

Laura , 18 March 2018 at 01:42 PM
PT -- Thank you. Much to consider in these times. I come down on the "no torture and waterboarding is torture" side of the debate but am also just eager for some competence and professional experience in key positions.

That these positions may be mutually exclusive says a great deal about our current situation. Again, thank you, for your opinions and information.

Kooshy , 18 March 2018 at 01:42 PM
A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and will not go away unless she come clean.

At the end of the day that don't matter, since as a policy, and base on your own statement, this country's government will prosecut and punish for liking of torture but not torture and tortures. And, furthermore, is not even willing to do away with it, per it's elected president. Trying to show a clean, moral, democracy on the hilltop image, is a BS and a joke.

[Apr 17, 2019] Haspel used brazen manipulation of her boss, who happens to be a commander in chief of a nuclear power. It looks like waterboarding Trump with the stream of lies.

Apr 17, 2019 | craigmurray.org.uk

Vinnie Pooh , April 17, 2019 at 14:07

Yeah, my eyes almost popped out of my head as I read it in the news. Direct brazen manipulation of your boss, who happens to be a commander in chief of a nuclear power. And no, I don't hear any howls about treason and conspiracy from across the pond.

John Dowser | Apr 17, 2019 2:16:43 AM | 75

"Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied".

This would indicate, if true, that the Brits desired to manipulate and used the CIA here mainly as conduit to influence Trump. It would make more sense, historically as well, interpreting causality and motive this way.

[Apr 17, 2019] Gina Haspel the CIA torturer extraordinaire

Notable quotes:
"... The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France) after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness – in which case there is no need to make anything up. ..."
"... Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the need for US diplomatic action. ..."
"... Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President is this you or a fake President? ..."
"... Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits us up the backside with a banjo yet again. ..."
Apr 17, 2019 | craigmurray.org.uk

Sharp Ears , April 17, 2019 at 12:06

Gina Haspel the CIA torturer extraordinaire.

Q. Where are the Skripals?

Crispa , April 17, 2019 at 12:07

I took note when I read that on the Guardian website late last night. What struck me was the treatment of the statement as if it could be true, but in more than one way.

The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France) after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness – in which case there is no need to make anything up.

Even if the story is true, the article accepts it as fact and in no way qualifies it, which is just plain misrepresentation as Craig points out.

The reference to the two Russian operatives at that time is certainly a give away one way and another – but nothing in the article to highlight that inconsistency.

Strange timing too for the appearance of the article too. No doubt there will be a response from the Russian Embassy.

N_ , April 17, 2019 at 12:34

Trump brings together stupidity, narcissistic mental illness and obnoxiousness such that when an official has to deal with him their attitude must surely be to tell the moron whatever gets him to do what they want as soon as possible, so they don't have to spend any more time than necessary in a room with him.

He lies all the time – the guy can't stop lying – nobody wants to spend time with a person like that – even his wife can't stand the sight of him – and it doesn't matter what it is that you tell him or show him.

Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the need for US diplomatic action.

The question is who was behind the anti-Russian side of the Skripal story and why. Not much progress will be made without looking at the British defence review and the huge increase in military spending that warfare interests have moved Gavin Williamson's lips to call for.

N_ , April 17, 2019 at 12:23

"(E)xtremely clear CCTV footage of the duck feeding"? So there are fixed cameras watching where the ducks swim in Queen Elizabeth's Park in Salisbury, are there? Because I haven't been able to find even some lamp posts they might be secured to. ( Some images .) Which is not to say the Skripals weren't photographed. And how's the Nikolai Glushkov inquest going?

Ken Kenn , April 17, 2019 at 13:40

Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President is this you or a fake President?

Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits us up the backside with a banjo yet again.

Simple really: Show the video of the Skripal actively feeding the ducks – blank the kids faces and we'll be able to see them in all of their pre poisoned glory.

All this has been done before by the MS – The London Bridge attackers – 7/7 and so on.

So why not show the video? Because it shows something(s) which they want to hide. I have my views as to why, as do others but once you start lying you have to develop a good memory and ' British Intelligence ' is a misnomer.

It's quackery.

Phil , April 17, 2019 at 15:01

Rob Slane from the Blogmire interviewed the mother of the children who fed the ducks and she said she was shown "extremely clear CCTV footage".

Nicholas Kollerstrom , April 17, 2019 at 12:26

Let us not for one moment forget: Yulia musty be alive somewhere. I reckon they did in Sergei – serve him right for being a double (or triple) agent – but Yulia must still be around. She TOLD US in her video she was fine and getting better.

Thank god for Craig Murray and the Off-Guardian, they have preserved our sanity over this mad story, this maddest of British Intel cockups.

N_ , April 17, 2019 at 12:37

@Nicholas – I'd advise delaying the conclusion that it was a cockup, except in the sense that in most military and intelligence operations something cocks up – until we hear what happens with British military spending plans.

Gerard Hobley , April 17, 2019 at 12:27

Someone said to me on Twitter that confirmation of Novichock was from a Mass Spec of the nerve agent bound to some enzyme (probably acetyl cholinesterase). Is this really the official line? If so it's rubbish. Whoever made such a claim was clearly no chemist. Acetyl Cholinesterase weighs about 66700 Daltons and the nerve agent weighed, say between 200 and 400 daltons. Firstly a mass spectrum of the protein would be that of the protein plus or minus anything upto about 300 water molecules Which makes the mass (69400 +/- 2700) and a multitude of other possible ions or other factors bound to it. The error in the mass of the protein clearly exceeds the mass of the nerve agent. Given that, because of the blinding uncertainties as to what species are actually hitting the detector in the mass spectrometer, no-one anywhere attempts to study ligands bound to proteins by mass spec and certainly not one of this size, why would they do it in this case?

John2o2o , April 17, 2019 at 19:21

They make it up Gerard.

Unfortunately most people are not chemists and therefore lack the required knowledge to be skeptical about such claims.

Casual Observer , April 17, 2019 at 12:45

Apply the smell test ?

The CIA Director tells outright lies to her boss, who as a result approves a stern national rebuke.

In a cartoon version of life where Dick Dastardly gets to be an intelligence supremo, and a total dummy gets to be President, this would be highly likely. Needless to say, to believe such a scenario would exist in the real world requires a massive suspension of logic.

More likely there's something coming down the track that requires Haspel, and or the CIA, to be discredited prior to its becoming visible to the public ?

Northern , April 17, 2019 at 13:29

What could possibly be coming down the track that isn't comparable to what we already know about Haspel and the CIA though?

If you can straight faced maintain support for an admitted and documented human rights abuser who heads a non accountable government spy agency that has been extra judicially torturing, assassinating and over throwing any who stands in its way for 70 years; what on earth could be about to come out that's suddenly going to convince our bought and paid for media, and by extension the general public, that these monsters have been discredited?

Brendan , April 17, 2019 at 13:04

UK spooks are switching to damage limitation mode, with the help of the Deborah Haynes of Sky and II:

"Update: UK security sources say they're unaware of children hospitalised because of #novichok or wildlife killed in #Skripal attack. May have been a photo of a dead swan though not evidence swan was killed by #Novichok. If that's true, I wonder what these images used by CIA were! "

https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1118409471754153984

John2o2o , April 17, 2019 at 19:22

lies?

Goose , April 17, 2019 at 13:12

I'm not a conspiracy theorist –
I'm a conspiracy analyst.

Gore Vidal

[Apr 17, 2019] Gina Haspel As If Nuremberg Never Happened

Notable quotes:
"... I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation. Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. ..."
"... Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of Power. ..."
"... American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy." ..."
"... Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities: Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious. ..."
"... There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government. ..."
"... If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!" ..."
"... I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them. ..."
"... She was put in charge there not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect. ..."
"... furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states " For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition? ..."
"... Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be considered in the contexts of these words. ..."
Mar 19, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Nothing will say more about who we are, across three American administrations -- one that demanded torture, one that covered it up, and one that seeks to promote its bloody participants -- than whether Gina Haspel becomes director of the CIA.

Haspel oversaw the torture of human beings in Thailand as the chief of a CIA black site in 2002. Since then, she's worked her way up to deputy director at the CIA. With current director Mike Pompeo slated to move to Foggy Bottom, President Donald Trump has proposed Haspel as the Agency's new head.

Haspel's victims waiting for death in Guantanamo cannot speak to us, though they no doubt remember their own screams as they were waterboarded. And we can still hear former CIA officer John Kiriakou say : "We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information."

It was Kiriakou who exposed the obsessive debate over the effectiveness of torture as false. The real purpose of torture conducted by those like Gina Haspel was to seek vengeance, humiliation, and power. We're just slapping you now, she would have said in that Thai prison, but we control you, and who knows what will happen next, what we're capable of? The torture victim is left to imagine what form the hurt will take and just how severe it will be, creating his own terror.

Haspel won't be asked at her confirmation hearing to explain how torture works, but those who were waterboarded under her stewardship certainly could.

I met my first torture victim in Korea, where I was adjudicating visas for the State Department. Persons with serious criminal records are ineligible to travel to the United States, with an exception for dissidents who have committed political crimes. The man I spoke with said that under the U.S.-supported military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee he was tortured for writing anti-government verse. He was taken to a small underground cell. Two men arrived and beat him repeatedly on his testicles and sodomized him with one of the tools they had used for the beating. They asked no questions. They barely spoke to him at all.

Though the pain was beyond his ability to describe, he said the subsequent humiliation of being left so utterly helpless was what really affected his life. It destroyed his marriage, sent him to the repeated empty comfort of alcohol, and kept him from ever putting pen to paper again. The men who destroyed him, he told me, did their work, and then departed, as if they had others to visit and needed to get on with things. He was released a few days later and driven back to his apartment by the police. A forward-looking gesture.

The second torture victim I met was while I was stationed in Iraq. The prison that had held him was under the control of shadowy U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces. Inside, masked men bound him at the wrists and ankles and hung him upside-down. He said they neither asked him questions nor demanded information. They did whip his testicles with a leather strap, then beat the bottoms of his feet and the area around his kidneys. They slapped him. They broke the bones in his right foot with a steel rod, a piece of rebar ordinarily used to reinforce concrete.

It was painful, he told me, but he had felt pain before. What destroyed him was the feeling of utter helplessness, the inability to control things around him as he once had. He showed me the caved-in portion of his foot, which still bore a rod-like indentation with faint signs of metal grooves.

Gina Haspel is the same as those who were in the room with the Korean. She is no different than those who tormented the Iraqi.

As head of a black site, Haspel had sole authority to halt the questioning of suspects, but she allowed torture to continue. New information and a redaction of earlier reporting that said Haspel was present for the waterboarding and torture of Abu Zubaydah (she was actually the station chief at the black site after those sessions) makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture of all of the prisoners there, but pay it little mind. The confusion arises from the government's refusal to tell us what Haspel actually did as a torturer. So many records have yet to be released and those that have been are heavily redacted. Then there are the tapes of Zubaydah's waterboarding, which Haspel later pushed to have destroyed.

Arguing over just how much blood she has in her hands is a distraction from the fact that she indeed has blood on her hands.

Gina Haspel is now eligible for the CIA directorship because Barack Obama did not prosecute anyone for torture; he merely signed an executive order banning it in the future. He did not hold any truth commissions, and ensured that almost all government documents on the torture program remained classified. He did not prosecute the CIA officials who destroyed videotapes of the torture scenes.

Obama ignored the truth that sees former Nazis continue to be hunted some 70 years after the Holocaust: that those who do evil on behalf of a government are individually responsible. "I was only following orders" is not a defense of inhuman acts. The purpose of tracking down the guilty is to punish them, to discourage the next person from doing evil, and to morally immunize a nation-state.

To punish Gina Haspel "more than 15 years later for doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told were lawful orders, would be a travesty and a disgrace," claims one of her supporters. "Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well," said Michael Hayden, who headed the CIA during the height of the Iraq war from 2006-2009.

Influential people in Congress agree. Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will soon review Haspel's nomination, said , "I know Gina personally and she has the right skill set, experience, and judgment to lead one of our nation's most critical agencies."

"She'll have to answer for that period of time, but I think she's a highly qualified person," offered Senator Lindsey Graham. Democratic Senator Bill Nelson defended Haspel's actions, saying they were "the accepted practice of the day" and shouldn't disqualify her.

His fellow Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, signaled her likely acceptance, saying , "Since my concerns were raised over the torture situation, I have met with her extensively, talked with her She has been, I believe, a good deputy director." Senator Susan Collins added that Haspel "certainly has the expertise and experience as a 30-year employee of the agency." John McCain, a victim of torture during the Vietnam War, mumbled only that Haspel would have to explain her role.

Nearly alone at present, Republican Senator Rand Paul says he will oppose Haspel's nomination. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, have told Trump she is unsuitable and will likely also vote no.

Following World War II, the United States could have easily executed those Nazis responsible for the Holocaust, or thrown them into some forever jail on an island military base. It would have been hard to find anyone who wouldn't have supported brutally torturing them at a black site. Instead, they were put on public trial at Nuremberg and made to defend their actions as the evidence against them was laid bare. The point was to demonstrate that We were better than Them.

Today we refuse to understand what Haspel's victims, and the Korean writer, and the Iraqi insurgent, already know on our behalf: unless Congress awakens to confront this nightmare and deny Gina Haspel's nomination as director of the CIA, torture will have transformed us and so it will consume us. Gina Haspel is a torturer. We are torturers. It is as if Nuremberg never happened.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. He tweets @WeMeantWell.


Douglas K. March 19, 2018 at 3:19 am

Covering up torture is quite possibly the worst thing Obama did. (I'd put it neck-and-neck with targeted killing.) This nation desperately needs a president who will expose all of these horrors, and appoint an attorney general who will prosecute these acts as war crimes.
I Don't Matter , says: March 19, 2018 at 4:49 am
Trump likes waterboarding. He said so himself. One assumes he meant, being a whimpering coward himself, when someone else does it to someone else. But who knows? Enjoy judge Gorsuch.
Mark Thomason , says: March 19, 2018 at 4:49 am
"doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told were lawful orders"

To complete the parallel, we would need to prosecute and punish those who asked her to do it, and those who told her those orders were lawful. Instead, some are doing paintings of their toes, some are promoted to be Federal judges, and some are influential professors at "liberal" law schools. Why punish *only* her?

Peter Hopkins , says: March 19, 2018 at 6:52 am
Those who forget the past are destined to repeat it.
Ian , says: March 19, 2018 at 7:10 am
As we've proved, we're not better than them. Any of them.
Bagby , says: March 19, 2018 at 8:00 am
I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation. Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. I am in full support of Mr. Van Buren's thesis. However, Pro Publica, which seems to have been the source of much reporting of Haspel's torture record, has retracted the claim that Haspel had tortured in Thailand. Mr. Van Buren quotes another source from his blog that supports the thesis that Haspel is a torturer. How does one know what to believe? Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of Power.
Centralist , says: March 19, 2018 at 8:19 am
Its because we lost our sense of what makes us who we are. We are an empire that dances for private interests. In Rome they were called families and led by patricians, they had money private guards, gladiators, and even street people supporting them. In the Modern USA they are called Interest Groups and/or Corporations. They are lead by CEOs and instead of gladiators they have Lawyers. Our being better matters less then their own squabbles which is why a torturer could reach the highest seat in intel. The majority of Americans have lost their sense of being Americans instead they are Republicans, Democrats, etc, etc. Things that once use to be part of an American have come to define us.
Banger , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:09 am
American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy."

At least this appointment along with the election of Trump shows the true face of the United States in international affairs. When we face the fact we are (a) an oligarchy and (b) a brutal Empire we might have a chance to return to something more human. Few readers, even of TAC, will want to look at our recent history of stunning brutality and lack of interest in even being in the neighborhood of following international law.

Peter Van Buren , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:31 am
CIA has purposefully refused to disclose Haspel's role for a decade+ They have selectively released information last week to discredit those criticizing her. I don't think we should play their game, letting them set the agenda. Instead, I declaim torture itself and any role she played in it, whether she poured the water or kept the books.
Kurt Gayle , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:34 am
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of the CIA's Haspel put him at risk?

In the 2003 film "Love Actually" the British Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) jokes with a Downing Street employee Natalie (Martine McCutcheon):

"PM: You live with your husband? Boyfriend, three illegitimate but charming children? –
"NATALIE: No, I've just split up with my boyfriend, so I'm back with my mum and dad for a while.
"PM: Oh. I'm sorry.
"NATALIE: No, it's fine. I'm well shot of him. He said I was getting fat.
"PM: I beg your pardon?
"NATALIE: He said no one's going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks. Not a nice guy, actually, in the end.
"PM: Right You know, being Prime Minister, I could just have him murdered.
"NATALIE: Thank you, sir. I'll think about it.
"PM: Do – the SAS are absolutely charming – ruthless, trained killers are just a phone call away."

It's just a film. It's just a joke. But the joke works because the public knows that – in reality – the security services have the skills-sets and the abilities, to do damage anyone they want to do damage to -- and to probably get away with it.

Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities: Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious.

Fast forward again to yesterday, March 17, 2018: Former CIA Director John Brennan wasn't joking when he reacted to the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- and President Donald Trump's tweeted celebration of it -- by tweeting this attack against Trump:

"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America America will triumph over you."

Obama UN Representative Samantha Power followed up on the Brennan tweet with this:

"Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan."

When public officials and former public officials -- like Shumer, Brennan and Power -- make such public statements it must necessarily have a chilling effect on public criticism of the security services.

After all, none of the three are joking. They're serious. And the American people know that they're serious.

Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of CIA operative Haspel put him at risk?

Peter Van Buren , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:35 am
New information makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture of all of the prisoners at her black site, but pay it little mind. The confusion is because the government refuses to tell us what Haspel actually did as a torturer. Arguing over just how much blood she has on her hands is a distraction when she indeed has blood on her hands.

The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient to disqualify her from heading the Agency. If the Agency wishes to clarify her role, as was done via trial for the various Nazis at Nuremberg, we can deal with her actions more granularly.

Wilfred , says: March 19, 2018 at 10:25 am
Since we have not had any more successful attacks on the scale of 9-11, it is very easy to be scrupulous regarding rough treatment of terrorists.

But if we had suffered a dozen or more such attacks, of increasing magnitude and maybe involving nuclear weapons, how many of you would still be condemning Mrs Haspel et al.? Or would you then be complaining they had not used water-boarding enough?

The 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, was caught weeks before 9-11. Investigators figured out he was up to no good, tried to get permission to search his computer, but were denied. The U.S. Government carefully protected his privacy rights. So are you pleased with the outcome, Mr van Buren?

furbo , says: March 19, 2018 at 10:45 am
I'm sorry – this whole piece is a massive non sequitur. Ms. Haspel has no 'blood' on her hands as US extreme interrogation techniques (sleep deprivation, uncomfortable positions, waterboarding) didn't draw any. They are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones. US techniques might have been bad policy – won't argue – but lets not fall for a false equivalency.

Ms. Haspel was an agent of her government, acting on it's orders under it's policies and guidelines. Which leads to

Nuremberg. The Nuremberg tribunals (they were military tribunals – not trials) were conducted by a victorious military force against a defeated military force. They were widely criticized as vengeance even by such august people as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Stone and associate Justice Douglas. There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government.

And lastly there's this from a comment of the authors: "The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient to disqualify her from heading the Agency." Utter nonsense. That was the mission of the Agency at that time. It's like saying a 33yr old Drone Pilot who takes out an ISIS/Al Qaida operative as well as 15 civilians is disqualified to be the Sec Def 2 decades later.

Just stop.

Sid Finster , says: March 19, 2018 at 10:59 am

If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!"

We demonize Russia at every opportunity, but I don't see Russia rewarding torturers by appointing them to high office.

Sally Stewart , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:11 am
Douglas K. What are you talking about? Covered up? You mean Bush http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/175/end-the-use-of-torture/
Stephen J. , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:12 am
A lot of info below on the War criminals at large.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
May 26, 2015 Do We Need Present Day Nuremberg Trials? http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2015/05/do-we-need-present-day-nuremberg-trials.html

And

March 9, 2018 Are We Seeing Government By Gangsters? http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2018/03/are-we-seeing-government-by-gangsters.html

connecticut farmer , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:49 am
I didn't know too much about this woman's background until I read that Rand Paul opposes her nomination. I tend to take notice whenever Rand Paul holds forth on any subject. All I can say is that if her actual record even approximates what has been alleged, then this woman is unfit for the post–Nuremberg or no Nuremberg.
Winston , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:54 am
"As we've proved, we're not better than them. Any of them." Oh, -PLEASE-, spare us the hyperbole! WE burn alive captives held in cages? WE saw off their heads?

Thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs.

Lex Talionis , says: March 19, 2018 at 12:00 pm
All of the torturers should be brought to justice. So should all of the officials who ordered or authorized torture.

There is no statute of limitations on capital Federal crimes. For a U.S. citizen to kill via torture is a capital Federal crime, no matter where the torture took place. If statutes of limitations make it too late to prosecute some acts of torture, it is not too late to bring about some measure of justice by making torturers pariahs. As many sexual harassers have recently learned, there is no statute of limitations in the court of public opinion.

bob sykes , says: March 19, 2018 at 12:16 pm
The story linking her to torture has been formally retracted. She had nothing to do with torture anywhere. How about a retraction of this story and an apology.
Youknowho , says: March 19, 2018 at 12:30 pm
I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them.

Personally, I prefer that the cruelty should be, as Lincoln once put it, "unalloyed by the base metal of hypocrisy"

Tyrone Slothrop , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:07 pm
bob sykes: you should read Pro Publica's retraction ( https://www.propublica.org/article/cia-cables-detail-its-new-deputy-directors-role-in-torture ) of the claim that Haspel was in charge of the Thai black site when Abu Zubaydeh was tortured. She was put in charge there not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect.

Winston: why do you suppose "thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs"? Is it not to prepare them for the possibility of what we call torture when used by our adversaries?

furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states " For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition?

Near Rockaway , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:31 pm
"Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence?"

Evil stuff. And we're still paying for it. Keeping Haspel out of the Director's chair is a basic step toward avoiding more such needless, stupid evil.

Chris Mallory , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:47 pm
Wilfred, the problem was not that the Feds protected Zacarias Moussaoui's right to privacy. The problem is that it let any of the 20 Arab Muslims into the US in the first place. Closing our borders and mass deportations would have been the best thing to do in the aftermath of 9/11, not torture and invasions.
b. , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:58 pm
Very well put. Lest we forget: Bush also delivered the stern warning that "war crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished, and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders'."

Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be considered in the contexts of these words.

Wilfred , says: March 19, 2018 at 4:28 pm
Chris Mallory (Mar 19 @1:47 p.m.), I agree with you. We shouldn't be letting them in.

But if someone had sneaked-a-peek at Moussaoui's laptop during the 3 weeks they had him before 9-11, we might have been able to thwart the attack altogether. (And the Press has been strangely incurious about investigating whoever it was who issued the injunction protecting Moussie's precious computer). This type of hand-wringing cost us 3,000 lives. Even more, considering the Afghan & 2nd Iraq wars would never have been launched, were it not for 9-11.

[Apr 17, 2019] Haspel is not the "underling". Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. ..."
"... In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy. ..."
"... Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway. ..."
Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Apr 16, 2019 4:41:41 PM | link

"If Trump were not in on the schemes he would just fire his underlings!"

This sentiment indicates a failure to understand the power dynamics at play here. Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.

In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy.

Trump cannot fire Haspel or Pompeo. They can fire him, though, and with a sniper's bullet if they want.

Unfortunately for the oligarchy, that would cause additional complications at a time when they have lots of tricky and inexplicably unstable (for them) operations ongoing, which is why they are just steering Trump around instead of replacing him. And Trump is willfully cooperating, even if they are not filling him in on the plans.

Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway.

[Apr 17, 2019] The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status

Highly recommended!
Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Apr 16, 2019 7:26:23 PM | link

Ah yes, Prescient observation regarding Venezuela:

"The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status."--John McEvoy

So, lets employ this maxim to Russiagate and the Skripal Saga and the respective national media. In the first case, the Russian public's completely ignored unless it's a member of the so-called opposition while Putin and Russia get slandered constantly. The same treatment goes for the UK media and a case could be made that the two act in tandem, implying innerconnectivity between their spy agencies as suspected.

[Apr 17, 2019] If you had watched Skripal's saga you might have noticed something: The UK s propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.

Notable quotes:
"... The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative = British, Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on. ..."
"... The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. ..."
Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

S.O. , Apr 17, 2019 9:48:02 AM | link

@75

The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative = British, Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on.

You'd think someone might have noticed something of a trend by now.

Gravatomic , Apr 17, 2019 10:07:57 AM | link

They just don't bother anymore, the level of double black psy-ops and gaslighting is a mine field of disinformation. That's what you get when Washington - Obama, gives the green light to propagandizing their people. It's escalated, like we haven't noticed, under Trump despite his pathetic attempts at assuring folks it's fake news.
Gravatomic , Apr 17, 2019 10:20:02 AM | link
The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. I watched about 10 minutes of a documentary about Easter Island, as an example, and it was revisionist to the nth degree. Just absolute rubbish insinuating that white European travelers destroyed the Island. This is what British kids are now being marinated in, "He who controls the past"

[Apr 17, 2019] Al-Sisi is evidently not impressed with Trump

Notable quotes:
"... This is a humiliation for the US in that it demonstrates the waning power and influence of the US in the region and most especially of Donald Trump who has demonstrated his indifference to the interests of the Arabs in repeated slavish support of Israel against the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. pl ..."
Apr 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

It surprises me that Egypt has rather brazenly walked away from the Boltonesque fantasy of an "Arab NATO." I would have thought that the paychecks Egypt receives every year from the American taxpayer and the Saudis would have kept Sisi in line, but apparently the prospect of other sources of funding affected the decision to defy the Amiirkaan.

With the exception of Jordan's small but competent armed forces, Egypt is the only country among the members that possesses significant military power, The armed forces of the other countries are mere playthings for princes. Egypt's withdrawal from this alliance makes the farcical nature of the plan quite clear.

This is a humiliation for the US in that it demonstrates the waning power and influence of the US in the region and most especially of Donald Trump who has demonstrated his indifference to the interests of the Arabs in repeated slavish support of Israel against the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. pl

https://southfront.org/egypt-pulled-out-of-u-s-efforts-to-form-arab-nato-to-combat-iran-reports/

[Apr 17, 2019] Diego Garcia The Unsinkable Carrier Springs A Leak

Apr 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

DEDA CVETKO , 4 minutes ago link

United Kingdom Government:

We respect the ICC and its judgment on Kosovo "independence" (which, by the way, was purely advisory and non-binding) which we helped carve out from her mother country via 78 days of day-and-night bombing raids. ICC is the highest legal institution of the world community and its rulings must be mandatory on all UN members. Therefore, the Kosovo "independence" is a legally done deal and must be respected.

(fast forward 11 years):

The very same United Kingdom Government:

The ICC's ruling on Chagos Archipelago is a piece of **** and the institution itself is totally illegitimate and illegal farce and should be disbanded. Of course the British government has no intention whatsoever of ever complying with such an idiotic ruling from a quasi-legal institution. The right lies where our might rests.

So there, folks. Take it from the royal horse's mouth.

BrownCoat , 13 minutes ago link

Doesn't pass the smell test.

"The suit was brought by Mauritius and some of the 1,500 Chagos islanders who were forcibly removed from the archipelago in 1973."

The decision was made on Feb 25, 2019. What happened in the 46 years between 1973 and the court decision?
Did it take that long for the UN Court to be bribed?

keep the bastards honest , 7 minutes ago link

No the UK is collapsing it was still strong in 43 years ago despite being a failed empire.

And USA I failing. It's a sign of the times. Surely you know this.

Sanity Bear , 14 minutes ago link

How many nuclear weapons does the court have?

J S Bach , 18 minutes ago link

"Diego Garcia: Is The "Terror Fulcrum" of the United States in the Eastern Hemisphere's Indian Ocean.

The delusional American people think their government is such a benevolent, kind, peace-loving force in the world. My God... the results of the tribe's decades-long brainwashing upon an ignorant goy host is breathtaking.

Felix da Kat , 21 minutes ago link

Hold on here, Poncho. The US does not recognize the Hague-based International Court of Justice as legitimate in the matter. Furthermore, such court is impotent in matters of enforcement. So the US military will be staying on the island for a period not to exceed indefinitely. And that's a very, very long time.

PeterCamenzind , 12 minutes ago link

Strange how people develop reading comprehension problems when they don't like facts - the main thrust of the article is here: ' How Great Britain can argue for international law in the Crimea and South China Sea, while ignoring the International Court of Justice on the Chagos'............ nope, we don't like it when other people do what we do, cant do that! we are exceptional..........

CORNWALLISTHEFIRST , 12 minutes ago link

The only law the us recognized is the law of the gun.

[Apr 16, 2019] The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they re angling for war with Iran.

Highly recommended!
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Return of the Just April 14, 2019 at 10:46 am

You're right. I see people like Robert Kagan's opinions being respectfully asked on foreign affairs, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams being hired to direct our foreign policy.

The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they're angling for war with Iran.

It's preposterous and sickening. And it can't be allowed to stand, so you can't just stand off and say you're "wrecked". Keep fighting, as you're doing. I will fight it until I can't fight anymore.

Ken Zaretzke , says: April 14, 2019 at 3:38 pm
Fact-bedeviled JohnT: “McCain was a problem for this nation? Sweet Jesus! There quite simply is no rational adult on the planet who buys that nonsense.”

McCain had close ties to the military-industrial complex. He was a backer of post-Cold War NATO. He was a neoconservative darling. He never heard of a dictator that he didn’t want to depose with boots on the ground, with the possible exception of various Saudi dictators (the oil-weaponry-torture nexus). He promoted pseudo-accountability of government in campaign finance but blocked accountability for the Pentagon and State Department when he co-chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs with John Kerry.

And, perhaps partly because of the head trauma and/or emotional wounds he suffered at the hands of Chinese-backed Commies, it’s plausible to think he was regarded by the willy-nilly plotters of the deep state as a manipulable, and thus useful, conduit of domestic subversion via the bogus Steele dossier.

Unfortunately, the episode that most defines McCain’s life is the very last one–his being a pawn of M-16 in the the deep state’s years-long attempt to derail the presidency of Donald Trump.

Joe Dokes , says: April 14, 2019 at 11:55 pm
Measuring success means determining goals. The goals of most wars is to enrich the people in charge. So, by this metric, the war was a success. The rest of it is just props and propaganda.
Andrew Stergiou , says: April 15, 2019 at 5:11 am
“Pyrrhic Victory” look it up the Roman Empire Won but lost if the US is invaded and the government does not defend it I would like to start my own defense: But the knee jerk politics that stirs America’s cannon fodder citizens is a painful reminder of a history of jingoist lies where at times some left and right agree at least for a short moment before the rich and powerful push their weight to have their way.

If All politics is relative Right wingers are the the left of what? Nuclear destruction? or Slavery?

Peter Smith , says: April 15, 2019 at 5:13 am
My goodness! I am also a veteran, but of the Vietnam war, and my father was a career officer from 1939-1961 as a paratrooper first, and later as an intelligence officer. He argued vigorously against our Vietnam involvement, and was cashiered for his intellectual honesty. A combat veteran’s views are meaningless when the political winds are blowing.

Simply put, we have killed thousands of our kids in service of the colonial empires left to us by the British and the French after WWII. More practice at incompetent strategies and tactics does not make us more competent–it merely extends the blunders and pain; viz the French for two CENTURIES against the Britsh during the battles over Normandy while the Planagenet kings worked to hold their viking-won inheritance.

At least then, kings risked their own lives. Generals fight because the LIKE it…a lot. Prior failures are only practice to the, regardless of the cost in lives of the kids we tried to raise well, and who were slaughtered for no gain.

We don’t need the empire, and we certainly shouldn’t fight for the corrupt businessmen who have profited from the never-ending conflicts. Let’s spend those trillions at home, so long as we also police our government to keep both Democrat and Republican politicians from feathering their own nests. Term limits and prosecutions will help us, but only if we are vigilant. Wars distract our attention while corruption is rampant at home.

Fayez Abedaziz , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:25 am
Thanks, I appreciate this article.
I’ll make two points, my own opinion:
it’s the same story as Vietnam, the bull about how the politicians or anti-war demonstrators tied the military ‘hand,’ blah, blah.
Nonsense. Invading a nation and slaughtering people in their towns, houses…gee…what’s wrong with that, eh?
The average American has a primitive mind when it comes to such matters.
Second point I have, is that both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Trump should be dragged to a world court, given a fair trial and locked up for life with hard labor… oh, and Cheney too,for all those families, in half a dozen nations, especially the children overseas that suffered/died from these creeps.
And, the families of dead or maimed American troops should be apologized to and compensation paid by several million dollars to each.
The people I named above make me sick, because I have feelings and a conscience. Can you dig?
kingdomofgodflag.info , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:19 am
Though there is a worldly justification for killing to obtain or maintain freedoms, there is no Christian justification for it. Which suggests that Christians who die while doing it, die in vain.

America’s wars are prosecuted by a military that includes Christians. They seldom question the killing their country orders them to do, as though the will of the government is that of the will of God. Is that a safe assumption for them to make? German Christian soldiers made that assumption regarding their government in 1939. Who was there to tell them otherwise? The Church failed, including the chaplains. (The Southern Baptist Convention declared the invasion of Iraq a just war in 2003.) These wars need to be assessed by Just War criteria. Christian soldiers need to know when to exercise selective conscientious objection, for it is better to go to prison than to kill without God’s approval. If Just War theory is irrelevant, the default response is Christian Pacifism.

Mark Thomason , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:43 am
“has gone un-investigated, unheard of, or unpunished.”

The one guy who did tell us has just been arrested for doing exactly that.

The arrest is cheered by those who fantasize about Russiagate, but it is expressly FOR telling us about these things.

Stephen J. , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:51 am
“Iraq Wrecked” a lot of innocent people. Millions are dead, cities reduced to rubble, homes and businesses destroyed and it was all a damned lie. And the perpetrators are Free.
Now there is sectarian violence too, where once there was a semblance of harmony amongst various denominations. See article link below.

“Are The Christians Slaughtered in The Middle East Victims of the Actions of Western War Criminals and Their Terrorist Supporting NATO ‘Allies’”?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/04/are-christians-slaughtered-in-middle.html

the the , says: April 12, 2019 at 11:53 am
We are a globalist open borders and mass immigration nation. We stand for nothing. To serve in this nation’s military is very stupid. You aren’t defending anything. You are just a tool of globalism. Again, we don’t secure our borders. That’s a very big give away to what’s going on.
the the , says: April 12, 2019 at 11:57 am
If our nation’s military really was an American military concerned with our security we would have secured our border after 9/11, reduced all immigration, deported ALL muslims, and that’s it. Just secure the borders and expel Muslims! That’s all we needed to do.

Instead we killed so many people and imported many many more Muslims! And we call this compassion. Its insane.

Kouros , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:02 pm
Maybe if Talibans get back in power they will destroy the opium. You know, like they did when they were first in power…. It seems that wherever Americans get involved, drugs follow…
JohnT , says: April 12, 2019 at 2:03 pm
“Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” In Eisenhower’s televised farewell address January 17, 1961.
Rational thought would lead one to believe such words from a fellow with his credentials would have had a useful effect. But it didn’t. In point of fact, in the likes of Eric Prince and his supporters the notion of war as a profit center is quite literally a family affair.
Ken Zaretzke , says: April 12, 2019 at 2:10 pm
The military-industrial complex couldn’t accomplish this all by its lonesome self. The deep state was doing its thing. The two things overlap but aren’t the same. The deep state is not only or mainly about business profits, but about power. Power in the world means empire, which requires a military-industrial complex but is not reducible to it.

We now have a rare opportunity to unveil the workings of the deep state, but it will require a special counsel, and a lengthy written report, on the doings in the 2016 election of the FBI (Comey, Strzok, et. al.), and collaterally the CIA and DIA (Brennan and Clapper). Also the British government (M-16), John McCain, and maybe Bush and Obama judges on the FISA courts.

[Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene: ..."
"... Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose: ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option. ..."
"... If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked. ..."
"... The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him: ..."
"... The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. ..."
"... The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men. ..."
"... The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead. ..."
"... It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing. ..."
"... Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter. ..."
"... Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss. ..."
"... Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War. ..."
"... after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative.. ..."
"... once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible. ..."
"... Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians. ..."
"... The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both. ..."
"... Haspel will not be fired. ..."
"... It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). .. ..."
"... The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. ..."
Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

An ass kissing portrait of Gina Haspel, torture queen and director of the CIA, reveals that she lied to Trump to push for more aggression against Russia.

In March 2018 the British government asserted, without providing any evidence, that the alleged 'Novichok' poisoning of Sergej and Yulia Skripal was the fault of Russia. It urged its allies to expel Russian officials from their countries.

The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene:
President Trump seemed distracted in March as his aides briefed him at his Mar-a-Lago resort on the administration's plan to expel 60 Russian diplomats and suspected spies.

The United States, they explained, would be ousting roughly the same number of Russians as its European allies -- part of a coordinated move to punish Moscow for the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil.

"We'll match their numbers," Trump instructed, according to a senior administration official. "We're not taking the lead. We're matching."

The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials -- far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on.

The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia.

The expulsion marked a turn in the Trump administration's relation with Russia:

The incident reflects a tension at the core of the Trump administration's increasingly hard-nosed stance on Russia: The president instinctually opposes many of the punitive measures pushed by his Cabinet that have crippled his ability to forge a close relationship with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

The past month, in particular, has marked a major turning point in the administration's stance, according to senior administration officials. There have been mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, sanctions on oligarchs that have bled billions of dollars from Russia's already weak economy and, for the first time, a presidential tweet that criticized Putin by name for backing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose:

Last March, top national security officials gathered inside the White House to discuss with Mr. Trump how to respond to the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian intelligence agent.

London was pushing for the White House to expel dozens of suspected Russian operatives, but Mr. Trump was skeptical.
...
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.

To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the only victims of Russia's attack.

Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.

Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option.

The Skripal case was widely covered and we followed it diligently (scroll down). There were no reports of any children affected by 'Novichok' nor were their any reports of dead ducks. In the official storyline the Skripals, before visiting a restaurant, fed bread to ducks at a pond in the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury.

They also gave duck-bread to three children to do the same. The children were examined and their blood was tested. No poison was found and none of them fell ill . No duck died. (The duck feeding episode also disproves the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by touching a door handle.)

If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked.

The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him:

The outcome was an example, officials said, of how Ms. Haspel is one of the few people who can get Mr. Trump to shift position based on new information.

Co-workers and friends of Ms. Haspel push back on any notion that she is manipulating the president. She is instead trying to get him to listen and to protect the agency, according to former intelligence officials who know her.

The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in the game:

Ms. Haspel won the trust of Mr. Pompeo, however, and has stayed loyal to him. As a result, Mr. Trump sees Ms. Haspel as an extension of Mr. Pompeo, a view that has helped protect her, current and former intelligence officials said.

Posted by b on April 16, 2019 at 08:37 AM | Permalink


Russ , Apr 16, 2019 9:02:41 AM | link

I don't see how it's possible to manipulate someone (and especially the US president) into doing something they don't want to do with lies like the ones described here. On the contrary presidents, CEOs etc. favor the staffers who tell them the kind of lies they want to hear in order to reinforce what they wanted to do in the first place.

I've never seen any reason to alter my first position on Trump, that like any other president he does what he wants to do.

Jerry , Apr 16, 2019 9:14:30 AM | link
The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men.

The joke 7in the final scene Robert Redford tells See Eye A man Cliff Robertson that he gave all the evidence to the NY Times. What a joke. The NY Times and the Wash Post are the mouthpieces for the SEE Eye A. The AP news sources most of their stories from those two papers and other lackey See Eye A newspapers.

One final criticism in moon's story. The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead.

manny , Apr 16, 2019 9:15:16 AM | link
Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director

After this, she got the top job, so what is the real lesson here? Sociopathic liars get promoted....or you can tell the truth, try to be honorable and fade into obscurity.. In a nest of psychos, you have to really be depraved to become the top psycho...

Nuke it for orbit, it's the only way to be sure...

Sally Snyder , Apr 16, 2019 9:35:40 AM | link
Here is an article that looks at whether nations around the world regard the United States or Russia as the greater threat to their nation:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/03/which-is-greater-threat-russia-or.html

It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing.

donkeytale , Apr 16, 2019 9:40:06 AM | link
b

Backing up Russ's point, when will you realise the "buck stops" on Trump's desk for any and all departments he oversees, which are run by his appointees? Trump is dedicated to creating a neoconservative foreign policy melded to a neoliberal economic policy favouring his corporate fascist sponsors. Recently, you've been all over the Assange indictment, Trump's relationship with Nuttyahoo and the related rollback of JCPOA. Is this what you want to see continued into a second term?

There is much evidence to show Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy" where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the point where no one can tell the difference.

They haven't got there quite yet but once the judiciary is controlled by GOP ideologues it's game over. And McConnell is dedicating his life to make that the reality ASAP.

Meanwhile back at the ranch we are dedicated to knocking down any and all potential opposition to this GOP hostile takeover for some reason I've yet to fathom.

BM , Apr 16, 2019 9:42:46 AM | link
Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in the game[Pompeo]

Hopefully yes to all four propositions. Why am I sceptical though (except conceivably the first)?

Mataman , Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM | link
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. He's the first POTUS in decades I believe to not even pretend to like dogs by having an official White House dog and every policy his Administration can take against animals, they have taken. I'm not even sure I buy the spin that he cared about dead kids either. And NYT readers know this about him, so I don't understand what the point of peddling this fiction is other than to paint Torture Queen in some kind of good light (and we KNOW that she certainly doesn't care about dead anything).
the pair , Apr 16, 2019 10:08:18 AM | link
another example of trump's stupidity and pathological inability to think for himself. he gets his views from fox and his policy from bolton. his equally vapid daughter and kushner whine to him about sooper sad syria pictures they saw in a sponsored link while googling for new tmz gossip.

even worse that this is the twat in charge of one of russiagate's main instigating "deep state" agencies. he spent the entirety of his presidency railing against their various lies then takes this wankery at face value. it's just like the "chinese soldiers in venezuela"; if those pictures were legit they'd have been splattered over every front page and permanently attached to screeching cnn and msnbc segments demanding trump "finally get tough" on "putin's russia".

my only surprise is that she didn't tell him about british babies ripped from incubators and dipped in anthrax powder.
the nyt shilling for a soCIopAth? not that surprising.

Twiki , Apr 16, 2019 10:43:11 AM | link

The consultant in emergency medicine at Salisbury hospital wrote to The Times, shortly after the Skripal incident. His choice of words was odd, and some have said they indicate no novichok poisoning occurred. Leaving that to one side, his letter certainly puts paid to the idea that more than three people (the Skripals and the policeman, DCI Bailey) were poisoned. https://www.onaquietday.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DocSaysNoNerveAgentInSalisbury.jpg
bjd , Apr 16, 2019 10:43:51 AM | link
" the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, "

There was no attack on the Skripals. or on anyone else. The Russophobia in whose context it falls, is of a higher order, in which a fabricated narrative of a Skripal-like attack had an important function. The Skripals were perfectly happy to lend their name to the fabrication, and are living happily, probably in New Zealand.

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 10:59:48 AM | link
The Daily Beast article that b linked to describes how many serious, well-informed people felt that Haspel was unsuitable to lead the CIA. Even more strange and troubling was that Haspel was supported by Trump's nemesis, John Brennan.

Despite all that, MAGA Trump still nominated her. Any notion that Trump is at odds with, or "manipulated" by, Haspel, Bolton, or Pompeo is just propaganda. We've seen such reporting before (esp. wrt Bolton) and Trump has taken no action.

Babyl-on , Apr 16, 2019 11:04:28 AM | link
I see that Trump derangement is alive and well here at MoA. Commenters talk as if Trump is the first president stupid enough to be manipulated by the security agencies and shadow government sometimes referred to as a "deep state". People don't have to be historians or look back to Rome, just read the books about how the great general who "won WWII" was used by the oligarchy which had full control of US foreign policy throughout Eisenhower's term in office.

Works produced after WWII, C. Wright Mills, The Power elite was written in 1956,The Brothers and The Divil's Chessboard each about the Dulles Brothers and how they operated US foreign policy for the interests of the oligarchy, and the work Peter Phillips, GIANTS: The Global Power Elite and the work of David Rothkopf which thoroughly describes the feudal system under which the Western cultures are ruled.
The US government is a pantomime it is a show it has no power.

How many here can honestly say they understand that the US dollar itself and the ENTIRE GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM is privately owned. Why do you think the "banks were bailed out"? because the banks were in power not the government. The US is 22 trillion in debt - the oligarchy is the creditor - take over the US gov. and you have a powerless pile of debt.

Around 6,000 people control 85% of global assets until that changes nothing will change. The oligarchy won virtually all the mines and control the price of all basic commodities necessary for modern life, the internet, oil of course and more.

What is failing and what has failed over and over for 500 years is Western Civilization and its three "great religions" which preach obedience, oppression, domination by a one god suffocating mythology.

But the oligarchy doesn't own just the basic commodities, it owns the religions and it owns the drugs and all illegal trade as well.

Western "civilization" is really nothing more than one vast feudal kingdom, with royal courts in DC, Tel Aviv and Ryiadh. Wheather there is a god or not, religion is made of flesh and blood not miracles. No Rabbi or Priest or Imam claims visitations by god to instruct them on doctrine - they are flesh and blood and they want power so they behave like sycophants to the money they need to expand their power...all for the good souls under their care.

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 11:16:08 AM | link
Correction @13 Trump's supposed nemesis. Trump has brought several friends and associates of his enemies into his Administration:
  • VP Pence: John McCain's buddy
  • Bolton: a neocon (neocons were "Never Trump", remember?)
  • Wm Barr: close with Mueller
  • Haspel: Brennan's gal at CIA
And Trump himself was close to the Clintons.
lysias , Apr 16, 2019 12:00:59 PM | link
Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter.
Jose Garcia , Apr 16, 2019 12:08:01 PM | link
What can we expect from a tv personality who became a US president? A man who ran with an advertisement worthy of a business man like him, "Make America Great Again." How does he go about doing it? Giving more money to the military industrial-Congressional complex, even though we are really flat broke. Using aggressive tactics used by Wall Street in hostile company takeovers to really intimidate other nations. And hire and place those he really agrees with in important positions who really reflect his true feelings. I'm sure when he spoke with Haspel before offering her the job, he brought up the topic of torture and agreed with her on its use on terrorists.
Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 12:24:11 PM | link
lysias @18: conspired to stop Trump's candidacy

I think there's a reasonable case to be made that they conspired not to stop Trump but to further speculation of Trump's "collusion" with Russia (what would later be known as Russiagate). The "collusion" and "Russia meddled" accusations are what fueled the new McCarthyism.

juliania , Apr 16, 2019 12:28:54 PM | link
I'll just add to Jerry's comment at #3 that the final line in the movie "Day of the Condor" is something like "But will they print it?" which really spoke to the message of the film in its entirety. The condor being an endangered bird for whom the hero is named, and the beginning outrage being the brutal murder of book lovers researching useable plot details for the 'company'makes this message current and applicable to what we see in the Skripal case. And instead of librarians, we now have online commenters, a doughty breed, and we have Assange.

Instead of 'Will they print it?' I am wondering 'Will they make another movie about it?'

"Day of the Condor: Part Two." Some Day.

Ross , Apr 16, 2019 12:41:17 PM | link
Remind me, where is Yulia Skripal these days? Well and truly 'disappeared' it seems. The mask is off. the snarling face of the beast is there for all to see.
Kiza , Apr 16, 2019 12:49:37 PM | link
What a total waste of an article discussing a story published in NYT or WaPo.

b, the World has divided itself into those who consume alternative media such as this and stupidos who consume MSM. There is nothing in-between that you are attempting to discuss and dissect here. NYT = cognitive value zero.

Fake News not worth one millisecond of our time, not even to decode what the regime wants us to know, we know all that already. Personally, I am only interested in the new methods of domestic repression, what is next after the warning of Assange arrest, future rendition and torture. The Deep Stare appears to be coming out into open, will it soon get rid of the whole faux democracy construct and just use iron fist to rule? It already impose its will as the rule of law. All of the Western block is heading in this direction.

jayc , Apr 16, 2019 1:00:38 PM | link
Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss.
Piotr Berman , Apr 16, 2019 1:11:24 PM | link
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. Mataman | Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM

This assumes that Trump would primarily care about the ducks (and children) when he approved a massive expulsion, rather that his image and "ah, in that case it would look bad if we do not do something really decisive".

In any case, I was thinking why NYT would disclose something like that. The point is that readers of Craig Murray (not so few, but mostly Scottish nationalists who are also leftist and have scant possibilities and/or inclination to vote in USA) and MoonOfAlabama would quickly catch a dead fish here, but 99.9% of the public is blissfully unaware of any incongruences in the "established" Skripal narrative.

Piotr Berman , Apr 16, 2019 1:22:03 PM | link
BTW, it is possible that the journalist who scribbled fresh yarn obtained from CIA did it earnestly. Journalists do not necessarily follow stories that they cover -- scribbling from given notes does not require overtaxing the precious attention span that can be devoted to more vital cognitive challenges. I am lazy to find the link, but while checking for news on Venezuela, I stumbled on a piece from Express, a British tabloid, where Guaido was named a "figurehead of the oposition" supported by "450 Western countries". My interpretation was that more literate journalists were moved for to more compelling stories as Venezuela went to the back burner.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , Apr 16, 2019 1:28:11 PM | link
Yes, indeed, the Skripal Affair is one of the obviously contrived stunts we've seen. Just outrageous in its execution. On a par with the US having a man who didn't even run for president of Venezuela swear himself in and then pressure everyone to accept him as president.

Interesting, I had no idea Gina Haspel - aka, The Queen of Blood - played a role. I thought it was all original dirty work by Britain's Theresa May. Boy, I hope people are through with the false notion that if women just get into leadership, the world will become a better gentler place.

Here's some interesting background:

Noirette , Apr 16, 2019 1:28:44 PM | link
Macron was (afaik?) the only EU 'leader' who was quoted in the MSM as bruiting re. the Skripal affair a message like:

.. no culpability in the part of Russia has been evidenced .. for now...

I suppose he was enjoined to shut his gob right quick (have been reading about brexit so brit eng) as nothing more in that line was heard.

Hooo, the EU expelled a lot of Russ. diplomats, obeying the USuk, which certainly created some major upsets on the ground.

Some were expelled, went into other jobs, other places, but then others arrived, etc. The MSM has not made any counts - lists - of names numbers - etc. of R diplos on the job - anywhere. As some left and then others arrived.

Once more, this was mostly a symbolic move, if extremely nasty, insulting, and disruptive.

Theresa May's speech re. Novichok, Independent 14 March 2018:

.. on Monday I set out that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Novichok: a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia. Based on this capability, combined with their record of conducting state sponsored assassinations – including against former intelligence officers whom they regard as legitimate targets – the UK Government concluded it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for this reckless and despicable act. ..

https://ind.pn/2XcAIk4

Cost her a consequent amount of political capital. - Everyone knows the Skripal story is BS.

semiconscious , Apr 16, 2019 1:31:34 PM | link
@25 & @26:

imo, the media has, once again, simply taken its lead from trump himself, & started making things up completely. & you're absolutely correct in pointing out that, much like trump's true believers, the msm's targeted audience never even notices...

karlof1 , Apr 16, 2019 1:53:44 PM | link
Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War.
james , Apr 16, 2019 2:03:20 PM | link
after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative..

what i didn't know is what @18 lysias pointed out.."Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter." ditto jr's speculation @20 too...

so gaspel shows trump some cheap propaganda that she got from who??

my main problem with b's post - i tend to see it like kiza @23) is maintaining the idea trump isn't in on all of this.. the thought trump is being duped by his underlings.. if he was and it mattered, he would get rid of them.. the fact he doesn't says to me, he is in on it - get russia, being the 24/7 game plan of the west here still..

c1ue , Apr 16, 2019 2:03:56 PM | link
Please stop listening to idiot libertarians and their "US is flat broke" meme. The reality is that: so long as Americans transact in dollars, the United States government can tax anytime it feels like by issuing new dollars via the Fed.

Equally, so long as 60% of the world's trade is conducted in dollars, this is tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of additional taxation surface area. The MMT people - I don't agree 100% with everything they say, but they do understand the actual operation of fiat currency.

The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy.

Michael Droy , Apr 16, 2019 2:12:37 PM | link
Well this could be Syria, not Salisbury!

I doubt Haspel knew the ducks were fake - she was probably just given stuff to pass up the chain. It is a lot like John Kerry who was shown convincing satellite data of the BUK launch that hit MH17 - but no one could be bothered to pass on even the launch site coordinates to the JIT. I'm sure this stuff goes on all the time, and of course, once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible.

Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians.

bjd , Apr 16, 2019 2:25:23 PM | link
The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both.
fastfreddy , Apr 16, 2019 2:48:31 PM | link
Haspel will not be fired.
Russ , Apr 16, 2019 3:02:51 PM | link
@c1ue | Apr 16, 2019 2:03:56 PM | 32

"The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy."

The useful idiocy is most surprising among US farmers. In the 19th century they broadly understood that fiat money was good for chronic low-wealth debtors like themselves, while hard money was bad and a gold standard lethal. This was the basis of the Populist movement. Nothing has changed financially, but today's farmers, and the low-wealth debtor class in general, seem more likely to be goldbuggers than to have any knowledge of economics or of their own political history.

karlof1 36

Once a faction becomes submerged in the Mammon theocracy and becomes nothing but mercenary nihilists, thinking is no longer necessary or desirable, except to come up with attractive, pseudo-plausible lies.

This certainly characterizes "the right" (including liberals), but they have no monopoly on it. By now "the left" is nearly as thoughtless and instrumental on behalf of Mammon, except to the extent that a few people are starting to really grapple with what it means to have an intrinsically ecocidal and therefore suicidal civilization. That's really the only thought frontier left, all else has been engulfed in Mammon, productionism, scientism and technocracy.

snake , Apr 16, 2019 3:29:24 PM | link
@7 ..Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy" where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the point where no one can tell the difference. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/04/15/593529/Ecuadoran-president-sold-off-Assangeto-America-Ron-Paul

I remind that Mussolini wasted his legislature.. 1 balmy after noon @ a roadside spot. it made his government stronger.?

It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). ..

The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Everyone in the government is covering for the behaviors of someone else in government, the MSM has raised the price of a pencil to just under a million, stock markets are bags of hot thin air, and everyone in side and outside of the centers of power at all levels of government have lied thru their teeth so much that their teeth are melting from the continuous flow of hot deceitful air.

Corrupt is now the only qualification for political office, trigger happy screwball the only qualification for the police and the military and . making progress is like trying to conduct a panty raid at a female nudist camp.

John Anthony La Pietra , Apr 16, 2019 3:47:03 PM | link
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/quotes?ref_=m_tt_trv_qu

Higgins: Hey, Turner! How do you know they'll print it? You can take a walk, but how far if they don't print it?

Joe Turner: They'll print it.

Higgins: How do you know?

[Apr 16, 2019] Pompeo Has Lost His Mind - China Hits Back At Latin America Remarks

There should be a new term "Pompeocity" for the style the Secretary of State exhibits.
Apr 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
China has come out swinging after Mike Pompeo's three-day Latin America tour in which the Secretary of State publicly called out China for spreading "disorder" in Latin America alongside Russia. Pompeo identified the two countries, both of which have over the past two months condemned US efforts toward regime change in Venezuela, of backing failing investment projects that only fuel corruption and undermine democracy, especially in Venezuela.

China's ambassador to Chile, Xu Bu, quickly lashed out in response to America's top diplomat blaming China for Latin America's economic woes which first came last Friday while standing alongside Chilean President Sebastian Pinera. Ambassador Xu told the Chilean newspaper La Tercera : "Mr Pompeo has lost his mind."

Pompeo had asserted during his tour that Chinese investment and economic intervention in Venezuela, now facing financial and infrastructural collapse amidst political turmoil, had "helped destroy" the country and said Latin American leaders must therefore see who their "true friend" is.

"China's bankrolling of the Maduro regime helped precipitate and prolong the crisis in that country," Pompeo had stated , and further described Maduro as "a power-hungry tyrant who has brought ruin to his country and to his people".

"I think there's a lesson to be learned for all of us: China and others are being hypocritical calling for non-intervention in Venezuela's affairs. Their own financial interventions have helped destroy that country," Pompeo added.

China is Venezuela's biggest foreign creditor has provided up to $62bn in loans since 2007, according to estimates.

The Chinese foreign ministry didn't hold back in its response: "For some time, some US politicians have been carrying the same version, the same script of slandering China all over the world , and fanning the flames and sowing discord everywhere," Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a Monday statement .

"The words and deeds are despicable. But lies are lies, even if you say it a thousand times, they are still lies. Mr Pompeo, you can stop, " the spokesman said.

Hinting at Washington's Cold War era record of overthrowing governments in Latin America -- a longstanding tradition that can be traced all the way back to the Cold War, the statement added: "The Latin American countries have good judgment about who is their true friend and who is false, and who is breaking rules and making trouble," Lu said.

The Chinese Ambassador to Chile's remarks had also remotely invoked a continued Monroe Doctrine mentality on the part of US officials, saying "Pompeo's body has entered the 21st century but his mind remains in the 20th century, full of thoughts about hegemony and the cold war ," Amb. Xu told La Tercera .

In addition to being the Maduro government's single largest creditor, China has recently offered to help Venezuela with its failing power grid, after a series of devastating mass outages over the past month has resulted in "medieval" conditions amidst an already collapsing infrastructure. This as Pompeo and Bolton came close to positively celebrating the mass outages as proof of the ineptness of the Maduro regime.

Beijing also recently denied it has deployed troops to Venezuela after media reports a week ago cited online photos which appeared to show a Chinese military transport plane deployed to Caracas.

Given how boldly and directly Chinese officials' Monday statements were, it appears Beijing's patience with Pompeo is running thin, to the point of giving up on a positive avenue with the White House, also amidst a broader trade war. It appears the proverbial gloves are coming off.

AriusArmenian , 3 minutes ago link

China's ambassador Xu Bu is certainly correct that "Mr Pompeo has lost his mind" like the rest of US supremacist elites. Another good example is the demented Nikki Haley. Then there is Bolton that is in a class of his own.

[Apr 16, 2019] MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!: I voted for Trump and I got a copy of Hillary instead

Apr 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

†FreeThought†

What happened to "Nationalism, not globalism will be our credo"...? I voted for Trump and I got Trumpstein instead.

Haboob

Reality is a bitch.

Deep Snorkeler , 8 minutes ago link

Victory in Yemen! Victory in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else! Our $trillon military, led by genius generals, will bring home slaves and loot to replenish our bankrupt treasury. We shall crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women.

ClickNLook, 44 minutes ago

MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!

warsev

I guess we now know fully where President Trump stands on reining in executive warmongering.

[Apr 16, 2019] Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer?

Notable quotes:
"... What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future. ..."
"... I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives. ..."
"... As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this? There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a POTUS. The third part they got right. ..."
"... Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"? ..."
Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Apr 16, 2019 7:32:35 PM | link

The New York Times article seems whiffy to me. (Is anything from the NYT not whiffy?) The article is the work of no fewer than five writers and the part about Donald Trump being swayed by pictures of sick children in hospital and dead ducks seems a bit like a game of Chinese whispers.

What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.

Jen , Apr 16, 2019 7:39:15 PM | link

ADKC @ 56 (and Koen @ 50):

Better not play too many of those "Call of Duty" video games either. You might find that being a pretend mercenary shooting up innocent people in foreign lands is not just for the purpose of wasting a half of day on mindless entertainment.

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 7:59:38 PM | link
Jen @59

I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives.

>> The media was right about Trump: he has a soft spot for Russia.

>> Trump cares about people (and even ducks) - remember how he bombed Syria because of the babies? Now Trump is super concerned about the people of Venezuela. What a humanitarian!

>> Russia has no reason to oppose USA (in Venezuela or elsewhere) - they could just contact their friend Trump! To do otherwise demonstrates malicious intent.

Zachary Smith , Apr 16, 2019 8:00:12 PM | link
@ Bart Hansen #1

As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this? There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a POTUS. The third part they got right.

Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"?

[Apr 16, 2019] Is The US Losing Influence In The World's Biggest Oil Region

Apr 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Trump also hoped the Sisi meeting would re-invigorate his idea of an "Arab NATO", the proposed Middle East Security Alliance (MESA), raised at the beginning of his Presidency. MESA would, U.S. planners believed, align the Gulf Arab states -- particularly Saudi Arabia -- with Jordan and Egypt to strategically balance and oppose Iran. Cairo cannot realistically support such a position in black and white terms (neither can Qatar or Jordan, at this stage).

Cairo is actually open to improved relations with Iran, particularly because the Egyptian Government feels less than secure that the current Saudi regime is stable and reliable.

Trump, during the White House meeting, strenuously attempted to support Saudi Arabia and MbS, but received strong pushback from al-Sisi on that account.

The measure of Egypt's rejection of the U.S. pressure was indicated when al-Sisi, immediately upon returning to Cairo on April 10, 2019, formally withdrew Egypt from MESA. Egypt had very deliberately not sent a delegation to the MESA summit in Riyadh on April 8, 2019.

...

The ongoing belief in the U.S. that Egypt's defenses are existentially dependent on Washington is something which Cairo cannot comprehend. Washington policy thinking is that Cairo would obey U.S. diktat because it needed spare parts for U.S.-supplied equipment, or because it so needed the relatively small contribution offered by the Camp David Accord aid payments.


supermaxedout , 22 minutes ago link

The author says very little about Egypts relations with Syria. I remember when the US agent Morsi tried to push Egypt to fight against Assad. Genral Al Sisi stopped this because it would have torn also Egypt apart, especially the Army which has very friendly ties with the Syrian army.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/morsi-role-at-syria-rally-seen-as-tipping-point-for-egypt-army-1.1450612

https://www.middleeastobserver.org/2016/11/25/18-egyptian-pilots-have-started-to-work-at-hama-military-airbase-in-syria/

General Al Sisi and President Assad have something very basic in common. Both want to preserve the culture of their countries which are multi religious, representing the developments in these areas over thousands of years. AL Sisi was acting swiftly to protect the Copts which is a christian religion, maybe the true birthplace of christianity. The copts have deep roots in the old Egyptian religion. In a speech Al Sisi said that the copts are an essential part of Egypt and that they are the link to Egypts great past.

WhiteOakQueen , 1 hour ago link

You sure as hell can't say trump isn't trying! He just vetoed the Senate bill to end all aid to continue the war on Yemen! What did Yemen ever do to us? Not a damn thing! His true colors are shining more every day. His followers will say it's a trick! It's 4d chess! It's disgusting!

J S Bach , 1 hour ago link

The area around Venezuela is actually now the richest "oil region" in the world.

You know... I often ponder how must simpler and peaceful the world could and SHOULD be were the ziombie United States not such a belligerent force. Our Founding Fathers would be outrageously appalled at their descendants to whom they bequeathed responsibility for maintaining and championing their original philosophy.

RoyalDraco , 54 minutes ago link

The question now is who in the Washington bureaucracy will take the blame for pushing Trump to insist on actions by al-Sisi which any fundamental analysis of the situation points to being infeasible and against Egypt's view of its own strategic interests.

i think the question now is whether Trump is such an idiot Zionist that he takes his orders from Sheldon Adelson Bolt-on, and Pompous. MIGA.

J S Bach , 51 minutes ago link

Trump is his own MAGA... Massive Arrogant Goy *******.

Winston Churchill , 46 minutes ago link

Already answered,and the ***-whipping when he takes on Iran will be well deserved,no way to

win short of using nukes. Iran is far too important to Russia and China for that to be allowed. Logistics and demographics are not on the US's side, even the Pentagram wants nothing to do with an actual war with Iran.

High Vigilante , 1 hour ago link

Bonobo and Killary fucked up US foreign policy.

skippy dinner , 1 hour ago link

First Law of Politics: Don't piss people off.

RagaMuffin , 1 hour ago link

"Is The US Losing Influence In The World's Biggest Oil Region?"

Only if you consider the last 40 years of screwing up as success.

Deep Snorkeler , 1 hour ago link

No One Can Trust Trump

erratic and dysfunctional, absurd and incongruous,

fantastic and ludicrous - he rules from an immoral crevasse:

he sustains massive corporate profits and upper caste power.

[Apr 16, 2019] MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!: I voted for Trump and I got a copy of Hillary instead

Apr 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

†FreeThought†

What happened to "Nationalism, not globalism will be our credo"...? I voted for Trump and I got Trumpstein instead.

Haboob

Reality is a bitch.

Deep Snorkeler , 8 minutes ago link

Victory in Yemen! Victory in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else! Our $trillon military, led by genius generals, will bring home slaves and loot to replenish our bankrupt treasury. We shall crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women.

ClickNLook, 44 minutes ago

MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!

warsev

I guess we now know fully where President Trump stands on reining in executive warmongering.

[Apr 16, 2019] Look on the bright side, Trump's overt pandering to Israel has disgusted the Europeans so much that Macron is at the lowest point in his popularity as Rothschild's puppet, and there is rising support for the AfD in Germany.

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Thinker , says: April 16, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT

Look on the bright side, Trump's overt pandering to Israel has disgusted the Europeans so much that Macron is at the lowest point in his popularity as Rothschild's puppet, and there is rising support for the AfD in Germany.

The NYT reported that 40% of Germans now think it's right to blame Jews for Israel's policy in the Mideast, German youth couldn't care less about the holocaust, and Merkel is pivoting to Russia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/opinion/germany-nazis.html

It is now (America + Israel) vs. (the rest of the world led by Russia, China, Iran, Syria, with increasing pivot from Germany and India)

Even the rest of the Five Eyes a.k.a. America's lap dogs are casting a wary eye towards this unholy alliance, and avoid outright support for Israel. Netanyahu has let his new found power, i.e. America's muscles, gone to his head. He's digging a grave for himself, turning Israel more and more into a pariah state with each passing day.

I'm guessing chess is not Trump's strong suit, nor any of the Israel Firsters (incl. Pence & Pompeo) hanging around him. They're all letting their new found power go to their collective heads. Things are going to backfire on them sooner or later.

[Apr 16, 2019] "Trump panders to his base at the Republican Jewish Coalition." but the problem is that the Republican Jewish Coalition was never his base.

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Thinker , says: April 16, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT

@wayfarer "Trump panders to his base at the Republican Jewish Coalition."

The trouble is, the Republican Jewish Coalition was never his base. These people were the biggest Trump haters until he got elected. Now they're just holding their noses to buy power through him.

Meanwhile, the real Trump's base could care less about Israel, and are frankly disgusted with his foreign policy and complete failure on immigration.

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump probably should get one step further at the Republican Coalition

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mark Bruzonsky , says: Website April 16, 2019 at 4:39 am GMT

"Trump also told the Republican Coalition audience how he came to a decision on recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights."

He should and probably will recognize USA as the colony of Isreal and the Jews, and get it over with.

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump Dances to Israel's Tune by Philip Giraldi

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

So newly reelected Israeli monster-in-chief Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted , with a grin, that America's President Donald J. Trump followed through on his proposal to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist group. Bibi was smiling because the timing of the move, one day before the Israeli election, strongly suggests it was done to assist him against what had become a very strong opposition challenge. That Trump likely colluded with Netanyahu to blatantly interfere in the election has apparently bothered no one in Israel or in the tame American media.

The gift from Washington came on top of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, threatening members of the International Criminal Court if they try to prosecute Israel for war crimes, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, removing the word "occupation" from the State Department's assessments of human rights infringements on the West Bank, eliminating relief funding for Palestinian refugees, leaving the U.N. Human Rights Council because it was too critical of Israel, and looking the other way as Israel declared itself a state only for Jews. Washington also ignored the bombing of hospitals, schools and water treatment infrastructure in Gaza while Israeli army snipers were shooting unarmed demonstrators demanding their freedom.

The labeling of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group is particularly disturbing as it means that the United States military by virtue of the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) now has a mandate to attack the IRGC wherever it appears, including in Syria or even in the waterway the Straits of Hormuz, where the guard has regular patrols in small boats. It is a de facto declaration of war and it comes on top of a number of deliberate provocations directed against Iran starting with the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) one year ago, which led to the unilateral imposition of harsh sanctions directed against the Iranian economy to bring about a popular uprising as well as regularly repeated false claims that Iran is the leading "state sponsor of terrorism." Next month, the U.S. will begin enforcing a unilaterally declared worldwide sanction on any and all Iranian oil sales.

Netanyahu pledged to annex Israeli settlements on the largely Palestinian West Bank if elected, which is undoubtedly a move cleared in advance with the Trump team of foreign policy sociopaths as it de facto puts an end to any delusional speculation over a possible two-state negotiated solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict. It will also lead to a massive upsurge in violence as the Palestinians object, which is neither a concern for the White House or Netanyahu, as they are assuming that it can be suppressed by overwhelming force directed against an almost completely unarmed civilian population.

And Trump will no doubt expect Bibi to return the favor when he is running for reelection in 2020 by encouraging American Jews who care about Israel to support the Republicans. Trump is focused on his own electability and is absolutely shameless about his betrayal of actual American interests in the Middle East, possibly because he has no inkling of the actual damage that he is doing. His speech last week before the casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson-hosted Jewish Republican Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas was a disgusting pander to a group that includes many key players who have little or no concern for what happens to the United States as long as Israel flourishes. The only good news that came out of the meeting was that Adelson himself appears to be "gravely ill."

Trump at times appeared to be speaking to what he thought was a group of Israelis, referring to "your prime minister" when mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu and several times describing Israel as "yours," suggesting that deep down he understands that many American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. At another point, Trump declared that "The Democrats have even allowed the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party and their country," apparently part of a White House plan to keep playing that card to turn American Jews and their political donations in a Republican direction before elections in 2020.

Trump also told the Republican Coalition audience how he came to a decision on recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He described how "he'd been speaking to his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, as well as U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman and his Israel adviser, Jason Greenblatt, over the phone about an unrelated issue when he suddenly brought up the Golan Heights." Trump shared how "I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie.' After the advisers filled him in, Trump said he asked Friedman: 'David, what do you think about me recognizing Israel and the Golan Heights?' Friedman, apparently surprised by the suggestion, reacted like a 'wonderful, beautiful baby,' Trump said, and asked if he would 'really do that.' 'Yeah, I think I'm doing it right now. Let's write something up,' Trump said he responded, prompting applause and cheers from his audience in Las Vegas. 'We make fast decisions and we make good decisions.'"

Putting the Trump story about the Golan Heights in some kind of context is not really that difficult. He wanted an answer to please Netanyahu and he went to three Orthodox Jews who support the illegal Israeli settlements and have also individually contributed financially to their growth so he was expecting the response that he got. That he was establishing a precedent by his moves on Jerusalem and the Golan apparently did not occur to him as his administration prides itself on having a foreign policy vision that extends no longer than the beginning of next week, which is why he hired Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams. And then there is always the doleful Stephen Miller lurking in the background as well as the three musketeers of Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman for really serious questions relating to why acceding to the wishes of parasite state Israel should continue to be the apparent number one priority of the government of the United States.

Donald Trump neither poses nor answers the question why he feels compelled to fulfill all of the campaign pledges he made to the Jewish community, which by and large did not vote for him, while failing to carry out the promises made to those who actually did support him . The absurd Jewish Republican Coalition narrative about how Trump gave Israel the Golan Heights should have resulted in a flood of opprobrium in the U.S. media about his profound ignorance and fundamental hypocrisy, but there was largely silence.

The nonsense going on in Las Vegas in front of a lot of fat cats who regard the United States as little more than a cash cow that they control as well as in the White House itself unfortunately has real world consequences. America is being led by the nose by a well-entrenched and powerful group of Israeli loyalists and this will not end well. The U.S. doesn't even have a Middle Eastern foreign policy anymore – it has a "to do" list handed by Netanyahu to whomever is president. The fact that the current man in charge in Washington is either so ignorant or so deluded as to allow the process to escalate until the U.S. is drawn into yet more catastrophic wars is beyond regrettable. U.S. foreign policy should not depend on the perceptions of Kushner and company. It should be based on real, tangible American interests, not those of Israel. Someone should explain that to the president.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

Anon [163] Disclaimer , says: April 16, 2019 at 2:59 am GMT

The gift from Washington came on top of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, threatening members of the International Criminal Court if they try to prosecute Israel for war crimes

It reminds me of the following agreements concluded during the Bush era:

US Bilateral Exemption Agreements

"The Bush Administration is actively opposed to the International Criminal Court. Its insistence on placing all Americans above international law risks undermining the ICC in its earliest and most fragile years. Currently, the State Department is pushing individual countries to conclude bilateral agreements with the US, exempting all Americans (and even some non-nationals) from accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes . These proposed agreements, in the form requested by the US government, are illegal under the Rome Statute and are not required by US law.

– see http://www.iccnow.org/html/aiusimpunity200208.pdf

and

http://www.iccnow.org/html/ciccart98memo20020823.pdf .

· The European Union has concluded that "Entering into US agreements – as presently drafted would be inconsistent with ICC States Parties' obligations with regard to the ICC Statute and may be inconsistent with other international agreements."

To bring the US proposal back within the legal scope of Article 98(2), the EU would require four modifications:

· No impunity: A guarantee that the US would investigate and potentially prosecute the accused in its domestic courts.

· No reciprocity: Nationals of ICC States Parties must be excluded from coverage.

· No universal scope: These agreements can only cover persons officially sent on government business by a State.

· Ratification: The agreement must be approved according to the constitutional procedures of each individual state.

US Bilateral Exemption Agreements

http://www.iccnow.org/documents/FS-WFA-Art98Impunity.pdf

Mark Bruzonsky , says: Website April 16, 2019 at 4:21 am GMT
Does any election matter? Does who is elected matter at all ? Is it election or selection by TPTB?

The monster has total control of the West and beyond for ages, and it will not end well.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/netanyahu-trump-putin-love-story-190408095633979.html

http://againstourbetterjudgment.com/

About the book

Soon after WWII, U.S. statesman Dean Acheson warned that creating Israel on land already inhabited by Palestinians would "imperil" both American and all Western interests in the region. Despite warnings such as this one, President Truman supported establishing a Jewish state on land primarily inhabited by Muslims and Christians.

Few Americans today are aware that U.S. support enabled the creation of modern Israel. Even fewer know that U.S. politicians pushed this policy over the forceful objections of top diplomatic and military experts.

As this work demonstrates, these politicians were bombarded by a massive pro-Israel lobbying effort that ranged from well-funded and very public Zionist organizations to an "elitist secret society" whose members included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

Against Our Better Judgment brings together meticulously sourced evidence to illuminate a reality that differs starkly from the prevailing narrative. It provides a clear view of the history that is key to understanding one of the most critically important political issues of our day.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/c8jfE1XjgaM?feature=oembed

Interview with Scholar and Journalist, Mark Bruzonsky. Mark Bruzonsky, a Jewish, American Scholar and Journalist, has been a key member behind the scenes of the Israeli Palestinian peace initiative in the 1980s, meeting with Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and with Palestinian officials. In this exclusive interview with Press TV's Autograph, Mr. Bruzonsky talks about the challenges and missed opportunities he witnessed first-hand, and how Zionist groups infiltrated American politics, US institutions and organizations. He goes further to explain the specific time and day Obama sold out to the AIPAC lobby, and how President Obama would never dare oppose the stronghold of the Zionist, Israeli Lobby in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mark+Bruzonsky

[Apr 16, 2019] Defending The Revolution a short film about the People's Militia in Venezuela. Not gonna be easy.

Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Desolation Row , Apr 14, 2019 2:19:05 PM | link

Defending The Revolution a short film about the People's Militia in Venezuela. Not gonna be easy.

And one more time, Whitney Webb is doing a bang up job with this series:

This article is Part II of a multi-part investigative series examining the efforts of the global elite, as well as powerful elements of the global Zionist lobby and the government of Israel, to create an independent state out of Argentina's southern Patagonia region in order to plunder its natural resources and to fulfill long-standing Zionist interest in the territory that dates back to the "founding father" of Zionism, Theodore Herzl. Part I, which focuses on the de facto "parallel state" created by British billionaire Joe Lewis in Argentina's Patagonia, can be read here. Part II focuses on Eduardo Elsztain -- one of Argentina's wealthiest businessmen, who is deeply connected to the global elite and global Zionist lobbies -- and his role in a scheme to undercut Argentina's democracy by hijacking its voting system.

See my "lost" comment at the end of OT 2019-20, #167

[Apr 16, 2019] Wall Street and MIC prostitutes are very nicely paid

Revolving door for Obama...
Apr 16, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
dkmich on Tue, 04/16/2019 - 6:55am
Except for the book years, it roughly is

@Le Frog

One vacation for Obama. One golf outing for Trump.

#6

Okay, that was my last snarky comment!

Those numbers make Bernie a pauper relative to other Congress people. I hope that this pulls on two threads - one is more pressure on Donald Trump to release his, and two, to make it more uncomfortable for the Nancy Pelosis to be so "independently wealthy."

Roy Blakeley on Tue, 04/16/2019 - 12:39pm
I think Obama gets $250,000 for a speech

@dkmich from a big Wall St. firm (to repay his generosity to them and make sure that future Presidents will know that they will be amply rewarded for being Wall St. friendly). So Obama makes more for an hour's speech than Bernie made in 2015.

[Apr 16, 2019] The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they re angling for war with Iran.

Highly recommended!
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Return of the Just April 14, 2019 at 10:46 am

You're right. I see people like Robert Kagan's opinions being respectfully asked on foreign affairs, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams being hired to direct our foreign policy.

The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they're angling for war with Iran.

It's preposterous and sickening. And it can't be allowed to stand, so you can't just stand off and say you're "wrecked". Keep fighting, as you're doing. I will fight it until I can't fight anymore.

Ken Zaretzke , says: April 14, 2019 at 3:38 pm
Fact-bedeviled JohnT: “McCain was a problem for this nation? Sweet Jesus! There quite simply is no rational adult on the planet who buys that nonsense.”

McCain had close ties to the military-industrial complex. He was a backer of post-Cold War NATO. He was a neoconservative darling. He never heard of a dictator that he didn’t want to depose with boots on the ground, with the possible exception of various Saudi dictators (the oil-weaponry-torture nexus). He promoted pseudo-accountability of government in campaign finance but blocked accountability for the Pentagon and State Department when he co-chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs with John Kerry.

And, perhaps partly because of the head trauma and/or emotional wounds he suffered at the hands of Chinese-backed Commies, it’s plausible to think he was regarded by the willy-nilly plotters of the deep state as a manipulable, and thus useful, conduit of domestic subversion via the bogus Steele dossier.

Unfortunately, the episode that most defines McCain’s life is the very last one–his being a pawn of M-16 in the the deep state’s years-long attempt to derail the presidency of Donald Trump.

Joe Dokes , says: April 14, 2019 at 11:55 pm
Measuring success means determining goals. The goals of most wars is to enrich the people in charge. So, by this metric, the war was a success. The rest of it is just props and propaganda.
Andrew Stergiou , says: April 15, 2019 at 5:11 am
“Pyrrhic Victory” look it up the Roman Empire Won but lost if the US is invaded and the government does not defend it I would like to start my own defense: But the knee jerk politics that stirs America’s cannon fodder citizens is a painful reminder of a history of jingoist lies where at times some left and right agree at least for a short moment before the rich and powerful push their weight to have their way.

If All politics is relative Right wingers are the the left of what? Nuclear destruction? or Slavery?

Peter Smith , says: April 15, 2019 at 5:13 am
My goodness! I am also a veteran, but of the Vietnam war, and my father was a career officer from 1939-1961 as a paratrooper first, and later as an intelligence officer. He argued vigorously against our Vietnam involvement, and was cashiered for his intellectual honesty. A combat veteran’s views are meaningless when the political winds are blowing.

Simply put, we have killed thousands of our kids in service of the colonial empires left to us by the British and the French after WWII. More practice at incompetent strategies and tactics does not make us more competent–it merely extends the blunders and pain; viz the French for two CENTURIES against the Britsh during the battles over Normandy while the Planagenet kings worked to hold their viking-won inheritance.

At least then, kings risked their own lives. Generals fight because the LIKE it…a lot. Prior failures are only practice to the, regardless of the cost in lives of the kids we tried to raise well, and who were slaughtered for no gain.

We don’t need the empire, and we certainly shouldn’t fight for the corrupt businessmen who have profited from the never-ending conflicts. Let’s spend those trillions at home, so long as we also police our government to keep both Democrat and Republican politicians from feathering their own nests. Term limits and prosecutions will help us, but only if we are vigilant. Wars distract our attention while corruption is rampant at home.

Fayez Abedaziz , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:25 am
Thanks, I appreciate this article.
I’ll make two points, my own opinion:
it’s the same story as Vietnam, the bull about how the politicians or anti-war demonstrators tied the military ‘hand,’ blah, blah.
Nonsense. Invading a nation and slaughtering people in their towns, houses…gee…what’s wrong with that, eh?
The average American has a primitive mind when it comes to such matters.
Second point I have, is that both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Trump should be dragged to a world court, given a fair trial and locked up for life with hard labor… oh, and Cheney too,for all those families, in half a dozen nations, especially the children overseas that suffered/died from these creeps.
And, the families of dead or maimed American troops should be apologized to and compensation paid by several million dollars to each.
The people I named above make me sick, because I have feelings and a conscience. Can you dig?
kingdomofgodflag.info , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:19 am
Though there is a worldly justification for killing to obtain or maintain freedoms, there is no Christian justification for it. Which suggests that Christians who die while doing it, die in vain.

America’s wars are prosecuted by a military that includes Christians. They seldom question the killing their country orders them to do, as though the will of the government is that of the will of God. Is that a safe assumption for them to make? German Christian soldiers made that assumption regarding their government in 1939. Who was there to tell them otherwise? The Church failed, including the chaplains. (The Southern Baptist Convention declared the invasion of Iraq a just war in 2003.) These wars need to be assessed by Just War criteria. Christian soldiers need to know when to exercise selective conscientious objection, for it is better to go to prison than to kill without God’s approval. If Just War theory is irrelevant, the default response is Christian Pacifism.

Mark Thomason , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:43 am
“has gone un-investigated, unheard of, or unpunished.”

The one guy who did tell us has just been arrested for doing exactly that.

The arrest is cheered by those who fantasize about Russiagate, but it is expressly FOR telling us about these things.

Stephen J. , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:51 am
“Iraq Wrecked” a lot of innocent people. Millions are dead, cities reduced to rubble, homes and businesses destroyed and it was all a damned lie. And the perpetrators are Free.
Now there is sectarian violence too, where once there was a semblance of harmony amongst various denominations. See article link below.

“Are The Christians Slaughtered in The Middle East Victims of the Actions of Western War Criminals and Their Terrorist Supporting NATO ‘Allies’”?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/04/are-christians-slaughtered-in-middle.html

the the , says: April 12, 2019 at 11:53 am
We are a globalist open borders and mass immigration nation. We stand for nothing. To serve in this nation’s military is very stupid. You aren’t defending anything. You are just a tool of globalism. Again, we don’t secure our borders. That’s a very big give away to what’s going on.
the the , says: April 12, 2019 at 11:57 am
If our nation’s military really was an American military concerned with our security we would have secured our border after 9/11, reduced all immigration, deported ALL muslims, and that’s it. Just secure the borders and expel Muslims! That’s all we needed to do.

Instead we killed so many people and imported many many more Muslims! And we call this compassion. Its insane.

Kouros , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:02 pm
Maybe if Talibans get back in power they will destroy the opium. You know, like they did when they were first in power…. It seems that wherever Americans get involved, drugs follow…
JohnT , says: April 12, 2019 at 2:03 pm
“Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” In Eisenhower’s televised farewell address January 17, 1961.
Rational thought would lead one to believe such words from a fellow with his credentials would have had a useful effect. But it didn’t. In point of fact, in the likes of Eric Prince and his supporters the notion of war as a profit center is quite literally a family affair.
Ken Zaretzke , says: April 12, 2019 at 2:10 pm
The military-industrial complex couldn’t accomplish this all by its lonesome self. The deep state was doing its thing. The two things overlap but aren’t the same. The deep state is not only or mainly about business profits, but about power. Power in the world means empire, which requires a military-industrial complex but is not reducible to it.

We now have a rare opportunity to unveil the workings of the deep state, but it will require a special counsel, and a lengthy written report, on the doings in the 2016 election of the FBI (Comey, Strzok, et. al.), and collaterally the CIA and DIA (Brennan and Clapper). Also the British government (M-16), John McCain, and maybe Bush and Obama judges on the FISA courts.

[Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene: ..."
"... Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose: ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option. ..."
"... If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked. ..."
"... The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him: ..."
"... The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. ..."
"... The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men. ..."
"... The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead. ..."
"... It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing. ..."
"... Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter. ..."
"... Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss. ..."
"... Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War. ..."
"... after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative.. ..."
"... once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible. ..."
"... Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians. ..."
"... The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both. ..."
"... Haspel will not be fired. ..."
"... It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). .. ..."
"... The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. ..."
Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

An ass kissing portrait of Gina Haspel, torture queen and director of the CIA, reveals that she lied to Trump to push for more aggression against Russia.

In March 2018 the British government asserted, without providing any evidence, that the alleged 'Novichok' poisoning of Sergej and Yulia Skripal was the fault of Russia. It urged its allies to expel Russian officials from their countries.

The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene:
President Trump seemed distracted in March as his aides briefed him at his Mar-a-Lago resort on the administration's plan to expel 60 Russian diplomats and suspected spies.

The United States, they explained, would be ousting roughly the same number of Russians as its European allies -- part of a coordinated move to punish Moscow for the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil.

"We'll match their numbers," Trump instructed, according to a senior administration official. "We're not taking the lead. We're matching."

The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials -- far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on.

The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia.

The expulsion marked a turn in the Trump administration's relation with Russia:

The incident reflects a tension at the core of the Trump administration's increasingly hard-nosed stance on Russia: The president instinctually opposes many of the punitive measures pushed by his Cabinet that have crippled his ability to forge a close relationship with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

The past month, in particular, has marked a major turning point in the administration's stance, according to senior administration officials. There have been mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, sanctions on oligarchs that have bled billions of dollars from Russia's already weak economy and, for the first time, a presidential tweet that criticized Putin by name for backing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose:

Last March, top national security officials gathered inside the White House to discuss with Mr. Trump how to respond to the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian intelligence agent.

London was pushing for the White House to expel dozens of suspected Russian operatives, but Mr. Trump was skeptical.
...
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.

To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the only victims of Russia's attack.

Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.

Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option.

The Skripal case was widely covered and we followed it diligently (scroll down). There were no reports of any children affected by 'Novichok' nor were their any reports of dead ducks. In the official storyline the Skripals, before visiting a restaurant, fed bread to ducks at a pond in the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury.

They also gave duck-bread to three children to do the same. The children were examined and their blood was tested. No poison was found and none of them fell ill . No duck died. (The duck feeding episode also disproves the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by touching a door handle.)

If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked.

The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him:

The outcome was an example, officials said, of how Ms. Haspel is one of the few people who can get Mr. Trump to shift position based on new information.

Co-workers and friends of Ms. Haspel push back on any notion that she is manipulating the president. She is instead trying to get him to listen and to protect the agency, according to former intelligence officials who know her.

The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in the game:

Ms. Haspel won the trust of Mr. Pompeo, however, and has stayed loyal to him. As a result, Mr. Trump sees Ms. Haspel as an extension of Mr. Pompeo, a view that has helped protect her, current and former intelligence officials said.

Posted by b on April 16, 2019 at 08:37 AM | Permalink


Russ , Apr 16, 2019 9:02:41 AM | link

I don't see how it's possible to manipulate someone (and especially the US president) into doing something they don't want to do with lies like the ones described here. On the contrary presidents, CEOs etc. favor the staffers who tell them the kind of lies they want to hear in order to reinforce what they wanted to do in the first place.

I've never seen any reason to alter my first position on Trump, that like any other president he does what he wants to do.

Jerry , Apr 16, 2019 9:14:30 AM | link
The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men.

The joke 7in the final scene Robert Redford tells See Eye A man Cliff Robertson that he gave all the evidence to the NY Times. What a joke. The NY Times and the Wash Post are the mouthpieces for the SEE Eye A. The AP news sources most of their stories from those two papers and other lackey See Eye A newspapers.

One final criticism in moon's story. The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead.

manny , Apr 16, 2019 9:15:16 AM | link
Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director

After this, she got the top job, so what is the real lesson here? Sociopathic liars get promoted....or you can tell the truth, try to be honorable and fade into obscurity.. In a nest of psychos, you have to really be depraved to become the top psycho...

Nuke it for orbit, it's the only way to be sure...

Sally Snyder , Apr 16, 2019 9:35:40 AM | link
Here is an article that looks at whether nations around the world regard the United States or Russia as the greater threat to their nation:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/03/which-is-greater-threat-russia-or.html

It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing.

donkeytale , Apr 16, 2019 9:40:06 AM | link
b

Backing up Russ's point, when will you realise the "buck stops" on Trump's desk for any and all departments he oversees, which are run by his appointees? Trump is dedicated to creating a neoconservative foreign policy melded to a neoliberal economic policy favouring his corporate fascist sponsors. Recently, you've been all over the Assange indictment, Trump's relationship with Nuttyahoo and the related rollback of JCPOA. Is this what you want to see continued into a second term?

There is much evidence to show Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy" where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the point where no one can tell the difference.

They haven't got there quite yet but once the judiciary is controlled by GOP ideologues it's game over. And McConnell is dedicating his life to make that the reality ASAP.

Meanwhile back at the ranch we are dedicated to knocking down any and all potential opposition to this GOP hostile takeover for some reason I've yet to fathom.

BM , Apr 16, 2019 9:42:46 AM | link
Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in the game[Pompeo]

Hopefully yes to all four propositions. Why am I sceptical though (except conceivably the first)?

Mataman , Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM | link
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. He's the first POTUS in decades I believe to not even pretend to like dogs by having an official White House dog and every policy his Administration can take against animals, they have taken. I'm not even sure I buy the spin that he cared about dead kids either. And NYT readers know this about him, so I don't understand what the point of peddling this fiction is other than to paint Torture Queen in some kind of good light (and we KNOW that she certainly doesn't care about dead anything).
the pair , Apr 16, 2019 10:08:18 AM | link
another example of trump's stupidity and pathological inability to think for himself. he gets his views from fox and his policy from bolton. his equally vapid daughter and kushner whine to him about sooper sad syria pictures they saw in a sponsored link while googling for new tmz gossip.

even worse that this is the twat in charge of one of russiagate's main instigating "deep state" agencies. he spent the entirety of his presidency railing against their various lies then takes this wankery at face value. it's just like the "chinese soldiers in venezuela"; if those pictures were legit they'd have been splattered over every front page and permanently attached to screeching cnn and msnbc segments demanding trump "finally get tough" on "putin's russia".

my only surprise is that she didn't tell him about british babies ripped from incubators and dipped in anthrax powder.
the nyt shilling for a soCIopAth? not that surprising.

Twiki , Apr 16, 2019 10:43:11 AM | link

The consultant in emergency medicine at Salisbury hospital wrote to The Times, shortly after the Skripal incident. His choice of words was odd, and some have said they indicate no novichok poisoning occurred. Leaving that to one side, his letter certainly puts paid to the idea that more than three people (the Skripals and the policeman, DCI Bailey) were poisoned. https://www.onaquietday.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DocSaysNoNerveAgentInSalisbury.jpg
bjd , Apr 16, 2019 10:43:51 AM | link
" the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, "

There was no attack on the Skripals. or on anyone else. The Russophobia in whose context it falls, is of a higher order, in which a fabricated narrative of a Skripal-like attack had an important function. The Skripals were perfectly happy to lend their name to the fabrication, and are living happily, probably in New Zealand.

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 10:59:48 AM | link
The Daily Beast article that b linked to describes how many serious, well-informed people felt that Haspel was unsuitable to lead the CIA. Even more strange and troubling was that Haspel was supported by Trump's nemesis, John Brennan.

Despite all that, MAGA Trump still nominated her. Any notion that Trump is at odds with, or "manipulated" by, Haspel, Bolton, or Pompeo is just propaganda. We've seen such reporting before (esp. wrt Bolton) and Trump has taken no action.

Babyl-on , Apr 16, 2019 11:04:28 AM | link
I see that Trump derangement is alive and well here at MoA. Commenters talk as if Trump is the first president stupid enough to be manipulated by the security agencies and shadow government sometimes referred to as a "deep state". People don't have to be historians or look back to Rome, just read the books about how the great general who "won WWII" was used by the oligarchy which had full control of US foreign policy throughout Eisenhower's term in office.

Works produced after WWII, C. Wright Mills, The Power elite was written in 1956,The Brothers and The Divil's Chessboard each about the Dulles Brothers and how they operated US foreign policy for the interests of the oligarchy, and the work Peter Phillips, GIANTS: The Global Power Elite and the work of David Rothkopf which thoroughly describes the feudal system under which the Western cultures are ruled.
The US government is a pantomime it is a show it has no power.

How many here can honestly say they understand that the US dollar itself and the ENTIRE GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM is privately owned. Why do you think the "banks were bailed out"? because the banks were in power not the government. The US is 22 trillion in debt - the oligarchy is the creditor - take over the US gov. and you have a powerless pile of debt.

Around 6,000 people control 85% of global assets until that changes nothing will change. The oligarchy won virtually all the mines and control the price of all basic commodities necessary for modern life, the internet, oil of course and more.

What is failing and what has failed over and over for 500 years is Western Civilization and its three "great religions" which preach obedience, oppression, domination by a one god suffocating mythology.

But the oligarchy doesn't own just the basic commodities, it owns the religions and it owns the drugs and all illegal trade as well.

Western "civilization" is really nothing more than one vast feudal kingdom, with royal courts in DC, Tel Aviv and Ryiadh. Wheather there is a god or not, religion is made of flesh and blood not miracles. No Rabbi or Priest or Imam claims visitations by god to instruct them on doctrine - they are flesh and blood and they want power so they behave like sycophants to the money they need to expand their power...all for the good souls under their care.

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 11:16:08 AM | link
Correction @13 Trump's supposed nemesis. Trump has brought several friends and associates of his enemies into his Administration:
  • VP Pence: John McCain's buddy
  • Bolton: a neocon (neocons were "Never Trump", remember?)
  • Wm Barr: close with Mueller
  • Haspel: Brennan's gal at CIA
And Trump himself was close to the Clintons.
lysias , Apr 16, 2019 12:00:59 PM | link
Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter.
Jose Garcia , Apr 16, 2019 12:08:01 PM | link
What can we expect from a tv personality who became a US president? A man who ran with an advertisement worthy of a business man like him, "Make America Great Again." How does he go about doing it? Giving more money to the military industrial-Congressional complex, even though we are really flat broke. Using aggressive tactics used by Wall Street in hostile company takeovers to really intimidate other nations. And hire and place those he really agrees with in important positions who really reflect his true feelings. I'm sure when he spoke with Haspel before offering her the job, he brought up the topic of torture and agreed with her on its use on terrorists.
Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 12:24:11 PM | link
lysias @18: conspired to stop Trump's candidacy

I think there's a reasonable case to be made that they conspired not to stop Trump but to further speculation of Trump's "collusion" with Russia (what would later be known as Russiagate). The "collusion" and "Russia meddled" accusations are what fueled the new McCarthyism.

juliania , Apr 16, 2019 12:28:54 PM | link
I'll just add to Jerry's comment at #3 that the final line in the movie "Day of the Condor" is something like "But will they print it?" which really spoke to the message of the film in its entirety. The condor being an endangered bird for whom the hero is named, and the beginning outrage being the brutal murder of book lovers researching useable plot details for the 'company'makes this message current and applicable to what we see in the Skripal case. And instead of librarians, we now have online commenters, a doughty breed, and we have Assange.

Instead of 'Will they print it?' I am wondering 'Will they make another movie about it?'

"Day of the Condor: Part Two." Some Day.

Ross , Apr 16, 2019 12:41:17 PM | link
Remind me, where is Yulia Skripal these days? Well and truly 'disappeared' it seems. The mask is off. the snarling face of the beast is there for all to see.
Kiza , Apr 16, 2019 12:49:37 PM | link
What a total waste of an article discussing a story published in NYT or WaPo.

b, the World has divided itself into those who consume alternative media such as this and stupidos who consume MSM. There is nothing in-between that you are attempting to discuss and dissect here. NYT = cognitive value zero.

Fake News not worth one millisecond of our time, not even to decode what the regime wants us to know, we know all that already. Personally, I am only interested in the new methods of domestic repression, what is next after the warning of Assange arrest, future rendition and torture. The Deep Stare appears to be coming out into open, will it soon get rid of the whole faux democracy construct and just use iron fist to rule? It already impose its will as the rule of law. All of the Western block is heading in this direction.

jayc , Apr 16, 2019 1:00:38 PM | link
Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss.
Piotr Berman , Apr 16, 2019 1:11:24 PM | link
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. Mataman | Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM

This assumes that Trump would primarily care about the ducks (and children) when he approved a massive expulsion, rather that his image and "ah, in that case it would look bad if we do not do something really decisive".

In any case, I was thinking why NYT would disclose something like that. The point is that readers of Craig Murray (not so few, but mostly Scottish nationalists who are also leftist and have scant possibilities and/or inclination to vote in USA) and MoonOfAlabama would quickly catch a dead fish here, but 99.9% of the public is blissfully unaware of any incongruences in the "established" Skripal narrative.

Piotr Berman , Apr 16, 2019 1:22:03 PM | link
BTW, it is possible that the journalist who scribbled fresh yarn obtained from CIA did it earnestly. Journalists do not necessarily follow stories that they cover -- scribbling from given notes does not require overtaxing the precious attention span that can be devoted to more vital cognitive challenges. I am lazy to find the link, but while checking for news on Venezuela, I stumbled on a piece from Express, a British tabloid, where Guaido was named a "figurehead of the oposition" supported by "450 Western countries". My interpretation was that more literate journalists were moved for to more compelling stories as Venezuela went to the back burner.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , Apr 16, 2019 1:28:11 PM | link
Yes, indeed, the Skripal Affair is one of the obviously contrived stunts we've seen. Just outrageous in its execution. On a par with the US having a man who didn't even run for president of Venezuela swear himself in and then pressure everyone to accept him as president.

Interesting, I had no idea Gina Haspel - aka, The Queen of Blood - played a role. I thought it was all original dirty work by Britain's Theresa May. Boy, I hope people are through with the false notion that if women just get into leadership, the world will become a better gentler place.

Here's some interesting background:

Noirette , Apr 16, 2019 1:28:44 PM | link
Macron was (afaik?) the only EU 'leader' who was quoted in the MSM as bruiting re. the Skripal affair a message like:

.. no culpability in the part of Russia has been evidenced .. for now...

I suppose he was enjoined to shut his gob right quick (have been reading about brexit so brit eng) as nothing more in that line was heard.

Hooo, the EU expelled a lot of Russ. diplomats, obeying the USuk, which certainly created some major upsets on the ground.

Some were expelled, went into other jobs, other places, but then others arrived, etc. The MSM has not made any counts - lists - of names numbers - etc. of R diplos on the job - anywhere. As some left and then others arrived.

Once more, this was mostly a symbolic move, if extremely nasty, insulting, and disruptive.

Theresa May's speech re. Novichok, Independent 14 March 2018:

.. on Monday I set out that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Novichok: a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia. Based on this capability, combined with their record of conducting state sponsored assassinations – including against former intelligence officers whom they regard as legitimate targets – the UK Government concluded it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for this reckless and despicable act. ..

https://ind.pn/2XcAIk4

Cost her a consequent amount of political capital. - Everyone knows the Skripal story is BS.

semiconscious , Apr 16, 2019 1:31:34 PM | link
@25 & @26:

imo, the media has, once again, simply taken its lead from trump himself, & started making things up completely. & you're absolutely correct in pointing out that, much like trump's true believers, the msm's targeted audience never even notices...

karlof1 , Apr 16, 2019 1:53:44 PM | link
Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War.
james , Apr 16, 2019 2:03:20 PM | link
after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative..

what i didn't know is what @18 lysias pointed out.."Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter." ditto jr's speculation @20 too...

so gaspel shows trump some cheap propaganda that she got from who??

my main problem with b's post - i tend to see it like kiza @23) is maintaining the idea trump isn't in on all of this.. the thought trump is being duped by his underlings.. if he was and it mattered, he would get rid of them.. the fact he doesn't says to me, he is in on it - get russia, being the 24/7 game plan of the west here still..

c1ue , Apr 16, 2019 2:03:56 PM | link
Please stop listening to idiot libertarians and their "US is flat broke" meme. The reality is that: so long as Americans transact in dollars, the United States government can tax anytime it feels like by issuing new dollars via the Fed.

Equally, so long as 60% of the world's trade is conducted in dollars, this is tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of additional taxation surface area. The MMT people - I don't agree 100% with everything they say, but they do understand the actual operation of fiat currency.

The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy.

Michael Droy , Apr 16, 2019 2:12:37 PM | link
Well this could be Syria, not Salisbury!

I doubt Haspel knew the ducks were fake - she was probably just given stuff to pass up the chain. It is a lot like John Kerry who was shown convincing satellite data of the BUK launch that hit MH17 - but no one could be bothered to pass on even the launch site coordinates to the JIT. I'm sure this stuff goes on all the time, and of course, once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible.

Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians.

bjd , Apr 16, 2019 2:25:23 PM | link
The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both.
fastfreddy , Apr 16, 2019 2:48:31 PM | link
Haspel will not be fired.
Russ , Apr 16, 2019 3:02:51 PM | link
@c1ue | Apr 16, 2019 2:03:56 PM | 32

"The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy."

The useful idiocy is most surprising among US farmers. In the 19th century they broadly understood that fiat money was good for chronic low-wealth debtors like themselves, while hard money was bad and a gold standard lethal. This was the basis of the Populist movement. Nothing has changed financially, but today's farmers, and the low-wealth debtor class in general, seem more likely to be goldbuggers than to have any knowledge of economics or of their own political history.

karlof1 36

Once a faction becomes submerged in the Mammon theocracy and becomes nothing but mercenary nihilists, thinking is no longer necessary or desirable, except to come up with attractive, pseudo-plausible lies.

This certainly characterizes "the right" (including liberals), but they have no monopoly on it. By now "the left" is nearly as thoughtless and instrumental on behalf of Mammon, except to the extent that a few people are starting to really grapple with what it means to have an intrinsically ecocidal and therefore suicidal civilization. That's really the only thought frontier left, all else has been engulfed in Mammon, productionism, scientism and technocracy.

snake , Apr 16, 2019 3:29:24 PM | link
@7 ..Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy" where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the point where no one can tell the difference. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/04/15/593529/Ecuadoran-president-sold-off-Assangeto-America-Ron-Paul

I remind that Mussolini wasted his legislature.. 1 balmy after noon @ a roadside spot. it made his government stronger.?

It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). ..

The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Everyone in the government is covering for the behaviors of someone else in government, the MSM has raised the price of a pencil to just under a million, stock markets are bags of hot thin air, and everyone in side and outside of the centers of power at all levels of government have lied thru their teeth so much that their teeth are melting from the continuous flow of hot deceitful air.

Corrupt is now the only qualification for political office, trigger happy screwball the only qualification for the police and the military and . making progress is like trying to conduct a panty raid at a female nudist camp.

John Anthony La Pietra , Apr 16, 2019 3:47:03 PM | link
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/quotes?ref_=m_tt_trv_qu

Higgins: Hey, Turner! How do you know they'll print it? You can take a walk, but how far if they don't print it?

Joe Turner: They'll print it.

Higgins: How do you know?

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump is a weak and easily controlled puppet, and his puppet masters are Bibi and Javanka.s"

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Johnny Walker Read , says: April 16, 2019 at 3:17 pm GMT

Trump is a weak and easily controlled puppet, and his puppet masters are Bibi and Javanka.
http://aristocratsofthesoul.com/why-trumps-maga-agenda-is-failing-a-review-of-kushner-inc/
DESERT FOX , says: April 16, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read In my opinion Kushner is mossad !

[Apr 16, 2019] A country with 4% of the world's population, while consuming at one point 40% of the resources, is certainly not going to go gently from its perch.

Apr 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Sid, says: April 15, 2019 at 4:28 pm

"The current U.S. policy has produced an array of unpleasant results, and cries out for reassessment."

"RE-assess" implies there was an original assessment. I've seen no evidence that this revolving-door administration ever "assessed" any foreign policy principles in the first place.

With no strategy to pursue, they mostly just react to random events around the world, treating each as equally meaningful -- like a dog chasing its tail.

Fran Macadam , says: April 15, 2019 at 5:12 pm
A country with 4% of the world's population, while consuming at one point 40% of the resources, is certainly not going to go gently from its perch.

Probably the only instance we have of elites relinquishing power, is the SovietUnion of 1989.

Bullwinkle J. Moose , says: April 15, 2019 at 7:42 pm
As generations replace generations, the world forgets which country has saved them again and again. Just wait until they cry-out for someone in a Red MAGA hat to save them just one more time –
Владимир Славинский , says: April 15, 2019 at 8:47 pm
Well, it is the correct assessment of to-day's reality. But is it something new? Back in 1994 great Samuel Huntington published well known article "Clash of Civilizations?" and predicted literally all what happened to USA if we will choose the road of being world policeman and "big brother". Among all – Russia and China united against America and even events in Ukraine as complete trouble for us. Alas, he was not listened and now almost forgotten. It is a shame!
peter mcloughlin , says: April 16, 2019 at 4:49 am
Alliances are forged out of interest, like the 'dynastic Stalinism' of North Korea and the 'Muslim theocracy' of Iran. As Ted Galen Carpenter points out: 'The most worrisome and potentially deadly case is the deepening relationship between Russia and China.' Interest cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin, nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our principles, because that is what serves our interest. An alliance between Moscow and Beijing is the one most likely to drag us into global confrontation. It is the interconnectedness of disputes that can turn a localized flashpoint into a world war. The pattern of history shows the pursuit of interest frequently 'undermines rather than enhances' those interests.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Frankie P , says: April 16, 2019 at 6:14 am
The Israeli military officers have an inside joke that Hasan Nasrallah is unable to lie. Indeed, the Hezbollah leader is one of the most truthful and straightforward leader in the world. What else could explain the US Mainstream media making absolutely sure that deplorable American citizens never hear his speeches? They might notice that he makes a lot of sense, fights terrorism, and protects the people of Lebanon: Christians, Shiite muslims and Sunni muslims. I have seen Nasrallah answer a question about accusations of Hezbollah trafficking in the drug trade. I believe his unequivocal denial far more than I do the empty accusations that are linked and parroted by the author of this article.

[Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

John, says: April 13, 2019 at 3:18 am

With all due respect, Iraq didn't wreck you. The US wrecked Iraq, and the US wrecked you.
Uncle Billy , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:00 am
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
JohnT , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:06 am
@Ken Zaretzke.

For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???

I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.

Bob , says: April 13, 2019 at 9:57 am
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send someone else's sons to war."
Ken Zaretzke , says: April 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm
@JohnT,

You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.

You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.

To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president.

More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that as well as a special counsel's report.

Sarto , says: April 13, 2019 at 5:02 pm
Remember, 75% of Americans wanted Bush to invade Iraq. War is the force that gives America its meaning.
Lee Green , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:11 pm
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.

The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors.

Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.

George Hoffman , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:09 pm
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
Talltale , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands."

Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?

The navel gazing never stops.

Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side.

Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times!

Craig Morris , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:59 am
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible.

[Apr 15, 2019] I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military

Highly recommended!
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Adam E, says: April 14, 2019 at 8:50 am

Just a cynical take, but implying that there are lessons to be learned from previous or present wars that should keep us from engaging in future wars presumes that the goal is to, where possible, actually avoid war.

It also suggests a convenient, simplistic narrative that the military/DOD is incompetent and stupid, and unable to learn from previous engagements.

I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military; if it seems as though there is no plan, no objective, no victory for these engagements, maybe that is because the only objectives and victory are to provide practical war training for our troops, test equipment and tactics, keep defense contractors employed and the Pentagon's budget inflated, and to project power and provide a convenient excuse for proximity to our 'real' enemies.

Draping these actions under a pretense of spreading 'peace and democracy' is just a pretense and, as we can see by our track record, has nothing to do with actual victory. "Victory", depending on who you ask, is measured in years of engagement and dollars spent, period.

And because it is primarily taking place in the far away and poorly understood Middle East, it is never going to be enough of an issue with voters for politicians to have to seriously contend with.

WJ , says: April 14, 2019 at 9:13 am
This person is a crybaby. At 49 he went to a war that most rational people knew already, was an immoral, illegal waste of people, time and money. But now he wants to whine about PTSD. I have the same opinion about most soldiers who fought there also. Nobody made them volunteer for that junk war so quit whining when things get a little hard

[Apr 15, 2019] My friend Julian Assange - Alicia Castro former ambassador for Argentina -- Puppet Masters -- Sott.net

Apr 15, 2019 | www.sott.net

My friend Julian Assange - Alicia Castro former ambassador for Argentina Alicia Castro
The Indicter
Sun, 14 Apr 2019 12:00 UTC Assange Alicia Castro
Julian Assange, his cat "James", and Ambassador Alicia Castro Save

Editor's Note: @ProfessorsBlogg tweeted 14/4 a translation of "Mi Amigo Julian Assange", authored by Ms Alicia Castro, formerly Argentina's ambassador in the UK and Venezuela. The text in Spanish appeared the same day in Página 12 , Argentina. Text translated by Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli, April 14, 2019.
In 2012, the year I arrived in London as ambassador, Julian Assange obtained the diplomatic asylum of Ecuador and settled in the embassy on Hans Crescent Street. That day the embassy was surrounded by cars of the British police and some agents struggled to enter. My first reflection was to send some trays with meat pasties -"empanadas"- and sweet pastries to alleviate the doings of ambassador Ana Alban. During the following days, together we organized a meeting of Latin American ambassadors, to follow from the legation of Ecuador the session of the OAS [the Organization of American States] where the asylum of Assange was discussed. We sat, for the first time, around that dark table, in an austere room. Suddenly, and discreetly, as we all were waiting, Julian Assange burst in. He was already a legend. I expressed to him how much, we the Latin Americans, had to thank for his revelations about the diplomatic cables that showed the deep and perverse degree of interference by the United States government in our affairs. I myself had as proof the cable that the ambassador of the United States in Argentina, Lino Gutierrez, wrote about my appointment as ambassador in Venezuela, where specific details of my actions are described, which I did not even remember.

That day began a long series of encounters that I had with Julian throughout the four years of my mission in London and in subsequent years, when I visited him several times. Our first conversation revolved around the accusations in Sweden about sexual abuse; We spoke frankly, and I concluded that it was a fabrication of two unscrupulous women with whom he had casual relationships, who had been manipulated to accuse him of criminal doings. Sweden demanded his extradition to respond to these allegations -they never pressed charges against him- while his lawyers tirelessly requested that he could testify in London, since Sweden would extradite him to the United States for revealing state secrets.

At that time, the embassy was crowded with interesting people who visited him; philosophers, politicians, musicians, designers. And I could regret that I had missed the visit of Zizek, Yoko Ono or Yannis Varoufakis, but in a next meeting I was meeting the designer Vivienne Westwood, the human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy, the filmmaker Ken Loach, Bianca Jagger, and mythical investigative journalists -such as the American Gavin MacFadyen, creator of the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) and the Australian John Pilger. Many of them are my friends until today. We tried to alleviate [Julian Assange's] confinement with any excuse: we celebrated his birthday parties, his 100 days of asylum -for which I brought a cake with the number 100­-, my daughter and I went with enthusiasm to assemble Julian's Christmas tree, and I also accompanied him at some New Year Eve festivities. end of the year accompanying him. Ecuador came to be at the centre of London's political and cultural life, and former President Rafael Correa was recognized by the progressive sectors as a definite defender of human rights.

In each of my long conversations with Julian I learned something, that he is a man obsessed with a clear and uncommon mission: to democratize the truth. Unlike other platforms, Wikileaks does not reveal information related to a certain political affiliation , but publishes the information it receives, once it is accurately deciphered and checked, and without revealing the source. It has published more than 10 million classified documents revealing the secrets that once belonged to a small elite linked to the military industrial complex

As time went by, the threats at the embassy were decreasing; the next ambassador prescribed stricter visiting conditions; there was hardly any food one night when former Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño visited him -when he caught me by surprise that he tirelessly sings a whole Latin American repertoire, being totally abstemious, and [also] the grace of Judge Baltasar Garzon (one of the Assange team's lawyers) in dancing flamenco . We tried unsuccessfully that Julian would sing a syllable or dance, but we never succeeded. He relaxed though and accompanied us with that radiant smile of his, which is lost today. One day I realized that Julian had not touched an animal for years, and I began to visit him with my dog ​​Mandiyu, whom he sat on his lap and became fond of, as he did of "empanadas" [meat pasties] and our Malbec wine, which I brought him occasionally.

Then we succeeded that he would be allowed to have a kitten, whose company he greatly enjoyed, and whose presence at the embassy has generated one of the most odd and obtuse amongst the complaints raised by the current president of Ecuador. Lenin Moreno took away [Julian Assange's] diplomatic asylum in violation of international law and the resolution of UN Committee on Arbitrary Detention which established in 2015 that Assange's detention is arbitrary and illegal and that he should be released.

The last times I saw him, his situation was worrisome. He was being spied on, and had a ribbon hanging from his neck with a series of pen drives. We talked in the dining room, around that table where we met for the first time, raising the volume of the radio and writing part of what we wanted to say, exchanging two notebooks and covering our heads to avoid cameras and microphones. He would never give up.

Julian was violently dragged out from the embassy of Ecuador and taken captive by the police of the decadent Teresa May, while he was shouting that the United Kingdom must resist the pressure of Trump. That image destroys me and I cannot see it without crying, nor can I stop thinking of my friend now unjustly confined in prison.

Lenin Moreno has agreed with Donald Trump the rendition [of Assange] to the United States, and Assange will have to face an extradition trial, accused of "conspiracy" for alleged cooperation with the former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to decipher the password of a US Defence Ministry computer belonging to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet). Trump and May defend and implement the espionage on the private life of the citizens and the opacity of the States.

Today, that all of us are victims of the gross manipulation of information, subject to media operations designed to demonize and wage causes against political and social leaders , in the middle of a war of "fake news" that distorts reality, it is shocking and paradoxical that a journalist is imprisoned for acting as a soldier of the truth.

Assange is not American [citizen] and the Wikileaks platform is a foreign news organization. The idea that the government of the United States can reach and extradite a member of any media in the world is terrifying. Never in the history of the United States has an editor been persecuted for presenting truthful information to the public. It creates the precedent that any journalist can be extradited, tried and imprisoned for publishing accurate information about the United States. The freedom of the press does not consist only in the right to publish, but also in the right to read, in the right to be informed, in the right to be informed that we have, as readers.

This universal right has its best defender in Julian Assange, a hero of a new type, for whose freedom we will tirelessly claim, together with the men and women of the world who believe that the truth will set us free.

[Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

John, says: April 13, 2019 at 3:18 am

With all due respect, Iraq didn't wreck you. The US wrecked Iraq, and the US wrecked you.
Uncle Billy , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:00 am
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
JohnT , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:06 am
@Ken Zaretzke.

For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???

I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.

Bob , says: April 13, 2019 at 9:57 am
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send someone else's sons to war."
Ken Zaretzke , says: April 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm
@JohnT,

You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.

You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.

To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president.

More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that as well as a special counsel's report.

Sarto , says: April 13, 2019 at 5:02 pm
Remember, 75% of Americans wanted Bush to invade Iraq. War is the force that gives America its meaning.
Lee Green , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:11 pm
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.

The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors.

Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.

George Hoffman , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:09 pm
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
Talltale , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands."

Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?

The navel gazing never stops.

Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side.

Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times!

Craig Morris , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:59 am
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible.

[Apr 15, 2019] I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military

Highly recommended!
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Adam E, says: April 14, 2019 at 8:50 am

Just a cynical take, but implying that there are lessons to be learned from previous or present wars that should keep us from engaging in future wars presumes that the goal is to, where possible, actually avoid war.

It also suggests a convenient, simplistic narrative that the military/DOD is incompetent and stupid, and unable to learn from previous engagements.

I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military; if it seems as though there is no plan, no objective, no victory for these engagements, maybe that is because the only objectives and victory are to provide practical war training for our troops, test equipment and tactics, keep defense contractors employed and the Pentagon's budget inflated, and to project power and provide a convenient excuse for proximity to our 'real' enemies.

Draping these actions under a pretense of spreading 'peace and democracy' is just a pretense and, as we can see by our track record, has nothing to do with actual victory. "Victory", depending on who you ask, is measured in years of engagement and dollars spent, period.

And because it is primarily taking place in the far away and poorly understood Middle East, it is never going to be enough of an issue with voters for politicians to have to seriously contend with.

WJ , says: April 14, 2019 at 9:13 am
This person is a crybaby. At 49 he went to a war that most rational people knew already, was an immoral, illegal waste of people, time and money. But now he wants to whine about PTSD. I have the same opinion about most soldiers who fought there also. Nobody made them volunteer for that junk war so quit whining when things get a little hard

[Apr 15, 2019] Iraq Wrecked Me for Nothing The American Conservative

Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

I recently spoke to some college students who, I realized, were in fifth grade when I got on a plane to Iraq. They now study that stuff in history classes like "Opportunities and Errors: 21st-Century America in the Middle East." About halfway through our conversation, I realized it's coming up on 10 years since I first went to Iraq. Now that's real history.

I was a Foreign Service Officer then, a diplomat, embedded with the U.S. Army at a series of forward operating bases and in charge of a couple of reconstruction teams, small parts of a complex failure to rebuild the Iraq we wrecked. I ended up writing a book about it all, explaining in tragicomic terms how we failed (those "Errors").

The book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People was -- and wasn't -- well-received. People laughed at the funny parts, but my message -- it didn't work and here's why -- was largely dissipated at the time (2012) by government and media propaganda centered on The Surge. That was David Petraeus's plan to pacify the Sunnis and push al-Qaeda away, while clearing, holding, and building across the country, apparently to make room so ISIS and the Iranians could move in.

Meanwhile, the new American president, elected in part based on his "no" vote on the war in 2003, proclaimed it all a victory and started bringing the troops home even while I was still in Iraq. Meanwhile my employer, the U.S. Department of State, was unhappy with my book. After a year-long process , State pushed me into early retirement. My career was history.

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Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands. Around us, Iraqis blew themselves up alongside children. Everyone was a potential killer and a potential target. I did this at age 49, on antidepressants and with a good family waiting back home. I cannot imagine what it would have done to 18-year-old me. And I had it easier than most, and much easier than many.

People asked in line at Trader Joe's and in interviews on semi-important TV shows, "Was it all worth it to you?" I always answered yes. I'm not important, I said, but the story is. And now we're making the same mistakes in Afghanistan. The only way to even start to justify it was to think there might be some meaning behind it all. It didn't do anything for me but fill my soul with vodka but maybe somehow it helped?

See, my book wasn't aimed at cataloging the failures in Iraq per se, but in trying to make sure we didn't do the same thing in Afghanistan. The initial title wasn't We Meant Well, but Lessons for Afghanistan from the Reconstruction of Iraq . The early drafts were pretentious scholarly stuff, outlining our mistakes. Harvard Business School-like case studies. Maps. Footnotes. It would have sold maybe five copies, and so my editors encouraged me to add more funny parts. NPR's Fresh Air actually added a laugh track to my interview . I figured I'd get the lessons across with humor more effectively anyway. In such situations, you have to think that way. You can't believe that what you went through didn't matter and keep getting out of bed every morning.

I now know officially that it did not matter. It was pointless. SIGAR shows I accomplished nothing.

Rejecting the Mindset of Iraq, Not Just the Outcome The Army's Iraq War History: Truth-Telling or Mythmaking?

SIGAR is the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, a government oversight body that is supposed to prevent waste, fraud, and mismanagement of the billions of dollars being spent rebuilding Afghanistan but that has its hands full just keeping a CVS receipt-length history of what's wrong. Sound familiar?

SIGAR just released its " 2019 High-Risk List ," which points out especially egregious things that will follow in the wake of any peace agreement in Afghanistan. Here are some quoted highlights:

set the cash ablaze on the streets of Kabul for all the good it will do."

That last line really got me. In my book, I'd written, "While a lot of the money was spent in big bites at high levels through the Embassy, or possibly just thrown into the river when no one could find a match to set it on fire ." Had SIGAR read what I'd written? Or was the joke just so obvious that we'd both come to the same punchline 10 years and two countries apart?

Word for word as in Iraq, and after over 17 years of American effort, the U.S. has failed to establish a viable government in Afghanistan, eliminate the local insurgents/patriots/residents, establish a civil society, tamp down corruption, and ensure some sort of national defense. Afghanistan has almost no chance of survival except as a Taliban narcoland with financial support needed indefinitely to avoid whatever "worse" would be in that calculus.

But there still are semi-believers. One former State Department colleague is on her fourth assignment in Kabul, roughly half her career. Her job is to liaise with the few NATO officials still hanging around. She says it's easy work; they've known each other for years. She's heard we're making progress.

Around the same time as the SIGAR report, the Army War College released its history of the Iraqi Surge, a quagmire of dense prose that I'm only about halfway through, but so far no mention of the impact of reconstruction. The theme seems to be that the Army had some good ideas but the politicians got in the way. Fair enough, but they misspelled Vietnam as I-r-a-q all throughout.

The post-9/11 wars have metastasized across three presidencies so far. Pick the thing you detest most about Bush, Obama, and Trump, and complain about how it was never investigated enough and how there weren't enough hearings. And then I'll disagree, for most everything that happened and continues to happen in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone uninvestigated, unheard of, and unpunished. It's ancient history.

We all want to believe that what we did, what we didn't do, the moral injury, the PTSD, the fights with spouses, the kid at home we smacked too hard when she wouldn't eat her green beans, all of what we saw and heard, mattered. You read that SIGAR report and tell me how. Because basically I'm history now.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan.

[Apr 15, 2019] The Absurdity of Our Regime Change Policy in Venezuela

Notable quotes:
"... Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work? ..."
"... Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day "interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. ..."
"... Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's "interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Credit: StringerAL/Shutterstock The Trump administration's statements about Venezuela are beginning to sound eerily like Western governments' pronouncements about Syria over the last seven years:

The United States has no timeline for a change in government in Venezuela, a U.S. top official said, but is certain embattled President Nicolas Maduro will not remain in power.

Almost three months have passed since the U.S. threw its support behind Guaido as "interim" president. During that tine, the opposition has made no discernible progress in taking over, and the military remains firmly on Maduro's side for now. The administration has no "timeline" for when Maduro will leave power because they and the opposition have no idea how to achieve the regime change they are seeking, but that isn't stopping them from pursuing it anyway. Like the confident Western assertions from 2012 that Assad "must go," the administration is "certain" of an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely to happen.

It is possible that the top military brass will eventually decide that it is better for them to rid themselves of the unpopular ruler and retain power for themselves, just as Algeria's military did with Bouteflika and Sudan's military did with Bashir recently, but there is no guarantee that this would lead to a "restoration of democracy."

On the contrary, a transition that depends so heavily on the military is much more likely to produce another dictatorship.

Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work?

The absurdity of the administration's current policy is quite remarkable. They insist that Maduro is no longer president, but the president they recognize controls nothing. The success of their ill-conceived regime change "plan" depended almost entirely on mass defections from the military, but they have found no way to spur these defections.

Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day "interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. According to them, Guaido is the "legitimate" president but has not yet assumed office:

QUESTION: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?

MR ABRAMS: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power, that's the problem [bold mine-DL]. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that from when he actually is in power and Maduro's gone. I think it's logical.

QUESTION: So then he really isn't interim president, then?

MR ABRAMS: He is interim president, but he's not --

QUESTION: With no power.

MR ABRAMS: -- able to exercise the powers of the office because Maduro still is there.

Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's "interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will.

[Apr 15, 2019] With the situation stalled the US is ramping up talk of a military attack on Venezuela to create psychological pressure

Apr 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

The Washington Post again laments that the U.S. coup attempt in Venezuela failed:

Venezuela's military, despite U.S. expectations, has not turned on Maduro

Nearly three months later, Venezuela's top-heavy military remains largely intact under President Nicolás Maduro. The once-brisk pace of defections to neighboring Colombia has slowed to a trickle. Fewer than 1,500 Venezuelan soldiers, relieved by the Colombian government of their weapons and uniforms and housed in sparsely furnished hotel rooms near the border, now sit waiting for something to happen.

The idea that the Venezuelan army would defect was always crazy. Anyone with a bit of knowledge of Venezuela could predict that it would never do so. Reports of lonely soldiers isolated in fourth class hotels in Columbia will not incite any further defections. While the random opposition guy promised amnesty for any soldier moving to his site, the U.S. seeks to arrest one of the few who did:

Venezuela's ex-spy chief arrested in Madrid on US warrant

Venezuela's longtime spy chief was arrested Friday in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a U.S. drug warrant a few weeks after he threw his support behind opponents of President Nicolas Maduro.
...
The opposition saw Carvajal's criticism of Venezuela's socialist government as a stimulus to prod other military figures to defect, but the country's armed forces have remained largely loyal to current Maduro.

With the situation stalled the U.S. is ramping up talk of a military attack on Venezuela:

US Military Attack on Venezuela Mulled by Top Trump Advisors and Latin American Officials at Private DC Meeting

EXCLUSIVE: Away from the public eye, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank hosted a top-level, off-the-record meeting to explore US military options against Venezuela.

Such talks are poor attempts to create some psychological pressure. There are no sound military options. The U.S. is not going to invade Venezuela. It will ramp up sanctions and press its 'allies' to do the same. Venezuela and its people will suffer but they will not give up on resisting U.S. pressure. The current situation will only resolve itself when the regime in Washington or in one of Venezuela's neighboring countries changes.

[Apr 15, 2019] Canada To Russia Meddling Is Okay If It Destabilizes You But Not The Other Way Around

Notable quotes:
"... While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons: ..."
"... First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become unavoidable. She has after all been caught red handed behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many decades ago. ..."
"... On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February 2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress' president Paul Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe. ..."
"... Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for said overthrow. ..."
"... Canada itself was infiltrated by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although not the one you think. ..."
"... It is from this cybernetics central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic system is coordinated under the directives of London. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Canada To Russia: 'Meddling' Is Okay If It Destabilizes You But Not The Other Way Around

by Tyler Durden Mon, 04/15/2019 - 18:50 74 SHARES Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In the midst of one of the most de-stabilizing scandals to rock Canada in years, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced on April 5 that the threat of "Foreign interference" going into the October 2019 elections was at an all-time high. Sitting beside her UK counterpart at a G7 meeting in France, Freeland stated:

"Interference is very likely and we think there have already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy" . Her warning was echoed by an embattled puppet Prime Minister in Ottawa who stated it is "very clearly that countries like Russia are behind a lot of the divisive campaigns that have turned our politics even more divisive and more anger-filled than they have been in the past. "

The Measures to Defend the British Deep State

In order to counteract this "foreign threat", several Canadian mechanisms have been announced to "keep democracy safe" in alignment with the G7, Five Eyes and NATO. These mechanisms are:

The creation of an " Incident Public Protection Panel " run by five Privy Council bureaucrats under the Clerk of the Privy Council which will exist outside of the authority of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, whose job is to maintain the integrity of elections. In defense of this mysterious group, Canada's Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould stated that "it won't be one person who will decide what Canadians will be allowed to know" (apparently having five people decide is more democratic). The new Clerk of the Privy Council is Ian Stugart, who served as former deputy minister to Chrystia Freeland until just a few weeks ago.

A Security and Intelligence Election Threats Task Force which will incorporate all of Canada's intelligence agencies such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and Freeland's Global Affairs Canada. All of these agencies are Privy Council organizations.

The Rapid Response Mechanism of the G7 created in June 2018 and headquartered in Ottawa Canada in Freeland's Global Affairs Office and Privy Council Office.

While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons:

First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become unavoidable. She has after all been caught red handed behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many decades ago.

Chrystia Freeland: Regime Change Princess of Ukraine and Venezuela

On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February 2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress' president Paul Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe.

Less well known but equally important is Freeland's leading role in planning for the Venezuelan coup attempt which has been recently halted thanks to Russia's March 23rd intervention.

Working alongside fellow Oxford operative Ben Rowswell (now head of the Canadian International Council/ Chatham House of Canada) during his three year tenure as Ambassador to Venezuela (2014-2017), Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for said overthrow.

Rowswell's on-the-ground work was designed to achieve the former as he himself admitted in a 2017 interview saying "We became one of the most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out" . Before leaving his post to become the head of the Chatham House of Canada, he tweeted "I don't think they (anti-Maduro forces) have anything to worry about because Minister Freeland has Venezuela way at the top of her priority list" .

Working on fulfilling the 2nd part of the formula, Freeland directed the creation of the "Lima Group". A Global News article of January 24 described the group in the following terms:

"Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido the night before Maduro's swearing-in ceremony to offer her government's support should he confront the socialist leader".

It shouldn't be too surprising in our day and age that a nation with such a high reputation as "polite Canada" is actuality, an active agency for regime change and global governance. Canada's very Prime Minister did assert in 2016 that "Canada is the world's first post national-state nation" . What may surprise some readers is that Canada itself was infiltrated by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although not the one you think.

The "Foreign Influence" Controlling Canada

While a longer presentation is needed to do this story justice, it is enough to note for now that neither Freeland, nor Rowswell are operating on behalf of Canada's interests, but are rather both operatives run by an entity that took over Canada many decades ago and are currently directed by two interlocking organizations: The Privy Council Office and the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Group .

The Privy Council Office

The Privy Council office was set up in 1867 in order to act as the British hand guiding its newly formed confederacy (Canada nearly became a part of Lincoln's America in the wake of the Civil War. The only thing stopping that outcome was Britain's creation of a confederation. The full story is told in the Imperial Myth of Canada's National Policy. ). While its power was always great, there was still room for independent policy making by nationalistic elected officials when the international conditions were favorable.

This was nearly entirely destroyed during the reign of technocratic golden boy Pierre Elliott Trudeau during his 1968-1973 reform of the Federal Government under the guidance of the OECD's Sir Alexander King. It was during this time Sir King's Club of Rome (Ottawa branch) was set up in Ottawa under the guidance of Trudeau and his clerk of the Privy Council Michael Pitfield, and other neo-Malthusian technocrats such as Privy Council President Michel Lamontagne, Maurice Strong, and Governor General Roland Mitchener.

It was from this control point in Ottawa in 1971 that the work later to become known as Limits to Growth was funded by tax payers and which became the bible for the new Malthusianism and blueprint for the "post-industrial society". It is from this cybernetics central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic system is coordinated under the directives of London.

... ... ...


sir lozalot , 14 minutes ago link

this whole world wide medeling thing after our govs have been unashamedly meddling everywhere for years , it just shows thier fear, they are loosing thier populaces and looking for scapegoats, i love it, times are changing

Reaper , 19 minutes ago link

Obedience to a degenerating noble class or hegemony's psycho neo-ruling class is self-destructive.

Dude-dude , 1 hour ago link

...will Canada follow suit in order to become a true sovereign nation freed of all foreign imperial influence once and for all?

Ha ha (Bart Simpson style). Canada has, and will always be, a British-USA vassal-state (with a veneer of democratic elections). Washington tells the Ottawa government to jump! After asking permission from the UK, Canada negotiates with America as to how high - since the country is technically insolvent there isn't that much jumping room.

Neochrome , 2 hours ago link

Russia is charged with bringing things in the open, to the light, instead of letting creatures of the dark skulk in shadows, plotting, backstabbing, poisoning and conducting their "business" as usual. Because apparently democracy flourishes in darkness and ignorance...

[Apr 15, 2019] The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf

Notable quotes:
"... In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of the US military. ..."
"... And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons belong to them. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Paul Damascene , Apr 14, 2019 10:19:30 AM | link

You ask a question about European political class's perception and defence of European interests that is as perplexing here as it is in regard to Libya and Syria, to name just these. There was at least some coherent defence of international law and principle during Bush II's lead up to the Iraq war, but Europe's defence of law and Europe's common interests seem to have ceased at some point since then.

pretzelattack , Apr 14, 2019 10:31:57 AM | link

so many poodles, but there can only be one alpha poodle and that's the uk so far.
Babyl-on , Apr 14, 2019 10:43:53 AM | link
"Why are they playing this game?"

Because, like the US European government is a tool of the Global Power Elite, it is nothing more than pantomime. The West is fully owned and operated by the global elite.

In books going back to C Wright Mills' The Power Elite in 1956 to SUPERCLASS by David Rothkopf, and GIANTS: The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips clearly outline just how powerful the Global Elites really are.

In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of the US military.

There is one and only one Western empire - that of the Global Elites.

85% of the valuable assets in the world are controlled by the Global Elites.

There is no offsetting force against them, there simply does not exist today a force capable of challenging their ownership of the world.

And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons belong to them.

[Apr 15, 2019] Jared Kushner dodges questions about security clearance in rare interview - YouTube

Apr 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

House Oversight Committee members will decide Tuesday whether to subpoena senior Trump administration officials over a whistleblower's claim. The issue is top-level security clearances, including those for the president's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who are both presidential advisers. Paula Reid reports.


Rocket Man , 1 week ago

The issuance of security clearances is an executive agency function controlled by executive order and entirely within the discretion of the president. Trump isn't violating anything if he overrides a lower level determination on a security clearance since the entire function of issuing a security clearance stems from his own constitutional authority. The whole idea around security clearances is that the president has people in executive agencies that he can trust. He can trust his own daughter and son-in-law, even if some woman in the clearance department thinks otherwise.

Douglas Barton , 1 week ago

I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's. Mark Twain

Ken Wells , 1 week ago

I think we should hire Muller to investigate this for two years.

[Apr 15, 2019] Donald Trump meet his golden boy Jared Kushner - YouTube

Dec 11, 2016 | www.youtube.com

Jared Kushner is the in-law that Trump calls "his son," he's has a similar back story to the President elect. But who is the man touted for a big role in the new administration? Subscribe to us and get more videos from Channel 4 News Subscribe for more: bit.ly/LtASif.

JSOMERSET994 JSOMERSET994 , 2 years ago

Israeli operative... going to be set up and destroyed...

[Apr 15, 2019] Is Jared Kushner next to leave Trump White House - YouTube

Mar 04, 2018 | www.youtube.com

Jared Kushner has allegedly been peddling his Trump White House credentials to influence foreign policy in an attempt to save his sinking real estate business.

Former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste tells CBC The Weekly's Wendy Mesley the Trump administration seems to lack any 'normative behaviour.'


Leopoldo Buenaventura , 1 year ago

The entire family is incredibly incompetent and corrupted....

maxglide , 1 year ago

Kushner DOES look like a possessed Ken doll!

Carolyn Smith , 1 year ago

Corruption, Incompetence, Ignorance of American Democrary, Pay-For-Play.

News that matter , 1 year ago (edited)

He's a joke. A degenerate. A crook. He needs to investigated and brought up on charges. I want that smirk wiped off his face.

[Apr 15, 2019] Neoliberal globalization is under sieve, countries that refuse to unconditionally open markts to transnationals and be vassal of Washington are now labeled as authoritarian

This slur "authoritarian state" is now peddled by neocons as synonym for the "countries we do not like"
This neocons in not very inventive... We already saw this line from Robert Kagan, who actually is a better writer. This neocon/neolib pressitute can't even use proper terms such as "neoliberalism" and "Washington consensus"
And slide to far-right nationalism and neo-fascism is direct result of neoliberalism dominance for the last 40 years (since Carter) and sliding of the standard of living of workers and the middle class.
Notable quotes:
"... Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Liberalism Is Under Siege. Conservatives Can Save It. - Bloomberg By Hal Brands

As international rivalry intensifies, the core strategic task for the U.S.-led democratic community is to contain the geopolitical influence and political disruption caused by authoritarian great powers, namely China and Russia. Yet that task is made all the harder because illiberalism -- and sympathy for those illiberal powers -- is simultaneously surging among key actors on the political right. If the U.S. and its allies are to succeed in the great global rivalry of the 21st century, the right must confront the threat of illiberalism within its ranks -- just as the left did during a previous twilight struggle in the 20th century.

... ... ...

This time, the threat is not expansionist communism, but a combination of autocracy and geopolitical revisionism. China has been moving toward a dystopian future of high-tech authoritarianism, as it pushes for greater power and influence overseas. Putin's Russia has consolidated an illiberal oligarchy, while using information warfare, political meddling and other tools to subvert liberal democracies in Europe, the U.S. and beyond.

Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world.

... ... ...

It is not for nothing that the political scientist Marc Plattner has written that the gravest threat to liberal democracy today is “that it will end up being abandoned by substantial segments of the right.” And even in the U.S., there are alarming signs that conservative commitment to the norms of liberal democracy is under strain.

Hal Brands at [email protected]

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Che Guevara10 hours ago ,

Communism was not a threat, but actually benefited the world in many ways.
It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair share of wealth and income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed, capitalism returned to its avaricious roots, resulting in stagnant wages for the working class. And the pauperization of the working class in recent decades is the cause for the current revolt against liberal capitalism.
So it was the competition from communism that was helping capitalism to stay healthy. Without it capitalism has degenerated into a Dickensian dystopia. We should therefore welcome any alternative socio-economic models to liberal capitalism.

EmilyEnso Che Guevara7 hours ago ,

It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair
share of wealth and income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed,
capitalism returned to

Thats a great point Che.
I have never ever looked at it from that angle.
Interesting.

EeeYepBlowing Whistles EmilyEnso7 hours ago ,

The odd thing is that both communism and capitalism are both controlled from the same evil hidden hand!!!

George Evans Che Guevara8 hours ago ,

the success of the Chinese efforts may just be the spur needed...

brad_sk13 hours ago ,

Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, who has long been a leading conservative intellectual, warns that this disillusion with liberal democracy “is clearly present among American conservatives, and not just among the ‘alt-right.’

Honest and real conservatives are far and fewer in today's MAGA/tea party infested GOP. Forget career politicians like Ted Cruz or McConnell, even the previously decent conservative think tanks/pundits like from NR or Erik Erickson or others have all given up on any principles and just bow at the altar of Trump now.

Sebastian Cremmington brad_sk29 minutes ago ,

No they haven’t, Trump decided to put McConnell in charge so of course the #neverTrumpers like the McConnell presidency...which consists of appointing Republican judges at record pace and little else.

johnny sunshine brad_sk4 hours ago ,

Or they've become the right wing of the Democratic party.

dnjake12 hours ago ,

The biggest need is to resist holy warriors like Hal Brands who want to destroy the world if it resists their version of revealed truth. They are the biggest threat to the human future. The United States has to learn to live in a world that it cannot control. The American goal should be to work towards a constructive human future not some kind of holy war to impose American control on the rest of the world. The United States is the biggest military spender. In recent history, It has been the world's global aggressor.

It has an history of wars that have made little difference whether America won or lost them. Perhaps the United States could succeed with some kind of genocide that wiped out all of the parts of the world that refuse to accept American supremacy. But, short of that kind of disgrace, the United States is not going to succeed in achieving any meaningful goal through war. As long as America does not destroy the world, the future is going to be determined by economic competition and the destinies that the people of different parts of the world choose for themselves.

dav123411 hours ago ,

The author needs a reality check. Much of what he says is in his imagination.

emno33 hours ago ,

I had wondered if it was noticed the Liberalism was dying. The world has turned hard right, with all the anger, nationalism, do-as-I-say, and social intolerance. I don't even the children of today.

Camus534 hours ago ,

I might suggest that liberals themselves are destroying their freedoms with illogical illiberal liberalism.

YOU can't do that, say that, act like that, think like that...no no no...we must act and be correct, nice, polite, all forgiving and never critical.

Huh?

The freedoms that so many of us marched for, fought for, voted for, sang about (thank gawd the music still lives), got bloody for, even died for, are slipping away quicker than you can say me, me, me...it's all about me.

Maybe...small maybe...our youth can once again awaken America and the world's conscience. Maybe? Maybe not!

Mark Miller9 hours ago ,

"Just as the Cold War left broke with communism"

Wha? It seems our LIttle Cultural Revolution is just warming up. Wait till AOC et al are all growed up.

"This is a moment when the “free world” needs to be strong and united."

Is this the same "free" world that jails grandmothers over contested historical views? That has reneged on free speech?

Thanks to a truly ethnomasochistic immigration policy, I assure you that this will not happen. The West will be lucky if squeaks through this period without a civil war.

[Apr 14, 2019] Pro-Israeli groups defining the US foreign policy: Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business

Highly recommended!
US neocons motto as expressed by Ledeen, who was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende : "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
The US foreign policy is defined by interests of neoliberals and neocons, or to be exact by interests of multinational corporations, who are not necessary led by Jews ;-). The whole discussion of the US foreign policy via the lens of Jew/non-Jew dichotomy is far from the best approach to this problem.
While it is true that a large number of neocons end even some "economic nationalists" like Steve Bannon identify with Israel. But the real allegiance of neocons is not to Israel. It is to many from American MIC. In this sense, neither chickenhawk Michael Ledeen (a second rate figure at best, without much political influence), no chickenhawk Bill Kristol (third rate figure, with little or no political influence at all), but Senator McCain and Dick Cheney are proper examples of really dangerous neocons.
Yes, neocons has a large, sometimes decisive influence on the US foreign policy. But this is because they are neoliberals with the gun, political prostitutes serving MIC interests, not so much because some of them are "Israel-firsters" (this term is not without problems, although it denotes Jewish nationalists pretty well, see an interesting discussion in The Volokh Conspiracy )
Notable quotes:
"... Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ..."
"... I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
"... This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud. ..."
"... Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s. ..."
"... Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. ..."
"... Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout. ..."
"... The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted. ..."
"... I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism. ..."
"... You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan. ..."
"... Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down. ..."
"... A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM. ..."
"... So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them. ..."
"... Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel. ..."
"... There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it.. ..."
"... Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"? ..."
"... I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad? ..."
"... Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it). ..."
"... Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba). ..."
"... How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"? ..."
"... "The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard? ..."
Sep 19, 2017 | www.unz.com

Originally from: America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars by Philip Giraldi September 19, 2017 - The Unz Review

Dump Trump , September 19, 2017 at 8:32 pm GMT

@Brabantian Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel:

US alt-right leader, Richard Spencer, appeared on Israeli TV last month to call himself a "white Zionist"
The above from an interesting article by British activist and Nazareth, Palestine resident Jonathan Cook , speaking of how Israel's Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ... and hence the 'progressive' Jews should abandon any support for boycott of Israel or for Palestinian rights:
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly called on all Jews to come to Israel, claiming it as the only safe haven from an immutable global anti-semitism. And yet, Mr Netanyahu is also introducing a political test before he opens the door.

Jews supporting a boycott of Israel are already barred. Now, liberal Jews and critics of the occupation like Mr Soros are increasingly not welcome either. Israel is rapidly redefining the extent of the sanctuary it offers – for Jewish supremacists only.

For Mr Netanyahu may believe he has much to gain by abandoning liberal Jews to their fate, as the alt-right asserts its power in western capitals.

The "white Zionists" are committed to making life ever harder for minorities in the West in a bid to be rid of them. Sooner or later, on Mr Netanyahu's logic, liberal Jews will face a reckoning. They will have to accept that Israel's ultra-nationalists were right all along, and that Israel is their only sanctuary.

Guided by this cynical convergence of interests, Jewish and white supremacists are counting on a revival of anti-Semitism that will benefit them both.

Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel

Steve Bannon and his supposed alt-right rag Breitbart are incredibly pro-Israel. I supposed it has something to do with its founder Andrew Breitbart being a Jew. Every time Trump or Nikki Haley says something nasty about Iran, you'll get plenty of Breitbart commenters echoing their sentiment egging them on, you can tell by their inane comments many have no idea why they should hate Iran, other than Breitbart told them to.

They've fully bought into the Breitbart narrative that Iran is evil and must be destroyed. The Trump fan boys/girls who continue to blindly support him despite all his betrayals are every bit as stupid as the libtards they claim to hate.

jamsok , September 19, 2017 at 7:03 pm GMT

@Tom Welsh "And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht..."

I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business".

This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud.

Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:42 pm GMT

@Randal

I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself.
Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.

In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.

What gives?

Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.
Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted.

"What gives" is that I think lunatic screeds about "America's Jews" (like Noam Chomsky?) manipulating foreign policy do damage to the anti-war cause. I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism.

Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just Jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's slightly better than the 1-dimensional Joo-paranoia, but it doesn't begin to describe the problem.

You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:32 pm GMT

@Sam Shama

I am glad you think Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Yet it doesn't square with your earlier statement which reads " I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them ". There are no scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?

Before you decide to label as sociopath, anyone who proposes a worldview grounded in reality, you might think long and hard about the multitude of paths this world can take under the scenario of a wholesale withdrawal of U.S. presence in the Gulf. Most one hears on this forum, including your own, reduce to precious nothing over virtue signaling.

Like it or not the world is never going to assume the shape of a collection of nations equal in power, interests and endowments. Hoping for that is to live in a state of delusion.

U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran . Far from it; yet facilitating her allies' aspirations to join the American vision isn't one we are about to walk away from. That is not chest beating. It is eminently in evidence from the number of nations wishing to join the Western economic and cultural model. I am keenly aware of the lunatics on this forum who believe they'd be perfectly happy to embrace other cultures, I can only invite them to make haste.

Spare me the rest of your sanctimony.

"I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them". There are no scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?

In the case of a defensive war with United States, there sure would be. At that point Iran would not have much hope but to inflict as much damage as possible on the aggressor. Although Iran does not nearly have the ability to fully reciprocate the harm the US can inflict on it, it hopefully has the capability to inflict enough damage so that an offensive war against it would be intolerable to the US. That's how deterrence works.

U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran.

If that's true, and I sincerely hope it is, it's because Iran has sufficient deterrent capacity, which includes not only the anti-ship missiles in the Gulf, but also Hezbollah's arsenal of ~130,000 short, medium and long-range rockets capable of reaching every square inch of Israeli territory.

Believe me, I'm a realist. You don't have to lecture me on the reality of aggressive rogue nations.

anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT

@Tom Welsh Nope. As far as I know, he was being perfectly serious.

And that is exactly the way the power elite think - although they are usually much more cautious about speaking their mind in public.

Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down.

Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed – not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir.

True words sir!

The evil empire sustains itself primarily through this attitude of its people. It does not matter how the Jews connive to shape it. Only thing that matters is that they buy into it without exercising their conscience.

Americans, remember, such glory has a cost. You will find soon enough that a cancerous soul is too high a price to be "Top Nation," for essentially a blink in cosmic time.

Dump Trump , September 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT

A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM.

The late Samuel Huntington said in his amazing book Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting for supremacy in the Islamic world. Syria is a proxy war between the two countries. Now Israel has become BFF with Saudi Arabia because they too want a piece of Syria, for the oil reserve in the Golan Heights. So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them.

Make no mistake Jews and Arabs run this country. That is why Trump went to Israel and SA for his first foreign trip, he knows who America's daddy is, even if most Americans are still in the dark.

His entire administration is crawling with Israel loving Jews, starting with his son-in-law the most loyal son of Israel. Even Steve Bannon and Breitbart are crazy gung ho pro-Israel. Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel.

When was the last time Iran conducted a jihad against the west? All the Muslim terrorists now attacking the west are Sunnis, funded by Saudi Arabia. The only time Iran had direct armed conflict with the US was when they kicked us out of Tehran, for trying to steal their oil. All their beef is with Israel, not with the US. Why are we taking up Israel's cause? Trump is a moron of the first order and has no understanding of what really goes on in the mideast. He surrounds himself with pro-Israel neocons and Jews and is easily manipulated. He's stupid and dangerous. I voted for him because he presented himself as someone completely different, someone anti-war and anti-immigration, now he's a neocon globalist libtard, the worst of all worlds. Someone needs to primary him out in 2020.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:17 pm GMT

@iffen as sociopaths like you

Speaking of unhinged I'd say the sentiment that America has the right to threaten and/or attack other countries to maintain its "economic interests" is sociopathic. What would you call it? And I didn't say that he personally was in charge of US/Israeli/Saudi policy towards Iran, if that's what you thought I meant. That would be unhinged. I just said that sociopaths like him are.

Randal , September 19, 2017 at 6:12 pm GMT

@KBRO [In comments, allcaps is shouting. Stop shouting or your comments will be trashed.]

RE:
BUSH-CHENEY-CLINTON-TRUMP--MCMASTER--KELLY---AND THE LOT OF THEM ALL AIN'T JEWS:

WELL PUT. GIRALDI IS A MIXED BAG, WRITES SOME GOOD STUFF, BUT IT MISIDENTIFIES THE PROBLEM--THE ENEMY-- BY LABELING IT AS "THE JEWS". THE NEO-CONS--AND NEO-LIBERALS--WHO DRIVE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD COME IN MANY FLAVORS.
I'M AN ANTI-ZIONIST, AND IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST.

IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST

There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it..

Giraldi is discussing the latter and not the former, and doing a service to the American nation by his taboo-busting.

Brooklyn Dave , September 19, 2017 at 6:06 pm GMT

I wonder where Mr. Giraldi would put David Horowitz on the list? Although Horowitz is not a public policy maker, but rather an author and blogger, but definitely is a known Jewish voice. I respect Horowitz tremendously because of his background as an ex-Communist and his dead-on criticism of the American Left, both historically and currently. Although rather knee-jerk in his defense of Israel, I would not doubt his loyalty to this country one iota.

I do not know if David Horowitz is a dual Israeli-American citizen, but he is not a legislator nor a government policy maker, so as far as I am concerned, the issue is moot. If one questions the loyalty to America, of Jews or any other group for that matter, the issue of holding dual citizenship while holding certain government offices should be something of concern. Once out of public office or service, then they can resume their dual citizenship. It makes the issue of loyalty less questionable.

wayfarer , September 19, 2017 at 6:05 pm GMT

@bjondo Regarding jew and war:

Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"?

reckon his serving in other ways was/is lying and pushing for wars for his real country israel. Truth hurts, America.

Of the 58,220 Americans who were sacrificed during the Vietnam War, 270 were Jewish. That's approximately 0.46 percent or less than a half of one-percent.

Guess they were too busy partying in college, while pursuing their law degrees.

During the Vietnam war the U.S. selective service system gave deferments to those attending college, which delayed their eligibility for conscription.

"Among partners of the top law firms in New York, I estimate that at least 25% are Jews."

source: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html

source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4726694_Going_to_College_to_Avoid_the_Draft_The_Unintended_Legacy_of_the_Vietnam_War [accessed Sep 19, 2017].

source: http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2014/6/5/is-lack-of-diversity-at-big-law-firms-a-crisis

Randal , September 19, 2017 at 6:03 pm GMT

@matt I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".

I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself.

Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.

In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.

What gives?

Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.

Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted.

anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 6:00 pm GMT

@matt I'm strongly against any war with Iran, but this comes of as an unhinged and bigoted rant. Not nearly everyone who is pushing for war with Iran is Jewish, and this narrative perpetuates the myth, beloved by alt-right types and paleocons, of a well-intentioned but naive Trump administration that was hijacked by Jewish neocons. In reality, despite differences within the administration, Iran was always something they could all agree on. H.R. McMaster and James Mattis are well known Iran hawks, and neither are Jewish. Nikki Haley isn't Jewish, nor is Rex Tillerson. Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn wouldn't have stopped Trump from going to war if they hadn't been forced out of the administration, as both, especially the latter, were absolute lunatics when it came to Iran. On that subject, they were worse than neocons. And of course there's Trump himself, whose bloodlust regarding Iran has always been on full display from the beginning, if you were paying attention. Hostility toward Iran might in fact be the most consistent theme of the Trump administration and of Trump himself, who has been known to vacillate on virtually every issue, except this one.

If you supported Trump because you thought he might be some sort of isolationist dove, you have only yourself to blame. Evil Jewish neocons didn't force you to ignore the massive evidence that was always right in front of your face. The fact that there are so many who profess to the Christian faith, who are as evil as those Joo neocons, such as those you mentioned, simply cannot be denied. Even if hypothetically speaking the Joos were to vanish overnight, the wars of aggression by the Evil Empire will continue unabated.

The Evil Empire and its Evil b!tch both share the same satanic vision of world domination. Two evil nations, made for each other, in a match made in Hell.

Btw, the orange scumbag was hilariously evil at the UN.

Both N.Korea and Iran should simply call this bastard's bluff, by literally giving him the finger. I say, let the chips fall where they may. Let's see how the American, Japanese, S.Korean, Israeli & "Royal" pussies like the consequences.

To you N.Koreans, its been written that you will target the thousands of American Terrorists stationed in the south. I am counting on that, so don't you miss chaps.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:44 pm GMT

@Anonymous

They should. If Raimondo starts blaming the Jews, he can avoid taking responsibility for his idiotic and embarrassing cheerleading for the current warmonger-in-chief.
I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad?

And started plans for attacking Iran? Who? Hillary? Hahahaha. Ted Cruz? Hahahaha. Etc.

Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it).

Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba).

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:15 pm GMT

@Randal

If an article titled "America's Jews are Behind America's Wars" isn't unhinged and bigoted, I'd like you to tell me what is.
How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"?

Or is it not the statement of the facts that you are outraged by, but merely the proposed solutions? If so, then what solutions to the problem identified by Giraldi and by Haaretz would you propose?

If Trump's insane rhetoric on Iran and push for war isn't an example of bloodlust, why don't you tell me what it is?
Good examples might be the desperate attempts to prevent the deal with Iran that hopefully will prove to have cauterised the longstanding efforts to use the spurious nuclear weapons issue to push the US towards confrontation and war with Iran:

KEY JEWISH DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS SAY THEY WILL VOTE AGAINST IRAN DEAL

Or when Israel's primary agents of political influence in the US went "all out" to try to get the US to attack Syria and hand yet another country to (even more) jihadist-ridden chaos:

AIPAC to go all-out on Syria

But hey, I suppose for you those are just more examples of "unhingedness" and "bigotedness".

It must be strange living in the world you inhabit, so far removed from basic reality by a desperate need to avoid being seen as any kind of badwhite. I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:10 pm GMT

@Sam Shama They can certainly try, and, I suppose you'd require the U.S. to stay her hand as a matter of fair principle while watching said bases destroyed. Nice idea, but I'd stick to reality. U.S. has vast interests, including economic ones; those which benefit every U.S. citizen, and, to be practical, all her allies. Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Its anti-ship missiles are for deterrence, which Iran has plenty of need for, as sociopaths like you populate the American, Israeli, and Saudi governments and are itching to attack.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:07 pm GMT

@WJ Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?

I remember the debate between Pence and the hideous Tim Kaine where the Democrat vowed that there would be No Fly Zone over Syria which would certainly have allowed the head chopping rebels to gain a stronger foothold.

In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic. US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.

Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?

You haven't been paying attention. Since the initial strike in April, the Trump administration has deliberately attacked regime or allied forces an additional five times. ( one , two , three , four , five ).

Including the Tomahawks in April, that's a total of 6 deliberate attacks on the Syrian Arab Republic or its allies (so far), which is already 6 more than Obama carried out during his entire presidency. And it's not like this is the end of Trump's tenure, either; it's the 9th goddamn month since he's been in office. I'm sure the war hawks in Wahington are quite pleased with his progress, as they should be.

In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic.

Anyone could tell by that point that Assad isn't going to be overthrown. The aim now is to limit the Assad regime's territorial gains as much as possible, and the "rebels" proved they were useless at doing that when Shia militia reached the Iraqi border at al-Tanf, and cut them off from reaching Deir ez-Zor back in May (which was what one of the attacks mentioned above was about).

After that, the Trump administration put all its eggs in the "Syrian Democratic Forces/People's Protection Units (SDF/YPG) basket, the mainly Kurdish (with some Arab fighters) militia that the US has been using to fight ISIS since 2015 (it's also, ironically, a hard left socialist organization. Think Kurdish Antifa. Though I doubt Trump knows or cares or could do anything about it even if he did). Trump has given the SDF <a title="" https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/&quot ; https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/&quot ;heavy weaponry with the aim of confronting Assad and limiting his territorial gains. They've also been pressuring the rebel groups they formerly supported to join the SDF.

I have sympathy for the SDF/YPG and the Syrian Kurds, and it made sense to support them when they were under direct assault from ISIS (though US motives were hardly altruistic even then). But ISIS is all but beaten now, and this is a dangerous game the US is playing, which could readily lead to a military confrontation betweeen the US and Russia and/or Iran. In fact, just a few days ago, the SDF seized part of Deir ez-Zor after SAA forces reached the city, and the Pentagon is now accusing Russia (which has in the past at least had good relations with the SDF/YPG), of deliberately bombing SDF fighters, in close proximity to American special forces.

US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.

Only 15,000! I guess you wouldn't mind, then, if they Taliban, or the Afghan Army for that matter, or any other country, put 15,000 troops on American soil, as a "symbolic" gesture.

Trump has also accelerated US collaboration in the sadistic torture of Yemen by the Saudis, past the levels under even Obama, which was already shameful.

And again, we should also keep in mind that it's only been 9 months. For his next act, Trump might be thinking about ending the Iran deal in October.

Heather Heyer's Ghost , September 19, 2017 at 4:44 pm GMT

@Thomm Jews are white. Ashkenazi Jews, and those are the ones we are mainly dealing with, are an endogamous caste of bankers, progressive journalists, lawyers, and social scientists (including, now, education), that have migrated all over Europe, but never identifying as European, with exceptions that prove the rule.

As a tribe, once can read Kevin MacDonald's work to see how they work in remarkable ethnic cohesion–not necessarily as an "organized conspiracy" (though that certainly happens), but as an ethnic drive.

Being neither European as such, nor Christian, and although their skin is white, they are not White.

Stan d Mute , September 19, 2017 at 4:41 pm GMT

Dual loyalty is an avoided and career-ending subject for a couple reasons. One must never, ever, criticize Jews (a third rail at complete odds with) and one may not criticize immigrants' behavior.

The obvious problem is Treason. Just how much Treason is the result of so-called "dual loyalty"? And isn't Treason subject to some rather serious legal sanctions?

...

just an internet commenter , September 19, 2017 at 3:47 pm GMT

I just want to point out, being a (fake) "news" consumer, I hear about Israel all the time, all while not hearing a lot of follow-up detail about Israel and its interests. Isn't that a clever sleight of hand? According to the pro-Israel (by extension jews) propaganda I'm required to care about, despite it having nothing to do with my life, my family's life, my neighbors' lives, and my community's lives Israel is that big of a deal. Actually, I hear more about Israel in the media than I hear about my home state of Michigan. Michigan is probably a lot more important to the US economy, US security, US tourism industry, Midwestern industrial technology industry, US engineering industry, and the Midwestern Farming economy, than Israel is. Then there are the people who live here, who are Americans. Israel first, then Americans? Okay, got it.

If the public were exposed to as much emotionally captivating propaganda about Michigan as they were about Israel, I'd posit the public would see a far better investment in Michigan than they would in Israel. That includes an emotional investment.

I don't know what can be politely said or how it would shape up, but Midwesterners desperately need to understand the Israel (by extension jewish) problem. They're bleeding us and getting away with it, all while getting away with incessantly calling us racists and anti-semites. Because again, caring about Michigan and its people first is just morally irreprehensible. Israel first, then Israel second, etc Got it bigot? That sleight of hand, it's just always there. I don't fully grasp how this large scale agit-prop psychology works. I do understand jewish solidarity. I'll hand it to jews, they have the strongest ethnic/religious/cultural solidarity I've ever seen. If Midwesterners realized the value of this level of solidarity, they wouldn't enlist their sons in the military to serve jewish interests overseas.

Anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 3:13 pm GMT

From Money Manipulation And Social Order (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1944) by Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., Professor of Philosophy and Church History, Holy Ghost Missionary College, Dublin:

When the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, created in 1913 by Mr. Paul Warburg, a German Jew belonging to the Banking Firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, had been a few years in existence, in 1916 to be precise, President Woodrow Wilson thus summed up the situation in U.S.A.: "A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. . .

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world!no longer a Government by conviction and the free vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." From the similar testimonies quoted by Christopher Hollis in The Two Nations, let us take one. "Behind the ostensible government," ran Roosevelt's policy, " sits enthroned an invisible government owning no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people."

https://archive.org/details/FaheyDenisMoneyManipulationAndSocialOrder

Corvinus , September 19, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMT

@Che Guava

Bullshit.

Anyone who reads knows that Israel (and its agents, where not dual citizens, the Jewish ones effectively all are, and the goyim dupes and toadies, who are not, 'cept sometimes with marriage) have been the tail that wags the US dog for many years, starting over a century ago, in finance, commerce, and law in NYC, in a small way the scope is ever wider and the effects more and more blatant.

The USA is a colony of Israel, everybody is knowing it, but some lie and deny.

From my reading of history, I would placing the tipping point from 'excessive power' to 'colonial masters' at the 1967 war of Israel and its neighbours.

Others may dating it to the end of the Third Reich, with all sorts of Jewish DPs and US Jews who had never seen combat running around in US military and MP uniforms to persecuting and killing Germans, under the command of Eisenhauer, the Morgenthau plan, etc.

Others may picking a different time.

It is funny that you are posting as Anonymous on this, can only mean that you are a more subtle pro-Israel troll with your usual u-name. "So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American Jews."

Certainly SOME Israelis and American Jews are involved in developing policy designed to generate hostility to the point of potential war.

But Dick Cheney and Erik Prince, among other prominent non-Jews, bear mentioning.

Regardless, the Jew fixation here is duly noted. Boo! Goes the Joo!

"The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard?

[Apr 14, 2019] Pro-Israeli groups defining the US foreign policy: Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business

Highly recommended!
US neocons motto as expressed by Ledeen, who was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende : "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
The US foreign policy is defined by interests of neoliberals and neocons, or to be exact by interests of multinational corporations, who are not necessary led by Jews ;-). The whole discussion of the US foreign policy via the lens of Jew/non-Jew dichotomy is far from the best approach to this problem.
While it is true that a large number of neocons end even some "economic nationalists" like Steve Bannon identify with Israel. But the real allegiance of neocons is not to Israel. It is to many from American MIC. In this sense, neither chickenhawk Michael Ledeen (a second rate figure at best, without much political influence), no chickenhawk Bill Kristol (third rate figure, with little or no political influence at all), but Senator McCain and Dick Cheney are proper examples of really dangerous neocons.
Yes, neocons has a large, sometimes decisive influence on the US foreign policy. But this is because they are neoliberals with the gun, political prostitutes serving MIC interests, not so much because some of them are "Israel-firsters" (this term is not without problems, although it denotes Jewish nationalists pretty well, see an interesting discussion in The Volokh Conspiracy )
Notable quotes:
"... Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ..."
"... I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
"... This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud. ..."
"... Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s. ..."
"... Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. ..."
"... Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout. ..."
"... The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted. ..."
"... I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism. ..."
"... You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan. ..."
"... Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down. ..."
"... A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM. ..."
"... So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them. ..."
"... Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel. ..."
"... There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it.. ..."
"... Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"? ..."
"... I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad? ..."
"... Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it). ..."
"... Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba). ..."
"... How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"? ..."
"... "The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard? ..."
Sep 19, 2017 | www.unz.com

Originally from: America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars by Philip Giraldi September 19, 2017 - The Unz Review

Dump Trump , September 19, 2017 at 8:32 pm GMT

@Brabantian Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel:

US alt-right leader, Richard Spencer, appeared on Israeli TV last month to call himself a "white Zionist"
The above from an interesting article by British activist and Nazareth, Palestine resident Jonathan Cook , speaking of how Israel's Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ... and hence the 'progressive' Jews should abandon any support for boycott of Israel or for Palestinian rights:
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly called on all Jews to come to Israel, claiming it as the only safe haven from an immutable global anti-semitism. And yet, Mr Netanyahu is also introducing a political test before he opens the door.

Jews supporting a boycott of Israel are already barred. Now, liberal Jews and critics of the occupation like Mr Soros are increasingly not welcome either. Israel is rapidly redefining the extent of the sanctuary it offers – for Jewish supremacists only.

For Mr Netanyahu may believe he has much to gain by abandoning liberal Jews to their fate, as the alt-right asserts its power in western capitals.

The "white Zionists" are committed to making life ever harder for minorities in the West in a bid to be rid of them. Sooner or later, on Mr Netanyahu's logic, liberal Jews will face a reckoning. They will have to accept that Israel's ultra-nationalists were right all along, and that Israel is their only sanctuary.

Guided by this cynical convergence of interests, Jewish and white supremacists are counting on a revival of anti-Semitism that will benefit them both.

Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel

Steve Bannon and his supposed alt-right rag Breitbart are incredibly pro-Israel. I supposed it has something to do with its founder Andrew Breitbart being a Jew. Every time Trump or Nikki Haley says something nasty about Iran, you'll get plenty of Breitbart commenters echoing their sentiment egging them on, you can tell by their inane comments many have no idea why they should hate Iran, other than Breitbart told them to.

They've fully bought into the Breitbart narrative that Iran is evil and must be destroyed. The Trump fan boys/girls who continue to blindly support him despite all his betrayals are every bit as stupid as the libtards they claim to hate.

jamsok , September 19, 2017 at 7:03 pm GMT

@Tom Welsh "And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht..."

I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business".

This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud.

Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:42 pm GMT

@Randal

I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself.
Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.

In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.

What gives?

Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.
Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted.

"What gives" is that I think lunatic screeds about "America's Jews" (like Noam Chomsky?) manipulating foreign policy do damage to the anti-war cause. I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism.

Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just Jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's slightly better than the 1-dimensional Joo-paranoia, but it doesn't begin to describe the problem.

You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:32 pm GMT

@Sam Shama

I am glad you think Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Yet it doesn't square with your earlier statement which reads " I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them ". There are no scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?

Before you decide to label as sociopath, anyone who proposes a worldview grounded in reality, you might think long and hard about the multitude of paths this world can take under the scenario of a wholesale withdrawal of U.S. presence in the Gulf. Most one hears on this forum, including your own, reduce to precious nothing over virtue signaling.

Like it or not the world is never going to assume the shape of a collection of nations equal in power, interests and endowments. Hoping for that is to live in a state of delusion.

U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran . Far from it; yet facilitating her allies' aspirations to join the American vision isn't one we are about to walk away from. That is not chest beating. It is eminently in evidence from the number of nations wishing to join the Western economic and cultural model. I am keenly aware of the lunatics on this forum who believe they'd be perfectly happy to embrace other cultures, I can only invite them to make haste.

Spare me the rest of your sanctimony.

"I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them". There are no scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?

In the case of a defensive war with United States, there sure would be. At that point Iran would not have much hope but to inflict as much damage as possible on the aggressor. Although Iran does not nearly have the ability to fully reciprocate the harm the US can inflict on it, it hopefully has the capability to inflict enough damage so that an offensive war against it would be intolerable to the US. That's how deterrence works.

U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran.

If that's true, and I sincerely hope it is, it's because Iran has sufficient deterrent capacity, which includes not only the anti-ship missiles in the Gulf, but also Hezbollah's arsenal of ~130,000 short, medium and long-range rockets capable of reaching every square inch of Israeli territory.

Believe me, I'm a realist. You don't have to lecture me on the reality of aggressive rogue nations.

anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT

@Tom Welsh Nope. As far as I know, he was being perfectly serious.

And that is exactly the way the power elite think - although they are usually much more cautious about speaking their mind in public.

Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down.

Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed – not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir.

True words sir!

The evil empire sustains itself primarily through this attitude of its people. It does not matter how the Jews connive to shape it. Only thing that matters is that they buy into it without exercising their conscience.

Americans, remember, such glory has a cost. You will find soon enough that a cancerous soul is too high a price to be "Top Nation," for essentially a blink in cosmic time.

Dump Trump , September 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT

A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM.

The late Samuel Huntington said in his amazing book Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting for supremacy in the Islamic world. Syria is a proxy war between the two countries. Now Israel has become BFF with Saudi Arabia because they too want a piece of Syria, for the oil reserve in the Golan Heights. So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them.

Make no mistake Jews and Arabs run this country. That is why Trump went to Israel and SA for his first foreign trip, he knows who America's daddy is, even if most Americans are still in the dark.

His entire administration is crawling with Israel loving Jews, starting with his son-in-law the most loyal son of Israel. Even Steve Bannon and Breitbart are crazy gung ho pro-Israel. Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel.

When was the last time Iran conducted a jihad against the west? All the Muslim terrorists now attacking the west are Sunnis, funded by Saudi Arabia. The only time Iran had direct armed conflict with the US was when they kicked us out of Tehran, for trying to steal their oil. All their beef is with Israel, not with the US. Why are we taking up Israel's cause? Trump is a moron of the first order and has no understanding of what really goes on in the mideast. He surrounds himself with pro-Israel neocons and Jews and is easily manipulated. He's stupid and dangerous. I voted for him because he presented himself as someone completely different, someone anti-war and anti-immigration, now he's a neocon globalist libtard, the worst of all worlds. Someone needs to primary him out in 2020.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:17 pm GMT

@iffen as sociopaths like you

Speaking of unhinged I'd say the sentiment that America has the right to threaten and/or attack other countries to maintain its "economic interests" is sociopathic. What would you call it? And I didn't say that he personally was in charge of US/Israeli/Saudi policy towards Iran, if that's what you thought I meant. That would be unhinged. I just said that sociopaths like him are.

Randal , September 19, 2017 at 6:12 pm GMT

@KBRO [In comments, allcaps is shouting. Stop shouting or your comments will be trashed.]

RE:
BUSH-CHENEY-CLINTON-TRUMP--MCMASTER--KELLY---AND THE LOT OF THEM ALL AIN'T JEWS:

WELL PUT. GIRALDI IS A MIXED BAG, WRITES SOME GOOD STUFF, BUT IT MISIDENTIFIES THE PROBLEM--THE ENEMY-- BY LABELING IT AS "THE JEWS". THE NEO-CONS--AND NEO-LIBERALS--WHO DRIVE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD COME IN MANY FLAVORS.
I'M AN ANTI-ZIONIST, AND IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST.

IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST

There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it..

Giraldi is discussing the latter and not the former, and doing a service to the American nation by his taboo-busting.

Brooklyn Dave , September 19, 2017 at 6:06 pm GMT

I wonder where Mr. Giraldi would put David Horowitz on the list? Although Horowitz is not a public policy maker, but rather an author and blogger, but definitely is a known Jewish voice. I respect Horowitz tremendously because of his background as an ex-Communist and his dead-on criticism of the American Left, both historically and currently. Although rather knee-jerk in his defense of Israel, I would not doubt his loyalty to this country one iota.

I do not know if David Horowitz is a dual Israeli-American citizen, but he is not a legislator nor a government policy maker, so as far as I am concerned, the issue is moot. If one questions the loyalty to America, of Jews or any other group for that matter, the issue of holding dual citizenship while holding certain government offices should be something of concern. Once out of public office or service, then they can resume their dual citizenship. It makes the issue of loyalty less questionable.

wayfarer , September 19, 2017 at 6:05 pm GMT

@bjondo Regarding jew and war:

Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"?

reckon his serving in other ways was/is lying and pushing for wars for his real country israel. Truth hurts, America.

Of the 58,220 Americans who were sacrificed during the Vietnam War, 270 were Jewish. That's approximately 0.46 percent or less than a half of one-percent.

Guess they were too busy partying in college, while pursuing their law degrees.

During the Vietnam war the U.S. selective service system gave deferments to those attending college, which delayed their eligibility for conscription.

"Among partners of the top law firms in New York, I estimate that at least 25% are Jews."

source: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html

source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4726694_Going_to_College_to_Avoid_the_Draft_The_Unintended_Legacy_of_the_Vietnam_War [accessed Sep 19, 2017].

source: http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2014/6/5/is-lack-of-diversity-at-big-law-firms-a-crisis

Randal , September 19, 2017 at 6:03 pm GMT

@matt I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".

I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself.

Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.

In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.

What gives?

Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.

Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted.

anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 6:00 pm GMT

@matt I'm strongly against any war with Iran, but this comes of as an unhinged and bigoted rant. Not nearly everyone who is pushing for war with Iran is Jewish, and this narrative perpetuates the myth, beloved by alt-right types and paleocons, of a well-intentioned but naive Trump administration that was hijacked by Jewish neocons. In reality, despite differences within the administration, Iran was always something they could all agree on. H.R. McMaster and James Mattis are well known Iran hawks, and neither are Jewish. Nikki Haley isn't Jewish, nor is Rex Tillerson. Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn wouldn't have stopped Trump from going to war if they hadn't been forced out of the administration, as both, especially the latter, were absolute lunatics when it came to Iran. On that subject, they were worse than neocons. And of course there's Trump himself, whose bloodlust regarding Iran has always been on full display from the beginning, if you were paying attention. Hostility toward Iran might in fact be the most consistent theme of the Trump administration and of Trump himself, who has been known to vacillate on virtually every issue, except this one.

If you supported Trump because you thought he might be some sort of isolationist dove, you have only yourself to blame. Evil Jewish neocons didn't force you to ignore the massive evidence that was always right in front of your face. The fact that there are so many who profess to the Christian faith, who are as evil as those Joo neocons, such as those you mentioned, simply cannot be denied. Even if hypothetically speaking the Joos were to vanish overnight, the wars of aggression by the Evil Empire will continue unabated.

The Evil Empire and its Evil b!tch both share the same satanic vision of world domination. Two evil nations, made for each other, in a match made in Hell.

Btw, the orange scumbag was hilariously evil at the UN.

Both N.Korea and Iran should simply call this bastard's bluff, by literally giving him the finger. I say, let the chips fall where they may. Let's see how the American, Japanese, S.Korean, Israeli & "Royal" pussies like the consequences.

To you N.Koreans, its been written that you will target the thousands of American Terrorists stationed in the south. I am counting on that, so don't you miss chaps.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:44 pm GMT

@Anonymous

They should. If Raimondo starts blaming the Jews, he can avoid taking responsibility for his idiotic and embarrassing cheerleading for the current warmonger-in-chief.
I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad?

And started plans for attacking Iran? Who? Hillary? Hahahaha. Ted Cruz? Hahahaha. Etc.

Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it).

Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba).

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:15 pm GMT

@Randal

If an article titled "America's Jews are Behind America's Wars" isn't unhinged and bigoted, I'd like you to tell me what is.
How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"?

Or is it not the statement of the facts that you are outraged by, but merely the proposed solutions? If so, then what solutions to the problem identified by Giraldi and by Haaretz would you propose?

If Trump's insane rhetoric on Iran and push for war isn't an example of bloodlust, why don't you tell me what it is?
Good examples might be the desperate attempts to prevent the deal with Iran that hopefully will prove to have cauterised the longstanding efforts to use the spurious nuclear weapons issue to push the US towards confrontation and war with Iran:

KEY JEWISH DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS SAY THEY WILL VOTE AGAINST IRAN DEAL

Or when Israel's primary agents of political influence in the US went "all out" to try to get the US to attack Syria and hand yet another country to (even more) jihadist-ridden chaos:

AIPAC to go all-out on Syria

But hey, I suppose for you those are just more examples of "unhingedness" and "bigotedness".

It must be strange living in the world you inhabit, so far removed from basic reality by a desperate need to avoid being seen as any kind of badwhite. I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:10 pm GMT

@Sam Shama They can certainly try, and, I suppose you'd require the U.S. to stay her hand as a matter of fair principle while watching said bases destroyed. Nice idea, but I'd stick to reality. U.S. has vast interests, including economic ones; those which benefit every U.S. citizen, and, to be practical, all her allies. Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Its anti-ship missiles are for deterrence, which Iran has plenty of need for, as sociopaths like you populate the American, Israeli, and Saudi governments and are itching to attack.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:07 pm GMT

@WJ Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?

I remember the debate between Pence and the hideous Tim Kaine where the Democrat vowed that there would be No Fly Zone over Syria which would certainly have allowed the head chopping rebels to gain a stronger foothold.

In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic. US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.

Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?

You haven't been paying attention. Since the initial strike in April, the Trump administration has deliberately attacked regime or allied forces an additional five times. ( one , two , three , four , five ).

Including the Tomahawks in April, that's a total of 6 deliberate attacks on the Syrian Arab Republic or its allies (so far), which is already 6 more than Obama carried out during his entire presidency. And it's not like this is the end of Trump's tenure, either; it's the 9th goddamn month since he's been in office. I'm sure the war hawks in Wahington are quite pleased with his progress, as they should be.

In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic.

Anyone could tell by that point that Assad isn't going to be overthrown. The aim now is to limit the Assad regime's territorial gains as much as possible, and the "rebels" proved they were useless at doing that when Shia militia reached the Iraqi border at al-Tanf, and cut them off from reaching Deir ez-Zor back in May (which was what one of the attacks mentioned above was about).

After that, the Trump administration put all its eggs in the "Syrian Democratic Forces/People's Protection Units (SDF/YPG) basket, the mainly Kurdish (with some Arab fighters) militia that the US has been using to fight ISIS since 2015 (it's also, ironically, a hard left socialist organization. Think Kurdish Antifa. Though I doubt Trump knows or cares or could do anything about it even if he did). Trump has given the SDF <a title="" https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/&quot ; https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/&quot ;heavy weaponry with the aim of confronting Assad and limiting his territorial gains. They've also been pressuring the rebel groups they formerly supported to join the SDF.

I have sympathy for the SDF/YPG and the Syrian Kurds, and it made sense to support them when they were under direct assault from ISIS (though US motives were hardly altruistic even then). But ISIS is all but beaten now, and this is a dangerous game the US is playing, which could readily lead to a military confrontation betweeen the US and Russia and/or Iran. In fact, just a few days ago, the SDF seized part of Deir ez-Zor after SAA forces reached the city, and the Pentagon is now accusing Russia (which has in the past at least had good relations with the SDF/YPG), of deliberately bombing SDF fighters, in close proximity to American special forces.

US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.

Only 15,000! I guess you wouldn't mind, then, if they Taliban, or the Afghan Army for that matter, or any other country, put 15,000 troops on American soil, as a "symbolic" gesture.

Trump has also accelerated US collaboration in the sadistic torture of Yemen by the Saudis, past the levels under even Obama, which was already shameful.

And again, we should also keep in mind that it's only been 9 months. For his next act, Trump might be thinking about ending the Iran deal in October.

Heather Heyer's Ghost , September 19, 2017 at 4:44 pm GMT

@Thomm Jews are white. Ashkenazi Jews, and those are the ones we are mainly dealing with, are an endogamous caste of bankers, progressive journalists, lawyers, and social scientists (including, now, education), that have migrated all over Europe, but never identifying as European, with exceptions that prove the rule.

As a tribe, once can read Kevin MacDonald's work to see how they work in remarkable ethnic cohesion–not necessarily as an "organized conspiracy" (though that certainly happens), but as an ethnic drive.

Being neither European as such, nor Christian, and although their skin is white, they are not White.

Stan d Mute , September 19, 2017 at 4:41 pm GMT

Dual loyalty is an avoided and career-ending subject for a couple reasons. One must never, ever, criticize Jews (a third rail at complete odds with) and one may not criticize immigrants' behavior.

The obvious problem is Treason. Just how much Treason is the result of so-called "dual loyalty"? And isn't Treason subject to some rather serious legal sanctions?

...

just an internet commenter , September 19, 2017 at 3:47 pm GMT

I just want to point out, being a (fake) "news" consumer, I hear about Israel all the time, all while not hearing a lot of follow-up detail about Israel and its interests. Isn't that a clever sleight of hand? According to the pro-Israel (by extension jews) propaganda I'm required to care about, despite it having nothing to do with my life, my family's life, my neighbors' lives, and my community's lives Israel is that big of a deal. Actually, I hear more about Israel in the media than I hear about my home state of Michigan. Michigan is probably a lot more important to the US economy, US security, US tourism industry, Midwestern industrial technology industry, US engineering industry, and the Midwestern Farming economy, than Israel is. Then there are the people who live here, who are Americans. Israel first, then Americans? Okay, got it.

If the public were exposed to as much emotionally captivating propaganda about Michigan as they were about Israel, I'd posit the public would see a far better investment in Michigan than they would in Israel. That includes an emotional investment.

I don't know what can be politely said or how it would shape up, but Midwesterners desperately need to understand the Israel (by extension jewish) problem. They're bleeding us and getting away with it, all while getting away with incessantly calling us racists and anti-semites. Because again, caring about Michigan and its people first is just morally irreprehensible. Israel first, then Israel second, etc Got it bigot? That sleight of hand, it's just always there. I don't fully grasp how this large scale agit-prop psychology works. I do understand jewish solidarity. I'll hand it to jews, they have the strongest ethnic/religious/cultural solidarity I've ever seen. If Midwesterners realized the value of this level of solidarity, they wouldn't enlist their sons in the military to serve jewish interests overseas.

Anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 3:13 pm GMT

From Money Manipulation And Social Order (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1944) by Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., Professor of Philosophy and Church History, Holy Ghost Missionary College, Dublin:

When the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, created in 1913 by Mr. Paul Warburg, a German Jew belonging to the Banking Firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, had been a few years in existence, in 1916 to be precise, President Woodrow Wilson thus summed up the situation in U.S.A.: "A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. . .

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world!no longer a Government by conviction and the free vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." From the similar testimonies quoted by Christopher Hollis in The Two Nations, let us take one. "Behind the ostensible government," ran Roosevelt's policy, " sits enthroned an invisible government owning no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people."

https://archive.org/details/FaheyDenisMoneyManipulationAndSocialOrder

Corvinus , September 19, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMT

@Che Guava

Bullshit.

Anyone who reads knows that Israel (and its agents, where not dual citizens, the Jewish ones effectively all are, and the goyim dupes and toadies, who are not, 'cept sometimes with marriage) have been the tail that wags the US dog for many years, starting over a century ago, in finance, commerce, and law in NYC, in a small way the scope is ever wider and the effects more and more blatant.

The USA is a colony of Israel, everybody is knowing it, but some lie and deny.

From my reading of history, I would placing the tipping point from 'excessive power' to 'colonial masters' at the 1967 war of Israel and its neighbours.

Others may dating it to the end of the Third Reich, with all sorts of Jewish DPs and US Jews who had never seen combat running around in US military and MP uniforms to persecuting and killing Germans, under the command of Eisenhauer, the Morgenthau plan, etc.

Others may picking a different time.

It is funny that you are posting as Anonymous on this, can only mean that you are a more subtle pro-Israel troll with your usual u-name. "So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American Jews."

Certainly SOME Israelis and American Jews are involved in developing policy designed to generate hostility to the point of potential war.

But Dick Cheney and Erik Prince, among other prominent non-Jews, bear mentioning.

Regardless, the Jew fixation here is duly noted. Boo! Goes the Joo!

"The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard?

[Apr 14, 2019] Something about Trump decision making process

Is this Dementia? Or arrogance? Or incompetence? Or all of them ?
Notable quotes:
"... "I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter from the Las Vegas crowd, Reuters reported. ..."
"... "I went - 'BING!' - it was done," Trump said on Saturday, describing the swiftness of his decision. "We make fast decisions. And we make good decisions." ..."
Apr 07, 2019 | www.tasnimnews.com

Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas, Trump said he made the snap decision during a discussion with his top Middle East peace advisers, including the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

"I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter from the Las Vegas crowd, Reuters reported.

"'How do you like the idea of me recognizing exactly what we're discussing?'" said Trump, recounting the conversation.

Trump said Friedman was shocked, "like a wonderful, beautiful baby," and asked the president if he would actually do it.

"I went - 'BING!' - it was done," Trump said on Saturday, describing the swiftness of his decision. "We make fast decisions. And we make good decisions."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Trump last month. At their March 25 meeting, Trump signed a proclamation officially granting US recognition of the Golan as Israeli territory.

Golan is a border area the Tel Aviv regime seized from Syria in 1967.

[Apr 14, 2019] If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH

Jul 09, 2018 | www.unz.com

Greg Bacon , Website July 3, 2018 at 7:13 pm GMT

It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez-if elected–sticks to her principles or succumbs to the shekel storm headed her way.

Radical Jews of the Hasidic type are also acting thuggish on American streets, like in Brooklyn where they committed assault, battery and kidnapping on a bicyclist.

These kind of fanatics are growing in numbers all over the USA.

If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH.

[Apr 14, 2019] Russia remains an obstacle for Trump goal of colonizing Venezuela

Apr 14, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

b4real , Apr 14, 2019 5:20:25 PM | link

@ james your 38 from post on iran thread.....


" it seems the usa is no longer willing to go full on.."

What is being missed by most is that we entered a new era March 2018 when Putin unveiled his new toys. The u.s. is no longer the presumed supreme military power on the planet. Of course they will not not admit this, but I believe we are approaching the moment when the U.S. will be told to stand down or suffer the consequences, whether it be in Syria, Venezuela or Ukraine.

Link

"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed at containing our country's development: Everything that you wanted to impede with your policies has already happened," he said. "You have failed to contain Russia."

"No one listened to us then. So listen to us now," Putin said to thunderous applause in the speech, which was held at a venue just outside the Kremlin and televised live nationwide.

The pentagon has admitted it has no defense against those hypersonic missiles.

Link

"If that happens, what kind of defense do we have against the hypersonic threat?" Inhofe asked.

Hyten replied, "We have a very difficult -- well, our defense is our deterrent capability. We don't have any defense that could deny theemployment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat."

Putin has quite clearly stated the what the Russian response will be should the U.S. resort to the use of nuclear weapons.

Link

"Only when we know for certain – and this takes a few seconds to understand – that Russia is being attacked we will deliver a counter strike. This would be a reciprocal counter strike. Why do I say 'counter'? Because we will counter missiles flying towards us by sending a missile in the direction of an aggressor. Of course, this amounts to a global catastrophe but I would like to repeat that we cannot be the initiators of such a catastrophe because we have no provision for a pre-emptive strike. Yes, it looks like we are sitting on our hands and waiting until someone uses nuclear weapons against us. Well, yes, this is what it is. But then any aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable and they will be annihilated. And we as the victims of an aggression, we as martyrs would go to paradise while they will simply perish because they won't even have time to repent their sins. "


Russia is not going to allow the U.S. to destroy Venezuela, Iran, Syria or Ukraine. It makes sense because Ru cannot allow the United States and vassals to continually put Ru in the position of one step forward two steps backs via their destructive policies and I firmly believe that Putin will not allow the u.s. time to develop counters to their new missiles. That would be foolish as the u.s. has shown what they are capable of when there is no serious threat to their military. It will be a world war and the unites states has been pushing hard to keep its allies on a short tether.

U.S. has been stalemated in Syria, (soon to be ejected) Ukraine is about to fall back into ru orbit after the elections next week. Venezuela has Russians on the ground. They dare not go into Iran, because the iron dome is rusty and one direct hit by the foab about 13k southeast of dimona is going to make a large part of that illegal settlement called israel uninhabitable .

There is much room for miscalculation, and I believe war is an almost certainty. At the same time, I think we need a few tens to hundreds of millions to meet their maker as the human race is only growing more stupid by the minute and eliminating a large portion of the race will likely extend its survival. Sad but true.

'nuff said


b4real

[Apr 14, 2019] Neocons vs Jews

Notable quotes:
"... I MET ONE JEWISH OFFICER IN COMBAT ARMS, PERIOD!!!!! ..."
"... Compare that to their ever-presence in politics and, in particular, among the Neocons who are ceaselessly starting wars and sending non-Jews to die for them. It's disgusting. ..."
"... Here's a quote from Kissinger which neatly sums it up: "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." ..."
"... "The dislike is profoundly visceral, not rational" ..."
"... Let's see Fred.. Heard of the Neocons, near exclusively Jews, running US foreign policy to establish Israel's hegemony in the Middle East a la Oden Yinon? Who openly acknowledges running Hollywood, Freddie? How about the moral quality of what Hollywood produces. ..."
"... "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." ..."
"... Also, there's the paraphrased quote from the Godfather Movie; "men in suits and ties make better bank robbers than men with guns." ..."
Mar 10, 2018 | www.unz.com

Jus' Sayin'... , March 5, 2018 at 5:08 pm GMT

I thought Mr. Reed provided a good summary of the situation. The diversity of responses suggests that he struck a nice balance in presenting his observations.

I am a mixed-ethnicity Roman Catholic but starting with college and ever since, most of my closest associates and many of those with whom I work and play, except for immediate family, have been middle class Jews. I have found these individuals to be generous and kind and not at all clannish. All regard themselves as and in fact are patriotic Americans. Many have achieved extraordinary success and contributed to the commonweal. Many have gone out of their way to help and comfort me in times of personal crisis.

I find my personal experiences with individual Jews hard to reconcile with the – to me – obvious observation that, considered as a group, American Jews have had a disastrous impact on the United States in many areas including invidious control of (1) the news media, publishing, and entertainment industries, (2) culture generally, (3) finance, (4) legal institutions. (5) the government generally, and (6) foreign policy in particular.

In high school I monitored a college course on democratic political theory (excluding Rousseau's totalitarian version) and democracy's totalitarian opponents, i.e., communism and fascism. The readings on fascism included lengthy sections from Rosenberg's "Myth of the Twentieth Century".

At the time, I thought that even the less hyperbolic of Rosenberg's rants verged on insanity. Now, after observing our Jewish-dominated late republic hurtling towards utter ruination, I'm not so sure.

Longfisher , March 5, 2018 at 5:26 pm GMT
"What have Jews actually done to you? Hacked your bank account? Gypped you out of your house? Shot your dog?" and the answer will likely be, "Nothing."

Simple. I served in the Marines for about 7 years as an infantry officer. I met, worked with and greatly valued many 10s of thousands of Marines.

Infantry is combat arms as are artillery, special ops, missile forces, Marine Air, etc.

I MET ONE JEWISH OFFICER IN COMBAT ARMS, PERIOD!!!!!

Now, they were everywhere in professional positions in our sister service, the Navy. Doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. But almost none in combat arms in America but well represented in the armed forces of Israel.

Compare that to their ever-presence in politics and, in particular, among the Neocons who are ceaselessly starting wars and sending non-Jews to die for them. It's disgusting.

Onward Christian soldier is the new Jewish American national anthem. They're disloyal cowards and they're a fifth column for Israel here in the U.S. If they vaporized tomorrow we'd be better off.

Here's a quote from Kissinger which neatly sums it up: "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."

No wonder to me why they were burned in the crematoriums in German during WWII.

Rex Little , March 5, 2018 at 5:59 pm GMT

From two percent of the population?

I've long wondered how that 2% number was arrived at. Who is counted as Jewish? If it's only those who actively practice the religion, then I'd guess 2% is about right. But how many more are there whose ancestors were Jewish but who aren't religious (like me) or practice Christianity (like my brother)?

Granted, the number of non-religious Jews is shrinking, as Corvinus pointed out upthread. My brothers and I would all be considered Jewish by ancestry, but none of our children are, because their mothers aren't.

I suspect that support for Israel and Zionism is much stronger among religious Jews than my sort. I've never been to Israel, and you'd have to pay me a lot of money to get me to go there. My parents' opinion was that the state of Israel should never have been created.

Mussolini's Fist , March 5, 2018 at 6:59 pm GMT
This article should be entitled "1000 Reasons why Fred Reed is a Complete Moron".

"The dislike is profoundly visceral, not rational"

Let's see Fred.. Heard of the Neocons, near exclusively Jews, running US foreign policy to establish Israel's hegemony in the Middle East a la Oden Yinon? Who openly acknowledges running Hollywood, Freddie? How about the moral quality of what Hollywood produces.

Commenting on fashion might be more your speed.

Carroll Price , March 5, 2018 at 3:20 pm GMT
@turtle

Fred apparently slept through Bible class, but the New Testament refers to it as devouring widow's houses.

Matthew 23:14
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation."

Also, there's the paraphrased quote from the Godfather Movie; "men in suits and ties make better bank robbers than men with guns."

[Apr 14, 2019] On support of Trump administration of Isreal expansionism and colonization of captured from Arabs territories: From the point of view of UN law the state of Israel is an outlaw

The term "Jews" probably should be strictly avoided. Zionists or Likudniks is a better term for Jewish Supremacists.
Aug 14, 2018 | www.unz.com

skrik , August 14, 2018 at 1:51 pm GMT

@Anonymouse

let the US give itself back to the Indians, and then ask Israel to act the same way

Give the US back to the amerindians! Give Aus back to the abos! This does not work; it's called 'moral relativism' and/or the 'tu quoque' [appeal to hypocrisy] fallacy.

Then ask Israel to act err, hello? Israel has been 'asked,' over 100 times by some counts, to 'get legal' under UN resolutions. Israel is an outlaw.

Kindly consider the I/J/Z-plex's 10 steps to utter, criminal ignominy:

  1. Herzl; coveting, expropriation (1897+)
  2. Balfour; aid Zs, no consult Ps
  3. Jabotinsky; colonise by force
  4. Ben-Gurion: "we are the attackers and the Arabs own the land" [points 1 - 4 all pre-WW2]
  5. UNGA181: "an area shall be evacuated" (invalid + no UNSC action = not law)
  6. Meir; $US50mio for arms + Plan Dalet&Co = premeditated, murdering to steal aggression
  7. When immigrants (=aliens) attack natives, it's *not* civil war but Nuremberg-class crime
  8. Z-terrorism; down to today; alien invaders' highest-tech vs. besieged & blockaded, basically unarmed natives
  9. US-support incl. UNSC vetoes; also down to 'current moment'
  10. Z-hasbarah = mostly lies, designed and deployed to deceive

More: Post-WW2, Nuremberg trials, hanging perpetrators for murdering invasions for Lebensraum predate King David Hotel bombing, Plan Dalet with outrages like the Deir Yassin massacre, etc.. Similar outrages continue to be perpetrated by the illegitimate entity, into 'the current moment.'

Lemma: At any crime-scene, there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories, apologists and/or 'idle' bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a) restrain malefactors and where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in active resistance to the crime attract proportional guilt.

Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes him/herself an accessory, like all residents in the 'illegitimate entity,' say.

Also post WW2, we got the post-colonial era; the illegitimate entity fulfils the 'premeditated supreme international crime' criteria. RoR+R*3 NOW! QED

PS Showing 'support' for criminals adopts part guilt for those criminals' crimes via the accessory process; why would anyone in their 'right' = correct mind do that?

anarchyst , August 14, 2018 at 1:59 pm GMT
If a nuclear device is "lit off" in an American or European city, it will have Israel's fingerprints all over it. Israel is desperate to keep the American money spigot running, as well as sabotaging the Palestinian "peace process" that the world wants it to take seriously.

In fact, if a nuclear device is "lit off" anywhere in the world, it will have come from Israel's secret nuclear "stockpile".

The "power outage" in Atlanta was a convenient excuse for Israel to perform a logistical "sleight of hand", as an Israeli plane was allowed to land and take off during the "power outage" without receiving customs clearance or inspection. This is one of many Israeli companies that possesses a "special exemption" granted by the U S government that frees it from customs inspections. Just maybe another one of Israel's nukes was just being pre-positioned or nuclear triggers (tritium) were being renewed, getting ready for "the big one". As most Americans are tired of all of the foreign wars being fought for Israel's benefit, another "incident" on American soil would be enough to galvanize the American public, once again, (just like WTC 9-11) to support another war for Israel's benefit. Israel's "samson option" is a real threat to "light one off" in a European or American city, if Israel's interests are not taken seriously.

Israel refuses to abide by IAEA guidelines concerning its nukes as they are already distributed around the world. Israel would not be able to produce all of them as most of them are not in Israel, proper. No delivery systems are needed as Israel's nukes are already "in place". Look for another "false flag" operation with the blame being put on Iran or Syria. You can bet that some Iranian or Syrian passports will be found in the rubble.

Israel also threatens to detonate nuclear devices in several US cities. Talk about total INSANITY; the so-called "Samson Option" is it.

As an aside, American "foreign aid" is prohibited from being given to any country that has not signed the "Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty" or refuses to abide by "International Atomic Energy Agency" (IAEA) guidelines regarding its nuclear devices. Guess what?? Israel does not abide by EITHER and still gets the majority of American "foreign aid". This prohibition also applies to countries that do not register their "agents of a foreign government" with the U S State Department. Guess what?? Israel (again) with its "American Israel Political Action Committee" (AIPAC) still gets "foreign aid" in contravention of American law..

There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy "wonks" infecting the U S government who hold "dual citizenship" with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity.

When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel just who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the interests of the American people and the United States they should renounce their United States citizenship and be deported to Israel

Bardon Kaldian , August 14, 2018 at 2:17 pm GMT
Giraldi is here-unlike in most of his regularly anti-Semitic texts- right about one crucial thing: American Gentile cow-towing to (real or imagined) Jewish power in the US, as illustrated by absurd Baron Cohen's episode.

However, I don't blame most of US Jews for that. Jewish ethnocentrists are to be suspect, sure, but the main question for US gentile politicians & public figures remains: why are you such suckers, anyway?

Sam Shama , August 14, 2018 at 2:35 pm GMT
Between Jessica at #23, and Anon at #45 lay two paramount pieces of instruction which Phil Giraldi ought to heed.

Ordinary Jews are no more required to register their objections over AIPAC's actions than are Christians over the actions of their top leaders including the POTUS, domestic MIC lobbies, the Gun Lobby and the Oil lobby; no more that is, beyond what each citizen expresses through her vote. Individuals may choose; to go beyond, into political activism; yet choice is the operative notion.

And no, Geokat, Power isn't listening to Phil over the sound of crickets for the simple reason that Power does not read the UR, couldn't care less if they did, as the Review quite rapidly degenerates to the station of an unrelenting hate rag frequented by dubious IQ cultists, antisemites and White Nationalism apologists.

Felicity , August 14, 2018 at 3:14 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke

"Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it (Israel) had considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with Washington."

And according to Jimmy Carter Israeli intelligence had advance information of the suicide attack on the US barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed 243 US servicemen (one of whom was a member of my family). The Israelis decided to not inform US intelligence in the hope that a major attack on US personnel would precipitate a commitment of US troops and arms into the region. So much for our Israeli "ally".

JessicaR , August 14, 2018 at 4:10 pm GMT
@Anonymouse

You are, of course, correct that the US committed either genocide or near-genocide (depending on your definition of the term) against Native Americans. However, NOW, in the 21st century, any Native American who is a US citizen is free to buy property in any part of America and live where he chooses. Native Americans are no longer confined to reservations. While poverty is a fact of life for many Native Americans, some tribes have profited substantially from gambling. In Florida, Seminoles may receive upward of 40,000 a year (each man, woman, and child) as their share of the gambling revenues. They can certainly afford to buy property just about anywhere.

(Note that I am not denying that much discrimination and inequality still persist and that most reservations with gambling offer very little to tribal members.)

In Israel, however, Palestinians cannot return to their home towns and buy property. They are not free to live where they choose. Many are still confined to refugee camps. Housing discrimination continues to persist for Israeli Arabs. Yes, the High Court ruled it illegal, but few remedies are in place, which means the practice continues largely unabated.

If you want to use historical analogies, I believe you should use them in full.

utu , August 14, 2018 at 4:39 pm GMT

Cohen's performance is instructive. A man shows up in Israeli uniform, claims to be a terrorism expert or even a Mossad agent, and he gains access to powerful Americans who are willing to do anything he says.

It is very telling about the human material on the right in America. Complete morons. Now think about it. It was a prank, right? But I can imagine that real negotiations with Israelis are very similar and produce similar positive outcomes for Israelis. Israelis play Americans anyway they want on all levels of federal and local administrations. They have the same attitude towards Americans as Jack Abramoff had towards his counterparts at Indian reservations. Why shouldn't they? It works.

he called his Indian clients "troglodytes" and "morons" and "monkeys," "the stupidest idiots in the land." In one particularly damning e-mail he counseled Scanlon, "The key thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but that the annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so quickly . So, we have to put up with this stuff."

At best American are annoying losers who part with their money quickly.

Mr. Giraldi, why do you bother with your articles? You still have illusions that you can educate the monkeys?

Anon [270] Disclaimer , Website August 14, 2018 at 4:44 pm GMT
"special relationship"

It smacks of supremacism, doesn't it? It means the US must favor Zionist occupiers in West Bank over Palestinians, the very people who are being occupied.

It means the US must favor Israel, a nation that stole uranium from US and has 300 nukes, over Iran, a nation that passed all inspections and has no nukes.

This special relationship is a form of worship. It is never discussed rationally WHY Israel is so crucial to us. Instead, politicians and pundits gush about it with fanatical devotion, as if it's a sacred truth. Anyone who questions it even slightly is marginalized or destroyed. Some might Giraldi has been too strident, but even mild criticism of Israel or Zionism can get you banned from media or politics.

I find it odd that Jews always remind us that Old America was 'racist' because it favored Europeans over non-whites, especially in immigration and foreign policy. After all, the US often sided with European imperialists over non-white subjects of colonialism.

In New America, there is supposed to no Special Treatment for any group, but Jews and Israel get it all the time. In asylum(Save Soviet Jews), in immigration, in college admission, in foreign policy -- not just in supporting Israel at every turn but in waging Wars for Israel and hating on any nation hated by Jews, esp Russia, Iran, and Syria.

[Apr 14, 2019] Feeding the Monster, by Philip Giraldi

While secular "cultural nationalism" is probably essential to the survival of the nation, far right nationalism is a cancer.
There is a vicious spiral: Israel actions, which are essentially American-style colonization of the territory, radicalize Palestinians, and their actions in turn radicalize Jews feeling far right nationalism.
The early Zionists were mostly atheist. Zionists quoting the Bible for legitimacy of their land claims I'd take with a pinch of salt regarding their sincerity.
Notable quotes:
"... "No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me." ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs ..."
"... As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West. ..."
Jul 09, 2018 | www.unz.com

One paragraph in particular in the article I read was highly suggestive, the claim that Ocasio-Cortez had been strongly opposed to the Israelis' routine slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, which has by now become of such little import that it is not even reported any more in the U.S. media. She is also allegedly a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS), which pressures Israel to end its theft and occupation of Palestinian land. The article expressed some surprise that anyone in New York City would dare to say anything unpleasant about Israel and still expect to get elected.

This is what Ocasio-Cortez, who called the shooting of more than 130 Gazans a "massacre," actually said and wrote :

"No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me."

Five hours later, when I arrived home in Virginia I went to pull up the article I had read in the morning to possibly use it in a piece of my own and was somewhat surprised to discover that the bit about Israel had been excised from the text. It was clearly yet another example of how the media self-censors when there is anything negative to say about Israel and it underlines the significance of the emergence of recent international media reporting in The Guardian and elsewhere regarding how Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson largely dictates U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. That means that the conspiracy of silence over Israel's manipulation of the United States government is beginning to break down and journalists have become bold enough to challenge what occurs when pro-Israel Jews obtain real power over the political process. Adelson, for what it's worth, wants war with Iran and has even suggested detonating a nuclear device on its soil to "send a message."

I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans.

The question of the relationship with Israel comes at a time when everyone in America, so it seems, is concerned about children being separated from their parents who have illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. The concern is legitimate given the coarse and sometimes violent justifications coming out of the White House, but it's a funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same opprobrium. When a Jewish fanatic/Israel settler kills Palestinian children and is protected by his government in so doing, where is the outrage in the U.S. media? Settlers and soldiers kill Palestinians, young and old, with impunity and are almost never punished. They destroy their orchards and livestock to eliminate their livelihoods to drive them out. They bulldoze their homes and villages. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency does none of that and is yet subject to nonstop abuse in the mainstream media, so what about Israel?

A recent story illustrates just how horrible the Israelis can be without any pushback whatsoever coming from Washington objecting to their behavior. As the United States is the only force that can in any way compel Israel to come to its senses and chooses not to do so, that makes U.S. policymakers and by extension the American people complicit in Israel's crimes.

The particularly horrible recent account that I am referring to describes how fanatical Jewish settlers burned alive a Palestinian family on the West Bank, including a baby, and then celebrated the deaths while taunting the victims' surviving family when they subsequently appeared in court. The story was covered in Israel and Europe but insofar as I could determine did not appear in any detail in the U.S. mainstream media.

Israeli Jewish settlers carried out their shameful deed outside a court in the city of Lod, chanting "'Ali was burned, where is Ali? There is no Ali. Ali is burned. On the fire. Ali is on the grill!" referring to the 18-month old baby Ali Dawabsheh, who was burnt alive in 2015 by Jewish settlers hurling Molotov cocktails into a house in the West Bank town of Duma. Ali's mother Riham and father Saad also died of their burns and were included in the chanting "Where is Ali? Where is Riham? Where is Saad? It's too bad Ahmed didn't burn as well." Five year-old Ahmed, who alone survived the attack with severe burns, will have scars for the rest of his life.

The settlers were taunting Ali's grandfather Hussein Dawabsheh, who accompanied Ahmed, at a preliminary hearing where the court indicted a man who confessed to the murders and a minor who acted as an accomplice. A video of the chanting shows Israeli policemen standing by and doing nothing. The court appearance also revealed that there have been another Molotov cocktail attack by settlers on another Dawabsheh family house in May that may have been an attempt to silence testimony relating to the first attack. Fortunately, the family managed to escape.

And by all accounts this outrage was not the first incident in which the burning of the Palestinian baby was celebrated. A December 15 th wedding video showed settlers engaged in an uproarious party that featured dances with Molotov cocktails and waving knives and guns. A photo of baby Ali was on display and was repeatedly stabbed. A year later, 13 people from what became known as the "murder wedding" were indicted for incitement to terrorism, but as of today no one has actually been punished. Israelis who kill Arabs are rarely indicted or tried. If it is a soldier or policeman that is involved, which occurs all too often, the penalty is frequently either nothing at all a slap on the wrist. Indeed, the snipers who fired on Gazans recently were actually ordered to shoot the unarmed civilians and directed to take out anyone who appeared to be a "leader," which included medical personnel.

The Trump Administration could, of course, stop the Israeli brutality if it chooses to do so, but it does not think Benjamin Netanyahu's crimes against humanity are on the agenda. Nor did Clinton, Bush and Obama dare to confront the power of Israel's lobby, though Obama tried a little pushback in a feeble way.

Someone in Washington should be asking why the United States should be fighting unnecessary wars and becoming an international pariah defending a country and people that believe they are "chosen" by God? One can only hope that the shift in perceptions on the Middle East by liberal Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez has some legs and will lead to some real change in U.S. foreign policy. To succeed the liberal Democrats will need to push against some formidable obstacles within their own party, most notably the Clinton wing and people like Senator Chuck Schumer, Minority leader in the Senate, who describes himself as Israel's "shomer" or defender in the Upper House. Perhaps someone on the New York Times editorial board should publicly suggest to Schumer that he go and run for office in Israel since he seems to prefer it to the country that has made him rich and powerful. But of course, the Times and all the other mainstream media, which is responsible for what we are not allowed to know about Israel and its American mouthpieces, will never entertain that suggestion or anything like it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].


Someone , July 3, 2018 at 5:12 am GMT

No one should know this better than the Jews- that negativity never ends well.
Tyrion 2 , Website July 3, 2018 at 6:20 am GMT

I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs

Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.

The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately extremely high given the much higher rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world.

As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't that seem like the most humane way to deal with it? What does Giraldi suggest they do?

I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with this type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them. I prefer that America follow the example of Matteo Salvini. Giraldi prefers 'abolish borders' Cortez. Indeed, he'd like her to "go a lot farther".

Mishra , July 3, 2018 at 6:30 am GMT

Washington's spinelessness enables Israeli brutality

Why is "Washington" spineless? Why don't the people demand more principled leaders?

Well, where do the people get their ideas anyway? The mass media.

Who owns the mass media? Why can't it even be discussed?

All we get on this topic is lies, some right here on UNZ.

Yet some here now and then dare to speak the truth.

And as a result this site is under assault.

EOLAWKI , July 3, 2018 at 8:22 am GMT
Washington is not spineless. Washington is bought and paid for. In America, the general rule is that money rules, and the people (and their political representatives!) follow.
The Alarmist , July 3, 2018 at 8:35 am GMT

" I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes."

Only 60? We really have become a nation of p ***** s. If we're going to be an empire that pushes the rest of the world around, we need to act like one. The Byzantine General Belisaurius, under Justinian I, put down the Nika riots by killing as many as 30,000 people, and the Byzantine empire went on for another 900 years. If we dither over 60 people, we won't last another 50 years.

As for the Israelis, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction, but given the number of nukes they are reputed to have and the global reach they seem to have, they are going to take the rest of us with them if the US simply walks away from them and leaves them on their own.

LondonBob , July 3, 2018 at 9:52 am GMT
@Tyrion 2

As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West.

Z-man , July 3, 2018 at 10:16 am GMT
That crazed looking group of young fanatical Zionists taunting a Palestinian mother and child is a classic. ZOG has got to be defeated!
However , speaking of that 'Latina' who beat a political hack in Queens and the Bronx, she's already started to edit some of her internet posts. She knows who rules and will get in line with the 'mainstream' Zionist party line. She's also an 'open borders' radical which doesn't sit well with the likes of me and most Americans. She's also a 'Bronx girl' by way of suburban Westchester county, lol. As phony as phony gets.
Rogue , July 3, 2018 at 10:24 am GMT
@Echoes of History

The verse in question was specifically regarding the church in Jerusalem. In other words, financial help by gentile believers for Jewish followers of Jesus who were impoverished at that time.

It is not to be interpreted as a general charity for Jews, most of whom are hostile to Christianity both then and today. Bible verses have to be read within the context of the surrounding text.

Zionism is hardly a religious movement.

Tyrion 2 , Website July 3, 2018 at 10:26 am GMT
@LondonBob

Jews are probably the least ethnocentric, other than the 4% of global population that is Western European, in the world.

Echoes of History , July 3, 2018 at 10:32 am GMT
@Tyrion 2

Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country.

Better yet to be a Jewish minority in any place but Israel.

It's weird how the vast majority of Jews themselves can't be persuaded into moving to Israel, but would rather be a minority elsewhere. Why is that so? Not so great a place as you purport?

The total number of people who hold or are eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return is estimated at around 23 million, of which 6.6 million were living in Israel as of 2015. wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

UncommonGround , July 3, 2018 at 11:06 am GMT
@Mishra

Well, where do the people get their ideas anyway? The mass media.

In Germany there was recently a bad case of antisemitism which was reported widely in the media. A large newspaper had a long article telling how a Jewish pupil in an elite school in Berlin was harassed or bullyed for months and that the school didn't do enough to protect him. It's a school to which the sons of ambassators, of diplomatic personal and of the international high class community in Berlin go. The article brought many details about the case: how they told the pupil that Ausschwitz wasn't far away (or something similar) and so on. The case even came in the television news of the main German channel (I only watched the late news, but I think that the case also came in the absolutely main news of German television at 8 o'clock P.M.). The media spoke of "antisemitism in Berlin." A pupil was harassed and told a few unpleasant things in a school in Berlin and this came in the main tv news of the country! The most important weekly magazine had also an article about "antisemitism in Berlin". At the end of the long article they told something that the other midia hadn't told. The pupil had been harassed because he favoured the Palestinians! The colleagues who bullyed him were probably American Jews.

WorkingClass , July 3, 2018 at 11:07 am GMT

but it's a funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same opprobrium.

Also the intentional starving of children in Yemen. And the huge pile of dead babies in Iraq, Libya and Syria. All of them murdered by Imperial Washington.

I much prefer President Trump to any of the candidates he defeated in the primaries and general election. But I regret that he is a Jew.

geokat62 , July 3, 2018 at 11:18 am GMT
Here's an interesting tidbit about AOC:

Newly popular Democratic politician hero and nominee for a seat in the U.S. Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used to have these words on her website:

A Peace Economy

"Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has entangled itself in war and occupation throughout the Middle East and North Africa. As of 2018, we are currently involved in military action in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. According to the Constitution, the right to declare war belongs to the Legislative body, not the President. Yet, most of these acts of aggression have never once been voted on by Congress. Alex believes that we must end the forever war by bringing our troops home and ending the air strikes and bombings that perpetuate the cycle of terrorism and occupation throughout the world."

Now they're gone. Asked about it on Twitter, she replied:

"Hey! Looking into this. Nothing malicious! Site is supporter-run so things happen -we'll get to the bottom of it."

https://alethonews.com/2018/06/30/why-it-matters-that-peace-is-gone-from-ocasio-cortez-website/

It'll be interesting to see if these words ever reappear. I'll keep you posted if and when that happens.

ISmellBagels , July 3, 2018 at 11:23 am GMT
It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez will/can maintain her position on Israeli crimes. Public figures have a long history of backpedaling after getting the riot act read to them from the hebrew masters.
ISmellBagels , July 3, 2018 at 11:24 am GMT
@WorkingClass

Trump is not a Jew, just Jewifiied.

utu , July 3, 2018 at 11:33 am GMT
@Tyrion 2

Jews are probably the least ethnocentric

Because Jews are cosmocentric. The center of the whole universe.

Incitatus , July 3, 2018 at 1:40 pm GMT
@Tyrion 2

"The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots."

Correction. They're unrepentant murderers, empowered by disgusting zealots tolerated (if not pampered) by Likud.

"But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on"

The 'they do it too' defense? So what? How many F-35s is the US giving Iraq, Syria, Iran?

Why should Likud conduct be excused by comparing it to those Israel routinely condemns?

"As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't that seem like the most humane way to deal with it?"

Does "sniping" mean shooting/killing/maiming unarmed people from a safe distance? Without risk to the sniper?

That's "more humane" than water-cannon, tear gas, and other non-lethal restraint? For the sniper, perhaps, but for the victim?

Sounds like the same rationalization murderers used at Babi-Yar.

"The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately extremely high given the much higher rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world."

American media is disproportionately silent in criticism of Likud compared with Israeli media. Why?

"I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with this type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them."

In other words, Trump should use snipers and live fire on illegal immigrants crossing borders? Wow!

Nelle , July 3, 2018 at 2:41 pm GMT
These people used to be called Judeonazis by Hebrew University chemistry professor Israel Shahak and by the noted "radio rabbi", Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Both predicted that the occupation would be Israel's downfall. Likely it is the downfall of the Palestinian people and possibly the rest of us. (Note that Israel has nuclear weapons and its policy of "nishtagea" – pulling down the temple around Sampson-type threat – is meant to guarantee its hegemony in the region. That suits the US down to the ground, where the oil is.
Mulegino1 , July 3, 2018 at 4:00 pm GMT
What are we to expect from a criminal state, founded by international terrorists like Ben Gurion, Begin, Yitzakh Shamir, etc.?

If it had been Palestinian terrorists who had blown up the King David Hotel, murdered Lord Moyne and Count Folke Bernadotte, and Jewish women and children in Deir Yassin, you would see monuments to these victims all over the western world, Hollywood films by the score, and the kvetching from the usual suspects would only have been amplified over time. If it had been Palestinian terrorists who concocted the Lavon Affair false flag plan, or Palestinian naval and air forces which attacked an American naval vessel in broad daylight, flying a large American flag and attempted to murder the entire crew, likewise. There would be memorials in Arlington, and all over the U.S., to the brave crew members and their captain, whose actions saved the vessel. Instead all we get are crickets chirping.

For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.

How prescient and prophetic these words were, written decades before the founding of the criminal entity in Palestine! Israel does not serve as a Jewish homeland, it serves as a base of criminal operations, a weapons depot, and a sanctuary for international fugitives from justice

anti_republocrat , July 3, 2018 at 4:08 pm GMT
@Tyrion 2

Now that the Israeli-backed head choppers and liver eaters have been defeated, Syria has returned to the the multi-confessional, pluralistic paradise it always was when compared with the abomination West of the Jordan River. Before the establishment of the Zionist state, Jews as well as Christians were welcome in Arab states. Even after 1948, Sephardim did not immediately flock to Israel.

When Ashkenazi Zionists discovered they had created a labor shortage by ethnically cleansing Palestinians, they embarked on a propaganda and false flag campaign to get Sephardim to migrate to Israel, where many of those well-educated and formerly wealthy Jews were discriminated against and forced to take menial jobs. The false flags designed specifically to stampede Jews out of Iraq are well documented, so don't lie about it, Tyrion. Jews were among the wealthiest of Iraqis, and had little organic reason to emigrate. The propaganda of Arab governments expelling the Sephardim is largely false.

The racist, European (white) supremacist narrative (what Edward Said called "Orientalism") that Arabs and Muslims are always killing each other and Europe must intervene for humanitarian reasons is actively cultivated by Israel in order to justify its own ethno-supremacist society. That's why Israel encourages Wahhabi terrorism emanating from the Gulf.

Tyrion 2 , Website July 3, 2018 at 4:22 pm GMT
@anti_republocrat

Syria has returned to the the multi-confessional, pluralistic paradise it always was when compared with the abomination West of the Jordan River

The number of deaths in a single year of the Syrian conflict exceed the last 70 years of the Palestinian-Israeli one. Try again.

bjondo , July 3, 2018 at 4:41 pm GMT
@Tyrion 2

Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.

The minority groups in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, would laugh at you and the Jew of Iran prefer Iran to Israel. These sorts of lunatics, without Israeli, West interference, are rare in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.

Israel is dominated by disgusting zealots. Israel is a zealot state of zealots.

Does hasbarRat mean blatant liar?

Also,

another excellent article by Philip Giraldi.

[Apr 14, 2019] The Complete Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape from 1993

Jul 07, 2018 | www.unz.com

renfro , July 5, 2018 at 7:41 pm GMT

Why I am all for wire tapping and all other spying by the CIA and FBI ...get all the uber Jews and all the politicians and make it public. Would be delighted if all the news channels did nothing but play the tapes on the daily news.

The Complete Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape

https://www.wrmea.org/1992-december/january-1993/the-complete-unexpurgated-aipac-tape.html

Following is a transcript of the Oct. 22, 1992 conversation with President David Steiner of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recorded without his knowledge by New York businessman Haim (Harry) Katz. Its existence was first revealed to the Washington Times and its release triggered Steiner's resignation.

(sample)

HK: Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to . . . Inouye, by the way, is in real trouble? He's been there forever. . .

DS: Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There's been such a sea change, such trouble this year, I can't believe all our friends that are in trouble. Because there's an anti-incumbency mood, and foreign aid has not been popular. You know what I got for, I met with [U.S. Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear . . .

HK: Right.

DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about .

HK: Such as?

DS: $700 million in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army's going to give to Israel; $200 million the U.S. government is going to preposition materials in Israel, which Israel can draw upon; put them in the global warning protection system; so when if there's a missile fired, they'll get the same advanced notification that the U.S., is notified, joint military exercises -- I've got a whole shopping list of things .

HK: So this is from Baker?

DS: From Baker and from the Pentagon.

[Apr 14, 2019] Can all post-WWII US presidents to be considered as war criminals by Nuremberg court standard ?

Apr 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Justsaying April 13, 2019 at 7:03 pm GMT

@ThreeCranes

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5BXtgq0Nhsc?feature=oembed

ThreeCranes , says: April 13, 2019 at 9:05 pm GMT

@Justsaying I'm not impressed.

By the "reasoning" of the likes of Noam Chomsky, for the countries in which U.S. presidents meddled, the default setting was a state of affairs that tended towards long-term stability, peace and prosperity.

... ... ...

[Apr 14, 2019] Edward Snowden: Surveillance Is About Power

Now a lot of unpleasant question arise for Trump administration. Assange case is rather difficult to handle without spilling the beans.
Apr 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

wayfarer , says: April 13, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT

"Edward Snowden: Surveillance Is About Power."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/RSc_IlFBWkw?feature=oembed
jim jones , says: April 13, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT
The Assange arrest has strengthened my resolve never to vote Conservative again
Agent76 , says: April 13, 2019 at 3:07 pm GMT
@wayfarer Good share wayfarer. January 10, 2014 *500* Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent *It's Never to Protect Us From Bad Guys*

No matter which government conducts mass surveillance, they also do it to crush dissent, and then give a false rationale for why they're doing it.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/500-years-of-history-shows-that-mass-spying-is-always-aimed-at-crushing-dissent/5364462

[Apr 13, 2019] America as a Myth of good life is a powerful tool of color revolutions

Highly recommended!
This is a pretty accurate description of "Myth about the USA" which is very common in xUSSR area too.
Notable quotes:
"... The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road for his village as a typical example. ..."
"... A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators, bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old alone. ..."
"... A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there." ..."
"... She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks. ..."
"... As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars, but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Originally from: America as Religion, by Linh Dinh - The Unz Review by Linh Dinh

America's most enduring export has been its image. Self-infatuated, it seduces everyone into worshipping its self-portrait. In 1855, Walt Whitman wrote, "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem," then set out to define this "greatest poem" to the rest of the world, a monumental achievement. In 2005, Harold Pinter said, "I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self-love. It's a winner."

The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road for his village as a typical example.

These aborted boat people looked at me with scorn when I told them there are plenty of poor Americans, with many in such despair they drug themselves to death, and life in the US is often a very lonely experience, even for the native-born, with roots going back generations. I was besmirching these naïfs' religion.

A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators, bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old alone.

A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there."

She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks.

Most people in Ea Kly have never even seen an American. In the next town, Krong Buk, there's a white resident, the only one in a 30 mile radius. Most of his neighbors know him as simply ông Tây, Mr. Westerner, though some do call by his first name, Peter.

A man said to Peter, "Merci, madame," the only Western phrase he knew.

Most have no idea that Peter is actually Swiss , and not American, but he's rich enough, by local standards, so he's more or less an American.

White people are rich, live in fabulous countries, travel all over and can suddenly show up even in Krong Buk to buy a nice piece of land by the lake, build an elegant house, with a guest bungalow next to it. Whereas the locals only fish in this lake , the white man swims daily, for he knows how to enjoy life.

The apex of whiteness, though, is the United States of America, a country that didn't just drop seven million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as 20 million gallons of herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, but sent twelve tall, clean cut and good intentioned white men to the moon, a transcendental feat that's still unequaled after half a century, and it's a safe bet that neither the Russians, Chinese nor anyone else will be able to accomplish this for a while, maybe ever. Of course, Americans can return to the moon tomorrow if they want to, but they're already looking way beyond it.

As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars, but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one.

[Apr 13, 2019] China, Russia Spread Disorder And Corruption In Latin America Pompeo

Trump administration still is playing old color revolution game: accusing somebody of corruption is the best way to endure the regime change.
Unfortunately for them the game is well known now, and as such is less effective.
It might succeed this time though, as Venezuela is their backyard, so to speak. But after Libya there will be a fight and it it will cost the USA. .
Looks like they are now trying to bribe China.
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo and Piñera also generally discussed the U.S.-China trade war and Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative, with Pompeo suggesting he was optimistic about solving the tariff war with China. But the focus remained finding a US-desired outcome to the Venezuela crisis. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Speaking Friday in Chile upon the start of his three-day South American tour, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called out China and Russia for spreading "disorder" in Latin America through failing investment projects that only fuel corruption and undermine democracy , especially in places like Venezuela.

According to Bloomberg , Pompeo specifically listed a failing dam project in Ecuador, police advisory programs in Nicaragua, and Chinese loans to the Maduro government, which goes further back to Chavez.

Pompeo asserted Chinese loans in Latin America "often injects corrosive capital into the economic bloodstream, giving life to corruption, and eroding good governance." Both Beijing and Moscow have ultimately spread their economic tentacles into the region to "spread disorder," he added.

In what appears an effort to sustain momentum toward pressuring regime change in Caracas, America's highest diplomat met Chilean President Sebastian Pinera earlier Friday, and will hit Paraguay, Peru next, and finally on Sunday will travel to a Colombian town on the border with Venezuela.

Pompeo and Piñera also generally discussed the U.S.-China trade war and Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative, with Pompeo suggesting he was optimistic about solving the tariff war with China. But the focus remained finding a US-desired outcome to the Venezuela crisis.

According to Bloomberg :

As part of the broader pressure campaign on Maduro, Pompeo said the U.S. has revoked visas for 718 people and sanctioned over 150 individuals and entities. On Friday, the U.S. sanctioned four companies it says transport much of the 50,000 barrels of oil that Venezuela provides to Cuba each day.

[Apr 13, 2019] Pompeo repeats Gene Sharp recipes: China, Russia Spread Disorder And Corruption In Latin America

That happened often when a second rate provincial lawyer became the Secretary of State. At least Kerry knows French. Pompeo knows absolution nothing and is capable only of repeating old cliché.
Today's special word is: Projection
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!. ..."
"... Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

idontcare , 2 minutes ago link

Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!.

I luv my country, but I hate my government.

beemasters

This must have been the most transparently crooked administration ever in the US history! Ain't that the pot calling the kettle black!

2willies

Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture.

Idaho potato head

At some point even the most deluded sheep has got to realize he is being lied to. Or is it just as in the Matrix, there is an age limit as to when a mind can be awoken.

After reading CYMS1 below I retract that question.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet

Mark Twain

[Apr 13, 2019] Something about foreign travel

From comments...
Notable quotes:
"... If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort.

Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead?

So true.

If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day.

[Apr 13, 2019] Russiagate in three minutes

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website April 12, 2019 at 2:40 am GMT

Totally Hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/embed/alt5kD7ei1I

[Apr 13, 2019] Trump and Assange

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

neutral , says: April 11, 2019 at 11:37 am GMT

This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the world, invade the world. On top of that mass censorship being unleashed under Trump, how can anyone still be conned into supporting him.
John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan , says: April 11, 2019 at 12:45 pm GMT
@reiner Tor

This is why Anglo-Saxon propaganda is so very effective. They have freedom of speech, see? Though of course saying politically incorrect things might socially kill you, so it's understood you won't do that. You will say PC (including anti-Russian, etc.) platitudes always. So people will not even notice PC propaganda, like fish don't notice they're wet. And when trying to convince a normie, you have to break a very long, almost infinite chain of assumptions, which you won't know how to do.

Take a look at the career of Charles Austin Beard, for example.

He was one of the single most highly-regarded historians in America; his contributions to the field were well-known and massively important. But even he could not break through the pillars of propaganda when he published his book about the folly of Franklin Roosevelt's foreign policy. The "court historians" like Samuel Eliot Morison and Schlesinger, et al, blackballed his work and dismissed it with the most flippant arrogance and lack of care for detail. The major newspapers and periodicals followed suit. Overnight he became all but a pariah. Only a few regional newspapers were willing to treat his work with serious care. To his credit, Beard had anticipated this reaction, but published his works anyway.

After World War 1, revisionism became par for the course in America – the vast majority of historians, journalists, together with the public as a whole, came to agree that America's entry into that conflict had been a selfish mistake. But during and after World War Two, what you call "Anglo-Saxon propaganda" tightened up to a remarkably successful degree, and to this day the pro-interventionist myth of the "great crusade" is all but unimpeachable among the masses. In fact, the anti-revisionists, the "court historians," even managed to defeat the old inter-war consensus about World War One, so that even it is now regarded as an idealistic crusade for democracy! Very remarkable stuff, though sad!

Anonymous [151] Disclaimer , says: April 11, 2019 at 3:54 pm GMT
I would probably do the same thing in Putin's situation. At a very basic level you simply cannot trust people like Assange. Giving refuge to a spy is one thing; you're not going to let him near any state secrets so it's not like he could betray you even if he wanted to (and it's easy to keep an eye on him). For somebody like Assange there's the constant threat that he could turn against you: acquire damaging information and use it as leverage, or simply release it for the sake of his own ego or murky ideals. Too much potential for embarrassment. Snowden was closer in spirit to a spy imo; Assange is more like bin Laden or a mafia boss, the head of a shadowy international organization with significant reach and resources.

It's sort of like the French Foreign Legion: they take a dim view of British and American recruits and generally won't let them join unless they speak French or have prior military experience. The reason is psychological unsuitability: no sensible British or American person interested in a military career would volunteer to be a mercenary for a foreign country over serving in his own country's well-funded armed forces. Romantics and escapists are inherently flaky and unreliable people. That's also why Brazilians are regarded as the best Legion soldiers: they just do it to get EU citizenship

Dmitry , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

that country's national interest.

Ecuador rented a house opposite their main offices in Knightsbridge, and had three agents in the house to permanently monitor Assange on cameras (for a cost of $1 million a year).

So they might be more intelligent than we think?

At the same time, Ecuador's politicians had problems justifying the costs of this to their media.

Perhaps it seems more like this was perceived by Ecuador, as an intelligence operation, to monitor Assange, and get intelligence information they could would use as leverage with the Americans.

Today, the Ecuadorian interior minister is suddenly boasting about how they monitored and have knowledge about two hackers who worked with Assange.

The Alarmist , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:24 pm GMT
@reiner Tor But Trump did say "I love WikiLeaks" during the campaign.
The Alarmist , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@reiner Tor Scotland yard tried to play down their own costs of hanging outside the Ecuadorian embassy, which in 2015 was already estimated to be well over £10m over the prior three years, by saying that a lot of that cost was money they would have spent on policing anyway: Tell that to the rapidly increasing numbers of families of murder victims in the Capital. Oops, careful about saying that in the UK, as the police there will pick you up for a thought-crime.
Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 5:29 pm GMT
Trump is scum:
Endgame Napoleon , says: April 11, 2019 at 5:46 pm GMT
Elites around the globe protect each other more than they protect the interests of non-elites in their own nations and any who side with non-elites in any non-trivial way, so it makes sense that Latin American elites side with US elites who favor the mass immigration that has driven down wages for 40 years and the mass exportation of US jobs to Latin American since it 1) boosts the profits of American elites and 2) relieves pressure on Latin American elites.
Matra , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
Ecuador seemed to get fed up with Assange – cutting him off from the world, badmouthing him in MSM, etc – early 2018 when he was mostly tweeting about Catalonia. Spain is supposedly Ecuador's closest partner in Europe. The timing could've been coincidental but probably not.
neutral , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:18 pm GMT
@Cagey Beast Trump was always scum, I am endlessly amazed how it took so long for some people to see what he was.
Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:20 pm GMT
@neutral He was always scum but he was still the better choice than Hillary Clinton. He may still be better than his opponent in 2020. That's how bad things are at the centre of the American empire.

Trump had the potential to be better than he is now but Washington has pushed his back against the wall and his shitty character has thus shown itself in full. He could have been a better President under different circumstances; even with these same character flaws.

Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:45 pm GMT
@neutral Trump was and still is the chaos candidate. When a better option than sabotage presents itself, then Trump will become the second best choice.

Many, if not most, people knew he was the sabotage candidate when they supported him. Hillary was understood to be worse because she'd maintain and even strengthen a bad system while Trump would bugger it up.

reiner Tor , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:58 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson The Deep State might already be beyond repair. So perhaps, come the Revolution, new, revolutionary state organs will need to be set up in a clean break with the obscurantist blank slatist regime. The state secrets of these new, revolutionary organs should be protected by any means necessary. But then we'll have free countries for ourselves.

Until then, we don't need to protect the secrets of the oppressive obscurantist regime.

g2k , says: April 11, 2019 at 7:24 pm GMT
Re:Cagey Beast

Disagree here, he's energised the left to a degree that wouldn't have happened had he not been elected and his policies are now no different to what Clinton's would have been. In American politics, what you say appears to matter much more than what you do, so we've now got the perfect storm of someone who talks like a right wing populist, and the resulting backlash, but nothing to show for it. I remember ak mentioning that the only saving grace of his administration being that it had alienated allies, but even that hasnt materialised. The guy is a conman and a sellout, but he's very clearly noticed the fact that European governments will unquestionably obey the US, so it's pointless to treat them with any respect whatsoever: THATs the one and only positive thing I can say about him. Still not looking forward to his successor.

Dmitry , says: April 11, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT
@The Alarmist Trump said he liked Wikileaks at that time, because they released some embarrassing emails about Hilary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.

If they released embarrassing emails about Trump, he would have said the opposite.

Trump will not have any specific principles that would make him support asylum for leakers, or generalized protection for dissidents, unless it might specifically be explained that it would help him in some way (and unless there are emails to leak about his opponent in 2020, how will it help him?).

... ... ...

Anon [137] Disclaimer , says: April 11, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
@reiner Tor But Trump would say anything that would get him elected, and he would do many of these things. But, as plutocrat surrounded by plutocrats, he'll never open the market for housing (allow easier re-zoning), or transportation (dismantle the dealership racket), or hospitals / doctors. Yeah, apparently he lacks the levers to reduce housing costs, but he can always fix, or promise to fix, something about Assange, or about Christian-Obamacare conflicts – despite them being equally remote from his mandate. Watch the idiotic boomers drooling all over unz.com about Trump's "efforts" to fix immigration.

These being the highest expenses of an American, I can see who is the idiot here.

Philip Owen , says: April 11, 2019 at 10:25 pm GMT
Hours after Assange was detained, the IMF approved a loan of $4.2 Bn for Ecuador.
Anatoly Karlin , says: Website April 11, 2019 at 10:36 pm GMT
@Philip Owen I seem to have LOL'd prematurely.

It seems to have happened exactly one month ago: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/03/11/ecuador-pr1972-imf-executive-board-approves-eff-for-ecuador

Cagey Beast , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:47 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Edit: She called Trump a coward but then deleted it:

Trump today: "I know nothing about Wikileaks." Trump three years ago: "Boy, I love reading these WikiLeaks." Liar, traitor, and coward.

Anatoly Karlin , says: Website April 12, 2019 at 12:57 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Lame. (Trump. And Alessandra deleting her Tweet).
Kratoklastes , says: April 12, 2019 at 3:12 am GMT
@simple_pseudonymic_handle The most obvious parallel was the UK's refusal to extradite Gary McKinnon to the US.

McKinnon gained access to 97 US military and NASA networks between early 2001 and 2002. he was also very very shit at covering his tracks.

The US sought extradition; McKinnon's lawyers challenged it on a bunch of grounds; McKinnon won.

Part of the range of stuff that got him off was the refusal of the US to make guarantees that he would not be housed in a SuperMax and that he would not be placed in solitary confinement, That, plus McKinnon's "Asperger's" (diagnosed after he was arrested), was enough for the system to tell the US government to pound sand.

Kratoklastes , says: April 12, 2019 at 3:36 am GMT
I as among the people who warned JA not to go to the UK when he was leaving Sweden. (I've known the guy as a nodding acquaintance since the 1980s and WANK; I'm in he & Suelette's book, under a different pseudonym).

He was warned against one of the classic blunders.

The first two classic blunders are known to all –
never start a land war in Asia , and
never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line .

The third is less well-known:

③ when you've been honeypotted, DO NOT SEEK REFUGE ON A FUCKING ISLAND .

When he ignored us, he was dropped from several DMSes.

For a very smart bloke, his judgement was always suspect: he allowed a fucking nappy like Dumb Shitberg (Domscheit-Berg) inside his circle of confidants.

Baxter , says: April 12, 2019 at 4:17 am GMT
This whole damn country is a pile of lies. I don't know how you guys keep your sanity.
I think America may crack in the next ten years.
I live in a "minority-majority" area. It is all bullshit.
Hey, let's take all the worlds nations, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, lifestyles, sexual orientations, etc and stick them in one place!
On top of this we have a government that doesn't listen, ruled by special interest group.
My god, how long America?
I can't stand this place anymore.
It's going to be very interesting to see the next 10 years. The country is cracking up.
For my part, I'm learning a foreign language right now, it will come in handy when I have enough money to bail.
Gentleman, there is nothing here worth left of preserving, only rot.
Realist , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:52 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Trump said he loved Wikileaks but Trumped is such a lying, corrupt asshole how can you believe him?
Quintus Sertorius , says: April 12, 2019 at 9:24 am GMT
@Grahamsno(G64) the USA is the new USSR.
Germanicus , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:03 am GMT
I miss a consideration, that wikileaks could be a Mossad/Unit8200 operation.
If I look at the wikileak's site, menu "partners", all is clear to me, "Der Spiegel" and truth are mutually exclusive.
Wikileaks "revealed" an EU plan to use military against the poor human traffickers and Israeli NGOs who bring in these Africans and "refugees". Fascinating, they have once in their evil life a good plan in Brussels, and wikileaks shoots against it.

I think the question for Russian asylum is the same question why Russia did not spell the beans on 911.

Realist , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:10 am GMT
Assange is a hero. He exposed the corrupt, lying government we have so this is another dark episode in American history.
Felix Keverich , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:21 am GMT
@neutral Only low-IQ people still support Trump at this point. Those wouldn't even know who Assange is.
annamaria , says: April 12, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
@Meimou The leader of progressives, the dual-loyalty opportunist and CIA stooge Schumer:

Chuck Schumer
@SenSchumer
Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.

Schumer is on for Amelec. Happy Pesach!

nsa , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
@Hyperborean Trumpstein and his sleazy family keep delivering for the vile jooies and the JudenPresse, JudenTV, and JudenNet will make sure he gets reelected especially if he attacks Iran. Where is Titus now that we need him?

[Apr 13, 2019] How about a paedophile UK Prime Minister never investigated ?

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Iris , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT

@The Alarmist

Not to mention more than a few paedo-grooming ring members who are still awaiting deportation

How convenient these immigrants are when a good smokescreen is needed.
And how about a paedophile UK Prime Minister never investigated ?

"Sir Edward Heath WAS a paedophile, says police chief: Astonishing claim is made that the former PM is guilty of vile crimes 'covered up by the Establishment'"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4238188/Sir-Edward-Heath-paedophile-says-police-chief.html

[Apr 13, 2019] Seriously. In these past 8 years, I've met so many wealthy, well educated, amazing [Russian] people who have to jump through so many hoops and sacrifice so much for the mere chance of a USA tourist visa. If you only knew

Originally from: Escape from America Dedovsk, Russia, by Linh Dinh
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

I think most people, (especially Russians), can relate to this sentiment. The average Ruski is incredibly hard on their own country. But it's like how you can make fun of your siblings, but when someone else does you knock their teeth in. I'd like to say I always respected this, but it's not true. I was more brazen in my earlier days of travel, and hypocritically complained about Japan with the very Muslim I referred to earlier. It's not just me, though. Go on any expat forum, and it's full of gripes.

The first thing ESL teachers talk about when they meet is how much they miss peanut butter or how they hate the pollution or whatever. And yet, they don't go home. The same is true of Mexican immigrants in America and Africans in Europe, if you ever take the time to chat with them. (Which is part of what made me more rightwing and nationalist.) The vast majority who don't go home are economic migrants. Economic in terms of balancing the supply & demand of money, or balancing sexual market value.

... ... ...

What is some advice you have for Americans who also want to get out?

YOU ARE INCREDIBLY LUCKY!!!

It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship. You can be in tons of debt, have zero dollars in the bank, and several misdemeanors, and you'll still get an automatic 90 day visa on arrival. Even with a one way plane ticket. This is unheard of and will likely not be the case in the near future if current demographic trends continue. So seize the day!

Seriously. In these past 8 years, I've met so many wealthy, well educated, amazing [Russian] people who have to jump through so many hoops and sacrifice so much for the mere chance of a USA tourist visa. If you only knew

... ... ...

Or "life happens" and you'll need to pay for the broken water heater or flat tire. So just run away while you still can. The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort. Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead? In my experience, the most expensive part of travel is the plane ticket. So be smart and just get a one way ticket and find a job once you get there.


Biff , says: March 11, 2019 at 3:32 am GMT

have peace of mind knowing the American Embassy will take care of your spoiled ass.

Pfft. What an idiot! The State Dept employees at my local embassy wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire – mostly because they would spend half the day researching what the proper protocol is, and if wasn't in the book(which is most often the case) their un-thinking ass wouldn't know whether to shit or wind their watch.

If you needed a big headed egotistical asshole for whatever reason you'd be in the right place.

The Alarmist , says: March 11, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMT
One of the more endearing compliments I ever received was from an old Russian girlfriend, who told her friends, "He's one of the good ones he has a Russian soul." She and her friends were just as described above, generous to a fault despite what was an obvious wealth gap.

But the funniest thing she ever did was to use her bare hand to kill a cock-roach that had dared to cross our table at a restaurant.

Should have married that girl. Then again, I might have dodged the Babooshka bomb. Interestingly enough, she had no desire to ever go to the US, so that was not a part of the calculus.

Have some sympathy for our poor consular officers abroad they spend far too much time face to face with the wretched refuse of the world trying to scam their way into the US.

Digital Samizdat , says: March 11, 2019 at 12:50 pm GMT

The thing is, I don't want a "benevolent dictatorship" like Singapore or Russia. I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.

Pick a number: everybody wants to "live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended," probably even the Founding Fathers themselves did. But is seems that all our governments just end up being dictatorships sooner or later anyway; so that being the case, I would prefer a sane dictatorship (like Russia or Singapore) to an insane one, which is what we Americans have at the moment.

The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort. Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead?

So true.

If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day.

LOL!!!

[Apr 13, 2019] America as a Myth of good life is a powerful tool of color revolutions

Highly recommended!
This is a pretty accurate description of "Myth about the USA" which is very common in xUSSR area too.
Notable quotes:
"... The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road for his village as a typical example. ..."
"... A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators, bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old alone. ..."
"... A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there." ..."
"... She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks. ..."
"... As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars, but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Originally from: America as Religion, by Linh Dinh - The Unz Review by Linh Dinh

America's most enduring export has been its image. Self-infatuated, it seduces everyone into worshipping its self-portrait. In 1855, Walt Whitman wrote, "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem," then set out to define this "greatest poem" to the rest of the world, a monumental achievement. In 2005, Harold Pinter said, "I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self-love. It's a winner."

The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road for his village as a typical example.

These aborted boat people looked at me with scorn when I told them there are plenty of poor Americans, with many in such despair they drug themselves to death, and life in the US is often a very lonely experience, even for the native-born, with roots going back generations. I was besmirching these naïfs' religion.

A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators, bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old alone.

A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there."

She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks.

Most people in Ea Kly have never even seen an American. In the next town, Krong Buk, there's a white resident, the only one in a 30 mile radius. Most of his neighbors know him as simply ông Tây, Mr. Westerner, though some do call by his first name, Peter.

A man said to Peter, "Merci, madame," the only Western phrase he knew.

Most have no idea that Peter is actually Swiss , and not American, but he's rich enough, by local standards, so he's more or less an American.

White people are rich, live in fabulous countries, travel all over and can suddenly show up even in Krong Buk to buy a nice piece of land by the lake, build an elegant house, with a guest bungalow next to it. Whereas the locals only fish in this lake , the white man swims daily, for he knows how to enjoy life.

The apex of whiteness, though, is the United States of America, a country that didn't just drop seven million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as 20 million gallons of herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, but sent twelve tall, clean cut and good intentioned white men to the moon, a transcendental feat that's still unequaled after half a century, and it's a safe bet that neither the Russians, Chinese nor anyone else will be able to accomplish this for a while, maybe ever. Of course, Americans can return to the moon tomorrow if they want to, but they're already looking way beyond it.

As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars, but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one.

[Apr 13, 2019] A reconciliation and an alliance between Europe and Russia would challenge the supremacy of the United States

Apr 13, 2019 | www.atlantico.fr

The United States are working hard to identify the perpetrators of the attack against the plane of the Malaysian Airlines and were very quick to point the finger at pro-Russian rebels.

Atlantico: The United States put a lot of efforts for blaming those who they consider to be the perpetrators of the attack against the plane of the Malaysian Airlines and were very quick to point the finger at pro-Russian. What interest do they have to point finger at Russia?

Jean-Bernard Pinatel: Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, policy makers and American politicians perceived a major threat:

that a reconciliation and an alliance between Europe and Russia would challenge the supremacy of the United States, which is allowing them with impunity to interfere in the internal affairs of any country, or invade them, and intepret international law in their private interests as most recently demonstrated the case of the BNP bank.

To understand this undeniable reality requires that we consider a historical context of those events.

In 1997, former National Security Adviser of the United States, Zbigniew Brzezinski, published under the title "The Grand Chessboard" a book adopting the two concepts, coined by Mackinder, Eurasia and "Heartland." He repeated his account his famous maxim: "who governs the Eastern Europe dominates the Heartland; who governs the Heartland dominates EuroAsia; which governs the EuroAsia dominates the World World. "

He makes the following conclution: "For America, the chief geopolitical issue is Eurasia." In another publication (1), he make this though more explicit: "If Ukraine fell, he wrote, it would greatly reduce the geopolitical options for Russia. Even without the Baltic states and Poland, Russia, which would retain control of Ukraine could always aspire with confidence to the direction of a Eurasian empire. But without Ukraine and its 52 million Slav brothers and sisters, any attempt to Moscow to rebuild the Eurasian empire threatens to lead Russia in lengthy disputes with non-Slavic national and difference religious groups. ".

Between 2002 and 2004, to implement this strategy, the United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help the pro-Western Ukrainian opposition to gain power. Millions of dollars also cooperation came from private institutes such as the Soros Foundation and European governments. This money does not go directly to political parties. He passed by including foundations and non-governmental organizations who advised the opposition, allowing it to be equipped with the technical resources and the latest advertising tools. An American cable from January 5, 2010, published on the WikiLeaks website (ref. 10WARSAW7) shows the involvement of Poland in color revolutions of former Eastern European countries. The role of NGOs is particularly exposed (2). The Wikileaks cables demonstrate continuous efforts and the continued commitment of the United States to extend their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and first of all in Ukraine.

Ukraine is undergoing a civil war. Yet nobody in the West denounced the ardor with which the Ukrainian government is trying to subdue the separatists. What is the real interest of Americans to ignore this reality and support the Ukrainian government? What did they gain?

The Ukrainian state is a construction of Stalin and exists independently only since 1991, after the breakup of the Soviet bloc. He previously existed between 1917 and 1921 between the fall of Tsarism in 1917 and the victory of the Bolsheviks that dismambered this new state into 4 parts. Ex-Russian part of Ukraine, with Kiev as its capital, the birthplace of civilization and Russian culture was integrated with the USSR while the former Austrian part, with Lviv's as the local capital was absorbed by the Poland.

Little Ukraine "Transcarpathia" voted for unification with Czechoslovakia and in Bukovina Ukrainian minority resigned himself to unification with Romania.

But Ukraine does not mean a nation. Ukrainians have no common history. Quite the contrary. During the second world war, when in the summer of 1941, Ukraine was invaded by the armies of the Reich, the Germans were received as liberators by the Western part of Ukraine. In contrast in the Easten Ukraine, they met strong resistance from the local population which continued until 1944

In retaliation, the Germans track down supporters and burned hundreds of villages. In April 1943, an SS division Galicia is made from Ukrainian volunteers whose descendants formed the stromtroops of the EuroMaidan. This SS division was also used by the Germans in Slovakia to suppress the Slovak national movement. But Ukrainian and American pro-Western did everything at the end of the war, to throw a veil over the atrocities committed by this division and retain only the anti-Soviet struggle. However, historians estimate more than 220,000 Ukrainians enlisted alongside the German forces during the Second World War to fight the Soviet regime.

This history helps explain why civil war is possible and why the part of Ukrainian forces consisting of troops from the West can use tanks and planes against separatists from the East.

Ukrainian President with the complicity of silence of the majority of politicians and Western media launched a war against part of the population of the country with the same cruelty that is attibuted to Syrian dictator. In addition, the Ukrainian armed forces are advised by American special forces and mercenaries.

The USA and Obama was [rpovoke Russia into invation of Ukraine in order to revive the cold war between the West and the East. Putin has understood the trap "Nobel Peace Winner" Obama created for him. First he advised the Ukrainian separatists not to hold the referendum; then he did not recognize its result and showed a moderation which surprised all independent observers while tanks and planes indiscrimnatly attack a Russian-speaking population.

How Ukraine can prevent the creation of a Europe-Russia alliance? Why the United States so actively try to prevent it?

The Americans continued to put pressure on Europe in order to integrate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which would constitute an unacceptable provocation to Russia.

Fortunately, European leaders have not bent to the will of Washington, which in this case acts solely in its own interests. Similarly, if Putin gave in to pressure from ultra-nationalist and openly intervened in Ukraine, the United States would achieved their strategic goal and the Cold War in Europe would be restarted damaging our fundamental interests.

Why Europe acts as vassal of the USA? Does it really interested to follow the American strategy?

Many European leaders got their education in the United States. They are members of American "Think-Tanks" or "transatlantic foundations" such as the "American Foundation" which largely finance their benefits and travel. The Atlanticism is certainly manufactured not only by the awareness that we share the same democratic values ​​with the American people but also by the multitude of personal interests of many European leaders whose standard of living depends on their submission to the will of the USA.

Nevertheless, more and more Europeans are beginning to tell the difference between the American state which is, in fact, run by lobbies, the most important of which is the military-industrial lobby and the American nation whose values ​​and economic and cultural dynamism possess an undeniable attractiveness and remains for young European wonderful school.

Angela Merkel and the Germans are at the forefront of this awareness because they have not accepted the permanent industrial espionage which the NSA use againt this country. Furthermore, the revelation of the laptop plays Angela Merkel strongly shocked the country. Spiegel of November 3, 2013 claiming that now even political asylum for Edward Snowden in on the agenda. In the article "Asil Für Snowden" Europe's biggest daily published extensive excerpts of his revelations.

On 10 July 2014, the German government announced the expulsion of the head of the American secret services in Germany, as part of a spy case against German officials who provided intelligence information to Washington, a move unprecedented among allies within NATO. "The representative of the United States Intelligence Agency at the Embassy of the United States of America was asked to leave Germany," said the government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement. The expulsion comes "in response to a lack of cooperation that was long in efforts to clarify" the activity of American intelligence agents in Germany, told a German MEP, Clemens Binninger, President of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on intelligence, which met in Berlin on Thursday.

In France, the former Prime Minister Michel Rocard , a sociologist Edgar Morin , former ministers Luc Ferry and Jack Lang and former European MP Daniel Cohn- Bendit, launched a petition calling on President Francois Hollande , his Prime Minister Manuel Valse and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius "promptly grant Edward Snowden political asylum .

Unfortunately for France and Europe , Francois Hollande , as part of the French intelligentsia , still admires Barack Obama , and Laurent Fabius for a long time received funds from U.S. foundations . Neither of them realize that their policies pose a threat to the strategic interests of France and Europe.

Jean-Bernard Pinatel , General, recognized expert on economic and geopolitical matters.

Original publication : La véritable raison pour laquelle les États-Unis se préoccupent tant de l'Ukraine tout en se foutant éperdument des Ukrainiens

[Apr 13, 2019] The appearance of Israeli weapons in the hands of avowed neo-Nazis

Notable quotes:
"... The ziocon-occupied US Congress "is Arming Neo-Nazis in Ukraine" https://youtu.be/x5Uf7aooxvE ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: March 15, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT

@Agent76

On the topics of holo-biz and Russophobia: "the appearance of Israeli weapons in the hands of avowed neo-Nazis"

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727

The ziocon-occupied US Congress "is Arming Neo-Nazis in Ukraine" https://youtu.be/x5Uf7aooxvE

Agent76 , says: March 15, 2019 at 9:05 pm GMT
Mar 4, 2019

Excellent Short Film About the Separatist Fighters of Donbas by Russell 'Texas' Bentley (Video)

A monastery near the Donetsk airport was strategically important to hold for the fighter, so a bitter shooting battle erupted over it, taking many lives on both sides. The monastery was badly damaged in the process.

https://russia-insider.com/en/excellent-short-film-about-separatist-fighters-donbas-russell-texas-bentley-video/ri26262

Sep 9, 2016 US funded Ukrainian army is terrorizing civilians, 2016

Russell Bentley is a former US marine, that now fights for the Donbass, Eastern Ukraine, against the US-funded Ukrainian army.

[Apr 13, 2019] Pompeo repeats Gene Sharp recipes: China, Russia Spread Disorder And Corruption In Latin America

That happened often when a second rate provincial lawyer became the Secretary of State. At least Kerry knows French. Pompeo knows absolution nothing and is capable only of repeating old cliché.
Today's special word is: Projection
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!. ..."
"... Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

idontcare , 2 minutes ago link

Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!.

I luv my country, but I hate my government.

beemasters

This must have been the most transparently crooked administration ever in the US history! Ain't that the pot calling the kettle black!

2willies

Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture.

Idaho potato head

At some point even the most deluded sheep has got to realize he is being lied to. Or is it just as in the Matrix, there is an age limit as to when a mind can be awoken.

After reading CYMS1 below I retract that question.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet

Mark Twain

[Apr 13, 2019] Something about foreign travel

From comments...
Notable quotes:
"... If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort.

Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead?

So true.

If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day.

[Apr 13, 2019] The presstituting crowd of stenographers (MSM) and the zionized X-tian war profiteers have made everything in their power (inadvertently) to ensure that Assange is and will be a towering figure of our time

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 13, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT

"Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those books "

-- The presstituting crowd of stenographers (MSM) and the zionized X-tian war profiteers have made everything in their power (inadvertently) to ensure that Assange is and will be a towering figure of our time.

Even in distress, Assange has been fighting for truth and dignity; the ongoing show of lawlessness exposes the rot. The moral and creative midgets constituting the core of MSM and the satanic deciders are upset. Good!

The idiotic Senior District "Judge" Emma Arbuthnot (a wife and beneficiary of a mega-war profiteer Lord Arbuthnot -- Arbuthnot served as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee from 2005 to 2014) and the no less idiotic District "Judge" Michael Snow have entered the history books as well. As scoundrels: http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1555064882.html

Snow does his best to bring the Judiciary into disrepute by playing to the gallery. He comments on the extradition in the same vein in a totally unprofessional manner. He is of course in a long line of disreputable members of the judiciary Snow's place in history is now secured – he chose to abuse the defendant rather than perform his role which was really quite straightforward. He is the narcissist and guilty of self interest not Julian Assange.

Daniel Rich , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
@annamaria Once one realizes 'justice' is a monetized commodity, lawlessness becomes a viable [and justifiable] option.

[Apr 13, 2019] Russia Warns New World Order Being Formed

Notable quotes:
"... "The Western liberal model of development, which particularly stipulates a partial loss of national sovereignty – this is what our Western colleagues aimed at when they invented what they called globalization – is losing its attractiveness and is no more viewed as a perfect model for all. Moreover, many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov said. ..."
"... "The US and its allies are trying to impose their approaches on others," Lavrov noted. ..."
"... "They are guided by a clear desire to preserve their centuries-long dominance in global affairs although from the economic and financial standpoint, the US – alone or with its allies – can no longer resolve all global economic and political issues," he said. ..."
"... "In order to preserve their dominance and recover their indisputable authority, they use blackmail and pressure. They don't hesitate to blatantly interfere in the affairs of sovereign states." ..."
"... Agree with the assessment other than the claim the US has had centuries long global dominance, or even influence. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared today that the Western, liberal model of society is dying, and a new world order is taking its place.

Lavrov made the comments at his annual meeting with students and professors at the Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy, reported Russian state news agency TASS.

"The Western liberal model of development, which particularly stipulates a partial loss of national sovereignty – this is what our Western colleagues aimed at when they invented what they called globalization – is losing its attractiveness and is no more viewed as a perfect model for all. Moreover, many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov said.

According to him, global development is guided "by processes aimed at boosting multipolarity and what we call a polycentric world order."

"Clearly, multipolarity and the emergence of new centers of power in every way requires efforts to maintain global stability and search for a balance of interests and compromises, so diplomacy should play a leading role here," Lavrov went on to say.

"Particularly because there are a lot of issues that require generally acceptable solutions."

These include regional conflicts, international terrorism, food security and environmental protection. This is why we believe that only diplomacy can help make agreements and reach sustainable decisions that will be accepted by all.

"The US and its allies are trying to impose their approaches on others," Lavrov noted.

"They are guided by a clear desire to preserve their centuries-long dominance in global affairs although from the economic and financial standpoint, the US – alone or with its allies – can no longer resolve all global economic and political issues," he said.

"In order to preserve their dominance and recover their indisputable authority, they use blackmail and pressure. They don't hesitate to blatantly interfere in the affairs of sovereign states."

Perry Colace

When I was a kid, the Soviet Union was the enemy. Now Russia (with an economy, population, military and world influence the fraction of the United States) seems to be one of the few places in the world that makes any bit of sense and ACTUALLY cares a little bit about its culture and people.

Fluff The Cat

"The Western liberal model of development, which particularly stipulates a partial loss of national sovereignty – this is what our Western colleagues aimed at when they invented what they called globalization – is losing its attractiveness and is no more viewed as a perfect model for all.Moreover, many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov said.

A Judaic-Masonic world order is the end goal. It entails the complete loss of sovereignty for all Western nations and the slow genocide of white Christians via miscegnation and displacement by third-worlders.

lnardozi

I can't think of a man more American than Putin.

Sell the bases, come home, stop bothering others and trying to run world affairs.

Then we can spend a nice nice century or so rebuilding our infrastructure and trimming our out-of-control federal government.

The clue is right there in the name - the united STATES of America. A state is a sovereign country with its own laws - except for those powers enumerated in the Constitution which the federal government should have.

That's the whole point - competition in government. You don't like the state you're in - you're guaranteed the choice of 49 others, along with all your possessions.

notfeelinthebern

Agree with the assessment other than the claim the US has had centuries long global dominance, or even influence.

johnnycanuck

Western global dominance, US took over from the British Empire with the assistance of the banksters class. It's all there in the history books, you just need to spend time

consider me gone

As much as I hate to say it, this was Winston Churchill's idea. Even as the war was just starting, he was a major advocate for the West controlling the globe after WWII.

But I'll bet he had no idea that the West would abandon traditional Western values in the process. He wouldn't watch TV and predicted it would turn society into unthinking idiots. He nailed that one anyhow.

The Alliance

"...many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov said.

Skeptical?

I, for one, would show up early and highly motivated to march against, and to destroy, these treasonous, malevolent, collectivist Globalists.

The Globalists within the United States government are traitors--traitors, by definition. They have declared war on our republic.

CDN_Rebel

Russia works because they have a ruthless tyrant who happens to be incredibly competent. That same system with a weak ruler will collapse entirely in a matter of months. I like Putin, but he needs to groom an ironfisted successor pronto.

As for the chows - they need to print half a trillion a month to stay afloat and that's your model?

The west is only fucked because the sleeping masses refuse to acknowledge that Marxists have undermined our institutions... It would take only a few years to scrub these subversive ***** from our society if we had the balls to do it

johnnycanuck

yadda yadda yadda.. marxists, subversives, commies, all the catch phrases of ye old Joe McCarthy. Russia works because Russians have a history of enduring adversity. Unlike Americans.

Moribundus

It is eventually end of era of western imperialism, era that lasted 900 years. Game is over

[Apr 13, 2019] The danger of immersing in a foreign culture

Notable quotes:
"... A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and gangs. ..."
"... Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only 20 miles from the suburbs. ..."
"... Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites and hicks from the sticks. ..."
"... The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad. ..."
"... I have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home. ..."
"... I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years for selling a few grams of marijuana. ..."
"... I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness. ..."
"... Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology. ..."
"... If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai. ..."
"... The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks. ..."
"... Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery, harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality. It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take care of her kid, or the father. ..."
"... Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries, every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell drugs. They just remain users. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 1:38 am GMT

EMBASSY WILL TAKE CARE OF YOUR SPOILED ASS

.WRONG>>>>

I've seen loads of American men who blew their wad on hookers and booze at the Manila Embassy trying this.

You'll be on the street for about a month waiting for the papers to clear. Don't expect to be staying with the US Ambassador at his house while you're waiting either, you'll be on the street and in SEA or Eastern Europe (Which is cold as hell) and this is no fun.

The Embassy will make you call relatives in the US and determine that nobody will pay for your return flight.

You'll have to repay the US government for the cost of the ticket and your passport will be cancelled for two years as a punishment you won't even be able to fly to Puerto Rico.

MILITARY SPACE AVAILABLE

One American I knew in the Philippines was named Clinton Macbeth and he was a hardcore drunk and pothead who'd been stationed in the Philippines and figured he would just take military space available on a DC 10 or whatever.

The US GOVERNMENT has now cancelled this program and you cannot take military space available back to your own country.

The US Embassy will, eventually, cover the cost of your ticket back. But they make this a lonnnggg unpleasant process to prevent everyone who wants to be repatriated from simply coming into the Embassy and saying "send me home Business class".

Try sleeping for a week outside a US Embassy. Invariably the US Consular director will tell you "it will take some time for these papers to clear".

Believe me, you won't be flown back in 24 hours.

And the Marine Embassy Guards will then make sure you don't hang around. You'll be giving an appointment at the Embassy about a week after you report in. In the interim. the Marine Embassy Guards etc. will behave like bouncers to make sure you don't come back inside the Embassy.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 2:46 am GMT
STRANDED EXPAT SEA MODEL

Ken was an older American from NYC who married a Filipino woman of 23. He was an architect and he spent most of his life savings building a hotel for his wife with the intent of renting rooms to Japanese tourists-which would have set him up for life.

In the Philippines, all property belongs to the wife of the expat under law. He was kicked out by security guard after their marriage collapsed-which May/September marriages in the Philippines usually do.

He was 60 and his wife and her family simply threw him on the road-no passport, money in his pocket, clothes on his back. Ken did not even have ID to prove he was an American. The first night on the road, he was mugged by Filipino street kids and did not have a peso.

Finally, he managed to get his passport. His wife had his bank card and withdrew all his savings by then. A sympathetic American paid his way to Manila where he got his brother to send him a ticket.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 3:16 am GMT
@polaco POLACO

We are invariably male, urban and lower middle class.

A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and gangs.

For lower class whites, it is not so much dangerous as sordid in poor white exurbs or rural areas. I knew one white scrap dealer named Clayton whose son was a hopeless meth addict who beat the shit out of him in his house and robbed him. Opoid addicts in the nearby trailer park burglarized his house. Whiggers spray painted his house. He lived in a gated community in the Philippines with mostly merchant Chinese-Filipino families and was pretty glad to be away from white trash.

I've observed the following about American white expats, myself included.

1) We are generally male. I've never MET a permanent white expat female in Southeast Asia.

2) I've never met a Mexican of either gender or any black woman in Asia. And few in Europe or Dubai. The only Native American I ever met overseas was a female married to an English guy. I've never met a white American woman who was living permanently overseas.

3) The real white trash or Cholos or Hood Rats cannot live overseas. If you are on parole, probation, on welfare or a junkie you cannot get on a plane for 14 hours.

4) On the other hand I've never met a bona fide upper middle class American in Southeast Asia either. Most of the Americans I met were tradespeople-plumbers, mechanics, factory foreman, postal workers, commercial fisherman.

5) Americans under 35 are fairly rare in Asia.

Philippines is not very attractive to backpackers. You meet them in other parts of Asia, of course, but not there.

Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only 20 miles from the suburbs.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 4:26 am GMT
HOMELESS OVERSEAS : A WARNING

INDIA BUGGERY

One Brit in Goa I heard of had gotten Indian credit cards and got WAYYY overextended. He also had a medical bill he could not pay. They would not let him out of the country even though he had a return ticket.

When he was sleeping rough one night, some thirsty Indian men who were drunk simply rolled him over and pinned him and 9 of them serially sodomized him.

The Indian Tourist Police called the British Embassy and demanded they do something. So he was repatriated. But he will be wearing adult diapers for the rest of his life.

If you are a foreigner sleeping rough in India or Dubai, you might be raped by prowling queers. Even if you're the toughest MMA fighter if you are malnourished and exhausted from being on the street for two weeks and 9 thirsty sodomites jump you you are going to end up buggered.

PHILIPPINES

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 4:51 am GMT
@AaronB AARON B

I lived in Dubai and the Philippines.

Hands down I was MUCH safer than I had been as a white post-college entry-level Graphic Artist in Phoenix living in Tempe on the border of the Guadalupe barrio.

Born in Ann Arbor and raised in Warren, I've seen black crime.

Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites and hicks from the sticks.

America is not a police state because of the Founding Fathers, but because of Mestizos and Hood Rats and redneck tweakers who can only be contained by a constant police presence. Perhaps Singapore would have slightly more crime if it was not a dictatorship, but not like the US.

I moved to Dubai directly from Phoenix and believe me, riding the public transport there and living in modest-income housing was MUCH SAFER than Phoenix or Warren.

I've been in an expat for 20 years and was never again menaced by Mestizos or witnessed black crack dealers chimping out at a bus stop or was followed by a desperate redneck tweaker.

The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad.

Finally, I've worked overseas my entire life and I never had to worry about a pink slip by some HR female who is 23 and was blowing every Frat guy two years earlier because I said the word "fag".

Overseas, you can say what you want (Except about them or their government) and nobody cares. You don't even have to PRETEND that you are PC.

Truth , says: March 18, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT
@jeff stryker I have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home.

I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years for selling a few grams of marijuana.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 10:24 am GMT
@Truth TRUTH

Kuwaitis will forgive a home brewer making some beer for himself and his expat friends. But if you get caught selling hashish, you are screwed. And to be honest anyone who is dumb enough to sell hashish or smoke it in Kuwait is not intelligent enough to be overseas.

I've known some potheads in U.A.E. who refuted the statement that cannabis is not addictive. In a country where penalties include spending years in jail for a couple of joints, they STILL went out and scored pot.

They don't screw around with debt under Muslim law. If you cannot pay a phone or medical bill, you're stuck. It goes out as a warrant and you won't be able to leave the country through the airport.

You know TRUTH, being an expat is a learning curve. Some people just don't make it and do something INCREDIBLY STUPID like the kid in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS.

I want to add something. The Americans who do these things are mostly white hicks from the sticks who have no idea how to act overseas.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 3:17 pm GMT
@Truth THINGS YOU LEARN IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Che Guava , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Many good points, although it may be evil (I don't think so) the total block every block of the writing, it is bullshit, sorry, I have no conscience re. Moslems, I have had enough threats to my life from them, have had personal attacks on myself and loved ones, Tarrant was perfectly logical.

How many Muslims kill and terrorize how many others?

Far more.

jeff stryker , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:44 pm GMT
@Che Guava CHE

I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness.

Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology.

jeff stryker , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:40 pm GMT
@Che Guava DUBAI vs PHOENIX

In Dubai, I never was menaced by street criminals, which was a fairly common experience for me in both Phoenix and Warren, Michigan.

Mestizos in Phoenix had NO motive. They were not menacing or assaulting whites over drug deals or gang territory or even some vague religious reason. "Cholos" as these Mexicans were called, simply enjoyed assaulting or terrorizing middle-class whites for lack of anything better to do.

Whites will complain about the IQ of Mestizos or US ghetto blacks but it is a good thing they are not intelligent enough to be organized criminals like Russian or Italian mafias. If they were capable of building bombs like Muslim terrorists than they would be blowing up buildings over rival dealers selling crack on the street corner.

If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai.

Much is made of the drug laws in Arab countries and the film MIDNIGHT EXPRESS but try being followed around by redneck tweakers who are desperate to get more meth.

I'm not discounting terrorism. But America, and I cannot speak for other countries, will never face the threat of extinction from Muslims.

The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks.

Che Guava , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:55 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Asia always has nepotism, my experience, almost half life, it is less. Even the idea that 'Asia' is a term with any meaning, it does not.
Che Guava , says: March 19, 2019 at 6:19 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Asia always has nepotism, as has Europe, and Jews there, screw you if you don't want to

Even the idea that 'Asia' is a term is without any meaning, it does not have that automatically. The origin was Roman 'any east of us'.

In Japanese, there is a triple meaning.

Truly reflecting. But I am always to know, now, that most posters here now are Ziomorons, so, there is no point in saying anything,

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:43 am GMT
@polaco Albanians and Georgians are a 100% white.
BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:51 am GMT
@jeff stryker Hey Jeff, it's me again.

I also never got all the outrage coming from everyone in particular regarding the "draconian" laws regarding drug trafficking and drugs in general, in the Asian countries, particularly, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines,etc. People keep telling us that these are "victimless" crimes, and that these are non-violent crimes. We all know that is simply not the case.

Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery, harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality. It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take care of her kid, or the father.

It leads to domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and many other things. It makes me quite confused when they, the rabid liberals, try to downplay these things, and claim that these are "victimless" or "non-violent". Also, does the Italian Mafia still "exist"? Why would they, weren't they just the result of discrimination and the sorts and lack of opportunities? One would think that kind of stuff is all gone ..

Cheers

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:53 am GMT
@Che Guava

Tarrant was perfectly logical.

Would not say that at all

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:59 am GMT
@jeff stryker

The brotherhood of Islam does not apply to South Asians.

It certainly does not apply to the low level cleaners and all the deplorables at least. I would beg to disagree on this one. I am very close with many Arabs in that region and friends with others and as are other South Asians who are not working the menial jobs which I have mentioned. Class-ism is very much a thing, and it exists here.

If the Indian guy is a higher class guy, they'll treat you like a brother. This is coming from yours truly ;-) I feel like I would fit right in. I sneer at the peasants and all the deplorables, and we openly joke about them.

Pakistani workers guzzle perfume

This is certainly true, they bathe in that stuff. Ever visited Muscat?

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 4:40 am GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude BENGALI

Lets take Brampton. Italians used to completely run the prostitution, trucking, extortion, drugs etc. in Ontario in industrial towns like Brampton because Anglo Canadians were basically pleasant middle-class people.

Then came Sikhs, Tamils, Jamaicans. But especially Sikhs. Sikh separatists and Tamil Tigers were not afraid of some middle-aged portly Italian men like Tony Soprano scarfing down pizza at a strip joint.

By the end of the eighties, the Italians simply decided to move into white-collar fraud like "Pump and Dump" stock scams. It was not worth getting their asses shot off by crazy gun-toting Sikhs or Tamils who would tie someone to an anthill just to prove that nobody's life mattered to them but their own.

This is why Crips and Bloods and Mexican street gangs never got a foothold in Vancouver or Ontario. Sikhs and Tamils have a reputation for being bloodthirsty maniacs that even redoubted US gangs avoid.

The same occurred in the US, really.

As for drugs, anybody who has walked through East Vancouver once has seen the end-result of a decriminalization.

That is not to say that drugs will not be consumed in Muslim countries. I've known hashish smokers my entire time in Dubai and even chewed Khat once with a Yemeni taxi driver to see what it was about (It has the kick of three cans of Red Bull but lasts longer).

But pot smokers and Khat chewers in Dubai or U.A.E. won't get a gun and try to kill somebody to get more. For one thing, chronic hashish smokers have no energy and are spaced out. Crackheads in US cities or heroin addicts in Grandville will.

Meth addicts are not so much dangerous as horribly annoying. When I first moved to Phoenix I lived in low-income housing and one meth addict ex-convict simply followed me around pleading for money every time I walked out my front door. Like some kind of stray dog, he also tore through my garbage to get my returnables. When I moved out of the apartment to share a condo with some IT guys, he injured himself breaking into my apartment trying to sleep somewhere and my ex-landlord called me to tell me he had been injured by the window glass.

I was a hashish myself as a young man of course .Like all Goras who are employed in India, as soon as I had my paycheck I got the hell to Goa and got stoned. Every white employed in India will take their pay and go to Goa and buy hashish from some Kashmiri carpet shop.

Goan police know full well that 100% of the Westerners there are smoking pot. Goa is India's Amersterdam.

But in Dubai or other Muslim countries, the police simply don't allow crack houses or staggering half-mad meth addicts. You cannot "corner deal" in Dubai or Jakarta.

Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries, every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell drugs. They just remain users.

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 4:52 am GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude BENGALI

Like most demented cowards he was totally logical. He did not approach armed Muslim men and challenge them one-to-one.

He shot unarmed women and children.

This makes sense, because at the bottom of it, on average, white Christian men usually don't have the courage of most other fanatics to be willing to die trying to kill others who are capable of murdering them, like Tamil Tigers.

As a result, Anglo-Saxon terrorism has a sickeningly cowardly streak to it.

The Tamil extremist blows herself up to kill the Indian Prime Minister, for example.

But the white extremist like Tim McVeigh or Dylan the church bomber either sets a fire or like Brevik shoots unarmed civilians and then surrenders, lacking the courage to take his own life even though it is effectively over.

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 11:39 am GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude I worked in Muscat, Oman for several years and lived in Qurm.

The other 6 and half years of my life were spent in Dubai and I took frequent business trips to Kuwait.

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@jeff stryker You're not wrong about the Punjabis and Tamils. There many reports or claims years ago during the Sri Lankan Civil War of the Tamil Eelam separatists receiving funding from the Tamil gangs in the GTA( Greater Toronto Area).

The Khalistani movement in the Punjab has some modest support amongst the natives in India, however, it is well known that most of their support comes from the Punjabi(Sikh) diaspora. The NDP leader himself, a man by the name of Jagmeet Singh, is a proud Khalistani supporter, and he had not disavowed the terrorism espoused by these groups.

He is an open suppprter. And I want you to realize the same guy is the leader of the third largest, politically relevant part in Canada, which is the NDP. Guess his constituency it's Burnaby.

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude BENGALI

The positive side of this is that US black and Mexican gangs have never been able to get a significant foothold in Canada. Even re-doubted LA Crips and Bloods think that Canadian Sikh gangs in Surrey or Brampton are bloodthirsty maniacs.

Sikh separatism was never possible in India because New Delhi is located in Punjab and the province is also a border state with Pakistan. I've been there.

In my opinion, East Vancouver is what happens when drugs are decriminalized. Anybody who would like to see drugs legalized can visit Grandville and Hastings.

Potheads really are not a threat to the public; they are too sluggish and spaced out.

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 5:16 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Jeff

Thr idea of decriminalization is a bad one, as well as the idea ofbopen injection sites.

Toronto has a couple of these kind of areas if I am to remember correctly, and it's a mess. There have been needles everwhere, which increase the likelihood of infection, and people just don't care anymore. How does it look on the kids, who are shown adults openly injecting drugs? It's a mess. Quite literally as well on the ground.

It discourages businesses in the area, and it brings down the neighbourhoods surrounding it.

Has it solved our problems or Vancouver's? We both know the answer.

The areas that were clean and empty, around these spots have turned into literal drug hubs, and places where violence occurs frequently.

I do think Sikh seperatism was possible at one point, but the Sikh terrorists hiding in the Gurdwara was a turning point. That was put down brutally as I'm sure you remember, which lead to some destruction of that site. All hope was lost when the Sikh bodyguards killed her as well. But at one point, it was possible

Philip Owen , says: March 22, 2019 at 9:12 pm GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude I knew Burnaby in the '80's and early '90's. Decent working class area in transition I thought, although it looked like a place to find hashish even then. I am not really that good on Canada. Mostly Burnaby/Vancouver with a some time in the middle of Ottawa and by lake Erie; my cousin owned a small lakefront palace in Mississauga.
Che Guava , says: March 24, 2019 at 4:59 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Crap. if it was real, it was real. Moslems have a rape and violent assault party every day they can.

This N.Z. P.M? It is interesting how her face is that of a skull. If we knew her name, we may call her N.Z. P.M Skeletor.

Plato's Dream , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
@Anonymous "But by-in-large, if you look at 1958, and then look out your window today ..Jesus Christ, what the hell happened?"

Your generation came to power.

Plato's Dream , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Hell, East Vancouver was full of junkies even back in mid-90s, I assume before de-criminalization Drug deals done in broad light right on the corner of Hastings and Commercial But at the time Burnaby was almost exclusively white – that's where I lived for 2 years so I'd know Indians were all in surrey.
Plato's Dream , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:22 pm GMT
@Philip Owen I also lived in Burnaby in early 90s when I was enroled at sfu it was a decent if boring lower middle class suburb. The only seedy place was North Burnaby Inn on E. Hastings, the only place for miles to get a beer – where you could get an eyeful at the same time
jeff stryker , says: March 27, 2019 at 5:05 am GMT
@Plato's Dream PLATO

"Painville and Wastings"

Fiendish killers like Pickton and grotesque pimps like Paul Snider were committing crimes in the seventies and by the nineties the place had the highest AIDS rate in North America.

Most of the druggies are either Natives or from places back East like Ontario or Quebec.

The low-life drug dealers in Vancouver are usually internal migrants from California or Newfoundland who came to Vancouver to ply their trade because. When I lived in Ontario I knew a guy whose Dad had made a great deal of money operating a pawn shop; if you are a drug dealer or pawn shop owner you can get rich at the expense of the junkie populace even if you are a shaved monkey.

My experience in Canada as an American was that the Natives in Canada were worse off than they are in the States.

jeff stryker , says: March 27, 2019 at 5:45 am GMT
@Plato's Dream PLATO

I found Natives in Canada to be some of the most dangerous underclass people around. After living in Norther Ontario for two years I was shocked at how brazen their criminality was.

In regards to your gun laws, I had a female friend who accidentally offended some Natives and they brazenly walked over to her house to attack her on her property. She pulled a 22 repeater on them and saved her life (This was in Northern Ontario) but had to move from there afterwards.

Most Americans and perhaps even people from Southern Canada have no idea how dangerous Natives can be.

I don't know why Natives in the US are less of a threat on the street. Maybe because there are less of them.

Canadian aboriginals are also unintelligent. They might even be less intelligent than ahem, other underclasses.

Plato's Dream , says: April 1, 2019 at 9:25 am GMT
@jeff stryker I'm not actually Canadian, I was in Vancouver for 2 years while studying. Didn't have any dealings with the natives (no big loss based on what you say! )
Plato's Dream , says: April 1, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
@jeff stryker Well it says something about the place that the main spot to score some drugs was around the entrance to the main public library.
jeff stryker , says: April 1, 2019 at 1:16 pm GMT
@Plato's Dream I never went to a city with more open drug use or more aggressive homeless people than East Vancouver. Okay, its not Detroit and you won't be shot, but its a bad place.
Plato's Dream , says: April 3, 2019 at 8:17 am GMT
@Che Guava Well he probably did wonders for Campbell soup sales
Eric Novak , says: April 5, 2019 at 10:17 am GMT
@The Anti-Gnostic The entire American industrial workforce had to be retrained for new work from the 1970s onward, so really, a 28-year-old without a family should be able to train for a career well before he needs his first colonoscopy.

With personal anectodes for perspective, my wife went to med school at 35 and is now a radiologist at 52.

Perhaps you were a Ho Ho-eating degenerate at 28, but the rest of non-alcoholic, non-drug addicted, non-obese, non-mentally ill Homo sapiens seems to adjusts well to the demands of reality and to challenges unforeseen.

Too old for the trades? Really? Have you been to a gym lately-or ever?

[Apr 13, 2019] Due to americal excaptionalism the USA> is a deeply delusional society held together by a deeply delusional government

Notable quotes:
"... The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various "do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology. ..."
"... The slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England, but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges. ..."
"... I preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country. It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it. ..."
"... Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country ..."
"... Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors ..."
"... While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti" ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Baxter , says: March 13, 2019 at 3:30 am GMT

@songbird

"The idea of a nation where people from all over the world live is a political absurdity. If has no logical unifying basis "

Very well said. Indeed, the United States is not a country, rather it is a government.

And I despise that government.

Things are going to change swiftly after Trump is replaced. The 'coalition of the fringes' is real. It's game over for America. The people living in that country have been too distracted to notice.

America is a deeply delusion society held together by a deeply delusional government.

jacques sheete , says: March 15, 2019 at 10:50 am GMT

I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.

The dude has come a long way, but he's still a bit brainwashed. I should read, "as the f f supposedly intended."

The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various "do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology.

Jake , says: March 15, 2019 at 11:40 am GMT
"I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended."

That is not possible without the conditions that prevailed in the late 18th century, which featured rebellion against the British Empire and therefore against Elite WASP culture.

The slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England, but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges.

jacques sheete , says: March 15, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMT

ps: "It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship" – well, yes it can.

It certainly can, and often is. The mantra is believed due to brainwashing, and Barrett has provided a fine primer on the subject.

Curmudgeon , says: March 15, 2019 at 10:43 pm GMT
@Baxter A nation is different than a country. A country is geographical area with boundaries. A nation is the people within a geographical area who have lived together for a long time and have shared experiences. Nation from the French naître – to be born.

The US, like most other European based populations, was a nation. It has become a country.

Low Voltage , says: March 16, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
@Baxter

I preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country. It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it.

polaco , says: March 17, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@jeff stryker

Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country

Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors, except for areas that are adjacent to urban, Hispanic, or Black neighbourhoods, which they have abandoned and given up on decades ago following the anti American Civil Rights movement. Show me a place in America where garbage trucks don't come every week.

While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti"- http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/124947-russia_garbage/ or http://www.pravdareport.com/society/5701-recycling/ .

Americans in the US now total about 55% of the population: Wikipedia says: "197,285,202 (Non-Hispanic: 2017), 60.7% of the total U.S. population"- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American , however this number is flawed as they count various non-whites like Berbers, or Turkic people like Albanians, Turks, Kurds, Georgians, and Azerbaijanis as whites.

Then we have: "About 46 million Americans live in the nation's rural counties, 175 million in its suburbs and small metros"- http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ . Which seems to confirm that Americans (Whites) live in either suburban or rural areas.

[Apr 13, 2019] Trump Puts America Last by Daniel Larison

Money quote (from comments): This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.
Notable quotes:
"... As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials: ..."
"... After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. ..."
"... Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies ..."
"... There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors. ..."
"... Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him. ..."
"... Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support. ..."
"... I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?! ..."
"... Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. ..."
"... The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it. ..."
"... I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel. ..."
"... To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye. ..."
"... Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation. ..."
"... All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into. ..."
Mar 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials:

President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.

U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential announcement this week.

No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.

Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.

After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do.

Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.

There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.

Whatever short-term benefit Israel gains from it, the U.S. gains nothing and stands to lose quite a bit in terms of our international standing.

There has been no consideration of the costs and problems this will create for the U.S. in its relations with other regional states and beyond because Trump couldn't care less about the long-term effects that his decisions have on the country.

Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him.

Trump's bad decision can be traced back to Bolton's visit to Israel earlier this year:

Administration officials said that National Security Advisor John Bolton was instrumental to the decision, after visiting Israel in January to assure officials there that the United States would not abandon them in Syria despite Trump's sudden withdrawal of troops from the battlefield.

Nervous Israeli officials saw an opportunity. "It was an ask," one Israeli source said, "because of the timing -- it suddenly became a relevant issue about Iran."

Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support.


SF Bay March 21, 2019 at 10:28 pm

Well, of course Trump puts America last. There is one and only one person he is interested in -- himself. As you say this is his narcissistic personality at work.

My never ending question is always, "Why does any Republican with a conscience remain silent? Are they really all this shallow and self absorbed? Is there nothing Trump does that will finally force them to put country before party and their own ambition?"

It's a really sad state of events that has put this country on the road to ruin.

Kouros , , March 21, 2019 at 11:39 pm
I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?!
Trump 2016 , , March 22, 2019 at 1:45 am
Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. Straightening out all this stupidity will take years. Here's hoping that Trump gets to watch his foreign policy decisions tossed out and reversed from federal prison.
Grumpy Old Man , , March 22, 2019 at 3:29 am
He ought to recognize Russia's seizure of Crimea. Why not? Кто кого?
Tony , , March 22, 2019 at 8:50 am
The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it.

The administration says that a Russian missile violates the treaty but it will not tell us what the range of the missile is. Nor will it allow its weapons inspectors to go and look at it.

The reason is clear: Fear that the weapons inspectors' findings would contradict the administration's claims.

Some Perspective , , March 22, 2019 at 9:08 am
I voted Republican ever since I started voting. I voted for Bush I, Dole, Dubya, and McCain. I couldn't vote for either Obama or Romney, but I voted for Trump because of Hillary Clinton.

I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.

We're losing our country. We're losing America.

Sid Finster , , March 22, 2019 at 10:22 am
To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend.

Europoliticians tell that last one a lot. "We really don't want to but the Americans twisted our arms ZOMG Special Relationship so sorry ZOMG!" Only with a lot more Eurobureaucratese.

G-Pol , , March 22, 2019 at 11:15 am
I agree with the article's premise, but not because of this move regarding Israel.

Personally, I believe this move will have little impact on the outcome of the crisis in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab monarchies are too focused on containing Iran and Turkey to give a crap about what Israel does. The only Arab states that I can see objecting to this move are Syria (obviously) and the others who were already allied with Iran and/or Turkey to begin with.

Right now, the REAL center of attention in the region should be Northern Syria. THAT's where the next major war likely will begin. In that area, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the ones doing the major escalations, while Israel has virtually no role at all aside from sideline cheer-leading. And of course, Trump is doing nothing to stop what could become the next July Crisis. What's "America First" about that?

Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye.

There is no way our international reputation will come out of this war unscathed, and odds are we'll be in a far worse position diplomatically than we were at any point in our history, even during the Iraq war. When that happens, the American people will be out to assign blame. Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation.

All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into.

[Apr 13, 2019] Zionism Wahhabism: Twin Cancers of the Middle East (And Their Veiled Origins)

Apr 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Noirette @ 7

I don't think the issue is to end capitalism, but economic Zionism (all known as capitalism changed into monopoism) is on its way out. Revolutionaries, all over the world, are in place to revert monopolism back to capitalism and democracy back to human rights.**

She [Hillary] was the dream for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, and probably a lot more folks. That didn't happen, and some people became unhinged. by Zachary Smith @85 As things have turned out.. we might have all been better off with Hillary than Trump.. Next time around I am going to vote for the most obvious liar, and the candidate with the most stinking capaign promises. looking back over the elections since Abe Lincolm was assassinated by the city of London.. because Lincoln was moving to make USA its own bank and to issue its own currency.. **

At http://representativepress.org/IsraelViolatesResolution.html c/b found the pre conditions, all of which Israel agreed to,
for admission of Israel into the UN..
1. he status of jerusalem w/n/b altered
2. Palestinans w/b permitted to return
3. The partition agreement w/become the final borders.

Text of General Assembly Resolution 273 of May 11, 1949 admitting Israel into the UN, notes Israel agreed to comply with Resolution 194 : UNITED NATIONS General Assembly A/RES/273 (III) 11 May 1949

what is really interesting is to take a look at the low life supporting this UN action at the press, in the white house and at the MIC. Many supporters there played at hugmongous part in the rest of the rise of Economic Zionism which depends on leg breaker USA to get its way..

John Smith , Apr 11, 2019 1:07:35 AM | link

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Instagram March 10, 2019:
"Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the Nation-State Law that we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People -- and them alone."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1T_F00VsAAb25V.jpg

John Smith , Apr 11, 2019 1:16:39 AM | link
Zionism & Wahhabism: Twin Cancers of the Middle East (And Their Veiled Origins)

It is a fascinating, though rather grim, story, spanning the First World War, the creation of the states of Israel, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and taking in Lawrence of Arabia, all the way to the fall of Gadaffi in Libya, the Syria Civil War and Rise of the so-called Islamic State, among other things. It's a story of long-term manipulation, insidious indoctrination, and secret, almost 'mythical' works of literature.

These two ideologies -- Wahhabism in Islam and Zionism which is linked primarily to the Jewish religion -- may seem like unrelated entities on the surface of it

https://theburningbloggerofbedlam.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/zionism-and-wahhabism-the-twin-cancers-destroying-the-middle-east-and-their-dark-origins/

John Smith , Apr 11, 2019 12:13:27 AM | link
"Germany still owes Israel $19 billion for the Holocaust. The new estimate was calculated by independent American economist Sidney Zabludoff, a former CIA, White House and U.S. Treasury official."

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-netanyahu-could-have-prevented-the-submarine-affair-by-collecting-germany-s-debt-1.7086232

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/East-Germanys-reparation-debt-must-be-demanded-584941
---------------

Chutzpah...

psychohistorian , Apr 11, 2019 1:17:13 AM | link
@ Zachary Smith who wrote about Clinton II
"
She was the dream for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, and probably a lot more folks.
"
So that makes Trump a nightmare for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, etc., right?

I encourage you to understand how much you are being played. If Big Banking has both of them, whom is being played?

snake , Apr 11, 2019 6:18:53 AM | link
@ 92 * time for everyone to stand up for human rights promoter Assange?

The end of capitalism, in disguise. US pol structure does not allow for such, as the US (and other West, the US is just a stellar ex.) are ruled by rapacious coproratist (typo) oligarchs. Won't happen.

[Apr 13, 2019] "We support peoples of all countries in independently choosing their development paths that cater to their national conditions. We never interfere in other countries' internal affairs, nor do we impose anything on other countries," Ma added.

Apr 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

psychohistorian , Apr 11, 2019 1:02:58 AM | link

@ Grieved with the UN/Pence story....here is China's take on the situation
"
UNITED NATIONS, April 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday rejected U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's accusation against China over Venezuela.

"China categorically rejects the accusation," Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, told a Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela.

"Earlier in his intervention, the U.S. representative leveled an unfounded accusation on China's position on Venezuela in the Security Council," he said, referring to Pence's remarks that Russia and China obstructed Council action on Venezuela with their veto power.

China has all along maintained friendly and cooperative relations with other countries around the world, including Venezuela, on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, he said.

"We support peoples of all countries in independently choosing their development paths that cater to their national conditions. We never interfere in other countries' internal affairs, nor do we impose anything on other countries," Ma added.

Members of the Security Council should faithfully abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the universally recognized norms of international relations, genuinely respect the choices of peoples of other countries, and do more positive and practical things for the people of Venezuela rather than the opposite, said the Chinese envoy."

[Apr 13, 2019] Russiagate in three minutes

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website April 12, 2019 at 2:40 am GMT

Totally Hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/embed/alt5kD7ei1I

[Apr 12, 2019] John Bolton Took Money From Clinton Foundation Donor, Banks Tied To Cartels, Terrorists, Iran by William Craddick

Notable quotes:
"... On June 12, 2018 The Washington Post ran an overlooked story where they disclosed that National Security Advisor John Bolton had accepted money from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Deutsche Bank and HSBC to return for his participation in speeches and panel discussions ..."
"... John Bolton accepted $115,000 from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to speak at multiple events hosted by the Foundation including one in September 2017 where Bolton assured his audience that President Donald Trump would not radically change US foreign policy despite his explicit campaign promises to do so. ..."
"... More broadly, John Bolton's work for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, HSBC and Deutsche Bank shows that while he preaches hardline foreign policy approaches towards nations such as Iran and North Korea he has no issue tying himself to those who openly flaunt American sanctions and diplomatic attempts to pressure these states. For an individual who is the President's National Security Advisor to have taken money from banks who provide financial services to terror groups who have murdered thousands of Americans is totally unacceptable. ..."
Apr 10, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Disobedient Media

On June 12, 2018 The Washington Post ran an overlooked story where they disclosed that National Security Advisor John Bolton had accepted money from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Deutsche Bank and HSBC to return for his participation in speeches and panel discussions. These three entities have been linked to various kinds of corruption including sanctions evasion for Iran, money laundering on behalf of drug cartels, provision of banking services to backers of Islamic terror organizations and controversial donations to the Clinton Foundation.

The financial ties between Bolton and these institutions highlight serious ethical concerns about his suitability for the position of National Security Advisor.

I. Victor Pinchuk Foundation

John Bolton accepted $115,000 from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to speak at multiple events hosted by the Foundation including one in September 2017 where Bolton assured his audience that President Donald Trump would not radically change US foreign policy despite his explicit campaign promises to do so.

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation was blasted in 2016 over their donation of $10 to $25 million to the Clinton Foundation between 1994 and 2005. The donations lead to accusations of influence peddling after it emerged that Victor Pinchuk had been invited to Hillary Clinton's home during the final year of her tenure as Secretary of State.

Even more damning was Victor Pinchuk's participation in activities that constituted evasions of sanctions levied against Iran by the American government. A 2015 exposé by Newsweek highlighted the fact that Pinchuk owned Interpipe Group, a Cyprus-incorporated manufacturer of seamless pipes used in oil and gas sectors. A now-removed statement on Interpipe's website showed that they were doing business in Iran despite US sanctions aimed to prevent this kind of activity.

Why John Bolton, a notorious war hawk who has called for a hardline approach to Iran, would take money from an entity who was evading sanctions against the country is not clear. It does however, raise serious questions about whether or not Bolton should be employed by Donald Trump, who made attacks on the Clinton Foundation's questionable donations a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign.

II. HSBC Group

British bank HSBC paid Bolton $46,500 in June and August 2017 to speak at two gatherings of hedge fund managers and investors.

HSBC is notorious for its extensive ties to criminal and terror organizations for whom it has provided illegal financial services. Clients that HSBC have laundered money for include Colombian drug traffickers and Mexican cartels who have terrorized the country and recently raised murder rates to the highest levels in Mexico's history . They have also offered banking services to Chinese individuals who sourced chemicals and other materials used by cartels to produce methamphetamine and heroin that is then sold in the United States. China's Triads have helped open financial markets in Asia to cartels seeking to launder their profits derived from the drug trade.

In 2012, HSBC was blasted by the US Senate for for allowing money from Russian and Latin American criminal networks as well as Middle Eastern terror groups to enter the US. The banking group ultimately agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine for this misconduct as well as their involvement in processing sanctions-prohibited transactions on behalf of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma.

Some of the terror groups assisted by HSBC include the notorious Al Qaeda. During the 2012 scrutiny of HSBC, outlets such as Le Monde , Business Insider and the New York Times revealed that HSBC had maintained ties to Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank. Al Rajhi Bank was one of Osama Bin Ladin's "Golden Chain" of Al Qaeda's most important financiers. Even though HSBC's own internal compliance offices asked for the bank to terminate their relationship with Al Rajhi Bank, it continued until 2010.

More recently in 2018, reports have claimed that HSBC was used for illicit transactions between Iran and Chinese technology conglomerate Huawei. The US is currently seeking to extradite Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou after bringing charges against Huawei related to sanctions evasion and theft of intellectual property. The company has been described as a "backdoor" for elements of the Chinese government by certain US authorities.

Bolton's decision to accept money from HSBC given their well-known reputation is deeply hypocritical. HSBC's connection to terror organizations such as Al Qaeda in particular is damning for Bolton due to the fact that he formerly served as the chairman of the Gatestone Institute , a New York-based advocacy group that purports to oppose terrorism. These financial ties are absolutely improper for an individual acting as National Security Advisor.

III. Deutsche Bank

John Bolton accepted $72,000 from German Deutsche Bank to speak at an event in May 2017.

Deutsche Bank has for decades engaged in questionable behavior. During World War II, they provided financial services to the Nazi Gestapo and financed construction of the infamous Auschwitz as well as an adjacent plant for chemical company IG Farben.

Like HSBC, Deutsche Bank has provided illicit services to international criminal organizations. In 2014 court filings showed that Deutsche Bank, Citi and Bank of America had all acted as channels for drug money sent to Colombian security currency brokerages suspected of acting on behalf of traffickers. In 2017, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $630 million fine after working with a Danish bank in Estonia to launder over $10 billion through London and Moscow on behalf of Russian entities. The UK's financial regulatory watchdog has said that Deutsche Bank is failing to prevent its accounts from being used to launder money, circumvent sanctions and finance terrorism. In November 2018, Deutsche Bank's headquarters was raided by German authorities as part of an investigation sparked by 2016 revelations in the "Panama Papers" leak from Panama's Mossack Fonseca.

Two weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush administration signed an executive order linking a company owned by German national Mamoun Darkazanli to Al Qaeda. In 1995, Darkazanli co-signed the opening of a Deutsche Bank account for Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. Salim was identified by the CIA as the chief of bin Laden's computer operations and weapons procurement. He was ultimately arrested in Munich, extradited to the United States and charged with participation in the 1998 US embassy bombings.

In 2017, the Office of the New York State Comptroller opened an investigation into accounts that Deutsche Bank was operating on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP is defined by both the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization. It is ironic that Bolton, who is a past recipient of the "Guardian of Zion Award" would accept money from an entity who provided services to Palestinian groups that Israel considers to be terror related.

IV. Clinton-esque Financial Ties Unbecoming To Trump Administration

Bolton's engagement in paid speeches, in some cases with well-known donors to the Clinton Foundation, paints the Trump administration in a very bad light. Donald Trump criticized Hillary Clinton during his 2016 Presidential campaign for speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs that were labeled by her detractors as "pay to play" behavior. John Bolton's acceptance of money from similar entities, especially the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, are exactly the same kind of activity and are an embarrassment for a President who claims to be against corruption.

More broadly, John Bolton's work for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, HSBC and Deutsche Bank shows that while he preaches hardline foreign policy approaches towards nations such as Iran and North Korea he has no issue tying himself to those who openly flaunt American sanctions and diplomatic attempts to pressure these states. For an individual who is the President's National Security Advisor to have taken money from banks who provide financial services to terror groups who have murdered thousands of Americans is totally unacceptable.

It is embarrassing enough that Donald Trump hired Bolton in the first place. The next best remedy is to let him go as soon as possible.

[Apr 12, 2019] A rare breed of individuals who surfaced during Russiagate: individuals with a remarkable capacity of swallowing a large pile of BS.

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

EugeneGur , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:22 pm GMT

@Prof. Woland

The Russians are not very worried about crossing the British but I cannot imagine what the fallout would be if one of their spies got caught got caught killing someone here.

Sir, you are a rare breed. I didn't believe who believe that nonsense about the Russians killing Litvinenko or Skripals actually existed. You have a remarkable capacity of swallowing a large pile of BS.

[Apr 12, 2019] By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again

Notable quotes:
"... Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time. ..."
"... In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more. ..."
Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jus' Sayin'... , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT

@WorkingClass Alex Graham is right. I voted for Trump because he promised:

(1) to end the wars the US is fighting as a sock puppet of Israel and her domestic agents, the so-called neocons and the traitorous Zionist fifth column in this country, exemplified by Adelson, Saban, Kushner, et al.;

(2) to restore the rule of law regarding illegal aliens in this country by removing these criminals post haste;

(3) to restore order at the border and end the massive stream of illegals and contraband entering our country every day;

(4) to establish reasonable laws and policies regulating immigration and naturalization so that new immigrants and citizens improve rather than diminish the quality of life for current citizens; and

(5) to eliminate and/or restructure trade agreements so they are bilateral and not destructive of the USA's industrial and economic base.

Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time.

By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again. I don't intend to. But please don't consider voting for a Democrat. They will just more efficiently screw us than Trump is doing now.

Agent76 , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
Jul 23, 2016 Trump Exposes Trump

In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more.

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump s Betrayal of White America by Alex Graham

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance. ..."
"... Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.) ..."
"... Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings. ..."
"... There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined. ..."
"... It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives ..."
"... As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. " ..."
"... Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation. ..."
"... Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better. ..."
"... We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more" ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
"Unlike other presidents, I keep my promises," Trump boasted in a speech delivered on Saturday to the Republican Jewish Congress at a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Many in the audience wore red yarmulkes emblazoned with his name. In his speech, Trump condemned Democrats for allowing "the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party" and emphasized his loyalty to Israel.

Trump has kept some of his promises. So far, he has kept every promise that he made to the Jewish community. Yet he has reneged on his promises to white America – the promises that got him elected in the first place. It is a betrayal of the highest order: millions of white Americans placed their hopes in Trump and wholeheartedly believed that he would be the one to make America great again. They were willing to endure social ostracism and imperil their livelihoods by supporting him. In return, Trump has turned his back on them and rendered his promises void.

The most recent example of this is Trump's failure to keep his promise to close the border. On March 29, Trump threatened to close the border if Mexico did not stop all illegal immigration into the US. This would likely have been a highly effective measure given Mexico's dependence on cross-border trade. Five days later, he suddenly retracted this threat and said that he would give Mexico a " one-year warning " before taking drastic action. He further claimed that closing the border would not be necessary and that he planned to establish a twenty-five percent tariff on cars entering the US instead.

Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance.

Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.)

The past two years have seen a surge in illegal immigration without precedent in the past decade. Since late December, the Department of Homeland Security has released 125,565 illegal aliens into the country. In the past two weeks alone, 6,000 have been admitted. According to current projections, 2019 will witness around 500,000 to 775,000 border crossings. Additionally, about 630,000 illegal aliens will be added to the population after having overstayed their visas. By the end of the year, more than one million illegal aliens will have been added to the population:

These projections put the number of illegal aliens added to the U.S. population at around one to 1.5 million, on top of the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens who are already living across the country. This finding does not factor in the illegal aliens who will be deported, die over the next year, or leave the U.S. of their own will. As DHS data has revealed, once border crossers and illegal aliens are released into the country, the overwhelming majority are never deported.

In February, Trump signed a bill allowing the DHS secretary to add another 69,320 spots to the current H-2B cap of 66,000. On March 29, DHS began this process by announcing that it would issue an additional 30,000 H-2B visas this year. The H-2B visa program allows foreign workers to come to the US and work in non-agricultural occupations. Unlike the H-1B program, a Bachelor's degree is not required; most H-2B workers are employed in construction, maintenance, landscaping, and so on. The demographic most affected by the expansion of the H-2B program will be unemployed working-class Americans. This flies in the face of Trump's promise to protect American workers and stop importing foreigners.

Trump has indicated that he has plans to expand the H-1B visa program as well. "We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.," he said in a tweet in January.

Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings.

Trump has been working on legal immigration with Jared Kushner, who has quietly been crafting a plan to grant citizenship to more "low- and high-skilled workers, as well as permanent and temporary workers" (so, just about everyone). Kushner's plan proves the folly of the typical Republican line that legal immigration is fine and that only illegal immigration should be opposed. Under his plan, thousands of illegal aliens will become "legal" with the stroke of a pen.

There is a paucity of anti-immigration hardliners in Trump's inner circle (though Stephen Miller is a notable exception). Trump has surrounded himself with moderates: the Kushners, Mick Mulvaney, Alex Acosta, and others. There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined.

The new DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan, who was appointed yesterday following Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation, is a middle-of-the-road law enforcement official who served under Obama and Bush and is responsible for the revival of the " catch-and-release " policy, whereby illegal aliens are released upon being apprehended. It was reported last week that Trump was thinking of appointing either Kris Kobach or Ken Cuccinelli to a position of prominence (as an " immigration czar "), but this appears to have been another lie.

Trump's failure to deliver on his promises cannot be chalked up to congressional obstruction. Congress. As Kobach said in a recent interview , "It's not like we're powerless and it's not like we have to wait for Congress to do something. . . . No, we can actually solve the immediate crisis without Congress acting." Solving the border crisis would simply demand "leadership in the executive branch willing to act decisively." Kobach recently outlined an intelligent three-point plan that Trump could implement:

Publish the final version of the regulation that would supersede the Flores Settlement. The initial regulation was published by the Department of Homeland Security in September 2018. DHS could have published the final regulation in December. Inexplicably, DHS has dragged its feet. Finalizing that regulation would allow the United States to detain entire families together, and it would stop illegal aliens from exploiting children as get-out-of-jail free cards. Set up processing centers at the border to house the migrants and hold the hearings in one place. The Department of Justice should deploy dozens of immigration judges to hear the asylum claims at the border without releasing the migrants into the country. FEMA already owns thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes that it has used to address past hurricane disasters. Instead of selling them (which FEMA is currently doing), FEMA should ship them to the processing centers to provide comfortable housing for the migrants. In addition, a fleet of passenger planes should deployed to the processing centers. Anyone who fails in his or her asylum claim, or who is not seeking asylum and is inadmissible, should be flown home immediately. It would be possible to fly most migrants home within a few weeks of their arrival. Word would get out quickly in their home countries that entry into the United States is not as easy as advertised. The incentive to join future caravans would dissipate quickly. Publish a proposed Treasury regulation that prohibits the sending home of remittances by people who cannot document lawful presence in the United States. This will hit Mexico in the pocketbook: Mexico typically brings in well over $20 billion a year in remittances , raking in more than $26 billion in 2017. Then, tell the government of Mexico that we will finalize the Treasury regulation unless they do two things to help us address the border crisis: (1) Mexico immediately signs a "safe third country agreement" similar to our agreement with Canada. This would require asylum applicants to file their asylum application in the first safe country they set foot in (so applicants in the caravans from Central America would have to seek asylum in Mexico, rather than Canada); and (2) Mexico chips in $5 billion to help us build the wall. The threat of ending remittances from illegal aliens is a far more powerful one than threatening to close the border. Ending such remittances doesn't hurt the U.S. economy; indeed, it helps the economy by making it more likely that such capital will be spent and circulate in our own country. We can follow through easily if Mexico doesn't cooperate.

It would not be all that difficult for Trump to implement these proposals. Kobach still has faith in Trump, but his assessment of him appears increasingly to be too generous. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives . At the same time, he wants to maintain the illusion that he cares about his base.

As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. "

Nearly everything Trump has done in the name of restricting immigration has turned out to be an empty gesture and mere theatrics: threatening to close the border, offering protections to "Dreamers" in exchange for funding for the ever-elusive wall, threatening to end the "anchor baby" phenomenon with an executive order (which never came to pass), cutting off aid to Central American countries, claiming that he will appoint an "immigration czar" (and then proceeding to appoint McAleenan instead of Kobach as DHS secretary), and on and on.

While Trump has failed to keep the promises that got him elected, he has fulfilled a number of major promises that he made to Israel and the Jewish community.

First, he moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump claimed that the move would only cost $200,000, but in reality it will end up being more than $20 million . The construction of the embassy also led to a series of bloody protests; it is located in East Jerusalem, which is generally acknowledged to be Palestinian territory.

Second, he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu claimed on Israeli TV that Israel was responsible for convincing him to exit the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. (Both Trump and Netanyahu falsely alleged that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear program; meanwhile, Israel's large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons has escaped mention.) Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation.

Fourth, he recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights (in defiance of the rest of the world, which recognizes the Golan Heights as Syrian territory under Israeli occupation). Trump's Golan Heights proclamation was issued on March 21 and was celebrated by Israel. Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better.


aandrews , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT

Kushner, Inc. Book Review Part I: The Rise of The Kushner Crime Family

Kushner, Inc. Book Review Part II: The Fall of The Kushner Crime Family

If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.

I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is, and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.

Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?

Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on BookTV .

Thinker , says: April 10, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
Yep. Trump's a lying POS pond scum like the rest of the DC swamp that he said he was going to drain, turns out he is one of them all along. We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more. He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along.

What I want to know is, who are those idiots who still keep showing up at his rallies? Are they really that dumb?

Even Sanders came out and said we can't have open borders. I've also heard him said back in 2015 that the H1b visa program is a replacement program for American workers. If he grows a pair and reverts back to that stance, teams up with Tulsi Gabbard, I'll vote for them 2020. Fuck Trump! Time for him and his whole treasonous rat family to move to Israel where they belong.

jbwilson24 , says: April 10, 2019 at 4:51 am GMT
@Thinker " We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more"

Afraid not, there's plenty of reason to believe that the Roosevelt family and Lyndon Johnson were Jewish.

Your major point stands, though. He's basically a shabbesgoy.

peterAUS , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:05 am GMT
@Dr. Robert Morgan

His "implicitly white" supporters would have abandoned him in droves, not wanting to be associated with a racist, thus pointing up the weakness of implicit whiteness as a survival strategy. And is it actually a survival strategy? A closer look at it makes me think it's more of a racial self-extermination strategy. After all, what kind of a survival strategy is it that can't even admit its goals to itself? And it's exactly this refusal of whites to explicitly state that they collectively want to continue to exist as a race that is the greatest impediment to their doing so. It's an interesting problem with no easy solution. How do you restore the will to live to a race that seems to have lost it? And not only lost its will to live, but actually prides itself on doing so? Accordingly, this "betrayal" isn't a betrayal at all. It's what American whites voted for and want. Giving their country away and accepting their own demographic demise is proof of their virtue; proof of their Christian love for all mankind.

You are definitely onto something here.

Still, I feel it's not that deep and complicated. It could be that they simply don't believe that the danger is closing in.

Boils down to wrong judgment. People who haven't had the need to think hard about serious things tend to develop that weakness.
I guess that boils down to "good times make weak men."

Hard times are coming and they'll make hard men. The catch is simple: will be enough of them in time ?

Real Buddy Ray , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:18 am GMT
@Thomm https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trumps-proposal-for-legal-immigration/499061/
JNDillard , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT
Switching to the Democrats is no solution. The DNC has proven itself to be a criminal organization through sabotaging Sander's campaign and then being instrumental in creating Russophobia, in collusion with Obama, the CIA, the FBI, and the DoJ. The DNC has rules in place stating that super delegates – elitists aligned with the DNC – can vote if one nominee does not win on the first ballot at the National Convention.

Because we have a HUGE number of hats in the Democratic ring, the chances that the nomination will not be decided on a first vote are extremely high, with the result being that the Democratic nominee is not going to be decided by voters in the primaries but by super delegates, i.e., the elitists and plutocrats.

Democracy exists when we vote to support candidates chosen by the elites for the elites; when we stop doing that, the elites turn on democracy. It is a sham; we will have a choice in 2020: between Pepsi and Coke. You are free to choose which one you prefer, because you live in a democracy. For more on the rigging of the democratic primaries for 2020, see

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/09/packed-primary-may-let-superdelegates-screw-progressives-again/

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump Panders to His Base at the Republican Jewish Coalition

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

wayfarer , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT

@Agent76

"Trump Panders to His Base at the Republican Jewish Coalition"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvpQ2zzOD7g

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump was financed by a slew of Zionist billionares. He's delivering and is the gift that keeps on giving and giving.

Apr 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Circe , Apr 11, 2019 1:47:52 PM | link

@110ZS

No one's squeezin' nothin'. Trump was financed by a slew of Zionist billionares. He's delivering and is the gift that keeps on giving and giving.

[Apr 12, 2019] MAGA was always MIGA in disguise

Notable quotes:
"... Gradually I began to hate him. Trump is a liar, a con man, a sellout, a shabbos goy POS. He DOES have agency ..for israel. But not for us. ..."
Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

FreeWilly says:April 10, 2019 at 5:39 am GMT

@Thinker

"He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along."

What do you mean by "again"? When was it ever great?

Robert Dolan , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:41 am GMT

Gradually I began to hate him. Trump is a liar, a con man, a sellout, a shabbos goy POS. He DOES have agency ..for israel. But not for us.

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump Is America's First Zionist President by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Notable quotes:
"... Weakened by "Russiagate" accusations, Trump was forced to back off his agenda of ending the wars. He put policy in the hands of neoconservative warmongers like John Bolton and Pompeo, and expanded the prospect of wars into Iran and Venezuela. Trump in office bears little resemblance to Trump campaigning for the presidency. ..."
"... It is not clear how Trump has benefited from his groveling. If polls can be believed, Trump's pandering has done him no good with American Jews, 70% of whom disapprove of Trump. Moreover, the Israel Lobby failed to use its influence to silence the presstitutes false "Russiagate" accusations against Trump. Perhaps the Lobby wanted to keep Trump in a weak position in order to extract more concessions from him. ..."
"... Trump, who campaigned on peace so that America's attention and resources could be focused on America's own situation, now has the US more embroiled than ever in the affairs of foreign countries, principally Israel, a Zionist state. This fact makes it reasonable to conclude that Trump is America's first Zionist president, a development that bodes more ill for the world. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | thedailycoin.org

It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for President Donald Trump. His agenda to restore normal relations with Russia and to end Washington's gratuitous wars has been frustrated by the "Russiagate hoax" that the military/security complex and corrupt Democratic Party used in the effort to remove Trump from the presidency. He and his wife have been embarrassed by the fake "Steele Dossier" paid for by the Clinton campaign and used by a corrupt FBI leadership to illegitimately obtain spy warrants on Trump and his associates. Accused of cavorting with prostitutes in Moscow and confronted with claims by a porn star of an affair in order to boost the recognition value of her name, Trump and his wife have experienced uncomfortable times. Now that the lies the presstitutes have told since 2016 have been exposed by Mueller's inability, despite his use of every dirty trick, to come up with any indictable offense connected to "Russiagate," the psychopathic liars who comprise the presstitute media are on the verge of tears. Mueller has betrayed them, they claim, by letting Trump off the hook. https://www.rt.com/usa/454550-mueller-media-reactions-trump-indictment/

In other words, there will be no apology to Trump. Don't be surprised to see the deranged accusation that Mueller himself was part of the Russian collusion and was appointed for the purpose of covering it up.

Weakened by "Russiagate" accusations, Trump was forced to back off his agenda of ending the wars. He put policy in the hands of neoconservative warmongers like John Bolton and Pompeo, and expanded the prospect of wars into Iran and Venezuela. Trump in office bears little resemblance to Trump campaigning for the presidency.

Under such pressure Trump has broken American diplomatic precedent and international law with respect to Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights in his effort to seek the protection of the powerful Israel Lobby. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US Embassy there, and on March 22 he said it is time to accept the reality of Israel's occupation of Syria's Golen Heights as Israeli territory. This extreme pandering to Israeli Zionism is a disgrace to the United States. https://www.rt.com/news/454528-trump-recognize-golan-heights-netanyahu/

It is not clear how Trump has benefited from his groveling. If polls can be believed, Trump's pandering has done him no good with American Jews, 70% of whom disapprove of Trump. Moreover, the Israel Lobby failed to use its influence to silence the presstitutes false "Russiagate" accusations against Trump. Perhaps the Lobby wanted to keep Trump in a weak position in order to extract more concessions from him.

Nevertheless, by terminating US aid to Palestinians and by being the only head of state to fully recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and to assign Syrian territory to Israel, Trump has established a US relationship with Israeli Zionism that the US has with no other state and that Israel has with no other state. On any issue that pertains to Israel's interest, Trump has placed US foreign policy into Israel's hands.

Various diplomats and analysts are saying that Trump gifted the Golan Heights to Israel in order to help out Netanyahu who faces indictment for corruption. I think the explanation is that the neoconservatives running US foreign policy are Zionists and that the only ally Trump has, other than the remnants of the American working class now dismissed as "white supremacists," is the Israel Lobby.

The hostility of the Trump regime toward Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela does America no good (except for the shareholders of the military/security complex). But the hostility toward Iran, Syria, and their protector -- Russia -- does benefit Israel. Israel has been frustrated in its desire to occupy southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah militia, which is supported by Syria and Iran. If Washington can destabilize Syria and Iran, as it did Iraq and Libya, Hezbollah would be cut off from support. Moreover, Washington's accusations against Russia and missile bases on Russia's border can distract Russia's attention and resources away from the Middle East and leave Syria and Iran less able to resist the US/Israeli pressures.

Trump, who campaigned on peace so that America's attention and resources could be focused on America's own situation, now has the US more embroiled than ever in the affairs of foreign countries, principally Israel, a Zionist state. This fact makes it reasonable to conclude that Trump is America's first Zionist president, a development that bodes more ill for the world.

Please consider donating to PCR

[Apr 12, 2019] Is Donald Trump a Zionist Chabad Bitch by Pastor Chuck Baldwin

Apr 12, 2019 | phibetaiota.net

King Solomon wrote, "Much study is a weariness of the flesh." (Eccl. 12:12 KJV) I will add that it doesn't make one a lot of friends either -- especially if what one discovers through his studies cuts against the grain of commonly accepted teaching.

In my message to Liberty Fellowship last Sunday , I made the point that Zionism is one of America's greatest threats. I do not say that lightly. Many years and untold hours of laborious study have led me to that conclusion. Only the lack of truth-preaching (including truth-preaching about Zionism) from America's pulpits is a greater threat to our country. Beyond that, Zionism is one of the most politically protected institutions in America. No! It is THE most politically protected institution in the country. Bar none!

The influence and intimidation that Zionism wields over America's major institutions and industries are incalculable -- and seemingly impenetrable. From the church house to the White House, from Main Street to Wall Street, from Hollywood and Vine to Broadway and from the marbled halls of Congress to the hallowed halls of ivy-covered universities, Zionism reigns supreme.

Read full (most extraordinary and detailed) post.

ROBERT STEELE: This is the single best over-all denouncement of the Zionist parasite as it exists in America, that I have ever read. The pastor does three things: itemizes Zionist control and atrocities of control, including the most recent attempts to destroy Senator Rand Paul and Representative Ilhan Omar; challenges our President, whose past includes deep deep Zionist ties suggestive of compromise; and explains how so many Christian Zionists have been bribed and brainwashed -- the two go together -- to place Israel First instead of America First. Zionism in the USA is OVER. The tide has turned.

I personally am hopeful that our President will divorce himself from the Zionists who think they own him, and truly commit to America First.

Now we simply have to make #UNRIG – Election Integrity Act and disclosure of the Zionist role in 9/11 the twin demands of our President if he wishes to be re-elected in 2020, AND to have a Congress free of Zionist bribery, blackmail, and lies in 2020 and beyond.

See Especially:

RELATED (on Trump Being Compromised):

[Apr 12, 2019] Where Trump s and Bibi s Interests Clash Patrick J. Buchanan - Official Website

Apr 12, 2019 | buchanan.org

On Monday, President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has designated part of another nation's government as such a threat.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist group.

With 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria, often in proximity to Iranian units, this inches America closer to war.

Why did we do it? What benefit did the U.S. derive?

How do we now negotiate with the IRGC on missile tests?

Israel's Bibi Netanyahu took credit for Trump's decision, tweeting, "Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism. Thank you for accepting another important request of mine."

Previous "requests" to which Trump acceded include moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, declaring Jerusalem Israel's eternal capital, closing the Palestinian consulate and cutting off aid, and U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, as sovereign Israeli territory.

What Bibi wants, Bibi gets.

One hopes his future requests will not include a demand that we cease dithering and deliver the same "shock and awe" to Iran that George W. Bush delivered to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

With Bibi's election win Tuesday, his fifth, the secret Mideast peace plan Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has been laboring on these last two years is likely to be unveiled.

Yet it is hard to see how Jared's baby is not stillborn.

Bibi is not going to accept a Palestinian right of return to Israel, or a sharing of the Holy City with a Palestinian state ruled by a successor of Yasser Arafat. And as Bibi fought Ariel Sharon's withdrawal of the 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, he is not going to order the removal of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from homes on the West Bank.

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Indeed, on the eve of his reelection Tuesday, Bibi promised Israelis he would begin the annexation of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

As for Trump, he is the most popular man in Israel. And he is not going to force Bibi to do what Bibi does not want to do and thereby imperil his major political gains in the U.S. Jewish community.

Given the indulgence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for BDS, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement, and the divisions among Democrats over Netanyahu's expansionism, the president's pro-Israel stance has proven a political winner for the GOP.

But while a U.S. war with Iran may be what Bibi wants, it is not what America wants or needs.

Consider what 20 years of U.S. wars in the Mideast have cost this country, as China has stayed out of the region and pushed its power and influence into Asia, Africa and Europe.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have regained control of more territory than they have held since 2001, and they are negotiating with the Americans for a withdrawal of our remaining 14,000 troops.

Cost of the Afghan war: 2,400 U.S. dead, 32,000 wounded, $1 trillion sunk, and the U.S. on the precipice of a potential strategic defeat.

So dreadful has become the five-year Yemeni civil war between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed regime they ousted that the U.S. House and Senate have invoked the War Powers Act and directed Trump to terminate U.S. assistance for the Saudi intervention.

In Libya, where a U.S.-led NATO intervention overthrew Colonel Gadhafi in 2011, a renegade general now controls two-thirds of the country and is mounting an assault on Tripoli. U.S. soldiers and diplomats fled the capital last week.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad, with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, defeated the U.S. backed-rebels years ago.

The Syrian Kurdish militia we partnered with to crush ISIS have been designated as terrorists by the Turks, who promise to annihilate the Kurds if they try to return to homes along the Turkish border.

As for Turkey itself, President Erdogan says he will take delivery this summer of a Russian-made S-400 air and missile defense system.

Go through with that, says the U.S., and we cancel your order for 100 F-35s. The justified U.S. fear: Russia's S-400 system will be tested against America's most advanced fifth-generation fighter, the F-35.

If Turkey does not cancel the S-400, a NATO crisis appears imminent.

In Iraq, where 5,000 U.S. troops remain, the government has both pro-U.S. and pro-Iran elements in Baghdad, and mutual designation of the IRGC and CENT-COM as terrorist organizations can only present hellish problems for America's soldiers and diplomats still in that country.

Bottom line: Though Bibi and John Bolton may want war with Iran, U.S. national interests, based on the awful experience of two decades, and Trump's political interests, dictate that he not start any more wars.

Not a single Middle East war this century has gone as we planned or hoped.

[Apr 12, 2019] Tulsi might get a considerable part of nationalists voters who previously voted for Trump

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Grahamsno(G64) , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT

@Thomm That's so true that it's almost incredible, Andrew Anglin of the daily stormer has been campaigning for Tulsi Gabbard & Andrew Yang for well over a month

He could be said to be instrumental in putting Yang on the democratic primaries and possibly Tulsi as well all the while using his weaponized memes against Trump!! I'm in disbelief.

[Apr 12, 2019] Gabbard on Assange arrest

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Art , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:52 am GMT

Good On Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard: Assange arrest is a threat to journalists

By Rachel Frazin – 04/11/19 06:10 PM EDT

Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) condemned the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, calling the arrest a threat to journalists.

"The arrest of #JulianAssange is meant to send a message to all Americans and journalists: be quiet, behave, toe the line. Or you will pay the price," Gabbard tweeted.

The Democrat's remark came hours after police in London arrested Assange, citing charges he is facing in the U.S.

Assange is accused of conspiring to hack into computers in connection with WikiLeaks's release of classified documents from former Army private and intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/438542-gabbard-assange-arrest-is-a-threat-to-journalists

Think Peace -- Art

[Apr 12, 2019] Skripal, the Russkies and Bellingcat

The fact that Glenn Greenwald proved to be a despicable pressitute cast a long shadow of Snowden and Assange.
Notable quotes:
"... Not mentioned by any of the major news media is the fact that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (sic), renowned for its interference in foreign elections, funding terrorists and overthrowing governments the US doesn't approve of. ..."
Sep 27, 2018 | investigatingimperialism.wordpress.com
September 27, 2018 September 27, 2018 27 September 2018 -- Investigating Imperialism

I smell a rat!

A quick comment about the two Russian alleged assassins, exposed, we are told by the 'investigative' Website, Bellingcat. Not mentioned by any of the major news media is the fact that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (sic), renowned for its interference in foreign elections, funding terrorists and overthrowing governments the US doesn't approve of.

Media Lens picked up on this awhile back in reference to another Western financed outfit, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), funded by the UK Foreign Office. I've also expanded this by quoting from Media Lens' other article that deals with Western-funded disinfo, ' Douma: Part 1 – Deception In Plain Sight':

Liberal corporate journalists and politicians have been impressed by the fact that SOHR and White Helmets claims have been supported by ostensibly forensic analysis supplied by the Bellingcat website, which publishes 'citizen journalist' investigations. As we noted in a recent alert, Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is funded by the US government and is 'a notorious vehicle for US soft power'. – ' The Syrian Observatory – Funded By The Foreign Office ', Media Lens, June 4 2018

It's worth quoting more of the Media Lens article as it exposes the nature of Western so-called lefties and their attachment to Western (funded) propaganda outfits:

In the New Statesman, Paul Mason offered a typically nonsensical argument, linking to the anti-Assad website, Bellingcat:

'Despite the availability of public sources showing it is likely that a regime Mi-8 helicopter dropped a gas container onto a specific building, there are well-meaning people prepared to share the opinion that this was a "false flag", staged by jihadis, to pull the West into the war. The fact that so many people are prepared to clutch at false flag theories is, for Western democracies, a sign of how effective Vladimir Putin's global strategy has been.'

Thus, echoing Freedland's reference to 'denialists and conspiracists', sceptics can only be idiot victims of Putin's propaganda. US media analyst Adam Johnson of FAIR accurately described Mason's piece as a 'mess', adding :

'I love this thing where nominal leftists run the propaganda ball for bombing a country 99 yards then stop at the one yard and insist they don't support scoring goals, that they in fact oppose war.'

Surprisingly, the Bellingcat website, which publishes the findings of 'citizen journalist' investigations, appears to be taken seriously by some very high-profile progressives.

In the Independent, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas also mentioned the Syrian army 'Mi-8' helicopters. Why? Because she had read the same Bellingcat blog as Mason, to which she linked:

'From the evidence we've seen so far it appears that the latest chemical attack was likely by Mi-8 helicopters, probably from the forces of Syria's murderous President Assad.'

On Democracy Now!, journalist Glenn Greenwald said of Douma:

'I think that it's -- the evidence is quite overwhelming that the perpetrators of this chemical weapons attack, as well as previous ones, is the Assad government '

This was an astonishing comment. After receiving fierce challenges (not from us), Greenwald partially retracted, tweeting :

'It's live TV. Something [sic – sometimes] you say things less than ideally. I think the most likely perpetrator of this attack is Syrian Govt.'

We wrote to Greenwald asking what had persuaded him of Assad's 'likely' responsibility for Douma. (Twitter, April 10, direct message)

The first piece of evidence he sent us (April 12) was the Bellingcat blog mentioning Syrian government helicopters cited by Mason and Lucas. Greenwald also sent us a report from Reuters, as well as a piece from 2017, obviously prior to the alleged Douma event.

This was thin evidence indeed for the claim made. In our discussion with him, Greenwald then completely retracted his claim (Twitter, April 12, direct message) that there was evidence of Syrian government involvement in the alleged attack. [My emph. WB] – ' Douma: Part 1 – Deception In Plain Sight'

[Apr 12, 2019] The "non-diplomatic" scandal characteristic for our times of lawless deciders

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 12, 2019 at 5:53 pm GMT

@Dmitry The "non-diplomatic" scandal characteristic for our times of lawless deciders, with the UK leading the charge: https://www.hannenabintuherland.com/news/update-on-the-sergei-skripal-poisoning-and-the-conspicuously-many-unanswered-questions-dr-tim-hayward-herland-report/
"The Sergej Skripal case never reached beyond allegations. The media now dead silent," Dr. Tim Hayward – Herland Report

[Apr 12, 2019] It appears Assange was able to trigger the kill switch. There's been a massive data dump at Wikileaks

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [417] Disclaimer , says: April 12, 2019 at 7:56 pm GMT

Just for the record, it appears Assange was able to trigger the kill switch. There's been a massive data dump at Wikileaks:

https://file.wikileaks.org/file/

Sparkon , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:29 pm GMT
@Anon J ust for a more important record -- no surprise here -- my quick scan of the index of file names of that "massive data dump at Wikileaks" found quite a few files about Scientology, one about tuition increase at "uofa," another concerning Hawaii's announcement about Obama's birth certificate, and a "yes-we-can mp4," but nothing at all about the World Trade Center or 9/11 that I could find.

[Apr 12, 2019] A rare breed of individuals who surfaced during Russiagate: individuals with a remarkable capacity of swallowing a large pile of BS.

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

EugeneGur , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:22 pm GMT

@Prof. Woland

The Russians are not very worried about crossing the British but I cannot imagine what the fallout would be if one of their spies got caught got caught killing someone here.

Sir, you are a rare breed. I didn't believe who believe that nonsense about the Russians killing Litvinenko or Skripals actually existed. You have a remarkable capacity of swallowing a large pile of BS.

[Apr 12, 2019] A Chabad school is NOT a safe place for Jewish children

Apr 12, 2019 | www.chabad-mafia.com

In reality, Chabad's ideology is NOT Jewish. In Israel, Chabad is considered by the most important Rabbis as a religion different from Judaism. Chabad is a different religion. Chabadism is NOT Judaism.

So, why is this bad for the Jews? Chabad is a criminal organization. Chabad is mostly involved in white collar criminal activities such as financial fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering.


Chabad has also been linked to various Jewish child abuse cases

When these criminal activities are discovered and exposed to the public, and because Chabad poses as a Jewish organization, anti-Jewish hatred is created. That is, Chabad creates anti-semitism in the world.

Also, many of Chabad victims are Jewish. Mostly, Jewish children. Chabad runs several schools around the world. The objective of these schools is NOT to provide a good Jewish education for their students. The objective of these schools is to MAKE A PROFIT at the expense of the Jewish children.

... ... ...

Chabad-Lubavitch is also an international organized crime syndicate that strangles free enterprise and raises the level of violence, fraud, and corruption in various cities in the USA, and across the world.

... ... ...

Disclaimer: Please conduct your own investigation about the issues mentioned in this website. This website is only a brief summary of the problems with Chabad. For more information, please talk to your local community Rabbi. Also, if you really care about being Jewish, come live in Israel and study Judaism.

Copyright Notice: According to Jewish Law, it is a Mitzva, a religious obligation, to provide this information to every Jew in the world, in order to protect Jewish children from Chabad, and to save Jewish lives and Jewish souls from being destroyed by Chabad. Therefore, permission is granted to copy and reproduce all of the information found on this website in any form and publication, including any website or blog, and to translate it to any language. The only requirement is that you mention that the information was obtained from this website, and in the case of internet pages, please add a link back to this website.

(C) Yehudim Neged Chabad (Jews Against Chabad)

[Apr 11, 2019] The dubious products of the glorified diploma mills we call "higher education" are often the most gullible and dim-witted

Apr 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

HallParvey , says: April 10, 2019 at 2:56 pm GMT

@Nicolás Palacios Navarro

Unfortunately, the near totality of this country's populace is effectively illiterate and poorly equipped to think critically and independently, preferring to accept the verdicts of their oleaginous talking heads at face value without ever troubling themselves to examine why.

(The dubious products of the glorified diploma mills we call "higher education" are often the most gullible and dim-witted.)

Someday, when we all have multiple degrees from prestigious institutions of exalted learning, our collective I.Q. will be substantially higher than it is today, and we will understand everything.

Except how to change a light bulb.

[Apr 11, 2019] A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.

Notable quotes:
"... He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague ..."
Apr 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Republic , says: April 10, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT

Cicero's quotation:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

[Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

Highly recommended!
Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
Notable quotes:
"... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
"... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
"... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
"... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
"... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
"... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
"... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
"... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
"... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
"... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
"... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
"... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

"Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable material, a lot of it is buried in the 'postcasts', searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money.

I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming out about the British end of the conspiracy.

An important development here has been rather well covered by Chuck Ross, in a recent ‘Daily Caller’ piece headlined ‘Cambridge Academic Reflects On Interactions With 'Spygate’ Figure’ and one on ‘Fox’ by Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, entitled ‘Russian academic linked to Flynn denies being spy, says her past contact was “used” to smear him.’ However, the evidence involved has ramifications which they cannot be expected to understand, as yet at least.

(See https://dailycaller.com/201... ; https://www.foxnews.com/pol... .)

At issue is the attempt to use the – apparently casual – encounter between Lieutenant-General Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner in Cambridge (U.K.) in February 2016 to smear him by, among other things, portraying her as some kind of ‘Mata Hari’ figure.

Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’

This suggests that this was not simply a case Halper acting on his own. It also I think brings us back to the central importance of Flynn’s visit to Moscow in December 2015.

Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .)

Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them.

Some of Lokhova’s comments on ‘twitter’ are extremely entertaining. An example, with which I have much sympathy:

‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’

(See https://twitter.com/RealSLo... .)

Meanwhile, another interesting recent ‘tweet’ comes from Eliot Higgins, of ‘Bellingcat’ fame. He is known to some skeptics as ‘the couch potato’ – perhaps he should be rechristened ‘king cockroach.’ It reads:

‘Looking forward to gettin g things rolling with the Open Information Partnership, with @bellingcat, @MDI_UK, @DFRLab, and @This_Is_Zinc https://www.openinformation...

(See https://twitter.com/EliotHi... )

There is an interesting ‘backstory’ to this. The announcement of an FCO-supported ‘Open Information Partnership of European Non-Governmental Organisations, charities, academics, think-tanks and journalists’, supposedly to counter ‘disinformation’ from Russia, came in a written answer from the Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, on 3 April.

(See https://www.theyworkforyou.... )

In turn this followed the latest in a series of releases of material either leaked or hacked from the organisations calling themselves ‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ by the group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ on 25 March.

(See https://www.cyberguerrilla .... )

The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same.

A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation.

An interesting paragraph reads as follows:

‘An expanded research component could generate better understanding of the drivers (psychological, sociopolitical, cultural and environmental) of those who are susceptible to disinformation. This will allow us to map vulnerable audiences, and build scenario planning models to test the efficiency of different activities to build resilience of those populations over time.’

They have not yet got to the point of recommending psychiatic treatment for ‘dissidents’, but these are still early days. The ‘Sovietisation’ of Western life proceeds apace.

In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’)

Study of the proposal hacked/leaked by ‘Anonymous’ bring out both the ‘boondoggle’ element – there is a lot of state funding available for people happy to play these games – and also the strong transatlantic links.

A particularly significant presence, here, is the ‘DFRLab’. This is the ‘Digital Forensic Research Lab’ at the ‘Atlantic Council’, where Eliot Higgins is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’ The same organisation has a ‘Cyber Statecraft Initiative’ where Dmitri Alperovitch is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’

It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the ‘digital forensics’ done by their own people.

There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation.

To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic ‘Atlantic Council’ is even more preposterous.

The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.

There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."


chris chuba , a day ago

OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.

Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were going to be mass defections.

It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
[not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]

Karl Kolchak -> chris chuba , a day ago
Venezuela isn't about "socialism," or even Maduro--it's about the oil. They have the largest proven reserves in the world, though much of it is non-conventional and would need a ton of investment to exploit. But it's their oil, not ours, and we have no right to meddle in their internal affairs.
Jack -> Karl Kolchak , 15 hours ago
Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens the US.
Mad_Max22 , 17 hours ago
"There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous."

True; and true. It is also true that the Clinton e-mail investigation was faux, a limp caricature of what an investigation would look like when it is designed to uncover the truth. Allowing a subject's law firm to review the subject's e-mails from when she was in government for relevancy is beyond preposterous. An investigation conducted in the normal way by apolitical Agents in a field office would not walk away from a trove of evidence empty handed.
The inter-relatedness and overlapping of DoJ, CIA, and FBI personnel assigned to the Clinton e-mail case, the Russophobic nightmare of a 'case' targeting Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump presidential campaign, and yes, the Mueller political op, all reek of political bias and ineptitude followed by more political bias; and then culmination in a scorched earth investigation more characteristic of something the STASI might have undertaken than American justice.
Early morning raids, gag orders, solitary confinements, show indictments that will never see adjudication in a court room - truly unbelievable.

Jack , 15 hours ago
David

In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?

There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting. Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.

john fletcher , a day ago

I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.

And yet the chatterati continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was no more.

I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.

VietnamVet , 12 hours ago
The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler.

There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate.

[Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

Highly recommended!
Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
Notable quotes:
"... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
"... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
"... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
"... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
"... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
"... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
"... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
"... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
"... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
"... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
"... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
"... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

"Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable material, a lot of it is buried in the 'postcasts', searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money.

I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming out about the British end of the conspiracy.

An important development here has been rather well covered by Chuck Ross, in a recent ‘Daily Caller’ piece headlined ‘Cambridge Academic Reflects On Interactions With 'Spygate’ Figure’ and one on ‘Fox’ by Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, entitled ‘Russian academic linked to Flynn denies being spy, says her past contact was “used” to smear him.’ However, the evidence involved has ramifications which they cannot be expected to understand, as yet at least.

(See https://dailycaller.com/201... ; https://www.foxnews.com/pol... .)

At issue is the attempt to use the – apparently casual – encounter between Lieutenant-General Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner in Cambridge (U.K.) in February 2016 to smear him by, among other things, portraying her as some kind of ‘Mata Hari’ figure.

Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’

This suggests that this was not simply a case Halper acting on his own. It also I think brings us back to the central importance of Flynn’s visit to Moscow in December 2015.

Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .)

Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them.

Some of Lokhova’s comments on ‘twitter’ are extremely entertaining. An example, with which I have much sympathy:

‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’

(See https://twitter.com/RealSLo... .)

Meanwhile, another interesting recent ‘tweet’ comes from Eliot Higgins, of ‘Bellingcat’ fame. He is known to some skeptics as ‘the couch potato’ – perhaps he should be rechristened ‘king cockroach.’ It reads:

‘Looking forward to gettin g things rolling with the Open Information Partnership, with @bellingcat, @MDI_UK, @DFRLab, and @This_Is_Zinc https://www.openinformation...

(See https://twitter.com/EliotHi... )

There is an interesting ‘backstory’ to this. The announcement of an FCO-supported ‘Open Information Partnership of European Non-Governmental Organisations, charities, academics, think-tanks and journalists’, supposedly to counter ‘disinformation’ from Russia, came in a written answer from the Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, on 3 April.

(See https://www.theyworkforyou.... )

In turn this followed the latest in a series of releases of material either leaked or hacked from the organisations calling themselves ‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ by the group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ on 25 March.

(See https://www.cyberguerrilla .... )

The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same.

A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation.

An interesting paragraph reads as follows:

‘An expanded research component could generate better understanding of the drivers (psychological, sociopolitical, cultural and environmental) of those who are susceptible to disinformation. This will allow us to map vulnerable audiences, and build scenario planning models to test the efficiency of different activities to build resilience of those populations over time.’

They have not yet got to the point of recommending psychiatic treatment for ‘dissidents’, but these are still early days. The ‘Sovietisation’ of Western life proceeds apace.

In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’)

Study of the proposal hacked/leaked by ‘Anonymous’ bring out both the ‘boondoggle’ element – there is a lot of state funding available for people happy to play these games – and also the strong transatlantic links.

A particularly significant presence, here, is the ‘DFRLab’. This is the ‘Digital Forensic Research Lab’ at the ‘Atlantic Council’, where Eliot Higgins is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’ The same organisation has a ‘Cyber Statecraft Initiative’ where Dmitri Alperovitch is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’

It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the ‘digital forensics’ done by their own people.

There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation.

To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic ‘Atlantic Council’ is even more preposterous.

The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.

There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."


chris chuba , a day ago

OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.

Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were going to be mass defections.

It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
[not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]

Karl Kolchak -> chris chuba , a day ago
Venezuela isn't about "socialism," or even Maduro--it's about the oil. They have the largest proven reserves in the world, though much of it is non-conventional and would need a ton of investment to exploit. But it's their oil, not ours, and we have no right to meddle in their internal affairs.
Jack -> Karl Kolchak , 15 hours ago
Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens the US.
Mad_Max22 , 17 hours ago
"There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous."

True; and true. It is also true that the Clinton e-mail investigation was faux, a limp caricature of what an investigation would look like when it is designed to uncover the truth. Allowing a subject's law firm to review the subject's e-mails from when she was in government for relevancy is beyond preposterous. An investigation conducted in the normal way by apolitical Agents in a field office would not walk away from a trove of evidence empty handed.
The inter-relatedness and overlapping of DoJ, CIA, and FBI personnel assigned to the Clinton e-mail case, the Russophobic nightmare of a 'case' targeting Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump presidential campaign, and yes, the Mueller political op, all reek of political bias and ineptitude followed by more political bias; and then culmination in a scorched earth investigation more characteristic of something the STASI might have undertaken than American justice.
Early morning raids, gag orders, solitary confinements, show indictments that will never see adjudication in a court room - truly unbelievable.

Jack , 15 hours ago
David

In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?

There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting. Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.

john fletcher , a day ago

I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.

And yet the chatterati continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was no more.

I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.

VietnamVet , 12 hours ago
The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler.

There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate.

[Apr 10, 2019] It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man transition into the MIGA man.

Apr 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

aandrews says: April 10, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT

If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.

I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is, and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.

Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?

Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on BookTV .

Johnny Walker Read says: April 10, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT

@aandrews

Thanks for sharing the links on the Kushner Crime Family. It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man "transition" into the MIGA man. What amazes me are the number of dumb f*ck Americans who still worship this ass hat, all the while he is driving the betrayal dagger deeper into their back.

[Apr 10, 2019] A few initial thoughts about the first round of the Ukrainian Presidential election by The Saker

Sakers has a strong pro-Russian bias, and it shows. the process of distancing from Russia was common for all post-Soviet republics and actually was caused by the mere fact of acquiring independence. That it took such a self-destructive form in Ukraine is many ways the net result to Washington geopolitical machinations (supported by Germany, Poland and Sweden).
The key problem is not EuroMaydan nationalist "revolution" per se, but that fact that Ukrainian nationalists proved to be neoliberal compradors. Ukraine became the debt slave of the West. Under neoliberal neocolonialism this is a very stable condition that guarantees that the standard of living of people will not improve. The country will be sacked dry. So Ukraine is an example of "Latin-Americanization" of post Soviet space -- that policy that Washington actively implemented since 1991. After huge initial success with puppet Yeltsin regime, they failed to weaken and dismember Russia further due to ascendance of Putin. But for all other republics it was pretty successful neocolonial policy. They now have military bases in few of those republics and most of them are debt slaves of IMF and World bank. In a way EuroMaydan signified the finishing touches of conversion of this region into dent slaves.
Neoliberal Washington was turned into an oligarchy, an autocracy run by Davos billionaires. Their "liberty" and democracy was an early example of Orwellian Doublethink. It was to destroy everybody else's liberty so they could grab whatever they could, enslave the debtors and create the polarized hostile to each other countries in post-Soviet state that are easily controlled ("divide and conquer" strategy along with "Full Spectrum Dominance" mantra and neoliberal "Washington Consensus" method of enslavement). Ukraine is the most glaring example of this enslavement --the country with Central African level of poverty. It is very similar how Roman oligarchy behaved -- the Roman oligarchy accused anyone of supporting debtor rights and opposing its land grabs of "seeking kingship." Such men were murdered, century after century. It seems that unless there's a Hammurabi-style "divine king" or some elected civic regulatory authority arise, local neoliberal oligarchies arise and help to exploit their societies by Washington as much as they can, while trying to prevent the country from defending itself. In few countries like Hungary far right ascendance slowed down this process, but for how long is unlearn as global finance is controlled from London and Washington and can crash any individual country like a bug.
The Romans brutal "mission civilisatrice", can be viewed as to instll local oligarchy and and kind of "financialized" economy in other countries. For performing this service, the imperial power takes all the money that its colonies can generate. Washington is not different. That's why the US meddles in foreign politics of other countries, as we have just seen in Ukraine, Libya and Syria.
This overgrowth of debt under neoliberalism is highly destabilizing. Financial oligarchy have broken free of tax liability and are enriching themselves not by helping the overall country economy grow and raising living standards, but just the opposite: by getting the country into bigger and bigger debt. This is the essence of Poroshenko regime -- corrupt comprador oligarchy.
So there is no surprise that everybody hates Poroshenko and even huge "administrative resource" and personal wealth did not help him to get more then 15% of votes (of which 5-10% are probably fraudulent). That's typical for any neoliberal president who stand for re-election in a debt slave country. But it is important to to note that this Washington marionette made the situation much worse that the situation existed under Yanukovich (which was also corrupt as hell).
The role of Israel in EuroMaydan is open to review and one comment below addresses that.
Some comments are more informed and are more interesting then the article, for example by Beckow.
An interesting and funny detail is proliferation of "Children of lieutenant Schmitt" -- Holocaust survivors in Ukraine. People who were born in 1945, the first post-war generation, are now 75, right ? And life expectantly for this generation is probably 65 for men and 75 for women.
Notable quotes:
"... Poroshenko's absolutely vital goal was to make it into the 2nd round. Had he failed to make it he would have had to immediately jump into an aircraft and leave the country (because the most likely victor of the Presidential election would have been Iulia Tymoshenko and we can be darn sure that she would immediately jail him and most of his cronies). ..."
"... it is practically impossible to falsify an election and compensate for, say, a 15%-20% difference. But to cheat and change a result by less than 5% is much more doable. ..."
"... As for Zelenskii, he scores just like Poroshenko. ... ... ... ...Zelenskii is just a glorified puppet and everybody in the Ukraine knows that his puppet-master is Igor Kolomoiskii who is waiting out the final outcome of the Presidential election safely hidden in, you guessed it, Israel. ..."
"... Still, in theory, it is almost impossible for Poroshenko to win this one. Not only do all the other candidates hate Poroshenko way more than they would dislike Zelenskii, voters for Tymoshenko or Boiko are far more likely to vote for Zelenskii than for Poroshenko. ..."
"... Most votes went to Zelenski that is indication that Ukrainians now did loose their enthusiasm, and they are becoming more lethargic. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's State Department funneled $5 billion to orchestrate a "revolution" to overthrow the elected President of Ukraine in 2014. (See my June 7, 2016 blog post for details.) Ukraine's President was ousted because he refused to support Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, and violence spread throughout Ukraine as CIA funded factions fought for power. ..."
"... With the exception of the Baltic states, that simply isn't true of any nation from the former Soviet Union. Otherwise, the Russians couldn't have set up the Eurasian Customs Union which covers ~90% of the former USSR. There are even many Georgians working in Russia, in spite of the short war that was started by US dummy and former Georgian then Ukrainian, now stateless, Mikheil Saakashvili. ..."
"... I say the best solution for Ukraine would be to leave the nazis among themselves by giving independence to Galicia. If it's the price to pay to reintegrate Donbass, for the economy, and for peace and stability, it's worth it. ..."
"... He has been in the office for 5 years and 85% of people want someone else. How much clearer could this be? This was a massive vote of no-confidence by Ukrainians. If Porky squeezes or cheats his way into staying as president, he is asking for trouble – it is not sustainable and Washington knows it. ..."
"... Galicia and Donbas also clearly cannot coexist in the same non-federated state, they are on opposite sides. ..."
"... That takes away 3-5% of the Ukrainian economy. If Russia piles on and restricts more trade, or limits remittances, there will inevitably by a recession in Ukraine. The circus is about to re-start, no wonder the clowns are renting stadiums. But at some point the distractions will cease to distract – and then the damn reality will hit even harder ..."
"... Most importantly, the masters are OK with it. Imperial gauleiter of Ukraine Volker has already voiced his support for Porky. Porky would likely be more obedient than anyone else: he can be blackmailed, as he has already earned gallows (or life in prison in countries that don't have death penalty). So, the masters have already chosen their favorite puppet. We'll see on April 21st how much influence they have. ..."
"... I am not saying that Zelensky (and his puppet master Kolomoisky) won't do, but from masters' point of view old clown is apparently preferable to the new one. ..."
"... the first step when things don't go well, is to rotate the clowns. We got Macron, the German doppelganger for Merkel, elites tried Renzi in Italy, so maybe Zelinsky could work. He is a complete tabula rasa, non-entity, that wouldn't know how to find the executive washroom. At a minimum, he would buy some time. Next they can still try Tymoshenko. This will not get resolved through the political process. ..."
"... If the masters allow new clown to win, Gas princess can be made the speaker of the Rada ..."
"... I am not sure what is left to be gained in Ukraine, it is all costs and very few benefits. That's what happens when the layered lying becomes so convoluted that the masters lose track of the objectives. ..."
"... They wanted Crimea (actually Russia out of Crimea bases, NATO in) – that failed. Everything else were distractions, false promises, and payoffs to locals. A normal master would accept the defeat, take his toys home, and wait for the next time. The post-modern Washingtonians instead pretend that the sweet talk was real , try for silly, secondary objectives (how about a few missiles on the Russian border? that would work out great), or refuse to accept the obvious. Making the whole fiasco more costly. ..."
"... As to a few missiles on Russian border, they already have that in Baltic vaudeville states, which are much closer to Moscow and especially Sankt Petersburg then Zhmerinka. ..."
"... Then again, I am looking at it rationally, whereas Washington politburo is getting even less rational that the Soviet one under Brezhnev. ..."
"... In April this year [2018] the U.S. supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and in May 2018 the U.S. Congress approved $250m of military funding, specifically including deliveries of lethal weaponry. ..."
"... President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker (a neocon, acolyte of senator John McCain, previously appointed by George Bush as U.S. ambassador to NATO) announced further U.S. arms supplies would follow, boasting of rising anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine. ..."
"... The zionists have been in cahoots with the neo-Nazi throughout the whole State Dept. criminal enterprise in Ukraine. The Kagans clan of holo-biz survivors and other pro-Nazi Jewish activists such as Gershman (NED) and Foxman (ADL) have been the moving force towards banderization of Ukraine ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
The Nazis suffered a crushing defeat in this election.
By "Nazis" I primarily mean their main figurehead – Petro Poroshenko (the rest of the "minor Nazis" did so poorly that they don't matter anymore). Think of it: in spite of his immense wealth (he outspent everybody else and even spent more that twice what the next big spender – Tymoshenko – doled out for each vote), in spite of his immense "administrative resource" (that is the Russian expression for the ability to use the power of the state for your personal benefit), in spite of his "victory" with the Tomos , in spite of triggering the Kerch bridge incident, in spite of breaking all the remaining treaties with Russia, in spite of his control of the media and in spite of the (now admittedly lukewarm) support of the West, Poroshenko suffered a crushing defeat. Look at the only two regions Petro Poroshenko (i.e. the Nazis) actually won (in blue) and see how nicely they overlap with the rough historical contours of the Galicia region. But Poroshenko managed to even lose part of that to Iulia Tymoshenko! Bottom line: except for a minority of rabid hardcore Nazis in Galicia, the rest of the Ukraine hates the Poroshenko Ukronazi regime. We always knew that, but now we have the proof. ... ... ... Remember how Poroshenko promised peace in weeks, a full respect for the Russian language and prosperity for all? Well, all he delivered was chaos, insecurity, poverty, violence, a massive influx of Ukronazis from Canada and the USA and, above all, a completely hysterical, rabid, russophobia combined with abject groveling before the AngloZionist Empire. He also brought an absolutely unbelievable level of corruption, having personally doubled his net worth many times over. The legacy Ziomedia and the Ukropropaganda can say all they want, and they can try to ban the Russian media and Internet in the Ukraine. But the truth is that everybody in the Ukraine knows that the Ukraine went from being the richest Soviet Republic to the poorest country in Europe. In fact, there are quite a few African countries which are doing much better than the Ukraine. The truth is, and has been for several years now, that the Ukraine is a failed state and that there is absolutely no even vaguely plausible scenario in the foreseeable future in which the Ukraine could begin to recover. Hence this amazing result: short of the Galician Nazis, everyone else absolutely hates the regime in power. So Poroshenko's score is a humiliating defeat for all the Ukronazis. But not for Petro Poroshenko himself!
Petro Poroshenko scores a remarkable personal victory
Poroshenko's absolutely vital goal was to make it into the 2nd round. Had he failed to make it he would have had to immediately jump into an aircraft and leave the country (because the most likely victor of the Presidential election would have been Iulia Tymoshenko and we can be darn sure that she would immediately jail him and most of his cronies). In order to make it into the 2nd round, Poroshenko did not have to defeat Zelenskii, but only defeat Tymoshenko and that Poroshenko also succeeded in doing. Oh sure – it was thanks to a huge, massive fraud all over the country (especially in the easternmost and westernmost regions) and he beat her only by 2.5% but that is more than enough.

Besides, it is practically impossible to falsify an election and compensate for, say, a 15%-20% difference. But to cheat and change a result by less than 5% is much more doable. In fact, if we assume that a 5% fraud is well within the means of an outgoing President and billionaire, then we can also see that we will never know who really won . See here for an almost finished (99.68%) count for the top four contenders: While Zelenskii is untouchable and way ahead of everybody else, Poroshenko, Tymoshenko and Boiko are all within less than 5% of each other. Interesting, no?

Keep in mind that Boiko is the closest thing to a pro-Russian candidate and that just a few years ago he was virtually unknown. See for yourself: 2014 results vs 2018 poll Look at the stats for 2014: Poroshenko had 55% of the vote, Tymoshenko 8% and Boiko just about 0%. Please also notice that in the 2018 poll Tymoshenko is way ahead of Poroshenko while Boiko is not far behind.

As for Zelenskii, he scores just like Poroshenko. ... ... ... ...Zelenskii is just a glorified puppet and everybody in the Ukraine knows that his puppet-master is Igor Kolomoiskii who is waiting out the final outcome of the Presidential election safely hidden in, you guessed it, Israel. This is how the Tablet concludes:

The transformation wrought in Ukraine by the Maidan revolution has been an exhilarating roller coaster that has not bypassed Ukrainian Jewry, which is now in the midst of an exciting period of cultural revival paralleling that of the wider Ukrainian society, which is still just beginning to rediscover its own past and imagine an independent future. Whether this post-Soviet country will choose to elect an openly Jewish president, or a part-Jewish president, or continue with its current philo-Semitic president, the future of Ukraine's Jews would appear to be brighter than anyone might reasonably have imagined.
Where Poroshenko was the ultimate apparatchik Zelenskii is the ultimate outsider and just as the people of the USA did not vote "for" Trump as much as they voted "against" Hillary, so the people of the Ukraine did not really vote "for" Zelenskii, but "against" Poroshenko. In fact, Zelenskii does not have anything resembling a political program (only vague and nice sounding slogans) and he most certainly has no other political record other than being a standup comedian and actors in several (pretty good) satirical series. Frankly, it appears that Zelenskii was as stunned by his victory as Trump was by his.

Still, in theory, it is almost impossible for Poroshenko to win this one. Not only do all the other candidates hate Poroshenko way more than they would dislike Zelenskii, voters for Tymoshenko or Boiko are far more likely to vote for Zelenskii than for Poroshenko. This creates an extremely dangerous situation: Poroshenko can only win by a massive fraud . Now Tymoshenko did declare that the first round was stolen, but she decided not to appeal this officially. Furthermore, it is now apparent that Tymoshenko was ditched by most of her US supporters, something which she clearly did not expect and which came as a total shock to her, hence her stunned reaction to the announced figures. She has always been, and still is, a remarkably intelligent lady and a very calculating realist: she simply knows that an official rejection of the outcome from her would make no difference. But you can be sure that behind the scenes the interests Tymoshenko represents are now talking to the people of Kolomoiskii and that Poroshenko is fully aware of that. ... ... ...

Conclusion: a very interesting and very dangerous situation

Poroshenko is now truly cornered: he absolutely must win, or he must run. In order to win, his options are very limited

... ... ...

The infamous Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, arguably currently the most powerful and dangerous man in the Ukraine, has made an most interesting statement about Zelenskii:

"A decent man from another world. From another plane. Ready to deal with problems, but at the same time recognizing that in many issues he is not fully competent. In my understanding, this means that he is ready to delegate authority. However, the question arises: can we – Ukrainian society – offer the quality of the elite, which can be entrusted with the implementation of such powers? After all, if he delegates authority to scoundrels – as it happens in some series of "Servants of the people" – it will be very bad for the country. Using expats is also not an option "( ) "He knows for sure that from point A it is necessary to come to point B, and I am ready to agree with it. But the problem is how to go this way. Often, if you go head-on, you will crash into a wall or break. Therefore, it is necessary to choose the right path – and here should work competent and honest specialists"

In plain English this simply means: Zelenskii has no personal power base, he will be a puppet, so he better offer me a good deal (" delegate authority "), or I will turn against him and, how knows, an unpredictable accident (" you will crash into a wall or break ") can easily happen. Shocking? Welcome to "Ukrainian thug politics"! Besides, if the Nazis decide to kill Zelenskii they can easily blame it on Russia. Either that, or on a "lone, deranged, gunman" which they can find in the thousands amongst the various Nazi death-squads.

Right now the Nazis are in a total panic, they are declaring that Zelenskii's victory is "Moscow's triumph", they say that Zelenskii will sell out everything Ukrainian and that he is a Putin agent. At the very least, they will now dig up as much dirt on Zelenskii as possible (whether real or manufactured).

... ... ...


AP , says: April 4, 2019 at 2:31 am GMT

Everybody in the Ukraine knows that the Ukraine went from being the richest Soviet Republic to the poorest country in Europe

In Soviet times Ukraine was was poorer than Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic Republics.

And Moldova is the poorest country in Europe.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=UA-RU-BY-MD

Patricus , says: April 4, 2019 at 11:35 pm GMT
How come the nations geographically closest to Russia hate her the most?
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 6, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
Zelenski means green man and has Polish indication. So he is one of the holocaust survivors. (There are suspiciously too many of them these days.)

Timoshenko was virulently anti Russian but not so much anymore. All industrial plants in Ukraine were built by Russians making products for Russia, I have doubt that they can make anything that west needs. So Ukraine now is fully depended on agriculture. That is why Ukraine is going down.

Most votes went to Zelenski that is indication that Ukrainians now did loose their enthusiasm, and they are becoming more lethargic.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 6, 2019 at 10:18 pm GMT
Galicia is multicultural area consisting mostly Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, and some other nationals. There is no unity there, and never will be
Carlton Meyer , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 5:17 am GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova Maybe Galicia should be returned to Poland? From my blog:

May 1, 2017 – Must Ukraine Return Volhynia?

Hillary Clinton's State Department funneled $5 billion to orchestrate a "revolution" to overthrow the elected President of Ukraine in 2014. (See my June 7, 2016 blog post for details.) Ukraine's President was ousted because he refused to support Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, and violence spread throughout Ukraine as CIA funded factions fought for power.

Crimea was part of Russia for over a century until it was administratively attached to Ukraine in 1954 by a Soviet premier to promote Soviet solidarity. Russians are the majority people in Crimea and Russian is the common language, but they were not consulted. In 2014, after years of Ukrainian political turmoil and an American coup in Kiev, Russia accepted a request by the people of Crimea to rejoin Russia after 94% voted in favor. (See my Aug 8, 2016 blog post for details.) Russians and Crimeans were puzzled by intense American opposition to this reannexation, and rightly concluded the Americans really wanted "NATO" military bases in strategic Crimea.

For those concerned about European borders and justice, they should address a truly outrageous annexation. In 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and seized half of its land while Soviet police massacred 22,000 influential Polish POWs and civilians. This area was invaded by Germany two years later, which formed Ukrainian paramilitary units that murdered over 100,000 Poles during the war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia

Entire Polish villages disappeared as Ukrainians massacred everyone to include women and children, who were buried in mass graves. After the war, the Polish regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were formally annexed by Soviet Ukraine after 1.5 million Poles were forcibly deported. Over the next decade, another 1.5 million Poles were deported by Ukraine to ethically cleanse these regions (noted in yellow below).

The West did nothing about this brutality because it occurred within the powerful Soviet Union. However, that union broke up and Ukraine is weak and at odds with Russia. On July 22, 2016, the Parliament of Poland passed a resolution recognizing the massacres of ethnic Poles in Volhynia and Galicia as genocide. Poland is now part of NATO and American troops are based there. Thousands of Poles are still alive who were expelled from these regions. Homes and land were seized from millions of Poles. Ukrainian war criminals remain at large.

This raises several questions. If Poland demands a return of its territory or compensation for Poles, will powerful NATO support its demand? Will sanctions be imposed against Ukraine for this genocide and illegal seizure of Polish territory? Since Crimea was attached to Ukraine without a democratic vote, and the citizens of Crimea voted to rejoin Russia, should sanctions against Russia be removed?

Informed people know these issues will never be addressed because NATO does not exist to protect member states, but is a proxy arm of America's neocon empire trying to conquer the world. However, as Poland's military grows stronger and Ukraine struggles, this issue may arise, and crafty Russia may support a return of Poland's, Slovakia's, and Romania's seized territories!

Vojkan , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:16 am GMT
@Patricus

With the exception of the Baltic states, that simply isn't true of any nation from the former Soviet Union. Otherwise, the Russians couldn't have set up the Eurasian Customs Union which covers ~90% of the former USSR. There are even many Georgians working in Russia, in spite of the short war that was started by US dummy and former Georgian then Ukrainian, now stateless, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Vojkan , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:24 am GMT
I say the best solution for Ukraine would be to leave the nazis among themselves by giving independence to Galicia. If it's the price to pay to reintegrate Donbass, for the economy, and for peace and stability, it's worth it.
Vojkan , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:32 am GMT
@Carlton Meyer Poles would be crazy to take back Galicia. Just fence the nazi lunatics in with electrified barbed wire and leave them among themselves.
Macon Richardson , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:40 am GMT
@One Tribe Well, yes, in a fashion. I'm from the old South (Roosevelt was in his second term when I was born). Though I was educated at a fine old southern university and though I have lived a significant part of my adult life in Europe, Asia and Africa, I still revel in being called a redneck, a hick, a yokel, a cracker.

I embrace all of those terms because they only illustrate the ignorance of those who use them in a derogatory manner. I also embrace being a part of the goyim. Those who use those terms to wound only shows their fear, their own sense of inferiority to me, to us, Christian southerners both white and black.

jbwilson24 , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:01 am GMT
"Zionist praise for a Nazi" Poroshenko has Jewish ancestry, you dimwit. Go read the article in Forward called 'Poroshenko's Secret Jewish Roots'. Ukraine has three Jewish men in a row as prime minister. How interesting, given their rather low population percentage.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:53 am GMT
@Carlton Meyer Largest part of Galicia did belong to Slovakia. To Poland did belong only Lvov and surrounding area.
(Although most populated.)
Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:47 am GMT
@Patricus Ask your latinamericans neighbours how much they love the USA
mikemikev , says: April 7, 2019 at 1:01 pm GMT
@jbwilson24

Yes they're a strange type of Nazi to install a Jewish leader. "Nazism" in most people's minds is synonymous with anti-Jewism. Are they that?

Rich , says: April 7, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT
Nazi, Nazi, Nazi. Do these guys ever stop? It reminds me of the old Jews in Queens, NY, every time they got into a disagreement with anyone, they yelled "Nazi". Even the regular Jews got sick of it. The Ukrainians have a long history of nationalist thinkers, opposed to Russian domination. Like the Finns, the Ukrainian patriots may have taken German support in WW2, but that doesn't make the "Nazis". The National Socialists were a unique party to the Germany of the 1930s, would you call Italian Fascists "Nazis"?
Oscar Peterson , says: April 7, 2019 at 2:39 pm GMT
@Patricus Is that a serious question?

Ask yourself why, in general, one country/nation hates another? It's because of attempts at invasion and domination. And historically, who is going to invade/dominate you? Those geographically closest obviously. Sure, there are exceptions to this–the Mongol Empire, the Arab Caliphate, and most strikingly, the Western invasion of well, everywhere in the 16th-20th centuries.

But in most of the world most of the time for most of human existence, it's the guy next door who is going to screw you and whom you in turn will screw.

Irish-English. German-French. Serb-Croat. Arab-Persian. Vietnamese-Cambodian. Tutsi-Hutu. Iroquois-Algonkian. Navajo-Hopi.

So why would you be surprised?

One commenter suggested a comparison with Latin American attitudes towards the US. This is partly true, but there are several differences. First, national identity is, on the whole, relatively weak in New World. What does it really mean to be a Honduran? Secondly, the main US security mechanism in the Western Hemisphere has been its navy which means relatively less direct occupation and repression of places like Mexico. Russia, invaded from East and West, has always sought security zones that inevitably mean occupation and subjugation. Third, US hegemonism has only really gotten going over the last 125 years, so it hasn't had as much time to antagonize its neighbors, and we had the good fortune of ravaging most of the locals near at hand with the small pox, etc that we brought along with us.

These factors combine to explain why the hatred quotient towards Russia by its neighbors is higher than that towards the US.

Wally , says: April 7, 2019 at 2:49 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova said:

"Zelenski means green man and has Polish indication. So he is one of the holocaust survivors. (There are suspiciously too many of them these days.)"

– The endless numbers of "survivors" are especially amazing since it's claimed that 'the Germans tried to kill every Jew they could get their hands on.'

... ... ...

Oscar Peterson , says: April 7, 2019 at 2:51 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

Galicia is multicultural area consisting mostly Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, and some other nationals. There is no unity there, and never will be.

Then why do they seem to behave politically in ways that set them apart from all those around them?

Oscar Peterson , says: April 7, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

Largest part of Galicia did belong to Slovakia.

Really? I never thought of Slovaks as owning much of anything–not even Slovakia historically. Hungarians, Austrians, Czechs all dominated Slovakia. Could you expand on your notion of the majority of Galicia belonging to Slovakia?

Beckow , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:29 pm GMT
When a sitting president anywhere in the world runs for re-election and gets 15%, the decent thing is to step aside. It doesn't matter how many other candidates run, there could be hundreds – what matters is that 85% of people voted against Porky as their first choice .

He has been in the office for 5 years and 85% of people want someone else. How much clearer could this be? This was a massive vote of no-confidence by Ukrainians. If Porky squeezes or cheats his way into staying as president, he is asking for trouble – it is not sustainable and Washington knows it.

Galicia and Donbas also clearly cannot coexist in the same non-federated state, they are on opposite sides.

Economy: is it not going to get better. The bad news have been pushed after the elections, and in 2020 two things will happen:

Kiev will have to start paying back at least some of the Western loans Income from gas transit will be gone (and possibly the gas itself).

That takes away 3-5% of the Ukrainian economy. If Russia piles on and restricts more trade, or limits remittances, there will inevitably by a recession in Ukraine. The circus is about to re-start, no wonder the clowns are renting stadiums. But at some point the distractions will cease to distract – and then the damn reality will hit even harder

annamaria , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:41 pm GMT
@Vojkan The Poles deserve the ziocon-"renovated" & "liberated" Galicia festering with the active Banderites. Look how the Poles have been treating the monuments to the fallen Soviet soldiers. Let the Poles enjoy their passionate brotherly love with the ZUSA.

As Saker writes,

Fundamentally, Nazis and Zionists are twin brothers, even if deep down they hate (and often admire!) each other.

If there is something positive about Maidan regime change, it is the revelation of the ziocons active role in the revival of neo-Nazism in Ukraine. The revelation is a death blow to the holo-biz profiteering schema.

Whether the Jewish State's provisions of Israel-made ammunition to the neo-Nazis or the ADL & Simon Wiesenthal Center support for the neo-Nazi (see the zionists scandalous behavior re the Conyers' Amendment), the zionists did indeed come out (again!) as the "twin brothers" of the worsts among Nazis.

https://portside.org/2014-11-20/how-israel-lobby-protected-ukrainian-neo-nazis

AnonFromTN , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT
I disagree that Porky is dumb. He successfully fleeced the whole country, including competing oligarchs, for 5 years. Dumb are the people who still support him. Ukrainians voting for Porky are like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders. But some morons never learn.

Porky might be fond of his drink. He showed up seriously inebriated several times publicly, but he wouldn't be able to steal hundreds of millions consistently while being drunk all the time. Saakashvili (admittedly, hardly a reliable source of info) said that Porky ran the country into the ground being sober. Well, Porky never cared about the country, all he is interested in is the trough. That's why he wants five more years of stealing, and he is reluctant to yield his place at the trough to someone else.

Most importantly, the masters are OK with it. Imperial gauleiter of Ukraine Volker has already voiced his support for Porky. Porky would likely be more obedient than anyone else: he can be blackmailed, as he has already earned gallows (or life in prison in countries that don't have death penalty). So, the masters have already chosen their favorite puppet. We'll see on April 21st how much influence they have.

I am not saying that Zelensky (and his puppet master Kolomoisky) won't do, but from masters' point of view old clown is apparently preferable to the new one.

Robjil , says: April 7, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMT
@Oscar Peterson Transcarpathia is a long extension of Slovakia. It was taken from Czechoslovakia after WWII and given to Soviet Ukraine. The people of this region never thought of themselves as Ukrainian or Galician but as Rusyns or Ruthenians. Transcarpathia was mainly given to Soviet Union because it is a good gateway for tanks into Eastern Europe such as the case for Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. This region also has a large Hungarian population, since Hungary used to rule it in the Austro-Hungarian empire times.
Beckow , says: April 7, 2019 at 6:44 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN

old clown is apparently preferable to the new one

For some he is preferable, he is more reliable. Anytime a new clown is elevated, there is some unpredictability. Bosses hate surprises.

On the other hand, the first step when things don't go well, is to rotate the clowns. We got Macron, the German doppelganger for Merkel, elites tried Renzi in Italy, so maybe Zelinsky could work. He is a complete tabula rasa, non-entity, that wouldn't know how to find the executive washroom. At a minimum, he would buy some time. Next they can still try Tymoshenko. This will not get resolved through the political process.

AnonFromTN , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:03 pm GMT
@Beckow

Next they can still try Tymoshenko. This will not get resolved through the political process.

Why not? If the masters allow new clown to win, Gas princess can be made the speaker of the Rada . Then an unfortunate accident can be easily arranged, and she becomes next successor perfectly legally. The masters do these things pretty often: remember Ulof Palme or Aldo Moro. Zelensky can be got rid of the same way, if the masters decide that it's to their benefit.

Beckow , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN That's a possible scenario. But in that part of the world, scenarios never play out the way they are planned.

I am not sure what is left to be gained in Ukraine, it is all costs and very few benefits. That's what happens when the layered lying becomes so convoluted that the masters lose track of the objectives.

They wanted Crimea (actually Russia out of Crimea bases, NATO in) – that failed. Everything else were distractions, false promises, and payoffs to locals. A normal master would accept the defeat, take his toys home, and wait for the next time. The post-modern Washingtonians instead pretend that the sweet talk was real , try for silly, secondary objectives (how about a few missiles on the Russian border? that would work out great), or refuse to accept the obvious. Making the whole fiasco more costly.

ploni almoni , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT
@Patricus America is not so close.
AnonFromTN , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:45 pm GMT
@Beckow

The only reason they didn't abandon failed Ukrainian project I can see is that from imperial standpoint the more irritants you create for Russia, the better. Current Ukraine is an irritant. When its further disintegrates and becomes a huge Somalia on Russian doorstep, it would become an even grater irritant. Of course, Poles would suffer, too, but when did the masters take aborigines into account?

As to a few missiles on Russian border, they already have that in Baltic vaudeville states, which are much closer to Moscow and especially Sankt Petersburg then Zhmerinka.

Then again, I am looking at it rationally, whereas Washington politburo is getting even less rational that the Soviet one under Brezhnev.

annamaria , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN Who is Kurt Volker? https://mronline.org/2018/09/20/natos-fascist-wedge-in-ukraine/

In April this year [2018] the U.S. supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and in May 2018 the U.S. Congress approved $250m of military funding, specifically including deliveries of lethal weaponry.

President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker (a neocon, acolyte of senator John McCain, previously appointed by George Bush as U.S. ambassador to NATO) announced further U.S. arms supplies would follow, boasting of rising anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine.

https://therealnews.com/stories/max-blumenthal-us-is-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine

Kurt Volker, similar to the deceased McCain, is a loyal servant to ziocons and war profiteers. Actually, Volker is a war profiteer himself.

The US's envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who is connected to Raytheon, is in favor of this arms shipment, and it's inevitable that it [arms shipment] will reach Azov [Battalion]

Azov Battalion functions in a lot of ways like ISIS has in Syria and Iraq Azov camps with an enormous trove of weapons .. we are talking about hundreds of pounds of C4 explosives, automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

Azov's own website demonstrates that US military trainers have visited Azov in the field to train and exchange logistical information. They appeared in uniform with Azov Battalion members who were wearing the wolf's angel patch, which is a Nazi SS symbol, a runic neo-Nazi symbol on their arm. This is just a scandalous spectacle. Not only that, contracts have been revealed showing that the Texas-based AirTronic arms company has produced PSRL-1 grenade launchers that were actually authorized under this watch of the State Department and delivered directly into the hands of the Azov Battalion. The US has armed Azov.

Again, what the ADL has been squeaking about -- that there are too many Holo-biz Deniers? -- The zionists have been in cahoots with the neo-Nazi throughout the whole State Dept. criminal enterprise in Ukraine. The Kagans clan of holo-biz survivors and other pro-Nazi Jewish activists such as Gershman (NED) and Foxman (ADL) have been the moving force towards banderization of Ukraine (Babij Yar, ADL?).

None of them cares about the memory of WWII victims the zionists only care about profits. As for Kurt Volker, he is with zionists in the search for mega-profit. He is a regular opportunist devoid of dignity.

annamaria , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:24 pm GMT
Kurt Volker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Volker

Volker served on the staff of Senator John McCain from 1997 to 1998. He was appointed United States Permanent Representative to NATO in July 2008 by President George W. Bush.

Volker went into the private sector in 2009, becoming an independent director at The Wall Street Fund Inc. He was a member of the board of directors at Capital Guardian Funds Trust Volker was also an independent director at Evercore Wealth Management Macro Opportunity Fund

Volker served as a senior advisor at McLarty Associates, a global consulting firm. In 2011, he joined BGR Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm and investment bank

He has been a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies since September 2009, and a Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council since October 2009. [Atlantic Council has been a safe harbor for the rabidly Russophobic Elliot Higgins and Dmitri Alperovich of Russia-gate fame, https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/29/how-russia-gate-rationalizes-censorship/ )

Kurt Volker, a certified war profiteer and money manager using his position as a government employee for making money on lobbying What can be wrong with his judgements?

Tedx , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:02 pm GMT
Special Education comment for the fluoride-lobotomized vegetables, known internationally as AMERICANS: Petro Poroshenko, described in this article as the figurehead of rhe "Nazis" is a Jew. When the US sponsored the coup in the Ukraine, both the democratically elected President and Prime Minister were replaced by Jews.

The alleged Neo-Nazis, "Right Sector" were unemployed punks led by Israeli mercenaries, virtually unchallenged by effectively bribed, Ukrainian military commanders.

If Adolf Hitler were alive today and controlled the Ukraine, he would order that -- without exception -- every member of Right Sector be either euthanized or sterilized to prevent the Right Sector Stupid Gene to infect the Aryan Race.

Anyone or any organization that refers to the Jewish president of the Ukraine and his followers as "Nazis" are obviously Zionist propaganda agents misleading the mentally feeble.

Beckow , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:01 am GMT
@AnonFromTN When we were kids we would climb into neighbours' gardens to steal cherries. You climb up a tree, break a few branches, take the cherries. No guilt. Every kid feels ' exceptional , it is something that comes naturally to all 12-year olds.

The weird thing about modern Washingtonians is that they never outgrew that infantile stage. They still feel 'exceptional', taking other people's stuff is ok. Why wouldn't be ? If one is exceptional, he is by definition better than others, and the others really have no rights, except the ones given to them by the exceptional people.

When a thieving raid by the exceptional people is blocked – as in Crimea – it leaves no good options. Should one admit that they were about to take the 'stuff' (the Sebastopol bases), lost out, and simply retreat? No, it is hard to stay exceptional when losing. Image and perceptions are everything in Washington.

Should they escalate and try to storm Crimea to get what they want and deserve? Again, no, because exceptional people can't risk hurt or injury, they are too precious, they are after all 'exceptional'.

Should they send their decidedly unexceptional underlings to storm Crimea? Well, that would be ideal, but the underlings are too stupid to even get into the garden, and climbing a tree is way beyond their ability. One can train them, send them ladders – but everyone knows that they will never do it.

That leaves the least bad option of sticking around to ' irritate ' Russia. There is not much gain in it, it gets old very quickly, it is also costly and even dangerous. But it preserves the image of 'exceptional' people, it can be spun around for different perceptions, and it makes the local allies less antsy and less likely to run away with their loot. Other than that it achieves nothing.

That's where we are: a bunch of unserious morons sitting in a car parked outside the cherry orchard, scared to go in, scared to leave, hoping that nobody notices, and still craving the sweet cherries without even being able to admit that's what they are there for.

Fidelios Automata , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:14 am GMT
@Tedx It's no contradiction at all. Israels have been behaving very much like Nazis toward the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

[Apr 09, 2019] People like Elliott Abrams are seldom kept around after the goals are won, though too much danger they might develop loose lips. So, often, something happens to them. In this case, it couldn t happen to a righter guy.

Apr 09, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star April 9, 2019 at 12:33 pm

"Nearly a quarter million people were killed between 1962 and 1996 in Guatemala, 93 percent at the hands of pro-government forces. The UN-backed Commission for Historical Clarification classified the massacre of Mayan Indians, treated by the military as a potential constituency for guerrillas, as genocide, including the destruction of up to 90 percent of the Ixil-Mayan towns and the bombing of those fleeing. In El Salvador, 988 of the 75,000 killed between 1980 and 1992 -- also overwhelmingly by pro-government forces -- were massacred in the Morazán Department in the "El Mozote" case, whose prosecution is at risk.

Most of the victims were children, who were shot down, burned and raped en masse or hung upside down and bled from their throats. Refuting claims by defendants that victims were combatants, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has stated: "We only found marbles, toys, coins, cooking utensils, sandals and flip-flops next to their bodies." It was the largest single documented massacre in modern Latin American history.

What the ruling class wants to be "forgotten" is the fact that their only response to the crisis of global capitalism is dictatorship, war and barbarism."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/09/ceam-a09.html

Current (continuing) shitstain war criminal appointed by Trump:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Abrams#Guatemala

Mark Chapman April 9, 2019 at 4:58 pm
There are always pick-and-shovel men like Abrams around to do the wet work – for their part, because they like it, and are contemptuous of those who shrink from violence. But they are singularly useful for the reigning government, as well, since it has to sing soothing songs of respect for human rights and pretend to view violence as repugnant and unnecessary. It would be, if the government had forever to achieve its aims. But it usually has to bank on putting America in the place it wants it to be in four years. Sometimes that means a bunch of people have to be eliminated, or else you run out of time.

People like Elliott Abrams are seldom kept around after the goals are won, though – too much danger they might develop loose lips. So, often, something 'happens' to them. In this case, it couldn't 'happen' to a righter guy.

[Apr 09, 2019] Trump had 4 bankruptcies and we let him run US economy !

Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 9, 2019 at 12:25 am GMT

@renfro

Trump had 4 bankruptcies let him run your economy !!

2+ years into his presidency, there is little room left for doubt about his competency. I regret having supported him, although arguably, the alternative was worse.

On a lighter note, here is Trump singing from Eurythmics, courtesy of Google AI:

[Apr 09, 2019] Russians halt search for intelligent life in Washington by Bryan Hemming

Apr 08, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Russian research team which claimed to have detected signs of intelligent life in Washington has now discovered the life there not to be quite so intelligent after all.

A Russian spokesman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told our Moscow science correspondent -- who also wishes to remain anonymous -- that the Washington atmosphere has been poisoned by huge clouds of putrid hot air belching from the corporate media. He explained that such a hostile environment makes it almost impossible for intelligent life to survive, let alone evolve a sustainable culture. The Russian team believes there may still be small pockets of intelligent life elsewhere on the North American continent but without the necessary conditions they need to thrive they are destined to disappear without trace.

Speaking off the record, the Russian spokesman, who asked us not to disclose his identity, added that hopes of finding intelligent life in London, Paris, Berlin and other Western European locations, where it might be expected to flourish, are fading fast. Though it is believed intelligent life once existed in Occiental Europe, an atmosphere suitable for the maintenance of such life has all but evaporated.

[Apr 09, 2019] People like Elliott Abrams are seldom kept around after the goals are won, though too much danger they might develop loose lips. So, often, something happens to them. In this case, it couldn t happen to a righter guy.

Apr 09, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star April 9, 2019 at 12:33 pm

"Nearly a quarter million people were killed between 1962 and 1996 in Guatemala, 93 percent at the hands of pro-government forces. The UN-backed Commission for Historical Clarification classified the massacre of Mayan Indians, treated by the military as a potential constituency for guerrillas, as genocide, including the destruction of up to 90 percent of the Ixil-Mayan towns and the bombing of those fleeing. In El Salvador, 988 of the 75,000 killed between 1980 and 1992 -- also overwhelmingly by pro-government forces -- were massacred in the Morazán Department in the "El Mozote" case, whose prosecution is at risk.

Most of the victims were children, who were shot down, burned and raped en masse or hung upside down and bled from their throats. Refuting claims by defendants that victims were combatants, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has stated: "We only found marbles, toys, coins, cooking utensils, sandals and flip-flops next to their bodies." It was the largest single documented massacre in modern Latin American history.

What the ruling class wants to be "forgotten" is the fact that their only response to the crisis of global capitalism is dictatorship, war and barbarism."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/09/ceam-a09.html

Current (continuing) shitstain war criminal appointed by Trump:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Abrams#Guatemala

Mark Chapman April 9, 2019 at 4:58 pm
There are always pick-and-shovel men like Abrams around to do the wet work – for their part, because they like it, and are contemptuous of those who shrink from violence. But they are singularly useful for the reigning government, as well, since it has to sing soothing songs of respect for human rights and pretend to view violence as repugnant and unnecessary. It would be, if the government had forever to achieve its aims. But it usually has to bank on putting America in the place it wants it to be in four years. Sometimes that means a bunch of people have to be eliminated, or else you run out of time.

People like Elliott Abrams are seldom kept around after the goals are won, though – too much danger they might develop loose lips. So, often, something 'happens' to them. In this case, it couldn't 'happen' to a righter guy.

[Apr 09, 2019] Kushner Extorted Qatar - Or Did He?

Notable quotes:
"... Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B. ..."
"... Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management) is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice? ..."
"... It is an old story. From February 12, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Qatar Shocked, Shocked to Learn It Accidentally Bailed Out Jared Kushner ..."
"... In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head ..."
"... Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kushner Extorted Qatar - Or Did He? DG , Mar 30, 2019 5:37:23 PM | link

The Hillreporter just published a very juicy story about Jared Kushner, the son in law and senior advisor of President Trump.

It says that Kushner, with the help of the Saudi clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, extorted Qatar for $1 billion to save his families real estate business in New York.

While the story sounds plausible and fits the public known timeline of other events, there is so far no evidence that supports it.

The tale is based on the work and information of author Vicky Ward, who recently published Kushner Inc - Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump .

Ward first talked through the story on yesterday's KrassenCast , a podcast by the anti-Trump and somewhat shady Krassenstein brothers who also run the Hillreporter .

In 2007, at the hight of the real estate bubble, the Kushner family bought the 666 5th Avenue building in New York City for $1.8 billion. Ten years later the Kushners were in real trouble. Plans to replace the building with a new one found no financing. The property was losing lots of money and a huge mortgage payment was due in January 2019. The family had to look for a bail out.

In early 2017 the Kushner family had several meetings with Qatari officials to discuss a deal. The Intercept reported :

Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist and the younger brother of White House adviser Jared Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi the same week as his father, Charles Kushner, did in April 2017, in an independent effort to discuss potential investments from the Qatari government. Both meetings took place at Al Emadi's St. Regis Hotel suite in Manhattan.

This revelation comes after Charles Kushner, in an interview with the Washington Post this week, confirmed for the first time that his meeting with Al Emadi had indeed taken place on the subject of financing for the underwater Kushner property at 666 Fifth Avenue.

According to Vicky Ward this is what happened next :

"What I have learned is that in the ensuing month [May 2017] before the US visit to Riyadh, Jared Kushner got on a plane and flew to Doha, the Qatari capital, and he reamed the Qatari ruling family, the al-Thanis, for not doing the deal with his father They began to feel that he was indirectly threatening their sovereignty. The next thing they know, when they show up to the summit in Riyadh, the Emir, the ruler of Qatar, arrives with an entourage, but his entourage is suddenly cut off from him, and not allowed into the summit at the same time by the Saudis, which he felt was a move to deliberately make him look weak. You have to remember during this summit, Jared and Ivanka go off for a cozy secret unmonitored dinner with [Saudi Crown Prince] MBS. Nobody knows what they talked about."

Fifteen days later the Saudis and the UAE blockade Qatar and send troops to its border. Trump supports the Saudi blockade against the advice of his Secretary of State Tillerson and his Defense Secretary Mattis and despite the fact the the biggest U.S. base in the area is in Qatar.

Nine months later, a Canadian company, Brookfield Partners, who the Qatari Investment Authority owns a $1.8 billion or 9% stake in, bailed out Kushner Properties, with a 99-year lease agreement for 666 5th Ave.
...
Around this same time, President Trump publicly shifts course, no longer supporting the blockade, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells Saudi Arabia to stop the embargo.

If the blockade of Qatar originates in a Kushner extortion scheme, as the story insinuates, it would have serious political consequences. But is that true?

The sequencing of the real estate deal and the change in the Trump policy on the blockade is somewhat problematic. The Trump shift was reported on April 29 2018 while the Brookfield Partner deal was first published about three weeks later on May 17:

Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield Asset Management over a partnership to take control of the 41-story aluminum-clad tower in Midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, according to two real estate executives who have been briefed on the pending deal but were not authorized to discuss it.

The deal only closed in August 2018 on terms that had changed from the first report and were unusual:

Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B.

What was the real sequencing here? Was the property deal agreed upon before the Trump administration changed its stand on the Qatar blockade or after that happened? Was it related to it or not? We don't know. There is no public record of the alleged Jared Kushner flight to Qatar. There is so far no other evidence that would support the story. The tale fits the publicly known timeline, but that is not enough to believe it. Its authors may have used the public timeline to then fit a story onto it.

It is possible that the Kushner property deal and the Qatar blockade are intimately intertwined but there is, so far, no proof for it. That idea that Kushner played the Saudis is dubious. The other way around is more likely.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE had plenty of reason to blockade Qatar. Both countries fear the Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood. They hate Qatar's Al Jazeerah TV because it often publicly opposes their policies. The Saudis need money and annexing the very rich Qatar would solve all their problems. Brookfield Properties denies that Qatar or the Qatari investment agency had any involvement in 666 5th Ave. deal.

Even if Qatar, through Brookfield, made a deal with the Kushner family, it does not mean that it was extorted. The Qatari rulers might simply have hoped that the deal would help them. It did not. The blockade still continues despite the real estate deal. Trump had his own reasons to support the Saudis Qatar blockade. He wanted them to buy as many U.S. weapon system as possible, if only to beat out Obama, who sold the Saudis all sorts of military trash for a record amount of money.

During the Mueller Russia investigation lots of smoke seemed to show that there was a 'collusion' fire burning somewhere under the hundreds of facts and figures. There wasn't.

The story about the Kushner 'extortion of Qatar' might create a similar ' the walls are closing in ' (vid) farce only to end up with nothing. It is interesting that the Vicky Ward story was published on March 29, a day after Jared Kushner was interviewed behind closed door by the Senate Intelligence Commission:

President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner returned to the Senate Intelligence Committee for a closed door interview Thursday as part of the committee's Russia investigation.
...
The first time Kushner appeared before the panel in 2017, he was interviewed by committee staff. The committee has wanted to re-interview witnesses central to the investigation. On Thursday, senators were sitting in on the interview.

Russiagate is really finished . The Republican's rule the Senate. Why would they continue to interview Kushner and why would senators sit in on it? Might the 'Kushner extorted Qatar' be a planned sequel to Russiagate or why else was it launched right now?

Posted by b on March 30, 2019 at 05:28 PM | Permalink


Sally Snyder , Mar 30, 2019 5:42:24 PM | link

Here is an article that explains how the Trump Administration was trying to export nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/saudi-arabia-and-american-nuclear.html

One has to wonder whether Kushner's influence was involved in this deal which would have seen the geopolitical balance in the Middle East tilt into Saudi Arabia's favour.

uncle tungsten , Mar 30, 2019 6:27:52 PM | link
Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management) is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice?

I did like the reference to Trump outdoing Obummer in arms deals and had a good laugh at Trumps childish racism in that game. He sure hates Obummer but he sure won't go after him in any way. Trump wont even go after $hillary and her global empire shakedown Foundation. Sometimes I think he is now a sitting duck but then I am an optimist.

somebody , Mar 30, 2019 6:29:48 PM | link
It is an old story. From February 12, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Qatar Shocked, Shocked to Learn It Accidentally Bailed Out Jared Kushner
In addition to likely having had the chance to hear about the deal through Brookfield directly or read about it in the paper of record, one would imagine the Qataris were keeping tabs on all things Kushner on account of Jared's father, Charles Kushner, taking a meeting with Qatar's finance minister, Ali Sharif Al Emadi in April 2017. (Kushner the Elder later said he accepted the invite purely "out of respect" for the Qataris to tell them there was no way "we could do business.")

Of course Trump throwing the full weight of the US behind Saudi Arabia and UAE was a de facto shake down of Qatar. And of course, Saudi and UAE were actively lobbying for it.

james , Mar 30, 2019 7:06:05 PM | link
thanks b.. it will be interesting to see how much traction vicky wards reporting gets and whether any of it gets substantiated..

i do believe the usa is crazy enough to do another witch hunt, so anything is possible here... she works for the huffpost.. that is grounds to discredit here right there in my books..

ben , Mar 30, 2019 7:25:51 PM | link
More theatrics as diversion, while the crooks in D.C. dismantle the agencies that keep the wealthy oligarchs at bay, as they rewrite the rules to allow greed and avarice to become virtues.

"Rules and regulations never changed a man's heart, but they can restrain the heartless."

MLK...

Augustin L , Mar 30, 2019 7:29:22 PM | link
Meanwhile, propaganda organs in America won't publicize real Donald Trump scandals like the case of ''Maria'' a Waterbury 12-year old alleged child rape victim of Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The crimes allegedly occurred at a midtown Manhattan mansion owned by Epstein's friend Les Wexner.

Donald Trump recently named as his Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, former U.S. Attorney for South Florida, the federal official directly overseeing sweetheart future immunity deal for Grifter in Chief acolytes like Jeffrey Epstein... As Labor Secretary, Acosta is charged with overseeing federal laws designed to combat domestic and international sex trafficking.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York is currently deciding whether to unseal the documents from a 2017 lawsuit involving one of Epstein's sex trafficking victims and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's assistant.

Other possible corrupt practices involving stable genius center around China's decision to grant Ivanka Trump 38 new trademarks in the middle of a trade war dispute... Part of current trade war negotiations are EB-5 investment visas. Jared Kushner and Trump stand to benefit from EB-5 visas designed to attract Chinese investment in the United States in return for permanent residency.

Curiously an EB-5 visa scam was being run out of an office in Jupiter, Florida, located across the street from the Orchids of Asia massage parlor raided by police where Trump billionaire friend Kraft was caught in a possible Chinese Honey Trap.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article227186429.html?fbclid=IwAR1FkjigXKFOf8gcPoKRqwqfqSLRuzPNDig5sg7XWtBQClavo73RQRsVWYs

Pft , Mar 30, 2019 9:05:31 PM | link
Russiagate may be done but thats because it was defined improperly. Sometimes it helps to look back to get a big picture perspective

Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad's biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as "Putin's rabbi."

Roman Abramovich is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club of the English Premier League. He was a victor (along with Paul Manafort's patron Oleg Deripaska) in the aluminum wars of the 1990s and reportedly the person who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Putin would be a proper successor.

Ivanka Trump is very close friends with Abramovich's wife , Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova reportedly attended the inauguration as Ivanka's personal guest. Leviev is the one with the closest links to the Trumps and Israel

It starts with Bayrock . This is the company that Donald Trump teamed up with to build his Trump Soho project. There were three main actors . One was convicted mob associate and FBI informant Felix Sater. Another was Tevfik Arif, a likely Russian intelligence connection who was once was arrested by the Turks . The third was the late Tamir Sapir, another man with ties to Russian intelligence.

The late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia. Trump has called Sapir "a great friend." In December 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter, Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch of Africa Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company, and known as Leviev's right hand man.

As mentioned Leviev was one of two oligarch's who Putin had establish the "Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia" under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as 'Putin's rabbi.'" Sater, Sapier, Jared, Ivanka are all Chabad members and/or donors

Trump had business discussions in Moscow in 2013 about Moscow real estate projects with Agalarovs, Alex Sapir (son of Tamir Sapir, brother of Zina, and brother-in-law of Rotem Rosen.) and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian . This may also have been discussed during the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that was attended by Kushner, Manafort and Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer associated with Fusion GPS (Steele dossier) and the Leviev linked Prevezon

Agalarov is a Moscow-based property developer who had won major contracts from Putin's government. He hosted Trump's 2013 Miss Universe contest at his concert hall in Moscow. He orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with the help of the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting.

In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head

Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and Prevezon, have all recently been the subject of money laundering investigations. A laundering case against Prevezon was settled two months after Trump fired Bharara, with a $6M slap on the wrist settlement that raised some eyebrows.

As for 666, Kushner gets bailed out by Brookfield who has Qatar as its 2nd largest investor. But consider that at the same time they did this deal they also acquired Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Now members of the Trump administration propose selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Interesting.

Can't seem to find a Putin/Russian oligarch connection although that's probably due to the fact you cant use anonymous shell companies to buy property in NYC any longer due to new rules by FinCEN

But so many conflict of interests here, Israel, China, Saudis, Russian oligarchs, etc and virtually no oversight or transparency. With twitter being used to manipulate markets one has to imagine rampant insider trading as well (hey guys, my tweets going out at 3 pm, get your trades in and remember my 5%).

Clueless Joe , Mar 30, 2019 9:11:34 PM | link
Ross Stanford 4: That's the notorious meeting between Roosevelt and Ibn Saud on the way from Yalta, when they made the infamous deal between the US and the Saudis: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Franklin_D._Roosevelt_with_King_Ibn_Saud_aboard_USS_Quincy_%28CA-71%29%2C_14_February_1945_%28USA-C-545%29_%281%29.jpg
For mankind, very few post-WWII events were worse than this.
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:12:38 PM | link
@7 savvy globalist somebody wants us to know that there's nothing to see here!

But the Vanity Fair article he links to, written by Bess L-evin, makes this unsubstantiated(!) point:

So why is Doha taking pains to insist it accidentally bailed out the First-in-Laws on their no good, very bad investment now?
1) Actually, the Reuters article that she refers to explicitly states that Qatar has a minority position and no board representation ! It is a known in the financial world as a "passive investment".

2) L-evin's wording is extremely disingenuous: the Qataris never said they bailed out anyone, accidentally or otherwise!!

Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:22:43 PM | link
Ask yourself:

1) Why would Qatar be associated in any way with such a sweetheart deal?

2) why would the Vanity Fair author spin the Reuters story this way?
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:26:20 PM | link
Interestingly, Vicky Ward used to work at Vanity Fair, and is currently an editor at HuffPost (a Democratic rag). And media that broke/promoted this story (Leevin and Krasseenstein) could (naturally) rise some suspicions of a connection to Israel's conflict with Iran. Qatar shares a huge gas field with Iran so Qatar has been reluctant to join KSA and Israel against Iran.
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:27:23 PM | link
Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel.
vk , Mar 30, 2019 9:31:14 PM | link
I agree with this blog's author.

1) Documentation is scarce and the few that exist don't fit the journalist's story chronology (even though, in the concrete case, you could argue for expediency/bureacratic delay, so this criterium alone doesn't bust the journalist's chronology)

2) The whole narrative simply doesn't have social cohesion. It simply doesn't make any sense for Trump to risk be impeached in such polarized scenario just to rescue his son-in-law. It makes even less sense for the Arab royalties to submit to a much weaker political player such as Kushner. And, as b mentions, Trump had many more powerful reasons to sanction Qatar.

mourning dove , Mar 30, 2019 9:34:29 PM | link
@11 &12
Corruption abounds, but any of it that touches Zionists, the Clinton's, or the royal family (Epstein, Prince Andrew) is off limits. They are untouchable to the MSM.
j , Mar 30, 2019 10:23:04 PM | link
people like Brennan & Clapper are feeding the "trump really, really, no really hearts putin" narrative to the msdnc crowd, and this of an administration being helmed by CIA men like Pompeo.

like the fbi's manufacture wholesale of "islamo-terrorist" non-events in part to distract from the presence of the actual threat of rising fascism & racism (a la Nazism, as in NZ) from the usual suspects, much beloved of the fibbies, it's convenient for all, incl trump, to be painted as bff's with Vlad.

if the goal was to stop or in any way impede the trump admin (not just trump himself, who is a know-nothing shit golem animated by the glad-handing he receives from the people actually in charge, who just feed his narcissistic fantasies), there are other, more practical & achievable ways to do it. in-fighting among the herd who have not yet jumped off the Gadarene cliffs is not the same thing as opposition, not among the Legion possessed swine in D.C. they are just grunting & snorting at each other, occasionally, very occasionally & deliberately, trampling one of their own, as they plummet over the edge.

it's pretty clear that funny things like such pigs' full-throated support of Zionism is more important to Pelosi & Schumer than resisting the Trump admin *in any way,* no matter how much they personally despise trump. and mainly they despise him for helping to reveal what some POTUS would have sooner or later: the pointlessness of Congress; that the "unitary executive", as the titular head of the corporate security state, is already fully in charge; that "dyarchy," dual rule by legislative & executive, is non-existent.

[Apr 09, 2019] Launched under the pretext of a UN resolution authorizing the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to halt the supposed (but non-existent) threat of a massacre in the eastern city of Benghazi, the war saw money and arms poured into Islamist militias and lavished on Al Qaeda operatives, who were backed by a relentless bombing campaign, which included nearly 30,000 sorties in the course of seven months.

Apr 09, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star April 9, 2019 at 1:00 pm

"On Friday, the United Nations Security Council, following a closed-door meeting, issued a statement to the press calling for Hifter's LNA to "halt its military activity" near Tripoli. When Britain proposed a formal resolution along these lines, however, Russia opposed it, no doubt fearing that it could become the pretext for a fresh Western intervention in Libya.

The British draft included a passage calling "for those who undermine Libya's peace and security to be held to account."

What hypocrisy! There was no such call when the UK joined with France and the United States to overthrow the country's government and inflict death upon its population and destruction upon its infrastructure.

*****No one, from Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron on down, was ever held accountable for a criminal war of aggression that turned the country into a living hell.****

Launched under the pretext of a UN resolution authorizing the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to halt the supposed (but non-existent) threat of a massacre in the eastern city of Benghazi, the war saw money and arms poured into Islamist militias and lavished on Al Qaeda operatives, who were backed by a relentless bombing campaign, which included nearly 30,000 sorties in the course of seven months.

A war launched on the pretext of protecting civilians culminated in the carpet bombing of Sirte, a bastion of popular support for Gaddafi, and the lynch-mob torture and murder of the Libyan leader, over which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughingly gloated, "We came, we saw, he died."

"In the intervening eight years, the attempts to install a pro-Western puppet regime in a devastated country controlled by clashing Islamist, tribal and other militias have failed miserably. The regime headed up by Sarraj, recognized as Libya's "legitimate" government, barely controls even Tripoli. Under its supposed rule, the country's education and health systems have collapsed, while inflation is ravaging living standards, the unemployment rate has reached 30 percent, and fully a third of the population lives below the poverty line. Conditions of life for masses of Libyans have deteriorated dramatically since the overthrow of Gaddafi."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/09/liby-a09.html

[Apr 09, 2019] The USA increased trade surplus with Ukraine to $1.13 Billion. Considering Ukraine is impoverished and living on handout that's quite an achievement.

Apr 09, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

For its part, the United States insists on running Ukraine, appointing a special envoy – Kurt Volker – to preserve its feeling of international importance after it was pointedly left out of the Normandy Format; Meddlers R Us; we don't need no steenking invitations.

A glance over trade statistics suggests this was a wise choice for the Exceptional Nation – the year before the Glorious Maidan, Revolution of Dignity, the USA did around $3 Billion worth of trade with Ukraine, selling it $1.92 Billion worth of goods and services, and buying $1.03 Billion worth of goods and services from it, posting an American trade surplus of $888 Million. Last year the USA did around $4 Billion worth of trade with Ukraine, selling it $2.46 Billion in goods and services, and buying $1.35 Billion worth of goods and services from it, handsomely increasing the American trade surplus to $1.13 Billion. Considering Ukraine is impoverished and living on handouts, while the per-capita GDP has fallen by more than 6% despite the country having lost about 3 million people (Ukraine's population today is almost exactly what it was in 1960), that's quite an achievement.

[Apr 09, 2019] Maduro government policy protecting Guaido's car in Caracas from being lunched by the mob.

Apr 09, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen April 1, 2019 at 2:24 pm

Global Research publishes the video of a Venezuelan TV news show interview in which a recording of Juan Guaido's apparent admission of culpability in the sabotage of Venezuela's electricity system and intent to disrupt other essential utilities is played.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/juan-guaido-confesses-being-behind-the-sabotage-of-venezuelas-electric-system/5673104
Mark Chapman April 1, 2019 at 3:45 pm
Just to point out once again, it is a war crime and a violation of the International Rules of Armed Conflict for the ENEMY to cut civilians off from the services they need to live. And he wants to lead the country??!!

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule54

Certainly getting the poor and the middle class on his side. Here's an NPR interview with Ari Shapiro, on the Colombian border with Venezuela. Along with bigging up the impression that there is a shitload of military deserters just waiting to have a crack at Maduro, including the 80% who want him gone but don't dare say so out of fear – by the simple device of interviewing some young men we know nothing about, not even their names because their identities must be kept secret – he says this:

"This is the Colombian ambassador to the U.S., Francisco Santos. Ambassador Santos insists there is still time for what we'll call plan A – international pressure and sanctions to force Maduro out. Venezuela would then hold elections, and Guaido would take power."

Guaido would take power. Oh, wait, wait: we have to have an election first.

Obviously it is inconceivable that anyone else might win. The guy most of the country had never heard of a year ago, now is a shoo-in for the presidency. Isn't democracy fun ???? You just never know what's going to happen!

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707722484/venezuela-hovers-on-the-brink-of-conflict-many-fear-the-situation-will-escalate?ft=nprml&f=

The USA and its 'partners' are moving forward with a debt-restructuring plan for Venezuela – which you just know is going to include massive loans by the IMF and arm-twisting of allies to persuade them to forgive debt to help the US State Department's newest plaything – just as if Guaido is inevitable.

Well, he's not. And few things would give me as much pleasure as seeing the smirk slapped off their faces.

yalensis April 2, 2019 at 3:26 am
"And I repeat, the cessation of darkness will definitely come with the cessation of usurpation," culminates the self-proclaimed Juan Guaidó"

It's odd that the sabotage includes that element of blackmail, i.e., "put me in office, and I will turn the lights on again." How would he expect to do that, if the grid has been damaged?
Such blackmail only makes sense if Guaidó had, like, the secret password that would turn off the viruses(?)
Because, if the damage is physical, then it will take a while to fix, even if Guaidó and the American engineers worked at it night and day.

Mark Chapman April 2, 2019 at 1:40 pm
Even if he has no control over it, he is talking it up like he has, more like "I know people". Which tends to make it sound more as if it is his backers doing it.

I would say he is well on his way to making himself the most hated man in Venezuela, at least barring those who hope to sweep him into power.

yalensis April 2, 2019 at 3:38 pm
I know. How can you even imagine being that guy? Who deprives your neighbors of their electricity and then asks them to vote for you, so you would turn it on again?
A person like that would be lynched!
Jen April 2, 2019 at 5:31 pm
There have already been some reports of people attacking Guaido's car in Caracas when they see it and the occupants inside (Guaido doesn't travel on his own).
https://www.rt.com/news/455308-guaido-police-caracas-rally-venezuela/

As Grayzone Project's Max Blumenthal says, the irony is that Nicolas Maduro's government is protecting Guaido and his freedom to travel around Caracas through the police. So much for Maduro being a tyrannical dictator

[Apr 09, 2019] Poroshenko's electoral appeal is rooted in the notion of 'better the devil you know'

Notable quotes:
"... Poroshenko's electoral appeal is rooted in the notion of 'better the devil you know' and his presidential campaign rests on his ability to convince voters that he is the lesser of all available evils." ..."
"... Let me put my cards on the table here – the current political class in Washington, irrespective of party affiliation and almost without exception, is so debauched and untethered that it enthusiastically supports the election of unabashed criminals where their election serves American foreign-policy goals. Is it too late to be astounded? Yes, it is. Ukraine is lightly chided for its rampant corruption, while Russia is held up to universal scorn because Putin. ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Poroshenko's electoral appeal is rooted in the notion of 'better the devil you know' and his presidential campaign rests on his ability to convince voters that he is the lesser of all available evils."

Poroshenko might have an uphill battle convincing his own voters of that reality, but he has plainly gone down a treat in Washington.

Let me put my cards on the table here – the current political class in Washington, irrespective of party affiliation and almost without exception, is so debauched and untethered that it enthusiastically supports the election of unabashed criminals where their election serves American foreign-policy goals. Is it too late to be astounded? Yes, it is. Ukraine is lightly chided for its rampant corruption, while Russia is held up to universal scorn because Putin.

Cortes March 31, 2019 at 4:49 pm

Majestic, Mark.

Thanks once more. Ideally the Fire [Gas] Witch, Yulia, would be back as the plaything of the Crimson King

"And smiles as the puppets dance in the court of the Crimson King."

Mark Chapman March 31, 2019 at 4:59 pm
"Historically and etymologically, a "crimson king" was any monarch during whose reign there was civil unrest and copious bloodshed."

Except for the gender, she qualifies in advance.

Mark Chapman April 1, 2019 at 4:42 am
Well, Poroshenko would certainly need to explain how he could win in the second round against a candidate who polled twice the vote as he did in the first round. But Poroshenko owns or controls a lot of media, and it's all about pushing a narrative. Ukrainians were satisfied, the story will go, that Poroshenko learned his lesson from being rebuked in the first round; he is sorry, and humbled, and will turn over a new leaf.

Meanwhile (still the story), many Ukrainians are waking up to the shock of what they did, and are suffering buyers remorse, bla, bla. He only needs to squeak out a narrow win when it's down to just he and Zelinskiy, and the west will immediately hoot that democracy has spoken, my, what an exciting ride, and Zelinskiy will fade back into political obscurity.

Jen April 1, 2019 at 1:53 pm
Actually Peter Dickinson is just one of several supposed "experts" and "observers" at The Atlantic Council of Ukraine's political scene who have expressed opinions that basically exonerate Poroshenko as godfather of a group of hucksters smuggling Russian weapons and military spare parts into Ukraine and then charging the Ukrainian government hefty prices for them. John Herbst thinks it's great that the Banderites got weapons from Russia and the only thing they did wrong was take a hefty personal cut from the sale; never mind that they broke some other laws, let's say, laws that forbid Ukraine from purchasing anything from Russia because Russia is under US / EU sanctions. Other opinions suggest that Poroshenko should just distance himself from the people involved in the scandal because the most important thing is to lead Ukraine as far away from Russia as possible – as if it is that easy for Poroshenko to do, because if he did, his associates in the scandal will squeal on him.

It's hilarious reading those "opinions" and see how far those Atlantic Council people are trying to excuse Poroshenko by blaming the journalists for bringing up the story or insinuating that Tymoshenko or the Kremlin is trying to bring Poroshenko down.

Moscow Exile April 1, 2019 at 8:52 pm
Dejevsky in today's Independent:

Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky may have played Ukraine's president on TV – but could he really run the country?

I shall paste her article below as I have access beyond the pay-wall to a limited number of articles published in that rag:

Some in Ukraine may feel that April Fool's Day 2019 started a few hours early, at 8pm the previous evening to be precise, when the polls in the first round of the country's presidential election closed and the exit polls showed an actor who plays a fictional president beating the real president into second place by a margin of almost two to one.

Official results give Volodymyr Zelensky (the actor) around 30 per cent of the vote, compared with 16 per cent for president Petro Poroshenko. From a field of 39 – yes, 39 – presidential hopefuls, it will be these two heading into the run-off on 21 April.

Yulia Tymoshenko – the only woman anywhere near the top 10 and the most recognisable face for many outside Ukraine as "la pasionaria" of the 2004 Orange Revolution, had led when the campaign began last December, but was knocked into third place. Mercifully, the 3 percentage point margin between her and Poroshenko is probably clear enough to pre-empt any challenge or dispute.

The question now facing the more than half of Ukraine's 35 million electorate who voted for neither Zelensky nor Poroshenko on Sunday is which of the two to choose in three weeks' time – and for the rest whether to stick with their original choice.

It would be fair to say that opinions about Zelensky are sharply divided. On the one hand are those who argue that anything has to be better than the glacial pace of change and endemic corruption over which Poroshenko has presided.

They include many young people who have joined what might be described as the pan-European anti-politics tendency that brought Italy's current government to power. Zelensky and his team of largely young volunteers ran a welcoming and modern campaign that took on a life of its own as – rather like Jeremy Corbyn's 2017 campaign in the UK – supporters spread the word on social media.

At the same time, there are many – perhaps over-represented among highly educated professional Ukrainians at home and abroad – who view Zelensky with trepidation and suspicion as just another populist, capitalising on his fame in another sphere. Their fear – tinged with condescension – is that he could endanger the relative stability Poroshenko has brought after the tumult of the Euromaidan (a wave of demonstrations) five years ago.

The size of Zelensky's first-round vote, however, and its geographical spread – he managed to appeal to Russian-speakers in the eastern areas bordering the war zone as well as those in central and southern Ukraine – have led even doubters to feel that this election is now his to lose. Poroshenko, however, should not be written off too soon. It is not just fear of the unknown that could make the run-off very close; there are other reasons why Poroshenko could yet prevail.

One is that, although Zelensky comes across well when he appears on his own terms – at the comedy shows he preferred to conventional political rallies – he performed poorly in the few television interviews he gave, appearing out of his depth and using language that suggested a rather unreconstructed view of women.

It had been expected that one or more formal television debates might test his mettle, but the plan for first-round debates foundered when Poroshenko and Zelensky both declined to take part, and it now appears there may be no second-round debate either. With the contest now reduced to two, however, this is bound to concentrate minds.

Another is the question of Zelensky's funding. Some suspect that the hand (and money) of the exiled businessman/oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, is behind him. Zelensky denies that he depends on anyone, and some close to the campaign say that associates of Kolomoisky are at best on the outer fringe of the campaign. But the suspicion persists, and when Poroshenko spoke of "populists" and "puppets" in his campaign speeches, the inference was clear.

Poroshenko's first-round campaign pitch – a responsible leader whose video stresses the importance of the nation, the army and the Church – could have more resonance now that it will be pitted directly against what could seem a leap into the unknown with Zelensky. Then again, just looking at the way the two handled the provisional first-round results on the night – Poroshenko looking exhausted and just a little jaded, and Zelensky bouncing around, smiling, with a ready word for the media and glad-handing his supporters, it was tempting to imagine a new Ukraine already eclipsing the old.

But – to put it at its most basic – will Zelensky be "allowed" to win? While there have been some reports of polling violations on Sunday, the first round appears to have been an admirably clean and open election to the point where a complete outsider was not only able to stake a claim to the country's top job, but to reach the run-off. And the outside attempts to influence the poll (by Russia and the west), so apparent in previous elections, were almost not in evidence.

With the presidency itself now at stake, however, and the confusion of a ballot paper with 39 candidates safely in the past, could the old ways make a comeback? Might there be a sudden upsurge of attempts to influence the campaign from the outside: new money, hacking, dirty tricks,"Kompromat"? Is there a "deep state" that could stop Zelensky?

Leaving aside the imponderable, there are perhaps three factors to watch over the three weeks. The first is whether any of the other first-round candidates who obtained more than a handful of votes will endorse – or do any deal with either of the candidates. And if they did – if Timoshenko, for instance, or Yuriy Boyko, the pro-Russia candidate, backed Zelensky – would it have a positive or negative effect on his campaign? One key broker could be the anti-corruption candidate, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, who came fifth.

The second is how far Zelensky can convince his critics that he could actually do the job. Members of his team told me that he was consulting widely and taking the prospect very seriously and he has attracted at least two past ministers to his team. The fluidity of Ukraine's political parties also means that not having a developed party of his own might not be a huge liability in parliament, as MPs might well flock to a winner. Parliamentary elections later in the year could do the rest.

His manifesto is also more specific than his detractors say: it includes an end to immunity from prosecution for MPs and government officials; "not a battle, but the defeat, of corruption", referendums on important state issues, including possible membership of Nato, talks with Russia to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, tax breaks for entrepreneurs, a drive to introduce technology in schools, higher pay for the military.

But the biggest question could be this: how far will voters distinguish between Zelensky the real-life candidate and the fictional schoolmaster-turned-president whose secretly taped anti-corruption rant propelled him to the top job?

By using the title of the series Servant of the People as his campaign slogan, and the name of his embryonic political party, Zelensky could be accused of encouraging the confusion. And the fictional president comes with an attitude and an almost naive agenda that is the stuff of many a Ukrainian's dreams. He is principled, quizzical, supports the "little man" and has the welfare of his people at heart. The less voters are able, or choose, to distinguish the two, the better Zelensky's chances of leading the real Ukraine.

Note how, in the extract below, Dejevsky displays her lack of objectivity in the way she regards the Ukraine from her oh-so-liberal point of view and, thereby, morally castigating the dump after having right at the top her article mentioned that Tymoshenko was "the only woman anywhere near the top 10":

although Zelensky comes across well when he appears on his own terms – at the comedy shows he preferred to conventional political rallies – he performed poorly in the few television interviews he gave, appearing out of his depth and using language that suggested a rather unreconstructed view of women .

[my stress]

Yes, that will really turn the Yukies against him, I am sure, Ms Dejevsky!

A filthy mysogynist!

How shocking!!!

One could not possibly cast one's vote for such a monster!

And what's with this criticism of both Zelensky and Poroshenko's refusal to have a televised debate?

True, they hold such debates in US presidential elections as part of the "real democracy" show in the "exceptional nation", but if other countries shy from similar performances, is that so bad, so "undemocratic"?

And one comment, so far to the article, from a frequent troll at the Independent who likes to add ПТН X̆ЛО (abbreviation for the Russian "Putin is a prick) just to show how smart he is:

As usual no mention of any Russian monkey business so I guess Mary is still angling for the dacha near Moscow.

I have a dacha near Moscow, wanker! Does that mean I am a tool of the Kremlin?

How about digging up the evidence for "Russian monkey business" and presenting it yourself, arsehole, if you are so sure that such interference by Russia in Banderastan politics exists?

[Apr 09, 2019] Mark Bruzonsky explains how Obama sold out to the AIPAC lobby, and how President Obama would never dare oppose the stronghold of the Zionist, Israeli Lobby in the US.

Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mark Bruzonsky , says: Website April 9, 2019 at 8:18 am GMT

Will the truth set US free, ever ?

PressTV: How Zionism Infiltrated The United States

Interview with Scholar and Journalist, Mark Bruzonsky. Mark Bruzonsky, a Jewish, American Scholar and Journalist, has been a key member behind the scenes of the Israeli Palestinian peace initiative in the 1980s, meeting with Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and with Palestinian officials. In this exclusive interview with Press TV's Autograph, Mr. Bruzonsky talks about the challenges and missed opportunities he witnessed first-hand, and how Zionist groups infiltrated American politics, US institutions and organizations.

He goes further to explain the specific time and day Obama sold out to the AIPAC lobby, and how President Obama would never dare oppose the stronghold of the Zionist, Israeli Lobby in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mark+Bruzonsky

[Apr 09, 2019] Should not McAuliffe be tried for treason?

Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 9, 2019 at 6:09 pm GMT

@Mark Bruzonsky The zionists parasitoid has been worming into the local administrations and stealing US taxpayers money (the zionists' favorite pastime): https://www.globalresearch.ca/virginia-israel-malignant-force-local-politics/5673823?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=virginia_is_now_part_of_israel_s_occupied_territories&utm_term=2019-04-08

a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of Israel.

According to the documents, VIAB, which avoids any public disclosure of its activities, is currently also being scrutinized by the state Attorney General over its handling of government funds.

VIAB was founded in 2001 but it grew significantly under governor Terry McAuliffe's administration McAuliffe, regarded by many as the Clintons' "bag man," received what were regarded as generous out-of-state campaign contributors from actively pro-Israeli billionaires Haim Saban and J.B. Pritzker, who were both affiliated with the Democratic Party.

The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) reports that VIAB is "the only Israel business promotion entity in the United States embedded within a state government and funded entirely by the state's taxpayers.

In terms of the overall state budget, VIAB's direct share is small ($209,068 for fiscal years 2017 and 2018). However, VIAB's diversion of state, federal and private grants, as well as demands on state-funded entities like colleges and universities to collaborate in projects designed primarily to benefit Israel, run in the millions of dollars per year.

Should not McAuliffe be tried for treason?

anon [137] Disclaimer , says: April 9, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
@annamaria

a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of Israel.

this is what (((they))) always do

patriotic americans or bloodsucking parasites?

they have no shame

[Apr 09, 2019] On Election Eve Netanyahu Boasts Trump Designated Iran s Guards At His Request

Adelson money are probably in play...
Reconciliation between Palestinians and Israeli might now be impossible. But the county can't keep more then a million people in Bantustan forever. Probably Israel eventually will go the way South Africa went and settlers will repatriate to Western countries, Russia and Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... A number of analysts were quick to point out how this sets the stage for further unnecessary tit-for-tat escalation inevitably making things messier for US forces in the Middle East, and significantly increases the changes of direct war. ..."
"... Netanyahu is taking credit for Trump's decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists. "Thank you for responding to another important request of mine," Bibi says. ..."
"... He got the Golan 2 weeks ago and now this 1 day before Israel's election ..."
"... Likely the statement was not made in English in order to avoid making President Trump look weak in front of US political leaders and the American public , while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend to Israel's interests. ..."
"... Though Trump has clearly thrown his full support behind a Netanyahu victory, it doesn't bode well for "America First" having the Israeli leader essentially bragging that Washington policy can be dictated from Jerusalem. ..."
"... Netanyahu is the friend one appreciates not having. He's unable to avoid insulting everyone he's around, because he just can't control his need to announce at every opportunity how much better and smarter and prettier than everyone else he is. (Are we sure he's not a New Yorker? :-) ..."
"... Netanyahu over the weekend historically declared that he fully intends to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The incumbent prime minister also said he had told President Donald Trump that would not evacuate "a single person" from the 400,000 or so Jews residing in the West Bank. ..."
"... "There will be no Palestinian state," he said, "not like the one people are talking about. It won't happen." ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

We noted Monday that just hours after President Trump formally designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, Iran's foreign ministry responded in kind , immediately put forward a bill placing US Central Command on a list of organizations designated as terrorists, akin to Daesh.

A number of analysts were quick to point out how this sets the stage for further unnecessary tit-for-tat escalation inevitably making things messier for US forces in the Middle East, and significantly increases the changes of direct war. Soon after the White House's IRGC designation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump in a tweet, the Hebrew version of which bragged it was all the prime minister's idea .

Netanyahu said in the Hebrew-only tweet that he was glad Trump "answered another one of my important requests" which will keep the world safe from Iran. It's unclear what the prime minister mean from "another" of his requests, but less than two weeks ago Trump made a dramatic decisions to overturn decades of official US policy and bestow formal recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights after receiving a "quickie" history lesson .

It's well known that Netanyahu had personally lobbied for weeks and months for that decision, and on Monday appeared to be touting both as his initiative on the eve of Israel's election.

According to The Intercept's translation the statement said: "Thank you, my dear friend, President Donald Trump," Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew , "for answering another one of my important requests."

Raf Sanchez ✔ @rafsanchez

Netanyahu is taking credit for Trump's decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists. "Thank you for responding to another important request of mine," Bibi says.

He got the Golan 2 weeks ago and now this 1 day before Israel's election . https:// twitter.com/netanyahu/stat us/1115265423673573379

Likely the statement was not made in English in order to avoid making President Trump look weak in front of US political leaders and the American public , while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend to Israel's interests.

Though Trump has clearly thrown his full support behind a Netanyahu victory, it doesn't bode well for "America First" having the Israeli leader essentially bragging that Washington policy can be dictated from Jerusalem.

On the further significance of the statement, The Intercept observed :

Joe Dyke, an Agence France-Presse correspondent, pointed out that Netanyahu omitted the claim that Trump's move was made at his request in a subsequent tweet in English. That left the prime minister open to the charge often leveled at Palestinian leaders by Israelis, that they placate the international community in English and then say something quite different for domestic consumption in their native tongue.

Israelis head to the polls to elect a prime minister on Tuesday, and one key feature of Netanyahu's campaign -- lately beset by no less than three corruption charges as prime minister -- has been his warm relations with the American president and close cooperation.


hzp , 1 hour ago link

Don't underestimate Mossad. They might be the ones who have all the dirty info and nudes of you know who. MIGA!!!

ItsAll_aMeansTo_anEnd , 1 hour ago link

while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend to Israel's interests.....

Disgusting. Zionist evil neo-con warmongers pulling strings in DC....what else is new.

HRClinton , 31 minutes ago link

I have to challenge your position for its intellectual integrity...

Is is "disgusting" for a group - any group - to use all methods of influence to reach their goals, or is it disgusting that it's targets fold so easily?

Your indignation at the situation may be just, but your wrath is misplaced. Direct it at the cowards and scumbags who can be flipped so easily.

Do you now understand why Zionists refer to us as "Dumb* Goyim"?

* 'Dumb' seems kind, given how a tiny minority can bridle the large majority so so easily. Other choice words come to mind.

blind_understanding , 14 minutes ago link

HRC: Do you now understand why Zionists refer to us as "Dumb* Goyim"?

* 'Dumb' seems kind, given how a tiny minority can bridle the large majority so so easily.

Blind: Nepotism is why Jews are successful in host nations - Tribalism is a form of nepotism.

Also there is parasitism. The Jewish nation living independently within a host nation, meets the definition of a parasite: one independent entity living within another, and deriving sustenance from it.

And CONCEALMENT is the main form of defense of every PARASITE.

● FOR EXAMPLE: The private-currency Ponzi-scheme PARASITE. In America they call their banks FEDERAL-Reserve banks, and their currency FEDERAL-Reserve Notes. The "FEDERAL" part is to suggest FEDERAL-government and CONCEAL the fact they are PRIVATE. And their FEDERAL-Reserve Notes look just like FEDERAL-government notes - more CONCEALMENT.

● FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE, click this link: http://static.neatorama.com/images/2006-08/cymothoa-exigua.jpg
[[Cymothoa exigua PARASITE enters the HOST fish and REPLACES it's tongue .. and CONCEALS the job by the PARASITE's body looking just like the HOST's original tongue.]]

3rd Degree, 1 hour ago link

If and when Americans learn who the real perps of 9/11 were, that is Mossad, the blowback against Israel will be vicious and prolonged.

captain noob , 1 hour ago link

The information is out there. They just don't care

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

It is not out there.

At best there is the suspicion that Israeli intelligence knew something was coming up. But same can be said about American intelligence, where at some levels suspicions were pronounced, which due to incompetence and/or miscommunication between services weren't followed upon.

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

The idea that Israel would stage super-complex false flag massacres against its big brother ally, using no less than 4 planes, with Muslim recruits (mostly Saudis) is ridiculous. There is everything too lose, too little to gain.

Look at the aftermath: Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded. What's the gain here for Israel?!?! It had no big issues with any of those two countries. And Iran was NOT attacked.

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

Enlighten me then: what has Israel gained of Iraq and Afghanistan being invaded?!

The power vacuum in Iraq helped Iran greatly. Which is a loss for Israel.

blind_understanding , 1 hour ago link

Critical: Look at the aftermath: Iraq and Afghanistan was invaded. Israel had no big issues with any of those countries.

Blind: Nonsense! Both countries stood in the way of the "Greater Israel" ("from the Nile to the Euphrates") project. Especially IRAQ, the Euphrates River runs right through the middle of it!

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

The Greater Israel fantasy is an outlandish theory. Maybe some jewish reli-nutcases adhere to it, but it is mostly a fruit of the mind of conspiracy theorists without geopolitical knowledge and realism.

Proof: Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt + they left Southern Lebanon + it walled itself in...

falconflight , 1 hour ago link

And the Israelis warned Clapper and company of 'unusual chatter.' Go read the declassified documents

world eater , 1 hour ago link

The perpetrators own the media, own Hollywood and domimate the advertising industry. They've engineered our society so any discussion of their political motives/actions is met with cries of bigotry. They've also used social engineering to turn half of us against the other. We're on the losing end of a cultural war and 99% of us don't even know it's happening and 50% of those people have mush for brains.

The deck is heavily stacked against us.

blind_understanding , 24 minutes ago link

Captain: The [911] information is out there. They [Americans] just don't care.

Blind: The same people who engineered 9/11, also own the American Mainstream Media, and the keep us in the dark and feed us ********. The mushroom syndrome.

Midlife Rambler , 1 hour ago link

Hopefully the people will also be aware that people within our own government in high places and "intelligence agencies" were also involved.

blind_understanding , 1 hour ago link

Yes of course! The Mossad 9/11 project was enabled by traitorous INSIDERS within the US government. Led by Cheney and Bush. 9/11 was an INSIDE job, as well as a false-flag to make Israel's enemies look like ours.

falconflight , 1 hour ago link

To the donkey-cart cadre':

Watch live: Israeli moon mission attempts first private lunar landing ...

https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-moon-landing-live-video-beresheet-lunar-mission-2019-4

SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit, launched its Beresheet moon lander on a SpaceX rocket in February. ... Russia, China, and the United States. Could Israel innovate and actually achieve this ...

How to watch Israel's Beresheet land on the moon this week

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-watch-israel-beresheet-land-on-the-moon-this-week/

The moon is in reach for Israel's Beresheet mission. The privately funded SpaceIL spacecraft is currently orbiting our lunar neighbor and making preparations to attempt a soft landing Thursday.

Will Israel become the fourth country to land on the moon ? We'll find ...

https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/Will-Israel-become-the-fourth-country-to-land-on-13750065.php

Israel is on track to attempt a moon landing Thursday and, if successful, the tiny nation will become just the fourth to touch down on the lunar surface. The landing attempt of the robotic probe ...

Listen to Full Moon Rising

cracker16 , 2 hours ago link

Netanyahu is the friend one appreciates not having. He's unable to avoid insulting everyone he's around, because he just can't control his need to announce at every opportunity how much better and smarter and prettier than everyone else he is. (Are we sure he's not a New Yorker? :-)

falconflight , 2 hours ago link

Don't be a putz Bibi, carry out your promise.

===

Netanyahu: There Will Be No Palestinian State

TEL AVIV – The U.S. is fully aware of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's flat rejection of the creation of a Palestinian state along with his plans to extend Israeli law to West Bank settlements, the Israeli premier said on Monday.

In an interview with Channel 12 , Netanyahu pushed back against his main challenger Benny Gantz's claims that his vow to annex the West Bank was nothing more than an empty campaign promise.

Netanyahu over the weekend historically declared that he fully intends to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The incumbent prime minister also said he had told President Donald Trump that would not evacuate "a single person" from the 400,000 or so Jews residing in the West Bank.

Gantz on Sunday said Netanyahu's statement was "meaningless" and no more than a last-minute bid for Likud to gain the upper hand over Gantz's Blue and White party. Netanyahu, however, countered that such radical moves did not happen overnight.

"Why did it take two years to get recognition of the Golan Heights even with such a friendly president? These things takes time," said Netanyahu in reference to Trump's presidential order last month recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu said annexation of the West Bank would happen in three stages and he hoped to do it with "full American support."

"I discussed [annexation] with representatives of President Trump and I expressed my belief that there is no other option, I think it is also the right move," he said.

"I want to do it gradually. If possible, I want to do it with full American support," the prime minister added.

"It is going to happen," he stated. "This isn't something I invented for the elections."

"I was under incredible pressure from the Obama administration -- that no prime minister has ever had -- to cease construction in the [West Bank] and yet I withstood them and we continued building and now we will continue," he said.

Netanyahu also told Army Radio that the Palestinians would not have a state or security control.

"There will be no Palestinian state," he said, "not like the one people are talking about. It won't happen."

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/04/08/netanyahu-there-will-be-no-palestinian-state/

captain noob , 2 hours ago link

Spoken like a true criminal

[Apr 09, 2019] Yet Another Senator from Israel by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... Booker is a close friend of the controversial "America's rabbi" Shmuley Boteach and has taught himself enough Hebrew to pop out sentences from Torah with Jewish audiences. ..."
"... Last week the Intercept published a secret recording of Booker meeting with a group of Jews from New Jersey at the recently concluded AIPAC summit in Washington, which Booker, unlike a number of other Democratic presidential hopefuls, attended enthusiastically. Booker pandered so assiduously that it is hard to believe that he actually knows what he is saying in an effort to be more Israeli than the Israelis. ..."
"... Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss sums up the high points of what Booker said and did not say in the meeting: "Donald Trump is endangering Israel's security in Syria; there is no 'greater moral vandalism' than dividing the U.S. and Israel; ..."
"... A progressive senator who invokes Martin Luther King Jr. over and over again has not one word to say about the Jim Crow status of Palestinians while describing Israel as a 'country that I love so deeply, that changed my life from the day I went there as a 24 year old.'" ..."
"... Booker elaborated in his own words: "Israel is not political to me. It's not political. I was a supporter of Israel well before I was a United State Senator. I was coming to AIPAC conferences well before I knew that one day I would be a federal officer. If I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand." ..."
"... Normally progressive Booker, who has criticized the endless war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, has hypocritically condemned Trump for not continuing war in Syria to protect Israel ..."
"... Do we need a man like Cory Booker as President of the United States? He is articulate enough to cite "moral vandalism" but not perceptive enough to take the concept one step further and appreciate that uncritical close ties to Israel's feckless and fascist government could easily lead to a nuclear war that would constitute something far worse. He further believes that Israel's hand deep in the U.S. Treasury is a desirable policy, that unlimited "all resources" support of Israel is a U.S. national imperative, that ending the continued American military presence in the Middle East "would endanger our ally" Israel, and that moves to nonviolently oppose Israel's oppression of the Palestinians must be made illegal. ..."
"... Frankly, we already have an American leader who puts Israel first in Donald Trump and we don't need another round of wag the dog in our next president. ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Israel works hard to influence the United States at all levels. Its tentacles dig deep, now extending to local and state government levels where candidates for office can expect to be grilled by Jewish constituents regarding their views on the Middle East. The constituents often insist that the responses be provided in writing. The candidates being grilled understand perfectly well that their answers will determine what kind of press coverage and level of donations they will receive in return.

One of the most blatant propaganda programs is the sponsorship of free "educational" trips to Israel for all newly elected congressmen and spouses. The trips are normally led by Israel boosters in Congress like Democratic House Speaker Steny Hoyer, who recently boasted at an AIPAC gathering how he has done 15 trips to Israel and is now preparing to do another with 30 Democratic congressmen, including nearly all of those who are newly elected. The congressional trips are carefully coordinated with the Israeli government and are both organized and paid for by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) . Other trips sponsored by AIEF as well as by other Jewish organizations include politicians at state and even local levels as well as journalists who write about foreign policy.

As noted above, all the trips to Israel are carefully choreographed to present a polished completely Israel-slanted point of view on contentious issues. Visits to Palestinian areas are arranged selectively to avoid any contact with actual Arabs. Everyone is expected to return and sing the praises of the wonderful little democracy in the Middle East, which is of course a completely false description as Israel is a militarized ethno-theocratic kleptocracy headed by a group of corrupt right-wing fanatics who also happen to be racists.

Even progressive politicians who are aware that the Israeli message is bogus and also resent the heavy handedness of the Israelis and their diaspora friends often decide that it is better to go along for the ride rather than resist. But some embrace it enthusiastically, like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, a liberal Democrat running for his party's nomination for president, who has, by his own admission, visited Israel many times. Israel and its friends are, of course, both courting and promoting him assiduously.

Booker inevitably reminds one of ex-President Barack Obama because he is black but the similarity goes beyond that as he is also presentable, well-spoken and slick in his policy pronouncements. One suspects that like Obama he would say one thing to get elected while doing something else afterwards, but we Americans have become accustomed to that in our presidents. More to the point, Booker was and is a complete sell-out to Israel and its Jewish supporters during his not completely successful career in New Jersey as mayor of Newark as well as in his bid for the presidential nomination. Booker is a close friend of the controversial "America's rabbi" Shmuley Boteach and has taught himself enough Hebrew to pop out sentences from Torah with Jewish audiences.

Last week the Intercept published a secret recording of Booker meeting with a group of Jews from New Jersey at the recently concluded AIPAC summit in Washington, which Booker, unlike a number of other Democratic presidential hopefuls, attended enthusiastically. Booker pandered so assiduously that it is hard to believe that he actually knows what he is saying in an effort to be more Israeli than the Israelis. He described an Israel that deserves total commitment from Washington and stated clearly that he wants to create a "unified front" against the nonviolent boycott movement (BDS). He said that there is "no greater moral vandalism than abandoning Israel."

Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss sums up the high points of what Booker said and did not say in the meeting: "Donald Trump is endangering Israel's security in Syria; there is no 'greater moral vandalism' than dividing the U.S. and Israel; Booker would cut off his right hand before abandoning Israel; he lobbied black congresspeople not to boycott Netanyahu's 2015 speech because we need to show a 'united front' with Israel; AIPAC is an 'incredible great' organization whose mission is urgent now because of rising anti-Semitism; he 'text messages back and forth like teenagers' with AIPAC's president Mort Fridman; and he swears to uphold bipartisan support in the Congress for Israel and give it even more money. And Booker says not one word about Palestinian human rights or Israel's persecution of Palestinians. That's right. A progressive senator who invokes Martin Luther King Jr. over and over again has not one word to say about the Jim Crow status of Palestinians while describing Israel as a 'country that I love so deeply, that changed my life from the day I went there as a 24 year old.'"

Booker elaborated in his own words: "Israel is not political to me. It's not political. I was a supporter of Israel well before I was a United State Senator. I was coming to AIPAC conferences well before I knew that one day I would be a federal officer. If I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand."

Booker described how he is appalled by the rise of alleged anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. and worldwide. Rather than using that possible development as leverage to get Israel to behave more humanely, he instead prefers to punish all Americans with new legislation intended to strip all everyone of their First Amendment rights. Per Booker "We must take acts on a local stage against vicious acts that target Israel. That's why I'm cosponsor of Senate Bill 720. Israel anti-Boycott Act."

Normally progressive Booker, who has criticized the endless war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, has hypocritically condemned Trump for not continuing war in Syria to protect Israel, saying

"This administration's seeming willingness to pull away from Syria makes it more dangerous to us, makes it more dangerous to Israel, and this is not sound policy . When you're tweeting about pulling out of Syria within days, when that would create a vacuum that would not only endanger the United States of America but it would endanger our ally Israel as well. We need a comprehensive strategy for that region because Israel's neighborhood is getting more dangerous than less. Syria is becoming a highway for Iran to move more precision guided missiles to Hezbollah. There has got to be a strategy in this country to support Israel that is bipartisan that is wise and that frankly calls upon all the resources of this country, not just military".

And because Israel always needs more money, Booker is ready to deliver: "Unequivocally 100 percent absolutely [yes] to the 3.3 billion [a year]. I have been on the front lines every time an MOU is up to make sure Israel gets the funding it needs. I even pushed for more funding."

Do we need a man like Cory Booker as President of the United States? He is articulate enough to cite "moral vandalism" but not perceptive enough to take the concept one step further and appreciate that uncritical close ties to Israel's feckless and fascist government could easily lead to a nuclear war that would constitute something far worse. He further believes that Israel's hand deep in the U.S. Treasury is a desirable policy, that unlimited "all resources" support of Israel is a U.S. national imperative, that ending the continued American military presence in the Middle East "would endanger our ally" Israel, and that moves to nonviolently oppose Israel's oppression of the Palestinians must be made illegal.

One does not see an actual American interest in any of that, but perhaps special spectacles made in Israel are needed, an environment where Booker has clearly spent a great deal of time both physically and metaphorically. Or maybe it's the Benjamins. Booker will need millions of dollars to mount his campaign and he knows where to go and what he needs to say to get it.

One struggles to see just a tiny bit of humanity in Booker vis-à-vis the Arabs who have lost their homes and livelihoods to Israeli criminality, but none of that comes through in a session in which, admittedly, the Senator from New Jersey is speaking with his Jewish donor/supporters. Booker is on record favoring an Israel-Palestine "two state solution," which is no longer viable, though he has not objected to Israeli army snipers shooting dead children, journalists, medical personnel and unarmed protesters in Gaza.

Frankly, we already have an American leader who puts Israel first in Donald Trump and we don't need another round of wag the dog in our next president.

Cory Booker should work hard to maintain his perfect attendance record at AIPAC as he texts "like a teenager" with Mort Fridman, but maybe someday he will actually grow up and learn to think for himself. As he is a U.S. Senator that certainly is something we might all hope for.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

[Apr 09, 2019] Russians halt search for intelligent life in Washington by Bryan Hemming

Apr 08, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Russian research team which claimed to have detected signs of intelligent life in Washington has now discovered the life there not to be quite so intelligent after all.

A Russian spokesman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told our Moscow science correspondent -- who also wishes to remain anonymous -- that the Washington atmosphere has been poisoned by huge clouds of putrid hot air belching from the corporate media. He explained that such a hostile environment makes it almost impossible for intelligent life to survive, let alone evolve a sustainable culture. The Russian team believes there may still be small pockets of intelligent life elsewhere on the North American continent but without the necessary conditions they need to thrive they are destined to disappear without trace.

Speaking off the record, the Russian spokesman, who asked us not to disclose his identity, added that hopes of finding intelligent life in London, Paris, Berlin and other Western European locations, where it might be expected to flourish, are fading fast. Though it is believed intelligent life once existed in Occiental Europe, an atmosphere suitable for the maintenance of such life has all but evaporated.

[Apr 09, 2019] Trump had 4 bankruptcies and we let him run US economy !

Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 9, 2019 at 12:25 am GMT

@renfro

Trump had 4 bankruptcies let him run your economy !!

2+ years into his presidency, there is little room left for doubt about his competency. I regret having supported him, although arguably, the alternative was worse.

On a lighter note, here is Trump singing from Eurythmics, courtesy of Google AI:

[Apr 09, 2019] Zakharia is not only a former wine taster. Her has something more interesting in his biography

Notable quotes:
"... "Fareed Zakaria '86 (center) former President of the Yale Political Union argued that Yale should not divest from its holdings in South Africa " ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

yalensis April 2, 2019 at 3:33 pm

Read the tweets. Vast majority are skewering the fascist Zakaria.
Best tweet of all: Angel Schatz tweeted some skeletons in Fareed's closet, like how this tosser supported South African apartheid when he was at Yale University (class of '86).

"Fareed Zakaria '86 (center) former President of the Yale Political Union argued that Yale should not divest from its holdings in South Africa "

In other words, Zakharia has ALWAYS been a racist pig! And now earns his bread slandering Russia.

[Apr 08, 2019] Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization

Highly recommended!
What Trump did is what Hillary would do...
So Trump administration will spend billion of fighting Iran, instead of helping US middle class to survive... Guns instead of butter policy. This is clearly Obama-style betrayal of Trump voters. Trump’s Budget Would Deny Food to 400,000 Children and Pregnant People By Dean Baker cepr.net
While any theocratic regime is reprehensible Trump clearly prefers one theocratic regime to another.
From comments: "Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metaphor but a foreign policy statement! The house of Kushner that Trump built."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Just hours after President Trump formally designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, Iran's foreign ministry has put forward a bill placing US Central Command on a list of organizations designated as terrorists, akin to Daesh.

Statement from the President on the Designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft. The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign.

This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a FTO. It underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments. This action will significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime. It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.

This action sends a clear message to Tehran that its support for terrorism has serious consequences. We will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on the Iranian regime for its support of terrorist activity until it abandons its malign and outlaw behavior.

Previously, the Iranian Foreign Minister noted that those US officials who advocated IRGC blacklisting, "seek to drag the US into a quagmire".

"#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisation) of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag the US into a quagmire on his behalf," Mohammed Javad Zarif said on his Twitter account. "@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster."


Aussiestirrer , 12 minutes ago link

Trump and all the war mongering generals in the pentagon that have killed millions need to be put on an Internation Criminal List

Pussy Biscuit , 2 hours ago link

The Bush-era war criminals haven’t been held to account yet.

Hammer of Light , 2 hours ago link

Trump is clearly in with them lock stock and barrel.

PrometeyBezkrilov , 2 hours ago link

"Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization"

Sadly, the definition is correct. Now the question. What are American People going to do about it?

Josef Stalin , 2 hours ago link

when i say PS I mean "police state" ......

frankthecrank , 3 hours ago link

You retards can't get anything straight. Put your penis down and read a book once in awhile;

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

Von Clausewitz. Just because I abbreviate it, does not make me wrong. Here's today's gift, his eight book library that I spent hundreds on in college, free for the asking. it might just help clarify some of the world's realities for you.

https://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/TOC.htm

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?

Campaign 💩of Trump.

'We'll stop racing to topple foreign regimes with a policy of intervention and chaos because we're all over the place fighting areas that we shouldn't be fighting in".

Disclaimer: except when it comes to family Zionism.

Trump actions:

1- On December 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump announced the United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

2-Mar 22, 2019 · (CNN)President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty" over the region.

3- Trump approves Saudi Arabi nuclear plant without agreement for oversight.

Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.😡

Einstein101 , 4 hours ago link

Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization

Haha, Really? and what will they do? Attack US military?

Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)

Bravo! Highly justified move by president Trump!

schroedingersrat , 4 hours ago link

Replace Iran with CIA and i agree :)

cashback , 3 hours ago link

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/un-council-israel-intentionally-shot-children-and-journalists-in-gaza-1.6979358

LOL123 , 4 hours ago link

Judizing American foreign policy has made our military soliders martyrs for the State of Isreal not terrorists in the international sense.

Our troops have been dying for the State of Isreal to " protect it" since the Zionist movement that took over the Plaistinians land through Britian... The expansion will never stop and americans will always be " mercinaries" for Isreal... Without proper compensation.

Big Whoop , 2 hours ago link

Hired terrorists are still terrorists.

Helg Saracen , 4 hours ago link

1953 Iranian coup d'état

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Mohammad Mosaddegh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

Operation Ajax

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi

This was the first time that the CIA acted as a mercenary. Since 1953, the CIA does not work for the US state apparatus, but rather the opposite.

Hence "the great love" of the Persian - Iranians for the Americans and the British.

[Apr 08, 2019] Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metaphor but a foreign policy statement! The house of Kushner that Trump built

Apr 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?

... ... ...

Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.

[Apr 08, 2019] Roosevelt Conspired to Start World War II in Europe by John Wear

Jan 26, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Establishment historians claim that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt never wanted war and made every reasonable effort to prevent war. This article will show that contrary to what establishment historians claim, Franklin Roosevelt and his administration wanted war and made every effort to instigate World War II in Europe.

THE SECRET POLISH DOCUMENTS
The Germans seized a mass of documents from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they invaded Warsaw in late September 1939. The documents were seized when a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular German army. Von Kuensberg's men took control of the Polish Foreign Ministry just as Ministry officials were in the process of burning incriminating documents. These documents clearly establish Roosevelt's crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. They also reveal the forces behind President Roosevelt that pushed for war. [1] Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 , Summer 1983, pp. 136-137, 140. Some of the secret Polish documents were first published in the United States as The German White Paper . Probably the most-revealing document in the collection is a secret report dated January 12, 1939 by Jerzy Potocki, the Polish ambassador to the United States. This report discusses the domestic situation in the United States. I quote (a translation of) Ambassador Potocki's report in full:
There is a feeling now prevalent in the United States marked by growing hatred of Fascism, and above all of Chancellor Hitler and everything connected with National Socialism. Propaganda is mostly in the hands of the Jews who control almost 100% [of the] radio, film, daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and presents Germany as black as possible–above all religious persecution and concentration camps are exploited–this propaganda is nevertheless extremely effective since the public here is completely ignorant and knows nothing of the situation in Europe. At the present moment most Americans regard Chancellor Hitler and National Socialism as the greatest evil and greatest peril threatening the world. The situation here provides an excellent platform for public speakers of all kinds, for emigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia who with a great many words and with most various calumnies incite the public. They praise American liberty which they contrast with the totalitarian states. It is interesting to note that in this extremely well-planned campaign which is conducted above all against National Socialism, Soviet Russia is almost completely eliminated. Soviet Russia, if mentioned at all, is mentioned in a friendly manner and things are presented in such a way that it would seem that the Soviet Union were cooperating with the bloc of democratic states. Thanks to the clever propaganda the sympathies of the American public are completely on the side of Red Spain. This propaganda, this war psychosis is being artificially created. The American people are told that peace in Europe is hanging only by a thread and that war is inevitable. At the same time the American people are unequivocally told that in case of a world war, America also must take an active part in order to defend the slogans of liberty and democracy in the world. President Roosevelt was the first one to express hatred against Fascism. In doing so he was serving a double purpose; first he wanted to divert the attention of the American people from difficult and intricate domestic problems, especially from the problem of the struggle between capital and labor. Second, by creating a war psychosis and by spreading rumors concerning dangers threatening Europe, he wanted to induce the American people to accept an enormous armament program which far exceeds United States defense requirements. Regarding the first point, it must be said that the internal situation on the labor market is growing worse constantly. The unemployed today already number 12 million. Federal and state expenditures are increasing daily. Only the huge sums, running into billions, which the treasury expends for emergency labor projects, are keeping a certain amount of peace in the country. Thus far only the usual strikes and local unrest have taken place. But how long this government aid can be kept up it is difficult to predict today. The excitement and indignation of public opinion, and the serious conflict between private enterprises and enormous trusts on the one hand, and with labor on the other, have made many enemies for Roosevelt and are causing him many sleepless nights. As to point two, I can only say that President Roosevelt, as a clever player of politics and a connoisseur of American mentality, speedily steered public attention away from the domestic situation in order to fasten it on foreign policy. The way to achieve this was simple. One needed, on the one hand, to enhance the war menace overhanging the world on account of Chancellor Hitler, and, on the other hand, to create a specter by talking about the attack of the totalitarian states on the United States. The Munich pact came to President Roosevelt as a godsend. He described it as the capitulation of France and England to bellicose German militarism. As was said here: Hitler compelled Chamberlain at pistol-point. Hence, France and England had no choice and had to conclude a shameful peace. The prevalent hatred against everything which is in any way connected with German National Socialism is further kindled by the brutal attitude against the Jews in Germany and by the émigré problem. In this action Jewish intellectuals participated; for instance, Bernard Baruch; the Governor of New York State, Lehman; the newly appointed judge of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, and others who are personal friends of Roosevelt. They want the President to become the champion of human rights, freedom of religion and speech, and the man who in the future will punish trouble-mongers. These groups, people who want to pose as representatives of "Americanism" and "defenders of democracy" in the last analysis, are connected by unbreakable ties with international Jewry. For this Jewish international, which above all is concerned with the interests of its race, to put the President of the United States at this "ideal" post of champion of human rights, was a clever move. In this manner they created a dangerous hotbed for hatred and hostility in this hemisphere and divided the world into two hostile camps. The entire issue is worked out in a mysterious manner. Roosevelt has been forcing the foundation for vitalizing American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring enormous stocks for the coming war, for which the Jews are striving consciously. With regard to domestic policy, it is extremely convenient to divert public attention from anti-Semitism which is ever growing in the United States, by talking about the necessity of defending faith and individual liberty against the onslaught of Fascism. [2] Count Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 29-31.
On January 16, 1939, Potocki reported to the Warsaw Foreign Ministry a conversation he had with American Ambassador to France William Bullitt. Bullitt was in Washington on a leave of absence from Paris. Potocki reported that Bullitt stated the main objectives of the Roosevelt administration were:
1. The vitalizing foreign policy, under the leadership of President Roosevelt, severely and unambiguously condemns totalitarian countries. 2. The United States preparation for war on sea, land and air which will be carried out at an accelerated speed and will consume the colossal sum of $1,250 million. 3. It is the decided opinion of the President that France and Britain must put [an] end to any sort of compromise with the totalitarian countries. They must not let themselves in for any discussions aiming at any kind of territorial changes. 4. They have the moral assurance that the United States will leave the policy of isolation and be prepared to intervene actively on the side of Britain and France in case of war. America is ready to place its whole wealth of money and raw materials at their disposal." [3] Ibid ., pp. 32-33. (Count Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 29-31.)
Juliusz (Jules) Łukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to France, sent a top-secret report from Paris to the Polish Foreign Ministry at the beginning of February 1939. This report outlined the U.S. policy toward Europe as explained to him by William Bullitt:
A week ago, the Ambassador of the United States, W. Bullitt, returned to Paris after having spent three months holiday in America. Meanwhile, I had two conversations with him which enable me to inform Monsieur Minister on his views regarding the European situation and to give a survey of Washington's policy . The international situation is regarded by official quarters as extremely serious and being in danger of armed conflict. Competent quarters are of the opinion that if war should break out between Britain and France on the one hand and Germany and Italy on the other, and Britain and France should be defeated, the Germans would become dangerous to the realistic interests of the United States on the American continent. For this reason, one can foresee right from the beginning the participation of the United States in the war on the side of France and Britain, naturally after some time had elapsed after the beginning of the war. Ambassador Bullitt expressed this as follows: "Should war break out we shall certainly not take part in it at the beginning, but we shall end it." [4] Juliusz Lukasiewicz to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 43-44.
On March 7, 1939, Ambassador Potocki sent another remarkably perceptive report on Roosevelt's foreign policy to the Polish government. I quote Potocki's report in full:
The foreign policy of the United States right now concerns not only the government, but the entire American public as well. The most important elements are the public statements of President Roosevelt. In almost every public speech he refers more or less explicitly to the necessity of activating foreign policy against the chaos of views and ideologies in Europe. These statements are picked up by the press and then cleverly filtered into the minds of average Americans in such a way as to strengthen their already formed opinions. The same theme is constantly repeated, namely, the danger of war in Europe and saving the democracies from inundation by enemy fascism. In all of these public statements there is normally only a single theme, that is, the danger from Nazism and Nazi Germany to world peace. As a result of these speeches, the public is called upon to support rearmament and the spending of enormous sums for the navy and the air force. The unmistakable idea behind this is that in case of an armed conflict the United States cannot stay out but must take an active part in the maneuvers. As a result of the effective speeches of President Roosevelt, which are supported by the press, the American public is today being conscientiously manipulated to hate everything that smacks of totalitarianism and fascism. But it is interesting that the USSR is not included in all of this. The American public considers Russia more in the camp of the democratic states. This was also the case during the Spanish civil war when the so-called Loyalists were regarded as defenders of the democratic idea. The State Department operates without attracting a great deal of attention, although it is known that Secretary of State [Cordell] Hull and President Roosevelt swear allegiance to the same ideas. However, Hull shows more reserve than Roosevelt, and he loves to make a distinction between Nazism and Chancellor Hitler on the one hand, and the German people on the other. He considers this form of dictatorial government a temporary "necessary evil." In contrast, the State Department is unbelievably interested in the USSR and its internal situation and openly worries itself over its weaknesses and decline. The main reason for the United States interest in the Russians is the situation in the Far East. The current government would be glad to see the Red Army emerge as the victor in a conflict with Japan. That's why the sympathies of the government are clearly on the side of China, which recently received considerable financial aid amounting to 25 million dollars. Eager attention is given to all information from the diplomatic posts as well as to the special emissaries of the President who serve as ambassadors of the United States. The President frequently calls his representatives from abroad to Washington for personal exchanges of views and to give them special information and instructions. The arrival of the envoys and ambassadors is always shrouded in secrecy and very little surfaces in the press about the results of their visits. The State Department also takes care to avoid giving out any kind of information about the course of these interviews. The practical way in which the President makes foreign policy is most effective. He gives personal instructions to his representatives abroad, most of whom are his personal friends. In this way the United States is led down a dangerous path in world politics with the explicit intention of abandoning the comfortable policy of isolation. The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own personal ambition. He listens carefully and happily to his echo in the other capitals of the world. In domestic as well as foreign policy, the Congress of the United States is the only object that stands in the way of the President and his government in carrying out his decisions quickly and ambitiously. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Constitution of the United States gave the highest prerogatives to the American parliament which may criticize or reject the law of the White House. The foreign policy of President Roosevelt has recently been the subject of intense discussion in the lower house and in the Senate, and this has caused excitement. The so-called Isolationists, of whom there are many in both houses, have come out strongly against the President. The representatives and the senators were especially upset over the remarks of the President, which were published in the press, in which he said that the borders of the United States lie on the Rhine. But President Roosevelt is a superb political player and understands completely the power of the American parliament. He has his own people there, and he knows how to withdraw from an uncomfortable situation at the right moment. Very intelligently and cleverly he ties together the question of foreign policy with the issues of American rearmament. He particularly stresses the necessity of spending enormous sums in order to maintain a defensive peace. He says specifically that the United States is not arming in order to intervene or to go to the aid of England or France in case of war, but because of the need to show strength and military preparedness in case of an armed conflict in Europe. In his view this conflict is becoming ever more acute and is completely unavoidable. Since the issue is presented this way, the houses of Congress have no cause to object. To the contrary, the houses accepted an armament program of more than 1 billion dollars. (The normal budget is 550 million, the emergency 552 million dollars). However, under the cloak of a rearmament policy, President Roosevelt continues to push forward his foreign policy, which unofficially shows the world that in case of war the United States will come out on the side of the democratic states with all military and financial power. In conclusion it can be said that the technical and moral preparation of the American people for participation in a war–if one should break out in Europe–is proceeding rapidly. It appears that the United States will come to the aid of France and Great Britain with all its resources right from the beginning. However, I know the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the opinion that the possibility that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the states in the mid-West and West, where the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at all costs. They remember the declaration of the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of unpaid billions which the European states still owe America. [5] Germany. Foreign Office Archive Commission. Roosevelts Weg in den Krieg: Geheimdokumente zur Kriegspolitik des Praesidenten der Vereinigten Staaten . Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1943. Translated into English by Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , pp. 150-152.
These secret Polish reports were written by top-level Polish ambassadors who were not necessarily friendly to Germany. However, they understood the realities of European politics far better than people who made foreign policy in the United States. The Polish ambassadors realized that behind all of their rhetoric about democracy and human rights, the Jewish leaders in the United States who agitated for war against Germany were deceptively advancing their own interests. There is no question that the secret documents taken from the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw are authentic. Charles C. Tansill considered the documents genuine and stated, "Some months ago I had a long conversation with M. Lipsky, the Polish ambassador in Berlin in the prewar years, and he assured me that the documents in the German White Paper are authentic." [6] Tansill, Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace , Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 184 (footnote 292). William H. Chamberlain wrote , "I have been privately informed by an extremely reliable source that Potocki, now residing in South America, confirmed the accuracy of the documents, so far as he was concerned." [7] Chamberlain, William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, p. 60 (footnote 14). Historian Harry Elmer Barnes also stated, "Both Professor Tansill and myself have independently established the thorough authenticity of these documents." [8] Barnes, Harry Elmer, The Court Historians versus Revisionism , N.p.: privately printed, 1952, p. 10. Edward Raczyński, the Polish ambassador to London from 1934 to 1945, confirmed in his diary the authenticity of the Polish documents. He wrote in his entry on June 20, 1940: "The Germans published in April a White Book containing documents from the archives of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, consisting of reports from Potocki from Washington, Łukasiewicz in Paris and myself. I do not know where they found them, since we were told that the archives had been destroyed. The documents are certainly genuine, and the facsimiles show that for the most part the Germans got hold of the originals and not merely copies." [9] Raczynski, Edward, In Allied London , London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963, p. 51. The official papers and memoirs of Juliusz Łukasiewicz published in 1970 in the book Diplomat in Paris 1936-1939 reconfirmed the authenticity of the Polish documents. Łukasiewicz was the Polish ambassador to Paris, who authored several of the secret Polish documents. The collection was edited by Wacław Jędrzejewicz, a former Polish diplomat and cabinet member. Jędrzejewicz considered the documents made public by the Germans absolutely genuine, and quoted from several of them. Tyler G. Kent, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in London in 1939 and 1940, has also confirmed the authenticity of the secret Polish documents. Kent says that he saw copies of U.S. diplomatic messages in the files which corresponded to the Polish documents. [10] Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142. The German Foreign Office published the Polish documents on March 29, 1940. The Reich Ministry of Propaganda released the documents to strengthen the case of the American isolationists and to prove the degree of America's responsibility for the outbreak of war. In Berlin, journalists from around the world were permitted to examine the original documents themselves, along with a large number of other documents from the Polish Foreign Ministry. The release of the documents caused an international media sensation. American newspapers published lengthy excerpts from the documents and gave the story large front-page headline coverage. [11] Ibid ., pp. 137-139. (Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142.) However, the impact of the released documents was far less than the German government had hoped for. Leading U.S. government officials emphatically denounced the documents as not being authentic. William Bullitt, who was especially incriminated by the documents, stated, "I have never made to anyone the statements attributed to me." Secretary of State Cordell Hull denounced the documents: "I may say most emphatically that neither I nor any of my associates in the Department of State have ever heard of any such conversations as those alleged, nor do we give them the slightest credence. The statements alleged have not represented in any way at any time the thought or the policy of the American government." [12] New York Times , March 30, 1940, p. 1. American newspapers stressed these high-level denials in reporting the release of the Polish documents. These categorical denials by high-level U.S. government officials almost completely eliminated the effect of the secret Polish documents. The vast majority of the American people in 1940 trusted their elected political leaders to tell the truth. If the Polish documents were in fact authentic and genuine, this would mean that President Roosevelt and his representatives had lied to the American public, while the German government told the truth. In 1940, this was far more than the trusting American public could accept.
MORE EVIDENCE ROOSEVELT INSTIGATED WORLD WAR II
While the secret Polish documents alone indicate that Roosevelt was preparing the American public for war against Germany, a large amount of complementary evidence confirms the conspiracy reported by the Polish ambassadors. The diary of James V. Forrestal, the first U.S. secretary of defense, also reveals that Roosevelt and his administration helped start World War II. Forrestal's entry on December 27, 1945 stated:
Played golf today with Joe Kennedy [Roosevelt's Ambassador to Great Britain in the years immediately before the war]. I asked him about his conversations with Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain from 1938 on. He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause of war if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington. Bullitt, he said, kept telling Roosevelt that the Germans wouldn't fight; Kennedy that they would, and that they would overrun Europe. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America and the world Jews had forced England into the war. In his telephone conversations with Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 the President kept telling him to put some iron up Chamberlain's backside. Kennedy's response always was that putting iron up his backside did no good unless the British had some iron with which to fight, and they did not . What Kennedy told me in this conversation jibes substantially with the remarks Clarence Dillon had made to me already, to the general effect that Roosevelt had asked him in some manner to communicate privately with the British to the end that Chamberlain should have greater firmness in his dealings with Germany. Dillon told me that at Roosevelt's request he had talked with Lord Lothian in the same general sense as Kennedy reported Roosevelt having urged him to do with Chamberlain. Lothian presumably was to communicate to Chamberlain the gist of his conversation with Dillon. Looking backward there is undoubtedly foundation for Kennedy's belief that Hitler's attack could have been deflected to Russia ." [13] Forrestal, James V., The Forrestal Diaries , edited by Walter Millis and E.S. Duffield, New York: Vanguard Press, 1951, pp. 121-122.
Joseph Kennedy is known to have had a good memory, and it is highly likely that Kennedy's statements to James Forrestal are accurate. Forrestal died on May 22, 1949 under suspicious circumstances when he fell from his hospital window. Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British ambassador to Washington, confirmed Roosevelt's secret policy to instigate war against Germany with the release of a confidential diplomatic report after the war. The report described a secret meeting on September 18, 1938 between Roosevelt and Ambassador Lindsay. Roosevelt said that if Britain and France were forced into a war against Germany, the United States would ultimately join the war. Roosevelt's idea to start a war was for Britain and France to impose a blockade against Germany without actually declaring war. The important point was to call it a defensive war based on lofty humanitarian grounds and on the desire to wage hostilities with a minimum of suffering and the least possible loss of life and property. The blockade would provoke some kind of German military response, but would free Britain and France from having to declare war. Roosevelt believed he could then convince the American public to support war against Germany, including shipments of weapons to Britain and France, by insisting that the United States was still neutral in a non-declared conflict. [14] Dispatch No. 349 of Sept. 30, 1938, by Sir Ronald Lindsay, Documents on British Foreign Policy , (ed.). Ernest L. Woodard, Third Series, Vol. VII, London, 1954, pp. 627-629. See also Lash, Joseph P., Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941, New York: Norton, 1976, pp. 25-27. President Roosevelt told Ambassador Lindsay that if news of their conversation was ever made public, it could mean Roosevelt's impeachment. What Roosevelt proposed to Lindsay was in effect a scheme to violate the U.S. Constitution by illegally starting a war. For this and other reasons, Ambassador Lindsay stated that during his three years of service in Washington he developed little regard for America's leaders. [15] Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932-1945 , New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 31, 164-165. Ambassador Lindsay in a series of final reports also indicated that Roosevelt was delighted at the prospect of a new world war. Roosevelt promised Lindsay that he would delay German ships under false pretenses in a feigned search for arms. This would allow the German ships to be easily seized by the British under circumstances arranged with exactitude between the American and British authorities. Lindsay reported that Roosevelt "spoke in a tone of almost impish glee and though I may be wrong the whole business gave me the impression of resembling a school-boy prank." Ambassador Lindsay was personally perturbed that the president of the United States could be gay and joyful about a pending tragedy which seemed so destructive of the hopes of all mankind. It was unfortunate at this important juncture that the United States had a president whose emotions and ideas were regarded by a friendly British ambassador as being childish. [16] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 518-519. Roosevelt's desire to support France and England in a war against Germany is discussed in a letter from Verne Marshall, former editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette , to Charles C. Tansill. The letter stated:
President Roosevelt wrote a note to William Bullitt [in the summer of 1939], then Ambassador to France, directing him to advise the French Government that if, in the event of a Nazi attack upon Poland, France and England did not go to Poland's aid, those countries could expect no help from America if a general war developed. On the other hand, if France and England immediately declared war on Germany, they could expect "all aid" from the United States. F.D.R.'s instructions to Bullitt were to send this word along to "Joe" and "Tony," meaning Ambassadors Kennedy, in London, and Biddle, in Warsaw, respectively. F.D.R. wanted Daladier, Chamberlain and Josef Beck to know of these instructions to Bullitt. Bullitt merely sent his note from F.D.R. to Kennedy in the diplomatic pouch from Paris. Kennedy followed Bullitt's idea and forwarded it to Biddle. When the Nazis grabbed Warsaw and Beck disappeared, they must have come into possession of the F.D.R. note. The man who wrote the report I sent you saw it in Berlin in October, 1939. [17] Tansill, Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace , Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 168.
William Phillips, the American ambassador to Italy, also stated in his postwar memoirs that the Roosevelt administration in late 1938 was committed to going to war on the side of Britain and France. Phillips wrote: "On this and many other occasions, I would have liked to have told him [Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister] frankly that in the event of a European war, the United States would undoubtedly be involved on the side of the Allies. But in view of my official position, I could not properly make such a statement without instructions from Washington, and these I never received." [18] Phillips, William, Ventures in Diplomacy , North Beverly, Mass.: privately published, 1952, pp. 220-221. When Anthony Eden returned to England in December 1938, he carried with him an assurance from President Roosevelt that the United States would enter as soon as practicable a European war against Hitler if the occasion arose. This information was obtained by Senator William Borah of Idaho, who was contemplating how and when to give out this information, when he dropped dead in his bathroom. The story was confirmed to historian Harry Elmer Barnes by some of Senator Borah's closest colleagues at the time. [19] Barnes, Harry Elmer, Barnes against the Blackout , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1991, p. 208. The American ambassador to Poland, Anthony Drexel Biddle, was an ideological colleague of President Roosevelt and a good friend of William Bullitt. Roosevelt used Biddle to influence the Polish government to refuse to enter into negotiations with Germany. Carl J. Burckhardt, the League of Nations High Commissioner to Danzig, reported in his postwar memoirs on a memorable conversation he had with Biddle. On December 2, 1938, Biddle told Burckhardt with remarkable satisfaction that the Poles were ready to wage war over Danzig. Biddle predicted that in April a new crisis would develop, and that moderate British and French leaders would be influenced by public opinion to support war. Biddle predicted a holy war against Germany would break out. [20] Burckhardt, Carl, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939 , Munich: Callwey, 1960, p. 225. Bernard Baruch, who was Roosevelt's chief advisor, scoffed at a statement made on March 10, 1939 by Neville Chamberlain that "the outlook in international affairs is tranquil." Baruch agreed passionately with Winston Churchill, who had told him: "War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you [the United States] will be in it." [21] Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins, an Intimate History , New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948, p. 113. Georges Bonnet, the French foreign minister in 1939, also confirmed the role of William Bullitt as Roosevelt's agent in pushing France into war. In a letter to Hamilton Fish dated March 26, 1971, Bonnet wrote, "One thing is certain is that Bullitt in 1939 did everything he could to make France enter the war." [22] Fish, Hamilton, FDR The Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War II, New York: Vantage Press, 1976, p. 62. Dr. Edvard Beneš, the former president of Czechoslovakia, wrote in his memoirs that he had a lengthy secret conversation at Hyde Park with President Roosevelt on May 28, 1939. Roosevelt assured Beneš that the United States would actively intervene on the side of Great Britain and France against Germany in the anticipated European war. [23] Beneš, Edvard, Memoirs of Dr. Edvard Beneš , London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954, pp. 79-80. American newspaper columnist Karl von Wiegand, who was the chief European newspaper columnist of the International News Service, met with Ambassador William Bullitt at the U.S. embassy in Paris on April 25, 1939. More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe has been decided upon. Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany. America will be in the war soon after Britain and France enter it." [24] "Von Wiegand Says-," Chicago-Herald American , Oct. 8, 1944, p. 2. When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when the war is over to be worth Bolshevizing." [25] Chicago-Herald American , April 23, 1944, p. 18. On March 14, 1939, Slovakia dissolved the state of Czechoslovakia by declaring itself an independent republic. Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity. The British government initially accepted the new situation, reasoning that Britain's guarantee of Czechoslovakia given after Munich was rendered void by the internal collapse of that state. It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime enjoyed considerable popularity among the people living in it. Also, the danger of a war between the Czechs and the Slovaks had been averted. [26] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 250. However, Bullitt's response to the creation of the German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia was highly unfavorable. Bullitt telephoned Roosevelt and, in an "almost hysterical" voice, Bullitt urged Roosevelt to make a dramatic denunciation of Germany and to immediately ask Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act. [27] Moffat, Jay P., The Moffat Papers 1919-1943 , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956, p. 232. Washington journalists Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen reported in their nationally syndicated column that on March 16, 1939, President Roosevelt "sent a virtual ultimatum to Chamberlain" demanding that the British government strongly oppose Germany. Pearson and Allen reported that "the President warned that Britain could expect no more support, moral or material through the sale of airplanes, if the Munich policy continued." [28] Pearson, Drew and Allen, Robert S., "Washington Daily Merry-Go-Round," Washington Times-Herald , April 14, 1939, p. 16. Responding to Roosevelt's pressure, the next day Chamberlain ended Britain's policy of cooperation with Germany when he made a speech at Birmingham bitterly denouncing Hitler. Chamberlain also announced the end of the British "appeasement" policy, stating that from now on Britain would oppose any further territorial moves by Hitler. Two weeks later the British government formally committed itself to war in case of German-Polish hostilities. Roosevelt also attempted to arm Poland so that Poland would be more willing to go to war against Germany. Ambassador Bullitt reported from Paris in a confidential telegram to Washington on April 9, 1939, his conversation with Polish Ambassador Łukasiewicz. Bullitt told Łukasiewicz that although U.S. law prohibited direct financial aid to Poland, the Roosevelt administration might be able to supply warplanes to Poland indirectly through Britain. Bullitt stated: "The Polish ambassador asked me if it might not be possible for Poland to obtain financial help and airplanes from the United States. I replied that I believed the Johnson Act would forbid any loans from the United States to Poland, but added that it might be possible for England to purchase planes for cash in the United States and turn them over to Poland." [29] U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (Diplomatic Papers), 1939, General, Vol. I, Washington: 1956, p. 122. Bullitt also attempted to bypass the Neutrality Act and supply France with airplanes. A secret conference of Ambassador Bullitt with French Premier Daladier and the French minister of aviation, Guy La Chambre, discussed the procurement of airplanes from America for France. Bullitt, who was in frequent telephonic conversation with Roosevelt, suggested a means by which the Neutrality Act could be circumvented in the event of war. Bullitt's suggestion was to set up assembly plants in Canada, apparently on the assumption that Canada would not be a formal belligerent in the war. Bullitt also arranged for a secret French mission to come to the United States and purchase airplanes in the winter of 1938-1939. The secret purchase of American airplanes by the French leaked out when a French aviator crashed on the West Coast. [30] Chamberlain, William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 101-102. On August 23, 1939, Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain's closest advisor, went to American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy with an urgent appeal from Chamberlain to President Roosevelt. Regretting that Britain had unequivocally obligated itself to Poland in case of war, Chamberlain now turned to Roosevelt as a last hope for peace. Kennedy telephoned the State Department and stated: "The British want one thing from us and one thing only, namely that we put pressure on the Poles. They felt that they could not, given their obligations, do anything of this sort but that we could." Presented with a possibility to save the peace in Europe, President Roosevelt rejected Chamberlain's desperate plea out of hand. With Roosevelt's rejection, Kennedy reported, British Prime Minister Chamberlain lost all hope. Chamberlain stated: "The futility of it all is the thing that is frightful. After all, we cannot save the Poles. We can merely carry on a war of revenge that will mean the destruction of all Europe." [31] Koskoff, David E., Joseph P. Kennedy: A Life and Times , Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974, p. 207; see also Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War , New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005, p. 272.
Conclusion
Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. This is proven by the secret Polish documents as well as numerous statements from highly positioned, well-known and authoritative Allied leaders who corroborate the contents of the Polish documents.


chris , says: April 8, 2019 at 8:38 pm GMT

@conatus Good reference!

Here also a summary from "the Bionic Mosquito" https://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2012/05/poland-as-pawn-hoover-identifies.html
Regrading the denials after the revelation of the released Polish documents, the Mosquito writes:

When these documents were published, their authenticity was denied by both Bullitt and by the Polish Ambassador to the U.S. The Polish Ambassador later informed Hoover that he denied their authenticity at the request of the State Department.

leftright , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
@Paul More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe has been decided upon. Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany. America will be in the war soon after Britain and France enter it."[24] When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when the war is over to be worth Bolshevizing."

those behind the wars do not serve ideology or democracy. they serve their own interests. then and now. they rule by dividing the rest of the world. by pitting germany against russia, in this case, they worked toward their own domination. their short term goal is the elimination of competitions by all means. their long tern goal is their hegemony and domination of the world. they believe that they are that superior.

ben sampson , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:43 pm GMT
Roosevelt was no incompetent or fool. he knew exactly what he was doing. he was executive and ran his show.

Roosevelt was elite and smart enough to know how to compromise and neutralize the american socialist cat until he had a war to smash all worker opposition, directing it into war and depopulation of the capitalist opposition.

,
Thorfinnsson , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:19 pm GMT
@Wally The Nazis very clearly did dismember Czechoslovakia, which is what destroyed Hitler's credibility with the British. It's also what German_reader found objectionable about the original piece.

I'm not a supporter of the Icebreaker thesis, though obviously Bolshevism had aggressive intentions.

Thorfinnsson , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:10 pm GMT
@German_reader

If true, that's indeed interesting, I might have to look into this. The arguments in the article above (referring to a lot of pretty weak sources like newspaper articles or much later reminiscences) don't seem convincing to me though.
What would have been Roosevelt's reasoning for pushing for a European war? I know he was pathologically anti-German and soft on communism, but that doesn't seem like a sufficient rationale.
Commenters here would of course argue that he was a mere puppet of the Jews, but I don't buy that either (during the war the Holocaust doesn't seem to have been a central preoccupation for him).

It may be down simply to politics.

Roosevelt's New Deal proved to be a failure, and the Roosevelt Recession was especially damaging to his power and prestige. While it could be a coincidence (or merely a response to increasingly assertive German policy), it's noteworthy that the aggressive turn in Roosevelt's foreign policy coincided with the Roosevelt Recession.

It's forgotten today, but many of the policies of the New Deal were not Keynesian and were actually inspired by WW1 planning. FDR's prewar budget deficits were on average lower than American fiscal deficits are today. Thus rearmament appeared to offer a way out of the intractable Depression.

That Roosevelt himself was a Germanophobe, an Anglophile, a naval enthusiast, and extremely weak on communism no doubt contributed. Biographers have also noted that FDR always wanted to be a wartime President, comparing himself to Lincoln.

Roosevelt was also influenced by the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford John Mackinder. Thus he subscribed to the idea that the US needed to prevent any one power from controlling the "heartland". Wartime American propaganda reflects these ideas by noting the strategic need to prevent the Axis powers from completely controlling two of the world's three "industrial regions".

I know about those sentiments on the other hand his policy made the US the dominant world power, at the cost of the lowest casualties among WW2 combatants.
Personally I've come to view US post-war dominance quite negatively (not least because it facilitated the spread of US liberalism with its particularly demented manifestations like Negrophilia, which may well lead to the eventual destruction of the entire pan-European world), but from the point of view of most Americans FDR's foreign policy must be seen as highly successful imo.

This American views FDR's foreign policy very negatively, and the domestic effects of America's strategic reorientation must be considered in any assessment. The perceived requirements of WW2 and the subsequent Cold War led to the replacement of America's "white nationalism" with "civil rights". It also led to the dismantling of America's formidable protective barriers and those which existed between the other industrial powers, which in turn allowed them to converge with America's level of economic development.

FDR simply converted latent potential into military and diplomatic power. What actually turned America into the world's greatest power was seizing the best parts of the North American continent, populating it with white people, a good legal and economic system, and a consistent pro-manufacturing policy orientation until 1945.

WW2 in fact planted the seeds for the end of America (via the destruction of its racial identity) and its eclipse as the world's foremost power by China (via its unification).

It's also worth pointing out that other than the capital expenditures made during the war Americans got nothing out of victory. Just a bunch of vassal states to garrison with troops and propped up with ruinous economic concessions. The only actual gains were German scientists and intellectual property.

This fundamental reorientation of America has persisted for more than seventy years and is destroying the country. It has also had decidedly negative consequences for Europe as you note.

Asagirian , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Hitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street backers were. Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities. Long standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi" Stephen Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)

The problem with such uber-contextual logic is that everyone can blame the world for all his actions. He can say the World made me do it.

Yes, there was Versailles Treaty, communism, and British fears of Germany. All of that is true.

But there was also this. Brits came around to feeling that Germans got a raw deal after WWI. British hostility mostly ebbed away by the time of Hitler's rise.

It's true that World Jewry hated the rise of Hitler and tried to hurt Germany. But Jews back then didn't have the power to force world governments to strangulate Germany.

The fact is France and UK let Germany retake the Rhineland. They allowed the unification of Germany and Austria. And they let Germany take Sudetenland. And when Germany overstepped its bounds and took Crezh territory, UK made a deal with Germany.

But Germans went beyond that and invaded Poland. They didn't just invade but made a pact with USSR. Now, this was an evil pact but very smart on Hitler's part. He knew that aggression against Poland could set UK and France against him. So, as backup, it was good to have Russia on his side.
People say World War II began with invasion of Poland but no so. Poland was quickly quelled, and German-French war ended quickly. With most of Western allied with Germany, occupied by Germany, or neutral and with USSR on his side, the smart thing for Hitler was to wait it out in a war of contrition with UK. But Hitler decided to attack Russia, and that set off the real WWII in 1941, esp sealed after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and brought US into the war.

Even if FDR wanted war or hostility, the fact is most American didn't want war, and FDR had run on peace. He couldn't bring US to war against Germany UNLESS Germans(and their Japanese allies) did something spectacularly foolish.
If Germany hadn't attacked USSR and hadn't emboldened Japan to make a even dumber move against the US, WWII could have been avoided.
Some argue that Hitler invaded USSR because Stalin planned to attack first, and their evidence is offensive Soviet positions against German lines. But knowing Stalin, it's difficult to imagine he was willing to risk everything. Stalin was more a scavenger than hunter. He looked for weak spots and easy opportunities. He didn't like to risk all. If Soviet positions had really been placed offensively against Germany, it was likely a bluff to force Germans into defensive position, making them less likely to take the offensive initiative. Stalin was a mind-gamer like Hitler, who was also a mind-gambler.

From the article above, it's instructive to know that the events that led to WWII weren't entirely Hitler's fault and that he was working within the context of larger world politics, but as John Lukacs said, HE was the main driver of events that led to WWII. It wasn't FDR or Stalin or Churchill even though some of their actions made things worse. A more cautious and sensible Hitler could have prevented the war from turning into a total war.

It's like events in the Middle East since end of Cold War must be mostly blamed on Jewish Globalists. They were the main drivers. Sure, Iran, Iraq, and etc. did their part to destabilize the region, but the main drivers were Zionists who took the initiative to turn the whole place upside down to serve Zionist supremacism.

anon [227] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:27 am GMT

Potocki:

However, I know the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the opinion that the possibility that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the states in the mid-West and West, where the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at all costs. They remember the declaration of the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of unpaid billions which the European states still owe America .

the average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another relative in that war?

German_reader , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT

Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity.

It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.

It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime enjoyed considerable popularity among the people living in it.

Lol. Sure, Czechs must have been thrilled at losing their independence and being occupied by a foreign power, at least some of whose representatives eventually developed extremely sinister plans for the future of Czechs (Heydrich during his time in the protectorate thought that about 50% of Czechs had to be "deported", while 50% could be Germanized, but Czech nationhood had to disappear in any case).
I don't know why Ron Unz keeps publishing these absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).

truthman , says: April 8, 2019 at 6:10 am GMT
Best book about these events is The Forced War by David Hoggan. He goes over many of these same events with a great attention to detail, though certainly from a pro-German stance.
Sean , says: April 8, 2019 at 9:05 am GMT

He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland

Stalin understood that he was freeing Hitler to strike in the west by making a pact with Hitler. In effect he facilitated it. The British considered the Soviet Union to be the real problem. Stalin had already grabbed the Baltic states plus parts of Finland and Romania. The British were mobilizing against the USSR over the war with Finland even after declaring war with Germany. The British guarantee to Poland originally covered only their independence not territory ; the British thought allowing Germany to take Polish land was acceptable and it would make war between Germany and the USSR quite likely (Chamberlain's strategy was to let Hitler and Stalin into conflict). Only after the Nazi-Soviet Pact was announced was the guarantee extended to Poland's territory because at that point the British decided war was necessary; Germany and the USSR being friendly was not acceptable as it meant Hitler was going to go West instead of East.

Clearly Stalin wanted to sit the war between the capitalists out and reap the rewards. Neville Chamberlain wanted to see the fighting done by the Germans and Bolshies, we know he thought that because he said so to a meeting of important Tories.With the the Nazi-Soviet pact the powerful Soviet deterrent to any aggression was out of the equation and the British realized the balance of power had moved against them, which was unacceptable in a way that war between the Nazis and Soviets was not. If Hitler didn't have to worry about the Soviets at his back that suddenly made all the previous calculations obsolete.

Although Stalin may have anticipated territorial demands or military pressure such as border incidents he was astounded when Hitler subjected the USSR to an all out attack with the promethean goal of conquering the Soviet state. Everybody underestimated the effectiveness of the combination of Weimar reforms increasing centralised revenue raising for military purposes, Hitler's decisiveness and the German army's fighting power.

PeterMX , says: April 8, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
@German_reader As thrilled as the Germans were when Bohemia and Moravia was taken from them (Austria) and over three million Germans forcibly became Czech citizens in a newly created state that never existed before.

This video is banned here in Europe, where the lies are upheld by the law, but it can be viewed in the USA.

1942 – At a mass meeting in Prague, 200,000 Czechs pledge loyalty to their homeland and to the German Reich. Czech Minister Emanuel Moravec addresses the large rally on July 3, 1942, on Wenceslas Square, near the historic statute of St. Wenceslas. He concludes with an expression of confidence in a better future for the Czech people, and of support for the "new Europe," the "National Socialist revolution," "our leader, Adolf Hitler," and "our state president, Dr. Hacha." Emil Hacha, head of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia government is present, along with many other officials. The meeting concludes with the crowd singing the Czech national hymn. Three minute newsreel clip, with Czech narration.

Alfred , says: April 8, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT
@anon the average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another relative in that war?

The Wikipedia says that 4,000,000 American soldier were mobilised and 111,000 killed – mostly by disease.

That is absolutely nothing compared to the losses of Imperial Russia (12,000,000), France (8,900,000) and the British Empire (9,000,000). The demographics of France will never recover.

The USA entered the war only 18 months before it ended. Of course, it took months before the troops even got there.

I fear that the average educated American has no idea what war is like when it is fought in their homeland. Putin warned the Americans that the next war will not be fought on Russian soil. The American elites think that he means it will be fought in Europe. LOL

bossel , says: April 8, 2019 at 10:48 am GMT

a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular German army

Nonsense. Gruppe Künsberg was sent into Warsaw in October 1939 after the unconditional surrender at the end of September of Warsaw's defenders.

U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II.

Also nonsense. Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it. Unless you can show that the US was behind Hitler breaching the Munich Agreement & later attacking Poland, you have no case.

Wizard of Oz , says: April 8, 2019 at 11:25 am GMT
There is a lot of interesting information in the article and reports hitherto not familiar to me but I think the author has too limited a focus and certainly doesn't justify the big claims that WW2 was aimed for and caused by FDR. You only have to suppose that, in Roosevelt's judgment Hitler was going to make war and that the US had to be in it for its long term security. He may eell have regarded the Soviet Union as weak and vulnerable enough for their to be no reason to be actively anti Bolshevik. And – maybe alternatively – he would have had the Japanese well in mind and applauded the Soviet Union having recently given them a licking.
james bacque , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 12:17 pm GMT
Most of the information in this article was gathered together by Herbert Hoover who wrote it up in long book form in the 1950s. He worked from Polish documents captured in Warsaw as the article says. Hoover's Ms remained unpublished for many years. After it was published, as Freedom Betrayed a few years ago, I wrote to the editor, Stephen Nash who did not reply. I also called the publisher's editor who would not discuss it with me. I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed that the tales told by court historians such as Nash, Stephen E Ambrose. "Sir" Michael Howard, Martin Gilbert and so on are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides. The leaders included Roosevelt in a gallery of the guilty running from him through Churchill, and Hitler to Stalin and Henry C Morgenthau, deviser of the infamous Morgenthau Plan for the destruction of the German people.
eah , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:54 pm GMT
Podcast with Douglas Horne:

FDR and the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Asagirian , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 1:06 pm GMT
@Robert Whatever The only winners of WW2 were the Jews.

US and USSR emerged as superpowers.
Post-war Europe recovered fast and living standards improved greatly.

Jews lost a great deal in the war. Shoah.

If Jews emerged victorious, it was because they took over institutions in the US. It would have happened even without WWII though, minus the Shoah narrative, Jewish power would have had less of a moral shield.

Asagirian , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 1:17 pm GMT
@German_reader these absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).

These revisionist pieces are 50% kooky but offer up kernels of facts and insights that reveal aspects of the time mostly buried by the Judeo-centric media. It has elements of Nazi apologia, but keep in mind that much of US narrative is Jewish Supremacist propaganda.

Now, there is something to be learned from the Jewish Narrative as it isn't all lies either.

If we can select the truths from the Jewish Supremacist narrative and truths from the Nazi-sympathizing narrative, we can construct a truer narrative. Of course the lies and distortions of both.

The recent events in Iraq and Syria and the whole Russia Collusion hysteria go to show that the 'liberal'corporate media can be just as full of BS as any totalitarian press.
Of course, the difference is Putin and Assad are NOT Hitlers whereas Hitler was truly a hitler, a pathological demagogue.

Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded given Hitler's actions against Poland and then against the USSR, an ally. Also,Hitler was someone with whom diplomacy was often impossible since he regarded the compromise of others as weakness to exploit.

But it's also true that the US, for ideological, imperial, and tribal reasons of its own, believed Germany must be toppled first before its preferred world order could prevail.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT
This is another great article and both the author and UR deserve to be highly commended.

Potocki's reports (according to the translations given) were amazingly perceptive on all points.

The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own personal ambition.

That's a conclusion that, while obvious, is almost never addressed but should be. It also sounds a lot like the doofus, Woody Wilson, and his fake messianic "idealism." Both of those clowns were amoral narcissistic fools to the max and menaces to world peace. Both were functionally crazy, cunning and downright evil.

It's interesting to note that FDR was taken to task for essentially sitting out WW1 at a desk job by Teddy Roosevelt ( another militaristic, blowhard, self stroking fool) while Teddy's 4 sons were fighting in Europe, so he took a "playtime" tour of the battlefields to bolster his "war" credentials.
He also

was enjoying every aspect of being a man of authority in a government at war. Early on he had confided to a friend, "It would be wonderful to be a war president." Thomas Fleming, The Illusion of Victory, p254 (2003)

For me, one of the morals of all that is that men cannot be trusted in positions of power and "we" must act accordingly. Another lesson learned is that the US government has long acted against the interests of the American prols, peasants, peons and pissants, and no doubt shall as long as it exists. What to do about it appears to be, at this point, an individual thing.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:35 pm GMT
@German_reader

It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.

Credible source, please.

Now go back and read the article and try to find out who was threatening whom. You could also review the causes of WW1, but that may be asking too much.

Also, it would be interesting to hear your opinion on the report that New York "Jews" declared war on Germany in 1933, years before the Nazis did anything (they were subsequently accused of) to the Jews.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:38 pm GMT
@Paul

The fear is that they will then come for us.

What's your assessment of the validity of that fear and how familiar are you with the concept of pretexts ?

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:46 pm GMT
@james bacque

I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed that the tales told by court historians are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides.

Kindly elaborate on that conclusion, please.

MrVoxPopuli , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT
@Sean Now THAT makes perfect sense! Kudos!
Thorfinnsson , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
@German_reader The Nazi apologism of these pieces is unfortunate (e.g. casually glossing over the German destruction of Czechoslovakia as you cite), but other than that they're quite valuable. The standard narrative is that America was completely neutral until the outbreak of war, after which it adopted pro-British neutrality.

The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war, and once war had broken out its policy was to commit America to the war.

That obviously does not absolve the Axis powers. If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted German demands. It of course doesn't follow that this would've preserved the peace in Europe.

This also has special relevance for American politics as Roosevelt has long been a despised figure on the American right.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:10 pm GMT
@bossel

Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it.

Duh.

That's a classic straw man fallacy. Unless you can show that the author claimed what you said he did, you have no case. And since the Dizzard agreed with you, it's almost certain that you have none.

anon [170] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT
@LondonBob

No doubt the Roosevelt administration was agitating for war. Between the Soviets, the Nazis and FDR's chums what chance did Europe have? Always found the US saving Britain meme particularly offensive.

somehow you left the belligerent Churchill out of this mix

note that he was on the hook to some jew bankers for the solvency of his entire estate, also note the quip by a Rothschild woman "if my sons didn't want wars there would be no wars"

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:17 pm GMT
@Asagirian

Jews lost a great deal in the war. Shoah.

Maybe a few little ones did, but the bigshot moneybag crowd probably did not.

Here's an anecdote to ponder.

The new [Jewish] prosperity was born in rearmament, and that was begun in the name of anti-Communism and anti-Semitism. Abyssinia, Spain and China have already shown that the new armaments race spells death, not for Jews, but for indiscriminate millions of helpless Gentiles, Africans, Chinese and whatnot. The profits from the armaments race will go largely into the pockets of Jews, because of their preponderant share in retail trade Such is Hitler's achievement in the cause of antiSemitism.

I was talking one day to Z, a Jewish journalist expelled from Germany who has settled in Vienna, where he has a pleasant home and a motor car. He talked with bitter resentment of Germany. 'Ah', he complained, 'the Poles murdered us, but the Germans have robbed us', and it was quite clear from his tone which was the worse thing for him. Then he told me how his son was still working for a big German film company in Berlin and had thrice had his salary raised to induce him not to leave and emigrate, as he desired, wishing to join his father. The Jews. As I write, in Vienna, they are all about me, watching with non-committal, veiled, appraising eyes the comedy that is going on in Insanity Fair. They know that when Hitlerism has passed away they will still be trading in the Kärntnerstrasse.

-Douglas Reed, Insanity Fair (1938), chapter 17

anon [170] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:20 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

This also has special relevance for American politics as Roosevelt has long been a despised figure on the American right.

more accurate is the other way around – Roosevelt has long been deified by the MSM and the American left.

The American right just notices he was a flawed man

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
@Asagirian

Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded

Hitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street backers were. Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities. Long standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi" Stephen Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)

This oughta be depressing

German_reader , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:32 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

but other than that they're quite valuable.

I don't think so, imo those pieces without exception are so stupid that they'll actually be counter-productive and reinforce existing narratives.
I actually think there are some areas of WW2 where revisionism might be justified (and you don't even have to go to kooky "revisionists" for it, the gap between the mythology and the writings even of many quite mainstream historians is often wide) but Unz review has nothing to contribute in this regard.

The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war

I don't think the article above demonstrated that, tbh the documents cited in it appear to be totally unremarkable to me and don't support such a thesis.
Maybe someone else has made a better case for it, but that Roosevelt actively wanted a European war seems unlikely to me.

If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted German demands.

But the US didn't really do anything in 1939/40, it was just words. iirc even Lend-Lease was only adopted after the fall of France.
The backing of Britain and France (still seen as premier world powers at the time, and in the case of France with a large army with modern equipment) was probably enough for Poland, I don't think the remote possibility of American intervention (which was years away anyway) was decisive.
A fundamental issue was of course that Hitler had already shown with the destruction of Czechoslovakia (so casually dismissed in the article above) in March 1939 that his ambitions went beyond merely uniting all majority German areas in the Reich and that he wasn't trustworthy at all.

Agent76 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:41 pm GMT
Bankers Hate Peace: All Wars Are Bankers' Wars

In the beginning of World War I, Woodrow Wilson had adopted initially a policy of neutrality. But the Morgan Bank, which was the most powerful bank at the time, and which wound up funding over 75 percent of the financing for the allied forces during World War I pushed Wilson out of neutrality sooner than he might have done, because of their desire to be involved on one side of the war.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/bankers-hate-peace-all-wars-are-bankers-wars/5438849

*All Wars Are Bankers' Wars*

I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.

ben sampson , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:43 pm GMT
from the up-to-date history of the second world war it is now possible to see the utter madness, irrelevance really of white people! from Churchill and the English, to Roosevelt, the Germans, the Russians.. and all others at the top of the white countries..the white elites..what on earth are they, what are they about on planet earth, what do they want?

they smash, beat, poison, blow up, lie all the time, cheat, steal, draw all human profit off into few hands, bring world economy to a standstill then create wars for all and every socially controlling purpose including the reduction of ordinary people..all working people. war is to protect the money grubbers and economic slavers from the mess they make in their own profit taking and exploitation of the people..to reduce the people to easy captivity, their numbers as a fighting force capable of social revolution and on and on, permitting the restart of another profit taking cycle and the same flow of events again and again and again

by new information when properly considered Hitler comes of a relatively sane man who did not want war..but look at the things he did himself!

and over all of this, like mad directors of a horror movie are the fake Jews, the Khazars who collectively must be the devil himself, directing a MADD movie of existence.

LOOK AT WHAT THEY ARE ALL COLLECTIVELY DOING -HAVE DONE. IT IS CONSTANT CENTURIES LONG LUNACY, PURE NAKED INSANITY THAT THEY HAVE MANAGED TO PUT OR PULL A CONSISTENT PATINA OVER, THAT ALLOWS THE REST OF US TO TAKE THEIR BEHAVIOR AS SANE AND TO ACCEPT WHITE PEOPLE AS LOGICAL AND RIGHT IN THE WORLD..THE ACTUAL OPPOSITE OF WHO/WHAT THEY ARE

I don know of anything historically like the 19 century. from the Japanese Russian war, the first world war, the Russian revolution, the economic games of the years between 1920-39 they call the great crash, the second world war..all the way to currently when white people appear to be finally tired of themselves and are ready to end it all in another explosion of war with nuclear weapons..we have had such a show of absolutely human insanity there are negative words capable of describing that flow of human time and the people involved.

Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Churchill, Chamberlin, Mussolin, DeGaulle,..all, an endless flow of terrible human beings..and it has not stopped, all the way through the Clintons, Obama, Macron..and on and on and on, the same carnage, the same insanity..it never stops, never ever. nothing depresses me as human history does..the white part of it..the rise of the white man. there is no way out of it..white outlook and socially dominant power, will not allow for anything positive in the human potential to manifest. only genocide, human engineering and the development of social grotesque forms of social organization looms for the human future

and they say some god made this life..a supreme and good god worked all this out and made ot, let it be. and of course that is more grotesque nonsense that leads to more hell for humanity.

I dont see the point to life. the ancient Africans had a point. they developed a life in nature, accepted nature as the template and flowed accordingly. in that way they gave us all a chance by developing the basis of survival, of social organization and spiritual sanity. the white man took that and poisoned it, twisted it into all the insane religious nonsense that drives human suicide currently.

but with the rise of the white male into global power for 500 years now humanity has gone totally insane..impenetrably insane, comprehensively insane. we have all been made nuts by white logic. we have ringed ourselves by that same logic with every conceivable weapon that can kill all humanity. we have actually set the stage for the possible rise out of nature itself organic mutations that may wipe humanity all on their own..mutations changed by what we have routinely thrown into the world as waste for which humanity has no biological defense.

that is the white mans logic..operating on the principle that there is a free lunch, always looking for on and causing existential chaos in the process. I want to cite the obvious stupidity in that approach..a collectively arsine approach..but it is far, far, far, far .. worse than that. the condition of the white man appears to be irreversible, cannot be changed and with the destructive means the white elites now have it is totally unlikely that humanity comes out of the experience of white power, white global domination, alive..or in one piece. we may crawl out alive but we wont be human anymore

SCREW ROOSEVELT. HE WAS THE WORST FROM THE START! I KNEW THAT SINCE I WAS MUCH YOUNGER AND COULD CONSIDER REALITY. ROOSEVELT HAS BEEN BUILT INTO A HERO, HE IS A FAKE HERO!.

I HOPE TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE HIS STATUE TORN DOWN AS LENIN'S STATUE WAS WITH THE FALL OF RUSSIAN STATE CAPITALISM

Mulegino1 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
A wonderful article!

The myth that the US and their henceforth junior partner UK- along with the Soviet Union- "liberated" Europe ought to be put to rest. There was no "liberation" of Europe from Germany, unless massive civilian deaths and the unprecedented destruction of property and cultural landmarks equates to "liberation." As an American, this is disturbing to me, but it is the truth.

FDR was an ignoramus and an ingenue surrounded, in his later years, by communists and their sympathizers. Had he adopted National Socialist economic policies here in the US, he could have ended the depression and brought America to unprecedented prosperity and the ultimate fulfillment of its great providential mission to be an impregnable continental power. Instead, he squandered all that and doubled down on the catastrophically error of his predecessor Wilson.

In both cases- FDR's and Wilson's- Europe lost. Disastrously and tragically.

Che Guava , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:48 pm GMT
That is an interesting article.

I tend to concetrate on Rosenfeldt's actions in the Pacific, knew about many non-neutral actions in the Atlantic, non-neutrality of 'lend-lease', but most (all )of the content of this article is new to me.

Very interesting.

Changing the subject a little for entertainment, I enjoy reading Charles Bukowski (RIP) at times.

His account of the behaviour of young men post-Pearl Harbour is hilarious, he is drinking (and drunk) on a park bench, suddenly sees them start shouting 'godawar' and frantically running around.

I forget the title, but it is a very laconic and funny description.

When seeing Starship Troopers by Verhoeven, I always think that at least one of the scriptwriters must have read Bukowski.

It is so similar.

Mulegino1 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@fnn His book is a must read: "The War that Had Many Fathers".

[Apr 08, 2019] Netanyahu pledges to annex West Bank if re-elected - World Socialist Web Site by Jean Shaoul

Notable quotes:
"... In so doing, he has effectively repudiated the entire post-World War II international order and signalled that wars of conquest and territorial aggrandisement are the order of the day. Such annexations were declared illegal under the Geneva Conventions, enacted in the wake of the Second World War to prevent the repetition of similar actions carried out by Germany's Nazi regime, which set the stage for the outbreak of war in 1939. ..."
"... Netanyahu's announcement will give succour to his support base among fascistic layers of the settlers and religious nationalists, driving Israel's capitalist political setup ever further toward outright apartheid, fascism and military dictatorship. It is a prelude to intensified Israeli military aggression in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and the broader Middle East. ..."
"... He has brought into his electoral coalition, and a possible share of government power should he win, outright fascist elements linked to the banned Kach Party of the late Meir Kahane, a party that was designated a terrorist organization by the US, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Israel itself. ..."
"... Trump's naked interference in the Israeli elections is bound up with US imperialism's broader aim of escalating its military intervention in the Middle East to roll back the growth of Iranian influence in the wake of the successive debacles suffered by Washington in Iraq, Libya and Syria. ..."
"... The political antecedents of Netanyahu's Likud Party, Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionists, who were to remain a minority tendency until the 1970s, articulated this position most clearly. Their aim was the establishment of a Jewish state on the entire land of Biblical Palestine, including Transjordan. With the Jews a minority in Palestine, such a state would necessarily mean expelling the Arab population to ensure its Jewish character. ..."
"... In 1923, Jabotinsky explained, in an article titled "The Iron Wall," that the Zionist project could be achieved only against the wishes of the native population. He envisaged the need for an iron wall to protect the Jews from the native population. He said, "A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the near future." Without a garrison, Zionist colonization of Palestine would be impossible, and "therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force." ..."
"... Netanyahu has now made explicit what has long been implicit: the incorporation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel. It can be achieved and sustained only through the imposition of military rule. To this end, his government has passed a series of measures, including the openly racist "Nation-State Law" enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state, bringing the political and legal system into alignment with the reality of Jabotinsky's garrison state, based on the brutal oppression of an entire people, the Palestinians. ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his intention of extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, if he is re-elected prime minister in Tuesday's general election.

In so doing, he has effectively repudiated the entire post-World War II international order and signalled that wars of conquest and territorial aggrandisement are the order of the day. Such annexations were declared illegal under the Geneva Conventions, enacted in the wake of the Second World War to prevent the repetition of similar actions carried out by Germany's Nazi regime, which set the stage for the outbreak of war in 1939.

Netanyahu's announcement will give succour to his support base among fascistic layers of the settlers and religious nationalists, driving Israel's capitalist political setup ever further toward outright apartheid, fascism and military dictatorship. It is a prelude to intensified Israeli military aggression in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and the broader Middle East.

Netanyahu told a television Channel 12 interviewer on Saturday that he would not "evacuate any community." Nor would he divide Jerusalem, a reference to Palestinian demands for East Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state. He said, "I will not divide Jerusalem, I will not evacuate any community and I will make sure we control the territory west of Jordan."

He added, "A Palestinian state will endanger our existence and I withstood huge pressure over the past eight years. No prime minister has withstood such pressure. We must control our destiny."

Netanyahu made it clear that he viewed President Donald Trump's recognition of Israel's illegal annexation of Syria's Golan Heights, captured in 1967, as a green light to press on with Likud's long-held expansionist policy of a Greater Israel. He said, "Will we move ahead to the next stage? Yes. I will extend sovereignty, but I don't distinguish between the settlement blocs and the isolated ones, because each settlement is Israeli, and I will not hand it over to Palestinian sovereignty."

Speaking about the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, which he has pledged to evacuate despite international outrage, Netanyahu promised that "it will happen." He added, "I promised, and it will happen at the soonest opportunity."

Netanyahu's announcement was aimed at bolstering his position in the election, which he had called ahead of schedule in order to win political backing to ensure his immunity from prosecution on a raft of corruption charges. Facing unexpectedly strong opposition from a slate of generals assembled by the so-called Blue and White coalition, headed by former chief of staff Benny Gantz, he has leveraged Trump's support to appeal to his right-wing support base.

He has brought into his electoral coalition, and a possible share of government power should he win, outright fascist elements linked to the banned Kach Party of the late Meir Kahane, a party that was designated a terrorist organization by the US, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Israel itself.

Trump's naked interference in the Israeli elections is bound up with US imperialism's broader aim of escalating its military intervention in the Middle East to roll back the growth of Iranian influence in the wake of the successive debacles suffered by Washington in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Netanyahu's growing alliance with the House of Saud and the petro-monarchs of the Gulf has served to ensure their acquiescence -- with pro forma denunciations -- to this latest assault on the Palestinians.

But apart from Netanyahu's short-term political calculations, his announcement derives from Zionism's foundation upon exclusivist conceptions of racial, religious and linguistic hegemony to justify the establishment of a Jewish state through the violent dispossession of the indigenous Arab population, who formed the overwhelming majority of the population, making use of the horrors of the Holocaust as a rationale for the oppression of another people.

The political antecedents of Netanyahu's Likud Party, Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionists, who were to remain a minority tendency until the 1970s, articulated this position most clearly. Their aim was the establishment of a Jewish state on the entire land of Biblical Palestine, including Transjordan. With the Jews a minority in Palestine, such a state would necessarily mean expelling the Arab population to ensure its Jewish character.

In 1923, Jabotinsky explained, in an article titled "The Iron Wall," that the Zionist project could be achieved only against the wishes of the native population. He envisaged the need for an iron wall to protect the Jews from the native population. He said, "A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the near future." Without a garrison, Zionist colonization of Palestine would be impossible, and "therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force."

The establishment of a Jewish state was viewed with sympathy by millions of people around the world, who were appalled at the catastrophe that had befallen the Jews. But the major powers excluding Britain, but including the Soviet Union, supported the establishment of a Jewish state as a means of blocking Britain's position in the Middle East. As a result, the UN voted in 1947 for the partition of Palestine, hailing the new state as a progressive entity dedicated to building a democratic and egalitarian society for the most cruelly oppressed people of Europe.

As soon as the State of Israel was declared in 1948, war broke out between the Arabs and the Jews, who were able to seize more land than was included in the 1947 partition plan, driving out some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. Not wanting to pay the price of the concessions demanded by the superpowers, in terms of borders and refugees, Israel's Labour government did not try to make peace after the war, instead instituting a policy of "striving for peace" -- but not too fast -- which became the template for future governments. The more Israel got used to the situation of neither peace nor war, the louder grew the voices calling for the maintenance of the status quo.

After the 1967 war, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria, the Labour government moved rapidly to annex East Jerusalem and build settlements in the occupied territories that are now home to some 700,000 Israeli Jews, many of them extreme nationalists and religious zealots who are heavily armed. Labour had, in effect, adopted the Revisionists' policy.

The war and the settlement movement spawned the growth of immensely reactionary political and social forces within Israel itself, with Menachem Begin's Likud party demanding the territories be brought under Israeli sovereignty on the grounds that they were the Biblical lands of Samaria and Judea, promised by God to the Jewish people.

In 1993, a Labour government signed an illusory peace deal, the Oslo Accords, brokered by the US, with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Ostensibly, the agreement was to usher in a Palestinian statelet. But its real purpose was to prevent the intifada that broke out in 1987 from developing into a revolutionary uprising by the Palestinian masses in the occupied territories, and to subcontract the task of suppressing the masses to the Palestinian bourgeoisie.

Instead of peace and a Palestinian state, the Oslo Accords set the stage for an expansion of the settlements and land seizures to control the access roads to these enclaves and strengthen their connection to Israel itself, with the Palestinian Authority left to police small patches of land, mostly impoverished cities, surrounded and cut off by Israeli troops.

In line with its long-held policy, the Likud Party vehemently opposed any territorial concessions to the Palestinians embodied in the Accords. Its leaders stood by as its angry supporters called Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a traitor, paving the way for his murder in 1995 by a right-wing fanatic. With none of the mainstream political parties prepared to make any fundamental changes, the fraudulent peace process was all but dead.

Netanyahu has now made explicit what has long been implicit: the incorporation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel. It can be achieved and sustained only through the imposition of military rule. To this end, his government has passed a series of measures, including the openly racist "Nation-State Law" enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state, bringing the political and legal system into alignment with the reality of Jabotinsky's garrison state, based on the brutal oppression of an entire people, the Palestinians.

The so-called "centre-left" opposition in the elections, led by Gantz, has not challenged Netanyahu's annexation pledge, resorting to verbal obfuscations and calls for a "regional conference" or "secure separation," thereby signifying consent.

This marks the historic bankruptcy and culmination of the entire reactionary Zionist project and all such nationalist programs.

[Apr 08, 2019] US "defense" strategy looks more like Queen Victoria's with not a wink toward contemporary reality.

Apr 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm ,

The very good profits of the 17 year long and continuing global war for profits has spent the US into no longer being dominant in the US' preferred way of war!

"The most dogmatic, tautological, egregiously unsubstantiated assertion, and the one most likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, comes in four parts: 1) The United States is emerging from a period of strategic atrophy; 2) Our competitive military advantage has been eroding; .."

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/04/national-defense-strategy-no-strategy/156068/?oref=d-channeltop

US "defense" strategy looks more like Queen Victoria's with not a wink toward contemporary reality.

A good read all the way by a brave commentator.

mulp -> ilsm... , April 06, 2019 at 02:02 PM
The high profits come from pillaging capital.

The US has had a huge amount of housing abandoned, or turned into "slums", as a result of increasing profits by outsourcing jobs outside the traditional heart of US production, the Midwest.

Case-shiller does not reflect housing abandoned because the house prices fell below labor costs.

Just as stock indexes remove the shares of stock that start losing price so the continuing price losses do not drag down the market index.

Ie, GE drove up the indexes while stock prices rose, but as it restructures from decades of pillaged and plunder of its most valuable capital, its workers with culture of innovation, it has been removed from indexes so it does not correct the indexes its bad management inflated by fake profits when GE was really losing value.

Paine -> ilsm... , April 06, 2019 at 03:22 PM
Let the union protect the territorial integrity of the planet's
Existing state systems

Kuwait grab style circa 1991

Not Korea civil war style circa 1950

[Apr 08, 2019] Zionism, Crypto-Judaism, and the Biblical Hoax by Laurent Guyénot

Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
What's a neocon, Dad?

"What's a neocon?" clueless George W. Bush once asked his father in 2003. "Do you want names, or a description?" answered Bush 41. "Description." "Well," said 41, "I'll give it to you in one word: Israel." True or not, that exchange quoted by Andrew Cockburn [1] Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, His fall, and Catastrophic Legacy, Scribner, 2011, p. 219. Cockburn claims to have heard this repeated by "friends of the family." sums it up: the neoconservatives are crypto-Israelis. Their true loyalty goes to Israel -- Israel as defined by their mentor Leo Strauss in his 1962 lecture "Why We Remain Jews," that is, including an indispensable Diaspora. [2] Leo Strauss, "Why we Remain Jews", quoted in Shadia Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, St. Martin's Press, 1999 (on archive.org), p. 31-43.

In his volume Cultural Insurrections, Kevin MacDonald has accurately described neoconservatism as "a complex interlocking professional and family network centered around Jewish publicists and organizers flexibly deployed to recruit the sympathies of both Jews and non-Jews in harnessing the wealth and power of the United States in the service of Israel ." [3] Kevin MacDonald, Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilizations, Jewish Influence, and Anti-Semitism, The Occidental Press, 2007, p. 122. The proof of the neocons' crypto-Israelism is their U.S. foreign policy:

"The confluence of their interests as Jews in promoting the policies of the Israeli right wing and their construction of American interests allows them to submerge or even deny the relevance of their Jewish identity while posing as American patriots. [ ] Indeed, since neoconservative Zionism of the Likud Party variety is well known for promoting a confrontation between the United States and the entire Muslim world, their policy recommendations best fit a pattern of loyalty to their ethnic group, not to America." [4] Kevin McDonald, Cultural Insurrection, op. cit., p. 66.

The neocons' U.S. foreign policy has always coincided with the best interest of Israel as they see it. Before 1967, Israel's interest rested heavily on Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. From 1967, when Moscow closed Jewish emigration to protest Israel's annexation of Arab territories, Israel's interest included the U.S. winning the Cold War. That is when the editorial board of Commentary, the monthly magazine of the American Jewish Committee, experienced their conversion to "neoconservatism," and Commentary became, in the words of Benjamin Balint, "the contentious magazine that transformed the Jewish left into the neoconservative right . " [5] Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left into the Neoconservative Right, Public Affairs, 2010. Irving Kristol explained to the American Jewish Congress in 1973 why anti-war activism was no longer good for Israel: "it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States. [ ] American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel." [6] Congress Bi-Weekly, quoted by Philip Weiss, "30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid About Their Israel-Centered Views," Mondoweiss.net, May 23, 2007: mondoweiss.net/2007/05/30_years_ago_ne.html This tells us what "reality" Kristol was referring to, when he famously defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality" ( Neoconservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea, 1995).

With the end of the Cold War, the national interest of Israel changed once again. The primary objective became the destruction of Israel's enemies in the Middle East by dragging the U.S. into a third world war. The neoconservatives underwent their second conversion, from anti-communist Cold Warriors to Islamophobic "Clashers of Civilizations" and crusaders in the "War on Terror."

In September 2001, they got the "New Pearl Harbor" that they had been wishing for in a PNAC report a year before. [7] http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/Rebuil...es.pdf Two dozens neoconservatives had by then been introduced by Dick Cheney into key positions, including Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon, David Wurmser at the State Department, and Philip Zelikow and Elliott Abrams at the National Security Council. Abrams had written three years earlier that Diaspora Jews "are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart -- except in Israel -- from the rest of the population." [8] Elliott Abrams, Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 181. Perle, Feith and Wurmser had co-signed in 1996 a secret Israeli report entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm , urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to break with the Oslo Accords of 1993 and reaffirm Israel's right of preemption on Arab territories. They also argued for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as "an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." As Patrick Buchanan famously remarked, the 2003 Iraq war proves that the plan "has now been imposed by Perle, Feith, Wurmser & Co. on the United States." [9] Patrick J. Buchanan, "Whose War? A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interest," The American Conservative, March 24, 2003, www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whose-war/

How these neocon artists managed to bully Secretary of State Colin Powell into submission is unclear, but, according to his biographer Karen DeYoung, Powell privately rallied against this "separate little government" composed of "Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, and Feith's 'Gestapo Office'." [10] Stephen Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, Enigma Edition, 2008, p. 156. His chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, declared in 2006 on PBS that he had "participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council," [11] http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wilkerson.html and in 2011, he openly denounced the duplicity of neoconservatives such as Wurmser and Feith, whom he considered "card-carrying members of the Likud party." "I often wondered," he said, "if their primary allegiance was to their own country or to Israel." [12] Stephen Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal , op. cit., p. 120. Something doesn't quite ring true when neocons say "we Americans," for example Paul Wolfowitz declaring: "Since September 11th, we Americans have one thing more in common with Israelis." [13] April 11, 2002, quoted in Justin Raimondo, The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection , iUniverse, 2003, p. 19.

The neocons' capacity to deceive the American public by posturing as American rather than Israeli patriots required that their Jewishness be taboo, and Carl Bernstein, though a Jew himself, provoked a scandal by citing on national television the responsibility of "Jewish neocons" for the Iraq war. [14] April 26, 2013, on MSNBC, watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRlatDWqh0o. But the fact that the destruction of Iraq was carried out on behalf of Israel is now widely accepted, thanks in particular to the 2007 book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy . And even the best liars betray themselves sometimes. Philip Zelikow briefly dropped the mask during a conference at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002:

"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat is and actually has been since 1990: it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell." [15] Noted by Inter-Press Service on March 29, 2004, under the title "U.S.: Iraq war is to protect Israel, says 9/11 panel chief," and repeated by United Press International the next day, on www.upi.com.

From crypto-Judaism to crypto-Zionism

Norman Podhoretz, editor-in-chief of Commentary (and father-in-law of Elliott Abrams), said that after June 1967, Israel became "the religion of the American Jews." [16] Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir, Harper & Row , 1979, p. 335. That is, at least, what he started working at. But, naturally, such religion had better remain discreet outside the Jewish community, if possible even secret, and disguised as American patriotism. The neocons have perfected this fake American patriotism wholly profitable to Israel, and ultimately disastrous for Americans -- a pseudo-Americanism that is really a crypto-Israelism or crypto-Zionism.


Colin Wright , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:52 am GMT

On a less exalted note, I've long found it a convincing theory that as Jews have ceased to take Judaism seriously and have become culturally almost indistinguishable from gentile whites, Israel and Zionism have become increasingly important as the sole remaining touchstone of Jewish identity. Like as not, a modern American Jew has only his loyalty to Israel as evidence that he remains a good Jew.

For most Jews, Judaism and its strictures have ceased to be compelling. One can get modern secular Jews to eat pork, or marry gentiles, or cease practicing their religion entirely; but for that very reason, there are few who are prepared to renounce Israel outright.

It's all they have left.

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 6:34 am GMT
For the moment I will only make this observation. The UN did not base their establishment of Israel on the promises of the OT – certainly not formally. And nothing about the state of Israel relations with God makes her exempt from international law. And to my knowledge nothing about the current rules regarding international law demand that Israel do anything to disobey God.

So if the article is intended to be informative – ok. But what of a prescription is intended to promote, if any is unknown to me.

Agent76 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
The New American Century Part 1/10

This film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present.

Jun 29, 2016 Neoconservatives Endorse Hillary Clinton for President Because They Know She's One of Them

Neoconservatives like Iraq warmonger Robert Kagan aren't endorsing Hillary Clinton for president merely because they want rid of Donald Trump, but because she's one of them, writes Trevor Timm at The Guardian.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/neoconservatives_endorse_hillary_clinton

HallParvey , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:07 pm GMT
@Matt07924 It doesn't matter. When a group of people can get together and find psychic connection to one another through some talisman, no matter how inconsequential, they form a group of self interested individuals who can and do control their own destiny.
As we see in the west today, they can, by controlling the money, take over the leadership of the area where they live. Thereby dictating that which can be discussed in polite company. i.e. Political Correctness.
There are other, less effective groups that have done the same thing. But not recently.
Digital Samizdat , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:31 pm GMT
Excellent article. Brilliant! This is why Unz.com is now my favorite website. Guyénot has already written several fine articles for Unz, but this is probably his best yet. Keep 'em coming!

I have been exposed to elements of Guyénot's thesis before in various different contexts. For example, I understand that many of the original Gnostic sects of Christianity also rejected the idea that Yahweh and the Creator God were one and the same being. Many Gnostics seemed to have regarded the former as a 'lesser god', or as a Platonic demiurge, or even as a completely diabolical entity. In their view, Jesus had come to rebuke the Israelites–the Pharisees especially–for worshipping a false god, and for putting themselves on a pedestal relative to the goyim. (He often spoke sympathetically of the Samaritans, for example, who were a race of lowly converts.)

All of which makes me wonder about Christianity and the Abrahamic religions generally. I, personally, am sure that there is a God or a supreme spirit of some sort; but I really just don't buy the catechism I was raised with at all. And if, once upon a time, I might have gone along with it in public anyway, accepting its theological anomalies as the price that had to be paid for preserving the moral foundations of civilization, now that I no longer believe it does our civilization any good, I have lost all interest in it whatsoever.

But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently unstable state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind of civic religion to provide moral order. At the moment, 'Holocaustianity' serves as our overarching civic religion, and so we get a modern version of the old faith vs. good-works dichotomy (i.e., Zionism vs. SJWism). Generally speaking, the hardline Protestants prefer the former, while the remaining denominations prefer the latter. Virtually all of our remaining 'Christian' churches, it seems, have lined up behind one or the other; but either way you go, it's all for the benefit of another people–not our own.

Depressing

Job's brother , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMT
Very interesting article. Informative throughout. Purely on a political level, this piece has given me a much greater understanding of the psychic sources of historical abuses by those who call themselves Jews...
AaronB , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:37 pm GMT
@Jake

a Race beyond Good and Evil.

I think this is another very important concept. Its not that Jews don't hold themselves to moral standards, but it's that sin cannot alter their fundamental 'rightnes'. They are Chosen – if they sin they will be punished mercilessly, but they are fundamentally and basically 'justified' unto eternity.

Catholics used to have this concept as well, and it was also a source of immense strength for them – first, you are saved through Jesus. Jesus took on the sins of humanity. Nothing you can do will make you any less saved, provided you accept Jesus's gift.

Second, by confessing your sins you are absolved.

So the old Christian is eternally justified and his sins cannot fundamentally put him on the 'wrong' side of life.

This also led to that absolutely crucial thing – in Jungian terms, acceptance of the Shadow, the bad and weak side of man. People were not afraid to accept the dirty and bad and weak about themselves without collapsing into self hatred, because they knew they were fundamentally right anyways. This is an immense source of strength and integrity.

When the modern Western world lost this ability to accept the Shadow, and strove to become God itself, it very easily fell into a crushing sense of guilt and self hatred at its 'sins', as it no longer has a theology that allowed to accept its common human frailty without collapsing into self hatred.

The Jews never abandoned their theory of being 'saved' – and so their evil and weakness does not result in self hatred, but is more accepted.

Bardon Kaldian , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:49 pm GMT
@AaronB This is too divorced from reality & is basically some kind of dubious philosophy of history.

Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional cultures. Jews' behavior & position in pre-modern Europe was not determined by some metaphysical ingredient in their belief, or their ethnic-religious peculiarity. They were middle-eastern tolerated aliens in Christian Europe, and they survived because medieval Christian order had found a place for them (unlike Muslims, who were not tolerated).

After assimilation in 19th C, we can't speak of a unified (more or less) "Jewish culture". True, some branches like ethno-psychology could find common traits among them (professions oriented, eager to get educated, politicized, showbiz & entertainment,..), but they are not too adaptable -- persons of Jewish ancestry are, perhaps, but many/most of them are not Jews anymore. Assimilated individuals of Jewish ancestry do not show any more flexibility than their co-nationals of other faiths.

As for Zionism, this is a typical late 19th C national ideology from central- & eastern Europe. It differs from pre-modern Jewish historical mass movements.

Anonymous [271] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT
@Anon Theologically Jesus came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace the tribalism and overly legalistic Law of Moses.

The reason the New Testament quotes so heavily from the Old Testament is that the early church sought to cement it's legitimacy by establishing that Jesus was the one prophesied about.

AaronB , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:25 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional cultures

Agreed. What was distinctively 'modern' in European culture was the one-sided development of abstract reason and the increasing neglect of the emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual side of man. At first the imaginative arts responded to this challenge – producing masterpieces – and attempted to incorporate or ameliorate this development. Eventually, in our day, the 'managerial' movement became exclusively dominant, as was bound to happen.

So we can turn to any traditional culture, not just Jewish. What is unusual about Jews perhaps is that they went further than other traditional cultures in adopting European abstract reason and participating in European culture.

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:43 pm GMT
I am unclear yet what the author's point besides making a claim that Israel has no right to be a state based on false notions of scripture. But that has very little to do with why Israel is a state in the secular understanding.

One can complain about Israel from now till doomsday, but until you make a case to Israel's supporting states that Israel is out of line -- the complaint doesn't have much weight. They exist by international law. And they engage in tactics to their own interests – no kidding.

Israel is not going to change course if what she is doing yields her results. The attempt to decouple support for Israel by engaging in arguments about how "rotten" she is only fuels the complaint that Israel is surrounded by enemies that seek her destruction. Which is fed into the "holocaust" pipeline, which in the secular is why Israel was afforded the statehood she now has.

Anon [819] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
@Anonymous

Theologically Communism came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace the tribalism and overly legalistic Law of nationalism.

Fixed it for you.

As with communism, Christianity was written by the very same nationalists (Jews) who wrote it to use as a cultural and political weapon against their enemies and peoples they wished to eventually rule. Such international domination being the expressed primary goal of the Jewish god as described in the Jewish Torah.

Colin Wright , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:39 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat 'This. Jewish 'leftism' historically is mostly about destroying the church, the (goy) family and the (goy) nations. It is almost never about helping the working class or making life better for the goyim generally.'

I don't think that's fair -- but at the same time, there is something mindlessly destructive about Jewish radicalism.

I'm reminded of More Powerful than Dynamite -- a fairly good book about the radical upheavals that beset New York City around 1915.

The author doesn't seem to notice, but a disproportionate number of his protagonists are young Jewish immigrants, fresh out of the shetl. The young Jewesses seem to have been the worst; those girls had the devil in them somehow.

I think it probably all had more to do with a rebellion against the traditional authorities of Judaism more than anything; the rabbis et al who had held Eastern Jewry in thrall for so long. I'm not saying they actually wished gentiles well -- but I don't think destroying gentile society was really the motive.

Just the effect.

Anon [157] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMT
@mcohen

Judaism has survived in all its different forms for one reason only and that reason is simply that it elevates a human being to a higher plane.

Please. Judaism survived because it spreads Jews internationally, which creates a unique economic network for any nation that will have them

nsa , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:54 pm GMT
Censorship and brain washing in the USA, Canada, and Europe is beyond extreme... You'll only get to try it once ..ask Chuck Hagel. ...
EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@ploni almoni Laughing. Ohh it's secret. I see.

Maybe it's one of those secrets like, deligitimizing Israel's right to exist. That if one dismantles the Zionist pose, then the UN will simply reneg the 1948 resolution and Israel will be no more. I think I can keep that secret.

I have news for you. It's not going to happen. Not even the Russians or the Chinese are on that band wagon

advancedatheist , says: April 8, 2019 at 7:05 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat

But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently unstable state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind of civic religion to provide moral order.

Atheists in the real world don't act like the Christian belief about them. This suggests that atheists didn't invent nihilism; instead Christians imagined nihilism late in history as a new Christian doctrine about atheism in response to the growth of nonbelief among quite functional people in Western countries since the Enlightenment, and they did so as a new strategy to try to recover from their loss of power and status.

Of course, real atheists, as opposed to Christians' fantasy atheists, face no obligation to live according to the Christian stereotype. And atheists have made enormous contributions to civilization in recent generations. You have to wonder why they would have bothered if they suffered from "nihilism."

For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheists_in_science_and_technology

PADOJO , says: April 8, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMT
Dr. Guyenot, your book is excellent and so are your sources/recommendations. What needs to be sorely addressed is Zionist exploitation of Christ in the free world. Jewish and Christian Zionists are no different than Al Sharpton never did see the first relavent issue (he/they) couldn't exploit. It's all about Israel first and nothing second. That is they ONLY seek to possess, enslave and then destroy (their) host friend or foe conquering nation or friendly host for the Zionist parasite. Good job as always. Like Douglas Reed your prior preparations have brought you to your most important work.
Vojkan , says: April 8, 2019 at 7:18 pm GMT
@Laurent Guyénot You are treading a thin line. I wish too that they could be convinced to recant their belief in a vengeful, merciless, whimsical, jealous, nepotistic, 'variable-geometry' God. The world would be spared a lot of suffering.

[Apr 08, 2019] New Russia Penalties Face `Sanctions Fatigue' in U.S. Congress - Bloomberg

Apr 08, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Tough talk about the need to punish Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election is running into the reality that Congress's enthusiasm for additional sanctions is waning.

"We face a little bit of sanctions fatigue around here these days," said Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the sponsor of one of the bills aimed at Russia. "Hopefully we'll get more people on board."

Two main proposals are circulating aimed at increasing pressure on Russian individuals and companies by restricting their access to U.S. markets and capital. Both Senate bills received significant attention in 2018 after President Donald Trump failed to condemn Russia for its election meddling, but they lost steam after November's midterm elections and aren't moving any faster in this year's Congress.

Many lawmakers still want Russia to face stronger consequences for its actions in the U.S. and elsewhere, but there's no clear consensus on how to send the right message to the Kremlin. Two other factors add to the hesitation: concern about unintended economic consequences, and the difficulty of passing legislation in a divided Congress when the measures don't have the president's support.

"Sanctions can often be a double-edged sword," said Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. "So we really should take a little bit of a step back and assess where we are and what we can really do."

Sovereign Debt

Markets are closely watching the next U.S. moves on sanctions, since any action may affect Russia's sovereign debt. The ruble has depreciated against the dollar since 2014, when the U.S. imposed sanctions on during the Obama administration.

Read more: All About the U.S. Sanctions Aimed at Putin's Russia

Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, in February reintroduced their DASKA Act , which would impose sanctions on Russian individuals, cyber operations and liquid natural gas export facilities. The legislation calls for the president to " prescribe regulations " for sanctions on sovereign debt issued 90 days after the law is enacted. The bill would also reinforce support for NATO, and would create a new office in the State Department to respond to cyber threats.

The other Senate bill, the DETER Act , was reintroduced last week by Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. It would require the Director of National Intelligence to tell Congress on any foreign interference within 60 days of a federal election. If a Russian violation is found, sanctions would target that country's political figures and its energy and defense sectors. Sanctions could also extend to government and state-owned company bonds issued after the bill is signed into law.

Van Hollen said the current version of his bill includes an option for the president to waive sanctions in the interest of "national security." Senators considered adding this provision in 2018 as an escape valve that would improve its chances of getting a floor vote, after the Treasury Department warned of potential economic spillover.

Previous versions of both bills failed to advance at the end of 2018 as Congress turned its focus to government spending measures, judicial nominations and a farm bill.

Van Hollen said the new version would deter Russian misbehavior because it would punish future action.

"We're not talking about adding new sanctions now, we're sending a clear signal that if you screw around in our elections again, there's going to be swift and severe punishment," he said. "It makes much more sense to tie a sanction to future conduct to deter the conduct."

The U.S. has sanctioned roughly 700 Russian entities since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and fostered unrest in eastern Ukraine. Other sanctions were imposed following the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the poisoning of a former Russian agent and his daughter in the U.K. in March 2018.

Lawmakers last year stepped up the push for legislation compelling new sanctions after Trump sparked bipartisan outcry when he stood beside Russian President Vladimir Putin following a one-on-one summit in Helsinki and said he believed Putin's denial of Russia interference in U.S. elections.

Mueller Momentum

While senior lawmakers now express mixed feelings about what to do next, the upcoming release of portions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of the 2016 election and the Trump campaign could bring renewed attention to the sanctions bills.

"You'll see more interest in this from other members who may not have been as involved when they can see the full Mueller report," said Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Some key lawmakers are taking their time, though, as they try to decide the best next steps. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, said he isn't backing any particular proposal at this time.

'It's Getting Worse'

"The purpose is to persuade people to adjust their conduct, and it's not happening," Risch said. "In fact, if anything it's getting worse. That's what is causing the discussion."

Risch said he couldn't "really judge what the appetite is" in the Senate for more sanctions, but he'd like to see a strong stance from the U.S. "I'm interested in seeing Russia change their conduct," he said. "And the Russian administration, they're not nice people. They do bad things."

Jim Risch Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a Democrat on Risch's committee, said Congress's willingness to further punish Russia will also hinge on that country's participation in other conflicts around the world.

"We're seeing their activities in Venezuela," Shaheen said of Russia's support for the faltering Nicolas Maduro regime that the U.S. has sought to transition out of power. "If we see those kinds of activities continue, that there will be a growing appetite for additional sanctions."

Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat also on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Congress should be thinking "a little more creatively about how to make Russia pay a price." Murphy said the focus should be on how to address underlying geopolitical problems, rather than focusing on isolated punitive measures.

"We could spend our time talking about actual long-term strategies to try to combat Russia's influence, or we could spend all our time slapping sanctions on Russian individuals and banks," Murphy said. "The former is probably more important than the latter."

[Apr 08, 2019] Opinion Russians Always Knew There Was No Collusion

Russiagate is about keeping Russian down via additional sections. As simple as that. Epidemics of Neo-McCarthyism also helps to cement cracks in the US neoliberal facade and, as such, is very helpful for the US elite.
It also absolves Neoliberal Democrats of the political fiasco of the century -- rejection of establishment candidate by the majoring of working Americans which happened when Hillary Clinton was defeated by a person with zero political experience and no political patty behind him.
Notable quotes:
"... "The results of Mueller's investigations are a disgrace to the U.S. and their political elite. It's now confirmed that all their allegations have been plucked out of thin air. The media have played a shameful role of lie-mongers in a campaign built on lies. The adherents of this conspiracy theory are discredited. Only an idiot can believe them now." ..."
"... We've seen anti-Russian xenophobia spread into the American mainstream. Etched in our minds are comments like the one James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, made in an interview when he said that Russians are "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever." ..."
"... To those of us who paid attention to American media and politics over the past two years, it quickly became clear that too many in the United States know nothing about our country. ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
... ... ...

Alexey Pushkov, a former diplomat and a political analyst, tweeted to his 360,000 followers on Tuesday , following the release of Attorney General William Barr's summary of the report:

"The results of Mueller's investigations are a disgrace to the U.S. and their political elite. It's now confirmed that all their allegations have been plucked out of thin air. The media have played a shameful role of lie-mongers in a campaign built on lies. The adherents of this conspiracy theory are discredited. Only an idiot can believe them now."

To the Kremlin and its supporters, Russia is the aggrieved party here, and the government's consistent denials of interfering in America's internal affairs have been fully vindicated. Appearing on the Russian talk show "60 Minutes," Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, said the ministry was preparing a report to name and shame the "brigade of propagandists" -- pointing at, among others, Fareed Zakaria -- who tried to tie Mr. Trump to Russia. She added that "apologies are expected."

... ... ...

...it becomes clear that whatever the outcome of the Mueller investigation, our relationship with America has changed.

We've seen anti-Russian xenophobia spread into the American mainstream. Etched in our minds are comments like the one James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, made in an interview when he said that Russians are "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."

... ... ...

In the atmosphere where "contacts with Russians" has become cause for suspicion, every bank transaction and visa application faces extra scrutiny. I've heard from people I know about how exchange programs, conferences and businesses are suffering.

To those of us who paid attention to American media and politics over the past two years, it quickly became clear that too many in the United States know nothing about our country. Ominous images of onion-shaped domes taking over the White House baffled us; St. Basil's Cathedral is not part of the Kremlin complex and has no political connotation. The ubiquity of hammers and sickles in visuals accompanying Trump-Russia reports seemed likewise absurd. Our country hasn't been Communist for about 30 years.

[Apr 08, 2019] Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization

Highly recommended!
What Trump did is what Hillary would do...
So Trump administration will spend billion of fighting Iran, instead of helping US middle class to survive... Guns instead of butter policy. This is clearly Obama-style betrayal of Trump voters. Trump’s Budget Would Deny Food to 400,000 Children and Pregnant People By Dean Baker cepr.net
While any theocratic regime is reprehensible Trump clearly prefers one theocratic regime to another.
From comments: "Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metaphor but a foreign policy statement! The house of Kushner that Trump built."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Just hours after President Trump formally designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, Iran's foreign ministry has put forward a bill placing US Central Command on a list of organizations designated as terrorists, akin to Daesh.

Statement from the President on the Designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft. The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign.

This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a FTO. It underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments. This action will significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime. It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.

This action sends a clear message to Tehran that its support for terrorism has serious consequences. We will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on the Iranian regime for its support of terrorist activity until it abandons its malign and outlaw behavior.

Previously, the Iranian Foreign Minister noted that those US officials who advocated IRGC blacklisting, "seek to drag the US into a quagmire".

"#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisation) of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag the US into a quagmire on his behalf," Mohammed Javad Zarif said on his Twitter account. "@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster."


Aussiestirrer , 12 minutes ago link

Trump and all the war mongering generals in the pentagon that have killed millions need to be put on an Internation Criminal List

Pussy Biscuit , 2 hours ago link

The Bush-era war criminals haven’t been held to account yet.

Hammer of Light , 2 hours ago link

Trump is clearly in with them lock stock and barrel.

PrometeyBezkrilov , 2 hours ago link

"Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization"

Sadly, the definition is correct. Now the question. What are American People going to do about it?

Josef Stalin , 2 hours ago link

when i say PS I mean "police state" ......

frankthecrank , 3 hours ago link

You retards can't get anything straight. Put your penis down and read a book once in awhile;

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

Von Clausewitz. Just because I abbreviate it, does not make me wrong. Here's today's gift, his eight book library that I spent hundreds on in college, free for the asking. it might just help clarify some of the world's realities for you.

https://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/TOC.htm

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?

Campaign 💩of Trump.

'We'll stop racing to topple foreign regimes with a policy of intervention and chaos because we're all over the place fighting areas that we shouldn't be fighting in".

Disclaimer: except when it comes to family Zionism.

Trump actions:

1- On December 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump announced the United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

2-Mar 22, 2019 · (CNN)President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty" over the region.

3- Trump approves Saudi Arabi nuclear plant without agreement for oversight.

Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.😡

Einstein101 , 4 hours ago link

Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization

Haha, Really? and what will they do? Attack US military?

Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)

Bravo! Highly justified move by president Trump!

schroedingersrat , 4 hours ago link

Replace Iran with CIA and i agree :)

cashback , 3 hours ago link

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/un-council-israel-intentionally-shot-children-and-journalists-in-gaza-1.6979358

LOL123 , 4 hours ago link

Judizing American foreign policy has made our military soliders martyrs for the State of Isreal not terrorists in the international sense.

Our troops have been dying for the State of Isreal to " protect it" since the Zionist movement that took over the Plaistinians land through Britian... The expansion will never stop and americans will always be " mercinaries" for Isreal... Without proper compensation.

Big Whoop , 2 hours ago link

Hired terrorists are still terrorists.

Helg Saracen , 4 hours ago link

1953 Iranian coup d'état

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Mohammad Mosaddegh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

Operation Ajax

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi

This was the first time that the CIA acted as a mercenary. Since 1953, the CIA does not work for the US state apparatus, but rather the opposite.

Hence "the great love" of the Persian - Iranians for the Americans and the British.

[Apr 08, 2019] I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations

Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMT

@Agent76

I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations.

Thank you in spades for bringing our attention to that truth.

[Apr 08, 2019] 7 years after the US - led by Obama, Hillary @SamanthaJPower - bombed Libya in the name of "humanitarianism" along with the UK France then utterly ignored it, the country is so violent, unstable dangerous that US troops can no longer safely remain

Notable quotes:
"... The seeds sown in the US' "Long War"* are terrible. Libya discord gave arms and bases for US support to Salafi jihad in Syria, ISIS is US sown, Iraq is to be a permanent occupation more dangerous than South Korea, Afghanistan is a tottering escapade each new commander bringing a fresh set of objectives none connected to an end to the blood shed. ..."
"... The press is at fault, they work for the empire's war profiteers. ..."
"... *Many commentators on the US' military horrors since 9/11/01 stopped saying "global war on terror" and use "Long War". ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , April 07, 2019 at 08:48 AM

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1114894864880218112

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald

7 years after the US - led by Obama, Hillary & @SamanthaJPower - bombed Libya in the name of "humanitarianism" along with the UK & France & then utterly ignored it, the country is so violent, unstable & dangerous that US troops can no longer safely remain

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/american-troops-in-libya-moved-out-of-country-as-violence-escalates-near-capital/2019/04/07/bf754a6c-58b2-11e9-aa83-504f086bf5d6_story.html

American troops in Libya moved out of country as violence escalates near capital

The announcement comes as the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli vowed to defend the capital against a renegade militia seeking to storm its way into the city, a showdown that threatened to spill into bloody urban combat in the streets of Tripoli.

7:17 AM - 7 Apr 2019

ilsm -> anne... , April 07, 2019 at 09:46 AM
How come none of this is on page one above the fold?

EMichael, goes after Chinese oppression of Muslims, but never a word about humanitarian tragedies US spreads from Caracas to Yemen through Kandahar to Pyongyang.

Russia doing any of this to Ukraine or Georgia would be howled about!

The seeds sown in the US' "Long War"* are terrible. Libya discord gave arms and bases for US support to Salafi jihad in Syria, ISIS is US sown, Iraq is to be a permanent occupation more dangerous than South Korea, Afghanistan is a tottering escapade each new commander bringing a fresh set of objectives none connected to an end to the blood shed.

The press is at fault, they work for the empire's war profiteers.

*Many commentators on the US' military horrors since 9/11/01 stopped saying "global war on terror" and use "Long War".

[Apr 08, 2019] Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metaphor but a foreign policy statement! The house of Kushner that Trump built

Apr 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?

... ... ...

Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.

[Apr 08, 2019] The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos, by Michael Hudson and John Siman - The Unz Review

Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Note: Michael Hudson published and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year in November of last year. It is the first volume in what will be a trilogy on the long history of the tyranny of debt. I have interviewed him extensively as he writes the second volume, The Collapse of Antiquity.

John Siman : Michael, in the first volume of your history of debt -- "

ORDER IT NOW

and forgive them their debts , dealing with the Bronze Age Near East, Judaism and early Christianity -- you showed how over thousands of years, going back to the invention of interest-bearing loans in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, many kings from a variety of Mesopotamian civilizations proclaimed Clean Slate debt cancellations on a more or less regular basis. And you showed that these royal proclamations of debt amnesty rescued the lower classes from debt bondage, maintaining a workable economic balance over many centuries. Because these kings were so powerful -- and, let's say, enlightened -- they were able to prevent the social and economic polarization that is inevitable when there is no check on an oligarchic creditor class extracting exponentially increasing interest from debtors.

But now, as you write the second volume, your theme gets turned upside down. You are showing how the Greeks and the Romans learned about interest-bearing debt from their contacts with Middle Eastern civilizations, but tragically failed to institute programs of Clean Slate debt amnesty. Their failure has been a kind of albatross around the neck of Western economies ever since.

So I'd like to start this conversation in the late 500s BC, because we can see at that time the beginnings of both the Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic, plus of two more important civilizations. First was the Athens of Cleisthenes, who had led the overthrow the "tyrant" Hippias and became the father of Athenian democracy. Second, there was the Roman Republic of Lucius Junius Brutus, who overthrew the last of Rome's legendary kings, the "tyrant" Tarquinius Superbus.Third was the Persian civilization of Cyrus the Great. He was a "divine king," in many ways in the ancient tradition of Hammurabi. Fourth were the post-exilic Jews of Ezra and Nehemiah, who returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple and redacted the Bible. They were the inventors of the Jubilee years of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, even though they depicted the teaching as coming from Moses.

So, beginning with the late 500s BC, to what extent was the notion of Clean Slate debt amnesty remembered, and to what extent was it rejected?

Michael Hudson : Every kind of reform, from Mesopotamia to Greece, was put forth as if it simply restored the way things were in the beginning. There was no concept of linear progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only one way to do things, so any reform must be the way the world was meant to be in the very beginning. All reformers would say that in the beginning everybody must have been equal. Their reform was aimed at restoring this state of affairs.

That's why, when Plutarch and even the Spartan kings in the third century BC talked about canceling debts and promoting equality, they said that they were simply restoring the original system that Lycurgus had created. But there was no sign that Lycurgus had really done these things. It was made up. Lycurgus was a legendary figure. So was Moses in the Jewish tradition. When the Bible was redacted and put together after the return from Babylon, they put debt cancellation and land redistribution -- the Jubilee Year -- right in the center of Mosaic Law. So it seemed that this was not an innovation, but what Moses said in the beginning. They created a Moses figure much like the Greeks created a Lycurgus figure. They said that this is how things were meant to be. This is how it was in the beginning -- and it just happened to be their own program.

This was a projection backwards: a retrojection. Felix Jacoby wrote that Athenian history was that way, basically party pamphleteering projecting their ideal program back to Solon or to whomever one might choose as a good guy to model. Writers would then say that this original good guy supported the program that they were proposing in their epoch. This was the ancient analogy to "Constitutional Originalism" in the United States as a frame for right-wing policies.

JS : So, ever since the 500s BC, the surefire way to critique the status quo has been to say you are trying to go back to the Garden of Eden or to some other pristine Saturnian Golden Age.

MH : Yes, you want to say that the unfair world around you isn't what was meant, so this couldn't have been the original plan, because the past had to be a successful takeoff. So the program that reformers always turned out to be what the Founding Fathers meant.

JS : That's veryinspirational!

MH : The key is to appear as a conservative, not a radical. You accuse the existing status quo as being the beneficiaries of the radicals who have distorted the original Fair Plan that you're trying to restore.

JS : So in the 500s BC we have Cyrus -- and his inscription on the Cyrus Cylinder -- boasting that he freed the Babylonians from their tax debt and bonds, and we have the post-exilic Jews proclaiming d'ror [דְּרֹ֛ור] in Leviticus 25, proclaiming "liberty throughout the land." We also have the reforms of Cleisthenes in Athens, isonomia [ἰσονομία, literally, equality under the law], a genuine attempt at democracy. But let's start with Rome. What do you want to say about the nova libertas , the "new liberty" proclaimed in Rome after the last king was expelled and the Republic was founded? Didn't Brutus and his wellborn friends boast that they were the institutors of true liberty?

MH : Liberty for them was the liberty to destroy that of the population at large. Instead of cancelling debts and restoring land tenure to the population, the oligarchy created the Senate that protected the right of creditors to enslave labor and seize public as well as private lands (just as had occurred in Athens before Solon). Instead of restoring a status quo ante of free cultivators -- free of debt and tax obligations, as Sumerian amargi and Babylonian misharum and andurarum meant -- the Roman oligarchy accused anyone of supporting debtor rights and opposing its land grabs of "seeking kingship." Such men were murdered, century after century.

Rome was turned into an oligarchy, an autocracy of the senatorial families. Their "liberty" was an early example of Orwellian Doublethink. It was to destroy everybody else's liberty so they could grab whatever they could, enslave the debtors and create the polarized society that Rome became.

JS : OK, but this program worked. The Republic grew and grew and conquered everyone else for century after century. Then the Principate became the supreme power in the Western world for several more centuries.

MH : It worked by looting and stripping other societies. That can only continue as long as there is some society to loot and destroy. Once there were no more kingdoms for Rome to destroy, it collapsed from within. It was basically a looting economy. And it didn't do more than the British colonialists did: It only scratched the surface. It didn't put in place the means of production that would create enough money for them to grow productively. Essentially, Rome was a financial rentier state .

Rentiers don't create production. They live off existing production, they don't create it. That's why the classical economists said they were supporting industrial capitalists, not British landlords, not monopolists and not predatory banks.

JS : This has all been forgotten, both in the United States and in England --

MH : Let's say, expurgated from the curriculum.

JS : Worse than forgotten!

MH : That's why you don't have any history of economic thought taught anymore in the United States. Because then you'd see that Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and the "Ricardian socialists" and indeed most of the 19th century had a completely opposite idea of what constituted a free market.

JS : Opposite? How so?

MH : Opposite from the neoliberal idea that freedom means freedom for the wealthy to indebt and destroy the economy. Opposite from the liberty of Brutus to overthrow the Roman kings and establish an autocratic oligarchy.

JS : So do we want to see the Roman kings as defenders of the people -- defending them from predatory oligarchs?

MH : Yes, especially Servius Tullius. There was a great flowering of Rome, making it attractive to immigrants by making the city livable for newcomers. They did this because at that time, in the 6th century BC, all societies had a shortage of labor. Labor was the factor of production in short supply, not land. Not even in Athens was land in short supply in the 6th and 5th centuries. You needed labor, and so you had to make it attractive for immigrants to join your society instead of having your people run away, as they would in a society run by creditors reducing clients to bondage.

JS : So you are writing about how Roman liberty was actually the liberty of oligarchic creditors from populist pressures for debt forgiveness. What of the d'ror of Leviticus 25 -- the liberty of the postexilic Jews? Did they actually proclaim years of Jubilee in which debts were forgiven and bondservants were returned to their families?

MH : After the Babylonian Jews returned to Jerusalem, I'm sure that they said that it was time for the land to be returned to its original owners -- and their families, by the way, were the original owners who were exiled in the Babylonian Captivity. I rely largely on Baruch Levine for this idea of the ge'ullah [גְּאֻלָּה], saying give us back our ancestral lands. [See thecolloquium Levine and Hudson co-edited on Land and Urbanization in the Ancient Near East , and their preceding volume on ancient privatization.] There must have been some kind of settlement along those lines. Unfortunately, the Judaic lands did not keep their records on on clay tablets that could be thrown out and recovered thousands of years later. We don't have any record of their economic history after the Return.

JS : Now I've brought along the transcriptions of several Egyptian papyri for you to look at. I also want to show you a papyrus in Aramaic from Judæa. It's not direct evidence that the post-exilic Jews were having Jubilee years, but it's indirect evidence, because it says that a particular debt has to be paid, even during a time of general debt amnesty, even if it falls due in a shmita [שמיטה], a sabbath year. So it sounds like the Jews were finding loopholes --

MH : It certainly sounds like it! Babylonian creditors tried a similar ploy, but this was disallowed. (We have court records confirming the realm's misharum acts.)

JS : In the Mosaic commandments to forgive debt, can we infer that there was some sort of program of debt forgiveness in place already in place in postexilic Jerusalem?

MH : Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign this clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and the rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about [ And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord" = the Jubilee year.] Luke also pointed out that the Pharisees loved money!

JS : Let me ask you about Egypt here. Unfortunately, as you said, the postexilic Jews did not leave us any clay tablets and almost no papyri, but we do have loads of papyri concerning the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. So from, say, 300 B.C. to the death of Cleopatra, we have official evidence that the Egyptian kings proclaimed debt amnesties. Maybe one of the reasons, or perhaps the main reason for this, is because they were so powerful, like the Mesopotamian kings. So even though the Ptolemaic kings were biologically and genetically Macedonian Greek -- married to their sisters, too -- they aspired to rule in the ancient Egyptian pharaonic tradition of We Are God-Kings and We Own Everything in the Kingdom.

MH : Certainly the Hellenistic kings had the ancient pharaonic Sed festivals, which go back thousands of years and were a kind of jubilee. The Egyptians had regular debt cancellations, because under the pharaohs the debts that would have been cancelled were basically tax debts. They were owed to the crown, so he was cancelling debts owed to himself ultimately. And we see this thousands of years later in the trilingual stone, the Rosetta Stone, which the priests wrote for that young boy who was Ptolemy V. They explained to him that this is how Egypt always had done it, and to act as a pharaoh, he had to do the same.

JS : And I think it is worth pointing out here that the same verb-plus-noun combination for forgiving debts that the priests used in Greek on the Rosetta Stone is also used by Matthew in the Lord's Prayer [ἀφῆκεν/ἄφες ὀφειλήματα, aphēken/aphes opheilēmata]. It shows up in lots of papyri. The same Greek verb and noun, again and again and again.

But let's go back to the Greeks of the 500s BC. They are a couple of hundred years out of their Dark Age, so their society has been reconstituted after the demographic wipeout. It's been reconstituted, but without Near Eastern-style "divine kingship" and its Clean Slate proclamations. Just the opposite. Socrates had conversations with the rhapsodes who had memorized and recited the Iliad . Even in their great epic, the Greeks' legendary king of kings Agamemnon comes across as a kind of narcissistic loser. How would you describe Greek kingship, especially the so-called tyrants?

MH : There never really were Greek kings of the type found throughout the Bronze Age Near East and surviving into the first millennium in Assyria and even in Persia. The Greek polities that emerged from their Dark Age were run by what shrewd Classicists call mafiosi , something like the post-Soviet kleptocrats. They formed closed political monopolies reducing local populations to clientage and dependency. In one polity after another they were overthrown and exiled, mainly by aristocratic reformers from the elite families (often secondary branches, as was Solon). Later oligarchic writers called them "tyrants" as an invective, much as the word rex -- king -- became an invective in oligarchic Rome.

These tyrant-reformers consolidated their power by redistributing land from the leading families (or in Sparta, land conquered from Messenia, along with its population reduced to helotage) to the citizen-army at large all over Greece – except in Athens. That was one of the most reactionary cities in the 7th century, as shown by what is known about the laws of Draco. After some abortive coups in the seventh century, Solon was appointed in 594 to avoid the kind of revolution that had led reformer "tyrants" to overthrow narrow aristocracies in neighboring Megara and Corinth. Solon decreed a half-way reform, abolishing debt slavery (but not the debtor's obligation to work off debts with his own labor), and did not redistribute Athenian land from the city's elites.

Athens was one of the last to reform but then because it was such a badly polarized autocratic society, it swung -- like Newton's Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction -- it swung to become the most democratic of all the Greek polities.

Some historians in the past speculated that Solon might somehow have been influenced by Judaic law or other Near Eastern practice, but this is not realistic. I think Solon was simply a pragmatist responding to widespread demands that he do what the reformers -- the so-called tyrants -- were doing throughout Greece. He didn't redistribute the land like they did, but he at least ended outright debt slavery. Free debtors (mainly cultivators on the land) were being seized and sold outside of Athens to slave dealers. Solon also tried to recover some of the land that wealthy families had grabbed. At least, that's what he wrote in his poems describing his actions.

So to answer your question, I think debt cancellations were not a diffusionist policy from the East, but a spontaneous pragmatic response such as was being widely advocated as far west as Rome with its Secession of the Plebs a century later -- followed by much of Greece in the 4th century BC, and Sparta's kings in the late 3rd century BC.

Poorer Athenians were so angry with Solon for being not revolutionary enough that he went into exile for 10 years. The real creators of Athenian democracy were Peisistratos [died 528/7 BC], his sons, also called tyrants, and then Cleisthenes in 507. He was a member of the wealthy but outcast family, the Alcmaeonidae, who had been expelled in the 7th century. Solon had allowed them to return, and they were backed by Delphi (to which the family contributed heavily). Cleisthenes fought against the other oligarchic families and restructured Athenian politics on the basis of locality instead of clan membership. Servius Tullius is credited for enacting much the same reform in Rome. Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society [1877] described this restructuring of voting districts as the great watershed creation of western-style democracy.

JS : Let me go back now to the way Athens and the other poleis emerged from the Dark Age.

MH : Judging from the art and pottery, Greece didn't begin to recover until the 8th century BC.

JS : So we're talking about the 700s BC. As Greece was learning from the Near Eastern civilizations, everything from mythology to the alphabet to weights and measures --

MH : And commercial practices, credit practices.

JS : Yes, all this came from the Near East, including the practice of charging interest. But what about Clean Slate debt amnesty? I want to argue logically here -- not from any hard historical evidence, but only deductively -- that the Greeks would have wanted the concept of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, they would have wanted to learn this too from the Near East, but they could not do it because they were always going to lack a Hammurabi-style "divine king."

MH : I think you miss the whole point of how Western civilization evolved here. First of all, who "wanted" Near Eastern kingship? Certainly not the emerging oligarchies. The ruling elites wanted to use interest-bearing debt to enrich themselves – by obtaining control over the labor power of debtors.

Second, I don't think the Greeks and Italians knew about Near Eastern royal proclamations, except as an alien practice much further East than Asia Minor. Falling into debt was a disaster for the poor, but a means for their Western patrons to gain power, land and wealth. There is no record of anyone suggesting that they should be in the Near East. The connection between the Near East and Greece or Italy was via traders. If you're a Phoenician or Syrian merchant with the Aegean or Italy, you're going to set up a temple as an intermediary, typically on an island. Such temples became the cosmopolitan meeting places where you had the oligarchs of the leading families of Greek cities visiting each other as part of a Pan-Hellenic group. You could say that Delphi was the "Davos" of its day.

It was through these trading centers that culture diffused – via the wealthiest families who travelled and established relationships with other leading families. Finance and trade have always been cosmopolitan. These families learned about debt obligations and contracts from the Near East, and ended up reducing much of their local populations to clientage, without kings to overrule them. That would have been the last thing they wanted.

JS : So absent Hammurabi-style "divine kingship," is debt bondage and brutal polarization almost inevitably going to happen in any society that adopts interest-bearing debt?

MH : We see a balance of forces in the ancient Near East, thanks to the fact that its rulers had authority to cancel debt and restore land that wealthy individuals had taken from smallholders. These kings were powerful enough to prevent the rise of oligarchies that would reduce the population to debt peonage and bondage (and in the process, deprive the palace of revenue and corvée labor, and even the military service of debtors owing their labor to their private creditors). We don't have any similar protection in today's Western Civilization. That's what separates Western Civilization from the earlier Near Eastern stage. Modern financialized civilization has stripped away the power to prevent a land-grabbing creditor oligarchy from controlling society and its laws.

So you could characterize Western Civilization is being decadent. It's reducing populations to austerity on a road to debt peonage. Today's new oligarchy calls this a "free market," but it is the opposite of freedom. You can think of the Greek and Roman decontextualization of Near Eastern economic regulations as if the IMF had been put in charge of Greece and Rome, poisoning its legal and political philosophy at the outset. So Western Civilization may be just a vast detour. That's what my forthcoming book, The Collapse of Antiquity, is all about. That will be the second volume in my trilogy on the history of debt.

JS : So are we just a vast detour?

MH : We have to restore a balanced economy where the oligarchy is controlled, so as to prevent the financial sector from impoverishing society, imposing austerity and reducing the population to clientage and debt serfdom.

JS : How do you do that without a Hammurabi-style "divine kingship"?

MH : You need civil law to do what Near Eastern kings once did. You need a body of civil law with a strong democratic government acting to shape markets in society's overall long-term interest, not that of the One Percent obtaining wealth by impoverishing the 99 Percent. You need civil law that protects the population from an oligarchy whose business plan is to accumulate wealth in ways that impoverish the economy at large. This requires a body of civil law that would cancel debts when they grow too large for the population to pay. That probably requires public banking and credit – in other words, deprivatization of banking that has become dysfunctional.

All this requires a mixed economy, such as the Bronze Age Near Eastern economies were. The palace, temples, private sector and entrepreneurs acted as checks and balances on each other. Western Civilization isn't a mixed economy. Socialism was an attempt to create a mixed economy, but the oligarchs fought back. What they call a "free market" is an unmixed monolithic, centrally planned financialized economy with freedom for the oligarchy to impoverish the rest of society. That was achieved by landlordism monopolizing the land in feudal Europe, and it is done by finance today.

Part 2: Mixed Economies Today, Compared to Those of Antiquity

John Siman : Could you define what you mean by a mixed economy ?

Michael Hudson : There are many degrees of how "mixed" an economy will be -- meaning in practice, how active its government sector will be in regulating markets, prices and credit, and investing in public infrastructure.

In the 20 th century's Progressive Era a century ago, a "mixed economy" meant keeping natural monopolies in the public sector: transportation, the post office, education, health care, and so forth. The aim was to save the economy from monopoly rent by a either direct public ownership or government regulation to prevent price gouging by monopolies.

The kind of "mixed economy" envisioned by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other classical 19 th century free market economists aimed at saving the economy from land rent paid to Europe's hereditary landlord class. Either the government would tax away the land's rent, or would nationalize it by taking land out of the hands of landlords. The idea was to free markets from economic rent ("unearned income") in general, including monopoly rents, and also to subsidize basic needs to create a price-competitive national economy.

Long before that, in the Bronze Age -- which I describe in and forgive them their debts -- the palace reversed the buildup of personal and agrarian debts by annulling them on a more or less regular basis. This freed the economy from the overgrowth of debt that tended to build up chronically from the mathematical dynamics of compound interest, and from crop failures or other normal "market" phenomenon.

In all these cases a mixed economy was designed to maintain stability and avoid exploitation that otherwise would lead to economic polarization.

JS: So a mixed economy is still a market economy?

MH : Yes. All these degrees of "mixed economy" were market economies. But their markets were regulated and subordinated to broad social and political objectives rather than to personal rent-seeking or creditor gains. Their economic philosophy was long-term, not short-term, and aimed at preventing economic imbalance from debt and land monopoly.

Today's "mixed economy" usually means an active public sector undertaking investment in infrastructure and controlling money and credit, and shaping the context of laws within which the economy operates. This is best understood by contrasting it to what neoliberals call a "pure" or "market" economy – including what the Trump administration accuses China of when it proposes countervailing tariffs to shape the U.S. and international market in a way that favors American corporations and banks.

So it is necessary to clear the terminological slate before going into more detail. Every economy is a "market economy" of some sort or another. What is at issue is how large a role governments will play -- specifically, how much it will regulate, how much it will tax, how much it will invest directly into the economy's infrastructure and other means of production or act as a creditor and regulator of the monetary and banking system.

JS: What can we learn from the mixed economies of the Ancient Near East? Why were they so prosperous and also stable for so long?

MH : The Bronze Age mixed economies of Sumer, Babylonia, Egypt and their Near Eastern neighbors were subject to "divine kingship," that is, the ability of kings to intervene to keep restoring an economy free of personal and rural debt, so as to maintain a situation where the citizenry on the land was able to serve in the military, provide corvée labor to create basic infrastructure, and pay fees or taxes to the palace and temples.

Mesopotamian rulers proclaimed Clean Slates to keep restoring an idealized status quo ante of free labor (free from debt bondage). Babylonian rulers had a more realistic view of the economy than today's mainstream economists. They recognized that economies tended to polarize between wealthy creditors and debtors if what today are called "market forces" are not overridden -- especially the "market forces" of debt, personal liberty or bondage, and land rent. The task of Bronze Age rulers in their kind of mixed economy was to act from "above" the market so as to prevent creditors from reducing the king's subjects (who were their military defense force) to bondage from appropriating their land tenure rights. By protecting debtors, strong rulers also prevented creditors from becoming an oligarchic power in opposition to themselves.

JS: What kind of economic theories and economic models are the critics of mixed economies trying to advance?

MH : Opponents of a mixed economy have developed an "equilibrium theory" claiming to show that markets come to a natural, fair and stable balance without any government "interference." Their promise is that if governments will refrain from regulating prices and credit, from investing and from providing public services, economies will settle naturally at a highly efficient level. This level will be stable, unless "destabilized" by government "interference." Instead of viewing public investment as saving the economy from monopoly rent and debt peonage, the government itself is described as a "rent seeker" exploiting and impoverishing the economy.

JS: But is this sort of economic theory legitimate, or just a libertarian-sounding camouflage for neoliberal pillage?

MH : It's Orwellian Doublethink. Today's neoliberal theory justifies oligarchies breaking free of public control to appropriate the economic surplus by indebting economies to skim off the economic surplus as interest and then foreclose on personal landholdings and public property, overthrowing "mixed economies" to create a "pure oligarchy." Their idea of a free market is one free for creditors and monopolists to deny economic freedom to the rest of the population. The political extension of this approach in antiquity was to unseat kings and civic regimes, to concentrate power in the hands of an increasingly predatory class reducing the economy to bondage, impoverishing it, and ultimately leaving it to be conquered by outsiders. That is what happened to Rome in Late Antiquity.

Advocates of strong government have a diametrically opposite mathematical model. Ever since the Bronze Age, they recognized that the "natural" tendency of economies is to polarize between a wealthy creditor and land-owning class and the rest of society. Bronze Age rulers recognized that debts tend to grow faster than the ability to pay (that is, faster than the economy). Babylonian rulers recognized that if rulers did not intervene to cancel personal debts (mainly agrarian debts by cultivators) when crops failed, when military action interfered, or simply when debts built up over time, then creditors would end up taking the crop surplus and even the labor services of debtors as interest, and finally foreclosing on the land. This would have deprived the palatial economy of land and labor contributions. And by enriching an independent class of creditors (on their way to becoming large landowners) outside of the palace, financial wealth would express itself in economic and even military power. An incipient financial and landholding oligarchy would mount its own military and political campaign to unseat rulers and dismantle the mixed palatial/private economy to create one that was owned and controlled by oligarchies.

The result in Classical Antiquity was economic polarization leading to austerity and bondage, grinding the economy to a halt. That is the tendency of economies in "unmixed" economies where the public sector is privatized and economic regulation is dismantled. Land and credit was monopolized and smallholders became dependent clients and ultimately were replaced by slaves.

Mixed economies by the late 19 th century aimed at minimizing market prices for real estate and monopoly goods, and for credit. The economic aim was to minimize the cost of living and doing business so as to make economies more productive. This was called "socialism" as the natural outgrowth of industrial capitalism protecting itself from the most burdensome legacies of feudalism: an absentee landlord class, and a banking class whose money-lending was not productive but predatory.

JS: So mixed economies require strong and ultimately good governments.

MH : Any "mixed" economy has some basic economic theory of what the proper role of government is. At the very least, as in the 20 th century, this included the limitation of monopoly rents. The neoclassical (that is, anti-classical) reaction was to formulate a euphemistic theory of consumer "demand" -- as if American consumers "demand" to pay high prices for pharmaceuticals and health care. Likewise in the case of housing prices for renters or, for owner-occupied housing, mortgage charges: Do renters and home buyers really "demand" to pay higher and higher rents and larger and larger mortgages? Or are they compelled to pay out of need, paying whatever their suppliers demand ( e.g ., as in "Your money or your life/health").

So to answer your question, a mixed economy is one in which governments and society at large realize that economies need to be regulated and monopolies (headed by credit and land ownership) kept out of the hands of private rent-seekers in order to keep the economy free and efficient.

JS : Has there ever been a civil society that effectively implemented a mixed economy since, say, 500 BC?

MH : All successful economies have been mixed economies. And the more "mixed" they are, the more successful, stable and long-lasting they have been as a result of their mutual public/private checks and balances.

America was a mixed economy in the late 19th century. It became the world's most successful industrial economy because it didn't have an absentee landlord class like Europe did (except for the railroad octopus), and it enacted protective tariffs to endow a domestic manufacturing class to catch up with and overtake England.

JS : Other countries?

MH : Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I. But it had a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural faith in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.

JS : Isn't it pretty brutal in China for most of the population?

MH : Most of the population does not find it brutal there. It was brutal under colonialism and later still, under Mao's Cultural Revolution. But now, most people in China seem to want to get rich. That's why you're having a consolidation period of trying to get rid of the local corruption, especially in the rural areas. You're seeing a consolidation period that requires clamping down on a lot of people who became successful through shady operations.

JS : So how would you describe an ideal society without a Hammurabi-style "divine kingship"? An ideal mixed economy?

MH : The credit system would be public. That way, public banks could create credit for socially productive purposes -- and could cancel the occasional overgrowth of debts without causing private creditors to lose and protest. The public sector also would own and operate the natural infrastructure monopolies. That was the basic principle of classical economics from Adam Smith to Marx, even for erstwhile libertarians such as Henry George. Everybody in the 19th century expected a mixed economy with governments playing a growing role, replacing absentee landlords, bankers and monopolists with public collection of economic rent, public control of the credit system and provider of basic needs.

JS : How extensive should the public sector be?

MH : A classical public sector would include the natural monopolies that otherwise would engage in price gouging, especially the credit and banking system. These sectors should be public in character. For one thing, only a public bank can write down the debts -- like student debts today -- without hurting an independent oligarchic financial class. If student debts and mortgage debts were owed to public banks, they could be written down in keeping with the reasonable ability to be paid. Also, public banks wouldn't make junk mortgage loans to NINJA borrowers, as did Citibank and the other crooked banks. A public bank wouldn't make predatory corporate raiding and takeover loans, or finance and speculate in derivative gambles.

Most of all, when the debt overhead becomes too large -- when a large corporation that is essential to the economy can't pay its debts -- public banks can write down the debt so that the company isn't forced into bankruptcy and sold to an American vulture fund or other vulture fund. It can keep operating. In China the government provides this essential service of public banks.

The key public concern throughout history has been to prevent debt from crippling society. That aim is what Babylonian and other third-millennium and second-millennium Near Eastern rulers recognized clearly enough, with their mathematical models. To make an ideal society you need the government to control the basic utilities -- land, finance, mineral wealth, natural resources and infrastructure monopolies (including the Internet today), pharmaceuticals and health care so their basic services can be supplied at the lowest price.

All this was spelled out in the 19 th century by business school analysts in the United States. Simon Patten [1852-1922] who said that public investment is the "fourth factor of production." But its aim isn't to make a profit for itself. Rather, it's to lower the cost of living and of doing business, by providing basic needs either on a subsidized basis or for free. The aim was to create a low-cost society without a rentier class siphoning off unearned income and making this economic rent a hereditary burden on the economy at large. You want to prevent unearned income.

To do that, you need a concept to define economic rent as unearned and hence unnecessary income. A well-managed economy would do what Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Marx and Veblen recommended: It would prevent a hereditary rentier class living off unearned income and increasing society's economic overhead. It's okay to make a profit, but not to make extractive monopoly rent, land rent or financial usury rent.

JS : Will human beings ever create such a society?

MH : If they don't, we're going to have a new Dark Age.

JS : That's one thing that especially surprises me about the United States. Is it not clear to educated people here that our ruling class is fundamentally extractive and exploitative?

MH : A lot of these educated people are part of the ruling class, and simply taking their money and running. They are disinvesting, not investing in industry. They're saying, "The financial rentier game is ending, so let's sell everything and maybe buy a farm in New Zealand to go to when there is a big war." So the financial elite is quite aware that they are getting rich by running the economy into the ground, and that this must end at the point where they've taken everything and left a debt-ridden shell behind.

JS : I guess this gets back to what you were saying: The history of economics has been expurgated from the curriculum.

MH : Once you strip away economic history and the history of economic thought, you wipe out memory of the vocabulary that people have used to criticize rent seeking and other unproductive activity. You then are in a position to redefine words and ideals along the lines that euphemize predatory and parasitic activities as if they are productive and desirable, even natural. You can rewrite history to suppress the idea that all this is the opposite of what Adam Smith and the classicaleconomists down through Marx advocated.

Today's neoliberal wasteland is basically a reaction against the 19 th century reformers, against the logic of classical British political economy. The hatred of Marx is ultimately the hatred of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, because neoliberals realize that Smith and Mill and Ricardo were all leading to Marx. He was the culmination of their free market views -- a market free from rentiers and monopolists.

That was the immediate aim of socialism in the late 19 th century. The logic of classical political economy was leading to a socialist mixed economy. In order to fight Marxism, you have to fight classical economics and erase memory of how civilization has dealt with (or failed to deal with) the debt and rent-extracting problems through the ages. The history of economic thought and the original free-market economics has to be suppressed. Today's choice is therefore between socialism or barbarism, as Rosa Luxemburg said.

JS : Let's consider barbarism: When I observe the neoliberal ruling class -- the people who control the finance sector and the managerial class on Wall Street -- I often wonder if they're historically exceptional because they've gone beyond simple greed and lust for wealth. They now seek above all some barbaric and sadistic pleasure in the financial destruction and humiliation of other people. Or is this historically normal?

MH : The financial class has always lived in the short run, and you can make short-term money much quicker by asset stripping and being predatory can by being productive. Moses Finley wrote that there was not a single productive loan in all of Antiquity. That was quite an overstatement, but he was making the point that there were no productive financial markets in Antiquity. Almost all manufacturing, industry, and agriculture was self-financed. So the reader of Finley likely infers that we modern people have progressed in a fundamental way beyond Antiquity. They were characterized by the homo politicus , greedy for status. We have evolved into homo œconomicus , savvy enough to live in stable safety and comfort.

We are supposedly the beneficiaries of the revolution of industrial capitalism, as if all the predatory, polarizing, usurious lending that you had from feudal times (and before that, from Antiquity), was replaced by productive lending that finances means of production and actual economic growth.

But in reality, modern banks don't lend money for production. They say, "That's the job of the stock market." Banks only lend if there's collateral to grab. They lend against assets in place. So the result of more bank lending is to increase the price of the assets that banks lend against -- on credit! This way of "wealth creation" via asset-price inflation is the opposite of real substantive progress. It enriches the narrow class of asset holders at the top of the economic pyramid.

JS : What about the stock market?

MH : The stock market no longer primarily provides money for capital investment. It has become a vehicle for bondholders and corporate raiders to borrow from banks and private funds to buy corporate stockholders, take the companies private, downsize them, break them up or strip their assets, and borrow more to buy back their stocks to create asset-price gains without increasing the economy's tangible real asset base. So the financial sector, except for a brief period in the late 19th century, especially in Germany, has rarely financed productive growth. Financial engineering has replaced industrial engineering, just as in Antiquity creditors were asset strippers.

The one productive activity that the financial sector engaged in from the Bronze Age onward was to finance foreign trade. The original interest-bearing debt was owed by merchants to reimburse their silent partners, typically the palace or the temples, and in time wealthy individuals. But apart from financing trade – in products that were already produced – you've rarely had finance increase the means of production or economic growth. It's almost always been to extract income. The income that finance extracts is at the expense of the rest of society. So the richer the financial sector is, the more austerity is imposed on the non-financial sector.

JS : That's pretty depressing.

MH : When I did the show with Jimmy Dore [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvcB55R8jM ], he saw that the most important dynamic to understand is that debts grow more rapidly than the economy at large. The rate of interest is higher than the rate of growth. It may not be higher than the profit rate, but it's higher than the rate of growth. So every society that has interest-bearing debt is going to end up deeper and deeper in debt. At a certain point the creditors are paid at the expense of production and investment -- and soon enough they foreclose.

JS : And then?

MH : Then you have debt deflation. That is the norm. Austerity. It is not an anomaly, but the essence. The Babylonians knew this, and they tried to avoid debt deflation by wiping out the predatory personal debts, not the business debts that were commercial and productive. Only the non-commercial debts were wiped out.

JS : How could Modern Monetary Theory be used now, effectively?

MH : The main way is to say that governments don't have to borrow at interest from existing financial "savers," mainly the One Percent. The government can do what America did during the Civil War: print greenbacks. (The MMT version is the Trillion-dollar platinum coin.) The Treasury can provide the money needed by the economy. It does that by running a budget deficit and spending money into the economy. If you don't do that, if you do what Bill Clinton did in the last years of his presidency and run a budget surplus, then you force the economy to depend on banks for credit.

The problem is that bank credit is essentially predatory and extractive. The same thing happens in Europe. The Eurozone governments cannot run a budget deficit of more than 3 percent, so the government is unable to spend enough money to invest in public infrastructure or anything else. As a result, the Eurozone economy is subject to debt deflation, which is exacerbated by people having to borrow from the banks at high interest rates that far exceeds the rate of growth. So Europe is suffering an even more serious debt deflation than the United States.

JS : Is any of this going to change, either in Europe or here?

MH : Not until there's a crash. Not until it gets serious enough that people realize that there has to be an alternative. Right now Margaret Thatcher and the neoliberals have won. She said there was no alternative, and as long as people believe There Is No Alternative, they're not going to realize that it doesn't have to be this way, and that you don't need a private banking sector. A public banking sector would be much more efficient.

JS : How would you sum up Wall Street right now? Is it entirely predatory? Entirely parasitical? What are Wall Street's essential functions now?

MH : Number one, to run a casino. By far the largest volume at stake is betting on whether interest rates, foreign exchange rates or stock prices will go up or down. So the financial system has turned into a gambling casino. Its second aim is to load the economy down with as much debt as possible. Debt is the banking system's "product," and the GDP counts its "carried interest" penalties and late fees, its short-term trading gains as "financial services" counted as part of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The aim is to get as much of these financial returns as possible, and finally to foreclose on as much property of defaulting debtors as possible. The business plan -- as I learned at Chase Manhattan years ago -- is to transfer all economic growth into the hands of financial investors, the One Percent. The financial business plan is to create a set of laws and mount a campaign of regulatory capture so that all the growth in the economy accrues to the One Percent, not the 99 Percent. That means that as the One Percent's rentier income grows, the 99 Percent gets less and less each year, until finally it emigrates or dies off, or is put into a for-profit prison, which looks like a growth industry today.

JS : Is there a single good thing that Wall Street does? Is there anything good that comes out of Wall Street?

MH: You have to look at it as a system. You can't segregate a particular action from the overall economy. If the overall system aims at making money in predatory ways at somebody else's expense, then it is a zero-sum game. That is essentially a short-run business model. And politically, it involves opposing a mixed economy. At least, the "old fashioned" socialist mixed economy in which governments subordinate short-term gain-seeking to long-term objectives uplifting the entire economy.

As the Greek philosophers recognized, wealthy people define their power by their ability to injure the rest of society, so as to lord it over them. That was the Greek philosophy of money-lust [πλεονεξία, pleonexia ] and hubris [ὕβρις] -- not merely arrogance, but behavior that was injurious to others.

Rentier income is injurious to society at large. Rentiers define a "free market" as one in which they are free to deny economic freedom to their customers, employees and other victims. The rentier model is to enrich the oligarchy to a point where it is able to capture the government.

Part 3: The Inherent Financial Instability in Western Civilization's DNA

John Siman : It seems that unless there's a Hammurabi-style "divine king" or some elected civic regulatory authority, oligarchies will arise and exploit their societies as much as they can, while trying to prevent the victimized economy from defending itself.

Michael Hudson : Near Eastern rulers kept credit and land ownership subordinate to the aim of maintaining overall growth and balance. They prevented creditors from turning citizens into indebted clients obliged to work off their debts instead of serving in the military, providing corvée labor and paying crop rents or other fees to the palatial sector.

JS : So looking at history going back to 2000 or 3000 BC, once we no longer have the powerful Near Eastern "divine kings," there seems not to have been a stable and free economy. Debts kept mounting up to cause political revolts. In Rome, this started with the Secession of the Plebs in 494 BC, a century after Solon's debt cancellation resolved a similar Athenian crisis.

MH : Near Eastern debt cancellations continued into the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires in the first millennium BC, and also into the Persian Empire. Debt amnesties and laws protecting debtors prevented the debt slavery that is found in Greece and Rome. What modern language would call the Near Eastern "economic model" recognized that economies tended to become unbalanced, largely as a result of buildup of debt and various arrears on payments. Economic survival in fact required an ethic of growth and rights for the citizenry (who manned the army) to be self-supporting without running into debt and losing their economic liberty and personal freedom. Instead of the West's ultimate drastic solution of banning interest, rulers cancelled the buildup of personal debts to restore an idealized order "as it was in the beginning."

This ideology has always needed to be sanctified by religion or at least by democratic ideology in order to prevent the predatory privatization of land, credit, and ultimately the government. Greek philosophy warned against monetary greed [πλεονεξία, pleonexia ] and money-love [φιλοχρηματία, philochrêmatia ] from Sparta's mythical lawgiver Lycurgus to Solon's poems describing his debt cancellation in 594 and the subsequent philosophy of Plato and Socrates, as well as the plays of Aristophanes. The Delphic Oracle warned that money-love was the only thing that could destroy Sparta [Diodorus Siculus 7.5]. That indeed happened after 404 BC when the war with Athens ended and foreign tribute poured into Sparta's almost un-monetized regulated economy.

The problem, as famously described in The Republic and handed down in Stoic philosophy, was how to prevent a wealthy class from becoming wealth-addicted, hubristic and injurious to society. The 7 th -century "tyrants" were followed by Solon in Athens in banning luxuries and public shows of wealth, most notoriously at funerals for one's ancestors. Socrates went barefoot [ἀνυπόδητος, anupodêtos ] to show his contempt for wealth, and hence his freedom from its inherent personality defects. Yet despite this universal ideal of avoiding extremes, oligarchic rule became economically polarizing and destructive, writing laws to make its creditor claims and the loss of land by smallholders irreversible. That was the opposite of Near Eastern Clean Slates and their offshoot, Judaism's Jubilee Year.

JS : So despite the ideals of their philosophy, Greek political systems had no function like that of Hammurabi-like kings -- or philosopher-kings for that matter -- empowered to hold financial oligarchies in check. This state of affairs led philosophers to develop an economic tradition of lamentation instead. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Livy and Plutarch bemoaned the behavior of the money-loving oligarchy. But they did not develop a program to rectify matters. The best they could do was to inspire and educate individuals -- most of whom were their wealthy students and readers. As you said, they bequeathed a legacy of Stoicism. Seeing that the problem was not going to be solved in their lifetimes, they produced a beautiful body of literature praising philosophical virtue.

MH : The University of Chicago, where I was an undergraduate in the 1950s, focused on Greek philosophy. We read Plato's Republic , but they skipped over the discussion of wealth-addiction. They talked about philosopher-kings without explaining that Socrates' point was that rulers must not own land and other wealth, so as not to have the egotistical tunnel vision that characterized creditors monopolizing control over land and labor.

JS : In Book 8 of the Republic , Socrates condemns oligarchies as being characterized by an insatiable greed [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for money and specifically criticizes them for allowing polarization between the super-rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi ] and the poor [πένητες, penêtes ], who are made utterly resourceless [ἄποροι, aporoi ].

MH : One needs to know the context of Greek economic history in order to understand The Republic 's main concern. Popular demands for land redistribution and debt cancellation were resisted with increasing violence. Yet few histories of Classical Antiquity focus on this financial dimension of the distribution of land, money and wealth.

Socrates said that if you let the wealthiest landowners and creditors become the government, they're probably going to be wealth-addicted and turn the government into a vehicle to help them exploit the rest of society. There was no idea at Chicago of this central argument made by Socrates about rulers falling subject to wealth-addiction. The word "oligarchy" never came up in my undergraduate training, and the "free market" business school's Ayn Rand philosophy of selfishness is as opposite from Greek philosophy as it is from Judeo-Christian religion.

JS : The word "oligarchy" comes up a lot in book 8 of Plato's Republic . Here are 3 passages:

1. At Stephanus page 550c "And what kind of a regime," said he, "do you understand by oligarchy [ὀλιγαρχία]?" "That based on a property qualification," said I, "wherein the rich [πλούσιοι] hold office [550d] and the poor man [πένης, penês ] is excluded.

2. at 552a "Consider now whether this polity [ i.e . oligarchy] is not the first that admits that which is the greatest of all such evils." "What?" "The allowing a man to sell all his possessions, which another is permitted to acquire, and after selling them to go on living in the city, but as no part of it, neither a money-maker, nor a craftsman, nor a knight, nor a foot-soldier, but classified only as a pauper [πένης, penês ] and a dependent [ἄπορος, aporos ]." [552b] "This is the first," he said. "There certainly is no prohibition of that sort of thing in oligarchical states. Otherwise some of their citizens would not be excessively rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi ], and others out and out paupers [πένητες, penêtes ]."

3 at 555b: "Then," said I, "is not the transition from oligarchy to democracy effected in some such way as this -- by the insatiate greed [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for that which oligarchy set before itself as the good, the attainment of the greatest possible wealth?"

MH : By contrast, look where Antiquity ended up by the 2 nd century BC. Rome physically devastated Athens, Sparta, Corinth and the rest of Greece. By the Mithridatic Wars (88-63 BC) their temples were looted and their cities driven into unpayably high debt to Roman tax collectors and Italian moneylenders. Subsequent Western civilization developed not from the democracy in Athens but from oligarchies supported by Rome. Democratic states were physically destroyed, blocking civic regulatory power and imposing pro-creditor legal principles making foreclosures and forced land sales irreversible.

JS: It seems that Greek and Roman Antiquity could not solve the problem of economic polarization. That makes me want to ask about our own country: To what extent does America resemble Rome under the emperors?

MH: Wealthy families have always tried to break "free" from central political power -- free to destroy the freedom of people they get into debt and take their land and property. Successful societies maintain balance. That requires public power to check and reverse the excesses of personal wealth seeking, especially debt secured by the debtor's labor and land or other means of self-support. Balanced societies need the power to reverse the tendency of debts to grow faster than the ability to be paid. That tendency runs like a red thread through Greek and Roman history.

This overgrowth of debt is also destabilizing today's U.S. and other financialized economies. Banking and financial interests have broken free of tax liability since 1980, and are enriching themselves not by helping the overall economy grow and raising living standards, but just the opposite: by getting the bulk of society into debt to themselves.

This financial class is also indebting governments and taking payment in the form of privatizing the public domain. (Greece is a conspicuous recent example.) This road to privatization, deregulation and un-taxing of wealth really took off with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan cheerleading the anti-classical philosophy of Frederick von Hayek and the anti-classical economics of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys.

Something much like this happened in Rome. Arnold Toynbee described its oligarchic land grab that endowed its ruling aristocracy with unprecedented wealth as Hannibal's Revenge. That was the main legacy of Rome's Punic Wars with Carthage ending around 200 BC. Rome's wealthy families who had contributed their jewelry and money to the war effort, made their power grab and said that what originally appeared to be patriotic contributions should be viewed as having been a loan. The Roman treasury was bare, so the government (controlled by these wealthy families) gave them public land, the ager publicus that otherwise would have been used to settle war veterans and other needy.

Once you inherit wealth, you tend to think that it's naturally yours, not part of society's patrimony for mutual aid. You see society in terms of yourself, not yourself as part of society. You become selfish and increasingly predatory as the economy shrinks as a result of your indebting it and monopolizing its land and property. You see yourself as exceptional, and justify this by thinking of yourself as what Donald Trump would call "a winner," not subject to the rules of "losers," that is, the rest of society. That's a major theme in Greek philosophy from Socrates andPlato and Aristotle through the Stoics. They saw an inherent danger posed by an increasingly wealthy landholding and creditor ruling class atop an indebted population at large. If you let such a class emerge independently of social regulation and checks on personal egotism and hubris, the economic and political system becomes predatory. Yet that has been the history of Western civilization.

Lacking a tradition of subordinating debt and land foreclosure from smallholders, the Greek and Italian states that emerged in the 7 th century BC took a different political course from the Near East. Subsequent Western civilization lacked a regime of oversight to alleviate debt problems and keep the means of self-support broadly distributed.

The social democratic movements that flowered from the late 19 th century until the 1980s sought to re-create such regulatory mechanisms, as in Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting, the income tax, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, postwar British social democracy. But these moves to reverse economic inequality and polarization are now being rolled back, causing austerity, debt deflation and the concentration of wealth at the top of the economic pyramid. As oligarchies take over government, they lorded it over the rest of society much like feudal lords who emerged from the wreckage of the Roman Empire in the West.

The tendency is for political power to reflect wealth. Rome's constitution weighted voting power in proportion to one's landholdings, minimizing the voting power of the non-wealthy. Today's private funding of political campaigns in the United States is more indirect in shifting political power to the Donor Class, away from the Voting Class. The effect is to turn governments to serve a financial and property-owning class instead of prosperity for the economy at large. We thus are in a position much like that of Rome in 509 BC, when the kings were overthrown by an oligarchy claiming to "free" their society from any power able to control the wealthy. The call for "free markets" today is for deregulation of rentier wealth, turning the economy into a free-for-all.

Classical Greece and Italy had a fatal flaw: From their inception they had no tradition of a mixed public/private economy such as characterized in the Near East, whose palatial economy and temples produced the main economic surplus and infrastructure. Lacking royal overrides, the West never developed policies to prevent a creditor oligarchy from reducing the indebted population to debt bondage, and foreclosing on the land of smallholders. Advocates of debt amnesties were accused of "seeking kingship" in Rome, or aspiring to "tyranny"(in Greece).

JS: It seems to me that you're saying this economic failure is Antiquity's original sin as well as fatal flaw. We have inherited a great philosophic and literary tradition from them analyzing and lamenting this failure, but without a viable program to set it right.

MH: That insight unfortunately has been stripped out of the curriculum of classical studies, just as the economics discipline sidesteps the phenomenon of wealth addiction. If you take an economics course, the first thing you're taught in price theory is diminishing marginal utility: The more of anything you have, the less you need it or enjoy it. You can't enjoy consuming it beyond a point. But Socrates and Aristophanes emphasized, accumulating money is not like eating bananas, chocolate or any other consumable commodity. Money is different because, as Socrates said, it is addictive, and soon becomes an insatiable desire [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ].

JS: Yes, I understand! Bananas are fundamentally different from money because you can get sick of bananas, but you can never have too much money! In your forthcoming book, The Collapse of Antiquity , you quote what Aristophanes says in his play Plutus (the god of wealth and money). The old man Chremylus -- his name is based on the Greek word for money, chrêmata [χρήματα] -- Chremylus and his slave perform a duet in praise of Plutus as the prime cause of everything in the world, reciting a long list. The point is that money is a singular special thing: "O Money-god, people never get sick of your gifts. They get tired of everything else; they get tired of love and bread, of music and honors, of treats and military advancement, of lentil soup, etc., etc. But they never get tired of money. If a man has thirteen talents of silver -- 13 million dollars, say -- he wants sixteen; and if he gets sixteen, he will want forty, and so forth, and he will complain of being short of cash the whole time."

MH: Socrates's problem was to figure out a way to have government that did not serve the wealthy acting in socially destructive ways. Given that his student Platowas an aristocrat and that Plato's students in the Academy werearistocratsas well, how can you have a government run by philosopher-kings? Socrates's solution was not practical at that time: Rulers should not have money or property. But all governments were based on the property qualification, so his proposal for philosopher-kings lacking wealth was utopian. And like Plato and other Greek aristocrats, they disapproved of debt cancellations, accusing these of being promoted by populist leaders seeking to become tyrants.

JS: Looking over the broad sweep of Roman history, your book describes how, century after century, oligarchs were whacking every energetic popular advocate whose policies threatened their monopoly of political power, and their economic power as creditors and privatizers of the public domain, Rome's ager publicus , for themselves.

I brought with me on the train Cæsar's Gallic War . What do you think of Cæsar and how historians have interpreted his role?

MH: The late 1 st century BC was a bloodbath for two generations before Cæsar was killed by oligarchic senators. I think his career exemplifies what Aristotle said of aristocracies turning into democracies: He sought to take the majority of citizens into their own camp to oppose the aristocratic monopolies of landholding, the courts and political power.

Cæsar sought to ameliorate the oligarchic Senate's worst abuses that were stifling Rome's economy and even much of the aristocracy. Mommsen is the most famous historian describing how rigidly and unyieldingly the Senate opposed democratic attempts to achieve a role in policy-making for the population at large, or to defend the debtors losing their land to creditors, who were running the government for their own personal benefit. He described how Sulla strengthened the oligarchy against Marius, and Pompey backed the Senate against Caesar. But competition for the consulship and other offices was basically just a personal struggle among rival individuals, not rival concrete political programs. Roman politics was autocratic from the very start of the Republic when the aristocracy overthrew the kings in 509 BC. Roman politics during the entire Republic was a fight by the oligarchy against democracy and the populace as a whole.

The patricians used violence to "free" themselves from any public authority able to check their own monopoly of power, money and land acquisition by expropriating smallholders and grabbing the public domain being captured from neighboring peoples. Roman history from one century to the next is a narrative of killing advocates of redistributing public land to the people instead of letting it be grabbed by the patricians, or who called for a debt cancellation or even just an amelioration of the cruel debts laws.

On the one hand, Mommsen idolized Cæsar as if he were a kind of revolutionary democrat. But given the oligarchy's total monopoly on political power and force, Mommsen recognized that under these conditions there could not be any political solution to Rome's economic polarization and impoverishment. There could only be anarchy or a dictatorship. So Caesar's role was that of a Dictator -- vastly outnumbered by his opposition.

A generation before Caesar, Sulla seized power militarily, bringing his army to conquer Rome and making himself Dictator in 82 BC. He drew up a list of his populist opponents to be murdered and their estates confiscated by their killers. He was followed by Pompey, who could have become a dictator but didn't have much political sense, so Caesar emerged victorious. Unlike Sulla or Pompey, he sought a more reformist policy to check the senatorial corruption and self-dealing.

The oligarchic Senate's only "political program" was opposition to "kingship" or any such power able to check its land grabbing and corruption. The oligarchs assassinated him, as they had killed Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus in 133 and 121, the praetor Asellio who sought to alleviate the population's debt burden in 88 by trying to enforce pro-creditor laws, and of course the populist advocates of debt cancellation such as Catiline and his supporters. Would-be reformers were assassinated from the very start of the Republic after the aristocracy overthrew Rome's kings.

JS: If Caesar had been successful, what kind of ruler might he have been?

MH: In many ways he was like the reformer-tyrants of the 7 th and 6 th centuries in Corinth, Megara and other Greek cities. They all were members of the ruling elite. He tried to check the oligarchy's worst excesses and land grabs, and like Catiline, Marius and the Gracchi brothers before him, to ameliorate the problems faced by debtors. But by his time the poorer Romans already had lost their land, so the major debts were owed by wealthier landowners. His bankruptcy law only benefited the well-to-do who had bought land on credit and could not pay their moneylenders as Rome's long Civil War disrupted the economy. The poor already had been ground down. They supported him mainly for his moves toward democratizing politics at the expense of the Senate.

JS: After his assassination we get Caesar's heir Octavian, who becomes Augustus. So we have the official end of the Republic and the beginning of a long line of emperors, the Principate. Yet despite the Senate's authority being permanently diminished, there is continued widening of economic polarization. Why couldn't the Emperors save Rome?

MH: Here's an analogy for you: Just as nineteenth-century industrial reformers thought that capitalism's political role was to reform the economy by stripping away the legacy of feudalism -- a hereditary landed aristocracy and predatory financial system based mainly on usury -- what occurred was not an evolution of industrial capitalism into socialism. Instead, industrial capitalism turned into finance capitalism. In Rome you had the end of the senatorial oligarchy followed not by a powerful, debt-forgiving central authority (as Mommsen believed that Caesar was moving toward, and as many Romans hoped that he was moving towards), but to an even more polarized imperial garrison state.

JS: That's indeed what happened. The emperors who ruled in the centuries after Cæsar insisted on being deified -- they were officially "divine," according to their own propaganda. Didn't any of them have the potential power to reverse the Roman economy's ever-widening polarization of the, like the Near Eastern "divine kings" from the third millennium BC into the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and even the Persian Empire in the first millennium?

MH: The inertia of Rome's status quo and vested interests among patrician nobility was so strong that emperors didn't have that much power. Most of all, they didn't have a conceptual intellectual framework for changing the economy's basic structure as economic life became de-urbanized and shifted to self-sufficient quasi-feudal manor estates. Debt amnesties and protection of small self-sufficient tax-paying landholders as the military base was achieved only in the Eastern Roman Empire, in Byzantium under the 9 th – and 10 th -century emperors (as I've described in my history of debt cancellations in and forgive them their debts ).

The Byzantine emperors were able to do what Western Roman emperors could not. They reversed the expropriation of smallholders and annulled their debts in order to keep a free tax-paying citizenry able to serve in the army and provide public labor duties. But by the 11 th and 12 th centuries, Byzantium's prosperity enabled its oligarchy to create private armies of their own to fight against centralized authority able to prevent their grabbing of land and labor.

It seems that Rome's late kings did something like this. That is what attracted immigrants to Rome and fueled its takeoff. But with prosperity came rising power of patrician families, who moved to unseat the kings. Their rule was followed by a depression and walkouts by the bulk of the population to try and force better policy. But that could no be achieved without democratic voting power, so faith was put in personal leader -- subject to patrician violence to abort any real economic democracy.

In Byzantium's case, the tax-avoiding oligarchy weakened the imperial economy to the point where the Crusaders were able to loot and destroy Constantinople. Islamic invaders were then able to pick up the pieces.

The most relevant point of studying history today should be how the economic conflict between creditors and debtors affected the distribution of land and money. Indeed, the tendency of a wealthy overclass to pursue self-destructive policies that impoverish society should be what economic theory is all about. We'll discuss this in Part 4.

Part 4: A New "Reality Economics" Curriculum is Needed

John Siman: I want to spell out the implications of the points that Socrates brought up, and with which you and I agree. That leaves the question facing us today: Is the American oligarchy and state as rapacious as that of Rome? Or is it universally the nature of oligarchy in any historical setting to be rapacious? And if so, where is it all leading?

Michael Hudson : If Antiquity had followed the "free market" policies of modern neoliberal economics, the Near East, Greece and Rome would never have gained momentum. Any such "free market" avoiding mutual aid and permitting a wealthy class to emerge and enslave the bulk of the population by getting it into debt and taking its land would have shrunk, or been conquered from without or by revolution from within. That's why the revolutions of the 7 th century BC, led to reformers subsequently called "tyrants" in Greece (and "kings" in Rome) were necessary to attract populations rather than reduce them to bondage.

So of course it is hard for mainstream economists to acknowledge that Classical Antiquity fell because it failed to regulate and tax the wealthy financial and landowning classes, and failed to respond to popular demands to cancel personal debts and redistribute the land that had been monopolized by the wealthy.

The wealth of the Greek and Roman oligarchies was the ancient counterpart to today's Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, and their extractive and predatory behavior is what destroyed Antiquity. The perpetuation of this problem even today, two thousand years later, should establish that the debt/credit dynamic and polarization of wealth is a central problem of Western civilization.

JS : So what were -- and are -- the political and social dynamic at work?

MH : The key is the concept of wealth addiction and how it leads to hubris -- arrogance that seeks to increase power in ways that hurt other people. Hubris is not merely over-reaching; it is socially injurious. The wealthy or power injure other people knowingly, to establish their power and status.

That is what Aristophanes meant when his characters say that wealth is not like bananas or lentil soup. Wealth has no object but itself . Wealth is status -- and also political control. The creditor's wealth is the debtor's liability. The key to its dynamic is not production and consumption, but assets and liabilities -- the economy's balance sheet. Wealth and status in the sense of who/whom. It seeks to increase without limit, and Socrates and Aristotle found the major example to be creditors charging interest for lending "barren" money. Interest had to be paid out of the debtor's own product, income or finally, forfeiture of property; creditors did not provide means of making interest to pay off the loan.

This is the opposite of Austrian School theories that interest is a bargain to share the gains to be made from the loan "fairly" between creditor and debtor. It also is the opposite of neoclassical price theory. The economics taught in universities today is based on a price theory that does not even touch on this point. The liberty that oligarchs claim is the right to indebt the rest of society and then demand full payment or forfeiture of the debtor's collateral. This leads to massive expropriations, as did the Junk Mortgage foreclosures after 2008 when President Obama failed to write down debts to realistic market values for real estate financed on loans far beyond the buyer's ability to pay. The result was 10 million foreclosures.

Yet today's mainstream economics treats the normal tendency to polarize between creditors and debtors, the wealthy and the have-nots, as an anomaly. It has been the norm for the last five thousand years, but economics sidesteps actual empirical history as if it is an anomaly in the fictional parallel universe created by the mainstream's unrealistic assumptions. Instead of being a science, such economics is science fiction.It trains students in cognitive dissonance that distracts them from understanding Classical Antiquity and the driving dynamics of Western civilization.

JS: This gets us back to the question of whether universities should just be shut down and started up all over again.

MH: You don't shut them down, you create a new group of universities with a different curriculum. The path of least resistance is to house this more functional curriculum in new institutions. That's what America's Republican and pro-industrial leaders recognized after the Civil War ended in 1865. They didn't shut down Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the Christian free-trade Anglophile colleges. They created state colleges funded by land grants, such as Cornell in upstate New York, and business schools such as the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, endowed by industrialists to providing an economic logic for the state's steel-making and related industrial protectionism. The result was an alternative economics to describe how America should develop as what they saw as a new civilization, free of the vestiges of Europe's feudal privileges, absentee ownership and colonialist mentality.

The Republicans and industrialists saw that America's prestige colleges had been founded long before the Civil War, basically as religious colleges to train the clergy. They taught British free trade theory, serving the New England commercial and banking interests and Southern plantation owners. But free trade kept the United States dependent on England. My book America's Protectionist Takeoff describes how the American School of Political Economy, led by Henry Carey and E. Peshine Smith (William Seward's law partner), developed an alternative to what was being taught in the religious colleges.

This led to a new view of the history of Western civilization and America's role in fighting against entrenched privilege. William Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe , and Andrew Dixon White's History of the Warfare of Science with Theology saw the United States as breaking free from the feudal aristocracies that were a product of the way in which antiquity collapsed, economically and culturally.

JS : So business schools were originally progressive!

MH : Surprising as it may seem, the answer is Yes, to the extent that they described the global economy as tending to polarize under free trade and an absence of government protectionism, not to become more equal. They incorporated technology, energy-use and the environmental consequences of trade patterns into economic theory, such as soil depletion resulting from plantation monocultures. Mainstream economics fought against such analysis because it advocated markets "free" for polluters, "free" for nations to pursue policies that made them poorer and dependent on foreign credit.

JS : So this is how the Wharton School's first professor of economics, Simon Patten, one of the founders of American sociology, fits into this anti- rentier tradition! That is such a revelation to me! They developed an analysis of technology's effects on the economy, of monopoly pricing and economic rent as unearned income that increases the cost of living and cost of production. They explained the benefits of public infrastructure investment. Today that is called "socialism," but it was industrial capitalists who took the lead in urging such public investment, so as to lower their cost of doing business.

MH : The first U.S. business schools in the late 19 th century described rentiers as unproductive. That is why today's neoliberals are trying to rewrite the history of Institutionalism in a way that expurgates the Americans who wanted the government to provide public infrastructure to make America a low-cost economy, undersell England and other countries, and evolve into the industrial giant it became by the 1920s.

JS : That was Simon Patten's teaching at the Wharton School -- government-subsidized public infrastructure as the fourth factor of production.

MH : Yes. America's ruling political class tried to make the United States a dominant economy instead of a rentier economy of landlords and financial manipulators.

JS : How did the robber barons fit into this story?

MH : Not as industrialists or manufacturers, but as monopolists opposed by the industrial interests. It was Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting and the Republicans that enacted the Sherman antitrust act. Its spirit was continued by Franklin Roosevelt.

JS :Is today's economy a second age of robber barons?

MH : It's becoming a second Gilded Age. An abrupt change of direction in economic trends occurred after Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were elected in 1979/80. The result has been to invert what the 19 th -century economists understood to be a free market -- that is, a market free from a privileged hereditary class living on unearned income in the form of land rent, monopoly rent and financial extraction.

JS : I was in my first few years of college when Thatcher came in in 1979, and when Reagan was elected in 1980. I asked my economics professors what was going on, but I could not find a single professor to coherently describe the U-turn that was occurring. It certainly wasn't in Paul Samuelson's textbook that we were given.

MH : There's little logic for neoliberalism beyond a faith that short-term greed is the best way to optimize long-term growth. It is natural for the wealthiest classes to have this faith. Neoliberalism doesn't look at the economy as a social system, and it excludes as "externalities" concerns with the environment, debt dependency and economic polarization. It only asks how to make a short-term hit-and-run gain, regardless of whether this is done in a way that has a positive or negative overall social effect. Realistic economic logic is social in scope, and distinguishes between earned and unearned income. That is why economists such as Simon Patten and Thorstein Veblen decided to start afresh and create the discipline of sociology, to go beyond narrow individualistic economics being taught.

Today's mathematical economics is based on circular reasoning that treats all that has happened as having been inevitable. It is all survival of the fittest, so it seems that there is no alternative. This policy conclusion is built into economic methodology. If we weren't the fittest, we wouldn't have survived, so by definition (that is, circular reasoning), any alternative is less than fit.

Regarding the fact that you had to read Samuelson when you were in college, he was famous for his Factor Price Equalization Theorem claiming to prove mathematically that everybody and every nation tends naturally to become more and more equal (if government stands aside). He denied that the tendency of the global economy is to polarize, not equalize. The political essence of this equilibrium theory is its claim that economies tend to settle in a stable balance. In reality they polarize and then collapse if they do not reverse their polarizing financial and productivity and wealth dynamics are.

The starting point of economic theorizing should explain the dynamic that lead economics to polarize and collapse. That is the lesson of studying antiquity that we have discussed in our earlier talks. Writers in classical antiquity, like Bronze Age Near Eastern rulers before them and the Biblical prophets, recognized that a rentier economy tends to destroy the economy's productivity and widespread prosperity, and ultimately its survival. In today's world the Finance, Insurance,and Real Estate [FIRE] sector and monopolies are destroying the rest of the economy, using financial wealth to take over the government and disable its ability to prevent their operating in corrosive and predatory ways.

JS : Why aren't more people up in arms?

MH : They're only up in arms if they believe that there is an alternative. As long as the vested interests can suppress any idea that there is an alternative, that matters don't have to be this way, people just get depressed. In our third interview you spoke about Socrates and the Stoics producing a philosophy of lamentation and resignation. By his day there seemed no solution except to denounce wealth. When matters got much worse in the Roman Empire, wealth was abhorred. That became the message of Christianity.

What is needed is to define the scope of the alternative that you want. How can the economy grow when households, business, and government have to pay more and more of their revenue to the financial sector, which then turns around and lends its interest and related income out to indebt the economy even more? The effect is to extract even more income. Rising government debt and tax cuts for the rentiers lead to the privatization of public infrastructure and natural monopolies. Higher prices are charged for tolls to pay for public healthcare, education, roads and other services that were expected to be provided for free a century ago. Financialized privatization thus creates a high-rent, high-cost economy -- the opposite of industrial capitalism evolving into socialism to finally free society from rentier income.

JS: Wouldn't that be based on the insatiable desire [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for money and the super-rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi ] oligarchs in Book 8 of Plato's Republic ? So we get back to my question: Is the behavior of the super-rich a constant in human nature?

MH: Money-love [φιλοχρηματία, philochrêmatia ] has always been extreme because wealth is addictive. But their dynamic of credit -- other peoples' debts -- increasing at compound interest is mathematized and the economy is put on automatic pilot to self-destruct. Its business plan to "create wealth" by making financial gains at somebody else's expense, without limit. This kind of financial wealth is a zero-sum activity. The wealth of the creditor class, the One Percent, is achieved by indebting the 99 Percent.

JS: Why is it a zero-sum activity?

MH: A zero-sum activity is when one party's gain is another's loss. Instead of income paid to creditors being reinvested in means of production to help the economy grow, it's spent on buying more assets. The most wasteful examples are corporate stock buyback programs and financial raids. And the largest effect of financialization occurs as loans and Quantitative Easing simply bid up the price of real estate, stocks, bonds and other assets. The effect is to put housing and a retirement income further out of range of people who have to live by working for wages and salaries instead of living off absentee ownership, interest and financial asset-price gains.

JS: Why is this being done instead of investing in the economy to help the population live a better and more prosperous life?

MH: The tax and regulatory system is set up to make financial gains or create monopoly privileges. That is quicker and more certain, especially in an economy shrinking as a result of financialization and the austerity it imposes. It's hard to make profits by investing in a shrinking economy suffering from debt deflation and a squeeze on family budgets to pay for health care, education and other basic needs.

JS: So it becomes more about extraction. Let's come back to Global Climate Change and rising sea levels as a foundation of American foreign policy.

MH: Since the 19th century, American policy has been based on the recognition that GDP growth reflects rising energy use per capita. Rising productivity is almost identical with the curve of energy use per worker. That was the basic premise of E. Peshine Smith in 1853, and subsequent writers, whom I describe in America's Protectionist Takeoff: 1918-1914 . The policy conclusion is that if you can control the source of energy -- which remains mainly oil and coal -- then you can control global GDP growth. That is why Dick Cheney invaded Iraq: to grab its oil. It is why Trump announced his intention to topple Venezuela and take its oil.

If other nations are obliged to buy their oil from the United States or its companies, then it's in a monopoly position to turn off their electricity (like the United States did to Venezuela) and hurt their economies if they don't acquiesce in a world system that lets American financial firms come in and buy out their most productive monopolies and privatize theirpublic domain. That's why America's foreign policy is to monopolize the world's oil, gas and coal in order to have a stranglehold on the rate of growth of other countries by being able to deny them energy. It's like denying countries food in order to starve them out. The aim isto exploit Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America what Rome exploited its Empire.

JS: Would you be comfortable using words like evil to describe what's going on now?

MH : Evil essentially is predatory and destructive behavior. Socrates said that it ultimately is ignorance, because nobody would set out intentionally to do it. But in that case, evil would be an educational system that imposes ignorance and tunnel vision, distracting attention from understanding how economic society actually works in destructive ways. On that logic, post-classical neoliberal economics and the Chicago Boys are evil because their ideology breeds ignorance and leads its believers to act in ways that are injurious to society, preventing personal fulfillment through economic growth. Evil is a policy that makes most of society poorer, simply in order to enrich an increasingly wealth-addictive rentier layer at the top. Werner Sombart described the bourgeoisie as floating like a globules of fat on top of a soup.

JS: This is now happening on a path that follows an exponential extreme. I guess global warming makes it particularly evil. We're not simply talking about taking advantage of other people within a society, we're talking about destruction of the planet and its environment.

MH: Economists dismiss this as an "externality," that is, outside the scope of their models. So these models are deliberately ignorant. You could say that this makes them evil.

JS: That is what I've suspected since we started the Iraq War in 2003.

MH: America's military buildup, its anti-environmental policy and global wars are part of the same symbiotic strategy. The reason why America will not be part of a real effort to mitigate global warming is that its policy is still based on grabbing the oil resources of the Near East, Venezuela, and everywhere else that it can. Also, the oil industry is the most tax-exempt and politically powerful sector. If it also happens to be the primary cause of global warming, that is viewed as just collateral damage to America's attempt to control the world by controlling the oil supply. In that sense the environmental impasse is a byproduct of American imperialism.

JS: What's hopeful in the United States right now? What is a possible good outcome?

MH: T he precondition would be for people to realize that there is an alternative. Starting with wiping out of student debts, they can realize that the overall debt overhead can be wiped out without hurting the economy -- and indeed, rescuing it from the financial rentier class inasmuch as all debts on the liabilities side of the balance sheet have their counterpart on the asset side as the savings of today's financial oligarchy, which is doing to the U.S. economy what Rome's Senate did to the ancient world.

JS: How can people proceed from here?

MH: Understanding must come first. Once you have to have a sense of history, you realize that there is an alternative. You also see what happens when a creditor oligarchy gets strong enough to prevent any public power from writing down debts and to prevent attempts to tax it.

You have to do to America today what the Republicans did after the Civil War: You have to have a new university curriculum dealing with economic history, the history of economic thought and the real world's long-term development.

JS: And what would be the premise for such economic history?

MH: T he starting point is to realize that civilization began in the ancient Near East, and made a turn to oppose a strong public regulatory sector in Classical Greece and Rome. The long-term tension is the eternal fight by the oligarchy of creditors and large land owners to reduce the rest of society to serfdom, and to oppose strong rulers empowered to act in the economy's long-term interest by creating checks against this polarization.

JS : So how much longer does this go on -- for months, for years, for decades?

MH : It always goes on longer than you think it will. Inertia has a great elastic self-reinforcing power. Polarization will widen until people believe that there is an alternative and decide to fight for it. Two things are required for this to happen: First, a large proportion of people need to see that the economy is impoverishing them, and that the existing picture of what is happening is misleading. Instead of wealth trickling down, it is defying gravity and sucking income up from the base of the economic pyramid. People are having to work harder just to stay in place, until their life style breaks down.

Second, people must realize that it doesn't have to be this way. There is an alternative

JS : Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation will make things worse, and that the wealthy are job creators, not job destroyers. They think that the system needs to be bolstered, not replaced, because the alternative is "socialism" -- that is, what the Soviets did, not what Franklin Roosevelt was doing. But today bailing out the banks and giving subsidies to new employers is said to be for our own good.

MH : That's what the Romans told their provinces. Everything they did was always to preserve "good order," meaning open opportunities for their own wealth grabbing. They never said they were out to destroy and loot other societies. Madeline Albright followed this rhetorical pattern in describing as being, like the Romans and France's brutal mission civilisatrice , a program to uplift the world free-market efficiency. For performing this service, the imperial power takes all the money that its colonies, provinces and allies can generate. That's why the U.S. meddles in foreign politics, as we have just seen in Ukraine, Libya and Syria.

JS : You've described the greatest meddling as distorting the narrative of history to depict creditor and rentier drives toward oligarchy as being democratic and helping to raise living standards and culture. Your books show just the opposite.

MH : Thank you. (Republished from Naked Capitalism by permission of author or representative)


Dutch Boy , says: April 6, 2019 at 7:07 pm GMT

Questions for Dr. Hudson: Why should a public banking system charge interest at all on loans? Could they not merely charge a one-time service fee to cover the cost of loan administration and a one-time insurance fee to cover the costs of defaulting on the loan? After all, they are not actually loaning money – they are creating money at minimal risk to the bank. Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.
obwandiyag , says: April 7, 2019 at 2:37 am GMT
But, you see, Michael Hudson is a liberal, and so you can't listen to him. Even if you understood what he was saying.
wayfarer , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:58 am GMT
Abrahamism, the red herring du jour, for humanity.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:14 am GMT
@Dutch Boy

Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.

The school of Salamanca is where this idea of interest on money was codified, where the Jesuit priests proclaimed it as a loss of wants. That is, since people loaned out their money, they didn't get use of it, so they should be paid for their loss.

If you examine how banking works, banks hypothecate new money the moment you sign a debt instrument. Both the new bank credit and debt instrument pop into being simultaneously.

To ask for compounding interest on this simple legerdemain is an outrageous abuse, so you are right it is theft.

There are situations where it is not usurious. For example, Schacht's MefoBills scheme, the interest fluxed outward from Reichsbank to the bill holder. A bill would be presented to industry, and said industry would then start work making goods. Bill would then be presented for discount, which is fancy way of saying paid for, or paid off. Upon discount, bill would be examined to see if goods were produced. Then the bill would be paid its full face value AND the interest it accrued.

Reichsmarks flowed from Reichsbank to the bill holder, who was paid interest. The bill holder then spent his new Reichsmarks into the money supply.

Benjamin Franklin's public bank spent into the commons the extra money necessary for debtors to pay interest on their loans. The commons were improved, so one could view this as non usurious, even though it was positive interest. For the most part, FEES are all that should accompany new loans, not compounding interest.

Canada had a quasi sovereign economy 1938 to 1974 and spent debt free into the commons and on public infrastructure, their economy did not polarize toward creditors. The Ministry of Finance owned all the common shares of Bank of Canada. BOC was a crown bank.

Note in all the "good" examples, interest flowed outward from an exogenous creator toward the population. In bad examples of interest, it drains purchasing power from the population.

By the way, a MEFOBILL scheme today could be used to release debts. The bill is created exogenously by Treasury or even a shell company. The bill has a drawer, payee and drawee. It is like a check. It channels toward a specific goal. For example, if you wanted to pay off student debts, then the bill would aim at the student, who then presents bill to bank holding student's debt instrument. Bill would eventually make its way to the FED through bank reserve loops, and FED would expand their ledger. FED would use their keyboard to make new dollars, which flow back into private bank system to pay off the students debt instrument. So double entry mechanic laws are not abrogated. Student's debt disappeared, and Mefobill stays on FED ledger forever, not accruing interest. Or, you could specify a small amount of interest to the bank as a fee for their operations.

U.S. could use Mefobill scheme to lure industry back to the U.S. as it specifically channels toward a goal.

The money system is something we humans created, it can be used for good or ill. To paraphrase Michael, we need good civil law that codes for morality.

Max , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:42 am GMT
That was a soul-transforming read. It put into words what I could never put into words, but on an instinctive level I have always felt these things. I have always had this irrational hatred of bankers, landlords, capitalists, and any one else who dances to that faggy Gordon Gekko tune. But I could never figure out why, let alone explain it clearly. This article has done that for me right here and right now today. I am so grateful. This one is a keeper, now I finally understand my hate. And I am proud of it. This is why Hitler was a good person, he made these little bitch finance fags squeal and screech like the untermenschen they really are.

It is interesting to note that the facts explored in this article corroborate and synchronize with the facts explored in an amateur work titled "The Sumerian Swindle: How the Jews Betrayed Mankind." If you look you can print the book free off the internet somewhere.

From now on I only see humans in two distinct groups: productive people who work for a living, and parasitic leeches who exploit the former. Twas ever thus. Let us successfully genocide the latter in the near future.

Heil Hitler!

Sean , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:49 am GMT
The book sounds extremely interesting. I will probably get it, but that thing about the Kaiser is a bad mistake. The German nation had been subjected to France and its proxies marching across it for centuries. As always happens it unified in the face of threat, but financially the structure was still harking back to the Holy Roman Empire. Being decentralised as far as raising revenues was concerned, the Kaiser was unable to exert the full strength of Germany. The Weimar government instituted reforms were intended to remedy that for defensive purposes, but unfortunately Hitler inherited those reforms and that extra wherewithal was a major reason for the early military successes in WW2 that set the world agog.

Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I. But it had a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural faith in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.

Dubious.France had financed massive military preparation by Russia, and Poincaire (cousin of the brilliant physicist) was fixated with recovering Alsace and Lorraine (where he was born). The military situation was gravely deteriorating for Germany partly because Germany. The Kaiser did not attack France in 1905 when Britain had a tiny army and Russia was in chaos. That was the craziest thing he did as leader.

G. Poulin , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine Kingship without having Divine Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad distribution of wealth. But he also says that the oligarchy makes the laws and appoints the "elected" lawmakers. So he's engaged in an exercise in wishful thinking. There is no democratic path to his desired result.
jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 12:16 pm GMT
An excellent tour de force completely relevant to the major problems we face today, so thank you , Ron Unz!

and turn the government into a vehicle to help them exploit the rest of society.

It's extremely obvious that's is exactly what our "constitution" was designed to do. Hudson's insistence that debt must be government controlled runs into the problem consistently, which both he and the interviewer discuss.

Essentially, the problem is that whoever gets the power will abuse it. "The government" is no more a disinterested group of parties than the oligarchs or the plutocrats. The best answer is to have a noble ruling class, but good luck with that; it will never happen at least on a permanent basis.

So what's the answer? I wish I knew

The best [the Greek philosophers] could do was to inspire and educate individuals

I highly doubt anyone can do much more, but the last thing to do is to hope for some Messiah, especially a rich one. Are you tRumpeteers listening?

PS: I liked the mention of Aristophanes. All of his plays are as instructive as they are amusing and should be read by all. Same with Lucian of Samosata and Juvenal to mention just a few.

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 12:39 pm GMT
JS said: "Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation will make things worse,"

Er, no, most people do not "think" that [ if they "think" at all].

They mostly "think" the exact opposite.

Due to their public [ie government funded] er,"education" [ie brainwashing], they are actually dumb enough to believe that more government, and more regulations will make things better for them, despite the fact that more than any other factor, it is the size and scope of government that has directly caused the financial problems most of them are now experiencing. "Stupid is a stupid does".

In fact, more, bigger government and more regulations will only further increase poverty and make things even worse for them all than they are today.

This just in:

"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree

Government doesn't work" Harry Browne

"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock

"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

Regards, onebornfree

Externality Combustion , says: April 7, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT
Regarding global warming: Given that " just five to six degrees in average global warming would be enough to wipe out most life on the planet ," and realizing that the Trump Administration's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has already acquiesced to 4°C by 2100 , it is apparent that by 2125 to 2150 or soon thereafter, humanity will be over, guaranteed. Probably much sooner. Even completely destroying industrial civilization right now won't stop the 6th Mass Extinction, because of McPherson's Paradox .
David , says: April 7, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMT

There was no concept of linear progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only one way to do things, so any reform must be the way the world was meant to be in the very beginning.

The Hebrews had their liberation from captivity, Hesiod had his three prior ages "before there was iron," Odysseus travels the world observing the various ways of men, Plato envisions a radical transformation of human society, Aristotle compares the constitutions of various Greek city-states, Thucydides resorts to archaeology to show that the Athenians were not the original inhabitants of the Attic Peninsula.

It's not difficult to come up with what seem to be counter examples to Hudson's assertion that there was no "linear progress" and no vision of other ways of doing things in Antiquity. Ancient Mediterranean societies did see humanity as moving in a direction, evolving by discovery and by making new institutions to address novel problems.

jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 1:09 pm GMT
@Sean

but that thing about the Kaiser is a bad mistake.

I found that peculiar as well. Another thing that was out of place was the "deification" of Teddy Roosevelt and his so called trust busting as well as FDR's continuously "evolving" New Deals. Both Roosevelts and their programs were tRump-like frauds whose main interest was self aggrandizement at whatever cost.

Like tRump, the rhetoric was grand but the motive and execution left much to be desired. While I get what Hudson is saying when he sez "there oughta be a law," I think history has proven, repeatedly, that while there's a possibility that there ought to be one, it's not likely it'll do much good, and certainly no permanent good.

Great article nevertheless.

DESERT FOX , says: April 7, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
The greatest debt creator in the history of America is the zionists privately owned FED and the zionist owned central banks in every country in the world that create money out of thin air and charge the goyim/proles for the use of this zionist created charade, which started in 1913 here in the zio/US with the diabolical draconian demonic FED.

Free America, abolish the FED and return to government created , debt free money as was the case prior to December 23, 1913!

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 1:22 pm GMT
@Externality Combustion Externality Combustion says: "it is apparent that by 2125 to 2150 or soon thereafter, humanity will be over, guaranteed."

Hmm .Unless we all vote for . who exactly[who promises to do what, exactly]?

Who's gonna be our saviour, according to you, pray tell ?

Regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 2:39 pm GMT
@G. Poulin G. Poulin says: "Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine Kingship without having Divine Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad distribution of wealth. "

Yup. The whole, as per usual, "benevolent dictator" fantasy writ large, yet once again. It never stops.

You'd think that by now, this late in the game, and given history, that most people would have finally figured out that government "solutions" never worked , and never can, or will.

But no, luckily for governments, there's always a plentiful supply of new, brainwashed dreamer/fantasists [or "suckers" as P.T Barnum reportedly called them], who are ever more eager for a government that does what they think it should do, and who "think" that it/they actually will, despite all the historical evidence directly contradicting their inane fantasies.

See: "Why Government Doesn't Work" by Harry Browne:
https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Why_Government_Doesn%27t_Work

Regards, onebornfree

jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:00 pm GMT

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the
government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the
government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of
kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

–Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801.

" idealists and realists begin to get on each other's nerves. But the real difference is in the capacity for appreciating the immense gap of blue inane which separates earth from heaven, and in the realist's unwillingness to assume that men have angels' wings. "

– Walter Lippman, Angels to the Rescue, The New Republic, January 1, 1916, p. 221 –

Human nature is still human nature. The angels haven't started breeding yet.

– William Allen White, Graft and Human Nature, review of Public Plunder, by David G. Loth, The Saturday Review, October 1, 1938, p. 6

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:24 pm GMT
@onebornfree oneborn free, your screed is you projecting fears about abusive government.

Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly constructed government that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize toward creditors if certain safeguards are not put in place.

So, you will have to come to grips with your cognitive dissonance.

Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role." Anything outside of that role is government overstepping its bounds.

By providing the framework, Hudson is doing the world a tremendous service, and as such he will go down as one of the great men of history.

New glasses are being put on your nose, but you prefer to wear your old glasses that make you see improperly?

It reminds me of all the wishful thinking about China, how their ghost cities are going to do them in, and their economy cannot keep doing so well, and so on. It is people not believing what is right in front of their eyes, or their inability to see outside of their brainwashed mentality.

Wally , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:44 pm GMT
@obwandiyag No, Hudson is a Communist.
MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:49 pm GMT
Hudson says that public banks are an option for erasing debts.

China does this now with their state banks, which is one of their secret weapons.

In the mid 90's China swept all of their old communist era debt into the trash can. This then made their "books" look good to Western Finance standards, and China was essentially given MFN status.

Then it was game on! Wall Street soon greenmailed American industry to leave for China, to then get some of that wage arbitrage. We are living in the aftermath of this civilization destroying decision making by our ruling finance class.

China has helped the wall street finance class loot America, as China creates new Yuans from their state banks to match their countries growth rate. These new Yuans have to be there in order to swap for dollars won in trade. The dollars end up in China's state banks, and are recycled back to the U.S. to buy TBills instead of buying goods from mainstreet.

Today and reality is staring you in the face. Look at it. America's finance class did indeed export jobs and our patrimony, and china did indeed use their public banking system. China is working for their people's benefit, while a traitor class of finance oligarchy is working against the public interest in America.

Those of you who are against Public banks need to get real and look at actual data. For example, the bank of North Dakota is a public bank and has a good track record. Please, use data and think for yourself rather than being a brainwashed dupe.

Another way is to continue to use PRIVATE BANKS, and have public money. The money supply is nationalized, not the bank. All new money comes into being from a monetary authority or Treasury as per the constitution. Banks then become gyro, which is a fancy word for inter-mediation. Banks stop making money with a new debt instrument, but instead only match up new creditors and debtors with existing money.

Within each private bank are two piles of numbers: 1) Pile A is people's savings, which preferably was debt free at inception 2) Pile B is government credit, or national credit.

National Credit can be channeled toward specific goals that the country has agreed is in its interests.

You as a debtor can borrow from either pile. The national credit creates a debt instrument that can be easily jubileed in the same easy way as could a debt instrument hypothecated at a public bank.

Public banks to my mind are a little too close to government even though they have a good history. Nationalizing the money supply instead is better. Why? A good percentage of supply becomes floating money (debt free) and this component becomes a permanent inheritance to the people, giving them freedom to do commerce. An economically free people are also politically free.

Externality Combustion , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@onebornfree Savior? Nothing can stop what has been set in motion, namely, Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction, as the climate shifts rapidly to a New Cretaceous "hothouse" climate. Neither voting nor your anarchism can invalidate scientific evidence. Apparently, you can't read, because McPherson's Paradox explains humanity's conundrum in plain terms: (a) continuing to evaporate Earth's coal beds and oil fields into the atmosphere ensures our quick extinction from global warming, and (b) stopping fossil fuel use only hastens our demise, because of "global masking effect" or " global dimming ." Do you really think that evaporating coal beds and oil fields into the atmosphere has no consequences?

"[T]heir complete extinction (in the co-extinction scenario) was abrupt, and happened far from their tolerance limits, and close to global diversity collapse ( around 5 °C of heating )"

Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change (Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 16724, published 13 November 2018) http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1

Remember, Trump has already promised 4 °C of heating is baked into the cake, and stopping fossil fuel use would remove the "global dimming" effect of air pollution and lead to a near instantaneous rise of 2°C. A true paradox has no solution.

Biff , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
@onebornfree You're a broken record that needs to be tossed up in the air in front of a twelve gauge.
flashlight joe , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS @MEFOBILLS

Very good and well thought out reply.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 6:07 pm GMT
@onebornfree Young man (I'm guessing):

1. Please use your commenting privilege to address the substance of the articles. The sentence that you first quote is ancillary to this one, but you've plucked it out as a wedge for your umpteenth anarchic strut.

2. Why so frequently insulting? I happen to share your general perspective, but if you're prosletyzing your style stinks.

3. If nothing else, please realize that you only need to piss once on each hydrant to leave your mark.

Stern , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
Sorry for my English. Could anyone write about whether or not there is a consolidated influence of the Zionist Jewish community within China?
strikelawyer , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 7:03 pm GMT
Can't we just solve our problems with a constitutional amendment?

https://strikelawyer.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/homestead-amendment-just-the-text/

niteranger , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:17 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The Control of Economies by the Magic Jews." The Jews control all pathways including media, social and economic which they will never relinquish because with the money they make they control the world's politicians by using the greed of mankind against them.

The Jews use the Holocaust to intimidate stupid whites in Western Civilization with guilt and control everything including our foreign policy to immigration. Civilization will not survive as long as the power of the Jews continue to rule mankind.

tz1 , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy Consider that a 10 year loan at 4% now would then have a fee (simple, not even compound interest) of 40% of the principle.

It defeats the purpose of a loan paying over time. Even the 20% down is for equity, not prepayment of interest.

Or you could simply roll the fees in. There is a House for sale for $200,000. The bank buys it but then to get ownership with lein, and you have to pay the bank $300,000 to cover everything (do you get any equity before going positive?).

How about just saving money including gold in your mattress until you can afford something?

tz1 , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:22 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost their homes
jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:55 pm GMT
@Stern

Sorry for my English. Could anyone write about whether or not there is a consolidated influence of the Zionist Jewish community within China?

Your English is fine, and your question excellent.

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:28 pm GMT
@niteranger

Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The Control of Economies by the Magic Jews."

Hudson does but in a peripheral way. See below. Our (((friends))) like to use their capital rather than labor. They use usury as a weapon, and tend to be among the Oligarch class. Why? Because their religion gives cover and sanction for predatory behavior. Note that our friends adore Hillel. Jewish religion went off the rails after Hillel, and is now an apologist for the creditor class, and hence against a balanced logos type world.

Hudson cannot go after the Jews, but I can and so can you. It is ok to point out where Jewish ideology becomes "Crime Inc." In fact, I find the most moral people to be anti-semites, so Hudson who obviously has a strong moral basis, is smart enough to NOT touch the Jewish third rail, or he would become persona non-grata.

There is no question Hudson possesses a first class mind, and by not touching the third rail he is preserving his career. It is up to us to decode what he is saying and we can be more blunt about things.

You don't have to be Jewish to be a predator, and by association most of us can decode what he is saying.

MH: Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign this clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and the rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about

Sean , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
@jacques sheete He also seems very keen on China's policy. From what I can make out this is because the government loans the money and can cancel the debt. So China being locked into growth by massively Keynesian policies that cannot be haltet for fear of global economic collapse is a good thing it seems. Hmmm.
jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:34 pm GMT
@flashlight joe Yes it is. I prefer his second option.
MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:38 pm GMT
@tz1 Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost their homes

______________________________________________________

Yes of course. It would have been much better to take over the banks and give the "bond holders" a haircut.

What the haircut means is that the debt instrument cannot make claims on the future. The amount it can claim is written down to what the real economy can pay.

Our financial oligarchy did not want to take a haircut, and since they own the government, they made their politician puppets dance.

We cannot see what is in the bill till we pass the bill.

Some here have pointed out that democracy is a joke. Yes it is. Universal Suffrage democracy, where any rube can vote is especially bad.

You do need a ruling class which looks like the people it rules over. This ruling class also has to be servants of their people.

China's ruling class is constantly polling their people to get data on how they are doing. If a politician is found to be corrupt, they are killed or ejected. Think of it like your body, bad elements and parasites are attacked by the immune system, otherwise you (the host) will die.

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
@Biff "You're a broken record that needs to be tossed up in the air in front of a twelve gauge."

Seem like a lot of trouble to go to – especially as I might be carrying a 12 gauge, or similar, myself

This just in:
there's an "ignore" button – I suggest you learn how to use it.

No regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 8:52 pm GMT
@anonymous anonymous[340] • Disclaimer says: " your style stinks. "

I happen to like to "stink". Get used to it, get over it, or use the "ignore" button.

No regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMT
@Wally Wally says: "No, Hudson is a Communist."

Yes, that appears to be the case.

But regardless of whether the "commniunist" label is completely accurate or not, he's just yet another in a long line of naive intellectuals who thinks that the government can solve problems, problems it alone created.

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

Regards, onebornfree

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:59 pm GMT
@tz1 Fee's on a loan should cover the bank's cost, which is a tiny fraction of what they take now in the form of usury.

Think closely on this, the bank makes a loan, and it is only a matter of typing of a debt instrument. Today with computers that amounts to a few minutes of work. They then on-sale the debt instrument to another, usually TBTF bank, and get rid of any risk.

The better way is for people to pool their savings, and the bank is gyro. Debtor then buys a house borrowing your savings. The old savings and loan system worked like this.

In Canada, when they had a sovereign banking system (1938 to 1974) they used trusts. Banks were not allowed to hypothecate new housing loans. Trusts and savings and loans both pool existing money and loan it out.

It was a beneficial cycle where the young borrowed from the old, and the old benefited from some interest income, to then buy goods and services produced by the young.

Interest isn't always bad, but you have to look at it in context. About 70% of debt instruments resident at banks are hypothecated against land. This is so finance oligarchy can GRAB THE LAND in a depression via swaps or other schemes. Depressions are inevitable when M2 is always draining to pay debts at interest.

In the case of Canada's trust system, the interest was cycling back to the young (interest was pointing outward to the population) to buy goods and services they produced.

onebornfree , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:18 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly constructed government that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize toward creditors if certain safeguards are not put in place.So, you will have to come to grips with your cognitive dissonance. Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role." Anything outside of that role is government overstepping its bounds."

Short answer: "The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role.""

This just in: it's "proper role" [ in the US] was already [supposedly ]"set" via the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and more famously via a coup d'etat which resulted in the scam called "The Constitution and Bill of Rights" .

Although the Constitution remains a scam to this day, a return to its supposed limits would, at least temporarily, drastically downsize the federal government, which would be step in the right direction.

For government is the problem, never the solution.

But of course, yourself [and most others here] remain too brainwashed [by the government, and with your money] to ever understand that

regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 9:23 pm GMT
@onebornfree Correction: "communist" , not "commniunist". My bad.
Sollipsist , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:37 pm GMT
Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations (which were impressive) as an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a gateway to hell on earth).
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:38 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy As a matter of logic aren't those creators of money reducing the value of the money held by those who have saved to get it? So doesn't fairness require that they use interest rates to maimtain the stability of the currency's value?
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:49 pm GMT
@Max So you advocate euthanasia (when you are feeling nice rather than cruel and vengeful) of the rapidly increasing retired population? Understood that you need to support the infant generation but Hitler had the answer for that one didn't he: euthanasia of those who wouldn't be able to contribute. How long do we indulge people with an unemployment benefit?
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMT
@Sean Thank you. Even if I conclude the BS component is high, you have given me thoughts to follow up
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Which US subsidy programs might be regarded as proleptic jubilees? And writeoffs like that massive solar energy disaster under Obama are surely equivalent to the jubilees. And welfare payments are surely jubilees in advance.
anon [420] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:06 pm GMT
@niteranger The Control of Economies by the Magic Jews? But do we Gentiles not owe our material wealth to the Jews for the blessing they've provided us ? Whites are utterly incapable of providing their own salvation .
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:32 pm GMT
Yup! kings forgave debts.
.
When they needed suckers to fight and die for them.
onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 10:34 pm GMT
@Sollipsist Sollipsist says: "Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations (which were impressive) as an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a gateway to hell on earth)."

Wrongo. Marx's economic theories were as as idiotic as his social prescriptions- in fact, his "social prescriptions" were directly derived from his idiotic economic theories, which is exactly why such "social prescriptions" are, as you say, "a gateway to hell on earth".

As for the author of this article , pure Marxist or not, his own "social prescriptions" are, like Marx's , the mere pontifications of a pseudo-intellectual statist, fantasizing about solving social problems via that which he worships and adores , that is , yet more government [of the "right" kind, mind you, and despite its obvious failure to do any such thing to date].

Another case of "the blind leading the blind", I'm afraid, just more of the same old hackneyed "government should do this- government can solve this " claptrap .

.and so it goes.

Regards, onebornfree

republic , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:43 pm GMT
@Max https://archive.org/details/TheSumerianSwindle/page/n1
MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT
@Wally

No, Hudson is a Communist.

Hudson spent half the article talking about mixed economies being the best and only type to work.

Also, it was the JEWISH CREDITOR CLASS, that funded Bolshevism. Wall Street Jews and some London money funded the Bolsheviks.

Bolshevism in turn was not what Marx had intended.

Marx thought that industrial capitalism, especially that of the type he witnessed in Germany, would evolve into an advanced form of socialism mixed economy. It would evolve after industrial capitalism failed, or industrial capitalism would have evolved.

Instead, finance capitalism, that of the rentier credit class won out .

When Marx died, he said "I am a most unhappy man."

Instead of getting caught up in labels, look at the data or what they actually believe in. It takes a little bit more energy and effort, rather than falling for simple platitudes.

Hudson's childhood background was Bolshevik, but he didn't pick his parents. If you look at his actual body of work, he is analyzing where all economic systems fail.

Russian and Chinese communism failed because markets are not purely inelastic. You cannot pretend that every market type needs government control, especially when pricing signals will work. Systems that are predicated on lies, will not survive in the long term.

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:57 pm GMT
@onebornfree

For government is the problem, never the solution.

Simple minded platitudes.

ALL COMPLEX SYSTEMS HAVE HIERARCHY!

All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.

There has to be a "brain" for any complex organization, it will not self organize.

This whole market is your god, or gold is your god is the rentier class duping you with hypnosis.

Funny thing about Libertarian-tards and their junk economics, the very thing they want they cannot have because their ideology brings about what they don't want – economic slavery.

Free markets are free for the rentier to take his gains on your life energy and turn you into his debt slave.

OH BUT MY FREE-DUMB.

Anonymous [184] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:08 pm GMT
@onebornfree Your LoLbertarianism has the same stupid goal as Marxism, i.e., achieving glorious stateless society.

• "Withering away of the state" is a Marxist concept
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state

• Both anarchists and Marxists seek a stateless society
http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/06/marxist-view-of-the-state

• This is the "anarchy" of the future stateless society which Marx and Engels had accepted in 1872. Man becomes "his own master – free". The first condition for this full-fledged freedom is: freedom from the state, not of the state, nor merely in the state. As far as Marx's eye could see, the state is not the guarantor of freedom
http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1970/xx/state.html

You and Marx are cut from the same cloth.

Sam J. , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:08 pm GMT
This is one the most brilliant things I've ever read here. I've read a great deal about the various facts and events Mr. Hudson talks about but I've never been able to put them together like Mr. Hudson. He's provided a framework for realizing how all these seemingly disparate events fit together. I'm very grateful.
Anon [277] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:26 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz Retirees weren't regarded as parasites by National Socialism, Schlomo. Your parasitic ilk, however, were.

"The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance , rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes the NSV often refused to provide aid to Jews " – National Socialist People's Welfare

Alfred , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:32 pm GMT
return from Babylon

This is fake history. Mythology becoming history. A Jewish speciality.

1- The Jews were never in Ancient Egypt – or the Egyptians would have documented it.

2- There is absolutely no archeological artifact from the Palestine region that show that they were there before their exile. Plenty of proof that the Egyptians had been there earlier on.

3- Palestine was desert at that time and had been abandoned by the Egyptians as it was infertile – not a land of milk and honey. Yemen was agricultural and prosperous.

4- The Jews were exiled from Yemen – because they and non-Jewish Arabs (the Jews and Arabs were the same people at that time), continued to raid the caravans bringing goods from Yemen to Petra. The Babylonians punished them by taking them back to Babylon. After the Persians liberated them, some went back to Yemen and some went to Palestine.

5- Locations in the Old Testament correspond to places in Yemen and Hejaz. Even their names.

lysias , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:06 am GMT
The best counter to Robert Michels's iron law of oligarchy (whatever the ostensible form of government, it turns out in practice to be oligarchic rule by the group that has the real power) was devised by Cleisthenes in Athens shortly before 500 B.C.: give power to average citizens by appointing to offices ordinary citizens randomly chosen. It worked, as is shown by how deeply resented it was by oligarchs like Plato.
lysias , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:08 am GMT
@Alfred Mythical history can have a profound effect on the people who believe in the myth.
lysias , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:13 am GMT
@MEFOBILLS Doctrinaire idolators of the laissez-faire mythology have a habit of calling anyone who disagrees with their dogmas Communist.
wayfarer , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT

Executive Order 6102

Is a U.S. Presidential Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933 , by President Franklin D. Roosevelt forbidding the hoarding of gold within the continental United States .

It required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve , in exchange for $20.67 (consumer price index, adjusted value of $400 today) per troy ounce. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the recently passed Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 (equivalent to $193,548 today) or up to ten years in prison, or both .

Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art", a provision that covered artists, jewelers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins (a face value equivalent to 5 troy ounces (160 g) of gold valued at about $6,339 in 2016).

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

onebornfree , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 1:38 am GMT
@MEFOBILLS MEFOBILLS says: "All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.There has to be a "brain" for any complex organization, it will not self organize. "

So presumably, a half wit such as yourself knows exactly what that hierarchy should be, who the "brain" "should" be and exactly what and where everyone's "correct" place within it "should" be, because people cannot self organize.

Sieg Heil, mein fuhrer! You're an even dumber sheep than I had initially suspected!

"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree

"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock

"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

No regards, onebornfree

mcohen , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@Alfred Alfie.

5th century bc jewish settlement.Common knowledge amongst the Chosen.This where we learnt the secrets of the gateways to the soul.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:45 am GMT
There are several problems with Dr. Hudson's views here. Some have referenced some. I would point out that we already have laws and practices to restrict the use of wealth from impoverishing the population. But you have to have a leadership willing to enforce or apply them. We have had no less than three major financial bailouts of the financial class in the US. And at no time was the bailout extended to the industries consumers. I am unclear what the prescription is to divorce the political class from the financial class.

The only new law that would make sense are laws that bar legislators from owning, stocks, sitting on the boards of stocks or any financial institution they manage. And that would have to extend to all immediate family members. Further, one has to completely cut off funds from lobbyists, activists and the corporate class entities.

The economy is already comprised of mixed practices: private ownership and wealth creation, government employment, non-profit entities and taxation and other programs that assist citizens, i.e. welfare

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:53 am GMT
The one over riding observation I would make about the economy is that we continue to have a trade imbalance, which according to an old rule of thumb suggests that economy is not really growing.
annamaria , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:08 am GMT
@G. Poulin Mr. Hudson makes his contribution towards the greater good by educating the populace. What's your problem? -- He is not a fairy. He is a knowledgeable and honest person; the former requires a lot of willpower, the second requires courage.
utu , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:45 am GMT
@MEFOBILLS Libertarians were invented and constructed on purpose to serve as the useful idiots of oligarchs whom they worship and do everything to protect their right to be oligarchs while at the same time being sodomized by them.
Anonymous [570] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:56 am GMT
@onebornfree The Government of the State is people self-organizing. Who else organized it, the dogs?
restless94110 , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:24 am GMT
I am very happy to read this interview, because for me, this is the first time that I have completely understood Michael Hudson's work. And I say this after watching countless of his interviews over the past 8 years.

Before this interview here, I had always wanted to ask him if the Clean Slate policies disappeared over 3000 years ago, then what was he saying in his books and lectures? If the entirety of Western Civilization is based on oligarchy, rentiers, then what hope is there for anything? I mean the Romans lasted a thousand years doing this rentier stuff. That's a long time for misery.

Now, with this interview I understand more fully the period after the Civil War and into the FDR Presidency as a partially-successful attempt to make things in the country different, more egalitarian, more correct. And after this interview, I understand Hudson's main point: the road to change lies in understanding the failures of antiquity.

Looking at things through the rentier oligarchy lens has been the revelation in my life in the past 10 years. I never undeststood Chile & Allende until then. Likewise with antiquity and likewise with the history of the United States. But those of us who do understand these things, thanks in great part to Michael Hudson, are few.

As part of a very late stage college degree I earned 4 years ago, I took an Econ class in my last semester. The class featured certain films as it related to economics and that was indeed very interesting (I had never seen Coppola's "Tucker: The Man And His Dream" before so that was "entertaining"), but the text book for the class was Friedman. I read it and could not believe how dunderheaded, how wrong it was. And I realized from communication with the professor that he believed all of it. His attitude seemed to be: who are you to question economics orthodoxy, you uppity undergrad.

This interview above was both enlightening and depressing. How many decades longer do we have to go before things change?

[Apr 07, 2019] What Monroe Doctrine

Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

What Monroe Doctrine?

by Tyler Durden Sun, 04/07/2019 - 08:10 94 SHARES Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Because there is a presidential election coming up next year, the Donald Trump Administration appears to be looking for a country that it can attack and destroy in order to prove its toughness and willingness to go all the way in support of alleged American interests. It is a version of the old neocon doctrine attributed to Michael Ledeen, the belief that every once in a while, it is necessary to pick out some crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to demonstrate that the United States means business.

"Meaning business" is a tactic whereby the adversary surrenders immediately in fear of the possible consequences, but there are a couple of problems with that thinking.

The first is that an opponent who can resist will sometimes balk and create a continuing problem for the United States, which has a demonstrated inability to start and end wars in any coherent fashion.

This tendency to get caught in a quagmire in a situation that might have been resolved through diplomacy has been exacerbated by the current White House's negotiating style, which is to both demand and expect submission on all points even before discussions begin. That was clearly the perception with North Korea, where National Security Advisor John Bolton insisted that Pyongyang had agreed to American demands over its nuclear program even though it hadn't and would have been foolish to do so for fear of being treated down the road like Libya, which denuclearized but then was attacked and destroyed seven years later. The Bolton mis-perception, which was apparently bought into by Trump, led to a complete unraveling of what might actually have been accomplished if the negotiations had been serious and open to reasonable compromise right from the beginning.

Trump's written demand that Kim Jong Un immediately hand over his nuclear weapons and all bomb making material was a non-starter based on White House misunderstandings rooted in its disdain for compromise. The summit meeting with Trump, held in Hanoi at the end of February, was abruptly canceled by Kim and Pyongyang subsequently accused Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of making "gangster-like" demands.

The second problem is that there are only a few actual casus belli situations under international law that permit a country to attack another preemptively, and they are usually limited to actual imminent threats. The current situation with Venezuela is similar to that with North Korea in that Washington is operating on the presumption that it has a right to intervene and bring about regime change, using military force if necessary, because of its presumed leadership role in global security, not because Caracas or even Pyongyang necessarily is threatening anyone. That presumption that American "exceptionalism" provides authorization to intervene in other countries using economic weapons backed up by a military option that is "on the table" is a viewpoint that is not accepted by the rest of the world.

In the case of Venezuela, where Trump has dangerously demanded that Russia withdraw the hundred or so advisors that it sent to help stabilize the country, the supposition that the United States has exclusive extra-territorial rights is largely based on nineteenth and early twentieth century unilaterally declared "doctrines." The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 de facto established the United States as the hegemon-presumptive for the entire Western Hemisphere, stretching from the Arctic Circle in the north to Patagonia in the south.

John Bolton has been the leader in promoting the Monroe Doctrine as justification for Washington's interference in Venezuela's politics, apparently only dimly aware that the Doctrine, which opposed any attempts by European powers to establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere, was only in effect for twenty-two years when the United States itself annexed Texas and then went to war with Mexico in the following year

[Apr 07, 2019] Was Ending The Draft A Grave Mistake Zero Hedge

Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Major Danny Sjursen (ret.) via TruthDig.com,

I spent last week at Angelo State University in remote central Texas as a panelist for the annual All-Volunteer Force (AVF) Forum . It was a strange forum in many ways, but nonetheless instructive. I was the youngest (and most progressive) member, as well as the lowest-ranking veteran among a group of leaders and speakers that included two retired generals, the chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a few former colonels and several academics. Despite having remarkably diverse life experiences and political opinions, all concluded that America's all-volunteer military is not equitable, efficient or sustainable. The inconvenient truth each of the panel participants had the courage to identify is that the end of the draft in the U.S. had many unintended -- and ultimately tragic -- consequences for the republic.

... ... ...

Wildly Inefficient

Contrary to early optimistic promises, the U.S. military since 1973 sports a poor efficiency record . Especially since 9/11 -- the real first test of the new system -- American armed forces have produced exactly zero victories. Prior to the World Trade Center attack, it can be argued that a much larger AVF crushed Saddam Hussein's poorly led and equipped Iraqi army in 1991, but it's important to remember that that war was an anomaly -- Saddam's troops fought us in an open desert, without any air support, and according to the conventional tactics the U.S. military had been training against for years. I also refuse to count the imperial punishments inflicted on Panama (1989) and Grenada (1983) as victories, because neither was a necessary or even a fair fight. Besides, the invasion of the tiny island of Grenada was more fiasco than triumph .

Worst of all, the AVF is inefficient because it enables the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, ensuring high costs and much wear and tear on equipment and personnel. The lack of a draft means the loss of what the co-founder of the AVF Forum, retired Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich, calls "skin in the game." When the citizenry isn't subjected to the possibility of military service, it becomes apathetic, ignores foreign affairs and fails to pressure Congress to check presidential war powers. Without this check, president after president -- Democrats and Republicans -- have centralized control of foreign affairs in what has resulted in increasingly imperial presidencies . With its huge budget, professional flexibility and can-do attitude, the military has become the primary -- in some ways, the only -- tool in America's arsenal as presidents move living, breathing soldiers around the world like so many toy soldiers.

Completely Unsustainable

The AVF could also bankrupt us, or, at the very least, crash the economy. Thanks to the influence of the military-industrial complex and the militarization of foreign policy, U.S. defense budgets have soared into the stratosphere. At present, America spends more than $700 billion on defense -- a figure greater than all domestic discretionary spending and larger than the combined budgets of the next seven largest militaries . As the Vietnam War should have taught us, skyrocketing military spending without concurrent tax increases often results in not only massive debt but crippling inflation. After 18 years of forever global war without any meaningful increase in taxation on the nation's top earners, get ready for the next crash. Trying to stay a hegemon (a dubious proposition in the first place) with rising deficits and a paralyzing national debt is a recipe for failure and, ultimately, disaster.

As recent recruitment shortfalls show, getting volunteers may not be a sustainable certainty either. This also increases costs -- the military has had to train more full-time recruiters, pay cash bonuses for enlistment and retention, and hire extremely expensive civilian contractors to fill in operational gaps overseas. Nor can the AVF count on getting the best and brightest Americans in the long term. With elites opting out completely and fewer Americans possessing the combination of capacity -- only 30 percent of the populace is physically/mentally qualified for the military -- and propensity to serve, where will the military find the foot soldiers and cyberwarriors it needs in the 21st century?

In sum, throughout this century the U.S. military has won zero wars, achieved few, if any, "national goals" and cost Americans $5.9 trillion tax dollars, more than 7,000 troop deaths, and tens of thousands more wounded soldiers. It has cost the world 480,000 direct war-related deaths , including 244,000 civilians, and created 21 million refugees. Talk about unsustainable.

An Unpopular Proposal

At the recent forum, Laich proposed an alternative to the current volunteer system. To ensure fairness, efficiency and sustainability, the U.S. could create a lottery system (with no college or other elite deferments) that gives draftees three options :

Additionally, this lottery would apply to both men and women, and would require only one combat deployment from each reservist. Whether or not one agrees with this idea, it would create a more egalitarian, representative, affordable and sustainable national defense tool. Furthermore, with the children of bankers, doctors, lawyers and members of Congress subject to service, the government might think twice before embarking on the next foolish, unwinnable military venture.

Few Americans, however, are likely to be comfortable delegating the power of conscription to a federal government they inherently distrust. Still, paradoxically, the move toward a no-deferment, equitable lottery draft might result in a nation less prone to militarism and adventurism than the optional AVF has. Parents whose children are subject to military service, as well as young adults themselves, might prove to be canny students of foreign policy who would actively oppose the next American war. Imagine that: an engaged citizenry that holds its legislators accountable and subsequently hits the streets to oppose unnecessary and unethical war. Ironic as it may seem, more military service may actually be the only workable formula for less war. Too bad returning to a citizens' military is as unpopular as it is unlikely.

[Apr 07, 2019] Yet another piece of Kushner's "Deal of the Century"

Apr 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"The king said that the plan was dangerous and not simple to implement, in particular the part relating to the land swaps in Tzofar, a moshav in the Arava desert, and Naharayim, where Jordan conquered in 1948 the Island of Peace and a hydroelectric power-plant that belonged to Israel.

According to the Trump proposal, Jordan would receive from Saudi Arabia an area equal in size to these territories which Israel would reacquire.

In addition, Jordan has been asked to take in a million "Palestinian" refugees in several stages, in return for $45 billion in investments.

Jordan's entire GDP is only $40 billion. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will finance these investments."

Jewish Press

--------------

The full "good deal of the century" will evidently be revealed after the Israeli election. Pieces of the "good deal of the century" have previously been revealed. The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem has been followed by endless Palestinian waves of self immolation along the Gaza "dead line." This will continue indefinitely unless the Beebster or his successor decide to re-occupy Gaza to stop Palestinian rockets reaching Tel Aviv. Now, that would be a spectacle.

Another piece of "The Kushner Plan" was the cession by the US of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel. The justification for this was that the Israelis hold it by force of arms. Syria, of, course does not accept the US transfer of title deed to part of its territory. These two things are typical of Trump's NY City real estate methodology. In his mind he is systematically taking points of contention off "the bargaining table" so that he can "close" over what's left. This latest "offer" made to Jordan is part of what is left.

Perhaps some savant can explain what the various parts of this "partial good deal" mean. " A million Palestinians?" Where would they come from? Would they be round up for transportation to The East? Saudi Arabia would transfer land to Jordan? Where? On the Gulf of Akabah coast near Tabuk? Really?

The Saudis and Gulfies would cough up $45 billion for investments in Jordan? To do what? Tourism? Really?

And who would own these enterprises? Lebanon will give its citizenship to the hordes of Palestinian descended people who inhabit the country? They have firmly resisted this for decades. Explain all this, someone. pl

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/al-akhbar-trump-wants-jordan-to-take-in-1-million-palestinians/2019/04/05/


blue peacock , an hour ago

Would King Abdullah accept any of Kushner's offers? He knows that at best Kushner will be around for another 6 years. What happens after? Recent history (past 50 years) shows that the US can't be trusted in any deal.
jdledell , 18 hours ago
According to people I talk with in Israel, when Israel takes over the West Bank the Palestinians would not be offerred Israeli Citizenship or national voting rights. The theory is Israel is not annexing the West Bank but just acting as a Civil Administrator. A semantic justification but Israel would have total control over the West Bank and it's people.
Barbara Ann , 18 hours ago
"Would they be round up for transportation to The East?"

Well that would be the irony to end all ironies; the sight of Jews rounding up millions of citizens, whom the Israeli Reich considers it is better off without. Whoops, forgot we are not supposed to make comparisons with the folk whose own Deal of the Century was aimed at bringing about their ethnically pure state.

Colonel, I wonder, how is this brazen collusion with Zionists likely to go down with the regular people of the Gulf states. Have MbS' bread and forthcoming circuses replaced all solidarity with the Ummah, or might we see some resistance to this planned grand betrayal of the Palestinians?

Keith Harbaugh , a day ago
Why would KSA give some of its land to Jordan? Why would "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states" finance those "investments"? I don't understand what's in this for SA and the Gulfies.
Pat Lang Mod -> Keith Harbaugh , 21 hours ago
Sucking up to Israel.
Rob Calvert -> Pat Lang , 26 minutes ago
We might recall that the King of Jordan, heir to the Hashemite kingdom, asserted his historical claim and authority over the two holy cities (Mecca and Medina) and a good part of western Saudi Arabia. His declaration to the world came about at the same time as Saddam overran Kuwait and was preparing to take the Northestern Province of Saudi Arabia and the oilfiields there. So the current 'deal of the century' would lay to rest those claims, leaving S.A. with control of the holy cities. The price would be paying off Jordan with billions and giving them some, but not nearly all the land they had claimed and now controlled by Saudi Arabia.
Fourth_And_Long -> Keith Harbaugh , 19 hours ago
Also, as per recent news items, they are getting n tech from uncle sam. Congress gas been up in arms.
John Waddell , a day ago
It gets better. Looks like an attempt to ensure that Syria can never get its land back. Striking when Syria is weak. Not sure how the other Arabs will react, if at all.

Via Middle East Monitor,

Israel is planning to settle some 250,000 settlers in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights over the next 30 years, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) revealed yesterday.

LW -> John Waddell , 16 hours ago
"Looks like an attempt to ensure that Syria can never get its land back. "

And what can the Syrians do? Help Hamas in Gaza, and make the situation intolerable for the Israelis?

[Apr 06, 2019] The Magnitsky Act-Behind the Scenes ASEEES

Highly recommended!
Money quote: "Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots that the West is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets should be built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion. But the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union. "
Notable quotes:
"... Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative. The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international organizations. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act, in my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally. ..."
"... There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent investigator or judge. ..."
Apr 06, 2019 | www.aseees.org

In 2016, Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov, a well-known Russian film-maker, playwright, theater director, and actor, released a docudrama entitled, The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes . Although the film won many artistic accolades, including a special commendation from the Prix Europa Award for a Television Documentary, public screenings were abruptly canceled in both Europe and the United States. Political pressure from various constituents and the threat of lawsuits from William Browder, the American-British billionaire and human-rights activist, ensured the limitation of the film to a single website. To the knowledge of this author, there has been only one public screening of The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes in the United States. In June 2016, Seymour Hersch, a renowned investigative journalist, presided over a showing of the film at the Newseum in Washington, DC, that generated much controversy. The American press has not been kind to either the film or the director, Andrei Nekrasov. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Daily Beast all seem to agree that the film is an overt work of Russian propaganda that aims to introduce confusion about the circumstances leading to the death of tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, in the minds of the viewers. The Putin administration, which has been the prime target of both the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Accountability Act and the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, has good reason to promote a film that questions the circumstances surrounding Magnitsky's untimely death in Moscow's Butyrka Prison in 2009.

Despite a flood of persuasive articles and editorials by well-known journalists suggesting that this inconvenient film deserves no more than a quick burial, I was drawn to reconsider both the film and the political controversy that it continues to create for two main reasons. First, as the collapse of the Soviet Union and our own recent presidential campaigns show, we can never entirely prohibit the intrusion of propaganda or politically slanted content into the public sphere. Instead, as a historian and faculty member who serves at a public university, I believe that it is my job to teach our students how to diagnose an issue, and how to consider the many sides that a story necessarily involves. As an intellectual process this has immense value both in and of itself. Source criticism is a time tested and reliable means through which we can make sense of an event or a phenomenon. Our students need to learn both the mechanics and the intellectual value of analyzing a source and should be able to evaluate the nature of political content whether it is embedded in a Facebook post, a scholarly article, or a documentary.

The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes can serve as an important vehicle to introduce the contested nature of historical truth, and as a prism, it allows us to view the multiple modes through which various versions of the truth are disseminated in the twenty-first century. Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative. The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary.

Second, I am concerned by the fact that both critics and supporters have turned the debate about the film into a referendum on William Browder, his business dealings as well as his global human rights activism, and the Putin administration. In this interview with Andrei Nekrasov, I turn the spotlight back on the film-maker, his motivations for making the film, and on his political experiences since the release of the film. It is important to remember that in the past Nekrasov has made several politically charged films including Disbelief (2004), and Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File (2007) -- films that are extremely critical of the Putin administration. Nekrasov, a student of philosophy and literature, is in the unique position of having experienced censorship in the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and in the democratic countries of Western Europe and the United States.

1) Why did you want to make a film about the Magnitsky Act? What drew you to this project?

Andrei Nekrasov : I felt that the story of Magnitsky, in its accepted version, was very powerful and important. I thought that Sergei Magnitsky was a hero, and I wanted to tell the story of the modern hero, my compatriot. His case seemed very special because Magnitsky, a tax lawyer (in reality, an accountant) had come from the world of capitalism, to symbolize all that is good and moral in modern Russia. I believed that Magnitsky did not surrender under torture and sacrificed his life fighting corruption.

2) Who has funded the making of this film and what motivated them to invest in this production?

AN : The film was produced by Piraya Film, a Norwegian company. There is a long list of funders, and none are from Russia. (Please visit www.magnitskyact.com for further information). And they are all very "mainstream." I believe in the United States and Russia it is easier to construe the specific reasons that motivate funders, who are mostly private, to support a project. In Europe, where more public money is available for the arts, the state is more or less obliged to fund the cultural process. So I submit an idea to a producer, and if they like it, they introduce it into a complex system of funding that is supposed to be politically neutral. Only quality matters, in theory. In practice "quality" has political aspects, and its interpretation is open to prejudices.

But it would be a simplification to say the film was funded because I had set out to tell Browder's version of the Magnitsky case. Those funders who were (through their commissioning editors) monitoring the editing process, ZDF/ARTE, for example, became aware of the inconsistencies in Browder's version and supported my investigation into the truth. What they did not realize was who, and what, we were all dealing with. They did not realize that Browder was supported by the entire political system of North America and Western Europe. They realized that only when they were told by politicians to stop the film. And they obeyed, contrary to what I thought was their principles.

3) How has the role of censorship, both in Russia and the West, affected your artistic career?

AN : Censorship has had a very strong and damaging impact on my career. But while censorship in Russia had never been something surprising to me, the way that the film T he Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes was treated by western politicians was totally unanticipated and shocking. Yet, intellectually, the experience was very illuminating. The pro-Western intelligentsia of Russia, a class to which I have belonged, idolizes the West and believes that the freedom of expression is an essential and even intrinsic part of Western culture. The notion that the interests of economically powerful groups can set a geopolitical agenda and that easily overrides democratic freedom of expression is considered to be a remnant of Soviet era thinking. So I had to have a direct and personal experience of Western censorship to realize that that notion is rooted in reality.

The issue of censorship in Russia is, on the other hand, often misunderstood in the West. There is no direct political censorship of the kind that existed in the Soviet Union, and that possibly exists in countries like China today. Many popular Russian news outlets are critical of the government, and of Putin personally as evidenced by the content in media outlets such as Ekho Moskvy, Novaya Gazeta, Dozhd TV, New Times, Vedomosti, Colta. ru, and others. The internet is full of mockery of Putin, his ministers and of his party's representatives. There is neither a system nor the kind of wellresourced deep state structures that control the flow of information. Many Russian media outlets, for example, repeat Browder's story of Magnitsky killed by the corrupt police with the state covering it up. All that is perfectly "allowed" while Putin angrily condemns Browder as a criminal and Browder calls himself Putin's number one enemy. In reality, it is not allowed but simply happens because of the lack of consistent political censorship.

However, you will hardly ever hear a proper analysis and criticism in the Russian media of the big corporations, and of the oligarchs that make up the state. It is also true that such acute crises as military operations, such as Russian-Georgian war of 2008 produce intolerance to the voices of the opposition. My film Russian Lessons (2008) about the suffering of the Georgians during that short war and its aftermath wasbanned in Russia. But nationalism is not only a government policy. It's the prevailing mood. The supposedly democratic leader of the opposition, that the West seems to praise and support, Alexei Navalny, was on the record insulting Georgians in jingo-nationalistic posts during the war. The film industry is, of course, easier to steer in the "right direction" as films, unlike articles and essays, are very expensive to produce. But Russia is a complex society, deeply troubled, but also misunderstood by the West. If my films, such as Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File , and Russian Lessons (2010) were attacked by pro-government media, then some of my articles were censored by the independent, "opposition" outlets, such as Ekho Moskvy .

4) Did you actually begin filming the movie with an outcome of supporting Browder's story in mind, as you represent in the film, or did you plan from the start of the filming process to end the film as it now stands?

AN : I started filming the story. I totally believed in the story that Browder had told me, and all the mainstream media repeated after him.

5) You know that there are many more "disappeared" journalists and others listed in the formal US Congress Magnitsky Act who have suffered from the effects of corrupt power in Russia. Why did you not address the fates of some of those others as well in your film?

AN : I may be misunderstanding this question, but I do not see how addressing the fates of "disappeared" journalists and others' would be relevant to the topic of my film in its final version. I obviously condemn the "disappearance" of journalists and others. In Russia journalists disappear usually by being "simply" shot (not in "sophisticated" Saudi ways), and as far as I remember only one is referred to in The Magnitsky Act , Paul Khlebnikov. He was the editor of Forbes, Russia , and was shot in 2004 when Bill Browder was a great fan of Vladimir Putin and continued to be for some time. I have not seen any evidence or even claim, that Putin may have been behind that murder. I was a friend of Anna Politkovskaya, perhaps the most famous of all Russian journalists who was assassinated in the recent past. She is featured in my film, Poisoned by Polonium .

The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international organizations.

6) Does William Browder's role in the formulation of the Magnitsky Act invalidate its value and that of the Global Magnitsky Act, in seeking to provide protection for those suffering from the effects of deadly and corrupt power such as the recently deceased Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi?

AN : Let me, for the argument's sake, pose myself what would seem like a version of your question: "Would Browder's role in creating a weapon that could protect someone like Khashoggi from deadly and corrupt power invalidate that weapon?" My answer would be, no, it would not invalidate that weapon. However, we are dealing with a fallacy here, in my humble opinion. The Magnitsky Act, in my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent investigator or judge.

Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots that the West is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets should be built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion. But the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union.

Choi Chatterjee is a Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Chatterjee, along with Steven Marks, Mary Neuberger, and Steve Sabol, edited The Wider Arc of Revolution in three volumes (Slavica Publishers).

[Apr 06, 2019] The Magnitsky Act-Behind the Scenes ASEEES

Highly recommended!
Money quote: "Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots that the West is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets should be built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion. But the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union. "
Notable quotes:
"... Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative. The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international organizations. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act, in my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally. ..."
"... There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent investigator or judge. ..."
Apr 06, 2019 | www.aseees.org

In 2016, Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov, a well-known Russian film-maker, playwright, theater director, and actor, released a docudrama entitled, The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes . Although the film won many artistic accolades, including a special commendation from the Prix Europa Award for a Television Documentary, public screenings were abruptly canceled in both Europe and the United States. Political pressure from various constituents and the threat of lawsuits from William Browder, the American-British billionaire and human-rights activist, ensured the limitation of the film to a single website. To the knowledge of this author, there has been only one public screening of The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes in the United States. In June 2016, Seymour Hersch, a renowned investigative journalist, presided over a showing of the film at the Newseum in Washington, DC, that generated much controversy. The American press has not been kind to either the film or the director, Andrei Nekrasov. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Daily Beast all seem to agree that the film is an overt work of Russian propaganda that aims to introduce confusion about the circumstances leading to the death of tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, in the minds of the viewers. The Putin administration, which has been the prime target of both the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Accountability Act and the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, has good reason to promote a film that questions the circumstances surrounding Magnitsky's untimely death in Moscow's Butyrka Prison in 2009.

Despite a flood of persuasive articles and editorials by well-known journalists suggesting that this inconvenient film deserves no more than a quick burial, I was drawn to reconsider both the film and the political controversy that it continues to create for two main reasons. First, as the collapse of the Soviet Union and our own recent presidential campaigns show, we can never entirely prohibit the intrusion of propaganda or politically slanted content into the public sphere. Instead, as a historian and faculty member who serves at a public university, I believe that it is my job to teach our students how to diagnose an issue, and how to consider the many sides that a story necessarily involves. As an intellectual process this has immense value both in and of itself. Source criticism is a time tested and reliable means through which we can make sense of an event or a phenomenon. Our students need to learn both the mechanics and the intellectual value of analyzing a source and should be able to evaluate the nature of political content whether it is embedded in a Facebook post, a scholarly article, or a documentary.

The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes can serve as an important vehicle to introduce the contested nature of historical truth, and as a prism, it allows us to view the multiple modes through which various versions of the truth are disseminated in the twenty-first century. Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative. The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary.

Second, I am concerned by the fact that both critics and supporters have turned the debate about the film into a referendum on William Browder, his business dealings as well as his global human rights activism, and the Putin administration. In this interview with Andrei Nekrasov, I turn the spotlight back on the film-maker, his motivations for making the film, and on his political experiences since the release of the film. It is important to remember that in the past Nekrasov has made several politically charged films including Disbelief (2004), and Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File (2007) -- films that are extremely critical of the Putin administration. Nekrasov, a student of philosophy and literature, is in the unique position of having experienced censorship in the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and in the democratic countries of Western Europe and the United States.

1) Why did you want to make a film about the Magnitsky Act? What drew you to this project?

Andrei Nekrasov : I felt that the story of Magnitsky, in its accepted version, was very powerful and important. I thought that Sergei Magnitsky was a hero, and I wanted to tell the story of the modern hero, my compatriot. His case seemed very special because Magnitsky, a tax lawyer (in reality, an accountant) had come from the world of capitalism, to symbolize all that is good and moral in modern Russia. I believed that Magnitsky did not surrender under torture and sacrificed his life fighting corruption.

2) Who has funded the making of this film and what motivated them to invest in this production?

AN : The film was produced by Piraya Film, a Norwegian company. There is a long list of funders, and none are from Russia. (Please visit www.magnitskyact.com for further information). And they are all very "mainstream." I believe in the United States and Russia it is easier to construe the specific reasons that motivate funders, who are mostly private, to support a project. In Europe, where more public money is available for the arts, the state is more or less obliged to fund the cultural process. So I submit an idea to a producer, and if they like it, they introduce it into a complex system of funding that is supposed to be politically neutral. Only quality matters, in theory. In practice "quality" has political aspects, and its interpretation is open to prejudices.

But it would be a simplification to say the film was funded because I had set out to tell Browder's version of the Magnitsky case. Those funders who were (through their commissioning editors) monitoring the editing process, ZDF/ARTE, for example, became aware of the inconsistencies in Browder's version and supported my investigation into the truth. What they did not realize was who, and what, we were all dealing with. They did not realize that Browder was supported by the entire political system of North America and Western Europe. They realized that only when they were told by politicians to stop the film. And they obeyed, contrary to what I thought was their principles.

3) How has the role of censorship, both in Russia and the West, affected your artistic career?

AN : Censorship has had a very strong and damaging impact on my career. But while censorship in Russia had never been something surprising to me, the way that the film T he Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes was treated by western politicians was totally unanticipated and shocking. Yet, intellectually, the experience was very illuminating. The pro-Western intelligentsia of Russia, a class to which I have belonged, idolizes the West and believes that the freedom of expression is an essential and even intrinsic part of Western culture. The notion that the interests of economically powerful groups can set a geopolitical agenda and that easily overrides democratic freedom of expression is considered to be a remnant of Soviet era thinking. So I had to have a direct and personal experience of Western censorship to realize that that notion is rooted in reality.

The issue of censorship in Russia is, on the other hand, often misunderstood in the West. There is no direct political censorship of the kind that existed in the Soviet Union, and that possibly exists in countries like China today. Many popular Russian news outlets are critical of the government, and of Putin personally as evidenced by the content in media outlets such as Ekho Moskvy, Novaya Gazeta, Dozhd TV, New Times, Vedomosti, Colta. ru, and others. The internet is full of mockery of Putin, his ministers and of his party's representatives. There is neither a system nor the kind of wellresourced deep state structures that control the flow of information. Many Russian media outlets, for example, repeat Browder's story of Magnitsky killed by the corrupt police with the state covering it up. All that is perfectly "allowed" while Putin angrily condemns Browder as a criminal and Browder calls himself Putin's number one enemy. In reality, it is not allowed but simply happens because of the lack of consistent political censorship.

However, you will hardly ever hear a proper analysis and criticism in the Russian media of the big corporations, and of the oligarchs that make up the state. It is also true that such acute crises as military operations, such as Russian-Georgian war of 2008 produce intolerance to the voices of the opposition. My film Russian Lessons (2008) about the suffering of the Georgians during that short war and its aftermath wasbanned in Russia. But nationalism is not only a government policy. It's the prevailing mood. The supposedly democratic leader of the opposition, that the West seems to praise and support, Alexei Navalny, was on the record insulting Georgians in jingo-nationalistic posts during the war. The film industry is, of course, easier to steer in the "right direction" as films, unlike articles and essays, are very expensive to produce. But Russia is a complex society, deeply troubled, but also misunderstood by the West. If my films, such as Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File , and Russian Lessons (2010) were attacked by pro-government media, then some of my articles were censored by the independent, "opposition" outlets, such as Ekho Moskvy .

4) Did you actually begin filming the movie with an outcome of supporting Browder's story in mind, as you represent in the film, or did you plan from the start of the filming process to end the film as it now stands?

AN : I started filming the story. I totally believed in the story that Browder had told me, and all the mainstream media repeated after him.

5) You know that there are many more "disappeared" journalists and others listed in the formal US Congress Magnitsky Act who have suffered from the effects of corrupt power in Russia. Why did you not address the fates of some of those others as well in your film?

AN : I may be misunderstanding this question, but I do not see how addressing the fates of "disappeared" journalists and others' would be relevant to the topic of my film in its final version. I obviously condemn the "disappearance" of journalists and others. In Russia journalists disappear usually by being "simply" shot (not in "sophisticated" Saudi ways), and as far as I remember only one is referred to in The Magnitsky Act , Paul Khlebnikov. He was the editor of Forbes, Russia , and was shot in 2004 when Bill Browder was a great fan of Vladimir Putin and continued to be for some time. I have not seen any evidence or even claim, that Putin may have been behind that murder. I was a friend of Anna Politkovskaya, perhaps the most famous of all Russian journalists who was assassinated in the recent past. She is featured in my film, Poisoned by Polonium .

The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international organizations.

6) Does William Browder's role in the formulation of the Magnitsky Act invalidate its value and that of the Global Magnitsky Act, in seeking to provide protection for those suffering from the effects of deadly and corrupt power such as the recently deceased Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi?

AN : Let me, for the argument's sake, pose myself what would seem like a version of your question: "Would Browder's role in creating a weapon that could protect someone like Khashoggi from deadly and corrupt power invalidate that weapon?" My answer would be, no, it would not invalidate that weapon. However, we are dealing with a fallacy here, in my humble opinion. The Magnitsky Act, in my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent investigator or judge.

Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots that the West is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets should be built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion. But the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union.

Choi Chatterjee is a Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Chatterjee, along with Steven Marks, Mary Neuberger, and Steve Sabol, edited The Wider Arc of Revolution in three volumes (Slavica Publishers).

[Apr 06, 2019] The US guy was treated in Iranian hospital. When it came time to use his health care plan to pay the bill, he learned the claim was refused because such transaction would violate US economic sanctions!

Look like US bureaucracy stupidity and rigidity exceeds the USSR bureaucracy, which until recently was unsurpassed.
Apr 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

ChuckOrloski , says: April 6, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Buenos dias, Señor J. Gutierrez!

Am grateful for your noble stand and having written: " and we know who US support, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, etc."

For your information, come Monday, PreZident t-Rump plans to lie & dangerously declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. (Zigh) Doing so, no doubt, will provoke NSA Director Boltom to experience an orgasm in his Wall Mart suit pants.

Nonetheless, linked below is a Counterpunch article where William Collins described going to Iran along with colleagues on a peace mission. A fellow suffered a heart problem, and entered an Iranian hospital where he was treated successfully. Nonetheless, when it came time to use his health care plan to pay the bill, Mr. Collins learned the claim was refused because such transaction (obligation) would violate ZUS economic sanctions!

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/05/what-i-learned-in-iran/

Post scriptum: Suppose you're in the process of deciding if & when to schedule a ranch-job interview with me? Am patient, thank you!

[Apr 06, 2019] The US guy was treated in Iranian hospital. When it came time to use his health care plan to pay the bill, he learned the claim was refused because such transaction would violate US economic sanctions!

Look like US bureaucracy stupidity and rigidity exceeds the USSR bureaucracy, which until recently was unsurpassed.
Apr 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

ChuckOrloski , says: April 6, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Buenos dias, Señor J. Gutierrez!

Am grateful for your noble stand and having written: " and we know who US support, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, etc."

For your information, come Monday, PreZident t-Rump plans to lie & dangerously declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. (Zigh) Doing so, no doubt, will provoke NSA Director Boltom to experience an orgasm in his Wall Mart suit pants.

Nonetheless, linked below is a Counterpunch article where William Collins described going to Iran along with colleagues on a peace mission. A fellow suffered a heart problem, and entered an Iranian hospital where he was treated successfully. Nonetheless, when it came time to use his health care plan to pay the bill, Mr. Collins learned the claim was refused because such transaction (obligation) would violate ZUS economic sanctions!

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/05/what-i-learned-in-iran/

Post scriptum: Suppose you're in the process of deciding if & when to schedule a ranch-job interview with me? Am patient, thank you!

[Apr 05, 2019] Bolton is protege of Adelson and both fully control Trump foreign policy. Trump became just a ceremonial figure without any real power

Notable quotes:
"... US President John Bolton is a disaster for our country. This is going to end bad. ..."
"... Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu Remember Israel is in bed with Saudi Arabia. Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet. ..."
"... Well let's get ready for another 20 year war trying to bring "Democracy" or fighting "Terrorists" which will be paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Lets just open up the check book now and write one out to John Bolton so it can save everybody time. ..."
"... Trump drained the swamp and put the worst swamp creatures in his administration. ..."
Apr 05, 2019 | www.youtube.com

EE CC , 1 day ago

US President John Bolton is a disaster for our country. This is going to end bad.

Cece Rider , 1 day ago

It always ends up with the middle east. Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu Remember Israel is in bed with Saudi Arabia. Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet.

Bianca Dang , 1 day ago

The US must pay for the 1 million people they killed in Iraq

Jimbo Jones , 1 day ago

As it was when he was working the Bush puppet strings.

Bruce Gustafson , 1 day ago

Obama made so many enemies in the world, and then we get this cult in DC. Who are hell bent on supremacy of the world. Batshit crazy times we're witnessing.

PEACE & RESPECT , 23 hours ago

Little man Bolton tells lies about China. Bolton is Trump's nightmare.

Lord Papeles , 1 day ago

Well let's get ready for another 20 year war trying to bring "Democracy" or fighting "Terrorists" which will be paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Lets just open up the check book now and write one out to John Bolton so it can save everybody time.

areUaware , 1 day ago

The US government is a Satanic Cult!

twaters57 , 1 day ago

Trump drained the swamp and put the worst swamp creatures in his administration.

Bobby Chang , 1 day ago

and thinks the US is the master for all countries south of the border.

Cheryl Adams , 1 day ago

Bolton and his mustache finally found his place with unchecked power and the idiot Trump just follows and continue to spill his hate

[Apr 05, 2019] McAdams: Trump White House is a Cult under Bolton

Looks like Trump is a tenant of House of Bolton, not the owner of the White House ;-)
It always ends up with Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu. Looks like Adelson is a new Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet.
Ilhan is right and DC is ZOGGED!
Notable quotes:
"... How is it that President Trump's national security advisor John Bolton seems to actually be running things and even over-riding his boss's foreign policy? ..."
"... It is similar to the role played by Bolton's ideological comrades in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war: Keep control of the president and make sure he sees nothing that contradicts what is your desired policy: ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Via RT Thursday April 4, 2019

How is it that President Trump's national security advisor John Bolton seems to actually be running things and even over-riding his boss's foreign policy?

As RPI Director Daniel McAdams tells Rick Sanchez of RT America, it's because he's frozen everyone else from the intelligence and national security community out and insists on controlling all information that gets to the president.

It is similar to the role played by Bolton's ideological comrades in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war: Keep control of the president and make sure he sees nothing that contradicts what is your desired policy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQOcf0NAMMo

[Apr 05, 2019] Looking at the Integrity Initiative it's clear that information warfare at all levels - academia, the media, on down to the little subsidized web sites and right on down to the individuals who are paid to insert comments on social media - is now regarded in England as an integral part of Intelligence work

Apr 05, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

English Outsider -> Fred , 7 days ago

Fred - I don't think it's going to go away that easily. This is the BBC web site today, again keeping alive much the same theme as your man of courage. We're moving on from whether Trump was a Russian agent to whether Trump deliberately attempted to stop us finding out whether he was a Russian agent -

"But Mr Mueller declined to draw a conclusion on whether Mr Trump had obstructed justice, saying only that the president could not be exonerated.

Attorney General Barr, who was appointed by the president, concluded in his summary of the report that there was not enough evidence to determine if the president had committed the offence."

So it's too useful a theme to be let go entirely, and fits with the general suspicion of Russian interference.

It's a difficult one, that. Looking at the Integrity Initiative and 77 Brigade it's clear that information warfare at all levels - academia, the media, on down to the little subsidized web sites and right on down to the individuals who are paid to insert comments on social media - is now regarded in England as an integral part of Intelligence work. Presumably everyone else is doing it too so why not the Russians? But to trace the huge political movements of our time back to Moscow, as if they were due to sinister Russians cleverly playing us via social media and other propaganda outlets, seems to me to be grossly overdone. After all, if it were that easy it would have worked for the West too. Iran would now be another Syria and Syria long since gone.

No, even the most ardent Russophobes on our side of the Atlantic might have to admit sometimes that the reason we're screwed up in Europe at present is that we've screwed ourselves up. We are not uniformly happy prosperous peoples who would continue to be uniformly happy and prosperous were it not for Moscow. So it must be in the States.

Even so, the Russians are still the get-out for many. On English web sites "Putin done it" surfaces regularly as the reason for us voting Brexit. There were suggestions that he had stirred up the Yellow Vests in France. The Italians are sometimes viewed with suspicion for the same reason.

And I got caught up in an unusual traffic hold-up just this morning. I can't prove to you it was the Russians. But can you prove to me it wasn't?

[Apr 04, 2019] How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as European. That's why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as 'the Union of Europe' which will strengthen Russia's potential in its economic pivot toward the 'New Asia.'" Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, February 2012

The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony.

Try to imagine for a minute, that the hacking claims were not part of a sinister plan by Vladimir Putin "to sow discord and division" in the United States, but were conjured up to create an external threat that would justify an aggressive response from Washington. That's what Russiagate is really all about.

US policymakers and their allies in the military and Intelligence agencies, know that relations with Russia are bound to get increasingly confrontational, mainly because Washington is determined to pursue its ambitious "pivot" to Asia plan. This new regional strategy focuses on "strengthening bilateral security alliances, expanding trade and investment, and forging a broad-based military presence." In short, the US is determined to maintain its global supremacy by establishing military outposts across Eurasia, continuing to tighten the noose around Russia and China, and reinforcing its position as the dominant player in the most populous and prosperous region in the world. The plan was first presented in its skeletal form by the architect of Washington's plan to rule the world, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Here's how Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor summed it up in his 1997 magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (p.30) .. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. . About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." ("The Grand Chessboard:American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives", Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, page 31, 1997)

14 years after those words were written, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the banner of imperial expansion and demanded a dramatic shift in US foreign policy that would focus primarily on increasing America's military footprint in Asia. It was Clinton who first coined the term "pivot" in a speech she delivered in 2010 titled "America's Pacific Century". Here's an excerpt from the speech:

"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific region

Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology ..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."

("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)

The pivot strategy is not some trifling rehash of the 19th century "Great Game" promoted by think-tank fantasists and conspiracy theorists. It is Washington's premier foreign policy doctrine, a 'rebalancing' theory that focuses on increasing US military and diplomatic presence across the Asian landmass. Naturally, NATO's ominous troop movements on Russia's western flank and Washington's provocative naval operations in the South China Sea have sent up red flags in Moscow and Beijing. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao summed it up like this:

"The United States has strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military alliance, strengthened strategic cooperation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on us from the east, south, and west."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been equally critical of Washington's erratic behavior. NATO's eastward expansion has convinced Putin that the US will continue to be a disruptive force on the continent for the foreseeable future. Both leaders worry that Washington's relentless provocations will lead to an unexpected clash that will end in war.

Even so, the political class has fully embraced the pivot strategy as a last-gasp attempt to roll back the clock to the post war era when the world's industrial centers were in ruins and America was the only game in town. Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end.

Washington has many ways of dealing with its enemies, but none of these strategies have dampened the growth of its competitors in the east. China is poised to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the next 2 decades while Russia's intervention in Syria has rolled back Washington's plan to topple Bashar al Assad and consolidate its grip on the resource-rich Middle East. That plan has now collapsed forcing US policymakers to scrap the War on Terror altogether and switch to a "great power competition" which acknowledges that the US can no longer unilaterally impose its will wherever it goes. Challenges to America's dominance are emerging everywhere particularly in the region where the US hopes to reign supreme, Asia.

This is why the entire national security state now stands foursquare behind the improbable pivot plan. It's a desperate "Hail Mary" attempt to preserve the decaying unipolar world order.

What does that mean in practical terms?

It means that the White House (the National Security Strategy) the Pentagon (National Defense Strategy) and the Intelligence Community (The Worldwide Threat Assessment) have all drawn up their own respective analyses of the biggest threats the US currently faces. Naturally, Russia is at the very top of those lists. Russia has derailed Washington's proxy war in Syria, frustrated US attempts to establish itself across Central Asia, and strengthened ties with the EU hoping to "create a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok." (Putin)

Keep in mind, the US does not feel threatened by the possibility of a Russian attack, but by Russia's ability to thwart Washington's grandiose imperial ambitions in Asia.

As we noted, the National Security Strategy (NSS) is a statutorily mandated document produced by the White House that explains how the President intends to implement his national security vision. Not surprisingly, the document's main focus is Russia and China. Here's an excerpt:

"China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence." (Neither Russia nor China are attempting to erode American security and prosperity." They are merely growing their economies and expanding their markets. If US corporations reinvested their capital into factories, employee training and R and D instead of stock buybacks and executive compensation, then they would be better able to complete globally.)

Here's more: "Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world." (This is a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black.')

"Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data." (The western media behemoth is the biggest disinformation bullhorn the world has ever seen. RT and Sputnik don't hold a candle to the ginormous MSM 'Wurlitzer' that controls the cable news stations, the newspapers and most of the print media. The Mueller Report proves beyond a doubt that the politically-motivated nonsense one reads in the media is neither reliably sourced nor trustworthy.)

The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is even more explicit in its attacks on Russia. Check it out:

"Threats to US national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners . We assess that Moscow will continue pursuing a range of objectives to expand its reach, including undermining the US-led liberal international order, dividing Western political and security institutions, demonstrating Russia's ability to shape global issues, and bolstering Putin's domestic legitimacy.

We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Asad regime's territorial control in Syria, ·Russia seeks to boost its military presence and political influence in the Mediterranean and Red Seas mediate conflicts, including engaging in the Middle East Peace Process and Afghanistan reconciliation .

Russia will continue pressing Central Asia's leaders to support Russian-led economic and security initiatives and reduce engagement with Washington. Russia and China are likely to intensify efforts to build influence in Europe at the expense of US interests " ("The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community", USG )

Notice how the Intelligence Community summary does not suggest that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the US, only that Russia has restored order in Syria, strengthened ties with China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East, and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US. This is entirely understandable given Putin's determination to draw Europe and Asia closer together through a region-wide economic integration plan. Here's Putin:

"We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent's energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy."

The gas pipelines and high-speed rail are the arteries that will bind the continents together and strengthen the new EU-Asia superstate. This is Washington's greatest nightmare, a massive, thriving free trade zone beyond its reach and not subject to its rules. In 2012, Hillary Clinton acknowledged this new threat and promised to do everything in her power to destroy it. Check out this excerpt:

"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described efforts to promote greater economic integration in Eurasia as "a move to re-Sovietize the region." . "We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it," she said at an international conference in Dublin on December 6, 2012, Radio Free Europe."

"Slow down or prevent it"?

Why? Because EU-Asia growth and prosperity will put pressure on US debt markets, US corporate interests, US (ballooning) national debt, and the US Dollar? Is that why Hillary is so committed to sabotaging Putin's economic integration plan?

Indeed, it is. Washington wants to block progress and prosperity in the east in order to extend the lifespan of a doddering and thoroughly-bankrupt state that is presently $22 trillion in the red but continues to write checks on an overdrawn account.

But Russia shouldn't be blamed for Washington's profligate behavior, that's not Putin's fault. Moscow is merely using the free market system more effectively that the US.

Now consider the Pentagon's 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which reiterates many of the same themes as the other two documents.

"Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security."

(Naturally, the "security environment" is going to be more challenging when 'regime change' is the cornerstone of one's foreign policy. Of course, the NDS glosses over that sad fact. Here's more:)

"Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors ..(Baloney. Russia has been a force for stability in Syria and Ukraine. If Obama had his way, Syria would have wound up like Iraq, a hellish wastelands occupied by foreign mercenaries. Is that how the Pentagon measures success?) Here's more:

"China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model

"China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system .

"China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department because of the magnitude of the threats they pose to U.S. security." ( National Defense Strategy of the United States of America )

Get the picture? China and Russia, China and Russia, China and Russia. Bad, bad, bad.

Why? Because they are successfully implementing their own development model which is NOT programed to favor US financial institutions and corporations. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. The only reason Russia and China are a threat to the "rules-based system", is because Washington insists on being the only one who makes the rules. That's why foreign leaders are no longer falling in line, because it's not a fair system.

These assessments represent the prevailing opinion of senior-level policymakers across the spectrum. (The White House, the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community) The USG is unanimous in its judgement that a harsher more combative approach is needed to deal with Russia and China. Foreign policy elites want to put the nation on the path to more confrontation, more conflict and more war. At the same time, none of these three documents suggest that Russia has any intention of launching an attack on the United States. The greatest concern is the effect that emerging competitors will have on Washington's provocative plan for military and economic expansion, the threat that Russia and China pose to America's tenuous grip on global power. It is that fear that drives US foreign policy.

And this is broader context into which we must fit the Russia investigation. The reason the Russia hacking furor has been allowed to flourish and spread despite the obvious lack of any supporting evidence, is because the vilifying of Russia segues perfectly with the geopolitical interests of elites in the government. The USG now works collaboratively with the media to influence public attitudes on issues that are important to the powerful foreign policy establishment. The ostensible goal of these psychological operations (PSYOP) is to selectively use information on "audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of organizations, groups, and individuals."

The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the


Beckow , says: April 4, 2019 at 1:02 am GMT

The emerging Euro-Asian power block is very heterogeneous. Russia, China, and the smaller affiliated players like Central Asia, Iran, Syria, Turkey don't agree on almost anything. They have different cultures, religions, economies, demographic profiles, even writing systems. The most rational strategy to prevent the Euro-Asian block from consolidating would be to get them to fight each other. Alternatively, find the weakest link and attack it in an area where its reluctant allies don't share its interests.

Exactly the opposite has happened in the last 5-10 years: US has seemingly worked overtime to get China-Russia alliance of the ground. They used to distrust each other, today, after Ukraine, South China See, etc they have become close allies. Same with Iran and Syria: instead of letting them stew in their own internal problems – mostly religious and having a nepotistic elite – US has managed to turn the fight into an external geo-political struggle, literally invited Russia to join in, and ended up losing.

Bush turned Iraq from a fanatically anti-Iran bastion to a reliable ally of Iran and started an un-winnable land war in Afghanistan (incredible!). Obama turned Libya, the richest and most stable African country that threatened no-one and kept African migrants far away, into a chaotic hellhole where slave trade flourishes and millions of Sub-Saharan Africans can use it to move on to Europe.

Then Obama tried to coup-de-etat Erdogan in Turkey, and – even worse – failed miserably. This gang can't shoot straight – whatever they put in their position papers is meaningless drivel because they are too stupid to think. They have no patience to wait for the right time to move, no ability to manage on the ground allies, and an aversion to casualties that makes winning a war impossible. Today Trump threatens Germany over its energy security (pipelines), further antagonises Turkey and Erdogan, watches helplessly as EU becomes the next UN (lame and irrelevant), and bets everything on a few small allies like Saudi Arabia and Izrael that are of almost no use in Euro-Asia.

A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that ' maybe I had bad information ' is no master of the universe. And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or ' information warfare ' – is a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.

anon [338] Disclaimer , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:07 am GMT
the russophobia is just drama to keep the MIC spending at $700+ billion per year

there is no way to justify that level of spending and pretend they don't have $25 billion one time to actually help solve the real problem for the U.S.

Krollchem , says: April 4, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
"The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the battlespace" which they must exploit in order to build public support for their vastly unpopular wars and interventions. "

Here is a short guide on how to detect subversion of the mind by the media and their handlers by a former military intelligence officer.

JR , says: April 4, 2019 at 6:00 am GMT
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".

Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".

Recognizing this however one can't escape the conclusion that this "Grand Chessboard" with its consistent 'amoral realist imperatives' is serving up inherently immoral 'imperatives' as inescapable options dressed up in academic language and with absolutely abhorrent arrogance.

Stating that Brennan's Russophobia is somehow a degeneration of Brzezinki's "Grand Chessboard" is completely overlooking how difficult it would be to outdo Brzezinki's own total moral degeneration.

One has to recognize that by now the only bipartisan aspect of US policy can be found in sharing these despicable and immoral 'imperatives' to maintain that "American Primacy" at all cost (of course to the rest of the world).

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
"The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony."

TRUE!

I would suggest that the initials 'US' in the final sentence be changed to: Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:12 pm GMT
"Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end."

Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2, the part where it becomes obvious that it is the Anglo-Zionist Empire, which, like a band of screeching Pharisees standing on the walls of Jerusalem hurling curses at the Romans they inform that Jehovah will soon wipe out all Romans to save His Chosen Race, would choose utter destruction for all over any common sense backing down to prevent mass slaughter.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:43 pm GMT
Nothing harmed US more than Brzezinski's ideology. US did build up far east with their investments, while neglecting their own backyard. US should have build up rather North and South America and make it the envy of the world. Neglecting particularly South America now created Desperate south American people, who have no jobs and no future and these people are now invading US.
Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 4, 2019 at 12:44 pm GMT
@Beckow

A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that 'maybe I had bad information' is no master of the universe. And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or 'information warfare' – is a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.

Testosterone plus steady, unrelenting decline and corruption of American "elites" most of who have no background in any fields related to actual effective governance especially in national security (military) and diplomatic fields. Zbig's book is also nothing more than doctrine-mongering based on complete lack of understanding of Russian history.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 4, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMT
@JR

Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".

Zbig was a political "scientist" (which is not a science) by education, fact aggravated by his Russophobia, and thus inability to grasp fundamentals of military power and warfare–a defining characteristic of American "elites". He, obviously, missed on the military-technological development of 1970s through 1990s, to arrive to the inevitable conclusion that classic "geopolitics" doesn't apply anymore. Today we all can observe how it doesn't apply and is made obsolete.

Agent76 , says: April 4, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT
(Jan.1998) US history – "How Jimmy Carter I Started the Mujahideen" – Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor 1977-1981

"Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a13_1240427874

Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979

In 1979 Carters National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski went into Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan to give a little pep talk to some prospective majehadeen (Holy Warriors). In a 1997 interview for CNN's Cold War Series, Brzezinski hinted about the Carter Administration's proactive Afghanistan policy before the Soviet invasion in 1979, that he had conceived.

flashlight joe , says: April 4, 2019 at 2:55 pm GMT
@Jake @Jake

"Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2,"

I call it the Western British Empire.

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:14 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Why was it that the Brit Empire kept acting throughout the later 18th, the 19th and early 20th centuries to harm Russia, even when it technically was allied with Russia? Why the Crimean War, for example?

Why, for example, was Brit secret service all over the assassination of Rasputin and tied in multiple ways to most non-Marxist revolutionary groups?

mike k , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT
This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else.
Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:26 pm GMT
@anon Like the Ukranians, the 'Balts' virtually always are controlled by somebody else. When Russia does not control the Baltic states, they are controlled by either Poles or Germans. Russians know what that means: the Baltic states are then used as weapons to attack Russia.

The region is much calmer when Russia controls the Baltic states, and that is before taking into consideration how the Polish-Lithuanian Empire turned its Jews lose to terrorize all Orthodox Christians and how Germanic states later used Lutheranism as a force in the Baltics to ignite war with Russia and, under the queer Frederick the Great also used Jewish bankers to finance wars against Russia.

[Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader

Highly recommended!
Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader?

by Tyler Durden Thu, 04/04/2019 - 21:25 550 SHARES Authored by Monica Crowley, op-ed via The Washington Times,

The best defense, the saying goes, is a good offense.

The key orchestrators of the Big Trump-Russia Collusion Lie seem to have hewed tightly to that tactical advice.

Over the past two years, one of their biggest "tells" has been their hyper-aggressive and gratuitous attacks on the president. Given that special counsel Robert Mueller 's investigation found no collusion or obstruction of justice, their constant broadsides now look, in retrospect, like calculated pre-emptive strikes to deflect attention and culpability away from themselves.

By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

We now know that former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, are hip-deep in the conspiracy. Both wrote supposed "tell-all" books and carpet-bombed the media with interviews in which they regularly flung criminal accusations against the president. Whenever asked about their own roles, they reverted to denouncing Mr. Trump .

With Mr. Mueller 's findings, Mr. Comey 's and Mr. McCabe's media benders look increasingly suspicious.

As do those of their comrades in the Obama national security apparatus, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and his partner in possible crime, former CIA Director John Brennan , who, apart from former President Barack Obama himself, may be the biggest player of them all.

Any investigation into the origins and execution of the Big Lie must focus on Mr. Brennan , whose job as the nation's chief spook would have prohibited him, by law, from engaging in any domestic political spy games.

Of course, the law didn't stop him from illegally spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by hacking into its computers and lying repeatedly about it, prompting Democratic senators to call for his resignation.

Once out of Langley, Mr. Brennan tore into Mr. Trump, accusing him of "treason" (among other crimes) in countless television appearances and bitter tweets. It got so vicious that Mr. Trump pulled his security clearance.

Consider a few critical data points.

The Obama Department of Justice and FBI targeting of two low-level Trump aides, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, was carried out in the spring of 2016 because they wanted to spy on the Trump campaign but needed a way in. They enlisted an American academic and shadowy FBI informant named Stefan Halper to repeatedly sidle up to both Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page. But complementing his work for the FBI , Mr. Halper had a side gig as an intelligence operative with longstanding ties to the CIA and British intelligence MI6.

Another foreign professor, Joseph Mifsud, who played an important early part in targeting Papadopoulos, also had abiding ties to the CIA , MI6 and the British foreign secretary.

A third operative, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, targeted Mr. Papadopoulos in a London bar. It was Mr. Downer's "tip" to the FBI that provided the justification for the start of Russia counterintelligence investigation, complete with fraudulently-obtained FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

All of these interactions reek of entrapment. Mr. Papadopoulos now says, "I believe Australian and UK intelligence were involved in an active operation to target Trump and his associates." Like Mr. Halper and Mr. Mifsud, Mr. Downer had ties to the CIA , MI6 and (surprise!) the Clintons.

Given the deep intelligence backgrounds of these folks, it's difficult to believe that former DOJ/ FBI officials such as Peter Strzok or even James Comey and Andrew McCabe on their own devised the plan to deploy them.

So: who did? How did the relationships with Messrs. Halper, Mifsud and Downer come about? Who suggested them for these tasks? To whom did they report? How were they compensated?

Any investigation must follow the money -- and the personnel. There were plenty of DOJ/ FBI officials involved, but what about intelligence officials? Was Mr. Brennan a central player in the hoax, which would help explain the participation of Mr. Halper, Mr. Mifsud and Mr. Downer? Intel officials are likely to draw on other intelligence operatives.

There is also a glimpse of a paper trail.

Fox News' Catherine Herridge reported last week that "in a Dec. 12, 2016 text, [ FBI lawyer Lisa] Page wrote to McCabe: "Btw, Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just FYSA [for your situational awareness ]."

"Within a minute, McCabe replied, "OK."

Ms. Herridge notes that those named are likely Peter Strzok and Mr. Brennan 's then-deputy, David Cohen. Ms. Herridge also notes that while we don't yet know what was discussed during the dinner, government sources thought it "irregular" for Mr. Clapper to be in contact with the more junior-level Mr. Strzok. She also points out that the text came "during a critical time for the Russia probe."

Indeed. It was right before the publication of the ICA, the official Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian 2016 election interference.

As Paul Sperry has reported, "A source close to the House investigation said Brennan himself selected the CIA and FBI analysts who worked on the ICA, and that they included former FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok.

"Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan and Comey , and he was one of the authors of the ICA," according to the source." Recall that the dossier-based ICA was briefed to Obama , Trump and Congress ahead of Trump's inauguration.

Post- Mueller report, Mr. Brennan is spinning wildly that perhaps his early condemnations of Mr. Trump were based on "bad information."

These are just some of the threads suggesting Mr. Brennan may be one of the Masters of the Big Lie, requiring full investigation.

If the devil is in the details, Mr. Brennan is all over the details.

No wonder he -- and his fellow caballers -- have been so loud. They doth protest too much.


Luau , 6 minutes ago link

Obama was the ringleader. Brennan's just the fall guy.

Yars Revenge , 7 minutes ago link

Trying to frame a sitting President is treason.

Which under the law is punishable by death.

outofnowhere , 12 minutes ago link

Yes, yes he was. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Brennan was and is the darkest of evil. He is insane.

MoreFreedom , 27 minutes ago link

By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

Hillary setup a unsecured server and had confidential government information on it, including 20 emails with Obama suspiciously using an alias. If you're in law enforcement, and get a tip that Papadopolous may get some of those emails from Russians, what crime has been committed by Papadopolous? Isn't Papadopolous doing the US a favor by obtaining those emails from those who hacked her server?

If you believe Hillary that her server wasn't hacked (and you don't have any evidence because Obama's people allowed practically all the evidence to be destroyed) then there's no reason to investigate Papadopolous. If you think Hillary's server was hacked, shouldn't you be investigating her and examining her server to see who hacked her and what damage was done, such as blackmailing her and Obama into appeasement and flexibility, like selling 20% of the US's uranium reserves to Russians just before an election?

... ... ...

American2 , 1 hour ago link

John Brennan, James Clapper, Strozk, Ohr, Page were only some of Obama's political pythons operating in the jungle of Washington. Obama orchestrated a symphony of harmful actions that will take the US a generation to recover from. That is if Obama's criminal actions can be undone and then we get to recover.

[Apr 04, 2019] Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For by Willy B

Highly recommended!
So Trump took Adelson money and completely lost his independence, became Bolton marionette. He betrayed all major point of his election campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well. ..."
"... Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys. ..."
"... Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit. ..."
"... it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. ..."
"... According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation. ..."
"... After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner. ..."
"... The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army. ..."
"... He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements. ..."
"... Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. ..."
"... It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did. ..."
"... Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz. ..."
"... Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom." ..."
"... It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. ..."
"... Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony. ..."
"... "Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write. ..."
"... Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. ..."
"... According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real." ..."
"... "To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. ..."
"... Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation. ..."
"... Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done." ..."
"... If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested ..."
"... Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003. ..."
"... This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

A review of publicly available reporting that I have accumulated in my files over the past two years would suggest that John Bolton's boss is really Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino king who has plied the Republican Party with tens of millions of dollars in largesse in order to remake it in his image. This conclusion is irrespective of what you might think of Trump himself and whether or not you believe he really meant it when he said there should be no more regime change wars. The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well.

Bolton's history goes back to the Reagan Administration in the 1980's, and his perfidy during the runup to the Iraq invasion is well known to this readership. What I focus on here is the period from January of 2017 through mid-2018, around the time of his appointment to be Trump's national security advisor, plus a couple of months, during which period a number of interesting reports were posted on Trump's lobbying of the White House to get an administration position and his sponsorship by Adelson. Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys.

What follows is a time line of summaries of news stories covering the period above in the form that I wrote them at the time with the dates over each one of them. It's not meant to be comprehensive–there's undoubtedly a great deal of insight still to be gained on how deeply these neo-con networks have actually penetrated the administration–and the news reports the summaries are based on likely vary in their quality. I hope anyone with such deeper insights will post them in the comments section.

Appended at the end of the time line is a short report on Richard Goldberg, the Z-lobby activist who Bolton brought onto the NSC in January to be his "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit.

1) John Bolton: A Timeline for 2017-2018

Feb. 19, 2017

AP circulated a wire , yesterday, reporting that Trump was interviewing candidates for the National Security Advisor position at his estate in Florida. The names mention were Cheneyac John Bolton (who, if I remember correctly, was already rejected by the Trump administration for a State Department job) and LTG H.R. McMaster, according to one unnamed White House official. Another had said that Trump had been interested in David Petraeus but that Petraeus was not a finalist for the position. Picking Bolton would be shear lunacy, but McMaster is highly interesting. McMaster wrote a famous book about the Vietnam war in which he documented that practically everybody in the military leadership, and especially Maxwell Taylor lied about Vietnam and, like Mattis, he has a history of being a harsh critic of the RMA. I'll have more to say about him if he gets the job.

May 10, 2017

Bloomberg's Eli Lake, in a column posted on Monday, described what amounts to a factional war inside the White House, with Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus on one side and H.R. McMaster on the other. Trump himself is said to have blasted McMaster for his phone conversation with his South Korean counterpart during which he assured him that Trump didn't really mean it when he said that South Korea should pay for the THAAD deployment. "McMaster's allies and adversaries inside the White House tell me that Trump is disillusioned with him," Lake writes. "This professional military officer has failed to read the president -- by not giving him a chance to ask questions during briefings, at times even lecturing Trump."

According to Lake's sources (and I'm wondering if they might, in fact, be Bannon and Priebus, or people close to them), Trump has complained in front of McMaster in intelligence briefings about "the general undermining my policy." They say Trump has privately expressed regret for choosing McMaster and even called in neo-con John Bolton to talk being McMaster's deputy, an idea which was ultimately dropped.

Oct. 17, 2017

Nikki Haley told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that it's the administration's hope that America stays with the Iran nuclear deal if Congress takes action to keep it together. "I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal," she said. "What we hope is that we can improve the situation," she added. "And that's the goal. So I think right now, we're in the deal to see how we can make it better. And that's the goal. It's not that we're getting out of the deal. We're just trying to make the situation better so that the American people feel safer." The NBC press report doesn't report whether or not she explained how the JCPOA is going to be made better when all of the other parties agree that it's not up for renegotiation. They note, however, that Haley was one of the few voices in the Trump administration to encourage the president to declare Iran in violation. It's well known that both Tillerson and Mattis opposed decertification, with Mattis telling the Senate Armed Services Committee, two weeks ago, that it was in the US interest to stay in the agreement.

I didn't come across this until yesterday afternoon, but it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. At the other end of the channel is John Bolton, who even is able to get Trump on the phone himself from time to time, despite John Kelly's efforts to obstruct him.

According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation.

The article otherwise goes into great depth on how Haley is at odds with most of the rest of the administration on Iran, particularly Tillerson, her nominal boss and who is reported to have strenuously objected to her trip to Vienna in August to put pressure on the IAEA to demand inspection of military sites in Iran. One White House official described the escalating tensions between Tillerson and Haley as reaching "World War III" proportions. Two weeks after the Vienna trip, Haley appeared at the AEI in Washington where she publicly floated what became the parameters of the policy that Trump announced on Friday. "The purpose of the AEI speech was to figure out, 'Is this gonna work? Does this thread that needle?'" one official said. After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner.

Asked about the Politico report on Sunday, Haley said "That is just so much drama. I mean, it's really, it's all this palace intrigue."

Anti-neocon activist and former US Air Force analyst Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik that she believes that Trump was mislead by fake intelligence. "I suspect that Mr. Trump is being fed information regarding Iran as a nation and as a government that is cherry-picked and creatively elaborated, largely outside of intelligence channels, by his neoconservative advisers," she said. She noted despite Trump's 2016 promise to "drain the swamp" of discredited foreign policy interventionists, many of them have managed to weasel their way back into government service. "This faction has always slated the destruction of Iran as a regional power for several decades now, and if they have the ear of the President, there is never a better time than the present to press their case," she said. She insisted, however, that neither Trump himself, nor the U.S. military is determined on war against Iran.

Oct. 24, 2017

According to VOA (at any rate), there's a big fight in Washington over the future of U.S. adherence to the JCPOA. Lunatic Lindsey Graham fully supports the policy that Trump announced on Oct 13 (no surprise there), while the French armed forces minister, Florence Parly, who was in Washington, last week, supports the agreement. "We need the JCPOA," she said during an appearance at CSIS on Friday. "Scrapping it would be a gift to Iran's hardliners and a first step towards future wars." Tim Kaine, who has leading an effort in the Senate to write a new war authorization, echoed her. "If you weaken diplomacy, you raise the risk of unnecessary war, and that's what this president is doing. If we take a step back from the deal, Iran will take a step back. And what will they ask for, that they get to now increase centrifuges or get some of their enriched uranium back? I do not want to give Iran one thing back from this deal," said Kaine.

But, if you believe Graham, Iran will be let loose from the deal in 15 years (some people say 10 or even 8 years) to enrich as much uranium as it wants. This ignores the fact that Iran will still be a member of the NPT and will be subject to its additional protocol. Top Iranian officials have said that if the US sabotages the JCPOA, Iran will make appropriate decisions in response, but they won't be building bombs.

The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army.

"Rapidly increased pressure against Iran's role as the world's central banker of international terrorism, stressed in Trump's Oct. 13 speech, cannot come fast enough," he goes on. And, of course, European commercial relations with Iran are not to be tolerated. Othewise, "Tehran will rightly conclude the United States is really not serious about confronting their threat to us and our allies. That is the legacy of the Obama administration. It should not also be the legacy of the Trump administration." Nobody wants to rush the country headlong into disastrous faster then the neo-cons.

Oct. 26, 2017

Gareth Porter, in an article that was posted on Oct. 20 (but that I didn't come across until yesterday) on the American Conservative, reports that the new policy that Trump announced on Oct. 13 not only "clearly represents a dangerous rejection of diplomacy in favor of confrontation" but also marks "a major shift toward a much closer alignment of U.S. policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." "Whether explicitly or not, Trump's vow to work with Congress to renegotiate the Iran nuclear agreement, and his explicit threat to withdraw from the deal if no renegotiation takes place, appear to be satisfying the hardline demands Netanyahu has made of Washington's policy toward Tehran," Porter writes. Those demands being either US withdrawal from the JCPOA altogether, or demanding changes in it that cannot be attained.

Porter goes deeper into the conduits for this policy into the White House than a Politico article I reported on earlier that came out at about the same time. He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements.

He also delves deeper into the significance of Sheldon Adelson than the Politico report did, noting that Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. "Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in Washington -- especially with regard to Iran," Porter notes, adding that in 2013, Adelson openly called for the nuclear intimidation of Iran. In the next few paragraphs, Porter provides a thumbnail sketch of the history of the neo-cons in order to highlight the role of John Bolton in all of this. It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did.

Jan. 3, 2018

The protests in Iran may have started spontaneously in anger at economic conditions, and/or at the instigation of Rouhani's rival Raisi and his father -in-law in Mashad, but the evidence that they're being, at the very least, encouraged from the outside is growing. Unnamed Trump Administration officials told the Washington Free Beacon that both Trump and Pence are watching the protests very closely and the officials said they are working to ensure that Trump does not miss an opportunity to incubate a possible revolution that could topple Iran's hardline ruling regime. "With the world watching growing demonstrations across Iran, the Trump administration sees an opportunity to feed the growing protests," the Free Beacon reports, something that they and the neo-cons say that Obama failed to do in 2009, when protests erupted against Ahmedinijad's re-election. "The Trump administration's strong and vocal support for the demonstrators is a 180 from the Obama administration's approach and it's signaling to Tehran that this will not be a repeat of the 2009 demonstrations," the administration official said.

The regime change cheerleader from outside the administration is, not surprisingly, John Bolton. During an appearance on "Fox and Friends" on Monday, Bolton argued that these protests are different than the post-election protests in Iran in 2009, which questioned the legitimacy of the election of then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and who should lead the regime. "These protests are about whether the regime survives or not, and that makes them much more threatening to the ayatollahs, much more dangerous, and raises the stakes considerably," Bolton said. He called on Trump to end the nuclear deal, re-impose previous sanctions and impose new ones that increase the economic pressure on Iran and provide material support to opposition forces. "There's a lot we can do to, and we should do it," Bolton said. "Our goal should be regime change in Iran."

Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz.

"Iranians are looking toward America to support their struggle," Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, urging the White House to continue condemning the regime, and follow up with "sanctions targeting corruption and human-rights abuses."

Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom."

March 10, 2018

John Bolton has been snooping around the White House. CNN reported on Wednesday, that Trump met with him at the White House, suggesting that he may be under consideration as an "outside expert" to help the State Department manage the North Korea portfolio. CNN says that Bolton argues that a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would not only be legal but also effective at curbing the threat.

On Tuesday, Bolton told Fox News that "The only thing North Korea is serious about is getting deliverable nuclear weapons." Bolton said direct and indirect talks with North Korea have occurred for the last 25 years and never end up successful. He said if a new round of talks begins, North Korea will possess a deliverable nuclear weapon by the end of the year. So, Bolton obviously believes that the past determines the future.

The Washington Post, in the above cited article, reports that Christopher Hill, who was on Capitol Hill this week to talk about North Korea, said that he face "withing attacks" from conservative Republicans when he was engaged in the six-party talks in 2005. "People like John Bolton said I was a traitor for talking to the North Koreans," Hill said in an interview. The Post then reports that Bolton offered conditioned praise for Trump, saying Friday that he expected the president to deliver a warning about U.S. willingness to use military force.

Daniel Davis, in an op-ed in Fox News, argues that Trump goes ahead with announced plans to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, he would open the door to potentially solving our nuclear dispute with the Communist nation short of war. This is a far better course that listening to the calls from some to give up on diplomacy and use military force against the North. The "some" include Bolton who has been making the case for a preventive military strike against North Korea. "If such a U.S. strike were ordered, it would have catastrophic consequences for us. Far from ensuring our safety, it would impose egregious levels of casualties on U.S. forces and American civilians [not to mention Koreans who would make up the bulk of casualties -cjo], and harm – not help – our security and our prosperity," Davis writes.

March 23, 2018

You've all seen the headlines by now. I'm not going to say a lot about it. The punditry is that it means more aggressive US policies towards both Iran and North Korea. It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. The suggestion in the press coverage is that Bolton is more likely to tell Trump what he wants to hear, particularly on Iran, but we probably shouldn't automatically assume that Trump wants to go to war as badly as Bolton does.

March 25, 2018

Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony.

"Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write.

"One month later, Adelson used his own newspaper, The Las Vegas Review Journal, to express his frustration with Trump's failure to quickly redeem his promise to move the embassy. Two months after that, Trump reversed a half century of U.S. policy by formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. According to Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, Steve Bannon credited Adelson for Trump's decision."

Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. Ands Bolton, like Adelson, has long favored a "military solution" to the Iran nuclear problem. In 2013, Adelson posted an op-ed in his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, calling for the nuclear bombing of Iran, first in some uninhabited area of the country to send Iran's leaders "a message" and if that didn't work, a second bombing of Tehran itself (this of course, would be a war crime in the first degree). Bolton, himself, in an op-ed two years later, held up the Israeli bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor as the model for what the US should (as was later documented by a Norwegian researcher who's name I don't recall, the bombing of Osirak did not end Saddam's Hussein's nuclear bomb program. Rather, it forced it underground and out of sight, as UN weapons inspectors discovered in the 1990's after Gulf War I).

March 31, 2018

Journalist Whitney Webb, writing Mintpress News, finds Bolton's appointment as Trump's national security advisor, to be particularly dangerous. Webb puts Bolton's appointment in the context of those of Pompeo to be secretary of state and Gina Haspell to run the CIA, but finds Bolton the most dangerous of the three, "due to his bellicose rhetoric, unilateral decision-making, and his "kiss up, kick down" style of interaction with superiors and colleagues, allowing him to be remarkably effective in getting his way."

Webb's purpose is to explore what Bolton's appointment means for US national security policy and he begins with Bolton's deep ties to Israel–ties "so deep that some have posited that his commitment to extreme Zionism has led him to betray the national interest of his own country on more than one occasion." Webb cites a number of examples of this, which add up to Bolton pursuing his own warmongering policy against Iran even when the administration he was nominally working for had the opposite policy. Bolton has pressured Israeli officials to attack Iran even when calling for such an attack was not the U.S. government's position. According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real."

May 8, 2018

Trump tweeted yesterday that he would be announcing his decision on Iran today at 2 PM. The Washington Post, citing the usual gaggle of unnamed officials, US and foreign, reports that he is expected to say that he will not continue a waiver of sanctions against Iran. Exactly what this means is not at all clear. Trump is not expected to renege on the nuclear deal altogether. Instead, the Post says, he will address a portion of the wide range of sanctions that were waived when the deal was first implemented, while leaving in limbo other waivers that are due in July. As for what comes next, Boris Johnson said that as far as he knows, the administration has no clear "Plan B" for what's to follow. The affected sanctions, the Post notes, not only impose restrictions on US trade with Iran but also threaten pther countries that buy Iranian oil. Officials, who spoke to the Post about the upcoming announcement on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Trump will use the threat of further measures as leverage on both the Europeans and Iran itself.

As has been too often the case, we may be seeing Trump and his advisors expressing two different policies on Iran. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's newest lawyer, delivered remarks to meeting of something called the Iran Freedom Convention for Democracy and Human Rights, during which he advocated regime change in Tehran. "We have a president who is tough," Giuliani is reported to have said. "We have a president who is as committed to regime change as we are." Confronting Iran, he added, is "more important than an Israeli-Palestinian deal." He also predicted the end of the nuclear deal. "What do you think is going to happen to that agreement!" Giuliani said of the deal, before taking a piece of paper in his hands and pretending to rip it apart.

The State Department immediately dismissed Giuliani's remarks. "He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration on foreign policy," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told The Associated Press on Monday. The Hill further noted that U.S. officials were alarmed by Giuliani's comments and said they weren't consistent with the White House's policy.

This is confirmed by another report in the Washington Post. "But if regime change is on the agenda, Trump has been far more circumspect about how it would happen," writes the Post's Ishaan Tharoor. "Dethroning the mullahs would likely involve waging war against Iran, a prospect at odds with his own stated desire to withdraw from Syria and disentangle the United States from a generation of costly conflicts in the Middle East." Tharoor goes on to tie the regime change crowd, including Giuliani and Bolton directly to the MeK. The MeK, Tharoor writes, was behind the event at which Giuliani spoke this weekend, "marking yet another episode in his long, cozy relationship with the organization." Tharoor cites Politico reporting that the MeK has paid Giuliani "handsomely," to include not only appearances before the group but also for lobbying to have it removed from the State Department's terror list, which was done in 2012.

Tharoor also cites Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter who was detained in Iran for a year-and-a-half, reporting that the MeK is held with contempt by ordinary Iranians, who view the organization as a craven, treacherous outfit. "In the seven years I lived in Iran, many people expressed criticism of the ruling establishment -- at great potential risk to themselves," noted Rezaian. "In all that time, though, I never met a person who thought the MEK should, or could, present a viable alternative."

"To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program."

May 9, 2018

Before I get into the reactions following Trump's speech of yesterday, I'll cover a few other details from what Trump announced.

The memorandum that he signed after concluding his remarks states that the policy of the U.S. is "that Iran be denied a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; that Iran's network and campaign of regional aggression be neutralized; to disrupt, degrade, or deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its surrogates access to the resources that sustain their destabilizing activities; and to counter Iran's aggressive development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities."

In addition to directing the Secretaries of State and Treasury to begin the process of reimposing the economic sanctions that were waived as a result of the nuclear deal, it also directs the Secretary of Defense to "prepare to meet, swiftly and decisively, all possible modes of Iranian aggression against the United States, our allies, and our partners. The Department of Defense shall ensure that the United States develops and retains the means to stop Iran from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon and related delivery systems."

Trump's speech was shortly followed by a press briefing by John Bolton. One of the matters that came up repeatedly was the question of regime change. The first question was whether or not the administration was hoping that regime change would be part of addressing Iran's supposed malign activities. "No," Bolton said. What Trump has said, he went on, "is that one of the fundamental criticisms that the President and others have made to the deal is that it sought to address only a limited aspect of Iran's unacceptable behavior -- certainly a critical aspect -- but not taking into account the fact this is, and has been for many years, the central banker of international terrorism."

Secondly, he was asked if this was a precursor for the U.S. putting boots on the ground in Iran. Anybody who believes that "would be badly mistaken if that's what they thought," Bolton said.

Thirdly, a reporter asked Bolton if the administration was in contact with the MeK or other exile groups about a government in exile. 'I'm not aware of any of that, and that's just not something that's ever come up," he said.

Bolton was then asked if the administration would support a regime change in Syria as well. "I think the President made clear in his address a couple weeks ago when he announced the response to the Syrian chemical weapons attack, that the use of military force there and our diplomatic responses was limited to the question of the use of weapons of mass destruction," he siad. He then added that the real concern was Iran extending its influence through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon."

On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. "I think there are plenty of cases where we're simply incapable of saying whether they're in compliance or not. There are others where I think they've clearly been in violation," he said. "For example, their production of heavy water has repeatedly exceeded the limits permissible under the JCPOA. They're almost in the heavy water production business. They sell excess to Oman. They've sold it to European countries. It's a way of keeping the heavy water production facilities alive. They're warm. And that's part of the danger. And they have exceeded the limits."

At the end of his speech, yesterday, Trump said that the future of Iran belongs to its people. At first, this sounded to me like the preface to a call for regime change. What he said was this: "Iran's leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal; they refuse. And that's fine. I'd probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people. When they do, I am ready, willing, and able." A reporter asked Bolton if this meant that the US was ready tot alk to the Iranians from a position of strength. He replied that what the administration is prepared to do, along with the Europeans and others, is "to talk about a much broader deal addressing all of the aspects of Iran's conduct that we find objectionable. We're prepared to do that beginning right now."

May 21, 2018

If the New York Times is to be believed, Bolton is bringing with him, the same coterie of old neo-con cronies to work for him in the NSC that he's been surrounded by since his days in the Reagan Administration in the 1980's. This includes Charles M. Kupperman, a former Reagan administration official and defense contracting executive, who has come in as a temporary advisor. The list of those under consideration for positions in the NSC includes Frederick H. Fleitz, Sarah Tinsley and David Wurmser. "Mr. Bolton's relationships with most of the associates date back decades, to his days working in positions related to foreign policy in the Reagan administration. But he continued working with them in the dozen years since he has been out of government, serving as an adviser to Mr. Wurmser's company, according to its website, while relying on Mr. Kupperman, Ms. Tinsley and several other associates to help run a constellation of conservative political organizations that he founded to advance his foreign policy views and political prospects," the Times reports. "The activity brought Mr. Bolton into regular contact with some of the biggest donors on the right, while giving him a platform to explore his own possible presidential campaign in 2016 and to be an advocate for confrontational strategies in dealing with Iran, North Korea and Russia."

The Times report is a little weak on the ideology of these folks, preferring instead to focus on Bolton's ethical lapses, but can't avoid the matter entirely. Matthew C. Freedman, a long time associate who Bolton appointed to interview prospective hires, Kupperman, Tinsley and another associate, Garrett Marquis, the Times reports further, were affiliated with a Bolton-led nonprofit, the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, which aired ads in 2015 opposing the Iran nuclear deal. The Times also notes Bolton's close relationship with Sheldon Adelson, whom the Times describes as "an influential hawk and supporter of Israel from whom Mr. Bolton has sought assistance for his political ventures."

May 22, 2018

Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. "After investing so heavily in the GOP in 2016, Adelson's decision to again donate tens of millions of dollars to Republican efforts to stay in power is a direct consequence of how successfully Adelson has been able to influence U.S. policy since Trump and the GOP rode to victory in the last election cycle," Webb writes. "Adelson's belief that Trump would be "good for Israel" was the main driver behind his decision to spend more than $90 million on helping Trump and other Republicans win in the last election."

June 29, 2018

Mark Perry, in an article posted in Foreign Policy, yesterday, posits that Mattis is waging a losing battle against Bolton over the question of war with Iran. He reports that since his arrival at the White House, Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation.

Mattis' concerns are shared by the senior military leadership. "We've been in the air and in combat since 1993," a senior retired Air Force officer said, "and the wear and tear on the force has been considerable. The tempo has been crushing." Perry says this is actually an understatement, given that 30 percent of Air Force aircraft are not "mission capable," in part because of huge pilot shortfalls and a deterioration of military capability. The story is the same for the other services.

Then there's the military campaign itself. An air campaign could easily destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and its conventional military forces, but what happens afterwards? As noted by several experts that Perry consulted, the end of the air campaign would be the beginning of the war, not the end of it. There's no reason to expect that the government in Tehran would surrender and it would be able to fight on with its considerable unconventional military capabilities, not only in the IRGC but its proxy forces as well, such as Hezbollah.

In truth, the unease over any future conflict goes much deeper than these concerns, Perry notes, "and is seeded by what one senior and influential military officer called 'an underlying anxiety that after 17 years of sprinkling the Middle East with corpses, the U.S. is not any closer to a victory over terrorism now than it was on September 12.' It is this anxiety that undergirds military doubts about going to war with Iran -- that the United States would be adding bodies to the pile and not much more." In other words, it would be another forever war, only one that asborbs many times mor resources than even the ones we're in right now have done.

July 2, 2018

Ha'aretz ran a story , yesterday, very similar to the Mark Perry article I reported on last week, on the policy fight within the administration over what to do about Iran. Officially, the administration is committed to diplomatic and economic pressure to bring Iran to the negotiating table, where a new agreement should be constructed that would replace the JCPOA. Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done."

Mattis, on the other hand, despite is long held animus towards Iran is skeptical of regime change. Mattis, the sources stated, supports increasing pressure on Iran, but with the clear objective of bringing the Iranians back to the table for a better agreement – one that would roll back their regional aggression. Pompeo is said to lie in between but is moving towards Mattis.

Ha'aretz also points to the influence of outside advisors like Rudy Giuliani–who recently addressed the annual conference of the National Council of Resistance in Iran in Paris as–as a further factor in the uncertainty around Trump's policy. What Ha'aretz doesn't mention, though, is the Russia factor and that what Trump ultimately decides to do could be determined in Helsinki on July 16.

July 26, 2018

Fazel Hawramy, an independent journalist working in Iraqi Kurdistan, reports in an article in Al Monitor, that the State Department is replacing the outgoing counsel general in Erbil with an Iran expert by the name of Steven Fagin, the director of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. As director of the Office of Iranian Affairs, which has several outposts around the world, including in Istanbul and Dubai, Fagin was responsible for developing, coordinating, recommending and executing US policy on Iran, Hawramy reports. Fagin's presence in Iraqi Kurdistan is significant given that the armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups fighting the Islamic Republic are based in the region. Hawramy names the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), in particular, whose leader, Mustafa Hijri, Fagin met with last month, when he was in Washington, by invitation from the Trump Administration, for a week long series of meetings at various think tanks. Each side is said to be exploring the seriousness of the other.

The KDPI, it turns out, is a military organization that has a long history of staging attacks against the IRGC in Iran. The KDPI has also stepped up efforts to establish an entity through which all the Kurdish parties can coordinate their efforts against Tehran. Meanwhile, on July 21, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, announced the killing of 15 Iranian soldiers near the town of Marivan, close to the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. No mention is made of how much support these groups might have among Iranian Kurds, however. They may not be any more viable than the MeK, except for making trouble of course.

If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested. Bolton may find history repeating itself, with Trump resisting his plan for regime change, just as Bush did in 2003, Porter writes. In the week before Porter's article came out, Bolton denied that the administration policy for Iran was regime change, despite the pullout from the JCPOA. "I've written and said a lot of things when I was a complete free agent. I certainly stand by what I said at the time, but those were my opinions then. The circumstance I'm in now is I'm the national security adviser to the president. I'm not the national security decision-maker," he told CNN's Situation Room. The implication is clear. Number one, Bolton still believes in regime change. Number two, his view has not prevailed with Trump. The recent comments by both Trump and Pompeo would seem to bear out that Trump's policy remains, as Pompeo said, to change the regime's behavior, not to change the regime.

2) Who Is Richard Goldberg?

In early January of this year, Bolton brought onto the NSC, one Richard Goldberg, to be the NSC's "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, Jewish Insider reported on Jan. 7, was the lead Congressional staff negotiator for sanctions on Iran prior to the nuclear deal in 2015 in his capacity as deputy chief of staff and senior foreign policy adviser to former Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), and later served as chief of staff for former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner. After leaving government in 2017, Goldberg joined the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The National Interest's Curt Mills confirmed Goldberg's neo-con credentials the same day. "Couldn't think of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC to maximize the maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." FDD president mark Dubowitz jubilantly tweeted. Goldberg "takes a view of Iran similar to many of Washington's most committed Iran hawks. He views the regime in Tehran as akin to the Soviet Union -- a hub of a global, anti-American counterculture and internally collapsible if Reagan-style pressure is applied," Mills reports. "For FDD, which has functioned as the administration's go-to think-tank on Iran, it's another coup. The Goldberg move to the White House comes as at a time when the organization had been publicly doubting the administration's course for the first time," Mills reports later in the article.

Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003.

As for Goldberg's history, we find that he's been a very militant advocate for Likudnik Israel going back to 2004 when he first arrived on Capitol Hill as a staffer (Goldberg is a young punk and was probably in his early to mid-20's in 2004). According to the FDD's biography of him, Goldberg was "A leader in efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Richard played a key role in U.S. funding for the Arrow-3 program, Iron Dome and the deployment of an advanced missile defense radar to the Negev Desert." During his time working for Mark Kirk, Goldberg "emerged as a leading architect of the toughest sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was the lead Republican negotiator for three rounds of sanctions targeting the Central Bank of Iran, the SWIFT financial messaging service, and entire sectors of the Iranian economy. Richard also drafted and negotiated legislation promoting human rights and democracy in Iran, including sanctions targeting entities that provide the Iranian regime with the tools of repression."

In September 2017, Goldberg authored a memo that was circulated on Capitol Hill which advocated that the president should declare to Congress next month that the deal is no longer in the national security interest of the United States, Foreign Policy reported at the time. Then the president would make clear his readiness to hit Iran with a "de-facto global economic embargo" if it failed to meet certain conditions over a 90-day period, including opening military sites to international inspectors. "This would be a 21st century financial version of [John F.] Kennedy's Cuba quarantine," according to a copy of the proposal obtained by Foreign Policy. The embargo would involve reimposing sanctions lifted under the deal, as well as additional measures including restrictions on oil exports. This is clearly recognizable, now, as the policy that the Trump Administration has imposed on Iran since Trump announced the US withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018.

TTG • 3 hours ago

Willy B., thanks for pulling all this information together into a very readable piece. Well done. This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing.

[Apr 04, 2019] How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as European. That's why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as 'the Union of Europe' which will strengthen Russia's potential in its economic pivot toward the 'New Asia.'" Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, February 2012

The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony.

Try to imagine for a minute, that the hacking claims were not part of a sinister plan by Vladimir Putin "to sow discord and division" in the United States, but were conjured up to create an external threat that would justify an aggressive response from Washington. That's what Russiagate is really all about.

US policymakers and their allies in the military and Intelligence agencies, know that relations with Russia are bound to get increasingly confrontational, mainly because Washington is determined to pursue its ambitious "pivot" to Asia plan. This new regional strategy focuses on "strengthening bilateral security alliances, expanding trade and investment, and forging a broad-based military presence." In short, the US is determined to maintain its global supremacy by establishing military outposts across Eurasia, continuing to tighten the noose around Russia and China, and reinforcing its position as the dominant player in the most populous and prosperous region in the world. The plan was first presented in its skeletal form by the architect of Washington's plan to rule the world, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Here's how Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor summed it up in his 1997 magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (p.30) .. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. . About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." ("The Grand Chessboard:American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives", Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, page 31, 1997)

14 years after those words were written, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the banner of imperial expansion and demanded a dramatic shift in US foreign policy that would focus primarily on increasing America's military footprint in Asia. It was Clinton who first coined the term "pivot" in a speech she delivered in 2010 titled "America's Pacific Century". Here's an excerpt from the speech:

"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific region

Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology ..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."

("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)

The pivot strategy is not some trifling rehash of the 19th century "Great Game" promoted by think-tank fantasists and conspiracy theorists. It is Washington's premier foreign policy doctrine, a 'rebalancing' theory that focuses on increasing US military and diplomatic presence across the Asian landmass. Naturally, NATO's ominous troop movements on Russia's western flank and Washington's provocative naval operations in the South China Sea have sent up red flags in Moscow and Beijing. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao summed it up like this:

"The United States has strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military alliance, strengthened strategic cooperation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on us from the east, south, and west."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been equally critical of Washington's erratic behavior. NATO's eastward expansion has convinced Putin that the US will continue to be a disruptive force on the continent for the foreseeable future. Both leaders worry that Washington's relentless provocations will lead to an unexpected clash that will end in war.

Even so, the political class has fully embraced the pivot strategy as a last-gasp attempt to roll back the clock to the post war era when the world's industrial centers were in ruins and America was the only game in town. Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end.

Washington has many ways of dealing with its enemies, but none of these strategies have dampened the growth of its competitors in the east. China is poised to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the next 2 decades while Russia's intervention in Syria has rolled back Washington's plan to topple Bashar al Assad and consolidate its grip on the resource-rich Middle East. That plan has now collapsed forcing US policymakers to scrap the War on Terror altogether and switch to a "great power competition" which acknowledges that the US can no longer unilaterally impose its will wherever it goes. Challenges to America's dominance are emerging everywhere particularly in the region where the US hopes to reign supreme, Asia.

This is why the entire national security state now stands foursquare behind the improbable pivot plan. It's a desperate "Hail Mary" attempt to preserve the decaying unipolar world order.

What does that mean in practical terms?

It means that the White House (the National Security Strategy) the Pentagon (National Defense Strategy) and the Intelligence Community (The Worldwide Threat Assessment) have all drawn up their own respective analyses of the biggest threats the US currently faces. Naturally, Russia is at the very top of those lists. Russia has derailed Washington's proxy war in Syria, frustrated US attempts to establish itself across Central Asia, and strengthened ties with the EU hoping to "create a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok." (Putin)

Keep in mind, the US does not feel threatened by the possibility of a Russian attack, but by Russia's ability to thwart Washington's grandiose imperial ambitions in Asia.

As we noted, the National Security Strategy (NSS) is a statutorily mandated document produced by the White House that explains how the President intends to implement his national security vision. Not surprisingly, the document's main focus is Russia and China. Here's an excerpt:

"China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence." (Neither Russia nor China are attempting to erode American security and prosperity." They are merely growing their economies and expanding their markets. If US corporations reinvested their capital into factories, employee training and R and D instead of stock buybacks and executive compensation, then they would be better able to complete globally.)

Here's more: "Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world." (This is a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black.')

"Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data." (The western media behemoth is the biggest disinformation bullhorn the world has ever seen. RT and Sputnik don't hold a candle to the ginormous MSM 'Wurlitzer' that controls the cable news stations, the newspapers and most of the print media. The Mueller Report proves beyond a doubt that the politically-motivated nonsense one reads in the media is neither reliably sourced nor trustworthy.)

The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is even more explicit in its attacks on Russia. Check it out:

"Threats to US national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners . We assess that Moscow will continue pursuing a range of objectives to expand its reach, including undermining the US-led liberal international order, dividing Western political and security institutions, demonstrating Russia's ability to shape global issues, and bolstering Putin's domestic legitimacy.

We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Asad regime's territorial control in Syria, ·Russia seeks to boost its military presence and political influence in the Mediterranean and Red Seas mediate conflicts, including engaging in the Middle East Peace Process and Afghanistan reconciliation .

Russia will continue pressing Central Asia's leaders to support Russian-led economic and security initiatives and reduce engagement with Washington. Russia and China are likely to intensify efforts to build influence in Europe at the expense of US interests " ("The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community", USG )

Notice how the Intelligence Community summary does not suggest that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the US, only that Russia has restored order in Syria, strengthened ties with China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East, and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US. This is entirely understandable given Putin's determination to draw Europe and Asia closer together through a region-wide economic integration plan. Here's Putin:

"We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent's energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy."

The gas pipelines and high-speed rail are the arteries that will bind the continents together and strengthen the new EU-Asia superstate. This is Washington's greatest nightmare, a massive, thriving free trade zone beyond its reach and not subject to its rules. In 2012, Hillary Clinton acknowledged this new threat and promised to do everything in her power to destroy it. Check out this excerpt:

"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described efforts to promote greater economic integration in Eurasia as "a move to re-Sovietize the region." . "We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it," she said at an international conference in Dublin on December 6, 2012, Radio Free Europe."

"Slow down or prevent it"?

Why? Because EU-Asia growth and prosperity will put pressure on US debt markets, US corporate interests, US (ballooning) national debt, and the US Dollar? Is that why Hillary is so committed to sabotaging Putin's economic integration plan?

Indeed, it is. Washington wants to block progress and prosperity in the east in order to extend the lifespan of a doddering and thoroughly-bankrupt state that is presently $22 trillion in the red but continues to write checks on an overdrawn account.

But Russia shouldn't be blamed for Washington's profligate behavior, that's not Putin's fault. Moscow is merely using the free market system more effectively that the US.

Now consider the Pentagon's 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which reiterates many of the same themes as the other two documents.

"Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security."

(Naturally, the "security environment" is going to be more challenging when 'regime change' is the cornerstone of one's foreign policy. Of course, the NDS glosses over that sad fact. Here's more:)

"Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors ..(Baloney. Russia has been a force for stability in Syria and Ukraine. If Obama had his way, Syria would have wound up like Iraq, a hellish wastelands occupied by foreign mercenaries. Is that how the Pentagon measures success?) Here's more:

"China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model

"China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system .

"China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department because of the magnitude of the threats they pose to U.S. security." ( National Defense Strategy of the United States of America )

Get the picture? China and Russia, China and Russia, China and Russia. Bad, bad, bad.

Why? Because they are successfully implementing their own development model which is NOT programed to favor US financial institutions and corporations. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. The only reason Russia and China are a threat to the "rules-based system", is because Washington insists on being the only one who makes the rules. That's why foreign leaders are no longer falling in line, because it's not a fair system.

These assessments represent the prevailing opinion of senior-level policymakers across the spectrum. (The White House, the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community) The USG is unanimous in its judgement that a harsher more combative approach is needed to deal with Russia and China. Foreign policy elites want to put the nation on the path to more confrontation, more conflict and more war. At the same time, none of these three documents suggest that Russia has any intention of launching an attack on the United States. The greatest concern is the effect that emerging competitors will have on Washington's provocative plan for military and economic expansion, the threat that Russia and China pose to America's tenuous grip on global power. It is that fear that drives US foreign policy.

And this is broader context into which we must fit the Russia investigation. The reason the Russia hacking furor has been allowed to flourish and spread despite the obvious lack of any supporting evidence, is because the vilifying of Russia segues perfectly with the geopolitical interests of elites in the government. The USG now works collaboratively with the media to influence public attitudes on issues that are important to the powerful foreign policy establishment. The ostensible goal of these psychological operations (PSYOP) is to selectively use information on "audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of organizations, groups, and individuals."

The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the


Beckow , says: April 4, 2019 at 1:02 am GMT

The emerging Euro-Asian power block is very heterogeneous. Russia, China, and the smaller affiliated players like Central Asia, Iran, Syria, Turkey don't agree on almost anything. They have different cultures, religions, economies, demographic profiles, even writing systems. The most rational strategy to prevent the Euro-Asian block from consolidating would be to get them to fight each other. Alternatively, find the weakest link and attack it in an area where its reluctant allies don't share its interests.

Exactly the opposite has happened in the last 5-10 years: US has seemingly worked overtime to get China-Russia alliance of the ground. They used to distrust each other, today, after Ukraine, South China See, etc they have become close allies. Same with Iran and Syria: instead of letting them stew in their own internal problems – mostly religious and having a nepotistic elite – US has managed to turn the fight into an external geo-political struggle, literally invited Russia to join in, and ended up losing.

Bush turned Iraq from a fanatically anti-Iran bastion to a reliable ally of Iran and started an un-winnable land war in Afghanistan (incredible!). Obama turned Libya, the richest and most stable African country that threatened no-one and kept African migrants far away, into a chaotic hellhole where slave trade flourishes and millions of Sub-Saharan Africans can use it to move on to Europe.

Then Obama tried to coup-de-etat Erdogan in Turkey, and – even worse – failed miserably. This gang can't shoot straight – whatever they put in their position papers is meaningless drivel because they are too stupid to think. They have no patience to wait for the right time to move, no ability to manage on the ground allies, and an aversion to casualties that makes winning a war impossible. Today Trump threatens Germany over its energy security (pipelines), further antagonises Turkey and Erdogan, watches helplessly as EU becomes the next UN (lame and irrelevant), and bets everything on a few small allies like Saudi Arabia and Izrael that are of almost no use in Euro-Asia.

A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that ' maybe I had bad information ' is no master of the universe. And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or ' information warfare ' – is a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.

anon [338] Disclaimer , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:07 am GMT
the russophobia is just drama to keep the MIC spending at $700+ billion per year

there is no way to justify that level of spending and pretend they don't have $25 billion one time to actually help solve the real problem for the U.S.

Krollchem , says: April 4, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
"The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the battlespace" which they must exploit in order to build public support for their vastly unpopular wars and interventions. "

Here is a short guide on how to detect subversion of the mind by the media and their handlers by a former military intelligence officer.

JR , says: April 4, 2019 at 6:00 am GMT
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".

Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".

Recognizing this however one can't escape the conclusion that this "Grand Chessboard" with its consistent 'amoral realist imperatives' is serving up inherently immoral 'imperatives' as inescapable options dressed up in academic language and with absolutely abhorrent arrogance.

Stating that Brennan's Russophobia is somehow a degeneration of Brzezinki's "Grand Chessboard" is completely overlooking how difficult it would be to outdo Brzezinki's own total moral degeneration.

One has to recognize that by now the only bipartisan aspect of US policy can be found in sharing these despicable and immoral 'imperatives' to maintain that "American Primacy" at all cost (of course to the rest of the world).

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
"The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony."

TRUE!

I would suggest that the initials 'US' in the final sentence be changed to: Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:12 pm GMT
"Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end."

Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2, the part where it becomes obvious that it is the Anglo-Zionist Empire, which, like a band of screeching Pharisees standing on the walls of Jerusalem hurling curses at the Romans they inform that Jehovah will soon wipe out all Romans to save His Chosen Race, would choose utter destruction for all over any common sense backing down to prevent mass slaughter.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:43 pm GMT
Nothing harmed US more than Brzezinski's ideology. US did build up far east with their investments, while neglecting their own backyard. US should have build up rather North and South America and make it the envy of the world. Neglecting particularly South America now created Desperate south American people, who have no jobs and no future and these people are now invading US.
Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 4, 2019 at 12:44 pm GMT
@Beckow

A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that 'maybe I had bad information' is no master of the universe. And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or 'information warfare' – is a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.

Testosterone plus steady, unrelenting decline and corruption of American "elites" most of who have no background in any fields related to actual effective governance especially in national security (military) and diplomatic fields. Zbig's book is also nothing more than doctrine-mongering based on complete lack of understanding of Russian history.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 4, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMT
@JR

Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".

Zbig was a political "scientist" (which is not a science) by education, fact aggravated by his Russophobia, and thus inability to grasp fundamentals of military power and warfare–a defining characteristic of American "elites". He, obviously, missed on the military-technological development of 1970s through 1990s, to arrive to the inevitable conclusion that classic "geopolitics" doesn't apply anymore. Today we all can observe how it doesn't apply and is made obsolete.

Agent76 , says: April 4, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT
(Jan.1998) US history – "How Jimmy Carter I Started the Mujahideen" – Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor 1977-1981

"Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a13_1240427874

Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979

In 1979 Carters National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski went into Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan to give a little pep talk to some prospective majehadeen (Holy Warriors). In a 1997 interview for CNN's Cold War Series, Brzezinski hinted about the Carter Administration's proactive Afghanistan policy before the Soviet invasion in 1979, that he had conceived.

flashlight joe , says: April 4, 2019 at 2:55 pm GMT
@Jake @Jake

"Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2,"

I call it the Western British Empire.

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:14 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Why was it that the Brit Empire kept acting throughout the later 18th, the 19th and early 20th centuries to harm Russia, even when it technically was allied with Russia? Why the Crimean War, for example?

Why, for example, was Brit secret service all over the assassination of Rasputin and tied in multiple ways to most non-Marxist revolutionary groups?

mike k , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT
This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else.
Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:26 pm GMT
@anon Like the Ukranians, the 'Balts' virtually always are controlled by somebody else. When Russia does not control the Baltic states, they are controlled by either Poles or Germans. Russians know what that means: the Baltic states are then used as weapons to attack Russia.

The region is much calmer when Russia controls the Baltic states, and that is before taking into consideration how the Polish-Lithuanian Empire turned its Jews lose to terrorize all Orthodox Christians and how Germanic states later used Lutheranism as a force in the Baltics to ignite war with Russia and, under the queer Frederick the Great also used Jewish bankers to finance wars against Russia.

[Apr 04, 2019] As Merkel is the USA stooge, and Germany needs to be freed from the USA vassalitete, and re-installed as an independent country; Putin should do is set up a "Free" German government in K nigsburg just like the US is doing with Gaido in Venezuela.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cowboy , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT

@Rurik Upon consideration, what Putin should do is set up a "Free" German government in Königsburg just like the US is doing with Gaido in Venezuela. Get China to recognize it. Then they should start negotiating lucrative contracts, treaties and alliances between the Free Germans and the rest of OBOR. It would be fascinating to see how ZOG reacted.

Oh, and most important of all, declare a new debt free currency, perhaps gold backed. I could live with the Reichsmark.

[Apr 04, 2019] People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: April 3, 2019 at 12:24 am GMT

@Johnny Walker Read "People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction."
― Umberto Eco

"What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?"
― Voltaire

"Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it."
― Mercedes

"Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity."
― Robert Graves

[Apr 04, 2019] A>bsolutely matter of fact record about the 1932/1933 famine on the website of the Russian Embassy in Germany.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anja Böttcher , says: April 3, 2019 at 7:07 am GMT

@anon As most aggressive and most rotten player in the most rotten and most massmurderous part of humanity, the Anglosphere, you dare to compare Russian dealing with a Soviet hunger catastrophe, which occured all over the Soviet Union, btw worst in Kazakhstan and western Siberia, and in Ukraine, where consfiscation of grain occured mainly by Ukrainian Soviets, and hunger in Ukraine mostly in eastern Ukraine, where people felt and feel close to Russia, with USAist ongoing practice of aggressive wars, genocidal supremacy and massmurder?

You are a laughing stock, worm.

You can find a carefully source-based and absolutely matter of fact record about the 1932/1933 famine on the website of the Russian Embassy in Germany.
https://russische-botschaft.ru/de/2008/07/18/zur-frage-der-hungersnot-in-der-ukraine-in-den-jahren-1932-1933/

Statements there are completely in accordance with findings of the most accomplished non-Russian expert on Soviet agrarian policies, Philipp Merl.
https://www.amazon.de/Agrarmarkt-Neue-%C3%96konomische-Politik-Landwirtschaft/dp/3515046488/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1542118493&sr=8-7&keywords=stephan+merl
https://www.amazon.de/Sowjetmacht-Bauern-Landwirtschaft-Kriegskommunismus-Wirtschaftsforschung/dp/3428076931/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1513810167&sr=8-2&keywords=stephan+merl

See as well: Philipp Merl : Sowjetisierung in Wirtschaft und Landwirtschaft, EGO (European History Online), pdf.

That solid German historians unanimously revealed propagandistic attempts to sell the 1932/33 famine remotely as equivalent to Anglosaxon hunger genocides, like that of the Irish, Indians and Iranians, has nothing to do with historiography, but with anti-Russian hate propaganda, can be clearly deduced from publications by the German historians Jürgen Zarusky and Jörg Ganzenmüller.

http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Zarusky-reviews-Bloodlands.pdf
https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/sites/default/files/medien/material/2008-3/Ganzenmueller_2012.pdf

And anybody seriously interested in human losses under Stalin finds the best place to learn about it in Moscow.
http://www.moskau-guide.de/moskau/gulag-museum

The best places to learn about Nazi atrocities is btw Berlin.

However, where is the place where the two intertwined most massmurderous nations of the planet openly expose their crimes, which are the most horrendous and giant humanity has committed?

It simply does not exist.

Nobody else has liquidated more than 90% of the indigenous populatio on robbed territory but USAist and Australians, both degenerated Anglosaxons.
Nobody else has robbed as much territory from a neighbour country than the US has done with Mexico.
Nobody committed comparable genocidal losses on Indian ground, Iranian ground, even Chinese
ground – in proportion, Japanese in WW2 could not compete, than Brits. In Africa, British bloodtoll is likewise unequalled – France and Belgium come close behind, but do not match that bloodtoll.

No other nation, not even in Europe and not even Nazi Germany, has committed a genocide of neighbours which resembles what Brits die with their Irish neighbour country, whose population was three times in history reduced by 50% by them.

From the last genocide in the midst of the 19th century, Ireland has not even recovered after 150 years: There population of 12 million Irish then was never achieved again.

In comparison: In the Soviet Union, which btw was not identical with Russia, Ukrainian population was 29.5 million in 1926 and 40.469 million in 1939. This is official Soviet Census, which Ukraine keeps still as their official national census. And you have the cheek to suggest with a solely propagandistic term that Georgian Stalin, whatever his responsibility in the famine was, committed anything comparable with Anglosaxon ongoing slaughtering?

The US started their history with the eracidation of 90% of native Americans.
They have , in their short history, conducted more than a hundred aggressive wars, were in wars, which were never against anybody who had remotely threatened USAists on their ground, 325 years in 349 years of US history and have, since 1949 alone, caused further 30 million causualties minimum.
And in that role, they were since the Round Table of Cecil Rhode the followers of the most genocidal nation of the planet, Brits, whose suprematist colonialism massmurdered more than 100 million people minimum.

This is what even a US-guarded platforrm like Wikipedia admits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

This is a record from India and Ireland about British genocides:
http://worldsworstmassmurderer.blogspot.com/
http://www.irishholocaust.org/officialbritishintent

In the Cold War, btw, the US was most willing to conduct a nuclear Holocaust of 200 million western Europeans, 200 million eastern Europeans, including Russians, and 200 million eastern Asians – if Soviet atomic bombs had not posed the danger that USAists could die a nuclear death in that case as well.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/6/doomsday_machine_daniel_ellsberg_reveals_he

AND YOU HAVE NEVER CEASED TO BE MASSMURDERERS – EVEN WILLING TO COMMIT HUMANOCIDE AS A WHOLE – TO MAINTAIN HEGEMONY OF THE WORLD's CULTURALLY MOST DISTORTED AND DEGENERATED NATION.

And you vermin dare to point with a finger on Russians?

[Apr 04, 2019] It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe.

Notable quotes:
"... the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets. ..."
"... After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and aid. Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders. ..."
"... Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along. ..."
"... It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders. ..."
"... @Asagirian As Lord Ismay once said: "The purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian says: • Website April 4, 2019 at 4:44 pm GMT

It's been our understanding that NATO was necessary because of the Iron Curtain. Soviets took over Eastern Europe and denied it freedom, and there was the danger that Soviets would expand further West.

So, US and Western European nations made a Three Musketeers or Mickey Mouseketeers pact of 'one for all and all for one'.

Now, suppose we do a thought experiment of alternative history: The Soviets withdrew from Eastern Europe, and Eastern European nations like Poland and Hungary became democratic and capitalist soon after WWII. And there is no East and West Germany but just democratic Germany.

Would NATO still have been created? If so, for what? To contain the Soviets? But the Soviets left Eastern Europe in our hypothetical scenario.
If NATO was created even after Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe soon after WWII, there could be only one reason: US hegemony and domination over Western Europe.

Now, there is no way to validate a 'what if' scenario.

However, the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets.

After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and aid. Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders.

Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along.

It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders.

...NATO is even more of a US imperialist project. And this time, the 'new cold war' was entirely the fault of the US.

AnonFromTN , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT

@Mike from Jersey

"we make up the rules as we go along and those rules don't apply to us."

About sums it up nicely.

Digital Samizdat , says: April 4, 2019 at 6:36 pm GMT
@Asagirian As Lord Ismay once said: "The purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."

[Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader

Highly recommended!
Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader?

by Tyler Durden Thu, 04/04/2019 - 21:25 550 SHARES Authored by Monica Crowley, op-ed via The Washington Times,

The best defense, the saying goes, is a good offense.

The key orchestrators of the Big Trump-Russia Collusion Lie seem to have hewed tightly to that tactical advice.

Over the past two years, one of their biggest "tells" has been their hyper-aggressive and gratuitous attacks on the president. Given that special counsel Robert Mueller 's investigation found no collusion or obstruction of justice, their constant broadsides now look, in retrospect, like calculated pre-emptive strikes to deflect attention and culpability away from themselves.

By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

We now know that former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, are hip-deep in the conspiracy. Both wrote supposed "tell-all" books and carpet-bombed the media with interviews in which they regularly flung criminal accusations against the president. Whenever asked about their own roles, they reverted to denouncing Mr. Trump .

With Mr. Mueller 's findings, Mr. Comey 's and Mr. McCabe's media benders look increasingly suspicious.

As do those of their comrades in the Obama national security apparatus, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and his partner in possible crime, former CIA Director John Brennan , who, apart from former President Barack Obama himself, may be the biggest player of them all.

Any investigation into the origins and execution of the Big Lie must focus on Mr. Brennan , whose job as the nation's chief spook would have prohibited him, by law, from engaging in any domestic political spy games.

Of course, the law didn't stop him from illegally spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by hacking into its computers and lying repeatedly about it, prompting Democratic senators to call for his resignation.

Once out of Langley, Mr. Brennan tore into Mr. Trump, accusing him of "treason" (among other crimes) in countless television appearances and bitter tweets. It got so vicious that Mr. Trump pulled his security clearance.

Consider a few critical data points.

The Obama Department of Justice and FBI targeting of two low-level Trump aides, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, was carried out in the spring of 2016 because they wanted to spy on the Trump campaign but needed a way in. They enlisted an American academic and shadowy FBI informant named Stefan Halper to repeatedly sidle up to both Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page. But complementing his work for the FBI , Mr. Halper had a side gig as an intelligence operative with longstanding ties to the CIA and British intelligence MI6.

Another foreign professor, Joseph Mifsud, who played an important early part in targeting Papadopoulos, also had abiding ties to the CIA , MI6 and the British foreign secretary.

A third operative, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, targeted Mr. Papadopoulos in a London bar. It was Mr. Downer's "tip" to the FBI that provided the justification for the start of Russia counterintelligence investigation, complete with fraudulently-obtained FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

All of these interactions reek of entrapment. Mr. Papadopoulos now says, "I believe Australian and UK intelligence were involved in an active operation to target Trump and his associates." Like Mr. Halper and Mr. Mifsud, Mr. Downer had ties to the CIA , MI6 and (surprise!) the Clintons.

Given the deep intelligence backgrounds of these folks, it's difficult to believe that former DOJ/ FBI officials such as Peter Strzok or even James Comey and Andrew McCabe on their own devised the plan to deploy them.

So: who did? How did the relationships with Messrs. Halper, Mifsud and Downer come about? Who suggested them for these tasks? To whom did they report? How were they compensated?

Any investigation must follow the money -- and the personnel. There were plenty of DOJ/ FBI officials involved, but what about intelligence officials? Was Mr. Brennan a central player in the hoax, which would help explain the participation of Mr. Halper, Mr. Mifsud and Mr. Downer? Intel officials are likely to draw on other intelligence operatives.

There is also a glimpse of a paper trail.

Fox News' Catherine Herridge reported last week that "in a Dec. 12, 2016 text, [ FBI lawyer Lisa] Page wrote to McCabe: "Btw, Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just FYSA [for your situational awareness ]."

"Within a minute, McCabe replied, "OK."

Ms. Herridge notes that those named are likely Peter Strzok and Mr. Brennan 's then-deputy, David Cohen. Ms. Herridge also notes that while we don't yet know what was discussed during the dinner, government sources thought it "irregular" for Mr. Clapper to be in contact with the more junior-level Mr. Strzok. She also points out that the text came "during a critical time for the Russia probe."

Indeed. It was right before the publication of the ICA, the official Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian 2016 election interference.

As Paul Sperry has reported, "A source close to the House investigation said Brennan himself selected the CIA and FBI analysts who worked on the ICA, and that they included former FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok.

"Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan and Comey , and he was one of the authors of the ICA," according to the source." Recall that the dossier-based ICA was briefed to Obama , Trump and Congress ahead of Trump's inauguration.

Post- Mueller report, Mr. Brennan is spinning wildly that perhaps his early condemnations of Mr. Trump were based on "bad information."

These are just some of the threads suggesting Mr. Brennan may be one of the Masters of the Big Lie, requiring full investigation.

If the devil is in the details, Mr. Brennan is all over the details.

No wonder he -- and his fellow caballers -- have been so loud. They doth protest too much.


Luau , 6 minutes ago link

Obama was the ringleader. Brennan's just the fall guy.

Yars Revenge , 7 minutes ago link

Trying to frame a sitting President is treason.

Which under the law is punishable by death.

outofnowhere , 12 minutes ago link

Yes, yes he was. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Brennan was and is the darkest of evil. He is insane.

MoreFreedom , 27 minutes ago link

By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

Hillary setup a unsecured server and had confidential government information on it, including 20 emails with Obama suspiciously using an alias. If you're in law enforcement, and get a tip that Papadopolous may get some of those emails from Russians, what crime has been committed by Papadopolous? Isn't Papadopolous doing the US a favor by obtaining those emails from those who hacked her server?

If you believe Hillary that her server wasn't hacked (and you don't have any evidence because Obama's people allowed practically all the evidence to be destroyed) then there's no reason to investigate Papadopolous. If you think Hillary's server was hacked, shouldn't you be investigating her and examining her server to see who hacked her and what damage was done, such as blackmailing her and Obama into appeasement and flexibility, like selling 20% of the US's uranium reserves to Russians just before an election?

... ... ...

American2 , 1 hour ago link

John Brennan, James Clapper, Strozk, Ohr, Page were only some of Obama's political pythons operating in the jungle of Washington. Obama orchestrated a symphony of harmful actions that will take the US a generation to recover from. That is if Obama's criminal actions can be undone and then we get to recover.

[Apr 04, 2019] In this interview Cenk asks Tulsi directly if she opposes the Isreal Occupation, she says

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

RobinG says: April 2, 2019 at 11:35 pm GMT 100 Words @Cloak And Dagger What do they say about Tulsi? Please note in this interview when Cenk asks her directly if she opposes the Occupation, she says Yes! A true Zio supporter (as some here have accused her!) would object to even using the word. And she addresses the Adelson question. On the conflict, her answer is pretty pablum, but probably as far as she can go strategically.

Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her. IMO it's a very good interview. Can you picture for a moment, Tulsi in a debate with Trump? What are her boosters doing to prepare her for that? She's handling all the animosity with equanimity, and she'll arrive at the final contest battle-hardened.

Tulsi Gabbard Interview On TYT

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 3, 2019 at 5:56 am GMT

@RobinG

Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her.

It is a good interview and she handles herself very well and her positions are well articulated. I remain wary of her, however, but I will keep an open mind and watch her in the months ahead to see where her funding comes from.

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 3, 2019 at 6:30 am GMT
@RobinG You may also be interested in this interview:

[Apr 04, 2019] If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendj hriges Reich" with "American Primacy"

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Wally , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:43 pm GMT

@JR ssaid:
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".

Except that Germany did not send Germans into the conquered territories during WWII, though they wanted to do so.

[Apr 04, 2019] avu o lu just compared Turkey to Ukraine, saying Ukraine let itself be told it had to decide between West and Russia, and look what happened; Turkey cannot be forced into same choice

Turkey vs Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... Well, since 2002, people made a lot about the neo-cons being heavily influenced by Leo Strauss. I think this is only part of it. These people seem to me to be just as heavily influenced by George Berekeley: things don't really exist, there's no causation, therefore there's no consequences to one's own actions. ..."
"... "Corruption cannot lead to prosperity." Nor can it field a competent military with functional weapon systems. ..."
"... The comments at the end about how Turkey can maintain good relations with NATO and at the same time develop cooperation with Russia is clearly nonsense. NATO whole reason for existence now is as an anti-Russia military alliance. Pence is absolutely right about that ... you cannot be a member of NATO and develop close cooperation with Russia. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Apr 4, 2019 2:06:15 PM | link

Tweeting direct from NATO meeting provides inside details not found in press articles, particularly the NATO talking-point ending. IMO, the tweeter Mehta was right to highlight this exchange:

"Bennan: Do you know what the US policy in syria is?
"Çavuşoğlu: No, and this is the problem.

"He points to different statements from WH, Pentagon, CENTCOM, State. 'There is no clear strategy. This is the problem.'"

Further on:

"Wow. Çavuşoğlu just compared Turkey to Ukraine, saying Ukraine let itself be told it had to decide between West and Russia, and look what happened; Turkey cannot be forced into same choice."

Please take the few minutes to read.


vk , Apr 4, 2019 2:07:04 PM | link

Pence threat is also stupid as there is no mechanism to expulse any member from NATO. NATO members can only leave voluntarily.

Since when this stopped the USA?

The reason Turkey won't exit NATO are many. Among them:

1) Turkey's economy is in meltdown. It only didn't collapse yesterday because, luckily, Turkey has only "burnt" one third of its Dollar reserves. For comparison, the usurper government which toppled Dilma Rousseff burnt almost 50% of Brazil's then gigantic US$ 795 billion -- only to try to keep interest at a staggering 9.5% rate. Lucky for the Turkish people, Erdogan survived the 2016 coup, but he was already trounced in the three main cities and those reserves won't last forever. Time is in favor of the Americans in this case;

2) Contrary to, e.g. China and Russia, Turkey has a strong pro-USA political-popular base. It really doesn't need to topple Erdogan through a violent coup (Obama made an unforced error in 2016) in order to install a puppet government in Turkey;

3) The USA has the IMF. The IMF is the only institution which can do regime change and nobody will question. Erdogan is, for now, refusing its "aid", but he's just one man. That means that, even if Turkey remains with an Islamist (Ottomanist) or end up electing a neutral government, the Americans will still be capable of exerting formidable pressure;

4)Turkey is, perhaps, the geostrategically most important individual country for NATO. If the Americans still dream of defeating and balkanizing Russia through a hot war, then the path will go through Turkey and the Bosphorus. It is not on rogue POTUS or Veep who will change that.

Clueless Joe , Apr 4, 2019 3:10:41 PM | link
"But current American elites have no concept of own actions having consequences."

Well, since 2002, people made a lot about the neo-cons being heavily influenced by Leo Strauss. I think this is only part of it. These people seem to me to be just as heavily influenced by George Berekeley: things don't really exist, there's no causation, therefore there's no consequences to one's own actions.

karlof1 , Apr 4, 2019 3:50:45 PM | link

Bolton unwittingly utters truism but has no idea that it applies to him and the Outlaw US Empire billions of times over: "Corruption cannot lead to prosperity." Nor can it field a competent military with functional weapon systems.

Another OT note, this one about the technical development of generation 6 military aircraft, Hypersonic and hydrogen fueled and most likely piloted by droids or remotely given speed and G-forces.

Harry Law , Apr 4, 2019 4:22:04 PM | link
The US are threatening friend and foe alike, whereas those sanctions against their foe's are real, sanctions against NATO members can be counterproductive, for instance Germany being told to stop Nord Stream 2 and increase its contributions to NATO, 2% of Germany's GDP [4 trillion dollars] is an enormous amount of money to protect against a non existent enemy.

The time will come when the US will be ignored, then, unless the US acts on those threats, its own credibility will be called into question, then the only way is down.

Christian J Chuba , Apr 4, 2019 6:37:15 PM | link
BUT What about the Saudi Model???

Whenever anyone suggests that we should stop supplying bombs and military equipment to the Saudis who are murdering Yemenis, moralists like Mike Pence, Pompeo, and the rest of the religious right thunder, 'THEY WILL BUY ARMS FROM THE ROOOSHINS!'

So it is quite funny that they are willing to play hardball with the Turks.

SteveK9 , Apr 4, 2019 8:20:30 PM | link
S @22

The comments at the end about how Turkey can maintain good relations with NATO and at the same time develop cooperation with Russia is clearly nonsense. NATO whole reason for existence now is as an anti-Russia military alliance. Pence is absolutely right about that ... you cannot be a member of NATO and develop close cooperation with Russia.

At least in the eyes of NATO (i.e. the US) Russia is the enemy.

[Apr 04, 2019] You may remember Feltman as Victoria Kagan Nuland s United Nations contact in the subversion of Ukraine

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Grace Poole , says:

In comments at a 2007 hearing before the State Department subcommittee for ‘International Religious Freedom’, Iran was singled out for special attention and Jeff Feltman testified that State Department was funding NGOs that “could not be named for their own protection.”

These NGOs were “promoting democratic values” and aiding the Iranian people to liberate themselves.”

You may remember Feltman as Victoria Kagan Nuland’s United Nations contact in the subversion of Ukraine, and as the man Hillary Clinton’s State Department assigned to “manage” the “Arab Spring” that erupted in Tunisia.

[Apr 04, 2019] Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For by Willy B

Highly recommended!
So Trump took Adelson money and completely lost his independence, became Bolton marionette. He betrayed all major point of his election campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well. ..."
"... Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys. ..."
"... Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit. ..."
"... it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. ..."
"... According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation. ..."
"... After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner. ..."
"... The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army. ..."
"... He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements. ..."
"... Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. ..."
"... It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did. ..."
"... Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz. ..."
"... Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom." ..."
"... It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. ..."
"... Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony. ..."
"... "Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write. ..."
"... Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. ..."
"... According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real." ..."
"... "To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. ..."
"... Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation. ..."
"... Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done." ..."
"... If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested ..."
"... Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003. ..."
"... This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

A review of publicly available reporting that I have accumulated in my files over the past two years would suggest that John Bolton's boss is really Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino king who has plied the Republican Party with tens of millions of dollars in largesse in order to remake it in his image. This conclusion is irrespective of what you might think of Trump himself and whether or not you believe he really meant it when he said there should be no more regime change wars. The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well.

Bolton's history goes back to the Reagan Administration in the 1980's, and his perfidy during the runup to the Iraq invasion is well known to this readership. What I focus on here is the period from January of 2017 through mid-2018, around the time of his appointment to be Trump's national security advisor, plus a couple of months, during which period a number of interesting reports were posted on Trump's lobbying of the White House to get an administration position and his sponsorship by Adelson. Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys.

What follows is a time line of summaries of news stories covering the period above in the form that I wrote them at the time with the dates over each one of them. It's not meant to be comprehensive–there's undoubtedly a great deal of insight still to be gained on how deeply these neo-con networks have actually penetrated the administration–and the news reports the summaries are based on likely vary in their quality. I hope anyone with such deeper insights will post them in the comments section.

Appended at the end of the time line is a short report on Richard Goldberg, the Z-lobby activist who Bolton brought onto the NSC in January to be his "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit.

1) John Bolton: A Timeline for 2017-2018

Feb. 19, 2017

AP circulated a wire , yesterday, reporting that Trump was interviewing candidates for the National Security Advisor position at his estate in Florida. The names mention were Cheneyac John Bolton (who, if I remember correctly, was already rejected by the Trump administration for a State Department job) and LTG H.R. McMaster, according to one unnamed White House official. Another had said that Trump had been interested in David Petraeus but that Petraeus was not a finalist for the position. Picking Bolton would be shear lunacy, but McMaster is highly interesting. McMaster wrote a famous book about the Vietnam war in which he documented that practically everybody in the military leadership, and especially Maxwell Taylor lied about Vietnam and, like Mattis, he has a history of being a harsh critic of the RMA. I'll have more to say about him if he gets the job.

May 10, 2017

Bloomberg's Eli Lake, in a column posted on Monday, described what amounts to a factional war inside the White House, with Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus on one side and H.R. McMaster on the other. Trump himself is said to have blasted McMaster for his phone conversation with his South Korean counterpart during which he assured him that Trump didn't really mean it when he said that South Korea should pay for the THAAD deployment. "McMaster's allies and adversaries inside the White House tell me that Trump is disillusioned with him," Lake writes. "This professional military officer has failed to read the president -- by not giving him a chance to ask questions during briefings, at times even lecturing Trump."

According to Lake's sources (and I'm wondering if they might, in fact, be Bannon and Priebus, or people close to them), Trump has complained in front of McMaster in intelligence briefings about "the general undermining my policy." They say Trump has privately expressed regret for choosing McMaster and even called in neo-con John Bolton to talk being McMaster's deputy, an idea which was ultimately dropped.

Oct. 17, 2017

Nikki Haley told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that it's the administration's hope that America stays with the Iran nuclear deal if Congress takes action to keep it together. "I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal," she said. "What we hope is that we can improve the situation," she added. "And that's the goal. So I think right now, we're in the deal to see how we can make it better. And that's the goal. It's not that we're getting out of the deal. We're just trying to make the situation better so that the American people feel safer." The NBC press report doesn't report whether or not she explained how the JCPOA is going to be made better when all of the other parties agree that it's not up for renegotiation. They note, however, that Haley was one of the few voices in the Trump administration to encourage the president to declare Iran in violation. It's well known that both Tillerson and Mattis opposed decertification, with Mattis telling the Senate Armed Services Committee, two weeks ago, that it was in the US interest to stay in the agreement.

I didn't come across this until yesterday afternoon, but it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. At the other end of the channel is John Bolton, who even is able to get Trump on the phone himself from time to time, despite John Kelly's efforts to obstruct him.

According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation.

The article otherwise goes into great depth on how Haley is at odds with most of the rest of the administration on Iran, particularly Tillerson, her nominal boss and who is reported to have strenuously objected to her trip to Vienna in August to put pressure on the IAEA to demand inspection of military sites in Iran. One White House official described the escalating tensions between Tillerson and Haley as reaching "World War III" proportions. Two weeks after the Vienna trip, Haley appeared at the AEI in Washington where she publicly floated what became the parameters of the policy that Trump announced on Friday. "The purpose of the AEI speech was to figure out, 'Is this gonna work? Does this thread that needle?'" one official said. After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner.

Asked about the Politico report on Sunday, Haley said "That is just so much drama. I mean, it's really, it's all this palace intrigue."

Anti-neocon activist and former US Air Force analyst Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik that she believes that Trump was mislead by fake intelligence. "I suspect that Mr. Trump is being fed information regarding Iran as a nation and as a government that is cherry-picked and creatively elaborated, largely outside of intelligence channels, by his neoconservative advisers," she said. She noted despite Trump's 2016 promise to "drain the swamp" of discredited foreign policy interventionists, many of them have managed to weasel their way back into government service. "This faction has always slated the destruction of Iran as a regional power for several decades now, and if they have the ear of the President, there is never a better time than the present to press their case," she said. She insisted, however, that neither Trump himself, nor the U.S. military is determined on war against Iran.

Oct. 24, 2017

According to VOA (at any rate), there's a big fight in Washington over the future of U.S. adherence to the JCPOA. Lunatic Lindsey Graham fully supports the policy that Trump announced on Oct 13 (no surprise there), while the French armed forces minister, Florence Parly, who was in Washington, last week, supports the agreement. "We need the JCPOA," she said during an appearance at CSIS on Friday. "Scrapping it would be a gift to Iran's hardliners and a first step towards future wars." Tim Kaine, who has leading an effort in the Senate to write a new war authorization, echoed her. "If you weaken diplomacy, you raise the risk of unnecessary war, and that's what this president is doing. If we take a step back from the deal, Iran will take a step back. And what will they ask for, that they get to now increase centrifuges or get some of their enriched uranium back? I do not want to give Iran one thing back from this deal," said Kaine.

But, if you believe Graham, Iran will be let loose from the deal in 15 years (some people say 10 or even 8 years) to enrich as much uranium as it wants. This ignores the fact that Iran will still be a member of the NPT and will be subject to its additional protocol. Top Iranian officials have said that if the US sabotages the JCPOA, Iran will make appropriate decisions in response, but they won't be building bombs.

The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army.

"Rapidly increased pressure against Iran's role as the world's central banker of international terrorism, stressed in Trump's Oct. 13 speech, cannot come fast enough," he goes on. And, of course, European commercial relations with Iran are not to be tolerated. Othewise, "Tehran will rightly conclude the United States is really not serious about confronting their threat to us and our allies. That is the legacy of the Obama administration. It should not also be the legacy of the Trump administration." Nobody wants to rush the country headlong into disastrous faster then the neo-cons.

Oct. 26, 2017

Gareth Porter, in an article that was posted on Oct. 20 (but that I didn't come across until yesterday) on the American Conservative, reports that the new policy that Trump announced on Oct. 13 not only "clearly represents a dangerous rejection of diplomacy in favor of confrontation" but also marks "a major shift toward a much closer alignment of U.S. policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." "Whether explicitly or not, Trump's vow to work with Congress to renegotiate the Iran nuclear agreement, and his explicit threat to withdraw from the deal if no renegotiation takes place, appear to be satisfying the hardline demands Netanyahu has made of Washington's policy toward Tehran," Porter writes. Those demands being either US withdrawal from the JCPOA altogether, or demanding changes in it that cannot be attained.

Porter goes deeper into the conduits for this policy into the White House than a Politico article I reported on earlier that came out at about the same time. He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements.

He also delves deeper into the significance of Sheldon Adelson than the Politico report did, noting that Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. "Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in Washington -- especially with regard to Iran," Porter notes, adding that in 2013, Adelson openly called for the nuclear intimidation of Iran. In the next few paragraphs, Porter provides a thumbnail sketch of the history of the neo-cons in order to highlight the role of John Bolton in all of this. It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did.

Jan. 3, 2018

The protests in Iran may have started spontaneously in anger at economic conditions, and/or at the instigation of Rouhani's rival Raisi and his father -in-law in Mashad, but the evidence that they're being, at the very least, encouraged from the outside is growing. Unnamed Trump Administration officials told the Washington Free Beacon that both Trump and Pence are watching the protests very closely and the officials said they are working to ensure that Trump does not miss an opportunity to incubate a possible revolution that could topple Iran's hardline ruling regime. "With the world watching growing demonstrations across Iran, the Trump administration sees an opportunity to feed the growing protests," the Free Beacon reports, something that they and the neo-cons say that Obama failed to do in 2009, when protests erupted against Ahmedinijad's re-election. "The Trump administration's strong and vocal support for the demonstrators is a 180 from the Obama administration's approach and it's signaling to Tehran that this will not be a repeat of the 2009 demonstrations," the administration official said.

The regime change cheerleader from outside the administration is, not surprisingly, John Bolton. During an appearance on "Fox and Friends" on Monday, Bolton argued that these protests are different than the post-election protests in Iran in 2009, which questioned the legitimacy of the election of then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and who should lead the regime. "These protests are about whether the regime survives or not, and that makes them much more threatening to the ayatollahs, much more dangerous, and raises the stakes considerably," Bolton said. He called on Trump to end the nuclear deal, re-impose previous sanctions and impose new ones that increase the economic pressure on Iran and provide material support to opposition forces. "There's a lot we can do to, and we should do it," Bolton said. "Our goal should be regime change in Iran."

Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz.

"Iranians are looking toward America to support their struggle," Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, urging the White House to continue condemning the regime, and follow up with "sanctions targeting corruption and human-rights abuses."

Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom."

March 10, 2018

John Bolton has been snooping around the White House. CNN reported on Wednesday, that Trump met with him at the White House, suggesting that he may be under consideration as an "outside expert" to help the State Department manage the North Korea portfolio. CNN says that Bolton argues that a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would not only be legal but also effective at curbing the threat.

On Tuesday, Bolton told Fox News that "The only thing North Korea is serious about is getting deliverable nuclear weapons." Bolton said direct and indirect talks with North Korea have occurred for the last 25 years and never end up successful. He said if a new round of talks begins, North Korea will possess a deliverable nuclear weapon by the end of the year. So, Bolton obviously believes that the past determines the future.

The Washington Post, in the above cited article, reports that Christopher Hill, who was on Capitol Hill this week to talk about North Korea, said that he face "withing attacks" from conservative Republicans when he was engaged in the six-party talks in 2005. "People like John Bolton said I was a traitor for talking to the North Koreans," Hill said in an interview. The Post then reports that Bolton offered conditioned praise for Trump, saying Friday that he expected the president to deliver a warning about U.S. willingness to use military force.

Daniel Davis, in an op-ed in Fox News, argues that Trump goes ahead with announced plans to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, he would open the door to potentially solving our nuclear dispute with the Communist nation short of war. This is a far better course that listening to the calls from some to give up on diplomacy and use military force against the North. The "some" include Bolton who has been making the case for a preventive military strike against North Korea. "If such a U.S. strike were ordered, it would have catastrophic consequences for us. Far from ensuring our safety, it would impose egregious levels of casualties on U.S. forces and American civilians [not to mention Koreans who would make up the bulk of casualties -cjo], and harm – not help – our security and our prosperity," Davis writes.

March 23, 2018

You've all seen the headlines by now. I'm not going to say a lot about it. The punditry is that it means more aggressive US policies towards both Iran and North Korea. It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. The suggestion in the press coverage is that Bolton is more likely to tell Trump what he wants to hear, particularly on Iran, but we probably shouldn't automatically assume that Trump wants to go to war as badly as Bolton does.

March 25, 2018

Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony.

"Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write.

"One month later, Adelson used his own newspaper, The Las Vegas Review Journal, to express his frustration with Trump's failure to quickly redeem his promise to move the embassy. Two months after that, Trump reversed a half century of U.S. policy by formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. According to Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, Steve Bannon credited Adelson for Trump's decision."

Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. Ands Bolton, like Adelson, has long favored a "military solution" to the Iran nuclear problem. In 2013, Adelson posted an op-ed in his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, calling for the nuclear bombing of Iran, first in some uninhabited area of the country to send Iran's leaders "a message" and if that didn't work, a second bombing of Tehran itself (this of course, would be a war crime in the first degree). Bolton, himself, in an op-ed two years later, held up the Israeli bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor as the model for what the US should (as was later documented by a Norwegian researcher who's name I don't recall, the bombing of Osirak did not end Saddam's Hussein's nuclear bomb program. Rather, it forced it underground and out of sight, as UN weapons inspectors discovered in the 1990's after Gulf War I).

March 31, 2018

Journalist Whitney Webb, writing Mintpress News, finds Bolton's appointment as Trump's national security advisor, to be particularly dangerous. Webb puts Bolton's appointment in the context of those of Pompeo to be secretary of state and Gina Haspell to run the CIA, but finds Bolton the most dangerous of the three, "due to his bellicose rhetoric, unilateral decision-making, and his "kiss up, kick down" style of interaction with superiors and colleagues, allowing him to be remarkably effective in getting his way."

Webb's purpose is to explore what Bolton's appointment means for US national security policy and he begins with Bolton's deep ties to Israel–ties "so deep that some have posited that his commitment to extreme Zionism has led him to betray the national interest of his own country on more than one occasion." Webb cites a number of examples of this, which add up to Bolton pursuing his own warmongering policy against Iran even when the administration he was nominally working for had the opposite policy. Bolton has pressured Israeli officials to attack Iran even when calling for such an attack was not the U.S. government's position. According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real."

May 8, 2018

Trump tweeted yesterday that he would be announcing his decision on Iran today at 2 PM. The Washington Post, citing the usual gaggle of unnamed officials, US and foreign, reports that he is expected to say that he will not continue a waiver of sanctions against Iran. Exactly what this means is not at all clear. Trump is not expected to renege on the nuclear deal altogether. Instead, the Post says, he will address a portion of the wide range of sanctions that were waived when the deal was first implemented, while leaving in limbo other waivers that are due in July. As for what comes next, Boris Johnson said that as far as he knows, the administration has no clear "Plan B" for what's to follow. The affected sanctions, the Post notes, not only impose restrictions on US trade with Iran but also threaten pther countries that buy Iranian oil. Officials, who spoke to the Post about the upcoming announcement on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Trump will use the threat of further measures as leverage on both the Europeans and Iran itself.

As has been too often the case, we may be seeing Trump and his advisors expressing two different policies on Iran. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's newest lawyer, delivered remarks to meeting of something called the Iran Freedom Convention for Democracy and Human Rights, during which he advocated regime change in Tehran. "We have a president who is tough," Giuliani is reported to have said. "We have a president who is as committed to regime change as we are." Confronting Iran, he added, is "more important than an Israeli-Palestinian deal." He also predicted the end of the nuclear deal. "What do you think is going to happen to that agreement!" Giuliani said of the deal, before taking a piece of paper in his hands and pretending to rip it apart.

The State Department immediately dismissed Giuliani's remarks. "He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration on foreign policy," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told The Associated Press on Monday. The Hill further noted that U.S. officials were alarmed by Giuliani's comments and said they weren't consistent with the White House's policy.

This is confirmed by another report in the Washington Post. "But if regime change is on the agenda, Trump has been far more circumspect about how it would happen," writes the Post's Ishaan Tharoor. "Dethroning the mullahs would likely involve waging war against Iran, a prospect at odds with his own stated desire to withdraw from Syria and disentangle the United States from a generation of costly conflicts in the Middle East." Tharoor goes on to tie the regime change crowd, including Giuliani and Bolton directly to the MeK. The MeK, Tharoor writes, was behind the event at which Giuliani spoke this weekend, "marking yet another episode in his long, cozy relationship with the organization." Tharoor cites Politico reporting that the MeK has paid Giuliani "handsomely," to include not only appearances before the group but also for lobbying to have it removed from the State Department's terror list, which was done in 2012.

Tharoor also cites Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter who was detained in Iran for a year-and-a-half, reporting that the MeK is held with contempt by ordinary Iranians, who view the organization as a craven, treacherous outfit. "In the seven years I lived in Iran, many people expressed criticism of the ruling establishment -- at great potential risk to themselves," noted Rezaian. "In all that time, though, I never met a person who thought the MEK should, or could, present a viable alternative."

"To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program."

May 9, 2018

Before I get into the reactions following Trump's speech of yesterday, I'll cover a few other details from what Trump announced.

The memorandum that he signed after concluding his remarks states that the policy of the U.S. is "that Iran be denied a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; that Iran's network and campaign of regional aggression be neutralized; to disrupt, degrade, or deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its surrogates access to the resources that sustain their destabilizing activities; and to counter Iran's aggressive development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities."

In addition to directing the Secretaries of State and Treasury to begin the process of reimposing the economic sanctions that were waived as a result of the nuclear deal, it also directs the Secretary of Defense to "prepare to meet, swiftly and decisively, all possible modes of Iranian aggression against the United States, our allies, and our partners. The Department of Defense shall ensure that the United States develops and retains the means to stop Iran from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon and related delivery systems."

Trump's speech was shortly followed by a press briefing by John Bolton. One of the matters that came up repeatedly was the question of regime change. The first question was whether or not the administration was hoping that regime change would be part of addressing Iran's supposed malign activities. "No," Bolton said. What Trump has said, he went on, "is that one of the fundamental criticisms that the President and others have made to the deal is that it sought to address only a limited aspect of Iran's unacceptable behavior -- certainly a critical aspect -- but not taking into account the fact this is, and has been for many years, the central banker of international terrorism."

Secondly, he was asked if this was a precursor for the U.S. putting boots on the ground in Iran. Anybody who believes that "would be badly mistaken if that's what they thought," Bolton said.

Thirdly, a reporter asked Bolton if the administration was in contact with the MeK or other exile groups about a government in exile. 'I'm not aware of any of that, and that's just not something that's ever come up," he said.

Bolton was then asked if the administration would support a regime change in Syria as well. "I think the President made clear in his address a couple weeks ago when he announced the response to the Syrian chemical weapons attack, that the use of military force there and our diplomatic responses was limited to the question of the use of weapons of mass destruction," he siad. He then added that the real concern was Iran extending its influence through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon."

On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. "I think there are plenty of cases where we're simply incapable of saying whether they're in compliance or not. There are others where I think they've clearly been in violation," he said. "For example, their production of heavy water has repeatedly exceeded the limits permissible under the JCPOA. They're almost in the heavy water production business. They sell excess to Oman. They've sold it to European countries. It's a way of keeping the heavy water production facilities alive. They're warm. And that's part of the danger. And they have exceeded the limits."

At the end of his speech, yesterday, Trump said that the future of Iran belongs to its people. At first, this sounded to me like the preface to a call for regime change. What he said was this: "Iran's leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal; they refuse. And that's fine. I'd probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people. When they do, I am ready, willing, and able." A reporter asked Bolton if this meant that the US was ready tot alk to the Iranians from a position of strength. He replied that what the administration is prepared to do, along with the Europeans and others, is "to talk about a much broader deal addressing all of the aspects of Iran's conduct that we find objectionable. We're prepared to do that beginning right now."

May 21, 2018

If the New York Times is to be believed, Bolton is bringing with him, the same coterie of old neo-con cronies to work for him in the NSC that he's been surrounded by since his days in the Reagan Administration in the 1980's. This includes Charles M. Kupperman, a former Reagan administration official and defense contracting executive, who has come in as a temporary advisor. The list of those under consideration for positions in the NSC includes Frederick H. Fleitz, Sarah Tinsley and David Wurmser. "Mr. Bolton's relationships with most of the associates date back decades, to his days working in positions related to foreign policy in the Reagan administration. But he continued working with them in the dozen years since he has been out of government, serving as an adviser to Mr. Wurmser's company, according to its website, while relying on Mr. Kupperman, Ms. Tinsley and several other associates to help run a constellation of conservative political organizations that he founded to advance his foreign policy views and political prospects," the Times reports. "The activity brought Mr. Bolton into regular contact with some of the biggest donors on the right, while giving him a platform to explore his own possible presidential campaign in 2016 and to be an advocate for confrontational strategies in dealing with Iran, North Korea and Russia."

The Times report is a little weak on the ideology of these folks, preferring instead to focus on Bolton's ethical lapses, but can't avoid the matter entirely. Matthew C. Freedman, a long time associate who Bolton appointed to interview prospective hires, Kupperman, Tinsley and another associate, Garrett Marquis, the Times reports further, were affiliated with a Bolton-led nonprofit, the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, which aired ads in 2015 opposing the Iran nuclear deal. The Times also notes Bolton's close relationship with Sheldon Adelson, whom the Times describes as "an influential hawk and supporter of Israel from whom Mr. Bolton has sought assistance for his political ventures."

May 22, 2018

Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. "After investing so heavily in the GOP in 2016, Adelson's decision to again donate tens of millions of dollars to Republican efforts to stay in power is a direct consequence of how successfully Adelson has been able to influence U.S. policy since Trump and the GOP rode to victory in the last election cycle," Webb writes. "Adelson's belief that Trump would be "good for Israel" was the main driver behind his decision to spend more than $90 million on helping Trump and other Republicans win in the last election."

June 29, 2018

Mark Perry, in an article posted in Foreign Policy, yesterday, posits that Mattis is waging a losing battle against Bolton over the question of war with Iran. He reports that since his arrival at the White House, Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation.

Mattis' concerns are shared by the senior military leadership. "We've been in the air and in combat since 1993," a senior retired Air Force officer said, "and the wear and tear on the force has been considerable. The tempo has been crushing." Perry says this is actually an understatement, given that 30 percent of Air Force aircraft are not "mission capable," in part because of huge pilot shortfalls and a deterioration of military capability. The story is the same for the other services.

Then there's the military campaign itself. An air campaign could easily destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and its conventional military forces, but what happens afterwards? As noted by several experts that Perry consulted, the end of the air campaign would be the beginning of the war, not the end of it. There's no reason to expect that the government in Tehran would surrender and it would be able to fight on with its considerable unconventional military capabilities, not only in the IRGC but its proxy forces as well, such as Hezbollah.

In truth, the unease over any future conflict goes much deeper than these concerns, Perry notes, "and is seeded by what one senior and influential military officer called 'an underlying anxiety that after 17 years of sprinkling the Middle East with corpses, the U.S. is not any closer to a victory over terrorism now than it was on September 12.' It is this anxiety that undergirds military doubts about going to war with Iran -- that the United States would be adding bodies to the pile and not much more." In other words, it would be another forever war, only one that asborbs many times mor resources than even the ones we're in right now have done.

July 2, 2018

Ha'aretz ran a story , yesterday, very similar to the Mark Perry article I reported on last week, on the policy fight within the administration over what to do about Iran. Officially, the administration is committed to diplomatic and economic pressure to bring Iran to the negotiating table, where a new agreement should be constructed that would replace the JCPOA. Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done."

Mattis, on the other hand, despite is long held animus towards Iran is skeptical of regime change. Mattis, the sources stated, supports increasing pressure on Iran, but with the clear objective of bringing the Iranians back to the table for a better agreement – one that would roll back their regional aggression. Pompeo is said to lie in between but is moving towards Mattis.

Ha'aretz also points to the influence of outside advisors like Rudy Giuliani–who recently addressed the annual conference of the National Council of Resistance in Iran in Paris as–as a further factor in the uncertainty around Trump's policy. What Ha'aretz doesn't mention, though, is the Russia factor and that what Trump ultimately decides to do could be determined in Helsinki on July 16.

July 26, 2018

Fazel Hawramy, an independent journalist working in Iraqi Kurdistan, reports in an article in Al Monitor, that the State Department is replacing the outgoing counsel general in Erbil with an Iran expert by the name of Steven Fagin, the director of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. As director of the Office of Iranian Affairs, which has several outposts around the world, including in Istanbul and Dubai, Fagin was responsible for developing, coordinating, recommending and executing US policy on Iran, Hawramy reports. Fagin's presence in Iraqi Kurdistan is significant given that the armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups fighting the Islamic Republic are based in the region. Hawramy names the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), in particular, whose leader, Mustafa Hijri, Fagin met with last month, when he was in Washington, by invitation from the Trump Administration, for a week long series of meetings at various think tanks. Each side is said to be exploring the seriousness of the other.

The KDPI, it turns out, is a military organization that has a long history of staging attacks against the IRGC in Iran. The KDPI has also stepped up efforts to establish an entity through which all the Kurdish parties can coordinate their efforts against Tehran. Meanwhile, on July 21, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, announced the killing of 15 Iranian soldiers near the town of Marivan, close to the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. No mention is made of how much support these groups might have among Iranian Kurds, however. They may not be any more viable than the MeK, except for making trouble of course.

If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested. Bolton may find history repeating itself, with Trump resisting his plan for regime change, just as Bush did in 2003, Porter writes. In the week before Porter's article came out, Bolton denied that the administration policy for Iran was regime change, despite the pullout from the JCPOA. "I've written and said a lot of things when I was a complete free agent. I certainly stand by what I said at the time, but those were my opinions then. The circumstance I'm in now is I'm the national security adviser to the president. I'm not the national security decision-maker," he told CNN's Situation Room. The implication is clear. Number one, Bolton still believes in regime change. Number two, his view has not prevailed with Trump. The recent comments by both Trump and Pompeo would seem to bear out that Trump's policy remains, as Pompeo said, to change the regime's behavior, not to change the regime.

2) Who Is Richard Goldberg?

In early January of this year, Bolton brought onto the NSC, one Richard Goldberg, to be the NSC's "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, Jewish Insider reported on Jan. 7, was the lead Congressional staff negotiator for sanctions on Iran prior to the nuclear deal in 2015 in his capacity as deputy chief of staff and senior foreign policy adviser to former Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), and later served as chief of staff for former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner. After leaving government in 2017, Goldberg joined the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The National Interest's Curt Mills confirmed Goldberg's neo-con credentials the same day. "Couldn't think of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC to maximize the maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." FDD president mark Dubowitz jubilantly tweeted. Goldberg "takes a view of Iran similar to many of Washington's most committed Iran hawks. He views the regime in Tehran as akin to the Soviet Union -- a hub of a global, anti-American counterculture and internally collapsible if Reagan-style pressure is applied," Mills reports. "For FDD, which has functioned as the administration's go-to think-tank on Iran, it's another coup. The Goldberg move to the White House comes as at a time when the organization had been publicly doubting the administration's course for the first time," Mills reports later in the article.

Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003.

As for Goldberg's history, we find that he's been a very militant advocate for Likudnik Israel going back to 2004 when he first arrived on Capitol Hill as a staffer (Goldberg is a young punk and was probably in his early to mid-20's in 2004). According to the FDD's biography of him, Goldberg was "A leader in efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Richard played a key role in U.S. funding for the Arrow-3 program, Iron Dome and the deployment of an advanced missile defense radar to the Negev Desert." During his time working for Mark Kirk, Goldberg "emerged as a leading architect of the toughest sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was the lead Republican negotiator for three rounds of sanctions targeting the Central Bank of Iran, the SWIFT financial messaging service, and entire sectors of the Iranian economy. Richard also drafted and negotiated legislation promoting human rights and democracy in Iran, including sanctions targeting entities that provide the Iranian regime with the tools of repression."

In September 2017, Goldberg authored a memo that was circulated on Capitol Hill which advocated that the president should declare to Congress next month that the deal is no longer in the national security interest of the United States, Foreign Policy reported at the time. Then the president would make clear his readiness to hit Iran with a "de-facto global economic embargo" if it failed to meet certain conditions over a 90-day period, including opening military sites to international inspectors. "This would be a 21st century financial version of [John F.] Kennedy's Cuba quarantine," according to a copy of the proposal obtained by Foreign Policy. The embargo would involve reimposing sanctions lifted under the deal, as well as additional measures including restrictions on oil exports. This is clearly recognizable, now, as the policy that the Trump Administration has imposed on Iran since Trump announced the US withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018.

TTG • 3 hours ago

Willy B., thanks for pulling all this information together into a very readable piece. Well done. This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing.

[Apr 04, 2019] Both Egypt and Israel claim the other side started it. Israel lied.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: April 2, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT

Because of Trump's recent recognition of Israel's ownership of the Golan Heights, I Googled "Israel six day war," which in turn led me to the page link below. Turns out, Isreal lied about everything.

1) Both Egypt and Israel claim the other side started it. Israel lied.

2) Israel claims Egyptian forces were assembling for an offensive strike. Israel lied.

3) Israel merely initiated a pre-emptive war, rather than because the two stripes on its flag represent the boundaries of its nation as the Nile and the Euphrates. Israel lied.

There are more examples I won't list here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_relating_to_the_Six-Day_War

[Apr 04, 2019] Anybody reading from West Virginia? Our Senator Joe Manchin receives six figures of donations from AIPAC. Don't vote for him.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [244] Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT

@mark green I think a deceptively simple exercise would produce surprising results. We should try to figure out what Anti-Semitism is.

The answer will be that it's a vague concept like 'racism' that is used as a pejorative and slur, and that it would be very hard to find any real, verifiable 'Anti-Semites' or 'racists' who could be shown to hate all members of their chosen enemy group.

Yes, there are people who imagine that they hate all Jews, or all black people, etc. But I doubt that they really know who they hate, and would be surprised to find that they mostly hate a concept, rather than real people.

People who self-identify as 'Jews' are varied, by many different measures, and not all 'semitic', either. And not all people with 'semitic' genes identify as being a 'Jew'.

To those who would say, "well, we still know what we mean by the terms" I would respond, "I think you do, in the very fuzzy, vague, dangerous sense that characterizes your thinking."

That's one point. A second is that it's not a crime to hate anyone or anything. If you hate something or someone, you're within your rights to do so .waste of time and energy that that usually is.

Anonymous [391] Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT
Zionist colonization of America is nearing culmination. Nothing short of a comprehensive anti-colonial resistance movement will rid us of the Zio-cancer that is corroding our national identity, integrity, self determination and independence. The cancer must be extirpated and the time is now.
Anon [300] Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
Anybody reading from West Virginia? Our Senator Joe Manchin receives six figures of donations from AIPAC. Don't vote for him.

AIPAC's February 2019 press release stated, "AIPAC commends Congress for strongly supporting Israeli security and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship in provisions included in the new spending bill. Importantly, the legislation increases security assistance to Israel by $200 million to fully fund the first year of the new 10-year U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). These funds help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge in the region in order to defend itself, by itself, from mounting threats on its borders." This plundering was co-sponsored by the other West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito. So don't vote for her either.

So where does that leave West Virginia voters? Staying home and abstaining from voting, because we never get a good alternative due to the primary election. Which actually solves nothing.

Yep, looking at our options, the only change is going to come from a coup or revolution.

[Apr 04, 2019] Jewish Power Rolls Over Washington by Philip Giraldi

In other words Russiagate was a smoke screen over Isrealgate...
Notable quotes:
"... Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. ..."
"... The Lobby works assiduously to compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly identical interests is little more than a fraud. ..."
"... Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie. Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global interests. ..."
"... Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They are the gravest threat to our national security." ..."
"... Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political cover. ..."
"... There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks. infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual summit in Washington. It claims that 18,000 supporters attended the event, which concluded with a day of lobbying Congress by the attendees. Numerous American politicians addressed the gathering and it is completely reasonable to observe that the meeting constituted the most powerful gathering of people dedicated to promoting the interests of a foreign nation ever witnessed in any country in the history of the world.

There are a number of things that one should understand about the Jewish state of Israel and its powerful American domestic lobby. First of all, the charge that the actions of The Lobby (referred to with capital letters because of its uniqueness and power) inevitably involves dual or even singular allegiance based on religion or tribe to a country where the lobbyist does not actually reside is completely correct by definition of what AIPAC is and why it exists. It claims to work to "ensure that the Jewish state is safe, strong and secure" through "foreign aid, government partnerships, [and] joint anti-terrorism efforts ," all of which involve the U.S. as the donor and Israel as the recipient.

Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. No two countries have identical interests, something that is particularly true when one is considering Israel, an ethno-religious autocracy, and the United States, where The Lobby works assiduously to compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly identical interests is little more than a fraud.

Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie. Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global interests. The recent decisions to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights were ill-conceived and have been condemned by the world community, including by nearly all of America's genuine close allies.

The harm done by the Israeli connection to policy formulation in Washington and to U.S. troops based in the Middle East has been noted both by Admiral Thomas Moorer and General David Petraeus, with Moorer decrying how

"If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."

Petraeus complained to a Senate Committee that U.S. favoritism towards Israel puts American soldiers based in the Middle East at risk. He was quickly forced to recant, however.

Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They are the gravest threat to our national security." Inman was referring to American Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard, who stole for Israel an entire roomful of the most highly classified defense information. Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons grade uranium and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear weapons arsenal. The FBI, for its part, in its annual counterintelligence report, consistently identifies Israel as the "friendly" country that spies most persistently against the U.S. FBI Agents have testified that there are very few prosecutions of the swarms of Israeli spies due to "political pressure."

Third, there is the myth that the United States and Israel have "shared values," which is meant to imply that both are liberal democracies where freedom and human rights prevail, beacons of light offering enlightened leadership in a world where tyranny threatens at every turn. This was stressed in the opening remarks last weekend by AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr, who described Israel as "A nation always striving to be better, more just and true to the message of its founders, a nation dedicated to freedom of religion for people of all faiths. We do our work for all to see. What unites our pro-Israel movement is the passion for bringing American and Israel closer for the benefit of both and the benefit of all. We look like America because we are America."

Kohr is, of course, preaching to an audience that wants desperately to believe what he says in spite of what they have been able to see with their own eyes in the media when it dares to publish a story criticizing Israel. Jewish hypocrisy about one standard for Israel and Jews plus another standard for everyone else operates pretty much out in the open if one knows where to look. Zionist Organization of America's Morton Klein, who once tweeted regarding a "filthy Arab," was interviewed by journalist Nathan Thrall and asked why he believed it was "utterly racist and despicable" to support a "white nationalist" ethnic group but not racist for Israel to do the same. He responded "Israel is a unique situation. This is really a Jewish state given to us by God. God did not create a state for white people or for black people." Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, who calls himself the Senate's "shomer" or guardian for American Jews, had a slightly different take on it: "Of course, we say it's our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace."

But Kohr, Klein and Schumer all know as well as anyone that Israeli Jews, fortified by their conceit of being a "Chosen people," are not interchangeable with contemporary Americans, or at least not "like" the Americans who still care about their country. There are hundreds of mostly Jewish pro-Israel organizations in America, having a combined endowment of $16 billion, that are actively propagandizing and promoting Israeli interests by ignoring or lying about the downside of the relationship. The University of Michigan affiliate of the Hillel International campus organization alone has a multistory headquarters supported by a budget of $2 million and a staff of 15. It hosts an emissary of the Jewish Agency for Israel, an Israeli government supported promotional enterprise.

So, what is the meaning of the "American" in AIPAC? Requiring a religious-ethnic litmus test for full citizenship and rights is Israeli, not American. Having local government admissions committees that can bar Israeli-Palestinian citizens based on "social suitability" would not be acceptable to most Americans. Demanding a unique Israeli right to exist while denying it to Israel's neighbors; demolishing homes while poisoning Palestinian livestock and destroying orchards; shooting children for throwing stones; and inflicting death, terror and deprivation upon the imprisoned people of Gaza are all everyday common practice for the Israeli government.

Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political cover. Israel and friends like Kohr routinely make baseless charges of anti-Semitism against critics while also legislating against free-speech to eliminate any and all criticism. This drive to make Israel uniquely free from any critique has become the norm in the United States, but it is a norm driven by Israeli interests and Israel's friends, most of whom are Jewish billionaires or Jewish organizations that meet regularly and discuss what they might do to benefit the Jewish state.

And the fourth big lie is that the American people support Israel on religious as well as cultural grounds, not because mostly Jewish money has corrupted our political system and media. Indeed, many Christian fundamentalists have various takes on what Israel means, but their influence is limited. The Israel-thing is Jewish in all ways that matter and its sanitized Exodus -version that has been sold to the public is essentially a complete fraud nurtured by the media, also Jewish controlled, by Hollywood, and by the Establishment.

Mondoweiss reported recently that

"This weekend the New York Times breaks one of the biggest taboos , describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the Democratic Party's slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall's groundbreaking piece repeats a lot of data we've reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously. The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and Jews are still largely wed to Zionism– that's the nut." Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national-security adviser to ex-President Barack Obama recounted in the article how "a more assertive policy toward Israel" never evolved "The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is still shaped by the [Jewish] donor class."

And the support for Israel goes beyond money. The Times article included an October 2018

"Survey of 800 American voters who identify as Jewish, conducted by the Mellman Group on behalf of the Jewish Electoral Institute, 92 percent said that they are 'generally pro-Israel.' In the same poll -- conducted after the United States closed the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, appointed a fund-raiser for the settlements as U.S. ambassador and cut humanitarian aid to Palestinians -- roughly half of American Jews said they approved of President Trump's handling of relations with Israel. On what is considered the most divisive issue in U.S.-Israel relations, the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a November 2018 post-midterm election poll of more than 1,000 American Jews that was commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby aligned with Democrats, found that roughly half said the expansion of settlements had no impact on how they felt about Israel. According to a 2013 Pew survey , 44 percent of Americans and 40 percent of American Jews believe that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, [a] fact that Jews believe they have rights in historic Palestine that non-Jews do not."

And one only has to listen to the AIPAC speeches made by leading members of the U.S. government establishment to appreciate the essential hypocrisy over the U.S. wag-the-dog relationship with the Jewish state of Israel. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer led the parade of Democrats on the first evening of AIPAC, thundering "When someone accuses American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty, I say: Accuse me, I am part of a large, bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel -- an overwhelming majority of the United States Congress. I tell Israel's accusers and detractors: Accuse me."

Well, Steny there is a certain irony in your request and to be sure you should be accused over betrayal of your oath to uphold the constitution against all enemies "domestic and foreign." Hoyer is a product of the heavily Jewish Maryland Democratic Party machine that has also produced Pelosi and Senator Ben Cardin. Pelosi told the AIPAC audience about her father in Baltimore, a so-called Shabbos goy who would perform services for Jews on the sabbath and who would also speak Yiddish while at home with his Italian family. Cardin meanwhile has been the sponsor of legislation to make criticism or boycotting of Israel illegal, up to and including heavy fines and prison time.

Hoyer, widely regarded as one of the most pro-Israel non-Jewish congressman, also boasted to AIPAC about the 15 official trips to Israel he's made in forty years in Congress, accompanied by more than 150 fellow Democrats. "This August, I will travel with what I expect will be our largest delegation ever -- probably more than 30 Democratic members of Congress, including many freshmen."

Steny Hoyer will be on an AIPAC affiliate sponsored trip in which any contact with Palestinians will be both incidental and carefully managed. He also clearly has no problem in spending the taxpayer's dime to go to Israel on additional "codels" to get further propagandized. He is flat out wrong about Israel in general, but don't expect him to be convinced otherwise, which may be somehow related to the $317,525 in pro-Israel PAC contributions he has received.

There was much more at the AIPAC Summit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced "the pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance" while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, fresh from selling out U.S. interests on a visit to Israel, declared that "We live in dangerous times. We have to speak the truth. Anti-Semitism should and must be rejected by all decent people. Anti-Semitism – anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and any nation that espouses anti-Zionism, like Iran, must be confronted. We must defend the rightful homeland of the Jewish people."

Vice President Mike Pence, like Pompeo an evangelical Christian, piled on in his Monday prime time speech, declaring that "Anyone who aspires to the highest office of the land should not be afraid to stand with the strongest supporters of Israel in America. It is wrong to boycott Israel. It is wrong to boycott AIPAC. Anti-Semitism has no place in the Congress of the United States of America. Anyone who slanders this historic alliance between the United States and Israel should never have a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee."

Clearly, there is considerable evidence to support the theory that one has to be completely ignorant to hold high office in the United States. Rejecting Zionism and/or questioning Israeli policies is not anti-Semitism and the Jewish state is in fact no actual ally of the United States. Nor is there any mandate to defend it in its questionable "rightful homeland." Furthermore, dual-loyalty is what the relationship with Israel is all about and it is Jewish money and political power that makes the whole thing work to Israel's benefit.

But the good news is that all the lying blather from the likes of Steny Hoyer and Howard Kohr reveals their desperation. They are running scared because "the times they are a changing." Sure, Congressmen will continue to be bought and sold and Jewish money and the access to power that it buys will be able to prevail in the short term in a conspiratorial fashion. But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly clear. It is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not threaten the U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving will not continue indefinitely. It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


MarkinLA , says: April 2, 2019 at 2:37 am GMT

He was quickly forced to recant, however.

No he chose to. He was a high ranking general nearing retirement. Nobody could touch him if he really was looking out for the country as he took and oath to do.

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 2, 2019 at 4:27 am GMT

It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it.

Amen, brother Phil!

We are all suffering from cognitive dissonance where our conflicted minds refuse to force our government to declare AIPAC as an agent of a foreign nation that must be made to register as such.

But, as I said in a previous post, the foxes are guarding the henhouse. We need to take them down by hook or by crook. I have made it a mission in my copious free time to confront every politician that I can and ask them uncomfortable questions about their loyalty to this nation. So far, success has been limited, but if more people would join me, we could make these sniveling cowards fear us more than they fear The Lobby.

We are many and they are few…

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT
Jewish guide to the 2020 presidential challengers

https://www.jta.org/2019/03/06/politics/a-jewish-guide-to-the-2020-presidential-challengers

We have put together a series of articles that explore the candidates’ (and potential candidates’) Jewish connections — from those who identify as Jews, or are married to one, to candidates who are not Jewish but have ties to the community in different ways. We also explore their views on Israel.
Below are links to articles, sorted alphabetically, that our staff has written about some of the political contenders, mostly those seeking the Democratic nomination. This list will be updated as additional candidates join the fray.

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
And you thought Israel only dictated US policy in the ME? Every country knows that to get anything from the US they have to go thru the Jews. The only thing of value Israel has ever had to sell is its control of the US. Lets see how long it takes for Trump and congress to reinstate the aid.

Trump cuts aid to 3 countries with strong relations with Israel

Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, said President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem – but not an embassy.
By OMRI NAHMIAS Jerusalem Post
April 1, 2019 08:47

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump decided to stop programs of foreign aid for three states in the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who are known to have a strong relationship with Israel. Trump is cutting off nearly $500 million to put pressure on the three governments to stop their citizens from trying to cross the Mexican border into the US. However, it could also jeopardize the Israeli efforts to convince Honduras to move its Embassy to Jerusalem.

Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras said that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem – but not an embassy.

Just three months ago, things were moving in a positive direction. A trilateral meeting between Hernández, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Pompeo was followed by an announcement from the government of Honduras, saying it opened a dialogue with Netanyahu to explore the possibility of opening an embassy in Jerusalem.

After the trilateral meeting, Israeli media outlets indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to mediate a deal between Honduras and United States to secure the continuing of foreign aid to the country in exchange for opening a Honduran embassy in Jerusalem.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington, as well Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office did not respond for a comment request from The Jerusalem Post on that matter. Another country that would face a cut in foreign aid is Guatemala – the only country that followed the US and moved the embassy to Jerusalem”

Asagirian , says: • Website April 2, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
Hollywood will never adapt her novels.
Mark James , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT
@MarkinLA

No he chose to

Petraeus is in position to have lucrative –part-time– broadcasting appearances. He would not get those opportunities, if if he espoused that Israeli-bought US favoritism was wrong. Bobby Inman while not caring about the media, would be true to his beliefs.

JFK and LBJ both knew it was wrong three generations ago. The difference was that JFK knew it, complained to his underlings and at least partially did things that rocked the Israelis. LBJ just wanted ‘the Jews off my back’ and acted accordingly with regard to Israel.

Adrian , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:48 am GMT
When will we see a similar performance from a Jewish member of American Congress:
Wally , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:53 am GMT
– ‘Representation without taxation’.

– Jews support strict Israeli immigration laws which specify JEWS ONLY, while they demand massive 3rd world immigration into the US & Europe.

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:56 am GMT

while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving

” In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for the fun of it.
In Bethlehem a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused him some trouble.
I have seen a lot of things like that”……Col Pat Lang

Israel is a crime that makes me wish I was the US President.

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 6:21 am GMT
Razan al-Najjar

Razan al-Najjar died on Friday, June 1st.

She was a 21-year old Palestinian nurse and paramedic. And a mother.

She was killed while running (along with other paramedics) towards the Gaza border fence with Israel.

They were running to treat some Palestinian protesters who had been wounded by shots fired from across the border.

Like the others with her, she was wearing her white paramedic uniform and waving her arms above her head as she ran towards the fence.

An Israeli sniper on the other side of the fence aimed at her, and put a bullet in her chest.

Razan al-Najjar is dead. Like the 120 or so others killed at the fence in the last couple of months.

Razan al-Najjar is dead. The Israeli military says it will investigate.

Razan al-Najjar is dead. Is there anything further to say?

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c72e153ef0224e03edd25200d-800wi

LondonBob , says: April 2, 2019 at 8:20 am GMT
The comment on the stealing of nuclear materials in the sixties reminds that Michael Scheuer’s blog has been pulled, any chance we could have him hosted here?
Ex-Saffer , says: April 2, 2019 at 8:46 am GMT

If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.

and

But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to the United States.

How long is this “long run” when the people who don’t know finally know?

jacques sheete , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:17 am GMT
Thank you, PG, for mentioning this.:

Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons grade uranium and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear weapons arsenal.

I’ve been bringing that up for years on various platforms and have yet to get any comment on it. Why there isn’t enough outrage to barley even address it is inexplicable to me. Netanyanhoo belongs in solitary for the rest of his miserable days but instead gets treated better than royalty by our butt-kissing politicians. Sick, sick sick.

As far as the Izzies running our military, the Air Force officer Karen Kwiatkowski has written about it in the past, and is hardly ever mentioned.

“My fellow escort and I chatted on the way back to our office about how the [Israeli] generals knew where they were going [in the Pentagon] (most foreign visitors to the five-sided asylum don’t) and how the [Israeli]generals didn’t have to sign in. I felt a bit dirtied by the whole thing and couldn’t stop comparing that experience to the grace and gentility of the Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian ambassadors with whom I worked”.


– KAREN KWIATKOWSKI, Open Door Policy, January 19, 2004

That sort of thing makes my blood boil but most ‘Merkins seem to take it all in stride. Dumbasses!

mark green , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT
Dear Philip-

Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term ‘anti-Semitism’. It’s a tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed criticism and much-needed opposition to the world’s most coddled brand of political extremism.

‘Anti-Semitic theory’ promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.

Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions that are “too critical” of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to explore the destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of political death here in the Land of the Free.

Thou shalt not… say that.

How did this happen?

Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a causality.

People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.

How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.

How did we ever forget it?

(Political necessity?)

Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary ‘American’ leaders embrace (and vote to subsidize) serial Israeli warfare/expansion along with Israeli ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US citizens and political observers get slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of Washington.

How much longer will these strange delusions last?

jacques sheete , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:28 am GMT
@renfro

…and evidently just for the fun of it.

Uri Avnery relates similar outrages that he witnessed as a soldier, in his book, “1948.”

Franz , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:43 am GMT
@Haxo Angmark

actually, there is no “dual-loyalty” here:

Nope, can’t be.

The minute they called themselves “One-issue guys” they made that as clear as fizz.

Johnny Rottenborough , says: • Website April 2, 2019 at 11:03 am GMT
Thank you for a very informative, if thoroughly depressing, article.

we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it

As a first step, stop supporting your two pro-Israel Establishment parties. If you keep voting for them, they will carry on as before, nothing will change. Politicians only ever sit up and take notice when their access to power comes under threat.

geokat62 , says: April 2, 2019 at 11:31 am GMT
Superb article, as usual, Phil.

That said, there is little chance Valerie Plame will be tweeting this one like she previously did two others of yours.

Excerpts from Former Spy Accused Of Anti-Semitism Eyeing Senate Run :

Former CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson is considering a run for the United States Senate in New Mexico, the Washington Examiner reported Friday.

One early obstacle for Plame Wilson, should she choose to run, is an anti-Semitism controversy: She was criticized in September 2017 for tweeting links to anti-Semitic articles, including a column titled “American Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” and another called “The Dancing Israelis” that insinuated the Mossad was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Plame at first defended her sharing of the “Jews drive wars” article, arguing, “many neocon hawks ARE Jewish.” But she eventually apologized and resigned from her position on the board of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear not-for-profit foundation. She has not tweeted since.

Plame Wilson told the Examiner on Friday that she would “like another opportunity to serve my country” and would run as a Democrat. The seat will open up in 2020 after the retirement of incumbent Sen. Tom Udall.

More accurately, she would like to serve those who’ll be funding her campaign.

anarchyst , says: April 2, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT
There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks. infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity.

In addition, any American citizen who serves in a foreign military (Israel Defense Forces) should automatically lose their American citizenship.

When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel. It was a scene out of the Soviet Politburo where every jewish or Israel supporter tried to outdo the others with the applause. Just who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the interests of the American people and the United States,they should renounce their United States citizenship and be deported to Israel.

Anon [681] • Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Jake

WASP culture was completed, formed fully, finalized, by Puritans and Puritanism, by Judaizing heresy. WASP culture, therefore, always must gravitate toward Jews, always must be pro-Semitic, always will feature a drive to neutralize, and preferably destroy, that which is aligned toward historic Christianity and Christendom, while promoting endless heretical groups, especially those that reveal a willingness to be subservient to Jews and to WASP Elites who invariably are staunchly pro-Semitic (either pro-Jewish or pro-Arabic/Islamic).

I don’t know about that. The Nazis were WASPs, they clearly didn’t get your memo. The WASPs who are most eager to drink the Jew liberal Kool-aid are all atheists.

Agent76 , says: April 2, 2019 at 2:30 pm GMT
Nov 3, 2018 The Lobby – USA, episode 1

The Covert War. This video is posted here for news reporting purposes.

Sep 18, 2018 Mapping Segregation

7amleh’s research “Mapping Segregation – Google Maps and the Human Rights of Palestinians”

[Apr 04, 2019] Excessive loyalty to Israel contradicts and undermines the loyalty to the United States

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website April 2, 2019 at 7:04 pm GMT

I am not fond of the title given the piece, but Mr Giraldi always has something to say worth listening to.

" But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly clear. It is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not threaten the U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving will not continue indefinitely. "

Well said indeed.

I am generally an optimist for the long term., although forced to be a pessimist for the near future.

Such abuse and oppression just cannot go on forever.

Even the mighty Soviet Union finally collapsed, leaving a peaceful and reasonable Russia in its place.

And, while not generally noticed, there are many parallels between modern Israel and the USSR.

You cannot go on proclaiming democracy when half the people you rule cannot even vote. They could all vote in the USSR, but their votes meant nothing.

You cannot claim to represent our great Western values when oppression is an integral part of your society.

Millions of prisoners cannot be kept without rights indefinitely. Only a tyranny such as the USSR is capable even of attempting it.

But in the meantime, many must suffer terribly while the nightmarish events which represent Israel's behavior play themselves out.

If you are willing to use brutality regularly to get your way, as the USSR did and as Israel does, you can continue for quite a while, but not indefinitely.

[Apr 04, 2019] Does the support of other state qualifies for a person to be considered a potential element of the 5th column

I think this is not true. Only if the person puts interests of the other state above the interests of the home state such behaviour can be qualified as the fifth column mentality.
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ralph B. Seymour , says: April 3, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT

@renfro US Zionists for the most part love and support Israel. This makes them a 5th column.

All roads lead to the City of London. http://www.911nwo.com

[Apr 04, 2019] Anti-Kahanism is not Anti-Semitism'

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

ANONYMOUS [311] Disclaimer says: April 3, 2019 at 4:09 pm GMT

'Anti-Kahanism is not Anti-Semitism'

Peter Beinart and the rest of the 'Goldstein-Big Brother' tagteam have a cynical hasbara role to disguise the real fight, which is ending 'Jewish Kahanism'

Screw Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism, the 'Zionists' are KAHANISTS

Peter Beinart's shtick of being a 'Liberal Kahanist' is just his way of conning America while appearing respectable rather than being shunned

[Apr 04, 2019] Israel connections to the US MIC

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Wally says: April 3, 2019 at 3:06 am GMT 100 Words @MarkinLA Is that why Israel gets so much free stuff from the MIC?

plus:
Zionists Banks Are Behind the American Industrial Military Complex: http://subversify.com/2014/01/10/zionists-banks-are-behind-the-american-industrial-military-complex/

GENERAL DYNAMICS / ZIONIST ARMS MANUFACTURER IN THE WORLD: https://wideawakegentile.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/general-dynamics-the-largest-zionist-jewish-arms-manufacturer-in-the-world/

The True Cost of Parasite Israel
Forced US taxpayers money to Israel goes far beyond the official numbers.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-true-cost-of-israel/

[Apr 04, 2019] Pollard tried to get asylum in the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, but was refused entry. His Israeli handlers in Washington DC all fled the US within 24 hours after his arrest

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

republic , says: April 3, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT

@anon

i've heard that Pollard was one of the worst spies/traitors in U.S. history and should never have been released

very true

republic , says: April 3, 2019 at 1:38 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski

At time of Pollard's release, Fortress America was not completely dominated by Israel

He was released in November, 2015, only 52 months ago. I don't believe that the Israeli lobby was much weaker then.

He was release under parole in accordance with US law.

According to the Tel Aviv edited source, wikipedia, Rumsfeld,Cheney,Tenet,several former sec. of defense, a bi-partisan group of US congressional leaders and members of the US intelligence community, all opposed clemency for Pollard.

He deeply angered many top Americans, so clemency was not possible. Parole, however was.

Pollard, I understand sold much information to other nations. Maybe if he had only stolen information for Israel he could have gotten clemency.

Pollard tried to get asylum in the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, but was refused entry. His Israeli handlers in Washington DC all fled the US within 24 hours after his arrest

At the time of his arrest in 1985, Israeli power over Washington was far weaker than it is today. America apparently still had some patriots at high levels at that time.

[Apr 04, 2019] If we assume that in fact Israel is an agent selected by God, it should be the leading actor of responsible behavior. I rest my case.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

EliteCommInc. , says: April 3, 2019 at 6:30 pm GMT

"The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these topics."

I am disinclined to relegate but a few to this kind of stricture. The issue not can a Jewish person be reasoned with, but who has the ability to stand on disagreements that might not be in line with the ambitions of the other. And certainly all indications are that Jews can be reasoned with. I don't subscribe to a totalitarian view that this is an impossibility. I will say what I have said since entering these discussions. Despite where one falls on Israel's selection by God, they are still responsible for behaving as members of the larger community and even God says so. In fact Israel should as an agent selected by God, if such be the case, be the leading actor of responsible behavior. I have made that point before and their I rest.

She should be responsible and accountable. In the same manner as Christians are responsible and accountable in the countries in which they live. Those parameters do not in any manner diminish one's special role or character.

In regards to the secular, the elected and appointed members of the the US represent the interests of the US first and foremost – period. And they can certainly support Israel's existence without denying her any sleight of her unique spiritual of scriptural meaning. Her ability to leverage the three variables to her stead is more a reflection on the weakness of US representatives to tackle each of those variables head on in relation to how supports US policy. God is not going to be chagrined about telling Israel, she cannot merely confiscate land as she wants. But that she must obey/abide by the rules that govern sovereign states. The holocaust, real or manufactured does make room for running ruff shod over her neighbors. There are processes by which she could press for more territory that are legal -- she should use that process.

The ability to reason requires the ability to stand against unreason and their in my view is where the US simply fails. Can one reason with Israel, sure as long as one has the backbone to stand.
__________________

My love and support for Israel in no manner condones violations of rules that in no manner contradict spiritual or scriptural truth. And I am confident that includes abiding by the rules of members states of the international community. No one need be a "jew worshiper" or "worshiper of Israel" to support Israel or hold her accountable among the nation-state community.

And no one has to become a Jew to support Israel or be a christian while there are deep roots, the two are not the same by a long shot.

I remain steadfastly in support of her right to exist, self defense and that others have no less a right than she. My original position from start to this moment and unlikely to change.

Anon [447] Disclaimer , says: April 3, 2019 at 5:18 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

That is key. The right of others to co-exist alongside Israel the issue. The state of Israel, regardless of her standing with respect to scripture and christian ethos, as a nation state she is bound by the same rules as other nation states.

The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these topics.

Even if that reason is by way of potential sanctions, boycotts, and other forms of political and economic pressure.

The truth of the matter is that anyone who would theoretically be engaging with Israel, or even the gentile groups that put various forms of pressure on Israel, absolutely has to be well-educated in Judaism.

To know Judaism is to know that its core thesis is that Jews are not bound by the same rules as other peoples and nations. It is to know that Judaism's core tenet is that Israel is the only legitimate nation and therefore the only nation that is destined to survive. It is to know that it is religiously incumbent on the Jews to not make concessions that would allow any other nation to survive in the long term.

To know all of this is to come to the strategic conclusion that attempting to reason with Israel in regard to playing by the rules is a failed effort before it begins. In fact, it would do nothing more than to waste time and allow Israel an opportunity for further deception toward its ultimate nation-destroying goals.

Instead, Israel and the wider Jewish nation must be dealt with on an open foundation of their religiously expressed hostility to all other nations that includes their expressed domination and genocide goals. Anything else allows them a certain degree of cover that allows them to maneuver to our detriment.

[Apr 04, 2019] 'Anti-Semitic theory' promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject Zionism are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

mark green , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT

Dear Philip-

Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term 'anti-Semitism'. It's a tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed criticism and much-needed opposition to the world's most coddled brand of political extremism.

'Anti-Semitic theory' promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.

Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions that are "too critical" of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to explore the destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of political death here in the Land of the Free.

Thou shalt not say that.

How did this happen?

Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a causality.

People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.

How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.

How did we ever forget it?

(Political necessity?)

Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary 'American' leaders embrace (and vot to subsidize) serial Israeli warfare/expansion along with Israeli ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US citizens and political observers get slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of Washington.

How much longer will these strange delusions last?

mark green , says: April 3, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Thank you, Chuck!

The term and multi-tiered concept marketed as 'anti-Semitism' is a deceptive misnomer. This is no accident.

Where's the 'Jew' in 'anti-Semitism'?

It's missing. But why?

After all, 'anti-Semitism' is basically about one thing: anti-Jewishness.

Yet the J-word is missing.

Did someone forget?

Of course not. The Jews have removed 'Jew' from this manipulative term for a strategic purpose.

Keep in mind that 'Semites' are a real (and diverse) collection of peoples. So are Semitic languages which involve millions of mostly-Arab peoples who dwell in different countries, speak various languages, and practice different religions.

Yet, 'anti-Semitism' in the West means only one thing: 'anti-Jewishness'.

And Jews–unlike 'Semites'–are one cohesive people who claim one exclusive country with one supreme religion. And they also happen to play an exceedingly powerful role throughout Europe and America.

So why the linguistic sleight-of-hand with 'anti-Semitism'?

After all, Semitic Arabs get no protection from charges involving 'anti-Semitism'. It's all about Jews.

Why not call 'anti-Semitism' what it actually is?–'Jew hatred or Jews contempt'?

'Jew fatigue', perhaps?

That's because the shomers who safeguard Jewry don't want anti-Jewish sentiment to be simple or comprehensible or (most importantly) made legitimate in any way whatsoever.

After all, hate is a common emotion and it is routinely directed from high above at certain unpopular groups, ideologies and 'bad' countries. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Not so fast.

Jewry has conflated 'anti-Semitism' with 'genocide' and 'white supremacy' (See: Hitler). Very clever. This ramps up gentile guilt and Jewish untouchability.

Anti-Jewishness ('anti-Semitism') is therefore designed to be understood as a unique mental disorder with unique political dangers. This is no small accomplishment, especially when one considers that Jews aren't exactly the 'innocent victims' that they claim to be.

Indeed, if anti-Jewish commentary ('anti-Semitic speech') was brought down to earth and even permitted, this would undermine Israeli power inside America as well as the effectiveness of the taboos and 'red flags' which have elevated 'anti-Semitism' into a rarified class of evil–not to mention 'political tool' for it's handlers.

Indeed, without the special shield that 'anti-Semitic theory' accords Jews, they would be subject to the same harsh criticism often accorded Arabs, Russians, Iranians, Germans or Muslims.

So the Guardians of Zion have cooked up a theoretical framework to pretty-much prevents all that. It serves them quite well.

Thus conceptual 'anti-Semitism' is a self-exonerating paradigm. This also empowers Israel enormously.

Anti-Semitic theory injects voodoo Freudianism and Frankfurt School gobbledegook into all Jewish historiography. In doing so, it establishes two dubious beachheads.

1) 'Anti-Semitism' is not about Jewish behavior, nor is 'anti-Semitism' about everyday political and economic conflicts that involve the collective (and conflicting) interests of Jews and gentiles. No siree. Not that!

Such a bilateral and down-to-earth view is unacceptable. It's far too simple, too accessible– too empowering for the anti-Semitic rabble.

To truly comprehend 'anti-Semitism' requires the expertise of a psychiatrist (preferably Jewish) or qualified 'expert'. Please check with the 'Jewish Studies' Dept. for further information.

These scholars will cleanly explain the dark, hidden forces that drive the periodic eruptions (pograms, genocides) involving political good (the Jew) and evil (the 'anti-Semite').

Thus 'anti-Semitic theory' communicates the view that Jewish power, Jewish abuse of power and Jewish crypsis are 'myths and allegations' and not relevant to understanding anti-Jewish sentiment among the evious goyim.

'Anti-Semitism'? It's all in your head! And those afflicted with it are suffering from hidden conflicts in their hate-filled twisted minds! Hitler!

('Trust me', says the 'expert'. 'Would I lie about such a thing'?)

Once the kosher 'diagnosis' is established, 'Anti-Semitism' becomes a powerful and handy political weapon. And they certainly know how to use it.

'Anti-Semitic theory' even flips overdue criticism of Zio-Israeli power into this:

'You people (goys) who have a grievance against God's chosen people are merely jealous. Jews don't mean any harm. Their violence is all in self-defense.

'You are projecting your own pathetic feelings of inferiority. Your contempt for Jew[ish conduct and beliefs] is a neurotic projection of your own pathologies.

'So don't muddy the waters with irrelevant references to wars in Europe and Russia and now in the Middle East that have killed tens of millions.

'And certainly don't discuss the unimportant Jewish role in banking, finance, immigration policies, education, law, entertainment and the manufacture of 'news'. All that bigoted discourse is anti-Semitic propaganda and is irrelevant.

'We must strive to assure Jewish safety and Jewish survival.'

That's 'anti-Semitic theory' in a nutshell.

It is a toxic scam of epic proportions.

[Apr 04, 2019] Zionist elite in the USA consist mainly of greedy and unscrupulous bottomfeeders

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 3, 2019 at 12:56 am GMT

@Fran Taubman The US has been providing a safe and prosperous home for your ungrateful lot. And yet, the Jews are seemingly not able to be loyal to a country of their dwelling because "next year in Jerusalem" -- even if the majority of the Jews prefer to admire Jerusalem from a distance.

It is not just the Jewish treasonous behavior towards the USA citizenry, which is so repulsive. The problem is the subversive influence of the Lobby towards the western values at large (such as the First Amendment, including the active suppression of factual information that is unpleasant for the tribe) -- all while the holo-biz continues encouraging the whining and wailing about special victimhood of the Jews. This does not work anymore. After converting tens of thousands of Middle Eastern children into the bags of shredded meat in the name of Eretz Israel and after supporting military the Kievan neo-Nazi, the Jewish State's screeching about existential threat and some special dues that western world owes to the Jewish tribe do not have any power anymore. It's over.

In addition, the cynicism, indecency, and the cruelty displayed by the Jews against Palestinians, Arabs, and Russians have made the AIPAC, the ADL, and other mighty Jewish organization into pariahs among decent people.

It has no sense to engage in name-calling ("all the fringe sick people on UNZ"). Look at a mirror. Your tribe has lost the moral fiber. It does not help that the Jewish mythology treats non-Jews as subhumans.

annamaria , says: April 3, 2019 at 1:15 am GMT
@Anja Böttcher

"These imbeciles perceive in US-Jews their own human distortion – and hate themselves in projecting self-hate on a tiny minority within their degenerated population."

-- Anja, why does this article about the pernicious influence of the Lobby made you so hysterical? The "tiny minority" has decided to be loyal to the tribal Jewish interests on its own volition. The tiny minority has a choice to relocate to its "promised land" and thus leave the US alone. The parasitic and disloyal minority is not welcome by the decent Americans, whereas the zionized degenerate in the US Congress do behave treasonously towards the US citizenry. Just take Bolton, Pompeo, Schumer, and Pelosi with you.

Leave the US alone. Sort out your problems with your Arab cousins ((Ishmaels) on your own. And, by the way, stop murdering the Middle Eastern children; this is a very bad behavior that is not going to be forgotten by good people.

[Apr 04, 2019] Where creation of nukes by Israel the US government approved policy ?

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

geokat62 says: April 2, 2019 at 7:49 pm GMT 100 Words @Lot

Israeli nukes were always our government's policy.

First off, Lot, given your passionate attachment to the Zionist Project, you need to be a little clearer as to whom you are referring when you write "our" government.

Secondly, if you were referring to the policy of the US gov't, as you are no doubt aware, JFK had several correspondences with David Ben Gurion in which he warned him against the development of a nuclear program for fear of nuclear proliferation in the region. The issue was so divisive that it led to DBG's resignation and JFK's demise.

RobinG , says: April 3, 2019 at 2:27 am GMT

@renfro How about POTUS making a secret pledge to Israel? Clinton, Bush the younger, Obama, and Trump have all signed letters pledging never to expose Israel's nuclear arsenal. At last week's conference, Grant Smith outlined his efforts to stop this practice of subverting both letter and spirit of US law. For starters, we should demand that all presidential candidates pledge: No Secret Pledge to a (((Foreign))) Power.

U.S. foreign aid and the Israeli nuclear weapons program – Grant F. Smith

[Apr 04, 2019] Media Blackout as Israel's Largest Banks Pay over $1 Billion in Fines for US Tax Evasion Schemes

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Art: April 2, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT 200 Words

Zionist media control over America is absolute.

"It's the Benjamins Baby" -- money is everything to the Jew.

Israeli banks screw America – help US Jews to circumvent taxes

US MSM screw America – never tell the American people about it.

Media Blackout as Israel's Largest Banks Pay over $1 Billion in Fines for US Tax Evasion Schemes

Israel's three largest banks -- Hapoalim Bank, Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank -- have all been ordered to pay record fines, which collectively are set to total over $1 billion, to the U.S. government after the banks were found to have actively colluded with thousands of wealthy Americans in massive tax-evasion schemes.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-largest-banks-pay-1-billion-fines-us-tax-evasion-schemes/5672335

80% of the American people are serfs – living paycheck to paycheck – paying interest on everything – receiving none back – actually, outright owning little of value.

Think Peace -- Do No Harm -- Art

[Apr 04, 2019] We will provide you no more American military to get slaughtered or maimed for life in the process of "neutralizing" all your alleged existential threats in the Middle East. And of course, as we both know, that includes all of your neighbors in the region.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Edward Huguenin , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:07 pm GMT

The American people have gotten extraordinarily tired of the demands, bullying, and blackmail the American government has received from the fully nuclear armed, viciously apartheid, theocracy which is what neo-nazi Israel has become in the 21st century.

And we have one word for you: enough!!

We will provide you no more American military to get slaughtered or maimed for life in the process of "neutralizing" all your alleged existential threats in the Middle East. And of course, as we both know, that includes all of your neighbors in the region.

And on top of that, sir, we would appreciate it greatly if the US government immediately pull all financial and military aid from your country immediately, as all this aid is completely illegal under the Symington Amendment.

We the people would like to see this accomplished and immediately, sir. The days of the host/parasite relationship between the Us government and that of Israel may well be coming to a very abrupt halt, and it is damn well about time, sir!!!

Sun comes up, Israel demands money. Sun goes down, Israel demands money. Moon waxes, Israel demands money. Moon wanes, Israel demands money. Weather is sunny, Israel demands money. Weather is rainy, Israel demands money. I sense a pattern here!

[Apr 04, 2019] Fascism A Warning by Madeleine Albright

Junk author, junk book of the butcher of Yugoslavia who would be hanged with Bill clinton by Nuremberg Tribunal for crimes against peace. Albright is not bright at all. she a female bully and that shows.
Mostly projection. And this arrogant warmonger like to exercise in Russophobia (which was the main part of the USSR which saved the world fro fascism, sacrificing around 20 million people) This book is book of denial of genocide against Iraqis and Serbian population where bombing with uranium enriched bombs doubled cancer cases.If you can pass over those facts that this book is for you.
Like Robert Kagan and other neocons Albright is waiving authoritarism dead chicken again and again. that's silly and disingenuous. authoritarism is a method of Governance used in military. It is not an ideology. Fascism is an ideology, a flavor of far right nationalism. Kind of "enhanced" by some socialist ideas far right nationalism.
The view of fascism without economic circumstances that create fascism, and first of immiseration of middle and working class and high level of unemployment is a primitive ahistorical view. Fascism is the ultimate capitalist statism acting simultaneously as the civil religion for the population also enforced by the power of the state. It has a lot of common with neoliberalism, that's why neoliberalism is sometimes called "inverted totalitarism".
In reality fascism while remaining the dictatorship of capitalists for capitalist and the national part of financial oligarchy, it like neoliberalism directed against working class fascism comes to power on the populist slogans of righting wrong by previous regime and kicking foreign capitalists and national compradors (which in Germany turned to be mostly Jewish) out.
It comes to power under the slogans of stopping the distribution of wealth up and elimination of the class of reinters -- all citizens should earn income, not get it from bond and other investments (often in reality doing completely the opposite).
While intrinsically connected and financed by a sizable part of national elite which often consist of far right military leadership, a part of financial oligarchy and large part of lower middle class (small properties) is is a protest movement which want to revenge for the humiliation and prefer military style organization of the society to democracy as more potent weapon to achieve this goal.
Like any far right movement the rise of fascism and neo-fascism is a sign of internal problem within a given society, often a threat to the state or social order.
Apr 04, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Still another noted that Fascism is often linked to people who are part of a distinct ethnic or racial group, who are under economic stress, and who feel that they are being denied rewards to which they are entitled. "It's not so much what people have." she said, "but what they think they should have -- and what they fear." Fear is why Fascism's emotional reach can extend to all levels of society. No political movement can flourish without popular support, but Fascism is as dependent on the wealthy and powerful as it is on the man or woman in the street -- on those who have much to lose and those who have nothing at all.

This insight made us think that Fascism should perhaps be viewed less as a political ideology than as a means for seizing and holding power. For example, Italy in the 1920s included self-described Fascists of the left (who advocated a dictatorship of the dispossessed), of the right (who argued for an authoritarian corporatist state), and of the center (who sought a return to absolute monarchy). The German National Socialist Party (the

Nazis) originally came together ar ound a list of demands that ca- tered to anti-Semites, anti-immigrants, and anti-capitalists but also advocated for higher old-age pensions, more educational op- portunities for the poor, an end to child labor, and improved ma- ternal health care. The Nazis were racists and, in their own minds, reformers at the same time.

If Fascism concerns itself less with specific policies than with finding a pathway to power, what about the tactics of lead- ership? My students remarked that the Fascist chiefs we remem- ber best were charismatic. Through one method or another, each established an emotional link to the crowd and, like the central figure in a cult, brought deep and often ugly feelings to the sur- face. This is how the tentacles of Fascism spread inside a democ- racy. Unlike a monarchy or a military dictatorship imposed on society from above. Fascism draws energy from men and women who are upset because of a lost war, a lost job, a memory of hu- miliation, or a sense that their country is in steep decline. The more painful the grounds for resentment, the easier it is for a Fascist leader to gam followers by dangling the prospect of re- newal or by vowing to take back what has been stolen.

Like the mobilizers of more benign movements, these secular evangelists exploit the near-universal human desire to be part of a meaningful quest. The more gifted among them have an apti- tude for spectacle -- for orchestrating mass gatherings complete with martial music, incendiary rhetoric, loud cheers, and arm-

lifting salutes. To loyalists, they offer the prize of membership in a club from which others, often the objects of ridicule, are kept out. To build fervor, Fascists tend to be aggressive, militaristic, and -- when circumstances allow -- expansionist. To secure the future, they turn schools into seminaries for true believers, striv- ing to produce "new men" and "new women" who will obey without question or pause. And, as one of my students observed, "a Fascist who launches his career by being voted into office will have a claim to legitimacy that others do not."

After climbing into a position of power, what comes next: How does a Fascist consolidate authority? Here several students piped up: "By controlling information." Added another, "And that's one reason we have so much cause to worry today." Most of us have thought of the technological revolution primarily as a means for people from different walks of life to connect with one another, trade ideas, and develop a keener understanding of why men and women act as they do -- in other words, to sharpen our perceptions of truth. That's still the case, but now we are not so sure. There is a troubling "Big Brother" angle because of the mountain of personal data being uploaded into social media. If an advertiser can use that information to home in on a consumer because of his or her individual interests, what's to stop a Fascist government from doing the same? "Suppose I go to a demonstra- tion like the Women's March," said a student, "and post a photo

on social media. My name gets added to a list and that list can end up anywhere. How do we protect ourselves against that?"

Even more disturbing is the ability shown by rogue regimes and their agents to spread lies on phony websites and Facebook. Further, technology has made it possible for extremist organiza- tions to construct echo chambers of support for conspiracy theo- ries, false narratives, and ignorant views on religion and race. This is the first rule of deception: repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible. The Internet should be an ally of freedom and a gateway to knowledge; in some cases, it is neither.

Historian Robert Paxton begins one of his books by assert- ing: "Fascism was the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain." Over the years, he and other scholars have developed lists of the many moving parts that Fascism entails. Toward the end of our discussion, my class sought to articulate a comparable list.

Fascism, most of the students agreed, is an extreme form of authoritarian rule. Citizens are required to do exactly what lead- ers say they must do, nothing more, nothing less. The doctrine is linked to rabid nationalism. It also turns the traditional social contract upside down. Instead of citizens giving power to the state in exchange for the protection of their rights, power begins with the leader, and the people have no rights. Under Fascism,

the mission of citizens is to serve; the government's job is to rule.

When one talks about this subject, confusion often arises about the difference between Fascism and such related concepts as totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, tyranny, autocracy, and so on. As an academic, I might be tempted to wander into that thicket, but as a former diplomat, I am primarily concerned with actions, not labels. To my mind, a Fascist is someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary -- including violence -- to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely be a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist.

Often the difference can be seen in who is trusted with the guns. In seventeenth-century Europe, when Catholic aristocrats did battle with Protestant aristocrats, they fought over scripture but agreed not to distribute weapons to their peasants, thinking it safer to wage war with mercenary armies. Modern dictators also tend to be wary of their citizens, which is why they create royal guards and other elite security units to ensure their personal safe- ty. A Fascist, however, expects the crowd to have his back. Where kings try to settle people down, Fascists stir them up so that when the fighting begins, their foot soldiers have the will and the firepower to strike first.


petarsimic , October 21, 2018

Madeleine Albright on million Iraqis dead: "We think the price is worth It"

Hypocrisy at its worst from a lady who advocated hawkish foreign policy which included the most sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam, when, in 1998, Clinton began almost daily attacks on Iraq in the so-called no-fly zones, and made so-called regime change in Iraq official U.S. policy.

In May of 1996, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Madeleine Albright, who at the time was Clinton's U.N. ambassador. Correspondent Leslie Stahl said to Albright, in connection with the Clinton administration presiding over the most devastating regime of sanctions in history that the U.N. estimated took the lives of as many as a million Iraqis, the vast majority of them children. , "We have heard that a half-million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and, you know, is the price worth it?"

Madeleine Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it.

<img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png"> P. Bierre , June 11, 2018
Does Albright present a comprehensive enough understanding of fascism to instruct on how best to avoid it?

While I found much of the story-telling in "Fascism" engaging, I come away expecting much more of one of our nation's pre-eminent senior diplomats . In a nutshell, she has devoted a whole volume to describing the ascent of intolerant fascism and its many faces, but punted on the question "How should we thwart fascism going forward?"

Even that question leaves me a bit unsatisfied, since it is couched in double-negative syntax. The thing there is an appetite for, among the readers of this book who are looking for more than hand-wringing about neofascism, is a unifying title or phrase which captures in single-positive syntax that which Albright prefers over fascism. What would that be? And, how do we pursue it, nurture it, spread it and secure it going forward? What is it?

I think Albright would perhaps be willing to rally around "Good Government" as the theme her book skirts tangentially from the dark periphery of fascistic government. "Virtuous Government"? "Effective Government"? "Responsive Government"?

People concerned about neofascism want to know what we should be doing right now to avoid getting sidetracked into a dark alley of future history comparable to the Nazi brown shirt or Mussolini black shirt epochs. Does Albright present a comprehensive enough understanding of fascism to instruct on how best to avoid it? Or, is this just another hand-wringing exercise, a la "you'll know it when you see it", with a proactive superficiality stuck at the level of pejorative labelling of current styles of government and national leaders? If all you can say is what you don't want, then the challenge of threading the political future of the US is left unruddered. To make an analogy to driving a car, if you don't know your destination, and only can get navigational prompts such as "don't turn here" or "don't go down that street", then what are the chances of arriving at a purposive destination?

The other part of this book I find off-putting is that Albright, though having served as Secretary of State, never talks about the heavy burden of responsibility that falls on a head of state. She doesn't seem to empathize at all with the challenge of top leadership. Her perspective is that of the detached critic. For instance, in discussing President Duterte of the Philippines, she fails to paint the dire situation under which he rose to national leadership responsibility: Islamic separatists having violently taken over the entire city of Marawi, nor the ubiquitous spread of drug cartel power to the level where control over law enforcement was already ceded to the gangs in many places...entire islands and city neighborhoods run by mafia organizations. It's easy to sit back and criticize Duterte's unleashing of vigilante justice -- What was Mrs. Albright's better alternative to regain ground from vicious, well-armed criminal organizations? The distancing from leadership responsibility makes Albright's treatment of the Philippines twin crises of gang-rule and Islamist revolutionaries seem like so much academic navel-gazing....OK for an undergrad course at Georgetown maybe, but unworthy of someone who served in a position of high responsibility. Duterte is liked in the Philippines. What he did snapped back the power of the cartels, and returned a deserved sense of security to average Philippinos (at least those not involved with narcotics). Is that not good government, given the horrendous circumstances Duterte came up to deal with? What lack of responsibility in former Philippine leadership allowed things to get so out of control? Is it possible that Democrats and liberals are afraid to be tough, when toughness is what is needed? I'd much rather read an account from an average Philippino about the positive impacts of the vigilante campaign, than listen of Madame Secretary sermonizing out of context about Duterte. OK, he's not your idea of a nice guy. Would you rather sit back, prattle on about the rule of law and due process while Islamic terrorists wrest control over where you live? Would you prefer the leadership of a drug cartel boss to Duterte?

My critique is offered in a constructive manner. I would certainly encourage Albright (or anyone!) to write a book in a positive voice about what it's going to take to have good national government in the US going forward, and to help spread such abundance globally. I would define "good" as the capability to make consistently good policy decisions, ones that continue to look good in hindsight, 10, 20 or 30 years later. What does that take?

I would submit that the essential "preserving democracy" process component is having a population that is adequately prepared for collaborative problem-solving. Some understanding of history is helpful, but it's simply not enough. Much more essential is for every young person to experience team problem-solving, in both its cooperative and competitive aspects. Every young person needs to experience a team leadership role, and to appreciate what it takes from leaders to forge constructive design from competing ideas and champions. Only after serving as a referee will a young person understand the limits to "passion" that individual contributors should bring to the party. Only after moderating and herding cats will a young person know how to interact productively with leaders and other contributors. Much of the skill is counter-instinctual. It's knowing how to express ideas...how to field criticism....how to nudge people along in the desired direction...and how to avoid ad-hominem attacks, exaggerations, accusations and speculative grievances. It's learning how to manage conflict productively toward excellence. Way too few of our young people are learning these skills, and way too few of our journalists know how to play a constructive role in managing communications toward successful complex problem-solving. Albright's claim that a journalist's job is primarily to "hold leaders accountable" really betrays an absolving of responsibility for the media as a partner in good government -- it doesn't say whether the media are active players on the problem-solving team (which they have to be for success), or mere spectators with no responsibility for the outcome. If the latter, then journalism becomes an irritant, picking at the scabs over and over, but without any forward progress. When the media takes up a stance as an "opponent" of leadership, you end up with poor problem-solving results....the system is fighting itself instead of making forward progress.

"Fascism" doesn't do nearly enough to promote the teaching of practical civics 101 skills, not just to the kids going into public administration, but to everyone. For, it is in the norms of civility, their ability to be practiced, and their defense against excesses, that fascism (e.g., Antifa) is kept at bay.
Everyone in a democracy has to know the basics:
• when entering a disagreement, don't personalize it
• never demonize an opponent
• keep a focus on the goal of agreement and moving forward
• never tell another person what they think, but ask (non-rhetorically) what they think then be prepared to listen and absorb
• do not speak untruths or exaggerate to make an argument
• do not speculate grievance
• understand truth gathering as a process; detect when certainty is being bluffed; question sources
• recognize impasse and unproductive argumentation and STOP IT
• know how to introduce a referee or moderator to regain productive collaboration
• avoid ad hominem attacks
• don't take things personally that wrankle you;
• give the benefit of the doubt in an ambiguous situation
• don't jump to conclusions
• don't reward theatrical manipulation

These basics of collaborative problem-solving are the guts of a "liberal democracy" that can face down the most complex challenges and dilemmas.

I gave the book 3 stars for the great story-telling, and Albright has been part of a great story of late 20th century history. If she would have told us how to prevent fascism going forward, and how to roll it back in "hard case" countries like North Korea and Sudan, I would have given her a 5. I'm not that interested in picking apart the failure cases of history...they teach mostly negative exemplars. Much rather I would like to read about positive exemplars of great national government -- "great" defined by popular acclaim, by the actual ones governed. Where are we seeing that today? Canada? Australia? Interestingly, both of these positive exemplars have strict immigration policies.

Is it possible that Albright is just unable, by virtue of her narrow escape from Communist Czechoslovakia and acceptance in NYC as a transplant, to see that an optimum immigration policy in the US, something like Canada's or Australia's, is not the looming face of fascism, but rather a move to keep it safely in its corner in coming decades? At least, she admits to her being biased by her life story.

That suggests her views on refugees and illegal immigrants as deserving of unlimited rights to migrate into the US might be the kind of cloaked extremism that she is warning us about.

Anat Hadad , January 19, 2019
"Fascism is not an exception to humanity, but part of it."

Albright's book is a comprehensive look at recent history regarding the rise and fall of fascist leaders; as well as detailing leaders in nations that are starting to mimic fascist ideals. Instead of a neat definition, she uses examples to bolster her thesis of what are essential aspects of fascism. Albright dedicates each section of the book to a leader or regime that enforces fascist values and conveys this to the reader through historical events and exposition while also peppering in details of her time as Secretary of State. The climax (and 'warning'), comes at the end, where Albright applies what she has been discussing to the current state of affairs in the US and abroad.

Overall, I would characterize this as an enjoyable and relatively easy read. I think the biggest strength of this book is how Albright uses history, previous examples of leaders and regimes, to demonstrate what fascism looks like and contributing factors on a national and individual level. I appreciated that she lets these examples speak for themselves of the dangers and subtleties of a fascist society, which made the book more fascinating and less of a textbook. Her brief descriptions of her time as Secretary of State were intriguing and made me more interested in her first book, 'Madame Secretary'. The book does seem a bit slow as it is not until the end that Albright blatantly reveals the relevance of all of the history relayed in the first couple hundred pages. The last few chapters are dedicated to the reveal: the Trump administration and how it has affected global politics. Although, she never outright calls Trump a fascist, instead letting the reader decide based on his decisions and what you have read in the book leading up to this point, her stance is quite clear by the end. I was surprised at what I shared politically with Albright, mainly in immigration and a belief of empathy and understanding for others. However, I got a slight sense of anti-secularism in the form of a disdain for those who do not subscribe to an Abrahamic religion and she seemed to hint at this being partly an opening to fascism.

I also could have done without the both-sides-ism she would occasionally push, which seems to be a tactic used to encourage people to 'unite against Trump'. These are small annoyances I had with the book, my main critique is the view Albright takes on democracy. If anything, the book should have been called "Democracy: the Answer" because that is the most consistent stance Albright takes throughout. She seems to overlook many of the atrocities the US and other nations have committed in the name of democracy and the negative consequences of capitalism, instead, justifying negative actions with the excuse of 'it is for democracy and everyone wants that' and criticizing those who criticize capitalism.

She does not do a good job of conveying the difference between a communist country like Russia and a socialist country like those found in Scandinavia and seems okay with the idea of the reader lumping them all together in a poor light. That being said, I would still recommend this book for anyone's TBR as the message is essential for today, that the current world of political affairs is, at least somewhat, teetering on a precipice and we are in need of as many strong leaders as possible who are willing to uphold democratic ideals on the world stage and mindful constituents who will vote them in.

Matthew T , May 29, 2018
An easy read, but incredibly ignorant and one eyed in far too many instances

The book is very well written, easy to read, and follows a pretty standard formula making it accessible to the average reader. However, it suffers immensely from, what I suspect are, deeply ingrained political biases from the author.

Whilst I don't dispute the criteria the author applies in defining fascism, or the targets she cites as examples, the first bias creeps in here when one realises the examples chosen are traditional easy targets for the US (with the exception of Turkey). The same criteria would define a country like Singapore perfectly as fascist, yet the country (or Malaysia) does not receive a mention in the book.

Further, it grossly glosses over what Ms. Albright terms facist traits from the US governments of the past. If the author is to be believed, the CIA is holier than thou, never intervened anywhere or did anything that wasn't with the best interests of democracy at heart, and American foreign policy has always existed to build friendships and help out their buddies. To someone ingrained in this rhetoric for years I am sure this is an easy pill to swallow, but to the rest of the world it makes a number of assertions in the book come across as incredibly naive. out of 5 stars Trite and opaque

Avid reader , December 20, 2018
Biast much? Still a good start into the problem

We went with my husband to the presentation of this book at UPenn with Albright before it came out and Madeleine's spunk, wit and just glorious brightness almost blinded me. This is a 2.5 star book, because 81 year old author does not really tell you all there is to tell when she opens up on a subject in any particular chapter, especially if it concerns current US interest.

Lets start from the beginning of the book. What really stood out, the missing 3rd Germany ally, Japan and its emperor. Hirohito (1901-1989) was emperor of Japan from 1926 until his death in 1989. He took over at a time of rising democratic sentiment, but his country soon turned toward ultra-nationalism and militarism. During World War II (1939-45), Japan attacked nearly all of its Asian neighbors, allied itself with Nazi Germany and launched a surprise assault on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, forcing US to enter the war in 1941. Hirohito was never indicted as a war criminal! does he deserve at least a chapter in her book?

Oh and by the way, did author mention anything about sanctions against Germany for invading Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland? Up until the Pearl Harbor USA and Germany still traded, although in March 1939, FDR slapped a 25% tariff on all German goods. Like Trump is doing right now to some of US trading partners.

Next monster that deserves a chapter on Genocide in cosmic proportions post WW2 is communist leader of China Mao Zedung. Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants compares to the Second World War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years; the total worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 million.

We learn that Argentina has given sanctuary to Nazi war criminals, but she forgets to mention that 88 Nazi scientists arrived in the United States in 1945 and were promptly put to work. For example, Wernher von Braun was the brains behind the V-2 rocket program, but had intimate knowledge of what was going on in the concentration camps. Von Braun himself hand-picked people from horrific places, including Buchenwald concentration camp. Tsk-Tsk Madeline.

What else? Oh, lets just say that like Madelaine Albright my husband is Jewish and lost extensive family to Holocoust. Ukrainian nationalists executed his great grandfather on gistapo orders, his great grandmother disappeared in concentration camp, grandfather was conscripted in june 1940 and decommissioned september 1945 and went through war as infantryman through 3 fronts earning several medals. his grandmother, an ukrainian born jew was a doctor in a military hospital in Saint Petersburg survived famine and saved several children during blockade. So unlike Maideline who was raised as a Roman Catholic, my husband grew up in a quiet jewish family in that territory that Stalin grabbed from Poland in 1939, in a polish turn ukrainian city called Lvov(Lemberg). His family also had to ask for an asylum, only they had to escape their home in Ukraine in 1991. He was told then "You are a nice little Zid (Jew), we will kill you last" If you think things in ukraine changed, think again, few weeks ago in Kiev Roma gypsies were killed and injured during pogroms, and nobody despite witnesses went to jail. Also during demonstrations openly on the streets C14 unit is waving swastikas and Heils. Why is is not mentioned anywhere in the book? is is because Hunter Biden sits on the board of one of Ukraine's largest natural gas companies called Burisma since May 14, 2014, and Ukraine has an estimated 127.9 trillion cubic feet of unproved technically recoverable shale gas resources? ( according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).1 The most promising shale reserves appear to be in the Carpathian Foreland Basin (also called the Lviv-Volyn Basin), which extends across Western Ukraine from Poland into Romania, and the Dnieper-Donets Basin in the East (which borders Russia).
Wow, i bet you did not know that. how ugly are politics, even this book that could have been so much greater if the author told the whole ugly story. And how scary that there are countries where you can go and openly be fascist.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/0e64e0cb-01e4-4e58-bcae-bba690344095._CR0,0.0,333,333_SX48_.jpg"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; NJ , February 3, 2019
Interesting...yes. Useful...hmmm

To me, Fascism fails for the single reason that no two fascist leaders are alike. Learning about one or a few, in a highly cursory fashion like in this book or in great detail, is unlikely to provide one with any answers on how to prevent the rise of another or fend against some such. And, as much as we are witnessing the rise of numerous democratic or quasi-democratic "strongmen" around the world in global politics, it is difficult to brand any of them as fascist in the orthodox sense.

As the author writes at the outset, it is difficult to separate a fascist from a tyrant or a dictator. A fascist is a majoritarian who rouses a large group under some national, racial or similar flag with rallying cries demanding suppression or exculcation of those excluded from this group. A typical fascist leader loves her yes-men and hates those who disagree: she does not mind using violence to suppress dissidents. A fascist has no qualms using propaganda to popularize the agreeable "facts" and theories while debunking the inconvenient as lies. What is not discussed explicitly in the book are perhaps some positive traits that separate fascists from other types of tyrants: fascists are rarely lazy, stupid or prone to doing things for only personal gains. They differ from the benevolent dictators for their record of using heavy oppression against their dissidents. Fascists, like all dictators, change rules to suit themselves, take control of state organizations to exercise total control and use "our class is the greatest" and "kick others" to fuel their programs.

Despite such a detailed list, each fascist is different from each other. There is little that even Ms Albright's fascists - from Mussolini and Hitler to Stalin to the Kims to Chavez or Erdogan - have in common. In fact, most of the opponents of some of these dictators/leaders would calll them by many other choice words but not fascists. The circumstances that gave rise to these leaders were highly different and so were their rules, methods and achievements.

The point, once again, is that none of the strongmen leaders around the world could be easily categorized as fascists. Or even if they do, assigning them with such a tag and learning about some other such leaders is unlikely to help. The history discussed in the book is interesting but disjointed, perfunctory and simplistic. Ms Albright's selection is also debatable.

Strong leaders who suppress those they deem as opponents have wreaked immense harms and are a threat to all civil societies. They come in more shades and colours than terms we have in our vocabulary (dictators, tyrants, fascists, despots, autocrats etc). A study of such tyrant is needed for anyone with an interest in history, politics, or societal well-being. Despite Ms Albright's phenomenal knowledge, experience, credentials, personal history and intentions, this book is perhaps not the best place to objectively learn much about the risks from the type of things some current leaders are doing or deeming as right.

Gderf , February 15, 2019
Wrong warning

Each time I get concerned about Trump's rhetoric or past actions I read idiotic opinions, like those of our second worst ever Secretary of State, and come to appreciate him more. Pejorative terms like fascism or populism have no place in a rational policy discussion. Both are blatant attempts to apply a pejorative to any disagreeing opinion. More than half of the book is fluffed with background of Albright, Hitler and Mussolini. Wikipedia is more informative. The rest has snippets of more modern dictators, many of whom are either socialists or attained power through a reaction to failed socialism, as did Hitler. She squirms mightily to liken Trump to Hitler. It's much easier to see that Sanders is like Maduro. The USA is following a path more like Venezuela than Germany.

Her history misses that Mussolini was a socialist before he was a fascist, and Nazism in Germany was a reaction to Wiemar socialism. The danger of fascism in the US is far greater from the left than from the right. America is far left of where the USSR ever was. Remember than Marx observed that Russia was not ready for a proletarian revolution. The USA with ready made capitalism for reform fits Marx's pattern much better. Progressives deny that Sanders and Warren are socialists. If not they are what Lenin called "useful idiots."
Albright says that she is proud of the speech where she called the USA the 'Indispensable Nation.' She should be ashamed. Obama followed in his inaugural address, saying that we are "the indispensable nation, responsible for world security." That turned into a policy of human rights interventions leading to open ended wars (Syria, Yemen), nations in chaos (Libya), and distrust of the USA (Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, NK). Trump now has to make nice with dictators to allay their fears that we are out to replace them.
She admires the good intentions of human rights intervention, ignoring the results. She says Obama had some success without citing a single instance. He has apologized for Libya, but needs many more apologies. She says Obama foreign policy has had some success, with no mention of a single instance. Like many progressives, she confuses good intentions with performance. Democracy spreading by well intentioned humanitarian intervention has resulted in a succession of open ended war or anarchy.

The shorter histories of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Venezuela are much more informative, although more a warning against socialism than right wing fascism. Viktor Orban in Hungary is another reaction to socialism.

Albright ends the book with a forlorn hope that we need a Lincoln or Mandela, exactly what our two party dictatorship will not generate as it yields ever worse and worse candidates for our democracy to vote upon, even as our great society utopia generates ever more power for weak presidents to spend our money and continue wrong headed foreign policy.

The greatest danger to the USA is not fascism, but of excessively poor leadership continuing our slow slide to the bottom.

[Apr 04, 2019] As Merkel is the USA stooge, and Germany needs to be freed from the USA vassalitete, and re-installed as an independent country; Putin should do is set up a "Free" German government in K nigsburg just like the US is doing with Gaido in Venezuela.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cowboy , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT

@Rurik Upon consideration, what Putin should do is set up a "Free" German government in Königsburg just like the US is doing with Gaido in Venezuela. Get China to recognize it. Then they should start negotiating lucrative contracts, treaties and alliances between the Free Germans and the rest of OBOR. It would be fascinating to see how ZOG reacted.

Oh, and most important of all, declare a new debt free currency, perhaps gold backed. I could live with the Reichsmark.

[Apr 04, 2019] I think you should distinguish between the deep state and the elite. The former are primarily concerned with US primacy. The elite are economic internationalists and focused on profit.

Notable quotes:
"... China is a milch cow for the global capitalists, they are dependant on China succeeding. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sean says: April 4, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT 300 Words I am not aware that anyone has ever considered Syria a crucial centre of world power, and while Ukraine was once thought of that way back in the days of Halford Makinder, I am afraid now they are both worthless.

I think you should distinguish between the deep state and the elite. The former are primarily concerned with US primacy. The elite are economic internationalists and focused on profit. Carter instituted a decades long policy mandating officials to help trade with China under the influence of Brzezinski's Russophobia.

They fundamentally miscalculated the ability of China to rapidly rival the West in productive capacity. Now the Western economies are dependant on a Keynesian and financially frail China going all out for future growth. The elite are in no position to lower the boom on China, and I think that is the last thing they intend.

China is a milch cow for the global capitalists, they are dependant on China succeeding.

Everyone is in favour of free trade if they think they will be successful in it, so the Chinese enthusiasm is no evidence of altruism or the absence of a venal elite in their country. Free trade allocating reward based on merit will benefit the American elite through their Chinese investments, but it does not sound like good news for the American worker.

If there is pressure for something to stop China it will not just be coming from the rust belt. The deep state plus the working class versus the financial elite is already ongoing; a struggle to control American policy as the wealth generated by China is reaped by Western financial elites and America falls to the status of second rate power.

[Apr 04, 2019] Neoliberals are no Christians

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anja Böttcher , says: April 3, 2019 at 7:56 am GMT

@Anon You are no Christians. USAism and all radical Protestantism is abusing the surface of Christianity for satanic anti-Christianity.

There is no Christianity but what is rooted in the old and everlasting Church of which Christ is the Head in the Holy Spirit, as laid in apostle's hands and transferred by Church fathers.

Christianity is genuinely collectivist, it has nothing to do with the perverted individualism of Anglosaxon background and does not agree with the inherent nihilistic energy of capitalism.

... ... ...

[Apr 04, 2019] As Trump rages over border, Kushner quietly plans legal immigration boost

Apr 04, 2019 | www.politico.com

Hardline activists are ready to oppose any move to expand immigration.

By ANITA KUMAR

Even as President Donald Trump threatens to shut down the southern border, his administration is quietly working on a plan to expand some forms of legal immigration into the U.S.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, has been working for months on a proposal that could increase the number of low- and high-skilled workers admitted to the country annually, four people involved in the discussions told POLITICO.

The low-profile effort to allow more legal immigrants into the U.S. stands in stark contrast to Trump's increasingly dramatic efforts to curb illegal immigration, an issue he speaks about daily and describes as a national crisis. But Trump himself has publicly said he also supports higher levels of legal immigration, a priority generally backed by a business community short on skilled workers.

The effort began in January when Kushner started to convene a series of meetings with dozens of advocacy groups, including business and agriculture organizations. Some, though not all of them, openly support the expansion of legal immigration. It has continued in recent weeks with a smaller four-person White House working group led by Kushner and could generate a proposal for Congress by summer.

Trump personally tasked Kushner -- who successfully forged a December compromise on criminal justice reform but is still struggling to deliver a Middle East peace plan -- with the priority of legal immigration. But it is a daunting challenge, requiring legislation in an issue area that has confounded Congress in recent years.

[Apr 04, 2019] I hate the Washington doublespeak about "rules-based international order."

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mike from Jersey , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:21 pm GMT

I hate the Washington doublespeak about "rules-based international order."

When has the Imperial State ever followed any "rules?"

For instance, didn't the Nuremberg trials establish the principle that wars of aggression constituted international war crimes? Wasn't the invasion of Iraq a violation of "rules-based international order." And what about UN approval for the use of force. Did the US get UN approval when they decided to overturn the Assad regime. Wasn't that a violation of "rules-based international order."

The same can be said about the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and the coming war against Venezuela.

What Washington really means when they talk about a "rules-based international order" is "we make up the rules as we go along and those rules don't apply to us."

[Apr 04, 2019] How much of the present-day US economy is even real i.e., results in the production of actual goods that people might want, as opposed to dodgy financial/insurance transactions which may add a lot of dollar value to GDP, but don't create anything real that enhances the quality of life for the masses?

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: April 4, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMT

@Andrei Martyanov All true. And one more point: compared with China, how much of the present-day US economy is even real – i.e., results in the production of actual goods that people might want, as opposed to dodgy financial/insurance transactions which may add a lot of dollar value to GDP, but don't create anything real that enhances the quality of life for the masses?

Economist used to have a joke: every time you break your leg, you increase GDP. First, you gotta pay the hospital (transaction), then you gotta pay your doctor (another transaction), then you gotta pay for your case (yet another transaction). All those transactions make it look like 'wealth' is being created, because they are–numerically, at least–increasing per capita GDP. But still: wouldn't you and the country actually be better off if you hadn't broken your leg in the first place?

[Apr 04, 2019] Finance Capitalism came out of London and hopped to America, especially post WW2.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT

China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East, and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US.

Industrial Capitalism is the system China and Russia are running on. America briefly had this system from 1868 to 1912; it was called the American System of Economy (Henry Clay/Peshine Smith).

This type of economy uses state credit (from Treasury not banks) and injects it into industry. Industry then grows, and people's welfare is increased through improved productivity.

Finance Capitalism came out of London and hopped to America, especially post WW2. At the same time Atlantacism and Rim theory hopped. America still runs under this BIZWOG (Britain Israel World Government) matrix. This matrix depends on finance capitalism.

Finance Capitalism is the placing of EXISTING ASSETS onto a private bank ledger, to then hypothecate said assets into new bank credit. For example, a ships bill of lading may be used to create new bank credit, or existing homes are put on double entry ledger to make housing bubbles.

The closer analogs to China and Russian economy are American System of Economy, not the current American BIZWOG finance capital. The historical analogs would also be Canada 1938-1974, when Canada had a sovereign economy. Canada post 1974 was converted to finance capitalism and now are debt laden and suffering like the rest of the west.

Kaiser's Germany used industrial capitalism then Japan's Manchurian Railroad Engineers copied it for Japan. Mussolini in Italy copied parts of it, and NSDAP in Germany resurrected Frederick List and the Kaiser's methods.

Finance Capital out of wall street funded the Bolsheviks in what amounted to a looting operation of Russia. It is any wonder that finance capitalism found succor with communism since they are both pyramid schemes?

Rim Theory, Atlantacism, Finance Capitalism, and Brzezinsky's chessboard are part of the same thing, an excuse matrix for gobbling up the world into one double entry private bank ledger, to then benefit a special (((usury))) finance class of plutocrats.

The "markets" that China and Russia operate on are those of industrial capitalism, using state credit. China has four large state banks, and they often cancel debt instruments (housed in the state bank) to then effectively put debt free money into their economy. Russia injects gold into their Central Bank Reserves, to then emit Rubles. Both China and Russia inject into industry, their farm sectors, and other sectors to get a desired output to help their people, not put them into debt servitude.

The BIZWOG matrix will collapse, it is anti-logos and hence against the natural order. It is on the wrong side of history.

[Apr 03, 2019] Democrats are now the party of war

Apr 03, 2019 | www.facebook.com

Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in 2019, its third year of operation.

"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when there really isn't."

investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.

Indeed, report after report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money associated with "Russians" is always dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the social media game.

Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."

"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom government of the worst kind."

[Apr 03, 2019]

Apr 03, 2019 | kononenkome.livejournal.com

Долгие годы я жил в ощущении правильности произошедшего в 1991 и 1993 годах. Хотя, конечно, у меня были серьезные внутренние разногласия с той толпой, которая носилась по Москве и ломала памятники. Но я это в себе как-то давил. В 1993 году мне казалось правильным, что танк стреляет по дому с вооруженными людьми. Я тоже хотел раздавить гадину, потому что гадина представлялась мне гадиной. Я был юн и еще не понимал, что демократия -- это всегда толпа, ломающая памятники. И что любой парламент -- это всегда гадина. Но это не значит, что его надо из танков расстреливать.

Но даже когда ко мне пришло понимание этих двух постулатов, я все равно продолжал смеяться над мифологией защитников гадины. О массовых расстрелах на стадионе "Красная Пресня". И, конечно, о таинственных снайперах, которые стреляли по простым прохожим. Зачем снайперам стрелять по простым прохожим? Какой в этом военный тактический смысл? Однако время всё ставит по своим местам. Снайперы, стреляющие по простым прохожим нужны для того же, для чего нужны две бочки хлора. Для провокации.

А где же еще мы видели снайперов, стрелявших по людям для провокации насилия? Правильно, мы видели их в Киеве на Майдане. И вот когда у тебя в голове вдруг складывается Майдан и 1993 год, то становится неприятно. Потому что ты начинаешь понимать природу произошедшего в 1993 году. Это был такой же Майдан. И он, как и в Киеве, победил. Раздавили гадину. Америка, матушка-спасительница, помогла. И в 1993м. И в 2014. Только почему же ты, сволочь, тогда был на одной стороне, а потом -- на другой? А потому что дурак был.

А когда картинка сложилась, сразу же много стало понятнее. И весь тот ад девяностых, который был так похож на то, что ныне происходит на Украине. Война против собственных граждан негодной, разворованной армией. Полный крах экономики, зависимость от денег МВФ, выделяемых по милостивому разрешению США. Вооруженные люди, убивающие друг друга в центрах городов.

Эта мысль может показаться диковатой, но вот, наконец, у нее случилось документальное подтверждение. В США опубликованы расшифровки телефонных разговоров президента Билла Клинтона. В том числе и с президентом Борисом Ельциным. В которых Ельцин пугает Клинтона коммунистами, жалуется, что коммунисты, если победят, могут отобрать Крым (!). И просит два с половиной миллиарда долларов на выборы. После чего МВФ выделяет России займ, а в Москве приезжают американские политические консультанты. И выборы 1996 года превращаются в Оранжевую революцию -- только вместо концертов на Майдане тур "Голосуй или проиграешь". А в результате всё равно сфальсифицированные результаты. Методы и те же, разве что последовательность разная.

И вот с высоты этого понимания хорошо бы оглядеть перспективы. В России случился Путин, она очистилась от скверны и таки приняла вернувшийся Крым. Значит ли это, что подобный исход событий возможен на Украине? Интересная могла бы получиться экстраполяция: Порошенко находит какого-то малоизвестного человека, выходца из СБУ, которого назначает преемником. Этот человек выгоняет американцев, восстанавливает экономику, мирится с Донбассом, равноудаляет старых олигархов и возвращает Крым? Сценарий, как вы понимаете, фантастический. И дело даже не в Крыме, который никуда "возвращаться" не собирается, потому что он уже вернулся домой. Дело в том, что Ельцин вовсе не хотел, чтобы Путин сделал всё то, что он сделал. Он хотел просто гарантий безопасности для себя и семьи. И то, что Путин оказался не тем, кем его представлял себе Ельцин -- это счастливая случайность. Божий промысел, если хотите. Pussy Riot просили Богородицу, чтобы она забрала Путина, а устами художника всегда говорит Бог. То есть, прося Богородицу, чтобы она забрала Путина, Pussy Riot тем самым (и сами того не понимая) говорили нам, что Богородица Путина нам дала. Это шутка, конечно. Впрочем, как мне кажется, довольно изящная.

Порошенко, разумеется, тоже ничего из того, что сделал Путин, не хочет. Он хочет или остаться у власти (что мирным путем невозможно) или же обеспечить себе безопасность. Кто именно мог бы обеспечить ему такую безопасность (то есть -- быть потенциальным украинским Путиным) отсюда пока никак не просматривается. Но вопрос ведь не в этом. Вопрос в том, будет ли к этому иметь отношение Богородица.

А также в том, что нам теперь совсем не с руки смеяться над нынешней Украиной и ее выбором. Мы с вами вышли из такого же дерьма. Природа современного русского государства такая же -- поддержанный американцами майдан. И хорошо бы никогда об этом не забывать. И соответственно относиться к тем, кто тоскует по тем временам.

А лично мне достаточно того, что Богородица не послушала Pussy Riot. И слава богу.
RT

[Apr 03, 2019] The population of Russia after WW I was an estimated 120 million. By 1979, the population rose to 137.6 million.

Apr 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Durruti , says: December 4, 2018 at 5:02 pm GMT

@DESERT FOX

"The Zionists have a long historical experience with bringing terror to the world , one example being the Zionist/ Bolshevik revolution in Russia where the Bolsheviks killed some 60 million Russians bringing terror to Russia on an industrial level turning the whole country into a slaughter house!"

Your excellent narrative is weakened by the above cited & unproved assertion. The official Zionist narratives of 6 million Jews supposedly singled out and exterminated by Germans during WW II, or the 60 million Russians killed by the Bolsheviks, ( the Zionists agree with the 60 million figure-as well), contain numbers that do not add up. They apparently enjoy citing with the number 6.

You do an excellent job on the phony 6 million narrative, but accept the 60 million narrative -- without a demur. Does accepting the one allow you to freely declare the other?

The population of Russia after WW I was an estimated 120 million. By 1979, the population rose to 137.6 million. It is advised to distinguish between Russian, and Russian Empire populations. The Tsarist Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union were larger than -- just Russia. My citations below are of figures for the Russian population, as the official Propaganda Charge is that "60 million Russians" were murdered.

[MORE]
Below are just 2 of many citations available. http://www.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_population_of_Russia_in_1917 http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/russia.htm

It appears, that, taking into account (or not) the high Russian casualties of World War II, (of both civilian and Armed Forces), the "Bolsheviks killed some 60 million Russians" is clearly FAR more of an impossibility than the sacrosanct '6 million'.

This 60 million figure pushed by the American Zionist owned Mainstream Media, including Zio-American texts and Hollywood, is most likely highly in error.

Slight digression:

One of the distinguishing features, when one compares the American with the Soviet Gulags, is that the Soviet leadership viewed their prison system as a source of Cheap Labor, whereas in America, prisoners are regarded as so much flesh -- to allow to rot away in the all but Completely Unproductive American Gulag.

The American Gulag is profitable for corporations that build the prisons and supply America's more than 2 million prisoners. The Russian Gulag had a much healthier -- human use for their prisoners.

For the most part, Solzhenitsyn' s "GULAG Archipelago" supports this analysis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

After the fall of the Marxist Soviet government in 1990, the Russian Gulag quickly emptied out, as it was more profitable for Russia to maximize the number of Free Laborers (workers responsible for their own well being, and raising useful Russian progeny).

In Conclusion:

The Gulag was not a picnic, or Boy Scout Camp, few prison systems are. However there were no gas chambers (get my attempt at mis-directional humor?). I have no doubt that, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, millions died -- thru execution, or being worked to death. However:

I fail to see the "60 million Russians" killed by the Bolsheviks. If you can enlighten, and document, we can continue this discussion.

In America, we must Restore Our Republic! And free all our Prisoners -- inside and outside of the official Prison Walls.

DESERT FOX , says: December 4, 2018 at 7:13 pm GMT
@Durruti I am using Alexander Solzhenitsyns figure for the 60 million Russians killed by the Zionist/communists in Russia and Solzhenitsyn had access to Russian archives for his research and his experience in the Gulags, and I have read The Gulag Archipelago and that is what I am going on.

I do not accept the Zionist figure of 6 million as the Zionists were pushing that figure long before WWII in a propaganda effort , however I do think that several million jews were killed along with Lutherans and Catholics and various other religions and political dissidents and I base this on books like The Good Old Days by Ernst Klee and Willi Dressen and Volker Reiss, among others that I have read.

The Zionist perpetrated slaughter house is now in operation in the Mideast and has been for some 30 years and the Zionists show no signs of slowing down and want to use the Ukraine as an agent provocateur to get the west into a war with Russia. One sign of how the Zionist think is a remark by Madeline Albright , when aske if she thought the some 500,ooo thousand children killed in Iraq were worth it, and she said it was worth it, these Satanists have no regard for human life !

I believe at some point the Ukraine is going to be the powder keg used to start WWIII and the Zionists believe they will survive in the DUMBS and this is what they believe will usher in their messiah ie satan, read The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed and The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman.

Thanks for your reply

[Apr 03, 2019] There is no democracy in US. There is just a civil war between two dysfunctional and corrupt to the core parties

Notable quotes:
"... The Democrats are so fricking crazy, so far in outer space that any attempt at working with them is pure futility. ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 7, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT

@Cassander There is no democracy in US. There is civil war between two dysfunctional parties. How come you did not notice? Or you just came from enchanted kingdom?
Authenticjazzman , says: February 7, 2019 at 5:42 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova " There is civil war between two dysfunctional parties"

Wrong again. There is in fact war between the cowardly, appeasing, Republicans, and the insane blue-haired democrats.

The Democrats are so fricking crazy, so far in outer space that any attempt at working with them is pure futility.

AJM

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:40 pm GMT
@Authenticjazzman You are absolutely correct. I just did not wanted to go into such a details. It is not my stile.

[Apr 02, 2019] 'Yats' Is No Longer the Guy by Robert Parry

Highly recommended!
This article by late Robert Parry is from 2016 but is still relevant in context of the current Ukrainian elections and the color revolution is Venezuela. The power of neoliberal propaganda is simply tremendous. For foreign events it is able to distort the story to such an extent that the most famous quote of CIA director William Casey "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" looks like constatation of already accomplished goal.
Apr 11, 2016 | consortiumnews.com

Exclusive: Several weeks before Ukraine's 2014 coup, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Nuland had already picked Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the future leader, but now "Yats" is no longer the guy, writes Robert Parry.

In reporting on the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the major U.S. newspapers either ignored or distorted Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's infamous intercepted phone call before the 2014 coup in which she declared "Yats is the guy!"

Though Nuland's phone call introduced many Americans to the previously obscure Yatsenyuk, its timing – a few weeks before the ouster of elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – was never helpful to Washington's desired narrative of the Ukrainian people rising up on their own to oust a corrupt leader.

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.

Instead, the conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt sounded like two proconsuls picking which Ukrainian politicians would lead the new government. Nuland also disparaged the less aggressive approach of the European Union with the pithy put-down: "Fuck the E.U.!"

More importantly, the intercepted call, released onto YouTube in early February 2014, represented powerful evidence that these senior U.S. officials were plotting – or at least collaborating in – a coup d'etat against Ukraine's democratically elected president. So, the U.S. government and the mainstream U.S. media have since consigned this revealing discussion to the Great Memory Hole.

On Monday, in reporting on Yatsenyuk's Sunday speech in which he announced that he is stepping down, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention the Nuland-Pyatt conversation at all. The New York Times did mention the call but misled its readers regarding its timing, making it appear as if the call followed rather than preceded the coup. That way the call sounded like two American officials routinely appraising Ukraine's future leaders, not plotting to oust one government and install another.

The Times article by Andrew E. Kramer said: "Before Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment as prime minister in 2014, a leaked recording of a telephone conversation between Victoria J. Nuland, a United States assistant secretary of state, and the American ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, seemed to underscore the West's support for his candidacy. 'Yats is the guy,' Ms. Nuland had said."

Notice, however, that if you didn't know that the conversation occurred in late January or early February 2014, you wouldn't know that it preceded the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. You might have thought that it was just a supportive chat before Yatsenyuk got his new job.

You also wouldn't know that much of the Nuland-Pyatt conversation focused on how they were going to "glue this thing" or "midwife this thing," comments sounding like prima facie evidence that the U.S. government was engaged in "regime change" in Ukraine, on Russia's border.

The 'No Coup' Conclusion

But Kramer's lack of specificity about the timing and substance of the call fits with a long pattern of New York Times' bias in its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. On Jan. 4, 2015, nearly a year after the U.S.-backed coup, the Times published an "investigation" article declaring that there never had been a coup. It was just a case of President Yanukovych deciding to leave and not coming back.

That article reached its conclusion, in part, by ignoring the evidence of a coup, including the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. The story was co-written by Kramer and so it is interesting to know that he was at least aware of the "Yats is the guy" reference although it was ignored in last year's long-form article.

Instead, Kramer and his co-author Andrew Higgins took pains to mock anyone who actually looked at the evidence and dared reach the disfavored conclusion about a coup. If you did, you were some rube deluded by Russian propaganda.

"Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych's ouster to what it portrays as a violent, 'neo-fascist' coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular uprising," Higgins and Kramer wrote . "Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin's line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych's government, questions remain about how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely."

The Times' article concluded that Yanukovych "was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone else. The allies' desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych's own efforts to make peace."

Yet, one might wonder what the Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.

The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government operatives planted nasty propaganda about the targeted leader, stirred up political and economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come and then – as political institutions collapsed – watched as the scared but duly elected leader made a hasty departure.

In Iran, the coup reinstalled the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.

Coups don't have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.

' Color Revolutions'

But the preferred method in more recent years has been the "color revolution," which operates behind the façade of a "peaceful" popular uprising and international pressure on the targeted leader to show restraint until it's too late to stop the coup. Despite the restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to justify his removal.

Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.

But the reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. Nor did you have to be inside "the Russian propaganda bubble" to recognize it. George Friedman, the founder of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called Yanukovych's overthrow "the most blatant coup in history."

Which is what it appears if you consider the evidence. The first step in the process was to create tensions around the issue of pulling Ukraine out of Russia's economic orbit and capturing it in the European Union's gravity, a plan defined by influential American neocons in 2013.

On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100 million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for journalists and organizing business groups.

As for the even bigger prize -- Putin -- Gershman wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."

At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine's President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013 when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160 billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There was also the West's demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International Monetary Fund.

Yanukovych wanted more time for the E.U. negotiations, but his decision angered many western Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to show restraint.

Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous $15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine's political unrest as a black-and-white case of a brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly "pro-democracy" movement.

Cheering an Uprising

The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European aspirations."

A screen shot of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland speaking to U.S. and Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, at an event sponsored by Chevron, with its logo to Nuland's left.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their challenge to the Ukrainian government.

As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist elements from Lviv and other western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades or "sotins" of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners and even a Confederate flag.

Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire, killing both police and protesters. As the police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80 including more than a dozen police.

U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor extremists.

To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.

The precipitous police withdrawal opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives. The new coup regime was immediately declared "legitimate" by the U.S. State Department with Yanukovych sought on murder charges. Nuland's favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime minister.

Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who fired on unarmed supporters of "democracy." The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American people heard from the major media.

The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: "More than 80 protesters were shot to death by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February."

The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and peaceful Maidan protests.

Any reference to a "coup" was dismissed as "Russian propaganda." There was a parallel determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians simply became "Russian aggression."

Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine's Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)

This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II – reached absurd levels as The New York Times and The Washington Post buried references to the neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.

The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by quoting one militia commander as calling them "romantic" gestures by impressionable young men. [See Consortiumnews.com's " Ukraine's 'Romantic' Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers ."]

But today – more than two years after what U.S. and Ukrainian officials like to call "the Revolution of Dignity" – the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is sinking into dysfunction, reliant on handouts from the IMF and Western governments.

And, in a move perhaps now more symbolic than substantive, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is stepping down. Yats is no longer the guy.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ).


Khalid Talaat , April 16, 2016 at 20:39

Is it too far fetched to think that all these color revolutions are a perfection of the process to unleash another fake color revolution, only this time it is a Red, White and Blue revolution here at home? Those that continue to booze and snooze while watching the tube will not know the difference until it is too late.

The freedom and tranquility of our country depends on finding and implementing a counterweight to the presstitutes and their propaganda. The alternative is too destructive in its natural development.

Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:49

Yats and Porko are the guys who broke Ukraine. By the end of December 2015, Ukraine's gross domestic product had shrunk around 19 percent in comparison with 2013. Its decimated industrial sector needs less fuel. Yatsie did a heck of a job.

Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:35

Carl Gershman: "Ukraine is the biggest prize" -- Paragraph 6 of https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-soviet-states-stand-up-to-russia-will-the-us/2013/09/26/b5ad2be4-246a-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html

David Smith , April 12, 2016 at 13:51

The timing of "Yats" departure is ominous. Mid-April, six weeks from now would be the first chance to renew the invasion of DPR Donesk/Lugansk."Yats" failed in 2014, and didn't try in 2015. Who is "the new guy"? Will the new Prime Minister begin raving about renewing the holy war to recover the lost oblasts? 2016 is really Ukraine's last chance. Ukraine refuses to implement Minsk2, and they have been receiving lots of new weapons. I believe President Putin put the Syrian operation on " standby" not only to avoid approaching the border, provoking a Turkish intervention, but also so he can give undistracted attention to DPR Donesk/Lugansk.

Bill Rood , April 12, 2016 at 11:50

I guess I must be inside the Russian propaganda bubble. It was obvious to me when I looked at the YouTube videos of policemen burning after being hit with Molotov cocktails.

We played the same game of encouraging government "restraint" in Syria, where we demanded Assad free "political prisoners," but we now accuse him of deliberately encouraging ISIS by freeing those people, so that he can point to ISIS and ask, "Do you want that?" Targeted leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Andrei , April 12, 2016 at 10:26

"the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954", Romania 1989 Shots were fired by snipers in order to stirr the crowds (sounds familiar?) and also by the army after Ceasescu ran away, which resulted in civilians getting murdered. Could it possibly be that it was said : "Iliescu (next elected president) is the guy!" ?

Joe L. , April 12, 2016 at 11:00

Check out the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela 2002, that is very similar with protesters, snipers on rooftops, IMF immediately offering loans to the new coup government, new government positions for the coup plotters, complacency with the media – propaganda, funding by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy etc. John Pilger documents how the coup occurred in his documentary "War on Democracy" – https://vimeo.com/16724719 .

archaos , April 12, 2016 at 09:45

It was noted in the minutes of Verkhovna Rada almost 2 years before Maidan 2 , that Geoffrey Pyatt was fomenting and funding destabilisation of Ukraine.
All of Svoboda Nazis in parliament (and other fascisti) then booed the MP who stated this.

Mark Thomason , April 12, 2016 at 06:57

Also, the Dutch voted "no" on the economic agreement the coup was meant to force through instead of the Russian agreement accepted by the President it overthrew. Now both "Yats" and the economic agreement are gone. All that is left is the war. Neocons are still happen. They wanted the war. They really want to overthrow Putin, and Ukraine was just a tool in that.

Realist , April 12, 2016 at 05:51

You're right, it doesn't have to be the military that carries out a coup by deploying tanks on the National Mall. In 2000, it was the United States Supreme Court that exceeded its constitutional authority and installed George W. Bush as president, though in reality he had lost that election. I wonder when that move will rightfully be characterized as a coup by the historians.

Bryan Hemming , April 12, 2016 at 04:00

"On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin."

It should be remembered that Victoria Nuland took up the post of Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in Washington on September 18, 2013.

Coincidentally, two other women closely connected to events in Ukraine were also in Washington during September 2013.

Friend of Nuland and boss of the IMF, which has its own HQ in Washington, Christine Lagarde was swift to respond to a Ukraine request for IMF loans on February 27th 2014, just five days after the removal of Yanukovych on February 22nd. Lagarde is pictured with Baronness Catherine Ashton in Washington in a Facebook entry dated September 30th 2013. Ashton was High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the time.

Though visiting Kiev at the same time as Nuland in February 2014 Catherine Ashton never appeared in public with her, which seems a little odd considering the women were on the same mission, and talking to the same people. Nevertheless, despite appearing shy of being photographed with each other the two women weren't quite so shy of being pictured with leaders of the coup, including the right wing extremist, Oleh Tyahnybok.

Ashton refused to be drawn into commenting on Nuland's "Fuck the E.U.!" outburst, describing Nuland as "a friend of mine." The two women certainly weren't strangers, they had worked closely together before. September 2012 saw them involved in discussions with Iran negotiator Saeed Jalili over the country's supposed nuclear arms ambitions.

The question is not so much whether the three women talked about Ukraine's future – it would be ridiculous to think they did not – but how closely they worked together, and exactly how closely they might have been involved in events leading up to the overthrow of the legitimate government in Kiev. More on this here:

https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/double-double-toil-and-trouble-the-cauldron-of-kiev/

Pablo Diablo , April 11, 2016 at 22:56

Another failed "regime change". Aren't these guys (Neoconservatives) great. They fail, piss off/kill millions, yet seem to keep making money and retaining power. Time to WAKE UP AMERICA.

Skip Edwards , April 11, 2016 at 20:06

Read "The Devil'Chessboard" by David Talbot to understand what has been occurring as a result of America's Dark, Shadow government, an un-elected bunch of vicious psychopaths controlling our destiny; unless stopped. Get a clue and realize that "Yats is our guy" Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton's "gal." Hillary Clinton is Robert Kagen's "gal." Time to flush all these rats out of the hold and get on with our lives.

Joe L. , April 11, 2016 at 18:40

Mr. Parry thank you for delving into the proven history of coups and the parallels with Ukraine. It amazes me how anyone can outright deny this was a coup especially if they know anything about US coups going back to WW2 (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, attempt in Venezuela 2002 etc. – and there are a whole slew more). I read before, as you have rightly pointed out, that in 1953 the CIA led a propaganda campaign in Iran against Mossadegh as well as financing opposition protesters and opposition government officials. Another angle, as well, is looking historically back to what papers such as the New York Times were reporting around the time of the coup in Iran – especially when we know that the US/Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh for their own oil interests (British Petroleum):

New York Times: "Mossadegh Plays with Fire" (August 15, 1953):

The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier Mossadegh.

Some of us used to ascribe our inability to persuade Dr. Mossadegh of the validity of our ideas to the impossibility of making him understand or see things our way. We thought of him as a sincere, well-meaning, patriotic Iranian, who had a different point of view and made different deductions from the same set of facts. We now know that he is a power-hungry, personally ambitious, ruthless demagogue who is trampling upon the liberties of his own people. We have seen this onetime champion of liberty maintain martial law, curb freedom of the press, radio, speech and assembly, resort to illegal arrests and torture, dismiss the Senate, destroy the power of the Shah, take over control of the army, and now he is about to destroy the Majlis, which is the lower house of Parliament.

His power would seem to be complete, but he has alienated the traditional ruling classes -the aristocrats, landlords, financiers and tribal leaders. These elements are anti-Communist. So is the Shah and so are the army leaders and the urban middle classes. There is a traditional, historic fear, suspicion and dislike of Russia and the Russians. The peasants, who make up the overwhelming mass of the population, are illiterate and nonpolitical. Finally, there is still no evidence that the Tudeh (Communist) party is strong enough or well enough organized, financed and led to take power.

All this simply means that there is no immediate danger of a Communist coup or Russian intervention. On the other hand, Dr. Mossadegh is encouraging the Tudeh and is following policies which will make the Communists more and more dangerous. He is a sorcerer's apprentice, calling up forces he will not be able to control.

Iran is a weak, divided, poverty-stricken country which possesses an immense latent wealth in oil and a crucial strategic position. This is very different from neighboring Turkey, a strong, united, determined and advanced nation, which can afford to deal with the Russians because she has nothing to fear -and therefore the West has nothing to fear. Thanks largely to Dr. Mossadegh, there is much to fear in Iran.

http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/new-york-times/august-15-1953/

My feeling is that the biggest sin that our society has is forgetting history. If we remembered history I would think that it would be very difficult to pull off coups but most media does not revisit history which proves US coups even against democracies. I actually think that the coup that occurred in Ukraine was similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002 with snipers on rooftops, immediate blame for the deaths on Hugo Chavez where media manipulated the footage, immediate acceptance of the temporary coup government by the US Government, immediately offering IMF loans for the new coup government, government positions for many of the coup plotters, and let us not leave out the funding for the coup coming from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. I also remember seeing the New York Times immediately blaming Chavez and praising the coup but when the coup was overturned and US fingerprints started to become revealed (with many of the coup plotters fleeing to the US) then the New York Times wrote a limited retraction buried in their paper. Shameless.

SFOMARCO , April 11, 2016 at 15:16

How was NED able to finance "scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for journalists and organizing business groups", not to mention to host such dignitaries as Cookie Nuland, Loser McCain and assorted Bidens? Seems like a recipe for a coup "hidden in plain sight".

Bob Van Noy , April 11, 2016 at 14:36

Ukraine, one would hope, represents the "Bridge Too Far" moment for the proponents of regime change. Surely Americans must be catching on to what we do for selected nations in the name of "giving them their freedoms". The Kagan Family, empowered by their newly endorsed candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, will feel justified in carrying on a new cold war, this time world wide. Of course they will not be doing the fighting, they, like Dick Cheney are the self appointed intellects of geopolitical chess, much like The Georgetown Set of the Kennedy era, they perceive themselves as the only ones smart enough to plan America's future.

Helen Marshall , April 11, 2016 at 17:11

I wish. How many Americans know ANYTHNG about what has happened in Ukraine, about Crimea and its history, and/or could even locate them on a map?

Pastor Agnostic , April 12, 2016 at 04:11

Nuland is merely the inhouse, PNAC female version of Sidney Blumenthal. Which raises the scary question. Who would she pick to be SecState?

[Apr 02, 2019] Poroshenko was just a US marionette which helped to loot the country and impoverish Ukrainian people

Under neoliberalism any regime change is necessary followed by an economic rape. That was the case with the USSR in 1991, that was the case in Ukraine in 2014. Only the size and length of the looting varies depending of the strength of new government. Both the size and the length is maximal if in power are marionette like Yeltsin or Yatsenyuk/Poroshenko.
Saying "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" now should sound as "Beware of Americans who bring you color revolutions." They bring the economic rape (aka "Disaster capitalism") as the second phase. That's the nature of neocolonialism -- now you do not need to occupy the country. It's enough to make it a debt slave using IMF and install compradors to endure the low of money and continuing impoverishment of the population.
With such crooked and greedy friends as Biden and Kerry and their narcoaddicts sons you do not need enemies. But the main danger are not individual sharks but Western financial institutions like IMF and World bank. Those convert countries into debt slaves and that means permanently low standard (Central African in case of Ukraine, something like $2 a day) of living for generations to come.
What is interesting is that unlike say German nationalists in 30th, the Ukrainian nationalists proved to be completly useless in defending the Ukraine from looting. They actually serves as supplementary tool of the same looting.
The standard of living of Ukrainians dropped 2-3 times since 2014. How pensioners survive, on $50 a month pension I simply do not understand. In any case Neoliberalism proved to be very effecting is keeping "developing" nations economic growth down and converting them into debt slaves. The fact that Biden use loans as a tool of extortion (as in threat to cancel one billion loan) to close criminal investigation of his sons company is just an icing on the cake. Poroshenko and his camarilla should be tried in the court of law for his corruption and pandering to the Western sharks, who were happy to steal from Ukraine as much as then can.
To pay $166K a month for Biden's son cocaine is way too much to such impoverished country as Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. ..."
"... " Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat. ..."
"... The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden's younger son, Hunter, as a board member. ..."
"... U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts -- usually more than $166,000 a month -- from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. - The Hill ..."
"... And before he was fired, Shokin says he had made "specific plans" for the investigation - including "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden." "I would like to emphasize the fact that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine," added Shokin. Joe Biden "clearly had to know" about the probe before he insisted on Shokin's ouster . Via The Hill: ..."
"... The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden's work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's case against Burisma; ..."
"... President Obama named Biden the administration's point man on Ukraine in February 2014 ..."
"... Remember Victoria Nuland's famous phone recording of "**** the EU?" This was nothing more than another CIA destabilization campaign carried out of another Sovereign Country. With the goal of breaking the Bush Senior & Jim Baker agreement of not surrounding Russia with NATO countries after their Collapse. ..."
"... Let's face it. If Ukrainians loved it's Country, Joey, Hunter and the Choco-**** would have wound up like Mikhail Lesin during an all night party in an upscale grotto in Kiev by now! ..."
"... At last some questions for this dirt ball-burisma is tied in with one of the most if not the most corrupt oligarch, Koloimiski. Biden is up to his eyeballs in some dodgy deals in china as well-this guy and his son are walking corruption personified. ..."
"... Didn't Hillary teach Joe that a tax free foundation is better than using your son's LLC for laundering the bribes... This is basic stuff. ..."
"... Joe "the Conqueror" "Caesar Magnus" Biden. Joe of Ukraine, the best bud of $oro$. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Originally from: Forget 'Creepy' - Biden Has A Major Ukraine Problem Joe Biden appears to have made a major tactical error last year when he bragged to an audience of foreign policy experts how he threatened to hurl Ukraine into bankruptcy if their top prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, wasn't immediately fired, according to The Hill 's John Solomon.

In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees , sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. - The Hill

"I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko.

" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q0_AqpdwqK4?start=3128

Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden's account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day . Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine's parliament obliged by ending Shokin's tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired. - The Hill

And why would Biden want the "son of a bitch" fired?

In what must be an amazing coincidence, the prosecutor was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into a natural gas firm - which Biden's son, Hunter, sat on the board of directors.

The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden's younger son, Hunter, as a board member.

U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts -- usually more than $166,000 a month -- from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. - The Hill

The Hill 's Solomon reviewed the general prosecutor's file for the Burisma probe - which he reports shows Hunter Biden, his business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.

And before he was fired, Shokin says he had made "specific plans" for the investigation - including "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden." "I would like to emphasize the fact that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine," added Shokin. Joe Biden "clearly had to know" about the probe before he insisted on Shokin's ouster . Via The Hill:

Although Biden made no mention of his son in his 2018 speech, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities both told me Biden and his office clearly had to know about the general prosecutor's probe of Burisma and his son's role. They noted that:

President Obama named Biden the administration's point man on Ukraine in February 2014 , after a popular revolution ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow sent military forces into Ukraine's Crimea territory.

***

Key questions for 'ol Joe:

Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as point man for Ukraine policy? What work was performed for the money Hunter Biden's firm received? Did you know about the Burisma probe? And when it was publicly announced that your son worked for Burisma, should you have recused yourself from leveraging a U.S. policy to pressure the prosecutor who very publicly pursued Burisma?

Read the rest of Solomon's report here .

Chupacabra-322 , 58 minutes ago link

Remember Victoria Nuland's famous phone recording of "**** the EU?" This was nothing more than another CIA destabilization campaign carried out of another Sovereign Country. With the goal of breaking the Bush Senior & Jim Baker agreement of not surrounding Russia with NATO countries after their Collapse.

Son of Captain Nemo , 1 hour ago link

Let's face it. If Ukrainians loved it's Country, Joey, Hunter and the Choco-**** would have wound up like Mikhail Lesin during an all night party in an upscale grotto in Kiev by now!

Amazing that all 3 of them are still alive and that "Song Bird" McCain (#4) was allowed to die from his brain cancer instead of joining them or being dismembered and put on display when he made these visit(s) ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbfsTcJCKDE ) along with General Vallely (#5)!!!

Taras Bulba , 1 hour ago

At last some questions for this dirt ball-burisma is tied in with one of the most if not the most corrupt oligarch, Koloimiski. Biden is up to his eyeballs in some dodgy deals in china as well-this guy and his son are walking corruption personified.

CarifonianSeven, 2 hours ago

Didn't Hillary teach Joe that a tax free foundation is better than using your son's LLC for laundering the bribes... This is basic stuff.

Pernicious Gold Phallusy, 1 hour ago

Joe cheated his way through undergrad and law school. He would be unable to understand any of that.

whittler, 1 hour ago

What? You mean folks will finally care about little Hunter hiring Azov neo-Nazi fighters (oops! security I mean) to protect his fracking site just north of the 'troubles' in the eastern Ukraine? I'm sure they were working for free and that no Biden money was ever used to payoff (oops again! I mean pay the wages of) a bunch of Nazis (dang it again, I mean neo-Nazis, it sounds so much warmer and fuzzier when you add 'neo').

Creepy Joe and all D's agree, 'Nazi' = bad, neo-Nazi = warm, fuzzy and good; heck, they even like to kill Russians Russians Russians!!!

Cracker 16 , 1 hour ago

Joe "the Conqueror" "Caesar Magnus" Biden. Joe of Ukraine, the best bud of $oro$.

[Apr 02, 2019] Were Bill Clinton and Obama CIA assets at some point of their careers?

Notable quotes:
"... Slick Willy, recruited by the CIA to report on anti-war activism from Oxford back in 1968. ..."
"... we get America's first Black President, which serves to paralyze the left with identity politics in exactly the same way that the first woman President would. ..."
"... Unfortunately for the CIA and neoliberal establishment, Trump's unexpected win ( "Damn you ornery American voters!" ) has mortally wounded identity politics as an ideology, so the corporate mass media has tons of work ahead of them for getting plans back on track, if it is possible at all. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Apr 1, 2019 2:38:16 PM | link

So this Buttgig guy is gay?

Here is the way the CIA planned it from way back in Ronald Raygun's presidency:

But the American electorate threw a monkey wrench (or an orange buffoon?) into the works and screwed everything up. Trump was just floated as a "heel" (pro wrestling term) or "foil" to be beaten, and in the process of being beaten reinforce the identity politics of the victor and discredit populism.

Not having any better ideas, and not having any idea why their plans failed, the CIA is just charging ahead with their idea of installing a gay President in 2024 and giving the electorate some exposure to their tool now.

Unfortunately for the CIA and neoliberal establishment, Trump's unexpected win ( "Damn you ornery American voters!" ) has mortally wounded identity politics as an ideology, so the corporate mass media has tons of work ahead of them for getting plans back on track, if it is possible at all.

[Apr 02, 2019] Is/was Trump a drug addict?

Notable quotes:
"... Trump crushes adderol and snorts the powder. ..."
"... Whereas, Obama maintained a cool composure as he lied - those whoppers!; and as he expanded Corporate and MIC power and Cut Taxes on the rich, while smiling and telling you he was on your side, but gosh darn it - those mean republicans.... ..."
"... Obama seemed the Cyborg. Not on drugs, but who knows? ..."
"... Now Trump and Dubya. These guys share certain drug induced behaviors. Harder to control. Neither is very bright or curious. Bit of a loose cannon, harder to control. So you see these ticks and twitches and highs and lows. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

fast freddy , Mar 31, 2019 3:04:25 PM | link

Noel Casler worked 6 seasons of The Apprentice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxwYrANiPt4

Trump crushes adderol and snorts the powder.

Whereas, Obama maintained a cool composure as he lied - those whoppers!; and as he expanded Corporate and MIC power and Cut Taxes on the rich, while smiling and telling you he was on your side, but gosh darn it - those mean republicans....

Obama seemed the Cyborg. Not on drugs, but who knows? He's got Michael's big pecker, so he's content; and he'll make lots of money and live a jet set lifestyle of the rich and famous. Easy. He's smart and slicker than cat shite. He guided the USA farther down the path to the New World Order. No problem.

Now Trump and Dubya. These guys share certain drug induced behaviors. Harder to control. Neither is very bright or curious. Bit of a loose cannon, harder to control. So you see these ticks and twitches and highs and lows.

And Kushner. Too Young and inexperienced to do all that he does. It points to puppet masters pulling their strings.

Trump just wanted some good looking pussycats to come up to his suite; and some hamberders.

[Apr 02, 2019] Guaido Set to Enact Uprising Rooted in US Regime-Change Operations Manual

EuroMaydan scenario for Venezuela?
Notable quotes:
"... Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore, he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well. Hence the effectiveness of his actions. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Apr 1, 2019 2:16:53 PM | link

@73 karlof1

That's a great piece by Escobar, and it contains snippets from his talk with Ishchenko, which I recall he said was coming but which I don't think I ever saw anywhere until now.

I have to quote this perfect illustration of Putin from Ishchenko:

Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore, he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well. Hence the effectiveness of his actions.

As to Pepe's main theme, that the Pentagon is hardening its stances, it's well reported, and fits nicely with the latest piece from Whitney Webb, which Escobar linked form his Facebook page, by the way (I get a lot of good "heads-up" links from there). I'll post it in the next comment.

Grieved , Apr 1, 2019 2:24:53 PM | link

more from #75

Speaking of hardening, Whitney Webb's latest shows exactly how the US plans to act in Venezuela:

Guaido Set to Enact Uprising Rooted in US Regime-Change Operations Manual

Webb's story is about the newly developed RED team, the "sole contractor" to USAID with regard to Venezuela. The piece illustrates both the exact playbook to be used in Venezuela and a hardening of stance in the covert activity sphere equal with the military sphere's hardening that karlof1 cites @73:

For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:

"We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."

This seems to speak a lot of the Trump administration's true ambitions in the Rambo theater of fantasy and cruelty. This RED team is armed with cash and weaponry for offensive violence, along with an entire vocabulary of institutional words that almost seem harmless until you explore the implications, as Webb does.

I have to say in passing that I just don't know if we've ever been able to see so clearly before - i.e. at the level of one magazine article citing the published declarations of the actors - the exact and precise methods by which regime change will attempt to be imposed on a target country.

Presumably Gerasimov and the rest of the Russia team are hip to every one of these moves, and will counter effectively and creatively.


[Apr 02, 2019] Juan Guaid Confesses Being Behind the Sabotage of Venezuela's Electric System

Apr 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

linda gentsch , Apr 1, 2019 5:48:26 PM | link

Juan Guaidó Confesses Being Behind the Sabotage of Venezuela's Electric System

https://www.globalresearch.ca/juan-guaido-confesses-being-behind-the-sabotage-of-venezuelas-electric-system/5673104

Just say it like it is. Follow Bolton, Abrams, Pompeo and Trump's examples. I don't think the VZ people will be intimidated.

karlof1 , Apr 1, 2019 5:50:08 PM | link

Random Dude's legal troubles escalate:

"The Supreme Court of Justice of #Venezuela ratifies precautionary measures to Juan #Guaidó: prohibition to exit the country, prohibition to transfer his property, blockade and immobilization of bank accounts or any other financial instrument in Venezuela."

"The Supreme Court of Justice imposes a fine on Juan #Guaidó and asks the National Constituent Assembly to lift the parliamentary immunity after Guaidó broke the prohibition of leaving the country."

What will be the next "Or Else" utterance by the Naked Emperor's Agents be? Will they threaten to throw the table holding all those possibilities? Perhaps also add the chairs?

Meanwhile, China delivers another freighter full of medical supplies.

[Apr 02, 2019] NATO loses in the Ukraine election

Notable quotes:
"... Volodymyr Zelensky isn't pro-Russia. However, he isn't anti-Russia , which is a huge change from President Petro O. Poroshenko, who came in a distant second. ..."
"... While two pro-Western candidates will go head to head in a runoff in three weeks, Russia-friendly Yuriy Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul garnered a combined 15 percent. ..."
"... This is also a smear, Boyko and Vilkul aren't "loyal to the Kremlin", but they are pro-Russian. Between Boyko and Vilkul's votes, plus Zelensky's votes, it virtually assures that Ukraine won't have an anti-Russian President in a few months. ..."
"... All I know about the Ukraine is that Hillary, Kerry and Co. fucked them over and went with the Nazis contingency. Sorry but the world as it stands is so fucked up I can't keep track of the players or the plays. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

This headline is a smear by warmongers .

Volodymyr Zelensky isn't pro-Russia. However, he isn't anti-Russia , which is a huge change from President Petro O. Poroshenko, who came in a distant second.

Turnout was estimated at about 63 percent, slightly more than the 60 percent who voted in 2014.

That's not all .

A better-than-expected showing for Russia-leaning candidates in the first round of Ukraine's presidential election could mean forces loyal to the Kremlin make inroads at the country's parliamentary vote later this year.

While two pro-Western candidates will go head to head in a runoff in three weeks, Russia-friendly Yuriy Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul garnered a combined 15 percent.

This is also a smear, Boyko and Vilkul aren't "loyal to the Kremlin", but they are pro-Russian. Between Boyko and Vilkul's votes, plus Zelensky's votes, it virtually assures that Ukraine won't have an anti-Russian President in a few months.

guess that's good news?
All I know about the Ukraine is that Hillary, Kerry and Co. fucked them over and went with the Nazis contingency. Sorry but the world as it stands is so fucked up I can't keep track of the players or the plays.
There all obscene and guess who stands in the center of this global nightmare instigating all this darkness. Hummmmmm.....USA,USA,USA. Makes me want to puke. Makes me feel like voting for anyone I'm allowed to is nothing but a crime against humanity.
Including Bernie or anyone the powers that be kindly allow us to consider under their carefully controlled game. Oh well.
Guess I'm glad that the Ukraine may just get out from under their whatever. Hey maybe if people globally all stood up and refused to vote for any of these assholes they fling out there what would happen? Nothing most likely as there is always the specter hanging around of what will happen to your life if you step out of line.

span y Pricknick on Mon, 04/01/2019 - 10:45pm

You would still have so called rulers.

@shaharazade

Hey maybe if people globally all stood up and refused to vote for any of these assholes they fling out there what would happen?

If nobody voted, nothing would change unless there's revolt. Kinda like what we're quickly approaching. It's vote, revolt or die.

[Apr 02, 2019] 'Yats' Is No Longer the Guy by Robert Parry

Highly recommended!
This article by late Robert Parry is from 2016 but is still relevant in context of the current Ukrainian elections and the color revolution is Venezuela. The power of neoliberal propaganda is simply tremendous. For foreign events it is able to distort the story to such an extent that the most famous quote of CIA director William Casey "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" looks like constatation of already accomplished goal.
Apr 11, 2016 | consortiumnews.com

Exclusive: Several weeks before Ukraine's 2014 coup, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Nuland had already picked Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the future leader, but now "Yats" is no longer the guy, writes Robert Parry.

In reporting on the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the major U.S. newspapers either ignored or distorted Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's infamous intercepted phone call before the 2014 coup in which she declared "Yats is the guy!"

Though Nuland's phone call introduced many Americans to the previously obscure Yatsenyuk, its timing – a few weeks before the ouster of elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – was never helpful to Washington's desired narrative of the Ukrainian people rising up on their own to oust a corrupt leader.

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.

Instead, the conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt sounded like two proconsuls picking which Ukrainian politicians would lead the new government. Nuland also disparaged the less aggressive approach of the European Union with the pithy put-down: "Fuck the E.U.!"

More importantly, the intercepted call, released onto YouTube in early February 2014, represented powerful evidence that these senior U.S. officials were plotting – or at least collaborating in – a coup d'etat against Ukraine's democratically elected president. So, the U.S. government and the mainstream U.S. media have since consigned this revealing discussion to the Great Memory Hole.

On Monday, in reporting on Yatsenyuk's Sunday speech in which he announced that he is stepping down, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention the Nuland-Pyatt conversation at all. The New York Times did mention the call but misled its readers regarding its timing, making it appear as if the call followed rather than preceded the coup. That way the call sounded like two American officials routinely appraising Ukraine's future leaders, not plotting to oust one government and install another.

The Times article by Andrew E. Kramer said: "Before Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment as prime minister in 2014, a leaked recording of a telephone conversation between Victoria J. Nuland, a United States assistant secretary of state, and the American ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, seemed to underscore the West's support for his candidacy. 'Yats is the guy,' Ms. Nuland had said."

Notice, however, that if you didn't know that the conversation occurred in late January or early February 2014, you wouldn't know that it preceded the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. You might have thought that it was just a supportive chat before Yatsenyuk got his new job.

You also wouldn't know that much of the Nuland-Pyatt conversation focused on how they were going to "glue this thing" or "midwife this thing," comments sounding like prima facie evidence that the U.S. government was engaged in "regime change" in Ukraine, on Russia's border.

The 'No Coup' Conclusion

But Kramer's lack of specificity about the timing and substance of the call fits with a long pattern of New York Times' bias in its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. On Jan. 4, 2015, nearly a year after the U.S.-backed coup, the Times published an "investigation" article declaring that there never had been a coup. It was just a case of President Yanukovych deciding to leave and not coming back.

That article reached its conclusion, in part, by ignoring the evidence of a coup, including the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. The story was co-written by Kramer and so it is interesting to know that he was at least aware of the "Yats is the guy" reference although it was ignored in last year's long-form article.

Instead, Kramer and his co-author Andrew Higgins took pains to mock anyone who actually looked at the evidence and dared reach the disfavored conclusion about a coup. If you did, you were some rube deluded by Russian propaganda.

"Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych's ouster to what it portrays as a violent, 'neo-fascist' coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular uprising," Higgins and Kramer wrote . "Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin's line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych's government, questions remain about how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely."

The Times' article concluded that Yanukovych "was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone else. The allies' desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych's own efforts to make peace."

Yet, one might wonder what the Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.

The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government operatives planted nasty propaganda about the targeted leader, stirred up political and economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come and then – as political institutions collapsed – watched as the scared but duly elected leader made a hasty departure.

In Iran, the coup reinstalled the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.

Coups don't have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.

' Color Revolutions'

But the preferred method in more recent years has been the "color revolution," which operates behind the façade of a "peaceful" popular uprising and international pressure on the targeted leader to show restraint until it's too late to stop the coup. Despite the restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to justify his removal.

Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.

But the reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. Nor did you have to be inside "the Russian propaganda bubble" to recognize it. George Friedman, the founder of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called Yanukovych's overthrow "the most blatant coup in history."

Which is what it appears if you consider the evidence. The first step in the process was to create tensions around the issue of pulling Ukraine out of Russia's economic orbit and capturing it in the European Union's gravity, a plan defined by influential American neocons in 2013.

On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100 million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for journalists and organizing business groups.

As for the even bigger prize -- Putin -- Gershman wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."

At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine's President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013 when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160 billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There was also the West's demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International Monetary Fund.

Yanukovych wanted more time for the E.U. negotiations, but his decision angered many western Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to show restraint.

Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous $15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine's political unrest as a black-and-white case of a brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly "pro-democracy" movement.

Cheering an Uprising

The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European aspirations."

A screen shot of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland speaking to U.S. and Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, at an event sponsored by Chevron, with its logo to Nuland's left.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their challenge to the Ukrainian government.

As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist elements from Lviv and other western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades or "sotins" of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners and even a Confederate flag.

Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire, killing both police and protesters. As the police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80 including more than a dozen police.

U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor extremists.

To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.

The precipitous police withdrawal opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives. The new coup regime was immediately declared "legitimate" by the U.S. State Department with Yanukovych sought on murder charges. Nuland's favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime minister.

Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who fired on unarmed supporters of "democracy." The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American people heard from the major media.

The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: "More than 80 protesters were shot to death by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February."

The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and peaceful Maidan protests.

Any reference to a "coup" was dismissed as "Russian propaganda." There was a parallel determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians simply became "Russian aggression."

Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine's Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)

This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II – reached absurd levels as The New York Times and The Washington Post buried references to the neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.

The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by quoting one militia commander as calling them "romantic" gestures by impressionable young men. [See Consortiumnews.com's " Ukraine's 'Romantic' Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers ."]

But today – more than two years after what U.S. and Ukrainian officials like to call "the Revolution of Dignity" – the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is sinking into dysfunction, reliant on handouts from the IMF and Western governments.

And, in a move perhaps now more symbolic than substantive, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is stepping down. Yats is no longer the guy.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ).


Khalid Talaat , April 16, 2016 at 20:39

Is it too far fetched to think that all these color revolutions are a perfection of the process to unleash another fake color revolution, only this time it is a Red, White and Blue revolution here at home? Those that continue to booze and snooze while watching the tube will not know the difference until it is too late.

The freedom and tranquility of our country depends on finding and implementing a counterweight to the presstitutes and their propaganda. The alternative is too destructive in its natural development.

Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:49

Yats and Porko are the guys who broke Ukraine. By the end of December 2015, Ukraine's gross domestic product had shrunk around 19 percent in comparison with 2013. Its decimated industrial sector needs less fuel. Yatsie did a heck of a job.

Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:35

Carl Gershman: "Ukraine is the biggest prize" -- Paragraph 6 of https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-soviet-states-stand-up-to-russia-will-the-us/2013/09/26/b5ad2be4-246a-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html

David Smith , April 12, 2016 at 13:51

The timing of "Yats" departure is ominous. Mid-April, six weeks from now would be the first chance to renew the invasion of DPR Donesk/Lugansk."Yats" failed in 2014, and didn't try in 2015. Who is "the new guy"? Will the new Prime Minister begin raving about renewing the holy war to recover the lost oblasts? 2016 is really Ukraine's last chance. Ukraine refuses to implement Minsk2, and they have been receiving lots of new weapons. I believe President Putin put the Syrian operation on " standby" not only to avoid approaching the border, provoking a Turkish intervention, but also so he can give undistracted attention to DPR Donesk/Lugansk.

Bill Rood , April 12, 2016 at 11:50

I guess I must be inside the Russian propaganda bubble. It was obvious to me when I looked at the YouTube videos of policemen burning after being hit with Molotov cocktails.

We played the same game of encouraging government "restraint" in Syria, where we demanded Assad free "political prisoners," but we now accuse him of deliberately encouraging ISIS by freeing those people, so that he can point to ISIS and ask, "Do you want that?" Targeted leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Andrei , April 12, 2016 at 10:26

"the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954", Romania 1989 Shots were fired by snipers in order to stirr the crowds (sounds familiar?) and also by the army after Ceasescu ran away, which resulted in civilians getting murdered. Could it possibly be that it was said : "Iliescu (next elected president) is the guy!" ?

Joe L. , April 12, 2016 at 11:00

Check out the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela 2002, that is very similar with protesters, snipers on rooftops, IMF immediately offering loans to the new coup government, new government positions for the coup plotters, complacency with the media – propaganda, funding by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy etc. John Pilger documents how the coup occurred in his documentary "War on Democracy" – https://vimeo.com/16724719 .

archaos , April 12, 2016 at 09:45

It was noted in the minutes of Verkhovna Rada almost 2 years before Maidan 2 , that Geoffrey Pyatt was fomenting and funding destabilisation of Ukraine.
All of Svoboda Nazis in parliament (and other fascisti) then booed the MP who stated this.

Mark Thomason , April 12, 2016 at 06:57

Also, the Dutch voted "no" on the economic agreement the coup was meant to force through instead of the Russian agreement accepted by the President it overthrew. Now both "Yats" and the economic agreement are gone. All that is left is the war. Neocons are still happen. They wanted the war. They really want to overthrow Putin, and Ukraine was just a tool in that.

Realist , April 12, 2016 at 05:51

You're right, it doesn't have to be the military that carries out a coup by deploying tanks on the National Mall. In 2000, it was the United States Supreme Court that exceeded its constitutional authority and installed George W. Bush as president, though in reality he had lost that election. I wonder when that move will rightfully be characterized as a coup by the historians.

Bryan Hemming , April 12, 2016 at 04:00

"On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin."

It should be remembered that Victoria Nuland took up the post of Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in Washington on September 18, 2013.

Coincidentally, two other women closely connected to events in Ukraine were also in Washington during September 2013.

Friend of Nuland and boss of the IMF, which has its own HQ in Washington, Christine Lagarde was swift to respond to a Ukraine request for IMF loans on February 27th 2014, just five days after the removal of Yanukovych on February 22nd. Lagarde is pictured with Baronness Catherine Ashton in Washington in a Facebook entry dated September 30th 2013. Ashton was High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the time.

Though visiting Kiev at the same time as Nuland in February 2014 Catherine Ashton never appeared in public with her, which seems a little odd considering the women were on the same mission, and talking to the same people. Nevertheless, despite appearing shy of being photographed with each other the two women weren't quite so shy of being pictured with leaders of the coup, including the right wing extremist, Oleh Tyahnybok.

Ashton refused to be drawn into commenting on Nuland's "Fuck the E.U.!" outburst, describing Nuland as "a friend of mine." The two women certainly weren't strangers, they had worked closely together before. September 2012 saw them involved in discussions with Iran negotiator Saeed Jalili over the country's supposed nuclear arms ambitions.

The question is not so much whether the three women talked about Ukraine's future – it would be ridiculous to think they did not – but how closely they worked together, and exactly how closely they might have been involved in events leading up to the overthrow of the legitimate government in Kiev. More on this here:

https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/double-double-toil-and-trouble-the-cauldron-of-kiev/

Pablo Diablo , April 11, 2016 at 22:56

Another failed "regime change". Aren't these guys (Neoconservatives) great. They fail, piss off/kill millions, yet seem to keep making money and retaining power. Time to WAKE UP AMERICA.

Skip Edwards , April 11, 2016 at 20:06

Read "The Devil'Chessboard" by David Talbot to understand what has been occurring as a result of America's Dark, Shadow government, an un-elected bunch of vicious psychopaths controlling our destiny; unless stopped. Get a clue and realize that "Yats is our guy" Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton's "gal." Hillary Clinton is Robert Kagen's "gal." Time to flush all these rats out of the hold and get on with our lives.

Joe L. , April 11, 2016 at 18:40

Mr. Parry thank you for delving into the proven history of coups and the parallels with Ukraine. It amazes me how anyone can outright deny this was a coup especially if they know anything about US coups going back to WW2 (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, attempt in Venezuela 2002 etc. – and there are a whole slew more). I read before, as you have rightly pointed out, that in 1953 the CIA led a propaganda campaign in Iran against Mossadegh as well as financing opposition protesters and opposition government officials. Another angle, as well, is looking historically back to what papers such as the New York Times were reporting around the time of the coup in Iran – especially when we know that the US/Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh for their own oil interests (British Petroleum):

New York Times: "Mossadegh Plays with Fire" (August 15, 1953):

The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier Mossadegh.

Some of us used to ascribe our inability to persuade Dr. Mossadegh of the validity of our ideas to the impossibility of making him understand or see things our way. We thought of him as a sincere, well-meaning, patriotic Iranian, who had a different point of view and made different deductions from the same set of facts. We now know that he is a power-hungry, personally ambitious, ruthless demagogue who is trampling upon the liberties of his own people. We have seen this onetime champion of liberty maintain martial law, curb freedom of the press, radio, speech and assembly, resort to illegal arrests and torture, dismiss the Senate, destroy the power of the Shah, take over control of the army, and now he is about to destroy the Majlis, which is the lower house of Parliament.

His power would seem to be complete, but he has alienated the traditional ruling classes -the aristocrats, landlords, financiers and tribal leaders. These elements are anti-Communist. So is the Shah and so are the army leaders and the urban middle classes. There is a traditional, historic fear, suspicion and dislike of Russia and the Russians. The peasants, who make up the overwhelming mass of the population, are illiterate and nonpolitical. Finally, there is still no evidence that the Tudeh (Communist) party is strong enough or well enough organized, financed and led to take power.

All this simply means that there is no immediate danger of a Communist coup or Russian intervention. On the other hand, Dr. Mossadegh is encouraging the Tudeh and is following policies which will make the Communists more and more dangerous. He is a sorcerer's apprentice, calling up forces he will not be able to control.

Iran is a weak, divided, poverty-stricken country which possesses an immense latent wealth in oil and a crucial strategic position. This is very different from neighboring Turkey, a strong, united, determined and advanced nation, which can afford to deal with the Russians because she has nothing to fear -and therefore the West has nothing to fear. Thanks largely to Dr. Mossadegh, there is much to fear in Iran.

http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/new-york-times/august-15-1953/

My feeling is that the biggest sin that our society has is forgetting history. If we remembered history I would think that it would be very difficult to pull off coups but most media does not revisit history which proves US coups even against democracies. I actually think that the coup that occurred in Ukraine was similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002 with snipers on rooftops, immediate blame for the deaths on Hugo Chavez where media manipulated the footage, immediate acceptance of the temporary coup government by the US Government, immediately offering IMF loans for the new coup government, government positions for many of the coup plotters, and let us not leave out the funding for the coup coming from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. I also remember seeing the New York Times immediately blaming Chavez and praising the coup but when the coup was overturned and US fingerprints started to become revealed (with many of the coup plotters fleeing to the US) then the New York Times wrote a limited retraction buried in their paper. Shameless.

SFOMARCO , April 11, 2016 at 15:16

How was NED able to finance "scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for journalists and organizing business groups", not to mention to host such dignitaries as Cookie Nuland, Loser McCain and assorted Bidens? Seems like a recipe for a coup "hidden in plain sight".

Bob Van Noy , April 11, 2016 at 14:36

Ukraine, one would hope, represents the "Bridge Too Far" moment for the proponents of regime change. Surely Americans must be catching on to what we do for selected nations in the name of "giving them their freedoms". The Kagan Family, empowered by their newly endorsed candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, will feel justified in carrying on a new cold war, this time world wide. Of course they will not be doing the fighting, they, like Dick Cheney are the self appointed intellects of geopolitical chess, much like The Georgetown Set of the Kennedy era, they perceive themselves as the only ones smart enough to plan America's future.

Helen Marshall , April 11, 2016 at 17:11

I wish. How many Americans know ANYTHNG about what has happened in Ukraine, about Crimea and its history, and/or could even locate them on a map?

Pastor Agnostic , April 12, 2016 at 04:11

Nuland is merely the inhouse, PNAC female version of Sidney Blumenthal. Which raises the scary question. Who would she pick to be SecState?

[Apr 02, 2019] The latest Integrity Initiative dump by Anonymous

Apr 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Symen Danziger , Mar 31, 2019 4:13:36 PM | link

The latest Integrity Initiative dump by Anonymous

https://www.cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation-integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all-part-7/?fbclid=IwAR0wCU71fMwwcKhT9jhPUFQWt0UudPsWRxFlQQlCbAosSPkPkSnfPsdcEJ4

[Apr 01, 2019] Amazon.com War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate (9781510745810) Stephen F. Cohen Books

Highly recommended!
Important book. Kindle sample
Notable quotes:
"... Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. ..."
"... As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive relationship."' ..."
"... But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'. ..."
"... In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin. Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West. ..."
"... Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." ..."
"... Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass terror. ..."
"... Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union." 13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia today, they barely warrant comment. ..."
"... Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption. This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged. ..."
"... Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." ..."
"... More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. ..."
"... Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war. ..."
"... Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians. ..."
"... The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America." ..."
"... Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations, he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States." 3 " ..."
"... A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy, without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34 ..."
"... <img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png"> P. Philips ..."
"... "In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" ..."
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"... If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris. ..."
Apr 01, 2019 | www.amazon.com

THE SPECTER OF AN EVIL-DOING VLADIMIR PUTIN HAS loomed over and undermined US thinking about Russia for at least a decade. Inescapably, it is therefore a theme that runs through this book. Henry' Kissinger deserves credit for having warned, perhaps alone among prominent American political figures, against this badly distorted image of Russia's leader since 2000: "The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for not having one." 4

But Kissinger was also wrong. Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. Those policies spread from growing complaints in the early 2000s to US- Russian proxy wars in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and eventually even at home, in Russiagate allegations. Indeed, policy-makers adopted an earlier formulation by the late Senator .Tolm McCain as an integral part of a new and more dangerous Cold War: "Putin [is] an unreconstructed Russian imperialist and K.G.B. apparatchik.... His world is a brutish, cynical place.... We must prevent the darkness of Mr. Putin's world from befalling more of humanity'." 3

Mainstream media outlets have play'ed a major prosecutorial role in the demonization. Far from aty'pically', the Washington Post's editorial page editor wrote, "Putin likes to make the bodies bounce.... The rule-by-fear is Soviet, but this time there is no ideology -- only a noxious mixture of personal aggrandizement, xenophobia, homophobia and primitive anti-Americanism." 6 Esteemed publications and writers now routinely degrade themselves by competing to denigrate "the flabbily muscled form" of the "small gray ghoul named Vladimir Putin." 7 , 8 There are hundreds of such examples, if not more, over many years. Vilifying Russia's leader has become a canon in the orthodox US narrative of the new Cold War.

As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive relationship."'

But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'.

Who has Putin really been during his many years in power? We may' have to leave this large, complex question to future historians, when materials for full biographical study -- memoirs, archive documents, and others -- are available. Even so, it may surprise readers to know that Russia's own historians, policy intellectuals, and journalists already argue publicly and differ considerably as to the "pluses and minuses" of Putin's leadership. (My own evaluation is somewhere in the middle.)

In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin. Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West.

By identifying and examining, however briefly, the primary "minuses" that underpin the demonization of Putin, we can understand at least who he is not:

Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians.

Though often critical of the Soviet system and its two formative leaders, Lenin and Stalin, Putin, like most of his generation, naturally remains in part a Soviet person. But what he said in 2010 reflects his real perspective and that of very many other Russians: "Anyone who does not regret the break-up of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants its rebirth in its previous form has no head." 28 , 29

The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America." 30 , 31 A simple reading of his years in power tells us otherwise. A Westernized Russian, Putin came to the presidency in 2000 in the still prevailing tradition of Gorbachev and Yeltsin -- in hope of a "strategic friendship and partnership" with the United States.

How else to explain Putin's abundant assistant to US forces fighting in Afghanistan after 9/1 1 and continued facilitation of supplying American and NATO troops there? Or his backing of harsh sanctions against Iran's nuclear ambitions and refusal to sell Tehran a highly effective air-defense system? Or the information his intelligence services shared with Washington that if heeded could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2012?

Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations, he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States." 3 "

Given all that has happened during the past nearly two decades -- particularly what Putin and other Russian leaders perceive to have happened -- it would be remarkable if his views of the W^est, especially America, had not changed. As he remarked in 2018, "We all change." 33

A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy, without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34


P. Philips , December 6, 2018

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act"

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of George Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the American People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.

Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His Readers:

"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist" -- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history. But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different -- inspired by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like. I never respond specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem attacks. Instead, I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that the orthodox policies my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they assail -- are patriotic heretics. Here too readers can judge."

Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.

Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.

Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?

If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.

I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble purpose.

If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.

America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."

[Apr 01, 2019] Amazon.com War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate (9781510745810) Stephen F. Cohen Books

Highly recommended!
Important book. Kindle sample
Notable quotes:
"... Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. ..."
"... As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive relationship."' ..."
"... But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'. ..."
"... In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin. Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West. ..."
"... Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." ..."
"... Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass terror. ..."
"... Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union." 13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia today, they barely warrant comment. ..."
"... Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption. This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged. ..."
"... Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." ..."
"... More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. ..."
"... Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war. ..."
"... Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians. ..."
"... The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America." ..."
"... Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations, he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States." 3 " ..."
"... A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy, without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34 ..."
"... <img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png"> P. Philips ..."
"... "In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" ..."
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"... If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris. ..."
Apr 01, 2019 | www.amazon.com

THE SPECTER OF AN EVIL-DOING VLADIMIR PUTIN HAS loomed over and undermined US thinking about Russia for at least a decade. Inescapably, it is therefore a theme that runs through this book. Henry' Kissinger deserves credit for having warned, perhaps alone among prominent American political figures, against this badly distorted image of Russia's leader since 2000: "The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for not having one." 4

But Kissinger was also wrong. Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. Those policies spread from growing complaints in the early 2000s to US- Russian proxy wars in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and eventually even at home, in Russiagate allegations. Indeed, policy-makers adopted an earlier formulation by the late Senator .Tolm McCain as an integral part of a new and more dangerous Cold War: "Putin [is] an unreconstructed Russian imperialist and K.G.B. apparatchik.... His world is a brutish, cynical place.... We must prevent the darkness of Mr. Putin's world from befalling more of humanity'." 3

Mainstream media outlets have play'ed a major prosecutorial role in the demonization. Far from aty'pically', the Washington Post's editorial page editor wrote, "Putin likes to make the bodies bounce.... The rule-by-fear is Soviet, but this time there is no ideology -- only a noxious mixture of personal aggrandizement, xenophobia, homophobia and primitive anti-Americanism." 6 Esteemed publications and writers now routinely degrade themselves by competing to denigrate "the flabbily muscled form" of the "small gray ghoul named Vladimir Putin." 7 , 8 There are hundreds of such examples, if not more, over many years. Vilifying Russia's leader has become a canon in the orthodox US narrative of the new Cold War.

As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive relationship."'

But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'.

Who has Putin really been during his many years in power? We may' have to leave this large, complex question to future historians, when materials for full biographical study -- memoirs, archive documents, and others -- are available. Even so, it may surprise readers to know that Russia's own historians, policy intellectuals, and journalists already argue publicly and differ considerably as to the "pluses and minuses" of Putin's leadership. (My own evaluation is somewhere in the middle.)

In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin. Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West.

By identifying and examining, however briefly, the primary "minuses" that underpin the demonization of Putin, we can understand at least who he is not:

Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians.

Though often critical of the Soviet system and its two formative leaders, Lenin and Stalin, Putin, like most of his generation, naturally remains in part a Soviet person. But what he said in 2010 reflects his real perspective and that of very many other Russians: "Anyone who does not regret the break-up of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants its rebirth in its previous form has no head." 28 , 29

The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America." 30 , 31 A simple reading of his years in power tells us otherwise. A Westernized Russian, Putin came to the presidency in 2000 in the still prevailing tradition of Gorbachev and Yeltsin -- in hope of a "strategic friendship and partnership" with the United States.

How else to explain Putin's abundant assistant to US forces fighting in Afghanistan after 9/1 1 and continued facilitation of supplying American and NATO troops there? Or his backing of harsh sanctions against Iran's nuclear ambitions and refusal to sell Tehran a highly effective air-defense system? Or the information his intelligence services shared with Washington that if heeded could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2012?

Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations, he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States." 3 "

Given all that has happened during the past nearly two decades -- particularly what Putin and other Russian leaders perceive to have happened -- it would be remarkable if his views of the W^est, especially America, had not changed. As he remarked in 2018, "We all change." 33

A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy, without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34


P. Philips , December 6, 2018

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act"

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of George Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the American People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.

Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His Readers:

"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist" -- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history. But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different -- inspired by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like. I never respond specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem attacks. Instead, I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that the orthodox policies my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they assail -- are patriotic heretics. Here too readers can judge."

Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.

Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.

Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?

If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.

I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble purpose.

If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.

America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."

[Apr 01, 2019] No Reds Under Our Beds After All by Eric Margolis

Apr 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

Not since the witchcraft hysteria of the Middle Ages have we seen such a display of human idiocy, credulity and absurdist behavior. I refer, of course, to the two-year witch hunt directed against President Donald Trump which hopefully just concluded last week – provided that the Hillaryites, Democratic dopes and secret staters who fueled this mania don't manage to keep the pot boiling.

This column has said from Day 1 that claims Trump was somehow a Russian agent were absurd in the extreme. So too charges that Moscow had somehow rigged US elections. Nonsense. We know it's the US that helps rig elections around the globe, not those bumbling Russians who can't afford the big bribes such nefarious activity requires.

What Muller found after he turned over the big rock was a bevy of slithering, slimy creatures, shyster lawyers, and sleazes that are normally part of New York's land development industry. No surprise at all that they surrounded developer Trump. Son-in-law Jared Kushner hails from this same milieu. The Kushners are pajama-party buddies with Israel's leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now that the Muller investigation found no collusion between the Trump camp and the Kremlin, we Americans owe a great big apology to Vladimir Putin for all the slander he has suffered. Too bad he can't sue the legions of liars and propagandists who heaped abuse on him and, incidentally, pushed the US and Russia to the edge of war.

People who swallowed these absurdist claims really should question their own grasp of reality. Those who believed that the evil Kremlin was manipulating votes in Alabama or Missouri would make good candidates for Scientology or the John Birch Society.

They were the simple fools. Worse, were the propagandists who promoted the disgusting Steele dossier, a farrago of lies concocted by British intelligence and apparently promoted by the late John McCain and Trump-hating TV networks. One senses Hillary Clinton's hand in all this. Hell indeed hath no fury like a woman scorned.

It's so laughably ironic that while the witch hunt sought a non-existent Kremlin master manipulator, the real foreign string-puller was sitting in the White House Oval office chortling away: Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, behind him, the moneybags patron of Trump and Netanyahu, American billionaire gambling mogul, Sheldon Adelson, the godfather of Greater Israel.

The three amigos had just pulled off one of the most outrageous violations of international law by blessing Israel's annexation of the highly strategic Golan Heights that Israel had seized in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This usurpation was so egregious that all 14 members of the UN Security Council condemned it. Even usually wimpy Canada blasted the US.

Giving Golan to Israel means it has permanently secured new water sources from the Mount Hermon range, artillery and electronic intelligence positions overlooking Damascus, and the launching pad for new Israeli land expansion into Lebanon and Syria. Israel is said to be preparing for a new war against Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

In contrast to this cynical business over Golan, the Trump administration is still hitting Russia with heavy sanctions over Moscow's re-occupation of Crimea, a strategic peninsula that was Russian for over 300 years. So Israel can grab Golan but Russia must vacate Crimea. The logic of sleazy politics.

We also learned last week that according to State Secretary Mike Pompeo, Trump might have been sent by us by God, like ancient Israel's Queen Esther, to defend Israel from the wicked Persians. Up to a quarter of Americans, and particularly Bible Belt voters, believe such crazy nonsense. For them, Trump is a heroic Crusading Christian warrior.

This is as nutty as Trump being a Commie Manchurian candidate. We seem to be living in an era of absurdity and medieval superstition. No wonder so many nations around the globe fear us. We too often look like militant Scientologists with nuclear weapons.

Fortunately, the cool, calm, collected Vladimir Putin remains in charge of the other side in spite of our best efforts to overthrow or provoke him.

[Mar 31, 2019] Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom." ..."
"... Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela. ..."
"... The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities." ..."
"... Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government." ..."
"... This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO. ..."
"... This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate." ..."
"... The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela. ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual

by Tyler Durden Sat, 03/30/2019 - 21:30 184 SHARES Authored by Whitney Webb via MintPressNews.com,

With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document - are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of " Operation Freedom ," an alleged grassroots effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

That operation, according to Guaidó, will be led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country -- "cells" that will spring to action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention) reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."

However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in a report by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó describes in his plan for "Operation Freedom."

Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom."

RED Teams

Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.

The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would "be deployed as two-person teams and placed with 'non-traditional' USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations in extremis conditions." The report notes later on that these "non-traditional" partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.

The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities."

In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or "democracy promoting" personnel would work as "super enablers" of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.

The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to Guaidó's plan for "Operation Freedom." Operation Freedom is set to begin through "Freedom and Aid committees" that cultivate decentralized "freedom cells" throughout the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom is to have those "freedom cell"-generated protests converge on Venezuela's presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government "catalytic actors" may be a key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.

Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in "weapons handling and use," suggesting that their role as "catalytic actors" could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report's claim that RED Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weaponry.

In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish community buy-in/relationship" -- i.e., bribes -- and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to "transition covert action into community engagement activities."

Feeling Bolsonaro's breath on its neck

Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government."

This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.

Though Bolsonaro's government has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro -- an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman -- said last week that "use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela "at some point" and, echoing the Trump administration, added that "all options are on the table." If Bolsonaro's government does allow the "use of force," but not a full-blown foreign military intervention per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.

Frontier Design Group

The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID's Global Development Lab. FDG is a national security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:

Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the "3Ds" of Defense, Development and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace."

FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group -- which is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in a recent investigation focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon , FDG was the "sole contractor" hired by USAID to create a "new counterinsurgency doctrine for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.

One of the co-authors of the document is Alexa Courtney , FDG founder and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track 'licit and illicit networks' in Honduras." Courtney, according to her LinkedIn account, was also recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "demonstrated leadership and impact on development results." MintPress recently reported on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.

Send in the USAID

Though Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams initiative," Courtney stated that the report's contents had been "received really favorably" by "very senior" and "influential" former and current government officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.

For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:

We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."

Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration's new counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents -- published for over a year -- have been or are set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming "Operation Freedom," set to begin on April 6.

This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."

The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.

Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that "all options are on the table." Indeed, U.S. allies -- including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia -- have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.' past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.

Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions -- such as those described in the RED Team document -- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

[Mar 31, 2019] What is the purpose of Russiagate hysteria?

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years. ..."
"... It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people. Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land. ..."
"... Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because Russians are subhumans. ..."
"... The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored, as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring with each other. ..."
"... The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course, endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language with the same Cyrillic writing system. ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

S , Mar 30, 2019 8:51:37 PM | link

@b:
What is the purpose of making that claim?

The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years.

It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people. Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land.

Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because Russians are subhumans.

Whatever they do, it's always wrong, bad, oppressive, etc. Russians are bad because they're bad. They must be "taught a lesson", "put into their place". It would, of course, be beneficial and highly profitable for Europeans to break with Anglo-Saxons and to live in peace and harmony with Russia, but Europeans simply can not overcome their racism towards Russians. The young Europeans are just as racist, with their incessant memes about "squatting Russians in tracksuits", "drunken Russians", etc., as if there's nothing else that is notable about a country of 147 million people.

The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored, as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring with each other.

The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course, endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language with the same Cyrillic writing system.

[Mar 31, 2019] Israel is running America into the ground, wrecking Europe and trying to start a war with Russia

Mar 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

Renoman , says: March 31, 2019 at 10:30 am GMT

Israel is running America into the ground, wrecking Europe and trying to start a war with Russia. America needs to cut all aid and get away from the nasty little cancer before they finish the Job and start WW3!
anon [233] Disclaimer , says: March 31, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT
@A123 Palestinain Mandate and Palestine are historically 2 completely separate entities.
But Jews have a knack of conflating and presenting the mess as the reality that you and me have to respect. No, we don't.
Long time ago Israel started giving biblical names to certain areas of Palestine to make it appealing to the ignoramus leaders among the Bible thumping Western crowd of 1900.

It was planted as religious historical archeological realities with deeply emotional arc that bound lefties conservatives religion secular educated uneducated, local fellow international citizen and spliced together vast segmented stratified minds of western society to one theme – positive view about Jew and Zionism-on the sly.

It succeeded. But that success is an abomination. It is travesty, it is moral and intellectual and ethical failures of western education and politics. it is a dereliction of academic responsibility .

Now the tide is against the presence of intellectual dishonesty . BDS is part of that , so is the truth being forced on Democrats voters . Chasm is widening with raw edges . Conservatives still cling to the old charade at a cost . It hurts them BY allowing continued presence of the disastrous Zionist views on each and every aspect of their lives, they lose- religion,economy,society , and values. . It robs them a safe a prosperous future .

[Mar 31, 2019] George Nader (an adviser to the crown prince of Abu Dhab): Nobody would even waste a cup of coffee on him if it wasn't for who he was married to

Notable quotes:
"... She suggests, "Kushner was increasingly caught up in his own mythology. He was the president's son-in-law, so he apparently thought he was untouchable." (Pg. 114) She notes, "allowing Kushner to work in the administration broke with historical precedent, overruling a string of Justice Department memos that concluded it was illegal for presidents to appoint relatives as White House staff." (Pg. 119) ..."
"... She observes, "Those first few days were chaotic for almost everyone in the new administration. A frantic Reince Priebus would quickly discover that it was impossible to impose any kind of order in this White House, in large part because Trump didn't like order. What Trump liked was having people fight in front of him and then he'd make a decision, just like he'd made snap decisions when his children presented licensing deals for the Trump Organization. This kind of dysfunction enabled a 'floater' like Kushner, whose job was undefined, to weigh in on any topic in front of Trump and have far more influence than he would have had in a top-down hierarchy." (Pg. 125) ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Steven H Propp TOP 50 REVIEWER 5.0 out of 5 stars March 27, 2019

AN INFORMATIVE BOOK ABOUT THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER AND SON-IN-LAW

Author Vicky Ward wrote in the Prologue to this 2019 book, "Donald Trump was celebrating being sworn in as president And the whole world knew that his daughter and son-in-law were his most trusted advisers, ambassadors, and coconspirators. They were an attractive couple---extremely wealthy and, now, extraordinarily powerful. Ivanka looked like Cinderella Ivanka and her husband swept onto the stage, deftly deflecting attention from Donald Trump's clumsy moves, as she had done do often over the past twenty years. The crowd roared in approval They were now America's prince and princess."

She notes, "Jared Kushner learned about the company [his father's] he would later run. Jared was the firm's most sheltered trainee. On his summer vacations, he'd go to work at Kushner Companies construction sites, maybe painting a few walls, more often sitting and listening to music No one dared tell him this probably would not give him a deep understanding of the construction process. But Charlie [Jared's father] doggedly groomed his eldest son for greatness, seeing himself as a Jewish version of Joseph Kennedy " (Pg. 17-18)

She states, "Ivanka had to fight for her father's attention and her ultimate role as the chief heir in his real estate empire When Donald Trump divorced her mother, Ivana she would go out of her way to see more of her father, not less she'd call him during the day and to her delight, he'd always take her call. (Trump's relationship with the two sons he had with Ivana, Don Jr. and Eric, was not nearly so close for years.) 'She was always Daddy's little girl,' said a family friend." (Pg. 32-33) She adds, "As Ivanka matured, physically and emotionally, her father talked openly about how impressed he was with her appearance---a habit he has maintained to this day." (Pg. 35)

She recounts, "at a networking lunch thrown by a diamond heir Jared was introduced to Ivanka Jared and Ivanka quickly became an intriguing gossip column item. They seemed perfectly matched But after a year of dating, they split in part because Jared's parents were dismayed at the idea of their son marrying outside the faith Soon after, Ivanka agreed to convert to Judaism Trump was said to be discombobulated by the enormity of what his daughter had done. Trump, a Presbyterian, who strikes no one as particularly religious, was baffled by his daughter's conversion 'Why should my daughter convert to marry anyone?'" (Pg. 51-53)

She observes, "Ivanka Trump was critical in promoting her husband as the smoother, softer counterpart to his father's volatility.. they could both work a room, ask after people's children, talk without notes, occasionally fake a sense of humor And unlike her husband, she seemed to have a ready command of figures and a detail, working knowledge of all the properties she was involved in Ivanka seemed to control the marital relationship, but she also played the part of devoted, traditional Orthodox wife." (Pg. 70-71)

Of 2016, she states, "No one thought Kushner or Ivanka believed in Trump's populist platform. 'The two of them see this as a networking opportunity,' said a close associate. Because Kushner and Ivanka only fully immersed themselves in Trump's campaign once he became the presumptive Republican nominee they had to push to assert themselves with the campaign staff Kushner quickly got control of the campaign's budget, but he did not have as much authority as he would have liked." (Pg. 74-75) She adds, "Ivanka appeared thrilled by her husband's rising prominence in her father's campaign. It was a huge change from the days when Trump had made belittling jokes about him. If Don Jr. and Eric were irked by the new favorite in Trump's court, they did not show it publicly." (Pg. 85)

She points out, "Trump tweeted an image [Hillary with a backdrop of money and a Star of David] widely viewed as anti-Semitic an 'Observer' writer, criticized Kushner in his own newspaper for standing 'silent and smiling in the background' while Trump made 'repeated accidental winks' to white supremacists Kushner wrote a response [that] insisted that Trump was neither anti-Semitic nor a racist Not all of Kushner's relatives appreciated his efforts to cover Trump's pandering to white supremacists." (Pg. 86-87) Later, she adds, "U.S.-Israel relations was the one political issue anyone in the campaign ever saw Kushner get worked up about." (Pg. 96)

On election night, "Kushner was shocked that Trump never mentioned him in his speech and would later tell people he felt slighted. He was going to find a way to get Trump to notice him more. Ivanka would help him the couple would become known as a single, powerful entity: 'Javanka.'" (Pg. 101) She suggests, "Kushner was increasingly caught up in his own mythology. He was the president's son-in-law, so he apparently thought he was untouchable." (Pg. 114) She notes, "allowing Kushner to work in the administration broke with historical precedent, overruling a string of Justice Department memos that concluded it was illegal for presidents to appoint relatives as White House staff." (Pg. 119)

She observes, "Those first few days were chaotic for almost everyone in the new administration. A frantic Reince Priebus would quickly discover that it was impossible to impose any kind of order in this White House, in large part because Trump didn't like order. What Trump liked was having people fight in front of him and then he'd make a decision, just like he'd made snap decisions when his children presented licensing deals for the Trump Organization. This kind of dysfunction enabled a 'floater' like Kushner, whose job was undefined, to weigh in on any topic in front of Trump and have far more influence than he would have had in a top-down hierarchy." (Pg. 125)

She recounts, "Another epic [Steve] Bannon/Ivanka fight came when bannon was in the Oval Office dining room while Trump was watching TV and eating his lunch Ivanka marched in, claiming Bannon had leaked H.R. McMaster's war plan [Bannon said] 'No, that was leaked by McMaster ' Trump [told her], 'Hey, baby, I think Steve's right on this one ' Bannon thought he would be fired on the spot. But he'd learned something important: much as Trump loved his daughter and hated saying no to her, he was not always controlled by her." (Pg. 138-139)

She notes, "[Ivanka] also found a way to be near Trump when he received phone calls from foreign dignitaries -- while she still owned her business. While Ivanka's behavior was irritating, Kushner was playing a game on a whole different level: he was playing for serious money at the time of the Qatari blockade Kushner's family had been courting the Qataris for financial help and had been turned town. When that story broke the blockade and the Trump administration's response to it suddenly all made sense." (Pg. 156)

Arguing that "Kushner was behind the decision to fire [FBI Director James] Comey" (Pg. 163-164), "Quickly, Trump realized he'd made an error, and blamed Kushner. It seemed clear to Trump's advisers, and not for the first time, that he wished Kushner were not in the White House. He said to Kushner in front of senior staff, 'Just go back to New York, man '" (Pg. 167) She adds, "[Ivanka's] reluctance to speak frankly to her father was the antithesis of the story she had been pushing in the media Ivanka had told Gayle King 'Where I disagree with my father, he knows it. And I express myself with total candor.'" (Pg. 170)

She states, "at the Group of 20 summit in Germany she briefly took her father's seat when he had to step out The gesture seemed to send the message that the U.S. government was now run on nepotism." (Pg. 182)

E-mails from George Nader [an adviser to Shiekh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi] "made it clear that Kushner's friends in the Gulf mocked him behind his back Nader wrote 'Nobody would even waste a cup of coffee on him if it wasn't for who he was married to.'" (Pg. 206)

She points out, "since October 2017, hundreds of children had been taken from their parents while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and detained separately news shows everywhere showed heartbreaking images of young children being detained. The next month, Ivanka posted on Instagram a photograph of herself holding her youngest child in his pajamas. Not for the first time, her tone-deaf social media post was slammed as being isolated in her elitist, insulated wealthy world On June 20, Trump signed an executive order that apparently ended the border separations. Minutes later, Ivanka finally spoke publicly on the issue Her tactic here was tell the public you care about an issue; watch silently while your father does the exact opposite; and when he moves a little, take all the credit." (Pg. 225)

She asserts, "Kushner's friendship with a Saudi crown prince was now under widespread scrutiny [because] Rather than expressing moral outrage over the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man [Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi], Kushner did what he always does in a crisis: he went quiet." (Pg. 232)

She concludes, "Ivanka Trump has made no secret of the fact that she wants to be the most powerful woman in the world. Her father's reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the beginning of a great American dynasty Ivanka has been carefully positioning herself as [Trump's] political heir " (Pg. 236)

While not as "scandalous" as the book's subtitle might suggest, this is a very interesting book that will be of great interest to those wanting information about these crucial members of the Trump family and presidency.

[Mar 31, 2019] New Middle East Alliance Shakes World Powers

Notable quotes:
"... On March 18, 2019, the military commanders of Iran, Syria, and Iraq convened in Damascus in order to discuss long-term strategic and operational cooperation. The delegations were led by Mohammad Bagheri (Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces), Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (the Syrian Defense Minister), and Othman al-Ghanmi (Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Military). Officially, the summit addressed coordination in counter-terrorism operations, joint securing and opening of borders, and restoring Damascus' control over the en-tire Syrian territory. ..."
"... In mid-March 2019, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Muhterem Ince and his Iranian counterpart, Hussein Zulfiqari, reached "an agreement on launching a simultaneous operation against terror groups that threat-en the security of both countries" during a meeting in Ankara. If successful, this would be the first of many operations. The first joint operation was conducted on March 18-23, 2019, mainly in northern Iraq. In addition to widespread bombing and shelling, around 600 Turkish and Iranian special forces carried out joint raiding operations against Kurdish "terrorist camps". In the last days of the operation, aerial bombings were directed at all Kurdish nemeses in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On March 24, 2019, Ankara and Tehran announced that they "are determined to continue carrying out such joint counter-terrorism operations". ..."
"... The first priority was to build Qatar's new oil and gas pipelines to the Mediterranean via Iran-Iraq-Syria and also connect to the pipelines in Turkey. These pipelines would substitute for the originally planned "Sunni pipelines" which were to transverse Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Iraq-Syria and which had originally led to the Qatari support for the Syrian jihad. The new pipelines would move to the shores of the Mediterranean -- mainly the Syrian port of Latakia -- gas and oil from both Qatar and Iran. The pipelines would be followed by electricity lines and a fully integrated transportation infrastructure on a regional basis. ..."
"... Taken together, the transportation cooperation agreement between the three bloc members (Qatar, Iran, and Turkey), and the transportation agreement between Iran, Iraq, and Syria, provide for a road and rail-way system linking all these states. This makes Iran the lynchpin of the regional transportation networks, and, thus, a crucial purveyor of access for the PRC. Indeed, PRC senior officials consider Iran to be "a key pivot to China's BRI in the region". ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The key to the success of the bloc is the emerging correlation of influence of the great powers in the aftermath of the wars in Syria and Iraq . Russia and the People's Republic of China are ready to compromise with the regional powers in order to secure their vital and global interests, while the US, Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Israel, are the nemeses of the bloc.

The roots of "the Middle Eastern Entente" are in Doha. Qatar in Summer 2017 initiated a myriad of bilat-eral and trilateral discussions with Iran and Turkey after Saudi Arabia and the GCC allies imposed the siege on Qatar in June of that year. However, it was not until the second half of 2018, with the initial impact of the siege largely ameliorated, that the long-term post-war posture of the greater Middle East became a major priority.

It was then that Doha, Tehran, and Ankara started talking about forming a coherent strategic bloc.

According to Iman Zayat, the Managing Editor of The Arab Weekly, in late November 2018, the three coun-tries struck a deal in Tehran to create a "joint working group to facilitate the transit of goods between the three countries". This was the beginning of a profound realignment of the three regional powers. "Qatar has irrevocably joined with Ankara and Tehran against its former Arab allies. It has conclusively positioned itself in a regional alliance that pursues geopolitical dominance by driving instability," Zayat noted.

It did not take long for the three powers to realize that for such a bloc to succeed it must focus on security issues and not just economic issues.

Hectic negotiations followed. In mid-December 2018, the three foreign ministers -- Muhammad bin Ab-dulrahman al-Thani, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Mevlut Çavusoglu -- signed the protocols and agree-ments for the new bloc on the sidelines of the 18th Doha Forum. In the Forum, Qatar formally called for "a new alliance that would replace the four-decade-old Gulf Cooperation Council". Since then, specific and concrete negotiations on the consolidation of the bloc have been taking place. The final modalities for joint actions and common priorities, particularly the integration of the Arab states, were formulated in ear-ly March 2019.

Iran was the dominant force in this phase.

The last decisive push for the Arab integration took place during Bashar al-Assad's visit to Tehran on Feb-ruary 25, 2019. There, he submitted to the demands of the Iranian mullahs and to tight supervision by Teh-ran. Significantly, during his stay in Tehran, Assad was constantly escorted by Qassem Soleimani, Mahmoud Alavi, and Ali Akbar Velayati, who attended all his meetings with Iranian leaders. In Tehran, Assad commit-ted to supporting the new bloc and to support the greater Middle East the bloc members were trying to create.

The geo-strategic and geo-economic objectives of the bloc are huge, and, as things stand in late March 2019, largely attainable.

The first objective of "the Middle Eastern Entente" was to quickly consolidate strong influence, if not he-gemony, over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan before the Fertile Crescent of Minorities could re-emerge as a viable geo-strategic and political entity. The primary rôle of the revived Fertile Crescent of Minorities was to constitute a buffer containing the upsurge of the Sunni Arab milieu and blocking the access of both Iran and Turkey to the heartlands of al-Jazira.

The greatest fear of the bloc members, however, was the possible ascent of the Kurds as a regional power once they internalized the US betrayal and were ready to strike deals with Moscow and Damascus. The overall susceptibility of the four Arab countries to the new regional posture was evident from their blatant disregard of the US sanctions on Iran. Hence, this region would soon become the key to a new grand-strategic and grand-economic posture for the entire greater Middle East.

Tehran emerged as the dominant power in the security posture.

The surge has been conducted under the command of Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran). Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i on March 11, 2019, awarded Soleimani a unique and high State honor: the Order of Zolfaghar. [Significantly, this order, established in 1856 as The Decoration of the Commander of the Faithful by Em-peror Naser al-Din Shah, was awarded until 1925 where it was renamed as The Order of Zolfaghar by Em-peror Reza Shah I. It had not been awarded since the downfall of the Shah in 1979 until the award -- pre-sumably in the highest of the three classes of the Order -- to Maj.-Gen. Soleimani.]

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Mehr News Agency that Soleimani received the award on account of his leading "the fight against terrorism and extremism in the region". Zarif stressed that So-leimani's achievements "have prepared the grounds for creating a strong and stable region free from violence and radicalization".

On March 18, 2019, the military commanders of Iran, Syria, and Iraq convened in Damascus in order to discuss long-term strategic and operational cooperation. The delegations were led by Mohammad Bagheri (Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces), Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (the Syrian Defense Minister), and Othman al-Ghanmi (Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Military). Officially, the summit addressed coordination in counter-terrorism operations, joint securing and opening of borders, and restoring Damascus' control over the en-tire Syrian territory.

In reality, the tripartite summit discussed the emerging regional posture now that the wars in Syria and Iraq are nearing their end. Bashar al-Assad addressed the summit and stressed long-term security and policy issues.

Bagheri explained that the objective of "the tripartite summit between Iran, Syria and Iraq with the participation of their senior commanders [was] to coordinate efforts on the fight against terrorist groups in the region. ... Over the last few years, excellent coordination has been achieved between Iran, Syria, Russia and Iraq, and there has been solidarity with the Resistance Axis that led to significant victories in counter-ing terrorism, and today, on the basis of these victories, the consolidation of sovereignty and progress to-wards the liberation of the rest of Syria is taking place."

Concurrently, the initial indications of things to come were already unfolding.

In mid-March 2019, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Muhterem Ince and his Iranian counterpart, Hussein Zulfiqari, reached "an agreement on launching a simultaneous operation against terror groups that threat-en the security of both countries" during a meeting in Ankara. If successful, this would be the first of many operations. The first joint operation was conducted on March 18-23, 2019, mainly in northern Iraq. In addition to widespread bombing and shelling, around 600 Turkish and Iranian special forces carried out joint raiding operations against Kurdish "terrorist camps". In the last days of the operation, aerial bombings were directed at all Kurdish nemeses in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On March 24, 2019, Ankara and Tehran announced that they "are determined to continue carrying out such joint counter-terrorism operations".

Meanwhile, Qatar has emerged as the dominant power regarding all issues pertaining to the regional economy.

The first priority was to build Qatar's new oil and gas pipelines to the Mediterranean via Iran-Iraq-Syria and also connect to the pipelines in Turkey. These pipelines would substitute for the originally planned "Sunni pipelines" which were to transverse Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Iraq-Syria and which had originally led to the Qatari support for the Syrian jihad. The new pipelines would move to the shores of the Mediterranean -- mainly the Syrian port of Latakia -- gas and oil from both Qatar and Iran. The pipelines would be followed by electricity lines and a fully integrated transportation infrastructure on a regional basis.

The long-term strategic infrastructure envisioned by "the Middle Eastern Entente" reflected the grand-strategic aspirations of Iran and Turkey.

The key arteries would be from Iran to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from western Turkey to the Red Sea and the Hijaz. Ultimately, these roads would be supplanted by railways. Iran and Iraq have already started constructing the railway line from the Shalamcheh border crossing to Basra in Iraq. This is the first segment of a line which would reach Latakia. Tehran is negotiating with Damascus Iranian management of the civilian port in Latakia (the Russians control the military facilities) in the next few months as a major outlet for Iran's international trade.

Taken together, the new railroads would provide access for the New Silk Road to the eastern Mediterra-nean and the Red Sea; would connect the Russia-Iran north-south route with the Mediterranean; and would constitute an extension of the Europe-Turkey rail-line much like the old Baghdad and Persian Gulf railway. The existing Iranian railroad system connects the north-south rail-line to the Pakistani border and, thus, ultimately to western China.

Both Beijing and Moscow are most interested in the speedy completion of these rail-lines as part of the extended Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Taken together, the transportation cooperation agreement between the three bloc members (Qatar, Iran, and Turkey), and the transportation agreement between Iran, Iraq, and Syria, provide for a road and rail-way system linking all these states. This makes Iran the lynchpin of the regional transportation networks, and, thus, a crucial purveyor of access for the PRC. Indeed, PRC senior officials consider Iran to be "a key pivot to China's BRI in the region".

On March 19, 2019, PRC Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan stressed the rôle of Iran as "the strategic partner" in the greater Middle East for "the further development of economic and trade ties" with the entire region. "Iran is China's strategic partner in the Middle-East and China is the biggest trade partner and im-porter of oil from Iran," Zhong said. Ultimately, this would secure for Iran a central place in the overall PRC strategic and economic calculations.

The second objective of "the Middle Eastern Entente" was to use the Arab bloc, particularly its Sunni elements, in conjunction with escalation in Yemen and growing hostility of (non-Sunni, but Ibadi) Oman, in order to smother and subdue Saudi Arabia. With Saudi Arabia already near implosion as a result of the erratic reign of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Saud, the leaders in Doha, Tehran, and Ankara appear convinced that it would only take little pressure in order to bring about the break-up and self-dismemberment of Saudi Arabia.

The key to the bloc's anticipated success was in its capitalizing on heritage-based trends already growing throughout Saudi Arabia. The aggregate impact of the Turkish-Jordanian and Islamist-jihadist subversion in the Hejaz, the growing impact of the anti-al-Saud tribal and jihadist movements organizing in the Nejdi highlands, and the Iran-facilitated radicalization and militancy of the Shi'ite communities in the Saudi Arabian east would accelerate the self-dismemberment of Saudi Arabia along traditional lines. Even if the House of al-Saud did not lose power soon, the myriad of internal problems would prevent Saudi Arabia from playing a regional rôle against the new bloc and its allies.

A large number of intelligence officials and experts throughout the Middle East concur with this assessment.

... ... ...

Meanwhile, the Qataris and their allies have made it clear that they do not fear a US reaction to the emergence of "the Middle Eastern Entente".

Qatari senior officials attribute this to repeated threats from Doha that should the US interfere with the new bloc and its ascent to prominence, Doha would order the immediate closure of the huge US base in Al-Udeid, Qatar, and would also stop interceding with Tehran to prevent Iran-sponsored Shi'ite jihadists from attacking the US Navy base in Bahrain. As well, the growing dependence of the US Intelligence Community on Turkish Intelligence (Milli ?stihbarat Te?kilat?: MIT) for clandestine operations in Central Asia and in sup-port of the secessionist Muslim communities of both Russia and China accounts for the US muted reaction to the Turkish abandonment of NATO.

The same logic would negate US resistance to the ascent of the bloc. Similarly, the US eagerness for a Trump-Rouhani summit (tailored after the Trump-Kim summit), where Qatar and Oman were the chief mediators, would also restrain a harsh reaction to Iran's growing regional rôle.

The Trump Administration is cognizant of the US limitations in the greater Middle East.

At the same time, the US remains adamant on preventing the PRC and Russia from consolidating their influence in the greater Middle East and bringing the New Silk Road into the region. Senior US officials, mainly National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have warned repeatedly that there could be no compromise with the PRC, nor tolerance of the ascent of the PRC anywhere. "This is a very big issue, how to deal with China in this century -- probably the biggest international issue we face," Bolton said on March 21, 2019.

... ... ...

[Mar 31, 2019] Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom." ..."
"... Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela. ..."
"... The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities." ..."
"... Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government." ..."
"... This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO. ..."
"... This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate." ..."
"... The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela. ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual

by Tyler Durden Sat, 03/30/2019 - 21:30 184 SHARES Authored by Whitney Webb via MintPressNews.com,

With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document - are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of " Operation Freedom ," an alleged grassroots effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

That operation, according to Guaidó, will be led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country -- "cells" that will spring to action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention) reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."

However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in a report by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó describes in his plan for "Operation Freedom."

Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom."

RED Teams

Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.

The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would "be deployed as two-person teams and placed with 'non-traditional' USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations in extremis conditions." The report notes later on that these "non-traditional" partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.

The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities."

In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or "democracy promoting" personnel would work as "super enablers" of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.

The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to Guaidó's plan for "Operation Freedom." Operation Freedom is set to begin through "Freedom and Aid committees" that cultivate decentralized "freedom cells" throughout the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom is to have those "freedom cell"-generated protests converge on Venezuela's presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government "catalytic actors" may be a key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.

Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in "weapons handling and use," suggesting that their role as "catalytic actors" could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report's claim that RED Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weaponry.

In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish community buy-in/relationship" -- i.e., bribes -- and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to "transition covert action into community engagement activities."

Feeling Bolsonaro's breath on its neck

Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government."

This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.

Though Bolsonaro's government has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro -- an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman -- said last week that "use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela "at some point" and, echoing the Trump administration, added that "all options are on the table." If Bolsonaro's government does allow the "use of force," but not a full-blown foreign military intervention per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.

Frontier Design Group

The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID's Global Development Lab. FDG is a national security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:

Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the "3Ds" of Defense, Development and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace."

FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group -- which is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in a recent investigation focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon , FDG was the "sole contractor" hired by USAID to create a "new counterinsurgency doctrine for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.

One of the co-authors of the document is Alexa Courtney , FDG founder and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track 'licit and illicit networks' in Honduras." Courtney, according to her LinkedIn account, was also recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "demonstrated leadership and impact on development results." MintPress recently reported on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.

Send in the USAID

Though Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams initiative," Courtney stated that the report's contents had been "received really favorably" by "very senior" and "influential" former and current government officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.

For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:

We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."

Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration's new counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents -- published for over a year -- have been or are set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming "Operation Freedom," set to begin on April 6.

This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."

The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.

Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that "all options are on the table." Indeed, U.S. allies -- including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia -- have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.' past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.

Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions -- such as those described in the RED Team document -- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

[Mar 31, 2019] Putin To Trump Mind Your Own Business On Venezuela; Russian Troops Will Stay As Long As Needed

Notable quotes:
"... On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen. ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Days after Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that Russia " cease its unconstructive behavior " by landing a transport plane full of Russian troops in Caracas last Saturday, the Kremlin has responded - essentially telling Washington to pound sand - and that their troops will remain in Venezuela "for as long as needed " according to the Independent .

In the latest indication the crisis in Venezuela is taking on elements of a proxy battle between the former Cold War rivals, a spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry said the troops had been dispatched to fulfil "military contracts".

" They are involved in the implementation of agreements in the sphere of military and technical cooperation ," said Maria Zakharova, according to the AFP, adding that the troops would stay there " for as long as needed ".

" Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone ," she said. - Independent

Last week we also noted that new satellite images reveal a major deployment of S-300 air defense missile systems to a key air base south of Caracas shortly after Russia arrived.

On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen.

[Mar 31, 2019] Issue Brief Distinguishing Disinformation from Propaganda, Misinformation, and "Fake News" NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY

Mar 31, 2019 | www.ned.org

This is from culture revolution experts in NED ;-)

Issue Brief: Distinguishing Disinformation from Propaganda, Misinformation, and "Fake News" Published on October 17, 2017

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In This Brief: What is Disinformation? Is it Different from Propaganda?

Disinformation is a relatively new word. Most observers trace it back to the Russian word dezinformatsiya , which Soviet planners in the 1950s defined as "dissemination (in the press, on the radio, etc.) of false reports intended to mislead public opinion." Others suggest that the earliest use of the term originated in 1930s Nazi Germany. In either case, it is much younger (and less commonly used) than ' propaganda, ' which originated in the 1600s and generally connotes the selective use of information for political effect.

Whether and to what degree these terms overlap is subject to debate. Some define propaganda as the use of non-rational arguments to either advance or undermine a political ideal, and use disinformation as an alternative name for undermining propaganda. Others consider them to be separate concepts altogether. One popular distinction holds that disinformation also describes politically motivated messaging designed explicitly to engender public cynicism, uncertainty, apathy, distrust, and paranoia, all of which disincentivize citizen engagement and mobilization for social or political change. "Misinformation," meanwhile, generally refers to the inadvertent sharing of false information.

Analysts generally agree that disinformation is always purposeful and not necessarily composed of outright lies or fabrications. It can be composed of mostly true facts, stripped of context or blended with falsehoods to support the intended message, and is always part of a larger plan or agenda. In the Russian context, observers have described its use to pursue Moscow's foreign policy goals through a "4D" offensive: dismiss an opponent's claims or allegations, distort events to serve political purposes, distract from one's own activities, and dismay those who might otherwise oppose one's goals.

Analysts generally agree that disinformation is always purposeful and not necessarily composed of outright lies or fabrications. It can be composed of mostly true facts, stripped of context or blended with falsehoods to support the intended message, and is always part of a larger plan or agenda."

Disinformation in the Digital Age

The reemerging interest in disinformation is not because such techniques are novel. There are similarities between the contemporary 4D model and, for example, Soviet active measures . Rather, a growing consensus asserts that while the use of disinformation is not new, the digital revolution has greatly enhanced public vulnerability to manipulation by information -- a trend which is predicted to continue .

In part, these changes have been wrought by the advent of new social media platforms and their growing dominance over advertising revenues. This shift in the media funding environment has weakened traditional media gatekeepers, changed incentives for content providers, and promoted the rise of unprofessional and/or unscrupulous outlets capable of drawing large audiences at a low cost. As digital advertising assumes an ever-larger role in shaping news consumption, targeted advertising allows for more sophisticated forms of propaganda: for example, in September of 2017, Facebook disclosed that roughly 3,000 ads related to divisive US political issues were purchased by a network of 470 accounts and pages suspected to be run out of Russia. The company says that at least a quarter of those ads were geographically targeted. Twitter later deleted two hundred accounts linked to those same Facebook accounts and pages and revealed that in 2016, the Russian state-funded broadcaster RT spent $274,100 on advertising targeting users in the United States.

Research suggests the total scale of "low quality political information" on those platforms during the 2016 US elections was much larger, particularly in swing states. The degree of Russian influence on this market for digital disinformation is unknown; post-election, researchers are launching new efforts to track and analyze it.

Although there is no universal definition, fake news generally refers to misleading content found on the internet, especially on social media."

The Rise of 'Fake News'

The role of disinformation in recent elections has given rise to another distinct, but related, term: ' fake news .'

Although there is no universal definition, fake news generally refers to misleading content found on the internet, especially on social media. One analysis lays out five types of fake news, including intentionally deceptive content, jokes taken at face value, large-scale hoaxes, slanted reporting of real facts, and coverage where the truth may be uncertain or contentious. These are not new: an example of fake news from 2011 involves websites masquerading as real news organizations to spread false information about the health benefits of acai berries.

Much of this content is produced by for-profit websites and Facebook pages gaming the platform for advertising revenue. By producing tailored false content targeted at the views, concerns, and preferences of social media users, these pages can generate tens of thousands of interactions and thousands of dollars a month. In 2015, Facebook began taking steps to curtail this content, which it called a form of "news feed spam." By 2016, it became clear the problem was growing out of control. Fabricated and fiercely partisan political content -- much of it produced abroad for profit -- in some instances outpaced engagement with credible mainstream news outlets.

Facebook initially downplayed the potential influence of fake news, although it also pledged to pursue a response involving expanded partnerships with fact-checkers, increased emphasis on detection and reporting, warning labels for untrustworthy stories, and a crackdown on for-profit fake news pages. Twitter also reacted , developing an experimental prototype feature to allow users to report "fake news" and exploring the use of machine learning to detect automated accounts spreading political content.

Is Fake News Disinformation?

More often than not, fake news does not meet the definition of disinformation or propaganda. Its motives are usually financial, not political, and it is usually not tied to a larger agenda. One attempt to classify various types of misleading and manipulative news content separates misinformation (inadvertent sharing of false information) from disinformation, which is deliberate, and arranges examples by motivation and degree of deception. Most of the fake news described above falls somewhere in the middle: not inadvertent, but motivated by profit rather than influence. To the degree that its purpose can be described as political, fake news begins to resemble more insidious content.

Fake news' political prominence does have lessons for analysts of disinformation. Fake news draws audiences because it validates their political preconceptions and worldviews, capitalizing on media consumers' confirmation bias . Many argue that because social media curates content according to user preferences, it has a polarizing effect that leaves consumers more vulnerable to manipulation in this way. Political actors have been able to use this to their advantage by producing incendiary content that spreads rapidly through grassroots online networks (some call this " political astroturfing ").

More often than not, fake news does not meet the definition of disinformation or propaganda. Its motives are usually financial, not political, and it is usually not tied to a larger agenda."

Marketing, Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy, and other "Information Campaigns"

Some analysts also differentiate between various types of "information campaigns" -- organized attempts to communicate with large groups of individuals -- which may include marketing, public affairs, and public diplomacy. All of these terms are worth disentangling from each other and from propaganda and disinformation writ large.

Marketing and public relations rely on a mix of facts, opinions, and emotional cues to persuade audiences and build affinity between individuals and brands or organizations. As promotional activities meant to augment or protect the reputation of the messenger, their goals may be commercial or political, or they may simply aim to generate publicity. Similarly promotional is public diplomacy, which states utilize to represent their viewpoints to foreign audiences and promote positive associations with that country among foreign publics. Done well, public diplomacy distinguishes itself from propaganda by never intentionally spreading false information or relying on non-rational means of persuasion (though marketing and public relations, of course, may rely on such non-rational devices).

Marketing, public relations, public diplomacy, and similar information campaigns are all related to the field of " strategic communication ," broadly defined as the purposeful use of information and messaging to advance the mission of a given organization, be it a corporate, government, non-profit, or military actor. In the military context, a 2007 paper from the U.S. Army War College emphasizes that strategic communication in a military context aims to influence adversaries, reassure allies, and persuade publics. Because it may be impossible to deceive one of these audiences without deceiving others, some advocate that "deception should be rigorously forbidden in strategic communication" and that the use of disinformation should never fall under the rubric of strategic communication.

Done well, public diplomacy distinguishes itself from propaganda by never intentionally spreading false information or relying on non-rational means of persuasion."

Intent as a Distinguishing Feature

Some argue the intent of the messenger is crucial to distinguishing between different types of messages. This makes it difficult to draw a bright, clear line between marketing, public relations, and public diplomacy, on one side, and propaganda and disinformation on the other. This is especially true when the content in question includes both objective fact and subjective interpretation but no clear falsehood, because it may be unclear whether the message reflects a genuine perspective or an intent to mislead. When content does include falsehoods, it may be unclear whether they are accidental or purposeful.

If an information campaign uses falsehoods and emotional appeals not to persuade or attract but to disrupt, divide, confuse, or otherwise damage target audiences' understanding or political cohesion, it more closely aligns with disinformation and its undermining function. This is not solely the realm of the state: many activities undertaken by non-state actors may also fit this description.

If an information campaign uses falsehoods and emotional appeals not to persuade or attract but to disrupt, divide, confuse, or otherwise damage target audiences' understanding or political cohesion, it more closely aligns with disinformation and its undermining function."

Information Operations as a Tool of Political Influence

Information campaigns with these goals in mind are now sometimes referred to as "information operations," a term until recently used primarily by defense officials in referring broadly to the use of communications in military operations. In April 2017, Facebook described "information (or influence) operations" on the platform, which aim "to achieve a strategic and/or geopolitical outcome" using "a combination of methods, such as false news, disinformation, or networks of fake accounts (false amplifiers) aimed at manipulating public opinion." In the run-up to the 2017 French presidential election, Facebook deleted 30,000 fake French accounts from the platform, providing a sense of the scale these operations can reach.

In that election, an information operation ( likely of Russian origin ) released hacked documents just before the beginning of a legally mandated election news blackout in order to damage the campaign of Emmanuel Macron, the eventual winner. The manipulation of information has been a feature of Syria's civil war since the conflict's beginning. Research from a diverse set of country case studies suggests that a wide array of political, military, and private actors now routinely use social media to manipulate public opinion. Italy's populist Five Star Movement, for instance, is tied to a large constellation of online disinformation outlets. Taiwanese democracy must grapple with both domestic and cross-strait sources of disinformation. Information operations, including those involving the use of disinformation during elections, are likely to remain a tool of political influence well into the foreseeable future.

Brief prepared by Dean Jackson, International Forum for Democratic Studies.

Image Credit: kaboompics/Pixabay (Creative Commons)

[Mar 31, 2019] Disinfo Maginot Line Protecting EU From Russian Influence By Manufacturing History

Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Disinfo Maginot Line: Protecting EU From "Russian Influence" By Manufacturing History

by Tyler Durden Sun, 03/31/2019 - 07:00 68 SHARES Authored by Nina Cross via 21stCenturyWire.com,

It is now apparent with the release of the Mueller investigation findings , that the great storm that has embattled the US government and establishment since 2016 over supposed Russia-Trump collusion during the US elections, originates not from a genuine tangible source, but a constant stream of rhetoric driven by partisan corporate media. One certainty though is the Western narrative of Russia as a 'malign influence' will not go away.

While America's liberal establishment continues to rage at Trump, Europe allies, under the influence of Washington, maintain their aggressive stance towards Russia following the catastrophic US meddling in Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent reunification of Crimea with Russia .

The question is how can the narrative of 'malign Russian influence' be kept going? Mainstream media will continue its role in this, but Western governments are also pouring resources into promulgating certain narratives while containing others.

This week, hackers released more documents from the UK government-funded project known as the Integrity Initiative , revealing British government plans to build an umbrella network of organisations across Europe to counter 'Russian disinformation'.

The following is a look at one of the EU projects already operating to ensure European populations do not stray from this constructed narrative that at times crosses over into real xenophobic racism, or Russophobia. While researching this phenomenon, it was impossible not to find some of the EU's counter-propaganda material quite funny.

If we want to know the meaning of disinformation, the American think tank known as the National Endowment for Democracy which funds regime change in the service of US corporate interests, has its own definition , but it's not important – so long as we believe Russia or the Nazis invented the problem. In fact, if we search the word 'disinformation,' a good number of the results tell us it originated in Russia and is the baby of Stalin or the KGB. If we are not careful, we could end up thinking that dishonesty is an inherent characteristic of Russians, a view actually promoted by the former US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper , who, coincidentally was caught ' wilfully ' lying to Congress.

The view of Russians being hard-wired for corruption was also promoted by the New York Times in an article published in February, The Putin I knew; the Putin I know , written by Franz J Sedelmeyer, exposing deep prejudice behind the corporate media's shallow identity politics.

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But this narrative fails to credit the CIA, which has spent decades crafting skills carrying out the most grotesque deceptions in history targeted abroad and at home. To leave out the role of the CIA in disinformation must be the equivalent of writing an omelette recipe and leaving out the eggs. In fact, the CIA doesn't just carry out disinformation campaigns, as Victor Marchetti, former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA described it: the CIA manufactures history . Not to recognise American intelligence services or government in the history of disinformation while painting Russia as its mother is to deprive America of the recognition it deserves for one of its most notable institutions. Somewhat ironically, you can learn all about the history of disinformation from both Google and the National Endowment for Democracy which are two entities which have received financial support from the CIA.

What about the EU? Does Brussels think that Russia is an inherently dishonest nation? Are they aware that the CIA could be manufacturing Europe's history this very moment? Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) so concerned about disinformation might want to study the documented atrocities of the CIA, some of which were carried out in Europe. Perhaps they are not aware of the US intelligence services' role in the history of subterfuge in Europe:

memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.

Paradoxically, given the probability rate of the CIA meddling in the EU, MEPs should consider putting out a public warning:

The CIA is the most likely source of disinformation in Europe today. It manufactures crises – and we've plenty of those.

But none of it. Instead, the European Parliament is fixated on ensuring its populations fear Russia and are accepting of the narratives pushed on them. The EU released a new report this month repeating the narratives it has been accumulating to justify increasing actions against Russia, particularly since 2014 following the reunification of Crimea. It has passed a resolution stating that Russia could no longer be considered a strategic partner of the EU:

While condemning the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea, as well as Russia's continued violation of the territorial integrity of Georgia and Moldova, Members stressed that the EU cannot envisage a gradual return to business as usual until Russia fully implements the Minsk Agreement and restores the territorial integrity of Ukraine

Members condemned Russia's involvement in the Skripal case, and in disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks carried out by the Russian intelligence services aimed at destabilising public and private communications infrastructure and at increasing tensions within the EU and its Member States

They are concerned about the relations between the Russian government and the extreme right-wing and populist nationalist parties and governments in the EU, such as in Hungary. They also recalled that the interference of Russian state actors in the referendum campaign on Brexit is currently under investigation by the UK authorities

As Russia can no longer be considered a strategic partner in the current circumstances, Members believe that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement should be reconsidered

Ministry of Truth?

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As well as the coordinated strategic isolation of Russia by the EU, members of the G7 have signed up to a Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) designed to:

see hostile states publicly 'called out' for their egregious behaviour – with coordinated international attribution of cyber and other attacks.

The agreement involves sharing intelligence , attribution of hostile activity and forming a common narrative and response, effectively a military-like propaganda coordination between the countries that can be applied for a chosen agenda.

To protect its version of history the EU has created mechanisms to fight off alternative realities, narratives, or truths – which ever word fits – claiming any fact or opinion contrary to those of the stated EU decree must be condemned as pro-Kremlin, pro-Russian, or 'Putinist', a derogatory depiction presently supported by the corporate media. The EU claims these 'alternative narratives' are the product of a Russian disinformation campaign and has developed resources to 'disprove' that disinformation. These are the EU vanguards of truth set up and funded by the European Council in 2015: the European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force or unaffectionately known here as Team East Stratcom . A brief study of their work only leads to further concerns about who is manufacturing history, but also to the likely conclusion that Team East Stratcom is made up of media studies students who drink beer and watch RT all day.

Here's how Team East Stratcom describes itself in a Q&A:

Does the team engage in counter-propaganda?

No. It identifies and corrects disinformation

Counter-propaganda vs correct disinformation (you say tomatto, I say tomayto).

Julian King, the EU's security commissioner, has described it as a counter-propaganda cell . Come on Brussels, make up your mind.

What does Team East StratCom do, and what is the role of its website EUVDisinfo ?

The Task Force reports on and analyses disinformation trends, explains and exposes disinformation narratives, and raises awareness of disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian sources and spread in the Eastern neighbourhood media space

RUSSIAN MEMES: Official EU conspiracy theory diagram explains how 'Russian disinfo' permeates mainstream western discourse ( EU External Action 2017)

Firstly, who defines what is disinformation? Is it just assumed that any information emanating from a Russian media outlet is automatically disinformation?

Narratives and sources. Does this mean that any narrative which matches a Russian one is then classed as Russian in origin? If a Western alternative media outlet publishes a narrative which happens to match that of a Russian media outlet, does this then mean that the said alternative media outlet is 'under Russian influence', or 'in league with the Kremlin'? Could such a politicized method of labelling lead to potential McCarthyite targeting of independent journalists?

The Task Force does not target opinions and does not seek to "blacklist" anyone. It checks facts and identifies disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian language and Eastern Neighbourhood media. It focuses on the disinformation message, not the messenger.

Yet, individual journalists are identified in many of these so-called 'disinformation cases' and described as supporters of one leader or other on the EU's list of bogeymen. Team East StratCom – there is no need to be shy about McCarthyism. Certain mainstream media stalwarts of establishment narratives are more upfront about whom they do and do not want in the club, as Oliver Kamm of The Times has demonstrated:

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For an agency already struggling with the concept of truth, Team East StratCom is not off to a great start.

So how does Team East StratCom protect EU narratives? The European Council made it clear in 2015 they wanted to counter narratives about regime change in Ukraine and its consequences. In fact, about half of its 'disinformation cases' are about Ukraine:

Ukraine tops the EUvsDisinfo database as the most frequent target with 461 references among a total of 1,000 disinformation cases reported in the course of 2018.

So how does Team East StratCom counter propaganda sorry correct disinformation? The following are a few case samples that help to illuminate their methodologies (although with a budget increase from €1.1 million in 2018 to €3 million in 2019, it may find new and diverse ones):

Disinformation Example 1: Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe

Team East StratCom argues that undermining the credibility of Ukraine benefits Russia. It reports that RT Deutsch described Ukraine as the most corrupt country in Europe. It then tries to debunk this using Transparency International 's corruption perception index, a chart which is created and paid for by Western neoliberal governments – the same ones that help to keep corrupt governments in power so long as they provide opportunities to serve Western corporate interests.

Team East StratCom tries to disprove this case by drawing our attention away from corruption in Europe to corruption worldwide. This puts 60 countries ahead of Ukraine. That is sneaky Team East StratCom because, aside from Russia, which we must believe is the most corrupt country in Europe, Ukraine actually tops the list. So why does the EU want to hide the extent of corruption in Ukraine and is it the only thing being hidden about the country? According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova the West wants to stop the world from recognising Crimea as part of Russia's territory. In order to do this it must maintain a manufactured reality; the narrative of Ukraine being a victim of Russian aggression and in no way a liability due, at least in part, to the West's meddling. This approach also entails downplaying any suggestion that the West planned and orchestrated a coup d'etat in Kiev in February 2014.

Disinformation Example 2: Far-right groups in Ukraine

This extract by Team East StratCom criticises the reporting of far-right groups in Ukraine:

Dehumanise, demoralise, make Ukraine the guilty party

Pro-Kremlin disinformation about Ukraine targets audiences in Russia, in Ukraine and in third countries, including the West. Domestic audiences in Russia are e.g. faced with narratives which dehumanise Ukrainians and show the authorities in Kyiv as a cynical modern heir to 20th century Nazism. Such a strategy can turn Ukraine into an acceptable target of the Kremlin's military aggression.

The involvement of far right groups in the run-up to and during 2014 Maidan events and since , has already been widely reported across much of the global mainstream media, for example, here , here , here , here and here , as well as in alternate media. To suggest that this narrative is Russian disinformation is ludicrous. What's more, the European Parliament have already recognised in 2012 the threat of the far-right parties like Svoboda and Pravi Sektor in Ukrainian politics:

Parliament goes on to express concern about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada. It recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU's fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party.

Team East StratCom, you are implying the EU dehumanised Ukraine! But then the EU did later drop its objection as members of the same racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic party gained positions in Ukraine's government , so perhaps you will be forgiven. Perhaps sowing a little confusion of its own, is Brussels.

Disinformation Example 3: Russia is depicted as a 'defender' and a 'peacekeeper' and the West – as the villain .

Team East Stratcom likes using Twitter graphics as evidence when 'disproving pro-Kremlin disinformation.' Never mind history, reason and common sense – just bring out a nice Twitter graphic! According to disinfo mavens, any spike in Twitter activity with the words 'Russia' 'Moscow' or 'Putin' in reference to Venezuela is proof of a 'pro-Kremlin' disinformation campaign, says Team East StratCom. Here is their graphical chart of Twitter traffic:

But Russia is an ally of Venezuela so why would this not be reflected on Twitter when there is a blatant attempt by a Western aggressor to impose its military and economic will on Venezuela? Such was the situation in February when the US tried to pressure the Venezuelan government into allowing in trucks, supposedly carrying humanitarian aid, into the country. Aid as a Trojan Horse for weapons has historical context, especially with regards to the US and its new special envoy to Venezuela, Elliot Abrams , a convicted war criminal who illicitly supplied weapons to death squads in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala on behalf of the Reagan presidency in the 1980s. Now that he is special envoy to Venezuela, it is common sense to suspect foul play. Can such people really be seen as peacekeepers, Team East Stratcom? And using a Twitter graphic to divert attention from a flagrant coup attempt by an aggressive power is more than a little contemptible. What's more, a few days afterwards, one of those trucks carrying supplies was found to contain nails and other materials useful for making barricades:

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And so to sum up the tactics used by Team East StratCom for 'disproving pro-Kremlin disinformation', based on the above cases alone, a list could include for starters:

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But Team East StratCom can't erase history or delete context or bore us half to death with those Twitter graphics and still expect to retain their credibility.

What's more, given the Russia-Trump collusion narrative has been exposed as a hoax, Team East StratCom really ought to let that one go .

Anyone for a pint?

[Mar 31, 2019] Trump and GOP Allies Want Investigation of Mueller Probe s Roots

Notable quotes:
"... Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted: "Time to investigate the Obama officials who concocted and spread the Russian conspiracy hoax!" Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, said "underlying documents" supporting what became Mueller's probe should be released to the public. ..."
"... A McCain associate, David Kramer, acknowledged in a deposition in a libel case that he spread word of the dossier to several news organizations. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

President Donald Trump and a key ally, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, said Monday that after Robert Mueller closed his Russia probe, they want an investigation of the investigators.

Graham said at a news conference that Attorney General William Barr should appoint a new special counsel to examine why the U.S. government, under President Barack Obama, decided to open an investigation into Russian election interference in 2016, and whether it was an excuse to spy on Trump's campaign.

"Was it a ruse to get into the Trump campaign?" Graham said at the news conference. "I don't know but I'm going to try to find out."

Trump told reporters at the White House that unspecified "people" behind the Russia probe would "be looked at."

The remarks show that Trump and some of his allies have retribution and score-settling on their minds after Mueller found no evidence that the president or his campaign colluded with the Kremlin's election interference. It's unclear whom Trump wants investigated, but possibilities include former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May 2017; Obama's CIA Director John Brennan, whom Trump stripped of his security clearance last year; and other former intelligence and Justice Department officials who have vocally criticized the president.

The stage is also set for dueling and contradictory congressional investigations. In the House, controlled by Democrats, several committees have opened investigations into the president's financial and business affairs, and Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Sunday he wants Barr to testify soon on his finding that Mueller didn't produce sufficient evidence that Trump obstructed justice by interfering in the Russia inquiry.

The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, on Monday blocked a vote on a measure by the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, calling for Mueller's report to be made public. McConnell said Barr should have time to consider which portions of the report can be publicly released given concerns about classified information, ongoing investigations and other information protected by law.

Republican Allies

Several other Republicans backed Graham and Trump on Monday. Senate Oversight Committee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he'd like to work with Graham "to get those answers for the American public."

"We need to find out what happened," he said in an interview.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted: "Time to investigate the Obama officials who concocted and spread the Russian conspiracy hoax!" Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, said "underlying documents" supporting what became Mueller's probe should be released to the public.

"Let them decide for themselves whether this investigation was warranted -- or whether it was a two-year long episode of political targeting, driven by FBI and DOJ executives who wanted to retaliate against a legitimately elected president," Meadows said in an interview.

Graham said his committee would also look into the FBI's handling of the inquiry into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, saying that Comey's actions in that investigation "did affect" the 2016 election. Comey held a news conference in July 2016 to announce that Clinton wouldn't be charged with a crime, and then announced less than two weeks before the election that the investigation had been re-opened after additional emails were discovered.

'Evil Things'

Trump's indication that unnamed people responsible for the probe would be investigated was vague. He didn't name anyone, and after he made similar remarks on Sunday, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters that Barr hadn't been directed to open any investigations of Democrats.

"People that have done such harm to our country," Trump complained on Monday. "We've gone through a period of really bad things happening. Those people will certainly be looked at. I've been looking at them for a long time and I'm saying, why haven't they been looked at. They lied to Congress. Many of them. You know who they are. They've done so many evil things."

Trump added that he hasn't considered pardoning anyone convicted in connection to Mueller's probe.

Graham said he planned to talk with Barr on Monday and hoped to hold a public hearing with the attorney general to explain his findings in the Mueller probe. Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress on Sunday summarizing Mueller's findings, which have not been publicly released.

"I'm asking him to lay it all out," Graham said.

Both Trump and Graham said they support Barr publicly releasing as much of Mueller's report as possible. The investigation turned out "100 percent" as it should have, Trump told reporters.

Dossier Distribution

Trump has previously singled out individuals over their role in the probe, calling for an investigation into the " other side " of the investigation. He's mentioned Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and Justice Department attorney Bruce Ohr.

Graham also said he advised his friend and Senate colleague John McCain to give the FBI the so-called Steele dossier on Trump, rebutting the president's accusations that McCain tried to hinder his 2016 election.

Graham told reporters that McCain, an Arizona Republican who died last year, had shown him the unverified collection of intelligence reports on Trump's links to Russia that was put together by a former British spy, Christopher Steele. Steele was commissioned to compile the information by an opposition research firm hired by Democrats.

McCain put the dossier in his safe and handed it over to the FBI the next day, Graham said.

A McCain associate, David Kramer, acknowledged in a deposition in a libel case that he spread word of the dossier to several news organizations.

-- With assistance by Billy House

( Updates with McConnell blocking Schumer measure in seventh paragraph. ) Published on ‎March‎ ‎25‎, ‎2019‎ ‎12‎:‎37‎ ‎PM
Updated on ‎March‎ ‎25‎, ‎2019‎ ‎5‎:‎58‎ ‎PM

[Mar 31, 2019] Without police presence, the Yankee puppet would in all likelihood end up lynched and hanging from lamppost.

Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Augustin L , Mar 30, 2019 8:37:24 PM | link

Juan Guaido getting a ''warm'' welcome from population in El Valle. Apparently, Venezuelan masses have had enough of comprador sellouts backed by European powers.

Without police presence, the Yankee puppet would in all likelihood end up lynched and hanging from lamppost.

Exceptionals are in for a rude awakening, if they attempt to overthrow Chavistas using direct kinetic operations.

Any invasion will be met with fierce resistance. No volveran to Pre-Chavez years. Orange dotard and his neo-confederates in the white house fancy themselves crushing ''subhuman'' resistance from shitholes and securing the hemisphere for wall street looters. The gambit will backfire, and could end up kickstarting hostilites that will span the Continent from Patagonia to Rio Grande. MAGA the gift that keeps on giving. #winning... https://www.facebook.com/venesolidarite/videos/814971605532561/

[Mar 31, 2019] Seems to me what that BigLie's of Us propaganda is this tale: Relations with Russia during the post-USSR age were going along swell until Russia began involved in the Venezuelan Crisis.

Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Mar 30, 2019 7:15:26 PM | link

b--

Seems to me what that BigLie's about is this tale: Relations with Russia during the post-USSR age were going along swell until Russia began involved in the Venezuelan Crisis.

The attempt is to try a new narrative using a different angle to blame Russia which is the goal of the BigLie. Signal a new line of approach in dealing with the attitude toward Russia to the trusty echoers of His Master's Voice.

That's what it seems, b.

[Mar 31, 2019] What is the purpose of Russiagate hysteria?

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years. ..."
"... It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people. Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land. ..."
"... Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because Russians are subhumans. ..."
"... The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored, as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring with each other. ..."
"... The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course, endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language with the same Cyrillic writing system. ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

S , Mar 30, 2019 8:51:37 PM | link

@b:
What is the purpose of making that claim?

The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years.

It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people. Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land.

Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because Russians are subhumans.

Whatever they do, it's always wrong, bad, oppressive, etc. Russians are bad because they're bad. They must be "taught a lesson", "put into their place". It would, of course, be beneficial and highly profitable for Europeans to break with Anglo-Saxons and to live in peace and harmony with Russia, but Europeans simply can not overcome their racism towards Russians. The young Europeans are just as racist, with their incessant memes about "squatting Russians in tracksuits", "drunken Russians", etc., as if there's nothing else that is notable about a country of 147 million people.

The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored, as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring with each other.

The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course, endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language with the same Cyrillic writing system.

[Mar 31, 2019] Jared Kushner Called Before Senate Intelligence Committee

Notable quotes:
"... "If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation, why [former White House chief of staff John] Kelly and [former White House counsel Don] McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee," wrote Cummings. ..."
"... Since then, the White House has yet to release the documents, and Kushner has come under further scrutiny for allegedly discussing sensitive government matters over WhatsApp and private email. Cummings wrote another letter demanding documents related to Kushner's communication practices on March 21, 2019, threatening to subpoena if the White House fails to comply by April 1. ..."
"... During his period with top-security clearance, the President's son-in-law had access to the nation's most sensitive information. Like President Trump, Kushner did not put his assets in a blind trust, and he retains extensive real estate properties and substantial ownership of Kushner companies. Kushner Companies sought investment from Qatar in the family's heavily indebted 666 Fifth Avenue property (which has since been rescued by Brookfield Properties), which the Qataris denied, weeks before the Saudi and UAE blockade on the nation. ..."
"... In February 2019, a report titled "Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with Trump Administration's Efforts to Transfer Sensitive Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia," House Democrats detailed a push by top Trump officials, including Kushner, to give Saudi Arabia technology to build nuclear power plants. According to the Intercept , the Saudi crown prince boasted to the Emirati prince he had Kushner "in his pocket." ..."
"... Although it appears Kushner may no longer have to worry about the Mueller investigation, the President's son-in law's financial conflicts of interest and foreign policy inexperience make him a dangerous liability to the national security of the United States, and evidence indicates he will remain under the scrutiny of the House Oversight Committee for the foreseeable future. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | medium.com

Jared Kushner Called Before Senate Intelligence Committee "If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets."

On March 28, 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee called President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner for a closed-door meeting. It was Kushner's second meeting in front of the panel, having previously testified about his contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign in July, 2017.

Kushner has faced intense media scrutiny since his nomination, as the 38-year-old real estate developer and investor held no prior foreign policy experience at the time President Trump designated him as the administration's Middle East emissary. His failure to disclose numerous encounters with Russians he made during Trump's campaign, such as Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and banker Sergei Gorkov , fueled suspicions of collusion that have plagued his tenure.

It is unknown what was discussed in Kushner's most recent meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, but he later expressed hope the Mueller probe's conclusion would put an end to the suspicions. After his meeting with the Congressional Committee, Kushner gave Axios a statement:

"Today I voluntarily answered follow up questions with the Senate Committee on Intelligence to help them complete their investigation. Which they said would be soon. I hope my cooperation will help the country get the transparency it deserves and puts an end to these baseless accusations. It is time for Congress to complete its work, move on, and to turn its attention to the real problems facing Americans every day."

Jared Kushner's Access to Government Intel Raises Alarm

Intelligence and White House officials have expressed concern about granting Kushner access to government secrets in lieu of his failure to disclose his meetings with foreign contacts in his clearance application.

Reports that President Trump ordered his then-Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to override the misgivings of senior officials and approve Kushner's security clearance led to the House Oversight Committee demanding the White House release documents related to the clearances of top advisors. The committee's chairman, Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), wrote a letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, ordering the documents to be handed over by March 4, 2019.

"If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation, why [former White House chief of staff John] Kelly and [former White House counsel Don] McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee," wrote Cummings.

Since then, the White House has yet to release the documents, and Kushner has come under further scrutiny for allegedly discussing sensitive government matters over WhatsApp and private email. Cummings wrote another letter demanding documents related to Kushner's communication practices on March 21, 2019, threatening to subpoena if the White House fails to comply by April 1.

During his period with top-security clearance, the President's son-in-law had access to the nation's most sensitive information. Like President Trump, Kushner did not put his assets in a blind trust, and he retains extensive real estate properties and substantial ownership of Kushner companies. Kushner Companies sought investment from Qatar in the family's heavily indebted 666 Fifth Avenue property (which has since been rescued by Brookfield Properties), which the Qataris denied, weeks before the Saudi and UAE blockade on the nation.

Jared Kushner's Cozy Relationship with Saudi Arabia, MBS

Kushner's financial conflicts of interest lead to serious national security concerns. Kushner has maintained a close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he allegedly messages directly over WhatsApp .

In February 2019, a report titled "Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with Trump Administration's Efforts to Transfer Sensitive Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia," House Democrats detailed a push by top Trump officials, including Kushner, to give Saudi Arabia technology to build nuclear power plants. According to the Intercept , the Saudi crown prince boasted to the Emirati prince he had Kushner "in his pocket."

In the report , the whistleblowers stated, "Strong private commercial interests have been pressing aggressively for the transfer of highly sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia." Around the same time, Brookfield Asset Management made a deal with the Kushner's to bail out the underwater 666 Fifth Avenue property; Brookfield announced the $4.6 billion purchase of Westinghouse Electric, a bankrupt nuclear power company. Westinghouse Electric has previously sought bids to develop atomic energy in the Saudi kingdom.

Although it appears Kushner may no longer have to worry about the Mueller investigation, the President's son-in law's financial conflicts of interest and foreign policy inexperience make him a dangerous liability to the national security of the United States, and evidence indicates he will remain under the scrutiny of the House Oversight Committee for the foreseeable future.


Originally published at citizentruth.org on March 30, 2019

[Mar 31, 2019] Trump family and Russian billionaires

Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Pft , Mar 30, 2019 9:05:31 PM | link

Russiagate may be done but thats because it was defined improperly. Sometimes it helps to look back to get a big picture perspective

Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad's biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as "Putin's rabbi."

Roman Abramovich is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club of the English Premier League. He was a victor (along with Paul Manafort's patron Oleg Deripaska) in the aluminum wars of the 1990s and reportedly the person who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Putin would be a proper successor.

Ivanka Trump is very close friends with Abramovich's wife , Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova reportedly attended the inauguration as Ivanka's personal guest. Leviev is the one with the closest links to the Trumps and Israel

It starts with Bayrock . This is the company that Donald Trump teamed up with to build his Trump Soho project. There were three main actors . One was convicted mob associate and FBI informant Felix Sater. Another was Tevfik Arif, a likely Russian intelligence connection who was once was arrested by the Turks . The third was the late Tamir Sapir, another man with ties to Russian intelligence.

The late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia. Trump has called Sapir "a great friend." In December 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter, Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch of Africa Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company, and known as Leviev's right hand man.

As mentioned Leviev was one of two oligarch's who Putin had establish the "Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia" under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as 'Putin's rabbi.'" Sater, Sapier, Jared, Ivanka are all Chabad members and/or donors

Trump had business discussions in Moscow in 2013 about Moscow real estate projects with Agalarovs, Alex Sapir (son of Tamir Sapir, brother of Zina, and brother-in-law of Rotem Rosen.) and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian . This may also have been discussed during the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that was attended by Kushner, Manafort and Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer associated with Fusion GPS (Steele dossier) and the Leviev linked Prevezon

Agalarov is a Moscow-based property developer who had won major contracts from Putin's government. He hosted Trump's 2013 Miss Universe contest at his concert hall in Moscow. He orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with the help of the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting.

In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head

Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and Prevezon, have all recently been the subject of money laundering investigations. A laundering case against Prevezon was settled two months after Trump fired Bharara, with a $6M slap on the wrist settlement that raised some eyebrows.

As for 666, Kushner gets bailed out by Brookfield who has Qatar as its 2nd largest investor. But consider that at the same time they did this deal they also acquired Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Now members of the Trump administration propose selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Interesting.

Can't seem to find a Putin/Russian oligarch connection although that's probably due to the fact you can't use anonymous shell companies to buy property in NYC any longer due to new rules by FinCEN

But so many conflict of interests here, Israel, China, Saudis, Russian oligarchs, etc and virtually no oversight or transparency. With twitter being used to manipulate markets one has to imagine rampant insider trading as well (hey guys, my tweets going out at 3 pm, get your trades in and remember my 5%).

[Mar 30, 2019] The US desperately needs Venezuelan oil

Highly recommended!
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

dh-mtl , Mar 30, 2019 5:00:04 PM | link

The U.S. desperately needs Venezuelan oil.

They lost control of Saudi Arabia, after trying to take down MBS and then betraying him by unexpectedly allowing waivers on Iranian oil in November.

The U.S. cannot take down Iran without Venezuelan oil. What is worse, right now they don't have access to enough heavy oil to meet their own needs.

Controlling the world oil trade is central to Trump's strategy for the U.S. to continue its empire. Without Venezuelan oil, the U.S. is a bit player in the energy markets, and will remain so.

Having Russia block the U.S. in Venezuela adds insult to injury. After Crimea and Syria, now Venezuela, Russia exposes the U.S. as a loud mouthed-bully without the capacity to back up its threats, a 'toothless tiger', an 'emperor without clothes'.

If the U.S. cannot dislodge Russia from Venezuela, its days as 'global hegemon' are finished. For this reason the U.S. will continue escalating the situation with ever-riskier actions, until it succeeds or breaks.

In the same manor, if Russia backs off, its resistance to the U.S. is finished. And the U.S. will eventually move to destroy Russia, like it has been actively trying to do for the past 30 years. Russia cannot and will not back off.

Venezuela thus becomes the stage where the final act in the clash of empires plays out. Will the world become a multi-polar world, in which the U.S. becomes a relatively isolated and insignificant pole? Or will the world become more fully dominated by a brutal, erratic hegemon?

All options are on the table. For both sides!

[Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate

Highly recommended!
So Russiagate smoothly transferred in Neo-McCarthyism and it will poison the US political atmosphere for a decade or two.
Notable quotes:
"... But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." ..."
"... Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections ..."
"... Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process ..."
"... Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people? ..."
"... Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. ..."
"... Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ." ..."
"... Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations. ..."
"... Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.) ..."
"... Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.thenation.com

But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." Joy Reid of MSNBC, which has been a citadel of Russiagate allegations along with CNN, even suggested that Mueller and Attorney General William Barr were themselves engaged in " a cover-up ."

Contrary to a number of major media outlets, from Bloomberg News to The Wall Street Journal , nor does Mueller's exculpatory finding actually mean that " Russiagate is dead " and indeed that " it expired in an instant ." Such conclusions reveal a lack of historical and political understanding. Nearly three years of Russiagate's toxic allegations have entered the American political-media elite bloodstream, and they almost certainly will reappear again and again in one form or another.

This is an exceedingly grave danger, because the real costs of Russiagate are not the estimated $25–40 million spent on the Mueller investigation but the corrosive damage it has already done to the institutions of American democracy -- damage done not by an alleged "Trump-Putin axis" but by Russsigate's perpetrators themselves. Having examined this collateral damage in my recently published book War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate , I will only note them here.

§ Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections everywhere -- national, state, and local. If true, or even suspected, how can voters have confidence in the electoral foundations of American democracy? Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process.

Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people?

§ Defamatory Russsiagate allegations that Trump was a "Kremlin puppet" and thus "illegitimate" were aimed at the president but hit the presidency itself, degrading the institution, bringing it under suspicion, casting doubt on its legitimacy. And if an "agent of a hostile foreign power" could occupy the White House once, a "Manchurian candidate," why not again? Will Republicans be able to resist making such allegations against a future Democratic president? In any event, Hillary Clinton's failed campaign manager, Robby Mook, has already told us that there will be a " next time ."

§ Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. No mainstream media did anything to expose, for example, two crucial and fraudulent Russiagate documents -- the so-called Steele Dossier and the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment -- but instead relied heavily on them for their own narratives. Little more need be said here about this institutional self-degradation. Glenn Greenwald and a few others followed and exposed it throughout, and now Matt Taibbi has given us a meticulously documented account of that systematic malpractice , concluding that Mueller's failure to confirm the media's Russiagate allegations "is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media."

Nor, it must be added, was this entirely inadvertent or accidental. On August 8, 2016, the trend-setting New York Times published on its front page an astonishing editorial manifesto by its media critic. Asking whether "normal standards" should apply to candidate Trump, he explained that they should not: "You have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century." Let others decide whether this Times proclamation unleashed the highly selective, unbalanced, questionably factual "journalism" that has so degraded Russiagate media or instead the publication sought to justify what was already underway. In either case, this remarkable -- and ramifying -- Times rejection of its own professed standards should not be forgotten. Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ."

§ For better or worse, America has a two-party political system, which means that the Democratic Party is also a foundational institution. Little more also need be pointed out regarding its self-degrading role in the Russiagate fraud. Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations.

As for Mueller's finding, the party's virtual network, MSNBC, remains undeterred.

Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.)

§ Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life.

[Mar 30, 2019] MIGA is action: the Colossal Blunder of Reneging on the JCPOA by Daniel Larison

Grey prostitute usually adopts pro-isreal position as for Iran deal. no suprose here. Why Trump admnistration did the same is an interesting question. Is this Kushner influnce? is this Trump jewesh ficnacier influnce? or Both?
Notable quotes:
"... As a nonproliferation agreement, the JCPOA continues to work as intended despite the active sabotage of the Trump administration. That is a testament to the value of the agreement and to the overwhelming international consensus in favor of it. The U.S. has stupidly and unnecessarily broken with that consensus for the sake of its obsession with hostility towards Iran. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
tries to claim that reneging on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been good for the U.S.:

It's been nearly a year since Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, to loud cries that it would bring nothing but woe to the United States and our interests in the Middle East.

So far, the result has been closer to the opposite.

Nuclear deal opponents always argue in bad faith, and Stephens' latest column is no exception. For starters, virtually no one said that reneging on the deal would bring "nothing but woe." It was nonetheless an irrational, costly decision whose costs continue to add up as time goes by. Some of the worst-case scenarios have not yet happened, but reneging on the deal has done nothing but harm U.S. interests and our relations with major allies. No one can point to any real gains for the U.S., and even by the Trump administration's own standards their Iran policy has failed to achieve anything. U.S. relations with European allies have come under significant strain, and their determination to sustain the deal has led them to create workarounds to allow legitimate trade with Iran to continue. Pressuring Iraq to join the anti-Iran sanctions has likewise strained relations with Baghdad and contributed to the backlash against the U.S. there.

Stephens applauds the damage that the reimposition of U.S. sanctions is doing to Iran's economy, but inflicting pain for its own sake is pointless cruelty. The U.S. gains nothing from this, and it imposes enormous costs on the Iranian people who bear most of the burden. The sanctions were originally created to pressure Iran into making the concessions on the nuclear issue that they have made. The sanctions cannot do anything except inflict damage on Iran's economy because Iran's government is already doing the things that were required to get them lifted. Strangling Iran's economy doesn't make the U.S. any safer, but it does make us seem treacherous and underhanded in our dealings with other states. Reneging on the JCPOA has inflicted diplomatic and political costs on the U.S. that make it more difficult for any other government to trust ours to honor its side of agreements, and it has made a mockery of our government's commitment to nonproliferation.

It needs to be emphasized here that all of the costs of reneging on the deal are purely self-inflicted. The president pandered to the ideologues and hard-liners that hated the deal from the beginning and made an unnecessary, irresponsible decision to give up on a successful agreement. Meanwhile, the vast majority of arms control and nuclear experts opposed the decision. All that the U.S. had to do to keep faith with Iran and the other parties was to lift sanctions and keep them lifted. It cost us nothing to do this, and it created an opening for reduced tensions and improved relations with Iran that stood to benefit both of our countries and the surrounding region. Throwing that away has gained the U.S. nothing, and it has isolated the U.S. internationally from almost all other governments that support the agreement. Any fair and honest reckoning of the costs and benefits of Trump's decision to renege would show that the U.S. is now in a worse and weaker position than it was before that decision. It is the definition of a foreign policy fiasco.

U.S. withdrawal has not caused the agreement to collapse yet, but that is only because all of the other parties to it have made concerted efforts to keep it alive in spite of completely unwarranted sanctions. Contrary to hawkish predictions that Iran would cheat on the agreement, Iran has fulfilled its obligations to the satisfaction of the IAEA for more than three years. Even though Iran has received very few of the promised benefits for complying with the agreement, Iran has done what it said it would do. That doesn't line up very well with the Iran hawks' usual picture of a fanatical government hell-bent on acquiring a nuke.

As a nonproliferation agreement, the JCPOA continues to work as intended despite the active sabotage of the Trump administration. That is a testament to the value of the agreement and to the overwhelming international consensus in favor of it. The U.S. has stupidly and unnecessarily broken with that consensus for the sake of its obsession with hostility towards Iran.

This bit may be the least credible part of Stephens' column:

The point isn't to punish Iran for punishment's sake. It's to create leverage for a better nuclear deal.

If unjustly reimposing sanctions on Iran was meant to "create leverage for a better nuclear deal," it has completely failed. Iran has no interest in renegotiating the agreement that it has honored from the start, and it has no reason to trust the government that just went back on its word that it will obtain sanctions relief by offering more concessions. Quitting agreements does not create additional leverage on the other parties to an agreement. It necessarily weakens the U.S. position by making our promises seem worthless. A "better" deal isn't possible, but then Iran hawks' interest in one has always been disingenuous. They have never wanted a "better" deal. They have wanted Iranian capitulation. That is reflected in the preposterous demands that Pompeo made last year. No Iranian government would ever agree to the vast majority of those demands, and they amount to abandoning its foreign policy and its nuclear program. Stephens marvels that "any of it should be controversial," which should tell you how clueless he is.

It's worth noting here that Stephens has been and still is one of the most fanatical opponents of the nuclear deal. When the P5+1 concluded the interim nuclear deal, the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), in 2013, he asserted that forerunner to the JCPOA was "worse than Munich." Anyone who invoked Nazi appeasement in the context of negotiations for a nonproliferation agreement has no credibility to chide anyone else about anything related to foreign policy.

Stephens declares:

Non-nuclear states that sponsor terrorism and subscribe to millenarian ideologies should never have access to any part of the nuclear fuel cycle, ever.

Here he is falling back on an old, discredited trope of Iran as a "martyr-state" to support his fanatical position that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear program at all. Not only is the Iranian government not filled with "millenarian" zealots (they are interested in self-preservation and staying in power just like any regime), but Stephens ignores that Iran is entitled to possess and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). If the U.S. seeks to deprive them of that access, they might end up choosing to go the North Korea route by leaving the treaty and developing nuclear weapons. That isn't the most likely outcome right now, but the more that the U.S. pressures Iran the greater their incentive to acquire a nuclear deterrent becomes.

Stephens concludes:

The Trump administration has succeeded in dramatically raising the costs to Iran for its sinister behavior, at no cost to the United States or our allies.

U.S.-European relations are frayed and probably worse than at any time since the Iraq war debate, and those strains have mostly been caused by the administration's bankrupt Iran policy. Our government has violated the JCPOA and the Security Council resolution that endorsed it, and that has both left the U.S. isolated on this issue and weakened our position internationally. Our allies have been forced to defend themselves against U.S. sanctions, and their efforts to circumvent the sanctions will have longer term negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy. The Iranian government's behavior has not changed significantly, and the costs borne by the Iranian people are very high. Our government is inflicting collective punishment of an entire nation for no good reason, and we are teaching another generation of Iranians to loathe and distrust us. Stephens can ignore reality if he wants, but the costs to the U.S. and our allies are real and growing.

Reneging on the nuclear deal was a destructive and stupid move, and the U.S. will be paying for it for years to come. If it hasn't led to the worst possible outcomes yet, that doesn't change the fact that it has been a colossal blunder and a huge own goal by the Trump administration. It isn't surprising that a hardened ideologue like Stephens defends such a bad decision, but his readers are poorly served by his propaganda masquerading as analysis.

Advertisement Posted in foreign policy , politics . Tagged Iran , Iraq , Bret Stephens , IAEA , Donald Trump , JCPOA , Mike Pompeo , JPOA . MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR Fortune Cookies, Propositions and Declarations Your Move, Berman Hide comments One Response to The Colossal Blunder of Reneging on the JCPOA

Gene Smolko March 30, 2019 at 2:15 pm

If the anti-deal hawks got their way, Iran would have the bomb by now

How this isn't obvious to them is beyond me, it makes me wonder if their actual plan was to ratchet up tensions so they would have no choice but to invade to stop Iran from getting the bomb. They would get to accomplish their true goal, regime change.

You also have those outraged that Obama 'gave' the Iranians billions. First off Obama gave them nothing, it was their money. Many of them know this but it sounds better to pretend it was US taxpayer dollars instead of Iranian money in frozen accounts. Then it seems they don't know how deals are supposed to work, you can't expect to get something it you offer nothing in return.

[Mar 30, 2019] The US desperately needs Venezuelan oil

Highly recommended!
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

dh-mtl , Mar 30, 2019 5:00:04 PM | link

The U.S. desperately needs Venezuelan oil.

They lost control of Saudi Arabia, after trying to take down MBS and then betraying him by unexpectedly allowing waivers on Iranian oil in November.

The U.S. cannot take down Iran without Venezuelan oil. What is worse, right now they don't have access to enough heavy oil to meet their own needs.

Controlling the world oil trade is central to Trump's strategy for the U.S. to continue its empire. Without Venezuelan oil, the U.S. is a bit player in the energy markets, and will remain so.

Having Russia block the U.S. in Venezuela adds insult to injury. After Crimea and Syria, now Venezuela, Russia exposes the U.S. as a loud mouthed-bully without the capacity to back up its threats, a 'toothless tiger', an 'emperor without clothes'.

If the U.S. cannot dislodge Russia from Venezuela, its days as 'global hegemon' are finished. For this reason the U.S. will continue escalating the situation with ever-riskier actions, until it succeeds or breaks.

In the same manor, if Russia backs off, its resistance to the U.S. is finished. And the U.S. will eventually move to destroy Russia, like it has been actively trying to do for the past 30 years. Russia cannot and will not back off.

Venezuela thus becomes the stage where the final act in the clash of empires plays out. Will the world become a multi-polar world, in which the U.S. becomes a relatively isolated and insignificant pole? Or will the world become more fully dominated by a brutal, erratic hegemon?

All options are on the table. For both sides!

[Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate

Highly recommended!
So Russiagate smoothly transferred in Neo-McCarthyism and it will poison the US political atmosphere for a decade or two.
Notable quotes:
"... But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." ..."
"... Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections ..."
"... Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process ..."
"... Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people? ..."
"... Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. ..."
"... Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ." ..."
"... Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations. ..."
"... Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.) ..."
"... Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.thenation.com

But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." Joy Reid of MSNBC, which has been a citadel of Russiagate allegations along with CNN, even suggested that Mueller and Attorney General William Barr were themselves engaged in " a cover-up ."

Contrary to a number of major media outlets, from Bloomberg News to The Wall Street Journal , nor does Mueller's exculpatory finding actually mean that " Russiagate is dead " and indeed that " it expired in an instant ." Such conclusions reveal a lack of historical and political understanding. Nearly three years of Russiagate's toxic allegations have entered the American political-media elite bloodstream, and they almost certainly will reappear again and again in one form or another.

This is an exceedingly grave danger, because the real costs of Russiagate are not the estimated $25–40 million spent on the Mueller investigation but the corrosive damage it has already done to the institutions of American democracy -- damage done not by an alleged "Trump-Putin axis" but by Russsigate's perpetrators themselves. Having examined this collateral damage in my recently published book War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate , I will only note them here.

§ Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections everywhere -- national, state, and local. If true, or even suspected, how can voters have confidence in the electoral foundations of American democracy? Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process.

Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people?

§ Defamatory Russsiagate allegations that Trump was a "Kremlin puppet" and thus "illegitimate" were aimed at the president but hit the presidency itself, degrading the institution, bringing it under suspicion, casting doubt on its legitimacy. And if an "agent of a hostile foreign power" could occupy the White House once, a "Manchurian candidate," why not again? Will Republicans be able to resist making such allegations against a future Democratic president? In any event, Hillary Clinton's failed campaign manager, Robby Mook, has already told us that there will be a " next time ."

§ Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. No mainstream media did anything to expose, for example, two crucial and fraudulent Russiagate documents -- the so-called Steele Dossier and the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment -- but instead relied heavily on them for their own narratives. Little more need be said here about this institutional self-degradation. Glenn Greenwald and a few others followed and exposed it throughout, and now Matt Taibbi has given us a meticulously documented account of that systematic malpractice , concluding that Mueller's failure to confirm the media's Russiagate allegations "is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media."

Nor, it must be added, was this entirely inadvertent or accidental. On August 8, 2016, the trend-setting New York Times published on its front page an astonishing editorial manifesto by its media critic. Asking whether "normal standards" should apply to candidate Trump, he explained that they should not: "You have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century." Let others decide whether this Times proclamation unleashed the highly selective, unbalanced, questionably factual "journalism" that has so degraded Russiagate media or instead the publication sought to justify what was already underway. In either case, this remarkable -- and ramifying -- Times rejection of its own professed standards should not be forgotten. Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ."

§ For better or worse, America has a two-party political system, which means that the Democratic Party is also a foundational institution. Little more also need be pointed out regarding its self-degrading role in the Russiagate fraud. Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations.

As for Mueller's finding, the party's virtual network, MSNBC, remains undeterred.

Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.)

§ Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life.

[Mar 30, 2019] It is too bad that there has been no investigation into Victoria Nuland's role in Ukraine's 2014 revolution

Mar 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Anon1970 March 28, 2019 at 1:44 pm

It is too bad that there has been no investigation into Victoria Nuland's role in Ukraine's 2014 revolution. The ouster of the corrupt Russian leaning administration and its replacement by a new gang of thieves who were more pro West with neo-Nazi sympathies led to the Ukrainian civil war and the takeover of Crimea by Russia. Although Russia's nominal GNP per capita remains low vs industrial countries, it remains a military superpower.

[Mar 29, 2019] I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans

Highly recommended!
Interesting information about Cuban lobby and Trump
Notable quotes:
"... George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation. ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:26 am GMT

Well now that most everyone knows Trump's ME policy on Iran is run by his Zionists.

We would be remiss in not mentioning the "other foreign lobby" .the Cuban exiles ..who are all very interested in Venezuela.

I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/what-triggered-the-escalation-of-us-venezuela-policy

What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?

For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed with the
https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/what-triggered-the-escalation-of-us-venezuela-policy

What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?
For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed with the evolving crisis inside Venezuela

Two days after taking office in January 2017 President Donald Trump surprised White House staff by asking for a briefing on Venezuela. At the time, Fernando Cutz was on the National Security Council staff as the President's Director for South America.

"For whatever reason, and honestly I don't know what the reason was, but President Trump started on Day One, literally on Day One, asking about Venezuela. So, it was a priority of his from the very start," Cutz told a forum at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank, after he left government last year.

Cutz didn't know, but the seed was planted a few days before Trump's inauguration during a casual meeting at Trump Tower in New York. Trump had invited some South Florida friends to pay him a visit, among them Freddy Balsera, a Cuban American Democrat, who represented the real estate mogul on several South Florida golf projects.

During the meeting, Trump asked Balsera for some advice on what South Floridians would like to see from his presidency, according to witnesses. Balsera mentioned taking a tougher line on the Maduro regime in Venezuela, adding it would have bipartisan support and could make for a good foreign policy victory

The president's son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, was in the room and his ears picked up, the sources said. Balsera told Trump and Kushner about Venezuela's most famous political prisoner: Leopoldo Lopez. And he had a suggestion: "You should meet with his wife, Lilian Tintori," he said.

That's precisely what happened a few weeks later, courtesy of another Cuban American – a Republican this time – Senator Marco Rubio

Rubio's influence has also grown since that White House visit with Lilian Tintori. Despite calling him 'Little Marco' during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken to heaping President Donald Trump has lately taken to heaping praise on his former presidential rival

"I do listen a lot to Senator Rubio on Venezuela, it's close to his heart," Trump told a small group of reporters representing regional news outlets last month.

Rubio was also instrumental in bringing into the government some key Cuban Americans; Mauricio Claver-Carone at the NSC. Another John Barsa, is awaiting confirmation to lead USAID's operations in Latin America. Claver-Carone is a longtime activist on Cuba policy and staunch backer of the economic embargo against Havana's communist government]

Otto Reich, another conservative Cuban American and former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela says the Trump administration clearly has Cuba in its sights.
"I think that what they are preparing in the government is first of all to use the fall of the Venezuelan dictatorship that has financed so much violence and subversion in the hemisphere, to later bring about changes, transitions in Cuba and Nicaragua,"

White House to appoint Cuba hardliner to head Latin America policy Mauricio Claver-Carone, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's engagement with Cuba, is taking over as the National Security Council's influential director for Latin America policy.

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:08 pm GMT
@renfro Good information.

I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.

Well, 'we' got a tax cut. And 'we' are going to have mandated vaccinations from companies exempt from liability. And 'we' will get the joys of subsidizing the 5G rollout for total internet connectivity from the toilet to the grave. 'We' get total surveillance, too, so there is that.

I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.

But we're a nation of immigrants, so we celebrate all those hyphenated pseudo-Americans hijacking our country for foreign benefit. Why, I think one of the reasons President Kushner wants immigrants in the largest numbers ever is to provide more boots for all of our wars. Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, reduxes on Iraq and Lebanon? Adventures in Africa? Wheel of fortune, who hurts Ivanka's feelings first?

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT
@chris Two-fer? I don't think so. Trump will be a popular wartime president . The media has already changed its tone. No, Trump is completely housebroken, a useful fool. He's good for more than one war, so will probably be re-elected. How many wars do you think we're good for before total collapse?
Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
President Trump is a complete and total whore for Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson.

Shelly Adelson is an ISRAEL FIRST Jew who wants to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.

Shelly Adelson wants to flood more mass legal immigration into the United States.

Shelly Adelson wants to give amnesty to upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.

Shelly Adelson demanded 4 things from Trump:

1) Adelson wanted the US military to attack and invade Iran.

2) Adelson wanted the US military to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran as a demonstration of resolve and power.

3) Adelson wanted the US embassy moved to Jerusalem.

4) Adelson wanted the Iran nuclear deal killed and buried.

Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and Trump has moved a satellite branch of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Trump and the US military have refused to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran. Trump and the US military have refused to attack and invade Iran.

If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.

Art , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.

Sorry but there is not one US general who will act against Israel – period.

bucky , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:03 pm GMT
@Talha If Jews want to live in Palestine there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But they have to live as the locals do and without any special favors.

What is BS is the special favors the USA gives them. They even have the gall to say that our giving $5 billion in military aid to them is a favor to us.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:06 pm GMT
George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War.

The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America.

Trump went to a 2016 GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina and said the US military was dragged into the Iraq War debacle by George W Bush on false claims.

Trump:

He added, forcefully: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction – there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/13/cbs-republican-debate-trump-bush-cruz-rubio-antonin-scalia

The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation.

Tweet from 2015:

[Mar 29, 2019] Early troubling sign of Trump: most individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran

One of the rare early realistic assessments of Trump foreign policy. most were wrong. Circe was right in major points. The appointment of CIA director was the litmus test and Trump failed it by appointing neocon Pompeo.
Trump foreign policy is a typical neocon foreign policy. People just tried to overlook it in vain hopes that Trump will change the US foreign policy
Notable quotes:
"... 95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time. ..."
"... And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason. ..."
"... Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,". ..."
"... Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected. ..."
"... Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms. ..."
"... And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly. ..."
"... What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense. ..."
"... he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh? ..."
www.moonofalabama.org
Circe | Nov 19, 2016 8:37:46 PM | 23

95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.

And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason.

Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".

That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.

Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.

b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.

Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly President was elected.

Jackrabbit | Nov 19, 2016 10:20:57 PM | 26

Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms.

And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.

What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.

And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?

The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:

>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?

>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions? An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.

>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?

Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.

[Mar 29, 2019] Has the imperator surrounded himself with the wrong praetorians?

Yes. He quickly became Bush III
Notable quotes:
"... Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding? ..."
"... If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint. ..."
"... Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative destruction to government ..."
"... Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt. ..."
"... Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again ..."
"... One quibble: The destruction he applies will not be creative. It will be thorough but entirely unimaginative. ..."
"... Why do you think a war is brewing? What do you think is going to happen? They'll give him bad intel like they did with Bush? ..."
"... The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread. ..."
"... Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general I mean a state of mutual distrust. ..."
Jan 16, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
reason : January 16, 2017 at 02:25 AM
Just as an aside - not really economics, but I am really worrying about what the war between the future white house team and the CIA that seems to be brewing. I don't see good solutions to this. It is sort of unprecedented in a major western country. Can you think of a similar case (where the intelligence services - and perhaps the military as well regarded there own government head as an enemy agent)?
reason -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 03:02 AM
Perhaps MI5 and Wilson?
Fang__z -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 04:03 AM
Canaris and Hitler. :p
ilsm -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 04:41 AM
Henry VI Pt2: dems playing Yorks

put the CIA in

the Tower

CIA been the neocon

payroll too long

who told you Soviets

were never going

tp collapse

ilsm -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 04:49 AM
Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding?

If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint.

jonny bakho -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:03 AM
Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative destruction to government

Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt.

As with Obamacare, the idea is to destroy it and replace it with something better. Most revolutions find it easy to destroy and very much harder to build Most sane leaders recognize this difficulty and modify the existing rather than destroy and never getting around to replacement or find the replacement to be worse than the existing.

Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again

Chris G -> jonny bakho... , January 16, 2017 at 05:06 AM
One quibble: The destruction he applies will not be creative. It will be thorough but entirely unimaginative.
reason -> jonny bakho... , January 16, 2017 at 07:24 AM
I don't believe in "creative destruction", I believe in "destructive creation" which is something quite different. But that is not the point. This is not about the government as such, it is about the security apparatus in itself. It could get very nasty if that ends up either totally alienated or politicized.
Chris G -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:03 AM
If I were President, provoking an organization whose specialty is covert operations and which has track record of bringing about the demise of insufficiently agreeable leaders would not be high on my to-do list.
ilsm -> Chris G ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:20 AM
Has the imperator surrounded himself with the wrong praetorians?
Peter K. -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:37 AM
Why do you think a war is brewing? What do you think is going to happen? They'll give him bad intel like they did with Bush?
ilsm -> Peter K.... , January 16, 2017 at 05:44 AM
The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread.
Peter K. -> ilsm... , January 16, 2017 at 05:54 AM
Trump is an isolationist who repeatedly said the Iraq war was a disaster, which it was. If the CIA is going after Trump they're doing a bad job. The worst they could come up with is some unverified accounts that Trump likes pee-pee parties.
reason -> Peter K.... , January 16, 2017 at 07:29 AM
Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general I mean a state of mutual distrust.

[Mar 29, 2019] Nickolas Kristof again demonstrates the level of neocons panic and his MIC lobbyist credentials by Nicholas Kristof

Kristof panic was premature and just shows that he is a really has no political analyst talent whatsoever. Trump was quickly co-opted by neocons.
It is interesting that Kristof, even at such an early stages of Russiagate was already "FullOfSchiff"
"... The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion. ..."
"... Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States. ..."
"... Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship." ..."
Dec 12, 2017 | nytimes.com

From Donald Trump The Russian Poodle - The New York Times

In 1972, President Richard Nixon's White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party offices. That Watergate burglary and related "dirty tricks," such as releasing mice at a Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love for a Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans - and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue journalism.

Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering. Russian agents apparently broke into the Democrats' digital offices and tried to change the election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed by Russia's president, saying, "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."

In Watergate, the break-in didn't affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don't know for sure. There were other factors, but it's possible that Russia's theft and release of the emails provided the margin for Donald Trump's victory.

The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion.

Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and Trump by denouncing the CIA and, incredibly, defending Russia from the charges that it tried to subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America's intelligence community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the dictator.

Let's be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still profoundly damaging to our system. It's not that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an election. But if the CIA is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president who would be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog - a Russian poodle.

In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George W. Bush's poodle, following him loyally into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.

Frankly, it's mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he excoriates everyone else, from CIA officials to a local union leader in Indiana.

Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States.

Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship."

Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia's interference in our election by putting American foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?

Tillerson's closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump's other Russia links. The incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments by a pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump family itself has business connections with Russia.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his ears to the siren songs of the war party and deep state which just failed to stage a soft coup to block his inauguration by Eric Margolis

Trump did not struggle at all. He just folded.
Big hopes of January 2017 ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course. ..."
"... Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria. ..."
"... This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.' ..."
"... If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it. ..."
Jan 21, 2017 | www.unz.com

What I found most impressive this time was the reaffirmation of America's dedication to the peaceful transfer of political power. This was the 45th time this miracle has happened. Saying this is perhaps banal, but the handover of power never fails to make me proud to be an American and thankful we had such brilliant founding fathers.

This peaceful transfer sets the United States apart from many of the world's nations, even Britain and Canada, where leaders under the parliamentary system are chosen in a process resembling a knife fight in a dark room. The US has somehow managed to retain its three branches of government in spite of the best efforts of self-serving politicians to wreck it.

Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course.

Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria.

This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.'

Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his ears to the siren songs of the war party and deep state which just failed to stage a 'soft' coup to block his inauguration. Waging little wars against weak nations is a multi-billion dollar national industry in the US. America has become as addicted to war as it has to debt.

If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Trump appears to have been gulled into believing the canard that Mideast-origin violence is caused by what he called in his inaugural speech, radical Islamic terrorism. This is a favorite device promoted by the hard right and Israel to de-legitimize any resistance to Israel's expansion and ethnic cleansing. The label of 'terrorism' serves the same purpose.

Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it.

Unfortunately, President Trump is unlikely to get this useful advice from the men who now surround him, with the possibly exception of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Let's hope that Tillerson and not Goldman Sachs bank ends up steering US foreign policy.

(Reprinted from EricMargolis.com by permission of author or representative)

[Mar 29, 2019] Donald Trump just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony by Chuck Baldwin

Early warning about Trump betrayal
Notable quotes:
"... And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist. ..."
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
Nov 17, 2016 | www.newswithviews.com

Originally from: Chuck Baldwin -- Trump Supporters Must Not Go To Sleep

After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump] plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony, he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.

And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist.

Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment, thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out at worst.

On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it.

To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential administration.

Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.

Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of what we need to know.

What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.

There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian, pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.

The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected.

I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu by Nick Wadhams and David Wainer

Notable quotes:
"... Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime in Israel. ..."
"... "What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton. "He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria." ..."
"... Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional. "It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate for the report," he said. ..."
"... "I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state of Israel." ..."
"... Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights. In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu

President Donald Trump said it's time for the U.S. to "fully recognize" Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a political gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just weeks before a tough re-election vote.

The remark -- which would break with decades of U.S. policy -- could prove decisive in swaying Israeli voters just as Netanyahu faces corruption allegations that have marred his campaign. It is also likely to draw a rebuke from the international community, which never recognized Israel's sovereignty over the territory it captured in 1967.

"The message that President Trump has given the world is that America stands by Israel," Netanyahu said Thursday after Trump's tweet.

Trump's message came a day after Netanyahu, in a press briefing with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Jerusalem, called for the U.S. and the rest of the world to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel extended its law to the area in 1981.

The future of the plateau, a scenic area containing important water sources, had long been considered a subject for negotiation in any potential peace agreement with Syria. Now, with Syria wracked by a civil war that includes support from Iran, Israel wants its control over the area to be recognized worldwide.

"I've been thinking about doing that for a long time," Trump said in an interview to be broadcast Friday on Fox Business Network's "Mornings With Maria." "It's been a very hard decision for every president, no president has done it. This is very much like Jerusalem, moving the embassy to Jerusalem -- I did that."

While the news was welcomed by most Israelis, some saw it as a cynical ploy to interfere in their election and help Netanyahu at a time when he's facing increasing scrutiny in a sprawling corruption probe. Merav Michaeli, a member of the opposition Labor party, said there's little national debate that the Golan should stay in Israeli hands.

It "only helps public opinion for Netanyahu," she added. "That's why it came now. And so it doesn't really benefit Israel now, it benefits Netanyahu."

Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime in Israel.

"What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton. "He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria."

Trump's move may also give the president a political boost as he courts Jewish voters in the U.S.

The U.S. had signaled strongly in recent weeks it was ready to accept Israeli sovereignty. In an annual report on human rights released last week, the State Department referred to the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza as "Israeli-controlled," not "Israeli-occupied."

Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional. "It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate for the report," he said.

American support for Israel has strengthened under Trump, who moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 and backed out of the nuclear agreement his predecessor Barack Obama negotiated with Iran, a cherished goal of Netanyahu.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said Trump's move would destabilize the region.

"I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state of Israel."

The U.S. recognition underscores the changing reality on the ground, as the chances of Israel returning the northern territory to Syria diminished.

Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights. In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan.

"The administration's considering lots of things always, and I try to make sure we get to answers before we talk

[Mar 29, 2019] Initial hopes on Trump attacking neoliberalism proved to be illusions. He is a Republican Obama by Paul Craig Roberts

That was written in March 2017. Looks like Paul Craig Roberts was completely detached from reality
Notable quotes:
"... By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade. ..."
"... These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure, experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems. ..."
"... Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself. At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions falls, Trump is next. ..."
"... Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are despicable, the scum of the earth. ..."
"... The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War. I know. I was there. ..."
"... Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"? ..."
"... The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security Deep State that is driving the world to destruction. ..."
"... W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel." ..."
"... "To see who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire ..."
"... Hint: If you criticize them, you're called an anti-Semite. And they're not even Semites. ..."
"... Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't use other, more crude adjectives .. ..."
"... What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn. He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he is still there with his team. ..."
"... No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead. ..."
"... It's war and there is no going back. Trump has the will and the resources, so all we can do is support where possible....and hope. ..."
"... The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here. ..."
Mar 04, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Paul Craig Roberts

The question in the title is V.I. Lenin's question. His answer was to create a revolutionary "vanguard" to spread revolutionary ideas among the workers, the economic class that Karl Marx had declared to be the class rising to the ascendency of political power. Finally, democracy, frustrated by upper class interests in its earlier manifestations, would become reality. The workers would rule.

Given the presence of evil and human failing, it did not work out in that way. But Lenin's question remains a valid one. Americans whose economic life and prospects for their children have been destroyed by the offshoring of American manufacturing and tradable professional skills jobs, such as software engineering, answered the question by electing Donald Trump.

The Americans, dispossessed by the offshoring corporations, elected Trump, because Trump was the only American running for a political office who called attention to the problem and declared his intention to fix it.

By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade.

These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure, experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems.

When you add up the external costs of jobs offshoring that are imposed on Americans, the costs far exceed the value of the profits that flow to the One Percent. Clearly, this is an intolerable situation.

Dispossessed Americans rose up. They ignored the presstitute media, or perhaps were driven to support Trump by the hostility of the media. Trump was elected by dispossessed America, by the working class.

The working class is out of favor with the elite liberal/progressive/left which abhors the working class as racist, misogynist, homophobic, gun nuts who oppose transgendered toilet facilities. Thus, the working class, and their chosen representative, Donald Trump, are under full assault by the presstitutes. "Trump Must Go" is their slogan.

And well he might. Trump, in a fit of stupidity, dismissed his National Security Advisor, Gen. Flynn, because Flynn did what he should have done and spoke with the Russian ambassador in order to avoid a Russian response to Obama's provocation of expelling Russian diplomats at Christmas.

Russians have been demonized and ascribed demonic powers. If you speak to a Russian, you fall under suspicion and become a traitor to your country. This is the story according to the CIA, the Democratic Party, the military/security complex, and the presstitute media.

Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself. At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions falls, Trump is next.

Let's be clear. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sessions met with the Russian ambassador, just as he met with a number of other countries' ambassadors. There is nothing unusual or surprising about a US senator meeting with foreign diplomatic representatives.

Those who accuse Sessions of lying are misrepresenting the facts. Sessions met with ambassadors in his capacity as a US Senator, not in his capacity as a Trump representative. As a former US Senate staffer, I can attest that it is perfectly normal for US Senators to meet with diplomats. John McCain and Lindsey Graham even fly to the Middle East to meet with terrorists.

Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are despicable, the scum of the earth.

The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War. I know. I was there.

But if President Trump wants to defuse the extremely dangerous tensions that the reckless Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes have resurrected with a powerful thermo-nuclear state that only wants peace with the US, President Trump and any of his appointees who spoke to a Russian are unfit for office! This madness is the position of the idiot liberal/progressive/left, the CIA, the Democratic Party, the right-wing morons of the Republican Party such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and the two-bit whores that comprise the Western media.

Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"?

I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and awareness left anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western media or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer.

The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security Deep State that is driving the world to destruction.

BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:14 PM

Trump needs to tighten up. Get even tougher than he is now. Go out and do more speeches. Take the message STRAIGHT to the masses.........unfiltered. LET the MSM "fake" that.

kavlar -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:24 PM

W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel."

The neocons are Israel-first fanatics. They did 9/11 and support all terrorist groups. And because Russia came to Syria's aid, they're after Russia as well.

Stuck on Zero -> kavlar , Mar 3, 2017 10:25 PM

If you want to see just how powerful the neo-con deep state is just declare a general strike for all the people doing real work.

lexxus -> Stuck on Zero , Mar 3, 2017 10:29 PM

The deep state is the money power. http://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/how-the-ashkenazi-jew...

Mano-A-Mano -> lexxus , Mar 3, 2017 10:32 PM

"To see who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire

Hint: If you criticize them, you're called an anti-Semite. And they're not even Semites.

SofaPapa -> Mano-A-Mano , Mar 3, 2017 10:41 PM

In Dr Strangelove, the mindblowingly stupid response of the characters played by the generals saying "attack Russia no matter what they do" was portrayed as a joke, and the audience got it. Nobody could be that stupid, so it looked funny.

We are in desperately sick times when the attitude displayed by those comedically-stupid characters has become our official policy and our propaganda.

Let's pray the American people are not yet completely stupid, and that there are still enough who see this insanity for the immediate and extreme danger that it is.

Pray hard.

xythras -> DownWithYogaPants , Mar 3, 2017 11:47 PM

Drain The SWAMP -- Starting with Schumer

Pedophile Enabler? Chuck Schumer Helped Accused Child Sex Abuser into US

http://dailywesterner.com/news/2017-03-03/pedophile-enabler-chuck-schume...

# PizzaGate

Byte Me -> xythras , Mar 4, 2017 6:38 AM

Drain The SWAMP -- Starting with Obama, Soros and The Clintons

The purpose of all of this "RussiaDidIt" bollocks has long been postulated as having the purpose of starting the Last War. The question arises: "Who benefits?" (Ordinarily, no-one 'benefits' and only morons think that a 'benefit' could arise)

But, just for a moment, turn it on its head and ask the counter-question: "Who benefits the least ?"

Pretty obviously, the USA and the Russian Federation come out badly. Assume the impossible: that it doesn't spread out and result in planetdeath.

Who just (quite coincidentally - of course) had its main rivals effectively eliminated? Quietly. Efficiently. Anonymously...

Who, currently quietly colonizing Africa for its resorce base, might now divert their attentions to the (much greater and closer) resource base to their North, West and East, ostensibly in the name of "reconstruction?"

Naturally, it's just a coincidence that a large slice of Global Manufacturing has recently been transferred to that country (recent decades)

So congrats are due to the DemoCrud skum who perpetrated this crime against humanity as the willing "useful idiots" of the PuppetMasters. Burn in Hell you motherfukkerz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ah1JM9mf60

grizfish -> Byte Me , Mar 4, 2017 1:47 PM

The only way to "drain the swamp" is to eliminate the brainwashed masses who enable the warmongering globalist neocons. Without the democratic partys' tens of million sheeple, the power hungry devils like Soros, the Clintons, McCain, Pelosi, Feinstein, and the rest of the "perverted elite" would have no power.

Having considered this FACT, I have decided not to oppose their quest to start a global thermonuclear war with Russia. I saw war up close and personal in Viet-Nam. I am 71 years old, so not much time remaining to waste in a political battle against the snowflakes here in Californicate. I feel confident that I have a better chance of surviving than they do.

I have also decided to sit back, with my personal defenses in hand, and watch them experience, up close and personal for themselves, the horrors of war like they are presently inflicting on the mid-eastern countries. The children of these despots, if they survive, will finally witness proof that their parents are the cause of their misery.

Then, and only then, will the survivors be able to reconstruct toward a peaceful world.

Giant Meteor -> DownWithYogaPants , Mar 4, 2017 1:50 AM

Insouciant adjective

1. free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.

I agree, we're way past that ... Robert's knows this , all too well ..

Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't use other, more crude adjectives ..

I cut him slack on his overuse of the word insouciant, because it would just seem so out of place substituting instead, "fucking assholes," for every place it is prominently used in his writing.

I mean can you imagine?

No, I'm glad he's more refined than me. Makes for a more interesting and gentile world.

Paper Mache -> SofaPapa , Mar 4, 2017 8:52 AM

Hahaa Dr Strangelove. Strange movie, for even stranger times

"They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

TDK -> kavlar , Mar 4, 2017 3:45 AM

The Right wing Neo-cons and the Right Wing media were always a match made in heaven.

Oldwood -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:28 PM

What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn. He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he is still there with his team.

Everything is obvious now and I think this is what Trump has been goading them into. Putting blood in the water to draw the sharks to the surface. We will see.

fbazzrea -> Oldwood , Mar 3, 2017 10:48 PM

i hope you're right. i keep wanting to think he's a clever fox but the acceleration of events is mind-boggling. the liberal onslaught is from all directions and relentless. i pray he's able to withstand their attacks and counter with an epic T-Day rout--one for the history books--that exposes and annihilates the seditious traitors in the world of public opinion, giving him political capital to rid our nation of the unconstitutional Patriot Act and Big Brother's illegal 4th Amendment violations of illegal search and seizure.

it's hard to keep the faith right now... i wanna believe he's got the wherewithall to pull this off. if i get weak and shout for quick solutions, just downvote my stupid butt bigly.

crossroaddemon -> Oldwood , Mar 3, 2017 11:34 PM

No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead.

Give up guys... there's no winning this. The sooner we accept this the sooner we can maybe fucking DO something.

Oldwood -> crossroaddemon , Mar 4, 2017 9:07 AM

It's war and there is no going back. Trump has the will and the resources, so all we can do is support where possible....and hope.

new game -> Oldwood , Mar 4, 2017 9:40 AM

i think you are suggesting first touch/listen of utah spying. if true, step one. step 2 is to take down the main operatives and bring them down with all the resources of the justice dept.

this is assuming that all parties stay in the confines of law...hmmm

Chris Dakota -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:28 PM

Trump is following my advise.

Pluto gives you enough rope to hang yourself.

He is letting them.

My God no sane person will vote for this crew ever again.

chubbar -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:36 PM

Exactly, Trump needs to go on TV and speak plainly, layout the thesis as outlined in this article. Make sure the country knows EXACTLY what is going on and what the stakes are. Most libtards don't have one fucking clue how they are being used by these sick fucks. Get everything he knows and what he SUSPECTS, even with no direct evidence out into the general public. Time is running short.

HedgeJunkie -> chubbar , Mar 4, 2017 1:03 AM

I don't twit. I don't even 'follow' a twit. I don't know how.

But I'm pretty sure this sort of message would take a hell of a lot more characters than, what is it, 140?

That means he would need some other means to deliver a complicated message that by-passes an inherently hostile media yet still gets viewed by tens of millions.

Anyone have ideas on that?

leeteam -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:51 PM

You are absolutely right, "Take the message STRAIGHT to the masses.........unfiltered."

Now is the time for a TRUMP Network. Daily briefings directly to the people.

skunzie , Mar 3, 2017 10:17 PM

Couldn't agree more. I fail to fathom how meeting with Russian diplomats constitutes any type of crime. That's what diplomats do for God's sake. Wake up people before it's too late.

Future Jim , Mar 3, 2017 10:17 PM

So it's all the Neocons ... No need to look anywhere else ...

The psyop is strong in this one.

Implied Violins -> Future Jim , Mar 3, 2017 10:43 PM

Ah, but everything PCR says is true. It's what he doesn't say that gives away the lie.

All of his articles demonize the west (and he's right). But he's deliberately not looking at the higher dynamics of this globalist, central bank-led kabuki theater.

fbazzrea -> Implied Violins , Mar 3, 2017 10:55 PM

But he's deliberately not looking...

ah, but i disagree. PCR spares not the higher powers. this is but one article. he hones in on them all.

Implied Violins -> fbazzrea , Mar 3, 2017 11:04 PM

I think he's a 'gatekeeper' who's job is to point out the evils of the west and make the east look good in comparison, so that when the 'reset' comes people will buy into the globalist one world currency that will be offered.

I've never seen him talk disparagingly about either China or Russia or the BRICS. Certainly he has mentioned the FED and the IMF, but not the big one - the BIS - that I have seen. And until he does, he's just another Rothschild/Rockefeller plant to me.

fbazzrea -> Implied Violins , Mar 3, 2017 11:26 PM

i subscribe to his donations-based newsletter. you probably do too but just in case, here's his homepage.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/category/articles/

he takes on the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, NATO, liberals, Ruling Establishment, Obama the War Criminal Butcherer of Women and Children, Kissinger, pretty much everybody. i agree he's not a Russiaphobe, thankfully someone's got a balanced position.

anyway... we'll have to agree to disagree. i believe he's a patriot true blue... errr, red. nope. red, white and blue.

crossroaddemon -> Implied Violins , Mar 3, 2017 11:36 PM

I agree. Any political pundit as highly placed as him who isn't screaming bloody murder about 9/11 is a plant by default.

fbazzrea -> crossroaddemon , Mar 4, 2017 12:05 AM

he's an economist. that's like accusing Stockman of being a plant. it's just beyond their area of expertise and interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts

for example, here's a 2002 article where he examines the Soviet Union's economic shortcomings.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2002/10/07/my-time-with-soviet-economics-2/

it's nothing to me and i'm not trying to defend him. i just think he's not what you suggest. professionals feel responsible for their words and only write about what they know. we can all speculate about 9/11 but without launching our own investigation, it's just "talk." and at PCR and Stockman's level, they refrain from flapping their lips to hear themselves speak, metaphorically.

anyway...

namaste

Implied Violins -> fbazzrea , Mar 4, 2017 12:33 AM

IF you are really open-minded, I'll just leave this here for your perusal:

http://redefininggod.com/2015/05/globalist-agenda-watch-2015-update-24-g...

From the article:

> "He is a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy.

> He is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal.

> He was the "first occupant of the William E. Simon Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], then part of Georgetown University." It's worth noting that Georgetown is a Jesuit institution, and the Board of Trustees of CSIS includes Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and representatives of Exxon Mobil, Boeing, Coca Cola, AIG, GlaxoSmithKline, and Morgan Stanley (to name a few).

Looking at the high positions this guy has held in the Washington/Wall Street Establishment, ask yourself this: "Is PCR really going against all of his lifelong associates or is he simply carrying water for them like he always has?" "

fbazzrea -> Implied Violins , Mar 4, 2017 2:24 AM

i consider myself open-minded and reviewed your link.

as far as the 3 bullet points the author suggests condemn PCR:

  1. Austrian economics are largely followed by most conservative economists as opposed to Keynesian.
  2. I would also argue the American govt pursues global hegemony, i.e., an American empire
  3. Who among us would not believe there is widespread incompetence in DC? Would anyone use the term "competent" with Obama, other than describing his knack for telling untruths and perhaps killing innocent Near East women and children?

He was former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan

A strong critic of the Bush (and later Obama ) administrations' handling of the War on Terror , he has taken positions strongly at odds with mainstream politicians: harshly criticising the ineffectiveness, severity and high rates of incarceration associated with the War on Drugs , excessive police violence and use of SWAT teams against civilians. He has criticised the law and order politics and congressional approval of increased government surveillance associated with the War on Terror age, which he views as fundamental threats to the civil liberties and Right to Privacy enshrined in the US constitution, opening the way for an oligarchic police state to be imposed upon the US population... -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts

sorry, i just don't see it. as far as his association with the WSJ and Georgetown Univ, that would pretty much be the aspirations of most journalists. and lastly, here are the closing statements from his newsletter yesterday:

The voice here at this website, my voice, provides perspectives that permit escape from the Matrix, but it depends on your support. As March is upon us, so is my quarterly request for your support. So far, we have both kept our word. You have supported the site, and I have continued to ruin my reputation in Washington by writing explanations that are unpopular in the ruling circles.

I am prepared to fight for our lives, but I cannot do it without you .-- http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/02/can-truth-prevail-paul-craig-...

but even more than that, i read his articles and take what i want and discard the rest. no one is mind controlling me. can't be brainwashed. got to have a brain first. (;

Elco the Consti... -> Future Jim , Mar 4, 2017 2:44 AM

This quote was setting off sirens in my mind:

"I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and awareness left anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western media or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer."

The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here.

So is PCR part of the problem?

[Mar 29, 2019] Stay Out Of Western Hemisphere! Bolton Warns Russia Over Troops In Venezuela

Mar 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Stay Out Of Western Hemisphere! Bolton Warns Russia Over Troops In Venezuela

by Tyler Durden Fri, 03/29/2019 - 18:25 162 SHARES

The White House has dramatically stepped up its rhetoric threatening action against Russia's military presence in Venezuela after the Kremlin deployed a troop contingency to Caracas last Saturday.

Trump's national security adviser John Bolton took tensions to a new level, on Friday issuing a new Monroe doctrine of sorts, telling Moscow any attempt to establish or expand military operations in the western hemisphere constitutes a "provocative" and "direct threat" to international peace and security in the region. "We strongly caution actors external to the Western Hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations," Bolton said in a statement .

"We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and security in the region," he added. This follows the president's own warning on Wednesday that "all options" are on the table regarding potential expanding Russian presence in Venezuela.

Two Russian aircraft carrying about 100 servicemen and 35 tons of cargo arrived in Caracas last Saturday, led by Russian General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, identified as chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of Russia.

This prompted Trump's Wednesday warning to Russia against involvement in the Latin American nation; he told reporters in the Oval Office that :

" Russia has to get out."

Kremlin officials responded by explaining that it deployed military specialists merely to service preexisting arms contracts with Venezuela, and that Russia is not interfering in the Latin American country's internal affairs.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing on Thursday when asked how long the Russian troop contingency led by a high ranking general will stay:

"How long? As long as they need to, and as long as the Venezuelan government needs them. It all is being done based on bilateral agreements."

Russia's position is that it is not interfering in Venezuela's internal affairs by merely cooperating on legal and existing service contracts, and that no other country should do so either. It said that only "specialists" had entered Venezuela under a pre-existing agreed upon military cooperation deal .

However, the White House isn't buying it, as Bolton's Friday statement further condemned Maduro's "use of foreign military personnel in his attempt to remain in power, including the introduction of Russian military personnel and equipment into Venezuela."

"Maduro will only use this military support to further repress the people of Venezuela; perpetuate the economic crisis that has destroyed Venezuela's economy; and endanger regional stability," Bolton said .

All of this also comes as the Maduro government stripped US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido of his position in the National Assembly, further barring him from holding public office for 15 years .

[Mar 29, 2019] Is a War With Iran on the Horizon by Bob Dreyfuss

Notable quotes:
"... Even though Western Europe has lined up in opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of such a war, it could happen. ..."
"... Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications. ..."
"... With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. ..."
"... On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003. ..."
"... Yet by openly calling for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. ..."
"... Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed, battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to the administration's calls to back the Jewish state? ..."
Mar 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Trump Administration Is Reckless Enough to Turn the Cold War With Iran Into a Hot One

Here's the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all severely weakened at home and with few allies abroad, reckless enough to set off a war with Iran? Could military actions designed to be limited -- say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf -- trigger a wider war?

Worryingly, the answers are: yes and yes. Even though Western Europe has lined up in opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of such a war, it could happen.

Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications.

Such a war could quickly spread across much of the Middle East, not just to Saudi Arabia and Israel, the region's two major anti-Iranian powers, but Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the various Persian Gulf states. It might indeed be, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani suggested last year (unconsciously echoing Iran's former enemy, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein) the "mother of all wars."

With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, President Trump's former favorite generals who had urged caution, are no longer around . And though the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution last month calling for the United States to return to the nuclear agreement that President Obama signed, there are still a significant number of congressional Democrats who believe that Iran is a major threat to U.S. interests in the region.

During the Obama years, it was de rigueur for Democrats to support the president's conclusion that Iran was a prime state sponsor of terrorism and should be treated accordingly. And the congressional Democrats now leading the party on foreign policy -- Eliot Engel, who currently chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin, the two ranking Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- were opponents of the 2015 nuclear accord (though all three now claim to have changed their minds ).

Deadly Flashpoints for a Future War

On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003.

Yet by openly calling for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

There are three potential flashpoints where limited skirmishes, were they to break out, could quickly escalate into a major shooting war.

The first is in Syria and Lebanon. Iran is deeply involved in defending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (who only recently returned from a visit to Tehran) and closely allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite political party with a potent paramilitary arm. Weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu openly boasted that his country's air force had successfully taken out Iranian targets in Syria. In fact, little noticed here, dozens of such strikes have taken place for more than a year , with mounting Iranian casualties.

Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed, battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to the administration's calls to back the Jewish state?

Next, consider Iraq as a possible flashpoint for conflict. In February, a blustery Trump told CBS's Face the Nation that he intends to keep U.S. forces in Iraq "because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is the real problem." His comments did not exactly go over well with the Iraqi political class, since many of that country's parties and militias are backed by Iran.

Trump's declaration followed a Wall Street Journal report late last year that Bolton had asked the Pentagon -- over the opposition of various generals and then-Secretary of Defense Mattis -- to prepare options for "retaliatory strikes" against Iran. This roughly coincided with a couple of small rocket attacks against Baghdad's fortified Green Zone and the airport in Basra, Iraq's Persian Gulf port city, neither of which caused any casualties. Writing in Foreign Affairs , however, Pompeo blamed Iran for the attacks, which he called "life-threatening," adding, "Iran did not stop these attacks, which were carried out by proxies it has supported with funding, training, and weapons." No "retaliatory strikes" were launched, but plans do undoubtedly now exist for them and it's not hard to imagine Bolton and Pompeo persuading Trump to go ahead and use them -- with incalculable consequences.

[Mar 29, 2019] Escobar Empire Of Chaos In Hybrid War Overdrive

Notable quotes:
"... When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan. ..."
"... At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan – against Iran and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. ..."
"... Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space." ..."
"... That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population to death via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group, exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the Monroe doctrine essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk." ..."
Mar 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

A hefty case can be made that the Empire of Chaos currently has no allies; it's essentially surrounded by an assortment of vassals, puppets and comprador 5thcolumnist elites professing varied degrees of – sometimes reluctant – obedience.

The Trump administration's foreign policy may be easily deconstructed as a crossover between The Sopranos and late-night comedy – as in the whole episode of designating State Department/CIA regime change, lab experiment Random Dude as President of Venezuela. Legendary cultural critic Walter Benjamin would have called it "the aestheticization of politics," (turning politics into art), as he did about the Nazis, but this time it's the Looney Tunes version.

To add to the conceptual confusion, despite countless "an offer you can't refuse" antics unleashed by psychopaths of the John Bolton and Mike Pompeo variety, there's this startling nugget . Former Iranian diplomat Amir Moussavi has revealed that Trump himself demanded to visit Tehran, and was duly rebuffed. "Two European states, two Arab countries and one Southeast Asian state" were mediating a series of messages relayed by Trump and his son-in-law Jared "of Arabia" Kushner, according to Moussavi.

Is there a method to this madness? An attempt at a Grand Narrative would go something like this: ISIS/Daesh may have been sidelined – for now; they are not useful anymore, so the U.S. must fight the larger "evil": Tehran. GWOT has been revived, and though Hamza bin Laden has been designated the new Caliph, GWOT has shifted to Iran.

When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan.

At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan – against Iran and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. The Cui Bono riddle is which state would profit immensely from a war between Pakistan and Iran and/or a war between Pakistan and India.

The bottom line: hiding in the shadow of plausible deniability – according to which what we understand as reality is nothing but pure perception – the Empire of Chaos will resort to the chaos of no-holds-barred Hybrid War to avoid "losing" the Eurasian heartland.

Show Me How Many Hybrid Plans You Got

What applies to the heartland of course also applies to the backyard.

The case of Venezuela shows that the "all options on the table" scenario has been de facto aborted by Russia, outlined in an astonishing briefing by Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and then subsequently detailed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj at a crucial RIC (part of BRICS) summit in China, Lavrov said, "Russia keeps a close eye on brazen US attempts to create an artificial pretext for a military intervention in Venezuela The actual implementation of these threats is pulling in military equipment and training [US] Special Forces."

Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space."

The U.S. attempt at regime change in Venezuela has been so far unsuccessful in several ways.

That plan had already been exposed by WikiLeaks, via a 2010 memo by a U.S.-funded, Belgrade-based color revolution scam that helped train self-proclaimed "President" Random Dude, when he was just known asJuan Guaidó. The leaked memo said that attacking the Venezuelan power grid would be a "watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."

But even that was not enough.

That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population to death via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group, exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the Monroe doctrine essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk."

Plan E -- for extreme -- would be U.S. military action, which Bolton won't take off the table.

Show Me the Way to the Next War Game

So where do all these myriad weaponizations of chaos theory leave us? Nowhere, if they don't follow the money. Local comprador elites must be lavishly rewarded, otherwise you're stuck in hybrid swamp territory. That was the case in Brazil – and that's why the most sophisticated hybrid war case history so far has been a success.

In 2013, Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks revealed how the NSA was spying on Brazilian energy giant Petrobras and the Dilma Rousseff government beginning in 2010. Afterwards, a complex, rolling judicial-business-political-financial-media coup ended up reaching its two main objectives; in 2016, with the impeachment of Rousseff, and in 2018, with Lula thrown in jail.

Now comes arguably the juiciest piece of the puzzle. Petrobras was supposed to pay $853 million to the U.S. Department of Justice for not going to trial for crimes it was being accused of in America. But then a dodgy deal was struck according to which the fine will be transferred to a Brazilian fund as long as Petrobras commits to relay confidential information about its businesses to the United States government.

Mattis: Wrote on hybrid war in 2005.

Hybrid war against BRICS member Brazil worked like a charm, but trying it against nuclear superpower Russia is a completely different ball game. U.S. analysts, in another case of culture jamming, even accuse Russia itself of deploying hybrid war – a concept actually invented in the U.S. within a counter-terrorism context; applied during the occupation of Iraq and later metastasized across the color revolution spectrum; and featuring, among others, in an article co-authored by former Pentagon head James "Mad Dog" Mattis in 2005 when he was a mere lieutenant general.

At a recent conference about Russia's military strategy, Chief of General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov stressed that the Russian armed forces must increase both their "classic" and "asymmetrical" potential. In the U.S. this is interpreted as subversion/propaganda hybrid war techniques as applied in Ukraine and in the largely debunked Russia-gate. Instead, Russian strategists refer to these techniques as "complex approach" and "new generation war".

Santa Monica's RAND Corporation still sticks to good ol' hot war scenarios. They have been holding "Red on Blue" war games simulations since 1952 – modeling how the proverbial "existential threats" could use asymmetric strategies. The latest Red on Blue was not exactly swell. RAND analyst David Ochmanek famously said that with Blue representing the current U.S. military potential and Red representing Russia-China in a conventional war, "Blue gets its ass handed to it."

None of this will convince Empire of Chaos functionary Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently told a Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon will continue to refuse a "no first use" nuclear strategy. Aspiring Dr. Strangeloves actually believe the U.S. can start a nuclear war and get away with it.

Talk about the Age of Hybrid Stupidity going out with a bang.

[Mar 29, 2019] I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans

Highly recommended!
Interesting information about Cuban lobby and Trump
Notable quotes:
"... George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation. ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:26 am GMT

Well now that most everyone knows Trump's ME policy on Iran is run by his Zionists.

We would be remiss in not mentioning the "other foreign lobby" .the Cuban exiles ..who are all very interested in Venezuela.

I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/what-triggered-the-escalation-of-us-venezuela-policy

What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?

For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed with the
https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/what-triggered-the-escalation-of-us-venezuela-policy

What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?
For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed with the evolving crisis inside Venezuela

Two days after taking office in January 2017 President Donald Trump surprised White House staff by asking for a briefing on Venezuela. At the time, Fernando Cutz was on the National Security Council staff as the President's Director for South America.

"For whatever reason, and honestly I don't know what the reason was, but President Trump started on Day One, literally on Day One, asking about Venezuela. So, it was a priority of his from the very start," Cutz told a forum at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank, after he left government last year.

Cutz didn't know, but the seed was planted a few days before Trump's inauguration during a casual meeting at Trump Tower in New York. Trump had invited some South Florida friends to pay him a visit, among them Freddy Balsera, a Cuban American Democrat, who represented the real estate mogul on several South Florida golf projects.

During the meeting, Trump asked Balsera for some advice on what South Floridians would like to see from his presidency, according to witnesses. Balsera mentioned taking a tougher line on the Maduro regime in Venezuela, adding it would have bipartisan support and could make for a good foreign policy victory

The president's son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, was in the room and his ears picked up, the sources said. Balsera told Trump and Kushner about Venezuela's most famous political prisoner: Leopoldo Lopez. And he had a suggestion: "You should meet with his wife, Lilian Tintori," he said.

That's precisely what happened a few weeks later, courtesy of another Cuban American – a Republican this time – Senator Marco Rubio

Rubio's influence has also grown since that White House visit with Lilian Tintori. Despite calling him 'Little Marco' during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken to heaping President Donald Trump has lately taken to heaping praise on his former presidential rival

"I do listen a lot to Senator Rubio on Venezuela, it's close to his heart," Trump told a small group of reporters representing regional news outlets last month.

Rubio was also instrumental in bringing into the government some key Cuban Americans; Mauricio Claver-Carone at the NSC. Another John Barsa, is awaiting confirmation to lead USAID's operations in Latin America. Claver-Carone is a longtime activist on Cuba policy and staunch backer of the economic embargo against Havana's communist government]

Otto Reich, another conservative Cuban American and former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela says the Trump administration clearly has Cuba in its sights.
"I think that what they are preparing in the government is first of all to use the fall of the Venezuelan dictatorship that has financed so much violence and subversion in the hemisphere, to later bring about changes, transitions in Cuba and Nicaragua,"

White House to appoint Cuba hardliner to head Latin America policy Mauricio Claver-Carone, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's engagement with Cuba, is taking over as the National Security Council's influential director for Latin America policy.

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:08 pm GMT
@renfro Good information.

I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.

Well, 'we' got a tax cut. And 'we' are going to have mandated vaccinations from companies exempt from liability. And 'we' will get the joys of subsidizing the 5G rollout for total internet connectivity from the toilet to the grave. 'We' get total surveillance, too, so there is that.

I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.

But we're a nation of immigrants, so we celebrate all those hyphenated pseudo-Americans hijacking our country for foreign benefit. Why, I think one of the reasons President Kushner wants immigrants in the largest numbers ever is to provide more boots for all of our wars. Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, reduxes on Iraq and Lebanon? Adventures in Africa? Wheel of fortune, who hurts Ivanka's feelings first?

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT
@chris Two-fer? I don't think so. Trump will be a popular wartime president . The media has already changed its tone. No, Trump is completely housebroken, a useful fool. He's good for more than one war, so will probably be re-elected. How many wars do you think we're good for before total collapse?
Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
President Trump is a complete and total whore for Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson.

Shelly Adelson is an ISRAEL FIRST Jew who wants to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.

Shelly Adelson wants to flood more mass legal immigration into the United States.

Shelly Adelson wants to give amnesty to upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.

Shelly Adelson demanded 4 things from Trump:

1) Adelson wanted the US military to attack and invade Iran.

2) Adelson wanted the US military to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran as a demonstration of resolve and power.

3) Adelson wanted the US embassy moved to Jerusalem.

4) Adelson wanted the Iran nuclear deal killed and buried.

Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and Trump has moved a satellite branch of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Trump and the US military have refused to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran. Trump and the US military have refused to attack and invade Iran.

If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.

Art , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.

Sorry but there is not one US general who will act against Israel – period.

bucky , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:03 pm GMT
@Talha If Jews want to live in Palestine there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But they have to live as the locals do and without any special favors.

What is BS is the special favors the USA gives them. They even have the gall to say that our giving $5 billion in military aid to them is a favor to us.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:06 pm GMT
George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War.

The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America.

Trump went to a 2016 GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina and said the US military was dragged into the Iraq War debacle by George W Bush on false claims.

Trump:

He added, forcefully: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction – there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/13/cbs-republican-debate-trump-bush-cruz-rubio-antonin-scalia

The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation.

Tweet from 2015:

[Mar 29, 2019] SEC type full disclosure prospectus required of candidates could be useful, who to enforce this after those guys get to power is unclear

Notable quotes:
"... There are no agency in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ? ..."
"... Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no longer exist ..."
"... Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans, ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names. ..."
"... Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus. just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

smokey , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:20 am GMT

@Captain Willard

Though I would agree that an SEC type full disclosure prospectus required of candidates could be useful. There are no agency in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ?

Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no longer exist to those who are part of economic zionism (EZ); they use government to establish their monopolies not to prevent them. Not only have the EZ eliminated International Law, they have given themselves, and each person they allow to be elected, unlimited get out of jail free cards.

My question Captain Willard is: who would enforce the intentional misrepresentations, glaring omissions, hoax after hoax embedded within the candidate prospectus you propose? Who who prosecute the lies? Who would prosecute the behaviors done contrary to the promises made in the prospectus? Can't even get Trump to make public his Tax Returns and half the FBI can't publish an investigation on el presidente.

Until governed Americans change the constitution to take the power to appoint the judges (article 3) and the Prosecutors that can prosecute the EZ and the elected from the 450 Article I liars, and the 2 Article BoZoos nothing is going to change.

Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans, ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names.

Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus. just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses.

[Mar 28, 2019] Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury Lolita Express scandal

Notable quotes:
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked. ..."
"... Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance. ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." ..."
"... THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail? ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
"... Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control. ..."
Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Judge Rules Plea Deal For Orgy Island Billionaire Broke Federal Law

youshallnotkill , 1 hour ago link

Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.

While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.

"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the comment curious.

"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.

SOURCE: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20170512/will-president-trump-be-used-as-witness-in-sex-offender-epstein-case

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance.

zeezrom2point0, 2 hours ago link

Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no, that was probably Bill.

TeraByte , 2 hours ago link

Manford´s life time vs a slap on the wrist. I does not matter, what you do, but whom you know.

loop , 2 hours ago link

"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..."

THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... "

WARNING: Graphic Images

DFGTC , 2 hours ago link

Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail?


William Dorritt , 2 hours ago link


Billionaire Palm Beach serial sex offender allowed to serve time in luxurious milieu | Fred Grimm

... ... ...

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-col-fred-grimm-jeffrey-epste ...
2 of 2 2/7/2019, 10:41 AM

4 wheel drift , 3 hours ago link

The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI .

LOLOLOL.... THAT explains a lot...

******* criminals the entire lot of them

Baron Samedi , 3 hours ago link

I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.'

I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition country - ASAP.

Reaper , 3 hours ago link

The DOJ can prosecute now for the conspiracy of prosecutors and Epstein.

https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us

dirty fingernails , 3 hours ago link

Don't hold your breath.

William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/01/1389654/-Dennis-Hastert-as-the-Tip-of-the-Iceberg

[Mar 28, 2019] Neocons have now lowered Trump to the status of rooster one who willingly serves his own rapists

Saker is talking about this episode YouTube. Trump clearly tries to exploit this episode to his advantage...
There is also such thing as Diplomacy... To say "members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)" (as if this is a new) you are clearly positioning herself against the colleagues, not matter who they are. that complicates your position without any return on investment.
Notable quotes:
"... In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Duh?! Is that really news to anybody? Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign. ..."
"... By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ . This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together! ..."
"... But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster": one who willingly serves his own rapists. See for yourself: ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, one of the tricks used by the prison/camp administration to break a prisoner (be he political or not) was to stick him into a cell with the so-called "roosters". In the slang of the Russian criminal underworld, the "roosters" are the very lowest category of prisoners (in what is a rather complex hierarchy): "roosters" are either homosexuals, rapists, child molesters or men who have been down-ranked ("lowered" in slang) to that status as a punishment for some kind of action which the criminals consider reprehensible (like interacting with other "roosters", mistakenly sitting down next to one, not repaying a card-debt, etc.).

I won't go into all the details here, but suffice to say that one thing which was well known in the Soviet jails/camps is that somebody who has committed some kind of trespass can be "lowered" to the status of "rooster" and that the prison/camp administration often uses these man as "combat roosters" – they send them to attack and even rape some prisoner who needs to be broken. And, needless to say, after you have been raped by such "roosters" you yourself get that status for the rest of your life.

What Trump did in the case of Rep. Ilhan Omar is act like a "lowered combat rooster", sent to abuse somebody else on the behalf of the prison/camp administration. Of all people, Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. This is just a verbal whip used by AIPAC/ADL/etc to beat up their opponents. In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Duh?! Is that really news to anybody? Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign.

By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ . This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!

But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster": one who willingly serves his own rapists. See for yourself:

jacques sheete, February 17, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT • 100 Words

@der einzige

Thanks for that! Still the article was excellent just for this alone.:

But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster"

The only beef I have with that statement is that no one did it to him and he obviously volunteered for the job right from the start.

[Mar 28, 2019] Trump Golan Hights gambit: the Western case on South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Karabakh, Transdnestr and, of course, Crimea goes down in flames.

Mar 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

GOLAN HEIGHTS . Bingo! There goes the Western case on South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Karabakh, Transdnestr and, of course, Crimea. (One yuuuge difference being, of course, that in the other cases the locals were consulted.)

But maybe Trump knows that: " Crimea is part of Russia because everyone there speaks Russian "; which, if you've taken the trouble to learn Trumpian, is quite a profound statement.

[Mar 28, 2019] On to Caracas and Tehran! by Pat Buchanan

Notable quotes:
"... While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating table. ..."
"... Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely? ..."
"... What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported by Iran, prevail. ..."
"... Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran." ..."
"... The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran." Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran. ..."
"... Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. ..."
"... We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era. ..."
Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com
Pat Buchanan February 22, 2019

In the Venezuelan crisis, said President Donald Trump in Florida, "All options are on the table." And if Venezuela's generals persist in their refusal to break with Nicolas Maduro, they could "lose everything."

Another example of Yankee bluster and bluff? Or is Trump prepared to use military force to bring down Maduro and install Juan Guaido, the president of the national assembly who has declared himself president of Venezuela? We will get an indication this weekend, as a convoy of food and humanitarian aid tries to force its way into Venezuela from Colombia. Yet, even given the brutality of the regime and the suffering of the people -- 1 in 10 have fled -- it is hard to see Trump sending the Marines to fight the Venezuelan army in Venezuela.

Where would Trump get the authority for such a war? Still, the lead role that Trump has assumed in the crisis raises a question. Does the reflexive interventionism -- America is "the indispensable nation!" -- that propelled us into the forever war of the Middle East, retain its hold on the American mind?

Next week, Trump meets in Hanoi with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating table.

Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely?

Nancy Pelosi's House just voted to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Senate may follow. Yet Trump is prepared to use his first veto to kill that War Powers Resolution and retain the right to help the Saudi war effort.

What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported by Iran, prevail.

Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran."

The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran." Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran.

Early this week came leaks that Trump officials have discovered that Shiite Iran has been secretly collaborating with the Sunni terrorists of al-Qaida. This could, headlined The Washington Times, provide "the legal rationale for U.S. military strikes" on Iran.

At the Munich Security Conference, however, NATO allies Britain, France and Germany recommitted to the Iran nuclear treaty from which Trump withdrew, and to improved economic relations with Tehran.

Trump pledged months ago to bring home the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan. But he is meeting resistance in his own party in Congress and even in his own administration. Reasons: A U.S. pullout from Syria would abandon our Kurdish allies to the Turks, who see them as terrorists, and would force the Kurds to cut a deal with Syria's Bashar Assad and Russia for their security and survival. This week, Britain and France informed us that if we leave Syria, then they leave, too. As for pulling out of Afghanistan, the probable result would be the fall of the Kabul government and return of the Taliban, who hold more territory now than they have since being overthrown 18 years ago. For Afghans who cast their lot with the Americans, it would not go well.

U.S. relations with Russia, which Trump promised to improve, have chilled to Cold War status. The U.S. is pulling out of Ronald Reagan's INF treaty, which bans land-based nuclear missiles of 300 to 3,000 mile range.

Putin has said that any reintroduction of land-based U.S. missiles to Europe would mean a new class of Russian missiles targeted on Europe -- and on the United States.

Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.

We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era.

And the U.S. national debt is now larger than the U.S. economy. This is imperial overstretch. It is unsustainable.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." Copyright 2019 Creators.com.

[Mar 27, 2019] Trump s recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right

Notable quotes:
"... It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government. ..."
"... Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu that the prime minister once slept in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place. ..."
Mar 27, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

No country in the world recognizes Israel's rule over the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981 – no country, that is, until now.

Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation on Monday formally recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, still considered Syrian territory under international law. Standing by President Trump's side during an address by the two heads of state in Washington DC, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly called Trump's decision " historic justice " and gifted the president a box of wine from the occupied territory. As they embraced, Israeli forces began an aerial bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip after rockets launched from Gaza hit a house in a community north of Tel Aviv earlier that day.

Trump's announcement is unmistakably an election-time favor for Netanyahu. Saddled with multiple corruption charges, including one for bribery, Netanyahu and his Likud party have been flagging in the polls. Likud increasingly appears threatened by the center-right Blue and White party, jointly headed by the taciturn retired general Benny Gantz and former TV personality Yair Lapid. Netanyahu's desperation can be measured by the extremity of his rhetoric. He and his surrogates have spent the past several weeks waging a hateful, vicious campaign, accusing the Arab political parties of supporting terrorism and explicitly warning that a Gantz and Lapid victory would lead to dead Israelis.

Many in Israel, however, view Netanyahu, despite his flaws, as a talented statesman and skilled advocate for the country's interests on the international stage, and Netanyahu has campaigned on achievements such as normalizing relations with the Gulf states and the US embassy's move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Golan Heights declaration – which initially took even the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who was in Israel at the time, by surprise – is likely meant to bolster this image.

Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right

But Trump's Golan Heights proclamation is not just a cynical political gambit. It is a dramatic change in US policy in the Middle East that could have serious consequences. Trump, unlike his predecessors, has never even pretended to abide by international norms and conventions. And yet the decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over territory that the international community nearly unanimously considers occupied, or at the very least disputed, is unprecedented.

It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government.

This potentially paves the way for Israel's annexation, in part or whole, of the West Bank. It has long been a talking point on the Israeli hard right that, despite the international community's protestations, there would be few consequences for extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank . Trump's declaration, it seems, has not only proven them right, but given them an added boost: unlike during the Obama years, they can be confident that the global hegemon will take their side.

If Netanyahu's Likud wins enough seats on 9 April to form a government, it is very like that annexation, at the very least, will be on the table for discussion. The Likud's central committee unanimously voted in 2017 in favor of annexing the West Bank. Naftali Bennett, co-chair of the New Right party, has proposed a plan to annex parts of Area C of the West Bank. And the other rightwing parties – the extremist Union of Parties of the Right and Moshe Feiglin's Identity party, both of which would almost certainly sit in a future Likud government – have only more extreme proposals for dealing with "the Palestinian question", including the forced transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank and into Jordan.

Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right. US ambassador to Israel David Friedman is an opponent of the two-state solution who previously operated the charitable arm of a rightwing orthodox religious seminary in the West Bank settlement of Beit El. Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu that the prime minister once slept in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place.

It is important to remember this in light of the glitz and pablum of the AIPAC policy conference taking place this week in Washington DC, where the PR hacks and policy flacks are working hard to launder Israel's image, to obscure the fact that there is one sovereign state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that determines the lives of roughly 13 million people; that of those 13 million, only half – Israeli Jews – have full citizenship and social rights; and that the other half, the Palestinians, live under a range of discriminatory systems, from codified discrimination but legal citizenship within Israel, to residency without the right to vote in East Jerusalem, to military dictatorship in the West Bank. Donald Trump , his administration, the pro-Israel lobby, and Netanyahu all intend to keep it that way.

Joshua Leifer is an associate editor at Dissent. Previously, he worked at +972 Magazine and was based in Jerusalem

[Mar 27, 2019] Saudi Arabia has rejected US President Donald Trump's recognition of Syria's Golan Heights as Israeli territory

Mar 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

arby , Mar 26, 2019 9:55:59 AM | link

AFP news agency
‏Verified account @AFP
2h2 hours ago

#UPDATE Saudi Arabia has rejected US President Donald Trump's recognition of Syria's Golan Heights as Israeli territory, condemning it as a violation of international law http://u.afp.com/JqPV #GolanHeights

karlof1 , Mar 26, 2019 1:02:24 PM | link

Was Reagan the last anti-Zionist POTUS? :

"US President Ronald Reagan on Israel's decision to annex the 🇸🇾 Syrian Golan Heights 🇸🇾 in 1981:

"'We do deplore this unilateral action by Israel, which has increased the difficulty of seeking peace in the Middle East under the terms of the U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338.'"

His attitude made UNSCR 497 possible. Trump's move shows he's anti-Reagan, which is a point his opponents could use if they weren't pro-Zionist like Trump.

[Mar 27, 2019] Alternatives, alternatives...

Mar 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 26, 2019 8:45:54 PM | link

@somebody | Mar 26, 2019 6:51:56 AM | 43
(March of Return protests)

"This type of protest was really hurting Israel internationally."

Thank G-d Bibi has decided that bombing the crap out of Gaza will be better for "Israel's" image than shooting unarmed protesters...?


Don Wiscacho , Mar 26, 2019 12:08:59 PM | link

This rocket attack was a gift to Bibi, not a constraint in any manner. The one thing that could save that pathetic waste of oxygen is another war in Gaza. Taken together with the upcoming election, it's even harder to see how Hamas could possibly benefit from the situation. Therefore my money would be on a splinter group in Gaza aiming to erode popular support for Hamas, or a false flag by Netanyahoo and cohorts.

Israel now has the pretext the media desires to whitewash its crimes and the Israelis will once again be picnicking along the Palestinian border in Gaza cheering the destruction.

I can only agree with Gideon Levy quoted @51 as the explanation for the Israeli madness: they have thoroughly brainwashed themselves. Bibi isn't the cause for the racism, he is a symptom. There will be no one stepping forward from that populace who would even poke at the status quo. Change will only be imposed from the outside. Much like in the US where the 'progressives' (maximum snark) have deluded themselves into thinking Trump is the problem. Trump is the symptom, not the cause. We ourselves, both the left and the right, are the problem.

karlof1 , Mar 25, 2019 4:24:24 PM | link
The recent missile attack was denied by Hamas and claimed by what was a new unknown group whose name I can't recall. Interesting that in the very limiting confines of Gaza there could arise a group armed with missiles unknown to Hamas. That led me to think in terms of Zionist provocation to help criminal Bibi.

Nutty clearly reached a dead-end policy-wise long ago and has done nothing to solve Palestine's fundamental problem of the presence of so many Zionists. Trump hasn't helped Zionistan with his illegal declaration of Golan belonging to it as it only ensures Syria will eventually regain it in what will be a ruinous war.

Nobody has mentioned the presence of an enlightened Zionist leader (is there such a thing?) amongst the candidates. But if there is one, s/he needs to be elected as at some future point Israel will be replaced by Palestine.

John Smith , Mar 26, 2019 12:25:05 AM | link
Bibi's false flag "Hamas rocket attack": Kevin Barrett vs. Maxine Dovere

Was this the most obvious false flag PR stunt in history?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4OwptFVx8

John Smith , Mar 26, 2019 12:39:40 AM | link
Department of State :

"Israel should be admired, not attacked. Embraced, not vilified. Emulated, not ostracized." -- @SecPompeo #AIPAC2019
Julian , Mar 26, 2019 3:42:38 AM | link
April-May-June sure looking like some very interesting months geopolitically.

Israel/Gaza
Ukraine
Brexit/UK - bye-bye May?
EU Elections - bye-bye Merkel?
Indonesia Elections
India Elections
South Africa Elections
Australia Elections
That's 25% of the G20 right there potentially changing leaders.

Topped off by a G20 Summit in Japan in June!

Some more interesting than others obviously.

pantaraxia , Mar 26, 2019 8:53:25 AM | link
"But whoever wins the election will have an interest in a fundamental change of the situation. A new leader in Tel Aviv might have ideas on how to do that."


Gideon Levy, in a recent article in Haaretz, dispels any notion that fundamental change is even possible in Israel.

Levy: Netanyahu Isn't the Problem. The Israeli People Are
https://israelpalestinenews.org/levy-netanyahu-isnt-the-problem-the-israeli-people-are/

from the article:

"Simply put, the people are the problem. Netanyahu has voters. There are those who vote for his kind. There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look down their noses at the whole world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who believe they are the chosen people and therefore deserve everything.

There are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to do anything. There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do.

There are those who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims – and that the whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel is allowed to do anything, simply because it can.

There are those who believe in the sword alone. There are those who champion aggression, in the territories and on the roads, and who don't know any other language. There are unprecedented levels of ignorance.
There's brainwashing to an extent unknown in a democracy. Is Netanyahu responsible for all of this? Come on.

The problem is the atmosphere, the spirit of the times, the values and outlooks that have become ingrained here during decades of Zionism.

...The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won't even be dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister's racism....That there is no ideological alternative has nothing to do with Netanyahu."


One can only imagine the reaction stateside if this article appeared in a major American publication. Politicians would be falling over themselves in a frenzy of outrage and the jewish lobbies would be pounding the drumbeats of 'anti-semite'.

Chevrus , Mar 26, 2019 1:56:02 PM | link
As per the above assessment, the 'single missile at long range near a fine hospital, with seven "wounded" and none killed' seems like the most likely scenario.
So what would this accomplish? Well most people here have been saying that Benny will most likely pull some sort of military escalation in the face of being tried for various things and being called 'soft' on Palestinian "terrorists". In his position how can he not? With the official nod from The Orange One re: the annexation of the Golan to ratchet up the tension, maybe even some further escalation? A recently installed USAn base and a few pledge of allegiance papers signed might be a good trip-wire in case thins heat up... As we have seen seemingly disparate events are often planned to coincide at pivotal times. What might be some others that are ready to be sprung? Is the Donbass line ready to burst as the temps warm? Are there a few B-52s lumbering around the airspace? Maybe the regime change dream-team is brewing up something nasty and new in Venezuela having exhausted the rather dated playbook? Perhaps when the Brexit fiasco begins to boil over, there will be a chaotic chorus of events unleashed to thrill us all...!!!
karlof1 , Mar 26, 2019 1:56:24 PM | link
Walid makes observation; asks vital question :

"Trump & his crew have made a mockery of both #AmericaFirst & #MAGA concepts by putting the interests of a foreign country before those of the US. I just cant understand how Americans put up w/ this shit. Zionists & Evangelicals support it but why do the rest stay silent?"

My simple answer: Small minds dominated by BigLie Media.

[Mar 26, 2019] Jared Kushner accused of using WhatsApp and personal email for state business by Bob Fredericks

Highly recommended!
Is he really that stupid? After Hillary Clinton email scandal ? Amazing ! Those people really feel that they are above the law.
Notable quotes:
"... But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote. ..."
"... Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | nypost.com
President Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business, a top House Democrat charged Thursday.

The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which released the information in a letter Thursday.

Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to White House counsel Pat Cipollone to tell him that Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had confirmed during the meeting that Kushner "continues to use" WhatsApp to conduct White House business.

But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote.

Kushner, whom the president put in charge of finding peace in the Middle East, regularly communicates with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman via WhatsApp, Politico reported.

It was unclear whether Kushner continued to use WhatsApp after the December meeting.

Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account.

"These communications raise questions about whether these officials complied with the Presidential Records Act and whether the White House identified this personal email use during its internal review and took steps to address it," Cummings wrote.

[Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political hit job by Bob Fredericks

Highly recommended!
This is one of the best summaries of Chris christi book. Bravo !
It is important to understand that Flynn approached Russian at Kusher request with the goal to derail anti-Isreali resoluition in the US.
So if Jared then initiated firing of Flynn then Jared is a really dangerous ruthless shark.
Notable quotes:
"... When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book. ..."
"... Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes. ..."
"... Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes. ..."
Jan 15, 2019 | nypost.com

Chris Christie, in his new tell-all about working on Donald Trump's campaign, paints a scathing portrait of first son-in-law Jared Kushner -- depicting him as a vengeful, underhanded dullard ill equipped to work in the White House.

In " Let Me Finish ," the former New Jersey governor accuses Kushner of orchestrating a "hit job" on him in revenge for Christie's prosecution of Jared's dad, Charles Kushner, which resulted in him doing time in a federal pen.

"Steve Bannon made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now attempting to carry out. Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago," Christie writes in the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian.

In other revelations:

Christie mocked the former Army general as "a train wreck from beginning to end a slow-motion car crash."

But most of his venom is directed at Kushner, who talked Trump out of naming Christie the head of his transition team, a position that ultimately went to Vice President Mike Pence.

When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book.

Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 charges and served 14 months in a federal pen in Alabama. He also hired a hooker to seduce his brother-in-law, recorded them doing the deed and sent a tape of the encounter to his sister -- an effort to force his brother-in-law's silence about Kushner's crimes.

Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes.

Kushner insisted the sex tape and blackmailing were a family matter and that his father should not have been prosecuted for it. "This was a family matter, a matter to be handled by the family or by the rabbis," Christie writes.

Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes.

Christie also claims that the Trump White House -- which other exposes have portrayed as beset by chaos and scandal -- would be running like a Swiss watch if he had been in charge of the transition. Pence's transition team had a "thrown-together approach" that resulted in bad hires for top posts "over and over again." Unlike other tomes by former White House staffers and journalists, Christie takes it easy on the president, admitting only that he often speaks off the cuff, creating needless controversy.

The book is slated for publication on Jan. 29 .

[Mar 26, 2019] Donald Trump Recognizing Israel's Sovereignty Over the Golan Heights Is Both Controversial and a Big Favor to Netanyahu by Nicole Goodkind

Sheldon Adelson money at work...
Notable quotes:
"... The president's tweet does not signal any definitive action or official state recognition, but it does do much to boost Netanyahu's profile with possible voters. ..."
Mar 26, 2019 | www.newsweek.com
President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Thursday that he would recognize and support Israel's control over the disputed Golan Heights territory on the border of Syria.

The decision immediately followed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday, nearly a year after Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the sole capital of Israel and announced that he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv.

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" Trump tweeted early Thursday afternoon.

Smoke from explosions rises during fighting in the village of Jubata Al Khashab, held by Syrian rebel groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, as seen from the Israeli side of the border fence between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, on September 11, 2016. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Netanyahu, a conservative leader who is currently facing the threat of indictment for bribery and three counts of breach of trust, has a tough election coming up in early April. The president's announcement, followed by a planned trip to the White House, will surely bolster the Israeli leader's chances of retaining his seat.

In fact, in 2015, President Barack Obama refused to meet with Netanyahu close to his election date, saying, "He needs to be far away enough from the election that it doesn't look like in some ways we're meddling or putting our thumbs on the scale."

But President Trump has signaled that he doesn't mind putting his thumb on the scale for his political ally, even when it involves the controversial and much-disputed Golan Heights territory.

"At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights," Netanyahu tweeted on Thursday. "Thank you President Trump!"

The Golan Heights, a strategically situated 400-plus square mile area that overlooks Damascus, was first captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Arab war. In 1973, Syria attempted to take the land back during the Yom Kippur War and during a surprise attack, Egyptian and Syrian troops managed to kill 2,688 Israeli soldiers. Israel, however, prevailed and retained control. They annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, but the move was never officially recognized by the international community, including the United States. Syria and Israel are still technically in a state of war over the land, but the area is now a demilitarized zone occupied by U.N. observers.

The Golan Heights are an atypically fertile land in the desert that holds key water sources: About one-third of Israel's water supply currently comes from Golan. The territory also provides Israel with a high vantage point to monitor the Syrian military and ward off attacks.

There are currently about 30 Israeli settlements on the land, which are home to 20,000 citizens. Experts estimate that there are likely about 20,000 Syrians living in Golan, as well. They are mostly part of the Druze sect. The Druze, however, are typically at odds with the Syrian government.

There are also military concerns about Trump's move. Israel is currently in the middle of a precarious situation with its neighbors: It has been striking Iranian targets in Syria and this latest development, created by the Trump, could provoke Syria, Russia and Iran to further isolate and perhaps attack Israel, complicating matters immensely.

The situation also hurts America's standing on Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. "It makes it quite hard for the US to continue to contest Russia's annexation of Crimea under the principle that taking territory by force is illegal," wrote Ilan Goldenberg, Middle East security director at the Center for a New American Security, on Twitter. "We now have no leg to stand on and the Russians will use it."

The president's tweet does not signal any definitive action or official state recognition, but it does do much to boost Netanyahu's profile with possible voters. Related Stories

[Mar 26, 2019] I am impressed by the sheer silliness of Russiagate and the tenacious ignorance of those who still believe the corporate media.

Mar 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

WorkingClass , says: March 27, 2019 at 12:13 am GMT

Russiagate is a story about greed and lust for power manifesting as treachery and corruption. As a hoax it is notable for it's size and duration and damage done. But it is nothing at all compared to 9/11. I am impressed by the sheer silliness of Russiagate and the tenacious ignorance of those who still believe the corporate media.

But lessons for the left? None that I can see.

[Mar 26, 2019] Trump ordered John Kelly to give Jared Kushner a security clearance

Feb 28, 2019 | nypost.com

President Trump reportedly ordered former Chief of Staff John Kelly to give son-in-law Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance, even though the decision was not supported by the intelligence community.

Trump directed Kelly to give his senior adviser the security clearance early last year after both Kushner and wife, Ivanka Trump, told the president to intervene in the process, according to The Washington Post .

Kelly was apparently so concerned about the move, he documented Trump's request in a memo, the paper said. Kushner finally received the clearance in May.

Both Ivanka and the president have said in the past that they did not interfere in the security-clearance process.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Thursday that his committee is already probing the process and is awaiting documents they had requested from the White House.

A spokesman for Kushner's lawyer told the paper that in 2018, "White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner's security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone."

[Mar 26, 2019] Jared Kushner accused of using WhatsApp and personal email for state business by Bob Fredericks

Highly recommended!
Is he really that stupid? After Hillary Clinton email scandal ? Amazing ! Those people really feel that they are above the law.
Notable quotes:
"... But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote. ..."
"... Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | nypost.com
President Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business, a top House Democrat charged Thursday.

The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which released the information in a letter Thursday.

Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to White House counsel Pat Cipollone to tell him that Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had confirmed during the meeting that Kushner "continues to use" WhatsApp to conduct White House business.

But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote.

Kushner, whom the president put in charge of finding peace in the Middle East, regularly communicates with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman via WhatsApp, Politico reported.

It was unclear whether Kushner continued to use WhatsApp after the December meeting.

Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account.

"These communications raise questions about whether these officials complied with the Presidential Records Act and whether the White House identified this personal email use during its internal review and took steps to address it," Cummings wrote.

[Mar 26, 2019] Jessica Finn For Dailymail.com

Mar 26, 2019 | dailymail.co.uk

Published: 13:05 EDT, 7 August 2018 | Updated: 19:20 EDT, 7 August 2018

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Before Jared Kushner became a senior White House adviser, he was at the helm of the New York Observer - where he would personally order the removal of content that was critical of his associates.

According to a report by Buzzfeed , the president's son-in-law ordered a software developer at his newspaper to kill a handful of stories that were unfavorable to his cronies.

One of the stories that he had removed from online was a seemingly benign story from 2012 about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver purchasing a $6.75million apartment, however personal real estate purchases are something privacy-conscious famous New Yorkers typically like to keep out of the press.

The NBA commissioner has since publicly praised his friend, Kushner, for helping the NBA find space for a retail store.

Kushner also had a legal story about a 2010 settlement between a then-New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo and real estate firm Vantage Properties wiped from the Observer site.

That suit alleged Vantage illegally forced tenants out of their apartments to raise rents.

'Nothing Sacred But the Truth': Before Jared Kushner went to work for the Trump administration he was at the helm of the New York Observer after purchasing the publication in 2006 for $10million. According to a report, Kushner used his power to have stories that were critical of his rich friends wiped from the site +5

'Nothing Sacred But the Truth': Before Jared Kushner went to work for the Trump administration he was at the helm of the New York Observer after purchasing the publication in 2006 for $10million. According to a report, Kushner used his power to have stories that were critical of his rich friends wiped from the site Jared Kushner used his position as owner of the New York Observer to wipe stories from the site that his upper-echelon associates would not want out. One of the vanished pieces was about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's (pictured) purchasing a $6.7million apartment +5

Jared Kushner used his position as owner of the New York Observer to wipe stories from the site that his upper-echelon associates would not want out. One of the vanished pieces was about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's (pictured) purchasing a $6.7million apartment

Additionally Kushner ordered another 2010 article deleted about Vantage's top executive Neil Rubler removed that apparently had him on a '10 worst landlords' list.

The Observer's articles often took aim at the city's upper-echelon but it faltered under Kushner's leadership.

He stepped down from the helm of the publication to join the Trump administration. The ownership of the Observer is currently in a family trust, with the Observer Media Group saying he does not currently have a hand in editorial matters.

Austin Smith, the software employee who handled the eye-raising requests for content to be deleted, told Buzzfeed: 'That Kushner, a newspaper owner of all people, would participate in an administration that labels news media the enemy of the people, is an affront to the very notion of the freedom of the press and an utter betrayal of those who worked hard and in good faith for him at the Observer,'

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Meanwhile Elizabeth Spiers who was the Editor-in-Chief at the time Kushner was purging articles he found unfavorable, said she was not aware that he was doing so, and that he purposely went behind her back to get the underhanded job done.

'If I had known about it, Jared and I would have had a big problem,' she said.

'Jared's such a coward. Went directly to Austin because he knew I wouldn't do it.' Spiers said adding that that Smith didn't have any choice in the matter but to delete the stories since he was not an editorial employee.

Spiers took to Twitter Monday night with some choice words for Kushner.

'I found out a few months ago that while I was the editor in chief of the Observer, Jared was instructing our third party tech provider to delete articles critical of his business associates w/out my knowledge. I don't have enough choice expletives describe my feelings about that,' she tweeted in response to the report published by Buzzfeed.

Elizabeth Spiers pictured with Kushner at an Observer event in 2011 had choice words for the president's son-in-law's under-handed deletion of articles to the favor of his wealthy friends +5

Elizabeth Spiers pictured with Kushner at an Observer event in 2011 had choice words for the president's son-in-law's under-handed deletion of articles to the favor of his wealthy friends +5

+5

... Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump made $83 million in 2017 Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:00 Previous Play Skip LIVE Mute 00:00 Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 0:55 Fullscreen Need Text Video Quality Minimize Expand Close

'But if you want to be the worst possible owner of a news operation, vindictively and unethically erasing the work of your own your own (severely underpaid, hardworking) journalists solely to lubricate the volume and frequency of your cocktail party invites is a good way to do it,' Spiers added.

Kushner's under-the-table favors via his news publication did not end when Spiers was out.

Instead, he continued wiping the pages clean for his friends in high places under Aaron Gell as well.

Gell, Spiers' deputy editor and successor, said he also was unaware that Kushner was deleting the work of his editorial staff as favors to his friends, as the president's son-in-law was still using the tech team to remove the articles.

'When Jared announced I was out, he told me, ''I just needed someone I could trust,'' Gell said to BuzzFeed News.

'The more I learn about how he wanted to run the paper, the more I've been able to take that as a compliment.'

Kushner purchased the New York Observer in 2006 for $10million, with money he made from real-estate investments. The money for those property investments was gifted to him by his family. Advertisement Read more:

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[Mar 26, 2019] Kushner family s Observer fires editor-in-chief -- again by Keith J. Kelly

Kushner clan is really can with tarantuls...
Jan 06, 2019 | nypost.com

Observer Media has once again bounced its editor-in-chief -- the latest sign of turmoil at the New York publication with ties to Jared Kushner, the real estate scion and senior adviser to President Trump.

Ben Robinson , a former chief creative officer of Thrillist, was out on Friday after only 10 months as the editor-in-chief. Observer president James Karklins said the EIC job is not being replaced and that instead there would be "continued executive direction."

Also gone in the Friday shakeup is deputy editor Adam Laukhuf.

The top edit job now falls to social media editor Mary von Aue, according to changes posted on the Observer website, which listed her as editorial director.

Kushner, married to Ivanka Trump, said he was stepping away from involvement with the publication he bought in 2005 shortly after becoming an unpaid senior adviser to President Trump in early 2017. At that time, he handed the Observer to a family trust and appointed his brother-in-law Joseph Meyer as CEO.

Karklins did not mention the new role for von Aue in his statement to The Post.

"Ben Robinson is no longer with the organization and has stepped down as Editor-in-chief of Observer," he said. "At this time the Observer is not replacing the Editor-in-chief position and will continue to execute our content strategy with our current editorial team in place and continued executive direction."

Said one former staffer, "Working at the Observer, you get used to unpleasant surprises. And every setback -- especially the latest one, which I fear may signal the death of the Observer -- is entirely the fault of upper management."

Observer names former Thrillist executive to top editor job The Observer Media Group finally tapped a new editor-in-chief, naming...

The ex-staffer said that Robinson had hoped to rekindle some of the Observer's past glory when he joined on Feb. 14, 2018. He had staffers read "The Kingdom of New York," a collection of classic Observer stories.

"Upper management treated Ben horribly and they should be ashamed of themselves though I know they're not," the ex-staffer added.

The publication, once a salmon-colored print weekly, in its glory days had been a must-read for the media and political chattering classes following its founding by Arthur Carter. Graydon Carter had once been its editor-in-chief before landing at Vanity Fair. Under EIC Peter Kaplan, its "Sex and the City" column by Candice Bushnell inspired the hit TV show that starred Sarah Jessica Parker.

The publication dropped New York from its title and abandoned its print edition in early 2017 in favor of chasing a national digital audience.

Kushner reportedly paid $10 million to acquire the money-losing publication from Arthur Carter in 2005.

Since then, there has been a parade of top editors. Ken Kurson, a public relations executive and a Kushner pal, left in early 2017 , shortly after the decision was made to abandon print. He was later accused of sexual harassment by a writer. He denied the charges and is currently working in public relations again.

Said former executive editor Merin Curotto, "More than anything, I think it's really sad. When our last EIC Ken Kurson resigned, the editorial team -- one that for nearly two years had weathered the Trump-Kushner turmoil -- was left essentially lost at sea. It took nine months not only to find Ben Robinson, but to convince him the Observer really was an environment ripe for change."

Robinson could not be reached at press time.

[Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie rips Kushner s dad One of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted - The Washington Post

Notable quotes:
"... "Mr. Kushner pled guilty, he admitted the crimes. So what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor?" Christie asked. "If a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister in an attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?" ..."
"... Christie now writes that Jared Kushner retaliated after the 2016 election by having Stephen K. Bannon, then an executive for Trump's campaign, fire him. The White House and a spokesperson for Jared Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ..."
"... Jared is ethically deficient if he thinks his father's behavior was acceptable. ..."
"... Two crime families: a marriage made in "heaven".! ..."
Mar 26, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com

Chris Christie rips Kushner's dad: 'One of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted' - The Washington Post

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie took several shots at White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in his new book " Let Me Finish ," alleging that in an act of spite, Donald Trump's son-in-law coordinated his removal from the president's transition team shortly after the 2016 election.

He claims Kushner was still "seething" from events that took place more than a decade prior -- when Christie, as a U.S. attorney, prosecuted Kushner's father, Charles, for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions, sending the elder Kushner to prison for 14 months.

The former governor did not mince words while discussing the case Tuesday:

"Mr. Kushner pled guilty, he admitted the crimes. So what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor?" Christie asked. "If a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister in an attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?"

He added, "It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney," Christie said during a segment with PBS's "Firing Line With Margaret Hoover." "And I was a U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Margaret -- so we had some loathsome and disgusting crime going on there!"

"It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted...and I was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey." @ChrisChristie talks about prosecuting Charles Kushner for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering. #FiringLineShowPBS pic.twitter.com/rBNn0j0bCY

-- Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) January 29, 2019

Charles Kushner, a wealthy and well-connected real estate developer, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of filing false tax returns, retaliating against witnesses and making illegal campaign contributions. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison and served 14.

Christie at the time wrote in a news release that Kushner's guilty plea was a "great victory for the people of New Jersey."

"No matter how rich and powerful any person may be, they will be held accountable for criminal conduct by this office," he wrote.

Christie now writes that Jared Kushner retaliated after the 2016 election by having Stephen K. Bannon, then an executive for Trump's campaign, fire him. The White House and a spokesperson for Jared Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that occurred a decade ago, was exacting a plot of revenge against me, a hit job that made no sense at all for the man we had just helped elect," Christie wrote in "Let Me Finish." "And Steve Bannon, hot-shot, big-balls campaign executive, was quietly acquiescing to it."

He continued, "What wimps, what cowards. And how disloyal to Donald Trump."

MollyNYC, 1 month ago (Edited)

So Charles Kushner (by way of suborning a witness) hires a hooker to destroy his own sister's marriage, humiliate her, and cause what was probably profound emotional harm.

His own sister.

What does it say about Jared Kushner that after all those years, he still couldn't wrap his head around the idea that his father -- not the federal attorney -- was the bad guy in this story?

Marilynn Gray-Raine, 1 month ago (Edited)
A SNAKE PIT, People !!! What slimy vipers, every one of them! Rotten, deeply flawed creatures in human guise! Mobsters! Soul-less ignoranus's*. Beyond contempt. White collar crime "punishment" should be much harsher. 14 months in jail?! Really?

The cancerous crimes these capitalist thugs commit against weaker individuals and the planet at large are IMMENSE , and the punishment should fit the crime! I say they should all be sardined in a sewer cell with Bernie Madoff forever !

*"ignoranus" someone who is both ignorant and an a**hole !

Wolfie Smith, 1 month ago (Edited)

tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions ... WTF!!!

Am I alone in seeing patterns in this White House, only the best people can attend the court of King Donald.

Aumale, 1 month ago

More proof that Trump and his ilk operate like mobsters.

UrbanLover, 1 month ago

Jared is ethically deficient if he thinks his father's behavior was acceptable.

A_Cappella, 1 month ago

Two crime families: a marriage made in "heaven".!

[Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political hit job by Bob Fredericks

Highly recommended!
This is one of the best summaries of Chris christi book. Bravo !
It is important to understand that Flynn approached Russian at Kusher request with the goal to derail anti-Isreali resoluition in the US.
So if Jared then initiated firing of Flynn then Jared is a really dangerous ruthless shark.
Notable quotes:
"... When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book. ..."
"... Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes. ..."
"... Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes. ..."
Jan 15, 2019 | nypost.com

Chris Christie, in his new tell-all about working on Donald Trump's campaign, paints a scathing portrait of first son-in-law Jared Kushner -- depicting him as a vengeful, underhanded dullard ill equipped to work in the White House.

In " Let Me Finish ," the former New Jersey governor accuses Kushner of orchestrating a "hit job" on him in revenge for Christie's prosecution of Jared's dad, Charles Kushner, which resulted in him doing time in a federal pen.

"Steve Bannon made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now attempting to carry out. Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago," Christie writes in the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian.

In other revelations:

Christie mocked the former Army general as "a train wreck from beginning to end a slow-motion car crash."

But most of his venom is directed at Kushner, who talked Trump out of naming Christie the head of his transition team, a position that ultimately went to Vice President Mike Pence.

When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book.

Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 charges and served 14 months in a federal pen in Alabama. He also hired a hooker to seduce his brother-in-law, recorded them doing the deed and sent a tape of the encounter to his sister -- an effort to force his brother-in-law's silence about Kushner's crimes.

Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes.

Kushner insisted the sex tape and blackmailing were a family matter and that his father should not have been prosecuted for it. "This was a family matter, a matter to be handled by the family or by the rabbis," Christie writes.

Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes.

Christie also claims that the Trump White House -- which other exposes have portrayed as beset by chaos and scandal -- would be running like a Swiss watch if he had been in charge of the transition. Pence's transition team had a "thrown-together approach" that resulted in bad hires for top posts "over and over again." Unlike other tomes by former White House staffers and journalists, Christie takes it easy on the president, admitting only that he often speaks off the cuff, creating needless controversy.

The book is slated for publication on Jan. 29 .

[Mar 26, 2019] How did 'less than stellar' high school student Jared Kushner get into Harvard- - Daniel Golden - Opinion - The Guardian

Mar 26, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

I would like to express my gratitude to Jared Kushner for reviving interest in my 2006 book, The Price of Admission . I have never met or spoken with him, and it's rare in this life to find such a selfless benefactor. Of course, I doubt he became Donald Trump's son-in-law and consigliere merely to boost my lagging sales, but still, I'm thankful.

My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their underachieving children's way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5m to Harvard University not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school, which at the time accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of 20.)

I also quoted administrators at Jared's high school, who described him as a less-than-stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard's decision.

"There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,'' a former official at the Frisch school in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. "His GPA [grade point average] did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought, for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.''

Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, said in an email on Thursday that "the allegation'' that Charles Kushner's gift to Harvard was related to Jared's admission "is and always has been false". His parents, Charles and Seryl Kushner, "are enormously generous and have donated over $100m to universities, hospitals and other charitable causes. Jared Kushner was an excellent student in high school and graduated from Harvard with honours.'' (About 90% of Jared's 2003 class at Harvard also graduated with honours.)

My Kushner discoveries were an offshoot of my research for a chapter on Harvard donors. Somebody had slipped me a document I had long coveted: the membership list of Harvard's Committee on University Resources. The university wooed more than 400 of its biggest givers and most promising prospects by putting them on this committee and inviting them to campus periodically to be wined, dined and subjected to lectures by eminent professors.

My idea was to figure out how many children of these corporate titans, oil barons, money managers, lawyers, high-tech consultants and old-money heirs had gone to Harvard. A disproportionate tally might suggest that the university eased its standards for the offspring of wealthy backers.

I began working through the list, poring over Who's Who in America and Harvard class reunion reports for family information. Charles and Seryl Kushner were both on the committee. I had never heard of them, but their joint presence struck me as a sign that Harvard's fundraising machine held the couple in especially fond regard.

The clips showed that Charles Kushner's empire encompassed 25,000 New Jersey apartments, along with extensive office, industrial and retail space and undeveloped land. Unlike most of his fellow committee members, though, Kushner was not a Harvard man. He had graduated from New York University. This eliminated the sentimental tug of the alma mater as a reason for him to give to Harvard, leaving another likely explanation: his children.

Sure enough, his sons Jared and Joshua had both enrolled there.

Charles Kushner differed from his peers on the committee in another way: he had a criminal record. Five years after Jared entered Harvard, the elder Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax violations, illegal campaign donations and retaliating against a witness. (As it happens, the prosecutor in the case was Chris Christie, recently ousted as the head of Trump's transition team.) Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law , who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a videotape of the tryst sent to his sister. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

I completed my analysis, which justified my hunch. Of the 400-plus tycoons on Harvard's list – which included people who were childless or too young to have college-age offspring – more than half had sent at least one child to the university.

I also decided that the Kushner-Harvard relationship deserved special attention. Although the university often heralded big gifts in press releases or a bulletin called, in a classic example of fundraising wit, Re:sources, a search of these outlets came up empty. Harvard didn't seem eager to be publicly associated with Charles Kushner.

While looking into Kushner's taxes, though, federal authorities had subpoenaed records of his charitable giving. I learned that in 1998, when Jared was attending the Frisch school and starting to look at colleges, his father had pledged $2.5m to Harvard, to be paid in annual instalments of $250,000. Charles Kushner also visited Neil Rudenstine, then Harvard president, and discussed funding a scholarship programme for low- and middle-income students.

I phoned a Harvard official, with whom I was on friendly terms. First I asked whether the gift played any role in Jared's admission. "You know we don't comment on individual applicants,'' he said. When I pressed further, he hung up. We haven't spoken since.

At Harvard, Jared Kushner majored in government. Now the 35-year-old is poised to become the power behind the presidency. What he plans to do, and in what direction he and his father-in-law will lead the country, are far more important than his high school grades.

[Mar 26, 2019] Netanyahu is not the Disease, he is a Symptom, by Gilad Atzmon

Mar 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

March 25, 2019

In a recent thought-provoking article Gideon Levy, probably one of the last genuine Israeli voices for peace, claims that "It is not Netanyahu who is responsible for Israeli 'racism, extreme nationalism, divisiveness, incitement, hatred, anxiety and corruption.'" Behind Netanyahu, Levy says, there's a nation of voters and other elected officials that aren't very different from their leader.

"Simply put, the people are the problem There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look down their noses at the whole world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who believe they are the chosen people and therefore deserve everything."

Levy reaffirms the observation that I have been pushing for two decades. The problem with Israel is not of a political kind . The conflict with the Palestinians or the Arabs is not of a political nature as some delusional characters within the Palestinian solidarity movement have been proclaiming for years. Israel defines itself as the Jewish state. In order to grasp Israel, its politics, its policies and the intrusive nature of its lobby, we must understand the nature of Jewishness. We must learn to define the differences between Jews (the people), Judaism (the religion) and Jewishness (the ideology). We have to understand how those terms are related to each other and how they influence Israeli and Jewish politics globally.

Levy writes that "there are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to do anything. There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do. There are those who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims – and that the whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel is allowed to do anything, simply because it can."

In order to understand what Levy is referring to we must dig into the core of Jewish identification and once and for all grasp the notion of Jewish choseness. Levy contends that "racism and xenophobia are deeply entrenched here, far more deeply than any Netanyahu The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won't even be dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister's racism." Netanyahu as such, is not the disease. He is a mere symptom.

ORDER IT NOW

The devastating news is that neither the Israeli 'Left' nor the Jewish so-called 'anti' Zionist league are any less racist than their Zionist foes. The Israeli Left pushes for a 'two state solution.' It crudely ignores the Palestinian cause i.e. the Right of Return. The Israeli Left advocates segregation and ghettoization; not exactly the universal message of harmony one would expect from 'leftists.' Disturbingly, the Diaspora Jewish 'anti' Zionist Left is even more racially exclusive than the Israeli Right. As I have explored many times in the past, Corbyn's 'favourite Jewish political group namely, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) is a racially exclusive political cell. It wouldn't allow gentiles into its Jews-only club. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is no better. It will happily take donations from Goyim but will never allow those Goyim to become its board members.

Levy proclaims that "Netanyahu is the best thing to ever happen to Israeli politics – you can dump everything on him." But in his most astute observation, which has been explored before by Uri Avnery (may he rest in peace) and yours truly, Levy continues, "It would be great if some local Nelson Mandela would arise, a brave leader with vision who would change the country's basic values and lead a revolution. But no such person has been born here, and it's doubtful he ever will be."

Levy points at the core of the Zionist failure. If early Zionism was a promise to civilise the diaspora Jew by means of 'homecoming,' Israel happened to do the complete opposite. Not much is left out of the Zionist promise to make the Jews 'people like all other people': as Israel is about to perpetrate another colossal war crime in Gaza, we have to admit that we are dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.


Bloody Bill , says: March 25, 2019 at 10:30 pm GMT

Another good one Atzmon. I thinks it's hard for people to grasp outside of Israel the connection you speak of between the religion, the people, and the ideology. Its underreported for obvious reasons in the media, plus the control the Israel lobby and its donors the Adelsons, Sabans, and Singers have in the US on what people hear about Israel and its citizens. All you hear is it's a democracy among hostile states that hate it because of freedom or democracy or whatever propaganda speak the mouth peace for Israel/Zionism media uses. You never hear about Israel's and its citizens actions that cause it just the eternal victim status they have been awarded.
A123 , says: March 25, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMT
Violent Islam is the Disease, Resistance Leaders are the Symptom

The author makes a good point. Netanyahu is not unique:
– Modi resists violent Islam in Kashmir.
– Jinping resists violent Islam in Xinjiang.
– Orban resists violent Islam in Hungary.
– Trump resists violent Islam in the U.S.
– Netanyhau resists violent Islam in Israel.
And, there are more cases not in the list above

Islam views all non-Muslims as infidels. Violent Islam wages Jihad until the infidels are killed, converted, or willingly submit as Dhimmi slaves. Until Islam changes, Resistance leaders will continue to protect their people. Perhaps the collapse of the Iranian government and its funding of terrorism will open the door to that change.
______

Israel started as a far left venture where the people lived in true communist shared estates know as Kibbutz. Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive.

The upcoming election makes no difference in Israeli survival strategy. Netanyahu's only serious competitor, Benny Gantz, openly states he will fight Iran's violent Islamic expansion in Lebanon & Syria (Iranian Hezbollah) and in Gaza (Iranian Hamas).

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260896

https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-vows-to-resume-targeted-killings-of-hamas-leaders-if-necessary/

Haxo Angmark , says: Website March 26, 2019 at 12:11 am GMT
Zionist racial nationalist occupation of Palestine

would be just fine if

it weren't based on ZOG in America.

that's the core problem. The Chosen are in fact

parasites

who cannot live without a Host that

they insist on destroying.

Saggy , says: Website March 26, 2019 at 12:19 am GMT

we have to admit that we are dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.

Stay tuned next week when Atzmon will address another raging controversy, and he courageously concludes that we have to admit that water is wet.

Reg Cæsar , says: March 26, 2019 at 1:24 am GMT

There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu.

Yes, from the Zagros Mountains to the ports of old Phoenecia to the Atlantic Ocean. Those who they've conquered.

ariadna , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:08 am GMT
First:
Yes, do let's differentiate between Jews, judaism and jewishness (lest anyone be accused of criticizing "Jews the people," which is something only an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew might do, isn't it?).

The Jews are the people, judaism is their deeply inculcated worldview and ethos, and jewishness is their inherently logical behavior.

Or the Jews are the computer, judaism is its operating system and jewishness its applications.

Or the Jews are the rice, while judaism and jewishness are the white on rice.

Second:
The zionism did NOT fail to deliver its promise to make the Jews "people like other people." It is Atzmon who fails to understand that the Jews' definition of "people" ("nations") is based on the very Jewish worldview of the model: irrationally hateful, brutal, greedy, covetous, and ruthless "winners." I would say zionism succeeded remarkably well, but it had eager students to start with.

mark green , says: March 26, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT
@ariadna Ha! Very well said.

Mr. Atzmon has painted himself in a corner on this otherwise tough editorial. But let's give him some credit. Gilad's taken a hell of a lotta heat for his rough and penetrating criticisms of the Zionist colony and its endless deceptions. And he (generally) pulls no punches.

But when all is said and done, and all the hairs are split, and all the (overdue) debates are finally finished (and we can somehow separate the 'racist' Jews from the good, 'humanitarian' Jews) we are nevertheless left with a core Jewish identity that puts God's Chosen People forever and eternally above the rest of humanity. God says so!

Basically, the problem is that Jewishness and 'Jewish supremacism' are pretty much one and the same.

Anonymous [675] Disclaimer , says: March 26, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT
@Haxo Angmark

The Chosen are in fact parasites who cannot live without a Host that they insist on destroying.

Bingo. Crazy, isn't it?

animalogic , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:13 am GMT
@A123 "Israel started as a far left venture Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive."
I wonder why the Palestinians employ violence ? Of course, the State of Israel was born out of terrorism (King David hotel, multiple assassinations etc) & ethnic cleansing (ie Nakba ). And yes, the Palestinians were also violent.
As for Israel's "survival" -- that's been a none issue since the late 70's, at a minimum. Israel with its 100's of nuclear weapons & it's US body guard has NO survival issues. It's all the poor bastards around them who have survival problems : (Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, Libya etc)
jacques sheete , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:16 am GMT
@A123 Uh-huh.
neutral , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:54 am GMT
@A123

Orban resists violent Islam in Hungary

Typical brain dead Hasbara nonsense. Orban resists third world immigration, which I support, the problem is about mass non white immigration not Islam. The ultimate problem is the jew, it is they that push for mass immigration and miscegenation the most.

Fidelios Automata , says: March 26, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMT
My biggest problem with Zionism is that so many Zionists are hypocrites who want every nation to have open borders -- except Israel!
Christo , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:43 pm GMT
"Simply put, the people are the problem"

And the rest of this article just goes on and on about how evil , Israel, Israelis are , and as to how they are self-justified and unified in being so. And this is a Jew writing this.

Wow. What is the world to do? Doesn't seem to be any other option or solution, except a trip to Wannsee.

anom , says: March 26, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
@A123 Dancing Isreaeli said to the cops:" We are not your problem . Arabs are "

This guy is shouting at China India Russia and at the God : Israel is not the problem Its these Muslims.

Question is this : will these guys be allowed on the graves of the 911 victims strewn all across the world- Germany Soviet Russia, Poland, American rust belt, WW1 and 2 British cemeteries?

anom , says: March 26, 2019 at 3:32 pm GMT
@Fidelios Automata That's it?

When did they say something that turned out to be true?

Having said that, the world would be a better place if they ended up destroying elite run US UK . Yes they would cut the branch on which they are sitting . But they would jump the ship just before taht happening

You know Albert Sasson whow as knighted , who married in Riothchilds family, whose grand son / nephew or another Sasson – by name Amery gave us the Balfour in part . He was thrown out of Iraq court for corruption He made it to Raj's India and planted the seed of opium That soon ate up all the available fertile lands of north India . The opium made him rich made India poor corrupted British Raj and led to Chinese deprivations rebellion and to communism

m___ , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:10 pm GMT
@neutral Regardless, Jews (definition as provided and all three facets) are the most coherent group globally. They can muster the most coordination, the strongest drive, the detachment and loyalty, add as needed,

Since everyone here on unz likes thinking in bursts, to the matter. That makes for success. No reason to whine about for the loosing party, the WASP, traditional US elites. If some other group has ambitions, it should acquire that type of quality identity.

Islam is a poor enemy, as Jews see them as target practice, so should other entities maybe.

Western European descend Whites, and the ambition of enlightenment, (for one, all individuals across ethnic and religious lines being equals), should stow their ambitions of principle until they are in charge. That will require appropriating the same acerbic mindset of the Jew, and not whine publicly about the teacher. White elites have sold out, they are burdened by a commoner population that far exceeds any asset value. To disconnect their base, also made them hostages of Jew elites.

From the point of view of the Euro-descend commoner, non-Jew, unpriviledged, as long as they see themselves as genuine and belonging to the system, the US, and not the trash they are treated as, as long as the non-Jewish middle classes continue their egocentric quest for scraps, they deserve the Gaza they are converted into. No Jew should be blamed for pushing an outsider into demise. The tactics are in the open for grabs, Whites (non-Latino, non-Jew) have only themselves to blame for their demise.

WorkingClass , says: March 26, 2019 at 11:50 pm GMT
I have always thought that Bibi is an ass hole elected by ass holes. So I guess I'm in agreement with this article.

[Mar 26, 2019] The sordid case behind Jared Kushner s grudge against Chris Christie by Byron York

Notable quotes:
"... On May 9, 2004, according to the court documents, Kushner got in touch with one of the private detectives and instructed him to mail the tape and still photos to his sister Esther, who opened the package and saw her husband having sex with the prostitute. If Charles Kushner's plan was to "gain leverage" over his sister, it didn't work. Esther and Schulder took the tape to law enforcement, and another count, retaliating against a cooperating witness, was added to the charges against Kushner. ..."
"... Charles Kushner was charged in July 2004. He had all the resources anyone would need to fight the charges, but instead chose to plead guilty. He was sentenced to two years in prison and served 14 months, at a facility in Alabama. His son Jared flew down to visit him every Sunday. ..."
"... Last November, Kushner told Forbes that, "Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing him out or his people." Maybe. Maybe, as Jared Kushner maintains, all the reports of "differences" between him and Christie are inaccurate. But if the case of Kushner's father, and his uncle, and his other uncle, and his aunt, and their business is any indication, putting aside differences is not the family way. ..."
Apr 16, 2017 | washingtonexaminer.com

Jared Kushner is thought to have been behind the purging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the presidential transition.

By all accounts, Jared Kushner, the husband of President Trump's favorite daughter, has become an extraordinarily powerful man in the White House. To formally appoint Kushner a senior adviser, with a top security clearance, the president sought and received a Justice Department opinion declaring the White House exempt from federal anti-nepotism laws. That meant Kushner could have an official White House title to go along with his trusted-member-of-the-family influence. But Kushner wielded plenty of power before joining the White House staff.

For one thing, he is thought to have been behind the purging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the presidential transition. Of course, Christie, tainted by Bridgegate, had problems of his own. But opposition from Kushner is said to have blocked Christie at key points during the campaign and transition. Kushner's ire reportedly targeted others, too, for their Christie connections. After Christie was fired from heading the transition, two colleagues Christie had brought into the effort, Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman, were dumped as well. "Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner," the New York Times reported on November 15. "Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers who had ties with Mr. Christie."

"As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie sent Mr. Kushner's father to jail," the Times noted. Many other sources have confirmed the origin of Kushner's animus was Christie's prosecution of the elder Kushner. But most public mentions of the reason have been as brief as the Times'. It turns out the story behind the story is much longer, and more complicated. And ugly. The short version is: In 2004, Jared Kushner's father Charles, a real estate magnate in New Jersey and New York, pleaded guilty to a tax fraud scheme in which he claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in phony deductions for office expenses at the partnerships he created to manage the apartment buildings he owned. Kushner, a major donor to the Democratic Party, also pleaded guilty to fraudulently making hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in the names of employees and associates who didn't know their names were being used. Finally, Kushner pleaded guilty to retaliating against a cooperating witness in the case -- his sister. He did so by setting a trap in which he hired a prostitute to lure his sister's husband into a sexual encounter in a New Jersey hotel, where the action was secretly photographed and videotaped. Kushner sent the pictures and tape to his sister as revenge, apparently motivated by Kushner's belief that she and her husband were helping U.S. Attorney Christie and his prosecutors. Another Kushner brother-in-law, his wife's brother Richard Stadtmauer, was charged in the tax evasion scheme, and was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Beyond that, the Kushner family also brought employees into the fraud, with three Kushner Companies workers charged in the matter. All pleaded guilty.

Given the extent of the criminal behavior involved -- confirmed by guilty pleas and a conviction at trial -- it's hard to imagine that one could examine the Kushner family case and conclude that the prosecutor was the bad guy. But in the Trump campaign and presidency, Christie has apparently suffered for his role in bringing members of the Kushner family and their employees to justice. The criminal case began as a family feud. (For a detailed look at the complicated and intense relations between the various Kushners, see this Gabriel Sherman New York magazine article from 2009.) Some of the problems seemed rooted in the lifelong competitiveness between Charles Kushner and his brother Murray. In the early 2000s, Murray Kushner came to believe there was serious mismanagement going on in Kushner Companies. Murray sued Charles. The suit was settled and sealed. But then, while the suit was still in arbitration, a Kushner Companies employee, accounting manager Robert Yontef, filed a suit of his own against Charles. Yontef alleged that Charles used monies from various real estate properties (referred to as "the entities" in the lawsuit) for activities that had nothing to do with the companies, like paying speaking fees to Benjamin Netanyahu ($100,000), Bill Clinton ($125,000), Paul Volcker ($50,000), and Terry Bradshaw. (Alas, the lawsuit gave no dollar figure for the former quarterback's speaking appearance.)

Yontef also charged that Charles Kushner had made millions in campaign contributions through a fraudulent bundling scheme. "Initially, contributions that Charles made through the entities were returned because there was a requirement that the names of partners be given when a partnership makes a political contribution," the suit said. "As a result, Charles issued partnership checks for the contribution and then attributed the contribution to particular partners. These partners, however, were not notified that certain contributions had been made in their names until after the contributions were made, and in many instances were never notified that other political contributions were being made by Charles with partnership funds in their names." In a declaration attached to the suit, Yontef said that he had become increasingly upset by what he had seen at the Kushner Companies, and that he told Charles' sister Esther and her husband William Schulder, who also worked for the company, what Charles was doing. According to Yontef, Esther introduced Yontef to Murray Kushner, and Yontef also told him the story. "Over the next months, I would occasionally provide Murray with samples of the documents which demonstrate these wrongdoings," Yontef said. The lawsuits did more than aggravate existing family antagonisms. They also raised the suspicions of law enforcement and gave investigators a roadmap into what was going on inside Kushner Companies.

And indeed, in February 2003, the office of U.S. Attorney Christie began a grand jury investigation. In the months that followed, the grand jury heard evidence of tax fraud, illegal political contributions, and more. An attachment to the criminal information ultimately filed against Charles Kushner refers to Cooperating Witness 1 (CW1), Cooperating Witness 2 (CW2), and Cooperating Witness 3 (CW3). They are not named in the case, but a look at circumstances and other documents strongly suggests that CW1 was Esther, CW2 was her husband William Schulder, and CW3 was Yontef. The three of them, court papers noted, provided information and documents to the FBI and prosecutors. The criminal information laid out an extensive scheme to use "the entities," that is, Kushner-created companies that owned and managed individual Kushner properties, as vehicles for phony deductions. An entity known as Pheasant Hollow Associates filed for $41,356 in "fraudulent office expenses" on Tax Day, 1999, the information said, and for $142,030 in such expenses on Tax Day, 2000. Another entity, Quail Ridge Associates, filed for $119,000 in fake office expenses on Tax Day 2000 and $349,123 in 2001.

Still another entity, Westminster Management, filed for $112,250 in phony expenses on Tax Day 2001. In another count, the criminal information says Charles Kushner, "without the knowledge or permission of certain partners," made federal campaign contributions "in excess of $385,000" in the names of those unwitting partners. (Kushner was a major supporter of New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey, who in 2002 appointed Kushner to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. McGreevey wanted to make Kushner chairman of the Port Authority, but backed down after accusations the appointment would have been a political payoff.) The criminal information says Charles Kushner became aware of the grand jury investigation in March 2003, and that his sister Esther was "providing information to investigating law enforcement." In the weeks and months that followed, authorities said, Kushner's lawyers made "regular efforts" to convince investigators that CW1, CW2, and CW3 were "generally untrustworthy." The efforts were, apparently, to no avail.

Then, in August 2003, according to court documents, Kushner "initiated a scheme" to "gain leverage" over Esther and William Schulder. The idea was to "orchestrate the covert videotaped seduction" of Schulder and then hit Esther with video of her husband committing adultery. Charles Kushner recruited two private investigators to do the work. In New York , Gabriel Sherman reported that Kushner complained to one of the men that Schulder "has been f -- king around on my sister forever." Kushner paid the two men a total of $25,000 to set the trap. The problem was, they didn't do it. According to court papers, the men spent weeks complaining that they couldn't find a woman who would agree to have sex with Schulder on camera. "The scheme stalled," according to court papers. Things went nowhere for about four months. Then, in November 2003, a frustrated Charles Kushner took matters into his own hands and "personally recruited" a New York prostitute for the job. The two private investigators took a room in the Red Bull Inn in Bridgewater, New Jersey and wired it for video. It took a couple of tries, but the Kushner-recruited prostitute found Schulder in a diner, introduced herself, told him her car had broken down, and asked for a ride back to the hotel. When Schulder agreed, she invited him to her room. He declined, but got her phone number.

The next day, he came back, and Charles Kushner got the video he wanted. After the sexual encounter, one of the private investigators took the video to Kushner. "In a conference room with an associate present, defendant Charles Kushner viewed the videotape and expressed satisfaction with it," the criminal information says.

Kushner was so pleased, the court papers say, that he wanted the two investigators to set the same trap for Robert Yontef. In December, another woman was recruited, the hotel room was wired, the my-car-broke-down approach was made. But Yontef turned the woman down twice. There was no sex, and no tape. According to the papers, Kushner didn't use the Schulder videotape until May 2004, when he learned that some of his associates had been told they were targets of the grand jury investigation.

On May 9, 2004, according to the court documents, Kushner got in touch with one of the private detectives and instructed him to mail the tape and still photos to his sister Esther, who opened the package and saw her husband having sex with the prostitute. If Charles Kushner's plan was to "gain leverage" over his sister, it didn't work. Esther and Schulder took the tape to law enforcement, and another count, retaliating against a cooperating witness, was added to the charges against Kushner.

Of course, the sex angle got the most coverage in the New Jersey and New York media. When the prostitute who had been with Schulder cooperated with authorities, the New York Post ran a story headlined, "Sex Gal Now Helping Feds -- Hooker Turns On Kushner."

Charles Kushner was charged in July 2004. He had all the resources anyone would need to fight the charges, but instead chose to plead guilty. He was sentenced to two years in prison and served 14 months, at a facility in Alabama. His son Jared flew down to visit him every Sunday.

Brother-in-law Richard Stadtmauer went to trial in 2009 and was convicted and sentenced to three years. The others charged in the case pleaded guilty and received lesser sentences. While it was all going on, Jared Kushner was a student at Harvard and, later, studied for law and business degrees at New York University. He was not involved in the family's criminal activity. His father's spectacular flameout meant that Jared, who conferred with Charles constantly on matters of business, had to take a much bigger role in the family's business affairs.

Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty.

Who did Jared blame for what had happened? Not his father. "Charlie and Jared blamed papers in general and more specifically the Newark Star-Ledger for besmirching the family name," Gabriel Sherman wrote in 2009: And, the crimes notwithstanding, [Jared] sees his father as a victim. "His siblings stole every piece of paper from his office, and they took it to the government," Jared maintained.

"Siblings that he literally made wealthy for doing nothing. He gave them interests in the business for nothing. All he did was put the tape together and send it. Was it the right thing to do? At the end of the day, it was a function of saying 'You're trying to make my life miserable? Well, I'm doing the same.'"

Five years later, in a 2014 interview with the New York real estate publication The Real Deal, Jared called his father's treatment "obviously unjust" and said the experience had soured him on an earlier ambition to become a prosecutor.

"If you're convicting murderers, it's one thing," Jared said. "It's often fairly clear. When you get into things like white-collar crime, there are often a lot of nuances. Seeing my father's situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him."

Now the pursuer, the prosecutor-turned-governor-turned-Trump-supporter Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty. Both Jared Kushner and Christie deny there's a problem. "That stuff is ancient history," Christie told ABC two weeks ago, on March 29.

Last November, Kushner told Forbes that, "Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing him out or his people." Maybe. Maybe, as Jared Kushner maintains, all the reports of "differences" between him and Christie are inaccurate. But if the case of Kushner's father, and his uncle, and his other uncle, and his aunt, and their business is any indication, putting aside differences is not the family way.

Byron York is the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, a Fox News contributor and the author of The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.

[Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
This is probably the most comprehensive outline of the color revolution against Trump. Bravo, simply bravo !!!
Reads like Agatha Christi Murder on the Orient Express ;-) Rosenstein role is completely revised from a popular narrative. Brennan role clarifies and detailed. Obama personal role hinted. Victoria Nuland role and the role of the State Department in Russiagate is documented for the first time, I think.
Notable quotes:
"... The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered. ..."
"... Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier. ..."
"... The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission. ..."
"... Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken. ..."
"... The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time. ..."
"... The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents? ..."
Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] How America's most powerful agencies were weaponized against President Donald Trump

Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate -- the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign -- remains surprisingly simple:

  1. CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community.
  2. The FBI became the handler of Brennan's intelligence and engaged in the more practical elements of surveillance.
  3. The Department of Justice facilitated investigations by the FBI and legal maneuverings, while providing a crucial shield of nondisclosure.
  4. The Department of State became a mechanism of information dissemination and leaks.
  5. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided funding, support, and media collusion.
  6. Obama administration officials were complicit, and engaged in unmasking and intelligence gathering and dissemination.
  7. The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted.

Let's start with a simple premise: The candidacy of Trump presented both an opportunity and a threat.

Initially not viewed with any real seriousness, Trump's campaign was seen as an opportunistic wedge in the election process. At the same time, and particularly as the viability of his candidacy increased, Trump was seen as an existential threat to the established political system.

The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment. Here was a true political outsider who held no traditional allegiances. He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't care what others thought of him -- he trusted himself.

Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried. Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy, regulations, and the power of special interests. He challenged Congress. He challenged the United Nations and the European Union. He questioned everything.

Brennan played a crucial role in the creation of the Russia-collusion narrative and the spying on the Trump campaign. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

Brennan became the point man in the operation to stop a potential Trump presidency. It remains unclear whether his role was self-appointed or came from above. To embark on such a mission without direct presidential authority seems both a stretch of the imagination and particularly foolhardy.

Brennan took unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates -- primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia.

Individuals in official positions in UK intelligence, such as Robert Hannigan -- head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) -- partnered with former UK foreign intelligence members. Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove , former Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, and private UK intelligence firm Hakluyt all played a role.

In the summer of 2016, Hannigan traveled to Washington to meet with Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. On Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration -- Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement. The Guardian openly speculated that Hannigan's resignation was directly related to the sharing of UK intelligence.

One method used to help establish evidence of collusion was the employment of "spy traps." Prominent among these were ones set for Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The intent was to provide or establish connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. The content and context mattered little as long as a connection could be established that could then be publicized. The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting was another such attempt.

Western intelligence assets were used to initiate and establish these connections, particularly in the cases of Papadopoulos and Page.

Ultimately, Brennan formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency (NSA) handled foreign and intelligence aspects.

Brennan's inter-agency task force is not to be confused with the July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation, which was formed later at Brennan's urging.

During this time, Brennan also employed the use of reverse targeting , which relates to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen. This effort was uncovered and made public by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a March 2017 press conference :

"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the president-elect and his team were monitored and disseminated out in intelligence-reporting channels. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign-intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.

"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying to get to the bottom of it."

As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. Brennan repeatedly noted this during a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :

"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."

Brennan also admitted that his intelligence helped establish the FBI investigation:

"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."

This admission is important, as no official intelligence was used to open the FBI's investigation.

Once the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, Brennan shifted his focus. Through a series of meetings in August and September 2016, Brennan informed the congressional Gang of Eight regarding intelligence and information he had gathered. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts to block the release of the transcripts from each meeting remain ongoing.

The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports and greater participation from Clapper. The first report, the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017.

This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump. Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bMcNbum93cU?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Although the FBI is technically part of the DOJ, it is best for the purposes of this article that the FBI and DOJ be viewed as separate entities, each with its own related ties.

The FBI itself was comprised of various factions, with a particularly active element that has come to be known as the "insurance policy group." It appears that this faction was led by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and comprised other notable names such as FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and FBI general counsel James Baker.

The FBI established the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russia collusion with the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016. Comey initially refused to say whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. He would continue to refuse to provide answers until March 20, 2017, when he disclosed the existence of the FBI investigation during congressional testimony.

Comey also testified that he did not provide notification to the Gang of Eight until early March 2017 -- less than one month earlier. This admission was in stark contrast to actions taken by Brennan, who had notified members of the Gang of Eight individually during August and September 2016. It's likely that Brennan never informed Comey that he had briefed the Gang of Eight in 2016. Comey did note that the DOJ "had been aware" of the investigation all along.

Comey opened the counterintelligence investigation into Trump on the urging of CIA Director John Brennan.
Following Comey's firing on May 9, 2017, the FBI's investigation was transferred to special counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation remains ongoing.

The FBI's formal involvement with the Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016, when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.

Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance to the FBI's investigation into the FIFA corruption scandal .

Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele several weeks earlier. "In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information started to reach the bureau in Washington."

It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.

For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources."

In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting included several other FBI officials as well. According to a House Intelligence Committee minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's September trip to Rome.

The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.

Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office, finally expiring in September 2017.

Former volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Nov. 2, 2017. The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant on Page.

After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were two prominent members of the FBI's "insurance policy" group. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was the deputy assistant director of FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, served as special counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. He helped FBI Director James Comey draft the statement exonerating Clinton and was personally responsible for changing specific wording within that statement that reduced Clinton's legal liability. Specifically, Strzok changed the words "grossly negligent," which could be a criminal offense, to "extremely careless."

Strzok also personally led the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Trump–Russia collusion and signed the documents that opened the investigation on July 31, 2016. He was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Trump's national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Strzok met multiple times with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and received information from Steele at those meetings.

Following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Strzok would join the team of special counsel Robert Mueller. Two months later, he was removed from that team after the DOJ inspector general discovered a lengthy series of texts between Strzok and Page that contained politically charged messages. Strzok would be fired from the FBI in August 2018.

Both Strzok and Page engaged in strategic leaking to the press. Page did so at the direction of McCabe, who directly authorized Page to share information with Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett. That information was used in an Oct. 30, 2016, article headlined "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe ." Page leaked to Barrett thinking she had been granted legal and official authorization to do so.

McCabe would later initially deny providing such authorization to the Office of Inspector General. Page, when confronted with McCabe's denials, produced texts refuting his statement. It was these texts that led to the inspector general uncovering the texts between Strzok and Page.

The two exchanged thousands of texts, some of them indicating surveillance activities, over a two-year period. Texts sent between Aug. 21, 2015, and June 25, 2017, have been made public . The series comes to an end with a final text by Page telling Strzok, "Don't ever text me again."

On Aug. 8, 2016, Stzrok wrote that they would prevent candidate Trump from becoming president:

Page: "[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"

Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."

On Aug. 15, 2016, Strzok sent a text referring to an "insurance policy":

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way [Trump] gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered.

Department of Justice

The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.

However, a series of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject to prosecution.

The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.

DOJ Official Bruce Ohr on Aug. 28, 2018. Ohr passed on information from Christopher Steele to the FBI.

The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security Division, was actively involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.

To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.

David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean, the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high school. McLean was also employed by the FBI for 24 years.

Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a key role in Spygate. Ohr held two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney general's drug strategy."

Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.

According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least 12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October or early November 2016.

John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.

The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day. McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president." An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job. On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

State Department

The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

Clinton Campaign and the DNC

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.

The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.

Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser to the campaign, took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.

Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence Committee's final report on Russian active measures , in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the Trump Tower.

The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a tweet on the same day the article was published:

"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."

Attached to her tweet was a statement from Sullivan:

"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."

These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.

This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from the Clinton campaign.

Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia. Chalupa began investigating Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January 2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.

Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff -- the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama administration.

Perkins Coie

International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.

Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.

Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele. Sussmann personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.

Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann. Sussmann transmitted information to FBI chief counsel James Baker and several journalists. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)

According to a letter dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign. Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.

Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele. During this same period, Fusion also reportedly hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016, and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.

Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI. Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."

Obama Administration

The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.

Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.

The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.

An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017, MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Evelyn Farkas on May 6, 2014. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the attorney general's office. According to congressional testimony by Horowitz:

"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information."

These new restrictions were put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters.

The New York Times recently disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.

At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The Intelligence Community assessment was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.

Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview why:

"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."

Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:

"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

Clapper leaked information to CNN, after which he publicly condemned the leaks. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump that CNN reported on the dossier. It was later revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.

The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of intelligence unmaskings , the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.

The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division, led that effort .

Executive Order 13762

President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ. The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.

Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership. The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.

Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips, after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming under intense scrutiny.

The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian ambassador.

Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.

Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.

On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings appear to have been unexpected.

Media

In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a series of payments to several as-of-yet- unnamed reporters .

The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In September 2016 , he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.

In mid-October 2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.

On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article " A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in court documents relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, " FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA warrant.

The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.

Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application. According to the indictment , Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call. The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.

In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.

Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly stated that evidence within the FISA application shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.

Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit their complicity.

Foreign Intelligence

UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.

Britain's GCHQ was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to meet personally with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.

Former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in this file photo. Hannigan transmitted information regarding Donald Trump to John Brennan in the summer of 2016. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)

Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.

As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove.

Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend.

Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services.

Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books.

Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.

The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.

Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.

In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.

Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?

Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.

Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele

Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.

The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.

Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele maintains contact with British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove , and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.

Steele appears to have been represented by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:

"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort. I will be with him next tuesday for a week."

Steele also appears to have lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently disclosed by the Washington Examiner:

"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool' of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."

Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler, who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, at which she discussed the Magnitsky Act .

Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.

A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.

Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.


Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.

Bruce and Nellie Ohr have known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr before and after the 2016 election.

Bruce Ohr had been in contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s -- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.

Spy Traps

In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.

Papadopoulos and Mifsud both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around November 2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly joined LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016, in Italy.

Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.

Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.

Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed as a chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.

Papadopoulos was introduced to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened to be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit remains unknown.

The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.

Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."

Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.

Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017, BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended target of these failed FISAs.

Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.

Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.

After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct. 21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.

Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.

Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case.

Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia.

FBI informant Stefan Halper approached Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.

If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.

Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.

FISA Abuse

Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

Then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on May 23, 2017. Rogers uncovered widespread abuse of FISA data by the FBI. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

The Insurance Policy

Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.

It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

Spygate

Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread intelligence community leaks as facts.

But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern extending back decades?

The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as Spygate.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy. ..."
"... Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic]

The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner Is Beating Heart of Corrupt and Deeply Evil Trump Administration, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe Says by Jason Lemon

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold." ..."
"... "Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is." ..."
"... "Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials. ..."
"... "Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time." ..."
"... Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections. ..."
Mar 10, 2019 | www.newsweek.com

Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, slammed President Donald Trump's son-in-law of Jared Kushner in a tweet this weekend, suggesting he would soon be "exposed" as a traitor.

Sharing a long Twitter thread by attorney and academic Seth Abramson, who is also a columnist for Newsweek , Tribe on Saturday referred to Kushner as "Smarmy, slimy, smiling."

Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, was appointed by the president as a senior White House adviser in January 2017.

"Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold."

Tribe is referring to the infamous General Benedict Arnold, an early hero of the American Revolution against the British, who later switched sides and betrayed his young nation in 1779. "His name has since become synonymous with the word 'traitor,'" according to History .

Abramson's thread , shared by Tribe, laid out a case for why Kushner is allegedly the "greatest domestic danger to America."

The attorney and columnist made the claim after "many months" of research for a forthcoming book titled Proof of Conspiracy . "Many former US government officials know for a fact that what I've just said is true," Abramson wrote in his first tweet in the series.

"Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is."

"Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials.

"Trump circumventing our intelligence community to give his son-in-law that access is the shibboleth that made the current danger to America *possible* [sic]," Abramson warned.

"Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time."

Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections.

Jim Boyle Kathy Rhodarmer The article said the details will be revealed soon, so I guess we'll all just have to wait for the investigation to decide. Traitor is pretty strong accusation, but the massive Qatar loan, secretive relationship with MSB and intelligence agencies concern with his security clearance are all big red flags. The oversight will continue... Martin Wulfe Tribe is a highly respected constitutional lawyer, but so far this article is a real disappointment and lacks any details. We'll just have to wait until the full article comes out to see what actual evidence there is to back this up, if there is any.

Danny LaMaster Trump and Kushner are selling American secrets for personal gain

Bud Dailey Kushner is not and never will be a American patriot , and has no business in American government.

Kathy Dreher The same is true of the Trump crime family.

Joan Nelson Jared is too cozy with our enemy, no, not ally, Saudi Arabia.Setting up some opportunities for himself and his family after he leaves the WH. The scummy atmosphere in the WH is reflective of the presence of incompetent family members who have no business there...

[Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ...

Highly recommended!
In Ber 2018 Kusher security clearance wasdongraded.
Notable quotes:
"... Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said. ..."
"... Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost ..."
Feb 28, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

" Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.

Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said.

It is unclear if any of those countries acted on the discussions, but Kushner's contacts with certain foreign government officials have raised concerns inside the White House and are a reason he has been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance, the officials said.

Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost

------------------

Most people will probably be struck by the fall from grace of Kushner and other WH staff dilettantes. I am not terribly interested in that. What strikes me is that this is the third major compromise of US SIGINT products in the last year. The first was the felonious disclosure to the press of US intelligence penetration of Russian diplomatic communications. the second was the disclosure to the press of penetration of GRU communications. In this one the oral or written discussions among the officials of several foreign countries are revealed. These conversations were probably encrypted.

Is Jeff Sessions still alive? Why are there no prosecutions for these felonies? pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kushners-overseas-contacts-raise-concerns-as-foreign-officials-seek-leverage/2018/02/27/16bbc052-18c3-11e8-942d-16a950029788_story.html?utm_term=.e3639623e918

[Mar 25, 2019] Why is Donald Trump blaming son-in-law Jared Kushner for not being able to secure wall funding?

Notable quotes:
"... Jared sold himself as the only man who could make a deal between Dems and the GOP. He pointed to "his" recent success with prison reform as proof of his bonafides. ..."
"... Of course, he blew it as usual. He told his side that Dems would vote for Trump's $5.7 billion "wall, or whatever you want to call it" -- and they didn't. He said the Dems would break ranks -- and they didn't. ..."
"... The Senate votes came, and the Trump proposal got FEWER votes than the Democratic proposal, which managed to get 6 GOP Senators to jump ship. Kushner had not only failed; he'd embarrassed the boss. ..."
"... Of course, it was Donald who appointed Jared, and gave him the reins on this critical project -- ignoring the fact that Pence had actually served in Congress, knew the players, and knew the game. Even after two years' worth of evidence that a political neophyte cannot solve all the nation's most intractable problems just because he sleeps with the boss's daughter, the First Con fell for a con man. ..."
"... They both got what they deserved. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.quora.com

David W. Rudlin Answered Jan 29 · Author has 1.8k answers and 8m answer views

Jared sold himself as the only man who could make a deal between Dems and the GOP. He pointed to "his" recent success with prison reform as proof of his bonafides.

Of course, he blew it as usual. He told his side that Dems would vote for Trump's $5.7 billion "wall, or whatever you want to call it" -- and they didn't. He said the Dems would break ranks -- and they didn't.

It appears that Kushner talked to a few junior Dems, who were too wet behind the ears to tell the president's son in law that he needed to change his meds. He read their silence as meaning they were prepared to commit mutiny and, putting all his chips on that bet, stopped talking to both Pelosi (where the real power lies) and Schumer.

Then he told everyone he'd cracked it.

The Senate votes came, and the Trump proposal got FEWER votes than the Democratic proposal, which managed to get 6 GOP Senators to jump ship. Kushner had not only failed; he'd embarrassed the boss.

As others have said below, Trump always finds someone to blame for his mistakes. But in this case there were very good reasons for pointing the finger at Kushner.

Of course, it was Donald who appointed Jared, and gave him the reins on this critical project -- ignoring the fact that Pence had actually served in Congress, knew the players, and knew the game. Even after two years' worth of evidence that a political neophyte cannot solve all the nation's most intractable problems just because he sleeps with the boss's daughter, the First Con fell for a con man.

They both got what they deserved.

[Mar 25, 2019] Bush lied, people died, Obama lied people died, Trump lied people died. What changed?

Bush II campaigned on "no nation building" mantra. He lied. Crump campaigned no foreign wars manta. He lied.
Notable quotes:
"... The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct. ..."
"... Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief. ..."
"... John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to retire that label . ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct.

Former George W. Bush mouthpiece Ari Fleischer supplied a promptly ratioed tweetstorm that quibbled with the "Bush lied, people died" mantra concerning his old boss's handling of the intelligence on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Never Trumper David French gamely argued that Saddam Hussein was a greater source of instability than the chaos brought about by the invasion, followed by Barack Obama's withdrawal. In so doing, French reminded us that, however off-putting some conservatives find Donald Trump, the president's criticism of the war matters more to many of those who devote their time to denouncing his every utterance.

Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief.

John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to retire that label .

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner reorganises the Middle East by Thierry Meyssan

It is interesting to read how naive Thierry Meyssan was in 2018
Notable quotes:
"... Over the last 70 years, Israël has continually been stealing its neighbours' territory. It currently occupies the Syrian Golan, the farms of the Lebanese Shebaa, and a very large part of the Palestinian territories of 1967, including almost all of East Jerusalem. ..."
"... For Fatah, Israël is a second Rhodesia, a colonial State which pronounced itself independent. For Hamas, based on an interpretation of the Hadiths (not the Coran), the problem is that a Muslim land cannot be governed by non-Muslims. ..."
"... Equally, it is today extremely unjust, not to transfer the US embassy to West Jerusalem, but to give up on establishing the Palestinian government in East Jerusalem. Here again, the responsibility does not lie with Jared Kushner, but with the " international community ", and in particular with the Arab Sionist governments, who have allowed Israël, for the last 70 years, to eat up the city, apartment by apartment. ..."
"... So while, for 70 years, Western diplomats have contrived to multiply and complexify the conflicts in the Middle East, Jared Kushner is the first to have brought a resolution. The angel-faced Presidential advisor is a talented organiser. Thierry Meyssan ..."
Jan 01, 2018 | www.voltairenet.org

Jared Kushner is a very secret personality about whom we know very little. At best, we know he has a high regard for the Law, and was destined to become a prosecutor. However, when his father was arrested and incarcerated for tax evasion, he was sure this was an injustice. According to him, his father had fallen victim to a sting operation. He therefore abandoned his law studies and set to work rescuing the family business, a real estate development firm - which he managed with success. During this period, he developed for himself the smoothest image possible in order to distance himself from the accusations leveled against his father.

His father-in-law, Donald Trump, seems to trust him implicitly, to the point of tasking him de facto with the organization of his electoral campaign. Certain of his adversaries expressed their surprise that he was able to run this campaign with minimal means, and yet lead it to victory.

As soon as he arrived at the White House, President Trump asked him to participate in the most secret meetings, despite the fact that he does not have Top Secret accreditation – which in fact he still does not have.

Hoping to leave a name in History by succeeding in a task that his predecessors have all addressed without ever having realised, President Trump tasked him with resolving the Israëli-Arab conflict and pacifying the Middle East. This is a gamble which is all the more perilous in that the young man (age 36) has previously taken a stand alongside Israël by financially supporting Tsahal and the Jewish colonies on Palestinian land. However, Kushner has a great need of being accepted by his milieu, so it is quite possible that these gifts have another meaning.

Nominating for this assignment a trusted personality who is devoid of diplomatic experience is a second challenge for President Trump. Considering the failure of US professional diplomats, he is attacking an old problem from a new angle. For this mission, Jared Kushner has obtained a rare privilege – he is the only senior administrator whose meetings with foreign political personalities are not the object of written records. In this way, no-one can rebuke him for his mistakes, nor even criticise the way in which he approaches the subjects - not even the Secretary of State, since he is accountable only to the President.

In the opinion of those personalities who have met him, Kushner follows the same principles as his father-in-law:

The only difference with his father-in-law is his perfect mutism, as compared to the provocative and contradictory declarations used by the President to destabilise his listeners.

During the last ten months, Jared Kushner has multiplied his journeys to the Middle East - particularly to his favorite destinations – Saudi Arabia and Israël. We have just experienced, without understanding it, the beginning of his operation.

Saudi Arabia

- The reality of Arabia, from Trump's point of view during his electoral campaign, was as follows:
• the accumulation of petro-dollars, or the massive sums in dollars paid by the USA for oil that the Saudis do not produce.
• the central role of the Kingdom, under the control of MI6 and the CIA, in the fight against Arab nationalism and the manipulation of Islamic terrorism.
• Its crisis of succession.

The bilateral agreements are the Quincy agreements signed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, renewed by George Bush Jr. in 2005, and valid until 2065. Although they have never been published, many people who participated in their negotiation have described them as follows:

• The King of Arabia accepts the control of its oil by the United States, while in return, the US agrees to protect the King, and by extension, his private property, Saudi Arabia.

• The King of Arabia agrees to raise no obstacle against the creation of a state for the Jewish population of the ex-Ottoman Empire, while the United States favors its regional role.

So Jared Kushner prepared the summit on 21 May 2017 in Riyadh which brought together almost all of the heads of state of the Muslim world around President Trump. Saudi Arabia immediately broke its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and ceased financing the jihadist groups all over the world – at least, almost all, except for Yemen [ 1 ]. The Kingdom used its influence to convince the other Muslim states present. However, this success had a price:
• Qatar refused the new US policy. Not wishing to have wasted the 137 billion dollars it had spent in the fight against Syria [ 2 ], it continued its support for certain jihadists. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates unilaterally decided on an embargo. While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to distance himself from this quarrel, Kushner and President Trump took sides with Arabia.
• Kushner agreed to help King Salman sort out his succession to the throne as he saw fit.

The palace coup of 4 November

At the end of October, Jared Kushner went to Saudi Arabia for three days. He shared long work sessions with the King's son, Prince Mohammed ben Salmane (MBS), and drew up with him a list of the members of the royal family who were to be neutralised. Unsure of the possible reactions of the Royal Guard once Prince Mutaib had been dismissed, he offered MBS the assistance of the mercenaries of Academi (ex-Blackwater) in order to proceed with the arrests. Finally, remembering the media campaign against his father, he provided the spin doctors with a soothing tale of " the fight against corruption " with which to gloss over the palace coup.

He had already left Riyadh when the Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri – the legal son of Rafic Hariri, but the biological son of a Fadh prince [ 3 ] – was invited to an emergency meeting in Riyadh, " where he would be received by King Salman ". We know the end of this story [ 4 ] – the resignation speech of Hariri and the arrest or execution of all the princes capable of contesting or claiming the succession to the throne.

Hundreds of cousins of MBS were arrested, and placed under house arrest or in detention. One after the other, they agreed – often under torture – to hand over their fortunes to their sovereign. In this way he collected more than 800 billion dollars, according to the Wall Street Journal [ 5 ].

No voices anywhere in the world spoke up to come to the aid of these fallen billionaires, who until then had sat in the most prestigious board of directors.

Witnesses declared that certain members of the royal family were hospitalised and treated before they were taken back into the interrogation room. MBS affirmed that he had liberated several personalities, including Prince Mutaib himself, Turki ben Abdallah, Doctor Ibrahim ben Abdelaziz ben Abdallah al-Assaf (ex-Saudi Minister of finances) and Mohammad ben Abdel Rahman al-Toubaichi (ex-head of protocol to the Court).

This is certainly not the end of the story. In conformity with the instructions of President Trump, Jared Kushner will now attempt to recuperate part of the confiscated fortunes for his country.

The Hariri affair

Contrary to what the French Press pretends, the liberation of the Lebanese Prime Minister owes little to Paris. It is true that President Emmanuel Macron intervened, since Saad Hariri has triple nationality - Saudi-Lebanese-French. It is true, Macron went to Riyadh, but only succeeded in being insulted [ 6 ]. The only useful action came from his Lebanese counterpart, President Michel Aoun.

France was blocked by a simple reality – in international consular Law, multinationals are not allowed to benefit from diplomatic immunity in a country of which they are citizens. However President Aoun overturned the situation by defending not Saad Hariri the man, but his Prime Minister Saad Hariri. There is no doubt whatsoever that arresting and placing under house arrest the head of the government of another country outside of any judicial procedure is an act of war – and indeed, the international press whispered rumours of a possible Saudi bombardment of Lebanon. Immediately, the Baabda palace threatened to bring the affair before the arbitration court of the United Nations, and simultaneously, to alert the Security Council. And via his Syrian counterpart Bachar el-Assad, he also contacted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who made the connection between the pro- and anti-US. It was al-Sissi who telephoned Jared Kushner and obtained, with his support, the liberation of the Prime Minister. And in fact, as soon as Hariri was freed, he went to Cairo to thank al-Sissi.

The Israëli-Arab question

This leaves us with the Israëli-Palestinian question.

The naked reality is this:

The bilateral agreements are:

The multilateral agreements are:

Only President Trump and a few of his advisors know the scenario written by Jared Kushner. He has followed the policy of his predecessors by reducing the situation to a simple Israëli-Arab dispute. Following the line of John Kerry, he has favored the reconciliation of Fatah and Hamas against Israël, and has succeeded in persuading them (but not the FPLP-CG, nor the Islamic Jihad) to sign an agreement, on 12 October in Cairo [ 12 ]. He has engineered the election to the head of Hamas of a childhood friend of the leader of Fatah, Mohammed Dahlan, in preparation for the fusion of the two movements.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian factions continue to express radically different ideas. For Fatah, Israël is a second Rhodesia, a colonial State which pronounced itself independent. For Hamas, based on an interpretation of the Hadiths (not the Coran), the problem is that a Muslim land cannot be governed by non-Muslims.

The beginning of events came with the announcement of the transfer of the US embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.

Clearly, the White House is testing its ability to force its way through. Indeed, on one hand, the plan for the sharing of Palestine in fact anticipates that West Jerusalem will be the capital of the Hebrew state. But on the other hand, the Security Council has condemned Israël for designating West Jerusalem as its capital [ 13 ].

The strange meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which has just been held in Istanbul, proposed to transfer the capital of the Palestinian State from Ramallah to East Jerusalem [ 14 ]. Except that this seems difficult to realise, and in fact has not been realised. Perhaps this was simply a gallant last stand designed to force the acceptance of this abandon by Muslim public opinion.

Provisional Conclusion

The adversaries of President Trump are attempting by any means possible to oblige him to give up on his advisor Jared Kushner. Nevertheless, he is still in office. He has, for the moment, managed to end Saudi support for terrorist groups and resolve the question of the succession to the throne by cutting the Gordian knot, in other words, by neutralizing the royal family. We may regret the method chosen – hanging old men by their feet and torturing them until they hand over their bank accounts. The fact remains that all the other solutions, or even worse, the absence of solutions, could have led to a civil war. The fault lies not with Jared Kushner, but with those who have for so long accepted the barbaric and medieval régime of the Saudis.

Equally, it is today extremely unjust, not to transfer the US embassy to West Jerusalem, but to give up on establishing the Palestinian government in East Jerusalem. Here again, the responsibility does not lie with Jared Kushner, but with the " international community ", and in particular with the Arab Sionist governments, who have allowed Israël, for the last 70 years, to eat up the city, apartment by apartment.

So while, for 70 years, Western diplomats have contrived to multiply and complexify the conflicts in the Middle East, Jared Kushner is the first to have brought a resolution. The angel-faced Presidential advisor is a talented organiser. Thierry Meyssan

[Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
This is probably the most comprehensive outline of the color revolution against Trump. Bravo, simply bravo !!!
Reads like Agatha Christi Murder on the Orient Express ;-) Rosenstein role is completely revised from a popular narrative. Brennan role clarifies and detailed. Obama personal role hinted. Victoria Nuland role and the role of the State Department in Russiagate is documented for the first time, I think.
Notable quotes:
"... The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered. ..."
"... Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier. ..."
"... The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission. ..."
"... Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken. ..."
"... The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time. ..."
"... The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents? ..."
Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] How America's most powerful agencies were weaponized against President Donald Trump

Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate -- the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign -- remains surprisingly simple:

  1. CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community.
  2. The FBI became the handler of Brennan's intelligence and engaged in the more practical elements of surveillance.
  3. The Department of Justice facilitated investigations by the FBI and legal maneuverings, while providing a crucial shield of nondisclosure.
  4. The Department of State became a mechanism of information dissemination and leaks.
  5. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided funding, support, and media collusion.
  6. Obama administration officials were complicit, and engaged in unmasking and intelligence gathering and dissemination.
  7. The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted.

Let's start with a simple premise: The candidacy of Trump presented both an opportunity and a threat.

Initially not viewed with any real seriousness, Trump's campaign was seen as an opportunistic wedge in the election process. At the same time, and particularly as the viability of his candidacy increased, Trump was seen as an existential threat to the established political system.

The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment. Here was a true political outsider who held no traditional allegiances. He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't care what others thought of him -- he trusted himself.

Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried. Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy, regulations, and the power of special interests. He challenged Congress. He challenged the United Nations and the European Union. He questioned everything.

Brennan played a crucial role in the creation of the Russia-collusion narrative and the spying on the Trump campaign. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

Brennan became the point man in the operation to stop a potential Trump presidency. It remains unclear whether his role was self-appointed or came from above. To embark on such a mission without direct presidential authority seems both a stretch of the imagination and particularly foolhardy.

Brennan took unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates -- primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia.

Individuals in official positions in UK intelligence, such as Robert Hannigan -- head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) -- partnered with former UK foreign intelligence members. Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove , former Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, and private UK intelligence firm Hakluyt all played a role.

In the summer of 2016, Hannigan traveled to Washington to meet with Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. On Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration -- Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement. The Guardian openly speculated that Hannigan's resignation was directly related to the sharing of UK intelligence.

One method used to help establish evidence of collusion was the employment of "spy traps." Prominent among these were ones set for Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The intent was to provide or establish connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. The content and context mattered little as long as a connection could be established that could then be publicized. The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting was another such attempt.

Western intelligence assets were used to initiate and establish these connections, particularly in the cases of Papadopoulos and Page.

Ultimately, Brennan formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency (NSA) handled foreign and intelligence aspects.

Brennan's inter-agency task force is not to be confused with the July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation, which was formed later at Brennan's urging.

During this time, Brennan also employed the use of reverse targeting , which relates to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen. This effort was uncovered and made public by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a March 2017 press conference :

"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the president-elect and his team were monitored and disseminated out in intelligence-reporting channels. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign-intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.

"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying to get to the bottom of it."

As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. Brennan repeatedly noted this during a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :

"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."

Brennan also admitted that his intelligence helped establish the FBI investigation:

"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."

This admission is important, as no official intelligence was used to open the FBI's investigation.

Once the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, Brennan shifted his focus. Through a series of meetings in August and September 2016, Brennan informed the congressional Gang of Eight regarding intelligence and information he had gathered. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts to block the release of the transcripts from each meeting remain ongoing.

The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports and greater participation from Clapper. The first report, the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017.

This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump. Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bMcNbum93cU?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Although the FBI is technically part of the DOJ, it is best for the purposes of this article that the FBI and DOJ be viewed as separate entities, each with its own related ties.

The FBI itself was comprised of various factions, with a particularly active element that has come to be known as the "insurance policy group." It appears that this faction was led by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and comprised other notable names such as FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and FBI general counsel James Baker.

The FBI established the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russia collusion with the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016. Comey initially refused to say whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. He would continue to refuse to provide answers until March 20, 2017, when he disclosed the existence of the FBI investigation during congressional testimony.

Comey also testified that he did not provide notification to the Gang of Eight until early March 2017 -- less than one month earlier. This admission was in stark contrast to actions taken by Brennan, who had notified members of the Gang of Eight individually during August and September 2016. It's likely that Brennan never informed Comey that he had briefed the Gang of Eight in 2016. Comey did note that the DOJ "had been aware" of the investigation all along.

Comey opened the counterintelligence investigation into Trump on the urging of CIA Director John Brennan.
Following Comey's firing on May 9, 2017, the FBI's investigation was transferred to special counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation remains ongoing.

The FBI's formal involvement with the Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016, when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.

Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance to the FBI's investigation into the FIFA corruption scandal .

Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele several weeks earlier. "In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information started to reach the bureau in Washington."

It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.

For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources."

In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting included several other FBI officials as well. According to a House Intelligence Committee minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's September trip to Rome.

The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.

Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office, finally expiring in September 2017.

Former volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Nov. 2, 2017. The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant on Page.

After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were two prominent members of the FBI's "insurance policy" group. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was the deputy assistant director of FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, served as special counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. He helped FBI Director James Comey draft the statement exonerating Clinton and was personally responsible for changing specific wording within that statement that reduced Clinton's legal liability. Specifically, Strzok changed the words "grossly negligent," which could be a criminal offense, to "extremely careless."

Strzok also personally led the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Trump–Russia collusion and signed the documents that opened the investigation on July 31, 2016. He was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Trump's national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Strzok met multiple times with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and received information from Steele at those meetings.

Following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Strzok would join the team of special counsel Robert Mueller. Two months later, he was removed from that team after the DOJ inspector general discovered a lengthy series of texts between Strzok and Page that contained politically charged messages. Strzok would be fired from the FBI in August 2018.

Both Strzok and Page engaged in strategic leaking to the press. Page did so at the direction of McCabe, who directly authorized Page to share information with Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett. That information was used in an Oct. 30, 2016, article headlined "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe ." Page leaked to Barrett thinking she had been granted legal and official authorization to do so.

McCabe would later initially deny providing such authorization to the Office of Inspector General. Page, when confronted with McCabe's denials, produced texts refuting his statement. It was these texts that led to the inspector general uncovering the texts between Strzok and Page.

The two exchanged thousands of texts, some of them indicating surveillance activities, over a two-year period. Texts sent between Aug. 21, 2015, and June 25, 2017, have been made public . The series comes to an end with a final text by Page telling Strzok, "Don't ever text me again."

On Aug. 8, 2016, Stzrok wrote that they would prevent candidate Trump from becoming president:

Page: "[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"

Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."

On Aug. 15, 2016, Strzok sent a text referring to an "insurance policy":

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way [Trump] gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered.

Department of Justice

The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.

However, a series of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject to prosecution.

The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.

DOJ Official Bruce Ohr on Aug. 28, 2018. Ohr passed on information from Christopher Steele to the FBI.

The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security Division, was actively involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.

To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.

David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean, the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high school. McLean was also employed by the FBI for 24 years.

Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a key role in Spygate. Ohr held two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney general's drug strategy."

Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.

According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least 12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October or early November 2016.

John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.

The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day. McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president." An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job. On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

State Department

The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

Clinton Campaign and the DNC

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.

The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.

Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser to the campaign, took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.

Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence Committee's final report on Russian active measures , in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the Trump Tower.

The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a tweet on the same day the article was published:

"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."

Attached to her tweet was a statement from Sullivan:

"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."

These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.

This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from the Clinton campaign.

Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia. Chalupa began investigating Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January 2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.

Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff -- the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama administration.

Perkins Coie

International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.

Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.

Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele. Sussmann personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.

Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann. Sussmann transmitted information to FBI chief counsel James Baker and several journalists. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)

According to a letter dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign. Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.

Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele. During this same period, Fusion also reportedly hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016, and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.

Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI. Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."

Obama Administration

The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.

Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.

The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.

An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017, MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Evelyn Farkas on May 6, 2014. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the attorney general's office. According to congressional testimony by Horowitz:

"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information."

These new restrictions were put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters.

The New York Times recently disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.

At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The Intelligence Community assessment was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.

Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview why:

"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."

Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:

"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

Clapper leaked information to CNN, after which he publicly condemned the leaks. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump that CNN reported on the dossier. It was later revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.

The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of intelligence unmaskings , the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.

The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division, led that effort .

Executive Order 13762

President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ. The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.

Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership. The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.

Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips, after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming under intense scrutiny.

The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian ambassador.

Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.

Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.

On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings appear to have been unexpected.

Media

In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a series of payments to several as-of-yet- unnamed reporters .

The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In September 2016 , he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.

In mid-October 2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.

On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article " A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in court documents relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, " FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA warrant.

The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.

Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application. According to the indictment , Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call. The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.

In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.

Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly stated that evidence within the FISA application shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.

Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit their complicity.

Foreign Intelligence

UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.

Britain's GCHQ was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to meet personally with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.

Former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in this file photo. Hannigan transmitted information regarding Donald Trump to John Brennan in the summer of 2016. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)

Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.

As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove.

Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend.

Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services.

Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books.

Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.

The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.

Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.

In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.

Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?

Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.

Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele

Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.

The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.

Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele maintains contact with British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove , and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.

Steele appears to have been represented by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:

"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort. I will be with him next tuesday for a week."

Steele also appears to have lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently disclosed by the Washington Examiner:

"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool' of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."

Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler, who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, at which she discussed the Magnitsky Act .

Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.

A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.

Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.


Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.

Bruce and Nellie Ohr have known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr before and after the 2016 election.

Bruce Ohr had been in contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s -- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.

Spy Traps

In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.

Papadopoulos and Mifsud both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around November 2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly joined LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016, in Italy.

Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.

Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.

Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed as a chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.

Papadopoulos was introduced to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened to be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit remains unknown.

The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.

Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."

Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.

Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017, BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended target of these failed FISAs.

Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.

Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.

After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct. 21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.

Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.

Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case.

Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia.

FBI informant Stefan Halper approached Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.

If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.

Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.

FISA Abuse

Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

Then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on May 23, 2017. Rogers uncovered widespread abuse of FISA data by the FBI. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

The Insurance Policy

Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.

It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

Spygate

Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread intelligence community leaks as facts.

But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern extending back decades?

The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as Spygate.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy. ..."
"... Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic]

The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

[Mar 25, 2019] Kushners Belong to Jewish Supremacist Cult

Apr 10, 2017 | themillenniumreport.com
(Jared & Ivanka visit the Chabad Rebbe for a pre-election blessing Nov. 5, 2016)

Is Trump's Jared Kushner connection to the Chabad Lubavitch sect the cause for his dramatic U-turn? The sect is deliberately fomenting a prophesied Third World War.

It believes Jews are God's chosen people and everyone else is trash. In the book "Gatherings of Conversations" Rebbe Schneerson tells his followers that Jewish people are an extension of God and Gentiles are destined to serve the Jews .

... ... ...

Jared Kushner attended Chabad House at Harvard.

"Israel wasn't a political discussion for him; it was his family, his life, his people," said Hirschy Zarchi, rabbi at the Chabad House at Harvard. Between 2003 and 2013, his family foundation donated a total of $342,500 to various institutions and projects associated with the movement. Especially endowed was the Chabad center at Harvard University, which received $150,000 in 2007 (the foundation's single biggest donation to a Lubavitch-affiliated enterprise) and then another $3,600 in 2013. In addition , the Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions. In 2006, Kushner's father Charles was sentenced to 24 months in prison for making illegal campaign donations & witness tampering.

[Mar 25, 2019] What do you think of Jared Kushner getting ready to unveil his economic plan for peace in the Middle East

Notable quotes:
"... He and the rest of his family are all crooks as are most politicians. Deals are made between thieves. Wealth serves as a mask. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.quora.com

What do you think of Jared Kushner getting ready to unveil his economic plan for peace in the Middle East?

https://thehill.com/news-by-subject/foreign-policy/429053-kushner-to-unveil-economic-plan-for-middle-east-peace-report

Christina Fabian , lives in San Francisco Answered Feb 8

He and the rest of his family are all crooks as are most politicians. Deals are made between thieves. Wealth serves as a mask.

I wonder how much he will make! Am so sick at the lack of morals among officials all over the world. Do good because it is the right thing to do not because of the accolades. Let thereby real judge!

[Mar 25, 2019] Is Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, the man to bring peace to the Middle East- - Quora

Jan 21, 2017 | www.quora.com

John-Paul Wilson Answered Jan 21 2017

No! Of course not. Why does anyone believe this nonsense!

First off, I think by "bring peace to the Middle East" you must be referring to "solve the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma". There are numerous conflicts in the broader Middle East that make broader peace impossible.

Jared Kushner has no diplomatic experience. He doesn't seem to have any special knowledge about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Being raised an Orthodox Jew, I think it will be impossible for the Palestinians to see him as a neutral party.

Here's something that people should have learned before the election: p... (more)

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner Is Beating Heart of Corrupt and Deeply Evil Trump Administration, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe Says by Jason Lemon

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold." ..."
"... "Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is." ..."
"... "Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials. ..."
"... "Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time." ..."
"... Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections. ..."
Mar 10, 2019 | www.newsweek.com

Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, slammed President Donald Trump's son-in-law of Jared Kushner in a tweet this weekend, suggesting he would soon be "exposed" as a traitor.

Sharing a long Twitter thread by attorney and academic Seth Abramson, who is also a columnist for Newsweek , Tribe on Saturday referred to Kushner as "Smarmy, slimy, smiling."

Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, was appointed by the president as a senior White House adviser in January 2017.

"Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold."

Tribe is referring to the infamous General Benedict Arnold, an early hero of the American Revolution against the British, who later switched sides and betrayed his young nation in 1779. "His name has since become synonymous with the word 'traitor,'" according to History .

Abramson's thread , shared by Tribe, laid out a case for why Kushner is allegedly the "greatest domestic danger to America."

The attorney and columnist made the claim after "many months" of research for a forthcoming book titled Proof of Conspiracy . "Many former US government officials know for a fact that what I've just said is true," Abramson wrote in his first tweet in the series.

"Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is."

"Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials.

"Trump circumventing our intelligence community to give his son-in-law that access is the shibboleth that made the current danger to America *possible* [sic]," Abramson warned.

"Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time."

Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections.

Jim Boyle Kathy Rhodarmer The article said the details will be revealed soon, so I guess we'll all just have to wait for the investigation to decide. Traitor is pretty strong accusation, but the massive Qatar loan, secretive relationship with MSB and intelligence agencies concern with his security clearance are all big red flags. The oversight will continue... Martin Wulfe Tribe is a highly respected constitutional lawyer, but so far this article is a real disappointment and lacks any details. We'll just have to wait until the full article comes out to see what actual evidence there is to back this up, if there is any.

Danny LaMaster Trump and Kushner are selling American secrets for personal gain

Bud Dailey Kushner is not and never will be a American patriot , and has no business in American government.

Kathy Dreher The same is true of the Trump crime family.

Joan Nelson Jared is too cozy with our enemy, no, not ally, Saudi Arabia.Setting up some opportunities for himself and his family after he leaves the WH. The scummy atmosphere in the WH is reflective of the presence of incompetent family members who have no business there...

[Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ...

Highly recommended!
In Ber 2018 Kusher security clearance wasdongraded.
Notable quotes:
"... Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said. ..."
"... Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost ..."
Feb 28, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

" Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.

Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said.

It is unclear if any of those countries acted on the discussions, but Kushner's contacts with certain foreign government officials have raised concerns inside the White House and are a reason he has been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance, the officials said.

Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost

------------------

Most people will probably be struck by the fall from grace of Kushner and other WH staff dilettantes. I am not terribly interested in that. What strikes me is that this is the third major compromise of US SIGINT products in the last year. The first was the felonious disclosure to the press of US intelligence penetration of Russian diplomatic communications. the second was the disclosure to the press of penetration of GRU communications. In this one the oral or written discussions among the officials of several foreign countries are revealed. These conversations were probably encrypted.

Is Jeff Sessions still alive? Why are there no prosecutions for these felonies? pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kushners-overseas-contacts-raise-concerns-as-foreign-officials-seek-leverage/2018/02/27/16bbc052-18c3-11e8-942d-16a950029788_story.html?utm_term=.e3639623e918

[Mar 25, 2019] Book Donald Trump Mocked Key Early White House Staff, Thought 'Jared and Ivanka Should Never Have Come to Washington'

Notable quotes:
"... In phone conversations with friends, Trump would share his frustrations concerning members of his staff and the internal chaos that drove the White House. ..."
"... Kushner was a suck-up. ..."
"... Jared and Ivanka should never have come to Washington. ..."
Jan 03, 2018 | www.breitbart.com

In phone conversations with friends, Trump would share his frustrations concerning members of his staff and the internal chaos that drove the White House.

Wolff reports:

When he got on the phone after dinner, he'd speculate on the flaws and weaknesses of each member of his staff. Bannon was disloyal (not to mention he always looks like shit). Priebus was weak (not to mention he was short -- a midget). Kushner was a suck-up. Sean Spicer was stupid (and looks terrible too). Conway was a crybaby. Jared and Ivanka should never have come to Washington.

Wolff reveals that the small group of friends did not keep details of Trump's calls to them confidential.

... ... ...

Trump fired Priebus and brought Gen. John Kelly in to serve as the White House chief of staff. Bannon left the White House soon after, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are serving a more diminished role in the White House. Sean Spicer also quit, and Kellyanne Conway remains a counselor to the president.

[Mar 25, 2019] Trumps son-in-law Kushner under FBI scrutiny in Russia probe report by WangXuejing

There is a probably difference between contacts with officials of Russian state and member of Jewish mafia of Russia/USSR origin. But it never ne investigated.
See also Jewish-American organized crime - Wikipedia "
The Soviet and Russian émigré community in New York's Brighton Beach contains a large Jewish presence. Some of these newer American-based Jewish gangsters, such as Ludwig Fainberg (who has lived in Ukraine, Israel and the United States, but never in Russia), share more in common culturally with Russia and the Soviet republics than their predecessors, such as Meyer Lansky. [36] [ page needed ]
Russian Jewish mafia figures, such as Semion Mogilevich , have attempted to penetrate the United States, including participating in a US$10 billion money laundering scheme through the Bank of New York in 1998.
Israeli mobsters also have had a presence in the United States. The Israeli mafia (such as the Abergil crime family ) is heavily involved in ecstasy trafficking in America. [37]
May 25, 2017 | en.people.cn
US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is also a senior adviser to the White House, is under FBI scrutiny as part of its probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election, NBC News reported on Thursday.

The report citing multiple sources said Kushner's interaction with the Russians has been a focus of the investigation. In December, Kushner met with the Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak and a banker from Moscow, according to NBC.

But it remains unclear exactly what activities have drawn the FBI's attention, and investigators' interests in Kushner "does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to charge him," the report said.

This came after reports that Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign manager Paul Manafort have been examined for their connections with the Russian government.

The 36-year-old Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, is an American real estate investor and worked in his father-in-law's presidential campaign team as a key adviser on US policy toward Israel and campaign strategy. In January, he was named senior adviser to the president and became a powerful figures in the West Wing.

[Mar 25, 2019] Ari Fleischer Lied, and People Died by Scott Ritter

Mar 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

"The Iraq war began sixteen years ago tomorrow," Fleischer tweeted on March 19. "There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years. After no WMDs were found, the left claimed 'Bush lied. People died.' This accusation itself is a lie. It's time to put it to rest."

Fleischer goes on to declare that "The fact is that President Bush (and I as press secretary) faithfully and accurately reported to the public what the intelligence community concluded," before noting that "The CIA, along with the intelligence services of Egypt, France, Israel and others concluded that Saddam had WMD. We all turned out to be wrong. That is very different from lying."

As a Chief Weapons Inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq from 1991 through 1998, I was intimately familiar with the intelligence used by the U.S. Intelligence Community to underpin the case for war (which I debunked in June 2002 in an article published in Arms Control Today ). Armed with the unique insights that came from this experience, I can state clearly and without any reservation that Ari Fleischer, once again, has misrepresented the facts when it comes to the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.

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The fact is, the Iraq War was never about WMD. Rather, it was waged for one purpose and one purpose only -- regime change. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the sole focus of this effort, and the so-called "intelligence" used to justify this act was merely an excuse for action. Ari Fleischer knows this, and to contend otherwise -- as he does via twitter -- is simply a continuation of the lies he told from the very beginning about the U.S. case for war with Iraq.

UNSCOM had, by the fall of 2002, been relegated to the pages of history, replaced by a new inspection organization, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) . It is through the work of UNMOVIC that Ari Fleischer's defense of George W. Bush collapses. In November 2002 the Bush administration pushed for the UN Security Council to pass Resolution 1441 , which found Iraq to be in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations. Inspectors from UNMOVIC were dispatched to Iraq shortly thereafter in a last-ditch effort to account for the totality of Iraq's WMD.

The work of the inspectors was undermined from the start by the Bush administration, led by Ari Fleischer. "It is very well true that the inspectors who are working as diligently as they can in an environment made very difficult for them by Iraqi actions, may not be giving notice," Fleischer explained in a press conference, "but that does not mean Iraq is not receiving notice as a result of their electronic means and other means to know what the inspectors are doing. Which puts the inspectors in a very hard position."

But Fleischer had no evidence that Iraq was getting advance notice, and the experience of UNMOVIC inspectors on the ground suggested otherwise. When asked by a reporter about the possibility of giving the UN weapons inspectors more time to complete their task, Fleischer fired back, asking "More time for what? More time to be run-around by a regime that has not complied, that has concealed its weapons, and that has grown throughout the years -- particularly the four years when no one was in the country -- extraordinarily good at hiding what they have and deceiving those who are there to do their level best."

Trump is Right: The Intelligence Community Needs to 'Go Back to School' The Army's Iraq War History: Truth-Telling or Mythmaking?

Left unsaid was the fact that the inspectors had repeatedly asked the U.S. for access to the very intelligence being used to underpin the American claims that Iraq was holding on to prohibited WMD and were denied. "If the UK and the U.S. are convinced and they say they have evidence," Hans Blix, the head of UNMOVIC, had noted on December 20, 2002, "then one would expect they would be able to tell us where is this stuff." When asked if they were getting cooperation from U.S. and Western intelligence agencies, Blix replied, "Not yet. We get some, but we don't get all we need."

In 2010, Blix commented on the provisions of Security Council resolution 1441, which had declared Iraq to be in "material breach" of its obligation to disarm, and which was cited by Ari Fleischer to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003. "The declaration, I felt, might give Iraq a chance for a new start," Blix noted, " except that it was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they didn't have any. "

This is the conclusion that anyone taking umbrage with Ari Fleischer over his attempt to whitewash the role he played -- as an extension of President George W. Bush -- in facilitating the Iraq War should rely on. Deflecting blame onto the U.S. intelligence community ignores the fact that the decision to go to war was the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch that Fleischer served. Iraq's alleged retention of proscribed WMD were merely an excuse to achieve the higher goal of regime change. The inspection process initiated in November 2002 to investigate Iraq's WMD programs was, from the U.S. perspective, a façade created to justify a decision to go to war that was made long before the inspectors ever set foot on the ground.

"Intelligence," therefore, was an artifice manufactured by the Bush administration as a smoke screen. A memorandum prepared by the head of the British MI-6 intelligence service , Richard Dearlove, following a July 23, 2002 meeting in Washington, DC, underscores this truth: "There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD . But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Bush knew that the engagement with the United Nations, including the crafting of resolution 1441 and the dispatch of inspectors to Iraq, was simply an elaborate charade, cruel theatrics meant to dangle the prospects of peace, all the while preparing for war -- something Ari Fleischer knew all along, as this exchange with the press aptly demonstrates:

Question: "Does regime change mean that you want to change the leader of Iraq, or you want to change the nature of the regime?"

Fleischer: "The objective is for Saddam Hussein's Iraq to disarm, to stop threatening its neighbors, to stop repressing minorities within its own country. And that's why Congress passed the policy of regime change."

Press: "Well, which of those definitions is correct?"

Fleischer: "Well, let's do it -- let me cut to the bottom line on it. What I would propose is that in the event Saddam Hussein gives the order, and under his leadership and direction disarms Iraq, gives up its weapons of mass destruction, has no more chemical weapons, no more biological weapons, stops using hostility as a way to deal with its neighbors, stops repression of minorities with his own country, give me a call. After you cover Saddam Hussein doing these things, let's talk about it. Until then, the president is focused on making sure that these developments take place as a result either of the UN resolutions being enforced, or by whoever in Iraq taking these actions to make it happen. But this is probably the mother of all hypotheticals. Give me a phone call when it happens."

Press: "So Saddam could stay in power if those objectives were carried out?"

Fleischer: "Again, call me up when Saddam Hussein gives the directions for all those factors to take place."

Press: "So, that's a yes?"

Fleischer: "I think this is a question of how many devils can dance on the head of a pin."

Press: "It's not. Can he stay in power and have regime change?"

Fleischer: "You're asking the mother of hypotheticals. And I think it's a rather "

Press: "Does it refer to a leader or a government regime change?"

Fleischer: "It refers to actions that have to be taken to keep the peace."

Press: "So it's a question of policy, not personnel?"

Fleischer: "That's a good way to put it."

Press: "So he could stay in power if those things happen?"

Fleischer: "If you want to fool yourselves into believing that that's what Saddam Hussein would do in policy, that's an interesting way to approach it."

The fact of the matter is that Saddam did, in fact, do everything listed by Ari Fleischer to effect a change in the policies of Iraq in order to preserve his regime. But President Bush -- whom Fleischer represented -- never had any intention of recognizing such change, even when it occurred. President Bush, Ari Fleischer and every representative of the U.S. administration involved in formulating and implementing U.S. policy on Iraq was being dishonest in the extreme when dangling the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the Iraq problem.

In short, they all lied, and Ari Fleischer was the mouthpiece for disseminating these lies, a task he continues to perform to this day.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road to War . 14 Responses to Ari Fleischer Lied, and People Died


Sid Finster March 22, 2019 at 6:41 pm

Ari Fleischer is the equivalent of a Rosenberg or Streicher.

He deserves the same fate, and for his memory to be remembered with the same disgust.

Whine Merchant , says: March 22, 2019 at 7:18 pm
Thank you for another reminder of what really happened. My only quibble is that this uses GWB, the figurehead, as the power and decision-maker. Like Bolton & Co today, the ones calling the plays are not the public face that can get elected by the proles. It was the Cheney/Wolfy/Rummy cabal, smokescreened by Rove, who sent Iraq back to the stone age at the behest of Israel.

One down and more to go Iran is the next big target of the same mentality.

Gene Smolko , says: March 22, 2019 at 7:41 pm
Liberals were called traitors, we were right

The Bush admin's push for war stank from the beginning

Kouros , says: March 22, 2019 at 8:54 pm
Whitewashing and preparing the stage for Iran

It is interesting to note the following requirement: "stops repression of minorities with his own country". It indicates that Bush administration had a plan B for invading Iraq, on the template of Kosovo

Iran is probably paying attention.

Stephen J. , says: March 22, 2019 at 10:11 pm
The writer states: "In short, they all lied, "
Therefore, based on the evidence that the Iraq war was a lie, where are the prosecutions? Millions of people are dead, soldiers are dead or maimed, Iraq is reduced to rubble in parts of its land and nothing happens to the perpetrators of lies. What does this say about our so-called "justice system"?
http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/will-war-criminals-be-brought-to.html
Ken T , says: March 23, 2019 at 8:21 am
Thank you for keeping the truth alive, Mr. Ritter.
Tony , says: March 23, 2019 at 8:23 am
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

It is the same today with the intelligence being fixed to justify the US exit from the INF treaty.

Why does the administration not tell us what the range of the disputed missile is?

Why would Russia deploy a land-based missile in breach of the treaty when it could deploy it at sea and not violate any treaty?

Not surprisingly, this information has not been supplied.

Behind the decision to leave the INF treaty is John Bolton. He also fought to remove Jose Bustani as the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which governs the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Bustani was trying to bring Iraq into that treaty. That is why he had to go. If he had succeeded it would have removed the excuse for war.

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/

just go away , says: March 23, 2019 at 8:27 am
It's astonishing that creeps like Fleischer have the temerity to show their faces in public. His lies caused terrible damage to America and millions of innocent civilians in the Middle East. He should shut the **** up and thank his lucky stars he wasn't sent to prison for his part in this disgusting episode.
Stephen J. , says: March 23, 2019 at 11:24 am
The War of Lies Against Iraq
By Eric S. Margolis
March 23, 2019

Sixteen years ago, the US and Britain committed a crime of historic proportion, the invasion and destruction of Iraq. It was as egregious an aggression as Nazi Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland.

Large numbers of Iraqi civilians died from 2003-2007. Iraq's water and sewage systems were bombed, causing widespread cholera. The UN estimated 500,000 Iraqi children alone died as a result. Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, said it was 'a price worth paying.'
[read more at link below]

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/03/eric-margolis/the-war-of-lies-against-iraq/
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
"Former US military adviser David Kilcullen says there would be no Isis without Iraq invasion" Lizzie Dearden, March 4, 2016.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-war-invasion-caused-isis-islamic-state-daesh-saysus-military-adviser-david-kilcullen-a6912236.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
See also:
http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/04/are-christians-slaughtered-in-middle.html

Inanna , says: March 23, 2019 at 12:27 pm
And now we get to do all over again, with the right target this time, Iran. Don't forget that after 9/11 the first call was to go after Iran and not our trusty allies in the ME who were the real perps. Iraq was just the consolation prize for these insane ideologues, who should all be in jailed for war crimes.
Maria , says: March 23, 2019 at 2:51 pm
If you define weapons of mass destruction as nuclear war capabilities, then Iraq had none. If you define weapons of mass destruction as chemical, then Iraq historically had these weapons which it used against Iran, the Kurds, and shot some in Iraq War I at Israel. What happened to the chemical weapons? They were sold/moved to Syria, where they still are today, and still being used by the Assad regime. When the US troops got to Iraq in Gulf War II, the chemical weapons were gone from Iraq, but not from Syria, which is why Iran, has a vested interest in being involved in Syria, not to mention Israel. Does this help to make more sense of what seems to be a perpetual war?
Trump just wanted these chemical weapons destroyed and never created again, and the US will evacuate the Middle East once this is accomplished.
john d. , says: March 23, 2019 at 2:53 pm
Thank you for this important reminder, as we are following this template in Iran & Syria. Neocons/Zionists will stop at nothing.
Taras 77 , says: March 23, 2019 at 6:18 pm
The article and the comments say it all: the lies, nothing else, were used to destroy Iraq!

No intell "mistake" can be offered-it is and was a neo con deception of the country and the world.

Accountability, however, will not happen. Very ominous for the situation pertaining to Iran and Venezuela. If the thugs in suits, pompeo, bolton, abrams, feel no consequence will happen, why worry-it is off to intervention/regime change they go.

American sheeple have the institutional memory of a gnat and the mass media coverup and malfeseance will continue.

EliteCommInc. , says: March 24, 2019 at 10:58 am
"Liberals were called traitors, we were right
The Bush admin's push for war stank from the beginning"

On the issue of Iraq, there's no hiding behind liberal, democrats, conservative, republicans, libertarians, etc.

Most of the country was heck bent on war as a matter of revenge, regardless of policy. The fear mongering for policies adjecent to the actual events and actors of 9/11 was not only coming out of DC, but main street. New Yorkers were no less intent on war making than the WH, Congress or various think tanks, businesses or educators from elite or non-elite schools.

And what has occurred since moots any real escape in labels. The group who should have been the least likely and the most prudent, the most thoughtful – the conservatives had bent conservatism so out of distortion that even they had no defense against unreason.

I have tended to give the president and those in the WH and Congress the benefit of the doubt that they sincerely considered a response in the region as a defense. I did not go to select schools, and the schools I did attend did not require me to Ovid or an overview of the classics in Greek or Latin. I had not attended a war college class or anything of the kind. But when the case was presented for war – it simply didn't have the evidence or a rationale that made sense. In fact, some of those contentions contradicted the what was known as well as each other. It was deeply disturbing and disappointing. But when I read the president's response to Dir. Tenet,

"If that's all you got, we can't go to war"

or words to that effect, they reflected my thoughts entirely. And for a long time I considered that all of this mayhem was part of a diplomatic package. I was already outside the main on the issue of Afghanistan, which I thought was overkill and strategically unsound for the what should have been the goal – dealing with the actors of 9/11.

I do agree with Inspector Ritter, it was also quite clear that until the inspectors had finished their mission, minus any evidence that Pres Hussein was in violation – there was no case. Nor was there a case for invasion based on any humanitarian crisis or genocide.

But what I have not been able to do is cross that line that they the president knowing and deliberately conspired to manufacture (lie) evidence against an innocent party. And I have been able to cross that line to despite having contemplated this article for two days and I will no doubt read it again, to include the references. Those of that objected the first go 'round, if not pacifists, have problem read several pools of of information and arguments regarding the case or lack thereof for war and the misleading the country by the leadership. And it's frustrating that those who actually got the matter spot on are still battling the those that got the matter and subsequent similar advances incorrect to this day. It's down right painful considering the measures that were engaged to not merely silence opposition, but to destroy people's lives.

What has been broken may not be repairable, one hopes it is, believes it is, but reading this article is just too deep wound to see it. And what is salt in the wound has been three years of accusations about Russian collusion for the purposes of undermining the executive who claimed we should reconsider how we address the adventures. And the near total buy in of that press by half of the country minus any catastrophic event, makes the wars seem as window dressing to a much deeper and darker ethic that plagues us.

And then there is the question of what to do about all of this official misrepresentation. Not only must we filter out whether they knowingly lied, but what to do about it. The daunting task of arresting so many in so many positions of leadership and research. I consider it serious business to make a false report, much less doing so on a document of declaration for official business -- that is purjury. We impeached a president because he mislead about what was a private intimate indiscretion --

What s described above is devastatingly more egregious by several Everests in magnitude.

And it implicates our partners in what could only be a crime: Great Britain, Israel, Australia, Poland and others who aided and abetted in the matter.

Caveat pre-defense: L'est I be called an anti-semite, Israel has a right to exist and self defense.

They were wrong. And that the factual data contradicted their claims may not be enough to claim they did not genuinely believe their own "lies" if "lies" they were. Or maybe I am just unwilling to hold people on my team to account to the standard required. Perhaps, accepting the idea that they knowingly perjured themselves is just too painful to accept.

Unwilling to call a spade a spade – maybe just too merciful or at the end of the day -- cowardice.

[Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
"... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
"... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
"... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
"... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
"... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
"... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
"... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
"... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
  1. President Trump was not indicted, nor did Mueller recommend an indictment against him for collusion or obstruction.
  2. There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
  3. The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
  4. While nearly three dozen people were charged , including a few close to the president or who worked for his campaign, no one in proximity to the president was formally charged with colluding with Russia. Most, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn or campaign adviser George Papadopoulos , were charged with process crimes or felonies unrelated to the main case, as in Paul Manafort 's secretive, multimillion-dollar foreign lobbying spree through Ukraine.

*********

Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.

An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill

------------

Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been defeated.

The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections.

At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.

The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search through Trump's life trying to find criminality.

AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin. pl

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/435394-the-wisdom-of-trumps-lawyers-and-the-accountability-that-must-follow

Posted at 09:00 AM in government , Justice , Politics | Permalink | 20 Comments


David Habakkuk , 14 hours ago

I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy.

It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.

The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this side.

In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.

Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years it patently has not been.

Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.

English Outsider -> David Habakkuk , 12 hours ago
Mr Habakkuk,

I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -

"They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. "

What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?

Mark Logan -> David Habakkuk , 9 hours ago

The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated. The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
English Outsider -> Mark Logan , 6 hours ago
I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.

Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.

With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.

Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 6 hours ago
Ex?
Mad_Max22 , 11 hours ago
An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC 1001.

The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would figure it out.

Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.

They couldn't know that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted" positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."

Perhaps this defense could be overcome by demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible be so stupid... maybe.

And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings, all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.

So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the country is so uncertain.

I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right. It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!

Eric Newhill , 12 hours ago
I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or somehow intimated by Trump.

The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;

and that + all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the criminal cases under way?

robt willmann , 3 hours ago
seesee2468,

On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6 minute, 5 second mark, he says--

"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result."

https://www.c-span.org/vide...

Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.

However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.

Divadab Newton , 10 hours ago
It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)

I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?

Walrus , 13 hours ago
Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?

I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs to be restitution.

To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in suicide or worse - so far.

ugluk2 , 3 hours ago
Matt Taibbi on how the press has destroyed its credibility.

https://taibbi.substack.com...

Taras77 , 8 hours ago
I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.

I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!

Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.

And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.

MP98 , 12 hours ago
Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting? The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the Democrat-media party. Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
Greco , 12 hours ago
The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
Fred W , 12 hours ago
Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report. It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the campaign.

That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp of the real nature of normal political process.

Fred -> Fred W , 4 hours ago
"The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."

Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?

seesee2468 -> Fred W , 6 hours ago
Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
Pat Lang Mod -> seesee2468 , 6 hours ago
I cannot.
peter hodges , 12 hours ago
Nothing will happen. In fact, the way things have been going, Trump will make Mueller the next AG.

[Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
"... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
"... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
"... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
"... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ken , Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | link

Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?

The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup.

This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.
https://consentfactory.org/2019/03/21/mueller-dammerung/

GeorgeV , Mar 23, 2019 2:13:42 PM | link

It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be barred from public office or the media forever.

As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!

the pair , Mar 23, 2019 2:14:43 PM | link
sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.

i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.

ger , Mar 23, 2019 2:16:08 PM | link
I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends). No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM | link
@dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)

Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)

Nathan Mulcahy , Mar 23, 2019 2:31:06 PM | link
"very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".

I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit (about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is chanting "give me more, give me more...".

Disgusting! sorry for the pessimistic rant.

renfro , Mar 23, 2019 2:56:18 PM | link
The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.

However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC, EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn.

The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and political circles.

The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.

BraveNewWorld , Mar 23, 2019 3:00:34 PM | link
b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing this.

I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.

Lozion , Mar 23, 2019 3:09:29 PM | link
One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis, etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM | link
The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier, moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
dh-mtl , Mar 23, 2019 3:11:13 PM | link
Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.

Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole, are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.

Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason of the highest order.

Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved. None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved. Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually societal collapse.

In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:

- The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent 737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry, in an industry where reputation is everything.

- The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover from that crisis.

- This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions, (the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and the ability to maintain peace.

The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears, and societal decline sets in.

It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators.

English Outsider , Mar 23, 2019 3:27:38 PM | link
The pair @ 3.

Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of the BBC news, we're in information control territory.

But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.

In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media. Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the shifting currents within that political elite.

So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think. In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing and what they intend to do.

worldblee , Mar 23, 2019 3:28:20 PM | link
The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty, supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their daily fodder for conversation...
ben , Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | link
renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."

Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues the
American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an infrastructure
plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.

The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to distract, and they've done it well.

The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same ilk.

Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | link
I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.

2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary for over 25 years.

3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.

When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card industry.

4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her campaign.

5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters activist; and she called whites "deplorables".

Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.

6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.

IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:

> hiring Manafort;

> calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;

> talking about Putin in a admiring way.

And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:

> served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;

> distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;

> served as a device for settling scores:

- Assange isolated
(Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");

- Michael Flynn forced to resign
(because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).

hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM | link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
Jen , Mar 23, 2019 4:01:43 PM | link
BraveNewWorld @ 11:

If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases. This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 - 2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.

The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.

As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.

james , Mar 23, 2019 4:16:03 PM | link
thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath @2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."

the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance.. instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is still on track...

@19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..

WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 4:36:17 PM | link
What Difference Does it Make?
They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their deals for civilian projects in the Med.
Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:37:43 PM | link
What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes about Trump, Russia.
Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!

But remember folks, we here was always right...
The Mueller Report Is In. They Were Wrong. We Were Right.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-mueller-report-is-in-they-were-wrong-we-were-right-a915d23a6d82

iv> also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

Posted by: Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

Posted by: Zanon | Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

Russ , Mar 23, 2019 4:41:30 PM | link
People are forgetting to call Dembot agent Wheeler "FBI rat Wheeler", or just Rat Wheeler. Or EmptySqueal.
karlof1 , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:23 PM | link
Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!

During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen. Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.

Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM | link
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.

Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room yelling that the house is on fire.

Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?

Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:52:41 PM | link
Scotch Bingeington

Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing happend:

If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves

defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity. Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.


https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1109235461430657026
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:00:23 PM | link
Who will say that the King has no clothes?

The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong.

Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already know.

It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.

And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.

WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 5:08:16 PM | link
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years

Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4

You people don't get it do you?
'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell swoop....

steve , Mar 23, 2019 5:11:08 PM | link
Deep state makes the warren commish seem authoritative
john , Mar 23, 2019 5:13:37 PM | link
the rot in DC is palpable. this whole russiagate fiasco's been like some kind of really bad audition for deeper state kabuki...what's next?

keeping brand Trump alive.

Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 5:22:08 PM | link
Matt Taibbi:

It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD
The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million

Pft , Mar 23, 2019 5:38:41 PM | link
Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel) and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.

That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want something covered up? Put Mueller on it.

To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont believe. Lol

Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China trademarks .

The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.

tuyzentfloot , Mar 23, 2019 5:46:31 PM | link
The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it onto cable tv?
It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will become true after all.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , Mar 23, 2019 5:48:55 PM | link

"Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.

When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight, you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar, one with a great deal of blood on her hands.

My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new credibility.

The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.

And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.


https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-americas-democrats-launch-lawsuit-against-trump-and-russia-and-wiki-leaks-over-election-hilarious-this-is-a-country-fit-to-dominate-the-earth-they-cant-manage-their-own/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/john-chuckman-comment-yet-more-ignorant-gossip-and-innuendo-about-trump-and-russia-this-all-reminds-me-of-insane-past-american-campaigns-against-procter-gamble-or-harry-potter-charging-devil/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/john-chuckman-comment-what-americas-neocons-represent-for-arms-control-agreements-such-as-the-inf-with-russia-and-heres-the-deadly-weakness-in-trumps-psychology-that-has-allowed-neocons-to-ta/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/john-chuckman-comment-a-comment-rightly-asks-with-trump-doing-everything-the-establishment-wants-why-do-they-still-want-to-get-rid-of-him-i-think-these-are-the-essential-reasons/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/john-chuckman-comment-some-very-dark-thoughts-of-where-america-is-going-in-its-relations-with-russia-and-iran-i-do-think-we-live-in-dangerous-times-and-they-are-deliberately-manufactured/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/john-chuckman-comment-complete-degradation-of-a-self-styled-great-nation-which-allows-paid-thugs-to-use-poison-gas-to-give-it-an-excuse-for-still-more-killing-the-dark-place-we-are-brought-to-by-tr/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/john-chuckman-comment-more-on-the-strange-phenomenon-of-trump-and-americas-neocons-a-man-who-imagines-himself-a-great-leader-leading-nothing-and-he-still-has-pathetic-followers-who-think-hes-fi/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-new-phony-book-on-trump-and-russia-whats-really-going-on-with-all-the-mumbo-jumbo-insanity-in-america-the-real-target-aint-trump-neocons-and-russia/


Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:59:03 PM | link
Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.

No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.

It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.

So funny.

Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his Administration.

Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.

The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate. Lets just blame it all on Hillary.

Welcome to the rabbithole.

Copeland , Mar 23, 2019 6:23:41 PM | link
Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have succumbed.

As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."

Jonathan , Mar 23, 2019 7:02:54 PM | link
@37 Jackrabbit,

Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for .

Arioch , Mar 23, 2019 7:06:26 PM | link
Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment, then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!

It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited from it", highly likely!

Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly likely.

fast freddy , Mar 23, 2019 7:12:20 PM | link
There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
Peter , Mar 23, 2019 7:16:00 PM | link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHo6cW0HVkQ DISGRACEFUL WILL WE EVER SAY NO?
vk , Mar 23, 2019 7:24:32 PM | link
@ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | 18

We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.

It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win because the DNC threw all its weight against him.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one: if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the bits you want.

I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment" acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American people (or a signficant part of it).

But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.

It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and can be balkanized.

Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 7:30:58 PM | link
counterpoint: If the Mueller report does not EXPLICITLY exonerate Trump, it does NOT exonerate Trump.
wagelaborer , Mar 23, 2019 7:43:06 PM | link
There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only spun onto new hysteria.
Rob , Mar 23, 2019 7:58:15 PM | link
As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and Republicans.
Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 8:08:59 PM | link
"...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."

Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.

Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 23, 2019 8:10:36 PM | link
Ben nails it in "Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | 17".

Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.

A case of divide and conquer against the population

This time it was a fabricated scandal.

Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements, wearing down relations.

The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like that).

Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.

Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and effort.

Management by crisis

The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through spam.

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 8:11:22 PM | link
Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.

Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.

I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was (mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

And we have seen other 'shows' also, like:

> White Helmets;

>> Skripal;

>> the Kavanaugh hearings;

>> pulling troops out of Syria.

aspnaz , Mar 23, 2019 8:19:24 PM | link
My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 8:50:48 PM | link
Jackrabbit @18
So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do nationalist.
I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
Cortes , Mar 23, 2019 8:51:27 PM | link
As usual, a fine essay. Thank you.

A couple of suggestions?

The headline would be better worded "Russiagate really is finished."

And the reaction at Colonel Lang's site makes interesting reading.

Les , Mar 23, 2019 8:55:52 PM | link
They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration, the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
paul , Mar 23, 2019 8:56:02 PM | link
The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:00:35 PM | link
vk @43

We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns). Bernie refused.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:02:11 PM | link
Sorry, here's a more readable version:

We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns) . Bernie refused.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:06:00 PM | link
Jonathan @39
Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:13:59 PM | link
mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.

Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a thin margin.

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 23, 2019 9:14:04 PM | link
Gosh and Blimey!
Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...

From Xymphora March 21, 2019.

"Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):

"Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34 percent from gentiles.
Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50 donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from Jewish givers.
So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about it: 76 percent is a lot."

Erelis , Mar 23, 2019 9:35:12 PM | link
Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state. And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in 2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is not confronting Putin"...
daffyDuct , Mar 23, 2019 9:40:02 PM | link

Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow, troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.

mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:54:13 PM | link
Jackrabbit,

I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.

I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other problems, but it still wasn't enough.

I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.

jadan , Mar 23, 2019 9:56:37 PM | link

Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove.

It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.

It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better.

[Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there. ..."
"... And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless. ..."
"... They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. ..."
"... The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion." ..."
"... It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. ..."
"... If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb. ..."
"... If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate. ..."
"... And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us. ..."
"... Hillary is the epitome of evil. ..."
"... I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. ..."
"... Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected. ..."
"... Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected". ..."
"... HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH ..."
"... It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible ..."
"... When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Luongo,

During most of the RussiaGate investigation against Donald Trump I kept saying that all roads lead to Hillary Clinton.

Anyone with three working brain cells knew this, including 'Miss' Maddow, whose tears of disappointment are particularly delicious.

Robert Mueller's investigation was designed from the beginning to create something out of nothing. It did this admirably.

It was so effective it paralyzed the country for more than two years, just like Europe has been held hostage by Brexit. And all of this because, in the end, the elites I call The Davos Crowd refused to accept that the people no longer believed their lies about the benefits of their neoliberal, globalist agenda.

Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Presidency was to be their apotheosis along with the Brexit vote. These were meant to lay to rest, once and for all time, the vaguely libertarian notion that people should rule themselves and not be ruled by philosopher kings in some distant land.

Hillary's failure was enormous. And the RussiaGate gambit to destroy Trump served a laundry list of purposes to cover it:

  1. Undermine his legitimacy before he even takes office.
  2. Accuse him of what Hillary actually did: collude with Russians and Ukrainians to effect the outcome of the election
  3. Paralyze Trump on his foreign policy desires to scale back the Empire
  4. Give aid and comfort to hurting progressives and radicalize them further undermining our political system
  5. Polarize the electorate over the false choice of Trump's guilt.
  6. Paralyze the Dept. of Justice and Congress so that they would not uncover the massive corruption in the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
  7. Isolate Trump and take away every ally or potential ally he could have by turning them against him through prosecutor overreach.

Hillary should have been thrown to the wolves after she failed. When you fail the people she failed and cost them the money she cost them, you lose more than just your funding. What this tells you is that Hillary has so much dirt on everyone involved, once this thing started everyone went along with it lest she burn them down as well.

Burnin' Down da House

Hillary is the epitome of envy. Envy is the destructive sin of coveting someone else's life so much they are obsessed with destroying it. It's the sin of Cain. She envies what Trump has, the Presidency. And she was willing to tear it down to keep him from having it no matter how much damage it would do. She's worse than the Joker from The Dark Knight.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/efHCdKb5UWc

Because while the Joker is unfathomable to someone with a conscience there's little stopping us from excising him from the community completely., even though Batman refuses.

Hillary hates us for who we are and what we won't give her. And that animus drove her to blackmail the world while putting on the face of its savior.

And that's what makes what comes next so obvious to me. RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there.

Mueller thought all he had to do was lean on corrupt people and threaten them with everything. They would turn on Trump. He would resign in disgrace from the public outcry. It didn't work. In the end Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone all held their ground or perjured themselves into the whole thing falling apart.

Andrew Weissman's resignation last month was your tell there was nothing. Mueller would pursue this to the limit of his personal reputation and no further. Just like so many other politicians.

Vote Your Pocketbook

With respect to Brexit I've been convinced that it would come down to reputations. Would the British MP's vote against their own personal best interests to do the bidding of the EU? Would Theresa May eventually realize her historical reputation would be destroyed if she caves to Brussels and betrays Brexit in the end? Always bet on the fecklessness of politicians. They will always act selfishly when put to the test. While leading RussiaGate, Mueller was always headed here if he couldn't get someone to betray Trump.

And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless.

They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. The progressives that were convinced of Trump's treason are bereft; their false hope stripped away like standing in front of a sandblaster. They will be raw, angry and looking for blood after they get over their denial.

Everyone else who was blackmailed into going along with this lunacy will begin cutting deals to save their skins. The outrage over this will not end. Trump will be President when he stands for re-election.

The Wolves Beckon

The Democrats do not have a chance against him as of right now. When he was caving on everything back in December it looked like he was done. That there was enough meat on the RussiaGate bones to make Nancy Pelosi brave. Then she backed off on impeachment talk. Oops....

... ... ...

The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion."

It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. There is only one answer. And Obama's people are still in place to protect him. I said last fall that " Hillary would indict herself. " And I meant it. Eventually her blackmail and drive to burn it all down led to this moment.

The circumstances are different than I expected back then, Trump didn't win the mid-terms. But the end result was always the same. If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb.

Because the bigger project, the erection of a transnational superstate, is bigger than any one person. Hillary is expendable. Lies are expensive to maintain. The truth is cheap to defend. Think of the billions in opportunity costs associated with this. Once the costs rise above the benefits, change happens fast. If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate.

We all know it's the truth. So, the cheapest way out of this mess for them is to give the MAGApedes what they want, Hillary.

And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us.


Jdhank , 27 minutes ago link

Hillary ain't enough!

We demand Comey, Brennan, Bill, the Podesta's, and the prancing little effiminate pony himself.

consider me gone , 29 minutes ago link

I'm surprised Donna Brazier and Pedo Podesta are still breathing. Maybe Hillary got God. Or gin.

Koba the Dread , 32 minutes ago link

Hillary is the epitome of envy.

Your spelling is atrocious. Let me correct it.

Hillary is the epitome of evil.

There, that does it.

KnitDame , 1 hour ago link

I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. Think of the taxpayer money wasted on this ridiculous Mueller investigation! The Roger Stone arrest was an outrage. Who tipped off CNN? Who ordered it? What was with the attack dogs and machine guns?

And now we have Nadler trying to destroy anyone and everyone who ever did business with Trump. All those 80 people who got letters from him asking for documents will now be bankrupted by legal fees.

According to Scott Adams, one recipient is refusing to cooperate -- he's saying "I can't afford for me and family to be destroyed." He put the request for documents in a drawer. He has no money for lawyers.

This insanity and abuse of power has got to stop. Meanwhile, nothing gets done in Congress. We're all looking at censorship, tilted search engines, de-monetization, being beat up on campus for trying to express an opinion, being accosted in a restaurant (or, VP Pence, from the stage ("Hamilton"), getting sucker-punched for wearing a MAGA hat, having elections stolen through myriad Dem cheating methods, and NOTHING is being done.

2willies , 1 hour ago link

You forgot Rachel

TeraByte , 1 hour ago link

"all roads lead to Hillary Clinton"

Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected.

Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected".

Dragon HAwk , 1 hour ago link

Hillary is expendable.

God I Love Feel Good Stories.

East Indian , 1 hour ago link

And, oh, I almost forgot.

HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH

Neochrome , 1 hour ago link

It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible.

When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself.

[Mar 24, 2019] Mueller-D mmerung by C.J. Hopkins

Notable quotes:
"... Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees "colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. ..."
"... This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. ..."
"... He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story. ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. ..."
"... Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting down a populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

If Nietzsche was right, and what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, we can thank the global capitalist ruling classes, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media for four more years of Donald Trump. The long-awaited Mueller report is due any day now, or so they keep telling us. Once it is delivered, and does not prove that Trump is a Russian intelligence asset, or that he personally conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, well, things are liable to get a bit awkward.

Given the amount of goalpost-moving and focus-shifting that has been going on, clearly, this is what everyone's expecting.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees "colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. After all, if you're going to accuse a sitting president of being a Russian intelligence asset, you kind of need to be able to prove it, or (a) you defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, (b) you destroy your own credibility, and (c) you present that sitting president with a powerful weapon he can use to bury you.

This is not exactly rocket science. As any seasoned badass will tell you, when you're resolving a conflict with another seasoned badass, you don't take out a gun unless you're going to use it. Taking a gun out, waving it around, and not shooting the other badass with it, is generally not a winning strategy. What often happens, if you're dumb enough to do that, is that the other badass will take your gun from you and either shoot you or beat you senseless with it.

This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. When the Mueller report fails to present any evidence that he "colluded" with Russia to steal the election, Trump is going to reach over, grab that report, roll it up tightly into a makeshift cudgel, and then beat the snot out of his opponents with it. He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story.

That story goes a little something like this

Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, and was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?

The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy.

Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup.

This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.

A minority of ideological heretics on what passes for the American Left are going to help him tell this story, not because we support Donald Trump, but because we believe that the mass hysteria and authoritarian fanaticism that has been manufactured over the course of Russiagate represents a danger greater than Trump. It has reached some neo-Riefenstahlian level, this bug-eyed, spittle-flecked, cult-like behavior worse even than the mass hysteria that gripped most Americans back in 2003, when they cheered on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the murder, rape, and torture of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children based on a bunch of made-up horseshit.

We are going to be vilified, we leftist heretics, for helping Trump tell Americans this story. We are going to be denounced as Trumpenleft traitors , Putin-sympathizers, and Nazi-adjacents (as we were denounced as terrorist-sympathizers and Saddam-loving traitors back in 2003). We are going to be denounced as all these things by liberals, and by other leftists. We are going to be warned that pointing out how the government, the media, and the intelligence agencies all worked together to sell people Russiagate will only get Trump reelected, and, if that happens, it will be the End of Everything.

It will not be the End of Everything.

What might, however, be the End of Everything, or might lead us down the road to the End of Everything, is if otherwise intelligent human beings continue to allow themselves to be whipped into fits of mass hysteria and run around behaving like a mindless herd of propaganda-regurgitating zombies whenever the global capitalist ruling classes tell them that "the Russians are coming!" or that "the Nazis are coming!" or that "the Terrorists are coming!"

The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting down a populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with.

If you want a glimpse of the dystopian future it isn't an Orwellian boot in your face. It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Study the Russiagate believers' reactions to the Mueller report when it is finally delivered. Observe the bizarre intellectual contortions their minds perform to rationalize their behavior over the last three years. Trust me, it will not be pretty. Cognitive dissonance never is.

Or, who knows, maybe the Russiagate gang will pull a fast one at the eleventh hour, and accuse Robert Mueller of Putinist sympathies (or appearing in that FSB video of Trump's notorious Moscow pee-party), and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the special prosecutor. That should get them through to 2020!

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .

[Mar 24, 2019] One of warnings delivered by Ryabkov is understood to have been that no American military intervention in Venezuela will be tolerated by Moscow.

Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

JohninMK , Mar 24, 2019 2:09:42 PM | link

Suddenly everything has changed in Venezuela.

Following the 'red lines' meeting between Ryabkov and Elliot Abrams in Rome a couple of days ago, after which Ryabkov said bluntly:

"We assume that Washington treats our priorities seriously, our approach and warnings."

One of those warnings delivered by Ryabkov is understood to have been that no American military intervention in Venezuela will be tolerated by Moscow.

For his part, Abrams sounded as if he had emerged from the meeting after having been given a severe reprimand.

"No, we did not come to a meeting of minds, but I think the talks were positive in the sense that both sides emerged with a better understanding of the other's views," he told reporters.

"A better understanding of the other's views," means that the American side was given a red line to back off.

So, the Russian Army advanced party has arrived today, 99 in an Il-62 and goodness knows what in an An-124 on a direct flight from Syria.

And now, according to journalist Javier I. Mayorca, Colonel General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces - First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of Russia, arrived in Venezuela.

So we have one of the most significant Russian Generals now in Venezuela with his staff and protection teams with their equipment coming out the back of the Antonov and I think we can be certain that there is no beachware included.

This is looking more like the start up of Russian ops in Syria. This is the 'what do you need, how can we help' team.

This could be Venezuela transforming from a hedgehog into a porcupine.

karlof1 , Mar 24, 2019 5:01:42 PM | link

JohninMK @1--

I bet the An-124 was filled with captured NATO arms, particularly TOWs, of which there're many warehouses in Syria packed to the rafters--$billions$ in armaments at no charge! In contrast with France, every Saturday there's a massive Solidarity March in Caracas and other Venezuelan cities in support of Maduro, the government and the Bolivarian Constitution. One of the most important differences between Venezuela and other South-of-the-border regime changes is that an entire generation has grown up under Chavezismo, the Bolivarian Constitution, and the great social changes--literacy and education for the masses being #1--that have occurred over the past 20+ years. Those coming of age now will be even more Anti-USA and Anti-OAS than ever before. This chart shows almost 50% of the current population's coming of age During the Bolivarian/Chavista Age proves that point.

As with Iran and Cuba, the Bolivarian Revolution's ingrained into the government's structure, and perpetuated by society and culture. The penchant for the Outlaw US Empire to task its vassals with killing off the entire Leftist political spectrum leaving only reactionaries and their kin has always been genocidal in scope, and in Venezuela's case would amount to @22 million requiring purging. And let's not kid ourselves--A world filled with docile reactionaries is exactly the sort of prole-based planet the Outlaw US Empire craves.

[Mar 24, 2019] Taibbi It s Official - Russiagate Is This Generation s WMD

This is the most grandiose False flag propaganda operation known to the mankind. McCarthyism while more vicious was just a blip of the screen in comparison this this tide of disinformation and insinuations. Iraq WDM resulted in more casualties but was much more short term. Damage for the USA from this false flag operation might even exceed the damage for Iraq WDM fiasco.
British government and intelligence serves were active participants and in this sense "Skripals poisoning" looks like a perverted form of "witness protection:" program. A false flag operation on the top of a false flag operation ("Russiagate").
What is amazing is how unapt were the major players.
Notable quotes:
"... Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media. ..."
"... A few weeks after that hearing, Steele gave testimony in a British lawsuit filed by one of the Russian companies mentioned in his reports. In a written submission , Steele said his information was "raw" and "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified." He also wrote that (at least as pertained to the memo in that case) he had not written his report "with the intention that it be republished to the world at large." ..."
"... That itself was a curious statement, given that Steele reportedly spoke with multiple reporters in the fall of 2016, but this was his legal position. This story about Steele's British court statements did not make it into the news much in the United States, apart from a few bits in conservative outlets like The Washington Times. ..."
"... The Steele report was the Magna Carta of #Russiagate. It provided the implied context for thousands of news stories to come, yet no journalist was ever able to confirm its most salacious allegations: the five year cultivation plan, the blackmail, the bribe from Sechin, the Prague trip, the pee romp, etc. In metaphorical terms, we were unable to independently produce Steele's results in the lab. Failure to reckon with this corrupted the narrative from the start. ..."
"... "Just called," Page said to McCabe. "Apparently the DAG [Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates] now wants to be there, and WH wants DOJ to host. So we are setting that up now. ... We will very much need to get Cohen's view before we meet with her. Better, have him weigh in with her before the meeting. We need to speak with one voice, if that is in fact the case." ..."
"... Someday I hope that Hillary has to be rolled up to testify about the Benghazi business. Grab the guns and the gold (and the oil). Ukraine gold: check. Libyan gold and weapons: check. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Matt Taibbi, excerpted from his serial book Hate Inc.,

The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it...

Note to readers: in light of news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation is complete, I'm releasing this chapter of Hate Inc. early, with a few new details added up top. Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media.

As has long been rumored , the former FBI chief's independent probe will result in multiple indictments and convictions, but no " presidency-wrecking " conspiracy charges, or anything that would meet the layman's definition of "collusion" with Russia.

With the caveat that even this news might somehow turn out to be botched, the key detail in the many stories about the end of the Mueller investigation was best expressed by the New York Times :

A senior Justice Department official said that Mr. Mueller would not recommend new indictments.

The Times tried to soften the emotional blow for the millions of Americans trained in these years to place hopes for the overturn of the Trump presidency in Mueller. Nobody even pretended it was supposed to be a fact-finding mission, instead of an act of faith.

The Special Prosecutor literally became a religious figure during the last few years, with votive candles sold in his image and Saturday Night Live cast members singing " All I Want for Christmas is You " to him featuring the rhymey line: "Mueller please come through, because the only option is a coup."

The Times story today tried to preserve Santa Mueller's reputation, noting Trump's Attorney General William Barr's reaction was an "endorsement" of the fineness of Mueller's work:

In an apparent endorsement of an investigation that Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked as a "witch hunt," Mr. Barr said Justice Department officials never had to intervene to keep Mr. Mueller from taking an inappropriate or unwarranted step.

Mueller, in other words, never stepped out of the bounds of his job description. But could the same be said for the news media?

For those anxious to keep the dream alive, the Times published its usual graphic of Trump-Russia "contacts," inviting readers to keep making connections. But in a separate piece by Peter Baker , the paper noted the Mueller news had dire consequences for the press:

It will be a reckoning for President Trump, to be sure, but also for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for Congress, for Democrats, for Republicans, for the news media and, yes, for the system as a whole

This is a damning page one admission by the Times. Despite the connect-the-dots graphic in its other story, and despite the astonishing, emotion-laden editorial the paper also ran suggesting " We don't need to read the Mueller report " because we know Trump is guilty, Baker at least began the work of preparing Times readers for a hard question: "Have journalists connected too many dots that do not really add up?"

The paper was signaling it understood there would now be questions about whether or not news outlets like themselves made a galactic error by betting heavily on a new, politicized approach , trying to be true to "history's judgment" on top of the hard-enough job of just being true. Worse, in a brutal irony everyone should have seen coming , the press has now handed Trump the mother of campaign issues heading into 2020.

Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As Baker notes, a full 50.3% of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a "witch hunt."

Stories have been coming out for some time now hinting Mueller's final report might leave audiences " disappointed ," as if a President not being a foreign spy could somehow be bad news.

Openly using such language has, all along, been an indictment. Imagine how tone-deaf you'd have to be to not realize it makes you look bad, when news does not match audience expectations you raised. To be unaware of this is mind-boggling, the journalistic equivalent of walking outside without pants.

There will be people protesting: the Mueller report doesn't prove anything! What about the 37 indictments? The convictions? The Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.? The financial matters ! There's an ongoing grand jury investigation, and possible sealed indictments, and the House will still investigate, and

Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is making it worse.

For years, every pundit and Democratic pol in Washington hyped every new Russia headline like the Watergate break-in. Now, even Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is out, unless something "so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan" against Trump is uncovered it would be worth their political trouble to prosecute.

The biggest thing this affair has uncovered so far is Donald Trump paying off a porn star. That's a hell of a long way from what this business was supposedly about at the beginning, and shame on any reporter who tries to pretend this isn't so.

The story hyped from the start was espionage: a secret relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian spooks who'd helped him win the election.

The betrayal narrative was not reported at first as metaphor. It was not "Trump likes the Russians so much, he might as well be a spy for them." It was literal spying, treason, and election-fixing – crimes so severe, former NSA employee John Schindler told reporters, Trump " will die in jail ."

In the early months of this scandal, the New York Times said Trump's campaign had "repeated contacts" with Russian intelligence; the Wall Street Journal told us our spy agencies were withholding intelligence from the new President out of fear he was compromised; news leaked out our spy chiefs had even told other countries like Israel not to share their intel with us, because the Russians might have "leverages of pressure" on Trump.

CNN told us Trump officials had been in "constant contact" with "Russians known to U.S. intelligence," and the former director of the CIA, who'd helped kick-start the investigation that led to Mueller's probe, said the President was guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors," committing acts " nothing short of treasonous ."

Hillary Clinton insisted Russians "could not have known how to weaponize" political ads unless they'd been "guided" by Americans. Asked if she meant Trump, she said, " It's pretty hard not to ." Harry Reid similarly said he had "no doubt" that the Trump campaign was " in on the deal " to help Russians with the leak.

None of this has been walked back. To be clear, if Trump were being blackmailed by Russian agencies like the FSB or the GRU, if he had any kind of relationship with Russian intelligence, that would soar over the "overwhelming and bipartisan" standard, and Nancy Pelosi would be damning torpedoes for impeachment right now.

There was never real gray area here. Either Trump is a compromised foreign agent, or he isn't. If he isn't, news outlets once again swallowed a massive disinformation campaign, only this error is many orders of magnitude more stupid than any in the recent past, WMD included. Honest reporters like ABC's Terry Moran understand: Mueller coming back empty-handed on collusion means a " reckoning for the media ."

Of course, there won't be such a reckoning. (There never is). But there should be. We broke every written and unwritten rule in pursuit of this story, starting with the prohibition on reporting things we can't confirm.

#Russiagate debuted as a media phenomenon in mid-summer, 2016. The roots of the actual story, i.e. when the multi-national investigation began, go back much further, to the previous year at least. Oddly, that origin tale has not been nailed down yet, and blue-state audiences don't seem terribly interested in it, either.

By June and July of 2016, bits of the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, which had been funded by the Democratic National Committee through the law firm Perkins Coie (which in turn hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS), were already in the ether.

The Steele report occupies the same role in #Russiagate the tales spun by Ahmed Chalabi occupied in the WMD screwup. Once again, a narrative became turbo-charged when Officials With Motives pulled the press corps by its nose to a swamp of unconfirmable private assertions.

Some early stories, like a July 4, 2016 piece by Franklin Foer in Slate called " Putin's Puppet ," outlined future Steele themes in "circumstantial" form. But the actual dossier, while it influenced a number of pre-election Trump-Russia news stories (notably one by Michael Isiskoff of Yahoo! that would be used in a FISA warrant application ), didn't make it into print for a while.

Though it was shopped to at least nine news organizations during the summer and fall of 2016, no one bit, for the good reason that news organizations couldn't verify its "revelations."

The Steele claims were explosive if true. The ex-spy reported Trump aide Carter Page had been offered fees on a big new slice of the oil giant Rosneft if he could help get sanctions against Russia lifted. He also said Trump lawyer Michael Cohen went to Prague for "secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers."

Most famously, he wrote the Kremlin had kompromat of Trump "deriling" [sic] a bed once used by Barack and Michelle Obama by "employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show."

This was too good of a story not to do. By hook or crook, it had to come out. The first salvo was by David Corn of Mother Jones on October 31, 2016: " A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump ."

The piece didn't have pee, Prague, or Page in it, but it did say Russian intelligence had material that could "blackmail" Trump. It was technically kosher to print because Corn wasn't publishing the allegations themselves, merely that the FBI had taken possession of them.

A bigger pretext was needed to get the other details out. This took place just after the election, when four intelligence officials presented copies of the dossier to both President-Elect Trump and outgoing President Obama.

From his own memos , we know FBI Director James Comey, ostensibly evincing concern for Trump's welfare, told the new President he was just warning him about what was out there, as possible blackmail material:

I wasn't saying [the Steele report] was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands. I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material or [redacted] and that we were keeping it very close-hold [sic].

Comey's generous warning to Trump about not providing a "news hook," along with a promise to keep it all "close-held," took place on January 6, 2017. Within four days, basically the entire Washington news media somehow knew all about this top-secret meeting and had the very hook they needed to go public. Nobody in the mainstream press thought this was weird or warranted comment.

Even Donald Trump was probably smart enough to catch the hint when, of all outlets, it was CNN that first broke the story of "Classified documents presented last week to Trump" on January 10 .

At the same time, Buzzfeed made the historic decision to publish the entire Steele dossier, bringing years of pee into our lives. This move birthed the Russiagate phenomenon as a never-ending, minute-to-minute factor in American news coverage.

Comey was right. We couldn't have reported this story without a "hook." Therefore the reports surrounding Steele technically weren't about the allegations themselves, but rather the journey of those allegations, from one set of official hands to another. Handing the report to Trump created a perfect pretext.

This trick has been used before, both in Washington and on Wall Street, to publicize unconfirmed private research. A short seller might hire a consulting firm to prepare a report on a company he or she has bet against. When the report is completed, the investor then tries to get the SEC or the FBI to take possession. If they do, news leaks the company is "under investigation," the stock dives, and everyone wins.

This same trick is found in politics. A similar trajectory drove negative headlines in the scandal surrounding New Jersey's Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who was said to be under investigation by the FBI for underage sex crimes (although some were skeptical ). The initial story didn't hold up, but led to other investigations.

Same with the so-called " Arkansas project ," in which millions of Republican-friendly private research dollars produced enough noise about the Whitewater scandal to create years of headlines about the Clintons. Swiftboating was another example. Private oppo isn't inherently bad. In fact it has led to some incredible scoops, including Enron. But reporters usually know to be skeptical of private info, and figure the motives of its patrons into the story.

The sequence of events in that second week of January, 2017 will now need to be heavily re-examined. We now know, from his own testimony , that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had some kind of role in helping CNN do its report, presumably by confirming part of the story, perhaps through an intermediary or two (there is some controversy over whom exactly was contacted, and when).

Why would real security officials help litigate this grave matter through the media? Why were the world's most powerful investigative agencies acting like they were trying to move a stock, pushing an private, unverified report that even Buzzfeed could see had factual issues? It made no sense at the time , and makes less now.

In January of 2017, Steele's pile of allegations became public, read by millions. "It is not just unconfirmed," Buzzfeed admitted . "It includes some clear errors."

Buzzfeed's decision exploded traditional journalistic standards against knowingly publishing material whose veracity you doubt. Although a few media ethicists wondered at it , this seemed not to bother the rank-and-file in the business. Buzzfeed chief Ben Smith is still proud of his decision today. I think this was because many reporters believed the report was true.

When I read the report, I was in shock. I thought it read like fourth-rate suspense fiction (I should know: I write fourth-rate suspense fiction). Moreover it seemed edited both for public consumption and to please Steele's DNC patrons.

Steele wrote of Russians having a file of "compromising information" on Hillary Clinton, only this file supposedly lacked "details/evidence of unorthodox or embarrassing behavior" or "embarrassing conduct."

We were meant to believe the Russians, across decades of dirt-digging, had an empty kompromat file on Hillary Clinton, to say nothing of human tabloid headline Bill Clinton? This point was made more than once in the reports, as if being emphasized for the reading public.

There were other curious lines, including the bit about Russians having "moles" in the DNC, plus some linguistic details that made me wonder at the nationality of the report author.

Still, who knew? It could be true. But even the most cursory review showed the report had issues and would need a lot of confirming. This made it more amazing that the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, held hearings on March 20, 2017 that blithely read out Steele report details as if they were fact. From Schiff's opening statement:

According to Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. Intelligence, Russian sources tell him that Page has also had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin (SEH-CHIN), CEO of Russian gas giant Rosneft Page is offered brokerage fees by Sechin on a deal involving a 19 percent share of the company.

I was stunned watching this. It's generally understood that members of congress, like reporters, make an effort to vet at least their prepared remarks before making them public.

But here was Schiff, telling the world Trump aide Carter Page had been offered huge fees on a 19% stake in Rosneft – a company with a $63 billion market capitalization – in a secret meeting with a Russian oligarch who was also said to be "a KGB agent and close friend of Putin's."

(Schiff meant "FSB agent." The inability of #Russiagaters to remember Russia is not the Soviet Union became increasingly maddening over time. Donna Brazile still hasn't deleted her tweet about how " The Communists are now dictating the terms of the debate ." )

Schiff's speech raised questions. Do we no longer have to worry about getting accusations right if the subject is tied to Russiagate? What if Page hadn't done any of these things? To date, he hasn't been charged with anything. Shouldn't a member of Congress worry about this?

A few weeks after that hearing, Steele gave testimony in a British lawsuit filed by one of the Russian companies mentioned in his reports. In a written submission , Steele said his information was "raw" and "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified." He also wrote that (at least as pertained to the memo in that case) he had not written his report "with the intention that it be republished to the world at large."

That itself was a curious statement, given that Steele reportedly spoke with multiple reporters in the fall of 2016, but this was his legal position. This story about Steele's British court statements did not make it into the news much in the United States, apart from a few bits in conservative outlets like The Washington Times.

I contacted Schiff's office to ask if the congressman if he knew about Steele's admission that his report needed verifying, and if that changed his view of it at all. The response (emphasis mine):

The dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and which was leaked publicly several months ago contains information that may be pertinent to our investigation. This is true regardless of whether it was ever intended for public dissemination. Accordingly, the Committee hopes to speak with Mr. Steele in order to help substantiate or refute each of the allegations contained in the dossier.

Schiff had not spoken to Steele before the hearing, and read out the allegations knowing they were unsubstantiated.

The Steele report was the Magna Carta of #Russiagate. It provided the implied context for thousands of news stories to come, yet no journalist was ever able to confirm its most salacious allegations: the five year cultivation plan, the blackmail, the bribe from Sechin, the Prague trip, the pee romp, etc. In metaphorical terms, we were unable to independently produce Steele's results in the lab. Failure to reckon with this corrupted the narrative from the start.

For years, every hint the dossier might be true became a banner headline, while every time doubt was cast on Steele's revelations, the press was quiet. Washington Post reporter Greg Miller went to Prague and led a team looking for evidence Cohen had been there. Post reporters, Miller said, "literally spent weeks and months trying to run down" the Cohen story.

"We sent reporters through every hotel in Prague, through all over the place, just to try to figure out if he was ever there," he said, "and came away empty."

This was heads-I-win, tails-you-lose reporting. One assumes if Miller found Cohen's name in a hotel ledger, it would have been on page 1 of the Post. The converse didn't get a mention in Miller's own paper. He only told the story during a discussion aired by C-SPAN about a new book he'd published. Only The Daily Caller and a few conservative blogs picked it up.

It was the same when Bob Woodward said, "I did not find [espionage or collusion] Of course I looked for it, looked for it hard."

The celebrated Watergate muckraker – who once said he'd succumbed to "groupthink" in the WMD episode and added, "I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder" – didn't push very hard here, either. News that he'd tried and failed to find collusion didn't get into his own paper. It only came out when Woodward was promoting his book Fear in a discussion with conservative host Hugh Hewitt.

When Michael Cohen testified before congress and denied under oath ever being in Prague, it was the same. Few commercial news outlets bothered to take note of the implications this had for their previous reports. Would a man clinging to a plea deal lie to congress on national television about this issue?

There was a CNN story , but the rest of the coverage was all in conservative outlets – the National Review , Fox , The Daily Caller . The Washington Post's response was to run an editorial sneering at " How conservative media downplayed Michael Cohen's testimony ."

Perhaps worst of all was the episode involving Yahoo! reporter Michael Isikoff. He had already been part of one strange tale: the FBI double-dipping when it sought a FISA warrant to conduct secret surveillance of Carter Page, the would-be mastermind who was supposed to have brokered a deal with oligarch Sechin.

In its FISA application, the FBI included both the unconfirmed Steele report and Isikoff's September 23, 2016 Yahoo! story, " U.S. Intel Officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin ." The Isikoff story, which claimed Page had met with "high ranking sanctioned officials" in Russia, had relied upon Steele as an unnamed source.

This was similar to a laundering technique used in the WMD episode called "stove-piping," i.e. officials using the press to "confirm" information the officials themselves fed the reporter.

But there was virtually no non-conservative press about this problem apart from a Washington Post story pooh-poohing the issue. (Every news story that casts any doubt on the collusion issue seems to meet with an instantaneous "fact check" in the Post .) The Post insisted the FISA issue wasn't serious among other things because Steele was not the "foundation" of Isikoff's piece.

Isikoff was perhaps the reporter most familiar with Steele. He and Corn of Mother Jones , who also dealt with the ex-spy, wrote a bestselling book that relied upon theories from Steele, Russian Roulette , including a rumination on the "pee" episode. Yet Isikoff in late 2018 suddenly said he believed the Steele report would turn out to be " mostly false ."

Once again, this only came out via a podcast, John Ziegler's "Free Speech Broadcasting" show. Here's a transcript of the relevant section:

Isikoff: When you actually get into the details of the Steele dossier, the specific allegations, you know, we have not seen the evidence to support them. And in fact there is good grounds to think some of the more sensational allegations will never be proven, and are likely false.

Ziegler: That's...

Isikoff: I think it's a mixed record at best at this point, things could change, Mueller may yet produce evidence that changes this calculation. But based on the public record at this point I have to say that most of the specific allegations have not been borne out.

Ziegler: That's interesting to hear you say that, Michael because as I'm sure you know, your book was kind of used to validate the pee tape, for lack of a better term.

Isikoff: Yeah. I think we had some evidence in there of an event that may have inspired the pee tape and that was the visit that Trump made with a number of characters who later showed up in Moscow, specifically Emin Agalarov and Rob Goldstone to this raunchy Las Vegas nightclub where one of the regular acts was a skit called "Hot For Teacher" in which dancers posing as college Co-Ed's urinated – or simulated urinating on their professor. Which struck me as an odd coincidence at best. I think, you know, it is not implausible that event may have inspired...

Ziegler: An urban legend?

Isikoff: ...allegations that appeared in the Steele dossier.

Isikoff delivered this story with a laughing tone. He seamlessly transitioned to what he then called the "real" point, i.e. "the irony is Steele may be right, but it wasn't the Kremlin that had sexual kompromat on Donald Trump, it was the National Enquirer. "

Recapping: the reporter who introduced Steele to the world (his September 23, 2016 story was the first to reference him as a source), who wrote a book that even he concedes was seen as "validating" the pee tape story, suddenly backtracks and says the whole thing may have been based on a Las Vegas strip act, but it doesn't matter because Stormy Daniels, etc.

Another story of this type involved a court case in which Webzilla and parent company XBT sued Steele and Buzzfeed over the mention their firm in one of the memos. It came out in court testimony that Steele had culled information about XBT/Webzilla from a 2009 post on CNN's "iReports" page .

Asked if he understood these posts came from random users and not CNN journalists who'd been fact-checked, Steele replied, " I do not ."

This comical detail was similar to news that the second British Mi6 dossier released just before the Iraq invasion had been plagiarized in part from a thirteen year-old student thesis from California State University, not even by intelligence people, but by mid-level functionaries in Tony Blair's press office.

There were so many profiles of Steele as an " astoundingly diligent " spymaster straight out of LeCarre : he was routinely described like a LeCarre-ian grinder like the legendary George Smiley, a man in the shadows whose bookish intensity was belied by his "average," "neutral," "quiet," demeanor, being "more low-key than Smiley." One would think it might have rated a mention that our "Smiley" was cutting and pasting text like a community college freshman. But the story barely made news.

This has been a consistent pattern throughout #Russiagate. Step one: salacious headline. Step two, days or weeks later: news emerges the story is shakier than first believed. Step three (in the best case) involves the story being walked back or retracted by the same publication.

That's been rare. More often, when explosive #Russiagate headlines go sideways, the original outlets simply ignore the new development, leaving the "retraction" process to conservative outlets that don't reach the original audiences.

This is a major structural flaw of the new fully-divided media landscape in which Republican media covers Democratic corruption and Democratic media covers Republican corruption. If neither "side" feels the need to disclose its own errors and inconsistencies, mistakes accumulate quickly.

This has been the main difference between Russiagate and the WMD affair. Despite David Remnick's post-invasion protestations that "nobody got [WMD] completely right," the Iraq war was launched against the objections of the 6 million or more people who did get it right, and protested on the streets . There was open skepticism of Bush claims dotting the press landscape from the start, with people like Jack Shafer tearing apart every Judith Miller story in print. Most reporters are Democrats and the people hawking the WMD story were mostly Republicans, so there was political space for protest.

Russiagate happened in an opposite context. If the story fell apart it would benefit Donald Trump politically, a fact that made a number of reporters queasy about coming forward. #Russiagate became synonymous with #Resistance, which made public skepticism a complicated proposition.

Early in the scandal, I appeared on To The Point, a California-based public radio show hosted by Warren Olney, with Corn of Mother Jones. I knew David a little and had been friendly with him. He once hosted a book event for me in Washington. In the program, however, the subject of getting facts right came up and Corn said this was not a time for reporters to be picking nits:

So Democrats getting overeager, overenthusiastic, stating things that may not be [unintelligible] true ? Well, tell me a political issue where that doesn't happen. I think that's looking at the wrong end of the telescope.

I wrote him later and suggested that since we're in the press, and not really about anything except avoiding "things that may not be true," maybe we had different responsibilities than "Democrats"? He wrote back:

Feel free to police the Trump opposition. But on the list of shit that needs to be covered these days, that's just not high on my personal list.

Other reporters spoke of an internal struggle. When the Mueller indictment of the Internet Research Agency was met with exultation in the media, New Yorker writer Adrian Chen, who broke the original IRA story, was hesitant to come forward with some mild qualms about the way the story was being reported:

"Either I could stay silent and allow the conversation to be dominated by those pumping up the Russian threat," he said, "or I could risk giving fodder to Trump and his allies."

After writing, " Confessions of a Russiagate Skeptic ," poor Blake Hounsell of Politico took such a beating on social media, he ended up denouncing himself a year later.

"What I meant to write is, I wasn't skeptical," he said.

Years ago, in the midst of the WMD affair, Times public editor Daniel Okrent noted the paper's standard had moved from "Don't get it first, get it right" to "Get it first and get it right." From there, Okrent wrote , "the next devolution was an obvious one."

We're at that next devolution: first and wrong. The Russiagate era has so degraded journalism that even once "reputable" outlets are now only about as right as politicians, which is to say barely ever, and then only by accident.

Early on, I was so amazed by the sheer quantity of Russia "bombshells" being walked back, I started to keep a list. It's well above 50 stories now. As has been noted by Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept and others, if the mistakes were random, you'd expect them in both directions , but Russiagate errors uniformly go the same way.

In some cases the stories are only partly wrong, as in the case of the famed " 17 intelligence agencies said Russia was behind the hacking " story (it was actually four: the Director of National Intelligence "hand-picking" a team from the FBI, CIA, and NSA).

In other cases the stories were blunt false starts, resulting in ugly sets of matching headlines:

" Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility "

Washington Post, December 31, 2016.

" Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility "

Washington Post, Jan. 2, 2017.

" Trump Campaign Aides had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence ," published by the Times on Valentine's Day, 2017, was an important, narrative-driving "bombshell" that looked dicey from the start. The piece didn't say whether the contact was witting or unwitting, whether the discussions were about business or politics, or what the contacts supposedly were at all.

Normally a reporter would want to know what the deal is before he or she runs a story accusing people of having dealings with foreign spies. "Witting" or "Unwitting" ought to be a huge distinction, for instance. It soon after came out that people like former CIA chief John Brennan don't think this is the case. "Frequently, people who are on a treasonous path do not know they're on a treasonous path," he said, speaking of Trump's circle.

This seemed a dangerous argument, the kind of thing that led to trouble in the McCarthy years. But let's say the contacts were serious. From a reporting point of view, you'd still need to know exactly what the nature of such contacts were before you run that story, because the headline implication is grave. Moreover you'd need to know it well enough to report it, i.e. it's not enough to be told a convincing story off-the-record, you need to be able to share with readers enough so that they can characterize the news themselves.

Not to the Times, which ran the article without the specifics. Months later, Comey blew up this "contacts" story in public, saying, " in the main, it was not true ."

As was the case with the "17 agencies" error, which only got fixed when Clapper testified in congress and was forced to make the correction under oath, the "repeated contacts" story was only disputed when Comey testified in congress, this time before the Senate Intelligence Committee . How many other errors of this type are waiting to be disclosed?

Even the mistakes caught were astounding. On December 1, 2017, ABC reporter Brian Ross claimed Trump "as a candidate" instructed Michael Flynn to contact Russia. The news caused the Dow to plummet 350 points. The story was retracted almost immediately and Ross was suspended .

Bloomberg reported Mueller subpoenaed Trump's Deutsche Bank accounts; the subpoenas turned out to be of other individuals' records. Fortune said C-SPAN was hacked after Russia Today programming briefly interrupted coverage of a Maxine Waters floor address. The New York Times also ran the story, and it's still up, despite C-SPAN insisting its own "internal routing error" likely caused the feed to appear in place of its own broadcast.

CNN has its own separate sub-list of wrecks. Three of the network's journalists resigned after a story purporting to tie Trump advisor Anthony Scaramucci to a Russian investment fund was retracted. Four more CNN reporters (Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus) were bylined in a story that claimed Comey was expected to refute Trump's claims he was told he wasn't the target of an investigation. Comey blew that one up, too.

In another CNN scoop gone awry, " Email pointed Trump campaign to WikiLeaks documents ," the network's reporters were off by ten days in a "bombshell" that supposedly proved the Trump campaign had foreknowledge of Wikileaks dumps. "It's, uh, perhaps not as significant as what we know now," offered CNN's Manu Raju in a painful on-air retraction .

The worst stories were the ones never corrected. A particularly bad example is " After Florida School Shooting, Russian 'Bot' Army Pounced ," from the New York Times on Feb 18, 2018. The piece claimed Russians were trying to divide Americans on social media after a mass shooting using Twitter hashtags like #guncontrolnow, #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting.

The Times ran this quote high up:

"This is pretty typical for them, to hop on breaking news like this," said Jonathon Morgan, chief executive of New Knowledge, a company that tracks online disinformation campaigns. "The bots focus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systematically."

About a year after this story came out, Times reporters Scott Shane and Ann Blinder reported that the same outfit, New Knowledge , and in particular that same Jonathon Morgan, had participated in a cockamamie scheme to fake Russian troll activity in an Alabama Senate race. The idea was to try to convince voters Russia preferred the Republican.

The Times quoted a New Knowledge internal report about the idiotic Alabama scheme:

We orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet

The Parkland story was iffy enough when it came out, as Twitter disputed it, and another of the main sources for the initial report, former intelligence official Clint Watts, subsequently said he was "not convinced" on the whole "bot thing."

But when one of your top sources turns out to have faked exactly the kind of activity described in your article, you should at least take the quote out, or put an update online. No luck: the story remains up on the Times site, without disclaimers.

Russiagate institutionalized one of the worst ethical loopholes in journalism, which used to be limited mainly to local crime reporting. It's always been a problem that we publish mugshots and names of people merely arrested but not yet found guilty. Those stories live forever online and even the acquitted end up permanently unable to get jobs, smeared as thieves, wife-beaters, drunk drivers, etc.

With Russiagate the national press abandoned any pretense that there's a difference between indictment and conviction. The most disturbing story involved Maria Butina. Here authorities and the press shared responsibility. Thanks to an indictment that initially said the Russian traded sex for favors, the Times and other outlets flooded the news cycle with breathless stories about a redheaded slut-temptress come to undermine democracy, a "real-life Red Sparrow," as ABC put it.

But a judge threw out the sex charge after "five minutes" when it turned out to be based on a single joke text to a friend who had taken Butina's car for inspection.

It's pretty hard to undo public perception you're a prostitute once it's been in a headline, and, worse, the headlines are still out there. You can still find stories like " Maria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan " online in the New York Times.

Here a reporter might protest: how would I know? Prosecutors said she traded sex for money. Why shouldn't I believe them?

How about because, authorities have been lying their faces off to reporters since before electricity! It doesn't take much investigation to realize the main institutional sources in the Russiagate mess – the security services, mainly – have extensive records of deceiving the media.

As noted before, from World War I-era tales of striking union workers being German agents to the "missile gap" that wasn't (the "gap" was leaked to the press before the Soviets had even one operational ICBM) to the Gulf of Tonkin mess to all the smears of people like Martin Luther King, it's a wonder newspapers listen to whispers from government sources at all.

In the Reagan years National Security Adviser John Poindexter spread false stories about Libyan terrorist plots to The Wall Street Journal and other papers. In the Bush years, Dick Cheney et al were selling manure by the truckload about various connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, infamously including a story that bomber Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague.

The New York Times ran a story that Atta was in Prague in late October of 2001, even giving a date of the meeting with Iraqis, April 8, or "just five months before the terrorist attacks." The Prague story was another example of a tale that seemed shaky because American officials were putting the sourcing first on foreign intelligence, then on reporters themselves. Cheney cited the Prague report in subsequent TV appearances, one of many instances of feeding reporters tidbits and then selling reports as independent confirmation.

It wasn't until three years later, in 2004, that Times reporter James Risen definitively killed the Atta-in-Prague canard (why is it always Prague?) in a story entitled " No evidence of meeting with Iraqi ." By then, of course, it was too late. The Times also held a major dissenting piece by Risen about the WMD case, "C.I.A. Aides Feel Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports," until days after war started. This is what happens when you start thumbing the scale.

This failure to demand specifics has been epidemic in Russiagate, even when good reporters have been involved. One of the biggest "revelations" of this era involved a story that was broken first by a terrible reporter (the Guardian's Luke Harding) and followed up by a good one (Jane Mayer of the New Yorker ). The key detail involved the elusive origin story of Russiagate.

Mayer's piece, the March 12, 2018 " Christopher Steele, the Man Behind The Trump Dossier " in the New Yorker , impacted the public mainly by seeming to bolster the credentials of the dossier author. But it contained an explosive nugget far down. Mayer reported Robert Hannigan, then-head of the GCHQ (the British analog to the NSA) intercepted a "stream of illicit communications" between "Trump's team and Moscow" at some point prior to August 2016. Hannigan flew to the U.S. and briefed CIA director John Brennan about these communications. Brennan later testified this inspired the original FBI investigation.

When I read that, a million questions came to mind, but first: what did "illicit" mean?

If something "illicit" had been captured by GCHQ, and this led to the FBI investigation (one of several conflicting public explanations for the start of the FBI probe, incidentally), this would go a long way toward clearing up the nature of the collusion charge. If they had something, why couldn't they tell us what it was? Why didn't we deserve to know?

I asked the Guardian: "Was any attempt made to find out what those communications were? How was the existence of these communications confirmed? Did anyone from the Guardian see or hear these intercepts, or transcripts?"

Their one-sentence reply:

The Guardian has strict and rigorous procedures when dealing with source material.

That's the kind of answer you'd expect from a transnational bank, or the army, not a newspaper.

I asked Mayer the same questions. She was more forthright, noting that, of course, the story had originally been broken by Harding , whose own report said "the precise nature of these exchanges has not been made public."

She added that "afterwards I independently confirmed aspects of [Harding's piece] with several well-informed sources," and "spent months on the Steele story [and] traveled to the UK twice for it." But, she wrote, "the Russiagate story, like all reporting on sensitive national security issues, is difficult."

I can only infer she couldn't find out what "illicit" meant despite proper effort. The detail was published anyway. It may not have seemed like a big deal, but I think it was.

To be clear, I don't necessarily disbelieve the idea that there were "illicit" contacts between Trump and Russians in early 2015 or before. But if there were such contacts, I can't think of any legitimate reason why their nature should be withheld from the public.

If authorities can share reasons for concern with foreign countries like Israel, why should American voters not be so entitled? Moreover the idea that we need to keep things secret to protect sources and methods and "tradecraft" (half the press corps became expert in goofy spy language over the last few years, using terms like "SIGINT" like they've known them their whole lives), why are we leaking news of our ability to hear Russian officials cheerin g Trump's win?

Failure to ask follow-up questions happened constantly with this story. One of the first reports that went sideways involved a similar dynamic: the contention that some leaked DNC emails were forgeries.

MSNBC's "Intelligence commentator" Malcolm Nance, perhaps the most enthusiastic source of questionable #Russiagate news this side of Twitter conspiracist Louise Mensch, tweeted on October 11, 2016: " #PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done."

As noted in The Intercept and elsewhere, this was re-reported by the likes of David Frum (a key member of the club that has now contributed to both the WMD and Russiagate panics) and MSNBC host Joy Reid . The reports didn't stop until roughly October of 2016, among other things because the Clinton campaign kept suggesting to reporters the emails were fake. This could have been stopped sooner if examples of a forgery had been demanded from the Clinton campaign earlier.

Another painful practice that became common was failing to confront your own sources when news dispositive to what they've told you pops up. The omnipresent Clapper told Chuck Todd on March 5, 2017, without equivocation, that there had been no FISA application involving Trump or his campaign. " I can deny it ," he said.

It soon after came out this wasn't true. The FBI had a FISA warrant on Carter Page. This was not a small misstatement by Clapper, because his appearance came a day after Trump claimed in a tweet he'd had his " wires tapped ." Trump was widely ridiculed for this claim, perhaps appropriately so, but in addition to the Page news, it later came out there had been a FISA warrant of Paul Manafort as well, during which time Trump may have been the subject of " incidental " surveillance.

Whether or not this was meaningful, or whether these warrants were justified, are separate questions. The important thing is, Clapper either lied to Todd, or else he somehow didn't know the FBI had obtained these warrants. The latter seems absurd and unlikely. Either way, Todd ought to been peeved and demanded an explanation. Instead, he had Clapper back on again within months and gave him the usual softball routine, never confronting him about the issue.

Reporters repeatedly got burned and didn't squawk about it. Where are the outraged stories about all the scads of anonymous "people familiar with the matter" who put reporters in awkward spots in the last years? Why isn't McClatchy demanding the heads of whatever "four people with knowledge" convinced them to double down on the Cohen-in-Prague story ?

Why isn't every reporter who used "New Knowledge" as a source about salacious Russian troll stories out for their heads (or the heads of the congressional sources who passed this stuff on), after reports they faked Russian trolling? How is it possible NBC and other outlets continued to use New Knowledge as a source in stories identifying antiwar Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian-backed candidate?

How do the Guardian's editors not already have Harding's head in a vice for hanging them out to dry on the most dubious un-retracted story in modern history – the tale that the most watched human on earth, Julian Assange, had somehow been visited in the Ecuadorian embassy by Paul Manafort without leaving any record? I'd be dragging Harding's "well placed source" into the office and beating him with a hose until he handed them something that would pass for corroborating evidence.

The lack of blowback over episodes in which reporters were put in public compromised situations speaks to the overly cozy relationships outlets had with official sources. Too often, it felt like a team effort, where reporters seemed to think it was their duty to take the weight if sources pushed them to overreach. They had absolutely no sense of institutional self-esteem about this.

Being on any team is a bad look for the press, but the press being on team FBI/CIA is an atrocity, Trump or no Trump. Why bother having a press corps at all if you're going to go that route?

This posture all been couched as anti-Trump solidarity, but really, did former CIA chief John Brennan – the same Brennan who should himself have faced charges for lying to congress about hacking the computers of Senate staff – need the press to whine on his behalf when Trump yanked his security clearance? Did we need the press to hum Aretha Franklin tunes, as ABC did, and chide Trump for lacking R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the CIA? We don't have better things to do than that "work"?

This catalogue of factual errors and slavish stenography will stand out when future analysts look back at why the "MSM" became a joke during this period, but they were only a symptom of a larger problem. The bigger issue was a radical change in approach.

A lot of #Russiagate coverage became straight-up conspiracy theory, what Baker politely called "connecting the dots ." This was allowed because the press committed to a collusion narrative from the start, giving everyone cover to indulge in behaviors that would never be permitted in normal times.

Such was the case with Jonathan Chait's #Russiagate opus , "PRUMP TUTIN: Will Trump be Meeting With his Counterpart – or his Handler?" The story was also pitched as "What if Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987," which recalls the joke from The Wire: " Yo, Herc, what if your mother and father never met ?" What if isn't a good place to be in this business.

This cover story (!) in New York magazine was released in advance of a planned "face-to-face" summit between Trump and Putin, and posited Trump had been under Russian control for decades. Chait noted Trump visited the Soviet Union in 1987 and came back "fired up with political ambition." He offered the possibility that this was a coincidence, but added:

Indeed, it seems slightly insane to contemplate the possibility that a secret relationship between Trump and Russia dates back this far. But it can't be dismissed completely.

I searched the Chait article up and down for reporting that would justify the suggestion Trump had been a Russian agent dating back to the late eighties, when, not that it matters, Russia was a different country called the Soviet Union.

Only two facts in the piece could conceivably have been used to support the thesis: Trump met with a visiting Soviet official in 1986, and visited the Soviet Union in 1987. That's it. That's your cover story.

Worse, Chait's theory was first espoused in Lyndon Larouche's " Elephants and Donkeys " newsletter in 1987, under a headline, "Do Russians have a Trump card?" This is barrel-scraping writ large.

It's a mania. Putin is literally in our underpants. Maybe, if we're lucky, New York might someday admit its report claiming Russians set up an anti-masturbation hotline to trap and blackmail random Americans is suspicious, not just because it seems absurd on its face, but because its source is the same "New Knowledge" group that admitted to faking Russian influence operations in Alabama.

But what retraction is possible for the Washington Post headline, " How will Democrats cope if Putin starts playing dirty tricks for Bernie Sanders (again )?" How to reverse Rachel Maddow's spiel about Russia perhaps shutting down heat across America during a cold wave? There's no correction for McCarthyism and fearmongering.

This ultimately will be the endgame of the Russia charade. They will almost certainly never find anything like the wild charges and Manchurian Candidate theories elucidated in the Steele report. But the years of panic over the events of 2016 will lead to radical changes in everything from press regulation to foreign policy, just as the WMD canard led to torture, warrantless surveillance, rendition, drone assassination, secret budgets and open-ended, undeclared wars from Somalia to Niger to Syria. The screw-ups will be forgotten, but accelerated vigilance will remain.

It's hard to know what policy changes are appropriate because the reporting on everything involving the Russian threat in the last two to three years has been so unreliable.

I didn't really address the case that Russia hacked the DNC, content to stipulate it for now. I was told early on that this piece of the story seemed "solid," but even that assertion has remained un-bolstered since then, still based on an " assessment " by the intelligence services that always had issues, including the use of things like RT's "anti-American" coverage of fracking as part of its case. The government didn't even examine the DNC's server, the kind of detail that used to make reporters nervous.

We won't know how much of any of this to take seriously until the press gets out of bed with the security services and looks at this whole series of events all over again with fresh eyes, as journalists, not political actors. That means being open to asking what went wrong with this story, in addition to focusing so much energy on Trump and Russia.

The WMD mess had massive real-world negative impact, leading to over a hundred thousand deaths and trillions in lost taxpayer dollars. Unless Russiagate leads to a nuclear conflict, we're unlikely to ever see that level of consequence.

Still, Russiagate has led to unprecedented cooperation between the government and Internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, all of which are censoring pages on the left, right, and in between in the name of preventing the "sowing of discord." The story also had a profound impact on the situation in places like Syria, where Russian and American troops have sat across the Euphrates River from one another, two amped-up nuclear powers at a crossroads.

As a purely journalistic failure, however, WMD was a pimple compared to Russiagate. The sheer scale of the errors and exaggerations this time around dwarfs the last mess. Worse, it's led to most journalists accepting a radical change in mission. We've become sides-choosers, obliterating the concept of the press as an independent institution whose primary role is sorting fact and fiction.

We had the sense to eventually look inward a little in the WMD affair, which is the only reason we escaped that episode with any audience left. Is the press even capable of that kind of self-awareness now? WMD damaged our reputation. If we don't turn things around, this story will destroy it


motherjones , 31 minutes ago link

Taibbi is spot on, and in depth with this writing. The main stream media sold Americans on the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost 2 decades later, we have spent 6 trillion dollars, 8 millions lives have been lost, and millions of refugees have flooded out of those countries, causing instability in Europe and beyond. For the past 2 years, 24/7, we have not been able to escape the claims of Russiagate. He does not mention how the very same media gave Trump 24/7 coverage long before he was elected, and in fact this free publicity, is probably why Trump is in the White House today. Without the constant press coverage of his campaign, coverage that was not provided to other candidates, he would most likely not have found his way to the White House. Taibbi does not go on to tell us what the motivation of the press is, or what he thinks can be done. News shows in the US have become little more than entertainment. Many of us no longer rely on main stream press for any real news. The mass media has become irrelevant at it's best, and dangerous, at it's worst. The driving force behind the so called news today, is the advertising dollars, and the politics of the owners of the networks. How can we have a "free press" when just a few individuals own all the major news outlets? We are not going to get the real news on tv of from the big newspapers, as long as the power is in the hands of a few rich and powerful individuals, who decide what is news.

southpaw47 , 50 minutes ago link

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" - Alexander Pope

The rash or inexperienced will attempt things that wiser people are more cautious of.

Finally the libs will agree that guns do have their place in society. These crazy zealots may just blow their own brains out or just find the nearest cliff. Ace Hardware is loading up on rope.

hooligan2009 , 1 hour ago link

hmmm....just imagine if - sleyers money contribution fo impeach trump was turned into a movie where a "sponsor" drew up a hit list of batshit crazy MSM "personalities" to include late night "comfuckedupedians"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-25/billionaire-tom-steyer-s-quest-to-impeach-trump

PerilouseTimes , 1 hour ago link

Even if you were stupid enough to believe Trump was getting dirt on Hillary from the Russians, what is wrong with that? Is there a law against that? Why is it OK for Obama and the FBI to get away with wiretapping Trump during the election? Why is it OK for NSA to wiretap All Americans and store all their conversations and internet traffic on hard drives?

foxenburg , 1 hour ago link

Steele, Orbis, Pablo Miller, Salisbury, Porton Down, golden-shower dossier supposedly written by a native Russian speaker with an intelligence background....it all makes me wonder what happened to Skripal.

hooligan2009 , 1 hour ago link

"Skripalgate" is suppressed by UK law. All russians are evil in the UK. The fact that (as with tony Bliar and yellowcake Iraq) any sitting government can prosecute another country without a trial, witnesses or evidence - as in the Skripals and within the FUKUS cabal that bombed syria because of - "chlorine barrel bomb attacks on civilians" who later showed up unscathed in Den Haag.

UK governments cannot be held to account for their actions domestically or overseas.

motherjones , 1 hour ago link

Both parties have been playing up the threat from Russia for decades. The Military Industrial Complex was built on creating fear about the possibility of war with Russian. The military industrial complex owns Congress, so of course Congress is going to play up this threat. " The reason why media is working so hard to create the impression that Russia is actively conspiring against is because conflict with the former Soviet Union is good for business." We can expect this to continue in one form or another. If Americans were not afraid of Russia, we would not support a defense budget that is equal to all other countries in the world combined.

https://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/08/30/defense-contractors-tell-investors-world-war-iii-great-for-business/?fbclid=IwAR0rSFD3EPOgCd_dohnRg_4W1VUMcu-u33PBi9LW8Pdcv4F4pL4_MTXU31c

devnickle , 1 hour ago link

Put a sock in it. You should be embarrassed to even comment.

motherjones , 1 hour ago link

Right. The depth of your analysis is impressive. You seem to have an unlimited knowledge of world and national affairs too. Other than some stalking tendencies, why do you post on ZH? You don't really seem to have any interest in the content, or the discussion.

Bricker , 2 hours ago link

The head of the pin starts with OBAMA

I dont want to type up everything that led me to believe this. But the racism, his empathy towards certain muslims groups and how he treated the war, the prisoner release, the sailors broadcasted on tv about drifting into territorial waters, I mean it was so obvious how he felt about America.

Pile on his efforts to interfere in the election and eavesdrop, unmasking with Hillary getting and receiving emails from her home brew server not to mention her foundation pulling in 145 million from Russia.

The CIA is sickening to what has developed over the last 20 years

blind_understanding , 2 hours ago link

Taibbi: 'Russiagate' Is This Generation's WMD

Blind: If so, it just means it will not be reported on in the MainStream Media(MSM) and soon forgotten.

The same people who own the private central bank and currency, also own the MSM, and they control the narrative on ALL TOPICS. And control of narrative mean control of what people think.

Control of money and mind means TOTAL control of a country.

Nothing will change until control of minds is returned to the people, then issuance of currency can be returned to the government.

Alex Jones' of Infowars got it right when he said "There's a war on for your mind!" ... even though he became a turncoat himself, soon after.

SnottyBubbles , 2 hours ago link

Hillary lost a freaking election. After almost 3 freaking years of coup d'état the left deserves mocking humiliation. Mock them ruthlessly. Never, ever let them forget the horrible thing that they did.

Never stop making fun of them and reminding them how stupid and crazy they acted during this humiliating period of US history. Never let them forget what they did to the nation or what they cost us all. Never let Democrats forget how much time and energy they wasted, how very, very wrong they were.

Every politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of Russia! Russia! Russia! has utterly discredited themselves for life. They executed and failed to accomplish a coup d'état. These are the very last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world or an ice cream truck.

Refuse them, laugh at them, ignore them. They earned it and deserve nothing but the greatest disdain.

devnickle , 1 hour ago link

Revenge is best served cold. I am dishing out in buckets to the retards.

artistant , 2 hours ago link

Russia is an IMPEDIMENT to APARTHEID Israhell's design for the region .

Without Russia, ASSAD would be long gone and IRAN would have been bombed to oblivion, and Greater Israhell would have been fulfilled and ruling over the MidEast.

In other words, Russiagate is simply PAYBACK .

youshallnotkill , 2 hours ago link

There was never real gray area here. Either Trump is a compromised foreign agent, or he isn't.

Of course there isn't. But this doesn't mean that a prosecutor like Mueller can prove this beyond any reasonable doubt. In fact it is quite likely that he cannot. The only charge that should be fairly easy to establish is obstruction of justice.

Without knowing what is in the report, Taibbi really jumps the gun here. Especially given the comparison to WMDs.

I knew there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion because I followed, and chose to believe, a credible diplomat like Hans Blix over the dog and pony show that Colin Powell put on. But WMDs are very tangible you either find the hardware or you do not. Yet, what Putin and Trump discuss without a single other American in the room nobody knows but the Kremlin and Trump.

Amy G. Dala , 2 hours ago link

Um, they talked about grandchildren and golf. MSM bought that about Bill and Loretta.

youshallnotkill , 2 hours ago link

At least Loretta probably did not aspire to bring the US to its knees.

Amy G. Dala , 2 hours ago link

Then I guess you didn't catch her "blood in the streets" speech.

youshallnotkill , 2 hours ago link

Original quote:

"It has been people, individuals who have banded together, ordinary people who simply saw what needed to be done and came together and supported those ideals who have made the difference.

They've marched, they've bled and yes, some of them died. This is hard. Every good thing is. We have done this before. We can do this again ."

Hardly the call for violent civil war at which it has been portrayed.

hanekhw , 2 hours ago link

The most coiffed, manicured, made up sacks of **** ever to glorify the airwaves tell US what THEY think and get paid handsome salaries for their effort to overthrow the American system. Freedom of Speech? That'll be gone in a heartbeat if THEY get power. We have an obligation to not just protect it but a greater one to preserve it.

Tunga , 2 hours ago link

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amy G. Dala , 2 hours ago link

Here's the goddam thing IMO. There is this thing called freedom of the press, it's constitutionally protected, no different than the right to bear arms.

But just because I have the right to carry an M+A 9mm around, that doesn't mean I can point it at the guy who cut me off in traffic. In that case, I go to jail.

For almost three years now, I've been hearing "bombshell" after unsourced "bombshell" from CNN/MSNBC/WaPo/NPR/NYT et. al. Here's how it usually goes:

And now let's turn to our panel of experts to "unpack" this latest revelation . . .

These people have criminally abused their rights, and those rights need to be taken away.

Otschelnik,

If Rachel Maddow, Chris Mathews, Judy Woodruff, Chuck Todd, Anderson Cooper, Brian Stelter, Chris Hayes, Mika Brzezinski, Don Lemon, Alysin Camerota, Lawrence O'Donnell had the slightest inkling of professional integrity, and human conscience - they'd commit seppuku on national live TeeVee to restore their honor.

A rope leash, 3 hours ago

In his effort to cleanse himself of the slimy residue of his profession, Tiabbi has written a fine piece here, a nice little documentation of press collusion with government spooks and political operatives.

If a little honest reporting will offer some redemption to damned journalists, his name was Seth Rich.

hooligan2009, 3 hours ago

don't forget that Obama was PERSONALLY and DIRECTLY involved in all aspects of Russiagate.

read between these lines

On Oct. 14, 2016, Page again wrote to McCabe, this time concerning a meeting with the White House.

"Just called," Page said to McCabe. "Apparently the DAG [Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates] now wants to be there, and WH wants DOJ to host. So we are setting that up now. ... We will very much need to get Cohen's view before we meet with her. Better, have him weigh in with her before the meeting. We need to speak with one voice, if that is in fact the case."

newworldorder, 3 hours ago

The simple truth here is that most Americans no longer have any critical thinking skills, - all media realized this a long time ago, and catered to their audience.

The Benjamin Franklin famous quote in answer to the question of "what kind of government have you given us?" rings very hollow after 240+ years. The "Republic" exists in name only, because its people have not protected it, after the passing of the WW2 generation.

Unrestricted, open borders invasion disguised as alleged migration, and the legalization of an eventual 100+ million new "migrant" voters will be the final nail on the coffin of the US Republic by 2030.

Mob rule will finally destroy the greatest Republic ever conceived by the mind of men.

Mike Rotsch, 3 hours ago (Edited)

If "open borders" is your measuring stick on Americans' critical-thinking skills, then where does that place Europeans? They actually have them officially.

Paracelsus, 3 hours ago

Someday I hope that Hillary has to be rolled up to testify about the Benghazi business. Grab the guns and the gold (and the oil). Ukraine gold: check. Libyan gold and weapons: check.

Ghaddafi actually warned the west that after him would come a deluge of illegals (okay refugees: young males, black, often Islamic, with little respect for women or experience with western society).

While I have reservations about Trump and his policies, the MSM owe him a huge mea culpa.

[Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
"... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
"... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
"... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
"... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
"... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
"... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
"... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
"... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
  1. President Trump was not indicted, nor did Mueller recommend an indictment against him for collusion or obstruction.
  2. There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
  3. The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
  4. While nearly three dozen people were charged , including a few close to the president or who worked for his campaign, no one in proximity to the president was formally charged with colluding with Russia. Most, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn or campaign adviser George Papadopoulos , were charged with process crimes or felonies unrelated to the main case, as in Paul Manafort 's secretive, multimillion-dollar foreign lobbying spree through Ukraine.

*********

Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.

An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill

------------

Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been defeated.

The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections.

At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.

The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search through Trump's life trying to find criminality.

AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin. pl

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/435394-the-wisdom-of-trumps-lawyers-and-the-accountability-that-must-follow

Posted at 09:00 AM in government , Justice , Politics | Permalink | 20 Comments


David Habakkuk , 14 hours ago

I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy.

It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.

The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this side.

In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.

Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years it patently has not been.

Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.

English Outsider -> David Habakkuk , 12 hours ago
Mr Habakkuk,

I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -

"They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. "

What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?

Mark Logan -> David Habakkuk , 9 hours ago

The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated. The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
English Outsider -> Mark Logan , 6 hours ago
I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.

Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.

With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.

Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 6 hours ago
Ex?
Mad_Max22 , 11 hours ago
An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC 1001.

The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would figure it out.

Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.

They couldn't know that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted" positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."

Perhaps this defense could be overcome by demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible be so stupid... maybe.

And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings, all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.

So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the country is so uncertain.

I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right. It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!

Eric Newhill , 12 hours ago
I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or somehow intimated by Trump.

The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;

and that + all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the criminal cases under way?

robt willmann , 3 hours ago
seesee2468,

On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6 minute, 5 second mark, he says--

"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result."

https://www.c-span.org/vide...

Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.

However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.

Divadab Newton , 10 hours ago
It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)

I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?

Walrus , 13 hours ago
Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?

I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs to be restitution.

To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in suicide or worse - so far.

ugluk2 , 3 hours ago
Matt Taibbi on how the press has destroyed its credibility.

https://taibbi.substack.com...

Taras77 , 8 hours ago
I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.

I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!

Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.

And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.

MP98 , 12 hours ago
Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting? The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the Democrat-media party. Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
Greco , 12 hours ago
The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
Fred W , 12 hours ago
Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report. It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the campaign.

That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp of the real nature of normal political process.

Fred -> Fred W , 4 hours ago
"The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."

Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?

seesee2468 -> Fred W , 6 hours ago
Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
Pat Lang Mod -> seesee2468 , 6 hours ago
I cannot.
peter hodges , 12 hours ago
Nothing will happen. In fact, the way things have been going, Trump will make Mueller the next AG.

[Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
"... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
"... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
"... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
"... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ken , Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | link

Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?

The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup.

This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.
https://consentfactory.org/2019/03/21/mueller-dammerung/

GeorgeV , Mar 23, 2019 2:13:42 PM | link

It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be barred from public office or the media forever.

As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!

the pair , Mar 23, 2019 2:14:43 PM | link
sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.

i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.

ger , Mar 23, 2019 2:16:08 PM | link
I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends). No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM | link
@dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)

Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)

Nathan Mulcahy , Mar 23, 2019 2:31:06 PM | link
"very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".

I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit (about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is chanting "give me more, give me more...".

Disgusting! sorry for the pessimistic rant.

renfro , Mar 23, 2019 2:56:18 PM | link
The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.

However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC, EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn.

The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and political circles.

The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.

BraveNewWorld , Mar 23, 2019 3:00:34 PM | link
b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing this.

I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.

Lozion , Mar 23, 2019 3:09:29 PM | link
One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis, etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM | link
The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier, moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
dh-mtl , Mar 23, 2019 3:11:13 PM | link
Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.

Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole, are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.

Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason of the highest order.

Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved. None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved. Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually societal collapse.

In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:

- The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent 737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry, in an industry where reputation is everything.

- The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover from that crisis.

- This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions, (the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and the ability to maintain peace.

The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears, and societal decline sets in.

It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators.

English Outsider , Mar 23, 2019 3:27:38 PM | link
The pair @ 3.

Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of the BBC news, we're in information control territory.

But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.

In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media. Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the shifting currents within that political elite.

So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think. In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing and what they intend to do.

worldblee , Mar 23, 2019 3:28:20 PM | link
The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty, supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their daily fodder for conversation...
ben , Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | link
renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."

Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues the
American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an infrastructure
plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.

The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to distract, and they've done it well.

The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same ilk.

Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | link
I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.

2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary for over 25 years.

3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.

When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card industry.

4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her campaign.

5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters activist; and she called whites "deplorables".

Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.

6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.

IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:

> hiring Manafort;

> calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;

> talking about Putin in a admiring way.

And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:

> served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;

> distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;

> served as a device for settling scores:

- Assange isolated
(Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");

- Michael Flynn forced to resign
(because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).

hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM | link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
Jen , Mar 23, 2019 4:01:43 PM | link
BraveNewWorld @ 11:

If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases. This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 - 2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.

The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.

As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.

james , Mar 23, 2019 4:16:03 PM | link
thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath @2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."

the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance.. instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is still on track...

@19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..

WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 4:36:17 PM | link
What Difference Does it Make?
They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their deals for civilian projects in the Med.
Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:37:43 PM | link
What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes about Trump, Russia.
Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!

But remember folks, we here was always right...
The Mueller Report Is In. They Were Wrong. We Were Right.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-mueller-report-is-in-they-were-wrong-we-were-right-a915d23a6d82

iv> also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

Posted by: Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

Posted by: Zanon | Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

Russ , Mar 23, 2019 4:41:30 PM | link
People are forgetting to call Dembot agent Wheeler "FBI rat Wheeler", or just Rat Wheeler. Or EmptySqueal.
karlof1 , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:23 PM | link
Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!

During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen. Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.

Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM | link
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.

Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room yelling that the house is on fire.

Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?

Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:52:41 PM | link
Scotch Bingeington

Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing happend:

If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves

defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity. Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.


https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1109235461430657026
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:00:23 PM | link
Who will say that the King has no clothes?

The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong.

Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already know.

It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.

And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.

WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 5:08:16 PM | link
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years

Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4

You people don't get it do you?
'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell swoop....

steve , Mar 23, 2019 5:11:08 PM | link
Deep state makes the warren commish seem authoritative
john , Mar 23, 2019 5:13:37 PM | link
the rot in DC is palpable. this whole russiagate fiasco's been like some kind of really bad audition for deeper state kabuki...what's next?

keeping brand Trump alive.

Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 5:22:08 PM | link
Matt Taibbi:

It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD
The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million

Pft , Mar 23, 2019 5:38:41 PM | link
Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel) and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.

That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want something covered up? Put Mueller on it.

To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont believe. Lol

Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China trademarks .

The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.

tuyzentfloot , Mar 23, 2019 5:46:31 PM | link
The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it onto cable tv?
It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will become true after all.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , Mar 23, 2019 5:48:55 PM | link

"Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.

When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight, you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar, one with a great deal of blood on her hands.

My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new credibility.

The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.

And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.


https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-americas-democrats-launch-lawsuit-against-trump-and-russia-and-wiki-leaks-over-election-hilarious-this-is-a-country-fit-to-dominate-the-earth-they-cant-manage-their-own/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/john-chuckman-comment-yet-more-ignorant-gossip-and-innuendo-about-trump-and-russia-this-all-reminds-me-of-insane-past-american-campaigns-against-procter-gamble-or-harry-potter-charging-devil/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/john-chuckman-comment-what-americas-neocons-represent-for-arms-control-agreements-such-as-the-inf-with-russia-and-heres-the-deadly-weakness-in-trumps-psychology-that-has-allowed-neocons-to-ta/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/john-chuckman-comment-a-comment-rightly-asks-with-trump-doing-everything-the-establishment-wants-why-do-they-still-want-to-get-rid-of-him-i-think-these-are-the-essential-reasons/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/john-chuckman-comment-some-very-dark-thoughts-of-where-america-is-going-in-its-relations-with-russia-and-iran-i-do-think-we-live-in-dangerous-times-and-they-are-deliberately-manufactured/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/john-chuckman-comment-complete-degradation-of-a-self-styled-great-nation-which-allows-paid-thugs-to-use-poison-gas-to-give-it-an-excuse-for-still-more-killing-the-dark-place-we-are-brought-to-by-tr/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/john-chuckman-comment-more-on-the-strange-phenomenon-of-trump-and-americas-neocons-a-man-who-imagines-himself-a-great-leader-leading-nothing-and-he-still-has-pathetic-followers-who-think-hes-fi/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-new-phony-book-on-trump-and-russia-whats-really-going-on-with-all-the-mumbo-jumbo-insanity-in-america-the-real-target-aint-trump-neocons-and-russia/


Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:59:03 PM | link
Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.

No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.

It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.

So funny.

Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his Administration.

Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.

The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate. Lets just blame it all on Hillary.

Welcome to the rabbithole.

Copeland , Mar 23, 2019 6:23:41 PM | link
Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have succumbed.

As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."

Jonathan , Mar 23, 2019 7:02:54 PM | link
@37 Jackrabbit,

Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for .

Arioch , Mar 23, 2019 7:06:26 PM | link
Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment, then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!

It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited from it", highly likely!

Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly likely.

fast freddy , Mar 23, 2019 7:12:20 PM | link
There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
Peter , Mar 23, 2019 7:16:00 PM | link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHo6cW0HVkQ DISGRACEFUL WILL WE EVER SAY NO?
vk , Mar 23, 2019 7:24:32 PM | link
@ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | 18

We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.

It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win because the DNC threw all its weight against him.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one: if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the bits you want.

I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment" acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American people (or a signficant part of it).

But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.

It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and can be balkanized.

Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 7:30:58 PM | link
counterpoint: If the Mueller report does not EXPLICITLY exonerate Trump, it does NOT exonerate Trump.
wagelaborer , Mar 23, 2019 7:43:06 PM | link
There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only spun onto new hysteria.
Rob , Mar 23, 2019 7:58:15 PM | link
As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and Republicans.
Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 8:08:59 PM | link
"...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."

Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.

Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 23, 2019 8:10:36 PM | link
Ben nails it in "Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | 17".

Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.

A case of divide and conquer against the population

This time it was a fabricated scandal.

Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements, wearing down relations.

The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like that).

Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.

Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and effort.

Management by crisis

The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through spam.

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 8:11:22 PM | link
Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.

Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.

I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was (mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

And we have seen other 'shows' also, like:

> White Helmets;

>> Skripal;

>> the Kavanaugh hearings;

>> pulling troops out of Syria.

aspnaz , Mar 23, 2019 8:19:24 PM | link
My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 8:50:48 PM | link
Jackrabbit @18
So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do nationalist.
I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
Cortes , Mar 23, 2019 8:51:27 PM | link
As usual, a fine essay. Thank you.

A couple of suggestions?

The headline would be better worded "Russiagate really is finished."

And the reaction at Colonel Lang's site makes interesting reading.

Les , Mar 23, 2019 8:55:52 PM | link
They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration, the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
paul , Mar 23, 2019 8:56:02 PM | link
The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:00:35 PM | link
vk @43

We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns). Bernie refused.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:02:11 PM | link
Sorry, here's a more readable version:

We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns) . Bernie refused.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:06:00 PM | link
Jonathan @39
Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:13:59 PM | link
mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.

Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a thin margin.

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 23, 2019 9:14:04 PM | link
Gosh and Blimey!
Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...

From Xymphora March 21, 2019.

"Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):

"Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34 percent from gentiles.
Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50 donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from Jewish givers.
So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about it: 76 percent is a lot."

Erelis , Mar 23, 2019 9:35:12 PM | link
Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state. And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in 2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is not confronting Putin"...
daffyDuct , Mar 23, 2019 9:40:02 PM | link

Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow, troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.

mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:54:13 PM | link
Jackrabbit,

I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.

I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other problems, but it still wasn't enough.

I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.

jadan , Mar 23, 2019 9:56:37 PM | link

Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove.

It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.

It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better.

[Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there. ..."
"... And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless. ..."
"... They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. ..."
"... The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion." ..."
"... It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. ..."
"... If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb. ..."
"... If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate. ..."
"... And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us. ..."
"... Hillary is the epitome of evil. ..."
"... I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. ..."
"... Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected. ..."
"... Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected". ..."
"... HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH ..."
"... It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible ..."
"... When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Luongo,

During most of the RussiaGate investigation against Donald Trump I kept saying that all roads lead to Hillary Clinton.

Anyone with three working brain cells knew this, including 'Miss' Maddow, whose tears of disappointment are particularly delicious.

Robert Mueller's investigation was designed from the beginning to create something out of nothing. It did this admirably.

It was so effective it paralyzed the country for more than two years, just like Europe has been held hostage by Brexit. And all of this because, in the end, the elites I call The Davos Crowd refused to accept that the people no longer believed their lies about the benefits of their neoliberal, globalist agenda.

Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Presidency was to be their apotheosis along with the Brexit vote. These were meant to lay to rest, once and for all time, the vaguely libertarian notion that people should rule themselves and not be ruled by philosopher kings in some distant land.

Hillary's failure was enormous. And the RussiaGate gambit to destroy Trump served a laundry list of purposes to cover it:

  1. Undermine his legitimacy before he even takes office.
  2. Accuse him of what Hillary actually did: collude with Russians and Ukrainians to effect the outcome of the election
  3. Paralyze Trump on his foreign policy desires to scale back the Empire
  4. Give aid and comfort to hurting progressives and radicalize them further undermining our political system
  5. Polarize the electorate over the false choice of Trump's guilt.
  6. Paralyze the Dept. of Justice and Congress so that they would not uncover the massive corruption in the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
  7. Isolate Trump and take away every ally or potential ally he could have by turning them against him through prosecutor overreach.

Hillary should have been thrown to the wolves after she failed. When you fail the people she failed and cost them the money she cost them, you lose more than just your funding. What this tells you is that Hillary has so much dirt on everyone involved, once this thing started everyone went along with it lest she burn them down as well.

Burnin' Down da House

Hillary is the epitome of envy. Envy is the destructive sin of coveting someone else's life so much they are obsessed with destroying it. It's the sin of Cain. She envies what Trump has, the Presidency. And she was willing to tear it down to keep him from having it no matter how much damage it would do. She's worse than the Joker from The Dark Knight.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/efHCdKb5UWc

Because while the Joker is unfathomable to someone with a conscience there's little stopping us from excising him from the community completely., even though Batman refuses.

Hillary hates us for who we are and what we won't give her. And that animus drove her to blackmail the world while putting on the face of its savior.

And that's what makes what comes next so obvious to me. RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there.

Mueller thought all he had to do was lean on corrupt people and threaten them with everything. They would turn on Trump. He would resign in disgrace from the public outcry. It didn't work. In the end Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone all held their ground or perjured themselves into the whole thing falling apart.

Andrew Weissman's resignation last month was your tell there was nothing. Mueller would pursue this to the limit of his personal reputation and no further. Just like so many other politicians.

Vote Your Pocketbook

With respect to Brexit I've been convinced that it would come down to reputations. Would the British MP's vote against their own personal best interests to do the bidding of the EU? Would Theresa May eventually realize her historical reputation would be destroyed if she caves to Brussels and betrays Brexit in the end? Always bet on the fecklessness of politicians. They will always act selfishly when put to the test. While leading RussiaGate, Mueller was always headed here if he couldn't get someone to betray Trump.

And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless.

They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. The progressives that were convinced of Trump's treason are bereft; their false hope stripped away like standing in front of a sandblaster. They will be raw, angry and looking for blood after they get over their denial.

Everyone else who was blackmailed into going along with this lunacy will begin cutting deals to save their skins. The outrage over this will not end. Trump will be President when he stands for re-election.

The Wolves Beckon

The Democrats do not have a chance against him as of right now. When he was caving on everything back in December it looked like he was done. That there was enough meat on the RussiaGate bones to make Nancy Pelosi brave. Then she backed off on impeachment talk. Oops....

... ... ...

The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion."

It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. There is only one answer. And Obama's people are still in place to protect him. I said last fall that " Hillary would indict herself. " And I meant it. Eventually her blackmail and drive to burn it all down led to this moment.

The circumstances are different than I expected back then, Trump didn't win the mid-terms. But the end result was always the same. If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb.

Because the bigger project, the erection of a transnational superstate, is bigger than any one person. Hillary is expendable. Lies are expensive to maintain. The truth is cheap to defend. Think of the billions in opportunity costs associated with this. Once the costs rise above the benefits, change happens fast. If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate.

We all know it's the truth. So, the cheapest way out of this mess for them is to give the MAGApedes what they want, Hillary.

And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us.


Jdhank , 27 minutes ago link

Hillary ain't enough!

We demand Comey, Brennan, Bill, the Podesta's, and the prancing little effiminate pony himself.

consider me gone , 29 minutes ago link

I'm surprised Donna Brazier and Pedo Podesta are still breathing. Maybe Hillary got God. Or gin.

Koba the Dread , 32 minutes ago link

Hillary is the epitome of envy.

Your spelling is atrocious. Let me correct it.

Hillary is the epitome of evil.

There, that does it.

KnitDame , 1 hour ago link

I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. Think of the taxpayer money wasted on this ridiculous Mueller investigation! The Roger Stone arrest was an outrage. Who tipped off CNN? Who ordered it? What was with the attack dogs and machine guns?

And now we have Nadler trying to destroy anyone and everyone who ever did business with Trump. All those 80 people who got letters from him asking for documents will now be bankrupted by legal fees.

According to Scott Adams, one recipient is refusing to cooperate -- he's saying "I can't afford for me and family to be destroyed." He put the request for documents in a drawer. He has no money for lawyers.

This insanity and abuse of power has got to stop. Meanwhile, nothing gets done in Congress. We're all looking at censorship, tilted search engines, de-monetization, being beat up on campus for trying to express an opinion, being accosted in a restaurant (or, VP Pence, from the stage ("Hamilton"), getting sucker-punched for wearing a MAGA hat, having elections stolen through myriad Dem cheating methods, and NOTHING is being done.

2willies , 1 hour ago link

You forgot Rachel

TeraByte , 1 hour ago link

"all roads lead to Hillary Clinton"

Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected.

Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected".

Dragon HAwk , 1 hour ago link

Hillary is expendable.

God I Love Feel Good Stories.

East Indian , 1 hour ago link

And, oh, I almost forgot.

HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH

Neochrome , 1 hour ago link

It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible.

When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself.

[Mar 24, 2019] Kushner, Inc Vicky Ward on How Jared and Ivanka's Greed Ambition Compromise U.S. Foreign Policy

Mar 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Vincent Masci , 2 days ago

This is clear that the Emollients Law is being broken. Kushner is making a ton of money and using over seas trips to create a larger establishment for his own empire . He is trying to make up for his big loses . This truly Breaks all laws of our Government .Using his position to make money . He needs to go ................

IFREEDOMI , 2 days ago

Our government is Israeli Occupied

friedrich nietzsche , 2 days ago

The Family Trump, the people are absolutely no shame, not 1%, to the Millions of poor Americans, on the Streets, in Tents, on Highways, under Highways!!! Ivanka Trump, she a young Women, no heart!!! No Empathy to the Millions of poor Amer.

Wake Up! , 2 days ago

It's not rocket science people! They were raised by corrupt parents and grandparents who taught them well. Children will model what their parents teach them. They are also children who are inexperienced & way over their head and very unqualified so they are overwhelmed.

[Mar 23, 2019] Trump's Golan Move Was Timed To Guarantee Netanyahoo's Reelection

Notable quotes:
"... The people who paid for Trump's election campaign, foremost casino magnate and zionist Sheldon Adelson, want to keep the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahoo in office. ..."
"... Trump needs money for his re-election campaign and is willing to do anything to get it. ..."
"... Trump is colluding with Netayahoo to influence the Israeli election. It is the reason why he decided yesterday to claim that Israel has sovereignty over the Golan Heights : ..."
Mar 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

The people who paid for Trump's election campaign, foremost casino magnate and zionist Sheldon Adelson, want to keep the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahoo in office.

Netanyahoo is under investigation in several corruption cases and has a serious competitor in the upcoming general elections in Israel. Trump needs money for his re-election campaign and is willing to do anything to get it.

Trump is colluding with Netayahoo to influence the Israeli election. It is the reason why he decided yesterday to claim that Israel has sovereignty over the Golan Heights :

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 16:50 utc - 21 Mar 2019
After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!

The Heights are Syrian lands that were occupied by Israel during its 1967 war of aggression against Egypt and Syria.

[Mar 23, 2019] Kushner said in February the White House was poised to unveil the peace plan after Israel's election in April.

Mar 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Mar 22, 2019 10:31:08 PM | link

The business of Trump giving away something he doesn't own is insane. But insanity has been the theme of most everything else him and his neocon helpers have been doing of late.

I believe it's time to start paying attention to the truly nutty stories. The crazier sounding ones ought to get the most attention. After all, who would have conceived the Trumpies declaring a genuine nobody to be the true President of Venezuela? Early finds:

U.S., Taiwan: Washington Ponders a Military Presence on a Taiwanese Island (Nov 5, 2018)

A US military base on Taiwan. New weapons to Taiwan. More high-level contacts with that nation. All proposed by the Trumpies. Who benefits most from a small or large war with China? Headline from the neocon york times:

Israel Is on the Brink of Disaster. Trump Just Made Things Worse. (March 22, 2019)

On Twitter on Thursday, he wrote that "it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" It is the latest, and most important, signal from Washington that Mr. Trump is ready to acknowledge Israeli control of the Golan Heights.

But those signals are also being read by the Israeli right wing as an encouragement to pursue annexation of territory in the West Bank -- a far more dangerous step that would present Israel with an unparalleled existential threat to its Jewish and democratic character.

I'd ask if there is any reason for the murdering and stealing rightwingnut settlers not to celebrate? Trump has been doing their bidding at every turn, even when it does direct harm to the US. Are there any indications the Trumpies have something planned for the subhuman Palestinians. As a matter of fact, YES.

Jordan-Saudi Arabia land exchange appeared in draft of Jared Kushner's Middle East peace plan (March 19, 2019)

The are much better 'Kushner, boy wonder' articles than this one floating around, but I want to focus on a single part:

Kushner said in February the White House was poised to unveil the peace plan after Israel's election in April. While in Warsaw, Kushner said the plan will impact the entire Middle East region and is "really about establishing border and resolving final-status issues," according to Sky News Arabia.
Change "final-status" to Final Solution and that would be just about right. Death-March time, Baby, and to the exultant Republican & End-Timers chant of "they had their chance, but blew it".

[Mar 23, 2019] Ira Greenstein: Jared Kushner's Criminal Deal With Israel Behind U.S. Involvement In Syria For Genie Energy's Control of the Golan Heights

Mar 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

PavewayIV , Mar 22, 2019 4:36:07 PM | link

Sheesh.... sorry. Zanting's article from last year with proper formatting:

https://animeright.news/zanting/ira-greenstein-jared-kushners-criminal-deal-with-israel-behind-u-s-involvement-in-syria-for-genie-energys-control-of-the-golan-heights/

The Trump administration along with Jared Kushner employed in the White House, a lawyer by the name of Ira Greenstein from Newark, New Jersey, who was by all accounts still acting as President and/or in the interest of his energy corporation when the U.S. bombed Syria.*

Genie Energy.

An energy corporation operating privately in Syrian territory  -- the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are inherently subjugated by this paradigm of interests. When commencing with hostile military action against Syria, they did so while having a direct conflict of interest, primarily related to business ties with this corporation. This, along with seemingly ulterior political dealings with the Israeli government, has gone part and parcel to the destabilization of Syria. While benefiting Genie Energy, its backers and involved officials.

Officials such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This essentially represents extortion against Syria, as part of a behind-the-scenes deal between parties, with Greenstein's boss, the founder of Genie Energy and top Netanyahu donor Howard Jonas having made billions through a telecommunications deal made possible under the watch of both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and White House Office of American Innovation (OAI ) --  for which to benefit said parties for their actions.

* The U.S. has since attacked Syria's government a number of times, furthering the risk of nuclear war or a widened conflict in the Middle East. Ira Greenstein left the White House on March 30th, 2018 following earlier reporting by this author. U.S. Navy's USS Porter strikes Syria in April of 2017.

On April 6th, 2017, the U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria. Targeting Shayrat Airbase (FAA LID: OS65), numerous aircraft were destroyed, primarily Mikoyan Mig-23ML and Sukhoi Su-22M3 models. These being the same parent models which had been involved in operations over Daraa, which is a choke point near the Golan Heights, it remains as of this posting as being under the control of hostile actors such as Islamic State (ISIS).*

* Syria has since made strides in retaking this key area.

On April 14th, 2018, about a year later, this act was repeated with U.S.-led military strikes against a large number of targets within Syria  --  both France and the U.K. participated in this escalation despite the associated risks.

Ira Greenstein
Troop deployments had preceded the airstrikes, with a permanent presence with or without ISIS being touted in 2017, setting U.S. involvement in Syria at an ever increasing rate . Continued or further involvement in Syria by the Trump administration or other U.S.-led actors, as shown below in this article, is illegal.

me title=

James Mattis claimed at the time that approximately 20% of the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) was destroyed; impacting Syria's military capabilities, this would then continue with further bombings on Syria by the Israeli Air Force. Israel would find herself losing an F-16 this year after Syrian Air Defenses retaliated in self-defense due to these bombings.

More recently , activity has included an increasing amount of U.S. military action against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) or its pro-government forces, despite inherent conflicts of interest present within the Trump administration.

This type of behavior sits in stark contrast to Iran and Russia having been formally invited by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to participate in Syria's affairs militarily.

To get to the very heart of the matter, we have to go back to the presidential transition period, when Newark lawyer Ira Greenstein was a member of ex-Congressman John Sweeney's "Tiger Team." While he was still Genie Energy's acting President.

This made Greenstein an official presidential transition team member for the incoming Trump administration, as some may recall, Jared Kushner was a member of this team as well.

[Mar 23, 2019] Is Kushner in trouble?

Mar 23, 2019 | twitter.com

PoliticusUSA ‏ 4:00 PM - 22 Mar 2019

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that there is a strong possibility that Trump's family could be indicted by other entities based on the work of Mueller. http:// ow.ly/ZibI30o9PFQ

[Mar 23, 2019] Killing for Credibility A Look Back at the 1999 NATO Air War on Serbia by Brett Wilkins

Mar 23, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. It was a war waged as much against Serbian civilians – hundreds of whom perished – as it was against Slobodan Milošević's forces, and it was a campaign of breathtaking hypocrisy and selective outrage. More than anything, it was a war that by President Bill Clinton's own admission was fought for the sake of NATO's credibility.

One Man's Terrorist

Our story begins not in the war-torn Balkans of the 1990s but rather in the howling wilderness of Afghanistan at the end of the 1980s as defeated Soviet invaders withdrew from a decade of guerrilla warfare into the twilight of a once-mighty empire. The United States, which had provided arms, funding and training for the mujahideen fighters who had so bravely resisted the Soviet occupation, stopped supporting the jihadis as soon as the last Red Army units rolled across the Hairatan Bridge and back into the USSR. Afghanistan descended deeper into civil war.

The popular narrative posits that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, Washington's former mujahideen allies, turned on the West after the US stationed hundreds of thousands of infidel troops in Saudi Arabia – home to two out of three of Sunni Islam's holiest sites – during Operation Desert Shield in 1990. Since then, the story goes, the relationship between the jihadists and their former benefactors has been one of enmity, characterized by sporadic terror attacks and fierce US retribution. The real story, however, is something altogether different.

From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen, often accompanied by US Special Forces, from Central Asia to Europe to reinforce Bosnian Muslims as they fought Serbs to gain their independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration armed and trained these fighters in flagrant violation of United Nations accords; weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran were secretly shipped to the jihadists via Croatia, which netted a hefty profit from each transaction. The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitary forces, concluded that the United States was "very closely involved" in these arms transfers.

When the Bosnian war ended in 1995 the United States was faced with the problem of thousands of Islamist warriors on European soil. Many of them joined the burgeoning Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which mainly consisted of ethnic Albanian Kosovars from what was still southwestern Yugoslavia. Emboldened by the success of the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians and Bosnians who had won their independence from Belgrade as Yugoslavia literally balkanized, KLA fighters began to violently expel as many non-Albanians from Kosovo as they could. Roma, Jews, Turks and, above all, Serbs were all victims of Albanian ethnic cleansing.

The United States was initially very honest in its assessment of the KLA. Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy to Bosnia, called it "without any question a terrorist group." KLA backers allegedly included Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals; the group largely bankrolled its activities by trafficking heroin and sex slaves. The State Department accordingly added the KLA to its list of terrorist organizations in 1998.

However, despite all its nastiness the KLA endeared itself to Washington by fighting the defiant Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milošević. By this time Yugoslavia, once composed of eight nominally autonomous republics, had been reduced by years of bloody civil war to a rump of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. To Serbs, the dominant ethnic group in what remained of the country, Kosovo is regarded as the very birthplace of their nation. Belgrade wasn't about to let it go without a fight and everyone knew it, especially the Clinton administration. Clinton's hypocrisy was immediately evident; when Chechnya fought for its independence from Moscow and Russian forces committed horrific atrocities in response, the American president called the war an internal Russian affair and barely criticized Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But when Milošević resorted to brute force in an attempt to prevent Yugoslavia from further fracturing, he soon found himself a marked man.

Although NATO called the KLA "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and blasted "what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation" against the Serbs, the Clinton administration was nevertheless determined to attack the Milošević regime. US intelligence confirmed that the KLA was indeed provoking harsh retaliatory strikes by Serb forces in a bid to draw the United States and NATO into the conflict. President Clinton, however, apparently wasn't listening. The NATO powers, led by the United States, issued Milošević an ultimatum they knew he could never accept: allow NATO to occupy all of Kosovo and have free reign in Serbia as well. Assistant US Secretary of State James Rubin later admitted that "publicly we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing were quite small."

Wagging the Dog?

In 1997 the film Wag the Dog debuted to rave reviews. The dark comedy concerns a Washington, DC spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a fictional war in Albania to distract American voters from a presidential sex scandal. Many observers couldn't help but draw parallels between the film and the real-life events of 1998-99, which included the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's impeachment and a very real war brewing in the Balkans. As in Wag the Dog , there were exaggerated or completely fabricated tales of atrocities, and as in the film the US and NATO powers tried to sell their war as a humanitarian intervention. An attack on Yugoslavia, we were told, was needed to avert Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians.

There were two main problems with this. First, there was no Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars until after NATO began mercilessly bombing Yugoslavia. The German government issued several reports confirming this. One, from October 1998, reads, in part:

The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) A state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier.

Subsequent German government reports issued through the winter of 1999 tell a similar story. "Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity," stated one report released exactly one month before the NATO bombing started. "The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combating the KLA and its supposed adherents and supporters."

While Serbs certainly did commit atrocities (especially after the ferocious NATO air campaign began), these were often greatly exaggerated by the Clinton administration and the US corporate mainstream media. Clinton claimed – and the media dutifully parroted – that 600,000 Albanians were "trapped within Kosovo lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass graves." This was completely false . US diplomat David Scheffer claimed that "225,000 ethnic Albanian men are missing, presumed dead." Again, a total fabrication . The FBI, International War Crimes Tribunal and global forensics experts flocked to Kosovo in droves after the NATO bombs stopped falling; the total number of victims they found was around 1 percent of the figure claimed by the United States.

However, once NATO attacked, the Serb response was predictably furious. Shockingly, NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark declared that the ensuing Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovar population had been "fully anticipated" and were apparently of little concern to Washington. Not only did NATO and the KLA provoke a war with Yugoslavia, they did so knowing that many innocent civilians would be killed, maimed or displaced by the certain and severe reprisals carried out by enraged Serb forces. Michael McGwire, a former top NATO planner, acknowledged that "to describe the bombing as a humanitarian intervention is really grotesque."

Bloody Hypocrites

The other big problem with the US claiming it was attacking Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds was that the Clinton administration had recently allowed – and was at the time allowing – far worse humanitarian catastrophes to rage without American intervention. More than 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered while Clinton and other world leaders stood idly by during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The US also courted the medievally brutal Taliban regime in hopes of achieving stability in Afghanistan and with an eye toward building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Clinton also did nothing to stop Russian forces from viciously crushing nationalist uprisings in the Caucuses, where Chechen rebels were fighting for their independence much the same as Albanian Kosovars were fighting the Serbs.

Colombia, the Western Hemisphere's leading recipient of US military and economic aid, was waging a fierce, decades-long campaign of terror against leftist insurgents and long-suffering indigenous peoples. Despite horrific brutality and pervasive human rights violations, US aid to Bogotá increased year after year. In Turkey, not only did Clinton do nothing to prevent government forces from committing widespread atrocities against Kurdish separatists, the administration positively encouraged its NATO ally with billions of dollars in loans and arms sales. Saudi Arabia, home to the most repressive fundamentalist regime this side of Afghanistan, was – and remains – a favored US ally despite having one of the world's worst human rights records. The list goes on and on.

Much closer to the conflict at hand, the United States tacitly approved the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since the Holocaust when as many as 200,000 Serbs were forcibly expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by that country's US-trained military during Operation Storm in August 1995. Krajina Serbs had purged the region of its Croat minority four years earlier in their own ethnic cleansing campaign; now it was the Serbs' turn to be on the receiving end of the horror. Croatian forces stormed through Krajina, shelling towns and slaughtering innocent civilians. The sick and the elderly who couldn't escape were executed or burned alive in their homes as Croatian soldiers machine-gunned convoys of fleeing refugees.

"Painful for the Serbs"

Washington's selective indignation at Serb crimes both real and imagined is utterly inexcusable when held up to the horrific and seemingly indiscriminate atrocities committed during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The prominent Australian journalist John Pilger noted that "in the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets, the rest hit hospitals, schools, factories, churches and broadcast studios." There is little doubt that US and allied warplanes and missiles were targeting the Serbian people as much as, or even more than, Serb forces. The bombing knocked out electricity in 70 percent of the country as well as much of its water supply.

NATO warplanes also deliberately bombed a building containing the headquarters of Serbian state television and radio in the middle of densely populated central Belgrade. The April 23, 1999 attack occurred without warning while 200 employees were at work in the building. Among the 16 people killed were a makeup artist, a cameraman, a program director, an editor and three security guards. There is no doubt that the attack was meant to demoralize the Serbian people. There is also no doubt that those who ordered the bombing knew exactly what outcome to expect: a NATO planning document viewed by Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac forecast as many as 350 deaths in the event of such an attack, with as many as 250 of the victims expected to be innocent civilians living in nearby apartments.

Allied commanders wanted to fight a "zero casualty war" in Yugoslavia. As in zero casualties for NATO forces, not the people they were bombing. "This will be painful for the Serbs," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sadistically predicted. It sure was. NATO warplanes flew sorties at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), a safe height for the pilots. But this decreased accuracy and increased civilian casualties on the ground. One attack on central Belgrade mistakenly hit Dragiša Mišović hospital with a laser-guided "precision" bomb, obliterating an intensive care unit and destroying a children's ward while wounding several pregnant women who had the misfortune of being in labor at the time of the attack. Dragana Krstić, age 23, was recovering from cancer surgery – she just had a 10-pound (4.5 kg) tumor removed from her stomach – when the bombs blew jagged shards of glass into her neck and shoulders. "I don't know which hurts more," she lamented, "my stomach, my shoulder or my heart."

Dragiša Mišović wasn't the only hospital bombed by NATO. Cluster bombs dropped by fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force struck a hospital and a market in the city of Niš on May 7, killing 15 people and wounding 60 more. An emergency clinic and medical dispensary were also bombed in the mining town of Aleksinac on April 6, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.

Bridges were favorite targets of NATO bombing. An international passenger train traveling from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, Greece was blown apart by two missiles as it crossed over Grdelica gorge on April 12. Children and a pregnant woman were among the 15 people killed in the attack; 16 other passengers were wounded. Allied commander Gen. Wesley Clark claimed the train, which had been damaged by the first missile, had been traveling too rapidly for the pilot to abort the second strike on the bridge. He then offered up a doctored video that was sped up more than three times so that the pilot's behavior would appear acceptable.

On May 1, at least 24 civilians, many of them children, were killed when NATO warplanes bombed a bridge in Lužane just as a bus was crossing. An ambulance rushing to the scene of the carnage was struck by a second bomb. On the sunny spring afternoon of May 30, a bridge over the Velika Morava River in the small town of Vavarin was bombed by low-flying German Air Force F-16 fighters while hundreds of local residents gathered nearby to celebrate an Orthodox Christian holiday. Eleven people died, most of them when the warplanes returned and bombed the people who rushed to the bridge to help those wounded in the first strike.

No One Is Safe

The horrors suffered by the villagers of Surdulica shows that no one in Serbia was safe from NATO's fury. They endured some 175 bombardments during one three-week period alone, with 50 houses destroyed and 600 others damaged in a town with only around 10,000 residents. On April 27, 20 civilians, including 12 children, died when bombs meant to destroy an army barracks slammed into a residential neighborhood. As many as 100 others were wounded in the incident. Tragedy befell the tiny town again on May 31 when NATO warplanes returned to bomb an ammunition depot but instead hit an old people's home; 23 civilians, most of them helpless elderly men and women, were blown to pieces. Dozens more were wounded. The US military initially said "there were no errant weapons" in the attack. However, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre later testified before Congress that it "was a case of the pilot getting confused."

The CIA was also apparently confused when it relied on what it claimed was an outdated map to approve a Stealth Bomber strike on what turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed and 27 other people were wounded. Some people aren't so sure the attack was an accident – Britain's Observer later reported that the US deliberately bombed the embassy after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.

There were plenty of other accidents, some of them horrifically tragic and others just downright bizarre. Two separate attacks on the very Albanians NATO was claiming to help killed 160 people, many of them women and children. On April 14, NATO warplanes bombed refugees along a 12-mile (19-km) stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova and Deçan in western Kosovo, killing 73 people including 16 children and wounding 36 more. Journalists reported a grisly scene of "bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins." Exactly one month later, another column of refugees was bombed near Koriša, killing 87 – mostly women, children and the elderly – and wounding 60 others. In the downright bizarre category, a wildly errant NATO missile struck a residential neighborhood in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, some 40 miles (64 km) outside of Serbia. The American AGM-88 HARM missile blew the roof off of a man's house while he was shaving in his bathroom.

NATO's "Murderous Thugs"

As the people of Yugoslavia were being terrorized by NATO's air war, the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up their atrocities against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. NATO troops deployed there to keep the peace often failed to protect these people from the KLA's brutal campaign. More than 164,000 Serbs fled or were forcibly driven from the Albanian-dominated province and by the summer of 2001 KLA ethnic cleansing had rendered Kosovo almost entirely Albanian, with just a few die-hard Serb holdouts living in fear and surrounded by barbed wire.

The KLA soon expanded its war into neighboring Macedonia. Although NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called the terror group "murderous thugs," the United States – now with George W. Bush as president – continued to offer its invaluable support. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice personally intervened in an attempt to persuade Ukraine to halt arms sales to the Macedonian army and when a group of 400 KLA fighters were surrounded at Aracinovo in June 2001, NATO ordered Macedonian forces to hold off their attack while a convoy of US Army vehicles rescued the besieged militants. It later emerged that 17 American military advisers were embedded with the KLA at Aracinovo.

Credibility Conundrum

The bombing of Yugoslavia was really about preserving the credibility of the United States and NATO. The alliance's saber rattling toward Belgrade had painted it into a corner from which the only way out was with guns blazing. Failure to follow threats with deadly action, said President Clinton, "would discredit NATO." Clinton added that "our mission is clear, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose." The president seemed willfully ignorant of NATO's real purpose, which is to defend member states from outside attack. British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Clinton, declaring on the eve of the war that "to walk away now would destroy NATO's credibility." Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote that the Clinton administration "transformed a conflict that posed no threat to the territorial integrity, national sovereignty or general welfare of the United States into a major test of American resolve."

Waging or prolonging war for credibility's sake is always dangerous and seems always to yield disastrous results. Tens of thousands of US troops and many times as many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian soldiers and civilians died while Richard Nixon sought an "honorable" way out of Vietnam. Ronald Reagan's dogged defense of US credibility cost the lives of 299 American and French troops killed in Hezbollah's 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This time, ensuring American credibility meant backing the vicious KLA – some of whose fighters had trained at Osama bin Laden's terror camps in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact that al-Qaeda had already been responsible for deadly attacks against the United States, including the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

It is highly questionable whether bombing Yugoslavia affirmed NATO's credibility in the short term. In the long term, it certainly did not. The war marked the first and only time NATO had ever attacked a sovereign state. It did so unilaterally, absent any threat to any member nation, and without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "If NATO can go for military action without international blessing, it calls into question the reliability of NATO as a security partner," Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, then Moscow's ambassador to NATO, told me at a San Francisco reception.

Twenty years later, Operation Allied force has been all but forgotten in the United States. In a country that has been waging nonstop war on terrorism for almost the entire 21st century, the 1999 NATO air war is but a footnote in modern American history. Serbs, however, still seethe at the injustice and hypocrisy of it all. The bombed-out ruins of the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense, Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and other buildings serve as constant, painful reminders of the horrors endured by the Serbian people in service of NATO's credibility.

Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights, is archived at www.brettwilkins.com

Read more by Brett Wilkins

[Mar 23, 2019] Perpetuating the Syrian Delusion by Larry Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... But facts matter little when it comes to dishing out propaganda to a largely clueless American public. Conveniently excluded from our mythical account of the defeat of ISIS is the critical role played by Russia and Iran in bolstering Syria's military capabilities and carrying out a decisive ground campaign that is the real cause of the death of ISIS. ..."
"... I agree with damned near every word you said, Larry. Our policies and actions in Syria have been horrid from the beginning. The only bright spot was the assistance we provided to the Kurds against the IS jihadis. ..."
"... What good we did there, although still illegal under international law, is being wiped out by our insistence on staying there and obstruction of Kurdish reconciliation with Damascus. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
I wish we could say that the lies and self-deception that are the core of U.S. policy and actions in Syria are an isolated incident. Sadly, no. On almost every issue--from the Russian threat to the 12 doom countdown on climate change--Americans are being fed a steady stream of bullshit and there is virtually no pushback or derision.

I bring this up in light of the media's current coverage of the "defeat" of ISIS in Syria. According to the media and punditry meme, this is the result of vigorous and persistent action by U.S. ground forces in Syria and that 2000 brave men (and very few women) have flushed ISIS into the bowels of history. No one dare mention the fact that the United States is violating international law by carrying out military operations on Syrian territory. Nope. Don't fit the meme.

The Washington Post piece is representative of the nonsense being reported :

Nearly a third of territory reclaimed from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since 2014 has been won in the past six months, due to new policies adopted by the Trump administration, a senior State Department official said Friday.

Brett McGurk, the State Department's senior envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said that steps President Trump has taken, including delegating decision-making authority down from the White House to commanders in the field, have "dramatically accelerated" gains against the militants.

Trump has worked this miracle with a measly 2000 Special Ops and Special Forces troops. Or so we are told. Now for the facts:

The United States ground forces have not carried out nor spearheaded a single major ground campaign or attack in Iraq. If you recall the assault on Fallujah during the early days of the war in Iraq, the US Marines employed 15,000 marines in that effort. Two thousand troops can defend a fixed position but are virtually useless as a military force going up against an entrenched enemy.

The 2000 U.S. military personnel have been involved for the most part in training and intel collection. When U.S. assets were employed it involved almost exclusively air attacks from drones, fixed wing and helicopters.

Oh yeah--EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE AIR OPERATIONS WERE COORDINATED WITH THE RUSSIAN MILITARY COMMAND FROM THE CAOC (COMBINED AIR OPERATIONS CENTER) IN AL-UDEID AIR FORCE BASE IN QATAR.

But facts matter little when it comes to dishing out propaganda to a largely clueless American public. Conveniently excluded from our mythical account of the defeat of ISIS is the critical role played by Russia and Iran in bolstering Syria's military capabilities and carrying out a decisive ground campaign that is the real cause of the death of ISIS.

Despite our supposedly decisive victory, we are still being told that we must keep ground forces in Syria. Donald Trump's initial instinct in 2015--i.e., we should not be in Syria--has been trumped by die hard neocons like John Bolton with the help self-serving twits in Congress and the media. That list includes the disgraced and deceased Senator John McCain. When McCain was still emitting flatulence and helping speed the doom of the planet from climate change, he was a leading cheerleader for invading a country, Syria, which had not attacked us.

Why care about international law when we, as a nation, seem so content to embrace the illegal and the immoral. A true head scratcher. +


Boris , a day ago

No one dare mention the fact that the United States is violating international law by carrying out military operations on Syrian territory. Nope.

International Law vs the so-called "liberal international rules-based order". Liberal, international?

Graham Allison: Basically, if you look at the piece I wrote for Foreign Affairs last year -- about which there was great controversy -- it argues that the concept of the liberal international rules-based order is mostly mythology.

Contrary to the conventional claims about this "liberal international rules-based order," as I explain in that article:

(1) The primary cause of the "long peace" of the past seven decades has not been some liberal international order, but rather, for the first four decades of that period, the stalemate between two deadly adversaries in the Cold War;

(2) the primary driver of U.S. involvement in the world over these decades was not to build some liberal international order but to defeat what it saw as an existential threat to itself posed by an expansionist, revolutionary, Communist Soviet Union;

(3) and although Trump is undermining key elements of the current order, he is far from the biggest threat to global stability. The main changes that have happened in the arrangements and procedures of the past seven decades are: the decline in U.S. share of global power as China has risen meteorically; the return of Russia as a player that is still a nuclear superpower, or certainly second to none with respect to destructive power, with a military that's willing and ready to fight for the Kremlin's objectives; and the discrediting of the American foreign policy establishment in the 21st century, from the 2003 invasion of Iraq to attempts to create a democracy in Afghanistan.

All those, in my view, are much greater factors in the changing world order than Donald Trump -- though most people want to avoid these painful truths and just blame Trump.

https://www.russiamatters.o...

The Myth of the Liberal Order. From Historical Accident to Conventional Wisdom

By Graham Allison

These misconceptions about the liberal order's causes and consequences lead its advocates to call for the United States to strengthen the order by clinging to pillars from the past and rolling back authoritarianism around the globe. Yet rather than seek to return to an imagined past in which the United States molded the world in its image, Washington should limit its efforts to ensuring sufficient order abroad to allow it to concentrate on reconstructing a viable liberal democracy at home.

https://www.foreignaffairs....

Fred , a day ago
"Donald Trump's initial instinct in 2015...." Perhaps he should bring back Steve Bannon for some balance.
Boris -> Fred , a day ago
Bannon is busy helping to re-nationalize Europe: https://www.politico.eu/art...
Fred -> Boris , 16 hours ago
You mean all those politicians leading Europe have no leadership ability, or do you mean all those Europeans are rubes who just don't get the truth about what a great job Merkel and Macron and what's his name in Brussels have really been doing all these years.
TTG , a day ago
I agree with damned near every word you said, Larry. Our policies and actions in Syria have been horrid from the beginning. The only bright spot was the assistance we provided to the Kurds against the IS jihadis.

What good we did there, although still illegal under international law, is being wiped out by our insistence on staying there and obstruction of Kurdish reconciliation with Damascus.

[Mar 23, 2019] It's time to go ho home

Mar 23, 2019 | twitter.com

Mike Gravel ‏ 6:48 AM - 22 Mar 2019

U.S. out of Iraq. U.S. out of Syria. U.S. out of Afghanistan. U.S. out of South Korea. U.S. out of Okinawa. U.S. out of Germany. U.S. out of Saudi Arabia. U.S. out of Cameroon. U.S. out of Djibouti. U.S. out of Qatar. U.S. out of Niger.

America, come home.

[Mar 23, 2019] 2020 Candidates Skip AIPAC! MoveOn.Org Democracy In Action by Iram Ali

Notable quotes:
"... The story comes after a number of leading candidates- Sen. Bernie Sanders , Sen. Kamala Harris , Sen. Elizabeth Warren , Beto O'Rourke , Mayor Julián Castro , Governor Jay Inlsee , and Mayor Pete Buttigieg - said that they will not attend AIPAC's conference. ..."
"... "The influx of progressive candidates confirming they will not attend-even those who have gone in years past-shows how the momentum is shifting. In 2007, for example, ..."
"... both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attended, ..."
"... going so far as to throw parties at the conference. ..."
"... "AIPAC is clearly a partisan lobbying group that has undermined diplomatic efforts. It's no secret that that AIPAC has worked to hinder diplomatic efforts like the Iran deal, is undermining Palestinian self-determination, and inviting figures actively involved in human rights violations to its stage. Meanwhile, they give platforms to ..."
"... and refuse to condemn the anti-Semitism stemming from Republicans. It should come as no surprise that progressives don't want anything to do with this conference. ..."
"... "The fact that no 2020 Democratic presidential contenders have as of yet publicly committed to attending AIPAC's conference in DC this weekend-with seven candidates confirming they will definitely not ..."
"... stands in sharp contrast to the past. MoveOn members applaud the candidates for taking a stand against AIPAC's dangerous, partisan lobbying efforts." ..."
"... more than 74 percent of MoveOn members who responded agree or strongly agree with the statement that "any progressive vying to be the Democratic nominee for President should skip the AIPAC conference." ..."
"... AIPAC spent tens millions of dollars in 2015 to defeat the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama along with our European and international allies-a historic diplomatic agreement that Trump has tried to derail since taking office. ..."
"... This year's AIPAC conference is headlined by Benjamin Netanyahu under whose leadership, according to the U.N., Israel may have committed war crimes in attacks on Gaza. Netanyahu also has been indicted on bribery and fraud charges, and recently made a deal to bring the "Israeli KKK" party into the next government. ..."
"... AIPAC has been known to traffic in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while providing a platform to Islamophobes. ..."
Mar 22, 2019 | MoveOn.Org

After MoveOn members asked candidates to skip the AIPAC conference, no 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are yet publicly committed to attend the AIPAC conference in DC this weekend!

The story comes after a number of leading candidates-Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Mayor Julián Castro, Governor Jay Inlsee, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg- said that they will not attend AIPAC's conference.

Iram Ali, campaign director at MoveOn, explained the significance:

"The influx of progressive candidates confirming they will not attend-even those who have gone in years past-shows how the momentum is shifting. In 2007, for example, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attended, going so far as to throw parties at the conference.

"AIPAC is clearly a partisan lobbying group that has undermined diplomatic efforts. It's no secret that that AIPAC has worked to hinder diplomatic efforts like the Iran deal, is undermining Palestinian self-determination, and inviting figures actively involved in human rights violations to its stage. Meanwhile, they give platforms to Islamophobes and refuse to condemn the anti-Semitism stemming from Republicans. It should come as no surprise that progressives don't want anything to do with this conference.

"The fact that no 2020 Democratic presidential contenders have as of yet publicly committed to attending AIPAC's conference in DC this weekend-with seven candidates confirming they will definitely not attend-stands in sharp contrast to the past. MoveOn members applaud the candidates for taking a stand against AIPAC's dangerous, partisan lobbying efforts."

On Wednesday, MoveOn released the results of a member survey which found that more than 74 percent of MoveOn members who responded agree or strongly agree with the statement that "any progressive vying to be the Democratic nominee for President should skip the AIPAC conference."

Here are some of the reasons MoveOn called on 2020 candidates to skip AIPAC:

[Mar 23, 2019] MoveOn on Twitter the list of 2020 presidential candidates who have made the decision to #SkipAIPAC continues to grow

Mar 23, 2019 | twitter.com

MoveOn ‏ 1:32 PM - 21 Mar 2019

& the list of 2020 presidential candidates who have made the decision to # SkipAIPAC continues to grow. Thank you for your leadership here @ PeteButtigieg , @ ewarren , @ BernieSanders , @ KamalaHarris , @ JulianCastro , @ BetoORourke , @ JayInslee ... who is next?

[Mar 22, 2019] Mobsters have better morale that the Democratic establishment

But Clintons are mobsters in disguise, so what's the difference. Jared Kushner father is as close to a mobster as one can get (hiring a prostitute to compromise relative is one of his tricks)
Notable quotes:
"... Don't ever think the Democratic establishment is your friend. They want you to die in foreign wars and your children to work in starvation-wage service jobs until they're 70 so that the top 0.1% can buy their kids' way into Yale ..."
Mar 22, 2019 | twitter.com

Mike Gravel ‏ 9:37 AM - 22 Mar 2019

Don't ever think the Democratic establishment is your friend. They want you to die in foreign wars and your children to work in starvation-wage service jobs until they're 70 so that the top 0.1% can buy their kids' way into Yale

Navi ‏ 9:50 AM - 22 Mar 2019

"It's already happening" while the DCCC is trying their best to stop primary challenges is a little shortsighted no? If you don't call out what is wrong what are you really 'fixing'? We can walk and chew gum at the same time!

[Mar 22, 2019] The War on Yemen and the Trump Administration's Contempt for the Law

Mar 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Trump administration has ignored yet another mandated deadline for reporting to Congress on Yemen:

A senior Pentagon official had pledged to deliver the strategy report at the beginning of March after failing to meet a Feb. 1 deadline mandated by law.

In recent months, the Trump administration has disregarded several certification requirements from Congress. In February, the State Department refused to say whether the Saudi-led force had reduced civilian casualties in the Yemeni conflict. And the White House failed to respond to lawmakers' query about whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Last year, the administration met the first certification deadline by brazenly lying to Congress that the Saudi coalition was successfully reducing harm to civilians in Yemen. Congress completely failed to hold Secretary Pompeo accountable for those lies, and the administration has obviously concluded that it can get away with disregarding these requirements. For the last several months, both the Secretary of State and the Pentagon have simply refused to comply with the law. In this case, the Pentagon probably can't "detail specific US diplomatic and national security objectives" because the only discernible objective of reflexive support for the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen is to indulge them in whatever they want to do. An administration that has illegally involved the U.S. in the war on Yemen for more than two years obviously won't have any respect for legal requirements set by Congress when they can't even be bothered to respect the Constitution.

The administration's contempt for the law and their disrespect for Congress are additional reasons why the House should vote on and pass the antiwar Yemen resolution that the Senate passed earlier this month. Beyond that, Congress needs to increase pressure on the Saudi and Emirati governments with additional measures to cut off arms sales and hearings to scrutinize the numerous human rights abuses and war crimes committed by their forces and their proxies.

When war supporters object that Congress risks undermining the U.S.-Saudi relationship, it is important for members of Congress to know that it is Mohammed bin Salman who has jeopardized the relationship through his reckless and destructive behavior. The Saudi government has been desperately lying about its conduct in Yemen and elsewhere to the U.S. and the entire world, and the crown prince has proven himself to be completely unreliable and strikingly incompetent at everything except grabbing more power for himself:

"We know who this guy is, we know what he's capable of, and treating him like he's an ally or a reliable partner is totally untenable," said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former US Agency for International Development director during the Obama administration.

The Saudi government has made itself a liability to the U.S. Since the administration puts Saudi Arabia first and won't do anything to defend American interests, it falls to Congress to do what the president won't.

[Mar 21, 2019] US Gives Syrian Golan Heights to Israel

Notable quotes:
"... State sovereignty means nothing to these people. The post-Westphalia international system means nothing to them. Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased I am sure. pl ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Flash! US Gives Syrian Golan Heights to Israel

"President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's sovereignty" over the region. "After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability," Trump tweeted." CNN

This sounds like the Mustachioed Menace (Bolton) and his All Star team at work.

  1. Help Bibi.
  2. Weaken the Syrian government.
  3. Demonstrate to the Lebanese that parts of their strange little country could experience something similar in the south.
  4. Show everyone that the US is in charge of - everything.

State sovereignty means nothing to these people. The post-Westphalia international system means nothing to them. Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased I am sure. pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/21/politics/trump-golan-heights-tweet/index.html

[Mar 21, 2019] Trump s Terrible Golan Heights Recognition Decision by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... Perhaps most dangerous of all is the signal that it sends to Israeli hard-liners that want to annex some or all of the West Bank. ..."
"... Trump's statement is just the latest in a string of bad decisions that are absurdly biased in favor of Israel. No U.S. interests are advanced by doing this, and it discredits any criticisms that the U.S. wants to make of any other government's illegal occupation and annexation of territory. The double standard that the U.S. applies when it comes to violations of international law by itself and its clients could not be more obvious, and it will make it much more difficult to challenge similarly egregious violations in the future. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

March 21, 2019, 1:11 PM

There were hints in recent days that U.S. recognition of Israel's claim to the Golan Heights was coming, and now the president has done it. Israel's control of this territory dates back to the 1967 war, when Israel grabbed this part of Syria and refused to return it. Israel has no legitimate claim to this territory, and in recognizing Israeli sovereignty over land that it seized during a war the U.S. is sending a potentially very dangerous message to governments all around the world.

Perhaps most dangerous of all is the signal that it sends to Israeli hard-liners that want to annex some or all of the West Bank. It tells them that illegal occupation will eventually be rewarded with full U.S. recognition, and it also tells them that the U.S. isn't going to pay any attention to international law when it comes to making decisions regarding Israeli control over occupied territories.

Trump's statement is just the latest in a string of bad decisions that are absurdly biased in favor of Israel. No U.S. interests are advanced by doing this, and it discredits any criticisms that the U.S. wants to make of any other government's illegal occupation and annexation of territory. The double standard that the U.S. applies when it comes to violations of international law by itself and its clients could not be more obvious, and it will make it much more difficult to challenge similarly egregious violations in the future.

[Mar 21, 2019] Trump supports annexation of Holland heights losing all Arab votes in the US, if he has one in 2016

Mar 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

shlichim , Mar 21, 2019 5:08:46 PM | link

Drumpf just declared GOLAN as Zionist sovereign turf. THAT should be the top concern

Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu

[Mar 21, 2019] Jared Kushner WhatsApp, Private Email Democrats Demand Records - Bloomberg

Notable quotes:
"... The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But in another stand-off with House Democrats, Cipollone on Thursday rejected a request renewed last week from Cummings and two other committee chairmen for information on Trump's communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Cummings said the committee obtained a document that "appears" to show that McFarland conducted official business on her personal email account. He said the document was related to efforts by McFarland and other White House officials to transfer sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia "in coordination with Tom Barrack, a personal friend of President Trump and the chairman of President Trump's inaugural committee." ..."
"... Regarding Trump's communications with Putin, Cummings, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel say they are examining the substance of in-person meetings and phone calls, the effects on foreign policy, and whether anyone has sought to conceal those communications. ..."
"... The Constitution gives the executive branch exclusive power to conduct foreign relations, Cipollone said. "Congress cannot require the president to disclose confidential communications with foreign leaders." ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

A key House Democrat is renewing demands that the White House turn over documents about the use of private texts or emails by Jared Kushner, saying Kushner's lawyer acknowledged that the senior aide used the non-secure WhatsApp application to communicate with foreign leaders.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said in a letter sent Thursday to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that the administration has failed to produce documents tied to Kushner and other officials despite requests from the committee since 2017. Cummings also sought a briefing on how the official messages are being preserved.

... ... ...

The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But in another stand-off with House Democrats, Cipollone on Thursday rejected a request renewed last week from Cummings and two other committee chairmen for information on Trump's communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

WhatsApp

Cummings, to underscore his concern about whether unsecured White House communications have included classified information, said in his letter that Lowell acknowledged during the December meeting that Kushner had used WhatsApp to communicate with foreign leaders.

Kushner is a senior White House adviser and the son-in-law of President Donald Trump , overseeing the administration's Middle East policies among other issues. Cummings said he and then-Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy , a Republican who has since retired from Congress, met with Lowell in December.

Cummings's letter said Lowell said that Kushner has been in compliance with the law, and that he takes "screenshots" of communications on his private WhatsApp account and forwards them to his official White House email account or to the National Security Council.

Cummings wrote that when asked whether Kushner ever used WhatsApp to discuss classified information, Lowell replied, "That's above my pay grade."

The focus on Kushner and others follows the earlier investigations by the Justice Department and Republican-controlled congressional committees of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state during the Obama administration.

'Alternative Means'

In Thursday's letter, Cummings said the White House's refusal to turn over documents is "obstructing the committee's investigation into allegations of violations of federal records laws" and potential breaches of national security. He demanded that the White House say by March 28 whether it intends to comply voluntarily with the renewed requests.

"If you continue to withhold these documents from the committee, we will be forced to consider alternative means to obtain compliance," Cummings said.

... ... ....

K.T. McFarland

Cummings also wrote that his committee has obtained new information about other White House officials that raises additional security and federal records concerns about the use of private email and messaging applications.

His letter said others may have been involved in the practice while they worked at the White House, including former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland and former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Cummings said the committee obtained a document that "appears" to show that McFarland conducted official business on her personal email account. He said the document was related to efforts by McFarland and other White House officials to transfer sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia "in coordination with Tom Barrack, a personal friend of President Trump and the chairman of President Trump's inaugural committee."

The chairman said another document appeared to show that Bannon received documents "pitching the plan from Mr. Barrack through his personal email account," at a time Bannon was at the White House and working on broader Middle East policy.

Regarding Trump's communications with Putin, Cummings, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel say they are examining the substance of in-person meetings and phone calls, the effects on foreign policy, and whether anyone has sought to conceal those communications.

In a written response Thursday, Cipollone wrote, "While we respectfully seek to accommodate appropriate oversight requests, we are unaware of any precedent supporting such sweeping requests."

The Constitution gives the executive branch exclusive power to conduct foreign relations, Cipollone said. "Congress cannot require the president to disclose confidential communications with foreign leaders."

In a joint statement on Thursday night, Cummings, Engel and Schiff said that the Obama administration had "produced records describing the president and secretary of state's calls with foreign leaders." The congressmen added that "President Trump's decision to break with this precedent raises the question of what he has to hide."

( Updates with statement from Cummings, Schiff and Engel, in final paragraph.

[Mar 21, 2019] Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu

Mar 21, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu

By
Nick Wadhams and David Wainer
‎March‎ ‎21‎, ‎2019‎ ‎1‎:‎00‎ ‎PM Updated on ‎March‎ ‎21‎, ‎2019‎ ‎5‎:‎04‎ ‎PM Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu
By
Nick Wadhams and David Wainer
, ‎March‎ ‎21‎, ‎2019‎ ‎1‎:‎00‎ ‎PM

President Donald Trump said it's time for the U.S. to "fully recognize" Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a political gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just weeks before a tough re-election vote.

The remark -- which would break with decades of U.S. policy -- could prove decisive in swaying Israeli voters just as Netanyahu faces corruption allegations that have marred his campaign. It is also likely to draw a rebuke from the international community, which never recognized Israel's sovereignty over the territory it captured in 1967.

"The message that President Trump has given the world is that America stands by Israel," Netanyahu said Thursday after Trump's tweet.

Trump's message came a day after Netanyahu, in a press briefing with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Jerusalem, called for the U.S. and the rest of the world to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel extended its law to the area in 1981.

The future of the plateau, a scenic area containing important water sources, had long been considered a subject for negotiation in any potential peace agreement with Syria. Now, with Syria wracked by a civil war that includes support from Iran, Israel wants its control over the area to be recognized worldwide.

"I've been thinking about doing that for a long time," Trump said in an interview to be broadcast Friday on Fox Business Network's "Mornings With Maria." "It's been a very hard decision for every president, no president has done it. This is very much like Jerusalem, moving the embassy to Jerusalem -- I did that."

While the news was welcomed by most Israelis, some saw it as a cynical ploy to interfere in their election and help Netanyahu at a time when he's facing increasing scrutiny in a sprawling corruption probe. Merav Michaeli, a member of the opposition Labor party, said there's little national debate that the Golan should stay in Israeli hands.

It "only helps public opinion for Netanyahu," she added. "That's why it came now. And so it doesn't really benefit Israel now, it benefits Netanyahu."

Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime in Israel.

"What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton. "He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria."

Trump's move may also give the president a political boost as he courts Jewish voters in the U.S.

The U.S. had signaled strongly in recent weeks it was ready to accept Israeli sovereignty. In an annual report on human rights released last week, the State Department referred to the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza as "Israeli-controlled," not "Israeli-occupied."

Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional.

"It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate for the report," he said.

American support for Israel has strengthened under Trump, who moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 and backed out of the nuclear agreement his predecessor Barack Obama negotiated with Iran, a cherished goal of Netanyahu.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said Trump's move would destabilize the region.

"I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state of Israel."

The U.S. recognition underscores the changing reality on the ground, as the chances of Israel returning the northern territory to Syria diminished.

Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights. In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan.

"The administration's considering lots of things always, and I try to make sure we get to answers before we talk

[Mar 20, 2019] In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side... ..."
Mar 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ex-SA , Mar 5, 2019 3:55:53 PM | 13

Thank you! This may well be the most important link I've encountered in my years of lurking here @ MoA and elsewhere.

There is a video linked in the article which may be more important than the article itself. Easily overlooked, so here: https://swprs.org/video-the-cia-and-the-media/

It appears in the article here:

"In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:"

Many thanks, and much respect to you Sir for bringing this important piece to my attention.

May I humbly offer in return, https://archive.org/details/publicenemyno1 (don't neglect the 2nd reel)

Desolation Row , Mar 5, 2019 6:41:25 PM | link
I apologize for another somewhat off topic posting, but I have not seen it posted here earlier, and I think that this should be seen by as many eyes as possible.

The Propaganda Multiplier:How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics

By Swiss Propaganda Research

It is one of the most important aspects of our media system -- and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.

The key role played by these agencies means that Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.

A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side...

[Mar 20, 2019] The US wants Brazil to join NATO

Mar 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Guy Thornton , Mar 19, 2019 4:22:12 PM | link

Merkel might say:

"There is definitely a place for Brazil in NATO. They can have ours."

[Mar 20, 2019] Shades of Trump betrayal: Trump says he agrees 100% with keeping US troops in Syria

Notable quotes:
"... In a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News, Trump highlighted a paragraph in the letter about the U.S. goals in Syria, which said, "Like you, we seek to ensure that all of the gains made in Syria are not lost, that ISIS never returns, that Iran is not emboldened, and that we consolidate our gains and ensure the best outcome in Geneva for American interests." ..."
Mar 07, 2019 | www.nbcnews.com

Two months after saying all U.S. troops are leaving Syria, the president wrote members of Congress that he agrees with keeping a U.S. presence in Syria. A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives wrote to Trump on Feb. 22, applauding his decision to keep a small residual force in Syria.

"We support a small American stabilizing force in Syria," the group wrote, adding that a force "which includes a small contingent of American troops and ground forces from our European allies, is essential to ensure stability and prevent the return of ISIS ."

In a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News, Trump highlighted a paragraph in the letter about the U.S. goals in Syria, which said, "Like you, we seek to ensure that all of the gains made in Syria are not lost, that ISIS never returns, that Iran is not emboldened, and that we consolidate our gains and ensure the best outcome in Geneva for American interests."

"I agree 100%. ALL is being done," President Trump responded, writing directly on the letter and signing it.

Click here to read the letter

[Mar 20, 2019] John McCain Associate Provided Dossier to Obama National Security Council Breitbart

Mar 20, 2019 | www.breitbart.com

David Kramer, a long-time advisor to late Senator John McCain, revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was being taken seriously.

In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander.

In a deposition on Dec. 13, 2017 that was recently posted online, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department. Senator McCain asked me to meet with both of them to see if this was being taken seriously in the government," Kramer said.

"And Senator McCain asked you to meet with them?" Kramer was asked to clarify.

"Yes, just to see if this was being taken seriously. I think he wanted to do -- this was his kind of due diligence before he went to Director Comey."

Kramer testified that in his conversations with Nuland and Wallander he was told by both of them that each were aware of the dossier and that Nuland "thought Steele was a serious person."

Kramer revealed that he gave a copy of the dossier to Wallander, who was familiar with the contents but did not have a copy.

"I had a subsequent conversation with Ms. Wallander in which I gave her a copy of the document. That was probably around New Year's," he said.

"She had not seen it herself until I had shown it to her," Kramer added. "She had heard about it. And she didn't know the status of it."

In the same testimony, the McCain associate revealed that he held a meeting about the dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom. That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.

BuzzFeed infamously published Steele's full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey but he refused repeated requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office by this reporter.

In his book published last year, McCain maintained he had an "obligation" to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he would even do it again. "Anyone who doesn't like it can go to hell," McCain exclaimed.

Kramer, meanwhile, also said that he briefed others reporters on the dossier contents, including CNN's Carl Bernstein, in an effort to have the anti-Trump charges verified.

The same day BuzzFeed released the full dossier, CNN first reported the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings inside classified documents presented one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.

Kramer said that he believed McCain was sought out in order to provide credibility to the dossier claims.

"I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a Democrat because if it were a Democrat, I think that the view was that it would have been dismissed as a political attack," Kramer stated.

The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie law firm.

Kramer's testimony sheds a new light on the role of the Obama administration in disseminating the largely-discredited dossier that was reportedly involved in the FBI's initial investigation into the Trump campaign and unsubstantiated claims of Russian collusion. Also Comey cited the dossier as evidence in a successful FISA application to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a former adviser to President Trump's 2016 campaign. The testimony also revealed how McCain was utilized to give the wild dossier charges a credibility boost.

Nuland and dossier

Nuland's specific role in the dossier episode has been the subject of some controversy for her.

In their book , "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," authors and reporters by Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier's claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.

Steele sought out Rome-based FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, with whom he had worked on a previous case. Before Gaeta met with Steele on July 5, 2016, the book relates that the FBI first secured the support of Nuland, who at the time was assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs specializing in Russia.

Regarding the arrangements for Steele's initial meeting with the FBI about the dossier claims, Isikoff and Corn report:

There were a few hoops Gaeta had to jump through. He was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The FBI checked with Victoria Nuland's office at the State Department : Do you support this meeting ? Nuland, having found Steele's reports on Ukraine to have been generally credible, gave the green light.

Within a few days, on July 5, Gaeta arrived and headed to Steele's office near Victoria station . Steele handed him a copy of the report. Gaeta, a seasoned FBI agent, started to read . He turned white. For a while, Gaeta said nothing . Then he remarked, "I have to report this to headquarters."

The book documents that Nuland previously received Steele's reports on the Ukrainian crisis and had been familiar with Steele's general work.

Nuland faced confirmation questions prior to her appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her reported changes sought to protect Clinton's State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi.

Nuland's name surfaced in a flurry of news media reports last year about the dossier and Kerry's State Department.

Sidney Blumenthal

An extensive New Yorker profile of Steele named another former official from Kerry's State Department for alleged involvement in circulating the dossier. The magazine reported that Kerry's chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer, obtained the contents of a two-page summary of the dossier and eventually decided to share the questionable document with Kerry.

Finer received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with Nuland.

After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.

Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an "old friend." Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.

Nuland, Winer Give Conflicting Accounts

There are seeming discrepancies between Winer and Nuland about actions taken involving the dossier.

Nuland described in a Politico podcast interview what she claimed was her reaction when she was presented with Steele's dossier information at the State Department.

She said that she offered advice to "those who were interfacing with" Steele, immediately telling the intermediary or intermediaries that Steele "should get this information to the FBI." She further explained that a career employee at the State Department could not get involved with the dossier charges since such actions could violate the Hatch Act, which prevents employees in the executive branch of the federal government from engaging in certain kinds of political activities.

In a second interview, this one with CBS's Face The Nation, Nuland also stated that her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.

Here is a transcript of the relevant section of her February 5 interview with Susan B. Glasser, who described Nuland as "my friend" and referred to her by her nickname "Toria":

Glasser: When did you first hear about his dossier?

Nuland: I first heard -- and I didn't know who his client was until much later, until 2017, I think, when it came out. I first heard that he had done work for a client asserting these linkages -- I think it was late July, something like that.

Glasser: That's very interesting. And you would have taken him seriously just because you knew that he knew what he was talking about on Russia?

Nuland: What I did was say that this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics. So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate whether they thought it was credible.

Glasser: Did you ever talk about it with anyone else higher up at the department? With Secretary Kerry or anybody else?

Nuland: Secretary Kerry was also aware. I think he's on the record and he had the same advice.

Nuland stated that Kerry "was also aware" of the dossier, but she did not describe how he was made aware. She made clear that she told "those who were interfacing" with Steele to go to the FBI since any State Department involvement could violate the Hatch Act.

Her Politico podcast interview was not the only time she claimed that her reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.

On Face The Nation on February 4, Nuland engaged in the following exchange in which she stated her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI (emphasis added):

MARGARET BRENNAN: The dossier.

VICTORIA NULAND: The dossier, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding, and our immediate reaction to that was, "This is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI, if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

And that was our reaction when we saw this. It's not our -- we can't evaluate this. And frankly, if every member of the campaign who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess we're in today.

Nuland gave the two interviews after her name started surfacing in news media reports involving Kerry's State Department and the dossier. Her name also came up in relation to a criminal referral of Steele to the Justice Department in the form of a letter authored last year by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

The Grassley-Graham criminal referral contains redacted information that Steele received information from someone in the State Department, who in turn had been in contact with a "foreign sub-source" who was in touch with a redacted name described as a "friend of the Clintons."

Numerous media reports have since stated that the source of information provided to the State Department that was in turn passed on to Steele was Cody Shearer, a controversial figure tied to the Clintons who is also an associate of longtime Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal. According to sources who spoke to CNN, Shearer's information was passed from Blumenthal to Winer, who at the time was a special State Department envoy for Libya working under Kerry. Winer says that Kerry personally recruited him to work at the State Department.

It is Winer's version of events that seems to conflict with Nuland's.

In an oped published in the Washington Post, Winer identified Nuland as the State Department official with whom he shared Steele's information. Winer writes that Nuland's reaction was that "she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material." He does not relate any further reaction from Nuland.

Winer wrote in the Washington Post (emphasis added):

In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.

That was the extent of Winer's description of Nuland's reaction upon being presented with Steele's dossier claims. Nuland's public claim that her "immediate" response was to refer Steele to the FBI since State involvement could violate the Hatch Act seems to conflict with the only reaction that Winer relates from Nuland – that she felt Kerry should be made aware of the dossier information.

In Winer's Washington Post oped, he writes that Steele had a larger relationship with the State Department, passing over 100 reports relating to Russia to the U.S. government agency through Winer. Winer wrote that Nuland found Steele's reports to be "useful" and asked Winer to "continue to send them."

He wrote:

In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served as Senate counsel. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it. I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful. None of the reports related to U.S. politics or domestic U.S. matters, and the reports constituted a very small portion of the data set reviewed by State Department experts trying to make sense of events in Russia.

Kramer and the dossier

In his book, "The Restless Wave," McCain provided an inside account of how he says he came across the dossier.

He wrote that he was told about the claims in the document at a security conference in Canada in November 2016, where he was approached by Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow and friend of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.

McCain wrote that Wood told him Steele "had been commissioned to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian agents as well as potentially compromising information about the President-elect that Putin allegedly possessed."

McCain, however, did not address the obvious question of whether he was told exactly who "commissioned" Steele to "investigate" the alleged Russian ties. The dossier was paid for by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.

McCain goes on to describe Wood as telling him Steele's work "was mostly raw, unverified intelligence, but that the author strongly believed merited a thorough examination by counterintelligence experts."

The politician says the dossier claims described to him were "too strange a scenario to believe, something out of a le Carré novel, not the kind of thing anyone has ever actually had to worry about with a new President, no matter what other concerns."

Still, McCain says he reasoned that "even a remote risk that the President of the United States might be vulnerable to Russian extortion had to be investigated."

McCain concedes Wood told him he had not actually read the dossier himself, and writes that he wasn't sure if he ever met Wood before and couldn't recall previously having a conversation with Wood. Still, McCain took Wood's word for it when Wood vouched for Steele's credibility. "Steele was a respected professional, Wood assured us, who had good Russian contacts and long experience collecting and analyzing intelligence on the Kremlin," McCain wrote.

Present at the meeting with Wood and McCain was Kramer, who McCain writes agreed to "go to London to meet Steele, confirm his credibility and report back to me."

McCain doesn't detail Kramer's visit to London beyond simply writing, "When David returned, and shared his impression that the former spy was, as Sir Andrew had vouched, a respected professional, and not to outward appearances given to hyperbole or hysteria, I agreed to receive a copy of what is now referred to as 'the dossier.'''

McCain leaves out exactly where Kramer obtained his dossier copy.

The Washington Post reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it. Those details marked the clearest indication that McCain may have known that the dossier originated with Fusion GPS, meaning that he may have knowingly passed on political material to the FBI.

Also, in a New York Times oped in January, GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritch wrote that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence community via an unnamed "emissary."

In his own testimony, Kramer relates conversations with Simpson about the dossier.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

[Mar 20, 2019] Venezuela - Journalists Doubt Guaid 's Legitimacy - Regime Change Plans Continue

Guado looks more and more like Russian Navalny -- another color revolution Trojan Horse.
Notable quotes:
"... Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was. ..."
"... "The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it: ..."
"... The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition, including up to $500 million in transfer authority." ..."
"... Given the results of the last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for war, but not one cent for the people." ..."
Mar 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

On February 23 the U.S. created a 'humanitarian aid' stunt at the border between Colombia and Venezuela. The stunt ended in a riot during which the supporters of the self declared 'president' Guaidó burned the trucks that where supposed to transport the 'aid'. Even the New York Times had to admit that.

The riots also marked the day that Guaidó lost the legal argument he had used to make himself 'interim president'.

Guaido also lost his original legal position. He claimed the presidency on January 23 under this paragraph of article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution :
When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days . Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
That the "elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the case to begin with. But if article 233 would apply Guaido would have had 30 days to hold new elections. The 30 days are over and Guaido did not even call for elections to be held. He thereby defied the exact same paragraph of the constitution that his (false) claim to the presidency is based on.

The hapless coup plotters in Washington DC were finally put on notice that the issue creates a legal problem for them. During a March 15 press briefing Elliott Abrams, the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela, was asked about the issue:

QUESTION: [C]ould you explain to us the article under which Mr. Guaido declared himself president? It is said that it has expired last month. Could you explain that to us? What is the --
MR ABRAMS: As to the Venezuelan constitution, the National Assembly has passed a resolution that states that that 30-day period of interim presidency will not start ending or counting until the day Nicolas Maduro leaves power. So the 30 days doesn't start now, it starts after Maduro. And they – that's a resolution of the National Assembly.

A resolution of the National Assembly, which the Supreme Court of Venezuela holds in contempt over the seating illegally elected persons, can change the country's constitution? That does not sound convincing to me. The journalists in the briefing were equally curious of how the rules could be changed like that during the ongoing game:

Cont. reading: Venezuela - Journalists Doubt Guaidó's Legitimacy - Regime Change Plans Continue


Kadath , Mar 19, 2019 2:37:16 PM | link

Posted by b at 02:18 PM | Comments (84)

During Bosonaro's visit to the US Trump also announced his support for Brazil's entrance into the NATO alliance, if I was Germany I'd veto that idea outright, the last thing NATO needs is a basket case like Brazil.

But I imagine the Pentagon is already counting all the additional arms they can sell to Brazil as a member of NATO without having to go through all the additional hoops they would while it's just an ally of NATO

Never Mind the Bollocks , Mar 19, 2019 2:39:09 PM | link

The underground war between Venezuela and the US big oil cartel confirmed through WikiLeaks
Kadath , Mar 19, 2019 2:43:29 PM | link
Random Guy also appointed an ambassador, Carlos Vecchio, to the US who just took over the Venezuela's diplomatic buildings (empty since Venezuela broke off relations with the US over the attempted coup), including the consular building in New York.

So far it doesn't look like the US has succeed in replacing Venezuela's representative to the UN with a US stooge, but I imagine the US is working hard on that front as well.

The US looks just ridiculous doing a stunt this, but B is right, the US always doubles down, especially on a losing plan.

Masher1 , Mar 19, 2019 2:43:40 PM | link
Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was.
james , Mar 19, 2019 3:08:40 PM | link
thanks b... some crazy talk in that daily press briefing with abrams...

"Q: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?

A: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power, that's the problem. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that from when he actually is in power and Maduro's gone. I think it's logical.

Q: So then he really isn't interim president, then?

A: He is interim president, but he's not --

Q: With no power."

that sounds about par fe the course for the usa... as kadath says - they always double down on losing plans!

i am a bit mystified as to the plan of maduros to get the cabinet to resign.. what is the concept there? does he have a number of members that could be persuaded by the logic of abrams? with a little bribery money, no doubt..

i wonder how brazilians are looking at the stooge they have in power now, sucking up to the usa-cia..

worldblee , Mar 19, 2019 3:20:54 PM | link
Random Guiado, the President who wasn't There. The longer this goes on, the stronger the Bay of Pigs smell grows.
Cesare , Mar 19, 2019 3:31:54 PM | link
The optics of groveling to the US and Israel, and military opposition, are not good for our friend Jair. It's only a matter of time until Bolsonaro starts hemorrhaging support and Brazilian nationalism abandons him.
vk , Mar 19, 2019 3:33:55 PM | link
- If Maduro is in power, then the office is not vacant. Therefore, Guaidó cannot be interim president.
- If the office is vacant, then there is no president. Therefore, Guaidó either is or isn't the interim president (i.e. he can't be the interim president of the interim president, which in this case is nobody).

If you want to suspend the Constitution, declare a civil war. If you win the civil war, then you can do whatever you please (including obeying and/or reinterpreting the old Constitution). In the strict legal sense, Guaidó's position is untenable. Even the counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged 30-day mandate was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.

Kadath , Mar 19, 2019 3:43:58 PM | link
Re:#6 James, normally when you request that your own cabinet resigns it means that you've either lost faith in their ability to perform their jobs - OR - your making a drastic change in direction for your government and you need people with a different skill set to run the various government departments. I imagine Maduros's decision is a mixture of needing to create a "war government" to fight the economic war the US is waging against him and ensuring the loyalty of powerful political rivals by giving them cabinet posts. Maduro will probably announce some major new policies in the coming weeks aimed at 1) resisting US economic pressure 2) increase Maduro's support among the population (maybe some policies aimed at the urban middle class to split them off from Random Guy) and 3) announce some foreign relationship drive to hopefully block more countries from supporting random guy's pseudo-government and hopefully win some countries back. economic advisors from Russia, Cuba, China and maybe Iran & Syria will be providing vital support for any economic policies aimed at avoid US sanctions
ken , Mar 19, 2019 3:59:29 PM | link
[The far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil supported that but the military of Brazil, which holds significant power in the cabinet, vetoed it]

Too bad the federal military in the exceptional and indispensable democracy doesn't have the same common sense option.

lgfocus , Mar 19, 2019 4:03:51 PM | link
"The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it:

The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition, including up to $500 million in transfer authority."

Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.

psychohistorian , Mar 19, 2019 4:13:47 PM | link
@ lgfocus who asked
"
Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.
"

Keep asking those questions and maybe Americans will grow the sentiments necessary to stand up.

Where are the Bernie crowd that are going to make so much difference in the coming (s)election?

so much fail , Mar 19, 2019 4:15:01 PM | link
Even the counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged 30-day mandate was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.

Posted by: vk | Mar 19, 2019 3:33:55 PM | 10

They made their general ops to produce public results specifically at 23 of this month or for several more months. They obviously wanted to make a point like they were doing at least since 2016 for almost each consequtive month, only for that period favorable date number was 11. Check events for every 11th of each month since 2016 and check what dominated US and EU news.

Yet in current Venezuela events there seem to be so much FAIL regarding the US clandestine strategies.

karlof1 , Mar 19, 2019 4:20:40 PM | link
There's also rising domestic pushback within the Outlaw US Empire while the hypocrisy of Russiagate rises like a massive iceberg on the horizon. This also puts additional pressure on Vassal EU governments whose publics see through the Empire's lies and thus further delegitimizes their national governments.

French Yellow Vests will not surrender until Macron and his backing Establishment does, and they're motivating other nation's citizens.

Will Poroshenko get reelected in 12 days or ?

IMO, both Trump and Bolsonaro will be ousted before Maduro. It appears the Truth Brigades outnumber the liebots thanks to b and a host of other genuine journalists.

Guy Thornton , Mar 19, 2019 4:22:12 PM | link
Merkel might say:

"There is definitely a place for Brazil in NATO. They can have ours."

testing , Mar 19, 2019 4:22:21 PM | link
psychohistorian so Bernie is a jewish guy that current Israeli gov would very much hate to see becoming a US president in 2020?
Peter VE , Mar 19, 2019 4:22:48 PM | link
Did anyone else wonder at the sudden pair of refinery fires in Houston?
james , Mar 19, 2019 4:22:50 PM | link
@11 kadath.. thanks for the response to my question.. we will have to wait and see how this unfolds.. it reminds me a bit of the ukraine 2014 scenario, but different too... in ukraines case, they already had a split dynamic in the country itself.. here, i don't see it.. the split seems to be along economics - who are the upper class, with some middle class in tow, verses everyone else..
Kadath , Mar 19, 2019 4:26:41 PM | link
@13 lgfocus - that sounds suspiciously like something a COMMUNIST would say!!!!!!! During the 1797 XYZ scandal C.C. Pinckney reportedly said "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." which has been quoted by the Military Industrial Complex ad nauseam for the last 70 years to justify massive military budgets to fight the forever wars.

Given the results of the last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for war, but not one cent for the people."

JOHN CHUCKMAN , Mar 19, 2019 5:02:07 PM | link
"Journalists Doubt Guaidó's Legitimacy - Regime Change Plans Continue"

Doubt?

What does it take?

Swore himself in. Likly over the sink as he shaved.

Didn't even run for the office in election.

From polling, virtually unknown to most of the country.

Someone else ran, and he won big.

Jen , Mar 19, 2019 5:14:19 PM | link
So if Elliott Abrams is correct, the Venezuelan National Assembly (a now illegitimate entity by the way) has passed a resolution that Juan Guaido's "interim presidency" only begins AFTER Nicolas Maduro leaves the presidency? Is that not admitting that Maduro is the legitimate president?

That Jair Bolsonaro is visiting the CIA to discuss overthrowing Maduro may alarm quite a few people even among the top tiers of the Brazilian military who otherwise support him. What's to stop Bolsonaro from discussing with the CIA how to get rid of more than a few top Brazilian generals who disagree with overthrowing the government of a neighbouring country?

Kadath , Mar 19, 2019 5:34:17 PM | link
Re#26 Jen

Now let's all imagine what would happen if Brazil was accepted into NATO like Trump & the MIC wants and the Brazilian Generals decided to continue their time-honoured tradition of toppling the current Brazilian President. NATO has no means of ejecting or even suspending a member so any such crisis in Brazilian leadership would immediately trigger a crisis within NATO itself on how to respond and accepting a coup government into NATO would kill the illusion that NATO is some sort of league of Democracies that Bolton hopes to promote as a replacement to the UN assembly.

Miranda , Mar 19, 2019 5:34:45 PM | link
Well, Bolsonaro's complete and absolute submission to Donald Trump and the US is probably surprising even the most optmistic hawks in the White House. The golden shower president will probably accept anything the US tries to push to Brazil.
Jackrabbit , Mar 19, 2019 6:11:57 PM | link
Taking this to the logical conclusion: All Venezuelan assets that were given to Guaidó were stolen.
mourning dove , Mar 19, 2019 6:13:43 PM | link
It strikes me that the futility of trying to stir up a revolution with an elite constituency seems completely lost on the coup planners. The Venezuelan elite might want the government overthrown but there is no way that they'll put their own blood on the line for it. It's really puzzling trying to understand how they see this playing out. And what will their elite supporters think if US sanctions mean they can't use their Visa or MasterCard? And the businesses that cater to the elite?
Jackrabbit , Mar 19, 2019 6:18:49 PM | link
Kadath @1: Brazil and NATO

The plan is probably for Brazil to become a NATO partner like Columbia .

A 'partner' has a lesser status than a 'member'.

Cortes , Mar 19, 2019 6:46:47 PM | link
The Brazil to NATO call sounds awfully like a forecast of significant cross-border provocations by Brazil which, if responded to by the Venezuelans, could trigger the old Article 5 musketeers to intervene militarily. Just as ludicrous (and dangerous) as the UK 's FCE attempt to confer diplomatic status on the BBC Farsi woman jailed in Iran. Student union politics.
Yeah, Right , Mar 19, 2019 7:00:12 PM | link
Abrams is attempting to claim that Random Guy is "interim President-in-waiting".

Q: What is that Interim President-in-waiting actually waiting for?
A: He's waiting for the position of President to become vacant.

THAT is the fatal flaw in all of Abrams legal mumbo-jumbo i.e. the articles of the Venezuelan Constitution that Random Guy invoked to claim the title of Interim President are only applicable when the office of President (and also Vice President) are VACANT.

Then and only then can the leader of the National Assembly take on the role of "interim President" until elections take place 30 days later.

Abrams is admitting that the office of President isn't vacant.

This is an important legal point, so it bears repeating: Abrams accepts that someone holds that position, albeit he is insisting that the current office-holder's claim to that chair is illegitimate (in Constitutional terms, Maduro is "unfit" to be President).

Again, that exposes Abrams argument as legal mumbo-jumbo, precisely because the leader of the National Assembly does not possess the authority to declare that a sitting President is "unfit" for the office. The Venezuelan Constitution is quite clear on that point: that authority rests with the supreme court, who are perfectly satisfied with Madura's fitness to be President.

Abrams argument is therefore fraught with danger for Random Guy.

The Constitution clearly states that he can not claim the "interim Presidency" unless the position is already vacant, which it clearly is not.

The Constitution also clearly states that he does not have the authority to declare the position to be vacant.

Yet Guaido has done both, and done so at the acknowledged urging of a foreign power.

At the very least that amounts to insurrection, if not treason.

Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 19, 2019 7:11:11 PM | link
1. Counterpunch
I want to add extra focus on the excellent interview b linked to over at Counterpunch which was also posted over at Zerohedge.
CG: There's not the chaos US and Trump were expecting. (Opposition leader and self-proclaimed president Juan) Guaidó is the most hated guy in Venezuela. He has to stay in luxury hotel in La Mercedes, an expensive neighbourhood of Caracas. They have electricity there, as they were prepared, so bought generators. That is why Guaidó went there, and has a whole floor of a luxury hotel for him and his family. While people are suffering Guaidó is trying on suits for his upcoming trip to Europe. It is a parallel world.

AG: You think Guaidó will fail?

CG: Venezuelans are making so many jokes with his name, as there's a word similar to stupid in Spanish – guevon. And look at the demonstration in La Mercedes the other day (12 March), the crowds didn't manifest. It is becoming a joke in the country. The more the Europeans and the US make him a president, the more bizarre the situation becomes, as Guaidó is not president of Venezuela! Interestingly, Chavez predicted what is happening today, he wrote about it, so people are going back to his works and reading him again.

Links to both the original and the copy for convenience:
Counterpunch original
ZH copy


2. Military Times
It could well have been me making b's conclusion on the following as well but since it isn't it gives me an opportunity to warn about and completely disagree when it comes to the content at Military Times and the conclusions drawn from it: that content if anything is circumstantial proof that a decision has already been made in favor of a larger war (technically the US has already launched a war by its actions, or at least according to its own definitions as it applies it to others attacking them, if I remember correctly they would even allow themselves to respond with nuclear weapons in such a scenario).

It might not have been the intent of Military Times (I do not know them) but everything about their content at that link screams war is coming.

Notice how the US congress etc. portrays themselves as unwilling to go to war. We all know this is untrue.
Notice how "everyone" portray themselves as more or less being forced against their will to get involved. We all know this is untrue.

"They" love to do this, to wallow in "reluctance", to play innocent, to further the narrative of "the good guys", because doing so preys on those who still believe they are on the side of good (or in this case preys on anybody's remaining hope that they have some shred of sanity left or that they've run out of bloodlust) and more or less guarantees their support or silent acceptance in the general public. I recognize this all to well because I fell for it myself in the past. It is a large part of their cherished narrative and has self-reinforcing properties. They would say it even if no one listened but it is still completely untrue.

Notice how they constantly hint at what amounts to "if we had to we would".
Notice that despite how every US action mentioned (except for some nebulous bill that might as well be a unicorn fart) goes against avoiding a war they quote some ex-CIA person on all of it being the exact opposite and a way to avoid war (but still meet their objective consisting of unconditional demands).
Notice how at first they claim to believe it would be hard and thus something they obviously wouldn't want to choose and thus if given no choice then it can't be their fault.

Nevertheless, the crisis is deteriorating rapidly.

Yeah of course it is, as planned and as caused by themselves.

Notice the laundry list of "bad stuff happening".
Notice the appeal to military solutions.
Notice how they then claim it might not be so hard after all, or at least necessary or worth it.
Notice how they list military options to choose between.

It has already been decided and has already started.

3. Refinery fires

Did anyone else wonder at the sudden pair of refinery fires in Houston?

Posted by: Peter VE | Mar 19, 2019 4:22:48 PM | 19

Yes, since the second larger one went off because I didn't hear about the first one until then and don't know anything more than that there was one. These things do happen during normal operation of plants and refineries because every day it doesn't happen unavoidably breeds some false sense of security and familiarity with the potential energies involved.

And if that's not what happened then it will be a very hot US summer.

For those who didn't catch it here's all I've got (two measly links).
RT (2nd one)
ZH today (2nd one is now bigger):

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 19, 2019 7:27:55 PM | link
It's mildly amusing that The Great Satan's Special Representative for Venezuela looks like one of those popular Christian images of Satan.
karlof1 , Mar 19, 2019 7:33:36 PM | link
This Moderate Rebels Transcript contains excellent revelatory points about Bolsonaro, the rise of Brazilian Fascism and its connections to the Outlaw US Empire and its ally Zionistan. I'm uncertain if b linked to it previously as I just stumbled across it.
El Cid , Mar 19, 2019 8:07:45 PM | link
After the people of Brazil got a taste of power with Lula, their social and national conscience has risen. A Brazilian military aggression in Venezuela on behalf of American Imperialism will be viciously opposed by the peoples of Latin America and Spain and Portugal. The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This will get ugly.
Б , Mar 19, 2019 8:18:09 PM | link
US will just make up another excuse. These guys don't follow any laws so there is no point interpreting them. Raw power and a good defense strategy is what it counts now for Venezuela. They need more S-300, Buk, coastal defense and allies. This is the key for survival of Venezuela. US will then back down or nuke Venezuela into democracy and freedom of press.
Don Task , Mar 19, 2019 8:28:17 PM | link
The always interesting Florida Maquis YT channel covers S. America extensively and mentioned today Trump is putting Brazil forward for OECD membership which may give leverage to their fascist leader.
bevin , Mar 19, 2019 8:34:12 PM | link

The news that Maduro is making a new cabinet could be very important. The current cabinet was chosen to implement policies designed to prevent a coup by compromising with moderate elements of the bourgeoisie. Such policies involved the watering down of the revolutionary policies of 21st Century Socialism, which has led to the erosion of political support for Maduro without making any perceptible difference the bourgeois commitment to coups and other antidemocratic measures.

If the revolution is to survive it must continue to deepen, bringing gains to the masses besides which the inconveniences of sanctions/sabotage are pinpricks which only serve to deepen popular support of national independence and socialist reform.
If the revolution deepens it will not only increase the strength of the popular movement but broaden the appeal of Venezuela's policies to the millions of Latin Americans currently watching in dismay as neo-liberalism cuts into their living standards and aspirations of security. Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in Colombia, a byword for bad government and inequality and Brazil where the current Presidency is completely illegitimate.

It will be interesting to see whether Maduro's new cabinet is more attuned to the revolution and less interested in compromises with a comprador class whose alliance with the US is based as much on racism and hatred of its own countrymen as it is on greed. Anbd that is saying something.

Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 19, 2019 9:25:15 PM | link
Thank you Karlof1 and Zachary Smith, I'll do my best to remember not to go "link crazy" in the future :D

Aside from all that and on the comments here on Colombia it makes me reconsider if there was any positive value at all in the mediation by Norway (and others? I think the current "social democrat" secretary general of NATO was prime minister there at the time...) to curtail or end the civil war or if it was all a ploy in bad faith. I could be wrong about this.

Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 19, 2019 9:42:57 PM | link
I was wrong but I've found out where the confusion stems from; Norway was the second "guarantor country" after Cuba.
Once the negotiators had been agreed upon, the two sides moved to designate foreign guarantor countries. Cuba, host to previous encounters, was a logical choice, while Norway was chosen as the second guarantor country for its active role in international conflict mediation. Additionally, two facilitator or 'accompanying countries' were also designated. The FARC chose Venezuela, while the Colombian government chose Chile.[14] Exploratory meetings continued in Havana in February 2012, with limited [...]

From Wikipedia on Colombian peace process

frances , Mar 19, 2019 10:09:01 PM | link
reply to:psychohistorian 23

The Dem party is gone, what is left is a divisive machine whose sole purpose seems to be to separate people into separate boxes with separate identities only united by their hatred of "other" parties and always completely blind to what is being done in the world in their (US) name.

Piotr Berman , Mar 19, 2019 10:12:20 PM | link
Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in Colombia, a byword for bad government and inequality ... bevin | Mar 19, 2019 8:34:12 PM

Current president was elected with rather thin majority -- not as thin as Trump -- and while economy is "thriving" according to some measures, the fruits of it are even less evenly distributed than in USA, and the resurgence of the left is fully possible. Importantly, Colombian society is still very divided in the aftermath of La Violencia of 1950-s, violence that never truly went away. Colombia and Venezuela are closely connected since colonial times and troubles easily cross the border. In turn, Venezuelans seems to be easy going bunglers.

Chavista have "the heart in right place", but even in easier times they had troubles with the economy. The opposition is all thumbs. The freedom fighters who defected into Colombia seem to be a bunch of loosers, correctly evicted from a homeless shelter once found useless. Their putative paymasters seem particularly egregious, good for them to manage to get rid of the traitors before the latter found a nerve to unionize, but what was the plan anyway?. Sic sempter traditoribus.

frances , Mar 19, 2019 10:25:18 PM | link
reply to El Cid 42

"The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This will get ugly."

You left out the elephant or rather landmass in the room; Latin America is connected to the US by land. This US misadventure will come home to roost, it will explode everywhere and anywhere, finally and at long last IMO the US will reap what it has sown.

ben , Mar 19, 2019 10:58:01 PM | link
lgfocus @ 13 said in part;"Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for."

This would be a excellent point for all the Dems chasing the POTUS, but, even if they did, it probably wouldn't get any play on the corporate MSM.

It makes too much sense! kudos for the relevant mention......

Nionde , Mar 19, 2019 11:38:14 PM | link
German foreign policy disaster. German freelancer journalist Billy Six jailed in Venezuela, now back in Germany after intervention by Russian foreign minister Lawrov.

Press conference with Billy after his arrival in Germany. Must see (German) Germany is accused in the participation of the drone attack against Maduro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsg5Jx5xzrU

Peter AU 1 , Mar 20, 2019 2:58:31 AM | link
Abrams trying to explain Guano and Venezuelan law is a bit like trying to explain western democracy VS 'non democratic' Assad and Putin and Maduro. Doesn't matter the majority of people have voted for them. That's not 'democratic'. A lot of Guano in western so called democracy.
virgile , Mar 20, 2019 3:57:44 AM | link
Russia ad Maduro should stir the rebels in Columbia. The destabilization of Columbia would create serious problem for the USA and could help Maduro.

https://www.voanews.com/a/as-venezuela-crisis-deepens-us-sharpens-focus-on-colombia-rebel-threat/4837258.html

Peter AU 1 , Mar 20, 2019 4:07:46 AM | link
virgile

US will create its own problem. All Russia has to do is tread the straight and narrow keeping a big stick by their side.

michaelj72 , Mar 20, 2019 4:55:47 AM | link
"The far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil supported that but the military of Brazil, which holds significant power in the cabinet, vetoed it..."

I would be willing to bet that one of the purposes of Bolsonaro's visit to the CIA and DC was to see how he could remedy that situation, perhaps by getting rid of just a few of these troublesome military generals who are opposed to his using the Brazilian military, overt and covert, against Venezuela....

not to mention of course the usual and disgusting CIA options of subversion and other covert operations agasint Venezuelan democracy

snedly arkus , Mar 20, 2019 5:43:01 AM | link
Maybe Maduro is changing his cabinet to get people in who are not under US sanctions. The US claims most of it's sanctions are against bad guys but the reality is naming individuals is a propaganda ruse as the sanctions go far deeper than the individuals. People who don't look past the headlines believe it's only individuals so they fall for the US line it's Maduro and his polices not the US that's causing the economic problems in Venezuela. Thus a new cabinet could give Maduro some breathing room until the US can sanction the new guys.

If the US does shut off Mastercard and Visa it will be huge mistake as I doubt very few of the governments supporters have credit cards. Those the US claims to be hitting with this action can get a Russian credit card if it's possible. The upper class Gweedo lovers will be the ones hardest hit which doesn't bode well for Gweedo boy who spouts guano and promises he can't keep every time he opens his mouth.

Lots of blather of the citizens of the US should stand against the governments actions in Venezuela. The US government and it's lap dog press control the narrative thus it won't happen. But if it came to a military invasion the citizens will come out of cocoons and say hell no like they did with Syria when Obama wanted to bomb that country into the stone age when Assad, it was the rebels that used gas, crossed his red line. A military invasion and resulting guerilla warfare in Venezuela will send American boys and girls home in body bags and Trump can kiss his reelection goodbye and he knows it. Thus no invasion by the US but that doesn't rule out covert commando raids and sabotage by US personnel inside the country.

Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 20, 2019 7:02:28 AM | link
This is another story that might be nothing at all despite the catchy headline.

Brazilian Uranium convoy attacked March 19th

The attack took place when vehicle traffic was stopped at a train crossing, but whether the raiders indeed had intended to steal the uranium shipment has yet to be determined. Civil Police are now trying to establish the motive behind the incident. The attackers have managed to flee the scene, but police have recovered a 9mm pistol which they are now trying to trace back to the armed group.

I don't speak Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese but those that do will likely find more information in the Globo article .

joaopft , Mar 20, 2019 7:39:44 AM | link
The Globo article says an enriched Uranium convoy, sent to the Angra dos Reis nuclear power plant, was attacked by local criminal gangs. The area of Angra dos Reis, renowned for its beautiful coastline and luxury resorts, is now roamed by criminal gangs that threaten the population and overtly defy law enforcement forces. Police forces and armed convoys moving along the highway are frequently ambushed.

Despite Bolsonaro's campaign promises, gangs seems to remain in charge, even in Angra dos Reis! From the Globo article:

"One of the most beautiful places of the State of Rio, the county of Angra dos Reis has experienced an increase in violence, with the presence of fire-armed drug dealers inside communities that were previously considered peaceful."

vato , Mar 20, 2019 7:51:13 AM | link
@Nionde 54:

There is also an extended version of the press conference where Billy Six answers some more questions. One is particulary interesting as he points out the economic interests of the German government in Venezuela. He mentions explicitly SIEMENS, Linde, Lufthansa and DHL which are excluded from free-convertability into Dollar-reserves since Chavez established currency controls in 2003.

He also claims that the Federal Government in the person of the now expelled German ambassador to Venezuela Daniel Kriener has met with the father of Juan Requesens who is/was member of the National Assembly, associated to the student protest newtwork of 'Generation 2007' to which Juan Guaido belongs, and whose party Primero Justicia is the party of Julio Borges - the former president of the National Assembly and co-plotter of the 2002 coup on Chavez. Juan Requesens is under arrest and accused to be part of the drone attack on Maduro in August last year along with 16 other conspirators. According to Six - who had contact with several of these plotters in prison - the coup in effect did happen and failed because the Maduro government was pre-informed about the plot and an anti-drone shield could prevent the assault.

What made it even worse for Six, according to what was told to him by SEBIN (political police force of Venezuela), was that the German government was aware of this drone in advance which is why the German embassy had taken such a stand for Juan Requesens to get him out of prison. This, however, is suppose to be one of the reasons why, of those foreign ambassadors of Venezuela who received Guaido at the airport two weeks ago, German ambassador Kriener was the only one who was to leave the country upon the advice of the Bolivarian Government.

There is certainly more to follow and it is perhaps not wrong to keep an eye on this

vk , Mar 20, 2019 8:19:09 AM | link
I would not trust the Brazilian people or the Brazilian left to take care of the issue.

The non-Venezuelan Latin American left is one of the most innofensive, docile and innefective lefts of the Third World. This is specially the case of the Brazilian left, which is also deeply balkanized, torn down in inumerous factions -- from the social liberals to communists.

Besides, the far-right has genuine and huge popular support in Brazil. Bolsonaro's is not a political giant by any means, nor is he the novelty/outsider e.g. Trump is (he was a Congressman for 28 consecutive years before becoming president). The far-right is at least 25% of the voting adult population, most probably around 40%, and this mass will go until the end with their design. Bolsonaro is no Temer.

dh-mtl , Mar 20, 2019 9:32:12 AM | link
Excellent post B. Thanks for keeping Venezuela front and center in your blogs.

From my perspective, it looks like Russia is effectively running Venezuela.

What are the indicators:
- Russia is handling Venezuelan oil sales
- Russia is handling Venezuelan international banking
- Maduro has made no strategic mistakes during the coup attempt. Every U.S. move has been effectively thwarted.
- With few exceptions, military discipline has been maintained.
- The new government realignment looks like something that Maduro would not have come up with on his own. It is probably a part of the economic plan the Russia prepared for Venezuela over the past couple of months.

Venezuela is starting to look a lot like Crimea. The U.S. wanted Crimea in order to take over the Russian naval base and effectively neutralize Russia's Black Sea Fleet. But Russia was there first, thwarted the U.S.' every move, and now the U.S., in the Black Sea, is in a much weaker position than before 2014.

In Venezuela, the U.S. wanted Venezuelan oil. But Russia was there first. So far every U.S. move has been thwarted and the U.S. is starting to suffer from a scarcity of heavy crudes. If past is prologue, the U.S. will have no more success in Venezuela than it did in Crimea. It will not dare to take on Venezuela militarily, as this would mean to take on Russia militarily.

Venezuela will represent another watershed moment in separating the world into those who are with the U.S., and those who are against. And the U.S. side will be somewhat smaller than it was before their Venezuelan adventure started.

arby , Mar 20, 2019 9:50:54 AM | link
Canada disgrace IMO. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51289.htm
bevin , Mar 20, 2019 11:32:21 AM | link
This is an excellent article based on an interview with a Trade Unionist and militant socialist in Venezuela:
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/03/19/a-venezuela-union-leaders-analysis-of-crisis/
BM , Mar 20, 2019 11:35:21 AM | link
There's a mind-boggling Extortiongate scandal going on in Argentina - with links throughout Latin America including Venezuela, and to Elliot Abrams: Don't Spy for Me Argentina In fact, it connects with virtually everything!
dahoit , Mar 20, 2019 11:54:46 AM | link
GG has article about bolsonaro at intercept.
Harry Law , Mar 20, 2019 12:14:11 PM | link
Abrams to media....."Constitutional rules? We ain't got no rules! We don't need no rules!

I don't have to show you any stinking rules!" The US cannot be serious, $500 million to take over Venezuela with the greatest oil reserves on the planet. Victoria Nuland said the US spent $5 Billion on regime change in Ukraine.. F-----g cheapskates. They will double down, wait for the secondary sanctions, it is so important that Venezuela keeps its oil markets, especially Russia and China.

vk , Mar 20, 2019 12:35:12 PM | link
Bolsonaro authorizes imports of 750,000 metric tons of American wheat:

Bolsonaro trai ruralistas e libera trigo dos EUA

Contrary to what the article states, Brazil has a negligible wheat production. However, Argentina has, and its main importer until now was Brazil. A huge blow to the Argentinian economy, whose trade balance will fall even more. The situation in Brazil so calamitous that it produced an extremely rare Chinese manifestation about the country:

Brazil should seek industrial upgrade, not US approval

SteveInNC , Mar 20, 2019 12:47:33 PM | link
to mourning dove at 30 and snedly at 60

It looks like the US is having to rescue some of the Venezuelan oligarchs from the effect of the sanctions. This being Fox, it blames socialism, which is utterly backwards, but the facts are there. US lifts sanctions on wives of Venezuela TV magnates Oh the poor dears. How they must have suffered.

Also, it looks like they (US) are thinking about cutting off credit cards, which as you've opined, would hurt the middle and upper classes much more than the typical Chavista. Credit card sanctions?

quixotic1 , Mar 20, 2019 1:12:23 PM | link
That whole press conference exchange has a faintly Mad Hatter Tea Party quality to it.

At one point Abrams says the interim presidency doesn't start counting until "after Maduro", but the whole raison d'etre of article 233 in the first place is to ensure a constitutional transition of power in the event that the president becomes unavailable. So that (the president becoming unavailable) would had to have happened FIRST -- prior to the implementation of (the relevant passage of) article 233. In other words, that would have to be the triggering event.

If this seems a bit like stating the obvious -- it is. As the article states,'That the "elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the case to begin with.' That's end of discussion right there. It never happened. And they have everybody talking in circles about whether or not the thirty day election requirement was fulfilled? It's absurd.

One thing I'll give the neo-cons credit for is their ability to take obvious lies/complete fabrications and somehow get people to discuss them as if there was any reality to it. Like in the case of Iraq they had the whole world discussing the threat of non-existent WMDs. All these "serious" pundits would prattle on endlessly about the pros and cons of an issue for which there was not a scintilla of evidence. I think even Goebbels would have to stand back in awe of what they do.

karlof1 , Mar 20, 2019 1:13:02 PM | link
Telling Rubio the truth :

"*Puerto Rico didn't have power for 11 months.

"The #TrumpRegime is not a government that can provide services. It is a transnational criminal organization which should be designated as a terrorist group."

Rubio needs to be bathed in Roundup.

AntiSpin , Mar 20, 2019 1:20:13 PM | link
@ BM | Mar 20, 2019 11:35:21 AM | 69

Holy crap on a cracker, Batman! Half of all the evil entities in the world are crawling about within this massive web of crime and treason.

I would beg to make one small change to the exposé; instead of --

" The CIA, under 'extraordinary rendition' proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot soldier army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies, "

-- I would say that Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and Haspel have become foot-soldiers for the CIA's neo-con dark policies.

arby , Mar 20, 2019 1:36:52 PM | link
Venezuela: Guaido loyalists seize diplomatic properties in US

Envoys loyal to Venezuela's interim president have taken control of diplomatic buildings and a consulate. Caracas has severed ties with the US, accusing it of staging a coup against acting President Maduro.

Xolotl , Mar 20, 2019 1:53:41 PM | link
Don't Spy for Me Argentina. In fact, it connects with virtually everything!

Posted by: BM | Mar 20, 2019 11:35:21 AM | 69

The CIA, under "extraordinary rendition" proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot soldier army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies. It is clear that Abrams, Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio, Bannon, and their cohorts, including Macri and Bolsonaro, are attempting to re-create OPERATION CONDOR, the 1960s, 70s, and 80s alliance of the intelligence services of the Latin American military dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which were full members, with Ecuador and Peru as associate partners. Tens of thousands of leftist dissidents were tracked down and executed during CONDOR, which operated with the full approval and involvement of the CIA.

They lost so many opportunities during the 70's. USSR was in their way in so many places. But now happy days are here again, with Russia, China containment strategies and Trump and other supremacist leaders being installed everywhere in the West and Americas.

It's about opening Pandora's Box though. 0 latency networks, even negative time ...with whatever that implicates and a space programe but not the one you see in plain view.

Krollchem , Mar 20, 2019 2:43:45 PM | link
There is a three part video of the UN conference featuring Anya Parampil, Alfred de Zayas and Max Blumenthal which has debunked the US propaganda on Venezuela at a United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19.

(1) The Grayzone testifies at the UN - 'Humanitarian crisis in Venezuela: Propaganda vs. reality' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak3eQwE9JxI
(2) Max Blumenthal debunks corporate media lies about Venezuela at United Nations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ1vFlX5jEw
(3) 'The mask of the US is off': At UN, Anya Parampil speaks on Venezuela regime change war https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9JRD_jCNp8

See also "The Visible Hand of the Market- Economic War in Venezuela" by Pasqualina Curcio.


Perhaps random guy Guaidó will join other collaborators with the US are just seen as throw-away pawns by the Empire:
"The Venezuelan military deserters who crossed over to Colombia on February 23, 2019, now find themselves abandoned both by Colombia and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The UNCHR and the Colombian Government have given the soldiers 4 days to leave the refugee camp"

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/19/venezuela-beneath-the-skin-of-imperialism/

The good news is that the health of Venezuelans is improving due to a more healthy diet due to US led sanctions. Everyone has been forced to have a vegetarian diet substituting vegetables, lentils, and black beans for meat. Seems that lots of people are growing their own (organic) vegetables.

From a sociological point of view even the electrical blackouts are bringing the people together as they spend the time sharing:

"During blackouts, people told stories, played music, or went out and talked on the streets. It was a paradise, no TVs, smartphones, but real human contact. People cook together. During the day they're playing board games, dominoes, and kids are having fun."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/18/on-the-ground-in-venezuela-vs-the-media-spectacle/

karlof1 , Mar 20, 2019 4:14:56 PM | link
Krollchem @83--

Thanks for your report! The unintended consequences as you note can be powerful allies for those being attacked. The well stated case at the UN will also have consequences and generate more solidarity for Venezuela and condemnation of the Outlaw US Empire, Pompeo, Rubio, Abrams, Bolton, and Trump.

[Mar 20, 2019] Merkel is the most servile lackey that the US could wish for

Mar 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Cemi , Mar 20, 2019 8:50:23 AM | link

@17 Guy Thornton wrote:
Merkel might say: "There is definitely a place for Brazil in NATO. They can have ours."
Forget it! Merkel is the most servile lackey that the US could wish for. She is doing everything her masters in Washington ask her to do. For example the German public is awaiting a mildly entertaining show of their government on how to work around yesterdays court decision:
International law is the yardstick for international politics. This has been clarified by the Higher Administrative Court in Münster in a spectacular ruling on lethal US drone missions in Yemen. Several relatives of victims who were killed in such attacks had sued. They hold the Federal Republic of Germany jointly responsible for this because the United States allegedly also uses the US airbase in Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate for these fatal attacks.

There are important indications that the drone attacks in question violate international law and the fundamental right to life. The Federal Republic of Germany must protect these rights and stand up for them. Therefore the Federal Republic must clarify now in a first step whether the attacks offend against international right.

(Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator from Urteil über US-Airbase in Ramstein: Deutsche Richter fordern Überprüfung tödlicher US-Drohneneinsätze )

NOT! Aside from the fact, that the public press largely ignores this decision, our governments have a long record of doing actually nothing when formally independent judges even from the highest courts ask them to adhere to the law.
Speaking of embarrassing lackeys, when the empire was seeking a new nodal point to more efficiently drone bomb Northern Africa the most obvious/nearby European locations like Italy, France or Greece all said "Nah, better not". But, don't you worry, Missus Merkel was of course happy to offer Stuttgard in Southern Germany as base for AFRICOM!

Always at your service!

[Mar 20, 2019] The US wants Brazil to join NATO

Mar 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Guy Thornton , Mar 19, 2019 4:22:12 PM | link

Merkel might say:

"There is definitely a place for Brazil in NATO. They can have ours."

[Mar 20, 2019] Vladimir Putin celebrates birthday on ice in celebrity hockey match

This article was written 4 years ago, but the problem with Putin successor remains. Putin is a unique politician and his replacement might be much weaker, causing troubles for Russia. This is not new problem for Russia, but this time it will be especially acute. BTW this comment thread looks like "who is who" list for NATObots.
Notable quotes:
"... We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see. ..."
"... Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come ..."
"... Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously. ..."
"... It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways. ..."
"... He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship. Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work] ..."
"... Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed. ..."
"... Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section. ..."
"... PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ? ..."
Oct 07, 2015 | The Guardian

goatrider 7 Oct 2015 17:12

I wonder if everyone on the Guardian staff has the same "man crush" on Putin? Could explain all these obsessive articles. I also wonder if he spent any time in the penalty box?

laticsfanfromeurope -> Extracrispy 7 Oct 2015 17:06

You prefer ISIS and Al-Nusra then the legitimate Syrian gov. and the legitimate help of Russia...not a surprise from stupid western supporters!


pfox33 7 Oct 2015 17:05

There isn't one of our western politicians that wouldn't sell his fucking mother to be getting the attention that Putin's getting. I thought he was supposed to be isolated.

So to keep the hockey thing going, Putin's stolen the puck in the neutral zone, split the Nato defensemen who were too far forward and is on a breakaway.

I feel sorry for Obama because I think he's a good leader but when it comes to trying to maneuver in a geopolitical situation like Syria he's fucked before he leaves the house. Putin can just act without trying to herd cats like Obama has to do with his Nato minions. He doesn't have a bunch of recalcitrant GOP senators calling him everything but a white man and running their mouths about what they would do.

... ... ...


filin led -> Braminski 7 Oct 2015 16:55

It's you who are a troll, sir. By what you say, anything can be dismissed as paid propaganda. That means, you are as likely to be a paid agent yourself. So, if you can't come up with a constructive argument, stop commenting please.


Mordantdude -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 16:40

As Russians say: "Envy silently".

giacinto101 7 Oct 2015 15:59

We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see.


SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 15:54

Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come


CIAbot007 -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 15:39

Most of Aussies have a bit of common sense which says that you can't blame anyone before it is prooved. With Western MSM propaganda machine blaming Russia and Putin even before anything happens you bet there's no such thing as balanced and unskewed reporting and even will for any kind of such thing. Don't get fooled, use your brain or your brain will be used by someone else.


SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 14:48

Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously.


PekkaRoivanen MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:30

In the West, we don't have a sycophantic press kissing the leader's backside:

Guardian: Barack Obama scores just 2 out of 22 basketball hoops - video

You wrote that Obama plays basketball and you prove it with this video where Obama wears dress shirt (tie removed :-D) and scores badly.

Are you sure Obama plays basketball? Or is it just press kissing his backside?

Kev Kev Hektor Uranga 7 Oct 2015 14:28

the USA persecutes and kills people who speak out against it. Only difference is the USA does it in ways that nobody sees.. In other words the USA is the same as Russia only they do their work in the dark. When nobody is looking.

Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:26

That's the guy who is wishing Putin a happy birthday.

The US/UK duo have caused with their insane illegal wars more than a million deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and counting.

I recommend you look up a little the complex history and present situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus region.

ISIS (which the insanely aggressive US/UK duo have in effect created) is already spreading its influence INSIDE the Russian Federation. So Putin has direct interests to defeat ISIS and stabilise Syria (and Iraq). In addition, the south of the Russian Federation is on the map of territories which ISIS plans to conquer.

See for example:
-
8 ISIS supporters killed in N. Caucasus special op

(2 August 2015)

Russian security forces have foiled a terrorist group that recently pledged allegiance to ISIS in Ingushetia, in the Northern Caucasus, according to the National Anti-Terror Committee (NAC). Security forces seized explosives, weapons and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition.
-
How Russian Militants Declared A New ISIS 'State' In Russia's North Caucasus

(26 June 2015)

The Islamic State group announced the creation of its northernmost province this week, after accepting a formal pledge of allegiance from former al Qaeda militants in the North Caucasus region of Russia.
-
-
It is true that at present, the Chechens are begging Putin to let them strike in Syria (and this is also closely linked to the complicated history of North Caucasus), but Putin has not unleashed them. See for example here:
-
-
Kadyrov asks Putin to allow Chechen infantry to fight in Syria (RT, 2 October 2015)
-
The head of the Chechen Republic has asked the Russian president to send Chechen units to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, adding that his fighters have sworn to fight terrorists till the end.

"Being a Muslim, a Chechen and a Russian patriot I want to say that in 1999 when our republic was overrun with these devils we swore on the Koran that we would fight them wherever they are," the Chechen leader said. "But we need the Commander-in-Chief's decision to do this," he emphasized. According to the Russian Constitution, the president [Putin] is also the commander-in-chief of the military forces.


BMWAlbert clanview46 7 Oct 2015 14:26

It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways.


Julian1972 MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:21

That was last year...also it was authored by a combination of the CIA and their right-wing 'Operation Stay Behind' cohorts...though, if you don't know that by now you doubtless never will.


Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:16

Murderers, thieves and embezzlers stroking each other's egos.

Putin has a long way to go to match the US/UK.
-
-
Here is a recent report about 'collateral damage' compiled by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival and the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War:
-
Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the 'War on Terror' (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan)

(March 2015)
-
This investigation comes to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million.

NOT included in this figure are further war zones such as Yemen.

The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated by the media and major NGOs.

And this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths in the three countries named above could also be in excess of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.
-
-
For more about civilian casualties due to the US-led coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq, see the Airwars website:

584 – 1,720 civilians killed:

To date, the international coalition has only conceded two "likely" deaths, from an event in early November 2014. It is also presently investigating seven further incidents of concern; is carrying out credibility assessments on a further 13; and has concluded three more investigations – having found no 'preponderance of evidence' to support civilian casualty claims.

More Power -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:13

He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship. Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work]. Just look at the World Bank, BRICS is on the door step. Happy birth day Putin. A badass mofo

blueskis -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:06

The vats majority of the 5500 killed have been civilians in East Ukraine killed by airstrikes ordered by kiev/washington, fully justifying Russian intervention.


ooTToo -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:40

Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed.


geedeesee -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:19

Russia is attacking what they said they'd attack, Tavernier. ISIS, al-Nusrah, and other terrorist organisations.

inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:18

No he isn't. Anybody with a functioning brain knows he had nothing to do with that. Unlike the US genocide in the Middle East - over 2 million dead and counting - not to mention the deliberate and sustained attack on a hospital. Maybe you don' get to see the news in your ward?

inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:13

The US created, funds, trains and arms ISIS - they are only supporting terrorists in their campaign to effect regime change. Russia is responding to a request fro the Syrian government, so its actions are entirely legal. The faces that the USA and the KSA are the biggest sponsors of terrorism in the world.

monteverdi1610 7 Oct 2015 12:22

Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section.

PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ?

[Mar 20, 2019] The Opportunity Cost of America s Disastrous Foreign Policy by Vlad Sobell

Foreign policy is no longer controlled by the President of the USA. It is controlled by the Deep state. This article is from 2015 but can easily be written about Trump administration
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis communautaire). ..."
"... First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state" officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way? ..."
"... In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe, while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule". ..."
"... Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently in Ukraine. ..."
"... Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all. ..."
"... Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant, ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. ..."
"... Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. ..."
"... Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine – Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. ..."
"... 'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'. ..."
"... "We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED] ..."
Mar 18, 2015 | Russia Insider

Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy... European democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy

The avalanche of commentary since the Ukrainian crisis erupted a year ago has overshadowed any reflections on the immense forgone benefits (technically speaking, the "opportunity cost") of what might have been if Washington had been working for peace and stability instead of war and chaos.

Imagine the following: After the unraveling of the Communist bloc, Europe, in partnership with the US, had forged a new security system in which Russia was treated as a valued and equal partner – one whose interests were respected. Russia, decimated by a century of wars and Communist imperialism, would doubtless have eagerly reciprocated in kind. Most countries of the former Soviet Union would have then proceeded to build a new Eurasian structure of which Russia would have served as the natural umbrella, given its long-standing interaction with the region's diverse nations and cultures.

Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis communautaire).

The rising Far Eastern economic powerhouse, with the world's most populous country, China, at its centre, would have linked up with the world's largest economy (the EU). An enormous Eurasian production and financial bloc would have been created – one that drew primarily on secure supplies of Russian energy and other natural resources. Untold investment opportunities would have opened up in Siberia and Russia's Far East as well as in Central Asia. Hundreds of millions of people in Eurasia and elsewhere would have been lifted out of poverty. And, not least, the EU would have been refashioned as an integral part of the dynamic trans-Eurasian economy (rather than as a German-centred empire, as appears to be the case today), thereby making a major contribution to overcoming the ongoing global economic depression.

All of this was not to be, however. Why not? First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state" officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way?

European democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy

In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe, while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule".

Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently in Ukraine.

And in what is eerily reminiscent of Stalinist "bloc discipline", the EU/NATO nomenclature was ordered to implement the absurd strategy of severing the Russian economy from the EU. For their part, the cowering Eurocrats willingly obliged by imposing sanctions on Russia that, perversely, have had a negative impact on their own economies (but, let it be stressed, not that of the US). No questions raised and no public debate on the wisdom of such a strategy permitted.

Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all.

This abuse and humiliation of Europe is unparalleled. The continent that gave the world the wonders of the Antiquity, modern democracy, the industrial revolution and what is arguably the greatest tradition of philosophy, fine arts and classical music is being bullied by its oversized offspring. Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant, ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. War and extermination camps are etched into the European DNA. America "knows" about them only from afar – and, not least, from the Hollywood entertainment industry.

Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. The so-called European "leaders" are colluding with them in plunging Europe into the abyss and thereby risking nuclear confrontation.

America, too, is a loser

But this is not just a tragedy for Europe and Eurasia. We are also witnessing the wilful misrule of America and, by default, of the entire West. Indeed, Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy. The "democracy-promoters" running Washington's foreign-policy apparatus apparently do not understand that America has nothing to lose and a lot to gain from the Eurasian economic project: the rising tide of global economic welfare would lift everyone's boats, including its own. Why should it matter to Washington if the rising tide comes from other quarters beyond its control?

Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine – Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. If it continues to support such forces against Russia, united Europe will lose not only its backbone but its very soul. The moral consequences of this loss will be enormous and could lead to the precipitous erosion of Western democracy.

The 'autocrats' want to work with the West, not against it

US and EU leaders believe that the Russian and Chinese "autocrats" are out to destroy the West because the latter hate freedom (as George W. Bush might have put it). And hence, they argue, the autocrats must be stopped in their tracks. The simple truth is that Western leaders are too blinkered to understand that far from desiring to destroy the West, Russia and China want it to prosper so that they can work with it to everyone's benefit. Having enjoyed a privileged position over several centuries and having attained unprecedented prosperity in recent decades, the West simply cannot understand that the rest of humanity has no interest in fomenting the "clash of civilizations" but rather craves peace and stability so that it can finally improve its economic lot.

Perhaps, however, all is not yet lost. It is still possible that reason – and economic forces – will prevail and force the West to correct the errors of its ways. What we need, perhaps, more than ever is the ability to step out of the box, question our fundamental assumptions (not least about Russia and China) and find the courage to change policies that have proved disastrous. After all, critical thought, dispassionate analysis and the ability to be open to new ideas is what made the West so successful in the past. If we are to thrive once again in the future, we must resurrect these most valuable and unsurpassed assets.

Vlad Sobell teaches political economy in Prague and Berlin Europeans Look On as US Sows Discord on the Continent Wed, Nov 2

Tom Welsh

What I cannot understand is the naive belief that elected politicians would act in the interests of those whom they represent. Under what other circumstances do we see human beings act with disinterested altruism? So why would a bunch of people who have been ruthlessly selected for selfishness, arrogance, and callousness - a bunch of carefully chosen psychopaths, if you will - behave in that way?

'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'.

- Paul Craig Roberts

jabirujoe

"Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy".

Not only it's foreign policy but it's domestic policy as well. Let's call it for what it really is. The Wall Street/Corporate policy which is the driving force behind behind everything the US does

Toddrich

"We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]

"When we're done with the U.S. it will shrivel up and blow away." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]

The welfare or future of the American people are not part of the equation.

[Mar 20, 2019] Obama was the first African American who sold out his fellow African Americans to be a president. To big money

Michelle is the same blatant liar as her husband, the king of "bait and switch" Obama. From comments: "Yea heard the speech - can I throw up now? How can anyone be taken in by the total insincerity of the whole charade. Hypocrisy rules the political roost and people just love it."... "Obama's old lady was as cheesy as the rest of them. Shallow words from shallow people."
-> www.theguardian.com

Scottarm 1h ago

Sucker born every minute over there!

Sounded like a speech made by a mother on the PTA committee , talk about hyperbole and one sided reporting.

GODsaysBRESCAPE , 2016-07-26 11:20:12
Yeah, they are good with words the Obama. They can talk the talk. But they don't walk the walk. All we got from Obama was more wars, more regime changes, more torture prisons, hundreds of thousands of more dead women and children in the middle east, more racist killer cops at home and a new cold war. And Hilary will bring more of the same. Now that is something to cry about.
tb4911 -> -> ShanghaiGuy , 2016-07-26 11:40:30
Libya but Hillary was the real driving force.
Michael109 , 2016-07-26 11:12:00
Collective amnesia here. The speech brought me to tears also, tears for a once proud Dem party. The Obamas are backing a person, Clinton, who was "extremely careless" with emails in relation to national security (FBI words) and who clearly lied under oath to Congress and who is also clearly behind rigging the Dem nomination process to shaft Sanders and the millions of young people who supported him, absolutely shameless
pentreifan , 2016-07-26 11:11:46
Caring Hillary? A woman who said of Gadaffi's murder "We came, we saw, he died." He was, apparently, sodomised with a bayonet beforehand. And Obama's care for children seems limited by borders. Doesn't seem to care much about the kids of Afghanistan or Yemen.

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/10/what_hillary_clinton_wants_you_to_forget_her_disastrous_record_as_a_war_hawk /

Here's John Pilger on Obama:

" In 2009, President Obama stood before an adoring crowd in the centre of Prague, in the heart of Europe. He pledged himself to make "the world free from nuclear weapons". People cheered and some cried. A torrent of platitudes flowed from the media. Obama was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

It was all fake. He was lying.

The Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear warheads, more nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories. Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president. The cost over thirty years is more than $1 trillion."

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/23/a-world-war-has-begun-break-the-silence

Rob Lewis , 2016-07-26 10:56:02
Michelle said (Hillary) "Advocating for kids with disabilities as a young lawyer" This is the same Lawyer that bragged about getting a 41 year old pedophile off the hook for raping a 12 year old girl.

https://www.intellihub.com/video-hillary-clinton-brags-getting-pedophile-off-hook /

Sid Debgupta , 2016-07-26 10:44:03
Wow -- I am all weepy --

Where to next Madam Obama ? You have a few months left to scrounge on the taxpayer dime, so where is the next multi-million dollar all-expenses paid vacation with Mammy, the kids and the entire entourage gonna be ?

Frontignan , 2016-07-26 10:39:50
Yea heard the speech - can I throw up now? How can anyone be taken in by the total insincerity of the whole charade. Hypocricy rules the political roost and people just love it.
Yarkob , 2016-07-26 10:39:38
Christ, the astroturfers are out big today.

Did she mention the over 4000 people (of who estimates vary between 500-3000 civilian deaths) her husband has murdered with drone strikes since being in office?

So inspiring!

Chuck3 , 2016-07-26 10:25:28
Don't Americans understand how incredibly arrogant it sounds when they say theirs is the "greatest country on earth"?

What a load of jingoistic garbage. I've lived there. It most definitely is not the "greatest country on earth".

Flooch , 2016-07-26 10:08:44
Usual shouty American nonsense. If you don't have an intelligent point to make, just shout. You know it makes no sense.
BlackForester , 2016-07-26 10:08:13
I adore great men and women who know how to hire a competent team of ghostwriters.
MarkoRam , 2016-07-26 10:05:18
Lol. So much for 'open, independent and fearless' journalism.
NuttyNietzsche , 2016-07-26 10:00:46
An overpopulated planet, a poisoned biosphere, a militant and violent global insurgency by a 7th Century tribal faith; a potential woman in the Whitehouse (and what a gleaming example of womanhood she is!)? A complete irrelevance. Bread and circuses and maudlin hyperbole that will keep the tiny minds of SJWs happy but which won't solve a thing.
Potyka Kalman , 2016-07-26 09:37:50
Only Obama obviously wasn't the first "African American" president. He was the first African American who sold out his fellow African Americans to be a president. To big money.

BTW he's preparing to go on his conference tour. If you think about all the public money he used to save the banking sector (without any consequence for the banking sector), he should be touring at the end of his life. Poor Hillary. She so wanted the job Obama got.

Piggy256 , 2016-07-26 09:19:51
The Americans are so good at farce (Trump) or heart-rending tear-jerkers (Michelle) that are always somewhat repulsive or embarrassing, shall I say, to our European ears. It is a form of popular catharsis that is second-nature to artists and politicians there.
whoarethey , 2016-07-26 09:19:12
Moved to tears, really, well I suppose being Americans they are full of mush and hypocrisy --
DaveMerkin , 2016-07-26 09:11:06
These conventions seem like well managed cult get together. Both republicans and democrats seem like mindless zombies. Obama's old lady was as cheesy as the rest of them. Shallow words from shallow people.
Iconoclastick , 2016-07-26 09:00:06
I recall when she came to an inner city girls' school in London a couple of years back, on what's despairingly referred to as a sink estate. She gave one of those syrupy, nuero linguistic programming speeches, favoured by her dark arts husband's, TelePrompTer speech writing team. Full of all that usual suspect; "hopey, changey, reach for the stars, you can do it if you believe and want it bad enough" nonsense to the assembled teenage girls. And there in lies the point of the Obamas; they're an antidepressant, a simple and effective calming drug for sections of the masses.
IvoryT , 2016-07-26 08:58:53
There's an impressive speechwriter in their team. And the delivery coach is also worth the money.

[Mar 20, 2019] What will happen if no energy source can cover the decline rate

Notable quotes:
"... "If that was to happen and no energy source can cover the decline rate, wouldn't the world be pretty fucked economically thereafter? Hence one can assume or take a wild ass guess that the decline after peak would resemble something like Venezuela. So not a smooth short % decline rate." ..."
"... Realistically the global economy is already in a tight spot. It started back in 2000 when Oil prices started climbing from about $10/bbl in 1998 to about $30/bbl in 2000. Then the World Major Central banks dropped interest which ended triggering the Housing Boom\Bust and carried Oil prices to $147/bbl. Since then Interest rates have remained extremely low while World Debt has soared (expected to top $250T in 2019). ..."
"... Probably the biggest concern for me is the risking risks for another World war: The US has been targeting all of the major Oil exporters. The two remaining independent targets are Venezuela & Iran. I suspect Venzuela will be the next US take over since it will be a push over compared to Iran. ..."
Mar 16, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

Ignored says: 03/16/2019 at 12:42 am

Iron Mike Asked:

"If that was to happen and no energy source can cover the decline rate, wouldn't the world be pretty fucked economically thereafter? Hence one can assume or take a wild ass guess that the decline after peak would resemble something like Venezuela. So not a smooth short % decline rate."

Energy is the economy, The economy cannot function without energy. Thus its logical that a decline in energy supply will reduce the economy. The only way for this not to apply is if there are efficiency gains that offset the decline. But at this point the majority of cost effective efficiency gains are already in place. At this point gains become increasing expensive with much smaller gains (law of diminishing returns). Major infrastructure changes like modernizing rail lines take many decades to implement and also require lots of capital. Real capital needed will be difficult to obtain do to population demographics (ie boomers dependent on massive unfunded entitlement & pensions).

Realistically the global economy is already in a tight spot. It started back in 2000 when Oil prices started climbing from about $10/bbl in 1998 to about $30/bbl in 2000. Then the World Major Central banks dropped interest which ended triggering the Housing Boom\Bust and carried Oil prices to $147/bbl. Since then Interest rates have remained extremely low while World Debt has soared (expected to top $250T in 2019).

My guess is that global economy will wipe saw in the future as demographics, resource depletion (including Oil) and Debt all merge into another crisis. Gov't will act with more cheap and easy credit (since there is no alterative TINA) as well as QE\Asset buying to avoid a global depression. This creating a wipesaw effect that has already been happening since 2000 with Boom Bust cycles. This current cycle has lasted longer because the Major central banks kept interest rates low, When The Fed started QT and raising rate it ended up triggering a major stock market correction In Dec 2018. I believe at this point the Fed will no longer seek any further credit tightening that will trip the economy back into recession. However its likely they the global economy will fall into another recession as consumers & business even without further credit tighting by CB (Central Banks) Because they've been loading up on cheap debt, which will eventually run into issues servicing their debt. For instance there are about 7M auto loans in delinquency in March of 2019. Stock valuations are largely driven by stock buybacks, which is funded by debt. I presume companies are close to debt limit which is likely going to prevent them from purchase more stock back.

Probably the biggest concern for me is the risking risks for another World war: The US has been targeting all of the major Oil exporters. The two remaining independent targets are Venezuela & Iran. I suspect Venzuela will be the next US take over since it will be a push over compared to Iran. I think once all of remaining independent Oil Exports are seized that is when the major powers start fighting each other. However is possible that some of the proxy nations (Pakastan\India),(Israel\Iran), etc trigger direct war between the US, China, and Russia at any time.

Notice that the US is now withdrawing from all its major arms treaties, and the US\China\Russia are now locked into a Arms race. Nuclear powers are now rebuilding their nuclear capacity (more Nukes) and modernizing their deployment systems (Hypersonic, Very large MIRV ICBMS, Undersea drones, Subs, Bombers, etc.

My guess is that nations like the US & China will duke it out before collapsing into the next Venezuela. If my assessment is correct, The current state of Venezuela will look like the garden of Eden compared to the aftermath of a full scale nuclear war.

Currently the Doomsday clock (2019) is tied with 1953 at 2 minutes:

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/

1953 was the height of the cold war. I presume soon the Doomsday clock will be reduced to less than 2 Minutes later this year, due to recent events in the past few weeks.

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

"the world's nuclear nations proceeded with programs of "nuclear modernization" that are all but indistinguishable from a worldwide arms race, and the military doctrines of Russia and the United States have increasingly eroded the long-held taboo against the use of nuclear weapons."

" The current international security situation -- what we call the "new abnormal" -- has extended over two years now. It's a state as worrisome as the most dangerous times of the Cold War, a state that features an unpredictable and shifting landscape of simmering disputes that multiply the chances for major military conflict to erupt."

[Mar 20, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson

Credibility of the US government and Justice system was greatly undermined, if not destroyed by the Russiagate. Inability to investigate more plausible election interference by British an, Saudi and Israeli actors by Mueller paints him as a despicable political operative working for Clintons, not an independent Prosecutor, who diligently investigate the foreign interference in elections.
The role of Rosenstein is the role of co-conspirator in a plot to deprive Trump of the Presidency or, at least, for force him to pursue the Deep State foreign policy, which is totally bankrupt policy. And they succeeded in this. Trump wet kiss with neocons was probably the part of the deal.
Notable quotes:
"... When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to account? ..."
"... I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation. ..."
Mar 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock , a day ago

When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to account?
MP98 , 2 days ago
No one is going to face any consequences - legal or other. Hell, most of them will make money from writing books about their "dedicated service." When was the last time the swamp applied the laws to one of it's own. Answer: never.

The laws are enforced on us - the "deplorables out there," not the swamp creature "elite." We are not governed, we are ruled.

And sadly that situation is as much the result of an indifferent and ignorant populace as the behavior of the ruling class.

Nobby Stiles , 2 days ago
In case you had not seen. I think it does connect well with the piece above.

https://www.americanthinker...

English Outsider -> Nobby Stiles , 2 days ago
"One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes (i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies. Christopher Steele's employ with the FBI violates this policy."

I see Steele's surfacing again. Might I put in a minor query. Does this longstanding agreement cover retired personnel?

Bill Gaydon -> English Outsider , 8 hours ago
Same question....^
TTG -> English Outsider , a day ago
I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation.

"Steele might have been expected to move on once his investigation of the bidding was concluded. But he had discovered that the corruption at FIFA was global, and he felt that it should be addressed. The only organization that could handle an investigation of such scope, he felt, was the F.B.I. In 2011, Steele contacted an American agent he'd met who headed the Bureau's division for serious crimes in Eurasia. Steele introduced him to his sources, who proved essential to the ensuing investigation. In 2015, the Justice Department indicted fourteen people in connection with a hundred and fifty million dollars in bribes and kickbacks."

The second instance of Steele's cooperation with the FBI even had a peripheral relationship with Trump. "Several years ago, the FBI hired Steele to help crack an international gambling and money-laundering ring purportedly run by a suspected Russian organized-crime figure named Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov. The syndicate was based in an apartment in Trump Tower. Eventually, federal officials indicted more than thirty co-conspirators for financial crimes. Tokhtakhounov, though, eluded arrest, becoming a fugitive. Interpol issued a "red notice" calling for his arrest. But, in the fall of 2013, he showed up at the Miss Universe contest in Moscow -- and sat near the pageant's owner, Donald Trump."

According to the New Yorker magazine article, it was standard Orbis procedure to warn authorities about national security threats. Steele warned German authorities about IS militants using the refugee flow to infiltrate Europe. "When Steele took his suspicions about Trump to the FBI in the summer of 2016, it was in keeping with Orbis protocol, rather than a politically driven aberration."

Within the FBI, I'm sure Steele was coded as a source in some way as a standard procedure to use his information. We did the same with our non-asset sources in DOD. Hell, I was even coded as an intelligence asset when I was a SMU operative/case officer. This was different from the reporter number all case officers are given.

https://www.newyorker.com/m...

Tidewater -> TTG , 11 hours ago
Philip Giraldi, on March 13, 2018, has an essay about this New Yorker article: 'Christopher Steele as seen by the New Yorker. Liberal fantasies beatify the messenger.' This is in the Unz Review. www.unz.com/pgiraldi/christ... .

Mayer doesn't mention that Steele was almost certainly identified as MI6 during the years (possibly 1990-1993) that he was stationed in Moscow under diplomatic cover. Russian counterintelligence agents broke into his apartment, used the toilet, left it unflushed; they stole his wife's best shoes. He was definitely identified by 1999 when he was in Paris. There was a DSMA notice. Too late. Then, in 2006, when Steele is said to have had the Russia desk, there was the highly embarrassing electronic spy rock in a Moscow park. Surely he held some responsibility for that? And if Steele was a Russian expert why were his talents being wasted in Afghanistan?

John Helmer quotes some old intelligence hands who deny that he was a particularly impressive agent or was deeply knowledgeable about Russia. Steele never went back to Russia after 1992 or 1993. Mayer, in the New Yorker article, makes no mention of what surely were setbacks for British intelligence regarding Russia in which Steele likely was playing a large part.

We've been here before in this discussion. The question remains-- was Steele an unwitting puppet of a Russian master counterstrike, an aikido throw which has badly shaken and distracted America? DH, we await your comments. Has TTG gone wobbly?

TTG -> Tidewater , an hour ago
I'm also fairly certain RIS was aware of Steele's status as an MI6 officer when he was stationed in Moscow. I would think anyone working out of a diplomatic embassy is first assumed to be an intelligence officer by the host nation. I stayed away from embassies and other government facilities just to avoid that taint. The one time I was summoned to an embassy, I conducted extensive surveillance detection measures both before and after the visit and I wore a disguise.

It was a normal matter for intelligence officers to be cycled through Afghanistan and Iraq post 9-11, no matter what their former expertise. I did my turn. CIA's "Russia House" was bitter about their fall from the pinnacle to be replaced by all things CT during that time.

Was some of the raw information in Steele's dossier planted by RIS? That's very possible. Several experienced former US intelligence officers have voiced that possibility, especially about the more salacious bits of the dossier.

Fred -> TTG , 15 hours ago
That's a nice piece in the New Yorker. They mention the golden shower episode in Moscow, however, left out Loretta Lynch. "In was in her role as district attorney that her involvement in the Fifa investigation began. Over the course of five years in Brooklyn..." See the BBC article on FIFA from 2015: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32912118

So did Loretta Lynch talk to Christopher Steele during this case or did Steele just talk to the FBI agent who was years later in London? When did then US attorney for New York's Eastern District Lorretta Lynch get informed and by which FBI agent? Who did that agent tell about the Steele dossier, when did it get to the AG's ears, and when did she tell Obama?

"On January 5, 2017, it became clear that at least two Washingtonians remained in the dark about the dossier: the President and the Vice-President. " Oh, apparently AG Lynch never told Obama, because????????

Another New Yorker Enigma: "Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.'s intelligence service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.'s director, John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.) "

So the UK has been spying on US Presidential candidates? Oh, they said they were "illicit" communications. What does that mean? Who was communicating with Whom? And how did G.C.H.Q. decide these communications were "illicit" but others, well they'd have to have them all to make a comparison, wouldn't they? Put a ribbon on top of that one. DId they also intercept any of Hilary's communications?

TTG -> Fred , 13 hours ago
Given that Steele played an important role in at least two major FBI investigations leading to multiple indictments, I would assume Lynch knew about Steele. Whether they ever conversed, I don't know.

Comey was not at all sure about Lynch's impartiality. It would not surprise me if he kept details of the Russian investigation, including the dossier, from her. She probably learned about it shortly before Obama and Trump were briefed on the dossier. Obama knew enough about the Russian investigation, without the dossier, to warn Putin to knock it off in September 2016.

I don't know if the Brits spied on our Presidential candidates. I wouldn't doubt it. We bugged Merkel's phone. What I am sure of is that the Brits spy on every Russian of importance within their capabilities. If Trump's campaign was in contact with those Russians, the Brits would know about it. They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform their US counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign. They wouldn't have done that just for shits and giggles.

Fred -> TTG , 2 hours ago
"They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform their US counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign."

They thought it illicit? Listening is one thing, giving information to aid your country's government's preferred candidate is interference in an election process - ours. How many times has our ally the UK interfered with US elections? They had plenty of help from the FBI and DOJ here in the US in 2016. Who elected GCHQ to be arbiters of US elections? I can't find them in the US Constitution. Using the FBI and DOJ to sabatouge your party's political opponents, that's third world government standards.

TTG -> Fred , 34 minutes ago
If the Brits wanted to directly influence the election, they would have publicly released their information about "illicit' contacts. Keeping it within intelligence channels does nothing to influence an election. I would hope the Brits would never hold back on information concerning a possible CI threat.
English Outsider -> TTG , 4 hours ago
TTG - thank you for your reply above. The picture one gets of Steele is no longer that of a loose canon who somehow got himself involved in a presidential election campaign. It is that of an experienced and respected professional working in tandem, if perhaps unconventionally, with other professionals.

And perhaps thinking that he or his contacts back home had stumbled over important information showing that a presidential candidate was compromised. That information possibly being the tip of the iceberg and urgently demanding further investigation.

But that makes what happened all the more unusual -

1. Why didn't the further investigation happen? Surely the fact that such an important matter wasn't thoroughly investigated, and that using all possible resources in the States and abroad, shows that it was no serious investigation in the first place?

And more to the point here -

2. If those involved were professionals working away soberly at a necessary investigation, what were they doing suddenly branching out into a smear campaign?

For none, even the originators of the dossier, are claiming that the more discreditable part of the Steele dossier is true. That is not Intelligence material. It is sensationalised smear material.

This objection has been met in part with the claim that the dossier was all raw unsifted Intelligence and therefore was released as is.

But surely experienced Intelligence professionals don't suddenly pitch raw unsifted Intelligence into the middle of the political arena while they are supposed to be still assessing that intelligence?

Irrespective of the question of whether Trump was compromised the question therefore arises - what were American officials doing running a smear campaign against a presidential candidate?

Which leads back to the original question. What officials this side of the Atlantic were also involved, and how high did the authorisation for their involvement go in England.

.

On a matter I'm better informed about, I don't see the Colonel quietly farming away in Kent. I see him striding across the limitless expanse of a Scottish grouse moor. If our lot had known their business they'd have worked that into their offer.

But if that farm in Kent is still going spare ...

.

Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 3 hours ago
I could have been Glubb's neighbor. I could have been a contender ... I thought the whole thing showed a surprising lack of judgment on their part.
TTG -> English Outsider , an hour ago
The counterintelligence investigation was in progress through the lead up to the 2016 election and is still in progress. Through 2016, it was done in a remarkably quiet fashion. That's how these investigations are supposed to work. No one hears about them until there is an arrest or indictment. That's how Mueller is running his investigation. We hear nothing from him except for the indictments already issued. And they are characteristically slow and methodical, usually spanning years before an arrest is made.

None of this investigation, including Steele's reporting was used in a pre-election smear campaign. In my opinion, the reason the Obama administration did not publicize the idea of Russian interference with the election and possible involvement of Trump campaign officials is that it would surely have been seen as a partisan smear campaign. The public did not hear of the Steele dossier until well after the election was over.

It was not just British intelligence involved in collecting on Russian interference in the election. The Estonians, the Dutch, the Australians and probably others contributed to the intelligence picture. We may not learn the full extent of that cooperation for many years. Given the changing nature of information warfare and social media manipulation, I sincerely wish the full extent of that intelligence is made public quickly. Sure that would probably also cramp Western media manipulation capabilities, of which we are far from innocent, but the sunlight would help inoculate all of us against this malignant phenomenon.

Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , a day ago
MI-6 tried to recruit me. I reported it to the COS at my post. Please don't tell me we and our liaison services love each other.
TTG -> Pat Lang , a day ago
Not surprised. What a duplicitous business we rolled around in.
Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , a day ago
They offered me a retirement farm in Kent, lifetime membership in one of the best clubs, a big stipend and"career assistance". It was funny.
TTG -> Pat Lang , a day ago
The retirement farm and the big stipend sounds pretty good. I could do without the best club and the career assistance. Sounds like they appreciated you a lot more than DIA.
Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , 18 hours ago
DIA made me an SES-4 with presidential rank (Distinguished). Looks like the Brits expected me to have a lot of access. They claimed these guys were off the reservation. and that they were not authorized to pitch me.
TTG -> Pat Lang , 13 hours ago
Off the reservation my ass. I would say those Brits were a bunch of cheeky blokes who did not do a thorough enough job of assessing your susceptibility to recruitment.
Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , 3 hours ago
You seem more upset over this than I was. We accepted their false statements of innocence betrayed by their own and went right on working with them. Why would they try this? Simple. As we do they wanted to know what we were not telling them. everyone does it. A basic principle. Recruit your liaison.
TTG -> Pat Lang , 29 minutes ago
You're right. I never worked out of an embassy or in any long term liaison function. If I was the target of such a pitch, it would have meant that I was blown along with any operations I was involved with. For me, it would have been life altering.
Boris -> English Outsider , a day ago
Been wondering about that too.
MarcotheLombard , 2 days ago
Thanks for this. I am wondering what Larry Johnson and the other members of this Committee of Correspondence make of the possible connection between Christopher Steele, Pablo Miller, and Sergei Skripal?

Some of Craig Murray's speculations in his latest post on the Skripal incident regarding the coordinated role of Orbis Intelligence, the BBC, and the British state (which issued a DSMA notice prohibiting press mention of Pablo Miller) are quite plausible. Murray is, like the members of this committee, a veteran of the game....

Was Skripal coerced/encouraged by Miller to serve as one of Steele's unattributed Russian "sources"? Did he later get cold feet? Or did he later attempt to buy his way back into Russia with the claim that he could provide proof that the Dossier was a fraud? Or was he working as a triple agent the whole time? Were the two sightseeing Russians "Borishov" and "Petrov" sent to retrieve something from Skripal?

https://www.craigmurray.org...

Patrick Armstrong -> MarcotheLombard , a day ago
Try this. This theory ties together all the incoherencies of the official explanation better than anything I have seen. And, I'm pleased to see it is getting reprinted here and there.
https://michaelantonyblog.w...
Nobby Stiles -> Patrick Armstrong , 20 hours ago
Yes, it made a lot of sense to me. The only thing it doesn't explain is the roof. Was somebody keeping some WMD in the attic?
Barbara Ann -> Patrick Armstrong , a day ago
I concur. This is the most plausible explanation of what really happened in Salisbury that I have read so far.

Colonel - might this theory be worth a dedicated SST post? It is 5,000 words, so perhaps Patrick, David Habakkuk, or another interested member of the committee would be happy to summarize the salient details (e.g. that Borisov & Petrov intended to return to Russia with Sergei Skripal). The author's contact details are in the comments section re reprint rights.

[Mar 20, 2019] In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side... ..."
Mar 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ex-SA , Mar 5, 2019 3:55:53 PM | 13

Thank you! This may well be the most important link I've encountered in my years of lurking here @ MoA and elsewhere.

There is a video linked in the article which may be more important than the article itself. Easily overlooked, so here: https://swprs.org/video-the-cia-and-the-media/

It appears in the article here:

"In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:"

Many thanks, and much respect to you Sir for bringing this important piece to my attention.

May I humbly offer in return, https://archive.org/details/publicenemyno1 (don't neglect the 2nd reel)

Desolation Row , Mar 5, 2019 6:41:25 PM | link
I apologize for another somewhat off topic posting, but I have not seen it posted here earlier, and I think that this should be seen by as many eyes as possible.

The Propaganda Multiplier:How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics

By Swiss Propaganda Research

It is one of the most important aspects of our media system -- and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.

The key role played by these agencies means that Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.

A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side...

[Mar 20, 2019] Wasserman Schultz Proves She's A Sociopath - Lies About Venezuela

Mar 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Tina Smith 3 days ago Only reason she's not already in prison is because she's a useful Military Industrial Complex tool.

Cant_Touch_This 3 days ago DWS rigged in order to win her district just like she rigged against Bernie Sanders on behalf of Hilary Clinton.

Daniel Clint 3 days ago Remove the sanctions you psychopaths. DWS belongs in jail.

[Mar 20, 2019] The Reaction against pro-Zionist, anti-war forces in the US foreign policy became stronger and involves larger swats fo the US society

The comments below is just a small secion of almost 200 comment for the article. Moststrong opinions are deliberately omitted...
Many people now realize that they live in occupied by neocons for 40 years county and want to get thier state back. Tulsi Gabbard in this sense is just the pit of the iceberg.
Looks like alt-Right is now turned completely anti-Israeli.
Notable quotes:
"... Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body. ..."
Mar 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Colin Wright says: March 19, 2019 at 4:50 am GMT 100 Words

@Willie ' They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.'

What a farcical distortion. The last actual Jewish civilian actually killed within the actual borders of Israel died over two years ago. It's not a battle for 'Jewish self-determination' but an endless exercise in vicious oppression. It's about as morally edifying as the Nazi occupation of Poland.

And you support it.

Robert Dolan , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:21 am GMT

Israel is a racist apartheid state and I resent that my tax dollars are sent there to buy bombs to slaughter Palestinians that have never done anything to harm me.
Moishe , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:50 am GMT
" They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.'"

The cure is diversity, mass immigration and equality. That is what the Jewish media, academia, judiciary, US rabbis say, yes to their white hosts in the diaspora. It is virtuous and noble to listen to Jewish media and do exactly as they wish.

Israel, do unto thy selves as your diaspora insists is the moral thing to do. Make yourselves a minority in Eretz Yisroel as you wish unto white goyim. KILL YOURSELF.

... ... ...

Wizard of Oz , says: March 19, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT
Recognising the West Bank as part of Israel without risking Arab numbers and fertility having the consequences to be expected in a modern democratic country would make it impossible for Israel to escape the description of apartheid state. How is that consideration going to affect outcomes in the near future?
Anonymous [246] Disclaimer , says: March 19, 2019 at 7:39 am GMT
The Jewish Firster colonization of the United States has been incremental. It is now nearing completion. Few countries if any, colonized by other (usually more powerful) countries appear to have accepted colonization with such alacrity as have many Americans in their colonization by Israel. Most have resisted colonial rule and even launched wars to rid themselves of their colonial masters.

Question is, if Israel were to be a 51st American state, would she get away with so many crimes as she does outside the Union? Or is this a case of an informal union of two criminal gangster nations? We have read in the UR of the compelling evidence of Jewish collusion in history's two most devastating world wars. The Third one -- and mother of all wars, is sure to be instigated by Zionist Israel. BTW, this post is not addressed to paid Hasbara trolls.

Anonymous [577] Disclaimer , says: March 19, 2019 at 7:51 am GMT
Zionist pigs are nothing but FAKE Jews, they are the STATE, and DO NOT represent the majority of the Israeli people. This action is nothing more than criminal FASCISM with an Imperialist agenda!

It is not the pig that is disgusting and filthy, it is the Zionist State and the rodents that control it, such as the Premier. The USA is nothing more than a filthy shit bag whore to Israel, as is the rest of the West!

Where is the UN and ICC? Eating their pork chops laughing all the way to bank. The sooner Israel is bombed to rubble, the better the world will be. Hitler new the truth about these filthy scum, that is why he wanted to remove them from planet earth. The Lords day is coming, but the Zionist scum's are coming to an end!

mark green , says: March 19, 2019 at 8:01 am GMT
AIPAC's annual star-studded gala demonstrates once again that Zio-Israeli influence in American life is alive and well and operating unopposed.

No foreign or domestic lobby comes even close to The Lobby's baleful impact on American independence. This includes its shameless role in the manufacture of Zionist-friendly Fake News, Congressional waste and murderous appropriations, as well as Zio-Washington's blood-soaked war machinery that rewards one 'democratic ally' way over yonder while it relentlessly targets that same ally's foes, rivals, and outcasts.

Is this any way to run an Empire?

In any case, one is expected to not examine this phenomena too critically as it's already Badthink to do so (and possibly even verging on 'anti-Semitism'!)

Just. Don't. Go. There.

Thus the great majority of middle-of-the-road, 'centrist-seeking' Americans have learned to bow their collective heads in a show of deference when the activist offspring and well-heeled advocates of a certain downtrodden tribe of Glorious Survivors gather in DC to make political whoopee by praising the Zionist juggernaut and raising boatloads of influence-buying shekels for America's next class of political prostitutes. It's who we are.

And as for you HATERS out there, we have this to say:

Six Million! Six million you Nazi scum! We are coming for you!

Understand?

Therefore Do Not talk back. Do Not get out of line.

Bear in mind that those who do get out of line tend to disappear rapidly from public life. (worth keeping in mind, eh?)

It is advised therefore to not examine this phenomena too aggressively. (Just be quiet)

This is America and compromises must be made!

Israel's pampered, moneyed, exclusive, and relentlessly militarized agenda therefore must get special, praised, and privileged treatment on every DC stage and from the mouth of every pundit and tastemaker on every American TV.

It's unanimous! Gotta love em!

(or else).

Why spoil the party with needless dissent, unpleasant facts, or contrary opinions?

Really.

Thus when AIPAC's in town, there's glorious bipartisanship and wondrous unanimity. Zionism is great!

To make political matters even more surreal, Democrat attack-dog, Robert Mueller (with forward assistance of our Israeli-centric news and entertainment media) is still sniffing around Google and still turning over rocks on Facebook and elsewhere in hopes of finding those dastardly Russian fingerprints that will 'prove' (once and for all!) that Putin and a handful of underpaid Russian propagandist tricked the American people into voting the WRONG WAY.

The Russkies stole the whole damn election on behalf of Trump and his deplorable base of rednecks and white supremacists. Just check with the attendees at this season's AIPAC soiree, they'll splain it to ya. It's Russia!

However, when one considers that the Russian/US cold war has only escalated since the election of Donald J. Trump, this far Left conspiracy theory does not entirely hold water.

Oh well.

Thank goodness Israel is intervening here and helping and orchestrating for the good of America (and for democracy in general) and that the Israeli people stand united and for all things righteous and democratic and free.

Go Bibi go!

anon [248] Disclaimer , says: March 19, 2019 at 8:27 am GMT
Circumspect, thoughtful and well done. Unfortunately, religion in general, and its relation to Israel specifically, seem to function as areas of inactivity in our President's otherwise well-functioning intellect.
Ilya G Poimandres , says: March 19, 2019 at 8:30 am GMT
It is not Otzma Yehudit that some fascist fraction of Israel or Judaism, no – exceptionalism is fascism by a simpler name, and those that self declare themselves as the chosen people of God are all fascists.
Germanicus , says: March 19, 2019 at 9:22 am GMT
@Colin Wright Israel has no borders defined.
The jews regard greater Israel the borders, Euphrates and Nile, the two blue strips on their flag.
It is in plain sight, but many can't see it.
Z-man , says: March 19, 2019 at 10:33 am GMT
Depressing as usual Philip Giraldi, thanks for brightening up my day, lol.

Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

A who's who of Zionist lackeys.

It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the usual scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles should not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be otherwise occupied.

I live in the Garden State and can't believe Menendez got re-elected, but really I do.
As for Abrams I have to agree with him there, Jews and Gentiles shouldnt be allowed to intermarry or have children.
There are many reasons for this, some good and some maybe not so good (in your eyes). Let me cut to the chase and be as offensive , to some, as I can. Infesting gentile blood lines (white Christian) with Jew-ish ones only muddies the waters even more in the battle or right and wrong, from deep philosophical and religious grounds, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, to the earthly issue of landing the Zionist Entity right smack on top of Palestine.
Going back to the big picture, I'm may not be a very good Christian but as a follower of Christ and knowing of the Book of Revelation and even less of the works of Nostradamus, it seems that Christian Zionists, for all their stupidity, may be on to something especially with the approximate timelines of Nostradamus.
I will just hope for the best and that 'the truth shall set me free.'

Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website March 19, 2019 at 10:37 am GMT
He has entered into a coalition with the openly racist Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit

Racist and anti-Christian. Its leader, Michael Ben-Ari, tore up a New Testament, describing it as a despicable book which should be in history's trash can. Activist Benzi Gopstein has called for churches in Israel to be burned down and has described Christians as blood-sucking vampires who should be expelled from Israel.

The New Observer has the story . Ben-Ari's racism was too much even for Israel and he has been banned from standing in next month's election.

jacques sheete , says: March 19, 2019 at 11:31 am GMT

Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body.

The US has a record of recognizing scumbag regimes, and here's another example.:

Even after Woody Wilson's attorney general Mitchell Palmer's "Great Red Scare*" of 1919 in the USA and much opposition to International Commienizm, Stalin-stlye, 'Ol FDR couldn't wait to recognize the USSR which is something he did shortly after getting elected in 1933 after getting a meaningless "promise" from Stalin that he'd stop supporting Red terror* in the US. It must not have mattered to him that Lenin and Stalin had been terrorizing their own for over a decade, and in fact, Stalin had just finished engineering a slow death-by-starvation holocaust of up to 10 million Ukrainians. He also deported many adults, leaving their children to starve in the streets.

... ... ...

jacques sheete , says: March 19, 2019 at 11:43 am GMT
@Willie

Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they identify with Jews, and feel a kinship*.

My, how tender. But keep dreaming and scheming; why else do you think AIPAC et al exist? Thanks for the laughs. It has nothing to do with kinship, but rather much to do about knowing who's "boss," at least for now.

[Mar 20, 2019] AIPAC Is Coming To Town - Again! by Philip Giraldi

Mar 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

AIPAC is a seriously threatening organization with income of more than $100 million per annum, nearly 400 employees, 100,000 members, seventeen regional offices, and a "vast pool of donors." It clearly includes a lot of smart and savvy folks who know a lot about what is going on in the Middle East, but its panels will not include a single word about shooting unarmed protesters, declaring Israel to be a "nation state for Jews alone," its own acceptance of laws attacking freedom of speech, or its use of Jewish donated money to corrupt the American political system encouraging "allegiance to a foreign country" on the part of U.S. citizens. Bibi will undoubtedly pick up on AIPAC's cozy theme of inclusiveness by taking the opportunity to burnish his credentials as the leader who can continue to deliver on unlimited and uncritical support from the United States. He will almost certainly meet with President Donald Trump and the two will undoubtedly mention the terrible wave of anti-Semitism that is sweeping the globe, justifying still more ethnic cleansing of the diminishing number of Arabs living in Greater Israel and the bombing of Iran.

Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the usual scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles should not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be otherwise occupied.

A number of the "American" government attendees at the event are actually Israeli citizens. Sigal Mandelker, a committed Zionist who holds the perpetually Jewish position of Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the United States Department of Treasury, is an Israeli by birth and it is widely believed that a number of Jewish congressmen and government officials who will be attending the AIPAC conference have dual citizenship. On the conference website's roster of attendees, it is amusing to see the official photos in which the U.S. legislators and officials are standing in front of the American flag, seemingly disinterested in the irony that what AIPAC is doing is destructive of democracy in America and a sell-out to Israeli interests, undermining those of the United States.

Netanyahu's most serious opposition in the election appears to be a centrist coalition headed by former Israeli Defense Force chief General Benny Gantz, who has spoken of his pride in killing 1,364 "terrorists" in Gaza, and former Finance Minister Yair Lapid. It is the principal challenge to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election hopes. Israeli courts have also meanwhile banned several Arab parties while allowing extreme right-wing Jewish parties to appear on the ballot


Willie , says: March 19, 2019 at 3:14 am GMT

Well they are swinging for the fences, what would you like them to do, invite Hezbollah for tea, these Islamist make no small talk about destroying the Jewish state completely IE the Jews.
So what would you have them do. If you are in favor of the Jewish state going down, you are in the minority not because of dual loyalty evil AIPAC.
Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they identify with Jews, and feel a kinship. Jews fought in both World wars, I mean search thru a microscope for a muslim, and lets face it Shira is anti capitalist, anti women, and anti separation of church and state.
Nothing like the obvious reasons, yet you like to make it all about the Jews.
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.
Grace Poole , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:06 am GMT
@Willie

They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries,

Such a shame the zionists did not know about that sea of Muslim only countries in 1897 when they started plotting to take over Palestine.
All those Muslims. who knew?

Beefcake the Mighty , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:12 am GMT
Straight from the horse's mouth:

https://m.jpost.com/US-Elections/US-Jews-contribute-half-of-all-donations-to-the-Democratic-party-468774

RobinG , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT
@Willie

So what would you have them do.

RFLMAO. That's EXACTLY the line the PR advisers coached you to say, right?
Good boy, Willie. LOL. There's a great film about Israeli propaganda, FREE online. Watch the Israeli spokesman bleat, "What would you do?"

THE OCCUPATION OF THE AMERICAN MIND
__________________________________
Israel's Public Relations War in the United States

Full length or 20 min. version –
https://www.occupationmovie.org/

RobinG , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:41 am GMT
Netanyahu rival thinks Trump could recognize Golan Heights to swing Israeli election
https://www.axios.com/netanyahu-benny-gantz-trump-golan-heights-israel-election-fce81fd9-7290-4e1d-95fd-8330dac3a921.html

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's main political opponent Benny Gantz, who is heading the "Blue and White" party that leads in the polls, thinks President Trump could recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights in order to help Netanyahu win the April 9 elections, three Gantz aides told me.

Why it matters: Israel has occupied the Golan Heights from Syria since 1967. U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights would be a huge diplomatic win for Netanyahu -- no less significant than the moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. In the last year, Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians, including Gantz's political ally Yair Lapid, have started calling for U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights.

•Gantz's aides told me they think Trump could announce U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights during Netanyahu's visit to the White House two weeks from now. Gantz's aides told me that if Trump does this, it will give Netanyahu a huge achievement to campaign on.

****
Driving the news: Netanyahu discussed the possibility of U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights during a visit to the territory on Monday with Sen. Lindsey Graham. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman attended all of Netanyahu's talks with Graham.
•After the talks, Graham stood next to Netanyahu in front of cameras and said that once he arrives back to Washington, he will help push Sen. Ted Cruz's initiative to pass a bill in the Senate for U.S. recognition in the Golan Heights.

****
The White House refrained from commenting and a State Department official told me there is no change to the U.S. position on the Golan Heights for the moment.

Colin Wright , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:42 am GMT
We could recognize the West Bank as part of Israel -- then demand that Israel give the inhabitants the vote.

You know, they're being a democracy and all.

[Mar 19, 2019] Kushner, Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump (978125018594

Notable quotes:
"... In Kushner, Inc. , investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created, depicting themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency, and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers: they, like him, appear disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics. ..."
"... They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world ..."
"... In Kushner, Inc. , Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple's self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them. ..."
Mar 19, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are the self-styled Prince and Princess of America. Their swift, gilded rise to extraordinary power in Donald Trump's White House is unprecedented and dangerous.

In Kushner, Inc. , investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created, depicting themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency, and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers: they, like him, appear disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics.

They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world, and may threaten the democracy of the United States.

Ward follows their trajectory from New Jersey and New York City to the White House, where the couple's many forays into policy-making and national security have mocked long-standing U.S. policy and protocol. They have pursued an agenda that could increase their wealth while their actions have mostly gone unchecked.

In Kushner, Inc. , Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple's self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them.

Natalie4211 March 19, 2019

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into the most dangerous couple in America.

To paraphrase the author, on the dangerous scale, Jared & Ivanka are #1 & #2 with Donald Trump, as terrible as he is, coming in at #3. Imagine that. While Donald Trump is acting out, getting all of the attention, these two are like sharks below the surface, making policy in the Middle East in order to make the Saudi's happy and being paid personally & handsomely for that policy". It's like Donald Trump is running cover for Jared & Ivanka. The biggest question remains. How much longer is the Republican Party going to allow this kind of nepotism and corruption to continue?

psw March 19, 2019

Pompous know nothing Kushners

Inside the Kushner pompousness. Vicky did a great job showing how dangerous these two ignorant no nothing people are ruining our democracy. A must read.

[Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies

Highly recommended!
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from an article at the excellent Medialens

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060303_hacks_and_spooks.php

HACKS AND SPOOKS

By Professor Richard Keeble

And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...

I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources) on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.

As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:

"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."

Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.

And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.

In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.

As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career".

Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.

A brief history

Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.

Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.

The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.

According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.

And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.

In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives' Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.

And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.

David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody in every office in Fleet Street"

Leaker King

And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".

Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".

Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.

Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.

David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Maxwell and Mossad

According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the 1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.

In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6 were equally as strong.

Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks were fascinating.

For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse during the Cold War."

The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms of first-hand knowledge."

And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.

Lawson strongly denied the allegations.

Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)

Growing power of secret state

Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.

But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.

Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.

According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by the Rockingham cell within the MoD.

A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.

Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.

Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group, the Iraqi National Congress.

Sexed up – and missed out

During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government (in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.

The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition? But those facts will be forever secret.

Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was ignored by the inquiry.

Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.

Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures, especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."

Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.

~

Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.

[Mar 18, 2019] FULL CNN TOWN HALL WITH TULSI GABBARD 3-10-19

Highly recommended!
amazing, simply amazing. You need to watch this Town Hall in full to appreciate the skills she demonstrated in defense of her principles. What a fearless young lady.
And this CNN warmonger, a prostitute of MIC was/is pretty devious. Question were selected with malice to hurt Tulsi and people who ask them were definitely pre-selected with an obvious intent to smear Tulsi. In no way those were spontaneous question. This was a session of Neocon//Neolib inquisition. Tulsi behaves like a modern Joan of Arc
From comments: "People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25"(mrfuzztone)
Notable quotes:
"... Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time ..."
"... WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE ..."
"... I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi. ..."
Mar 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com
lalamimix , 1 week ago

Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time✌️ 😉

FMA Bincarim , 1 week ago

CNN has the nerve to claim that Cloudbootjar Copmala Cory and Creepy Joe are polling higher than her.

softminimal1 , 1 week ago (edited)

WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE.

softminimal1 , 1 week ago

CNN LOVES WARS.

edfou5 , 1 week ago

I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.

mb1968nz , 1 week ago (edited)

Tulsi handled these hacks like a pro LOOL Are you a capitalist? LOL What s stupid question.....CCN usually stacks there town halls with corporate cronies. I bet Bernie picks her for a high position in his government.

mrfuzztone , 1 week ago

People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25.

[Mar 18, 2019] The Why are the media playing lapdog and not watchdog – again – on war in Iraq?

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children. ..."
"... Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War". ..."
"... The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war. ..."
"... the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces. ..."
"... The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening ..."
"... In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing. ..."
"... The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. ..."
"... Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet. ..."
"... But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day. ..."
Oct 10, 2014 | The Guardian
BradBenson, 10 October 2014 6:14pm
The American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't be reported on Fox.

We continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't believe it any more.

There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.

General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children.

Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".

Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction" was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.

The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.

Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again, cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These are the ones that I pity most.

BaronVonAmericano , 10 October 2014 6:26pm
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and will never nationalize the oil.

So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces.

IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm

The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.

In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.

I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.

Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm

The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby, a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.

ID5868758 , 10 October 2014 10:20pm
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet.

Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".

But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day.

[Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies

Highly recommended!
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from an article at the excellent Medialens

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060303_hacks_and_spooks.php

HACKS AND SPOOKS

By Professor Richard Keeble

And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...

I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources) on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.

As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:

"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."

Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.

And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.

In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.

As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career".

Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.

A brief history

Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.

Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.

The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.

According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.

And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.

In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives' Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.

And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.

David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody in every office in Fleet Street"

Leaker King

And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".

Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".

Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.

Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.

David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Maxwell and Mossad

According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the 1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.

In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6 were equally as strong.

Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks were fascinating.

For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse during the Cold War."

The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms of first-hand knowledge."

And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.

Lawson strongly denied the allegations.

Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)

Growing power of secret state

Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.

But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.

Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.

According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by the Rockingham cell within the MoD.

A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.

Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.

Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group, the Iraqi National Congress.

Sexed up – and missed out

During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government (in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.

The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition? But those facts will be forever secret.

Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was ignored by the inquiry.

Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.

Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures, especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."

Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.

~

Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.

[Mar 18, 2019] Vesti calls out Pompeo on lying about Russia invading Ukraine by Seraphim Hanisch

[Video]
Mar 18, 2019 | theduran.com

Vesti calls out Pompeo on lying about Russia invading Ukraine [Video]

Secretary Pompeo displayed either stunning ignorance or a mass-attack of propaganda about what must be the most invisible war in history.

After the 2014 Maidan revolution and the subsequent secessions of Lugansk and Donetsk in Ukraine, and after the rejoining of Crimea with its original nation of Russia, the Western media went on a campaign to prove the Russia is (/ was / was about to / had already / might / was thinking about / was planning to etc.) invade Ukraine. For the next year or so, about every two weeks, internet news sources like Yahoo! News showed viewers pictures of tanks, box trucks and convoys to "prove" that the invasion was underway (or any of the other statuses confirming the possibilities above stated.) This information was doubtless provided to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

Apparently, Secretary Pompeo believed this ruse, or is being paid to believe this ruse because in a speech recently, he talked about it as fact:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Russia's annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine an attempt to gain access to Ukraine's oil and gas reserves. He stated this at IHS Markit's CERAWeek conference in Houston, the USA, Reuters reports.

Pompeo urged the oil industry to work with the Trump administration to promote U.S. foreign policy interests, especially in Asia and in Europe, and to punish what he called "bad actors" on the world stage.

The United States has imposed harsh sanctions in the past several months on two major world oil producers, Venezuela and Iran.

Pompeo said the U.S. oil-and-gas export boom had given the United States the ability to meet energy demand once satisfied by its geopolitical rivals.

"We don't want our European allies hooked on Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2 project, any more than we ourselves want to be dependent on Venezuelan oil supplies," Pompeo said, referring to a natural gas pipeline expansion from Russia to Central Europe .

Pompeo called Russia's invasion of Ukraine an attempt to gain access to the country's oil and gas reserves.

Although the state-run news agency Vesti News often comes under criticism for rather reckless, or at least, extremely sarcastic propaganda at times, here they rightly nailed Mr. Pompeo's lies to the wall and billboarded it on their program:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/b5uF_svBasA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The news anchors even made a wisecrack about one of the political figures, Konstantin Zatulin saying as a joke that Russia plans to invade the United States to get its oil. They further noted that Secretary Pompeo is uneducated about the region and situation, but they offered him the chance to come to Russia and learn the correct information about what is going on.

To wit, Russia has not invaded Ukraine at all. There is no evidence to support such a claim, while there IS evidence to show that the West is actively interfering with Russia through the use of Ukraine as a proxy . While this runs counter to the American narrative, it is simply the truth. Ukraine appears to be the victim of its own ambitions at this point, for while the US tantalizes the leadership of the country and even interferes with the Orthodox Church in the region, the country lurches towards a presidential election with three very poor candidates, most notably the one who is president there now, Petro Poroshenko.

However, the oil and gas side of the anti-Russian propaganda operation by the US is significant. The US wishes for Europe to buy gas from American suppliers, even though this is woefully inconvenient and expensive when Russia is literally at Europe's doorstep with easy supplies. However, the Cold War Party in the United States, which still has a significant hold on US policy making categorizes the sale of Russia gas to powers like NATO ally Germany as a "threat" to European security.

It is interesting that Angela Merkel herself does not hold this line of thinking. It is also interesting and worthy of note, that this is not the only NATO member that is dealing more and more with Russia in terms of business. It underscores the loss of purpose that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization suffers now since there is no Soviet Union to fight.

However, the US remains undaunted. If there is no enemy to fight, the Americans feel that they must create one, and Russia has been the main scapegoat for American power ambitions. More than ever now, this tactic appears to be the one in use for determining the US stance towards other powers in the world.

Liked it? Take a second to support The Duran on Patreon! Continue Reading

[Mar 18, 2019] Something about MadCow or this hilarious video which wasn't meant to be funny

Reminder why should never listen to MadCow show ;-). And BTW MadCow is paid 30K a day... You decide whether she is lazy and incompetent, or bought and evil...
Dec 09, 2016 | www.unz.com

Before the election, Rachel Maddow pointed out new polling that showed a strong shift towards Democrats in key "toss up" states, all states Trump won. Jimmy Dore breaks it down. Subscribe...

[Mar 18, 2019] Vesti calls out Pompeo on lying about Russia invading Ukraine by Seraphim Hanisch

[Video]
Mar 18, 2019 | theduran.com

Vesti calls out Pompeo on lying about Russia invading Ukraine [Video]

Secretary Pompeo displayed either stunning ignorance or a mass-attack of propaganda about what must be the most invisible war in history.

After the 2014 Maidan revolution and the subsequent secessions of Lugansk and Donetsk in Ukraine, and after the rejoining of Crimea with its original nation of Russia, the Western media went on a campaign to prove the Russia is (/ was / was about to / had already / might / was thinking about / was planning to etc.) invade Ukraine. For the next year or so, about every two weeks, internet news sources like Yahoo! News showed viewers pictures of tanks, box trucks and convoys to "prove" that the invasion was underway (or any of the other statuses confirming the possibilities above stated.) This information was doubtless provided to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

Apparently, Secretary Pompeo believed this ruse, or is being paid to believe this ruse because in a speech recently, he talked about it as fact:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Russia's annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine an attempt to gain access to Ukraine's oil and gas reserves. He stated this at IHS Markit's CERAWeek conference in Houston, the USA, Reuters reports.

Pompeo urged the oil industry to work with the Trump administration to promote U.S. foreign policy interests, especially in Asia and in Europe, and to punish what he called "bad actors" on the world stage.

The United States has imposed harsh sanctions in the past several months on two major world oil producers, Venezuela and Iran.

Pompeo said the U.S. oil-and-gas export boom had given the United States the ability to meet energy demand once satisfied by its geopolitical rivals.

"We don't want our European allies hooked on Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2 project, any more than we ourselves want to be dependent on Venezuelan oil supplies," Pompeo said, referring to a natural gas pipeline expansion from Russia to Central Europe .

Pompeo called Russia's invasion of Ukraine an attempt to gain access to the country's oil and gas reserves.

Although the state-run news agency Vesti News often comes under criticism for rather reckless, or at least, extremely sarcastic propaganda at times, here they rightly nailed Mr. Pompeo's lies to the wall and billboarded it on their program:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/b5uF_svBasA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The news anchors even made a wisecrack about one of the political figures, Konstantin Zatulin saying as a joke that Russia plans to invade the United States to get its oil. They further noted that Secretary Pompeo is uneducated about the region and situation, but they offered him the chance to come to Russia and learn the correct information about what is going on.

To wit, Russia has not invaded Ukraine at all. There is no evidence to support such a claim, while there IS evidence to show that the West is actively interfering with Russia through the use of Ukraine as a proxy . While this runs counter to the American narrative, it is simply the truth. Ukraine appears to be the victim of its own ambitions at this point, for while the US tantalizes the leadership of the country and even interferes with the Orthodox Church in the region, the country lurches towards a presidential election with three very poor candidates, most notably the one who is president there now, Petro Poroshenko.

However, the oil and gas side of the anti-Russian propaganda operation by the US is significant. The US wishes for Europe to buy gas from American suppliers, even though this is woefully inconvenient and expensive when Russia is literally at Europe's doorstep with easy supplies. However, the Cold War Party in the United States, which still has a significant hold on US policy making categorizes the sale of Russia gas to powers like NATO ally Germany as a "threat" to European security.

It is interesting that Angela Merkel herself does not hold this line of thinking. It is also interesting and worthy of note, that this is not the only NATO member that is dealing more and more with Russia in terms of business. It underscores the loss of purpose that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization suffers now since there is no Soviet Union to fight.

However, the US remains undaunted. If there is no enemy to fight, the Americans feel that they must create one, and Russia has been the main scapegoat for American power ambitions. More than ever now, this tactic appears to be the one in use for determining the US stance towards other powers in the world.

Liked it? Take a second to support The Duran on Patreon! Continue Reading

[Mar 18, 2019] FULL CNN TOWN HALL WITH TULSI GABBARD 3-10-19

Highly recommended!
amazing, simply amazing. You need to watch this Town Hall in full to appreciate the skills she demonstrated in defense of her principles. What a fearless young lady.
And this CNN warmonger, a prostitute of MIC was/is pretty devious. Question were selected with malice to hurt Tulsi and people who ask them were definitely pre-selected with an obvious intent to smear Tulsi. In no way those were spontaneous question. This was a session of Neocon//Neolib inquisition. Tulsi behaves like a modern Joan of Arc
From comments: "People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25"(mrfuzztone)
Notable quotes:
"... Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time ..."
"... WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE ..."
"... I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi. ..."
Mar 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com
lalamimix , 1 week ago

Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time✌️ 😉

FMA Bincarim , 1 week ago

CNN has the nerve to claim that Cloudbootjar Copmala Cory and Creepy Joe are polling higher than her.

softminimal1 , 1 week ago (edited)

WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE.

softminimal1 , 1 week ago

CNN LOVES WARS.

edfou5 , 1 week ago

I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.

mb1968nz , 1 week ago (edited)

Tulsi handled these hacks like a pro LOOL Are you a capitalist? LOL What s stupid question.....CCN usually stacks there town halls with corporate cronies. I bet Bernie picks her for a high position in his government.

mrfuzztone , 1 week ago

People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25.

[Mar 18, 2019] Tulsi Smashes CNN's Pro War Horribleness

CNN is just mouthpiece for intelligence community and MIC
The question of a type "did you finished to beat your wife" are very difficult to ask. So how skillfully Tulsi handled those "sinking" question comment her skills.
Mar 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Become a Patron/Premium Member: https://www.patreon.com/jimmydore & http://bit.ly/JDPremium Schedule of Live Shows: http://bit.ly/2gRqoyL

PeterMX , says: March 16, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT

The problem with Jimmy Dore is he has some kind of mental block or is somehow completely unaware of the reasons we bomb countries that are hostile to Israel and located right on their border or at least near them. You also have to be completely unaware of the power of the Jewish lobbies and their obvious bias towards their own interests to ignore Jews role in promoting wars that benefit Israel. It's not the "military industrial complex" Jimmy, it's who controls that complex. Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN is a Jew, that like Jake Tapper (also a Jew) sees any destruction of Syria as beneficial to Israel. The neo-Con Max Boot was born in Russia and still wants to bomb Russia because he's a Jew that doesn't want Putin preventing Jewish controlled US from destroying Syria. I can level some similar criticism at Jimmy that he levels at the mainstream media.

[Mar 18, 2019] The WSJ's Despicable Defense of the War on Yemen by Daniel Larison

Mar 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Rubble aftermath of a Saudi airstrike on a Yemeni neighborhood in 2015. Almigdad Mojalli/Voice of America The Wall Street Journal echoes Pompeo's obnoxious Yemen lies in their editorial on the antiwar resolution that the Senate passed last week:

The Saudis aren't in danger of an Iranian invasion, but don't underestimate the signal that abandoning our ally would send across the Middle East. It will be seen by Iran and Russia as an invitation to more trouble-making, and another signal to allies that the U.S. can't be trusted. More war is the likeliest result.

There is no foreign war so despicable and unjust that The Wall Street Journal won't defend it to the end. It is telling that the WSJ editors don't talk about the war on Yemen until Congress moves to try to withdraw the U.S. from it. The massive humanitarian crisis that threatens the lives of as many as 15 million Yemenis doesn't concern them (and it never comes up in this editorial), because if they mentioned it that would remind everyone that the Saudi coalition bears the greatest responsibility for causing mass starvation and creating the conditions for the world's worst modern cholera outbreak. The U.S. has not only been enabling Saudi war crimes in its bombing campaign, but our government has also been helping to create the world's worst humanitarian crisis through our unstinting support for the war. The editorial omits all of this because including it would show how breathtakingly cynical and horrible the pro-war argument is. War supporters never acknowledge the consequences of the destructive policies they defend because they know it would discredit them, and so they try to change the subject to anything else. In this case, war supporters have been desperate to make the Yemen debate about Iran because they cannot honestly talk about the costs of the conflict or the U.S. role in it.

Saudi Arabia is not an ally of the United States, and our government isn't obliged to support them in a military intervention they chose to begin along with the United Arab Emirates without consulting Washington. The U.S. certainly isn't obliged to indulge them in their failed war of choice almost four years later. The war has become a drain on Saudi and Emirati resources, and it has exposed them as weak, cruel, and incompetent as they have devastated Yemen's infrastructure, starved its people, and failed achieved any of their stated goals. No one should care about doing these despotic governments any favors, but forcing them to end their war would be doing them a favor all the same. If the U.S. were perceived as abandoning the Saudis by halting support for their war, that would be guaranteed to improve our country's reputation around the world rather than harm it. The U.S.-Saudi relationship is a liability and an embarrassment for our country, and the sooner we are rid of it in its current form the better it will be for us and the region.

Supporters of the war on Yemen have no rational argument for continued U.S. involvement, and so they are reduced to changing the subject from the war criminal states that the U.S. aids and abets to the Iranian government that has almost nothing to do with the conflict. Ending U.S. support for the war would be a "gift" to Iran, the WSJ editors tell us, as if four years of keeping the Saudis and Emiratis bogged down in a war they cannot win has done anything to harm Iran or curtail its influence in the region. The lie at the heart of the war on Yemen is that it has something to do with opposing so-called Iranian "expansionism," but it is the war itself that has done more for Iranian influence in Yemen than anything else. The longer that the U.S. enables the Saudi coalition to continue its senseless and indefensible campaign, the better it is for the Saudis' and Emiratis' rivals. Iran hawks are always wrong about what benefits Iran's government and what harms it, and this is no exception.

The editorial's comparison between last week's vote and Congressional opposition to continued involvement in the Vietnam War is unintentionally revealing and damning for their side. Just like supporters of the Vietnam War, supporters of the war on Yemen are defending a war that can't be won in a place where the U.S. should never have been involved. In this case, war supporters are squarely on the side of the aggressors, and in their continued backing for this disgraceful policy they show their utter contempt for the lives of the people of Yemen.

[Mar 18, 2019] The U.S. Shouldn t Seek New Ideological Confrontations Abroad by Daniel Larison

This MIC prostitute Karan, like his wife Nuland are un-reformable. They just earn their living ing by warmongering. And they will screem like pigs if they are deprived from those money, and do not care one bit how many people will be killed as the result of their policies.
There is no war that those neocon chickenhawks do not like. It's their family racket.
Notable quotes:
"... Kagan's preferred foreign policy requires that there is some global "ideological confrontation" for the U.S. to be engaged in. If there isn't one, it has to be invented. ..."
"... Kagan isn't all that interested in details or accuracy. Those are "beside the point." ..."
"... Kagan doesn't make it explicit in this essay, but his larger goal in all of this is to advocate for a more confrontational foreign policy mobilized against the authoritarian enemies that he has described. He hints at this when he disparages contemporary "realists" ..."
"... realists, non-interventionists, and progressives that see no compelling reason for the U.S. to engage in destructive rivalries with major authoritarian powers in their own backyards. Except for a lame, overused comparison to the 1930s, Kagan doesn't even try to explain why we are wrong to think this. Kagan assumes that such destructive rivalries are both necessary and desirable, and this essay is the latest part of his effort to lay the groundwork for the ideological justification for those rivalries. ..."
"... A recent WSJ article (03/11/19) titled "Russian Gas Plan Divides U.S., Allies" with the subtitle "Washington fears undersea project would make Germany too reliant on Moscow" tells the tale of what the real reasons for America to demonize Russia and Putin. The U.S. leaders fear that the German-Russian pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, will make Europe reliant on Russian energy instead of Europe purchasing it energy from the United States. What gives the U.S. the right to stop one nation from doing commerce with other nations? The answer is "Greed." ..."
"... Kagan is and will until the bitter end defend American hegemony and the ideological mantle will be used as a cover ..."
"... People also forget that US is not a democracy, but a managed Republic, and according to all indicators, it is not even that liberal ..."
"... The fallout from the actions of these "interventionists" is millions are dead in a number of countries. Millions are refugees and thousands of soldiers are dead or maimed. More facts on these war criminals at link below. https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html ..."
"... This Kagan family, with Robert now the lead figure, has done a great deal towards furthering conflicts and violence in the world. It is long past time that they be put in their place, whatever that is, but it will not happen because their Zionist mindset is very well funded. ..."
"... "The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed. We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher." We ought to do more than that. He should be muzzled and sent to live in a cave somewhere to repent the consequences of the terrible damage he and other incompetents have done to America. That people like this still have access to the media is almost beyond belief. ..."
Mar 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Brookings Senior Fellow and author Robert Kagan in March 2018. (Brookings Institution/Paul Morigi) Robert Kagan warns us about global authoritarianism:

Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days, the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism. We are not used to thinking of authoritarianism as a distinct worldview that offers a real alternative to liberalism.

We are not used to thinking of authoritarianism as a distinct worldview because it isn't one. All authoritarian states share certain things in common, and they may see some of the same things as threats, but there isn't a single worldview that all authoritarian governments subscribe to. There is no one ideology that binds them together. Most of them are nationalistic to one degree or another, but because of that they usually have competing and opposing goals. Treating all authoritarian regimes as part of the same global threat lumps illiberal and majoritarian democracies together with kleptocracies, communist dictatorships, and absolute monarchies. That exaggerates the danger that these regimes pose, and it tries to invent a Cold War-like division between rival camps that doesn't really exist. If the U.S. treats these states as if they are all in league with one another, it will tend to drive together states that would otherwise remain at odds and keep each other at arm's length.

Kagan's preferred foreign policy requires that there is some global "ideological confrontation" for the U.S. to be engaged in. If there isn't one, it has to be invented. His account of the history of the 20th century shows how determined he is to see international politics in terms of grand ideological battles even when there wasn't one. He takes seriously the idea that WWI is one of these struggles: "But for those who fought it, on both sides, it was very much a war between liberalism and authoritarianism." Kagan makes the mistake of treating wartime propaganda descriptions of the war as the real motivation for the war, and he relies on stereotypes of the nations on the other side of the war as well. The world's largest colonial empires were not fighting for "the liberties of Europe" and they certainly weren't fighting for the rights of small nations, as wartime British propaganda would have it, and that became abundantly clear in the post-war settlement. It was primarily a war among empires for supremacy in Europe, and the surviving Allied empires consolidated their hold on their own colonial possessions and gained more. To the extent that Americans genuinely believed that joining the war had something to do with vindicating the cause of democracy, they were quickly disabused of that notion when they saw the fruits of the vindictive settlement that their allies imposed on the losing side.

Kagan admits that there are many differences of regime type that he is trying to collapse into one group:

We have become lost in endless categorizations, viewing each type of non-liberal government as unique and unrelated to the others -- the illiberal democracy, the "liberal" or "liberalizing" autocracy, the "competitive" and "hybrid" authoritarianism. These different categories certainly describe the myriad ways non-liberal societies may be governed. But in the most fundamental way, all of this is beside the point.

In other words, Kagan isn't all that interested in details or accuracy. Those are "beside the point." What matters is dividing up the world into two opposing camps: "Nations are either liberal, meaning that there are permanent institutions and unchanging norms that protect the "unalienable" rights of individuals against all who would infringe on those rights, whether the state or the majority; or they are not liberal." The criteria for qualifying as a liberal nation are extremely demanding. What institutions can honestly be called "permanent" and what norms are ever truly "unchanging"? Judged against this extreme and unreasonable standard, there won't ever be many nations that qualify as liberal, including quite a few that we would normally consider liberal democracies in good standing. That makes it a lot easier for Kagan to exaggerate the power of "resurgent authoritarianism."

Kagan doesn't make it explicit in this essay, but his larger goal in all of this is to advocate for a more confrontational foreign policy mobilized against the authoritarian enemies that he has described. He hints at this when he disparages contemporary "realists" whom he doesn't name or cite:

Just as during the 1930s, when realists such as Robert Taft assured Americans that their lives would be undisturbed by the collapse of democracy in Europe and the triumph of authoritarianism in Asia, so we have realists today insisting that we pull back from confronting the great authoritarian powers rising in Eurasia.

To be much more accurate, there are realists, non-interventionists, and progressives that see no compelling reason for the U.S. to engage in destructive rivalries with major authoritarian powers in their own backyards. Except for a lame, overused comparison to the 1930s, Kagan doesn't even try to explain why we are wrong to think this. Kagan assumes that such destructive rivalries are both necessary and desirable, and this essay is the latest part of his effort to lay the groundwork for the ideological justification for those rivalries.

Kagan's analysis suffers from the problem of mirror-imaging that always plagues ideologues. He assumes that everyone sees the world in starkly ideological categories just as he does, and he thinks that other actors are just as determined to export their ideology as he is. His entire worldview depends on linking great power competition with larger ideological causes, and for almost thirty years there has been no such "ideological confrontation" for Kagan to theorize about. Despite Kagan's insistence to the contrary, there still isn't. He wants the U.S. to take a more confrontational approach to dealing with Russia and China, and in order to sell that today he has to dress it up as something more than the destructive and costly pursuit of hegemony that he has been pushing for decades. The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed. We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher.


Minnesota Mary March 17, 2019 at 1:56 pm

A recent WSJ article (03/11/19) titled "Russian Gas Plan Divides U.S., Allies" with the subtitle "Washington fears undersea project would make Germany too reliant on Moscow" tells the tale of what the real reasons for America to demonize Russia and Putin. The U.S. leaders fear that the German-Russian pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, will make Europe reliant on Russian energy instead of Europe purchasing it energy from the United States. What gives the U.S. the right to stop one nation from doing commerce with other nations? The answer is "Greed."

All wars are predicated on lies, and all wars are fought for economic reasons and not the so called humanitarian reasons that are fed to the people.

Kouros , says: March 17, 2019 at 3:41 pm
Always insightful indeed: Kagan is and will until the bitter end defend American hegemony and the ideological mantle will be used as a cover (Mel Gibson screaming "Freedom!" in Bravehart; killing the babies and stealing the incubators!).

People also forget that US is not a democracy, but a managed Republic, and according to all indicators, it is not even that liberal

So better save this post because you are still young and in 30 years from now you will be able to re-post it and just change a couple of names

JR , says: March 17, 2019 at 3:57 pm
Ironically he seems in the same (lack of) weight class (intellectually) as Pompeo.
Stephen J. , says: March 17, 2019 at 5:22 pm
You write:

"The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed."

--

Right on the mark. The fallout from the actions of these "interventionists" is millions are dead in a number of countries. Millions are refugees and thousands of soldiers are dead or maimed. More facts on these war criminals at link below.
https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html

Taras 77 , says: March 17, 2019 at 7:15 pm
Thanks much for this, Mr Larison.

Anytime, anywhere, anyone comes out and destroys kagan's Zionist globalist babble as you have done, it is a very commendable exercise for the good of mankind and America.

This Kagan family, with Robert now the lead figure, has done a great deal towards furthering conflicts and violence in the world. It is long past time that they be put in their place, whatever that is, but it will not happen because their Zionist mindset is very well funded.

Your article does a public service.

prolegomenon to any future foreign policy , says: March 18, 2019 at 2:27 am
"The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed. We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher."

We ought to do more than that. He should be muzzled and sent to live in a cave somewhere to repent the consequences of the terrible damage he and other incompetents have done to America. That people like this still have access to the media is almost beyond belief.

[Mar 18, 2019] Something about MadCow or this hilarious video which wasn't meant to be funny

Reminder why should never listen to MadCow show ;-). And BTW MadCow is paid 30K a day... You decide whether she is lazy and incompetent, or bought and evil...
Dec 09, 2016 | www.unz.com

Before the election, Rachel Maddow pointed out new polling that showed a strong shift towards Democrats in key "toss up" states, all states Trump won. Jimmy Dore breaks it down. Subscribe...

[Mar 18, 2019] The Why are the media playing lapdog and not watchdog – again – on war in Iraq?

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children. ..."
"... Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War". ..."
"... The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war. ..."
"... the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces. ..."
"... The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening ..."
"... In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing. ..."
"... The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. ..."
"... Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet. ..."
"... But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day. ..."
Oct 10, 2014 | The Guardian
BradBenson, 10 October 2014 6:14pm
The American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't be reported on Fox.

We continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't believe it any more.

There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.

General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children.

Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".

Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction" was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.

The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.

Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again, cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These are the ones that I pity most.

BaronVonAmericano , 10 October 2014 6:26pm
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and will never nationalize the oil.

So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces.

IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm

The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.

In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.

I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.

Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm

The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby, a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.

ID5868758 , 10 October 2014 10:20pm
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet.

Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".

But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day.

[Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians. ..."
"... Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation. ..."
"... What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? ..."
"... Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. ..."
"... We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks. ..."
"... This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune. ..."
"... Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020. ..."
"... Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c ..."
"... Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. ..."
"... Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. ..."
"... Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm ..."
"... It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray! ..."
"... Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished. ..."
Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

O Society , March 16, 2019 at 7:55 am

The Truth is Out There. I Want to Believe!

Same old scams, different packaging. That's New & Improved for you.

http://opensociet.org/2019/03/16/the-return-of-the-hidden-persuaders

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:35 pm

I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have watched the news daily about Mueller's Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.

For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!

The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA. Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER'S SINGING CANARYS! Mueller should be jailed.

Bogdan Miller , March 15, 2019 at 11:04 am

This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing, we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an effort to harm President Trump.

It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians.

B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector

vinnieoh , March 15, 2019 at 8:17 am

Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these days to US governance?) to "urge" the new AG to release the complete Mueller report.

A non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can't see the diesel locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And taxation without representation takes a new twist.

... ... ...

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:38 pm

What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE Party which Represents DEEP STATE".

DWS , March 15, 2019 at 5:58 am

Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation.

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:47 pm

EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA' plan to continue to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their Criminal Governments tell them.

Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!

KiwiAntz , March 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm

What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse?

If you can't get him out via a Election, try & try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts absolutely?

Brian Murphy , March 15, 2019 at 10:33 am

Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation.

If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely sold out. If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some vestige of his balls.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm

By last June or July the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did not support the Clinton wing's anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to "find something." presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.

mike k , March 14, 2019 at 12:57 pm

From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump's electoral victory, it was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump's election. My sincere hope is that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party's neck, that will carry them down into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:26 pm

Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we'll go through this all over again.

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:00 pm

The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.

LJ , March 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm

Agreed!!!! and don't forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head's up before they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words 'gross negligence' had a occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the FBI's investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a barf bag.

Jane Christ , March 14, 2019 at 6:51 pm

Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 10:50 am

Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at "so as not to divide the American people." Dividing the people hasn't been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the collusion theory, Pelosi would I'm sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like Pence as opposition for 2020.

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:17 am

We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks.

We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:18 pm

Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange's long-standing position is NOT to reveal his sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.

Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:15 am

It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth's murder. In one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn't take much of a logical leap to connect A to B.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:30 pm

Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class, for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn't made it go away.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:24 pm

Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi's recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms this and the split you're talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is discouraging impeachment on "dividing the Party" (already divided, of course, as you say), whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent ordinary people's interests.

Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:21 am

She said "dividing the country", not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump's heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right "conclusions" by Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a "bombshell" conclusion by Mueller. One must never forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a "mistake" to be controlled or eliminated.

Cindy Haddix , March 14, 2019 at 8:04 am

Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It's so disgusting that his democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!

torture this , March 14, 2019 at 7:29 am

According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow's show. I can't wait to read how she responds. I'd watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect on me as ipecac.

Zhu , March 14, 2019 at 3:37 am

People will cling to "Putin made Trump President!!!" much as many cling "Obama's a Kenyan Muslim! Not a real American!!!". Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what the historical facts are. Many Americans just can't admit their mistakes and blaming a scapegoat is a way out.

O Society , March 14, 2019 at 2:03 am

Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of intelligence and computer forensics.

This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune.

It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic journalists at every turn.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm

But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts their claims.

O Society , March 15, 2019 at 3:50 pm

Oh, we're well beyond your "Blame the middle class Dems" stage.

The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine's sprung a leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red quite like the Three Little Pigs, isn't it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what we've got here is a purple puddle of piss.

Everyone's more than glad to project all our problems on "THEM" though, aren't we?

Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.

T'would be comic except what's so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe, oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear, there's an app for that or is it a pill?

I don't know, don't ask me, I'm busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.

https://opensociet.org/2018/12/18/the-disneyfication-of-america/

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 6:45 pm

Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the transmission speeds.

Minor corrections: "The emails were copied from the network" should be "from the much faster local network" because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the internet network, which most readers will equate with "network." Also "reportedin" should be "reported in."

Michael , March 13, 2019 at 6:25 pm

It is likely that New Knowledge was actually "the Russians", possibly working in concert with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/ determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not sure of their punishment?). Occam's razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent to mimic/ pretend to be "Russians" after the fact of wikileaks' publication of emails. New Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?) Hillary, and were the "outside" agency hired to evaluate and report on the "Russian" hacking of the DNC emails/ servers.

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:48 pm

Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150 indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political) crimes. This wasn't kept secret. It simply wasn't what Democrats wanted to hear, so although it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.

Billy , March 13, 2019 at 11:11 pm

Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.

Realist , March 14, 2019 at 3:22 am

You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh Those Catholics, Jews, "ethnics" and sundry "deviants" used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the "undeveloped" world. As Clapper "authoritatively" says, only this vile lineage still carries the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary's glorious plans for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren't so funny.

And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some "free stuff" the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods for the American public! So there!

As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They've proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller won't read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats won't care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.

Joe Tedesky , March 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm

Realist,

I have posted this article 'the Russia they Lost' before and from time to time but once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you've been saying. It's an article written by a Russian who in they're youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But . Starting with Kosovo this Russian's youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the plan anyway.

https://slavyangrad.org/2014/09/24/the-russia-they-lost/

Realist , March 15, 2019 at 10:38 pm

right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose. that's not being a leader, it's being a dick.

i'm gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with my right hand clears up–it's like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry on, sir.

Brian James , March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm

Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm

Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.

Howard , March 13, 2019 at 4:36 pm

Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for "shining light into dark places", you are national resources for objectivity in critical survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS' MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued leadership!

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:28 am

Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, "falling down stairs" within a week of FOX news exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 6:03 pm

Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the "Russian collusion" allegations -- the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of convictions to date -- none of which had anything to do with the election results.

Hank , March 13, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton's sordid history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or investigations don't. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED information. That's a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled media!

I know this won't ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you more-than-likely can be considered an "island in a sea of ignorance".

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm

We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to handle the evidence. Wasnt it a crime scene? The evidence was tampered with And we will never know what was on the servers.

Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm

As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:

The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th – after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.

And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was Seth Rich. This could explain Rich's subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.

https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/muellers-new-indictment-do-the-feds-take-us-for-idiots-5406ef955406

https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/how-did-crowdstrike-guccifer-2-0-know-that-wikileaks-was-planning-to-release-dnc-emails-42e6db334053

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:06 pm

Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was, as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich. Perhaps he doesn't know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows that it was not Rich.

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:40 am

View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.

Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich's murders capture.

Abby , March 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm

Another mistaken issue with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump's command" is that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, "Russia if you 'find' Hillary's missing emails let us know." He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn't be turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that they were personal.

But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI office because they are on Weiner's laptop. Why? Because Hillary's aid Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days before the election. If Comey hadn't done that then the FBI would have.

But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama's decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server. This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in for her to get off.

robert e williamson jr , March 13, 2019 at 3:26 pm

I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things "ONE WAY". They are the facilitators for the rogue government known as the "DEEP STATE"!

Just ask billy barr.

More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community because of blackmail. They can't come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.

Apparently the rule of law is not!

You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a dogdamned side and stand for something,.

Thank You VIPS!

Joe Tedesky , March 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm

Hats off to the VIP's who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn't a hacking for without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller's never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that's even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.

Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn't conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort's case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn't it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn't charged with concluding with any Russians in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.

I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel Maddow's tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It's all a game and yet there are many of us who just don't wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that gets ignored keep up the good work VIP's some of us are listening.

Andrew Thomas , March 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm

The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray "lacks credibility ", or some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so ludicrous I can't even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.

Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm

Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm

Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:18 pm

A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source, but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.

And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a complete sham.

Ian Brown , March 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm

It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!

LJ , March 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm

A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, """ former FBI head """ to examine and validate if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report, It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go?

After Bill and Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well, Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough.

Mueller looks just like what he is. He has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting themselves. This has already gone on way too long.

Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 11:59 am

Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians.

Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump, which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?

So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.

Jack , March 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm

You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would Mueller have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a divisive idiot.

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm

Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished.

Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 2:12 pm

@Jack,
Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there's nothing of substance to one of the most potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me divisive? Mueller's now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and disinformation campaign. It's all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and feed half-truths to the people.

You're failing Jack, in more ways than you know.

Gregory Herr , March 13, 2019 at 9:13 pm

https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/liberals-are-digging-their-own-grave-with-russiagate-2019-03-08

Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Realist , March 15, 2019 at 3:38 am

Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats, have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president. This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to violate Trump's confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct. The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though, even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:30 pm

Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on America and tortured some folks.

George Collins , March 13, 2019 at 2:02 pm

QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang wasn't there litigation involving the Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.

I'd say it's game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.

Kiers , March 13, 2019 at 11:47 am

How can we expect the DNC to "hand it " to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the "principled" two party system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am

"We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions."

I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi's recent statement regarding pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy's statement was just a feint before throwing the knockout punch.

If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the perfidy that the so-called "Intelligence" Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily, I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of venues like CN.

I pray to God I'm wrong.

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:32 pm

My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98% of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone, deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond any real evidence.

Eric32 , March 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm

As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above you.

The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA, FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil service careers.

Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little idea of where to go from there.

Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 11:09 am

I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to establish truth in reporting

Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 10:41 am

Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don't expect this to make a difference. The US has moved into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove's declaration: "we're an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality." What Mr. Rove in his arrogance fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else's. Thus Pompous can claim that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he's never been elected .

Gary Weglarz , March 13, 2019 at 10:21 am

Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and utters anymore of the "but, RUSSIA" nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values the truth.

Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD's, Gaddafi's viagra fueled rape camps, Assad can't sleep at night unless he's gassing his own people, to the latest, "Maduro can't sleep at night unless he's starving his own people."

The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with "Russiagate," which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.

Marc , March 13, 2019 at 10:13 am

I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive? And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive? That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was under the control of some faraway agent?

Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 11:12 am

Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX). The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it's writing to a storage device using FAT, it'll round the numbers. To get to your real question, yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates wouldn't line up.

Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 8:05 am

Jeff-

Which dates wouldn't line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata for the most recent move?

David G , March 13, 2019 at 12:22 pm

Marc asks: "[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks?"

I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that question elsewhere.

To my knowledge, it hasn't been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:07 pm

I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up everything. If there had been a hack, they'd know it, and they wouldn't only have had "moderate" confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig Murray.

David G , March 13, 2019 at 3:31 pm

Respectfully, that's a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.

But I think the question Marc posed stands.

Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 7:59 am

Hi David-

I don't see how it's separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they'd have solid evidence of the hack, and wouldn't have only had "moderate" confidence, which Bill Binney says is equivalent to them saying "we don't have squat". They wouldn't even have needed Mueller at all, except to possibly build a "parallel case" due to classification issues. Also, the FBI not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.

As for the technical aspect of Marc's question, I agree that I'd like to see Bill Binney directly answer it.

[Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

Highly recommended!
Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

The final Mueller report should be graded "incomplete," says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

Executive Summary

Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump. If Mueller gives you his "completed" report anytime soon, it should be graded "incomplete."

Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We stand ready to help.

We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story, we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.

There is an overabundance of "assessments" but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions. We know only too well -- and did our best to expose -- how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

We have scrutinized publicly available physical data -- the "trail" that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media -- an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.

This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below -- as a kind of aide-memoire -- a discussion of some of the key factors related to what has become known as "Russia-gate." And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data associated with WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails.

We do not claim our conclusions are "irrefutable and undeniable," a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments, however, are based on the scientific method -- not "assessments." We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring that you hear that directly from us.

If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work -- or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.

In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "to ensure a full and thorough investigation," when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again, we are at your disposal.

Discussion

The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin "interference" in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light, rump report misleadingly labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)." Prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only three of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed "high confidence" in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their "assessment."

The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type caveats included in the assessment itself -- such as:

" When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong."

To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution." They noted: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber operation -- malicious or not -- leaves a trail." [Emphasis added.]

Forensics

The imperative is to get on that "trail" -- and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to "sources and methods" is normally not a problem.

Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement -- the more so when an intrusion is termed "an act of war" and blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, "best practices" dictate direct access.

In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had "access to the actual hardware that was hacked." Comey answered, "In the case of the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. " Sen. Burr followed up: "But no content? Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" Comey: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."

The "private party/high-class entity" to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.

Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension between Russia and the U.S. -- it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic "trail" to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens that conclusion.

We Do Forensics

Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive, before WikiLeaks posted them.

FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.

Why is that important? The evidence lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the DNC files on WikiLeaks' site ends in an even number.

We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the World Wide Web.

This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks -- not electronically via a hack.

Role of NSA

For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so. We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA's dragnet, collect-it-all approach -- including "cast-iron" coverage of WikiLeaks -- to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to "assessments") as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.

Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show the routes that trace the packets.)

The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI's curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a "high-class entity."

Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the "Intelligence Community Assessment," which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, "The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to how 'the DNC emails that were leaked' got to WikiLeaks.

Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?

There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS' two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.

There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: "We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication." On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement, claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."

Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a "hack" of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS reported in a wrap-up Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled "Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence)," forensic examination of the July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish from the DNC, by "showing" it came from a "Russian hack." WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three days before the Democratic convention.

As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S. This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.

Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained -- from a data center in New Jersey to a data center in the UK -- was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb drive.

The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5, 2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.

Presidential Interest

After VIPS' July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo's office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: "You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you."

Binney warned Pompeo -- to stares of incredulity -- that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump's attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA. Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.

Confronting James Clapper on Forensics

We, the hoi polloi, do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo -- and still less to the former intelligence chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during the Q&A about Russian "hacking" and NSA, Clapper said:

" Well, I have talked with NSA a lot And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever." [Emphasis added]

Clapper added: " as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn't have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election."

(A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found here and a commentary on Clapper's performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is here .)

Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens. In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: "James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance. To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand."

The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12, 2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that Russia's history shows that Russians are "typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."

Clapper ought to be asked about the "forensics" he said were "overwhelming about what the Russians had done." And that, too, before Mueller completes his investigation.

For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington's justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

image_pdf image_print 9280

Tags: Bill Binney Donald Trump Hillary Clinton James Clapper James Comey Mike Pompeo Robert Mueller Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity VIPS WikiLeaks


[Mar 17, 2019] Epstein, Clinton and Trump are all connected to Lolita Express scandal

Notable quotes:
"... Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results. ..."
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. ..."
"... The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI . ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again . The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Judge Rules Plea Deal For Orgy Island Billionaire Broke Federal Law

youshallnotkill, 1 hour ago link

Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.

While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.

"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the comment curious.

"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.

SOURCE: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20170512/will-president-trump-be-used-as-witness-in-sex-offender-epstein-case

Justin Case, 1 hour ago link

Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance.

zeezrom2point0, 2 hours ago link

Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no, that was probably Bill.

TeraByte, 2 hours ago link

Manford´s life time vs a slap on the wrist. I does not matter, what you do, but whom you know.

loop, 2 hours ago link

"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images

DFGTC , 2 hours ago link

Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat.

And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail?

William Dorritt , 2 hours ago link

Billionaire Palm Beach serial sex offender allowed to serve time in luxurious milieu | Fred Grimm

... ... ...

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-col-fred-grimm-jeffrey-epste ...

2 of 2 2/7/2019, 10:41 AM

4 wheel drift , 3 hours ago link

The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI .

LOLOLOL.... THAT explains a lot... ******* criminals the entire lot of them

Baron Samedi , 3 hours ago link

I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.'

I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition country - ASAP.

Reaper , 3 hours ago link

The DOJ can prosecute now for the conspiracy of prosecutors and Epstein: https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us

dirty fingernails , 3 hours ago link

Don't hold your breath.

William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/
As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/01/1389654/-Dennis-Hastert-as-the-Tip-of-the-Iceberg

[Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians. ..."
"... Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation. ..."
"... What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? ..."
"... Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. ..."
"... We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks. ..."
"... This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune. ..."
"... Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020. ..."
"... Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c ..."
"... Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. ..."
"... Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. ..."
"... Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm ..."
"... It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray! ..."
"... Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished. ..."
Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

O Society , March 16, 2019 at 7:55 am

The Truth is Out There. I Want to Believe!

Same old scams, different packaging. That's New & Improved for you.

http://opensociet.org/2019/03/16/the-return-of-the-hidden-persuaders

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:35 pm

I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have watched the news daily about Mueller's Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.

For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!

The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA. Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER'S SINGING CANARYS! Mueller should be jailed.

Bogdan Miller , March 15, 2019 at 11:04 am

This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing, we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an effort to harm President Trump.

It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians.

B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector

vinnieoh , March 15, 2019 at 8:17 am

Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these days to US governance?) to "urge" the new AG to release the complete Mueller report.

A non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can't see the diesel locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And taxation without representation takes a new twist.

... ... ...

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:38 pm

What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE Party which Represents DEEP STATE".

DWS , March 15, 2019 at 5:58 am

Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation.

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:47 pm

EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA' plan to continue to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their Criminal Governments tell them.

Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!

KiwiAntz , March 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm

What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse?

If you can't get him out via a Election, try & try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts absolutely?

Brian Murphy , March 15, 2019 at 10:33 am

Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation.

If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely sold out. If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some vestige of his balls.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm

By last June or July the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did not support the Clinton wing's anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to "find something." presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.

mike k , March 14, 2019 at 12:57 pm

From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump's electoral victory, it was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump's election. My sincere hope is that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party's neck, that will carry them down into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:26 pm

Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we'll go through this all over again.

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:00 pm

The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.

LJ , March 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm

Agreed!!!! and don't forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head's up before they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words 'gross negligence' had a occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the FBI's investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a barf bag.

Jane Christ , March 14, 2019 at 6:51 pm

Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 10:50 am

Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at "so as not to divide the American people." Dividing the people hasn't been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the collusion theory, Pelosi would I'm sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like Pence as opposition for 2020.

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:17 am

We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks.

We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:18 pm

Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange's long-standing position is NOT to reveal his sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.

Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:15 am

It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth's murder. In one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn't take much of a logical leap to connect A to B.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:30 pm

Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class, for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn't made it go away.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:24 pm

Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi's recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms this and the split you're talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is discouraging impeachment on "dividing the Party" (already divided, of course, as you say), whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent ordinary people's interests.

Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:21 am

She said "dividing the country", not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump's heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right "conclusions" by Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a "bombshell" conclusion by Mueller. One must never forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a "mistake" to be controlled or eliminated.

Cindy Haddix , March 14, 2019 at 8:04 am

Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It's so disgusting that his democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!

torture this , March 14, 2019 at 7:29 am

According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow's show. I can't wait to read how she responds. I'd watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect on me as ipecac.

Zhu , March 14, 2019 at 3:37 am

People will cling to "Putin made Trump President!!!" much as many cling "Obama's a Kenyan Muslim! Not a real American!!!". Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what the historical facts are. Many Americans just can't admit their mistakes and blaming a scapegoat is a way out.

O Society , March 14, 2019 at 2:03 am

Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of intelligence and computer forensics.

This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune.

It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic journalists at every turn.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm

But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts their claims.

O Society , March 15, 2019 at 3:50 pm

Oh, we're well beyond your "Blame the middle class Dems" stage.

The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine's sprung a leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red quite like the Three Little Pigs, isn't it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what we've got here is a purple puddle of piss.

Everyone's more than glad to project all our problems on "THEM" though, aren't we?

Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.

T'would be comic except what's so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe, oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear, there's an app for that or is it a pill?

I don't know, don't ask me, I'm busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.

https://opensociet.org/2018/12/18/the-disneyfication-of-america/

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 6:45 pm

Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the transmission speeds.

Minor corrections: "The emails were copied from the network" should be "from the much faster local network" because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the internet network, which most readers will equate with "network." Also "reportedin" should be "reported in."

Michael , March 13, 2019 at 6:25 pm

It is likely that New Knowledge was actually "the Russians", possibly working in concert with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/ determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not sure of their punishment?). Occam's razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent to mimic/ pretend to be "Russians" after the fact of wikileaks' publication of emails. New Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?) Hillary, and were the "outside" agency hired to evaluate and report on the "Russian" hacking of the DNC emails/ servers.

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:48 pm

Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150 indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political) crimes. This wasn't kept secret. It simply wasn't what Democrats wanted to hear, so although it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.

Billy , March 13, 2019 at 11:11 pm

Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.

Realist , March 14, 2019 at 3:22 am

You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh Those Catholics, Jews, "ethnics" and sundry "deviants" used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the "undeveloped" world. As Clapper "authoritatively" says, only this vile lineage still carries the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary's glorious plans for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren't so funny.

And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some "free stuff" the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods for the American public! So there!

As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They've proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller won't read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats won't care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.

Joe Tedesky , March 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm

Realist,

I have posted this article 'the Russia they Lost' before and from time to time but once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you've been saying. It's an article written by a Russian who in they're youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But . Starting with Kosovo this Russian's youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the plan anyway.

https://slavyangrad.org/2014/09/24/the-russia-they-lost/

Realist , March 15, 2019 at 10:38 pm

right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose. that's not being a leader, it's being a dick.

i'm gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with my right hand clears up–it's like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry on, sir.

Brian James , March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm

Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm

Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.

Howard , March 13, 2019 at 4:36 pm

Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for "shining light into dark places", you are national resources for objectivity in critical survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS' MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued leadership!

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:28 am

Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, "falling down stairs" within a week of FOX news exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 6:03 pm

Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the "Russian collusion" allegations -- the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of convictions to date -- none of which had anything to do with the election results.

Hank , March 13, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton's sordid history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or investigations don't. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED information. That's a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled media!

I know this won't ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you more-than-likely can be considered an "island in a sea of ignorance".

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm

We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to handle the evidence. Wasnt it a crime scene? The evidence was tampered with And we will never know what was on the servers.

Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm

As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:

The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th – after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.

And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was Seth Rich. This could explain Rich's subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.

https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/muellers-new-indictment-do-the-feds-take-us-for-idiots-5406ef955406

https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/how-did-crowdstrike-guccifer-2-0-know-that-wikileaks-was-planning-to-release-dnc-emails-42e6db334053

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:06 pm

Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was, as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich. Perhaps he doesn't know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows that it was not Rich.

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:40 am

View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.

Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich's murders capture.

Abby , March 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm

Another mistaken issue with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump's command" is that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, "Russia if you 'find' Hillary's missing emails let us know." He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn't be turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that they were personal.

But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI office because they are on Weiner's laptop. Why? Because Hillary's aid Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days before the election. If Comey hadn't done that then the FBI would have.

But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama's decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server. This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in for her to get off.

robert e williamson jr , March 13, 2019 at 3:26 pm

I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things "ONE WAY". They are the facilitators for the rogue government known as the "DEEP STATE"!

Just ask billy barr.

More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community because of blackmail. They can't come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.

Apparently the rule of law is not!

You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a dogdamned side and stand for something,.

Thank You VIPS!

Joe Tedesky , March 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm

Hats off to the VIP's who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn't a hacking for without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller's never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that's even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.

Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn't conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort's case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn't it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn't charged with concluding with any Russians in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.

I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel Maddow's tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It's all a game and yet there are many of us who just don't wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that gets ignored keep up the good work VIP's some of us are listening.

Andrew Thomas , March 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm

The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray "lacks credibility ", or some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so ludicrous I can't even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.

Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm

Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm

Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:18 pm

A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source, but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.

And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a complete sham.

Ian Brown , March 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm

It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!

LJ , March 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm

A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, """ former FBI head """ to examine and validate if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report, It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go?

After Bill and Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well, Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough.

Mueller looks just like what he is. He has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting themselves. This has already gone on way too long.

Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 11:59 am

Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians.

Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump, which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?

So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.

Jack , March 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm

You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would Mueller have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a divisive idiot.

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm

Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished.

Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 2:12 pm

@Jack,
Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there's nothing of substance to one of the most potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me divisive? Mueller's now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and disinformation campaign. It's all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and feed half-truths to the people.

You're failing Jack, in more ways than you know.

Gregory Herr , March 13, 2019 at 9:13 pm

https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/liberals-are-digging-their-own-grave-with-russiagate-2019-03-08

Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Realist , March 15, 2019 at 3:38 am

Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats, have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president. This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to violate Trump's confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct. The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though, even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:30 pm

Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on America and tortured some folks.

George Collins , March 13, 2019 at 2:02 pm

QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang wasn't there litigation involving the Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.

I'd say it's game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.

Kiers , March 13, 2019 at 11:47 am

How can we expect the DNC to "hand it " to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the "principled" two party system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am

"We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions."

I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi's recent statement regarding pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy's statement was just a feint before throwing the knockout punch.

If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the perfidy that the so-called "Intelligence" Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily, I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of venues like CN.

I pray to God I'm wrong.

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:32 pm

My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98% of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone, deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond any real evidence.

Eric32 , March 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm

As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above you.

The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA, FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil service careers.

Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little idea of where to go from there.

Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 11:09 am

I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to establish truth in reporting

Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 10:41 am

Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don't expect this to make a difference. The US has moved into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove's declaration: "we're an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality." What Mr. Rove in his arrogance fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else's. Thus Pompous can claim that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he's never been elected .

Gary Weglarz , March 13, 2019 at 10:21 am

Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and utters anymore of the "but, RUSSIA" nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values the truth.

Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD's, Gaddafi's viagra fueled rape camps, Assad can't sleep at night unless he's gassing his own people, to the latest, "Maduro can't sleep at night unless he's starving his own people."

The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with "Russiagate," which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.

Marc , March 13, 2019 at 10:13 am

I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive? And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive? That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was under the control of some faraway agent?

Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 11:12 am

Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX). The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it's writing to a storage device using FAT, it'll round the numbers. To get to your real question, yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates wouldn't line up.

Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 8:05 am

Jeff-

Which dates wouldn't line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata for the most recent move?

David G , March 13, 2019 at 12:22 pm

Marc asks: "[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks?"

I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that question elsewhere.

To my knowledge, it hasn't been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:07 pm

I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up everything. If there had been a hack, they'd know it, and they wouldn't only have had "moderate" confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig Murray.

David G , March 13, 2019 at 3:31 pm

Respectfully, that's a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.

But I think the question Marc posed stands.

Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 7:59 am

Hi David-

I don't see how it's separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they'd have solid evidence of the hack, and wouldn't have only had "moderate" confidence, which Bill Binney says is equivalent to them saying "we don't have squat". They wouldn't even have needed Mueller at all, except to possibly build a "parallel case" due to classification issues. Also, the FBI not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.

As for the technical aspect of Marc's question, I agree that I'd like to see Bill Binney directly answer it.

[Mar 17, 2019] Karl Rove's Prophecy "We're an Empire Now, and When We Act, We Create our Own Reality - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Cent

Mar 17, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Karl Rove's Prophecy: "We're an Empire Now, and When We Act, We Create our Own Reality" By Karel van Wolferen Global Research, February 05, 2017 Region: USA

In a famous exchange between a high official at the court of George W. Bush and journalist Ron Susskind, the official – later acknowledged to have been Karl Rove – takes the journalist to task for working in "the reality-based community." He defined that as believing "that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." Rove then asserted that this was no longer the way in which the world worked.

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." (Ron Suskind, NYTimes Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004).

This declaration became popular as an illustration of the hubris of the Bush-Cheney government. But we could also see it as fulfilled prophecy. Fulfilled in a manner that no journalist at that time would have deemed possible. Yes, the neoconservatives brought disrepute upon themselves because of the disaster in Iraq. Sure, opposition to the reality Rove had helped create in that devastated country became a first rung on the ladder that could lead to the presidency, as it did for Barack Obama. But the neocons stayed put in the State Department and other positions closely linked to the Obama White House, where they became allies with the liberal hawks in continuing to 'spread democracy' by overthrowing regimes.

America's mainstream news and opinion purveyors, without demurring, accommodated the architects of reality production overseen by Dick Cheney. This did not end when Obama became president, but in fact with seemingly ever greater eagerness they gradually made the CIA/neocon-neoliberal created reality appear unshakably substantial in the minds of most newspaper readers and among TV audiences in the Atlantic basin. This was most obvious when attention moved to an imagined existential threat posed by Russia supposedly aimed at the political and 'Enlightenment' achievements of the West. Neoconservatives and liberal hawks bent America's foreign-policy entirely to their ultimate purpose of eliminating a Vladimir Putin who had decided not to dance to Washington's tune so that he might save the Russian state, which had been disintegrating under his predecessor and Wall Street's robber barons. With President Obama as a mere spectator, the neocon/liberals could – without being ridiculed – pass off the coup d'état they had fomented in the Ukraine as a popular revolution. And because of an unquestioned Atlanticist faith, which holds that without the policies of the United States the world cannot be safe for people of the Atlantic basin, the European elites that determine policy or comment on it joined their American counterparts in endorsing that reality.

As blind vassals the Europeans have adopted Washington's enemies as their own. Hence the ease with which the European Union member states could be roped into a system of baseless economic sanctions against Russia, much to the detriment of their own economic interests. Layers upon layers of anti-Russian propaganda have piled up to bamboozle a largely unsuspecting public on both sides of the Ocean. In the Netherlands, from where I have been watching all this, Putin was held personally responsible in much of the media for the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner flying over the Ukraine, which killed 298 people. No serious investigation was undertaken. The presentation of 'almost definitive' findings by the joint investigation team under Dutch leadership has neither included clues supplied by jet fighter cannon holes in the wrecked fuselage nor eyewitness stories, which would make the government in Kiev the prime suspect. Moscow's challenging the integrity of the investigation, whose agreed-upon rules allowed publication of findings only if Kiev agreed with them, were met with great indignation by the Dutch Foreign and Prime Ministers.

As the fighting in Syria reached a phase when contradictions in the official Washington/NATO story demanded a stepping back for a fresh look, editors were forced into contortions to make sure that the baddies stayed bad, and that no matter how cruel and murderously they went about their occupation in Aleppo and elsewhere, the jihadi groups fighting to overthrow the secular Assad government in Damascus remained strictly labeled as moderate dissidents worthy of Western support, and the Russians as violators of Western values.

Architects of an official reality that diverges widely from the facts you thought you knew must rely on faits accompli they achieve through military or police violence and intimidation, in combination with a fitting interpretation or a news blackout delivered by mainstream media. These conditions have been widely obtained in the Atlantic basin through a gradual loss of political accountability at top levels, and through government agencies protected by venerated secrecy that are allowed to live lives of their own. As a result American and European populations have been dropped into a fantasy world, one under constant threat from terrorists and an evil dictator in Moscow. For Americans the never ending war waged by their own government, which leaves them with no choice but to condone mass murder, is supposedly necessary to keep them safe.

"Blame the Russian Game" and the Information War: Mainstream Media "Fake News" vs. Truth from Alternative News

For Europeans, at least those in the northern half, the numerous NATO tanks rolling up to the border of the Russian Federation and the massing of troops in that area are an extra guarantee, on top of the missiles that were already there, that Vladimir Putin will restrain his urges to grab a European country or two. On a smaller scale, when every May 4th the 1940-45 war dead are remembered in the Netherlands, we must now include the fallen in Afghanistan as if they were a sacrifice to defend us against the Taliban threat from behind the Hindu Kush.

Ever since the start of this millennium there has been a chain of realities as prophesied by Karl Rove, enhanced by terrorist attacks, which may or may not have been the work of actual terrorists, but whose reality is not questioned without risking one's reputation. The geopolitical picture that they have helped build in most minds appears fairly consistent if one can keep one's curiosity on a leash and one's sense of contradiction sufficiently blunt. After all, the details of the official reality are filled in and smoothed out all the time by crafty campaigns produced in the PR world, with assistance from think tanks and academia. But the question does reappear in one's thoughts: do the politically prominent and the well-positioned editors, especially those known for having once possessed skeptical minds, actually believe it all? Do those members of the cabinet or parliament, who can get hot under their collar as they decry the latest revelation about one or other outrage committed by Putin, take seriously what they're saying?

Not all of them are believers. I know this from off the record conversations. But there appears to be a marked difference between the elite in government, in the media, in prominent social positions, and ordinary people who in these recent times of anguish about populism are sometimes referred to as uneducated. Quite a few among the latter appear to think that something fishy is going on. This could be because in my experience the alert ones have educated themselves, something that is not generally understood by commentators who have made their way through the bureaucracy of standard higher education. A disadvantage of being part of the elite is that you must stick to the accepted story. If you deviate from it, and have your thoughts run rather far away from it, which is quite inevitable once you begin with your deviation, you can no longer be trusted by those around you.

If you are a journalist and depend for your income on a mainstream newspaper or are hired by a TV company, you run the risk of losing your job if you do not engage in self-censorship. Consequently, publications that used to be rightly known as quality newspapers have turned into unreadable rags. The newspaper that was my employer for a couple of decades used to be edited on the premise that its correspondents rather than authorities were always correct in what they were saying. Today greater loyalty to the reality created in Washington and Langley cannot be imagined. For much of northern Europe the official story that originates in the United States is amplified by the BBC and other once reliable purveyors of news and opinion like the Guardian, the Financial Times and the (always less reliable) Economist.

Repetition lends an ever greater aura of truth to the nonsense that is relentlessly repeated on the pages of once serious publications. Detailed analyses of developments understood through strings of false clues give the fictions ever more weight in learned heads and debates in parliament. At the time of writing, the grave concern spread across the opinion pages on my side of the Atlantic is about how Putin's meddling in upcoming European elections can be prevented.

The realities Rove predicted have infantilized parliamentary debates, current affairs discussion and lecture events, and anything of a supposedly serious nature on TV. These now conform to comic book simplicities of evil, heroes and baddies. They have produced a multitude of editorials with facts upside-down. They force even those who advise against provoking Moscow to include a remark or two about Putin being a murderer or tyrant, lest they could be mistaken for traitors to Enlightenment values or even as Russian puppets, as I have been. Layers of unreality have incapacitated learned and serious people to think clearly about the world and how it came to be that way.

How could Rove's predictions so totally materialize? There's a simple answer: 'they' got away with momentous lies at an early stage. The more authorities lie successfully the more they are likely to lie again in a big way to serve the purposes of earlier lies. The 'they' stands for those individuals and groups in the power system who operate beyond legal limits as a hydra-headed entity, whose coordination depends on the project, campaign, mission, or operation at hand. Those with much power got away with excessive extralegal use of it since the beginning of this century because systems of holding the powerful to account have crumbled on both sides of the Atlantic. Hence, potential opposition to what the reality architects were doing dwindled to almost nothing. At the same time, people whose job or personal inclination leads them to ferret out truth were made to feel guilty for pursuing it.

The best way, I think, to make sense of how this works is to study it as a type of intimidation. Sticking to the official story because you have to may not be quite as bad as forced religious conversion with a gun pointed at your head, but it belongs to the same category. It begins with the triggering of odd feelings of guilt. At least that is how I remember it. Living in Tokyo, I had just read Mark Lane's Rush To Judgment , the first major demolishing in book form of the Warren Report on the murder of John F. Kennedy, when I became aware that I had begun to belong to an undesirable category of people who were taking the existence of conspiracies seriously. We all owe thanks to writers of Internet-based samizdat literature who've recently reminded us that the pejorative use of the conspiracy label stems from one of the greatest misinformation successes of the CIA begun in 1967.

So the campaign to make journalists feel guilty for their embarrassing questions dates from before Dick Cheney and Rove and Bush. But it has only reached a heavy duty phase after the moment that I see as having triggered the triumph of political untruth.

We have experienced massive systemic intimidation since 9/11. For the wider public we have the absurdities of airport security – initially evidenced by mountains of nail-clippers – reminding everyone of the arbitrary coercive potential that rests with the authorities. Every time people are made to take off their belts and shoes – to stick only to the least inane instances – they are reminded: yes, we can do this to you! Half of Boston or all of France can be placed under undeclared martial law to tell people: yes, we have you under full control! For journalists unexamined guilt feelings still play a major role. The serious ones feel guilty for wanting to ask disturbing questions, and so they reaffirm that they still belong to 'sane' humanity rather than the segment with extraterrestrials in flying saucers in its belief system. But there is a confused interaction with another guilty feeling of not having pursued unanswered questions. Its remedy appears to be a doubling down on the official story. Why throw in fairly common lines like "I have no time for truthers" unless you feel that this is where the shoe pinches?

You will have noticed a fairly common response when the 9/11 massacre enters a discussion. Smart people will say that they "will not go there", which brings to mind the "here be dragons" warning on uncharted bits of medieval maps. That response is not stupid. It hints at an understanding that there is no way back once you enter that realm. There is simply no denying that if you accept the essential conclusions of the official 9/11 report you must also concede that laws of nature stopped working on that particular day. And, true enough, if you do go there and bear witness publicly to what you see, you may well be devoured; your career in many government positions, the media and even academia is likely to come to an end.

So, for the time being we are stuck with a considerable chunk of terra incognita relating to recognized political knowledge; which is an indispensable knowledge if you want to get current world affairs and the American role in it into proper perspective.

Mapping the motives of those who decide "not to go there" may be a way to begin breaking through this disastrous deadlock. Holding onto your job is an honorable motivation when you have a family to maintain. The career motivation is not something to scorn. There is also an entirely reasonable expectation that once you go there you lose your voice publicly to address very important social abuse and political misdeeds. I think it is not difficult to detect authors active on internet samizdat sites who have that foremost in mind. Another possible reason for not going there is the more familiar one, akin to the denial that one has a dreadful disease. Also possible is an honorable position of wishing to preserve social order in the face of a prospect of very dramatic political upheaval caused by revelations about a crime so huge that hardly anything in America's history can be compared to it. Where could such a thing end – civil war? Martial law?

What I find more difficult to stomach is the position of someone who is worshiped by what used to be the left, and who has been guiding that class of politically interested Americans as to where they can and cannot go. Noam Chomsky does not merely keep quiet about it, but mocks students who raise logical questions prompted by their curiosity, thereby discouraging a whole generation studying at universities and active in civil rights causes. One can only hope that this overrated analyst of the establishment, who helps keep the most embarrassing questions out of the public sphere, trips over the contradictions and preposterousness of his own judgments and crumples in full view of his audience.

The triumph of political untruth has brought into being a vast system of political intimidation. Remember then that the intimidator does not really care what you believe or not, but impresses you with the fact that you have no choice. That is the essence of the exercise of brute power. With false flag events the circumstantial evidence sometimes appears quite transparently false and, indeed could be interpreted as having been purposeful. Consider the finding of passports or identity papers accidentally left by terrorists, or their almost always having been known to and suspected by the police. And their deaths through police shooting before they can be interrogated. Could these be taunting signals of ultimate power to a doubting public: Now you! Dare contradict us! Are the persons killed by the police the same who committed the crime? Follow-up questions once considered perfectly normal and necessary by news media editors are conspicuous by their absence.

How can anyone quarrel with Rove's prophecy. He told Susskind that we will forever be studying newly created realities. This is what the mainstream media continue to do. His words made it very clear: you have no choice!

A question that will be in the minds of perhaps many as they consider the newly sworn in president of the United States, who like John F. Kennedy appears to have understood that "Intelligence" leads a dangerously uncontrolled life of its own: At what point will he give in to the powers of an invisible government, as he is made to reckon that he also has no choice?

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Karel van Wolferen , Global Research, 2017

[Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

Highly recommended!
Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

The final Mueller report should be graded "incomplete," says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

Executive Summary

Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump. If Mueller gives you his "completed" report anytime soon, it should be graded "incomplete."

Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We stand ready to help.

We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story, we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.

There is an overabundance of "assessments" but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions. We know only too well -- and did our best to expose -- how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

We have scrutinized publicly available physical data -- the "trail" that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media -- an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.

This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below -- as a kind of aide-memoire -- a discussion of some of the key factors related to what has become known as "Russia-gate." And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data associated with WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails.

We do not claim our conclusions are "irrefutable and undeniable," a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments, however, are based on the scientific method -- not "assessments." We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring that you hear that directly from us.

If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work -- or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.

In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "to ensure a full and thorough investigation," when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again, we are at your disposal.

Discussion

The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin "interference" in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light, rump report misleadingly labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)." Prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only three of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed "high confidence" in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their "assessment."

The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type caveats included in the assessment itself -- such as:

" When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong."

To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution." They noted: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber operation -- malicious or not -- leaves a trail." [Emphasis added.]

Forensics

The imperative is to get on that "trail" -- and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to "sources and methods" is normally not a problem.

Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement -- the more so when an intrusion is termed "an act of war" and blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, "best practices" dictate direct access.

In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had "access to the actual hardware that was hacked." Comey answered, "In the case of the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. " Sen. Burr followed up: "But no content? Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" Comey: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."

The "private party/high-class entity" to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.

Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension between Russia and the U.S. -- it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic "trail" to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens that conclusion.

We Do Forensics

Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive, before WikiLeaks posted them.

FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.

Why is that important? The evidence lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the DNC files on WikiLeaks' site ends in an even number.

We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the World Wide Web.

This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks -- not electronically via a hack.

Role of NSA

For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so. We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA's dragnet, collect-it-all approach -- including "cast-iron" coverage of WikiLeaks -- to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to "assessments") as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.

Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show the routes that trace the packets.)

The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI's curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a "high-class entity."

Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the "Intelligence Community Assessment," which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, "The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to how 'the DNC emails that were leaked' got to WikiLeaks.

Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?

There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS' two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.

There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: "We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication." On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement, claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."

Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a "hack" of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS reported in a wrap-up Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled "Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence)," forensic examination of the July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish from the DNC, by "showing" it came from a "Russian hack." WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three days before the Democratic convention.

As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S. This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.

Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained -- from a data center in New Jersey to a data center in the UK -- was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb drive.

The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5, 2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.

Presidential Interest

After VIPS' July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo's office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: "You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you."

Binney warned Pompeo -- to stares of incredulity -- that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump's attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA. Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.

Confronting James Clapper on Forensics

We, the hoi polloi, do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo -- and still less to the former intelligence chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during the Q&A about Russian "hacking" and NSA, Clapper said:

" Well, I have talked with NSA a lot And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever." [Emphasis added]

Clapper added: " as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn't have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election."

(A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found here and a commentary on Clapper's performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is here .)

Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens. In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: "James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance. To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand."

The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12, 2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that Russia's history shows that Russians are "typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."

Clapper ought to be asked about the "forensics" he said were "overwhelming about what the Russians had done." And that, too, before Mueller completes his investigation.

For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington's justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

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Tags: Bill Binney Donald Trump Hillary Clinton James Clapper James Comey Mike Pompeo Robert Mueller Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity VIPS WikiLeaks


[Mar 16, 2019] Kept Secret For 17 Years Intel Memo Warned Bush's Iraq Invasion To Create Perfect Storm

Mar 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

A newly declassified US intelligence memo has been unearthed this week and featured in a bombshell Wall Street Journal report. It proves that the year prior to the Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq the White House was expressly warned in great detail of all that could and would go wrong in the regime change war's aftermath, including the Sunni-Shia sectarian chaos and proxy war with Iran that would define Iraq and the whole region for years following. And crucially, it reveals that seven months before the US invasion of Iraq, American intelligence officials understood that Osama bin Laden was likely "alive and well and hiding in northwest Pakistan" -- important given that a key Bush admin claim to sell the war was that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were "in league" against the United States.

The July 2002 memo was authored by William Burns, then serving as assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, and though clearly dismissed by the Bush neocons making the case for war, proved prescient on many levels. "Following are some very quick and informal thoughts on how events before, during and after an effort to overthrow the regime in Baghdad could unravel if we're not careful, intersecting to create a 'perfect storm' for American interests," Burns wrote in the memo, classified 'Secret' and sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Saddam Hussein waves to supporters in Baghdad, Wednesday, October 18, 1995. AP file photo

The classified memo's existence was first brought to the public's attention through Knight Ridder's reporting in July 2003, which sought to reveal at the time there were pockets of dissenting voices in the State Department and intelligence community pushing back against the absurd White House claim that the whole operation would be a "cakewalk" and US troops would be greeted as "liberators". And there's Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous declaration that the military effort would take "weeks rather than months."

Now, sixteen years after the start of the war the "perfect storm" intel briefing has been made public in fully redacted form and it affirms, as the WSJ reports , "Diplomats accurately forecast many setbacks: sectarian violence, attacks on U.S. troops, Iranian intervention and long road to structural change ." Out of this came the rise of ISIS and the continued unleashing of regime change and sectarian chaos on neighboring Syria.

The ten page memo outlines a litany of catastrophic doom and gloom scenarios resulting from the invasion which would destabilize not only Iraq, but unleash sectarian hell on the entire region .

Here are but a handful of the memo's many warnings which later proved right on target, as summarized by the military reporting website Task & Purpose :

"I don't mean to be pessimistic, because I really do believe that if we do it right this could be a tremendous boon to the future of the region, and to U.S. national security interests," the memo stated. "But we should have no illusion that it will be quick or easy."

And further contradicting Cheney's "weeks rather than months" claim, the memo accurately predicted that U.S. troops would have to stay for, "Five years – maybe four if we're lucky, ten if we're not."

Read the full newly declassified and unredacted intelligence memo here .

Some further interesting highlights from the July 2002 'Secret' report are below.

* * *

Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan (the Bush admin claimed Saddam and bin Laden were in cahoots)

"Osama bin Laden turns out to be alive and well and hiding in NW Pakistan. We press Paks, internal stresses grow in Pakistan."

Iran and Syria targeted next

"Following US warnings that it would take the war on terrorism to all groups with global capabilities, Iran and Syria hold summit meeting, decide US has targeted them."

Iran and Syria "strengthen positions in face of perceived US threat against them following action in Iraq."

Sectarian score settling and Shia uprising

"This means night becomes the time for revenge, all over Iraq. A horrible wave of bloodletting and private vengeance begins... US forces are helpless to stop the countrywide phenomenon. Police, intelligence, senior military, and Baath Party officials effectively go into hiding..."

"Shia religious and political leaders, unhappy with composition of provisional government and determined to secure greater share of power in post-Saddam Iraq... This leads to more violent confrontations, and deaths, and the riots become a political tool to demonstrate power and increase leverage against Sunnis and Kurds..."

Long US quagmire to put down sectarian powder keg

"Faced with inchoate and escalating disorder in the provinces, the US faces an agonizing decision: step up to a more direct security role, or devolve power to local leaders."

"The Shia in the south, quietly aided by Iran, stage major revolt, taking over local government offices and killing interim officials."

Weapons from Saddam's army will disappear (to be later used against US occupation)

"Law and Order, collecting weapons. We won't get them, most will go to ground."

"All for one, one for all, free for all - deals, short-term scrambles. It will be every clan for itself."

[Mar 16, 2019] Never believe anything until it has been officially denied. it surely is just a coincidence that their blackout occurred at a point in time when a foreign coup attempt was underway, rather than 9 or 6 or 3 months ago.

Mar 16, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

ProPoly

x Ignored says: 03/14/2019 at 4:30 pm
Venezuela production is not only being hit by the blackout – which seems to have damaged their overall grid capacity – but by new sanctions. Their diluent supplier has just stated they will stop business.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-reliance/reliance-halts-diluents-export-to-venezuela-not-raised-oil-buying-idUSKBN1QU240

Watcher x Ignored says: 03/15/2019 at 2:35 am
Perhaps useful to note that Maduro was just as incompetent 6 months ago as presumably he is now. He was just as incompetent 9 months ago as presumably he is now. And indeed, he was just as incompetent three months ago as he is now. In fact we could take it back years.

Thus, it surely is just a coincidence that their blackout occurred at a point in time when a foreign coup attempt was underway, rather than 9 or 6 or 3 months ago. Sabotage could not be involved because we're told that incompetence and corruption is responsible, of the sort that just happened to manifest itself at this point in time.

The 20 folks who are alleged to have died in hospitals from lack of power just coincidentally died at this particular point in time. Because it is merely coincidence, the saboteurs probably cannot be tried for murder.

Power has apparently been restored. Oil will resume its flow at whatever magnitude.

ProPoly x Ignored says: 03/15/2019 at 10:29 am
Rust doesn't sleep. You ignore something long enough it's gonna fail.

This is just their worst grid failure, far from the first.

Watcher x Ignored says: 03/15/2019 at 11:43 am
Ahh, rust has a feel for coincidence, too.
Brazilian Guy (in ironic mode) x Ignored says: 03/15/2019 at 12:44 pm
Of course there are no coincidences, just the things that the CIA, the Illuminati, the freemasons, the jewish bankers and the Martians wanted to happen.
TechGuy x Ignored says: 03/16/2019 at 12:48 am
"Thus, it surely is just a coincidence that their blackout occurred at a point in time when a foreign coup attempt was underway, rather than 9 or 6 or 3 months ago. Sabotage could not be involved because we're told that incompetence and corruption is responsible, of the sort that just happened to manifest itself at this point in time."

I am sure the US is trying to speed up the process. After all, those Aid buses were not torched by Mo or his supporters but by Western agents. Its difficult to know who is really to blame for the blackout, but the US has an agenda to take control over VZ. I would not rule out the US causing it.

Hightrekker x Ignored says: 03/16/2019 at 9:38 am
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied".
– Claud Cockburn

[Mar 16, 2019] Pity The Nation War Spending Is Bankrupting America

Notable quotes:
"... As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card , "essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan." ..."
"... For decades, the DoD's leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD's budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity ..."
"... That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control "we the people" have over our runaway government. ..."
Mar 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Pity The Nation: War Spending Is Bankrupting America

by Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2019 - 23:50 9 SHARES Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

"Pity the nation whose people are sheep

And whose shepherds mislead them

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars

Whose sages are silenced

And whose bigots haunt the airwaves

Pity the nation that raises not its voice

Except to praise conquerors

And acclaim the bully as hero

And aims to rule the world

By force and by torture

Pity the nation oh pity the people

who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away "

-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet

War spending is bankrupting America.

Our nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments.

America has so much to offer -- creativity, ingenuity, vast natural resources, a rich heritage, a beautifully diverse populace, a freedom foundation unrivaled anywhere in the world, and opportunities galore -- and yet our birthright is being sold out from under us so that power-hungry politicians, greedy military contractors, and bloodthirsty war hawks can make a hefty profit at our expense.

Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national security and urgent military needs.

It's all a ruse.

You know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the government's fiscal year? Government agencies -- including the Department of Defense -- go on a "use it or lose it" spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the next fiscal year.

We're not talking chump change, either.

We're talking $97 billion worth of wasteful spending .

According to an investigative report by Open the Government, among the items purchased during the last month of the fiscal year when government agencies go all out to get rid of these "use it or lose it" funds: Wexford Leather club chair ($9,241), china tableware ($53,004), alcohol ($308,994), golf carts ($673,471), musical equipment including pianos, tubas, and trombones ($1.7 million), lobster tail and crab ($4.6 million) , iPhones and iPads ($7.7 million), and workout and recreation equipment ($9.8 million).

So much for draining the swamp .

Anyone who suggests that the military needs more money is either criminally clueless or equally corrupt, because the military isn't suffering from lack of funding -- it's suffering from lack of proper oversight.

Where President Trump fits into that scenario, you decide. Trump may turn out to be, as policy analyst Stan Collender warned, " the biggest deficit- and debt-increasing president of all time ."

Rest assured, however, that if Trump gets his way -- to the tune of a $4.7 trillion budget that digs the nation deeper in debt to foreign creditors, adds $750 billion for the military budget , and doubles the debt growth that Trump once promised to erase -- the war profiteers (and foreign banks who "own" our debt) will be raking in a fortune while America goes belly up.

This is basic math, and the numbers just don't add up.

As it now stands, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on every front: it's spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily ( from foreign governments and Social Security ) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad .

Certainly, nothing about the way the government budgets its funds puts America's needs first.

The nation's educational system is pathetic (young people are learning nothing about their freedoms or their government). The infrastructure is antiquated and growing more outdated by the day. The health system is overpriced and inaccessible to those who need it most. The supposedly robust economy is belied by the daily reports of businesses shuttering storefronts and declaring bankruptcy. And our so-called representative government is a sham.

If this is a formula for making America great again, it's not working.

The White House wants taxpayers to accept that the only way to reduce the nation's ballooning deficit is by cutting "entitlement" programs such as Social Security and Medicare, yet the glaring economic truth is that at the end of the day, it's the military industrial complex -- and not the sick, the elderly or the poor -- that is pushing America towards bankruptcy.

We have become a debtor nation , and the government is sinking us deeper into debt with every passing day that it allows the military industrial complex to call the shots.

Simply put, the government cannot afford to maintain its over-extended military empire.

" Money is the new 800-pound gorilla ," remarked a senior administration official involved in Afghanistan. "It shifts the debate from 'Is the strategy working?' to 'Can we afford this?' And when you view it that way, the scope of the mission that we have now is far, far less defensible." Or as one commentator noted, " Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it ."

To be clear, the U.S government's defense spending is about one thing and one thing only: establishing and maintaining a global military empire.

Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure , spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.

In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.

The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.

Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $4.7 trillion waging its endless wars .

Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America's expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour .

In fact, the U.S. government has spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.

Then there's the cost of maintaining and staffing the 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the world and policing the globe with 1.3 million U.S. troops stationed in 177 countries (over 70% of the countries worldwide).

Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053 .

The U.S. government is spending money it doesn't have on a military empire it can't afford.

As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card , "essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan."

War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors .

As The Nation reports :

For decades, the DoD's leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD's budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity. DoD has literally been making up numbers in its annual financial reports to Congress -- representing trillions of dollars' worth of seemingly nonexistent transactions -- knowing that Congress would rely on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the DoD the following year.

For example, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon's largest agencies " can't account for hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of spending ."

Unfortunately, the outlook isn't much better for the spending that can be tracked.

A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid :

$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.

That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control "we the people" have over our runaway government.

Mind you, this isn't just corrupt behavior. It's deadly, downright immoral behavior.

The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It's making the world more dangerous. It is estimated that the U.S. military drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes . Since 9/11, the United States government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000. Every one of those deaths was paid for with taxpayer funds.

The U.S. government is not making America any safer. It's exposing American citizens to alarming levels of blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government's international activities. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America's use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback .

Those who call the shots in the government -- those who push the military industrial complex's agenda -- those who make a killing by embroiling the U.S. in foreign wars -- have not heeded Johnson's warning.

The U.S. government is not making American citizens any safer . The repercussions of America's military empire have been deadly, not only for those innocent men, women and children killed by drone strikes abroad but also those here in the United States.

The 9/11 attacks were blowback . The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback . The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback. The Fort Hood shooter, a major in the U.S. Army, was blowback .

The transformation of America into a battlefield is blowback.

All of this carnage is being carried out with the full support of the American people, or at least with the proxy that is our taxpayer dollars.

The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.

As Martin Luther King Jr. recognized, under a military empire, war and its profiteering will always take precedence over the people's basic human needs.

Similarly, President Dwight Eisenhower warned us not to let the profit-driven war machine endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [ ] Is there no other way the world may live?"

We failed to heed Eisenhower's warning.

The illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government that Eisenhower warned against has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation today.

It's not sustainable, of course.

Eventually, inevitably, military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and spending themselves to death.

It happened in Rome. It's happening again.

The America empire is already breaking down.

We're already witnessing a breakdown of society on virtually every front, and the government is ready.

For years now, the government has worked with the military to prepare for widespread civil unrest brought about by "economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order , purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters."

For years now, the government has been warning against the dangers of domestic terrorism , erecting surveillance systems to monitor its own citizens, creating classification systems to label any viewpoints that challenge the status quo as extremist, and training law enforcement agencies to equate anyone possessing anti-government views as a domestic terrorist.

We're approaching critical mass.

As long as "we the people" continue to allow the government to wage its costly, meaningless, endless wars abroad, the American homeland will continue to suffer: our roads will crumble, our bridges will fail, our schools will fall into disrepair, our drinking water will become undrinkable, our communities will destabilize, our economy will tank, crime will rise, and our freedoms will suffer.

So who will save us?

As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People , we'd better start saving ourselves: one by one, neighbor to neighbor, through grassroots endeavors, by pushing back against the police state where it most counts -- in our communities first and foremost, and by holding fast to what binds us together and not allowing politics and other manufactured nonrealities to tear us apart.

Start today. Start now. Do your part.

Literally and figuratively, the buck starts and stops with "we the people."


I am Groot , 2 minutes ago link

We have socialism in all of the wrong places !

When we should be paying our seniors a generous amount of social security and pensions to people who earned them, we are paying illegals and their kids to come to America and act like parasites. Our children will be debt slaves because of Congress.

We are also paying trillions to the MIC and three letter agencies with absolutely no oversight. We pay hundreds of thousands of totally useless government employees including the military and over a 1000 bases on foreign soil.

Eisenhower warned against letting the MIC take control of the country.

Tiger Rocks Dale , 5 minutes ago link

It's fine. Tyler dudrden is my hero.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK1Vt3NvmUs

rtb61 , 5 minutes ago link

What is weird, you spend that money on infrastructure, which would substantially improve the economy through gained efficiencies and you can afford to waste it but if you waste it, you can not spend it on infrastructure to be able to afford to burn it, blow it up, fire it or just plain dump it.

Well, it is pretty clear, from the screams of the insiders, the reform is coming and they know it. The louder the rants of screams of the establishment, the closer they are to losing.

Look at what they do, they kill people for profit, if they could silence us by killing us, they would, they can not, they have already lost, now it is just a matter of political grind and legal process, to root them out and then investigate and prosecute them, en mass.

They had total control for decades and most knew nothing, now control is broken and most people know.

Tiger Rocks Dale , 14 minutes ago link

The only reason I'm reckless is because I've been there and done that.

Tiger Rocks Dale , 12 minutes ago link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK1Vt3NvmUs

marysimmons , 11 minutes ago link

Ditch the ABM and INF treaties. Extend NATO to Russia's borders. Regime change in Ukraine. Demonize Putin/Russia. Then claim umpteen billions more needed for national defense. Wonderful.

Davidduke2000 , 15 minutes ago link

this article would not have seen the light of day on facebook or youtube, but thanks to Tyler of zerohedge with his total respect for free speech, people can learn why their country is bankrupt.

PaulHolland , 16 minutes ago link

Its funny. Less than 40 years after the cold war and the Russian successor state is putting on the same trick to the USSA that doomed the USSR. Russia is lean and mean now and its forcing the US to spend just truly insane amounts on weapons.

desertboy , 5 minutes ago link

That's just dumb.

The forces destroying the US are the same that destroyed (and created) the USSR.

But, you keep watching your puppet show.

DEDA CVETKO , 19 minutes ago link

War spending has always - ALWAYS! - since at least the late 19th Century - been an instrument of wealth redistribution: from the poor to the rich.

The only question I have is: where did all that wealth go? It would be fun to collect the dots and find out who now owns AT LEAST $3 TRILLION stolen from the Pentagon since 2001.

PaulHolland , 14 minutes ago link

I don't get this stolen bit. Nothing is stolen from US tax payers. Its US debt holders that get screwed. The US is one big worldwide theft of finished goods , resources and capaital

DEDA CVETKO , 8 minutes ago link

indeed, but we are talking road robbery within a heist within a burglary here.

Here's why:

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/11/02/pentagon-cant-account-for-21-trillion-thats-not-typo.html

Davidduke2000 , 10 minutes ago link

nothing is lost or stolen, the defense department is totally careless with the people's money.

$20 billions of weapons were left in Iraq after the us left but the funny part they were left in far warehouses that only ISIS got hold of them.

If I was a conspiracy theorist , I would say they left these weapons on purpose for isis to wage war and invade Syria which they did, but all this stuff was in vain as all these weapons got destroyed by the Russians and the american people lost $20 billion.

DEDA CVETKO , 7 minutes ago link

Nothing is stolen, but $21 trillion is missing????

Nice try, dude, nice try.

desertboy , 3 minutes ago link

It didn't go anywhere - just redistributed around the globe.

ebworthen , 20 minutes ago link

"All hail Caesar!"

Welcome to the New Rome, ruled by the Military Industrial Complex (M.I.C.) and the Bansksters (Wall Street, FED, Treasury, Corporations, Insurers) and their bought corrupt CONgress members.

"Save for retirement!" to pay the bonuses of the rats above.

"Support the Troops!" to die for the corrupt rats above.

[Mar 16, 2019] CIA Blames Its Proxy For Its Raid On North Korea's Embassy In Spain

Another CIA false flag?
Notable quotes:
"... At least two of the 10 assailants who broke into the embassy and interrogated diplomatic staff have been identified and have connections to the US intelligence agency ..."
"... Some of the assailants were Asian and spoke Korean language. They were probably from the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), a subsidiary of the CIA know for its extremely hawkish politics. It often rigged elections in South Korea in support of hawkish conservatives candidates. ..."
"... A story was thought up and pushed to the favorite CIA outlet, the Washington Post . It wasn't the CIA which did it, writes the Post's national security reporter, it was a CIA controlled 'regime change' organization. ..."
"... The White Helmets, the MI-6 organization for 'regime change' in Syria, has the website domain "www.syriacivildefense.org". Cheollima's website domain is "www.cheollimacivildefense.org". The logos of the two organization are also somewhat similar. ..."
Mar 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

March 15, 2019 CIA Blames Its Proxy For Its Raid On North Korea's Embassy In Spain james , Mar 15, 2019 7:15:08 PM | link

The CIA is the main suspect in the military style raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid. It now launched a somewhat hapless effort to deflect from it. The original Spanish report said :

At least two of the 10 assailants who broke into the embassy and interrogated diplomatic staff have been identified and have connections to the US intelligence agency. The CIA has denied any involvement but government sources say their response was "unconvincing."

That the CIA is the main suspect in the assault was reported on Wednesday in the Spanish mainstream paper El Pais . The paper made the extra effort to publish an abbreviated English language version . It was widely picked up by other international outlets . Some of the assailants were Asian and spoke Korean language. They were probably from the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), a subsidiary of the CIA know for its extremely hawkish politics. It often rigged elections in South Korea in support of hawkish conservatives candidates.

Attacking a foreign embassy in a third country is far out of bounce of international law and diplomatic decency. After the El Pais report something had to be done to direct the attention away from the CIA and to find some other culprit.

A story was thought up and pushed to the favorite CIA outlet, the Washington Post . It wasn't the CIA which did it, writes the Post's national security reporter, it was a CIA controlled 'regime change' organization.

A shadowy group trying to overthrow Kim Jong Un raided a North Korean embassy in broad daylight

In broad daylight, masked assailants infiltrated North Korea's embassy in Madrid, restrained the staff with rope, stole computers and mobile phones, and fled the scene in two luxury vehicles.

The group behind the late February operation is known as Cheollima Civil Defense , a secretive dissident organization committed to overthrowing the Kim dynasty, people familiar with the planning and execution of the mission told The Washington Post.
...
People familiar with the incident say the group did not act in coordination with any governments. U.S. intelligence agencies would have been especially reluctant to do so given the sensitive timing and brazen nature of the mission. But the raid represents the most ambitious operation to date for an obscure organization that seeks to undermine the North Korean regime and encourage mass defections, they say.

The CIA agents, led by torture queen Gina Haspel, are snowflakes who would never break the law or cause some international outrage. It must have been some independent group:

"This group is the first known resistance movement against North Korea, which makes its activities very newsworthy," said Sung-Yoon Lee, a North Korea expert at Tufts University.

The identity of the assailants is a particularly sensitive topic given the delicate nature of Trump and Kim's relationship.
...
Any hint of U.S. involvement in an assault on a diplomatic compound could have derailed the talks , a prospect the CIA would likely be mindful of.

Derailing the talks was and is exactly what Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton wanted to do. We know that because the Post reported it on February 20, two days before the raid on the embassy and seven days before the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi:

Last month, in a lengthy speech at Stanford University, [Trump's special envoy Stephen E.] Biegun set out his vision for North Korea to dismantle its plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities in exchange for "corresponding measures" by the United States.

Hawks such as Bolton have fiercely opposed this "step-by-step" process in favor of maintaining maximum pressure through economic sanctions that would, in theory , force a better deal by eroding North Korea's resolve.

Tasking the CIA to raid a North Korean embassy to spoil the talks is exactly a thing John Bolton would do. The Post's shameful attempt to make believe otherwise is laughable :

"Infiltrating a North Korean embassy days before the nuclear summit would throw that all into jeopardy," said Sue Mi Terry, a former Korea analyst at the CIA . "This is not something the CIA would undertake."

The agency declined to comment.

We can of course fully believe the 'former' CIA analyst's assertion that the CIA never do such a thing. Aside from Bolton's urge to sabotage the negotiations it would have had no motive. Except, of course, it would have many:

Experts say the computers and phones seized in the raid amount to a treasure trove of information that foreign intelligence agencies are likely to seek out from the group.

In 2017 Spain asked the North Korean ambassador Kim Hyok Chol to leave. He is now the leader of the negotiations with the United States. To know everything about him is important. He may even be susceptible to blackmail:

The assailants also possess a video recording they took during the raid, which they could release anytime, said one person who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive and illegal operation.

The Spanish language version of the El Pais report had a side box that might explain the possible content of a video (machine translated):

One of the darkest aspects of the assault on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid is the interrogation to which the head of the command, who called himself The Entrepreneur, subjected the charge of business, leading the diplomatic delegation since the ambassador was expelled. The head of the commando separated the diplomat from the rest of the hostages and locked himself alone with him. It is not known what he intended, but the current head of the Pyongyang delegation in Madrid probably knows a lot about Kim Hyok Chol, head of the North Korean delegation in the nuclear negotiations before the US, with whom he coincided when the latter was ambassador in Madrid, between 2014 and 2017.

Mentioning a video recording taken during the raid is supposed to sow 'fear and doubt' in the North Korean negotiator.

The new Washington Post /CIA story goes on to describe the 'regime change' organization that is supposed to divert from the direct CIA involvement in the raid:

The Cheollima group, which also goes by the name Free Joseon, came to prominence in 2017 after it successfully evacuated the nephew of Kim Jong Un from Macau when potential threats to his life surfaced. The nephew was the son of Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's exiled half brother who was assassinated in a nerve-gas attack in a Malaysian airport in 2017.

...

For safety reasons, the leader of the group does not disclose his name, and his identity is known only to a small group of people.

Cheollima is the name of a mythical horse in Chinese and Korean folklore. The Joseon dynasty ruled Korea from 1392 to 1897. It went down when Japan tried to gain control of the country which it achieved a few years later.

Kim Jong Nam was killed on February 13, 2017. In a redacted video his son Kim Han-sol thanks the people who picked him up. (They might want to use him as a future replacement for Kim Jong-un.) The video was recorded on February 15 2017 ("my father was killed two days ago"). It was published on March 7 2017 on a Cheollima channel on Youtube created on March 4 2017. The Cheollima website domain the group uses was anonymously registered in March 2017. It was updated on November 29 2918 shortly after the South Korean NIS received new orders from its headquarter in Washington DC.

Cheollima/Free Joseon also seeks defectors from North Korea. On February 28 2019 (not "in March" as the Post claims), the very same day the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi failed , Cheollima published a manifest that clearly aims at 'regime change' in North Korea:

WE DECLARE ON THIS DAY the establishment of Free Joseon, a provisional government preparing the foundations for a future nation built upon respect for principles of human rights and humanitarianism, holding sacred a manifest dignity for every woman, man, and child.

We declare this entity the sole legitimate representative of the Korean people of the north.

The U.S. driven 'regime change' attempt in Venezuela also has a figure that claims to be the "sole legitimate representative" while having zero power in that country.

The English version of the manifest reads like it was written by someone who is a native English speaker or at least studied English literature:

Joseon must and shall be free. Arise! Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!

We reject the chains of our historic unrequited grief, declare henceforth a new era in our history, and prepare the way for a New Joseon. We therefore proclaim the birth of our revolution and our intentions towards building a more just and equal society, as truest expressions of the shared affections of our people.

A report on the manifest launch in the British Sun remarks :

The Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) organisation has declared itself as a shadow government which is working to overthrow the regime.
...
Not a lot is known about the CCD but some people believe it is linked to South Korea's spy agency.

The White Helmets, the MI-6 organization for 'regime change' in Syria, has the website domain "www.syriacivildefense.org". Cheollima's website domain is "www.cheollimacivildefense.org". The logos of the two organization are also somewhat similar.


Is there a corporate design/marketing company specialized in spy service cutouts for 'regime change'?

The 'former' CIA analyst in the Post piece 'predicts' that there will be more 'embassy raid' operations:

"In its messaging, the group said they have formed a provisional government to replace the regime in Pyongyang," said Terry, who is a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "They have now shown the seriousness of their intent and some capabilities to carry out operations. We will see in the coming months the extent of their capabilities."

While the CIA makes a hapless attempt to cover its traces in Madrid, North Korea continues to follow its game plan for the next round of negotiations. It prepares the public for a U.S. failure :

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will soon decide whether to continue diplomatic talks and maintain his moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests, a senior North Korean official said Friday, adding that the U.S. threw away a golden opportunity at the recent summit between their leaders.
...
She said Pyongyang now has no intention of compromising or continuing talks unless the United States takes measures that are commensurate to the changes it has taken -- such as the 15-month moratorium on launches and tests -- and changes its "political calculation."

The North Korean statement blames Bolton and Secretary of State Pompeo for the failure of the negotiations while it empathizes a special relation between Kim and Trump.

The signaled satellite launch by North Korea will proceed. It will push the Trump administration back to the starting point of its efforts to 'denuclearize' North Korea.

The difference now is that North Korea has earned good will in China and Russia. It showed its willingness to negotiate and stuck to its commitments made in the Joint Declaration in Singapore while the U.S. obviously refused to fulfill its parts. China and Russia already gave North Korea some unofficial 'sanction relief'. They are unlike to again support the failed 'maximum pressure' approach the Trump administrations once set out with.

The hapless CIA nonsense will not change those facts.

Posted by b on March 15, 2019 at 06:50 PM | Permalink

Comments thanks for this b.. fascinating.. reality is stranger then fiction.. trust the wapo prints mostly fiction to run to the cias rescue..

yeah, i just can't imagine the cia doing anything bad... that would really be unlike them!! the logo designers are going to have to be more creative, but until such time as they are, we can count on such branding that appears to come out of the same graphic design outfit.. i wonder how the poodle spain proceeds from here??


Zachary Smith , Mar 15, 2019 7:24:22 PM | link

Tasking the CIA to raid a North Korean embassy to spoil the talks is exactly a thing John Bolton would do.
So it was probably Bolton after all. If he had no authority to issue orders within the CIA, things would have been lots fuzzier with that "proxy". Especially if somebody was waving around shopping bags full of large bills. The other day at the xymphora site the blogger wrote this:
More Bolton hyper-aggression on multiple fronts. Bolton out of control is the best example of the complete deterioration of Trump. Remember it was Sheldon who forced Trump to appoint him, and the equally incompetent Abrams. One of the problems with the Deep State animosity towards Trump is that the 'adults' who would normally move in to fix this have relatively little influence over Trump, who is now flailing away under the influence of shekels and the most obvious blackmail I've ever seen.
Influence! But only today did I read a comment which caused me to add 2 + 2 to get 4.

It has to be Mossad-Epstein nasty pedophilia videos.

Maybe Trump will fire Bolton and Abrams. That's not the outcome I expect if the apartheid Jewish state holds videos demonstrating behavior both sinful and criminal.

Sally Snyder , Mar 15, 2019 7:26:01 PM | link
Here is an article that looks at what one former U.S. president had to say about trusting his own intelligence network:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/americas-intelligence-community-can.html

Given the current world geopolitical situation and the American intelligence network's close involvement in the Russian meddling narrative, it's looking this former president's assessment was prescient.

Yonatan , Mar 15, 2019 7:28:04 PM | link
"Is there a corporate design/marketing company specialized in spy service cutouts for 'regime change'?" (presumably rhetorical)

https://alexandrabader.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/otporinterna.jpg

steve , Mar 15, 2019 7:31:50 PM | link
It was not me defence does not work in real life. In the master of reality distortion field it is accepted effective SOP. My SITRAP tells me that this operating system is due to crash.
John , Mar 15, 2019 7:35:53 PM | link
Some more context on "Cheollima," in Korean mythology the Cheollima arrives to sanctify the founder of a new dynasty, thus quite literally a reference to "regime change." Also, Joseon is both a reference to the last dynasty and a reference to the official name of North Korea, which prefers "Joseon" to South Korea's "Han." Both terms are frequently used in Juche ideology, meaning they've worked out a communications strategy for this outfit that fits with the ruling ideology of the Communist Party.
robjira , Mar 15, 2019 8:11:15 PM | link
"We will see in the coming months the extent of their capabilities."
Followed by...
"While the CIA makes a hapless attempt to cover its traces in Madrid..."
My god, are these fkrs even trying to be subtle anymore, or are they (as the Saker has asserted) just that stupid? They sure as sheise aren't doing very well at the "cover its traces" part...
I'd also like to add that despite all the cracks about "little rocket man," "fat boy," pie, and cakes, etc., Kim Jong Un is proving to be just about as sharp as Kim Il Sung (I hear Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong is also very bright).
Excellent report; many thanks once again, b.
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 15, 2019 8:17:49 PM | link
@B: Thanks for connecting the dots. Thats the great strength of MoA IMHO, that you put all details together, revealing the whole picture. Those details, that even supposed first class journalists dont (want to) remember. Thus enabling a look on the deeper truths.

@John: Thanks for the background info!

Trump IS being blackmailed. Not by Russia, but by Sheldon Adelson and Co. With the neocons in the admin being the price DJT and we all now pay.
That this can not end well, no matter if with Trump or Clinton or whoever, should be clear by now. The USA and us their vassals are on a path on which there are no happy endings i fear. Only crash and burn, and the near hope to rebuild something liveable out of the ruins. Dystopia.

dltravers , Mar 15, 2019 8:20:57 PM | link
Do not forget the Democrats hand in this. They want Trump to fail. They held the Cohen hearings while Trump was negotiating with Kim in Vietnam. Clearly that was intended to show that Trump is weak and not in control. Joined together with the embassy raid it shows the NK leadership that any promises made are not likely to be kept by the next administration.

Trump needs to change tack by backing off slightly on his demands and getting the UN more involved bypassing his national security establishment.
I cannot recall there ever being a regime change organization directed at North Korea.

All of this is obvious, the war party is using its resources to push North Korea away from the table. In my opinion the South is way to smart to swallow that BS. The South does have its war hawks as well but it appears that the desire for reunification is quite strong.

Piotr Berman , Mar 15, 2019 8:30:00 PM | link
The Tick 201 The Little Wooden Boy, part 2, dialog around 5:50 of the You Tube video:

Wonder Woman: "So it is true! The Swiss mean to take over the City!"

Anonymous person with gray mustache, a leader of a masked group, all armed in huge and very special Swiss Army Knives: "No, no, no, no! Silly American woman, we are certainly Swiss, but our actions IN NO WAY represent the policies of the Swiss government. Actually, we are more like, err, criminals."

Wonder Woman: "Yea, this is what they all say."

David , Mar 15, 2019 8:42:15 PM | link
Another possibility not mentioned is the possibility of a false flag operation carried out by the NOKO's themselves (or some other entity).
Jackrabbit , Mar 15, 2019 8:46:07 PM | link
1) AFAIK Bolton can't order the CIA to do anything.

2) If Bolton has any 'pull' it's because he is a neocon and advances their agenda (but he can't order CIA to do anything).

3) Gina Haspel is Brennan's gal at CIA. Trump appointed her as well as others connected to his (supposed) enemies like:

- VP Pence, long-time friend of John McCain;

Bolton, who Trump had praised long before the election;

William Barr, who is close to Robert Mueller;

4) In foreign policy, Trump plays the good cop to the Deep State's bad cop.

5) We've seen apologists give numerous excuses for Trump:

- he's a foreign policy neophyte, getting played by the neocons!

- he's playing 11-dimensional chess!

- Bolton!

The same sort of excuses were made for Obama, USA's previous faux populist President.

When people tire of the excuses, maybe they will start to see how a) faux populism is a political model that serves the establishment and b) revisit the 2016 Presidential election and connect the memory-holed dots:

- the Deep State wanted a nationalist President to counter the challenge from Russia-China ( Kissinger alluded to MAGA in his WSJ Op-Ed in August 2014) ;

- Trump was the ONLY populist running on the Republican side (out of 19 candidates!) ;

- Trump was close to the Clintons for years (even their daughters are close) ;

- Felix Sater worked for Trump for over a decade while an informant for Robert Mueller's FBI (Sater's family had Russian mob connections) ;

- Virtually all of the dubious Russian oligarch ties attributed to Trump are Jewish and are likely (if not known to be) more connected to Israel than Russia;

- Sanders was a sheepdog (this 25-year friend of Hillary's was not a real candidate) ;

- Hillary deliberately alienated key voter groups (Sanders progressives, BLM blacks, 'delorable' whites) ;

- CIA/MI6 'meddled' in the election and arranged to trap Wikileaks and Flynn and agents of Russia/Turkey.


6) USA/Trump/neocons were never interested in Korean peace. The first Summit was a PR event to further the Trump psyop.

.
Welcome to the rabbit hole.

Jen , Mar 15, 2019 9:12:00 PM | link
Jackrabbit @ 12 beat me in saying that John Bolton has no authority over the CIA to tell them to do anything but he's head of the NSA and that organisation could have been tasked with organising the raid using mercenaries.
Jackrabbit , Mar 15, 2019 9:40:15 PM | link
Jen

John Bolton is National Security Advisor (NSA), and as the name implies, it is an ADVISORY position (with no formal command authority):

The National Security Advisor participates in meetings of the National Security Council (NSC) and ... is supported by NSC staff who produce research and briefings ...

The influence and role of the National Security Advisor varies from administration to administration and depends not only on the qualities of the person appointed to the position, but also on the style and management philosophy of the incumbent President....

National Security Agency (NSA) is headed by Gen. Paul M. Nakasone:

... (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence [DNI] . The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes ...
Jackrabbit , Mar 15, 2019 9:45:44 PM | link
Jen

I'm glad you reiterated the point (that Bolton has no such authority). It's an important one.

I rarely beat you at making important points, and even rarer do I make them as well as you do!

bevin , Mar 15, 2019 9:53:49 PM | link
No Bolton can't order the CIA to do anything. But he can indicate to the Korean Intelligence Service (Formerly known as the Korean CIA) that an attack on the Embassy would be a good thing to do.
There are rogue players here, one is the ultra right Korean deep state. Another is Japan. Both are committed to keeping US troops in Korea and to continuing to treat the North as an enemy.
Then there is the influence, in both Korea and Japan, of the Pentagon or elements within it equally committed to maintaining the status quo: permanent war with the North, permanent control over South Korea's forces, butting up to China's border, and the continued hostility between Japan and China.
One thing we do know is that the South Korean government will not have approved of this raid.
Sasha , Mar 15, 2019 9:59:37 PM | link
@Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 15, 2019 8:46:07 PM | 12

Agree in that Trump is not innocent at all, as clearly states Miles Copeland in an article linked by P. Armstrong in his last Russian SitRep ....

Ordinarily, when you get an order from headquarters you never obey it the first time because you're not sure they mean it. It might be some guy telling you to do something to get himself off the hook, being on record as having ordered it. So you always wait until the second time. But if there's a White House code word, you'd better take it seriously. The message from the White House said he was to assassinate Lumumba(...)

(...)my complaint has been that the CIA isn't overthrowing enough anti-American governments or assassinating enough anti-American leaders, but I guess I'm getting old. What's keeping the agency inactive is Congress and disinformed public opinion(...

Especially interesting the part dedicated to poisonoing, Skripal case comes to mind, taking into account the coordianted effort in expelling diplomats and the US expelling more than anybody, even than UK...

Trump approves all this outrage, it has his seal all the way...

Jackrabbit , Mar 15, 2019 10:20:47 PM | link
bevin:
But he can indicate to the Korean Intelligence Service ...
Any NSA that stepped out of bounds like that with out authorization would be sacked.

The point stands: Trump is not being undermined or blind-sided by Bolton, Trump approves of what Bolton does and has done.

In fact, Trump has admired Bolton for a long time. Two and a half years before appointing Bolton as NSA, Trump mentioned Bolton as someone that is his "go to" person for military/foreign affairs :

CHUCK TODD:

Who do you talk to for military advice right now? ... is there a go-to for you?

DONALD TRUMP:

Yeah, probably there are two or three. I mean, I like Bolton. I think he's, you know, a tough cookie, knows what he's talking about . Jacobs is a good guy--

CHUCK TODD:

Do you mean Ambassador John Bolton--

DONALD TRUMP:

Yes. I think he's terrific --

CHUCK TODD:

You mean Colonel Jack Jacobs?

DONALD TRUMP:

Colonel Jack Jacobs is a good guy. And I see him on occasion.

karlof1 , Mar 15, 2019 10:26:10 PM | link
With this quite obvious violation of International Law on top of the seemingly infinite previous violations, Pompeo and Bolton have tag teamed to tell the ICJ they'll sanction anyone that comes after any Outlaw US Empire individual, the threat itself likely being against the UN Charter and thus unlawful. I really don't have much further comment on this incident other than to reiterate that the United States of America should no longer be called that as it now proven beyond all doubt to be the Outlaw US Empire--internationally, the USA's Federal government's an Outlaw and must be treated as such. It's time to flip GW Bush's ultimatum on its head and tell every nation on the planet that if you're with the Outlaw US Empire then you're also an Outlaw, part of its Evil designs and abettor of its crimes. The UK & Zionistan have already proven themselves to be the top accomplices, with France and Canada their juniors. It's long past time to form an international posse, and no nation can claim ignorance.
mourning dove , Mar 15, 2019 10:38:43 PM | link
damn b, you just tear it up, thank you so much!!

[Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk by Jack Hunter

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
Mar 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders, said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004 liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals, saying they would damage women's rights in Afghanistan.

The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003, warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.

Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal viewers by peddling wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."

The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC, Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.

Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.

... ... ...

Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Senator Rand Paul.


WorkingClass March 13, 2019 at 10:36 pm

Only a crushing defeat and massive casualties on the battlefield will cause ANY change in foreign policy by either party.
PAX , says: March 13, 2019 at 10:45 pm
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor, the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
Donald , says: March 13, 2019 at 11:40 pm
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about foreign policy."

True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.

And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country. Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.

So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.

polistra , says: March 14, 2019 at 2:18 am
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever. If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
ked_x , says: March 14, 2019 at 2:48 am
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump is going to do'.
Kasoy , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:42 am
Will Democrats go full hawk?

For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything, no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.

For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally right, & what is morally evil.

Connecticut Farmer , says: March 14, 2019 at 8:47 am
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."

Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.

M. Orban , says: March 14, 2019 at 9:35 am
Having grown up under communism, I learned that it is dangerous but inevitable that propagandists eventually come to believe their own fabrications.
Argon , says: March 14, 2019 at 11:23 am
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally right, & what is morally evil."

I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™

What do True Scotsmen do?

Dave , says: March 14, 2019 at 12:53 pm
Recent suggests that more Christian Identity Politics will not keep us out of unwise wars.
Dave , says: March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
EarlyBird , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:04 pm
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.

Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.

But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock has been right twice a day.

Erin , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:11 pm
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.

This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.

Andrew , says: March 14, 2019 at 5:14 pm
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.

Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and doesn't know any better.

Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate the left is going he may very well be the nominee.

Mark Thomason , says: March 15, 2019 at 11:23 am
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.

The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.

[Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk by Jack Hunter

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
Mar 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders, said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004 liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals, saying they would damage women's rights in Afghanistan.

The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003, warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.

Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal viewers by peddling wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."

The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC, Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.

Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.

... ... ...

Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Senator Rand Paul.


WorkingClass March 13, 2019 at 10:36 pm

Only a crushing defeat and massive casualties on the battlefield will cause ANY change in foreign policy by either party.
PAX , says: March 13, 2019 at 10:45 pm
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor, the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
Donald , says: March 13, 2019 at 11:40 pm
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about foreign policy."

True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.

And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country. Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.

So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.

polistra , says: March 14, 2019 at 2:18 am
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever. If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
ked_x , says: March 14, 2019 at 2:48 am
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump is going to do'.
Kasoy , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:42 am
Will Democrats go full hawk?

For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything, no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.

For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally right, & what is morally evil.

Connecticut Farmer , says: March 14, 2019 at 8:47 am
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."

Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.

M. Orban , says: March 14, 2019 at 9:35 am
Having grown up under communism, I learned that it is dangerous but inevitable that propagandists eventually come to believe their own fabrications.
Argon , says: March 14, 2019 at 11:23 am
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally right, & what is morally evil."

I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™

What do True Scotsmen do?

Dave , says: March 14, 2019 at 12:53 pm
Recent suggests that more Christian Identity Politics will not keep us out of unwise wars.
Dave , says: March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
EarlyBird , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:04 pm
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.

Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.

But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock has been right twice a day.

Erin , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:11 pm
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.

This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.

Andrew , says: March 14, 2019 at 5:14 pm
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.

Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and doesn't know any better.

Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate the left is going he may very well be the nominee.

Mark Thomason , says: March 15, 2019 at 11:23 am
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.

The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.

[Mar 15, 2019] If one can imaging that creating of such a level of animosity between Congress, Administration and the Department of Justice was the Russian goal then perhaps Trump, Schumer, Pelosi, Rosentain and Mueller, all can expect to get the Star of Hero of the Russian Federation

Mar 15, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Mr Russian -> milo 2 days ago ,

Could you say that "checks and balances" of the US in current stage are "unbalanced"

Looks like executive branch has its own policies and legislative branch is trying very hard to nullify whatever executive branch can or could potentially do (and it will impact future presidents too).

And more importantly all this "meddling" (forgive me the pun) between the branches essentially cripples the US politics, foreign and internal.
If one can imaging THAT is the Russian goal then perhaps Mr. Trump could get the Star of Hero of the Russian Federation pretty soon

[Mar 15, 2019] Book review of Kushner, Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump by Vicky Ward by Michael Kranish

Notable quotes:
"... Ward delves into questions about whether Kushner misused his role as a way to find financing to rescue a Fifth Avenue property in Manhattan and suggests that Kushner dimwittedly nearly dragged the United States into a war in the region. It is a dark and mostly one-sided portrait, one with which the Kushner and Trump families no doubt will disagree. ..."
"... The greatest challenge of the book, and one that is likely to raise questions, is fulfilling the third element of Ward's subtitle: "Greed. Ambition. Corruption." The latter word connotes criminality; while Kushner's father served time in prison, neither Jared nor Ivanka has been accused of crimes by a prosecutor. ..."
"... To be sure, President Trump and his family have thrown around such concepts loosely, and without hedging. During the 2016 campaign, he called Hillary Clinton the " Most Corrupt Candidate Ever! ," retweeting an image that encased the words in a Jewish star against a backdrop of U.S. currency, a tweet widely criticized as anti-Semitic. (Trump said he thought it was a sheriff's star.) Clinton, like Jared and Ivanka, has not been charged by prosecutors with corruption. ..."
"... To rehabilitate the family image, Ward writes, the elder Kushner adopted a plan that called for transitioning from owning garden apartments in New Jersey to acquiring a Fifth Avenue office tower, a "trophy" that would dazzle the doubters. In addition, Jared would buy the New York Observer to get friendly media treatment, and he would "date someone prominent." While the father pulled the strings, the son got the credit -- and later the blame -- for buying the nation's most expensive office property just before the Great Recession, leaving him with a staggering debt. As for the prominent woman, Kushner dated Ivanka Trump. ..."
"... In the rather cynical portrait Ward draws, Ivanka, too, was strategic. Ward quotes her as saying in her own book, " The Trump Card ": "If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true." ..."
"... She writes that only after a thorough investigation by Congress and other authorities might they "finally face a reckoning." ..."
Mar 15, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
Kushner, Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump By Vicky Ward St. Martin's. 286 pp. $28.99

... ... ...

There are no blockbuster revelations here regarding Kushner's meeting with a Russian banker or his involvement in a meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower, two issues that have drawn the interest of investigators. Ward is, however, particularly critical of Trump's decision to hand over Middle East policy to Kushner, which led to clashes with then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others.

Ward delves into questions about whether Kushner misused his role as a way to find financing to rescue a Fifth Avenue property in Manhattan and suggests that Kushner dimwittedly nearly dragged the United States into a war in the region. It is a dark and mostly one-sided portrait, one with which the Kushner and Trump families no doubt will disagree.

For much of the book, as is often the case with volumes seeking to tell an inside story of the White House, the sources are anonymous and highly critical. If Ward secured on-the-record interviews with her two main subjects, she does not say so; their voices are mostly filtered through the mouths of others, most of whom may have a vested interest in spinning conversations a certain way. It is, to be sure, a particularly challenging task that Ward has undertaken, given Kushner's rare public comments and the couple's obsession with maintaining their image and protecting the president.

The greatest challenge of the book, and one that is likely to raise questions, is fulfilling the third element of Ward's subtitle: "Greed. Ambition. Corruption." The latter word connotes criminality; while Kushner's father served time in prison, neither Jared nor Ivanka has been accused of crimes by a prosecutor.

In the text, while Ward hammers the couple on page after page, she doesn't explicitly accuse them of corruption as defined by legal statutes. Perhaps the closest she comes is when she writes that "it's been reported" that Ivanka Trump oversaw her family's project in Azerbaijan in which a partner's brother had been described in a U.S. diplomatic cable as corrupt.

"As a result, it's possible that the Trump Organization violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act," Ward writes, providing a notable hedge.

To be sure, President Trump and his family have thrown around such concepts loosely, and without hedging. During the 2016 campaign, he called Hillary Clinton the " Most Corrupt Candidate Ever! ," retweeting an image that encased the words in a Jewish star against a backdrop of U.S. currency, a tweet widely criticized as anti-Semitic. (Trump said he thought it was a sheriff's star.) Clinton, like Jared and Ivanka, has not been charged by prosecutors with corruption.

Ward, who relies heavily on the reporting of others (noted in endnotes), as well as her own sources, has a tendency, particularly in the first half of the book, to make sweeping statements and repeat rumors, some of which she then bats down. She writes that one man "was rumored to sleep with men and hired prostitutes," and says another was "not one to be troubled by ethics."

Ward paints a sordid portrait of Kushner's coming-of-age, retelling tales of how his father's contributions to Harvard may have greased his way into the college. A war within the Kushner family led his father, Charles Kushner, to arrange for a prostitute to entrap a relative with whom he had feuded. Charles Kushner went to prison for his part in the scheme and other matters. Jared later told New York magazine that his father's viewpoint was: " You're trying to make my life miserable? Well, I'm doing the same. "

To rehabilitate the family image, Ward writes, the elder Kushner adopted a plan that called for transitioning from owning garden apartments in New Jersey to acquiring a Fifth Avenue office tower, a "trophy" that would dazzle the doubters. In addition, Jared would buy the New York Observer to get friendly media treatment, and he would "date someone prominent." While the father pulled the strings, the son got the credit -- and later the blame -- for buying the nation's most expensive office property just before the Great Recession, leaving him with a staggering debt. As for the prominent woman, Kushner dated Ivanka Trump.

Donald Trump was not pleased at first, according to Ward. "Why couldn't she have married Tom Brady?" he said, referring to the New England Patriots quarterback, Ward writes. "Have you seen how he throws a football?"

In the rather cynical portrait Ward draws, Ivanka, too, was strategic. Ward quotes her as saying in her own book, " The Trump Card ": "If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true."

When President Trump said there were " very fine people, on both sides " of a Charlottesville clash during which white supremacists shouted "Jews will not replace us," Trump's economic adviser Gary Cohn threatened to resign, noting that some of his family members had been killed in the Holocaust. Ivanka urged him to stay, telling him: "My dad's not a racist. He didn't mean any of it; he's not anti-Semitic," according to Ward. Cohn remained in his post.

At first, Jared and Ivanka didn't plan to work in the White House, but after Trump brought them in as advisers, they frequently clashed with chief strategist Stephen Bannon and others. An "epic" and profane fight took place between Bannon and Ivanka over who was leaking stories, Ward writes.

"Everybody knows you leak," Bannon is reported to have told Ivanka.

"You're a f---ing liar," she is said to have responded. "Everything that comes out of your mouth is a f---ing lie."

"Go f--- yourself. . . . You are nothing," Bannon reportedly said.

The president, according to Ward, eventually wanted to send Jared and Ivanka back to New York, but after so many firings and resignations in the White House, he needed them more than ever.

Some of their activities have remained largely opaque. And Ward can take speculation about corruption only so far. She writes that only after a thorough investigation by Congress and other authorities might they "finally face a reckoning."

Michael Kranish is an investigative political reporter with The Washington Post and a co-author of "Trump Revealed." He is the author of "The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero," to be published in May.

[Mar 15, 2019] Trump Administration, Canada And EU Hit Russia With Fresh Sanctions

Hate of Russia national runs deep with the infected bowels of the State Department. Sounds like Neo-cons saber rattling and wanting to start WWIII over a bunch of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis installed thanks to Victoria Nuland.
So much for detente with Russia. Trump proved to be just a marionette of MIC...
Sentiments about Trump at Zerohedge noticeably deteriorates since 2016
Mar 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The US State Department announced on Friday that it would be joining the European Union and Canada to impose new sanctions against Russia in response to the Kremlin's "continued aggression in Ukraine."

Sanctions will apply to six "individuals who orchestrated the unjustified November 25 attack on three Ukrainian naval vessels near the Kerch Strait."

Also sanctioned by the United States are eight companies, including six Russian defense firms, "including shipbuilding companies; two individuals involved in the NOvember sham "elections" in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine; and two Russian energy and construction companies operating in Crimea."

Read the State Department announcement below:

Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated six Russian individuals and eight entities in response to Russia's continued and ongoing aggression in Ukraine. Today's action targets individuals and entities playing a role in Russia's unjustified attacks on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Kerch Strait, the purported annexation of Crimea, and backing of illegitimate separatist government elections in eastern Ukraine. These actions complement sanctions also taken today by the European Union and Canada, and underscore the strength and commitment of the transatlantic partnership to counter Russia's continued destabilizing behavior and malign activities.

"The United States and our transatlantic partners will not allow Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine to go unchecked. This joint initiative with our partners in the European Union and Canada reinforces our shared commitment to impose targeted and meaningful sanctions in response to the Kremlin's attempts to disregard international norms and undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. "The international community is strongly aligned against Russia's naval attacks in the Kerch Straight, purported annexation of Crimea, and support for the illegitimate separatist-conducted elections in eastern Ukraine."

OVERVIEW

Five years after its invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, Russia continues to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity while failing to implement its obligations under the Minsk agreements. On November 25, 2018, Russian authorities opened fire on and rammed three Ukrainian ships off the coast of Crimea, seizing the ships and capturing 24 Ukrainian crew members, who remain illegally detained in Russia. Russia also continues its occupation of Crimea, and the Kremlin has also backed illegitimate elections held by Ukrainian separatists in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic on November 11, 2018.

As a result of today's designations, all property and interests in property of the designated individuals and entities are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from transacting with them. Moreover, any entities owned 50 percent or more by these designated persons are also blocked by operation of law.

Designations Related to Russia's Attack in the Kerch Strait

OFAC today sanctioned four Russian officials who were involved in the Kerch Strait attack. OFAC designated Gennadiy Medvedev, the Deputy Director of the Border Guard Service of Russia's Federal Security Service; Sergey Stankevich, the Head of the Border Directorate of Russia's Federal Security Service; and Andrey Shein, the Deputy Head of the Border Directorate and Head of the Coast Guard Unit of Russia's Federal Security Service. Medvedev and Stankevich directly controlled and organized the attack against the Ukrainian ships and their crew, while Shein participated in the operation against the seized Ukrainian ships and crew.

OFAC also designated Ruslan Romashkin, the Head of the Service Command Point of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.

Medvedev, Stankevich, Shein, and Romashkin are being designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13661 for being officials of the Government of the Russian Federation.

DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO RUSSIA'S PURPORTED ANNEXATION OF CRIMEA

Today's action also targets six Russian defense firms with operations in Crimea, several of which misappropriated Ukrainian state assets to provide services to the Russian military. Four of these entities are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy, and two entities are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13685 for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

Yaroslavsky Shipbuilding Plant is a Russian state-owned shipbuilding plant that has built vessels for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian Ministry of Defense. Yaroslavsky Shipbuilding Plant is also the project developer for a naval vessel that was completed at the Federal SUE Shipyard "Morye" in Crimea. Yaroslavsky Shipbuilding Plant is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the defense or related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.

Zelenodolsk Shipyard Plant, named after A.M. Gorky, is one of the largest ship manufacturers in Russia and has produced missile frigates and corvettes for the Russian Navy. The Zelenodolsk Shipyard Plant has collaborated with Crimea-based enterprise Skloplastic, which was unlawfully nationalized by the Russian government following its illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014. The Zelenodolsk Shipyard Plant is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.

AO Kontsern Okeanpribor (Okeanpribor) is a producer of hydroacoustic equipment and has supplied components to the Russian Navy. Okeanpribor has also collaborated on a naval project at the Federal SUE Shipyard "Morye" in Crimea. Federal SUE Shipyard "Morye" was designated by OFAC on September 1, 2016. Okeanpribor is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.

PAO Zvezda (Zvezda) is a supplier of diesel engines to the Russian Navy. Zvezda has also supplied components for Russian naval vessels that were being built at the Federal SUE Shipyard "Morye" in Crimea. Zvezda is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.

AO Zavod Fiolent (Fiolent) is a Crimea-based electronics manufacturer that has supplied parts for use in Russian military equipment. Fiolent was unlawfully seized by the Russian Federation following its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Fiolent is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13685 for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

GUP RK KTB Sudokompozit (Sudokompozit) is a Crimea-based producer of defense components that are supplied for Russian military use. Sudokompozit was unlawfully seized by the Russian Federation following its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Sudokompozit is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13685 for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

OFAC also designated the following two entities pursuant to E.O. 13685, due to their activities in Crimea.

LLC SK Consol-Stroi LTD is being designated for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine. LLC SK Consol-Stroi LTD, a limited liability company registered in the city of Simferopol, Crimea, is one of Crimea's largest construction companies. LLC SK Consol-Stroi LTD is engaged in the construction of residential and commercial real estate in cities throughout the Crimea region including, among others, Feodosia, Kerch, Yalta, Simferopol, Sevastopol, and Yepatoria.

LLC Novye Proekty is being designated for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine. In 2016, Russian authorities awarded the private company Novye Proekty an oil and gas exploration license for the Crimean Black Sea shelf. The Crimean shelf is believed to be rich in hydrocarbons and authorities in Ukraine have reported that Ukraine lost about 80 percent of its oil and gas deposits in the Black Sea due to Russia's purported annexation of Crimea. Novye Proekty's license permits geological studies, prospecting, and the extraction of raw hydrocarbon materials from the Black Sea's Glubokaya block. Prior to Russia's purported annexation of Crimea the Glubokaya block was estimated to hold reserves of 8.3 million tons of crude and 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO ILLEGITIMATE SEPARATIST GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS IN UKRAINE

Today's action also targets two Ukrainian separatists who were involved in the organization of the November 2018 illegitimate elections in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic. These illegitimate elections clearly contradict Russia's commitments under the Minsk agreements, and were strongly opposed by the United States and EU.

Aleksey Alekseevich Naydenko is the Deputy Chair of the Central Election Commission of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic. Naydenko is being designated for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Vladimir Yurievich Vysotsky is the Secretary of Central Election Commission of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic. Vysotsky is being designated for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.

View identifying information on the individuals designated today.


Insufferably Insouciant , 10 minutes ago link

Bizazze choice of wording in the official text:

" DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO RUSSIA'S PURPORTED ANNEXATION OF CRIMEA"

purported

/pərˈpôrdəd/

adjective

  1. appearing or stated to be true, though not necessarily so; alleged.

There is nothing "purported" about it, it was true and as legitimate as it could possibly be.

Then under "DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO ILLEGITIMATE SEPARATIST GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS IN UKRAINE" they claim that Russia violated its committments under Minsk 2, which the US never officially recognized. Minsk 2 intended increased sovereignty for the Oblasts under a new Ukraine Federal constitutional arrangement. That constitutional amendment has never been initiated by Kiev, with the blessing of Uncle Sam. It is the Ukraine puppet government who is in violation of Minsk 2.

If the US wrote this, assume the opposite to be true.

smacker , 47 minutes ago link

[Article]: " Sanctions will apply to six "individuals who orchestrated the unjustified November 25 attack on three Ukrainian naval vessels near the Kerch Strait." "

Translation: "The propaganda lunacy will continue". "We will keep telling the same old same old lies until people believe them".

My understanding of that incident is that the Ukrainian boats had some unexplained special forces people on board and they refused to pull over when ordered to. From Russia's view, there was a real risk of these people planning to plant explosives to blow up the Kerch bridge.

OpTwoMistic , 42 minutes ago link

Can you imagine Russia building missile batteries in Mexico or Cuba? That is what US has done in Ukraine.

nope-1004 , 33 minutes ago link

Now it appears that no matter which government is in power they go along with the aggressive agenda of the US.

Been like that since the '50's, just that you believed that the economy and world was good.

Voting matters ZERO. The lie you are made to believe is that there is a choice when voting, when in fact the ruling party is the financial engineers and bankers behind all governments.

Voting is a waste of time. The heart of the beast is the USD reserve and the Rothschild empire. Once we abolish that pig, all western governments implode under their own weight of cheap talk and empty "policy".

dirty dogs , 50 minutes ago link

Don't forget the paint company that Russia used on their assault boats to scratch those Ukie ships.

No Justice No Peace!

666D Chess , 1 hour ago link

The evidence that the orange swine is a Rothschild Trojan Horse is overwhelming at this point. Only a scumbag or an absolute imbecile would fail to see it. Fvck you orange roach.

2handband , 1 hour ago link

You might recall that I said as much right from the beginning of the campaign...

666D Chess , 1 hour ago link

I didn't read your comments at that time but I tip my hat to you. I realised that everything he said during the campaign was bullsh!t after he started appointing Goldman Sachs bankers to his cabinet...

marcel tjoeng , 1 hour ago link

The USA government is quite the set of loathsome filth,

[Mar 15, 2019] Venezuela Facts You Don't Hear from the Mainstream Media

Mar 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Alpi57 , Mar 14, 2019 6:27:37 PM | link

Sorry to break up the Brexit party and change subjects. The Brits will be fine. It is just a messy divorce.

On to more important subjects:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/ricardo-hausmann-morning-venezuela-neoliberal-brain-behind-juan-guaidos-economic-agenda/256185/


S , Mar 14, 2019 8:08:16 PM | link

Irish independent MPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace battle against imperialist sell-out MPs in the Irish Parliament on the issue of Venezuela: Venezuela Facts You Don't Hear from the Mainstream Media . Great watch.
karlof1 , Mar 14, 2019 8:21:03 PM | link
Maduro assassination attempt via drone confirmed as Outlaw US Empire operation.

Well Pelosi, here we have attempted murder as a high crime to Impeach Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams with, or is that something too "trivial" for you!

[Mar 15, 2019] If one can imaging that creating of such a level of animosity between Congress, Administration and the Department of Justice was the Russian goal then perhaps Trump, Schumer, Pelosi, Rosentain and Mueller, all can expect to get the Star of Hero of the Russian Federation

Mar 15, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Mr Russian -> milo 2 days ago ,

Could you say that "checks and balances" of the US in current stage are "unbalanced"

Looks like executive branch has its own policies and legislative branch is trying very hard to nullify whatever executive branch can or could potentially do (and it will impact future presidents too).

And more importantly all this "meddling" (forgive me the pun) between the branches essentially cripples the US politics, foreign and internal.
If one can imaging THAT is the Russian goal then perhaps Mr. Trump could get the Star of Hero of the Russian Federation pretty soon

[Mar 15, 2019] Omidyar's Democracy Fund has also helped to finance the "News Integrity Initiative," a name that evokes the U.K.'s notorious Integrity Initiative.

Mar 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Blooming Barricade , Mar 14, 2019 5:36:22 PM | link

Pierre Omidyar opens up new Integrity Initiative

Omidyar's Democracy Fund has also helped to finance the "News Integrity Initiative," a name that evokes the U.K.'s notorious Integrity Initiative. The latter group claimed to be an independent charity battling foreign disinformation until it was exposed by hackers as a propaganda mill run by military officers and covertly funded by the British Foreign Office to cultivate public opinion in support of heightened conflict with Russia. Leaked communications revealed how the Integrity Initiative mobilized clusters of journalists, self-styled disinformation experts, academics and political figures throughout the West to advocate for a long-term war footing against the Russian menace.

For its part, the News Integrity Initiative is a murky $14 million operation intended to "combat media manipulation" through a network of "journalists, technologists, academic institutions, non-profits, and other organizations." The set-up is eerily evocative of the influence clusters developed by the British Integrity Initiative. Few specifics are provided, however, on what the group actually does.

A hint about the agenda of the News Integrity Initiative lies in a grant of $1 million it made to an outlet called Internews in 2017. The bulk of Internews' money -- some 80 percent of it -- comes from the U.S. government. It has also received backing from liberal financier George Soros and USAID, which provided the group with seed money for a Russian-language television network, helped drive the pro-NATO color revolution in the Republic of Georgia, and published footage of Russian casualties in Chechnya to erode Russian public support for the war.

In countries that are considered official and semi-official enemies of the United States, Internews has organized de facto boot camps for opposition journalists. "In the Middle East," says Internews founder David Hoffman, "training sessions often begin with discussion of whether Internews is really U.S. propaganda or the CIA." However Hoffman answers the question, it is abundantly clear that his outlet has advanced Washington's priorities abroad behind the guise of independent journalism.

In November 2017, the News Integrity Initiative hosted a workshop alongside Internews and the Omidyar-backed First Draft News in Kiev, Ukraine, according to the initiative's managing director, Molly de Aguiar. Kiev is today a nexus for intelligence-connected media crusaders and a launch pad for projects ostensibly aimed at countering Russia's "information warfare." But, what exactly the News Integrity Initiative was doing there was left unsaid.

While Omidyar ploughs his fortune into organizations that claim to be countering "disinformation," especially of the Russian variety, he has established a culture factory to publicize the supposed feats of the journalists often hyped up by the cartel of media transparency groups and fact-checking sites he funds.

http://failedevolution.blogspot.com/2019/03/how-one-of-americas-premier-data_5.html

[Mar 15, 2019] Patriots Turning To #YangGang In Response To Trump, Conservatism Inc. Failure by James Kirkpatrick

Mar 15, 2019 | www.unz.com

The dark horse candidate of the 2020 Democratic primary is entrepreneur Andrew Yang , who just qualified for the first round of debates by attracting over 65,000 unique donors. [ Andrew Yang qualifies for first DNC debate with 65,000 unique donors , by Orion Rummler, Axios, March 12, 2019]

Yang is a businessman who has worked in several fields, but was best known for founding Venture for America , which helps college graduates become entrepreneurs. However, he is now gaining recognition for his signature campaign promise -- $1,000 a month for every American.

ORDER IT NOW

Yang promises a universal entitlement, not dependent on income, that he calls a "freedom dividend." To be funded through a value added tax , Yang claims that it would reduce the strain on "health care, incarceration, homeless services, and the like" and actually save billions of dollars. Yang also notes that "current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally."

As Yang himself notes, this is not a new idea, nor one particularly tied to the Left. Indeed, it's been proposed by several prominent libertarians because it would replace the far more inefficient welfare system. Charles Murray called for this policy in 2016. [ A guaranteed income for every American , AEI, June 3, 2016] Milton Friedman suggested a similar policy in a 1968 interview with William F. Buckley, though Friedman called it a "negative income tax."

He rejected arguments that it would cause indolence. F.A. Hayek also supported such a policy; he essentially took it for granted . [ Friedrich Hayek supported a guaranteed minimum income , by James Kwak, Medium, July 20, 2015]

It's also been proposed by many nationalists, including, well, me. At the January 2013 VDARE.com Webinar, I called for a "straight-up minimum income for citizens only" among other policies that would build a new nationalist majority and deconstruct Leftist power. I've retained that belief ever since and argued for it here for years.

However, I've also made the argument that it only works if it is for citizens only and is combined with a restrictive immigration policy. As I previously argued in a piece attacking Jacobin's disingenuous complaints about the "reserve army of the unemployed," you simply can't support high wages, workers' rights, and a universal basic income while still demanding mass immigration.

Yang is justifying the need for such a program because of automation . Again, VDARE.com has been exploring how automation may necessitate such a program for many years . Yang also discussed this problem on Tucker Carlson's show , which alone shows he is more open to real discussion than many progressive activists.

Yang is also directly addressing the crises that the Trump Administration has seemly forgotten. Unlike Donald Trump himself, with his endless boasting about "low black and Hispanic unemployment," Yang has directly spoken about the demographic collapse of white people because of "low birth rates and white men dying from substance abuse and suicide ."

Though even the viciously anti-white Dylan Matthews called the tweet "innocuous," there is little doubt if President Trump said it would be called racist. [ Andrew Yang, the 2020 long-shot candidate running on a universal basic income, explained , Vox, March 11, 2019]

Significantly, President Trump himself has never once specifically recognized the plight of white Americans.

Of course, Yang has foolish, even flippant policies on other issues. He wants to make Puerto Rico a state . He supports a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, albeit with an 18-year waiting period and combined with pledges to secure the border and deport illegals who don't enroll in the citizenship program. He wants to create a massive bureaucratic system to track gun owners, restrict gun ownership , and require various "training" programs for licenses. He wants to subsidize local journalists with taxpayer dollars, which in practice would mean just paying Leftist activists to dox people in their communities.

(Though as some have pointed out, with a thousand dollars a month no matter what, right-wingers wouldn't have to worry as much about being targeted by journofa ).

Indeed, journalists, hall monitors that they are, have recognized that President Trump's online supporters are flocking to Yang, bringing him a powerful weapon in the meme wars. (Sample meme at right.) And because many of these online activists are "far right" by Main Stream Media standards, or at least Politically Incorrect, there is much hand-waving and wrist-flapping about the need for Yang to decry "white nationalists." So of course, the candidate has dutifully done so, claiming "racism and white nationalism [are] a threat to the core ideals of what it means to be an American". [ Presidential candidate Andrew Yang has a meme problem , by Russell Brandom, The Verge, March 9, 2019]

But what does it mean to be an American? As more and more of American history is described as racist, and even national symbols and the national anthem are targets for protest, "America" certainly doesn't seem like a real country with a real identity. Increasingly, "America" resembles a continent-sized shopping mall, with nothing holding together the warring tribes that occupy it except money.

President Trump, of course, was elected because many people thought he could reverse this process, especially by limiting mass immigration and taking strong action in the culture wars, for example by promoting official English. Yet in recent weeks, he has repeatedly endorsed more legal immigration. Rather than fighting, the president is content to brag about the economy and whine about unfair press coverage and investigations. He already seems like a lame duck.

The worst part of all of this is that President Trump was elected as a response not just to the Left, but to the failed Conservative Establishment. During the 2016 campaign, President Trump specifically pledged to protect entitlements , decried foreign wars, and argued for a massive infrastructure plan. However, once in office, his main legislative accomplishment is a tax cut any other Republican president would have pushed. Similarly, his latest budget contains the kinds of entitlement cuts that are guaranteed to provoke Democrat attack ads. [ Trump said he wouldn't cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare . His 2020 budget cuts all 3 , by Tara Golshan, Vox, March 12, 2019] And the president has already backed down on withdrawing all troops from Syria, never mind Afghanistan.

Conservatism Inc., having learned nothing from candidate Donald Trump's scorched-earth path to the Republican nomination, now embraces Trump as a man but ignores his campaign message. Instead, the conservative movement is still promoting the same tired slogans about "free markets" even as they have appear to have lost an entire generation to socialism. The most iconic moment was Charlie Kirk, head of the free market activist group Turning Point USA, desperately trying to tell his followers not to cheer for Tucker Carlson because Carlson had suggested a nation should be treated like a family, not simply a marketplace .

President Trump himself is now trying to talk like a fiscal conservative [ Exclusive -- Donald Trump: 'Seductive' Socialism Would Send Country 'Down The Tubes' In a Decade Or Less , by Alexander Marlow, Matt Boyle, Amanda House, and Charlie Spierling, Breitbart, March 11, 2019]. Such a pose is self-discrediting given how the deficit swelled under united Republican control and untold amounts of money are seemingly still available for foreign aid to Israel, regime change in Iran and Venezuela, and feminist programs abroad to make favorite daughter Ivanka Trump feel important. [ Trump budget plans to give $100 million to program for women that Ivanka launched , by Nathalie Baptiste, Mother Jones, March 9, 2019]

Thus, especially because of his cowardice on immigration, many of President Trump's most fervent online supporters have turned on him in recent weeks. And the embrace of Yang seems to come out of a great place of despair, a sense that the country really is beyond saving.

Yang has Leftist policies on many issues, but many disillusioned Trump supporters feel like those policies are coming anyway. If America is just an economy, and if everyone in the world is a simply an American-in-waiting, white Americans might as well get something out of this System before the bones are picked clean.

National Review ' s Theodore Kupfer just claimed the main importance of Yang's candidacy is that it will prove meme-makers ability to affect the vote count "has been overstated" [ Rise of the pink hats , March 12, 2019]. Time will tell, but it is ominous for Trump that many of the more creative and dedicated people who formed his vanguard are giving up on him.

[Mar 15, 2019] Ukraine is a good example. Now this country commits ritual suicide "completely voluntarily."

Mar 15, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Nick Klaus Mr Russian 2 days ago ,

You are a little wrong when you call this system "colonial". Today it is neo-colonialism. When the United States subordinates the country, they do not bear any responsibility for the fate of this country, since the formally subordinate country remains independent and all its actions are performed "voluntarily."

Ukraine is a good example. Now this country commits ritual suicide "completely voluntarily."

milo Mr Russian 2 days ago ,

They've thought of that. That's why they tell us "The US has no colonies". Because you have to support them if you admit to owning them. That's why by 1960, every colonial nation on earth was giving its own colonies independence. They were costing more than they were worth.

What we do now is to groom some local fellow, like Guaido, to take over the government and run it the way we would like him to. We pay generously for this favor, in the form of loans and direct investments. The fortunate ones near the seat of power come out fabulously well. But neither we nor the country's rulers take on any responsibility for the welfare of their people.

One of the dictators we backed was the director of the Brazilian military, who seized power back in 1964... a fellow named Castelo Branco. And he was asked once at a press conference how the economy was doing.

He replied "The economy, it is doing marvelously! The people, on the other hand-- not so good."

Mr Russian milo 2 days ago ,

If you don't offer protection to your puppet eventually some other power might try the same trick and overthrow him. But if you do provide protection that area becomes a colony.
So what you describing can only work when there is only one major power on the planet. The US enjoyed it for some time but it can't have it anymore, that's reality.

milo Mr Russian 2 days ago ,

The system is predicted to work some time into the future, for the reason that it is based on subterfuge and military force. And we have a military as large as that of the entire rest of the planet put together. So to us it doesn't matter what you call it. They control the media, so they can just not report a word you say about them.

What will undo it will be a collapse of the dollar-based economy. And that will be kind of hard to achieve, as every rich person on earth keeps his wealth denominated in dollars. So there is little pressure to kill it. That's why we always used to call it The Almighty Dollar.

However there are limits. Our main weapon now being used to enforce behavior is financial sanctions. So it's pretty much assured that at some point in the near future the sanctioned nations (Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela...) will be getting together to set up an alternate financial system. Probably based on the yuan.

That's the thing about offensive weapons systems. As a Mexican wit put it "Let them build a twenty foot wall. We will build a 21 foot ladder."

[Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk The American Conservative

Mar 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

In 2019, it is.

When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders, said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004 liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals, saying they would damage women's rights in Afghanistan.

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The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003, warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.

Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal viewers by peddling wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."

The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC, Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what their liberal audiences currently want or will accept. Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.

[Mar 15, 2019] If Germany tries to close NATO conmmand center very likely, a color revolution will break out in Germany

Mar 15, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Allalin 2 days ago ,

Can anyone confirm what will happen when Germany will shut down those US Command Center (NATO) because Germany is able to finance their own. (US Personal has to go) Nato support Act is an US Law and not an authorized NATO Law

Nick Klaus Allalin 2 days ago ,

Very likely, a color revolution will break out in Germany

[Mar 15, 2019] The Battle for the Future of U.S. Foreign Policy Has Begun by Ted Galen Carpenter

that's a fake battle. The US foreign policy is controlled by MIC and Wall Street. Elected officials, as we see in cases of both Oabma and Trump administrations, "simply does not matter."
That arrangement (which now is associated with the term the Deep state") is a part of the rule of military-industrial complex and due to the existence of powerful three letter agencies created by Truman can't be changed. Essntially Truman secured the victory of military industrial complex for the next hundred years or more.
Mar 14, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

Congressional efforts are underway to seize control of foreign-policy decisions from the executive. Who will win?

There are signs of growing congressional inconsistency, if not incoherence, regarding the authority of the president in foreign affairs. The legislature seeks to interfere on issues that are the president's responsibility while still failing to fulfill its own constitutionally mandated responsibility regarding the war power.

An incident of misplaced assertiveness took place in January when the House of Representatives passed the NATO Support Act prohibiting the executive branch from using any funds to facilitate U.S. withdrawal from the Alliance in any way. The legislation appears to bar a drawdown of U.S. troop levels in Europe and any effort to terminate U.S. membership in NATO.

Enacting the legislation seemed weirdly premature. President Donald Trump has not even taken any substantive actions that might diminish U.S. participation in NATO affairs. He has merely criticized the allies for their lack of burden-sharing in the collective defense effort and (correctly) suggested that NATO itself might be "obsolete" given how much the European and global security environments have changed since the Alliance's birth at the dawn of the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

The constitutionality of such restrictions also is highly suspect. The Constitution makes the president the steward of foreign affairs. Presidents historically have enjoyed wide latitude regarding the interpretation, execution, and even termination of U.S. treaties. Chief executives have enjoyed even greater latitude regarding troop deployments, especially in noncombat situations, and the nature, extent, and duration of military commitments to implement treaties or other agreements. Congressional interference in the form of the NATO Support Act would be truly revolutionary -- and not in a good way. It is a transparent congressional attempt to usurp the president's rightful constitutional authority and seek to micromanage U.S. foreign policy.

The NATO issue is not the only case in which congressional efforts are underway to seize control of foreign-policy decisions from the executive. A faction in both houses is now pushing a measure that would prevent the White House from failing to honor U.S. obligations under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty until it expires in February 2021. Unlike in the case of NATO, the president has taken tangible steps against the INF. After accusing Russia of violating its obligations under the treaty, Trump announced that the United States intended to withdraw from the INF . It should be stressed that the issue is not whether the president's policies on NATO or the INF are wise or misguided; the relevant issue is whether the Constitution invests the executive or Congress with the authority to make those decisions.

Greater congressional assertiveness on such issues is especially odd given how readily Congress has abandoned its own explicit constitutional authority to control the war power. Even as legislators moved to restrict Trump regarding NATO and the INF, there was no effective campaign to prevent him from implementing his decision to keep at least two hundred troops in Syria, despite the continuing lack of any congressional authorization for U.S. military involvement in that combat zone.

... ... ...

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest , is the author of twelve books and more than 750 articles on foreign affairs.


Mr Russian milo 2 days ago ,

Could you say that "checks and balances" of the US in current stage are "unbalanced"
Looks like executive branch has its own policies and legislative branch is trying very hard to nullify whatever executive branch can or could potentially do (and it will impact future presidents too).
And more importantly all this "meddling" (forgive me the pun) between the branches essentially cripples the US politics, foreign and internal.
If one can imaging THAT is the Russian goal then perhaps Mr. Trump could get the Star of Hero of the Russian Federation pretty soon

milo Mr Russian 2 days ago ,

Our system of checks and balances has become totally unbalanced, destabilized like some Arab government we've decided don't like. Political scientists are all telling us that we're on the way to having a classic autocratic regime, where nothing matters except what El Supremo says matters.

And Congress is supine. They really don't care much about how the country is being run, they just care if they get re-elected. And the right half of them thinks they won't get re-elected if they oppose Trump. So there's no veto-proof majority.

It never used to be this way. But it has been said that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants." (Thomas Jefferson)

And we just don't have enough patriots to get the job done. I look to the young people to be changing that.

Mr Russian milo 2 days ago ,
Political scientists are all telling us that we're on the way to having a classic autocratic regime, where nothing matters except what El Supremo says matters.


I have elusive feeling that American policies have already been praying to "El Supremo" for some time, it just wasn't so openly obvious until now.
And the "El Supremo" name is "Wall Street". Globalisation have taken over American policies for some time.
It became obvious after "too big to fail" incidents of 2008.
Another example: FAANG has so much power now that it can literally kill smaller private companies with a mouse click. It can shape public opinion and no doubt it can soon be able to elect politicians.

milo Mr Russian 2 days ago ,

That's something different. Wall Street funds quite a large portion of the campaigns waged by both parties. So whichever party wins an election, they are anxious to never offend their sponsors. You might look up the proportions of presidential elections contributions made by the financial and insurance industries.

(This is also why we can never seem to get a good single-payer health system. It would get rid of private health insurance.)

I was talking about the once-creeping, now-galloping expansion of presidential powers. This was first evident during the presidency of George W Bush, when the theory of the Unitary Executive was put forth, by people like John Yoo and David Addington.

It establishes the theory that the Constitution allows a sitting president to disregard those laws he doesn't want to enforce and to take executive actions that do not depend on congressional approval. That is, he is above the law and accountable to no one.

https://www.acslaw.org/?pos...
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pa...

Mr Russian milo 2 days ago ,

Empire, even a powerful one cannot win prosperity with a war or wars. Eventually you'd need to provide some economy to the colonies. The less you provide the more they gonna hate you and resist you. The more you provide the less they gonna need you and eventually overthrow you.
Winning with wars is utopia, like communism.

Nick Klaus Mr Russian 2 days ago ,

You are a little wrong when you call this system "colonial". Today it is neo-colonialism. When the United States subordinates the country, they do not bear any responsibility for the fate of this country, since the formally subordinate country remains independent and all its actions are performed "voluntarily."

Ukraine is a good example. Now this country commits ritual suicide "completely voluntarily."

[Mar 14, 2019] CIA Is Conspiring With ISIS, Turning Syrian Refugee Camps Into ISIS Hotbeds

Mar 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The CIA is conspiring with ISIS commanders in northeastern Syria supplying them with fake documents and then transferring them to Iraq, according to reports in Turkish pro-government media.

About 2,000 ISIS members were questioned in the areas of Kesra, Buseira, al-Omar and Suwayr in Deir Ezzor province and at least 140 of them then received fake documents. Some of the questioned terrorists were then moved to the camps of al-Hol, Hasakah and Rukban, which are controlled by US-backed forces. The CIA also reportedly created a special facility near Abu Khashab with the same purpose.

Israeli, French and British special services are reportedly involved.

An interesting observation is that the media of the country, which in the previous years of war, used to conspire with ISIS allowing its foreign recruits to enter Syria and buying smuggled oil from the terrorists, has now become one of the most active exposers of the alleged US ties with ISIS elements.

Another issue often raised in Turkish media is the poor humanitarian situation in the refugee camps controlled by US-backed forces. These reports come in the course of other revelations. According to the International Rescue Committee, about 100 people, mostly children, died in combat zones or in the al-Hol camp controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces just recently.

In its turn, the Russian Defense Ministry released a series of satellite images revealing the horrifying conditions in the al-Rukban camp. The imagery released on March 12 shows at least 670 graves, many of them fresh, close to the camp's living area. The tents and light constructions used to settle refugees are also located in a close proximity to large waste deposits.

A joint statement by the Russian and Syrian Joint Coordination Committees for Repatriation of Syrian Refugees said that refugees in al-Rukban are suffering from a lack of water, food, medication and warm clothing, which is especially important during winter. According to the statement, members of the US-backed armed group Maghawir al-Thawra disrupt water deliveries to the camp, using this as a bargaining chip for blackmailing and profiteering purposes.

Tensions are once again growing between Syria and Israel. Earlier in March, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad submitted an official letter to the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) Kristin Lund that Damascus "will not hesitate to confront Israel" if it continues refusing to withdraw from the Golan Heights.

Israeli media and officials responded with a new round of allegations that Hezbollah is entrenching in southern Syria therefore justifying a further militarization of the Golan Heights.

[Mar 14, 2019] Who Attacked the North Korean Embassy in Spain

Mar 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The BBC reports on a very strange story from Spain about last month's attack on the North Korean embassy:

Spanish investigators are probing an alleged attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid.

On 22 February, a group of 10 assailants reportedly broke into the building, tying up, beating and interrogating eight people inside.

The incident took place just days before a key summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

And now there are reports US intelligence services were involved.

The alleged involvement of men with ties to the CIA was first reported in the Spanish daily El Pais . According to El Pais ' sources, the men that attacked the embassy may have been looking for information on North Korean diplomat Kim Hyok-chol, who had served as North Korea's ambassador to Spain until he was expelled in 2017. Kim has also been one of the leading officials involved in the negotiations with the U.S. over the last year.

Whatever the reason for it, invading another state's embassy and assaulting the personnel there obviously constitute gross violations of the conventions governing protections for diplomatic facilities. Judging from these reports, the attack was extraordinarily brazen and risky. It is doubtful that any information obtained from the devices that the assailants stole could have been worth the risk of attacking an embassy and beating up embassy staffers, but someone must have thought it was. If anyone connected with the U.S. government was involved, both Spain and North Korea will be understandably outraged. The intelligence committees in Congress should look into this matter to determine what role, if any, the U.S. government had in this incident.

Sid Finster March 14, 2019 at 12:41 pm

Note that El Pais is the Spanish equivalent of "solidly MSM", not the National Enquirer or Antisemitic Conspiracy Theorist Weekly Roundup.

[Mar 13, 2019] Jared Kushner challenged on conflicts of interest by Trump aides, book claims by Jon Swaine

Notable quotes:
"... Revealed: Donald Trump's son-in-law challenged by Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn for mixing personal interests with US foreign policy ..."
"... Jared Kushner was told by the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, that his interference had 'endangered the US', while his wife Ivanka's team was derided as the 'home of all bad ideas'. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner , was confronted by two of the most senior US government officials for mixing his personal interests with US foreign policy, according to a new book. ..."
"... Ward reports that Tillerson blamed Kushner for Trump's abrupt endorsement of a provocative blockade and diplomatic campaign against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several allies in June 2017. ..."
"... "You've got to be crazy," Cohn is said to have told Kushner in front of others. Kushner met the executives around the time he hosted Chinese government officials at the Fifth Avenue tower. The building was eventually refinanced by a Qatari-backed investment fund. ..."
"... Ward's book portrays Kushner and Ivanka Trump as relentlessly ambitious operators who are loathed by many forced to work with them. She reports that White House staffers mocked Kushner as the "secretary of everything" for his wide-ranging meddling and derided Ivanka Trump's team as Habi – "home of all bad ideas". ..."
"... Bannon recalls Kushner furiously shouting at him at the White House in 2017 after he confronted Kushner about holding secret talks with senators on immigration reform. "He goes from a little boy to, like, this fucking devil," Bannon is quoted as saying. ..."
"... Bannon also claims to have told Ivanka Trump: "Go fuck yourself you are nothing" in front of her father, during an argument over who was the bigger leaker to the media. Ivanka Trump is said to have called Bannon a "fucking liar". ..."
Mar 13, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

The Guardian

Revealed: Donald Trump's son-in-law challenged by Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn for mixing personal interests with US foreign policy

Jared Kushner was told by the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, that his interference had 'endangered the US', while his wife Ivanka's team was derided as the 'home of all bad ideas'. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner , was confronted by two of the most senior US government officials for mixing his personal interests with US foreign policy, according to a new book.

Kushner, an envoy to the Middle East for his father-in-law, is said to have been robustly challenged by both Rex Tillerson, then secretary of state, and Gary Cohn, formerly Trump's top economic adviser.

The confrontations are detailed in Kushner Inc by the journalist Vicky Ward, who also describes interference in foreign relations by Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump . The book is scheduled to be released on 19 March. A copy was obtained by the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/email/form/plaintone/4300

Ward reports that Tillerson blamed Kushner for Trump's abrupt endorsement of a provocative blockade and diplomatic campaign against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several allies in June 2017. The US has thousands of troops stationed in Qatar.

Tillerson "told Kushner that his interference had endangered the US", an unidentified Tillerson aide tells Ward. Tillerson is also said to have read negative "chatter" about himself in intelligence reports after Kushner belittled him to Kushner's friend Mohammed bin Salman, the controversial Saudi crown prince.

Meanwhile, Cohn is said to have rebuked Kushner in January 2017 after it was revealed Kushner had dined with executives from the Chinese financial corporation Anbang, which was considering investing in the Kushner family's troubled tower at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

The heart of the US-Saudi relationship lies in the Kushner-prince friendship | Mohamad Bazzi Read more

"You've got to be crazy," Cohn is said to have told Kushner in front of others. Kushner met the executives around the time he hosted Chinese government officials at the Fifth Avenue tower. The building was eventually refinanced by a Qatari-backed investment fund.

Ivanka Trump is reported to have interfered in telephone calls between her father and foreign dignitaries despite having overseas business interests. "Thanks so much for the CD you sent me," she is quoted as having told an Indian leader by someone who heard the call. The Trump Organization owns several residential towers in India.

Ward's book portrays Kushner and Ivanka Trump as relentlessly ambitious operators who are loathed by many forced to work with them. She reports that White House staffers mocked Kushner as the "secretary of everything" for his wide-ranging meddling and derided Ivanka Trump's team as Habi – "home of all bad ideas".

John Kelly, formerly Trump's chief of staff and homeland security secretary, is quoted as dismissing the couple as "just playing government".

The book also details disagreements between them and Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chief and top White House strategist. Bannon clashed with the couple, who are former Democrats, while pushing to convert Trump's aggressively nationalist campaign rhetoric into government policy.

Bannon recalls Kushner furiously shouting at him at the White House in 2017 after he confronted Kushner about holding secret talks with senators on immigration reform. "He goes from a little boy to, like, this fucking devil," Bannon is quoted as saying.

Bannon also claims to have told Ivanka Trump: "Go fuck yourself you are nothing" in front of her father, during an argument over who was the bigger leaker to the media. Ivanka Trump is said to have called Bannon a "fucking liar".

For her part, Ivanka Trump is focused on cementing a Trump dynasty to rival the Kennedys and Bushes by becoming commander-in-chief herself one day, according to Ward. "She thinks she's going to be president of the United States," Cohn is quoted as saying.

[Mar 13, 2019] US withdraws embassy personnel, calling presence a "constraint" on US actions in Venezuela - World Socialist Web Site by Bill Van Auken

Mar 13, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Washington announced late Monday that it is withdrawing all of its embassy personnel from Caracas in what may signal preparations for a direct US military intervention to consummate the protracted regime change operation unleashed against Venezuela.

"This decision reflects the deteriorating situation in Venezuela as well as the conclusion that the presence of U.S. diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on U.S. policy," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Pressed at a State Department press conference Tuesday as to what Pompeo meant by "constraint," Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration's special envoy for regime change in Venezuela, said that it was "prudent to take these folks out" because their presence made it "more difficult for the United States to take the actions that it needed to do to support the Venezuelan people."

Asked whether military intervention was being prepared and if the Maduro government should see Pompeo's statement as a threat, Abrams, a former Reagan administration State Department official who oversaw vast war crimes in Central America in the 1980s and was convicted of lying to Congress about an illegal operation to fund the "contra" terrorist war against Nicaragua, responded that he would "continue to say, because it is true, all options are on the table."

[Mar 13, 2019] Germany's Über Hypocrisy Over Venezuela by Finian Cunningham

Notable quotes:
"... When Guaido returned to Venezuela on March 4 he was greeted at the airport by several foreign diplomats. Among the receiving dignitaries was Germany's envoy Daniel Kriener. ..."
"... What's more, the explicit backing of Juan Guaido by Germany's envoy was carried out on the "express order" of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas , according to Deutsche Welle. ..."
"... Russia's envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia, at a Security Council session last month, excoriated the US for its gross violation of international law with regard to Venezuela. Moscow's diplomat also directed a sharp rebuke at other nations "complicit" in Washington's aggression, saying that one day "you will be next" for similar American subversion in their own affairs. ..."
"... German politicians, diplomats and media were apoplectic in their anger at perceived interference by the US ambassador in Berlin's internal affairs. Yet the German political establishment has no qualms whatsoever about ganging up – only weeks later – with Washington to subvert the politics and constitution of Venezuela. ..."
Mar 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Germany has taken the lead among European Union member states to back Washington's regime-change agenda for Venezuela. Berlin's hypocrisy and double-think is quite astounding.

Only a few weeks ago, German politicians and media were up in arms protesting to the Trump administration for interfering in Berlin's internal affairs. There were even outraged complaints that Washington was seeking "regime change" against Chancellor Angela Merkel's government.

Those protests were sparked when Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany, warned German companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia that they could be hit with American economic sanctions if they go ahead with the Baltic seabed project.

Earlier, Grenell provoked fury among Berlin's political establishment when he openly gave his backing to opposition party Alternative for Germany. That led to consternation and denunciations of Washington's perceived backing for regime change in Berlin. They were public calls for Grenell to be expelled over his apparent breach of diplomatic protocols.

Now, however, Germany is shamelessly kowtowing to an even more outrageous American regime-change plot against Venezuela.

Last week, the government of President Nicolas Maduro ordered the expulsion of German ambassador Daniel Kriener after he greeted the US-backed opposition figure Juan Guaido on a high-profile occasion. Guaido had just returned from a tour of Latin American countries during which he had openly called for the overthrow of the Maduro government. Arguably a legal case could be made for the arrest of Guaido by the Venezuelan authorities on charges of sedition.

When Guaido returned to Venezuela on March 4 he was greeted at the airport by several foreign diplomats. Among the receiving dignitaries was Germany's envoy Daniel Kriener.

The opposition figure had declared himself "interim president" of Venezuela on January 23 and was immediately recognized by Washington and several European Union states. The EU has so far not issued an official endorsement of Guaido over incumbent President Maduro. Italy's objection blocked the EU from adopting a unanimous position.

Nevertheless, as the strongest economy in the 28-member bloc, Germany can be seen as de facto leader of the EU. Its position on Venezuela therefore gives virtual EU gravitas to the geopolitical maneuvering led by Washington towards the South American country.

What's more, the explicit backing of Juan Guaido by Germany's envoy was carried out on the "express order" of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas , according to Deutsche Welle.

"It was my express wish and request that Ambassador Kriener turn out with representatives of other European nations and Latin American ones to meet acting President Guaido at the airport," said Maas.

"We had information that he was supposed to be arrested there. I believe that the presence of various ambassadors helped prevent such an arrest."

It's staggering to comprehend the double-think involved here.

Guaido was hardly known among the vast majority of Venezuelans until he catapulted on to the global stage by declaring himself "interim president". That move was clearly executed in a concerted plan with the Trump White House. European governments and Western media have complacently adopted the White House line that Guaido is the legitimate leader while socialist President Maduro is a "usurper".

That is in spite of the fact that Maduro was re-elected last year in free and fair elections by a huge majority of votes. Guaido's rightwing, pro-business party boycotted the elections. Yet he is anointed by Washington, Berlin and some 50 other states as the legitimate leader.

Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba and most other members of the United Nations have refused to adopt Washington's decree of recognizing Guaido. Those nations (comprising 75 per cent of the UN assembly) continue to recognize President Maduro as the sovereign authority. Indeed, Russia has been highly critical of Washington's blatant interference for regime change in oil-rich Venezuela. Moscow has warned it will not tolerate US military intervention.

Russia's envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia, at a Security Council session last month, excoriated the US for its gross violation of international law with regard to Venezuela. Moscow's diplomat also directed a sharp rebuke at other nations "complicit" in Washington's aggression, saying that one day "you will be next" for similar American subversion in their own affairs.

Germany's hypocrisy and double-think is, to paraphrase that country's national anthem, "über alles" (above all else).

German politicians, diplomats and media were apoplectic in their anger at perceived interference by the US ambassador in Berlin's internal affairs. Yet the German political establishment has no qualms whatsoever about ganging up – only weeks later – with Washington to subvert the politics and constitution of Venezuela.

How can Germany be so utterly über servile to Washington and the latter's brazen criminal aggression towards Venezuela?

It seems obvious that Berlin is trying to ingratiate itself with the Trump administration. But what for?

Trump has been pillorying Germany with allegations of "unfair trade" practices. In particular, Washington is recently stepping up its threats to slap punitive tariffs on German auto exports. Given that this is a key sector in the German export-driven economy, it may be gleaned that Berlin is keen to appease Trump. By backing his aggression towards Venezuela?

Perhaps this policy of appeasement is also motivated by Berlin's concern to spare the Nord Stream 2 project from American sanctions. When NS2 is completed later this year, it is reckoned to double the capacity of natural gas consumption by Germany from Russia. That will be crucial for Germany's economic growth.

Another factor is possible blackmail of Berlin by Washington. Recall the earth-shattering revelations made by American whistleblower Edward Snowden a few years back when he disclosed that US intelligence agencies were tapping the personal phone communications of Chancellor Merkel and other senior Berlin politicians. Recall, too, how the German state remarkably acquiesced over what should have been seen as a devastating infringement by Washington.

The weird lack of action by Berlin over that huge violation of its sovereignty by the Americans makes one wonder if the US spies uncovered a treasure trove of blackmail material on German politicians.

Berlin's pathetic kowtowing to Washington's interference in Venezuela begs an ulterior explanation. No self-respecting government could be so hypocritical and duplicitous.

Whatever Berlin may calculate to gain from its unscrupulous bending over for Washington, one thing seems clear, as Russian envoy Nebenzia warned: "One day you are next" for American hegemonic shafting.


cracowMenger , 2 hours ago link

Germany already forgot, how they blew up Yugoslavia.

It was because of German diplomacy plotting and meddling, that Croatia and Slovenia announced their abandonment of federation of Balkan states - which Yugoslavia de facto was.

Another reason for this, was to destroy a forming Hexagonale - an alliance of central and southern european states.

As long as Germany has its imperial resentements, there will be no peace in Europe.

mafuke , 2 hours ago link

The author does not know much about "Germany"!!!

Germany has been defeated, humiliated and made a colony 74 years ago.

Of cause it is not a sovereign country. But anyway it´s government is of cause disgusting.

RioGrandeImports , 2 hours ago link

They want in on the Venezuelan petroleum game if/when regime change happens, obviously. Aruba (controlled by the Dutch) is about 20miles off the coast of Venezuela and and there is a small but significant population of German Venezuelans in Venezuela.

CITGO was was trying to restart the large refinery located in Aruba not long back, haven't heard anything about it lately.

Mike Rotsch , 3 hours ago link

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation

The Strategic Culture Foundation. A culture of strategy? That sounded interesting. So I dug.

". . . Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas ." That explains why I'm seeing socialists defending socialists. What a surprise. Not very critical if you ask me, but definitely "progressive" to the core.

And as for the author, nearly every one of his articles attack the US and its allies. You'd think that if he's writing for the Strategic Culture Foundation, he'd be into critical thought . Meaning, we'd see some minuses and pluses in his work. The fact that we don't, makes him a propagandist, not a journalist. Then again, is there such a thing as a journalist anymore these days ?

I'd like to think so. Yet, when you evaluate someone's work and see little more than the fermenting of hatred and discontent, there has to be a motive. For him, it could be personal, given the amount of passion and conspiracy theory that he puts into his hatred. For his employers, though, the motive seems to be strategic .

Anyway, it's disappointing to find it here at ZH, but I guess the bills must get paid somehow.

Moribundus , 5 hours ago link

Mogherini said on Tuesday in UN:

"Military intervention in Venezuela is totally unacceptable."

She opposed the US and the self-appointed Guaido.

It follows that she had to act not only with the consent of Berlin and Paris, but in their mandate. This suggests that the EU has reassessed the situation and changed its position on President Maduro.

Berlin has come to know that the EU has created an international contact group, including Germany and France. The group is conducting talks with the Venezuelan government and with the opposition, aiming to achieve a peaceful solution to the critical situation in Venezuela, and as the group spokesman said, everything will be done to make the solution democratic.

The unnamed French source claims that Beijing and Moscow are behind the change of Berlin and Paris.

Recriminator , 5 hours ago link

"Hypocrisy" or "getting it right for a change" - that is the question ! Merkel, the putative Conservative, has sold her own people down the river many times in the last few years. She has demonstrated the George W Bush style, over the people in her own Party. And the results are obvious.

Now, after ruining her country both culturally and financially, she makes ONE correct decision. Hardly HYPOCRISY; more like contrition for her ineptitude.

HankPaulson , 6 hours ago link

Look, this is simple - to understand it you only need to know two facts:

1. Politicians are amoral, lying scum.

2. Germany lacks and so is desperate for fossil fuel.

Cast Iron Skillet , 6 hours ago link

Well, Merkel is doing a good job of protecting Germany's interests by opposing the U.S. regarding North Stream 2. The German stand on Venezuela is disappointing, but they might be figuring no skin off their back, since Venezuela is not in Europe, so might as well appease cheeto head.

napper , 6 hours ago link

Three Major Morons in Western Europe: Macron, Merkel, May.

researchfix , 6 hours ago link

Maduro will outlive all these 3 jokers.

DomMagdeburg2002 , 6 hours ago link

Shocking, right? Lol. I could have written this article myself. Just had this conversation with a friend here regarding German hypocriscy. Germany is a true vassal nation run by puppets. Highlights the total lack of coordination at the highest levels of German government. They just can't concieve that anyone is onto their game but it is blatanly obvious to anyone who can chew gum and walk simultaneously. The link to the demographic crisis (and by exstension the coming pension crisis) to the importation of "refugees" is a bit harder for many to see but still plainly obvious if one tries just a little. Truly sad state of affairs in all of Europe only masked over by the ECB. At least for now.

Element , 7 hours ago link

After almost 1 week it seems Venezuela is still around 85% to 90% blacked-out


'We call it survival': Venezuelans improvise solutions as blackout continues

With the crisis in its sixth day, neighbors are sharing generators, contraband supplies and skills for survival

Joe Parkin Daniels and Patricia Torres in Caracas

Tue 12 Mar 2019 18.30 AEDT

Last modified on Wed 13 Mar 2019 03.06 AEDT

People use their mobile phones at the Distribuidor Altamira -main exit of Francisco Fajardo highway- where they can get telephone service during a partial power outage in Caracas on March 9, 2019.

At a street corner in eastern Caracas, Rosa Elena stepped from her car and started picking handfuls of leaves from a modest tree growing at the roadside. "This is neem," she said. "It's high in sugar and great in a tea." Her interest was more than academic: Rosa Elena is diabetic, and when the lights went out in Venezuela last Thursday, she began to worry that the blackout would ruin her insulin supply, which must be kept refrigerated. Since then she has been making rounds of the city, stockpiling neem leaves, which some people believe can be used to control diabetes.

As a crippling blackout drags into a sixth day, Venezuelans are being forced to improvise solutions for a crisis that is affecting every aspect of daily life. Although there is intermittent power in the capital, some neighbourhoods have been in the dark since last week, and schools and businesses will remain closed on Tuesday.

Food has rotted in refrigerators, hospitals have struggled to keep equipment operating, and people gather on street corners to pick up patchy telephone signals.

At Residencias Karina, an apartment complex in the south-eastern municipality of Baruta – the power was still off on Monday evening, and residents had come together to share expertise and survival tactics. One elderly resident has lent his generator to the operation, with cables running up the side of the red-brick building into a flat where neighbours charge their phones. To stop the device overheating or getting rained out, they have fashioned a cover out of cardboard and tarpaulin.

In ordinary times, petrol is practically free in Venezuela, due to government subsidies. But power cuts have put many pumps out of action, and fuel is hard to come by. It is illegal to fill jerry cans at petrol stations, so people are often forced to resort to the black market to obtain fuel for generators. "The government calls it contraband – we call it survival," said Carolina, one resident who preferred not to give her surname for fear of reprisals.

Members of the Bolivarian National Police escort a tanker as they help organize the distribution of drinking water to residents of San Agustin neighbourhood in Caracas on March 11, 2019, while a massive power outage continues affecting parts of the country.

Another neighbour, Pedro Martínez, was once a farmer in the country's vast western plains, and has brought his own unique skillset to the team. "I'm a campesino," he said. "I don't know about phones and I can live without them. But I do know how to salt meat." Martínez has been turning the residents' supplies of beef into jerky, so food supplies can last longer. "The chicken and the fish people had is already rotten," he said.

Late on Sunday night, the housing complex was rocked by a string of explosions after an electrical substation caught fire in circumstances which remain unexplained. "It sounded like a plane taking off," said Carolina, as the stench of burnt plastic drifted across from the smouldering power plant. The explosion added to a sense of desperation in a neighbourhood that had already seen outbreaks of looting. Residents have mounted lookouts to warn of the government security forces and paramilitary gangs called colectivos, who they fear will take down their jerry-rigged infrastructure. "It's like Jumanji here," Martínez said. "Except instead of elephants and lions running around it's the national guard and colectivos."

Residents have started pumping water from a well behind the front gate, and taking turns to carry supplies to elderly neighbours on higher floors. Water is in short supply across the city: at a pharmacy in the upmarket commercial neighbourhood of Las Mercedes, the queue for bottled water stretched for several blocks – longer than the line outside some petrol stations. Moisés de Lima, a homeowner and new father, loaded gallon bottles of water into his car. He was stockpiling in expectation of a prolonged crisis.

"We are in a wartime economy now," De Lima said, his voice trembling with anger. "This is what this government has done to us, and it has the nerve to just make excuses and play the blame game." On Monday night Maduro made a conspiratorial televised address to the nation, claiming the power cut was part of a "demonic" plot dreamed up in the White House by Donald Trump in an attempt to plunge Venezuela into chaos and justify a military invasion and occupation. Most locals, however, are convinced the cause is years of under-investment, mismanagement and corruption. "Chavistas have been in power for 20 years and we have had 20 years of energy crises," said De Lima , who paid for his water in dollars, which swiftly became the de facto currency as cashpoints and card-readers went out of action. "After 20 years, you can't blame other people for your problems."

Outside La Carlota military airbase near the centre of the city, locals had descended on a tap outside a local police station, bringing empty bottles, jugs and tubs. Waiting in line was Jeancary Lugo, a business administrator, who was dismayed by the efforts of some storekeepers to profit from the crisis. "On Friday, I bought a bag of ice from a store for $1.50. Yesterday they wanted $8," she complained. "There's a lot of solidarity here but there's also people taking advantage. I feel like they are [trying to] rob us."

Across the road, dozens of national guardsmen lined up, with riot shields and gas masks at the ready. "Is this what Venezuela deserves?" one person in line shouted at a police officer by the station house. The officer shrugged. "In the command centre there's no water either, and electricity comes and goes. We're all suffering the same," he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/12/we-call-it-survival-venezuelans-improvise-solutions-as-blackout-continues

They're so screwed at this point ...


Venezuela: Guaidó under investigation for 'sabotage' of power grid

Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent

Wed 13 Mar 2019 06.20 AEDT

First published on Wed 13 Mar 2019 05.13 AEDT

Venezuelans head to collect water from a sewage canal at the river Guaire in Caracas. President Nicolás Maduro has alleged a US attack crippled the country's electrical system.

Venezuela's chief prosecutor has asked the country's supreme court to open an investigation into opposition leader Juan Guaidó for alleged involvement in the "sabotage" of the country's power grid. Tarek Saab announced the inquiry on Tuesday, a day after the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, accused Donald Trump of masterminding a "demonic" plot with the country's opposition to force him from power.

Guaidó – who most western governments now recognize as Venezuela's legitimate interim leader – is already under investigation for allegedly fomenting violence, but authorities have not tried to detain him since he violated a travel ban and then returned home from a tour of Latin American countries. Saab said the case against Guaidó also involves messages allegedly inciting people to robbery and looting during the crippling blackout which began on Thursday.

Maduro's political foes and many specialists believe the nationwide blackout is the result of years of mismanagement, corruption and incompetence. "We are in the middle of a catastrophe that is not the result of a hurricane, that is not the result of a tsunami," Guaidó told CNN on Sunday. "It's the product of the inefficiency, the incapability, the corruption of a regime that doesn't care about the lives of Venezuelans."

But in a televised nationwide address on Monday night Maduro accused the White House of launching an imperialist "electromagnetic attack". Critics condemned it as a cynical attempt to deflect criticism of his regime's responsibility. "The United States' imperialist government ordered this attack," Maduro claimed in his 35-minute speech, only his second significant intervention since the crisis began last week. "They came with a strategy of war of the kind that only these criminals – who have been to war and have destroyed the people of Iraq, of Libya, of Afghanistan and of Syria – think up." Maduro alleged the US had conducted the attack – in league with "puppets and clowns" from the Venezuelan opposition – to create "a state of despair, of widespread want and of conflict" that would justify a foreign intervention.

Maduro, who gave no evidence for his claims, gave little hint that an end was in sight to a crisis that the opposition blames for at least 21 deaths and many fear could plunge the country into violence and turmoil. On Tuesday, the foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, ordered US diplomats to leave the country within 72 hours. "The presence on Venezuelan soil of these officials represents a risk for the peace, unity and stability of the country," the government said in a statement. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, had announced on Monday night that Washington was withdrawing all remaining diplomatic staff from Caracas. "This decision reflects the deteriorating situation in Venezuela as well as the conclusion that the presence of US diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on US policy," Pompeo tweeted.

Maduro has been fighting for political survival since January when Guaidó declared himself Venezuela's legitimate leader and was swiftly recognised as interim president by dozens of western nations including the US and Britain. Maduro's many opponents – who blame him for an economic collapse that has triggered the most severe migration crisis in recent Latin American history – ridicule his claims that the outage is part of a White House conspiracy. Anna Ferrera, a student activist in Caracas, said: "They go around and around saying this was sabotage and how the US always sabotages things and the empire is going against Venezuela. But they haven't given any [credible] explanation. "They always make up stories to explain the flaws of the system. This is outrageous," added Ferrera, who said she feared many might accept Maduro's version because the blackout had knocked out communication systems across the country, giving his administration a monopoly on information.

Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst, said Maduro had appeared "worried, anxious and absolutely desperate" in his Monday night broadcast, suggesting the situation was dire. "It is clear, from what he said, that the government does not control the situation (nobody does) and they do not have any plan or strategy," Pantoulas tweeted.

In his speech, Maduro, who inherited Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian revolution after his 2013 death, vowed that the supposed attack on Venezuela's grid would be thwarted. "Victory belongs to us," he declared. "What you can be certain of is that sooner rather later, in the coming days, we will win this battle definitively. We will win – and we will do it for Venezuela. We will do it for our homeland. We will do it for you. We will do it because of our people's right to happiness."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/12/venezuela-juan-guaido-maduro-sabotage-blackout

An epic cautionary tale of the danger of electing loony left governments, led by hopey water-melons and warped and insane neo-communist idiots. These poor sad scared people are going to be stuffed for at least the next generation.

cashback , 7 hours ago link

An epic cautionary tale of not bowing to the wishes of evil empire on life support.

BorraChoom , 6 hours ago link

Cruise Missiles are next.

Kokito , 1 hour ago link

[ have you heard of WW II? ] - Never

Germany excuse in WWII: "just obeying orders"
Germany excuse in VZ: "just obeying orders"

Some people never learn. It is obvious that Germany after ww2 became a US vassal following the dictamenes from WDC otherwise it will face the consequences.

With Germany awash with migrant crime - no go areas - their women and children afraid to go to swimming pools, concerts, new year celebrations, rather than deal with their own horrific issues they want to overthrow a democratically elected leader - just another USA poodle state

Thom Paine , 8 hours ago link

Somehow a Geopolitical and MIC penis snuck into Trump's arse.

US hoping for another home assisted 9/11 so they can spend another few trillion on MIC hardware.

NiggaPleeze , 7 hours ago link

Nah, the Orange Messiah doesn't need an excuse. He'll cut SS and Medicare for the poor while giving trillions to his oligarch buddies in tax cuts and crony capitalist MIC contracts, while spending huge treasury to advance ZioNazism and Bolshevism worldwide. TrumpTARDs suck his mushroom to his satisfaction in any event.

dogfish , 7 hours ago link

Trumps only virtue is his ability to lie with a straight face and without remorse that's how billion airs are made.

NiggaPleeze , 6 hours ago link

It definitely helps to be a psychopath or sociopath - it's harder to really **** people good if you have empathy or a conscience.

Blackfox , 7 hours ago link

Photo of Merkel in her Communist uniform.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328536/Angela-Merkel-Communist-links-new-image-uniform-released.html

[Mar 13, 2019] Anti-Semitism Pandemic! by C.J. Hopkins

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Virologists are working around the clock to map the genome of this scurrilous scourge, about which very little is known, other than that it has a sudden onset, and attacks the language center of the brain, causing the sufferer to express opinions about "Zionism," "globalism," "the Israel lobby," "banks," and other code words for "Jews." Patients appear to be unaware that they are spouting these anti-Semitic code words until they are told they are by the corporate media, or their colleagues, or some random account on Twitter, at which point their symptoms alter dramatically, and they suffer a series of petit mal seizures, causing them to repeatedly apologize for unintentionally advocating the extermination of the entire Jewish people and the establishment of a worldwide Nazi Reich.

At the moment, Britain is taking the brunt of it. Despite the best efforts of the ruling classes and the media to contain its spread, several new cases of anti-Semitism have been reported throughout the Kingdom, or at least among the Labour Party, which, at this point, has been so thoroughly infected that it resembles a neo-Nazi death cult .

Jeremy Corbyn, who contracted the virus more or less the moment he assumed the leadership, is now exhibiting symptoms of late-stage disease. Reliable sources close to the party, reached for comment at a brunch in Qatar with Tony Blair and a bunch of Saudis, report that Corbyn is running around Momentum HQ in full Nazi regalia, alternately heiling Hitler and looking for journalists to apologize to.

Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop apologizing for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something basically along those lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a hive of Nazis, and that he ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero actual evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it has been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch.

Emergency measures are now in effect. A full-scale Labour Party lockdown is imminent. Anyone not already infected is being advised to flee the party, denounce anyone who hasn't done so as "a Hitler-loving Corbyn-sympathizer," and prophylactically apologize for any critical statements they might have made about Israel, or "elites," or "global capitalism," or "bankers," or anything else that anyone can construe as anti-Semitism ( preferably in the pages of The Guardian ).

Nor has the Continent been spared! What at first appeared to be a series of spontaneous protests against Emmanuel Macron, economic austerity, and global capitalism by the so-called "Yellow Vests" in France has now been officially diagnosed as a nationwide anti-Semitism outbreak. In a heroic attempt to contain the outbreak, Macron has dispatched his security forces to shoot the eyes out of unarmed women , pepper spray paraplegics in wheelchairs , and just generally beat bloody hell out of everyone . Strangely, none of these tactics have worked, so France has decided to join the USA, the UK, Germany, and the rest of the empire in defining anti-Zionism as form of anti-Semitism , such that anyone implying that Israel is in any way inherently racist, or a quasi-fascist Apartheid state, or making jokes about "elites" or "bankers," can be detained and prosecuted for committing a "hate-crime."

Meanwhile, in the United States (where Donald Trump, "U.S. patient zero," had already single-handedly infected the vast majority of the American populace, and transformed the nation into an unrecognizable, genocidal Nazi Reich), the anti-Semitism virus has now spread to Congress, where Representative Ilhan Omar (reputed to be a hardcore member of the infamous " Axis of Anti-Semitism ") has apparently totally lost her mind and started talking about the Israel lobby, and the billions of dollars the U.S. government provides to Israel on an annual basis, and other Israel-related subjects one simply does not talk about (unless one writes for The New York Times and isn't a hijab-wearing Muslim, in which case it's completely fine to characterize support for Israel as being " bought and paid for by the Israel lobby ").

OK, I know, you're probably questioning the fact that this anti-Semitism pandemic just sprang up out of the ether one day, more or less in perfect synch with the Russian plot to destroy democracy that Vladimir Putin set in motion the moment the Global War on Terror seemed to be running out of steam. If you are, you need to close this essay, pull up either MSNBC or The Guardian website on your phone, and inoculate yourself against such thoughts. That conspiratorial type of thinking is one of the early warning signs that you have been infected with anti-Semitism! Unless you act now to protect yourself, before you know it, you'll be raving about "the ruling classes," "globalist elites," "austerity," "neoliberalism," "the Israel lobby," or even "Palestinians."

... ... ...

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .


Edward Huguenin , says: March 11, 2019 at 3:08 pm GMT

"Anti-semite" has lost its sting, because every justified criticism of the fully nuclear armed, viciously apartheid, theocratic Zionist Israeli government is declared to be anti-semitism. The word is so overused and misapplied as to be useless. Indeed, to be declared "anti-semite" by the Israel Lobby is to be declared a person of high moral conscience.

Long live BDS!

August , says: March 11, 2019 at 3:53 pm GMT
Anti-Semitism is a myth, anti-non-semitism is real.
kikz , says: March 11, 2019 at 4:03 pm GMT
"Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop apologizing for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something basically along those lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a hive of Nazis, and that he ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero actual evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it has been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch."

brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! y, it's much the same here across the pond.

[Mar 13, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard comments on WikiLeaks' Julian Assangr are encouraging for anti-war independents'

Nikki2 comment on Youtube: "GUYS! Tulsi needs 65,000 individual donations to get into the debates. Even if she's not your #1 candidate, please donate a small amount so she can bring the foreign policy/regime change conversation to the debates"
Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

RobinG , says: March 12, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski Chelsea Manning is imprisoned (from the article you cited) "for refusing to testify in front of a secretive Grand Jury." The regime is after Julian Assange, so they're trying to squeeze Manning. Not happening!

BTW, Tulsi Gabbard on WikiLeaks' Julian Assange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r96RWyhDPS0

[Mar 13, 2019] Syria Ready for War to Regain Oil-Rich Golan Heights

Mar 13, 2019 | www.blacklistednews.com

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/71541/syria-ready-for-war-to-regain-oilrich-golan.html

[Mar 13, 2019] No, Dual Loyalty Isn't Okay by Philip Giraldi

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Paul , says: March 12, 2019 at 8:38 am GMT

The new congresswoman Ilhan Omar is experiencing what happens to one who will not grovel before the Zionist Lobby and its Washington henchmen.
Anonymous [246] Disclaimer , says: March 12, 2019 at 9:05 am GMT
Is there any other nation that wields such a stranglehold on any other as Israel does the United States? Is there any other nation that has so completely surrendered its sovereignty to another as has the United States to Israel. Does any other country (size of Israel) strike fear and dread into the hearts of its lawmakers to the point of complete serfdom as Israel does the US? Can any other country allow any foreign country to override its head of state to address lawmakers as Israel has done to the US in the case of Obama, despite his complete servility to Israel, thereby rendering himself a victim of dual abuses: racism and disregard of American sovereignty? Has any other country sacrificed so many of its citizens for wars on behalf of any other country as we have done for Israel? Can any other country receiving billions of dollars of taxpayers money in aid and military hardware shamelessly call the shots as Israel does with America, with America not as much as questioning orders from Israel? Can we realistically celebrate Independence Day with so much fanfare when another country has us so completely by the balls as to make a mockery of the word "independence". Can any country strip any other of its sovereignty as Israel has done to the US, including undermining its constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, with our total collusion? Having raised all these questions, can there be realistic grounds for hoping for a ray of light at the end of the tunnel, short of a comprehensive revolution that would rehabilitate a nation led by quislings into one of principled men and women?
EliteCommInc. , says: March 12, 2019 at 10:08 am GMT
Allow me to state for the record . . .

anyone here who chooses to hate me. I recognize that that you have the right to do so. And that that right s Constitutionally protected. You are entitled to your feelings.

What I must object to and call into question is your attempt to engage in acts that in any threaten, thwart, disrupt my right as a US citizen to access every aspect of what is guaranteed to me by the US constitution. That includes manufacturing false claims to undermine the same.

I will defend your right to your feelings and your right to express them in a manner in accordance with the first amendment. I cannot support acts that deprive myself my constitutional rights in any manner.

I am not a promoter of hate, but I certainly recognize the right that people have for their feelings and the desire to one's express them.

TimeTraveller , says: March 12, 2019 at 10:10 am GMT

[Bret Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory."

If what Rep. Omar said wasn't too different from what Mr. Buchanan said previously, why haven't we heard a peep out of him on this issue?

The silence is deafening.

jacques sheete , says: March 12, 2019 at 11:47 am GMT

a liar and a hypocrite, and that alone should disqualify them for office.

Hello?

Where the bleep have you been, Pardner? You got that exactly backwards; mendacity and hypocrisy are mandatory minimum qualifications for the positions.

Ms. Omar is dis qualified because she is honest enough to speak the truth.

Now, go learn to shoot straight before shooting off yer mug, and you can start with this,

I must take issue with your observation that Mr. Truman is an habitual liar, not because I disagree with you, but because I disagree with your manner in presenting it as a derogatory statement. Is not the ability of lying necessary to political leadership ?

-EUSTACE MULLINS, In Our Readers' Opinion, The American Mercury, November 1951, pp. 51-54

And this, which illustrates several points regarding politicians, their characteristics and motives.:

Two candidates for political office in a debate

SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the allies at will that you reckon; you wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist, that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the blessings you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with hatred and rage, he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only too well; it is for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.

Aristophanes, The Knights, 424 BC

Do you really believe Ms. Omar is rocking us to sleep with her lies about Israel?

JC , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:17 pm GMT
until there is a much larger block of anti israel congresspeople nothing is going to change. What is the USs interest? They sure are not interested in making things better for the majority/middle class. All the while continuing to enrich the already too wealthy ever more. Media is a lying POS and yet people still watch Fox or Cnn or msnbc. All of them produce nothing but propaganda garbage. Unfortunately, it seems like most in the USA just don't care. In Venezuela look at the protesters the US media sets up and/or loves so much, try that in the USA and you'll end up in jail.
Anon23 , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
For me, Ilhan Omar's statements were the most exciting political event in decades. I'm not surprised that she is being punished, but the viciousness of the attacks have certainly gone up a notch.

America's big mistake: allowing all the media to congeal into one big bullhorn that is controlled by Jewish interests. As long as they control the media there will be no national debate of zionist power in America.

Another great article by Giraldi. He is consistently the most forceful and articulate writer regarding the subversion of America's national interests to Israel.

anarchyst , says: March 12, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMT
As much as I despise Omar's politics, in this case she is right to expose the dirty politics that Israel uses on it's "friend and ally" the United States of America.
AIPAC is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States and has done more to influence and damage the American political process than just about any other lobby. It is a loosely-guarded secret that, in order to garner jewish support, prospective politicians must sign a loyalty oath promising support for Israel. This, in itself is un-American and borders on treason. Failure to sign the loyalty oath almost always assures a political death. AIPAC will spend millions to elect a candidate as long as he "toes the Israeli line".
Remember the USS Liberty (GTR-5), the American naval vessel that was deliberately attacked with massive loss of American lives (an act of war) by "our friend and ally" Israel on June 8, 1967. If I had my way, Israel would have been turned into a "glass parking lot" on June 9, 1967.
As an aside, we must constantly hit our politicians with charges of treason, citing the "loyalty oaths" to Israel that almost all of them have signed.
DESERT FOX , says: March 12, 2019 at 1:44 pm GMT
Dual citizens of Israel are through out the US government and have given America unending wars and debt and an unconstitutional FED and IRS. No dual citizen from any nation should be able to hold office in any government or state or county or city government in the US, no one can serve two masters and citizens of Israel serve Israel and that is why America has been at war for 18 years and counting in the Mideast!
APilgrim , says: March 12, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
No government official, for ANY NATION, should have dual citizenship.

No one with Caliphate, or Communist sympathies, should serve in high-level positions.

Dual Citizens should be driven from the land.

[Mar 13, 2019] This school-mandated allegiance seeped into even the most casual conversations. I remember once debating with my group of friends whether we'd rather serve with the Israeli Defense Forces or the U.S. military. Even though all of us, and our parents, were born and raised in the United States, we were unanimous: we'd rather fight for Israel.

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bardon Kaldian , says: March 12, 2019 at 7:34 p m GMT

There you are:
https://forward.com/opinion/420715/jewish-leaders-denounce-dual-loyalties-while-demanding-fealty-to-israel/

Israel was everywhere at the Jewish day school I attended in New York. The Israeli and American flags were proudly displayed together, no matter that I, like the majority of my classmates, was not Israeli.

This alone might be innocuous, a loose cultural affinity that would be familiar in a French or German language academy. But in Jewish day school life, outright political mobilization for Israel and its policies was a requirement.

Every year we would be "strongly encouraged" to attend the Salute to Israel parade on New York's Fifth Avenue. Teachers were marshals, and mocking stories about pro-Palestinian activists were exchanged in class the following day.

One year, we were outright required to join a protest in support of Israel, during the school day, at the United Nations.

This school-mandated allegiance seeped into even the most casual conversations. I remember once debating with my group of friends whether we'd rather serve with the Israeli Defense Forces or the U.S. military. Even though all of us, and our parents, were born and raised in the United States, we were unanimous: we'd rather fight for Israel.

With any other cultural group in America, for any other country, these statements would be shocking. After all, when was the last time you heard of an Italian-American birthright trip to Sicily? But for American Jews, the centrality of allegiance to Israel in our communal organizations is the norm.

[Mar 13, 2019] Australia doesn't allow dual citizenship by its national MPs and senators

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Wizard of Oz , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT

There is one big omission in your article PG. If you read more than the tweet from Rep. Juan Vargas that you linked as

"Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable."

you must have been pleased by the deluge (maybe hundreds) of Tweets uniformly condemning him and including many from people claiming believably to be Jews.

BTW Australia doesn't allow dual citizenship by its national MPs and senators and has had in the last few years a previously unparalleled spate of challenges to members already seated in Parliament. The courts have interpreted the constitutional provision strictly and MPs whose Italian born mothers filled in a form which gave them Italian citizenship without their knowledge have been caught (or at least been taken to court).

I would tend to argue that dual citizenship should be declared but that it is up yo the voters to decide whether they want to be represented by someone who isn't only an Australian. There are counterarguments however and avoidance of America's Israel First situation is certainly one of them.

wayfarer , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:17 am GMT
"Undercover Footage Zionists Don't Want You to See!"
AnonFromTN , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office. Stated allegiance to any other country should be treated as high treason, which it is. However, I don't see Congress doing any of this: we all know what happens when the improvements in henhouse safely is in the hands of foxes.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:51 pm GMT
Anyway All US political system is running on bribery. So the bribery is legal and cannot be tackled.
The only way to go is to distinguish the bribery and divide it into two groups.
Patriotic bribery and non patriotic bribery.
jo6pac , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT
https://prepareforchange.net/2018/06/22/89-of-our-senators-and-congress-hold-dual-citizenship-citizenship-with-israel/

No comment needed

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:10 pm GMT
Here is a funny thing!!!!!!!!!
The Arabs have a proper English word for bribery: Backshish.
1 It is done in the back, so nobody sees it.
2 Shish means you should be quiet about it.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:16 pm GMT
What bribery you may ask.
So what are those prepayed trips to Israel where the Congress people are treated as kings, and they have chance to make love to the Jewish wall of the temple. They stick their wishes written on paper into crevices of the wall. (Not too many records if the wall did take care of their wishes.}

... ... ...

renfro , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN You dont have to be a dual citizen be a traitor.

So what the US needs is an amendment to the Constitution expanding the definitions of treason and subversion to better reflect the modern day realities of our political system.

Perhaps suggest to the Magnificent Three that they put forth a bill calling for that.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:03 pm GMT
If you have any doubts about the accuracy of this article and whether Rep. Omar has been telling the truth, just ask yourself:

How many of our Solons and senior members of the Executive Branch attend the annual AIPAC gathering?

How many Congress critters take money from pro israel PACs?

the grand wazoo , says: March 12, 2019 at 7:02 pm GMT
Another Phil Geraldi gem.

What makes this piece meaningful is he is 100% correct. Representative Ilhar Omar should be applauded for her bravery. She truly is courageous, as she not only risks her political career but also her life. And by doing so she leaves open the door for others to follow. We'll soon see how serious the Zionists take this matter.

JFK called for AIPAC to register as a foreign agent, however sense his murder not one politician has ever mentioned it again. I think this says a lot about how much influence that particular lobby has. Too much.

[Mar 13, 2019] Dual loyalty is a fuzzy term. Why not go back to the tried-and-true fifth column?

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Parasitic caste watch , says: March 12, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT

Dual loyalty is a fuzzy term. Why not go back to the tried-and-true fifth column? These domestic Zionazis are Israel's fifth column. They constitute the vanguard of an international, and their program is clearly shown here:

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/MENARegion/Pages/ILIndex.aspx

Israel leads a counterrevolutionary plan and conspiracy for bad-faith subversion of all your human rights including your human right to peace. Israel's existence depends on domestic Apartheid, totalitarian repression in client states such as the US, and continual threats to peace worldwide. The government of Israel has forfeited its sovereignty by shirking its responsibility to protect with the crime against peace of aggression and the crime against humanity of extermination. In consequence, it must give way to a free Palestine.

The only way you're going to shake off Israel's fifth column is end Israel. You've got to do to Israel what we did to South Africa.

Johnny Walker Read , says: March 12, 2019 at 2:35 pm GMT
"No politician can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve America and Israel."

My translation of Matthew 6:24

renfro , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:09 pm GMT
@jo6pac There are 40 Jews in the house and senate .that is not 89% of the total 500 congressmen and senators.

Crap claims like this are actually harmful to the effort to get the Jewish Fifth Column and Israel out of the US because the lie will be pointed out and much fun made of the nutcases by the uber Jews.

Stick to facts .the facts are bad enough.

Grigor , says: Website March 12, 2019 at 6:51 pm GMT
Duel citizenship is only acceptable if one citizenship is from where you were born, over which you had no choice, and the other is where you have chosen to live, made your home, and become a citizen thereof. Two citizenship by choice is a sham: getting the benefactors of one but maintaining your loyalty to another.

[Mar 13, 2019] Neoconservatives use of projection

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Felix-Culpa, March 12, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT • 200 Words

[Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the frame, bidding to get in.

Let's examine how and why the cunning and bigotry of Bret Stephens gets projected by him onto Ilhan Omar.

1. Charge, sans evidence, your opponent with your own crimes and repeat the charge ad nauseam.

2. In lieu of refutation of your opponent's argument, train your reader to identify his argument as galling chutzpah and your galling chutzpah as an argument.

3. Double down on the accusatory inversion and invoke anti- Semitism: It is not the Jewish demand that the USA shut-up and bow down before Israel which is threatening to provoke an anti-Semitic reaction; no: anti-Semitism results from acknowledging as legitimate a scrutiny of the claims and aims of the Zionist state.

Mr. Stephen's rhetoric is an admission that he and his kind hate Jews, insisting as it does on the implicit acceptance of Jewish identity as irrational and homicidal. His rhetoric also represents an ultimatum to the USA: honor Israel's irrational hatred and killing of its neighbors or you are guilty of irrationally killing Jews.

This is known as desperation and is an infallible sign that yet another false Jewish messiah – Neoconservatism-has failed.

[Mar 12, 2019] "One nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "

Notable quotes:
"... I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors " ..."
Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMT

I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "

Anti-Semitism theater – a carefully staged social movement organized by Government owned media to divide the peons and make them hate each other. Real hate-group profit lies in charging for vast quantities of militarism but making just enough to kill women and children overseas.

Back home the flag waving patriots insist they need a giant military with weapons for anyone who can pay to protect them and their families. Dual loyalty to the Jewish lobby and the defense lobby.

[Mar 12, 2019] Note on the loss of power of Jewish lobby in the US Congress due to inflation

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova says: March 12, 2019 at 2:31 pm GMT

We do not know the value of 30 pieces of silver today, but I do presume that Jewish bribes of Congress people are also hit by inflation. (like food). Or not?

[Mar 12, 2019] White House Proposes Huge Increase in War Funding

So much for ending foreign wars and using money to increase standard of living of workers and lower middle class...
Mar 12, 2019 | news.antiwar.com
Jason Ditz Posted on March 11, 2019 March 11, 2019 Categories News Tags Pentagon , Trump As had been previously reported late last week , President Trump has unveiled a budget plan which, in addition to cutting social spending across the board, would seek a huge increase in military spending , centered almost entirely on war funding.

US military spending is always by far the largest on the planet, several times the amount of the next highest spending, China. But while other nations like China and Russia are scaling back their budgets, the Pentagon's budget, as ever, continues to rise.

Trump's proposal would bring the overall defense budget for 2020 to $750 billion. This includes a $544 billion base-line defense budget, which is not in and of itself a huge increase. But on top of that will be a nearly $100 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) Fund , and a $9 billion "emergency" funding request meant to make up for the money already taken from the military to build the border wall.

Using the OCO budget as an avenue for driving military spending up has been a common tactic in recent decades, though it had fallen out of favor in the past few years. The OCO has been heavily criticized because its nature makes it effectively a black hole, allowing the Pentagon to shuffle money around to different projects as it sees fit.

Exploding the OCO, nearly tripling it from the current year's levels, while keeping base funding roughly in line, seems meant to allow the administration to present themselves as keeping past commitments, while fueling a precipitous spending increase all the same.

[Mar 12, 2019] Just ask the Iraqis and Syrians.

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website March 12, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT

Zionist-controlled US carried out globalist-pogroms or globogroms all over the world, esp against Muslim nations. Just ask the Iraqis and Syrians. (As for Palestinians, they got it bad from Ziogroms.)

Jewish elite love to talk about 'Munich', but the Munich moment in our world is about stopping Judeo-Nazi supremacists from hatching another war, such as against Iran.

Someone must draw a line in the sand and say NO. Jewish Power has crossed too many lines.

If there is World War III, it will have been instigated mainly by the Tribe.

[Mar 12, 2019] "One nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "

Notable quotes:
"... I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors " ..."
Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMT

I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "

Anti-Semitism theater – a carefully staged social movement organized by Government owned media to divide the peons and make them hate each other. Real hate-group profit lies in charging for vast quantities of militarism but making just enough to kill women and children overseas.

Back home the flag waving patriots insist they need a giant military with weapons for anyone who can pay to protect them and their families. Dual loyalty to the Jewish lobby and the defense lobby.

[Mar 12, 2019] Note on the loss of power of Jewish lobby in the US Congress due to inflation

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova says: March 12, 2019 at 2:31 pm GMT

We do not know the value of 30 pieces of silver today, but I do presume that Jewish bribes of Congress people are also hit by inflation. (like food). Or not?

[Mar 12, 2019] No, Dual Loyalty Isn't Okay by Philip Giraldi

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Solons on Capitol Hill are terrified of the expression "dual loyalty." They are afraid because dual loyalty means that one is not completely a loyal citizen of the country where one was born, raised and, presumably, prospered. It also suggests something more perverse, and that is dual citizenship, which in its present historic and social context particularly refers to the Jewish congressmen and women who just might be citizens of both the United States and Israel. There is particular concern over the issue at the moment because a freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar has let the proverbial cat out of the bag by alluding to American-Jewish money buying uncritical support for a foreign country which is Israel without any regard to broader U.S. interests, something that everyone in Washington knows is true and has been the case for decades but is afraid to discuss due to inevitable punishment by the Israel Lobby.

Certainly, the voting record in Congress would suggest that there are a lot of congress critters who embrace dual loyalty, with evidence that the loyalty is not so much dual as skewed in favor of Israel. Any bill relating to Israel or to Jewish collective interests, like the currently fashionable topic of anti-Semitism, is guaranteed a 90% plus approval rating no matter what it says or how much it damages actual U.S. interests. Thursday's 407 to 23 vote in the House of Representatives on a meaningless and almost unreadable "anti-hate" resolution was primarily intended to punish Ilhan Omar and to demonstrate that the Democratic Party is indeed fully committed to sustaining the exclusive prerogatives of the domestic Jewish community and the Jewish state.

The voting on the resolution was far from unusual and would have been unanimous but for the fact that twenty-three Republicans voted "no" because they wanted a document that was only focused on anti-Semitism, without any references to Muslims or other groups that might be encountering hatred in America. That the congress should be wasting its time with such nonsense is little more than a manifestation of Jewish power in the United States, part of a long-sought goal of making any criticism of Israel a "hate" crime punishable by fining and imprisonment. And congress is always willing to play its part. Famously, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) official Steven Rosen once boasted that he could take a napkin and within 24 hours have the signatures of 70 Senators on it, reflective of the ability of the leading pro-Israel organization to impel the U.S. legislature to respond uncritically to its concerns.

Ilhan Omar has certainly been forced to apologize and explain her position as she is under sustained attack from the left, right and center as well as from the White House. One congressman told her that "Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable." Another said "there are many reasons to support Israel, but there is no reason to oppose Israel" while yet another one declared that all in Congress are committed to insuring that the "United States and Israel stand as one."

But Omar has defended herself without abandoning her core arguments and she has further established her bona fides as a credible critic of what passes for U.S. foreign policy by virtue of an astonishing attack on former President Barack Obama, whom she criticized obliquely in an interview Friday , saying "We can't be only upset with Trump. His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was. That's not what we should be looking for anymore. We don't want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile." Presumably Omar was referring to Obama's death by drone program and his destruction of Libya, among his other crimes. Everything she said about the smooth talking but feckless Obama is true and could be cast in even worse terms, but to hear the truth from out of the mouth of a liberal Democrat is something like a revelation that all progressives are not ideologically fossilized and fundamentally brain dead. One wonders what she thinks of the Clintons?

The Democrats are in a tricky situation that will only wind up hurting relationships with some of their core constituencies. If they come down too hard on Omar – a Muslim woman of color who wears a head covering – it will not look good to some key minority voters they have long courted. If they do not, the considerable Jewish political donations to the Democratic Party will certainly be diminished if not slowed to a trickle and much of the media will turn hostile. So they are trying to bluff their way through by uttering the usual bromides. Senator Kristin Gillibrand of New York characteristically tried to cover both ends by saying "Those with critical views of Israel, such as Congresswoman Omar, should be able to express their views without employing anti-Semitic tropes about money or influence." Well, of course, it is all about Jews, money buying access and obtaining political power, with the additional element of supporting a foreign government that has few actual interests in common with the United States, isn't it?

As Omar put it, "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country " She also tweeted to a congressional critic that "I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee." Gilad Atzmon, a well known Jewish critic of Israel, observed drily that "How reassuring is it that the only American who upholds the core values of liberty, patriotism and freedom is a black Muslim and an immigrant "

But such explicatory language about the values that Americans used to embrace before Israel-worship rendered irrelevant the Constitution clearly made some lightweights from the GOP side nervous. Megan McCain, daughter of thankfully deceased "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" Senator John McCain appears on a mind numbing talk-television program called The View where she cried as she described her great love for fellow Israel-firster warmonger former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman as "like family," before launching into her own "informed" analysis: "I take the hate crimes rising in this country incredibly seriously and I think what's happening in Europe is really scary. On both sides it should be called out. And just because I don't technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn't mean that I don't take this seriously and it is very dangerous, very dangerous what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to me."

The New York Times also had a lot to say, covering the story on both its news and op-eds pages daily. Columnist Michelle Goldberg, who is usually sensible, criticizes Omar because of her "minimizing the legacy of the holocaust" and blames her because "she's committed what might be called, in another context, a series of microaggressions -- inadvertent slights that are painful because they echo whole histories of trauma." In other words, if some Jews are indeed deliberately corrupting American politics on behalf of Israel and against actual U.S. interests using money to do so it is not a good idea to say anything about it because it might revive bad historical – or not so historical – memories. It is perpetual victimhood employed as an excuse for malfeasance on the part of Jewish groups and the Jewish state.

Another Times columnist Bret Stephens also takes up the task of defenestrating Omar with some relish, denying that "claims that Israel uses money to bend others to its will, or that its American supporters 'push for allegiance to a foreign country'" are nothing more than the "repackage[ing] falsehoods commonly used against Jews for centuries." He attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the frame, bidding to get in." He concludes by asking why the Democratic Party "has so much trouble calling out a naked anti-Semite in its own ranks."

Stephens clearly does not accept that what Oran claims just might actually be true. Perhaps he is so irritated by her because he himself is a perfect example of someone who suffers from dual loyalty syndrome, or perhaps it would be better described as single loyalty to his tribe and to Israel. Review some of his recent columns in The Times if you do not believe that to be true. He has an obsession with rooting out people that he believes to be anti-Semites and believes all the nonsense about Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East." In his op-ed he claims that "Israel is the only country in its region that embraces the sorts of values the Democratic Party claims to champion." Yes, a theocratic state's summary execution of unarmed protesters and starving civilians while simultaneously carrying out ethnic cleansing are traditional Democratic Party programs, at least as Bret sees it.

People like Stephens are unfortunately possessors of a bully pulpit and are influential. As they are public figures, they should be called out regarding where their actual loyalties lie, but no one in power is prepared to do that. Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is pro-Israel far beyond anyone else writing at The Times . He and other dual loyalists, to be generous in describing them, should be exposed for what they are, which is the epitome of the promoters of the too "passionate attachment" with a foreign state that President George Washington once warned against. If the United States of America is not their homeland by every measure, they should perhaps consider doing Aliyah and moving to Israel. We genuine Americans would be well rid of them.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is <a://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/" title="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/" href="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/">www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is <a:[email protected]" title="mailto:[email protected]" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected] .

Bragadocious , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:18 am GMT

Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is pro-Israel far beyond anyone else writing at The Times

Amazingly the Times has actually improved from 30 years ago, when their op-ed page included Abe Rosenthal and William Safire, two of the most repulsive Zionists to ever appear in print. I still remember Safire's campaign against Bobby Inman. Inman's 1994 press conference is still a classic. (The good part begins at 23:00)

[Mar 12, 2019] Not Looking Good -- Trump Attacks Coulter, Congressional GOP Cucking On Immigration by Washington Watcher

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

See, earlier by Ann Coulter: Trump's Failing On Immigration. Don't Ask Me To Lie About It

Three weeks ago, after Donald J. Trump abandoned the government shutdown and declared a national emergency to get some funding for his border wall, I asked: Did Trump Save His Presidency? Maybe -- IF He Doesn't INCREASE Legal Immigration . Unfortunately, and incredibly given his campaign promises , Trump has repeatedly said since then that he has indeed pivoted to increasing legal immigration -- reportedly under the influence of his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka and Jared Kushner . Trump may still be saved by the Party of Hysterical Screeching 's inability to accept even victory (because increasing legal immigration would be demographic victory for them) at his hands. But in the interim, without Presidential leadership, it appears likely that the Congressional Stupid Party will not take up the various measures that could stem America's immigration disaster -- above all, the Merkel-type catastrophe now unfolding on the southern border.

Weirdly, Trump abruptly attacked Ann Coulter , one of his earliest and most eloquent backers , on Twitter Saturday night, perhaps signaling he is repudiating the immigration patriotism he won on -- or perhaps that he knows Ann is right:

In reality of course, "major sections of the wall" have not been built. And the administration suffered yet another defeat in the courts last week over its attempts to enforce immigration law. [ In another blow to Trump, judge rules in favor of ACLU in family separations case , by Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post , March 8, 2019] Trump is fighting, to his credit, but he simply is not winning on the border.

Coulter has consistently demanded the president implement the immigration platform he campaigne d on and her recent (admittedly savage) criticism isn't much different from what she has said since the beginning of Trump's tenure. See, recently Ann Coulter To Donald Trump: Hey, Commander! Start Commanding!

The difference lies in Trump himself. [ Anti-Immigration Groups See Trump's Calls for More Legal Immigrants as a Betrayal , by Michael D. Shear, The New York Times , March 8, 2019]

Jared Kushner is currently leading negotiations with the Cheap Labor Lobby to craft a bill that will likely increase guest worker visas. It's unclear what exactly will end up in this legislation, but it is guaranteed to enrage immigration patriots. [ Globalist Business Groups with Koch, Bush Ties Dominate Immigration Talks at White House , by John Binder, Breitbart , February 26, 2019]

Congressional Republicans also seem uninterested in immigration patriotism.

Many Republicans want to block President Trump's national emergency declaration on the border -- the one good thing Trump has recently done on immigration–because it goes against their " principles ." Thirteen House Republicans voted to block the executive order last month. "The president doesn't get to just declare an emergency for something that Congress has deliberated many times over the past several years," Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian, said of why he sponsored legislation to stifle the national emergency. [ Rep. Justin Amash: 'The President Doesn't Get To Just Declare an Emergency' , by Joe Seyton, Reason, February 26, 2019]. Amash was joined by a group primarily made up of squishy Republicans. [ Meet the 13 Republicans who rebuked Trump over his national emergency , by Bridget Bowman, Roll Call , February 26, 2019]

Trump's executive order is receiving even more pushback from Senate Republicans. Senators such as Shelly Moore-Capito (R-West Virginia) and Susan Collins think the national emergency is "concerning" and believe Trump already has enough wall money without the declaration. [ GOP wants Trump to back off on emergency , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , March 6, 2019]

Four Republican Senators have announced their intention to vote for legislation to block the national emergency: Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and usual Trump ally Rand Paul. More are likely to announce their support for this measure as the vote approaches this week. Pat Toomey and Todd Young, both who are close with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, want to propose resolutions to give cucky Republicans a way to voice their disapproval without voting with the Democrats.

The resolutions would convey the message that Republicans want border security, but don't want to take the necessary actions to fund said border security. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wants to pass a resolution that would restrict the president's emergency powers and place a 30-day or 60-day time limit on how long they can be in effect without congressional approval.

McConnell announced Monday that he could not prevent passage of legislation blocking Trump's national emergency declaration. The New York Times declared this announcement as proof that Trump has lost influence within his own party. [ Trump's Grip Shows Signs of Slipping as Senate Prepares to Block Wall Emergency , By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Emily Cochrane, The New York Times , March 4, 2019]

The good news is that Trump will most likely veto this legislation and Congress doesn't have enough votes to override the veto. The President is also threatening senators who vote for the block with stiff consequences. [ Senate Republicans divided ahead of vote on disapproval of national emergency , by Ted Barrett, CNN , March 7, 2019] There is little chance the President will sign a bill that overrides his own action, even if his close advisers tell him to do so. Trump's instincts would never allow such behavior.

The bad news: it's a sign congressional Republicans have no will to support immigration patriotism at the moment. This is very bad considering the immigration bills that may come before them in the near future, including the possible White House measure on guest worker visas. House Democrats are set to introduce a new DREAM Act that will legalize at least 1.8 million illegals and extend Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals.

Congressional Republicans need to get their act together to kill these pieces of legislation. But they may be at the forefront in support of them. Last fall, multiple Republican senators, including the appalling Thom Tillis, proposed a bill that would double the number of H-2b visas and screw over low-skilled American workers. And last month, several Republicans -- alas, including supposed immigration patriot Tom Cotton -- championed the easement of some regulations on H-1b visas.

The better hope for killing a guest worker expansion lies with the Democrats. Anyone with a brain realizes this would be bad for American workers and benefits greedy corporations. Democrats have never been too fond of this plan, as evidenced by their skepticism about its expansion in the Gang of Eight Amnesty. [ Gang of 8 defends guest worker plan , by Seung Min Kim, Politico , May 13, 2013]. What better way to portray Trump as a phony populist in 2020 than to skewer him for this gift to the cheap labor lobby?

The House Democrats' proposed DREAM Act will probably go nowhere–unless Trump includes that idea in his immigration package. There are some positive signs that the White House won't do this; and that Republicans would block its passage. Kushner floated the idea of giving green cards for Dreamers in exchange for wall funding during shutdown negotiations earlier this year. That plan was firmly opposed by conservative senators who thought it was insanity [ A "go big" idea to end the shutdown , by Jonathan Swan, Axios , January 23, 2019]

Though Congress and the White House seem set on terrible immigration ideas, it's worth remembering there are alternative patriotic immigration proposals they could push. All of these ideas would not likely pass the current Congress, but they would shape the immigration debate in a positive direction ahead of the 2020 election.

El Chapo Act:

This bill proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz would confiscate the money of drug lords like Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and allocate it to building the wall. Cruz reintroduced the proposal in February and believes the government could obtain $14 billion out of El Chapo's drug profits through this law [ Sen. Ted Cruz's solution to border wall impasse: Make El Chapo pay for it , by Deanna Paul, The Washington Post , February 13, 2019]. This would be more money than Trump currently has for wall construction and would send a strong message to the cartels. The president himself has said Sen. Cruz's idea is "interesting." There is no reason Republicans shouldn't hold a vote on this bill and make Democrats stand up for drug cartels.

Kate's Law:

This bill, named after Kate Steinle who was murdered by an illegal alien, would institute harsher penalties for illegals caught re-entering the country. This measure passed the House in 2017, but it died in the (n.b. GOP-controlled)Senate [ Senate Has Not Voted On Kate's Law Five Months After It Passed The House With Bipartisan Support , by Will Racke, The Daily Caller , December 1, 2017].

Trump should resurrect the bill. Yes, it's passage is less likely with a Democrat-controlled House. That doesn't matter. The president needs to convey he still wants to crack down on illegal immigration and that his opponents favor criminal aliens over American citizens.

Along with the El Chapo Act, probably has the best chance at passage among the ideas the Trump admin could push as multiple Democrats voted for it back in 2017. There is still a chance enough Democrats would vote for it again to achieve passage.

No Sanctuary for Criminals Act:

This act would cut Sanctuary Cities off from federal law enforcement funds and it was also passed by the House in 2017, albeit by a smaller margin than Kate's Law. It also went nowhere in the (GOP-controlled) Senate. If Republicans want to highlight the chaos created by Democrat policies, they should revive this bill and remind Americans that Trump stands up for law and order. This act, however, does have less chance of passage as it was more strongly opposed by Democrats [ Dems block Senate vote on sanctuary cities , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , February 13, 2018]

Mandatory e-Verify:

Requiring all American companies to use e-verify seems almost too good of an idea for Republicans. The bill explicitly protects American workers and puts the onus on employers to make sure they only hire those who are here legally. This should receive bipartisan support as both parties want to portray themselves as the true protectors of American workers.

House Republicans included the measure in their DACA deal last year, so they are aware of this proposal [ Goodlatte offers E-Verify mandate, farm worker fix for immigration bill , by John Bresnahan, Politico , June 26, 2018]. We just need one patriot Republican to stand up and offer mandatory e-Verify. This proposal also has a decent chance of passage.

Override the Flores Settlement:

This 1997 court decision has handcuffed the Trump administration's ability to enforce immigration law and is directly responsible for the current border collapse. It has allowed liberal judges to deem it unlawful for the government to detain illegal alien minors for more than 20 days. It also has allowed for these minors to have better access to asylum as they remain in America undetained. Some Republican lawmakers, including Ted Cruz, suggested legislative action in the last congressional session to correct this loophole [ The History of the Flores Settlement , by Matt Sussis, Center for Immigration Studies , February 11, 2019].

A bill to end this policy would not likely pass as many Republicans shrank from the Trump's family detention policies last summer [ Here Are the Republicans Opposing Migrant Family Separation , by Jeff Cirillo, Roll Call , June 19, 2018]. That doesn't change the fact that the Trump administration needs this legislation to avoid further court losses and to shift public discussion on family detention to focus on Democratic preference for illegal immigrants.

Eliminating birthright citizenship:

There is no way that this idea would pass Congress, but it does have the backing of the President and one prominent Republican senator. Trump said he may eliminate birthright citizenship by executive order and Sen. Lindsey Graham proposed a bill to do so right before the 2018 election. [ Lindsey Graham Seconds Trump Proposal to End Birthright Citizenship , by Niels Lesniewski, Roll Call , October 30, 2018]

Those plans, however, seem to have disappeared since then. But Trump still seems interested in the issue -- he mentioned it in his speech to CPAC -- and events may prompt the president to revisit the topic. A bill would cause an uproar within Congress and among the Republican caucus, let alone an executive order. And that's good. If Trump wants to have a serious discussion on citizenship and reduce the negative effects of mass immigration, then he must force this issue into the public square.

Javanka would likely oppose any such effort, so perhaps their White House influence would have to be minimalized from what it is today for this to happen.

The RAISE Act:

The RAISE Act would halve America's yearly immigration intake and structure our system to be more "merit-based." It would also cap annual refugee numbers at 50,000 and eliminate the diversity visa lottery. The bill was introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue with Trump's backing in August 2017. But (again, despite GOP control of Congress) nothing happened.

If Trump wants to show he still puts America first ahead of 2020, he could resurrect the RAISE Act. There is no chance it would pass, but it would force Republicans to run on the plan and win the seats necessary to pass it in Trump's second term.

These are some positive things Trump and Republicans can do. Whether they choose to do them is up to them.

It's not looking good.

Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway.

[Mar 11, 2019] Anyone remember Mullah Omar

Notable quotes:
"... That 93% of all personnel that are employed by the CIA are paper pushers in Langley and just 7% are in the field, of which I read sometime ago, has a ring of truth to me. ..."
Mar 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

David , Mar 10, 2019 2:18:10 PM | link

Anyone remember Mullah Omar, the deceased leader of the Taliban? The U.S. military and intelligence services claimed over and over again that he was hiding in Pakistan. Bette Dam finds (pdf) that he wasn't:
After 2001, Mullah Omar never stepped foot in Pakistan, instead opting to hide in his native land -- and for eight years, lived just a few miles from a major U.S. Forward Operating Base that housed thousands of soldiers.

In late 2001, after the U.S. invasion, Mullah Omar resigned as leader of the Taliban and the movement officially surrendered to Hamid Karzai who promised them reconciliation. The U.S. did not like that and launched a vengeful campaign against all former Taliban member. Eighteen years later the U.S. is suing for peace.

Mullah Omar lived quietly, meditated and studied religious text. Allah remarked on his death:

On April 23, 2013, Mullah Omar passed away. That day, Jabbar Omari told me, the hot, dry lands of southern Afghanistan experienced something he'd never seen before: a hail storm. I assumed it was hagiographic bluster, but later I found a U.S. army publication referring to that day: "More than 80 Task Force Falcon helicopters were damaged when a sudden unprecedented hailstorm hit Kandahar Airfield April 23, where nearly half of the brigade's helicopters were parked."
The fact that Mullah Omar's death was suppressed for two years even from high-level official sources, indicates to me that the theory bin Laden died in 2001 is very plausible. We even have a similar progression of statements regarding their respective health, doubts of whether they were alive at the respective time, etc.

Of course, both terror leaders were kept "alive" for geopolitical reasons. Once ISIS (and later Russia/China) took over as a serious threat in the corporate media narrative, they no longer had to cling to those old phantoms.

Jose Garcia , Mar 10, 2019 2:38:46 PM | link

The story on Omar is astonishing, but to me not surprising. If the US spends billions on finding one guy, and at the end of the day, he is literally just down the road, it shows how incompetent and useless our intelligence gathering has become.

That 93% of all personnel that are employed by the CIA are paper pushers in Langley and just 7% are in the field, of which I read sometime ago, has a ring of truth to me.

Stupidity has a firm grip on our rulers, and they are getting, not only us but many others, killed for absolutely no reason. And the dunces called the American voter, keep re-electing them. It leaves me breathless.

[Mar 11, 2019] How do US courts value lives. It seems to depend on "who did it".

Mar 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Mar 10, 2019 9:11:43 PM | link

How do US courts value lives. It seems to depend on "who did it". In the case of Syria, the sum is a very large one.

U.S. Court Finds Syria Responsible for Killing American Journalist Marie Colvin

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has ordered the Syrian government to pay $302 million in damages for the murder of journalist Marie Colvin in a 2012 artillery strike. The decision, issued on Wednesday, marks the first time in the seven-year conflict that a court has declared Syrian forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad responsible for deliberately attacking civilians.

Then there is the case of Iran's destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001.

US judge: Iran must pay $6bn to victims of 9/11 attacks

Iran is ordered to pay "$12,500,000 per spouse, $8,500,000 per parent, $8,500,000 per child, and $4,250,000 per sibling" to the families and estates of the deceased, court filings say.

A 4.96 annual interest rate will also be applied to the amount, starting from September 11, 2001 to the date of the judgement.

I'm mentioning this because of a story I saw on a blog operated by the son of America's Most Famous Jewish Orthodox Author. The fellow was gloating about the apartheid Jewish state "...cutting terror salaries from Palestinian Authority taxes..."

The guy's smug satisfaction gave me an idea. What If the US of A chose a number somewhere between the "life value" of Marie Colvin and the values assigned to the 9/11 victims, and subtracted the money from the 'allowance" given to the apartheid Jewish state. Every time they murder a Palestinian, they lose XX million dollars. Naturally the same thing would apply to times Palestinians murder one of their occupiers.

Or is it "anti-semitic" to even compare God's Most Favorite Thieves and Murderers with the subhuman creatures they're trampling underfoot?

[Mar 11, 2019] Not one critical word about people throwing Molotov cocktails

Mar 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Rufus , Mar 10, 2019 1:06:59 PM | link

On the NYT story, you have to love how transparent the propaganda is, and yet they (Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio) don't care whatsoever. Oh, and not one critical word about people throwing Molotov cocktails. Like that's a perfectly normal, non-violent means of protest.

Glenn Greenwald also has a good one on this.

https://theintercept.com/2019/03/10/nyts-expose-on-the-lies-about-burning-humanitarian-trucks-in-venezuela-shows-how-us-govt-and-media-spread-fake-news/

[Mar 09, 2019] I don't think Gorbachev knew what he was doing and was profoundly naive (or worse, but that's the best that can be said about him, let's leave it at that

Mar 09, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

deplorado , March 6, 2019 at 7:43 pm

Hmmmm I think IMHO that any analogies with Gorbachev are misplaced and superficial. I don't think Gorbachev knew what he was doing and was profoundly naive (or worse, but that's the best that can be said about him, let's leave it at that – and I admired him as a teen behind the iron curtain).

I think Sanders knows what he's doing and is clear eyed about who he's dealing with in terms of system and people -- unlike Gorbachev.

As for people in the USSR giving up – I don't think they got anything of what they really wanted, and I don't think anyone really asked them. So they never had a chance to give up anything. They were simply led along a short hopeful path – and then summarily and mercilessly crushed.

Sanders is a healthy thing for this country and the Dem party. Unlike Gorbachev, he's ushering in healthy forces. Let the chips fall where they may.

[Mar 09, 2019] Another crazy demand: Trump Asks Germany, Japan To Pay For Being Occupied

Notable quotes:
"... The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline. Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection money' will change that trend in any meaningful way. ..."
Mar 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Rollings | Mar 8, 2019 12:35:35 PM | link

The simplistic explanation is tempting:

The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline. Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection money' will change that trend in any meaningful way.

The only other explanation is this really is 4D chess on Trump's part where he sees these silly shakedown attempts as the most efficient way of getting the US out of NATO.

[Mar 09, 2019] Germany served its sentence; now the US troops should simply leave the country

Mar 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

m , Mar 8, 2019 11:38:31 AM | link

Thanks B. This is how empires end, or at least one way. Hubris gets them every time. I for one will be glad to see US troops at the very least reduced in Italy, and for all of Europe for that matter.

Especially now that the INF is dead. And I hear that Italy is now looking at embracing China's B&R Initiative. I say have at it! There's the shiver waiting to run up Washington's spine. You might find this amusing, too: > https://thesaker.is/us-treats-luxembourg-like-a-vassal-state-or-us-imperial-hubris-gone-bonkers/ Little Luxembourg. It does bring a big smile. Keep going, Trump. You're on the right track. More Art of the Deal, anyone?

BM , Mar 8, 2019 11:38:41 AM | link

Oh, what a perfect graphic depiction! Spot on!
james , Mar 8, 2019 11:40:05 AM | link
thanks b... descriptive pic!!! why are american bases all over the planet anyway?
ab initio , Mar 8, 2019 11:42:03 AM | link
This will be good for every one. Trump demands the Germans and Japanese pay for US protection, which they reject and the US military goes home. Isn't that an excellent outcome for all parties?
Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 11:42:10 AM | link
Thank you for yet another good and humorous post.

The only section that is slightly unclear is, "The only sound reason to keep the 30,000 U.S. troops in Germany is to prevent them from moving to Poland from where they could threaten the country."

Surely the US occupation of Germany has been tacitly or latently threatening and controlling and dominating and bullying and extorting Germany for around 74 years?

So what major difference would it make if they were moved a few hundred kilometers away?

Kick 'em out! Germany has more than served her sentence!

A clarification would be much appreciated.

ab initio , Mar 8, 2019 11:49:49 AM | link
The European people should support Trump in his desire to eliminate NATO. Of course the Deep State in both Europe and the US will fight it tooth and nail. Maybe the #GiletsJaunes who have been erased from western media will finally topple the Party of Davos candidate Macron. And similar populist movements in other European countries can topple other Deep State stooges from western Europe. Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the Social Democrats implode in Germany.
Jose Garcia , Mar 8, 2019 11:52:33 AM | link
Extortion because you're broke. We don't have the money to pay for it, so this administration resorts to mob tactics to keep the scam going. "The government and us are cut from the same cloth." Sam Giancana, former Chicago mob boss.
Zachary Smith , Mar 8, 2019 11:54:49 AM | link
If that graphic is any indication of public opinion in Germany, things are even worse than I'd heard.

There has been a small series of events where the German Government gave the US meddlers a shove-off. First was the new gas pipeline Nord 2 - they refused to fold for perfectly good economic reasons. Next was the German rejection of the horrible F-35. Recently I'm seeing headlines about Germany and the Chinese 5G company.

Germany won't ban Huawei from 5G auction

Given all of this, I'm beginning to doubt if the Germans will allow the US to plant new short-range nuclear missiles on their soil. Becoming a WW3 target for no good reason except to please the US of A Imperia wouldn't seem to be a very clever move on their part.

BM , Mar 8, 2019 11:55:54 AM | link
I agree with Elliott A that it is better to have the US troops in Poland than in Germany - and better that the inviters of the US troops then become the target for the defensive nuclear missiles they force Russia to deploy rather than Germany.

Furthermore, if Poland is forced to pay the full cost of their invited US guests, maybe their voters will eventually come to their senses and vote in more rational Polish politicians.

Spectacular own goal, Trump!

dh , Mar 8, 2019 12:00:27 PM | link
The Poles may want them but they won't be paying for it. Nice of Donald to ask though rather than tell .... has he been talking diplomacy classes?
Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 12:06:26 PM | link
Thank you, BM.

The Poles are generally pseudo-Catholic and mercenary, pro-American in-name-only; as soon as it could hit them in the pocket, they will pipe down very quickly and balk/bridle.

Hence Poland is a worthy (temporary) stopover for the US (including the NSA) when evicted from Germany. The fact that Merkel is out soon is dangerous because she doesn't really G/A/F, and will defer the decision to the next poor blighter.

There could be a treaty in place that says American troops can remain in Germany until the year 2500 but Trump's just shot himself in the foot again by giving Germany a get-out clause.

Kadath , Mar 8, 2019 12:07:23 PM | link
Zero hedge is reporting that Pence went a bit further than that and urged Germany To provoke Russian Navy in the Kerch Strait by sending ships there in a freedom of navigation exercise. Strangely enough Merkel said she was willing to provoke Russia, but thought doing it wouldn't accomplish anything so she didn't want to provoke Russia for no reason. God, how insane are these idiots. And now it looks like in response Pence/Trump will extort Germany for not being mindlessly obedient enough.
BM , Mar 8, 2019 12:07:51 PM | link
Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the Social Democrats implode in Germany.
Posted by: ab initio | Mar 8, 2019 11:49:49 AM | 6

The problem is though, that the Deep State have already reserved their places in Merkel's successors, the AfD. All of these right-wing "populist" parties acros Europe seem to be no more than a cynical vehicle for the Deep State to hijack popular discontent and channel it into a new form of slavery to replace the old. Hence Steve Banner's dubious and highly dangerous politicking for the so-called populist movement in Europe.

A real future lies in Jeremy Corbyn and maybe also a few other left-wing parties in Europe (as long as they don't become compradors like Syriza) - but the Deep State is fighting Corbyn tooth and nail. In Germany there is Die Linke who have some good people and some good policies (from my limited knowledge!) - but their popularity is still in the doldrums, unfortunately.

JohninMK , Mar 8, 2019 12:08:50 PM | link
Wow, if he is asking us to pay for the US occupation does that mean that if we say no that he will take them home? Or is it an empty threat?

A very dangerous question to even think about asking let alone encourage it.

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 12:14:11 PM | link
And of course, the extortion must be paid in US Dollars. Clearly, the threat is all about keeping Dollar Hegemony alive by reducing the massive trade deficit. I see AfD making capital thanks to this. As for Japan, Russia will not sign a Peace Treaty with it until all foreign military forces are removed--a condition that's been reiterated several times over the last few months to which I've linked. Okinawans are furious at being twice colonized and are at the end of their rope. So far they've been peaceful, but I think it's clear to them by now that the only way to remove the foreign vermin is to literally push them into the sea. Korea's situation's been discussed on that thread.

For the domestic Outlaw US Empire, shutting down the Overseas Empire of Bases and the related destabilization projects globally would save @ $1 Trillion/year--an utter wastage of monies for projects that are decidedly NOT in the National Interest. And as most here understand, the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an Outlaw and an Empire. And it would become cleaner too as the US Military is the most polluting entity on the planet.

Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2019 12:17:52 PM | link
>>>> dh | Mar 8, 2019 12:00:27 PM | 10

Isn't Poland offering to pay the United States $2 billion to establish a base called Fort Trump?

BTW, perhaps this is a ruse to remove all U.S. troops from Syria. I'd love to be there when Elliott "debt collector" Abrams turns up demanding the money from Assad. There is an opportunity for one of the greatest reality TV programs ever (I'm a neo-con, get me out of here) which makes me wonder if that's Trump's reason for this scheme.

stevelaudig , Mar 8, 2019 12:19:30 PM | link
All Americans needs to protect Americans in the US is a coast guard and a border patrol. Everything else is either protection for corporations doing business [which should be added to the price of their products/services to reflect true costs] or empire.
Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 12:19:55 PM | link
Yes, it's another damp squib, another no-win, another over-promise, another posture, like all the others.

This is all Trump knows and integrity never enters the equation.

Any sign of that border wall, that the Mexican government was going to pay for?

Not exactly "The Art of The Deal". more like one long and embarrassing suicide note.

I don't exactly dislike Trump particularly as he has "Mullered" a number of cretinous insiders whom required a reality check but he is hindbound by his capinet; none of his plans went through and he is in it well over his depth particularly since he appears to be suffering from ADHD, dementia and schizophrenia - just what you need in the Commander-in-Chief?

Ger , Mar 8, 2019 12:20:34 PM | link
On the bright side, you can get a bigly discount for being a faithful toady and swearing allegiance to the US of A. Wonder where the US 'leaders' got the idea of swearing allegiance to a foreign power?
Lavrenty , Mar 8, 2019 12:21:04 PM | link
A Fort Trump in Poland? Maybe...

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/08/fort-trump-is-a-farce-poland/

Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2019 12:24:34 PM | link
>>>> karlof1 | Mar 8, 2019 12:14:11 PM | 15
....the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an Outlaw and an Empire....

Trump's just demonstrated that by staying out of the very recent Indo-Pakistan incident. Maybe he didn't want Americans dying in the shithole that is the sub-continent. Maybe he didn't see any opportunity to line his own pocket. Whatever his reason, he did the right thing. Would Hillary have done the same? I don't know.....

psychohistorian , Mar 8, 2019 12:25:28 PM | link
Thanks for the posting b LOL!!!!

Empire is getting the rest of its plates spinning so that must mean that the end is getting closer. I don't think that the Philippine's plate is spinning fast enough so Trump needs to give it some special love.

Pretty soon we will need a plate spinning scorecard just to keep track of all the action.

Syria
Iran
Ukraine
Venezuela
Russia
China
Korea
EU w/ NATO
and now Germany and Japan

What plates am I missing?

Think about how much of the peoples resources are going to keeping these plates spinning.

Who are going to come to the table with what arguments when the debt music stops?

Zanon , Mar 8, 2019 12:31:41 PM | link
For Germans here,
Is there any party in Germany being against US forces in Germany? Or if not being against, atleast questioning this issue?
Rollings , Mar 8, 2019 12:35:35 PM | link
The simplistic explanation is tempting:

* Trump has driving desire to be seen as the first businessman president.
* The appeal of Trump making 'allies pay their fair share' any reality check on how counterproductive the effort is to the waning US empire
* Trump's unique candidacy put him in the White House without any real foreign policy staff who would have long ago gotten Trump to abandon the silly idea - at least after he was elected.

The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline. Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection money' will change that trend in any meaningful way.

The only other explanation is this really is 4D chess on Trump's part where he sees these silly shakedown attempts as the most efficient way of getting the US out of NATO.

mk , Mar 8, 2019 12:42:27 PM | link

btw - The picture is probably from the Duesseldorf Carnival.
GM , Mar 8, 2019 12:51:49 PM | link
American troops pack up your shit and get the f*ck out, oh and here's an invoice for $100 billion to cover the cost of cleaning up your toxic waste.
Thanks for your business.
David Wooten , Mar 8, 2019 12:52:15 PM | link
"They are neither needed nor wanted."

The only Germans that want them are restaurants and shops located near the bases and other businesses that cater to them.

Yes, Trump's new policy is very welcome if it gets Germany to kick them out or, better yet, get out of NATO. I wonder if Trump intends it - or is he just plain stupid?

hopehely , Mar 8, 2019 12:52:16 PM | link
From the article:
Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the administration was sending a deliberate message by demanding "Cost Plus 50" from South Korea first , even though that effort fell short.

Ouch, poor SK. What a timing, straight after 'successful' NK talks.
With allies like that, who needs enemies?
dh , Mar 8, 2019 12:53:42 PM | link
@16 Only $2 billion? Would that be a lump sum up front or payable in installments? Can't see Donald falling for it.
KD , Mar 8, 2019 12:57:36 PM | link
Ghost Ship @ 21
In that incident an aged MIG21 from India downed a F16 from Pakistan.
Also there is a $20bil project going on in India to make F16 locally.
https://in.reuters.com/article/lockheed-india/lockheed-sees-potential-exports-of-200-f-16-jets-from-proposed-indian-plant-idINKCN1PF1CG?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social

I guess the atmosphere was just not right to poke the nose in else it would have been ideal scenario.

AriusArmenian , Mar 8, 2019 1:08:21 PM | link
Perhaps this will finally get the EU to kick the US and its NATO out.

But I don't underestimate the ability of EU elites to crawl to the US. It's like second nature. And they get their pockets stuffed full of dollars to be kept in line.

BraveNewWorld , Mar 8, 2019 1:22:44 PM | link
Let me guess the free loading douche bag country that gets the most support from the US will magically be excluded from these demands yet again.

I sure hope they try this protection racquet in Iraq. The government is already under huge pressure to kick the Americans out after Trumps visit there last month.

Lysander , Mar 8, 2019 1:38:09 PM | link
What's America's plan to maintain economic wealth at the end of the debt spiral and dollar collapse????

I have an idea!! Tribute! Hey, it worked for the Aztecs. Soon many countries will see it as a small price to pay to avoid having democracy brought to their countries. Previous versions of this scheme, such as buying US treasury debt knowing full well it will never be repaid wont cut it anymore. So we are moving towards the real thing.

Vato , Mar 8, 2019 1:56:22 PM | link
When I used to play football in my young days (i.e. soccer for the american lads here), I had to pass by a huge US military base in the south of Germany each time in order to reach the training ground. But strangely, I never challenged the necessity of that base in the first place - probably due to my lack of geopolitical, historical consciousness. Only after they build a second, even bigger base directly on the opposite side of the road and after two combat helicopters - for the first time - flew directly above my head, I finally became aware and started to question things. I wonder how many people that drive the same road each day actually do feel the same...
Anyway, thank you b and thanks to all the well-experienced forumites for providing the vital informations and inputs that helped me to better understand what is going on after all.
Alaric , Mar 8, 2019 2:04:56 PM | link
Is trump trying to get the US booted from Europe?

This is quite a slap in the face as the US has been raising tensions with Russia and any conflict with Russia would likely cause the destruction of Europe.

jv , Mar 8, 2019 2:07:06 PM | link
Wondering how this will play out in places such as the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain where the U.S. actually pays the dictator to lease the Navy and Air Force bases? Where the U.K. pays the dictator for a British naval facility, too, which is shared?

Remember when Bahrain and other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf didn't want bases to be called bases? Instead they were each a Regional Operations Support Establishment, aka ROSE. Surely there's a different term now, but we still pay to lease bases.

Nemesiscalling , Mar 8, 2019 2:10:58 PM | link
Give trump credit: he raises the issue. And by doing so he gives people the opportunity to be thrust into the act of questioning.

I continue to believe that this is really the overriding attribute of his presidency. What people like the Germans do with this opportunity is entirely incumbent on them. But it is an opportunity nonetheless, and as b correctly asserts, this is a welcomed change from the political grab ass of the preceding administrations.

Jen , Mar 8, 2019 2:23:58 PM | link
We should wish good luck to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) in hosting US bases: not only will they have to foot the cost of hosting US forces but their entire economies by now must be revolving around being open-air military barracks. All while their own citizens are voting with their feet.
Jen , Mar 8, 2019 2:30:14 PM | link
Psychohistorian @ 22: You're missing large parts of Africa (possibly Djibouti where there's a US base; Rwanda which is a US satrapy under President Paul Kagame; western Africa where there are offshore oil and gas deposits) and Georgia where the US operates a bioweapons laboratory.
Drew , Mar 8, 2019 2:38:57 PM | link
Once again, on the surface this is obvious extortion. But I can't help but think this is really a purposeful 'own goal.' I know this is likely giving Trump too much credit, but in a parallel universe this is exactly what you would do if you had a hidden agenda to enfeeble the US to cause our eventual pull back. There's no political way to slowly scale back our involvement, but there is a way to overreach under everyone's noses and get the same end result. Is this a 666d chess move or just what happens as empire descends into chaos, grasping at straws? Either way I'm fine with the obvious result!
Likklemore , Mar 8, 2019 2:49:53 PM | link
We are seeing the true colors. What we now have are Co-Presidents: Bolton, Trump; and Co-Vice Presidents Pompous and Pence. The 4 morons do not realize they are isolating the U.S.A. and hastening rejection of the USD.
Adhere my diktat and keep purchasing our T-bills.

RT cites Bloomberg Merkel refuses to send Navy ships to Russia's shores, rebuffs US pressure

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has allegedly stood up to pressure from Washington as she declined a proposal by Vice President Mike Pence to send German Navy ships towards Russia's Crimea, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Pence allegedly wanted German ships to sail through the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from mainland Russia. France, [.]
pretzelattack , Mar 8, 2019 3:13:14 PM | link
next, trump asks venezuela to pay in advance for the invasion. in usd.
Emmanuel Goldstein , Mar 8, 2019 3:59:51 PM | link
This is an utterly brilliant Empire-killing move by Trump. Speaking of the UK I wonder how much we will be asked to pony up for the US air bases and troops still in the UK 75 years after D-day. This should hit just after Brexit and we may have a different government in the chair......
chuck newsum , Mar 8, 2019 4:08:51 PM | link
the germans would be owned by the russian,gadaffi saddam hussein serbia and hitler if it was not for uk and usa.
we keep the world safe and stop irania and the hamas terroist pushing israel into the sea.

i say to the germans pay the man or be invaded by evil doers

john , Mar 8, 2019 4:09:12 PM | link
i know it's an old trope...it goes all the way back to 2016...but i smell weaponized flatulence.
james , Mar 8, 2019 4:14:29 PM | link
lol to the last two posts...
Jonathan , Mar 8, 2019 4:26:37 PM | link
pretzelattack @42,

That's not how a leveraged buyout works.

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 4:29:06 PM | link
Although I didn't read or watch, it appears most major BigLie Media have published/aired this story, a point I was curious about since Friday's usually a slow news day, thus begging the question: What's the public's reaction? Might there be a groundswell calling for returning the troops home so that both the occupied nation and the occupier save monies? And what of the opposite argument, that even more troops and bases are needed to defend against the Red and Yellow Menace?
Deltaeus , Mar 8, 2019 4:42:01 PM | link
If I was a president who could not step too far out of line due to powerful forces all around me, I would take the ideas of neocons et al and push them even further over the line past reasonable.
No-one in power could argue against me because I'm implementing their ideas, even though I'm taking them too far.
But pushing things too far creates real resistance, and makes the real policies obvious, and brings about the end of the empire.

I might decide to:
1. Move the US embassy to Jerusalem, to make it clear who calls the shots
2. Demand that NATO countries pay more and publicly disrespect their leaders
3. Demand that Germany and Japan pay for their occupation
4. Obviously attack Venezuela (in contrast to previous less-obvious attacks)
5. and other increasingly outrageous demands until the vassals get fed up

Meanwhile I'd do other things that I have to do to keep the powerful forces happy.
I may be a terrible person with no 3-d chess master plan, but perhaps things would be different after my term. And "different" might approximate "better".

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 4:49:28 PM | link
OT--FYI--OT--WOW!

"Obama was a smiling murderer, says Ilhan Omar" And of course, she's 100% correct. As Ben Norton noted in this tweet , Omar's words were citied in a Politico article that he linked. You'll note, that by extension she also called Trump a murderer, just not as "polished."

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 4:58:29 PM | link
Deltaeus @49--

There's merit in your argument. For example, the so far small contingent of anti-war Progressive Democrats either were elected or emboldened thanks to Trump, Rep. Omar being the most prominent example. The same could be said of pushing the far-right's policy goals, as that's also generated resistance. Too bad the initial call for resistance was based on the Russiagate hoax. Time will tell!

teri , Mar 8, 2019 4:59:53 PM | link
Okay. If you don't get your weekly payola, then shut down the foreign bases. Only thing is, what do we do with all these armed people trained to kill on command, looking for some action in between saying the Pledge of Allegiance and painting Bible verses on bombs?

I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too many cops on steroids as it is.

psychohistorian , Mar 8, 2019 5:05:44 PM | link
@ teri who wrote
"
I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too many cops on steroids as it is.
"
Its called karma


I live here too....the energy needs to be refocused on planet rehab and going to the stars along with my standard make global finance public

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 8, 2019 5:35:10 PM | link
It will fun to watch this developing:

It sure will.
Especially the Neocons as they scramble around trying to collect all the rust flakes to glue them back onto dilapidated USA's dilapidated Foreign Policy.

ADKC , Mar 8, 2019 5:44:06 PM | link
I'm sorry, but many people posting here are delusional about Trump's motives.

For a start, none of the issues discussed in this post would cause the American people much in the way of dispute. Broadly, most Americans would think that other countries should pay for US "support". Americans disagree quite a bit about "The Wall" and gender issues around public restrooms; but not so much about the issues raised in this post. So there IS NO RESISTANCE, and WILL NOT BE ANY RESISTANCE, within the US, on getting countries to pay.

Other countries might have problems but what other countries think has never been much of an issue for Americans.

The issue of getting other countries to pay is about cost and the out-of-control US debt. And, also, about Trump electioneering.

Should other countries refuse to pay (or request US troops to leave), then they can expect to be sanctioned or economically damaged. Just consider how France (a US ally) had one of their prize jewel (world-beating) nuclear technology intellectual assets, Alstom's Arabelle steam turbine , taken from them by the US. This happened way before Trump so demonstrates how the US operates (the art of the [coercive] deal is the way the US rolls). France, and in particular Macron, who was French Finance/Economic Minster, at the time, had no choice but to accept the takeover. Macron actually appeared quite gleeful about it (Macron was effectively working for US, not French, interests).

Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2019 5:47:59 PM | link
Can Columbia or Kosovo afford to pay? Or will Washington increase the financial support they give to those countries to cover the bill.

As for NATO, the core system was based on the countries that are members providing a reliable easily-secured base for American expeditionary forces to attack and invade one of the two countries that are at the heart of the Eurasian landmass. In exchange for that the United States bankrolled NATO. If Trump breaks that bargain, what incentive is there for the core members of NATO to allow wars to be fought on their territory particularly now that Putin has said he is focused on improving the lives of ordinary Russians rather than going to war with Europe but will make sure that the decision centres of any countries that attack or are somehow involved in an attack on Russia will be destroyed. None as far as I can see, so it looks like it'll be goodbye NATO.

james , Mar 8, 2019 6:04:23 PM | link
@55ADKC - why would other countries pay to have the usa military on their soil? this explains the whole agenda of fearmongering that has been in overdrive 24/7 since i was a kid... nothing else explains it.. keep the fear up to justify this craziness.. i can't see anyone paying for it.. i sure wouldn't want that if i was german, japanese or south korean for example... now, maybe the leaders of these countries are going to be faced with a stark choice... side with this b.s., or get removed from office... i praise trump for bringing this forth and hope that he strikes a big fat zero from the countries that have usa bases on them...
Seamus Padraig , Mar 8, 2019 6:12:39 PM | link
@23

Die Linke are officially opposed to NATO and want Germany to withdraw from it.

arby , Mar 8, 2019 6:18:07 PM | link
I think Trump believes the hype fed to Americans forever that the US soldiers are the good guys and they really are protecting these countries. He also has a reputation for squeezing contractors etc.
To MAGA he thinks it needs better deals and more people sending money in.

These are his motives and not 4d chess.

dh , Mar 8, 2019 6:45:47 PM | link
@59. I think that's right. He genuinely believes US forces are out there protecting 'our allies' and keeping the world safe for democracy etc. But he also thinks 'our allies' are taking advantage of American generosity. This is a common sentiment among Trump voters.
arby , Mar 8, 2019 6:49:46 PM | link
I think most Americans think they are protecting the world.
iv> i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and norway for are freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big bat folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be along soon to take are democrasy

Posted by: chuck newsum , Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM | link

i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and norway for are freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big bat folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be along soon to take are democrasy

Posted by: chuck newsum | Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM | link

Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 6:54:05 PM | link
What better evidence that the MIC is bankrupting the USA?

This is how empires fall - the cost of empire bleeds them white and eventually hollows them out to such a degree that collapse becomes inevitable.

The USA is in for a massive shock over this: it believes those "allies" have no choice but to pay that extortion money.

But they do have a choice.

All these treaties have a withdrawal clause, and it doesn't seem to occur to the Americans that it's not just Uncle Sam who can invoke it.

My money is on the Phillipines to be the first to invoke their clause. South Korea next, and only then the gutless Europeans.

Australia last, or maybe not at all.

Gonna be ugly when all 800 overseas military bases are in Oz. Not sure Sydney Harbour is able to accommodate all those warships....

ADKC , Mar 8, 2019 6:57:39 PM | link
james @57

Because they are (particularly, in Europe) occupied countries and many things can be done to ensure compliance (economic, gladio operations, sanctions, theft of assets, prosecution for any offence [no matter how small, incidental, or accidental] if a dollar is involved, influx of refugees, war [directly or adjacent to target country], removal of post-colonial areas of influence, instigating financial collapse [Deutche Bank is supposed to be very vulnerable and would effect the entire EU/world], etc).

Why couldn't France protect Alstom? Would France be able to resist if the US targeted the African CFA countries (which are France's neo-colonial milk-cows and essential to the economic well-being of France and detrimental to the African people subject to the CFA franc)?

You "praise Trump" for raising this issue but it's just the same old, same old.

The only place relatively secure is the Chinese/Russia milieu but that's the other side of the real "wall" and restricts the expansion of OBOR. And the price (for Russia and China) is having the entire western nuclear arsenal aimed at you.

Whether or not any payments are actually made will make no difference; US troops will remain in occupied territory. (BTW: Europe will pay, the key is Germany. If Germany refuse to pay the rest will follow. But Germany can't fudge this; it would amount to open resistance and a re-negotiation of the outcome of the 2nd World War and, unless the US want to give up the fruits of their 1945 victory, I don't see that happening. Germany will realise that, if the US insist, they will have to comply; it's the direct consequence of losing the war and being occupied.]


Piotr Berman , Mar 8, 2019 6:57:53 PM | link
Moving American troops to Poland? Surely, the benefits are many. First, since the size of the military is much smaller than in Warsaw block times, there are many military grounds. Particularly in areas where forests are larger, climate harsher, and local men are fond of beating up strangers when they get drunk. Local roads are crappy and American soldiers are prone to hit side road trees. To summarize, martial skills and spirit are bound to improve.

For even better results, they should be moved to Estonia, Latvia and Finnmark, areas bordering Russian Federation. OTOH, fleecing Balts would be like squeezing blood from stone. E.g. Lithuania is an exemplary NATO member, spending 2% of GDP on the military, and yet they cannot afford a tank.

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 8, 2019 7:01:03 PM | link
Posted by: arby | Mar 8, 2019 6:18:07 PM | 59

He's already said he doesn't believe the hype. He said it 60 Minutes after his inauguration...

"We've spent 6 Trillion dollars in the Middle East....6 Trillion! We could have rebuilt America twice. It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop to it."

Remember now?

arby , Mar 8, 2019 7:05:21 PM | link
He believes the hype that America is protecting the world. He just thinks that the protected should at least pay for it.
Peter AU 1 , Mar 8, 2019 7:05:53 PM | link
The countries Trump wants to hit with fees are those he wanted the US military to pull out of anyway. The cold war relics. Europe, Korea ect. Any bases to do with Israel Iran Venezuela will not be hitting up the host country for extortion money. Bases he wants to use to pressure China will also likely be exempt.
Those that do get hit with the fees, Trump doesn't give a shit if the US stays or leaves, so long as the US is well paid if it stays.
Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 7:06:07 PM | link
@55 If the NATO countries refuse to pay then Trump can't respond by imposing sanctions on the individual countries.

Well, he could, but what is the point?

The USA can't sanction the EU, China and Russia. That is economic suicide.

Trump would be creating a rival trade bloc that is many times bigger than the US economy. The American nightmare for over a century.

English Outsider , Mar 8, 2019 7:06:41 PM | link
BM @ 13

I don't think Corbyn is the Messiah you take him for. He has sound ideas on not bombing foreigners - unusual in a British politician - but apart from that he's a busted flush. Not even close observers care to predict who will come out on top in the mud wrestling at Westminster but if Corbyn makes it watch him accommodate.

.

With great respect, "b", and as happens rarely, I don't believe this article is on target. America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence. Forget Aachen. It'll be a long time before any purely European defence force is up to scratch.

The Europeans are hoping that America will hold the fort in the meantime. That's not an alliance. It's a marriage of temporary convenience.

Presumably the Americans must be sensing that.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/nine-european-countries-to-formalise-eu-defence-force-plan/

/

BraveNewWorld , Mar 8, 2019 7:08:50 PM | link
Of course the other problem with this is it makes the American forces official mercenaries rather than national forces and all the legal consequences that flow from that.
Augustin L , Mar 8, 2019 7:16:52 PM | link
History first as tragedy and later as a farce. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: "Beria reported only to Stalin and Stalin reported only to Satan." Now Bolton reports only to Trump and Chump reports only to Sreadsheets. So much winning and multi-dimensional chess... It's deplorable. Lol
Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 7:17:30 PM | link
@59 and @60 This is why the shock will be all the more stunning to the Americans.

Its "allies" have no problem with Uncle Sam spending like a drunken sailor. As far as they are concerned, well, who cares.

But if Trump insists THEY pay for American profligacy then they are going to say "no".

American pundits will then pontificate on how much MORE it would cost those allies, and the response will be: don't be stupid, we won't spend money to protect ourselves against a threat that doesn't exist.

Because - and let's be honest here - in a post-NATO world the only military threat to Europe will be the USA, and the US Army will be on the other side of the Atlantic.

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 7:17:31 PM | link
I see a number of comments where the question's begged: Just what nation intends to invade Europe such that the continuing Outlaw US Empire's occupation's warranted? Putin and Xi want Europe to join the EAEU/BRI confab--invasion via commerce?!

It appears the Anti-Communist Crusade is having a hard time dying in some quarters, particularly where continually invoking it is required dogma by controlling interests.

arby , Mar 8, 2019 7:18:21 PM | link
I think Trump and his MAGA boils everything down to money. Money goes out and money comes in. His job is to slow the money going out and get more money coming in. I think it is that simple. You get bombed by our smart freedom and democracy bombs then you should be decent enough to pay for it. Also our bases are protecting you from getting bombed by evildoers bombs. You should definitely pay for that. Why are we?
Pft , Mar 8, 2019 7:34:09 PM | link
I'd like to see a study of the amount of money spent into the local economy by the occupation forces in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Not just by the military but by the servicemen, families, civilian contractors for housing, travel, schools, food, entertainment, etc

Obviously paying to be occupied is not happening, but there is some logic to the idea that the occupied receive some economic benefits from being occupied, including but not limited to a reduction in spending on their own military.

Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 7:39:53 PM | link
This is, frankly, a lot of nonsensical showboating that will not have any actual effect on anything.

-- "Pay us or we will leave"
-- "We are not paying"
-- "Um?"

There's probably more bullshit going on behind the scenes but this just looks RIDICULOUS, as does the Venezuelan adventure.

God Bless America!

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 7:44:39 PM | link
Pft @76--

Any spending into the local economy is dwarfed by the amount of ecological damage done--just look at Subic Bay or Okinawa. And yes, studies have been done into both aspects; I've read them, but have no links.

Pft , Mar 8, 2019 7:50:32 PM | link
Horsewhisperer@66

." It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop to it."

Trump just does not believe in others hype, only his own hype. So show me evidence he is stopping the spending which was his main point in what was infaur to Americans. Spending on the military is even higher, 6 trillion is now 8 trillion even if the accountants still cant tell who got paid

If Trump has shown us anything it is that he believes in the hype that whats good for Big Business is good for America. Even his request for more money from NATO countries is a request/demand to buy more from the MIC and not money to offset US military spending.

Sure, the reasons for the increased military spending are bogus, but he adds fuel to supposed conflicts with Iran, Russia, China, North Korea that allows him to justify more spending. Trumps just replaced Obama/Bush hype with his own personal hype. Call it Trump hype.

jonku , Mar 8, 2019 7:50:43 PM | link
Pft, that's what economist Michael Hudson has been saying:

The US military spending overseas during the Vietnam war resulted in a balance of payments crisis, with the surprise solution being the recycling of USD from offshore economies back into the US financial sector.

And it's been going on ever since.

I'll try to get a link ... Super Imperialism also recently linked by the indefatigable karlof1.

The larger America's balance-of-payments deficit becomes, the more dollars end up in the hands of European, Asian and Near Eastern central banks, and the more money they must recycle back to the United States by buying U.S. Treasury bonds.

It's worthwhile to read any and all of Hudson's writings, including his autobiographical essay. He has worked in the belly of the beast; Chase Manhattan bank and Standard Oil (Exxon) just for starters, the Treasury and Finance departments of USA and Canada amongst others.

Here's that Michael Hudson Autobiography . It's both a video soliloquy and transcript.

Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 8:24:52 PM | link
@70 English Outsider care to identify the military threat that US forces "have to hold the fort" over until the Europeans get their shit together?

Who, exactly, is itching to invade Europe once US forces leave?

If US forces leave then the need for European countries to increase their military spending is negligible.

Indeed, it would be based on a single calculation: how big a threat is the USA?

ben , Mar 8, 2019 8:26:56 PM | link
OK fine, more hot air and theater. The BS spewed by this admin. is just friggen endless.

Beats talking about real issues facing 99% of Americans...

juliania , Mar 8, 2019 8:31:01 PM | link
People, people!...Where will the military go? It's so obvious, it is staring us in the face...

Space!

Ah, but not just space --

Mars!

The War Planet!

And best of all -- there's no people there! They can have their war games ad infinitum!!! To boldly go...ok, I know, that dates me...

But oh my, blow it up! Blow it all up!! Keep on making horrible weapons, ship them off to Mars! Raytheon on steroids; what's not to love????? Trump will go down in history - no - up, up, and AWAY!!! [Just think - he'll have to visit the troops at Thanksgiving, take them a turkey - oh and take any Bushes and Boltons and Obamas and Clintons with him as it is rather far, a few Thanksgivings away but who's counting?]

And let there be peace on earth. So, be it!

Augustin L , Mar 8, 2019 8:36:01 PM | link
Trump making brothels great again and declaring a truce to Chinese honey traps on US soil. The front goy is seriously compromised, deplorables will rue the day... https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article227186429.html?fbclid=IwAR1FkjigXKFOf8gcPoKRqwqfqSLRuzPNDig5sg7XWtBQClavo73RQRsVWYs
c1ue , Mar 8, 2019 8:51:38 PM | link
People are really thinking too hard.
The Trump strategy is simple a la "The Apprentice":
Get a bunch of ambitious people to commit to deliver to outlandish goals. These goals are set such that achieving or failing them, the blame goes to the failure but the success goes to the leader.
If they fail: "You're Fired"
If they succeed: "I'm Brilliant"
Jiri , Mar 8, 2019 8:54:23 PM | link
With the Soviets out of Germany it is only appropriate that the other three move out too.

I am surprised why this wasn't negotiated then.

Jackrabbit , Mar 8, 2019 9:00:37 PM | link
This proposal broadens USA's demand that Germany terminate its plans to obtain energy imports from Russia via Northstream. Trump has already asserted publicly (weeks ago) that the added cost of LNG imports should be viewed as a defense-related cost. Via this new mechanism, the cost will be not be borne 100% by Germany.

To understand why this new approach is likely to work, please read ADKC's comments.

Pundits may poke fun but the AZ Empire is deadly serious and most AZ elites will be supportive. Especially when they are insulated from the cost (as they are).

james , Mar 8, 2019 9:22:14 PM | link
@6ADKC... i agree with arbys view on this... trump and an undue number of americans probably think they are doing some good protecting others.. it's laughable! now, as to your question about france and alstrom... i don't know the specifics, but i know how easily euro politicians, and politicians in general can be bought... i think it is excellent trump is raising this issue, as i hope the leadership in these poodle countries recognize their goose will be cooked soon enough, as ordinary people won't stand for it.. so, i am simplifying here and i have to race out and will be back later to add more.. i see what you and jackrabbit are getting at, but at some point this mafia-gangster strategy is going to collapse.. maybe i am too naive, or idealistic.. i will give you that!
Bob , Mar 8, 2019 9:45:15 PM | link
Zanon @23 you might follow this german website http://luftpost-kl.de/
Interesting links from there:
https://www.ewg.org/research/update-mapping-expanding-pfas-crisis
https://partner-mco-archive.s3.amazonaws.com/client_files/1524589484.pdf
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/30/pfoa-and-pfos-cause-lower-sperm-counts-and-smaller-penises-study-finds/
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/10/firefighting-foam-afff-pfos-pfoa-epa/
NemesisCalling , Mar 8, 2019 9:50:15 PM | link
@87 jackrabbit

Your assessment is fine and not without merits but the other variable you seem to be missing is the German people and others in Europe, themselves.

Will this cowtowing to the US bullying not in the end fully ensconse their leaders as the globalist shills they truly are and thus lead to their demise? That is what b us alluding to. We are unaware of Trump's motivations, here, but that is inconsequential when we are talking about him waking up the people of Europe to finally give US the boot.

haze , Mar 8, 2019 9:51:19 PM | link
86

Well it was sort of ...

https://www.rt.com/usa/germany-us-pact-komossa-978/

lysias , Mar 8, 2019 10:08:12 PM | link
"There's room at the top, they are telling you still, but first you must learn to smile as you kill," sang John Lennon.

Obama learned that lesson.

Zachary Smith , Mar 8, 2019 10:37:57 PM | link
While cruising around the internet tubes I ran into a casual remark about Syria to the effect that since the US is doing an occupation there, aren't "we" entitled to payment? If there is any truth to a spate of recent headlines, the neocons have already solved that one.

U.S. Forces Steal Tons Of Gold Captured By ISIS In Syria, Iraq

How would ISIS have acquired any tonnage of gold? Perhaps it was part-payment for the oil they sold until the Russians intervened. (the US sure didn't bother those sales!) More likely they stole it from citizens and businesses. There have been LOTS of reports about the US secretly rescuing ISIS fighters. Now here is yet another motive for those airlifts. I predict any such gold will be quickly melted down so as to make it forever untraceable. Would Pompeo or Bolton do such a thing?

Hmm. That's a really hard one.

Zachary Smith , Mar 8, 2019 10:46:32 PM | link
@ lysias #92

Oh my, but your post triggered the memory of yet another post I saw earlier.

Obama was a smiling murderer, says Ilhan Omar

It's bad enough that Omar tackled AIPAC, but to dump on Saint Obama is likely to get her pegged as a "self-hating negro". Wonder what Speaker Nancy will do this time? Threaten to waterboard her?

Steven Keith , Mar 8, 2019 11:12:13 PM | link
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ہم انگلینڈ،کینڈا،جرمنی،اسپین،
اٹلی اور کسی بھی دوسرے ملک کے ڈپلیکیٹ اور فیک پاسپورٹ، کسی بھی قسم کا آڈی کارڈ، ڈرائیونگ لائسنس،یوٹیلیٹی بلز،برتھ سرٹیفکیٹ اور اس کے علاؤہ بھی کوئی بھی ڈاکیومنٹ قلیل مدت میں بنا کے دیتے ہیں۔
اگر آپ کے ایئرپورٹ امیگریشن اہلکاروں سے اچھے تعلقات ہیں تو آپ اپنے پسند کے ممالک میں سفر کر سکتے ہیں۔
آپ ان ڈاکیومنٹ سے کینیڈا، انگلینڈ، امریکہ اور کسی بھی دوسرے ملک میں نوکری اور رہاہیش حاصل کر سکتے ہیں اور اپنا بینک اکاؤنٹ کھلوا سکتے ہیں۔
ہم صرف دو ہفتوں میں آپ کو یہ ڈاکیومنٹ بنا کے دیں گیے۔ پاسپورٹ بنانے کا معاوضہ صرف دو ہزار ڈالر ہے اور وہ بھی آپ پاسپورٹ ملنے کے بعد ادا کیجئے۔
مزید معلومات کے لیے ہمارے واٹس ایپ نمبر پر رابطہ کریں:
مسٹر راج ٹھاکر
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This was sent to me yesterday by a concerned Indian, with the tag of..."Be careful with your country"
He's right!

k_el_ph

MarkU , Mar 8, 2019 11:12:50 PM | link
@70 English Outsider.

Re: "America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence."

Defence against whom exactly? People pushing the narrative that the Russian Federation is a menace never mention the numbers involved. The European countries have roughly 3 times the population, 5 times the military spending and a massive advantage in GDP, look it up. If you add the US to the equation then more like 5 times the population and 15 times the military spending. The Russians have nukes of course but with the odds stacked up so spectacularly against them I don't blame them for thinking they need them as a deterrent. If you had another adversary in mind don't be shy.

Pft , Mar 8, 2019 11:36:05 PM | link

Jonku@80

Thanks for the links. I have been following Hudson for the last 12 years and agree with much of what he says. I do disagree that dollar holdings are a tax on other countries. These dollars for the most part are paid to companies for goods and services. They exchange some of this with their central bank to invest locally or pay expenses. The central bank then prints their local currency out of thin air to exchange. The USD are then counted as reserves which allows them to create more local currency by 10+ times, depending on their reserve requirements. This money is spent or invested in the local economy.

The USD reserves can also be used to fund their own trade deficits with other countries, or pay of USD denominated loans

A lot has changed since 1971. After the Vietnam War was winding down the US pulled out of Bretton Woods as Hudson anticipated. They then established the Petrodollar which was not anticipated. This put more USD into the hands of OPEC nations as they were told to accept only USD and in return would be allowed higher oil prices, and much was recycled back to the US, but they and the rest of the world had other options.

This option was the Eurodollar which began in the 60's in a limited fashion . A later sub-option was Eurodollars in the many tax havens, which developed first on British territories and then in the Carribean.

These options being exercised limited the amount of dollars coming back to the US and caused higher interest rates in order to attract some more of the dollars back.

The 1985 Plaza accord put in place an agreement to weaken the dollar with the US to buy more imported goods as they encouraged more US companies to move offshore to produce in low wage countries to keep inflation down. In return the deficits would be funded by other countries resending back the USD they received by buying treasuries. This was when the US realized they could spend and run up fiscal/trade deficits without consequences, and so they did. Oh my.

Then after the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent looting bu oligarchs the Eurodollar Market, especially in the tax havens , exploded even further as these oligarchs and western investors transferred their stolen loot to these offshore tax havens which were already loaded with dollars from the criminal drug trade (mafia-five eyes) and multinational corporations evading taxes at home

In 1990 the Fed then made it easier for US banks to import and use these Eurodollars by setting a zero reserve requirement (same as Fed Funds) on Eurodollar deposits which they could then loan out at many order of magnitudes. This fueled the great credit and asset bubbles using drug money and stolen Soviet asset money which came in to buy Trumps property and stocks. It also allowed banks to increase credit to cash strapped consumers who felt the pinch of neoliberalism and globalization, since the banks were flush with cheap cash. This led to the Great Collapse in 2008

Added to this Eurodollar supply from 1993 was Chinas own oligarchs growing increasingly rich from US investment/trade and from converting the peoples assets to individual party members who wanted a safe place to hide their loot and evade taxes in China

Quantitative Easing following the crash of 2008 provided another source of a cash influx for the US. Toxic waste from foreign and local banks were bought with USD printed from thin air.

Recent Quantitative Tightening meant trouble though. So Trumps new tax measures made it possible for US corporations to return Eurodollars hidden offshore which is fueling stock buybacks and propping up the market. If not for this a 2008 collapse would be here.

When the next crash happens, I am sure the US will surprise us yet again. Pretty sure the fix will be named Green something or another and a Carbon Dollar/Tax


Friar Ockham , Mar 9, 2019 12:14:47 AM | link
What Pres. Trump is doing is a clever ploy to start bringing the troops home as promised. That is his way of announcing the event.
james , Mar 9, 2019 1:38:28 AM | link
@70 english outsider.. i agree with @13 BM... however, the msm in the uk is so warped, maybe they will succeed in marginalizing corbyn.. i thought this article today from jonathan cook was pretty good.. as for the usa being the backbone of europe military and etc.. europe needs to grow a spine themselves and stop taking it in the rear from the usa.. this suggestion from trump is a good place to start by saying no... maybe the poodles are incapable.. that sounds like what you are saying..

@pft... i think i agree with you, although i don't study the financial dynamics enough.. the bailout from 2008 will be followed by more bailouts.. they will just be bigger... that is the name of the game - bust and bailout.. bailing out the banks, until the world asks for something different..

iv> Trump May Charge Allies Up To 600% More For Hosting US Troops
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-08/trump-may-charge-allies-600-more-hosting-us-troops

Posted by: John Smith , Mar 9, 2019 2:12:24 AM | link

Trump May Charge Allies Up To 600% More For Hosting US Troops
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-08/trump-may-charge-allies-600-more-hosting-us-troops

Posted by: John Smith | Mar 9, 2019 2:12:24 AM | link

[Mar 09, 2019] Exploiting Holocast tragedy to promote a Zionist agenda

Mar 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

JoaoAlfaiate , says: March 9, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT

From the University of Chicago Magazine (believe it or not), October, 1999:

" who invented the Holocaust the first place? Who decided to capitalize the noun "holocaust" and transform genocide into a political weapon and fund raising tool? "

" its message of an exclusivity in suffering-serving to promote a Zionist agenda ."

[Mar 09, 2019] The people attacking these monuments are effectively declaring that they want a civil war

Ukrainian nationalists vs blacks in the USA
Mar 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

kerdasi amaq , says: March 7, 2019 at 1:24 pm GMT

Why would only blacks object to existence of these monuments? What about the purported victors of that war? They could have objected but did not. The people attacking these monuments are effectively declaring that they want a civil war, as I see it.

This disrespect for civility must be punished.

opaque windows , says: March 9, 2019 at 11:44 am GMT
Icons of outstanding accomplishment seem nearly always to be about war.. and the political figures that made the Oligarchs filthy rich prosecuting a war that killed millions. The more dead, the bigger the statute.
Where are the monuments to Watson and Crick, Newton, the persons that discovered penicillin, the engines that convert energy from one form to a more usable other form or statutes of the persons that founded our great universities or the persons that discovered how to capture electricity and make available in every household?

Few icons to those that have made the quality of our lives better are ever produced, Why?
Probably because the war mongers would have none of that.. Oligarchs own 90% of the press, the media, and
means of communicating their wars, no damn invention that makes life better for the displicibles is going to get into the way of profit making wars that fund so much of Economic Zionism.

Consider the recent invention at the U of Australia where hard work discovered 2,200 different places in the world, where a combination of sunlight and wind energy can produce and store sufficient energy to supply 24/7 all the energy the entire world needs on the power grid. Not a word of it in the media. Soon I expect to see a monument to the shock and awe bastards?

[Mar 08, 2019] The Map That Shows Why Russia Fears War With US

Mar 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: March 7, 2019 at 11:25 pm GMT

February 26, 2019 The Empire: Now or Never

Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America's international behavior. Really, the explanation is simple.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51174.htm

Nov 29, 2016 The Map That Shows Why Russia Fears War With US

https://youtu.be/L6hIlfHWaGU

[Mar 08, 2019] The Orientalism of Western Russophobia by Max Parry

Mar 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said's pioneering book, Orientalism , as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American intellectual's passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing to leukemia, made an already tremendous loss that much more impactful. His seminal text forever reoriented political discourse by painstakingly examining the overlooked cultural imperialism of colonial history in the West's construction of the so-called Orient. Said meticulously interrogated the Other-ing of the non-Western world in the humanities, arts, and anthropology down to its minutiae. As a result, the West was forced to confront not just its economic and political plunder but the long-established cultural biases filtering the lens through which it viewed the East which shaped its dominion over it.

His writings proved to be so influential that they laid the foundations for what is now known as post-colonial theory. This became an ironic category as the author himself would strongly reject any implication that the subjugation of developing countries is a thing of the past. How apropos that the Mandatory Palestine-born writer's death came in the midst of the early stages of the 'War on Terror' that made clear Western imperialism is very much alive. Despite its history of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and war, the United States had distinguished itself from Britain and France in that it had never established its own major colonies within the Middle East, Asia or North Africa in the heart of the Orient. According to Said, it was now undergoing this venture as the world's sole remaining superpower following the end of the Cold War with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today's political atmosphere makes the Bush era seem like eons ago. Thanks to the shameful rehabilitation of neoconservatism by centrist extremists, Americans fail to understand how Trumpism emerged from the pandora's box of destructiveness of Bush policies that destabilized the Middle East and only increased international terrorism. Since then, another American enemy has been manufactured in the form of the Russian Federation and its President, Vladimir Putin, who drew the ire of the West after a resurgent Moscow under his leadership began to contain U.S. hegemony. This reached a crescendo during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election with the dubious accusations of election interference made by the same intelligence agencies that sold the pack of lies that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. The establishment has even likened the alleged intrusion by Moscow to 9/11.

If a comparison between the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and the still unproven allegations of Russian meddling seems outrageous, it is precisely such an analogy that has been made by Russiagate's own biggest proponents, from neoconservative columnist Max Boot to Hillary Clinton herself . Truthfully, it is the climate of hysteria and dumbing down of discourse to such rigid dichotomies following both events where a real similarity can be drawn. The 'with us or against us' chasm that followed 9/11 has reemerged in the 'either/or' post-election polarity of the Trump era whereby all debate within the Overton window is pigeonholed into a 'pro vs. anti-Trump' or 'pro vs. anti-Russia' false dilemma. It is even perpetrated by some on the far left , e.g. if one critiques corporate media or Russiagate, they are grouped as 'pro-Trump' or 'pro-Putin' no matter their political orientation. This dangerous atmosphere is feeding an unprecedented wave of censorship of dissenting voices across the spectrum.

In his final years, not only did Edward Said condemn the Bush administration but highlighted how corporate media was using bigoted tropes in its representations of Arabs and Muslims to justify U.S. foreign policy. Even though it has gone mostly undetected, the neo-McCarthyist frenzy following the election has produced a similar travesty of caricatures depicting Russia and Vladimir Putin. One such egregious example was a July 2018 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Russia's Turn to Its Asian Past" featuring an illustration portraying Vladimir Putin as Genghis Khan. The racist image and headline suggested that Russia is somehow inherently autocratic because of its past occupation under the Mongol Empire during its conquest of Eastern Europe and the Kievan Rus state in the 13th century. In a conceptual revival of the Eurocentric trope of Asiatic or Oriental despotism, the hint is that past race-mixing is where Russia inherited this tyrannical trait. When the cover story appeared, there was virtually no outcry due to the post-election delirium and everyday fear-mongering about Russia that is now commonplace in the media.

The overlooked casual racism used to demonize Russia in the new Cold War's propaganda doesn't stop there. One of the main architects of Russiagate, former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press on the reported meddling stated :

"And just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were concerned."

Clapper, whose Office of the DNI published the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections", has been widely praised and cited by corporate media as a trustworthy source despite his previous history of making intentionally false statements at a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee denying that the National Security Agency (NSA) was unconstitutionally spying on U.S. citizens.

The disclosures of NSA activities by whistleblower Edward Snowden that shocked the world should have discredited Clapper's status as a reliable figure, but not for mainstream media which has continuously colluded with the deep state during the entire Russia investigation. In fact, the scandal has been an opportunity to rehabilitate figures like the ex-spymaster complicit in past U.S. crimes from surveillance to torture. Shortly after the interview with NBC, Clapper repeated his prejudiced sentiments against Russians in a speech at the National Press Club in Australia:

"But as far as our being intimate allies, trusting buds with the Russians that is just not going to happen. It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to the United States and to Western democracies."

The post-election mass Trump derangement has not only enabled wild accusations of treason to be made without sufficient evidence to support them, but such uninhibited xenophobic remarks to go without notice or disapproval.

In fact, liberals have seemingly abandoned their supposed progressive credence across the board while suffering from their anti-Russia neurological disorder. In an exemplar of yellow journalism, outlets like NBC News published sensational articles alleging that because of the perceived ingratiation between Trump and Putin, there was an increase in Russian 'birth tourism' in the United States. More commonly known by the pejorative 'anchor babies', birth tourism is the false claim that many immigrants travel to countries for the purpose of having children in order to obtain citizenship. While there may be individual cases, the idea that it is an epidemic is a complete myth  --  the vast majority of immigration is motivated by labor demands and changes in political or socio-economic factors in their native countries, whether it is from the global south or Eastern Europe. Trump has been rightfully criticized for promoting this falsehood regarding undocumented immigrants and his executive orders targeting birthright citizenship, but it appears liberals are willing to unfairly apply this same fallacy toward Russians for political reasons.

... ... ...

Yee , says: March 7, 2019 at 3:26 am GMT

This connected continents of Europe and Asia have 70% of the world population, so it is the center of the world. But the United States is not a local power, it's thousands of miles away from it. Therefore, the US NEEDS conflicts in Europe and Asia to maintain its influence in the world stage and its status of "safe haven for capita", as it found out in WW2 that can be very profitable.

Peace and integration in Europe and Asia is the last thing the US wants. This is why it'd try its hardest to stir up tension in Europe, Asia and MiddleEast. The Russians were naive to believe it was about Communism.

World dominance has been very profitable for the capital class, whether the cost for world dominance worth it for the working class, is open for debate, as citizens of the dominate nation enjoy nice benefits too.

[Mar 08, 2019] Eyewitness of one of players involved exiting building 7 on the morning of 9/11.

Mar 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: March 8, 2019 at 2:42 am GMT

@onebornfree Here is a eyewitness of one of players involved exiting building 7 on the morning of.

May 25, 2014 FDNY 9/11 Survivor Witness and Whistleblower Speaks on WTC 7

Listen very carefully starting at the '20' second mark! As a firefighter on 9/11, he was at Ground Zero and was there when Building 7 came down.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ePPdUUISQOs

[Mar 07, 2019] John Bolton Is Exploiting Donald Trump's Weakness - Bloomberg

Mar 07, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Just how weak a president has Donald Trump become? For an illustration, see a terrific Washington Post article on the foreign-policy decision-making process since John Bolton became Trump's national security adviser. Or, rather, the absence of anything resembling a process.

As Heather Hurlburt pointed out when Bolton took the job, he's ill-suited for it. Bolton is a policy advocate, not the honest broker that the position calls for. That's a particular problem for Trump. Because the president is inexperienced in national-security matters, he doesn't know whether Bolton is speaking for the experts on a policy question or just advocating for his own preferences. Because Trump knows little about the executive branch, Bolton can use his bureaucratic skills to advance his own agenda -- including impeding Trump's plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.

This isn't to say that Bolton's policies are necessarily wrong; that's for others to judge. But it creates a real problem for the presidency when top advisers are looking out for their own interests and not the president's.

On this point, Ronald Reagan's administration is instructive. By all accounts, Reagan was more informed about policy than Trump is. He was also a pragmatic politician, capable of compromising or even backing down entirely when it was in his interests. Reagan's weakness, however, was that he could be curiously passive at times, and (like many presidents) too easily swayed by anecdotes. That meant he needed high-level staffers who could serve as honest brokers. His first-term chief of staff, James Baker, allowed him to make good decisions. Baker's replacement, Donald Regan, failed to do so. Partly as a result, Reagan's presidency had almost completely collapsed by the time Regan was fired amid the Iran-Contra scandal.

[Mar 07, 2019] Wooing the Russians: how Spain and Italy are trying to lure back lost tourists by Stephen Burgen & Stephanie Kirchgaessner & Alec Luhn

This is from 2015. Not much changes since the introduction of sanctions.
Sep 04, 2015 | The Guardian

MaoChengJi -> andy4248 4 Sep 2015 22:10

"Russians are brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to invade them at any moment. " Oh rather you're brainwashed daily that Russia is an awful place where Russians are brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to invade them at any moment.

I'm pretty sure not a single Russian believes that the west is going to invade. For reasons that are obvious, or should be obvious.

runner911 -> notoriousANDinfamous 5 Sep 2015 04:23

You must be joking ! 70 per cent of Americans do not know what the Constitution is, and six per cent don't even know when Independence Day falls. In a recent survey just over a half of Americans didn't know what the Taliban are , despite the fact they led the charge in Afghanistan.

When looking at a map of the world, young Americans had a difficult time correctly identifying Iraq (1 in 7) and Afghanistan (17%). This isn't that surprising, but only a slim majority (51%) knew where New York was. According to Forbes and National Geographic, an alarming 29% couldn't point to the Pacific Ocean.

Many didn't know where Europe is let alone Spain.

Americans cultural ? What a hoot !

runner911 -> jezzam 5 Sep 2015 04:09

Be assured Russia is more than capable of defending itself against Western ( USA ) aggression, plus they hold the biggest nuclear arsenal on the planet , so lets be clear no-one is going to attack Russia and risk nuclear annihilation in return. As regards being surrounded by NATO, how do you think the yanks would react if the same were to apply to the USA and that sad corrupt country was surrounded by Russian Forces ? The last time it happened in 1962, as I recall the yanks were whining like whipped dogs, but eventually agreed to dismantle their missiles in Turkey provided the Russians did the same in Cuba.

Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 5 Sep 2015 11:59

You lost the argument, so you are trying to change the subject. Now we can see why Western media doesn't allow an open discussion - you don't have much to say.

East-central Europe was invaded by Germans, Russians, Ottomans, French, even the Swedes. Germans murdered about 15 million people here. Ottomans (Turks) about 10 million. Russians liberated us from a murderous German occupation after WWII and stayed way too long...

Russian victims are in tens of thousands. Given that Russians lost about 1.5 million soldiers liberating us from Germans and saved us from planned extermination by Nazis over time, we keep some perspective about it. But I am not sure your ideological and slogan-driven thinking would understand any of it...

EugeneGur -> zenithmaster 5 Sep 2015 11:43

This has zero to do with Russia's poor relations with the EU and everything to do the Russians' smaller spending power.

This is not quite true. You underestimate the power of the sentiment. One example: Russian tourism to Estonia dropped 60% after the scandal with the Bronze soldier in 2007, long before any decrease in the buying power, and it never recovered.

You are right, of course, that the decreased value of the ruble affected mass tourism, but the effect was multiplied by the anger towards Europe, believe me, it was. Going through the visa process was always annoying and humiliating but under the present circumstances it became unbearable. This one thing that affects all European countries whether its Bulgaria or Italy.

MaoChengJi -> jezzam 5 Sep 2015 09:56

Yeah, something like what thecorporateclass said above.

I'll add this: deep down even people like you don't believe in any Russian 'invasion' in Ukraine. They know: if Russia did invade, it would've been over long time ago. The question, rather, is about Kiev regime's control of the border, which would amount to a blockade of Donetsk-Lugansk republics; blocking all the supplies, attacking from all directions, and exterminating people who feel ethnically Russian.

This can not happen: it would've brought the Russian government down, and therefore no Russian government could participate in it; be it led by Putin, Dugin, or Navalny, or anyone at all. It's just a physical impossibility. IMO.

TheCorporateClass -> jezzam 5 Sep 2015 06:37

The West agrees to drop this missile shield, Putin agrees to stop his military interference in Ukraine.

This needs correcting IF it is to work as a solution.

The West agrees to drop this missile shield, agrees to stop it's interventions into Ukrainian government and it's politics, agrees to stop FUNDING and GUIDING far right neo-nazi militias and their political wings, agrees to stop making intentionally false/unproven/fictional accusations against Russia & Putin's Government, stops providing military intelligence to Ukraine (a non-Nato country), and admits to the direct connection between the externally caused "political and social" instability in Ukraine begun by EU/NATA and the externally caused "political and social" instability and then Civil War in Syria with oil/gas supplies from Russia and Qatar ... then that would be a great first step towards the truth of matters bullshit.

Then all of Russia and Putin at their ELECTED President would no doubt agree to stop his humane military interference in Ukraine on behalf of those people having their human rights and lives taken by ideologically driven psychopaths and their corrupt crazies from Washington, Berlin, Riyadh, Doha, and Tel Aiv.

Simple really.

HollyOldDog -> raffine 5 Sep 2015 04:59

Whereas there are convoys of Russian trucks that are stopping the East Ukrainians of starving to death. The only 'gifts' that West Ukraine gives to their East compatriates is constant shelling, grad missile fire, mine fields and snipers that shoot any East Ukrainians on sight whether they are men ,women or children.

MaoChengJi -> jezzam 4 Sep 2015 23:48

I believe the western anti-missile installations along the Russian borders give the impression that the US is trying to break the MAD balance and create, at some point in the future, a defense against retaliatory nuclear strike. That seems like the only rational explanation for those installations. For do you think they are for?

MaoChengJi -> andy4248 4 Sep 2015 22:10

"Russians are brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to invade them at any moment. "

Oh rather you're brainwashed daily that Russia is an awful pleace where Russians are brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to invade them at any moment.

I'm pretty sure not a signle Russian believes that the west is going to invade. For reasons that are obvious, or should be obvious.

crackling -> MaoChengJi 4 Sep 2015 22:03

fingerprints is copying GWBush's data collection on citizens and visitors to the US - last night I just had my photo and fingerprints taken on customs entry to Taiwan - I expect it's becoming the norm these days.

Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 21:22

Address Obama's admission that "US assisted in the transition of power", why do you skip over it? $15 billion was a loan and it was used for the Ukrainian budget. If someone stole some of it, prove it and charge them.

I never said that Russians didn't try to influence Kiev, but so did US - listen to the recording, it assigns roles for different protest leaders. Ashton was an EU official and she was standing with the protestors - so were many others, incl. Nuland, ambassador, etc... - that goes way beyond "trade agreement".

I am a Slovak and I comment on anything I feel like. If you have a problem with that, maybe you don't understand democracy and freedom of speech. By the way, most people in my part of Europe (from Budapest to Vienna to Prague) roughly share my view of the situation. We know Russians, we know Ukrainians, and we can judge for ourselves.

Popeyes -> andy4248 4 Sep 2015 19:45

It's very sad but Russians are for more aware of what's going on politically than their Western counterparts. The fact that they have a low opinion of Westerners is hardly surprising and they certainly don't have to be " brainwashed ' by the Kremlin to know what's going on. They only have to look at Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Ukraine the list is endless to figure it out. You could blame GM food for the fact that Americans seem to be pretty dim and clueless on Europeans affairs, but as for the rest of Europeans I guess they are the ones that are really "brainwashed".

Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 19:32

Thou protest too much.

The "baroness" was an EU foreign secretary, that's pretty high up. In addition: US ambassador, assistant sec for Europe (Nuland), and a number of other officials were at the Maidan protests - videos and all.

The recording was very specific about who (Yats) should be Prime Minister and how it should be done. If US also does that in Spain, that's even a bigger problem.

$5bn is a lot of "civil organizations" - most of it in the last 5-10 years. Russia gave a loan - that is very different.

Finally, Obama literally said "we assisted with the transition of power in Ukraine"
what other proof can one possible have than an admission by the chief?

By the way I used the term "assist in an overthrow". To "orchestrate" is more pro-active. Given what has been made public there definitely was "assistance" (see Obama's statement above), whether that amounts to "orchestrate" like in 1953 Iran, I would leave to the historians.

Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 18:52

There are videos of dozens of Western leaders standing on the podium with the demonstrators on Maidan (just imagine Lavrov joinig an Occupy protest in New York or London).

There are recordings of Nuland deciding on who will run Ukraine ("f...k Europe").

US spent 5 billion in 20 years on "civil groups" in Ukraine.

If you prefer an infantile denial, I can't help you. Just don't be surprised if you become irrelevant.

Beckow -> dmitryfrommoscow 4 Sep 2015 18:34

Yes it was always mostly about the visa-free access to EU. Ukrainians want to move to Europe for jobs, benefits, school, etc... That was what drove Maidan energy (and US took advantage of it).

But your numbers are off. There are about 1 million Ukrainians now in EU, mostly in UK, Czech, Hungary and Poland. E.g. Poland has about 400,000 new Ukrainian migrants. The real large numbers are yet to come. I think they will - they are watching the Syrians and getting jealous, worried that all the empathy will be used up. Slovakia (my country) has camps ready on the border. We also suddenly have a lot of Ukrainians who have discovered the Slovak (or Czech) heritage. The same thing is going on in Poland, Romania and Hungary.

Millions are coming. And they won't be tourists or have money for Italian hotels. But I am sure the Western media will find a way to blame it on Russia. Such are the pleasures of dead-end ideologies, everything is very simple: "Putin did it!."

Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 18:26

"US didn't orchestrate a coup in Ukraine and hasn't offered Kiev a military alliance"

I suppose that would depend on your definition of "orchestrate" and a "coup". Most rational observers would agree that US at a minimum assisted with the Maidan revolution (or a coup). There are videos, recordings, financial transfers. Until the whole Maidan thing went bad, the US State Department was very open about the assistance that they had provided on Maidan, Obama said "we assisted with the transition of power in Ukraine" (actual quote).

US has said since 2008 that Ukraine will join Nato. They reiterated it last year and Ukraine has an official policy of joining Nato. There are joint exercises and training with Nato. It is rather conclusive that US and Ukraine are having a "military alliance".

Given those two facts how can you deny it? Or do you also deny the nose between your eyes?

magicmirror1 4 Sep 2015 18:11

Fingerprints to get a visa.

Welcome to democratic EU. This is the future European leaders are building and I cannot understand why.

dmitryfrommoscow -> Ola Smith 4 Sep 2015 16:46

Ola, the problem is there are no 45 million people in Ukraine these days. As many as 2.8 million people with Ukrainian passports work and live in Russia alone. And I think twice as many live and work in the EU. And about five to seven million are in a crouch start position to rush elsewhere at the first opportunity that avails itself. After all the Maidan hullabaloo was about getting free access to European -- and probably North American -- job markets and disappearing there for good. Let's throw aside all that talk about 'democracy and values' and be honest about it.

[Mar 07, 2019] Guardian adopted nazy propaganda cartoons to demonize Russia

Mar 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Steve Bell cartoon of Putin in The Guardian (left) contrasted with Nazi propaganda (right).

[Mar 07, 2019] John Bolton Is Exploiting Donald Trump's Weakness - Bloomberg

Mar 07, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Just how weak a president has Donald Trump become? For an illustration, see a terrific Washington Post article on the foreign-policy decision-making process since John Bolton became Trump's national security adviser. Or, rather, the absence of anything resembling a process.

As Heather Hurlburt pointed out when Bolton took the job, he's ill-suited for it. Bolton is a policy advocate, not the honest broker that the position calls for. That's a particular problem for Trump. Because the president is inexperienced in national-security matters, he doesn't know whether Bolton is speaking for the experts on a policy question or just advocating for his own preferences. Because Trump knows little about the executive branch, Bolton can use his bureaucratic skills to advance his own agenda -- including impeding Trump's plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.

This isn't to say that Bolton's policies are necessarily wrong; that's for others to judge. But it creates a real problem for the presidency when top advisers are looking out for their own interests and not the president's.

On this point, Ronald Reagan's administration is instructive. By all accounts, Reagan was more informed about policy than Trump is. He was also a pragmatic politician, capable of compromising or even backing down entirely when it was in his interests. Reagan's weakness, however, was that he could be curiously passive at times, and (like many presidents) too easily swayed by anecdotes. That meant he needed high-level staffers who could serve as honest brokers. His first-term chief of staff, James Baker, allowed him to make good decisions. Baker's replacement, Donald Regan, failed to do so. Partly as a result, Reagan's presidency had almost completely collapsed by the time Regan was fired amid the Iran-Contra scandal.

[Mar 07, 2019] Sens. Paul and Udall Introduce Legislation to End War in Afghanistan

Mar 07, 2019 | paul.senate.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :
March 5, 2019
Contact: [email protected], 202-224-4343
[email protected], 202-228-6870

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Rand Paul (R-KY) and Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced the 2019 American Forces Going Home After Noble (AFGHAN) Service Act to end America's longest war, honor the volunteers who bravely serve our nation by providing bonuses to those who have deployed in support of the Global War on Terrorism, and redirect the savings from ending nation-building in Afghanistan to America's needs at home.

Though American troops achieved what they were sent to carry out in October 2001, the mission shift to nation-building has kept our forces in Afghanistan over 17 years later. Over 2,300 military members have sacrificed their lives in the war, with another 20,000 wounded in action. In addition, the Afghanistan war has cost the United States $2 trillion, with the war currently costing over $51 billion a year.

"Endless war weakens our national security, robs this and future generations through skyrocketing debt, and creates more enemies to threaten us. For over 17 years, our soldiers have gone above and beyond what has been asked of them in Afghanistan. It is time to declare the victory we achieved long ago, bring them home, and put America's needs first," said Sen. Paul .

"Soon, U.S. service members will begin deploying to Afghanistan to fight in a war that began before they were born. As we face this watershed moment, it's past time to change our approach to the longest war in our country's history," said Sen. Udall . "Our armed forces in Afghanistan, including many from New Mexico, have served with exceptional valor and effectiveness in the face of extraordinary challenges. After expelling the Taliban from power and dismantling Al Qaeda's base of power in Afghanistan, they enabled a new Afghan government to be formed while also eliminating Osama Bin Laden. But it is Congress that has failed to conduct the proper oversight of this nearly 18-year war. Now, we must step up, and listen to the American people -- who rightly question the wisdom of such endless wars. This bipartisan resolution would bring our troops home at long last, while implementing a framework for reconciliation."

The 2019 AFGHAN Service Act

• Declares victory in Afghanistan. The masterminds of the 9/11 attack are no longer capable of carrying out such an attack from Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, and Al Qaeda has been all but eliminated from Afghanistan.

• Pays, within one year, a $2,500 bonus to all members of the military who have served in the Global War on Terrorism. Since 2001, more than 3,002,635 men and women have deployed overseas in support of this effort. This would be a one-time cost of approximately $7 billion and an immediate savings of over 83% when compared to the current yearly costs. The $51 billion a year can be redirected to domestic priorities.


• Additionally, there is precedent for service bonuses going back to the Revolutionary War.


• Sets guidelines for withdrawal. Within 45 days, a plan will be formulated for an orderly withdrawal and turnover of facilities to the Afghan Government, while also setting a framework for political reconciliation to be implemented by Afghans in accordance with the Afghan Constitution. Within a year, all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.


• At the completion of withdrawal, the 2001 AUMF will be repealed.


You can read the entire 2019 AFGHAN Service Act below:

[Mar 06, 2019] Disinformation destroys reality

Highly recommended!
Yes, in a slightly modified form this is a very true statement: "Disinformation destroys reality. The USA is master of this -- they have built a parallel reality."
But the real issues here is the neoliberalism is in decline, and to compensate for loss of power of neoliberal propaganda Western MSM now use neo-McCarthyism. That is a very sad but pretty understandable story.
Mar 02, 2018 | www.nytimes.com

Just as disturbing is an analysis of Russia's worldwide fake news campaign , which spreads contradictory reports and Kremlin-friendly propaganda.

"The Russians understand Western media far better than the Western media understands itself," one interviewee says. "And they play to the Western media's short attention span."

Another says: "Disinformation destroys reality. The Russians are masters of this -- they have built a parallel reality."

[Mar 06, 2019] Disinformation destroys reality

Highly recommended!
Yes, in a slightly modified form this is a very true statement: "Disinformation destroys reality. The USA is master of this -- they have built a parallel reality."
But the real issues here is the neoliberalism is in decline, and to compensate for loss of power of neoliberal propaganda Western MSM now use neo-McCarthyism. That is a very sad but pretty understandable story.
Mar 02, 2018 | www.nytimes.com

Just as disturbing is an analysis of Russia's worldwide fake news campaign , which spreads contradictory reports and Kremlin-friendly propaganda.

"The Russians understand Western media far better than the Western media understands itself," one interviewee says. "And they play to the Western media's short attention span."

Another says: "Disinformation destroys reality. The Russians are masters of this -- they have built a parallel reality."

[Mar 06, 2019] Memorandum of Agreement on Security Cooperation (October 31, 1998)

Mar 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Christo says:

March 5, 2019 at 2:10 pm GMT 200 Words @firstamongfirsts Well , there is the (still active)

Memorandum of Agreement on Security Cooperation
(October 31, 1998)

"The United States Government would view with particular gravity direct threats to Israel's security arising from the regional deployment of ballistic missiles of intermediate range or greater.
In the event of such a threat, the United States Government would consult promptly with the Government of Israel,

with respect to what support, diplomatic or otherwise, or assistance, , it can lend to Israel."

Realize as an indirect result of the USA withdrawing from the INF and accusing Russia of having IRBM's(600 mile range , and the Crimiea being only 800 miles from Israel , this immediately gave Israel carte' blanche for any and all defense "requests" the foreseeable future. This goes beyond even the previous status of Iran for all concerns presenting an IRBM threat as well.

There is also the default alliance created by the USA recently building an Airbase inside the bounds of Israel's Mashabim Air Base, near Dimona, that any air or actual missile attack on Israel will be considered an attack that threatened or was toward a US military installation.

They got the US permanently allied/tied covering their butts . No need for further acknowledgment in writing required IMO.

[Mar 06, 2019] Disinformation destroys reality

Yes, in a slightly modified form this is a very true statement: "Disinformation destroys reality. The USA is master of this -- they have built a parallel reality."
Mar 02, 2018 | www.nytimes.com

Just as disturbing is an analysis of Russia's worldwide fake news campaign , which spreads contradictory reports and Kremlin-friendly propaganda.

"The Russians understand Western media far better than the Western media understands itself," one interviewee says. "And they play to the Western media's short attention span."

Another says: "Disinformation destroys reality. The Russians are masters of this -- they have built a parallel reality."

[Mar 05, 2019] The political purpose behind Nadler investigation can best be summed up in this quote concerning the Benghazi hearings. In September 2015, Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy famously said Clinton s numbers are dropping because we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee.

Now they do not even pretend that Justice exists in the USA: only kangaroo courts
Why they are sill waving a dead chicken ? Because they are crooks and can't prosecute Trump for his real misdeeds. Or investigate influence of MI6 and Israeli lobby on the USA elections. Crooks. all of them.
Notable quotes:
"... This is not a standard beltway tit for tat investigation. Even before Trump took office, the tools of government were used against him. What is more interesting is that the inquisitors have unchecked authority. There is no limit imposed on the inquisitors either in scope or frankly legality. ..."
"... The Republican Party has consistently undermined him. It is the American electorate that will not turn on him. Do you blame them!.? They are slowly realizing that a war has been waging against them. Their way of life, the American way of life, is being dismantled. Years and years of compromise and lofty adherence to reasonable principles by the American electorate have done not a damn thing to abate the onslaught against them. ..."
"... Your timing as well as details are off. Iran-Contra was in the 80s. Laundering money from arms sales to Iran to fund the Contras in violation of the Boland amendement is far different than the Affaire de coeur Russia, which is now turning into an investigation of every financial deal Trump ever did. ..."
"... "The tradition" is using investigative powers to politicaly attack ones opponents when you are in power. ..."
Mar 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Nadler is the kangaroo in chief?

"House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who would eventually lead any impeachment proceedings, on Sunday signaled a significant escalation into congressional inquiries into the President.

The New York Democrat plans on Monday to request documents from 60 people and entities close to Trump, including from the Department of Justice, the White House and the Trump Organization. The document trawl will be used "to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, about corruption and abuse of power, " Nadler said on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday.

Nadler stuck to the House Democratic position that impeachment "is a long way down the road," apparently in order to avoid Republican arguments that the decision has already been made to try to oust Trump. The document requests are not taking place under the auspices of an official impeachment investigation."

Nadler could not be more clear. He and the other kangaroos in the Democrat herd (flock?) will search through every aspect of Trump's life for the purpose of finding something that will cause a revulsion against Trump among the American people. If they can find that, their allies among the press and TeeVee agitprop apparatchiks will make judgments evident as to whether or not a bill of impeachment would result in a conviction in the senate. This method is reminiscent of the attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson. Remember him? The Radical Republicans hated this Southern War Democrat simply because he was Southern without regard for his well demonstrated hatred for the planter class in the greater South as opposed to his east Tennessee anti-slavery home. So, pilgrims, American tradition is to be reversed. The Democrats will seek for confirmation bias of Trump's "crimes" because of their "progressive" hatred of his perhaps cynical leadership of a popular revolution against them and the idiot college kids. pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/politics/trump-mueller-report-nadler-investigation-impeachment/index.html


blue peacock -> Eric Newhill , 2 hours ago

IMO, Trump could blow the kangaroos off the range by declassifying it all and allowing the American people to see the details of the attempted coup. And the collusion among the kangaroos. But he chooses to not do that. Very puzzling.

Clearly it can't be because of Mueller and the potential charge of obstruction of justice, as the kangaroos are running hard towards getting him and his family in any case. So what's behind his strategy of just tweeting witch hunt, which he's been doing for 2 years, and not doing what could blow this all up which is his prerogative as POTUS?

jnewman , 4 hours ago

This is the politics necessary to continue to govern a largely unified country as if it were deeply divided: https://www.nytimes.com/201...

The minorities that both of our parties represent have had their way for forty years, the majority is fed up by not being represented and increasingly absurd distractions are required to maintain this status quo.

Fred , 19 hours ago

What can any Trump supporter expect once a Democrat is again elected president, besides a similar witch hunt into thier life past and present?

TTG -> Fred , 19 hours ago

This has been standard beltway politics since at least the Iran-Contra and Whitewater investigations. It hit hot and heavy once the Republicans regained control of the Congress in 2014 and hit Obama/Clinton with the Benghazi hearings. I think the political purpose behind all these investigations, including the current crop of investigations into Trump can best be summed up in this quote concerning the Benghazi hearings. "In September 2015, Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy famously said Clinton's "numbers are dropping" because "we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee." I doubt Nadler will ever pursue an impeachment. His goal is to tear at Trump until the 2020 elections. Anyways, I can't think of anything Trump could have done or will do that would persuade the Republican party to turn on him. Nothing. You're right. Whoever wins that election will be subject to the same scrutiny.

aint.no.robot -> TTG , 14 hours ago

True, their motives were suspect, but Benghazi was a thing.

Stueeeeee -> TTG , 2 hours ago

This is not a standard beltway tit for tat investigation. Even before Trump took office, the tools of government were used against him. What is more interesting is that the inquisitors have unchecked authority. There is no limit imposed on the inquisitors either in scope or frankly legality.

The Republican Party has consistently undermined him. It is the American electorate that will not turn on him. Do you blame them!.? They are slowly realizing that a war has been waging against them. Their way of life, the American way of life, is being dismantled. Years and years of compromise and lofty adherence to reasonable principles by the American electorate have done not a damn thing to abate the onslaught against them.

2020 elections will be won by a Democrat. Trump won by razor thin margins, and those margins will be erased as a malignant crop of woke young voters will come of age. Frankly I am curious if his health can hold up for another campaign.

Fred -> TTG , 6 hours ago

Your timing as well as details are off. Iran-Contra was in the 80s. Laundering money from arms sales to Iran to fund the Contras in violation of the Boland amendement is far different than the Affaire de coeur Russia, which is now turning into an investigation of every financial deal Trump ever did.

The Republicans didn't control the House until the mid-90s and lost it in 2007. The invasion and occupation of Iraq played a big part in losing the House then.

TTG -> Fred , 5 hours ago

The Congressional investigation of Iran-Contra was also referred to as a witch hunt by Republicans. So that usage of the term was around since the 80s. Reagan's Tower Commission was a different animal altogether. We'll probably never see something as introspective as that again.

I mentioned both Iran-Contra and Whitewater to point out the longstanding tradition of politically tinged Congressional investigations. The Whitewater Congressional investigations went into overdrive up after the Republicans won the House in 1994. The Republican controlled both the House and Senate in 2014. That's when the Benghazi hearings really ramped up. The ramp up of Congressional investigations with the Democratic winning of the House last year is just following in that tradition.

Fred -> TTG , 5 hours ago

Selling weapons to Iran was a crime. "The tradition" is using investigative powers to politicaly attack ones opponents when you are in power. Kind of like using the executive branch of government to hinder opponents activities, such as preventing IRS non-profit status, or spying on them like the NSA has been doing. All done by the Obama administration. Then there is the conduct of the FBI. I haven't seen Trump do any of those things with executive branch powers.

Stuart Wood -> TTG , 8 hours ago

TTG hit the nail on the head. Since Clinton and Whitewater, investigations have been the method to hit back at the Presidency you don't support. The only thing I would add is the Iran-Contra investigation was much more relevant than Whitewater, the Clinton's Christmas card list, or Benghazi; officials were actually convicted from the Iran-Contra investigation. The sad fact is that some investigations that are BS successfully work to rile up the investigator's supporters, example Benghazi. I would only add that Trump's past history provides a lot of fuel for the investigatory fire.

[Mar 05, 2019] IS sends every day 20000 barrels of oil sold for 30$ a barrel and under, and refined in Batman before being sold

This is from 2015, but it show that fight again ISIS was a sham from the very beginning. It wqas all about "regime change" and ISIS was an instrument to facilitate this change. Obama was a closet supporter of Muslim Brotherhood all his tenure. While hillary was just a bloodthrusty maniak ("We came, we saw, he died")
Money do not smell...
Notable quotes:
"... Why then don't we impose sanctions on the IS and block their banks, and freeze their accounts? ..."
"... This goes on to demonstrate that the IS is a useful tool for American foreign policy, and if they didn't create it, at least they don't strive for its eradication. ..."
Sep 16, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com

astabada, September 16, 2015 at 8:17 pm

Maurizio Blondet is an Italian blogger. In this article [in Italian] he ironically suggests to Obama two different solutions to eradicate the Islamic State.

This goes on to demonstrate that the IS is a useful tool for American foreign policy, and if they didn't create it, at least they don't strive for its eradication.

[Mar 05, 2019] Lately, Ukranians began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results

Mar 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: November 24, 2018 at 5:18 pm GMT

@Felix Keverich You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart ? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?

The Ukraine certainly had all kinds of 'entrepreneurs' they're called OLIGARCHS who very capably enriched themselves unfortunately 'entrepreneurs' are what normal people would call parasites, flim-flam men and hucksters

As for Ukrainian workers lacking 'marketable skills' I guess that would be 'skills' like TROLLING, your specialty and making retarded statements on discussion fora

Ukraine had more very qualified engineers per capita than any country in Europe a huge amount of intellectual capacity, and a very good industrial base especially in high tech areas like aerospace and propulsion their problem was that they chose to play games with the rotten west, instead of friendship with Russia, with which their industry was integrated

You're a complete wanker in the A. Karlin mold. Get lost you have nothing to contribute

Felix Keverich , says: November 24, 2018 at 5:38 pm GMT
@Big Bill They fought that it was Russia, that was holding them back, and by separating they could quickly achieve Western European standard of living. The first guy to become president of independent Ukraine promised people that they were going to "live like France" .in 5 years (!). lol

So their plan was something like this:

Lately, they began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results

Felix Keverich , says: November 24, 2018 at 5:53 pm GMT
@FB

You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart ? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?

Your industries are worth ZERO, if you're unable to sell your products, and the Ukraine struggled to sell its manufactured goods after 1991. Its traditional customer – Russia began to import Western goods.

You sound like Martyanov. lol It doesn't take any "special qualification" to figure out that Soviet-era factories were churning out worthless crap – there is a reason why that system fell apart, you know.

Now, off to ignore list with you.

[Mar 04, 2019] Joke s on crazy Us politicians (which means 99% of house and Senate): Putin does not sleep, he waits.

What a breathtaking example of stupidity. This is level of absurd that is unachievable even to Onion. for those congresswoman Putin became a fetish born of secret admiration and repressed fear.
Feb 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

WASHINGTON, February 28, 2019, 02:27 -- REGNUM members of the house of representatives of the U.S. Congress, Val Demings and Elise Stefanik, have introduced a bill demanding that the intelligence services provide information on the income and property of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports the ABC channel .

According to ABC, the bill called "The Vladimir Putin Transparency Act" has been proposed by these members of the Intelligence Committee. The bill is related to the alleged ambitions of Russia to undermine American democracy. It is assumed that information about Putin's income will help defend democracy in the United States.

Also in January, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill on protection against "Kremlin aggression". The bill also contained a request that the intelligence community provide data on the assets and income of the Russian leader.

Murdock February 28, 2019 at 12:46 am

I'm not the only one here who thinks this is like, weird, right? Right?

Forget "Putin Derangement Syndrome", it's gotta be pretty deep into fetish territory now. I can only imagine they would also like to know where he takes his lunch breaks and what he thinks about in the shower too. Perhaps they fantasize about what sweet nothings the Russian head of state whispers into his pillows before falling asleep.

Joke's on them: Putin does not sleep, he waits.

Mark Chapman February 28, 2019 at 8:33 am
No, you're obviously not the only one who thinks this is weird. Washington's persistent preoccupation with Putin is indeed in fetish territory now; he has become the bogeyman, the witch who brings damaging storms down on American heads, causes crops to fail and cows to give sour milk. I would not be at all surprised to see the House come up with a bill proposing he be tried for witchcraft.

The only explanation I can offer – except mass craziness brought on by too much junk food – is a propaganda machine which has slipped its governor, and cannot stop churning out ever-more-outrageous claims. The extremes generated on Venezuela are similar in nature – Maduro is the ultimate evil, to the point that no option exists but his immediate overthrow, without which all Venezuelans are doomed to early deaths.

Nat February 28, 2019 at 12:09 pm
Especially as it was what the Panama papers already tried to do, and failed miserably. In thousands and thousands of published documents, there wasn't anything even remotely belonging to Putin. It only reinforced that there was no "fortune" to find.
Jen February 28, 2019 at 2:24 am
Someone probably ought to tell Demings and Stefanik that their bill is the 100,000,001st bill to be put to Congress demanding that all 17 intel agencies in the US pull out all the stops to find Putin's hidden $40 billion fortune, even if they have to lose a few agents on a one-way trip into the heart of the Sun or down the Puerto Rico Trench in search of his assets.
Patient Observer February 28, 2019 at 9:50 am
Yes, a great history lesson and it places events in a proper context regarding Russian behavior as they expanded eastwards. I suspect a "Western" mentality would have slaughtered all of the descendants of Khan empire. No, a Western mentality would slaughter ANY non-Western population regardless of preceding history. Russians and Orthodox Slavs, in general, are forgiving as we see to this very day.
Moscow Exile February 28, 2019 at 11:08 am
Well, to be fair, Ivan IV's victorious army put the majority of the Kazan population to the sword when the city fell to his forces in 1552 and for the rest of the 16th century, Tatars were forbidden to live in the city, which became Russified. There was official discrimination against Tatars but it lessened as the years passed.

By the 19th century, Tatars had cornered the market in St.Petersburg and Moscow in the restaurant trade -- as waiters. And I reckon most railway porters at the raiway termini in Moscow are Tatars as well.

yalensis February 28, 2019 at 11:35 am
I don't think Russians are even necessarily "forgiving", I think it's something else. and I don't believe that this has much, if anything, to do with Christianity. The Russian mentality is fundamentally different from the European mentality.
Europeans see "others" as sub-humans. Russians simply see people as people. Whether friends or enemies. If enemies, then they are killed in battle, but once the battle is over, they start getting married.

I always point to the Russian national poem "The Tale of Igor's Host" as the prime example of this attitude. Prince Igor and the Cumans are fighting to the death. Igor loses. The Cumans take him captive. The Cuman Khan marries his daughter to Igor's son. See, Russians and Cumans have the same attitude here: We fight, and then we get married. That's the difference. (And the Cumans are not Christian.)
That's why it would have been impossible for Russia to have Jim Crow laws like in the U.S., which forbid people of different ethnic groups to get married.

yalensis February 28, 2019 at 11:42 am
And P.S., speaking of racism, I had to get this post off my chest , because I am really worried about certain Russian pundits being infected by American ALT-Rightie type racism.
I truly believe that biological racism is alien to the Russian mentality, and yet certain individuals are becoming infected, as the American cultural influence spreads.
Not that this particular incident involves actual racism, but it still bothers me that the Russian pundits are starting to use American vocabulary, such as "white people", and that sort of thing.
I personally believe these Catholic "Covington" boys are little shits who needed a cultural slap-down. It's just too bad that those delivering the spanking are barking mad themselves. But such is the American political scene .
yalensis February 28, 2019 at 11:51 am
P.S. – an etymological note. The American term "white cracker" had nothing to do with actual crackers or any other type of foodstuff. It originated in slave times. The "cracker" was the hired hand who "cracked the whip" and beat the slaves. It's all there in that Bible of Slavery, namely Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin". There you can read how slave-owners who were too squeamish (or too lazy) to whip their own slaves, could outsource the punishment to official businesses run by local "crackers" who would strip the skin off human backs, for a fee.
Cortes March 1, 2019 at 4:41 pm
The etymology of cracker is probably nonsense. A good starting point for understanding the use of cracker in states originally settled by the "Scots-Irish" ( in today's parlance Ulster Scots) would be the Wikipedia entry on "craic"; I have a book chez Mrs C by a writer from GA making that very argument, that "cracker" was and is the archetypal carnaptious, disputatious rural type who would argue with God Almighty.
A gauche youngster doesn't and didn't deserve to be vilified after being abused by an old attention seeker and useless media and I hope the Covington kid is hugely successful in the litigation. On a literary note, what happened was a good illustration of the "pecking party" memorably described by Kesey in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."

[Mar 04, 2019] Guess who made those clearly anti-Semitic comments

Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Just three examples. All those people would have troubles in the USA now. And that tells us something about the USA:

The wealthy Jews control the world, in their hands lies the fate of governments and nations. They set governments one against the other. When the wealthy Jews play, the nations and the rulers dance. One way or the other, they get rich."

'The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline.'

'The enterprising spirit of the Jew is irrepressible. He refuses to remain a proletarian. He will grab at the first opportunity to advance to a higher rung in the social ladder.'

The comments above weren't made by Adolf Hitler or a member of the Nazi party but by some of the most dedicated early Zionists:

  1. Theodor Herzl, Deutsche Zeitung, as cited by an Israeli documentary
  2. Our Shomer 'Weltanschauung' , Hashomer Hatzair, December 1936, p.26. As cited by Lenni Brenner
  3. The Economic Development of the Jewish People, Ber Borochov, 1916

[Mar 04, 2019] US does not have "plan B". Trump just betting on enough pressure will force China to surrender, like Japan did in the 80s.

Notable quotes:
"... Face it. Mass production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1 wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress ..."
"... Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc. ..."
"... With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc. ..."
"... The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant memory. ..."
"... Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero. ..."
Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

jacques sheete says: February 18, 2019 at 4:05 pm GMT 100 Words A superb and apparently too little appreciated point,

War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.

Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition.

It all war, all the time and another point to remember is that there is always a war between the .001% and the rest of us.

Another thing is that we proles, peasants and peons should give some serious thought to having the "elite" fight their own battles, on their "own" (though mostly stolen) shekels for once. Read More Agree: foolisholdman Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments


Agent76 , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:08 pm GMT

Feb 15, 2019 Next Phase, Xi & Trump, Coordinate The Transition

US industrial production plunges, this doesn't mean that manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the US this means the [CB] is deteriorating quickly as Trump brings back manufacturing.

Feb 16, 2019 Pentagon Warns of Chinese Space Lasers | China News Headlines

A new Pentagon report says #China and Russia have developed #laser weapons to target US satellites. Need a Space Force?

SteveK9 , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:09 pm GMT
Michael Klare believes in Russia-gate. Anyone that foolish is not worth reading.
The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT

governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

Looked at this way, there are countless wars all the time as well as a huge gray area that is debatable. I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing in both directions. Even then, there are gray areas, but at least they are minimized

Yee , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
Erebus,

"The time and investment required to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means much of what's left of America's real economy would disappear within weeks.

American trade negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird."

Of course they're not oblivious, as you can see everytime the stock market goes down, some US official came out to say a deal/talk is on the way. Both the negotiators and the market know.

They're just betting on enough pressure will force China to surrender, like Japan did in the 80s.

nsa , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
@Erebus In the distant past there were at least 1000 PC Board manufacturers in the US .now there are only 2 or 3. Most US PCB houses are actually a middleman with an iphone fronting for one of the many Chinese PCB factories. You supply the Gerber Files and the payment, of course, and your finished PC Boards come back by air the next day.

Now here is the kicker: our US PC Board supplier is located in Illinois and owned by you guessed it Hindus. Half the staff are also Hindus. In general, the Chinese PCBs are of higher quality than the Hindu .er US PCBs.

Face it. Mass production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1 wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress

MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:26 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Reality much?

Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc.

With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc.

Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian (Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of money, or in government.

With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and knowledge.

China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but as soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S. factories withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find markets in Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.

People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.

The atalantacist strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further, the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.

The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 4:32 pm GMT
@Alfa158 Alternatively, one could examine a nations ability to rapidly expand their economy to meet wartime needs. In this scenario, other factors such as access to raw materials come into play. In this perspective, the equations would change dramatically.
Digital Samizdat , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:32 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS To make a long story short, China is run by the Chinese, while the US today is run by (((globalist parasites))).
The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 4:42 pm GMT
@Wally

And to think some take this fraud, Klare, seriously.

He writes for Tomdispatch. Need I say more?

jacques sheete , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:57 pm GMT
@The Scalpel

I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing

Why limit it to that? I'd say there's plenty of merit in the author's definition especially since it would tend to shed some lights on the origins of major conflicts.

AriusArmenian , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both Russia and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance in hell of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The more it goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.

So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.

The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and is now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the next wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big question is how much suffering before it ends.

The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 5:43 pm GMT
@jacques sheete The author's definition makes the term a purely rhetorical one tantamount to an angry child saying "this means war!" to another angry child, or "The War on Drugs" or "The Battle of the Sexes" etc.

Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth the time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.

DB Cooper , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:52 pm GMT
@nsa I didn't know Indians are into the PCB industry. Do the customers aware that they are just middlemen getting their goods from China?

Anyway here is a behind the scene look at one of the PCB manufacturers in China. Pretty interesting stuff.

Cratylus , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT
Klare discovers the US crusade against China – 8 years after the Obama/Hillary "pivot" to East Asia sending 2/3 of the US Navy there and putting together the TPP to excluded China. As usual he is right on top of things.

And he begins with this gem: " "The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation." Huh? Does he mean the $4700 in Google ads or the $50,000 in Facebook ads traced to some alleged Russian sources? A Russiagater from the start.
I remember some years ago before the shale revolution Klare was warning us about "peak oil." I think we were supposed to have run out of it by now.

Klare is a hack who cycles things that any conscious person reading the newspapers would have known long ago.

P.s. He says that Apple is the number one cell phone. No longer. He should improve his Google search skills or his set of assumptions which have turned him into a Russiagater.

Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/ ). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You find Huawei everywhere – from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its best citizens .
peterAUS , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:30 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency You are onto something here.

I don't think it's simple "Eastern" vs "Western" Europeans; my take is Protestants vs Catholics vs Orthodox. In that order. The biggest difference is between Protestant and Orthodox. Catholics are, sort of, in the middle. Or, in practical terms, don't see much difference between Austrians and Slovenes. That's for Europe.

As for China, definitely agree.

wayfarer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:55 pm GMT
China's "Petro-Yuan": The End of the U.S. Dollar Hegemony?
WorkingClass , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade war we are misusing the word war.

War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people. Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.

We are NOT already at war with China.

jacques sheete , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:57 pm GMT
@The Scalpel

Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth the time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.

I agree on all four points.

However, if you didn't want a debate, or at least a response, then why did you bother bringing it up? (That's a rhetorical question, since I neither expect nor really care what the response would be; now I'm asking myself why I bothered !!!)

jacques sheete , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:00 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX

Russia under Putin is an exporter of non GMO grains where as the U.S. exports GMO grains thatt the Chinese do not want as these GMO grains are a destuctive to humans and animals.

I hope that's true. To Hell with that GMO crap!!! Anyone using it for farming ought to be forced to drink glyphosate straight for breakfast.

AnonFromTN , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:02 pm GMT
As far as the war with China goes, we ain't seen nothing yet. It won't be pretty, especially considering that the US is starting it with severe self-inflicted wounds.
Cratylus , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:19 pm GMT
Yes, and the ads were often absurd – one somehow featuring Yosemite Sam and gun rights and another for a dildo, I believe. Great for click bait maybe but not real winners for a campaign.

As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2 billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high and low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the Russobots.

Commentator Mike , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:41 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Actually China has approved import of some US GMOs

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/reuters-america-factbox-china-approves-new-gmo-soybean-corn-and-canola-traits.html

Cyrano , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:41 pm GMT
I don't think China stands the chance. As we all know diversity is strength and China is mono-cultured rather than the obviously superior multi. So China will continue to decline, while US goes from strength to strength thanks to its brilliant, brilliant multicultural philosophy.

China was dumb enough to try real socialism, while obviously the fake one is the way to go. You convince your domestic population of your humanitarian credentials – via the phony socialism, plus you don't have to share a cent with them. How clever is that? Phony socialism is the way to go – it eliminates the need for the real one.

James Wood , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
At some point one must consider that this is all a fraud. In Washington Ocasio-Cortez and the Democrats are proposing to eviscerate the US economy with their Green New Deal. While here we find Washington launching a long term struggle for economic, political, and military superiority over China.

As was once said in another context by an individual remembered in history, "What is truth?" A question which either revealed his own puzzlement or was simply a rhetorical dismissal of the question altogether. Likely both at the same time. One can be simply bemused by the turn of events.

Is all this activity simply a song and dance to entertain, terrify, confuse, and amuse the public while the real ordering of the world takes place behind closed doors? Put Ocasio-Cortez together with the Pentagon and we have apparently a commitment by the US to force the entire world to immolate itself. No state shall be superior to the US and the US shall be a third world hellhole. Cui bono?

AnonFromTN , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:04 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged international banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced them to ally against a common threat: dying demented Empire.

As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff, write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few centuries you might get an answer.

Anonymous [375] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia is currently trying to get China to ally against the West:

" Russia to China: Together we can rule the world "

https://www.politico.eu/blogs/the-coming-wars/2019/02/russia-china-alliance-rule-the-world/

In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.

Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in 2017.

At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to something Russia wants to realize. And soon

Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.

In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China in that direction.

Anon [332] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:45 pm GMT
@Sean Pollution in China is good for the environment:

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/05/673821051/carbon-dioxide-emissions-are-up-again-what-now-climate

Another hurdle, reported in the journal Nature this week, is that China is cleaning up its air pollution. That sounds great for pollution-weary Chinese citizens. But climatologists point out that some of that air pollution had actually been cooling the atmosphere, by blocking out solar radiation. Ironically, less air pollution from China could mean more warming for the Earth.

tamo , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:53 am GMT
@AnonFromTN Frankly, I really don't give a damn about what you say. But do not use racial slurs FIRST. I use racial slurs ONLY in RESPONSE to the comments that contain them, in retaliation. If you don't use racial slurs, I wouldn't either.
nsa , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:02 am GMT
@DB Cooper DB,
Thanks for the PCB mfg video. Asian roboticized surface mount assembly plants are even more impressive. At one time supplied specialized instrumentation to the FN factory in South Carolina where the 50 cal machine guns are made, and received a tour. Crude by Asian standards, but efficient in its own way. Base price on a 50 LMG at the time was $5k without any of the extras: tripod, flash suppressor, water cooling, advanced night vision sights, etc. Base price would be $10k by now. The US Guv does not allow this kind of production to go offshore .but apparently cares not a jot about the production of consumer electronics, a massive and growing worldwide market.

Have read the Chinese shops assemble $1000 I-pods for as little as $5 each including parts sourcing, making domestic production here impractical. Surprisingly, the Germans manage to produce high end electronics and their manufacturing labor rates are even higher than North America. Says something about the skill and diligence level of the US workforce ..where just passing a drug test and not having felonies or bad credit is a major achievement.

@Anonymous Yes, it is quite off putting, even though most of the article is quite sound. Possibly Klare was obliged to add this bit of nonsense in order to get it published in TomDispatch but who knows.
Erebus , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@nsa A good friend supplies hi-end PCBs to EU & RU electronics mfrs, particularly in DE. Judging by the numbers I hear, hi-end electronics is still very much alive in Europe while it's all but dead in NA.

It's a capital intensive business, and raw labour cost is a minor component in the total cost of doing business. NA has put so many socio-political obstructions & regulatory costs in the way that even at min wage it makes no business sense to locate there. I doubt it would make sense even with free labour.

As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's manufacturing ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural aspects as well as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build a new one. I explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago. NA still "assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.

Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design & production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.

Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.

peter mcloughlin , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
Where a war begins – or ends – can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right, 'War' and 'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological abstraction: the First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a global war one week later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of long duration. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were positioning themselves to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were defeated at the Battle of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.

Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however destructive.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Jason Liu , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT
The trade war is meh.

The real conflict is a cultural/ideological war in which liberal democracy tries to apply its system worldwide under the delusion that egalitarianism, freedom, your definition of rights, is universal.

China will never accept this. Russia is already fighting back. Nor does any developing country look like they will ever truly embrace western values. It's gonna be SWPLs + WEIRDs vs The Rest of Humanity.

The new Cold War will last much longer than any trade issue and conflict over values will always be the underlying motivation, until the west either ends its universalist crusade, or abolishes liberal democracy within its own borders.

raywood , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:53 pm GMT
I would be more sympathetic with Klare's fear of cold war with China if he could just assure me that Chinese writers are equally able to voice concern with their own government's side of the equation.
peterAUS , says: February 19, 2019 at 5:42 pm GMT
@peter mcloughlin

Great power rivalry has always led to wars ..

History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however destructive.

Pretty much, BUT, with one little difference re "some else's expense" now. M.A.D. scenario.

Even limited exchange of thermonuclear M.I.R.V.s could affect everyone (even if somebody can define that "limited" in the first place).

My take: we haven't developed, as species, along our capability for destruction.
Cheerful thought, I know.

denk , says: February 19, 2019 at 6:07 pm GMT
Pepe Escobar says: 'US elites remain incapable of understanding China'

That's B.S., Pepe should've known better . They dont 'misunderstand', they'r simply lying thru their teeth.

The following are all bald faced lies, Classic bandits crying robbery.

Lawmaker: Chinese navy seeks to encircle US homeland
[bravo, This one really takes the cake !]

US Accuses China Of Preparing For World War III

US accuses China of trying to militarise and dominates space

USN have to patrol the SCS to protect FON for international shipping..

tip of an iceberg

Those who uttered such nonsense aint insane, stupid or cuz they 'misunderstand' [sic] China.
They know we know they'r telling bald faced lies
but that doesnt stop them lying with straight face .

This is the classic def of psychopaths: people who'r utterly amoral, no sense of right or wrong, there's no such word as embarrassment in their vocab.

Is it sheer coincidence that all the 5lies have been ruled by such breeds ?
Ask Ian Fleming's fundamental law of prob .

but why couldnt they produce one decent leader
in all of three hundred years.
5lies have more than their fair share of psychopaths no doubt, but surely not everybody is like joe web and co., I know this for a fact. ?

Trouble is .

Washington DC is a veritable cesspool that
no decent man would want to dip his foot into it.
They might as well put it in the job requirement,
'Only psychopaths need apply '
Thats why in the DC cesspool, only the society's dregs rise up to the top.

A case of garbage in, garbage out .

A vicious circle that cant be fixed, except to be broken.

Китайский дурак , says: February 20, 2019 at 12:56 am GMT
1) People from China PRC has as a people on the whole become quite disgusting. But please exclude ppl from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibetans, Uyghurs etc. I confirm that PRC China people by and large are now locusts of the world. I am one of them by birth. how did it happen? Deep question for philosophers. It wasn't like this 60 years ago. some poisonous element entered the veins of the collective, infected at least 70 percent. I worry for Russia due to its inflated self confidence when dealing with PRC. Lake Baikal deal was almost sealed before it got shelved. Still, using racial curses don't hurt anyone but yourself. All the big internet advocates for Russia such as Orlov and Saker and Karlin don'tunderstand The Danger of China PRC. If you understand then you have a responsibility to keep yourself décent and respectable.

2) USA aside from its liberals and Zionist Jews etc. Has become a slowly stewing big asylum for psychologically infantile and demented big babies. How did it happen again is a big philosophical myth to me. Western Europe is sinking primarily because they came to resemble the US. especially French and Brits and Spanish.

3) Russia is ruled by a few individuals with brains and maybe a bit of conscience but the elite ruling class behave in such a way that one would conclude that they share the China PRC virus, just not as advanced. Your basic Russian people are in a state of abject degradation dejection, not changed all that much since 1990s. Only slightly ahead of the Ukrainians. If one cares about Russia then shove aside 19th century naive romanticism and face reality.

4) A sustained and massive war by USA against China maybe the only miniscule chance Greek/Christian civilization can be saved. Otherwise descend of history into thousand year dark age. The latter is more likely due to advanced stage of brain dead disease gripping the entire West.

jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:19 am GMT
@tamo TAMO

If you have observed cities like Detroit or Greater Los Angeles than you know that "white flight" as oppose to sycophancy is the end result of black or Hispanic populations reaching a certain level. Whites leave and the US then has another internal third world like Detroit or East LA.

It is a game of musical chairs where the white move into remote hinterlands, which develop into suburbs or exurbs, then of course as these become population centers the blacks and Hispanics enter them and the whites flee again.

What you will see is white flight from the US with the wealthiest whites simply moving to other developed countries. The 1% would move to New Zealand or Tasmania.

jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
@Joe Wong JOE

The best way for the US to win a war over China is not to outsource their labor there.

There is no way the US could win a conventional war with China. It cannot even win a conventional war in Afghanistan.

China managed to fight off-if not defeat-the US in Korea and Vietnam.

atlantis_dweller , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
The handicap for the USA in the confrontation is twofold its élite are in conflict (and afraid, and contemptuous of) at least half of their own populace.
Plus, all the resources of all kinds directed to enterprises in the Middle East, subtracted thusly from other enterprises.

Furthermore, there is the occasional bullying of Europe, and the continuous bullying of Russia, yet more resource drains.
The USA spreads itself too thin, perhaps.

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
@peterAUS Chinese are neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of peaceful coexistence, treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.

Chinese believes we are now living in a rapidly changing world Peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our times. To keep up with the times, we cannot have ourselves physically living in the 21st century, but with a mindset belonging to the past stalled in the oldays of colonialism, and constrained by the zero-sum Cold War mentality.

Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru the win-win approaches.

atlantis_dweller , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:16 am GMT
@Китайский дурак 2) The riddle reads simply: democracy, multiracialism, economic welfare (no-limit printing of currency made possible by uncontested military "overmatch").
jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:20 am GMT
@Joe Wong JOE

I lived in the Philippines and would chalk that up to fairly typical of a country run by China since it is effectively controlled by a syndicate of Fujian family cartels.

This is on the horizon in Africa. Probably.

In the West, Chinese were held in check by Jews and WASPS and to some degree by Malaysians. I see Africa becoming like the Philippines once Chinese can become citizens there, however.

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:55 am GMT
@Biff The Romans create a desert and call it peace; British Empire imitated Roman Empire, USA is born out of British Empire; so only the White People particular the Anglo-Saxon is not ready for peace or salvation. But rest of the world has been waiting for peace or salvation for a long long time.
peterAUS , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:56 am GMT
@Joe Wong

Chinese are neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of peaceful coexistence, treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.

Peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our times.

Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru the win-win approaches.

Three options here:
Preferably,you are just pulling our legs. Not bad attempt, actually. Got me for a second.

Most likely, you are simply working. Sloppy and crude but, well, "you get what you pay for". 50 Cent Army. Retired but needing money. Sucks, a?

Crazy and the least probable, you really believe in all that. Ah, well

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 3:28 am GMT
@jeff stryker Obviously you are brain washed by the 'god-fearing' morally defunct evil 'Anglo-Saxon', blaming every of your own failure on the Chinese just like what the Americans and their Five-Eyes partners are doing right now.

The Filippino, the Malay and all the SE Asia locals have the guns not the Chinese, if the Chinese do not hand over their hard earned money they will use what their ex-colonial masters taught them since Vasco da Gama discovered the East Indies, masscared the Chinese and took it all. The Dutch, Spanish, English, Japanese and the American all have done it before in order to colonized the East Indies.

Before WWII, the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked havoc of Asia with barbaric wars, illicit drugs like Opium, slavery, stealing, robbing, looting, plundering, murdering, torturing, exploiting, polluting, culture genocide, 'pious' fanaticism, unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In fact it is hard to tell the difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal and barbaric to Asians until the Pearl Harbour incident.

For over seventy years the US has dominated Asia, ravaging the continent with two major wars in Korea and Indo-China with millions of casualties, and multiple counter-insurgency interventions in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor, Myanmar, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The strategic goal has been to expand its military and political power, exploit the economies and resources and encircle China.

USA is 10,000 miles away on the other side of the Pacific. USA is not an Asian nation, and American is an alien to Asia. American is a toxin and a plague to Asian, They have done enough damage to Asian already, they are not wanted, not invited and not loved in Asia, go home Yankee.

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 3:50 am GMT
@peterAUS You should know the White man has some fallacies built into their culture, such as they believe that the White man's words must be taken as given truth, only the White man can invent and the White man can succeed, and the Whte man's culture is the final form of civilization.

The West (Europeans and their offshoots like the American, Aussie, etc.) is where is now, because of those hundreds of millions of people all over the world who were robbed and murdered, those who become victims of their very madness of colonialism and orientalism, of the crusades and the slave and Opium trades. Cathedrals and palaces, museums and theatres, train stations – all had been constructed on horrid foundations of bones and blood, and amalgamated by tears.

The West squandered all the wealth they obtained thru stealing, looting and murdering hundreds of millions of people all over the world in the scrabbling of a dog-eat-dog play rough over the monopoly to plunder the rest of the world through two World Wars, one on the edge of Armageddon, and on the verge of another Armageddon. It proves the West is incapable of bringing peace and prosperity to the mankind because of their flawed culture, civilization and religion. The chaos and suffering of the world in the last few hundreds of years under the dominance the West proves they are a failure.

Human beings deserve better, we need to depart from the chaotic and harmful world order and path established by the moronic West. China proposed a new way of life, a win-win approach for the well-being of mankind like Belt-Road-Initiative to build and trade the world into peace, harmony and prosperity. The West should not be the obstacle for achieving such refreshing winner for all initiative. The West should embrace the new approach proposed by China because the West will benefit from it. I call upon you, let go the old, obsolete, failed and detrimental believe passed onto you by your colonialist forebears please, welcome the new era.

Miro23 , says: February 20, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
@Erebus

As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's manufacturing ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural aspects as well as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build a new one. I explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago. NA still "assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.

Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design & production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.

Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.

All true, leaving the question of what happens to North America before it reaches the African street market economy (low tech, low investment, low trust, basic products, vibrant and over each morning).

The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant memory.

Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero.

Don't ask what happens to US nuclear weapons.

jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 4:32 am GMT
@Joe Wong JOE

If Chinese took over the world it would look like the Philippines.

Shabu labs everywhere? Corrupt politicians blowing away homeless squatters when some Chinese guy wanted to build a shopping center or Chinese arsonists setting squats on fire? Dictators living off wages Chinese don't want to pay exploited peasants?

No thanks, the whites don't want Chinese family cartels running our economies. We can see the harm you have done in Burma, Philippines etc.

Китайский дурак , says: February 20, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
@jeff stryker This Joe Wong is obviously a WuMao (professional trolls paid by Beijing to parrot their government's pathological propaganda). Any mainland Chinese who can read will confirm this fact. It is not worth your time to deal with folks like him.
jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
@Китайский дурак Maybe, but my posts are intended for those that think a Chinese-run planet would be a better New World Order.

Visit the Philippines.

Australians all wrapped up in America should pay close attention.

Китайский дурак , says: February 20, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
@jeff stryker Australians, Philippines, Singaporeans, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Russians, Italians, Japanese,Mongolians, Koreans, New Zealanders, a tiny anguished minority of mainland Chinese themselves, everyone has gotten the mail, everyone has seen them on the streets, everyone understood -- what a Beijing lorded world shall be like, coffee beans in the morning. Americans are last in getting the news. Americans can be dim witted. Too many Nobel winning economists and globalist bankers in America. And China is the gift of these white people to the world.
joe webb , says: February 20, 2019 at 6:25 am GMT
@peterAUS thanks and if you are a young man, congrats for your rationality. I am old, but probably have ten or 20 years left, if not all those years real fit.

The young guys need to not fuc themselves up with regard to earning a living .keep your mouth shut , sort of, and your name protected.

I hope a new generation of "White Nationalists" come along sans Hitlerism. Stay rational, with just the facts M'am if you don't recall that line it was Dragnet and Detective Jack Webb I think .you are young, Congrats.

Stick to the facts, keep your ego under control, keep a smile on your face .. Buddhist wisdom to spread a little love around and it is essential for snaring a woman.

The Facts are with us. The Future is with us, including hard times, civil war, and so on. The Sentimental Lie (Joseph Conrad) of race equality cannot stand for long.

Joe Webb

NoseytheDuke , says: February 20, 2019 at 6:26 am GMT
@jeff stryker Australian people nowadays are far less wrapped up in America than at any time that I can remember but Australian politicians are just as bought and paid for as are those in the US.

Australians generally are much more well travelled than most Americans and have been to various places both in Asia and Europe, especially the UK. Despite having seen the longer term results of "diversity" with their own eyes they overwhelmingly seem to think that things will somehow work out differently in Australia. To even suggest that mass immigration from the third world is a ticking time-bomb is to be branded a racist of the very worst kind.

Yee , says: February 20, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT
jeff stryker,

"The best way for the US to win a war over China is not to outsource their labor there."

Too bad you don't get to decide what "the best way for the US" is, no matter how many times you vote America has owners, and the owners aren't the average Americans.

PS. Philippines is just the poor-man version of USA. Does the American capitalist class have many concerns for their working class? The money class are all the same.

Your rant about Chinese of SE Asia is also quite similar with that of American Whites for the Jews, or South African Blacks for the Whites, just only on economic side, not politics.

People aren't much different everywhere

Nzn , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:44 pm GMT
Filipinos are nothing but semi retarded 85 IQ trying hard Americans, the vast majority who are too stupid to copy the better parts of US high culture, and so ape and cargo cult the trashiest and lowest of the low parts of US culture, or maybe low IQ Austronesians are just prone to overall trashiness unless they are regulated by a somewhat draconian conservative culture like Muslim Malays are.
Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 4:47 pm GMT
@Китайский дурак Perhaps some Russians like you are willing to live under the Anglo-Saxon's dominance, submitted to Anglo-Saxon's zero-sum, beggar-thy-neighbour, negative energy infested cult culture, and try to talk like them and walk like them, but not everybody is like those feeble Russians. Other people has their long history, culture and identity to protect. Please do not smear other people's integrity because you are lack of it.
denk , says: February 20, 2019 at 5:48 pm GMT
@denk

Self-Defense, Civilizational Defense ,

Exhibit A

General William R. Looney III

If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now . It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need.

Comments about the bombing of Iraq in the late 1990s, which he directed. Interview Washington Post (August 30, 1999); quoted in Rogue State, William Blum, Common Courage Press, 2005, p. 159.

William Blum,
RIP
Somebody should do an autopsy on him !

TT , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:48 pm GMT
@denk

In korea, a UN coaliton force , bristling with bombers, jet fighters, complete air superiority.no less. Tanks, artilleries, carbines, couldnt subdue the PLA fighting with ww1 vintage rifles.

There is never any UN coalition force in Korea war. Its a illegal US led aggression, known as Unified/United Command, in violating of UNSC charter. US deceived UN by using 'United Command' in its letterhead when communicating. And then go ahead to lie shamelessly using UN name.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-role-of-the-un-in-the-unending-korean-war-united-nations-command-as-camouflage/5350876

By acting before the Security Council could act, the US was in violation of Article 2(7) of the UN Charter which requires a Security Council action under Chapter VII before there is any armed intervention into the internal affairs of another nation unless the arms are used in self-defense. (See Article 51 of the UN Charter. The US armed intervention in Korea was clearly not an act of self defense for the US.) Also the actions of the UN have come to be referred to as the actions of the "United Nations Command"(UNC), but this designation is not to be found in the June and July 1950 Security Council resolutions authorizing participation in the Korean War. (3) What is the significance of the US using the UN in these ways?

The current US military command in South Korea claims to wear three hats: Command of US troops in South Korea, Combined Forces Command (US and South Korean troops), and "United Nations Command" with responsibilities with respect to the Armistice. The United Nations, however, has no role in the oversight or decision making processes of the "United Nations Command". The US Government is in control of the "United Nations Command". The use by the US of the designation "United Nations Command", however, creates and perpetuates the misconception that the UN is in control of the actions and decisions taken by the US under the "United Nations Command".

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (more commonly referred to as North Korea) has called for disbanding the "United Nations Command"(UN Command). At a press conference held at the United Nations on June 21, 2013, the North Korean Ambassador to the UN, Ambassador Sin Son Ho argued that the actions of the US Government using the designation "United Nations Command" are not under any form of control by the United Nations. (4) Since the UN has no role in the decision making process of what the US does under the title of the "United Nations Command", North Korea contends the US should cease its claim that it is acting as the "United Nations Command".

TT , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:41 pm GMT
@Sean

Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006, China has been the world's largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip service they accept no binding target for reduction; quite the opposite.

Pls has slight decency to check before spewing nonsense.

According to Nasa, China has planted & expanded forest the size of Amazon, contributing 1/4 of global greenery effort.

Its now working on massive irrigation projects in Tibet & Xinjiang, including dams that will overshadow 3Gorges. These will convert arid Xinjiang into another green agriculture pasture & food basket providing economic to it landlocked natives.

China's effort to roll back desertification is also very impressive, converting thousands of hectares deserts into green forest using proprietary planting method.

It has built world most hydropower stations & dams in China, and help built in Asia, Africa with grants & subsidized loan. Forefront in reusable energy, EV, solar.

And China is the staunchest supporter of CO2 emission control with solid actions, when US write off Kyoto treaty in Paris as hoax.

TT , says: February 26, 2019 at 4:03 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Jeff,

what's about Spore that have 75% majority Chinese mainly come from Fujian too, HK, Taiwan!? Do they fare well & very safe, or a shithole filled with drugs & crimes that you projected to be?

And then compare with Chinese minority countries:
Msia with 25% Chinese contributing 70% economy, Indonesia 3% Chinese contributing 70% economy.
Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, .

It seems that the more Chinese % a country has, the more its prosperous & safe, vice versa. So Chinese is in fact the main economic & safety contributing factor, instead of the other way round you painted.

If Chinese are indeed as evil as you make out to be, then China will be worst than India, dysfunctional like Philippines, completely crimes & drugs infested like Mexico. Yet China today is biggest growing economy in real ppp, and world safest country well surpassing nearly all whites countries. No?

Vietnam tried to purge Chinese ethics under Ho Chih Min anti-China policy, ended paralyzed its entire economy until Chinese were brought back to help. Today its still the Chinese ethics controlling its majority economy & ruling elites.

Indonesia Prez Suharto slaughtered million of Chinese ethics under Yanks CIA instigation to coup pro-China Prez Sukarno, and their economy suffered. Suharto later brought back Chinese to run 70% of economy, while his cronies suck off remaining.

Malaysia Mahatir had forthright admonished his disgruntled Malays complaining about 20% Chinese controlling 70% economy. He famously said Malays race by inheritance is lazy and bad in economic, screwing up every gov granted projects & handouts. So let the skillful Chinese take care of all business, and Malays can tax on them to make Malaysia prosperous. All subsequent leaders follow that policy, and the result is continuous economy growth.

Myanmar purged Chinese after independent, immediately encountered dysfunction economy. Today its still relying on Chinese ethic to support the main economy behind.

Thailand, Cambodia, Laos didn't purge Chinese ethics, and Chinese are similarly their main economy contributors.

There is one common observation in all these countries, where ever Chinese live, they are mostly law obedient, work diligently and eventually established in businesses contributing to most prosperity.

Whereas in majority Catholics Philippines, are literally controlled by Vatican appointed bishops, who forbid contraceptive & divorce, directly causing its explosive population, leading to grave poverty & crimes. These bishops are also colluding with corrupted politicians to dictate election outcome using their churh influence.

When pro-China Prez Duerte declared war on drugs with China help is achieving good result, these West-appointed bishops are leading their followers in full force to oppose, all in syn with West govs 'human rights'. Dont that smell fishy?

So will Philippines be better off without Chinese? Im not sure, just like whites, some Chinese are also ruthless crimals. But your sweeping statements & allegation certainly is fundamentally flawed.

But CIA has been plotting anti-Chinese ethic riots in Asean for a long time as part of China containment plan. Previously Denk posted one article on this.

jeff stryker , says: February 27, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@TT Your description of Malaysians as lazy and stupid is why Indonesians kill ethnic Chinese and not some CIA plot. That's the thinking right there that motivates Malays to dislike ethnic Chinese.

China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded with them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.

Philippines has the additional post-colonial curse of Mestizo half-breed Spanish landowning and political class of "Hacienderos" while Malaysians are unified under Islam. Since these Spanish-blooded elite are part-white, some of the blame for the problems in the Philippines can be attributed to whites.

As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.

Anon [117] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
"An emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost."

They will fail. The United States, like Carthage, is doomed to lose its struggle for dominance; too many things are running against it. Not only does China have the far larger population, but consider the following factors that run in their favor:

1. Like the US, China has a highly advanced and productive agriculture industry, making them all but immune to nation-killing food blockades.

2. China has an average IQ that may approach Japan's before it levels out; Japan is insanely outsized in terms of competitiveness, mainly due to its intelligent, group-oriented population, so imagine how much stronger China could be.

3. China is geographically situated in the heart of the world's economic engine, Asia. This puts China in prime position to break out from US dominance and, potentially, even surround the Americans by making their trading partners their vassals.

4. The US is located far away and in a fairly unimportant region of the world. It will be difficult for the US to get reinforcements to the Asian theater in the advent of a conflict. American allies know this, so they will be predisposed to making peace with the Chinese as the power balance continues to shift in China's favor.

5. Universalist dogma outsourced to American satellites Australia and New Zealand will eventually make both countries Chinese vassals. Sometime in this century both countries will have majority Asian populations due to immigration. Polls have repeatedly shown that Asian immigrants have positive feelings towards the Chinese, despite the propaganda efforts of the Americans. Take a look at what the Israel Lobby has accomplished and imagine what a future China Lobby in those countries will do. Also, there is virtually no way to stop this from eventually happening as this diversity dogma is spouted by the US at the highest level and is now deeply ingrained in its future Chinese satellites. Before the end of the century, the Chinese will have naval bases in both countries and the US will have none.

6. China is free from the social-trust killing, national ethos-sapping political divisiveness seen in the US – no feminism, no attacks on its majority Han population. America, on the other hand, is beset with hundreds of hate hoaxes targeted at its most important demographic, white males – the group that disproportionately dies in its wars, invents its best technology, and exports the best elements of its culture. If there is a military conflict between China and the United States ten years hence, expect the critical white male demographic to sit it out.

7. The Chinese are deeply patriotic and nationalistic. The US has experienced an unprecedented decline in patriotism according to polls; that trend will continue. Therefore, there is little appetite in the US for confrontation. This as a hungry China chomps at the bit to show everyone who "the real ruler of the world is", a concept I sometimes see floated on their social media.

8. The US is rapidly losing cultural influence due to a diminished Hollywood. The last several American tent poll films, for instance, have crashed in Asia. Meanwhile movies like Alita: Battle Angel (adapted from a Japanese anime) have done well in that market while doing not so well in the US (and coming under immense fire from SJW gatekeepers for portraying a female as something other than a weirdo). This means that tastes are diverging between the two markets, a trend the Chinese can exploit in the future due to shared tastes across the region and American inability to make anything other than low-quality superhero movies.

Hollywood is also now pretty much incapable of making the kinds of movies Asians (and Europeans) used to see – science fiction, fantasy, and action/adventure movies – due to rampant anti-white male hate and an industry focused on other demographics. Gone are the movies like Robocop, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Die Hard, The Terminator, The Lord of The Rings, and the Matrix. Gone because the white guys who made them are aging out of the industry (or changing genders) and now all Hollywood wants to make are infantile superhero movies for the Idiocracy demographic.

And did you see the Oscars this year? What an embarrassment. They actually nominated Black Panther for Best Picture. I can't imagine anyone in Asia cares. They couldn't even get a host.

9. The Chinese are primed to dominate influential cultural industries like video games in a way that the Americans cannot due to checklist diversity requirements and the many anti-male gatekeepers within the industry.

The video game industry is now three times the size of Hollywood and much more influential than Hollywood for the youth. When technology and budgets are not a limiting factor, politically-incorrect nations like Japan dominate over large American corporations like Microsoft. The American video game industry, led by Microsoft, has effectively zero influence in Asian nations due to American corporate greed, developer laziness, checklist diversity, feminism, and a short-sighted strategy of broadly targeting low quality material to low quality people (stupid FPS games).

Microsoft has been crushed so badly by the Japanese that they are now putting their software on the Nintendo Switch; they simply cannot compete on any level. Meanwhile, Chinese cultural influencers grow in power. They await only a maturation in Chinese taste and a forward-thinking export policy but it will come. China's Tencent already owns a significant stake in Epic Games, a streaming platform that will compete with America's Steam for dominance of the huge online market.

One day, China will dominate their inferior American competition just as the Japanese and Koreans have done. This bodes very badly for the US in the future, especially when you stop to consider that all movies may be CGI in the future. The Chinese market is still immature, but when it does mature, it will dominate – games, movies, music everything.

10. Divisive rhetoric promoted by the American elite and aimed at white European-Americans – an effort to suppress white group solidarity – will eventually drive a wedge between Europe and America that the Chinese, through their Russian ally, can exploit. You already see a bit of this in Germany's refusal to cancel their gas pipeline (Nordstream 2, if I recall), and Italy's defiance of the Empire over Venezuela. When racist American politicians like Kamala Harris begin stealing money from European Americans and handing it to blacks through reparations schemes, expect the Europeans to start thinking twice about their relationship with this country.

After Trump loses in 2020, European elites will celebrate but not for long. Over the following decade, both the far left (for economic reasons) and the far right (for ethnic reasons) may unite against the United States. That will be made all the easier once the United States is no longer able to elect a competent European as president. Europe isn't going to want to be ruled over by someone of a different ethnic group that hates their own.

11. China is unified in a way the US never can be again. China is 90% Han Chinese. The US gets more diverse and divided by the day. Therefore, the Chinese public is more resilient to conflict with rivals.

12. China's political model is far superior to their American counterpart. The Americans, for instance, elect incompetent leaders through national popularity contests; said leaders then rule only for favored interests. China, on the other hand, is run by smart people for the benefit of all Chinese – the nation-state.

13. China's economic model is far superior to the corrupt, inefficient American corporate model. Whereas China is a meritocracy not beset with crippling diversity requirements and feminism. Tellingly, whenever the two models have gone head-to-head, such as in Africa, the Chinese have won by a large margin. I see nothing that will change that in the future as that would require a wholesale rethinking in the US of their basic philosophies, both on the left and the right and that is impossible at this point.

The US is a proposition nation, so dogma lies at the heart of civic life. The Chinese, in contrast, are free to pick and chose from the best of each ideology and apply it where warranted because they are a blood and soil nation – group interest comes first, not allegiance to dogma. Everyone in the US is an extremist of some sort – socialist, corporatist, environmentalist, etc. That's no way to run a government.

14. The US will soon lose the moral high ground. As the US devolves into a police state, as it continues kicking dissidents off the internet and silencing whistle blowers (and attacking nations like Iran and Venezuela), nations around the world will cease to see a difference between the US and China. At that point, they my either go independent (perhaps in alliance with India or Russia) or openly start to flirt with a Chinese alliance. After all, what does it matter if both states are authoritarian? At least the Chinese don't have a history of invading their competition.

15. The divided American public may not support more military spending over social service spending; this likelihood will only increase in the future due to demographic changes. They see that China has a competent single-payer medical program and will want the same for themselves, not pay for missiles and guns for other people.

16. The US cannot pursue relationships with vital nations like Russia due its anti-male and anti-European dogma, now infused into society at the highest levels. It will take decades to erase that and by then it will be too late.

Anon [117] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 6:11 am GMT
"Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself."

True. One day someone like Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams will be president. Will Europe want to be ruled by non-Europeans who hate Europeans, want to tear down their monuments, and steal their money for reparations payments?

"The USA has lost strategic air superiority, as well as strategic brain power. I wonder how the USA would look after a week of retaliatory aerospace strikes?"

Like New Orleans after Katrina – a breakdown in the social order as all the diverse groups start fighting each other and shooting at rescue efforts because they're morons and thieves.

"Open the USA borders wide open and encourage 1 billion South Aemricans, Africans, SE Asians and South Asians into the USA is the fastest and easiest way to close the human resource gap between the USA and China."

How exactly is an efficient democracy supposed to work in that instance? Seems like dysfunction, low social trust, and corruption would reign. Besides, the Chinese population will still be far more intelligent overall, so no gap will be closed. The US should have focused on immigration from Europe and increasing its white birth rate back in the 1970s. They'd be in a far stronger position now if they had done that then.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
@Anon Which West European nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with crimes & unemployment en masse?

May be some poor cousins of East European. But they will soon find US is worst than their country, no good jobs, homeless without affordable accommodation, crime infested, their whites is actually marginalized by diversification, LGBT conflict with their WASP value. Most will want go back soon.

So its left with only choice of finest selection of 1.3B poor Indians, Latino, South Americans, Africans & ME refugees willing to go anywhere just to get out of their countries shithole.

When they arrived, hundreds of millions whites, Chinese & Asians will flee like been no tomorrow.

Here it go, United States of Asshole is founded. Pls handover all nukes to UNSC before implementing lest been exchange for food or use for heating in winter.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Its Malaysia PM Mahatir who said Malays are inheritingly lazy. Im just quoting.

Do educate yourself about CIA & Muslim politicians instigated riots against ethnic Chinese before writing off in ignorant.

Spore was shielded from all these info distorted with West msm propaganda. I had only learned about these details from Indonesian Chinese friends whose family had suffered these trauma. After some readings, also Indonesia under current Chinese ethnic President Jokowi, did all these CIA-Muslims Generals collision genocides been publicized. How about you, where you got yours?

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/02/indo-f14.html

https://sweetandsoursocialism.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/cias-role-in-indonesias-anti-chinese-genocide-hidden-harmonies-blog/amp/

China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded with them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.

Why did you say China didn't help Prez Duerte in drugs war, your Chinese philippino mistress told you? Pls cite your evidence.

Its widely publicized in our msm, West msm that China gov working with Philippines police to track & dry up many drugs supply, even donated rehab centers as part of long term solution. So you mean all these West msm are lying to help China.

In your word, these shabu are make & sold by China gov? Or they are part of global drug syndicates that operated in every countries including all West?

As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.

Let these unequal US FTA & India CECA speak itself. These were shoved into our PM LEE ass to screw SG, allowing unlimited Indians of all kinds & their families to live & work in SG, with their mostly internationally unrecognized qualifications mandatory to be accepted.

Also both US & India nationals enjoy tax free in property investment, while Sporeans & all foreigners subjected to 3% + 7% + 7% tax regimes, literally giving them a 10~17% profits upfront.

https://thehearttruths.com/2013/11/11/this-is-why-singaporeans-will-not-be-protected-in-our-jobs-by-the-government/amp/

Indians as " competitive " ethnic group to suppress SG Chinese, you are joking or seriously think Indians IQ80 & its education is superior to Sg Chinese IQ107 that rank consistently Top in SAT, PISA & Olympiad?

These are the dredge of India, violent drunkard, not those US get. Numerous are caught with fake certificates when they simply could not even do the most basic task, near illiterate. A documentary show was make to investigate how widespread & complex is it in India, even there are someone stationed to pick up call as reference to certify everything. These including medical MD cert, aka fake Indian Drs that India Health Ministry condemn openly been so rampant up to 80% of India Drs(that was posted in one of Unz old discussion 2yrs ago)

https://gocertify.in/articles/certification-verification-rogue-it-credentials-rampant-in-india/

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT
@Erebus If both US & China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading, who do you think can last longer?

As you said, in mere wks, US will be paralyzed with every shelves empty & factories shut down. Emergency declared with imports from other sources with much chaos. Frustrated, nation wide civil riots may ensue with states like California, Texas, demanding independent.

Whereas for China its life as usual with some restructuring, since it can live without yanks useless financial services, msm & few chips easily replaced by EU/Jp or live without. Airbus will be happy to replace Boeing.

China total export to US is ~$500B, 50% are imported components, so $350B damage is passed back to US $250B(total US export to China) & global suppliers $100B.

That make China actual impact only $150B, $4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the trade loss for >20yrs, while continue to expand its domestic consumption, BRI & global trade to fuel growth.

But the world will be in chaos to get double impact of a totally collapsed US $21T GDP & China import cut. With all economies stunt, global financial mkt burst, consumption all dive, US allies turning to China for leadership & trade, a WW3 look imminent as yank is left with only one product – weapons!

But not to worry, it should be very short one in yelling, as no yanks want to die with empty belly, nor there are $ to pump vessels & bombers or resources to prepare long war. Military is quickly paralyzed with desertion, & split between seperated states. There go 51 disUnited states of America.

So China is indeed discussing with yanks from great strength. But with farsight, they prefer to settle yanks brinkmanship in Chinese humble & peaceful way.

I hope China can drag on until US can no longer conceal its pain with fake data, screamming out loudly for truce to sign China dictates trade agreement. China need to teach yank a painful lesson to humble it once & for all, including a WTO style unequal treaty that yank shoved down china throat.

jeff stryker , says: February 27, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
@TT TT

For all the refugees the US creates in the Mideast, it doesn't except many of them. Most Iraqi and Afghani refugees have no hope of entering the US; European countries that protested the war in Iraq end up absorbing the human cost.

jeff stryker , says: February 27, 2019 at 3:42 pm GMT
@TT An Indian-Malay should know.

As for the CIA cooperating with Muslims in anti-Chinese anything, I am skeptical. My feeling about Indonesia is that a 3% minority owning everything and displaying contempt for the natives as lazy savages is enough fuel ethnic hatred and Chinese backing of Suharto didn't help things.

Indians don't represent job competition for Singapore, they are simply a basic menace to your society. And it is possible that the US government, not wanting to see Singapore become a vassal state of China, wanted your country's population to become more well, diversified.

Patricus , says: February 27, 2019 at 4:50 pm GMT
@Joe Wong The "dominance" of Anglo-Saxons is overstated. They are a pretty small minority in the US. They still dominate Britain, maybe.
Erebus , says: February 27, 2019 at 7:59 pm GMT
@TT

If both US & China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading, who do you think can last longer?

China would take a hit, but not greater than the whole world could be expected to take. Probably quite a bit less.

There's little doubt in my mind that China is in a much stronger position to both survive and to be in a position to take advantage of the world's eventual recovery. As you note

$4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the trade loss for >20yrs

It also has the world's widest and deepest industrial infrastructure.

It's not only the $4T and the infrastructure. China also has a lot of gold within its domestic system, which it can mobilize to make purchases from the the rest of the world's staggered economies. Approx 20kT, by some quite carefully done estimates. Mobilizing that gold, of course, is where things get tricky. The world would be awash with useless dollars and how all that liability gets unwound would cause a lot of Central Bankers and their govts a lot of sleepless nights.

Anon [409] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT
"Which West European nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with crimes & unemployment en masse?"

Quite a number of Europeans would have moved to the US circa 1965 – 1990 with the countries then demographics, which was the point being made in the comment. The US is a huge country with lots of space. In 1980, virtually all Eastern Europeans would have been better off in almost any place in the US over where they were. The US Ruling Class had the chance but cast it aside for lesser and more divisive groups so they could win elections and stiff their workers. Even the US now is a mostly a better place to live than virtually any place in Eastern Europe, and quite a number of places in overcrowded Western Europe – now filled with Muslim invaders, rising crime, higher unemployment than the US, and yearly riots.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 10:25 pm GMT
@Erebus One TV celebrity went on crusade to expose Monsanto GMO toxicity impact in food chain few yrs ago.

He visited US & collected clinical evidences of GMO cancer causing from several US professors, publicized them online. These force China gov to investigate, and their clinical test too revealed mice & animals fed with GMO have huge tumors growing all over shortly.

China agriculture minister was investigated, found to hold lucrative high pay job in Monsanto taking bribery, and blanket approved all untested Monsanto GMO seeds, grains & weed killer. Even those used as domestic animals feed but banned for wild animals in US were introduced into food chain. Some also passed off as non GMO to plant in vast land not approved for GMO.

About 30% of China food chain & vast agriculture lands contaminated, no longer productive. That agri minister got arrested. No sure what China gov is doing about it. But Prez Xi is hailing organic food. Tibets & Xinjiang have mega irrigation projects on going now, might be to open up new agri lands to offset.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Tonnes of evidences on CIA-Muslim generals instigated riots & massacre since 1965. You choose to see otherwise.

A trove of recently released declassified documents confirms that Washington's role in the country's 1965 massacre was part of a bigger Cold War strategy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/543534/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/still-uninvestigated-after-50-years-did-the-u-s-help-incite-the-1965-indonesia-massacre/5467309/amp

https://www.globalresearch.ca/trumps-indonesian-allies-in-bed-with-isis-backed-fpi-militia-they-seek-to-oust-elected-president-jokowi/5588694/amp

I couldn't find one article published in one unz comment by Denk?, where West msm interviewing Indonesia biggest opposition party. Their chiefs had audacity to brag how they will instigate another massive anti-Chinese riots to win next election.

The jews are much more vicious & open in controlling US, but you won't see CIA staged riots & protest against their jewish masters Aipac.

Thailand Chinese ethnic are holding most economy too, but their politicians elites been Chinese don't instigate riot against own ethnic to meddle election.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 11:07 pm GMT
@jeff stryker

US government, not wanting to see Singapore become a vassal state of China, wanted your country's population to become more well, diversified.

Its not diversification, its complete indianized with Weapon of Mass Migration, by jews controlled US to push back China influence. As China refused to let jews control them!!! Its also happening for Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Mauritius now.

Its Top to bottom all indians now in SG, 9% Indians with India new migrants controlling 75% Chinese & 15% Malays. Since when Indians have turn so great well surpass all Chinese capability, over a short span of 10yrs since Obama's new balance in Asia Pacific started. Its a regime change, silent coup.

Starting from Indian Prez, Indian DPM(a ex-criminal for leaking state secret data, he was highly touted as best future PM to test voter response, but a Chinese PM candidate was eventually selected for coming election as voters brainwashing not yet complete), national DBS bank CEO chairman Indian. Central bank MAS chief Indian. Law, Home Affair, Foreign Minister all Indians. High court judges flooded Indians. Chief judge Indian. Top senior counsels(equivalent to Queen Councils) many Indians. MPs also new india migrants. MSM journalist & writers flooded Indians.

Some are India newly arrived Indians of no credential. Yet no msm reporting on that. Its near complete regime change in stealth.

Patricus , says: February 28, 2019 at 2:00 am GMT
@Erebus In addition to the herbicide and insecticide resistance some plants are modified to withstand prolonged dry conditions, or to produce more of certain proteins or vitamins, or to increase yields.

The corn or maize we now have started from an indigenous plant in Central and South America. Twenty plants would produce a tablespoon of grain. The native corn plant can still be found. Over thousands of years these were bred for increased size and yields but probably for other reasons as well like drought resistance. That's genetic modification over many generations.

In this country the Food and Drug Admin. and Dept. of Agriculture have studied the genetically modified plants extensively. Not that government agencies always get it right but it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming people, or animals and insects. Sometimes the fear of Frankenfoods is related to a fear of lower cost imports and a sop for the local farmers.

Having an interest in horticulture I produced greenhouse bedding plants for the most part. One significant expense was pesticides. We took great pains to carefully watch the crops. If the aphids, or other creatures, showed up we would strive to isolate the affected plants and only treat the ones with aphids and some that were nearby. Lots of hours with a bright light and magnifying glass. We didn't proactively apply these because of the expense. Sometimes an entire greenhouse required several treatments and there goes much of the profit. On the other hand refusing to use pesticides leads to total crop failures. Nobody applies pesticides if there are no pests. Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the remaining living people would know about famines.

jeff stryker , says: February 28, 2019 at 2:58 am GMT
@Anon ANON

In terms of space, most Europeans would immigrate to US cities. Chicago was popular with Slavs, for instance. And of course Silicone Valley. Very few immigrants move to rural wide-open areas. There is nothing to do there and Norwegians in 1990 were no longer homesteading on the North Dakota plains.

By 1990, few Irish wanted to immigrated to Boston or Italians to New Jersey. Europe was actually safer and more prosperous when I was young than the US.

Europeans prior to 1965 were attracted to the US middle-class standard of living and that has shrunken precipitously.

The refugee crisis in Europe is relatively recent. As for unemployment, indeed this is bad. But the social safety net is slightly better and there is less poverty overall in Western Europe.

anon [267] Disclaimer , says: February 28, 2019 at 5:47 am GMT
"Very few immigrants move to rural wide-open areas."

Sure, if you're talking Nevada or New Mexico desert. But there are areas considered "rural" in the US that have relatively mid-sized cities nonetheless. Oklahoma City has a population roughly equal to the population of Latvia's capital, for example. And I'm sure that Eastern Europeans could have been coaxed to leave Europe for the US had America pursued a deal with the Soviets – white South Africans, too. Certainly, this could have been done with success post Soviet breakup. Some Western Europeans could also have been coaxed, perhaps a few million, with the right financial incentives. Along with substantial efforts to increase the native European birthrate and targeted, gender-imbalanced ~skills-based immigration* from emerging market, high IQ countries, US demographics would be in a far better place today. The country would be less divided and more rational on a global stage (and probably friends with Russia, too).

*In other words, purposely encourage 2 to 1 female immigration from places like Korea and China back when they were both poor and filled with people ready to emigrate and compliment that with an equal but reversed ratio elsewhere (Vietnam, Laos). This forces interbreeding and prevents formation of divisive ethnic communities, while also having the benefit of harming your competitor's demographics down the road. Actor Keanu Reeves is something like 1/8th Japanese. But most people just think he's a white guy.

If that kind of policy had been adopted in 1965, along with my plan above (and a few other things not mentioned), things would be better for the US now. The US would be overwhelmingly white with a small admixture of smart Asian while leaving descendants who look European; the kind of internecine racial strife we see now could have been avoided. However, that kind of plan requires a competent, and rational, near-authoritarian to be in charge. As Fred Reed has pointed out, that kind of plan is not capable in Western countries that choose their leaders via popularity contest with a birthright citizenship voting base.

Erebus , says: February 28, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Patricus

That's genetic modification over many generations.

One wonders how many fish genes made their way into corn over those generations, and how they got in there.

it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming people, or animals and insects.

Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people, I doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones and rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course, genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations from now.

Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the remaining living people would know about famines.

I'm of the firm opinion that a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and we'll be seeing famines soon enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other famines.

Patricus , says: February 28, 2019 at 7:23 pm GMT
"Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people, I doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones and rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course, genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations from now.'

The pests who feed on domesticated crops lived in nature before people were around. When they stumble upon thousands of acres of corn or wheat they rapidly reproduce to exploit the windfall. The pesticides will hopefully kill or drive off many of these insects but their total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a balance of power.

Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future. Therefore let's stop all new technology. For now we have the methods of physical science to guide us. These aren't perfect but it's the best we have and more sensible than the precautionary principle, also called the paralysis principle.

"..a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and we'll be seeing famines soon enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other famines.".

I'm hoping my family and I (and you) are not among the culled billions. Death by starvation is not a pleasant way to go, so I've heard.

Erebus , says: March 1, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@Patricus

their total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a balance of power.

Probably? Pre-human? Yours is the disingenuity of a pesticide salesman.
The insect world is in a massive die off, losing of ~75% its flying population over 3 decades, as attested by countless studies. The studies tell us what we already know. 40 yrs ago, a 2 hr drive in the countryside at night meant 30 min spent scraping insects off your windshield and headlights. Every lonely streetlight in the middle of nowhere had a cloud around it. Screens to protect the radiator, or even the entire front of the car were sold by every automotive shop and gas station. Seen one lately?

Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future.

One could say it, and one would often be right for doing so. As the complexity of the technological advance increases, so do its effects. Who considered 50 years ago that pesticide use would devastate the insect world? Who knows with any level of certainty what the effect of that will be on the ecosystem we live in? What we know is it ain't gonna likely to be good, and may be devastating. They're now found in mother's milk with potential effects we lack the tools and brain power to comprehend, never mind predict.

When it comes to playing with complex, chaotic systems that support our life on the planet, humans are like a monkey with a hand-grenade. To borrow a phrase "If the planet's ecosystem was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. " Our myopia & hubris will kill us, if our stupidity and belligerence doesn't do it first.

Patricus , says: March 2, 2019 at 11:14 pm GMT
The insect "die off" is an interesting occurrence. Puerto Rico lost a large percentage of insects while at the same time they decreased pesticide use by 80%. This die off is observed in a limited number of regions of the world. It isn't known exactly what caused the drop in insect population. Some say pesticides, others say climate change (the theory that explains all things), are killing the bugs.

Pesticides have been overused in the past but there have been impressive improvements in the technology which reduces the amounts required. There are herbicides and pesticides designed with chemical half lives. These kill the weeds or pests then break down into harmless components and in 10-14 days can no longer be detected in the field. Unfortunately for some any improvements will require some kind of technology.

We are all going to die eventually, hopefully later rather than sooner.

[Mar 04, 2019] War With China by Michael T. Klare

Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

In his highly acclaimed 2017 book, Destined for War , Harvard professor Graham Allison assessed the likelihood that the United States and China would one day find themselves at war. Comparing the U.S.-Chinese relationship to great-power rivalries all the way back to the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century BC, he concluded that the future risk of a conflagration was substantial. Like much current analysis of U.S.-Chinese relations, however, he missed a crucial point: for all intents and purposes, the United States and China are already at war with one another. Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.

To suggest this means reassessing our understanding of what constitutes war. From Allison's perspective (and that of so many others in Washington and elsewhere), "peace" and "war" stand as polar opposites. One day, our soldiers are in their garrisons being trained and cleaning their weapons; the next, they are called into action and sent onto a battlefield. War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.

Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition. Today, war means so much more than military combat and can take place even as the leaders of the warring powers meet to negotiate and share dry-aged steak and whipped potatoes (as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping did at Mar-a-Lago in 2017). That is exactly where we are when it comes to Sino-American relations. Consider it war by another name, or perhaps, to bring back a long-retired term, a burning new version of a cold war.

Even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, the U.S. military and other branches of government were already gearing up for a long-term quasi-war, involving both growing economic and diplomatic pressure on China and a buildup of military forces along that country's periphery. Since his arrival, such initiatives have escalated into Cold War-style combat by another name, with his administration committed to defeating China in a struggle for global economic, technological, and military supremacy.

This includes the president's much-publicized "trade war" with China, aimed at hobbling that country's future growth; a techno-war designed to prevent it from overtaking the U.S. in key breakthrough areas of technology; a diplomatic war intended to isolate Beijing and frustrate its grandiose plans for global outreach; a cyber war (largely hidden from public scrutiny); and a range of military measures as well. This may not be war in the traditional sense of the term, but for leaders on both sides, it has the feel of one.

Why China?

The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation. Behind the scenes, however, most senior military and foreign policy officials in Washington view China, not Russia, as the country's principal adversary. In eastern Ukraine, the Balkans, Syria, cyberspace, and in the area of nuclear weaponry, Russia does indeed pose a variety of threats to Washington's goals and desires. Still, as an economically hobbled petro-state, it lacks the kind of might that would allow it to truly challenge this country's status as the world's dominant power. China is another story altogether. With its vast economy, growing technological prowess, intercontinental "Belt and Road" infrastructure project, and rapidly modernizing military, an emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost.

Washington's fears of a rising China were on full display in January with the release of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a synthesis of the views of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of that "community." Its conclusion: "We assess that China's leaders will try to extend the country's global economic, political, and military reach while using China's military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish U.S. influence."

To counter such efforts, every branch of government is now expected to mobilize its capabilities to bolster American -- and diminish Chinese -- power. In Pentagon documents, this stance is summed up by the term "overmatch," which translates as the eternal preservation of American global superiority vis-à-vis China (and all other potential rivals). "The United States must retain overmatch," the administration's National Security Strategy insists, and preserve a "combination of capabilities in sufficient scale to prevent enemy success," while continuing to "shape the international environment to protect our interests."

In other words, there can never be parity between the two countries. The only acceptable status for China is as a distinctly lesser power. To ensure such an outcome, administration officials insist, the U.S. must take action on a daily basis to contain or impede its rise.

In previous epochs, as Allison makes clear in his book, this equation -- a prevailing power seeking to retain its dominant status and a rising power seeking to overcome its subordinate one -- has almost always resulted in conventional conflict. In today's world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

Trade War

When it comes to the economy, the language betrays the reality all too clearly. The Trump administration's economic struggle with China is regularly described, openly and without qualification, as a "war." And there's no doubt that senior White House officials, beginning with the president and his chief trade representative, Robert Lighthizer , see it just that way: as a means of pulverizing the Chinese economy and so curtailing that country's ability to compete with the United States in all other measures of power.

Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports ( increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries, while protecting the American economy against what is described as China's malign behavior. Its trade practices "plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the United States economy," as the president put it when announcing the second round of tariffs.

An examination of the demands submitted to Chinese negotiators by the U.S. trade delegation last May suggests, however, that Washington's primary intent hasn't been to rectify that trade imbalance but to impede China's economic growth. Among the stipulations Beijing must acquiesce to before receiving tariff relief, according to leaked documents from U.S. negotiators that were spread on Chinese social media:

halting all government subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its Made in China 2025 program, an endeavor that covers 10 key economic sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric cars, robotics, computer microchips, and artificial intelligence; accepting American restrictions on investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating; opening up its service and agricultural sectors -- areas where Chinese firms have an inherent advantage -- to full American competition.

In fact, this should be considered a straightforward declaration of economic war. Acquiescing to such demands would mean accepting a permanent subordinate status vis-à-vis the United States in hopes of continuing a profitable trade relationship with this country. "The list reads like the terms for a surrender rather than a basis for negotiation," was the way Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, accurately described these developments.

Technological Warfare

As suggested by America's trade demands, Washington's intent is not only to hobble China's economy today and tomorrow but for decades to come. This has led to an intense, far-ranging campaign to deprive it of access to advanced technologies and to cripple its leading technology firms.

Chinese leaders have long realized that, for their country to achieve economic and military parity with the United States, they must master the cutting-edge technologies that will dominate the twenty-first-century global economy, including artificial intelligence (AI), fifth-generation (5G) telecommunications, electric vehicles, and nanotechnology. Not surprisingly then, the government has invested in a major way in science and technology education, subsidized research in pathbreaking fields, and helped launch promising startups, among other such endeavors -- all in the very fashion that the Internet and other American computer and aerospace innovations were originally financed and encouraged by the Department of Defense.

Chinese companies have also demanded technology transfers when investing in or forging industrial partnerships with foreign firms, a common practice in international development. India, to cite a recent example of this phenomenon, expects that significant technology transfers from American firms will be one outcome of its agreed-upon purchases of advanced American weaponry.

In addition, Chinese firms have been accused of stealing American technology through cybertheft, provoking widespread outrage in this country. Realistically speaking, it's difficult for outside observers to determine to what degree China's recent technological advances are the product of commonplace and legitimate investments in science and technology and to what degree they're due to cyberespionage. Given Beijing's massive investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at the graduate and post-graduate level, however, it's safe to assume that most of that country's advances are the result of domestic efforts.

Certainly, given what's publicly known about Chinese cybertheft activities, it's reasonable for American officials to apply pressure on Beijing to curb the practice. However, the Trump administration's drive to blunt that country's technological progress is also aimed at perfectly legitimate activities. For example, the White House seeks to ban Beijing's government subsidies for progress on artificial intelligence at the same time that the Department of Defense is pouring billions of dollars into AI research at home. The administration is also acting to block the Chinese acquisition of U.S. technology firms and of exports of advanced components and know-how.

In an example of this technology war that's made the headlines lately, Washington has been actively seeking to sabotage the efforts of Huawei , one of China's most prominent telecom firms, to gain leadership in the global deployment of 5G wireless communications. Such wireless systems are important in part because they will transmit colossal amounts of electronic data at far faster rates than now conceivable, facilitating the introduction of self-driving cars, widespread roboticization, and the universal application of AI.

Second only to Apple as the world's supplier of smartphones and a major producer of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has sought to take the lead in the race for 5G adaptation around the world. Fearing that this might give China an enormous advantage in the coming decades, the Trump administration has tried to prevent that. In what is widely described as a " tech Cold War ," it has put enormous pressure on both its Asian and European allies to bar the company from conducting business in their countries, even as it sought the arrest in Canada of Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, and her extradition to the U.S. on charges of tricking American banks into aiding Iranian firms (in violation of Washington's sanctions on that country). Other attacks on Huawei are in the works, including a potential ban on the sales of its products in this country. Such moves are regularly described as focused on boosting the security of both the United States and its allies by preventing the Chinese government from using Huawei's telecom networks to steal military secrets. The real reason -- barely disguised -- is simply to block China from gaining technological parity with the United States.

Cyberwarfare

There would be much to write on this subject, if only it weren't still hidden in the shadows of the growing conflict between the two countries. Not surprisingly, however, little information is available on U.S.-Chinese cyberwarfare. All that can be said with confidence is that an intense war is now being waged between the two countries in cyberspace. American officials accuse China of engaging in a broad-based cyber-assault on this country, involving both outright cyberespionage to obtain military as well as corporate secrets and widespread political meddling. "What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing," said Vice President Mike Pence last October in a speech at the Hudson Institute, though -- typically on the subject -- he provided not a shred of evidence for his claim.

Not disclosed is what this country is doing to combat China in cyberspace. All that can be known from available information is that this is a two-sided war in which the U.S. is conducting its own assaults. "­The United States will impose swift and costly consequences on foreign governments, criminals, and other actors who undertake significant malicious cyber activities," the 2017 National Security Strategy affirmed. What form these "consequences" have taken has yet to be revealed, but there's little doubt that America's cyber warriors have been active in this domain.

Diplomatic and Military Coercion

Completing the picture of America's ongoing war with China are the fierce pressures being exerted on the diplomatic and military fronts to frustrate Beijing's geopolitical ambitions. To advance those aspirations, China'sleadership is relying heavily on a much-touted Belt and Road Initiative , a trillion-dollar plan to help fund and encourage the construction of a vast new network of road, rail, port, and pipeline infrastructure across Eurasia and into the Middle East and Africa. By financing -- and, in many cases, actually building -- such infrastructure, Beijing hopes to bind the economies of a host of far-flung nations ever closer to its own, while increasing its political influence across the Eurasian mainland and Africa. As Beijing's leadership sees it, at least in terms of orienting the planet's future economics, its role would be similar to that of the Marshall Plan that cemented U.S. influence in Europe after World War II.

And given exactly that possibility, Washington has begun to actively seek to undermine the Belt and Road wherever it can -- discouraging allies from participating, while stirring up unease in countries like Malaysia and Ugandaover the enormous debts to China they may end up with and the heavy-handed manner in which that country's firms often carry out such overseas construction projects. (For example, they typically bring in Chinese laborers to do most of the work, rather than hiring and training locals.)

"China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands," National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed in a December speech on U.S. policy on that continent. "Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption," he added, "and do not meet the same environmental or ethical standards as U.S. developmental programs." Bolton promised that the Trump administration would provide a superior alternative for African nations seeking development funds, but -- and this is something of a pattern as well -- no such assistance has yet materialized.

In addition to diplomatic pushback, the administration has undertaken a series of initiatives intended to isolate China militarily and limit its strategic options. In South Asia, for example, Washington has abandoned its past position of maintaining rough parity in its relations with India and Pakistan. In recent years, it's swung sharply towards a strategic alliance with New Dehli, attempting to enlist it fully in America's efforts to contain China and, presumably, in the process punishing Pakistan for its increasingly enthusiastic role in the Belt and Road Initiative.

In the Western Pacific, the U.S. has stepped up its naval patrols and forged new basing arrangements with local powers -- all with the aim of confining the Chinese military to areas close to the mainland. In response, Beijing has sought to escape the grip of American power by establishing miniature bases on Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea (or even constructing artificial islands to house bases there) -- moves widely condemned by the hawks in Washington.

To demonstrate its ire at the effrontery of Beijing in the Pacific ( once known as an "American lake"), the White House has ordered an increased pace of so-called freedom-of-navigation operations (FRONOPs). Navy warships regularly sail within shooting range of those very island bases, suggesting a U.S. willingness to employ military force to resist future Chinese moves in the region (and also creating situations in which a misstep could lead to a military incident that could lead well, anywhere).

In Washington, the warnings about Chinese military encroachment in the region are already reaching a fever pitch. For instance, Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, described the situation there in recent congressional testimony this way: "In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States."

A Long War of Attrition

As Admiral Davidson suggests, one possible outcome of the ongoing cold war with China could be armed conflict of the traditional sort. Such an encounter, in turn, could escalate to the nuclear level, resulting in mutual annihilation. A war involving only "conventional" forces would itself undoubtedly be devastating and lead to widespread suffering, not to mention the collapse of the global economy.

Even if a shooting war doesn't erupt, however, a long-term geopolitical war of attrition between the U.S. and China will, in the end, have debilitating and possibly catastrophic consequences for both sides. Take the trade war, for example. If that's not resolved soon in a positive manner, continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components.

This new brand of war will also ensure that already sky-high defense expenditures will continue to rise, diverting funds from vital needs like education, health, infrastructure, and the environment. Meanwhile, preparations for a future war with China have already become the number one priority at the Pentagon, crowding out all other considerations. "While we're focused on ongoing operations," acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan reportedly told his senior staff on his first day in office this January, "remember China, China, China."

Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future. With a war under way, even a non-shooting one, the chance for such collaboration is essentially zero. The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular , is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. His most recent book is The Race for What's Left . His next book, All Hell Breaking Loose: Climate Change, Global Chaos, and American National Security , will be published in 2019.

[Mar 04, 2019] As far as "economic" war, China has been fighting one for decades. It's called competing and trying to do the best to improve your people's lot.

Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Godfree Roberts , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:41 am GMT

A recent Asia Society conference asked how we should compete with China. https://asiasociety.org/northern-california/made-china-2025-policy-behind-rhetoric

The genuinely expert panelists could not articulate America's demands beyond the familiar 'level playing field' that America created by shackling China with uniquely humiliating conditions before admitting it to the WTO.

Today, China generates 20% of global GDP (the US 15%), its imports and exports are in balance, its currency fairly valued, its economy one third larger and growing three times faster than America's and it produces essential technology that America needs and cannot provide.

It is almost impossible to imagine a war scenario that the US could win, short of China invading America.

Alfa158 , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:31 am GMT
Excellent article Mister Klare, but would like to raise a few quibbles.

1) As far as "economic" war, China has been fighting one for decades. It's called competing and trying to do the best to improve your people's lot. The US is finally starting to fight back but some of it's measures are inappropriate and/or ineffective.

2) As far as the US trying to confine the Chinese military to its own region, I really haven't seen that the Chinese military is particularly interested in operation outside their own region anyway. It seems to be focused on protecting China and its own neighborhood and interests, and the Chinese aren't stupid enough to bleed away their wealth and blood in distant misadventures.

3) I'd gotten the impression from the Deep State's rhetoric that they are much hotter on fighting a shooting war with Russia than with China. In an extended struggle, as long as it doesn't go nuclear, US chances are much better against a Russia whose economy is only a fraction of China's.

MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:06 am GMT
Keynes says this, "All trade is only barter." The Wall Street/China Gambit is key to understanding today. Clinton signed MFN trade status with China, screwing over NAFTA. Those Zenith TV's that were supposed to be made in Mexico became Chinese made electronics.

Balanced trade was also thrown out the window, as Wall Street was in on the gambit. Trade in goods was unbalanced, and America supplied dollars to China to make up the difference. China then recycled those mercantile won dollars back to the U.S. to buy Tbills, helping keep interest rates low, and acting as a prime variable in forming U.S. housing bubble. Returning dollars then spun out into the American economy, so American's could buy more Chinese goods from transplanted American factories.

The wall street China gambit turned mainstreet American's into Zeros, while wall street became heroes.

Any discussion of China current economic status cannot overlook the role of Wall Street exporting of jobs, to then get wage arbitrage. Immigrating third world people into America is also a function of this "finance capitalism" as it wants wage arbitrage from third world labor as well.

Finance Capitalism in turn is part of Zion and Atlantacism. International credit "banking" will send its finance capital anywhere in the world to get the lowest price. In the case of China, overhang of communist labor in the mid 90's was available to make things, and then export Chinese made goods back to U.S. (at the China price.)

China still uses Atlantic doctrine, where raw materials come in by ship, and finished goods with increment of production value add leave by ship. (Value add is key element to making any economy thrive. Just extracting raw materials turns a country into Africa, witness the attempt at turning Russia into an extraction economy in the 90's.)

Note difference in American policy in the 90's: Russia was to become extraction, and China was to become value add. As Tucker Carlson says, America is run by a ship of fools.

For China, "Eurasia" beckons, and raw materials can be had from China's interior and via overland routes. This then is a pivot away from London/Zion Atlantacism (finance capital) and toward industrial capitalism.

In other words, both U.S. and the West have hoisted themselves on their own petard. People that wax poetic about China's gains overlook this important mechanism of "gifting" of our patrimony to China. It is very easy to copy or be a fast follower, it is beyond difficult to invent and create.
Wall Street and greed gave away our patrimony, which was hard won over the ages in order to make wage arbitrage today, and gave away the future.

China uses state banks, and also forgives debts lodged in their state banks. This is actually one of the secret methods used to rope-a-dope on the west. The Chinese economy is not debt laden, and what public debts there are, are lodged in a State Bank, where they can be jubileed or ignored.

The U.S. and the West had better take a long hard look at finance capital method, which uses only "price signals" to make economic decisions, as pricing is main vector from which jobs were exported, and which China cleverly used to climb up its industrial curve. Sovereign money/Industrial Capitalism IS the American System of Peshine Smith and Henry Clay. Atlantacism/Zionism/Finance Capital is not American – the parasite jumped to the U.S. from London.

China is wisely in control of its money power via its state banks and is pivoting away from Atlantacism now that it has served its purpose. The belt and road routes are mostly overland, with some coastal sea routes, and there isn't a thing sea power (((atlantacists))) can do about it.

China has played the game well, but don't overlook the gifting of Western patrimony caused by a false neo-liberal finance capital economic ideology, which blinds Western adherents.

Anonymous [392] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:09 am GMT
@joe webb Yeah, so America can topple China and go after Russia immediately afterwards? I don't think the Russians are so stupid.

There is only 1 way Russia survives the 21st century without being broken up and ruined, and that is allying itself with China. The same is true for China.

The only way China can survive intact is to ally itself with Russia.

Pretty simple stuff I am sure each country understands.

Erebus , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:15 am GMT

China generates 20% of global GDP (the US 15%)

On a PPP basis, of course.

China's real economy, of course dwarfs that of the US'.

The author touches on a nuclear trade option China holds over the US that I see little mention of elsewhere. High tariffs are one thing, but a closure of trade in components and raw materials would do far more than

endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components.

Should China block exports of everything other than finished goods to the US, almost every US factory would close due to lack of parts and materials. The time and investment required to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means much of what's left of America's real economy would disappear within weeks.

What then?

Unlike Russia, the US is highly vulnerable to targeted sanctions. American trade negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird.

Wally , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:36 am GMT
author Klare said: "The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation."

– What "revelations"? "What meddling"?

– He tipped his hand right off the bat. Klare is just another run of the mill Communist with a case of the Trump Derangement Syndrome, complete with Communism's favorite scam, 'global warming'.

Klare said: "Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports (increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries "

– No, the aim is to encourage China to removes it vastly more & extreme tariffs on US goods & services.

Klare said: " continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components."

– Nonsense, all China needs to do is remove it's many times over more severe tariffs.

– If the US's lesser tariffs on Chinese goods / services 'hurt the US', then why don't China's massive tariffs on US goods / services hurt China?

And to think some take this fraud, Klare, seriously.

Biff , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:17 am GMT
It was all a really great, intriguing article, but then it morphed into a dreamworld at the end.

The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.

Humans aren't ready for peace or salvation, and anybody that has promoted such a thing is readily shot dead – Gandhi, John Lennon, MLK, Jesus.

"Love thy neighbor" "Give peace a chance"

"Fuck you! Bam!"

Humans are not ready.

Anonymous [370] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:24 am GMT

The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation.

Eh? What revelations?

Cyrano , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:39 am GMT
It's not the economy stupid. According to many "experts" on this site, since the US economy and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it seems "logical" to those experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that not only is not 10 times better, it's not even equal to Russia's army. Again, according to the same types of "experts" Russia's economy is the size of Italy. Why don't then someone break the good news to Italy and encourage them to go to war with Russia? Since their economies are equal – it seems that Italy stands a fair chance of beating Russia, thus eliminating the need of the 10 times superior army to fight them. The moronity on this site, man – it's unbelievable.
tamo , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@joe webb You sound like a failed proctologist in the crumbling Honkiedom.
Franklin Ryckaert , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:40 am GMT
China is not suffering from massive degeneration as the US is. Instead of trying to prevent China from becoming a leading nation of the world, why could the US not accept China's coming prominence and concentrate on strengthening its own population ? Unlike the US, China is not interested in "ruling the world", it is only interested in expanding its economy. For the rest, it is dedicated to stability and cooperation. No threat to the world at all, except for some compulsive hegemonists in the Pentagon.
HiHo , says: February 18, 2019 at 11:05 am GMT
This article is pure propaganda and as such is based upon lies, misconceptions and pure fantasy.
If there already is a war it is all in the minds of Anericans, and they have already lost that war because America needs allies and can only create enemies amongst people that were its friends.
Europe will join with Russia as soon as it can get away from the US bully. That means 550million Europeans will join 160 million Russians. 710 million people with Russian technology and Chinese investment (China already runs Btitain's North Sea gas), will produce an economic power that will humiliate the USA at every turn.
All of South America wants to break with the US, the entire Orient hates the US. America is actually doing to Africa what the US accuses Russia and China of doing.
If there really is a war between the US and China then the US has already lost it. The rest of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US. Everyone hates the US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies 100%.
You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting the fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians.

I'm amazed Fred Unz publishes this sort of trash. It is unadulterated lies, brainless stupidity and total hog wash. Pure drivel.

Counterinsurgency , says: February 18, 2019 at 11:19 am GMT
The obvious:

It might be a bit harder than that.

It is often said that, had the Western and Eastern Europeans formed a coalition rather than fight WW I, they would still be dominant.
And if I had wings, I could fly to the moon.
The Eastern Europeans had never accepted the Western Enlightenment (still haven't), and to have done so would have destabilized their family structure -- the deep structure of their society -- exactly as it has finally destabilized ours, today. The nature of authority and organization in Eastern Europe differed considerably from that of Western Europe. Their forms of organization were different enough to make integration impossible, and perhaps to make formation of a coalition impossible.

China's organizational forms, family structure, and and social assumptions in general differ even more from the present day form of the Western Enlightenment than did those of East Europe c.a. AD 1900.

It's at times like these we get to test the assumption that reason and fear of death can lead to agreement on a modus vivendi.

Counterinsurgency

mikemikev , says: February 18, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
@Alfa158

In an extended struggle, as long as it doesn't go nuclear, US chances are much better against a Russia whose economy is only a fraction of China's.

I wonder how their economy would look after a week of strategic bombing.

Shaun , says: February 18, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
@Biff I forget, who shot Jesus?
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 18, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
China is now PAC-man of the world.
DESERT FOX , says: February 18, 2019 at 1:42 pm GMT
I will never believe the Zionist controlled U.S. will go to war with China as long as one U.S. company remains in China and damn near all the major U.S. companies are in business in China, this is a ploy for the zionist controlled MIC to loot the America taxpayer!
JC , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
I didnt read the article but I dont think china needs the US for anything they are well on their way to be the dominant world power the US and ist zionist occupied government are losers the zionists want never ending wars which stupid USA has done,,china and all the rest will eventually dump the rothchild banking system and form its own which will in all likely hood benefit more than the zionist one does
WHAT , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:20 pm GMT
@HiHo Ron probably has a quota to fill. Reed gets his scribbles in by the same token, I bet.
WHAT , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
@mikemikev >m-muh bombers

It will be fine, chinese know where to buy AA complexes that actually work.

onebornfree , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 2:36 pm GMT
No mention of an ideological battle, and no wonder, as "the Chinks" et al have apparently already won that one, as evidenced by the fact that the last US general election was merely yet another idiotic, meaningless [ yet highly entertaining], cat fight over blue socialism versus red socialism.

The US vs China trade war is just another power/domination battle scam between two competing, wholly criminal orgs, both totally against anything ever resembling truly free trade ..nothing more.

And so it goes .

The "America Is Not A Socialist Country" Scam :
http://onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com/2019/02/onebornfrees-special-scam-alerts-no-87.html [bottom of page]

Regards, onebornfree

Rich , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT
"The US and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future." Really? If this doesn't prove this guy is a lefty shill, nothing does. Even the clowns raking in grants and trying to impoverish everyone with higher taxes have seen the light and have been saying "climate change" lately. Many scientists are now arguing that we may be headed into a new cooling period rather than a "hellish" warming period that brought us so much prosperity. This "global warming" religion with its hockey stick icons and polar bear mythology is worse than the Heaven's Gate religion.
ThreeCranes , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:53 pm GMT
@HiHo

"The rest of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US. Everyone hates the US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies 100%.
You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting the fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians."

Well yes. As history has shown, occupation and rule by Jahweh's Chosen People tends to bring this fate down upon the host country.

Ned Ludlam , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
Oh, for Pete's sake:
1. It will always be China+Russia vs. the US. The EU, site of WWIII, will just soil itself.
2. The Debt Bubble US economy will collapse. At some point. Changes every calculation.
3. The US will devolve into a state of civil war. Of some sort. Paralyze the place.

Momentum is with China and Russia. The US is sliding into history's toilet.

Just give it a few more years. And the whole world sees and knows it. The whole world can get along very well without the US. And would very much like that to be.

therevolutionwas , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT
Global warming my azz! But the rest of it rings pretty true. If nukes arn't used, Russia and China will win this war simply because they have the gold now and the US has spread its fiat petro dollar all over the world which will come back big time to bite them. That is if China and Russia are smart enough to go on a gold exchange standard.
MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Cyrano

since the US economy and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it seems "logical" to those experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that not only is not 10 times better, it's not even equal to Russia's army.

I would argue the same.

Russia is a land power. This means using a land army and area denial. Russia does not need to power project with a blue water Navy and she does not follow Atlantacist doctrine.

Atlantacist doctrine got its start when our (((friends))) evolved the method during the Levantine Greek City State period, where our tribal friends would be stationed in various entrepot cities ringing the Mediterranean. They would use their tribal connections to Launder pirated goods, and to push their "international" usurious money type, which in those days was silver. Simultaneously they were taking rents on their secret East/West mechanism, whereby exchange rates between gold and silver were exploited. Gold was plentiful in India and Silver more plentiful in the West, so the Caravan's took arbitrage on exchange rates as silver drained east and gold drained west.

The U.S. inherited Atlanticist method after WW2. The U.S. is not an island economy like England – it does not need to go around the world beating up others to then extract raw materials. The U.S. is actually more like Russia in that U.S. can afford to have economic autarky and be independent. The U.S. does not need to power project with a blue water navy, despite the false narrative (((inheritance))) passed down to us, especially after WW2. Nobody likes being punked with false narrative.

U.S. military expenditures are so heavy because of this tendency of finance capital to search the world for gains, and this means posting overseas military bases, which in turn are expensive to operate. Russia only has a "close in" defensive posture of area denial. This is far less expensive than power projecting.

Also, GDP figures are misleading. In the U.S. if housing prices go up it reflects in GDP growth, when in reality – the house didn't improve. GDP figures are lies. If finance takes 50% cut of the economy, they are only pushing finance paper back and forth at each other this is not the real economy, but it shows up in GDP because finance paper is an "asset".

Russia's economy is much larger than their GDP, probably it is closer to Germany's in real terms. Real terms = real economy = the making of goods and services.

China is not America's natural ally, Russia is. Atlantacist doctrine sold America's patrimony to China for cheap, and then the ((international)) will just jump to another host.

America has been parasitized by false doctrine and the output is thus that of an infected brain – an output that is crazy. Finance plutocracy typically will not let go willingly, but has to be removed forcefully.

jeff stryker , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT
Russia is a country of vodka drunks and Dubai prostitutes run by a syndicate of Israel oligarchs and ex-KGB who kill their journalists in foreign countries.

China is dependent on outsourcing and if the US factories were to withdraw tomorrow the Chinese economy would take a huge hit.

NoseytheDuke , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Erebus The US is vulnerable in so many other ways too, see how fast the store shelves empty just on the news of an approaching big storm. Panic buying is rife and some people keep minimal food available at home. I know people who have to stop at an ATM to get $20. All kinds of vital distribution of food, water, power, fuel and more seems to pass through a myriad of often vulnerable bottle-necks real or virtual. Easy targets for low cost, low tech sabotage teams I'd think.

I'm inclined to think also that this threatening hysteria possibly is a deep state psy-op designed to prime Americans prior to the enactment of some sort of "democracy" modifications.

Sean , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:28 pm GMT
America is the most powerful country solely because it has the most powerful economy in the world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land, navigable waterways, natural resources ect ect. . In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level and is in a global hegemon trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population . There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the West, especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from offshoring and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's power in the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump out. Trump is a populist not a creature of the Deap State alarmed at China's rise. The leading strategists of America's foreign policy establishment still don't realise what they are dealing with in China.

Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future.

Better to reign in hell. Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006, China has been the world's largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip service they accept no binding target for reduction; quite the opposite.

Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.

The manufacturing should be done in the most advanced regions of Earth ie the West, because that is where the technology and will exists to protect the environment. China is trying to churn out cheaper goods and does not care what damage they do in cutting environmental corners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_China
China still supports the "common but differentiated responsibilities" principle, which holds that since China is still developing, its abilities and capacities to reduce emissions are comparatively lower than developed countries'. Therefore, its emissions should not be required to decrease over time, but rather should be encouraged to increase less over time until industrialization is farther along and reductions are feasible

In other words the global environment is going to continue to be ripped apart like a car in a wrecking yard by China. "Industrialization is farther along" is obviously Chinese speak for "when China is able to dominate the world with enormous productive capacity and we do not even have to pay lip service any more".

In today's world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

No, the appeal of a real war will increase precipitously for any clear loser in the economic competition who has a rapidly declining military advantage (especially in thermonuclear first strike capacity due to proximity fuses and sub location tech), and we all know who that is going to be. A shooting war will come, and the sooner it comes the better for the whole world. Reassuring Russia that it will not be subjected to the same treatment by the West at some point in the future will be the main problem inhibiting the coming military take down (and nuking if necessary) of China.

NoseytheDuke , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:30 pm GMT
@Shaun Eric Clapton, surely. Or was it Eric Idle? I forget. Who was it?
Reuben Kaspate , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:32 pm GMT
As to bringing in Hindoos and Pakis into to the America-China conflict with a singular example of the demand for defense related technology transfer by the former

India is a mediocrity but Pakistan is a nightmare for all concerned, given that after imbibing religious mumbo jumbo from moronic Arabs, with which havocs were created in Afghanistan via neoconnish America, now they are fellating uncircumcised Chinese for crumbs the ungodly Chinese will play the idiotic Pakis like a fiddle to the detriment of the West!

[Mar 04, 2019] Holy Corruption, Batman! Could this be the end of the Boy Wonder?

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen March 1, 2019 at 12:09 pm

I was expecting that if a Western invasion of Venezuela were to go ahead, that Brazil and Colombia would decline to commit troops, the US would be overstretched, and Canada would take the lead in organising an invasion force.

But I have just heard that Justin Bieber Turdeau is facing calls to resign after former federal attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould testified that she'd been pressured to drop bribery charges against SNC-Lavalin by government officials (of whom some were from the Prime Minister's Office) wanting her to apply deferred prosecution (by which SNC-Lavalin would merely pay a fine). The charges against SNC-Lavalin involve former company executives making illegal donations to the Liberal Party from 2004 to 2011. SNC-Lavalin also paid huge bribes to Libyan govt officials to secure contracts in Libya and has been shut out of contracts by the World Bank for corrupt practices in Bangladesh.

The company has its head office in Quebec (which the Liberal Party needs to hold to win the general election in October this year) and employs some 3,400 people in the province.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/justin-trudeau-is-finished.html#more
https://canadafreepress.com/article/canadas-snc-lavalin-corruption-scandalshould-prime-minister-justin-trudeau

If JWR's allegations that Turdeau pressured her, directly or indirectly, then he could be charged with obstructing the course of justice. Deferred prosecution itself is recent legislation introduced by the Turdeau government and SNC-Lavalin had lobbied for it.

Looks like Canada will be too busy dealing with the Turdeau govt's own corruption instead of Maduro.

The silver lining is that Chrystia Freeland has said she supports JBT 100%, although with her record of telling the truth one can never be too sure and she might not be willing to go down with him if he has to resign.

yalensis March 1, 2019 at 12:48 pm
Holy Corruption, Batman! Could this be the end of the Boy Wonder?
Mark Chapman March 1, 2019 at 5:28 pm
That will teach me a lesson; I just lost a very lengthily-developed comment because I was typing too fast, and accidentally hit the wrong combination of keys. Therefore, this one will evolve in the form of saves and updates.

Yes, he's in serious trouble. Wilson-Raybould was one of his big success stories, the first aboriginal woman to be appointed Justice Minister. She's also a lawyer, and kept detailed records of who said what to her when. After the SNC-Lavalin affair broke and following her obviously-unsatisfactory performance in refusing to keep things on the down-low so they would be allowed to settle out of court and probably just pay a fine, she was removed from her position in a cabinet shuffle, and given Veterans Affairs.

She pissed off Veterans with her obvious discontent with her new portfolio, as if it is unworthy of her talents, and there is a substantial question why she did not immediately resign as soon as she was pressured to do something she obviously knew was at least unethical if not illegal. But otherwise she seems to have all her ducks in a row, and it is going to be very difficult for the Trudeau government to attack her position.

They're not too busy to proceed with the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, though, I see.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/breakingnews/feds-allow-meng-extradition-case-to-proceed/ar-BBUgnxV?li=AAggNb9&ocid=wispr

This is not necessarily the end of the line, and is just a hearing, not a trial. Nonetheless, it moves the decision into ministerial territory, and the higher you go in the Canadian government, the more people you meet who like to lick the US government's shoes, and would no more tell it "No" than they would come to work with no pants on. More ominously, the Canadian Justice Department claims to have thoroughly reviewed the US charges, and consider them satisfactorily supported to proceed.

Extremely curious timing, as there was just a story in today's National Post which mostly scoffed at the American inveigling against Huawei, referring to it as 'exaggerated', and even having the temerity to point out the USA has actually done what it accuses China of doing, while China has not been caught – ever – inserting 'backdoors' in any of its software. The USA built backdoors into equipment made by Cisco Systems, and then shipped it around the world, which is why China banned it.

https://business.financialpost.com/telecom/experts-us-anti-huawei-campaign-likely-exaggerated

Predictably, after London declined to ban Huawei outright, saying the risk could be 'managed' – a terrific blow to the American argument – other countries with less backbone, Canada among them, claim to have been of the same mind.

Curiously, as well, the original reference points out that the charges against Meng, which the Minister deems substantial enough to proceed with the extradition hearing, relate to matters which are not offenses in Canada. That struck a chord with me, because I remember that when William Browder was detained in Spain on a Russian Interpol warrant, the official reason Spain gave for letting him go was that the matters on which he was ordered held were not crimes in Spain.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/30/putin-critic-bill-browder-arrested-in-spain

Unofficially, as revealed by Browder himself, the Interpol General Secretary in Lyon advised the Spanish government not to honour the Russian warrant. Yet when the EU demands that Russia release Khodorkovsky, or Navalny or whatever prominent 'Kremlin critic' is in jail at the moment, they expect Russia to jump right the fuck to it.

[Mar 04, 2019] Obama corruption: Warren troubled by Obama speaking fees

Apr 27, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Shot: "Obama's $400,000 Wall Street Speech Is Completely In Character" [ HuffPo ].

Chaser: "Ask all the bankers he jailed for fraud."

JohnnyGL , April 27, 2017 at 2:25 pm

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/330912-warren-troubled-by-obamas-speaking-fee

This just in .Saint Obama is no longer infallible among Dems. Winds of change are blowing. Six months ago, you couldn't get away with saying this kind of thing.

MyLessThanPrimeBeef , April 27, 2017 at 2:41 pm

Clinton is down.

Now Obama.

Pelosi? For how long?

Only one big Democrat left – Schumer. Very few target him for challenge, yet.

curlydan , April 27, 2017 at 3:21 pm

He probably said to himself, "What did I make in a year as president? Oh yeah, $400,000. Now that's what I want to make in an hour"

jrs , April 27, 2017 at 3:47 pm

you gotta pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues, and you know it don't come easy

David Carl Grimes , April 27, 2017 at 7:46 pm

Obama's not concerned about optics anymore.

fresno dan , April 27, 2017 at 3:35 pm

JohnnyGL
April 27, 2017 at 2:25 pm

"The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama will receive the sum - equal to his annual pay as president - for a speech at Cantor Fitzgerald LP's healthcare conference, though there has been no public announcement yet."

=======================================
Sheer coincidence that what Obama campaigned on and what Obama governed on appear to be influenced by rich people. Physics prevents single payer health care .dark energy, dark matter, dark, dark, money ..

Until a strong majority of dems are ready to say what is patently obvious to anyone even mildly willing to acknowledge reality, i.e., that policy is decided not by a majority of voters, but by a majority of dollars, than there is simply no hope for reform.

[Mar 04, 2019] Guess who made those clearly anti-Semitic comments

Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Just three examples. All those people would have troubles in the USA now. And that tells us something about the USA:

The wealthy Jews control the world, in their hands lies the fate of governments and nations. They set governments one against the other. When the wealthy Jews play, the nations and the rulers dance. One way or the other, they get rich."

'The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline.'

'The enterprising spirit of the Jew is irrepressible. He refuses to remain a proletarian. He will grab at the first opportunity to advance to a higher rung in the social ladder.'

The comments above weren't made by Adolf Hitler or a member of the Nazi party but by some of the most dedicated early Zionists:

  1. Theodor Herzl, Deutsche Zeitung, as cited by an Israeli documentary
  2. Our Shomer 'Weltanschauung' , Hashomer Hatzair, December 1936, p.26. As cited by Lenni Brenner
  3. The Economic Development of the Jewish People, Ber Borochov, 1916

[Mar 04, 2019] Harvard mafia sowed Dragon teeth in Russia

The USA in decline needs friends. Instead it got a powerful and well armed afversary, that stupid neocon jerks (including academic jerks like Summers) tried to play to get some dollars in theirs pockets... Add to this tentions with china and Harvard boys should probably be hanged on lampposts.
As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2 billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high and low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the Russobots.
When you beat a person who is down with boots and this person survive, you should not expect any mercy in the next fight.
Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:26 pm GMT

@jeff stryker Reality much?

Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc.

With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc.

Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian (Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of money, or in government.

With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and knowledge.

China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but as soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S. factories withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find markets in Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.

People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.

The Atlantics strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further, the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.

AriusArmenian , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both Russia and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance in hell of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The more it goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.

So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.

The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and is now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the next wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big question is how much suffering before it ends.

Cratylus , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT

... ... ...

Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/ ). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You find Huawei everywhere -- from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its best citizens .
wayfarer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:55 pm GMT
China's "Petro-Yuan": The End of the U.S. Dollar Hegemony?
WorkingClass , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade war we are misusing the word war.

War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people. Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.

We are NOT already at war with China.

AnonFromTN , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:04 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged international banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced them to ally against a common threat: dying demented Empire.

As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff, write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few centuries you might get an answer.

Anonymous [375] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia is currently trying to get China to ally against the West:

" Russia to China: Together we can rule the world "

https://www.politico.eu/blogs/the-coming-wars/2019/02/russia-china-alliance-rule-the-world/

In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.

Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in 2017.

At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to something Russia wants to realize. And soon

Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.

In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China in that direction.

peter mcloughlin , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
Where a war begins -- or ends -- can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right, 'War' and 'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological abstraction: the First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a global war one week later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of long duration. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were positioning themselves to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were defeated at the Battle of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.

Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war -- however destructive.

https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

[Mar 04, 2019] The USA pressure Germany to abandon North Stream II

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Warren March 2, 2019 at 12:53 pm

The Duran

Published on 1 Mar 2019

The Duran – News in Review – Episode 185.

The Duran's Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the Munich Security Conference, and Angela Merkel's stunning defiance of Mike Pence, after the United States Vice President urged Germany to cease its economic activities with Russia and China, starting with Nord Stream 2 and the deepening energy links to Russia.

See: Merkel Draws the Line Against Trump

https://tomluongo.me/2019/02/21/merkel-draws-the-line-against-trump/

[Mar 04, 2019] US Congress wants to know about Putin's income and assets

www.unz.com

Moscow Exile February 27, 2019 at 8:14 pm

В Конгрессе США захотели узнать о доходах и имуществе Путина

U.S. Congress wants to know about Putin's income and assets
It is assumed that information about Putin's income will help protect democracy in the United States

WASHINGTON, February 28, 2019, 02:27 -- REGNUM members of the house of representatives of the U.S. Congress, Val Demings and Elise Stefanik, have introduced a bill demanding that the intelligence services provide information on the income and property of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports the ABC channel .

According to ABC, the bill called "The Vladimir Putin Transparency Act" has been proposed by these members of the Intelligence Committee. The bill is related to the alleged ambitions of Russia to undermine American democracy. It is assumed that information about Putin's income will help defend democracy in the United States.

Also in January, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill on protection against "Kremlin aggression". The bill also contained a request that the intelligence community provide data on the assets and income of the Russian leader.


Demings


Stefanic

Mark Chapman February 27, 2019 at 10:47 pm
What a breathtaking example of stupidity. They can't even get reliable data on their own current president's income, and a significant element of the American electorate will never be satisfied with the proof provided that the previous president was not born in Kenya. America's obsession with Putin is getting creepy, in a distinctly disturbing, mentally-unstable way. Especially considering you can tell them anything, so long as you say their own intelligence services have a 'high confidence' that it is true, and they will believe it – witches flying around the rotunda on brooms, no problem. How did it turn out that such a nation of crackpots is also the custodian of a huge nuclear arsenal?

I imagine both Putin and Russia will refrain from reacting, except to chuckle with amusement at such foolishness. But it will be interesting to see what they come up with; remember, Gennady Timchenko threatened to sue The Economist for saying in print that Putin was a ghost owner of Gunvor Energy, which Timchenko in fact co-owned with Swedish billionaire Torbjörn Törnqvist, and The Economist backed down and issued an apology. Presumably the American intelligence services will find eager sources in 'Kremlin insider' fatboy blabbermouths Stas Belkovsky and Gleb Pavlovsky, both of whom can yarn on all day long about the oozing evil of Putin and the unimaginable billions he has salted away. But they will have no proof whatsoever, as except for a few luxurious perks like fancy wristwatches and a mohair workout suit, Putin lives what is to all appearances a somewhat austere and totally non-indulgent lifestyle, and gives no sign of being stinking rich. The 'palaces' attributed to him all belong to the state, although he has the use of them owing to his office as president. So what will Russia do if the US intelligence services report some fantastic sum, but decline to offer any proof which might be quickly refuted? Sue them for defamation?

Let's get it on the record – never before has such a self-important busybody republic existed, so full of itself and absorbed with its omnipotent airs. The less a truly democratic global presence and trusted world citizen it becomes, the louder it screeches about its own greatness and exceptionalism. Wow. Embarrassing. And I didn't think that was still possible. Shows how much I know.

yalensis February 28, 2019 at 4:52 am
Russia should respond tit for tat: for everything the Americans publish (be it true or lies), the Russian press should publish major dirt on American politicians and lawmakers.
Pavlo Svolochenko February 28, 2019 at 5:48 am
American culture is devoid of shame or decency – what 'dirt' could you possibly throw at them? Being caught with a dead girl is survivable, as Edward Kennedy demonstrated, and being caught with a live boy is now a bonus. Joe Biden stole a speech from Neil Kinnock and can't appear in public without groping somebody, and he's frequently floated as a presidential candidate.

About the only thing that does rouse indignation anymore is having met a Russian once, and even that's excusable as long as you profess to hate them like the plague now. Beyond posting old yearbook photos of American politicians in blackface I don't know what you could possibly hope to shame these creatures with.

[Mar 04, 2019] T>he detonation of a hundred Hiroshima-scale nuclear weapons in an Indo-Pakistani war would, due to the destruction of large cities, inject so much smoke and ash into the upper atmosphere as to trigger a global agricultural collapse. This, they predicted, would lead to a billion deaths in the months that followed South Asia's "limited" nuclear war."

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star March 2, 2019 at 1:01 pm

Ahhh..yes..nothing like the handiwork of the shitstains,morons ,leprechauns, cnts and cckskkers in the USA State Department over the last few decades that COUL:D have fostered fundamental sanity in international relations but did not do so:

"A nuclear catastrophe in the making?
No one should underestimate the danger of what would be the first-ever war between nuclear-armed states. Since the 2001-2002 war crisis, which saw a million Indian troops deployed on the Pakistan border for nine months, both countries have developed hair-trigger strategies, with a dynamic impelling rapid escalation. In response to India's Cold Start strategy, which calls for the rapid mobilization of Indian forces for a multi-front invasion of Pakistan, Islamabad has deployed tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons. India has, in return, signaled that any use by Pakistan of tactical nuclear weapons will break the "strategic threshold," freeing India from its "no first use" nuclear-weapon pledge, and be met with strategic nuclear retaliation.

All this would play out in a relatively small, densely populated area. The center of Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city with a population in excess of 11 million, lies little more than 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the Indian border. The distance from New Delhi to Islamabad is significantly less than that between Berlin and Paris or New York and Detroit and would be travelled by a nuclear-armed missile in a matter of minutes.

A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would not only kill tens of millions in South Asia. A 2008 simulation conducted by scientists who in the 1980s alerted the world to the threat of "nuclear winter" determined that the detonation of a hundred Hiroshima-scale nuclear weapons in an Indo-Pakistani war would, due to the destruction of large cities, inject so much smoke and ash into the upper atmosphere as to trigger a global agricultural collapse. This, they predicted, would lead to a billion deaths in the months that followed South Asia's "limited" nuclear war."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/genocide-us-cant-remember-bangladesh-cant-forget-180961490/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/02/iper-m02.html

[Mar 04, 2019] Business as usual .

Mar 01, 2019 | syria360.wordpress.com

Syria's Permanent Representative at the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, said that Western states, particularly the United States, are working to prolong the crisis in Syria by investing in terrorism, stressing that a military resolution in Idleb is inevitable if the political efforts to implement the Sochi agreement fail.

In an interview given to Al-Mayadeen TV channel on Friday, al-Jaafari said that US President Donald Trump has said more than once that his country's forces which occupy parts of Syrian territory will withdraw from them, but this hasn't happened yet because his administration wants to continue investing in terrorism in Syria and Iraq in order to carry out its agenda in the region in collusion with Turkey and militias in the Syrian al-Jazeera area.

He said that the so-called international coalition which Washington created without Security Council approval continues to support Daesh (ISIS), as it has transported leaders and members of the terrorist organization more than once, with the latest chapter in the US cooperation with Daesh involved a deal with the terrorists by which Washington received tens of tons of gold in exchange for allowing Daesh leaders and members to leave areas in Deir Ezzor, with US army helicopters transporting the gold under cover of night.

Al-Jaafari said that terrorism is used as a tool by its sponsors and financers, and from time to time they recycle it to utilize it in one area or another, as proven by the incident when Algerian authorities arrested hundreds of terrorists on its borders with Nigeria, and after interrogating the terrorists it was revealed that they had come from Aleppo's countryside, wondering who transported these terrorists from Syria to the Algerian-Nigerian borders.

Syria's Representative said that since the beginning of the crisis, the Turkish regime has been facilitating the transit of terrorists through its territories and into Syria, sponsoring all sorts of international terrorists from all over the world.

He added that the Turkish regime has yet to implement its commitments as per the Sochi agreement regarding the removal of terrorist organizations from the de-escalation zone in Idleb, stressing that a military resolution in Idleb is inevitable if the political efforts to implement the Sochi agreement fail.

Regarding the situation in al-Rukban camp, al-Jaafari said that two humanitarian corridors have been opened at the outskirts of al-Tanf area on February 16th by Syria and Russia to evacuate the displaced people being detained in the camp.

He said that Western states are not comfortable with any objective effort carried out by UN envoys to Syria, and they always pester them at the Security Council when they make statements by making preconditions and objections to pressure them to act outside their mission.

Al-Jaafari said that the current UN envoy Geir Pedersen understands his role correctly, which is why Syria is ready to cooperate with him to help carry out his task of facilitating intra-Syrian dialogue led and owned by Syria in order to move forward along the political track.

He concluded by asserting that Syria always has and always will view the Palestinian cause as the central cause, adding that all that is happening in the region seeks to liquidate this cause, and that the Warsaw conference came to achieve this end, in addition to normalizing relations between the Israeli enemy and certain Arab regimes.

Hazem Sabbagh

[Mar 04, 2019] Ukraine's American Minister of Health Yuliana Suprun is doing an outstanding job. Ukraine was the locus of the world's biggest rise in measles cases in 2018, from about 5,000 cases the year before to 35,120 the year just past. Moreover, 24,042 new cases were reported in the first 2 months of this year.

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman March 1, 2019 at 7:48 pm

My, Ukraine's American Minister of Health – Yuliana Suprun – is doing an outstanding job. Ukraine was the locus of the world's biggest rise in measles cases in 2018, from about 5,000 cases the year before to 35,120 the year just past. Moreover, 24,042 new cases were reported in the first 2 months of this year.

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-suffers-largest-rise-measles-cases-worldwide/29797314.html

Moscow Exile March 1, 2019 at 10:46 pm
But it was the Moskali who caused the epidemic by trolling social network sites with false information as regards the efficacy of vaccination against measles.

Russian-backed attempts to sabotage Ukraine's economic, political, and health developments have left the country fighting a measles outbreak and continuing a bloody, undeclared war. The situation is emblematic of increasing tension between the ideologies of President Vladimir Putin and countries of the pro-democratic, neoliberal west.

The measles outbreak -- affecting other countries including Serbia, Georgia, Greece, and Italy -- has hit Ukraine hardest, with the country's 23 000 cases accounting for more than half the European regional total. Kremlin-supported social media accounts spreading discredited theories about the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, combined with shortages and underfunding, have been blamed for the outbreak. Research published on Aug 23 concluded Russian trolls promoted discord and, masquerading as legitimate users, created a false impression that arguments for and against vaccination were equipoised. The result has been an erosion of public consensus on the value of vaccine programmes. The precipitous fall in vaccination level began after 2008, when 95% of eligible children in Ukraine received their second (and final) recommended dose of the MMR vaccine. By 2016, the rate was 31%, among the lowest in the world.

Although now rising again, the latest 85% measles vaccination rate recorded by WHO remains below that needed for herd immunity. Records in 2016 show poor vaccination rates for other diseases: only 19% of children received the third recommended dose of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine and 56% received the third recommended dose of oral polio vaccine.

Hepatitis B vaccination was low, with coverage with hepatitis B birth-dose and third-dose vaccines at 37% and 26%, respectively. WHO estimates between 3% and 5% of the Ukraine's 45 million population has been infected with hepatitis C.

Ukraine bears the second largest HIV epidemic in eastern Europe and central Asia.

The above was printed in the much respected "The Lancet" . Who wrote it, I know not -- but I can hazard a guess.

It begins with the outrageous statement that "Russia" is resposible for the epidemic, specifically, the"ideology" of the Russian president is the cause of the epidemic.

No proof given: no data: sweet fuck all. Just an assertion that "Pyutin" is responsible.

Cortes March 2, 2019 at 12:47 am
Well, "Pyutin" plus A.N. Other

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1366121/Blair-hints-that-Leo-had-MMR-jab-as-vaccine-rebellion-mounts.html

yalensis March 2, 2019 at 2:54 am
So, Suprun and her half-baked medical policies are off the hook?
Mark Chapman March 2, 2019 at 9:30 am
You know, it's a shame Ukrainians are so gullible, and believe Russia's lies without checking any other sources of information – don't they know how to use The Microsoft and The Google? Not to mention gullible Americans, who also fell for it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-skeptics-on-the-rise-1422232476

Oh, and the Australians, who were so gobsmacked by Russia's campaign to discredit vaccinations that being a 'vaccine skeptic' is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

https://explainlife.com/vaccine-skepticism-in-australia-now-punishable-by-10-years-in-jail-6460/

Mind you, the 'anti-vaxxers' in those instances are reportedly Australian nurses and midwives – but I daresay they. too, were taken in by clever Russian trolls posing as legitimate users on social media.

Some of you will probably be asking "At what point, for the love of Christ, are people expected to take responsibility for their own decisions, instead of hiding behind the feebleminded excuse that they were tricked by the Russians?" For my part, I am convinced that Russia is going to take over the world, because Russian trolls are so much smarter than the public in any country you care to name. With a few cat pictures and a sprinkling of Black Lives Matter stories, many of them generated after the American election was actually over, the Russians tricked the American electoral college into making Donald Trump president of the United States instead of Mrs. Clinton, but in such a way that more of the public actually voted for Clinton than for Trump. And the electoral college is supposed to be made up of America's leaders. Brilliant, you must admit.

Watch out for the Kremlin campaign against photography – because having your picture taken steals your soul – due to open in The Ukraine this summer. Then there will not even be a photographic record of all the Ukrainians who died from measles, conniption fits, brain fever and the fantods, as the Kremlin wipes them out with their own gullibility. Survival of the fittest, baby.

[Mar 04, 2019] Exit polling is tremendously important, and in previous colour revolutions the west always tried to get control of exit polling

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman March 2, 2019 at 11:43 am

Red Alert!! Nobody will ever know the true winner (cough * Petro Poroshenko * cough) of the Ukrainian elections in 2019, because the Russians are already preparing fake exit-poll results, so that not even those who vote will be able to remember who they voted for. The situation probably cannot be stabilized until the reigning government reviews the results and supplies the ballots it says were properly counted. Better just play it safe, and leave Poroshenko as president forever.

https://www.unian.info/politics/10466307-russian-special-services-preparing-fake-exit-polls-in-ukraine-osint-group.html

Please note, the fake exit-poll meddling is in addition to other Russian meddling efforts which will take place at polling stations during the vote. It is literally not possible to hold an actual democratic election any more, Putin has ruined everything. Democracy is dead. Voting as a means of selecting a national leader is over.

Patient Observer March 2, 2019 at 12:33 pm
This is so confusing -- Porko has single digit support last I heard so it would be expected that exit polls would show a similar result. But, if the exit polls are consistent with Porko's opinion polls then it must be a sign of Russian meddling! Geez, I would have thought it would be the other way around -- an inconsistently high exit poll result would only be consistent with pro-Porko rating swindle. Shows how little I know about these matters.
Mark Chapman March 2, 2019 at 2:25 pm
Exit polling is tremendously important, and in previous colour revolutions the west always tried to get control of exit polling; often it was invited to do so by the target country, since it was felt by the government that the imprimatur of western observers would help reassure nervous westerners that the elections were fair and democratic. They apparently did not realize that all the west needs to tip over your victory is exit-poll results which are dramatically different from the way the vote was counted -- for example, Yanukovych wins with 39% of the vote, but the exit polls, in which those just leaving the polling station are asked who they voted for, say his opponent got way more votes than he did. Bingo -- the election is a big fraud -- campers, set up your tents on the Maidan, we're not going anywhere until this grievous wrong has been redressed. Thanks, Berezovsky, for the tents and the hot soup. But nobody really knows what the actual exit-poll results were, so the western observers can basically say anything they want, and the western press will immediately run with it.

Porky knows this very well, so he is trying to de-legitimize the vote in advance, knowing he doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning himself. If Zelenskiy wins, he'll be a Russian pawn put in place by Putin, and consequently will have to make the most belligerent statements against Russia and swear that he sleeps with a life-size blow-up doll of Bandera so as not to be thought 'soft' on the Kremlin.

The west was not invited to do exit polls in Russia, but in each of Putin's wins as well as that of Medvedev, the vote was consistent with pre-election polling in which decided voters announced who they intended to vote for. Nonetheless, there is always a great boil of noise afterward about ballot-stuffing and carousel voting, even by those who like to use the term but don't know what it means.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=_bg9X0eNFds

Patient Observer March 2, 2019 at 3:40 pm
That Matt guy is pretty cool. They must hate him.
Moscow Exile March 3, 2019 at 12:34 am
I have often wondered which news agency Matt works for.

If he really did not know what carousel voting was, he should have contacted Yulia Latynina, she 'd have told him; she's the carousel voting specialist: she can spot voters being bused in at a 1,000 paces. During elections, she drives around Moscow sussing them out, trailing them, writing reports on her findings in Novaya Gazeta or on the Ekho Moskvy site or ranting on about them in her talk show there.

I wonder what she's doing now? I heard she had emigrated. She still sends in copy for the aforementioned news media, though.

Patient Observer March 3, 2019 at 7:33 am
Matt's quip linking allegations that children were voting to carousel voting was a knee slapper.

Mark Chapman March 3, 2019 at 8:45 am

Matt Lee works for AP, the Associated Press.

I remember with affection the old Anatoly Karlin, who could not endure western hypocrisy without pointing it out with highly-enjoyable sarcasm. In the instance I'm thinking of, it was the 'huge protest' (organizers claimed 120,000, police said around 29,000, objective analysis put it at about 80,000) in Sakharov St. where the 'fiery' Alexey Navalny said he saw 'enough people to take the Kremlin'. The answering roar must have terribly tempted him to try it, but he didn't. Anyway, there was a photo of that protest, taken from overhead – I can't find it now – which showed a large block of city buses drawn up side-to-side; transport for the protesters. They were 'bused in'. When you're going to attend a western-backed demonstration, of course, you're just 'proceeding in an environmentally-conscious manner to a responsible protest action'. When you are part of a factory crew and the company lays on a bus to take everyone to the polls, you're 'bused in for carousel voting', and the bus takes the entire contingent to multiple polling places where they vote again and again. Or so Latynina says, although all she ever shows to back up her assertions is a photo of a bus with people on it. But the western press is perfectly happy to accept her word that they are seeing another sad example of the perversion of democracy in Russia.

So there you have it, as usual – western exceptionalism goes global. When we do it ('we' being the children of the Limousine Liberals), we're just using a socially-responsible method of getting to a place where we can make our voices heard and hold the authorities accountable. When they do it, they're cheating democracy and imposing an oligarchical system on us.

I have seen lots of photos of people on buses, and am perfectly happy to accept that they all came from the same workplace – that makes perfect sense to me, and I see nothing ominous in it. I have never seen any evidence that such people vote multiple times as a group, and must therefore conclude that 'carousel voting' is a buzzword dreamed up by western analysts in concert with sympathetic Russian liberal enablers.

[Mar 04, 2019] Unsubstanttiated allegations taken as gospel. Wonder who put Evan up to writing to "Pyutin"?

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile March 3, 2019 at 2:59 am

Keeping the kettle boiling .

The son of Dawn Sturges, who died in 2018 as a result of poisoning in Amesbury, has written to Russian President Vladimir Putin an open letter in which he asks him to help in the investigation.

"I'm desperate. Putin is the only person that can make it so that justice will prevail. I need his help to pay tribute to my mum. I'm counting on it", Evan Hope told the British tabloid "The Mirror". The publication presents the full text of the message:

"It's been almost a year since my mother, Dawn, was killed by Novichok in Salisbury, and my pain, like the pain of my family members, does not pass. The British police believe that at least two Russian citizens are responsible for her death, but it seems that they are under the protection of your state. I'm asking you as a person, to allow our officers to question these people about the murder of my mother. She at least deserves somejustice."

Mr. Hope told the publication that the UK government has not provided any support for his family. "I feel betrayed by the government", he said. He stated that it endorsed the support of Sergei and Yulia Sripal, who was poisoned by the same substance. "But my family has had no such support, and we are the ones who have lost our mother. She was an innocent victim, but we have never heard from Theresa May nor the government -- no phone call, no letter, nor anything else", he said.

Unsubstanttiated allegations taken as gospel. Wonder who put Evan up to writing to "Pyutin"?

See: Сын погибшей от "Новичка" британки написал письмо Владимиру Путину

[Mar 04, 2019] Zakharova is already girding her loins for the 1st anniversary (tomorrow) of the diabolical nerve agent attack by Pyutin's agents that took place in Salisbury on March 4, 2018.

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile March 3, 2019 at 4:43 am

Zakharova is already girding her loins for the 1st anniversary (tomorrow) of the diabolical nerve agent attack by Pyutin's agents that took place in Salisbury on March 4, 2018.

If only I could help gird her loins!

yalensis March 3, 2019 at 2:58 pm
"Caroline's friend told "The Sun" that Dawn had switched from being a popular pupil at Durrington school in Wiltshire to a homeless alcoholic due to post-natal depression when her son Aidan was born. Her personality changed. She became like a zombie."

So it's really all Aidan's fault .

Fern March 3, 2019 at 4:43 pm
It's clearly very wrong for members of the British establishment to exploit members of Dawn Sturges's family in this way. What they should get help in pressing for is a proper non-politicised investigation into what exactly happened to her.
Moscow Exile March 3, 2019 at 11:05 am
The relative clause " who died in 2018 as a result of poisoning in Amesbury " should not have had commas separating it from the main clause " The son of Dawn Sturges has written to Russian President Vladimir Putin an open letter in which he asks him to help in the investigation ", in that it is a defining relative clause whose antecedent is "Dawn Sturges" and not the subject of the main clause, "Ewan Hope".

As a result of mistakenly placing commas before and after the relative clause in question, that clause is a non-defining relative clause, adding, in parentheses as it were, additional information about the subject of the main clause.

Ewan Hope is alive: his mother, who was Dawn Sturges, is the woman who died of unnatural causes in Amesbury last year. (Two relative clauses in the preceding sentence, each having "who" as its relative pronoun, the first relative clause being non-defining and having "mother" as its antecedent, the second being defining, having "woman" as its antecedent.)

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Perhaps I have lived too long here: all relative clauses, be they defining or non-defining, are separated by commas in Russian.

It is ironic that almost every week I have to point out to Russians the very different English punctiation rules as regards relative clauses, an English grammar topic that Russians often find hard to grasp.

Wrong usage of commas in contracts drawn up in English can sometimes have unforeseen and very costly results.

See: The Comma That Costs 1 Million Dollars (Canadian)

And the NYT got the offending comma wrong in one republished version of the original article, which had to be corrected!

See also: How 1 Missing Comma Just Cost This Company $5 Million (but Did Make Its Employees $5 Million Richer)

I often ask Russians what information is given about the subject (the passengers) in the following two sentences, which are, apart from their punctuation, identical:

The passengers who could speak Russian had few problems at immigration control.

The passengers, who could speak Russian, had few problems at immigration control.

In each instance, how many passengers had few problems?

Some of them or all of them?

Patient Observer March 3, 2019 at 12:30 pm
Are your impressive grammatical skills typical of English folks of your generation? Us Americans (see what I did?) can hardly put two words together without screwing up a grammatical rule.
yalensis March 3, 2019 at 2:53 pm
My favorite example of a comma making all the difference:

"What's this thing called Love?"
vs
"What's this thing called, Love?"

Fern March 3, 2019 at 4:35 pm
"Have you eaten Grandma?" (insert comma as appropriate).
Moscow Exile March 3, 2019 at 5:54 am
В Лондоне поставили пьесу Шендеровича "Увидеть Солсбери". Герои – два гея, спасающие мир

In London staged a Shenderovich play "To See Salisbury". The heroes are two gay men who want to save the world

The theatrical production company StageRC has announced the premiere of a play by the writer Viktor Shenderovich "To see Salisbury", which will be held in late March in London.

The comedy is built on the fact that Boshirov and Petrov are really two gays who went to England to see the cathedral. At the end of the play, an apocalypse takes place.

Shenderovich himself also spoke about his new work. "The play 'To See Salisbury' began with my bold assumption that these people (Petrov and Boshirov) were telling the truth. This is a couple who love each other, and, keeping it secret from their families, just went off to London. One of them, in addition to loving his partner, also loves Gothic architecture. And I have assumed that this is true. And this assumption seemed to me so touching", said the writer.

The company website informs that the premiere performances in Russian and English will be held on March 30 and 31.

The play, balancing between the Theatre of the Absurd and farce, ends on the verge of apocalypse -- the insane Dementia Petrovna being ready to start a nuclear war.

Jen March 3, 2019 at 4:57 pm
The drunk feller she defended shakes her hand in gratitude. Notice that two other guys come from around the corner and take the bully's place in the queue.

Darren Till who posted that video is a mixed martial arts practitioner. Wonder if he'll offer the woman a place in his training camp?

A few of his followers have fallen in love with her.

[Mar 04, 2019] Bill "amusing nuclear war" Maher is really out of his mind

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer March 2, 2019 at 4:14 pm

Can't find the link but Bill Maher said an Indo-Pakistani war would be "entertaining" or "amusing" or something like that. That guy has become untethered from his brain.

[Mar 04, 2019] It is important to Americans that they always are doing the right thing, the just thing, the altruistic thing, and that nothing so smutty as American profit and financial gain come into it. It is for this reason they are fed such self-serving pablum daily by their news media.

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star March 2, 2019 at 1:07 pm

Hmmmm ..

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/video/venezuela-accepts-aid-russia-us-020038728.html

Patient Observer March 2, 2019 at 2:58 pm
God, that Trish Regan is a moron on steroids. But, it was very heartening to see Russia stepping up with aid. Certainly, the physical aid is important to Venezuela but, more important, is the knowledge that they are not facing the US alone – cautiously optimistic that Venezuela can survive the assault.
Mark Chapman March 2, 2019 at 5:24 pm
Soooo many bullshit moments, my head is reeling. "The ones who are the aggressors here are the RUSSIANS, the United States supports a peaceful transition of power". Yes, to the leader it picked for the country, in a process about as far from democracy as an egg is from an eggplant. "Russia might not have the same good sweet deals, there would be a more competitive landscape, and they don't like that". Trish, baby – your National Security Advisor is on record as publicly stating it would make a big difference to the US economy if the USA could invest in and produce Venezuela's oil. It already has complete control of the refining end – if it were also investing in it and producing it what would be left for the Venezuelans?

It is important to Americans that they always are doing the right thing, the just thing, the altruistic thing, and that nothing so smutty as American profit and financial gain come into it. It is for this reason they are fed such self-serving pablum daily by their news media.

yalensis March 3, 2019 at 3:11 pm
At 3:50 minutes in, did I just hear the "brunette" on the left threaten to murder Maduro's family, if he doesn't comply with her demands?

She sounds like a Mafia chick: "Nice family you got there, Maduro, would be a pity of something was to happen to them "

Northern Star March 2, 2019 at 1:39 pm
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/03/01/ilhan-omar-tied-9-11-attack-poster-west-virginia-capitol/3033450002/

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/poster-linking-rep-ilhan-omar-to-9-11-sparks-outrage-injuries-in-w-va-state-capitol-1.571055

https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/video/poster-linking-muslim-congresswoman-ilhan-omar-to-9-11-sparks-confrontation/vp-BBUhMXZ

https://nypost.com/2019/03/02/eliot-engel-rips-ilhan-omar-for-vile-anti-semitic-slur/
" Last month, Omar came under fire for tweeting, "It's all about the Benjamins baby," suggesting politicians who support Israel only do so for money."

Northern Star March 2, 2019 at 1:44 pm
The American BILLIONAIRE elite:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/robert-kraft-debate-sex-trafficking-203517978.html

.degenerate racist ol' white bastards..all the way down..!!!

LOL!!!

Patient Observer March 2, 2019 at 4:05 pm
But why should someone as wealthy and well known as Robert Kraft visit a massage parlor in a strip mall? He could have top whores from around the world flown in to his penthouse . For god's sake, he could have gone to that private Caribbean Island where the insiders go for illicit sex with whomever/whatever they could imagine. Something is weirder than average here.
Patient Observer March 3, 2019 at 10:35 am
https://theduran.com/blackout-during-orgy-island-pedophile-jeffrey-epstein-hearing/

Log books show Bill Clinton just loved Island hospitality as evidenced by his numerous visits. Odd, how utterly quiet the MSM is about this – y'ld think that industrial scale rape of young girls would be newsworthy in the MSM. No, just the Covington Kid get them going. Eyes Wide Shut at work here.

Patient Observer March 3, 2019 at 10:39 am
Here is the link to a pretty good video on an escapee from the Island.
Jen March 3, 2019 at 3:20 pm
I think it's the thrill of the chase that appeals, plus knowing that you did something illegal (either secretly or in full view) and got away with it. Having whores flown to your place wouldn't have the same appeal.
Patient Observer March 3, 2019 at 7:24 pm
Well, I suppose being a Peeping Tom could his next adventure. Nevertheless, it still makes little sense from a psychological aspect. Some say he was somehow set up as a lot of NFL owners are tired of his team winning the Superbowl every other year and wanted to take him down a notch or two.

I suspect that most super rich, if not perverts from a young age, end up being perverted – the power of money and a highly developed market offering perversion is just too much to resist for most humans. That is a major reason why capitalism or free markets or whatever you want to call a system that encourages accumulation of vast amounts of wealth is (drum roll) perverted.

Patient Observer March 2, 2019 at 3:59 pm
Again, the only defense needed by a cop in killing a suspect was "I thought my life was in danger" regardless if that were actually the case. In the particular instance, I do think the cops may have thought such but they were apparently trigger happy and reacted to a "flash of light" or glint off some something metallic. They thought it was a muzzle blast. Really? They offered confusing statements as well – the suspect advanced on them in a shooting stance but refused to show his hands. What kind of shooting stance would that be?

I don't think it was cold blooded murder in this case – just manslaughter. They ought to be charged accordingly and kicked off the force. But no, everything is OK, nothing to see. Besides, it would have a chilling effect on police everywhere if they were fearful of being charged every time they killed someone. I mean, like, who would want to be a cop?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-charges-officers-shooting-death-unarmed-black-man-215503582–abc-news-topstories.html

Mark Chapman March 2, 2019 at 6:27 pm
I note that in this instance, though, the deceased was committing a crime; a series of them, in fact. Nothing he needed to be killed for, certainly, but a case removed from all the other black men who have been shot with their cell phone in their hand, or nothing at all, while the cops who decided to 'question' them ( sometimes for nothing more than walking on the sidewalk in a mostly-white neighbourhood) had no apparent reason to be bothering them. Police intervention was certainly called for here, although it is hard to believe it could not have been carried out without any real violence at all. The list of people who actually decided to go for their gun when ordered to put their hands up by police who already have their weapons out must be a short one.

Police in America seem uniformly convinced that black men they detain will try to kill them. I wonder why? Have a lot of police officers been shot to death by black men? I bet the list of black men killed by police is a lot longer.

Patient Observer March 3, 2019 at 7:17 am
To partially address the question of how many police are killed by felonious acts (shot, run over, etc.) versus how many they have killed by shooting (not counting fatalities from crashes during police chases), its roughly 65 to 1,000+. or better than a 15 to 1 kill ratio. 31% of the civilian victims were black.

In Britain and Japan, there were a few civilians killed by police last year. China had 4 (US rate was 1,500 times higher per capita). Could not find info on Russia. Philippines was way higher than the US rate apparently due to the drug war and terrorists may be included in that data as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_countries

[Mar 04, 2019] Bill "amusing war" Maher is really out of his mind

Mar 04, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer March 2, 2019 at 4:14 pm

Can't find the link but Bill Maher said an Indo-Pakistani war would be "entertaining" or "amusing" or something like that. That guy has become untethered from his brain.

[Mar 02, 2019] I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia

Looks like Obama really persuasive...
Notable quotes:
"... I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.) ..."
"... IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU. ..."
"... 'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"' ..."
"... In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office. ..."
"... The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much. ..."
"... If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that. ..."
"... My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney. ..."
"... "My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." ..."
"... Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms ..."
"... Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting? ..."
Nov 18, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Pat November 17, 2016 at 2:38 pm

I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.)

IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU.

Which I am sure he will do once everyone recognizes that that is the appropriate thing to do. But as we well know everyone else will have to do the heavy lifting of figuring that out before he will even acknowledge the possibility.

Katharine November 17, 2016 at 3:26 pm

The Guardian headline struck me as hilarious:

Obama urges Trump against realpolitik in relations with Russia
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/obama-urges-trump-against-realpolitik-in-relations-with-russia

I mean, we can't have people actually taking our real interests into consideration in foreign relations, can we? That would be so–unexceptional.

JSM November 17, 2016 at 10:15 pm

Why not make it affirmative?

'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"'

Knot Galt November 17, 2016 at 3:46 pm

In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office.

In this case, Obama is probably too vain and Michelle being the saner of the two might rein him in? Best of any world would, as you say, STFU. (As the Ex Prez. Obamamometer, that is probably not in the cards.)

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL November 18, 2016 at 12:28 am

Maybe he will end up like Geo Bush, sitting in the bathtub drooling while he paints childish self-portraits
Or maybe he will end up like OJ, where he tries to go hang out with all his cool friends and they tell him to get lost

Adamski November 18, 2016 at 5:18 am

Ppl still mention him as a master orator, etc. Lots of post presidency speaking engagements I suppose. I'd prefer him not to but then again if he makes enough annually from it to beat the Clintons we might get the satisfaction of annoying them

JTMcPhee November 17, 2016 at 3:53 pm

"legal bases in foreign nations " Another reason why "we" are Fokked, thinking like that.

JSM November 17, 2016 at 4:48 pm

The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much.

Steve C November 17, 2016 at 5:08 pm

If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that.

NotTimothyGeithner November 17, 2016 at 6:11 pm

My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney.

timbers November 17, 2016 at 5:43 pm

"My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." What Obama is saying is he wants Russia to join America in bombing hospitals, schools, children, doctors, public facilities like water treatment plants, bridges, weddings, homes, and civilians to list just few – while arming and supporting terrorists for regime change. And if anyone points this out, Russia like the US is supposed to say "I know you are but what am I?"

RMO November 17, 2016 at 6:28 pm

Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms

Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting?

Lemmy November 17, 2016 at 2:42 pm

Is this the same Russia that just hacked our election and subverted our fine democracy? Why, President Obama, I believe it behooves you to stand up to Russia yourself. Show President-Elect Trump how it is done sir!

[Mar 02, 2019] The Coup against Trump and His Military

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

The Coup as 'Process'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ORDER IT NOW

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

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

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

Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance

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

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

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

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

The Coup: Can it succeed?

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

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

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

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

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

Kirt December 28, 2016 at 3:19 pm GMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Replies: @Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.

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

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

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

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

What a god-awful president.

An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.

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

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

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

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

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

Happy new year!

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

Exactly...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Replies: @Seamus Padraig

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

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

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

MAN PAD LETTER – DM 24 DEC 2016

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

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

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

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

This truly is an emergency.

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

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

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

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

Respectfully,

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

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

It needs to be published as a feature story.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

This truly is an emergency.

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

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

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

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

Respectfully,

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

The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!

It needs to be published as a feature story.

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

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

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

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

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

What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or is Trump just being a fox?

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Replies:

@Authenticjazzman

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

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

@Seamus Padraig

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

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

@Rurik

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@RobinG "

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

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

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

@Tomster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:

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

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

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

Nothing else they try will fly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It needs to be published as a feature story.

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

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

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

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

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

What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?

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

Oh my.

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

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

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

Or is Trump just being a fox?

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I expect Obama loves his kids.

Great analysis from Petras.

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

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

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

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

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

@Robert Magill

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

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

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

Seamus Padraig says: • Website

@Svigor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or is Trump just being a fox?

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing else they try will fly.

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

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

It seems you may be on to something:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:

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

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

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

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

Maybe the Russian FSB an get to him.

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

Nice well written article by James Petras.

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

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

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

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

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

Respect All! Bow to None!

Merry Christmas!

God Bless!

[MORE]
For THE RESTORATION OF THE REPUBLIC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The United States is No longer Sovereign

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

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

For Love of Country

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, what to do?

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or is Trump just being a fox?

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace - Art

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

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

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

A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.

Francis Boyle writes:

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

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

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

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

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

True.

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

Dear Mr. Petras,

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

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

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

What for ?

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

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

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

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

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

• Replies: @annamaria

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace --- Art

"If we get past the inauguration ."

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

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

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

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

• Replies: @Art Hi RobinG,

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

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

Really - how pissed off can they be?

Peace --- Art

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

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

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

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

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

Or is Trump just being a fox?

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Webb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi RobinG,

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

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

Really – how pissed off can they be?

Peace - Art

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

• Replies: @RobinG Hi Art,

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

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

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

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

Looks like I spoke too soon:

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

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

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

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

@Art Hi RobinG,

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

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

Really - how pissed off can they be?

Peace --- Art

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

Hi Art,

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

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

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

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

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

This is a very underwhelming document.

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

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

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

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

From WikiLeaks:

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

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

The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.

Note the Disclaimer:

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

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


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

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

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

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

Great observations. Thanks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Webb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Webb

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

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

This is a very underwhelming document.

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

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

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

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

From WikiLeaks:

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

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

The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.

Note the Disclaimer:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Was" is the operative word:

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or is Trump just being a fox?

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@RobinG Hi Art,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or is Trump just being a fox?

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

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

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

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

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Mr. Petras,

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

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

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

What for ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs – who have done virtually nothing for them.

alexander , December 30, 2016 at 5:28 pm GMT

@Seamus Padraig

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

Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people over the last sixteen years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

joe webb , December 30, 2016 at 6:15 pm GMT

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

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

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

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

good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about
Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Realist , December 30, 2016 at 6:57 pm GMT • 100 Words

Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.

January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.

lavoisier says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment December 31, 2016 at 1:38 am GMT • 100 Words

@joe webb

Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.

I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.

[Mar 02, 2019] The "Exceptional Nation" has now become the "Detestable Nation"!

Notable quotes:
"... The Puppet show display by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the American Empire are refusing to tow the line? ..."
"... A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world. ..."
Mar 02, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

KiwiAntz , February 20, 2019 at 6:31 am

The "Exceptional Nation" has now become the "Detestable Nation"!

The Puppet show display by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the American Empire are refusing to tow the line?

Trump has alienated & disgusted it's Allies, so much that they can now see how deranged, unworkable & destructive is the Americans Foreign Policy & its bankrupt disfunctional , delusional Policies?

It's ridiculous, irrational & pathological hatred for Iran has shown that the US is the main Terrorist Nation on Earth not Iran who has never invaded anyone unlike the hypocritical US Empire!

Meanwhile in Sochi, the real Diplomacy for peace is taking place with Russia, Iran, Turkey & Syria having won the War against the US Empire & its cowardly, crony white helmeted, ragtag bunch of proxy Army misfits made up of Israel, ISIS, SDF & the Kurds now scurrying out of the Country like rats leaving a sinking ship!

And what was really laughable about VP Pences speech in Warsaw was the defeating silence to the pauses in that speech expecting people to clap on demand which never happened?

How embarrassing & really showed the lack of respect & utter contempt that everyone has for America these days!

Sam F, February 20, 2019 at 12:32 pm

A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world.

Let's hope we see the end of NATO as an excuse for US bully tyrants to "defend" us with greedy aggression.

Perhaps that will lead to strengthening the UN and isolating it from the economic power of US tyrants.
The UN would be far stronger if it taxed its members instead of begging for support, on pain of embargo by all members, and monitored for corrupt influence.

[Mar 02, 2019] Any nation which still trust any promise coming from the USA and its European, Australian and Canadian poodles deserves to be colonized and destroyed

Mar 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

b , Feb 28, 2019 1:23:41 PM | 38

It'll eventually dawn on the Yanks that it was NK's Nukes which brought AmeriKKKa to the negotiating table; NOT US sanctions which brought NK to the table.

The ability to "Manhattan" Manhattan is too strong a negotiating position to swap for some insulting threats and vague non-binding promises. The biggest problem for the US now will be the impossibility of "proving" that it can be trusted.

Deschutes , Mar 1, 2019 2:55:06 AM | link
Just more grist for the bullshit mill that is US foreign policy, i.e. the US government can never be trusted at the negotiating table. Ridiculous to demand N. Korea dismantle their nuclear reactor before sanctions are lifted. Fucking ridiculous demand, why in the hell would N. Korea do that? They need it to produce energy, and to make plutonium to defend themselves from total asshole country USA which, as everybody knows has been on a 25 year sanctioning/bombing/country destroying rampage, leaving entire countries laid to waste. Rest assured, that if N. Korea gets rid of all its nukes as USA wants -- before the drop of a hat USA will totally, completely wipe N. Korea off the map with its own nukes and massive military buildup surrounding N. Korea. As usual, the USA is the biggest problem for the entire world's progress towards peace and prosperity :-(((

Steve , Mar 1, 2019 6:03:28 AM | link

Any nation which still trust any promise coming from the USA and its European, Australian and Canadian poddles deserves to be colonized and destroyed.
">link

Sally Snyder , Feb 28, 2019 8:35:08 AM | link

Here is an article that explains why the North Koreans believe that the United States is not trustworthy:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/06/war-crimes-in-korea-guilty-as-charged.html

The Korean people have paid a very heavy price simply because of their unfortunate geographic location immediately adjacent to the world's largest Communist state.

Hoarsewhisperer , Feb 28, 2019 2:20:17 PM | link
The North Korean Foreign Minister gave a press conference in Hanoi. I updated the piece above at its end with the reports of what he said.

[Mar 02, 2019] According to recently declassified documents of the White House, CIA and State Department as reported by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the Soviets invaded in 1979

Mar 02, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Brian James , February 21, 2019 at 5:03 pm

Never believe the CIA. Ever! January 26, 2019 CIA Was Aiding Jihadists Before Soviets Invaded Afghanistan

According to recently declassified documents of the White House, CIA and State Department as reported by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the Soviets invaded in 1979. The then American President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December the same year.

Author Originally, there were four parties involved in the Afghan conflict which are mainly responsible for the debacle in the Af-Pak region. Firstly, the former Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Secondly, Pakistan's security agencies which nurtured the Afghan so-called "mujahideen" (freedom fighters) on the behest of Washington.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/01/26/cia-was-aid

tina , February 21, 2019 at 10:01 pm

what you say is true and correct. Fast forward to 2019. I never thought I would have to believe those "authorities" or organizations to stop our own president. How far down the rabbit hole we are. Keep it up . I should mention that consortium news was one of the sites that was hit by a barrage of not true things. Do you remember KIllary Shillary, world war 3 on this website? That is when I stopped. No defence of Ms Clinton, but the attacks were relentless. I do believe consortium news was hijacked by some really partisan people.

OlyaPola , February 22, 2019 at 3:12 am

"Before Soviets Invaded Afghanistan"

The Soviet forces were invited to Afghanistan by the Afghani Government – they never invaded Afghanistan or Syria.

[Mar 02, 2019] Cohen Testimony is the Beginning of the End of Russiagate

Mar 02, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

The National Interest

Cohen tried to describe his former boss to those gathered and watching in terms befitting the unique political phenomenon that has captured American politics for almost four years. "Mr. Trump is an enigma," said Cohen. "He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself."

[Mar 02, 2019] PATRICK LAWRENCE Pompeo, Pence the Alienation of Europe

The US government elite indeed looks insane. Or worse psychopathic... Including, unfortunately Trump, Bolton and Pompeo
Still, let's acknowledge the people's right to choose its president. Trump's incompetence is probably something we should live with until 2020;
Consortiumnews

Cratylus , February 20, 2019 at 1:30 pm

The author writes: "What a job Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did in Europe last week. If the objective was to worsen an already critical trans–Atlantic rift and further isolate the U.S., they could not have returned to Washington with a better result.

We might have to mark down this foray as among the clumsiest and most abject foreign policy FAILURES since President Donald Trump took office two years ago. "

Depends on how you look at it.

If you see the US as the greatest threat to world peace, as most people in the world do, this was a great SUCCESS. It has weakened the US Empire and moved us closer to a genuine multipolar world.

Congrats to the two Mikes (Pompeo and Pence) and to you too John. Even such worthless creatures and poor excuses for human beings can make a contribution.

Frederike , February 20, 2019 at 4:16 pm

I like your statement. Could I just ask you whom you mean with "Congrats to the two Mikes (Pompeo and Pence) and to you too John. " Who is John? (Maybe I missed something?)

michael , February 20, 2019 at 7:50 pm

Agreed. Clumsily, transparently our foreign policy has become clear to the EU and the world (it is mostly based on Israel's and Saudi Arabia's needs), not just since Trump, but since Reagan. The veil has been lifted and all the previous BS and talk of the shining city on the hill is now recognized as political gaslighting and self aggrandizing.

A slight correction to "the more than eight years of sanctions" on Syria: there are two current National "Emergencies" sets of sanctions on Syria going back to 2004. If Trump had lost, a no fly zone would likely have been implemented in the country, forcing the EU to join another coalition against their self interest. It is much easier to say "NO!" to the abominable Trump than to the slick Obama or the psychopathic but respected Hillary.

[Feb 27, 2019] Daddy, I want war with Iran!

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sick of Orcs says: February 26, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT These neocon chickenhawk a-holes are like a parody of Veruca Salt.

"Daddy, I want war with Iran!"

"But, Love, you already have Endless Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and toys in another dozen countries!"

Talha , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT

@A123

The goal of any attack would be containment of the Iranian threat.

(sigh) Yeah, I'm sure any day now Persians are going to be landing boats, D-Day style, on Coney Island I'm certain my cat has nightmares about this, which is why he meows strangely at night for no apparent reason.

I know, I know, I've been through the drill enough times now; "if we don't fight them over there "

[Feb 27, 2019] Trump as a sucker to neocons and MIC

He was elected using Israel lobby money, so now he heed to pay them off.
Notable quotes:
"... B..b..but his campaign promises .. the upcoming election .. his noninterventionist principles .. MAGA! The cynics were right. Pro-Trump dreamers (including the pro-Russian/anti-US contingent at MoA) were wrong. Another misleading narrative bites the dust. Another populist outsider is revealed to be a faux populist bullshitter. ..."
"... For anyone paying attention, this kind of thinking (that Trump is a hero that is undermined by the Deep State) is not dumb, it is suspect. We saw the same rear-action BS from Obamabots who sought to excuse every betrayal of the faux populist hero. Faux populists like Trump, Obama, Sanders, Macron, Guaido, etc. are members of the establishment (which the Deep State works for) that pretend to be on the side of ordinary people. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Feb 22, 2019 7:43:58 PM | link

Trump will keep troops in Syria

B..b..but his campaign promises .. the upcoming election .. his noninterventionist principles .. MAGA! The cynics were right. Pro-Trump dreamers (including the pro-Russian/anti-US contingent at MoA) were wrong. Another misleading narrative bites the dust. Another populist outsider is revealed to be a faux populist bullshitter.

Jackrabbit , Feb 25, 2019 10:00:23 PM | link

Pat Lang sees the Borg as winning out .

For anyone paying attention, this kind of thinking (that Trump is a hero that is undermined by the Deep State) is not dumb, it is suspect. We saw the same rear-action BS from Obamabots who sought to excuse every betrayal of the faux populist hero. Faux populists like Trump, Obama, Sanders, Macron, Guaido, etc. are members of the establishment (which the Deep State works for) that pretend to be on the side of ordinary people.

[Feb 27, 2019] US-led Coalition Evacuated ISIS Gold From Euphrates Valley Report

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

SouthFront , Feb 18, 2019 10:31:38 PM | link

US-led Coalition Evacuated ISIS Gold From Euphrates Valley – Report

https://southfront.org/us-led-coalition-evacuated-isis-gold-from-euphrates-valley-report/

[Feb 27, 2019] Syria Chemical Weapons Used... But Used by Whom?

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Charles Shoebridge , Feb 18, 2019 3:34:25 PM | link

Syria Chemical Weapons Used... But Used by Whom?

Given the gravity of this claim and its consequences, as well as a recent history of unevidenced assertions based on inaccurate intelligence being used to justify involvement in foreign wars, how does the evidence in the latest assertion stack up?

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/charles-shoebridge/syria-chemical-weapons-us_b_3443185.html

[Feb 27, 2019] Ukraine government in armed standoff with nationalist militia

This is from 2015. Not much changed... But relevant for Venezuela. So what will happen with Venesuellians if the color revolution suceeed, is easy to predict using Ukrainian example
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine, what a mess. As though it was ever about the people. It was a grab for resources, 19-century style. But with 21st-century stakes. You can see what the West is after when you look at the US-Ukraine Business Council. ..."
"... Meanwhile last night & this morning, just to distract the people of what is going on in the West, Kiev launched a massive shelling over Donetsk and other places in Donbass using weapons forbbiden by the Minsk agreements, including Tor missiles, one of which fell at a railway station but didn't explode... it was defused by emergency workers but the proof is there if you care to see... it was thesecond biggest attack since the cease fire... ..."
"... This is the IMF hired guns now going after the very people who helped the Wall Street IMF shysters in the illegitimate coup and the set up of the illegitimate Kiev junta, a mix of half Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian mongrels. ..."
"... Furthermore, instead of bringing in the people who helped overthrow Janukovich into the government fold, the IMF is placing it's foreign collaborators in ministerial positions by making them instant Ukrainian citizens, while keeping the right wing, without whose help the coup would not have succeeded, out of government and slowly trying to eliminate them with their private foreign mercenary force. ..."
"... Madame "F*ck the EU Nuland from the US state department bordello, a devout Zionist, enticed these supposed Ukrainian NAZIs to help her in her dirty deeds, no doubt with promises of power sharing. ..."
"... She no doubt got her position not by intelligence but by connections. More than 6000 Ukrainians, human beings, innocent men women and children, have died in madame Nuland's engineered coup, putting her in league with her mentor, Henry Kissinger, aka the butcher of Vietnam. ..."
"... The Ukrainian sub-saharan African minimum wage is now being accompanied by Somali-style politics. ..."
"... The BBC are bravely sticking to their decision not to report this story. Congratulations are in order for such dedication. The graun protected its readership from this confusing information for 24 hours and then caved to the temptation to report news. Too bad. ..."
"... Can we officially congratulate Nuland for a crappy job and also for providing Putin with all the tools he needed to bring back Ukraine under his wing. False flag operations for American private interests must stop now. They are immoral, unethical and only bring death and destruction to otherwise stable societies. The UN should have a say. ..."
"... Neither Azov nor Right Sector want peace. On 3 July 4,000 men from these units protested in Kiev, calling for resumption of the war against the eastern provinces. They favour ethnic cleansing. ..."
"... The west would not have dialogue with Russia because it was not what Washington wanted. Washington wanted to push a wedge between Russia and EU at any cost even 6500 lives and unfortunately they succeeded ..."
"... The Right Sector does not exist, or if it does, it has been created by Moscow. The crisis in Greece is also the work of Russian agents. The ISIS is financed and trained by Putin. Ebola was cooked up in a laboratory in Saint Petersburg. Look for the Russian! ..."
"... this is what happens when you play with fire: you get burned. Using Neo-Nazi's to implement Nato expansionist policies was always a very bad idea. It's just a shame it is not people like Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland who will have to suffer the blowback consequences- it is the poor Ukrainian people. This is not that different to what has happened in Libya- where Islamic extremists were used as a proxy force to oust Gaddafi. ..."
"... the jihadists in Ukraine are the integral part of Iraqization of Ukraine. The lovers of Nuland's cookies are still in denial that Ukraine was destined by the US plutocrats to become a sacrificial lamb in a fight to preserve the US dollar hegemony. ..."
"... Why, don't you know? They infiltrated Ukraine, the CIA (and NATO and the EU somehow) created Maidan, their agents killed the protesters, then they overthrew a legitimate government and installed a neo-nazi one, proceeded to instigate a brutal oppression against Russian speakers, then started a war against the peaceful Eastern Ukrainians and their innocent friends in the Kremlin, etc etc. Ignorant question that, by now you should know the narrative! ..."
"... The BBC investigative reported earlier this year that a section of Maidan protesters deliberately started shooting the police. This story was also reported in the Guardian. Google and you will easily find it. The BBC also reported that the Prosecutors Office in Kiev was forbidden by Rada officials from investigating Maiden shooters. ..."
"... have you ever studied geography? If yes, you should remember the proximity of Ukraine to Russia (next door) and the proximity of Ukraine to the US (thousands miles away). Also, have you heard about the CIA Director Brennan and his covert visit to Kiev on the eve of the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine? This could give you an informed hint about the causes of the war. Plus you may be interested to learn about Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (Ms. Nudelman), her cookies, and her foul language. She is, by the way, a student of Dick Cheney. If you were born before 2000, you might know his name and his role in the Iraq catastrophe. Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (and the family of Kagans she belongs to) finds particular pleasure in creating military conflicts around the globe. It is not for nothing that the current situation in Ukraine is called Iraqization of Eastern Europe. ..."
"... This newspaper and other western media documented the armed members of far right groups on Maidan. One BBC journalist was actually shot at by a Svoboda sniper, operating from Hotel Ukraina - the video is still on the BBC website. ..."
"... As predicted the real civil war in Ukraine is still to happen. The split between the east and the ordinary Ukrainian was largely manufactured ..."
"... "When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?" ..."
"... in time Ukrainians will regard Maidan's aftermath as most of them view the Orange Revolution -- with regret and cynicism. ..."
"... Of course the Guardian doesn't like to explain that 'Right Sector' are genuine fascists - by their own admission! These fascists, who wear Nazi insignia, were the people who overthrew the elected government of Ukraine in the US / EU-supported coup - which the Guardianistas and other PC-brainwashed duly cheered on as a supposed triumph of democracy. Since that glorious US-financed and EU-backed coup, wholly illegal under international law, Ukraine's economy has collapsed, as has Ukrainians' living standards. ..."
The Guardian

HollyOldDog gimmeshoes 13 Jul 2015 20:40

The Georgian authorities have asked Interpol to put a Red notice on Mikheil Saakashvili as the request to Ukraine to return him for trial in Georgia was refused.
ww3orbust PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 20:22
That does not detract from the fact that the Ukrainian cabinet has been chosen by the US state department. Natives of the US, Georgia and Lithuania were hastily granted Ukrainian citizenship in order to maintain an iron grip on Ukraine, while accusing Putin of appointing majors or governors - in his capacity as head of state?
ww3orbust 13 Jul 2015 20:16
Amazing, nothing at all mentioned by the BBC. It does not fit in to their narrative to see the country descend into a new stage of anarchy, between the people who murdered police and protesters on Maidan square, and the US state department installed cabinet. Presumably if Right Sector refuse to disarm and continue torturing civilians and murdering police, the BBC will continue to ignore it and focus instead on its Russo-phobic narrative, while accusing Russia of propaganda with the self-righteous piety that only the BBC are capable of. Or god forbid, more stories about what colour stool our future king has produced this week.
jgbg Omniscience 13 Jul 2015 18:42

Diverse Unity sounds much better than Nazi

http://rt.com/files/news/russia-national-unity-day-celebrations-976/russian-attend-demonstration-national-261.jpg

The thing is, Ukraine is unique in allowing their Nazi thugs to be armed and have some semi-official status. Everywhere else (including Russia), governments are looking to constrain the activities of Nazis and prosecute them where possible.

jgbg Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 18:26

If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.

Them and Svoboda. If it had just been Orange Revolution II, with a simple change of Jewish oligarchs in charge, there might have been some complaints but little more. It is the Russian-hating far right that has brought about the violence and everything that has happened since.

PrinceEdward GreatMountainEagle 13 Jul 2015 18:22

Last I heard, Ukraine owes China billions for undelivered Grain.

HollyOldDog gimmeshoes 13 Jul 2015 18:11

But the Euro Maidan press is just an Ukrainian rag that invents stories to support its corrupt government in Kiev.

jgbg PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 17:54

I forget the article, but in the comments I mentioned that multiple Georgians were being appointed to high level positions by Kiev, and some Russophobe called me a liar.

Not a few days later, Shakashvilli was appointed governor of Odessa. An ex-president of another country, as governor of a province in another one! Apparently, none of the millions upon millions of Ukrainians were qualified for the job.

Sakashvilli's former Minister of Internal Affairs in Georgia, Eka Zguladze, is First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Of course, the Georgian people removed these chumps from power the first chance they got but the Ukrainian electorate haven't had any say in the appointments of foreigners in their country.

Vatslav Rente , 13 Jul 2015 17:44

Well ... when it comes to Ukraine, the need to stock up on popcorn. This bloody and unpredictable plot is not even in the "Game of Thrones." And this is only the middle of the second season.
Today Speaker of the "RS" Andrew Sharaskin, said: Sports Complex in Mukachevo where the shooting occurred, was used as the base of the separatists DNR.
- A place 1,000 kilometers from Donetsk! But it's a great excuse to murder the guard in the café and wounded police officers.
I think tomorrow will say that there have seen Russian Army tanks and Putin - 100%
"Ukraine is part of Europe" - the slogans of the Maidan in action...

jgbg gimmeshoes , 13 Jul 2015 17:42

Pravyi Sektor were not wrong. However, you cannot have armed groups cleaning up corruption outside the law...that only works in Gotham City.

Right Sector weren't trying to clean up corruption, they were simply trying to muscle in on the cigarette smuggling business. If Right Sector cared about crime and public order, they wouldn't be driving around, armed to the teeth, in vehicles stolen in the EU. (In the video linked in the article, all of their vehicles have foreign number plates. At least one of those vehicles is on the Czech police stolen vehicle database: http://zpravy.idnes.cz/pravy-sektor-mel-v-mukacevu-auta-s-ceskymi-spz-fqj-/zahranicni.aspx?c=A150713_102110_zahranicni_jj)

Right Sector are no strangers to such thuggery - remember their failed attempt to extort a casino in Odessa?

Laurence Johnson, 13 Jul 2015 17:18
The EU and the US have stated on many occasions that there are "No Right Wing Nationalists" operating in Ukraine and its simply propaganda by Putin.

So there shouldn't be anything to worry about should there ?

Stas Ustymenko hfakos 13 Jul 2015 15:15

Yes, yes. You seem to tolerate Medvedchuk and Baloga mafias way better, for years. Transcarpathian Region is the most corrupt in all of Ukraine (which is quite a fit). What we see here is a gang war in fatigues.

tanyushka Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 15:14

sorry i posted the same above... i was just to hasty.. sorry again...

in the main picture of the same article it's interesting to notice the age of most of the conscripted soldiers... they are in their 30's, theirs 40's and even in their 50's... it's forced conscription, they are not volunteers... while all the DPR & LPR soldiers are real volunteers...

an uncle, the father of a cousin, was conscripted in Kherson... my cousin had to run away to South American to say with an aunt to avoid conscription... many men are doing it in Ukraine nowadays... not because they are cowards but because they don't want to kill their brothers & sisters for the benefit of the oligarchs and their NATO masters (and mistresses...)

did you know that all the conscripts have to pay for their own uniforms and other stuff, while in the National Guard and the oligarchs batallions everything is top quality and for free... including bulletproof vests and other implements courtesy of NATO

Demi Boone 13 Jul 2015 15:13

Well finally they reveal themselves. These Ukraine Nationalists are the people who instigated the anarchy and shootings at Maidan and used it as an excuse to wrongfully drive out an elected President and in the chaos that followed bring in a coup Government which represents only West-Ukraine and suppress' East-Ukraine. You are looking at the face of the real Maidan and not the dream that a lot of people have tried to paint it to be.

Stas Ustymenko MartinArvay 13 Jul 2015 15:11

Many Right Sector members are indeed patriots. But it looks like the organisation itself is, sadly, much more useful for providing thugs for hire than "justice".

BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:20

But seriously, the naval base is probably the reason, it is too important for some interests to have a less-reliable (Ukrainian) in charge, this is a job only for the most trusted poodles. If things had gone differently, the tie-eatimng chap would have been appointed Mayor of Sebastopol.

BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:15

There appears to be a Quisling-shortage in Ukraine at present.

Stas Ustymenko obscurant 13 Jul 2015 13:32

More accurately, Kolomoyskiy is Ukrainian oligarch. Who happens to be ethnically, culturally and, by all accounts, religiously, a Jew.

Stas Ustymenko Kaiama 13 Jul 2015 13:24

Ukrainian Volunteer Corps of the Right Sector fighting in Donbass is two battalions. How is this a "key organization"? They are a well-known brand and fought bravely on some occasions, but the wider org is way too eager to brandish arms outside of combat or training. They will be reigned in, one way or another, and soon.

GameOverManGameOver Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 12:02

Shh shh shh. This news does not exist yet in the western media, therefore it's nothing but Russian propaganda.

Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 11:54

It gets worse - soldiers from the UA are now refusing to follow orders in protest against the total anarchy sweeping the chain of command, and their lack of rest and equipment.

Story here.

EugeneGur , 13 Jul 2015 11:21

Tensions have been rising between the government and the Right Sector militia that has helped it fight pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

Finally, the Guardian decided to report the actual new after satisfying itself with ample discussion of the quality of Russian cheeses. Right sector "helped" to fight "separatists"? Really? Does Alec Luhn know that there are currently two (!) RS battalions at the front and 19 (!) inside Ukraine? They are some warriors. Now they are occupying themselves fighting as criminals they are for the control of contraband.

At the ATO zone, they help consists of plundering, murdering and raping the local population. They enter a village, take everything of value from houses and then blow them up. They rape women and girls as young as 10 years old. They've been doing this for more than a year, and we've been telling you that for more than a year. But apparently in the fight against "pro-Russian separatists" everything is good. These crimes are so widespread, even the Ukrainian "government" is worried this will eventually becomes impossible to deny. Some battalions such as Shakhtersk and Aidar have been officially accused of crimes and ompletely or partially reformed.
Examples:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR50/040/2014/en/
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bfb_1413804655

Jeremn, 13 Jul 2015 11:16

Ukraine, what a mess. As though it was ever about the people. It was a grab for resources, 19-century style. But with 21st-century stakes. You can see what the West is after when you look at the US-Ukraine Business Council. It bring NATO, Monsanto and the Heritage Foundation under one roof:

The US-Ukraine Business Council's 16-member Executive Committee is packed with US agribusiness companies, including representatives from Monsanto, John Deere, DuPont Pioneer, Eli Lilly, and Cargill.

The Council's 20 'senior Advisors' include James Greene (Former Head of NATO Liason Office Ukraine); Ariel Cohen (Senior Research Fellow for The Heritage Foundation); Leonid Kozachenko (President of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation); six former US Ambassadors to Ukraine, and the former ambassador of Ukraine to the US, Oleh Shamshur.

Stas Ustymenko Jeremn 13 Jul 2015 11:14

You'd be surprised, but I like Bandera (controversial as he was) way more than I trust some people who wrap themselves in his red-and-black Rebel banner. Yarosh included. Banderite rebellion ended 60 years ago. Its major goal was establishing a "united, free Ukrainian state"; by contrast, stated ultimate goals of the Right Sector are way murkier; I'm not sure even most of the movement's members are clear on what these are.

With present actions, Right Sector has a huge image problem in the West. If it will come to all-out conflict, no doubt the West will back Poroshenko government over a loose confederation of armed dudes linked by the thin thread of 30ies ideology (suspect even then). And the West will be right.

Stas Ustymenko Nik2 13 Jul 2015 11:03

Methinks you're way overselling a thug turf war as "major political event. Truth is, the region has been long in the hands of organized crime. The previous regime incorporated and controlled almost all organized crime in the country, hence no visible conflict. Now, individual players try to use temporary uncertainty to their advantage.

Right Sector claims they were trying to fight the smuggling, but this doesn't sound plausible. The word is, what's behind the events is struggle for control over lucrative smuggling between two individuals (who are both "businessmen" and "politicians", members of Parliament). Both are old-school players, formerly affiliated with Yanukovitch party. One just was savvy enough to buy himself some muscle under Right Sector banner. Right Sector will either have to straighten out its fighters (which it may not be able to do) or disappear as a political player. I fail to see how people see anything "neo-Nazi" in this gang shootout.

PaddyCannuck Cavirac 13 Jul 2015 10:21

Nobody here is an apologist for Stalin, who was a brutal and cruel despot, and the deportations of the Crimean Tatars were quite indefensible. However, a few observations might lend some perspective.

1. Crimea has been invaded and settled by an almost endless succession of peoples over the millennia. The Crimean Tatars (who are of Turkic origin) were by no means the first, nor indeed the last, and cannot in any meaningful sense be regarded as the indigenous people of Crimea.
2. The Crimean Tatars scarcely endeared themselves to the Russians, launching numerous raids, devastating many towns, including the burning of Moscow in 1571, and sending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Russians into slavery in the Ottoman Empire.
3. The deportations took place in 1942 - 1943 against the backdrop of World War II, when a lot of bad stuff happened, including -
4. The American (and also Canadian) citizens of Japanese ethnicity who had their property confiscated and were likewise shipped off to camps. Their treatment, if anything, was worse.

Sevastopol, Pearl Harbor. What's the difference? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

tanyushka Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 10:10

http://rt.com/news/207899-un-anti-nazism-resolution/

http://www.un.org/en/ga/third/69/docs/voting_sheets/L56.Rev1.pdf

do these links answer your question?

tanyushka 13 Jul 2015 09:55

Meanwhile last night & this morning, just to distract the people of what is going on in the West, Kiev launched a massive shelling over Donetsk and other places in Donbass using weapons forbbiden by the Minsk agreements, including Tor missiles, one of which fell at a railway station but didn't explode... it was defused by emergency workers but the proof is there if you care to see... it was thesecond biggest attack since the cease fire...

Nik2 6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:53

Not exactly. By now, BBC has made good coverage of these events in Ukrainian and Russian languages, but not in English. It looks like BBC considers that Western public does not deserve the politically sad truth about armed clashes between "champions of Maidan Revolution" and "new democratic authorities, fighting corruption". Western public should not be in doubt about present-day "pro-European" Ukraine. And "The Guardian" still has only one article on the issue that could be a turning point in Ukrainian politics. This is propaganda, not informing about or analyzing really serious political events.

VictorWhisky 13 Jul 2015 09:51

This is the IMF hired guns now going after the very people who helped the Wall Street IMF shysters in the illegitimate coup and the set up of the illegitimate Kiev junta, a mix of half Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian mongrels.

Furthermore, instead of bringing in the people who helped overthrow Janukovich into the government fold, the IMF is placing it's foreign collaborators in ministerial positions by making them instant Ukrainian citizens, while keeping the right wing, without whose help the coup would not have succeeded, out of government and slowly trying to eliminate them with their private foreign mercenary force.

Madame "F*ck the EU Nuland from the US state department bordello, a devout Zionist, enticed these supposed Ukrainian NAZIs to help her in her dirty deeds, no doubt with promises of power sharing.

So madame Nuland was perfectly willing to get in bed with the Ukrainian NAZI devils (her Jewish friend should be proud) and when the dirty deed was done, she is now turning against Ukrainian nationalists in the attempt to have outside forces in control of Ukraine. Madame Nuland is not as intelligent or capable as portrayed, because if she was, she would have known Ukraine has a very delicate and very complicated political structure and history with nearly half the country speaking Russian and more loyal to the Russians than to the US.

An intelligent person familiar with Ukrainian history would know any attempt of placing a US stooge in Kiev would certainly result in a civil war.

She no doubt got her position not by intelligence but by connections. More than 6000 Ukrainians, human beings, innocent men women and children, have died in madame Nuland's engineered coup, putting her in league with her mentor, Henry Kissinger, aka the butcher of Vietnam. That intelligent idiot's policies resulted in the death of 3 million Vietnamese and 50,000 young Americans. Does madame Nuland intend to sacrifice that many Ukrainians to prove her ultimate stupidity?

Jeremn Luminaire 13 Jul 2015 09:51

The conscripts didn't want to shoot their fellow Ukrainians. The nationalists don't believe the people in the east are their fellow Ukrainians.

Jeremn DrMacTomjim 13 Jul 2015 09:43

Yes. But meanwhile the Atlantic Council tells us this is why more Ukrainians admire nationalists.

Because they were lovely guys, evidently, and their "popularity" has nothing to do with armed thugs beating you up if you say anything against them (or the state prosecuting you for denying or questioning their heroism).

Jeremn jezzam 13 Jul 2015 09:35

Ukrainian media, reporting Ukrainian government official:

In his article for the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Weekly Mirror) newspaper Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema wrote that 74 peaceful citizens and 12 policemen had been killed in Kyiv downtown on February 18-20, 2014, while 180 citizens and over 180 law enforcers had suffered gunshot wounds.

12 police dead in two days, 180 wounded with gunshot wounds.

Still Kremlin lies?

Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 09:30

Thank God Ukraine is finally free and democratic. The old autocratic regime actually had the gall to make running street battles illegal - but those dark days are in the past. In the liberated Ukraine you are free spend the dollar a day you get paid on a bullet proof vest so the rampant Nazi street gangs don't kill you.

Jeremn SHappens 13 Jul 2015 09:26

You'd be surprised, there are Bandera-lovers in the UK too. There's a Bandera museum. And there is this lot, teaching Christian values to children. And telling them that Bandera was a hero. Future Right Sector supporters being crafted as we type.

6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:24

The Ukrainian sub-saharan African minimum wage is now being accompanied by Somali-style politics. Luckily, the Russians have liberated Crimea so piracy on the high seas isn't an option for the Ukrainians.

6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:18

Apparently, UAVs generously supplied to Ukrainians by the Canadian taxpayers are being put to good use smuggling cigarettes into Slovakia.

6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:12

The BBC are bravely sticking to their decision not to report this story. Congratulations are in order for such dedication. The graun protected its readership from this confusing information for 24 hours and then caved to the temptation to report news. Too bad.

aucontraire2 13 Jul 2015 08:36

Can we officially congratulate Nuland for a crappy job and also for providing Putin with all the tools he needed to bring back Ukraine under his wing. False flag operations for American private interests must stop now. They are immoral, unethical and only bring death and destruction to otherwise stable societies. The UN should have a say.

SomersetApples 13 Jul 2015 08:25

The country is bankrupt; the Kiev putschists are selling off the country's assets to their New York allies, the oligarchs and Nazis are at war against each other and the illegal putschist government and now toilet mouth Nuland is back on the scene. Looks like a scene form Dante's Inferno.

todaywefight Polvilho 13 Jul 2015 07:54

Which Russian invasion will this be the of he approximately 987 mentioned by Poroshenko and our man Yatz...or are you referring to the people of the AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA's (yes that was what was called after the 1994 referendum) massive wishes to (like Donbass) go against a government who illegally dismissed an elected president a wish that was reflected on a referendum which was allowed by their constitution 18(7)

Bosula Scepticbladderballs 13 Jul 2015 07:38

Yes. Most of the protesters are good people who just want a better deal in life.

monteverdi1610 13 Jul 2015 06:54

Remember all those CIF threads when those of us who pointed to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine were immediately called ' Putinbots ' ?
PS/ Apologies would be the order of the day , perhaps ?

Sturney 13 Jul 2015 06:49

Apparently this conflict is over. Temporarily over. Anyway in ever-contracting economy, in a Mariana trench between Russia and EU, in the most totalitarian country in history, such conflicts will continue. Since Nuland tossed yeast in the outhouse nobody can stop fermentation of sh*t. Help yourself with some beer and shrimps. I am looking forward when these masses splash out to EU, preferably to Poland. Must be fun to watch. (Lipspalm)

Justin Obisesan 13 Jul 2015 06:33

In the run-up to the Euro 2012 football tournament, jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine, I remember how the media in this country worked themselves into a frenzy harping on about the presence of violent neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. After the removal of Mr Yanukovych from office, the same media organisations changed their tune by describing any talk of neo- Nazis in Ukraine as "Russian propaganda". The Western media coverage of the Ukrainian crises has been so blatantly pro-Kiev and anti-Donbass that their claims of impartiality and objectivity cannot be taken seriously anymore.


Jeremn jgbg 13 Jul 2015 06:16

It is fine when they are shooting at Donetsk, but not so good when they use the same tactics in western Ukraine.

Azov are the same, violent neo-Nazi thugs given authority, and this article notes that PrivatBank is the bank that services requests for donations to the Azov funds, using J P Morgan as intermidiary.

Neither Azov nor Right Sector want peace. On 3 July 4,000 men from these units protested in Kiev, calling for resumption of the war against the eastern provinces. They favour ethnic cleansing.

Jeremn William Fraser 13 Jul 2015 06:10

The people who support Bandera are in western Ukraine. They are the ones who say Stalin starved the Ukrainian people.

Trouble is, in the 1930s, western Ukraine belonged to Poland.

It was the Russians, eastern Ukrainians and other Soviet people who starved, not the western Ukrainians.

Kefirfan 13 Jul 2015 06:02

Good, good. Let the democracy flow through you...

Pwedropackman SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:53

It will be interesting to see which side the US and Canada will support. Probably Poroshenko and the Oligarchs because the Right Sector is not so happy about the ongoing sales of Ukraine infrastructure to US corporates.

SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:14

Harpers' babies are out manifesting, supporting the good guys:

"Supporters of Ukraine's Right Sector extremist group rallied in Ottawa Sunday amid the radicals' ongoing standoff with police in western Ukraine."

The rally outside the Ukrainian embassy was organized by the Right Sector's representative office in the Canadian capital, 112 Ukraine TV channel reported, citing the Facebook account of the so-called Ukrainian Volunteer Corps.

careforukraine 13 Jul 2015 05:09

I wonder how long it will be before the us denounces nazi's in ukraine? Kind of seems like we have seen this all before. Almost like how ISIS were just freedom fighters that needed our support until ?..... Well we all know what happened there.

Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 05:04

If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.

GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 04:41

Yes, I agree, they do wreck the economy. That was my point. Russia want's strong economies to do business with, not broken economies that only ask for financial aid.

Like I said, no evidence of Russian troops in Donbass and South Ossetia asked for the presence of Russian troops to deter the Georgian government from trying another invasion.

And organisations like CIS are meant to expand economic ties. Just like the EU I suppose. They function in pretty much the same way with everyone getting a chance to lead. So I don't know why that should be a bad thing. Since the EU is not interested in admitting Russia why can't Russia go to other organisations?

VladimirM Dmitriy Grebenyuk 13 Jul 2015 04:26

It's a poisonous sarcasm, I think. But I've heard that RS accuse the Ukrainian government of being pro-Putin as the government accuse them of being Russian agents. Surreal a bit.

stewfen FOHP46 13 Jul 2015 04:24

The west would not have dialogue with Russia because it was not what Washington wanted. Washington wanted to push a wedge between Russia and EU at any cost even 6500 lives and unfortunately they succeeded

GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 03:54

I'll admit that frozen conflicts could be useful to Russia. But only from a security point of view. And why not, exactly? NATO is Russia's biggest threat, so it would make sense for the government to want to avoid it expanding any further. I understand your misgivings since you're speaking from the position that NATO should expand to deter Russi I mean 'Iran', but surely you understand that Russia wanting to prevent that makes logical sense? Sure, it's at someone else's expense but let's not pretend that big countries doing something at someone else's expense is a new and revolutionary concept reserved only to Russia. And the Georgian conflict dates back to the very early 90's.

From an economic point of view though, no sense at all. Frozen conflicts usually bring economic barriers. Believe it or not Russia's priority isn't expansion, but the economy. And trade with it's neighbours is an important element of the Russian economy. It's very hard to trade with areas that are in the middle of a frozen conflict. So in that sense the last thing Russia would want are profitable areas in a frozen conflict around it's borders hampering it's economic growth.

And none of this has anything to do with Marioupol.

Debreceni 13 Jul 2015 03:38

The Right Sector does not exist, or if it does, it has been created by Moscow. The crisis in Greece is also the work of Russian agents. The ISIS is financed and trained by Putin. Ebola was cooked up in a laboratory in Saint Petersburg. Look for the Russian!

Kaiama PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 02:50

We don't know if PS were also doing it as well or just poking their noses into someone else's business. Who started it? I doubt the correct answer will ever be known. Two unsavoury groups arguing about an illegal business. The problem is that the MP is an MP whereas PS is a national organisation.

DrMacTomjim 13 Jul 2015 02:04

"Note to Ukraine: Time to Reconsider Your Historic Role Models" Someone wrote this a bit late.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/note-to-ukraine-time-to-r_b_7453506.html

DrMacTomjim hisimperialmajesty 13 Jul 2015 02:01

"neo-Chekists" That's new to me.... Are you sure they are not "Just doing their jobs" ? Did you read the Nafeez Ahmed piece someone linked ? Here (if you didn't) https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092

And this from Foreign Affairs https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2015-02-16/obamas-libya-debacle

It's never the US....it's never the West..... (you know, to balance things) : )

todaywefight 13 Jul 2015 01:53

If any one on the other side, the dark side, ever thought that these lot will hold hands with any one, lay down their arms and sing Kumbaya, uou are either utterly naive or willfully ignorant. Apparently, these lot have 23 battalions, armed to their teeth, the added bonus for the Privy Sektor is that , due to expedience and cowardice , they have just made legal and incorporated into the Ukrainian army, Kyiv is in a highway to nowhere.

Incidentally, unlike the maidan demonstrations which essentially were only in Kyiv there are demonstrations in more than a dozen cities, and have established dozen of check points already and Yarosh a member of the VT. have clearly instructed them to fight if necessary.

GameOverManGameOver Omniscience 13 Jul 2015 01:35

So? Yes there are nationalists in Russia, just like everywhere else. You get a gold star for googling. Shall I get some articles with European and American nationalists to parade around to make a vague point? If you want I can get you an article of Lithuanians dressed up as the Waffen SS parading around Vilnius. That's Lithuania the EU and Nato member. Funny how EU principles disappear when it's one of their own violating them.

You seem to be missing the point entirely. While all countries have their nationalists, those nationalists are a very small minority, have no power, have no popular support, have no seats in government, usually derided by the majority of the population and they certainly aren't armed to the teeth roaming around the country killing, torturing and kidnapping people with the blessing of their government

HollyOldDog Joe way 13 Jul 2015 00:09

The Right Sector were / are Ukrains Storm Troopers who have had more advanced training by the Americans. If the Right Sector turn on the Kiev Government they will be difficult to defeat, and who knows if the civilian population of Ukraine may join in the 'fun' by ousting the current unpopular Ukrainian government.

sorrentina 12 Jul 2015 23:35

this is what happens when you play with fire: you get burned. Using Neo-Nazi's to implement Nato expansionist policies was always a very bad idea. It's just a shame it is not people like Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland who will have to suffer the blowback consequences- it is the poor Ukrainian people. This is not that different to what has happened in Libya- where Islamic extremists were used as a proxy force to oust Gaddafi.

annamarinja jgbg 12 Jul 2015 23:31

The threshold has been guessed impatiently by the US neocons (while the provocateur Higgins/ Bellingcat fed the gullible the fairy tales about Russian army in Ukraine). The US needs desperately a real civil war in Ukraine, the Ukrainians be damned. Just look what the US-sponsored "democracy on the march" has produced in the Middle East. Expect the same bloody results in eastern Europe.

annamarinja obscurant 12 Jul 2015 23:25

perhaps you do not realize that your insults are more appropriate towards the poor Ukrainians that have been left destitute by the cooky-carrying foreigners and their puppets in Kiev. The Ukrainian gold reserve has disappeared... meanwhile, the US Congress has shamed the US State Dept for collaborating with Ukrainian neo-nazis. Stay tuned. But do not expect to hear real news from your beloved Faux News.

annamarinja quorkquork 12 Jul 2015 23:14

the jihadists in Ukraine are the integral part of Iraqization of Ukraine. The lovers of Nuland's cookies are still in denial that Ukraine was destined by the US plutocrats to become a sacrificial lamb in a fight to preserve the US dollar hegemony.

Bud Peart 12 Jul 2015 22:59

Well we always knew it would end this way. With a stalemate in the war with the East the Right wing paramilitaries and private oligarch militias (whom the west funded and trained) have gone completely feral and are now in fighting directly with whats left of the Ukrainian National Army. This is pretty much the rode to another breakaway in Galacia which would effectively end the Ukraine as a functional state.

The government should move as fast as possible to get a decent federal structure (copy switzerland) in place before the whole of the West goes into revolt as well.

DelOrtoyVerga LostJohnny 12 Jul 2015 22:38

That is what you get when you put fascists in your government.

I rather reword it to

That is what you get when you enable and rely on thugish pseudo-fascist radical para-military groups to impose order by force and violence against dissident segments of your own population (which is armed to the teeth probably by Russia)

Bosula Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 22:37

What do you think it is?

There were several people identified directly or indirectly in this BBC story whose stories should have been formally pursued by legal authorities in Kiev.

If you lived in the West you would understand that we call these references as possible 'leads' - you follow these 'leads' and see where they take you. That is what Western police do.

The story says that Kiev didn't want to follow up any of these points. Why? What harm could this do?

You state that you do not understand the point that this BBC journalist was making. But I have in a fair way tried to to explain the point that the BBC was making.

This story caused quite a stir went it came out - and the BBC chose to stick with it and support their British reporter. In an edited and shorter form the story is still on the BBC - the editing is also acknowledged by the BBC.

Do you think the BBC should have blocked or not published this investigative piece?

If so - why?

And why hasn't Kiev followed up these issues?

Have I addressed your point yet?

HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 21:34

I am just watching a program recorded earlier. Hiroshima: The Aftermath. I have got past the part when the Japanese 'survivors' had to drink from the pools of Black Rain ( highly radioactive) and watched the part when American Army Tourists visited the city to take a few photos ( no medical help though) while gawking at the gooks. In fact the Japanese civilians recieved no medical assistance at all from the Americans. The commentator just said that they were just there to study the effects of nuclear radiation on a civilian population. These nuclear bombs were just dropped on Japan to save One Day of the surrender of the Japanese forces.

The next documtary I will watch another day is the sinking of the Tirpitz by the RAF using Tallboy bombs. At least this had a useful pupose in helping to stop the destruction of the North Atlantic convoys, sending aid to Russia. That aid along with the rebuilding of the Soviet Armies helped the Soviet Union to destroy the invading Nazi forces and provided a Second Front to the Western Allies to invade Normandy. A lot of good can be achieved when the East and West work together - maybe avoiding the worst effects of Global Warming but the Americans only seem to want to spend Trillions $ building more powerful nuclear weapons. Is this all that America has now, an Arms Industry - I can see it now, cooling the planet with a Nuclear Winter.

HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 20:33

The USA caused the chaos in Ukraine so they must pay the billions of $ to fix it then leave Ukraine alone.

6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:29

One of the amusing features of the Soviet media was the long silences it maintained on possibly embarrassing breaking news until it became clear what the Party Line was. Eventually, a memo would go out from Mikhail Suslov's office to various media outlets and the silence would be broken. At least everyone knew exactly how that system worked. What is happening with the British media is much more murky.

The beeb/graun seem to be the Pravda/Izvestia, whilst the torygraph is a sort of Trybuna Ludu - ie real news very occasionally appears in it.

6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:08

So, after a mere 24 hours the Graun ran a story on Mukachevo. The Torygraph actually had the nerve to run the AFP wire report more or less straight away. The BBC are still keeping shtum.

The Beeb/Graun complex have well and truly had the frighteners put on them.

PrinceEdward Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 20:07

There's no doubt. I agree that the MP was probably running cigarettes, but also Right Sektor was going to muscle in.

If you asked somebody 3 years ago if Ukraine would be rocked by armed bands with RPGs and Light Machine Guns fighting in towns, they would have thought you were crazy.

This isn't Russia, this is the Ultranats/Neo-Nazis.


PrinceEdward obscurant 12 Jul 2015 20:05

Right, it's the people in Donbass who bury 14th SS Division veterans with full honors, push for full pensions to surviving Hiwi and SS Collaborators... not those in Lvov. Uh huh.


BMWAlbert 12 Jul 2015 20:04

11 months of investigations by the newKiev regime, attempting to implicate the the prior one for the murder of about 100 people in Kiev early last year was unsuccessful. There may be better candidates here.

fragglerokk ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 19:55

It always amazes me that the far right never learn from history. The politicians and oligarchs always use them as muscle to ensure coup success then murder/assasinate the leaders to make sure they dont get any ideas about power themselves. Surprised its taken so long in ukraine but then the govt is barely hanging onto power and the IMF loans have turned to a trickle so trouble will always be brewing, perhaps theyve left it too long this time. Nobody will be shedding any tears for the Nazis and Banderistas.

hisimperialmajesty Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 19:54

Why, don't you know? They infiltrated Ukraine, the CIA (and NATO and the EU somehow) created Maidan, their agents killed the protesters, then they overthrew a legitimate government and installed a neo-nazi one, proceeded to instigate a brutal oppression against Russian speakers, then started a war against the peaceful Eastern Ukrainians and their innocent friends in the Kremlin, etc etc. Ignorant question that, by now you should know the narrative!

Kaiama gimmeshoes 12 Jul 2015 19:53

If you think Pryvi Sektor want to "clean up" then yes, but not in the way you imagine - they just want the business for themselves.

Geordiemartin 12 Jul 2015 19:51

I am reminded of AJP Taylor premise that Eastern Europe has historically had either German domination or Russian protection.

The way that the Ukrainian government had treated their own Eastern compatriots leaves little reason to believe they would be welcome back into the fold and gives people of Donbass no reason to want to rejoin the rest of the country.

If government is making an effort to reign in the likes of Right sector it is a move in the right direction but much much more will be needed to establish any trust.

Some Guy yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:45

just because they are nazis doesnt mean they are happy about doing any of this... now. look at greece and the debacle that has unfolded over the past week has been . the west ukraine wanted to be part of the euro zone and wanted some of that ecb bail out money. now they are not even sure if they could skip out on the bill and know they are fighting for nothing . russia gave them 14 bil dollars . the west after the coup only gave the 1 bil

Andor2001 Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 19:44

According to the eyewitnesses the RS shot a guard when he refused to summon the commanding officer. It was the beginning of the fight.

Andor2001 yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:41

Remember Shakespeare "Othello"? Moor has done his job, Moor has to go.. The neo-Nazis have outlived their usefulness.

Bosula caaps02 12 Jul 2015 19:39

The BBC investigative reported earlier this year that a section of Maidan protesters deliberately started shooting the police. This story was also reported in the Guardian. Google and you will easily find it. The BBC also reported that the Prosecutors Office in Kiev was forbidden by Rada officials from investigating Maiden shooters.

Maybe the BBC is telling us a lie? The BBC investigation is worth a read - then you can make up your own mind.

Bosula William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 19:29

Kazakhstan had the highest percentage of deaths from Stalin's policies in this period when he prevented the nomad herders moving from the mountains to the planes to take advantage of the benefits of seasons and weather. Stalin forced the nomads to stay in one area and they perished in the cold of the mountains or the heat of the summer plains (whichever zone they were forced to stay in).

Some of my family is Ukrainian and some recognise that Stalin's policies weren't specifically aimed at Ukrainians - the people of Kazakhstan suffered the most (as a percentage of population). Either way, there is no genetic difference between Slavs or Russian or Ukrainian origin in Ukraine or Russia - they are all genetically the same people. This information should be better taught in Ukraine.

The problem is that it would undermine the holy grail story of right wing nationalism in Ukraine.

quorkquork annamarinja 12 Jul 2015 19:27

There are already jihadist groups fighting in Ukraine! IN MIDST OF WAR, UKRAINE BECOMES GATEWAY FOR JIHAD
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/26/midst-war-ukraine-becomes-gateway-europe-jihad/

Havingalavrov obscurant 12 Jul 2015 18:33

It's been one of the biggest mistakes ( although Ukraine's military started in a desperately poor condition ) , to allow militia groups to get so powerful. Right sector should not have arms and guns... The national Ukraine military should, If members of Right sector want to fight , they should leave Right sector and join the army.

This was and will happen if they don't disband such armed groups.

annamarinja silvaback 12 Jul 2015 18:18

have you ever studied geography? If yes, you should remember the proximity of Ukraine to Russia (next door) and the proximity of Ukraine to the US (thousands miles away). Also, have you heard about the CIA Director Brennan and his covert visit to Kiev on the eve of the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine? This could give you an informed hint about the causes of the war. Plus you may be interested to learn about Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (Ms. Nudelman), her cookies, and her foul language. She is, by the way, a student of Dick Cheney. If you were born before 2000, you might know his name and his role in the Iraq catastrophe. Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (and the family of Kagans she belongs to) finds particular pleasure in creating military conflicts around the globe. It is not for nothing that the current situation in Ukraine is called Iraqization of Eastern Europe.

Bev Linington JJRichardson 12 Jul 2015 18:10

Ukrainians shot down the plane. East, West does not matter as they were all Ukrainians before the government overthrow. Leaders of the new government could not look past some Ukrainian citizens ethnicity, instead of standing together united, they decided to oppress which lead to the referendum in Crimea and the rise of separatists in the East.

jgbg Chirographer 12 Jul 2015 17:53

And for the Pro-Russian posters the newsflash is that could also describe the situation inside the Donbass.

It certainly describes the situation in Donbass where Right Sector or the volunteer battalions are in charge. In Dnepropetrovsk, Right Sector would simply turn up at some factory or other business and order the owner to sign document transferring the enterprise to them. In other cases, they have kidnapped businessmen for ransom. Some people have simply disappeared under such circumstances.

The Ukrainian National Guard simply break into homes left empty by people fleeing the war and steal the contents. Such was the scale of looting, the Ukrainian postal service have now refused to ship electrical goods out of the ATO area unless the senders have the original boxes and receipts.

jgbg AlfredHerring 12 Jul 2015 17:45

Maybe Kiev just needs to bomb them some more.

Putin promised to protect the Russian speaking people in Ukraine - but he hasn't really done that. His government has indicated that they would not allow Kiev to simply overrun or obliterate the people of Donbass. Quite where their threshold of actual intervention lies is anyone's guess.

jgbg caaps02, 12 Jul 2015 17:34

The "pro-Russian" government that you refer to was only elected because it promised to sign the EU trade agreement. It then reneged on that promise...

Yanukovych's government was elected the previous one was useless and corrupt.

Yanukovych wanted to postpone the decision to sign for six months, while he attempted to extract more from both the EU and Russia. Under Poroshenko, the implementation of the EU Association Agreement has been delayed for 15 months, as the governments of Ukraine, the EU and Russia all recognised that Russian trade (with the favourable terms which Ukraine enjoys) are vitail to Ukraine's economic recovery. Expect that postponement to be extended.

.... severely and brutally curtailing freedom of speech and concentrating all power in the hands of Yanukovich's little clan...

As opposed to sending the military to shell the crap out of those who objected to an elected government being removed by a few thousand nationalists in Kiev.

There was no "coup".

An agreement had been signed at the end of February 2014, which would see elections in September 2014. The far right immediately moved to remove the government (as Right Sector had promised on camera in December 2013). None of the few mechanisms for replacing the president listed in the Ukrainian constitution have been followed - that makes it a coup.

The Maidan protesters were not armed

This newspaper and other western media documented the armed members of far right groups on Maidan. One BBC journalist was actually shot at by a Svoboda sniper, operating from Hotel Ukraina - the video is still on the BBC website.

....the interim government that was put in place by the parliament in late February and the government that was elected in May and Oct. of 2014 were and are not fascist.

The interim government included several ministers from Svoboda, formerly the Socialist Nationalist Party of Ukraine. These were the first Nazi ministers in a European government since Franco's Spanish government that ended in the 1970's. In a 2013 resolution, the EU parliament had indicated that no Ukrainian government should include members of Svoboda or other far right parties.

pushkinsideburn vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 16:45

There has been a marked change in rhetoric over the last few weeks. Even CiF on Ukraine articles seems to attract less trolls (with a few notable exceptions on this article - though they feel more like squad trolls than the first team). Hopefully a sign of deescalation or perhaps just a temporary lull before the MH17 anniversary this week?

pushkinsideburn calum1 12 Jul 2015 16:38

His other comments should have been the clue that arithmetic, like independent critical thinking, is beyond him.

normankirk 12 Jul 2015 16:19

Right sector were the first to declare they wouldn't abide by the Minsk 2 peace agreement.Nevertheless, Dmitry Yarosh, their leader is adviser to Ukraine's Chief of staff. Given that he only received about 130,000 votes in the last election, he has a disproportionate amount of power.

pushkinsideburn sashasmirnoff 12 Jul 2015 16:13

That quote is a myth https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-cia-owns-everyone-of-any-significance-in-the-major-media.t158/

Though doesn't mean it's not true of course

greatwhitehunter 12 Jul 2015 15:47

As predicted the real civil war in Ukraine is still to happen. The split between the east and the ordinary Ukrainian was largely manufactured . In the long term no body would be able to live with the right sector or more precisely the right sector cant share a bed with anyone else.

sashasmirnoff RicardoJ 12 Jul 2015 15:44

"When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?"

This may be why: "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - former CIA Director William Colby

Alexander_the_Great 12 Jul 2015 15:43

This was so, so predictable. The Right Sector were the main violent group during the coup in 2014 - in fact they were the ones to bring the first guns to the square following their storming of a military warehouse in west Ukraine a few days before the coup. It was this factor that forced the Police to arm themselves in preparation.

Being the vanguard of the illegal coup, they then provided a useful tool of manipulation for the illegal Kiev government to oppress any opposition, intimidate journalists who spoke the truth and lead the war against the legally-elected ELECTED governments of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Having failed in the war against the east, western leaders have signalled the right sector has now outlived its usefulness and has become an embarrassment to Kiev and their western backers.

The Right Sector meanwhile, feel betrayed by the establishment in Kiev. They have 19 battalions of fighters and they wont go away thats for sure. I think one can expect this getting more violent in the coming months.

SHappens jezzam 12 Jul 2015 15:40

Putin is a Fascist dictator.

Putin is not a dictator. He is a statist, authoritarian-inclined hybrid regime ruler that possesses some democratic elements and space for opposition groups. He has moderate nationalist tendencies in foreign affairs; his goal is a secure a strong Russia. He is a patriot and has a charismatic authority. Russians stay behind him.

ploughmanlunch samuel glover 12 Jul 2015 15:31

'this notion that absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master script drawn up in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome'

Agreed. As is everything is Russia's fault.

ConradLodziak 12 Jul 2015 15:26

This is just the latest in a string of conflicts involving the right sector, as reported by RT, Russian media and until recently many Ukrainian outlets. The problem, of course, is that Porostinko has given 'official' status to the right sector. Blow back time for him.

CIAbot007 William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:06

Yes, Russia (USSR) from the USSR foundation had been forcing people of the then territory of Ukraine to identify themselves as Ukrainians under the process of rootisation - Ukrainization, then gave to Ukraine Donbass and left side Dniepr and Odessa, Herson and Nikolaev, and then decided to ethnically cleane them.. It doesn't make sense, does it? Oh, wait, sense is not your domain.

annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:05

let me help you with arithmetics: 72 years ago Europe was inflamed with the WWII. There was a considerable number of Ukrainians that collaborated with Hitler' nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)

Now moving to the present. The US-installed oligarchs in Kiev have been cooperating closely with Ruropean neo-nazis (the followers of the WWII scum): http://rt.com/news/155364-ukraine-nazi-division-march/

In short, your government finds it is OK to glorify the perpetrators of genocide in Europe during the WWII.

Nik2 12 Jul 2015 15:04

These tragic events, when YESTERDAY, on Saturday afternoon, several civilians were unintentionally wounded in gun battles in previously peaceful town near the Hungary and Slovakia borders, vividly exposes Western propaganda. Though mass media in Ukraine and Russia are full of reports about this from the start, The Guardian managed to give first information exactly 1 day later, and BBC was still keeping silence a few minutes ago. Since both sides are allies of the West (the Right Sector fighters were the core of the Maidan protesters at the later stages, and Poroshenko regime is presumably "democratic"), the Western media preferred to ignore the events that are so politically uncomfortable. Who are "good guys" to be praised? In fact, this may be the start of nationalists' revolt against Ukrainian authorities, and politically it is very important moment that can fundamentally change Ukrainian politics. But the West decides to be silent ...

annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 14:59

Do your history book tell you that the Holodomor was a multiethnic endeavor? That the Ukrainians were among the victims and perpetrators and that the whole huge country had suffered the insanely cruel policies of multiethnic bolsheviks? The Holodomor was almost a century ago, whereas the Odessa massacre and the bombardments of civilian population in east Ukraine by the neo-nazi thugs (sent by Kiev), has been going during last year and half. Perhaps you have followed Mr. Brennan and Mrs. Nuland-Kagan too obediently.

foolisholdman zonzonel 12 Jul 2015 14:58

zonzonel

Oops, the presumably fascist govt. is fighting a fascist group.
What is a poor troll to do these days??
Antiukrainian copywriting just got more difficult, perhaps a raise is needed? Just sayin.

What's your problem? Never heard of Fascist groups fighting each other? Never heard of the "Night of the Long Knives"? Fascists have no principles to unite them. They believe in Uebermenschen and of course they all think that either they themselves or their leader is The Ueberuebermensch. Anyone who disagrees is an enemy no matter how Fascist he may be.

samuel glover ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 14:55

Y'know, I'm no fan of the Russophobic hysteria that dominates English-language media. I've been to Ukraine several times over the last 15 years or so, and I'm sorry to say that I think that in time Ukrainians will regard Maidan's aftermath as most of them view the Orange Revolution -- with regret and cynicism.

That said, this notion that everything, absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master script drawn up in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome. Most post-revolution regimes purge one end or the other of the current ideological wings. Kiev has already tangled with the oligarch and militia patron Igor Kolomoisky. So perhaps this is another predictable factional struggle. Or maybe, as another comment speculates, this is a feud over cigarette tax revenue.

In any case, Ukraine is a complex place going through an **extremely** complex time. it's too soon to tell what the Lviv skirmish means, and **far** too soon to lay it all on nefarious puppetmasters.

TheTruthAnytime ADTaylor 12 Jul 2015 14:49

The only thing that makes me reconsider is their service to their country,...

Is the CIA their country? So far they've only seemed to serve the interests of American businesspeople, not Ukrainian interests. Also, murdering eastern Ukrainians cannot really be considered such a great service to Ukraine, can it?

annamarinja ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:44

Maidan was indeed a popular apprising, but it was utilized by the US strategists for their geopolitical games. The Ukrainians are going to learn hard way that the US have never had any interest in well-being of the "locals" and that the ongoing civil war was designed in order to create a festering wound on a border with the Russia. The Iraqization of Ukraine was envisioned by the neocons as a tool to break both Russia and Ukraine. The sooner Ukrainians come to a peaceful solution uniting the whole Ukraine (for example, to federalization), the better for the general population (but not for the thieving oligarchs).

vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 14:38

"Couple of hundred Right Sector supporters demonstrated in Kiev?" Come on! Over the last week, there have been enough of videos of thousands of people in fatigues trying to block access to government buildings and shouting rather aggressive demands. The entire battalions of "National Guard." This is much bigger than just 100 people on a peaceful rally. Ukraine might be heading towards Maidan 3.0.

ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:26

The situation in Ukraine has been unravelling for months and this news broke on Friday evening.

The Minsk II cease fire has not been honoured by Poroshenko, who has not managed to effect any of the pledges he signed up to. The right sector who rejected the cease-fire from the start are now refusing the rule of their post coup president in Kiev.

Time for Victoria Nuland to break out the cookies? Or maybe it's too late for that now. The country formerly know as Ukraine is turning out to be another outstanding success of American post -imperial foreign policy.

Meanwhile in UFA the BRIC's economic forum is drawing to a close, with representatives from the developing world and no reporting of the aspirations being discussed there of over 60% of the world's population. It's been a major success, but if you want to learn about it, you will have to turn to other media sources - those usually reported as Russian propaganda channels or Putin's apologists.

The same people who have been reporting on the deteriorating situation in Kiev since the February coup. Or as Washington likes to call it a popular up rising.


Dennis Levin 12 Jul 2015 13:29

Canadian interviewed, fighting for 'Right Sector'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j65dBEWd7go
The Right Sector of Euromaidan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yFqUasBOUY
Lets reflect for a moment on the Editorial directives, that would have 'MORE GUNS' distributed to NAZIS..
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propaganda
The Guarn publishes, 'Britain should arm Ukraine, says Tory donor' - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/britain-should-arm-ukraine
Al Jazeera says,'t's time to arm Ukraine' - http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/02/arms-ukraine-russia-separatists-150210075309643.html
Zbigniew Brzezinski: The West should arm Ukraine - http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/zbigniew-brzezinski-the-west-should-arm-ukraine-354770.html


ploughmanlunch ADTaylor 12 Jul 2015 13:06

'The only thing that makes me reconsider is their service to their country'

Don't get me wrong. I detest the fascist militias and their evil deeds.

However, despite their callousness, brutality and stupidity, they have been the most effective fighting force for Kiev ( more sensible Ukrainians have been rather more reluctant to kill their fellow countrymen ).

Deluded ? Yes. Cowardly ? No.

Even more reprehensible, in my opinion are the calculating and unprincipled Kiev Government that have attempted to bully a region of the Ukraine that had expressed legitimate reservations, using those far right battalions, but accepting no responsibility for the carnage that they carried out.

mario n 12 Jul 2015 12:52

I think it's time Europe spoke up about dangers of Ukrainian nationalism. 72 years ago Ukrainian fascists committed one of the most hideous and brutal acts of genocide in the human history. Details are so horrifying it is beyond imagination. Sadly not many people remembers that, because it is not politically correct to say bad things about Ukraine. Today mass murderers are hailed as national heroes and private battalions and ultranationalist groups armed to the teeth terrorise not only Donbas but now different parts of the country like Zakarpattia where there is strong Hungarian, Russian and Romanian minority.

How many massacres and acts of genocide Europe needs before it learns to act firmly?

SHappens 12 Jul 2015 12:49

Kiev has allowed nationalist groups including Right Sector to operate despite allegations by groups like Amnesty International, that Right Sector has tortured civilian prisoners.

You know what, you dont play with fire or you will get burnt. It was written on the wall that these Bandera apologists would eventually turn to the hand that fed them. I wonder how Kiev will manage to blame the russians now.

RicardoJ 12 Jul 2015 12:33

Of course the Guardian doesn't like to explain that 'Right Sector' are genuine fascists - by their own admission! These fascists, who wear Nazi insignia, were the people who overthrew the elected government of Ukraine in the US / EU-supported coup - which the Guardianistas and other PC-brainwashed duly cheered on as a supposed triumph of democracy. Since that glorious US-financed and EU-backed coup, wholly illegal under international law, Ukraine's economy has collapsed, as has Ukrainians' living standards.

The US neocons are losing interest in their attempted land grab of Ukraine - and the EU cretins who backed the coup, thinking it would be a nice juicy further territorial acquisition for the EU, are desperately looking the other way, now that both the US and EU realize that Ukraine is a financial black hole.

When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?

jgbg 12 Jul 2015 12:15

The move came after a gunfight broke out on Saturday, when about 20 Right Sector gunmen arrived at a sports complex controlled by MP Mikhail Lano. They had been trying to stop the traffic of cigarettes and other contraband, a spokesman for the group said.

Put another way, one group of gangsters tried to muscle in on the cigarette smuggling operation of another group of gangsters. Smuggling cigarettes into nearby EU countries is extremely lucrative. Here's some video of some of the events:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hexRskhproc&feature=youtu.be

Note the registration plates driven by both Right Sector and the other gangsters i.e. not Ukrainian. In all likelihood, these cars are all stolen. Right Sector and fighters from "volunteer battalions" have become accustomed to muscling in on other people's activities (legal or not) in Donbass. This sort of thuggery is routine when these folk come to town. It is only when since they have continued such activities on their home turf in west and central Ukraine that the authorities have taken any notice.

[Feb 27, 2019] 400 US troops in Syria? OK

Notable quotes:
"... This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Trump will have to meet with Assad (following in the footsteps of the hated Tulsi Gabbard) to declare an end to the policy of regime change in Syria. Another Peace Prize for sure, following his ending of the Korean War. Which leaves us with the question, "Who is the most dangerous man in the United States today?" ..."
"... Rubio is batsh*t nuts. God knows what goes through his head. God forbid he should become President. ..."
turcopolier.typepad.com
  1. The 200 soldiers left in the north as part of an international contingent will be there to act as a tripwire to keep the Turks with their armored army and strong air force from simply butchering the SDF Kurds whom the Turks regard as the enemies of their blood.
  2. The 200 at al-Tanf will remain in place for the purpose of blocking the shortest Damascus-Baghdad-Iran land route. This reflects the continuing policy of the US government of seeking regime change in Syria. This policy's effect is clear in the utterances of the Borg (foreign policy establishment) concerning the defeat of the IS caliphate and the other rebel; riff-raff around the country. How? Simple! If you listen to the Borg, you will easily be led to believe that the forces of the Syrian government have done very little to liberate their country. In fact the opposite is true.
  3. "A lot of people like that idea." I am sure that they do. Lindsay Graham has said and done a lot of good things since his office wife died but in the matter of Middle East policy he remains as goofy and conditioned by the Israelis as he and John John ever were. Do the Borgists think that they will slowly ratchet up the number of soldiers engaged in the "Syria Problem?" Yes, the Borgists and the generals are sure they can pull that off.
  4. One little problem for the Borgists and generals is the hard surface road that runs through Palmyra to Deir al-Zor to Abu Kamil to Baghdad and thence to Iran. Will the Iraqi government and militias allow the US to block that road as well? pl

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/431289-trump-backs-off-total-syria-withdrawal

James Thomas , 2 days ago

I am dismayed by the fact that the Borg always wins. I think Trump really wanted to pull out of Syria, which the Syrian people would very much appreciate and which would allow them to start to rebuild their country - but it gets delayed long enough for this "we are going to leave 400 troops behind to be augmented by a couple of thousand European troops".

The Syrian's are not going to get their country back. That is too bad - I really like the Syrians.

Chris Chuba , 17 hours ago
The 400 troops matter as a means to hurt the SAR. It can prevent / delay reconciliation between the Kurds and the Syrian govt by giving the Kurds some reassurance that the U.S. supports their autonomy.

I hate that we are playing the spoiler and sitting their oil fields. They can use that revenue to rebuild their country but since we don't live there we can play games like that.

Eugene Owens , 2 days ago
If we attempt to block the Baghdad/AbuKamal/DeZ/Palmyra Road the Iraqi government will undoubtedly tell us to leave their country - where that "very powerful base" is that Trump mentions. Then we lose some of the immediate air support for those 400 troops in Syria.

We are however in a position to observe that road. And maybe pass on info to Netanyahu of likely IRGC convoys.

John Waddell , a day ago
I suspect that keeping the SAA out of Syria east of the Euphrates is at least as important to the US as stopping the Turks kill the Kurds.

Colonel, do you have a view on how many 'irregulars' there would be in there supporting those stay behind US troops? Also, how do you think the US will react if/when Idlib finally gets hit?

Eugene Owens -> John Waddell , a day ago
John W -

SDF has in the past been estimated to be 60,000. But some of the Arab elements, such as Liwa Thuwwar al-Raqqa a former FSA unit, had already left the SDF last year. And many more Arab tribal units in the SDF are being actively proselytized by Assad's government to return to the fold, And undoubtedly Erdogan's MIT is trying the same with Syrian Turcomans in the Seljuk Brigade. And many of those 60,000 numbers are non-deployable village protection forces - teenagers, old men, and women manning checkpoints.

The Kurdish YPG is the biggest element with perhaps 25,000 fighters.

The Christian Syriac Military Council has perhaps 3000 plus. The al-Sanadid Forces of the Arab Shammar tribe claims to have 4,500. Many smaller Arab tribal militias, but I have no clue of their numbers or whether they wish to stay in the SDF once the so-called caliphate gets reduced down to sleeper cells.

BTW Idlib has been getting hit hard with artillery and airstrikes for several weeks. Just in the past 24 hours both the Syrian military and the Russian Air Force have hit Saraqeb, Jisr al-Shugour, Maarat al-Numan, Jarjanaz, al-Tah, Tamaniyah, Khan Sheikoun, and other smaller locations in Idlib.

TTG -> John Waddell , a day ago
Remember the original support offered to the YPG/SDF was limited to 50 Green Berets. 200 is more than enough to advise and support those forces now that IS is more or less licked.

I don't think there are "irreguIars" other than the YPG/SDF forces.

JJackson , 2 days ago
What do you think counts as 400 soldiers? Would this include SF, contractors/mercenaries or just Army/Marines? There seems to have become something of a grey area about soldiers who are on the Army payroll and contractors who were but are now funded by a more indirect route but may be performing the same function.
Bill Herschel , 2 days ago
This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Trump will have to meet with Assad (following in the footsteps of the hated Tulsi Gabbard) to declare an end to the policy of regime change in Syria. Another Peace Prize for sure, following his ending of the Korean War. Which leaves us with the question, "Who is the most dangerous man in the United States today?"

Rubio is batsh*t nuts. God knows what goes through his head. God forbid he should become President. He gets my vote. Bolton, etc. As nuts for sure, but they aren't President nor will they be.

[Feb 27, 2019] Survival of the Richest by Nomi Prins

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Like a gilded coating that makes the dullest things glitter, today's thin veneer of political populism covers a grotesque underbelly of growing inequality that's hiding in plain sight. And this phenomenon of ever more concentrated wealth and power has both Newtonian and Darwinian components to it.

In terms of Newton's first law of motion: those in power will remain in power unless acted upon by an external force. Those who are wealthy will only gain in wealth as long as nothing deflects them from their present course. As for Darwin, in the world of financial evolution, those with wealth or power will do what's in their best interest to protect that wealth, even if it's in no one else's interest at all.

In George Orwell's iconic 1945 novel, Animal Farm , the pigs who gain control in a rebellion against a human farmer eventually impose a dictatorship on the other animals on the basis of a single commandment : "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." In terms of the American republic, the modern equivalent would be: "All citizens are equal, but the wealthy are so much more equal than anyone else (and plan to remain that way)."

Certainly, inequality is the economic great wall between those with power and those without it.

As the animals of Orwell's farm grew ever less equal, so in the present moment in a country that still claims equal opportunity for its citizens, one in which three Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom half of society (160 million people), you could certainly say that we live in an increasingly Orwellian society. Or perhaps an increasingly Twainian one.

After all, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote a classic 1873 novel that put an unforgettable label on their moment and could do the same for ours. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today depicted the greed and political corruption of post-Civil War America. Its title caught the spirit of what proved to be a long moment when the uber-rich came to dominate Washington and the rest of America. It was a period saturated with robber barons, professional grifters, and incomprehensibly wealthy banking magnates. (Anything sound familiar?) The main difference between that last century's gilded moment and this one was that those robber barons built tangible things like railroads. Today's equivalent crew of the mega-wealthy build remarkably intangible things like tech and electronic platforms, while a grifter of a president opts for the only new infrastructure in sight, a great wall to nowhere.

In Twain's epoch, the U.S. was emerging from the Civil War. Opportunists were rising from the ashes of the nation's battered soul. Land speculation, government lobbying, and shady deals soon converged to create an unequal society of the first order (at least until now). Soon after their novel came out, a series of recessions ravaged the country, followed by a 1907 financial panic in New York City caused by a speculator-led copper-market scam.

From the late 1890s on, the most powerful banker on the planet, J.P. Morgan, was called upon multiple times to bail out a country on the economic edge. In 1907, Treasury Secretary George Cortelyou provided him with $25 million in bailout money at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt to stabilize Wall Street and calm frantic citizens trying to withdraw their deposits from banks around the country. And this Morgan did -- by helping his friends and their companies, while skimming money off the top himself. As for the most troubled banks holding the savings of ordinary people? Well, they folded. (Shades of the 2007-2008 meltdown and bailout anyone?)

The leading bankers who had received that bounty from the government went on to cause the Crash of 1929 . Not surprisingly, much speculation and fraud preceded it. In those years, the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald caught the era's spirit of grotesque inequality in The Great Gatsby when one of his characters comments: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." The same could certainly be said of today when it comes to the gaping maw between the have-nots and have-a-lots.

Income vs. Wealth

To fully grasp the nature of inequality in our twenty-first-century gilded age, it's important to understand the difference between wealth and income and what kinds of inequality stem from each. Simply put, income is how much money you make in terms of paid work or any return on investments or assets (or other things you own that have the potential to change in value). Wealth is simply the gross accumulation of those very assets and any return or appreciation on them. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to have a higher annual income.

Let's break that down. If you earn $31,000 a year, the median salary for an individual in the United States today, your income would be that amount minus associated taxes (including federal, state, social security, and Medicare ones). On average, that means you would be left with about $26,000 before other expenses kicked in.

If your wealth is $1,000,000, however, and you put that into a savings account paying 2.25% interest , you could receive about $22,500 and, after taxes, be left with about $19,000, for doing nothing whatsoever.

To put all this in perspective, the top 1% of Americans now take home, on average, more than 40 times the incomes of the bottom 90%. And if you head for the top 0.1%, those figures only radically worsen. That tiny crew takes home more than 198 times the income of the bottom 90% percent. They also possess as much wealth as the nation's bottom 90%. "Wealth," as Adam Smith so classically noted almost two-and-a-half-centuries ago in The Wealth of Nations , "is power," an adage that seldom, sadly, seems outdated.

A Case Study: Wealth, Inequality, and the Federal Reserve

Obviously, if you inherit wealth in this country, you're instantly ahead of the game. In America, a third to nearly a half of all wealth is inherited rather than self-made. According to a New York Times investigation, for instance, President Donald Trump, from birth, received an estimated $413 million (in today's dollars, that is) from his dear old dad and another $140 million (in today's dollars) in loans. Not a bad way for a "businessman" to begin building the empire (of bankruptcies ) that became the platform for a presidential campaign that oozed into actually running the country. Trump did it, in other words, the old-fashioned way -- through inheritance.

In his megalomaniacal zeal to declare a national emergency at the southern border, that gilded millionaire-turned-billionaire-turned-president provides but one of many examples of a long record of abusing power. Unfortunately, in this country, few people consider record inequality (which is still growing) as another kind of abuse of power, another kind of great wall, in this case keeping not Central Americans but most U.S. citizens out.

The Federal Reserve, the country's central bank that dictates the cost of money and that sustained Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 (and since), has finally pointed out that such extreme levels of inequality are bad news for the rest of the country. As Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a town hall in Washington in early February, "We want prosperity to be widely shared. We need policies to make that happen." Sadly, the Fed has largely contributed to increasing the systemic inequality now engrained in the financial and, by extension, political system. In a recent research paper , the Fed did, at least, underscore the consequences of inequality to the economy, showing that "income inequality can generate low aggregate demand, deflation pressure, excessive credit growth, and financial instability."

In the wake of the global economic meltdown, however, the Fed took it upon itself to reduce the cost of money for big banks by chopping interest rates to zero (before eventually raising them to 2.5%) and buying $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds to lower it further. All this so that banks could ostensibly lend money more easily to Main Street and stimulate the economy. As Senator Bernie Sanders noted though, "The Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

The economy has been treading water ever since (especially compared to the stock market). Annual gross domestic product growth has not surpassed 3% in any year since the financial crisis, even as the level of the stock market tripled , grotesquely increasing the country's inequality gap. None of this should have been surprising, since much of the excess money went straight to big banks, rich investors, and speculators. They then used it to invest in the stock and bond markets, but not in things that would matter to all the Americans outside that great wall of wealth.

The question is: Why are inequality and a flawed economic system mutually reinforcing? As a starting point, those able to invest in a stock market buoyed by the Fed's policies only increased their wealth exponentially. In contrast, those relying on the economy to sustain them via wages and other income got shafted. Most people aren't, of course, invested in the stock market, or really in anything. They can't afford to be. It's important to remember that nearly 80% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck.

The net result: an acute post-financial-crisis increase in wealth inequality -- on top of the income inequality that was global but especially true in the United States. The crew in the top 1% that doesn't rely on salaries to increase their wealth prospered fabulously. They, after all, now own more than half of all national wealth invested in stocks and mutual funds, so a soaring stock market disproportionately helps them. It's also why the Federal Reserve subsidy policies to Wall Street banks have only added to the extreme wealth of those extreme few.

The Ramifications of Inequality

The list of negatives resulting from such inequality is long indeed. As a start, the only thing the majority of Americans possess a greater proportion of than that top 1% is a mountain of debt.

The bottom 90% are the lucky owners of about three-quarters of the country's household debt. Mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and credit-card debt are cumulatively at a record-high $13.5 trillion .

And that's just to start down a slippery slope. As Inequality.org reports, wealth and income inequality impact "everything from life expectancy to infant mortality and obesity." High economic inequality and poor health, for instance, go hand and hand, or put another way, inequality compromises the overall health of the country. According to academic findings, income inequality is, in the most literal sense, making Americans sick. As one study put it , "Diseased and impoverished economic infrastructures [help] lead to diseased or impoverished or unbalanced bodies or minds."

Then there's Social Security, established in 1935 as a federal supplement for those in need who have also paid into the system through a tax on their wages. Today, all workers contribute 6.2% of their annual earnings and employers pay the other 6.2% (up to a cap of $132,900 ) into the Social Security system. Those making far more than that, specifically millionaires and billionaires, don't have to pay a dime more on a proportional basis. In practice, that means about 94% of American workers and their employers paid the full 12.4% of their annual earnings toward Social Security, while the other 6% paid an often significantly smaller fraction of their earnings.

According to his own claims about his 2016 income, for instance, President Trump "contributed a mere 0.002 percent of his income to Social Security in 2016." That means it would take nearly 22,000 additional workers earning the median U.S. salary to make up for what he doesn't have to pay. And the greater the income inequality in this country, the more money those who make less have to put into the Social Security system on a proportional basis. In recent years, a staggering $1.4 trillion could have gone into that system, if there were no arbitrary payroll cap favoring the wealthy.

Inequality: A Dilemma With Global Implications

America is great at minting millionaires. It has the highest concentration of them, globally speaking, at 41%. (Another 24% of that millionaires' club can be found in Europe.) And the top 1% of U.S. citizens earn 40 times the national average and own about 38.6 % of the country's total wealth. The highest figure in any other developed country is "only" 28%.

However, while the U.S. boasts of epic levels of inequality, it's also a global trend. Consider this: the world's richest 1% own 45% of total wealth on this planet. In contrast, 64% of the population (with an average of $10,000 in wealth to their name) holds less than 2%. And to widen the inequality picture a bit more, the world's richest 10%, those having at least $100,000 in assets, own 84% of total global wealth.

The billionaires' club is where it's really at, though. According to Oxfam, the richest 42 billionaires have a combined wealth equal to that of the poorest 50% of humanity. Rest assured, however, that in this gilded century there's inequality even among billionaires. After all, the 10 richest among them possess $745 billion in total global wealth. The next 10 down the list possess a mere $451.5 billion , and why even bother tallying the next 10 when you get the picture?

Oxfam also recently reported that "the number of billionaires has almost doubled, with a new billionaire created every two days between 2017 and 2018. They have now more wealth than ever before while almost half of humanity have barely escaped extreme poverty, living on less than $5.50 a day."

How Does It End?

In sum, the rich are only getting richer and it's happening at a historic rate. Worse yet, over the past decade, there was an extra perk for the truly wealthy. They could bulk up on assets that had been devalued due to the financial crisis, while so many of their peers on the other side of that great wall of wealth were economically decimated by the 2007-2008 meltdown and have yet to fully recover .

What we've seen ever since is how money just keeps flowing upward through banks and massive speculation, while the economic lives of those not at the top of the financial food chain have largely remained stagnant or worse. The result is, of course, sweeping inequality of a kind that, in much of the last century, might have seemed inconceivable.

Eventually, we will all have to face the black cloud this throws over the entire economy. Real people in the real world, those not at the top, have experienced a decade of ever greater instability, while the inequality gap of this beyond-gilded age is sure to shape a truly messy world ahead. In other words, this can't end well.

Nomi Prins, a former Wall Street executive, is a TomDispatch regular . Her latest book is Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World (Nation Books). She is also the author of All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power and five other books. Special thanks go to researcher Craig Wilson for his superb work on this piece.

obwandiyag , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:22 pm GMT

As Ernest Hemingway said, "Yeah, the rich are different from the rest of us. They have more money."
Aryan Racist , says: February 26, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT
I read a stat in Mother Jones magazine that 90% of Americans have an average income of $31,000 a year and the richest .1 percent have an average income of $27 million dollars. So how does one pay all these living expenses and various debts with $26,000 after taxes? The Trump tax cuts just exacerbated the problem by giving more money to the wealthy and practically nothing to the 90% (at the bottom, which is almost everyone else). A good book on the subject of wealth inequality is "Billionaire's Ball."

[Feb 27, 2019] Forward, Comrades

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

wikipedia , Feb 18, 2019 3:56:45 PM | link

Forward, Comrades (Russian: Вперед, товарищи; Chinese: 前进,达瓦里希; pinyin: Qiánjìn, dáwǎlǐxī; literally: "Advance, tovarish") is a 2013 Chinese animated short film by Wang Liyin of the Beijing Film Academy. The film focuses on the fall of the Soviet Union as its main theme, told from the perspective of a young girl. As an original net animation with a strong political backdrop, the film has triggered strong reactions from various audiences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward,_Comrades

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkHM4ajLfD0

[Feb 27, 2019] Trump policy is Syria ia classis divide and conquer tactic, plus money for weapons

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

barovsky , Feb 20, 2019 10:02:04 AM | link

Circe , Feb 20, 2019 10:27:36 AM | link

I see someone f'd up the thread with their link making it impossible for the rest to read or comment so I'll write this and move on. The U.S. ruled by Zionist Trump already has what it wants: despite Russia and Syria calling the shots, not so much, since the U.S. has chaos it can control indefinitely several ways and with money. The U.S. tried to pull the same dirty business in Iraq but it didn't work out so well. Leaving a country it attacks in a weakened, chaotic state is a Zionist tactic. Zionists have been using this strategy against the Palestinians for decades pitting Hamas against Fatah and vice versa. The Kurds are blinded by U.S. money and weapons that leave them in a holding catch-22 pattern. Unless they take a leap of faith accepting the best possible option they will never be free of US pawn-limbo.

Why didn't you bring up the fact that Trump bragged he stopped Russia, Syria and Iran from killing 3 million people in Idleb therefore deserves the Nobel prize? Trump's bullshet aptly represents how dirty and scheming the U.S. behave in battle, every day more and more like their chickenshit Zionist brethren they love so much and are morphing into.

They leave muck and destruction wherever they intervene for humanitarian reasons.

Trump didn't save Idleb from anything; it's just a chaos they want to control, a muck they want Assad and Russia to perpetually get stuck in. The U.S. claims Iran is a supporter of terrorism? There are no greater supporters of terrorism than shithole Israel and the dumb hee-haw donkey it rides, the U.S. Two thoroughly depraved patrons of terrorism using Kurds and Syrians with pipe dreams that never materialize cause these patrons of misfortune only care for AmerikkanZionist domination.

They don't give shet about brown bearded, turbaned tools and their kin. Reality check! Yes, that's how they really view their loyal pawns! The prouder they are to fight with the U.S. the easier they are to use and abuse indefinitely. The only way for these people to be free is to screw the Zio strategy by smoking the peace pipe with the real enemy of the U.S., no not the terrorists, but Russia, Iran and Syria in this case.

If everyone made friends with the enemy of the AZEmpire they would be free from decades of battle-misery and servitude and be able to live normal lives. Not perfect lives; as there will always be squabbles, but normal lives.

[Feb 27, 2019] Of course, everyone can interpret international humanitarian law in his own way. As Belgrade was being bombed, the targets were a train moving on a bridge, or a television centre, and this was also regarded as normal. But we don't intend to follow these sorts of international humanitarian law interpretations

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Feb 19, 2019 4:08:14 PM | link

Lavrov, Munich SC Q&A In response to (assumed) Washington Post reporter, Lavrov provides the following comparison in policy:

"Addressing a news conference in Sochi President Putin said clearly that we could not put up with "this hotbed of terrorism" forever. How to solve this problem is a question we should put to the military. I am confident that they will do it differently from how the terrorists were being destroyed in Raqqa, where bodies of peaceful civilians and mines are still lying in the open, with no one to attend to them. But it is the military that should draw up a plan in keeping with international humanitarian law requirements.

"Of course, everyone can interpret international humanitarian law in his own way. As Belgrade was being bombed, the targets were a train moving on a bridge, or a television centre, and this was also regarded as normal. But we don't intend to follow these sorts of international humanitarian law interpretations."

Ouch! Perhaps the WaPost scribe felt a pang in his conscious. The next exchange clearly shows Lavrov's feelings after years of total bullshit:

"Question: Elaborating on what The Washington Post correspondent has said, I would like to ask the following. Since Russia is a guarantor of security in Syria, can you guarantee that the Assad regime will stop threatening the region and will end its atrocities against its own people?

"Sergey Lavrov: No matter what I say in reply, you will write what you want. So, go on, write what you want."

It continues, and Lavrov decides to parry then provide a fatal thrust:

"Question: The Russian government attempted to interfere in the affairs of Greece and North Macedonia, pandering to the nationalist forces in these countries. How does this relate to your statements on supporting the European Union?

"Sergey Lavrov: I will take up this question, although I could answer it in the same way as I did with the previous question.

"Russia has been accused of interfering in the matter of changing Macedonia's name, but these accusations have not been supported with any clear or reliable facts. Yesterday, I talked with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and several other colleagues. Mr Stoltenberg, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and some of the American colleagues, I believe it was the US Defence Secretary – in all, five or six of the leading Western politicians – visited Skopje and publicly urged the people to vote for changing the republic's name in the referendum. They did this publicly and openly. Had we done one hundredth of what they did, new sanctions would have been imposed on Russia. But these "first class passengers" get away with anything.

"When Kosovo seceded [from Serbia] and unilaterally declared independence, which the majority of Western countries recognised, we warned them about the possible consequences of this. Now Pristina does what it wants....

"By the way, yesterday Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama said openly in an interview with a Greek newspaper that Kosovo is part of Albania. Well, you wanted it, you got it."

The text omitted via ellipsis is also rather important to read, some of which I included while discussing this topic on the Open Thread. IMO, the ability of BigLie Media to have an impact has dwindled to the point of being nil. But as Lavrov observes, EU leadership is incapable of summoning the courage to demand a divorce and thus maintains a Clintonian Public and Private Face that only serves to confirm the nth degree of hypocrisy being employed. On Syria, the best possible things EU nations can do is end ALL their illegal sanctions, withdrawal their military assets, and support the repatriation and reconstruction projects.

[Feb 27, 2019] Compromise With Terrorists In Idlib Is Impossible, They Must Be Eliminated: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

SouthFront , Feb 18, 2019 5:02:33 PM | link

Compromise With Terrorists In Idlib Is Impossible, They Must Be Eliminated: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister

Russia's principled stance is that a compromise with terrorists in Syria's Idlib is impossible and that they must be eliminated, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said on February 17.

"Idlib is a serious problem, this is probably a major concentration of terrorists in the region and maybe beyond its borders," he said on the sidelines of the discussion on the Syrian settlement at the Munich Security Conference, according to TASS. "Our principled stance is no to any compromise with terrorists, they must be eliminated."

Vershinin recalled that 90% of Idlib's territory is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) terrorist group, which is excluded from the de-escalation agreement.

"It's impossible to say that we can make peace with Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists and similar organizations," he said adding that Ankara, Teheran and Moscow will think about the ways in order not to harm or put in danger the civilians.

Regarding the situation in northeastern Syria, the diplomat said that the dialogue between the Kurds and the Damascus government will be the best solution.

"Various options were named of what can be done after or in case the US leaves Syria or if there are no foreign forces in northeast Syria, which were also mentioned here. We believe that probably the best option here would be solving these problems through dialogue between the Kurds and Damascus," he said. "Certainly, we know about those problems which exist in relations between Damascus and the Kurds. We would support this dialogue, this is the path that should be chosen."

[Feb 27, 2019] Kurds always pick the worst option possible because on the surface it looks most attractive

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kiza , Feb 18, 2019 4:17:53 PM | link

I think that the Kurds are gegetting too much of everything, including attention. I know I will read racist, but there is a very good reason why the Kurds never achieved autonomy let alone a nation state throughout centuries . They are congenitally stupid and always pick the worst option possible because on the surface it looks most attractive. In 2012, when US (that is Israel) started mulling using YPG as the third tier anti-Syrian force, after ISIS and Al Qaida, I wrote that Kurds are going to get shafted again in such an un-natural alliance. It is an endless cycle in which the Israelis keep using the Kurds to destabilise their Arab neighbors and let them down, rinse and repeat.

So here we are again, the Kurds were given control over Syrian oil by US and hopes of statehood with even riches on top, to then be let down by the same "allies" for the one thousandth time. Now they will drag on negotiations with the real owner of oil, trying to get their state (with oil) within a state, and let two mutual enemies, Syria and Turkey, gang up on them to solve the Kurdish problem that both states have (Iraq as well). Do not accuse only the Kurdish leadership just to make it read non-racist, this is one whole "nation" that I really do not fell sorry for. You need more proof how stupid they really are? They are asking US to stay, still not having a faintest clue that the Israeli war on Syria has been lost and what their own role in it has always been?


Syriana Analysis , Feb 18, 2019 4:19:17 PM | link

Highlights of President Assad speech (17 February 2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_XjcwxVIjA

SouthFront , Feb 18, 2019 4:52:18 PM | link
Assad To U.S. Proxies: Nobody Will Protect You

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad warned on February 17 that the U.S. would not protect those depending on it, in a clear hint to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which control northeastern Syria.

"We say to those groups who are betting on the Americans, the Americans will not protect you The Americans will put you in their pockets so you can be tools in the barter, and they have started with (it)," the Syrian President said while he was welcoming the heads of local councils, according to Reuters.

Assad called on these US proxies to hand over their weapons to the army and join the reconciliation process while stressing that this is the only way to "retreat from mischief."

"Nobody will protect you except your state If you do not prepare yourselves to defend your country, you will be nothing but slaves to (Turkey)," he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria revived Turkey's plans to invade the northeastern part of the country. This forced the SDF to resume its talks with Damascus. However, the Kurdish-dominated group made very high demands, such as maintaining its independent military force.

Assad's warning may indicate that a deal between his government and the SDF has been still not reached. Despite this, he appears to be confident that the U.S. will eventually carry on with the withdrawal decision.

SouthFront , Feb 18, 2019 4:57:43 PM | link
SDF Official: We Are Ready To Consider Deployment Of Egyptian Troops East Of Euphrates

The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) is ready to consider the deployment of Egyptian troops in its areas east of the Euphrates River in order to prevent any attack by Turkey, Riad Darar, a co-chairman of the Kurdish-dominated council told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on February 17.

"We can coordinate with the Egyptian side to allow a deployment in eastern Euphrates, they can have a presence there in many ways, we can agree on this," Darar said.

The SDC governs northeastern Syria with direct support from the US-led coalition. Turkey began preparations to invade the entire region following President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw all US troops from Syria.

Darar said that he understands that Turkey will not welcome any communication between them and Egypt. However, he stressed that it is within their rights to communicate with any side that could "protect their future," especially Egypt, who has historical ties with Syria.

"We always wanted to open an office [in Egypt] to maintain relations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt We are ready to visit Egypt in anytime that would be suitable for our Egyptian brothers," the Kurdish official added.

Egypt and several other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have been working to counter Turkey's growing influence in Syria. However, it remains unclear if Cairo is willing to deploy troops in the northeastern part of the country.

Reuters , Feb 18, 2019 5:12:35 PM | link
U.S. cannot back Syrian forces who align with Assad - U.S. commander

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States will have to sever its military assistance to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battling Islamic State if the fighters partner with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or Russia, a senior U.S. general said on Sunday.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-idUKKCN1Q60OG

Jen , Feb 18, 2019 5:54:04 PM | link
Kiza @ 11: The main reason the Kurds have never achieved unity despite one of their number having been the famous Salahuddin (Saladin) a thousand years ago is that they were never really one ethnic group in the first place but rather several groups speaking related Northwestern Iranian languages and dialects. The close linguistic relationship is the basis for the various communities being lumped together as "Kurds".

Apart from their languages and dialects, there is not much else that really unites them. Living in a similar environment and having a similar lifestyle and even culture because they are neighbours doesn't count if all they've done in the past is fight each other.

I understand the Kurds have traditionally been Sunnis, Shi'a Muslims, Zoroastrians and even Alevi Sufi believers and members of various esoteric faiths like Yazidism so they don't even have a common set of religious beliefs.

Pnyx , Feb 18, 2019 7:02:58 PM | link
"How many more Kurds will have to die until their leadership finally accepts that?"
The problem is they only accept facts. If they see u.s. troops leaving, then and only then will they change their attitude.
stonebird , Feb 19, 2019 6:21:25 AM | link
It is clear that the US will continue to send arms to the Kurds Why? Simple, - 50% of US arms in 2018 were sold to the ME. So continual conflict zones are "good" for business. Kurds. Qatar, saudi's etc, are all willing "consumers"

The Russians (Lavrov) have accused the US of trying to set up a "mini-sate" in Syria east of the Euphrates, with EU troops and others "supporting" their aim.

So - I no longer believe that there will be a pull-out from E. Syria- just a "war under new management" sign.

====
incidentally it seems that the ISIS groups are "appearing" in Idlib. (ie. They are saved (or buy their exit with Syrian Gold) and sent towards Turkey and then Turkey sends them to Idlib.

Penny , Feb 19, 2019 7:44:16 AM | link
Assad knows they will reject because they have no impetus to accept the offer. Assad speaks quite harshly about the Kurdish usurpers- His language makes his stance very clear.

"From the beginning, you offered yourselves and the homeland (notice he does not say your homeland?) for sale. I wouldn't say you offered your principles, because you had none to begin with. You offered yourselves and the homeland for sale, and there was demand for this kind of goods at the time, and you were paid handsomely and bought, but after the new owners tried you out, and despite all the plastic surgery and improvements and upgrading and modifications , you failed to achieve the required tasks, so they decided to sell you at a discount after demand for you decreased in the international slave market, but at a low price, and they won't find a buyer and they'll probably give you away for free, and no-one will take you.

Assad is being brutally honest with the SDF aka PKK rebrand- Which is the reference to plastic surgery and upgrades- He's clear that the land is not their homeland- It is the homeland.
"And no one will take you" This is a reference,to the fact that now the Kurds have made themselves lepers in Iran & Turkey as well as in Syria (Peace talks between AKP and PKK failed in 2013- the Syrian situation was undoubtedly a factor With the PKK thinking they'd have leverage should they be able to annex Syrian territory all the way to the Med)


"But you were sold without the homeland , because the homeland has actual owners, not thieves. The homeland has a people who view their homeland as their soul whose death would mean their death, while brokers consider the homeland a commodity that they can replace if it's gone after they pay the price. The homeland is like a soul; these are phrases you don't understand the homeland is sacred; these are words whose meaning you don't know, because you are cheap brokers who understand nothing but humiliation and disgrace and who deserve only contempt and disdain."

Assad continues... The soil is not yours. You are not of the soil. The land or soil has real owners who identify with this (true citizens of the land) A reference to the idea of birthright and citizenship.
A solid old world view- when the world had some sense

"The homeland is like a soul" Beautiful.

"Cheap brokers who understand nothing but humiliation and disgrace and who deserve only contempt and disdain." Accurate


BuzzL , Feb 19, 2019 11:01:22 AM | link
The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them ..

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2019
"But They Are Dangerous!" European Leaders Shocked At Trump's ISIS Ultimatum

President of the United States of America who promissed to leave Syria (which he won't, not NE and not Al Tanf) informed his European "allies" that the Daesh/IS scum rotting away in SDF jails will soon be set free so they can return to Europe or Europe can voluntarely take them back. So after years of indoctrination committing the most heinous crimes to further Zionist, US and Saudi interests these battle hardened terrorists are forced onto Europe by president US Trump.

Why not make room in that stolen land Guantanamo Bay? Why not move them to their Saudi ideological friends? Or have them set on trial in Syria or Iraq? Even if they're incarcerated in Europe, it's not that they will keep their extreme crazy ideologies to themselves. Daesh itself was nurtured in Iraqi jail cell's.

US president Donald Trump knows perfectly well his insideous plan not only sows division but knows these religious fanatics will launch a new avalanche of terrorist attacks throughout Europe. Trump is not only at war with China and Russia but also with Europe.

William Bowles , Feb 19, 2019 11:45:14 AM | link
bevin | Feb 19, 2019 11:28:40 AM | 49

Balkanisation. Yugoslavia is a perfect example and going back a few years, Biafra in Nigeria. Mini-states have no power, above all, no armies! It was the plan for Iraq and the former USSR.

juliania , Feb 19, 2019 1:49:29 PM | link
Penny@41

I could not find a transcript of Assad's speech, but I do
think your interpretation is wrong. I went to the Syrian
site b linked to, and there are quotations there that do
not sound like a slur on the Syrian Kurds as a community
but rather on those who oppose the government:

"...President al-Assad said that today, terrorism is suffering
defeats in one area after the other, and security is being
restored to millions of Syrians in liberated areas, adding
"with every inch that is liberated, there is an enemy that
is thwarted, and with every inch that is cleansed there is
an agent and a traitor and a mercenary who complains. Why
do they complain? According to their statements, they
complain because their sponsors failed them...today and in
the future, we must realize the fact that the war was between
us Syrians [including Kurds] and terrorists exclusively. We
triumph together, not against each other."

He further states, without naming any group directly, that
"...they have a choice: to be masters in their own land, or
slaves and pawns in the hand of occupiers."

To me that latter statement is that the Syrian Kurds (as
do Chechnyans in Russia) have the choice to be masters
in their own land, which does not sound a bad choice to me.


[Feb 27, 2019] Syria Sitrep - French Officer Criticizes U.S. Way Of War - Assad Offers Kurds Some Autonomy

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jerry , Feb 18, 2019 2:34:45 PM | link

A French colonel who led an artillery group in the fight against ISIS criticized the U.S. way of fighting that war:
Colonel Francois-Regis Legrier, who has been in charge of directing French artillery supporting Kurdish-led groups in Syria since October, said the coalition's focus had been on limiting its own risks and this had greatly increased the death toll among civilians and the levels of destruction.

"Yes, the Battle of Hajin was won, at least on the ground but by refusing ground engagement, we unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and thus contributed to increasing the number of casualties in the population," Mr Legrier wrote in an article in the National Defence Review.

" We have massively destroyed the infrastructure and given the population a disgusting image of what may be a Western-style liberation leaving behind the seeds of an imminent resurgence of a new adversary ," he said, in rare public criticism by a serving officer.

Several times during the last months bad weather prevented the use of aerial bombing and artillery fire against ISIS. The terrorists always used these pauses to counterattack. The poorly armed and led Kurdish/Arab SDF suffered a lot of casualties because of these. The colonel opines that a well armed professional ground force would have shortened the conflict with less casualties and much less damage.

The original essay by the soon to be former colonel was taken down from the web. It is available in French on page 65 of this pdf .

It is still not clear if or when the U.S. forces will leave northeast Syria. President Trump had asked Turkey to take over the area but Syria, Russia, Iran and the Kurdish forces the U.S. used as proxies against ISIS are against this. A U.S. attempt to recruit British, German or French forces to occupy the area failed.

The Syrian ground must obviously be turned back to the Syrian government. The Kurdish forces, controlled by the anarcho-marxist PKK/YPG which Turkey and others designate as terrorists, use their current position to demand political autonomy in the area they now control. The Syrian government is strongly against this. Any federalization of Syria would be the beginning of its end.

Yesterday the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad offered a compromise to the Kurds. In a speech in front of the heads of local councils he announced local council elections and the decentralization of some political decisions. The required law 107 is already in place but its implementation was held up by the war:

[Assad] said that the essence of the local administration law is achieving balance in development across all areas by giving local administrative units the authority to develop their areas in terms of economy, urban development, culture, and services , thereby improving citizens' living conditions by launching projects, providing job opportunities, and providing services locally, particularly in remote areas.

President al-Assad said it is no longer practical to manage the affairs of the society and state and achieved balanced development in the same centralized way that had been used for decades, noting that the population of Syria in 1971 when the previous law was issued was around 7 million, while the population in 2011 when law 107 was issued had reached around 22 million.

That the implementation of elected local administrations is offered now is a clear sign to the Kurds that they can get some autonomy but not the wide ranging one that they ask for. While they can have local elections, councils and administrations as all other areas will have, there will be no separate armed force, police of judicative in Kurdish majority areas.

Several times over the war the Kurds overreached, made too large demands and lost because of it. Turkey took the Afrin area and the Kurdish population had to flee because the Kurdish leadership did not want the Syrian army to take over control. In a later part of the speech Assad again addressed the Kurds without specifically naming them. He warned:

"The Americans will not protect you you will be a bargaining chip in their pocket along with the dollars they have, and they have already started bargaining. If you don't prepare yourselves to defend your country, you will be mere slaves for the Ottomans. Only your state will protect you and only the Syrian Arab Army will defend you when you join it and fight under its banner.

"When we stand in one position and in the same trench, face a single enemy, and aim in the same direction instead of aiming at each other, there will be no worry of any threat no matter how big, His Excellency said.

President al-Assad said the time has come for those groups to decide how history will judge them, and that they have a choice: to be masters in their own land, or slaves and pawns in the hand of occupiers.

The offer is quite clear and the consequences of not accepting it would be harsh. The Kurds and the area they hold must come back under Syrian government control or Turkey will grab it and will put the Kurds under its boots. The pigheadedness of their leadership could easily lead to that. In his speech Assad already predicts that they will reject his offer before - maybe - accepting it.

"As you noticed, I will not name these groups, but as usual, for a few hours or maybe for a few days, they will issue statements attacking this speech, then you will know who I'm talking about," he added.

A few hours after Assad's speech the Kurdish commander of the SDF was again begging the U.S. to keep 1,500 of its troops there.

Mazloum Kobani, commander-in-chief of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), called on international coalition allies to keep 1,000-1,500 troops in Syria.
...
"We would like to have air cover, air support and a force on the ground to coordinate with us," Kobani told reporters at an undisclosed airbase in northeast Syria, Reuters reports.

It is very unlikely that Trump will change his position. The U.S. troops will leave. Only the Syrian government can give the Kurds the protection they need.

How many more Kurds will have to die until their leadership finally accepts that? To the French Colonel:
Wake up dummy as ISIS is C$IA, Mo$$$ad, Deep State.

Go back to France and join the yellow vests. Arrest the Roth$child family, Soros and the other dual citizen banksters who have bled France dry and turned France into Africa. The enemy is in Paris there Colonel and at the bIS in Switzerland, NATO and also in Tel$$ Aviv$.

Syria, Assad and the Russians are not the enemy.

james , Feb 18, 2019 3:08:44 PM | link

thanks b...

erdogan is not going to change... putin has to address this, however he addresses it..

usa-west is not going to change either.. the withdrawal sounds good on paper, but they will find a way to throw a spoke in everything.

kurds have an outside chance of changing..

so, it is a frozen type dynamic at present, waiting on turkey or russia to make the next move... kurds don't seem capable of making the right move here... they find whatever the usa dangles in front of them, enough to continue to fantasize about their future independence.

erdogan never saw a renamed terrorist he didn't like, so long as it wasn't a kurd... until this changes, we are still on track for ww3.. we just had a slight pause in the same direction..

psychohistorian , Feb 18, 2019 3:12:05 PM | link
Thanks for the ongoing Syria reporting b

The Kurds I suspect are getting mixed messages from other members of NATO and some of those message promise them a better position then where they are headed if the US completes its pull out and doesn't backfill with mercenaries as the only choice now.

I don't see the US EVER leaving the ME unless the private finance issue is resolved or the US goes bankrupt and can't project war anymore . I think the later is most likely and fast approaching but will the cancer of private finance empire find another host to control by then is the question

Mikalina , Feb 18, 2019 3:22:33 PM | link
"How many more Kurds will have to die until their leadership finally accepts that?"

Syrian Kurds were second class inhabitants of Syria before the US invasion and there is nothing to suggest that they will not be second class inhabitants after the 'peace'. Perhaps they would prefer to die fighting, rather than live in chains; the true meaning of the real 'peshmerga' - their souls go on before.

John Daywww.johndayblog.com , Feb 21, 2019 12:16:39 PM | link
The French Colonel's essay is available here, translated to English quite well.

http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/02/wars-fail.html

Eleni Tsigante, an Athenian of ancient family, has translated to English, the essay by a French Colonel, commander of artillery of NATO coalition forces in Syria, which was referenced in the Moon of Alabama article.
This essay has ceased to be available online, but I copy what she has sent me, with thanks to her and to Colonel François-Régis Legrier.

[Feb 27, 2019] Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day

Notable quotes:
"... Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media. ..."
"... I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country ..."
"... There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

redmudhooch , says: February 26, 2019 at 2:38 am GMT

Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.

Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist period.

Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we are today.

Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media.

There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not define the authentic socialist agenda.

I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!

I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11 truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.

It doesn't take an Einstein to see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out, what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the only way out of this evil system.

Sad!

TimeTraveller , says: February 25, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT

There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it.

It worked in France, though.

[Feb 27, 2019] John Hopkins effectively exposes Sanders as being fatally compromised by his role as Clinton lackey after the evidence emerged that the party engaged in fraud securing the predicted result

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

exiled off mainstreet , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:32 am GMT

This is a great article which effectively exposes Sanders as being fatally compromised by his role as Clinton lackey after the evidence emerged that the party engaged in fraud securing the predicted result. I also fully endorse Hooch's response to the commentary. Great job on both counts.

[Feb 27, 2019] I think that Sanders is able to change half of the USA. He is likely to do something about inequality, unemployment, health care, but he will not touch the MIC.

Notable quotes:
"... This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as Chomsky explained, new dealism. ..."
"... As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4 yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Willem , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:58 am GMT

@Bern I think that Sanders is able to change half of the USA. He is likely to do something about inequality, unemployment, health care, but he will not touch the MIC.

The US is a rich country, and if the US wants stay rich it has to do something about this third world-isation of the USA that is in play since the 1990s (outsourcing of jobs, leaving the home population with less and less means to buy stuff US corporations produce abroad).

This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as Chomsky explained, new dealism.

Socialism would be if Sanders promoted that workers would take over the corporations, or would allow to re-open factories, warehouses, and farmland where the workers were in control, not the bosses. Sanders is not promoting any of that.

Sanders may be a Roosevelt, but he is not an Upton Sinclair (who nearly became governor of California in the 1930s by running a truly socialist platform). And, as said, he will certainly not touch the MIC.

IMO he is the lesser evil of candidates who run for the 2020 US elections, but to consider him a socialist, as Sanders calls himself, will lead to disappointment.

Here is Michael Parenti talking about his former compatriot:

George , says: February 26, 2019 at 9:24 am GMT
the Bernster really means it!

As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4 yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up.

[Feb 27, 2019] Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen"

Yes Bernie is a scam artist, but then again, so is Trump.
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ned Ludlam , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT

Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.

That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without an army.

Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and are as tough as jello.

Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.

While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.

ploni almoni , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMT
@redmudhooch "See how the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her -- but now murderers!"
(Isaiah 1:21-23)
AnonFromTN , says: February 26, 2019 at 3:17 pm GMT
Bernie is not a magic socialist. He is a fraud: he was cheated out of nomination, and then supported the cheater. Shame on him! He will never get my vote, period.

[Feb 27, 2019] Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era Newspeak.)

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bern , says: February 25, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

follyofwar, I hate to be Debbie Downer, but who do think Mueller works for?

https://digwithin.net/2018/04/08/muellers-history/

Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era Newspeak.)

What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.

CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.

Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.

[Feb 27, 2019] Trump or no Trump the next couple of years might be very interesting

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mike from Jersey , says: February 26, 2019 at 4:53 pm GMT

Great article.

I honestly think that had the media and the deep state treated Trump fairly, they would have still have some credibility now. But the blatant attempt to derail his candidacy only egged on his supporters. Then, the concerted attempts to nullify the election results convinced people all over the political spectrum that our "democracy" is only a "simulation of democracy" as Hopkins points out.

Don't the people pulling the strings behind the media understand what they have done? They have convinced a large part of the nation that everything that they were taught from childhood is a fraud.

Civilizations are only held together by the "glue" of shared beliefs. The deep-state-media-complex has just applied a solvent to the very glue that holds the entire culture together.

This is going to make the next couple of years very interesting.

[Feb 26, 2019] Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the payments were "consulting fees."

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [228] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT

@Thomm Bolton tweeted:

Attempts by Russian gov. to intimidate Amb. Wallace & @UANI are unacceptable. If President Putin is serious about stabilizing the Middle East, confronting terrorism & preventing a nuclear arms race in the region, he should stand with UANI & against Iran.

Why would the national security advisor care what the Russian Foreign Ministry has to say about a New York-based nonprofit's letter writing campaign, especially when those remarks got virtually no notice in the media?

Bolton's personal finances and the president's biggest campaign funder offer a couple clues.

Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the payments were "consulting fees."

https://lobelog.com/large-payments-to-bolton-might-explain-his-uani-tweet/

[Feb 26, 2019] War whore. Well, they sure pay well

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian says: Website February 26, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT War whore. Well, they sure pay well.

Boeing taps Nikki Haley to join board of directors

hill.cm/f4w38Wm

0:19 AM-Feb 26, 2019

108 people are talking about this

follyofwar , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT

@Asagirian I've read that she is still in line to primary Trump. Surely someone will, so it might as well be a neocon Israel-first Sikh woman who is even more ignorant and psychotic that our current Tweeter-in-Chief. If she wins, she can even keep Pompeo and Bolton to finish off Iran and start WWIII.

[Feb 26, 2019] Daddy, I want war with Iran!

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sick of Orcs says: February 26, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT These neocon chickenhawk a-holes are like a parody of Veruca Salt.

"Daddy, I want war with Iran!"

"But, Love, you already have Endless Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and toys in another dozen countries!"

[Feb 26, 2019] It is illegal for any insurer to offer a bare bones catastrophic plan that doesn't cover Obama's hopey-changey list of progressive surgical procedures.

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bragadocious , says: February 26, 2019 at 2:49 pm GMT

@animalogic I don't know if you live in the US, sounds like you don't, but one could argue that the healthcare system has already been nationalized. Consumers must shop for policies that meet Obamacare standards which include coverage for gender reassignment and other things that 10 years ago no private insurer would dream of paying for. This is a direct result of government's boot on the market's throat. (And the market likes it, based on HMO stock prices)

It is illegal for any insurer to offer a bare bones catastrophic plan that doesn't cover Obama's hopey-changey list of progressive surgical procedures. 15 years ago, those catastrophic plans were everywhere, and very affordable.

And to your point about providing healthcare to people who can't afford it. We already have that, it's called Medicaid. When those receiving it die, the government comes in and grabs all of their estate's assets, because they used a government program that was forced on them. Like I said, it's been taken over.

[Feb 26, 2019] That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jake , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT

"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."

Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire, it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.

The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.

[Feb 26, 2019] The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates", which has veto power over the little people

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [427] Disclaimer , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT

The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates", which has veto power over the little people.

The SJWs and Bernie bots may be too dumb to know who their real daddies are, but the Superdelegates know exactly whose ring they need to kiss to regain power: the same globalist capitalist Davos scums who now have Trump exactly where they want him, between their legs sucking up while busy implementing their agendas of endless wars and endless immigration.

The Superdelegates will never let things get too far with the socialists, they're good for entertainment, to give off the pretense of a real race. I'm betting my money on Kirsten Gillibrand -- Dems know if there's a woman who could beat Trump, she needs to be a blonde. Uncle Joe has too many skeletons in his closet. It's just a matter of time before the cockroaches come out of the woodwork and #MeToo him into the orbits.

[Feb 26, 2019] Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen".

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ned Ludlam , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT

Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.

That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without an army.

Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and are as tough as jello.

Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.

While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.

[Feb 26, 2019] Bernie Sanders Goes Insane, Declares 2020 Candidacy

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

wayfarer , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:44 pm GMT

"Bernie Sanders Goes Insane, Declares 2020 Candidacy."

https://youtu.be/eEwPNJJF1sM

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT
Nothing like a little truth to start your morning. Caution: Strong Language Content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AduM6Uo5znU

ploni almoni , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:49 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike What a thoughtful comment. What does it say?

[Feb 26, 2019] Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

redmudhooch , says: February 26, 2019 at 2:38 am GMT

Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.

Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist period.

Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we are today.

Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media.

There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not define the authentic socialist agenda.

I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!

I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11 truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.It doesn't take an Einstein to see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out, what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the only way out of this evil system.

Sad!

TimeTraveller , says: February 25, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT

There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it.

It worked in France, though.

[Feb 26, 2019] Attacking Iran by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S., that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. ..."
"... The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S. Congress. ..."
"... So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue. The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is fair game ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Observers of developments in the Middle East have long taken it as a given that the United States and Israel are seeking for an excuse to attack Iran. The recently terminated conference in Warsaw had that objective, which was clearly expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it failed to rally European and Middle Eastern states to support the cause. On the contrary, there was strong sentiment coming from Europe in particular that normalizing relations with Iran within the context of the 2015 multi party nuclear agreement is the preferred way to go both to avoid a major war and to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.

There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S., that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. They seek pretexts in various dark corners, including claims that Iran is cheating on its nuclear program, that it is developing ballistic missiles that will enable it to deliver its secret nuclear warheads onto targets in Europe and even the United States, that it is an oppressive, dictatorial government that must be subjected to regime change to liberate the Iranian people and give them democracy, and, most stridently, that is provoking and supporting wars and threats against U.S. allies all throughout the Middle East.

Dissecting the claims about Iran, one might reasonably counter that rigorous inspections by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirm that Tehran has no nuclear weapons program, a view that is supported by the U.S. intelligence community in its recent Worldwide Threat Assessment. Beyond that, Iran's limited missile program can be regarded as largely defensive given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S. and one might well accept that the removal of the Iranian government is a task best suited for the Iranian people, not delivered through military intervention by a foreign power that has been starving the country through economic warfare. And as for provoking wars in the Middle East, look to the United States and Israel, not Iran.

So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the subject is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to hang their war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an old story to give them what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that would justify an attack on Iran without a declaration of war while also lacking any imminent threat from Tehran to justify a preemptive strike.

What may be the new Iran policy was recently outlined in a Washington Times article, which unfortunately has received relatively little attention from either the media, the punditry or from the few policymakers themselves who have intermittently been mildly critical of Washington's propensity to strike first and think about it afterwards.

The article is entitled "Exclusive: Iran-al Qaeda alliance May Provide Legal Rationale for U.S. military strikes." The article's main points should be taken seriously by anyone concerned over what is about to unfold in the Persian Gulf because it is not just the usual fluff emanating from the hubris-induced meanderings of some think tank, though it does include some of that. It also cites government officials by name and others who are not named but are clearly in the administration.

As an ex-CIA case officer who worked on the Iran target for a number of years, I was shocked when I read the Times ' article, primarily because it sounded like a repeat of the fabricated intelligence that was used against both Iraq and Iran in 2001 through 2003. It is based on the premise that war with Iran is desirable for the United States and, acting behind the scenes, Israel, so it is therefore necessary to come up with an excuse to start it. As the threat of terrorism is always a good tactic to convince the American public that something must be done, that is what the article tries to do and it is particularly discouraging to read as it appears to reflect opinion in the White House.

As I have been writing quite critically about the CIA and the Middle East for a number of years, I am accustomed to considerable push-back from former colleagues. But in this case, the calls and emails I received from former intelligence officers who shared my experience of the Middle East and had read the article went strongly the other way, condemning the use of both fake and contrived intelligence to start another unnecessary war.

The article states that Iran is supporting al Qaeda by providing money, weapons and sanctuary across the Middle East to enable it to undertake new terrorist attacks. It is doing so in spite of ideological differences because of a common enemy: the United States. Per the article and its sources, this connivance has now "evolved into an unacceptable global security threat" with the White House intent on "establishing a potential legal justification for military strikes against Iran or its proxies."

One might reasonably ask why the United States cares if Iran is helping al Qaeda as both are already enemies who are lying on the Made in U.S.A. chopping block waiting for the ax to fall. The reason lies in the Authorization to Use Military Force, originally drafted post 9/11 to provide a legal fig leaf to pursue al Qaeda worldwide, but since modified to permit also going after "associated groups." If Iran is plausibly an associated group then President Trump and his band of self-righteous maniacs egged on by Netanyahu can declare "bombs away Mr. Ayatollah." And if Israel is involved, there will be a full benediction coming from Congress and the media. So is this administration both capable and willing to start a major war based on bullshit? You betcha!

The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S. Congress.

Curiously, though several cited administration officials wedded to the hard-line against Iran because it is alleged to be the "world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" were willing to provide their opinions on the Iran-al Qaeda axis, the authors of the recent Worldwide Threat Assessment issued by the intelligence community apparently have never heard of it. The State Department meanwhile sees an Iranian pipeline moving al Qaeda's men and money to targets in central and south Asia, though that assessment hardly jives with the fact that the only recent major attack attributed to al Qaeda was carried out on February 13 th in southeastern Iran against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a bombing that killed 27 guardsmen.

The State annual threat assessment also particularly condemns Iran for funding groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are, not coincidentally, enemies of Israel who would care less about "threatening" the United States but for the fact that it is constantly meddling in the Middle East on behalf of the Jewish state.

And when in doubt, the authors of the article went to "old reliable," the leading neocon think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which, by the way, works closely with the Israeli government and never, ever has criticized the state of democracy in Israel. One of its spokesmen was quick off the mark: ""The Trump administration is right to focus on Tehran's full range of malign activities, and that should include a focus on Tehran's long-standing support for al Qaeda."

Indeed, the one expert cited in the Times story who actually is an expert and examined original documents rather than reeling off approved government and think tank talking points contradicted the Iran-al Qaeda narrative. "Nelly Lahoud, a former terrorism analyst at the U.S. Military Academy and now a New America Foundation fellow, was one of the first to review documents seized from bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. She wrote in an analysis for the Atlantic Council this fall that the bin Laden files revealed a deep strain of skepticism and hostility toward the Iranian regime, mixed with a recognition by al Qaeda leaders of the need to avoid a complete break with Tehran. In none of the documents, which date from 2004 to just days before bin Laden's death, 'did I find references pointing to collaboration between al Qaeda and Iran to carry out terrorism,' she concluded."

So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue. The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is fair game. Iran and terrorism? Perfect. Let's try that one out because, after all, invading Iran will be a cakewalk and the people will be in the streets cheering our tanks as they roll by. What could possibly go wrong?

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


wayfarer , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:05 am GMT

Israel, the World's Richest Beggar.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Boy

Staggering Cost of Israel to Americans.

Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.

Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of over a billion people.

And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel.

Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.

source: https://ifamericaknew.org/stat/cost.html

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:03 am GMT
In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?
Mark James , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:04 am GMT

given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S.

And it has been more than threats: the Stuxnet virus and Mossad assassinations. While I think even Trump may be reasonably nervous about a potential attack, if he has cheerleaders like Kushner, Friedman, MBS, AIPAC, et al, it does seem almost a certainty. Is this not what NSA Bolton has been waiting for most of his career?

And the neocon media crew will likely be out in full force soon doing their "mushroom cloud" thing.
I saw Rubin, Boot, Pletka, Todd in shock over what Rep Omar had said. Poor David Brooks felt the Democrats had "slapped him the face (PBS Newshour)."

Democrats need to be talking about this early. They can't let this happen. As for the GOP I'm sure the words at the AIPAC convention will be supportive.

chris , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:54 am GMT
The patent absurdity of the 'indispensable nation,', in one administration, making peace with Iran and then, in the very next (on the basis of no palpable facts) making war, should eventually wake even the most catatonic to the monstrous activities that have led us to this point.

I suspect that this (seemingly imminent) attack on Iran will, also become the noose to hang Trump with. Thus, the Neocons, with Stalinesque subtlety will have killed two birds with one shot.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website February 26, 2019 at 9:49 am GMT
An excellent piece.

Just solid stuff.

But in a world of America attacking countries over non-existent weapons of mass destruction or over supposed destruction of democracy, both plainly false claims, does it make any difference?

America will do what it wants to do. Simply because it can.

That is just how bullies behave.

jacques sheete , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT
@Anonymous

The European powers allowed World War II to unfold by wringing their hands rather than taking a stand while Hitler built up his forces, threatened his neighbors and bit off chunks of their territory.

You have to be kidding. You're re-spouting nearly century old war propaganda as fact. You need to go back and read the article and focus on the parts where pretexts are made up.

Here, start with this.:

So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the subject is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to hang their war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an old story to give them what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that would justify an attack on Iran < /blockquote>

Z-man , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@renfro Thanks for the tweets renfro .
I saw the news of Iran's FM Zarif's resignation yesterday and I was immediately alarmed. If Zarif is actually removed from power a Western educated man with TV charisma will be taken off the 'airs'. Iran will lose a big positive public relations asset with Zarif's departure to the glee of Netanyahu and the rabid Zionists in Isra-hell and here in Trump's administration and the Beltway. Bad news.
jacques sheete , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:01 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?

I agree. Who'd be stupid enough to "ally" themselves with the money bags "one world" crowd after seeing so many others get tossed under the bus?

CAIRO, Egypt, May 27, -- The last hope of 30,000,000 Arabs to win freedom for their race without further bloodshed vanished when cables from Washington announced that the United States had concluded an agreement with Great Britain The Arabs came into the war on the side of the allies against their Turkish co-religionists in- response to the allies' promise of freedom The Arab support" was determined and effective."

Newspaper article by Junius B. Wood on the American recognition of Britain's mandate in Palestine, Chicago Daily News,27 May 1922 (also The Sunday Star, Washington)

http://dcollections.oberlin.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/kingcrane/id/1686/rec/18

When the smoke of [WW2] cleared only three purposes had been achieved, none of them disclosed at its start: the world-revolution, with Western arms and support, had advanced to the middle of Europe; Zionism had been armed to establish itself in Palestine by force; the "world-government", obviously the result which these two convergent forces were intended to produce, had been set up anew in embryo form, this time in New York. The war behind the war was the true one; it was fought to divert the arms, manpower and treasure of the West to these purposes.
-Douglas Reed, "the Controversy of Zion," p 333 (written ~1955 )
https://archive.org/stream/TheControversyOfZion/TheControversyOfZi

Agent76 , says: February 26, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years

"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"

July 23, 2006 Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon

Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark. "[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes] a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark) According to General Wesley Clark–the Pentagon, by late 2001.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-2001-pentagon-plan-to-attack-lebanon/2797

wraith67 , says: February 26, 2019 at 4:49 pm GMT
The problem with this (sky is falling) analysis is the number of troops available to wage a war over there. We're in 150 countries with 165,000 people deployed OCONUS. There's no 150,000 here for this potential war, 150,000 there for that potential war (and the list of wars we're apparently going to start is pretty long, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela ).

And there's no draft. The composition of a US division has significantly fewer trigger pullers than support people and nobody thinks the mechanics and admin people are going to conquer another country.

I think that before indulging in paranoia it would seem like you'd want to be looking for mass mobilizations and significant movements of armored vehicles. You can't hide it and troops are dumb about social media None of that's happening now.

follyofwar , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:29 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Before the US psychopaths start bombing Iran, Russia and China need to step up to the plate and just tell them NO, your world empire will NOT expand further. I'd rather see the US nuked than to see it kill millions of innocent Persians and wipe out their ancient society.

If war with Iran can somehow be prevented before the coming presidential election, I'd rather see any of the Dems far-left loony candidates elected than to hear the rantings of psychos like Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo for one more day. God, the US and Israel are horrible, evil countries that must be stopped!

follyofwar , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:50 pm GMT
@wraith67 That's why all US wars are now fought with bombs and missiles, not infantry. The US no longer has to invade countries to destroy them – witness Libya where there were no military casualties. As for the draft – bring it on and draft the wymyn. I'd love to see middle class parents start rioting in the streets once their 19 year-old daughters were drafted. I've read, also, that there is a dire shortage of qualified pilots. Perhaps our high schools and universities are not graduating enough psychos willing to kill great numbers of civilians from high altitude for no reason. I've heard that a lifetime PTSD is a bitch, as the veteran suicide rate of 22 a day demonstrates.
Talha , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

"genociding entire generations"

I'm actually not sure that is inaccurate. If trends continue in the current way, there may well eventually be a push to force all Palestinians out of the West Bank. There is nothing controversial about this:
"Over the past 50 years, Israel has demolished tens of thousands of Palestinian properties and displaced large swathes of the population to build homes and infrastructure to illegally settle its own population in the occupied territories. It has also diverted Palestinian natural resources such as water and agricultural land for settlement use."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel-occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/

I think the only mistake Br. Daniel made is using language that may give the impression that it is a completed (rather than ongoing) project. But if you read his full post, he mostly quotes from Zionist groups or Israeli sources and just puts in commentary here or there:
https://muslimskeptic.com/2019/02/23/israeli-political-party-so-racist-so-evil-even-zionists-like-aipac-denounce-it/

"Nearly half of Jewish Israelis agree that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel The survey makes no distinction between Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and citizens of Israel in its question about whether Arabs should be expelled from Israel. And yet, 48% of Jewish Israelis said they were in favor, 46% were opposed, and 6% said they didn't know. Breaking it down into religious groups, the Modern Orthodox (the report uses the Hebrew term dati'im), were the most likely to support such a measure, at 71%."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/plurality-of-jewish-israelis-want-to-expel-arabs-study-shows/

If that number grows (and there is little to doubt it will because of demographic patterns in the Jewish populace) and it eventually becomes the case, then Daniel's statement will just be a statement of fact; Palestinians used to live there and now they do not because they were killed or forced out. So the jury is still out on that as far as I'm concerned. Maybe slightly hyperbolic, but – meh – it's the internet. Hardly qualifies as "hate speech" though.

AnonFromTN , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
My bet is on false flag, like Tonkin incident and many others. Or WMD fairy tale. Or something else on these lines.
Philip Giraldi , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:08 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz Of course there are numerous options but containment only works if the targeted country does not strike back, which would instantly escalate the conflict. Bear in mind that all the pre war estimates of what would happen with Iraq were wrong. Assumptions that a conflict with Iran would be manageable or containable are likely to be equally misplaced particularly as there are hardliners on both sides that would welcome a shooting war
bucky , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:09 pm GMT
What no one, not even in alternative media, has picked up on is the real reason for Iran being a threat.

An Iran war is itself a distracting event for the real issue: Palestinians.

Israel always tries to provoke a war with Iran. This is to stoke unifying nationalism among the Israelis. Iran is a far preferable opponent than the Palestinians.

Furthermore, in the event of an actual war, you now have a global state of emergency which allows you to expel the remaining Palestinians. The world powers will all be occupied with fighting Iran. So will the regional powers. The Palestinians will be a legitimate security threat in the event of a war with Iran. So an expulsion would be justified.

But of course the instigators of such a conflict would be Israelis and their toadies among the idiot Christians of the GOP.

There is a high degree of cognitive dissonance here. I do not think that even Netanyahu can admit to himself this is why he keeps on hyping the Iran threat. But deep down, this is why. Otherwise, Israel has made its bed among the Palestinians. Jews are a white minority governing and oppressing a brown Muslim majority. Their only population growth is coming from the religious ultra orthodox, who they view with disdain and disgust.

Israel needs Iran more than anyone else in the world.

Talha , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
@Philip Giraldi If I recall, the Iranian leadership has made it clear that any direct attack on it of this magnitude will be considered an attack by proxy by Israel and they will respond in kind. Am I correct?

Peace.

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:18 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke Agree. The continued destruction of the economy and social fabric has no downside for the people who plan to rule through globalized tyranny. It's a feature, not a bug. Middle class America still has memory of freedoms. Not much of an impediment to real power, but nonetheless they must go.
geokat62 , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT

So going after Iran is the name of the game

The script has already been written:

Act I – Remove Sunni regimes (e.g., Iraq, Libya) that are hostile to the Zionist Project

Act II – Take a Sunni Turn by funding, arming, advising Sunni "terrorist" groups (e.g., al Qaida, IS) to attack Shia regimes (e.g., Syria, Iran) that are hostile to the ZP

Act III – push the KSA-led Sunni coalition to wage an eternal war against the Iranian-led Shia coalition, while the ZP continually expands.

Rurik , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:02 pm GMT
@Anonymous

"has likely been the goal from the get-go" of what?

"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

― George Orwell, 1984

never-anonymous , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:15 pm GMT
Al Qeada=CIA created BS. The smarter sort of zombies know this. Americans, however are one of the most heavily propagandized populations outside of 1984, a true story. The media reliably spreads fear of groups like al Qaeda, ISIS, the Viet Cong, Iraqis, Iranians, Martians, New America Foundation you name it – fear, credulity and obedience sustains the taxpaying class of war mongering morons. The US needs to end trying to run every country. It costs the hard working and mostly underpaid voters a lot of money to overthrow foreign Governments with CIA fake revolutions. Moreover, every time the military drops a bomb the tax payers pay to replace it and a billionaire profits.

There are tons of reasons to continue all the wars or start a new one, all related to Profit, the central concept of Capitalism. War means Profit. The propaganda war means the rich get to loot other countries without any complaints from the confused, moronic voting class who pay for it and support it while they debate the merits of the latest CIA prepared Al Qeada narrative. Usually pro-Jew Giraldi does a better job faking a divisive meme with his propaganda. Another "debate" that misses the real questions.

Anon [427] Disclaimer , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
Anyone who knows anything about the Muslim world would know this link between Al Qaeda and Iran is a complete sham. Al Qaeda is Sunni, Iran is Shia. They are mortal enemies. Al Qaeda is about as likely to ally themselves with the Shias they are with the Jews, which is to say, over their dead bodies.

But this Jew driven war machine is definitely hard at work building its case, not just drumming up support from the left, but even more so, from the right, through their Zionist mouthpieces esp. Breitbart. Jews are now in total control of America, controlling both sides of the aisle in congress, and both sides of the debate in the media.

If Trump is dumb enough to invade Iran, he'll have signed his own death warrant.

renfro , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:24 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?

The US and Israel already have a proxy group–the MEK– who has been doing assassinations. bombings and false flags for them for years.

The MEK (People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran or the Mojahedin-e Khalk is a Iranian political–militant organization that advocates overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership and installing its own government.
It was listed as a terrorist group by the US for blowing up American embassies and killing americans.'

BUT then ..

Pro-Israel voices want MEK off US terror list – International news
https://www.jpost.com/International/Pro-Israel-voices-want-MEK-off-US-terror-list
Feb 29, 2012 – Pro-Israel voices want MEK off US terror list. Dershowitz, ex-Canadian justice minister, Eli Wiesel joing prominent voices calling for US to

So it was taken off the terrorist list so it could be used as proxies for Israel

[MORE]
How Israel Could Take the Fight Directly to Iran – Arab-Israeli Conflict
https://www.jpost.com/ Israeli /How-Israel-could-take-the-fight-directly-to-Iran-542&#8230 ;
Feb 17, 2018 – While conventional military options targeting Iran are unlikely, Israel The Paris-based MEK maintains a presence in Iraq and covertly in Iran,

Israel-MEK relationship 'intricate and close' – NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/ /israel-mek-relationship-intricate-and-close-44575299799
Feb 9, 2012Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what

MEK tied to Israel-backed Terrorism Regardless of US Designation
https://lobelog.com/mek-tied-to-israel-backed-terrorism-regardless-of-us-designation/
Sep 26, 2012 – By Richard Sale. I believe that delisting the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list is in every way

Just who has been killing Iran's nuclear scientists? | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk › Voices › Comment
Oct 6, 2013 – Is it a last-minute attempt by Israel or the Iranian dissident group the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) to sabotage talks – or at least to show that they

Why Trump's Hawks Back the MEK Terrorist Cult | by Trita Parsi | NYR
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/ /why-trumps-hawks-back-the-mek-terrorist-cult/
In the 1980s, the MEK served as a private militia fighting for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. Today, it has a different paymaster: the

As of 2018, MEK operatives are believed to be still conducting covert operations inside Iran to overthrow Iran's government. Seymour Hersh reported that "some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today," with the MEK's prime goal of removing the current Iranian government.

The MEK use to be anti Israel . BUT THEN . Israel offered them a deal they couldnt refuse .the Jewish lobby would get them of the terrorist list in exchange for them ceasing to support Palestine.

"In the beginning, MEK used to criticize the Pahlavi dynasty for allying with Israel and Apartheid South Africa, calling them racist states and demanding cancellation of all political and economic agreements with them. MEK opposed and was anti-Zionist.
The Central Cadre established contact with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), by sending emissaries to Paris, Dubai, and Qatar to meet PLO officials. In one occasion, seven leading members of MEK spent several months in the PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon. On 3 August 1972, they bombed the Jordanian embassy as a means to revenge King Hussein's unleashing his troops on the PLO in 1970.
After their exile, the MEK changed into an 'ally' of Israel in pursuit of its ideological opportunism"

I could write all week about how Israel uses its control of the US to further its goal of being the Super Power of the ME .coming into play now also is how they offering their control of the US to help Egyptian mad man, General Sisi, to implement his President of Egypt for life plan in exchange for being Israel's side kick.

Makes you want to vomit doesnt it?.. to know what the US has become.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:28 pm GMT
@Philip Giraldi There are hardliners in Alaska, Texas, North Dakota and other oil-producing states that wouldn't be too troubled if the horse manure hit the fan in Iran.

Haven't the Iranians said they would pulverize Saudi Arabian oil installations if they are attacked by Israel or the United States?

Two hundred dollar a barrel oil could buy a lot of joy in the USA oil patch!

Tweets from 2015:

republic , says: February 26, 2019 at 11:38 pm GMT
This old article from February 2017 by the Saker on Iran is worth rereading for its clarity on the situation

http://www.unz.com/tsaker/u-s-against-iran-a-war-of-apples-vs-oranges/

[Feb 26, 2019] Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about the country

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bern , says: February 25, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

follyofwar, I hate to be Debbie Downer, but who do think Mueller works for?

https://digwithin.net/2018/04/08/muellers-history/

Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era Newspeak.)

What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.

CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.

Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.

[Feb 26, 2019] As for fake news, France, for example, adopted a law that filters the media space the way it wants. The Russian media Russia Today and Sputnik are political outcasts.

Notable quotes:
"... When we suggest turning to universally approved OSCE documents that reject as unacceptable any obstacles standing in the way of the public or journalists getting access to information, we are told that this was the case in 1990 and should remain there. ..."
"... It wasn't us that bombed Libya and turned it into a "black hole." It still remains such and through it bandits, terrorists and arms traffickers travel to the Sahara-Sahel zone whereas migrants are heading to the north. Therefore, we leave it up to them to deal with those who are responsible for this. ..."
"... Apparently, the international legal space is being fragmented – the US is doing this all along the way while the EU is isolating itself when it comes to a number of issues. The processes that are taking place in Eurasia may also be interpreted as isolation at some point but in reality we want to launch something that will become all-embracing. ..."
"... Maybe, there is a rational idea in everything that is taking place. As Vladimir Lenin used to say, "before uniting it is necessary resolutely to draw lines of demarcation." Maybe, we should be fragmented to understand who the main global players are. ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.mid.ru

Question:

We are now saying that the world is changing and the interdependence of states is growing. Do you think international regulation, for instance, in communications, can be radically improved in perspective? Because of fake news navigation in the sea of information leaves much to be desired. Is it possible to regulate a host of other things related to migration flows and capital management? Is it possible to raise international regulation to a new level or is this altogether impossible? Will countries continue to strike unstable alliances for shorter or longer periods of time or are there grounds to hope for an improvement of this situation?

Sergey Lavrov:

This question is fairly controversial. In brief, currently this regulation that should be ideally based on universal principles of international law is being replaced with narrowly interpreted rules elaborated in a narrow circle of states.

As for fake news, France, for example, adopted a law that filters the media space the way it wants. The Russian media Russia Today and Sputnik are political outcasts. They are not allowed to visit the Elysee Palace or attend any special events. When we address French officials in this context, they tell us that everything is correct because in their view these are propaganda instruments rather than news agencies. This is what regulation is all about.

When we suggest turning to universally approved OSCE documents that reject as unacceptable any obstacles standing in the way of the public or journalists getting access to information, we are told that this was the case in 1990 and should remain there.

There are other examples as well. When France failed to use the OPCW exclusively for passing remotely a verdict on who is guilty and who is not in violation of all conceivable norms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, it took the initiative to establish an International Partnership against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons that was not linked with any international structures. A few months later the EU made a decision to the effect that if the new structure reveals violators, Brussels will impose sanctions on them. This is, of course, regulation but this regulation is based on the narrow interpretation of broad interests by an individual group of countries.

As for the internet, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been talking for years, if not decades, about the way the internet should function so as to not offend anyone. No results have been produced and there will not be any in the foreseeable future for obvious-to-all reasons. I have practically no doubts about this. Likewise, for the same reason virtually not a single Western country supported our proposals that were endorsed by the UN General Assembly at the onset of work on the rules of responsible conduct in cyberspace.

You mentioned migration. There is the Global Compact for Migration that was adopted last year. The West was fighting for it to include a provision on the equal and divided responsibility for the migration crisis. Russia and other countries objected. It wasn't us that bombed Libya and turned it into a "black hole." It still remains such and through it bandits, terrorists and arms traffickers travel to the Sahara-Sahel zone whereas migrants are heading to the north. Therefore, we leave it up to them to deal with those who are responsible for this.

We are now talking about the formation of the multipolar international order. Its development was preceded by a whole historical era.

Apparently, the international legal space is being fragmented – the US is doing this all along the way while the EU is isolating itself when it comes to a number of issues. The processes that are taking place in Eurasia may also be interpreted as isolation at some point but in reality we want to launch something that will become all-embracing.

Maybe, there is a rational idea in everything that is taking place. As Vladimir Lenin used to say, "before uniting it is necessary resolutely to draw lines of demarcation." Maybe, we should be fragmented to understand who the main global players are.

Not those that established the UN in 1945 but those that are playing today, in the middle of the 21 st century. Only after this we should think what to do next, for instance, with the UN. It is absolutely clear that the UN Security Council requires a reform because the world's developing regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America are not properly represented in it. Today, up to one third of the UN Security Council is represented by EU countries. I don't think that if more countries from the historical West are added to this structure, it will gain the diversity we want to see in it.

[Feb 26, 2019] Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the payments were "consulting fees."

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [228] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT

@Thomm Bolton tweeted:

Attempts by Russian gov. to intimidate Amb. Wallace & @UANI are unacceptable. If President Putin is serious about stabilizing the Middle East, confronting terrorism & preventing a nuclear arms race in the region, he should stand with UANI & against Iran.

Why would the national security advisor care what the Russian Foreign Ministry has to say about a New York-based nonprofit's letter writing campaign, especially when those remarks got virtually no notice in the media?

Bolton's personal finances and the president's biggest campaign funder offer a couple clues.

Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the payments were "consulting fees."

https://lobelog.com/large-payments-to-bolton-might-explain-his-uani-tweet/

[Feb 26, 2019] War whore. Well, they sure pay well

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian says: Website February 26, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT War whore. Well, they sure pay well.

Boeing taps Nikki Haley to join board of directors

hill.cm/f4w38Wm

0:19 AM-Feb 26, 2019

108 people are talking about this

follyofwar , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT

@Asagirian I've read that she is still in line to primary Trump. Surely someone will, so it might as well be a neocon Israel-first Sikh woman who is even more ignorant and psychotic that our current Tweeter-in-Chief. If she wins, she can even keep Pompeo and Bolton to finish off Iran and start WWIII.

[Feb 26, 2019] Neoliberalism might be more resilient that we initially thought due to utilizing the power of survellance over citizens to prevent any meaningful political challenge

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Endgame Napoleon , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:05 pm GMT

We live in a goon-run surveillance economy, backed up by the strong arm of a mighty surveillance state apparatus, and nobody -- I mean nobody -- really stands up to it, calling out the real economic problems without a politically correct overlay that focuses on drummed-up social issues or other media-driven diversion tactics. As much as Hollywood theatrics are used as a way to sell the current setup as a functioning Republic to the serfs, none of our never-been-so-wealthy elected leadership has the morality to challenge the corrupt system. There's a reason for their crumbly back bones.

Despite the fake-morality play, using kids and babies as props in this fake-feminist era, we don't even have leaders morally uncompromised enough to take on the Swamp in minor ways, not in a surveillance state / surveillance economy, where all of the morally blemished political elites have a lot to lose -- financially.

Political elites have a lot to lose financially, even though few of them ever took the classic road to riches, including taking on financial risk to create quality jobs for US citizens, as opposed to using cheap foreign wage slaves whose low wages are pumped up by welfare for US-born kids, making it easy for them to work cheaply for elites.

Most of our rich political elites have never started businesses, employing US citizens to make tangible items, like cake mixes or ketchup, but somehow in this finacialized surveillance economy, all of our political leaders are flat-out rich with a lot to lose from speaking out against the rigged system, much less actually doing something about it.

Even without extra, ratings-boosting, sexual or other Swamp-exploitable foibles, that means a lot of leverage for surveillance goons to hold over political decision-makers' heads if they don't do their bidding, especially in a survelliance state / survelliance economy, wherein every nook and cranny of their lives is scrutinized to the hilt.

And it's perfectly okay for our power couples to put riches over morality because, like the aristocrats producing golden heirs to assume the throne in other eras when aristocratic couples and static wealth reigned supreme, our business and political leaders have all reproduced, putting them as above firing and above morality as other elites in the family-friendly, fake-feminist era. Everything elites do is for their babies, regardless of how venal it is.

Despite all of the surveillance that renders the Fourth Amendment null and void for cash-strapped serfs no less than elites and that stymies the First Amendment, suppressing the serfs from calling out the economic situation for what it is no less than elites, corruption is at all time highs.

Think that has anything to do with the brass-knuckle silencing tactics, made possible by the surveillance state?

Our so-called leaders don't even bother to challenge the most basic threats to constitutional liberty, much less the shaky foundation of our part-time / temp / churn-job economy, with its welfare-subsidized legal & illegal immigrant workforce and our single-mom & married-mom workforce, able to work part-time and in temp jobs for beans, thereby supplementing spousal income, rent-covering child support or the welfare they collect by staying under the earned-income limits for multiple welfare programs during working months in single-breadwinner households with US-born kids.

It is not even semi-quality jobs that support most households at the growing bottom. It is the already intact socialist system propping up a willing, cheap labor force for big corporations, that supports a large percentage of American households. Who needs Bernie's socialism when we already have a platter of 100%-free, non-contributory, pay-per-birth socialism, offered up by the Republican and Democratic Uniparty to drive down wages for non-welfare-eligible citizens 40 years?

Bernie is no stand-out Rebel. American corporations love socialism.

Even though the rebel Bernie has never held more than one senate seat, single-breadwinner households with US-born kids are already supplied with hundreds in free EBT food, reduced-cost housing, hundreds in monthly cash assistance, free electrcity and up to $6,431 in refundable child tax credit cash when they are willing to work part time or in temp positions for low wages, staying below the earned-income limits for welfare during working months. That's how they undercut millions of underemployed citizens who lack unearned income streams from .gov, and no corporate-owned political rebel in the surveillance state is willing to stand up to it.

No politician on the right or the left is free enough from the surveillance economy / surveillance state's goon squad to say what that means for vanquished middle-class prosperity in the USA.

It's not just student loans, either, no matter how much the establishment wants that to be the main problem so that they can blow another housing bubble with the mostly unmarried Millennials in their part-time / churn jobs. Truth is: Few of those college grads except the dual-high-earner parents in their family-friendly / absenteeism-friendly jobs -- keeping two of the few jobs with benefits and good wages under one roof and halving the size of the house-buying and rent-covering middle class while low-wage daycare workers or grandparents raise their kids -- can afford to buy a house. The above-firing group in the top 20%, however, can afford more palatial houses than any non-rich group of non job creators in US history.

In the long-gone America with the broad middle class and the mostly married, stay-at-home moms, most couples paid off modest houses by retirement, and most single earners with one, earned-only income stream could afford the dignity of a modest apartment, whereas most of today's working women will face insurmountable rent costs in retirement, just like they do during working years.

That is what the fake feminists have accomplished for the bottom 80%, but the family-friendly princesses in their palaces have not made any compromises. They humanize that by adding layers of absenteeism privileges for low-wage mommies in discriminatory voted-best-for-moms jobs, plus welfare and cash handouts through the progressive tax code to soften the brutality of this churn-job economy. But those womb-privileged single moms find themselves in the same dismal economic boat with the single, childless women in the bottom 80% after their kids turn 18, and the wage-supplementing, pay-per-birth freebies from goverment dry up.

Lacking a student loan debt does not overcome the insurmountable cost of housing for single breadwinners, whether they are male or female, non-custodial parents, middle-aged or older with no kids, older with no kids under 18 or younger in the years before family formation beefs up their income with cash-check tax code privileges, monthly welfare access and crony-parent workplace privileges. With none of the unearned income streams accruing to womb-productive single earners, the single earners relying relying on earned-only income from one person cannot even afford rent for a one-room apartment in a safe or unsafe area, much less a house. And there are more single earners than ever; we are the majority.

https://oftwominds.cloudhostedresources.com/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fduckduckgo.com%2F&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oftwominds.com%2Fblog.html

The childbearing-aged Millennials will be the focus of every economist and of all political hacks, seeking votes from the mostly older and middle-aged citizens who bother to show up on voting day, not the Xers with one, earned-only income stream and no kids under 18 and, thus, no handouts from Uncle Sam and the Treasury Department pumping up their wages in this dismal scam landscape of a churn-job gig economy.

Thanks to feminism, there are more & more of us in that category in this era of single, "independent" career women, and it is going to get worse and worse as this group hits retirement age. It will be worse for everyone except the dual-high-earner parents -- the tax-advantaged, "needs-the-job," above-firing "talent" who were needed at work because of their talent, but who were somehow on a an expensive, lengthy, family-friendly vacation every couple of months during their above-firing, childbearing-aged working years, not to mention all of the mornings and afternoons of excused absenteeism (for kids, for kids!) and their multiple pregnancy leaves.

These working-parents-in-charge, with their libertine, back-watching, family-friendly work schedules, sure do fire a lot of the non-family-friendly non culture fits whose every day, all-day hard work helps to keep their bonus numbers up. They fire away for the most trivial and pettiest of infractions in the churn machine of America's unprofessional-to-the-max corporate workplaces. Use and lose. Churn and burn. It equals family-friendly job security.

But regardless of how they did it, they will still retire into their luxury apartments or cathedral-ceiling homes, with two streams of SS income and two 401k streams.

Whereas, however hard they work and however much they help to pump up the crony-parent managers' bonuses, a huge number of divorced or never-married, single-breadwinner Xers who, since they did not have kids, did not need tax credit handouts to boost up their low wages, nor above-firing absenteeism privileges, benefits, decent-paying jobs or even a modicum of job security will retire into the most spartan and hopeless of "retirement" situations.

They will have nothing but one stream of very inadequate, non-rent-covering SS, into which they contributed either 7.5% or 15.3% of every dime they earned, unlike these glorified single moms and immigrants, raking in 100%-free monthly welfare by the truckloads, in addition to bigly, refundable cash-assistance welfare checks from the progressive tax code that top out at $6,431 all through their childbearing years, even though they do not pay income taxes in many cases and even though they work part time .

The average employed person in the USA is a part-time worker. That is the reality of automation, fake womb-productivity-based feminism and 4 decades of welfare-supported mass immigration.

Retirement will be just as bad, if not worse, for the even bigger group of hear-them-roar, fake-feminist, ever-more-never-married, part-time-job-holding, pink-hatted "career" women -- with all of their hypocritical, un-feminist, womb-focused demands of .gov and their much-maligned soy-boy sperm providers -- in the equally underemployed Millennial generation.

But in an anti-individual, anti-liberty and corrupt-to-the-core survelliance state economy, with a Constitution based on individual liberty in suspension, all that counts is a functioning feudal structure for aristocratic baby makers in the top 1 -- 20%, pumping out heirs to the thrones in a financialized economy that favors static wealth, and the illusion of benevolence that they create by throwing lots of mom-pampering cake crumbs to their womb-productive, welfare-qualified, legal & illegally-in-this-country cheap, groveling servants. A ton of Hollywood-lite, weepy-eyed media concern for the mommies and babies around the globe adds gloss to this fake-morality veneer.

Trump said something about the immigration part of this corrupt equation, saying it loudly enough to divert attention from the fact that he is not really doing anything about the onslaught of 40 years of mass-scale, welfare-aided legal & illegal immigration that keeps wages at rock bottom for cashing-in employers.

Turns out, Bernie, however saintly by comparison with other politicians in the surveillance state / surveillance economy, was not without goon-exploitable human foibles, like a $600,000 rustic lake house needing "help" from interior designers and a spousal-income controversy. Bernie fans should not forget that the Deep State cutthroats are not at all above exploiting it with no mercy, no matter how many cutesy baby pics they wave around to prove their humanity. They are shameless enough to use it against him, no matter how knee-deep in Swamp dollars they are.

That goes for the lovely, family-friendly leaders in both of our corrupt, Swamp-controlled parties. And it would not matter if a truly kick- *** superhero arose to take on the Swamp Goliath.

This Surveillance Swamp is too deep even for Mister Rodgers to wade through. If he ran for office on a platform of true reform, the Surveillance Swampers would be accusing him of bacchanalian bathroom activity, telling him they have video conformation of that, along with proof from credit-rating agencies of his cardigan sweater-buying shopaholic sprees right down to his last bank transaction.

We live in KGB country, where it is easy to pull politicians off of any real reformist path. No wonder, swampers are so concerned with Russia, thirty years after the Cold War ended. Rich US politicians, in a rigged surveillance economy, live in Stalinist Russia -- Stalinist Russia with an increased surveillance capacity, whereas the serfs live under the same economic & government surveillance without even the reward of a quality non-churn job, an independent roof over their heads or a safe neighborhood.

What a great trade off: our liberty and our widespread middle class in return for end-to-end financial security for the top 1 -- 20% and womb-productivity-based welfare security for some part-time-working, womb-productive citizens and noncitizens in the bottom 80% during their baby-making years. Oh, we serfs also get to hear the virtue-signaling chorus of the racism and sexism fighters, and a few of them make bank off of discrimination lawsuits.

[Feb 26, 2019] Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.

Notable quotes:
"... Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants. ..."
"... If I understand you correctly, we are in the best of all worlds? ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:03 pm GMT

@Commentator Mike Today's system is a hybrid of a late finance-stage global capitalism and cultural–not economic–Marxism. Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.

So the right-wingers (like Peter Hitchens) who say that 'Marxism won' are half right culturally, not economically. What causes all the confusion (among the libertarian types especially) is that capitalism in reality does not in any way resemble how it ought to work according to libertarian theories and never did. But when you point out to them that capitalism never worked in practice to begin with, they answer: 'But true capitalism has never even been tried!' And of course, they're right. 'True' capitalism (i.e., what libertarian theory calls capitalism) really never has been tried, and for exactly the same reason that perpetual motion machines have never been tried either: they're impossible.

None of which means I'm a 'pure' socialist. I'm open to mixed-economies and new experiments. I usually characterize myself more as a national socialist, mostly to differentiate myself from the 'world revolution' Trotskyite socialists who now predominate on the far-left.

That means I also take some inspiration from some fascists and national-syndicalists, although I don't regard any of them as holy writ, either.

In my opinion, the number one success factor for a civilization is not what theory it professes, but rather who controls it. Theories will always have to be modified to suit the circumstances; but the character of a people is much harder to change.

China's prospering because it's controlled by Chinese engineers; our civilization is suffocating because it's controlled by Jew-bankers and Masonic lawyers. Get rid of them first, and we can debate monetary theory till we're blue in the face.

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:25 pm GMT
@Captain Willard You must be under the delusion we live in a Constitutional Republic.

Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning 'to rule or to command')[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or corporate, religious, political, or military control. Such states are often controlled by families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.

"Their names are prick'd"

Authenticjazzman , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:30 pm GMT
@redmudhooch " Socialism is government by the working class"

Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants.

Your transparent mindset of : Socialism never worked because the wrong people were in charge of every attempt to actualize it, and if the right folks go at it in the "right" manner it will finally work., has been exposed as the lie it is.

This nonsense of : the Russians, Chinese, all of East Europe, Cuba, Venezuela, etc, etc. they really did not understand Marx, and they really did not want to establish a true " Farmers and Workers paradise", as according to Marx, so if we, the new generation of "Woke" "Jungsozialisten", if we go at it, there will be no failure this time, this nonsense has run it time and more and more otherwise unknowing peoples are finally waking up it's the lies and madness

Myself, I spent time in the seventies behind the "Iron Curtain" before the wall came down and I will never forget the morgue-like atmosphere of the grey cities and the dead eyes of the hopeless natives, and ignoranti like you are striving to repeat these humans tragedies over and over, regardless of how many time they fail and how much travail and suffering they generate.

Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz artist.

Authenticjazzman , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@Stephen Paul Foster " The profit motive" after being replaced with the Socialist rubber-stamp which holds power of life or death over it's hapless subjects, and make no bones about wielding it's ruthless fatal power, would seem like altruism and benevolency in retrospect.

AJM

ploni almoni , says: February 26, 2019 at 9:40 pm GMT
@Authenticjazzman

If I understand you correctly, we are in the best of all worlds?

Sparkon , says: February 26, 2019 at 11:13 pm GMT
@ploni almoni T he runaway over-use of the narcissism cliché has been fueled mostly by copy-cats with weak vocabularies who use it deliriously as a general purpose put-down of men who aren't slobs.
AceDeuce , says: February 27, 2019 at 12:41 am GMT
"The Bernie Sanders Story: From Brooklyn to Vermont-One Man's Odyssey in Search of Diversity".

[Feb 26, 2019] "'Free market?!'" he exclaimed. "No such thing. Because it's all crooked.

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

obwandiyag , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT

@Digital Samizdat Excellent intelligence. As opposed to the "high IQ" idiocy promulgated on here.

You may like the way an acquaintance, a PhD from Chicago School of Business, who had just finished working on a project for Big Pharma, observed when I brought up the concept of "free market."

"'Free market?!'" he exclaimed. "No such thing. Because it's all crooked."

[Feb 26, 2019] The British wars in the middle east in the 1920's, after ending "all war" at Versailles, mercilessly waged against less technologically developed countries, were all highly aggressive

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Benjy , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:28 pm GMT

@Chris Mallory

"Poor lil Hitler was a good boy. He dindu nuttin."

Already after the turn of the last century Southern Iran became a British "sphere of influence". Through the 1920's, after making the world free for democracy, and fighting the war to end all wars, England was gassing and murdering the kurds and Iraqi's with in their "mandate".

The British wars in the middle east in the 1920's, after ending "all war" at Versailles, mercilessly waged against less technologically developed countries, were all highly aggressive.

... ... ...

[Feb 26, 2019] Syria is awash with illegality UK hid SAS involvement in Syria to avoid being allied to US

Feb 26, 2019 | www.rt.com

'Syria is awash with illegality': UK hid SAS involvement in Syria to avoid being 'allied to US' Published time: 25 Feb, 2019 14:56 Edited time: 26 Feb, 2019 08:00 Get short URL 'Syria is awash with illegality': UK hid SAS involvement in Syria to avoid being 'allied to US' A British soldier demonstrates anti-terrorist tactics © AFP / Leila Gorchev The UK doesn't want to be seen deploying special forces with the likes of the US, an ex-UN chief told RT, suggesting Syria is awash with "illegality," after the British MoD admitted its personnel are active in the war-torn nation. Despite British MPs voting in December 2015 for 'approved airstrikes only' in Syria, the Ministry of Defence's admission came after a freedom of information request relating to the death of SAS soldier, Sergeant Matt Tonroe, who was killed in March last year.

Also on rt.com BBC producer says hospital scenes after 2018 Douma 'chemical attack' were staged

Former UN chief & humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Hans-Christof von Sponeck, suggested that the UK does not want to give the impression it is "allied to the US" in Syria because of past ventures into Iraq and Afghanistan, which do not play well with the British public.

Asked whether the US is essentially driving these decisions to deploy special forces on the ground, and not the UK, von Sponeck replied: "Of course," but added that the Turks were also highly influential when it came to ground-force deployment.

//www.youtube.com/embed/cwyZUZDStXs

Special forces serviceman Tonroe was killed along with two US soldiers fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Syria, the Times reported. In a statement, the Ministry of Defence has ostensibly argued that any British ground forces operating in Syria act as if they were a soldier of the nation they're embedded with.

"British forces embedded in the armed forces of other nations operate as if they were the host nation's personnel, under that nation's chain of command," the ministry said.

Historian and journalist Mark Curtis has taken to social media to highlight the fact that British military personnel are embedded with US military commands around the world. He argues that not enough is being made public on the matter.

UK military personnel are embedded in various US military commands. Hardly anything is public on this. https://t.co/zUJadJMUPu https://t.co/14T5cjoCpC https://t.co/BDcVhkS9nl pic.twitter.com/26GIVqpSI4

-- Mark Curtis (@markcurtis30) February 25, 2019

Former head of the British Joint Forces Command, Sir Richard Barrons, has suggested that numerous countries have been conducting "proxy assistance" in Syria without explicitly declaring direct involvement in military operations.

Subscribe to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media won't tell you.

[Feb 25, 2019] Forget Jussie Smollet, Here Are the Real False Flags by Kevin Barrett

Feb 25, 2019 | www.unz.com
Kevin Barrett February 24, 2019 •

The world slipped closer to nuclear war. Big false flags -- actual, suspected, and anticipated -- were a key factor. But hardly anybody noticed. Everyone was riveted by the story of actor Jussie Smollet, who supposedly paid a couple of Nigerian-American bodybuilders for a staged racist-homophobic near-lynching. The ostensible motive: Add a zero to Smollet's pathetic little million-a-year salary.

[Feb 24, 2019] In England and in France, as well as in the US, the Jews became a symbol of the present neo-liberal regime

If true this is a great danger. For Jews.
Feb 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website February 22, 2019 at 10:05 pm GMT

In England and in France, as well as in the US, the Jews became a symbol of the present neo-liberal regime, as the scams and hoaxes make it apparent.

The pride and pressure of Jews as high-achievers could be fueling the scams and frauds in so many fields.

Non-Jews don't feel particularly bad if they don't achieve much. But Jews have this reputation, indeed a point of pride among Jews, as being intelligent and high-achieving. So, it seems like many many Jews come under the pressure to be high-achieving or at least appear so. To be a 'loser' Jew is far more humiliating that it is to be a loser goyim. It's like a black guy losing to a white guy in boxing or one-on-one basketball. Unheard of. Consider the movie BOILER ROOM where lesser Jews resort to fraud to make easy money and seem successful.

conceptpolitico , says: February 22, 2019 at 11:34 pm GMT
Shamir, you missed a very simple point. This Jussie Smollett is Jewish. His father is a Jew. He isn't black, he is bi-racial and since Judaism is not a race (like being black) but an ethnicity Jussie actions are more that of a jew than it is as a black person. In fact a lot of black people didn't believe him and show his actions as a means to exploit the black identity even before his actions where exposed as a hoax
byrresheim , says: February 23, 2019 at 7:41 am GMT
@Rabbitnexus

He is not. His mother is not jewish and as far as is known, he is not a convert himself.

Anonymous [223] Disclaimer , says: February 23, 2019 at 10:57 am GMT
@Asagirian

tribal noblesse oblige

That's tribal nepotism. Hostile tribal nepotism in case of jews.

noblesse oblige

noblesse oblige noun
no·​blesse oblige

Definition of noblesse oblige

: the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth

TimeTraveller , says: February 23, 2019 at 11:57 am GMT
@swamped I believe he's pointing out the supremacy that the Jews enjoy in Israel/Palestine is due to the role that Jews play in the neoliberal institutions – that Israel is dependent on corporate patronage, trade concessions, capital flow from the West, etc.
alexander , says: February 23, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT
Thank you Mr. Shamir, for a very informative and interesting article.

In many ways the exposure of the "Smollett Hoax" as a "hoax" is a watershed event in post 9-11 America.

It is, perhaps , the first time that the deliberate defrauding of the public through the enacting of a "staged event" has been given the media attention for being uncovered "as such".

And actually prosecuted.

Amazing.

But to many of us, increasingly aware we are living in (what could only be fairly described as) an Empire of Fraud the "Smollett Hoax"attention is akin to one noticing a tiny chipmunk urinating on your toe while standing, hapless, under a torrential deluge raining down from the mammoth elephant above you.

We live in the great age of fraud, Mr. Shamir, and Mr. Smollett's phony act was but a drop in the bucket.

Consider the fact that nearly every pretext for war, especially since 9-11, has been proven to be founded on fraudulent narratives , hoaxes, lies , and staged events . and you will see what I mean.

Do I need to remind you of the media's "iron clad" certainty it was "Saddam's Anthrax" deposited in both Tom Brokaw and Senator Leahy's office in the run up to the Iraq war ?

Why they even had the 'matching spores from Baghdad' to prove it .Right ?

How about the "Yellow Cake" from Niger ? .or the "aluminum tubes" ? .or the impending "mushroom clouds" from Saddam's imminent WMD's ?.

All "hoaxes" .All "lies" A veritable cornucopia of war and terror "fraud" which has led to the unconscionable death of millions of innocent people and the greatest debt crisis our country has ever faced.

Were it only that our leaders and the oligarchs (for whom they serve) be faced with same accountability from their "defrauding" as Jussie Smollett ..we would be living in a much different world , today.

.

Wally , says: February 24, 2019 at 5:19 am GMT
@byrresheim said:
"He is not. His mother is not jewish and as far as is known, he is not a convert himself."

You're quite wrong.

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5467558,00.html
US Jewish actor goes from victim to accused felon in just 3 weeks

ex.: "Jewish, black and gay actor Jussie Smollett was charged Wednesday with making a false police report, after he had told Chicago police last month that two men physically attacked him and yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him."

Colin Wright , says: February 24, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT
' In England, seven (now eight) Jewish and Judeophile MPs have stormed out of the Labour Party claiming Labour has been 'infected' with 'anti-Jewish racism' '

I noted some details on the latest of these, an Ian Austin, who supposedly quit because of 'anti-semitism.'

His recorded foreign trips over the last three years:

'Kurdistan', AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Jerusalem, Israel, Israel, 'Kurdistan', AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Israel, Israel Admittedly, there's also a visit to Auschwitz.

Sponsors: Nokan Group, Labour Friends of Israel, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Australia Israel Cultural Exchange Ltd -- all multiple times.

The data comes from a site somewhat ironically called 'They Work for You.'

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11553

[Feb 23, 2019] Trump appoints the prosecutor who slapped Epstein on the wrist for Lolita Express crime

Notable quotes:
"... Trump didn't drain the swamp, he pour fertilizer in it. ..."
"... The shekel counting big snout alligators? They're particularly nasty. ..."
"... Acosta = Epstein Pedogate Prosecutor "When I first heard the name Alexander Acosta, Trump's new pick for Labor Secretary, I knew it sounded eerily familiar. And then it dawned on me. He was the U.S. Attorney in charge of the Southern District of Florida from 2006 through 2009, and oversaw a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein." ..."
"... Trump - Epstein civil suit COMPLAINT FOR RAPE, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, CRIMINAL SEXUAL ACTS, SEXUAL ABUSE, FORCIBLE TOUCHING, ASSAULT, BATTERY, INTENTIONAL AND RECKLESS INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, DURESS, FALSE IMPRISONMENT, AND DEFAMATION ..."
"... Over 200 children. 12,13,14 years old. Broken homes. Different countries. "Punishment" = Empty wing of a comfy 'prison' with liberal leave privledges for him to work from his office, where he could receive guests including females. That's not prison Tyler's, it's ******* daycare - which is the kind of place he's attracted to. Stop calling it / quoting it as a "prison sentence". ..."
Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

gildedtime , 3 hours ago link

So Trump appoints the prosecutor who slapped Epstein on the wrist for a cabinet position. This is so obvious as Trump was part of the Lolita Express as was lifelong Democrat Alan Dershowitz who has suddenly flipped to Trump's most ardent supporter as well as the usual group of pervs like Clinton and Spacey (who cares I guess).

Trump didn't drain the swamp, he pour fertilizer in it.

Karl Malden's Nose , 54 minutes ago link

The shekel counting big snout alligators? They're particularly nasty.

William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
Acosta = Epstein Pedogate Prosecutor "When I first heard the name Alexander Acosta, Trump's new pick for Labor Secretary, I knew it sounded eerily familiar. And then it dawned on me. He was the U.S. Attorney in charge of the Southern District of Florida from 2006 through 2009, and oversaw a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein."
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/trumps-new-labor-secretary-pick-protected-convicted-pedophile-billionaire-jeffrey-epstein-from-prosecution/
Anonymous_Beneficiary , 3 hours ago link

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000158-26b6-dda3-afd8-b6fe46f40000

Trump - Epstein civil suit COMPLAINT FOR RAPE, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, CRIMINAL SEXUAL ACTS, SEXUAL ABUSE, FORCIBLE TOUCHING, ASSAULT, BATTERY, INTENTIONAL AND RECKLESS INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, DURESS, FALSE IMPRISONMENT, AND DEFAMATION

SpinDrift , 4 hours ago link

Over 200 children. 12,13,14 years old. Broken homes. Different countries. "Punishment" = Empty wing of a comfy 'prison' with liberal leave privledges for him to work from his office, where he could receive guests including females. That's not prison Tyler's, it's ******* daycare - which is the kind of place he's attracted to. Stop calling it / quoting it as a "prison sentence".

Must be some really compromising video footage with some very powerful people on it to get that kind of deal. Day of the rope for that **** and all who let him walk. No exceptions.

Return_of_Byzantium , 4 hours ago link

I had to search this up to believe what you said. Holy ****... the rabbit hole is deeper than most realize:

" Instead of being sent to state prison, Epstein was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. And rather than having him sit in a cell most of the day, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office allowed Epstein work release privileges, which enabled him to leave the jail six days a week, for 12 hours a day, to go to a comfortable office that Epstein had set up in West Palm Beach. This was granted despite explicit sheriff's department rules stating that sex offenders don't qualify for work release ."

Helena Bonham-Carter , 3 hours ago link

When you have dirt on the Clintons, and you **** up, and they can't kill you, this is what you get.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 3 hours ago link

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/new-photos-bill-clinton-trump-melania-227945

Groundround , 4 hours ago link

Note how they spent hours to placate and kowtow to the pedophile while dumping on the victims. That is because the government is loaded with dog **** like the half monkey Epstein and his fellow tribe members. The only justice left to Americans will come from the streets. I am completely against torture and war, yet this piece of scum should be waterboarded for names. They need to clear out those members of government who have been compromised by the activities of the tribe.

Realname , 4 hours ago link

Well, the swamp would, finally, be drained.

ashu.lsa56 , 4 hours ago link

I g­e­t p­a­i­d o­v­e­r $­9­0 p­e­r h­o­u­r w­o­r­k­i­n­g f­r­o­m h­o­m­e w­i­t­h 2 k­i­d­s a­t h­o­m­e. I n­e­v­e­r t­h­o­u­g­h­t I­'­d b­e a­b­l­e t­o d­o i­t b­u­t m­y b­e­s­t f­r­i­e­n­d e­a­r­n­s o­v­e­r 1­0­k a m­o­n­t­h d­o­i­n­g t­h­i­s a­n­d s­h­e c­o­n­v­i­n­c­e­d m­e t­o t­r­y. T­h­e p­o­t­e­n­t­i­a­l w­i­t­h t­h­i­s i­s e­n­d­l­e­s­s. H­e­r­e­s w­h­a­t I'v­e b­e­e­n d­o­i­n­g,

HERE►► http://www.todaysfox.com

Miss Tick , 2 hours ago link

Those spammers are criminals

The websites contain not only virus, malware, spyware whatever. .. (depends on your PC protection)

It is a ripoff . You never get paid a cent. But if one is gullible and naive enough to give away to shady strangers personal data as address, birth date, social security number, credit card number, bank account etc., they empty your account , and they do Identity theft.

p.e. They ask for an initial payment for training, or they sell you a starter kit etc., so they get your data. Or they promise you to pay salary in advance, before they ever saw you. Sometimes they have "real" job interviews with a "recruiter" by Skype or Smartphones facial, no skills required, with faked websites of real companies, faked or personal email addresses.

Grandad Grumps , 4 hours ago link

Cage Mueller!!

SocratesSolutions , 4 hours ago link

Every last pedophile is dead meat just like Judaica is dead meat which promoted it. No, you cannot touch a kid any longer, ignorant arrogant sick followers of the Talmud and Kabbalah, for the Talmud and Kabbalah will be burned out of every last Synagogue on the planet just as the entire religion will be burned down to the ground. Including many dumb parts of the Bible. Take for example that sick *** stupid mother ******* event where some guy holds a knife up to his son because God told him to. You ignorant arrogant assholes. God never said any such thing, and God sure as hell never said you were chosen! Well, I take that back. You see, God told me that you are actually especially chosen for the *** kicking of a millenia.

www.21stcenturyworldmessage.com

charlie_don't_surf , 4 hours ago link

Root em out.

Walter Melon , 4 hours ago link

Ruh roh!

That's right, I said it.

RayUSA , 4 hours ago link

This is the manner that the scum in the so called "Justice Department" works to protect pedophiles. If it wasn't for an intense amount of corruption, Epstein would have been prosecuted by the full extent of the law. Instead, sneaky deals by the scum bags that "prosecuted" this fraud of a case ended up with a plea agreement which "punished" this slimy creep with a measly 13 month sentence.

To add insult to injury to the victims, the civil case is dragged on for 11 years.

This is the same type of "justice" that is in place that has protected the Catholic clergy pedophiles, which for the most part, never saw the inside of a court room for their unspeakable crimes.

Why are pedophiles seemingly protected in this society? Is it because pedophilia is rampant among so many that are in powerful positions? I think we all know the answer to that one.

stubb , 4 hours ago link

LOL. Since when do the courts or any other part of the government care about breaking laws.

dirty fingernails , 4 hours ago link

When you and I do it. 2 tier justice system.

ConservativeOldMan , 4 hours ago link

And then there are all Epstein's friends, who enjoyed themselves with little girls on that benighted island: hearsay includes both the Clintons among them, and the Queen of England's second son, prince someone or the other. I assume that what they did on that island was felonious. Need to go after them.

And then there's ACOSTA - our current Federal Secretary of Labor. TRUMP NEEDS TO FIRE HIM, perhaps to prosecute him.

Realname , 4 hours ago link

Hasnt Trump, also, been a guest there?

Karl Malden's Nose , 4 hours ago link

Shhhh, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Orange Jesus is their messiah. He can do no wrong. He was misquoted when he said he'd bang his daughter, ignore those creepy photos too.

Realname , 4 hours ago link

Apparently, critical thinking is becoming rare. Go team!

Proud-Christian-White-American-Man , 3 hours ago link

Karl Malden's Nose: Guess you are letting Trump Derangement Syndrome get in the way of the facts.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/fusion-gps-tried-and-failed-link-trump-jeffrey-epstein

Karl Malden's Nose , 1 hour ago link

Facts? Oh you mean like the Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislane Maxwell connection? Yeah. Wait, they obviously never met right? "He's a lot of fun to be with," "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

https://fitzinfo.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/trump-and-epstein.jpg

https://fitzinfo.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/epstein-and-trump-at-mar-a-lago.jpg

https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/JeffreyEpsteinDonaldTrumpBillClintonSexOffenderBearStearnsChildMolestation.jpg?w=1920&ssl=1

Who could forget this gem?

https://fitzinfo.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/trump_daughter-ivanka_creepy_01.jpg

tmosley , 4 hours ago link

No, he just borrowed the plane.

gildedtime , 3 hours ago link

Trump needs to fire him? Trump hired him! It wasn't a coincidence.

MasterPo , 4 hours ago link

This ****** is toast. If you don't get that, you're just not ready for what's happening, and it's OK. The adults have stepped in, and are cleaning house. The streets will be paved with the carcases of these pedophiles, satanists, and assorted scumbags. Some will be from the dregs of society, others from the highest echelons, but none will escape.

[So it has been spoken, so it shall be done... (Yul Brenner as Pharoah - from The Ten Commandments)]

Groundround , 4 hours ago link

I think the only justice to be done will be that we do ourselves. But that time is coming. A lot of folks have had enough of Epstein and his cronies.

Ignorance is bliss , 4 hours ago link

Double jepopardy. Can't go to trial twice for the same crime. The pedophile walks among us.

UmbilicalMosqueSweeper , 4 hours ago link

Multiple crimes, not just one crime.

Karl Malden's Nose , 4 hours ago link

Except he was never tried for sex trafficking. He plead guilty to two prostitution charges. Send the **** to the slammer, better still the gallows.

Shadow1275 , 4 hours ago link

Got Em!

khnum , 4 hours ago link

You can run on for a long time

run on for a long time

run on for a long time

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Sooner or later God'll cut you down,

(from Johnny Cash,God's Gonna Cut You Down)

johnnycanuck , 4 hours ago link

One can only hope, but hope never amounts to anything so long as the robber barons continue to run everything.

As my old bro used to say; We thank God for the blessings we are about to receive, the ones I worked hard for.

khnum , 4 hours ago link

I figure God helps those that help themselves,there is an afterlife though,the trick is being in this world but not of it.I have a roof over my head,a full belly,an income and good family and friends hell thats better than 70 per cent on this planet so I tend not to be much of a God botherer.

johnny two shoes , 4 hours ago link

And Epstein was there at Chelsea Hubbell's wedding...

UmbilicalMosqueSweeper , 4 hours ago link

Think he banged her?

RufusMacDuff , 4 hours ago link

Nah, it was far too old...

Karl Malden's Nose , 4 hours ago link

Come now, even Chelsea's hubby hasn't fucked around in that hairy cabbage patch. They sent her to the vet to get inseminated.

johnny two shoes , 4 hours ago link

I must apologize, it seems his pimpette (?) named Ghislaine was there, representing Prince Andrew, who also seems to like them young, ... not sure if thats why Fergie left him... its complicated...

As far as the Clinton Foundation paying for the 3 million dollar wedding, well that's murky too

sorry

johnnycanuck , 4 hours ago link

Far more important in the here and now is Bernie Sanders refused to go with the Dims and back fat Mike's 'Guido' in Venezuela. The head of the Clinton Foundation , a Congresswoman from Florida and ex Bill Clinton Secretary of something, loudly condemned Bernie and said he will NEVER be the Dems candidate for President.

https://www.rt.com/usa/452141-sanders-venezuela-guaido-maduro/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Shalala

[Feb 23, 2019] Humanitarian Intervention And The New World Order, Part 3

Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Vladislav Sotirovic via Oriental Review,

Read Part 1 here...

Read Part 2 here...

NATO's Aggression Against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999

The NATO launched a military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) on March 24th, 1999 in the name of protection of human rights of Kosovo Albanians. In other words, the 78 days of barbaric air-strikes were formally justified by "humanitarian intervention" which was mainly based on the false flags and fake news (like the Rachak case) by Western corporate mass media or brutal lies from the ground (like by William Walker – a Head of the Kosovo Verification Mission).

In essence, regional organizations like the NATO, according to the UN Charter, do not have the right to interfere in internal affairs of any country, not even in internal affairs of their own member states. This superior international document and instrument of global security explicitly demand the approval of the UNSC for the undertaking of any armed action by any regional organization. The NATO never asked and never became authorized to carry out military intervention against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 and, therefore, according to modern Public International Law, this "humanitarian" intervention under arms was a pure act of brutal aggression against a sovereign country and as such a crime against peace. Subsequently, human rights served in this case just as a justification for the realization of certain geopolitical aims in the Balkans. It became of crystal visibility in February 2008 when Kosovo Albanians proclaimed an independent Republic of Kosovo which became recognized by all US' satellites around the world. In 1999 NATO did not bomb Serbia and Montenegro for the sake of Kosovo independence but only to protect "human rights" (of Albanians). However, the same NATO nothing did to continue the protection of human rights (of Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanians) after the war when the province became put under complete protectorate and control by the NATO who nothing did to prevent comprehensive ethnic cleansing of the province committed by Albanian extremists (former members of the KLA).

Although, as it is presented above, every armed intervention is strictly prohibited by both Public International Law and the UN Charter, the NATO, established in 1949 on the foundation of Article 51 of the UN Charter which is dealing with the right to collective and individual self-defense, attacked the FYR on March 24th, 1999 with continual barbaric air-strikes for the next 77 days. The term "air-strikes", the NATO was regularly used at its own press conferences during the aggression on Serbia and Montenegro like the term "collateral damage" for the mass destruction and civilian casualties resulted by the NATO bombing. In their official statements, NATO's officials declaratively claimed that the focal reason for those (illegal) air-strikes was a set of humanitarian issues among them the most important have been three:

1) protection of individual human rights,

2) violation of Albanian rights in Kosovo as a national minority, and

3) prevention of the potential policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing against ethnic Albanians by Yugoslavia's security forces.

Nevertheless, the aggression was accompanied by dirty and powerful media propaganda which was, of course, directly supported by a number of politically "correct" legal and human rights experts for the purpose to wash the brains of the Western audience. Most of them justified the aggression with the right of Kosovo Albanians to self-determination, although such right is not supported by any valid international instrument if the right to self-determination means the destruction of territorial integrity of the country. However, the same experts did not recognize the same right to self-determination to Croatia's and Bosnia's Serbs during the break up of ex-Yugoslavia.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, center, with court security guards at left and right, appears before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Tuesday July 3, 2001. Milosevic walked into the U.N. tribunal courtroom, Tuesday, without lawyers to represent him against charges of war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. Milosevic died in his prison cell in the Hague on March 11, 2006 allegedely of a heat attack jist a few months begore the verdict to be annouced.

To keep in our mind, according to Public International Law and the UN Charter, the aggression also includes bombing by the armed forces of one country against the territory of another country or use of any arms and armed forces of one country against the territory of another as, for instance, NATO used Kosovo Albanian KLA as ground forces during the Kosovo War. But the crucial fact in relation to the 1998−1999 Kosovo War was that since there was no real humanitarian catastrophe before the NATO aggression starred on March 24th, 1999 against the FRY, it had to be created what exactly NATO did during the air-strike campaign of 78 days in order to justify its occupation of the province after the war followed by Kosovo's secession from Serbia in 2008.

Violation Of Human Rights In Kosovo

No one claims that human rights of all citizens including and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo-Metochia have not been violated to a certain extent before NATO's military campaign in 1999. This fact was approved in several resolutions by the UNSC before the NATO aggression but what is systematically hidden as a fact is that original flagrant violation of human rights in the province came from the side of Albanian KLA as this terrorist organization launched a widespread policy of attacking, kidnapping and killing of the Serbs in order to provoke Serbia's security forces who reacted as they did it by violation of human rights of those Albanians who participated in the actions of and/or supported the KLA's activities. Here we have to keep in mind that a majority of Kosovo's Albanians did not support the methods of combat by the KLA including and Dr. Ibrahim Rugova – a political leader of Kosovo's Albanians. In order to calm down a political situation in the province, the Yugoslav Government concluded with different international organizations, like the OSCE or the NATO, several agreements allowing the OSCE monitoring mission in Kosovo-Metochia. The Yugoslav Government as well as agreed to restrain the activities by its security forces if the opposite side (the KLA) would do the same. That the Albanian side before NATO's aggression was committing war crimes is clear from the invitation to both the Yugoslav and Kosovo's Albanian sides by the international community to cooperate with the UN special Tribunal (est. 1993) for the crimes committed on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia (including Kosovo-Metochia too). The fact was that regarding this invitation to cooperate with the Tribunal's prosecutor in the Hague, the leaders of the "Albanian national community" were also invited but not only the Yugoslav side to participate in the investigation for all offenses within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. The Albanian side was, in other words, invited to participate in the investigation of personal involvement of the KLA members in the crimes committed against other ethnic groups in Kosovo-Metochia, with the final political aim to secede the province from the FRY.

Nevertheless, in no one resolution on Kosovo before March 24th, 1999, it was not mentioned any "threat to peace" in the province nor did they order the UNSC to form international armed forces with the right to re-establish the peace and order in Kosovo, that was to undertake certain armed actions against Serbia and Montenegro. In 1998, the FRY as a sovereign state was combating separatist Albanian movement in Kosovo-Metochia, in some cases with inordinate use of force, but, nevertheless, there was no real humanitarian catastrophe at that time. The recent historical experience of violation of human rights according to contemporary definition, in the province suggests that the critical situation was escalating with the creation of the KLA in 1995 which took comprehensive terrorist actions for the sake to bring about the secession of Kosovo from Serbia. The Yugoslav security forces came into serious conflict with different groups of the KLA, and the judiciary of the FRY accompanied by relevant experts and scholars justifiably qualified the armed actions of Kosovo's separatists as classic terrorism and criminal acts against a sovereign state. [iv]

Former leader of KLA Ramush Haradinaj arrested on 5 January 2017 on a Serbian arrest warrant by French border police upon his arrival at EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg on a flight from Pristina. Serbian authorities urged France to extradite Haradinaj, citing that he personally took part in the torture, murder, and rape of civilians. On 27 April 2017, a French court turned down a Serbian request to extradite Ramush Haradinaj and released him. Since September 9, 2017 Haradinaj is the Prime Minister of self-proclamed Kosovo.

In essence, there were prior to NATO's aggression on the FRY the problems of protection of human rights in Kosovo-Metochia, but certainly no to such extent as it was exaggerated by the Western mass media and policymakers at least no bigger than in many other corners of the world like in Colombia or Turkey's eastern part populated by ethnic Kurds. Surely, the situation in regard to human rights in Turkey since 1994 onward is much more serious than it was in Kosovo-Metochia in 1998 as the Kurdish human and minority rights are drastically violated like in 1994 when a large number of the Kurdish villages were destroyed by the Turkish police and regular army's forces and when almost one million of ethnic Kurds fled Turkey to neighboring states but the US administration simply did nothing to protect the Kurdish human rights. Even no initiative was launched for the UN to undertake a legitimate international action in order to prevent Turkey's authorities to stop with the production of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Producing Humanitarian Catastrophe But Characterized As No Aggression

The focal result of NATO's bombing of Serbia and Montenegro was a huge number of refugees of all nationalities from Kosovo-Metochia that became, in fact, a real humanitarian catastrophe. However, during such exodus of people, NATO's military aggression under the umbrella of the "armed humanitarian intervention" became even strengthened in spite of all prohibitions which have been existing in Public International Law. However, during and after the bombardment of the FRY, the UN resolutions, like the UNSC Resolution of June 10th, 1999, simply did not mention the bombardment at all for a very reason: if mentioned it would have to be officially qualified as "aggression" what means a violation of Public International Law and the UN Charter. In this case, however, due to the established voting system in the UNSC (threat of using Russian and Chinese veto rights), no resolution could be adopted. The Resolution of June 10th, 1999, in fact, is speaking only about deployment of international security forces including and those of the NATO in the province after the war for the sake to " establish safe environment for all people in Kosovo, as well as to facilitate safe return of all displaced people and refugees to their homes". In other words, nowhere in the whole text of the resolution is mentioned the bombardment of the FRY and, therefore, a pure act of aggression against a sovereign state. That was the same with another previous resolution adopted during the aggression (Resolution 1239 on May 14th, 1999) which does not say any single word about NATO's bombardment but instead it only says that international community expresses serious concern in respect to the humanitarian catastrophe in and around Kosovo as a result of continuing crisis but who produced this crisis is absolutely unclear from the text of the resolution. The same text confirms the rights of all refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes in a safe and dignified manner but what was a real background of the crisis is not clear. According to the UN resolutions on Kosovo, the NATO barbaric bombardment and a classic act of aggression on a sovereign state, in fact, believe or not, never happened!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2M42BAJAk84

We have to mention that there were several attempts by Russia and China in the UNSC to adopt an appropriate resolution in which would be recognized that NATO's air-strikes in 1999 really happened on the ground and subsequently they had to be characterized as "aggression". However, such resolution's proposals failed as not being adopted for the only reason – used veto rights by the USA, the UK, and France (the Western obstruction).

Arguments Against Humanitarian Intervention

There are several focal objections by the scholars, policy-makers, and lawyers to humanitarian intervention advocated at various times. Here, we will address the most important arguments against humanitarian intervention taking primarily the case of NATO's bombing of the FRY in 1999:

  1. No real basis for humanitarian intervention in Public International Law . The common good is best preserved by maintaining a ban on any use of force not authorized by the UNSC. Interveners have typically either claimed to be acting in self-defense according to the "implied authorization" of the UNSC resolutions and the UN Charter or have refrained from making any reasonable legal argument based on Public International Law at all.
  2. States do not intervene for primarily humanitarian reasons . States always have mixed real reasons for humanitarian and other interventions and are very rarely prepared to sacrifice their own soldiers overseas. It means that humanitarian intervention is guided by calculations of national interest but not by what is best for the victims in whose name the intervention is formally carried out.
  3. States are not allowed to risk the lives of their own soldiers in order to save strangers . Political leaders do not possess any moral right to shed the blood of their own citizens on behalf of suffering foreigners. Citizens are having the exclusive responsibility of their own state, and their state is entirely their own business and, therefore, if a civil authority has broken down this is the responsibility only of the citizens and political leaders of that state but not of the foreign powers.
  4. T he issue of abuse . In the absence of a not politically colored mechanism for deciding when a real humanitarian intervention is permissible, states have a possibility to espouse humanitarian motives just as a formal pretext to morally cover the pursuit of national self-interest as, for instance, A. Hitler did with the Sudetenland.
  5. Selectivity of response . States all the time apply principles of humanitarian intervention selectively following their own national interest but not real protection of human rights. In other words, a state's behavior is always governed by what the Government decides to be in their interest and, therefore, states are selective about when they choose to intervene. As an example, the selectivity of response is the argument that NATO's "humanitarian" intervention in Kosovo in 1999 could not be driven by real humanitarian concerns as it has done nothing to address, for instance, the very much larger humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, a province in West Sudan (Darfur genocide).
  6. A problem of moral principles . There is no generally reached consensus on a set of moral principles about humanitarian intervention which should not be permitted in the face of disagreement about what constitutes extreme cases of the violation of human rights.
  7. Practically, humanitarian intervention does not work . Humanitarian intervention is not workable as the outsiders cannot impose human rights especially by those who have the same problem in their homes. Democracy can be established only by a domestic struggle for liberty but not from the outside. It means that human rights cannot take root if they are imposed by outsiders. The argument is that the oppressed people should by themselves overthrow non-democratic authority.
Conclusion

The norms of Public International Law and doctrine of collective security after 1945 presented above, unfortunately, did not stop different forms of armed interventions around the globe but especially by the US – a country which became a global champion of aggression. Armed "humanitarian" interventions are still going to be a reality of the present and future international relations under the umbrella of the R2P.

After the Cold War, the most brutal, illegal and shameful "humanitarian intervention" was in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metochia in 1999 that was, in fact, NATO's aggression against the FRY in a form of an air campaign. However, beside this example of "humanitarian intervention" as a violation of Public International Law, there were many similar interventions before like when in 1983 the USA invaded a sovereign state of Granada with some 8.000 soldiers under justification to protect the lives of about 1.000 American citizens living there under the belief that they were threatened due to the unrest in this country. However, the real reason of such "humanitarian intervention" has been of purely political and geostrategic nature rather than humanitarian one as US' troops occupied the whole island (state) of Granada including and those parts in which US' citizens did not live. The focal proof of abuse of Public International Law was a fact that the American troops de facto occupied Granada as they stayed on the island even after all the American citizens had left and changed the Government of it.

From the presentation above, it is quite clear that NATO's military action against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 cannot be characterized as a just war of "humanitarian intervention" even according to the criteria by the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius not to speak about the modern set of criteria incorporated into the UN Charter and Public International Law. Therefore, the action was rather a classic example of brutal military aggression against a sovereign state covered by politicized Western mass media. It is true that "media are not only spectator in modern conflicts, but must be considered active participants forming public opinion and also creating and directing threat perception" that was exactly the case of the 1998−1999 Kosovo War when the Western corporate mass media succeeded to convince public opinion that NATO's "humanitarian intervention" was a just war.

[Feb 22, 2019] 'Cheney wants you out,' Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. 'We can't accept your management style.'

Feb 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

AntiSpin , Feb 21, 2019 2:07:11 PM | link

@ Tom | Feb 21, 2019 1:29:28 AM | 84

"He threatened the head of OPCW I believe as well."

Your belief is correct; The one threatened was José Bustani, then --- head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

"Bolton -- then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs -- arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a warning to the organization's chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words. 'Cheney wants you out,' Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. 'We can't accept your management style.'

Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: 'You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.'

There was a pause. 'We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York'."

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/

The guy is a murdering thug -- a psychopath.

[Feb 22, 2019] The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:41 pm GMT

It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.

Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:

The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence.

[Feb 22, 2019] I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT

@Moi

To be a real Jew, you have to born a Jew. It is the same for Hindus. Someone should tell Tulsi Gabbard she cannot convert to Hinduism -- she will not be accepted by most Hindus. This is the key reason why Hindus do not believe in propagating their religion.

LOL I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka. She thinks it's for real.

[Feb 22, 2019] Western Oligarchs raped Russia in the 90's. The (((harvard))) boys foisted dollar debts on Russia, and then converted Russia to an extraction economy

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: February 21, 2019 at 9:28 pm GMT

@TKK https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html

The U.S. is an Oligarchy.

Western Oligarchs raped Russia in the 90's. OK, most of them were Jews – but still Western. The (((harvard))) boys foisted dollar debts on Russia, and then converted Russia to an extraction economy. Putin cleverly taxed the Oligarchs and prevented them from further predations.

No country can survive if it has an internal hostile elite. Nobody here can claim that Russia's government is hostile to its people. A fair claim can be made that the "international" elite that infest America IS HOSTILE. Why would you immigrate a replacement population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?

You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.

So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.

[Feb 22, 2019] An interesting case of self-sufficientcy: the USA is a net importer of around 4 million barrels of oil per day.

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Carlton Meyer , says: • Website February 21, 2019 at 7:15 pm GMT

@Shouting Thomas Wrong, the USA is a net importer of around 4 million barrels of oil per day.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6

Here is some background on that hoax you repeated.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/12/09/no-the-u-s-is-not-a-net-exporter-of-crude-oil/#1b2232814ac1

Fracking has helped the USA boost oil production, but that is pressuring to get oil out of older wells. Once those have been sucked dry, we'll need to import lots more. You read news about occasional big new discoveries in the USA, but read the details to see that each amounts only to a few days of oil consumption in the USA.

The world still runs on oil and the USA wants to control it all. If you doubt the importance, look at a freeway or airport or seaport to see oil at work.

[Feb 22, 2019] And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Biff , says: February 22, 2019 at 2:15 am GMT

@onebornfree You are probably the most whacked out idealist on this site. In your mind all the ills of society is because of socialism.

Well next time your toilet backs up, don't use that socialist phone network to call a plumber to clean those socialized drainpipes that keeps your stinky shit flowing down hill and away to be socially treated – just move to certain parts of India where none of that takes place – it's your idealist utopia. Wallow in it.

And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid – it's the only thing that keeps you on this site spewing your nonsense. And stay off those socialized roads.

[Feb 22, 2019] Population is destiny

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sean , says: February 21, 2019 at 8:26 pm GMT

I don't think the American decline is self inflicted. America became the most powerful country and has 800 foreign (literally) bases solely because it has the most powerful economy in the world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land, navigable waterways, natural resources ect.

The US's population was high quality but it was prime real estate that others could only dream about. The USA developed advanced technology not because it had a particular system and set of beliefst let Americans innovate and cooperate better than other people, or because Americans are more individualistic and freedom loving than Chinese. Indeed the performance of the Chinese in the Korean war if anything showed the Chinese could do more with less.

In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level and is in a global hegemon trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population. With access to Russian resources and no intention of giving the US any excuse for a war, China is going to gain on the US and perhaps overtake it in technology. That is their plan and why wouldn't they? This giant awakening had to happen sooner or later.

There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the West, especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from offshoring and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's power in the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump out.

[Feb 22, 2019] Pockets of resistance to Israeli lobby emerged in the country

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 21, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT

I wouldn't give up on America yet. There are pockets of resistance to the PTB popping up around the country.
Here we have a Arkansas newspaper suing the state over the Israel Boycott ban .. that it is a newspaper doing the suing is significant.

ACLU and ACLU of Arkansas to Appeal Ruling on Boycott Ban
February 21, 2019

LITTLE ROCK –The Arkansas Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation today filed a notice of appeal in their lawsuit challenging a state law that requires government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel or reduce their fees by 20 percent. The lawsuit, which was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in January, was filed on behalf of the Arkansas Times LP. The Times was penalized by the government after it refused to certify that it is not boycotting Israel or Israel-controlled territories.

The case is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

"The district court's decision would radically limit the First Amendment right to boycott if allowed to stand," said Rita Sklar, ACLU of Arkansas executive director. "Allowing the government to force people to relinquish their First Amendment rights or pay a penalty for expressing certain political beliefs disfavored by the government would set a dangerous precedent. This 'pay-to-say' tax is blatantly unconstitutional and we're committed to seeing the law struck down."

[Feb 22, 2019] I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT

@Moi

To be a real Jew, you have to born a Jew. It is the same for Hindus. Someone should tell Tulsi Gabbard she cannot convert to Hinduism -- she will not be accepted by most Hindus. This is the key reason why Hindus do not believe in propagating their religion.

LOL I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka. She thinks it's for real.

[Feb 22, 2019] Summary of Fred Redd notes on American neoliberal empire, which probably entered the stage of decline in 2008

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS says: February 20, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT 200 Words Not bad overall.
Especially

..empire, the desire for which is an ancient and innate part of mankind's cerebral package. Parthian, Roman, Aztec, Hapsburg, British. It never stops.

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire.

Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet.

For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must be neutralized.

To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."

Minor quibble:
.

..the developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia.

Canada, United Kingdom and Australia are not occupied by American troops. Those troops, and not that many in the first place, are stationed there. Majority of Australians do not mind that at all. Well, depending on skin colour, that is.

As for:

The present moment is an Imperial crunch point.

and

It is now or never.

Not so sure about that.
Because

Another decade or two of this ..

is a long time. A lot of things can happen, including some bad , to Russia and/or China.

foolisholdman , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT

Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I particularly liked:

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy.

[Feb 22, 2019] The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence." Utterly false. Our government is one of oligarchy, democratic elections have essentially zero impact on policy.

We've all been deceived. Almost everything "we're told" is a lie. It's up to each of us to discern the truth.
Notable quotes:
"... Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out ..."
"... Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to take its place, much less wish it. ..."
Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

TG , says: February 22, 2019 at 1:34 am GMT

Indeed, well said. A few minor quibbles:

"The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors." Wrong. The United States once dominated by NOT competing – until around 1970, foreign trade was a negligible fraction of the economy. The United States historically was a functional autarky. With a modest population, abundant resources, and no need to worry about competing with slave-labor level wages, America's economy and power boomed.

"The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence." Utterly false. Our government is one of oligarchy, democratic elections have essentially zero impact on policy. Our government is not incompetent because of 'democracy' but because our elites and their institutions are corrupt and insulated from the consequences of their decisions. One is reminded that Chinese industry is still overwhelmingly US industry that was moved their because US elites wanted quick shot-term profits – and were just too greedy to think about the long-term consequences of giving away the work of centuries to a large competitor nation.

redmudhooch , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:15 am GMT
Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.

I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.

Capitalism always fails. Capitalism is growing and the white population is dying .hmmmm

The 'flaw' (intentional) in capitalism is that it was never intended to improve the conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes, kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.

And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of capitalism, wealth disparity, homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages, staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying), unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.

The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago. You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our "leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day.

AaronB , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:22 am GMT
@Citizen of a Silly Country

country that is 15% black and 25% Mestizo (and growing) will not rebound to the former heights of a country that was 90% white. Won't happen.

Why not? Where are all the high ability whites gonna go? Will they just vanish? They're still around, and aren't going anywhere. The talent pool will continue to have the same absolute number of people, even if a lower fraction of the whole.

There is a difference between percentages and absolute numbers. All that will have happened is that a large number of slightly less able people will have been added to the pie. That doesn't diminish the number of more able people. They're still around.

Here's another little secret. A country is great because of its top 15% of people. The average Chinese, or the lower class Chinese, is far from impressive.

If the gap between the top 15 percent and everyone else is too large, that may create some problems, but Hispanics are a fairly capable people.

This doesn't mean I support immigration. But adding say 50 million slightly less able people to 250 million slightly more able isn't exactly going to ruin a country, realistically. And other countries may have more serious deficiencies.

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:32 am GMT
Interesting article, and good timing too. China's president today reiterated China's commitment to developing its strategic partnership with Iran. The US may have pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, but China remains committed to that deal, and EU doesn't seem quite ready to jettison it either.

WSJ reported today that India is ignoring US warning about Huawei and will use their equipment for 5G anyway. Germany is reportedly doing the same.

Thanks to the Zionist stranglehold on the US and UK, I see the world developing into two factions, one of US-UK-Israel-Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries, and the other of Russia-China-Iran, and potentially India, with EU sitting uncomfortably in the middle. F is on the Ziocon side as long as Macron is in office, but once he leaves, France could well join Germany and the rest of the EU and switch side.

The Europeans were not too enamored with Pence at the recent Munich Security Conference, they all know what a Jew puppet he is, esp. after he used a visit to Auschwitz to convey to the Europeans that if they do not join the US on our antagonism towards Iran, they are as good as anti-Semites. The only 2 people who gave him a standing O after his speech were Javanka. Sad.

Zionists will turn America into an international pariah, as isolated and alone as Israel.

Cyrano , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:33 am GMT
@Harold Smith Socialism means equalizing and socializing – of rich and poor – at the expense of the rich who got that way at the expense of the poor, so you can say – it's little bit of a payback time. Americans have very clear minds about socialism – that's because they have been brainwashed during decades long running propaganda.

Then they got introduced to a wrong kind of "socialism" – where they were forced to socialize with a wrong kind of people – from alien lands and cultures. That's not socialism, that's cheap propaganda stunt, worthy of the Adolf himself.

I think they were introduced to that type of "socialism" under the motto: "Fake it, so you don't have to make it". I think that the time will eventually come, where the more traditional motto will come into play: "Fake it, until you make it".

AaronB , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:33 am GMT
@Citizen of a Silly Country

Just because this produce has the label "United States" doesn't mean that it's the same as the old product. Grow up.

No, it definitely won't be the same product. But nations change character fairly often. Elizabethan England was very different than Georgian England. The one was known as merry and licentious and highly emotional, the other was melancholy, stiff and inexressive, and more Puritan. Nations literally flip over into their opposites. In the past century Jews went from being physical cowards to tough physical adventurers in the Middle East. The Germans went from being the land of poets and thinkers to the land of blood and iron and war.

America will change, very drastically. Immigration will eventually stop, and the new people absorbed and integrated. Something new will emerge to replace a European civilization that had grown old. Something partly European and probably very capable.

And yes, I know that ethnic changes aren't the same thing. And I don't supplier immigration. I'm just pointing out realities.

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT
@CanSpeccy

That's because the America see no advantage in placing its boot upon Canada's neck as long as Canada, recognizing its absolute dependence on the US for its territorial integrity and economic prosperity, remains subservient, sending token military forces wherever NATO directs, extraditing foreign nationals as America requires, and assimilating every appalling American cultural meme.

LOL how true. Canada to the US is like NZ to Australia. They just don't matter.

Hapalong Cassidy , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT
How old is Fred Reed anyway? I first became aware of him in late 2001. Back then he posted his picture at the top of his articles and I thought he looked ancient even back then.
Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:02 am GMT
@anonymous

Could it be because that their religious elites correctly figure that it would be difficult to sell rapist/gay/androgynous deities, phallus/vagina/devil/animal worship, etc., to the world, except to some whitey hippies (e.g. Tulsi's mother)? They feel ashamed to proselytise except to braindead whitey hippies.

LOLOL. You really have to wonder what kind of people could be dumb/crazy enough to follow a religion with 33 million gods! It's no wonder India is such a fucked up country, completely ungovernable. The worst thing is, these nutcases are now invading the US en masse (and soon to be let in by tens of millions more courtesy of Trump), are increasingly running for office, and winning as zealous socialist leftists running in uber liberal districts.

These bullshit artist nutjobs are not satisfied having completely destroyed their own country, they now want to destroy ours. We are on our way to becoming the next India, completely with people defecating out in the open like our growing homeless population, just like in Mumbai.

Patricus , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:17 am GMT
@flashlight joe Agree with Flashlight Joe on the duties and imposts and the Civil War. That was the major cause of the war as far as I can tell from reading books. Of course there were other factors including slavery as a lesser cause. What a waste of lives and treasure.
Patricus , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT
@Harold Smith I find it hard to believe the masses in the US will choose Bernie's socialism. It doesn't work and the evidence for failure is overwhelming just in the last 100 years. We should stop the migrations of impoverished third worlders. Lacking any education these migrants would be most susceptible to hair brained socialism.
Patricus , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:51 am GMT
@Biff Socialist phone network? Last I heard the phone companies are 100% privately owned.

All those sewage pipes were privately built and private companies collect your water and sewer bill.

The definition of socialism: the government or community owns the means of production. Some nations have more regulations than others but successful nations are capitalist, including Scandinavians.

Roads are built by private contractors. Missiles and jets as well.

Sam J. , says: February 22, 2019 at 6:16 am GMT
@Thomm's Purple haired femiNAZI " Before you know it, they'd wriggle their way to the top like they do everywhere. "

HAHAHHA silly Jews. They tried this already and failed. Look at them. Look what happened to them. They control nothing in China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews

The Jews think far too much of themselves and are screwed. Their hollowing out of the manufacturing of the US was premature before they could guarantee a home in China. The Chinese thing of course is not working out so well. The Chinese are not nice individualist like Europeans that they can manipulate with "caring" for others as the Chinese don't "care" and will laugh at Jewish cries of "victimization".

Jewish parasitism is only functionally able to work among Europeans and only last so long in each region they go to. I suspect the Western Ukraine take over was to have a plan "B" place to go if they get overrun in Israel. I'm not so sure that will work out in the long run either.

Erebus , says: February 22, 2019 at 9:37 am GMT
@AaronB From Comment #59

I just returned from a two month trip to Asia.

I noted your impressions, but Asia is a big place. There's a great variety of peoples and cultures between Japan and Saudi Arabia, and I'm curious which you're actually commenting on.

The US is having a little bit of a bad period, and everyone is rushing to say it's completely finished for all time.

It isn't simply a "bad period" from where I sit, and I don't think any serious person would claim "it's completely finished for all time". In the first place it's not that "bad" (yet), and it has a long way to go before it gets genuinely bad for no greater reason than that it's starting its decline from a fully developed state. A lot of things have to go to hell for it to become hell.

And its debatable just how bad a period the US is going through. I think its overstated, although there are undoubtedly some serious problems that need to be addressed.

The issue for America is that having lost its civilizational strengths, it's running on the fumes of Empire. So, we're really talking about just how much of those fumes there are left. The former didn't simply get weakened. For the elites and approx half the population they seem to have been replaced by something alien and corrosive. "Freedom", "Democracy", "Rule of Law" and even "American Know-how" have visibly dissipated to invisibility for those looking honestly for them. The fumes it's running on are the preeminence of the U$ dollar system and such fear as the USM is able to generate. Both are past their tipping point, and well into decline.

great nations go through bad periods, and then rise again.

They do, but Empires generally don't. It's all about resource flow, and when the flow stops, or worse reverses, the nation at the core of empire rarely survives in anything like its original form. Greece, Italy, Mongolia or Iran are very different than simply diminished versions of their former selves at the core of Empires. The original versions disappeared.

In any case, America wasn't great for long enough to be called a historically great nation. Great nations build civilizations that endure through trials such as the loss of Empire. Russia and China have, and arguably remain modern versions of their original selves.

In 4thC Rome, things didn't look so bad either. There was lots of asset speculation for the rich, and bread 'n circuses for everyone else, while the Empire's ability to bring resources in from the periphery shrank a little every day. Without new resources being brought in, the Empire inevitably ate its tail. The people remained blithely certain that there would be even more bread 'n circuses in the future. So Americans are today. They'll stay quite certain until a modern-day Alaric hammers on the Imperial Gates and says "It's over". Rome never recovered its Empire, and the city itself went from a population of ~1M to <50,000 at its depths. It and the area that became Italy took centuries to recover a halfway decent standard of living.

Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out and became dependent on such tithes a shrinking Empire can deliver to keep the bread 'n circuses going. Rome, however, had no peers and so could continue on well beyond its sell-by date. America, through a breathtaking series of strategic blunders, has lost that advantage. There's more peers now than America can hope to deal with and they, not America control the clock. The resources the Empire needs to continue have been taken off the table. It needed Russia's natural resources, and China's human resources. It lost both, and what's worse forced them into partnership. As the recent Warsaw "conference" so vividly exposed, even its vassals know that the Empire has lost its mojo, if DC's brain-trusts don't.

Can it recover and become a normal country again? Absolutely, though I give it less chance of coming through the process intact than either Russia or China did. Cultural homogeneity is what carries a civilization through hard times, and the US ain't got much of that. Perhaps it will undergo a similar split to Rome's, where the Eastern Empire went on to develop a very different society than the one it split off from. Rome split along more or less logistical and administrative lines, whereas the US' fissures are marbled across the continent. It'll take some serious statesmanship to hold it together.

As for wishing

Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to take its place, much less wish it.

Maybe one will arise in the fullness of time, but not in mine, or in anyone's that's currently alive. The resource base just ain't there any more. A Eurasian Empire? Maybe. Global? Nah.

[Feb 22, 2019] 'Cheney wants you out,' Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. 'We can't accept your management style.'

Feb 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

AntiSpin , Feb 21, 2019 2:07:11 PM | link

@ Tom | Feb 21, 2019 1:29:28 AM | 84

"He threatened the head of OPCW I believe as well."

Your belief is correct; The one threatened was José Bustani, then --- head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

"Bolton -- then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs -- arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a warning to the organization's chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words. 'Cheney wants you out,' Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. 'We can't accept your management style.'

Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: 'You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.'

There was a pause. 'We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York'."

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/

The guy is a murdering thug -- a psychopath.

[Feb 22, 2019] An interesting obituary to neoliberalism from unz.com

I changed the term Capitalism to Neoliberalism, as Capitalism has multiple forms incliudong New DealCapitalism and Neoliberlaism. It is Neoliberlaism that won in 1980 with "Reagan revolution."
Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

redmudhooch , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:15 am GMT

Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.

I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.

Neoliberalism always fails. Neoliberalism is growing and the white population is dying .hmmmm

The 'flaw' (intentional) in Neoliberalism is that it was never intended to improve the conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes, kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.

And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of Neoliberalism, wealth disparity, homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages, staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying), unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.

The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago. You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our "leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day .

MEFOBILLS , says: February 21, 2019 at 9:28 pm GMT
@TKK immigrate a replacement population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?

You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.

So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.

[Feb 21, 2019] The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon. ..."
"... Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice. ..."
"... A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has. ..."
"... America cannot compete with China commercially ..."
"... Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future. ..."
"... Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." ..."
"... As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder. ..."
Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.

Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.

The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line. The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.

A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has.

Note that Iraq and Iran, in addition to their oil, are geostrategically vital to a world empire. Further, the immensely powerful Jewish presence in the US supports the Mid-East wars for its own purposes. So, of course, does the arms industry. All God's chillun love the Empire.

For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must be neutralized. Thus the campaign to crush Russia by economic sanctions. At the same time Washington pushes NATO, its sepoy militia, ever eastward, wants to station US forces in Poland, plans a Space Command whose only purpose is to intimidate or bankrupt Russia, drops out of the INF Treaty for the same reasons, and seeks to prevent commercial relations between Russia and the European vassals (e.g., Nordstream II).

China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire. Ergo the trade war. America has to stop China's economic and technological progress, and stop it now, as it will not get another chance.

The present moment is an Imperial crunch point. America cannot compete with China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future.

America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.

Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." The indispensable country is an indispensable market. With few and diminishing (though important) exceptions, if it stopped selling things to China, China would barely notice, but if it stopped buying, the Chinese economy would wither. Tariffs, note, are just a way of not buying China's stuff.

Since the profligate American market is vital to other countries, they often do as ordered. But Asian markets grow. So do Asian industries.

As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder.

The tide runs against the Empire. A couple of decades ago, the idea that China could compete technologically with America would have seemed preposterous. Today China advances at startling speed. It is neck and neck with the US in supercomputers, launches moonlanders, leads in 5G internet, does leading work in genetics, designs world-class chipsets (e.g., the Kirin 980 and 920) and smartphones. Another decade or two of this and America will be at the trailing edge.

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy. It is politically chaotic, its policies changing with every new administration.

The first rule of empire is, "Don't let your enemies unite." Instead, Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire. It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China. By imposing sanctions of adversaries and allies alike, Washington promotes dedollarization and recognition that America is not an ally but a master.

It is now or never. If America's great but declining power does not subjugate the rest of the world quickly, the rising powers of Asia will swamp it. Even India grows. Either sanctions subdue the world, or Washington starts a world war. Or America becomes just another country.

To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."


WorkingClass , says: February 20, 2019 at 7:56 pm GMT

The U.S. is broke. And stupid. Soon she will be forced to repatriate her legions.
Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 8:04 pm GMT
Great summary!

"Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire."

Turkey may soon join them, then Iraq might revolt. South Korea has tired of the warmongering and may join too, which is why Washington is giving them the lead in dealing with North Korea. But a united Korea identifes more with China than the USA, so the USA wants to block that idea. The Germans are unhappy too, with all the warmongering, immigration, and American arrogance.

Isabella , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:05 pm GMT
Sorry Fred, but you're too late. It's all over. Just that your maniacal rulers, i.e. Pompeo, Bolton et al can't see it. Or, Cognitive Dissonance being painful, refuse to.

Warsaw recently was a case in point. The two biggest European countries, Germany and France refused to even send a senior representative. All people did was listen in an embarrassed silence while Pompeo tried to make like a latter day Julius Cesear. At the same time, Russia, Turkey and Iran met in Sochi, and worked out how they were going to take the next solving the mess in Syria, the way they want it.

Incidentally, you could also go onto YouTube and watch RT's subtitled [also horrible voice over, but you can't have everything I guess] of President Putin's "Address to Parliament and the Nation". It runs for close to 1.5 hours. You will hear the problems Russia has, how Putin addresses the concerns of the people, their complaints re poor access in country areas to medicine, and his orders on how this is to be fixed.

But you will also hear the moves forward, that Russia now has a trade surplus [remember those?] and can afford all the programs it needs. It's the world leading exporter of Wheat, and other commodities are catching up.

Then he will tell you and show videos of the latest 2 defense weapons – and they are things America cannot defend against. He also in light of the US withdrawing from the INF treaty made a very clear statement, should the US be so stupid as to think it can use Europe as it's war ground, and have Europeans get killed instead of Americans. "Put Intermediate sites in Europe and use just one, and not only will we fire on the European site that sent it, but we will also take out the "decision making centre", wherever this is".

Ponder that for a while. There is nothing US can do. The dollar is slowly being rejected and dumped. The heartland is reamed out after billions took the productive facilities and put them in China [so kind]. The homeless and desperate are growing in numbers.

It's all over, Fred. Time to start planning what to do when the mud really hits the fan.

foolisholdman , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I particularly liked:

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy.

Asagirian , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside down.

But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:41 pm GMT

It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.

Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:

The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence.

Philip Owen , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:22 pm GMT
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.

India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power, not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.

Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?

Si1ver1ock , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:24 pm GMT
I for one do not wish the Chinese any ill. They have worked hard to get where they are, whereas our leaders have betrayed us.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?103023-1/the-great-betrayal

Philip Owen , says: February 21, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts Something wrong here. Government spending in either country is far more than 2%.
atlantis_dweller , says: February 21, 2019 at 2:19 am GMT

The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.

.

Not to notice (or rather, not to notice one's own noticing) what the majority doesn't notice (OK: they don't notice that they notice, actually) is part of humankind's cerebral package too.
You once called it the law of the pack. It can be given innumerable names -- just it doesn't change.

The American decline is largely self-inflicted.

.
It's what follows ripe democracy, invariably -- meanjng that it can arguably not be helped.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website February 21, 2019 at 2:23 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts Finally a bright spot in an otherwise depressingly-fairly-truthful article. Less Government spending is a GOOD thing, I mean, unless you are a flat-out Communist, of course ohhhhh .

And yes, the scale is WAY off. How could those 0.8 to 2.05% numbers seem even close to reality to anyone who has a clue. I can't vouch for China, but the US number is off by a factor of 20 to 25 . Come on, Godfree, you're (a tad bit) better than that!

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website February 21, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT
That's not a bad article in general, but, as usual, Mr. Reed doesn't really have that analytical mind to know what's really been, and is, going on.

1) There were PLENTY of Americans, many of them even politicians who wanted a "peace dividend" after the Cold War was won. G.H.W Bush and the neocons put the kibosh on that. The current version of empire-building didn't have to be. The Israeli-influenced neocons are most of the reason for the post-Cold-War empire building.

2) It's not ALL about oil anymore – it seems to be a diminishing factor, what with the US producing more oil than it imports, at this point. Mr. Reed could use a dose of Zerohedge.com, as, along with their gloom-and-doom, they have opened my eyes to the American meddling around the world to keep support of the Reserve Currency, the US dollar. Lots of the countries in which the US causes trouble were trying to get out of the dollar world with their trade.

3) Related to (2) here, China and Russia both want to eliminate the use of the dollar in trade, including with each other. That bothers a lot of people who understand how bad the outlook for the US economy really is, and what it would mean for the dollar to no longer be used around the world for trade.

4) American government has handed China a completely one-sided deal (FOR China) in trade since the mid-1990's and Bill Clinton. It's time to end that, which is what the trade war is about. I don't dispute that American could be in a whole lot more pain over it than the Chinese, but it's like medicine – take it now, or suffer even more later.

America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.

AGREED wholeheartedly!

Bruce County , says: February 21, 2019 at 3:33 am GMT
@peterAUS I agree .. Canada is "not" under America's boot. As a Canadian I respect the security America provides Canada on the world stage but it would be a cold day in hell when i would submit to an America with a gun in his hand. And im pretty sure our best buddies in jolly ol England might have something to say. This isnt a pissing match. Empire is a fickle bitch.
peterAUS , says: February 21, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
@Bruce County Pretty much.
As far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned it's crystal clear. Somebody has to provide security for our way of life here; before it was United Kingdom, now it's USA.
Hehe definitely preferable to China.
Or Japan.
Or anyone here in Pacific.

If Americans want to deploy a full corps, whatever, no prob. Again, as far as "fair skinned" English speaking citizens here are concerned. I'd even say it applies to Polynesians around.
Now, can't say it applies to our Mohammedan citizens, and definitely not to Chinese.

It's amusing to see Westerners around here keen on replacing USA empire with Chinese. Hehe talking about self-hate.
Granted, there are people among them who really believe in all that propaganda coming from Beijing. Well better than taking Prozac or similar, I guess, so all good.

swamped , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:09 am GMT
"Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice." That is pretty astonishing, given that most of the columns on sites like this & even in more MSM-style publications rehash this theme ad infinitum. It may, in fact, be more a matter of people simply getting tired of hearing it over and over that leads them to shrug and turn to something different. It's not news anymore. How many columns can anyone squeeze out of the same threadbare topic. Many years ago, during first Cold War, it was still somewhat daring to expose this partially hidden truth; but now it's old hat on both the left & right.No one really needs someone to tell them again what everyone already knows, that's easy – but what to do about it, that's the hard part!
Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:25 am GMT
@Simply Simon I'm not an economist either, but it looks like the Chinese have outspent us 2:1 in R&D since 2012.

That, plus their better educated youngsters, gives them an awesome advantage going forward.

Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:27 am GMT
@Philip Owen This is a subset of government spending and only covers R&D.

It doesn't cover corporate R&D spending, though I'm guessing that in that regard, the two countries are even. If anyone has the numbers I'd be grateful if they'd share them.

Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:29 am GMT
@Achmed E. Newman Can you provide sources and figures for your claim that the US number is off by a factor of 20 to 25?

That would imply that the USG is spending $9 trillion–50% of GDP–on R&D alone.

chris , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
@Isabella Excellent comment, Isabella!
Stevelancs , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:47 am GMT
@Simply Simon Godfrees graph should be entitled "USA v China in Gov't R&D Spending".
It's here..

https://www.quora.com/There-are-predictions-about-Chinas-economy-surpassing-the-USs-economy-in-the-future-but-are-there-predictions-of-China-surpassing-the-US-in-science-and-innovation-in-the-future

[Feb 21, 2019] The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon. ..."
"... Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice. ..."
"... A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has. ..."
"... America cannot compete with China commercially ..."
"... Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future. ..."
"... Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." ..."
"... As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder. ..."
Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.

Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.

The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line. The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.

A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has.

Note that Iraq and Iran, in addition to their oil, are geostrategically vital to a world empire. Further, the immensely powerful Jewish presence in the US supports the Mid-East wars for its own purposes. So, of course, does the arms industry. All God's chillun love the Empire.

For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must be neutralized. Thus the campaign to crush Russia by economic sanctions. At the same time Washington pushes NATO, its sepoy militia, ever eastward, wants to station US forces in Poland, plans a Space Command whose only purpose is to intimidate or bankrupt Russia, drops out of the INF Treaty for the same reasons, and seeks to prevent commercial relations between Russia and the European vassals (e.g., Nordstream II).

China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire. Ergo the trade war. America has to stop China's economic and technological progress, and stop it now, as it will not get another chance.

The present moment is an Imperial crunch point. America cannot compete with China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future.

America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.

Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." The indispensable country is an indispensable market. With few and diminishing (though important) exceptions, if it stopped selling things to China, China would barely notice, but if it stopped buying, the Chinese economy would wither. Tariffs, note, are just a way of not buying China's stuff.

Since the profligate American market is vital to other countries, they often do as ordered. But Asian markets grow. So do Asian industries.

As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder.

The tide runs against the Empire. A couple of decades ago, the idea that China could compete technologically with America would have seemed preposterous. Today China advances at startling speed. It is neck and neck with the US in supercomputers, launches moonlanders, leads in 5G internet, does leading work in genetics, designs world-class chipsets (e.g., the Kirin 980 and 920) and smartphones. Another decade or two of this and America will be at the trailing edge.

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy. It is politically chaotic, its policies changing with every new administration.

The first rule of empire is, "Don't let your enemies unite." Instead, Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire. It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China. By imposing sanctions of adversaries and allies alike, Washington promotes dedollarization and recognition that America is not an ally but a master.

It is now or never. If America's great but declining power does not subjugate the rest of the world quickly, the rising powers of Asia will swamp it. Even India grows. Either sanctions subdue the world, or Washington starts a world war. Or America becomes just another country.

To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."


WorkingClass , says: February 20, 2019 at 7:56 pm GMT

The U.S. is broke. And stupid. Soon she will be forced to repatriate her legions.
Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 8:04 pm GMT
Great summary!

"Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire."

Turkey may soon join them, then Iraq might revolt. South Korea has tired of the warmongering and may join too, which is why Washington is giving them the lead in dealing with North Korea. But a united Korea identifes more with China than the USA, so the USA wants to block that idea. The Germans are unhappy too, with all the warmongering, immigration, and American arrogance.

Isabella , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:05 pm GMT
Sorry Fred, but you're too late. It's all over. Just that your maniacal rulers, i.e. Pompeo, Bolton et al can't see it. Or, Cognitive Dissonance being painful, refuse to.

Warsaw recently was a case in point. The two biggest European countries, Germany and France refused to even send a senior representative. All people did was listen in an embarrassed silence while Pompeo tried to make like a latter day Julius Cesear. At the same time, Russia, Turkey and Iran met in Sochi, and worked out how they were going to take the next solving the mess in Syria, the way they want it.

Incidentally, you could also go onto YouTube and watch RT's subtitled [also horrible voice over, but you can't have everything I guess] of President Putin's "Address to Parliament and the Nation". It runs for close to 1.5 hours. You will hear the problems Russia has, how Putin addresses the concerns of the people, their complaints re poor access in country areas to medicine, and his orders on how this is to be fixed.

But you will also hear the moves forward, that Russia now has a trade surplus [remember those?] and can afford all the programs it needs. It's the world leading exporter of Wheat, and other commodities are catching up.

Then he will tell you and show videos of the latest 2 defense weapons – and they are things America cannot defend against. He also in light of the US withdrawing from the INF treaty made a very clear statement, should the US be so stupid as to think it can use Europe as it's war ground, and have Europeans get killed instead of Americans. "Put Intermediate sites in Europe and use just one, and not only will we fire on the European site that sent it, but we will also take out the "decision making centre", wherever this is".

Ponder that for a while. There is nothing US can do. The dollar is slowly being rejected and dumped. The heartland is reamed out after billions took the productive facilities and put them in China [so kind]. The homeless and desperate are growing in numbers.

It's all over, Fred. Time to start planning what to do when the mud really hits the fan.

foolisholdman , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I particularly liked:

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy.

Asagirian , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside down.

But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:41 pm GMT

It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.

Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:

The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence.

Philip Owen , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:22 pm GMT
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.

India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power, not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.

Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?

Si1ver1ock , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:24 pm GMT
I for one do not wish the Chinese any ill. They have worked hard to get where they are, whereas our leaders have betrayed us.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?103023-1/the-great-betrayal

Philip Owen , says: February 21, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts Something wrong here. Government spending in either country is far more than 2%.
atlantis_dweller , says: February 21, 2019 at 2:19 am GMT

The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.

.

Not to notice (or rather, not to notice one's own noticing) what the majority doesn't notice (OK: they don't notice that they notice, actually) is part of humankind's cerebral package too.
You once called it the law of the pack. It can be given innumerable names -- just it doesn't change.

The American decline is largely self-inflicted.

.
It's what follows ripe democracy, invariably -- meanjng that it can arguably not be helped.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website February 21, 2019 at 2:23 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts Finally a bright spot in an otherwise depressingly-fairly-truthful article. Less Government spending is a GOOD thing, I mean, unless you are a flat-out Communist, of course ohhhhh .

And yes, the scale is WAY off. How could those 0.8 to 2.05% numbers seem even close to reality to anyone who has a clue. I can't vouch for China, but the US number is off by a factor of 20 to 25 . Come on, Godfree, you're (a tad bit) better than that!

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website February 21, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT
That's not a bad article in general, but, as usual, Mr. Reed doesn't really have that analytical mind to know what's really been, and is, going on.

1) There were PLENTY of Americans, many of them even politicians who wanted a "peace dividend" after the Cold War was won. G.H.W Bush and the neocons put the kibosh on that. The current version of empire-building didn't have to be. The Israeli-influenced neocons are most of the reason for the post-Cold-War empire building.

2) It's not ALL about oil anymore – it seems to be a diminishing factor, what with the US producing more oil than it imports, at this point. Mr. Reed could use a dose of Zerohedge.com, as, along with their gloom-and-doom, they have opened my eyes to the American meddling around the world to keep support of the Reserve Currency, the US dollar. Lots of the countries in which the US causes trouble were trying to get out of the dollar world with their trade.

3) Related to (2) here, China and Russia both want to eliminate the use of the dollar in trade, including with each other. That bothers a lot of people who understand how bad the outlook for the US economy really is, and what it would mean for the dollar to no longer be used around the world for trade.

4) American government has handed China a completely one-sided deal (FOR China) in trade since the mid-1990's and Bill Clinton. It's time to end that, which is what the trade war is about. I don't dispute that American could be in a whole lot more pain over it than the Chinese, but it's like medicine – take it now, or suffer even more later.

America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.

AGREED wholeheartedly!

Bruce County , says: February 21, 2019 at 3:33 am GMT
@peterAUS I agree .. Canada is "not" under America's boot. As a Canadian I respect the security America provides Canada on the world stage but it would be a cold day in hell when i would submit to an America with a gun in his hand. And im pretty sure our best buddies in jolly ol England might have something to say. This isnt a pissing match. Empire is a fickle bitch.
peterAUS , says: February 21, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
@Bruce County Pretty much.
As far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned it's crystal clear. Somebody has to provide security for our way of life here; before it was United Kingdom, now it's USA.
Hehe definitely preferable to China.
Or Japan.
Or anyone here in Pacific.

If Americans want to deploy a full corps, whatever, no prob. Again, as far as "fair skinned" English speaking citizens here are concerned. I'd even say it applies to Polynesians around.
Now, can't say it applies to our Mohammedan citizens, and definitely not to Chinese.

It's amusing to see Westerners around here keen on replacing USA empire with Chinese. Hehe talking about self-hate.
Granted, there are people among them who really believe in all that propaganda coming from Beijing. Well better than taking Prozac or similar, I guess, so all good.

swamped , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:09 am GMT
"Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice." That is pretty astonishing, given that most of the columns on sites like this & even in more MSM-style publications rehash this theme ad infinitum. It may, in fact, be more a matter of people simply getting tired of hearing it over and over that leads them to shrug and turn to something different. It's not news anymore. How many columns can anyone squeeze out of the same threadbare topic. Many years ago, during first Cold War, it was still somewhat daring to expose this partially hidden truth; but now it's old hat on both the left & right.No one really needs someone to tell them again what everyone already knows, that's easy – but what to do about it, that's the hard part!
Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:25 am GMT
@Simply Simon I'm not an economist either, but it looks like the Chinese have outspent us 2:1 in R&D since 2012.

That, plus their better educated youngsters, gives them an awesome advantage going forward.

Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:27 am GMT
@Philip Owen This is a subset of government spending and only covers R&D.

It doesn't cover corporate R&D spending, though I'm guessing that in that regard, the two countries are even. If anyone has the numbers I'd be grateful if they'd share them.

Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:29 am GMT
@Achmed E. Newman Can you provide sources and figures for your claim that the US number is off by a factor of 20 to 25?

That would imply that the USG is spending $9 trillion–50% of GDP–on R&D alone.

chris , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
@Isabella Excellent comment, Isabella!
Stevelancs , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:47 am GMT
@Simply Simon Godfrees graph should be entitled "USA v China in Gov't R&D Spending".
It's here..

https://www.quora.com/There-are-predictions-about-Chinas-economy-surpassing-the-USs-economy-in-the-future-but-are-there-predictions-of-China-surpassing-the-US-in-science-and-innovation-in-the-future

[Feb 21, 2019] But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites.

Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT

Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside down.

But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites.

[Feb 21, 2019] In a sense Sanders probably is "the best hope that the U.S. had in the last 50 years."

Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
Cyrano , says: February 21, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT
I think that Bernie Sanders was the best hope that US had in the last 50 years. And they killed that hope by stealing his nomination and highly probable presidency from him. I don't care what the orange clown says about "US will never be a socialist country". One other individual of his ethnic background once prognosticated a 1000 year Reich – and we all know how that turned out.

I don't know what Bernie views on immigration are, but on social and economic issues – he is bang on. And I just heard on the news that Bernie new campaign for 2020, has broken all previous records – raising 6 million $ in the first 24 hours.

All that nonsensical talk about empire is just a product of idle (and deranged) minds of individuals who have achieved personal wealth and success based on rules of questionable fairness, and now have nothing better to do than play some retarded game of world domination – which doesn't benefit the average American at all. It's just a way for the degenerates to achieve "immortality" and get into the history books – where they don't belong – certainly not based on their abilities.

Cyrano , says: February 21, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT

February 22, 2019 at 1:15 am GMT 100 Words @onebornfree

"Yeah right. Sanders is just another scammer, like Trump and all the rest of them:"

Yes of course they're all scammers, but there's a reason they picked the orange clown scammer rather than the Sanders scammer or the Clinton scammer. And I think that reason is because orange clown is actually the most evil of the three; evil enough to risk planetary extinction in pursuit of world domination and control, whereas Sanders probably isn't.

So in a sense Sanders probably is "the best hope that the U.S. had in the last 50 years."

[Feb 21, 2019] Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?

Looks like the USA enterprising the period which can be called Perestroyka
Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Philip Owen , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:22 pm GMT

Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.

India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power, not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.

Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?

Asagirian , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire America cannot compete with China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future.

But all the bright minds come to the US. There is no brain drain in China's way, but the best and brightest in Asia come to the US. Also, as the Asian mind respects power and status above all, most Asians in the US become loyal servitors of Empire. Asians will serve Asian power only in Asia where they are dominant. When they are in a non-Asian land, they will suck up to the non-Asian power. In this, they are unlike Jews. Even in Ancient Times, Jews always felt as #1 even when surrounded by much bigger powers. They were defined by the Covenant with the one and only God. Wherever Jews go, they expect others to revolve around them. In contrast, wherever Asians go, they revolve around the dominant power, whatever it is. Asians lack the centrism of Jews. Maybe Hindus do a little bit, but Chinese don't. China regarded itself as the Middle Kingdom only in the Middle Kingdom. But outside it, they feel as strays who must serve another master. (To be sure, Chinese resist assimilation into foreign nations when they regard the natives as inferior. Chinese see Southeast Asians as inferior and don't assimilate much with them. But Chinese regard whites as superior, and so, they try to serve and be white in the West. And trashy Chinese try to imitate blacks, the masters of badass coolery in Pop Culture and Sports.) East Asians mainly define themselves by service and loyalty? To what? To whatever happens to be the most powerful.

Here's the difference between Jews and East Asians.

If the US were to turn anti-Israel and made war against it, American Jews will NOT join in the effort to kill fellow Jews in Israel. No way in hell, and this is the admirable aspect of Jewish consciousness. Jews will not be manipulated by goyim to kill other Jews.

But Asian dogs in the US will gladly serve the US empire in killing tons of Asians in Asia, even ethnic kin. Muslims are the same way. Look at those Muslims in US military who bombed and killed Muslims in the 'Wars on Terror'. There's no way any American Jew will participate in US war on Israel that kills tons of Jews, but Asians will gladly kill fellow Asians in the service to what they deem to be the highest power. Look at Japanese during and after WWII. During WWII, Japanese loyally served the Emperor, the symbol of power. After the way, they loyally served Uncle Sam as the New Top Power.

... ... ...

US has lots of problems, but most smart people around the world want to move to the US to work in Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Real Estate, and etc. There are foreigners in China, but the system is rigged by nationalism to keep top positions in Chinese hands. But in the US, due to demise of white race-ism and nationalism, non-white newcomers can rise to the very top very fast. Look at all the obscenely rich Hindus in Silicon Valley. Also, white goyim who made America let Jews take over. The Jewish takeover of a majority white Christian nation sent a message to the world that ANYONE can come to the US and reach the top. If Chinese elites still favor fellow Chinese, white elites no longer favor white folks and prefer to do business with non-white elites. So, most of the top talents will flow to the US.

Also, tons of peons are willing to move to the US to do jobs Americans won't do. So, US will have tons of brains and tons of peons. (The Middle will suffer though as it's hard for the middle class and working class to have bargaining power if they can be replaced by foreigners or if their jobs can be shipped overseas.) US population is likely to be 700 or 800 million by 2100. Also, America has much more resources than China. It has more oil, better land, more minerals. And US also has Alaska, a world unto itself. (Russians sure were stupid to sell it.)

Rabbitnexus , says: February 21, 2019 at 1:36 am GMT
@Asagirian That's a very selective reading of things, and a lot of debatable generalizations about other nations the US one it seems is all you know personally. Too much to challenge it all but just the point about Jews not killing other Jews has to be questioned. Jewish elites sacrifice Jews without qualms when they see it as a means to an end, witness the "Holocaust" which was instigated and fed by Jewish elites who did all they could to ensure Jewish refugees from Europe only went to Palestine or back to oppression.

There were Jews in armies on both sides of the two world wars. Over 150,000 German Jews fought in WWII in the Wehrmacht. Then there have been the instances of Zionist false flag terrorism in various Middle Eastern countries to drive yet more Jews to Palestine.

As for the best and brightest making a beeline for the USA that was yesterday. These days that flow is slowing and by no means are the best and brightest headed that direction and more to the point, many of America's best and brightest are beginning to emigrate to greener pastures as the writing on the wall becomes more obvious.

What you describe as a US renaissance is no such thing. Although the demographics are probably about right. It represents the end of the USA in it's traditional self perception and the aftermath of empire collapse. History doesn't support the rosy outlook you project.

[Feb 21, 2019] But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites.

Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT

Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside down.

But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites.

[Feb 19, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her ..."
"... Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn. ..."
"... The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here. ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.veteranstoday.com

Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:

" We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."

It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.

As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American taxpayers at least six trillion dollars. [1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries." [2]

Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.

The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here.


[Feb 19, 2019] Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube

Highly recommended!
This is a powerful political statement... Someaht similar to Tucker Carlson stance...
Feb 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com

"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."

[Feb 19, 2019] Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt says: February 19, 2019 at 3:01 pm GMT 200 Words ...

...Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.

US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.

[Feb 19, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her ..."
"... Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn. ..."
"... The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here. ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.veteranstoday.com

Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:

" We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."

It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.

As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American taxpayers at least six trillion dollars. [1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries." [2]

Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.

The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here.


[Feb 19, 2019] Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube

Highly recommended!
This is a powerful political statement... Someaht similar to Tucker Carlson stance...
Feb 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com

"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."

[Feb 19, 2019] Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt says: February 19, 2019 at 3:01 pm GMT 200 Words ...

...Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.

US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.

[Feb 19, 2019] The new definition of anti-semitism

Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

"An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews."– Joe Sobran

[Feb 19, 2019] THE NEW YORK TIMES IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

That's too harsh, but the commenter has a point: NYT times is mostly a propaganda outlet. That does not exclude publishing rare objective articles.
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rational says: February 18, 2019 at 6:29 am GMT 100 Words

Thanks for the article, Sir. Welcome to unz.com.

The media in most countries report the news in a neutral manner. Since the Judaists bought the media, they turned media into weapons of terror, by:

a. Fake news -- outright lies (eg. calling alien invaders "migrants").
b. Manufacturing scandals that THEY make up eg. blackface.
c. Harassing and abusing patriots and others and calling them racists, getting them fired from jobs, etc.

None of these are legitimate jobs of the media. The New York Times and most Zionists controlled media in this country are therefore criminal enterprises and terrorist organizations and these criminals belong in prison.

[Feb 19, 2019] Iranian spying Or neocon 9-11 coverup by Kevin Barrett

Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Most of the US attendees might better be described as sincere American patriots. Former Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), whom I personally recruited for the conference, is widely acknowledged as an all-American hero for his principled stance against the Vietnam war, his role in exposing the Pentagon Papers, and his courageous advocacy of 9/11 truth.

Merlin Miller, a family values oriented filmmaker who once ran for president, is another all-American hero who attended the Hollywoodism Conference. Merlin Miller's pro-American, anti-Zionist-Hollywood perspective is as patriotic as it gets.

And then there was Culture Wars editor E. Michael Jones, another conservative American patriot who wants to take his country back.

While all three all-American heroes are in varying degrees critical of Israel and its occupation of American politics and media, none could possibly be viewed as America haters.

Notes

[1] I was witch-hunted in 2006 by State Rep. Steve Nass for "teaching 9/11 conspiracy theories" at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But in fact I had never done so, nor had I any plans to do so. While teaching African Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison between 2001 and 2006, I had never once revealed to students my personal views of 9/11, nor did I ever discuss the research that gave rise to those views.

None of my students up to that point even knew what my views of 9/11 were, unless they had stumbled upon one of my occasional teach-ins, or read my published work on the issue, which I did not bring into the classroom.

Yet Stanley Fish lied brazenly about me in his NYT op-ed , libelously claiming: "Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course titled 'Islam: Religion and Culture' acknowledged on a radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government."

I immediately wrote to The New York Times urging them to correct their libelous error. They refused to do so. Instead, they published several other letters all taking for granted Fish's outrageous and utterly baseless lie.

[Feb 19, 2019] Foreign Policy is More Than Just War and Peace

Notable quotes:
"... Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes vote. ..."
"... how being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure, for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic? ..."
Nov 14, 2018 | www.youtube.com

Foreign policy is more than just war and peace, it is a nuanced and complex issue that directly affects us here at home. In this interview, Dr. Jane Sanders sits down with Representative Tulsi Gabbard to talk about U.S. foreign policy and how it affects us here at home.

oneofthesixbillion , 3 months ago (edited)

Tulsi this is the first I've explored who you are. This conversation felt like a life giving refreshment. The constant war and regime change policy of every administration since I was a young child has been utterly confounding. We are bankrupting our society and civilization with military expenditure exactly like a life destroying heroin addict except it's on a global scale. These people in the powers that be together with the masses that back them are literal sociopaths and they're entirely in control at both the highest and base levels. The only other time I've felt as nourished by a public figure that somehow pierced through the mainstream media was Bernie Sanders actually expressing the fact that we are an oligarchy not a democracy. Like oligarchy, anti-war and imperialism is just not talked about. US Americans won't acknowledge the scale of our imperialism.

Jonah Dubin , 3 months ago

Tulsi should run and both Sanders should follow her lead. As much as I love him, Bernie's too old to be president - when it gets to the stage against Trump, we need a young, vibrant face. Add onto that the fact that she's a veteran who actually asked to be deployed in comparison to him, a draft dodger - he looks like an old fat pathetic septogenarian next to an early 40s real populist. Ultimately it is up to Sanders whether this whole thing is about a man or a movement. If he runs, he'll probably win the primary but it is not a guarantee that he'd win - Tulsi would win and she'd be around for decades to come as a standard barer too.

Wayne Chapman , 2 months ago

"Sensible politics" seems to be an oxymoron these days and pretty much throughout the history of our country. It's so refreshing to see a politician who has a vision for the future that the majority of us can get behind. It scares me though. I've read quite a bit about JFK the past few years, and he amassed a number of very powerful and dangerous enemies. They won't just stand by and allow someone in a position of influence to get the truth out about our immoral and illegal wars. Tulsi, I support your efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and elsewhere, but please do be careful. You're a fighter and I admire that, but we all want you to be safe and healthy for many years to come.

George Crannell , 5 days ago

Tulsi Gabbard, I am thrilled to have someone like you running for president. I am a fellow Veteran dealing with disability and I am glad to have a candidate who understands the issues Veterans are dealing with. I also realize that the voting public will support the person who resonates with their personal lives and issues that don't exist in their life they will disregard.Thank you for you're support.

somedayalwaysnever , 4 days ago

The DNC will lie cheat and steal the election from Tulsi Gabbard just like they did Bernie Sanders, and the 15 million Americans who Left the un-Democratic party will double and triple....DEMEXIT

Robert Covarrubias , 1 week ago

Tulsi Gabbard needs to be the president of the United States of America period. If she not the president of our country will not survive. That is a fact, how stupid can our government be. I guess very stupid, what else can I say. We don't hear that in main news media, the reason we do hear it the media . The news media is totally brought, the main news media love money and the devil, simple as that. How are you going to hear about wars from main news media. They do care about the citizens or the country. We really don't have a real news media, it all propaganda. All fake news, that why one doesn't hear anything from the new medias.

Lee Alexander , 1 month ago

Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes vote.

D Personal , 1 week ago

WAKE UP, PEOPLE! Bernie is a sell-out - a sheeple-herder that never intended to win. He was a gatekeeper for Hillary because she is AIPAC-beloved and he is an Israel-firster. He threw his supporters under the bus as they told him in real time that the nomination was being stolen. He's part of the con, and the sooner we realize this, the better off we'll be. BERNIE WORKS FOR DEMOCRATS. Vote Third Party (REAL third parties, not the Bernie Sanders' kind).

Kinky, 2 months ago

Tulsi - re your comment about our veterans who have "served and sacrificed for their country," could you clarify how being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure, for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic?

[Feb 19, 2019] What does that sound like? A Stalin-era confession? "I have betrayed the Party. I have betrayed the Revolution."

Notable quotes:
"... The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT

Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and recanted. She apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying "Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."

What does that sound like? A Stalin-era confession? 'I have betrayed the Party. I have betrayed the Revolution. I humbly request to be sent to Joo-lag.'

That 30s Show!

DESERT FOX , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT
The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm and in fact the Zionists are in fact in that special place here in America where they reign above all and none dare call them out for their genocide of the Palestinians or the fact they did 911 and murdered some 3000 Americans.

So great is the Zionist control of the US government that no congressman who values his position in congress dares criticize Zionists and goes along with everything that Israel and the Zionists do, and if fact congress would be more accurately called the lower house of the Knesset!

... Orwell has got to be spinning in his grave!

Charles Pewitt , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:01 pm GMT
Accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" are used by the JEW/WASP ruling class to cover up the treasonous activities of the JEW/WASP ruling class.

When CIA Leprechaun Boy Buckley wanted to attack Pat Buchanan because Buchanan was skeptical of wars that benefited Israel, Buckley the whore called Buchanan an "anti-Semite." In fact, the CIA Leprechaun scumbag Buckley wrote a whole book screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" and Pat Buchanan. Buckley is a disgusting Leprechaun rat who is now roasting in the hottest pits of fiery Hell!

When disgusting rat whores in the US Congress such as Charles Schumer want to cover the fact that they are pushing JEW NATIONALISM by pushing to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel, they accuse those who call them out on their actions by the swear word of the ruling class: "anti-Semite."

Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia. US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.

[Feb 19, 2019] The Growing Anti-Semitism Scam by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite effective. ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

It was manufactured outrage, with political leaders from both parties latching on to a media frenzy to score points against each other. Even though it is perfectly legitimate for a Congresswoman on the Foreign Affairs Committee to challenge what AIPAC does and where its money comes from, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi complained that Omar's "use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel's supporters" was "deeply offensive." Chelsea Clinton accused Omar of "trafficking in anti-Semitism." President Donald Trump, who has admitted that his Mideast policy is intended to serve Israeli rather than U.S. interests, also jumped in, saying "I think she should either resign from congress or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee."

Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and recanted. She apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying "Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize." But she also bravely wrote "At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it."

Pelosi approved of the apology. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota who is running for president in 2020, chimed in to make sure that everyone knew how much she loves Israel, saying "I'm glad she apologized. That was the right thing to do. There is just no room for those kinds of words. I think Israel is our beacon of democracy. I've been a strong supporter of Israel and that will never change."

Two days later, a motion sponsored by Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York passed by a 424 to 0 vote. It was specifically intended to serve as a rebuke to Omar. It stated that "it is in the national security interest of the United States to combat anti-Semitism around the world because there has been a significant amount of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hatred that must be most strongly condemned."

Congressional votes professing love for Israel notwithstanding, the fact is that there is a massive , generously funded effort to corrupt America's government in favor of Israel. It is euphemistically called the Israel Lobby even though it is overwhelmingly Jewish and it boasts fairly openly of its power when talking with its closest friends about how its money influences the decisions made on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Its combined budget exceeds one billion dollars per year and it includes lobbying powerhouses like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which alone had $229 million in income in 2017, supporting more than 200 employees. It exists only to promote Israeli interests on Capitol Hill and throughout the United States with an army of lobbyists and its activities include using questionably legal all expenses paid "orientation" trips to Israel for all new congressmen and spouses.

McCarthy and the other stooges in Congress deliberately sought to frame the argument in terms of Ilhan Omar having claimed that he personally was receiving money from pro-Israel sources and that money influenced his voting. Well, the fact is that such activity does take place and was documented three years ago by the respected Foreign Policy Journal , which published a piece entitled "The Best Congress AIPAC can Buy" as well as more recently in an al-Jazeera investigative expose using a concealed camera.

And Kevin McCarthy does indeed receive money from Israel PACs – $33,200 in 2018 . The amount individual congressmen receive is dependent on their actual or potential value to Israel. Completely corrupt and enthusiastically pro-Israel Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey received $548,507 in 2018 . In the House, Beto O'Rourke of Texas received $226,690. The numbers do not include individual contributions of under $200, which are encouraged by AIPAC and can be considerable. In general, congressmen currently receive over $23,000 on average from the major pro-Israel organizations while Senators get $77,000.

But, of course, direct donations of money are not the whole story. If a congressman is unfriendly to Israel, money moves in the other direction, towards funding an opponent when re-election is coming up. Former Rep. Brian Bard has observed that "Any member of Congress knows that AIPAC is associated indirectly with significant amounts of campaign spending if you're with them, and significant amounts against you if you're not with them." Lara Friedman, who has worked on the Hill for 15 years on Israel/Palestine, notes how congressmen and staffs of "both parties told me over and over that they agreed with me but didn't dare say so publicly for fear of repercussions from AIPAC."

A good example of how it all worked involves one honest congressman, Walter Jones of North Carolina, who recently passed away. In 2014, "Wall Street billionaires, financial industry lobbyists, and neoconservative hawks" tried to unseat Jones by bankrolling his primary opponent . The "dark money" intended to defeat him came from a PAC called "The Emergency Committee for Israel," headed by leading neoconservative Bill Kristol. Jones' war views, including avoiding a war with Iran, were clearly perceived as anti-Israel.

And one should also consider contributions directly to the political parties. Israeli/U.S. dual nationals Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the largest single donors to the GOP and to the Democrats, having contributed $82 million and $8,780,000 respectively in the 2016 presidential campaign. Both have indicated openly that Israel is their top priority.

If they have demonstrated fealty to Israel while in office, many Congressmen also find that loyalty pays off after retirement from government with richly remunerated second careers in Jewish dominated industries, like financial services or the media. And there are hundreds of Jewish organizations that contribute to Israel as charities, even though the money frequently goes to fund illegal activity, including the settlements. Money also is used to buy newspapers and media outlets which then adhere to a pro-Israel line, or, where that does not work, to buy advertising that is conditional on being friendly to Israel. So the bottom line is indeed "the Benjamins" and the corruption that they buy.

Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Education Trust said in January that "One person questioning the truth of the Holocaust is one too many." That is nonsense. Any, and all, historical events should be questioned regularly, a principle that is particular true regarding developments that carry a lot of emotional baggage. The Israel Lobby would have all Americans believe that any criticism of Israel is motivated by historic hatred of Jews and is therefore anti-Semitism. Don't believe it. When the AIPAC crowd screams that linking Jews and money is a classic anti-Semitic trope respond by pointing out that Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media over Israel. Terrible things are being done in the Middle East in the name of Jews and of Israel and it all comes down to those Benjamins and the silence they buy by accusing all critics of anti-Semitism. Just recall what the Israeli minister admitted, "It's a trick, we always use it."


wayfarer , says: February 19, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT

Israel, the Trust Fund Nation.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Boy

Staggering Cost of Israel to Americans.

Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.

Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of over a billion people.

And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel.

Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.

source: https://ifamericaknew.org/stat/cost.html

Colin Wright , says: February 19, 2019 at 5:37 am GMT
Here's Nancy Pelosi on what's most important about America.

"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are."

RobinG , says: February 19, 2019 at 6:06 am GMT

.Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media over Israel.

Absolutely, and this 4 part documentary, "The Israel Lobby in the U.S." proves it's every bit as bad as you imagine, maybe worse.

Start with this, Part 2, which focuses on Congress. (Part 1 introduces the undercover reporter, and shows how the Israel Lobby operates on college campuses.)

The Israel Lobby in the U.S. – Documentary by Al Jazeera (Part 2 of 4 )

Wizard of Oz , says: February 19, 2019 at 6:33 am GMT
@Marcus Aurelius Tarkus If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to learn that the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism accusation. It stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset about the shame of antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.
Technomad , says: February 19, 2019 at 7:27 am GMT
A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the "Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they think Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven, but don't want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.
Tyrion 2 , says: February 19, 2019 at 9:23 am GMT
Rashida Tlaib believes that US States must be banned from making geopolitical considerations a part of which companies they do business with. She calls it a free speech issue.

On the other hand, she also believes that States, and the Federal Government, must discriminate in favour of companies not owned by white people. She calls that an equality issue.

She often calls into question all manner of other people's loyalties, while she is also endlessly talking about Palestine, and how Israel must become majority Palestinian.

In a one off piece of consistency, she also supports the same thing for America though, as she want to abolish immigration enforcement. Which would obviously directly lead to abolishing America itself.

Meanwhile, Philip Giraldi pretends that he thinks $23,000 of campaign contributions will buy a US Congressman. In which case, Jezz Bezos could have bought 10 literally every single minute with the money he made in 2018.

People disagree with you. They have reasons. Cluelessly implying it is because they are all bought by the Jews makes you look dumb, especially to them.

Father Coughlin , says: February 19, 2019 at 11:45 am GMT
Klobuchar:

"I've been a strong supporter of Israel and that will never change."

I've been noticing this twist a lot lately/ I.e. .. Israel could start launching its many nukes indiscriminately and she would still support it.

Sean , says: February 19, 2019 at 11:47 am GMT
Israel came into being because Britain needed to get America into the WW1, and the American leadership were glad of the the PR/ Media and political wherewithal of Jews to help get the USA in. Even Germany felt it had to match the Balfour Declaration. The Jewish community has not declined in influence since WW1.

If the US had nothing better to worry about they could, and would, deal with the subjugation of the whole political system on the issue, but the fact is the priorities lie elsewhere. The Israel Lobby are an opponent best avoided, and the West has to concentrate on China.

Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website February 19, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
If one were to read the U.S. mainstream media one would think that there has been a dramatic increase in anti-Semitism worldwide, but that claim is incorrect. What has been taking place is not hatred of Jews but rather a confluence of two factors

As well as the factors you mention -- Israeli behaviour and broadening the definition of anti-Semitism -- the Internet has enabled millions of gentiles to become 'Jew woke', which inevitably leads to a rise in what Jews perceive as anti-Semitic comment.

The Irish Savant recently blogged about a lecture by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim: 'He sees Jews as having no moral obligations to us [gentiles] at all, we're there to be robbed, exploited and, where possible, physically destroyed.'

Memo to Jews: Has it crossed your minds that anti-Semitism is your fault?

dearieme , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:22 pm GMT
I'd always reckoned myself soundly philo-semitic, based mainly on my father's dealings with British Jews, backed up by my own acquaintanceships amongst them.

I've cooled in the last few years. That's because two or three times one website comment threads I've made factual remarks about Palestine that have led to vituperative responses from commenters who have presumably been Jewish, perhaps Israelis.

I'm not so daft as to think that a few internet nutters or crooks should outweigh personal experience but it has made me a little more sensitive to institutionalised bullying on behalf of Israel. An example was the pressure recently put on the (British) Labour Party to adopt Israel's favoured definition of anti-semitism. I accept, of course, that there are lots of disgusting anti-semites in that party but I'm damned if I see why a whole political party should be expected to swallow uncritically some other buggers' definition of anti-semitism.

Anonymous [388] Disclaimer , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:27 pm GMT

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pompeo-in-poland-urges-the-country-to-pass-holocaust-restitution-legislation/

In Warsaw, Pompeo urges Poland to pass Holocaust restitution law
Poland is the only EU member without comprehensive legislation to return, or provide compensation for, private property confiscated by the Nazis

By JTA
14 Feb 2019

As part of his remarks, Pompeo called on the Polish government to resolve outstanding restitution issues.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue of Holocaust-era property restitution during his first official visit to Poland.

"We also appreciate the importance of resolving outstanding issues of the past, and I urge my Polish colleagues to move forward with comprehensive private property restitution legislation for those who lost property during the Holocaust era," he said.

Gideon Taylor, chair of operations for the World Jewish Restitution Organization, said he welcomed Pompeo's "expression of his commitment to securing justice for Holocaust survivors and their families. This is a powerful affirmation of the importance of this issue to the United States."

His first state visit and he makes this the key issue.

Bardon Kaldian , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:28 pm GMT
Here we go again.

1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom

2. Jews, as a national collective, have some unpleasant traits, among them, recently, emotional blackmail misusing the shoah to extort money from most white/Euro-derived nations. This behavior, similar to divorced women's scheming, should be publicly exposed & denounced. OK guys, you suffered, we admit, but others suffered too, so to hell with this game

3. US political system, Jews & Gentiles, is too plutocratic, with all these PACs, big donors, super PACs & whatnot. This should be reformed because the very system perpetuates corruption & suicidal policy at all levels

Rurik , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:54 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

Thus, is there a significant difference, ethical or otherwise between being bought by the NRA, the health insurers, the organised aged, the arms industry, the sugar/biofuels/cattle lobbies, trial lawyers etc as compared with Israel?

Well wiz, while it's true that the arms industry and Big Sugar, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and others, are responsible for the deaths of millions of people, including Americans, there's no evidence that they deliberately murdered Americans in cowardly and treacherous acts of war, as Israel has done repeatedly, as with the cowardly and treacherous attack on the USS Liberty, and the cowardly and treacherous false flag attack on 9/11.

So as to your query over the ethical question of extorting Americans to lavish lucre on an enemy state with the blood of thousands of Americans on its hands, this question should answer itself.

Why are Americans looted to fund an enemy state that murders Americans with fiendish glee, as the "dancing Israelis" so egregiously demonstrates.

It's like the people of Iraq being taxed to pay for Tony Blair or Dubya's new private jet. Forcing the victims of war crimes to fund their abusers.

Lobbyists for Big Tobacco are saints by comparison.

Mikhail , says: Website February 19, 2019 at 12:59 pm GMT
Hypocrisy Over Omar

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/02/18/putting-new-cold-war-into-proper-perspective.html

Excerpt –

American mass media is especially two faced when it comes to outing intolerance. A good deal has been made over over Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's comments on the influence of AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee). The anti-Russian establishment hack journalist Julia Ioffe tweeted her belief that Omar's comments are "anti-Semitic" (anti-Jewish). I'm not too familiar with what Omar has said about Jews over the course of time. I doubt that it['s more repugnant than what Ioffe has stated about Russians.

There has been no letting up with Ioffe. In one recent mass media TV appearance, she said (in a joking tone) that a relaxation of Russian gun laws isn't a good idea because Russians drink too much. In another prominent TV segment, Ioffe stated that when the Russians call someone corrupt, that person must be pretty bad.

Some generalizations are hypocritically more acceptable than others. A good number of Western reared Russians see thru this gross hypocrisy. On the subject of Russia, these individuals regularly get limited coverage in Western mass media.

Anonymous [388] Disclaimer , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:08 pm GMT
@Realist

A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the "Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they think Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven, but don't want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.

Aaahhh the beauty of religion ..a very old method for controlling people.

This is Protestantism, which was a Jewish revolutionary movement.

jacques sheete , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom

Who's blaming them for that?

Here's what they get the blame for

"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us." Explaining why God allowed non-Jews long lives, he added: "Imagine that your donkey would die, you'd lose your income. [The donkey] is your servant. That's why he [the gentile] gets a long life, to work well for the Jew."
This summer, Yosef Elitzur and Yitzhak Shapira, who head an influential seminary in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, published The King's Torah, a 230-page guide to how Jews should treat non-Jews.
The two rabbis concluded that Jews were obligated to kill anyone who posed a danger, immediate or potential, to the Jewish people, and implied that all Palestinians were to be considered a threat. On these grounds, the pair justified killing Palestinian civilians and even their babies.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/12/10/israel-s-racist-rabbis/print

PS: The Israeli goons get the blame for much more, if you're able to catch the drift.

Colin Wright , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:19 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz 'If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to learn that the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism accusation. It stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset about the shame of antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.'

The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite effective.

Islamophobes feel entirely free to publically walk their dog these days. Speaking for myself, I feel entirely free to express my opinions about blacks, and frequently do. I'd do the same with respect to other groups if I felt strongly enough.

But to be labelled anti-semitic? I'll caught myself hesitating to click 'publish' when I notice that my post could reasonably be read as 'anti-semitic.'

The club still works.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:06 pm GMT
The United States of America must have political leaders who will stop the JEW/WASP ruling class rats from using accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" to stop debate on policy issues. The rats who screech about so-called "anti-Semitism" must be ignored!

Tweets from 2015:

Bragadocious , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
With all the dirty cash swirling around the Swamp, it's almost hard to believe that Kevin McCarthy can be bought for $33,200. Seems to me the figure has to be much higher, probably in the mid 6 figures per year. Those sub-$200 donations need to be reported, with names attached. I wonder how many of them are precisely $198, since the Saturday people love gifts that are a multiple of 18. Funny since 18 is also the alphanumeric code for a famous world leader.
Charles Pewitt , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:19 pm GMT
Marco Rubio is a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jews. Marco Rubio puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. Jew billionaires pay Marco Rubio to put the interests of Israel over the interests of the United States.

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire will screech on about so-called "anti-Semitism" if you call Marco Rubio a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jew billionaires.

Tweet from 2015:

[Feb 19, 2019] Empire is always dominated by a group, and US empire is dominated by Jews. If the US is merely after Empire, why not cook up excuses to sanction, invade, and destroy Israel?

Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website February 17, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMT

They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.

I disagree. Empire is always dominated by a group, and US empire is dominated by Jews. If the US is merely after Empire, why not cook up excuses to sanction, invade, and destroy Israel? After all, the world community has condemned Israel many times over for its myriad crimes. Also, why not invade and smash Saudi Arabia as well? If US is just after empire and more wars, why not wage war on Israel and Saudis? More bucks for the military industrial complex.

In truth, the US empire is selective. It is not empire for empire's sake but empire for Zion's sake. That is why US empire targets Russia, Syria, and Iran while hailing Israel and protecting Saudi Arabia. US empire is premised on the biases and hatreds of its ethnic super-elites. "Is it great for the Jews?"

[Feb 19, 2019] The new definition of anti-semitism

Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

"An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews."– Joe Sobran

[Feb 18, 2019] Problem with Trump is that Kushner who is like an Israeli agent has so much influence over him, just ask Chris Christie

Notable quotes:
"... The Russia stuff is BS if you had a bottle of vodka in your house, they would call that Russian collusion ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Mel Gibson , 1 week ago (edited)

Problem with Trump is that Kushner who is like an Israeli agent has so much influence over him, just ask Chris Christie

Also neo-cons like John Bolton Trump could have been better but they got their claws into him and they will try do same to Gabbard

The Russia stuff is BS if you had a bottle of vodka in your house, they would call that Russian collusion.

[Feb 18, 2019] Trump pandering to Jewish lobby: Pittsburgh shooting an assault on humanity

Notable quotes:
"... Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. ..."
"... Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life". ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Seraphim , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:11 am GMT

@Of all people, Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash.

But he takes them very, very seriously.

"Trump: Pittsburgh shooting an 'assault on humanity', by Tal Axelrod – 10/27/18" https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/413492-trump-pittsburg-shooting-an-attack-on-humanity

"President Trump continued to condemn the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed at least 11 people.

"The hearts of all Americans are filled with grief following the monstrous killing of Jewish Americans at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., you've all seen it, you've been watching it, it's horrible," he said at a rally in Murphysboro, Ill.

"This evil anti-Semitic attack is an attack on all of us, it is an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst," Trump added. "The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue It must be confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head."

Through the centuries, the Jews have endured terrible persecution And those seeking their destruction, we will seek their destruction. And when you have crimes like this, whether it's this one or another one on another group, we have to bring back the death penalty," he said. [the audience exploded in wild ovations].

Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life".

*The Jewish National Fund (Hebrew: קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל‬, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael, previously הפונד הלאומי‬, Ha Fund HaLeumi) was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine (later the British Mandate for Palestine, and subsequently Israel and the Palestinian territories) for Jewish settlement.

[Feb 18, 2019] While highly unlikely Tulsi Gabbard might be able to do what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to drain the swamp (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State)

it looks like alt-right is not that enthusiastic about Tulsi, but most will support it over Trump...
Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:

Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump

Okay, in theory, a third option is possible (never say never!) but I see that as highly unlikely: Tulsi Gabbard follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to "drain the swamp" (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power, by the way. Frankly, for all her very real qualities she does not strike me as a "US Putin" nor does she have the kind of institutional and popular backing Putin had. So while I will never say never, I am not holding my breath on this one

Finally, if Gabbard truly is "for real" then the Deep State will probably "Kennedy" her and blame Russia or Iran for it.

Still, while we try to understand what, if anything, Tulsi Gabbard could do for the world, she does do good posting messages like this one:

I don't know about you, but I am rather impressed!

At the very least, she does what "Occupy Wall Street" did with its "1%" which was factually wrong. The actual percentage is much lower but politically very effective. In this case, Gabbard speaks of both parties being alike and she popularizes concepts like " warmongers in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage and new places for people to die ". This is all very good and useful for the cause of peace and anti-imperialism because when crimethink concepts become mainstream, then the mainstream is collapsing !

The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.

Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are hell bent on power, empire and war. They also will stop at nothing to prevent the USA from (finally!) becoming a "normal" country and they couldn't care less about the fate of the people of the USA. All they want is for us all to become their serfs.

All of this is hardly big news. But this hysterical reaction to Gabbard's candidacy is a very powerful and useful proof of the fact that the USA is a foreign-occupied country with no real sovereignty or democracy. As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy. Be it the ongoing US aggression against Venezuela or the reaction to the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, the diagnostics concur and we can use the typical medical euphemism and say with confidence: "the prognosis is poor".


Adrian E. , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:33 am GMT

In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:

– Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign
– Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump

I think it is unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard caves in so soon. The way she has started her campaign, she is certainly aware that she has cut off herself from the normal donors of Democrats, and the way she talks shows that she is not afraid of alienating them even more because she won't get money from them, anyway. The plan is to do the same like Bernie Sanders 2016 and raise small donations. Many Democratic candidates now say they don't take PAC money, but there are different ways of getting money from big donors – Tulsi Gabbard is probably one of those who are more serious about avoiding reliance on big donors. It could work. In 2016, during the primaries, Hillary Clinton regularly had to interrupt her campaign in order to attend dinners with superrich donors, while Bernie Sanders asked people to donate as a part of his campaign on social media, and Sanders regularly outraised Clinton. Of course, 2016, we just saw that for the primaries, but it might also work for the general election (and numbers are not everything, Hillary Clinton spent far more than Donald Trump and still lost, so even if small donations would lead to a somewhat lower sum, she could still win with a popular message). And not only could it work, I think it would be the only way for Tulsi Gabbard to succeed because she has probably already been too outspoken about some things to ever gain back the trust of the neocons and their allies in the media and the billionaire donor class.

Of course, if Tulsi Gabbard advances in the primaries, she will be attacked most viciously in the media. I am not so sure what the effect will be. On one hand, Trump's victory in the primaries and the general election showed that being hated by mainstream media does not have to be an obstacle that cannot be surmounted, and as long as there are so many primary candidates, such vicious attacks can also make her seem more interesting to some people. On the other hand, her main hurdle are probably the Democratic primaries, and, according to polls, Democrats have lost trust in the mainstream media to a lesser degree than the general public. But then again, vilifying her too much in the liberal media (as it has already started) is also a certain risk for them because it could become too obvious to see that the decisive feature that leads to such attacks is that someone is not seen as reliably pro-neocon, and that could also lead to doubts about the media in leftists who readily accepted the attacks on Trump because they hated him for other reasons. Therefore, I think the main hope of the establishment is that Tulsi Gabbard can be treated as a „minor candidate" and won't get far, in case she becomes a serious contender for the nomination, they are in trouble.

If Tulsi Gabbard wins the nomination, we can almost be certain that the pro-neocon establishment will a) see a re-election of Trump as the lesser evil and b) they will support a pro-establishment third party candidate (already last time, Michael Bloomberg threatened to run if the two major candidates are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, now Howard Schultz seems to have positioned himself that way, though I think he is too ridiculous and ineffective and will be replaced by someone else if the establishment needs a third party candidate because they lose the Democratic primaries). Such a third party candidate probably increases the chances of Trump's re-election (probably a desired side-effect, many of these liberal oligarchs probably prefer Trump to Gabbard and Sanders by far, but it would be difficult for them to support Trump in public, supporting a third party candidate is much easier), but a populist campaign against both Trump and that third party candidate as representatives of a corrupt billionaire class might well be successful.

Then, if Tulsi Gabbard is elected, she certainly runs the risk of ending like JFK, but the fact that so many people now already talk and write about this risk might also protect her to some degree – the danger is so obvious that many people won't believe theories about a lonewolf terrorist easily (and blaming Russia and Iran after Tulsi Gabbard had been vilified as an Assadist and Russian trolls' favorite candidate would also be difficult, if for some reasons relations with Saudi Arabia are not seen as so important any more, the more realistic option of blaming Saudi terrorists may be chosen). Another option would be to impeach her, though that could also be a big risk for the establishment, and depending on who would be her VP, it would not be enough. Of course, there could be bipartisan agreement about blocking all of her initiatives.

Even if she is extremely smart and tough, alone against the united forces of the deep state, establishment media and the bipartisan war party, Tusli Gabbard probably could not achieve very much – of course, she would still be commander in chief and probably could prevent new wars, and she could open some people's eyes about who really holds power, but she could hardly achieve very much. The question is whether she still might get some institutional support like Putin when he became president. I think that is not so unlikely because there are indications that the deep state is internally divided (one small example is that the communications of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were published) and that the neocons' grip on power is far from total. Therefore, it does not seem impossible that with a combination of support in the general public (and she certainly has the potential of becoming very popular) and the support of parts of the deep state that have not been subdued by the neocons, she might be successful – it would be a very harsh power struggle.

As far as caving in to Israel is concerned, Tulsi Gabbard has never been too critical of Israel – there was some relatively mild criticism of attacks on Gaza (in a way that is fairly common among progressives), but in general, she has not been too critical of Israel and has also had some friendly contacts with the pro-Israel lobby. So, while she is very strong and consistent in rejecting neocons and their regime change wars, as far as Israel and Palestinians' rights are concerned, people should probably not expect too much from her. But if she is serious about fighting the neocons and limiting the power of the military-industrial complex and still could win an election, that would already be a big achievement.

Biff , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:22 am GMT
After witnessing the temper tirades and the teeth gnashing of the deep states media minions after the anti-war-lite Donald Trump got elected, I'm guessing Tulsi Gabbard is in for one of two things:

1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom to most debates.

I don't think American Democracy(AKA Empire) is in any mood for another spoiler

Realist , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:43 am GMT

By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ . This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!

This is one of the few things I agree with Ilhan Omar about. Abrams is a felonious, warmongering prick.

Rich1234 , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT
She is very photogenic. So is Kamala Harris.
Projecting an anti-war position against promoting the bonafides of her army service will be quite the balancing act of cognitive dissonance, but opposite the hyper-masculine affect a candidate like Trump or Hillary must emote to neutralize an absence of military experience in their résumé.
Then there's that first husband and her family's political machine.
But damn, Tulsi and Kamala photograph impeccably well from every angle.
What are the chances outside of India that three potential presidential candidates of the female persuasion all share a common ethnic background, Nimrata Haley, Tulsi and Kamala? No coincidence there.
der einzige , says: Website February 15, 2019 at 1:44 pm GMT
Saker is a serious analyst?

Finding all this information below takes less time than burning a cigarette.

United Christians for Israel, founded and led by pastor John Hagee, have millions of members and call themselves "the largest pro-Israel charity in the United States." The organization was an important factor in the decision of US President Donald Trump in 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to transfer the US embassy there.

Gabbard sponsored the resolution of the Congress criticizing Amnesty International for revealing Israeli atrocities against civilians in his blitzkrieg in Gaza in 2014. The resolution stated that Israel "focuses on terrorist targets" and "goes to extraordinary efforts to attack only terrorist actors".
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/22/gaza-and-the-bi-partisan-war-on-human-rights/

What it looked like "focusing on terrorist targets" according to Gabbard can be seen here
https://www.google.pl/search?q=gaza+2014&source=lnms&tbm=isch

Zionism and Islamophobia Gabbard have gained recognition and support from all kinds of unpalatable characters – like right-wing billionaire and Zionist Sheldon Adelson, who loudly declared that "all Muslims are terrorists".

In addition to Israel's loyal defender, Gabbard has also proved to be a credible servant of Adelson's business interests. Introduced regulations against online gambling to protect the casino's empire from competition on the Internet. Adelson thanked her, giving her the Champion of Freedom award.
http://time.com/3695948/sheldon-adelson-online-gambling/

Her prejudices against Islam directly stem from her Hindu fundamentalism. Gabbard became one of the main American political supporters of Narendra Modi, the leader of the Hindu sectarian party Bharatiya Janata (BJP) and the current Prime Minister of India.

Being the main minister of the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, Modi helped spark a pogrom against Muslims, in which they killed 2,000 people and displaced over 200,000 people in the ethnic cleansing campaign. Since his victory in the 2014 elections, Modi has been a decidedly pro-Israeli Indian politician and has strong relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the invitation of Modi, Gabbard traveled through India for three weeks during which various Hindu fundamentalists greeted her as their American master. In probably the worst part of the tour, the India Foundation, a formation tuned to the Hindu fascist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), hosted Gabbard to discuss the future of Indian-American relations. After the reactionary lovefest, the Indian newspaper Telegraph called it "the American Sangha mascot"
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/sangh-finds-a-mascot-in-american-tulsi/cid/1579985

After returning to the USA, Gabbard defended Modi against any criticism. She was one of the few democrats who spoke against the federal government's decision to refuse a Modi visa in 2014 because of his abolition of religious freedom

A year earlier, she carried out a successful campaign to abolish legislation calling on India to improve the treatment of religious minorities. Gabbard condemned the bill as an attempt to "influence the outcome of the national elections in India."
https://www.alternet.org/2015/02/curious-islamophobic-politics-dem-congressmember-tulsi-gabbard/

Gabbard's service for the most right-wing forces in Indian politics leaves no doubt about its Islamophobia.

Gabbard supported Donald Trump's claim that Islam itself is the source of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. She claimed that Obama "completely misunderstands the rational Islamic ideology that drives these people."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/knives-are-out-hawaii-dem-faces-backlash-for-taking-on-obama-over-islamist-extremism

As with other leading liberal democrats, Gabbard's alleged progressive values ​​do not extend to the Palestinian struggle for freedom. While she may support the resistance of Indian Native at Standing Rock, she will not support the indigenous people of Palestine and her struggle for self-determination against Israeli colonialism.
http://socialistworker.org/2014/08/13/liberal-champions-of-apartheid

RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:16 pm GMT
@Rich1234

an anti-war position against her army service will be cognitive dissonance..

How so? There's a long tradition of this. See Smedley Butler.

all share a common ethnic background, Nimrata Haley, Tulsi and Kamala?

NO! No, no, no . for the umpteenth time. Tulsi has NO Indian heritage. She's only "non-white" because her dad is half Samoan (i.e. Polynesian).

Ned Ludlam , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:47 pm GMT
Yawn. Tulsi, Bernie, Corbyn – doesn't matter. The ruling elites have the power to co-opt, demonize or kill them. And, that regime is desperate enough to do this.

We are all waiting for the tectonic impact of some external shocks. Because the system is fragile, over-ripe. Collapse of debt bubbles, an infectious disease epidemic, a rogue general fires off some nukes. Whatever. Just passes the Global Tipping Point, then, everything disintegrates. The centre cannot hold. And at that point the tensions release and people go nuts. The regime divides against itself; the roof falls in. The whole world is waiting, expecting this to happen in some way or form.

Go and max out your credit card, get hard stuff, don't pay, stop buying anything. A few millions doing that. Empty your bank account. Stop paying your mortgage and car loan. Make them chase you. Work to precipitate the Big One. Help tear the fabric beyond its tensile strength. Do your bit.

Don't expect to see Tulsi on your side of the barricades.

sarz , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMT
@Rich1234 Nimrata Randhawa Haley is of Punjabi Sikh ancestry on both sides, genetically closer to southern Europeans than to most Indians.

Kamala Harris is descended from South Indian brahmins on her mother's side. You can't get more Aryan than that – look up the word. And she is Jamaican on her father's side. I haven't seen a picture of him but I imagine he's about as black as fellow Jamaican Colin Powell. An octoroon to use that old-fashioned term. But Negro blood was considered so polluting that just a smidgeon put you with the lower race. It's still working like that, but in victim politics less is more.

Tulsi Gabbard had a WASP mother who became a member of Swami Bhaktivedanta's Krishna devotees. Her father was Polynesian. There's no genes from India. It's a mistake to think of her religion as Hindu, but it's her mistake as well as that of many Indians. Hinduism is not *a* religion because Hinduism is the liberating realization that the idea of *a* religion is very shallow. It is a pleasure to see Tulsi, in videos, going about her devotions.

peterAUS , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:39 pm GMT
Well, apart from obligatory Putin accolade, as

.. "drain the swamp" (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power, by the way.

a good article, overall.

Especially:

USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.

Apparently, US public figures like Gabbard and Trump still don't understand the simple fact that NO amount of grovelling will EVER appease the Neocons or the Ziolobby

the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.

Hari Hari , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:41 pm GMT
It's interesting to see the prompt [13] Democrat party oppo based on the "right-wing Indian agent" smear. It's exactly analogous to Democrat/CIA attack on "Russian puppet" Trump, when Democrats had absolutely nothing to offer in lieu of a famous loathsome TV asshole they hand-picked to beat like a drum and then lost to.

If it were the case that Tulsi were an Indian fifth-column traitor, like Rubio is a Israeli fifth-column traitor, So what? Objective indicators of world-standard state responsibilities show that the state of India is more developed, more legitimate, and more entitled to responsible sovereignty than the US government. India exceeds US performance on most of the top-level human rights indicators.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Indicators/Pages/HRIndicatorsIndex.aspx

You can see for yourself, in whatever level of detail you desire, with NGO input exhaustively compiled by elected independent international experts acting in their personal capacity.

Tulsi's exposure to superior Indian human-rights compliance is likely to build her capacity in terms of Responsibility to Protect Pillar 2. She will have a better understanding of rights and rule of law than provincial goober candidates with no international exposure. That will necessarily influence her evolving stance on systematic and widespread Israeli extermination of Palestinian indigenous peoples.

Christian S. Miller , says: February 16, 2019 at 12:41 am GMT
I have never voted for a Democrat. I plan to vote for Gabbard. I have contributed to her campaign. I cringe at her progressive agenda, but I fully support her positions on non-intervention.
Australian lady , says: February 16, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
@der einzige Hope is such a frail and tenuous emotion.
That said, l'm investing some of my dwindling reserves of hope in Tulsi. Your comments are very considered, and l share your concerns for peace with the current play of Theo-politics. Modi is an unapologetic Hindu chauvinist who has successfully incited brutal communalism for electoral gain. But my personal loathing of him has ameliorated over time (I shock myself!) because he has steered a pretty independent course for India, maintaining friendly relations with China for example,despite U.S. pressure to use India as a wedge. His Hinduva ideology appears to be a domestic political tool. This is a cunning but pragmatic approach and is distinct from a religious ideology with global ambitions. The latter is the province of Zionism which is not really a religion but has (other) religious affiliations or "allies",including Hinduism but most importantly Christian zionism (or evangelicism or dispensationalism et al). It seems to me that a lot of what Trump is doing re. "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" is to appease the Christian Zionists who comprise a large chunk of his support base, and not American Jewry.(They are democrats as a foregone conclusion).There is great irony in this if you follow the fantastical narrative of the Christian evangelical apocalypse.
Political ambitions are the scourge of religion.I attend an Anglican Church,very traditional, because my preferred form of worship is hymn singing-the sung mass for Eucharist.I do this in contradistinction(!) to evangelicism. Unfortunately Islam too undergone a political makeover in recent history which has led to un utter corruption of prophet Mohammad's words.It's apogee is Wahhabism, a fad made manifest through money and power and war. Shia is also Islam, but not according to Wahhabis,who do not even relate to Shia as "self-hating Moslems."And do not imagine that the Moslem brotherhood is any better for all the acceptable styling. Sunnism needs to detach itself from ideology.God is in the poetry and not the small print.
Thanks for your patience with my digression. The Saker suggests we examine the Tulsi phenomenon as a diagnostic tool.
This may be useful. But Tulsi as a Hindi wooden horse?
WorkingClass , says: February 16, 2019 at 11:46 am GMT
She cannot be anti war without being anti Israel. Her candidacy is going nowhere.

It would be nice to have an anti war voice in the debates but Gabbard will be adrift in a sea of idiots. How many candidates will there be for the Democratic nomination? Twenty? Eighty? All of them competing for who hates whitey the most. Featuring as a side show Biden and Bernie expressing their shame at their skin color.

If Gabbard wants to be heard she should switch parties and primary Trump. Let him defend his Israel first foreign policy.

simple_pseudonymic_handle , says: February 16, 2019 at 7:56 pm GMT
She is the only prominent politician in the commander-in-chief discussion who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Is there a poll on her standing with the military demographic? An argument can be made that her credibility on fighting more war or fighting less war is an order of magnitude higher than a dozen Trumps, Clintons, et al all put together.

She has seen firsthand the pointlessness of the waste of blood and treasure. How can you root against Gabbard? She is near the only elected official to get any positive press at anitwar.com.

Si1ver1ock , says: February 17, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMT
I have a somewhat contrary analysis although admittedly, it's not based on much.

Tulsi's speech patterns closely resemble Hillary Clinton's. I put this down to various leadership classes they attended which likely have a common source. I think we are seeing a divergence of opinion in the Deep State with some wanting Globalism, while others are unwilling to accept the destruction of the United States as a price for Globalism. Call them the Fortress America wing of the Deep State. They want to rebuild America and preserve its wealth and autonomy while moving toward a world government.

In other words, Tulsi could emerge as the candidate of the MAGA section of the Deep State.

As for Trump, he is waist deep in the Swamp fighting for his life against pretty much everybody. If Omar had her way he would be impeached. Trump's support among Republicans is the only thing keeping from being impeached. His partisan attacks are probably designed to signal his willingness to lead the fight for Republicans, hoping they will defend him in return.

imbroglio , says: February 17, 2019 at 2:21 pm GMT
You make such a convincing case that you've painted yourself into a corner. Your point is that the Ziocons or whatever you call them are so bent on war and empire that they'll destroy anyone who tries to get in their way.

To be credible, because your claim is so extreme, you'd need to explain the abnormal psychology that drives this will to domination. Can you do that? If not, your article -- and a number of your others -- come off as routine Jew- and liberal-bashing. The bashing may or may not be deserved depending on your point of view. But that would be all it is: standard prejudice and bigotry in what you seem to take as a good cause.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: February 17, 2019 at 4:37 pm GMT
@simple_pseudonymic_handle I'm not rooting against her. I'm not rooting at all.

We see from where we've been. I supported Ron Paul. He was ignored, and then cheated.

Voting for Washington wannabes is like watching just the "good programs" on TV, or patronizing the non-disgusting movies that manage to emerge from Hollywood. Those doing so endorse and prop up the tottering, rotten Establishment.

chris , says: February 17, 2019 at 6:28 pm GMT
Another very important thing Tulsi is doing is being a completely different person from Trump but hammering home the same Trump campaign message against the war-lusting elites.

If it wasn't for her, the media and elite mafia could marginalize this entire argument. They'll never let the population vote on these points because then, the jig will be up.

Sir Launcelot Canning , says: February 17, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
A media blackout of Tulsi will only work if people continue to get their information from the boob tube and newspapers. Why is anyone still expecting to get the truth from the MSM? Anyone with half a brain and an internet connection should be able to follow her. Tell all of your grandparents, uncles, and other old fogies to throw away CNN, NYT, Fox, WaPo, NBC, etc. and find the truth online.
Benjy , says: February 17, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT
@jacques sheete The Anti-federalist's never had a chance, nor would Aloha Tulsi. The Boston tea party itself was a false flag attempting to pass blame on to the Indians. How typically American. Lexington was caused by the that same Sam Adams and his free masons from the green dragon, who were firing at both the British and the Militia's, just like they did in Maidan 5 years ago. The US revolution in 1776 was just another Masonic color revolution on behalf of the Rothschild's. These are the same guys who killed Kennedy and pulled off 9/11. Now they have Trump 100% corralled and black balled, and he is one of them anyway.

That was when Wonder Woman Tulsi came surfin' into the Washington swamp, all ready to drain it.

Jake , says: February 17, 2019 at 9:46 pm GMT
True – "The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about. Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are hell bent on power, empire and war."

The average Liberal voter thinks that Conservatives love Empire while Liberals oppose empires. Likewise, the average Middle American Republican voter thinks America is anything but the new British Empire and that America is always fighting against those bad empires and so must be very active globally to do good and prevent even worse bad.

True – "As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy."

The Anglo-Zionist Empire: the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism that was not stopped dead in its tracks.

It will get worse before it can get better. It cannot be corrected without a rejection of WASP culture, which is replaced with an authentically Christian culture.

Art , says: February 17, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT
GOOD! NO TO MORE NUKES!

Tulsi Gabbard presents bill to stop Trump from pulling out of INF treaty

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has introduced a bill to Congress which would prevent President Donald Trump from withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

Speaking at a press conference on Friday morning, Gabbard said that Trump's decision to pull out of the 1988 treaty was "reckless," was "exacerbating a new Cold War" with Russia, and could spark another arms race.

"Walking away from this agreement doesn't solve our problems, it makes them worse. It doesn't bring us closer to peace, it moves us closer to war," she said.

https://www.rt.com/usa/451577-tulsi-gabbard-stop-inf-pullout-trump/

Think Peace -- Art

George , says: February 17, 2019 at 10:16 pm GMT
I am hoping that Gabbard is the next president because it would mean Hindus beat Jews to the White House, and if she serves a full term she will be the first nonprotestant* president to serve a full term, take that Catholics. She will be sworn in with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, bah ha hah ha. The Evangelicals will go berserk (I hope). She declared herself Hindu as a teen, was she baptized?

* Jimmy Carter was 'born again' so he might be the first non main line Protestant or even nonProtestant.

Art , says: February 17, 2019 at 10:37 pm GMT
@Sir Launcelot Canning A media blackout of Tulsi will only work if people continue to get their information from the boob tube and newspapers.

Gabbard will only get media attention when she gets votes.

She needs an ace campaign staff and time in voters faces.

She will win people over.

follyofwar , says: February 18, 2019 at 12:05 am GMT
@JL I think both the anti-war Left and anti-war Right are sizeable and growing. Speaking of the Dissident Right, which I am more in tune with, we just need a courageous leader to rally around. Right now the Dissident Right is more reliably anti-war than any other faction.

But, really, the dissident right is not doctrinaire right at all as they are against Big Business and reject Libertarianism. Tulsi probably doesn't even want the open support of the dissident right (very few are racist white supremacists, although the media has tarred us all with that brush)...

Asagirian , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 2:21 am GMT
@Biff 1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom to most debates.

But what about social media? The MSM mostly ignored Bernie Sanders but he got a huge boost.

I think the real problem with Tulsi is she comes across as too calm for politics. She's not low-energy like Jeb, but she lacks fire.

Also, I'm not sure most progs would be interested in her anti-war platform. They liked Bernie because his message was mostly domestic: Free Stuff!

Americans are anti-war only when too many Americans are getting killed overseas. In the Obama yrs, the US perfected a new way of Open Borders War where US uses proxies to destroy other nations. So, most Americans don't care.

Carroll Price , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:25 pm GMT
@Robert Bruce It's the same 'bait and switch' strategy, that occurs every 4 years. Why change a strategy when the old one works so well? To date, Trump holds the record for fooling the largest number of people, with anti-war candidate, John Kerry coming in a distant 2nd.
c matt , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:59 pm GMT
I suppose there is also a fourth option: Tulsi Gabbard keeps her no-war stance, and follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump did and caves.
peterAUS , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
@c matt Yep.

Not a problem, though. 4 years after she gets tossed out of office. People vote the real deal then.
Or so they think, because he/she caves in too.

And all the while, the game of demographics goes on

Nice, a?

[Feb 18, 2019] Tulsi 2020 Anti-war Democrat says she s running for US president

Notable quotes:
"... Due to her antiwar stance in Syria, Gabbard was at one point rumored to be a potential candidate to head Trump's State Department, and even met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in November 2016, but nothing came of it. ..."
"... In January 2017, she traveled to Syria on a fact-finding trip, outraging the Washington establishment. She has also proposed a bill to outlaw US weapons sales to terrorists. ..."
"... It is unclear whether Gabbard will get much traction among the establishment Democrats, who she has frequently disagreed with on foreign policy issues. ..."
"... So many entrenched bipartisan interests fear the foreign policy debate her presence on the campaign trail will provoke. Look for more obsessive attacks in Omidyar's the Interventionist, republished in his local Hawaii paper. ..."
Jan 12, 2019 | www.rt.com

Due to her antiwar stance in Syria, Gabbard was at one point rumored to be a potential candidate to head Trump's State Department, and even met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in November 2016, but nothing came of it.

In January 2017, she traveled to Syria on a fact-finding trip, outraging the Washington establishment. She has also proposed a bill to outlaw US weapons sales to terrorists.

Gabbard first sparked rumors of a 2020 run in December , when she toured Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to host nationwide party primary elections.

Inspired by the party's strong showing in the November midterms, a number of Democrats are eager to challenge Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) announced on New Year's Eve that she was forming a presidential exploratory committee. Julian Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary in the Obama administration, has also toured Iowa and is expected to announce his candidacy this weekend.

It is unclear whether Gabbard will get much traction among the establishment Democrats, who she has frequently disagreed with on foreign policy issues.

Ostensibly, Tulsi Gabbard checks all the correct "diversity boxes" that Democrats claim they want: young, female, minority. But weirdly, she won't benefit from satisfying these (fake) criteria, because she's hated for unrelated political reasons. So that should be fun.

-- Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 11, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard is a really next-level politician. Any amateur can be a traditional US racist politician, but it takes skill to succeed in America as a Hindu-nationalist racist / tankie Assad apologist.

-- Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt) January 11, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard doesn't have a base but she's someone people like the more they see her.

Don't sleep on this one.

Although if you follow Cernovich you remember I said over two years ago that she was the one to watch...

-- Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 12, 2019

Say what you want about Tulsi Gabbard (I have my own criticisms) but this is probably an accurate prediction of how opposition to her campaign from other Democrats will play out https://t.co/xEhdD1ZmyN

-- Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) January 11, 2019

I'd pay close attention to the financing of this campaign. https://t.co/DMiABthwNY

-- Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) January 11, 2019

Tired of Putin? Vote Assad 2020!!!!!!! https://t.co/aMMF71wz69

-- Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) January 11, 2019

So many entrenched bipartisan interests fear the foreign policy debate her presence on the campaign trail will provoke. Look for more obsessive attacks in Omidyar's the Interventionist, republished in his local Hawaii paper. Also, not sure what this means for a Bernie run. https://t.co/RD7pCRRkTW

-- Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 12, 2019

[Feb 18, 2019] Links below could be summed up Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough . But the real reason for such a hostility towards her is that she is against foreign wars of choice

Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Well, as we all saw, the putatively "liberal" legacy Ziomedia hates Tulsi Gabbard with a passion. Maybe not as much as that legacy Ziomedia hates Trump or Putin, but still – the levels of hostility against her are truly amazing. This may seem bizarre until you realize that, just like Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard has said all the right things about Israel, but that this was not nearly "enough" to please the US Ziolobby. Check out the kind of discussions about Gabbard which can be found in the Israeli and pro-Israeli press:

This is just a small sample of what I found with a quick search. It could be summed up "Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough". But is that really The Main Reason for such a hostility towards her? I don't think so. I believe that Gabbard's real "ultimate sin" is that she is against foreign wars of choice. That is really her Crime Of Crimes!

The AngloZionists wanted to tear Syria apart, break it up into small pieces, most of which would be run by Takfiri crazies and Tulsi Gabbard actually dared to go and speak to "animal Assad", the (latest) "New Hitler", who "gasses his own people". And this is an even worse crime, if such a thing can even be imagined! She dared to disobey her AngloZionist masters.

So, apparently, opposing illegal wars and daring to disobey the Neocons are crimes of such magnitude and evil that they deserve the hysterical Gabbard-bashing campaign which we have witnessed in recent times. And even being non-Christian, non-White, non-male and "liberal" does not in any way compensate for the heinous nature of "crimes".

What does this tell us about the real nature of the US society?

It is also interesting to note that the most vicious (and stupid) attacks against Gabbard did not come from "conservative" media outlets or journalists. Not at all! Most of the attacks, especially the more vicious ones, came from supposedly "liberal" sources, which tell us that in 2019 USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.

[Feb 18, 2019] Today's Rift with Europe Echoes the Iraq War Debate

Feb 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Gino Santa Maria / Shutterstock.com Pence repeated his tone-deaf demands to our allies to quit the nuclear deal at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend. The response from the Europeans was even frostier than it had been in Warsaw:

European officials brushed off U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's call this week for the bloc to ratchet up pressure on Iran, saying they will continue defending the 2015 nuclear deal and stay engaged with Iran's government.

World leaders gathered at the annual Munich Security Conference on Friday to debate a range of issues from the Middle East, to trade, Europe's future and cyberwarfare. Speaking at the conference on Saturday, Mr. Pence, who is on a diplomatic trip to Europe, said the European Union should follow the U.S. in leaving the Iran nuclear deal.

U.S.-European relations are lower than they have been at any time since the the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Just as the Bush administration berated and insulted longtime allies for refusing to fall in line behind their destructive and reckless war, the Trump administration is berating and insulting some of our closest allies over their refusal to capitulate to unreasonable American demands on Iran and the nuclear deal. Many of the elements of these two rifts are similar : an irrational American fixation on a wildly exaggerated or non-existent threat in the Middle East, an arrogant assumption that our allies are obliged to do whatever our government tells them to do, and open expressions of contempt for the allies that disagree with the course being set by the irresponsible U.S. administration. In both cases, some of our closest allies unsuccessfully try to stop the administration from making terrible, costly errors, and they are rewarded for their efforts with condemnation and threats.

The most worrying similarity between the 2002-03 breach with our European allies and today is the willingness of administration officials to promote obvious lies in the service of their destructive policy. Like other members of the administration, Pence has been pushing the dishonest claim that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. He said this in his Warsaw speech :

But beyond its hateful rhetoric, the Iranian regime openly advocates another Holocaust and it seeks the means to achieve it. Iran seeks to recreate the ancient Persian Empire under the modern dictatorship of the ayatollahs.

Iran's government neither advocates for this, nor does it "seek the means to achieve it." Any work that Iran did on nuclear weapons research took place more than fifteen years ago, and it has not resumed since then. Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, and the IAEA has confirmed Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal more than a dozen times in a row. The talking points of Iran hawks remain unchanged from the mid-2000s, but in the meantime the rest of the world has moved on.

If Pence really believed what he was saying, he wouldn't be urging our allies to tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The nuclear deal has ensured that Iran cannot develop and build nuclear weapons, and anyone genuinely worried about Iran's acquisition of such weapons would not try to destroy the agreement that makes that outcome practically impossible. The only reason to promote the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons is to create a pretext for war. Iran hawks hate the nuclear deal so passionately because it deprives them of that pretext. That is why they are determined to do whatever they can to kill the deal even if that means badly damaging relations with our most important treaty allies.


Mark B. February 17, 2019 at 11:49 am

Europe will not bend in this one. Too much at stake, inside the EU (elections) as well as outside the EU (geoplitics, Brexit).

As mr. Larison so often points out, the Iran obsession is the weirdest irrational thing in US foreign policy. Shooting oneself in the foot time after time.

A lot of special interests by special people underneath that I presume.

georgina davenport , says: February 17, 2019 at 12:59 pm
Between the progressives and the conservatives, the conservatives are often the ones talking about religion, God and morality, and accuse the Left to be Godless and immoral. Yet it does not seem to vex them their side had started the war in Iraq with false pretense, which led to disastrous economic, geopolitical, and human costs. Now, as Larison observed, they are poised to repeat it.

What averagely decent human beings can inflict such sufferings on others with such impunity and without conscientious qualms?

Wisham OB , says: February 17, 2019 at 1:33 pm
Pence lacks basic loyalty and good judgment. He's abandoning and betraying our oldest allies, and he isn't even doing it for a compelling reason of state.

Indeed, after watching the degrading spectacle of 2016 and 2018 campaign donations, it's hard not to suspect that Pence is doing it to keep Israel money flowing to GOP candidates, possibly for a future presidential run of his own. That he's putting America and American lives at risk for the Israel money.

Joe F , says: February 17, 2019 at 3:31 pm
Would it not be in American interest to demonstrate compliance with the existing agreement if it sought further agreement on ballistic missiles and involvement with their neighbors internal affairs? It not only precludes diplomacy for the nuclear issue, but any and all other conflicts of interest
Clyde Schechter , says: February 17, 2019 at 4:54 pm
Yes, it is increasingly clear that our recent actions with respect to Iran are for the purpose of preparing for, and conjuring a pretext for, war.

Mr. Larison, I am sure your efforts are a major contributor to the recent Congressional resolution regarding the Yemen war. You were a lone voice crying in the wilderness for years. Please keep up on this Iranian issue as well. Many, many lives are at stake. You are an unsung hero.

Ft. Hall , says: February 17, 2019 at 6:37 pm
"[Pence] is abandoning and betraying our oldest allies, and he isn't even doing it for a compelling reason of state. "

That's what blows my mind. There seems to be no reason for what Pence is doing, except perhaps to please Binyamin Netanyahu or Muhammed bin Salman. And does Pence really expect Europe to risk its basic security by following the lead of corrupt American politicians bobbing for Israel dollars?

[Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest?

Highly recommended!
Being pro-Zionism is New York way of being militarist
Notable quotes:
"... Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake ! ..."
"... It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election ! ..."
Mar 23, 2018 | www.unz.com

denk , March 23, 2018 at 4:44 am GMT

Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake !

Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest,.

It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election !

hehehehhe

[Feb 17, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives

Highly recommended!
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending wars are expensive was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
Notable quotes:
"... Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic. ..."
Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

KC February 15, 2019 at 11:16 pm

The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives, create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class in US politics and culture.

Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.

Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell

Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.

Barry F Keane , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic.

Even you, Tucker Carlson, mock the efforts of Ilhan Omar for criticizing AIPAC and Elliott Abrams.

I don't personally care for many of her opinions but that's not what matters: if we elect another neocon government we won't last another generation. Like the lady asked Ben Franklin "What kind of government have you bequeathed us?", and Franklin answered "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

[Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest?

Highly recommended!
Being pro-Zionism is New York way of being militarist
Notable quotes:
"... Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake ! ..."
"... It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election ! ..."
Mar 23, 2018 | www.unz.com

denk , March 23, 2018 at 4:44 am GMT

Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake !

Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest,.

It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election !

hehehehhe

[Feb 17, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives

Highly recommended!
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending wars are expensive was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
Notable quotes:
"... Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic. ..."
Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

KC February 15, 2019 at 11:16 pm

The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives, create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class in US politics and culture.

Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.

Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell

Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.

Barry F Keane , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic.

Even you, Tucker Carlson, mock the efforts of Ilhan Omar for criticizing AIPAC and Elliott Abrams.

I don't personally care for many of her opinions but that's not what matters: if we elect another neocon government we won't last another generation. Like the lady asked Ben Franklin "What kind of government have you bequeathed us?", and Franklin answered "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

[Feb 17, 2019] One problem with neocons middle East policy

Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Bmc February 17, 2019 at 1:16 am

Why would Max Boot and Bill Kristol want to conquer the middle east in order to spread Americanism while at the same time having nothing but disdain for actual Americans themselves?

Hmm (strokes beard)

Hmmmmm (strokes beard more rapidly)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (tears out beard furiously without abandon)

[Feb 17, 2019] Kremlin Spokesman Says U.S. Sanctions Bill Borders on Racketeering

Feb 17, 2019 | larouchepub.com

Feb. 14, 2019 (EIRNS) -- Responding to the U.S. Senators' efforts to impose new sanctions on Russia by proposing a bill on Feb. 13 called the "Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act (DASKA)" of 2019, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said behind such proposals

"there is an absolutely concrete, pragmatic and aggressive trading approach, having nothing to do with international trade rules.... This policy sometimes borders on racketeering. I mean various provisions of the draft law aimed at disrupting various energy projects of Russian companies, undermining the activities of Russian banks with state participation,"

Peskov said, reported TASS.

The proposed legislation, an updated version of an earlier bill that did not muster enough support, seeks to increase economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Russia "in response to Russia's interference in democratic processes abroad, malign influence in Syria, and aggression against Ukraine, including in the Kerch Strait," said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who proposed the bill with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), among other members of the Foreign Relations Committee.

[Feb 17, 2019] Real power answers to nobody. The war machine has the power and will do whatever it wants wherever it pleases. Good luck changing that.

That why war is called racket, And that's why dominance of military-industrial complex turns any country in neo-fascist state. Still people can fight this cancer, even if changes are not that great.
Notable quotes:
"... It is easy for them to make the recommendation to head into to war for two very simple reasons. The first is that it will not require any personal sacrifice. The other reason is that it will not require any sacrifice of those closest to them. ..."
Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

thomas r oconnor February 15, 2019 at 5:22 pm

Real power answers to nobody. The war machine has the power and will do whatever it wants wherever it pleases. Good luck changing that.
B , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:22 pm
It is easy for them to make the recommendation to head into to war for two very simple reasons. The first is that it will not require any personal sacrifice. The other reason is that it will not require any sacrifice of those closest to them.

And I say this as a Veteran that also thought Iraq was a good idea back in 2001. The difference is that I then went there to serve. As a result I have learned hard fought lessons. Tucker is spot on. Maybe the follow up article can be a piece that discusses why we need more "combat" Veterans up in the beltway. And it is good that more veterans are now serving in Congress but not all are combat veterans.

[Feb 17, 2019] The question of accountability

There is no accountability for CIA assets.
That's probably why Max Boot is considered one of the "world's leading authorities on armed conflict,"y et never appears to have served in any branch of the armed forces
Bottomfeeders like Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, Max Boot are just peddlers of MIC interests. Perhaps the benjamins from another middle eastern nation, that can't be named, has something to do with their worthless opinions.
They are not paid to be experts. They're paid to use thier meaningless credentials to enhance their credibility of MIC policies of perpetual war for perpetual peace. They're PROPAGANDISTS, not experts.
The Bush/Clinton/Obama coalition runs DC – controls the federal workforce, and colludes to run the Federal government for themselves and MIC
Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Anne Mendoza

February 15, 2019 at 2:10 am
So why are these professional war peddlers still around? For the same reason that members of the leadership class who failed and continue to fail in the Middle East are still around. There has not been an accounting at any level. There is just more talk of more war.
jk , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:53 am
Just like Eliot Abrams, John McCain, GWB, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld or any other neocon, there is no justice or punishment or even well deserved humiliation for these parasites. They are always misinformed, misguided, or "well intentioned."

The US can interfere with sovereign governments and elections at will I guess and not be responsible for the the unintended consequences such as 500k+ killed in the Middle East since the Iraq and Afghan debacle.

There are sugar daddies from the MIC, the Natsec state (aka the Swamp), AIPAC, and even Jeff Bezos (benefactor of WaPo) that keep these guys employed.

You need to be more critical of Trump also as he is the one hiring these clowns. But other than that, keep up the good work Mr. Carlson!

Stephen J. , says: February 15, 2019 at 1:43 pm
The article states: " but by 2011 Boot had another war in mind. 'Qaddafi Must Go,' Boot declared in The Weekly Standard. In Boot's telling, the Libyan dictator had become a threat to the American homeland."
-- -- -
There is reported evidence that Libya was a war crime. And the perpetrators are Free. See info below:

"They Speak "

"The destruction of Libya by NATO at the behest of the UK, the US and France was a crime, one dripping in the cant and hypocrisy of Western ideologues " John Wight, November 27, 2017.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/27/libya-chose-freedom-now-it-has-slavery/

They speak of "The Rule of Law" while breaking the law themselves
They are the dangerous hypocrites that bombed Libya, and created hell
Thousands upon thousands are dead in this unfortunate country
Many would still be alive, if our "leaders" had not been down and dirty

Libya is reportedly a war crime and the war criminals are free
Some of them are seen posturing on the world stage and others are on T.V.
Others have written books and others are retired from public office
And another exclaimed: "We came, we saw, he died" as murder was their accomplice

They even teamed up with terrorists to commit their bloody crimes
And this went unreported in the "media": was this by design?
There is a sickness and perversion loose in our society today
When war crimes can be committed and the "law" has nothing to say

Another "leader" had a fly past to celebrate the bombing victory in this illegal war
Now Libya is in chaos, while bloody terrorists roam secure
And the NATO gang that caused all this horror and devastation
Are continuing their bloody bombings in other unfortunate nations

The question must be asked: "Are some past and present leaders above the law?
Can they get away with bombing and killing, are they men of straw?
Whatever happened to law and order in the so- called "democracies"?
When those in power can get away with criminality: Is that not hypocrisy?

There is no doubt that Libya was better off, before the "liberators" arrived
Now many of its unfortunate people are now struggling to exist and survive
The future of this war torn country now looks very sad and bleak
If only our "leaders" had left it alone; but instead hypocrisy: They Speak

"The cause of the catastrophe in Libya in Libya was the seven month US-NATO blitzkrieg from March to October 2011 in which thousands of bombs and rockets rained down on that unfortunate land which was governed by President Muammar Ghaddafi whom the West was determined to overthrow by assisting a rebel movement." Brian Cloughley, 12.02.2019

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/02/12/in-libya-we-came-saw-he-died-will-there-repeat-in-venezuela.html

[More info on all of this at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/02/they-speak.html

[Feb 17, 2019] Bill Kristol and Max Boot are not an expect in military technology, or security issues. They are experts in peddling MIC product to the US public

Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Sid , February 15, 2019 at 7:27 pm

The goal of any "peddler" is to move product. When perpetual war is the product, then any rationale that leads to more sales will do. Enemies become interchangeable. The only thing to apologize for is the lack of sales.

These two hucksters are not experts on the product itself, but rather experts at selling the product.

Pres. Eisenhower, a genuine "authority on armed conflict", warned us of such peddlers.

[Feb 17, 2019] Trump administration action in Iran, Korea, Venezuela are aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace

Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Collin, February 15, 2019 at 9:55 am

...[Trump] administration is still filled with Hawks ...

1) The administration action in Iran is aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace. The nuclear deal was an effective way of ensuring Iran controlling behavior for 15 years as the other parties, Europe and China, wanted to trade with Iran. (Additionally it makes our nation depend more on the Saudia relationship in which Washington should be slowly moving away from.)

2) Like it or not, Venezuela is another mission creep for the Trump Administration. Recommend the administration stay away from peace keeping troops and suggest this is China's problem. (Venezuela in debt to their eyeballs with China.)

3) Applaud the administration with peace talks with NK but warn them not to overstate their accomplishments. It is ridiculous that the administration signed big nuclear deals with NK that don't exist.

[Feb 17, 2019] One problem with neocons middle East policy

Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Bmc February 17, 2019 at 1:16 am

Why would Max Boot and Bill Kristol want to conquer the middle east in order to spread Americanism while at the same time having nothing but disdain for actual Americans themselves?

Hmm (strokes beard)

Hmmmmm (strokes beard more rapidly)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (tears out beard furiously without abandon)

[Feb 17, 2019] Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Kristol and Boot work for the CIA and MI6. They tend to lead with placed stories, either before or after events, helping to persuade those who have yet to make up their minds or those looking to have someone else do their thinking for them

Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Renov8 February 16, 2019 at 8:01 am

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Kristol and Boot work for the CIA and MI6. They tend to lead with placed stories, either before or after events, helping to persuade those who have yet to make up their minds or those looking to have someone else do their thinking for them.

With the ongoing internet reformation we are experiencing, its a lot easier for the masses to see the bigger picture, the parties involved and the corrupt characters playing the puppet strings for the media.

Glad to see these shysters exposed for what they are propagandists.

[Feb 17, 2019] There's No Denying It; It Was Never Anything But a Coup!

Notable quotes:
"... In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well. ..."
Feb 17, 2019 | larouchepub.com

In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well.

Now, after its own two years of investigation and 200 interviews, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr (R-NC) has said, "There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia." Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) said he disagrees with the way Burr characterized the evidence, but declined to give his own assessment.

Veteran criminal attorney John Dowd, a member of Trump's legal team from June 2017 to March 2018, said,

"I know exactly what he [Mueller] has. I know exactly what every witness said, what every document said. I know exactly what he asked. And I know what the conclusion or the result is."

What will be the result of the probe?

"It's been a terrible waste of time.... This is one of the greatest frauds the country has ever seen. I'm just shocked that Bob Mueller didn't call it that way and say, 'I'm being used.' I would've done that.

"I'd have gone to [then Attorney General] Sessions and Rosenstein and said, 'Look. This is nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the FBI to get even.' "

Asked about Mueller's final report, he responded, "I will be shocked if anything regarding the President is made public, other than, 'We're done.' "

At the same time, former NSA Technical Director William Binney has published new evidence which shows that the DNC documents posted by WikiLeaks in July 2016, were probably not hacked over the internet, by Russians or anyone else -- rather, the only available forensic evidence indicates that they were downloaded from within the DNC's network. His evidence is summarized in an article he co-authored with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on Col. Pat Lang's "Sic Semper Tyrannis" blog yesterday.

[Feb 16, 2019] Russia Isn t the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too

Notable quotes:
"... The precedent was established in Italy with assistance to non-Communist candidates from the late 1940s to the 1960s. "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their expenses," said F. Mark Wyatt, a former C.I.A. officer, in a 1996 interview . ..."
"... A self-congratulatory declassified report on the C.I.A.'s work in Chile's 1964 election boasts of the "hard work" the agency did supplying "large sums" to its favored candidate and portraying him as a "wise, sincere and high-minded statesman" while painting his leftist opponent as a "calculating schemer." Advertisement ..."
"... C.I.A. officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that "insertions" of information into foreign news media, mostly accurate but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day. In the 1990 election in Nicaragua, the C.I.A. planted stories about corruption in the leftist Sandinista government, Mr. Levin said. The opposition won. ..."
"... Over time, more American influence operations have been mounted not secretly by the C.I.A. but openly by the State Department and its affiliates. For the 2000 election in Serbia, the United States funded a successful effort to defeat Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist leader, providing political consultants and millions of stickers with the opposition's clenched-fist symbol and "He's finished" in Serbian, printed on 80 tons of adhesive paper and delivered by a Washington contractor. ..."
"... Similar efforts were undertaken in elections in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan, not always with success. After Hamid Karzai was re-elected president of Afghanistan in 2009, he complained to Robert Gates, then the secretary of defense, about the United States' blatant attempt to defeat him, which Mr. Gates calls in his memoir "our clumsy and failed putsch." ..."
"... At least once the hand of the United States reached boldly into a Russian election. American fears that Boris Yeltsin would be defeated for re-election as president in 1996 by an old-fashioned Communist led to an overt and covert effort to help him, urged on by President Bill Clinton. It included an American push for a $10 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Russia four months before the voting and a team of American political consultants (though some Russians scoffed when they took credit for the Yeltsin win). ..."
"... In 2016, the endowment gave 108 grants totaling $6.8 million to organizations in Russia for such purposes as "engaging activists" and "fostering civic engagement." The endowment no longer names Russian recipients, who, under Russian laws cracking down on foreign funding, can face harassment or arrest. ..."
"... What the C.I.A. may have done in recent years to steer foreign elections is still secret and may not be known for decades. It may be modest by comparison with the agency's Cold War manipulation. But some old-timers aren't so sure. ..."
"... "I assume they're doing a lot of the old stuff, because, you know, it never changes," said William J. Daugherty, who worked for the C.I.A. from 1979 to 1996 and at one time had the job of reviewing covert operations. "The technology may change, but the objectives don't." ..."
Feb 18, 2018 | www.nytimes.com

Bags of cash delivered to a Rome hotel for favored Italian candidates. Scandalous stories leaked to foreign newspapers to swing an election in Nicaragua. Millions of pamphlets, posters and stickers printed to defeat an incumbent in Serbia.

The long arm of Vladimir Putin? No, just a small sample of the United States' history of intervention in foreign elections.

On Tuesday, American intelligence chiefs warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia appears to be preparing to repeat in the 2018 midterm elections the same full-on chicanery it unleashed in 2016: hacking, leaking, social media manipulation and possibly more. Then on Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, announced the indictments of 13 Russians and three companies, run by a businessman with close Kremlin ties, laying out in astonishing detail a three-year scheme to use social media to attack Hillary Clinton, boost Donald Trump and sow discord.

Most Americans are understandably shocked by what they view as an unprecedented attack on our political system. But intelligence veterans, and scholars who have studied covert operations, have a different, and quite revealing, view.

"If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all," said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A., where he was the chief of Russian operations. The United States "absolutely" has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, "and I hope we keep doing it."

Loch K. Johnson, the dean of American intelligence scholars , who began his career in the 1970s investigating the C.I.A. as a staff member of the Senate's Church Committee, says Russia's 2016 operation was simply the cyber-age version of standard United States practice for decades, whenever American officials were worried about a foreign vote.

"We've been doing this kind of thing since the C.I.A. was created in 1947," said Mr. Johnson, now at the University of Georgia. "We've used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners -- you name it. We've planted false information in foreign newspapers. We've used what the British call 'King George's cavalry': suitcases of cash."

The United States' departure from democratic ideals sometimes went much further. The C.I.A. helped overthrow elected leaders in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s and backed violent coups in several other countries in the 1960s. It plotted assassinations and supported brutal anti-Communist governments in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

But in recent decades, both Mr. Hall and Mr. Johnson argued, Russian and American interferences in elections have not been morally equivalent. American interventions have generally been aimed at helping non-authoritarian candidates challenge dictators or otherwise promoting democracy. Russia has more often intervened to disrupt democracy or promote authoritarian rule, they said.

Equating the two, Mr. Hall says, "is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns -- the motivation matters."

This broader history of election meddling has largely been missing from the flood of reporting on the Russian intervention and the investigation of whether the Trump campaign was involved. It is a reminder that the Russian campaign in 2016 was fundamentally old-school espionage, even if it exploited new technologies. And it illuminates the larger currents of history that drove American electoral interventions during the Cold War and motivate Russia's actions today.

A Carnegie Mellon scholar, Dov H. Levin , has scoured the historical record for both overt and covert election influence operations. He found 81 by the United States and 36 by the Soviet Union or Russia between 1946 and 2000, though the Russian count is undoubtedly incomplete.

"I'm not in any way justifying what the Russians did in 2016," Mr. Levin said. "It was completely wrong of Vladimir Putin to intervene in this way. That said, the methods they used in this election were the digital version of methods used both by the United States and Russia for decades: breaking into party headquarters, recruiting secretaries, placing informants in a party, giving information or disinformation to newspapers."

His findings underscore how routine election meddling by the United States -- sometimes covert and sometimes quite open -- has been.

The precedent was established in Italy with assistance to non-Communist candidates from the late 1940s to the 1960s. "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their expenses," said F. Mark Wyatt, a former C.I.A. officer, in a 1996 interview .

Covert propaganda has also been a mainstay. Richard M. Bissell Jr., who ran the agency's operations in the late 1950s and early 1960s, wrote casually in his autobiography of "exercising control over a newspaper or broadcasting station, or of securing the desired outcome in an election."

A self-congratulatory declassified report on the C.I.A.'s work in Chile's 1964 election boasts of the "hard work" the agency did supplying "large sums" to its favored candidate and portraying him as a "wise, sincere and high-minded statesman" while painting his leftist opponent as a "calculating schemer."

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C.I.A. officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that "insertions" of information into foreign news media, mostly accurate but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day. In the 1990 election in Nicaragua, the C.I.A. planted stories about corruption in the leftist Sandinista government, Mr. Levin said. The opposition won.

Over time, more American influence operations have been mounted not secretly by the C.I.A. but openly by the State Department and its affiliates. For the 2000 election in Serbia, the United States funded a successful effort to defeat Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist leader, providing political consultants and millions of stickers with the opposition's clenched-fist symbol and "He's finished" in Serbian, printed on 80 tons of adhesive paper and delivered by a Washington contractor.

Vince Houghton, who served in the military in the Balkans at the time and worked closely with the intelligence agencies, said he saw American efforts everywhere. "We made it very clear that we had no intention of letting Milosevic stay in power," said Mr. Houghton, now the historian at the International Spy Museum.

Similar efforts were undertaken in elections in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan, not always with success. After Hamid Karzai was re-elected president of Afghanistan in 2009, he complained to Robert Gates, then the secretary of defense, about the United States' blatant attempt to defeat him, which Mr. Gates calls in his memoir "our clumsy and failed putsch."

At least once the hand of the United States reached boldly into a Russian election. American fears that Boris Yeltsin would be defeated for re-election as president in 1996 by an old-fashioned Communist led to an overt and covert effort to help him, urged on by President Bill Clinton. It included an American push for a $10 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Russia four months before the voting and a team of American political consultants (though some Russians scoffed when they took credit for the Yeltsin win).

That heavy-handed intervention made some Americans uneasy. Thomas Carothers, a scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, recalls arguing with a State Department official who told him at the time, "Yeltsin is democracy in Russia," to which Mr. Carothers said he replied, "That's not what democracy means."

But what does democracy mean? Can it include secretly undermining an authoritarian ruler or helping challengers who embrace democratic values? How about financing civic organizations?

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In recent decades, the most visible American presence in foreign politics has been taxpayer-funded groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which do not support candidates but teach basic campaign skills, build democratic institutions and train election monitors.

Most Americans view such efforts as benign -- indeed, charitable. But Mr. Putin sees them as hostile. The National Endowment for Democracy gave a $23,000 grant in 2006 to an organization that employed Aleksei Navalny, who years later became Mr. Putin's main political nemesis, a fact the government has used to attack both Mr. Navalny and the endowment.

In 2016, the endowment gave 108 grants totaling $6.8 million to organizations in Russia for such purposes as "engaging activists" and "fostering civic engagement." The endowment no longer names Russian recipients, who, under Russian laws cracking down on foreign funding, can face harassment or arrest.

It is easy to understand why Mr. Putin sees such American cash as a threat to his rule, which tolerates no real opposition. But American veterans of democracy promotion find abhorrent Mr. Putin's insinuations that their work is equivalent to what the Russian government is accused of doing in the United States today.

"It's not just apples and oranges," said Kenneth Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute. "It's comparing someone who delivers lifesaving medicine to someone who brings deadly poison."

What the C.I.A. may have done in recent years to steer foreign elections is still secret and may not be known for decades. It may be modest by comparison with the agency's Cold War manipulation. But some old-timers aren't so sure.

"I assume they're doing a lot of the old stuff, because, you know, it never changes," said William J. Daugherty, who worked for the C.I.A. from 1979 to 1996 and at one time had the job of reviewing covert operations. "The technology may change, but the objectives don't."

Correction : Feb. 18, 2018

An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that Aleksei Navalny, a political opponent of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, had received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy. In fact, an organization employing him received one $23,000 grant from the endowment in 2006.

Scott Shane is a national security reporter for The Times and a former Moscow correspondent.

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 18, 2018 , on Page SR 4 of the New York edition with the headline: America Meddles in Elections, Too.

[Feb 16, 2019] Eugene McCarthy never became President, but he changed national politics. Gabbard could have a big impact even if she does not win.

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com
Mark Thomason , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:47 pm GMT
Eugene McCarthy never became President, but he changed national politics. Gabbard could have a big impact even if she does not win.

She could also become VP, and at her age that might well be a stepping stone.

[Feb 16, 2019] Do American people care enough about war to vote for Tulsi Gabbard

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

HEL , says: February 16, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT

Gabbard is going nowhere, and while it's true that the powers that be will try to bury her, they don't need to. The simple truth is this: the American public largely doesn't care about the wars and never has. There hasn't been an anti-war movement of any significance since Bush left office, and that was mostly a phony anti-war movement in the first place. It was primarily an anti-Bush movement, and the bulk of the people screaming 'no blood for oil' would've just been screaming some other anti-Bush slogan had our current path of destruction through the Mideast never occurred.

Yes, there has always been a small, independent-minded minority on both the right and left who genuinely oppose American interventionism.

The vast majority of voters, though, don't care much, don't have strong opinions and will largely just follow their leaders. Rank and file Democrats now oppose drawing down from Syria and Afghanistan and want to 'contain' Russia.

This is solely because Trump has made noises in the opposite direction, even if he hasn't done much of anything. And a good portion of the Republicans who say they want out of these wars would support them if Jeb or Rubio were in the White House.

There is a fair bit more genuine antiwar sentiment on the right now than there was 15 years ago. But it's not a dominant issue for many people on the right who didn't always oppose the wars from the get-go. And the mainstream left, again, has totally abandoned the issue.

Only a tiny proportion of the American public considers the endless wars to be the most important issue facing America today.

You don't win campaigns focusing on issues that are regarded as unimportant and where most of the voters in your party oppose you on this point. There is no real antiwar movement. Another full-scale invasion of a previously stable country would generate some serious opposition, sure, but the current slow bleed of endless occupations and occasional opportunistic attacks on already destabilizing regimes can continue forever with little pushback from the public at large.

How anyone could live through the last 15 years of American politics and not realize this is beyond me.

KenH , says: February 16, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT
@Art

That one trick happens to the most important trick that America is facing.

No Art, that would be unchecked legal and illegal immigration and as far as I can tell Tulsi Gandhi is pretty dreadful on that subject. True, the likudniks in the diaspora don't like her because she would be bad for an expansionist Israel...

If elected Tulsi would probably become a Jew tool just like Trump has become. If not, then they'll have another special counsel ready to take her down. That's how the (((deep state))) operates.

[Feb 16, 2019] Yea, John McCain was a truly historic person. So far, he was the only person in history who managed to totally disable an American aircraft carrier.

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: February 16, 2019 at 6:43 pm GMT

@Wally Yea, John McCain was a truly historic person. So far, he was the only person in history who managed to totally disable an American aircraft carrier. Of course, he was not found guilty of anything: after all, having Admirals for your dad and granddad counts for something in squeaky-clean military.

[Feb 16, 2019] What other organization/group then CIA is capable of such as perfect job of covering their tracks

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Peredur , says: February 12, 2019 at 11:02 pm GMT

@ariadna "What other organization/group is capable of such as perfect job of covering their tracks."

It is the organization that controls the government and the media that is capable of doing this. In other words, the same organization that was responsible for 9/11 and other major deceptions. It compartmentalizes knowledge of operational details using the need-to-know rule, but it can still be regarded as the same overall entity carrying out all of these deceptions, with the same general goals always applying.

[Feb 16, 2019] There is a tendency, especially among dissenters and conspiracy theorists, to equate the Kennedy family with the Gracchi brothers of the great late Roman republic

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Miville , says: Website February 12, 2019 at 8:29 pm GMT

There is a tendency, especially among dissenters and conspiracy theorists, to equate the Kennedy family with the Gracchi brothers of the great late Roman republic, a model of a good opportunity for the Republic to evolve for the best and that was missed thanks to timely assassinations. Unfortunately that's not the case : JFK was rather a behavioural model of utter political servility, to the point of psychic codependence, towards the media sphere. He was actually the first American president to have been entirely made by the media, and especially by the most intensively Jewish ones as well as by the Hollywood actors' milieu : people even worse than the power elite proper. Anyway the American presidential institution was designed right from the start as a hidden imperial monarchy by adoption where none is admitted except from families having being initiated into the inner occult circles of the oligarchy and consecrated their whole progeny to come for one century and more : there never was the slightest risk that a US President disobey. The fact that the father had slight pro-Nazi inclinations should fool no one : Israel's Likud party has always collaborated with such figures among the non-Jews and anyway JFK's family is nearly Jewish on his mother's side. The American republic, though draping in Roman architecture and symbols, is clearly far more Carthaginian in outlook.

If JFK is to be compared with a Roman character it would be more with a kind of Nero, judging by his general private conduct, his lavish use of public money for private luxuries, and his abundant use of secret services to dispose of no longer useful women. He was all shape and no substance, and also known for a preference for false flags as the royal way to disentangle all diplomatic quandaries, and some of those false flags were so ridiculous that they fell flat, like the Bay of Pigs operation where he had given the orders to simulate the return of Christ. JFK had been put into power to accomplish a very specific mission : highjacking the Catholic Church into a religion 100% compliant with American interests and values (not an easy task) and also with Zionist theology : a most preposterous (and pervert) task but which he carried out in a brillant way. Up to then that religion had been the most opposite to the American enterprise, even more so than the communist enterprise, after the VII Council which that president was made to supervise as a nominal Catholic, the religion was made into some kind of neo-episcopalian thing. JFK did it mostly through the assassinations of countless prelates who would oppose such a turn. JFK also launched the Moonlanding mission in perfect knowledge, through Van Allen and Von Braun, that it was not feasible due to the impossibility to send any living being into space beyond a quite low orbit : he just counted on Hollywood. What he didn't realize is that it would be simpler for the American secret services to ensure the perfect secrecy of his own scheme to eliminate him once all orders to make it work were given. Had he escaped or survived the assassination in Dallas he would have been rapidly known as the very disappointing false liberal and real decadent machiavellian prince he was, one year of tabloid media coverage would have revealed him as an embarrassment to America, even though he was most probably due to die from his chronic illness before campaining for reelection. Thanks to his assassination he was transfigurated from the Nero he was into a kind of perfect tragic hero he was to become in the American dreamworld. In brief he was killed for obeying just to well, to the point of being more useful after death as a model, not for dissent of any kind (even though like all corrupt politicians who feel death to be impending he started making timid regrets and confessions about the power structure around him just a few days before, but in doing so he did no better than for instance FBI's Hoover or France's Mitterrand or Israel's Sharon just before entering mysterious coma).

Let us not be fooled by some allegations as to him having envisioned to do away with the FED by giving back the American state the right to print money : all he did in reality was allowing the American state to emit BONDS (not currency units) payable in metallic silver rather than in USD proper, a way different thing, actually a first move (by avowing the USD was subject to inflation in metallic terms as a judicial precedent to impose other decisions later on) to stealthily undo the convertibility of the dollar into precious metal as was to be finalized under Nixon. Let us not be deluded he envisioned doing away with the CIA : if anything JFK was an overuser of its assassination services, he just wished for the agency, which was then quite decentralized, to be eventually conflated with the FBI. And let us not imagine he was anti-Israel : when he refused Israel the authorization to go nuclear that was under the American Nuclear Industry Lobby's pressure which was then a more Jewish thing than its Israeli counterpart : Israel was seen as too young, too lefty, too hippie-like to be entrusted with everything at once, the real Jewish capital of the world was Manhattan, not Tel Aviv. Israel as an offshore power centre was still in construction and JFK's only concern, shared by his close Jewish appointees as well as by most conservative American Jews, was that it might fall under Soviet pressure for lack of maturity in operating secret services. In those kinds of affairs JFK heeded and obeyed the voice of best-established moneyed interests without delving too much deeply. Thanks to the JFK perfect model of media-tailored politicians the way was paved for Clinton and Obama to come thereafter as natural heirs.

[Feb 16, 2019] The Broken Presidential Destiny of JFK, Jr. by Laurent Guyénot

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com
JFK Jr. as conspiracy theorist

Let's move on to the next question: how dedicated was John to getting to the bottom of his father's assassination?

According to testimonies from his friends, John Junior was haunted by the death of his father and quite knowledgeable about independent investigations contradicting the Warren Report. In 1999, he was not a newcomer to JFK conspiracy theories; his quest for truth had started as early as the late 1970s. His old high school girlfriend Meg Azzoni, in her self-published book, 11 Letters and a Poem: John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Meg Azzoni (2007), writes that as a teenager, JFK, Jr. was questioning the official version of his father's death: "His heartfelt quest was to expose and bring to trial who killed his father, and covered it up." [28] Quoted in John Koerner, Exploding the Truth: The JFK Jr., Assassination, Chronos Books, 2018, kindle k. 540-45. Don Jeffries, author of Hidden History, claimed that "another friend of JFK, Jr.'s adult inner circle, who very adamantly requested to remain anonymous, verified that he was indeed quite knowledgeable about the assassination and often spoke of it in private." [29] Quoted in Koerner, Exploding the Truth, op. cit., k. 540-5. JFK Jr., said Jeffries in a radio interview, was on "a Shakespearian quest," "to avenge his father's death," like young Hamlet. [30] https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-093-donal...fk-jr/

John is the only Kennedy to have shown a serious determination to pursue this truth, besides his uncle Bobby. And he took the risk of making his interest public in October 1998, when he released a special "Conspiracy Issue" of George magazine , which included an article by Oliver Stone titled "Our Counterfeit History," introduced on the cover as "Paranoid and Proud of It!"

In an article published in 2009 , journalist Wayne Madsen claimed that, two weeks after John's death, "I was scheduled to meet with Kennedy at his magazine's offices in Washington, DC to discuss hiring on as one of a few investigative journalists Kennedy wanted to dig deep into a number of cases, but most importantly that of his father's assassination." [31] Wayne Madsen, "JFK Jr.'s Plane Crash Was Originally Treated As Murder Investigation," Wayne Madsen Report, August 12, 2009, on http://www.whale.to/c/jfk_jr5.html. Madsen told more details to Jeffries, who reports them in his book Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics, Skyhorse publishing, 2016, kindle k. 3981. (There is no confirmation of Madsen's claim.)


Jake , says: February 11, 2019 at 2:30 pm GMT

... ... ..

If Joe Kennedy Jr had not died in WW2, they would have killed him, because he was the smartest and toughest of the four brothers.

The WASPs and their Jewish allies assumed they could control JFK because of his war injury and resulting lifetime of medication, as well as from his having chosen to be a playboy when he assumed Joe Jr would be President. But in the White House, JFK began to understand that US was going to have major troubles if it did not pull out of Vietnam sooner rather than later and it if did not rein in Israel. He likely would have dumped LBJ in '64, and that was enough to guarantee his death.

Bobby Kennedy had to go because he was indispensable to John's movements in understanding how the Brits and their Jewish allies had cost the America that was neither WASP Elite nor Jewish a great deal. Plus, from his time working on organized crime, Bobby Kennedy knew that all big time organized crime was significantly funded by Jews and that at some point, virtually all major Jewish American big business and prominent law firms had direct ties to Jewish organized crime. And as President, Bobby Kennedy would have applied such knowledge to Israel. And so Bobby Kennedy had to be killed.

I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy brother, as well as the only coward.

Why risk JFK Jr? Get rid of him before he holds any office. Do not risk any movement growing up around him, because he might turn out to be some combo of his dad and dead uncles.

So Bobb

restless94110 , says: February 11, 2019 at 7:19 pm GMT
@Jake

I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy brother, as well as the only coward.

What makes you think that he was not supposed to die in that crash? He got out by the skin of his teeth, could not save his companion. What would be a better smear on the Kennedys that Teddy died with some woman in his lap?

As it turned out, he survived but forever smeared anyway

SunBakedSuburb , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:29 pm GMT
Interesting article. I believe JFK Jr.'s death was the result of a conspiracy, but the author's assertion that Mossad was responsible leaves me with doubt. Hillary Clinton was the person who had the most to gain from JFK Jr.'s demise; they were both on the same trajectory: the open New York senate seat, followed by a run to the White House. The Clintons have been shadow government players since at least the 1980s when, while governor, Bill helped facilitate the CIA's trafficking of guns and drugs in Arkansas, which is a state with a significant Rockefeller presence. The demoness Hillary is where investigators of JFK Jr.'s death should start. Whether that leads to the Mossad, I don't know. My guess would be a domestic CIA network.
Steve Naidamast , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT
I very much like the writing by Laurent Guyénot and I have read all of the articles by him that I have come across including purchasing his book, "From Yaweh to Zion".

And I have no doubt that some insidious form of foul play was what killed JFK Jr. and his wife.

As one who flew aircraft many years ago I can attest to the fact that on a fog-ridden night it is very easy to succumb to vertigo and crash your plane into the ground. You can do this very easily as well with the current bevy of highly sophisticated aircraft simulations that are available.

However, JFK Jr. was, to my knowledge, a consummate pilot and would have never attempted such a flight unless he was intsrument rated. As a result, he would have not succumbed to to the effects of vertigo since he would have been concentrating on his instruments.

Also, I understand that this was basically a night flight, which by law required an instrument rating.

From these generalizations alone one can see that JFK Jr. would have known how to fly his plane.

If the eyewitnesses to the explosion are credible along with other supporting evidence than there is no way any legitimate investigation could have concluded with verdict of "pilot error", unless of course JFK Jr. knowingly took a bomb on board his plane with the intent of blowing himself and his passengers up. A highly unlikely scenario.

If one were to look at the "only available picture" of JFK Jr.'s aircraft in this piece, even a layperson could see that there is no scarring anywhere to be seen on the debris, which would have been used then to support the stupidity of "pilot error".

You can see the same nonsense with the 911 pictures of the Pentagon after it was struck. There is literally no debris in any of those pictures from an aircraft freshly blown to pieces by its strike on the E-wing of the Pentagon.

Considering the insidiousness of the Clintons, especially Hillary herself, the author paints an excellent portrait of a likely pathway for the support and implementation of an assassination of JFK Jr through her. Given Hillary's background (and rabid incompetence) in nefarious operations such as the destruction of Libya, I wouldn't put it past this women to work with other planners to prevent JFK Jr. from obstructing her planned ascent into the US Senate from New York.

Despite her popularity in New York State, which was somewhat overrated in the media, many never considered her a welcome representative of our state. And JFK Jr. would have wiped the floor with her in a political contest.

Steve Naidamast , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:39 pm GMT
@Achmed E. Newman Achmed

As a former flyer myself, it is aviation law that you cannot fly any aircraft at night or non-VFR conditions without being instrument rated. If this was a night flight as stated then the moon could have been out lighting up every aspect of earth and still only instrument-rated pilots could fly.

And the airport he flew out of would have never allowed such a flight-plan for a non-instrument rated pilot unless they wanted to lose their license to operate an airport.

Cyrano , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:46 pm GMT
If JFK Jr. could send a message from the other world – it should probably be: "Don't cry for me Argentina".

Just because his father was a president (of dubious quality and of dubious control over the deep state – it probably was, as usual – vice versa, the deep state controlled him), doesn't mean that they had presidential DNA in their genes.

Sons of presidents are usually worse than their fathers in the same role. I have only 2 examples but they are adequate enough to prove the point. GW Bush was 10 times the disaster of a president his father was. And also Justin Trudeau is not even 1% the prime minister his father was. In fact, if JFK jr, lived long enough to be elected a president – he probably would have been the American Justin Trudeau.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 11, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT
Our media ignored breaking news a few years ago that Kennedy's TWA "conspiracy theory" was proven true. TWA Flight 800 did not explode in mid-air because of an electrical short. It was accidentally hit by a US Navy anti-aircraft missile during a training exercise.

An outstanding 2013 documentary: "TWA Flight 800" appeared on Netflix, but was removed after just a few weeks. It featured two senior federal NTSB investigators of TWA 800 who declared the investigation was a cover-up by the Clinton administration, and waited until they retired to speak out. Several books have appeared that provide undeniable evidence, such as:

http://militarycorruption.com/flight-800/

DESERT FOX , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:29 pm GMT
@SunBakedSuburb Agree, the book Compromised, Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed shows the connection between the Bushes and Clintons and the CIA and FBI and their CIA hit teams, or just read the customer comments on the book at Amazon.com.
renfro , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT
@Diversity Heretic As a 30 year instrument rated pilot myself I would agree except for .."and the overstressed airframe comes apart."
In light civilian air craft that is very rare and usually caused by some defect already existing.
Unless the NTSB itself is lying and the radar records and the recovery divers are lying I go with their determination.
First, the debris field was only 120 feet, if the plane had exploded or broken up in the air it would have been scattered over a larger area.
Second, records show the plane entered a banking turn in excess of 45 degrees, which is not recommended and dangerous .It can cause a accelerated stall and if you don't have the altitude to recover from it before you hit the ground or you panic you go 'spiraling' down and smash into whatever is below, you like the ocean.
So I really am not into the plane being blown up theory.

'A performance study of the radar data revealed that the target began a descent from 5,500 feet about 34 miles west of MVY. The speed during the descent was calculated to be about 160 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS), and the rate of descent was calculated to have varied between 400 and 800 feet per minute (fpm). About 2138, the target began a right turn in a southerly direction. About 30 seconds later, the target stopped its descent at 2,200 feet and began a climb that lasted another 30 seconds. During this period of time, the target stopped the turn, and the airspeed decreased to about 153 KIAS. About 2139, the target leveled off at 2,500 feet and flew in a southeasterly direction. About 50 seconds later, the target entered a left turn and climbed to 2,600 feet. As the target continued in the left turn, it began a descent that reached a rate of about 900 fpm. When the target reached an easterly direction, it stopped turning; its rate of descent remained about 900 fpm. At 2140:15, while still in the descent, the target entered a right turn. As the target's turn rate increased, its descent rate and airspeed also increased. The target's descent rate eventually exceeded 4,700 fpm. The target's last radar position was recorded at 2140:34 at an altitude of 1,100 feet. (For a more detailed description of the target's [accident airplane's] performance, see Section, "Tests and Research," Subsection, "Aircraft Performance Study.")

WRECKAGE INFORMATION

On July 20, 1999, the airplane wreckage was located by U.S. Navy divers from the recovery ship, USS Grasp, at a depth of about 120 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. According to the divers, the recovered wreckage had been distributed in a debris field about 120 feet long and was oriented along a magnetic bearing of about 010/190 degrees. The main cabin area was found in the middle of the debris field.
At 2139:50, the airplane entered a left turn, while slightly increasing altitude to 2,600 feet. The airplane reached a maximum bank angle of 28 degrees left-wing-down (LWD) and a maximum vertical acceleration of 1.2 Gs in this turn. When the maximum LWD bank angle was obtained, the altitude started to decrease at a descent rate close to 900 fpm. The LWD attitude was maintained for approximately 15 seconds until the airplane was heading towards the east. At 2140:07, the airplane bank angle returned to wings level. At 2140:15, with the airplane continuing towards the east, it reestablished a descent close to 900 fpm and then started to increase its bank angle in a RWD direction at nearly a constant rate. As the airplane bank angle increased, the rate of descent increased, and the airspeed started to increase. By 2140:25, the bank angle exceeded 45 degrees , the vertical acceleration was 1.2 Gs, the airspeed increased through 180 knots, and the flightpath angle was close to 5 degrees airplane nose down. After 2140:25, the airplane's airspeed, vertical acceleration, bank, and dive angle continued to increase, and the right turn tightened until water impact

https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employment/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001212X19354&ntsbno=NYC99MA178&akey=1

Rodney1111 , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
Creating conspiracy theories is lots of fun, and sometimes can even be productive, but for this one you really do have to go overboard ignoring Occam's Razor:

In reality, everyone who has ever acquired any kind of pilot's licence has been told repeatedly in training something like: "Understand, that without getting sufficient instruction to qualify for an instrument rating, if you lose visual reference to the ground, during the day or at night, you will be toast. Experiments have consistently shown that, even the world's most brilliant and experienced pilots, if they lose visual reference to the ground and cannot see the instruments to assess carefully what they are saying, in every case lose control of the aircraft in less than 45 seconds. And, having lost control, do not realize it, and are unable to figure out that they need to regain it, let alone what they need to do."

Most people find this surprising, which is why in the later stages of basic training a demonstration is usually done in which the pilot wears a hood that prevents him from seeing outside the aircraft, and is instructed to maintain straight and level flight. The instructor removes the student's hood when the aircraft is in a rapidly accelerating, 45 degree bank, descending turn, when the pilot had imagined he was still flying straight and level. I can vouch that this is a persuasive demonstration!

This isn't mere speculation. Loss of control is the inevitable consequence of a non-instrument rated pilot losing sight of the ground. It is enormously probable that this was JFK Jr's issue.

AriusArmenian , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:59 pm GMT
I remember a little after JFK was assassinated a report of a statement by an government official, I think someone in the FBI, saying there is evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK and other Kennedy family members. What happens is that after an attack or bombing the media filters are not coordinated for hours or days but then controls and directives kick in the narratives get stabilized. I always watch the news reports right after the event to catch leaks. The above reported statement was never again reported by anyone.

It is certainly looking like Israel had a hand in many operations inside the US to control its foreign policy and make sure major narratives are pro-Israel like the UK has a long history (at least from WW2 on) of using dirty tricks to control the US. Since US foreign policy is substantially controlled by the UK, Saudis, and Israel, we must suspect any of them of trying to keep control of the US with all sorts of dirty tricks. Israel in a prime candidate for assassinations and false flag operations in the US as they certainly knew by the 1960's that the survival of Israel depended on US support. There are just too many dual passport holders in these events to ignore this any longer.

Peredur , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
Implicitly, this article takes the position that Jackie Kennedy was not involved in the JFK assassination conspiracy, but there is an intriguing connection between the Bouvier family and the assassination via a person named George de Mohrenschildt, who was a close friend of both the Bouviers and Oswald.
renfro , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:21 pm GMT
@Steve Naidamast That isnt correct.
There are 3 types of licenses a person can get:
Sport Flyer license restricted to local area and only certain types of small aircraft.
Recreational License restricted to local area and daylight hours only.
Private Pilot License ..not restricted, can fly at night . at their own risk

I did a lot of night time flying before I got my instrument rating. But wasn't stupid enough to fly in bad weather day or night.

niteranger , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT
@Sean I have no idea if JFK Jr. was bombed out of the sky by our friends in the Mossad, CIA, or other wonderful entities. But years ago an ex CIA guy told me bluntly that the reason the CIA and intelligence agencies get away with stuff is because much of it no one would be believe they would even try thus the invention of the Conspiracy Theory.

The Kennedys were family of egomaniacs and were often careless and their itinerary through life was filled with many people they destroyed and cast by the side of the road. They believed they were really the chosen ones and their opinion and their way of doing things were right and everyone else was wrong. So they mirrored the Jews except they were Irish.

lysias , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT
@Peredur Mohrenschildt seems to have been Oswald's CIA handler for a while, but months before the JFK assassination he went off to Haiti. There's nothing to connect him with the JFK assassination, especially if -- as seems likely -- Oswald was not the shooter who killed JFK.
anon [228] Disclaimer , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:54 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer TWA Flight 800 Investigators Claim the Official Crash Story Is a Lie
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being leveled by the very investigators who put the report together.
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being leveled by some of the very investigators who put the report together. Six experts who appear in the film were members of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation team that concluded the crash was an accident, but they now claim they were silenced by their superiors. The movies, "TWA Flight 800" will debut on EPIX TV next month, on the 17-year anniversary of the crash.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/twa-flight-800-film-coverup/314092/
jeff stryker , says: February 11, 2019 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Che Guava JFK junior was really just not that bright. He failed the bar exam at least once. As Larry Elders once said, the best thing you could say about JFK junior was that he was a down-to-earth guy who never pretended to be more than an average person who happened to be rich.

Supposedly he loved alcohol and was obsessed with porn-he was friends with Irish-America's one porn mogul in a gallery of Jews, Larry Flint.

He was handsome-some say that his father was Onassis and not Kennedy, believable considering his Mediterranean looks which were nothing like Kennedy's fair Irish looks (Though JFK junior was eternally proud of his Irish roots).

His magazine was alright, supposedly advised under-the-table by Larry Flynt again.

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: February 12, 2019 at 1:30 am GMT
@Che Guava The magazine was in big trouble financially. It never did break even although the Kennedy PR machine and the Kennedy worshiping media pushed it for years
George was financed by the big French International publisher Hachette. Hachette was getting ready to stop financing a losing publication. The combination of People and New Republic just never worked.

I don't remember any announcements that JFKjr planned to run for any office. It was just speculation and part of the endless media coverage of JFKjr which increased a thousand times after he got married

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: February 12, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
There's a book Nemesis that claims that Jackie visited Onassis on his yacht in September? October? 1963 and they arranged that Jackie would divorce jack and marry Onassis ic Hack lost the 64 election

[Feb 16, 2019] Is Tulsi Gabbard for Real by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... Gabbard has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which many progressive Democrats boycotted. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
"... What's her angle about immigration? This: https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1197137/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-on-congress-to-pass-the-dream-act#.XGXEplUza1s Not optimistic. ..."
"... What's her angle about "outsourcing" jobs overseas? This: https://www.votetulsi.com/node/25011 Not bad, but, still .. ..."
"... Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. ..."
"... Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. ..."
"... She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. ..."
"... Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war" ? ..."
"... Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back ..."
"... Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater. Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance. ..."
"... De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What a load of crap that turned out to be ..."
"... Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following. ..."
Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

The lineup of Democrats who have already declared themselves as candidates for their party's presidential nomination in 2020 is remarkable, if only for the fact that so many wannabes have thrown their hats in the ring so early in the process. In terms of electability, however, one might well call the seekers after the highest office in the land the nine dwarfs. Four of the would-be candidates – Marianne Williamson a writer, Andrew Yang an entrepreneur, Julian Castro a former Obama official, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman John Delaney – have no national profiles at all and few among the Democratic Party rank-and-file would be able to detail who they are, where they come from and what their positions on key issues might be.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has a national following but she also has considerable baggage. The recent revelation that she falsely described herself as "American Indian" back in 1986 for purposes of career advancement, which comes on top of similar reports of more of the same as well as other resume-enhancements that surfaced when she first became involved in national politics, prompted Donald Trump to refer to her as "Pocahontas." Warren, who is largely progressive on social and domestic issues, has been confronted numerous times regarding her views on Israel/Palestine and beyond declaring that she favors a "two state solution" has been somewhat reticent. She should be described as pro-Israel for the usual reasons and is not reliably anti-war. She comes across as a rather more liberal version of Hillary Clinton.

And then there is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, being touted as the "new Obama," presumably because he is both black and progressive. His record as Mayor of Newark New Jersey, which launched his career on the national stage, has both high and low points and it has to be questioned if America is ready for another smooth-talking black politician whose actual record of accomplishments is on the thin side. One unfortunately recalls the devious Obama's totally bogus Nobel Peace Prize and his Tuesday morning meetings with John Brennan to work on the list of Americans who were to be assassinated.

Booker has carefully cultivated the Jewish community in his political career, to include a close relationship with the stomach-churning "America's Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach, but has recently become more independent of those ties, supporting the Obama deal with Iran and voting against anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation in the Senate. On the negative side, the New York Times likes Booker, which means that he will turn most other Americans off. He is also 49 years old and unmarried, which apparently bothers some in the punditry.

California Senator Kamala Harris is a formidable entrant into the crowded field due to her resume, nominally progressive on most issues, but with a work history that has attracted critics concerned by her hard-line law-and-order enforcement policies when she was District Attorney General for San Francisco and Attorney General for California. She has also spoken at AIPAC , is anti-BDS, and is considered to be reliably pro-Israel, which would rule her out for some, though she might be appealing to middle of the road Democrats like the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi who have increasingly become war advocates. She will have a tough time convincing the antiwar crowd that she is worth supporting and there are reports that she will likely split the black women's vote even though she is black herself, perhaps linked to her affair with California powerbroker Willie Brown when she was 29 and Brown was 61. Brown was married, though separated, to a black woman at the time. Harris is taking heat because she clearly used the relationship to advance her career while also acquiring several patronage sinecures on state commissions that netted her hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.

Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.

Not afraid of challenging establishment politics, she called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a personal trip to Damascus in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are serious about pursuing peace." She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the country as well as ending American interventions for "regime change" in the region.

In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and more recently has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, but one presumes that, like nearly all American politicians, she also has to make sure that she does not have the Israel Lobby on her back. Gabbard has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which many progressive Democrats boycotted.

Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years.

What Tulsi Gabbard is accomplishing might be measured by the enemies that are already gathering and are out to get her. Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept describes how NBC news published a widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."

But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge, which was exposed by no less than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."

ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is loaded with a full complement of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.

For the moment, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform. It might just resonate with the majority of American who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States. We the people can always hope.


peterAUS , says: February 14, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT

For the moment, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.

Be that as it may, what is conspicously missing from the article are some minor things:

1. What's her angle about immigration? This: https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1197137/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-on-congress-to-pass-the-dream-act#.XGXEplUza1s Not optimistic.

2. What's her angle about "outsourcing" jobs overseas? This: https://www.votetulsi.com/node/25011 Not bad, but, still ..

Just those two. We can leave the rest of "globo-homo" agenda off the table, for the moment. And, the last but not the least, that nagging angle about automation and (paid) work in general. Let's not get too ambitious here. Those two, only, should suffice at the moment.

Si1ver1ock , says: February 14, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
I like Tulsi. but she hasn't been tested in a presidential campaign yet. At least we will have someone who could put peace on the ballot. She should write a book pulling her policies together and use it to get some publicity.
Adrian E. , says: February 14, 2019 at 9:14 pm GMT
Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. 2008, an important reason for Obama's victory against Hillary Clinton and John McCain was that he had been against the Iraq war. 2000, George W. Bush said he was against nation building. Then, after they are elected, the neocons remain in power. Something similar again with Donald Trump who campaigned against stupid wars in the Middle East and now has surrounded himself with some of the most extreme neocons.

Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. However, if she is serious about this and is elected, she will be fought by the deep state and its allies in the media much more harshly than Trump, who isn't even consistently anti-neocons, just not reliably pro-neocon. What they would probably do to her would make spygate, the Russiagate conspiracy theory, and the Muller investigation look harmless. She might end like JFK (a VP who is just as anti-neocons might increase the chances of survival).

But despite all the risks, I think it is worth trying. If the US was a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and the neocons had their own party, it would hardly have more than a handful of seats in Congress. Although they don't have, a significant base of their own, neocons have remained in power for a long time, whoever was elected. At the moment, Tulsi Gabbard is probably the best hope for ending their long reign.

anonymous [241] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:30 am GMT
She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. She won't have a chance. Besides, the Dem party has gotten radical and out of touch with the majority of Americans so who really wants them in? There's no cause for optimism anywhere one looks.
Gg Mo , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:21 am GMT
@the grand wazoo

Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war" ? Greenwald himself has questionable backers and the WWF good guy/bad guy character creations (like Trump's pre-election talking points concerning illegal wars , now stuffed down the memory holes of many), all the FAKE and distracting "fights" etc etc

See Corbett/Sibel Edmonds on Greenwald

jack daniels , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:48 am GMT
@peterAUS

Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back.

Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater. Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance. In that way she calls the bluff of her opponents: Just how confident are they that in the end the public will prefer war to peace? These points add up to a realistic chance of success but given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a long shot.

Biff , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:04 am GMT
De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What a load of crap that turned out to be, but I do understand that not all politicians are cut from the same dung heap, so it is probably best to find out who is funding the little pricks while they are campaigning – for once they are elected, payback is due.

In the case of Obama it was Robert Rubin( of Goldman Sachs) who bankrolled him, and of course, once elected it was bank bailout time. Then once Ghaddaffi's gold back Dinar became a monetary powerhouse, he committed another crime for the bankers.

"Is she the real deal?"

Elect her and you'll find out, and there lies the problem – you get to find out when it's too late. On the other hand, she could actually be honest and sincere, but that alone disqualifies her as a politician (the kind that Americans are used to anyway).

NTL, she's got people's attention and if for anything else – the people are anti-war, but the monied power brokers are definitely not which begs the question – will democracy actually happen?

animalogic , says: February 15, 2019 at 8:04 am GMT
@Adrian E.

Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following.

She will need to use tactics from both the Sanders & Trump play-books. She will need to appeal to a good number in both the Sanders & Trump constituencies. Regardless, she will need an iron-will & tsunami of charisma .

LondonBob , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:26 am GMT
@Biff Obama was a creation of the Pritzker and Crowne families, although the puppet did decide he wanted to somewhat act on his own. Gabbard is certainly taking flak from the Israel firsters, and her debating Trump on foreign policy in a US Presidential election would be a real paradigm shift.
RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:10 pm GMT
@renfro Where do you get this "obsessive hatred of Muslims and Islam?"

She's been [insistent and consistent] using the term 'radical Islamic terrorists' which, unfortunately, is an accurate description of ISIS (the bane of the ummah). OTOH, last year Tulsi was a featured speaker at a Moslem conference in NJ, and she has been outspoken about freedom of religion and mutual respect. If you've got some evidence that she excludes Islam from that, please show it.

RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
@jack daniels

[Gabbard's] policy views are already too good to be true.

Not really. Too good to be true would be if she understood Putin in the context of the US and oligarch rape of Russia in the 1990's and how he has restored the Russian economy and dignity; and if she recognized (openly) the US role in the Maidan coup and accepted the validity of the Crimean decision to return to Russia.

Unfortunately, even though she's taken a brave position on ending US regime-change war on Syria, in many other respects she remains quite conventional. She also promotes fear of DPRK, and who knows what she thinks about China.

she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.

Aggressive? Composed, confident, yes. Aggressive, no. Calm under fire is more like it. Take a look at the whole interview on Morning Joe. She really outclasses those squirming bitches. BUT, notice her (short) responses on Putin and Assad ("adversary" and "no"), real Judas moments. Does she believe that, or is she clinging to the Overton Window?
https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/rep-gabbard-assad-is-not-an-enemy-of-the-us-1438093891865

Forcible Overthrow time , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:41 pm GMT
Tulsi's presidential timber but she's wasting her life with the Democrats. Their consulting apparatchiks are going to stuff a bunch of incoherent slogans up her butt. If she wants a real antiwar platform she should steal it wholesale from Stein and Ajamu Baraka. Baraka built a complete and consistent law-and-order platform. He's the only real antiwar candidate in this country.

Of course the Democrat's CIA handlers will crush Tulsi if she starts to make sense, so she's going to have to take her supporters and jump to the Greens.

She will lose, but arbitrary forcible repression of the party will discredit bullshit US electoral pageantry once and for all. Then we move into the parallel government zone in conformity with world-standard human rights law and destroy the parasitic kleptocratic USA.

peterAUS , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT
@jack daniels You know .there IS one thing nobody wants, really, to talk about.

.given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a long shot

Why, in this age, the "stronghold on the media" is so decisive? A person who gets the most of media exposure wins? That's how it works?
Or, do anyone reading and posting here gets his/her information from the "media"? I'd say not.

Isn't the bottom, the very heart of the matter NOT a Deep State, Dem Joos, Anglo-Saxons, Masons, Illuminati and .whatever but simple, eternal, laziness and stupidity of an average person?
Or, even worse: the real, true, needs and wants of an average person are simply "breads and circuses". Nothing more.
Combine those two and here we are.

I am aware that throws the spanner into works of those into Aryans, White supremacy, Western man and similar stuff, but, the conclusion seems inevitable.

That's the heart of the problem "we" face at the moment. How to fix it, or even is it possible, I don't know. Have some ideas, of course.

anon [194] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:31 pm GMT
@2stateshmustate

If there was any justice in this country Mr. Chertoff would have long since been tried for treason for his involvement in the 911 attack.

The arc of something or other is long but tends toward justice er something like that:

Chertoff's business partner Mike Hayden had a stroke last November and is still "getting good care and working hard at therapy."

No doubt US taxpayers are paying to rebuild Scumbag Hayden's fried circuits.
Pity.

never-anonymous , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
CIA Giraldi probably has more Cherokee DNA than Warren. Another fact he failed to provide to the Government during the security clearance process. The troll has supported the republican establishment all his career, this distinguishes him from the trolls that support the democratic establishment all of their careers. The fact that people can debate the relative merits of political leaders from the dark lagoon reveals their complete lack of rational thought. No politician decides anything important.
Tulip , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:39 pm GMT
@Anonymous No, then she is toast in Hawaii politics, and she is probably running not because she plans on winning, but to raise her profile and perhaps open doors for herself on the national or state level, which won't happen if you shoot yourself in the foot at the same time.

Besides, leaving aside Krishna consciousness, she is too close to Sanders to get any traction among the Republicans. I suppose getting the bipartisan support of the Internet kook vote is something, but hard to translate into political office.

RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 8:19 pm GMT
@Tulip

..getting the bipartisan support of the Internet kook vote is something, but hard to translate into political office.

Brilliant.

Dem Juche , says: February 16, 2019 at 12:25 am GMT
You're never going to get anything worthwhile from a Democratic politician because they're indoctrinated worse that the brightest little Pioneer in Juche class. Take Ro Khana's meaningless pap.

https://fellowtravelersblog.com/2018/10/23/ro-khanna-five-principles/

What is this 'we should' crap? The law is perfectly clear. The right to self-defense is subject to necessity and proportionality tests, and invariably subject to UN Charter Chapter 7 in its entirety. See Article 51. Instead of this 'restraint' waffle, just say, the president must commit to faithfully execute the supreme law of the land, including UN Charter Chapter 7 and Article 2(4). That means refrain from use or threat of force. Period.

Second, national security is not a loophole in human rights. Khana uses the legally meaningless CIA magic word 'threat.' Under universal jurisdiction law, it is a war crime to declare abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party. Domestic human rights are subject to ICCPR Article 4, HRC General Comment 29, and the Siracusa Principles. Instead of CIA's standard National Security get-out clause, state explicitly that US national security means respect, protection and fulfillment of all human rights. To enforce that, ratify the Rome Statute or GTFO.

Third, internationalism is OK as far as it goes, but Ro Khana doesn't deal with the underlying problem: CIA has infested State with focal points and dotted-line reports, and demolished the department's capacity for pacific resolution of disputes. You have to explicitly tie State's mission to UN Charter Chapter 6, and criminalize placement of domestic CIA agents in State.

Fourth, Congressional war-making powers are useless with Congress completely corrupted. Bring back the Ludlow Amendment, war by public referendum only, subject to Article 51.

Rich , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:21 am GMT
Tulsi is a far Left democrat. She supports raising taxes to pay for free college for people earning less than 125K and universal health care, she actually joined protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, supports homosexual marriage (changed her previous position in 2012), and has an F rating from the NRA. She's a Lefty. Not for me, anyway.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:25 am GMT
In any case she is less vulnerable. She can call any opposition a misogynist.
Biff , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:30 am GMT
@obwandiyag

I like the one on here who says the Democrat party has "gotten radical."

I assume this is sarcasm, but there is no denying the fact that the neocons(radical whack jobs) have jumped ship from the Republicans and attached themselves to the Democrats (although there are filtering back into the Trump administration – drunk with power they'll suck up to anyone)

The DNC NeverTrump crowd is all but calling for a nuclear exchange with Russia because they colluded with Trump to throw the election, and they pose a National Security threat to the United States(in their head). Hillary also went on to say that Russians Hacking the DNC is another 9/11. The radical Antifa crowd is made up of 99.999999% of Democratic voters.

[Feb 16, 2019] Libya was a war crime.

Max Boot along with other neocons should be in jail.
Feb 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Stephen J. , February 15, 2019 a t 1:43 pm

The article states: " but by 2011 Boot had another war in mind. 'Qaddafi Must Go,' Boot declared in The Weekly Standard. In Boot's telling, the Libyan dictator had become a threat to the American homeland." -- -- - There is reported evidence that Libya was a war crime. And the perpetrators are Free. See info below:

"They Speak "

"The destruction of Libya by NATO at the behest of the UK, the US and France was a crime, one dripping in the cant and hypocrisy of Western ideologues " John Wight, November 27, 2017. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/27/libya-chose-freedom-now-it-has-slavery/

They speak of "The Rule of Law" while breaking the law themselves They are the dangerous hypocrites that bombed Libya, and created hell Thousands upon thousands are dead in this unfortunate country Many would still be alive, if our "leaders" had not been down and dirty

Libya is reportedly a war crime and the war criminals are free Some of them are seen posturing on the world stage and others are on T.V. Others have written books and others are retired from public office And another exclaimed: "We came, we saw, he died" as murder was their accomplice

They even teamed up with terrorists to commit their bloody crimes And this went unreported in the "media": was this by design? There is a sickness and perversion loose in our society today When war crimes can be committed and the "law" has nothing to say

Another "leader" had a fly past to celebrate the bombing victory in this illegal war Now Libya is in chaos, while bloody terrorists roam secure And the NATO gang that caused all this horror and devastation Are continuing their bloody bombings in other unfortunate nations

The question must be asked: "Are some past and present leaders above the law? Can they get away with bombing and killing, are they men of straw? Whatever happened to law and order in the so- called "democracies"? When those in power can get away with criminality: Is that not hypocrisy?

There is no doubt that Libya was better off, before the "liberators" arrived Now many of its unfortunate people are now struggling to exist and survive The future of this war torn country now looks very sad and bleak If only our "leaders" had left it alone; but instead hypocrisy: They Speak

"The cause of the catastrophe in Libya in Libya was the seven month US-NATO blitzkrieg from March to October 2011 in which thousands of bombs and rockets rained down on that unfortunate land which was governed by President Muammar Ghaddafi whom the West was determined to overthrow by assisting a rebel movement." Brian Cloughley, 12.02.2019 https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/02/12/in-libya-we-came-saw-he-died-will-there-repeat-in-venezuela.html

[More info on all of this at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/02/they-speak.html

[Feb 16, 2019] Trump as a> visibly unhinged president -- think of him, in axis-of-evil terms, as a rogue state of one ruling over divided and an increasingly unhinged aggressive country

Notable quotes:
"... There was a desperately weakened and impoverished Russia (still with its nuclear arsenal more or less intact) that, as far as they were concerned, had been mollycoddled by President Bill Clinton's administration. There was a Communist-gone-capitalist China focused on its own growth and little else. And there were a set of other potential enemies, "rogue powers" as they were dubbed, so pathetic that not one of them could, under any circumstances, be called "great." ..."
"... It was as clear as glass that the world -- the whole shebang -- was there for the taking ..."
"... Charles Krauthammer who, in February 2001, six months before the ... attacks of September 11th, wrote a piece swooning over the new Bush administration's "unilateralism" to come and the "Bush Doctrine" which would go with it. In the process, he gave that administration a green light to put the pathetic Russians in their nuclear place and summed the situation up this way: ..."
"... "America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly, America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations, and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will." ..."
"... "How did USA's oil get under Iraq's sand?" said a typical protest sign ..."
"... And yet, wrong as they may have been on such subjects, don't sell Krauthammer and the rest of that neocon crew short. They were, in their own way, also prophets, at least domestically speaking. After all, Rome, like the United States, had been an imperial republic. That republic was replaced, as its empire grew, by autocratic rule, first by the self-anointed emperor Augustus and then by his successors. Arguably, 18 years after Krauthammer wrote that column, the American republic might be heading down the same path. After all, so many years later, the neocons, triumphantly risen yet again in Washington ( both in the administration and as its critics), finally have their Caesar. ..."
"... All of this not only gave Americans a visibly unhinged president -- think of him, in axis-of-evil terms, as a rogue state of one -- but an increasingly unhinged country. ..."
"... Think of it not as an obituary for a single loopy president, a man who, with his "great, great wall," has indeed been an opiate of the masses (for his famed base, at least) in the midst of an opioid crisis hitting them hard. Yes, Donald J. Trump, reality TV star and bankruptee , he of the golden letters, was elevated to a strange version of power by a troubled republic showing signs of wear and tear. It was a republic feeling the pressure of all that money flowing into only half-noticed distant wars and into the pockets of billionaires and corporate entities in a way that turned the very idea of democracy into a bad joke. ..."
"... Someday, if people ask the obvious question -- not who lost Afghanistan, but who lost America? -- keep all those failed imperial wars and the national security state that went with them in mind when you try to answer. Cumulatively, they had a far more disruptive role than is now imagined in toppling the dominos that sent us all careening on a path to nowhere here at home. And keep in mind that, whatever Donald Trump does, the Caesarian die was cast early in this century as the neocons crossed their own Rubicon. ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Engelhardt via TomDispatch.com,

What dreamers they were! They imagined a kind of global power that would leave even Rome at its Augustan height in the shade. They imagined a world made for one, a planet that could be swallowed by a single great power. No, not just great, but beyond anything ever seen before -- one that would build (as its National Security Strategy put it in 2002) a military "beyond challenge." Let's be clear on that: no future power, or even bloc of powers, would ever be allowed to challenge it again.

And, in retrospect, can you completely blame them? I mean, it seemed so obvious then that we -- the United States of America -- were the best and the last. We had, after all, outclassed and outlasted every imperial power since the beginning of time. Even that other menacing superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, the " Evil Empire " that refused to stand down for almost half a century, had gone up in a puff of smoke.

Imagine that moment so many years later and consider the crew of neoconservatives who, under the aegis of George W. Bush, the son of the man who had "won" the Cold War, came to power in January 2001. Not surprisingly, on viewing the planet, they could see nothing -- not a single damn thing -- in their way. There was a desperately weakened and impoverished Russia (still with its nuclear arsenal more or less intact) that, as far as they were concerned, had been mollycoddled by President Bill Clinton's administration. There was a Communist-gone-capitalist China focused on its own growth and little else. And there were a set of other potential enemies, "rogue powers" as they were dubbed, so pathetic that not one of them could, under any circumstances, be called "great."

In 2002, in fact, three of them -- Iraq, Iran, and North Korea -- had to be cobbled together into an " axis of evil " to create a faintly adequate enemy, a minimalist excuse for the Bush administration to act preemptively. It couldn't have been more obvious then that all three of them would go down before the unprecedented military and economic power of us (even if, as it happened, two of them didn't).

It was as clear as glass that the world -- the whole shebang -- was there for the taking.

... ... ...

As President Bush would put it in an address at West Point in 2002,

"America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

In other words, jihadists aside, it was all over. From now on, there would be an arms race of one and it was obvious who that one would be. The National Security Strategy of that year put the same thought this way:

"Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."

Again, anywhere on the planet ever .

Look at more or less any document from the period and you'll sense that they weren't shy about touting the unprecedented greatness of a future global Pax Americana . Take, for instance, columnist Charles Krauthammer who, in February 2001, six months before the ... attacks of September 11th, wrote a piece swooning over the new Bush administration's "unilateralism" to come and the "Bush Doctrine" which would go with it. In the process, he gave that administration a green light to put the pathetic Russians in their nuclear place and summed the situation up this way:

"America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly, America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations, and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will."

"How Did USA's Oil Get Under Iraq's Sand?"

And soon enough after September 11th, those unapologetic, implacable demonstrations of will did, in fact, begin -- first in Afghanistan and then, a year and a half later, in Iraq. Goaded by Osama bin Laden, the new Rome went into action.

Of course, in 2019 we have the benefit of hindsight, which Charles Krauthammer, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the rest of that crew didn't have as they applied their Roman-style vision of an imperial America to the actual world. It should be added, however, that the millions of people who hit the streets globally to protest the coming invasion of Iraq in the winter of 2003 -- "How did USA's oil get under Iraq's sand?" said a typical protest sign (which Donald Trump would have understood in his own way) -- had a far better sense of the world than did their American rulers-to-be. Like the Soviets before them , in fact, they would grievously confuse military power with power on this planet.

More than 17 years later, the U.S. military remains stuck in Afghanistan, bedeviled in Iraq, and floundering across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa on a planet with a resurgent Russia, and an impressively rising China. One-third of the former axis of evil, Iran, is, remarkably enough, still in Washington's gunsights , while another third (North Korea) sits uncomfortably in a presidential bear hug. It's no exaggeration to say that none of the dreams of a new Rome were ever faintly fulfilled. In fact, if you want to think about what's been truly exceptional in these years, it might be this: never in history has such a great power, at its height, seemed quite so incapable of effectively applying force, military or otherwise, to achieve its imperial ends or bring its targets to heel.

And yet, wrong as they may have been on such subjects, don't sell Krauthammer and the rest of that neocon crew short. They were, in their own way, also prophets, at least domestically speaking. After all, Rome, like the United States, had been an imperial republic. That republic was replaced, as its empire grew, by autocratic rule, first by the self-anointed emperor Augustus and then by his successors. Arguably, 18 years after Krauthammer wrote that column, the American republic might be heading down the same path. After all, so many years later, the neocons, triumphantly risen yet again in Washington ( both in the administration and as its critics), finally have their Caesar.

Hail, Donald J. Trump, we who are about to read your latest tweet salute you!

A Rogue State of One

Let's note some other passing parallels between the new Rome and the old one. As a start, it's certainly accurate to say that our new American Caesar has much gall (divided into at least three parts). Admittedly, he's no Augustus, the first of a line of emperors, but more likely a Nero, fiddling while, in his case, the world quite literally burns . Still, he could certainly say of campaign 2016 and what followed: Veni, Vidi, Tweeti (I came, I saw, I tweeted). And don't forget the classic line that might someday be applied to his presidency, " Et tu , Mueller?" -- or depending on who turns on him, you can fill in your name of choice.

One day, it might also be said that, in a country in which executive power has become ever more imperial (as has the power of the Senate's majority leader), blowback from imperial acts abroad has had a significant, if largely hidden, hand in crippling the American republic, as was once true of Rome. In fact, it seems clear enough that the first republican institution to go was the citizen's army. In the wake of the Vietnam War, the draft was thrown out and replaced by an "all-volunteer" force, one which would, as it came to fight on ever more distant battlefields, morph into a home-grown version of an imperial police force or foreign legion . With it went the staggering sums that, in this century, would be invested -- if that's even the word for it -- in what's still called "defense," as well as in a vast empire of bases abroad and the national security state, a rising locus of power at home. And then, of course, there were the never-ending wars across much of the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa that went with all of that. Meanwhile, so much else, domestically speaking, was put on the equivalent of austerity rations. And all of that, in turn, helped provoke the crisis that brought Donald Trump to power and might, in the end, even sink the American system as we've known it.

The Donald's victory in the 2016 election was always a sign of a deep disturbance at the heart of an increasingly unequal and unfair system of wealth and power. But it was those trillions of dollars -- The Donald claims seven trillion of them -- that the neocons began sinking into America's " infinite " wars, which cost Americans big time in ways they hardly tracked or noticed . Those trillions didn't go into shoring up American infrastructure or health care or education or job-training programs or anything else that might have mattered to most people here, even as untold tax dollars -- one estimate: $15,000 per middle-class family per year -- went into the pockets of the rich. And some of those dollars, in turn, poured back into the American political system (with a helping hand from the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision) and, in the end, helped put the first billionaire in the Oval Office. By the 2020 election campaign, we may achieve another all-American first: two or even three of the candidates could be billionaires.

All of this not only gave Americans a visibly unhinged president -- think of him, in axis-of-evil terms, as a rogue state of one -- but an increasingly unhinged country. You can feel so much of this in President Trump's confused and confusing attempts to both end American wars and ratchet them up , 17-and-a-half -- he always claims " almost 19 " -- years after the invasion of Afghanistan. You can feel it in his gut-level urge to attack the "deep state" and yet fund it beyond its wildest dreams. You can feel it in his attempts to create a corps of "my generals" and then fire them all. You can feel the unhinged nature of events in a world in which, after so many years of war, America's enemies still seem to have the formula for staying afloat, no matter what Washington does. The Taliban in Afghanistan is on the rise ; al-Shabaab in Somalia, is still going strong ; the Houthis in Yemen remain functional in a sea of horror and starvation; ISIS, now without its caliphate, has from Syria to the Philippines , Africa to Afghanistan , become a distinctly global brand ; al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula thrives , while terror groups more generally continue to spread .

You can feel it in the president's confused and confusing explanations for his urges to withdraw American troops in days or four months or whenever from Syria and do the same or maybe not exactly in Afghanistan. (As he said in his State of the Union address, American troops would both withdraw and "focus" on "counterterrorism" in that country.) You can feel it in the way, after so many years of visible failure, the neocons are once again riding high in Washington, ascendant both in his administration and as critics of its global and military policies.

These days, who even remembers that classic early Cold War question -- who lost China? -- that rattled American domestic politics for years, or later, the similar one about Vietnam? Still, if Donald Trump ever truly does withdraw American forces from Afghanistan (undoubtedly leaving this country's allies in a Vietnam-style ditch), count on foreign policy establishmentarians in Washington and pundits around the country to ask an updated version of the same question: Did Donald Trump lose Afghanistan?

But no matter what happens, don't make the mistake of blaming him. It's true that he tweeted endlessly while the world burned, but he won't be the one who "lost" Afghanistan. It was "lost" in the grisly dreams of the neocons as the century began and it's never truly been found again.

Of course, we no more know what's going to happen in the years ahead than the neocons did in 2001. If history has taught us anything, it's that prediction is the diciest of human predilections. Still, think of this piece as an obituary of sorts. You know, the kind major newspapers write about those still living and then continually update until death finally occurs.

Think of it not as an obituary for a single loopy president, a man who, with his "great, great wall," has indeed been an opiate of the masses (for his famed base, at least) in the midst of an opioid crisis hitting them hard. Yes, Donald J. Trump, reality TV star and bankruptee , he of the golden letters, was elevated to a strange version of power by a troubled republic showing signs of wear and tear. It was a republic feeling the pressure of all that money flowing into only half-noticed distant wars and into the pockets of billionaires and corporate entities in a way that turned the very idea of democracy into a bad joke.

Someday, if people ask the obvious question -- not who lost Afghanistan, but who lost America? -- keep all those failed imperial wars and the national security state that went with them in mind when you try to answer. Cumulatively, they had a far more disruptive role than is now imagined in toppling the dominos that sent us all careening on a path to nowhere here at home. And keep in mind that, whatever Donald Trump does, the Caesarian die was cast early in this century as the neocons crossed their own Rubicon.

Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you!

[Feb 16, 2019] Why Are These Professional War Peddlers Still Around? Pundits like Max Boot and Bill Kristol got everything after 9/11 wrong but are still considered experts. by Tucker Carlson

Notable quotes:
"... As Trump found himself accused of improper ties to Vladimir Putin, Boot agitated for more aggressive confrontation with Russia. Boot demanded larger weapons shipments to Ukraine. ..."
"... Boot's stock in the Washington foreign policy establishment rose. In 2018, he was hired by The Washington Post as a columnist. The paper's announcement cited Boot's "expertise on armed conflict." ..."
"... Republicans in Washington never recovered. When Trump attacked the Iraq War and questioned the integrity of the people who planned and promoted it, he was attacking them. They hated him for that. Some of them became so angry, it distorted their judgment and character. ..."
"... Almost from the moment Operation Desert Storm concluded in 1991, Kristol began pushing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In 1997, The Weekly Standard ran a cover story titled "Saddam Must Go." If the United States didn't launch a ground invasion of Iraq, the lead editorial warned, the world should "get ready for the day when Saddam has biological and chemical weapons at the tips of missiles aimed at Israel and at American forces in the Gulf." ..."
"... Under ordinary circumstances, Bill Kristol would be famous for being wrong. Kristol still goes on television regularly, but it's not to apologize for the many demonstrably untrue things he's said about the Middle East, or even to talk about foreign policy. Instead, Kristol goes on TV to attack Donald Trump. ..."
"... Trump's election seemed to undo Bill Kristol entirely. He lost his job at The Weekly Standard after more than 20 years, forced out by owners who were panicked about declining readership. He seemed to spend most of his time on Twitter ranting about Trump. ..."
"... By the spring of 2018, Kristol was considering a run for president himself. He was still making the case for the invasion of Iraq, as well as pushing for a new war, this time in Syria, and maybe in Lebanon and Iran, too. Like most people in Washington, he'd learned nothing at all. ..."
"... Creating complex and convincing false narratives to support demonic purposes is HARD WORK, and requires big pay. ..."
"... Lots of spilled ink here that's pretty meaningless without an answer to the following: Why does Trump employ John Bolton and Elliot Abrams? Explain Trump and Pence and Pompeo's Iran obsession and how it's any better than Kristol/Boot? ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity. Standards decline, the edges fray, but nobody in charge seems to notice. They're happy in their sinecures and getting richer. In a culture like this, there's no penalty for being wrong. The talentless prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power, and breaking things along the way. It happened to the Ottomans.

Max Boot is living proof that it's happening in America.

Boot is a professional foreign policy expert, a job category that doesn't exist outside of a select number of cities. Boot has degrees from Berkeley and Yale, and is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has written a number of books and countless newspaper columns on foreign affairs and military history. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an influential British think tank, describes Boot as one of the "world's leading authorities on armed conflict."

None of this, it turns out, means anything. The professional requirements for being one ofthe world's Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict do not include relevant experience with armed conflict. Leading authorities on the subject don't need a track record of wise assessments or accurate predictions. All that's required are the circular recommendations of fellow credential holders. If other Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict induct you into their ranks, you're in. That's good news for Max Boot.

Boot first became famous in the weeks after 9/11 for outlining a response that the Bush administration seemed to read like a script, virtually word for word. While others were debating whether Kandahar or Kabul ought to get the first round of American bombs, Boot was thinking big. In October 2001, he published a piece in The Weekly Standard titled "The Case for American Empire."

"The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition," Boot wrote. "The solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their implementation." In order to prevent more terror attacks in American cities, Boot called for a series of U.S.-led revolutions around the world, beginning in Afghanistan and moving swiftly to Iraq.

"Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul," Boot wrote. "To turn Iraq into a beacon of hope for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East: Now that would be a historic war aim. Is this an ambitious agenda? Without a doubt. Does America have the resources to carry it out? Also without a doubt."

In retrospect, Boot's words are painful to read, like love letters from a marriage that ended in divorce. Iraq remains a smoldering mess. The Afghan war is still in progress close to 20 years in. For perspective, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of France, crowned himself emperor, defeated four European coalitions against him, invaded Russia, lost, was defeated and exiled, returned, and was defeated and exiled a second time, all in less time than the United States has spent trying to turn Afghanistan into a stable country.

Things haven't gone as planned. What's remarkable is that despite all the failure and waste and deflated expectations, defeats that have stirred self-doubt in the heartiest of men, Boot has remained utterly convinced of the virtue of his original predictions. Certainty is a prerequisite for Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict.

In the spring of 2003, with the war in Iraq under way, Boot began to consider new countries to invade. He quickly identified Syria and Iran as plausible targets, the latter because it was "less than two years" from building a nuclear bomb. North Korea made Boot's list as well. Then Boot became more ambitious. Saudi Arabia could use a democracy, he decided.

"If the U.S. armed forces made such short work of a hardened goon like Saddam Hussein, imagine what they could do to the soft and sybaritic Saudi royal family," Boot wrote.

Five years later, in a piece for The Wall Street Journal , Boot advocated for the military occupation of Pakistan and Somalia. The only potential problem, he predicted, was unreasonable public opposition to new wars.

"Ragtag guerrillas have proven dismayingly successful in driving out or neutering international peacekeeping forces," he wrote. "Think of American and French troops blown up in Beirut in 1983, or the 'Black Hawk Down' incident in Somalia in 1993. Too often, when outside states do agree to send troops, they are so fearful of casualties that they impose rules of engagement that preclude meaningful action."

In other words, the tragedy of foreign wars isn't that Americans die, but that too few Americans are willing to die. To solve this problem, Boot recommended recruiting foreign mercenaries. "The military would do well today to open its ranks not only to legal immigrants but also to illegal ones," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times . When foreigners get killed fighting for America, he noted, there's less political backlash at home.

♦♦♦

American forces, documented or not, never occupied Pakistan, but by 2011 Boot had another war in mind. "Qaddafi Must Go," Boot declared in The Weekly Standard . In Boot's telling, the Libyan dictator had become a threat to the American homeland. "The only way this crisis will end -- the only way we and our allies can achieve our objectives in Libya -- is to remove Qaddafi from power. Containment won't suffice."

In the end, Gaddafi was removed from power, with ugly and long-lasting consequences. Boot was on to the next invasion. By late 2012, he was once again promoting attacks on Syria and Iran, as he had nine years before. In a piece for The New York Times , Boot laid out "Five Reasons to Intervene in Syria Now."

Overthrowing the Assad regime, Boot predicted, would "diminish Iran's influence" in the region, influence that had grown dramatically since the Bush administration took Boot's advice and overthrew Saddam Hussein, Iran's most powerful counterbalance. To doubters concerned about a complex new war, Boot promised the Syria intervention could be conducted "with little risk."

Days later, Boot wrote a separate piece for Commentary magazine calling for American bombing of Iran. It was a busy week, even by the standards of a Leading Authority on Armed Conflict. Boot conceded that "it remains a matter of speculation what Iran would do in the wake of such strikes." He didn't seem worried.

Listed in one place, Boot's many calls for U.S.-led war around the world come off as a parody of mindless warlike noises, something you might write if you got mad at a country while drunk. ("I'll invade you!!!") Republicans in Washington didn't find any of it amusing. They were impressed. Boot became a top foreign policy adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008, to Mitt Romney in 2012, and to Marco Rubio in 2016.

Everything changed when Trump won the Republican nomination. Trump had never heard of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He had no idea Max Boot was a Leading Authority on Armed Conflict. Trump was running against more armed conflicts. He had no interest in invading Pakistan. Boot hated him.

As Trump found himself accused of improper ties to Vladimir Putin, Boot agitated for more aggressive confrontation with Russia. Boot demanded larger weapons shipments to Ukraine. He called for effectively expelling Russia from the global financial system, a move that might be construed as an act of war against a nuclear-armed power. The stakes were high, but with signature aplomb Boot assured readers it was "hard to imagine" the Russian government would react badly to the provocation. Those who disagreed Boot dismissed as "cheerleaders" for Putin and the mullahs in Iran.

Boot's stock in the Washington foreign policy establishment rose. In 2018, he was hired by The Washington Post as a columnist. The paper's announcement cited Boot's "expertise on armed conflict."

It is possible to isolate the precise moment that Trump permanently alienated the Republican establishment in Washington: February 13, 2016. There was a GOP primary debate that night in Greenville, South Carolina, so every Republican in Washington was watching. Seemingly out of nowhere, Trump articulated something that no party leader had ever said out loud. "We should never have been in Iraq," Trump announced, his voice rising. "We have destabilized the Middle East."

Many in the crowd booed, but Trump kept going: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none."

Pandemonium seemed to erupt in the hall, and on television. Shocked political analysts declared that the Trump presidential effort had just euthanized itself. Republican voters, they said with certainty, would never accept attacks on policies their party had espoused and carried out.

Republican voters had a different reaction. They understood that adults sometimes change their minds based on evidence. They themselves had come to understand that the Iraq war was a mistake. They appreciated hearing something verboten but true.

Rival Republicans denounced Trump as an apostate. Voters considered him brave. Trump won the South Carolina primary, and shortly after that, the Republican nomination.

Republicans in Washington never recovered. When Trump attacked the Iraq War and questioned the integrity of the people who planned and promoted it, he was attacking them. They hated him for that. Some of them became so angry, it distorted their judgment and character.

♦♦♦

Bill Kristol is probably the most influential Republican strategist of the post-Reagan era. Born in 1954, Kristol was the second child of the writer Irving Kristol, one of the founders of neoconservatism.

The neoconservatism of Irving Kristol and his friends was jarring to the ossified liberal establishment of the time, but in retrospect it was basically a centrist philosophy: pragmatic, tolerant of a limited welfare state, not rigidly ideological. By the time Bill Kristol got done with it 40 years later, neoconservatism was something else entirely.

Almost from the moment Operation Desert Storm concluded in 1991, Kristol began pushing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In 1997, The Weekly Standard ran a cover story titled "Saddam Must Go." If the United States didn't launch a ground invasion of Iraq, the lead editorial warned, the world should "get ready for the day when Saddam has biological and chemical weapons at the tips of missiles aimed at Israel and at American forces in the Gulf."

After the September 11 attacks, Kristol found a new opening to start a war with Iraq. In November 2001, he and Robert Kagan wrote a piece in The Weekly Standard alleging that Saddam Hussein hosted a training camp for Al Qaeda fighters where terrorists had trained to hijack planes. They suggested that Mohammad Atta, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was actively collaborating with Saddam's intelligence services. On the basis of no evidence, they accused Iraq of fomenting the anthrax attacks on American politicians and news outlets.

Under ordinary circumstances, Bill Kristol would be famous for being wrong. Kristol still goes on television regularly, but it's not to apologize for the many demonstrably untrue things he's said about the Middle East, or even to talk about foreign policy. Instead, Kristol goes on TV to attack Donald Trump.

Trump's election seemed to undo Bill Kristol entirely. He lost his job at The Weekly Standard after more than 20 years, forced out by owners who were panicked about declining readership. He seemed to spend most of his time on Twitter ranting about Trump.

Before long he was ranting about the people who elected Trump. At an American Enterprise Institute panel event in February 2017, Kristol made the case for why immigrants are more impressive than native-born Americans. "Basically if you are in free society, a capitalist society, after two, three, four generations of hard work, everyone becomes kind of decadent, lazy, spoiled, whatever." Most Americans, Kristol said, "grew up as spoiled kids and so forth."

In February 2018, Kristol tweeted that he would "take in a heartbeat a group of newly naturalized American citizens over the spoiled native-born know-nothings" who supported Trump.

By the spring of 2018, Kristol was considering a run for president himself. He was still making the case for the invasion of Iraq, as well as pushing for a new war, this time in Syria, and maybe in Lebanon and Iran, too. Like most people in Washington, he'd learned nothing at all.

Tucker Carlson is the host of Fox News 's Tucker Carlson Tonight and author of Ship of Fools: How A Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution (Simon & Schuster). This excerpt is taken from that book.


Patrick Constantine February 14, 2019 at 10:50 pm

Trump isn't the only one hated by useless establishment Republicans – with essays like this so will Tucker. Thanks for this takedown of these two warmongering know-nothings. I wish Trump all the time was like he was at that debate in S Carolina where he said what every American knows: the Iraq invasion was stupid and we should not have done it!
Anne Mendoza , says: February 15, 2019 at 2:10 am
So why are these professional war peddlers still around? For the same reason that members of the leadership class who failed and continue to fail in the Middle East are still around. There has not been an accounting at any level. There is just more talk of more war.
polistra , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:54 am
Well, the headline pretty much answers its own question if you know the purpose of Experts. In any subject matter from science to economics to politics, Experts are paid to be wrong. Nobody has to be paid to observe reality accurately with his own senses and rational mind. Every living creature does that all the time. It's the basic requirement of survival.

Creating complex and convincing false narratives to support demonic purposes is HARD WORK, and requires big pay.

snake charmer , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:49 am
""The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition," Boot wrote. "The solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their implementation.""

In other words, if we had only squandered even more blood and treasure, why, everything would have been fine.

Why do so many true believers end up with some variation on the true believer's wheeze: "Communism didn't fail ! It was never tried!" Then again one can't be sure that Boot is a true believer. He might be a treacherous snake trying to use American power to advance a foreign agenda.

Mike , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:55 am
This is an Exocet missile of an article. Both hulls compromised, taking water. Nice.
John S , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:11 am
This is beautiful, Boot has been rewarded for every horrible failure...
Tom Gorman , says: February 15, 2019 at 8:36 am
Mr. Carlson,

Max Boot has indeed been an advocate of overseas intervention, but you fail to point out that he has recanted his support of the Iraq War. In his 2018 book "The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I left the American Right," he states:

". . . I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it (The Iraq War) was all a big mistake. Saddam Hussein was heinous, but Iraq was better off under his tyrannical rule than the chaos that followed. I regret advocating the invasion and feel guilty about all the lives lost. It was a chastening lesson in the limits of American power."

I'm glad to see that Boot, along with yourself and other Republicans, realize that American use of force must have a clear objective with reasonable chance of success. I suggest you send this article to John Bolton. I'm not sure he agrees with you.

Dawg , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:29 am
Great article, Mr. Tucker. I hope folks also read Mearsheimer & Walt on the Iraq War. From chapter 8 of their book: http://mailstar.net/iraq-war.html
David LeRoy Newland , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:34 am
Excellent article. It's a shame that the Bush era GOP took Boot and Kristol seriously. That poor judgment led Bush to make the kinds of mistakes that gave Democrats the opening they needed to gain power, which in turn led them to make even more harmful mistakes.
Collin , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:55 am
Being against the Iraq 2 I find this populist arguing very 'eye-rolling' as you were pimping this war to death back in the day. (In fact I remember Jon Stewart being one of the few 'pundits' that questioned the war in 2003 & 2004.) And has dovish as Trump as been, his administration is still filled with Hawks and if you are concerned about wars then maybe use your TV show for instead of whining for past mistakes:

1) The administration action in Iran is aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace. The nuclear deal was an effective way of ensuring Iran controlling behavior for 15 years as the other parties, Europe and China, wanted to trade with Iran. (Additionally it makes our nation depend more on the Saudia relationship in which Washington should be slowly moving away from.)

2) Like it or not, Venezuela is starting down the steps of mission creep for the Trump Administration. Recommend the administration stay away from peace keeping troops and suggest this is China's problem. (Venezuela in debt to their eyeballs with China.)

3) Applaud the administration with peace talks with NK but warn them not to overstate their accomplishments. It is ridiculous that the administration signed big nuclear deals with NK that don't exist.

John In Michigan , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:59 am
I find it amazing that Boot is considered one of the "world's leading authorities on armed conflict,"yet never appears to have served in any branch of the armed forces, nor even heard a shot fired in anger. He is proof that academic credentials do not automatically confer "expertise."
Packard Day , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:26 am
Any war, anytime, any place, and cause just so long as American boys and girls can be in the middle of it.

Welcome to the American NeoCon movement, recently joined by Republican Never Trumpers, elected Democrats, and a host of far too many underemployed Beltway Generals & Admirals.

Joshua Xanadu , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:46 am
From a reformed Leftist, thank you Tucker for calling out the stank from the Republicans. The detailed compilation of lowlights from Max Boot and Bill Kristol (don't forget Robert Kagan!) should be etched in the minds of the now pro-war Democratic Party establishment.
Taras 77 , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:57 am
Being a neocon war monger means that you will never have to say you are sorry. The press will give them a pass every single time.

It is all about Israel-being wrong 100% of the time means it is all good because it was in the service of Israel.

Paul Reidinger , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:07 am
Yet another reason not to read the Washington Post.
Anja Mast , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:13 am
Tucker!!! When did you start writing for TAC?!?!

I laughed out loud while reading this, and continued laughing through to the end, until I saw who had the audacity to tell the truth about these utter incompetent failures (who have failed upwards for more than a decade now) who call themselves "foreign policy experts." Yeah -- "experts" at being so moronically wrong that you really start wondering if perhaps the benjamins from another middle eastern nation, that can't be named, has something to do with their worthless opinions, which always seem to do made for the benifit of the nameless nation.

So hurrah for you!!! Let the truth set us all free! Praise the Lord & Sing Songs of Praise to his Name!!!! Literally that's how great it is to hear the pure & unvarnished TRUTH spoken out loud in this publication!

I hope you get such awesome feedback that you are asked to continue to bless us with more truths! Thank you! You totally made my day!

And thank you for your service to this country, where it used to be considered patriotic to speak the truth honestly & plainly!

Joe , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:14 am
Why Are These Professional War Peddlers Still Around? Simple, leaders like Trump keep them around, e.g. Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams.
David Biddington , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:22 am
John Bolton and Eliot Abrams on Team Trump, gearing up with Bibi to attack Iran is of no concern to sir?
George Crosley , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:22 am
"Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul," Boot wrote.

To which the reader might reasonably reply, "What do you mean we , Paleface?"

When I see Max Boot or Bill Kristol in uniform, carrying a rifle, and trudging with their platoon along the dusty roads of the Middle East, I'll begin to pay attention to their bleats and jeremiads.

Until that day, I'll continue to view them as a pair of droning, dull-as-ditchwater members of the 45th Word-processing Brigade. (Company motto: "Let's you and him fight!")

Frank Goodpasture III , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:29 am
It is my understanding that HRC led the charge to overthrow and hang Gaddafi in spite of a reluctant Obama administration. Did Boot, in fact, influence her?
marku52 , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:29 am
"Most Americans, Kristol said, "grew up as spoiled kids and so forth."" Unintentional irony, one must presume. Still it is astonishing that it took someone as addled as DJT to point out the obvious–Invading Iraq was a massive mistake.

Where were the rest of the "adults"

Jimmy Lewis , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:41 am
Boot, Kristal, Cheney, and Rumsfeld should all be in jail for war crimes.
jk , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:53 am
Just like Eliot Abrams, John McCain, GWB, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld or any other neocon, there is no justice or punishment or even well deserved humiliation for these parasites. They are always misinformed, misguided, or "well intentioned."

The US can interfere with sovereign governments and elections at will I guess and not be responsible for the the unintended consequences such as 500k+ killed in the Middle East since the Iraq and Afghan debacle.

There are sugar daddies from the MIC, the Natsec state (aka the Swamp), AIPAC, and even Jeff Bezos (benefactor of WaPo) that keep these guys employed.

You need to be more critical of Trump also as he is the one hiring these clowns. But other than that, keep up the good work Mr. Carlson!

Allen , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:09 pm
These Chairborne Rangers in Washington know nothing about war. They are the flip side of the radical Dems. "Hey, we lost in 2016. Let's do MORE of what made us lose in the first place!"
D , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:53 pm
Would've been nice if you wrote this about Bolton, Adams, Pompeo, Pence, or any of the other sundry neocon lunatics in the Trump administration.

Nonetheless, always good to see a takedown of Boot and Kristol.

J Thomsen , says: February 15, 2019 at 1:07 pm
The GOP is as much an enemy to the Trump revolution as the left. The Bush/Clinton/Obama coalition runs DC – controls the federal workforce, and colludes to run the Federal government for themselves and their pet constituents.

Trump should have stuck it out on the shutdown until those federal workers left. I think it was called RIF wherein after 30 days, he could dump the lot of em.

THE GOP IS NOT THE PARTY OF LESS GOVERNMENT. That's there motto for busy conservatives who don't have the time or inclination to monitor both sides of the swamp.

THEY ALL HAVE GILLS . we need to starve em out.

Joe from Pa , says: February 15, 2019 at 1:10 pm
Lots of spilled ink here that's pretty meaningless without an answer to the following: Why does Trump employ John Bolton and Elliot Abrams? Explain Trump and Pence and Pompeo's Iran obsession and how it's any better than Kristol/Boot?

What's going on in Yemen?

sanford sklansky , says: February 15, 2019 at 1:18 pm
Funny how when liberals said it was wrong to be in Iraq they were vilified. Yes some conservatives changed their minds. Trump however is all over the map when it comes to wars. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176527/

[Feb 15, 2019] Ilhan Omar and Elliott Abrams, Venezuela envoy, clash over U.S. meddling in Latin America

Here is YouTube video: 'It Was An Attack!' Omar And Abrams Share Heated Exchange NBC News - YouTube
Notable quotes:
"... "Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said. ..."
"... After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their country." ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.cbsnews.com

As assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration, Abrams was involved in a secret arms deal in which the U.S. sought to trade missiles and other weapons to Iran and use the funds to support right-wing paramilitaries known as the "contras," who were seeking to topple a leftist government in Nicaragua. In a 1991 plea agreement with an independent commission tasked with probing the scandal -- which became known as the Iran-Contra affair -- Abrams admitted to lying to members of Congress about the clandestine deal. In 1992, he and other Reagan administration officials embroiled in the scandal were pardoned by former President George H. W. Bush.

Omar also pressed Abrams about his role in shaping an interventionist American foreign policy in other Latin American countries during his first stints at the State Department. During the Cold War, the U.S. supported various violent coups in Latin America, including some against democratically-elected governments.

The freshman Democrat asked Abrams about a remark he made in 1993, when he called the Reagan administration's record in El Salvador a "fabulous achievement." Between 1979 and 1992, the U.S. backed a right-wing military government in El Salvador during a civil war against leftist guerrillas that resulted in the deaths of more than 75,000 people, according to the Center for Justice and Accountability , an international human rights group.

Omar specifically cited the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the American-trained El Salvadoran army at the El Mazote village in 1981.

"Yes or no, do you think that massacre was a 'fabulous achievement' that happened under our watch," she asked.

"That is a ridiculous question," Abrams responded, again accusing Omar of crafting a "personal attack."

Omar continued her questioning, asking Abrams if he would be in favor of the U.S. supporting armed groups in Venezuela that participate in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide if he believed it would serve America's interests. Abrams refused to answer the specific question, saying it was not a "real" question.

"Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said.

Along with recognizing the main opposition leader in Venezuela as the country's interim president and issuing sweeping sanctions against the largest state-owned oil company, the Trump administration has pledged more than $20 million in humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people.

But Maduro and other leftist leaders in the region, including in Bolivia and Cuba, have accused the American government of trying to stage a coup in Venezuela. Standing alongside diplomats from Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Nicaragua and Iran, Venezuela's foreign minister Jorge Arreaza told CBS News' Pamela Falk Thursday that Maduro's government has formed a coalition to oppose interference in his country's affairs.

After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their country."

In her final question, Omar asked Abrams whether American foreign policy prioritized upholding human rights and protecting people against genocide.

"That is always the position of the United States," he replied.

[Feb 15, 2019] Ilhan Omar and Elliott Abrams, Venezuela envoy, clash over U.S. meddling in Latin America

Here is YouTube video: 'It Was An Attack!' Omar And Abrams Share Heated Exchange NBC News - YouTube
Notable quotes:
"... "Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said. ..."
"... After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their country." ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.cbsnews.com

As assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration, Abrams was involved in a secret arms deal in which the U.S. sought to trade missiles and other weapons to Iran and use the funds to support right-wing paramilitaries known as the "contras," who were seeking to topple a leftist government in Nicaragua. In a 1991 plea agreement with an independent commission tasked with probing the scandal -- which became known as the Iran-Contra affair -- Abrams admitted to lying to members of Congress about the clandestine deal. In 1992, he and other Reagan administration officials embroiled in the scandal were pardoned by former President George H. W. Bush.

Omar also pressed Abrams about his role in shaping an interventionist American foreign policy in other Latin American countries during his first stints at the State Department. During the Cold War, the U.S. supported various violent coups in Latin America, including some against democratically-elected governments.

The freshman Democrat asked Abrams about a remark he made in 1993, when he called the Reagan administration's record in El Salvador a "fabulous achievement." Between 1979 and 1992, the U.S. backed a right-wing military government in El Salvador during a civil war against leftist guerrillas that resulted in the deaths of more than 75,000 people, according to the Center for Justice and Accountability , an international human rights group.

Omar specifically cited the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the American-trained El Salvadoran army at the El Mazote village in 1981.

"Yes or no, do you think that massacre was a 'fabulous achievement' that happened under our watch," she asked.

"That is a ridiculous question," Abrams responded, again accusing Omar of crafting a "personal attack."

Omar continued her questioning, asking Abrams if he would be in favor of the U.S. supporting armed groups in Venezuela that participate in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide if he believed it would serve America's interests. Abrams refused to answer the specific question, saying it was not a "real" question.

"Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said.

Along with recognizing the main opposition leader in Venezuela as the country's interim president and issuing sweeping sanctions against the largest state-owned oil company, the Trump administration has pledged more than $20 million in humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people.

But Maduro and other leftist leaders in the region, including in Bolivia and Cuba, have accused the American government of trying to stage a coup in Venezuela. Standing alongside diplomats from Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Nicaragua and Iran, Venezuela's foreign minister Jorge Arreaza told CBS News' Pamela Falk Thursday that Maduro's government has formed a coalition to oppose interference in his country's affairs.

After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their country."

In her final question, Omar asked Abrams whether American foreign policy prioritized upholding human rights and protecting people against genocide.

"That is always the position of the United States," he replied.

[Feb 15, 2019] The International Rogue Nation America by Eric Zuesse

Notable quotes:
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . ..."
"... At this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it? ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.unz.com

In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was developing weapons of mass destruction . These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the regime's 'news'-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or "expose") any of these lies . That's how bad the regime was -- it was virtually a total lock-down against truth, and for international conquest (in that case, of Iraq): it was mass-murder and destruction on the basis of sheer lies.

That's today's U.S. Government -- that's its reality, not its 'pro-democracy' and 'human rights' myth. (After all: its main ally is the Saud regime, which the U.S. regime is now helping to starve and kill by cholera perhaps millions of Houthis to death .)

In 2011, the U.S. regime, then under a different nominal leader than in the Iraq invasion, invaded and destroyed Libya -- also on the basis of lies that its press (which is controlled by the same billionaires who control the nation's two political Parties) stenographically published from the Government and refused ever to expose as being lies.

In 2011-2019 (but actually starting undercover in 2009 ), the U.S. regime (and its then allies King Saud and Tayyip Erdogan, and the Thanis who own Qatar ) hired tens of thousands of jihadis from around the world to serve as foot-soldiers (the U.S. regime calls them 'rebels') , in order to bring down Syria's secular, non-sectarian, Government, and thereby, via these jihadist proxy-forces , they invaded and destroyed Syria -- likewise on the basis of lies that the 'news'-media hid, secreting from the public such facts as that "The US Government's Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT." But the lies are never publicly acknowledged by any of the participating regimes and their press.This is an international empire of death and destruction based upon lies.

In 2011-2014, the U.S. regime perpetrated a bloody coup that ousted Ukraine's democratically elected Government and replaced it by a fascist rabidly anti-Russian regime that destroyed Ukraine and perpetrated ethnic cleansing . How much of this reality was being reported in the U.S. regime's press, at the time, or even afterward? It was hidden news at the time , and so those realities have since become buried, to become now only hidden history; and the U.S. regime and its 'news'-media continue to hide all of this ugly reality. It remains hidden, and isn't mentioned by either the regime or its press.

Right now, the U.S. regime (along with its other lap-dog Canada) is perpetrating, or at least attempting to perpetrate, a coup to take over Venezuela .

On February 8th, the Latin American Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) issued their study, "The Economic Consequences of the Boycott of Venezuela" , and reported that throughout the five-year period of 2013-2017, Venezuela's "economy and society suffered a suffocation [of] $ 22.5 billion in annual revenues, as a result of a deliberate international strategy of financial isolation [of Venezuela]. Evidently, this financial pressure intensified since 2015 with the fall in the price of crude oil." So: that's a total loss of over $112 billion from Venezuela during the entire 5-year period, and the result has become (especially after 2014) the impoverishment of the country. The U.S. regime and its allies and their propaganda-media blame, for that, not themselves, but the very same Government they're trying to take down. The U.S. regime and its allies have contempt for the public everywhere. The more that Venezuelans blame their own Government for this impoverishment, instead of blame America's Government for it, the more that their exploiters will have contempt for them, but also the more that their exploiters will benefit from them, because the exploiters' taking control of the Government will then be much easier to do.

The U.S-and-allied exploiters are attempting to install in Venezuela a man who has absolutely no justification under the Venezuelan Constitution to be claiming to be the country's 'interim President' . For some mysterious reason, Venezuela's President isn't calling for that traitor to be brought up on charges of treachery -- attempting a coup -- and facing Venezuela's Supreme Judicial Tribunal on such a charge, which Tribunal is the Constitutionally authorized body to adjudicate that matter. So, Venezuela's Government is incompetent -- but so too have been all of its predecessors since at least 1980, and incompetence alone is not Constitutional grounds for replacing Venezuela's President by a foreign-imposed coup . At least Venezuela's actual President is no traitor, such as his would-be successor, Juan Guaido, definitely is .

Did Venezuela invade America so as for America's economic war against it to be justified? Did Iraq invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Libya invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Syria invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Ukraine invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? None of them did, at all. In each and every case, it was pure aggression, by America, the international rogue nation.

Back in 1986, regarding America's international relations including its coups and invasions, the U.S. quit the International Court of Justice (ICJ), when that Court ruled against the U.S. in the Iran-Contra case, Nicaragua v. United States , which concerned America's attempted coup in that country. But though the U.S. propaganda-media reported the Government's rejection of that verdict in favor of Nicaragua, they hid the more momentous fact: the U.S. Government stated that it would not henceforth recognize any authority in the ICJ concerning America's international actions. The public didn't get to know about that. Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime, simply ignoring the ICJ except when the ICJ could be cited against a country that the U.S. regime is trying to destroy ('democratize'). And then, when the ICJ ruled on 9 March 2005 against the U.S. regime in a U.S. domestic matter where the regime refused to adhere to the U.S. Constitution's due-process clause regarding the prosecutions and death-sentences against 51 death-row inmates, and the Court demanded retrials of those convicts, the U.S. regime, in 2005, simply withdrew completely from the jurisdiction of the ICJ . Ever since 9 March 2005, the U.S. regime places itself above, and immune to, international law, regarding everything. George W. Bush completed what Ronald Reagan had started.

This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn't really represent the American public at all . It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all the while. Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. They're not even being investigated by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. That's a U.N. agency. Does the U.N. have any real legitimacy, under such circumstances as this? Can an international scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court? This mocks the U.N. itself. The U.S. places itself above the U.N.'s laws and jurisdiction and yet still occupies one of the five permanent seats on the U.N's Security Council and still is allowed to vote in the U.N.'s General Assembly. Why doesn't the U.N. simply expel America? It can't be done? Then why isn't a new international legal body being established to replace the U.N. -- and being granted legal authority everywhere regardless of whether a given national regime acknowledges its legal authority over matters of international law? Why is Venezuela being internationally isolated and sanctioned, instead of the U.S. being internationally isolated and sanctioned?

On top of all that, this is the same U.S. regime that has blocked the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and that has broken one international agreement after another -- not only NAFTA, and not only the nuclear agreement on Iran, and not only many nuclear agreements with first the Soviet Union and then Russia, but lots more -- and all with total impunity.

And it's not only the countries that the U.S. invades or otherwise destroys, which are being vastly harmed by this international monster-regime. How many millions of the flood of asylum-seekers who are pouring into Europe have done that in order to reach safety from America's bombs and proxy-troops -- jihadists and fascist terrorists -- which have ravaged their own homelands? What is that flood of refugees doing to Europe, and to European politics -- forcing it ever-farther to the right and so tearing the EU apart? Why are not Europeans therefore flooding their own streets with anti-American marches and movements for their own Governments to impose economic sanctions against all major American brands, and demanding prosecution of all recent American Presidents, starting at least with G.W. Bush -- or else to vote out of office any national politicians who refuse to stand up against the American bully-regime?

It isn't only weak nations such as Nigeria that are corrupt and rotten to the core. The entire U.S. empire, and especially its U.S. masters, are.

How much more will the peoples of the world remain suckers to the vast corporate propaganda-operation by that out-of-control beast of a rapacious regime, which displays the Orwellian nerve to label as being a 'regime' each and every Government that it seeks to overthrow and to call itself a 'democracy' ? The U.S. regime is itself actually allied the most closely with the world's most barbaric rulers, the Saud family, that own Saudi Arabia. The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and internationally aggressive regime in Israel. Is such an international gang, as this is, going to get off scot-free, as if there were no international law -- or at least none that applies to itself?

And, if the U.S. regime is so concerned to 'protect democracy' and 'protect human rights' all over the world (as that perennially lying bunch always claim to be the 'justification' for their invasions and coups), then why isn't it starting first by prosecuting itself? (Or, maybe, by prosecuting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, for his many crimes -- and prosecuting his predecessors for financing the 9/11 attacks against Americans?) Well, of course, Hitler didn't do anything of the sort. (Nor did he prosecute his allies.) He set the standard. Maybe, ideologically, Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito actually won the war, though this has happened after they first physically lost what everyone had thought was the end of WW II. After all, nobody is prosecuting the U.S. regime today. Isn't that somewhat like a global victory for fascism -- the Axis powers -- after the fact? Maybe "we" won the war, only to lose it later. Doesn't that appear to be the case? Mussolini sometimes called fascism "corporationism" , and this is how it always functions, and functions today by agreement amongst the controlling owners of international corporations that are headquartered in the U.S. and in its vassal-nations abroad.

Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?

What would happen if all the rest of the world instituted an international legal and enforcement system (under a replacement U.N.) in which all commitments and contractual proceeds to benefit American-based international corporations and the U.S. Government were declared to be immediately null and void -- worthless except as regards the claims against the U.S. entities? (The owners of those entities have been the beneficiaries of America's international crimes.) Contracts can be unilaterally nullified. The U.S. Government does it all the time, with no justification except lies. Here, it would be done as authentically justifiable penalties, against actually massive global crimes.

The U.S. militarily occupies the world; this is a global empire; it has over a thousand military bases worldwide. Why aren't the people in all of those occupied countries demanding their own governments simply to throw them out -- to end the military occupation of their land?

You can't have a world at peace, and anything like international justice, without enforcing international law. This is what doing that would look like.

What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.

-- -- -- -- --

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .


niteranger , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:46 am GMT

America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. The Intelligence Agencies are inseparable from the Corporations, The Bankers, and The Billionaires they work for. Most of the economic-social-media pathways are controlled by the Magic Jews. Elections are a fraud. You have seen what happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win. Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square. The entire Mueller Fiasco is a demonstration of the Intelligence State and a warning for anyone who doesn't play their game. The Super Jew Zionist Senator Shumer warned Trump in a Freudian Slip about upsetting the Intelligence agencies which the Jewish Media quickly tried to hide.

This is the county where dimwits like Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries, murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was said by anyone on the left.

America and the world are headed for the dark ages. I doubt if anyone will really survive. Think Tanks for the super rich run by Intel know this and are preparing for the worse case scenario are you!

exiled off mainstreet , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:51 am GMT
The implications of this are enormous. This is the first time I've seen it wrapped up in a single article.
Zumbuddi , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:58 am GMT
"Total lockdown against truth and for internatio al conquest . . .mass murder and destruction on the basis of sheer lies. That's today's U. S. Government, that's it's reality."

It worked so well in WWI and WWII, why mess with a sure thing?

To behave otherwise, that is, honestly and decently would return a heap of millionaires to their rag-picker tin-peddlar origins.

Justsaying , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:33 am GMT

Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime

Why the leniency for a regime that has been led by gangsters of varying shades for the best part of the post-WWII era, hands down? Unless the Vietnam war and the companion Gulf of Tomkin lie, the mass murder in Laos and Cambodia and the Korean war are brushed aside. As was the kidnapping of Aristide of Haiti and Panama's Noriega are trivial mobster rule blips and the sodomising of Ghadhafi's cadaver by "rebels" after relentless bombing that left a once prosperous nation in utter ruin regarded as an unfortunate "aberration". The tainting of American hands with the blood of millions of innocents extends well beyond the leaders who presided over arguably the worst atrocities and crimes of the post-WWII era. For a nation that takes pride in its slogan of a government of, for and by the people, the people cannot escape responsibility for the horrendous crimes committed in their name.

animalogic , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:04 am GMT
@exiled off mainstreet Agree: great summary article.
Commentator Mike , says: February 15, 2019 at 8:27 am GMT
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
EliteCommInc. , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:07 am GMT
I think some of this is over the top. However, I am not sure that one can excuse challenging the case based on news reports. The case on its face had little of any supporting material. But there were news agencies that provided a counter narrative, they just weren't the mainstream sources. Which is why I think your giving an out where none exists.

Instead, a better case could be made as to how those that questioned the case got the boot and in some cases got it good. Those voices were not only muted out by the media, the advocates, but the public as well. One cannot ignore the palpable anger after 9/11. The country wanted revenge. And they would have it. Unlike Mr. Neeson, we did not restrain ourselves from acting out, against anyone of we held suspect as similar in nature -- we lashed out with few reservations.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

Now I have to admit that the questions of international order are tricky. Who wants to take on enforcing the rule of law against the US when she violates the very rules she helped create and espouses. When the leadership bends, breaks or ignores the rules in the name of country. It's hard to make a case that everyone else abide by the rules if you yourself breaks them. Maybe people pf conscience will hire people who actually abide by what they say they will do when applying for the job of leadership.

But I have to be honest, I am cautious when it comes bodies of international order: UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO, NAFTA, and others. I appreciate the value of NATO, but I am a bit dubious about the agitation that the US take the lead in addressing Europe's security, at our expense. And while I would like to avoid what about, most nations treat the international bodies of justice with no small amount of reticence on their own account. I am unclear of China has backed away from provoking the Phillipines after the UNCLOS ruling regarding commercial development zones. They have made a point to say they will abide by UNCLOS except where they disagree. The short answer is that ultimately the developed world has to operate with some integrity. There's a lot of complaining about the Saudis and Israel. But those states can simply point to the US or the Europeans states and make a constituent claim,

"What's good for the gander . . ."

There is a manner of discipline and that is to our failures and the cost. We are at the moment large enough to absorb them (not sure that is not more face saving facade than truth). Iraq is a failure. Libya is a failure. Afganistahn most likely a failure, even we end up with some manner of negotiated settlement, it will still be far short of our objective(s). The Ukraine still threatens to fall into a full blown civil war. After five years plus of bombing Yemen, the end is nowhere in sight. If the Saudis think the Yemenis a threat, then they should deal with it. The Syria gambit was never a smart move and it has cost us. I am a firm believer that part of these issues results in not having a national draft system where our entire population is bought in on the US project and in so doing have an incentive to hold its government accountable. Because there is no body count to shock the public into reality as in previous military engagements.

We simply are not electing enough men such as representative Walter Jones into office, who upon recognizing an error will seek to change course. And I like him, I suspect, get increasingly restless about how our unrequited hypocrisy (if continued) will play out for us in the end. I think there are signs of trouble, just hints, that we need to get our ducks in order.

We honor and protect our sovereignty by respecting that of others (minus some outstanding extreme circumstance).

Note: not all of the US military programs are about the use of force. The US does huge amounts of humanitarian aide, independently and in conjunction with with are numerous aid depts. And as a nation we remain the most effectively generous (giving nations) on the planet to others in need, including private charitable organizations, no small number of them faith and practice based.

How many multitudes of sins that will cover is unknown to me.

Michael Kenny , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:57 am GMT
A typical piece of American racism. Naturally, the peoples of all these countries are far too primitive and far too stupid to see that they are being manipulated!
HiHo , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:29 am GMT
Dear Eric,

To quote your first para: 'In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was developing weapons of mass destruction.'

It should read: 'In 2003, the UK (and its lap dog USA) invaded and destroyed Iraq. I know you Americans like to think that the USA is sovereign in its bullying of the world, but many people apart from myself, see it differently.

Rothschild runs the 'free west' and he is based in The City of London where he operates the world's drug money laundering operation. Yes, even all the drugs moved out of Afghanistan by his private drug army you call the CIA, those profits are laundered in London.

It is Rothschild in London that decides who to invade and why. The USA is Rothschild's private supply of canon fodder, weaponry and congenital idiots who think Jesus of Nazareth, that you erroneously call Jesus Christ, condones the violence, the blood baths and the pure evil that is the USA.

Your nation and its corrupt state is the puppet of Rothschild. I can understand it is especially hard for you to finger one of your own, especially as you consider yourself to be the goyim's friend, but that is not actually true is it?

What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?

Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on Venezula today, only make sense if you are Rothschild.

Yours sincerely,

HiHo Silver Lining.

JackOH , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:35 am GMT
Eric, thanks.

I'm not into America-bashing. Life's too short, and, besides, I did half-seriously think of emigrating from the States, and didn't do it.

But–but–I think there's enough evidence to support the writing of a "black book" of American democracy since 1945, a hit piece modeled on a similarly titled book about Communism's depredations that, I think, was first published in France maybe thirty years ago.

Better observers than I can probably offer a laundry list of American cruelties worth including, and some of those better observers comment here on Unz Review .

American military interventions, a Constitution drained of effectiveness and meaning, the "ethnic cleansing" of American cities, the gratuitous cruelties of American health care, etc .

Keep the book short, about 250-350 pp., and include good front and back matter to focus the reader's attention.

Sean , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:47 am GMT
@niteranger If the author of this piece a child who believes in fairy stories about American exceptionalism . America is more powerful than other countries and if it is "The International Rogue Nation" then it is solely as a result of being more powerful that other countries, for were they as strong as America they all would do the same as America.

This is the county where dimwits like Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries, murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was said by anyone on the left.

The Democrats want future voters to swamp the votes of native-born Americans. The kids in Yemen are irrelevant. So are the innocent kids in countries like Syria.

America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State

That is just a long winded way of saying it is a state. Like any other state America can't call 911 if it gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral imperatives and live as tree huggers in perpetual peace. Except it would come to an end, just as it did for the Tibetans (and their trees).

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:13 pm GMT

The International Rogue Nation: America

The only?

The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and internationally aggressive regime in Israel.

How about, The International Rogue Mafias: America and Israel?

Felix Krull , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:15 pm GMT
These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the regime's 'news'-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or "expose") any of these lies.

Back in the late summer of 2003, when Washington finally admitted there were no WMD in Iraq, the Danish Public Broadcaster had invited four of the heaviest hitters in Danish MSM, four foreign policy editors of the largest news outlets in Denmark.

The conversation was supposed to be about something else, but the WMD-news had dropped that same morning, and at one point they discuss the missing WMD. One guy spontaneously says: "I never believed in the WMD-story anyway." The three others quickly agree, because they don't want to be seen as the slow, gullible kid in the class.

So they'd been peddling this WMD-nonsense aggressively since the invasion, but they didn't actually believe that story themselves? The broadcast was taken off the internet 24 hours later, but I have their names in my little book.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT

What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.

Well yes, but they also want not only a monopoly on violence and compliant tax, debt, wage and dollar slaves, but also "legal" support for it all, hence "gubbermint." Keep payin' dem taxes and hoping for da Messiah in the forms of the likes of the Cacklin' Hyena, The Trumpster, and "Bibi."

Felix Krull , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:42 pm GMT
And another thing: back in the day, the PM, Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen spoke frequently about Saddam in the Danish parliament. But he never said "weapons of mass destruction", he said "dangerous weapons" – didn't want to be caught lying to the legislature, would you? Nobody ever called him out on it; you'd think journalists were familiar with sleazy rhetoric, but not on this occasion. He went on to become secretary general of NATO.
Charles Homer , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT
As shown in this article, Russia has significant concerns about American breaches of the INF treaty that have received almost no coverage in the Western media: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-russian-response-to-washingtons.html

Rather than presenting a balanced viewpoint where we hear both sides of the story regarding nuclear treaty violations by both sides, we are subjected to what can best be termed "fake news".

The Alarmist , says: February 15, 2019 at 2:26 pm GMT

"Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?"

The plutocrat criminal elite are working fast and furiously to import a new electorate and slave labour force: At some point they will no longer be able to finance the machine, because you get what you pay for, and bread and circuses aren't cheap, and at that point the machine will pull back from the world, if not outright devolve into mayhem in its streets.

Asagirian , says: Website February 15, 2019 at 2:47 pm GMT
How Jewish-controlled Media work.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2019/02/14/networks-2202-minutes-russia-scandal-zero-no-collusion-report

Globo-homo logic. Russia didn't do it. Punish Russia.

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:00 pm GMT
Just came across these powerful words from Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother.

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/after-pats-birthday-2/

peter mcloughlin , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:07 pm GMT
Global empires rise because of the desire for power, which is also their Nemesis. Power gives prestige, status, wealth, security and a sense of invincibility: the opposite of what is feared most. But they cannot hold that power forever, though they try, and eventually they end up getting the war they have always dreaded: utter defeat. But their leaders are deluded, blindly leading their people to annihilation – even nuclear – because power is the one thing they will destroy themselves and everyone else over. The pattern of history is clear.

https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Agent76 , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:23 pm GMT
Feb 11, 2019 Venezuelans' message to the US: Hands off our country

The Grayzone reports from inside Venezuela, where millions of people waited in long lines to sign an open letter to the US public, strongly rejecting foreign intervention in their country.

15.04.2017 Americans Are No Different Than Germans Were (and Are)

Daniel Goldhagen blamed the Holocaust on "the Germans" (by which he meant the German people), and said that they perpetrated the Holocaust because they positively enjoyed murdering "the Jews".

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/04/15/americans-no-different-than-germans-were-and-are.html

Agent76 , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
Feb 18, 2013 Corporatocracy, Globalization, An Empire Expands

A short video clip from the Documentary Zeitgeist: Addendum, in it a Corporatocracy is explained. "A Incredible cozy relationship between Government and Corporations"

Moi , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:38 pm GMT
@niteranger I think this sums up things pretty well:

"All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted." D. H. Lawrence.

Miro23 , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:48 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike

Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?

Fascist country, Communist country – a more understandable definition would be a Mafia run state. The US regime uses violence and threats (local and international) to get its way. It corrupts and terrorizes politicians and forces through its projects. It's all about money and power and it rubs traditional Anglo society's face in the mud while its getting looted.

Che Guava , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:12 pm GMT
@Justsaying You have a pointy head, but rubbish conclusions I am also tired of hearing 'sodomy' or 'sodomized' re. Ghaddafi, assaulting the anus and rectum with bayonets is not 'sodomy'.

Hillary Clinton enjoyed it, I world prefer not to repeat her moronic statement, but will because of the many morons are on this site now, 'we came, we saw, he died, (cackle, cackle, cackle'). She liked to pretend that this is her classical education. She clearly has none. But she sure has an ugly pair of cankles.

wayfarer , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT

Fifth Column: Is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favour of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_column

"Censored 'Israel Lobby' Document Leaks"

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:31 pm GMT
Enantiodromia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiodromia

Principle od enantiodromia : one thing pushed to the extreme leads to the opposite .

( Hegel with his thesis-antithesis ideas was just another moronic german philosopher )

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:42 pm GMT
@niteranger

Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square.

He's a lying New York idiot Israel firster who demonstrates a new meaning to the concept of winning fair and square and "won" the position as Cuck-in-Chief of the Corporate Fascio-Commie Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State, that's all. He should have saved us all a lot of trouble and just eloped with the Cackling Hyena instead.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
Mrs Ilhan Omar Is the voice from the graves of Millions of Muslims murdered by US Military under leadership of US politicians (purchased for pennies), and ordered by Israel.
Cheburashka , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT
@exiled off mainstreet Interesting for me it's all known for several years, so I was about to say myself "same old, same old". Then I read your comment and think to myself "well, contrary to my belief, obviously publishing this article does make sense"
Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:47 pm GMT
@Asagirian Most of the european business and population do NOT agree with the yankee sanctions to Russia ( or to Venezuela , or to Iran , Cuba .. ) . Nothing ideological , it is just that the EU has no oil , the EU needs russian , iranian , venezuelan oil and gas , and the EU countries NEED to sell products to any country willing to buy them . The abusive yankee pressure on the EU to santion any country that the US wants will backfire .
Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:55 pm GMT

"This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn't really represent the American public at all. It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all the while."

Words seem insufficient to describe the situation, don't they? What we're witnessing, apparently, is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Satanic cult known from the Book of Revelation as the "beast from the sea" is attempting to rise to the top of the world by "giving worth to evil" (i.e. worshiping Satan). To put it another way, the beast rises to the top by bringing everyone and everything else down.

Being relatively small in number, the Satanic cult operates primarily by deception, corruption and manipulation. If the beast cannot get the people to destroy themselves, it resorts to mass murder, but the end result is always destruction.

"Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague."

Money has nothing to do with it (other than being another tool in the Satanists' tool box). They do what they do because they're evil. Evil is both the means and the end. To put it in Biblical terms, the Satanists seek to do to the whole world what Satan did to Eve. Only when whole world is brought down can evil claim victory over good (as per the Satanic agenda set forth in Isaiah 14:13,14).

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:00 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike

How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?

Excellent question, but the two, fascism and the various forms of big "C" Communism, are not necessarily mutually exclusive even though fascism as often used today was intended as a catch-all smear word by the Marxist cornballs a century ago.

In fact, Marxism, Bolshevism and Stalinism are can all be or become forms of fascism. Likewise, as Orwell saw, there is no essential difference between various iterations of capitalism and the various forms of communism that they oftentimes supported and promoted and still do.

Also, I highly doubt whether a meaningful debate regarding politics is possible whether or not definitions are agreed upon.

[During the war]words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.

Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.

– Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Chap X, ~400 BC

"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."

– John Adams, letter to J. H. Tiffany, Mar. 31, 1819.

Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

IOW, it's pretty much all bullsh!t. Reader and listener beware.

anonymous [241] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMT
The gangster laughs in your face: "Whadda going to do about it, kid?". Answer is nothing can be done.

At this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it?

The pattern actually goes back 121 years to the Spanish-American war when the US smelled weakness and pounced. It's been on a roll ever since, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. The barriers to the US having a completely free hand are Russia, China, Iran, countries about which there's much heavy propaganda being thrown about. Their areas are limited though and they can't help the Venezuelans or most of the others. The US has a huge budget for internal spying and security to ensure that the people in charge stay that way so don't get optimistic. This supposed democracy is rigged from start to finish. The US has been very efficient in brainwashing it's residents into thinking it is all legit.

c matt , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMT

Can an international scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court?

Why yes, yes it can. There is no such thing as rule of law. There is only rule by might. Law is mere rationalization.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:05 pm GMT
@Liza

It just doesn't matter anymore how any country is described or classified.

I wish I had thought of that! Excellent. Brilliant.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@HiHo

What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?

Talk about sweet summaries; yours is masterful!

Anyone who doubts it would do well to read Fish's, Tragic Deception,
FDR and America's involvement in World War II

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL21320930M/Tragic_deception

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
@Stephen Paul Foster This thread is uncommonly full of great comments and yours is another. Excellent.

This question [about the UN] is proof that the author needs psychiatric assistance.

And more than a brief stay in a reprogramming (anti-brainwashing) camp.

The UN was formed by the usual One World (globalist) crowd to serve their ends and theirs only. Anyone who fails to see that needs to be questioned deeply, no matter how correct he or she is about other matters.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:20 pm GMT
@Sean

Like any other state America can't call 911 if it gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral imperatives

What moral imperatives are you referring to?

Tsar Bomba for CIA , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:20 pm GMT
This is exactly right. The UN member nations are ready to replace the UN with an organization that can curb criminal regimes like the US. This has been the case since the 80s.

unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000732/073282eo.pdf

Considering the terminal degeneracy of the criminal enterprise that runs the US, it's going to take a war. Classified US policy is to use urban populations as human shields for the CIA COG autocracy. COIN drills like Watertown are dry runs for CIA martial law during war with Russia.

The one hopeful sign is superior SCO missile technology, which allows kinetic warheads to be substituted for nuclear ones. This permits regime decapitation by somewhat less destructive means. Most of you are still going to die, of course. But Russia and China will leave some habitable zones for people they can trust. Make sure you know human rights and humanitarian law,

https://ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/UniversalHumanRightsInstruments.aspx

and you can demonstrate a record of sticking up for them, and the postwar criminal tribunals will let you reconstruct a peaceful and lawful American state.

It's a shame it's going to take a couple hundred million dead, mostly American, to stop the CIA regime, but the world knows it's got to be done. If we're too chicken to storm Langley and hang those criminal scumbags, we're going to have to pay.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.

Somehow the poor sap is still a sucker. Good grief.

James Wood , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
This continuous harping on international law should be wearing thin even with you, Mr. Zuesse. The US outspends the next 24 nations combined on arms, I understand. For the US might is right. Until you and those who oppose US policy have an army that can break the US military might you have no hope.

You really need to think this through and stop the empty posturing. The bird flipped to the International Court of Justice by John Bolton for the third time apparently should teach you a lesson. Three strikes and you're out. Go home.

Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
@niteranger

"Elections are a fraud. You have seen what happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win. Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square."

If elections are a fraud (which they obviously are) how can orange clown be said to have won "fair and square"? It's a contradiction. The evil orange clown had to lie to win the election; he had to completely misrepresent himself. What orange clown did was tantamount to stealing ballots/rigging voting machines. Orange clown is nothing but Satanic low-life scum.

Also, how do you know Clinton was "the person they picked [to win]"? That's very speculative, IMO. A solid argument can be made that orange clown was actually the chosen one.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:28 pm GMT
@Miro23

Fascist country, Communist country – a more understandable definition would be a Mafia run state.

Exactly.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMT
@nsa Agree. Only one oblique reference to that other mafia state, Israel, in the whole piece.
Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:32 pm GMT
@HiHo

"What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917?"

An evil idiot.

"What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?"

An evil buffoon.

"Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on Venezula (sic) today, only make sense if you are Rothschild."

They do what they do because they're evil.

Hank , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike Fascists, communist, liberal and conservative. Those terms don't have as much meaning as you might think. In fact they are used as tools.
Benjy , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:11 pm GMT
@Harold Smith The Rothschild's are the Kings of the Jews. They have conquered the Bourbon, Habsburgs, the Hohenzollern, the Romanovs. They have merged with the house of Windsor. They have been mercilessly harvesting the entire planet for 200 years. They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against Hindu's, Chirstians against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese against Chinese, US Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews harvest.

They also sent all of these groups to get slaves from each other in raids and wars to provide human material from all the other races, except jewish, to sell on these jewish run slave markets. For centuries.

They extracted blood and organs from the children of the victims for use in the kabalistic rituals.

bookish1 , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2 against Germany was based on devilish lies. So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over the whole world and that he had killed millions of innocent people(which he hadn't) but then turned around and helped the real murderers of millions of people which was the Soviet Union. And it goes on and on and there will be more lies and more wars to follow.
Hank , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:39 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX You can almost tell just how important the issue of private central banking is by the fact that you can't get anyone to really explain it, or even talk about it. Right now I would settle for just knowing exactly who owns it.
jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:43 pm GMT
@Hank

Fascists, communist, liberal and conservative. Those terms don't have as much meaning as you might think. In fact they are used as tools.

Left and right are two more extremely ambiguous and often misleading terms.

It seems that most of us think that language is used in precise ways, but that's probably not the case.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:52 pm GMT
@bookish1

America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2 against Germany was based on devilish lies

All true.

So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over the whole world

When in fact it was a handful of mafiosi financial oligarchs, many based in New Yoik, who desired to control the whole world via co-opted Marxist principles. One of their tools was the "holy" UN which the author seems to think is some sort of Messiah. A Rockefeller "donated" the land for the UN Headquarters building, and the UN was formed under the direction of Commies and their sympathizers associated with FDR. I'm convinced that WW2 was instigated partly to begin imposing globalism on the rest of us, just as the constitution of Uncle Shylock was rammed down our throats. All for the benefit of us lowly proles, peasants and peons, of course.

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:53 pm GMT
I'm giving about 1.8 cheers for this piece. I agree with much of it, but I surely don't share the author's enthusiasm for this International Court of Justice, not for the workings of the United Nations in general. Give one of these international legal outfits any actual power in America, and "hate crime" laws? You ain't seen nothin' yet. In much of the world, "anti-Semitism" (whatever that's construed to mean) is already a criminal offense. Hell, leave it up to these international bodies, and the Unz Review goes dark -- and quickly, too. No, thanks.
DESERT FOX , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:01 pm GMT
@Hank The owners are the Rothschilds, the Rockerfellers. the Warburgs , the Schiffs, etc., all satanic zionists and they control every central bank in the world including the FED and the Bank of England.
Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:04 pm GMT
@Benjy

"They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against Hindu's, Chirstians against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese against Chinese, US Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews harvest."

The Satanists are small in number and generally cowardly so their general modus operandi is to get their victims to destroy themselves. To put it in Biblical terms, their goal is to do to the whole world what Satan did to Eve; they deceive, corrupt, manipulate and ultimately stand tall over the destruction they've brought about. They're destroyers.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
Speaking of the UN and war, Douglas Reed provides a lot of great info about the two; too much to summarize here, but I offer a sample for the curious.

The Second War produced a third result, additional to the advance of the [Marxist permanent] revolution into Europe and the establishment by force of the Zionist state: namely, the second attempt to set up the structure of a "world government", on the altar of which Western nationhood was to be sacrificed. This is the final consummation to which the parallel processes of Communism and Zionism are evidently intended to lead; the idea first emerged in the Weishaupt papers, began to take vigorous shape in the 19th Century, and was expounded in full detail in the Protocols of 1905. In the First War it was the master-idea of all the ideas which Mr. House and his associates "oozed into the mind" of President Wilson, and sought to make the president think were "his own". It then took shape, first as "The League to Enforce Peace" and at the war's end as "The League of Nations".

-Douglas Reed, The Controversy of Zion, p.470

https://archive.org/stream/TheControversyOfZion/TheControversyOfZion_djvu.txt

But of course we can write him off as an early kunspiracy theorist, can't we? And them protykalz is fake. Fake, I tell yi!

WorkingClass , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:37 pm GMT
Well yeah. The Anglo/Zionist Empire is an evil empire indeed. I've known that since serving under President Johnson in the mid sixties.

The geniuses over at ZeroHedge will be surprised to learn about imperial aggression against Venezuela. They believe the explanation for Venexuela's troubles is "Socialism doesn't work".

I'm a Nationalist. So I say screw your International Court of Justice. What the U.S. needs is a New Republic complete with a new constitution. Failing that, secession will be the way forward.

[Feb 15, 2019] MSNBC "Terrified Of Anti-War Voices" Says Fired Anti-War Host Phil Donahue - YouTube

Notable quotes:
"... They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful truth. ..."
"... That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country. ..."
"... So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi ..."
"... She really scares the war hawks and just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks. ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Anders Stöök , 1 day ago

Phil Donahue was not a sellout like Rachel Maddow.

Humphking , 1 day ago

They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful truth.

George Hoffman , 1 day ago (edited)

I served in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968), so I'm approximately around the same age as Phil. I told everyone I knew that if we invaded Iraq - this was during the lead-up in 2002 to vote on GWB's Iraq War resolution - having just a volunteer armed forces in the strategic sense, let alone the invasion of Iraq would violate international covenants against illegal wars of aggression - we would eventually have down the road a military blunder and a foreign policy debacle that would rival the one we had in the Vietnam War.

If GWB had somehow convinced the American people and the Congress to bring back the draft after the 9/11 attacks, I assure you we would have withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq long, long ago. But the war hawks in Congress and the Pentagon love their private, (essentially) quasi-mercenary volunteer armed forces after how badly they got burnt during the anti-war protests against the Vietnam War.

That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country.

So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi. Remember they can't smear her based on the fact that she was an officer who did two tours of duty in the war zone, so they try to smear her because she is supposedly a puppet of Putin, that is, a fifth columnist or fellow traveler as they did during the Red Scare in the McCarthy era. I would definitely vote for her as a fellow war veteran for president, but she has a very hard road to travel to win the nomination.

She really scares the war hawks and just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks.

Rick C-137 , 1 day ago (edited)

MSNBC is complicit in the deaths of millions. As evil as evil gets.

John Henni , 1 day ago

Chris Matthews is the definition of Corporate shill.

[Feb 15, 2019] Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes

Notable quotes:
"... Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations. ..."
"... The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. ..."
Feb 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous says: February 14, 2019 at 6:21 pm GMT 100 Words

@nietzsche1510

Venezuela invasion thing is double-faceted: a trap for Trump & a bluff. if the invasion is, then bye-bye 2020 election, mission accomplished. if no invasion on sight then the bluff of Pompeo-Bolton-Abrams is called & the 2020 reelection assured. Venezuela in the role of bait.

The real issue lies in the voting class which cowers in fear all day long and seeks saviors every four years via rigged circus. Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes.

Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations.

The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. Freedom at the point of a gun. Nothing quite says democracy like having the US president tell the Venezuelans how to run their country.

[Feb 14, 2019] Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan Omar

Feb 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 14, 2019 at 6:25 am GMT

BRAVO OMAR ..2 nd time in my life I have seen balls in congress.

Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan Omar

Watch the video at link

"Mr. Abrams, in 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later pardoned by president George H.W. Bush," began Omar. "I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful."

"If I could respond to that " interjected Abrams.

"It was not a question," shot back Omar.

After a brief exchange in which Abrams protested "It was not right!" Omar cut Abrams off, saying "Thank you for your participation."

February 13, 2019

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51105.htm

[Feb 14, 2019] Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan Omar

Feb 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 14, 2019 at 6:25 am GMT

BRAVO OMAR ..2 nd time in my life I have seen balls in congress.

Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan Omar

Watch the video at link

"Mr. Abrams, in 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later pardoned by president George H.W. Bush," began Omar. "I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful."

"If I could respond to that " interjected Abrams.

"It was not a question," shot back Omar.

After a brief exchange in which Abrams protested "It was not right!" Omar cut Abrams off, saying "Thank you for your participation."

February 13, 2019

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51105.htm

[Feb 13, 2019] MoA - Russiagate Is Finished

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. ..."
"... Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means. ..."
"... Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party. ..."
"... Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world. ..."
"... Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/ ..."
"... The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course. ..."
"... Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys. ..."
"... It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so ..."
"... If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. ..."
"... See also this primer on Mueller's MO. ..."
"... The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished. a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians. ..."
"... At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population? ..."
"... The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. ..."
"... Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

For more than two years U.S. politicians, the media and some bloggers hyped a conspiracy theory. They claimed that Russia had somehow colluded with the Trump campaign to get him elected.

An obviously fake 'Dirty Dossier' about Trump, commissioned by the Clinton campaign, was presented as evidence. Regular business contacts between Trump flunkies and people in Ukraine or Russia were claimed to be proof for nefarious deals. A Russian click-bait company was accused of manipulating the U.S. electorate by posting puppy pictures and crazy memes on social media. Huge investigations were launched. Every rumor or irrelevant detail coming from them was declared to be - finally - the evidence that would put Trump into the slammer. Every month the walls were closing in on Trump.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qjUvfZj-Fm0

At the same time the very real Trump actions that hurt Russia were ignored.

Finally the conspiracy theory has run out of steam. Russiagate is finished :

After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.
...
Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.

Nothing, zero, nada was found to support the conspiracy theory. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russia. A few flunkies were indicted for unrelated tax issues and for lying to the investigators about some minor details. But nothing at all supports the dramatic claims of collusion made since the beginning of the affair.

In a recent statement House leader Nancy Pelosi was reduced to accuse Trump campaign officials of doing their job:

"The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ...

No one called her out for spouting such nonsense.

Russiagate created a lot of damage.

The alleged Russian influence campaign that never happened was used to install censorship on social media. It was used to undermine the election of progressive Democrats. The weapon salesmen used it to push for more NATO aggression against Russia. Maria Butina, an innocent Russian woman interested in good relation with the United States, was held in solitary confinement (recommended) until she signed a paper which claims that she was involved in a conspiracy.

In a just world the people who for more then two years hyped the conspiracy theory and caused so much damage would be pushed out of their public positions. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. They will jump onto the next conspiracy train continue from there.

Posted by b on February 12, 2019 at 01:38 PM | Permalink

Comments next page " Legally, Maria Butina was suborned into signing a false declaration. If there were the rule of law, such party or parties that suborned her would be in gaol. Considering Mueller's involvement with Lockerbie, I am not holding my breath. FWIW the Swiss company that made the timers allegedly involved in Lockerbie have some comments of its own .


james , Feb 12, 2019 2:00:14 PM | link

thanks b..

I will be really glad when this 'get Russia' craziness is over, but I suspect even if the Mueller investigation has nothing, all the same creeps will be pulling out the stops to generate something... Skripal, Integrity Initiative, and etc. etc. stuff like this just doesn't go away overnight or with the end of this 'investigation'... folks are looking for red meat i tell ya!

as for Maria Butina - i look forward to reading the article.. that was a travesty of justice but the machine moves on, mowing down anyone in it's way... she was on the receiving end of all the paranoia that i have come to associate with the western msm at this point...

Zanon , Feb 12, 2019 2:03:26 PM | link
Considering Mueller hasn't produced its report nor the House dito, its way to early to say Russia gate is "finished".
Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 2:11:44 PM | link
And Russiagate was used ...
... by Hillary to justify her loss to Trump

Hillary's loss is actually best explained as her throwing the election to Trump . The Deep State wanted a nationalist to win as that would best help meet the challenge from Russia and China - a challenge that they had been slow to recognize.

=
... to smear Wikileaks as a Russian agent

The DNC leak is best explained as a CIA false flag.

=
... to remove and smear Michael Flynn

Trump said that he fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence but Flynn's conversations with the Russian Ambassador after Obama threw them out for "meddling" in the US election was an embarrassment to the Administration as Putin's Putin's decision not to respond was portrayed as favoritism toward the Trump Administration.

Rob , Feb 12, 2019 2:28:50 PM | link
You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. This is typical behavior for conspiracy theorists.
bj , Feb 12, 2019 2:30:41 PM | link
Jimmy Dore on same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgBxfHdb4OU Enjoy!
Ort , Feb 12, 2019 2:34:14 PM | link
I hope that Russiagate is indeed "finished", but I think it needs to be draped with garlic-clove necklaces, shot up with silver bullets, sprinkled with holy water, and a wooden stake driven through its black heart just to make sure.

I don't dispute the logical argument B. presents, but it may be too dispassionately rational. I know that the Russiagate proponents and enthralled supporters of the concept are too invested psychologically in this surrealistic fantasy to let go, even if the official outcome reluctantly admits that there's no "there" there.

The Democratic Party, one of the major partners mounting the Russophobic psy-op, has already resolved to turn Democratic committee chairmen loose to dog the Trump administration with hearings aggressively flogging any and all matters that discredit and undermine Trump-- his business connections, social liaisons, etc.

They may hope to find the Holy Grail: the elusive "bombshell" that "demands" impeachment, i.e., some crime or illicit conduct so heinous that the public will stand for another farcical impeachment proceeding. But I reckon that the Dems prefer the "soft" impeachment of harassing Trump with hostile hearings in hopes of destroying his 2020 electability with the death of a thousand innuendoes and guilt-by-association.

Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means.

Put more succinctly, I fear that Russiagate won't be finished until Rachel Maddow says it's finished. ;)

worldblee , Feb 12, 2019 2:38:17 PM | link
Once a hypothesis is fixed in people's minds, whether true or not, it's hard to get them to let go of it. And let's not forget how many times the narrative changed (and this is true in the Skripal case as well), with all past facts vanishing to accommodate a new narrative.

So I, like others, expect the fake scandal to continue while many, many other real crimes (the US attempted coup in Venezuela and the genocidal war in Yemen, for instance) continue unabated.

karlof1 , Feb 12, 2019 2:43:34 PM | link
Putin solicits public input for essential national policy goals . If ever there was a template to follow for an actual MAGAgenda, Putin's Russia provides one. While US politicos argue over what is essentially Bantha Pudu, Russians are hard at work improving their nation which includes restructuring their economy.

Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party.

BlunderOn , Feb 12, 2019 2:48:51 PM | link
mmm...

I very much doubt it it is over. Trump is corrupt and has links to corrupt Russians. Collusion, maybe not, but several stinking individuals are in the frame for, guess what - ...bring it on... The fact that Hilary was arguably even worse (a point made ad-nauseum on here) is frankly irrelevant. The vilification of Trump will not affect the warmongers efforts. He is a useful idiot

james , Feb 12, 2019 2:52:33 PM | link
for a take on the alternative reality some are living in emptywheel has an article up on the nbc link b provides and the article on butina is discussed in the comments section... as i said - they are looking for red meat and will not be happy until they get some... they are completely zonkers...
Blooming Barricade , Feb 12, 2019 2:55:18 PM | link
Now that this racket has been admitted as such, I expect all of the media outlets that devoted banner headlines, hundreds of thousands of hours of cable TV time, thousands of trees, and free speech online to immediately fire all of their journalists and appoint Glenn Greenwald as the publisher of the New York Times, Michael Tracey at the Post, Aaron Matte at the Guardian, and Max Blumenthal at the Daily Beast.

Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world.

jayc , Feb 12, 2019 3:03:51 PM | link
Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/
Heath , Feb 12, 2019 3:18:29 PM | link
It turned out getting rid of the Clintons has been a long term project.
Harry Law , Feb 12, 2019 3:21:58 PM | link
The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course.

Then of course Russia has to be surrounded by NATO should they try and take over Europe by surging through the Fulda gap./s

Then of course there are the professional pundits who have built careers on anti Russian propaganda, Rachel Maddow for instance who earns 30,000$ per day to spew anti Russian nonsense.

folktruther , Feb 12, 2019 3:27:32 PM | link
Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies.

I'm sorry b is so down on Conspiracy Theories, since they reveal quite real staged homicidal false flag operations of US power. Feeding into the stigmatizing of the truth about reality is not in the interests of the earth's people.

frances , Feb 12, 2019 3:31:11 PM | link
somehow I see this "revelation: tied to Barr's approaching tenure. I think they (FBI/DOJ) didn't want his involvement in their noodle soup of an investigation and the best way to accomplish that was to end it themselves. I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone.

So we will see no investigation of Hillary, her 650,000 emails or the many crimes they detailed (according to NYPD investigation of Weiner's laptop) and the US will continue to be at war all day, every day. Team Swamp rules.

Ash , Feb 12, 2019 3:35:06 PM | link
Meanwhile, MSM is prepping its readers for the possibility that the Mueller report will never be released to us proles. If that's the case, I'm sure nobody will try to use innuendo to suggest it actually contains explosive revelations after all...
Heath , Feb 12, 2019 3:38:37 PM | link
@16

Harry, its vitally important as the US desperately wants to keep Europe under its thumb and to stop this European army which means Europe lead by Paris and Berlin becomes a world power. Trump's attempts to make nice with Russia is to keep it out of the EU bloc.

Anne Jaclard , Feb 12, 2019 3:54:47 PM | link
Well, the liberal conspiracy car crash ensured downmarket Mussolini a second term, it appears...Hard Brexit Tories also look likely to win thanks to centrist sabatoge of the left. You reap what you sow, corporate presstitutes!
wagelaborer , Feb 12, 2019 4:05:25 PM | link
Sane people have predicted the end of Russiagate almost as many times as insane people have predicted that the "smoking gun that will get rid of Trump" has been found. And yet the Mighty Wurlitzer grinds on, while social media is more and more censored.

I expect it all to continue until the 2020 election circus winds up into full-throated mode, and no one talks about anything but the next puppet to be appointed. Oops, I mean "elected".

Jen , Feb 12, 2019 4:15:57 PM | link
Ort @ 7:

You also need to behead the corpse, stuff the mouth with a lemon and then place the head down in the coffin with the body in supine (facing up) position. Weight the coffin with stones and wild roses and toss it into a fast-flowing river.

Russiagate won't be finished until a wall is built around Capitol Hill and all its inhabitants and worker bees declared insane by a properly functioning court of law.

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 4:16:59 PM | link
frances @18:
I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone. So we will see no investigation of Hillary ...
Underlying your perspective is the assumption that USA is a democracy where a populist "outsider" could be elected President, Yet you also believe that Hillary and the Deep State have the power to manipulate government and the intelligence agencies and propose a "conspiracy theory" based on that power.

Isn't it more likely that Trump made it clear (behind closed doors, of course) that he was amenable to the goals of the Deep State and that the bogus investigation was merely done to: 1) cover their own election meddling; 2) eliminate threats like Flynn and Assange/Wikileaks; 3) anti-Russian propaganda?

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 4:33:16 PM | link
Jen

Steven Cohen once lamented that there were no "wise men" left in foreign policy. All the independent realists were shut out.

Michael McNulty , Feb 12, 2019 4:49:32 PM | link
US anti-Russian hysteria is moving into that grey area beyond McCarthyism approaching Nazism.
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 4:58:40 PM | link
Dowd, Trump's former lawyer on Russiagate stated there may not even be a report. If this is the case then the Zionist rulers have gotten to Mueller who no doubt figured out that the election collusion breadcrumbs don't lead to Putin, they lead to Netanyahu and Zionist billionaire friends! So Mueller may have to come up with a nothing burger to hide the truth.
Danny , Feb 12, 2019 5:02:34 PM | link
B is the only alternative media blogger I've followed for a significant amount of time without becoming disenfranchised. Not because he has no blind spot - his is just one I can deal with... optimism.

hopehely , Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM | link

I will believe Russiagate is finished when expelled Russian staff gets back, when the US returns the seized Russian properties, when the consulate is Seattle reopens and when USA issues formal apology to Russia.

Posted by: hopehely | Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM | link

bevin , Feb 12, 2019 5:16:18 PM | link
Nobody has ever advanced the tiniest shred of credible evidence that 'Russia' or its government at any level was in any way implicated either in Wikileaks' acquisition of the DNC and Podesta emails or in any form of interference with the Presidential election.

This has been going on for three years and not once has anything like evidence surfaced.

On the other hand there has been an abundance of evidence that those alleging Russian involvement consistently refused to listen to explore the facts.

Incredibly, the DNC computers were never examined by the FBI or any other agency resembling an official police agency. Instead the notorious Crowdstrike professionally russophobic and caught red handed faking data for the Ukrainians against Russia were commissioned to produce a 'report.'

Nobody with any sense would have credited anything about Russiagate after that happened.

Thgen there was the proof, from VIPS and Bill Binney (?) that the computers were not hacked at all but that the information was taken by thumbdrive. A theory which not only Wikileaks but several witnesses have offered to prove.

Not one of them has been contacted by the FBI, Mueller or anyone else "investigating."

In reality the charges from the first were ludicrous on their face. There is, as b has proved and every new day's news attests, not the slightest reason why anyone in the Russian government should have preferred Trump over Clinton. And that is saying something because they are pretty well indistinguishable. And neither has the morals or brains of an adolescent groundhog.

Russiagate is over, alright, The Nothingburger is empty. But that means nothing in this 'civilisation': it will be recorded in the history books, still to be written, by historians still in diapers, that "The 2016 Presidential election, which ended in the controversial defeat of Hillary Clinton, was heavily influenced by Russian agents who hacked ..etc etc"

What will not be remembered is that every single email released was authentic. And that within those troves of correspondence there was enough evidence of criminality by Clinton and her campaign to fill a prison camp.

Another thing that will not be recalled is that there was once a young enthusiastic man, working for the DNC, who was mugged one evening after work and killed.

Baron , Feb 12, 2019 5:16:49 PM | link
The 'no collusion' result will only spur the 'beginning of the end' baboons to shout even more, they'll never stop until they die in their beds or the plebs of the Republic made them adore the street lamp posts, you'll see. The former is by far more likely, the unwashed of American have never had a penchant for foreign affairs except for the few spasms like Vietnam.
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 5:20:11 PM | link
There was collusion alright but the only Russians who helped Trump get elected and were in on the collusion are citizens of ISRAEL FIRST, likewise for the American billionaires who put Trump in the power perch. ISRAEL FIRST.

That's why Trump is on giant billboards in Israel shaking hands with the Yahoo. Trump is higher in the polls in Israel than in the U.S. If it weren't that the Zionist upper crust need Trump doing their dirty work in America, like trying today get rid of Rep. Omar Ilhan, then Trump would win the elections in Ziolandia or Ziostan by a landslide cause he's been better for the Joowish state than all preceding Presidents put together. Mazel tov to them bullshet for the rest of us servile mass in the vassal West and Palestinians the most shafted class ever. Down with Venezuela and Iran, up with oil and gas. The billionare shysters' and Trump's payola is getting closer. Onward AZ Empire!

Les , Feb 12, 2019 5:24:36 PM | link
He proved himself so easy to troll during the election. It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.
Zachary Smith , Feb 12, 2019 5:38:03 PM | link
@ Harry Law #16

At least Germany has the good sense not to throw taxpayer money at the F-35. German F-35 decision sacrifices NATO capability for Franco-German industrial cooperation I don't know what they have in mind with a proposed airplane purchase. If they need fighters, buy or lease Sweden's Gripen. If attack airplanes are what they're after, go to Boeing and get some brand new F-15X models. If the prickly French are agreeable to build a 6th generation aircraft, that would be worth a try.

Regarding Rachel Maddow, I recently had an encounter with a relative who told me 1) I visited too many oddball sites and 2) he considered Rachel M. to be the most reliable news person in existence. I think we're talking "true believer" here. :)

Zachary Smith , Feb 12, 2019 5:43:19 PM | link
@ Les @42
It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.

Considering how those "intelligence agencies" are hard pressed to find their own tails, even if you allow them to use both hands, it would surprise me.

That Trump would turn out to be a tub of jello in more than just a physical way has been a surprise to an awful lot of us.

Pft , Feb 12, 2019 5:44:54 PM | link

Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys.

It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so

Allowed the bipartisan support for the clamp down on alt media with censorship by social media (Deep State Tools) and funded by the Ministry of Truth set up by Obama in his last days in office to under the false pretense of protecting us from foreign governments interference in elections (except Israel of course) . Similar agencies have been set up or planned to be in other countries followig the US example such as UK, France, Russia, etc.

Did anyone really expect Mr "Cover It Up " Mueller to find anything? Mueller is Deep State all the way and Trump is as well, not withstanding the "Fake Wrestling " drama that they are bitter enemies. All the surveillance done over the past 2-3 decades would have so much dirt on the Trumpet they could silence him forever . Trump knew that going in and I sometimes wonder if he was pressured to run as a condition to avoid prosecution. Pretty sure every President since Carter has been "Kompromat"

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 6:29:51 PM | link
james, bevin

If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

stevelaudig , Feb 12, 2019 6:34:12 PM | link
Russians and likely at the behest of the Russian state interfered and it was fair payback for Yeltsin's election. It is time to move on but not in feigned ignorance of what was done. Was it "outcome" affecting, possibly, but not clearly and if the US electoral college and electoral system generally is so decrepit that a second level power in the world can influence then its the US's fault.

It's not like the 2000 election wasn't a warning shot about the rottenness of system and a system that doesn't understand a warning shot deserves pretty much what it gets. But there's enough non-hype evidence of acts and intent to say yes, the Russians tried and may have succeeded. They certainly are acting guilty enough. but still close the book move and move on to Trump's 'real' crimes which were done without a Russian assist.

spudski , Feb 12, 2019 6:52:50 PM | link
@38 bevin @47 james

I seem to recall former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray saying that it was not a hack and that he had been handed a thumb drive in a field near American University by a disgruntled Democrat whistleblower. Further, I seem to recall William Binney, former NSA Technical Leader for intelligence, conducting an experiment to show that internet speeds at the time would not allow the information to be hacked - they knew the size of the files and the period over which they were downloaded. Plus, Seth Rich. So why does anyone even believe it was a hack, @32 THN?

Johan Meyer , Feb 12, 2019 6:55:54 PM | link
Just another comment re Mueller. There is a great documentary by (Dutch, not Israeli---different person) Gideon Levy, Lockerbie Revisited. The narration is in Dutch, but the interviews are in English, and there is a small segment of a German broadcast. The documentary ends abruptly where one set of FBI personnel contradict statements by another set of FBI personnel. See also this primer on Mueller's MO.
frances , Feb 12, 2019 7:11:07 PM | link
reply to Les 42
"It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate."

Not the intelligence agencies, the Military IMO. They knew HC for what she was; horrifically corrupt and,again IMO,they know she is insane.

They saw and I think still see Trump as someone they could work with, remember Rogers (Navy) of the NSA going to him immediately once he was elected? That was the Military protecting him as best they could.

They IMO have kept him alive and as long as he doesn't send any troops into "real" wars, they will keep on keeping him alive.
This doesn't mean Trump hasn't gone over to the Dark Side, just that no military action will take place that the military command doesn't fully support.

Again, I could be wrong, he could be backed by fiends from Patagonia for all I really know:)

AriusArmenian , Feb 12, 2019 8:44:27 PM | link
The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war.
james , Feb 12, 2019 9:34:59 PM | link
ot - further to @65 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5YFos56ZU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5YFos56ZU

as jr says - welcome to the rabbit hole..

ben , Feb 12, 2019 10:11:05 PM | link
Hope you're right b. Maybe now we can get on with some real truths.
  1. That there is really only one party with real influence, the party of $.
  2. That most of the Dems belong to that club, and virtually all the Repubs.
  3. That the U$A is not a real democracy, but an Oligarchy.
  4. That the corporate empire is the greatest purveyor of evil the world has ever known.

And these are just a few truths. Thanks for the therapy b, hope you feel better...

Circe , Feb 12, 2019 10:52:22 PM | link
Boy, I hope Jackrabbit sees this. Everyone knows I believe Trump is the anointed chosen of the Zionist 1%. There was no Russia collusion; it was Zionist collusion with a Russian twist...
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 11:11:17 PM | link
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention the latest. Trump is asking Kim to provide a list of his nuclear scientists! Before Kim acts on this request, he should call up the Iranian government for advise 'cause they have lots of experience and can warn Kim of what will happen to each of those scientists. They'll be put on a kill-list and will be extrajudicially wacked as in executed. Can you believe the chutzpah? Trump must think Kim is really stupid to fall for that one!

Aye! The thought of six more years of Zionist pandering Trump. Barf-inducing prospect is too tame.

PHC , Feb 13, 2019 2:25:44 AM | link

Russiagate is finished. So, now is the time to create Chinagate. But how ??

V , Feb 13, 2019 2:25:48 AM | link
The view from the hermitage is, we are in the age of distractions. Russiagate will be replaced with one of a litany of distractions, purely designed to keep us off target. The target being, corruption, vote rigging, illegal wars, war crimes, overthrowing sovereign governments, and political assasinations, both at home and abroad. Those so distracted, will focus on sillyness; not the genuine danger afoot around the planet. Get used to it; it's become the new normal.
Circe , Feb 13, 2019 3:53:19 AM | link
@76Hw
I have yet to read anything more delusional, nay, utterly preposterous. Methinks you over-project too much. Even Trump would have a belly-ache laugh reading that sheeple spiel. You're the type that sees the giant billboard of Zionist Trump and Yahoo shaking hands and drones on and on that our lying eyes deceive us and it's really Trump playing 4-D chess. I suppose when he tried to pressure Omar Ilhan into resigning her seat in Congress yesterday, that too was reverse psychology?

Trump instagramed the billboard pic, he tweeted it, he probably pasted it on his wall; maybe with your kind of wacky, Trump infatuation, you should too!

Starring role

Circe , Feb 13, 2019 4:15:37 AM | link
Russiagate is finished because Mueller discovered an embarrassing fact: The collusion was and always will be with Israel. Here's Trump professing his endless love for Zionism: Trump Resign
snake , Feb 13, 2019 5:13:14 AM | link

Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished.
a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians.

Most designs of armed nation states provide the designers with information feedback and the designers use that information to appoint more obedient politicians and generals to run things, and to improve the design to better serve the designers. The armed rule making structure is designed to give the designers complete control over those targeted to be the governed. Why so stupid the governed? ; always they allow themselves to be manipulated like sheep.

When 10 angry folks approach you with two pieces of ropes: one to throw over the tree branch under which your horse will be supporting you while they tie the noose around your neck and the other shorter piece of rope to tie your hands behind ..your back you need at that point to make your words count , if five of the people are black and five are white. all you need do is say how smart the blacks are, and how stupid the whites are, as the two groups fight each other you manage your escape. democrat vs republican= divide to conquer. gun, no gun = divide to conquer, HRC vs DJT = divide to conquer, abortion, no abortion = divide to conquer, Trump is a Russian planted in a high level USA position of power = divide to conquer, They were all in on it together,, Muller was in the white house to keep the media supplied with XXX, to keep the law enforcement agencies in the loop, and to advise trump so things would not get out of hand ( its called Manipulation and the adherents to the economic system called Zionism
For the record, Zionism is not related to race, religion or intelligence. Zionism is a system of economics that take's no captives, its adherents must own everything, must destroy and decimate all actual or imaginary competition, for Zionist are the owners and masters of everything? Zionism is about power, absolute power, monopoly ownership and using governments everywhere to abuse the governed. Zionism has many adherents, whites, blacks, browns, Christians, Jews, Islamist, Indians, you name it among each class of person and walk of life can be found persons who subscribe to the idea that they, and only they, should own everything, and when those of us, that are content to be the governed let them, before the kill and murder us, they usually end up owning everything.

snake , Feb 13, 2019 6:08:16 AM | link
Here might the subject matter that Russia Gate sought to camouflage https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/02/13/588433/US-Saudi-Arabia-nuclear-deal-nuclear-weapons 'This comes as US Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been holding secret talks with Saudi officials on sharing US nuclear technology.'

Finally, a hypothesis to explain

1. why the Joint non nuclear agreement with Iran and the other nuclear power nations, that prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons, was trashed? Someone needs to be able to say Iran is developing ..., at the right time.

2. Why Netanyohu made public a video that claimed Iran was developing nuclear stuff in violation of the Iran non nuclear agreement, and everybody laughed,

3. Why the nuclear non proliferation agreement with Russia, that terminated the costly useless arms race a decade ago, has been recently terminated, to reestablish the nuclear arms race, no apparent reason was given the implication might be Russia could be a target, but

4. why it might make sense to give nukes to Saudi Arabia or some other rogue nation, and

5. why no one is allowed to have nuclear weapons except the Zionist owned and controlled nation states.

Statement: Zionism is an economic system that requires the elimination of all competition of whatever kind. It is a winner get's all, takes no prisoners, targets all who would threaten or be a challenge or a threat; does not matter if the threat is in in oil and gas, technology or weapons as soon as a possibility exist, the principles of Zionism would require that it be taken out, decimated, and destroyed and made where never again it could even remotely be a threat to the Empire, that Zionism demands..

Hypothesis: A claim that another is developing nuclear weapon capabilities is sufficient to take that other out?

Kiza , Feb 13, 2019 8:26:29 AM | link
I am glad that most commenters understand that Russiagate will not go away. But the majority appear to miss the real reason. Russiagate is not an accusation, it is the state of mind.

At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population?

The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. Of course, the most ironic in the affair is that it is the so called US "intellectuals", academics and other assorted cretins who are the most fervent proponents. If you were wondering how Russia can make such amazing defensive weapons that US can only deny exist and wet dream of having, there is your answer. It is the state of mind. The whole of US establishment are legends in their on lunch time and totally delusional about the reality surrounding them - both Russiagate and MAGA cretins, no report can help the Russiagate nation.

Finally, I am thinking of that crazy and ugly professor bitch from the British Cambridge University who gives her lectures naked to protest something or other. I am so lucky that I do not have to go to a Western university ever again. What a catastrophic decline! No Brexit can help the Skripal nation.

NemesisCalling , Feb 13, 2019 8:46:48 AM | link
Russiagate is finished, but is DJT also among the rubble?

Hardly any money for the border wall and still lingering in the ME?

If Hoarsewhisperer proves to be correct above re: DJT, he will really have to knock our socks off before election 2020. To do this he will have to unequivocally and unceremoniously withdraw from the MENA and Afghanistan and possibly declare a National Emergency for more money for the wall.

The problem is, when he does this, he will look impulsively dangerous and this may harm his mystique to the lemmings who need a president to be more "presidential."

My money is on status quo all the way to 2020 and the rethugz hoping the Dems will eat their own in an orgy of warring identities.

I would love to be proven wrong.

morongobill , Feb 13, 2019 9:52:25 AM | link
Rush Limbaugh has been on a roll with his analysis of Russiagate, in fact, his analysis is in line with the writer/editor here at MOA.
Bart Hansen , Feb 13, 2019 10:52:12 AM | link
The collusion story may be faltering, but the blame for Russia poisoning the Skripals lives on. The other night on The News Hour, "Judy" led off the program with this: "It has been almost a year since Kremlin intelligence officers attempted to kill a Russian defector in the British city of Salisbury by poisoning him with a nerve agent. That attack, and the subsequent death of a British woman, scared away tourists and shoppers, but authorities and residents are working to get the town's economy back on track. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports."
Erelis , Feb 13, 2019 12:15:48 PM | link

Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry.

Here is one recent example. You know the measles outbreak in the US Pacific Northwest. Yup, the Russians. How do we know. A government funded research grant. The study found that 899 tweets caused people to doubt vaccines. Looks like money is to be had even by academics for the right results.

Measles outbreak: Anti-vaccination misinformation fueled by Russian propagandists, study finds
https://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/2019/02/measles-outbreak-anti-vaccination-misinformation-fueled-by-russian-propagandists-study-finds.html

[Feb 13, 2019] Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins

Highly recommended!
Pretty biting satire
Notable quotes:
"... So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under. ..."
"... Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly). ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela. ..."
"... And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly, but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time. Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and " the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton lost the election.

I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve Congress, and proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two years.

So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under.

I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet. Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.

Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again." Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or Ukrainian democracy.

This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly).

Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela.

The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system (i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.

What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.

Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home," and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.

What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they? Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations. Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron, ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British" company?

And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself, honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing? And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance corporation to not really cover you.

For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them. Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called "new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked up out of the water.

In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in France at the moment, by beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.

Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .

[Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... War with Russia. ..."
"... Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate." ..."
"... "When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media." ..."
"... "And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything." ..."
"... "That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that." ..."
"... Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

On stage at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. this past week was Princeton University Professor Emeritus Stephen Cohen, author of the new book, War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate.

Cohen has largely been banished from mainstream media.

"I had been arguing for years -- very much against the American political media grain -- that a new US/Russian Cold War was unfolding -- driven primarily by politics in Washington, not Moscow," Cohen writes in War with Russia. "For this perspective, I had been largely excluded from influential print, broadcast and cable outlets where I had been previously welcomed."

On the stage at Busboys and Poets with Cohen was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation magazine, and Robert Borosage, co-founder of the Campaign for America's Future.

During question time, Cohen was asked about the extent of the censorship in the context of other Americans who had been banished from mainstream American media, including Ralph Nader, whom the liberal Democratic establishment, including Borosage and Vanden Heuvel, stiff armed when he crashed the corporate political parties in the electoral arena in 2004 and 2008.

Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union.

"Until some period of time before Trump, on the question of what America's policy toward Putin's Kremlin should be, there was a reasonable facsimile of a debate on those venues that had these discussions," Cohen said. "Are we allowed to mention the former Charlie Rose for example? On the long interview form, Charlie would have on a person who would argue for a very hard policy toward Putin. And then somebody like myself who thought it wasn't a good idea."

"Occasionally that got on CNN too. MSNBC not so much. And you could get an op-ed piece published, with effort, in the New York Times or Washington Post ."

"Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times six or seven years ago. But then it stopped. And to me, that's the fundamental difference between this Cold War and the preceding Cold War."

"I will tell you off the record – no, I'm not going to do it," Cohen said. "Two exceedingly imminent Americans, who most op-ed pages would die to get a piece by, just to say they were on the page, submitted such articles to the New York Times , and they were rejected the same day. They didn't even debate it. They didn't even come back and say – could you tone it down? They just didn't want it."

"Now is that censorship? In Italy, where each political party has its own newspaper, you would say – okay fair enough. I will go to a newspaper that wants me. But here, we are used to these newspapers."

"Remember how it works. I was in TV for 18 years being paid by CBS. So, I know how these things work. TV doesn't generate its own news anymore. Their actual reporting has been de-budgeted. They do video versions of what is in the newspapers."

"Look at the cable talk shows. You see it in the New York Times and Washington Post in the morning, you turn on the TV at night and there is the video version. That's just the way the news business works now."

"The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate."

"If you are not, then you struggle to create your own alternative media. It's new in my lifetime. I know these imminent Americans I mentioned were shocked when they were just told no. It's a lockdown. And it is a form of censorship."

"When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media."

"Dissidents created what is known as samizdat – that's typescript that you circulate by hand. Gorbachev, before he came to power, did read some samizdat. But it's no match for newspapers published with five, six, seven million copies a day. Or the three television networks which were the only television networks Soviet citizens had access to."

"And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything."

"That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that."

Cohen appears periodically on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News. And that rankled one person in the audience at Busboys and Poets, who said he worried that Cohen's perspective on Russia can be "appropriated by the right."

"Trump can take that and run on a nationalistic platform – to hell with NATO, to hell with fighting these endless wars, to do what he did in 2016 and get the votes of people who are very concerned about the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia," the man said.

Cohen says that on a personal level, he likes Tucker Carlson "and I don't find him to be a racist or a nationalist."

"Nationalism is on the rise around the world everywhere," Cohen said. "There are different kinds of nationalism. We always called it patriotism in this country, but we have always been a nationalistic country."

"Fox has about three to four million viewers at that hour," Cohen said. "If I am not permitted to give my take on American/Russian relations on any other mass media, and by the way, possibly talk directly to Trump, who seems to like his show, and say – Trump is making a mistake, he should do this or do that instead -- I don't get many opportunities – and I can't see why I shouldn't do it."

"I get three and a half to four minutes," Cohen said. "I don't see it as consistent with my mission, if that's the right word, to say no. These articles I write for The Nation , which ended up in my book, are posted on some of the most God awful websites in the world. I had to look them up to find out how bad they really are. But what can I do about it?"

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Russell Mokhiber

Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter..

[Feb 13, 2019] MoA - Russiagate Is Finished

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. ..."
"... Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means. ..."
"... Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party. ..."
"... Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world. ..."
"... Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/ ..."
"... The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course. ..."
"... Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys. ..."
"... It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so ..."
"... If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. ..."
"... See also this primer on Mueller's MO. ..."
"... The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished. a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians. ..."
"... At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population? ..."
"... The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. ..."
"... Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

For more than two years U.S. politicians, the media and some bloggers hyped a conspiracy theory. They claimed that Russia had somehow colluded with the Trump campaign to get him elected.

An obviously fake 'Dirty Dossier' about Trump, commissioned by the Clinton campaign, was presented as evidence. Regular business contacts between Trump flunkies and people in Ukraine or Russia were claimed to be proof for nefarious deals. A Russian click-bait company was accused of manipulating the U.S. electorate by posting puppy pictures and crazy memes on social media. Huge investigations were launched. Every rumor or irrelevant detail coming from them was declared to be - finally - the evidence that would put Trump into the slammer. Every month the walls were closing in on Trump.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qjUvfZj-Fm0

At the same time the very real Trump actions that hurt Russia were ignored.

Finally the conspiracy theory has run out of steam. Russiagate is finished :

After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.
...
Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.

Nothing, zero, nada was found to support the conspiracy theory. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russia. A few flunkies were indicted for unrelated tax issues and for lying to the investigators about some minor details. But nothing at all supports the dramatic claims of collusion made since the beginning of the affair.

In a recent statement House leader Nancy Pelosi was reduced to accuse Trump campaign officials of doing their job:

"The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ...

No one called her out for spouting such nonsense.

Russiagate created a lot of damage.

The alleged Russian influence campaign that never happened was used to install censorship on social media. It was used to undermine the election of progressive Democrats. The weapon salesmen used it to push for more NATO aggression against Russia. Maria Butina, an innocent Russian woman interested in good relation with the United States, was held in solitary confinement (recommended) until she signed a paper which claims that she was involved in a conspiracy.

In a just world the people who for more then two years hyped the conspiracy theory and caused so much damage would be pushed out of their public positions. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. They will jump onto the next conspiracy train continue from there.

Posted by b on February 12, 2019 at 01:38 PM | Permalink

Comments next page " Legally, Maria Butina was suborned into signing a false declaration. If there were the rule of law, such party or parties that suborned her would be in gaol. Considering Mueller's involvement with Lockerbie, I am not holding my breath. FWIW the Swiss company that made the timers allegedly involved in Lockerbie have some comments of its own .


james , Feb 12, 2019 2:00:14 PM | link

thanks b..

I will be really glad when this 'get Russia' craziness is over, but I suspect even if the Mueller investigation has nothing, all the same creeps will be pulling out the stops to generate something... Skripal, Integrity Initiative, and etc. etc. stuff like this just doesn't go away overnight or with the end of this 'investigation'... folks are looking for red meat i tell ya!

as for Maria Butina - i look forward to reading the article.. that was a travesty of justice but the machine moves on, mowing down anyone in it's way... she was on the receiving end of all the paranoia that i have come to associate with the western msm at this point...

Zanon , Feb 12, 2019 2:03:26 PM | link
Considering Mueller hasn't produced its report nor the House dito, its way to early to say Russia gate is "finished".
Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 2:11:44 PM | link
And Russiagate was used ...
... by Hillary to justify her loss to Trump

Hillary's loss is actually best explained as her throwing the election to Trump . The Deep State wanted a nationalist to win as that would best help meet the challenge from Russia and China - a challenge that they had been slow to recognize.

=
... to smear Wikileaks as a Russian agent

The DNC leak is best explained as a CIA false flag.

=
... to remove and smear Michael Flynn

Trump said that he fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence but Flynn's conversations with the Russian Ambassador after Obama threw them out for "meddling" in the US election was an embarrassment to the Administration as Putin's Putin's decision not to respond was portrayed as favoritism toward the Trump Administration.

Rob , Feb 12, 2019 2:28:50 PM | link
You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. This is typical behavior for conspiracy theorists.
bj , Feb 12, 2019 2:30:41 PM | link
Jimmy Dore on same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgBxfHdb4OU Enjoy!
Ort , Feb 12, 2019 2:34:14 PM | link
I hope that Russiagate is indeed "finished", but I think it needs to be draped with garlic-clove necklaces, shot up with silver bullets, sprinkled with holy water, and a wooden stake driven through its black heart just to make sure.

I don't dispute the logical argument B. presents, but it may be too dispassionately rational. I know that the Russiagate proponents and enthralled supporters of the concept are too invested psychologically in this surrealistic fantasy to let go, even if the official outcome reluctantly admits that there's no "there" there.

The Democratic Party, one of the major partners mounting the Russophobic psy-op, has already resolved to turn Democratic committee chairmen loose to dog the Trump administration with hearings aggressively flogging any and all matters that discredit and undermine Trump-- his business connections, social liaisons, etc.

They may hope to find the Holy Grail: the elusive "bombshell" that "demands" impeachment, i.e., some crime or illicit conduct so heinous that the public will stand for another farcical impeachment proceeding. But I reckon that the Dems prefer the "soft" impeachment of harassing Trump with hostile hearings in hopes of destroying his 2020 electability with the death of a thousand innuendoes and guilt-by-association.

Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means.

Put more succinctly, I fear that Russiagate won't be finished until Rachel Maddow says it's finished. ;)

worldblee , Feb 12, 2019 2:38:17 PM | link
Once a hypothesis is fixed in people's minds, whether true or not, it's hard to get them to let go of it. And let's not forget how many times the narrative changed (and this is true in the Skripal case as well), with all past facts vanishing to accommodate a new narrative.

So I, like others, expect the fake scandal to continue while many, many other real crimes (the US attempted coup in Venezuela and the genocidal war in Yemen, for instance) continue unabated.

karlof1 , Feb 12, 2019 2:43:34 PM | link
Putin solicits public input for essential national policy goals . If ever there was a template to follow for an actual MAGAgenda, Putin's Russia provides one. While US politicos argue over what is essentially Bantha Pudu, Russians are hard at work improving their nation which includes restructuring their economy.

Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party.

BlunderOn , Feb 12, 2019 2:48:51 PM | link
mmm...

I very much doubt it it is over. Trump is corrupt and has links to corrupt Russians. Collusion, maybe not, but several stinking individuals are in the frame for, guess what - ...bring it on... The fact that Hilary was arguably even worse (a point made ad-nauseum on here) is frankly irrelevant. The vilification of Trump will not affect the warmongers efforts. He is a useful idiot

james , Feb 12, 2019 2:52:33 PM | link
for a take on the alternative reality some are living in emptywheel has an article up on the nbc link b provides and the article on butina is discussed in the comments section... as i said - they are looking for red meat and will not be happy until they get some... they are completely zonkers...
Blooming Barricade , Feb 12, 2019 2:55:18 PM | link
Now that this racket has been admitted as such, I expect all of the media outlets that devoted banner headlines, hundreds of thousands of hours of cable TV time, thousands of trees, and free speech online to immediately fire all of their journalists and appoint Glenn Greenwald as the publisher of the New York Times, Michael Tracey at the Post, Aaron Matte at the Guardian, and Max Blumenthal at the Daily Beast.

Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world.

jayc , Feb 12, 2019 3:03:51 PM | link
Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/
Heath , Feb 12, 2019 3:18:29 PM | link
It turned out getting rid of the Clintons has been a long term project.
Harry Law , Feb 12, 2019 3:21:58 PM | link
The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course.

Then of course Russia has to be surrounded by NATO should they try and take over Europe by surging through the Fulda gap./s

Then of course there are the professional pundits who have built careers on anti Russian propaganda, Rachel Maddow for instance who earns 30,000$ per day to spew anti Russian nonsense.

folktruther , Feb 12, 2019 3:27:32 PM | link
Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies.

I'm sorry b is so down on Conspiracy Theories, since they reveal quite real staged homicidal false flag operations of US power. Feeding into the stigmatizing of the truth about reality is not in the interests of the earth's people.

frances , Feb 12, 2019 3:31:11 PM | link
somehow I see this "revelation: tied to Barr's approaching tenure. I think they (FBI/DOJ) didn't want his involvement in their noodle soup of an investigation and the best way to accomplish that was to end it themselves. I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone.

So we will see no investigation of Hillary, her 650,000 emails or the many crimes they detailed (according to NYPD investigation of Weiner's laptop) and the US will continue to be at war all day, every day. Team Swamp rules.

Ash , Feb 12, 2019 3:35:06 PM | link
Meanwhile, MSM is prepping its readers for the possibility that the Mueller report will never be released to us proles. If that's the case, I'm sure nobody will try to use innuendo to suggest it actually contains explosive revelations after all...
Heath , Feb 12, 2019 3:38:37 PM | link
@16

Harry, its vitally important as the US desperately wants to keep Europe under its thumb and to stop this European army which means Europe lead by Paris and Berlin becomes a world power. Trump's attempts to make nice with Russia is to keep it out of the EU bloc.

Anne Jaclard , Feb 12, 2019 3:54:47 PM | link
Well, the liberal conspiracy car crash ensured downmarket Mussolini a second term, it appears...Hard Brexit Tories also look likely to win thanks to centrist sabatoge of the left. You reap what you sow, corporate presstitutes!
wagelaborer , Feb 12, 2019 4:05:25 PM | link
Sane people have predicted the end of Russiagate almost as many times as insane people have predicted that the "smoking gun that will get rid of Trump" has been found. And yet the Mighty Wurlitzer grinds on, while social media is more and more censored.

I expect it all to continue until the 2020 election circus winds up into full-throated mode, and no one talks about anything but the next puppet to be appointed. Oops, I mean "elected".

Jen , Feb 12, 2019 4:15:57 PM | link
Ort @ 7:

You also need to behead the corpse, stuff the mouth with a lemon and then place the head down in the coffin with the body in supine (facing up) position. Weight the coffin with stones and wild roses and toss it into a fast-flowing river.

Russiagate won't be finished until a wall is built around Capitol Hill and all its inhabitants and worker bees declared insane by a properly functioning court of law.

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 4:16:59 PM | link
frances @18:
I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone. So we will see no investigation of Hillary ...
Underlying your perspective is the assumption that USA is a democracy where a populist "outsider" could be elected President, Yet you also believe that Hillary and the Deep State have the power to manipulate government and the intelligence agencies and propose a "conspiracy theory" based on that power.

Isn't it more likely that Trump made it clear (behind closed doors, of course) that he was amenable to the goals of the Deep State and that the bogus investigation was merely done to: 1) cover their own election meddling; 2) eliminate threats like Flynn and Assange/Wikileaks; 3) anti-Russian propaganda?

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 4:33:16 PM | link
Jen

Steven Cohen once lamented that there were no "wise men" left in foreign policy. All the independent realists were shut out.

Michael McNulty , Feb 12, 2019 4:49:32 PM | link
US anti-Russian hysteria is moving into that grey area beyond McCarthyism approaching Nazism.
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 4:58:40 PM | link
Dowd, Trump's former lawyer on Russiagate stated there may not even be a report. If this is the case then the Zionist rulers have gotten to Mueller who no doubt figured out that the election collusion breadcrumbs don't lead to Putin, they lead to Netanyahu and Zionist billionaire friends! So Mueller may have to come up with a nothing burger to hide the truth.
Danny , Feb 12, 2019 5:02:34 PM | link
B is the only alternative media blogger I've followed for a significant amount of time without becoming disenfranchised. Not because he has no blind spot - his is just one I can deal with... optimism.

hopehely , Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM | link

I will believe Russiagate is finished when expelled Russian staff gets back, when the US returns the seized Russian properties, when the consulate is Seattle reopens and when USA issues formal apology to Russia.

Posted by: hopehely | Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM | link

bevin , Feb 12, 2019 5:16:18 PM | link
Nobody has ever advanced the tiniest shred of credible evidence that 'Russia' or its government at any level was in any way implicated either in Wikileaks' acquisition of the DNC and Podesta emails or in any form of interference with the Presidential election.

This has been going on for three years and not once has anything like evidence surfaced.

On the other hand there has been an abundance of evidence that those alleging Russian involvement consistently refused to listen to explore the facts.

Incredibly, the DNC computers were never examined by the FBI or any other agency resembling an official police agency. Instead the notorious Crowdstrike professionally russophobic and caught red handed faking data for the Ukrainians against Russia were commissioned to produce a 'report.'

Nobody with any sense would have credited anything about Russiagate after that happened.

Thgen there was the proof, from VIPS and Bill Binney (?) that the computers were not hacked at all but that the information was taken by thumbdrive. A theory which not only Wikileaks but several witnesses have offered to prove.

Not one of them has been contacted by the FBI, Mueller or anyone else "investigating."

In reality the charges from the first were ludicrous on their face. There is, as b has proved and every new day's news attests, not the slightest reason why anyone in the Russian government should have preferred Trump over Clinton. And that is saying something because they are pretty well indistinguishable. And neither has the morals or brains of an adolescent groundhog.

Russiagate is over, alright, The Nothingburger is empty. But that means nothing in this 'civilisation': it will be recorded in the history books, still to be written, by historians still in diapers, that "The 2016 Presidential election, which ended in the controversial defeat of Hillary Clinton, was heavily influenced by Russian agents who hacked ..etc etc"

What will not be remembered is that every single email released was authentic. And that within those troves of correspondence there was enough evidence of criminality by Clinton and her campaign to fill a prison camp.

Another thing that will not be recalled is that there was once a young enthusiastic man, working for the DNC, who was mugged one evening after work and killed.

Baron , Feb 12, 2019 5:16:49 PM | link
The 'no collusion' result will only spur the 'beginning of the end' baboons to shout even more, they'll never stop until they die in their beds or the plebs of the Republic made them adore the street lamp posts, you'll see. The former is by far more likely, the unwashed of American have never had a penchant for foreign affairs except for the few spasms like Vietnam.
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 5:20:11 PM | link
There was collusion alright but the only Russians who helped Trump get elected and were in on the collusion are citizens of ISRAEL FIRST, likewise for the American billionaires who put Trump in the power perch. ISRAEL FIRST.

That's why Trump is on giant billboards in Israel shaking hands with the Yahoo. Trump is higher in the polls in Israel than in the U.S. If it weren't that the Zionist upper crust need Trump doing their dirty work in America, like trying today get rid of Rep. Omar Ilhan, then Trump would win the elections in Ziolandia or Ziostan by a landslide cause he's been better for the Joowish state than all preceding Presidents put together. Mazel tov to them bullshet for the rest of us servile mass in the vassal West and Palestinians the most shafted class ever. Down with Venezuela and Iran, up with oil and gas. The billionare shysters' and Trump's payola is getting closer. Onward AZ Empire!

Les , Feb 12, 2019 5:24:36 PM | link
He proved himself so easy to troll during the election. It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.
Zachary Smith , Feb 12, 2019 5:38:03 PM | link
@ Harry Law #16

At least Germany has the good sense not to throw taxpayer money at the F-35. German F-35 decision sacrifices NATO capability for Franco-German industrial cooperation I don't know what they have in mind with a proposed airplane purchase. If they need fighters, buy or lease Sweden's Gripen. If attack airplanes are what they're after, go to Boeing and get some brand new F-15X models. If the prickly French are agreeable to build a 6th generation aircraft, that would be worth a try.

Regarding Rachel Maddow, I recently had an encounter with a relative who told me 1) I visited too many oddball sites and 2) he considered Rachel M. to be the most reliable news person in existence. I think we're talking "true believer" here. :)

Zachary Smith , Feb 12, 2019 5:43:19 PM | link
@ Les @42
It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.

Considering how those "intelligence agencies" are hard pressed to find their own tails, even if you allow them to use both hands, it would surprise me.

That Trump would turn out to be a tub of jello in more than just a physical way has been a surprise to an awful lot of us.

Pft , Feb 12, 2019 5:44:54 PM | link

Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys.

It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so

Allowed the bipartisan support for the clamp down on alt media with censorship by social media (Deep State Tools) and funded by the Ministry of Truth set up by Obama in his last days in office to under the false pretense of protecting us from foreign governments interference in elections (except Israel of course) . Similar agencies have been set up or planned to be in other countries followig the US example such as UK, France, Russia, etc.

Did anyone really expect Mr "Cover It Up " Mueller to find anything? Mueller is Deep State all the way and Trump is as well, not withstanding the "Fake Wrestling " drama that they are bitter enemies. All the surveillance done over the past 2-3 decades would have so much dirt on the Trumpet they could silence him forever . Trump knew that going in and I sometimes wonder if he was pressured to run as a condition to avoid prosecution. Pretty sure every President since Carter has been "Kompromat"

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 6:29:51 PM | link
james, bevin

If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

stevelaudig , Feb 12, 2019 6:34:12 PM | link
Russians and likely at the behest of the Russian state interfered and it was fair payback for Yeltsin's election. It is time to move on but not in feigned ignorance of what was done. Was it "outcome" affecting, possibly, but not clearly and if the US electoral college and electoral system generally is so decrepit that a second level power in the world can influence then its the US's fault.

It's not like the 2000 election wasn't a warning shot about the rottenness of system and a system that doesn't understand a warning shot deserves pretty much what it gets. But there's enough non-hype evidence of acts and intent to say yes, the Russians tried and may have succeeded. They certainly are acting guilty enough. but still close the book move and move on to Trump's 'real' crimes which were done without a Russian assist.

spudski , Feb 12, 2019 6:52:50 PM | link
@38 bevin @47 james

I seem to recall former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray saying that it was not a hack and that he had been handed a thumb drive in a field near American University by a disgruntled Democrat whistleblower. Further, I seem to recall William Binney, former NSA Technical Leader for intelligence, conducting an experiment to show that internet speeds at the time would not allow the information to be hacked - they knew the size of the files and the period over which they were downloaded. Plus, Seth Rich. So why does anyone even believe it was a hack, @32 THN?

Johan Meyer , Feb 12, 2019 6:55:54 PM | link
Just another comment re Mueller. There is a great documentary by (Dutch, not Israeli---different person) Gideon Levy, Lockerbie Revisited. The narration is in Dutch, but the interviews are in English, and there is a small segment of a German broadcast. The documentary ends abruptly where one set of FBI personnel contradict statements by another set of FBI personnel. See also this primer on Mueller's MO.
frances , Feb 12, 2019 7:11:07 PM | link
reply to Les 42
"It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate."

Not the intelligence agencies, the Military IMO. They knew HC for what she was; horrifically corrupt and,again IMO,they know she is insane.

They saw and I think still see Trump as someone they could work with, remember Rogers (Navy) of the NSA going to him immediately once he was elected? That was the Military protecting him as best they could.

They IMO have kept him alive and as long as he doesn't send any troops into "real" wars, they will keep on keeping him alive.
This doesn't mean Trump hasn't gone over to the Dark Side, just that no military action will take place that the military command doesn't fully support.

Again, I could be wrong, he could be backed by fiends from Patagonia for all I really know:)

AriusArmenian , Feb 12, 2019 8:44:27 PM | link
The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war.
james , Feb 12, 2019 9:34:59 PM | link
ot - further to @65 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5YFos56ZU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5YFos56ZU

as jr says - welcome to the rabbit hole..

ben , Feb 12, 2019 10:11:05 PM | link
Hope you're right b. Maybe now we can get on with some real truths.
  1. That there is really only one party with real influence, the party of $.
  2. That most of the Dems belong to that club, and virtually all the Repubs.
  3. That the U$A is not a real democracy, but an Oligarchy.
  4. That the corporate empire is the greatest purveyor of evil the world has ever known.

And these are just a few truths. Thanks for the therapy b, hope you feel better...

Circe , Feb 12, 2019 10:52:22 PM | link
Boy, I hope Jackrabbit sees this. Everyone knows I believe Trump is the anointed chosen of the Zionist 1%. There was no Russia collusion; it was Zionist collusion with a Russian twist...
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 11:11:17 PM | link
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention the latest. Trump is asking Kim to provide a list of his nuclear scientists! Before Kim acts on this request, he should call up the Iranian government for advise 'cause they have lots of experience and can warn Kim of what will happen to each of those scientists. They'll be put on a kill-list and will be extrajudicially wacked as in executed. Can you believe the chutzpah? Trump must think Kim is really stupid to fall for that one!

Aye! The thought of six more years of Zionist pandering Trump. Barf-inducing prospect is too tame.

PHC , Feb 13, 2019 2:25:44 AM | link

Russiagate is finished. So, now is the time to create Chinagate. But how ??

V , Feb 13, 2019 2:25:48 AM | link
The view from the hermitage is, we are in the age of distractions. Russiagate will be replaced with one of a litany of distractions, purely designed to keep us off target. The target being, corruption, vote rigging, illegal wars, war crimes, overthrowing sovereign governments, and political assasinations, both at home and abroad. Those so distracted, will focus on sillyness; not the genuine danger afoot around the planet. Get used to it; it's become the new normal.
Circe , Feb 13, 2019 3:53:19 AM | link
@76Hw
I have yet to read anything more delusional, nay, utterly preposterous. Methinks you over-project too much. Even Trump would have a belly-ache laugh reading that sheeple spiel. You're the type that sees the giant billboard of Zionist Trump and Yahoo shaking hands and drones on and on that our lying eyes deceive us and it's really Trump playing 4-D chess. I suppose when he tried to pressure Omar Ilhan into resigning her seat in Congress yesterday, that too was reverse psychology?

Trump instagramed the billboard pic, he tweeted it, he probably pasted it on his wall; maybe with your kind of wacky, Trump infatuation, you should too!

Starring role

Circe , Feb 13, 2019 4:15:37 AM | link
Russiagate is finished because Mueller discovered an embarrassing fact: The collusion was and always will be with Israel. Here's Trump professing his endless love for Zionism: Trump Resign
snake , Feb 13, 2019 5:13:14 AM | link

Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished.
a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians.

Most designs of armed nation states provide the designers with information feedback and the designers use that information to appoint more obedient politicians and generals to run things, and to improve the design to better serve the designers. The armed rule making structure is designed to give the designers complete control over those targeted to be the governed. Why so stupid the governed? ; always they allow themselves to be manipulated like sheep.

When 10 angry folks approach you with two pieces of ropes: one to throw over the tree branch under which your horse will be supporting you while they tie the noose around your neck and the other shorter piece of rope to tie your hands behind ..your back you need at that point to make your words count , if five of the people are black and five are white. all you need do is say how smart the blacks are, and how stupid the whites are, as the two groups fight each other you manage your escape. democrat vs republican= divide to conquer. gun, no gun = divide to conquer, HRC vs DJT = divide to conquer, abortion, no abortion = divide to conquer, Trump is a Russian planted in a high level USA position of power = divide to conquer, They were all in on it together,, Muller was in the white house to keep the media supplied with XXX, to keep the law enforcement agencies in the loop, and to advise trump so things would not get out of hand ( its called Manipulation and the adherents to the economic system called Zionism
For the record, Zionism is not related to race, religion or intelligence. Zionism is a system of economics that take's no captives, its adherents must own everything, must destroy and decimate all actual or imaginary competition, for Zionist are the owners and masters of everything? Zionism is about power, absolute power, monopoly ownership and using governments everywhere to abuse the governed. Zionism has many adherents, whites, blacks, browns, Christians, Jews, Islamist, Indians, you name it among each class of person and walk of life can be found persons who subscribe to the idea that they, and only they, should own everything, and when those of us, that are content to be the governed let them, before the kill and murder us, they usually end up owning everything.

snake , Feb 13, 2019 6:08:16 AM | link
Here might the subject matter that Russia Gate sought to camouflage https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/02/13/588433/US-Saudi-Arabia-nuclear-deal-nuclear-weapons 'This comes as US Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been holding secret talks with Saudi officials on sharing US nuclear technology.'

Finally, a hypothesis to explain

1. why the Joint non nuclear agreement with Iran and the other nuclear power nations, that prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons, was trashed? Someone needs to be able to say Iran is developing ..., at the right time.

2. Why Netanyohu made public a video that claimed Iran was developing nuclear stuff in violation of the Iran non nuclear agreement, and everybody laughed,

3. Why the nuclear non proliferation agreement with Russia, that terminated the costly useless arms race a decade ago, has been recently terminated, to reestablish the nuclear arms race, no apparent reason was given the implication might be Russia could be a target, but

4. why it might make sense to give nukes to Saudi Arabia or some other rogue nation, and

5. why no one is allowed to have nuclear weapons except the Zionist owned and controlled nation states.

Statement: Zionism is an economic system that requires the elimination of all competition of whatever kind. It is a winner get's all, takes no prisoners, targets all who would threaten or be a challenge or a threat; does not matter if the threat is in in oil and gas, technology or weapons as soon as a possibility exist, the principles of Zionism would require that it be taken out, decimated, and destroyed and made where never again it could even remotely be a threat to the Empire, that Zionism demands..

Hypothesis: A claim that another is developing nuclear weapon capabilities is sufficient to take that other out?

Kiza , Feb 13, 2019 8:26:29 AM | link
I am glad that most commenters understand that Russiagate will not go away. But the majority appear to miss the real reason. Russiagate is not an accusation, it is the state of mind.

At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population?

The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. Of course, the most ironic in the affair is that it is the so called US "intellectuals", academics and other assorted cretins who are the most fervent proponents. If you were wondering how Russia can make such amazing defensive weapons that US can only deny exist and wet dream of having, there is your answer. It is the state of mind. The whole of US establishment are legends in their on lunch time and totally delusional about the reality surrounding them - both Russiagate and MAGA cretins, no report can help the Russiagate nation.

Finally, I am thinking of that crazy and ugly professor bitch from the British Cambridge University who gives her lectures naked to protest something or other. I am so lucky that I do not have to go to a Western university ever again. What a catastrophic decline! No Brexit can help the Skripal nation.

NemesisCalling , Feb 13, 2019 8:46:48 AM | link
Russiagate is finished, but is DJT also among the rubble?

Hardly any money for the border wall and still lingering in the ME?

If Hoarsewhisperer proves to be correct above re: DJT, he will really have to knock our socks off before election 2020. To do this he will have to unequivocally and unceremoniously withdraw from the MENA and Afghanistan and possibly declare a National Emergency for more money for the wall.

The problem is, when he does this, he will look impulsively dangerous and this may harm his mystique to the lemmings who need a president to be more "presidential."

My money is on status quo all the way to 2020 and the rethugz hoping the Dems will eat their own in an orgy of warring identities.

I would love to be proven wrong.

morongobill , Feb 13, 2019 9:52:25 AM | link
Rush Limbaugh has been on a roll with his analysis of Russiagate, in fact, his analysis is in line with the writer/editor here at MOA.
Bart Hansen , Feb 13, 2019 10:52:12 AM | link
The collusion story may be faltering, but the blame for Russia poisoning the Skripals lives on. The other night on The News Hour, "Judy" led off the program with this: "It has been almost a year since Kremlin intelligence officers attempted to kill a Russian defector in the British city of Salisbury by poisoning him with a nerve agent. That attack, and the subsequent death of a British woman, scared away tourists and shoppers, but authorities and residents are working to get the town's economy back on track. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports."
Erelis , Feb 13, 2019 12:15:48 PM | link

Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry.

Here is one recent example. You know the measles outbreak in the US Pacific Northwest. Yup, the Russians. How do we know. A government funded research grant. The study found that 899 tweets caused people to doubt vaccines. Looks like money is to be had even by academics for the right results.

Measles outbreak: Anti-vaccination misinformation fueled by Russian propagandists, study finds
https://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/2019/02/measles-outbreak-anti-vaccination-misinformation-fueled-by-russian-propagandists-study-finds.html

[Feb 13, 2019] Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins

Highly recommended!
Pretty biting satire
Notable quotes:
"... So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under. ..."
"... Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly). ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela. ..."
"... And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly, but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time. Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and " the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton lost the election.

I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve Congress, and proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two years.

So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under.

I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet. Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.

Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again." Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or Ukrainian democracy.

This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly).

Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela.

The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system (i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.

What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.

Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home," and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.

What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they? Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations. Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron, ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British" company?

And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself, honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing? And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance corporation to not really cover you.

For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them. Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called "new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked up out of the water.

In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in France at the moment, by beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.

Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .

[Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... War with Russia. ..."
"... Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate." ..."
"... "When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media." ..."
"... "And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything." ..."
"... "That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that." ..."
"... Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

On stage at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. this past week was Princeton University Professor Emeritus Stephen Cohen, author of the new book, War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate.

Cohen has largely been banished from mainstream media.

"I had been arguing for years -- very much against the American political media grain -- that a new US/Russian Cold War was unfolding -- driven primarily by politics in Washington, not Moscow," Cohen writes in War with Russia. "For this perspective, I had been largely excluded from influential print, broadcast and cable outlets where I had been previously welcomed."

On the stage at Busboys and Poets with Cohen was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation magazine, and Robert Borosage, co-founder of the Campaign for America's Future.

During question time, Cohen was asked about the extent of the censorship in the context of other Americans who had been banished from mainstream American media, including Ralph Nader, whom the liberal Democratic establishment, including Borosage and Vanden Heuvel, stiff armed when he crashed the corporate political parties in the electoral arena in 2004 and 2008.

Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union.

"Until some period of time before Trump, on the question of what America's policy toward Putin's Kremlin should be, there was a reasonable facsimile of a debate on those venues that had these discussions," Cohen said. "Are we allowed to mention the former Charlie Rose for example? On the long interview form, Charlie would have on a person who would argue for a very hard policy toward Putin. And then somebody like myself who thought it wasn't a good idea."

"Occasionally that got on CNN too. MSNBC not so much. And you could get an op-ed piece published, with effort, in the New York Times or Washington Post ."

"Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times six or seven years ago. But then it stopped. And to me, that's the fundamental difference between this Cold War and the preceding Cold War."

"I will tell you off the record – no, I'm not going to do it," Cohen said. "Two exceedingly imminent Americans, who most op-ed pages would die to get a piece by, just to say they were on the page, submitted such articles to the New York Times , and they were rejected the same day. They didn't even debate it. They didn't even come back and say – could you tone it down? They just didn't want it."

"Now is that censorship? In Italy, where each political party has its own newspaper, you would say – okay fair enough. I will go to a newspaper that wants me. But here, we are used to these newspapers."

"Remember how it works. I was in TV for 18 years being paid by CBS. So, I know how these things work. TV doesn't generate its own news anymore. Their actual reporting has been de-budgeted. They do video versions of what is in the newspapers."

"Look at the cable talk shows. You see it in the New York Times and Washington Post in the morning, you turn on the TV at night and there is the video version. That's just the way the news business works now."

"The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate."

"If you are not, then you struggle to create your own alternative media. It's new in my lifetime. I know these imminent Americans I mentioned were shocked when they were just told no. It's a lockdown. And it is a form of censorship."

"When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media."

"Dissidents created what is known as samizdat – that's typescript that you circulate by hand. Gorbachev, before he came to power, did read some samizdat. But it's no match for newspapers published with five, six, seven million copies a day. Or the three television networks which were the only television networks Soviet citizens had access to."

"And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything."

"That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that."

Cohen appears periodically on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News. And that rankled one person in the audience at Busboys and Poets, who said he worried that Cohen's perspective on Russia can be "appropriated by the right."

"Trump can take that and run on a nationalistic platform – to hell with NATO, to hell with fighting these endless wars, to do what he did in 2016 and get the votes of people who are very concerned about the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia," the man said.

Cohen says that on a personal level, he likes Tucker Carlson "and I don't find him to be a racist or a nationalist."

"Nationalism is on the rise around the world everywhere," Cohen said. "There are different kinds of nationalism. We always called it patriotism in this country, but we have always been a nationalistic country."

"Fox has about three to four million viewers at that hour," Cohen said. "If I am not permitted to give my take on American/Russian relations on any other mass media, and by the way, possibly talk directly to Trump, who seems to like his show, and say – Trump is making a mistake, he should do this or do that instead -- I don't get many opportunities – and I can't see why I shouldn't do it."

"I get three and a half to four minutes," Cohen said. "I don't see it as consistent with my mission, if that's the right word, to say no. These articles I write for The Nation , which ended up in my book, are posted on some of the most God awful websites in the world. I had to look them up to find out how bad they really are. But what can I do about it?"

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Russell Mokhiber

Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter..

[Feb 13, 2019] Rep. Walter Jones, Rest in Peace The American Conservative

Feb 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Jones was a longtime friend of TAC , and he delivered the opening remarks at our 2017 foreign policy conference . Listen to what he said here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DSnjbIrIQdk

He not only acknowledged early on that his initial support for the Iraq war was wrong, but spent the rest of his career fighting for a more restrained and peaceful foreign policy. Rep. Jones was one of the original Republican co-sponsors of the first House antiwar resolution to end U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen . He co-authored an op-ed with Reps. Khanna and Pocan in 2017 in support of their resolution:

We believe that the American people, if presented with the facts of this conflict, will oppose the use of their tax dollars to bomb and starve civilians in order to further the Saudi monarchy's regional goals. Our House resolution is a first step in expanding democracy into an arena long insulated from public accountability. Too many lives hang in the balance to allow this American war to continue without congressional consent. When our bill comes to the floor for a vote, our colleagues should consider first the solution proposed by the director of Unicef, Anthony Lake, for stopping the unimaginable suffering of millions of Yemenis: "Stop the war."

It is unfortunate that Rep. Jones did not live to see the House pass that resolution to end U.S. support for the war, but when a new version of that resolution passes later this month it will be thanks in no small part to his leadership.

Jones became a reliable scourge of unnecessary and unauthorized foreign wars wherever they happened to be . He saw the continuation of open-ended and illegal wars as an attack on the Constitution and an abuse of the men and women who volunteered to serve their country. His opposition to these wars earned him the enmity of Republican hawks , who repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to unseat him through primary challenges. Whatever their disagreements with him may have been over the years, his constituents recognized and appreciated his integrity and his dedication to the country.

The cause of peace and restraint has lost one of its great defenders, TAC has lost one of our good friends, and America has lot one of its most honorable and decent public servants. May his memory be eternal.


Longtime TAC Reader February 11, 2019 at 3:14 am

The loss of Walter Jones is devastating.

I hope that good and true Americans inspired by his example will pick up the colors he carried so long and faithfully, carry them forward, renewing his dogged efforts to rein in military intervention and preserve true freedom.

God bless you, Walter Jones.

God bless you.

RIP , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:52 am
This is a blow, and no denying it.

For all that, you may be certain that somewhere the vermin are jumping for joy, because when it comes to their vile wars and meddling they brook no dissent, and Jones's voice was strong and sure, grounded in truth and "the better angels of our nature".

Very sorry to have lost this good and valuable American. Hats off also to the people of his district, many of them soldiers or families of soldiers, who kept sending him back to Washington. May they find someone to replace who has the same gumption, character, and commitment to basic Americanism.

Virginia Catholic Girl , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:36 am
If there were more people like him in Washington, we wouldn't be in the state we're in. I wrote him a "fan" letter back in 2006 or thereabouts, about his regrets about the Iraq war and writing to all the families of those KIA. Also appreciated him being one of the few in Congress that actually tried to follow the Constitution and do something about our national debt. He also was all about constituent service,especially for veterans and those in Eastern North Carolina affected by the recent hurricanes. Eternal rest, grant him, Oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

[Feb 12, 2019] We have elections that are far more like Soviet elections than the average 'conservative' voter can allow himself to imagine. The great difference Soviet elections and ours today is who what entity owns the system, meaning which cultural values rule, dictate.

Feb 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jake , says: February 12, 2019 at 11:32 am GMT

The USSR had elections of various types. They meant nothing because the Party owned everybody.

We have elections that are far more like Soviet elections than the average 'conservative' voter can allow himself to imagine. The great difference Soviet elections and ours today is who – what entity – owns the system, meaning which cultural values rule, dictate.

Ours is the Anglo-Zionist Empire. This is the end game of the Judaizing heresies that destroyed Christendom. This nightmare is where WASP culture leads and always lead.

[Feb 12, 2019] The problem with the Florida senator is his absolute blind obedience towards the Zionist state, his engagement against the BDS movement and his loyalty to Israel's stalwarts in the US. He is not the only US politician in Congress who is in the pocket of the Zionist lobby. At least the American Middle Eastern policy is run by the Zionist Israel Lobby in the US.

Feb 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ludwig Watzal , says: Website February 12, 2019 at 11:16 am GMT

With friends like Marco Rubio, the United States doesn't need enemies. I still remember very well, when then-candidate Donald Trump ridiculed Rubio as "little Marco" during the 2016 debates. He was perfectly right. Like Phil Giraldi demonstrated Rubio's "intellectual" capability, It seems he has a birdbrain. Joke aside, Rubio's political busyness Israel is concerned raises the question who owns his true loyalty. Instead of working for his constituency, he is on the road primarily for Israel. As it seems he loves Israel more than his birthplace the United States, and he despises Cuba that political system is more social-oriented that the American one.

The problem with the Florida senator is his absolute blind obedience towards the Zionist state, his engagement against the BDS movement and his loyalty to Israel's stalwarts in the US. He is not the only US politician in Congress who is in the pocket of the Zionist lobby. At least the American Middle Eastern policy is run by the Zionist Israel Lobby in the US. But from all walks of life, their influence is also not to be underestimated.

The so-called unbreakable bond between the US and Israel is mere rhetoric, but most members of Congress believe in this nonsense just out of mere political survival. Israel is not an ally but a massive liability to US national interest in the region. The Zionist political class uses the American political system to its advantage and pays nothing in return. The opposite is true. The State of Israel is massively spying on the US and cause the American people a lot of damage.

There are not only the assassinations of JFK and RFK, but also the killing of JFK, Jr. who's private plane crashed into the sea right of the coast of Martha's Vineyard. It was the same cover-up as in the case of his father and his uncle. There are persistent rumors in the wind that the Israeli Mossad was behind it, such as Laurent Guyénot laid out in his two excellent articles on UNZ Review. Among large parts of the truther movement, some segments make a strong argument that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks, although with the collaboration of sections of the Bush/Cheney administration.

To refer to Israel as a friend or ally such as Rubio does is just a joke. Israel is nothing more than an albatross like an ally. The whole American-Israeli relationship must be put to the test. There is no room for romance because such romanticism is for the sole detriment of the United States and the American People.

Highly recommended articles by Laurent Guyénot:

http://www.unz.com/article/the-broken-presidential-destiny-of-jfk-jr/
https://www.unz.com/article/did-israel-kill-the-kennedies/

lavoisier , says: Website February 12, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMT

How such a lightweight came to be a Senator of the United States of America eludes me.

I know this question is meant to be a bit rhetorical but let me try and answer it.

This senator, and the vast majority of his ilk in the Congress, are venal lying whores in thrall to a foreign party and to money interests. He is not unique in this regard but only one of many lying whores in power.

And the American people–by and large–are so dumbed down by a dumbed down culture and a dumbed down media that they cannot recognize these treacherous weasels for the traitors that they are.

The Republic is in free fall.

NoseytheDuke , says: February 12, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT
@RobinG What a shame that there aren't enough George Galloways to go around.
EliteCommInc. , says: February 12, 2019 at 12:56 pm GMT
I think we have gone over the edge.

The Senator is using contentions meant to protect us citizens from unfair business practices by state and enterprise to launch protections against free speech for a foreign entity.

That is painfully funny. I hope it is only a feeling, a sensation, but our political leadership seems to have abandoned their collective minds. But this is convenient for the Sen. because nullifying the constitution is one way of nullifying borders.

DESERT FOX , says: February 12, 2019 at 1:52 pm GMT
Zionists control our money via the unconstitutional FED and that gives the Zionist banking cabal total control over the U.S. government and we the goyim/proles!

Nathan Rothschild infamously said, I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England for the man who controls the money supply controls the British Empire and I am that man!

It is the same here in America and every country in the world that has a Zionist central bank and that is almost all of them!

Rubio is just another puppet of the Zionist banking kabal and is just like the rest of congress and in fact congress would be better named as the lower house of the Knesset.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 12, 2019 at 2:19 pm GMT
Marco Rubio Is A Complete And Total Politician Whore For Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson.

Marco Rubio does the bidding of Jew Billionaires by putting the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States.

Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson all push nation-wrecking mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.

Marco Rubio pushes nation-wrecking mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.

Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman have bought the mass legal immigration policies and the amnesty for illegal alien invaders immigration policy of the Republican Party ruling class and Marco Rubio and Shyster Boy Trump.

Marco Rubio and New York City Shyster Boy Trump have been bought and paid for like common whores by Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman.

Tweet from 2015:

[Feb 12, 2019] Being Marco Rubio: The boyish senator from Florida is owned by the Israel Lobby by Philip Giraldi

Israel is powerful only to extent its goals are well correlated with the goal of the US MIC. So like neocons Israel serves as a collective lobbyist of MIC. If this would not be the case, all power of AIPAC and similar organizations would disappear, and the organization itself would be put under FARA where it belongs.
The same is true for Zionists billionaires. The minute they turn against MIC would the minute some dirty dealing and connections with organized crime would be exposed and some pedophile scandals put on the front pages of MSM.
Notable quotes:
"... There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Thomm , says: February 12, 2019 at 5:16 am GMT

All these anti-Semitic articles fail a basic logical test :

i) If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism fails.
ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone like China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate Russia or the EU?
iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say about whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim is even weaker.

There is a reason that the conspiracy theories regarding Zionists don't get any purchase outside of a small fringe.

Thanks,
-Ira Rabinowitz

Nehlen , says: February 12, 2019 at 6:10 am GMT
@Thomm i) It's not so surprising given the wholesale lies pedaled by the predominantly Zionists media and entertainment sectors of Western civilization, compounded by the outright censorship of opposing views by those same groups with the assistance of the ADL, SPLC, et al. Add to that the altruistic nature and generally independent spirit of Whites as opposed to the *dare I say tribal* nature of Zionists.

ii) China's recent ascent to global dominance was not built on usury and manipulation of foreign nation states through a diaspora of what has been described as "nations within nations." I'd say Zionists in Russia (ever hear of the Holodomor?) manipulated that part of the world for over a century quite completely, and in Eastern Europe for slightly less time, to the tune of 100 million dead White Christians.

iii) Interesting you bring up Blacks but leave out the part about Zionists manipulating Whites with "Birth of a Nation" being the first movie many arriving White immigrants viewed. Shock status: imagined. Clearly, that's but one of a laundry list of things any reasonably educated White person could hold up as an example of manipulation of public opinion.

Calling truisms tropes doesn't absolve ... crimes committed against humanity.

Every single day Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Han Chinese, are criticized and critiqued for all sorts of reasons and all manner of circumstances. Only one category of people is immune from criticism: Zionists. It's a double standard, and it must end.

silviosilver , says: February 12, 2019 at 6:15 am GMT
@Thomm

> If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism fails.

WN's largely agree that Zionists are more intelligent, so they are not surprised that Zionists have been able to achieve outsized influence (to "control everything," in the language of this lame troll).

ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone like China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate Russia or the EU?

If the Chinese attempted the same thing, Americans would be permitted to notice . Noticing Zionists political activity is "anti-semitic", so many Americans don't notice it (or pretend not to).

There are far fewer Zionists in the EU and Russia, but they enjoy outsized influence in those lands too – just not to the same extent as in the U.S.

iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say about whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim is even weaker.

Incorrect. WN's admit that Zionists are more intelligent than white gentiles; blacks who accuse whites of racism seldom admit that whites are more intelligent than blacks. Ultimately, WN's want separation from Zionists. Blacks who accuse whites of racism virtually never desire separation from whites. I'm not even a WN, but it really shouldn't be controversial to admit these obvious facts.

Why does Phil have such a hard time banning moronic trolls like this clown? (Who everybody suspects is just a sad little hindoo, but it's possible is a deranged little zionut.)

Mark James , says: February 12, 2019 at 9:16 am GMT
There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran.

I was disappointed to see that one of my two senators voted for the bill. And I would have to say the biggest surprise was Sen. Gillibrand who probably wanted to say 'aye' but didn't.

The next step is likely to be that any public disagreement with the state of Israel is akin to antisemitism. Which I'm certain that the Republicans will be happy to throw at the Dem. congress.

[Feb 12, 2019] Walter Jones, Congressman Behind Freedom Fries Who Turned Anti-War Firebrand, Dies At 76

Notable quotes:
"... However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. died at the age of 76 on Sunday after an extended illness for which was a granted a leave of absence from Congress last year.

The Republican representative for North Carolina's 3rd congressional district since 1995 had initially been a strong supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and even became well-known for getting french fries renamed as "freedom fries" in the House cafeteria as a protest against French condemnation of the US invasion.

... ... ...

However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute.

Remembering Jones as a tireless advocate of peace, Ron Paul notes that he " turned from pro-war to an antiwar firebrand after he discovered how Administrations lie us into war . His passing yesterday is deeply mourned by all who value peace and honesty over war and deception." The Ron Paul Institute has also called him "a Hero of Peace" for both his voting record and efforts at shutting down the "endless wars".

And Antiwar.com also describes Jones as having been among the "most consistently antiwar members of Congress" and a huge supporter of their work:

By 2005, Jones had reversed his position on the Iraq War. Jones called on President George W. Bush to apologize for misinforming Congress to win authorization for the war. Jones said, "If I had known then what I know today, I wouldn't have voted for that resolution."

Jones went on to become one of the most antiwar members of Congress, fighting for ending US involvement in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

Also the BBC describes Rep. Jones' "dramatic change of heart" concerning the Iraq war starting in 2005, after which he began reaching out to thousands of people who had lost loves ones in combat.

Rep. Walter Jones led an effort in the House to call French Fries "Freedom Fries" instead, but came to profoundly regret his role in supporting Bush's war.

Noting that "no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq" and that the war was justified by the Bush administration based entirely on lies and false intelligence, the BBC describes:

At the same time, Mr Jones met grieving families whose loved ones were killed in the war. This caused him to have a dramatic change of heart, and in 2005 he called for the troops to be brought home.

He spoke candidly on several occasions about how deeply he regretted supporting the war, which led to the deaths of more than 140,000 Iraqi and American people.

"I have signed over 12,000 letters to families and extended families who've lost loved ones in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars," he told NPR in 2017. "That was, for me, asking God to forgive me for my mistake."

In total he represented his district for 34 years, first in the North Carolina state legislature, then in Congress. He took a leave of absence last year after a number of missed House votes due to declining health.

[Feb 11, 2019] Jared Kushner HUMILIATED on Live Television

The full interview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67y2V3ksdlA it's a interesting interview, especially considering Kushner lack of experience in this area and composition of his team.
This interview was in 2017. As of 2019 the results were zero and with recent Israeli actions problem probably became worse. Palestine conflict after so many Palestinian brood was spilled by Israel looks like a permanent feature which, unfortunately, might one day to bring Israel down iether by unleashing a war with Iran (without USA support), or when the USA might decide to toss Israel to wolfs.
Notable quotes:
"... You can view the complete interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZyGpirUMvk . ..."
"... Watch the full interview before making a judgment. ..."
"... Try to grasp the real power struggles underneath the headlines and hype. ..."
"... It's almost as if cronyism and nepotism breed incompetence. Who knew? ..."
"... One reason Jared has been chosen to interact with Israel is because he is a practicing Koshier Jew and long time family ties and friends with Israli PM Netanyahu since Jared was a young child and in fact Jared would give up his bedroom when Netanyahu came to visit. ..."
Dec 03, 2017 | www.youtube.com

Jared Kushner, President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, is interviewed at the Saban Forum on the topic of Israeli-Palestinian peace and his talking points get crushed by Israeli telecom billionaire Haim Saban


P K, 1 year ago

...You can view the complete interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZyGpirUMvk.

reeblite, 1 year ago (edited)

....Watch the full interview before making a judgment. Because he's betting that you won't because of your short attention span.

silverskid1, year ago

There's no story here. I watched the interview. It's a nothing-story. Of course the premise of Trump and his team as peacemakers in Israel is a bad joke-- but Kushner hasn't been "taken down" and "humiliated."

His demeanor throughout the interview was normal for him. The problem lies in what he says, and that's a different matter entirely. You're show is way to shallow. Try to grasp the real power struggles underneath the headlines and hype.

Kim Nguyen, 1 year ago (edited)

Jared sounds like that guy in your international relations class who is presenting his term paper, which he composed by collecting the cliff notes.

In terms of social issues, the achievement of peace between Palestine and Israel may be somewhere around P vs NP. There's no better person to expose the ridiculous of this team and how grossly unqualified they are than an Israeli or a Palestinian person. You can tell he feels insulted by the composition of this team.

Lady V , 10 months ago

So Ivanka converted to Judaism for him? There are many good reasons to convert to a different religion. Kushner ain't one of them.

Sass Afras , 8 months ago (edited)

When Kushner says; "We have a bankruptcy lawyer" ....(really?) Lol, When Saban says "it's a bankrupt situation, so yeah" BURN!

Chump still thinks he's "winning" what a joke! Newsflash Jarred, they're laughing AT you, NOT with you.

mike sandmire , 1 year ago

Touting a bankruptcy lawyer for a committee to solve the middle east problem, jesus h. Christ we are in trouble. Kushner sounds like daddy-in-law on the campaign trail. Every thing is so vague as to be rendered useless. We are going to fix the middle east. Yeah, how?

We are going to fix the problems there. Yeah, you said that but how are you going to fix it? Well the Iranians are a problem. Uh huh, we know that, how are you going to fix it? Also the Palestinians and Israelis don't seem to get along either. The talking while saying nothing just keeps going with this Administration.

Chris Lee , 1 year ago

Trump Admin is full of embarrassing unqualified personnel! As long as they are loyal. World voted against Trump on Palestine issue. Very SAD!

Brent Geery , 1 year ago (edited)

It's almost as if cronyism and nepotism breed incompetence. Who knew?

Jennifer Morris , 1 year ago

Priceless, when I first heard that Kushner was tasked with working on bringing peace to the Middle East my first thought was who? That that idiot Trump could throw this milk toast Jewish nobody into such a complex, sensitive protracted policy issue speaks volumes. From what I now know Kushner is a failed real estate agent with a father who is a convicted felon. Just cause he's married to Big orange daddies equally vacuous dumb daughter seems to be the only reason he is even in the White House. What a disgrace.

Elizabeth Czepiel , 2 months ago

With apologies to Mario Puzzo and the Godfather but "I'm going to make them an offer they can't understand!"

Gerard Vous , 10 months ago

How in the WORLD did he graduate with an JD degree from an elite university???

G Macka , 1 month ago

1 year on, and this little pecker wood is still just as inept, but at least we can finally begin to see through that fake (and very creepy) smile. The criminal Trump organization is falling apart at the seems, I think the only thing holding it all together is the sheer strength of the criminal investigations. Once those are all wrapped up, the Trump org. Will just collapse into a nasty little pile of rubble at Trumps feet. Fingers crossed Jared and Ivanka will be swept right up into the collapse and find themselves and in prison as well

tapolna , 1 year ago

And Jared Kushner is President Trump's "senior adviser"? Senor advisor!

Michael Garcia , 4 months ago (edited)

So what he saying is Israel is still just a victim they do nothing wrong to stimulate the wars going on in the Middle East don't do anything they're just playing victims. ??? It's well-known what part did Jesus play in the explosion of the Mesopotamia Cruise liner for the Americans to get into the war and save England where the Jews benefit in and got his real out of it through the Rothschild.

The Jewish bankers have been front and center of every war right in the middle stirring up the problems every country that took them in the Jew would find out their secrets their dislikes for the enemy that you will then go to the enemy and tell him everything hit the Jews host said causing War then the Jew finances both sides.

I know people like that who was start s***and watch the fight Jews have also claimed that they are A different race from your average Caucasian. Rh-positive bloodline

thehome man , 2 months ago

I grew up around them and i know that to be true about their conversational interactions them and Italians I just like black American people in that aspect, you may think it's an argument but it's not, you may think they are joking but they're expressing the irony of a situation or a persons stupidity.

panfluteman2000 , 1 year ago

Trump seems at times to be allergic to real knowledge, competence and expertise - except for the crooks in his cabinet that he hired to do his dirty work, like Mnuchin. And Trump could have hired real Middle East experts to be on his team. But no, he hired his son in law - someone he trusts, but also someone with no real expertise in the field, someone who's totally clueless. It seems like loyalty is 100% to Donald Trump, and knowledge, competence and expertise count for absolutely nothing.

Janet Johnson2 weeks ago (edited)

Ok Packman... so what is your expertise or qualifications? Your experience.. if any? IQ? What are you..15..16?? What qualifies you to peck away at the Trumps and all interactions with world leaders?

One reason Jared has been chosen to interact with Israel is because he is a practicing Koshier Jew and long time family ties and friends with Israli PM Netanyahu since Jared was a young child and in fact Jared would give up his bedroom when Netanyahu came to visit.

I understand Jared has a very high IQ. You Packman are just plain mean. Your friend there with you is even less impressive. You both sit around and poke fun of brave people who actually go out and try to do something to contribute and better this messed up world. I hope you aren't old enough to vote bc you aren't capable of making a wise choice yet.

Super Sonic 1 year ago (edited)

Good god we have complete fcking idiots running this country. This guy was absolutely SPOT ON! More people like this need to tell Trump and his cronies exactly this. The best bankruptcy lawyer to negotiate peace in the Middle East-wtf?? They have not the dimmest dullest notion on how to run a country starting with that orange ape at the top! ISIS on the run, good economy, low unemployment rate, Thank-you Obama!

MARK SUTTON, 1 year ago
David everyone keeps on talking about the Trump team and how its biased toward Israel. But what about all the other so called teams of other administrations. What about the Obama team?

What about the Bush team when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the PLO peace, what about the Clinton team when Ehud Barak practically offered 97% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem?

Oh and again while Bush was in office what about the fact that Israel removed itself and all of its settlers from Gaza? And what we got in return was an Iranian based about 40 minutes from Tel Aviv??

Why do you concentrate on the Trump team and not the "teams" we've had for the past 20 years or since the Oslo accords began. People keep on saying that the Trump team is not good for the peace process but I insist what peace process???

We've had this peace process since the late 80's and nothing has happened under the most leftist governments in Israel: Rabin, Peres, Barak, Olmert, all these Prime Ministers couldn't bring peace with the varying American teams....so why do you pick on Kushner???

Kushner had the balls to come out and say it like it is: There is NO solution to the conflict...

Eric Grosch1 month ago

So Trump and Kushner won't solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So, who is your exemplar of someone who has done so? The United States government has been funding Israel greatly and the Palestinians less so for years. Trump came to understand that Israel knows which side its bread is buttered on, so it sides with the US on most questions and the US sides with Israel on most questions.

Palestinians hate the US and Israel more or less equally, so Trump rationally withdrew funding from the Palestinians.

That was a divisive move, but the parties, Israel and Palestinians have already been divided since 1948, the year of the founding of modern Israel. It has long been US-policy to promise recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there.

Trump finally did it. Divisive? Sure, but so what? The parties are already divided.

sam n1 year ago

Stop Zionism. It preaches the same ideology and Isis and Nazism. it considers one group of people more superior.

Abban A7 months ago

Kushner only in the picture because his father in law and because he is a Jewish. He has zero international ,foreigners policies . Basically trump forcing Arab world leaders to pass this deal or else . There will be no peace in Middle East with those guys in charge and in office. Just more innocent people will die .

[Feb 11, 2019] Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, cutting morality, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior.

Notable quotes:
"... The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior. ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jean de Peyrelongue , says: Website February 3, 2019 at 10:42 am GMT

The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior.

This human sickness is now pandemic and to save humanity will require some kind of a tsunami. Nobody today wants to loose anything, and in doing so everybody is just pushing the system down the drain.

Another point: families, clans, nations are structures allowing people to develop roots. They are not the causes of war but it is true that these structures can be manipulated to generate wars in the interest of some "elite" (the poor get killed and the elite, gets richer). Reconciliation between people does not require to erase structures but to eliminate the bad guys manipulating them (the Jihadists, the terrorists and their Bosses which are today mostly in Washington, Wall Street and Riyadh)

Justsaying , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:29 pm GMT
@apollonian

and essence of Christianity and Christian civilization is reason and objective reality, necessary basis of TRUTH (= Christ)

My goodness! The essence of any religion -- - basically a mix of unsubstantiated superstition and blind faith depending on no verifiable evidence -- - to be equated with reason and objective reality, phenomena more aligned with the scientific method and culture is patently absurd. And to quote a book written when the earth was still thought a flat, anthropocentric mass and stars perched in the heavens as glittering divine ornaments? I rest my case.

[Feb 11, 2019] "So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon7 , says: February 3, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT

"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."

George Orwell

[Feb 11, 2019] Noticeble decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia creates preconditions for a loot and burn approach to governing the US.

Notable quotes:
"... Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group. ..."
"... Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn. ..."
"... Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to change. ..."
"... If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War). ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Counterinsurgency , says: February 3, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT

The third trend is the only place where hope can reside. This trend – what I have previously ascribed to a group I call the "dissenters" – understands that radical new thinking is required. But given that this group is being actively crushed by the old liberal elite and the new authoritarians, it has little public and political space to explore its ideas, to experiment, to collaborate, as it urgently needs to.

Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group.

Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn.

Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to change.

Example: Reaction to yellow vests in France, which drew the reactions described in Cook's article (at the root of this comment thread). "Back to your kennels, curs!" isn't effective in situations like this, but it seems to be the only reply the EU has.

New groups take over when the old group has rotted away. At some point, Cook's third alternative will be all that is left. The real question is what will be happening world wide at that point. If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War).

Counterinsurgency

1] To understand contemporary effect of WW I on survivors, think of a the survivors of a group playing paintball who accidentally got hold of grenade launchers but somehow didn't realize that until the game was over. WW II was actually worse -- people worldwide really expected another industrialized war within 20 years (by AD 1965), this one fought with nuclear weapons.

[Feb 11, 2019] Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your government

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

M-I. B. , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:15 am GMT

The parading of liberalism's humanitarian credentials has entitled our elites to leave a trail of carnage and wreckage in their wake in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria

" I am a Syrian Living in Syria: "It Was Never a Revolution nor a Civil War. The Terrorists Are Sent by Your Government"

"American soldiers and people should not be supporting barbarian al Qaeda terrorists who are killing Christians, Muslims in my country and everyone .

Every massacre is committed by them. We were all happy in Syria: we had free school and university education available for everyone, free healthcare, no GMO, no fluoride, no chemtrails, no Rothschild IMF- controlled bank, state owned central bank which gives 11% interest, we are self-sufficient and have no foreign debt to any country or bank. "

[ ]

" I do not understand how the good and brave American people can accept to bomb my country which has never harmed them and therefore help the barbarian al Qaeda. These animals slit throats and behead for pleasure they behead babies and rape young kids.

" They are satanic. Our military helped by the millions of civilian militias are winning the battle against al Qaeda. But now the USA wants to bomb the shit out of us so that al Qaeda can get the upper hand. "

"Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your government. "

{emphasis added}

https://www.globalresearch.ca/i-am-a-syrian-living-in-syria-it-was-never-a-revolution-nor-a-civil-war-the-terrorists-are-sent-by-your-government/5544450

anonymous [204] Disclaimer , says: February 5, 2019 at 10:20 pm GMT
A Serbian activist on Wednesday threw a pie in the face of Jewish French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy at a showing of his film "Peshmerga" in Belgrade. He is promoting 'Kurdistan' which is part of Israel's EXPANSIONIST policy.

He will talk at the Cambridge public library, a propaganda center, on February 20th, 2019 He should be exposed further. Jewish French philosopher gets pied in face in Belgrade

[Feb 11, 2019] 'Populism' is just democracy in action and most people seem to think democracy is a good thing. So what's the problem? Apparently the masses don't want what's being shoved down their throats by undemocratic rulers so now we have this ongoing conflict.

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

anonymous [967] Disclaimer , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT

'Populism' is just democracy in action and most people seem to think democracy is a good thing. So what's the problem? Apparently the masses don't want what's being shoved down their throats by undemocratic rulers so now we have this ongoing conflict. One can only hope that the populists get the upper hand in all this. We need a new political terminology because it seems strange to use the label "liberal" for a group of people that are such aggressive war-mongers. There doesn't seem to be much that's liberal about them.War lovers and anti-democratic, they have much in common with fascism.

[Feb 11, 2019] I would hardly call Europe's [neoliberal] elite liberals

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

IstvanIN , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT

anarchyst says:
February 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT • 300 Words
The debasement of European societies is deliberate. The elites want destruction, period they want their "New World Order"

Very true.

The intent of this article is to blame [neo]Liberals. I would hardly call Europe's [neoliberal] elite liberals. A liberal would defend freedom of expression and thought. A liberal would defend the right of an individual or group to express viewpoints that are unpopular.

Western Europe is hardly liberal. It is ... repressive when it comes to dissent, mildly totalitarian. Political leaders who advocate for the rights of indigenous Europeans in Europe are persecuted and imprisoned. Political parties are banned or bankrupted.

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. ..."
"... The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts. ..."
"... Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law ..."
"... A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda. ..."
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American politicians.

In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And -- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which carefully avoided war with America.

It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president, who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.

Donald the Cockatoo

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this. All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit long, but worth reading.

From The Making of Donald Trump , Johnston, David Cay. (p. 23). Melville House. Kindle Edition.

"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.

"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that out," he says.

"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."

All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.

Pussy John Bolton

A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.

Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."

This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended, now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological and dangerous.

Here is PJ on Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."

How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans, inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.

Bush II

Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively, these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No empathy. What a man.

The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's leadership should do, but ours doesn't..

Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew) holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"

The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avernus.

Gina

A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?

Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging, desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a little more water .

What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .

Michael Pompeo

Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia, which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race; wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.

But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.

Nikki Haley

A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and Pompeo Mattis

"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?

The Upshot

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.


Gene Su , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:07 am GMT

I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of course, decades ago.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).

animalogic , says: February 8, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.

However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial goals that have been in play since at least 1945.

The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors.

China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.

To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?

It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable responses .

MikeatMikedotMike , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?

And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 8, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.

Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which is ominous).

Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call incremental.

Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"

Truth , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@NoseytheDuke My friend, I understand what you are saying, but at some point the wise man stops playing checkers on the chessboard.

There is, functionally, no difference between The Donna and Cackles.

riversedge , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:43 am GMT
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary? Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects,

Obama came AFTER Bush II and continued his Zionist-supremacist policies.

Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in the Establishment came to his side.

Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in common.

Trump tried but he's seen turned pussy.

ThreeCranes , says: February 9, 2019 at 3:15 pm GMT
@Sean wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress

"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as far as Russia was concerned."

Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.

Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod along, single file, to oblivion.

KenH , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.

Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the Business Roundtable.

He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.

Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.

Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime. Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.

Carroll Price , says: February 10, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep state, with him having no say in the matter.

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. ..."
"... The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts. ..."
"... Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law ..."
"... A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda. ..."
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American politicians.

In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And -- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which carefully avoided war with America.

It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president, who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.

Donald the Cockatoo

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this. All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit long, but worth reading.

From The Making of Donald Trump , Johnston, David Cay. (p. 23). Melville House. Kindle Edition.

"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.

"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that out," he says.

"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."

All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.

Pussy John Bolton

A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.

Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."

This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended, now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological and dangerous.

Here is PJ on Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."

How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans, inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.

Bush II

Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively, these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No empathy. What a man.

The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's leadership should do, but ours doesn't..

Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew) holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"

The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avernus.

Gina

A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?

Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging, desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a little more water .

What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .

Michael Pompeo

Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia, which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race; wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.

But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.

Nikki Haley

A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and Pompeo Mattis

"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?

The Upshot

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.


Gene Su , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:07 am GMT

I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of course, decades ago.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).

animalogic , says: February 8, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.

However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial goals that have been in play since at least 1945.

The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors.

China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.

To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?

It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable responses .

MikeatMikedotMike , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?

And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 8, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.

Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which is ominous).

Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call incremental.

Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"

Truth , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@NoseytheDuke My friend, I understand what you are saying, but at some point the wise man stops playing checkers on the chessboard.

There is, functionally, no difference between The Donna and Cackles.

riversedge , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:43 am GMT
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary? Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects,

Obama came AFTER Bush II and continued his Zionist-supremacist policies.

Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in the Establishment came to his side.

Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in common.

Trump tried but he's seen turned pussy.

ThreeCranes , says: February 9, 2019 at 3:15 pm GMT
@Sean wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress

"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as far as Russia was concerned."

Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.

Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod along, single file, to oblivion.

KenH , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.

Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the Business Roundtable.

He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.

Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.

Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime. Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.

Carroll Price , says: February 10, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep state, with him having no say in the matter.

[Feb 10, 2019] Deranged Madeline Albright famously told Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton s years of punative sanctions, was worth it

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:42 am GMT

@Asagirian Clinton wasn't a lunatic? I wonder what Fred thinks about his deranged Jewish Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

She famously told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton's years of punative sanctions, was "worth it."

Doesn't seem like those preventable deaths of innocent children bothered Billy Boy too much. With the Clinton's, we get two lunatics for the price of one.

[Feb 10, 2019] Deranged Madeline Albright famously told Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton s years of punative sanctions, was worth it

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:42 am GMT

@Asagirian Clinton wasn't a lunatic? I wonder what Fred thinks about his deranged Jewish Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

She famously told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton's years of punative sanctions, was "worth it."

Doesn't seem like those preventable deaths of innocent children bothered Billy Boy too much. With the Clinton's, we get two lunatics for the price of one.

[Feb 10, 2019] In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex.

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:35 am GMT

@NoseytheDuke Face it -- he neither believed nor understood those Stephen Miller speeches. Coming from the mouth of Donald Trump, they were lies.

Why do so many of you intelligent people still buy into the political puppet show, expecting BigGov to fix itself? Electoral politics, judicial confirmations, etc, are orchestrated conflict to keep dissidence channeled and harmlessly blown off as the Empire lurches along.

There are other columnists here at Unz who have been calling the Beltway BS for years. For example:

"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."

Linh Dinh, June 12, 2016

[Feb 10, 2019] Compared to their options, the military offers fame and fortune, and military recruiters are duplicitous snakes, just out to fill their quotas. Only later do many of them realize they were duped. Hence, their suicide rate of 20 vets per day.

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: February 8, 2019 at 6:57 pm GMT

@anon1 I would not condemn them out of hand. Most enlisted men never went to college. They come from poor rural areas, where they would be lucky to get a part-time job at McDonalds. Their mothers were probably on welfare, drug-addicted with no father in the home.

Compared to their options, the military offers fame and fortune, and military recruiters are duplicitous snakes, just out to fill their quotas.

Only later do many of them realize they were duped. Hence, their suicide rate of 20 vets per day.

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American politicians.

In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And -- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which carefully avoided war with America.

It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president, who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.

Donald the Cockatoo

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this. All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit long, but worth reading.

From The Making of Donald Trump , Johnston, David Cay. (p. 23). Melville House. Kindle Edition.

"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.

"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that out," he says.

"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."

All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.

Pussy John Bolton

A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.

Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."

This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended, now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological and dangerous.

Here is PJ on Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."

How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans, inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.

Bush II

Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively, these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No empathy. What a man.

The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's leadership should do, but ours doesn't..

Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew) holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"

The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avernus.

Gina

A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?

Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging, desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a little more water .

What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .

Michael Pompeo

Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia, which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race; wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.

But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.

Nikki Haley

A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and Pompeo Mattis

"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?

The Upshot

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.


Gene Su , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:07 am GMT

I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of course, decades ago.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).

animalogic , says: February 8, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.

However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial goals that have been in play since at least 1945.

The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors.

China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.

To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?

It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable responses .

MikeatMikedotMike , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?

And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 8, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.

Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which is ominous).

Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call incremental.

Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"

Truth , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@NoseytheDuke My friend, I understand what you are saying, but at some point the wise man stops playing checkers on the chessboard.

There is, functionally, no difference between The Donna and Cackles.

riversedge , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:43 am GMT
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary? Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects,

Obama came AFTER Bush II and continued his Zionist-supremacist policies.

Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in the Establishment came to his side.

Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in common.

Trump tried but he's seen turned pussy.

ThreeCranes , says: February 9, 2019 at 3:15 pm GMT
@Sean wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress

"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as far as Russia was concerned."

Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.

Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod along, single file, to oblivion.

KenH , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.

Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the Business Roundtable.

He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.

Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.

Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime. Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.

Carroll Price , says: February 10, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep state, with him having no say in the matter.

[Feb 10, 2019] And does he really think the Brits have "class?"

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bragadocious , says: February 8, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT

Both Haley and Mattis are no longer serving with the Administration; apparently news of this has not reached Fred's watering hole in Ajijic, where I hear the Internet is slow and dodgy. And does he really think the Brits have "class?"

Harry showed up for a photo op in Helmand province and promptly got two American GIs killed, a result that Reed probably found thrilling.

The classy Brits promptly created tall tales of this dimwitted ginger dodging bullets and blasting insurgents to bits, like a modern day Flashman. All this in the run-up to the big wedding. Classy, and not propaganda at all!

[Feb 09, 2019] Decameron D j vu All Over Again

It looks like a specialist on illegal transferee of weapons is needed to make the color revolution a success...
Notable quotes:
"... Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED). ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
An admiring Mike Pompeo with Elliott Abrams

It's a sad fact that the full and unconditional pardon given by President George H.W. Bush to Elliott Abrams (a member of the second generation neo-conservative royalty by way of marriage to the daughter of neo-con co-creator, Midge Decter), protected him from disbarment and possible prison. Abrams, who pled guilty to the crime of lying to Congress in the investigation of the Iran-Contra, embraced the plea option reportedly in order to avoid heavier charges from the office of then independent counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, prosecutor in the Iran-Contra cases. Bush is gone, Walsh is gone, but Mr. Bush's Attorney General William Barr is – surprise – now Attorney General of the United States.

What that portends for future regime change adventures remains to be seen, but the historical record is ominous.

In 1992, when Bush issued the Iran-Contra pardons on the eve of his leaving office after losing reelection to President Bill Clinton, William Barr fully supported the pardons. Presidential pardons are, after all, Constitutional. But, Lawrence Walsh said at the time, reported NPR, "It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences."

Now the Iran-Contra era neo-cons and the Dick Cheney/Iraq Invasion 2003 era neo-cons are marching back into the institution of the Presidency.

Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Regime change, putting in questionable, if not nefarious new leaders, seems to be Abrams' delight: Nicaragua, Iraq while a government official. Many others in his dreams.

In 1986, even before the Iran-Contra debacle was revealed, as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Elliott Abrams told Congress that Nicaraguan "Contras" involved in drug running didn't have the okay from Contra leaders. It was just underlings. This, while Abrams and company were busy doing end-runs around the Boland Amendment and other Congressional actions that barred military supplies to the Contras. Even Khomeini's Iran was not off limits in getting money for the Nicaraguan fight.

In another time and place, i.e., Saudi Arabia, present day, where regime change in Syria was a high priority, we've heard excuses similar to those made by Elliott Abrams about the Contras, about the responsibility for the killing and butchering of the corpse of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and about the financing and arming of ISIS and Al Nusra terrorists by Saudi Arabia in Syria. Deja vu.

With more neo-cons in the Administration, the trajectory is more wasted blood and treasure.

[Feb 09, 2019] New York Times admission of Afghanistan fiasco provokes human rights imperialist backlash by Bill Van Auken

Notable quotes:
"... Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans' care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs." ..."
"... Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria. ..."
"... A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women ..."
"... Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population, under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate, and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16. ..."
"... The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act. ..."
"... Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more. ..."
"... It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists do not care for the facts. ..."
"... That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused. Brzezinski said, "None". ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | wsws.org

An editorial published by the New York Times on February 4 titled "End the War in Afghanistan" has provoked a backlash from prominent supporters of the decades-long US "war on terrorism" and the fraud of "humanitarian intervention."

The Times editorial was a damning self-indictment by the US political establishment's newspaper of record, which has supported every US act of military aggression, from the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the US wars for regime change in Libya and Syria beginning in 2011.

The editorial presents the "war on terror" as an unmitigated fiasco, dating it from September 14, 2001, when "Congress wrote what would prove to be one of the largest blank checks in the country's history," i.e., the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, which is still invoked to legitimize US interventions from Syria to Somalia, Yemen and, of course, Afghanistan.

On the day that this "blank check" was written, the Times published a column titled "No Middle Ground," which stated "the Bush administration today gave the nations of the world a stark choice: stand with us against terrorism, deny safe havens to terrorists or face the certain prospect of death and destruction. The marble halls of Washington resounded with talk of war."

It continued, "The nation is rallying around its young, largely untried leader-as his rising approval ratings and the proliferation of flags across the country vividly demonstrate "

This war propaganda was sustained by the Times, which sold the invasion of Afghanistan as retribution for 9/11 and then promoted the illegal and unprovoked war against Iraq by legitimizing and embellishing the lies about "weapons of mass destruction."

With the first deployment of US ground troops in Afghanistan, the Times editorialized on October 20, 2001: "Now the nation's soldiers are going into battle in a distant and treacherous land, facing a determined and resourceful enemy. As they go, they should know that the nation supports their cause and yearns for their success."

Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans' care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs."

The massive loss of life, destruction of social infrastructure and vast human suffering inflicted by these wars on civilian populations are at best an afterthought for the Times. Conservative estimates place the number killed by the US war in Afghanistan at 175,000. With the number of indirect fatalities caused by the war, the toll likely rises to a million. In Iraq, the death toll was even higher.

What does the Times conclude from this bloody record? "The failure of American leaders-civilians and generals through three administrations, from the Pentagon to the State Department to Congress and the White House-to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to be studied for generations. Likewise, all Americans-the news media included-need to be prepared to examine the national credulity or passivity that's led to the longest conflict in modern American history."

What a cowardly and cynical evasion! Three administrations, those of Bush, Obama and Trump, have committed war crimes over the course of more than 17 years, including launching wars of aggression-the principal charge leveled against the Nazis at Nuremberg-the slaughter of civilians and torture. These crimes should not be "studied for generations," but punished.

As for the attempt to lump the news media together with "all Americans" as being guilty of "credulity" and "passivity," this is a slander against the American people and a deliberate cover-up of the crimes carried out by the corporate media, with the Times at their head, in disseminating outright lies and war propaganda. The Times editors should be "prepared to examine" the fact that journalistic agents of the Nazi regime who carried out a similar function in Germany were tried and punished at Nuremberg.

The Times editorial supporting a US withdrawal reflects the conclusions being drawn by increasing sections of the ruling establishment, including the Trump administration, which has opened up negotiations with the Taliban. It is bound up with the shift in strategy by US imperialism and the Pentagon toward the preparation for "great power" confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia and China.

The Times ' call for an Afghanistan withdrawal has provoked a heated rebuke by defenders of the "war on terrorism" and "humanitarian intervention," who have denounced the newspaper for defeatism. Such a withdrawal, a letter published by the Times on February 8 argued, would "accelerate and expand the war," "allow another extremist-terrorist phenomenon to emerge," and "result in the deaths and abuse of thousands of women."

The signatories of the letter include Frederick Kagan, David Sedney and Eleanor Smeal.

Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria.

Likewise Sedney, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense responsible for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, now working at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Married to a top lobbyist for Chevron who worked extensively in Central Asia, he has his own interests in the continuation of US military operations in the region.

Smeal is the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMD) and a former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), who is widely described as one of "the major leaders of the modern-day American feminist movement."

A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women. In 2001, Smeal and her FMD circulated a petition thanking the Bush administration for its commitment to promoting the rights of women in Afghanistan. After the bombing began on October 7, she declared, "We have real momentum now in the drive to restore the rights of women." A few days later, she and representatives of other feminist organizations showed up at the White House to solidarize themselves with the US war.

Urging on the conquest of Afghanistan, she wrote, "I should hope our government doesn't retreat. We'll help rip those burqas off, I hope. This is a unique time in history. If you're going to end terrorism, you've got to end the ideology of gender apartheid."

Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population, under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate, and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16.

Recent reports suggest that the maternal death rate may be higher than it was before the war began, surpassed only by South Sudan. While USAID has poured some $280 million into its Promote program, supposedly to advance the conditions of Afghan women, it has done nothing but line the pockets of corrupt officials of the US-backed puppet regime in Kabul.

The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act.

On October 9, two days after Washington launched its now 17-year-long war on Afghanistan and amid a furor of jingoistic and militarist propaganda from the US government and the corporate media, the World Socialist Web Site editorial board posted a column titled "Why we oppose the war in Afghanistan." It rejected the claim that this was a "war for justice and the security of the American people against terrorism" and insisted that "the present action by the United States is an imperialist war" in which Washington aimed to "establish a new political framework within which it will exert hegemonic control" over not only Afghanistan, but over the broader region of Central Asia, "home to the second largest deposit of proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world."

The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. At most, it is a passive acceptance that war is the only means to fight terrorism, a mood that owes a great deal to the efforts of a thoroughly dishonest media which serves as an arm of the state. Beneath the reluctant endorsement of military action is a profound sense of unease and skepticism. Tens of millions sense that nothing good can come of this latest eruption of American militarism.

"The United States stands at a turning point. The government admits it has embarked on a war of indefinite scale and duration. What is taking place is the militarization of American society under conditions of a deepening social crisis.

"The war will profoundly affect the conditions of the American and international working class. Imperialism threatens mankind at the beginning of the twenty-first century with a repetition on a more horrific scale of the tragedies of the twentieth. More than ever, imperialism and its depredations raise the necessity for the international unity of the working class and the struggle for socialism."

These warnings and this perspective have been borne out entirely by the criminal and tragic events of the last 17 years, even as the likes of the New York Times find themselves compelled to admit the bankruptcy of their entire record on Afghanistan, and their erstwhile "liberal" allies struggle to salvage some shred of the filthy banner of "human rights imperialism."


Charlotte Ruse12 hours ago

"The failure of American leaders -- civilians and generals through three administrations, from the Pentagon to the State Department to Congress and the White House -- to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to be studied for generations. Likewise, all Americans -- the news media included -- need to be prepared to examine the national credulity or passivity that's led to the longest conflict in modern American history."

What the New York Times should propose is a Nuremberg-style trial for the war criminals responsible for the genocide of millions, the devastation of of the Middle East and Africa, and the looting of the US Treasury by war profiteers and the political duopoly.

If these criminals are NOT held accountable for their actions NOTHING will be learned and the violence, death and destruction will continue.

"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law, acted as Head of State or responsible government official, does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."

Serenity Charlotte Ruse3 hours ago
Gore Vidal rightly named America as the United States of Amnesia. They NEVER learn from their own history and they are never told about what their terrorist government does in their name.
Pete LaPlace13 hours ago
Eleanor Smeal's comment about "ripping off those burqas" in Afghanistan reminds me of Louisiana congressman John Cooksey's post-9/11 suggestion that police should pull over and question anyone with ''a diaper on his head''. Both use religious intolerance to increase the power of the state.
solerso15 hours ago
"A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women."

wouldn't it be more correctly "Janey comes lately" ..as in "Johnny come lately"..?

The completely insane fraud of waging imperialist war for "women rights" has been , unfortunately, extensively documented..the US occupation has strengthened not weakened the Taliban

"The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. "

Not really in agreement with this statement although, everything has changed in almost 20 years.....

ben franklin [pre death] solerso2 hours ago
There are always elements that are gung ho for war. And I'll agree that the number was abnormally high for Afghanistan. But I do think the majority still reluctantly agreed to the war as a necessary measure to fight "terrorism" as the more-than-likely-to-be-a-false-flag 9/11 event was very fresh in everyone's mind.
Master Oroko16 hours ago
Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more.

What's more interesting is that the liberal elites will probably do their best to continue on with the war. But either way, the USA will likely lose. In fact, it's already lost the war. The Taliban have won this one. That the elitists can't see that shows just how far gone they are.

Carolyn Zaremba Master Orokoan hour ago
The British failed in Afghanistan, too, remember.
лидия20 hours ago
Prof Bomb Libya Cole started his career of "progressive" imperialist by backing USA aggression against Afghanistan.
лидия20 hours ago
It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists do not care for the facts.
konnections лидия3 hours ago
That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused. Brzezinski said, "None".
Robert Montgomery лидия9 hours ago
Exactly. I believe the current term is "post-colonial feminists." Kinda takes the edge off the "colonialism."
Charlotte Ruse лидия9 hours ago
Good point!!

[Feb 09, 2019] The US scraps the INF treaty Another step toward nuclear war by Andre Damon

Notable quotes:
"... New York Times ..."
"... "Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet Union, negotiated the INF agreement." ..."
"... Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military. ..."
"... As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap between commercial and military technologies evaporates." ..."
"... The United States hopes that, by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up US preeminence on the world stage. ..."
"... Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal "strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR. ..."
"... But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the genocidal impulses of US imperialism. ..."
"... Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of neocolonial wars. ..."
"... the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001. ..."
"... Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to and including the launching of nuclear war. ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | www.wsws.org

In an article that fully backs the White House's accusations against Russia, the New York Times ' David Sanger, a conduit for the Pentagon, spells out with perfect lucidity the real reasons why the United States is leaving the INF treaty:

"Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet Union, negotiated the INF agreement."

Sanger's own words make perfectly clear why the United States wants to leave the treaty, which has nothing to do with Russia's alleged violations: Washington is seeking to ring the island chain surrounding the Chinese mainland with a hedge of nuclear missiles. But Sanger somehow expects, without so much as a transition paragraph, his readers to believe the hot air spewed by Pompeo about Russia's "bad behavior."

Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military.

Two decades ago, at the height of the dotcom bubble, China was little more than a cheap labor platform, assembling the consumer electronics driving a revolution in communications, while American companies pocketed the vast bulk of the profits. But today, the economic balance of power is shifting.

Chinese companies like Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo are capturing an ever-greater portion of the global smartphone market, even as their rivals Samsung and Apple see their market share slip. The Shenzhen-based DJI is the uncontested global leader in the consumer drone market. Huawei, meanwhile, leads its competitors by over a year in the next-generation mobile infrastructure that will power not only driverless cars and "smart" appliances, but the "autonomous" weapons of the future.

As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap between commercial and military technologies evaporates."

It is the economic decline of the United States relative to its global rivals that is ultimately driving the intensification of US nuclear war plans. The United States hopes that, by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up US preeminence on the world stage.

But a consensus is emerging within the US military that Washington cannot bring its rivals to heel merely with the threat of totally obliterating them with its massive arsenal of strategic missiles. Given the fleet of nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines possessed by both Russia and China, this option, even ignoring the effects of nuclear winter, would result in the destruction of the largest cities in the United States.

Rather, the US is working to construct a "usable," low-yield, "tactical" nuclear arsenal, including the construction of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. This week, a new low-yield US nuclear warhead went into production, with a yield between half and one third of the "little boy" weapon that leveled the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and hundreds of times smaller than the United States' other nuclear weapons systems.

The Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review, released last year, envisions using such weapons to turn the tide in conflicts that begin with conventional weapons, under the pretense (whether the Pentagon believes it or not) that such wars will stop short of full-scale nuclear exchanges.

Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal "strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR.

But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the genocidal impulses of US imperialism.

Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of neocolonial wars.

But the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001.

Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to and including the launching of nuclear war.

... ... ...

[Feb 09, 2019] NYT neoliberal presstitutes ignore Afghan war and concentrate of rumors about Trump

"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than a little merit." As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
Notable quotes:
"... Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted stalemate? ..."
"... Disaster? Debacle? Catastrophe? Humiliation? ..."
"... And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt characterization. ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

From: Lost in TrumpWorld by Andrew J. Bacevich

I don't wish to imply that political leaders and media outlets ignore our wars altogether. That would be unfair. Yet in TrumpWorld, while the president's performance in office receives intensive and persistent coverage day in, day out, the attention given to America's wars has been sparse and perfunctory, when not positively bizarre.

As a case in point, consider the op-ed that recently appeared in the New York Times (just as actual peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban seemed to be progressing ), making the case for prolonging the U.S. war in Afghanistan, while chiding President Trump for considering a reduction in the number of U.S. troops currently stationed there. Any such move, warned Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, would be a "mistake" of the first order.

The ongoing Afghan War dates from a time when some of today's recruits were still in diapers. Yet O'Hanlon counsels patience: a bit more time and things just might work out. This is more or less comparable to those who suggested back in the 1950s that African Americans might show a bit more patience in their struggle for equality: Hey, what's the rush?

I don't pretend to know what persuaded the editors of the Times that O'Hanlon's call to make America's longest war even longer qualifies as something readers of the nation's most influential newspaper just now need to ponder. Yet I do know this: the dearth of critical attention to the costs and consequences of our various post-9/11 wars is nothing short of shameful, a charge to which politicians and journalists alike should plead equally guilty.

I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than a little merit. Even more striking than Trump's critique is the fact that so few members of the national security establishment are willing to examine it seriously. As a consequence, the wars persist, devoid of purpose.

Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted stalemate?

Disaster? Debacle? Catastrophe? Humiliation?

And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt characterization.

Yet the fault is not Trump's. The fault belongs to those who have allowed their immersion in the dank precincts of TrumpWorld to preclude serious reexamination of misguided and reckless policies that predate the president by at least 15 years.


fnn , says: February 5, 2019 at 8:05 pm GMT

You have to compare Trump with the alternative. The D's /progs make war on free speech, attack the presumption of innocence, want essentially uncontrolled mass immigration and relentlessly push in the direction of war with Russia. Add their cynical Russiagate hoax-witch hunt for further illustration
of the danger they present. As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
Cassander , says: February 7, 2019 at 2:46 am GMT
"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than a little merit."

I'm with Bacevich on the insanity of Endless War, but I question why he has to denigrate Trump in his lead in. The cynical side of me believes that Bacevich thinks he has to be a Trump-hater if he is to be listened to.

Hey Andrew sir Democracy is messy. But DJT is on your team and the MSM/Liberal progs/Neocons aren't. Worth reflecting on

Al Moanee , says: February 7, 2019 at 3:31 am GMT
@fnn "As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease"

Actually, Trump is the microbe not the virus. He's the opportunistic microbe that attaches itself to a sick and diseased body-politic. As to symptoms, they are borne by society at-large and now manifest themselves in the majority of Americans who one way or the other are "Lost in TrumpWorld"

[Feb 09, 2019] Decameron D j vu All Over Again

It looks like a specialist on illegal transferee of weapons is needed to make the color revolution a success...
Notable quotes:
"... Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED). ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
An admiring Mike Pompeo with Elliott Abrams

It's a sad fact that the full and unconditional pardon given by President George H.W. Bush to Elliott Abrams (a member of the second generation neo-conservative royalty by way of marriage to the daughter of neo-con co-creator, Midge Decter), protected him from disbarment and possible prison. Abrams, who pled guilty to the crime of lying to Congress in the investigation of the Iran-Contra, embraced the plea option reportedly in order to avoid heavier charges from the office of then independent counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, prosecutor in the Iran-Contra cases. Bush is gone, Walsh is gone, but Mr. Bush's Attorney General William Barr is – surprise – now Attorney General of the United States.

What that portends for future regime change adventures remains to be seen, but the historical record is ominous.

In 1992, when Bush issued the Iran-Contra pardons on the eve of his leaving office after losing reelection to President Bill Clinton, William Barr fully supported the pardons. Presidential pardons are, after all, Constitutional. But, Lawrence Walsh said at the time, reported NPR, "It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences."

Now the Iran-Contra era neo-cons and the Dick Cheney/Iraq Invasion 2003 era neo-cons are marching back into the institution of the Presidency.

Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Regime change, putting in questionable, if not nefarious new leaders, seems to be Abrams' delight: Nicaragua, Iraq while a government official. Many others in his dreams.

In 1986, even before the Iran-Contra debacle was revealed, as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Elliott Abrams told Congress that Nicaraguan "Contras" involved in drug running didn't have the okay from Contra leaders. It was just underlings. This, while Abrams and company were busy doing end-runs around the Boland Amendment and other Congressional actions that barred military supplies to the Contras. Even Khomeini's Iran was not off limits in getting money for the Nicaraguan fight.

In another time and place, i.e., Saudi Arabia, present day, where regime change in Syria was a high priority, we've heard excuses similar to those made by Elliott Abrams about the Contras, about the responsibility for the killing and butchering of the corpse of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and about the financing and arming of ISIS and Al Nusra terrorists by Saudi Arabia in Syria. Deja vu.

With more neo-cons in the Administration, the trajectory is more wasted blood and treasure.

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions. ..."
"... At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start. ..."
Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

RJJCDA , says: February 9, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT

Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books. Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.

At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.

Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions. ..."
"... At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start. ..."
Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

RJJCDA , says: February 9, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT

Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books. Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.

At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.

Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.

[Feb 08, 2019] How Chrystia Freeland Organized Donald Trump's Coup in Venezuela by Eric Zuesse

The key question is how strong is Maduro support within Venezuela? When oil is in stake, imperial powers usually take gloves off pretty quickly.
All this rhetoric of Eric Zuesse does not answer the key question: does Maduro movement propose sustainable alternative to neoliberalism in Venezuela and has unwavering support of armed forces and population in view of this externally driven aggression? Because if the model is unsustainable (iether for internal or external reasons -- presence of neoliberal 3000 pound guerilla on the continent) it will eventually be crushed. What is the plan and what Maduro is trying to built? Left government in several other countries of LA were recently deposed by openly neoliberal puppets: Argentina and Brazil are two recent examples.
"Progressive regimes" all run into problems in economics (which are given due to neocolonial nature of the current World order) which in turn creates social problems and the precondition for neoliberal coup d'état sponsored from Washington. So there is a Neoliberal Catch 22 for all countries who want to excape dependence on the USA: neoliberals new order guarantee that economic condition of peripheral countries do not improve; that creates social discontent that allows to propose population a neoliberal carrot -- elect a neoliberal leader and your standard of living "soon" will be like in the USA. neoliberal coup d'état can now succeed. Further impoverishing follows but it is too late -- the train has left the station.
While convention to to more extreme version of neoliberalism does not solve the problems in economics (Argentina here is nice example of "What happens next after neoliberals came back to power") and impoverishment of population is given. But at the same time the civil war is prevented and the support of the USA guarantee a certain period of political stability.
In other words this struggle is about alternatives to neoliberalism and anti-neoliberal governments have a huge handicap in a form of the USA presence on the continent. It looks like Canada is just another neoliberal puppet of the USA in this game/
Notable quotes:
"... Venezuelan soldiers have blocked the crossing ahead of a delivery arranged by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself interim president ..."
Feb 08, 2019 | off-guardian.org
8 August 2017 in order to overthrow and replace Venezuela's current President Nicolás Maduro. She stated in her February 5th announcement :

Today, we have been joined by our Lima Group partners, from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia. We have also been joined in our conversations with our partners from other countries, for this Lima Group ministerial meeting. These include Ecuador, the European Union, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States."

She, along with U.S. President Donald Trump, had, all along, been the actual leaders of this international diplomatic effort, to violate the Venezuelan Constitution blatantly , so as to perpetrate the coup in Venezuela. Her active effort to replace Venezuela's Government began with her formation of the Lima Group, nearly two years ago.

Canada's Ottawa Citizen headlined on 19 August 2017, "Choosing Danger" , and their reporter Peter Hum interviewed Canada's Ambassador to Venezuela, Ben Rowswell, who was then retiring from the post. Rowswell said that Venezuelans who wanted an overthrow of their Government would continue to have the full support of Canada's Government : "'I think that some of them were sort of anx­ious that it (the em­bassy's support for hu­man rights and democ­racy in Venezuela) might not con­tinue after I left,' Rowswell said. 'I don't think they have any­thing to worry about be­cause Minister (of Foreign Affairs Chrystia) Freeland has Venezuela way at the top of her priority list.'"

Maybe it wasn't yet at the top of Trump's list, but it was at the top of hers. And she and Trump together chose whom to replace Venezuela's President, Nicholas Maduro, by: Juan Guaido . Guaido had secretly courted other Latin American leaders for this, just as Freeland had already done, by means of her secretly forming the Lima Group.

On 25 January 2019, the AP bannered "AP Exclusive: Anti-Maduro coalition grew from secret talks" and reported that the man who now claims to be Venezuela's legitimate President (though he had never even run for that post), Juan Guaido, had secretly visited foreign countries in order to win their blessings for what he was planning:

In mid-December, Guaido quietly traveled to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to brief officials on the opposition's strategy of mass demonstrations to coincide with Maduro's expected swearing-in for a second term on Jan. 10 in the face of widespread international condemnation, according to exiled former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, an ally.

Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido [9 January 2019] the night before Maduro's swearing-in ceremony [on 10 January 2019] to offer her government's support should he confront the socialist leader [Maduro], the Canadian official said. Also active was Colombia, which shares a border with Venezuela and has received more than two million migrants fleeing economic chaos, along with Peru and Brazil's new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

To leave Venezuela, he sneaked across the lawless border with Colombia, so as not to raise suspicions among immigration officials who sometimes harass opposition figures at the airport and bar them from traveling abroad, said a different anti-government leader, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security arrangements.

During the last days in office of Canada's Ambassador to Venezuela Rowswell, U.S. President Donald Trump went public with his overt threat to invade Venezuela. On 11 August 2017, McClatchy's Miami Herald bannered "Trump was making friends in Latin America -- before he raised Venezuela 'military option'" , and Patricia Mazzei reported that "President Donald Trump's unexpected suggestion Friday that he might rely on military force to deal with Venezuela's pressing political crisis was an astonishing statement that strained not only credulity but also the White House's hard-won new friendships in Latin America."

Even a spokesperson from the Atlantic Council (which is the main PR agency for NATO) was quoted as saying that "U.S. diplomats, after weeks of carefully building the groundwork for a collective international response, suddenly find their efforts completely undercut by a ridiculously over the top and anachronistic assertion. It makes us look imperialistic and old-time. This is not how the U.S. has behaved in decades!" However, Peru's Foreign Minister, Ricardo Luna, was just as eager for a coup in Venezuela as were Trump and Freeland.

On 26 October 2017, Peru's Gestion TV reported that Luna was the co-chair of the meeting of the Lima Group in Toronto, which Freeland chaired, and that (as translated into English here) "Luna added that the objective of the meeting of the Group of Lima 'is to create a propitious situation' so that the regime of Nicolás Maduro 'feels obligated to negotiate' not only an exit to the crisis, 'but also an exit to his own regime'."

This gang was going to make Maduro an offer that he couldn't refuse. So, the Lima Group, which was founded by Luna and by Freeland, was taking the initiative as much and as boldly as Trump was, regardless of what NATO might think about it. The topic of that news-report, and its headline, was "Peru proposes Grupo de Lima to involve the UN to face the Venezuelan crisis." Four days later, Freeland and Luna met privately at the U.N., in New York, with the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

Inner City Press reported that "The title of the meeting is 'the situation in Venezuela and efforts by regional organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter' [see it here ] and the briefer will be not USG [Under Secretary General] Jeffrey Feltman but his Assistant, ASG [Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs] Miroslav Jenca."

Jeffrey Feltman was the person who, in the secretly recorded 27 January 2014 phone-conversation in which U.S. President Barack Obama's agent, Victoria Nuland -- planning and overseeing the February 2014 coup that overthrew Ukraine's democratically elected President -- instructed the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, that, after Ukraine's President is ousted, Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk was to be appointed as Ukraine's 'interim' leader as the new Prime Minister, to replace the President. She also said :

"I talked to Jeff Feltman this morning; he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry. He's now gotten both Serry and Ban ki-Moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. That would be great, I think, to help glue this thing, and to have the UN help glue it, and, you know, fuck the EU."

So, the still Under Secretary General of the U.N, Mr. Feltman, is still America's fixer there, who "glues" whatever the U.S. President orders the U.N. to do, and his Assistant was filling in for him that day. Therefore, if Trump and Freeland turn out to be as successful as Obama was, then the U.N. will "glue" the outcome. Chrystia Freeland happens also to be a friend of Victoria Nuland, and a passionate supporter of her coup in Ukraine.

... ... ...

Of course, the man whom the U.S. and Canadian regimes and the Lima Group are trying to install as Venezuela's President, Juan Guaido, had been well-groomed for that job, but not by political and electoral experience, of which he has almost none, but by his foreign sponsors. On 29 January 2019 the Gray Zone Project bannered "The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela's Coup Leader" , and their two star investigative journalists, Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal, opened: "Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington's elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization."

This report also noted that "The 'real work' began two years later, in 2007, when Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to Washington, DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington University, under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [and the IMF is a central part the operation that's described in John Perkins's now-classic Confessions of an Economic Hit Man] who spent more than a decade working in the Venezuelan energy sector, under the old oligarchic regime that was ousted by Chávez."

Moreover, "Stratfor and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country's electrical system by as early as April 2010." Etc. This is how 'democracy' now functions. It's not democracy -- it is fascism. The euphemisms for it are "neoliberalism" and "neoconservatism."

Regardless of whether or not the Trump-Freeland-Luna program for Venezuela succeeds, democracy and human rights won't be advanced by it; but, if it succeeds, the fortunes of US-and-allied billionaires will be . It's part of their global privatization program .

Sidebar: If you want to understand what was the historical context where Inner City Press reported that "The title of the meeting is 'the situation in Venezuela and efforts by regional organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter'" ; then Luk Van Langenhove has summarized that context , by saying:

Few invocations of Chapter VIII's provisions were made during the cold war period. But when the bipolar world system collapsed and spawned new global security threats, the explosion of local and regional armed conflicts provoked a renewed interest in regional organizations and their role in the maintenance of regional peace and security. The United Nations was forced to acknowledge its inability to solely bear the responsibility for providing peace and security worldwide."

So, "during the cold war period," this provision of the UN Charter remained virtually inactive. Then, suddenly, after 1991, when the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance to counter America's NATO military alliance, all ended (with no concessions being made on the American side ), America could no longer use 'communism' as a 'justification' to invade or perpetrate coups against foreign governments that were friendly toward or else allied with Russia.

So, now, this provision of the U.N.'s Charter became activated by the U.S. and its allies, in order to be able to say that The West's coups and invasions aren't actually to build-out the U.S. empire, but are instead for (in the terms of this part of the U.N.'s Charter) "the maintenance of international peace and security" -- so as to 'authorize' coups and international invasions by the U.S. and its vassal nations, such as are the members of NATO.

This is what U.S. President G.H.W. Bush had in mind to rely upon, when he told the leaders of the U.S. regime's vassal states, secretly at Camp David, on the night of 24 February 1990, that the 'Cold War' would now continue secretly on the U.S.-allied side, against Russia and against any nation's leaders (such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and Viktor Yanukovych) that aren't hostile toward Russia, by Bush's saying then to them, that no compromise must ever be allowed "with Moscow," because "To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn't."

In other words, whereas the U.N. had been set up by FDR to evolve ultimately into the global democratic federation of nation-states -- a democratic world-government -- so as to become the sole possessor of control over all strategic weaponry, and thus to become the democratic republic of the entire world authorized to settle international disputes peacefully, the subterranean Nazis and other fascists whom U.S. President Truman and the Bilderberg group represented, were determined that the U.S. and its vassal nations would ultimately become the dictatorship over all nations, the entire world. That's what Ukraine, and now Venezuela, and many other U.S. coups and invasions, are -- and have been -- really about. It's about the 'peace' of the graveyard, NOT any democracy, anywhere at all.

That's their dream. They want to monopolize the corruption everywhere, not to end it, anywhere. And that's why they distort and blatantly lie about Venezuela's democratic constitution now , just as they did about Ukraine's democratic constitution in February 2014. It's, essentially, a lawless international gang of billionaire thugs. It is the international Deep State . It consists of the under 2,000 people who are international billionaires in the U.S. and secondarily in the U.S.-allied countries, and of those billionaires' millions of hirees. 585 of those under-2,000 are Americans .

But the wealthiest person on the planet isn't even listed on any of the standard lists of billionaires, and he is the King of Saudi Arabia . That person is the U.S. aristocracy's #1 international ally, because ever since the 1970s when gold no longer backed the U.S. dollar but instead oil did, that person's decisions have enabled the U.S. dollar to continue as being the world's reserve currency, no matter how big the U.S. economy's trade deficits are, and no matter how high the U.S. Government's fiscal deficits are.

Below those billionaires (and trillionaire), and below their millions of hirees, are the billions of serfs; and, below those, at the very bottom, are the approximately 40 million slaves , and the many millions imprisoned -- virtually all of whom have extremely low (if any) net worth at all, since slavery and imprisonment are, in the real world, only for the very poor, not at all for the international gangsters, except for a very few exceptions (such as, perhaps, "El Chapo").

The billionaires command, and the governments obey; that's 'democracy', and it's 'the rule of law', today. Everything to the contrary is propaganda, such as that what Trump-Freeland-Luna want for Venezuela is to decrease corruption and to increase democracy and human rights.

At least the more blatant fascist John Bolton was honest when he said on January 28th : "It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela." But he would have been lots more honest if he had acknowledged, instead, that "It will make a big difference to the United States billionaires economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela."

This is all that the fascists ever really cared about. Mussolini called it "corporationism." Now, decades in the wake of the Allies' supposed 'victory against fascism' -- against the Axis powers -- in WW II, we all (at least the realists) are acknowledging that we clearly are staring in the face the raw fact that fascism has finally won, or at least very nearly totally won, in the world.

Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito, died; but their ideological followers today rule the world, and FDR would be turning in his grave.

  1. tutisicecream

    Unfortunately the Orange one is being wagged again by those who are most seriously plotting his demise and over reach in Venezuela may be just as much part of the plan as it was in pushing him into launching an attack on Syria. It is true that the global elites are at a loss what to do, as the fracturing of the global oligarchies is proving Marx right . capitalist are just a band of warring brothers [brigands, robbers, pirates – all!]. As there is no serious ideological threat to their hegemony at the moment they fight amongst themselves with imperial designs.

    The threat to the imperium is the chaos which ensues when the elite power struggles fracture their hegemony and an uncontrollable uprising ensues. Who shapes that revolution will be central to this. Where it will come from is not evident yet but let's hope it's a grass roots one!


  1. Yes, they will never stop. Just think of this brand-new propaganda lie of Maduro allegedly preventing aid shipment to come into Venezuela. See BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47143492 : "Venezuelan soldiers have blocked the crossing ahead of a delivery arranged by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself interim president".

    Notice the word "ahead" in this sentence. This word appears because there was never a "delivery" (truck) with aid shipment at the bridge!
    The Venezuelan government ("Maduro") blocked the bridge only because of war-threatening Columbia and USA.
    If you want to send aid shipment to Venezuela you can send as much as you want anytime. Of course you have to respect the regulations of the custom (like in every other country!). But that's all!

    Whets foul with this story?
    Well, this aid "delivery" cannot have been collected in Colombia – and thus being taken away from the people of Colombia, who are much poorer than the people of Venezuela. So it would have to come from other country (USA, Europe, China, Japan). And then you would not land this aid shipment in Columbia (a harbour, an airport), drive it, in hot-humid air, through half of Colombia to the border crossing bridge of Cúcuta. Then cross the bridge and then drive it through half of Venezuela!
    Instead aid shipments for Venezuela would be landed directly in Venezuela – in an Venezuelan harbour or airport.

    "Everything (to the contrary) is propaganda".
    Or "Fake News"! So don't miss James Corbett's "FAKE NEWS AWARD" – https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-351-the-2nd-annual-real-fake-news-awards/

  1. Of course I'm speaking rhetorically: we all know what the answer is and it ain't looking very pretty.

[Feb 08, 2019] To see how the US tries to put loopholes in its international legal commitments, you have to look at the reservations

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

hubba hubba Jon-Benet , says: Next New Comment

[Feb 08, 2019] The US dollar is used for the international oil and gas trade and a wide part of global trade. This gives the US an exorbitant privilege to sanction countries it opposes and impose its conditions for oil trading

Feb 08, 2019 | off-guardian.org

Narrative says Feb, 1, 2019

Nations should explore better system to break US hegemony

"The US dollar is used for the international oil and gas trade and a wide part of global trade. This gives the US an exorbitant privilege to sanction countries it opposes.
..
The latest sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company aim to cut off source of foreign currency of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro's government and eventually force him to step down.
..
A new mechanism should be devised to thwart such a vicious circle"

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1137847.shtml

crank says Feb, 1, 2019
Francis Lee; Big B,

OK I phrased that badly.

My question is really about those at the top of the power pyramid (those few hundred families who own the controling share of the wealth of the world) -- those who position idiots like Bolton to do their work, do they comprehend 'exergy' decline ?

If we can, then can they not? I agree with Parenti that they are not 'somnambulists'. They are strategists looking out for their own interests, and that means scrutinising trends in political movements, culture, technology and, well, just about everything. I find it hard, the idea that all these people -- people who have seen their businesses shaped by resource discovery, exploitation and then depletion, have no firm grasp on the realities of dwindling returns on energy.

The models were drawn up 47 years ago. I think that some of them at least, do understand that economic growth is coming to a halt, and have understood for decades. If true then they are planning that transition in their favour.

These hard to swallow facts about oil are still on the far fringes of any political conversation. The neoliberal cultists are deaf to them for obvious reasons; the socialist idealists believe that a 'New Deal' can lead us off the death train, but mostly ignore the intractable relationship between energy decline and financial problems; even the anarchists want their work free utopia run by robots and AI but stop short of asking whether solar panels and wind turbines can actually provide the power for all that tech. It's the news that nobody wants to think about, but which they will be forced to thinking about in the very near future.

The Twitter feed 'Limits to Growth' has less than 800 followers (excellent though it is).

BigB says Feb, 1, 2019
Crank

I do not want to get into the mind of the Walrus of Death Bolton! I do not want to know what he does, as he does. But at lower levels of government, and corporatism, there is an awareness of surplus energy economics. And as Nafeez has also pointed out, the military (the Pentagon) are taking an interest. And though it could rapidly change, who really appreciates the nuances of EROEI? I'm guessing at less than a single percent of all populations? And how many include its effects in a integrated political sense?

Its appreciation is sporadic: ranging from tech-utopia hopium to a defeated fatalism of the inevitability of collapse. Unless and until people want to face the harshness of the reality that capitalism has created: we are going to be involved in a marginal analysis. There are very few people who have realised that capitalism is long dead.

Dr Tim Morgan estimates that world capitalism has conservatively had $140tn in stimulus since 2008 -- without stimulating anything or reviving it at all. In fact, that amounts to the greatest robbery in history -- the theft of the future. Inasmuch as they can, those unrepayable debts -- transferred to inflate the parasitic assets of capitalists -- will be socialised. Except they cannot be. Not without surplus energy.

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/145-fire-and-ice-part-two/

Brexit, gilets jaunes, Venezuela, unending crises in MENA, China's economic slowdown, etc -- all linked by EROEI.

It is a common socio-politico-economic energy nexus -- but linked together by whom? And the emergent surplus energy-mind-environmental ecology nexus? All the information is available. The formation of a new political manifesto started in the 1960s with the New Left but it seems to have been in stasis since. Perhaps this might stimulate the conversation.

According to Nate Hagens: there is 4.5 years of human muscle power leveraged by each barrel of oil. We are all going to be working for a very long time to pay back the debts the possessing classes have built up for us -- with absolutely no marginal utility for ourselves.

We are subsidising our own voluntary slavery unless we develop an emergent ecosocialist and ecosophical alternative to carbon capitalism. We cannot expect paleoconservative carbon relics like Bolton -- or anyone else -- to do it for us. The current political landscape is dominated by a hierarchical, vested interest, carbon aristocracy. We can't expect that to change for our benefit any time ever. Expect the opposite.

BigB says Feb, 2, 2019
Graeber has a point, though. We could already have a post-scarcity, post-production society but for the egregious maldistribution of resources and employment. Andre Gorz said as much 50 years ago (Critique of Economic Reason). Why do we organise around production: it makes no sense but for the relations of production are, and remain, the relations of hierarchical rule. So long as we assign value to a human life on the basis of meritocratic productivity -- we will have dehumanisation, marginalisation, and subjugation (haves and have nots). So why not organisation around care, freedom and play?

Such a solution would require the transversalistion of society and not-full-employment: so that no part of the system is subordinate, and no part is privileged. All systems and sub-ordinate (care) systems would be co-equal, of corresponding value and worth. So, without invoking EROEI, that would go a long way to solve our exergy, waste, pollution, and inequality problems. It is the profligate, unproductive superstructure: supporting rentier, surplus energy accumulating, profit-seeking suprasocieties -- that squanders our excess energy and puts expansive spatio-temporal pressures on already stretched biophysical ecological systems that engenders potential collapse. It is their -- the possessing classes -- assets that are being inflated, at our environmental expense. When it comes to survivability, we cannot afford a parasitic globalised superstructure draining the host -- the ecologically productive base. Without the over-accumulation, overconsumption, and wastage (the accursed share) associated with the superstructure of the advanced economies -- and their cultural, credit, military imperialisms I expect we could live quite well. Without the pressures of globalised transportation networks, and unnecessary military budgets -- the pressure on oil is minimised. It could be used for the 1001 other uses it has, rather than fuelling Saudi Eurofighters bombing Yemeni schoolchildren, for instance. The surplus energy could be used to educate, clothe and feed them instead. That would be a better use of resources, for sure.

If we took stock of what we really have, and what we really are -- a form of spiritual neo-self-sufficiency, augmented and extended into co-mutual care and freedom valorising ecologies we wouldn't need to chase the perceived loss all over the globe, killing everything that moves. The solutions are not hard, they are normative, once we are shocked out of this awful near-life trance state of separationism. Thanks for the link.

crank says Feb, 2, 2019
It seems to me that there are two parallel arguments going on.
One is about social organisation, attitudes towards and policies determining work, money, paid employment, technological development and the distribution of weath.
The other is fundamentally based on the laws of thermodynamics and concerns resource limits, energy surpluses, the role of 'stored sunlight' in producing things and doing work for each other, pollution and projections about these into the future.

I am surprised that Graeber (just as an example) seems to basically ignore the second of these even though he clearly is an incisive thinker and makes good points about the first. It is taken as a given that, theoretically at least, human civilisation could re-organise around a new ethic, transform the economy into a 'caring economy', re-structure money, government and do away with militarism. In terms of what to do now, as an individual, what choices to make, it is disconcerting to me when talk of these ideals seems to ignore those latter questions about overshoot.

I wonder if the egalitarian nature of much of indiginous North American society was inescapably bound with the realities of a low population density, low technology, intimate relationship with the natural world and a culture completely steeped in reverence for Mother Earth.
The talk I hear from Bastani or Graeber along the lines of 'we could be flying around in jet packs on the moon, if only society was organised sensibly' rings hollow to me.

BigB says Feb, 2, 2019
Crank

Welcome to my world! Apart from as a managerial tool, systems thinking has yet to catch on in the wider population. According to reductive materialism: there are two unlinked arguments. According to Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) there is only one integrated argument -- with two inter-connected correlative aspects. We can only organise around what we can energetically afford. Consequently, we cannot organise around what we cannot afford -- that is, global industrialised production with a supervenient elitist superstructure.

Let's face it : ethical arguments carry little weight against organisation around hierarchical rule. The current talk of an ethical capitalism -- in mixed economies with 'commons' elements -- is an appeasement. and distractional to the gathering and ineluctable reality.

The current (2012) EROI for the UK is 6.2:1 -- barely above the 'energy cliff' of 5:1. The GDP 'growth' and bullshit jobs are funded by monetised debt (we borrow around £5 to make every £1 -- from Tim Morgan's SEEDS). From the Earth Overshoot Day website: the UK is in economic overshoot from May 8th onward.

These are indicators that we will not be "flying jetpacks on the moon": even if we reorganise. Everyone, and I mean everyone, will have to make do with less. A lot less. Everything would have to be localised and sustainable. Production would be minimised, and not at all full. Two major systems of production -- food (agroecology) and energy -- would have to be sustainable and self-sovereign. And financialisation and the rentier, service economy? Now you can see why no one, not even Dave the crypto-anarchist, is talking about reality. Elitism, establishment and entitlement do not figure in an equitable future. We can't afford it, energetically or ethically.

So when will the debate move on? Not any time the populace is bought into ideational deferred prosperity. All the time that EROEI is ignored as the fundamental concept governing dwindling prosperity -- no one, and I mean no one, will be talking about a minimal surplus energy future. The magic realism is that the economic affordances of cheap oil (unsustainably mimicked by debt-funding) will return sometime, somehow (the technocratic superfix). The aporia is that the longer the delay, the less surplus energy we will have available to utilise. Something like the Green New Deal -- that has been proposed for around two decades now -- may give us some quality of life to sustain. Pseudo-talk of a Customs Union, 'clean' coal, and nuclear power, will not.

An integrated reality -- along the model of Guattari's 'Three Ecologies' -- of mind, economy, and environment is well, we are not alone, but we are ahead of the curve. The other cultural aporia is that we need to implement such vision now. Actually, about thirty years ago but let's not get depressive!

We are going to need that cooperative organisation around care and freedom just to get through the coming century.

crank says Jan, 31, 2019
As mentioned elsewhere here, Venezualan oil deposits are not all that the hype cracks them up to be. They are mostly oil sands that produce little in the way of net energy gain after the lengthy process of extraction.The Venezuala drama is about the empire crushing democracy (i.e. socialism), not oil. [not that this detracts from Kit's essential point in the article].
The Left (as well as the Right), by and large have not come to terms with the realities of the decline in net surplus energy that is unfolding around the world and driving the political changes that we see. So they still view geopolitics in terms of the oil economy of pre-2008.
The productive economies of Europe are falling apart (check Steve Keen's latest on Max and Stacy -- although even i he doesn't delve into the energy decline aspect).
The carbon density of the global economy has not changed in the 27 years since the founding of the UNFCCC.

The Peak Oil phenomenon was oversimplified, misrepresented and misunderstood as a simple turning point in overall oil production. In truth it was a turning point in energy surplus.
I predict that by the end of this or next year, everyone will be talking about ERoEI. Everyone will realise that there is no way out of this predicament. Maybe there are ways to lessen the catastrophe, but no way to avert it. This will change the conversation, and even change what 'politics' means (i.e. you cannot campaign on a 'new start' or a 'better, brighter future' if everyone knows that that physically cannot happen).
Everyone will understand that their civilisation is collapsing.
Does Bolton understand this?

I dunno.
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/brexit-stage-one-in-europes-slow-burn-energy-collapse-1f520d7e2d89

Francis Lee says Jan, 31, 2019
"Does Bolton Understand this/? I think this might qualify as a rhetorical question.
BigB says Feb, 1, 2019
Crank

If you were referring to my earlier comments about Venezuelan extra heavy crude: it's still massively about the oil. The current carbon capitalist world system does not understand surplus energy or EROEI, as it is so fixated on maximal short term returns for shareholders. It can't comprehend that their entire business model is unsustainable and self cannibalising. Which is bad for us: because carbon net-energy (exergy) economics it is foundational to all civilisation. The ignorance of it and subsequent environmental and social convergence crises threatens the systemic failure of our entire civilisation. The Venezuelan crisis affects us all: and is symptomatic of a decline in cheap oil due to rapidly falling EROEI.

I can't find the EROEI specifically for Venezuelan heavy oil: but it is only slightly more viscous than bitumen -- which has an EROEI of 3:1. Let's call it 4:1: the same as other tight oils and shale. Anything less than 5:1 is more or less an energy sink: with virtually no net energy left for society. The minimum EROEI for societal needs is 11:1. Does Bolton understand this? Francis hit the nail on the head there.

Do any of our leaders? No. If they did, a transition to decentralisation would be well under way. Globalised supply chains are systemically threatened and fragile. A globalised economy is spectacularly vulnerable. Especially a debt-ridden one. Which way are our leaders trying to take us? At what point will humanity realise we are following clueless Pied Pipers off the Seneca Cliff -- into globalised energy oblivion?

The rapid investment -- not in a post-carbon transition -- but in increased militarisation, and resource and market driven aggressive foreign intervention policies reveal the mindset of insanity. As people come to understand the energy basis of the world crisis: the fact of permanent austerity and increased pauperisation looms large. What will the outcome be when an armed nuclear madhouse becomes increasingly protectionsist of their dwindling share? Too alarmist, perhaps? Let's play pretend that we can plant a few trees and captive breed a few rhinos and it will all be fine. BAU?

The world runs on cheap oil: our socio-politico-economic expectations of progress depend on it. Which means that the modern human mind is, in effect, a thought-process predicated on cheap oil. Oleum ergo sum? Apart from the Middle East: we are already past the point where oil is a liability, not a viability. Debt funding its extraction, selling below the cost of production -- both assume the continual expansion of global GDP. Oil is a highly subsidised -- with our surplus socialisation capital -- negative asset. We foot the bill. A bill that EROEI predicts will keep on rising. At what point do we realise this? Or do we live in hopium of a return to historical prosperity? Or hang on the every word of the populist magic realism demagogue who promises a future social utopia?

If it's based on cheap oil, it ain't happenin'.

BigB says Feb, 1, 2019
Erratum: less viscous than bitumen.
wildtalents says Feb, 1, 2019
Is it no longer considered a courtesy to the reader to spell out, and who knows maybe even explain, the abbreviations one uses?
Jen says Feb, 1, 2019
EROEI = Energy Returned on Energy Invested (also known as EROI = Energy Return on Investment)

EROEI refers to the amount of usable energy that can be extracted from a resource compared to the amount of energy (usually considered to come from the same resource) used to extract it. It's calculated by dividing the amount of energy obtained from a source by the amount of energy needed to get it out.

An EROEI of 1:1 means that the amount of usable energy that a resource generates is the same as the amount of energy that went into getting it out. A resource with an EROEI of 1:1 or anything less isn't considered a viable resource if it delivers the same or less energy than what was invested in it. A viable resource is one with an EROEI of at least 3:1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested

The concept of EROEI assumes that the energy needed to get more energy out of a resource is the same as the extracted energy ie you need oil to extract oil or you need electricity to extract electricity. In real life, you often need another source of energy to extract energy eg in some countries, to extract electricity, you need to burn coal, and in other countries, to extract electricity you need to build dams on rivers. So comparing the EROEI of electricity extraction across different countries will be difficult because you have to consider how and where they're generating electricity and factor in the opportunity costs involved (that is, what the coal or the water or other energy source -- like solar or wind energy -- could have been used for instead of electricity generation).

That is probably why EROEI is used mainly in the context of oil or natural gas extraction.

BigB says Feb, 1, 2019
wildtalents: Yes, I normally do. But the thread started from, and includes Crank's link that explains it.
Thomas Peterson says Feb, 1, 2019
That's true, Venezuela's 'oil' is mostly not oil.

[Feb 08, 2019] For a well-documented, quite different analysis of the Kennedy assassination see "Partners in Crime: The Rockefeller, CFR, CIA and Castro Connection to the Kennedy Assassination."

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pancho Perico , says: February 8, 2019 at 5:31 pm GMT

@Sean According to this comment, "The government does not take orders from the CIA or the FBI. The President controls both." Well, only if the President is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Rockefeller's puppet. For a well-documented, quite different analysis of the Kennedy assassination see "Partners in Crime: The Rockefeller, CFR, CIA and Castro Connection to the Kennedy Assassination."

[Feb 08, 2019] The C.I.A. IS all about Regime Change. I am not convinced that they are all bad just a clique within.

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sowhat , says: Next New Comment February 8, 2019 at 7:31 pm GMT

The C.I.A. IS all about Regime Change. I am not convinced that they are all bad just a clique within. They are inexplicably connected with that government behind the Government. They are not connected with the office of the Executive but follow the orders of a few that have no regard for The People, constitutionally. If they were, drugs would have been squashed, decades ago.

... ... ...

[Feb 08, 2019] Amazing that a bunch of academics would "criticize" the CIA and leave out all the real facts about the CIA.

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous , says: Next New Comment February 8, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT

Edward Curtain writes for the CIA about the CIA. Amazing that a bunch of academics would "criticize" the CIA and leave out all the real facts about the CIA.

ISIS, Al Qaeda, Pornhub, Facebook, Google – or whatever the CIA calls themselves and their weapons isn't in the business of informing you about anything at all.

Read 1984, it will explain it to you, another psychological warfare treatise written by a Government agent.

Agent76 , says: Next New Comment February 8, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT
Documentary: On Company Business [1980] FULL [Remaster]

Rare award winning CIA documentary, On Company Business painfully restored from VHS.

[Feb 08, 2019] NBC = CIA = NBCIA

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:24 pm GMT

NBC = CIA = NBCIA
Agent76 , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
March 19, 2017 The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News How the Deep State Corrupted Many American Writers

Whitney's new book, "Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers," explores how the CIA influenced acclaimed writers and publications during the Cold War to produce subtly anti-communist material. During the interview, Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as the Paris Review).

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46688.htm

JANUARY 18, 2017 CIA Publishes About 13 Million Pages of Declassified Files Online

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published nearly 13 million pages of declassified files on its official website for the first time in its history. The declassified files were previously publicly available only at the National Archives in Maryland.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/cia-publishes-about-13-million-pages-of-declassified-files-online/

[Feb 07, 2019] US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years: both has Presidents installed by foreign power

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: February 7, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT

You'd think that US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years.

After all, both countries had their presidents installed by an unfriendly foreign power – in the case of US – that was Russia and in the case of Venezuela – that's US that did them the favor of choosing the proper president for them.

It's common knowledge now that without the Russian interference in the US electoral system – which as we all know works like a clockwork (orange), Trump would have never been elected as president of US – because that's not who they are.

And now the US – embittered by that experience -has decided to do the same thing to Venezuela. I see bad Russian influence everywhere. I think that indirectly – Russia is responsible for the crisis in Venezuela. If they hadn't elected Trump for president in US, it would have never occurred to the Americans that it could be done. That's not how democracies work.

[Feb 07, 2019] The USA is extracting its proven reserves at a much faster rate than any other large producer so unless new reserves are discovered US production will likely start to decline again within a few years.

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Matthias Eckert , says: February 7, 2019 at 10:48 am GMT

@Ilyana_Rozumova Despite huge increases in domestic oil production in the last years the USA is still the second largest net oil importer in the word (behind China).
Also the USA is extracting its proven reserves at a much faster rate than any other large producer (a pattern it also had in the past, leading to high fluctuation in its production) so unless new reserves are discovered US production will likely start to decline again within a few years.
Winston2 , says: February 7, 2019 at 1:37 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova Condensate, not oil. Only good for gas or lighter fluid. It may be called oil but that's a deliberate misnomer.

Only financial engineering makes it appear profitable. Its a money losing psychopaths power play, not a business. Without a heavy real oil to blend it with its useless, heavy oil is where Venezuela comes in.

Tom Welsh , says: February 7, 2019 at 3:38 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova "Main factor here is that US due to fracking become self sufficient, what actually nobody could foresee. Just a bad luck".

Bad luck for the USA. They have fallen into an elephant trap, because fracking has already become unprofitable and is only being financed by ever-increasing debt.

Admittedly this gives them some advantage, but only in the very short term.

Of course, it doesn't really matter – in the short to medium term – whether fracking is profitable or grossly unprofitable. They can still pay for it by printing more dollars, as long as the "greater fools" (or heavily bribed officials) in other countries go on accepting dollars.

Vidi , says: February 7, 2019 at 9:10 pm GMT
@Wally

"America's energy security just got a lot more secure . Located in the Wolfcamp Shale and overlying Bone Spring Formation, the unproven, technically recoverable reserves are officially the largest on the planet."

None of these breathlessly optimistic articles say how expensive it will be to get this oil. If a dollar's worth of oil costs you more than a dollar to recover, you are obviously losing in the deal. If you print the dollars, your entire economy loses.

[Feb 07, 2019] I believe I've found the reason for Canada's active participation in the coup

Feb 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

bobzibub , Feb 7, 2019 8:49:59 PM | link

I believe I've found the reason for Canada's active participation in the coup. Venezuela was harming Canadian mining company interests. Haiti redux?
John Gilberts , Feb 7, 2019 8:52:21 PM | link
How Chrystia Freeland Organized Donald Trump's Coup in Venezuela

https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/07/how-chrystia-freeland-organized-donald-trumps-coup-in-venezuela

Canada's friendly fascist Freeland...

james , Feb 7, 2019 8:56:53 PM | link
@50 bobzibub... your link doesn't bring me to the article, but i suspect it is more then just crystallix - the canuck gold mining company - that are pushing for a change in power in venezuala.. as i understand it, there are a number of canuck mining and oil related interests where they would like to exploit venezuala and can't seem to get around the democractically elected gov't of maduros..

looks like this might be related, or the article you were trying to post? an american judge says crystallex can have citgo, lol....

[Feb 07, 2019] Venezuela's deteriorating oil quality riles major refiners

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

George , says: February 7, 2019 at 10:21 pm GMT

The Paraguaná Refinery Complex is a crude oil refinery complex in Venezuela. It is considered the world's third largest refinery complex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguan%C3%A1_Refinery_Complex

There might be quality problems, or maybe this article is propaganda.

Venezuela's deteriorating oil quality riles major refiners
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-oil-insight/venezuelas-deteriorating-oil-quality-riles-major-refiners-idUSKBN1CN2EO

[Feb 07, 2019] Never underestimate the USA greed.

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Vidi , says: February 7, 2019 at 10:25 pm GMT

@Captain Willard

We just got done conquering Iraq. We haven't stayed to loot the oil.

The US has NOT successfully conquered Iraq (has not pacified the country). Oil is not like a bag of diamonds, which you can grab and run. In order to steal a worthwhile amount of the greasy stuff, you have to make a substantial investment up front, in wells and shipping terminals. Not even the greediest thief will risk his money if there is even the slightest chance that his wells and terminals will be blown up by righteous nationalists. This is why the US hasn't stolen much from Iraq.

So now you believe we're going to Venezuela to take their crappy heavy oil?

That the US hasn't been able to steal much from Iraq tells us little about whether the Americans have larcenous motives with regard to Venezuela. Especially as Trump has been talking loudly about the oil.

It would be easier for us just to build a pipeline to Alberta and import all their cheap, shut-in heavy crude.

Never underestimate the greed.

[Feb 07, 2019] Venezuela's central bankers were persuaded to pledge their oil reserves and all assets of the state oil sector (including Citgo) as collateral for its foreign debt

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

kauchai, February 7, 2019 at 1:51 am GMT

" Second, Venezuela's central bankers were persuaded to pledge their oil reserves and all assets of the state oil sector (including Citgo) as collateral for its foreign debt. This meant that if Venezuela defaulted (or was forced into default by U.S. banks refusing to make timely payment on its foreign debt), bondholders and U.S. oil majors would be in a legal position to take possession of Venezuelan oil assets."

Solid proof that it was the empire who invented the practice of "debt trap" and is still flourishing with it.

hunor, February 7, 2019 at 6:24 am GMT

Thank you ! Made it very clear. Perfect reflection of the " Values of Western Civilization ".

Reaching to grab the whole universe, with no holds barred . And never show of any interest for the " truth". They are not even pretending anymore , awakening will be very painful for some.

Reuben Kaspate, February 7, 2019 at 2:38 pm GMT • 100 Words

Why would the U. S. based White-Protestant aristocracy care a hoot about the Brown-Catholic elites in the far off land? They don't! The comprador aristocracy in question isn't what it seems It's the same group that plagues the Americans.

The rootless louts, whose only raison d'ê·tre is to milk everything in sight and then retire to coastal cities, i.e. San Francisco, if you are a homosexual or New York City and State, if you are somewhat religious.

Poor Venezuelans don't stand a chance against the shysters!

[Feb 07, 2019] US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years: both has Presidents installed by foreign power

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: February 7, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT

You'd think that US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years.

After all, both countries had their presidents installed by an unfriendly foreign power – in the case of US – that was Russia and in the case of Venezuela – that's US that did them the favor of choosing the proper president for them.

It's common knowledge now that without the Russian interference in the US electoral system – which as we all know works like a clockwork (orange), Trump would have never been elected as president of US – because that's not who they are.

And now the US – embittered by that experience -has decided to do the same thing to Venezuela. I see bad Russian influence everywhere. I think that indirectly – Russia is responsible for the crisis in Venezuela. If they hadn't elected Trump for president in US, it would have never occurred to the Americans that it could be done. That's not how democracies work.

[Feb 06, 2019] Bolton unplugged RT

Feb 06, 2019 | www.rt.com

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump lambasted America's endless and wasteful wars. But as president, he has surrounded himself with individuals who have made defending and advancing American empire a full-time career. Why did Trump cave and what could be the consequences for him and his presidency?

CrossTalking with George Szamuely, Jeff Deist, and Lee Spieckerman.


That Lee guy demonstrated perfectly why the world should fear the USA. Dangerous stupid.
71 Likes


You are correct!
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The danger comes from the arrogance with the stupidity. American exceptionalism at its ugliest, on par with bolton and pompeo for sure.

I don't think tRump really knows what he is saying, as in big disconnect between brain and mouth. More empty bluster than arrogance with his 5th grader stupidity.

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The scary part is a lot of Americans are like him

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Show 2 more replies


The "Lee" entity encapsulates everything that is wrong with consecutive US governments: arrogant, obnoxious, I'll mannered, undiplomatic, belligerent, misinformed and dangerously stupid.
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Thanks for having this Lee Spieckerman on. It proves RT tries to show all sides and is a shocking example of how crazy the far right is.
Keep it real!

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Spickerman is living in cuckoo land with his claim US is a force for good and billions are so happy to live under a bunch of mobster's Wrong

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Lee Spickerman is a typical Sociopath

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Lee Spickerman is mad like the US Governement.!!


The Monroe Doctrine gets evoked yet again. In written form it was "anti-colonial", but in practice it was "imperial anti-colonialism" and used as a declaration of hegemony and a right of unilateral intervention over the Americas.

This is why I feel we need to stop using the term "regime change" which also hides the reality of what are really coup d'etats and imperialist wars. It's not a regime being changed, but a regime trying to do the changing. Like Peter says at the end, it would take a long show to talk about them all.

Do us all a favor and take Mr. Spieckerman off your guest list. He advances our knowledge not a bit. He is merely one of the Bush claque. As for his admired public servant, John Bolton, rarely does this country produce so maniacal a political operator. Giving Bolton a responsible position was Trump's most egregious personnel error.


Lee Spieckerman = jewish neocon

[Feb 06, 2019] House Democrats Will Expand Russiagate in 2019 to Push Trump Toward War

Feb 06, 2019 | sputniknews.com

Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in 2019, its third year of operation.

"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when there really isn't."

investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.

Indeed, report after report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money associated with "Russians" is always dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the social media game.

Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."

"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom government of the worst kind."

[Feb 06, 2019] Bari Weiss Has the Stupidest Take on Tulsi Gabbard Yet

Notable quotes:
"... "Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you didn't come across as crazy so... ..."
Feb 06, 2019 | www.youtube.com

the op kingdom , 1 week ago (edited)

This woman had NO CLUE what she was talking about. She thought she was on a show that would just tow the party line and let her get away with wrong statements. She's just repeating what critics say with no idea of the truth. What a fool. As a woman, THIS IS WHY I WON'T JUST VOTE FOR ANY WOMAN. We are just as capable of being stupid as anyone else.

FrozenWolf150 , 1 week ago

Bari: "I think Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad toadie." Joe: "What do you mean by toadie?" Bari: "Oh, I don't know what that means." Joe: "Okay, I looked it up, and it's like a sycophant." Bari: "Then Tulsi is like an Assad sycophant." Joe: "So what do you mean by that?" Bari: "I'm not sure what sycophant means either." Joe: "I looked up the definition, it's like a suck-up." Bari: "All right, Tulsi is an Assad suck-up." Joe: "Could you explain that further?" Bari: "I don't know what suck means." Joe: "It's what you're doing right now."

Jeff Oloff , 1 week ago

Bari Weiss is a tool of Zionist war mongers that promote perpetual war. She has no thoughts of her own.

Joe Smith , 1 week ago

I hate Bari Weiss....I just don't why.

Nicholas Pniewski , 1 week ago

Tulsi also recently clarified her position of Assad and Syria on CNN, where she said she would have diplomacy rather than war

Captain Obvious , 1 week ago

"Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you didn't come across as crazy so...

[Feb 06, 2019] NYT Columnist Calls Tulsi Gabbard 'Assad Toady,' Can't Define or Spell Term

I will be very surprised if neocons would not frame her Putin toady as well. This is how this system works. It eliminates undesirable to the neoliberals candidates with 100% efficiency.
They serve as local STASI and some former STASI official might well envy neocons efficiency of silencing opponents (with much less blood and overt repression, by pure magic of neocon propaganda ).
Notable quotes:
"... She has "monstrous ideas, she's an Assad toady," Weiss tells Rogan. ..."
"... Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven -- known -- about her." ..."
"... When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant, Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details." ..."
"... Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in the country's civil war as "terrorists." ..."
"... She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies against the country. ..."
Feb 06, 2019 | sputniknews.com
Monday to discuss current events, but things got embarrassing when she went in on Gabbard, a progressive Democrat whose foreign policy positions have turned more than a few heads.

Neocon NY Times columnist Bari Weiss smeared Tulsi Gabbard (who bravely opposed regime change and US support for Salafi-jihadist contras) as an "Assad toady," then couldn't spell/define toady or offer any evidence to prove her smear. Embarrassingly funny pic.twitter.com/m0MLaHFPiX

-- Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 22, 2019

She has "monstrous ideas, she's an Assad toady," Weiss tells Rogan.

US Representative Tulsi Gabbard speaks during Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 26, 2016 © AFP 2018 / Timothy A. CLARY Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Speaks the Truth on Syria, Gets Smeared by the Mainstream Media

When Rogan asks for clarification, she says, "I think that I used that word correctly." She then asks someone off camera to look up what toady means. "Like toeing the line," Rogan says, "is that what it means?" "No, I think it's like, uh " and Weiss drones off without an answer. She then attempts to spell it, and can't even do that. "T-O-A-D-I-E. I think it means what I think it means "

Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven -- known -- about her."

When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant, Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details."

In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, greets supporters in Honolulu. Gabbard has announced she's running for president in 2020 © AP Photo / Marco Garcia 'Assad's Mouthpiece in Washington': Controversial Dem. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Announces 2020 Run

"We probably should say that before we say that about her -- we should probably read it, rather, right now, just so we know what she said," Rogan notes. "I think she's, like, the motherlode of bad ideas," Weiss then says. "I'm pretty positive about that, especially on Assad. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I'm wrong." It seems to us here at Sputnik that such claims should be made with a bit more confidence than this. So let's set the record straight.

Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in the country's civil war as "terrorists."

She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies against the country.

A general view shows damaged buildings at al-Kalasa district of Aleppo, Syria in Aleppo, Syria, February 2, 2017 © REUTERS / Omar Sanadiki US Lawmakers Call for Syria Strategy Where Assad Leaving Post, Russian Military Pulls Out

"Initially I hadn't planned on meeting him," Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, told CNN's Jake Tapper following the meeting. "When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so, because I felt it's important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we could achieve peace. And that's exactly what we talked about."

"I have seen this cost of war firsthand, which is why I fight so hard for peace," Gabbard said. "And that's the reality of the situation that we're facing here. It's why I have urged and continue to urge [US President Donald] Trump to meet with people like Kim Jong Un in North Korea, because we understand what's at stake here. The only alternative to having these kinds of conversations is more war."

Moreover, in a March 2016 speech before Congress, Gabbard called Assad "a brutal dictator," noting that her opposition to what she called a "war bill" was over the legal ramifications that she feared would lead to the overthrow of Assad, which she opposes on anti-interventionist grounds.

"[T]oppling ruthless dictators in the Middle East creates even more human suffering and strengthens our enemy, groups like ISIS and other terrorist organizations, in those countries," Gabbard said at the time.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York speak to reporters about the Congressional Budget Office projection that 14 million people would lose health coverage under the House Republican bill dismantling former President Barack Obama's health care law, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March, 13, 2017. © AP Photo/ J. Scott Applewhite House Democrats Will Expand Russiagate in 2019 to Push Trump Toward War

Gabbard has been thoroughly demonized for her pro-peace views by global liberal media, as Trump has been for his moves to end the war in Syria and avoid another on the Korean Peninsula. For example, The Daily Beast's article announcing her candidacy called Gabbard "Assad's Favorite Democrat" in its headline; a Haaretz headline from last week say she had "Tea With Assad," and the Washington Post has called her "Assad's Mouthpiece in Washington." The UK Independent called her a "defender of dictators."

It's not clear what Weiss had in mind when she called Gabbard a "sycophant" and a "toady," since the congresswoman's rhetoric about Assad has consisted of skepticism and opposition to intervention, and she hasn't hesitated to call the Syrian president a "brutal dictator." What Gabbard's treatment has demonstrated is that a Democrat who steps out of line from the party's pro-regime change agenda in Syria and who condemns Muslim extremists associated with Daesh and al-Qaeda should be prepared to suffer for it in the mainstream media.

[Feb 06, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard Rips Interventionism In First Campaign Ad

Feb 06, 2019 | www.youtube.com


Tacet the Terror , 1 week ago

Sanders/Gabbard 2020 is the only non-"lesser of two evils" choice.

kamran5461 , 1 week ago

Now you see why the establishment really hates her.

Zero Divisor , 1 week ago

Tulsi Gabbard went to Standing Rock. She has my support.

it's show buiness kiddo , 1 week ago

I wwant tulsi to defeat Kamala in the primaries. Kamala is a fake progressive and the establishment already coronated her. I can't trust her.

Voitan , 1 week ago

I'm voting Tulsi Gabbard. Uncompromising commitment to no more interventions and wars.

malena garcia , 1 week ago

I love Tulsi; her ad was great. She's the only dem I would vote for at this point. Kamala is an evil hypocrite. And Tulsi's right, love is the most powerful force in the planet.

Jurgen K , 1 week ago

Tulsi is hated by the establishment the most not Bernie , this is the reason I say Tulsi2020

Jay Smathers , 1 week ago (edited)

Wake up folks -Tulsi would not have run if Bernie was going run. Bernie will endorse her early on and she will have a much tougher fight than he did, because while Sanders caught the corporate establishment sleeping in 2016, they are now frightened and see Gabbard coming. They will use every dirty trick at their disposal to keep her from catching fire -and that begins with dividing progressives like us. Tulsi is not perfect because no one is perfect. But she is young, bright and fucking fearless compared to other politicians about putting the long term good of the American people above the moneyed interests who think they own our media and our government. This is why the establishment despises her more than even Sanders. 2020 will reveal weather or not we can retake ownership of our media and our government. That fight will require all of us - so Kyle get on the bus!

FujiFire , 1 week ago

Tulsi is an amazing candidate in her own right, but IMO she would be a perfect VP pick for Bernie. She has the amazing foreign policy cred and would really shore up Bernie's weakest areas.

D. Martin , 1 week ago (edited)

I remember Obama ripping interventionism too. And Trump.

rolled oats , 1 week ago

Tulsa Gabbard's ad doesn't mention the people who die in the countries we invade. That's 600k people in Iraq for example. A significant omission me thinks.

Wayne Chapman , 1 week ago

The Aloha Spirit Law is a big deal in Hawaii. Government officials are required to approach dignitaries from other countries or states with the spirit of aloha. "Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return. Aloha is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. I think that's what we want in a President or a diplomat.

madara uchiha , 1 week ago

She's great and unique as she doesnt fall back to identity politics and sjwism as much as the standard left politicians. I hope she doesnt bend her ethics when the sjws come for her. I'm putting my trust in her. I hope she wins. And if she isn't in the race, i wont be voting.

David , 1 week ago (edited)

The question I would love her to address specifically is will her campaign focus on decreasing military spending like Bernie Sanders? She has a military background and the US loves war. This ad is good but it is tip toing around the MIC ( military industrial complex) She can be non interventionist but not decrease military spending is what worries me

GoLookAtJohn PodestasEmails , 1 week ago

This is why we need Gabbard on the debate stage. She will push the Overton window on revealing to the public what our military is actually doing overseas. She's also a staunch progressive. Bernie/Tulsi 2020. Their weakness match well with each other, and Tulsi was one of the first to jump ship on the sinking DNC ship when Hillary got caught cheating being the DNC. Keep small donations going into your favorite progressive candidates to hear their voice. It doesn't work any other way folks.

Geoff Daly , 1 week ago

Intervention isn't only an issue about morality. As Dwight Eisenhower put it (even though he himself was far from an anti imperialist), you can't have an endless stream of money dedicated to military endeavors AND a sufficient investment in domestic public priorities. This easily explains why we have increasingly decrepit infrastructure, increasingly worse performing education, increasingly worse performing health care, absurdly insufficient regulation between government and business (although the pay to play system certainly is the top reason) and a generally decaying public atmosphere. Beyond the fact that getting involved everywhere creates humanitarian crises, countless dead people, hopelessly destroyed countries, and so much more, even if other countries haven't in return bombed our shores from sea to sea, even if generally speaking those who consider not only the US but Americans the "enemies" haven't overwhelmed with non stop attacks, this non stop and ever growing appetite for more money for more war priorities has created the very decline we see in our country today. Until there is a change in priorities in general, these problems in the US will only continue to get worse.

Tom Pashkov , 1 week ago

Gabbard for Sec. of Defense in the Sanders/Warren administration.

Jacob Serrano , 1 week ago

Man, Tulsi made me tear up. She's my girl. This message reminds me more of the message of Jesus than many of the fundamentalists. She's not even Christian, yet represents Christ very well. I love this woman.

Ny3 43 , 1 week ago

Prepare for BAE, Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other weapons corporations and their bum lickers to launch a viscous smear campaign against her suggesting she's somehow a Neo Nazi communist anti Semitic islamophobic islamist.

Gem Girlla , 1 day ago (edited)

Tulsi 2020 she's saying some of the same things Trump said in his 2016 campaign. Unfortunately, he didn't deliver. Per the corporate Democrates, making America better is a bad thing.

GiantOctopus0101 , 1 day ago

Tulsi can actually beat Trump...if she gets the nomination. The wars are the elephant in the room, and whoever is willing to take that on full force, can win.

[Feb 06, 2019] The modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits for the poor and the middle class. And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to be no different.

Feb 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Meanwhile, the modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits for the poor and the middle class. And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to be no different.

Hence the failure of our political system to serve socially conservative/racist voters who also want to tax the rich and preserve Social Security. Democrats won't ratify their racism; Republicans, who have no such compunctions, will -- remember, the party establishment solidly backed Roy Moore's Senate bid -- but won't protect the programs they depend on.


Charles Pewitt , says: February 6, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT

Paul Krugman is a baby boomer, pissant globalizer bastard, but he has made reasonable comments about immigration in the past.

Paul Krugman is a high IQ moron who has occasional bouts of clarity on the anti-worker aspects of mass legal immigration and illegal immigration. Krugman had it right in 2006 when he said that mass immigration lowers wages for workers in the USA.

Krugman in NY Times 2006:

First, the benefits of immigration to the population already here are small. The reason is that immigrant workers are, at least roughly speaking, paid their "marginal product": an immigrant worker is paid roughly the value of the additional goods and services he or she enables the U.S. economy to produce. That means that there isn't anything left over to increase the income of the people already here.

My second negative point is that immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That's just supply and demand: we're talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production, so it's inevitable that this means a fall in wages. Mr. Borjas and Mr. Katz have to go through a lot of number-crunching to turn that general proposition into specific estimates of the wage impact, but the general point seems impossible to deny.

Hypnotoad666 , says: February 6, 2019 at 11:05 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt I agree Paul Krugman is a high IQ moron.

However, Krugman is also a relentless partisan hack. So his expert analysis always ends up supporting the current Democrat talking points -- whatever they may be.

Here, Krugman is disparaging any move to the center as the DNC wants to keep the Dems unified on the left and keep Schultz (or anyone like him) out of the race. Of course, the real reason Schultz has massively negative polling is because the Democrat establishment has been savaging him for precisely this reason.

Likewise, to Krugman a "Racist" politician is anyone who holds the same immigration position as Krugman did in 2006, which is now anathema to the Dem's new Open Borders electoral strategy.

It's only a matter of time until Krugman starts talking up Kamala Harris as the best thing that could happen for the economy.

TG , says: February 7, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
Bottom line: Krugman – like any economist who was gifted with a fake Nobel Prize in Economics by his wealthy patrons (the Nobel Prize in Economics does not exist – check out wikipedia!) – is a whore whose only function is to protect the left flank of our corrupt and rapacious elite.

He's not a moron, and he's certainly not a liberal. His job – which pays very well mind you – is to pretend to be a sorta-kinda Keynesian New Dealer, but in reality, anything that the rich wants, he will end up defending. And even if he sorta kinda claims to be opposing something that the rich want which will impoverish the rest of us, when it comes to the bottom line, he will ruthlessly attack any opposition to these policies.

[Feb 06, 2019] 'Neo-con wine in an America First bottle' Foreign policy analysts rail against Trump's SOTU address

Notable quotes:
"... Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon official, told RT that Trump's failure to provide specifics about a withdrawal timeline from the warzones was disappointing – especially because the president had earlier indicated that troops would be returning home in the near future. ..."
"... While the president railed against "foolish wars" as one of the few obstacles standing in the way of the "miracle" of American economic might, Maloof said that Trump's threats directed at Venezuela and Iran show that Washington's penchant for "regime change" has not subsided. ..."
"... "Now [Trump] is threatening to have a new arms race with the Russians and the Chinese. We spend 10 times as much as the Russians, three times as much as the Chinese. Not enough money isn't our problem here. It is because the strategy is all wrong. I think he knows that," the former US diplomat said. ..."
Feb 06, 2019 | www.rt.com

Donald Trump's State of the Union speech sent mixed messages about where the president stands on foreign policy, analysts told RT, as his anti-intervention views clash with his threats against Iran and Venezuela.

While the commander-in-chief praised US troops serving in Afghanistan and Syria as having "fought with valor," he gave little indication of a timeline for a possible pull-out from the region, despite previous sentiments to the contrary. The omission did not sit well with analysts.

Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon official, told RT that Trump's failure to provide specifics about a withdrawal timeline from the warzones was disappointing – especially because the president had earlier indicated that troops would be returning home in the near future.

The president likely "glossed over" a withdrawal timeline because it would have been "very controversial," Maloof suggested, adding that ultimately, Trump may even embrace his cabinet's "neo-conservative approach to foreign policy."

While the president railed against "foolish wars" as one of the few obstacles standing in the way of the "miracle" of American economic might, Maloof said that Trump's threats directed at Venezuela and Iran show that Washington's penchant for "regime change" has not subsided.

"These are very scary times," Maloof warned, adding that despite its military might, the US could once again "get bogged down in another Vietnam" in places like Venezuela.

Likening the speech to pouring "old neo-con wine into a new America First rhetorical bottle," Jim Jatras, a former US diplomat, lamented that elements within the Trump administration were working against the president's stated foreign policy objectives.

"The one bright spot is probably Korea but there are people in his administration who would like to tank that one as well," Jatras said. Trump has signaled that he's open to reconciliation between the two Koreas, but his cabinet – not to mention most of Washington and the media – continue to paint peace efforts on the Korean peninsula as naive and dangerous.

Trump's decision to pump record amounts of money into the military is also a cause for concern, Jatras warned.

"Now [Trump] is threatening to have a new arms race with the Russians and the Chinese. We spend 10 times as much as the Russians, three times as much as the Chinese. Not enough money isn't our problem here. It is because the strategy is all wrong. I think he knows that," the former US diplomat said.

[Feb 06, 2019] Bolton unplugged RT

Feb 06, 2019 | www.rt.com

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump lambasted America's endless and wasteful wars. But as president, he has surrounded himself with individuals who have made defending and advancing American empire a full-time career. Why did Trump cave and what could be the consequences for him and his presidency?

CrossTalking with George Szamuely, Jeff Deist, and Lee Spieckerman.


That Lee guy demonstrated perfectly why the world should fear the USA. Dangerous stupid.
71 Likes


You are correct!
21 Likes


The danger comes from the arrogance with the stupidity. American exceptionalism at its ugliest, on par with bolton and pompeo for sure.

I don't think tRump really knows what he is saying, as in big disconnect between brain and mouth. More empty bluster than arrogance with his 5th grader stupidity.

23 Likes


The scary part is a lot of Americans are like him

23 Likes
Show 2 more replies


The "Lee" entity encapsulates everything that is wrong with consecutive US governments: arrogant, obnoxious, I'll mannered, undiplomatic, belligerent, misinformed and dangerously stupid.
43 Likes


Thanks for having this Lee Spieckerman on. It proves RT tries to show all sides and is a shocking example of how crazy the far right is.
Keep it real!

37 Likes


Spickerman is living in cuckoo land with his claim US is a force for good and billions are so happy to live under a bunch of mobster's Wrong

22 Likes


Lee Spickerman is a typical Sociopath

18 Likes


Lee Spickerman is mad like the US Governement.!!


The Monroe Doctrine gets evoked yet again. In written form it was "anti-colonial", but in practice it was "imperial anti-colonialism" and used as a declaration of hegemony and a right of unilateral intervention over the Americas.

This is why I feel we need to stop using the term "regime change" which also hides the reality of what are really coup d'etats and imperialist wars. It's not a regime being changed, but a regime trying to do the changing. Like Peter says at the end, it would take a long show to talk about them all.

Do us all a favor and take Mr. Spieckerman off your guest list. He advances our knowledge not a bit. He is merely one of the Bush claque. As for his admired public servant, John Bolton, rarely does this country produce so maniacal a political operator. Giving Bolton a responsible position was Trump's most egregious personnel error.


Lee Spieckerman = jewish neocon

[Feb 05, 2019] The neocon s strategy

Highly recommended!
1) continue to control the "prestige" outlets: academia, newspapers, major publishers,
2) censor the huge online platforms like Twitter and YouTube,
3) confine the samizdat to small-scale blogs and independent websites,
4) crush any sort of opposition smearing it using anti-Semimuticm chanrge (to keep the opposition confined to online ghettos).
5. ifrnore the rest
It's not going to work, though.
Notable quotes:
"... Kristol sees the Empire as basically a galaxy-wide extrapolation of what he has long wanted the US to have over the Earth: what he has termed, "benevolent global hegemony." ..."
"... In " The Case for the Empire ," Jonathan V. Last made a Kristolian argument that you can't make a "benevolent hegemony" omelet without breaking a few eggs. ..."
"... A year after Kristol published Last's essay, large numbers of civilians were killed by American Imperial Stormtroopers in their actual Middle Eastern arid homeland of Iraq, thanks largely in part to the direct influence of neocons like Kristol and Last. ..."
"... In reality Hussein had put a death warrant out on Zarqawi, who was hiding from Iraq's security forces under the protective aegis of the US Air Force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. It was only after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Iraq that Zarqawi's outfit was able to thrive and evolve into Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). And after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Syria, AQI further mutated into Syrian al-Qaeda (which has conquered much of Syria) and ISIS (which has conquered much of Syria and Iraq). ..."
"... The Soviet menace had recently disappeared, and the Cold War along with it. The neocons were terrified that the American public would therefore jump at the chance to lay their imperial burdens down. Kristol and Kagan urged their readers to resist that temptation, and to instead capitalize on America's new peerless preeminence by making it a big-spending, hyper-active, busybody globo-cop. The newfound predominance must become dominance wherever and whenever possible. That way, any future near-peer competitors would be nipped in the bud, and the new "unipolar moment" would last forever. ..."
"... What made this neocon dream seem within reach was the indifference of post-Soviet Russia. The year after the Berlin Wall fell, the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was the debut "police action" of unipolar "Team America, World Police." Paul Wolfowitz , the neocon and Iraq War architect, considered it a successful trial run. As Wesley Clark, former Nato Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, recalled : ..."
"... Also in 1996, David Wurmser wrote a strategy document for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," it was co-signed by Wurmser's fellow neocons and future Iraq War architects Richard Perle and Douglas Feith . "A Clean Break" called for regime change in Iraq as a "means" of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." Syria itself was a target because it "challenges Israel on Lebanese soil." It primarily does this by, along with Iran, supporting the paramilitary group Hezbollah, which arose in the 80s out of the local resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and which continually foils Israel's ambitions in that country. ..."
"... The neocons used to be Democrats in the big-government, Cold Warrior mold of Harry Truman and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. After the Vietnam War and the rise of the anti-war New Left, the Democratic Party's commitment to the Cold War waned, so the neocons switched to the Republicans in disgust. ..."
"... According to investigative reporter Jim Lobe, the neocons got their first taste of power within the Reagan administration, in which positions were held by neocons such as Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliot Abrams , and Michael Ledeen . They were especially influential during Reagan's first term of saber-rattling, clandestine warfare, and profligate defense spending, which Kristol and Kagan remembered so fondly in their "Neo-Reaganite" manifesto. ..."
Dec 28, 2018 | www.rightweb.irc-online.org
Bill Kristol watches Star Wars movies, he roots for the Galactic Empire. The leading neocon recently caused a social media disturbance in the Force when he tweeted this predilection for the Dark Side following the debut of the final trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens .

Kristol sees the Empire as basically a galaxy-wide extrapolation of what he has long wanted the US to have over the Earth: what he has termed, "benevolent global hegemony."

Kristol, founder and editor of neocon flagship magazine The Weekly Standard, responded to scandalized critics by linking to a 2002 essay from the Standard's blog that justifies even the worst of Darth Vader's atrocities. In " The Case for the Empire ," Jonathan V. Last made a Kristolian argument that you can't make a "benevolent hegemony" omelet without breaking a few eggs.

And what if those broken eggs are civilians, like Luke Skywalker's uncle and aunt who were gunned down by Imperial Stormtroopers in their home on the Middle Eastern-looking arid planet of Tatooine (filmed on location in Tunisia)? Well, as Last sincerely argued, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hid Luke and harbored the fugitive droids R2D2 and C3P0; so they were "traitors" who were aiding the rebellion and deserved to be field-executed.

A year after Kristol published Last's essay, large numbers of civilians were killed by American Imperial Stormtroopers in their actual Middle Eastern arid homeland of Iraq, thanks largely in part to the direct influence of neocons like Kristol and Last.

That war was similarly justified in part by the false allegation that Iraq ruler Saddam Hussein was harboring and aiding terrorist enemies of the empire like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The civilian-slaughtering siege of Fallujah , one of the most brutal episodes of the war, was also specifically justified by the false allegation that the town was harboring Zarqawi.

In reality Hussein had put a death warrant out on Zarqawi, who was hiding from Iraq's security forces under the protective aegis of the US Air Force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. It was only after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Iraq that Zarqawi's outfit was able to thrive and evolve into Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). And after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Syria, AQI further mutated into Syrian al-Qaeda (which has conquered much of Syria) and ISIS (which has conquered much of Syria and Iraq).

And what if the "benevolent hegemony" omelet requires the breaking of "eggs" the size of whole worlds, like how high Imperial officer Wilhuff Tarkin used the Death Star to obliterate the planet Alderaan? Well, as Last sincerely argued, even Alderaan likely deserved its fate, since it may have been, "a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents " Last contended that Princess Leia was probably lying when she told the Death Star's commander that the planet had "no weapons."

While Last was writing his apologia for global genocide, his fellow neocons were baselessly arguing that Saddam Hussein was similarly lying about Iraq not having a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. Primarily on that basis, the obliteration of an entire country began the following year.

And a year after that, President Bush performed a slapstick comedy act about his failure to find Iraqi WMDs for a black-tie dinner for radio and television correspondents. The media hacks in his audience, who had obsequiously helped the neocon-dominated Bush administration lie the country into war, rocked with laughter as thousands of corpses moldered in Iraq and Arlington. A more sickening display of imperial decadence and degradation has not been seen perhaps since the gladiatorial audiences of Imperial Rome. This is the hegemonic "benevolence" and "national greatness" that Kristol pines for.

"Benevolent global hegemony" was coined by Kristol and fellow neocon Robert Kagan in their 1996 Foreign Affairs article " Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy ." In that essay, Kristol and Kagan sought to inoculate both the conservative movement and US foreign policy against the isolationism of Pat Buchanan.

The Soviet menace had recently disappeared, and the Cold War along with it. The neocons were terrified that the American public would therefore jump at the chance to lay their imperial burdens down. Kristol and Kagan urged their readers to resist that temptation, and to instead capitalize on America's new peerless preeminence by making it a big-spending, hyper-active, busybody globo-cop. The newfound predominance must become dominance wherever and whenever possible. That way, any future near-peer competitors would be nipped in the bud, and the new "unipolar moment" would last forever.

What made this neocon dream seem within reach was the indifference of post-Soviet Russia. The year after the Berlin Wall fell, the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was the debut "police action" of unipolar "Team America, World Police." Paul Wolfowitz , the neocon and Iraq War architect, considered it a successful trial run. As Wesley Clark, former Nato Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, recalled :

"In 1991, [Wolfowitz] was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy  --  the number 3 position at the Pentagon. And I had gone to see him when I was a 1-Star General commanding the National Training Center. ( )

And I said, "Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm."

And he said: "Yeah, but not really, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didn't But one thing we did learn is that we can use our military in the region  --  in the Middle East  --  and the Soviets won't stop us. And we've got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes  --  Syria, Iran, Iraq  --  before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us."

The 1996 "Neo-Reaganite" article was part of a surge of neocon literary activity in the mid-90s. It was in 1995 that Kristol and John Podhoretz founded The Weekly Standard with funding from right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Also in 1996, David Wurmser wrote a strategy document for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," it was co-signed by Wurmser's fellow neocons and future Iraq War architects Richard Perle and Douglas Feith . "A Clean Break" called for regime change in Iraq as a "means" of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." Syria itself was a target because it "challenges Israel on Lebanese soil." It primarily does this by, along with Iran, supporting the paramilitary group Hezbollah, which arose in the 80s out of the local resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and which continually foils Israel's ambitions in that country.

Later that same year, Wurmser wrote another strategy document, this time for circulation in American and European halls of power, titled "Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance of Power Strategy for the Levant."

In "A Clean Break," Wurmser had framed regime change in Iraq and Syria in terms of Israeli regional ambitions. In "Coping," Wurmser adjusted his message for its broader Western audience by recasting the very same policies in a Cold War framework.

Wurmser characterized regime change in Iraq and Syria (both ruled by Baathist regimes) as " expediting the chaotic collapse " of secular-Arab nationalism in general, and Baathism in particular. He concurred with King Hussein of Jordan that, "the phenomenon of Baathism," was, from the very beginning, "an agent of foreign, namely Soviet policy." Of course King Hussein was a bit biased on the matter, since his own Hashemite royal family once ruled both Iraq and Syria. Wurmser argued that:

" the battle over Iraq represents a desperate attempt by residual Soviet bloc allies in the Middle East to block the extension into the Middle East of the impending collapse that the rest of the Soviet bloc faced in 1989."

Wurmser further derided Baathism in Iraq and Syria as an ideology in a state of "crumbling descent and missing its Soviet patron" and "no more than a Cold War enemy relic on probation."

Wurmser advised the West to put this anachronistic adversary out of its misery, and to thus, in Kristolian fashion, press America's Cold War victory on toward its final culmination. Baathism should be supplanted by what he called the "Hashemite option." After their chaotic collapse, Iraq and Syria would be Hashemite possessions once again. Both would be dominated by the royal house of Jordan, which in turn, happens to be dominated by the US and Israel.

Wurmser stressed that demolishing Baathism must be the foremost priority in the region. Secular-Arab nationalism should be given no quarter, not even, he added, for the sake of stemming the tide of Islamic fundamentalism.

Thus we see one of the major reasons why the neocons were such avid anti-Soviets during the Cold War. It is not just that, as post-Trotskyites, the neocons resented Joseph Stalin for having Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico with an ice pick. The Israel-first neocons' main beef with the Soviets was that, in various disputes and conflicts involving Israel, Russia sided with secular-Arab nationalist regimes from 1953 onward.

The neocons used to be Democrats in the big-government, Cold Warrior mold of Harry Truman and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. After the Vietnam War and the rise of the anti-war New Left, the Democratic Party's commitment to the Cold War waned, so the neocons switched to the Republicans in disgust.

According to investigative reporter Jim Lobe, the neocons got their first taste of power within the Reagan administration, in which positions were held by neocons such as Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliot Abrams , and Michael Ledeen . They were especially influential during Reagan's first term of saber-rattling, clandestine warfare, and profligate defense spending, which Kristol and Kagan remembered so fondly in their "Neo-Reaganite" manifesto.

It was then that the neocons helped establish the "Reagan Doctrine." According to neocon columnist Charles Krauthammer , who coined the term in 1985, the Reagan Doctrine was characterized by support for anti-communist (in reality often simply anti-leftist) forces around the whole world.

Since the support was clandestine, the Reagan administration was able to bypass the "Vietnam Syndrome" and project power in spite of the public's continuing war weariness. (It was left to Reagan's successor, the first President Bush, to announce following his "splendid little" Gulf War that, "by God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all!")

Operating covertly, the Reaganites could also use any anti-communist group they found useful, no matter how ruthless and ugly: from Contra death squads in Nicaragua to the Islamic fundamentalist mujahideen in Afghanistan. Abrams and Ledeen were both involved in the Iran-Contra affair, and Abrams was convicted (though later pardoned) on related criminal charges.

Kristol's "Neo-Reaganite" co-author Robert Kagan gave the doctrine an even wider and more ambitious interpretation in his book A Twilight Struggle :

"The Reagan Doctrine has been widely understood to mean only support for anticommunist guerrillas fighting pro-Soviet regimes, but from the first the doctrine had a broader meaning. Support for anticommunist guerrillas was the logical outgrowth, not the origin, of a policy of supporting democratic reform or revolution everywhere, in countries ruled by right-wing dictators as well as by communist parties."

As this description makes plain, neocon policy, from the 1980s to today, has been every bit as fanatical, crusading, and world-revolutionary as Red Communism was in the neocon propaganda of yesteryear, and that Islam is in the neocon propaganda of today.

The neocons credit Reagan's early belligerence with the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. But in reality, war is the health of the State, and Cold War was the health of Soviet State . The Soviets long used the American menace to frighten the Russian people into rallying around the State for protection.

After the neocons lost clout within the Reagan administration to "realists" like George Schultz, the later Reagan-Thatcher-Gorbachev detente began. It was only after that detente lifted the Russian siege atmosphere and quieted existential nuclear nightmares that the Russian people felt secure enough to demand a changing of the guard.

In 1983, the same year that the first Star Wars trilogy ended, Reagan vilified Soviet Russia in language that Star Wars fans could understand by dubbing it "the Evil Empire." Years later, having, in Kristol's words, "defeated the evil empire," the neocons that Reagan first lifted to power began clamoring for a "neo-Reaganite" global hegemony. And a few years after that, those same neocons began pointing to the sci-fi Galactic Empire that Reagan implicitly compared to the Soviets as a lovely model for America!

Fast-forward to return to the neocon literary flowering of the mid-90s. In 1997, the year after writing "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy" together, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan co-founded The Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The 20th century is often called "the American century," largely due to it being a century of war and American "victories" in those wars: the two World Wars and the Cold War. The neocons sought to ensure that through the never-ending exercise of military might, the American global hegemony achieved through those wars would last another hundred years, and that the 21st century too would be "American."

The organization's founding statement of principles called for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity" and reads like an executive summary of the founding duo's "Neo-Reaganite" essay. It was signed by neocons such as Wolfowitz, Abrams, Norman Podhoretz and Frank Gaffney ; by future Bush administration officials such as Dick Cheney , Donald Rumsfeld , Lewis "Scooter" Libby ; and by other neocon allies, such as Jeb Bush.

Although PNAC called for interventions ranging from Serbia (to roll back Russian influence in Europe) to Taiwan (to roll back Chinese influence in Asia), its chief concern was to kick off the restructuring of the Middle East envisioned in "A Clean Break" and "Coping" by advocating its first step: regime change in Iraq.

The most high-profile parts of this effort were two "open letters" published in 1998, one in January addressed to President Bill Clinton , and another in May addressed to leaders of Congress . As with its statement of principles, PNAC was able to garner signatures for these letters from a wide range of political luminaries, including neocons (like Perle), neocon allies (like John Bolton ), and other non-neocons (like James Woolsey and Robert Zoellick).

The open letters characterized Iraq as "a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War," and buttressed this ridiculous claim with the now familiar allegations of Saddam building a WMD program.

Thanks in large part to PNAC's pressure, regime change in Iraq became official US policy in October when Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. (Notice the Clinton-friendly "humanitarian interventionist" name in spite of the policy's conservative fear-mongering origins.)

After the Supreme Court delivered George W. Bush the presidency, the neocons were back in the imperial saddle again in 2001: just in time to make their projected "New American Century" of "Neo-Reaganite Global Hegemony" a reality. The first order of business, of course, was Iraq.

But some pesky national security officials weren't getting with the program and kept trying to distract the administration with concerns about some Osama bin Laden character and his Al Qaeda outfit. Apparently they were laboring under some pedestrian notion that their job was to protect the American people and not to conquer the world.

For example, when National Security Council counterterrorism "czar" Richard Clarke was frantically sounding the alarm over an imminent terrorist attack on America,Wolfowitz was uncomprehending. As Clarke recalled, the then Deputy Defense Secretary objected :

"I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden."

Clarke informed him that:

"We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al-Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States."

This simply did not fit in the agenda-driven neocon worldview of Wolfowitz, who responded:

"Well, there are others that do as well, at least as much. Iraqi terrorism for example."

And as Peter Beinhart recently wrote :

"During that same time period [in 2001], the CIA was raising alarms too. According to Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York Times reporter given access to the Daily Briefs prepared by the intelligence agencies for President Bush in the spring and summer of 2001, the CIA told the White House by May 1 that 'a group presently in the United States' was planning a terrorist attack. On June 22, the Daily Brief warned that al-Qaeda strikes might be 'imminent.'

But the same Defense Department officials who discounted Clarke's warnings pushed back against the CIA's. According to Eichenwald's sources , 'the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.'

By the time Clarke and the CIA got the Bush administration's attention, it was already too late to follow any of the clear leads that might have been followed to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

The terrorist attacks by Sunni Islamic fundamentalists mostly from the Saudi Kingdom hardly fit the neocon agenda of targeting the secular-Arab nationalist regimes of Iraq and Syria and the Shiite Republic of Iran: especially since all three of the latter were mortal enemies of bin Laden types.

But the attackers were, like Iraqis, some kind of Muslims from the general area of the Middle East. And that was good enough for government work in the American idiocracy. After a youth consumed with state-compelled drudgery, most Americans are so stupid and incurious that such a meaningless relationship, enhanced with some fabricated "intelligence," was more than enough to stampede the spooked American herd into supporting the Iraq War.

As Benjamin Netanyahu once said , "America is a thing you can move very easily."

Whether steering the country into war would be easy or not, it was all neocon hands on deck. At the Pentagon there was Wolfowitz and Perle, with Perle-admirer Rumsfeld as SecDef. Feith was also at Defense, where he set up two new offices for the special purpose of spinning "intelligence" yarn to tie Saddam with al-Qaeda and to weave fanciful pictures of secret Iraqi WMD programs.

Wurmser himself labored in one of these offices, followed by stints at State aiding neocon-ally Bolton and in the Vice President's office aiding neocon-ally Cheney along with Scooter Libby.

Iran-Contra convict Abrams was at the National Security Council aiding Condoleezza Rice. And Kristol and Kagan continued to lead the charge in the media and think tank worlds.

And they pulled it off. Wurmser finally got his "chaotic collapse" in Iraq. And Kristol finally had his invincible, irresistible, hyper-active hegemony looming over the world like a Death Star.

The post-9/11 pretense-dropping American Empire even had Dick Cheney with his Emperor Palpatine snarl preparing Americans to accept torture by saying:

"We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will."

The Iraq War ended up backfiring on the neocons. It installed a new regime in Baghdad that was no more favorable toward Israel and far more favorable toward Israel's enemies Iran and Syria. But the important thing was that Kristol's Death Star was launched and in orbit. As long as it was still in proactive mode, there was nothing the neocons could not fix with its awful power.

This seemed true even during the Obama presidency. On top of Iraq and Afghanistan, under Obama the American Death Star has demolished Yemen and Somalia. It also demolished both Syria and Libya, where it continues the Wurmsurite project of precipitating the chaotic collapse of secular-Arab nationalism. Islamic terror groups including al-Qaeda and ISIS are thriving in that chaos, but the American Death Star to this day has adhered to Wurmser's de-prioritization of the Islamist threat.

As Yoda said, "Fear is the path to the Dark Side." The neocons have been able to use the fear generated by a massive Islamic fundamentalist terror attack to pursue their blood-soaked vendetta against secular-Arab nationalists, even to the benefit of the very Islamic fundamentalists who attacked us, because even after 12 years Americans are still too bigoted and oblivious to distinguish between the two groups.

Furthermore, Obama has gone beyond Wurmser's regional ambitions and has fulfilled Kristol's busybody dreams of global hegemony to a much greater extent than Bush ever did. To appease generals and arms merchants worried about his prospective pull-outs from the Iraqi and Afghan theaters, Obama launched both an imperial "pivot" to Asia and a stealth invasion of Africa. The pull-outs were aborted, but the continental "pivots" remain. Thus Obama's pretenses as a peace President helped to make his regime the most ambitiously imperialistic and globe-spanning that history has ever seen.

But the neocons may have overdone it with their Death Star shooting spree, because another great power now seems determined to put a stop to it. And who is foiling the neocons' Evil Empire? Why none other than the original "Evil Empire": the neocons' old nemesis Russia.

In 2013, Russia's Putin diplomatically frustrated the neocons' attempt to deliver the coup de grâce to the Syrian regime with a US air war. Shortly afterward, Robert Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland yanked Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence by engineering a bloody coup in Kiev. Putin countered by bloodlessly annexing the Ukrainian province of Crimea. A proxy war followed between the US-armed and Western-financed junta in Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

The US continued to intervene in Syria, heavily sponsoring an insurgency dominated by extremists including al-Qaeda and ISIS. But recently, Russia decided to intervene militarily. Suddenly, Wolfowitz's lesson from the Gulf War was up in smoke. The neocons cannot militarily do whatever they want in the Middle East and trust that Russia will stand idly by. Suddenly the arrogant Wolfowitz/Wurmser dream of crumbling then cleaning up "old Soviet client regimes" and "Cold War enemy relics" had gone poof. Putin decided that Syria would be one "Cold War relic" turned terrorist playground too many.

Russia's entry into Syria has thrown all of the neocons' schemes into disarray.

By actually working to destroy Syrian al-Qaeda and ISIS instead of just pretending to, as the US and its allies have, Russia threatens to eliminate the head-chopping bogeymen whose Live Leak-broadcasted brutal antics continually renew in Americans the war-fueling terror of 9/11. And after Putin had taken the US air strike option off the table, al-Qaeda and ISIS were the neocons most powerful tools for bringing down the Syrian regime. And now Russia is threatening to take those toys away too.

If Hezbollah and Iran, with Russia's air cover, manage to help save what is left of Syria from the Salafist psychos, they will be more prestigious in both Syria and Lebanon than ever, and Israel may never be able to dominate its northern neighbors.

The neocons are livid. After the conflicts over Syria and Ukraine in 2013, they had already started ramping up the vilification of Putin. Now the demonization has gone into overdrive.

One offering in this milieu has been an article by Matthew Continetti in the neocon web site he edits, The Washington Free Beacon. Titled " A Reagan Doctrine for the Twenty-First Century ," it obviously aims to be a sequel to Kristol's and Kagan's "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy." As it turns out, the Russian "Evil Empire" was not defeated after all: only temporarily dormant. And so Continetti's updated Reaganite manifesto is subtitled, "How to confront Vladimir Putin."

The US military may be staggering around the planet like a drunken, bloated colossus. Yet Continetti still dutifully trots out all the Kristolian tropes about the need for military assertiveness (more drunken belligerence), massive defense spending (more bloating), and "a new American century." Reaganism is needed now just as much as in 1996, he avers: in fact, doubly so, for Russia has reemerged as:

" the greatest military and ideological threat to the United States and to the world order it has built over decades as guarantor of international security."

Right, just look at all that security sprouting out of all those bomb craters the US has planted throughout much of the world. Oh wait no, those are terrorists.

Baby-faced Continetti, a Weekly Standard contributor, is quite the apprentice to Sith Lord Kristol, judging from his ardent faith in the "Benevolent Global Hegemony" dogma. In fact, he even shares Lord Kristol's enthusiasm for "Benevolent Galactic Hegemony." It was Continetti who kicked off the recent Star Wars /foreign policy brouhaha when he tweeted:

"I've been rooting for the Empire since 1983"

This elicited a concurring response from Kristol, which is what set Twitter atwitter. Of course the whole thing was likely staged and coordinated between the two neocon operatives.

Unfortunately for the neocons, demonizing Putin over Syria is not nearly as easy as demonizing Putin over Ukraine. With Ukraine, there was a fairly straight-forward (if false) narrative to build of big bully Russia and plucky underdog Ukraine.

However, it's pretty hard to keep a lid on the fact that Russia is attacking al-Qaeda and ISIS, along with any CIA-trained jihadist allies are nearby. And it's inescapably unseemly for the US foreign policy establishment to be so bent out of shape about Russia bombing sworn enemies of the American people, even if it does save some dictator most Americans don't care about one way or the other.

And now that wildly popular wild card Donald Trump is spouting unwelcome common sense to his legions of followers about how standing back and letting Russia bomb anti-American terrorists is better than starting World War III over it. And this is on top of the fact that Trump is deflating Jeb Bush's campaign by throwing shade at his brother's neocon legacy, from the failures over 9/11 to the disastrous decision to regime change Iraq. And the neocon-owned Marco Rubio, who actually adopted "A New American Century" as his campaign slogan, is similarly making no headway against Trump.

And Russia's involvement in Syria just keeps getting worse for the neocons. Washington threatened to withdraw support from the Iraqi government if it accepted help from Russia against ISIS. Iraq accepted Russian help anyway. Baghdad has also sent militias to fight under Russian air cover alongside Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces.

Even Jordan, that favorite proxy force in Israel's dreams of regional dominance, has begun coordinating with Russia, in spite of its billion dollars a year of annual aid from Washington. Et tu Jordan?!

Apparently there aren't enough Federal Reserve notes in Janet Yellen's imagination to pay Iraq and Jordan to tolerate living amid a bin Ladenite maelstrom any longer.

And what is Washington going to do about it if the whole region develops closer ties with Russia? What are the American people going to let them get away with doing about it? A palace coup in Jordan? Expend more blood and treasure to overthrow the very same Iraqi government we already lost much blood and treasure in installing? Start a suicidal hot war with nuclear Russia?

And the neocon's imperial dreams are coming apart at the seams outside of the war zones too. The new Prime Minister of Canada just announced he will pull out of America's war in the Levant. Europe wants to compromise with Russia on both Ukraine and Syria, and this willingness will grow as the refugee crisis it is facing worsens. Obama made a nuclear deal with Iran and initiated detente with Cuba. And worst of all for neocons, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is being de-legitimized by the bourgeoning BDS movement and by images of its own brutality propagating through social media, along with translations of its hateful rhetoric.

The neocons bit off more than they could chew, and their Galactic Empire is falling apart before it could even fully conquer its first planet.

Nearly all empires end due to over-extension. If brave people from Ottawa to Baghdad simply say "enough" within a brief space of time, hopefully this empire can dissolve relatively peacefully like the Soviet Empire did, leaving its host civilization intact, instead of dragging that civilization into oblivion along with it like the Roman Empire did.

But beware, the imperial war party will not go quietly into the night, unless we in their domestic tax base insist that there is no other way. If, in desperation, they start calling for things like more boots on the ground, reinstating the draft, or declaring World War III on Russia and its Middle Eastern allies, we must stand up and say with firm voices something along the lines of the following:

No. You will not have my son for your wars. And we will not surrender any more of our liberty. We will no longer yield to a regime led by a neocon clique that threatens to extinguish the human race. Your power fantasy of universal empire is over. Just let it go. Or, as Anakin finally did when the Emperor came for his son, we will hurl your tyranny into the abyss.

[Feb 05, 2019] John Bolton Insists Iran Likely Harboring Dangerous Terrorist Osama Bin Laden

Feb 05, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

WASHINGTON -- In an impassioned call for preemptive action against the Middle Eastern nation, United States national security advisor John Bolton insisted Thursday that Iran was likely harboring the dangerous terrorist Osama bin Laden. "For the good of our nation, we must act immediately," said Bolton, citing several intelligence reports providing significant evidence that Iran is currently providing sanctuary to the Al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We must never rest until this fugitive is brought to justice, and the only way to achieve that is through repeated and prolonged military strikes on Iran.

We have reason to believe that he's living in a compound there where he's training a legion of bloodthirsty Iranian civilians to take up arms as the next generation of terrorists. It is our solemn duty as the international safeguard of freedom to prevent this at all costs."

At press time, Bolton had left the podium to follow up on an important tip that Iranian leaders had hired American nuclear physicist Otto Gunther Octavius.

[Feb 05, 2019] NYTimes Journo Melts Down On Joe Rogan s Show

Feb 05, 2019 | www.youtube.com

nywvblue , 1 day ago

Bari Weiss is the monstrous motherlode of ineptitude, it would appear.

tom burton , 15 hours ago

Bari Weiss's next column: Joe Rogan is a toady of Tulsi Gabbard.

Robert Harper , 17 hours ago

Now it is easy to understand why I stopped my nyt subscription.

Mike Honcho , 17 hours ago

Unbelievable! It's like Joe is interviewing an airhead middle school mean girl.

[Feb 05, 2019] The Weekly Standard A Record of Failed Regime Change by Jacob Heilbrunn

Notable quotes:
"... No such glasnost ever took place in the pages of the Standard whose reputation has become indelibly wedded to its cheerleading for the calamitous 2003 Iraq War. The neocons had confused the Soviet Union's forfeiting of the cold war with American triumphalism, seizing upon its peaceful conclusion to search for new monsters to destroy abroad, whenever and wherever they could. The Standard itself constantly published taradiddles about the Middle East and Islam. Stephen F. Hayes, its last editor, lauded for his "integrity and courage" in the Trump era by David Brooks, wrote a phantasmagoric book called The Connection: How al Qaeda's Connection With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America , not to mention reverential biographies of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz. ..."
"... For his part, Kristol co-wrote a book with Lawrence F. Kaplan called The War Over Iraq that supported a worldwide crusade for democracy. Far from spreading democracy, the Iraq War ended up not only spreading chaos in the Middle East, but also enabling the rise of Trump. As Carlos Lozada recently observed in The Washington Post , "The Never Trumpers hold everyone culpable for the appeal of Trumpism except, in any worthwhile way, themselves." ..."
"... For most neocons, however, journalism has never been more than a Leninist means to an end -- to form an intellectual vanguard. For it is political influence that the neocons crave. In his memoir, Boot proudly recounts that he served as an adviser to Senator Marco Rubio as well as to Mitt Romney during his run for the presidency in 2012. Kristol worked to destroy the 1993 Clinton Healthcare bill and sought to mold first Dan Quayle, then Sarah Palin, into his political homunculi. During the 2016 primary, he desperately cast about for a viable candidate to oppose Donald Trump and incurred much ridicule when he floated the name of David French, a writer for the National Review . ..."
"... Kristol, Podhoretz, Boot, and others belong to a second generation of neocons that never drifted away from the Democrats toward the Republican Party. Instead, they were right from the beginning. While some have begun to duplicate the odyssey in reverse that neocon elder Norman Podhoretz chronicled in memoirs such as Breaking Ranks and Ex-Friends , many seem simply politically adrift, like Russian exiles stranded in Paris after the Bolshevik revolution pining for the ancien régime . ..."
"... For his part, Kristol refused to concede that the GOP was irredeemably tainted by Trump. He acknowledged, "there are recessive genes in the GOP. They were always there and a lot of us didn't want to look too closely. There was a shining moment when the Bill Buckley conservatives came together with the neoconservatives and with Ronald Reagan," but "that went away quickly." Explaining his backing for Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate in 2008, he said: "The instinct I had was you had to have a more populist flavor That would be a way to incorporate populist discontent." He concluded, "It will be very different if this ends up being a parenthesis or this is an inflection point where it becomes the culmination, or end point. That's a very different story We're less doomed than what some people say as a party and a movement." ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.nybooks.com

In April 2016, I attended a fortieth anniversary gala dinner in Washington, D.C., held by the Ethics and Public Policy Center at the St. Regis Hotel to honor House Speaker Paul Ryan. The master of ceremonies was William Kristol. Kristol noted that Donald Trump, who won the New York Republican primary that night to the dismay of the attendees who audibly groaned at the news, had described him as "dopey," the editor of a "slightly failing magazine," and "very embarrassed to even walk down the street" thanks to his refusal to endorse Trump. Kristol said, "It's been a tough two or three months of rehabilitation for me." After the audience stopped laughing, Kristol concluded: "This should be a Trump-free evening so that's enough Trump."

It hasn't worked out that way. Instead, Kristol watched helplessly as Trump denounced the Iraq War as a fraud and trumpeted an America First doctrine that repudiated the neocon crusading foreign policy doctrine. This past Friday, the saga of the neocons took a fresh and unexpected turn with the demise of The Weekly Standard . Launched as a "redoubt of conservatism" by Kristol, Fred Barnes, and John Podhoretz, with the backing of the Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, the Standard , The New Yorker noted in May 1995 , "will become the nation's only weekly journal of conservative opinion yet it will rely for editorial inspiration on a liberal model: The New Republic . Just as Herbert Croly began The New Republic , in 1914, to conduct the intellectual debate at the climax of the Progressive Era, The Standard appears at the dawn of a conservative one."

That was then. Now Colorado billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, who bought the magazine from Murdoch in 2007, has decided to pull the plug, in part over the brickbats the Standard lobbed at Trump. If so, his move has pleased the president. On Saturday, Trump tweeted : "The pathetic and dishonest Weekly Standard, run by failed prognosticator Bill Kristol (who, like many others, never had a clue), is flat broke and out of business. Too bad. May it rest in peace!"

Even as Trump gloats over Anschutz's move, however, a chorus of neocons is indicting Anschutz for willfully ending a golden age of journalism. Alfred Kazin observed in A Lifetime Burning in Every Moment , "Jews on the American scene. The neoconservatives have made it right with the boss their grandfathers used to picket." But New York Times columnist David Brooks echoed Commentary editor John Podhoretz in angrily accusing Anschutz of, in effect, committing murder and behaving like a "run-of-the-mill arrogant billionaire," On Monday, Podhoretz went on to deem Representative Steve King a "disgusting liar and a stain on American public life" for assenting with Trump's claims about the Standard . Meanwhile, Max Boot, the author of The Corrosion of Conservatism , wrote in The Washington Post , "I devoutly hope a new Standard will arise to lead the Republican Party out of the moral and political oblivion to which the president is consigning it."

It's an unlikely prospect. The most provocative and inventive writing on the right about Trump doesn't come from the neocons -- who are essentially Johnny-come-latelies in their criticisms of the GOP -- but from publications such as The American Conservative , American Affairs, or even National Review . In The American Conservative , Daniel Larison pillories the Trump administration for its recklessly high military budget -- something no neocon would aver -- and for repudiating the Iran nuclear deal, while William Ruger deems neocon historian Robert Kagan's latest book, The Jungle Grows Back , a recipe for "forever war."

At the same time, in The American Conservative 's latest issue , the historian Robert W. Merry declares that Trump will be a one-term president, partly because his foreign policy stands repudiate his campaign promises. His point is well-taken. It's ironic that the Standard has imploded at the very moment when the neocons' nemesis, Trump, has stolen their lunch money with an aggressively militarist foreign policy that is pro-Israel, hostile to Iran and China, and disdainful of the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and other international institutions. The only thing missing from the Trump program is the patina of democracy promotion. Perhaps the neocons have become a victim of their own success; in Merry's words:

Trump himself has already reversed his campaign stance regarding the country's foreign policy, having installed Mike Pompeo as secretary of state and John Bolton as national security adviser -- men who personify the prevailing establishment outlook of hegemonic liberalism. Thus, because of Trump's political and leadership shortcomings, Trump voters will see their hopes of a new direction for America trampled and thwarted.

Julius Krein, the editor of American Affairs , disavowed his support for Trump after the Charlottesville demonstrations in The New York Times , but his journal continues to publish lengthy essays taking aim at neoliberal economic doctrines and includes well-known authors on the left such as John B. Judis . And in National Review , Michael Brendan Dougherty is attempting to formulate a populist approach toward workers and education. In a December 17 cover story , he politely acknowledges that the "Trump presidency is not what conservatives would have designed for themselves" but suggests "conservatives should allow themselves to see that America's great middle class was the vessel for its previous electoral victories and the preservation of the American order."

No such glasnost ever took place in the pages of the Standard whose reputation has become indelibly wedded to its cheerleading for the calamitous 2003 Iraq War. The neocons had confused the Soviet Union's forfeiting of the cold war with American triumphalism, seizing upon its peaceful conclusion to search for new monsters to destroy abroad, whenever and wherever they could. The Standard itself constantly published taradiddles about the Middle East and Islam. Stephen F. Hayes, its last editor, lauded for his "integrity and courage" in the Trump era by David Brooks, wrote a phantasmagoric book called The Connection: How al Qaeda's Connection With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America , not to mention reverential biographies of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.

For his part, Kristol co-wrote a book with Lawrence F. Kaplan called The War Over Iraq that supported a worldwide crusade for democracy. Far from spreading democracy, the Iraq War ended up not only spreading chaos in the Middle East, but also enabling the rise of Trump. As Carlos Lozada recently observed in The Washington Post , "The Never Trumpers hold everyone culpable for the appeal of Trumpism except, in any worthwhile way, themselves."

Indeed, it would be difficult to point to any significant essays that the Standard has published in recent years. Many of the more prominent neocons who originally wrote for it have moved on to more mainstream outlets. The Washington Post , whose editorial page championed the Iraq War, has become a kind of bulletin board for Never Trumpers, including Max Boot, a regular on CNN and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jennifer Rubin, a former contributor to Human Events , Commentary , and the Standard . Both Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens decamped from The Wall Street Journal for higher profile jobs at The New York Times . Robert Kagan has long since left the Standard and the Project for the New American Century behind to become a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. David Frum, who regularly wrote for the Standard and was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is a staff writer at The Atlantic .

For most neocons, however, journalism has never been more than a Leninist means to an end -- to form an intellectual vanguard. For it is political influence that the neocons crave. In his memoir, Boot proudly recounts that he served as an adviser to Senator Marco Rubio as well as to Mitt Romney during his run for the presidency in 2012. Kristol worked to destroy the 1993 Clinton Healthcare bill and sought to mold first Dan Quayle, then Sarah Palin, into his political homunculi. During the 2016 primary, he desperately cast about for a viable candidate to oppose Donald Trump and incurred much ridicule when he floated the name of David French, a writer for the National Review .

Kristol, Podhoretz, Boot, and others belong to a second generation of neocons that never drifted away from the Democrats toward the Republican Party. Instead, they were right from the beginning. While some have begun to duplicate the odyssey in reverse that neocon elder Norman Podhoretz chronicled in memoirs such as Breaking Ranks and Ex-Friends , many seem simply politically adrift, like Russian exiles stranded in Paris after the Bolshevik revolution pining for the ancien régime .

A conference attended by about a hundred people last week at the Niskanen Center , a small think tank located near Capitol Hill, offered a timely reminder of their losses. The conference was not, as one might have expected in the past, held at the American Enterprise Institute, whose senior vice president, Danielle Pletka, has suggested that fears of climate change may be overblown, or the Heritage Foundation. Rather, it is the Niskanen Center that has become the unofficial headquarters of what amounts to a rebel alliance of Democrats and Republicans united against Trump. Over the past year, they have met on Tuesday mornings for off-the-record events under the auspices of a group called the Meeting of the Concerned, whose members include George Conway, the husband of Kellyanne, and David Frum. In November, the group released a formal statement in support of Special Counsel Robert Mueller that was signed by Mickey Edwards, the former chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, and Kristol, among others.

The conference, which opened with moderate Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan reminding the attendees that his father, a congressman, had helped kickstart the impeachment hearings against Richard M. Nixon, was titled "Starting Over: the Center-Right After Trump." But Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Mona Charen, the author of a book about liberals during the cold war titled Useful Idiots , and Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, grappled uneasily with the historical legacy of the GOP and its implications for Trump's rise.

The center's president, Jerry Taylor, suggested, "There was a time not that long ago when you all had the commanding heights of the world of conservative public intellectuals. Today, that's not the case. You've have been displaced." Rubin was incredulous. "Displaced, displaced!" she expostulated. Then she went on to blame the GOP. "Intellectuals don't do well in a nativist, know-nothing party," said Rubin. "The party is not going to accept public intellectuals in the way it did."

For his part, Kristol refused to concede that the GOP was irredeemably tainted by Trump. He acknowledged, "there are recessive genes in the GOP. They were always there and a lot of us didn't want to look too closely. There was a shining moment when the Bill Buckley conservatives came together with the neoconservatives and with Ronald Reagan," but "that went away quickly." Explaining his backing for Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate in 2008, he said: "The instinct I had was you had to have a more populist flavor That would be a way to incorporate populist discontent." He concluded, "It will be very different if this ends up being a parenthesis or this is an inflection point where it becomes the culmination, or end point. That's a very different story We're less doomed than what some people say as a party and a movement."

So far, though, his efforts at regime change in Washington have proven as illusory as his dreams of transforming Iraq into a democracy overnight.

December 18, 2018, 7:00 am

[Feb 05, 2019] Money's true nature is law. When a country collapses, then its money collapses.

Feb 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: February 3, 2019 at 8:07 pm GMT

@nsa Sorry, not true.

The original bronze disks of Rome circulated as currency. The metal money of U.S. Confederacy circulated that is until the Confederacy became no more.

The point? Money's true nature is law. When a country collapses, then its money collapses.

Paper money that was good? Lincoln's greenbacks circulated at par. Massachusetts Bills circulated as money and prevented Oligarchs from England and their attempted takeover. The colony used the money to make iron goods (like Cannons) and do commerce.

The real statement is this: Money when it becomes unlawful, always collapses.

Massive money printing can happen when too many loans are made, as in the case today as all private bank credit notes come into being with loan activity -- a little more that 98%.

Driving a currency down with shorts causes new money to be loaned into existence, which in turn is the underlying cause of hyperinflations. The new credit creation covers the short. This mechanism always goes along with exchange rate pressures, where your country has to pay a debt in a foreign currency.

If you had an internal gold currency, which is recognized internationally, then your debts would be paid in gold, which would collapse your country into depression instead of inflation.

Bottom line is that money's true nature is law, and making claims about "paper" or "metal" obscures this fact.

cassandra , says: February 3, 2019 at 8:38 pm GMT
@eah

Since both the Fed and your local bank create money from nothing

They also impose some obligations: repayment of principle and interest. Since we can't create money from nothing, this payback has to come from money somehow created by the banks as well.

I'm less worried about "disappearing" tax money than I am about misallocated spending and its consequences -- eg the 'black budget' of the NSA and 'deep state' generally.

Can't we worry about everything ?

Good point about the 'black budget'. But the last time some sort of DOD audit was attempted the Pentagon accountants' offices got hit by a missile, I mean airliner, on 911.

[Feb 05, 2019] CIA Was Aiding Afghan Jihadists Before the Soviet Invasion - Antiwar.com Original

Feb 05, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

CIA Was Aiding Afghan Jihadists Before the Soviet Invasion

by Nauman Sadiq Posted on February 05, 2019 February 1, 2019 Originally, there were four parties involved in the Afghan conflict which are mainly responsible for the debacle in the Af-Pak region. Firstly, the former Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Secondly, Pakistan's security agencies which nurtured the Afghan jihadists on the behest of Washington.

Thirdly, Saudi Arabia and the rest of oil-rich Gulf states which generously funded the jihadists to promote their Wahhabi-Salafi ideology. And last but not the least, the Western capitals which funded, provided weapons and internationally legitimized the erstwhile "freedom fighters" to use them against a competing ideology, global communism, which posed a threat to the Western corporate interests all over the world.

Regarding the objectives of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the then American envoy to Kabul, Adolph "Spike" Dubs, was assassinated on Feb. 14, 1979, the same day that Iranian revolutionaries stormed the US embassy in Tehran.

According to recently declassified documents of the White House, CIA and State Department, as reported by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post , the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the Soviets invaded in 1979.

President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December the same year. That the CIA was arming the Afghan jihadists six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been proven by the State Department's declassified documents; fact of the matter, however, is that the nexus between the CIA, Pakistan's security agencies and the Gulf states to train and arm the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was formed several years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Historically, Pakistan's military first used the Islamists of Jamaat-e-Islami during the Bangladesh war of liberation in the late 1960s against the Bangladeshi nationalist Mukti Bahini liberation movement of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman – the father of current prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and the founder of Bangladesh, which was then a province of Pakistan and known as East Pakistan before the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.

Jamaat-e-Islami is a far-right Islamist movement in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh – analogous to the Muslim Brotherhood political party in Egypt and Turkey – several of whose leaders have recently been hanged by the Bangladeshi nationalist government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed for committing massacres of Bangladeshi civilians on behalf of Pakistan's military during the late 1960s.

Then, during the 1970s, Pakistan's then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began aiding the Afghan Islamists against Sardar Daud's government, who had toppled his first cousin King Zahir Shah in a palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of Afghanistan.

Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to Pakistan's northwestern Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan's security establishment was wary of his irredentist claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated in 1978 as a result of the Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists.

Pakistan's support to the Islamists with the Saudi petrodollars and Washington's blessings, however, kindled the fires of Islamic insurgencies in the entire region comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Soviet Central Asian States.

The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million Muslims were susceptible to radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was infiltrating across the border into the Central Asian States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamic insurgencies spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan.

Even the American President Donald Trump recently admitted : "The reason Russia invaded Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia; they were right to be there." Incidentally, Trump also implied the reason why Soviet Union collapsed was due to the economic burden of the Soviet-Afghan War, as he was making a point about the withdrawal of American forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

Notwithstanding, in the Soviet-Afghan War between the capitalist and communist blocs, Saudi Arabia and the rest of Gulf's petro-monarchies took the side of the capitalist bloc because the former Soviet Union and Central Asian states produce more energy and consume less. Thus, the Soviet-led bloc was a net exporter of energy whereas the Western capitalist bloc was a net importer.

It suited the economic interests of the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to maintain and strengthen a supplier-consumer relationship with the Western capitalist bloc. Now, the BRICS countries are equally hungry for the Middle East's energy, but it's a recent development. During the Cold War, an alliance with the industrialized Western nations suited the economic interests of the Gulf countries.

Regarding the motives of the belligerents involved, the Americans wanted to take revenge for their defeat at the hands of communists in Vietnam, the Gulf countries had forged close economic ties with the Western bloc and Pakistan was dependent on the Western military aid, hence it didn't have a choice but to toe Washington's policy in Afghanistan.

In the end, the Soviet-Afghan War proved to be a "bear trap" and the former Soviet Union was eventually defeated and was subsequently dissolved in December 1991. It did not collapse because of the Afghan Jihad but that was an important factor contributing to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Regardless, more than twenty years before the declassification of the State Department documents as mentioned in the aforementioned Washington Post report, in the 1998 interview to the alternative news outlet The CounterPunch Magazine , former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the president signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December 1979.

Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview: The interviewer puts the question: "And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?" Brzezinski replies: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"

Despite the crass insensitivity, one must give credit to Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least he had the courage to speak the unembellished truth. It's worth noting, however, that the aforementioned interview was recorded in 1998. After the 9/11 terror attack, no Western policymaker can now dare to be as blunt and forthright as Brzezinski.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Read more by Nauman Sadiq

[Feb 05, 2019] Refusal to hand over Venezuelan gold means end of Britain as a financial center Prof. Wolff -- RT Business News

Feb 05, 2019 | www.rt.com

The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff. He told RT America that Britain and its central bank have shown themselves to be "under the thumb of the United States."

"That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it's not the safe place as it once was," he said.

[Feb 05, 2019] Sic Semper Tyrannis Is this the Trump Doctrine - TTG

Notable quotes:
"... Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was mixed. ..."
"... PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem. ..."
"... There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go. ..."
"... I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq. ..."
Feb 05, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was mixed.

We launched an ineffective volley of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to a trumped up gas attack, but we never sought to establish a no fly zone and risk war with Russia. For a while we were well on our way to establish an enduring client state in east Syria. We assumed this was all the doing of the cabal of manipulating neocons that Trump surrounded himself with. His call for immediate withdrawal of troops from Syria surely proved this true. Finally Trump was allowed to be Trump. He was even seeking a way out of Afghanistan, after a literal lifetime of war in that godforsaken land.

The neocons are fighting back bigly. The pace of withdrawal from Syria was slowed and there is no indication we would ever give up our outpost on the Baghdad-Damascus highway at Tanf. Why? I think Trump laid out HIS thoughts on the matter during the traditional pre-super bowl presidential interview.

-- -- -- --

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to protect Israel. We have to protect other things that we have...

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you want to keep troops there [Iraq] now?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Whoa, that's news. You're keeping troops in Iraq because you want to be able to strike in Iran?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable and expensive military base built in Iraq. It's perfectly situated for looking at all over different parts of the troubled Middle East rather than pulling up. And this is what a lot of people don't understand. We're going to keep watching and we're going to keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before they do.

-- -- -- --

So, We are staying in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran and we are doing this to protect Israel. It was not any of the neocons who said this. It was Trump himself. So much for America first. There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go.

However, Baghdad has thrown a monkey wrench into this developing Trump doctrine. Iraqi President Barham Salih has told Trump to slow his roll.

-- -- -- --

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Barham Salih said on Monday that President Donald Trump did not ask Iraq's permission for U.S. troops stationed there to "watch Iran."

Speaking at a forum in Baghdad, Salih was responding to a question about Trump's comments to CBS about how he would ask troops stationed in Iraq to "watch" Iran. U.S. troops in Iraq are there as part of an agreement between the two countries with a specific mission of combating terrorism, Salih said, and that they should stick to that. (Reuters)

-- -- -- --

I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq.

TTG

[Feb 04, 2019] Trump s Revised and Rereleased Foreign Policy: The World Policeman is Back

Highly recommended!
This article from 2017 looks like it was written yesterday. Trump betrayal of his elctorate on multiple levels, essentially on all key poin of his election program mkes him "Republican Obama".
What is interesting about Trump foreign policy is his version of neoliberal "gangster capitalism" on foreign arena: might is right principle applied like universal opener. Previous administrations tried to put a lipstick on the pig. Trump does not even bother.
In terms of foreign policy, and even during the transition before Trump's inauguration, there were other, more disturbing signs of where Trump would be heading soon. When Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016, Trump seemed jubilant as if he had somehow been vindicated, and took the opportunity to slander Castro as a "brutal dictator" who "oppressed his own people" and turned Cuba into a "totalitarian island".
Notable quotes:
"... However, when he delivered his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the government's back on a long-standing policy of cultural imperialism , stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first". ..."
"... Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office -- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat. ..."
"... The entire conflict with Russia that has developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. ..."
"... Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from wars for regime change, Trump sold out again. "I love WikiLeaks -- " -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding. ..."
"... AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States? ..."
"... AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing? ..."
"... AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to arrest Julian Assange? ..."
"... While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US, witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to them. ..."
"... Since NAFTA was implemented, migration from Mexico to the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately drove them away from agriculture ..."
"... As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact, per capita GDP is nearly a flat line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures that have been implemented, the US leads the world . ..."
"... To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only when the US reaps the greater share of benefits. ..."
"... As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son -- then what an abysmally poor choice he is ..."
"... On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism, which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced. ..."
"... As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism . Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics. ..."
"... As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition. ..."
Aug 09, 2017 | zeroanthropology.net

Trump could have kept quiet, and lost nothing. Instead what he was attacking -- and the irony was missed on his fervently right wing supporters -- was someone who was a leader in the anti-globalist movement, from long before it was ever called that. Fidel Castro was a radical pioneer of independence, self-reliance, and self-determination.

Castro turned Cuba from an American-owned sugar plantation and brothel, a lurid backwater in the Caribbean, into a serious international actor opposed to globalizing capitalism. There was no sign of any acknowledgment of this by Trump, who instead chose to parrot the same people who would vilify him using similar terms (evil, authoritarian, etc.). Of course, Trump respects only corporate executives and billionaires, not what he would see as some rag-tag Third World revolutionary. Here Trump's supporters generally failed, using Castro's death as an opportunity for tribal partisanship, another opportunity to attack "weak liberals" like Obama who made minor overtures to Cuba (too little, too late).

Their distrust of "the establishment" was nowhere to be found this time: their ignorance of Cuba and their resort to stock clichés and slogans had all been furnished to them by the same establishment they otherwise claimed to oppose.

Just to be clear, the above is not meant to indicate any reversal on Trump's part regarding Cuba. He has been consistently anti-communist, and fairly consistent in his denunciations of Fidel Castro. What is significant is that -- far from overcoming the left-right divide -- Trump shores up the barriers, even at the cost of denouncing others who have a proven track record of fighting against neoliberal globalization and US interventionism. In these regards, Trump has no track record. Even among his rivals in the Republican primaries, senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul had more of an anti-interventionist track record.

However, when he delivered his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the government's back on a long-standing policy of cultural imperialism , stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first".

Russia

Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office -- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat.

Instead, Trump continued the sanctions, as if out of meek deference to Obama's policy, one founded on lies and antagonism toward Trump himself. Rather than repair the foul attempt to sabotage the US-Russian relationship in preparation for his presidency, Trump simply abided and thus became an accomplice. To be clear, Trump has done precisely nothing to dampen the near mass hysteria that has been manufactured in the US about alleged -- indeed imaginary -- "Russian intervention".

His comments, both during the electoral campaign and even early into his presidency, about wanting good relations with Russia, have been replaced by Trump's admissions that US relations with Russia are at a low point (Putin agreed: "I would say the level of trust [between Russia and the US] is at a workable level, especially in the military dimension, but it hasn't improved. On the contrary, it has degraded " and his spokesman called the relations " deplorable ".)

Rather than use the power of his office to calm fears, to build better ties with Russia, and to make meeting with Vladimir Putin a top priority, Trump has again done nothing , except escalating tensions. The entire conflict with Russia that has developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. Russia had actively facilitated the US' war in Afghanistan for over a decade, and was a consistent collaborator on numerous levels. It is up to thinking American officials to honestly explain what motivated them to tilt relations with Russia, because it is certainly not Russia's doing. The only explanation that makes any sense is that the US leadership grew concerned that Russia was no longer teetering on the edge of total socio-economic breakdown, as it was under the neoliberal Boris Yeltsin, but has instead resurfaced as a major actor in international affairs, and one that champions anti-neoliberal objectives of enhanced state sovereignty and self-determination.

WikiLeaks

Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from wars for regime change, Trump sold out again. "I love WikiLeaks -- " -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding.

After finding so much use for WikiLeaks' publication of the Podesta emails, which became incorporated into his campaign speeches, and which fuelled the writing and speaking of journalists and bloggers sympathetic to Trump -- he was now effectively declaring WikiLeaks to be both an enemy and a likely target of US government action, in even more blunt terms than we heard during the past eight years under Obama. This is not mere continuity with the past, but a dramatic escalation. Rather than praise Julian Assange for his work, call for an end to the illegal impediments to his seeking asylum, swear off any US calls for extraditing and prosecuting Assange, and perhaps meeting with him in person, Trump has done all of the opposite. Instead we learn that Trump's administration may file arrest charges against Assange . Mike Pompeo , chosen by Trump to head the CIA, who had himself cited WikiLeaks as a reliable source of proof about how the Democratic National Committee had rigged its campaign, now declared WikiLeaks to be a " non-state hostile intelligence service ," along with vicious personal slander against Assange.

Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks was one that he defended in terms that were not just a deceptive rewriting of history, but one that was also fearful -- "I don't support or unsupport" WikiLeaks, was what Trump was now saying in his dash for the nearest exit. The backtracking is so obvious in this interview Trump gave to the AP , that his shoes must have left skid marks on the floor:

AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States?

TRUMP: When Wikileaks came out never heard of Wikileaks, never heard of it. When Wikileaks came out, all I was just saying is, "Well, look at all this information here, this is pretty good stuff." You know, they tried to hack the Republican, the RNC, but we had good defenses. They didn't have defenses, which is pretty bad management. But we had good defenses, they tried to hack both of them. They weren't able to get through to Republicans. No, I found it very interesting when I read this stuff and I said, "Wow." It was just a figure of speech. I said, "Well, look at this. It's good reading."

AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing?

TRUMP: No, I don't support or unsupport. It was just information .

AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to arrest Julian Assange?

TRUMP: I am not involved in that decision, but if Jeff Sessions wants to do it, it's OK with me. I didn't know about that decision, but if they want to do it, it's OK with me.

First, Trump invents the fictitious claim that WikiLeaks was responsible for hacking the DNC, and that WikiLeaks also tried to hack the Republicans. Second, he pretends to be an innocent bystander, a spectator, in his own administration -- whatever others decide, is "OK" with him, not that he knows about their decisions, but it's all up to others. He has no power, all of a sudden.

Again, what Trump is displaying in this episode is his ultimate attachment to his class, with all of its anxieties and its contempt for rebellious, marginal upstarts. Trump shuns any sort of "loyalty" to WikiLeaks (not that they ever had a working relationship) or any form of gratitude, because then that would imply a debt and therefore a transfer of value -- whereas Trump's core ethics are those of expedience and greed (he admits that much). This move has come with a cost , with members of Trump's support base openly denouncing the betrayal. 6

NAFTA

On NAFTA , Trump claims he has not changed his position -- yet, from openly denouncing the free trade agreement and promising to terminate it, he now vows only to seek modifications and amendments, which means supporting NAFTA. He appeared to be awfully quick to obey the diplomatic pressure of Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and Mexico's President, Enrique Peña Nieto. Trump's entire position on NAFTA now comes into question.

While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US, witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to them.

This really deserves to be treated at length, separately from this article. However, for now, let's keep in mind that when Trump complains about Canadian softwood lumber and dairy exports to the US, his argument about NAFTA is without merit. Neither commodity is part of the NAFTA agreement.

Moreover, where dairy is concerned, the problem is US overproduction. Wisconsin alone has more dairy cows than all of Canada . There is a net surplus , in the US' favour, with respect to US dairy exports to Canada. Overall, the US has a net surplus in the trade in goods and services with Canada. Regarding Mexico, the irony of Trump's denunciations of imaginary Mexican victories is that he weakens his own criticisms of immigration.

Since NAFTA was implemented, migration from Mexico to the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately drove them away from agriculture.

As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact, per capita GDP is nearly a flat line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures that have been implemented, the US leads the world .

To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only when the US reaps the greater share of benefits.

His arguments with respect to Canada are akin to those of a looter or raider. He wants to block lumber imports from Canada, at the same time as he wants to break the Canadian dairy market wide open to absorb US excess production. That approach is at the core of what defined the US as a "new empire" in the 1800s. In addition, while Trump was quick to tear up the TPP, he has said nothing about TISA and TTIP.

Mexico

Trump's argument with Mexico is also disturbing for what it implies. It would seem that any evidence of production in Mexico causes Trump concern. Mexico should not only keep its people -- however many are displaced by US imports -- but it should also be as dependent as possible on the US for everything except oil. Since Trump has consistently declared his antagonism to OPEC, ideally Mexico's oil would be sold for a few dollars per barrel.

China

Trump's turn on China almost provoked laughter from his many domestic critics. Absurdly, what figures prominently in most renditions of the story of Trump's change on China (including his own), is a big piece of chocolate cake. The missile strike on Syria was, according to Wilbur Ross, the " after-dinner entertainment ". Here, Trump's loud condemnations of China on trade issues were suddenly quelled -- and it is not because chocolate has magical properties. Instead it seems Trump has been willing to settle on selling out citizens' interests , and particularly those who voted for him, in return for China's assistance on North Korea. Let's be clear: countering and dominating North Korea is an established favourite among neoconservatives. Trump's priority here is fully "neocon," and the submergence of trade issues in favour of militaristic preferences is the one case where neoconservatives might be distinguished from the otherwise identical neoliberals.

North Korea

Where North Korea is concerned, Trump chose to manufacture a " crisis ". North Korea has actually done nothing to warrant a sudden outbreak of panic over it being supposedly aggressive and threatening. North Korea is no more aggressive than any person defending their survival can be called belligerent. The constant series of US military exercises in South Korea, or near North Korean waters, is instead a deliberate provocation to a state whose existence the US nearly extinguished. Even last year the US Air Force publicly boasted of having "nearly destroyed" North Korea -- language one would have expected from the Luftwaffe in WWII. The US continues to maintain roughly 60,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea, and continues to refuse to formally declare an end to the Korean War and sign a peace treaty . Trump then announced he was sending an "armada" to the Korean peninsula, and boasted of how "very powerful" it was. This was in addition to the US deploying the THAAD missile system in South Korea. Several of his messages in Twitter were written using highly provocative and threatening language. When asked if he would start a war, Trump glibly replied: " I don't know. I mean, we'll see ". On another occasion Trump stated, "There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely". When the world's leading military superpower declares its intention to destroy you, then there is nothing you can do in your defense which anyone could justly label as "over the top". Otherwise, once again Trump posed as a parental figure, the world's chief babysitter -- picture Trump, surrounded by children taking part in the "Easter egg roll" at the White House, being asked about North Korea and responding "they gotta behave". Trump would presume to teach manners to North Korea, using the only tools of instruction that seem to be the first and last resort of US foreign policy (and the "defense" industry): bombs.

Syria

Attacking Syria , on purportedly humanitarian grounds, is for many (including vocal supporters) one of the most glaring contradictions of Trump's campaign statements about not embroiling the US in failed wars of regime change and world policing. During the campaign, he was in favour of Russia's collaboration with Syria in the fight against ISIS. For years he had condemned Obama for involving the US in Syria, and consistently opposed military intervention there. All that was consigned to the archive of positions Trump declared to now be worthless. That there had been a change in Trump's position is not a matter of dispute -- Trump made the point himself :

"I like to think of myself as a very flexible person. I don't have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way, I don't change. Well, I do change and I am flexible, and I'm proud of that flexibility. And I will tell you, that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me -- big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I've been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn't get any worse than that. And I have that flexibility, and it's very, very possible -- and I will tell you, it's already happened that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much. And if you look back over the last few weeks, there were other attacks using gas. You're now talking about a whole different level".

Bending to the will of the prevailing Cold War and neo-McCarthyist atmosphere in the US, rife with anti-Russian conspiracy theories, Trump found an easy opportunity to score points with the hostile media, ever so mindful as he is about approval ratings, polls, and media coverage. Some explain Trump's reversals as arising from his pursuit of public adulation -- and while the media play the key role in purveying celebrity status, they are also a stiff bastion of imperialist culture. Given his many years as a the host of a popular TV show, and as the owner of the Miss Universe Pageant, there is some logical merit to the argument. But I think even more is at work, as explained in paragraphs above. According to Eric Trump it was at the urging of Ivanka that Donald Trump decided to strike a humanitarian-militarist pose. He would play the part of the Victorian parent, only he would use missiles to teach unruly children lessons about violence. Using language typically used against him by the mainstream media, Trump now felt entitled to pontificate that Assad is "evil," an " animal ," who would have to go . When did he supposedly come to this realization? Did Assad become evil at the same time Trump was inaugurated? Why would Trump have kept so silent about "evil" on the campaign trail? Trump of course is wrong: it's not that the world changed and he changed with it; rather, he invented a new fiction to suit his masked intentions. Trump's supposed opponents and critics, like the Soros-funded organizer of the women's march Linda Sarsour, showed her approval of even more drastic action by endorsing messages by what sounded like a stern school mistress who thought that 59 cruise missiles were just a mere "slap on the wrist". Virtually every neocon who is publicly active applauded Trump, as did most senior Democrats. The loudest opposition , however, came from Trump's own base , with a number of articles featuring criticism from Trump's supporters , and one conservative publication calling him outright a " weakling and a political ingrate ".

Members of the Trump administration have played various word games with the public on intervention in Syria. From unnamed officials saying the missile strike was a "one off," to named officials promising more if there were any other suspected chemical attacks (or use of barrel bombs -- and this while the US dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb in existence on Afghanistan); some said that regime change was not the goal, and then others made it clear that was the ultimate goal ; and then Trump saying, "Our policy is the same, it hasn't changed. We're not going into Syria " -- even though Trump himself greatly increased the number of US troops he deployed to Syria , illegally, in an escalation of the least protested invasion in recent history. Now we should know enough not to count this as mere ambiguity, but as deliberate obfuscation that offers momentary (thinly veiled) cover for a renewal of neocon policy .

We can draw an outline of Trump's liberal imperialism when it comes to Syria, which is likely to be applied elsewhere. First, Trump's interventionist policy regarding Syria is one that continues to treat that country as if it were terra nullius , a mere playground for superpower politics. Second, Trump is clearly continuing with the neoconservative agenda and its hit list of states to be terminated by US military action, as famously confirmed by Gen. Wesley Clark. Even Trump's strategy for justifying the attack on Syria echoed the two prior Bush presidential administrations -- selling war with the infamous "incubator babies" myth and the myth of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs). In many ways, Trump's presidency is thus shaping up to be either the seventh term of the George H.W. Bush regime, or the fifth straight term of the George W. Bush regime. Third, Trump is taking ownership of an extremely dangerous conflict, with costs that could surpass anything witnessed by the war on Iraq (which also continues). Fourth, by highlighting the importance of photographs in allegedly changing his mind, Trump has placed a high market value on propaganda featuring dead babies. His actions in Syria will now create an effective demand for the pornographic trade in pictures of atrocities. These are matters of great importance to the transnational capitalist class, which demands full global penetrability, diminished state power (unless in the service of this class' goals), a uniformity of expectations and conformity in behaviour, and an emphasis on individual civil liberties which are the basis for defending private property and consumerism.

Venezuela

It is very disturbing to see how Venezuela is being framed as ripe for US intervention, in ways that distinctly echo the lead up to the US war on Libya. Just as disturbing is that Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has a clear conflict of interest regarding Venezuela, from his recent role as CEO of Exxon and its conflict with the government of Venezuela over its nationalization of oil. Tillerson is, by any definition, a clear-cut member of the transnational capitalist class. The Twitter account of the State Department has a battery of messages sternly lecturing Venezuela about the treatment of protesters, while also pontificating on the Venezuelan Constitution as if the US State Department had become a global supreme court. What is impressive is the seamless continuity in the nature of the messages on Venezuela from that account, as if no change of government happened between Obama's time and Trump's. Nikki Haley, Trump's neocon ambassador to the UN, issued a statement that read like it had been written by her predecessors, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, a statement which in itself is an unacceptable intervention in Venezuelan internal affairs. For Trump's part, from just days before the election, to a couple of weeks after his inauguration, he has sent explicit messages of support for anti-government forces in Venezuela. In February, Trump imposed sanctions on Venezuela's Vice President. After Syria and North Korea, Venezuela is seeming the likely focus of US interventionism under Trump.

NATO

Rounding out the picture, at least for now (this was just the first hundred days of Trump's presidency), was Trump's outstanding reversal on NATO -- in fact, once again he stated the reversal himself, and without explanation either: " I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete ". This came just days after the US missile strike against Syria, and just as Ivanka Trump was about to represent his government at a meeting of globalist women, the W20 . NATO has served as the transnational military alliance at the service of the transnational capitalist class, and particularly the military and political members of the TCC. 7

Saving Neoliberalism?

Has Trump saved neoliberal capitalism from its ongoing demise? Has he sustained popular faith in liberal political ideals? Are we still in the dying days of liberalism ? If there had been a centrally coordinated plan to plant an operative among the ranks of populist conservatives and independents, to channel their support for nationalism into support for the persona of the plant, and to then have that plant steer a course straight back to shoring up neoliberal globalism -- then we might have had a wonderful story of a masterful conspiracy, the biggest heist in the history of elections anywhere. A truly "rigged system" could be expected to behave that way. Was Trump designated to take the fall in a rigged game, only his huge ego got in the way when he realized he could realistically win the election and he decided to really tilt hard against his partner, Hillary Clinton? It could be the basis for a novel, or a Hollywood political comedy. I have no way of knowing if it could be true.

Framed within the terms of what we do know, there was relief by the ousted group of political elites and the liberal globalist media at the sight of Trump's reversals, and a sense that their vision had been vindicated. However, if they are hoping that the likes of Trump will serve as a reliable flag bearer, then theirs is a misguided wishful thinking. If someone so demonized and ridiculed, tarnished as an evil thug and racist fascist, the subject of mass demonstrations in the US and abroad, is the latest champion of (neo)liberalism, then we are certainly witnessing its dying days.

Is Trump Beneficial for Anti-Imperialism?

Once one is informed enough and thus prepared to understand that anti-imperialism is not the exclusive preserve of the left (a left which anyway has mostly shunned it over the last two decades), that it did not originate with the left , and that it has a long and distinguished history in the US itself , then we can move toward some interesting realizations. The facts, borne out by surveys and my own online immersion among pro-Trump social media users, is that one of the significant reasons why Trump won is due to the growth in popularity of basic anti-imperialist principles (even if not recognized under that name): for example, no more world policing, no transnational militarization, no more interventions abroad, no more regime change, no war, and no globalism. Nationalists in Europe, as in Russia, have also pushed forward a basic anti-imperialist vision. Whereas in Latin America anti-imperialism is largely still leftist, in Europe and North America the left-right divide has become blurred, but the crucial thing is that at least now we can speak of anti-imperialism gaining strength in these three major continents. Resistance against globalization has been the primary objective, along with strengthening national sovereignty, protecting local cultural identity, and opposing free trade and transnational capital. Unfortunately, some anti-imperialist writers (on the left in fact) have tended to restrict their field of vision to military matters primarily, while almost completely neglecting the economic and cultural, and especially domestic dimensions of imperialism. (I am grossly generalizing of course, but I think it is largely accurate.) Where structures such as NAFTA are concerned, many of these same leftist anti-imperialists, few as they are, have had virtually nothing to say. It could be that they have yet to fully recognize that the transnational capitalist class has, gradually over the last seven decades, essentially purchased the power of US imperialism. Therefore the TCC's imperialism includes NAFTA, just as it includes open borders, neoliberal identity politics, and drone strikes. They are all different parts of the same whole.

As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son -- then what an abysmally poor choice he is. 8

On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism, which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced. In addition to that, given that his candidacy aggravated internal divisions in the US, which have not subsided with his assumption of office, these domestic social and cultural conflicts cause a serious deficit of legitimacy, a loss of political capital. A declining economy will also deprive him of capital in the strict sense. Moreover, given the kind of persona the media have crafted, the daily caricaturing of Trump will significantly spur anti-Americanism around the world. If suddenly even Canadian academics are talking about boycotting the US, then the worm has truly turned. Trump can only rely on "hard power" (military violence), because "soft power" is almost out of the question now that Trump has been constructed as a barbarian. Incompetent and/or undermined governance will also render Trump a deficient upholder of the status quo. The fact that nationalist movements around the world are not centrally coordinated, and their fortunes are not pinned to those of Trump, establishes a well-defined limit to his influence. Trump's antagonism toward various countries -- as wholes -- has already helped to stir up a deep sediment of anti-Americanism. If Americanism is at the heart of Trump's nationalist globalism, then it is doing all the things that are needed to induce a major heart attack.

As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism . Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics.

As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition.

[Feb 04, 2019] Haley resorts to a good, tried way of Us politicians to sell themselves to money interests.

Notable quotes:
"... The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: January 30, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMT

@Carlton Meyer

The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it.

She's being paid no doubt by the usual suspects. She is personally 1 million in debt and has signed with a Speakers agency to give speeches for 200,000 a pop.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV)

"Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking engagements, according to CNBC
In October 2018, when Haley resigned, she said, she would be taking a "step up" into the private sector after leaving the U.N. According to a public financial disclosure report based on 2017 data, at the rate quoted for her engagements, just a handful would pay down more than $1 million in outstanding debt that was accrued during her 14 years

[Feb 04, 2019] Something about neoliberal propaganda

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

NoseytheDuke , says: February 5, 2019 at 1:35 am GMT

@Johnny Rico Thanks for that Johnny. I'm sure that you also know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Gadaffi is killing his own people, there is a civil war underway in Syria, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel is the only democracy in the ME.

Oh, and there are no potholes in the roads of America, it being the worlds number one economy.

Carry on

[Feb 04, 2019] So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine?

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

onebornfree , says: Website January 30, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT

"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight." :

https://www.corbettreport.com/election-interference-is-ok-when-uncle-sam-does-it-propagandawatch/

Regards, onebornfree

[Feb 04, 2019] Real America doesn't give a f*ck

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

El Dato , says: January 30, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT

@Sean

NEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.

Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a real danger for the USA.

[Feb 04, 2019] Is it fair to call MAGA croud "neocon lite" crowd, or possibly MAGAcons?

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:59 pm GMT

Jan 31, 2019 Trump and the MAGA Crowd Embrace the Neocon Plan for Venezuela. Is it fair to call MAGA neocon lite, or possibly MAGAcons?

https://kurtnimmo.blog/2019/01/31/trump-and-the-maga-crowd-embrace-the-neocon-plan-for-venezuela/

[Feb 04, 2019] CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV

Notable quotes:
"... That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: February 3, 2019 at 10:15 pm GMT

@Sergey Krieger

CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV.

That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. The less the population knows, the easier it is to lie to it.

[Feb 04, 2019] It case of Venzuella coup it looks like we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam) by The Saker

Notable quotes:
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt, or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).

And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of dignity.

...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions.

The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.

[Feb 04, 2019] The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets. ..."
"... After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well: ..."
"... After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense. ..."
"... I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted. ..."
"... I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag. ..."
"... In my opinion Kushner is Mossad. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 3, 2019 at 6:55 am GMT

@Anon

The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.

Pence has no need to undermine Trump. He can just wait. All the militant Zionist Trump brought into the WH have already done that ..and Trump let them. Who do you suppose Kushner has shared US secret intelligence with Israel for sure, probably Saudi in exchange for their allying with Israel. We use to worry about spies and moles in government but now they are the government.

Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets.

by Tina Nguyen
January 25, 2019 11:44 am
AFP

The CIA took one look at Kushner's SCI application and freaked out, calling over to the White House to find out how he even got the lower level clearance.

[MORE]

In May, after months working under an interim clearance, Jared Kushner's request for a permanent security clearance, which would allow him to see top-secret material, was finally granted. At the time, observers took this as an indication that Donald Trump's son-in-law, who'd reportedly attracted Robert Mueller's attention for his ties to various foreign entities, was in the clear.

On Thursday, however, an NBC News report threw that conclusion into doubt. In fact, two sources familiar with the matter told the outlet, Kushner's clearance was only approved because Trump's handpicked director of security personnel overruled two career White House security specialists, who had recommended against Kushner receiving top-secret clearance after seeing the results of his F.B.I. background check.

Kushner's case represents a worrisome pattern for the White House. Per NBC, Trump's director of security, Carl Kline, overruled security experts in at least 30 cases, recommending that Trump officials be granted clearances despite troubling information uncovered in their background checks. That number is indeed extraordinary.

Prior to the Trump administration, White House security experts had only been overruled once in the past three years. (The White House told NBC, "We don't comment on security clearances." A CIA. spokesman said the same, and Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had "no comment." Kline, a former Pentagon employee, could not be reached for comment.)

Denying a security clearance to a White House official, noted Daniel Jacobson, a former lawyer in Barack Obama's administration, is not something that's done lightly. "It is not normal for the head of the Personal Security Office to ever overrule the career employees who adjudicate clearances," he wrote on Twitter. "It takes some pretty bad stuff to be denied a clearance. The fact that there have been thirty denial recommendations of WH staff in the last 1.5 years is itself crazy, before you even get to the overruling part."

After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well:

After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 3, 2019 at 4:06 pm GMT
@renfro I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted.

I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag.

DESERT FOX , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:19 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer In my opinion Kushner is Mossad.

[Feb 04, 2019] Amorality as the key feature of psychopaths

It is very difficult for normal people to understand that one of distinguishing feature of psychopaths is that they simply do not care about the laws and about moral principles. The only thing they care about is being caught, but even this is often not the case for some of them. There is a category of psychopaths who display wanton disregard for laws ignoring possible consequences, despite the fact that they are not completely stupid. For them they not only doe not exist, or they are just for "deplorables" to borrow Hillary epithet for common people.
If this is the case for a female psychopath this is vey dangerous and not that easy to detect as we intuitively prescribe to female less aggressiveness and better law obedience. Huge disappointments may follow.
Notable quotes:
"... I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys. Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless, it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil. ..."
"... That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly regulated it can produce some good. ..."
"... Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
AnonFromTN , says: February 4, 2019 at 8:12 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys. Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless, it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil.

That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly regulated it can produce some good.

You also ignore the fact that all those MIC profiteers don't really want WWIII. They want to keep stealing huge amounts of taxpayers' money on military contracts. For that they scare the common folk with dangers that do not exist and regale them with "patriotic" BS they don't believe in. Deep down they know that to enjoy their loot they must stay alive: unlike pathetic politicians, the gods do not take bribes.

As to those people throwing rocks from the overpass of I-75, I think "Beavis and Butt-Head" answers your question. Hopeless stupidity of people totally lacking imagination, when it becomes active, is evil. But the people themselves are just unimaginative morons.

So, my point is there is no such thing as evil per se, there is greed and stupidity (often the combination of the two) that leads to evil actions.

AnonFromTN , says: February 4, 2019 at 11:32 pm GMT

@Harold Smith

Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either.

You can call them evil, if you wish, but that worldview is the dead end: if there are inherently good and inherently evil people, you simply cannot do anything about that. You can promise rewards or punishments in the afterlife, but that would not prevent any crimes or get murdered people back to life here on Earth.

If you look for causes of evil behavior instead, you have a chance to minimize or eliminate those causes, thereby minimizing evil behavior. That does not negate the spiritual nature of humans, unless by "spiritual" you mean supernatural.

So, from my perspective, the views you propound are essentially defeatist. Personally, I do not think anyone is inherently predisposed to good or evil, you have to look for motives. Then you have a chance to motivate good behavior and demotivate evil one.

However, let me tell you what I tell my students: if you are conventionally religious, you don't want to discuss religion with me.

[Feb 04, 2019] Externally, a nation's currency usually has value to the extent that a nation has something to offer others, which makes the currency useful for making a desired purchase. Today, the "desired purchase" is oil.

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

cassandra , says: February 4, 2019 at 9:43 pm GMT

@MEFOBILLS +++++

I'd extend your comment a bit.

Internally, a national currency has a value corresponding to demand placed by the government, such as money for the taxes the state requires of its people. The ups and downs of Lincoln's Greenback fiat currency, especially its interaction with the value of gold, demonstrates how currency is tied to confidence in the government, as you suggest.

Externally, a nation's currency usually has value to the extent that a nation has something to offer others, which makes the currency useful for making a desired purchase. Today, the "desired purchase" is oil. The dollar is valued because you need dollars to buy oil, as formerly enforced by diplomatic pressure. Because of US sanctions, trade in oil is now beginning using rubles, yuan, and most unforgivably, Venezuelan currency! (Like Iraq, Libya and Syria). If this keeps up, countries will no longer need dollars for their oil, and $ will have to compete internationally based on other considerations. That won't be pretty. IMHO, US leaders have dangerously eroding the dollar's pre-eminence by profligate use of sanctions.

I need to remedy my own deficiencies in this area, but advocates of Modern Monetary Theory, like Michael Hudson, Steve Keene, and like-minded economists who often post at nakedcapitalism, make a strong case for a fiat money system, issued and controlled by state banks, in contrast to the private banks as now.

But objecting to the fact that private bankers charge us interest, and act above the law and democratic accountability, is such a quaint complaint.

[Feb 04, 2019] The REAL Reason The U.S. Wants Regime Change in Venezuela.

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: February 3, 2019 at 7:29 pm GMT

Feb 2, 2019 The REAL Reason The U.S. Wants Regime Change in Venezuela. The U.S. and its allies have decided to throw their weight behind yet another coup attempt in Venezuela. As usual, they claim that their objectives are democracy and freedom. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Feb 3, 2019 Venezuela's Oil Enough for World's 30 Year Energy Needs

The long bankrupt fiat financial system is pushing the Deep State to target Venezuela for the latter's natural resources that dwarfs that of its satellite province Saudi Arabia.

https://geopolitics.co/2019/02/03/venezuelas-oil-enough-for-worlds-30-year-energy-needs/

[Feb 04, 2019] More US weapons entering Syria as well as extra troops.

Feb 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

23 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=115306

https://www.moonofalabama.org/

More US weapons entering Syria as well as extra troops.

[Feb 04, 2019] Iraqis Want No Part of Trump s Iran Obsession by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran ..."
"... Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue? For another 100 years? ..."
"... The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Trump wants to keep U.S. forces in Iraq so they can "watch" Iran:

President Trump plans to keep United States troops in Iraq to monitor and maintain pressure on neighboring Iran, committing to an American military presence in the region's war zones even as he moves to withdraw forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

"I want to be able to watch Iran," Mr. Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We're going to keep watching and we're going to keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before they do."

An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran.

Many Iraqis already want U.S. forces out of the country now that ISIS has been dealt with, and there will probably be even more demanding our withdrawal if Trump tries to keep U.S. forces there for this purpose.

Trump's suggestion that Iran might "do nuclear weapons" is more of the same propaganda that he and his officials have been pushing for months. Iran is unable to develop and build nuclear weapons because it is complying with the nuclear deal that Trump reneged on. Thanks to the nuclear deal, the IAEA is able to conduct very intrusive inspections as part of the most rigorous verification regime, and they would be the first to know if Iran were violating the restrictions set down in the JCPOA.

It is unlikely that the Iraqi government is going to agree to a U.S. presence that is being justified by hostility to its neighbor. Iraq's president has already said that the U.S. military presence is permitted in the country only for the purposes of counter-terrorism:

Iraq's government wants to maintain good relations with Iran, and it isn't going to go along with an anti-Iranian agenda that can only harm Iraq's economic and security interests. Many of Iran's neighbors are not as obsessed with and hostile to Iran as the Trump administration, and Iraq definitely doesn't want to be a front-line state in some anti-Iranian coalition. Trump's proposal would needlessly put U.S. troops at greater risk in Iraq, and it would gain the U.S. nothing except more resentment from Iraqis.

Uncle Billy February 4, 2019 at 10:59 am

Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue? For another 100 years?

The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness.

Bill H , says: February 4, 2019 at 11:33 am
Where in Iraq is he watching Iran from? One cannot help but think back to Sarah Palin's, "I can see Russia from my house."

[Feb 04, 2019] Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel) to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rubicon 727 , says: February 4, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT

@Bill Instead of looking at this issue using a microscope, reading history about how Empires fall lends wisdom and insight. Arrighi's book, (I believe) is called "The Long Twentieth Century." He details how empires and huge trading giants rise and fall.

He details the rise of Italy's banking system during the Middle Ages as well as Spain's Empire, the Dutch trading hegemonies and most enlightening how the British Empire rose and fell.

We are seeing tell-tale symptoms of a US that's in trouble with a slow erosion of the US $$ hegemony. The financial growth of China has begun degrading the US market with hi-tech and other products. Thusly, you see Tim Cook of Apple apoplectic over China's Huwaii (sp?) flooding the European market with less expensive computers, cellulars, notebooks, etc.

We see the practical nature of Exxon Mobile that views the short geographic distance between the US (its military) to Venezuela's oil and mineral-rich soil. An easy pick, rather than becoming further embroiled in the Middle East.

Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel) to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony.

[Feb 04, 2019] The US aggression against Venezuela as a diagnostic tool by The Saker

This is the money quote: " The Neocons never cease to amaze me and their latest stunt with Venezuela falls into this bizarre category of events which are both absolutely unthinkable and simultaneously absolutely predictable. This apparent logical contradiction is the direct result of a worldview and mindset which is, I believe, unique to the Neocons: a mix of imperial hubris and infinite arrogance, a complete lack of decency, a total contempt for the rest of mankind, crass ignorance, a narcissist/sociopath's inability to have any kind of empathy or imagine another guy's reaction and, finally, last but most certainly not least, crass stupidity. "
Notable quotes:
"... The bad thing is, of course, that the Neocons are negating any chance for a gradual, phased, collapse and are, instead, creating a dynamic in which a sudden, catastrophic, collapse becomes much more likely. ..."
"... Chavistas without Chavez ..."
"... pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ..."
"... insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results ..."
"... I place my own hopes not in the Venezuelan military, or in Chinese or Russian help, but on the amazing ability of the Americans to f*** up. At the end of the day, that is our biggest ally: the US stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and cowardice ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Neocons never cease to amaze me and their latest stunt with Venezuela falls into this bizarre category of events which are both absolutely unthinkable and simultaneously absolutely predictable. This apparent logical contradiction is the direct result of a worldview and mindset which is, I believe, unique to the Neocons: a mix of imperial hubris and infinite arrogance, a complete lack of decency, a total contempt for the rest of mankind, crass ignorance, a narcissist/sociopath's inability to have any kind of empathy or imagine another guy's reaction and, finally, last but most certainly not least, crass stupidity. There is so much which can be said about the latest US aggression on Venezuela that entire books could be (and will be) written about this, but I want to begin by look at a few specific but nonetheless very symptomatic aspects:

"In your face" stupidity or bootcamp-like deliberate public humiliation?

Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt, or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam). And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of dignity.

MAGA? really?

This is not just a case of history repeating itself like a farce, however. It is hard to overstate how totally offensive a character like Elliott Abrams is for every Latin American who remembers the bloody US debacle in Nicaragua. US vassals now have to give up any type of pretend-dignity in front of their own people and act as if Abrams was a respectable and sane human being.

I believe that this kind of "obedience conditioning by means of humiliation" is not just a case of the Neocons being idiots, but a deliberate tactic which will, of course, backfire and end up hurting US puppets worldwide (just like the pro-US Russian "liberal" opposition was eviscerated as a result of being associated by the Russian public opinion with the US policies against Russia, especially in the Ukraine).

Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions.

The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore -- all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.

As I wrote in my article " The good news about the Trump Presidency: stupid can be good! " these folks will only precipitate the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire, which is a very good thing. The bad thing is, of course, that the Neocons are negating any chance for a gradual, phased, collapse and are, instead, creating a dynamic in which a sudden, catastrophic, collapse becomes much more likely.

Now we have all seen the latest antic from Bolton: showing up with a yellow pad with "5,000 troops to Colombia" written on it. Again, this might be a case of Bolton being senile or not giving a damn, but I doubt it. I think that this is just another oh-so-subtle way to threaten Venezuela with a US-led invasion. And, really, why not?

If the Empire thinks it has the authority and power to decide who the President of Venezuela should be, it has to logically back up this stance with a threat, especially since there is no US authority, moral or otherwise, left.

The obvious question here is how this threat will be received in Venezuela and that largely depends on how credible that threat is. Now, "5,000 troops" could mean anything, ranging from a infantry brigade combat team to the typical US mix of as many putatively "special" forces as possible (to make every service happy and give everybody a piece of the expected (but never achieved) "victory pie" -- many careers in the US depend on that kind of stuff). At this point in time, I rather not speculate and get technical about how such a force could be structured. Let's just assume that it will be an overall credible and well-packaged force and try to speculate how the Venezuelans could react to it.

The state of the Venezuelan military

ORDER IT NOW

Here I am particularly lucky as I have a close and trusted Latin American friend who is now a retired Lt-Colonel who spent many months in Venezuela working with the Venezuelan military in a capacity which I cannot disclose, but which gave him quasi-total access to every unit and military facility in the country and who, just a couple of years ago, shared with me his impression of the Venezuelan military. Here is what he told me:

A military, any military, is always the product of the society which produces it and this is also true of Venezuela. It would be silly to admit that the Venezuelan economy is a total mess while expecting the Venezuelan armed forces to be a shining example of professionalism, honesty and patriotism. The sad reality is very different.

For one thing, much of the Venezuelan military is hopelessly corrupt, as is the rest of society. In a country whose economy is imploding, this is hardly surprising. Furthermore, for years both Chavez and Maduro have fought an uphill battle to remove as many potential traitors and class enemies (in a Marxist sense of the word) from the Venezuelan military and replace them with "socially close" (a Bolshevik concept) elements from the poorer sections of society. Truth be told, this was a partially successful strategy as seen by the fact that during this latest coup attempt the Venezuelan military overwhelmingly supported the Venezuelan Constitution and the legitimacy of Maduro. And yet that kind of loyalty often comes at the costs of professionalism and at the risk of corruption as seen by the case of the Venezuelan military attache to the US who clearly was a US agent. I am afraid that the current situation in Venezuela might be similar to what it was in Syria in the very early stages of the AngloZionist war against this country when scores of top officials of the Syrian government proved to be traitors and/or US agents. In Syria the government eventually re-took control of the situation, but only with a great deal of help from Iran and Russia and after almost being toppled by the US-run Takfiri forces.

The good news here, according to my friend, is that the Venezuelan special forces (army special forces, jungle infantry troops, "Caribe" counter insurgency units, airborne units, etc) are in a much better shape and that they could form the core of a resistance force to the invasion, not unlike what the Republican Guard eventually did in Iraq. But the biggest difference with Iraq is that in Venezuela the majority of the people are still backing Maduro and that any invasion force should expect to meet a lot of resistance of the type which the US encountered in Iraq after the invasion of the country. Also, there was a fragile truce of sorts between Hugo Chavez and various Left-wing guerillas who agreed to stop their military operations, but who also kept all their weapons "just in case". This "case" has now happened and we can expect that any US invasion will trigger an immediate re-emergence of a Left-wing guerilla force which, combined with popular support and the key role of a core of patriotic Venezuelan special forces could form a very dangerous combination, especially in the mid to long term.

Keep in mind that corrupt officers don't like combat and that while they might aid a US invasion force, they will only do so as long as things seem to go the easy way, but as soon as things go south (which is what always happens to US invasion forces) they will run as fast as they can. So while the endemic corruption now will be a problem for the Maduro government, it will become a problem for the US as soon the legitimate government is toppled.

Comparisons are necessarily tricky and crude, but with this caveat in mind, don't think "Syria" but rather think "Iraq" when considering the possible outcomes of a US invasion.

The state of the Venezuelan people

This is really crucial. Hugo Chavez' reforms alienated a lot of Venezuelans, especially those who made their fortunes by servicing US interests and who became your typical Latin American version of a comprador class. Much of the middle-class also got hurt and are angry. However, these same reforms also empowered huge numbers of destitute and poor Venezuelans who, for the first time, felt that the government stood for their interests and who remember what it was like to live in abject poverty under a US-backed regime. These folks probably have no illusion about what the toppling of this government would mean for them and they are likely to fight hard, if not necessarily competently, to keep the little rights and means they acquired during the Chavez years. There is even what is sometimes referred to " Chavistas without Chavez " which some describe as potential back-stabbing traitors while other see them as more pragmatic, less ideological, faction of Chavez supporters who decry Chavez' mistakes but don't want their country to turn into a Colombia-style US colony. Whatever may be the case, Hugo Chavez' pro-popular policies left a very profound mark on the country and you can expect that a lot of Venezuelans will take up arms and resist any US/Colombian invasion.

Would you trust that face?

Here I think we can all express our heartfelt gratitude to Mr MAGA whose appointment of Elliott "Iran-Contra" Abrams has done more than any government sponsored propaganda to clearly and bluntly explain to the Venezuelan people who is doing what to them and why.

Seriously, Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard speaking of democracy is one thing, but having gangsters and psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Bolton or Abrams in charge really sends a message and that message is that we are dealing with a banal case of highway robbery triggered by two very crude considerations:

First, to re-take control of Venezuela's immense natural resources. Second, to prove to the world that Uncle Shmuel can still, quote , " pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ", unquote.

President Macrobama ?

The obvious problem is that 1) nobody takes the US seriously because 2) the US has not been capable of defeating any country capable of resistance since many decades already. The various US special forces, which would typically spearhead any invasion, have an especially appalling record of abject failures every time they stop posing for cameras and have to engage in real combat. I assure you that nobody in the Venezuelan military cares about movies like "Rambo" or "Delta Force" while they carefully studied US FUBARs in Somalia, Grenada, Iran and elsewhere. You can also bet that the Cubans, who have had many years of experience dealing with the (very competent) South African special forces in Angola and elsewhere will share their experience with their Venezuelan colleagues.

Last but not least, there are a lot of weapons in circulation in Venezuela and which the various popular militias and National Guard would be more than happy to further distribute to the local population if any invasion appears to be successful.

The State of the Empire and its puppet-President Macrobama

Well, here the famous " insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results " is the best possible description of US actions. Just look at this sequence:

The AngloZionists leaders of the Empire appoints a hybrid of Obama and Macron named Juan Guaido as "legitimate interim President" US puppets in Europe and Latin America immediately fall in line behind Uncle Shmuel The US promises war (aka " serious consequences ") if Guaido is arrested The AngloZionist Empire robs Venezuela of billions of dollars of assets The Empire gives part of that money to the "moderate opposition" to fund an insurrection , Contra-style Venezuelan "opposition" asks for US weapons The Ziomedia launches strategic PSYOP about Russian airplanes flying Venezuelan gold out of the country The Empire sabotages the biggest Venezuela oil company The Empire delivers an self-evidently unacceptable ultimatum to Venezuela which is self-evidently rejected No western politician in office dares to say a single word about this massive full-spectrum violation of all the most sacred principles of international law. But then, international law has been dead since the US/NATO war on the Serbian people, so this is hardly "news"

Does all this not look boringly familiar?

Does this bizarre mix of Neocons, gerontocrats and deepstaters really, sincerely, believe that this time around they will "win" (however you define that)?!

More relevantly -- has this recipe ever worked in the past? I would say that if we accept, for argument's sake, that the goal is to "restore democracy" then obviously "no". But if the goal is to wreck a country, then it has worked, quite a few times indeed.

Next, a few misplaced hopes

I am getting a lot of emails suggesting that Russia might do in Venezuela what she did in Syria. Let me immediately tell you that this is not going to happen. Yes, there are a lot of Russians in Venezuela, but the "Russians are not coming". For one thing, I will never cease to repeat that the Russian intervention in Syria was a very small one, and that even if this small force proved formidable, it was really acting primarily as a force multiplier for the Iranians, Hezbollah and the Syrian government forces. And yet, even the deployment of this very small force necessitated a huge logistics effort from Russia whose military (being a purely defensive one) is simply not structured for long-distance power projection. Syria is about 1000km from Russia. Venezuela is about 10 times (!) further. Yes, I know,a few Tu-160 visited the country twice now and there are Russian advisors in the country and the Venezuelans have a few pretty good Russian weapons systems. But here, again, this is a game of numbers. Limited numbers of Russian-made combat aircraft (fixed and rotary wing), air defense missiles or even large numbers of advanced MANPADs or assault rifles won't do the trick against a determined US-Colombian invasion. Finally, there is no Venezuelan equivalent to Iran or Hezbollah (an outside ally and friend) which would be capable and willing to deploy real combat forces for actual, sustained combat against the invader.

Next comes terrain. Yes, much of Venezuela is difficult to access, but not for jungle-experienced forces which both the US military and the Colombians have. Furthermore, there is absolutely no need to invade the entire country to topple the legitimate government. For that all you need is to control is a few key facilities in a few key locations and you are done. For example, I don't see the USAF or USN wasting any time in air-to-air combat against the (few) Venezuelan Sukhois -- they will simply destroy them in their hangars along with their runways and air combat management radars and command posts. So the terrain will not prevent the Empire of suppressing Venezuelan air defenses and as soon as this is done, you can expect the usual mix of bomb and missile strikes which will create chaos, wreck command and control capabilities and, basically, disorganize much of the military. Finally, US forces in Colombia and USN ships off the Venezuelan coast will enjoy a safe harbor from which to launch as many strikes as they want.

Next, hopes that Russia and China will somehow resuscitate the Venezuelan economy are also ill-founded. First, neither country is interested in pouring money into a bottomless pit. It is one thing to sign contracts which are likely to eventually produce a return on investment and quite another to dump money into a bottomless pit (as the US and Europe have found out in the Ukraine). Second, the Venezuelan economy is so deeply enmeshed in the US-UK run international financial system that neither China nor Russia can do anything about it. That is not to say that US sanctions, subversion and sabotage did not play a major role in the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, they sure did, but it is equally true (at least to Russian specialists) that many of the Chavista reforms were botched, a lot of them were a case of too little too late, and that it will take years to refloat the Venezuelan economy.

Finally, we are comparing apples to oranges here: the task of the AngloZionists is to destroy the Venezuelan economy while the Chinese and Russian task would be, at least in theory, to rescue it. Destroying is so much easier than building, that the entire comparison is logically flawed and fundamentally unfair.

I really mean no offense to the supporters of Hugo Chavez and his ideals (I very much include myself in this category) but anybody who has been to, or near, Venezuela will tell you that destitute Venezuelans are not only running out of the country in large numbers, but they also contribute to destabilize the neighboring states. So we should have no Pollyannish notions about all the reports about the economic and social collapse in Venezuela as only "US propaganda". Sadly, much of it is true even if often exaggerated, lopsided and missing all the very real successes of the Chavez reforms, hence the continuous popular support, in spite of it all, the Maduro government continues to enjoy. Still, the overall picture is very bleak and it will take Venezuela consistent and correct action to recover from the current plight.

So is there still hope? Yes, absolutely!

I recently replied the following to a friend asking me about a possible Russian intervention in Venezuela " I place my own hopes not in the Venezuelan military, or in Chinese or Russian help, but on the amazing ability of the Americans to f*** up. At the end of the day, that is our biggest ally: the US stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and cowardice ".

Think of what currently passes as a "policy" of the US in Venezuela as a diagnostic tool .

Not just to diagnose the moral degeneracy and mental pathology of the leaders of the AngloZionist Empire, but also to diagnose the very real state of despair and chaos of the Empire itself. Under Obama, for all his faults and weaknesses, the US succeeded in subverting a list of crucial Latin American countries (like Brazil or Argentina) but now, with Mr MAGA, it can't even do that. The kind of antics we see from the Pompeo, Bolton & Abrams gang is amazing in its crudeness and, frankly, makes a supposed "indispensable nation" look absolutely ridiculous. These losers already had to fold several times, in spite of equally hyperbolic threats delivered with maximal gravitas (think DPRK here), and yet they still think that crude bullying methods can yield success. They can't. Immense firepower is not a substitute for brains.

In its short and blood-soaked history, the US has pretty much always acted like some criminal enterprise run by brutal gangsters, but in the past some of these gangsters could be extremely well educated and intelligent (think James Baker here). Today, their guns are still lying around (albeit in various states of disrepair), but they are wielded by ignorant retards. Yes, ignorant retards with guns can be very dangerous, but they can never be effective!

Conclusion

Right now the US, backed by its various colonies and vassal states, appears to be ready to deliver a death blow to Venezuela and, truth be told, they might be able to do just that. But, for whatever it is worth, my gut feeling is that they will fail again, even against the weakest countries of the Axis of Resistance. That is not to say that Venezuela is not in a heap of critical problems. But I believe that in spite of being in a critical condition, Venezuela will be able to bounce back, just like Syria did. After all, the Syrian example proves that it *is* possible to resist a superior invading force while at the same time successfully engaging in critically needed reforms. Yes, today's Caracas is in very bad shape, but the city of Aleppo was in a much worse shape until it was liberated, and now quasi-normal life has returned to it (in sharp contrast to the US liberated devastated city of Raqqa which still lies in ruins ). Yankees (to use the usual Latin-American expression) are just like their Israeli overlords: they are capable of devastating violence but they have no staying power: if things don't go their way fast, really fast, they run and barricade themselves somewhere faraway from danger. In our case, they might even do what they did in Iraq and Afghanistan: build obscenely huge embassies, create a special zone around them, and sit tight while the country is engulfed in a bloody civil war. This way, they can provide CNN & Co. with footage of a "peaceful neighborhood" while still claiming that the Stars and Strips are still proudly flying high over the enemy's capital and that "these colors don't run". This would be a disastrous outcome for the Venezuelan nation and this is why we all have to try to prevent this

Hopefully the memory of past completely failed, humiliating and bloody invasions will convince the right people at the Pentagon to do whatever it takes to prevent the US from launching yet another stupid and immoral war of choice on behalf of the Neocons.


Michael Hoffman , says: Website

[Feb 04, 2019] Something about neoliberal propaganda

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

NoseytheDuke , says: February 5, 2019 at 1:35 am GMT

@Johnny Rico Thanks for that Johnny. I'm sure that you also know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Gadaffi is killing his own people, there is a civil war underway in Syria, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel is the only democracy in the ME.

Oh, and there are no potholes in the roads of America, it being the worlds number one economy.

Carry on

[Feb 04, 2019] Is it fair to call MAGA croud "neocon lite" crowd, or possibly MAGAcons?

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:59 pm GMT

Jan 31, 2019 Trump and the MAGA Crowd Embrace the Neocon Plan for Venezuela. Is it fair to call MAGA neocon lite, or possibly MAGAcons?

https://kurtnimmo.blog/2019/01/31/trump-and-the-maga-crowd-embrace-the-neocon-plan-for-venezuela/

[Feb 04, 2019] CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV

Notable quotes:
"... That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: February 3, 2019 at 10:15 pm GMT

@Sergey Krieger

CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV.

That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. The less the population knows, the easier it is to lie to it.

[Feb 04, 2019] It case of Venzuella coup it looks like we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam) by The Saker

Notable quotes:
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt, or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).

And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of dignity.

...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions.

The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.

[Feb 04, 2019] There are various elite groups jockeying for power, but Intelligence community remains tha core of the Deep State

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 3, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT

@Carlton Meyer

is the main weapon used by the Deep State

LOL Deep State is a term used by the simple minded. There is no 'deep state' there is however a shadow government and it is made up of various groups all jockeying for their own interest.

We have the 'Establishment..i.e. the two parties who want to maintain their political power. We have the Corporate Elites and Globalist ' who want to control the world's commerce and economies. We have Wall Street who doesnt want any restrictions on their financial crimes. We have Domestic Business Interest who want laws and policies favorable to them. We have Foreign Interest who want to use the US for their country.

Sometimes they join forces when their interest coincide, sometimes they don't.

Outside of this shadow government we have Ideological Activist of various kinds that can be useful or not to the Establishment, the Globalist, Wall Street, Domestic Business Interest and Foreign Interest.

All of the above are why we cant and don't have coherent policies on anything foreign or domestic.

People like you who want to ascribe everything to some giant conspiracy in the CIA help to dumb people down , its easier for the lazy to have one or two big scary entities to blame. You cant even explain what the CIA conspiracy is can you? Tell us how the CIA maintains their conspiracy against the US and what their goal is. How does the CIA maintain their secret agenda when the CIA is subject to new CIA directors with every change of presidents and parties?

Come on tell us all how it is done.

[Feb 04, 2019] Orwell, in his book, 1984 wrote that the government had two terms: Oldspeak and Newspeak. One was not permitted to use old speak

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sowhat , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:47 am GMT

Orwell, in his book, 1984 wrote that the government had two terms: Oldspeak and Newspeak. One was not permitted to use old speak.

" This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever.

To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeds."

It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless."

Were sliding down a slippery, ever-darkening slope. When I step back and try to examine the whole picture, it's very concerning. Take, for instance, [MORE]

I just read an article elsewhere discussing Roger Stone's arrest at his Florida home, before dawn
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51017-c.htm .

The article had a link to a WordPress article, penned by John Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute about what has crept into America, via the Militarization of the Police Force.

I subscribed to his newsletter, years ago when Bush and, then, Obama gave Military Armament to Civilian Police forces. When the "FBI raids Stone's Home" story hit, complete with CNN presence, I realized that we do, in fact have policing by fear in the U.S., advertised by Cable News. I'm not an alarmist but, I am taking this all in and it doesn't look good for us. I've also read that millions of Americans are leaving this country, yes, in droves. I've thought about it, before but, don't know if I can convince Wifey this is what we need to do since were in our 70s.

Whiteheads sight has an ongoing ledger of Police incompetence, armed to the teeth just to deliver a warrant, often going to the wrong house, creating chaos, shooting people and their animals and then finding out that they raided the wrong house and killed the wrong person. A flash-band grenade was launched into the wrong residence, landed on a toddler in a crib and burned a hole in its stomach. The scales are tipped in the favor of cops and, if a homeowner attempts to defend himself, he's prosecuted to the full extent of the "law."

Our 4th amendment is gone. Our First and Second Amendment Rights are under heavy attack. There's a call for a Constitutional Convention with almost all of the States sign on for an Article Five Convention.

Were all in deep shit. It doesn't matter if you are guilty of a crime or not. If they'll go after an unarmed Roger Stone, guns pointed, in front of his family, terrorizing them for National TV, what do YOU think is their intent? With 10 Zillion Super-Cop shows on TV for the last forty years, where they always get their man, never make errors and show how violent they are, legally, what do you think is the intent?

Nothing happens on the government level by accident NOTHING

First, Myspace sucked in all of the youngsters and they learned how easy it was to communicate, online. Then, Twitter and Facebook arrived as beacons of free speech. Then, other commentary friendly web site pop up everywhere, allowing you to spew your agitated heart out and argue with each other and call each other names and then opposite ideologies manifested in separate sites on the net with "moderators" that throw registrants off (banning/banishing) them for defending their positions echo chambers for the "alt" Right or the politically correct Left Trump bashers. Sometime, I suggest you go to these and read the commenters' remarks. They're literally insane. I was even banned from a DISCUSS site for suggesting some civil discourse, identifying myself as a Trump Voter.

Do you really believe that all of these issues simply morphed to lock out Conservatives? No way. This was all planned, possibly to I.D. individuals who are "potential" adversaries of a different ideology or possible "problem people" that get put on a watch list. If the DNA Ancestry sights are GIVING your DNA results to the Government, what good can come of it?

[Feb 04, 2019] Our overlords grew increasingly alarmed. They started telling us about Fake News, and the harmful effects of hearing Non-Approved opinions and "conspiracy theorists" who used dangerous facts and science to debunk Official Stories.

Notable quotes:
"... More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder. Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

wagelaborer , says: Website February 1, 2019 at 8:37 pm GMT

It is true that censoring social media platforms will be very harmful to actual democracy. There can be no real democracy without an informed public, and the marketplace of ideas must be open to all IF you want an informed, thinking public who are capable of shifting through differing views and logically deciding which position to support.
But the catch, of course, is that our ruling overlords actually hate an informed and logical public. They prefer gullible cretins who swallow whatever ruling class propaganda is beamed to them through radio or TV, into each individual house or car.
For decades, people have been subject to one-way, top-down propaganda beamed to each individual, with no way for each person to know how other people were reacting to said propaganda, no way of checking the "facts" given to them, and no way of hearing skeptics debunk the fallacies.
That changed with social media. It is my opinion that social media was launched as a way for our rulers to monitor our opionions and reactions to their propaganda. It was to be a billion person focus group, with instaneous results to each new ploy.
But millions of people seized upon this new communication device to start communicating with each other! People around the country and around the world started talking to each other, laughing at the most outlandish ruling class claims, spread clever memes to ridicule the nonsense, and sharing opinions and facts between each other.

For the first time, we could communicate horizontally and we did.

Our overlords grew increasingly alarmed. They started telling us about Fake News, and the harmful effects of hearing Non-Approved opinions and "conspiracy theorists" who used dangerous facts and science to debunk Official Stories.

The Empire is Striking Back. For the last 2 years, the repression has gotten more and more intense, with multiple people losing access to social media, and the rest of us being told it is our "moral duty" to leave Facebook, so as not to contaminate the mass mind with unapproved messages.
Personally, I think that we have lost. I see even people who are alarmed at the repression personalizing it, such as blaming Mark Zuckerberg, personally, for bowing to the ruling class pressure we ALL watched him undergo!

wagelaborer , says: Website February 1, 2019 at 8:54 pm GMT
It is true that restricting information and debate is bad public policy, but only if you want a vibrant and informed democracy.

It is clear to me that our ruling overlords want to such thing, and the last two years of increasingly shrill denunciations of a free and open internet are proof of that.

For decades our owners were able to transmit their propaganda vertically, top down, into each individual's house or car. No person receiving the propaganda was able to know how other people were reacting, or to judge the veracity of the facts or to share their skepticism at outright lies and obvious falsehoods.

It is my opinion that social media was created by our rulers to monitor our opinions and reactions to their propaganda, as sort of a billion-person, real time focus group.

But millions of us started using it as a horizontal communication tool, a way to share our information, opinions and skepticism with each other, with people all over the world, with no interference from the moderators.

This is why we have been subjected to a couple of years of increasing denunciations of "fake news" and warnings of Wrong Opinions and admonitions that it is our moral duty to stay away from Facebook, so as not to contaminate our minds with unapproved ideas.

More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder. Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face.

Kirt , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:05 am GMT
Politics is the very art of conspiracy although conspiracy is not confined to politics. Official conspiracy theories (Russiagate, to give a current example) should inspire much more skepticism than dissident conspiracy theories. But any theory should be subject to analysis and challenge. If a theory is impossibly convoluted or unfalsifiable, ignore it. Also, the vague generalization "it's all part of the conspiracy" is not helpful at all. It suggests that there is only one conspiracy and that conspiracy explains everything – sort of like Divine Providence, but malevolent.
Umberto , says: February 2, 2019 at 7:17 am GMT
I recall seeing a video c. 2010, wherein following a boring speech by Cass Sunstein, Luke Rudkowski (of We Are Change), who was in the audience, asked Mr. Sunstein about some of the views he had expressed in his original article. I believe the original article was published c. 2007. Sunstein claimed that he did not remember having written such an article ("I write a lot of articles, how can I remember, yadda, yadda ") and slunk off as quickly as possible to his coward's hidey hole. I guess he remembered later, and padded it out to a book length piece of excrement, which gets a 61% 1-star ratings by Amazon reviewers.
Brabantian , says: February 2, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, former 'information czar' of the White House staff in the Barack Obama administration, is discussed in the Dept of Justice Inspector General file on crimes involving Robert Mueller , in quite appalling terms, Sunstein described as supporting a campaign of lying against his own undergraduate Harvard classmate, an ex-DOJ employee described in the DOJ file as a victim of threats of murder indulged by former FBI Director Mueller. From page 24 of that DOJ report:

Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, Hillary propagandist, supporting threats to kill his own Harvard classmate. One of the corrupt Obama administration officials, was 'information czar' Cass Sunstein A man with apparently no ethics except his wishing to serve the Hillary Clinton wing of the powerful, Cass Sunstein was able to receive a portion of bribes, for indulging the campaign of terrorism, extortion, and defamation against his classmate.

Sunstein is a leading propagandist for the network planting lies on the internet to attack common people. Along with Sunstein refusing to write or sign even a one-sentence note asking for prosecution of those menacing to murder his classmate, Sunstein has declined to modify or amend his oily propaganda for 'wiki world' and 'nudging', as euphemisms for what Sunstein knows are criminals spreading lies to destroy and kill people, including the attack on someone Sunstein knew as a boy.

The Alarmist , says: February 2, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT

"Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains."

Given that Sunstein is a noted expert on disinformation, the obvious answer is that conspiracy theories tend more often than not to hit too close to the truth for the comfort of TPTB.

anon [239] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 5:32 pm GMT
@Brabantian Its not a Dep of Justice report . No idea what this website is about . Another fake news ? Int doesn't mean Muller or Sunstein are not bunch of liars. They are.
Bruce Maclean , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:44 pm GMT
Excellent, thought-provoking article. I especially like how the author points to the Official Conspiracy Theories that been tearing humanity apart. i.e. Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Kudos to the author.

[Feb 04, 2019] A great example of waste and corruption in the US military is the plan to rebuild and reopen Tyndall Air Force base

Notable quotes:
"... Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US financial economy. ..."
"... It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave a major road just outside of Washington DC. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 3, 2019 at 6:13 am GMT

@bluedog There are thousands of examples, but here is a recent one from my blog:

Feb 2, 2019 -- USAF to Reopen Unneeded Airbase

A great example of waste and corruption in the US military is the plan to rebuild and reopen Tyndall Air Force base. The number of aircraft in the USAF has fallen nearly in half over the past 20 years, so it has far too many airbases that are expensive to operate. For example, after F-22 bases were selected only half as many F-22s were procured as planned, so all F-22 bases have ample room for more aircraft.

Last year, Tyndall Air Force F-22 base in Florida was destroyed by a hurricane. Tyndall's F-22s were quickly relocated to other bases. Some questioned why such expensive aircraft were based in an area with hurricanes since several F-22s undergoing maintenance were destroyed. Nevertheless, the Air Force just announced at least $3 billion will be spent over five years to rebuild and reopen unneeded and poorly located Tyndall!

Politics are important and the base is a mess, but the Air Force should have proposed spending a couple billion to clean up Tyndall and prepare it for industrial or other productive private sector uses. But our Congress and Pentagon are so selfish and corrupt they don't give a damn about wasting money. Just bill the taxpayers and always blame poor readiness and accidents on a lack of funding!

Another Anon , says: February 3, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
@bluedog As much as I support the notion that the Pentagon is awash in corruption, the media reports about missing trillions are incorrect and the result of either deliberate misrepresentation or (more likely) the lack of competence on the part of those reporting to comprehend complicated material.

The reports originated from the recent audit work done on the Pentagon. I'm not sure exactly how long a period this covered (and to be honest, can't be bothered to look it up right now) but it was a 10-20 year period.

Included in the preliminary reports was the unaccounted for adjustments totaling up to several trillions of dollars. Here's the thing most people reporting on this fail to grasp, adjustments are not expenditures. There a bookkeeping gimmick to balance the books.

The debit and credit side need to be balanced out. This is what adjustments do. They balance the books. But as they can appear on either the credit or the debit side and on both sides at the same time, they can be used to artificially inflate the books (to make a company look more valuable than it is) or to hide real expenses. More likely in the case of the Pentagon, due to systemic failures of accurately forecasting (real) expenditures, inability to stick to budgets and ignoring (at least some) of the financial paperwork needed to satisfy the accountant, they had to make numerous adjustments all over the place to balance their books.

In addition, it is highly likely that these trillions include the same adjustment multiple times, not because 'it' (what ever it is) happened multiple times, but because it is included in the books of each level in the Pentagon hierarchy that reports its finances independently.
For example, a specific ship in the Navy spends more on their operational cruise than it should have. This means adjustments on its financial report. The fleet it belongs to also has to adjust its books. The US Navy also has to include the adjustment and ultimately the overall Pentagon books will include it too. The same adjustment reported multiple times.
It also works if the ship spends LESS than was budgeted for. A surplus also requires an adjustment in the books with the same result as above.

Last (purely theoretical) example; let's say you have 3 companies. You put $ 1 million in company A.

You transfer this in batches to company B. You put in the books (of company A) as 'reservations', ie money to be spend later. When this comes into company B, you put it in the books as 'investments' ie implying the money is to used by company B for expenditures. Again you transfer this in batches, this time to company C, again as 'reservations'. You book them as 'investments' in company C and guess what, you then transfer these into company A as 'reservations'.

Company A now has an additional $ 1M coming into it which you label 'investments'. The value of company A now appears to be $ 2M ($ 1M investments from company C and $ 1M in reservations) as it it not evident from the books of ONLY company A that it is the same $ 1M. You need to see all of the books to make sense of what is happening, in this case to distinguish between what are real revenue and expenses and what is just pumping around of the same money.

Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US financial economy.

Note for the accountants out there, I know, the last example is extremely simplified. It merely serves to illustrate the subject in an easily understood manner.

Amon , says: February 3, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT
@Johnny Rico I believe they are referring to the practice of diverting funds that would otherwise go to maintain vital infrastructure, health care services and sanitation to over purchase military equipment by the billions in order to maintain a high level of income for the armaments industry.

It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave a major road just outside of Washington DC.

They could also be talking about the weird practice of US tax money getting flushed down the toilet by funding one army project after another that always, always goes over budget, under delivers on promises, breaks down too easy and can't fight off decade old tech if they don't cancel it after a billion or so is lost.

As for me, when I look at the US, I shake my head when I notice that the military industrial complex and the Government have become one and the same thanks to the revolving door between private companies and US Gov offices.

MEFOBILLS , says: February 3, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN Just imagine for a second that everything "Made in China" disappears from the US stores. Then ask: why is the superior indispensable democratic country cannot supply its citizens with all this crap? Why does it have to rely on communist dictatorship to produce so much, from nails, electric bulbs, and appliances to clothes?

I can answer this, and it wasn't always that way. Listen to Linda Ronstadt's lyrics.

The superior indispensable country became a liberal democracy in 1912 with the advent of Wilson's progressive era reforms. The 16'th amendment is used to back up the instability of banks -- remember TARP? 17'th is used to make Senators into populists and hence break state power. Senators then become easy to bribe and maneuver as they cannot be recalled by their state Legislature, and no longer do the bidding of their voters. Federal Reserve Act, IRS, March to War, and so on. Women's suffrage made easy to maneuver and emotionally driven women prey for the tribe.

It takes awhile for some things to manifest. The U.S. export of Jobs and American Patrimony began under Clinton. The idea was for Wall Street to make some wage arbitrage. The Wall Street China/China gambit then began, and transplanted companies exported from China at just under the American price. The Patrimony of America was gifted to China, all of the knowledge from the past was monetized for today, so the future was screwed.

This is yet another reason (how many do you need) for our hand rubbing friends to be disallowed from ever being near money or finance.

Justinian of Byzantium prevented Jews from being in government, teaching in schools, or in counting houses -- what goes for banking today.

This still didn't work for us, because their descendants from Pale of Settlement, immigrated to U.S. to become today's Neo-Cons.

[Feb 04, 2019] Why the War on Conspiracy Theories is Bad Public Policy by Kevin Barrett

Notable quotes:
"... Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make "conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression. ..."
"... The epithet 'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. ..."
"... The Unz Review. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them , edited by Joseph E. Uscinski

On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying "we'll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways -- such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11."

At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.

But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word "recommend" is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn't really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying.

When you watch YouTube videos, the YouTube search engine algorithm displays links to other videos that you are likely to be interested in. These obviously do not constitute "recommendations" by YouTube itself, which exercises no editorial oversight over content posted by users. (Or at least it didn't until it joined the war on conspiracy theories.)

The second and larger problem is that while there may be near-universal agreement among reasonable people that flat-earthism is wrong, there is only modest agreement regarding which health approaches constitute "phony miracle cures" and which do not. Far less is there any agreement on "claims about 9/11 and other historical events." (Thus far the only real attempt to forge an informed consensus about 9/11 is the 9/11 Consensus Panel's study -- but it seems unlikely that YouTube will be using the Consensus Panel to determine which videos to "recommend"!)

ORDER IT NOW

YouTube's policy shift is the latest symptom of a larger movement by Western elites to -- as Obama's Information Czar Cass Sunstein put it -- " disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories ." Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule's 2008 paper " Conspiracy Theories ," critiqued by David Ray Griffin in 2010 and developed into a 2016 book , represents a panicked reaction to the success of the 9/11 truth movement. (By 2006, 36% of Americans thought it likely that 9/11 was an inside job designed to launch wars in the Middle East, according to a Scripps poll.)

Sunstein and Vermuele begin their abstract:

Many millions of people hold (sic) conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law.

Sunstein argues that conspiracy theories (i.e. the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous that some day they may have to be banned by law. While awaiting that day, or perhaps in preparation for it, the government should "disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories" through various techniques including "cognitive infiltration" of 9/11 truth groups. Such "cognitive infiltration," Sunstein writes, could have various aims including the promotion of "beneficial cognitive diversity" within the truth movement.

9/11 Contradictions An Open Letter to Congress and the Press David Ray Griffin • 2008 • 110,000 Words

What sort of "cognitive diversity" would Cass Sunstein consider "beneficial"? Perhaps 9/11 truth groups that had been "cognitively infiltrated" by spooks posing as flat-earthers would harbor that sort of "beneficial" diversity? That would explain the plethora of expensive, high-production-values flat earth videos that have been blasted at the 9/11 truth community since 2008.

Why does Sunstein think "conspiracy theories" are so dangerous they need to be suppressed by government infiltrators, and perhaps eventually outlawed -- which would necessitate revoking the First Amendment? Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains. Instead he briefly mentions, in vapidly nebulous terms, about "serious risks including the risk of violence." But he presents no serious evidence that 9/11 truth causes violence. Nor does he explain what the other "serious risks" could possibly be.

Why did such highly accomplished academicians as Sunstein and Vermuele produce such an unhinged, incoherent, poorly-supported screed? How could Harvard and the University of Chicago publish such nonsense? Why would it be deemed worthy of development into a book? Why did the authors identify an alleged problem, present no evidence that it even is a problem, yet advocate outrageously illegal and unconstitutional government action to solve the non-problem?

The too-obvious answer, of course, is that they must realize that 9/11 was in fact a US-Israeli false flag operation. The 9/11 truth movement, in that case, would be a threat not because it is wrong, but because it is right. To the extent that Americans know or suspect the truth, the US government will undoubtedly find it harder to pursue various "national security" objectives. Ergo, 9/11 "conspiracy theories" are a threat to national security, and extreme measures are required to combat them. But since we can't just burn the First Amendment overnight, we must instead take a gradual and covert "boil the frog" approach, featuring plenty of cointelpro-style infiltration and misdirection. "Cognitive infiltration" of internet platforms to stop the conspiracy contagion would also fit the bill.

Cognitive Infiltration An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory David Ray Griffin • 2011 • 66,000 Words

It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Sunstein and Vermeule are indeed well-informed and Machievellian. But it is also conceivable that they are, at least when it comes to 9/11 and "conspiracy theories," as muddle-headed as they appear. Their irrational panic could be an example of the bad thinking that emerges from groups that reflexively reject dissent. (Another, larger example of this kind of bad thinking comes to mind: America's disastrous post-9/11 policies.)

The counterintuitive truth is that embracing and carefully listening to radical dissenters is in fact good policy, whether you are a government, a corporation, or any other kind of group. Ignoring or suppressing dissent produces muddled, superficial thinking and bad decisions. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case even when the dissenters are wrong.

ORDER IT NOW

Scientific evidence for the value of dissent is beautifully summarized in Charlan Nemeth's In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business (Basic Books, 2018). Nemeth, a psychology professor at UC-Berkeley, summarizes decades of research on group dynamics showing that groups that feature passionate, radical dissent deliberate better, reach better conclusions, and take better actions than those that do not -- even when the dissenter is wrong.

Nemeth begins with a case where dissent would likely have saved lives: the crash of United Airlines Flight 173 in December, 1978. As the plane neared its Portland destination, the possibility of a problem with the landing gear arose. The captain focused on trying to determine the condition of the landing gear as the plane circled the airport. Typical air crew group dynamics, in which the whole crew defers to the captain, led to a groupthink bubble in which nobody spoke up as the needle on the fuel gauge approached "E." Had the crew included even one natural "troublemaker" -- the kind of aviator who joins Pilots for 9/11 truth -- there almost certainly would have been more divergent thinking. Someone would have spoken up about the fuel issue, and a tragic crash would have been averted.

Since 9/11, American decision-making elites have entered the same kind of bubble and engaged in the same kind of groupthink. For them, no serious dissent on such issues as what really happened on 9/11, and whether a "war on terror" makes sense, is permitted. The predictable result has been bad thinking and worse decisions. From the vantage point of Sunstein and Vermeule, deep inside the bubble, the potentially bubble-popping, consensus-shredding threat of 9/11 truth must appear radically destabilizing. To even consider the possibility that the 9/11 truthers are right might set off a stampede of critical reflection that would radically undermine the entire set of policies pursued for the past 17 years. This prospect may so terrify Sunstein and Vermeule that it paralyzes their ability to think. Talk about "crippled epistemology"!

Do Sunstein and Vermeule really think their program for suppressing "conspiracy theories" will be beneficial? Do YouTube's decision-makers really believe that tweaking their algorithms to support the official story will protect us from bad information? If so, they are all doubly wrong. First, they are wrong in their unexamined assumption that 9/11 truth and "conspiracy theories" in general are "blatantly false." No honest person with critical thinking skills who weighs the merits of the best work on both sides of the question can possibly avoid the realization that the 9/11 truth movement is right . The same is true regarding the serial assassinations of America's best leaders during the 1960s . Many other "conspiracy theories," perhaps the majority of the best-known ones, are also likely true, as readers of Ron Unz's American Pravda series are discovering.

Final Judgment The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Michael Collins Piper • 2005 • 310,000 Words

Second, and less obviously, those who would suppress conspiracy theories are wrong even in their belief that suppressing false conspiracy theories is good public policy. As Nemeth shows, social science is unambiguous in its finding that any group featuring at least one passionate, radical dissenter will deliberate better, reach sounder conclusions, and act more effectively than it would have without the dissenter. This holds even if the dissenter is wrong -- even wildly wrong.

The overabundance of slick, hypnotic flat earth videos, if they are indeed weaponized cointelpro strikes against the truth movement, may be unfortunate. But the existence of the occasional flat earther may be more beneficial than harmful. The findings summarized by Nemeth suggest that a science study group with one flat earther among the students would probably learn geography and astronomy better than they would have without the madly passionate dissenter.

We could at least partially solve the real problem -- bad groupthink -- through promoting genuinely beneficial cognitive diversity. YouTube algorithms should indeed be tweaked to puncture the groupthink bubbles that emerge based on user preferences. Someone who watches lots of 9/11 truther videos should indeed be exposed to dissent, in the form of the best arguments on the other side of the issue -- not that there are any very good ones, as I have discovered after spending 15 years searching for them!

9/11 Ten Years Later When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed David Ray Griffin • 2011 • 116,000 Words

But the same goes for those who watch videos that explicitly or implicitly accept the official story. Anyone who watches more than a few pro-official-story videos (and this would include almost all mainstream coverage of anything related to 9/11 and the "war on terror") should get YouTube "suggestions" for such videos as September 11: The New Pearl Harbor , 9/11 Mysteries , and the work of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth . Exposure to even those "truthers" who are more passionate than critical or well-informed would benefit people who believe the official story, according to Nemeth's research, by stimulating them to deliberate more thoughtfully and to question facile assumptions.

The same goes for other issues and perspectives. Fox News viewers should get "suggestions" for good material, especially passionate dissent, from the left side of the political spectrum. MSNBC viewers should get "suggestions" for good material from the right. Both groups should get "suggestions" to look at genuinely independent, alternative media brimming with passionate dissidents -- outlets like the Unz Review!

Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make "conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression.

ORDER IT NOW

Nemeth and colleagues' findings that "conspiracy theories" and other forms of passionate dissent are not just beneficial, but in fact an invaluable resource, are apparently unknown to the anti-conspiracy-theory cottage industry that has metastasized in the bowels of the Western academy. The brand-new bible of the academic anti-conspiracy-theory industry is Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Editor Joseph Uscinski's introduction begins by listing alleged dangers of conspiracism: "In democracies, conspiracy theories can drive majorities to make horrible decisions backed by the use of legitimate force. Conspiracy beliefs can conversely encourage abstention. Those who believe the system is rigged will be less willing to take part in it. Conspiracy theories form the basis for some people's medical decisions; this can be dangerous not only for them but for others as well. For a select few believers, conspiracy theories are instructions to use violence."

Uscinski is certainly right that conspiracy theories can incite "horrible decisions" to use "legitimate force" and "violence." Every major American foreign war since 1846 has been sold to the public by an official theory, backed by a frenetic media campaign, of a foreign conspiracy to attack the United States. And all of these Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs) -- including the theory that Mexico conspired to invade the United States in 1846, that Spain conspired to sink the USS Maine in 1898, that Germany conspired with Mexico to invade the United States in 1917, that Japan conspired unbeknownst to peace-seeking US leaders to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, that North Vietnam conspired to attack the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and that 19 Arabs backed by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and everybody else Israel doesn't like conspired to attack the US in 2001 -- were false or deceptive.

Well over 100 million people have been killed in the violence unleashed by these and other Official Conspiracy Theories. Had the passionate dissenters been heeded, and the truths they told about who really conspires to create war-trigger public relations stunts been understood, none of those hundred-million-plus murders need have happened.

Though Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them generally pathologizes the conspiracy theories of dissidents while ignoring the vastly more harmful theories of official propagandists, its 31 essays include several that question that outlook. In "What We Mean When We Say 'Conspiracy Theory' Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason Magazine , exposes the bias that permeates the field, pointing out that many official conspiracy theories, including several about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11-anthrax, were at least as ludicrously false and delusional as anything believed by marginalized dissidents.

In "Media Marginalization of Racial Minorities: 'Conspiracy Theorists' in U.S. Ghettos and on the 'Arab Street'" Martin Orr and Gina Husting go one step further: " The epithet 'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. Often, it is tinged with racial undertones: it is used to demean whole groups of people in the news and to silence, stigmatize, or belittle foreign and minority voices." (p.82) Unfortunately, though Orr and Husting devote a whole section of their article to "Conspiracy Theories in the Muslim World" and defend Muslim conspiracists against the likes of Thomas Friedman, they never squarely face the fact that the reason roughly 80% of Muslims believe 9/11 was an inside job is because the preponderance of evidence supports that interpretation .

Another relatively sensible essay is M R.X. Dentith's "Conspiracy Theories and Philosophy," which ably deconstructs the most basic fallacy permeating the whole field of conspiracy theory research: the a priori assumption that a "conspiracy theory" must be false or at least dubious: "If certain scholars ( i.e. the majority represented in this book! –KB ) want to make a special case for conspiracy theories, then it is reasonable for the rest of us to ask whether we are playing fair with our terminology, or whether we have baked into our definitions the answers to our research programs." (p.104). Unfortunately, a few pages later editor Joseph Uscinski sticks his fingers in his ears and plays deaf and dumb, claiming that "the establishment is right far more often than conspiracy theories, largely because their methods are reliable. When conspiracy theorists are right, it is by chance." He adds that conspiracy theories will inevitably "occasionally lead to disaster" (whatever that means). (p.110). We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo! Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11 Kevin Barrett • 2015 • 90,000 Words

I hope Uscinski finds the time to read Nemeth's In Defense of Troublemakers and consider the evidence that passionate dissent is helpful, not harmful. And I hope he will look into the issues Ron Unz addresses in his American Pravda series.

Then again, if he does, he may find himself among those of us exiled from the academy and publishing in The Unz Review.

[Feb 04, 2019] A banal case of highway robbery triggered by two very crude considerations

Notable quotes:
"... pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Seriously, Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard speaking of democracy is one thing, but having gangsters and psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Bolton or Abrams in charge really sends a message and that message is that we are dealing with a banal case of highway robbery triggered by two very crude considerations:

First, to re-take control of Venezuela's immense natural resources. Second, to prove to the world that Uncle Shmuel can still, quote , " pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ", unquote.

President Macrobama ?

The obvious problem is that 1) nobody takes the US seriously because 2) the US has not been capable of defeating any country capable of resistance since many decades already. The various US special forces, which would typically spearhead any invasion, have an especially appalling record of abject failures every time they stop posing for cameras and have to engage in real combat. I assure you that nobody in the Venezuelan military cares about movies like "Rambo" or "Delta Force" while they carefully studied US FUBARs in Somalia, Grenada, Iran and elsewhere. You can also bet that the Cubans, who have had many years of experience dealing with the (very competent) South African special forces in Angola and elsewhere will share their experience with their Venezuelan colleagues.

[Feb 04, 2019] Did Trump administration sold part of the US stratagic reserve to bring oil prices down?

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: January 30, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT

Well people you need to explore this move to take over Venezuela in the context of what having that oil control will mean for the US and Israel in the increasingly likely event we blow up Iran and up end the ME for Israel.

Despite Trump selling off half of our US oil reserves last year .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-reserve/u-s-sells-11-million-barrels-of-oil-from-reserve-to-exxon-five-other-firms-idUSKCN1LG2WT ..the US doesn't currently, at present anyway, need to control Venezuela's oil .

So what could happen that might make control of oil rich Venezuela necessary? Why has Venezuela become a Bolton and Abrams project? Why is Netanyahu putting himself into the Venezuela crisis ?

We, otoh, would need all the oil we could get if we blew up the ME, specifically Iran, figuratively or literally. The US signed a MOU with Israel in 1973 obligating us to supply Israel with oil ( and ship it to them) if they couldn't secure any for themselves.

[Feb 04, 2019] Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish friends with all the victimization BS.

Notable quotes:
"... Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish friends with all the victimization BS. ..."
"... I think Israel is just a capitalist creation, nothing to do with Jews, just a foothold in he middle east for Wall St to have a base to control the oil and gas there, they didn't create Israel until they discovered how much oil was there, and realized how much control over the world it would give them to control it. ..."
"... It is the love of money, the same thing the Bible warned us about. Imperialism/globalism is the latest stage of capitalism, that is what all of this is about, follow the money. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

redmudhooch , says: January 31, 2019 at 1:30 am GMT

I heartily dislike and find despicable the socialist government of Maduro, just as I did Hugo Chavez when he was in power. I have some good friends there, one of whom was a student of mine when I taught in Argentina many years ago, and he and his family resolutely oppose Maduro. Those socialist leaders in Caracas are tin-pot dictator wannabees who have wrecked the economy of that once wealthy country; and they have ridden roughshod over the constitutional rights of the citizens. My hope has been that the people of Venezuela, perhaps supported by elements in the army, would take action to rid the country of those tyrants.

Hard to take this guy seriously when he spouts Fox News level propaganda.

Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish friends with all the victimization BS.

Its clear that voting no longer works folks, this is an undemocratic and illegitimate "government" we have here. We let them get away with killing JFK, RFK, MLK, Vietnam, we let them get away with 9/11, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria. They've made a mess in Africa. All the refugees into Europe, all the refugees from Latin America that have already come from CIA crimes, more will come.
We wouldn't need a wall if Wall St would stop with their BS down there!

You can't just blame Jews, yes there are lots of Jews in Corporate America, bu t not all of them are, and there are lots of Jews who speak out against this. We were doing this long before Israel came into existence. You can't just blame everything one one group, I think Israel/Zionist are responsible for a lot of BS, but you can't exclude CIA, Wall St, Corporations, Banks, The MIC either. Its not just one group, its all of them. They're all evil, they're imperialists and they're all capitalists.

I think Israel is just a capitalist creation, nothing to do with Jews, just a foothold in he middle east for Wall St to have a base to control the oil and gas there, they didn't create Israel until they discovered how much oil was there, and realized how much control over the world it would give them to control it.

Those people moving to Israel are being played, just like the "Christian Zionists" here are, its a cult. Most "Jews" are atheists anyhow, and it seems any ol greedy white guy can claim to be a Jew. So how do you solve a "Jewish Problem" if anybody can claim to be a Jew? I think solving the capitalist problem would be a little easier to enforce.

All of the shills can scream about communists, socialists and marxists all they want. Capitalism is the problem always has been always will be. Its a murderous, immoral, unsustainable system that encourages greed, it is a system who's driving force is maximizing profits, and as such the State controlled or aligned with Corporations is the most advanced form of capitalism because it is the most profitable. They're raping the shit out of us, taking our money to fund their wars, so they can make more money while paying little to no taxes at all. Everything, everyone here complains about is caused by CAPITALISM, but nobody dares say it, they've been programmed since birth to think that way.

We should nationalize our oil and gas, instead of letting foreigners come in and steal it, again paying little or no taxes on it, then selling the oil they took from our country back to us. Russia and Venezuela do it, Libya did it, Iraq did it, and they used the money for the people of the country, they didn't let the capitalists plunder their wealth like the traitors running our country. We're AT LEAST $21 trillion in the hole now from this wonderful system of ours, don't you think we should try something else? Duh!

It is the love of money, the same thing the Bible warned us about. Imperialism/globalism is the latest stage of capitalism, that is what all of this is about, follow the money. Just muh opinion

Regime Change and Capitalism: https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/07/regime-change-and-capitalism/

[Feb 04, 2019] Trump logic of betrayal of his voters

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS , says: January 30, 2019 at 11:12 pm GMT

@RVBlake

A guy on ZH explained it well, I guess:

The opposition hates me. I can do no right. The Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong. There are not enough independent thinkers to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight each other over every minute, meaningless issue. I can pretty much do as I please without consequence ..like pay off all my buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
I'd add: and by doing the last, I could cut a deal with the real TPTBs as to for what happens after I leave White House.

[Feb 04, 2019] So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine?

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

onebornfree , says: Website January 30, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT

"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight." :

https://www.corbettreport.com/election-interference-is-ok-when-uncle-sam-does-it-propagandawatch/

Regards, onebornfree

[Feb 04, 2019] Real America doesn't give a f*ck

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

El Dato , says: January 30, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT

@Sean

NEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.

Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a real danger for the USA.

[Feb 04, 2019] Haley resorts to a good, tried way of Us politicians to sell themselves to money interests.

Notable quotes:
"... The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: January 30, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMT

@Carlton Meyer

The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it.

She's being paid no doubt by the usual suspects. She is personally 1 million in debt and has signed with a Speakers agency to give speeches for 200,000 a pop.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV)

"Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking engagements, according to CNBC
In October 2018, when Haley resigned, she said, she would be taking a "step up" into the private sector after leaving the U.N. According to a public financial disclosure report based on 2017 data, at the rate quoted for her engagements, just a handful would pay down more than $1 million in outstanding debt that was accrued during her 14 years

[Feb 04, 2019] US Sanctions as a Tool To Perpetuate Neocolonialism

Feb 04, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

US Sanctions as a Tool To Perpetuate Neocolonialism

by Nauman Sadiq Posted on February 02, 2019 January 31, 2019 It's an evident fact that neocolonial powers are ruled by behemoth corporations whose wealth is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, far more than the total GDP of many developing nations. The status of these multinational corporations as dominant players in international politics gets official imprimatur when the Western governments endorse the congressional lobbying practice of so-called "special interest" groups, which is a euphemism for corporate interests.

Since the Western governments are nothing but the mouthpiece of business interests on international political and economic forums, therefore any national or international entity which hinders or opposes the agenda of corporate interests is either coerced into accepting their demands or gets sidelined.

In 2013, the Manmohan Singh's government of India had certain objections to further opening up to the Western businesses. The Business Roundtable, which is an informal congregation of major US businesses and together holds a net wealth of $6 trillion, held a meeting with the representatives of the Indian government and literally coerced it into accepting unfair demands of the Western corporations.

The developing economies, such as India and Pakistan, are always hungry for foreign direct investment (FDI) to sustain economic growth, and this investment mostly comes from the Western corporations. When the Business Roundtables or the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) form pressure groups and engage in "collective bargaining" activities, the nascent and fragile developing economies don't have a choice but to toe their line.

State sovereignty, that sovereign nation states are at liberty to pursue independent policies, particularly economic and trade policies, is a myth. Just like the ruling elites of the developing countries which maintain a stranglehold and monopoly over domestic politics; similarly, the neocolonial powers and multinational corporations control international politics and the global economic order.

Any state in the international arena which dares to transgress the trade and economic policies laid down by neocolonial powers and multinational corporations becomes an international pariah like Castro's Cuba, Mugabe's Zimbabwe; or more recently, Maduro's Venezuela.

Venezuela has one of the largest known oil reserves in the world. Even though the mainstream media's pundits hold the socialist policies of President Nicolas Maduro responsible for economic mismanagement in Venezuela, fact of the matter is that hyperinflation in its economy is the effect of US sanctions against Venezuela which have been put in place since the time of late President Hugo Chavez.

Another case in point is Iran which was cut off from the global economic system from 2006 to 2015, and then again after May last year when President Donald Trump annulled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), because of Iran's supposed nuclear ambitions. Good for Iran that it also has one of the largest oil and gas resources, otherwise it would have been insolvent by now.

Such is the power of Washington-led global financial system, especially the banking sector, and the significance of petrodollar, because the global oil transactions are pegged in the US dollars all over the world, and all the major oil bourses are also located in the Western financial districts.

The crippling "third party" economic sanctions on Iran from 2006 to 2015 have brought to the fore the enormous power that the Western financial institutions and the petrodollar as a global reserve currency wields over the global financial system.

It bears mentioning that the Iranian nuclear negotiations were as much about Iran's nuclear program as they were about its ballistic missile program, which is an equally dangerous conventional threat to Israel and the Gulf's petro-monarchies, just across the Persian Gulf.

Despite the sanctions being unfair, Iran felt the heat so much that it remained engaged in negotiations throughout the nearly decade-long period of sanctions, and such was the crippling effect of those "third party" sanctions on Iran's economy that had it not been for its massive oil and gas reserves, and some Russian, Chinese and Turkish help in illicitly buying Iranian oil, it could have defaulted due to the sanctions.

Notwithstanding, after the brutal assassination of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, and the clear hand of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the murder, certain naïve political commentators of the mainstream media came up with a ludicrous suggestion that Washington should impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia.

As in the case of aforementioned Iran sanctions, sanctioning Saudi Arabia also seems plausible; however, there is a caveat: Iran is only a single oil-rich state which has 160 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day (mbpd) of crude oil.

On the other hand, the Persian Gulf's petro-monarchies are actually three oil-rich states. Saudi Arabia with its 266 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 10 mbpd of daily crude oil production, and UAE and Kuwait with 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, each, and 3 mbpd of daily crude oil production, each. Together, the share of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) amounts to 466 billion barrels, almost one-third of the world's 1477 billion barrels of total proven oil reserves.

Therefore, although imposing economic sanctions on the Gulf states might sound like a good idea on paper, the relationship between the Gulf's petro-monarchies and the industrialized world is that of a consumer-supplier relationship. The Gulf states are the suppliers of energy and the industrialized world is its consumer, hence the Western powers cannot sanction their energy suppliers and largest investors.

If anything, the Gulf's petro-monarchies had "sanctioned" the Western powers in the past by imposing the oil embargo in 1973 after the Arab-Israel War. The 1973 Arab oil embargo against the West lasted only for a short span of six months during which the price of oil quadrupled, but Washington became so paranoid after the embargo that it put in place a ban on the export of crude oil outside the US borders, and began keeping sixty-day stock of reserve fuel for strategic and military needs.

Recently, some very upbeat rumors about the shale revolution have been circulating in the media. However, the shale revolution is primarily a natural gas revolution. It has increased the probable recoverable resources of natural gas by 30%. The shale oil, on the other hand, refers to two starkly different kinds of energy resources: firstly, the solid kerogen – though substantial resources of kerogen have been found in the US Green River formations, the cost of extracting liquid crude from solid kerogen is so high that it is economically unviable for at least a hundred years; secondly, the tight oil which is blocked by shale – it is a viable energy resource but the reserves are so limited, roughly 4 billion barrels in Texas and North Dakota, that it will run out in a few years.

More than the size of oil reserves, it is about per barrel extraction cost, which determines the profits for the multinational oil companies. And in this regard, the Persian Gulf's crude oil is the most profitable. Further, regarding the supposed US energy independence after the purported shale revolution, the US produced 11 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in the first quarter of 2014, which was more than the output of Saudi Arabia and Russia, each of which produces around 10 million bpd. But the US still imported 7.5 million bpd during the same period, which was more than the oil imports of France and Britain put together. More than the total volume of oil production, the volume which an oil-producing country exports determines its place in the hierarchy of petroleum and the Gulf's petro-monarchies constitute the top tier of that pyramid.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

[Feb 03, 2019] Horrifying, Personal John Bolton Story

Feb 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

AntiSpin , Feb 2, 2019 11:17:05 AM | link

Horrifying, Personal John Bolton Story

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/4/15/106909/-

"Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman."

[Feb 03, 2019] Imagine the response of the USA Goobermint if, in an obverse scenario of the Venezuelan fiasco, the Roosians and Chai-nese decided Trump was an undemocratic dictator

Feb 03, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

cripes , February 2, 2019 at 4:12 am

Imagine the response of the USA Goobermint if, in an obverse scenario of the Venezuelan fiasco, the Roosians and Chai-nese decided Trump was an undemocratic dictator and declared they are depositing all USA payments they owe into Bernie Sander's accounts?

Oh, I'm sorry, bad analogy: unlike Guaido, Sanders actually ran and would be hanging around the oval office if we had a democracy.

Ger , Feb 1, 2019 4:50:39 PM | link
I note by other sources "Acting President of The United State", John Bolton, has stated he will send President Murado to Gitmo .....Apparently, a coup took place and Trump has been demoted from Chief Moron to Acting Moron of the United States.
Ghost Ship , Feb 1, 2019 5:34:18 PM | link
Expect the Venezuelan White Helmets to appear real soon. This "project" is being run using the same plan as Syria. This means that shortly there will be reports that the Bolivarian government has used chemical weapons it doesn't have against the "freedom fighters".

[Feb 03, 2019] Ever hear of the "Hague Invasion Act" passed under Bush?

Feb 03, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The Rev Kev , , February 1, 2019 at 7:24 pm

Ever hear of the "Hague Invasion Act" passed under Bush? In short, if you are an American or an American ally (e.g. Israeli) and you find yourself in Hague charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity, the Pentagon is authorized to go into the Hague, if necessary, and break them out-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act

Andrew Thomas , , February 1, 2019 at 11:00 am

I remember being utterly amazed about 10 years ago when the Germans wanted to just look at their gold in the vaults at the New York Fed, and were told by the US authorities "NO!" , and the Germans backed down. And another moment of gob-smacking arrogance during the Reagan years when the US refused to recognize the World Court's jurisdiction when Nicaragua sued the US for mining it's harbors. The US refused to participate, lost the case and was able to get away with not paying the judgment. Is my memory faulty on any of this?

David , , February 1, 2019 at 10:11 am

I'm sympathetic to the argument, but coming from an academic the presentation is a bit sloppy. Not only does he invent the meaningless phrase "quo bono" (as has been pointed out, it's "cui bono") he's wrong about World Bank Presidents being former Defence Secretaries (the current incumbent is Korean, anyway). He's completely confused about the legal side, and has invented an entirely mythical organisation -- the "United Nations International Court." He seems to be mixing up two organisations: the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is nothing to do with the UN, and settles international law questions where the countries agree to accept its judgements, and the International Criminal Court also in The Hague which deals with violations of international humanitarian law, and is a treaty-based organisation of which the US is not a member anyway.

Five minutes checking in Wikipedia could have avoided all these errors. I wonder how many others there are? As I say, I'm not unsympathetic to the argument, but you expect better from a distinguished academic.

Watt4Bob , , February 1, 2019 at 11:05 am

Who is confused?

International Court of Justice ;

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.

The seat of the Court is at the Peace

Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located in New York (United States of America).

The Court's role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. It is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Its official languages are English and French

W4B;

Making stuff up is against this sites rules.

David , , February 1, 2019 at 12:17 pm

It predates the United Nations as the Permanent Court of International Justice, although it has a link to the UN now, as practically all global organisations do. The UN is obviously the right place to elect the judges, for example. It is not a "UN Court" and has jurisdiction only over international law questions where both sides agree in advance to accept the verdict. The article is conflating and confusing two organisations in the Hague, quite different, which in each case have a link to the UN, but are not, individually or collectively, a "UN Court."

Alex Cox , , February 1, 2019 at 2:21 pm

I second David's remarks. The author should get his terms right and be clear what court he's referring to -- he does seem to conflate the ICC and the ICJ.

One other correction: I believe it was FDR, not LBJ, who famously remarked "He may be a son of a [family blog] but he's our son of a [family blog]," in reference to the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza.

[Feb 03, 2019] Why All Anti-Interventionists Will Necessarily Be Smeared As Russian Assets

Feb 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Why All Anti-Interventionists Will Necessarily Be Smeared As Russian Assets

by Tyler Durden Sun, 02/03/2019 - 19:30 83 SHARES Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

When Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard announced her candidacy for the presidency on CNN last month, I had a feeling I'd be writing about her a fair bit. Not because I particularly want her to be president, but because I knew her candidacy would cause the narrative control mechanizations of the political/media class to overextend themselves , leaving them open to attack, exposure, and the weakening of their control of the narrative.

Mere hours before her campaign officially launched, NBC News published an astonishingly blatant smear piece titled "Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard," subtitled "Experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard." One of the article's authors shared it on Twitter with the caption, "The Kremlin already has a crush on Tulsi Gabbard."

The article reported that media outlets tied to the Russian government had been talking a lot about Gabbard's candidacy, ironically citing as an example an RT article which documented the attempts by the US mainstream media to paint Gabbard as a Kremlin agent. The article's authors cited the existence of such articles combined with the existence of "chatter" about Gabbard on the anonymous message board 8chan (relevant for God knows what reason) as evidence to substantiate its blaring headline. Even more hilariously, the source for its weird 8chan claim is named as none other than Renee DiResta of the narrative control firm New Knowledge, which was recently embroiled in a scandal for staging a "false flag operation" in an Alabama Senate race which gave one of the candidates the false appearance of being amplified by Russian bots.

me frameborder=

This pathetic, juvenile language from one of the authors of that astronomically awful NBC News article gives you a sense of what they're trying to accomplish here. Smear campaign fully underway https://t.co/jvl5pFRr0P

-- Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 2, 2019

This article is of course absurd. As we discussed recently , you will always see Russia on the same US foreign policy page as anti-interventionists like Tulsi Gabbard, because Russia, like so many other nations, opposes US interventionism. To treat this as some sort of shocking conspiracy instead of obvious and mundane is journalistic malpractice. There are many, many very good reasons to oppose the war agendas of the US-centralized empire, none of which have anything to do with having any loyalty to or sympathies for the Russian government.

But we will continue to see this tactic used again and again and again against any and all opposition to US-led interventionism for as long as the Russiagate psyop maintains its grip upon western consciousness. And make no mistake, these smears have everything to do with anti-interventionism and nothing to do with Russia. There will never, ever be an antiwar voice who the political/media class and their centrist followers espouse as good and valid; they'll never say "Ahh, finally, someone who hates war and also isn't aligned with Russia! We can get behind this one!" That will never, ever happen, because it is the opposition to war and interventionism itself which is being rejected, and in the McCarthyite environment of Russia hysteria, tarring it as "Russian" simply makes a practical excuse for that rejection.

All the biggest conflicts in the world can be described as unipolarism vs multipolarism: the unipolarists who support the global hegemony of the US-centralized empire at any cost, versus the multipolarists who oppose that dominance and support the existence of multiple power structures in the world. The governments of Russia, China, Iran and their allies are predominantly multipolarist in their geopolitical outlook, and they tend to be more in favor of non-interventionism, since unipolarity can only be held in place by brute force and aggression. Unipolarists, therefore, can always paint western anti-interventionists as Russian assets, since the Russian government is multipolarist and opposed to the interventionism of the unipolarists.

me frameborder=

Where in the World Is the U.S. Military? https://t.co/eqpm8jZnyN Interesting bit on a new generation of small, clandestine "lily pad" bases. pic.twitter.com/0smgRDZYoC

-- Dave Dickinson 🌌🚀🔭🤘🏴‍☠️ (@Astroguyz) October 22, 2017

The nonstop propaganda campaign to keep the coals of Russia hysteria burning white hot at all times can therefore be looked at first and foremost as a psychological operation to kill support for multipolarism around the world. It can of course be used to manufacture consent for escalations against Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran etc as needed, but it can also be used to attack the ideology of anti-interventionism itself by smearing anyone who opposes unipolar oppression and aggression as an agent of a nefarious oppositional government.

The social engineers have succeeded in constructing a narrative control device which encapsulates the entire agenda of the unipolar world order in a single bumper sticker-sized talking point: "Russia opposes Big Brother, therefore anyone who opposes Big Brother is Russian." This device didn't take an amazing intellectual feat to create; all they had to do was recreate the paranoid insanity of the original cold war, and they already had a blueprint for that. It was simply a matter of shepherding us back there.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there emerged a popular notion of a " peace dividend " in which defense spending could be reduced in the absence of America's sole rival and the abundant excess funds used to take care of the American people instead. The only problem was that a lot of people had gotten very rich and powerful as a result of that cold war defense spending, and it wasn't long before they started circulating the idea of using America's newly uncontested might for a very expensive campaign to hammer down a liberal world order led by the beneficent guidance of the United States government. Soon the neoconservatives were pushing their unipolarist narratives in high levels of influence with great effect, and shortly thereafter they got their " new Pearl Harbor " in the form of the 9/11 attacks which justified an explosion in defense spending, interventionism and expansionism, just as the neoconservative Project for a New American Century had called for . And the rest is history.

And now our collective consciousness is planted right back in the center of that paranoid, hawkish political environment of the first cold war. The main difference now is of course that Russia is nothing remotely like a superpower today, and that the establishment Russia narrative is made entirely out of narrative, but the most important difference is that this time the establishment narratives are not taking place within the hermetically sealed bubbles of major news media corporations. People are able to communicate with each other and share information far more easily than they were prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, and westerners are able to easily access Russian media and anti-interventionist narratives if they want to.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, as I never tire of saying. This difficulty in replicating the hermetically sealed media environment of the original cold war poses a severe challenge for narrative control, and it is for this reason reason that there is now so much skepticism of the establishment Russia narrative. It is also the reason for the establishment's aggressive maneuvers to censor the internet, to demonize Russian media, and to smear anti-interventionist perspectives.

But we can't keep living this way. We all know this, deep down. The people at the helm of the unipolar world order are advancing an ecocidal world economy which is stripping the earth bare and filling the air with poison while at the same time pushing more and more aggressively against the multipolarist powers, one of which happens to have thousands of nuclear warheads at its disposal. The unipolarity so enthusiastically promoted by the neoconservatives and their fellow travelers has reached the end of the line after just a few short years, and now it's time to dispense with it and try something else. They will necessarily smear us with everything but the kitchen sink for saying so, but we are right and they are wrong. The state of the world today proves this beyond a doubt.

* * *

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[Feb 03, 2019] Trump Should Call Congress's Bluff on Our Endless Wars by W. James Antle III

Notable quotes:
"... Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote. ..."
"... taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace. ..."
"... When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude ..."
"... The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. ..."
"... Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat. ..."
"... Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks. ..."
"... Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different. ..."
"... I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. ..."
Feb 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Senate has toothlessly disapproved of his troop withdrawals. At the State of the Union, he should respond.

Will Trump Hold Firm on His Syria Pullout? Hawkish Democrats, Antiwar Republicans?

Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria.

Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote.

The resolution is non-binding, like the Democrats' toothless measures to stop George W. Bush's Iraq "surge" over a decade ago. Still, taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace.

When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude d. Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward's book repeats the president's probing questions about how long we must stay in Afghanistan with an air of disbelief better suited to "fake news" shared on Facebook. Trump's call late last year to bring troops home from both war-torn countries elicited bipartisan criticism and the abrupt resignation of Pentagon chief James Mattis.

To make matters worse, only three Republican senators -- Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah -- voted to stand with their president against these endless nation-building exercises. Kentucky's Rand Paul, who was not present for the vote, would surely have been a fourth. Even Chuck Schumer, the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have voted for the Iraq war, opposed this anti-withdrawal amendment.

During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff. He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional duties.

Trump may find that he has unlikely allies in his would-be 2020 Democratic presidential foes. The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. How many ambitious Democrats will vote to give a Republican president a blank check for war as an election year approaches?

GOP lawmakers will have to decide whether they stand with their president -- who wants to cut America's multi-trillion dollar losses in the Middle East -- and rank-and-file Republican voters in ending these wars. Those who want to stay in Syria and Afghanistan quite likely cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.

Will Trump Hold Firm on His Syria Pullout? Hawkish Democrats, Antiwar Republicans?

Up until now, Trump's big fight with the establishment has been over immigration and the border wall. Amid his belated turn towards the more populist parts of his program, he should not forget to spend political capital on America's wars as well. Trump now says Republican congressional leaders misled him on the wall. It has been even worse on foreign policy.

Partisans are dug in on the border. But on war, Trump has some opportunities to win over converts. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit stone-faced behind him as he agrees with the Progressive Caucus on foreign policy?

Much is riding on whether a course correction is possible in Afghanistan and Syria. Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat.

Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks.

W. James Antle III is editor of .



PAX February 1, 2019 at 12:56 pm

Mearsheimer has some main tenets of realist foreign policy include:

The lobby and its fellow travelers are not used to being told no. Time for them to create and fund volunteer corps and do their own dirty work on their dime and at their own risk.

MikeCLT , , February 1, 2019 at 1:14 pm
Trump should demand Congress debate and authorize the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It would be good policy and good politics. And good for the Constitution.

Fred Bowman , , February 1, 2019 at 1:20 pm

Wouldn't hold my breath on Trump doing any such thing on ending of the Middle Eastern Wars. Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different.

Stephen J. , , February 1, 2019 at 1:25 pm

Very concise article.

The article states: "Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria."

-- -- -- -

I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. More info at link below.

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html

Mark Thomason , , February 1, 2019 at 1:27 pm

I am extremely disappointed that both of my State's Democratic Senators voted to keep the wars going.

However, I'm sure they did so only to spite Trump.

They don't either of them support more Long War. Of course, they don't want to be blamed either in the case of another terrorist attack for not being tough enough. But this vote was not one of principle.

That means they would not fight for it. They just did it. I suspect much of the vote in the Senate was like that, and that the rather large number of non-votes is because of that.

One Guy , , February 1, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I agree that we should end the Middle East wars, but the idea of Trump pissing off his sycophants in the GOP Senate, amuses me.

George Crosley , , February 1, 2019 at 3:01 pm

During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff. He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional duties.

Would that he would but he won't.

Mr. Trump shan't read this good advice because it seems he only reads what the Kushners put in front of him and (for the most part) hires only people who despise him–people who are married to the pro-war Blob in DC.

What a way to operate!

[Feb 03, 2019] SDF has refused an offer by IS to surrender in exchange for safe passage to Idlib and Turkey

Feb 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Barbara Ann , 3 days ago

Interesting developments re Idlib: SF report Cavusoglu as saying 1) some anti-IS coalition partners are supporting HTS and 2) Russia has suggested a joint op with Turkey to remove HTS from Idlib. They do not report what Turkey's response was.

One wonders if 1) may be being introduced as the excuse for Erdogan to declare the Sochi deal as sabotaged by US/other evil forces, ultimately to justify 2). HTS recently cut all road links with Olive Branch territory - do they know what is coming?

https://southfront.org/turk...

Eugene Owens , 3 days ago
SDF has refused an offer by IS to surrender in exchange for safe passage to Idlib and Turkey. Not sure what the Daeshis were thinking about. Idlib would not be a good destination for them right now. And I don't see Erdogan openly welcoming them into Turkey. In the last month many tried to infiltrate out of their last pocket. Some by slipping across the Iraqi border, but Iraqi PMFs have blocked most of them. Some others by posing as civilian refugees fleeing from IS, but the Asayish Police, both Kurd and Arab, screen everyone coming from that area.

http://www.hawarnews.com/en...

[Feb 03, 2019] Looks to me like the neocon/neolibs are not going to let Trump do what he was elected to do: end foreign wars. Most Americans of both parties would welcome less war but that appears to be irrelevant to the neoliberal elite

While the Senate's Thursday vote against withdraval from Syria does not prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts congressional Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar bipartisan measures expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier this month, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO
Notable quotes:
"... When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled and yuuuuge! ..."
"... The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence - pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated (without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support this garbage. ..."
Feb 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Valissa Rauhallinen 3 days ago

Senate rebukes Trump's plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, Afghanistan https://www.washingtonpost....

The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday in a rebuke of President Trump's rationale for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, voting to declare that the Islamic State's continued operations in both countries poses a serious threat to the United States. Democrats who voted against the measure characterized it as a commitment to endless war.

While the Senate's Thursday vote does not carry the weight of law or prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts congressional Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar bipartisan measures expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier this month, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO.

-----------------------------

When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled and yuuuuge!

Looks to me like the neocon/neolibs imperialists are not going to let Trump do what he was elected to do. Most Americans of both parties would welcome less war but that appears to be irrelevant to the political class.

Barbara Ann -> Valissa Rauhallinen , 2 days ago

Couldn't agree more Valissa. The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence - pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated (without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support this garbage.

Trump's only chance seems to be to ensure the withdrawal(s) are completed before this amendment is added to the bill and it becomes law. WaPo don't even include a link, so here it is for anyone with the stomach to read it:

https://www.congress.gov/co...

blue peacock -> Valissa Rauhallinen , 15 hours ago
Here's Trump's response to the Senate vote:

View Hide

[Feb 03, 2019] Trump ramps up attacks on journalists 'They can also cause War!'

Notable quotes:
"... President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division & distrust" in the country. ..."
"... "The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People." ..."
"... "They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!" ..."
"... I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN, MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT, WAPO ..."
"... There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies! ..."
Aug 09, 2018 | thehill.com

President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division & distrust" in the country.

"The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People."

"They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!"

Donald J. Trump on Twitter The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TR

The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!

4:38 AM - 5 Aug 2018

Patricia La Fleur ‏ @ lafleurjmmyp Aug 7 Replying to @ ScopingItOut @ realDonaldTrump

I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN, MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT, WAPO

Irma Bell @ IrmaBel53130008 15h 15 hours ago Replying to @ KathyInTheNorth @ realDonaldTrump

There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies!

[Feb 03, 2019] Horrifying, Personal John Bolton Story

Feb 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

AntiSpin , Feb 2, 2019 11:17:05 AM | link

Horrifying, Personal John Bolton Story

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/4/15/106909/-

"Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman."

[Feb 03, 2019] Imagine the response of the USA Goobermint if, in an obverse scenario of the Venezuelan fiasco, the Roosians and Chai-nese decided Trump was an undemocratic dictator

Feb 03, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

cripes , February 2, 2019 at 4:12 am

Imagine the response of the USA Goobermint if, in an obverse scenario of the Venezuelan fiasco, the Roosians and Chai-nese decided Trump was an undemocratic dictator and declared they are depositing all USA payments they owe into Bernie Sander's accounts?

Oh, I'm sorry, bad analogy: unlike Guaido, Sanders actually ran and would be hanging around the oval office if we had a democracy.

Ger , Feb 1, 2019 4:50:39 PM | link
I note by other sources "Acting President of The United State", John Bolton, has stated he will send President Murado to Gitmo .....Apparently, a coup took place and Trump has been demoted from Chief Moron to Acting Moron of the United States.
Ghost Ship , Feb 1, 2019 5:34:18 PM | link
Expect the Venezuelan White Helmets to appear real soon. This "project" is being run using the same plan as Syria. This means that shortly there will be reports that the Bolivarian government has used chemical weapons it doesn't have against the "freedom fighters".

[Feb 02, 2019] In Tit-For-Tat, Russia Suspends INF Treaty; Putin Slams US Demolishing Global Security

Notable quotes:
"... This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty, as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification." ..."
"... Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan." ..."
"... Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021. ..."
Feb 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has effectively collapsed following the US announcing Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty. Predictably Moscow's response has been swift, with President Vladimir Putin saying in a meeting with his foreign and defense ministers that Russia will now pursue missile development previously banned under its terms .

Putin said "ours will be a mirror response" in a tit-for-tat move that the Russian president ultimately blames on Washington's years-long "systematic" undermining of the agreement. "Our US partners say that they are ceasing their participation in the treaty, and we are doing the same," the Russian president said . "They say that they are doing research and testing [on new weapons] and we will do the same thing."

Crucially, however, he noted that there were no plans to deploy short and mid-range missiles to Europe unless the US does it first -- a worst nightmare scenario that has rattled European leaders ever since talk began from Trump that the 1987 treaty could be scrapped.

Putin still seemed to allow some degree space for last minute concessions as "still on the table" possibly in line with the Trump administration's desire to modernize and update a new treaty taking into account new technological and geopolitical realities, such as China's ballistic missile capabilities.

"Let's wait until our partners mature sufficiently to hold a level, meaningful conversation on this topic, which is extremely important for us, them, and the entire world," Putin said. But also lashing out during the press conference that followed the meeting with top officials Putin described :

Over many years, we have repeatedly suggested staging new disarmament talks, on all types of weapons. Over the last few years, we have seen our initiatives not supported. On the contrary, pretexts are constantly sought to demolish the existing system of international security .

Specifically he and FM Sergei Lavrov referenced not only Trump's threats to quit the agreement, which heightened in December, but accusations leveled from Washington that the Kremlin was in violation. The White House has now affirmed the bilateral historic agreement signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan will be suspended for 180 days. Lavrov insisted that Moscow "attempted to do everything we could to rescue the treaty."

This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty, as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."

Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan."

Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021.


brane pilot , 17 minutes ago link

Putin is an island of calm in a sea of political insanity.

He knows Trump is being gamed into absurd positions by mad dog Democrat politicians seeking a geopolitical scapegoat.

I would call him a Statesman.

SpanishGoop , 40 minutes ago link

" as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."

US trying to get from Russia top position first-response list and get Europe on that position.

Putin is much to smart to fall for that.

needtoshit , 44 minutes ago link

Neocons should be remembered as oldcons because their bag of tricks is so well known that they don't fool anyone. Think about this Reagan era fossil who tries to arrange his little coup in Venezuela and will fall flat on his face. Think also about these Pompeo and Bolton who are so desperate that they didn't even spend the necessary time to learn the checkers rules before trying to take on Putin in his favorite chess play. No really, the level of mediocrity and the lack of strategy or even sheer preparedness of these dudes is so low that they may even be hung by their own subordinates who can't even stand that stench of fool play. Trump should be ashamed he hired these clowns to ride their one trick ponies while the titanic goes down. History will not be kind with him.

Totally_Disillusioned , 49 minutes ago link

Putin reads our CIA better than we do!

Totally_Disillusioned , 49 minutes ago link

Putin reads our CIA better than we do!

Son of Captain Nemo , 1 hour ago link

Everything you wanted to know about scuttling an INF Treaty but were afraid to ask ( https://www.rt.com/business/450123-nord-stream-2-ready/ )

Cause when it gets completed without sabotage along the way... Those LNG delivery projects will see lots and lots of $USD heading home "FOR GOOD"!...

Which means "other arrangements" will be necessary in order to make certain that another "hostage" crisis ( https://southfront.org/u-s-opted-to-leave-inf-few-years-ago-spent-this-time-developing-forbidden-missiles/ ) "doesn't go to waste"!!!

Savvy , 1 hour ago link

Yup.

Shemp 4 Victory , 29 minutes ago link

Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.

Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older 9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyH-I3rukPU (3 min. 12 sec. - English subtitles)

Savvy , 14 minutes ago link

This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .

About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.

Son of Captain Nemo , 1 hour ago link

Everything you wanted to know about scuttling an INF Treaty but were afraid to ask ( https://www.rt.com/business/450123-nord-stream-2-ready/ )

Cause when it gets completed without sabotage along the way... Those LNG delivery projects will see lots and lots of $USD heading home "FOR GOOD"!...

Which means "other arrangements" will be necessary in order to make certain that another "hostage" crisis ( https://southfront.org/u-s-opted-to-leave-inf-few-years-ago-spent-this-time-developing-forbidden-missiles/ ) "doesn't go to waste"!!!

Savvy , 1 hour ago link

Yup.

Shemp 4 Victory , 29 minutes ago link

Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.

Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older 9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyH-I3rukPU (3 min. 12 sec. - English subtitles)

Savvy , 14 minutes ago link

This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .

About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.

yerfej , 1 hour ago link

Instead of useless diatribe explain why you're all bent today about the INF?

Gen. Ripper , 28 minutes ago link

The INF Treaty allowed the inferior Soviet weapons to remain par to the USA, like how we've been giving the chinks $1T a year.

Now no treaty allows the USA to naturally dominate CCCP and their chinky ching Chong CCP.

[Feb 02, 2019] The End Of Russia's Democratic Illusions About America

Feb 02, 2019 | theduran.com

The End Of Russia's "Democratic Illusions" About America

How Russiagate has impacted a vital struggle in Russia.

Published

6 days ago

on

January 27, 2019 By

Stephen Cohen 3,139 Views ,

[Feb 02, 2019] On importance of Christian Populisn as a countervailing force to both neoliberal globalization and neofascism

Notable quotes:
"... The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the wrecking ball has been brought to that. ..."
"... And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle ..."
Feb 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Selected comments from The iGilets-Jaunes,-i or the Contradictions of Consumer Democracy by Guillaume Durocher

A123 , says: January 29, 2019 at 6:51 pm GMT

The key missing word is "Christian".

Populism by itself cannot hold together for a lack of common values. However, Christian Populism can hold the long road by emphasising the common values of French Christians and European Christians.

Globalist mass-migration theology was an obvious attempt to suppress or replace common European Christian values. In direct opposition to the Globalist screed -- Christian Populists are rising up in France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, and elsewhere. All with a common, unifying Christian cause and true European Values.

This movement is different from those that have come before. In the past, Anti-Christian, Leftist, Socialism has managed to hijack Populist efforts. Here the Christian backbone of the movement prevents that fate.

Brabantian , says: January 30, 2019 at 10:38 am GMT
It's not true that people as a whole are driven by endless greed and 'bottomless human desire'.

In general, people understand the limits of the world, and the mass of commoners merely want something small and safe a nice little home, the ability to raise a family, a safe neighbourhood and decent schools, no worries about medical care – and stability in all of this, knowing that their little petit bourgeois lives will not be undermined or destroyed. That is it.

There may be a little 'dreaming' about wealth and expensive toys, cars, homes, apparel, but that is not very 'driven'. People are overall content with something humble, a safe, stable little corner, having 'enough' and no worries.

The problem is that people are not given this, they don't have their stable little corner in security, they see and watch what little they have being undermined. Oligarchs demand 'more', sponsoring progressive impoverishment as they extract more profit; as well as seeking control by sponsoring social turmoil, in part via waves of invited arrivals who create great difficulties for humble working class lives and stability.

The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the wrecking ball has been brought to that.

And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle

Hard times make strong people
Strong people make good times
Good times make weak people
Weak people make hard times

anon [393] Disclaimer , says:
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
Everybody is talking about weather

Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
Everybody is talking about weather

Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.

Digital Samizdat , says: February 2, 2019 at 8:59 am GMT
@anon A lot of truth in what you say. Personally, I'm ashamed to admit that I bought into the 'Red peril' nonsense when I was young. When leftists–yeah, back then it was the leftists–tried to warn us that the elites were going to bust the unions, export jobs and roll-out 'free trade', I didn't believe them. I actually couldn't then imagine that any non-communist would be so diabolical! I was a pretty naïve kid, all in all. But then, I guess most kids by nature are.
Digital Samizdat , says: February 2, 2019 at 9:20 am GMT
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article. How come whenever Joe Blow (or Jacques Bonhomme) wants something essential like healthcare, transportation or an affordable dwelling, he is denounced as 'greedy' for demanding a bunch of 'gibmedats', but when the big multi-national corporations want another free-trade treaty or another tax cut, this is labelled 'progress'?

I guess that's why I just can't get into conservatism.

Michael Kenny , says: February 2, 2019 at 10:43 am GMT
All of this actually helps the EU, which is not a globalist project but a regionalist alternative to globalism. Globalism was imposed on a very reluctant EU in the 1980s by a then hyperdominant US (I'm old enough to remember!) with Margaret Thatcher acting as an American Trojan horse within the EU. It has never worked precisely because it contradicts the inherent regionalist logic that underlies the whole idea of European integration.

Thus, the more the US globalist project goes under, the more the EU and similar regionalist projects in other parts of the world come to the fore.

Just as Trumpmania spawned the pro-US and pro-globalist Brexiteers in the summer of 2016, Trump's bull in a china shop blundering and the self-destruction of American power that has entailed has empowered the various protest movements we've seen in Europe, none of which are calling for the withdrawal of their countries from the EU.

People instinctively sense that Trump has defeated the notorious "TINA" argument, which in Europe meant "the US won't let us do anything else". The ongoing collapse of American power makes for a very turbulent and unstable situation in the world but fundamentally, we're all on the right track. For European integration, that doesn't mean collapse but a return to the original post-WWII project, designed to allow us to have our respective nationalisms without killing each other at regular intervals.

That concept is so alien to the American experience that it is unsurprising that Americans have difficulty in understanding it. Americans need to stop lumping themselves together with Europeans and calling us all "Westerners".

Stogumber , says: February 2, 2019 at 11:19 am GMT
@obwandiyag Contrary to obwandiyag, Durocher came over to me as the sort of sour conservative who can't deliver goods for the people and therefore reflects that, well, people oughtn't to demand so much goods.
Well, both kinds, the libertarian and the sour conservative, have a certain disregard for the average guy.
The average guy is by no means crying "me,me,me" all the time and he doesn't demand the best and the most of everything. Also, he is quite prepared too work for life, if his work is within his range of capabilities and if it doesn't develop into a kind of modern slave labour.

But he sees, and reads, that technology improves which means that life should become easier not more difficult.
And he too often sees that in fact he has to live worse than his father – or, if he is the father, he sees that his sons will live worse than he. And he asks why. And the media can give no honest explanation. (Nor can Durocher.)

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT
In the " west " , the working people are extracted to the last cent with the all the locals IRS and varied taxes . This surplus goes to pay faraonic governement bureaucracies which live on the taxpayers and humiliate them , goes to subvention tax free oligarchs , and goes to subvention all kind of stupid utopias and a wide array of social bums national and foreign . They have killed the hen of the golden eggs . The CCCP fell in the 1990`s , our EUUSACCCP will fall in the 2020`s ?

By the way will the Cesar of the western Roman Empire Trumpo Maximo order you Microncito Napoleonis to go away like he is doing with his rebelius consul Maduro Petrolero ? After all Microncito is very mean with his subdits , and after all he is not supported by the Cesar of the eastern Roman Empire Putinos Bizantinii like Maduro Petrolero is , it would be an easy coup , and very popular .

Mike P , says: February 2, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMT
@Jewish minds Trump Zionism. Completely agree on "representative" democracy being a sham, and on the feasibility and great importance of direct democracy. Realistically, though, one still needs legal specialists who can draft workable laws and ensure their compatibility with existing laws and constitutions. Some sort of hybrid system – a lawmaking institution, be it elected or appointed – with oversight and ultimate arbitration by the citizens will probably work better in practice.

Probably just as important is the media – the kind of oligarchic concentration we have right now in the mass media is going to interfere with any kind of democracy, however much improved over the current dysfunctional and discredited system.

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 2, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT
I'll tell you what the average Joe Blow(Yellow Vest)wants, and it is not just more "Shiny stuff".

1) He/She wants to be left alone. H/S is sick of breaking some law every time H/S merely sets foot out of their house. Police forces have become nothing more than revenue sources for the ever growing police state and have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the common man. Pulling a cell phone out of your pocket at the wrong time is enough to get you killed by tyrant with a badge.

2) H/S wants to be able to make enough money to raise a family and live comfortably. H/S is sick of watching the top 1% steal everything that is not nailed down through such scams as fractional reserve banking and stock market swindles. As the old saying goes: Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world.

3)H/S wants a REAL form "affirmative action", where every man/woman is chosen for their ability not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. A world where an an individual is judged on their ability and nothing more.

4) H/S wants to be safe in their neighborhoods as they watch them being flooded by uncivilized and criminal immigrants. All the while his and hers own government is confiscating their means of self protection through such things as gun control.

5) H/S is sick of watching programs such as Social Security and Medicare being bled dry by people who have never contributed a dime to such programs, while H/S has contributed to these programs their entire working lives.

6)H/S is sick of these never ending wars, which are started but never fought by the men in suits. They are tired of watching the blood suckers of war stealing not only the treasure of their country, but the very lives of their sons and daughters. All they are saying is give peace a chance.

So you see, it is much more than a bunch of whiny socialist wanting more free stuff.

Intelligent Dasein , says: Website February 2, 2019 at 2:40 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat

I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article.

Yeah. You could have replaced the byline with any one of Conservative, Inc.'s generic hack writers and other than Durocher's improved erudition, nobody would have known the difference.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
@Michael Kenny I agree . We europeans are not " westeners " ( " occidentales " , " occidentaux " ) ,we are just europeans , greco-roman europeans .

To call western europeans " westeners " is an English fraud , followed by the US , made to isolate Russia from the rest of Europe and preventing the formation of a strong continental Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok .

We europeans , produced the greco-roman culture , the Christian culture , we consider ourselves the land of Christian and greco-roman civilization . We consider ourselves the fathers of most of the Americas .

For us ,europeans , at least for old ones , the " westeners " were the half mexican people from Texas to California , the cowboys , the vaqueros . And the US easteners were the yankees .

We always liked the cowboys , the soul of north America , the roots of north America , and we always felt some uneasiness and distrust of the yankees , those excentric , warmonger , greedy , rootless ex-europeans .

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 3:40 pm GMT
Durocher ,

The EU died in Pristina , in Yugoslavia , as says a french general

https://russia-insider.com/en/europe-died-when-nato-illegally-ripped-out-serbias-heart-1999-top-french-military-commander/ri25656

and was buried in Ukraina in 2014

The axe Hitler-Petain , pardon Merkel-Macron , ne tiens plus , doesn`t have any credibility

Sean , says: February 2, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT

All this shows the limits both of official Europeanism and short-sighted demotic populism. The goal of both is to distract the French from their real problems, namely their spiritual and demographic collapse. The EU as such is not the source, or even a significant cause, of France's problems.

It seems to me French problems started in earnest with the unification of Germany, and if that is any guide the greater unity of the EU under German economic power is unlikely to improve France's relative position. :- 28/11/2018 German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Wednesday proposed that France give up its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and turn it into an EU seat . France was the first country in the world to deliberately increase immigration, and did so out of fear of Germany, but I think French business are the main force behind immigration now.

Germany passes immigration law to lure non-EU skilled workers . It is silly to call for cohesion unless you halt immigration and have the strength to sacrifice for that end. France is much further down the road to dissolution than they are over the Rhine. Germany has not suffered much so mar, they can take far more immigration than France. Germany' business class has reasons for increasing immigration into Germany, which is becoming ever more powerful though building up its economic strength by abandoning ll nuclear capacity and defence against other countries, and keeping labour costs low–by any means necessary. The USA is turning away from defending Germany (which tried to claim the costs of it taking million refugees should be counted as a defence contribution). For now, Germany thinks it has enough cohesion in reserve to sacrifice some to building up its economic strength and productive capacity in particular. In the EU, France will be subjected to German priorities.

The troubles that our society is experiencing are also sometimes due and related to the fact that too many of our fellow citizens believe that they can earn without effort . . .

It is comparative. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants and refugees, come from countries where if you don't work you starve. But those countries lack the flexibility conferred by the gentrified, relaxed and complex societies of Europe.

Going all out rather than tepidly for native demographic strength is probably a bad idea, because we don't know what national or personal qualities are going to be needed to cope with the unexpected type of challenges that will certainly be posed in our future.

Mike P , says: February 2, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read You are essentially right, but some of your points speak more to America than France. In particular, police tends to be a lot less trigger-happy and generally more lenient in France. Considering the scale of the French protests, I would say overall the number of people who got hurt by police is very low. I even suspect that the few really bad cases were committed not by regular police but by special agents provocateurs, trying to incite violence in order to create a pretext for cracking down.

Amusing anecdote – I spent a couple of months in Paris a goodish number of years ago. One French guy told me that he was stopped while driving drunk by police. He explained to them, "it is the last night before I will be thirty years old." Police told him, "o.k., you be careful now while driving home" and let him go.

wayfarer , says: February 2, 2019 at 4:23 pm GMT

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

RT Rider , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT
With a monetary system based on debt, and the counterfeiting and issuance of money privately controlled, it was inevitable that globalization and the elimination of state sovereignty would result. Global financial capitalism is the maximizing of profit for private gain and the socialization of losses by the state. Although, nation-states are now nothing more than subsidiaries of the global banking cartel. As debt levels grow well beyond the ability of states to service, let alone repay, the banking cartel need seamless access to other nation's resources to keep the ponzi going – hence the unified global banking cartel, always acting in concert.

The counterfeiting racket is quite ingenious. The public demanding more and more state subsidies to ensure their standards of living, as high paying jobs disappear, never to return, give the political class free rein to borrow well beyond tax levels, or their ability to ever repay. Of course, there isn't sufficient savings to fund this level of borrowing on a global scale (public and private) so it must be manufactured, or more bluntly, counterfeited. The banking cartel then takes it's skim off the top in fees, seniorage, and interest. Over time, this enormous skim has allowed them to buy whatever, and whomever, they want.

We live in an age of money illusion, where the enormous amount of phony money has corrupted every aspect of society, and disguises late-stage, economic collapse. It's just as likely the the global economy has been going nowhere in the last ten years but we can't tell because GDP, being a measure of money transactions, presents a false picture of growth, disguised by the enormous quantities of money counterfeited over the decade, and indeed since Mr. Greenspan took the helm at the Fed.

It has been very successful, however, in inflating all asset classes, other than commodities (controlled by futures derivatives trading), to increase collateral for even more debt issuance. Of course, all these assets are tightly controlled by the counterfeiters. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where even interest can't be paid, let alone principle. And the underlying asset values look to be poised for collapse. Counterfeiting more money, ie. QE, will most certainly be redeployed, but should result in collapsing currencies around the globe, as all are in the same boat.

In effect, the western world has created a neo-feudal order, with money counterfeiters being the overlords, rather than the land-holding thugs of the past.

HiHo , says: February 2, 2019 at 7:27 pm GMT
A rather sad piece from someone not quite au fait with current thinking though understandable under the circumstances.
Politics today is no longer of the 'left' or the 'right', but of globalism or nationalism. Yes, groups like Antifa cling to the old while supporting the fascist Establishment with fascist action. Odd lot those people.
Essentially you can't have a just society where usuary, share dealing and currency speculation take place. The termites that practice this sort of lifestyle need to be given a spade to dig the earth and grow their own veggies!
And democracy is just a smoke screen permitting special interest groups to over ride the popular consensus. To have it clarified by a popular vote one way or the other is a good idea, but can only work where the local culture supports the concept as in Switzerland, as opposed to California where it doesn't really work properly, since the culture is alien to that sort of concept.
Old man Le Pen's daughter is a wiley old solicitor that speaks like a fisherman's wife. The old man won't be bothered about what has happened to his party, though it is surprising things have stagnated a bit for National Rally.
The EU should not have expanded in to Eastern Europe and it should never have permitted the sort of third rate politicians such as Junkers, Moderini, the Kinnocks to have the power and the gravy they have got. The ultimate weakness is having Rothschild control all the banks and operate his money laundering business in the City of London. The EU is just another scam and the 520 million people in the EU are sick of it.
If you think the US is a poisoned chalice, the EU by comparison drank the Coudenhove-Calergi poison fifty years ago and is just about to go tits up and expire. Immigrants or no immigrants, the Austro-Japanese Richard Coudenhove-Calergi brand of pure poison has destroyed everything of worth in Europe.
This writer touches on the edges of the truth without actually pointing a finger at the cause: greed through usuary, share dealing and currency speculation. Until you deal with this cancer and the termites that promote it you will never find an answer.

HiHo

[Feb 02, 2019] European Companies Won t Dare Use SWIFT Alternative To Send Money To Iran

Notable quotes:
"... My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945 have now become like the people we fought. ..."
Feb 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

European Companies "Won't Dare" Use SWIFT Alternative To Send Money To Iran

by Tyler Durden Sat, 02/02/2019 - 09:55 32 SHARES

The launch of INSTEX -- "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges" -- by France, Germany, and the UK this week to allow "legitimate trade" with Iran, or rather effectively sidestep US sanctions and bypass SWIFT after Washington was able to pressure the Belgium-based financial messaging service to cut off the access of Iranian banks last year, may be too little too late to salvage the Iran nuclear deal .

Tehran will only immediately press that more than just the current "limited humanitarian" and medical goods can be purchased on the system, in accordance with fulfilling the EU's end of the 2015 JCPOA -- something which EU officials have promised while saying INSTEX will be "expansive" -- while European companies will likely continue to stay away for fear of retribution from Washington, which has stated it's "closely following" reports of the payment vehicle while reiterating attempts to sidestep sanctions will "risk severe consequences" .

As a couple of prominent Iranian academics told Al Jazeera this week: "If [the mechanism] will permanently be restricted to solely humanitarian trade, it will be apparent that Europe will have failed to live up to its end of the bargain for Iran ," said political analyst Mohammad Ali Shabani. And another, Foad Izadi, professor at the University of Tehran, echoed what is a common sentiment among Iran's leaders: "I don't think the EU is either willing or able to stand up to Trump's threat," and continued, "The EU is not taking the nuclear deal seriously and it's not taking any action to prove to Iran otherwise... People are running out of patience."

But Iranian leadership welcomed the new mechanism as merely a small first step: "It is a first step taken by the European side... We hope it will cover all goods and items," Iranian Deputy FM Abbas Araqchi told state TV, referencing EU promises to stick to its end of the nuclear deal.

The European side also acknowledged it as a precondition to keeping the nuclear deal alive, which EU leaders sea as vital to their security and strategic interests : "We're making clear that we didn't just talk about keeping the nuclear deal with Iran alive, but now we're creating a possibility to conduct business transactions," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters on Thursday . "This is a precondition for us to meet the obligations we entered into in order to demand from Iran that it doesn't begin military uranium enrichment," Maas said.

What is INSTEX?

  • A "special purpose vehicle" that will allow European businesses to trade with Iran, despite strict US sanctions.
  • According to media reports, INSTEX will be based in Paris and will be managed by German banking expert Per Fischer, a former manager at Commerzbank. The UK will head the supervisory board.
  • The European side intends to use the channel initially only to sell food, medicine and medical devices in Iran. However, it will be possible to expand it in the future. -- DW.com

Technically US sanctions allow some limited humanitarian trade and limited goods; however the White House's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran has still scared away European giants like Seimens, Maersk, Total, Daimler, Peugeot, Renault, and others.

This brings up the central question of whether skittish European countries will actually return to doing business with Iran, the entire purpose on which the new mechanism rests. The dilemma was summarized at the start of this week by outspoken Iran hawk Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who told the AP "The choice is whether to do business with Iran or the United States." He warned, "I hope our European allies choose wisely."

Thus far a number of analysts and observers have remained far less optimistic than the European sponsors of INSTEX. One particular interview with geopolitical analyst and journalist Luc Rivet, cited in Russian media, outlines the likelihood for failure of the new payment vehicle : "I don't know what companies will make use of that mechanism to sell to Iran," Rivet said, noting that countries still consider it "dangerous" to be caught working with Iran.

Addressing the current restriction of INSTEX facilitating medical and pharmaceutical goods transactions, he continued:

Who produces this equipment? You think that Siemens will sell to Iran? Never, because they sell to America many other things as well And Siemens is afraid of losing the American market.

No matter if a handful of companies resume or continue business with Iran he explained that an "incredible number of companies" won't. He added: "It's much easier for Chinese and Russian companies to make deals with Iran. The Europeans are scared in an incredible way. The companies are afraid by ricochet of being in the eye of the storm with the Americans."

He concluded, "That's very dangerous for European companies," and repeated, "I don't know anybody who will dare to go with this Instex system."

And the New York Times in asking the same question -- But Will Anyone Use It? -- concludes similarly that "given that most large companies have significant business in the United States, very few -- if any -- are likely to use the trading mechanism for fear of incurring Washington's wrath."

However, the test will be whether or not a steady trickle of small companies gives way to bigger companies. The NYT report continues :

But the financial mechanism could make it easier for smaller companies with no exposure in the United States to trade with Iran and could promote trade in medicine and food, which are not subject to sanctions. European diplomats say that, in the beginning, the concentration will be on goods that are permitted by Washington, to avoid an early confrontation .

But much could also depend on just how fierce the White House reaction will be. If the past months' Trump administration rhetoric is any indicator, it will keep large companies scared and on the sidelines.


CarmenSandiego , 8 minutes ago link

This is the first step? then a independent military? Without asking money bosses in the USA?

alter , 34 minutes ago link

Europe has had double the tariffs on American cars than we had for theirs. It's time for us to quadruple the tariff on European cars, to make up for the tariff imbalance that Europe has taken advantage of for decades.

schroedingersrat , 1 hour ago link

Multinationals surely wont use it. But its great for small businesses.

Wantoknow , 1 hour ago link

Before World War II the question was, "Who will stand up to the demands of Germany?" Now the question is, "Who will stand up to the demands of the United States?" It is clear that as far as means and methods are concerned Washington flies the swastika. History has come full circle.

The following quote from J. R. R. Tolkien makes the point, "Always after a defeat and a respite," says Gandalf, "the shadow takes another shape and grows again." The irony of our times is that the shadow has moved from Germany to the US.

Consternation and craven refusal to confront the reality of our times is again in vogue. We are walking towards madness crying, "Let the other fellow fix this!"

Good Luck

ExpatNL , 1 hour ago link

My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945 have now become like the people we fought.

Einstein101 , 1 hour ago link

"The EU is not taking the nuclear deal seriously and it's not taking any action to prove to Iran otherwise... People are running out of patience."

So Iran is "running out of patience"? So what, what Iran will do? ...

[Jan 31, 2019] Do you think that the Guardian will shortly report that Iraq's WMD were snuck out of Iraq and hidden in Venezuela all those years ago?

Jan 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The Rev Kev , , January 31, 2019 at 8:08 am

Do you think that the Guardian will shortly report that Iraq's WMD were snuck out of Iraq and hidden in Venezuela all those years ago?

Colonel Smithers , , January 31, 2019 at 8:36 am

Thank you, Kev.

Please don't give the scoundrels at King's Place any ideas.

[Jan 31, 2019] Venezuela, the Deep State, and Subversion of the Trump Presidency by Boyd D. Cathey

Notable quotes:
"... In February 2017, it was reported that Abrams was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson 's first pick for Deputy Secretary of State , but that Tillerson was subsequently overruled by Trump. Trump aides were supportive of Abrams , but Trump opposed him because of Abrams' opposition during the campaign. ..."
"... On January 25, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appointed Abrams as the United States' Special Envoy to Venezuela ." ..."
"... diplomatic and economic ..."
Jan 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

There he was, right there on the stage to the right side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who was briefing the press on America's position concerning the recent coup in Venezuela. I rubbed my eyes -- was I seeing what I thought I was seeing?

It was Elliot Abrams. What was HE doing there? After all, back in February 2017, after then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had pushed for his nomination as Deputy Secretary of State, it was President Trump himself who had vetoed his appointment.

Here is how the anodyne account in Wikipedia describes it:

In February 2017, it was reported that Abrams was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson 's first pick for Deputy Secretary of State , but that Tillerson was subsequently overruled by Trump. Trump aides were supportive of Abrams , but Trump opposed him because of Abrams' opposition during the campaign. [emphasis mine]

Abrams during the 2016 campaign had been a NeverTrumper who vigorously opposed Donald Trump and who had strongly attacked the future president's "Make America Great Again," America First foreign policy proposals.

Abrams, a zealous Neoconservative and ardent globalist was -- and is -- one of those foreign policy "experts" who has never seen a conflict in a faraway country, in a desert or jungle, where he did not want to insert American troops, especially if such an intervention would support Israeli policy. He was deeply enmeshed in earlier American interventionist miscues and blunders in the Middle East, even incurring charges of malfeasance.

Apparently, President Trump either did not know that or perhaps did not remember Abrams's activities or stout opposition. In any case, back in 2017 it took an intervention by a well-placed friend with Washington connections who provided that information directly to Laura Ingraham who then, in turn, placed it on the president's desk And Abrams' selection was effectively stopped, torpedoed by Donald Trump.

But here now was Abrams on stage with the Secretary of State.

What was that all about?

Again, I went to Wikipedia, and once again, I quote from that source: " On January 25, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appointed Abrams as the United States' Special Envoy to Venezuela ."

Despite President Trump's resolute veto back in February 2017, Abrams was back, this time as a Special Envoy, right smack in the department that President Trump had forbade him to serve in. Did the president know? Had he signed off on this specially-created appointment? After all, the very title "Special Envoy on Venezuela" seems something dreamed up bureaucratically by the policy wonks at State, or maybe by Mike Pompeo.

Then there was the widely reported news, accompanied by a convenient camera shot of National Security Adviser John Bolton's note pad (which may or may not have been engineered by him), with the scribble: "5,000 troops to Colombia."

What gives here?

Last week suddenly there was a coup d'etat in Venezuela, with the head of the national assembly, Juan Guiado, proclaiming himself as the country's new and rightful president, and the theoretical deposition of then-current President Nicolas Maduro. And we were told that this action was totally "spontaneous" and an "act of the Venezuelan people for democracy," and that the United States had had nothing to do with it.

If you believe that, I have an oil well in my backyard that I am quite willing to sell to you for a few million, or maybe a bit less.

Of course, the United States and our overseas intelligence services were involved.

Let me clarify: like most observers who have kept up with the situation in oil-rich Venezuela, I heartily dislike and find despicable the socialist government of Maduro, just as I did Hugo Chavez when he was in power. I have some good friends there, one of whom was a student of mine when I taught in Argentina many years ago, and he and his family resolutely oppose Maduro. Those socialist leaders in Caracas are tin-pot dictator wannabees who have wrecked the economy of that once wealthy country; and they have ridden roughshod over the constitutional rights of the citizens. My hope has been that the people of Venezuela, perhaps supported by elements in the army, would take action to rid the country of those tyrants.

And, in effect, I wish for the success of Juan Guaido in his struggle with Maduro, and I support American diplomatic and economic pressure on Maduro to step down. After all, Venezuela is in our back yard with huge oil reserves.

But potentially sending American troops -- as many as 5,000 -- to fight in a country which is made up largely of jungle and impassible mountains, appears just one more instance, one more example, of the xenophobic internationalism of men like Bolton and the now state department official, Abrams, who believe American boots on the ground is the answer to every international situation. Experience over the past four decades should indicate the obvious folly of such policies for all but the historically blind and ideologically corrupt.

While we complain that the Russians and Chinese have propped up the Maduro government and invested deeply in Venezuela, a country within our "sphere of influence" in the Western Hemisphere (per the "Monroe Doctrine") -- we have done the very same thing, even more egregiously in regions like Ukraine that were integrally part of historical Russia, and in Crimea, which was never really part of Ukraine (only for about half a century) but historically and ethnically Russian. Did we not solemnly pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, under George H. W. Bush, that if the old Soviet Union would dissolve and let its some fourteen socialist "republics" go their own way, leave the Russian Federation, that we, in turn, would not advance NATO up to the borders of Russia? And then we did the exact opposite almost immediately go back on our word and move our troops and advisers right up to the borders of post-1991 Russia?

From mid-2015 on I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, and, in many ways, I still am. In effect, he may be the only thing that stands in the way of a total and complete recouping of power by the Deep State, the only slight glimmer of light -- that immovable force who stands up at times to the power-elites and who has perhaps given us a few years of respite as the managerial class zealously attempts to repair the breach he -- and we -- inflicted on it in 2016.

My major complaint, what I have seen as a kind of Achilles' Heel in the Trump presidency, has always been in personnel, those whom the president has surrounded himself with. And my criticism is measured and prudential, in the sense that I also understand what happens -- and what did happen -- when a billionaire businessman, a kind of bull-in-the-china shop (exactly what was needed), comes to Washington and lacks experience with the utterly amoral and oleaginous and obsequious political class that has dominated and continues to dominate our government, both Democrats and, most certainly, Republicans.

The wife of a very dear friend of thirty-five years served in a fairly high post during the Reagan administration. Before her untimely death a few years ago, she recounted to me in stark detail how the minions and acolytes of George H. W. Bush managed to surround President Reagan and subvert large portions of the stated Reagan Agenda. Reagan put his vice-president effectively in charge of White House personnel: and, as they say, that was it, the Reagan Revolution was essentially over.

In 2016 a number of friends and I created something called "Scholars for Trump." Composed mostly of academics, research professors, and accomplished professionals, and headed by Dr. Walter Block, Professor of Economics at Loyola-New Orleans, and Dr. Paul Gottfried, Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College, in Pennsylvania, we attempted to gather real professed believers in the stated Trump agenda. We received scant mention (mostly negative) in the so-called "conservative" press, who proceeded to smear us as "ultra-right wingers" and "paleo-conservatives." And, suddenly, there appeared another pro-Trump list, and that one composed largely of the same kinds of professionals, but many if not most of whom had not supported Donald Trump and his agenda during the primary campaigns.

What was certain was that many of the amoral time-servers and power elitists had decided that it was time for them to attach themselves to Trump, time for them to insinuate themselves into positions of power once again, no matter their distaste and scorn for that brash billionaire upstart from New York.

Remember the (in)famous interview that the President-elect had with Mitt Romney who desperately wanted to be Secretary of State? Recall the others also interviewed -- some of whom we remembered as Donald Trump's opponents in the campaign -- who came hat-in-hand to Trump Tower looking for lucrative positions and the opportunity once again to populate an administration and direct policy? And, yes, work from within to counteract the stated Trump agenda?

It would be too facile to blame the president completely: after all, the professional policy wonks, the touted experts in those along-the-Potomac institutes and foundations, were there already in place. And, indeed, there was a need politically, as best as possible, to bring together the GOP if anything were to get through Congress. (As we have seen, under Paul Ryan practically none of the Trump Agenda was enacted, and Ryan at every moment pushed open borders.)

Our contacts did try; we did have a few associates close to the president. A few -- but only a few -- of our real Trump Agenda supporters managed to climb aboard. But in the long run we were no match for the machinations of the power elites and GOP establishment. And we discovered that the president's major strength -- not being a Washington Insider -- was also his major weakness, and that everything depended on his instincts, and that somehow if the discredited globalists and power-hungry Neoconservatives (who did not give Trump the time of day before his election) were to go too far, maybe, hopefully, he would react.

And he has, on occasion done just that, as perhaps in the case of Syria, and maybe even in Afghanistan, and in a few other situations. But each time he has had to pass the gauntlet of "advisers" whom he has allowed to be in place who vigorously argue against (and undercut) the policies they are supposed to implement.

Donald Trump, for all that and for his various faults and miscues, is in reality the only thing standing in the way of the end of the old republic. The fact that he is so violently and unreservedly hated by the elites, by the media, by academia, and by Hollywood must tell us something. In effect, however, it not just the president they hate, not even his rough-edged personality -- it is what he represents, that in 2016 he opened a crack, albeit small, into a world of Deep State putrefaction, a window into sheer Evil, and the resulting falling away of the mask of those "body snatchers" who had for so long exuded confidence that their subversion and control was inevitable and just round the corner.

President Trump will never be forgiven for that. And, so, as much as I become frustrated with some of the self-inflicted wounds, some of the actions which appear at times to go flagrantly against his agenda, as much as I become heartsick when I see the faces of Elliot Abrams -- and Mitt Romney -- in positions where they can continue their chipping away at that agenda, despite all that, I continue to pray that his better instincts will reign and that he will look beyond such men, and just maybe learn that what you see first in Washington is usually not what you'll get.


Taras77 , says: January 29, 2019 at 10:02 pm GMT

Abrams did it for me!

I cannot imagine a more evil person to be allowed back into govt than this man, who is more evil than he looks.

It is over, in my mind, with the trump admin; nothing has been done about the long list of crimes committed by the obama gang during the election and after. Nothing has been done about seth rich, I would add michael hastings, and the long list of clinton "suicides" and the clinton crimes. the list is endless with no progress.

The dimos in doj, fbi, etc have completely out-manuevered trump and he really has no junk yard dog to protect him-guliani is a joke, even if he is sober as he claims to be.

Big sigh, depressing.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: January 30, 2019 at 12:24 am GMT
Scholars? For Trump? Still?

Linh Dinh on this website (June 12, 2016) predicted both the election outcome and its meaninglessness. He had by then, of course, been blackballed by Scholars, Inc., and is now helping to run a recycling operation back in Vietnam. But he has emerged as one of the top Unz columnists, most of his Heritage American attackers who couldn't see past their DNA having slunk away.

Conversely, go read the comment thread under Mr. Buchanan's latest. People who used to fall for the "we/us/our" conflation of their country and Uncle Sam are waking up, due largely to the President in whom you still place your scholarly hope. We may not be scholars, but we understand that the blood of people in places like Iraq, Libya, Syria, and soon enough Venezuela is on the hands of those who endorse the warmongering imperialism of Exceptionalia. Your scholarly enabling, such as:

"And, in effect, I wish for the success of Juan Guaido in his struggle with Maduro, and I support American diplomatic and economic pressure on Maduro to step down. After all, Venezuela is in our back yard with huge oil reserves."

is naive at best. As a scholar, did you support the "economic pressure" rationalized by Secretary of State Albright that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them children?

Those of you who still expect the Unz readership to give two sh ** s about Donald Trump or anyone else in the Washington Puppet Show are fast losing your relevance around here.

Ma Laoshi , says: January 30, 2019 at 1:09 am GMT
Yup, Personnel is Policy; always has been. The scale of it all really precludes the kind of benefit-of-the-doubt explanation the author struggles to formulate. It's not that Trump tried to do the right thing but some war-hawks, jews, and Wall-Street shysters got through regardless. Those were the only people that needed apply because Trump wasn't considering anybody else. One simply has to conclude that the people that currently surround him are indeed "his kind of people". And let's not forget that after a crash course in the realities of government he replaced Tillerson and notorious torturer McMaster because they were not hawkish, not pro-Israel, enough .

What evidence is there that your definition of "doing the right thing" coincides with Trump's anyway. Yes he made some non-interventionist noises during the campaign, but that was mostly during the primary before he'd kissed Adelson's ring in exchange for the shekels. But he was also "a very militaristic guy" who was all for "taking the oil" and who nonstop hated on Iran. Face it, it was just the Obama playbook: throw an incoherent mishmash to the proles in the hope that they remember only those parts they liked.

Isn't Trump's CV rather more illuminating on who he is than his campaign rhetoric: casino operator and pro-wrestling MC. He gets off on playing the rubes.

peterAUS , says: January 30, 2019 at 1:31 am GMT
Excellent, and timely article.

From mid-2015 on I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, and, in many ways, I still am. In effect, he may be the only thing that stands in the way of a total and complete recouping of power by the Deep State

Donald Trump, for all that and for his various faults and miscues, is in reality the only thing standing in the way of the end of the old republic.

.despite all that, I continue to pray that his better instincts will reign and that he will look beyond such men, and just maybe learn that what you see first in Washington is usually not what you'll get.

Scholar, a? Man, you ..Anyway.

Impressive.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website January 30, 2019 at 5:43 am GMT
The US military has kept some 3000 soldiers in Columbia for years. Maybe that has grown to 5000, but Bolton's yellow pad note was a simple trick to fool simpletons. Invading Venezuela would require at least 50,000 US troops.

Americans are quick to denounce socialists, especially those in the US military who thrive in a socialist US military. Most Americans do not realize that their police, firefighters, schools, most universities, roads, water, and electricity are products of socialism. If you have an emergency in the USA, you dial 9-11 for socialists to help you. Everyone thinks that is great!

From my blog:

Jan 27, 2019 – A Clumsy Slow Coup

Corporate America media has not reported basic facts about the attempted takeover of Venezuela. The Deep State has tried to overthrow the popular, elected government of Venezuela for a decade as it gradually nationalized its oil production. Several coup attempts failed so the USA imposed sanctions to punish the people for voting wrong. Sanctions caused shortages and inflation but the elected government remains in power.

In the past, the USA conducted coups by bribing Generals to conduct a quick military takeover, and always denied participation. The Trump administration gave up on deception and began a clumsy, slow coup. I suspect Trump's new CIA appointed attorney general told Trump that he had the power to appoint foreign presidents, so last week he openly appointed a new president for Venezuela. The Venezuelan army openly backs the existing president so nothing changed. The UN did not recognize Trump's puppet president nor did any other major world power. These facts do not appear in our corporate media, although the internet provides reality via a Paul Craig Roberts article. (posted at unz.com)

Trump has now ordered other nations to send payments for oil purchases to a bank account controlled by his new president. This infuriates foreign governments because they know oil shipments will stop if they fail to pay the legitimate government of Venezuela, and oil prices will rise worldwide as they scramble to buy oil elsewhere. Meanwhile, a massive humanitarian and refugee crisis is building as the result of this economic embargo.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: January 30, 2019 at 6:09 am GMT
I do not know how the fracking is going in the winter. I have read somewhere, that yields from fracking are going down. also that fracking companies are moving down to Texas.Also I do not know the state of strategic reserves, But I definitely suspect that moves in Venezuela were planed long before. so I have to presume that this is all about price of oil.
Trump quite a while ago, quite eagerly said something about moving on Venezuela.
Trump can be easily triggered by any economic subject by which US gains. But I do suspect that in this case it could be economic necessity. (What would be a real shame.)
follyofwar , says: January 30, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
@Taras77 I agree Taras. Although I much enjoyed reading Boyd Cathey's essay, sadly, I think he remains too optimistic. With the D's back in charge of the House, and the R's impotent in the Senate, (McConnell as majority leader is a joke), Trump's stated agenda is all over. He got nothing in his first two years besides the traditional GOP tax cut for the rich. And he waited far too long to get serious about the wall. Yes, Koch-man Paul Ryan opposed it, but surely Trump could have tried harder to get enough R votes to override him. His only option now, unless Pelosi budges a little, would be to declare a National Emergency on Feb 15. There is no way he could shut down the government again. Let's see how that goes.

However I disagree with Realist's comment. With Trump being attacked viciously on all sides, I don't understand how anyone could think he is part of the Deep State. I think Victor Davis Hanson got it right when he called Trump a "Tragic Hero."

AnonFromTN , says: January 30, 2019 at 4:20 pm GMT
Whoever believed that Trump will drain the swamp must feel disappointed. The US foreign policy is run by the swamp now, like it always was. The US uses full range of classical gangster tactics against Venezuela: blackmail, theft of assets, threats, etc. The US tries to instigate yet another "color revolution" to bring yet another puppet to power in yet another country. The only difference is, Maduro resists. But that's the difference in the victim country, not in DC.

[Jan 31, 2019] Do you think that the Guardian will shortly report that Iraq's WMD were snuck out of Iraq and hidden in Venezuela all those years ago?

Jan 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The Rev Kev , , January 31, 2019 at 8:08 am

Do you think that the Guardian will shortly report that Iraq's WMD were snuck out of Iraq and hidden in Venezuela all those years ago?

Colonel Smithers , , January 31, 2019 at 8:36 am

Thank you, Kev.

Please don't give the scoundrels at King's Place any ideas.

[Jan 31, 2019] Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... See my essay linked below on "Artists and Bureaucrats." ..."
"... Trump seemed always intent to challenge any type of détente between the US and Iran. Am I missing something? ..."
"... I believe that's the zionist influence showing. ..."
"... As I have said before, Trump as a sole proprietor businessman, treats all these government people as dispensable flunkies, In his former world the analogy would be "consultant advisers." People who you pay for their work and/or advice but whose opinions are not better than yours. They probably taught him something like that at Wharton. ..."
"... Thus, the many thousand people of the IC agencies have opinions that, while interesting, mean nothing if he has a gut feeling contrary to that. That being the case - in the end the truth is that the main question is whether they or he is/are correct in their opinions. ..."
"... For governing and leading on the national level, I don't think one man's gut is enough, especially with the zionist and neocon forces informing his gut for the last two years. ..."
"... And with daughter and son-in-law as ardent Israel First Jews who are playing very prominent roles in the White House. ..."
Jan 31, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Trump and the Spookery. Static.politico.com

"Trump and his top aides have taken a hard line on Iran, implying that the Islamist-led country still poses a nuclear threat despite its adherence to a 2015 accord that put curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that nuclear deal, and has reimposed sanctions, although other international allies have stayed committed to the pact.

During the hearing, Coats said Iran isn't taking any steps to make a nuclear weapon. "We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device," he said.

CIA Director Gina Haspel, who also spoke at the hearing, said Tehran, " at the moment, technically they're in compliance" with the deal.

But Coats also noted that Iranian officials have "publicly threatened to push the boundaries" of the nuclear deal if it did not see any benefits from it." politico

------------

Well, pilgrims, I have resolutely maintained on SST that Iran has not had a nuclear WEAPONS program since 2003, having cancelled their research program then with the disappearance of the Iraqi threat. The 2007 NIE on Iran stated that explicitly but the Zionist lobby has blocked publication of an unclassified summary of subsequent judgments on this subject. Why? It is Israel's policy that Iran must be prevented from becoming strong enough to become the major hegemonic power in the ME. Trump's ignorance of realities in the region has enabled The Lobby to distort US policy to serve its purposes. To my surprise the IC chiefs had the guts to tell the world what is true about Iran and to point out other areas in which their agencies differ in judgment from the administration, but the Iran judgement is IMO the most important. Neocons like Pompeo, Bolton and E. Abrams do not reason from evidence. They reason from ideology and their shared hostility to anyone who does not bow down to the US. They and The Lobby currently control Trump's foreign policy especially in the ME.

At the same time we must remember that these agencies are "mature bureaucracies." That means they have existed long enough to have become "self licking ice cream cones." These are organizations for which institutional survival and the welfare of the all important leader of each agency are primary interests. You don't think so? Just remember that the grandees at the top of these agencies are totally dependent on their directors for success in the their careers.

That is what makes the performance of Coats and Haspel so impressive. Bravo! pl

See my essay linked below on "Artists and Bureaucrats."


James Thomas , a day ago

At the other end of the spectrum, the Jerusalem Post reports that Nikki Haley is currently in Israel and charging $200,000 per speech.
ancient archer -> Pat Lang , 7 hours ago
Haley is getting paid for services already rendered. (Un)fortunately you haven't served those folks too well!! And you can be proud of that!
Pat Lang Mod , an hour ago
Trump now says that Coats and Haspel completely agree with him. That did not take long.
English Outsider , 10 hours ago
" The same kind of "thinking" has caused the clandestine services to rely far too much on "liaison" relationships with foreign intelligence services as a substitute for conducting American run espionage against difficult targets. The reason? Disclosure of foreign operations does not entail the career risk for the "managers" that the failure of an American operation would bring. "

(From the second reference above.)

Could this, over a long period of time, lead to a passive or uncritical acceptance of intelligence from foreign sources? It would also serve as protection against enquiry or blowback if those foreign sources were discredited.

The use of Dutch or Estonian or, more significantly, UK sources that were said to have kicked off the Russiagate scandal might show this.

I ask because enquiry into the Steele affair seems to stop when it comes to examining the sources and methods of the foreign intelligence services that had an input, if sometimes indirect, in that case.

TTG -> English Outsider , 5 hours ago
A passive or uncritical acceptance of intelligence from any source is bad. As Colonel Lang noted, skepticism is a necessary part of good intelligence. Deception and the current in vogue term of perception management are in wide practice by allies and adversaries. This is always a threat in HUMINT. It is also a threat in SIGINT and any other INT. As the good Colonel said, the "devil's advocate" performs a needed function in intelligence. In the case of "L'Affaire Russe," I think the strong pushback against the official IC and SCO line by many Trump and Russia supporters is serving that vital function.
English Outsider -> TTG , 3 hours ago
Serving that function in the States.

One often sees complaints that officials in the States are keeping information back but it is in fact quite astonishing how much has been disclosed - from revelations about sources to that odd series of Walter Mitty messages from the former Chief of the Counterespionage Section to his girl friend. And it's taken for granted by all that however much they might redact or withhold they're not going to fake.

So whatever these officials are up to they're doing it by the book and are in fact letting a lot out. To a foreign outsider it looks quite impressive - if not very conclusive.

Cross the Atlantic and it's a dead blank. Speculation about the Hannigan resignation, a dismissive reference from Sir Richard Dearlove - but there's been no counterpart here to the turmoil of investigation and enquiry in the States.

Since they're not going to get to the bottom of the Steele affair without at least some disclosure of what was happening at that time at this end it's quite possible that they're not going to get to the bottom of it at all. The UK end is, to put it bluntly, being used as the memory hole for the US Intelligence Community.

That's a hell of a comedown for the so called "Special Relationship". So much so that one wonders whether we in the UK still have a functioning Intelligence Service in this area. Or just a bunch of chancers happy to go along with whatever boneheaded schemes the big boys call them in for.

Mad_Max22 -> English Outsider , 2 hours ago
The responsible standard for appraising information obtained from an informant (criminal matters) or a live asset (intelligence/counter intelligence matters) is under virtually all circumstances a required knowledge of the identity of the person who is the source of the information. In banking, when the money laundering legislation beefed up, it was know your customer.

Only with detailed knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the assets acquisition of the information, from whom, how, when, where, why the asset has the information, why he is coming forward with the information, can the information be appraised. Other considerations that should be brought to bear are how often the asset has provided information in the past, has his information ever been discredited, what have been the outcomes from his previously furnished information. Are there ulterior motives? Could the information be disinformation?

We can see that not knowing the identity of the source gravely impedes characterizing information and determining whether and how it should be used.
With regard to the Steele information used in the Carter Page FISA affidavit and to predicate the Russian collusion adventure, I, at any rate, am unaware of any information in the public domain to indicate that US authorities even knew who the claimed Russian sources were let alone had direct access to them or had the ability to conduct inquiries to corroborate any of the circumstances attending their claimed possession of the relevant information.

I will say that that Robert Hannsen espionage case offers an exceptional case. Hannsen had devised a scheme where he provided the Russians information anonymously, until he was caught. The Russians evidently authenticated his information on sheer quantity and content.

The prudent practice is the more you know and the longer you have been directly engaged with your source, the better off you are, certainly if you are contemplating conducting an investigation of a Presidential candidate or a President elect.

I'm still waiting to see when all the facts come out whether we are looking at malfeasance, misfeasance, plain old incompetence, or some combination thereof.

Stueeeeee , 11 hours ago
Pres. Trump is politically wounded. He capitulated on the government shutdown/wall and SOTU address. No doubt the IC chiefs have recognized that and would short term sacrifice a little truth to further weaken the President.

Trump used to tweet his way out of his errors, but his tweets have lost their novelty. He can't even declare a national emergency for the wall as it would be done out of weakness. The courts would likely create a new fandangled interpretation of the law to counter it.

It is strange to me, that of all things, Trump's lack of assertiveness in exercising executive authority seems to be doing him in.

Pat Lang Mod -> Stueeeeee , 10 hours ago
He never ran a large organization in which everyone was not subject to him directly. These people think they have some relatively autonomous existence.
Felix A. , 13 hours ago
Trump seemed always intent to challenge any type of détente between the US and Iran. Am I missing something?
Nick Sobkowiak -> Felix A. , 6 hours ago
I believe that's the zionist influence showing.
Pat Lang Mod , a day ago
As I have said before, Trump as a sole proprietor businessman, treats all these government people as dispensable flunkies, In his former world the analogy would be "consultant advisers." People who you pay for their work and/or advice but whose opinions are not better than yours. They probably taught him something like that at Wharton.

Thus, the many thousand people of the IC agencies have opinions that, while interesting, mean nothing if he has a gut feeling contrary to that. That being the case - in the end the truth is that the main question is whether they or he is/are correct in their opinions.

TTG -> Pat Lang , 21 hours ago
He has a world of experience in real estate development and self promotion to inform that gut. It stands him well in politics. For governing and leading on the national level, I don't think one man's gut is enough, especially with the zionist and neocon forces informing his gut for the last two years.
blue peacock -> TTG , 18 hours ago
"....especially with the zionist and neocon forces informing his gut for the last two years."

And with daughter and son-in-law as ardent Israel First Jews who are playing very prominent roles in the White House.

MP98 , a day ago
The "intelligence" community is just another swamp bureaucracy with the difference that they are VERY important people who "risk their lives" for our freedom....or something like that. With their track record, why would we believe them now?
Pat Lang Mod -> MP98 , a day ago
SOME of them risk their lives. That depends on your job. IMO DIA has a much better track record than the other analytic agencies. NSA is NOT an analytic agency. It collects signal data and gives it to the others.
MP98 -> Pat Lang , a day ago
Since you're of that world, you would know (a lot) more about this than me. I remember a long time ago attending a Christmas party in Athens at which there was a bunch of US diplomats and military and some other clowns who when asked what they do there would say "they CALL me a vice consul" and laugh.
Pat Lang Mod -> MP98 , a day ago
Immature very junior CIA spooks from the embassy. A lot of these characters are tossed out early based on behavior and performance.

[Jan 30, 2019] The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different.. ..."
"... His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today. ..."
"... Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here. ..."
"... Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter. ..."
Jan 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

spudski , Jan 29, 2019 3:33:53 PM | link

This article at https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/29/the-empires-propagandists/ may be of interest to some. Not saying that any of it is new to readers here nor is it exhaustive but imo a decent piece that pulls together a lot and might be interesting to those who mainly follow MSM.

An extract:

"The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance, attempts socialism, or transfers its nexus to another powerful state entity, like Russia or China for instance. If one chooses to do so it is instantly targeted for assault either by crippling economic sanctions or embargoes, which make governance nearly impossible and primarily harms the general population, or covert subversion, or by direct and indirect military intervention. And the corporate media, when it chooses to cover these issues, generally parrots State Department and Pentagon talking points and obfuscations about the intentions of the US government, the role of corporations and global capitalism, and the character of the governments the US happens to be opposing at the time. And all of this is done with virtually no historical analysis. But of course none of this is new."

jared , Jan 29, 2019 3:41:06 PM | link

@CE | Jan 29, 2019 2:14:34 PM | 2

It is interesting, the seeming rush to mess with Venezuela. I guess whether it was in fact rushed, depends on how much we want to believe the data we are fed. I believe it was and suspect that that was the reason for resumption of operation of the government - to support the intervention in Venezuela. Otherwise, it seemed like too sudden a reversal by Trump.

I think in their analysis of where to intervene next, they look at an array of factors:

  1. Venezuela is weak
  2. Venezuela espouses something like socialism
  3. Venezuela has been associating with unsavory "competitors"
  4. Venezuela is nearby (and very nearby our asset, Colombia)
  5. Venezuela can be portrayed as in need of humanitarian intervention
  6. Maduro has said some unkind things about U.S. government (Bush)
  7. Venezuela holds a grand prize

In there discusions, I assume the issue of right/wrong is not mentioned. Imagine someone attempting to raise the issue:
- But what will the media say?
- But what will the U.N. say?
- But what will the Pope say?
- But what will the voters say?
- But what will the other party say?
- But is it really the moral thing to do, what would God say?

james , Jan 29, 2019 3:53:58 PM | link
@19 ex-SA...

with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different..

i suppose the main difference is not being served up a regular diet of 'we are the greatest' bs, accounts for some of it.. the general curiousity about what the fuck is going on outside of the usa seems sorely lacking in people who live in the usa... maybe the media can be blamed for a chunk of this... generally canucks know a lot more about the usa, then the usa people know about canada.. that is something i have witnessed in my life.. but, the simple answer to your question is there isn't a lot of difference.. and yes - trudeau senior must be really disappointed in tru dope jr... he is nothing compared to his dad... canada is on a downhill trajectory and fast with this buffoon.. i expect worse in the next election too.. we will get our trump as we are one cycle behind..

Russ , Jan 29, 2019 4:25:07 PM | link
Re Thucydides

His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today.

Also, similar to some who get impatient with the seeming over-conservatism of Russia and China today, so the aggressive, hot-headed Corinthians and Thebans often get frustrated with the more conservative Spartans.

I wonder when/if there'll be an American version of the Athenians' disastrous Sicilian expedition.

Jen , Jan 29, 2019 4:38:32 PM | link
Attached to that Venezuelanalysis.com that CE linked to @ 2 was this odd piece of information:

"EREPLA deal "unusually favourable to foreign company"

... [A] 25-year deal was signed with unknown US based firm EREPLA in November 2018, which has been described by financial firm Argus as "unusually favourable" to the US company.

Little is known of EREPLA or its board of directors, with Reuters claiming that Harry Sargeant III, magnate and ex-Financial Chairman of the US Republican Party, is one of their owners. The small company, which was only legally registered in the US on November 8, 2018, a mere day before signing the PDVSA deal, has managed to extract a contract from PDVSA which revives a number of practices, previously eliminated in the Chavez-era, of oil so-called service contracts. PDVSA is yet to make any official comment on the deal, and analysts have already expressed concern that the deal violates Venezuela's 2001 Hydrocarbons Law.

The deal, which is extendable for a further 15 years, is due to bring US $500 million of investment to the Tia Juana, Rosa Mediano fields in Maracaibo Lake and the Ayacucho 5 field in the Orinoco Belt. It assigns 49.9 percent of the new mixed company to EREPLA, and passes 100 percent of the output to the US firm, which is expected to repatriate 50.1 percent of sale profits back to PDVSA.

Day to day running, purchasing, exporting, and the sale of the oil produced is to be completely controlled by EREPLA, except in the case of fulfilling PDVSA's hefty oil quota to China, which will be agreed upon by both parts.

Whilst EREPLA is due to supply the rigs and crews for the fields, other costs will be split between the two partners, whilst the US firm find themselves exempt from Venezuelan labour laws under the Service Contract clause, as well as from paying its share of the 30 percent oil royalty which PDVSA is due to cover.

"We believe that the new model created in this agreement is in the national interest of the United States," stated a Harry Sargeant Oil Management Group lawyer who signed the documents on behalf of EREPLA.

An EREPLA statement on the deal describes how it looks to "revitalise" Venezuela's oil industry. It goes on to explain that new terms and conditions have been applied as previous contracts "fermented corruption and bad management." EREPLA also argued that the deal will help prevent "US adversaries" such as Chinese and Russian firms from gaining further ground in the oil-rich country.

It is unclear at this point how the new deal will function in light of US financial sanctions against Caracas, as a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is still pending, but the statement assures that the company's work "will be carried out in accordance with the economic sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department."

Oil deals in Venezuela were notoriously favourable to foreign firms until 2001, in terms of profit [repatriation], labour laws, running costs, and local accountability, until Hugo Chavez' Hydrocarbons Law broke the tradition, ensuring Venezuelan control over joint ventures. Another Chavez decree in 2007 capped foreign participation in oil deals at 40 percent. However, in December 2017 the National Constituent Assembly approved a "Foreign Investment Law" meant to improve conditions for foreign capital investments in Venezuela.

A company that is incorporated only a day before it signs a major oil extraction and production deal (parts of which violate Venezuela's own laws governing working conditions and pay for Venezuelan workers and national control over joint ventures) with Venezuela? Does anyone else not smell a rat?

What could PDVSA have been thinking? Did it not enter their heads that EREPLA could be a front acting for elements in the US government?

Winston , Jan 29, 2019 6:29:45 PM | link
Venezeula has become the tipping point for loss of GRC for the USD. Venezeulan oil is being shipped to India, refined by the new Rosneft refinery then being sold in anything but USD. Added to the now over 100 country's that are rejecting the USD by using bi-lateral trade, KSA already selling in yuan, the desperation of Uncle Scam is palpable.

Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here.

bevin , Jan 29, 2019 6:57:37 PM | link
Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter.

It seems to me that the major blocs might be pulling back, and settling for easy gains. Not that this coup is likely to be easy, it may prove to be impossible. It may even prove to be the spark that sets Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and the rest of Latin America alight.
But the way the clowns in the White House- who haven't had a new idea since 1981-see it all resources will be mobilised to make the region safe for imperialism: Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia: in the proverbial cross hairs.

The second question |Why now?) could be a reflection of the fact that the neo-conservative axis has only recently re-established full spectrum domination over the White House. As the Hitler Youth Freeland has been hinting: the running in this matter has been made by the Lima Group in which Canada has been playing a leading and thoroughly despicable role. It was they who did the pseudo legalistic groundwork for the coup. No doubt Bolton et al found it convenient to have the Lima group demands presented to it on a plate. That meant that even Ponce, who together with Bolton and Pompeo takes the role of the Three Weird Sisters in this tragedy, could trigger the crisis with a phone call to Guido. Whose role is clearly to be martyred, probably by a CIA sniper, so that he can die, if not for his country at least for its corrupt elites. We've seen this movie before.

Guerrero , Jan 29, 2019 7:04:45 PM | link
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest -- that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.

Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both.

Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?

Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.

Melians . So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.

Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.

Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?

Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.

Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?

Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger.

Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.

Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are far stronger than you are...

[Jan 30, 2019] The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different.. ..."
"... His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today. ..."
"... Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here. ..."
"... Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter. ..."
Jan 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

spudski , Jan 29, 2019 3:33:53 PM | link

This article at https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/29/the-empires-propagandists/ may be of interest to some. Not saying that any of it is new to readers here nor is it exhaustive but imo a decent piece that pulls together a lot and might be interesting to those who mainly follow MSM.

An extract:

"The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance, attempts socialism, or transfers its nexus to another powerful state entity, like Russia or China for instance. If one chooses to do so it is instantly targeted for assault either by crippling economic sanctions or embargoes, which make governance nearly impossible and primarily harms the general population, or covert subversion, or by direct and indirect military intervention. And the corporate media, when it chooses to cover these issues, generally parrots State Department and Pentagon talking points and obfuscations about the intentions of the US government, the role of corporations and global capitalism, and the character of the governments the US happens to be opposing at the time. And all of this is done with virtually no historical analysis. But of course none of this is new."

jared , Jan 29, 2019 3:41:06 PM | link

@CE | Jan 29, 2019 2:14:34 PM | 2

It is interesting, the seeming rush to mess with Venezuela. I guess whether it was in fact rushed, depends on how much we want to believe the data we are fed. I believe it was and suspect that that was the reason for resumption of operation of the government - to support the intervention in Venezuela. Otherwise, it seemed like too sudden a reversal by Trump.

I think in their analysis of where to intervene next, they look at an array of factors:

  1. Venezuela is weak
  2. Venezuela espouses something like socialism
  3. Venezuela has been associating with unsavory "competitors"
  4. Venezuela is nearby (and very nearby our asset, Colombia)
  5. Venezuela can be portrayed as in need of humanitarian intervention
  6. Maduro has said some unkind things about U.S. government (Bush)
  7. Venezuela holds a grand prize

In there discusions, I assume the issue of right/wrong is not mentioned. Imagine someone attempting to raise the issue:
- But what will the media say?
- But what will the U.N. say?
- But what will the Pope say?
- But what will the voters say?
- But what will the other party say?
- But is it really the moral thing to do, what would God say?

james , Jan 29, 2019 3:53:58 PM | link
@19 ex-SA...

with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different..

i suppose the main difference is not being served up a regular diet of 'we are the greatest' bs, accounts for some of it.. the general curiousity about what the fuck is going on outside of the usa seems sorely lacking in people who live in the usa... maybe the media can be blamed for a chunk of this... generally canucks know a lot more about the usa, then the usa people know about canada.. that is something i have witnessed in my life.. but, the simple answer to your question is there isn't a lot of difference.. and yes - trudeau senior must be really disappointed in tru dope jr... he is nothing compared to his dad... canada is on a downhill trajectory and fast with this buffoon.. i expect worse in the next election too.. we will get our trump as we are one cycle behind..

Russ , Jan 29, 2019 4:25:07 PM | link
Re Thucydides

His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today.

Also, similar to some who get impatient with the seeming over-conservatism of Russia and China today, so the aggressive, hot-headed Corinthians and Thebans often get frustrated with the more conservative Spartans.

I wonder when/if there'll be an American version of the Athenians' disastrous Sicilian expedition.

Jen , Jan 29, 2019 4:38:32 PM | link
Attached to that Venezuelanalysis.com that CE linked to @ 2 was this odd piece of information:

"EREPLA deal "unusually favourable to foreign company"

... [A] 25-year deal was signed with unknown US based firm EREPLA in November 2018, which has been described by financial firm Argus as "unusually favourable" to the US company.

Little is known of EREPLA or its board of directors, with Reuters claiming that Harry Sargeant III, magnate and ex-Financial Chairman of the US Republican Party, is one of their owners. The small company, which was only legally registered in the US on November 8, 2018, a mere day before signing the PDVSA deal, has managed to extract a contract from PDVSA which revives a number of practices, previously eliminated in the Chavez-era, of oil so-called service contracts. PDVSA is yet to make any official comment on the deal, and analysts have already expressed concern that the deal violates Venezuela's 2001 Hydrocarbons Law.

The deal, which is extendable for a further 15 years, is due to bring US $500 million of investment to the Tia Juana, Rosa Mediano fields in Maracaibo Lake and the Ayacucho 5 field in the Orinoco Belt. It assigns 49.9 percent of the new mixed company to EREPLA, and passes 100 percent of the output to the US firm, which is expected to repatriate 50.1 percent of sale profits back to PDVSA.

Day to day running, purchasing, exporting, and the sale of the oil produced is to be completely controlled by EREPLA, except in the case of fulfilling PDVSA's hefty oil quota to China, which will be agreed upon by both parts.

Whilst EREPLA is due to supply the rigs and crews for the fields, other costs will be split between the two partners, whilst the US firm find themselves exempt from Venezuelan labour laws under the Service Contract clause, as well as from paying its share of the 30 percent oil royalty which PDVSA is due to cover.

"We believe that the new model created in this agreement is in the national interest of the United States," stated a Harry Sargeant Oil Management Group lawyer who signed the documents on behalf of EREPLA.

An EREPLA statement on the deal describes how it looks to "revitalise" Venezuela's oil industry. It goes on to explain that new terms and conditions have been applied as previous contracts "fermented corruption and bad management." EREPLA also argued that the deal will help prevent "US adversaries" such as Chinese and Russian firms from gaining further ground in the oil-rich country.

It is unclear at this point how the new deal will function in light of US financial sanctions against Caracas, as a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is still pending, but the statement assures that the company's work "will be carried out in accordance with the economic sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department."

Oil deals in Venezuela were notoriously favourable to foreign firms until 2001, in terms of profit [repatriation], labour laws, running costs, and local accountability, until Hugo Chavez' Hydrocarbons Law broke the tradition, ensuring Venezuelan control over joint ventures. Another Chavez decree in 2007 capped foreign participation in oil deals at 40 percent. However, in December 2017 the National Constituent Assembly approved a "Foreign Investment Law" meant to improve conditions for foreign capital investments in Venezuela.

A company that is incorporated only a day before it signs a major oil extraction and production deal (parts of which violate Venezuela's own laws governing working conditions and pay for Venezuelan workers and national control over joint ventures) with Venezuela? Does anyone else not smell a rat?

What could PDVSA have been thinking? Did it not enter their heads that EREPLA could be a front acting for elements in the US government?

Winston , Jan 29, 2019 6:29:45 PM | link
Venezeula has become the tipping point for loss of GRC for the USD. Venezeulan oil is being shipped to India, refined by the new Rosneft refinery then being sold in anything but USD. Added to the now over 100 country's that are rejecting the USD by using bi-lateral trade, KSA already selling in yuan, the desperation of Uncle Scam is palpable.

Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here.

bevin , Jan 29, 2019 6:57:37 PM | link
Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter.

It seems to me that the major blocs might be pulling back, and settling for easy gains. Not that this coup is likely to be easy, it may prove to be impossible. It may even prove to be the spark that sets Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and the rest of Latin America alight.
But the way the clowns in the White House- who haven't had a new idea since 1981-see it all resources will be mobilised to make the region safe for imperialism: Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia: in the proverbial cross hairs.

The second question |Why now?) could be a reflection of the fact that the neo-conservative axis has only recently re-established full spectrum domination over the White House. As the Hitler Youth Freeland has been hinting: the running in this matter has been made by the Lima Group in which Canada has been playing a leading and thoroughly despicable role. It was they who did the pseudo legalistic groundwork for the coup. No doubt Bolton et al found it convenient to have the Lima group demands presented to it on a plate. That meant that even Ponce, who together with Bolton and Pompeo takes the role of the Three Weird Sisters in this tragedy, could trigger the crisis with a phone call to Guido. Whose role is clearly to be martyred, probably by a CIA sniper, so that he can die, if not for his country at least for its corrupt elites. We've seen this movie before.

Guerrero , Jan 29, 2019 7:04:45 PM | link
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest -- that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.

Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both.

Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?

Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.

Melians . So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.

Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.

Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?

Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.

Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?

Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger.

Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.

Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are far stronger than you are...

[Jan 30, 2019] The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go home

Jan 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

NAV 4 hours ago

Jason Raimondo's hopes that the tide slowly was turning against the War Party with Trump's appointment of Tillerson are dashed for good with the appointments of Abrams, Bolton and Pompeo. The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go home. Raimondo wrote of Abrams in 2017 in "The End of Globalism":

Excerpt:

Oh yes, the times they are a changin', as Bob Dylan once put it, and here's the evidence :

"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to redefine its mission and issue a new statement of purpose to the world. The draft statements under review right now are similar to the old mission statement, except for one thing – any mention of promoting democracy is being eliminated."

All the usual suspects are in a tizzy . Elliott Abrams , he of Contra-gate fame , and one of the purest of the neoconservative ideologues , is cited in the Washington Post piece as being quite unhappy: "The only significant difference is the deletion of justice and democracy. We used to want a just and democratic word, and now apparently we don't."

Abrams' contribution to a just and democratic world is well-known : supporting a military dictatorship in El Salvador during the 1980s that slaughtered thousand s, and then testifying before Congress that massive human rights violations by the US-supported regime were Communist "propaganda." US policy, of which he was one of the principal architects, led to the lawlessness that now plagues that country, which has a higher murder rate than Iraq: in Abrams' view, the Reagan policy of supporting a military dictatorship was "a fabulous achievement." The same murderous policy was pursued in Nicaragua while Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, as the US tried to overthrow a democratically elected government and provoked a civil war that led to the death of many thousands . In Honduras and Guatemala , Abrams was instrumental in covering up heinous atrocities committed by US-supported regimes.

And it was all done in the name of "promoting democracy." http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2017/08/01/the-end-of-globalism/

And, now, Venezuela. The economic hit man has arrived.

" 'I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National city Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." -- Smedley Butler

Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago (Edited)

...The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.

napper, 4 hours ago (Edited)

He will, if he gets a second term!!!

Abrams' appointment is no accident or mistake. By now even the most casual (but intelligent) observer should have seen through Donald Trump's contemptuous disregard for legal institutions and a criminal propensity for lawlessness.

Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago(Edited)

And most American sheeple are dumb as a pile of rocks. The few good people left are largely powerless and have to deal with so much BS in all directions. I hope they will get through the coming implosion with their sanity intact.

Glad I left that shithole. I saw it coming. What's coming won't be pretty.

CananTheConrearian1, 3 hours ago

OK, Great Mind, name a populace that is as smart as Americans. Europeans? Chinese? We're glad you left, ********.

[Jan 30, 2019] Just one more to a long list of Trump appointments. I believe Trump is some kind of pervert, like the ones that like to get whipped, only Trump likes to get stabbed in the back

Jan 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

XXX

Just one more to a long list of Trump appointments. I believe Trump is some kind of pervert, like the ones that like to get whipped, only Trump likes to get stabbed in the back. XXX , 34 minutes ago

He does what Sheldon and Bibi tell him.

You think you're so ******* smart, but this some how eludes you?

YYY, 3 hours ago (Edited)

Donald Trump's House of Cons, Clowns, Crappolas, Criminals, and Conspirators:

  1. Mike Pence
  2. Mike Pompeo
  3. Steven Mnuchin
  4. John Bolton
  5. Elliot Abrams
  6. Nikki Haley
  7. Gina Haspel
  8. Peter Navarro
  9. Wilbur Ross
  10. Kirstjen Nielsen
  11. Robert Lighthizer
  12. Dan Coats

[Jan 30, 2019] The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go home

Jan 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

NAV 4 hours ago

Jason Raimondo's hopes that the tide slowly was turning against the War Party with Trump's appointment of Tillerson are dashed for good with the appointments of Abrams, Bolton and Pompeo. The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go home. Raimondo wrote of Abrams in 2017 in "The End of Globalism":

Excerpt:

Oh yes, the times they are a changin', as Bob Dylan once put it, and here's the evidence :

"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to redefine its mission and issue a new statement of purpose to the world. The draft statements under review right now are similar to the old mission statement, except for one thing – any mention of promoting democracy is being eliminated."

All the usual suspects are in a tizzy . Elliott Abrams , he of Contra-gate fame , and one of the purest of the neoconservative ideologues , is cited in the Washington Post piece as being quite unhappy: "The only significant difference is the deletion of justice and democracy. We used to want a just and democratic word, and now apparently we don't."

Abrams' contribution to a just and democratic world is well-known : supporting a military dictatorship in El Salvador during the 1980s that slaughtered thousand s, and then testifying before Congress that massive human rights violations by the US-supported regime were Communist "propaganda." US policy, of which he was one of the principal architects, led to the lawlessness that now plagues that country, which has a higher murder rate than Iraq: in Abrams' view, the Reagan policy of supporting a military dictatorship was "a fabulous achievement." The same murderous policy was pursued in Nicaragua while Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, as the US tried to overthrow a democratically elected government and provoked a civil war that led to the death of many thousands . In Honduras and Guatemala , Abrams was instrumental in covering up heinous atrocities committed by US-supported regimes.

And it was all done in the name of "promoting democracy." http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2017/08/01/the-end-of-globalism/

And, now, Venezuela. The economic hit man has arrived.

" 'I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National city Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." -- Smedley Butler

Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago (Edited)

...The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.

napper, 4 hours ago (Edited)

He will, if he gets a second term!!!

Abrams' appointment is no accident or mistake. By now even the most casual (but intelligent) observer should have seen through Donald Trump's contemptuous disregard for legal institutions and a criminal propensity for lawlessness.

Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago(Edited)

And most American sheeple are dumb as a pile of rocks. The few good people left are largely powerless and have to deal with so much BS in all directions. I hope they will get through the coming implosion with their sanity intact.

Glad I left that shithole. I saw it coming. What's coming won't be pretty.

CananTheConrearian1, 3 hours ago

OK, Great Mind, name a populace that is as smart as Americans. Europeans? Chinese? We're glad you left, ********.

[Jan 29, 2019] Guardian became Deep State Guardian

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they come across a particularly adorable baby. ..."
"... I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's books and media appearances. ..."
"... George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one). ..."
"... That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems these people don't have a conscience. ..."
"... Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking, oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's. ..."
"... The Deep State Guardian. Why don't they just change their name to 'The Daily Thatcherite' and have done with it. ..."
"... They should just show it's full title: The Guardian Of The Establishment ..."
"... well, yeah. but for us mad people it goes deeper even than that: https://geopolitics.co/2018/12/02/in-memoriam-george-h-scherff-jr-aka-george-hw-bush-sr/ ..."
Dec 22, 2018 | off-guardian.org

Oslo - Norway, Dec 4, 2018

Let's never forget George H W Bush's love for incubator babies. He loved fake incubator babies.

The incubator baby actress wasn't just any 15 year old, she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Canada –

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cqiq8P8dRtY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Philpot, Dec 4, 2018
British and most western media are either in the direct or indirect pay of their governments. What journalist can expose this for us? Any of you willing to make the biggest scoop of the 21st century? Tom Bradbury at ITN must be on the spook payroll, for starters? MI6 had foreign correspondents for years, but domestic mouthpieces must now be on the take too? All paid to demonise Russia and Putin.
harry stotle, Dec 4, 2018

The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they come across a particularly adorable baby.

Simon 'white helmets' Tisdall is especially egregious – one can imagine him throwing darts at a picture of Putin while producing his latest homily to the murderous actions of gangsters like Bush and his crime family.

Its hard not to despair now this has become the official face of Britains so-called liberal media.

Yarkob, Dec 4, 2018
I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's books and media appearances. As with Michael White, with whom I had a very illuminating argument via email a few years back. He *is* an asset, not a journalist (and a massive dick, to boot)
George cornell, Dec 4, 2018
I thought the attitude of the Bush family to their fellow Americans was best illustrated by Barbara's response to the plight of the homeless victims of Katrina who had been transported to the Houston domed stadium. They spent their nights there sleeping on hard benches and when good ole Babs heard of it, she opined that they probably had never had it so good so why were they complaining. Could Mother Theresa have had greater generosity of spirit?
Gekaufte Journalisten (bought journalism), Dec 4, 2018
Not just one article, the awful Guardian is full of contents eulogising [yet another] mongrel of a president.

But look at conservative media. The crazy Infowars.com described this Bush as an Anti-American Globalist and Traitor!! .. and zerohedge.com is celebrating: "The Evil Has Died" and "In 2016 he voted for Hillary Clinton, because the Deep State Swamp sticks together". https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-02/exploring-dark-side-bush-41

Just tell me, who is the rabid neo-con right-wing rag that is glorifying wars and mass murderers?

Norcal, Dec 4, 2018
Speaking of neighbors you might appreciate this excellent Journalism by Robert Parry: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/03/bush-41s-october-surprise-denials-2/
DunGroanin, Dec 4, 2018
The late Robert Parry, sad to say. Maybe that now both the 'MacBeths' are stains on the tarmac – Parry's notes of the bloodstained legacy of that dynasty can finally be displayed? That Barbara was one cold blooded mother! Would have happily pulled a trigger on JFK, MLK herself (some think).

Just about the whole century from the setup of the Fed, the two world wars, the depression, Hitler, Korea, Cuba all of it, had a a Bush hand in it. He was the self crowned Caesar having publicly executed the whole of Camelot and left us with a poison toad, reminds us how low the Bush's took the USA.

David Eire, Dec 3, 2018
George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one).
Loverat, Dec 4, 2018
That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems these people don't have a conscience. If you surround yourself with people of similar mindset and in a climate where war is considered obligatory for US Presidents, you go into self denial. Wars are probably like an addiction for these people and once you get to that stage you no longer have a conscience.

During John McCain's funeral where all living ex-presidents were in attendance, someone remarked on Twitter, 'Quick, lock the church doors and hold the war crimes trial in the church!'. This was a far more realistic observation than the sickening McCain apologist BBC coverage we were subjected to.

At the weekend I went to the place where Oliver Cromwell lived. There was an American tourist who told us she was shocked about Oliver Cromwell being dug up from his grave and his head stuck on a pike. She said it was gruesome. I was tempted to say that at least that was 350 years ago, and similar things are happening today in Iraq, Syria and Libya – all places where the US has instigated the chaos and supports the perpretators. I resisted the temptation.

I note that Cromwell thought he was chosen by God to do what he did. But again that was in different times and there were some redeeming factors in what he did, Probably on par with Obama – who wreaked havoc on the Middle East but reached agreements on Iran and Cuba. Plus Obama looked cool while killing and droning.

But what goes around comes around. I sense the pure evil involved in the current regime change wars, government, media etc will pay a heavy price – whether in this life or the next.

mark, Dec 4, 2018
The state controlled BBC has just done another puff piece on McCain saying what a splendid chap and great statesman and all round good egg he was.

The MSM likes to slag off Vlad The Bad by droning on about how he was in the KGB. But Bush wasn't just IN the CIA, he was the BOSS of the CIA, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Central American peasant farmers and Indians were being killed by CIA trained and orchestrated death squads.

Gezzah Potts, Dec 4, 2018
Mark: jayzus Mark, don't you just want to projectile vomit when you see all this absolute bullshit, just straight out revising of history, just the lies, on and on . I was involved in a Central American solidarity group in the 1980s – early 90s here in Aussie, found out then all about U.S style 'democracatic values' and 'human rights concerns' and death squads and various fascists fully supported by the United States, and places like Guatemala and Nicaragua. Its all an illusion for 'polite society' and the gullible to believe in. Sigh
mark, Dec 5, 2018
I can't remember the exact figures but I think it was over 200,000 murdered in Guatemala out of a population of 4 million. It was the same story in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. And of course the CIA satrap Noriega was hauled off in chains when that country was invaded. But Uncle Sam is finally paying a price for his antics south of the border. Those societies were wrecked and brutalised beyond repair. There is now an unbelievably high murder rate of women in Guatemala. Millions of those people have sought some kind of refuge in the belly of the beast, causing an immigration crisis, with an illegal immigrant population that may be as high as 30 million. Hence all the uproar over Trump's wall. The immigration crisis was a factor in Trump's election, just as the tidal wave of migrants from the destroyed countries of the Middle East was a factor in Brexit. Cameron, Sarko and Clinton thought it was a spiffing idea and quite a wizard wheeze to bomb Libya back to the Stone Age. So we now have a Mad Max failed state complete with warlords and slave markets just across the Med. What goes around, comes around. You can't expect to export violence and mayhem abroad and remain immune to it at home.
Gezzah Potts, Dec 5, 2018
Mark: after Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a coup in Guatemala in 1982, US Ambassador Frederick Chapin declared that thanks to the coup of Rios Montt "the Guatemalan Govt has come out of the darkness into the light". That sums it up in one sentence, and you're probably aware of the mass killing and disappearances under his genocidal tyranny. Reagan kindly submitted that Rios Montt was 'getting a bum rap on human rights, the same Reagan who declared the Contra's were 'The moral equal of our founding fathers'. In El Salvador, the same mass slaughter, the same mass upheaval, and even murdering Archbishop Romero. You only need to look at what happened in Central & South America to understand what the United States really represents.
Jen, Dec 4, 2018
I would have bypassed the war crimes trial, locked the church and then built a moat stocked with crocodiles and piranhas around it.
mark, Dec 4, 2018
That's entirely right. People understandably despise and revile people like Brady and Hindley, Sutcliffe, Dahmer, Bundy and the like. But they killed a handful of people and were often very damaged individuals to begin with. And at least they did their own dirty work. Subhuman scum sucking filth like Bush, Bush 2, Obama, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Blair, Straw and Campbell are a thousand times worse. They kill millions without getting their hands dirty, and preen and posture as great statesmen and public servants, expecting deference and state funerals and puff piece obituaries from nauseating, loathsome, lickspittle media hacks like Tisdall.
Caitlin Ni Chonaill, Dec 6, 2018
You left out Kissinger and Albright.
Gezzah Potts, Dec 3, 2018
Nailed it Kit. The attempt at revionism and rewriting history by these craven creatures, these sycophantic slimebag shills for Imperialism and War and the Anglo Zionist Empire. They don't speak truth to power, they protect and grovel to the powerful. The eulogising and fawning of Bush was stomach churning, as it was for the arch Imperialist McCain when he croaked. Thank God for alternative news sites, and yeah Caitlin Johnston @ medium nailed it as well, as Fair Dinkum mentioned. Where's John Pilger when you need him?
Badger Down, Dec 3, 2018
GBH Bush's Highway of Death deserves mention. I'll spare you the pictures.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=highway+of+death+desert+storm&t=h_&atb=v92-2_f&ia=web
systemicfraud, Dec 3, 2018
What no one seems to realize is that the VP often takes charge of the US National Security Council when POTUS is not able to attend meetings, which are held weekly. Under Eisenhower it was Richard Nixon who often took charge of the meetings -- Tim Weiner's book "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" gives some details on this. Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking, oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's.
Fair dinkum, Dec 3, 2018
Caitlin sums it up: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/12/01/if-you-murdered-a-bunch-of-people-mass-murder-is-your-single-defining-legacy/
Simon Hodges, Dec 3, 2018
The Deep State Guardian. Why don't they just change their name to 'The Daily Thatcherite' and have done with it.
Frankly Speaking, Dec 4, 2018
They should just show it's full title: The Guardian Of The Establishment
kevin morris, Dec 3, 2018
'Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years' by Russ Baker -- a fascinating account of the Bush family's involvement in a great deal of nefarious activity. Bush senior is one of the few people who didn't remember where he was when Kennedy was shot. Baker puts him in Dallas.
lysias, Dec 4, 2018
Now that G.H.W. Bush hss died, is there anybody suspected of involvement in the JFK assassination still alive?
kevin morris, Dec 4, 2018
I don't know but as a fairly apolitical individual, I never much bothered with the Kennedy Assasination. All that changed when during the fiftieth anniversary, BBC Radio Four ran a program which included an interview with the Dallas police officer who was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. The consensus of that program was that the case was open shut and Oswald did it. Around that time, several newspapers in the UK featured articles claiming that Oswald acted alone.

Whether or not anyone actively involved still lives, their descendants still do and the probable organising body too. There still appears to be determination in some quarters to spread disinformation about the case. Given that as long ago as the late seventies the House of Representatives Assassination Committee concluded that JFK's death was probably the consequence of a conspiracy, determination amongst the mainstream media to lay Kennedy's death at the hands of Oswald alone suggests that there is still determination that the truth never becomes public.

Frankly Speaking, Dec 3, 2018
Exactly what i was thinking!

I'm sickened by the Guardian's and BBC's obedience to the US neocon project to seek, or create, and destroy "enemies" and whilst ignoring all the disgusting atrocities that arise as a consequence.

The Guardian is not even worth the paper it's printed on. It's become The Guardian Of The Establishment rather than of the Truth which it used to proclaim.

George cornell, Dec 4, 2018
It is in danger of losing its budgie-cage-liner status. If budgies can talk they may refuse to evacuate on it. What kind of person maintains ties to such a a poor excuse for cage toiletry. The moral crunch time for their journalists (actually their opinionists) came and went a long time ago.
Brutally Remastered, Dec 3, 2018
What a great piece. My parents knew them in New York and they came over once and left behind an embossed packet of White House cigs. I asked my father (before he died) what he thought of them and all he ever said was he thought that Barbara was the intellect in the family.
Bloody annoying, thanks Pater.
Marianne Birkby, Dec 3, 2018
From 2004

"The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in Iraq broke a 46-year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war continues to be used more and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth (estimated at 4.5 billion years). The long-term effects from over a decade of DU exposures are devastating. The increased quantities of radioactive material used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5 times greater than Iraq, 1991. In Iraq, 2003, they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991, and will travel through a larger area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000-mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected by radiation poisoning

Badger Down, Dec 3, 2018
"DU remains radioactive longer than [ ] 4.5 billion years." It's worse than that. It loses half of its radioactivity in that time. The good news is that that slow release means "D"U doesn't zap you much. The bad news is it's chemically toxic, like a heavy metal (which it is).
nwwoods, Dec 3, 2018
Also no mention of the body of circumstantial evidence linking Bush to JFK's murder, though Bush repeatedly insisted that he couldn't recall his whereabouts that day (I can precisely recall where I was, and I was 9 years old in 1963), in spite of the fact that solid documentary evidence exists that puts him in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963.
Norcal, Dec 4, 2018
The very first Google Search I did was this, (George H.W. Bush+November 22, 1963) and it yielded a page like the following link, which began my research into the JFK Assassination.

http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=5420

nomad, Dec 3, 2018

well, yeah. but for us mad people it goes deeper even than that: https://geopolitics.co/2018/12/02/in-memoriam-george-h-scherff-jr-aka-george-hw-bush-sr/

Bush Sr. : Crypto-Nazi patriarch and his disciples
https://eclinik.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/barbara-bush-funeral-four-presidents-four-first-ladies.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1

[Jan 29, 2019] WTF Is Trump Thinking - A Plum Post For A Prominent Opponent

Who is next? Paul Wolfowitz now would be the most logical choice. Id the invasion of Venezuela decided already, like Iraq war under Bush II.
That means that Rump can say goodbye to independents who votes for him because of his anti-foreign wars noises during previous election campaign
Notable quotes:
"... Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra. ..."
"... Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion. ..."
"... At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. ..."
"... Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests. ..."
"... Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation? ..."
"... Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot. ..."
"... If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition. ..."
"... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that. ..."
"... Trump loves those Bush criminals. ..."
Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Joseph Duggan via American Greatness,

On Friday, following the dramatic arrest of a prominent Trump supporter on charges of lying to Congress, President Trump gave one of the nation's most sensitive national security and diplomatic posts to another controversial figure who already had been convicted of lying to Congress.

Not at all. Turns out, the appointee is one of the president's worst enemies, a man forcefully opposed to almost all of Trump's policies and campaign promises, a man who repeatedly has said Trump is morally unfit for his office. He is Elliott Abrams, the 71-year-old éminence grise of the NeverTrump movement.

Abrams is the pre-eminent prophet and practitioner of hyper-interventionist approaches to destabilize or overthrow governments - of foes and friends alike - that do not pass his democracy-is-the-end-all-and-be-all litmus test. His closest friends and associates, from whom his political positions are indistinguishable, include some of President Trump's most rabid enemies, false-flag "conservatives" Bill Kristol and Max Boot.

Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra.

After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion.

At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. Trump, who would have had to sign off on the nomination, rejected Abrams when he learned of Abrams' background. The truth about Abrams, while not by any means a secret, came to Trump's attention from Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Paul, who held a deciding vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would block Abrams if he were nominated.

Abrams already knew then what Trump took nearly a year to discover, that Tillerson was hopelessly unprepared to serve as the nation's chief diplomat and indeed was, as Trump colorfully put it, "dumb as a rock." Nothing about Abrams, the NeverTrumper who believes Trump cannot govern effectively without him, has changed since then.

Following his rejection by Trump, Abrams wrote a sour-grapes article for Politico , disparaging the president, along with Vice President Pence and Abrams' erstwhile patron Tillerson, for not having international human rights policies identical to Abrams' own views.

Abrams has been outspoken against sensitive Trump international policies right up to the moment of his surprise appointment. He is unapologetic about his role in masterminding the Iraq war. He has opposed Trump concerning American troops in Syria and America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. As recently as January 14, 2019, he published a withering attack on Trump's Middle East policies and diplomacy.

As events in Venezuela last week reached a crisis with rival claimants to the nation's presidency, Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests.

Immediately? An appointee to a sensitive post needs a background investigation and security clearance. These investigations can take months. If he indeed has a valid clearance, that means his appointment was decided long ago.

Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation?

What is Pompeo thinking? Has Pompeo read Abrams' anti-Trump articles? In particular, has he read Abrams' January 14 anti-Trump article that mocks Pompeo with a hugely unflattering photo of the secretary of state?

What is going on?

Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot.

If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition.

So far there are no signs of this.

What did Trump know about the new Abrams appointment, and when did he know it?

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 4 minutes ago link

It's amazing seeing the holdout Trump supporters continually writhe in mental contortions to support his every move..as I've said all along..TDS affects the sheep on both right and left equally.

Brazen Heist II 4 minutes ago (Edited)

... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.

uhland62, 5 minutes ago

This guy is just picking up a couple more paychecks. He may think he can whip up Trump for more wars, Trump may think he can control this guy because 'I am President and you are not'. The main thing is that the military can make more wars and destroy more countries.

The-Post, 15 minutes ago

Trump loves those Bush criminals.

readerandthinker

Venezuelan army defectors appeal to Trump for weapons

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN)Venezuelan army defectors are calling on the Trump administration to arm them, in what they call their quest for "freedom."

Former soldiers Carlos Guillen Martinez and Josue Hidalgo Azuaje, who live outside the country, told CNN they want US military assistance to equip others inside the beleaguered nation. They claim to be in contact with hundreds of willing defectors and have called on enlisted Venezuelan soldiers to revolt against the Maduro regime, through television broadcasts.

"As Venezuelan soldiers, we are making a request to the US to support us, in logistical terms, with communication, with weapons, so we can realize Venezuelan freedom," Guillen Martinez told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/americas/venezuela-army-defectors-plea-for-arms/index.html

[Jan 29, 2019] Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushes

Notable quotes:
"... War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme. ..."
"... Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation. ..."
"... He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom. ..."
"... So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob ..."
"... Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job. ..."
"... When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****. ..."
"... I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****. ..."
"... it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails. ..."
"... After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. ..."
Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
LOL123 , 33 minutes ago link

Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushys.

  • Abrams lied to Congress twice about his role with the Contras. He pleaded guilty to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned by George H.W. Bush just before the latter left office.
  • A decade later, while working as special Middle East adviser to President George Ws Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate of the disastrous Iraq invasion.
  • Abrams was also in the Bush White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002 against the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
  • Abrams helped lead the U.S. effort to stage a coup to overturn the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, complete with murder and torture.

War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme.

This is the precise crap people were hoping to avoid with Trump, but the left has put Trump administration in a vice by having constant fires to put out and disyractions with FALE RUSSIAN COLLUSION

... It's a psychological ploy to wear down the President and search for legitimate excuse to gain public opinion to go against Russia and they found it. Venezuela is a **** hole from socialism which AOL and dems are embracing now. Of course having sorry liberal advisors like Kushner doesn't help... That is a huge mistake to have the opposition ( democrate Kushner and wife) in the hen house with great pursasive power over an overwhelm Trump... Strategy working.

But politics as it is run mostly out of " The City of London" and old lynn Rothschild wanted puppet Hillary in ( Rothschild's play dirty to get what they want and hold a full house of cards with the financial tools to " persuade people to their way of thinking"... A battle us penny picker uppers must live with.... It's the only change we get.

Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation.

Onan_the_Barbarian , 23 minutes ago link

Trump is being attacked from all sides. His only "friends" in Washington are the snakes of the neocon MIC. What did you think would happen?

schroedingersrat , 16 minutes ago link

He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom.

Southern Cross , 25 minutes ago link

So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob

snatchpounder , 31 minutes ago link

Abrams was convicted of lying to congress meanwhile congress lies to us all day everyday and what happens to those bastards? They vote themselves raises and sit on their *** all day taking bribes from their paymasters and writing laws and regulations to control their chattel. Yes I hate politicians because they're ******* criminals and all of them and the useless bureaucrats that infest that cesspool in D.C should be out of work permanently.

2handband , 10 minutes ago link

Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job.

Aristofani , 37 minutes ago link

When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****.

I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****.

dogfish , 32 minutes ago link

Trumps first order was a raid in Yemen where an 8 year old little girl was murdered.

Aristofani , 31 minutes ago link

apologies. I forgot that example of US empire evil ****.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 29 minutes ago link

You're excused...it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 31 minutes ago link

But at least the swamp is about to be drained.. in Venezuela lol

Aristofani , 24 minutes ago link

:) Funny

Seriously though, it's interesting that ZH has said nothing about the big corruption scandal going on now in Brasil. The guy who won on platform of anti-corruption has been exposed within a month of taking office, surprise...surprise, as part of one of the worst. Talk is vp taking over with the backing of the military. "soft-hard" coup you could say.

TGF Texas , 28 minutes ago link

I too, got very angry about the exact things you mention. However, I perspective is something that keeps me grounded. Remember what was happening in 2016, and what the options were. Remember BLM, march's in like every city, and Cops getting ambushed every few weeks?

Remember, "We came, We saw, he died", from Queen Hillary? Or how about Queen Hillary calling Putin a Thug, and saying we had to stand up to him in Ukraine, and Syria?

PERSPECTIVE!!

Aristofani , 16 minutes ago link

dude, we all know she is part of the same ****. The ******** election is over, the plutocracy chose their puppet. Think of it, sure Killary would have done the same, but she wouldn't have been able to get away with it and the schizoid msm would have had a breakdown trying to sell the same ol, same ol us empire games. People don't like surprises. Repubelicans as aggressive warmongers doesnt surprise. Sadly they think they cant do anything about it. But they can, and not by talking **** on ZH.

See Ralph Nader's, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress for tips.

Whoa Dammit , 15 minutes ago link

Just because some other people have done worse things does not make what Trump is doing with his personnel selections okay.

pitchforksanonymous , 37 minutes ago link

It's 10 dimensional to the fifth power chess right? Just kidding. It's a big club and you ain't in it. Trump is not going to save you. Did you really think one guy defied the odds and overcame the voter fraud and beat Hillary? Puhleez. All by design. You're watching a movie...

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 28 minutes ago link

Bonus points for you if you can name the first "third party" in American history. Oh **** it, it was the anti-masonic party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Masonic_Party

HushHushSweet , 55 minutes ago link

Look. At. That. Nose. Trump didn't appoint him; Trump's masters did.

gaasp , 57 minutes ago link

After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief.

Didn't W run on a 'bring the troops home and world leave us alone' platform in 2000?

Aristofani , 50 minutes ago link

They all have.

g speed , 1 hour ago link

when i think about what Trump did so far I think about that mandatory Obama care tax that I had to pay if I* didn't get Obama care Well it's gone and that was a big deal for me cause I've got four kids that would have to pay it and that would be six thousand out of pocket every year that's for starters with out Trump running interference in the FL house and senate elections we'd have Obama lite new and antique Bill still that makes a huge difference in things like taxes and EPA enforcement in this state I really think he has made the general public more aware of the Mexican invasion cause I see less and less Latinos on the jobs sites around here He has really caused the Dems to lose it Trump did that not any other politician he has exposed election fraud he has exposed the deep state like never before

Yes I'm a Trump supporter a thoughtful one I consider the options and will go with this till it impacts me negatively on an economic personal level not an emotional one brought on by pundits and MSM never Trump ilk

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 44 minutes ago link

Confirmation bias is killing you slowly. Trump is the master of it, even though I think he's the slime of the earth.

g speed , 11 minutes ago link

why don't you ask me if I think he is perfect I think his wife is pretty much ok however I hate that he is from NYC and acts like it his friends are not much to be proud of and his social skills are lacking but I think he showers regularly and has good hygiene and moral habits except for golf but that's just me He's a bossy kind of guy and I might not get along with him He doesn't do things country folks do and wouldn't fit in around here his hair sucks and is a narcissistic affectation for sure but i like his foreign policy so far how am i doing think I'm being killed slowly I liked Ike but he was weak and I liked Buchanan bur preferred Goldwater and on and on they are politicians and deserve the loyalty they give and " that's all I have to say about that"

schroedingersrat , 48 minutes ago link

Trump is a psychopath and he loves to hire even bigger psychopaths. Your whole admin is a swamp of sociopaths, psychopaths and other sick deranged people.

TGF Texas , 42 minutes ago link

When did he hire Hillary?

schroedingersrat , 38 minutes ago link

There is not much difference between Hillary and Pompeo. Pompeo is basically hillary with a **** and a religious twist

TGF Texas , 26 minutes ago link

Did CNN tell you that?

schroedingersrat , 20 minutes ago link

Im European and the only US news i read is ZH & Counterpunch

[Jan 29, 2019] Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushes

Notable quotes:
"... War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme. ..."
"... Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation. ..."
"... He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom. ..."
"... So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob ..."
"... Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job. ..."
"... When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****. ..."
"... I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****. ..."
"... it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails. ..."
"... After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. ..."
Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
LOL123 , 33 minutes ago link

Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushys.

  • Abrams lied to Congress twice about his role with the Contras. He pleaded guilty to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned by George H.W. Bush just before the latter left office.
  • A decade later, while working as special Middle East adviser to President George Ws Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate of the disastrous Iraq invasion.
  • Abrams was also in the Bush White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002 against the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
  • Abrams helped lead the U.S. effort to stage a coup to overturn the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, complete with murder and torture.

War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme.

This is the precise crap people were hoping to avoid with Trump, but the left has put Trump administration in a vice by having constant fires to put out and disyractions with FALE RUSSIAN COLLUSION

... It's a psychological ploy to wear down the President and search for legitimate excuse to gain public opinion to go against Russia and they found it. Venezuela is a **** hole from socialism which AOL and dems are embracing now. Of course having sorry liberal advisors like Kushner doesn't help... That is a huge mistake to have the opposition ( democrate Kushner and wife) in the hen house with great pursasive power over an overwhelm Trump... Strategy working.

But politics as it is run mostly out of " The City of London" and old lynn Rothschild wanted puppet Hillary in ( Rothschild's play dirty to get what they want and hold a full house of cards with the financial tools to " persuade people to their way of thinking"... A battle us penny picker uppers must live with.... It's the only change we get.

Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation.

Onan_the_Barbarian , 23 minutes ago link

Trump is being attacked from all sides. His only "friends" in Washington are the snakes of the neocon MIC. What did you think would happen?

schroedingersrat , 16 minutes ago link

He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom.

Southern Cross , 25 minutes ago link

So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob

snatchpounder , 31 minutes ago link

Abrams was convicted of lying to congress meanwhile congress lies to us all day everyday and what happens to those bastards? They vote themselves raises and sit on their *** all day taking bribes from their paymasters and writing laws and regulations to control their chattel. Yes I hate politicians because they're ******* criminals and all of them and the useless bureaucrats that infest that cesspool in D.C should be out of work permanently.

2handband , 10 minutes ago link

Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job.

Aristofani , 37 minutes ago link

When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****.

I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****.

dogfish , 32 minutes ago link

Trumps first order was a raid in Yemen where an 8 year old little girl was murdered.

Aristofani , 31 minutes ago link

apologies. I forgot that example of US empire evil ****.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 29 minutes ago link

You're excused...it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 31 minutes ago link

But at least the swamp is about to be drained.. in Venezuela lol

Aristofani , 24 minutes ago link

:) Funny

Seriously though, it's interesting that ZH has said nothing about the big corruption scandal going on now in Brasil. The guy who won on platform of anti-corruption has been exposed within a month of taking office, surprise...surprise, as part of one of the worst. Talk is vp taking over with the backing of the military. "soft-hard" coup you could say.

TGF Texas , 28 minutes ago link

I too, got very angry about the exact things you mention. However, I perspective is something that keeps me grounded. Remember what was happening in 2016, and what the options were. Remember BLM, march's in like every city, and Cops getting ambushed every few weeks?

Remember, "We came, We saw, he died", from Queen Hillary? Or how about Queen Hillary calling Putin a Thug, and saying we had to stand up to him in Ukraine, and Syria?

PERSPECTIVE!!

Aristofani , 16 minutes ago link

dude, we all know she is part of the same ****. The ******** election is over, the plutocracy chose their puppet. Think of it, sure Killary would have done the same, but she wouldn't have been able to get away with it and the schizoid msm would have had a breakdown trying to sell the same ol, same ol us empire games. People don't like surprises. Repubelicans as aggressive warmongers doesnt surprise. Sadly they think they cant do anything about it. But they can, and not by talking **** on ZH.

See Ralph Nader's, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress for tips.

Whoa Dammit , 15 minutes ago link

Just because some other people have done worse things does not make what Trump is doing with his personnel selections okay.

pitchforksanonymous , 37 minutes ago link

It's 10 dimensional to the fifth power chess right? Just kidding. It's a big club and you ain't in it. Trump is not going to save you. Did you really think one guy defied the odds and overcame the voter fraud and beat Hillary? Puhleez. All by design. You're watching a movie...

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 28 minutes ago link

Bonus points for you if you can name the first "third party" in American history. Oh **** it, it was the anti-masonic party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Masonic_Party

HushHushSweet , 55 minutes ago link

Look. At. That. Nose. Trump didn't appoint him; Trump's masters did.

gaasp , 57 minutes ago link

After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief.

Didn't W run on a 'bring the troops home and world leave us alone' platform in 2000?

Aristofani , 50 minutes ago link

They all have.

g speed , 1 hour ago link

when i think about what Trump did so far I think about that mandatory Obama care tax that I had to pay if I* didn't get Obama care Well it's gone and that was a big deal for me cause I've got four kids that would have to pay it and that would be six thousand out of pocket every year that's for starters with out Trump running interference in the FL house and senate elections we'd have Obama lite new and antique Bill still that makes a huge difference in things like taxes and EPA enforcement in this state I really think he has made the general public more aware of the Mexican invasion cause I see less and less Latinos on the jobs sites around here He has really caused the Dems to lose it Trump did that not any other politician he has exposed election fraud he has exposed the deep state like never before

Yes I'm a Trump supporter a thoughtful one I consider the options and will go with this till it impacts me negatively on an economic personal level not an emotional one brought on by pundits and MSM never Trump ilk

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 44 minutes ago link

Confirmation bias is killing you slowly. Trump is the master of it, even though I think he's the slime of the earth.

g speed , 11 minutes ago link

why don't you ask me if I think he is perfect I think his wife is pretty much ok however I hate that he is from NYC and acts like it his friends are not much to be proud of and his social skills are lacking but I think he showers regularly and has good hygiene and moral habits except for golf but that's just me He's a bossy kind of guy and I might not get along with him He doesn't do things country folks do and wouldn't fit in around here his hair sucks and is a narcissistic affectation for sure but i like his foreign policy so far how am i doing think I'm being killed slowly I liked Ike but he was weak and I liked Buchanan bur preferred Goldwater and on and on they are politicians and deserve the loyalty they give and " that's all I have to say about that"

schroedingersrat , 48 minutes ago link

Trump is a psychopath and he loves to hire even bigger psychopaths. Your whole admin is a swamp of sociopaths, psychopaths and other sick deranged people.

TGF Texas , 42 minutes ago link

When did he hire Hillary?

schroedingersrat , 38 minutes ago link

There is not much difference between Hillary and Pompeo. Pompeo is basically hillary with a **** and a religious twist

TGF Texas , 26 minutes ago link

Did CNN tell you that?

schroedingersrat , 20 minutes ago link

Im European and the only US news i read is ZH & Counterpunch

[Jan 29, 2019] WTF Is Trump Thinking - A Plum Post For A Prominent Opponent

Who is next? Paul Wolfowitz now would be the most logical choice. Id the invasion of Venezuela decided already, like Iraq war under Bush II.
That means that Rump can say goodbye to independents who votes for him because of his anti-foreign wars noises during previous election campaign
Notable quotes:
"... Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra. ..."
"... Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion. ..."
"... At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. ..."
"... Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests. ..."
"... Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation? ..."
"... Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot. ..."
"... If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition. ..."
"... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that. ..."
"... Trump loves those Bush criminals. ..."
Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Joseph Duggan via American Greatness,

On Friday, following the dramatic arrest of a prominent Trump supporter on charges of lying to Congress, President Trump gave one of the nation's most sensitive national security and diplomatic posts to another controversial figure who already had been convicted of lying to Congress.

Not at all. Turns out, the appointee is one of the president's worst enemies, a man forcefully opposed to almost all of Trump's policies and campaign promises, a man who repeatedly has said Trump is morally unfit for his office. He is Elliott Abrams, the 71-year-old éminence grise of the NeverTrump movement.

Abrams is the pre-eminent prophet and practitioner of hyper-interventionist approaches to destabilize or overthrow governments - of foes and friends alike - that do not pass his democracy-is-the-end-all-and-be-all litmus test. His closest friends and associates, from whom his political positions are indistinguishable, include some of President Trump's most rabid enemies, false-flag "conservatives" Bill Kristol and Max Boot.

Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra.

After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion.

At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. Trump, who would have had to sign off on the nomination, rejected Abrams when he learned of Abrams' background. The truth about Abrams, while not by any means a secret, came to Trump's attention from Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Paul, who held a deciding vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would block Abrams if he were nominated.

Abrams already knew then what Trump took nearly a year to discover, that Tillerson was hopelessly unprepared to serve as the nation's chief diplomat and indeed was, as Trump colorfully put it, "dumb as a rock." Nothing about Abrams, the NeverTrumper who believes Trump cannot govern effectively without him, has changed since then.

Following his rejection by Trump, Abrams wrote a sour-grapes article for Politico , disparaging the president, along with Vice President Pence and Abrams' erstwhile patron Tillerson, for not having international human rights policies identical to Abrams' own views.

Abrams has been outspoken against sensitive Trump international policies right up to the moment of his surprise appointment. He is unapologetic about his role in masterminding the Iraq war. He has opposed Trump concerning American troops in Syria and America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. As recently as January 14, 2019, he published a withering attack on Trump's Middle East policies and diplomacy.

As events in Venezuela last week reached a crisis with rival claimants to the nation's presidency, Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests.

Immediately? An appointee to a sensitive post needs a background investigation and security clearance. These investigations can take months. If he indeed has a valid clearance, that means his appointment was decided long ago.

Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation?

What is Pompeo thinking? Has Pompeo read Abrams' anti-Trump articles? In particular, has he read Abrams' January 14 anti-Trump article that mocks Pompeo with a hugely unflattering photo of the secretary of state?

What is going on?

Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot.

If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition.

So far there are no signs of this.

What did Trump know about the new Abrams appointment, and when did he know it?

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 4 minutes ago link

It's amazing seeing the holdout Trump supporters continually writhe in mental contortions to support his every move..as I've said all along..TDS affects the sheep on both right and left equally.

Brazen Heist II 4 minutes ago (Edited)

... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.

uhland62, 5 minutes ago

This guy is just picking up a couple more paychecks. He may think he can whip up Trump for more wars, Trump may think he can control this guy because 'I am President and you are not'. The main thing is that the military can make more wars and destroy more countries.

The-Post, 15 minutes ago

Trump loves those Bush criminals.

readerandthinker

Venezuelan army defectors appeal to Trump for weapons

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN)Venezuelan army defectors are calling on the Trump administration to arm them, in what they call their quest for "freedom."

Former soldiers Carlos Guillen Martinez and Josue Hidalgo Azuaje, who live outside the country, told CNN they want US military assistance to equip others inside the beleaguered nation. They claim to be in contact with hundreds of willing defectors and have called on enlisted Venezuelan soldiers to revolt against the Maduro regime, through television broadcasts.

"As Venezuelan soldiers, we are making a request to the US to support us, in logistical terms, with communication, with weapons, so we can realize Venezuelan freedom," Guillen Martinez told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/americas/venezuela-army-defectors-plea-for-arms/index.html

[Jan 29, 2019] Despite the deep unpopularity of US wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Lybia and Syria which have cost trillions of dollars amid the deepest economic crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, attempts by voters to end or limit them, by voting governments out of office in America and Europe, have failed

Notable quotes:
"... Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses of the free market and private accumulation ..."
Dec 15, 2018 | www.wsws.org
An anti-Trotskyist rationale for supporting imperialist war The war for regime change waged in Syria by the NATO powers, in alliance with Al Qaeda, behind the backs of the peoples of America and Europe, is the outcome of three decades of US-led wars across the Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

These crimes of US and European imperialism have not only claimed millions of lives and turned more than 60 million people into refugees. They have exposed the fact that the basic contradictions of capitalism, which led to world war and the October Revolution in the 20th century, remain unresolved.

Despite the deep unpopularity of these bloody wars, which have cost trillions of dollars amid the deepest economic crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, attempts by voters to end or limit them, by voting governments out of office in America and Europe, have failed. Successive governments of all political colorations have, on the contrary, stepped them up, and it is clear that this has become a policy endorsed by an entrenched ruling class. When the Syrian regime invited Moscow to help it fight the NATO-backed opposition militias in 2015, for example, NATO escalated the war into a military standoff with Russia, a nuclear power. A century after the outbreak of World War I and the Russian Revolution, the capitalist system is teetering on the brink of a nuclear conflagration.

SterlingMaloryArcher3 hours ago

The paragraphs quoted from Hensman in which she extols Western capitalist states providing democratic mechanisms through which the working class can "fight back" - notwithstanding the 4 decades of unbroken counterrevolution that bring us into the present - don't just embody the political dead end reached by those who broke from international revolutionary solidarity and Trotskyist struggles against both Stalinism and imperialism.

They do something much worse and, in my view, more fundamental. They highlight how the thinkers that cluster around groups like the ISO have completely lost - if they ever had it - the ability to think dialectically. Their political conclusions lead me to conclude in turn that they actually don't comprehend the most essential principles of Marxist critical analysis of capitalism or how dialectical materialism builds a complete picture of the totality that is our socio-economic environment.

Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses of the free market and private accumulation.

But - and this is the key thing! - it is in its essence, in the most primitive, unchanging logic of its momentum and inexorable development, always but always a system in which the privileges and power of capital will be elevated above those of workers. It is constitutionally organised around that core function. If you don't understand that, every analysis that follows will be useless.

By proceeding in his analysis from revolutionary concepts of class struggle, exploitation, alienation, and the material basis for historical development, Marx was able to build - brick by brick - a critique of capitalism itself. Pseudo-left groups like the ISO or the DSA do the exact opposite - they start from false principles and work towards over-elaborated false conclusions. It isn't in other words just the case that they err on this or that detail. The whole premise and therefore all the conclusions are useless - and must be rejected wholesale!

[Jan 29, 2019] For all practical purposes Communism never existed – and probably never will. Only Socialism existed in one form or another in few dozen countries. Hitler attacking Russia because they were communist is like US attacking France because they are capitalists. Total propaganda BS on the part of the Nazis – calling themselves Socialists .

Notable quotes:
"... Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently – the greatest democracy. ..."
Dec 17, 2018 | www.unz.com
Cyrano , December 17, 2018 at 9:27 pm GMT

Marks **** s Hitler, but Hitler was pretty good at *** ing Marks too. Listen to this logic: The party that Hitler belonged to, was called National-Socialist, yet he hated communist and attacked Russia.

Communism and socialism are the same. There never was communism – that's what they were "aspiring" to become in some distant utopian future. So Hitler attacking Russia because they were communist is like US attacking France because they are capitalists. Total propaganda BS on the part of the Nazis – calling themselves "Socialists".

The whole last century has been spent on one major task by the west: Combat socialism. Mainly by wars, but propaganda also. And yet, socialism refuses to die. And the idea will never die. I know, someone will say, where have you been in the last almost 30 years? Capitalism defeated socialism in the cold war. Not so fast. Capitalism may have scored a major victory but it may have sustained a mortal self-inflicted wound of propaganda nature. In the last 100 years 3 major ways to fight socialism domestically were discovered:

FDR approach – include little bit of socialism into capitalism, to prevent a lot of socialism (total takeover). Nazi Germany approach – include none of socialism, but only use its name for propaganda and pretend that all is hunky-dory, and that "socialism" is already here. US approach – include a little bit of fake socialism in order to prevent a lot of real socialism from taking over. That's how multiculturalism came into being.

Again, I must say that the best approach was FDR's. If capitalism wants to survive – that's the way to go. Despite all the numerous wars against socialist countries, US haven't been able to erase the idea of socialism like they were hoping for.

If you want proof of this, just look at the last US election. Along comes Bernie Sanders, just mentions the name socialism few times – claiming himself to be one – socialist, and wins the primaries, only to be robbed by the Democratic mafia bosses who couldn't stand the idea of "socialist" running for president – after all the US has done to destroy socialism.

By the way, I think that Bernie is a good guy, but he is probably as much socialist as Adolf used to be. It still demonstrates the power of the socialist idea to attract people. Pretty clever propaganda ploy on Bernie's part, but there was no chance in hell the "democrats" would let him run for president on that platform.

And he would have defeated Trump. Talking about exercise in futility – US trying to erase the idea of socialism. That's what made them inflict the mortal wound of fake socialism on themselves and might in the end destroy them. FDR approach was the best – little bit of socialism to prevent a lot of it.

The other 2 ideas are self-destructive.

Kratoklastes , says: December 18, 2018 at 12:07 am GMT

@Cyrano

Communism and socialism are the same.

How about " Nope ". Communism is an end ; Socialism is a means that Marx considered the most likely to enable the end-point to be achieved. It's akin to saying that a mall (the end) and a car (the means) are "the same thing", on the basis that a car is an efficient way to get to the mall.

To flesh it out: Communism is explicitly anarchic, and is mainly characterised by

  • material abundance and the fulfillment of (self-limited) wants;
  • no ownership of property (not by individuals or the state);
  • no class stratification (and hence no political organisations whatsoever);
  • work as a 'prime want' (not a disutility that must be compensated).

This all seems slightly silly when you write it down, so Marx recognised that there had to be a ' radical transformation of consciousness ' whereby people didn't want what they couldn't have.

He reckoned that the best way was to entrust an enlightened clique (the ' vanguard of the proletariat ') to take control, and to force society towards the 'end' by coercion – until such time as the end was in sight, whereupon the enlightened vanguard would relinquish control and society would be on a glide path to utopia.

And doing that specifically requires that the 'vanguard' controls production and allocation decisions during the transition – which he thought (wrongly) means that the means of production must be owned by the State.

Hence Socialism.

His end is correct so long as you add one adjective. A society free of artificial stratification is a desirable end. His means were totally wrong because he was a fucking idiot (as well as being a parasitic charlatan). The State would not relinquish control under any circumstances, and will actively undermine any mechanism that raises everyone (because that would narrow the gap between the political class and the demos can't have that).

A society free of artificial stratification is where we will end up once technological progress gets past its next 'knee' (' The Singularity ') it would be hastened if the parasites in the global political class are put to the sword.

Cyrano , says: December 18, 2018 at 12:47 am GMT
@Kratoklastes

I don't think you understood my argument here. You are correct. Socialism and Communism are not the same in philosophical sense. My argument was that for all practical purposes Communism never existed – and probably never will. Only Socialism existed in one form or another in few dozen countries.

Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently – the greatest democracy.

[Jan 29, 2019] Trump s Syrian withdrawal order sparks political firestorm in Washington by Bill Van Auken

Dec 20, 2018 | www.wsws.org

An apparent order by US President Donald Trump for the withdrawal of all 2,000 US troops deployed in Syria over the next 60 to 100 days has sparked consternation and sharp opposition from the Pentagon, top Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill as well as Washington's NATO allies.

The withdrawal order, which was leaked to the media by senior officials within the administration and the military, was given what apparently constituted a confirmation by a brief tweet from Trump Wednesday declaring, "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."

This was followed later in the day by a statement from White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, declaring, "We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign," adding, "The United States and our allies stand ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary."

The White House announcement was followed by yet another statement from the Pentagon, whose spokeswoman Dana White flatly contradicted the US president, declaring that "the coalition has liberated ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over." ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State terror group.

"We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates," she said, giving no details as to a timeline, noting "force protection and operational security reasons."

Meanwhile, Reuters quoted an unnamed US official as stating Wednesday that all US State Department personnel operating inside Syria were being evacuated from the country within 24 hours.

The official also said that the withdrawal plans flowed directly from an agreement reached between Trump and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a telephone conversation last Friday. "Everything that has followed is implementing the agreement that was made in that call," the official said.

The call was reportedly made to discuss Turkey's concerns over the presence of the Syrian Kurdish separatist YPG militia near the Syrian-Turkish border. The YPG is the main element of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the proxy ground force that the US has backed in northeastern Syria. Erdogan, whose government views the YPG as an extension of the Turkish Kurdish separatist PKK, against which Ankara has waged a decades-long counterinsurgency campaign, has repeatedly threatened that a Turkish intervention against the YPG is imminent. Turkish forces, including armor, have reportedly been deployed to the border.

While Washington is no doubt anxious to avoid a potential military confrontation with Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, the Trump White House has taken other measures aimed at restoring US-Turkish relations, which have been strained since the abortive July 2016 military coup, which enjoyed covert backing from Washington.

Just hours before the withdrawal announcement, the State Department informed Congress of a proposed $3.5 billion dollar deal to sell Turkey Patriot anti-ballistic missile systems, manufactured by Raytheon. Ankara had previously signaled its intention to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia. Such a purchase would have precluded Turkey's purchase of US F-35 warplanes, and would have brought the country's relations with NATO to a breaking point.

The announced withdrawal of US troops may signal a green light to the Erdogan government to launch its threatened invasion of eastern Syria and drive Kurdish forces from the border. In the absence of US troops, the YPG may seek to reach an accommodation with Damascus, restoring control of the region to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The illegal US occupation of Syria, begun under the Obama administration in October 2015 without authorization from either the United Nations or the Syrian government, was expanded under Trump, with at least 2,000 US troops deployed in northeastern Syria as well as special forces near the borders with Iraq and Jordan in the south.

The launching of the so-called war on ISIS in Syria signaled a shift from the failed US strategy of "regime change" based upon CIA support for Al Qaeda-linked militias in a bloody war to bring down the Assad government. US troops on the ground in Syria coordinated a savage campaign of airstrikes and bombardments that reduced the city of Raqqa and other towns controlled by ISIS to rubble.

While during the presidential campaign of 2016 Trump had vowed to withdraw US troops from Syria, Pentagon, intelligence and other national security officials had dissuaded him against acting on the promise.

Figures like Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis, National Security Advisor John Bolton and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford have reiterated -- including just weeks ago -- a strategy based on an open-ended US military presence in Syria aimed at rolling back both Iranian and Russian influence and ultimately securing Washington's original aim of overthrowing Assad and imposing a more pliant puppet regime in Damascus.

For his part, Dunford stated earlier this month that the US military was only one-fifth of the way towards its goal of training and arming a force of 35,000 to 40,000 proxy troops in northeastern Syria to provide "security" over what would effectively be a US protectorate carved out of the Middle Eastern country.

In occupying northeastern Syria, the US military and its proxies have seized control over roughly a third of the country, including, most crucially, Syria's oil and natural gas fields as well as its eastern border with Iraq. By maintaining this domination, Washington's aim was to preclude any reunification and reconstruction of the war-ravaged country and continue the murderous conflict until the US achieved its strategic aims.

The announcement of the planned withdrawal drew sharp criticism from leading Republicans in Congress, who appeared to have been blindsided by the shift in policy.

Senator Lindsey Graham described the withdrawal as "a huge Obama-like mistake," invoking previous Republican criticisms of Obama for withdrawing US troops from Iraq in 2011.

"The decision to pull out of Syria was made despite overwhelming military advice against it," Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted. "It is a major blunder. It [sic] it isn't reversed it will haunt this administration & America for years to come."

Also apparently caught unawares by the apparent shift in US policy in Syria was Washington's closest NATO ally. British Defense Minister Tobias Ellwood issued a statement declaring that he "strongly disagreed" with Trump's decision. "It [ISIS] has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive," he said in a tweet.

Among those who did receive an advance warning was Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The US administration has told me that it was the president's intention to pull out their troops from Syria. They clarified that they have other ways to wield their influence in that arena," he told the Israeli daily Haaretz .

The main instrument of US "influence" has been devastating US airstrikes, which have been launched from bases in Qatar and elsewhere in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the US maintains a force of at least 5,000 troops across the border in Iraq, capable of delivering artillery fire into eastern Syria.

The announced withdrawal of US troops from Syria will undoubtedly intensify the internecine conflicts within the US ruling establishment and state, while at the same time increasing tensions within the Middle East. It is not a harbinger of any deescalation of the armed conflicts in the region. With or without "boots on the ground" in Syria, Washington's military aggression against Iran and Russia will only intensify.

[Jan 29, 2019] The disinformation campaign behind the allegations of Russian disinformation by Andre Damon

Images removed
Notable quotes:
"... Throughout the day, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Google News all led with breathless stories about Russian efforts to "sway American opinion and divide the country" (in the words of the Times). The propaganda barrage was based on a set of reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee by organizations with close ties to the US state and intelligence apparatus. ..."
"... Like countless other stories about alleged Russian "disinformation," Monday's media blast followed a script. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The first of two reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency," was published by an organization known as New Knowledge, which purports to be a cybersecurity company, but whose primary public presence consists in advocacy for internet censorship. ..."
"... Ryan Fox, the co-founder of New Knowledge and a co-author of the report, worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) for 15 years. New Knowledge's website notes that "prior to his civilian roles as a Counter Terrorism Fellow and NSA Representative European SIGINT partners, he served under US Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) as a CNO Analyst for the US Army." His partner, the company's CEO, is Jonathon Morgan, who has published for the state-connected Brookings Institution and worked as a special advisor to the State Department. ..."
"... The second report, "The IRA and Political Polarization in the United States," published under the imprimatur of Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project, in collaboration with the social media analysis firm Graphika, was likewise authored by figures with deep connections to the state and the military. Graphika staffer Camille Francois, a co-author, served as chief technical officer to the French prime minister and worked at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). ..."
"... Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, like Warner a member of the Intelligence Committee, appeared on the Public Broadcasting evening news program to chastise Facebook and demand that it be more "aggressive" in shutting down "disinformation." ..."
"... Commenting on the New Knowledge report, the New York Times ..."
"... The orchestrated hysteria over "disinformation" is itself a gigantic disinformation campaign, and the narrative about the sinister spread of "fake news" is an example of real "fake news." ..."
"... First all the anti Russian hysteria is concentrated in MSM media, completely absent from grassroots political discourse across kitchen table as it is dominated by economy-stupid daily struggle reality ( as Dems internal pols showed) , and is methodically debunked by most of alternative media except for blatant political hacks who fuel the nonsense on internet. ..."
"... The major reason for all they prefapaos and war mongering is as WSWS numerous times documented is because oligarchic policies of mass pauperization of population resulted in skyrocketing of class struggle and they just pull old worn down card of nationalism and war, Luxemburg warned over hundred years ago. ..."
"... "The new "proof" of Russian subversion is then used to demand even more sweeping measures to censor the internet, in the name of securing "our democracy." With each successive wave of stories, foreign "disinformation" is more directly identified with opposition to social inequality, police brutality and the capitalist system." ..."
"... It's the "War on Terrorism" brought to a whole new level . But it's the same class (in the service of the same class interests) bringing it. ..."
"... "It is highly significant that the posts cited by the reports as responsible for manipulating public opinion and undermining American democracy are predominantly left-wing in character." Against the same material interests of the working class. "These left-wing pages expressed "antiwar opposition" and "objections to US involvement in another country's affairs." ..."
"... The more things change, the more they stay the same: "The Black Panther party, without question, remains the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." -- J. Edgar Hoover, 1969 ..."
"... All Russia is doing ( if it even is Russia) is holding up a big mirror to the US, and big military industrial recipients like Mark Warner hate it. The criteria should be truth itself not the source of the truth. ..."
"... I simply call it NeoMcCarthyism propaganda. What they as me being disinformed, lol, then they would have had to start on me when I was in grammar school in the early to mid 1960s, and I don't recall there being a social media way back then. I formed own opinion way back then when, on my own I decided what I was getting the 6o'clock news was B.S. ..."
"... The USA is a hopeless war mongering terrorist state. It should, and must be, coming to an end. And, there are signs that the USA with all its weapons and lies is creeping toward that situation. ..."
"... The fact that Russia and China are starting to get rid of the worthless USA dollar is a major blow to the USA. The latest appointments of the neocon Bolton, and the CIA blowhard Pompous Pompeo is an indication that the only thing USA has to offer to the world is threats of war by these, and all their filthy war dogs! ..."
"... America survival is dependent upon its lies and misinformation it delivers each day through cable news and sports which also fetishsize militarism. The only situation that lies on the horizon is more of the same. ..."
"... America doesn't have "defense" spending. We have offense spending. ..."
Dec 18, 2018 | www.unz.com

Amid new exposures of Wall Street criminality, the White House's mass imprisonment of immigrant children, and growing demands by US workers for decent wages, the US media was preoccupied Monday with the supposed efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin to make people believe that life in America is not a paradise.

Throughout the day, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Google News all led with breathless stories about Russian efforts to "sway American opinion and divide the country" (in the words of the Times). The propaganda barrage was based on a set of reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee by organizations with close ties to the US state and intelligence apparatus.

Like countless other stories about alleged Russian "disinformation," Monday's media blast followed a script. Reports and testimony from nominally independent organizations, which are, in reality, mouthpieces for the intelligence agencies, are commissioned by Congress. They are "leaked" to the New York Times, which publishes a front-page article promoting them as "independent," scientific and authoritative, without, however, presenting any serious analysis of the actual evidence or the social and political forces behind the studies. The reports in the Times (or the Washington Post) are then cited by countless media outlets and politicians as new and irrefutable "evidence" of Russian "meddling" and "fake news."

The new "proof" of Russian subversion is then used to demand even more sweeping measures to censor the internet, in the name of securing "our democracy." With each successive wave of stories, foreign "disinformation" is more directly identified with opposition to social inequality, police brutality and the capitalist system.

The first of two reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency," was published by an organization known as New Knowledge, which purports to be a cybersecurity company, but whose primary public presence consists in advocacy for internet censorship.

Ryan Fox, the co-founder of New Knowledge and a co-author of the report, worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) for 15 years. New Knowledge's website notes that "prior to his civilian roles as a Counter Terrorism Fellow and NSA Representative European SIGINT partners, he served under US Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) as a CNO Analyst for the US Army." His partner, the company's CEO, is Jonathon Morgan, who has published for the state-connected Brookings Institution and worked as a special advisor to the State Department.

New Knowledge was established with a $1.9 million grant from Moonshots Capital. Moonshots' founders are Kelly Perdew, who, according to the biography on the company's website, "served in the US Army as a military intelligence officer," and Craig Cummings, who "spent 17 years in the Army, most of that time as an intelligence officer serving in support of the National Security Agency."

The second report, "The IRA and Political Polarization in the United States," published under the imprimatur of Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project, in collaboration with the social media analysis firm Graphika, was likewise authored by figures with deep connections to the state and the military. Graphika staffer Camille Francois, a co-author, served as chief technical officer to the French prime minister and worked at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

In line with the by now well-established playbook, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the leading advocate of internet censorship in the US Senate, took to the airwaves to proclaim that these "independent" reports were a "wake up call." He continued: "These attacks against our country were much more comprehensive, calculating and widespread than previously revealed." He added that "addressing this challenge" was "going to require some much-needed and long-overdue guardrails when it comes to social media."

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, like Warner a member of the Intelligence Committee, appeared on the Public Broadcasting evening news program to chastise Facebook and demand that it be more "aggressive" in shutting down "disinformation."

In regard to their content, both reports are highly dubious and clearly politically motivated. The raw data is based on information turned over to the Senate Intelligence Committee last year by Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. After initially rejecting as "crazy" claims that "Russian meddling" helped swing the election to Trump, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, together with the leaders of other major technology companies, provided a list of accounts that they asserted-without providing any details on how this conclusion was reached-were controlled by Russian operatives.

Even if one were to assume that this data and the content of the reports were accurate, whatever Russia may or may not have done pales in comparison to the operations of US intelligence agencies all over the world, including within the United States itself, not to mention the billions of dollars spent by the corporate and financial elite to manipulate US elections and determine their outcome.

The claim, moreover, that Russian Twitter and Facebook posts are responsible for social discontent in the United States-the most unequal country in the world-is beyond ludicrous.

It is highly significant that the posts cited by the reports as responsible for manipulating public opinion and undermining American democracy are predominantly left-wing in character.

The New Knowledge report attempts to muddle this reality by categorizing content opposing police brutality as neither left-wing or right-wing, but "Black." It states that of 62 Facebook pages allegedly tied to Russia, "Overall, 30 targeted Black audiences and amassed 1,187,810 followers; 25 targeted the Right and amassed 1,446,588 followers, and 7 targeted the Left and amassed 689,045 followers."

The content of the accounts labeled by New Knowledge as targeting "Black audiences" is made clear in a subsequent section dealing with the video streaming service YouTube. Of 1,063 videos turned over to the committee, the majority "related to the police and focused on police abuses."

Commenting on the New Knowledge report, the New York Times declared that the Russian government's "tactics echo Soviet propaganda efforts from decades ago that often highlighted racism and racial conflict in the United States."

Here, the Timesdemonstrates the utterly reactionary pedigree of the campaign against "Russian meddling." During the American civil rights movement, Southern segregationists claimed that African American workers were being stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators." The strivings of African Americans for equal rights were denounced as a Soviet plot.

Now, too, the deeply-felt hatred by American workers and youth of all races for police brutality and the epidemic of police murders is presented as a "Russian" plot to "sow division" among "Black audiences."

"Left-leaning [Russian-inspired] pages," the report states, "criticized mainstream, established Democratic leaders as corporatists or too close to neo-cons, and promoted Green Party and Democratic Socialist themes." These left-wing pages expressed "antiwar opposition" and "objections to US involvement in another country's affairs."

The clear intent of the campaign by Warner and his co-thinkers is to de-legitimize such views as the product of "foreign meddling," and to effectively criminalize them. Their concern is not with Russia, but with the American working class.

As the year 2018 concludes, the intensification of the global economic crisis and heightening of war preparations are accompanied by a renewed upsurge of the class struggle throughout the world.

The American ruling elite has made clear its intention to respond to this growing movement of the working class with censorship and repression. Writing about the recent "yellow vest" protests in France, the New York Timeswarned that "the power of social media to quickly mobilize mass anger, without any mechanism for dialogue or restraint, is a danger to which a liberal democracy cannot succumb." The implication of such statements is clear: the campaign to censor the internet must be intensified.

The orchestrated hysteria over "disinformation" is itself a gigantic disinformation campaign, and the narrative about the sinister spread of "fake news" is an example of real "fake news."

The ruling class and the corporate media are frustrated that their claims have had little impact on popular consciousness, and very few people really believe that Russia is responsible for social discontent in the United States. But this only intensifies their efforts to uphold and strengthen the grip of the "guardians" of information-that is, themselves.

The growth of working class opposition provides the means to counter these efforts to censor the internet. As workers enter into struggle, they must take up the fight to defend freedom of expression on the internet as inseparable from the fight for social equality.


Vivek Jain2 days ago

see the brilliant Margaret Kimberley's article (and give some love to the BAR by subscribing and supporting the BAR): US and UK Psy-op collusion https://blackagendareport.c...
Kalen3 days ago
Another great report but I would like to push back on myth not necessarily proliferated in this report but widely present in the media including alternative media about the McCarthyite anti Russian propaganda.

One of myths is that still too many Americans believe the MSM blatant lies even without any shred of evidence.

First all the anti Russian hysteria is concentrated in MSM media, completely absent from grassroots political discourse across kitchen table as it is dominated by economy-stupid daily struggle reality ( as Dems internal pols showed) , and is methodically debunked by most of alternative media except for blatant political hacks who fuel the nonsense on internet.

It is the very independent media which in some part like WSWS became in fact media of record diligently analyzing not as much lies themselves, although they do, easily debunking them but to analyzing context of that public mostly black propaganda campaign and what all those tabloid like productions including #metoo aim to obfuscate which is mostly preprogrammed economic collapse of working class as well as peddling and funding fascism under guise of all used up trick of threat of foreign enemy and unity under flag of nationalism.

In fact this lack of true conviction one way or another among Americans is simply due to, already observed by Mills, Tocqueville referenced by Marx and in last three decades formulated by Chomsky, deep despotic totalitarian culture that underlies seemingly open society of US as many Americans are conditioned to believe what they are told to believe without any intellectual curiosity of what it is they must believe in today as they truly believe in money and power only, associated with whatever political or religious mumbo jumbo like Russia Gate they do not bother to remember as long as their service to rulers paychecks arrive regularity.

Many understand it as simple confession of state religion of Americanism and (similarly to exceptionalism of Orthodox Jews or Hegel or Hitler) exceptionalism of American Nation, itself nothing but state religion nonentity used to stir up internal divisions between those called by rulers Americans and others called by rullers un-American.

Such a curious division not existing in any other country founded on inclusive nationalism, is simply because there is no reality or premise of American nation beyond those fantasies described in lying school textbooks.

And hence it is that totalitarian culture that MSM peddles as a primary counterrevolutionary measure of $billion a day propaganda aimed at suppression of class struggle that itself repudiated that culture of submission to ruling elites for culture of unity among all working class in US and elsewhere rejecting nationalism and exceptionalism and embracing internationalism devoid of foreign enemies instead.

By the same token another myth that such belligerent anti Russia and anti Chinese propaganda by the West in any way weakens grip of local rulers of global oligarchy (what ISO peddles) is also repudiated as their very political legitimacy is founded on nationalism as a tool against class struggle and socialist revolution that would dispose of their power and political base of saviors of nations via its inherent creed of internationalism.

In fact in spite of normal family infighting none of members of global oligarchy seems to be even slightly hurt so far and even they appreciate such US belligerence as incentive to consolidate their local powers around nationalist fervent of suppose siege while for example exports of China, Russia and even Iran to US increased since 2014 and oligarchy of those countries while inconvenied are well compensated by loss of their visible roles in western corporates while they maintain control by

The major reason for all they prefapaos and war mongering is as WSWS numerous times documented is because oligarchic policies of mass pauperization of population resulted in skyrocketing of class struggle and they just pull old worn down card of nationalism and war, Luxemburg warned over hundred years ago.

Let's no fall for that bogus foreign boogeyman threats as this is all about vicious and brutal class war waged over working class by global oligarchy. And for real boogyman mask we should check Buffet, Soros, Gates, Bezos, Brin, Cook Ellison or Musk or Trump lower drawer of their executive desks, not abroad as other bogeymen in Russia China and EU will be taken care of by our working class brothers and sisters when socialist revolution comes, very shortly.

Greg3 days ago
"The new "proof" of Russian subversion is then used to demand even more sweeping measures to censor the internet, in the name of securing "our democracy." With each successive wave of stories, foreign "disinformation" is more directly identified with opposition to social inequality, police brutality and the capitalist system."

It's the "War on Terrorism" brought to a whole new level . But it's the same class (in the service of the same class interests) bringing it.

"It is highly significant that the posts cited by the reports as responsible for manipulating public opinion and undermining American democracy are predominantly left-wing in character." Against the same material interests of the working class. "These left-wing pages expressed "antiwar opposition" and "objections to US involvement in another country's affairs."

jet16853 days ago
"The content of the accounts labeled by New Knowledge as targeting 'Black audiences' is made clear in a subsequent section dealing with the video streaming service YouTube. Of 1,063 videos turned over to the committee, the majority 'related to the police and focused on police abuses.'

Commenting on the New Knowledge report, the New York Times declared that the Russian government's 'tactics echo Soviet propaganda efforts from decades ago that often highlighted racism and racial conflict in the United States.' "

The more things change, the more they stay the same: "The Black Panther party, without question, remains the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." -- J. Edgar Hoover, 1969

Elliott Vernon jet16853 days ago
and of course the NAACP drinks the Kool-Aid: https://www.buzzfeednews.co...
Jim Bergren3 days ago
The American Public's reaction to the lying disinformation campaign of the capitalist "press" should be as "The Dude's" reaction to Sam Elliot's. Question in the great American classic film, "The Big Lebowski": Sam: "Tell me Dude; do you really have to use that bad language?" The Dude: " WTF are you talking about?"
Me at home3 days ago
Who even believes their nonsense?

Let's just picket the HQ of this New Knowledge and demand that they shut down or retract their lies. Those who can't attend, spam their FB or corporate contact page with a Photoshop of their logo and have it read something like "Old Lies, paid for by the CIA". Or, register similar domain names and create a similar looking websites to theirs, but with the modified logos exposing their leaders as cronies, containing links to the news they try to censor and then link the copycat sites to all your friends. Best bet is if we can hack them and replace everything with our stuff every now and then. Force Google's algorithm to ban their own ally or admit that our copycat sites have more popularity.

Zalamander3 days ago
All Russia is doing ( if it even is Russia) is holding up a big mirror to the US, and big military industrial recipients like Mark Warner hate it. The criteria should be truth itself not the source of the truth.
Ort3 days ago
To add to Vivek Jain's welcome recommendations of "Moon of Alabama"'s ongoing incisive analysis of the massive Western anti-Russian propaganda campaign, here's still another MOA post:

"How Putin's Russia Weaponizes X"

MOA commendably complements WSWS's continuing coverage of this calculated, rabid capitalist-government Russophobia-inducing Big Lie orgy.

Sebouh803 days ago
The rising social discontent in America is against both Capitalism and to the oligarchical class that controls and funds both parties.
Kathy Gray4 days ago
I simply call it NeoMcCarthyism propaganda. What they as me being disinformed, lol, then they would have had to start on me when I was in grammar school in the early to mid 1960s, and I don't recall there being a social media way back then. I formed own opinion way back then when, on my own I decided what I was getting the 6o'clock news was B.S.
Trevor4 days ago
Here's a list of the top things I would absolutely love if not for those evil Russians whispering in my ear:
  1. Stagnant wages. I have been working for the same crap pay for over 10 years.
  2. Ever-increasing rent. Unlike my wages, my rent increases every single year.
  3. Health care with a $6500 deductible.

4) The constant warning threats from the spokespeople of the ruling-class that Social Security will soon run out of money. Funny how they never issue warning threats that the military will soon run out of money.

5) Never-ending war. Oh man, I love death and destruction so much! We all do!

6) $1.5 trillion tax cuts for the super-rich. They are so deserving.

7) Our lord and savior Hillary Clinton and her love for the super-rich, imperialist wars, savage killing, and our military killing machine.

8) Doing absolutely nothing about climate change as utter catastrophe draws ever closer. I don't want to save humanity. I just want our richest capitalists to keep raking in huge yearly incomes.

9) The fact that in our beloved democracy, every major policy passed is always a boon for the super-rich 1% and a total screwing up the backside for the 99%. Now THAT'S true democracy. We don't want those evil Russians getting in the way of that.

10) The prison industrial complex and the fact that capitalists have found brilliant ways to get rich off of war, killing people, and putting millions of people in prison for decades. In fact, I read an article yesterday that points out that capitalists are already busy investigating genius ways to get rich off of climate change and the potential deaths of billions of people.

11) The fact that I have no pension; that even as I've worked a labor job for the same company for 20 years, I'm classified as an "independent contractor", which basically means that when they don't need me, I sit home and don't get paid while receiving no benefits. Hey, who wants to survive retirement anyway? What lazy, greedy worker wants vacation pay? I sure don't. I just want to leave this world knowing that rich people got a lot richer from my having been here.

Indeed, if not for evil Russians, I would be totally oblivious to all of the screwing up the ass I get from our universally-beloved American capitalist daddies. That's right! None of that would have ever occurred to me. Nope. Damn you Russia! Damn you all to hell!

jb4 days ago
Oh yes and the Yellow Vest protests are now being attributed to Russian control/influence. So yes the left is being targeted, to be blamed overall, down the line. Because we all know Russia is still run by the Bolsheviks!
Elliott Vernon4 days ago
You'll notice that New Knowledge -- about as Orwellian a name as can be -- brags about its connections to the military-intelligence apparatus as though it were a good thing. We're supposed to think that makes them credible. Scary.
lee le brigand Elliott Vernon19 hours ago
it's a good thing for them, isn't it ? but for us continue the horrors of war and lack of rent money : a psychological projection from the obtuse neo-fascist elites, but also the propaganda they're trained in, the elites all believe in, and it will be effective with us because we are stupid, we are the vietnam peasant again ,reveling in the primitve of past centuries, and so we will believe ! we must believe for we are not them --
and good comment : the word 'Scary' at the end resonates
Charlotte Ruse Elliott Vernon3 days ago
The other Orwellian aspect is that the intelligence agencies are the Democratic Party's new best friend. Back in the 70's the Church Committee investigated the unlawful infiltration of the CIA in the mainstream media. Now it's welcomed with open arms. We've come along way baby into a reactionary right-wing political system which is no longer even a duopoly. It's a a one party system controlled by the military/ security/ surveillance state.
Eve Elliott Vernon4 days ago
As is the theme of the upper middle class liberal TDS, a sudden, unthinking, blind loyalty to and worship of the intelligence agencies and characters with blood soaked hands from the depths of the swamp like Muller and Hayden and Bush. Anything, anyone to desperately cling to, to protect them from owning up to true nature of their beloved status quo, and the shadowy sources of their class privilege. Such are the lengths one goes to to justify the unjustifiable and defend the indefensible when the other choice is self reflection and responsibility.
Charles4 days ago
So important that WSWS is doing the work of exposing this propaganda attempt to create a moral panic about Russian meddling, as a means to justify the censorship of the internet. One thing I'm sure of: academics will be buying the New York Times' and Democratic Party's claims lock, stock, and barrel and will be further amplifying them. And any attempt to argue with this within the universities will lead to one being oneself labeled as a peddler of Russian influence. It's a total closed loop.
anation61 Charles3 days ago
Yes...but consider this: the fact that ruling class front people (like Mark Warner) are reduced to making such transparently unsound arguments-based on such completely relativist notions of truth-betrays just how afraid and weak they are becoming.
Yes, they keep running the same circular scam -- running the same weak data from the intelligence community through this or that shiny new think-tank, thence to the media, culminating in proposed legislation by some co-opted politicians -- it's a strategy of diminishing returns.
At this point, they merely reflect ever-greater light back upon their own intellectual and political bankruptcy.
And, meanwhile, revolutionary social forces continue to grow.
Viva la revolucion!
lee le brigand anation613 days ago
yeah ! and Mark Warner ? what is he, some kind of nano-robot, a creature whipped up in nano-technology labs, some AI fabricated to be a moron, whose only purpose is devotion to the intelligence agencies and to Capital ? if he had to, can he tie his own shoelaces in the mornings ? on his athletic shoes ? i look at him and think : major trauma there -- and he murders us and all those caught in our Imperialist wars !
Peter L.4 days ago
Excellent antidote to mainstream corporate propaganda. Would suggest supplement with : "Racist 'Russians' Targeted African-Americans; in 2016 election ploy, report claims" @https:// www.rt.com (Also, just as an editing note, WSWS might want to clarify the notation "CNO"; according to the rt article it stands for "Computer Network Officer".)
Skip4 days ago
The only people that they are fooling is themselves.... and most likely not even that....

They haven't come and said the posts are not true...they just say that you should not believe them because they are propaganda. That's really a bad strategy.

You know what would help the capitalist cause? Making life in America more equal. But that's not on your plate .

Charlotte Ruse4 days ago
'Reports and testimony from nominally independent organizations, which are, in reality, mouthpieces for the intelligence agencies, are commissioned by Congress. They are "leaked" to the New York Times, which publishes a front-page article promoting them as "independent," scientific and authoritative, without, however, presenting any serious analysis of the actual evidence or the social and political forces behind the studies. The reports in the Times (or the Washington Post) are then cited by countless media outlets and politicians as new and irrefutable "evidence" of Russian "meddling" and "fake news."

This is the method that's always used to demonize political figures or a leader of a sovereign country which the intelligence agencies have targeted for elimination. It's an insidious but clever way to influence public opinion. All mainstream media news proliferates the same nonstop propaganda using each other as sources to substantiate a CIA fable.

All these efforts will intensify prior to the Dems taking control of the House in January. It's like watching the last phase of a fireworks display as the pyrotechnic crescendo reaches it apex. Trump's impeachment might be imminent, but internet censorship will have a greater and longer lasting impact on the remaining vestiges of our democracy.

Who D. Who4 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Damon, for showing us what proper journalism looks like. Unfortunately not enough people will read this excellent exposé, and will simply assume that all the fuss has some basis in reality, while our right to the truth suffers further erosion.

I am endlessly amazed at how many of my friends and colleagues are blinded by their Dem partisanship and unwilling to see how dangerous this conscious and blatant manipulation of the facts is to our chances of preserving a relatively open society.

I will post this piece everywhere I can and hope for the best.

lee le brigand Who D. Who3 days ago
For me, this theme, this Russian propaganda theme, is infantile, and nothing of this is of interest to those who work for a living, as opposed to the elites: in all my life riding close to politics in Washington DC, never has the elite class presented to our country such an immature and juvenile thesis, such an outrageous and laughable spectacle of projection, such a certitude of vision in which the vision is absurd, irrelevant, with the seeming simple logic of a child in her belief that some bear speaks to her, but these are adults ! do we laugh ? do we scorn ? do we hate ? yes, all 3, but do these elite politicians and editors at the Times, do they really believe in talking bears ? fascists wallow in their propaganda --
blessthebeasts lee le brigand2 days ago
I don't think they actually believe this BS but they believe that the public will believe it! As you said, it is ridiculous and infantile but they obviously think the power of propaganda will prevail. They don't realize they are becoming more irrelevant and ludicrous with each new "bombshell." People have more important things on their minds. Like survival.
Ed Hightower4 days ago
Very interesting and important analysis. This perspective really unravels the rationales behind this aggressive censorship drive.
Jack4134 days ago
Thanks for this important anaylisis of what the ruling class is thinking though what amazes me is that "Russian Interference" is the only argument these highly educated people can come up with. With the fall of the Soviet Union the Capitalists were in a position to further advance their cause which they did brutally and without mercy. They were like kids taking over a candy store repeatedly gorging themselves and sharing none of it. In fact the Oligarchs began an assault on the working class all over the world and the crisis of inequality is seething and bubbling over to open revolt.

That they used the fight against fascism by Captain America as an example of Russian interference shows the true nature of these Rulers,corrupt,incompetent and total reactionaries.

I can't stand to read any of those papers but I'm glad someone does. The reporters for WSWS who read the NYT are like that guy Mike on the show "Dirty Jobs" where he takes on the nastiest jobs in America. To immerse yourself in their caldron of lies is truly a Dirty Job and you folks should get a Purple Heart for the wounds you've incurred.

After reading about the attack on the tune"Baby it's cold outside" and similar articles may I suggest the WSWS start a new section "Socialist News of the Weird" as the maneuvers of the bourgeois though dangerous empty and delusional are truly weird.

Charlotte Ruse Jack4133 days ago
A special holiday gift just for you. https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Ron Ruggieri Jack4134 days ago
An excerpt from a World Socialist Web Site 2010 obituary tribute to Howard Zinn, author of " A People's History of the United States " ( by Tom Eley ) :

" People's History grew out of, and in turn contributed to, a growing skepticism of the democratic pretensions of the American ruling class -- particularly among the youth. These characteristics of Zinn's work earned him the hatred of those who wish to see college and high school curriculum more tightly controlled; after Zinn's death, right-wing ex-radicals David Horowitz and Ronald Radosh penned columns attacking him for exposing truths about the US government to a mass audience ".

I read that presently David Horowitz is glorifying President Donald Trump in his latest " kick-liberal-ass " book. The Tom Eley article on Howard Zinn was fair minded and excellent.

Ron Ruggieri Jack4134 days ago
"With the fall of the Soviet Union the Capitalists were in a position to further advance their cause which they did brutally and without mercy "
And they got moral support from not a few ( I guess ) ex-Stalinists. I recall reading one David Horowitz's book :" The Destructive Generation " - a bitter denunciation of his own past. Never being devoted to Stalinism, I thought that Horowitz and hundreds like him were spitting in public on the very IDEA and IDEAL of socialism. To be sure , the Trotskyists do not have the blood of the Stalinist counter-revolution on their hands.

The last time I checked David Horowitz had evolved into a far right belligerent Zionist interviewed on many radio and TV programs. At last he found found true freedom in Apartheid Israel == not quite a " workers' paradise ".

In order to survive what else can the world plutocracy do but play divide and conquer games ? Today the sentencing of the " treasonous " American general, Michael Flynn, will tell us how much Imperial America needs an " evil " enemy. In a universe where everything changes only the military and the police are forever ?

denis ross4 days ago
Welcome to "Nineteen Eighty Four".
Carolyn Zaremba denis ross3 days ago
It's deja vu all over again.
Raycomeau4 days ago
The USA is a hopeless war mongering terrorist state. It should, and must be, coming to an end. And, there are signs that the USA with all its weapons and lies is creeping toward that situation.

The fact that Russia and China are starting to get rid of the worthless USA dollar is a major blow to the USA. The latest appointments of the neocon Bolton, and the CIA blowhard Pompous Pompeo is an indication that the only thing USA has to offer to the world is threats of war by these, and all their filthy war dogs!

The Democratic Party has lost its way, and sanity, by living with the burned out one trick pony diatribe that Russia interfered and meddled into the USA election. CNN should be censured and fined millions for promoting this deceit every hour of every day. It is amazing to watch the stunned budgies (would be newscasters) on CNN trying to outdo each other in front of their masters Wolf Blitzer et al as they revel in babbling the lies about Russia and China while praising the lies of the USA in its march to WW111.

Marla Raycomeau4 days ago
"The USA is a hopeless war mongering terrorist state. It should, and must be, coming to an end. And, there are signs that the USA with all its weapons and lies is creeping toward that situation."

Nice platitude but what signs are those? Appears to me this current administration and the Democrats have given more money to defense wasting er, I mean spending than ever before and both parties are itching for a war with Iran. So what signs?

America survival is dependent upon its lies and misinformation it delivers each day through cable news and sports which also fetishsize militarism. The only situation that lies on the horizon is more of the same.

Trevor Marla3 days ago
America doesn't have "defense" spending. We have offense spending.
Vivek Jain4 days ago
see also: Newly Released 'Integrity Initiative' Papers Include Proposal For Large Disinformation Campaigns https://www.moonofalabama.o...

[Jan 26, 2019] Can the current US neoliberal/neoconservative elite be considered suicidal?

Highly recommended!
Can the elite be afflicted by some mass disease. Is Neoconservatism a deadly infection ?
Theoretically Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility. In other words they spearheaded a dangerous disease to stay in power. And eventually got infected themselves.
Notable quotes:
"... "But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?" ..."
"... That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge. ..."
"... The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that. ..."
"... An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated. ..."
"... As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Kent January 18, 2019 at 11:30 am

"But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?"

What if, on election day, you only have a choice between 2 candidates. Both favoring all the wrong choices, but one tends to talk up Christianity and family and the other talks up diversity.

And both get their funding from the very wealthy and corporations. And any 3rd choices would be "throwing your vote away". How would you ever get to vote for someone who might change course?

Democracy has little to actually do with choice or power.

mlopez, January 18, 2019 at 6:22 pm

GB may not have been any utopia in 1914, but it was certainly geo-politically dominant. It's common people's social, economic and cultural living standards most assuredly was vastly improved over Russian, or European peasants. There can be no serious comparison with third world countries and regions.

As for the US, there can be absolutely no debate about its own dominance, or material standard of living after 1945 as compared to any where else in the world. More importantly, even uneducated and very contemporary observers were capable of recognizing how our elites had sold out their interests in favor of the furtherance of their own.

If we are on about democratic government, then it's been generations since either country and their peoples have had any real democracy. Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility.

That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge.

Hello / Goodbye, January 19, 2019 at 11:40 am

The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that.

Patzinak, January 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm

What ineffable flummadiddle!

Prominent Brexiteers include Boris Johnson (dual UK/US citizenship, educated in Brussels and at Eton and Oxford, of mixed ancestry, including a link - by illegitimate descent - to the royal houses of Prussia and the UK); Jacob Rees-Mogg (son of a baron, educated at Eton and Oxford, amassed a solid fortune via hedge fund management); Arron Banks (millionaire, bankroller of UKIP, made to the Brexit campaign the largest ever political donation in UK politics).

So much for "the elite" being against Brexit!

But the main problem with Brexit is this. Having voted by a slim margin in favour of Brexit, the Great British Public then, in the general election, denied a majority to the government that had undertaken to implement it, and elected a Parliament of whom, by a rough estimate, two thirds oppose Brexit.

It ain't that "the elite" got "things wrong". It's that bloody Joe Public can't make his mind what to do - and go through with it.

Rossbach, January 20, 2019 at 2:14 pm

"Whether the imagined utopia of a dominant Great Britain prior to 1914 or a dominant America after 1945 ever actually existed is beside the point."

It wasn't to restore any defunct utopia that led people to vote for Brexit or Donald Trump; it was to check the descent of the Anglosphere into the totalitarian dystopia of forced multi-cultural globalism that caused voters to reject the EU in Britain and Hillary Clinton in the US. It is because they believed that only with the preservation of their national independence was there any chance or hope for a restoration of individual liberty that our people voted as they did.

Ratings System, January 17, 2019 at 1:27 pm

It's why they won't enjoy their privileges much longer. That stale charade can't and won't last.

We don't have a meritocracy. We have a pseudo-meritocracy with an unduly large contingent of aliens, liars, cheats, frauds, and incompetents. They give each other top marks, speak each other's PC language, and hire each other's kids. And they don't understand why things are falling apart, and why they are increasingly hated by real Americans.

A very nasty decade or two is coming our way, but after we've swept out the filth there will be a good chance that Americans will be Americans again.

Paul Reidinger, January 17, 2019 at 2:03 pm

An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated.

As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. The new dark age is no longer imminent. It is here, and it is them. I see no way to rectify the damage. When minds are ruined young, they remain ruined.

[Jan 25, 2019] Clinton Emails Reveal France, U.S. Looted Oil Gold In Libya

Jan 13, 2016 | www.youtube.com

New emails published by the U.S. Department of State reveal the real motives behind the international invasion of Libya.

The new emails of Hillary Clinton reveal that the real reason behind the invasion were primarily the countries large gold and oil reserves, and the extension of French influence in North Africa.

Fort Russ reports:
The U.S. State Department has published a series of emails that reveal the volume of gold reserves of Gaddafi. According to the documents, the reserves are so great that they could become the basis for creating a pan-African currency, which, in turn, could compete with the dollar in the region.

Also, the reasons for intervention were identified as the major oil reserves of Libya and the strengthening of French influence in North Africa. However, in 2011, Western leaders welcomed the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime as a democratic step. "Long live Benghazi, long live Libya, long live the friendship between France and Libya!", – said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"You showed the world that you can overthrow the dictator and have chosen freedom!" – said the Prime Minister of Great Britain David Cameron, speaking to the Libyan people."The people of Libya got rid of a dictator. Now it has a chance," claimed the Vice-President of USA Joe Biden.

In the past five years, the violence and chaos in Libya has not stopped. In the background of this, "Islamic State" is gaining momentum in the country and has captured new territory. In January 2016, dozens of people were killed as a result of terrorist.

Previously, "Islamic State" had claimed responsibility for the attack on a training camp in Zliten. According to the correspondent of the newspaper The Jerusalem Post Ariel Ben Solomon, from the outset it was obvious that intervention in Libya would lead to negative consequences for the country.

"The email to Clinton is confirmed by the results of studies that began to appear after the invasion of Libya, organized by France with U.S. support. Major oil reserves of the country were the main reason for intervention. Dictators lead many African countries, but the West is in no hurry to intervene in each of them. The Obama administration from the beginning was guided by rather naive misconceptions on the actions that needed to be taken to resolve the situation in Libya after the war," said RT political analyst Ariel Ben Solomon.
Source:
http://yournewswire.com/clinton-email... Ozzie Crosby 2 years ago America needs war to survive. The United States IS the infidel. It's not just propaganda. pav_k2007 2 years ago modern day robbers! K Lyall 2 years ago Imagine a NWO puppet like her in the White House for 4 more years!

10 11

View reply Hide replies 1979USHI 2 years ago The Western nations governments are totally out of order and need to be taken to a real world court. Notta Dr 2 years ago incredibly disgusting what we are learning about warmongering corporate globalist elites. there is a strong move starting in the other direction....more conservative nationalist leaders are rising up everywhere. these monsters ask need to be arrested, tried and severely punished....held to the highest level of accountability.

[Jan 25, 2019] Re-Colonisation

Jan 25, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

January 25, 2019 For Thierry Meyssan, one of the consequences of the successive ends of the bipolar and unipolar world is the re-establishment of colonial projects. One after the other, the French, Turkish and English have publicly declared the return of their colonial ambitions. We still need to know what form they will adopt in the 21st century.
by Thierry Meyssan
Part 3 - The British Empire
As for the United Kingdom, it has been hesitating for two years about its future after the Brexit.
A little after the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House, Prime Minister Theresa May went to the United States. Speaking to the representatives of the Republican Party, she proposed re-establishing the Anglo-Saxon leadership of the rest of the world. But President Trump has been elected to liquidate these imperial dreams, not to share them.
Disappointed, Theresa May then travelled to China in order to propose that President Xi Jinping share control of international exchanges. The City, she said, was ready to ensure the convertibility of Western currencies into Yuan. But President Xi had not been elected to do business with an heiress of the power which had dismantled his country and imposed on the Chinese their opium war.
Theresa May tried a third version with the Commonwealth. Some of the ex-colonies of the Crown, like India, are today enjoying powerful growth and could become precious commercial partners. Symbolically, the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Charles, was raised to the Presidency of this association. Mrs. May announced that we are on our way to a Global Britain.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph on 30 December 2018, the British Minister for Defence, Gavin Williamson, published his analysis of the situation. Since the fiasco of the Suez Canal in 1956, the United Kingdom has implemented a policy of decolonisation, and has withdrawn its troops from the rest of the world. Today, it conserves permanent military bases only in Gibraltar, Cyprus, Diego Garcia and the "Falklands", to give these islands their imperial title.
For the last 63 years, London has been oriented towards the European Union, invented by Winston Churchill, but to which, initially, he never imagined that England would belong. The Brexit "tears this policy to shreds". From now on, "the United Kingdom is back as a global power".
London is planning to open two permanent military bases. The first will probably be in Asia (Singapore or Brunei), and the second in Latin America - most likely in Guyana, in order to participate in the new stage of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski strategy of the destruction of those regions of the world which are not connected to globalisation. After the "African Great Lakes", the "Greater Middle East", it's time for the "Caribbean Basin". The war will probably start with an invasion of Venezuela by Colombia (pro-US), Brazil (pro-Israëli) and Guyana (pro-British).

[Jan 24, 2019] Max Boot Is Sorry for Backing the GOP and Iraq War by Peter Maass

Neocons are "enemies of the people" independent of their party affiliation. Nuremberg principles were written not for nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks. ..."
"... The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence. ..."
Oct 13, 2018 | theintercept.com

There is an unforgettable passage in Graham Greene's classic "The Quiet American" in which the title character, a CIA agent named Alden Pyle, admits that Vietnam is much more complicated than he'd imagined. "I had not realized how tribal politics was and how divorced it could be from principles or conviction," Pyle says. Surveying the wreckage of the American war effort, he adds, "Looking back with greater introspection and humility after the passage of more than fifteen years, I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it was all a big mistake."

Greene's admirers will recognize that these lines do not actually come from his 1955 novel. They are from Max Boot's new book, " The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right ." Boot, a leading intellectual in the conservative movement for the past two decades, is now apologizing for nearly everything he has done and abided. He is denouncing not just Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole. "Upon closer examination," he writes in his 260-page atonement, "it's obvious that the whole history of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance, isolationism, and know-nothingism."

The temptation is to say, Bravo, here at last is a Republican willing to admit the emperor has no clothes. That's the reaction of lots of journalists and pundits who have flipped through Boot's book. Jacob Heilbrunn wrote in the Washington Monthly that Boot's "readiness to reexamine his old convictions is admirable." Adam Serwer, writer at The Atlantic, tweeted , "You don't want to punish people for getting the right answer." Boot is no longer a Republican (he quit the party after Trump's election) but he is hardly an outcast in the political world -- he is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a CNN analyst. Such is the sweet life of a born-again intellectual.

It's easy to understand why a penitent like Boot appeals to liberals and other members of the Trump resistance. He ratifies their sense of having been correct from the start, and his confession is enunciated in perfect sound bites, with just the right dose of abasement. Boot is an irresistible spectacle -- the sinner with tears running down his cheeks dropping to his knees at the altar of all that is good, proclaiming that he has seen the light and wants to join the army of righteousness. But here's the thing: Boot is only half-apologizing. And because he's been wrong so many times and with so many ill consequences, he should be provided with nothing more than a polite handshake as he's led out of the sanctuary of politics, forever.

When I say wrong, I mean Guinness World Records wrong. In his first book, " Out of Order ," Boot argued that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation violated the Constitution ("I am not proud of 'Out of Order,'" he now says); he was a key proponent of the invasion of Iraq ("Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul," he proclaimed in 2001);

he thought John Bolton was treated unfairly when Democrats opposed his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations ("He seems like a good choice to help drain the U.N. cesspool of corrupt bureaucrats and self-serving tyrants");

he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks.

That's a lot of wrong. It's so much wrong that I can't imagine how or why anyone could look at Boot and think, "Ah, here's a man we should listen to." I can pre-empt Boot's response to this -- in his book, he complains that "doctrinaire leftists" will be satisfied with nothing less than his "ritual suicide" for the war crimes he's committed. I've exchanged a few cordial emails with Boot (we both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, a few years apart, and worked at its student newspaper, the Daily Californian ), and I can honestly say he seems a nice and bright enough fellow to whom I wish no physical harm. But like Alden Pyle, he has helped create so much havoc, he has been wrong so completely, that it would be the definition of insanity to treat his ideas as fodder for anything other than a shredder. Here's a real line from "The Quiet American," spoken about Pyle by the novel's weary narrator, that suits Boot perfectly: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." Pyle's innocence, the book explains, "is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence.

Boot is a perfect example, because he has been wrong so many times in such major ways and is actually willing to admit it. But there are vast numbers of pundits , masters of spin , and alleged intellectuals who have been wrong enough on enough big things (not just war, but climate change and more) to merit laughter rather than praise. Yet there they are, stroking their chins on our finest op-ed pages and cable news channels. Mutual forgiveness is a necessity among pundits who are stuffed with nonsense much of the time; without mercy on demand, they might all be out of jobs.

It's no surprise that Boot's book arrives with admiring blurbs from D.C. heavyweights James Fallows, Jon Meacham, and David Corn, among others.

[Jan 24, 2019] The Iraq War cheerleaders who are still around 15 years later by Sarah Wasko

The Iraq War cheerleaders who are still around 15 years later
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton was President George W. Bush's Undersecretary of State for Arms Control when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... Kudlow was economics editor of National Review and a co-host of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Boot, also an author , was a contributing editor and columnist for The Weekly Standard when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... The Weekly Standard ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Cohen was a Washington Post columnist when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... Flesicher served as President Bush's press secretary as the Iraq War began. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Hannity was also a syndicated talk radio host and a Fox News host when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... Hannity & Colmes ..."
"... The Sean Hannity Show ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Hayes was a senior writer at The Weekly Standard when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... The Weekly Standard ..."
"... The Connection: How Al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Hiatt has been editorial page director of The Washington Post since 1999. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Kristol was a co-founder of Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank Kristol used to crusade for the Iraq War. ..."
"... The Weekly Standard ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Gigot has been the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal since 2001. ..."
"... Miller was a New York Times reporter when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Scarborough was hired by MSNBC as the Iraq War began. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Stephens was editor of The Jerusalem Post when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... The New Yorker ..."
"... Jerusalem Post ..."
"... The Jerusalem Post ..."
"... Frum was a speechwriter for President Bush when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... Lake was a State Department correspondent for United Press International (UPI) when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... Cohen was a co-founder of Project for the New American Century. ..."
"... Coulter was a prominent conservative author and commentator when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... Limbaugh was also host of his own radio show when the Iraq War began. ..."
"... Wallace was George W. Bush's communications director as the Iraq War began. ..."
Mar 20, 2018 | www.mediamatters.org

March 20, 2018, marks the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. While the American footprint in Iraq has drastically changed over 15 years, a significant number of the original cheerleaders for the invasion still hold prominent roles in the media today:

John Bolton, Fox News contributor

Bolton was President George W. Bush's Undersecretary of State for Arms Control when the Iraq War began.

Bolton was a huge backer of the Iraq War:

Bolton backed an Iraq invasion as early as 1998, when he signed a letter from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative group led by William Kristol, urging then-President Bill Clinton to attack Saddam Hussein. As the State Department's top arms-control official during President Bush's first term, Bolton played a role in pushing the allegation that Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa.

"We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq." [BBC, 11/20/02 ]

"I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct." [Talking Points Memo, 5/14/15 ]

Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior contributor

Kudlow was economics editor of National Review and a co-host of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer when the Iraq War began.

"Could it be that a lack of decisive follow-through in the global war on terrorism is the single biggest problem facing the stock market and the nation today? I believe it is. The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand points." [ National Review , 6/26/02 ]

"Every day we wait for the impending invasion of Iraq is a day Saddam Hussein grows stronger, a day our national security is threatened, and a day our economic security is jeopardized." [ National Review , 2/6/03 ]

Max Boot, Washington Post columnist

Boot, also an author , was a contributing editor and columnist for The Weekly Standard when the Iraq War began.

John Ganz wrote of Boot's warmongering:

Boot's bloodthirstiness is united with a peculiar naïveté about America; it must be said that in this respect he is not unlike Lansdale. Could it really have been, as Boot wrote in 2017, that only Trump opened his eyes to the fact that it's a bit easier to be a white guy in America, that "I benefitted from my skin color and my gender -- and those of a different gender or sexuality or skin color have suffered because of it"? Good for Max if he's had a change of heart and seen the world through more empathetic eyes; one only wishes he could've had those moments of reflection, which seem so modest and so reasonable, circa 2001. But that might not have changed anything. He wrote as recently as 2013 that he feels "No Need to Repent for Support of the Iraq War." He declares, "I feel no shame being part of the 75 percent of Americans who believed at the beginning that this was a war worth waging." This move is not quite honest: Boot wants to submerge himself into the center of a crowd, one of the democratic mass, when in fact he was at its vanguard, pushing for the Iraq War early and often.

"Once Afghanistan has been dealt with, America should turn its attention to Iraq." [ The Weekly Standard , 10/15/01 ]

"In places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and very shortly Iraq, ordinary people clamor for American intervention, and welcome U.S. troops as liberators." [Nimitz Memorial Lecture at University of California, Berkeley, 3/12/03 ]

"No need to repent for support of [the] Iraq war." [ Commentary , 3/18/13 ]

"But how exactly does the Iraq War differ from previous wars? From World War I, when the Great Powers were said to have 'sleepwalked' into a conflict that no one really wanted?" [ Commentary , 7/6/16 ]

Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist

Cohen was a Washington Post columnist when the Iraq War began.

"Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise." [ The Washington Post , 2/6/03 ]

"Initially, I thought bringing down Saddam Hussein was a good cause. I was wrong -- not about the cause, but about its practicality." [ The Washington Post , 4/1/08 ]

Ari Fleischer, Fox News contributor

Flesicher served as President Bush's press secretary as the Iraq War began.

"My point is, the likelihood is much more like Afghanistan, where the people who live right now under a brutal dictator will view America as liberators, not conquerors." [ The New York Times , 10/12/02 ]

"There's no question that if force is used, it will achieve the objective of preserving the peace far faster than the current path that we're on." [White House press briefing, 2/14/03 ]

"Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice." [White House press briefing, 3/21/03 ]

"I think that if you look at the Iraqi people, the Iraqi people are overwhelmingly pleased with the fact the United States has helped them to get rid of the Saddam Hussein regime. That was clear from their dancing in the streets, from the way they tore down the statues. And I think that is the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people." [White House press briefing, 7/1/03 ]

Sean Hannity, Fox News host

Hannity was also a syndicated talk radio host and a Fox News host when the Iraq War began.

"We're going to find all the weapons of mass destruction." [Fox News, Hannity & Colmes , 2/19/03, via Nexis]

"I was a real believer in the Iraq War. I still am to this day. I still feel that there were probably weapons of mass destruction. I do believe they were likely moved to Syria in the long lead-up to the war." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show , 9/7/16 ]

Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief

Hayes was a senior writer at The Weekly Standard when the Iraq War began.

"Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda." [ The Weekly Standard , 11/24/03 ]

Hayes' 2004 book was titled The Connection: How Al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America . [ Media Matters , 6/30/04 ]

Fred Hiatt, Washington Post editorial director

Hiatt has been editorial page director of The Washington Post since 1999.

As Media Matters has documented , the Washington Post editorial page -- headed by Hiatt since 1999 -- repeatedly echoed the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A February 6, 2003, editorial began, "After Secretary Of State Colin L. Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."

The Post 's editorial page also linked the need to invade Iraq to the 9/11 attacks:

During the past decade the United States vowed many times to disarm Saddam Hussein, who made no secret of his hatred and enmity toward the United States; but when the Iraqi dictator resisted, the United States chose to abandon its vows rather than use the force that would have been needed to enforce them. In every case, the calculation, stated or unstated, was the same: Pay tribute, don't make trouble, and maybe nothing worse will happen.

In the ruins of Lower Manhattan in September 2001, most Americans saw evidence that this calculation was incorrect as well as craven. The nation's enemies would not be deterred or mollified by a gentle response; they would be emboldened. President Bush rightly concluded that the nation had to defend itself more vigilantly but also that no defense could succeed unless accompanied by an offensive against the terrorists and the states that sheltered them.

Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard editor-at-large

Kristol was a co-founder of Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank Kristol used to crusade for the Iraq War.

Saddam Hussein "will not disarm peacefully. And he must be disarmed. So war will come. The war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime." [ The Weekly Standard , 3/17/03 ]

Kristol bragged that the war would last just two months:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nONm4myKwY8

In 2015, Kristol defended the decision to invade Iraq:

Even with the absence of caches of weapons of mass destruction, and the mistakes we made in failing to send enough troops at first and to provide security from the beginning for the Iraqi people, we were right to persevere through several difficult years. We were able to bring the war to a reasonably successful conclusion in 2008.

Paul Gigot, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor

Gigot has been the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal since 2001.

Under Gigot, the editorial page frequently hyped the likelihood that Saddam Hussein was close to producing or obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Journal forwarded alarmist claims about Iraq's nuclear capabilities on numerous occasions:

Judith Miller, Fox News contributor

Miller was a New York Times reporter when the Iraq War began.

Miller produced a series of now-debunked reports that the Bush administration used to buttress its claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. As Franklin Foer wrote for New York magazine:

During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein's ambition and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by [Ahmad] Chalabi and his allies -- almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.

For the past year, the Times has done much to correct that coverage, publishing a series of stories calling Chalabi's credibility into question. [ New York magazine, 6 /7/04 ]

In a 2004 interview, she told The New York Review of Books: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal."

Former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller discussed Miller's Iraq War reporting with Media Matters in 2011:

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller says one of his biggest mistakes as editor was not addressing the paper's misleading pre-Iraq War coverage sooner, including the reporting of former Times writer Judy Miller.

Keller tells Media Matters that he is "not at all" surprised that Miller ended up at the "conservative" Fox News Channel after she left the Times under a cloud of controversy related to her Iraq reporting.

Keller, who announced Thursday that in September he will leave the post he has held since July 2003, said: "Judy was the author of a lot of those stories, and I should have dealt with the stories and with her I think as the sort of first order of business when I took the job rather than waiting until the following year."

Keller was referring to the unusual editor's note the Times published on May 26, 2004, in which it admitted many of its pre-war stories about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- a number of which were reported by Miller -- misrepresented the situation before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"The whole Judy Miller WMD experience was ... one of the low points of the last eight years," Keller said.

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host

Scarborough was hired by MSNBC as the Iraq War began.

Joe Scarborough repeatedly cheered on the Iraq War and attacked people who criticized it.

"Congressman [Jack] Kingston [R-GA], give me a quick response. How could there be anyone left on the planet today that doesn't believe that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?" [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/5/03, via Nexis]

Toppling Saddam Hussein "will mean the end of his weapons of mass destruction." [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/11/03, via Nexis]

"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types . I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war .

"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief UN weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, 'The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs, defeated.' Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail, again.

"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing." [MSNBC 4/10/03 via FAIR ]

Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist and MSNBC contributor

Stephens was editor of The Jerusalem Post when the Iraq War began.

As The New Yorker noted , in 2003 Stephens' Jerusalem Post "named one of the Iraq War's chief architects, Paul Wolfowitz, its 'man of the year.'"

"Saddam may unveil, to an astonished world, the Arab world's first nuclear bomb." [ The Jerusalem Post , 11/15/02 ]

Stephens criticized the Obama administration's case for military intervention in Syria by contrasting it with Bush's decision to invade Iraq, which he claimed was made based on "highly detailed" intelligence revealing weapons of mass destruction. Stephens claimed that the "testimony of U.N. inspectors like Hans Blix" supported the Bush administration's case for war, and accusations that the Bush administration lied were "libel" and "cheap slander." In fact, Blix told CNN in 2004 that the Bush administration "chose to ignore" his team's concerns about the lack of solid evidence in favor of war, and that prior to the invasion the evidence of WMDs in Iraq was revealed to be "shaky." [ Media Matters , 4/13/17 ]

David Frum, Atlantic senior editor

Frum was a speechwriter for President Bush when the Iraq War began.

Frum is renowned for writing George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech. Alex Nichols described Frum's Iraq boosterism in 2017:

Bush chief speechwriter Michael Gerson, a fellow fanatical interventionist and veteran of the neoconservative underworld, tapped Frum for the speechwriting team in 2000. His greatest accomplishment was the authorship of Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech, now known for its most famous phrase, "axis of evil." The axis was a grouping of three countries -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- that were implicit allies in a plot to destroy America. The supposed ties between the three mostly came down to their mutual love for imaginary "weapons of mass destruction" and non-existent collaboration with al-Qaeda. As Trump threatens war crimes against civilians in Iraq and Syria, sanctions Iran despite its compliance with our nuclear agreement and threatens "fire and fury" for North Korea, Frum must be held accountable for cementing them as boogeymen in the public imagination.

Frum resigned his post in February 2002 in order to join the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank then working in close association with the Bush administration. With them, he emerged as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the War on Terror. In 2004, Frum and former adviser to the Bush Department of Defense Richard Perle published a book titled An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. Its text was as audacious as its title. "An End to Evil will define the conservative point of view on foreign policy for a new generation -- and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond," a description of it reads. By this time, the Iraq War was in full swing, and Frum and Perle offered full-throated apologia. Under the assumptions that the war would bring stable democracy to Iraq and that the imaginary WMDs would be located soon enough, they called for similar action against North Korea and Iran.

Eli Lake, Bloomberg View columnist

Lake was a State Department correspondent for United Press International (UPI) when the Iraq War began.

As noted by Adam Weinstein for Gawker, Lake argued for the legality of the Iraq War in a 2003 column for UPI:

"On the facts of the case, it is hard to argue that Iraq has given up its weapons of mass destruction. ... With this kind of evidence, far from being an international outlaw, the United States would be a the (sic) defender of the entire institution of international (sic) should it lead a war to disarm Iraq."

Eliot Cohen, Atlantic contributing editor

Cohen was a co-founder of Project for the New American Century.

MSNBC's Zachary Roth described Cohen's role in boosting the Iraq War in 2013:

[Cohen] was a key agitator for an Iraq invasion and for a maximalist response to the 9/11 attacks. In a November 2001 op-ed in which he called the War on Terror "World War IV," Cohen argued that the US. should "target" Iraq because it had "helped al Qaeda" and "developed weapons of destruction." Not long after, he touted a spurious connection between Muhammed Atta, the chief 9/11 hijacker, and Saddam's regime. In Congressional testimony in 2002, Cohen framed a stark choice for policymakers: Allow Saddam "to acquire weapons of mass destruction or to take action to overthrow him." In 2007, Cohen became a top adviser to Condoleezza Rice at the State Department.

Ann Coulter

Coulter was a prominent conservative author and commentator when the Iraq War began.

Coulter, alongside Sean Hannity, pushed lies about Army Ranger Pat Tillman's opposition to the Iraq War. Asawin Suebsaeng wrote in 2017 for The Daily Beast about Coulter's Iraq War boosterism and how she has pivoted away from it under Trump:

"I think Iraq was a crucial part of the war on terrorism -- if you had to choose between Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd take Iraq over Afghanistan," Coulter said on a Fox Business panel, debating anti-war libertarians, in late 2011. "PATRIOT Act, fantastic, Gitmo, fantastic, waterboarding, not bad, though [even harsher] torture would've been better."

Coulter went on to tell a bewildered John Stossel and Matt Welch that "[Iraq] is a fantastic country for regime change," that "torture works beautifully," and that position regarding potential blowback or unintended negative consequences to the war were merely a "crazy ACLU argument."

Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh was also host of his own radio show when the Iraq War began.

On April 7, 2003, Rush Limbaugh said , "We're discovering WMDs all over Iraq." On September 26, 2007, Limbaugh called soldiers who advocated withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." Limbaugh has subsequently tried to justify the Iraq War, even declaring that President Bush should be added to Mount Rushmore . In January 2018, Limbaugh accused the "deep state" of faking weapons of mass destruction evidence in Iraq to damage Bush.

Nicole Wallace, MSNBC host

Wallace was George W. Bush's communications director as the Iraq War began.

"[Obama's] legacy on foreign policy is going to be that he didn't start a war in Iraq. He wasn't the president, thank God, in the years after 9/11." [MSNBC, 5/30/14 ]

[Jan 24, 2019] Trump Derangement Syndrome and the NATO Fetish of the Progressive Left by David Stockman

Notable quotes:
"... As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal Doomsday machine. ..."
"... That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State. ..."
"... In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914. ..."
"... Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991. ..."
"... So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s. ..."
"... Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business. ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

We've got NATO on our mind today because we learned this morning that the mere suggestion this obsolete relic of the Cold War should be abandoned tends to trigger an absolutely virulent outburst of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the mainstream media.

As it happened we were appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to promote our new book called, PEAK TRUMP: The Undrainable Swamp and the Fantasy of MAGA .

So long as we were talking about the folly of Trump-O-Nomics and the Donald's rookie mistake in embracing an egregious stock market bubble that is destined to crash and a failing, geriatric business cycle that at age 115 months has "recession ahead" written all over its forehead, our host, Mika Brzezinski, was happy to nod approvingly.

But when we veered off into approval of the Donald's efforts to rein in the Empire and make peace with the Russkies, it was an altogether different matter. We no more than launched the thought of it than Mika was sputtering in disbelief – as if we had committed a grotesque sacrilege in public:

STOCKMAN: Beyond that – beyond that, trump tried to do the right thick with America first. He's been stymied at every turn of the road. He was right. They wouldn't let him do it. He was right. NATO is obsolete. We should get rid of it. Everybody went after him for he's trying to do the right thing in Korea and yet they keep coming after him on the basis of the status quo, which has been wrong for last 60 years. So on the one hand, his economic policy is a failure. On the other hand, his effort to rein in the empires I call it and get to something we can afford is being stymied. And then he's filled the swamp with $100 billion more for the Pentagon that is doesn't need. That's the deep end of the swamp."

BRZEZINSKI: "David, David, hold on a second, hold on, hold on. You did a lot."

STOCKMAN: "Yes."

BRZEZINSKI: "I just want to like hone in on one – are you saying we should pull out of NATO?" [crosstalk]

STOCKMAN: "Sure. NATO is obsolete."

BRZEZINSKI: "What?"

STOCKMAN: "NATO is obsolete. It was only set up to stop the Soviet Union and 50,000 tanks on the Warsaw front. That ended 25 years ago. We don't need NATO. Europe can take care of itself. Russia's a pint-sized economy, 7 percent of size of U.S. economy. NATO, US GDP combined is $36 trillion, Russia's $1.5 trillion. You think the Europeans can't handle it? Germany spends 1 percent only of GDP on defense. If they really thought that the Russians were heading through the Brandenburg Gate, they would be providing for their own defense. They're not pacifists.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KZU_dz_emOg

So if you wonder why we insist that a fiscal calamity is barreling down the pike – just consider the implications of this exchange. MSNBC is ground zero for the so-called progressive Left. Yet it has become so deranged by the Donald and convinced that he was elected not because the electorate rejected its threadbare agenda, but because Putin and the Russkies threw the election to him, that it has become a full-fledged champion of the War Party.

As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal Doomsday machine.

That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State.

Yet with respect to the latter, the last time we checked the old Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history 28 years ago. Shortly thereafter the 50,000 Red Army tanks, which had been arrayed menacingly (and unbeknownst to the CIA, largely without spare fuel) behind the Iron Curtain, were mostly melted down for scrap by the destitute statelets of the Warsaw Pact (Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania etc.) and 14 ex-Soviet Republics (like Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, etc.)

What was left of the Soviet Empire was the rump state of Russia – shorn of much of its industrial base and with an aging population of just 140 million compared to the 425 million souls who had been incarcerated in Stalin's dystopia.

So, yes, there was every reason to declare "mission accomplished" and disband NATO because the much exaggerated conventional military threat of the Soviet Union had literally vanished from the face of the earth. At that point, NATO was, in fact, pointless.

So when President George Bush the Elder, who was no wimpy Yale pacifist, promised Gorbachev in 1989 that in return for his acquiescence to the reunification of Germany that NATO would no move " a single inch to the east", he wasn't exactly selling the "free world" (as they called it) down the drain.

In fact, as the above map unfolded, the 77-Years War that had incepted in August 1914 was finally over. If you want to count bodies, 150 million were killed by all the depredations which germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and the march of history into the second world war and cold war which followed inexorably thereupon.

To wit, upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped-out during that span. The toll encompassed the madness of trench warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and Versailles; and then the carnage of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and Vietnam.

So finally the time had come for Washington to lead the world into a golden age of peace, disarmament and prosperous commerce among the nations.

Yet there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77 Years War ended. The great general and president, Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell address.

But that memorable phrase had been abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word "congressional" in a gesture of comity to the legislative branch. So restore Ike's deleted reference to the legislative pork barrels and Sunday afternoon warriors of Capitol Hill and toss in the legions of beltway busybodies that constituted the civilian branches of the cold war armada (CIA, State, AID, NED etc.) and the circle would have been complete.

It constituted the most awesome machine of warfare and imperial hegemony since the Roman legions bestrode most of the civilized world.

In a word, the real threat to world peace circa 1991 was that Pax Americana would not go away quietly into the good night.

In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914.

Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991.

What needed to happen back in 1991 was for Bush the Elder to declare "mission accomplished" and slash the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion.

So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s.

Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business.

By contrast, even though liberal historians have reviled Warren G. Harding as some kind of dumbkopf politician, he well understood that the Great War had been for naught, and that to insure it never happened again the nations of the world needed to rid themselves of their huge navies and standing armies.

To that end, he achieved the largest global disarmament agreement ever made during the Washington Naval conference of 1921, which halted the construction of new battleships for more than a decade.

And while he was at it, President Harding also pardoned Eugene Debs. He thereby gave witness to the truth that the intrepid socialist candidate for president and vehement antiwar protester, who Wilson had thrown in prison for exercising his first amendment right to speak against US entry into a pointless European war, had been right all along.

In short, Warren G. Harding knew the war was over, and the folly of Wilson's 1917 plunge into Europe's bloodbath should not be repeated at all hazards.

The Unforgiveable Sins 0f George H.W. Bush

Not George H.W. Bush. The man should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power – even if he did denounce them in his bumbling old age.

Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991 he opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam. In turn, that nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today – save for forces unleashed by George H.W. Bush's petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.

We will address more fully on another occasion the 45-year-old error that holds the Persian Gulf is an American Lake and that energy security requires it be patrolled by the Fifth Fleet. As history proves, the real answer to high oil prices everywhere and always is high oil prices and the wonders they work to rebalance the global energy market.

But first it is well to remember that there was no plausible threat anywhere on the planet to the safety and security of the citizens of Springfield MA, Lincoln NE or Spokane WA when the cold war ended.

But rather than dismantling the NATO machinery, virtually the opposite happened. NATO has been expanded to 29 countries including such powers as Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and now the statelet of Montenegro that has a military half the size of the police force of Philadelphia.

In the context of this relentless and pointless NATO expansion to the very borders of the shrunken Russian state, Washington not only sponsored and funded the overthrow of Ukraine's constitutionally elected government in February 2014. But once it had unleashed a devastating civil war, it relentlessly blocked the obvious alternative to the bloodshed that has claimed 10,000 civilian and military casualties.

That is, it's partition of its population among the Russian speaking provinces in the Donbas and Crimea and Ukrainians in the west. After all, partition was accomplished peacefully in the artificial state of Czechoslovakia and at the insistence of NATO bombers in the short-lived nation of Yugoslavia.

Had not the Donald been stopped cold by the hail of hysteria which emanated from the War Party and their dutiful stenographers in the main stream media, the next step after his historic meeting with Putin in Helsinki would have been to take up where George H.W. Bush faltered in 1991.

That is, on the dismantlement and interment of NATO and the reopening of Europe to peaceful commerce among all the nation's that had been artificially separated by the now long departed Iron Curtain.

The fact is, Washington doesn't need its budget-busting $720 billion defense budget to defend Europe from Russia, nor should it be endlessly haranguing those nations to waste more of their own money on defense than they already are.

That's because there is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia wants to attack Germany or any other country in Europe. Indeed, the very idea is just plain madness.

As shown by the table below, the NATO-28 (excluding the US) are now actually spending $250 billion per year on defense (2017). That's 4X Russia's entire military budget of $61 billion .

Likewise, the GDP of Russia is but $1.5 trillion compared to $18 trillion for the NATO-28. So is Cool Hand Vlad so completely foolish and reckless as to think that he could invade and occupy territories that have an economy 13X bigger than that of Russia?

Actually, it's far more ludicrous than that. The rump of Russia today is a giant hydrocarbon province attached to some wheat fields, timber lands and mineral deposits – all dependent upon an aging work force afflicted with an undue fondness for Vodka etc.

What that means is that Russia must export its commodities big time or die. In fact, during 2017 Russian exports totaled $357 billion or 26% of its GDP. And 55% of that went to Europe!

Moreover, when you breakdown Russian exports it is plain to see that the industrial maw of Europe is the port of first call for its vast tonnages of exported commodities. These included $173 billion of oil and gas and $60 billion of iron, steel, aluminum, precious metals, forest products, fertilizers, grains and copper, among others.

Finally, the table on defense spending by country below speaks for itself as to the purported Russian threat. If the German government really feared that Russian tanks would be soon rolling through the Brandenburg Gates, it would have more than 20 operational tanks, and it would spend far more than $40.6 billion or 1.2% of GDP to defend itself.

And the same is even more true of the former Warsaw pact countries that are located cheek-by-jowl on Russia's border. Yet Romania spends the tiny sum of $2.8 billion or 1.2% of GDP on its military.

Likewise, the figure for Hungary, which learned all about Soviet-style invasions in 1956, spends only $1.2 billion or barely 1.0% of GDP. And besides that, its intrepid leader, Viktor Orban, doesn't even support NATO's ridiculous sanctions on Putin's cronies and allies.

And as for the allegedly threatened Baltic states, their combined defense budgets are less than $1.5 billion, representing a minuscule 1.7% of combined GDP; and Bulgaria, fast upon the Russian Lake called the Black Sea, spends only $660 million or 1.4% of its GDP.

In short, European policy action on the defense spending front trumps all the hot air that wafts from NATO's spanking new Brussels headquarters. Their governments and parliaments positively do not think they are threatened by the Russian Bear because they aren't.

What would help a lot, therefore, is for the Great Disrupter to forget about his unfortunate infatuation with the idea that bigger is always better, and do what no other American politician in thrall to the Warfare State has been unable to do since 1991 when the Soviet Union vanished.

That is, declare "mission accomplished" with respect to NATO and disband it forthwith.

You could call it a Mercy Killing. Indeed, a couple more NATO summits at which they are browbeat to waste ever more money on defense, and the Europeans themselves may well start begging for exactly that.

Then again, could you imagine how loudly the progressive left would be screaming if the Donald even entertained the thought deep beneath his bedraggled Orange Comb-Over?

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

Read more by David Stockman

[Jan 24, 2019] Max Boot Is Sorry for Backing the GOP and Iraq War by Peter Maass

Neocons are "enemies of the people" independent of their party affiliation. Nuremberg principles were written not for nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks. ..."
"... The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence. ..."
Oct 13, 2018 | theintercept.com

There is an unforgettable passage in Graham Greene's classic "The Quiet American" in which the title character, a CIA agent named Alden Pyle, admits that Vietnam is much more complicated than he'd imagined. "I had not realized how tribal politics was and how divorced it could be from principles or conviction," Pyle says. Surveying the wreckage of the American war effort, he adds, "Looking back with greater introspection and humility after the passage of more than fifteen years, I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it was all a big mistake."

Greene's admirers will recognize that these lines do not actually come from his 1955 novel. They are from Max Boot's new book, " The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right ." Boot, a leading intellectual in the conservative movement for the past two decades, is now apologizing for nearly everything he has done and abided. He is denouncing not just Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole. "Upon closer examination," he writes in his 260-page atonement, "it's obvious that the whole history of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance, isolationism, and know-nothingism."

The temptation is to say, Bravo, here at last is a Republican willing to admit the emperor has no clothes. That's the reaction of lots of journalists and pundits who have flipped through Boot's book. Jacob Heilbrunn wrote in the Washington Monthly that Boot's "readiness to reexamine his old convictions is admirable." Adam Serwer, writer at The Atlantic, tweeted , "You don't want to punish people for getting the right answer." Boot is no longer a Republican (he quit the party after Trump's election) but he is hardly an outcast in the political world -- he is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a CNN analyst. Such is the sweet life of a born-again intellectual.

It's easy to understand why a penitent like Boot appeals to liberals and other members of the Trump resistance. He ratifies their sense of having been correct from the start, and his confession is enunciated in perfect sound bites, with just the right dose of abasement. Boot is an irresistible spectacle -- the sinner with tears running down his cheeks dropping to his knees at the altar of all that is good, proclaiming that he has seen the light and wants to join the army of righteousness. But here's the thing: Boot is only half-apologizing. And because he's been wrong so many times and with so many ill consequences, he should be provided with nothing more than a polite handshake as he's led out of the sanctuary of politics, forever.

When I say wrong, I mean Guinness World Records wrong. In his first book, " Out of Order ," Boot argued that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation violated the Constitution ("I am not proud of 'Out of Order,'" he now says); he was a key proponent of the invasion of Iraq ("Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul," he proclaimed in 2001);

he thought John Bolton was treated unfairly when Democrats opposed his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations ("He seems like a good choice to help drain the U.N. cesspool of corrupt bureaucrats and self-serving tyrants");

he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks.

That's a lot of wrong. It's so much wrong that I can't imagine how or why anyone could look at Boot and think, "Ah, here's a man we should listen to." I can pre-empt Boot's response to this -- in his book, he complains that "doctrinaire leftists" will be satisfied with nothing less than his "ritual suicide" for the war crimes he's committed. I've exchanged a few cordial emails with Boot (we both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, a few years apart, and worked at its student newspaper, the Daily Californian ), and I can honestly say he seems a nice and bright enough fellow to whom I wish no physical harm. But like Alden Pyle, he has helped create so much havoc, he has been wrong so completely, that it would be the definition of insanity to treat his ideas as fodder for anything other than a shredder. Here's a real line from "The Quiet American," spoken about Pyle by the novel's weary narrator, that suits Boot perfectly: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." Pyle's innocence, the book explains, "is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence.

Boot is a perfect example, because he has been wrong so many times in such major ways and is actually willing to admit it. But there are vast numbers of pundits , masters of spin , and alleged intellectuals who have been wrong enough on enough big things (not just war, but climate change and more) to merit laughter rather than praise. Yet there they are, stroking their chins on our finest op-ed pages and cable news channels. Mutual forgiveness is a necessity among pundits who are stuffed with nonsense much of the time; without mercy on demand, they might all be out of jobs.

It's no surprise that Boot's book arrives with admiring blurbs from D.C. heavyweights James Fallows, Jon Meacham, and David Corn, among others.

[Jan 24, 2019] The Integrity Initiative web site has been scrubbed and their twitter acct is now by invitation only

Jan 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bart Hansen , Jan 23, 2019 12:03:08 PM | link

RT is reporting that the Integrity Initiative web site has been scrubbed and their twitter acct is now by invitation only.

[Jan 23, 2019] Curious Bedfellows The Neocon And Progressive Alliance To Destroy Donald Trump by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora ..."
"... The neocons initially found a home with Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, but they moved on in the 1970s and 1980s to prosper under Ronald Reagan as well as under Democrat Bill Clinton. Their ability to shape policy peaked under George W. Bush, when they virtually ran the Pentagon and were heavily represented in both the national security apparatus and in the White House. They became adept at selling their mantra of "strong national defense" to whomever was buying, including to President Obama, even while simultaneously complaining about his administration's "weakness." ..."
"... When Trump was elected, it, therefore, seemed that the reign of the neocons had ended, but chameleonlike, they have changed shape and are now ensconced both in some conservative as well as in an increasing number of progressive circles in Washington and in the media. Against all odds, they have even captured key posts in the White House itself with the naming of John Bolton as National Security Adviser and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. Bolton's Chief of Staff is Fred Fleitz , a leading neocon and Islamophobe while last week Trump added Iran hawk Richard Goldberg to the National Security Council as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Goldberg is an alumnus of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is the leading neocon think tank calling incessantly for war with Iran. ..."
"... One of the most active groups attacking President Trump is "Republicans for the Rule of Law," founded by Bill Kristol in January 2018, as a component of Defending Democracy Together (DDT), a 501(c)4 lobbying group that also incorporates projects called The Russia Tweets and Republicans Against Putin. Republicans Against Putin promotes the view that President Trump is not "stand[ing] up to [Vladimir] Putin" and calls for more aggressive investigation of the Russian role in the 2016 election . ..."
"... Omidyar is a political liberal who has given millions of dollars to progressive organizations and individuals since 1999. Indeed, he is regarded as a top funder of liberal causes in the United States and even globally together with Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. His Democracy Fund awarded $9 million in grants in 2015 alone. ..."
"... Last week, the Omidyar-Kristol connection may have deepened with an announcement regarding the launch of the launch of a new webzine The Bulwark , which would clearly be at least somewhat intended to take the place of the recently deceased Weekly Standard. It is promoting itself as the center of the "Never Trump Resistance" and it is being assumed that at least some of the Omidyar money is behind it . ..."
"... That hatred is the tie that binds and it is why Bill Kristol, a man possessing no character and values whatsoever, is willing to take Pierre Omidyar's money while Pierre is quite happy to provide it to destroy a common enemy, the President of the United States of America. ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Roman poet Ovid's masterful epic The Metamorphoses includes the memorable opening line regarding the poem's central theme of transformation. He wrote In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora , which has been translated as "Of shapes transformed to bodies strange, I purpose to entreat "

Ovid framed his narrative around gods, heroes and quasi-historical events but if he were around today, he would no doubt be fascinated by the many transformations of the group that has defined itself as neoconservative.The movement began in a cafeteria in City College of New York in the 1930s, where a group of radical Jewish students would meet to discuss politics and developments in Europe. Many of the founders were from the far left, communists of the Trotskyite persuasion, which meant that they believed in permanent global revolution led by a vanguard party. The transformation into conservatives of a neo-persuasion took place when they were reportedly "mugged by reality" into accepting that the standard leftist formulae were not working to transform the world rapidly enough. As liberal hawks, they then hitched their wagon to the power of the United States to bring about transformation by force if necessary and began to infiltrate institutions like the Pentagon to give themselves the tools to achieve their objectives, which included promotion of regime change wars, full spectrum global dominance and unconditional support for Israel.

The neocons initially found a home with Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, but they moved on in the 1970s and 1980s to prosper under Ronald Reagan as well as under Democrat Bill Clinton. Their ability to shape policy peaked under George W. Bush, when they virtually ran the Pentagon and were heavily represented in both the national security apparatus and in the White House. They became adept at selling their mantra of "strong national defense" to whomever was buying, including to President Obama, even while simultaneously complaining about his administration's "weakness."

The neoconservatives lined up behind Hillary Clinton in 2016, appalled by Donald Trump's condemnation of their centerpiece war in Iraq and even more so by his pledge to end the wars in Asia and nation-building projects while also improving relations with the Russians. They worked actively against the Republican candidate both before he was nominated and elected and did everything they could to stop him, including libeling him as a Russian agent.

When Trump was elected, it, therefore, seemed that the reign of the neocons had ended, but chameleonlike, they have changed shape and are now ensconced both in some conservative as well as in an increasing number of progressive circles in Washington and in the media. Against all odds, they have even captured key posts in the White House itself with the naming of John Bolton as National Security Adviser and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. Bolton's Chief of Staff is Fred Fleitz , a leading neocon and Islamophobe while last week Trump added Iran hawk Richard Goldberg to the National Security Council as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Goldberg is an alumnus of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is the leading neocon think tank calling incessantly for war with Iran.

Meanwhile, the neocon metamorphosis is nearly complete as many of the neocons, who started out as Democrats, have returned home, where they are being welcomed for their hardline foreign policy viewpoint. Glenn Greenwald reports that , based on polling of party supporters, the Democrats have gone full-Hillary and are now by far more hawkish than the Republicans, unwilling to leave either Syria or Afghanistan.

The neocon survival and rejuvenation is particularly astonishing in that they have been wrong about virtually everything, most notably the catastrophic Iraq War. They have never been held accountable for anything, though one should note that accountability is not a prominent American trait, at least since Vietnam. What is important is that neocon views have been perceived by the media and punditry as being part of the Establishment consensus, which provides them with access to programming all across the political spectrum. That is why neocon standard-bearers like Bill Kristol and Max Boot have been able to move effortlessly from Fox News to MSNBC where they are fêted by the likes of Rachel Maddow. They applauded the Iraq War when the Establishment was firmly behind it and are now trying to destroy Donald Trump's presidency because America's elite is behind that effort.

Indeed, the largely successful swing by the neocons from right to left has in some ways become more surreal, as an increasing number of progressive spokesmen and institutions have lined up behind their perpetual warfare banner. The ease with which the transformation took place reveals, interestingly, that the neocons have no real political constituency apart from voters who feel threatened and respond by supporting perpetual war, but they do share many common interests with the so-called liberal interventionists. Neocons see a global crisis for the United States defined in terms of power while the liberals see the struggle as a moral imperative, but the end result is the same: intervention by the United States. This fusion is clearly visible in Washington, where the Clintons' Center for American Progress (CAP) is now working on position papers with the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

One of the most active groups attacking President Trump is "Republicans for the Rule of Law," founded by Bill Kristol in January 2018, as a component of Defending Democracy Together (DDT), a 501(c)4 lobbying group that also incorporates projects called The Russia Tweets and Republicans Against Putin. Republicans Against Putin promotes the view that President Trump is not "stand[ing] up to [Vladimir] Putin" and calls for more aggressive investigation of the Russian role in the 2016 election .

DDT is a prime example of how the neoconservatives and traditional liberal interventionists have come together as it is in part funded by Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire co-founder of eBay who has provided DDT with $600,000 in two grants through his Democracy Fund Voice , also a 501(c)4.

Omidyar is a political liberal who has given millions of dollars to progressive organizations and individuals since 1999. Indeed, he is regarded as a top funder of liberal causes in the United States and even globally together with Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. His Democracy Fund awarded $9 million in grants in 2015 alone.

Last week, the Omidyar-Kristol connection may have deepened with an announcement regarding the launch of the launch of a new webzine The Bulwark , which would clearly be at least somewhat intended to take the place of the recently deceased Weekly Standard. It is promoting itself as the center of the "Never Trump Resistance" and it is being assumed that at least some of the Omidyar money is behind it .

Iranian-born Omidyar's relationship with Kristol is clearly based on the hatred that the two share regarding Donald Trump.

Omidyar has stated that Trump is a "dangerous authoritarian demagogue endorsing Donald Trump immediately disqualifies you from any position of public trust."

He has tweeted that Trump suffers from "failing mental capacity" and is both "corrupt and incapacitated."

Omidyar is what he is – a hardcore social justice warrior who supports traditional big government and globalist liberal causes, most of which are antithetical to genuine conservatives.

But what is interesting about the relationship with Kristol is that it also reveals what the neoconservatives are all about. Kristol and company have never been actual conservatives on social issues, a topic that they studiously avoid, and their foreign policy is based on two principles: creating a state of perpetual war based on fearmongering about foreign enemies while also providing unlimited support for Israel. Kristol hates Trump because he threatens the war agenda while Omidyar despises the president for traditional progressive reasons.

That hatred is the tie that binds and it is why Bill Kristol, a man possessing no character and values whatsoever, is willing to take Pierre Omidyar's money while Pierre is quite happy to provide it to destroy a common enemy, the President of the United States of America.

[Jan 23, 2019] https://ejmagnier.com/2018/12/14/new-rules-of-engagement-between-syria-and-israel-as-russia-changes-its-position/].

Jan 23, 2019 | ejmagnier.com

It is rather significant that this is the first known statement by Syrian UN Representative Dr Jafaari as reported by RT [ https://www.rt.com/news/449463-syria-threatens-israel-airport/] which contains an explicit warning of military action in response to the latest Israeli attack. I have met Dr Bashar on three separate occasions and recall that in 2015 he confided to a small group of people at a social gathering that Qatari diplomats had offered him 3 million if he would split with Damascus. I found in him an honorable man of dignity and principle.

Framing his statement and warning as reckless or 'rash' ignores the interminable punishment and humiliation Syria has suffered following years of incurring hundreds of Israeli acts of aggression. Since the October War Syria fought to recapture the Golan Heights in 1973, it has not fired a single shot across the armistice lines. Israel obviously interprets restraint as weakness. Zionist military superiority does not translate to invincibility and if the conniving bully is not confronted in a manner which causes a condign level of retribution, the cumulative damage and casualties he inflicts will only rise.

Posted by: metni | Jan 22, 2019 11:13:20 PM | 49

[Jan 23, 2019] Does this means escalation ? the Syrian government threatened to strike Ben Grunion Airport if Israel violates its territory again.

Jan 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

metni , Jan 22, 2019 11:13:20 PM | link

@41

'RT and the Jerusalem Post report that the Syrian government threatened to strike Ben Grunion Airport if Israel violates its territory again. They also reiterated their moral and sovereign right to maintain the Golan Heights and stop their annexation. Not sure where this is headed but it looks rash and risky with all of the media pro-Israel and biased...'

Inveterate media bias cannot be an excuse for Syria to withhold from exercising legitimate sovereign right to defend Syrian territory from unrelenting attacks especially those targeting its international airport in Damascus and elsewhere. Media fealty to Israel is not about to undergo an epiphany but Jaffari's warning is overdue and consistent with the policy of engagement articulated in the E Magnier article I cited in a previous post.[ https://ejmagnier.com/2018/12/14/new-rules-of-engagement-between-syria-and-israel-as-russia-changes-its-position/]. No mater what Syria does or does not do will always to filtered through the MSM Israeli prism. IMO, Syria is long overdue in delivering on its warnings.

It is rather significant that this is the first known statement by Syrian UN Representative Dr Jafaari as reported by RT [ https://www.rt.com/news/449463-syria-threatens-israel-airport/] which contains an explicit warning of military action in response to the latest Israeli attack. I have met Dr Bashar on three separate occasions and recall that in 2015 he confided to a small group of people at a social gathering that Qatari diplomats had offered him 3 million if he would split with Damascus. I found in him an honorable man of dignity and principle.

Framing his statement and warning as reckless or 'rash' ignores the interminable punishment and humiliation Syria has suffered following years of incurring hundreds of Israeli acts of aggression. Since the October War Syria fought to recapture the Golan Heights in 1973, it has not fired a single shot across the armistice lines. Israel obviously interprets restraint as weakness. Zionist military superiority does not translate to invincibility and if the conniving bully is not confronted in a manner which causes a condign level of retribution, the cumulative damage and casualties he inflicts will only rise.

[Jan 22, 2019] War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.amazon.com

P. Philips 5.0 out of 5 stars December 6, 2018

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act"

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of George Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the American People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.

Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His Readers:

"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist" -- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history. But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different -- inspired by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like. I never respond specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem attacks. Instead, I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that the orthodox policies my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they assail -- are patriotic heretics. Here too readers can judge."

Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.

Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.

Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?

If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.

I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble purpose.

If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.

America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."

jn 5.0 out of 5 stars January 18, 2019

This book examines the senseless and dangerous demonizing of Russia and Putin

This is a compelling book that documents and examines the senseless and dangerous demonizing of Russia and Putin. Unfortunately, the elites in Washington and mass media are not likely to read this book. Their minds are closed. I read this book because I was hoping for an explanation about the cause of the new cold war with Russia. Although the root cause of the new cold war is beyond the scope of this book, the book documents baseless accusations that grew in frequency and intensity until all opposition was silenced. The book documents the dangerous triumph of group think.

skeptic

"On my planet, the evidence linking Putin to the assassination of Litvinecko, Nemtsov, and Politkovskaya and the attempt on the Skripals is strong and consistent with spending his formative years in the KGB. The naive view from Cohen's planet is presented on p 6 and 170."

Ukrainian history. That's evident to any attentive reader. I just want to state that Ukrainian EuroMaydan was a color revolution which exploited the anger of population against the corrupt neoliberal government of Yanukovich (with Biden as the best friend, and Paul Manafort as the election advisor) to install even more neoliberal and more corrupt government of Poroshenko and cut Ukraine from Russia. The process that was probably inevitable in the long run (so called Baltic path), but that was forcefully accelerated. Everything was taken from the Gene Sharp textbook. And Ukrainians suffered greatly as a result, with the standard of living dropping to around $2 a day level -- essentially Central Africa level.

The fact is that the EU acted as a predator trying to get into Ukraine markets and displace Russia. While the USA neocons (Nuland and Co) staged the coup using Ukrainian nationalists as a ram, ignoring the fact that Yanukovich would be voted out in six months anyway (his popularity was in single digits, like popularity of Poroshenko those days ;-). The fact that Obama administration desperately wanted to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainians eludes you. I would blame Nuland for the loss of Crimea and the civil war in Donbass.

Poor Ukrainians again became the victim of geopolitical games by big powers. No that they are completely blameless, but still...

It looks like you inhabit a very cold populated exclusively with neocons planet called "Russiagate." So Professor Cohen really lives on another planet. And probably you should drink less American exceptionalism Kool-Aid.

[Jan 22, 2019] Neoliberal Dems circled wagons and used Russiagate to avoid the necessary changes: they are now doomed

Dems now is a party of war...
Jan 22, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

ravioliollie -> lullu616 , 15 Jan 2019 08:55

As usual, the pledge ultimately never changes, New jobs and No increase in taxes. Americans love tag lines even though our infrastructure, poor education et al is the result of fear of taxation. Both parties use the same tag line, we certainly get what we pay for.
TempsdesRoses , 15 Jan 2019 08:47
Yep,
The party has circled its wagons.
They insist that the Evil Vlad stole the last election.
Therefore, no need to examine Obama's centrist/neoliberal policies and the socio-economic conditions that fueled the rejection of Hillary.
We're doomed to repeat our errors.
The farcical DNC leadership echoes the days of Brezhnev's intransigent politburo.

[Jan 22, 2019] War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.amazon.com

P. Philips 5.0 out of 5 stars December 6, 2018

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act"

"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of George Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the American People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.

Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His Readers:

"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist" -- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history. But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different -- inspired by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like. I never respond specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem attacks. Instead, I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that the orthodox policies my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they assail -- are patriotic heretics. Here too readers can judge."

Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.

Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.

Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?

If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.

I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble purpose.

If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.

America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."

jn 5.0 out of 5 stars January 18, 2019

This book examines the senseless and dangerous demonizing of Russia and Putin

This is a compelling book that documents and examines the senseless and dangerous demonizing of Russia and Putin. Unfortunately, the elites in Washington and mass media are not likely to read this book. Their minds are closed. I read this book because I was hoping for an explanation about the cause of the new cold war with Russia. Although the root cause of the new cold war is beyond the scope of this book, the book documents baseless accusations that grew in frequency and intensity until all opposition was silenced. The book documents the dangerous triumph of group think.

skeptic

"On my planet, the evidence linking Putin to the assassination of Litvinecko, Nemtsov, and Politkovskaya and the attempt on the Skripals is strong and consistent with spending his formative years in the KGB. The naive view from Cohen's planet is presented on p 6 and 170."

Ukrainian history. That's evident to any attentive reader. I just want to state that Ukrainian EuroMaydan was a color revolution which exploited the anger of population against the corrupt neoliberal government of Yanukovich (with Biden as the best friend, and Paul Manafort as the election advisor) to install even more neoliberal and more corrupt government of Poroshenko and cut Ukraine from Russia. The process that was probably inevitable in the long run (so called Baltic path), but that was forcefully accelerated. Everything was taken from the Gene Sharp textbook. And Ukrainians suffered greatly as a result, with the standard of living dropping to around $2 a day level -- essentially Central Africa level.

The fact is that the EU acted as a predator trying to get into Ukraine markets and displace Russia. While the USA neocons (Nuland and Co) staged the coup using Ukrainian nationalists as a ram, ignoring the fact that Yanukovich would be voted out in six months anyway (his popularity was in single digits, like popularity of Poroshenko those days ;-). The fact that Obama administration desperately wanted to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainians eludes you. I would blame Nuland for the loss of Crimea and the civil war in Donbass.

Poor Ukrainians again became the victim of geopolitical games by big powers. No that they are completely blameless, but still...

It looks like you inhabit a very cold populated exclusively with neocons planet called "Russiagate." So Professor Cohen really lives on another planet. And probably you should drink less American exceptionalism Kool-Aid.

[Jan 22, 2019] The Fetishization of the Corporate Media by C.J. Hopkins

Among few good things that Trump have done to the USA is that he destoryed credibility of neoliberal MSM. They all are now firmly belong to the "fake news" catagory.
Notable quotes:
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

So the corporate media have gone and done it again. As they have, repeatedly, for the last two and half years, they shook the earth with a "bombshell" story proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, or at least committed an impeachable felony in connection with something to do with the Russians, or Ukrainians, or other Slavic persons which story turned out to be inaccurate, or not entirely accurate, or a bunch of horseshit.

This time it was BuzzFeed's Jason Leopold, " a reporter with a checkered past " (i.e., a history of inventing his sources ) who broke the "bombshell" Russiagate story that turned out to be a bunch of horseshit. Leopold, and his colleague Anthony Cormier, reported that Trump had directed his attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about plans to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow, thus suborning perjury and obstructing justice. Their sources for this "bombshell" story were allegedly "two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter."

Approximately twenty-four hours later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office (i.e., the office "involved in an investigation of the matter") stated that the BuzzFeed story was "not accurate," which is a legal term meaning "a bunch of horseshit." BuzzFeed is standing by its story , and is working to determine what, exactly, Mueller's office meant by "not accurate." Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's Editor-in-Chief, has called on Mueller "to make clear what he's disputing."

Liberals and other Trump-obsessives have joined in the effort to interpret the Special Counsel's office's cryptic utterance. French hermeneuticists have been reportedly called in to deconstruct the meaning of "accurate." Professional Twitter semioticians are explaining that "not accurate" doesn't mean "wrong," but, rather, refers to something that is "accurate," but which the user of the word doesn't want to disclose publicly, or that legal terms don't mean what they mean or something more or less along those lines.

Glenn Greenwald, in August 2018, reporting on another "bombshell" story that turned out to be a bunch of horseshit , compiled a partial list of Russiagate stories that the corporate media had published and promoted over the course of the previous eighteen months which turned out to be a bunch of horseshit (i.e., the stories did, not Greenwald's list). In the wake of this latest horseshit story, Greenwald revised and renamed this list " The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump/Russia Story. "

But Greenwald's list is just a small sample of the Russiagate stories that have turned out to be horseshit. For the record, here are several more:

"Seventeen intelligence agencies" confirm Russia interfered in the U.S. elections ( New York Times ) Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum ( The Guardian ) Russia interfered in the German elections ( Reuters ) Russia hacked the French elections ( Politico and numerous other outlets ) Michael Cohen conspired with the Russians in Prague ( BuzzFeed )

My personal favorite remains the one about how Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned by Putinist operatives back in 2016. And then there's the pot-smoking, prostitute-banging, incompetent Novichok perfume assassins , the African American-brainwashing memes , the Putin-orchestrated Yellow Vest rebellion , the brain-eating Russian-Cubano crickets , and various other bunches of horseshit.

I am using the terms "horseshit" and "a bunch of horseshit" (as opposed to terms like "failures" and "errors"), not just to be gratuitously vulgar, but, also, to try to make a point. One is not supposed to use these terms in connection with "serious," "respected" news outlets. Which is why journalists like Greenwald and Aaron Maté (who have extensively reported on the corporate media's ongoing production and dissemination of horseshit) do not use such terms in the course of their reporting, and instead use less inflammatory terms like "false," "inaccurate," "mistake," and "error." Principled journalists like Greenwald and Maté are constrained by (a) their journalistic ethics, (b) their integrity, and (c) their belief in the idea of a "free and independent press," which is one of the pillars of Western democracy.

Being neither a respected journalist nor a believer in the existence of an "independent press," I am under no such constraints. Because I'm not trying to get or keep a job, or maintain a "respectable" reputation, I'm free to call a spade a spade and a bunch of horseshit a bunch of horseshit. I am also free to describe "journalists" like Leopold, Luke Harding , Craig Timberg , Franklin Foer , and many of their corporate media colleagues (not to mention TV clowns like Rachel Maddow ) as the liars and rank propagandists they are. I don't need to pretend their fabricated stories are simply the result of "shoddy journalism," or "over-reliance on official sources," or any other type of "error" or "failure." These people know exactly what they are doing, and are being extremely well paid to do it. They went to school to learn how to do it. Then they butt-sucked and back-stabbed their way up the ladder of establishment power to be able to do it.

Yes, of course, there are still principled journalists working for the corporate media, but they are doing so by walking a very fine line. No one has to tell them where it is. Every professional journalist knows precisely where it is, and what it is there for. Though they are permitted to walk right up to it, occasionally (to keep them from feeling like abject whores), one step over it and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the Blogosphere and excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't believe me, just ask Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic heretic.

If Russiagate serves no other useful purpose, it is at least exposing the corporate media as the propaganda factories that they are. Given the amount of obviously fabricated horseshit they have disseminated during the last two years, you'd have to be a total moron or a diehard neoliberal cultist not to recognize the function they perform within the global capitalist ruling establishment (which is essentially no different than the function the establishment media perform in any other society, namely, to disseminate, maintain, and reify the official narrative of its ruling classes).

Sadly, there's no shortage of morons and cultists. I don't blame the morons, because well, they're morons. The cultists are another species entirely. These are people who, no matter how often the corporate media feed them another "explosive," "bombshell" Russiagate story that turns out to be a bunch of horseshit, will defend the concept of the "independent media" like head-shaven, bug-eyed Manson followers. Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs and they close their eyes and start chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing spells. The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling classes) is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.

This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western capitalism. Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an actual person or that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with actual democracy. Think about it dispassionately for a minute. Why would any ruling establishment permit a genuinely "independent" press to disseminate ideas and information willy-nilly throughout society? If it did, it wouldn't last very long.

Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press," over, and over, and over again. Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the other corporate media repeatedly reminding you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic programming.

So let's not be shocked when the corporate media continue to bombard us with "bombshell" stories about Trump and Russia that turn out to be horseshit. Personally, I welcome these stories. The more corporate media horseshit the better! Who knows, if they dish out enough blatant horseshit, more people might lose their "trust in the media," and begin to investigate matters themselves. I know, that makes me a Nazi, right? Or at least a Russian propagandist? I mean, encouraging folks to distrust the corporate media? Isn't there some kind of law against that? Or have they not quite gotten around to that yet?

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .


Godfree Roberts , says: January 22, 2019 at 1:32 am GMT

The Associated Press (AP) reports the latest bad news for the press: " Just 6 Percent of People Say They Trust the Media ."

Carole Feldman and Emily Swanson began: Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans' skepticism about what they read on social media. Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public's view of other institutions.

Biff , says: January 22, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT

Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press,"

People inversely brag about their short comings.
Militarized police states brag about their freedom.
A well heeled synchophant brags about his independence.
Dudes with small dicks -- big belt buckle and big hat.

Fidelios Automata , says: January 22, 2019 at 3:14 am GMT
I used to listen to the BBC and NPR until the corporo-globalist bias became unbearable. I laughed at incidents such as Marketplace mocking the public's concern about GMO's. But it went off the rails in 2016. They may have backed off from Trump Derangement Syndrome a bit since then, but I've noticed that they have to call themselves "credible." Maybe if they say that enough times we'll believe it, eh?
Bragadocious , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:32 am GMT
The Greenwald link is pretty important and I bookmarked it. These fake news outlets do everything in their power to scrub these mistakes from the Google machine once they happen. They remove stories, videos -- everything, in the hopes of shoving it all down the memory hole. And since other fake news outlets don't hold them accountable, they get away with it. This is why it's important to take screen shots of fake news and download videos if possible, to create a record that's permanent and useful when you need it.
Richard Wicks , says: January 22, 2019 at 5:48 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts 6%? I rather doubt that.

More than 6% of the population are technically, and this is the technical term, retarded -- they are mentally disabled.

I know it's obvious our media is propaganda, but I don't think it's quite so obvious such that adults watching Sesame Street who fully enjoy it (nothing wrong with that!) are aware of it.

I would like to think it's true, but I think the Associated Press article is not true, after all, can you identify their funding sources?

utu , says: January 22, 2019 at 7:22 am GMT

This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western capitalism. Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an actual person or that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with actual democracy.

Great article. Articles on this theme should be published daily. The fetish must be destroyed.

jeff stryker , says: January 22, 2019 at 10:55 am GMT
I don't think the MSM has the power and influence it had in the Big Three Networks Era before the internet.

In those days, the minds of the public were more controlled and underground newspapers were barely read.

These days, more people read websites like this than watch any particular channel.

Print journalism had a massive hold on the world up to 1997 when the internet came into the mainstream.

Not no more.

jacques sheete , says: January 22, 2019 at 12:06 pm GMT
Ah, elegant!

What a pleasure to read this article!

There is at least one other person who calls corporate media what it is, and it ain't "mainstream."

"Sparkie" ain't gonna be happy about it either."Sparky" chewed me out good for correcting the incomparable and always superb Linh Dinh for using the disgusting and inaccurate term, "mainstream" when referring to coprophilic media. Oh, and speaking of "horseshit" one wag suggested we call it main steam media, for accuracy as well as for giggles and that's fine by me.

the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press," over, and over, and over again. Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the other corporate media repeatedly reminding you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic programming.

It's blatantly obvious that the same can be said about the self-legitimizing term, "mainstream," too, so bless you sir, and to (bleep) with the Sparkies of the world.

Digital Samizdat , says: January 22, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT

Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs and they close their eyes and start chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing spells.

Orange Man bad! Mueller saves! -NPC

Jake , says: January 22, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT
Not only is Hopkins correct, but what he says about corporate media is not new. The Civil Rights movement presented by the media was false. The media promotion of the US re-engaging in Europe in the post WW1 period so we could defend dear ole England and sacred democracy. The media preparing us for our need to fight WW1 so we could end all wars was false. The media stirring us to go into Cuba and end the awfully evil Spanish Empire so we could start the process of ending all empires

Large numbers of newspapers located within the non January 22, 2019 at 3:13 pm GMT

@jacques sheete

Ah, elegant!

What a pleasure to read this article!

N o doubt it is a pleasure for you because C.J. Hopkins managed to scribble 1500 words about fake news without even once mentioning the CIA.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."

-- CIA Director, William Casey

Of course, our resident Bumpkin of Unz would have you believe that the CIA is a corporation.

"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

-- former CIA Director William Colby

So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate -- a red herring, a misleading label, a pig in a poke -- because it entirely excludes, avoids, overlooks, and completely dismisses the role of our intelligence agencies in creating fake news , a.k.a. disinformation and propaganda.

Hail , says: Website January 22, 2019 at 3:38 pm GMT

The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling classes) is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.

This comes close to the term "regime media," which I like as a replacement for the clunky-but-common terms "Mainstream Media" or MSM. "

Hopkins uses "corporate media," which appears fifteen times here including in the title.

Several commenters have noted the problems with the term "mainstream media":

the self-legitimizing term, "mainstream,"

While better than "mainstream media," I'm not sure "corporate media" is sufficient.

"Corporate media," as a term, may wrongly convey the notion that the 'media' in question complaisantly both [1] broadcasts the ruling ideology (interventionist capitalist liberal democracy and multicultacracy) and [2] 'megaphones' (Steve Sailer's useful term) against enemies thereto, coordinating our regular Two-Minute Hates.

That characterization misses an important point, to wit:

The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself consciously part of the ruling apparatus . Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on the side, but right at the regime's core. A useful distinction. Hence "regime media."

Agent76 , says: January 22, 2019 at 3:41 pm GMT
Jun. 14, 2012 These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

That's consolidated from *50* companies back in 1983. But the fact that a few companies own everything demonstrates "the illusion of choice," Frugal Dad says.

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Church Committee Testimony

Tom Charles Huston testified before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee, on the 43-page plan he presented to the President Nixon and others on ways to collect information about anti-war and "radical" groups, including burglary, electronic surveillance, and opening of mail.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?408953-1/tom-charles-huston-testimony-church-committee

Sean , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT
The Basic Problem of Democracy
by Walter Lippmann
The Atlantic Monthly, November 1919, pp. 616-627

http://sonicacts.com/portal/anthropocene-objects-art-and-politics-1

Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general public in the United States, the home country of both authors. Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one of the most important American philosophers, and for his international influence in the field of education. By contrast, Walter Lippmann has been somewhat forgotten, though he was a major journalist in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a widely familiar author at the time, and wrote some cynical things about American democracy. The story America tells itself politically is that since we're a democracy in which the citizens rule themselves, there is a paramount need for an excellent public education so that the citizens can vote wisely. We ourselves are the leaders. But of course it doesn't work that way in practice. We actually have a surplus of ignorant and uninformed people who pay no attention to the nuances of policy, and who vote based on the workings of demagoguery and short-sighted self-interest. Any number of foolish decisions have been made by the American public. This leads Lippmann to take the somewhat cynical line that America is destined to be ruled by technocrats. We need experts to run things; the people are too clueless to rule themselves. We'll pretend we have a democracy, but we actually don't. Now, Dewey reads this, and he is temperamentally more optimistic, and he thinks: 'This is a really stimulating book, but Lippmann is wrong. He is setting the bar too high for the people. People were never supposed to be educated in depth about every issue, which is an impossible demand. Even Lippmann doesn't have the time to master every issue, and he covers politics for a living. Instead, Dewey says, political issues generate their own publics in each case. I might care deeply about seven political issues. I might care about national health insurance, but I don't care about gay marriage, or vice versa. So I get involved in one debate and not the other. I take the trouble of becoming informed about issues that interest me.

onebornfree , says: Website January 22, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
@Hail Hail says: "The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself consciously part of the ruling apparatus. Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on the side, but right at the regime's core ":

Exactly. The MSM is the government [CIA/NSA/ etc. etc.] grinning right at you as it continually lies , albeit behind a very thin veil of supposed integrity/respectability that the general public still refuses to see through.

By way of illustration of this "outrageous" assertion of mine, here is part of a video analysis of the original 5 channel US MSM "live" coverage of the morning of Sept. 11 2001, which clearly demonstrates that on that morning, all 5 US networks broadcast entirely fake "live" footage [ i.e. C.G.I. prefabricated imagery] for about 102 minutes :

Regards, onebornfree

jacques sheete , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:23 pm GMT
@Sparkon

So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate

I never claimed it was perfect. I do claim that the term, "mainstream," in this context is entirely inaccurate and misleading. And you should be nice, as you admonished me, regarding the author of this article. As for your complaint that he didn't mention the CIA, may I remind you that he wrote, as you noticed, an article, not an encyclopedia.

Anyway, you have yet to establish that the CIA and our corporate masters are entirely separate entities. Even a Dumb Sheete such as myself would find it somewhat, if not entirely, incredible if they were.

But of course too everyone knows by now that Jews, Israel and Mossad did 9/11 all by their lonesomes, and the CIA and the Air Force had nothing to do with it.

Ahem, you forgot to mention big, coprophilic, media. Please try to practice the inclusiveness that you preach.

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT

one step over [the line] and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the Blogosphere and excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't believe me, just ask Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic heretic.

To this list I might also add CBS' Sharyl Attkisson, and Larry Conners of KMOV-TV, who had the big brass balls to question the $85 million the Obamas spent on vacations.

NR kicked Derb to the curb, but that gutter's littered with Internet flotsam who presumed integrity.

onebornfree , says: Website January 22, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@Sean Sean says: "Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general public in the United States, the home country of both authors. "

Debate summary: 2 know-it-alls debating about how "best" to run everybody else's lives [and with straight faces, I've no doubt].

Two sides of the same [pro-statist] coin, in other words. Oh, and one minor issue one "thinks" that a ruling technocracy is "the answer".

Sean says: "Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one of the most important American philosophers, and for his international influence in the field of education."

You mean: Dewey was important in the field of "public education" , otherwise known as brainwashing.

" important American philosopher" my a$$.

Gawd help us all.

And so it goes

[Jan 22, 2019] The US managed the overthrow of the Afghanistan government seventeen years ago, then creating a puppet government with a feckless army to fight the Afghan resistance while assassinating many of the Afghan leaders who fought to regain their country, and now the US is ready to "address legitimate concerns" of all Afghan sides?

Jan 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Jan 21, 2019 8:21:20 PM | link

ISLAMABAD -- U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on Saturday that Washington was ready to "address legitimate concerns" of all Afghan sides in order to restore peace in Afghanistan. Since being appointed in September, Khalilzad has met with all sides, including the Taliban, Afghan officials and Pakistan's political and military leadership in efforts aimed at finding a negotiated end to America's longest war in neighboring Afghanistan.//

The US managed the overthrow of the Afghanistan government seventeen years ago, then creating a puppet government with a feckless army to fight the Afghan resistance while assassinating many of the Afghan leaders who fought to regain their country, and now the US is ready to "address legitimate concerns" of all Afghan sides?

Well the Afghan officials are US puppets, so rule them out of legitimate concerns (as the Taliban has done). Pakistan? They fully support the Taliban's return to government, so that's a "legitimate concern" as is the Taliban's return to power.

Anything less ain't gonna work, that's obvious. Khalilzad was appointed in September to achieve results in six months, which is soon. So get with it, Zalmay. Get the US troops out of there as the Taliban demands in your "peace" talks.

Zachary Smith , Jan 21, 2019 9:15:51 PM | link

[T]he units have also operated unconstrained by battlefield rules designed to protect civilians, conducting night raids, torture and killings with near impunity, in a covert campaign that some Afghan and American officials say is undermining the wider American effort to strengthen Afghan institutions.

The "special forces" and the people trained by them don't follow rules. This has been going on for a long time.

FREE OF OVERSIGHT, U.S. MILITARY TRAINS FOREIGN TROOPS By Dana Priest July 12, 1998

The Clinton administration has enforced a near-total ban on the supply and sale of U.S. military equipment and training for the Colombian military because of its deep involvement in drug-related corruption and its record of killing politicians, human rights activists and civilians living in areas controlled by guerrilla groups.

The piece goes on to say that Special Forces were immune from this ban on training a foreign military to kill politicians, human rights activists and civilians" . It names dozens of nations where this was happening.

Of course not all US Special Forces are wild and lawless. Unfortunately the ones who do behave are at risk of being killed themselves.

Green Beret killed by strangulation reportedly turned down illegal money from Navy SEALs

The Green Beret was murdered because he was NOT dishonest.

The Pentagon is belatedly cracking down. Or at least pretending to.

Pentagon ready to 'admit problem' of rampant Special Forces crimes – report

Whenever you have a combination of lousy leadership and "Special Forces", there is going to be a problem. Australia has recently made the news in that regard.

The Abuse Scandal Rocking Australia's Special Operations Forces

Individually, each claim is staggering: apparent execution of detainees; reported use of so-called drop weapons, planted to cover up unlawful killings; confirmed reports of commandos flying a Nazi flag on a combat patrol; alleged "blooding" of rookies, initiation rites in which newcomers were pressured to execute unarmed men. In one particularly sadistic case, a prosthetic limb was allegedly pilfered from the corpse of a dead Afghan, only to be repatriated and repurposed as a novelty binge-drinking implement.

At some point a Special Forces person is going to shrug and say "so what?" He or she knows they can double or triple their pay with Blackwater-type mercenary forces. So except for taking minimal precautions against going on trial, they can do as they please.

Don Bacon , Jan 21, 2019 9:16:09 PM | link
The base attack took place in Maidan Wardak Province, where US Special Forces troops were evicted five years ago for atrocities.

In 2013 President Hamid Karzai demanded the withdrawal of all U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) from Wardak province after charges that U.S. special forces stationed in Wardak province engaged in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people.

A Memorandum of Understanding signed May 12, 2012 between the U.S. military and the Afghan Defence Ministry was trumpeted by the Obama administration as giving the Afghan government control over such operations.

But a little-noticed provision of the agreement defined the "special operations" covered by the agreement as those operations that are "approved by the Afghan Operational Coordination Group (OCG) and conducted by Afghan Forces with support from U.S. Forces in accordance with Afghan laws."

That meant that the SOF was still free to carry out other raids without consultation with the Afghan government, until Karzai threw them out. But not the CIA.

Glenn Brown , Jan 21, 2019 9:27:10 PM | link
@ 30 Pft

The idea that the US isn't REALLY trying to win wars strikes me as more of a rationalization of failure than a real explanation. The US is an economically declining power that is trying to use its military dominance to maintain, and ideally increase its power. So wouldn't it be in the US's best interests if Afghanistan or Iraq (for example) were completely controlled by US controlled puppet governments, and US controlled corporations were making huge profits by exploiting those countries mineral and human resources? Wouldn't that be far more profitable than the mere creation of chaos?
Part of the reason I tend to find your ideas less than plausible, Pft, is that you always seem to vastly exaggerate the competence and power of the US or transnational elites you suspect are controlling everything. So I don't think the US's wars are either "fake" or "forever". Instead they are failures. And they can't last forever, because the corrupt system that generates them needs some successes, and soon, in order to continue to survive.

[Jan 22, 2019] While Victoria Nuland s activities were not helpful, believing they caused the Maidan uprising simply believes Putin propaganda

Jan 22, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , January 22, 2019 12:09 am

Barkley,

This is off-topic, but for the sake of clarity.

"while Victoria Nuland's activities were not helpful, believing they caused the Maidan uprising simply believes Putin propaganda."

That's true. But that's not the whole truth. She definitely served as a catalyst for the violent coup. Yanukovich was a corrupt neoliberal President with popularity in single digits (with Biden as the key mentor and Manafort as the key election advisor), although probably less corrupt then Poroshenko, who eventually succeeded him (and also now has ratings in low teens). In six months or so he would be gone. And Ukraine probably would keep Crimea and avoid Donbass war.

BTW Ukraine was moving apart from Russia since independence, and that process would continue and get to somewhat similar results without such losses.

By encouraging radical part of Ukrainian nationalists and helping to stage an armed coup d'état using Western Ukrainian nationalists as a ram, Nuland and Co opened the Pandora box. The process of drifting from Russian influence was forcefully sped up and led to the loss of Crimea and civil war in Donbass.

So while US policy was to weaken Russia using Ukrainian nationalists (the policy which started after WWII) and the EU wanted to monopolize Ukrainian markets and push out Russia ("Drang Nah Osten" in neoliberal form) the net result was plunging Ukrainian population into African style poverty ($2 a day or so).

The arrogance and incompetence of the US neocons have no boundaries. I would recommend to you Stephen Cohen recent book "War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate." He is a pretty keen observer of the events in the region.

Or much older but still excellent UK book: America and the Imperialism of Ignorance: US Foreign Policy Since 1945 by Andrew Alexander ( Andrew Alexander was a senior journalist for the Daily Mail. He died in 2015. )

The American foreign policy approach proved to be wretchedly consistent. Neocons did great damage to Ukraine and the USA. And probably deserve some punishment, not sinecures in think tanks like Nuland got. I would like to see the US State Department neocons hanging from Khreshchatik (the main street in Kiev) lamp posts ;-).

With Russia fully rearmed and still simmering with anger from humiliation and economic plunder organized by Clinton administration (in this sense Hillary was right -- there is Russian revanchism; she just did not understand that it, for now, is suppressed by Putin), there are now just two possibilities: (1) "God protects Fools, Children, and the United States of America" or (2) "The US lemmings led by neocons jump from the cliff."

Neocons like to blackmail Putin using him as the scapegoat, but they do not understand that the person who will replace Putin might be not some Yeltsin type neoliberal, ready to sell his country and people, but a hardcore nationalist spoiling for a fight.

Then what? Thermonuclear WWIII and wiping out both the USA and Russia from the map?

I hate the bellicosity and arrogance of the US neocons like Bill Kristol or Max Boot. It is not accidental that 99% of them are chickenhawks. For the USA to survive and prosper they need to be removed from Washington and exiled to Alaska, or even farther North. But this is clearly impossible as they are, de-facto, paid lobbyists of MIC, the corrupt stooges, not some ideological lunatics (many of them do have a pretty decent IQ; this is necessary for a successful lobbyist )

This is a very depressing situation.

[Jan 22, 2019] Banned by Facebook for Telling the Truth by Israel Shamir

Jan 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

There is not a single newspaper in the US that supports the views of the US President. Nobody defended him when he was accused , brazenly, in-your-face, of being a Russian agent. Nobody supported him when he called to bring the troops home from Syria. Nobody came to his aid when he mulled parting with NATO. There are tens of millions of men and women who voted for him, but he has only his Twitter account at his disposal.

The media accuses Trump of paying too little attention to Israel's needs. Israel needs US troops in Syria and in Germany, US jets in Spain and Qatar, US ships in Italy and the Gulf. Israel needs the US to lead NATO to contain Russia. If Israel needs it, the US should provide, says Daniel Shapiro, the ex-ambassador. Not a single American newspaper, not a single US statesman cared to reply that President Trump had been elected by the American people to do what is needed for them, not for Israel

[Jan 22, 2019] The National Security Agency Is A Criminal Organization by Paul Craig Roberts

Notable quotes:
"... As Binney had no documents to give to the media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations. ..."
"... Whistleblowers are protected by federal law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him. ..."
"... Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to have been cleared at the top of the government. ..."
Jan 17, 2019 | www.unz.com
Paul Craig Roberts

Years before Edward Snowden provided documented proof that the National Security Agency was really a national insecurity agency as it was violating law and the US Constitution and spying indiscriminately on American citizens, William Binney, who designed and developed the NSA spy program revealed the illegal and unconstitutional spying.

Binney turned whistleblower, because NSA was using the program to spy on Americans. As Binney was well known to the US Congress, he did not think he needed any NSA document to make his case. But what he found out was

"Congress would never hear me because then they'd lose plausible deniability. That was really their key. They needed to have plausible deniability so they can continue this massive spying program because it gave them power over everybody in the world.

Even the members of Congress had power against others [in Congress]; they had power on judges on the Supreme Court, the federal judges, all of them. That's why they're so afraid. Everybody's afraid because all this data that's about them, the central agencies  --  the intelligence agencies  --  they have it. And that's why Senator Schumer warned President Trump earlier, a few months ago, that he shouldn't attack the intelligence community because they've got six ways to Sunday to come at you. That's because it's like J. Edgar Hoover on super steroids. . . . it's leverage against every member of parliament and every government in the world."

To prevent whistle-blowing, NSA has "a program now called 'see something, say something' about your fellow workers. That's what the Stasi did. That's why I call [NSA] the new New Stasi Agency. They're picking up all the techniques from the Stasi and the KGB and the Gestapo and the SS. They just aren't getting violent yet that we know of  --  internally in the US, outside is another story."

As Binney had no documents to give to the media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations.

Whistleblowers are protected by federal law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him.

Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to have been cleared at the top of the government.

Binney describes the spy network, explains that it was supposed to operate only against foreign enemies, and that using it for universal spying so overloads the system with data that the system fails to discover many terrorist activities. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50932.htm

Apparently, the National Security Agency values being able to blackmail citizens and members of government at home and abroad more than preventing terrorist attacks.

Unfortunately for Americans, there are many Americans who blindly trust the government and provide the means, the misuse of which is used to enslave us. A large percentage of the work in science and technology serves not to free people but to enslave them. By now there is no excuse for scientists and engineers not to know this. Yet they persist in their construction of the means to destroy liberty.

[Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald

Highly recommended!
Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Glenn Greenwald via The Intercept,

Buzzfeed was once notorious for traffic-generating "listicles" , but has since become an impressive outlet for deep investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story that, like so many others of its kind, blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the extremely rare step to label its key claims "inaccurate."

But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets (particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end with (dis)honorable mention status.

Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors" went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script:

10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false :

9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S. electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:

8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."

Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note in memory appended to the top of the article (but not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the media ecosystem):

7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)

On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network.

6. Russia Attacked U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)

On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea what to make of it.

But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds" the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean male cricket during mating season.

5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)

4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)

On November 27, 2018, the Guardian published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators exploded.

Seven weeks later, no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged; the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:

3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)

On July 27, 2018, CNN published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that "contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however, to this date has refused to do either:

2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)

1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

The morning of December 9, 2017, launched one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public. Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC videos here ).

There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before. Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all got the date of the email wrong.

To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple, independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating – and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.

Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously is:

Dishonorable Mention:

Special mention:

As I've said many times, the U.S. media has become quite adept at expressing extreme indignation when people criticize them; when politicians conclude that it is advantageous to turn the U.S. media into their main adversary; and when people turn to "fake news" sites.

If, however, they were willing to devote just a small fraction of that energy to examining their own conduct, perhaps they would develop the tools necessary to combat those problems instead of just denouncing their critics and angrily demanding that politicians and news consumers accord them the respect to which they believe they are entitled.

[Jan 21, 2019] Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy by Stephen F. Cohen

The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
Notable quotes:
"... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
Jan 16, 2019 | www.thenation.com

Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia. Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship -- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.

And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times ' own recent "bombshells," published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump] had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual, the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")

Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott, President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution. According to Talbott , "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated suspicions and allegations.

In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth, Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.) For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless, the Times quotes Page at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals." Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.

Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because, according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018.

It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation with Russia.")

That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.

Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result, in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)

And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.

The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.

Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com . )

[Jan 21, 2019] Chaos is very profitable for extracting resources and supplying and controlling the world narcotic business

By walking out of the JCPOA and sanctioning Iran, the Trump administration gave Iran's mullahs every reason to subvert US on the ground.
Creation by CIA of "Afghan death squads" like in LA might not work as intended
Jan 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
ADKC , Jan 21, 2019 2:57:44 PM | link
< large U.S. surges.>

The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted nine years. But it was largely successful in building a stable government and the Soviets left a mostly competent Afghan military behind. Three years later Russia ended its financial support for the Afghan government. Only that gave the guerrilla the chance to destroy the state.

After 18 years in Afghanistan the U.S. military seems still unable to create and train competent local forces.

The $8 billion spent on the Afghan airforce have resulted in a mostly incapable force that depends on U.S. contractors to keep its birds flying. This was the result of unreasonable decisions:

Aviation experts have criticized a decision to phase out the old workhorses of the Afghan forces -- Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters -- for American-made UH-60 Black Hawks.

Mr. Michel, the retired general, said the Mi-17 was "the perfect helicopter" for Afghanistan because it can carry more troops and supplies than the Black Hawk and is less complicated to fly.

"Let's be candid," he said of the switch. "That was largely done for political reasons."

The U.S. military built an Afghan force in its own image:

American trainers have built an Afghan Army that relies heavily on air power that the air force might not be able to provide for years, said John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction.

Why the U.S. military, which since Vietnam proved inept at fighting local guerrilla, believed that its ways of fighting suits an Afghan force is inexplicable. If the Taliban manage to win without an airforce why should the Afghan military need one?

The only 'effective' Afghan units are the CIA controlled brigades which are known for the very worst atrocities on the civilian population:

As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched his home go up in flames. Within were the bodies of two of his brothers and of his sister-in-law Khanzari, who was shot three times in the head. Villagers who rushed to the home found the burned body of her 3-year-old daughter, Marina, in a corner of a torched bedroom.

The men who raided the family's home that March night, in the district of Nader Shah Kot, were members of an Afghan strike force trained and overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency in a parallel mission to the United States military's, but with looser rules of engagement.

... ... ...

that the two most effective and ruthless forces, in Khost and Nangarhar Provinces, are still sponsored mainly by the C.I.A.

This conflict between militarized CIA proxy forces and forces trained by the U.S. military played out in every recent war the U.S. waged. In Iraq CIA sponsored Shia units clashed with Pentagon sponsored Sunni militia. In Syria this CIA trained 'rebels' ended up shooting at U.S. military trained 'rebels' and vice versa. In Afghanistan the rogue force under CIA control is some 3.000 to 10,000 strong. It large alienates the same population the Afghan military tries to protect.

Unity of command is an important condition for successful military campaigns. As the military works in one direction while the CIA pulls in another one, the campaign in Afghanistan continues to fail.

A similar split can be seen in Afghanistan's political field. The CIA is notorious for bribing Afghan politicians, while the military launches anti-corruption campaigns. The political system installed by such competing forces is unsustainable.

The last Afghan election with the top candidates being the Pashto Ashraf Ghani and the Tajik Abdullah Abdullah, was marred in irregularities. The uncertain outcome led the U.S. to fudge the results by making Ghani president and Abudullah his 'chief executive'. Both are now again competing against each other in the elections that are to be held later this year. They will be as irregular as all elections in Afghanistan are. The disputed outcome might well lead to new clashes between ethnic groups.

This upcoming conflict will further weaken the Afghan state. Why hasn't anything be done to prevent it?

@1 @3

While appearing weak, incompetent and clueless the US implements chaos exactly as intended. It works in Congo, it works in Libya, it works in South America and it works in Afghanistan. Chaos is very profitable for extracting resources and supplying and controlling the world narcotic business.


Eugene , Jan 21, 2019 3:00:07 PM | link

uncle tungsten , Jan 21, 2019 3:02:50 PM | link
The USA goal is an incompetent state, a permanent war and the destruction of any stable Afghan government that could make relations with neighboring states. Permanent conflict prevents unity and transnational trade through the region. Same goes for the Baluchistan rebels in the south.

Isolate Iran is all and no strategic care or thinking about anything else.

The USA will fight until the last Afghani civilian is killed.

[Jan 21, 2019] January 21, 2019 at 8:30 am

Notable quotes:
"... The Republicans are only nominally more "pro-peace". They are still full bore advocates for the hyper-bloated National Security State. Nobody is pushing back hard against Nut-Job Bolton and Fat Pompeo as they maraud around the planet playing Mafia enforcers with a negotiating strategy of "Make them a deal that they can't refuse." ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Re: "This polling data seems to reflect that Trump, more any other factor, has been the primary driver of Republicans becoming more pro-peace and Democrats becoming less anti-war."

The Republicans are only nominally more "pro-peace". They are still full bore advocates for the hyper-bloated National Security State. Nobody is pushing back hard against Nut-Job Bolton and Fat Pompeo as they maraud around the planet playing Mafia enforcers with a negotiating strategy of "Make them a deal that they can't refuse."

And the Republican endorsement of the updated Global Cop Gorilla forever National Defense Strategy indicates that their new found prudence is marginal at best. I.e., the U.S. is still engaged in sabre rattling and war-monger threats globally, and the Warfare State fear-monger scenarios out the wazoo domestically to extract even more taxpayer for the War Machine and its Security State accoutrements.

Agree with Jack Hunter that the Democrats are reactively stupid related to U.S. military operations in the ME simply because of Trump. But that being said, the bipartisan parasitic War Party still dominates (and wrecks) U.S. foreign policy.

[Jan 21, 2019] If you believe (like Arthur Berman, James Howard Kunstler, Steve Angelo and Gail Tverberg) that cheap energy is a thing of the past

Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Master Gator , says: January 19, 2019 at 12:09 am GMT

If you believe (like Arthur Berman, James Howard Kunstler, Steve Angelo and Gail Tverberg) that cheap energy is a thing of the past, Russia has much more leverage than the West. It has the oil and natural gas and we don't. The U.S. imports about 40% of its energy needs. Europe needs Russian natural gas to stay warm. Who is going to be better positioned in an energy starved future? John Michael Greer believes that the two centers of civilization hundreds of years from now will be centered in Western Russia and the Ohio River Valley.

[Jan 21, 2019] The Money Mafia,

Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Robert Snefjella says: January 20, 2019 at 4:21 pm GMT 200 Words @Erebus Going from memory, in Hellyer's book The Money Mafia, his impression was that Bouey's decision was taken without real political understanding or guidance. Noteworthy was an attempt in recent years to restore that Bank of Canada fund-emission function via the court system. The attempt failed. The lawyer representing the group making the effort, Rocco Galati, indicated that the media in Canada had received pressure not to cover the story. The government of Canada at the time the court case was initiated was under Harper Conservative rule.

As to how astute Trudeau was, or how much practical influence he had when it came to national financial matters, I don't know. There was a lot of economic flux at the time involving the US dollar, oil, high inflation and gold. There was a big jump in Canadian interest rates around 1974. In any case, the emission of funds directly for productive purpose, without taxation and borrowing, is a beneficent unacknowledged elephant in the economic policy-options room.

[Jan 21, 2019] The Russian pension chickens are coming home to roost... by The Saker

Notable quotes:
"... apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling class governs the society ..."
"... In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears ..."
"... After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another? ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Think about it in this way: we know from ALL the past elections that the pro-Western segment of the Russian population is somewhere around 1-3% (that is why they cannot make it into the Duma). But let's generously give that hardcore, liberal, opposition 5%, for argument's sake. So if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if 5% of Russians are hardcore pro-Western liberals, then who are the remaining 48%?

Or in this way: if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if Putin's approval rating is still somewhere in the 65% range, who are those Russians who like Putin but dislike the Medvedev government?

There is an easy cop-out argument which I´ve often offered to explain away this fact:

Levada Center is officially classified as a "foreign agent" under Russian law. This makes sense: for one thing, Levada Center receives most of its financing from abroad, including the US and even the Pentagon ! Furthermore, Levada is staffed by liberals (in the Russian meaning of the word which really means "pro-US") whose biases are also reflected in their work. However, while this is all true, Levada is still credible enough to be cited even by Russian officials. Finally, the kind of results Levada publishes are often generally similar to the finding of the official VTsIOM polling institution, not down to the percentage point, but often reflecting similar trends (check out the VTsIOM English language page here: https://wciom.com/ ). So the fact that Putin is much more popular than Medvedev or that the majority of Russian people are unhappy with the government really is not in doubt.

So regardless of the actual numbers, it is clear that the Russian government is only popular with those whom it allows to make a lot of money (corporations and various millionaires and billionaires) and that everybody else strongly dislikes it.

And yet, recently Putin was asked if he was happy with the government and his reply was " on the whole, yes ".

This type of political yoga is hard to sustain in the long term: if Putin is the champion of the interests of the common people, and if most common people feel that the government cares more for millionaires and billionaires, then how can the President say that he is "on the whole happy" with the government?

It is truly a crying shame that the basics of Marxism-Leninism is not taught in schools and colleges any more (even some self-described "Communists" are clearly clueless about what Marx, Lenin or even Hegel taught!). Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are so universally effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to better understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the solutions offered by Marxism. For example, in the West at least, very few people are aware of this very simple Marxist-Leninist definition of what a state, any state, really is. According to Lenin, the state is simply an " apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling class governs the society ". Specifically Lenin wrote:

In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears (Lenin, collective works, vol 39, page 69).

From a Marxist point of view, any state is always and by definition the dictatorship of the ruling class, which is a good thing, at least according to the Marxists, when this ruling class is the workers and people, and a very bad thing when the ruling class is the plutocracy.

ORDER IT NOW

In the post-modern West, where political discourse has been reduced to a particularly nauseating form of intellectual flatulence, the very notion of "class" and "class warfare" has been fully replaced with vapid (pseudo-) identity politics which completely obfuscate all the real issues and problems our world is dealing with. Thus, by removing the concepts and categories needed to understand the nature of the struggle which is taking place internationally, but also inside each of the countries currently living under the AngloZionist yoke, the leaders of the Empire have deprived the people they rule over from the means to understand why and how they are oppressed. All that nonsense about "gay" rights, gun control, #meetoo, the many sex scandals, the struggle for racial identity (White or Black or any other), abortion, drugs and all the rest of the crap we are fed on a daily basis by the AngloZionist propaganda machine are primarily a distraction to keep the eyes of the general population from the real issues. In a way, this zombification and re-direction to fake topics serves exactly the same function as the red cape of the bullfighter: to keep the bull busy with trying to gore a harmless red piece of cloth while completely missing the real cause of his suffering and eventual death.

From that point of view, the Russian people are much better informed and have a much better understanding of what is going on. For example, while in the West the people define "democracy" as "people power" (or something similar), in Russia the joke is that "democracy is the power of the democrats" which, in Russia, is a general codeword/euphemism for "pro-US wealthy liberal" who want to turn Russia into some kind of "bigger Poland" or something equally uninspiring.

Various pro-Western "intellectuals" like to say that this is an old Russian pathology: to say that the Czar (President) is very good, but his court (the Ministers) are bad and that this makes absolutely no sense. These are the folks who go as far as denying the existence of a struggle between what I call Eurasian Sovereignists (roughly Putin supporters) and Atlantic Integrationists (roughly Medvedev and the "economic block" of this government).

The folks who deny this remind me of something Berthold Brecht once wrote after the 1953 uprising in Berlin in a short poem entitled "The Solution": (emphasis added)

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

This deep alienation from the Russian masses, this notion that the Russian people have, yet again, failed to heed the "wise words" of the "progressive intelligentsia" and other (mainly financial) "elites" has plagued the Russian ruling classes since Peter I and is still at the very core of their worldview. Believe you me, the Russian "liberals" and the folks in the West who deny that there is any 5th column in Russia are psychologically and politically joined at the hip: neither one of them can accept this. Furthermore, both the Russian "liberals" and the western believers in the values of "democracy" and "free market capitalism" share exactly the same worldview: they want the Russian people to become "Europeans" not in a geographical sense, of course (geographically speaking most Russian live in the European part of Russia), but culturally! This is what the Popes wanted, this is what the French Freemasons wanted, this is what the Nazis wanted, and this is what the AngloZionists want. That dream to turn Russians into Europeans while totally cleansing them from any "Russian-ness" is what united *all* the invaders of Russia over the centuries.

But the "stubborn" Russian people just don't seem to "get it" and, for some totally mysterious reason, they always resist all these "benevolent" western attempts at "civilizing" them.

This is exactly what we see today: Putin and his Eurasian Sovereignists try as hard as they can to *sovereignize* Russia; in other words, they want to make Russia *truly* Russian again. Sounds basic, but that is categorically unacceptable to the Russian plutocrats and to their supporters in the West. Thus any kind of defense of the Russian-ness of Russia is immediately and contemptuously dismissed as "national leftism", "nationalism" or, God forbid!, "monarchism". And when the person trying to make the argument that Russia ought to be Russian uses Marxist concepts or categories, these arguments are also dismissed out of hand as an "outdated rhetoric of a system which has failed and discredited itself". What they fail to realize is to say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due primarily/solely to the Marxist or Communist ideology is just as stupid as blaming the current collapse of democracy in the US on the writings of the Founding Fathers rather than on the SOB politicians who are destroying this country day after day after day. Tell me: when the US finally bites the dust, will you simply declare that "democracy is dead" and that the "collapse of the US proved that democracy is not a viable regime"? So yes, the Soviet Union did indeed collapse, broken into 15 pieces by its own ruling elite (the Nomenklatura ), but the ideas contained in the Marxist-Leninist ideology have not only not been "defeated" – they have not even been challenged (more on this issue here ).

But, thank God! most Russians are still not willing to be incorporated into the "European cultural Borg collective ", at least not in the cultural sense. And in spite of 300 years of oppression by various pro-western regimes (with various degrees of russophobia, not all were equally bad), the Russian people still want to remain Russian, not just by speaking a language, but by having a ruler and a regime in power which they feel defends their interests and not the interests of the ruling class. They want to live in their own civilizational realm, and not the kind of post-Christian intellectual desert the West has become.

Many decades of rabid russophobia by the rulers of the AngloZionist Empire have convinced the Russian people that they have no friends in the European or North American ruling elites and that true freedom comes through liberation, not submission. That, and the appalling example of the consequences of the "Euromaidan" in the Ukraine.

At the end of the day, it is not about GDP or the availability of cheap consumer goods. At the end of the day, it all depends on real, moral, ethical, spiritual and civilizational values . This was true 1000 years ago and this is still true today. At least in Russia.

It is very important to keep a close eye on this trend: the appearance of slowly but surely growing (truly) patriotic opposition (as opposed to the CIA-paid clowns in the Russian liberal camp). As for the "official" opposition (LDPR, KPRF and the Just Russia), they might decide to grow a few teeth, initially small, baby teeth only, but if this trend accelerates, they might decide to look a tad more credible. Until now the rather lame and ridiculous LDPR & KPRF parties are just a collective form of court jesters with no real opposition potential. Just look at how the KPRF, thoroughly discredited by their crazy choice of the millionaire Grudinin for candidate, jumped onto the pension reform PR-disaster to suddenly try to launch a referendum. This would never have happened in the past.

The political landscape in Russia is becoming more complicated, which is both good and bad. It is bad because Putin's personal political credit suffers, however modestly for now, from his continuous inability to purge the Kremlin from the 5th columnists , but it is also good because if things get bad enough Putin will have no choice but to (finally!) get rid of at least the most notorious 5th columnists. But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the Russophobic politics and the adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a "social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.

You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics.

The future of Russia, and much of the world, will depend on the outcome of this battle.

UPDATE : well, just as I was mentioning that the fact that Levada Center and VTsIOM mostly agree, at least on trends, the Russian media is now reporting that the latter now also is reporting a drop in the popularity of Putin. And just to make things worse, the Russian authorities have deported an (in-)famous anti-Nazi Ukrainian journalist, Elena Boiko, to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine in spite of the fact that Boiko had requested political asylum in Russia. Now, Boiko is a very controversial person for sure (and, personally, not *at all* my cup of tea), but the sole fact that Russia would deport ANY anti-Nazi activist to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine is disgusting and revolting. And, sure enough, the bovine-excreta is already hitting the proverbial fan as now members of the Duma, journalists and various personalities are demanding explanations for this absolutely stupid and deeply immoral act. Sadly, can only agree with Nikolai Starikov who speaks of a "liberal revanche" following the "Russian Spring" of 2014. If this kind of nonsense continues we will see a further deterioration of Putin's personal rating along with a gradual degradation of the Russian political environment.


Andrei Martyanov , says: Website January 18, 2019 at 1:56 pm GMT

Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are so universally effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to better understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the solutions offered by Marxism.

The phrase of the year, so far. Superb.

Annatar , says: January 20, 2019 at 11:24 am GMT
I don't see what issue the Russian people have with the current administration, the main economic indicator that impacts most people directly is real wage growth, and it is not as if wages have been stagnant, real wages grew by 7.4% in the first 11 months of 2018, no reason to believe December data will be any different, if 7% real wage growth isn't enough for people, then nothing will be. Real wage growth was slow in 2017 at 2.9% but it has accelerated significantly since then.
jilles dykstra , says: January 20, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT

Do they really want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a "social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.

For the inhabitants of the EU member states mutatis mutandis :
Do they really want to live in a society ran by multinationals and globalists, (with all the russophobic politics, and the destruction of European cultures, such a choice implies), or do they want a "social-democratic society", meaning a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above profits and dictatorial rule ?

anon [244] Disclaimer , says: January 20, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Felix Keverich The foundation of the capitalism is based on exploitation at home and abroad . The foundational base is the 3 rd world . Capitalism including those based on 17- 20 th century's colonization would have not succeeded the way it has . We intentionally forget that the western capitalism is much more destructive than the soviet marxism . Soviet marxism failed because it did not colonize the rest of the world and make them pay for its survival the way Capitalism did.

No one talks of the vile corrupt despicable poor situation of Congo Niger Nigeria or Gabon . They are capitalist friendly crony dictatorial countries whose existences without any media reported daily grinding poverty and violences are possible due to the western support and media silence . They are not socialist they are not capitalist . They are support countries . They maintain support and enrich western capitalism . They ( king cronies dictator and limited choice based elected leaders ) in turn get western protection support and help . The media ( western ) don't refer to them , don't remind of them , and don't bother about the plight of the citizen . Their disenfranchised citizen support the western capitalism like the slaves propped up the culturally savvy educated well dressed well fed elites of Greece and Rome.

When those illegal manipulated created support system are gone, west 's capitalism as we know for 400 hundred years will be gone . Reason of the disconnect we see in the west is because the system is failing at the margins at the borderlands, at the periphery of the control ,whose victims are the middle class . The margin will move to the centers slowly and the elites will start killing each other and fighting each other . Capitalism can't feed and can't enrich and can't hold the promise as it used to before . Because the major victims of the 400 yrs capitalism have become also successful capitalist themselves . It is like the 19 th European dynasties are challenging each other over the territories . It is like Pope being threatened by new ideologies from the fringes . Pie is shrinking . Capitalism's success has so far been left externalities un -addressed . Externalities are in the ruins of the 3rd world .

follyofwar , says: January 20, 2019 at 3:51 pm GMT
@Felix Keverich I wonder if any other commenters are as dumb as I am. I didn't know that Putin wasn't in charge of pretty much everything in Russia. Saker says that Medvedev, as Prime Minister, actually runs domestic policy, while Putin, as President, runs foreign policy. It seems that these two have been taking turns being either President or PM for a few decades now.

With these two constantly at odds, it would be like our President and VP being of different parties, except that our VP has no power (unless it's Dick Cheney). But I do think that our President, elected to an office designed for the 18th Century, has far too much on his plate for any one person. A country the size of the US should have both a President and PM, but I'd like to see them run as a slate, not in opposition to each other.

[Jan 21, 2019] Control of money and control of information are two keys to the making other states vassals. The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that control system.political power

Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Robert Snefjella , says: January 18, 2019 at 4:57 pm GMT

The MSM and its allies in the controlled alternative media, and the global private-interest financial, investment and banking system, are a tag-team, indispensable to each other. Control of money and control of information. The first narrowly concentrates wealth and thus power and influence. The second through agenda-driven selection, lies, censorship, spin, misdirection and so on – disinformation – controls people's sense of what is real and possible, thus dis-empowering them.

The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that control system.

The combined effort of narrowly controlled and narrowly advantaging globe straddling finance, media, and muscle has facilitated the development of a near global Empire. In common with traditional Empires this new Empire had totalitarian ambitions: but since its reach was global, this is really a first attempt at global totalitarian control.

Russia under Putin – leaving aside China – has developed enough strength to attempt alternative modes of communication and finance and development, not as adjuncts or subordinates to the Empire's efforts in those regards. And their military is antidote and opposition to the totalitarian project.

The forgoing is pretty obvious stuff, but I think that the Saker's concluding paragraph provides a limiting summary of how the issue can play out.

"But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a
western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption
of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.

You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics."

This is a simplistic way of looking at the choices available. We are all caught up in transitional culture processes, no matter where we live. The conjunction of the cornucopia of new technology and unprecedented environmental and social challenges is everywhere at play, leading who knows where?

What the Russian people have been given, and this is near singular on Earth, is a protected and enhanced opportunity of developing a culture in which honest national discourse is a predominant feature. This is in complete contrast to the predominant 'fake news' system of discourse control that is in place in so many countries. And full and honest discourse will create its own original cultural developments.

The Russian adoption of more honest discourse is already having global influence. An example is Russia Today, which far from perfect and all that, still provides an enormous advance over the extremely controlled western mass media, and a powerful foe to 'fake news'.

Perhaps the most visible exemplar of rationale discourse has been Putin himself, with for example his marathon annual Q and A with the Russian people, or his articulate well considered sallies on many issues

And with that – if Russia can use unfettered reason writ large as a prime ingredient of cultural and political development, as a basic developmental 'steering tool' – then the simple dichotomy of "western-style capitalist society" vs "a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits" , as much as I'm sympathetic to the latter, seems to me to be a limiting way of expressing the range of potential beneficent possibilities.

[Jan 21, 2019] NATO is a Danger, Not a Guarantor of Peace

Notable quotes:
"... "Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is Justice Dead and Buried"? ..."
"... I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake. ..."
"... European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one or other Western power de jour. ..."
"... Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and Germans are still down. ..."
"... Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are invested in empire instead of America's citizenry. ..."
"... Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what the adults told him. ..."
"... "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot." ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The New York Times scored a serious scoop when it revealed on Monday that President Trump had questioned in governmental conversations -- on more than one occasion, apparently -- America's membership in NATO. Unfortunately the paper then slipped into its typical mode of nostrum journalism. My Webster's New World Dictionary defines "nostrum" as "quack medicine" entailing "exaggerated claims." Here we had quack journalism executed in behalf of quack diplomacy.

The central exaggerated claim is contained in the first sentence, in which it is averred that NATO had "deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." This is wrong, as can be seen through just a spare amount of history.

True, NATO saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism. But it did so not over 70 years but over 40 years -- from 1949 to 1989. That's when the Soviet Union had 1.3 million Soviet and client-state troops poised on Western Europe's doorstep, positioned for an invasion of Europe through the lowlands of Germany's Fulda Gap.

How was this possible? It was possible because Joseph Stalin had pushed his armies farther and farther into the West as the German Wehrmacht collapsed at the end of World War II. In doing so, and in the process capturing nearly all of Eastern Europe, he ensured that the Soviets had no Western enemies within a thousand miles of Leningrad or within 1,200 miles of Moscow. This vast territory represented not only security for the Russian motherland (which enjoys no natural geographical barriers to deter invasion from the West) but also a potent staging area for an invasion of Western Europe.

The first deterrent against such an invasion, which Stalin would have promulgated had he thought he could get away with it, was America's nuclear monopoly. By the time that was lost, NATO had emerged as a powerful and very necessary deterrent. The Soviets, concluding that the cost of an invasion was too high, defaulted to a strategy of undermining Western interests anywhere around the world where that was possible. The result was global tensions stirred up at various global trouble spots, most notably Korea and Vietnam.

But Europe was saved, and NATO was the key. It deserves our respect and even reverence for its profound success as a military alliance during a time of serious threat to the West.

But then the threat went away. Gone were the 1.3 million Soviet and client-state troops. Gone was Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Indeed, gone, by 1991, was the Soviet Union itself, an artificial regime of brutal ideology superimposed upon the cultural entity of Mother Russia. It was a time for celebration.

But it was also a time to contemplate the precise nature of the change that had washed over the world and to ponder what that might mean for old institutions -- including NATO, a defensive military alliance created to deter aggression from a menacing enemy to the east. Here's where Western thinking went awry. Rather than accepting as a great benefit the favorable developments enhancing Western security -- the Soviet military retreat, the territorial reversal, the Soviet demise -- the West turned NATO into a territorial aggressor of its own, absorbing nations that had been part of the Soviet sphere of control and pushing right up to the Russian border. Now Leningrad (renamed St. Petersburg after the obliteration of the menace of Soviet communism) resides within a hundred miles of NATO military forces, while Moscow is merely 200 miles from Western troops.

Russia Sure Behaves Strangely for a Country Bent on Conquest NATO Welcomes Another Military Midget

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has absorbed 13 nations, some on the Russian border, others bordering lands that had been part of Russia's sphere of interest for centuries. This constitutes a policy of encirclement, which no nation can accept without protest or pushback. And if NATO were to absorb those lands of traditional Russian influence -- particularly Ukraine and Georgia -- that would constitute a major threat to Russian security, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to emphasize to Western leaders for years.

So, no, NATO has not deterred Russian aggression for 70 years. It did so for 40 and has maintained a destabilizing posture toward Russia ever since. The problem here is the West's inability to perceive how changed geopolitical circumstances might require a changed geopolitical strategy. The encirclement strategy has had plenty of critics -- George Kennan before he died; academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Robert David English; former diplomat Jack Matlock; the editors of The Nation . But their voices have tended to get drowned out by the nostrum diplomacy and the nostrum journalism that supports it at every turn.

You can't drown out Donald Trump because he's president of the United States. And so he has to be traduced, ridiculed, dismissed, and marginalized. That's what the Times story, by Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper, sought to do. Consider the lead, designed to emphasize just how outlandish Trump's musings are before the reader even has a chance to absorb what he may have been thinking: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot."

Henry Kissinger had something interesting to say about Trump in a recent interview with the Financial Times . "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history," said the former secretary of state, "who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses." One Western pretense about Russia, so ardently enforced by the likes of Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper (who, it may be safe to say, know less about world affairs and their history than Henry Kissinger), is that nothing really changed with the Soviet collapse and NATO had to turn aggressive in order to keep that menacing nation in its place.

Trump clearly doesn't buy that pretense. He said during the campaign that NATO was obsolete. Then he backtracked, saying he only wanted other NATO members to pay their fair share of the cost of deterrence. He even confessed, after Hillary Clinton identified NATO as "the strongest military alliance in the history of the world," that he only said NATO was obsolete because he didn't know much about it. But he was learning -- enough, it appears, to support as president Montenegro's entry into NATO in 2017. Is Montenegro, with 5,332 square miles and some 620,000 citizens, really a crucial element in Europe's desperate project to protect itself against Putin's Russia?

We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge the country in necessary new directions.

But Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the status quo defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century.



Stephen J. January 17, 2019 at 10:18 pm

The writer states: "NATO, in its current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it." Well said.
-- -- -- --
But it is more diabolical than that, there is reported evidence that NATO and its allies have been funding, training and arming terrorists.
See links below for reported evidence of this treachery. https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-diabolical-work-of-nato-and-its.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-nato-rious-member-war-machine-that.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-war-criminals-new-billion-dollar.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-numerous-affiliated-terrorists.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2015/12/is-nato-gang-of-turkeys.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-war-gangs-and-war-criminals-of-nato.html

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Based on the evidence in links above I ask:

"Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is Justice Dead and Buried"?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/will-war-criminals-be-brought-to.html

Emil Bogdan , , January 17, 2019 at 10:22 pm
We recently heard Trump get real mad at the Germans because their energy policy is strengthening Russia, meanwhile, we're protecting them from Russia, so like what the hell, Germany, make up your mind but you know that we're just venting, we're with you no matter what, Germany, and NATO is sacrosanct, you know the status quo, and Trump is very often a status quo kinda guy, which is why when the newly liberated Poles and Czechs and Hungarians and Baltics insisted on NATO protection, there is no way Trump would have refused to expand the alliance, no chance whatsoever that he would have listened to Kennan -- Kennan who?

Kennan was a smart man, but he didn't get everything right all the time, for example, be didn't think the Germans were made for democracy, in fact he had serious doubts about American democracy as well.

Personally, I supported the NATO expansion, and even in hindsight I'm not so sure it was the wrong move. It's easy to talk loudly when you don't have to weigh deeply competing interests and make the hard calls. Plenty of smart people were also convinced after '89 that a re-unified Germany would spell grave misfortune, but a decision had to be made, and we'll never really know where the road not taken would have led. Truly, are we so sure that leaving 100 million Eastern Europeans as a buffer zone would have been the absolute and unambiguous best choice?

But to reiterate, knowing his abiding love for their women, my bet on Trump gladly and effusively welcoming them is a safe one.

Cornel C Lencar , , January 18, 2019 at 12:17 am
I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake.

And then NATO came to life in 1949, and then the other shenanigans that the U.S. did that convinced the Soviets that the time started ticking against them. So they managed to pull together the Warsaw Pact in 1955. And then they always tried to catch up with having enough to deter a nuclear attack from US.

European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one or other Western power de jour.

Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and Germans are still down.

Russians, for a long time looked up to and got inspiration from Europe and wanted to enjoy it. Why to debase it with their boots?

An instructive book is Brendan Simms' "Europe -- The Struggle for Supremacy". Provides quite a perspective

sb , , January 18, 2019 at 1:12 am
Well written Robert! We in the West don't even think much about extant structures like NATO, but they have raised the tension needlessly with Russia, at a time we need to build friendship.

Trump should chat to Putin about bringing Russia into NATO -- that would set the cat among the pigeons!

We will need all the Euro-Christian nations to unite and defend against Islamic invasion soon, as 23% of world are Muslim, and they follow a global domination death cult in the Koran. Even China may have to swing on board (not in NATO, but as allies like in WW2).

Of course, Russia would need to improve its democratic practices, and it would take time to ease suspicions, but with fast falling fertility & birth rates in all Western nations, and fast rising 3rd world births and forcible migration into the West, a united Europe & West will be vital

Is anyone discussing such Russia-Nato alliance?

Fran Macadam , , January 18, 2019 at 2:39 am
Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are invested in empire instead of America's citizenry.
JK , , January 18, 2019 at 5:42 am
Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what the adults told him.
Tony , , January 18, 2019 at 7:31 am
This is a very good article about why we should now take a very critical look at the question of NATO.

However, I do not see any evidence that the Soviet Union, so devastated by war, ever planned an invasion of Western Europe and this article has not supplied any.

For an alternative view of the Cold War, I would recommend Andrew Alexander's book: America and the Imperialism of Ignorance: US Foreign Policy since 1945. https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/america-and-the-imperialism-of-ignorance

The writer was a former conservative journalist and one-time Conservative Party election candidate in England.

Mark VA , , January 18, 2019 at 7:35 am
AP European History Class, Classwork, Date: 1/18/19

There are two things I have learned from reading this article:

First, there is Europe, which from geography we know is a continent called Europe, and then there in Eastern Europe, which may or may not be a continent, but it seems it is somewhere in the East. Also, Western Europe is mentioned, but its precise location is not given. Thinking critically, I think it's in the West;

The second thing I learned is that Russia needs a permanent radius of 1200 miles centered on Moscow, to feel safe and secure within its western borders;

Conclusions and critical thinking thoughts:

Russia is right to defend itself. It is surrounded by enemies of peace, so this need for buffer areas is justified. In my opinion, that's because for centuries Russia suffered invasion after invasion, so it's justified. Also, because Peter the Terrible built Leningrad, which freezes in winter;

Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.

Michael Kenny , , January 18, 2019 at 7:40 am
Clearly, the US should not have excluded the Russian Federation from NATO but that is now purely academic. That exclusion spawned Putin just as the harshness of the Versailles Treaty spawned Hitler. However, having spawned the monster, the US has litle choice but to destroy him and the only effect of abandoning NATO would be to encourage him to continue to grab other ountries' territory until, one day, he will go too far and will have to be fought with military force. The same argument Mr Merry is making was also made about Hitler in the 1930s:"Not our problem. Anyway, he's only taking back what is rightfully his". It didn't work then and I don't see why it would work now.
SteveM , , January 18, 2019 at 8:00 am
This is a an excellent essay by Robert Merry. Congrats.

Re: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot."

That Russia wants NATO gone is true. But for economic, not military reasons. NATO is the front that the U.S. Global Cop Gorilla uses to pressure Europe in all dimensions, military and economic. Washington demonizes Russia, even equates Russia with the Soviet Union to maintain the basis for its ham-fisted interference in every issue of importance to the Europeans.

Russia's objectives are economic, not territorial. It wants to set up a pan-Eurasian economic architecture that includes Europe as a primary trading partner. The U.S. via NATO will do anything and everything to subvert that benign economic activity, e.g., Nord Stream 2. Because the Gorilla insists on absolutely controlling everything that it touches.

American Elites have lived parasitically large for decades under the existing model. America as a "force for good" is their sole argument for sustaining the foreign policy pathologies regardless of the record of wreckage and waste.

Unfortunately, with a War Machine that is worshiped, a compliant cronied-up corporate culture, sycophantic MSM and seduced population, at this points it's wiser to bet on the Elites. I.e. the Gorilla fronted by the NATO it controls, will be sticking its fat, greasy thumb in European affairs for years to come. And the American taxpayer will again be forced to pay the bills for Elite arrogance and stupidity.

peter mcloughlin , , January 18, 2019 at 8:32 am
'America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace', is true. We live in extremely dangerous times and the signs are ominous. It's correct that Russia had a huge buffer zone after it pushed west at the end of ww2, for which NATO was justifiable to counter this. But now Russia sees itself encircled, threatened, with the choice of either rebounding or imploding; no state chooses that latter.
The present crisis is worse than the Cold War because the Cold War was the peace. Today it is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent the scenarios where Mutual Assured Destruction will be resorted to. We will soon face the scenario where (unlike the Cuban missile crisis or Euro missile crisis) one protagonist will not be able to step back from the brink, blindly stumbling into a situation they cannot de-escalate. All that is left is Deterrence's fall-back position -- annihilation.
The world has experienced periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. They all ended: followed by war. The Congress System finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent a third world war.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Matt W , , January 18, 2019 at 8:50 am
The GLORIOUS LEADER is always right! His big brain and best words must never be questioned. Any criticism is TREASON.

Or am I being too unkind? Is this satire? It's so hard to tell nowadays

Dan Green , , January 18, 2019 at 9:24 am
Wasn't post WW 2 perceived logic, you cannot allow the Germans to ever rearm, and the Russians need be isolated. So give them half the spoils, to keep them happy, and occupy Germany. Well here we are, spending billions to have a European military presence, while Putin looks on in wonderment, at our Government and the Brits. We concentrate on impeachment , and the Brits chose to ignore 51.9 percent of their population, wanting out of Germany controlled so called EU, administered by Brussels puppets. If we got out of Nato , which is all about the US military capabilities, would Russia invade western Europe? Bottom line is that wouldn't be practical. Russia prefers to have eastern Europe willingly join Russia in a re-constructed Soviet Union.
Kurt Gayle , , January 18, 2019 at 9:33 am
Henry Kissinger: "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses."

Robert Merry: "Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the status quo defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it."

Thank you, Mr. Merry. You're a historian, I know -- and that gives you many advantages -- but why do you think so few among the Elite Classes understand that even a man whose favorite meal is two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted "may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses" -- a man who "almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers"?

Johann , , January 18, 2019 at 9:34 am
It was more nuclear weapons than NATO that deterred the Soviet Union.
Sid , , January 18, 2019 at 9:43 am
An opportunity to move beyond NATO was missed in 2001. Putin had been president for a year and a half. Russia was even weaker than it is today. Pointing out that the Soviet Union was gone and NATO had won the Cold War, Putin had a few suggestions: NATO could disband; Russia could join NATO; or a new European defense league could be formed to include Russia. The response to such feelers? Aggressive NATO expansion.
Mark Thomason , , January 18, 2019 at 1:06 pm
As laid out in detail in contemporary books, NATO did not ever have the conventional military force to stop a conventional attack by the Soviets.

If NATO is seen as a military force that could stop the Soviets, that is just wrong. It never was. It must not have been meant to be either, since the balance of forces was obvious and nothing was done to change that.

Nuclear deterrent could have been done with a lot less conventional force, and was for awhile.

So what was it really all about? Likely it was US dominance of military force on the Continent, to such an extent that they could not imagine fighting each other. That provided peace from the 400 years of European civil wars. We now take that for granted, or credit it to "the Soviet threat" but it was far more complex than that.

Collin , , January 18, 2019 at 1:26 pm
As much as I am sympathetic to Trump's views of NATO, I would say this:

1) I wish Trump simply pulled out of EU with military. It seems like a lot of small changes could be made without Trump throwing another temper tantrum.

2) I am fine with keeping the nations the same and not expanding in order to avoid Russia being threatened.

3) The best part of NATA the last 30 years is peace within Europe. When was the last time Spain, Italy, France, England, and Germany did not have a major war in over 70 years? And look at Eastern Europe the last 18 years, in which it has been historically peaceful.

John S , , January 18, 2019 at 1:30 pm
As the evidence mounts that Trump is nothing but a stooge for Russian intelligence, this old idea that NATO is the problem is less and less credible.
Fayez Abedaziz , , January 18, 2019 at 1:32 pm
This read is actually composed of actual history and common sense.
President Eisenhower, as well as Kennedy and Johnson kept diplomacy and civility, in relations with Russia.
Even with the Berlin so-called crises in the early 60's, the Bay of Pigs and so on, these leaders were calm, using diplomacy.
Isn't that what diplomacy is for?
Now, we have very narrow minded and crude people advising Trump. To think, Bolton and Kushner are the face of a great country as the USA to the world?
What a dangerous and insulting situation we have,because of these two, insulting to the American people. Pompeo is also an extremist and so they bring America down to the level of a bully and war loving nation. They sure as hell don't care about US troops and civilians in other nations suffering, dying. And, the leaders of NATO have been talking nonsense.Russia attacking W Europe? Why? That's bull.
NATO and the US state department are run by nuts.
georgina davenport , , January 18, 2019 at 2:48 pm
There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist system? No, we fix the problematic parts. Likewise with NATO.

Given the aggression from Putin in invading Ukraine, and in interfering with the elections of not just United States but also other European countries, NATO is needed more than ever to deter Putin from increased aggression.

NATO however can be strategic and not provoke Putin by expanding NATO right next to Russia's border. This author is as short sighted and foolish as Trump.

Jeeves , , January 18, 2019 at 3:18 pm
@ Mark VA
Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.

Hilarious. You've earned and "A" in Mr. Merry's geography class.

Lee Green , , January 18, 2019 at 3:23 pm
An interesting thesis, and well argued I think, except for the part about Trump's motives. It's more likely that he favors easing off on the Russians because Putin has something on him; specifically, that he's indebted to the Russian mob. I think the main thesis of this article is likely valid, and questioning NATO is overdue. Trump is probably doing it for corrupt and possibly treasonous reasons, so what does one make of the right thing being done for the wrong reasons? Trump may be one of those figures who appears at a time of transition in thinking, and provokes important thinking. That doesn't imply that the man himself has any kind of coherent strategy or understanding of what he's doing. He's an opportunist, a con man, not a statesman or strategist, but he still may break some things that need to be broken, even if for the wrong reasons or no clear reason at all. None of what's happening fits into any kind of good-vs-evil or wise leadership narrative.
Whine Merchant , , January 18, 2019 at 3:52 pm
A cogent debate on this topic would be useful, at least for academic purposes [if only the few people in the current administration capable of such a carefully reasoned examination did not keep getting forced out]. The Deplorables like the "gut feel" of it, but would never countenance the shrinking of the military budget.

Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of dark-skinned people?

One Guy , , January 18, 2019 at 4:31 pm
What's really ironic is that, even if the author is absolutely correct, Trump will have done more to strengthen US involvement in NATO than any recent president. Once Trump is relegated to the ash-heap of history, suffering the scorn of millions, if not actually in prison, his ideas will become toxic-no subsequent president will touch them.

If Trump had been a thoughtful, well-spoken leader, perhaps we could have withdrawn from NATO. But he will be a laughingstock, generating endless jokes about hamberders, raking the forest, his ties made in China, rather than made in America, and tunnels under walls.

Cratylus , , January 18, 2019 at 4:59 pm
Merry writes a clear case against NATO and its Drang nach Osten but one that has been patently obvious for a long time now.

But then as he gets to the end he writes in what is a total non-sequitur:
"We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge the country in necessary new directions."

Trump Derangement Syndrome strikes again! Note that Merry dislikes Trump for his style -- you can almost hear in it the snotty putdowns of Trump and Deplorables from the refined and brutal hawk, Hillary, or the contempt of a Marie Antoinette for the rabble who would soon cart her off to face the guillotine.

The upper professional classes cannot stomach the nouveau riche Trump -- and that is true whether they are Right or Left. The original NYT dislike for Trump in the early days of his candidacy came of its judgement that he was "vulgar" and "boorish." So Merry completes his piece by unwittingly put himself in the same crowd he seeks to discredit at the beginning.
TDS is catnip for the Respectables.

Mark Krvavica , , January 18, 2019 at 7:12 pm
With respect to NATO, that Cold War relic should have ceased operations some years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Sadly the West had other ideas and now we're threatening Russia in the 21st Century, ironically some of the cheerleaders against Moscow are the political descendants of NATO opponents during its heyday.
Tom S. , , January 18, 2019 at 9:06 pm
For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that would seem obvious except to the author.
VikingLS , , January 19, 2019 at 8:29 am
@Whine Merchent

Why are you trying to make this about Donald Trump?

EliteCommInc. , , January 19, 2019 at 8:37 am
"I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe."

I think this is accurate. That press is probably an overstatement. Not only is it doubtful they had that desire, it is doubtful that even then they could have accomplished that task. Based on what we now know, by the the 1960's the Soviet Union and it's "empire" was in trouble.

"There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist system?"

There are valid reasons to suspect that capitalism is gone or at least under tremendous pressure by merchantil behavior.
-- -- -- -- --

For some reasons that make a little sense and plenty more that are incomprehensible to me -- this president chose not to embrace the mantle of transformational change. Sec. Kissinger's observation is correct. But ultimately, this president has chosen to be that transformative force those of us that voted for him so desired. Breaking the social communicative norms of "political correct speech" is the least of the substantive behaviors I was hoping to see occur.

I fully expected that he would press NATO for either a less substantial US presence or a they pay a larger share of the expense.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of dark-skinned people?"

Referring to this president as a Lord/PM Churchill or PM Chamberlain in light the conditions in which the both operated makes no sense. As I understand it, PM Churchill's choices was to stand in the face of extreme criticism. His choice made, there he stood. He believed in his being he had a destiny and he seized it as a bull dog might sieze it's prey. He by sheer will and force -- regardless of the odds. He actually served . . . in battle and it appears was as brazen and certain as consistent to his character throughout.

PM Chamberlain actually embraced the popular will of the people when he chose a peaceful, understanding that GB was neither in the mood or a condition to go to war.

Our current president, has neither stood consistently, has any deep certainty of his place nor marshaled the will of the people to advance policy on any grand scale. The comparison's made have been false comparisons about what this president could be or might have been, but refuses to fully embrace save as facades of leadership, despite have been given a clear mandate.

-- -- --

And that has been unfortunate for the country.

Kurt Gayle , , January 19, 2019 at 10:54 am
"Tucker Carlson: You're not allowed to question NATO" Tucker Carlson Tonight, Jan 15, 2019:

(3:20) "They consider asking difficult questions a criminal act. Just this morning, Preet Bharara, the most famous former federal prosecutor in America, explained this on Twitter. Quote: 'If true, Trump should immediately and publicly state his apparent wish to withdraw from NATO so he can be promptly impeached, convicted, and removed from office'." Unquote. In other words, talking about leaving NATO isn't simply unwise. It's an impeachable offense. Lots of famous and powerful people in Washington think this. Watch:

"SOT: JAMES CLAPPER: Withdrawing from NATO -- even discussing withdrawing from NATO -- would be disastrous for the security of the United States.

"REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D), CALIFORNIA: I think that act would be so destructive to our country (edit) it would be a ground for some profound effort by our part, whether it's impeachment or the 25th Amendment. He can't do that to this country. And I don't believe that he can do it without Senate ratification."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UScRHLH0mu0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Kurt Gayle , , January 19, 2019 at 11:06 am
I understand that TAC's editors might not have wanted to run two fine NATO essays head-to-head on the same day, but this is Pat Buchanan's regular Friday TAC column:

"At Age 70, Time to Rethink NATO" by Pat Buchanan, Jan 18, 2019

https://buchanan.org/blog/at-age-70-time-to-rethink-nato-135716

Stephen Reynolds , , January 19, 2019 at 1:23 pm
'Trump saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism.'

So we are working with a definition of Europe that does not include former Yugoslavia, former Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, or the Baltic countries. Well, Russia is geographically vulnerable, so it needs to ride roughshod over all its neighbors to establish a defensive perimeter. So let us all understand what Russia feels it needs, and dismiss what, say, Poland feels it needs. Then we can characterize the eagerness of former satellites and Soviet 'republics' to join as 'NATO expansion'. And we can ignore Russian manipulation of Abkhazia and of its exclaves in Moldova and Ukraine to violate the territorial integrity of former 'Union Republics', and the threats of invasion and nuclear devastation uttered against various neighbors.

NATO handled the applications of countries in the area with due reserve until recent years, when needless loose talk about prospective membership of Ukraine and Georgia predictably caused upset in the Kremlin. But considering occupation of parts of the supposed territories of both, can you at least understand why a lot of Ukrainians and Georgians might want to join NATO? And can you stop talking as though accession to NATO on the part of Visegrad and Baltic countries was driven by some megalomaniacal obsession to expand on the part of NATO?

Chris Atwood , , January 19, 2019 at 2:24 pm
Like most Trump-leaning conservative opinion on NATO, this leaves out a key part of the picture: the EU. Because Robert Merry, like most Trump-leaning conservatives dislikes both NATO and the EU, and would like to see both dissolve.

But realistically, US leaving NATO and the EU breaking up or weakening together would leave a massive vacuum of power which would lead to either Russian domination (likely in the short run), or (more likely in the long run), a return to Anglo-Franco-German great power rivalry -- and we know the dangers of that.

There's a solution that avoid both the Scylla of an unending US trusteeship over European security or a return to the pre-1914 idea of a remilitarized, competitive Europe.

That is preserving and extending European union, by making the EU a defense union as well as a political and economic one. and then tying the US to that resulting European defense union, as its ultimate guarantor of strategic depth.

Whine Merchant , , January 19, 2019 at 4:23 pm
VikingLS @Whine Merchent
"Why are you trying to make this about Donald Trump?"

Because I read the article --

Stephen J. , , January 19, 2019 at 5:02 pm
'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed [And other info on this Tax Funded Monster that reportedly Funds, Arms, and Trains Terrorists]
-- -- -- -

'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed

With NATO rattled amid pressure from Donald Trump, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen made an appeal for the alliance in a New York Times op-ed. She described NATO as an "emotional bond" between the US and Europe.

18.01.2019
Author Rebecca Staudenmaier

"Maybe the most basic benefit of NATO is that it provides reliability in an unreliable world," the Christian Democrat politician wrote .
[read more at link below]
https://www.dw.com/en/world-still-needs-nato-writes-german-defense-minister-in-new-york-times-op-ed/a-47143021
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
July 14, 2018
The Diabolical "Work" of NATO and Its Allies: Why Are These War Criminals Still Free?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-diabolical-work-of-nato-and-its.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

The World Still Needs NATO
The alliance is not just about bases and troops. It is about defending the world order.

By Ursula von der Leyen
Ms. von der Leyen is the German defense minister.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/opinion/nato-european-union-america.html
-- -- -- -- -- --
NATO is a Danger, Not a Guarantor of Peace
Status quo supporters like the New York Times poke fun at Trump for questioning the alliance. But who's the fool?

By ROBERT W. MERRY • January 18, 2019

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/nato-is-a-danger-not-a-guarantor-of-peace/
-- -- -- -- --

NATO is harbouring the Islamic State
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/europe-is-harbouring-the-islamic-state-s-backers-d24db3a24a40#.7875bdwsf
-- -- --

https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-christmas-report-on-crimes-of-war.html
-- --
https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html
-- --
https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/09/despite-all-evidence.html
-- -- -- -
October 11, 2017
Do We Even Realize What "Our Leaders" Are Doing?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/10/do-we-even-realize-what-our-leaders-are.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

VikingLS , , January 19, 2019 at 5:02 pm
"For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that would seem obvious except to the author."

I'm pretty sure the author and everybody else here understands why the Baltic States wanted to join NATO.

The question is why NATO should have been eager to want to admit the Baltic States.

Does that not bear discussing?

Stephen J. , , January 19, 2019 at 5:23 pm
Is a NATO supporter being questioned? See story links below.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
German opposition to probe defense minister over spending scandal

Ursula von der Leyen is suspected of poor management and nepotism over her department's allocation of contracts and its decision to hire a consultant as her deputy. A parliamentary committee is set to investigate.

12.12.2018

https://www.dw.com/en/german-opposition-to-probe-defense-minister-over-spending-scandal/a-46704514
-- -- --

https://www.dw.com/en/world-still-needs-nato-writes-german-defense-minister-in-new-york-times-op-ed/a-47143021

JohnPerth , , January 20, 2019 at 7:46 am
Is there no way to exclude the Atlantic Council bots from these comboxes?
Toño Bungay , , January 20, 2019 at 8:20 am
Mr. Merry must be aware that the advocates of NATO emphasize the fear that Eastern European countries have of once again being dominated so cruelly by Russia and the moral obligation the U.S. has to aid them in their self-defense. If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least need to demonstrate that the Eastern European countries' fears are baseless or nonexistent?
South of the James , , January 20, 2019 at 1:51 pm
"If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least need to demonstrate that the Eastern European countries' fears are baseless or nonexistent?"

No. That's a sucker's game. The Israelis got us to play that game, and now we pay them to do nothing while we fight their wars for them. I'm sure that the Eastern Europeans would love to get in on some similar action. Let the stupid Americans do the paying and the heavy lifting.

We're not interested.

Fredar , , January 20, 2019 at 6:05 pm
Nato wasn't the one who annexed Crimea and who is conducting a shadow war in Ukraine.
Mark VA , , January 20, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Toño Bungay:

For an isolationist, it's much more convenient to act as if certain countries and their historical experiences are nonexistent

On the other hand, to be fair to TAC, no one should be coerced into playing a global role if one doesn't wish it. This is certainly honorable. And there is always a graceful way to either exit the global stage, or officially confine one's interests to a small region (say, England and France). But then there are consequences to accept: for example, China, with its One Belt One Road Initiative, may inherit the world;

In the meantime, Eastern Europe is exploring its own collective security initiative, called Intermarium:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/t_FX4oUGe8E?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

[Jan 20, 2019] The Russian Pension Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost...

Jan 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

padre says: January 20, 2019 at 10:53 am GMT

Unlike the USA, they at least have a pension system!

[Jan 20, 2019] This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously and using smears

Notable quotes:
"... Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity. ..."
"... I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Anne Jaclard , Jan 20, 2019 6:02:29 PM | link

On Integrity Initiative Endgame:

From Consortium News

It should be pointed out that the Integrity Initiative recently claimed on Twitter that some of the documents leaked in batch #4 were not theirs and had been misrepresented as part of the organisation.

It doesn't really matter, though: all that we know, anti-socialist shills writing propaganda on behalf of II (Nimmo, Cohen, Reid-Ross) have confirmed their own roles, and the Twitter account was proven to have pushed out slanderous material on Jeremy Corbyn.

Note that "misrepresented" could have referred to the inclusion of the Corbyn slide show document which was presented at but created by the II.

This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously and using smears,

-Yellow Vests
– Jill Stein
-Jeremy Corbyn
-George Galloway
-Seuams Milne
-German Left Party
-French Left Party
-French Communist Party
-Greek Communist Party
-Podemos
-Norwegian Red Party
-Norwegian Socialist Left Party
-Swedish Left Party
-Swedish Greens
-International Anti-NATO Groups
-Greyzone Project
-Julian Assange
-MintPressNews

Via

-Infiltrating Corbyn and Sanders campaigns
-Inserting propaganda anonymously into local media including the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, The Times, the Guardian, and more
-Using social media to orchestrate hate and dismissal campaigns against those mentioned above
-Hosting events for collaboration between members
-Building online "clusters" to deploy and shape discourse in the media and elsewhere

By repeating or openly collaborating with:

-Ben Nimmo
-Oz Katergi
-Anne Applebaum
-Peter Pomerantsev
-Bellingcat
-Atlantic Council
-Carole Cadwalladr
-David Aaronovitch
-Center For A Stateless Society
-PropOrNot
-Alexander Reid-Ross
-Nick Cohen
-Michael Weiss
-Jamie Fly
-Jamie Kirchick

Directed by:

-Tory Government
-NATO
-Facebook
-German Multinationals

uncle tungsten | Jan 20, 2019 6:18:59 PM | 16

Thank you Anne Jaclard @ | 14

Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity.

I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people.

[Jan 20, 2019] The USA foreign policy is run by defense contractors

Notable quotes:
"... Politicians and their sanctions are like the fabled neutron bomb. Very little physical damage but huge death and suffering. ..."
"... Iraq is a perfect example. Sanctions killed far more than than bombs and bullets. ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Baron von Bud 13 hours ago

Our foreign policy is run by defense contractors.

notdead yet 12 hours ago

It takes two to tango. The defense contractors can jaw jaw and spread around loads of cash but without someone in power having the same views war doesn't happen. You don't buy politicians they willingly sell you their services at top dollar if the cause is right.

Too many people with big ego's and tiny dicks proving their manhood by sending in the military to kill and maiming or piling on sanctions to slowly starve any country that stands in the way of the one indispensable nation on the planet.

Politicians and their sanctions are like the fabled neutron bomb. Very little physical damage but huge death and suffering.

Iraq is a perfect example. Sanctions killed far more than than bombs and bullets.

DEDA CVETKO 13 hours ago

Is The Violent Dismemberment Of Russia Official US Policy?

Yes. Obviously.

I am Groot, 13 hours ago

Disband NATO now Mr President !

[Jan 20, 2019] Even as an old timer, I am drawn to the arguments made by our "Dissident Right"(DR), who seek to find a Third Way between destructive international capitalism and destructive international socialism

Jan 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: January 20, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT

Even as an old timer, I am drawn to the arguments made by our "Dissident Right"(DR), who seek to find a Third Way between destructive international capitalism and destructive international socialism. That movement is Nationalism. Some might call it Fascism, though that loaded term has become far too pejorative. It is not surprising that one of the heroes of the US DR is Mr. Putin.

The people making the best oral arguments for this third way that I've listened to thus far are Mike Enoch and Eric Striker. Do not dismiss them lightly. They are obviously highly intelligent and their movement is growing. As young white males are increasingly marginalized and oppressed by the dominant culture, they have nowhere else to go. Old-time GOP civic nationalism is dead, killed by the Diversity Cult that they foolishly embraced. On their own, after Trump, and given the snowballing demographic catastrophe, the GOP could never again win another national election. At some point there will be an uprising, unless young indoctrinated males have been become like frogs in slowly boiling water, who don't realize they are being scalded alive until it is too late.

[Jan 20, 2019] The desperate efforts of the Western neoliberal establishment to build a new propaganda machine by globinfo freexchange

Notable quotes:
"... Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament. ..."
Dec 25, 2018 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

propaganda machine

The UK government and other Western governments and the US in recent years have had increasing difficulties persuading enough of their populations as to the legitimacy of the foreign policies that they have been pursuing. And at the same time, Western countries have been going through a period of political crisis and economic crisis.

Piers Robinson, Chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism at the University of Sheffield, further explains:

I think a lot of this drive is as much about trying to shore up shaky official narratives and trying to shore up political systems in a situation of political crisis, as it is actually about countering Russian propaganda. I would suspect that that's a little bit of an excuse here to really what's going on of problems much closer to home.
This is not just to do to UK, this is Europe-wide. And there are also indications from the documents that they are intending to start to have some kind of impact within the United States. So, it's a very wide-ranging network that seems to be established. The reason why it needs to be covert, of course, is that if a media organization, or if a journalist is to let on that he, or she, is involved in a program, which quite clearly is pushing a particular agenda, then the credibility of that journalist will be damaged.

And this is really what is very deceptive about the Integrity Initiative . It's about co-opting journalists and academics into, essentially, a campaign, which appears to be a propaganda campaign, in order to manipulate opinions. And the only way that can really work effectively, is if readers and viewers don't know that what they're reading is something which has emerged from a particular political agenda.

Integrity Initiative 'Army of propagandists disguised as anti-propagandists' - YouTube

Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament.

So, it's not accidental that the organized and systematic propaganda campaign against labour party has actually started under Corbyn's leadership. And that the campaign contains a lot of personal attacks against the leader of the Labour party. That's because, of course, Jeremy Corbyn is driving the party out of the neoliberal machine that has been dominating the UK politics for decades.

But it seems that the agents of the neoliberal establishment are really desperate as they see that the new narratives are not particularly successful.
It would not be exaggerating to suggest that the attacks against Leftist leaders like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders essentially bring the opposite effect. That's because especially the younger generations have turned their back to the mainstream media.

And they understand that the more the media attack Corbyn and Sanders, the stronger the indication that these leaders are not part of the neoliberal establishment that ruined their lives becomes.

[Jan 20, 2019] Is "zastoy"(stagnation) a blessing in disguise fir Russian citizents ?

Jan 20, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , January 17, 2019 at 03:19 PM

http://glineq.blogspot.com/2019/01/russias-circular-economic-history.html

January 17, 2019

Russia's circular economic history?

Today I participated in a nice web-based program started by the Central Bank of Russia (it will be posted soon). An economist is being interviewed by another, and then the one who has been interviewed becomes in his/her turn the interviewer of yet a third one. My friend Shlomo Weber, the head of the New School of Economics interviewed me, and then I interviewed Professor Natalya Zubarevich, from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and a noted scholar of Russian regional economics.

Just a couple of days ago Natalia gave a very well-received talk at the Gaidar Forum in Moscow on (what one might call) "unhealthy convergence" of Russian regions. In fact, Natalia shows that most recently regional per capita GDPs have started a mild convergence, but that this is due first to low growth rate of most of them and the economy as a whole, and to the redistribution mechanism (mostly of the oil rent) between the regions. A healthy convergence, Natalia says, would be the one where economic activity, and especially small and medium size private businesses, were much more equally distributed across some ninety subjects of the Russian Federation. She also had very interesting insights into the excessive "verticalization" of economic power and decision-making in Russia, and the economic growth of Moscow (much faster than of any other part of Russia) driven by centralization of that power, and concentration of large state-owned or state-influenced enterprises as well as bureaucracy in Moscow.

What most attracted my attention during Natalia's presentation at the Gaidar Forum was her description of the current period of low growth rates in Russia as zastoi, or stagnation. Now, zastoi has a very special political meaning in Russian because it was a disparaging term used in the Gorbachev era, and by Gorbachev himself, to define the Brezhnevite period of declining growth rates, lack of development perspectives, unchanging bureaucracy, and general demoralization and malaise.

But I asked Natalia the following question. Looking over the past 150 years of Russian history (and I think it is hard to go further back), were not really the best periods for ordinary people exactly the periods of zastoi: incomes rose by little for sure, but the state repression was weak, there were no wars, and probably if you look at violent deaths per capita per year, the lowest number of people died precisely during the periods of zastoi. So perhaps that zastoi is not so bad.

Natalia said, "I know I lived through the Brezhnevite period. Many people were demoralized; but I used it to study. I never read so many books and learned so much as then -- you could do whatever you wanted because your actual job really did not matter much." (Even art, as I saw in the Tretyakovska Gallery, even if some of these paintings were never exhibited in the official museums, seems to have done well during the Brezhnevite zastoi. And as the recent film, which I have not seen, but read the reviews, Leto, appears to indirectly argue as well.)

The best growth periods, as Natalia said, and as is generally accepted by economic historians were the 1950s up to about 1963-65, and then the period of the two first Putin's terms. In both cases, the growth spurs came as a ratchet effect to the previous set of disasters: in the Khrushchev period, to the apocalypse of the Second World War, in the Putin period, as a reaction to the Great Depression under Yeltsin during the early transition.

So this then made us think a bit back into the past (say, going back to 1905) and put forward the following hypothesis: that Russian longer-term economic growth is cyclical. The cycle has three components. First a period of utter turbulence, disorder, war, and huge loss of income (and in many cases of life as well), followed by a decade or so of efflorescence, recovery and growth, and finally by the period of "calcification" of whatever (or whoever) that worked in that second period -- thus producing the zastoi or stagnation.

I do not know if this is something specific to the Russian economic history. It made me think of Naipaul's observation on successful and unsuccessful countries. The history of the former consists of a number of challenges and setbacks indeed, but certain things are solved forever, and then new challenges appear. Take the United States: the Indian challenge and then the independence from Britain were not easy to overcome/acquire, but eventually, they were and they never came back; then the Civil War and the Emancipation; then the Great Society etc. But unsuccessful countries, according to Naipaul (and he had, I think, Argentina in mind) always stay within the circular history. The same or similar events keep on repeating themselves forever without any upward trend -- and no single challenge is forever overcome. In each following cycle everything simply repeats itself.

The challenges for Russia today is, I think, to break this cycle.

-- Branko Milanovic

[Jan 20, 2019] I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country's development: You have failed to contain Russia," Putin said during a national address in March.

Jan 20, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Friday, January 18, 2019 at 04:23 PM

Russia's PL-19 Nudol, a system U.S. military intelligence assesses will be focused primarily on anti-satellite missions, was successfully tested twice in 2018. The weapon, which was fired from a mobile launcher, was last tested on Dec. 23 and marked the seventh overall test of the system, according to one of the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Russian anti-satellite weapon is expected to target communication and imagery satellites in low Earth orbit, according to the other person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. For reference, the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope travel in low Earth orbit.

While anti-satellite missiles are by no means new, the latest revelation comes less than a year after Putin touted his nation's growing military arsenal.

"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country's development: You have failed to contain Russia," Putin said during a national address in March.

A recently unclassified report from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, or NASIC, explained how the U.S. advantage above the Earth's atmosphere is eroding to "an emergent China and a resurgent Russia."

The NASIC report said there number of foreign intelligence and imaging satellites "has tripled" to 300 in orbit in the last two decades. The U.S. itself has 353 of its own space assets in orbit for those purposes. In response, military superpowers have poured funding into researching and developing anti-satellite weapons.

Missiles are the most high-profile, physical manifestation of anti-satellite weapons. Frank Slazer, the vice president of space systems at the Aerospace Industries Association, told CNBC about how those missiles may be physically effective, but are likely not the "first line of approach on this."

"You'd much rather jam the satellite, blind it [with a laser], or take over its control systems with a cyberattack," Slazer said. "Kinetic impacts could cause problems for other nations, besides the one you are attacking, and possibly for your own system's for many years afterwards."

Both Slazer and the NASIC report pointed to the example of China's anti-satellite test in 2007. China fired an anti-satellite missile at one of its own, discarded weather satellites. The test was successful, but the satellite shattered into thousands of pieces, which continue to zip around in an orbital cloud of deadly debris.

"A huge percentage of the debris in low earth orbit is still attributable to that one test," Slazer said.

As far as the U.S. military's ability to defend against anti-satellite weapons, the assets and capabilities in orbit "are the same as they have been for awhile," Tommy Sanford, director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, told CNBC.

Sanford contends that there has not been much in the way of progress when it comes to defending U.S. space-based assets. Sanford gave the example of using networks of smaller and cheaper satellites, like cubesats and nanosats, to offer "effective platforms to augment and support missions carried out by the DoD's larger exquisite satellites."

"The idea behind a distributed architecture for space support is – instead of having one exquisite target – you'd have a system which could presumably survive some loss of its elements and still be able to provide function," Slazer said.

[Jan 20, 2019] Democrats in 2019 admit that Obama was a sellout: especially Obama's indefensible handouts to bankers, drill-baby-drill energy policy, Lybia, Syria and Ukraine

Jan 20, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 09:08 AM

First, a quick précis of what is under discussion. The Obama stimulus package was less than half as big as it needed to be, meaning unemployment was at 10 percent in November 2010, sending Democrats to a massive defeat in the midterms. Obama's foreclosure policy was a monumental catastrophe which crushed the wealth of middle-class homeowners -- particularly African-American ones -- to save the banks from their own fraudulent schemes. His corporate crime policy amounted to a near-halt of prosecutions of top white-collar crime, again largely to protect the banks.

Obama's health-care reform, while a step forward in some ways, was poorly designed and failed to stop skyrocketing cost growth. His climate policy was timid and inexcusably slow -- while at the same time he enabled enormous growth of U.S. oil and gas drilling. He also made excuses for torture and largely embraced the Bush security apparatus -- even extending it in places, like dragnet surveillance and assassinating American citizens.

Obama apologists typically deal with these problems in one of three ways. One strategy is to ignore them in favor of his positive record, which to be fair is pretty substantial. Jonathan Chait points to the stimulus, some moderate corporate regulation (Dodd Frank), and modest tax hikes on the rich as evidence he is basically just like FDR. Another strategy is slanted arithmetic: Michael Grunwald says the stimulus was as big as the New Deal in inflation-adjusted dollars, which is true but leaves out overall economic size, which is far more telling since the point of that spending was to restore full employment at the time it was passed. The Recovery Act spending was 5.7 percent of 2008 output, while the New Deal was 40 percent of 1929 output. A final strategy is just to point at Obama's popularity among Democrats (95 percent approval) as speaking for itself, as former administration staffer Jon Favreau does here.

I would guess that of the three, this final strategy will be the one that actually prevents any very searching debate over Obama's failures. Bringing that topic up online always creates an instant snarling fight between critics and the vastly more numerous legions of die-hard Obama partisans. For a candidate to do it would distract from their upcoming campaign and likely polarize Democratic loyalists against whatever a critic was saying, regardless of content. Even Bernie Sanders has become hesitant to obliquely criticize the Democratic Party as such, because of the instant backlash from Obama fans.

However, that's not the end of the story. The very terrain of political and policy debate among Democrats in 2019 is a tacit admission that the Obama presidency was a wrong turn to a great degree. Instead of building on the clearly lousy ObamaCare exchange model, most presidential candidates so far have endorsed Medicare-for-all, or at least the idea of expanding Medicare and Medicaid. Elizabeth Warren wants to give workers 40 percent of corporate board seats -- which is hugely more radical than anything Obama ever did or proposed. Kirsten Gillibrand supports universal paid leave and postal banking, instead of Medicare and Social Security cuts to reduce the deficit.

Cory Booker is talking about a quasi-social wealth fund for children, instead of tax cuts for companies who hire domestically. Kamala Harris is proposing big income boosts for the working and middle class. Even Joe Biden is considering free college.

The turn away from Obama-style policy can also be seen in what gets attention now. The new hotness in tax policy is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 70 percent top marginal tax rate -- over 30 percentage points above its highest rate during the Obama years. Instead of a disastrous "all of the above" energy policy, Democrats are debating how to slash domestic oil and gas production with a Green New Deal.

Politically, most Democrats have quietly abandoned Obama's asinine notion that America is crying out for a return to bipartisanship -- in favor of the clearly correct view that defeating Republicans is what matters. Even the Democratic rank and file have ditched their traditional attachment to compromise, apparently radicalized by the ongoing disaster of the Trump presidency.

So while nobody is likely to want to hash out Obama's indefensible handouts to bankers or drill-baby-drill energy policy over the next two years, the political debate will still proceed as if everyone agrees they were a bad idea. Because they were.

[Jan 19, 2019] According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist its domination. ..."
"... The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic. ..."
"... By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control". ..."
"... Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies. ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Jan 15, 2019 9:31:08 PM | lin k

karlof1

According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks, as summarized at Wikipedia, the United States has two main totalizing dynamics:

The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist its domination.

The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Wolin's Inverted Totalitarianism provides the ground work for my suspicions regarding faux populists Obama and Trump:

By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control".

Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies.

[Jan 19, 2019] According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist its domination. ..."
"... The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic. ..."
"... By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control". ..."
"... Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies. ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Jan 15, 2019 9:31:08 PM | lin k

karlof1

According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks, as summarized at Wikipedia, the United States has two main totalizing dynamics:

The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist its domination.

The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Wolin's Inverted Totalitarianism provides the ground work for my suspicions regarding faux populists Obama and Trump:

By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control".

Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies.

[Jan 19, 2019] Putin and Skripals: Neither Putin personally nor the Russian government in general have ever shown themselves to be so petty as to kill a triator, who was elready exchanged for another spy. On the contrary, one of the notable qualities of Putin's is that he believes, as we Russians put it, "the crown would not fall off his head if he bows"

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

EugeneGur , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:55 pm GMT

@Zogby

It's also untrue that he "shot himself in the foot", as the event, if anything, strengthened his image for the election.

What strengthened his image was an insane hysterics by the UK and the West in general. The Russians do tend to consolidate when perceive themselves under external threat.

the pettiness of going after apparent pipsqueaks

Neither Putin personally nor the Russian government in general have ever shown themselves to be petty. On the contrary, one of the notable qualities of Putin's is that he believes, as we Russians put it, "the crown would not fall off his head if he bows". Apparently, he feels strong, so he is not afraid to be magnanimous and make concessions. This quality is much appreciated by some but drives other people crazy.

None of that however proves Putin did it. It's just a possibility.

Theoretically, it's a possibility that the Martians did it. However, given the behavior of the UK authorities, there is no reason to believe anything even remotely like the picture described happened in reality. There is a scientific impossibility to identify the agent, first, as fast as it was supposedly done, and, second, unless they had a sample and/or detailed information in their possession. It's scientifically impossible to establish provenance unless the UK had samples of both the agent used and a comparison sample. Multiple comparison samples, I should say, since there are many such compounds. But if they did, the whole premise "only Russia could have done it" goes out of the window.

Add here the inconsistency of the symptoms and the outcome with the "military grade" nerve agent poisoning – and here you have a complete a story of a very clumsy false flag operation.

anonymous [397] Disclaimer , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:13 pm GMT
Like a gullible person I at first accepted that there was indeed some event that involved the Skripals. Now I wonder if the entire thing was a scripted hoax, that nothing had hit them, that it's all fake. It wouldn't be surprising. We seem to be in an age of rule by sociopaths whose only compass is that of power and riches. The populations of our countries are being hustled along for the benefit of the few. This can't have a happy ending for the majority of people. The much vaunted democracy of the west looks like just a fixed shell game.

[Jan 19, 2019] We are being played Judging from his appointment Trump is really a Republican Obama

Notable quotes:
"... We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama betrayed his base and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted that Obama was playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It was all bullshit. ..."
"... Trump brought on Nikki Haley, Bolton, and Pompeo. Trump nominated Gina Haspel, acolyte of his supposed nemesis Brennan, for CIA director. Trump approved termination of JCPOA. ..."
"... And Trump's duplicity extends beyond Russia and Syria. He pretended to make a peace deal with North Korea but refuses to complete it. He railed against TPP but included TPP provisions in the new North America free-trade agreement. He said he would prosecute Hillary but backed within days of being elected saying: "the Clintons have been through enough" (what have they been through?!?), he said he would "drain the swamp" but has added to it, he put Jared Kushner - a supporter of illegal settlement building - in charge of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, etc. ..."
"... It was obvious from jumpstreet what Obama was all about! I never for once believed anything ..."
"... It is very unusual for a populist to win office in USA. I would say that today it is virtually impossible due to the money-based US electoral system. Once this fact is understood, it becomes clear that BOTH Trump and Obama are each faux populists ..."
"... The faux populist leader model is actually well suited for an inverted totalitarian government like USA. And I've previously described a number of elements that make up this model such as the need for partisans (Obamabots/Trumptards) that vehemently defend the popular hero as he betrays his base while bogus accusations from political opponents spark a knee-jerk reaction in the hero's base and prepare the ground for the next faux populist leader. ..."
"... In 2008, the Deep State needed to "turn the page" from Bushes militarism and Obama embodied that "change". In 2016, the Deep State needed a nationalist that could revive patriotism in order to meet the challenge from Russia and China. I don't think this was accidental. ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

, Jan 15, 2019 5:24:49 PM | link

We are being played

Pat Buchanan gets it (ht Zerohedge): Is Bolton Steering Trump into War with Iran? Bolton Steering Trump into War with Iran?

There are other signs a confrontation is coming soon. The U.S. has objected to Iran's pending launch of two space satellites, saying these look like tests of missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads....

In short, forces are moving in this country and in Israel to bring about a U.S. confrontation with Iran -- before our troops leave Syria [NYT says troop withdrawal is estimated to take 4-6 months] .

But the real questions here are not about Bolton or Pompeo.

They are about Trump .

We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama betrayed his base and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted that Obama was playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It was all bullshit.

Trump brought on Nikki Haley, Bolton, and Pompeo. Trump nominated Gina Haspel, acolyte of his supposed nemesis Brennan, for CIA director. Trump approved termination of JCPOA.

And Trump's administration claims to have defeated ISIS. They say that USA actions were responsible for 99% of the anti-ISIS effort. Why make such a claim after Trump said in his campaign: "Let Russia take care of ISIS"? My best guess: They want to portray themselves as the 'good guy' to Western audiences and when they act against Syria in the future, they will attempt to convince the Syrian people that the 'Assad must go' Coalition was responsible for eliminating ISIS.

And Trump's duplicity extends beyond Russia and Syria. He pretended to make a peace deal with North Korea but refuses to complete it. He railed against TPP but included TPP provisions in the new North America free-trade agreement. He said he would prosecute Hillary but backed within days of being elected saying: "the Clintons have been through enough" (what have they been through?!?), he said he would "drain the swamp" but has added to it, he put Jared Kushner - a supporter of illegal settlement building - in charge of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, etc.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

William Bowles , Jan 15, 2019 5:46:38 PM | link
Jackrabbit | Jan 15, 2019 5:24:49 PM | 20
We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama betrayed his base and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted that Obama was playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It was all bullshit.

It was obvious from jumpstreet what Obama was all about! I never for once believed anything he said but I looked at what he did. A gangster from Chicago. In some respects he was a black Carter, designed to act as an interregnum. It was Carter who kickstarted the occupation of Afghanistan. It was Carter who bumped up the nuclear weapons programme.

Trump is just a naked version of every prior US prez.

Jackrabbit , Jan 15, 2019 6:20:14 PM | link
William Bowles @22:
Trump is just a naked version of every prior US prez.
It is very unusual for a populist to win office in USA. I would say that today it is virtually impossible due to the money-based US electoral system. Once this fact is understood, it becomes clear that BOTH Trump and Obama are each faux populists .

The faux populist leader model is actually well suited for an inverted totalitarian government like USA. And I've previously described a number of elements that make up this model such as the need for partisans (Obamabots/Trumptards) that vehemently defend the popular hero as he betrays his base while bogus accusations from political opponents spark a knee-jerk reaction in the hero's base and prepare the ground for the next faux populist leader.

I've made a substantial case for Trump's having been chosen to follow Obama . I look forward to any comments you may have regarding that the argument that I've set forth.

Fec , Jan 15, 2019 5:54:25 PM | link
Ted Koppel: "I don't need you guys anymore," Trump told me.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-expect-trump-to-go-quietly/2019/01/14/d8104e3a-1458-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html

"Untethered from any political responsibility whatsoever, he can be expected to capitalize fully on his new status as political martyr and leader of a new "resistance" that will make today's look supine."

Fec , Jan 15, 2019 6:33:16 PM | link
@ 24

Kudos for alluding to Wolin, shunned by his Princeton colleagues after publishing Democracy, Inc.

Trump is a black swan summoned by Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately, the Left has not handled the loss well.

See Ted Koppel above.

Don Bacon , Jan 15, 2019 7:27:41 PM | link
@ Jackrabbit | Jan 15, 2019 6:20:14 PM | 24

Trump campaigned as a populist, the principal time the term applies, and also as president. Witness the current impasse over a border wall which is an appeal to the ordinary people who elected Trump, and he often wears that silly MAGA cap which appeals to his electorate.

populist: a person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.

Trump on the campaign trail was a populist as you admit at your link: "Trump was the ONLY populist on the Republican side (out of 19 contenders!)." That's how he got nominated and then elected in a huge upset, appealing to ordinary people which the other candidates couldn't do. Trump wasn't chosen by anybody, but he was (and is) ridiculed by many.

Jackrabbit , Jan 15, 2019 8:22:18 PM | link
Don Bacon @26:

How Trump and Obama got elected is clear. But just because they ran as populists doesn't mean that they have a populist agenda. I think I've been pretty clear that they have each made decisions and taken actions that furthered the establishment over the people.

And running as a populist doesn't mean an automatic 'win'. For example, voters are going to be skeptical about the motives of a billionaire running for office, question the ability of a novice politician, and be distrustful of a man who has had 3 wives and 4 bankruptcies.

In 2008, the Deep State needed to "turn the page" from Bushes militarism and Obama embodied that "change". In 2016, the Deep State needed a nationalist that could revive patriotism in order to meet the challenge from Russia and China. I don't think this was accidental.

Don Bacon , Jan 15, 2019 8:53:38 PM | link
@ karlof1 | Jan 15, 2019 8:29:05 PM | 30
Which are more salient--domestically: The attacks on Russia or those against Trump?
Of course the attacks against Trump by the establishment are more important, designed to bring him down. The American people have been conditioned by the press in American Exceptionalism, so they expect that those people in the world who were not wise enough to be born Americans ought to suffer for it especially if they are -- yuk -- Russian. So anything the US government does against Russia is accepted as a given, no big deal, run-of-the-mill.
hihi , Jan 15, 2019 9:56:56 PM | link
When is Trump's "delivering" for Israel (i.e. not Russia) going to be examined?

Ah, sorry, that's not allowed - right?

At least, so the ADL racketeers always tell us.......

Don Bacon , Jan 15, 2019 10:04:06 PM | link
@ hihi | Jan 15, 2019 9:56:56 PM | 37

When is Trump's "delivering" for Israel (i.e. not Russia) going to be examined?

Let's examine it -- Trump is delivering a crushing defeat to Israel by backing out of Syria, and thereby conceding the "Shia Crescent" to Iran, backed by Russia and Turkey.

uncle tungsten , Jan 15, 2019 10:36:05 PM | link
Thanks b that sets out the nature of the great distraction and the transparent BS that it represents. So now that USAians can see the nonsense could they please get on with the substance of making change and making USA great again by taking to the streets. Its about time for a large wage increase and dropping taxes that impact on low to medium wage people.

Given the special role played by France in the USA struggle for independence, its about time the the Gillet Jaune manifested in the USA. The low and middle income people already Occupy the nation so now they should demand reform. Those few old and new progressive leftish congresscritters should don the yellow vest and meet their allies on the street corners for discussions and talk of equity and wage and tax justice. Its Rules for Radicals time or its going nowhere time. Will they choose? May I suggest the first Rule for Radicals could be the wearing of a yellow vest by the Congressional and Senate supporters of wage and tax justice at the next and all subsequent pressers and attendances.

If not I gather they have all guzzled the cool aid and are content with the noise emitted from the great distractor.

Hoarsewhisperer , Jan 15, 2019 10:48:23 PM | link
...

I've made a substantial case for Trump's having been chosen to follow Obama. I look forward to any comments you may have regarding that the argument that I've set forth.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 15, 2019 6:20:14 PM | 24

That was a joke, right?

Anyone so hampered by dotage that he forgets, several times a day, that he's already repeated the substance of his 'newest' meme several times in the same thread, and a majority of others, should probably consider getting a good night's sleep as an anti-dote.

Hoarsewhisperer , Jan 15, 2019 10:58:52 PM | link
Trump, unlike his detractors, is an Old Dog with an unlimited supply of New Tricks.
Jackrabbit , Jan 15, 2019 11:00:07 PM | link
Hoarsewhisperer @40

As people discuss different versions of the dog and pony show, I tailor my point(s) accordingly.

:)

uncle tungsten , Jan 15, 2019 11:00:14 PM | link
Don Bacon | Jan 15, 2019 10:04:06 PM | 38

"crushing defeat"? what utter provocative BS Don! Trump withdrawal leaves all the local belligerents and malign Syria haters to do the job any way they wish. This fantasy that Trump has abandoned Israel's regional domination is totally unsupported by fact and sounds to me like a typical AIPAC alarmist trope.

Trump has being saying for some years now that others need to shoulder the burden.

Lets look at what the burden in Syria is shall we. Not only does USA give billions to Israel to guarantee the colony but it also fights its wars for it in Syria. Then there are all those charities raising money in the USA for the IDF. Then there is all the armaments transfers by numerous clandestine channels to head choppers trying to destroy the Syrian people's government and society. Many of those armaments transfers are paid with by USA black dollars possibly to be accounted for in that $21 trillion fund that the USA Defense Department has been wallowing in.

It is bleedingly obvious to me that Israel in not being crushingly defeated by anyone. Syria nearly was!!!!!

When a self professed progressive country such as Israel is incapable of getting on with the most religiously diverse border nation as Syria or Lebanon then there is a hoax somewhere in the dialogue. The manifestation of a Shia crescent (a BS straw man)is because the belligerent nations self defeated their allies: the Sunni murderers.

Mind you Don, I don't see any Shia crescent, I see a few nations bombed and shot to hell desperately trying to establish normalcy of some sort BECAUSE of the manipulations of Saudi and Israel governments and their pawns.

[Jan 19, 2019] Did Israel won or lost by unleashing civil war in Syria with its Washington boss and protector

Looks like when it will all shake out, the net result will not be in the favor of the US-Israel-Saudi axis. That will be the new "normalcy of some sort."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Jan 16, 2019 12:11:28 AM | 52

"Essentially, the Creditor Class and their allies--which have existed for several thousand years--constitute a real life Hydra that must be slain, as was recognized by the Greeks who first told the whole story."

In doing research for a dinosaur novel I'm planning to write, I was pleased to learn that the feature of the hydra sprouting multiple heads to replace each one severed wasn't part of the original myth, but was added later during the decadent stage of Greek culture. That ancient perception tallies well with the cultural-economic decadence of this collapsing civilization.

BTW I got my copy of Spirit in the Gene and look forward to reading it.

james , Jan 16, 2019 2:14:40 AM | link
@65 pyschohistorian.. that is a good personal story of yours from today.. it is an easy analogy and many people will understand it.. one person at a time maybe...
uncle tungsten , Jan 16, 2019 4:01:01 AM | link
james | Jan 16, 2019 2:14:40 AM | 67

More than one person at a time came out to hear Bernie Sanders deliver that message. There is no doubt they heard it vaguely via the US media but that was enough, they came in their tens of thousands. Such was the response that the Sanders campaign had to sometimes book bigger venues and truck in extra PA and video gear to broadcast to crowds outside.

The yankee establishment is just desperate to smash any chance of this growing a second time. Come on Bernie and Tulsi Gabbard and all those newly elected put on the yellow vest. I dare you. Millions of Americans are willing. Ditto throughout the world millions of people are waiting to mock the BS colour revolutions and have a real one.

Socialism and thoughts of socialist economic management spread like pheromones on the wind.

Gezzah Potts , Jan 16, 2019 4:39:36 AM | link
Its all like living on the film set of Alice In Wonderland while reading 1984 and Brave New World at the same time while overdosing on chocolate. Just batshit surreal, and the presstitutes keep pushing the World to the edge of the abyss in their continuous Russia and Putin bashing. And the vast majority in the West are completely oblivious to what is going on in the World, and completely oblivious to what is coming. And it will not be pleasant.
Montreal , Jan 16, 2019 5:15:56 AM | link
@57 James
Did anyone notice an article copied from the Guardian by Information Clearing House entitled "Brought to Jesus - the evangelic grip on the Trump administration"? "Pense and Pompeo both call evangelical theology a powerful motivating force". "Evangelics now see the US locked into a holy war against the forces of evil who they see embodied by Iran". It is a never-ending struggle until.... the rapture." It is a chilling read, especially when it comes to their belief in the role of Zion. Extremely dangerous because entirely irrational.
William Bowles , Jan 16, 2019 5:31:35 AM | link
Right on Uncle Tungsten!
William Bowles , Jan 16, 2019 5:32:36 AM | link
Ditto the Bush posse!
john , Jan 16, 2019 5:33:11 AM | link
Jackrabbit says:

As people discuss different versions of the dog and pony show, I tailor my point(s) accordingly

your point(s) is tailored like a condom...one size fits all.

john , Jan 16, 2019 5:49:11 AM | link
psychohistorian says:

I also want to see it [yellow vest] on the tower of london, somewhere in rome, fluttering in the Swiss alps, in china near the sacred city, in Russia, in India........

apparently you missed the fact that an anti-establishment, anti-euro(thus threatening global bond markets) government was elected here in Italy last summer, precluding the necessity for protests in the streets. for the moment you might say we're riding the avant-garde.

Yeah, Right , Jan 16, 2019 6:11:11 AM | link
@61 NemesisCalling "Saw that Blackwater founder did an interview explaining that they can also replace the role of US troops in Syria."

They would fit the definition of a Mercenary in Article 47 of the Geneva Conventions.
As such they would not be afforded the protections of Geneva Convention III.

"Fine by me, as long as the US offers no protection or no-fly-zone for them."

I believe that Prince is advocating his own private mercenary airforce to provide support for his own mercenary army. Might work as far as ground support goes, but not against SU-35 fighter jets.

So, yes, if Trump agrees to this proposal then it is inevitable that he will end up either providing a no-fly-zone for them or be accused of leaving these brave, brave boys to be slaughtered.

I would assume that the Pentagon has told him that, but I make no assumption that he is paying that advice any attention.

"Open season on all guns for hire. In Afghanistan, too."

Well, yes, that's what International Humanitarian Law says.

William Bowles , Jan 16, 2019 7:11:08 AM | link
Yeah, Right | Jan 16, 2019 6:11:11 AM | 74

Trump and Prince are old pals

ADKC , Jan 16, 2019 10:15:44 AM | link
So today we have US service men killed in Manbij and ISIS claim responsibility. It is reasonable to suspect that this is a false flag (with actual deaths) in order to create political justification for US to stay in Syria. Many commentators here view ISIS as being effectively a US proxy force.

In my view the only real evidence that the US would be leaving Syria would involve direct negotiations with the Syrian government. In this case the US could leave saving face and securing some concessions that reflect their interests. The alternative is that the US would leave with their tails between their legs being bombed out, very ignoble and looking like the withdrawal from Vietnam; it is just not plausible that the US would leave in this way.

Jackrabbit , Jan 16, 2019 10:32:49 AM | link
ADKC

Yes. What better way to demonstrate that ISIS is not defeated and the US "job" in Syria is not done.

I suspect that Trump's rhetoric will not change. He will continue to insist that he is/will 'pull out' of Syria .... it's just gonna take longer. Just how long will remain a mystery.

mauisurfer , Jan 16, 2019 10:48:00 AM | link

The Vice President's Men

Seymour M. Hersh

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n02/seymour-m-hersh/the-vice-presidents-men

ADKC , Jan 16, 2019 11:01:37 AM | link
Jackrabbit @78

I see you have been accused of having a one sized fits all condom!😁

Your theory, unfairly, gets short shrift whereas ideas like "Trump is doing all the right things, but is frustrated at every turn by the deep state" is just accepted unquestioningly.

However, the Syrian withdrawal could happen and this would not necessarily be incompatible with your theory; there may be tactical reasons. Whatever, the idea that the US is just going to retreat and leave the Middle East alone is so far fetched that I am staggered that people see this as a real possibility.

Personally, I think the US have a strategy for the world based on the model they created in Congo, South America, Libya and Afganistan. All of these areas are hugely profitable for the Empire because "controlled" chaos allows cheap extraction of resources and control of the world drug trade. This is what I believe the Empire has in mind for the Middle East, everywhere along OBOR and, also, Europe (and, perhaps, the US itself?).

Don Bacon , Jan 16, 2019 11:05:00 AM | link
from Asia Times, quote:
On a mission from God: Pompeo messages evangelicals from the Middle East
The US secretary of state was communicating to an audience back home on his Middle East tour, the key Trump constituency of evangelical Christians.
In Cairo: "This trip is especially meaningful for me as an evangelical Christian, coming so soon after the Coptic Church's Christmas celebrations. This is an important time. We're all children of Abraham: Christians, Muslims, Jews. In my office, I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth." . . here
Bob In Portland , Jan 16, 2019 11:28:02 AM | link
Trump is being prosecuted by Robert Swan Mueller III, who entire career has been him covering up and fixing cases which involved CIA criminality. Now William Barr is Trump's own choice for Attorney General. Barr spent the mid-1970s in the CIA. While there he got his degree in law, suggesting his career path was being drawn by his employer. Unsurprisingly, GHW Bush moved him along until he became Bush's AG.

Trump is either more demented than many have thought, he's in on the whole charade of his Presidency or he's in deep trouble with the Deep State. The strings all lead back to Langley.

Jackrabbit , Jan 16, 2019 11:43:33 AM | link
john @73

Discussions here and elsewhere are often centered on the theme that Trump is a populist maverick that is in conflict with the Deep State.

This MSM-infused belief is so pervasive that many regard it as a "truth" and look askance at anyone questioning this obvious reality.

But logic and reality tell a very different story:

>mauisurfer @79 links to a Seymour Hersh report that shows how the Deep State actively works to circumvent Democratic constraints.

> Obama's fake populism and Obama-era MSM narratives that supported his bullshit are instructive. Only now is the truth about Obama being discussed in MSM , and then only gingerly.

> Starting with Reagan, every President and/or VP has had, or rumored to have had, links to CIA: Bush Sr. had led the CIA; Clinton allowed CIA flights into Arkansas; Obama's grandfather/mother. Questions have also been raised about Trump - the first casino he purchase was rumored to have been involved in CIA money laundering (prior to Trump's purchase).

> Wolin, a respected Princeton University academic, described how the ruling establishment engages in "managed democracy" to retain control. A key part of that management is the money-based electoral system which ensures that no real populist is elected President.


If you enjoy the Kool-Aid then just pass over my comments.
Jackrabbit , Jan 16, 2019 11:46:35 AM | link
Bob In Portland @82

Yes! Why nominate Barr for AG? Why nominate Gina Haspel for CIA? Why bring on Bolton? These choices make no sense for a President that is supposedly at war with the Deep State.

ADKC , Jan 16, 2019 12:12:18 PM | link
Jackrabbit @84

Also, why rollover so quickly on Michael Flynn's removal? It's not as if Trump had anyone else of much value on his team! Perhaps because Flynn was a

ADKC , Jan 16, 2019 12:14:15 PM | link
@84 cont...

Perhaps because Flynn was actually going to take on those deep state vested interests?

Noirette , Jan 16, 2019 12:56:56 PM | link
Great list, b. Another. From the top of google (enter co name or part of post in goog for details.)

Afaik (please correct if), Trump tried to do biz in Russia but more or less failed or gave up or didn't get anywhere much, nothing major transpired.

"There are 517 McDonald's restaurants in Russia, 73 of which were opened in 2014. The company's total revenue for 2014 in Russia was 65.8 billion rubles.. the chain has been operating in Russia independently for 22 years."

"PepsiCo reported that in 2017, its Russian operations generated net revenue of $3.23 billion, which made up 5.1 percent of the company's total net revenue."

Apple revenues in Russia, + 23% in 2017.

https://www.telecompaper.com/news/apple-revenue-climbs-23-in-russia-in-2017--1254617

Philip Morris has good sales in Russia. Cisco Systems (idk about this, look it up.) Abbot Labs (US) sells generic drugs in Russia. Ford is still selling cars there.

The leading Chocolate co. in Russia is Mondelez (should be another topic .. )

https://www.mondelezinternational.com/about-us

Starbucks celebrated its 100 stores in Russia in 2015.

The CEOs of these cos. + their shareholders, employees, are in bed w. Russia and undermining US Democracy, interfering in people's choices, the true shining light on the hill, or what? It is collusion! They meet and deal with Russians, all the time.

Jackrabbit , Jan 16, 2019 1:03:27 PM | link
ADKC

I don't think so. Flynn was about settling scores. Flynn's candid revelation that Obama made a "wilful decision" to allow ISIS to grow was anathema.

Flynn had to be made an example of.

Jackrabbit , Jan 16, 2019 1:11:57 PM | link
Note: Flynn revelation was likely just a tip of the iceberg. It was from his agency (DIA) that Judicial Watch got the memo (via FOIA) that talked of how US allies wanted to establish a Caliphate.

These were important to understanding ISIS as a proxy force, not the grass-roots group of Jihadi hoodlums that the Obama Administration wanted us to believe. Obama infamously called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" to explain why he was essentially ignoring it's rise.

Later, the story changed to "ISIS was created by Assad." LOL.

james , Jan 16, 2019 1:12:29 PM | link
@68 uncle tungsten.. i wish you all the best trying to take back control of the gov't, or following thru on the yellow jacket demonstrations... i am with you in spirit..

@70 montreal.. something is driving these folks... some whacky evangelical fantasy sounds about right... i can't believe how easily duped people are with fundamental religion of all stripes...

@74 john.. you probably would have voted for frank zappa if he was running in the italian elections!

john , Jan 16, 2019 1:13:19 PM | link
Jackrabbit

i've never embraced the argument that Trump is a president who is at war with the deep state. i've only said that this sort of yammering is all conjecture and as such will never be sufficient grounds for proof...that it doesn't really matter anyway.

for all i know every incoming president is given a private screening of the zapruder film and the rest is left to his imagination.

i don't drink Kool-Aid, and if i passed over your comments i wouldn't know that they pretty much all say the same thing.

Jackrabbit , Jan 16, 2019 1:46:54 PM | link
john

Fair enough! But what should be done about the many people that HAVE drunk the Kool-Aid and believe the Trump vs. Deep State narrative?

I think some amount of repetition is unavoidable. Especially since the Trump vs. Deep State narrative is repeated ad nauseum by MSM and even independent bloggers (that haven't thought it through).

Montreal , Jan 16, 2019 1:51:45 PM | link
@90 James.
As someone said, history doesn't always repeat itself but sometimes rhymes....... in India, in the early nineteenth century, the British presence consisted largely of lowland Scots - evangelical Presbyterians. People like Dalhousie and Grant. They managed to combine an iron conviction in their own Godly righteousness - and duty to improve the benighted heathen - with a sincere belief that there was nothing wrong in robbing the natives blind whilst improving them. Their arrogance and greed led directly to the disaster of the First Afghan War and subsequently the First Indian War of Independence (or Indian Mutiny depending on your point of view). Maybe Presbyterian Evangelical certainty will be the American downfall as well. I do often hope so.
john , Jan 16, 2019 1:53:26 PM | link
james

lol. yeah, Franco Zappa, the man from utopia

do you know the story of when once president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, appointed Frank as Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism , much to the chagrin of then U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker?

apparently Baker declared, 'You can do business with the United States or you can do business with Frank Zappa.'

james , Jan 16, 2019 1:57:34 PM | link
@93 montreal.. i was unaware of the specifics on the history in india as you note.. thanks for sharing that.. i just assumed it was the british empire mindset, without looking more closely at the details of it..
james , Jan 16, 2019 1:59:37 PM | link
@94 john.. lol! cool pic - man from utopia... i do recall frank getting that appointment from vaclav havel, but this is the first time i heard of james bakers response! james baker is long forgotten, but frank zappa is a cultural icon that will be remembered for a long time!
chimero , Jan 16, 2019 2:05:50 PM | link
Superbowl democracy : pick the red team or pick the blue, really doesn't matter which you do, none of the wrestling is really true, just a snare of a circus we're forced to view, where puppets pose and pretend to duel, and the House will always win...
john , Jan 16, 2019 2:15:24 PM | link
james says:

james baker is long forgotten, but frank zappa is a cultural icon that will be remembered for a long time

nicely put.

Bart Hansen , Jan 16, 2019 3:39:02 PM | link
84 - Why nominate Barr, etc.? Just remember that trump does not have "binders full" of applicants.
xLemming , Jan 16, 2019 3:46:37 PM | link
@55

Looks like someone already took a crack at Gilet Jaune Statue de la Liberté

">link

Don Bacon , Jan 15, 2019 11:19:31 PM | link

@ uncle tungsten | Jan 15, 2019 11:00:14 PM | 43

Don't just take it from me. . .

Elijah Magnier

Indeed the Levant is returning to the centre of Middle East and world attention in a stronger position than in 2011. Syria has advanced precision missiles that can hit any building in Israel. Assad also has an air defence system he would have never dreamed of before 2011 -- thanks to Israel's continuous violation of its airspace, and its defiance of Russian authority. Hezbollah has constructed bases for its long and medium range precision missiles in the mountains and has created a bond with Syria that it could never have established -- if not for the war. Iran has established a strategic brotherhood with Syria, thanks to its role in defeating the regime change plan. . . here

Alastair Crooke

NATO's support for the growth of ISIS has created a bond between Syria and Iraq that no Muslim or Baathist link could ever have created: Iraq has a "carte blanche" to bomb ISIS locations in Syria without the consent of the Syrian leadership, and the Iraqi security forces can walk into Syria anytime they see fit to fight ISIS. The anti-Israel axis has never been stronger than it is today. That is the result of 2011-2018 war imposed on Syria". . . here

Don Bacon , Jan 15, 2019 11:28:41 PM | link
@ uncle tungsten | Jan 15, 2019 11:00:14 PM | 43

And then add to that the current hectic itinerary of pompous Pompeo to explain the defeat to eight Middle East countries in eight days, highlighted by his feeble pleas to Qatar to join with Saudi Arabia against Iran. Solidity is crucial! Pompeo says, to which Qatar which shares a huge gas field with Iran gave pompous the middle finger. Another factor is the Turkey-Qatar alliance promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, anathema to the Saudi despots. This will all shake out, not to the favor of the US-Israel-Saudi axis. That will be the new "normalcy of some sort."

Circe , Jan 15, 2019 11:46:02 PM | link
First of all, if Trump is so bad with and Russia, why are you and others here always loving on him, singing his praises and defending him like he's still a naive schoolboy in short pants that the big boys are picking on?

@21 Jackrabbit

Bolton's not steering Trump into war with Iran, Trump hired Bolton so he'd have someone to blame and take the heat when he greenlights war with Iran and things go bad; which they will.

Trump was an Iran hawk from start. He's been railing against Iran since he got off the Trump Tower escalator and stepped behind the AIPAC podium.

@43 uncle tungsten

Wow, I mean wow. That's a bull's eye zinger. DB was really off the mark.

Circe , Jan 16, 2019 12:10:26 AM | link
@45 DB

Yeah, and Israel still has one of the most powerful arsenals in the world funded to the tune of $38 billion, the largest aid package to Israel in U.S. history delivered by Trump. and Israel has hundreds of nukes, still occupies Palestine and the Golan Heights, and still has the Empire's bases where it wants them, and now has the GCC in its corner all in, and Trump has delivered on so many promises already: tearing up the Iran deal, defunding aid to Palestinians, closing the Palestinians D.C. mission office, moving the U.S. Embassy and declaring Jerusalem capital of Israel, and sabotaging a Resolution at the U.N condemning settlements when he wasn't even President yet. Poor Israel, so abandoned by Trump...NOT.

karlof1 , Jan 16, 2019 12:11:28 AM | link
Jared @28--

You ask the question: "How will we ever gain control of our country."

As psychohistorian intones, private financial casinos and their ilk need to become public utilities to fund public activities and protect the resources on which they're based, while the political/philosophical change to create that paradigm metes our justice and cleans The Swamp. To discover the veracity of our prescription, one need only read Michael Hudson's works , although there're others we might also cite. Essentially, the Creditor Class and their allies--which have existed for several thousand years--constitute a real life Hydra that must be slain, as was recognized by the Greeks who first told the whole story.

Of course, the end is far easier than the road to get there. But as the polling link I provided upthread and others show, the public is roused and of greater solidarity for the first time this century. Why do ya think the Deep State's trying so hard to limit and falsify information I an overt manner!

Don Bacon , Jan 16, 2019 12:24:26 AM | link
@ Circe | Jan 16, 2019 12:10:26 AM | 51
Poor Israel, so abandoned by Trump...NOT.
I never said Israel was abandoned by Trump, so I was never "really off the mark," was I. If Trump is doing any abandoning anywhere, it's in Syria, Israel's enemy, now stronger due to Obama's mistake, one of many. Trump is a late arrival.
Jackrabbit , Jan 16, 2019 12:25:38 AM | link
Don Bacon

Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself. US troops are still there. NY Times says the 'pull out' is expected to take 4-6 months.

How many times has US been rumored to be leaving Afghanistan?

US still has troops in Iraq! Years after Obama was forced (yes, forced) to remove the bulk of the forces in that country.

And what good is the 'pull out' if US keeps mercenaries/special forces in the country to fight with SDF? The plan seems to be retain control of Syrian territory via proxies. There is NO TALK of a hand over to SAA.

uncle tungsten , Jan 16, 2019 12:39:23 AM | link
karlof1 | Jan 16, 2019 12:11:28 AM | 52

Thanks karlof1 I will explore that Michael Hudson link it looks good from first scan.

Generally: I don't do graphics but I think a statue of liberty with a yellow vest would be a good theme for a behind the scenes 'competition' submitted via email to b (if willing) then published here for a discussion and 'vote' would be a great aid to mirth. I won't be in your revolution if I can't dance - sort of thing. Maybe its been done by now ?

karlof1 , Jan 16, 2019 12:46:00 AM | link
james @33--

I rarely harangue at US Exceptionalism like I did when I first began commenting here as it gets in the way of highlighting other points, and with me it's a priori along with its kin Manifest Destiny. It should also be observed that all Imperialist Nations share both to differing degrees and becomes part of Elite "Magic Mirror" persona--Mirror, mirror on the wall; who's the fairest of them all..."--generating the deadliest of snobbishness. When I taught, I took pains to properly explain the Outlaw US Empire's Mythos and show where it's present in everyday life--The Few; The Proud; The Marines. He's shooting the ball. (You throw the damn thing; do baseball pitchers shoot their pitch!?)

The Canadian domestic situation differs from the USA's in numerous ways, but it faces the same forces trying to keep citizens from gaining control over their destiny and that of their nation. And Canadians share much of the same negative American baggage. Both nation's citizens would benefit by knowing the true nature of their past which would aid them greatly in their current struggle.

james , Jan 16, 2019 12:53:39 AM | link
don

@43 uncle tungsten is bang on... for some reason - maybe you need to read a tao te ching verse before i say this to you! - you can't seriously believe trump has changed his fealty to israel? that is just not the reality as i see it.. the whole of the usa establishment are completely subservient to israel.. take a look at trumps daughter and son in law.. what the fuck is that?

trump is also totally down with war on iran.. why is that? was a little zionist birdie talking in his ear, or not? sure looks like 24/7 fealty to israel is spite of whatever bullshit trump is tweeting about..

james , Jan 16, 2019 12:56:35 AM | link
@56 karlof1... thanks.. i agree with you and see what you are saying... it seems though on one small level canucks are not always thinking we are the fucking greatest.. that is the one difference i would point to.. so if that isn't exceptionalism rearing it's ugly head, i don't know what to call it.. other then that - i agree with you and i suppose your point is that the concept of exceptionalism is just another distraction..
psychohistorian , Jan 16, 2019 1:01:51 AM | link
@ karlof1 with the hat tip about gaining control of "our" country....thanks.

I am with uncle tungsten with wanting to put a yellow vest on the statue of liberty and especially the dance part because I already do that twice a week. I also want to see it on the tower of london, somewhere in rome, fluttering in the Swiss alps, in china near the sacred city, in Russia, in India........you get the picture.

We are entering that cleft of time where psychohistorian is suppose to wave its magic wand and greatly reduce the time before "real change". Ok, so I did that. But that still means that others will need to play their roles as well for the change to occur. We all need to continue the zombie awakening so that when the time comes for "we the people" to make a collective "sound", it comes out as beautiful music that we can all dance to.

karlof1 , Jan 16, 2019 1:06:32 AM | link
uncle tungsten @55--

This is a good place to begin at Hudson's site as it explains a great many things about the recent past and present. I would suggest this page next . His opus, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire ought to be in every respectable library, for which the videos here provide a bit of context. If I add another link, this might be construed as spam, so I'll also highly suggest Life & Thought: An Autobiography from last August. Enjoy!

NemesisCalling , Jan 16, 2019 1:11:16 AM | link
Saw that Blackwater founder did an interview explaining that they can also replace the role of US troops in Syria.

Fine by me, as long as the US offers no protection or no-fly-zone for them.

Remember the episode where 100+ Russian contractors were strafed fighting alongside SAA by USAF? Open season on all guns for hire. In Afghanistan, too.

uncle tungsten , Jan 16, 2019 1:24:46 AM | link
psychohistorian | Jan 16, 2019 1:01:51 AM | 59

YES!and some really good (short)5second? video to stream via whatever those social media platforms are. One on each of the religious icons of whatever would be inviting.

Je suis Gillet Jaune!! is irresistable.

james , Jan 16, 2019 1:44:10 AM | link
quote from orlov..

"The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses, such as the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis XVI. The fact that Trump, like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilets Jaunes movement (just as an example) are definitely not."

https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-five-stages-of-collapse-2019-update.html

Hem Lock , Jan 16, 2019 2:00:43 AM | link
By now everybody knows that Netanyahu asks and Trump delivers. The servility of US politicians and media to Israel is so obvious that they world laughs at the "superpower USA, that is being rough shod" by a toy shit entity called Israel. THE GREATEST TREASON OF ALL "Israel first"
psychohistorian , Jan 16, 2019 2:09:25 AM | link
@ james who quoted Orlov:
"
That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilets Jaunes movement (just as an example) are definitely not."
"

This is part of the elite massaging of nationalism narratives. There is still too much "frontier" in America that blind many to not feeling part of a government controlled community. I talked to a young guy today with 3 kids and living in a mobile home on property in the sticks so he doesn't have problems with neighbors and government. I think I got my message across when I pointed out that the roads he drives on to his house, the power and water he gets are forms of socialism and I just want the tools of finance to be public-minded like that.

Russ , Jan 16, 2019 2:13:40 AM | link

[Jan 19, 2019] Russia has to thank the British for sending a great message to her traitors and gangsters

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Vojkan , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:48 pm GMT

Actually, I think that in the end Russia has to thank the British for sending a great message to her traitors and gangsters. Apart from the Skripal case, the UK seems up to confiscate the wealth Russian expats in the UK looted back home. On the one hand, it's ~ $10bn worth that will be definitely lost for Russia, on the other if the UK's treatment of Skripal and runaway oligarchs won't heal Russian traitors and gangsters from their blissful enamourment with England's climate, I don't know what will.
anonymous [107] Disclaimer , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:50 pm GMT
@Mike P I can't find the comment because the comment archive is down -- I think it was annamaria who reported that the British were holding assets of Russian oligarchs and that Russia wanted the funds back. The speculation was that Teresa May would take possession of the assets.

As these two articles state, most of the Russian billionaire oligarchs are Jewish

So at least (conspiracy theory) part of the Skripal scheme is for Teresa May to be an angel and return their assets to the Jewish billionaires who stole Russian wealth fair and square.

[Jan 19, 2019] Whatever Happened To Iran by Barkley Rosser

Jan 19, 2019 | angrybearblog.com
... ... ...

Despite ths supposed intense push by the US to harm the Iranian economy, parts of thst certaainly in place, without publicity US policy has recently gone the other way, not so vigorously harming the Iranian economy. For starters we have that the US gave "temporary" exemptions from the renewed US sanctions agaainst nations importing Iranian oil for 8 major such importers. The upshot is not all that much of a reduction of such exports from Iran, an obviously crucial factor.

Then we have more recent subtle pro-Iranian decisons, most importantly Trump's annoucement of US removing troops from Syria. This helps Iran, even if the removal is slowed down as seems likely. We also have SecState Pompeo pressuring the Saudis to end their boycott against Qatar, which has retained both political and economic relations with Iran, not to mention having just whupped Saudi Arabia in soccer 2-0.

So, we, or at least I, do not know what precisely is going on inside Iran, long a highly repressive regime, despite its facade ofs pseudo-democracy. They have been continuing to adhere to the JCPOA nuclear deal, even as recent reports have them possibly setting up increased uranium enrchment facilities and activities. While there havee been many demos against the government over the troubled economy, it seems that these have slowed down, or at least reporting of them has.

The US does not determine all that happens in Iran, but it seems that currntly the US has an inconsiistent verging on incoherent policy regarding Iran. But for Iran, this turn from full ostility, combined with a possible upturn in world oil prices, may explain an unreported stabililization in Iran.

Karl Kolchak , January 19, 2019 6:30 pm

Probably because the "reports" of unrest were more MSM BS–or Iran managed to root out and arrest all of the CIA provocateurs who were "meddling" in Iranian politics.

likbez, January 19, 2019 8:12 pm

Karl,

Probably because the "reports" of unrest were more MSM BS–or Iran managed to root out and arrest all of the CIA provocateurs who were "meddling" in Iranian politics.

I think you are too optimistic. And you should probably talk about CIA-Mossad-MI6 provocateurs, not so much about CIA provocateurs. Or, more correctly, foreign interests controlled disaffected strata of the population.

The meddling will continue, and money are flowing to destabilize the Iranian government and induce the "regime change" via yet another color revolution. So it remains to be seen if mullahs are vigilant enough and not "fossilized" like the USSR leadership was ( if we view the USSR as an example of yet another theocratic regime) to withstand this attack. BTW Soviet nomenklatura was simply bought by the same alliance of CIA-Mossad-MI6 and the lure of getting the lion share of privatized resources of the country.

I am sure that any drop in the standard of living due to sanctions will be exploited to the fullest extent possible to generate unrest and possibly the regime change.

Please note the success of recent neoliberal counter-revolutions in Argentina and Brazil against more progressive governments. That means that chances for neoliberal counter-revolution in Iran are probably non-zero, even though neoliberal ideology was discredited in 2008 and is sustained only pure power of neoliberal propaganda machine, which makes Third Reich propaganda look pretty amateurish in comparison.

If we view neoliberalism as "Trotskyism for the rich" (financial elites of the world unite) it is clear that it has staying power. And that means that the "Permanent Neoliberal Revolution" in best Trotskyite tradition will continue.

Also, if you have a country in which the population grows fast and the standard of living gradually deteriorates as was the case in many Arab countries before the Arab spring, you can always find enough people to support a color revolution against the current government. It is so easy to exploit the legitimate grievances of the population if you have money to pay for a cadre of "professional revolutionaries" (students are very lucrative target here), and control at least a part of MSM.

The fact that installed after the color revolution puppets will be much worse, and that looting of natural resources will be the natural result, will be realized by the strata of population which had driven the color to its success only later. In other words, the promises of EU standard of living tomorrow, if you get rid of mullahs is a very successful social mousetrap like it was in Ukraine before that.

Just look at the drop of that standard of living in Ukraine after the EuroMaydan color revolution (sponsored by Nuland and friends)

Also, any theocratic regime has elements of instability within itself. At some point, people became tired of regimes driven by religious dogma. As soon as the CIA-Mossad-Mi6 alliance can provoke some ethnic group on insurrection all bets are off.

I think the power of the neoliberal center (US+EU) to stage color revolutions so far remains largely intact.

ilsm, January 19, 2019 9:55 pm

There was a suicide bombing 6 Dec 18 near Chabahar, Iran, an Indian run (financed) port that will link into Afghanistan and on up the east side of the Caspian, and an alternate route to One Band one road (OBOR). The US has relieved India of sanctions regarding Chabahar, which competes with Gwadar in Pakistan for access to China's OBOR. In this regard to court India and to snub OBOR the US would side with Iran..

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-12/07/c_137657495.htm

There have been reports of Saudi support for Baluch separatists, the area being inhabited with a Baluch faction.

There had been a similar attack a couple of years ago also attributed to foreign meddling.

Baluchs live in the area overlapping Pakistan and East Iran. The area was ceded to the two countries by the Sultan of Oman, who did not want to keep his holdings on the north side of the Arabian Sea.

In the eastern part of Iran the US including associates of McCain and Bolton have entertained MEK, which represents a tiny minority within Iran. MEK would be a terror group on the lines of HTS but it does US bidding like HTS, so the US supports Salafi terror groups despite the blithe about GWOT.

In terms of Iran crude oil there are numerous waivers to US sanctions.

The Iranian authorities are using the foreign aggression to good advantage. All the Ayatollahs need do is say: "look at what the outsiders did to Libya".

[Jan 19, 2019] Putin Asks And Trump Delivers - A List Of All The Good Things Trump Did For Russia

Way too any pleasured for Putin from Trump administration... Just look at this perma-pleasing face of Pompeo.
Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Putin Asks And Trump Delivers - A List Of All The Good Things Trump Did For Russia

Slate's Fred Kaplan writes :

The Washington Post's Greg Miller reported Sunday that President Donald Trump's confiscation of the translator's notes from a one-on-one conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017 was "unusual." This is incorrect. It was unprecedented. There is nothing like it in the annals of presidential history.

Not really. Other U.S. leaders held long private meetings with their counterparts without notes being taken.

When Richard Nixon met Leonid Brezhnev he did not even bring his own interpreter:

George Szamuely @GeorgeSzamuely - 20:57 utc - 14 Jan 2019

Nixon would meet Brezhnev alone, the only other person in attendance being Viktor Sukhodrev, the Soviet interpreter. "Our first meeting in the Oval Office was private, except for Viktor Sukhodrev, who, as in 1972, acted as translator." Nixon on Brezhnev's 1973 visit. RN, p.878 . Therefore, the only "notes" that would exist would be those of the Soviet interpreter. Not sure he would have time to make notes and translate and, even if he did so, whether those notes would be housed in any US archive.

Nixon's White House office was bugged. There are probably tape recordings of the talks. There might also be recordings of the Trump-Putin talks.

At their 1986 Reykjavik summit Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev talked without their notetakers :

Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev began their second day of talks with a private meeting that had been scheduled to last 15 minutes but ran for nearly 70 minutes, with only interpreters present . They met in a small room in the Soviet Mission , with the Soviet leader seated in a small armchair and Mr. Reagan on a sofa.

In the afternoon, they meet alone for a little over 20 minutes and then again for 90 minutes. All told, the two leaders have spent 4 hours and 51 minutes alone , except for interpreters, over the two days here.

The archives of the Reykjavik talks do not include any notes of those private talks.

But, who knows, maybe Nixon and Reagan where also on the Russian payroll, just like Donald Trump is today.


bigger

Only that Trump is controlled by Putin can explain why the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation against Trump (see section three).

That the FBI agents involved in the decision were avid haters of Russia and of Trump has surely nothing to do with it. That the opening of a counter-intelligence investigation gave them the legal ability under Obama's EO12333 to use NSA signal intelligence against Trump is surely irrelevant.

What the FBI people really were concerned about is Trump's public record of favoring Russia at each and every corner.

Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of Russian influence over him is surely justified.

Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of Russian influence over him is surely justified.

When one adds up all those actions one can only find that Trump cares more about Russia, than about the U.S. and its NATO allies. Only with Trump being under Putin's influence, knowingly or unwittingly, could he end up doing Russia so many favors.

Not.

Posted by b at 02:12 PM | Comments (121)

[Jan 19, 2019] The central political question in all Western societies is -- how far will the masses be able to control the naturally-abusive tendencies of the elite?

Notable quotes:
"... Robert Henderson [ Email him ] ..."
"... is a retired civil servant living in London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness. He runs the Living In A Madhouse and England Calling blogs. ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

So what is really happening -- in the U.K. and the U.S.?

The Deep State is often portrayed as a conspiracy. In fact, it is better thought of as a blind sociological event. There is no group of conscious conspirators, simply people being groomed to have the same opinions or at least saying they do.

Link Bookmark What has happened in the UK (and the rest for the West to varying degrees) is the success of the long march through the institutions . That is what ultimately has given the UK an elite ( politicians , mediafolk , teachers etc) who are overwhelmingly Politically Correct internationalists. And it's those people who are at the forefront of the attempts to sabotage Brexit.

How did it come about? A German student leader of the 1960s Rudi Dutschke, echoing the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci , put forward the idea whereby societies could be subverted from within by those of an internationalist bent who would patiently work to gain positions of power and influence. Eventually there would be enough of such people to change the policies of Western societies from national to internationalist ones. That point was reached in the UK at least 50 years ago and the Politically Correct stranglehold on our society is now complete.

The capture of Western societies by internationalists has allowed them to permit and even overtly encourage mass immigration of people from different cultures, denigrate their own societies, traduce the West and its native populations generally and introduce gradually the pernicious Totalitarian creed of Cultural Marxism which has "anti-racism" (in reality anti-white racism) at its heart. The last brick in the Politically Correct building is the increasingly draconian treatment of anyone who refuses to toe the line -- increasingly including the use of the criminal law and imprisonment.

That is why Western politics until recently has been so ideologically monotone. Brexit was a revolt against that mentality.

Most MPs overtly or tacitly supported the idea of the referendum and its result by promising it in election manifestos, in Parliament and through their passage by large majorities of the legislation needed to both set up the referendum and make provision for its implementation.

But by doing so, MPs forfeited their right to do anything other honour the result of the referendum. That applies just as much to Remainer MPs as Leaver MPs.

Sadly, the behaviour of the most committed Remainers with power and influence (including many MPs and peers in the House of Lords) has shattered utterly the idea that the UK is a fully functioning democracy. Rather, it is an elective oligarchy whereby the electorate are offered an opportunity every few years to choose between competing parts of the elite -- an elite in the UK whose general political ideas are largely held in common and go against the interests and wishes of most of the electorate.

None of this should be a surprise. The sad truth: the central political question in all Western societies is -- how far will the masses be able to control the naturally-abusive tendencies of the elite?

Robert Henderson [ Email him ] is a retired civil servant living in London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness. He runs the Living In A Madhouse and England Calling blogs.

[Jan 19, 2019] The Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rurik , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:46 pm GMT

@jacques sheete

the Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be."

-David Graham Phillips, Cosmopolitan magazine, February 1906

and to think that was over a hundred years ago

... ... ...

[Jan 19, 2019] The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Giuseppe , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:10 pm GMT

I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.

The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet, it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give unanimous bipartisan assent.

What the hell is going on?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:35 pm GMT
@Giuseppe Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
jacques sheete , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:05 pm GMT
@JoaoAlfaiate

The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s

Who controlled the press there and then?

What can be said about the control and conformity of the Soviet, British and American press of the time?

and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ.

That's probably because the usual thugs don't need to do that any longer since they control virtually everything.

A couple of anecdotes to illustrate my point.:

2 of the reasons we don't hear much about mobsters these days are that the press and judiciary are owned by them and if you do get something published, you run the risk of getting snuffed. They probably don't stop at mere blinding anymore.

Victor Riesel was an American newspaper journalist and columnist who specialized in news related to labor unions. In 1956 a mobster threw sulfuric acid in his face on a public street in Chicago causing his permanent blindness.

"Treason is a strong word, but not too strong to characterize the situation in which the Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be." This indictment launched a nine-part series of articles entitled "Treason of the Senate."

-David Graham Phillips, Cosmopolitan magazine, February 1906

In 1911 Phillips was shot multiple t imes by Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, a Harvard-educated scion of a prominent Maryland family ,at Gramercy Park in New York City.

Joe Hide , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:34 pm GMT
Good article.

Still, you authors need to start digging deeper. Trump and his Allies are putting on an amazing show / act to distract their ( and Humanities going back generations) hidden enemies.

The Bad Guys have for millennia weoponized information, convincing the public, reporters, and journalists that the rabbit hole ends here, that they don't need to dig any deeper, to just accept this slightly deeper layer of the onion. That warm and fuzzy feeling from scratching just a little deeper into to information matrix, isn't enough anymore. You guys have the intelligence, experience, and ability just do it please!

Jake , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:12 pm GMT
@tjm The CIA, the Mossad, and the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency are all children of British secret service.

[Jan 19, 2019] Integrity Initiative was formed soon after Kissinger's Op-Ed in August 2014 and before Trump began his run for President.

Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Jan 19, 2019 8:32:00 PM | link

bevin: Suppose that ...

Suppose that ... CIA-MI6 were trying to ensure the election of Trump, not Hillary. As I described in previous comments , Trump's election followed a logical progression that, in sum, indicate manipulation on his behalf. Hal Duell @21 mentions some of the psyop reality-making: White Helmets, MH-17, Skripal, etc. Karlof1 @30 notes the absolute hubris of the Empire's "we make our own reality".

Lets say Integrity Initiative, working with CIA and MI6, wanted to use the 2016 election to cast aspersion on the Russians. A populist running against Hillary was the logical choice. The narrative: only with Russian help could a challenger hope to win against Hillary. "Russian meddling" and Wikileaks as Russian agent are major "wins" for the establishment. Integrity Initiative was formed soon after Kissinger's Op-Ed in August 2014 and before Trump began his run for President.

[Jan 19, 2019] Treatment of Russians in the US MSM echoes the German Nazis their treatment of Slavs in thisr media (slaves, unter menchen)

Notable quotes:
"... The current round of bullshit is not about justifying the investigation, it is about concealing MI6 taking a leading role in the attempted coup. ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sally Snyder , Jan 15, 2019 2:59:27 PM | link

As shown in this article, a recent Senate bill shows clearly how Washington has a two-faced approach when it comes to dealing with Russia and Syria:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-united-states-senate-saving-syria.html

Congress, with or without Donald Trump's influence, has proven that it simply doesn't care about the geopolitical repercussions of its actions.

Erelis , Jan 15, 2019 3:42:28 PM | link

A few more just for kicks.
AshenLight , Jan 15, 2019 3:52:13 PM | link
@ NoOneYouKnow | Jan 15, 2019 2:20:33 PM | 2

In my experience, just about everyone here, including hordes of supposedly educated people who really should know better, believe it. They really do. However, most of them don't care--it's merely something to snark about or score points in a political conversation with, not anything they perceive as an actual threat to their way of life.

William Bowles , Jan 15, 2019 4:01:45 PM | link
It's nothing more than the undying legacy of anti-communism and racism thrown in for good measure. It echoes the German Nazis and their treatment of Slavs (slaves, unter menchen). We need only look at how the US viewed the Japanese (and the Germans) during WWII, with Roosevelt calling for their extermination (I'll find the source).

And of course, there's US slavery and extermination of the original inhabitants that also feeds into the psychosis.

Peter VE , Jan 15, 2019 4:12:40 PM | link
But, Rachel Maddow told me that Trump is Putin's puppet. It was on TV, so it must be true.
ashley albanese , Jan 15, 2019 4:19:37 PM | link
William Bowles 8

London was said to be very subdued the day news came through that Sweden's Charles the twelfth had been crushed at Poltava in 1709 . North Western European economic interests have clashed with Russian across many centuries. Had Charles been successful in the Ukraine a new level of English and Swedish alliance was in the offing .

James sullivan , Jan 15, 2019 4:22:27 PM | link
I just read about Trump's AG candidate, commenting on the 'Russian interference' in US elections ....and i'm struck that these are not stupid people....they are either totally IGNORANT of the facts and analysis .....or they are good ol boys, ready to tow the deep state lie, so they too can feed at the trough. It saddens me in either case ....what hope can one entertain when such cretins and low lifes are the supposed LEADERS of the democratic west. I hold no hopes.
Jackrabbit , Jan 15, 2019 4:48:13 PM | link
Proof by absurdity. Trump and Deep State work together. MAGA is a policy choice as much as it is a campaign slogan. Everyone wants to rail against the anti-Trump forces. Oh it feels so good. That Trump has proven to be a faux populist like Obama is ignored. WTF? Welcome to the rabbit hole.
karlof1 , Jan 15, 2019 4:54:00 PM | link
I didn't live through the entire Anti-Communist Crusade, but was certainly cognitively aware of it from JFK's inauguration in 1961 until the USSR's dissolution. I very closely studied the events that led to an emergent Russian Federation and the device meant to corral the "Near-Abroad"--The Commonwealth of Independent States. Admittedly, I was somewhat horrified by Yeltsin's attack on Russia's Duma's White House in 1993 and eagerly read Kargalitsky's account as it was the only one written by a Parliamentarian in English and published in 1994. It was possible to discern the outright looting of Russia and former Soviet nations, but the depth of evil involved wasn't made clear until some publications in the late 1990s documenting the Rape of Russia; all of which made clear what the underlying intent of the Anti-Communist Crusade entailed, and that that Crusade wouldn't end until Russia was absolutely broken and enslaved by NATO/Outlaw US Empire. As many have opined, the Cold War/Anti-Communist Crusade never ended; rather, it just entered a new phase/chapter, and that's what we're living through today. But as b portrays, the level of hysterics paraded via BigLie Media go far beyond anything from the previous chapter and probably outweigh those employed during Red Scares I and II combined.

It seems fairly plain to see that delusional madness and anger have combined as the motivating factors, but why/what sparked them and when? IMO, when was during Carter's presidency with the why/what being several seemingly disparate but connected happenings: Church Committee Hearings; Stagflation; Iranian Islamic Revolution; OPEC actions; losing grip on Latin America; informal end to War on Poverty, and institution of Neoliberalism and Zerosumism; changing of Coldwarrior Guard to Israel First Coldwarrior Guard. The culmination was CIA gaining control of Executive with DCI GHW Bush becoming Veep to senile, dementia addled POTUS Reagan.

Interconnected with the above is the prepping of the World Trade Center buildings for demolition during Clinton's 2nd term, the operative question being: Would the False Flag be perpetrated by Gore/Liberman, or was Bush/Cheney deemed to do the deed by Deep State actors; or does this aspect even matter--Liberman was as much of a Neocon as Cheney, all 4 are Israel Firsters, and Gore was already a War Criminal due to his participation in Clinton's numerous illegalities. Sure, the Bush/Cheney cabal was more radical; but given what we observed during Clinton/Gore, Deep State support was quite abundant. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia was finished and Kosovo created, Afghanistan was already targeted and Joint Vision 2010 --the blueprint for the Outlaw US Empire's Full Spectrum Dominance Policy--was published in 1996. Interestingly, at no time known to me has the Policy articulated by the authors of Joint Vision 2010 or its update Joint Vision 2020 been announced by any POTUS or senior member of the Duopoly as THE #1 policy goal of the Outlaw US Empire despite both papers being available to the public. (If he were still alive, IF Stone would have written about both umpteen numbers of times; while true to form, BigLie media remains 100% mute.) Despite all the preparations and Trillions of dollars spent and looted, The failure to implement the Yinon Plan seems to be directed at Russia, although it was indigenous Iraqis who are responsible for the plan's defeat.

So, is the lying vitriol we're subjected to the result of Russian actions or the inability to attain the #1 policy goal due to mistakes made at all levels--Deep State and Federal Government? Recall that Russia/Putin didn't start to actively parry Outlaw Empire moves until 2008, well after the Yinon Plan's defeat by Iraqis.

Blooming Barricade , Jan 15, 2019 5:02:35 PM | link
This inane narrative has gone too far. It's actually threatening chances for human survival with its nationalism, poor focus, and banality:

--

"The key focus of the so-called "left" in the world's most polluting country, run by an ecocidal vandal who deserves to be in the running for most destructive rulers of all time, is whether or not that vandal is taking orders from the Russian Federation.

Let me repeat that: in the most wasteful society in human history, the forces designated to oppose the rape of the planet and corporate slavery are concerned with treason and betrayal of the "nation."

MSNBC: "The worst case scenario that we`ve all been talking about, which is the possibility that the president had somehow been co-opted and was in the pocket of the Russians."

THIS is the "worst case scenario" according to the "social justice" network of the American "left?"

If we were to step back and look at this terrible situation honestly, we could only conclude that American liberals, and the Democratic Party, are right-wing nationalist forces concerned with geopolitical gambits and preservation of military alliances.

This isn't the politics of 2019, or 1999. It's the politics of 1819 - but even then, it's the right wing politics of 1819, as there was already a left dedicated to popular solidarity and social ownership existing, clandestinely, in the shadows of European cities.

It's worth analyzing how a "Seattle" would play out if it were to occur in the context of today's US political discourse: the protestors would be seen as nationalist anti-Semites doing the bidding of Putin, and perhaps Xi Jinping. The leaking of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment would be condemned instantly as "information warfare." A focus on environmental issues would be viewed in the context of "energy geopolitics." Indymedia would be shut down by the authorities as a vehicle for "sowing discord" in Europe against NATO and liberalism."

Anon , Jan 15, 2019 5:08:17 PM | link
The current round of bullshit is not about justifying the investigation, it is about concealing MI6 taking a leading role in the attempted coup.
james , Jan 15, 2019 5:09:32 PM | link
@14 karlof1... good post.. i don't know the answer to your questions, but it seems like a bit of both but mostly the later... i am unaware of this joint vision 2010 paper..
bevin , Jan 15, 2019 5:15:14 PM | link
As b points out, and Erelis @6, among others confirms, Kaplan's article in Slate is worthless. Discredited by everything that has happened over the past two years.

The question is whether it matters. Who reads Slate? Are those who follow Kaplan anything more than partisans, far beyond the reach of logical argument, committed to the Zionist project and US hegemony, who read him for comfort and laughs rather than critically.

Kaplan, after twenty odd years of consistently being wrong and consistently impelling the United States into foreign disasters, costly in lives and treasure, is a busted flush politically. The only people his ravings effect are the true believers who are simply looking for someone to articulate their idiotic prejudices.

This, after all is a man whose wife, an Obama/ Clinton favourite, parodying Marie Antionette, midwifed the Bandera Reich in Kiev.

There is little point in arguing with him, just feed him ever more rope and he will hang himself, his spouse, his country(s) and the Ukraine and its allies too.

Jared , Jan 15, 2019 8:06:04 PM | link
Given the part we know about how self serving, corrupt and incompetent our IC is I fear it is the tip of the iceberg. So many decades they have learned they can do as they will with impunity. If I am not mistaken they are partly self financing through likely illegal and unethical activities. They have gone rogue. Currently the dems think it's fitting however they will also feel the bite. How will we ever gain control of our country.
karlof1 , Jan 15, 2019 8:29:05 PM | link
Which are more salient--domestically: The attacks on Russia or those against Trump? Lots of Trumpian, GOP and Corporate Democrat policy ploys go against the majority of the polity and the National Interest. Unfortunately, the bloc known as the Resistance includes a 5th Column consisting of most Corporate Democrats, who are essentially Republicans wearing donkey heads. BigLie Media wants to promote the GOP & Corporate Democrat policy ploys, so the anti-Russian news assault serves to cover-up popular domestic issues, like this one regarding taxation and related income disparity . (Amazing that 60 Minutes provided Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez airtime to outline her proposals--airtime that was meant to cut her down to size but backfired.)

As I outlined earlier, what I see as the struggle is for control of the Federal Government--CIA/Deep State vs the American People--with the Anti-Communist Crusade used as cover to diminish rights while enriching actors controlling government, which is exactly what we see now. Yes, Trump's a player, but with few friends and little coaching. Arguably, his only asset is the position he occupies.

slit , Jan 15, 2019 11:16:29 PM | link
Peter Ve @9

Heres another cartoon meme that was doing the rounds in 2016:

https://pics.onsizzle.com/donald-trump-is-putins-puppet-the-puppeteer-red-panels-com-5254201.png

[Jan 19, 2019] The Mockingbird Media lies and equivocates about everything. Insofar as the deep state spider's web of hegemony spreads all over the world and becomes more odious, the lies become more copious and more predictable, and their acceptance more and more relies upon the lever of public credulity and Neoliberal Newspeak

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mulegino1 , says: April 10, 2018 at 4:49 am GMT

A great man once wrote that the "big lie" had a force of credulity among the broad masses, as the latter were wont to engage in lying about minor quotidian matters of little or no significance while the big lies were engaged in by the mainstream press, dominated by the usual tribal suspects.

It was the case with blaming General Ludendorff for Germany's defeat, and it is the same case today, 100 years after the fact.

The Mockingbird Media lies and equivocates about everything. Insofar as the deep state spider's web of hegemony spreads all over the world and becomes more odious, the lies become more copious and more predictable, and their acceptance relies upon the lever of public credulity and kosher Newspeak.

What the unconditional and incorrigible Trumpetistas do not realize is that those of us- a very large plurality of of Trump supporters- voted for him because he was not Hillary Clinton and had pledged to keep us out of foreign wars. We will neither support, nor abet, foreign wars for the sake of Israel, whether they are started by Trump or anyone else. Intervention in Syria against the Assad regime is a no go. Trump cannot hope to compare himself to Assad, since the latter has formed a real and effective alliance against the Christian hating head choppers with Russia and Iran. Trump is totally clueless with respect to geopolitics. He is a rank amateur.

Jon Baptist , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:27 am GMT
It makes complete sense if one simply looks at the British Establishment's prior behavior of intentionally starting world wars at the order of the Society of the Elect. It's all in the CFR's archives. Their guilt in starting WW1 is emphatically admitted and documented in roughly the first 200 pages of the following book. http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf

Who is in the Society of the Elect? Read the back pages of http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/The_Anglo-American_Establishment.pdf

Anonymous [280] Disclaimer , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:33 am GMT
It's surreal to watch such staggering levels of dishonest incompetence among our globalist "elites".

This is worrying. Nobody is that stupid so it's more like they don't care about credibility going forward. Like it won't matter.

annamaria , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:52 am GMT
"In 2016 an official British government inquiry determined that Bush and Blair had indeed together rushed to war. The Global Establishment has nevertheless rewarded Tony Blair for his loyalty with Clintonesque generosity. He has enjoyed a number of well-paid sinecures and is now worth in excess of $100 million."

-- The character of Blair and the Establishment is well established: Blair is a major war criminal supported by the major war profiteers. His children and grandchildren are a progeny of a horrible criminal.

What is truly amazing is the complacency of the Roman Catholic Church that still has not excommunicated and anathematized the mass murderer. Blair should be haunted and hunted for his crimes against humanity.

With age, Blair's face has become expressively evil. His wife Theresa Cara "Cherie" Blair shows the same acute ugliness coming from her rotten soul of a war profiteer.

Blanco Watts , says: April 10, 2018 at 6:34 am GMT
The UK is governed by the same Neo-liberal psychotic cabal that runs the US, Israel and France.
quasi_verbatim , says: April 10, 2018 at 7:01 am GMT
The Skripals are to be disappeared. Their home, the pub and the restaurant are to be demolished. This is a Tarantino cleanup. Move on
JR , says: April 10, 2018 at 7:06 am GMT
Keep in mind how long ago all this is:
Skripal was recruited around 1990 and arrested in 2004. Guess that the Russian attitude towards Skripal took the chaos of the 90's as mitigating circumstances into account.
Skripal served his sentence of only 13 years till 2010 when he was pardoned and given the option to leave. Russia did not revoke Skripal's citizenship. The UK issued Skripal a passport too. On arrival in the UK Skripak was extensively debriefed by UK intelligence services. Skripal has lived for 8 years in the UK now.

And now out of the blue this incident nicely dovetailing with May ratcheted up anti Russia language only a few months before this false flag incident and the rapidly failing traction of the Steele/Orbis/MI6 instigated Russia collusion story on the basis of that fake Trump Dossier. By the way Orbis affiliated Steele and Miller have been among Skripal's handlers.

Realist , says: April 10, 2018 at 7:49 am GMT
Why anyone would believe anything Western governments say is beyond me.
animalogic , says: April 10, 2018 at 8:28 am GMT
Good article.
The Skipnal affair has been an utter disgrace from day one. May & Boris are a shame on the UK fully reminesent of that utter dog, Blair.
The fact that the msm still babbles on about Russia & Skipnal is indicative of their monumental contempt for the public & factual balanced reporting .well what's new, I guess ?
Ronald Thomas West , says: Website April 10, 2018 at 8:43 am GMT
From the Steele dossier lies falling apart to the Skripal lies falling apart to the 'Assad did it' lies falling apart:

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2018/04/08/open-letter-to-die-linke/

^

Paul Craig Roberts is correct when quoting The Saker:

"The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been hopelessly zombified." -- The Saker

I expect that makes the Russians right

OMG , says: April 10, 2018 at 10:35 am GMT
These ridiculous, suicidal gas attacks by Assad seem to coincide not only with battleground victories against the head-choppers, but co-incidentally with Israel's murderous attacks on unarmed Palestinians "throwing stones".

What nobody seems to have picked up is the emphasis – and red lines – on Gas; gas, gas attacks. Why is gas so much worse than being dismembered, disembowelled, and mutilated by high explosives? Certainly I would favour unconsciousness and death by gas before being smashed to pieces by depleted uranium.

These relentlessly repeated claims are an exercise with the dual purpose of providing a subliminal message about the greatest tragedy in human history, repeated ad nauseam. The massive 'gassing' of European Jews some 65 years ago. Lest we forget.

Anonymous [249] Disclaimer , says: April 10, 2018 at 10:43 am GMT
What makes you think the Skripals are still alive? The entire British charade stinks to high heaven.
Escher , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:06 am GMT
What is surprising is how the MSM is able to lead along so many supposedly educated people, with at least some critical thinking skills.
All we like sheep , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:13 am GMT
Compared with the Litvinenko umbrella attack with its tip having been dipped in an Amazonian Indians' style curare variant of Polonium the intelligence level of the MI6 & CIA seems to have hit the ground with the twofold miracle of the dead being raised. Now the miracles are posing a big problem for the demonizers of Russia & President Putin: how to spirit these two living & talking people away, who have returned from the dead, where they were supposed to be so safe and well for all truth-loving investigators. This whole story seems to unfold like a Jesus Christ Superstar sequel with James Bond appetizers having been added. At present the roles have been reversed: the Russians being the champions of free will and the Western intelligence services being the Joker.
Greg Bacon , says: Website April 10, 2018 at 11:14 am GMT
Until some kind of sanity returns to this planet and war mongering gangsters like the Bush and Clinton Mobs, Blair, Obama and a host of Pentagon generals, along with their boot-licking MSM are indicted, tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes, found guilty and sentences carried out, there will be no peace on Earth, just an endless series of False Flags, hysterical reactions by the ones who were behind the False Flags and more wars.
Simon in London , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:25 am GMT
It does look rather like those Syrian chemical weapon attacks that happen whenever the rebels are about to be defeated.

I am pretty sure that it was not ordered within the British government and that most of the British government don't know where it came from, but are willing to believe it was Russia.

While the CIA does have plenty of form on assassinations, the risk if they were found to be assassinating in Britain seems quite high due to the close CIA links with the UK intelligence sector. But CIA agents could have paid someone else to do it.

Mossad is the one group that can act freely in the UK, has a record of assassinating scientists, engineers etc here, and unlike CIA, can take the risk of being caught. So it's a possibility – OTOH Israel has shown a lot less anti-Russian hatred than the US Deep State has.

Normally I'd assume it was indeed Russia – I thought there was plenty of evidence the Polonium poisoning was Russia – and it still seems possible, but US or Mossad must be at least equally likely in this case. It's just possible it could have been British initiated but I doubt it.

I do think it's most likely the person who actually poisoned them was not an employee of any agency.

Jake , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:38 am GMT
Theresa May as more evil than Bill Clinton? That will sound odd to some, but I think it is true. Hillary is the pure evil half of the Clinton marriage. Bill is simply charming and filled with a desire to amass enough power to have a group adore him as he finds new panties to explore.

May is English, and she has the very long line of Brit Empire secret service evil at her disposal. And her move is a bold one. What it means is that she is signaling that at least if she is PM, the UK could replace the US as Fearless Leader of the actual New World Order, which is the WASP Empire with Israel and worldwide Jewry as Junior Partner #1 and Saudi Arabia elevated to Junior Partner #2 in an insane attempt to make Israel secure forever.

The English have never been happy that the lowly Americans leaped them as A-#1 of the WASP Empire, and being English they have no permanent alliances, no permanent allies, not even kin (perhaps especially kin – which type and degree of ruthlessness impresses all Semites).

This alliance was sealed by none other than the very epitome of WASP culture: Mr. Archetypal WASP himself, Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo-Saxon alliance with Jews precisely to wage wars against non-WASP white Christians was the logical (and inevitable if WASP culture were to acquire large scale political power) .

By the Victorian era, virtually all Elite Brit WASPs were knowing philoSemites. The new twist was that a growing number of them were becoming obsessed with Arabs and/or Islam. decades before the Balfour Declaration, the Brit WASP Elites were wrangling among themselves over how best to use the largest and wealthiest Empire in world history to express its philoSemtism.

The solution recently agreed upon was to elevate the Saudis. The assumption is that as the Saudis control the actual land of Mohammed, if they are elevated to suzerainty over not merely all Arabs but the entire Islamic Middle East, then the entire Islamic world can be controlled, including to allow Israel to exist in 'peace.'

And that means all that oil is under the indirect, but very firm, control of the WASP Empire, or as The Saker calls it: the Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Of course, the Saudi royal family is the most amorally vicious power party in the Middle East. They would slaughter half the Sunni Arabs in order to become unrivaled suzerain over the entire Islamic world. Such monstrousness makes the House of Saud exactly the type partner that those who control the WASP Empire want as partners.

The Russians are in the way of that beautiful plan of world domination. Russians have common sense and, much worse, they express it, even publicly. Russians know that Sunni Islam is a much worse threat to the world than is Shiite Islam. The Russians know that the Iranians are much more honorable and moral than are the Saudis. The Russians know that as bad as the Turks are, they are more honorable and trustworthy than the Saudis.

And the Russians also know that the Anglo-Zionist Empire would be tickled pink to make all non-WASP Elite whites – all in the world – a permanent serf class, treated the way Cromwell treated the Irish, the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians.

Randal , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:48 am GMT
@Corvinus Corvinus, George Galloway has a message addressed directly to you:

It's harsh, but one has to concede it is also a fair assessment.

Giuseppe , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:10 pm GMT
I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.

The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet, it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give unanimous bipartisan assent.

What the hell is going on?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:35 pm GMT
@Giuseppe Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
tjm , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:08 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Agreed to all you said, but I would include the assassination of JFK and his brother, and likely Martin Luther King Jr.

And each time they took out a great American, they used that assassination to push a destructive narrative: With the killing of MLK they pinned the killing on a white southern man, thus pushing their white hate narrative.

With 9/11 is was all about stoking hate of Muslims

These creatures lie as easily as breath, and they have all the money in the world to push their lies.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:40 pm GMT
@jacques sheete The intent of my post was to show that the MSM here is conformist and doesn't like to stray far from what the USG is claiming and what other journalists are writing. Rather than explore the topics you raise, as worthy of exploration as they might be, I thought I'd offer what newspapers around the USA were saying about Saddam's WMD after Powell's UNSC speech; seems a bit more germane.

The Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable.

The Wall Street Journal

Piling fact upon fact, photo upon photo Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell methodically demonstrated why Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein remains dangerous to his own people, Iraq's neighbors

The Los Angeles Times

On Wednesday, America's most reluctant warrior, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, presented succinct and damning evidence of Saddam's enormous threat to world peace.

Arizona Republic

Saddam Hussein's illicit arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, as well as the equally illicit means that he possesses to deliver them, poses a tangible and urgent danger to U.S. and world security. Millions of innocent lives are at risk.

Dallas Morning News

At some point, the world chooses to believe President George W. Bush and Secretary Powell or the international community chooses to side with Saddam Hussein and those who broadcast his lies to the world. Powell has painstakingly presented a strong case against Iraq.

Greenville News/South Carolina

Iraq is busted. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the case clearly. No one hearing Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council could doubt Iraq's actions and intentions.

Jacksonville Times-Union/Florida

The threat is real and at our door. Sept. 11, 2001, stripped away the belief that the United States can peacefully coexist with evil. Prove it, they said. Powell has.

Charleston Daily Mail/West Virginia

We are a country always loath to fight unless provoked. The reluctance of Americans to initiate a war needlessly does the nation credit. But this is not a needless war, nor is it unprovoked. Powell laid out the need, and explained the provocation, in step-by-step fashion that cannot be refuted without resorting to fantasy.

Chicago Sun-Times

The Dispatch repeatedly has called on the Bush administration to make a compelling case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction and hiding these efforts from U.N. inspectors. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell made that case before the Security Council.

Columbus Dispatch

Powell has methodically proved Iraq's failure to comply with U.N. mandates. With each passing day, Iraq's own choices move it closer to a war that full compliance would prevent.

Indianapolis Star

Secretary of State Colin Powell's 90-minute presentation to the U.N. Security Council, buttressed with surveillance photographs and recorded phone conversations, should remove all doubt that Iraq's Saddam Hussein has developed and hides weapons of mass destruction, in violation of U.N. resolutions.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council presented not just one 'smoking gun' but a battery of them, more than sufficient to dispel any lingering doubt about the threat the Iraqi dictator poses.

Denver Post

The United States has made a compelling case that Iraq has failed to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. This failure violates the U.N. Security Council resolution of late last year which ordered Iraq to disarm. As a consequence and it is a grave one, the Security Council must act now to disarm Iraq by force.

Salt Lake City Tribune

Powell has connected enough dots to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda and show that this alliance is a threat to all of Europe as well as the United States.

Manchester Union Leader

In fact, the speech provided proof that Saddam continues to refuse to obey U.N. resolutions. Any amount of time he has now to comply fully and openly with U.N. demands should be measured in days or a few weeks – and no longer.

Portland Press-Herald/Maine

[Jan 19, 2019] Oh, nothing new; extortion, perjury, forty per cent, face-grinding.

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mike Sylwester says: Website April 10, 2018 at 12:43 pm GMT The Moon of Alabama website has been doing great work criticizing the Skripal yarn.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/the-best-explanation-for-the-skripal-drama-is-food-poisoning.html#more

jacques sheete , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:50 pm GMT

@Giuseppe

What the hell is going on?

Nothing new. Same ol same ol.

But how are things going up here? what is Athens about?

Phi. Oh, nothing new; extortion, perjury, forty per cent, face-grinding.

-Lucian of Samosata, MENIPPUS, A NECROMANTIC EXPERIMENT, ~150 AD
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl1/wl176.htm

[Jan 19, 2019] Welcome to the rabbit hole

Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Jan 19, 2019 10:25:14 PM | link

bevin @48

Yes. Not an "insurance policy" for overturning the election. But I'd say that how they used the dossier was exactly how they intended to use it:

  • - to get wiretaps from the FISA court;
  • - to poison Trump campaign media relations;
  • - to justify a cloud of suspicion (17 intelligence agencies agree!) over the Trump Administration that prompts a special council investigation after Trump fires Comey.
But there is a more basic problem with your analysis: You think personalities matter. You think it is absurd that the establishment would choose Trump as President over Hillary. That is their firewall. What you and millions of others think is impossible is a lever for manipulation/psyop. Constitutional lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama can be nothing but good! Western democracies are trustworthy! Well funded humanitarian organizations working in a war zone are heros! Etc.

(Repeating:) MAGA is a Deep State/establishment POLICY CHOICE as much as it is Trump's campaign slogan. A populist nationalist is exactly what they wanted to lead the Empire (just as a populist socialist was what was wanted when Obama was elected.) Trump "unlikely" win was conveniently pinned on the Russians and Wikileaks.

How else does one explain Trump's Deep State/establishment nominations that further the agenda of people that are supposedly against Trump:

  • VP Pence Besties with McCain
  • John Bolton Most neocons are 'Never Trump' (or pretend to be)
  • Gina Haspel Brennan's acolyte
  • William Barr Long time friend of Bushes, Mueller, and Comey (Comey is Mueller's pal)
Welcome to the rabbit hole.

[Jan 18, 2019] The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people

That's probably wrong. Distancing from Russia was the main theme for all post Soviet States. And the fact that Ukraine had chosen Baltin model -- becoming the sattelite of EU is not surprising, taking into account connections of Western Ukraine and Germany which goes to the time when this territory was a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The the fact that this distancing took such a toxic and self-destructing form and incldes the loss of territory and population, can be attributed to the USA. Here I would agree with the author.
Notable quotes:
"... The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut dollie." ..."
"... The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people." ..."
Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:45 pm GMT

@Anonymous "More occupation and killing in Crimea "
-- Evidence? It seems that you are very upset that the Kagans' cookies did not deliver.
"One Year Later, Crimeans Prefer Russia:" https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-02-06/one-year-later-crimeans-prefer-russia
"How Crimeans See Ukraine Crisis:" https://consortiumnews.com/2016/02/11/how-crimeans-see-ukraine-crisis/

"A Pew poll from April 2014 revealed that 91 percent of Crimean respondents believed the referendum was free and fair, 93 percent had confidence in Putin, and 85 percent believed Kiev should recognize the results.

Another poll in June 2014, this one from Gallup , showed 94 percent of ethnic Russians in Crimea thought the referendum reflected the views of the people and 68 percent of ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea agreed . The poll found that 74 percent believed that joining Russia would make life better.

A GfK poll from February 2015, sponsored by a pro-Ukrainian group in Canada, revealed 93 percent of Crimeans endorsed the referendum."

-- Still not enough for you?

"Ukraine [post-Maidan] under pressure from West over corruption:" http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2017/dec/07/ukraine-under-pressure-from-west-over-corruption-1721487.html

"Enough documents have been released -- citing coup-backed snipers killing dozens of protesters, US embassy officials planning false flag attacks, extremists downing a passenger airliner and NATO peddling falsified intelligence -- to make it very clear that the "coup" is more of an invasion than anything else.

The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut dollie."

The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people."

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/07/neo-ukraine-fighting-the-spin/

"In 1950, the Nuremberg Tribunal defined Crimes against Peace, in Principle VI, specifically Principle VI(a), submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, as:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)."

Dave Bowman , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:48 pm GMT
@annamaria Bravo, indeed, Annamaria. Beautiful, perfect, resounding, harsh, unforgiving words for a pair of worthless human vermin masquerading as civilised, intelligent professionals with a moral compass.

[Jan 18, 2019] I imagine the parent of a young American, who's life was sacrificed to augment the career of Lindsey Graham. Or other Americans who're fed up with the endless wars for Israel, and are willing to do something about the treasonous scum who're demanding and foisting all of these Satanic wars.

Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rurik says: April 10, 2018 at 2:17 pm GMT 400 Words @Randal I watched Tucker Carlson last night as well.

He makes great points, and I'm encouraged that he's allowed to do so on to a big and important audience.

I remember when his predecessor, Bill O'Rielly, claimed to have seen the evidence of Saddam's WMD, and told his audience, on the run up to war, and I was appalled. As indeed, it turned out he too was lying.

When the ZUSA was entrenched in the highly profitable war on Vietnam, there seemed to be no way to end it. Protests in the streets and at the universities, and anger at the war and war pig$ seemed to no avail.

But then a phenomena began. Fragging.

one wonders .

at seven minutes in, Carlson interviews a senator. The senator does his best to lie and deceive, as only a ZUS senator can. But Tucker eviscerates him on screen.

now if this senator, and others like him, were themselves put into peril by these serial, treasonous wars for Israel, would they still be so keen to have Americans die, slaughtering innocent people- to bolster and benefit the main enemy of America; Israel?

I imagine the parent of a young American, who's life was sacrificed to augment the career of Lindsey Graham. Or other Americans who're fed up with the endless wars for Israel, and are willing to do something about the treasonous scum who're demanding and foisting all of these Satanic wars.

Just as Tucker says, any general who advocates for these wars, should be required to actually visit a battlefield, so too I wonder about the politicians, and how they eventually have to go home, and live among their constituents. What if some of the worst of them, like Graham for instance, were to actually suffer some consequence for all the evil he's done, and continues to do?

Of course I'm not advocating anything illegal. Just ruminating on potential solutions to the Eternal Wars for Israel – which are nothing more or less than a continuation of the first two World Wars (for Israel) duh

END the FED!

(or watch your nation bankrupted and looted and made to die for Israel)

[Jan 18, 2019] On the British Establishment

Notable quotes:
"... The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment. ..."
Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria says: April 10, 2018 at 2:44 pm GMT 100 Words On the British Establishment:
The Skripal affair is better understood in the context of "sir" Savile' knighthood -- when the influential pedophile had been raping and molesting kids for 40 years and none stood up to the criminal. The BBC has dutifully refused to publish anything that would upset "sir" Savile. The Scotland Yard looked the other way -- precisely as the Establishment ordered them to do.
Savile' specialty were orphans. He was the embodiment of British Establishment.

The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment.

[Jan 17, 2019] Brasil neoliberal counterevolution by James Petras

Jan 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Originally from: President Trump's Losing Strategy: Embracing Brazil and Confronting China James Petras January 8, 2019

Introduction

The US embraces a regime doomed to failure and threatens the world's most dynamic economy. President Trump has lauded Brazil's newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro and promises to promote close economic, political, social and cultural ties. In contrast the Trump regime is committed to dismantling China's growth model, imposing harsh and pervasive sanctions, and promoting the division and fragmentation of greater China.

Washington's choice of allies and enemies is based on a narrow conception of short-term advantage and strategic losses.

In this paper we will discuss the reasons why the US-Brazilian relation fits in with Washington's pursuit for global domination and why Washington fears the dynamic growth and challenge of an independent and competitive China.

Brazil in Search of a Patron

Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro from day one, has announced a program to reverse nearly a century of state directed economic growth. He has announced the privatization of the entire public sector, including the strategic finance, banking, minerals, infrastructure, transport, energy and manufacturing activities. Moreover, the sellout has prioritized the centrality of foreign multi-national corporations. Previous authoritarian civilian and military regimes protected nationalized firms as part of tripartite alliances which included foreign, state and domestic private enterprises.

In contrast to previous elected civilian regimes which strived – not always successfully – to increase pensions, wages and living standards and recognized labor legislation, President Bolsonaro has promised to fire thousands of public sector employees, reduce pensions and increase retirement age while lowering salaries and wages in order to increase profits and lower costs to capitalists.

President Bolsonaro promises to reverse land reform, expel, arrest and assault peasant households in order to re-instate landlords and encourage foreign investors in their place. The deforestation of the Amazon and its handover to cattle barons and land speculators will include the seizure of millions of acres of indigenous land.

In foreign policy, the new Brazilian regime pledges to follow US policy on every strategic issue: Brazil supports Trump's economic attacks on China, embraces Israel's land grabs in the Middle East, (including moving its capital to Jerusalem), back US plots to boycott and policies to overthrow the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. For the first time, Brazil has offered the Pentagon military bases, and military forces in any and all forthcoming invasions or wars.

The US celebration of President Bolsonaro's gratuitous handovers of resources and wealth and surrender of sovereignty is celebrated in the pages of the Financial Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times who predict a period of growth, investment and recovery – if the regime has the 'courage' to impose its sellout.

As has occurred in numerous recent experiences with right wing neo-liberal regime changes in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador, financial page journalists and experts have allowed their ideological dogma to blind them to the eventual pitfalls and crises.

The Bolsonaro regime's economic policies ignore the fact that they depend on agro-mineral exports to China and compete with US exports Brazilian ago-business elites will resent the switch of trading partners.. They will oppose, defeat and undermine Bolsonaro's anti-China campaign if he dares to persists.

Foreign investors will takeover public enterprises but are not likely to expand production given the sharp reduction of employment, salaries and wages, as the consumer market declines.

Banks may make loans but demand high interest rates for high 'risks' especially as the government will face increased social opposition from trade unions and social movements, and greater violence from the militarization of society.

Bolsonaro lacks a majority in Congress who depend on the electoral support of millions of public employees, wage and salaried workers ,pensioners,and gender and racial minorities. Congressional alliance will be difficult without corruption and compromises Bolsonaro's cabinet includes several key ministers who are under investigation for fraud and money laundering. His anti-corruption rhetoric will evaporate in the face of judicial investigations and exposés.

Brazil is unlikely to provide any meaningful military forces for regional or international US military adventures. The military agreements with the US will carry little weight in the face of deep domestic turmoil.

Bolsanaro's neo-liberal policies will deepen inequalities especially among the fifty million who have recently risen out of poverty. The US embrace of Brazil will enrich Wall Street who will take the money and run, leaving the US facing the ire and rejection of their failed ally.

The US Confronts China

Unlike Brazil, China is not prepared to submit to economic plunder and to surrender its sovereignty. China is following its own long-term strategy which focuses on developing the most advanced sectors of the economy – including cutting edge electronics and communication technology.

Chinese researchers already produce more patents and referred scientific articles than the US. They graduate more engineers, advanced researchers and innovative scientists than the US based on high levels of state funding . China with an investment rate of over 44% in 2017, far surpasses the US. China has advanced, from low to high value added exports including electrical cars at competitive prices. For example, Chinese i-phones are outcompeting Apple in both price and quality.

China has opened its economy to US multi-national corporations in exchange for access to advanced technology, what Washington dubs as 'forced' seizures.

China has promoted multi-lateral trade and investment agreement ,including over sixty countries, in large-scale long-term infrastructure agreements throughout Asia and Africa.

Instead of following China's economic example Washington whines of unfair trade, technological theft, market restrictions and state constraints on private investments.

China offers long-term opportunities for Washington to upgrade its economic and social performance – if Washington recognized that Chinese competition is a positive incentive. Instead of large-scale public investments in upgrading and promoting the export sector, Washington has turned to military threats, economic sanctions and tariffs which protect backward US industrial sectors. Instead of negotiating for markets with an independent China, Washington embraces vassal regimes like Brazil's under newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro who relies on US economic control and takeovers.

ORDER IT NOW

The US has an easy path to dominating Brazil for short-term gains – profits, markets and resources, but the Brazilian model is not viable or sustainable. In contrast the US needs to negotiate, bargain and agree to reciprocal competitive agreements with China ..The end result of cooperating with China would allow the US to learn and grow in a sustainable fashion.

[Jan 15, 2019] Buchanan Is Bolton Steering Trump Into War With Iran

Jan 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

devo , 1 minute ago link

That fact Trump can be "steered into war" is disturbing.

2handband , 2 minutes ago link

This article is asinine. By the book, Bolton takes orders from Trump... not the other way around. Bolton is just being used as an excuse. Trump was never serious about getting the US out of any wars. I confidently predict that US troops will still be in Syria this time next year.

ne-tiger , 4 minutes ago link

"Was he aware of Bolton's request for a menu of targets in Iran for potential U.S. strikes? Did he authorize it? Has he authorized his national security adviser and secretary of state to engage in these hostile actions and bellicose rhetoric aimed at Iran? "

Yes, Yes and Yes, that's why he's an orange fucktard.

Taras Bulba , 12 minutes ago link

Bolton's former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the Green Zone was "an act of war" to which the U.S. must respond decisively.

This war mongering harpy fortunately was kicked to the curb by melania trump!

pelican , 13 minutes ago link

How did that psychopath appointed anyway? Another warmonger that hasn't served a day in the military.

MozartIII , 13 minutes ago link

Bolton can run the operation on the ground!

MozartIII , 14 minutes ago link

Send the House, Senate, FBI, CIA, IRS & all others state operatives to fight in Iran. Include the TSA for gods sake. Include the Obamas, Clintons and Bush's. So they can verify that their weapons are all delivered again and work properly. Bring our troops home to defend are border. Include NYT, WaPo and most of our current media in the Iran light brigade, so they can charge with the rest of the parasites. Many problems will be solved in very short order.

punchasocialist , 16 minutes ago link

This is another really infantile, softball article again by Buchanan.

As if Trump is anything more than an actor, and Bolton is anything more than a buffoon who has been laughed off the world stage FOREVER.

As if Trump and Bolton steer each other, instead of TAKING ORDERS from trillionaires.

resistedliving , 58 minutes ago link

You think Bolton is the new Alexander "I'm in charge now" Haig?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qarDtgSVpM

Captain Chlamydia , 22 minutes ago link

Yes he is.

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 1 hour ago link

Obviously.

And so are Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, and Kushner, and his bankster pals.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YW4CvC5IaFI

Bolton is a traitor and agent of a foreign power. The Mouth of Netanyahu.

But Trump hired him, and Trump hasn't fired him.

Duc888 , 57 minutes ago link

Enjoy the show. Bolton has a half life of about 90 days. Can't you see a pattern when it's laid bare in front of you?

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 40 minutes ago link

Like not having a wall, appointing neocon swamp creatures, still being in Afghanistan and Syria, and not releasing the FISAgate texts?

Like that pattern?

I... gee, I don't know.

You're right. I should prolly just ' trust the plan' like a good goy.

Thanks, newfriend!

🤨

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 57 minutes ago link

Remarks by National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton to the Zionist Organization of America

JimmyJones , 27 minutes ago link

He also hasn't followed his recommendations. Perhaps he keeps him around so he knows what not to do?

Duc888 , 4 minutes ago link

He's a temporary useful idiot for Trump who will flush him at his convenience. He's handy to have around to encourage the Hawks do a group masturbation.

Seriously, if Ertogen tells Bolton to go **** off, he has no sauce. He's been neutered. Let him act all important and play in the sand box all he wants.

ted41776 , 1 hour ago link

trust the plan. there are white hats in government who have your best interest in mind. you don't need to do anything other than pretend like everything is fine, they'll take care of the rest. go to work and continue accepting continually devalued worthless fiat in exchange for time you spend away from your family and doing things you love. trust the plan, it's all going to be alright

/sarc

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 47 minutes ago link

+ 1

Four chan , 41 minutes ago link

BOLTON IS MULLERS BUDDY, THATS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

Francis Marx , 42 minutes ago link

I doubt Bolton has that much clout. Trump is no fool.

Haus-Targaryen , 42 minutes ago link

No, because the oil price to follow would blowup the US war machine.

Iran isn't going anywhere.

Erek , 38 minutes ago link

Time for Bolton to lay his **** on the anvil.

I woke up , 24 minutes ago link

Yeah, if Bolton is so enthused about it, send him first

Erek , 17 minutes ago link

And alone!

Duc888 , 3 minutes ago link

...it would be lost amongst the metal filings and swarf.

resistedliving , 16 minutes ago link

Israel uses natgas and coal

Helps their little conflict in the Tamar/Leviathan gas fields.

[Jan 15, 2019] State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent

Notable quotes:
"... Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract. ..."
"... While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent. ..."
Jan 15, 2019 | grayzoneproject.com

Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal. Leventhal has been a staffer at the State Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative memo, he is listed as a current team member:

Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with "counter-propaganda," the State Department's Global Engagement Center has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My old job at the State Department was as chief propagandist," confessed former Global Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and I don't necessarily think it's that awful."

Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world. Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the messenger.

Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world. Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the messenger.

Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract.

While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.

[Jan 15, 2019] The Trump-Russia Scam - How Obama Enabled The FBI To Spy On Trump

Mueller investigation is a continuation of JFK assassination by other means.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Now, as the 'Russian influence' narrative is dying down, the anti-Trump - anti-Russian campaign is moving to new grounds. ..."
"... Initiating a counter-intelligence investigation, for which there was no basis, gave the FBI, and later the Mueller investigation, unfettered access to NSA 'signals intelligence' that could then possibly be used to incriminate Trump or his associates. ..."
"... It was the Obama administration which had given the FBI access to this tool : ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system. Trump's election was almost certainly arranged ..."
"... Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton? ..."
"... "I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people." ..."
"... the assassination of JFK opened the floodgates of blatant depravity perpetrated by those whose greed and lust for power will ultimately destroy us. ..."
"... There are trends: A growing US citizen realization that their political system prior to Trump was nearly completely corrupt; the Clintons are more broadly understood as the pathological criminals that they are; the Podesta emails with their sick connotations remain 'in the air' - See Ben Swann's work, for example. The Clinton Foundation is far more broadly understood as a massive criminal enterprise. ..."
"... "Pompeo met on October 24 [at Trump's request] with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community's official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year's theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was "leaked," not hacked, "by a person with physical access" to the DNC's computer system." ..."
"... In short the last two years have been about trying to defeat Trump but the attackers are looking more and more wounded, and Trump, well, he's hanging in there. General Kelly and others have described Trump's work ethic as exhausting. ..."
"... Trump has been put under intense investigation by Deep State hacks who are determined to see him impeached. And all they have come up with is that he is a compulsive pussy-grabber (no shit, hey?). ..."
"... Well, if he has then he has hidden them extraordinarily well, because Mueller with all his resources hasn't found any. Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons. ..."
"... "Simply put, the Russia NIA is not an "IC-coordinated" assessment -- the vehicle for such coordination, the NIC, was not directly involved in its production, and no NIO was assigned as the responsible official overseeing its production. Likewise, the Russia NIA cannot be said to be the product of careful coordination between the CIA, NSA and FBI -- while analysts from all three agencies were involved in its production, they were operating as part of a separate, secretive task force operating under the close supervision of the Director of the CIA, and not as an integral part of their home agency or department." ..."
"... Escalation towards war with Russia was a matter of public record in late pre-election 2016, thanks to Clinton News Network ... now ask yourselves where is that general in the press conference nowadays? ..."
"... For a thorough update on the Integrity Initiative and its offshoots, check out the latest from legal investigator Barbara Boyd. ..."
"... To defeat the "Deep State" in the U.S., it is essential to understand the role of British Intelligence. While it is essential to know the role of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Comey, DOJ/FBI operatives, et.al., it is even more important to understand the geopolitical assumptions behind Russiagate. And for that, one must turn to the British. ..."
"... The aim of the counterintelligence operation and of the Russiagate hoax was not to build a prosecution case against President Trump. It was to put the United States in constitutional limbo by creating a parallel and competing center of constitutional legitimacy. ..."
"... Very difficult to judge: what is the result of infighting in the US vs. any agreed-on never mind coherent foreign policy? That the question is even asked - all over the world now - spells stage one collapse. ..."
"... Trump's nationalist credentials are further belied by such things as: adding TPP provisions to the new North American trade agreement; attacking Syria based on false flags; arming Ukraine; pulling out of the INF treaty and engaging in an unnecessary and costly arms race; actively seeking to overthrow the governments of Iran and Venezuela; etc. ..."
"... My own theory about 2016 is that everybody miscalculated. Trump was (IMO) running as an ego-building publicity stunt. Hillary (and her Deep State sponsors) had actively helped Trump get the nomination with hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity which also enhanced the bottom lines of Big Media. His multiple flaws were airbrushed away. ..."
Jan 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Despite the loss of major narratives, the war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated. The main of tool in this war are allegations of relations between Trump and anything Russia. The war runs along several parallel paths.

The narrative war in the media is most visible one. When any of the fake stories about Trump and Russia gets debunked and disposed, new ones are created or others intensified.

In parallel to these propaganda efforts the deep state created an investigation that Trump has no way to escape from. Enabled by one of the Obama administrations last acts the investigation is using signal intelligence to entrap and flip the people surrounding Trump (see section three below). The big price will be Trump himself. Here we take a look at what transpired during the last weeks.


One major anti-Trump narrative was that 'Russian influence' helped to put him into office. This was based on the alleged nefarious influence a Russian clickbait company, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) in St. Peterburg, had on the U.S. electorate. That explanation never made sense. Little of the IRA activities had to do with the election. It used sockpuppets on Facebook and Twitter to attract people to websites filled with puppy pictures or similar nonsense. The IRA would then sell advertisement and promotions on these sites.

This was obvious for anyone following the factual content of the news instead of the 'opinions' a whole bunch of anti-Trump 'experts' and the media formed around them.

That the Mueller investigation finally indicted several of the IRA's officers over minor financial transactions was seen as a confirmation of the political aspects of the IRA activities. But nearly all the reporting left out that Mueller confirmed the commercial intent behind the IRA and its activities. There is nothing political in the accusations. Indeed point 95 of the Mueller indictment of the IRA says:

Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false U.S. persona accounts , including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.

Part of the false narrative of a political influence campaign was the claim that the $100,000 the IRA spent for advertisement to promote its clickbait webpages through Facebook ads somehow moved people to vote for Trump. But 56% of the IRA ads ran after the election, 25% of all its ads were never seen by anyone. How a few $10,000 for ads only few saw moved an election that was fought with several billions spent by each candidate's campaign was left unexplained.

This week, only fifteen month after this site came to the conclusion that IRA was a commercial clickbait business , the Washington Post finally admitted that the alleged political targeting of voters by the IRA never happened:

[T]he common understanding is that Russia's interference efforts included sophisticated targeting of specific voting groups on Facebook, which could have made the difference in states that Trump narrowly won on his way to an electoral-vote victory.

That understanding about Russia's sophisticated targeting, though, is not supported by the evidence -- if it's not flat-out wrong.
...
Most of the ads purchased by the Russians didn't specify a geographic target smaller than the United States on the whole, according to a Post review of the ads released by the House Intelligence Committee. Those that did target specific states heavily targeted those that weren't really considered targets of the 2016 election, such as Missouri and Maryland. And of those ads that did target specific states, most happened well before or well after the final weeks of the campaign.

All the claims that some Russian sockpuppets influenced the 2016 elections were and are nonsense. The IRA sockpuppets never had any political intent.

Likewise the allegations that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and Clinton crony Podesta's email are mere assertions for which no hard evidence was ever provided. The only known fact is that the emails and papers were real, and that there content revealed the shoddiness of Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and her campaign.

Now, as the 'Russian influence' narrative is dying down, the anti-Trump - anti-Russian campaign is moving to new grounds. Last week the New York Times claimed that Paul Manafort, who for some time ran the Trump election campaign, gave public and internal polling data to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska: Manafort Accused of Sharing Trump Polling Data With Russian Associate . A day after that sensational claim made a large splash throughout U.S. media the New York Times recanted:

Kenneth P. Vogel @kenvogel - 18:39 utc - 9 Jan 2019

CORRECTION: PAUL MANAFORT asked KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK to pass TRUMP polling to the Ukrainian oligarchs SERHIY LYOVOCHKIN & RINAT AKHMETOV, & not to OLEG DERIPASKA, as originally reported. We have corrected the story & I deleted a tweet repeating the error.

Duh. Manafort gave polling data to his Ukrainian fixer Konstantin Kilimnik with the request to pass it along to Ukrainian oligarchs for who he had worked before joining the Trump campaign. Kilimnik had long worked for the International Republican Institute office in Moscow. The IRI is a CIA offshot under Republican Party tutelage that is used to influence politics abroad. Its long time head was the deceased hawkish Senator John McCain. While he worked with Kilimnik in the Ukraine, Manafort concentrated on moving the Ukraine towards the European Union and away from Russia. His and Kilimnik efforts were always opposed to Russian interests. But the NYT and others falsely try to pass them off as the opposite with the sole purpose of feeding the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign.

Another anti-Trump/anti-Russian propaganda effort is a new sensational NYT piece on obvious misbehavior in the upper rows of the FBI :

In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests , according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence.

The NYT lets it seem as if the decision to launch a counter-intelligence investigation related to Trump was as based on some reasonable suspicion the FBI had. It was not. This was an act of revenge by the upper anti-Trump echelons in the FBI with which they attempted to undermine Trump's presidency. Note what the claimed suspicion was based on:

Mr. Trump had caught the attention of F.B.I. counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.

Other factors fueled the F.B.I.'s concerns, according to the people familiar with the inquiry. Christopher Steele, a former British spy who worked as an F.B.I. informant, had compiled memos in mid-2016 containing unsubstantiated claims that Russian officials tried to obtain influence over Mr. Trump by preparing to blackmail and bribe him.

Trump made a joke during the election campaign asking Russia to release the 30,000 emails Hillary Clinton had deleted from her illegal private email server. There is no requirement, as far as I know, for any candidate to criticize this or that country. How can not following the non existing requirement to criticize Russia be suspicious? The Republican Party did not soften its convention platform on Ukraine. It rejected an amendment that would have further sharpened it. Overall the Republican platform was more hawkish than the Democratic one. The Steele dossier was of course from A to Z made up nonsense paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

It is non sensible to claim that these were reasonable suspicions sufficient to open a counter-intelligence investigation. The hasty FBI move to launch a counter-intelligence operation obviously had a different motive and aim.

After Trump fired FBI director Comey, the FBI was led by Andrew McCabe, later also fired for leaking to the media and lying about it. His legal council was Lisa Page who exchange tons of anti-Trump SMS messages with her lover, the FBI agent Peter Strozk. These are the people who initiated the counter-intelligence investigation :

Strzok and Page sent other text messages that raise the possibility they were discussing opening up a counterintelligence investigation against Trump before Comey's firing.

"And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok wrote to Page on the day of Comey's ouster.

Andy is Andrew McCabe, who served as deputy FBI director.

Page gave some indication in her congressional testimony in July 2018 that the text message was a reference to an investigation separate from the obstruction probe that has already been reported.

Normally the FBI needs to clear such counter-intelligence investigations with the Justice Department. In this case it did not do so at all :

In the case of the investigation into Trump, the FBI's decision to open a file on the president so quickly after Comey's firing in May 2017 was a source of concern for some officials at the Justice Department because the FBI acted without first consulting leadership at the department . But those worries were allayed when, days later, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was appointed to oversee the Russia probe ...

After Comey was fired, the FBI made a very hasty move, without reasonable suspicion and without informing the Justice Department, to launch a counter-intelligence operation involving the sitting president and his administration. What was the real purpose of this move?

Initiating a counter-intelligence investigation, for which there was no basis, gave the FBI, and later the Mueller investigation, unfettered access to NSA 'signals intelligence' that could then possibly be used to incriminate Trump or his associates.

It was the Obama administration which had given the FBI access to this tool :

The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer - 4:05 utc - 12 Jan 2019

On his way out the door, we all were wallowing in our winter of discontent, Obama signed an executive order...
...
The order revised the rules around intelligence sharing among our intel community. Specifically, it made the firehose of raw intelligence collected by the NSA directly accessible to the FBI and CIA. Instead of having to ask for intel and getting what they filtered down the FBI and CIA could directly access the unfiltered "SigInt" or signals intelligence. Intercepted phone calls, emails, raw intel from human sources. Everything our vast intelligence vacuum hoovers up, available directly... but only for counterintel and foreign intel purposes .

The NSA can sit on virtually every communication into and out of the U.S. that takes place over networks. Obama made it possible for the FBI to directly access everything they had on Trump, et al. Obama supercharged the FBI's ability to investigate Trump.

The Obama administration enacted the changed executive order EO 12333 in early January 2017, shortly before Trump took over:

Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.'s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.

Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for "minimizing" privacy intrusions.
...
[T]he 12333 sharing procedures allow analysts, including those at the F.B.I., to search the raw data using an American's identifying information only for the purpose of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence investigations , not for ordinary criminal cases. And they may do so only if one of several other conditions are met, such as a finding that the American is an agent of a foreign power.

However, under the rules, if analysts stumble across evidence that an American has committed any crime, they will send it to the Justice Department.

At that time Peter Lee, aka Chinahand, already had the suspicion that Obama was behind the FBI campaign against Trump.

With the changes in EO 12333 Obama gave the FBI the ability to launch a world wide snooping operation against the incoming Trump administration under the guise of a 'counter-intelligence' operation. The hasty FBI move after Comey was fired activated this instrument. The Mueller investigation has since used it extensively. 'Crimes' revealed through the snooping operation are turned over to the Justice Department.

The NYT claim that the counter-intelligence investigation was initiated because of reasonable suspicion of Russian influence over Trump is nonsense. It was initiated to get access to a set of tools that would allow unlimited access to communication of Trump and anyone related to him. It was Obama who on his way out of the door gave the FBI these capabilities.

There are signs that the unlimited access the FBI and Mueller investigation have to signal intelligence is used to create prosecutions via ' parallel construction ':

The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer - 18:50 utc - 12 Jan 2019

An active counterintel investigation means the Trump Administration's crimes were only as secure as the weakest link in their weakest moment. We got hints of this early. Our intelligence folks picked up "signals intelligence" or SigInt from Russians talking to Russians.
Those "signals" aren't the kind of evidence that finds its way into a courtroom. In fact, it's important that it doesn't. It would burn sources and methods. It lays out the crimes and the players though... and then prosecutors find ways to make triable cases other ways .
The public sees cases for specific charges carrying significant prison time without ever knowing that the NSA and prosecutors knew so much more than they ever revealed. Now, apply those principles to the cases we've seen Mueller bring forward so far.

Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was confronted with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd be no escape.

By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn goes down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do is make the case.
...

The 'crime' that di Flynn in was misremembering a phone call he had with the Russian ambassador. Similar happened with Rick Gates, Paul Manafort's righthand man and a member of Trump's transition team. Then it happened to Paul Manafort himself and to George Papadopoulos.

The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat and email any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites people as witnesses and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller has the transcript ready. A crime has been created and an indictment for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to Flynn and the others the Mueller investigation entrapped and convicted.

Because of the counter-intelligence investigation the anti-Trump gang in the FBI hastened to initiate, the investigators got hands on signal intelligence - phone calls, chats and emails - that allowed them to indict minor people for petty crimes and to flip them to talk to the investigation.

The aim, in the end, was and is to build a prosecution case against President Trump for whatever minor and petty half-backed illegal doing there may be.


To make such a prosecution and an indictment publicly palpable the media is assigned with launching story after story about nefarious relations between Trump and anything Russia.

As we have seen above with the IRA story, the retracted NYT 's Manafort bang, and the NYT's false claims about the motive of the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation, none of these stories hold up to diligent scrutiny. Today's Washington Post adds another example of no-beef stories that insinuate mystic 'Russian influence' over Trump:

Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration .

The first graph claims:

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin , including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

The rest of the story largely refutes the claim made in its headline and very first sentence:

Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
...
Trump generally has allowed aides to listen to his phone conversations with Putin ..
...
In an email, Tillerson said that he " was present for the entirety of the two presidents' official bilateral meeting in Hamburg,"...

After Trump had a first White House meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Washington, lots of leaks about the talk appeared in the DC media. Trump was accused of giving information about an ISIS plot to the Russians that was allegedly secret. It was not . Since then Trump clamped down on the number of participants, briefings and readouts for such talks. That is simply a necessary and laudable behavior. Now the media try to construct that into 'Trump is concealing details' about talks with Russia even when the U.S. Secretary of State and others are present in these.


Ever since Trump won the Republican primaries, the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration and the U.S. and British intelligence services prepared to prevent a successful Trump presidency. The Steele dossier, created by 'former' British intelligence agents and paid for by the Clinton campaign, was the basis for an FBI investigation that was seen as an insurance against a Trump win. Any possible Russia relations Trump might have came under scrutiny. This prevented him from fulfilling his campaign promise of coming to better relations with Russia.

Shortly before Obama left the office he created the tool the FBI needed to put its investigation on steroids. When Trump fired Comey for his handling of the Clinton email affair, the FBI put that tool into action. With unfettered access to signal intelligence the Mueller investigation was able to entrap a number of Trump related people and to flip them to its side. It will use any information they give up to find some angle under which Trump can be prosecuted and eventually impeached. Even if nothing comes off this investigations, the media reports and slander all this created may well be enough to prevent an election of Trump for a second term.

I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people. Unfortunately I see no way that Trump could escape from the hold it has gained over him. Exposing it as much as possible might well be his best defense.


Jose Garcia , Jan 13, 2019 1:51:10 PM | link

It is information that is put out there that is never cross checked by the American people. They are too busy, too involved with other things or too stupid to find out the true facts. It is hard to predict what will occur next year. I feel it all depends who wins the primary on the Democrat side.

Jackrabbit , Jan 13, 2019 2:32:02 PM | link
I have to take issue with a few points, b.

[Trump] ... was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people.

There is a major flaw in reasoning here. Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system. Trump's election was almost certainly arranged:

  • The anti-Russia campaign began in earnest in 2014 (well before the 2016 election);
  • Trump's pre-election relationship to the Clinton's is highly suspect: they were likely to be much closer than we have been led to believe;
  • An FBI informant worked for Trump for over 10 years - during the time that Mueller was FBI director;
  • Trump was the ONLY populist on the Republican side (out of 19 contenders!);
  • Sanders was a 'sheepdog' and Hillary ran a terrible campaign in which she made obvious mistakes that a seasoned campaigner like herself would never make;
  • British involvement in the election (Fusion GPS, Cambridge Analytica, a Brit 'spy' in the Sanders campaign, etc.) suggests CIA-MI6 working together;
  • Trump Administration policies are consistent those of Clinton-Bush-Obama:
> Obamacare was not repealed "on day one" - it has been strengthened by not defending coverage for prior conditions;

> Trump put TPP provisions into his new North American trade deal;

> Trump continues ME meddling;

> Trump continues militarism and tax cutting;

> Etc.

The only major "difference" that I can think of are Trump's Wall and China tariffs. But these are consistent with the 'Deep State' goals.
Surveys show that the "will of the people" is very different than the neoliberal, neoconservative policies that the establishment fosters upon us.

MAGA is a POLICY CHOICE as much as it is a campaign slogan. It is designed to meet the challenge posed by Russia and China and 'turn the page' on the deceit and duplicity of the Obama Administration just as Obama's "Change You Can Believe In" was designed to turn the page on the the militarism of the Bush Administration. These BI-PARTISAN page-turnings ensure that there is no accountability and provides each new Administration with a new sly story line that the public readily swallows. Each new Presidential charade entertains and misdirects as the interests of the Empire are advanced with a refreshed box of tricks and dishonest narratives.

...war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated.

Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton?

The war of the Deep State is a psyop to crush dissent as the butt-hurt Deep State continues to pursue their dream of global hegemony. Anyone that believes that Trump is no part of that psyop is delusional.

radiator , Jan 13, 2019 2:36:06 PM | link
Wow, man. Thanks to you and all the regulars here who contribute to gathering relevant info from all kinds of sources. I hate to repeat myself, but I feel that a little praise every 3 or 6 months is not too much spamming. This is what serious journalism looks like.
Jackrabbit , Jan 13, 2019 2:43:34 PM | link
Zachary Smith @2: ... I just don't buy into the "insurance" theory.

And I don't buy the theory that Hillary is hell bent on war. The Clinton's are very rational and calculating and no President has the freedom that your theory suggests. IMO what the Deep State has done under their man Trump is very similar to what the Deep State would have done if they had selected Clinton instead. The fact is, a populist nationalist is what was deemed necessary to meet the challenge from Russia and China. And that is what we got (surprise!).

<> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Furthermore, focusing on personality and Party is just what they want

"Watch what they do, not what they say" has a corollary: pay attention to the polices, not the politicians.

jacktheokie , Jan 13, 2019 3:01:49 PM | link
MoA's final paragraph is just about how I feel.

"I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people."

This pretty well sums it up for me. Being old enough to remember FDR and the brief rise of the middle class in the 40's, 50's and 60's (and having benefited from that attempt at leveling the playing field), I am more than saddened at the downward spiral of our nation. Politics have obviously never been clean and fair, but the assassination of JFK opened the floodgates of blatant depravity perpetrated by those whose greed and lust for power will ultimately destroy us.

donkeytale , Jan 13, 2019 3:19:32 PM | link
Of course b you have nothing here to offer except your opinion. Your views regarding the relentlessness of the US criminal justice system are on target, just ask the underclasses about that. Once in view, you are never let be and in the US everyone can be found guilty of something.

Rather nice to see the pampered son of inherited tax-free wealth on the receiving end for once, in my opinion.

Trump is a crook. Russian collusion is his smokescreen. His crimes have already been demonstrated through what little we already know and there is still much we don't know and probably never will know.

This essay reads something like a veiled mea culpa from you.

You were wrong about Trump from the get go. Why not just admit it and move along? Why remain steadfastly in thrall to any shred of rightwing, authoritarianism of the elite masquerading as populism?

Whatever Trump gets from the criminal justice system, Congress or the voters appears to be well-deserved. He has brought this on himself and really there is no one else to blame even as he never will accept responsibility. He is stupid at best, dishonest at best, a useful idiot at best.

Trump saved his ass financially after a series of disastrous business bankruptcies by accepting what appears by all indications to be laundered money from literally hundreds of anonymous shell companies investing in his condos since at least 2008.

He has run roughshod over the emoluments clause quite openly.

I do believe, knowing what we know now, he will probably avoid indictment and escape impeachment, maybe only through resignation/pardon but more likely the old fashioned way: defeat at the polls in 2020.

In many ways Trump has done some good by reinvigorating the US left (such as it is) and bringing at least enough cohesion in the ranks of a badly splintered populace mainly among white females and white college educated voters who now reject the GOP, or at least the GOP of Trump.

Whether this will lead to badly needed fixes for the heinous wealth inequality (started with Reagan) is doubtful but at least the conversation is now underway (started with Bernie) which is the first step.

Tax increases, social security stabilisation, re-funneling wasted MIC billions to domestic programs for the poor, etc.

It is a start. Will it become a solution or a revolution in time?

That is up to the people who are still under the yoke of neoliberalism and global capital flight.

Don Bacon , Jan 13, 2019 3:29:06 PM | link
re:
Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was confronted with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd be no escape.
By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn goes down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do is make the case.//

So the situation is worse than I thought. The clear inference is that (1) Flynn (and others) really did commit some major crimes, and then (2) got off easy by admitting to a memory lapse (3) while cooking a bunch of other gooses.

Flynn does the easy (2) and gets away with (1) and (3), both very serious. This is justice?

Zachary Smith , Jan 13, 2019 3:42:11 PM | link
@ Jackrabbit #6

Well sir, opinions certainly do vary on this issue.

As you may recall, the woman threatened conflict on cyberattacks.

"As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack," the Democratic presidential nominee said. "We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses."

Regarding the Deep State and Trump, Syria is in the process of winning against the neocons. And Iran has not yet been attacked. Hillary has a record, and for the most part hasn't even tried to run away from it.

Hillary Clinton's War Record – 100% For Genocide

If you know of any instances of the woman speaking against the War Solution to problems, kindly tell me about them.

Trump is an incomparable jerk, but perhaps not quite as bad as HRC.

james , Jan 13, 2019 3:43:30 PM | link
thanks b... the topic is so very tiring.. i am sick of hearing about it.. if the usa fell off a cliff and never came back again - i would be fine with that.. thank you regardless, for taking it apart and trying ti dispel the bullshite.. it is so thick, it defies logic.. i agree with @1 jose garcia, and @4 radiator...

trump is a crook... so what? most of the business class in the west are at this point! politics and crookery go hand in hand... i would be surprised if it was any different at this point in time.. how about the intel agencies? you want to sleep with them? lol..

Hoarsewhisperer , Jan 13, 2019 3:57:17 PM | link
There's either something wrong with this assumption, or something we're not being told...

The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat and email any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites people as witnesses and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller has the transcript ready. A crime has been created and an indiction for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to Flynn and the others the Mueller investigation entrapped and convicted.

Option 1. Something wrong? If you're being cross-examined in a court or pseudo-legal forum about things you may or may not remember, you have the right to decline to answer a question, or to preface any and every answer with the phrase "If I remember correctly blah blah blah..."

Option 2. Something we're not being told? If the interrogators were able to ambush Flynn, then it's probably because they didn't acquaint him with all of his rights, or he didn't have a lawyer with him.

Trump's not stupid. He won't blunder into a situation bereft of any semblance of legal Human Rights protections designed to ambush him. And if he can't have a lawyer with him when the questions start, then he can probably refuse to attend without breaking any law.

Tess Ting , Jan 13, 2019 3:57:41 PM | link
@donkeytale There has been close to three years of serious investigative intent to lay a glove on Trump (HRC's team, the FBI and Mueller) and there is only the merest scratch of a womaniser (which with three marriages doesn't come as a surprise). What is quite remarkable, despite all the investigative effort, is how clean Trump has managed to keep himself despite building a fortune in one of the toughest cities in the world, building himself up through the eras of the five families, junk bonds and ponzi schemes and soviet union mobsters, not to mention the corruption of the poltical classes and regulatory abuses and unionised labor.

For the world's he moves in, the only explanation that gives him enough protection is that for a long time Trump has been a protected FBI asset for one of the field offices, possibly now senior service figures. And it's this deep relationship with well connected parts of the FBI or other secret services that has given him the ability to steer past the various attempts by the deep state. Why, for instance, do we have such a lot of leakage of the inner workings of the anti-Trump FBI? Some part of the deep state has become disgusted at the spying (eg on congress), the blackmailing, the warmongering, and deep corruption of the anti-constitutionalists, and Trump is their vengence. You just have to decide which side you are on...

Zachary Smith , Jan 13, 2019 4:06:26 PM | link
"Tess Ting" #14

I read that as Testing - perhaps a trial/demonstration as a professional troll for somebody or other. How else to interpret "only the merest scratch of a womaniser" or "how clean Trump has managed to keep himself". Maybe I'm surprised not to also see praise for the clever Government Shutdown.

Peter AU 1 , Jan 13, 2019 4:11:46 PM | link
Hoarsewhisperer 13 I think it unlikely that the likes of Flynn would not know their basic legal rights.
brian , Jan 13, 2019 4:17:24 PM | link
meanwhile..trump and his appointees attack legitimacy of Venezuela govt.
Trump is in bad odor at home while seeking to attack other govts.

' Washington has explicitly expressed its support for a potential coup against the elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, by offering its backing to the opposition and stating outright it was time for a "new government."

"The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the United States will continue ... to work diligently to restore a real democracy" to Venezuela, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on his trip to the Middle East on Saturday, adding that Washington would attempt to make the Latin American nations "come together to deliver that."'
https://www.rt.com/news/448673-us-venezuela-time-new-government/

Peter AU 1 , Jan 13, 2019 4:25:14 PM | link
One thing the US deep state and their muller proxy would have on Trump, and most if not all of Trump's team, is collusion with Israel (can this convert into charges of treason as threats). A weapon that is good for threats against and turning those around Trump, and possibly used in as a last resort to remove Trump.
Peter AU 1 , Jan 13, 2019 4:33:00 PM | link
Adding to my post @ 18
Pat Lang has a post up "What is wrong with Trump?" "But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or some thing in Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump, something that he fears to unleash through decisive action? pl"

Collusion with Israel is something neither side - team Trump and the deep state - would wish to bring into the open, but this may be the only thing they have on Trump.

Robert Snefjella , Jan 13, 2019 4:43:58 PM | link
Great journalism b!

A few more points: from: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/

"On Thursday November 17th, 2016, NSA Director Mike Rogers traveled to New York and met with President-Elect Donald Trump.

On Friday November 18th The Washington Post reported on a recommendation in "October" that [NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers] Mike Rogers be removed from his NSA position:

The heads of the Pentagon and the nation's intelligence community have recommended to President Obama that the director of the National Security
Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed.

In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower.

Occam's Razor. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers didn't want to participate in the spying scheme [on Trump]

(Clapper, Brennan, Etc.), which was the baseline for President Obama's post presidency efforts to undermine Donald Trump and keep Trump from digging into [who knows what crimes]"

After the visit by Rogers, Trump vacated Trump Towers. There is considerable irony in the Mueller 'probe' and the continuing avalanche of MSM lies and evasions and spin etc pertaining to Trump.

There are trends: A growing US citizen realization that their political system prior to Trump was nearly completely corrupt; the Clintons are more broadly understood as the pathological criminals that they are; the Podesta emails with their sick connotations remain 'in the air' - See Ben Swann's work, for example. The Clinton Foundation is far more broadly understood as a massive criminal enterprise.

Serious criminality at the highest levels of the FBI is now far more obvious to far more people

MSM as evil propaganda is more widely understood.

It is understood widely that the DNC material to Wikileaks was not 'hacked' (Binney)

From the theintercept.com :

"Pompeo met on October 24 [at Trump's request] with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community's official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year's theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was "leaked," not hacked, "by a person with physical access" to the DNC's computer system."

In short the last two years have been about trying to defeat Trump but the attackers are looking more and more wounded, and Trump, well, he's hanging in there. General Kelly and others have described Trump's work ethic as exhausting.

Brendan , Jan 13, 2019 5:12:30 PM | link
The Internet Research Agency (IRA) paid $100,000 for Facebook ads and then charged its customers for the clickbait service (between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content). So even if the IRA didn't manage to make a profit, the net cost for them must have been much lower than $100,000. Does anyone know how much revenue it made from that operation? Facebook must know but they've kept quiet about it. Same with Mueller.
juliania , Jan 13, 2019 5:17:56 PM | link
Thank you, b. I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around. A very rotten duopoly has taken over the US government, all based on the premise that money is speech and money runs government, the people be damned. Hence the shutdown being orchestrated by money, with Trump in the crosshairs.

I also very much adhere to your final paragraph's sentences. Let no one be in any doubt - what is underway is no less than traitorous activity, a clear violation of the US Constitution, motivated by corrupt individuals whose meanness is beyond dispute. How it can be redressed at this very late stage beggars the mind; I can only hope it be done as peacefully as possible.

vk , Jan 13, 2019 5:19:18 PM | link
If this is really true, then it's a clear sign of decline: Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy.
Hal Duell , Jan 13, 2019 6:27:54 PM | link
Shortly after the USSR's experiment with communism collapsed, I read an article which suggested that if the noise from that fall was loud, even louder will be the noise when the second shoe (the American experiment with capitalism) falls. And this is the crux of why I appreciate The Donald. His is the most honest face the US can present to the world at this point in time. So look at it closely, and marvel at where we have come to.
Zachary Smith , Jan 13, 2019 6:47:25 PM | link
@ juliania #23
I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around.

LOL (first time I've ever written this!)

You made the same mistake I did in 2008. The deck was really stacked in that election, though I was too blind to see it at the time. Smiling & smooth-talking black face issuing zillions of promises, and this was right after the Codpiece Commander. It took me a whole year to realize I'd been suckered, and by 2012 understood the fix was STILL on. Obama had lost most all of his glitter by then, so the Power Elites arranged his opposition to be a financial predator/Mormon bishop paired up with the most awful Libertarian POS I've ever seen. Speaking the honest truth here, I'd prefer to have Sarah Palin as POTUS to Paul Ryan. What a combo! That's why I offered anybody I met 10:1 odds on Obama winning. Hillary thought she had had seen a winning pattern from all that, and arranged to have as her opponent a fellow named Donald Trump.

Yeah, Right , Jan 13, 2019 8:35:30 PM | link
@15 Zachary Smith "How else to interpret 'only the merest scratch of a womaniser' or 'how clean Trump has managed to keep himself'."

Zachary Smith, I have been posting here for a number of years, and on this I have to agree with the newcomer Tess Ting

Trump has been put under intense investigation by Deep State hacks who are determined to see him impeached. And all they have come up with is that he is a compulsive pussy-grabber (no shit, hey?).

To my mind Trump is a very offensive human being, but that isn't an impeachable character trait. I had assumed that he would have skeletons in his cupboard that would be grounds for impeachment.

Well, if he has then he has hidden them extraordinarily well, because Mueller with all his resources hasn't found any. Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons.

As I say, that is extraordinary. But - apparently - also true.

Blooming Barricade , Jan 13, 2019 9:21:09 PM | link
Astonishing how out in the open the military coup plotting against Venezuela is right now, it was consisted an outrage to overthrow Allende and that was even before direct proof of US involvement, now the anti-war and left wing consciousness of the public and the intellectual class has been so corroded that nobody care and many even see an attempted coup as a god thing. The ideological counter revolution in full swing.
psychohistorian , Jan 13, 2019 9:48:09 PM | link
@ Yeah, Right who wrote:
"
Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons.
"

I would just bring your attention to the possibility that bringing Trump down brings them down as well. Your assertion that Trump doesn't have any skeletons in the closet is laughable.

Also consider that most of what is known comes from compromised sources and much of the house of cards we live is built on sketchy assumptions.

Cui Bono for Trump?

I am beginning to understand how Trump fits the elite plan and instead of your "grab them by the pussy" thought change it to "they have him by the balls". They played his ego to get him to run the race and then, gee, he won.

I now see Trump as the last great hope of the elite to carve out as big a chunk as they can of the new world....and try and hold onto it. The ongoing proxy conflicts will keep the musical chair game playing for a bit more but then something is going to stop the music.

A shrink told me once that after fire came music. What comes after music?

NemesisCalling , Jan 13, 2019 10:18:57 PM | link
@3 jr

How did I know that you would be first up after b's exhaustive story on the IC's corruption and utterly obvious attempt to take Trump down to cry, "Fiction."

Here is a reply to all your points:

- yes, the Russia-bad narrative was picking up steam before Trump's election. The MSM and TPTB incorrectly surmised that there would be enough anti-Russia fervor among the masses that pinning the accusation on Trump would stick. It did not. It is evidence of THEIR stupidity.
- you must have never heard of keeping your enemies close. The Clintons are powerbrokers. Trump used them. Maybe he did like them at one point, but clearly shat on his relationship with them and since the election they have truly been trashed and unable to recover any good fortune or power. The Dems made a mistake will backing HRC. They weren't acting under Deep State orders once again, Occam's Razor dictates that stupidity is the culprit here.
- How does FBI informant in campaign neccessarily implicate Trump in conspiracy and not confirm IC's weasely attempts to dig up dirt?
- Look at prior Repub primaries? Notice anything? Populists don't float in the Yacht Club Party, do they? Trump was an anomoly indicitive of the times (again, Occam's Razor).
- Again, it is absolutely absurd and suspicious that you can not admit that the Dems are a party of retards and that they consistently step over quarters to pick up pennies.
- Your opinion that Trump's policies do not differ from the Dems needs qualifying. I don't agree that his domestic policies align and verdict is still out on his FP. We know he is not a True-Believer, which is good.
- British involvement again suggests that the IC is compromised and globalized yielding national sovereignty to centralized planning. Trump deserves that ire and proves that there is a contest afoot.

Jen , Jan 13, 2019 10:32:05 PM | link
Tess Ting @ 14, Zachary Smith (really?!) @ 15, Yeah, Right @ 28, Psychohistorian @ 30:

Donald Trump has declared six business bankruptcies and there is considerable information on these bankruptcies if you Google for information on them, such as the article linked to here:
https://www.thoughtco.com/donald-trump-business-bankruptcies-4152019

If Trump's corporate bankruptcies are so well-known, and picked over several times by different media sources (even Snopes has covered them), surely any other behaviour or incident that might call Trump's character or ethics into question must have been uncovered by Robert Mueller by now?

ab initio , Jan 13, 2019 11:03:11 PM | link
I can't imagine the scale of exploding heads among the media talking heads and the establishment of the two parties, IF, Trump gets re-elected. DC would be in serious melt down. After 4 years of continuous assault the voters may actually repudiate the corporate media and the DC elites in the 2020 elections.

In any case with the Democrat candidates starting to announce we are essentially into the next presidential campaign. I don't think it is smart to under-estimate Trump's electoral chances.

slit , Jan 13, 2019 11:05:10 PM | link
Great work, B!

"Normally the FBI needs to clear such counter-intelligence investigations with the Justice Department. In this case it did not do so at all:"This sounds like the same "kangaroo court" MO Scott Ritter detailed a few years ago:

"Simply put, the Russia NIA is not an "IC-coordinated" assessment -- the vehicle for such coordination, the NIC, was not directly involved in its production, and no NIO was assigned as the responsible official overseeing its production. Likewise, the Russia NIA cannot be said to be the product of careful coordination between the CIA, NSA and FBI -- while analysts from all three agencies were involved in its production, they were operating as part of a separate, secretive task force operating under the close supervision of the Director of the CIA, and not as an integral part of their home agency or department."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/did-17-intelligence-agencies-really-come-to-consensus-on-russia/

slit , Jan 13, 2019 11:25:22 PM | link
Zachary @2, JackRabbit:

Why does it have to be either-or?; it could have been for insurance AND warmongering narrative/dog whistling.

Escalation towards war with Russia was a matter of public record in late pre-election 2016, thanks to Clinton News Network ... now ask yourselves where is that general in the press conference nowadays?

DNC Russia Hotwar

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYHje-rv5w

Jackrabbit , Jan 14, 2019 1:19:29 AM | link
NemesisCalling @31: Here is a reply to all your points

Well, you haven't replied to all my points, nor have you addressed the the thrust of my remarks. But I'll answer the issues that you raised so my view is clear to everyone.

=
- yes, the Russia-bad narrative was picking up steam before Trump's election. The MSM and TPTB incorrectly surmised that there would be enough anti-Russia fervor among the masses that pinning the accusation on Trump would stick. It did not. It is evidence of THEIR stupidity.
Wrong. Firstly, I was referring to the anti-Russia imperative in official circles NOT to the propaganda effort. That imperative intensified greatly after Russia blocked USA-proxy takeover of Syria (2013), and Crimea and Donbas (2014). In fact, Kissinger wrote a WSJ Op-Ed in Aug 2014 that issued a cryptic call for MAGA.

"picking up steam before Trump's election" needs some unpacking. The anti-Russia fervor among the masses has been entirely concocted, and mostly AFTER 2014.

Nothing has stuck to Trump because there's no substance to the allegations.

=
- you must have never heard of keeping your enemies close. The Clintons are powerbrokers. Trump used them. Maybe he did like them at one point, but clearly shat on his relationship with them and since the election they have truly been trashed and unable to recover any good fortune or power. The Dems made a mistake will backing HRC. They weren't acting under Deep State orders once again, Occam's Razor dictates that stupidity is the culprit here.
What does Occam's Razor have to say about the remarkable continuity of US foreign and domestic policy for the last 30 years?

Trump and the Clintons were known to be close. Even their daughter's were/are close.

Are you unaware of the CIA connections of Clinton, Bush, and Obama? Should we assume that Trump is free of any such connection?

=
- How does FBI informant in campaign neccessarily implicate Trump in conspiracy and not confirm IC's weasely attempts to dig up dirt?
The FBI informant (Felix Sater) worked for Trump from about 2001 to 2013. This was essentially the same period in which Mueller was FBI Director. Mueller and Comey are close and are connected to the Clinton's.

The informant wasn't investigating Trump or digging up dirt on him, he was informing on the Russian mob, and probably using employment by Trump to get closer to the mob. FBI/counter intel might have also used info provided to turn some of the Russians into US intel assets.

=
- Look at prior Repub primaries? Notice anything? Populists don't float in the Yacht Club Party, do they? Trump was an anomoly indicitive of the times (again, Occam's Razor).
Have you heard of the Tea Party? Have you heard of Obama using the IRS against the Tea Party? Seems that a Republican populist would get a lot of votes against the hated Hillary who championed Obama's "legacy".

- Again, it is absolutely absurd and suspicious that you can not admit that the Dems are a party of retards and that they consistently step over quarters to pick up pennies.
You can't admit that the Dem's have failed the left so consistently that it is unlikely to be due to their mental capacity or an accident of circumstance.

=
- Your opinion that Trump's policies do not differ from the Dems needs qualifying. I don't agree that his domestic policies align and verdict is still out on his FP. We know he is not a True-Believer, which is good.
I didn't say that they don't differ from the Dems, I said that Trump policies are consistent with policies of previous Administrations and that Hillary likely would've ruled in much the same way.

=
- British involvement again suggests that the IC is compromised and globalized yielding national sovereignty to centralized planning. Trump deserves that ire and proves that there is a contest afoot
The US IC is undoubtedly primary and universally acknowledged to be the lead in the US-Brit Intel relationship.

The only 'contest' I can discern is how best to fool the people.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

You seem to believe that a populist outsider can be elected President. And, you also believe that a US President can be both all powerful (Obama) or constrained by Deep State whim (Trump).

You also seem to believe that Trump's rhetoric is gospel-truth and means what you think it does. Surprise! "Negotiation with Russia" doesn't mean peace. Troop 'pull out' doesn't mean it'll happen any time soon (and possibly never). Anti-TPP doesn't mean he won't implement TPP provisions in other trade agreements. Etc.

PS The establishment doesn't benefit DESPITE our populist President's, they benefit BECAUSE we are willing to believe that our populist President's work for US.

NemesisCalling , Jan 14, 2019 2:14:54 AM | link
Jr, it was a fruitless endeavor, to be sure, but I gave it a shot.

For the record, I never counted Trump as savior, although he could very well be if he continues on getting caught with his dick in his hand as the empire around him crumbles. He's not a true believer, but he can at the very least be a useful idiot for the real anti-imperialists in the world.

bryan hemming , Jan 14, 2019 7:05:34 AM | link
It is of note that Oleg Deripaska is not a stranger to the world of politics and politicians. Before his fortunes changed dramatically, Oleg Deripaska was well-known for entertaining world politicians on his luxury yacht moored off Kassiopi in the northwest corner of the Greek Island of Corfu.

The Rothschilds have an estate outside Kassiopi. Among the many high-powered friends and guests of Deripaska was UK Tory politician, George Osborne, who visited him on his yacht at Kassiopi while still British Chancellor of the Exchequer. Osborne and EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson, a powerful force in Tony Blair's government, were both guests at a function held aboard the yacht in 2008. Baron Mandelson's position in the EU, at the time, led to accusations of a conflict of interest.

Among other movers and shakers, John McCain was also a friend of Oleg Deripaska, but that friendship may have soured after the virtual collapse of the Russian billionaire companies. McCain was more a fairweather friend than a stalwart ally through thick and thin. The reason I mention these tidbits is because the corporate media fails to join all the pieces that show just how corrupt Western politicians have become.

Harley Schlanger , Jan 14, 2019 7:06:30 AM | link
For a thorough update on the Integrity Initiative and its offshoots, check out the latest from legal investigator Barbara Boyd.

To defeat the "Deep State" in the U.S., it is essential to understand the role of British Intelligence. While it is essential to know the role of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Comey, DOJ/FBI operatives, et.al., it is even more important to understand the geopolitical assumptions behind Russiagate. And for that, one must turn to the British.

https://larouchepac.com/20190110/part-ii-integrity-initiatives-foreign-agents-influence-invade-united-states

Hoarsewhisperer , Jan 14, 2019 7:36:44 AM | link
It would help to get a handle on the precise nature and format of these FBI "under oath" fishing expeditions if the FBI released transcripts of a few of the recent hi-profile Q & A sessions. If suspects are being convicted for misdemeanors of dubious relevance to the stated aim of the Mueller Crusade then transcripts would allow inconsistencies to be counted and evaluated. It would also be interesting to discover whether the FBI uses a seductive approach to questioning, or a confrontational approach, given the petty nature of the 'crimes' exposed to date.
Petri Krohn , Jan 14, 2019 8:58:50 AM | link
The aim of the counterintelligence operation and of the Russiagate hoax was not to build a prosecution case against President Trump. It was to put the United States in constitutional limbo by creating a parallel and competing center of constitutional legitimacy.

The Obama Administration would live on in the structure of this "investigation", without ever having to relinquish power to Trump. The investigation would form the center of "The Resistance", with the ability to question the legitimacy of the Trump Administration.

donkeytale , Jan 14, 2019 9:43:31 AM | link
Jackrabbit @ 37

I didn't say that they don't differ from the Dems, I said that Trump policies are consistent with policies of previous Administrations and that Hillary likely would've ruled in much the same way.

This is very true but only in the same sort of overgeneralised sense with you populate your latest CT. That is, sweep any of the plainly ridiculous assumptions in your theory under the widest possible rug available to conspiratards.

At least you aint exactly drinking the Orange Kool-Aid like so many of the posters on this thread. That's a big positive in my book. As for them, it's more a reflection of the love for rightwing authoritarianism than for Trump himself. What they really wish for is a crafier, shrewder Amerikkkan version of Putin, but they accept Trump because his bumbling is the existential proof of US decline in relative power, as if such proof was necessary.

And if you overlook all Trump's achievements (such as they are):

1. Obamacare/Medicaid expansion repeal and subsequent degradation of the enrollment and funding processes by executive degree when appeal failed thanks only to McCain's "in yo office sucka" thumbs down vote.

2. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations (basically same thing)

3. SCOTUS and federal bench selections


The US system is meant to create a uniparty environment whereby opposing views are compromised into a "third way" legislative process.

I grok this system is broken and completely controlled by the wealthiest (show me a political system anywhere that you prefer that is not controlled by the wealthiest) but the funding mechanisms need changing before there will ever be significant change to governing processes.

Trump through his ignorance, corruption and loose lips has tilted the playing field left. Hilliary through her elitism, arrogance, corruption and lack of retail political skills gets a big assist in the same tilting.

Those who believe (if any truly do) that Trump represents anything more than the end of Reaganist conservatism are "wishin' and hopin'" as Dusty Springfield would say.

I do applaud those who are willing to show in the comments that they suffer from the real "Trump Derangement Syndrome," such as your good buddy James. They're all crooks, in his opinion.

So what is it Jim? Do you excuse Trump only or do you excuse them all? LMAO

Peter AU 1 , Jan 14, 2019 9:45:39 AM | link
Putin January 2017 - "You know, there is a category of people who leave without saying goodbye, out of respect for the situation that has evolved, so as not to upset anything. And then there are people who keep saying goodbye but don't leave. I believe the outgoing administration belongs to the second category.

What are we seeing in the United States? We are seeing the continuation of an acute internal political struggle despite the fact that the presidential election is over and it ended in Mr Trump's convincing victory. Nevertheless, in my opinion, several goals are being set in this struggle. Maybe there are more, but some of them are perfectly obvious."

The first is to undermine the legitimacy of the US president-elect. By the way, in this regard, I would like to point out that whether deliberately or not, these people are causing enormous damage to US interests. Simply enormous. The impression is that, after a practice run in Kiev, they are now ready to organise a Maidan in Washington to prevent Trump from taking office."

Peter AU 1 , Jan 14, 2019 9:46:40 AM | link
The link for my post @45
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53744

Posted by: pretzelattack , Jan 14, 2019 10:05:43 AM | link

sure, no doubt trump has been involved in financial improprieties; this in no way means he colluded with Russia to fix the election, or that russia on its own hacked the election, or any of the other false narratives the ic is trying to cram down our throats with the connivance of the msm and (mostly, but there are some republicans pushing it, too) the "centrist" dems.

And the clintons have their own skeletons, but they seem to be judgement proof with the aid of comey et al.

donkeytale , Jan 14, 2019 10:22:40 AM | link
pretzelattack @ 47

The only real difference between Trump and the Clintons at end of the day is they are smart lawyers who obviously better understand how to navigate the treacherous legal waters surrounding them.

They also know what the definition of "is, is" and how to carefully craft their words in public, while Trump is all loose cannon all the time ahd his legal representation appears to follow his lead, IE Giuliani and Cohen.

Jackrabbit , Jan 14, 2019 10:53:12 AM | link
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 14, 2019 9:45:39 AM | 45:
We are seeing the continuation of an acute internal political struggle despite the fact that the presidential election is over and it ended in Mr Trump's convincing victory.
Not really. What we are seeing is Deep State controlled media force-feeding the public a toxic concoction: the narrative of a political struggle that centers on anti-Russia hysteria.

Maybe you missed Romney's Op-Ed in which he praised Trump's pro-establishment policies while attacking his Russia-friendly 'pull out' from Syria. That's the best example of the two-faced establishment bullsh*t.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

Robert Snefjella , Jan 14, 2019 10:57:29 AM | link
What is loosely called 'globalism', consisting of various trends and ideologies and practices: the EU and the aborted for now 'North American Union' and satellites, and cell phones able to instantly transmit images from the other side of the planet, and so on, has also importantly aimed at and advocated for and implemented various means by which national sovereignty was eroded.

And this erosion meant a reduction of the ability of a country's people to wield an effective national politics, let alone something vaguely democratic, or to implement policies which were at odds with the various globalist institutions and imperatives and programs. So we've seen on numerous occasions, for example, the IMF impose its globalist economic 'recipe' on a nation's economic policies.

And even the destruction of Libya in 2011 was primarily or importantly directed at preventing Libya from implementing a national financial strategy intended to give African countries an alternative to the depredations of global financial 'business as usual'.

But over the last two years the movement to restore or renovate national sovereignty has made something of a comeback.

So for example, Macron as recently as roughly two years ago was being lauded as a great new leader of the globalist project, and both he and Merkel have gone on record decrying the very concept of national sovereignty.

But now Macron and Merkel are largely reviled, especially Macron, by their people, and 'populist' enthusiasm strengthens. You can see the same trend in virtually every European country.

And in the United States, the tens of millions of 'deplorables' backing Trump are doing so partly, perhaps mostly, because he champions the restoration of national sovereignty and has questioned dominant globalist institutions.

Now for those who are committed to the view that Trump doesn't really mean it, that he isn't really an American nationalist, and so on, well, fine, believe what you like. But in the end, Trump's base of support is nationalistic, and that is as I noted above a very general trend that is quickly manifesting.

pretzelattack , Jan 14, 2019 11:17:45 AM | link
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/14/the-fbis-investigation-of-trump-as-a-national-security-threat-is-itself-a-serious-danger-but-j-edgar-hoover-pioneered-the-tactic/
Noirette , Jan 14, 2019 12:00:27 PM | link
Collapse ctd.

Re. the USA, when the handmaidens of power, aka politicians, the servant class in an oligarchic corporatist 'state,' are alarmingly seen to fight to the death in public it is crystal clear that control (which may take the shape of relatively informal and obscure networks ) is lost, .. > the 'fight' will only serve to weaken all parties.

Trump is loathed because he upset the apple cart and revealed weakness and fissures in the system. (+ possibly because he is an upstart, from the wrong side of whatever, has bad hair, is dumb, a thief, more )

He ran as an anti-establishment maverick:

  • "Drain the Swamp!"
  • "Lock her up!"
  • "Build the Wall!"

- and was elected only for that reason. It was disconcertingly easy to do, which is also terrifying to the PTB. Plus, election/voter fraud did not perform as expected - help !! The MSM promoted him with mega 24/24 coverage - help !!

As the no. 1 disruptive foe is merely an elderly scummy biz type, an intruder, some other entity like malignant agressive Russia had to be associated with him. (Yes, is was Obama-Clinton who started the highjinks + the following Mueller investig.; see b at top - also, bashing Russia gradually took wing as it recovered under Putin, the Ukraine plots did not work out, etc. *Crimea!* the last straw! ..)

If Obama had announced that 2K USA personnel were to be withdrawn from Syria because the good folks want their wonderful husbands and wives, great ppl, our folks, home soon, they have dutifully served, etc. the MSM and anyone who bothered to digest that news would have clapped and sent off pixel sparkles and sweet tweets.

Very difficult to judge: what is the result of infighting in the US vs. any agreed-on never mind coherent foreign policy? That the question is even asked - all over the world now - spells stage one collapse.

Jackrabbit , Jan 14, 2019 12:23:45 PM | link
Robert Snefjella @50:
Now for those who are committed to the view that Trump doesn't really mean it, that he isn't really an American nationalist, and so on, well, fine, believe what you like. But in the end, Trump's base of support is nationalistic ..."

Did Obama really mean it when he touted "Change You Can Believe In"? No. His rhetoric was meant to turn the page from the Bush Administration excesses and convince the world that USA was not the threat that they perceived us to be. In fact, he was given a Nobel Prize for essentially not being Bush. But it was all psyop. Obama refused to hold CIA accountable for rendition and torture, refused to stop NSA pervasive spying, conducted covert wars and regime change ops, bragged of his drone targeting skills, made Bush tax cuts permanent, bailed out bankers, etc.

Does Trump really mean his nationalism? Only to the extent that a nationalist was needed to meet the challenge from Russia and China. People don't fight for globalist principals.

US is still a member of NATO, still involved in the Middle East, still has hundreds of bases around the world.

Trump's nationalist credentials are further belied by such things as: adding TPP provisions to the new North American trade agreement; attacking Syria based on false flags; arming Ukraine; pulling out of the INF treaty and engaging in an unnecessary and costly arms race; actively seeking to overthrow the governments of Iran and Venezuela; etc.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

Peter AU 1 , Jan 14, 2019 12:41:01 PM | link
dahoit 53

Is there a requirement for an open trial on these sort of things. I'm not sure about the US, but normally gag orders are all that's required to keep something quiet. All the people around Trump could be taken down in this way with charges that would stick.
Apparently the only one they cannot take down in this way is the president (Another post up now at SST on the legalities of investigating the president). As far as I know, the president can only be taken down by impeachment so I guess they wouldn't try to use collusion with Israel for that unless they could keep what they were impeaching him for secret.

donkeytale , Jan 14, 2019 1:18:09 PM | link
Snefjella @ 50

And in the United States, the tens of millions of 'deplorables' backing Trump are doing so partly, perhaps mostly, because he champions the restoration of national sovereignty and has questioned dominant globalist institutions.

Yes, "Amerikkka First" represents nationalism for sure. Many, maybe most Amerikkkans have always been nationalistic and detest globalist structures because they view them as limiting Amerikkka's rightful global sovereignty. This is a fine distinction I believe gets lost in commentary such as yours. Trump isn't looking to retreat from Amerikkkan Exceptionalism at all, it his raison d etre for the tariffs and increases in military spending.

The movement which elected Trump represents the nostalgic view of a lost Amerikkkan dominance over the globe, which of course they blame on those hated Democratic and Republican establishment globalists, Bushes, Clintons and Obama.

donkeytale , Jan 14, 2019 1:23:22 PM | link
And I meant "rightful" in quotation marks not that I believe it is rightful but is the opinion of the "Deplorables".
Zachary Smith , Jan 14, 2019 1:43:05 PM | link
@ Jackrabbit #28
You see all that and then assume that the Hillary-Trump contest was genuine?

Why not assume that the Deep State's candidate won in every election since Carter and work from there.

That first is a difficult one to answer, for I quite agree with you on the second part. Rigged elections from Carter on to the present day matches my own thoughts as well. In 2000 "they" had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to get their man in office, but GWB did indeed move into the White House.

My own theory about 2016 is that everybody miscalculated. Trump was (IMO) running as an ego-building publicity stunt. Hillary (and her Deep State sponsors) had actively helped Trump get the nomination with hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity which also enhanced the bottom lines of Big Media. His multiple flaws were airbrushed away. Hillary ran a horrible campaign because she is an arrogant and "entitled" woman. The incompetence of that campaign simply didn't uncover the extent to which she was hated by so many people. (myself included, but I didn't vote for the torture-loving Trump, either)

The biggest mistake of all was not having any plan in place to use the touch-screen voting systems (think "Diebold") to nail down her victory. Again an opinion, but I think that was judged to be a little too risky plus the fact it was obviously totally unnecessary. Hillary didn't have a "loss" speech prepared, and Trump didn't have a "victory" one.

This is why I call Trump an "accidental" President. I'll admit the Deep State has reacted pretty well since 2016, but they're still playing catchup. Israel - to name just one - remains in shell shock.

In summary, I think we barely disagree. :)

vk , Jan 14, 2019 1:55:56 PM | link
I think Trump's election was a miscalculation of the American elites...
Robert Snefjella , Jan 14, 2019 2:54:31 PM | link
Further to American's general support for Trump's declared intention of reduction of troops in Syria and Afghanistan, the Daily Caller on the 9th of January 2019 cited 56 % in support, 20 % not sure, and 27 % opposing. This is after MSM and general national political outrage and 'deep concern' over Trump's decision.

Note that US involvement in Syria has been justified by the most lurid of lies and disinfo continually poured for years into American's psyches. For Tulsi Gabbard to have a direct conversation with Assad (the designated 'butcher of Damascus', the 'horrid monstrous dictator' accused over and over of attacking his own people, often with chemical weapons from barrel bombs, and especially targeting children and hospitals: the man can have no soul, no heart! We must help the Syrians in their struggle against this animal!) was an outrage!

So not only do most Americans want American troops out of Syria, it would seem that there is some growing immunity among the people of the United States to their diet of diseased propaganda.

karlof1 , Jan 14, 2019 3:16:31 PM | link
Just finished b's excellent recap and the entire affair reeks of Treason -- not against Trump, but against the Nation.
Jackrabbit , Jan 14, 2019 4:57:11 PM | link
Posted by: vk | Jan 14, 2019 1:55:56 PM | 60

Donald Trump as an outsider of the GOP

The populist hero must be portrayed as an "outsider" that takes on the establishment. Obama was positioned in much the same way.

Trump is no "outsider". He is very establishment. Even before running for President, he had access that ordinary people never get.

Trump only won because of a bizarre technicality of the American electoral system.

You are directing our attention to what the establishment wants us to see. It ignores Hillary's spectacular failure: snubbing of Sanders progressives; Cold shoulder to black voters; insult to white voters ("deplorables"); choosing not to campaign in crucial states; the wierdness of Bill Clinton being discovered meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch (Bill Clinton is one of the most recognizable people in America - why why why would be meeting with the Attorney General on an airport tarmac?), etc.

If the race were easy, Trump woundn't be a populist hero, would he? And Hillary's winning the popular vote is a nice consolation prize to the Clinton's. Plus, it nicely sets up the fake Deep State vs. Trump conflict.

Linda Amick , Jan 14, 2019 8:22:16 PM | link
While Trump is a member of the elite establishment that practically owns the country he has always been a pariah for one main reason. He does not honor the unspoken code of never exposing inside information about other elite members. He is a big mouth.

Given that, the establishment and their propaganda arm of the media have been out to get him even before he was elected. His presidency has largely been an inside struggle. However, Trump is clever and crafty. During his tenure he has been give access to tremendous amounts of information about his political enemies and he continues to bait, insult and fire them, pushing them deeper and deeper into insanity.

He will fight fire with fire. If they attempt to impeach him he will tit for tat release information incriminating his enemies. I view this as a positive direction for the US in the long run. ALL of these people need to be banished to "Elba". Maybe they will fight to the death of both sides. One can dream.

[Jan 15, 2019] Buchanan Is Bolton Steering Trump Into War With Iran

Jan 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

devo , 1 minute ago link

That fact Trump can be "steered into war" is disturbing.

2handband , 2 minutes ago link

This article is asinine. By the book, Bolton takes orders from Trump... not the other way around. Bolton is just being used as an excuse. Trump was never serious about getting the US out of any wars. I confidently predict that US troops will still be in Syria this time next year.

ne-tiger , 4 minutes ago link

"Was he aware of Bolton's request for a menu of targets in Iran for potential U.S. strikes? Did he authorize it? Has he authorized his national security adviser and secretary of state to engage in these hostile actions and bellicose rhetoric aimed at Iran? "

Yes, Yes and Yes, that's why he's an orange fucktard.

Taras Bulba , 12 minutes ago link

Bolton's former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the Green Zone was "an act of war" to which the U.S. must respond decisively.

This war mongering harpy fortunately was kicked to the curb by melania trump!

pelican , 13 minutes ago link

How did that psychopath appointed anyway? Another warmonger that hasn't served a day in the military.

MozartIII , 13 minutes ago link

Bolton can run the operation on the ground!

MozartIII , 14 minutes ago link

Send the House, Senate, FBI, CIA, IRS & all others state operatives to fight in Iran. Include the TSA for gods sake. Include the Obamas, Clintons and Bush's. So they can verify that their weapons are all delivered again and work properly. Bring our troops home to defend are border. Include NYT, WaPo and most of our current media in the Iran light brigade, so they can charge with the rest of the parasites. Many problems will be solved in very short order.

punchasocialist , 16 minutes ago link

This is another really infantile, softball article again by Buchanan.

As if Trump is anything more than an actor, and Bolton is anything more than a buffoon who has been laughed off the world stage FOREVER.

As if Trump and Bolton steer each other, instead of TAKING ORDERS from trillionaires.

resistedliving , 58 minutes ago link

You think Bolton is the new Alexander "I'm in charge now" Haig?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qarDtgSVpM

Captain Chlamydia , 22 minutes ago link

Yes he is.

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 1 hour ago link

Obviously.

And so are Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, and Kushner, and his bankster pals.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YW4CvC5IaFI

Bolton is a traitor and agent of a foreign power. The Mouth of Netanyahu.

But Trump hired him, and Trump hasn't fired him.

Duc888 , 57 minutes ago link

Enjoy the show. Bolton has a half life of about 90 days. Can't you see a pattern when it's laid bare in front of you?

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 40 minutes ago link

Like not having a wall, appointing neocon swamp creatures, still being in Afghanistan and Syria, and not releasing the FISAgate texts?

Like that pattern?

I... gee, I don't know.

You're right. I should prolly just ' trust the plan' like a good goy.

Thanks, newfriend!

🤨

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 57 minutes ago link

Remarks by National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton to the Zionist Organization of America

JimmyJones , 27 minutes ago link

He also hasn't followed his recommendations. Perhaps he keeps him around so he knows what not to do?

Duc888 , 4 minutes ago link

He's a temporary useful idiot for Trump who will flush him at his convenience. He's handy to have around to encourage the Hawks do a group masturbation.

Seriously, if Ertogen tells Bolton to go **** off, he has no sauce. He's been neutered. Let him act all important and play in the sand box all he wants.

ted41776 , 1 hour ago link

trust the plan. there are white hats in government who have your best interest in mind. you don't need to do anything other than pretend like everything is fine, they'll take care of the rest. go to work and continue accepting continually devalued worthless fiat in exchange for time you spend away from your family and doing things you love. trust the plan, it's all going to be alright

/sarc

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 47 minutes ago link

+ 1

Four chan , 41 minutes ago link

BOLTON IS MULLERS BUDDY, THATS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

Francis Marx , 42 minutes ago link

I doubt Bolton has that much clout. Trump is no fool.

Haus-Targaryen , 42 minutes ago link

No, because the oil price to follow would blowup the US war machine.

Iran isn't going anywhere.

Erek , 38 minutes ago link

Time for Bolton to lay his **** on the anvil.

I woke up , 24 minutes ago link

Yeah, if Bolton is so enthused about it, send him first

Erek , 17 minutes ago link

And alone!

Duc888 , 3 minutes ago link

...it would be lost amongst the metal filings and swarf.

resistedliving , 16 minutes ago link

Israel uses natgas and coal

Helps their little conflict in the Tamar/Leviathan gas fields.

[Jan 14, 2019] 'A Reckless Advocate of Military Force' Demands for John Bolton's Dismissal After Reports He Asked Pentagon for Options to Str

Notable quotes:
"... By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane ..."
"... Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over the request detailed in Journal ..."
"... Bolton: Chickenhawk-in-Chief ..."
"... Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers. ..."
"... Why did Trump appoint Bolton? ..."
"... I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope. ..."
"... Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom? ..."
"... Steven Cohen has an interesting editorial in RT, not about directly about Bolton but about the war parties' demand for ongoing M.E. conflict. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/448688-trump-withdrawal-syria-russia/ ..."
"... see what we could do ..."
"... Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton. Much the same can be said of Pompeo. ..."
"... I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking war. ..."
Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I am surprised that Bolton has lasted this long. Bolton has two defining personal qualities that are not conducive to long-term survival with Trump: having a huge ego and being way too obvious about not caring about Trump's agenda (even with the difficulties of having it change all the time). Bolton is out for himself in far too obvious a manner.

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

Reminding the world that he is, as one critic put it, " a reckless advocate of military force ," the Wall Street Journal revealed on Sunday that President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton "asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran last year, generating concern at the Pentagon and State Department."

"It definitely rattled people," a former U.S. official said of the request, which Bolton supposedly made after militants aligned with Iran fired mortars into the diplomatic quarter of Baghdad, Iraq that contains the U.S. Embassy in early September. "People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran."

"The Pentagon complied with the National Security Council's request to develop options for striking Iran," the Journal reported, citing unnamed officials. "But it isn't clear if the proposals were provided to the White House, whether Mr. Trump knew of the request, or whether serious plans for a U.S. strike against Iran took shape at that time."

The Journal 's report, which comes just days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an "arrogant tirade" of a speech vilifying Iran, sparked immediate alarm among critics of the Trump administration's biggest warmongers -- who, over the past several months, have been accused of fomenting unrest in Iran and laying the groundwork for war.

Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane."

me title=

Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over the request detailed in Journal 's report.

me title=

"This administration takes an expansive view of war authorities and is leaning into confrontation with Iran at a time when there are numerous tripwires for conflict across the region," NIAC president Jamal Abdi warned in a statement . "It is imperative that this Congress investigate Bolton's request for war options and pass legislation placing additional legal and political constraints on the administration's ability to start a new war of choice with Iran that could haunt America and the region for generations."

In a series of moves that have elicited concern from members of Congress, political experts, other world leaders, and peace activists, since May the Trump administration has ditched the Iran nuclear deal -- formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- and reimposed economic sanctions .

NIAC, in November, urged the new Congress that convened at the beginning of the year to challenge the administration's hawkish moves and restore U.S. standing on the world stage by passing measures to block the sanctions re-imposed in August and November , and reverse Trump's decision to breach the deal -- which European and Iranian diplomats have been trying to salvage .

Iran continues to comply with the terms of JCPOA, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear chief, told state television on Sunday that "preliminary activities for designing modern 20 percent (enriched uranium) fuel have begun." While Iran has maintained that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, the nation would still have to withdraw from the deal if it resumed enrichment at the level.

As Iran signals that it is considering withdrawing from the JCPOA, the Journal report has critics worried that Bolton and Pompeo have the administration on a war path -- with Bolton, just last week, insisting without any evidence that Iranian leadership is committed to pursuing nuclear weapons. Some have compared that claim to former Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous lie in 2002, to bolster support for the U.S. invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

me title=

As the Journal noted, "Alongside the requests in regards to Iran, the National Security Council asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with options to respond with strikes in Iraq and Syria as well."


The Rev Kev , January 14, 2019 at 5:55 am

So Bolton wants war with Iran? Pretty tall talk from a man who during the war in 'Nam ducked into the Maryland Army National Guard because he had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy as he considered the war in Vietnam already lost. His words, not mine. The Iranian military will not be the push over the Iraq army was. They are much better equipped and motivated and have a healthy stock of missiles. They even have the Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missile system up and running.

Once you start a war, you never know where it will go. Suppose the Iranians consider – probably correctly – that it is Israel's influences that led to the attack and so launch a few missiles at them. What happens next? Will Hezbollah take action against them as well. If the US attacks Iran, then there is no reason whatsoever for Iran not to attack the various US contingents scattered around the Middle East in places like Syria. What if the Russians send in their Aerospace Forces to help stop an attack. Will they be attacked as well? Is the US prepared to lose a carrier?

And how will the war end? The country is mountainous like Afghanistan so cannot be occupied unless the entire complete total of all US forces are shipped over there. This is just lunacy squared and surely even Trump must realize that if the whole thing is another Bay of Pigs, it will be his name all over it in the history books and so sinking his chances for a 2020 re-election. And if the justification for the whole thing is a coupla mortars on a car park, how will he justify any American loses? At this point I am waiting for Bolton to finish each one of his speeches and tweets with the phrase-

"Parthia delenda est!"

Tomonthebeach , January 14, 2019 at 2:17 pm

Bolton: Chickenhawk-in-Chief

Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers.

Calling Bolton on Pompeo "batshit crazy" cries out for revisions in the APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

Ignim Brites , January 14, 2019 at 7:36 am

Why did Trump appoint Bolton? A saying of LBJ, I believe attributed to Sam Rayburn, might illuminate. "It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in."

Edward , January 14, 2019 at 8:26 am

I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope.

Allegorio , January 14, 2019 at 12:49 pm

Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom?

Edward , January 14, 2019 at 1:01 pm

I feel like the U.S. is an occupied country, invaded by corporate lobbyists. We have the kind of crap government you get from occupations.

Carolinian , January 14, 2019 at 8:33 am

Why did Trump appoint Bolton?

Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems? Arguably Trump's "out there" gestures to the right are because he has to keep the Repubs on his side given the constant threat of impeachment from the other side. Extremes beget extremes. There's also the Adelson factor.

Of course this theory may be incorrect and he and Bolton are ideological soul mates, but Trump's ideology doesn't appear to go much beyond a constant diet of Fox News. He seems quite capable of pragmatic gestures which are then denounced by a horrified press.

Lou Mannheim , January 14, 2019 at 10:11 am

"Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems?"

No. Despite Trump's wishes the buck stops with him.

Carolinian , January 14, 2019 at 10:27 am

... the Iran situation could have been solved years earlier by Obama and Hillary making it harder for Trump to stir up trouble.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/iran-brazil-and-turkey-make-new-nuclear-proposal/

ChiGal in Carolina , January 14, 2019 at 11:25 am

The point might be, sure the Dems as part of the duopoly created the context within which Trump now acts as president. Nonetheless there is a direct linear responsibility for his actions that rests with him.

Unless you consider him so impaired as not to be responsible for his actions ;-)

Carolinian , January 14, 2019 at 1:54 pm

So will the buck stop with Obama/Hillary for destroying Libya, the half million dead in Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen which started under Obama, the coup in Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war has once again started to become thinkable? By these standards Trump's wrecking ball is quite tiny.

neo-realist , January 14, 2019 at 11:53 am

It's not like the Obama administration and the EU didn't strike a nuclear deal with Iran to freeze nuclear capable production and allow for lifting of sanctions -- how could they have gone further? How could its deal be worse then the saber rattling of Trump/Bolton? Not saying this as a fan of the Obama administration in general.

Bill Smith , January 14, 2019 at 2:03 pm

Pied Piper Memo. It's up in Wikileaks. Clinton campaign laid out a strategy to help Trump along so he would be their opponent. They bet that he was too far out there for the general public to vote him in as president.

Yves Smith Post author , January 14, 2019 at 2:20 pm

...Everyone including Trump was shocked he won. He has made an only partly successful hostile takeover of the Republican party. The fact that he got only at best the second string, and mainly the fourth string, to work in his Administration, Trump's repudiation of international institutions and his trade war with China are all evidence that he was chosen by anyone, much the less a cabal you create out of thin air called "the oligarchy"

As Frank Herbert said in Dune, the most enduring principles in the universe are accident and error. Trump did not want to win. This was a brand-enhancing stunt for him that got out of control.

KLG , January 14, 2019 at 7:46 am

Something for our would be Croesus and his minions: If you go to war with Persia, you will destroy a mighty empire OK, not so mighty, but an empire nevertheless.

Ben Wolf , January 14, 2019 at 8:29 am

Reminiscent of John Kerry and Susan Rice publicly demanding bombing of Syria in 2015 after Obama had taken that option off the table.

Anon , January 14, 2019 at 12:26 pm

Iran is a much more formitable foe than Syria. Bullies love to taunt the weak; Iran is not weak.

Mark James , January 14, 2019 at 8:48 am

The US has previously run multiple conventual war simulations and in all cases the US lost against Iran, only when the US used its nuclear option did the US prevail. The implications of a nuclear strike and how the Russian Federation will react, to having yet another one of its allies attacked is unknown?

Bill Smith , January 14, 2019 at 2:10 pm

Really, in all cases? Seems unlikely. What did these conventional war simulations cover? What was the definition of wining and losing?

Jeremy Grimm , January 14, 2019 at 2:36 pm

Really -- who cares? Any claim of 'all' is difficult to support under the best of circumstances and unwise. Besides, suppose we could 'prevail' in a war with Iran -- why should or would we want to? Are you OK with a little war with Iran if a couple of conventional war simulations suggest we could win?

johnnygl , January 14, 2019 at 9:07 am

Couple of quick points

1) I really hope jim webb gets the def sec job. That would be a strong signal.

2) if the TDS infected bi-partisan consensus wants to impeach. They can build on this. I suspect they won't though.

3) Keep in mind Trump like some trash talk. Pompeo seems here to stay. Not sure about Bolton. But, as we saw with N. Korea, sometimes the crazy gets dialed up to 11, right before things get calmed down.

The Rev Kev , January 14, 2019 at 9:34 am

Because that worked so well in the Balkans and Iraq and Libya, etc, etc etc. The world is not what you think it is. Let us compare Iran as a country with America's loyal ally Saudi Arabia as an example. Would you believe that Iran has a Jewish population that feel safe there and have no interest in moving to Israel? In Saudi Arabia, if you renounce Islam that is a death sentence. Women have careers in Iran and drive cars. Woman have burkas in Saudi Arabia and have very few freedoms. Iran has taken in refugees from the recent wars. Saudi Arabia has taken virtually none from Syria. Iran wants to have their own country and work out their own problems as they are a multicultural country. Saudi Arabia is a medieval monarchy that has been exporting the most extremist view of Islam around the world using their oil money. Ideologically, all those jihadists the past few decades can be traced to Wahhabi teachings. Now tell me that if you had a choice, which country sounds more attractive to live in?

Redlife2013 , January 14, 2019 at 10:46 am

Having been to Iran, it is an amazing place and they are the most welcoming of people. One of the few places I have seen female taxi drivers, too. Women are very self-assured there – they will blow past men to get to what they want to do. Lots of people don't like the Islamic government (and they will note that to you), but as you mentioned, they are NOT medieval.

The government praises science and technology in roadside ads up and down the country. The ads, by the way, are almost always in Farsi and English, as English is the 2nd language of the country. And I'd like to add that they love Americans. It didn't matter what town I was in and we went to some small towns. I literally had people yelling "We love America" and asking for my autograph. And no – I am not famous. They are the most generous, gregarious people I have ever met in my life.

I have odd memories of my trip like being in a taxi going into Tehran listening to a instrument only version of Madonna's La Isla Bonita (they really like Madonna). And going to beautiful mosques which are filled with mirrors and coloured light so it's almost like a disco (mirrors and water are ancient pre-Islamic symbols). And the gardens – in odd places like underpasses that happen to have a bit of opening to light and rain. Where ever they can stick a garden they will do it.

Iran is a hodgepodge of so many thoughts, peoples, and currents. One thing they are though – is fiercely loyal to Iran. Not the government, but to their homeland, to their people. There is no way we would win. Due to geography and due to the losses they would be willing to sustain we would be destroyed. We would lose so badly that it would look like the First Anglo-Afghan War where only one Brit got back after the entire army was destroyed. We tussle with them on their own land at our peril.

Kilgore Trout , January 14, 2019 at 10:52 am

+10

Roger , January 14, 2019 at 11:42 am

Saudi Arabia is America's loyal ally! You mean the SA that financed, planned, and manned the 9/11 attacks? Because SA is a bigger shithole than Iran is no argument. What does need to be faced is that SA has a lock on American politics through its financial control of Washington DC swamp dwellers.

The Balkans is quiet now. Iraq became a mess when Paul Bremer snatched defeat from near total victory. Libya, Syria and Ukraine are the victims of malevolent US meddling (as was Vietnam). I am hoping that President Trump can reverse course and create a foreign policy that puts the interests of people first, particularly the interests of the people of the USA. Forlorn hope perhaps. I would not want to live in either of them.

Keith Howard , January 14, 2019 at 11:02 am

How about we throw the Ayatollah Pence and the rest of his contemptible ilk out of our own government first?

Tony Wright , January 14, 2019 at 2:12 pm

Well said. All religious fundamentalists are dangerous because they believe they are the "chosen ones" and therefore superior to "non-believers", whose lives are less important and therefore expendable if and when they feel so inclined.

pjay , January 14, 2019 at 11:05 am

Re "the Iranian people":

(1) Echoing other responses, I suggest we ask the "Iranian people" if they would like the U.S. to help them into modernity. Given our track record in Iran and other ME nations, I'm not sure they would welcome our assistance, particularly if it involved "a few explosions" or so.

(2) It is "the people" that are always hurt first, and the most, in such interventions, not the government.

I wasn't sure if this was a serious comment or one meant to provoke. It did provoke me to make an earlier response. I thank the moderators for blocking it (sincerely – not being sarcastic).

Adams , January 14, 2019 at 2:05 pm

Bah, who cares about a little collateral damage. The Iranian people obviously don't know what's good for them. We just need to bring back Wolfowitz to make sure they are on hand to lay down palm fronds before the US forces as they enter Baghdad after we nuke it into rubble. Speaking of sociopaths, I am sure Darth Vader would make himself available to advise from Wyoming. Where the hell is Elliot Abrams when you need him. What's Rumsfeld doing these days? How great would it be to get the old gang together again, under the maniacal leadership of Bolton. Maybe Dubya would be willing to do the "mission accomplished" as the smoke clears over the whole MENA region. What a great bunch of guys.

Eureka Springs , January 14, 2019 at 11:54 am

You're a regular humanitarian bomber. Reminds me of "Assad must go" and the fact 'we' never bombed him but all the people, all around the nation of the ilk you pretend to want to help by doing the same thing in Iran.

At best, you are speaking a bunch of hooey without thinking. Oh, and last I heard Iran has not invaded another country for something like 400 years. Look in your mirror.

Edward , January 14, 2019 at 12:28 pm

Are the Iranian people asking us to invade their country? In the U.S. there seems to be this bizarre nonchalance about war, which used to be considered a terrible scourge. After the recent disasters in Libya, Ukraine, and Iraq, "regime change" should be discredited. The U.S. has caused nothing but misery in the third world. We should focus on our own human rights and democracy problems. If we want to do something abroad I favor ending our support for Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

lyman alpha blob , January 14, 2019 at 1:42 pm

Yeah! We can bomb those priests right into the modern world with our own fundamentalist Air Force. Murica #1

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/air_forces_mind_boggling_violation_members_forced_to_swear_religious_allegiance/

flora , January 14, 2019 at 9:23 am

re: Bolton asking for war plans

Steven Cohen has an interesting editorial in RT, not about directly about Bolton but about the war parties' demand for ongoing M.E. conflict. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/448688-trump-withdrawal-syria-russia/

Tony Wright , January 14, 2019 at 2:46 pm

Gotta keep the military industrial complex well fed. George Orwell was right, sadly; constant state of military alert and occasionally shifting loose alliances between three competing major military powers. What a waste of human resources.

Off The Street , January 14, 2019 at 9:48 am

IMHO, Bolton serves two roles in the Trump Administration.

  1. As a symbol for the hawkier folks in Congress and the media
  2. As a foil to Trump in a good cop-bad cop, or bad cop-worse cop role, if you prefer

The first provides air cover and the second forestalls ground action. The air cover says see what we could do , and the ground action blusters to draw attention by the media thereby serving to defuse any escalationist tendencies pushed by neo-cons.

Bolton is a price of admission, and will not have much of a purpose as the effects of the Iran sanctions become more evident and that regime becomes more pliable. The people on the ground in Iran seem to want de-escalation and more normal lives, like so many around the world and at home.

John , January 14, 2019 at 10:02 am

Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton. Much the same can be said of Pompeo.

I have never understood the lust for war with Iran it looks entirely irrational to me. The Iranian government may not be to your taste and pursue policies you dislike in the extreme, but is this a reason to gin up a war. I could never support such a conflict and would do whatever I could to thwart it.

L , January 14, 2019 at 10:31 am

This is not news and while concerning is not fundamental.

Bolton was hired precisely because of his uberhawk obsession with Iran. That is in fact the central credential that he brought to the table and as such there should be zero surprise in this. Indeed the only real shocker is that he asked for plans rather than pulling them out of his own fevered mind as he usually does.

And as others have noted the Pentagon draws up plans like this all the time. This kind of speculative planning is a big part of what the Pentagon does and somewhere no doubt is someone who is paid to prepare for the "inevitable" war in Jamaca.

The question really is whether we will act upon these plans, or some others, and from what I read of this article that is no more likely than it was a few months ago. Scary yes but no scarier than it already was.

Mattski , January 14, 2019 at 1:03 pm

Well, what do they want us to think? Of course this is predictable–even SOP–for Bolton. But someone in the Pentagon is offering some pushback, or wants to suggest there is resistance. Or someone in the CIA. Some of these people prefer wars to quagmires, especially after an exhausting 20 years. And climbing into bed with the Saudis and Israelis to fight Iran may not appeal to everyone.

Some may even see that Iran is a much more promising place for consumer and capital growth, and implementation of bourgeois democracy, than Saudi Arabia. But Mr. Bolton might say that that's the point.

Ashburn , January 14, 2019 at 11:10 am

I think we may be closer to war with Iran than most of us care to think. Trump is under siege from multiple investigations with no room to run, the Democrats now have the House and will only intensify the pressure, Pompeo and Bolton–both Iran hawks–are now in charge of our foreign policy, and a former Boeing executive (with stock options?) is in charge of the Pentagon, Trump is also being pushed into war by Saudi Arabia and Israel–his two closest buddies–and probably the two most malign influences on US policy, and finally, our economy is beginning to look shakey, and the normal functions of government are now in shutdown. Shock doctrine holds that now is the time to act.

ChiGal in Carolina , January 14, 2019 at 11:39 am

I recall a piece by Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader posted by another commenter here that he would likely do so BEFORE the Dems took control of the House. I thought there was a lot of huffing and puffing going on, except for the likelihood of wagging the dog, a tried and true tactic of US presidents.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/are-we-about-to-face-our-gravest-constitutional-crisis/

Harry , January 14, 2019 at 12:31 pm

Was chatting to a someone who was a junior official in the GWB administration. He suggested the first thing Bolton does when he joins an administration is request these plans. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of any interesting events to bomb Iran. Besides, he hasn't actually implemented them yet!

Amusingly its standard bureaucratic form to ensure you have plans on file. Otherwise when asked to list the options, how would you make sure your plan for covert opps, or democracy subsidizing/subverting payments appeared to be the most reasonable plan on the table?

Bolton is the same paleoconservative he ever was. And in that sense he is refreshing. One gets tired of seeing Israelis and Saudis make proposals for spending American lives on countless critically important projects.

Mattski , January 14, 2019 at 12:55 pm

There's also word that the US and Bolton have been giving quiet encouragement, with the new President in Brazil, for a Venezuela intervention.

I think it's important, though, not to simply characterize these people as monsters but to finger the system behind them. There was word before the election that Ms. Clinton has become chummy with Bolton and some of the other neocons; we might be looking at much the same if she had been elected.

Also, Kissinger bombed Cambodia and set off a genocide. Bolton is awful, but nothing whatsoever will make me yearn for Mr. K. I have a friend who's still unhappy with me because I turned down an invite to dine with him long ago, but I was just too frightened of what I might say in his presence.

Mattski , January 14, 2019 at 2:07 pm

We can take it for granted that they are nuts–but nuttiness is like monstrousness, not always so useful as explanation. They're also operating out of the logic of a contradictory and decaying system. The neocons are the ideological successors of the neoliberals (who liked to follow with the velvet fist rather than lead with it, but hardly eschewed it). . . the culmination of much of the same logic. Egalite and fraternite trail far behind these days.

Chauncey Gardiner , January 14, 2019 at 1:17 pm

I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking war.

The National Security Advisor is a senior official in the executive branch. Who placed these people in charge of our nation's foreign policy and to act in our name?

There is no threat to the United States involved here. I don't recall being given the opportunity to vote on them or the policies they represent and push. It's past time these individuals be removed from positions of power and influence and for American soft power and diplomacy to be restored to preeminence. I want this country to stand for peace, freedom, equal opportunity and hope; not war, chaos, fear and death.

[Jan 14, 2019] The Push to Get Rid of Bolton by Daniel Larison

The US foreign policy generally doesn't depend on individual people. It is the Swamp which drive neolib/neocon policy which is driven mostly by the Deep State which means the coalition of MIC, Wall Street and intelligence agencies and their agents of influence within the government.
The most important question is how he managed to get into administration?
bolton is a bully and such people have no friends.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have made him even more enemies. ..."
"... If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas. He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office. Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has exited. ..."
"... the longer he remains National Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests. ..."
Jan 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Henry Olsen is very worried that other people in the administration might be out to get Bolton:

Whatever the motive, conservatives who favor more robust U.S. involvement abroad should sit up and take notice. One of their strongest allies within the administration is under attack. Whether Bolton's influence wanes or even whether he remains is crucially important for anyone who worries that the president's impulses that deviate from past American foreign policy will weaken American security.

There have been a number of unflattering reports about Bolton in the last few weeks, but for the most part those stories are just proof that Bolton has no diplomatic skills and does a terrible job of managing the administration's policy process. If Bolton had done a better job of coordinating Syria policy, the administration's Syria policy wouldn't be the confused mess that it is. If he hadn't made such a hash of things with the Turkish government, there would have been no snub by Erdogan for anyone to report. There may be quite a bit of hostile leaking against Bolton, but that is itself a testament to how many other people in the administration loathe him.

The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have made him even more enemies.

If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas. He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office. Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has exited.

Bolton's influence in the administration is an important indication of what U.S. foreign policy will look like in the months and years to come, and the longer he remains National Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests.

[Jan 14, 2019] Its official: was of terrorism was replaced by war on populism

Jan 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Like that scene in Orwell's 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by the War on Populism. Or all right, it wasn't quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan the news. Note how the "Islamic terrorist threat" we had been conditioned to live in fear of on a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the "existential threat" we were facing was "neo-nationalism," "illiberalism," or the pejorative designator du jour, "populism."

[Jan 14, 2019] Something about MIC gargantuan appetites: the cost of running Texas Railroad Commsion (RRC) for year are less that one half of the cost of (mostly useless) F35 not including fuel

Jan 14, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

GuyM x Ignored says: 01/13/2019 at 8:26 pm

In support of RRC, I looked up their agency expenses, and found they are less than $50 million. That's to pay for keeping up with almost a half million oil and gas wells, thousands of operators, and multiple other duties, including taking care of a significant amount of State income. There is a grand total of about 725 employees. Hats off!
Longtimber x Ignored says: 01/14/2019 at 8:24 pm
Could have 1/2 of a F35 not including Fuel.

[Jan 14, 2019] As Democratic Elites Reunite With Neocons, the Party's Voters Are Becoming Far More Militaristic and Pro-War Than Republicans

Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"As Democratic Elites Reunite With Neocons, the Party's Voters Are Becoming Far More Militaristic and Pro-War Than Republicans" [Glenn Greenwald, T he Intercept ].

'But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal.

The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent."

Those of you who followed my midterms worksheets will recall that the liberal Democrat establishment packed the ballot with MILOs (candidates with Military, Intelligence, and Law enforcement backgrounds, or Other things, like being a DA), preparing the way for further militarization of the Party, and ultimately for war.

[Jan 14, 2019] Nobel Peace Price winner main achievements: destroying Libya, killing half-million people in Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen, the coup in Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war can flare

Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Carolinian , , January 14, 2019 at 1:54 pm

So will the buck stop with Obama/Hillary for destroying Libya, the half million dead in Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen which started under Obama, the coup in Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war has once again started to become thinkable? By these standards Trump's wrecking ball is quite tiny.

[Jan 14, 2019] Something about MIC gargantuan appetites: the cost of running Texas Railroad Commsion (RRC) for year are less that one half of the cost of (mostly useless) F35 not including fuel

Jan 14, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

GuyM x Ignored says: 01/13/2019 at 8:26 pm

In support of RRC, I looked up their agency expenses, and found they are less than $50 million. That's to pay for keeping up with almost a half million oil and gas wells, thousands of operators, and multiple other duties, including taking care of a significant amount of State income. There is a grand total of about 725 employees. Hats off!
Longtimber x Ignored says: 01/14/2019 at 8:24 pm
Could have 1/2 of a F35 not including Fuel.

[Jan 14, 2019] The Push to Get Rid of Bolton by Daniel Larison

The US foreign policy generally doesn't depend on individual people. It is the Swamp which drive neolib/neocon policy which is driven mostly by the Deep State which means the coalition of MIC, Wall Street and intelligence agencies and their agents of influence within the government.
The most important question is how he managed to get into administration?
bolton is a bully and such people have no friends.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have made him even more enemies. ..."
"... If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas. He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office. Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has exited. ..."
"... the longer he remains National Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests. ..."
Jan 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Henry Olsen is very worried that other people in the administration might be out to get Bolton:

Whatever the motive, conservatives who favor more robust U.S. involvement abroad should sit up and take notice. One of their strongest allies within the administration is under attack. Whether Bolton's influence wanes or even whether he remains is crucially important for anyone who worries that the president's impulses that deviate from past American foreign policy will weaken American security.

There have been a number of unflattering reports about Bolton in the last few weeks, but for the most part those stories are just proof that Bolton has no diplomatic skills and does a terrible job of managing the administration's policy process. If Bolton had done a better job of coordinating Syria policy, the administration's Syria policy wouldn't be the confused mess that it is. If he hadn't made such a hash of things with the Turkish government, there would have been no snub by Erdogan for anyone to report. There may be quite a bit of hostile leaking against Bolton, but that is itself a testament to how many other people in the administration loathe him.

The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have made him even more enemies.

If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas. He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office. Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has exited.

Bolton's influence in the administration is an important indication of what U.S. foreign policy will look like in the months and years to come, and the longer he remains National Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests.

[Jan 14, 2019] 'A Reckless Advocate of Military Force' Demands for John Bolton's Dismissal After Reports He Asked Pentagon for Options to Str

Notable quotes:
"... By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane ..."
"... Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over the request detailed in Journal ..."
"... Bolton: Chickenhawk-in-Chief ..."
"... Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers. ..."
"... Why did Trump appoint Bolton? ..."
"... I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope. ..."
"... Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom? ..."
"... Steven Cohen has an interesting editorial in RT, not about directly about Bolton but about the war parties' demand for ongoing M.E. conflict. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/448688-trump-withdrawal-syria-russia/ ..."
"... see what we could do ..."
"... Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton. Much the same can be said of Pompeo. ..."
"... I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking war. ..."
Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I am surprised that Bolton has lasted this long. Bolton has two defining personal qualities that are not conducive to long-term survival with Trump: having a huge ego and being way too obvious about not caring about Trump's agenda (even with the difficulties of having it change all the time). Bolton is out for himself in far too obvious a manner.

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

Reminding the world that he is, as one critic put it, " a reckless advocate of military force ," the Wall Street Journal revealed on Sunday that President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton "asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran last year, generating concern at the Pentagon and State Department."

"It definitely rattled people," a former U.S. official said of the request, which Bolton supposedly made after militants aligned with Iran fired mortars into the diplomatic quarter of Baghdad, Iraq that contains the U.S. Embassy in early September. "People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran."

"The Pentagon complied with the National Security Council's request to develop options for striking Iran," the Journal reported, citing unnamed officials. "But it isn't clear if the proposals were provided to the White House, whether Mr. Trump knew of the request, or whether serious plans for a U.S. strike against Iran took shape at that time."

The Journal 's report, which comes just days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an "arrogant tirade" of a speech vilifying Iran, sparked immediate alarm among critics of the Trump administration's biggest warmongers -- who, over the past several months, have been accused of fomenting unrest in Iran and laying the groundwork for war.

Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane."

me title=

Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over the request detailed in Journal 's report.

me title=

"This administration takes an expansive view of war authorities and is leaning into confrontation with Iran at a time when there are numerous tripwires for conflict across the region," NIAC president Jamal Abdi warned in a statement . "It is imperative that this Congress investigate Bolton's request for war options and pass legislation placing additional legal and political constraints on the administration's ability to start a new war of choice with Iran that could haunt America and the region for generations."

In a series of moves that have elicited concern from members of Congress, political experts, other world leaders, and peace activists, since May the Trump administration has ditched the Iran nuclear deal -- formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- and reimposed economic sanctions .

NIAC, in November, urged the new Congress that convened at the beginning of the year to challenge the administration's hawkish moves and restore U.S. standing on the world stage by passing measures to block the sanctions re-imposed in August and November , and reverse Trump's decision to breach the deal -- which European and Iranian diplomats have been trying to salvage .

Iran continues to comply with the terms of JCPOA, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear chief, told state television on Sunday that "preliminary activities for designing modern 20 percent (enriched uranium) fuel have begun." While Iran has maintained that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, the nation would still have to withdraw from the deal if it resumed enrichment at the level.

As Iran signals that it is considering withdrawing from the JCPOA, the Journal report has critics worried that Bolton and Pompeo have the administration on a war path -- with Bolton, just last week, insisting without any evidence that Iranian leadership is committed to pursuing nuclear weapons. Some have compared that claim to former Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous lie in 2002, to bolster support for the U.S. invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

me title=

As the Journal noted, "Alongside the requests in regards to Iran, the National Security Council asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with options to respond with strikes in Iraq and Syria as well."


The Rev Kev , January 14, 2019 at 5:55 am

So Bolton wants war with Iran? Pretty tall talk from a man who during the war in 'Nam ducked into the Maryland Army National Guard because he had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy as he considered the war in Vietnam already lost. His words, not mine. The Iranian military will not be the push over the Iraq army was. They are much better equipped and motivated and have a healthy stock of missiles. They even have the Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missile system up and running.

Once you start a war, you never know where it will go. Suppose the Iranians consider – probably correctly – that it is Israel's influences that led to the attack and so launch a few missiles at them. What happens next? Will Hezbollah take action against them as well. If the US attacks Iran, then there is no reason whatsoever for Iran not to attack the various US contingents scattered around the Middle East in places like Syria. What if the Russians send in their Aerospace Forces to help stop an attack. Will they be attacked as well? Is the US prepared to lose a carrier?

And how will the war end? The country is mountainous like Afghanistan so cannot be occupied unless the entire complete total of all US forces are shipped over there. This is just lunacy squared and surely even Trump must realize that if the whole thing is another Bay of Pigs, it will be his name all over it in the history books and so sinking his chances for a 2020 re-election. And if the justification for the whole thing is a coupla mortars on a car park, how will he justify any American loses? At this point I am waiting for Bolton to finish each one of his speeches and tweets with the phrase-

"Parthia delenda est!"

Tomonthebeach , January 14, 2019 at 2:17 pm

Bolton: Chickenhawk-in-Chief

Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers.

Calling Bolton on Pompeo "batshit crazy" cries out for revisions in the APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

Ignim Brites , January 14, 2019 at 7:36 am

Why did Trump appoint Bolton? A saying of LBJ, I believe attributed to Sam Rayburn, might illuminate. "It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in."

Edward , January 14, 2019 at 8:26 am

I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope.

Allegorio , January 14, 2019 at 12:49 pm

Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom?

Edward , January 14, 2019 at 1:01 pm

I feel like the U.S. is an occupied country, invaded by corporate lobbyists. We have the kind of crap government you get from occupations.

Carolinian , January 14, 2019 at 8:33 am

Why did Trump appoint Bolton?

Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems? Arguably Trump's "out there" gestures to the right are because he has to keep the Repubs on his side given the constant threat of impeachment from the other side. Extremes beget extremes. There's also the Adelson factor.

Of course this theory may be incorrect and he and Bolton are ideological soul mates, but Trump's ideology doesn't appear to go much beyond a constant diet of Fox News. He seems quite capable of pragmatic gestures which are then denounced by a horrified press.

Lou Mannheim , January 14, 2019 at 10:11 am

"Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems?"

No. Despite Trump's wishes the buck stops with him.

Carolinian , January 14, 2019 at 10:27 am

... the Iran situation could have been solved years earlier by Obama and Hillary making it harder for Trump to stir up trouble.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/iran-brazil-and-turkey-make-new-nuclear-proposal/

ChiGal in Carolina , January 14, 2019 at 11:25 am

The point might be, sure the Dems as part of the duopoly created the context within which Trump now acts as president. Nonetheless there is a direct linear responsibility for his actions that rests with him.

Unless you consider him so impaired as not to be responsible for his actions ;-)

Carolinian , January 14, 2019 at 1:54 pm

So will the buck stop with Obama/Hillary for destroying Libya, the half million dead in Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen which started under Obama, the coup in Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war has once again started to become thinkable? By these standards Trump's wrecking ball is quite tiny.

neo-realist , January 14, 2019 at 11:53 am

It's not like the Obama administration and the EU didn't strike a nuclear deal with Iran to freeze nuclear capable production and allow for lifting of sanctions -- how could they have gone further? How could its deal be worse then the saber rattling of Trump/Bolton? Not saying this as a fan of the Obama administration in general.

Bill Smith , January 14, 2019 at 2:03 pm

Pied Piper Memo. It's up in Wikileaks. Clinton campaign laid out a strategy to help Trump along so he would be their opponent. They bet that he was too far out there for the general public to vote him in as president.

Yves Smith Post author , January 14, 2019 at 2:20 pm

...Everyone including Trump was shocked he won. He has made an only partly successful hostile takeover of the Republican party. The fact that he got only at best the second string, and mainly the fourth string, to work in his Administration, Trump's repudiation of international institutions and his trade war with China are all evidence that he was chosen by anyone, much the less a cabal you create out of thin air called "the oligarchy"

As Frank Herbert said in Dune, the most enduring principles in the universe are accident and error. Trump did not want to win. This was a brand-enhancing stunt for him that got out of control.

KLG , January 14, 2019 at 7:46 am

Something for our would be Croesus and his minions: If you go to war with Persia, you will destroy a mighty empire OK, not so mighty, but an empire nevertheless.

Ben Wolf , January 14, 2019 at 8:29 am

Reminiscent of John Kerry and Susan Rice publicly demanding bombing of Syria in 2015 after Obama had taken that option off the table.

Anon , January 14, 2019 at 12:26 pm

Iran is a much more formitable foe than Syria. Bullies love to taunt the weak; Iran is not weak.

Mark James , January 14, 2019 at 8:48 am

The US has previously run multiple conventual war simulations and in all cases the US lost against Iran, only when the US used its nuclear option did the US prevail. The implications of a nuclear strike and how the Russian Federation will react, to having yet another one of its allies attacked is unknown?

Bill Smith , January 14, 2019 at 2:10 pm

Really, in all cases? Seems unlikely. What did these conventional war simulations cover? What was the definition of wining and losing?

Jeremy Grimm , January 14, 2019 at 2:36 pm

Really -- who cares? Any claim of 'all' is difficult to support under the best of circumstances and unwise. Besides, suppose we could 'prevail' in a war with Iran -- why should or would we want to? Are you OK with a little war with Iran if a couple of conventional war simulations suggest we could win?

johnnygl , January 14, 2019 at 9:07 am

Couple of quick points

1) I really hope jim webb gets the def sec job. That would be a strong signal.

2) if the TDS infected bi-partisan consensus wants to impeach. They can build on this. I suspect they won't though.

3) Keep in mind Trump like some trash talk. Pompeo seems here to stay. Not sure about Bolton. But, as we saw with N. Korea, sometimes the crazy gets dialed up to 11, right before things get calmed down.

The Rev Kev , January 14, 2019 at 9:34 am

Because that worked so well in the Balkans and Iraq and Libya, etc, etc etc. The world is not what you think it is. Let us compare Iran as a country with America's loyal ally Saudi Arabia as an example. Would you believe that Iran has a Jewish population that feel safe there and have no interest in moving to Israel? In Saudi Arabia, if you renounce Islam that is a death sentence. Women have careers in Iran and drive cars. Woman have burkas in Saudi Arabia and have very few freedoms. Iran has taken in refugees from the recent wars. Saudi Arabia has taken virtually none from Syria. Iran wants to have their own country and work out their own problems as they are a multicultural country. Saudi Arabia is a medieval monarchy that has been exporting the most extremist view of Islam around the world using their oil money. Ideologically, all those jihadists the past few decades can be traced to Wahhabi teachings. Now tell me that if you had a choice, which country sounds more attractive to live in?

Redlife2013 , January 14, 2019 at 10:46 am

Having been to Iran, it is an amazing place and they are the most welcoming of people. One of the few places I have seen female taxi drivers, too. Women are very self-assured there – they will blow past men to get to what they want to do. Lots of people don't like the Islamic government (and they will note that to you), but as you mentioned, they are NOT medieval.

The government praises science and technology in roadside ads up and down the country. The ads, by the way, are almost always in Farsi and English, as English is the 2nd language of the country. And I'd like to add that they love Americans. It didn't matter what town I was in and we went to some small towns. I literally had people yelling "We love America" and asking for my autograph. And no – I am not famous. They are the most generous, gregarious people I have ever met in my life.

I have odd memories of my trip like being in a taxi going into Tehran listening to a instrument only version of Madonna's La Isla Bonita (they really like Madonna). And going to beautiful mosques which are filled with mirrors and coloured light so it's almost like a disco (mirrors and water are ancient pre-Islamic symbols). And the gardens – in odd places like underpasses that happen to have a bit of opening to light and rain. Where ever they can stick a garden they will do it.

Iran is a hodgepodge of so many thoughts, peoples, and currents. One thing they are though – is fiercely loyal to Iran. Not the government, but to their homeland, to their people. There is no way we would win. Due to geography and due to the losses they would be willing to sustain we would be destroyed. We would lose so badly that it would look like the First Anglo-Afghan War where only one Brit got back after the entire army was destroyed. We tussle with them on their own land at our peril.

Kilgore Trout , January 14, 2019 at 10:52 am

+10

Roger , January 14, 2019 at 11:42 am

Saudi Arabia is America's loyal ally! You mean the SA that financed, planned, and manned the 9/11 attacks? Because SA is a bigger shithole than Iran is no argument. What does need to be faced is that SA has a lock on American politics through its financial control of Washington DC swamp dwellers.

The Balkans is quiet now. Iraq became a mess when Paul Bremer snatched defeat from near total victory. Libya, Syria and Ukraine are the victims of malevolent US meddling (as was Vietnam). I am hoping that President Trump can reverse course and create a foreign policy that puts the interests of people first, particularly the interests of the people of the USA. Forlorn hope perhaps. I would not want to live in either of them.

Keith Howard , January 14, 2019 at 11:02 am

How about we throw the Ayatollah Pence and the rest of his contemptible ilk out of our own government first?

Tony Wright , January 14, 2019 at 2:12 pm

Well said. All religious fundamentalists are dangerous because they believe they are the "chosen ones" and therefore superior to "non-believers", whose lives are less important and therefore expendable if and when they feel so inclined.

pjay , January 14, 2019 at 11:05 am

Re "the Iranian people":

(1) Echoing other responses, I suggest we ask the "Iranian people" if they would like the U.S. to help them into modernity. Given our track record in Iran and other ME nations, I'm not sure they would welcome our assistance, particularly if it involved "a few explosions" or so.

(2) It is "the people" that are always hurt first, and the most, in such interventions, not the government.

I wasn't sure if this was a serious comment or one meant to provoke. It did provoke me to make an earlier response. I thank the moderators for blocking it (sincerely – not being sarcastic).

Adams , January 14, 2019 at 2:05 pm

Bah, who cares about a little collateral damage. The Iranian people obviously don't know what's good for them. We just need to bring back Wolfowitz to make sure they are on hand to lay down palm fronds before the US forces as they enter Baghdad after we nuke it into rubble. Speaking of sociopaths, I am sure Darth Vader would make himself available to advise from Wyoming. Where the hell is Elliot Abrams when you need him. What's Rumsfeld doing these days? How great would it be to get the old gang together again, under the maniacal leadership of Bolton. Maybe Dubya would be willing to do the "mission accomplished" as the smoke clears over the whole MENA region. What a great bunch of guys.

Eureka Springs , January 14, 2019 at 11:54 am

You're a regular humanitarian bomber. Reminds me of "Assad must go" and the fact 'we' never bombed him but all the people, all around the nation of the ilk you pretend to want to help by doing the same thing in Iran.

At best, you are speaking a bunch of hooey without thinking. Oh, and last I heard Iran has not invaded another country for something like 400 years. Look in your mirror.

Edward , January 14, 2019 at 12:28 pm

Are the Iranian people asking us to invade their country? In the U.S. there seems to be this bizarre nonchalance about war, which used to be considered a terrible scourge. After the recent disasters in Libya, Ukraine, and Iraq, "regime change" should be discredited. The U.S. has caused nothing but misery in the third world. We should focus on our own human rights and democracy problems. If we want to do something abroad I favor ending our support for Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

lyman alpha blob , January 14, 2019 at 1:42 pm

Yeah! We can bomb those priests right into the modern world with our own fundamentalist Air Force. Murica #1

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/air_forces_mind_boggling_violation_members_forced_to_swear_religious_allegiance/

flora , January 14, 2019 at 9:23 am

re: Bolton asking for war plans

Steven Cohen has an interesting editorial in RT, not about directly about Bolton but about the war parties' demand for ongoing M.E. conflict. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/448688-trump-withdrawal-syria-russia/

Tony Wright , January 14, 2019 at 2:46 pm

Gotta keep the military industrial complex well fed. George Orwell was right, sadly; constant state of military alert and occasionally shifting loose alliances between three competing major military powers. What a waste of human resources.

Off The Street , January 14, 2019 at 9:48 am

IMHO, Bolton serves two roles in the Trump Administration.

  1. As a symbol for the hawkier folks in Congress and the media
  2. As a foil to Trump in a good cop-bad cop, or bad cop-worse cop role, if you prefer

The first provides air cover and the second forestalls ground action. The air cover says see what we could do , and the ground action blusters to draw attention by the media thereby serving to defuse any escalationist tendencies pushed by neo-cons.

Bolton is a price of admission, and will not have much of a purpose as the effects of the Iran sanctions become more evident and that regime becomes more pliable. The people on the ground in Iran seem to want de-escalation and more normal lives, like so many around the world and at home.

John , January 14, 2019 at 10:02 am

Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton. Much the same can be said of Pompeo.

I have never understood the lust for war with Iran it looks entirely irrational to me. The Iranian government may not be to your taste and pursue policies you dislike in the extreme, but is this a reason to gin up a war. I could never support such a conflict and would do whatever I could to thwart it.

L , January 14, 2019 at 10:31 am

This is not news and while concerning is not fundamental.

Bolton was hired precisely because of his uberhawk obsession with Iran. That is in fact the central credential that he brought to the table and as such there should be zero surprise in this. Indeed the only real shocker is that he asked for plans rather than pulling them out of his own fevered mind as he usually does.

And as others have noted the Pentagon draws up plans like this all the time. This kind of speculative planning is a big part of what the Pentagon does and somewhere no doubt is someone who is paid to prepare for the "inevitable" war in Jamaca.

The question really is whether we will act upon these plans, or some others, and from what I read of this article that is no more likely than it was a few months ago. Scary yes but no scarier than it already was.

Mattski , January 14, 2019 at 1:03 pm

Well, what do they want us to think? Of course this is predictable–even SOP–for Bolton. But someone in the Pentagon is offering some pushback, or wants to suggest there is resistance. Or someone in the CIA. Some of these people prefer wars to quagmires, especially after an exhausting 20 years. And climbing into bed with the Saudis and Israelis to fight Iran may not appeal to everyone.

Some may even see that Iran is a much more promising place for consumer and capital growth, and implementation of bourgeois democracy, than Saudi Arabia. But Mr. Bolton might say that that's the point.

Ashburn , January 14, 2019 at 11:10 am

I think we may be closer to war with Iran than most of us care to think. Trump is under siege from multiple investigations with no room to run, the Democrats now have the House and will only intensify the pressure, Pompeo and Bolton–both Iran hawks–are now in charge of our foreign policy, and a former Boeing executive (with stock options?) is in charge of the Pentagon, Trump is also being pushed into war by Saudi Arabia and Israel–his two closest buddies–and probably the two most malign influences on US policy, and finally, our economy is beginning to look shakey, and the normal functions of government are now in shutdown. Shock doctrine holds that now is the time to act.

ChiGal in Carolina , January 14, 2019 at 11:39 am

I recall a piece by Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader posted by another commenter here that he would likely do so BEFORE the Dems took control of the House. I thought there was a lot of huffing and puffing going on, except for the likelihood of wagging the dog, a tried and true tactic of US presidents.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/are-we-about-to-face-our-gravest-constitutional-crisis/

Harry , January 14, 2019 at 12:31 pm

Was chatting to a someone who was a junior official in the GWB administration. He suggested the first thing Bolton does when he joins an administration is request these plans. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of any interesting events to bomb Iran. Besides, he hasn't actually implemented them yet!

Amusingly its standard bureaucratic form to ensure you have plans on file. Otherwise when asked to list the options, how would you make sure your plan for covert opps, or democracy subsidizing/subverting payments appeared to be the most reasonable plan on the table?

Bolton is the same paleoconservative he ever was. And in that sense he is refreshing. One gets tired of seeing Israelis and Saudis make proposals for spending American lives on countless critically important projects.

Mattski , January 14, 2019 at 12:55 pm

There's also word that the US and Bolton have been giving quiet encouragement, with the new President in Brazil, for a Venezuela intervention.

I think it's important, though, not to simply characterize these people as monsters but to finger the system behind them. There was word before the election that Ms. Clinton has become chummy with Bolton and some of the other neocons; we might be looking at much the same if she had been elected.

Also, Kissinger bombed Cambodia and set off a genocide. Bolton is awful, but nothing whatsoever will make me yearn for Mr. K. I have a friend who's still unhappy with me because I turned down an invite to dine with him long ago, but I was just too frightened of what I might say in his presence.

Mattski , January 14, 2019 at 2:07 pm

We can take it for granted that they are nuts–but nuttiness is like monstrousness, not always so useful as explanation. They're also operating out of the logic of a contradictory and decaying system. The neocons are the ideological successors of the neoliberals (who liked to follow with the velvet fist rather than lead with it, but hardly eschewed it). . . the culmination of much of the same logic. Egalite and fraternite trail far behind these days.

Chauncey Gardiner , January 14, 2019 at 1:17 pm

I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking war.

The National Security Advisor is a senior official in the executive branch. Who placed these people in charge of our nation's foreign policy and to act in our name?

There is no threat to the United States involved here. I don't recall being given the opportunity to vote on them or the policies they represent and push. It's past time these individuals be removed from positions of power and influence and for American soft power and diplomacy to be restored to preeminence. I want this country to stand for peace, freedom, equal opportunity and hope; not war, chaos, fear and death.

[Jan 14, 2019] Its official: was of terrorism was replaced by war on populism

Jan 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Like that scene in Orwell's 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by the War on Populism. Or all right, it wasn't quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan the news. Note how the "Islamic terrorist threat" we had been conditioned to live in fear of on a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the "existential threat" we were facing was "neo-nationalism," "illiberalism," or the pejorative designator du jour, "populism."

[Jan 14, 2019] Ship of Fools How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution by Tucker Carlson

Jan 14, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Amazon Customer 5.0 out of 5 stars October 2, 2018

Don't drink and read

Don't drink wine and read this book, you'll get angry and make posts on social media that are completely accurate and your friends will hate you.

[Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

Highly recommended!
All links are going to Brennan and CIA. Rosenstein was just a tool, necessary to appoint the Special Prosecutor. And launching the prove was the meaning of "insurance" that Strock mentioned to his mistress. Both Strzok and McCabe have their liasons (read bosses) at CIA, so in essence they were "CIA infiltration group" within the FBI. And it is also important to understand that Obama was just a CIA snowperson.
There is Stalin's NKVD chief Beria shadow over CIA and FBI now. He famously said "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."
Notable quotes:
"... The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation. ..."
"... Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe ..."
"... As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

As FBI Ramped Up "Witch Hunt" When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

A Friday report in the New York Times revealing that the FBI supercharged its Trump-Russia collusion investigation after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey appears to have backfired - especially when one reviews internal FBI communications from the time period in question.

The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation.

Nine days after Comey was fired and the DOJ "sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia," Strzok texted Page on May 18, 2017: "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there. "

It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation. The article suggests that the FBI had long considered the move and that Comey's firing and Trump's subsequent comments marked a tipping point.

...

A source close to Strzok told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Jan. 26, 2018, shortly after the text was released, that the message reflected Strzok's concern that the FBI would not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia . - Daily Caller

The Times' explanation for the FBI's rationale that Trump may have been a Russian asset consists of Trump's call for Moscow to release Hillary Clinton's emails an election debate, and allegations contained within the unverified Steele Dossier. The Times was also quick to note that Trump may have "unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence," to temper the accusation that he was an agent of a foreign power. In short, weak sauce.

It's no wonder Strzok was hesitant to join Mueller's team.

Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe.

As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump.

" And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok texted Page the day Comey was fired, referring to then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.

Meanwhile, Page - who served as McCabe's deputy, provided some additional color on the text messages during her July 2018 congressional testimony, suggesting that the "case we've been waiting on" text referred to an investigation separate of the obstruction probe we already knew about.

"Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?" one lawmaker asked Page in her interview, details of which were published by The Epoch Times on Friday.

" I can't answer that, sir. I'm sorry ," she replied.

"If I was able to explain in more depth why the Director firing precipitated this text, I would," she continued while declining to say if the text message referred to an obstruction of justice investigation or something more. - Daily Caller

That said, Page admitted that Comey's firing prompted the text exchange.

"So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event as opposed to the occupant of the Director's office?" asked one lawmaker.

"Yes, that's correct," replied Page.

Meanwhile, The Times went to great lengths to imply that the FBI was justified in their ratcheted-up collusion investigation - failing to mention who started the probe, who led it, and more importantly - waiting until the 9th paragraph to mention the fact that it turned up nothing .

"No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel's office both declined to comment."

VideoEng_NC

"It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation."

Should be pretty simple with one question. "Was it Hillary who was the responsible party to open an investigation on Trump?". About as direct as it gets & we already know the answer.

adampeart

TDS sufferers hate Trump so bad that they have become (at 70%) pro-warmonger. Pathetic. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised. They were fine with Black Jesus starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing brown people for 8 years.

Teeter

McCabe initiated the investigation. Nobody likes McCabe, so he is likely to be the one guy that gets thrown under the bus. Of course what he knows may protect him to some extent... they won't want a trial.

Duc888

Sedition? Treason?

Yippie21

7 Days in May.... except for current version we use the DOJ and FBI! Interesting times.

[Jan 13, 2019] Parkinson disease and Russians

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:46 am GMT

Hillary lost the election when she could not walk. she lost a shoe, she was shown in the van, and shoe was thrown after her. And that was arranged by Russians.

[Jan 13, 2019] Deep State neutered Trump: I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President

He essentially became a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy is a Deep State controlled republican. In any case he betrayed his voters in a way that resembles Obama betrayal. One has a fake slogan "change we can believe in" that other equally fake "Make [middle] America Great Again" (which means restoration of well-being of middle class and working class in my book, not the continuation of Obama foreign wars, and tax cuts for for corporations and super rich.
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans and former Sanders supporters. He might do good and not to try to run in 2020. He definitely is no economic nationalist. Compare his policies with Tucker Carlson Jan 2, 2019 speech to see the difference. He is "national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on treaties and prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties.
And his "fight" with the Deep State resemble so closely to complete and unconditional surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two.
Most of his appointees would make Hillary proud. That that extends beyond rabid neocons like Haley, Mattis, Bolton and Pompeo.
Notable quotes:
"... The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them. ..."
"... Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. ..."
"... It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG, fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors. ..."
"... They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them. ..."
"... The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement. ..."
"... It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in Helsinki last summer.

"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."

"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.

The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."

"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I do it with all countries." - Politico

In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans.

"The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said.

When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?"

"I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."

Trump went on an epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!"

rumcho

Jeff Bezos paid $250 million for Washington Post, five years later he gets a government contract with the CIA for $600 million. Are you connecting the dots? You do the numbers. This is how fascism works. Bezos is a crony capitalist joker.

Anunnaki

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/the-trump-russia-scam-how-obama-enabled-the-fbi-to-spy-on-trump.html#more

is Trump waiting for Mueller to lay down his cards? Head him off at the pass and arrest Obama, Rice, Jarrett, Lynch, Comey, Rosenstein and McCabe all on day 1

best defense is a good offense. Make the narrative about Dem sedition not impending House impeachment hearings.

You are President, start acting like it. Make them fear you.

your re-election depends on Mike Obama not being your opponent.

Let it Go

WaPo, again?

The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them.

Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. The article below delves into how WaPo is behind many of the big stories that manipulate America and moves the needle of public opinion in huge ways.

http://Washington-post-influence-and-power.html

MoralsAreEssential

It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG, fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors.

shadow54

They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them.

The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement.

It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way.

Then there is the news that Fusion GPS worked with the Democracy Integrity Project and Knew Knowledge to run a fake Russian bots campaign against Roy Moore. The Democracy Integrity Project was started by Feinstein's aide and with New Knowledge wrote a report on Russian bots for the Senate Intelligence Committee. So the Senate Intelligence Committee hired creators of fake Russian bots to write a report on Russian bots.

[Jan 13, 2019] Whether kabuki theater or real gamesmanship but the threshold of decency has been crossed by Trump and uncrossing it is going to be very tricky

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

EliteCommInc. , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:04 am GMT

In my view, at the moment the deed is done. The president signed onto the report acknowledged the he accepts the report has even gone as far to say, he blames Pres. Putin

Another backtrack, just muddies the waters, and mat be acceptable because no one wants to accept the real consequences of a president who has repudiated the one state president he most desired to make a deal with -- the jig is up.

Whether kabuki theater or real gamesmanship --

A threshold has been crossed and uncrossing it is going to be tricky and in my further humiliation for the wh. The analysis here mattered before the president agreed with the report. But when he did, this analysis, becomes moot. Having a chit chat about de-escalating nuclear tensions is quaint in light of the president acknowledging that russia has in fact undermined the US democratic process. This is a serious charge and no amount of changing the subject, crying foul, or pretending it was all a big misunderstanding is going to change that.

I think it would have been prudent for the president to hold fire in Helsinki and read the report and then responded . He did make any of those choices. It matters not how exposed the establishment in wanton eagerness to have their way, wh has embraced the matter. it is on record and . . . oh well. I see merit in maintaining his original position of disbelief -- however, the president did a complete about face -- and there is no question of that or the implications.

[Jan 13, 2019] What is wrong with Trump

Trump was elected using Adelson money. That;s probably is what is wrong with Trump.
Is Trump a Republican Obama? As in "Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made America worse by any standard."
Notable quotes:
"... The struggle between the neocons and Trump over control of foreign policy has become ridiculous. One must remember that he can dismiss them all with the stroke of a pen, just he can dismiss his non civil service tormentors in the justice department and the FBI. ..."
"... Bolton has tried to countermand Trump's decision in Syria. His attempt and that of Jeffrey were rebuked in Ankara and DoD then announced an immediate commencement of the withdrawal. ..."
"... And yet the unholy trio of Pompeo (first in the hearts of his USMA class), Jeffrey, a career neocon hack at State, and Bolton (the mustachioed menace) are still in their jobs? Say what? ..."
"... And then there is the Great Southern Border Crisis. The Democrats have repeatedly voted for a great deal of money for barrier systems on the border. Chancy (Chuck and Nancy) were in the lead in such votes over the years. Now Nancy (who may not remember her votes) is denying Trump "a single dollar" for border barriers. ..."
"... To say that barriers are ineffective is dishonest. By now Trump knows that he can declare a national emergency and fund the barriers after however much litigation the Dems can arrange. There is ample money available for the purpose. So, why does he not do it? ..."
"... I voted for Trump. He lost me when he filled his cabinet with swamp creatures and then further when he replaced the generals with neo-cons like Bolton. You cant change the government if you don't understand how the government works - its not a real estate business that you can declare bankruptcy to make a buck. ..."
"... Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made America worse by any standard. ..."
"... If he cared about illegal immigration, how about enforcing laws against employing illegal immigrants ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

According to Hido, Washington's Special Representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, delivered several messages to the leadership of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) demanding them to slow down the negotiations with Damascus and promising to discuss the idea of establishing a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria.

The Kurdish political described Jeffery's messages as "disturbing" and called on the Kurdish leadership to deal with them in careful manner.

Furthermore, Hido stressed that the SDF should take a decision on the talks with the Damascus government as soon as possible and regretted that some Kurdish officials are still pinning their hopes on a possible change in the U.S. decision to withdraw from Syria .

"Talks with the Syrian government are still ongoing in a positive atmosphere," RT quoted Hido as saying.

Jeffrey made a visit to Turkey recently, where he tried to strike a deal with Ankara over northeastern Syria. However, Turkey's plans to attack US-backed Kurdish forces and invade the region hindered his efforts.

It appears to be that the SDF's only real option is the deal with Damascus as any U.S. solution would likely involve Turkey, which has demonstrated its agressive attitude towards Syrian Kurdish groups during its operation in Afrin in 2018." SF

------------

The struggle between the neocons and Trump over control of foreign policy has become ridiculous. One must remember that he can dismiss them all with the stroke of a pen, just he can dismiss his non civil service tormentors in the justice department and the FBI.

Bolton has tried to countermand Trump's decision in Syria. His attempt and that of Jeffrey were rebuked in Ankara and DoD then announced an immediate commencement of the withdrawal.

What could that have been other than a renewed presidential order to the Defense Department? And yet the unholy trio of Pompeo (first in the hearts of his USMA class), Jeffrey, a career neocon hack at State, and Bolton (the mustachioed menace) are still in their jobs? Say what?

And then there is the Great Southern Border Crisis. The Democrats have repeatedly voted for a great deal of money for barrier systems on the border. Chancy (Chuck and Nancy) were in the lead in such votes over the years. Now Nancy (who may not remember her votes) is denying Trump "a single dollar" for border barriers.

BTW, any soldier will tell you that the purpose of barriers IS NOT to stop all movement. No, it is to slow up movement and canalize it so that Quick Reaction Forces (QRF) can get there first with the most. To say that barriers are ineffective is dishonest. By now Trump knows that he can declare a national emergency and fund the barriers after however much litigation the Dems can arrange. There is ample money available for the purpose. So, why does he not do it?

On Smerconish's show today, Bob Baer, spy extraordinaire, (read his books) asserted that the various bits and pieces of circumstantial "evidence" about Trump's contacts with and attitude toward Russia, as well as those of his flunkies and relatives amount to a "good enough" case for Trump being a Russian agent of influence. That is how a HUMINT spook judges such things. It is a matter of probabilities, not hard evidence. Assets of an alien government are not always witting (understanding) of their status from the POV of the foreign government, but that does not necessarily make other than agents. Sometimes they think they are merely cooperating in a good and normal way when, in fact, the relationship is much deeper. Jane Fonda in North Vietnam would be an example.

OTOH the president is responsible for the conduct of US foreign policy and is not under an obligation to accept the perhaps hackneyed views of his subordinates. Perhaps his world view is quite different and he is not mesmerized by the group think of the Borg. If that is so ...

But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or some thing in Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump, something that he fears to unleash through decisive action? pl

https://southfront.org/kurdish-politician-washington-trying-to-sabotage-talks-between-sdf-and-damascus/

Eric Newhill , a day ago

Sir, I think he's just being cautious and exhausting all other options because half of the country has been made to believe he's a dictator. He's being sensitive to that. He will act. Give it time.
ISL -> Eric Newhill , 17 hours ago
Sensitive? Cautious? Caring about Americans not in his base (whatever his base means)? Doesnt sounds like president Donald Trump the last two years. He acts more like he is confused about what the president's powers are while the wormtongues he appointed and replaces with more of the same continue to whisper in his ear.
Eric Newhill -> ISL , 10 hours ago
Contrary to all the TDS out there, maybe he prefers to do things the right way and have Congress make laws and budgets that work for all of us whether or not we all understand how.
ISL -> Eric Newhill , 3 hours ago
If that was the case, why so many signing statements (particularly since republicans control congress ). He is on target to pass Obama. who also preferred not to do things by laws. http://www.coherentbabble.c... Its just that the trend towards an imperial, unitary presidency keeps getting worse with full acquiescence of congress who suckles on the corporate money teat, under both Dems and Repubs.

I voted for Trump. He lost me when he filled his cabinet with swamp creatures and then further when he replaced the generals with neo-cons like Bolton. You cant change the government if you don't understand how the government works - its not a real estate business that you can declare bankruptcy to make a buck.

Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made America worse by any standard.

-----
Here's a nice plot - US apprehensions comparable to 1970 when the US had a much smaller population.

ISL -> ISL , 3 hours ago
Now if Trump shut the govt down until congress did something about big pharma and the opioid crisis because Congress is in their pocket he would have my support. But then the republicans and dems would jointly impeach him to keep the money spigot flowing.

Decreasing life expectancy is what happens in the sh-tholes to use his term. If he cared about illegal immigration, how about enforcing laws against employing illegal immigrants. Don't republicans who theoretically support capitalism (as opposed to crony capitalism) understood supply and demand? (If there is a demand, then supply will meet it)

Oh, because illegal immigrants are good for the bottom line of people, like, well, Trump:

https://www.washingtonpost....

[Jan 13, 2019] Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists by Doug Bandow

Notable quotes:
"... Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists Newly-inaugurated Senator has been promoted to standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of ..."
Jan 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists Newly-inaugurated Senator has been promoted to standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain.

No surprise: Senator Mitt Romney does not like President Donald Trump, as he recently explained in The Washington Post . But what, one wonders, was the former GOP presidential candidate thinking two years ago when he supped with the man he now claims to deplore while seeking an appointment as secretary of state?

Much of Romney's complaint is over manners. Yes, the president is a boor. Most people, including many of Trump's supporters, recognize that. Trump won not because of his etiquette but because of what he stood for -- and against.

Romney also defended The Blob, Washington's bipartisan foreign policy establishment. In his article attacking the president, he offered the usual vacuous bromides that characterize the interventionist consensus, which poses as internationalism but with plenty of bombing raids, illegal occupations, and nation-building. Most importantly, this perspective presumes permanent American domination, irrespective of cost.

Romney wrote: "America has long been looked to for leadership. Our economic and military strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more esteemed." Indeed, "The world needs American leadership, and it is in America's interest to provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world -- and an America -- with less prosperity, less freedom, less peace."

In fact, Romney appears more committed to dependence on allies than American leadership. For him, these are two sides of the same coin. The only alternative he sees to Washington in control is the bad guys leading.

Related is Romney's apparent belief that foreign policy is fixed, irrespective of circumstance: the very same U.S.-dominated alliances created in 1950 are needed today. Although America's friends have raced ahead economically, politically, even militarily, Washington must forever treat them as helpless derelicts. For instance, Russia, a weakened declining power, faces the U.S. and Europe -- which together have more than 20 times its GDP. Yet Romney sees Moscow as the greatest threat facing America. It is 1945 all over again.

Romney's most important omission is Iraq. After the war there turned bad, he remained silent about his support for it. The Iraq disaster is an important reason why Trump won and other Republicans, including Romney, lost. In 2008, Americans rejected John McCain, the very symbol of promiscuous war-making. Four years later, Romney criticized President Barack Obama for leaving Iraq too soon, by which the Republican nominee probably meant leaving at any time. In saying he would keep more troops in Iraq, he ignored the fact that the Iraqis had refused to negotiate a status of forces agreement with the Bush administration.

Romney also failed to mention Afghanistan, both as a presidential candidate in 2012 and senator in 2019. After all, what good can be said for entering the 18th year of nation-building in a region of little strategic interest? As for Syria, last November, Romney predictably denounced as "recklessness in the extreme" exiting a multi-sided civil war in a country never important to America.

Whose Side is Mitt Romney On? Robert Kagan's Jungle Book of Forever War

Now Romney is being touted as the new standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain. Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands theorized that Romney was attempting to "position himself as heir to John McCain as the congressional conscience of U.S. diplomacy" (defined as advocating policies designed to prolifically kill and destroy).

Towards this effort, Romney is articulating "a renewed Republican internationalism based on opposition to aggressive authoritarian regimes." Brands celebrates Romney's Russophobia, saying he "deserves credit for being anti-Russia before being anti-Russia was cool." No hint that the U.S. might have contributed to Moscow's hostility through the aggressive "internationalism" of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama -- violating commitments not to expand NATO, dismantling Moscow's Slavic friend Serbia, and encouraging violent regime change against an elected government that neighbored Russia. After all, equivalent Russian intervention in Mexico would have triggered an extremely hostile reaction in Washington.

Neoconservative Max Boot lauded Romney for throwing "down the gauntlet to President Trump." Indeed, argued Boot, "it now falls upon Romney to champion the cause of principled conservatism in Washington." Boot hoped the freshman senator would lead a general opposition and seemed especially pleased at Romney's support for the interventionist status quo.

Yet the passion-less Romney is a poor substitute for the perennially angry McCain. It is difficult to imagine Romney leading Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman on another apocalyptic ride, demanding that death and destruction be visited upon an enemy du jour. Indeed, Romney admitted as much, complained The New York Times , which noted that he said he "would only speak out against Mr. Trump on issues of 'great significance,' which means not much."

Worse, Romney is a typical denizen of Washington and lacks any connection to the disastrous consequences of his policies. Give McCain credit: he and his sons served in the military. Not Romney. He received four deferments during the Vietnam War, explaining that he "had other plans." This sounds eerily like Dick Cheney, who said his five deferments reflected "other priorities."

Moreover, none of Romney's five sons served. That is, of course, their prerogative. But their decision further insulated Romney from any consequences of his policies. His response to questions about their lack of service: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president." Did Romney believe working for him was as dangerous as fighting Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah? Or that his personal interest in winning the election was as important as the nation winning a war?

My friend William Smith at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at Catholic University argued that Romney's article "is another clear sign that the bipartisan political establishment is largely oblivious to the terrible tragedy of wartime casualties disproportionately inflicted on certain communities." Candidate Trump did particularly well in states that so suffered. Complained Smith: "What is astonishing is that, after all this tragedy, Romney offers only cliched neoconservative bromides to the many heartbroken communities across the nation."

However, The Blob, which dominates foreign policy under both parties, poses an even larger problem. These policymakers consider permanent war to be America's natural condition. They seek to suppress dissident views to ensure united support for permanent war. Anyone who hesitates to back every proposed new intervention is demonized and marginalized.

The favorite technique, recently employed by Frederick Kagan in The Hill, is to call opponents, irrespective of their actual positions, "isolationists." Thus did Kagan urge left and right "internationalists" -- meaning military interventionists -- to work together to defend "the principle that the United States must remain actively engaged in the world," by which he meant warring without end on multiple countries.

Exclaimed Kagan: "The isolationists who have condemned the United States involvement in the Middle East and the rest of the world for decades are about to get their wish. We will witness what the world looks like when left to its own devices."

Egads. Imagine what might have happened had the U.S. not intervened in the Lebanese Civil War, armed Turkey to kill tens of thousands of Kurds and destroy thousands of Kurdish villages, invaded Iraq and triggered sectarian conflict, fostered civil war in Libya and the chaos that followed, supported decades of violent occupation over millions of Palestinians by Israel, backed murderous Saudi Arabia in Bahrain and Yemen, supported a coup against Iran's democratically elected government and a brutal invasion backed by chemical weapons against Iran's Islamist regime, actively underwritten tyranny across the Middle East, and tried to sort out the Syrian Civil War. Something bad might have happened.

Yeah.

In Syria, Kagan views as "isolationist" the withdrawal of an illegal military deployment that risks violent confrontation with Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Russia over minor stakes. In contrast, "internationalism" means war everywhere all the time, especially in a country like Syria.

Trump, complained Kagan, is leaving "Afghanistan for no clear reason whatsoever." No reason other than Washington long ago having achieved its objective of degrading and displacing al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for hosting al-Qaeda. And eventually having recognized, after more than 17 years passed, trillions of dollars were spent, and thousands of lives were lost, that using force to create a liberal democracy in Central Asia is a fool's errand. Why leave, indeed?

It has oft been recognized that Donald Trump is a flawed vehicle to achieve almost any foreign policy end. However, he still possesses far more common sense than Mitt Romney. It is time to rescue "internationalism" from those who love humanity so much that they would destroy the world in order to save it.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire . MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Attack of the Pork Hawks Does It Really Matter If North Korea Denuclearizes? Hide 20 comments 20 Responses to Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists

EliteCommInc. January 9, 2019 at 11:01 pm

"No reason other than Washington long ago having achieved its objective of degrading and displacing al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for hosting al-Qaeda."

One should avoid the back pedal here. the Taliban did not host Al Quaeda in the manner your reference suggests.

John_M , , January 9, 2019 at 11:06 pm
I truly voted against Romney when he ran for president because of his omnidirectional belligerence. I also didn't like his vulture capitalism style (and I did technical due diligence for venture capital activities as a side line).

I don't see that he has gotten any wiser.

Own Goal , , January 10, 2019 at 2:22 am
Romney just guaranteed that he won't get the nomination. Amazing, really, stupid and gratuitous.

He could at the least have shown a little "growth" in the direction of populist disgust with the wasteful, reckless, failed wars, not to mention concerns about the growth of government and corporate mass surveillance of the public, and the continuing unholy collaboration between Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington in ripping off taxpayers and importing cheap labor to take American jobs.

Not Mitt. He seems to think he's running for president of our utterly discredited, pseudo-meritocratic "Establishment".

steve mckinney , , January 10, 2019 at 2:48 am
Let's all thank the knuckle-headed Utahns for delivering another unimaginative empty suit to the Nation's State House. Sure, Trump is often a boor, and unmistakably human, but give me a man-child with conviction and Devil-may-care determination over a dapper dolt whose ideas are contrived platitudes and whose passion is a Macbeth-like obsession with stature and power any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Well written Mr. Bandow! Keep fighting the good fight.
polistra , , January 10, 2019 at 4:10 am
I get the sense that the "isolationist" line doesn't work any more. It was a commonly used rhetorical weapon 10 years ago, and it effectively silenced opposition. Now it's not used much, and it seems to be ignored or derided when it is used. Most Americans understand now that maintaining and expanding an empire is destroying us.
Aunt Lila , , January 10, 2019 at 7:44 am
You really don't get Romney, do you. Who are you to decided what anyone sees or feels. Do you think you could use the word seems like a professional journalist. I don't construe
Romney that way. You SEEM to put words in his mouth and thought in his head. Please be professional.
Dan Green , , January 10, 2019 at 8:12 am
My take is Mitt see's himself as a Gerald Ford calming effect, for this 4 year disruption, the Swamp battles with. The Deep state needs an impeachment win and soon. With that said it will be ever difficult for the Beltway to change Americans perception , they don't trust the government.
Kolya Krassotkin , , January 10, 2019 at 10:23 am
For someone so smart Romney should realize that Americans will reject him (again), when he takes up the mantle of McCain (again) as quickly as they did the last time. But that he fails to realize that substance trumps form, which is why 67 million Americans voted for the President, demonstrates what a shallow narcisst and sociopath he is. I mean, it's okay to rob your neighbor so long as you say "please" and "thank you," isn't it?
Stephen J. , , January 10, 2019 at 11:31 am
The writer states: "Now Romney is being touted as the new standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain."

I believe The "War Party" are:
"The Maniacs of Militarism"

The maniacs of militarism are creating wars
Countries are bombed by warmongering whores
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries too
Are hell holes of the earth, "The work," of this insane crew

Enabled by politicians in positions of power
These well dressed war criminals hide and cower
The generals salute their political masters
Then the brainwashed obey these bemedaled disasters

Cities are destroyed and reduced to rubble
Where are the perpetrators that created all this trouble?
They are residing in luxury and given fancy titles
War crimes trials are needed, and are so vital

But this is not happening: the system is corrupted
And these evil beings, by some are worshiped
Blood-soaked villains that never do the fighting
They are the "experts" that do the inciting

They are the producers of death and destruction
Others are profiteers of all the bloody actions
Missiles, bombs and horrendous weapons
There is no end to the endless aggression

Millions are dead, and millions are homeless
Millions are refugees, and all this is atrocious
Once they had jobs, families, and homes as well
Then their countries were bombed by the agents from hell

Setting the world on fire is what these war arsonists do
The money for their depredations comes from me and you
They have made us all accessories to their criminal acts
Our Taxes are the blood money and that is a fact

Will the people ever say: "We have had enough"?
And put all these villains in secure handcuffs
Then lock them up in maximum security prisons
Then, we can say "goodbye" to the maniacs of militarism
[more info at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-maniacs-of-militarism.html
-- --
And:
"More War "

More war is needed to keep armies trained and employed
More wars are needed so that countries can be destroyed
More killing, bombing, destruction and death
More of this is needed until the victims have nothing left
[read more at link below]

https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/08/more-war.html

prodigalson , , January 10, 2019 at 1:21 pm
Romney is such an empty suit i'm not sure if he isn't weakening his position just by virtue that, he Romney, supports it.

Does this guy inspire anyone to any emotion other than revulsion? Along with Hillary, they both strike me both as elites who want to become president, not from any actual passions or desires, but because they've run out of other things to add to their C.V.

The only thing I can say with certainty that Mitt Romney believes in, is Mitt Romney. So I'm intensely skeptical that ANYONE in America, aside from the most firebrand resistance types, are going to take anything coming out of this corporate drone's mouth with any seriousness. And even for the resistance types the support would equally follow a labrador retriever, just so long as it opposed Trump, so Mitt doesn't even have that thin thread of loyatly going for him.

I guess that leaves him with the neocons as BFFs. They're welcome to each other.

One Guy , , January 10, 2019 at 1:32 pm
Why are we ragging on Romney? Is it because he had the audacity to criticize Trump? Shouldn't we wait until he actually does something bad before ragging on him? Has he lied 6,000 times in the last few years, for example? Did he refuse to rake the forests?
Mike Clements , , January 10, 2019 at 2:54 pm
Such trashing of Romney becomes a real challenge for me.

I can't decide if it's the fevered imaginings or the straw man arguments that disappoint me the most.

Tim , , January 10, 2019 at 3:34 pm
I think Romney is simply miffed that the boorish Trump became president and he did not and sadly, he may be running for president again. I think someone used the word revulsion about Romney. I approve. It's ironic the boorish Trump isn't nearly as revolting as the urbane Mitt.
Jeeves , , January 10, 2019 at 4:09 pm
@Mike Clements
For me it's the straw man arguments that are most egregious. As an Arizonan, I knew John McCain, and Romney is no McCain (whose like we will never see again, if we're lucky).

Just to single out one objection to Mr. Bandow's argument: Romney didn't refer to the SOFA, which supposedly required Obama to abandon Iraq, for the very good reason that Leon Panetta, who should know, has said that Obama, with plenty of time to do it, made no effort whatsoever to re-negotiate the SOFA 2011 deadline. Panetta regrets this and so do I.

fabian , , January 10, 2019 at 4:34 pm
Romney is the epitome of the decay of the USA. Further, he shows the complete inability of the Republican party to choose the correct casting. After Bush and Iraq they propose McPain. After the Great Financial Crisis they propose Mittens. It's akin to cast Dany de Vito to play Casanova. When Trump is gone, this party is finished.
Kolya Krassotkin , , January 10, 2019 at 5:06 pm
I approve. It's ironic the boorish Trump isn't nearly as revolting as the urbane Mitt.

That Americans are revolted more by Romney than by Trump, in fact, speaks well for them. All morally mature folk should be repelled more by a polite, urbane, well-scrubbed pirate, who made his fortune destroying people's lives and wealth than by a loud-talking, crude womanizer, who creates wealth and, in fact, shows his concern for the people below him more than the polite, charming, well-bred pirate.

Bacon , , January 10, 2019 at 10:11 pm
As I understand it, Romney's saying we need more Middle East wars, more Wall Street bailouts, and more immigrants.

I think we already knew that Romney wants those things. It's why we don't want Romney.

Also, it's its unnecessary to counter Kagan's arguments. He's not taken seriously any more. Too many bad and wrong judgments about important things.

rta , , January 11, 2019 at 10:09 am
@Jeeves, Obama would have stayed in Iraq if the Iraqi's had allowed us to continue to kill with impunity. Thankfully, they said no. And why on earth would you regret us not negotiating a new SOFA?
kswc , , January 11, 2019 at 11:24 am
Mitt Romney is the Republican's answer to the Democrat's John Kerry.
WorkingClass , , January 11, 2019 at 5:06 pm
If Utah has a problem with Trump they could have elected a Democrat.

Romney is obsolete. Never Trump Republicans are sinking in a tar pit. Romney cannot be nominated much less elected even if Trump does not run. He can help with the impeachment of Trump if it comes to that. But again, a Democrat would be more useful.

[Jan 13, 2019] Obama revenge

Notable quotes:
"... Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy. ..."
"... Smiling & smooth-talking black face issuing zillions of promises, and this was right after the Codpiece Commander. It took me a whole year to realize I'd been suckered, and by 2012 understood the fix was STILL on. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Jan 13, 2019 5:19:18 PM | link

If this is really true, then it's a clear sign of decline: Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy.
Zachary Smith , Jan 13, 2019 6:47:25 PM | link
@ juliania #23
I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around.

LOL (first time I've ever written this!)

You made the same mistake I did in 2008. The deck was really stacked in that election, though I was too blind to see it at the time. Smiling & smooth-talking black face issuing zillions of promises, and this was right after the Codpiece Commander. It took me a whole year to realize I'd been suckered, and by 2012 understood the fix was STILL on.

Obama had lost most all of his glitter by then, so the Power Elites arranged his opposition to be a financial predator/Mormon bishop paired up with the most awful Libertarian POS I've ever seen.

Speaking the honest truth here, I'd prefer to have Sarah Palin as POTUS to Paul Ryan. What a combo! That's why I offered anybody I met 10:1 odds on Obama winning. Hillary thought she had had seen a winning pattern from all that, and arranged to have as her opponent a fellow named Donald Trump.

[Jan 13, 2019] Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon case

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

RobinG , says: July 24, 2018 at 4:59 am GMT

@exiled off mainstreet #BROWDERGATE

A perfectly good article, I'm sure, but why diffuse ourselves [and engender feelings of fear and hopelessness as you express] when a strategic pressure point has presented? Johnstone makes no mention of Bill Browder. Nor do the [100, so far] commenters.

BILL BROWDER is a key figure in the anti-Trump, anti-Russia hysteria. The notorious Trump Tower meeting was about the Magnitsky Act, a fabrication by Browder to hide his financial crimes. Browder "testified" in the Senate expressly to demonize Putin. Browder's contacts in the IC, the Jewish Lobby, and the fawning media have enabled his propaganda assault this week. He's appeared -- unchallenged, virtually unquestioned -- on countless talk shows. But he's been running scared at the mention of interrogation by Russians. There are huge holes in his story, made clear in his deposition in the Prevezon case. The truth will bring him down! And perhaps his Deep State supporters, along with him.

Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon case. (See comment 161 under The Untouchable Mr. Browder? by Israel Shamir for links.)

Research links to primary sources on #Browdergate --
https://populist.tv/2018/01/20/bill-browder-links-and-resources-to-understand-controversy/

RobinG , says: July 24, 2018 at 5:02 pm GMT
@yurivku How about Idiot AND Troll.

BTW, have you seen "THE MAGNITSKY ACT – BEHIND THE SCENES" that Phil Giraldi posted today? Debunking anti-Russian criminal sociopaths like Bill Browder will go a long way to improving relations. Not to mention easing pressure on the unfortunate Trump.

Full research primary links available here, including Browder's 2015 deposition in the U.S. vs. Prevezon Holdings case. Every Senator who voted to support Browder should see this. [Any who already have, double shame!]
https://populist.tv/2018/01/20/bill-browder-links-and-resources-to-understand-controversy/

Yurivku , says: July 24, 2018 at 5:26 pm GMT
@RobinG UWell, we here in Russia know all this (about Browder) for quite a time. What new did you find? It's just one story in long list of those written and spoken for western idiots like Scripals
, MH17, chemicals in Syria and WMD in Iraq, Russian meddling in f-n US elections and so on. Eat it all dummies.

[Jan 13, 2019] RFK knew how it works. RFK junior explained the reason for RFK's focus on organized-crime until CIA whacked him. That's why his book was made to sink without a ripple.

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

MK-DELTABURKE , says: July 23, 2018 at 12:40 pm GMT

@Cagey Beast Yup. Furthermore, CIA is organized crime and organized crime is CIA. CIA recruits and runs agents in favored criminal syndicates in every illicit trade: drugs, child sexual trafficking, arms, fraud, bustouts, extortion, money laundering. Their purpose is not to interdict the trade but to control it.

CIA manages transnational organized crime to top up their budget for unauthorized clandestine operations, like killing JFK.

CIA protects its criminal proteges with their chartered impunity. They call off law enforcement with the magic words national security or 'sources and methods.' If the plan gets exposed, CIA's criminal cutouts insulate the agency from exposure.

RFK knew how it works. RFK junior explained the reason for RFK's focus on organized-crime until CIA whacked him. That's why his book was made to sink without a ripple.

https://popularresistance.org/the-mass-media-will-not-review-rfk-jr-s-book-why/

Evenfurthermore, CIA is the government and the government is CIA. Decades ago Fletcher Prouty showed that CIA's deepest-cover illegal moles are embedded in our own government. Every agency with repressive capacity is infiltrated with focal points, who report to CIA handlers without the other agency's knowledge.

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/ST.html

Of course Israel is trying to infiltrate it -- they understand the levers of power.

Assange has got some mighty stinkers in his insurance file. All we can do is hope they're enough to destabilize the CIA Reich that has ruled America since 1949.

[Jan 13, 2019] CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald

Notable quotes:
"... CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald ..."
"... Strzok has clearly got a dotted-line report to his real boss in CIA ..."
"... Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.) ..."
"... To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin. ..."
"... Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits he'd already taken from her. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Halper , says: July 23, 2018 at 6:52 pm GMT

CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald .

https://dailystormer.name/is-carter-page-a-cia-spook/

Strzok has clearly got a dotted-line report to his real boss in CIA :

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/07/22/a-review-of-the-doj-fbi-fisa-application-release/

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/07/fisa-fraud-by-obamas-doj-and-intel-community-by-publius-tacitus.html

Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.)

Daniel Rich , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:35 pm GMT
@peterAUS It's impossible to asses [correctly] who's influenced by what, but it seems that telling lies doesn't work that well any longer. You can find some numbers in the following article: Democracy Dies in Debt? US News Outlets Slashing Staff Left and Right -- Link to Sputnik.

Excerpt : "A Pew Research analysis on Monday found that more than a third of the US' largest newspapers and more than a fifth of its largest digital outlets experienced layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018."

Bill the Cat , says: July 24, 2018 at 12:06 am GMT
To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin.

Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits he'd already taken from her.

Hillary of course was incompetent in having America interfere in Russian elections. That campaign never had a chance as Putin is a lot more popular in Russia than Hillary is in America. So, she took a pot shot at a rival world leader knowing (or at least some smart people did) that it would have no effect and that Putin would win that election anyways. And of course Hillary the Arrrogant could never imagine that another player in the game would get to take a turn, and that others might interfere in her election, and she knew she'd run and she knew she'd rig the Dem party to get the nod, in the same way the NED and the Soros NGO's tried to interfere in Russia.

skrik , says: July 24, 2018 at 1:59 pm GMT
@Northgunner

'ruling class', 'elites'

I share your sentiments [in a slightly different vernacular]; of course they, the usurping 'rulers' are neither a class nor in any way 'elite,' but who/what ever they are [jews, oligarchs, 'simply' psychopaths or 'true' spawn of Satan], they do seem to be 'in control.' Proof of that is the coordinated criminal actions of 'the West.'

Find "CIA is the government and the government is CIA" above; it's the obvious place to expect a ccc = covert criminal cabal to establish itself. Add to that the truly weird concept of having spies a) out of all control and b) with apparently unlimited power. We 'shall know them by their deeds' which is almost unrelievedly a 'bad look.' Odd is that the 1st mention of any conspiracy that I heard of was that of 'jewish banksters ruling the world.' We since know that such was pilloried by the CIA, but it seems to me to be a case of the tar-baby: The more they [CIA, jews] howl/deny, the guiltier they prove themselves to be. rgds

Mulegino1 , says: July 24, 2018 at 9:55 pm GMT
I would say that what is affecting the western establishment elites at this juncture is not mere dementia but the madness which arises from acts of pure, hellish evil. These people are the Gadarine swine of the contemporary era; a good portion of them appear to be Satanic perverts and pedophiles, if we are to judge from recent revelations. I am not being hyperbolic when I write that Antichrist's reign has been postponed. They had imagined it would be installed by November of 2016 and this is driving them to despair. They hate Trump because his election blocked their lord and master's ascent and they hate Putin because he represents the great restraining power.
Cagey Beast , says: July 24, 2018 at 10:16 pm GMT
@yurivku He's of course is a bone in DC's throat, but his level of intelligence and real power seem to be extremely low.

Yes, he's a golden chandelier stuck in the belly of the Beast. I think he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own. He also has some bad ideas and makes enemies when it isn't necessary but he's still the only hope for change at the centre of the American empire.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:12 am GMT
@skrik Be that as it may, Romper Stomper took place 30 years after the Vietnam War began. The reverberations of the war were felt in Australia long afterwards.
Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:27 am GMT
@peterAUS That's an armchair rugby referee for you, encouraging a Civil War in a country he's probably never set foot. What do you believe would change its policy towards Oz.

If you remember when Reagan broke the air-traffic control union strikes and 30,000 of them immigrated to Oz in 1981, what would happen would be that many qualified Americans would come to Australia and take Australian jobs.

That's how such unrest would affect you.

At any rate, the US would still have the same grip on popular culture (If not financial markets) and Vegemite would not suddenly replace McDonald's everywhere.

Also, though the Asians seem to slowly taking over your economy anyhow, if the US military was busy suppressing a civil war and Asian countries might get aggressive towards you militarily.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:31 am GMT
@peterAUS The Asians might get more aggressive if the US military suddenly found itself preoccupied with a Civil War.

Asia is taking over your country economically anyhow but they might get a bit anti-social if suddenly the US were to lose all capacity to maintain its presence in your hemisphere.

peterAUS , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:12 am GMT
@Jeff Stryker O.K.

Good luck.

skrik , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:15 am GMT
@peterAUS

I know, for your types. Feels comfortable

Aw, don't go all wussy -- you're acting like a wounded suitor. I suppose it was my rejection of your

I'd need to trust you and then we'd have a long chat somewhere in open public place

Similr to which you you offered Backstay

Have a quiet chat somewhere in a park, for example. Just two of us. Two

Try this google ; that the sort of place you had in mind? It's also reputedly a secret entrance to an ASIO bunker but I suppose you know that; I call attempted entrapment.

RobinG , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:18 am GMT
@skrik . ? ccc = 'great financial consortiums' ?

"As a matter of fact, the composition of the governments is predetermined, and their actions are controlled by great financial consortiums."

J. V. Stalin, Questions & Answers to American Trade Unionists: Stalin's Interview With the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia
Pravda September 15, 1927 ___________(h/t, J.S.)

yurivku , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:52 am GMT
@Cagey Beast

think he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own

But I think he's stupid, ignorant, spineless (as well as most of POTUSes), the only difference is -- he's not completely belongs to DC. Probably it's better than if Clinton was on his place, but who knows, Trump can make any stupid thing

standall , says: July 25, 2018 at 7:39 am GMT
@exiled off mainstreet I agree.
skrik , says: July 25, 2018 at 9:31 am GMT
@RobinG

ccc = 'great financial consortiums' ?

G'day, q.possibly and glad you responded. Yeah sure, Stalin is 'close;' it's why some suggest oligarchs, but it demonstrably falls a bit short. My ccc = covert criminal cabal, each word of the highest significance; let's examine each one:

[COED:] covert = not openly acknowledged or displayed -- this is 100% true, since they operate from 'behind a curtain' of deliberate secrecy. Not declaring who they are is a lie of omission, then see after cabal below. Before moving on, let's consult Cicero:

mendaci neque quum vera dicit, creditor

= A liar is not to be believed, even when speaking the truth. That's never a 'good look,' and leads to the next:

criminal -- self-evident, then:

[COED:] cabal = a secret political clique or faction. Øarchaic a secret intrigue .

ORIGIN
C16 (denoting the Kabbalah): from French cabale, from medieval Latin cabala (see Kabbalah).

Finally [COED:] Kabbalah (also Kabbala, Cabbala, Cabala, or Qabalah = the ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible .

I allow myself to propose an exactly apposite example of the latter: 'Xxx promised it to us!' -- Where Xxx comes directly from some "mystical interpretation of the Bible." 'Nuff said?

More? IF it were only "great financial consortiums" THEN one would need to explain the criminality, since I'm pretty sure oligarchs *could* work legally. Then, the 'normal' consortiums' business is to 'make money' [and cheating and/or theft may be sort of 'normal'], but the ccc goes *far* past that into [mass-]murdering for spoil, quite/most often for oil and/or *soil* . The latter is within Nuremberg class = supreme international criminality. That may complete the loop and explain why covert in the 1st place.

I wrote above that I would 'revisit' lies; here's a partial quote:

But it remained for the yyy, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood,

Feel free to 'guess' at the yyy, then I assert QED rgds

Anon [243] Disclaimer , says: July 25, 2018 at 2:30 pm GMT
Great article. Good to read someone not suffering from dementia!
Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 3:00 pm GMT
@peterAUS Good luck?
EugeneGur , says: July 25, 2018 at 3:18 pm GMT
@peterAUS

Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass?

Besides those in "volunteer battalions", which tend to be nationalistic with distinct Nazi overtones, people in the regular Armed Forces are there for the money. There are very few paying jobs in today's Ukraine, so men enlist and hope for the best.

the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.

That could've been the case in 2014. Today I very much doubt it. Even the Right Sector people are fed up with the current power in Kiev, and even the dumbest nationalists are beginning to realize what a deep hole the country is in. Normal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come. The problem is the Russians aren't coming.

Poupon Marx , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:05 pm GMT
The moniker "journalist" should immediately by banished by replacement of "reporter", as in report the facts and observations, not interpretations or personal opinions.
Eagle Eye , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:18 pm GMT
@Authenticjazzman

I am not a Scientologist, but I consider [L. Ron Hubbard] to be one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century

Interesting point. Serious question -- in your view, what else (other than psychotropic medication) was Hubbard "brilliant" about?

Authenticjazzman , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:51 pm GMT
@Eagle Eye " In your view what else was Hubbard brilliant about?"

Well for example his bizarre sounding concepts regarding the sources of mankind, and the history of this insane planet, which are repeatedly ridiculed and labeled as absurd by the PTB, who of course have their own turf to defend, and their own concepts which they do not want to be brought into question.

AJM

peterAUS , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:53 pm GMT
@EugeneGur Well can't say I disagree with the comment.
Or, better, can't provide any concrete evidence to the contrary, especially re the second paragraph.

The thing is, nationalism is a peculiar feeling.
So, while this

Normal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come.

could be true, the rest of Ukraine could get into quite the opposite.

But, as you say

The problem is the Russians aren't coming.

so it's all academic.

Now, speaking of

people are fed up with the current power .

one could feel, probably, the same in Donbass.
Things aren't great there either.

In any case the conflict is there, frozen for the moment (not for the people along the front line) and can erupt, again, when the US Deep State wants it.

Interesting times.

Cratylus , says: July 26, 2018 at 5:49 am GMT
@Michael Kenny If one wants a clear example of the Russophobic or Putinophobic hysteria infecting the West, one need go no further than this demented fellow. And to that he adds a conspiracy theory about the gangsters ruling over it all.
Uncle Bee , says: July 26, 2018 at 12:06 pm GMT
@Cyrano Imagine if the WMDs get you attacked rule applied to Israel?
Jeff Davis , says: July 26, 2018 at 3:17 pm GMT
@seeing-thru You got it 100% Right my friend. That's the best reality-connected assessment of the Donald's performance that I've read. I'm going to swipe it for reuse elsewhere. Thank you, and may the force be with you.
seeing-thru , says: July 26, 2018 at 5:58 pm GMT
@Jeff Davis Glad you liked it. Yeah, go ahead use it any which way. BTW, my fear is that the Donald may not be able to succeed because of the massive line-up of forces against him. The whole lunatic asylum is out of their cages, snarling and clawing and planning all sorts of stuff to bring him down. Let us wish him success.
Apolonius , says: July 26, 2018 at 9:54 pm GMT
@Vojkan Bravo Vojkane!
Jeff Davis , says: July 27, 2018 at 6:24 pm GMT
@Lauri Törni

So standing up for American citizens is considered a "mentally insane" thing?

You are utterly and completely out of your mind, virtually from another planet, another reality. A textbook example of insanity. The fact that you don't recognize it, simply confirms the fact.

The Deep state is not, repeat not , the American people.

Regarding the Intel community: There are the guys in the trenches. these are honorable guys. Then there is the leadership. The current leadership is on notice to behave itself, on account of the new "Sheriff" in town. The corrupt politicized leadership from the Clinton/Bush/Obama regimes however, now out of power, are attempting to overthrow the legitimately elected president of the United States. In so doing, they are pursuing treason-lite.

Clapper, Brennan, and Hayden are already full-on war criminals: Iraq & torture. Now, in their attempt to destroy the Trump presidency, they are adding betrayal of democracy and betrayal of the Constitution of the United States to their criminal resume. These are evil men who think it is their job to run the United States from behind a malleable (gutless?) figurehead who does what they tell him to do.

As I said in my original post, it is fascinating to observe people like you, utterly dominated -- brain-raped really -- by a neocon/neoliberal narrative that has reduced them to robotic -- even willing -- slaves of the 1%. Good for you. Enjoy. The others, who prefer self-mastery to self-enslavement, will benefit from your choice of enslavement.

That is what all of this boils down to; Trump treating Americans like s*hit in front of the whole world, while praising Russia and Russians.

The IC war criminals/traitors should not be equated with or allowed to hide anonymous behind the majority population of decent Americans. Which is what simpletons like you enable and then fall for.

I fully understood all the concerns for what the Left is doing to people and to the society.

Trump praises Israel and says that, "Securing Israel's safety is our most important task" not a peep comes from the Trump-supporters?!

Some Trump supporters do object. Others however grasp the political reality of Jewish political influence in the US. Politically incompetent simpletons like yourself think Trump should commit political suicide by taking on the Jews.

The Jews/Israel will be dealt with -- or not -- later, when Trump has secured his presidency. And then, the rebalancing of the US-Israeli relationship will not be grounded in hostility to the Jews, but will be more along the lines of America First.

Never ever did I expect, that it would be the Trump-supporters surfacing as the fifth column, giving the "finishing touch" to the destruction of American citizens.

The above is pure paranoid, "the sky is falling", TDS whackadoodle.

The Liberals seem to have woken up,

The country is in the throes of a cultural war between the bubble-wrapped snowflakes and "real" people. Thankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the advantage of being reality-connected. The snowflakes will benefit as well -- you will benefit -- by the resulting opportunity to reconnect with reality.

Good luck, best wishes, Trump is rapidly changing the world for the better.

And let me add: The Soviet Union is a quarter century gone, and with it Soviet Communism. Putin is the preeminent statesman of our times. Go to YouTube and listen to what he says. He and Trump, aligned, are a force for good in the world. Peace with Russia is coming, and with it a new era of peace and prosperity in the world.

Which leaves me to echo your closing comment:

Are you ever going to be able to comprehend this?

(Answer: Probably not for another six years, if ever.)

Malcontent , says: July 29, 2018 at 8:59 pm GMT
@Cyrano Are you joking? Russia is the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
Malcontent , says: July 29, 2018 at 9:01 pm GMT
@Jeff Davis Bravo! Exactly my thoughts!
peterAUS , says: July 29, 2018 at 9:27 pm GMT
@Jeff Davis

Thankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the advantage of being reality-connected.

Ah, good.

The last time when "real" people won against the US "Deep State" was let me see .well shame on me, can't think of it.

Let's see after the fall of the Wall:
Yugoslavia, then Serbia proper .no
Afghanistan .no .
Ah Iraq .no ..
Lybia no .
Syria well not so sure.

Ah, yes, those weren't Americans. Yeah.

I got concerned for a bit; all good now.
No need to think about M.A.D. anymore. (Re)focus on fishing. Snapper, preferably.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 30, 2018 at 8:09 am GMT
@peterAUS Australia's problem is going to be an Asian economic overclass you Australians always obsess about country's located halfway around the world first the UK now the US.

you're worried about blacks in the US in the ghetto's wealth inequality while Chinese business elite reduce you to paupers IN Australia and eventually you go the way of the black aborigines.

But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you have seen in Hollywood films.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 30, 2018 at 8:15 am GMT
@peterAUS Sorry, countries not country's.

Point is that in the sixties you were still obsessed with the British Empire though you are a bit of a lost colony now you are obsessed with the United States, another waning Empire.

Pretty soon the Chinese will have you sleeping in your cars and you will still be focused on the state of blacks in the US ghetto and inequality in America.

But see, the US won't be the problem in Australia. China will.

You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony and white settler nation but it is Asia that will stomp you.

James Bacque , says: Website July 31, 2018 at 7:16 pm GMT
She is most likely onto something important. My solution is that most people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us.

St Paul, Shakespeare and Montaigne all complained of their own double-mindedness.

I hope that a column of mine on this topic will appear soon in The U.R.

James Bacque Penetanguishene ON

peterAUS , says: July 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm GMT
@James Bacque

most people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us ..

I guess you are onto something here.

It could go a bit deeper, though, as:

. most people are double-minded because it suits us to allow our betters to lead us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for their and our faults and errors which profit us.

skrik , says: August 1, 2018 at 3:18 pm GMT
@Jeff Stryker

But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you have seen in Hollywood films You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony and white settler nation

If I may intercede, no, and that twice.

1. peterAUS, if my interpretation is correct, sees the world through 'military blinkers,' is assumed not to notice China et al. except as one 'enemy' among many, and probably thinks that ~100 F35s, xxx new warships, yyy new submarines and zzz new 'armoured cars,' costing the Aus-taxpayer nose-bleeding squillions will 'save his/their bacon.' As such, peterAUS cannot be addressed as any valid representative of 'the great Aus-unwashed.'

2. That great Aus-unwashed, hoovering up the trash err, sorry for the US-speak; hoovering up the horrendous rubbish 'presented' to them via their '1984-style telescreens' err, one-finger flat-screen distraction devices [when not actual television sets], is largely unconscious of any 'real world.'

Since the CIA-sponsored coup of 1975, the country has been 'going to the dogs' at an increasing rate. The sheople glory under their 'Lucky Country' delusion, not even knowing its full import: Lucky not to be even partly aware. Yeah sure, the corrupt&venal MSM+PFBCs [= publicly financed broadcasters] try to revive 'the yellow peril' scare, but that's just standard 'Bernays haze' scare mongering, to keep the proles from thinking: Der, they [as peterAUS] didn't think. rgds

PS The great Aus-unwashed, as any 'Western' citizen, has zero choice; so-called 'Western democracy' allows for as good as zero 'citizen input.' The 'choice' of Trump should be put down to an aberration -- some 'clever-clogs' manipulators -- *not* Russians -- pulled off a coup. But as they used to say: "Better red than dead;" better Trump than HRC.

Johnj , says: August 2, 2018 at 11:48 pm GMT
Do we have a democracy? Or even representative government? So what happened to our jobs off-shored. Who approved that? Who approved 100 million legal immigrants in the last 50 years?

Why does anyone accept our stilted self-image, especially Diana?

Johnj , says: August 3, 2018 at 12:10 am GMT
@Lauri Törni Good God, this Lauri reads the NYT and has the gall to post it as proof of her opinions. So that means she is nuts and brainwashed.
Ace , says: September 15, 2018 at 5:55 pm GMT
Outstanding article.

On the point about the "world's greatest prison population" note that some one-third of the federal prison population consists of illegal alien criminals and the large U.S. black criminal underclass commits crimes at a higher rate than everyone else, so there are more blacks in our prisons. Oh, the horror.

If other nations enjoyed large illegal immigrant populations and a large black criminal underclass we would see similar inflated prison populations.

Spare us the silliness on this score as well as the "regular massacres of school children" garbage. No doubt you'll enlighten us with your anti-gun views on American gun nuts at a later time. I wait with bated breath.

Still, you almost got a lock on insightful commentary these days.

Ace , says: September 15, 2018 at 7:59 pm GMT
@Lauri Törni Liberals fight for the existence of Americans?

Amazing. Do you intend to live on our planet or are you just visiting?

james bacque , says: Website October 24, 2018 at 6:51 pm GMT
Ron Unz

This is a very good blog, column, whatever, because it illuminates with the light of reason the mass madness of the Washington crowd, and probably much of the American population. See the New Yorker article in the current issue about the utility of caregivers lying to and/or deceiving demented patients to keep them content. That is what is happening now in the USA and your failure to understand my explanation for it, in my essay on double-mindedness, which I sent you last summer, I mind very much. You could lead the way out of the mess if you would re-read that essay and try to understand it.

I am a very ordinary guy and I understand it. Please try again. The world needs this.

Jim Bacque

[Jan 13, 2019] Potencial of having a nuclear cataclysm out of civil war in Ukraine is firtneing perspecitve

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

EugeneGur , says: July 23, 2018 at 9:30 pm GMT

@Peter Akuleyev

who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes

I don't know where is Ukraine you spent your time and in what company, but this is complete BS. The South-Eastern Ukraine hates the Western Ukrainian "banderovtsi" as much as the Russians do if not more -- after all, the followers of Bandera operated mostly on the Ukrainian soil. There are deranged individuals in every country, of course, and Ukraine has been subjected lately to intense hate propaganda as well as repressions, but there is no hatred of Russia. This is contradicted by both sociology and everyday behavior of Ukrainian, which move to Russia in droves, spend time in Russia, support Russian sport teams, etc.

we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)

Nobody is asking about what the real Ukrainians, Estonians, Georgians or even Poles actually think, least of all the US. There are almost as many Georgians living in Russia as there are in Georgia, and they show no desire to move back. In 2008 during the conflict, their biggest fear was that they'd be deported.

The Ukraine's Maidan was a violent coup, where a few thousand militants armed and trained abroad overthrew a government elected by the entire country. Protests that immediately started all over the country were suppressed with force -- the one in Donbass still is.

How could anyone with an access to Internet remain unaware of these facts is beyond me.

Vojkan , says: July 24, 2018 at 8:25 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev Why should anyone freaking care and put his ass in the line of fire because you bunch of primitives hate Russia? Between having a nuclear cataclysm because you pathetic dwarfs of nations are frustrated to have a neighbour you can't bully and Russia obliterating you, I say let Russia obliterate you, thus we won't have to suffer the ear-hurting dissonnance of your incessant whining any more. Though I doubt Russia would stomp on you. When you see shit, you don't stomp on it, you don't want you don't want your shoes to stink, you just walk around it.

[Jan 13, 2019] Who are the people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces?

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:25 pm GMT

@EugeneGur That's an interesting point. Even if true, doesn't matter. One could wonder ..who are the people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces?

Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass? All of them. Including those is logistics/maintenance depots far away from the (current) line of separation?

The will to fight against "Russia" ranges from a deep hate to simply not wishing to go against the (current) Ukrainian government. The former are in those "shock" battalions. The later are manning the logistics train. And everything in between.

Now .if/when a real shooting starts, as soon as Russia, as expected (and desired) by the most of readers here, starts delivering ordnance into operational depth of Donbass enemy, the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.

[Jan 13, 2019] Hypocrisy Without Bounds US Army Major Slams The Tragedy Of [Neo]Liberal Foreign Policy

Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Maj. Danny Sjrusen via AntiWar.com,

The president says he will bring the troops home from Syria and Afghanistan. Now, because of their pathological hatred of Trump, mainstream Democrats are hysterical in their opposition.

If anyone else were president, the "liberals" would be celebrating. After all, pulling American soldiers out of a couple of failing, endless wars seems like a "win" for progressives. Heck, if Obama did it there might be a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. And there should be. The intervention in Syria is increasingly aimless, dangerous and lacks an end state. Afghanistan is an unwinnable war – America's longest – and about to end in outright military defeat . Getting out now and salvaging so much national blood and treasure ought to be a progressive dream. There's only one problem: Donald Trump. Specifically, that it was Trump who gave the order to begin the troop withdrawals.

Lost in the haze of their pathological hatred of President Trump, the majority of mainstream liberal pundits and politicians can't, for the life of them, see the good sense in extracting the troops from a couple Mideast quagmires. That or they can see the positives, but, in their obsessive compulsion to smear the president, choose politics over country. It's probably a bit of both. That's how tribally partisan American political discourse has become. And, how reflexively hawkish and interventionist today's mainstream Democrats now are. Whither the left-wing antiwar movement? Well, except for a few diehards out there, the movement seems to have been buried long ago with George McGovern .

Make no mistake, the Democrats have been tacking to the right on foreign policy and burgeoning their tough-guy-interventionist credentials for decades now. Terrified of being painted as soft or dovish on martial matters, just about all the "serious" baby-boomer Dems proudly co-opted the militarist line and gladly accepted campaign cash from the corporate arms dealers. Think about it, any Democrat with serious future presidential aspirations back in 2002 voted for the Iraq War – Hillary, Joe Biden, even former peace activist John Kerry! And, in spite of the party base now moving to the left, all these big name hawks – along with current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – are still Democratic stalwarts. Heck, some polls list Biden as the party's 2020 presidential frontrunner.

More disturbing than the inconsistency of these political hacks is the vacuousness of the supposedly liberal media. After Trump's announcement of troop withdrawals, just about every MSNBC host slammed the president and suddenly sounded more hawkish than the clowns over at Fox News. Take Rachel Maddow. Whatever you think of her politics, she is – undoubtedly – a brilliant woman. Furthermore, unlike most pundits, she knows a little something about foreign policy. Her 2012 book, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power was a serious and well-researched critique of executive power and the ongoing failure of the wars on terror. Drift was well reviewed by regular readers and scholars alike.

Enter Donald Trump. Ever since the man won the 2016 election, Maddow's nightly show has been dominated the hopeless dream of Russia-collusion and a desire for Trump's subsequent impeachment. Admittedly, Maddow's anti-Trump rhetoric isn't completely unfounded – this author, after all, has spent the better part of two years criticizing most of his policies – but her zealousness has clouded her judgment, or worse. Indeed, that Maddow, and her fellow "liberals" at MSNBC have now criticized the troop withdrawals and even paraded a slew of disgraced neoconservatives – like Bill Kristol – on their shows seems final proof of their descent into opportunistic hawkishness.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this new "liberal" hawkishness is the pundits' regular canonization of Jim Mattis and the other supposed "adults" in the room . For mainstream, Trump-loathing, liberals the only saving grace for this administration was its inclusion of a few trusted, "grown-up" generals in the cabinet. Yet it is a dangerous day, indeed, when the supposedly progressive journalists deify only the military men in the room. Besides, Mattis was no friend to the liberals. Their beloved President Obama previously canned "mad-dog" for his excessive bellicosity towards Iran. Furthermore, Mattis – so praised for both his judgment and ethics – chose an interesting issue for which to finally fall-on-his-sword and resign. U.S. support for the Saudi-led starvation of 85,000 kids in Yemen: Mattis could deal with that. But a modest disengagement from even one endless war in the Middle East: well, the former SECDEF just couldn't countenance that. Thus, he seems a strange figure for a "progressive" network to deify.

Personally, I'd like to debate a few of the new "Cold Warriors" over at MSNBC or CNN and ask a simple series of questions: what on the ground changed in Syria or Afghanistan that has suddenly convinced you the US must stay put? And, what positivist steps should the military take in those locales, in order to achieve what purpose exactly? Oh, by the way, I'd ask my debate opponents to attempt their answers without uttering the word Trump. The safe money says they couldn't do it – not by a long shot. Because, you see, these pundits live and die by their hatred of all things Trump and the more times they utter his name the higher go the ratings and the faster the cash piles up. It's a business model not any sort of display of honest journalism.

There's a tragic irony here. By the looks of things, so long as Mr. Trump is president, it seems that any real movement for less interventionism in the Greater Middle East may come from a part of the political right – libertarians like Rand Paul along with the president's die hard base, which is willing to follow him on any policy pronouncement. Paradoxically, these folks may find some common cause with the far left likes of Bernie Sanders and the Ocasio-Cortez crowd, but it seems unlikely that the mainstream left is prepared to lead a new antiwar charge. What with Schumer/Pelosi still in charge, you can forget about it. Given the once powerful left-led Vietnam-era protest movement, today's Dems seem deficient indeed on foreign policy substance. Odds are they'll cede this territory, once again, to the GOP.

By taking a stronger interventionist, even militarist, stand than Trump on Syria and Afghanistan, the Democrats are wading into dangerous waters. Maybe, as some say, this president shoots from the hip and has no core policy process or beliefs. Perhaps. Then again, Trump did crush fifteen Republican mainstays in 2015 and shock Hillary – and the world – in 2016. Indeed, he may know just what he's doing. While the Beltway, congressional-military-industrial complex continues to support ever more fighting and dying around the world, for the most part the American people do not . Trump, in fact, ran on a generally anti -interventionist platform, calling the Iraq War "dumb" and not to be repeated. The president's sometimes earthy – if coarse – commonsense resonated with a lot of voters, and Hillary's hawkish establishment record (including her vote for that very same Iraq War) didn't win her many new supporters.

Liberals have long believed, at least since McGovern's 1972 trouncing by Richard Nixon, that they could out-hawk the Republican hawks and win over some conservatives. It rarely worked. In fact, Dems have been playing right into bellicose Republican hands for decades. And, if they run a baby-boomer-era hawk in 2020 – say Joe Biden – they'll be headed for another shocking defeat. The combination of a (mostly, so far) strong economy and practical policy of returning US troops from unpopular wars, could, once again, out weigh this president's other liabilities.

Foreign policy won't, by itself, tip a national election. But make no mistake, if the clowns at MSNBC and "liberal" hacks on Capitol Hill keep touting their newfound militarism, they're likely to emerge from 2020 with not only smeared consciences, but four more years in the opposition.

* * *

Danny Sjursen is a US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet .

[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

turkey george palmer , 43 minutes ago link

A the politicians carry their recordsike a ball and chain. Trump had no legislative baggage so in comparison he looked ok. There may be a chance that some plan to allow e wrything to sink to near chaos is happening, with that risk of a slip up being total collapse. It would appear total collapse is likely absent some very well thought out plan by a lot of people who appear to be morons

RussianSniper , 46 minutes ago link

The neowackjobs of the bush clinton bush bozo crime sprees must answer for their war crimes!

Put these monsters before a world court in Syria, Libya, Iraq, or Yemen.

Burn them alive on pay per view.

Zero-Hegemon , 53 minutes ago link

In the US the neocons switch between parties like changing underwear. Now that the republicans are soiled they'll wear democrats instead, lobby for more war until they're good and soiled, and switch when republican populism is back on the rise (like during the Bush years, and then Obama).

dogismycopilot , 53 minutes ago link

Lost me at calling Maddow a brilliant woman

halcyon , 1 hour ago link

Danny boy got sucked into the liberel-conservative-democrat fallacy. It is all one big party called the war party. The opposition is always theatrics.

AI Agent , 1 hour ago link

Lost me when you said Rachel MadCow was a brilliant woman.

Brilliant people have ethics. If she's brilliant, she wouldn't be lying. If she's stupid, then she's not smart enough to know she's lying.

quesnay , 53 minutes ago link

I don't watch her so can't comment on that, but brilliance and ethics have nothing to do with each other.

Got The Wrong No , 31 minutes ago link

Madcow is diabolical. A brilliant unethical he/she.

Debt Slave , 1 hour ago link

We all know it. If libtards didn't hate America, they wouldn't be trying so hard to change it.

Remember the happy white culture middle class America of 1955? Libtards hate it with a passion that can only be an obsession. The first thing libtards started whining about in the 1950's was the the poor 'oppressed' negroes weren't allowed to burp and fart at the same lunch counter as the evil white man. We foolishly caved in to that first step of liberal stupidity and look where we are today. Mall shootings in Chicongo and New Jersey.

Everytime the (((media))) shows you these violent examples, just remember how we got here.

Compromising with liberals is nothing more than a highway to hell, paved with compromise and liberal 'good intentions'.

Now we have Donald Trump who is willing to tell the liberal idiots to shove their fake altruism and egalitarianism up their collective asses. This chance of a lifetime for our children may never come again.

i know who I am voting for in 2020 ...

lincolnsteffens , 1 hour ago link

I voted for McGovern. I think that was the first time I voted. Now I can't stand either political Parties. I saw the games the Republicans pulled with the Massachusetts Caucus and Convention when I was an alternate delegate for Ron Paul. There is no trick dirty enough for either Party to pull. They are without a moral compass.

Escrava Isaura , 1 hour ago link

Bring 'some' troops home is just a political maneuver not a policy change. How can you tell?

Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon.

And that's why Trump moved drones attacks operations from the military to the CIA.

There's no evidence that Trump is ending US intervention anywhere.

Now check this out when the President is Democrat.

52% of Republicans disprove withdrawing troops: Americans widely support President Obama's recent decision to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year, with 75% approving. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents. Republicans, however, are slightly more likely to disapprove than approve.

AI Agent , 1 hour ago link

How does firing Bannon mean Trump is an imperialist? That doesn't follow, it's a non-sequitur.

quesnay , 57 minutes ago link

I would argue that the Republicans are slightly more principled, although not necessarily in a good way. As your poll shows, when Obama was in power, 96% of Democrats were in favor of removing Troops. 96%!! And now only around 28% of Democrats support withdrawal - https://theintercept.com/2019/01/11/as-democratic-elites-reunite-with-neocons-the-partys-voters-are-becoming-far-more-militaristic-and-pro-war-than-republicans/ . This is almost a complete reversal.

The Republican position went from 50% supporting withdrawal with Obama to 70% under Trump. A change for sure, but not nearly as dramatic as the Democrats which have completely changed their positions i.e. their position has nothing to do with principles what-so-ever.

desertboy , 24 minutes ago link

So, I can interpret the deeper meaning of statements made by others, through your displayed intellectual acumen?

Really quite remarkable -- how utterly foreign is just a little introspection for some.

smacker , 11 minutes ago link

@Escrava Isaura: " Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon. "

Not so sure of the connection there.

But America is an imperial nation (both major parties have supported this for years) and the problem now is that its imperialism is on an irreversible trajectory which will bring it to an end. As one might expect, they are trying to keep it alive but that will only delay the inevitable. What we don't know is whether it will end with a whimper or a big bang.

[Jan 13, 2019] Parkinson disease and Russians

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:46 am GMT

Hillary lost the election when she could not walk. she lost a shoe, she was shown in the van, and shoe was thrown after her. And that was arranged by Russians.

[Jan 13, 2019] The only reason the evil bastards who control our society can get away with their treachery is because most of the American people are out to lunch on the most important issues of our time.

Notable quotes:
"... This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. ..."
"... They are CIA assets who do what they're told. ..."
"... There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt. They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true. ..."
"... Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety (because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness. ..."
"... I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the "basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically induced madness. ..."
"... If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to antidepressants. ..."
"... The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees, become orphans and all other manner of evil. ..."
"... Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down. ..."
"... "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics." ..."
"... I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a genius comment. ..."
"... "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" obviously the Gods want to destroy the so called western man ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

lavoisier , says: Website July 23, 2018 at 11:47 am GMT

@peterAUS

Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how false all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online can't, for SOME reason, figure all that out.

Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever. Maybe it's time to start passing a bit of blame to people in general. Not holding my breath.

I fully agree with this sentiment. The only reason the evil bastards who control our society can get away with their treachery is because most of the American people are out to lunch on the most important issues of our time. If the sheeple were to take responsibility to inform themselves of what is happening today they would be able to see the lies they are being constantly exposed to as just that -- lies. And then, they could put down the beer and turn off the damn sports channel and get angry at what has happened to their country.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for ignorant people to remain ignorant.

Giuseppe , says: July 23, 2018 at 1:01 pm GMT

This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations.

They are CIA assets who do what they're told.

Gordon Pratt , says: July 23, 2018 at 2:49 pm GMT
There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt. They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true.

This is the perfect environment for the virus of groupthink to spread.

And since our leaders, both on the left and the right, may be ahead of the curve on drug usage the neocons and the politically correct may use antidepressants at greater levels than 10 per cent.

Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety (because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness.

I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the "basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically induced madness.

If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to antidepressants.

AnonFromTN , says: July 23, 2018 at 3:09 pm GMT
@Gordon Pratt I think you are mistaken trying to rationalize the behavior of the political class and their puppet masters. I believe the real driver are not antidepressants, but an obscene greed, which is so blinding that it made MIC profiteers forget that to enjoy the fruits of their thievery they have to be alive.
anonymous [339] Disclaimer , says: July 23, 2018 at 3:49 pm GMT
The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees, become orphans and all other manner of evil.

Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down.

Jeff Davis , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:01 pm GMT

"I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics."

I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a genius comment.

Respect , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:10 pm GMT
QUOS VULT IUPITER PERDERE DEMENTAT PRIUS

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" obviously the Gods want to destroy the so called western man

Jeff Davis , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:28 pm GMT
@Lauri Törni

Feel free to attack me.

TDS is a convenient shorthand for this form of disconnect from reality. That said it is absolutely fascinating to see and puzzle over this geopolitical tectonic event. The old narrative is crumbling, with the result that people like Lauri are fighting desperately to preserve their "sanity", dependent as it is on their tribal submission to the old order and its old narrative (its timeworn lies).

"Science advances one funeral at a time."
Max Planck

By which he means that people persist in believing in those "truths" (their belief system) they have held for a lifetime. Only when they die out will a new, revised belief system replaced the old. The same in geopolitics as in science.

Jeff Davis , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:34 pm GMT
@Tulips "Malefactors of great wealth."
Simple Pseudonym , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:58 pm GMT
American dementia is not new. It is current but after the false flags of almost all of our (US) wars going back as far as the Barbary Pirates, Americans have thrived on being the good guys in an evil world. We are SO GOOD, and the world thinks we are perfect and want to be part of US so much, that any other thought is treasonous.

The fact that getting along with Russia is necessary to NOT create armageddon, is irrelevant to the typical citizen because no matter how wrong, we are blessed and perfect in the eyes of the gawd we pretend to believe in.

So, same old same old

[Jan 13, 2019] They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control

Notable quotes:
"... Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

MK-DELTABURKE , says: July 22, 2018 at 8:25 pm GMT

@Cagey Beast Aspen Institute does make attempts at outreach, but they invariably cock it up by eliciting, recruiting, or suborning every single person they bring in. The shitheads even tried to do it to me. You would think they'd have a dossier saying I hate those cobags.

Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control.

Cagey Beast , says: July 22, 2018 at 10:58 pm GMT
@MK-DELTABURKE Exactly.

Aspen Institute is CIA.

Yes, the Aspen Institute is the CIA and the CIA is the Aspen Institute. Or, to be more precise, the CIA is the armed wing of Washington's permanently governing technocratic party, in the same way the KGB was the armed wing of the Soviet Communist Party.

Poor Julian Assange is likely going to be in their hands not too long from now. The citizen of one Five Eyes country will be arrested by another and then sent off to the imperial metropole, to be kicked around like a political football. The rest of us Anglosphericals are expected to cheer or remain silent. Either is acceptable.

skrik , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:59 am GMT
@TG

there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them

Me: Oh yes there is; by *them* I don't mean "Zuckerberg, others" but the actual rulers of 'the West,' then see this:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Consider also:

Aspen Institute is CIA

and [perhaps most critically] this:

may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!

Now, I term the actual rulers of 'the West' the ccc = covert criminal cabal. Of course they are in hiding -- acting from 'behind the curtain,' as some have it -- it has to be that *dishonest* way -- for them. Among their most notable 'fruits' are the JFK murder, USS Liberty outrage, inside-job 9/11 psyop and the utterly wicked destruction of Libya/Gaddafi, just 4 of many. The extended list is looong, and note that the 1st 3 in my list demonstrate the ccc 'murdering their own' -- except that to the ccc, anybody not actually in the ccc itself is not 'their own' but only exploitable/disposable objects. Of course the ccc causes lies to be promulgated, hence the Lügenpresse . Neoliberalism/austerity must also come from the ccc, causing misery wherever it's forced upon us, we the people. One of the spivs in suits who 'sold' neoliberalism to the Aus people called it 'economic rationalism' and jeered: 'What would you rather -- irrational economics?' Another ccc modus operandi item is coercion as demonstrated by the downstream effects of Downer's "Get a briefing!" -- which shows us that the CIA et al. is a 'command conduit' if not a command originator. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the ccc does not merely operate like a mafia, it *is* a mafia, and one of the author's "may depend on" items suggests a name for this mafia, namely: Khazar. That's our miserable world, deliberately made that way by that mafia; if that's not 'mindless and demented' what is? rgds

Pancho Perico , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:27 pm GMT
@MK-DELTABURKE The Aspen Institute is CIA, but the CIA is an organization created and controlled by the globalist conspirators at the Council on Foreign Relations, mostly the Rockefellers and other banksters.

[Jan 13, 2019] The USA repeats the history of the later Roman empire, with the army and intelligence agencies firmly in control

Intelligence agencies are a new Praetorian Guard
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

jilles dykstra , says: July 23, 2018 at 7:30 am GMT

In my opinion, no dementia. Too many careers and institutions are built on continuing hostility towards Russia. First ECB President Duisenberg's ph d thesis had as title 'The economic consequences of peace', something like that, his conclusion was that demilitarization was possible economically, when controlled sensibly.

Did anyone read 'The Iron Mountain Report', I never quite knew what to make of it, but it also is about if demilitarization is possible. Barbara Hinckley Sheldon Goldman, American Politics and Government, Glenview Ill.,1990 describes how the USA weapons industry skillfully prevents that spending on useless weapons diminishes. The history of the later Roman empire, the army in control.

[Jan 13, 2019] The American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections

Notable quotes:
"... This link, I believe, points into a very interesting direction. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-23/imperial-naivete-american-public I don't think that "naivete" is a correct word there. ..."
"... the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:35 pm GMT

Back to topic. This link, I believe, points into a very interesting direction. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-23/imperial-naivete-american-public I don't think that "naivete" is a correct word there. Some, perhaps, interesting excerpts:

.a public lulled into a warm and fuzzy sense of moral superiority based on the notion that we only go to war to save the good and punish the evil, and if we meddle in other nations' domestic affairs and elections, we're only doing so for their own good.

If we weren't a kindly, generous Empire, we'd let them go down the drain without trying to set them straight.

Key expression " moral superiority "

There is more:

. the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections.

I don't think it's "naive" though. It's something else like, again:

there are no limits on our execution of power because we're morally superior

That is the key. That is what, deep in their hearts, Americans believe. We .are .better than .anybody .else. So, blaming "them", media, whatever no no that's a copout. Weak one. The crux is simple, eternal, hard wired: "I am better than you". "I can be homeless punk here, but, I am better than YOU." Feels good. That's all.

Blasphemy, a?

[Jan 12, 2019] In the news: NBC and MSNBC have been officially merged with the CIA

May be not yet, but talks talks are under way and hiring of former CIA officials commenced :-). What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak.
Jan 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is enjoying global capitalism except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other "populist" measures (not because they had suddenly transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were slow jamming the TPP with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).

The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the "populist" revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton's coronation, or the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but well, weird things happen, and here we are.

... ... ...

And then there's the battle for hearts and minds, which they've been furiously waging for the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like Integrity Initiative , Internet-censoring apps like NewsGuard , ShareBlue and other David Brock outfits , and a legion of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity, disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course, in case you thought that they were any alternative). It's going to get extremely zany.

The good news is

[Jan 12, 2019] Gen Kelly is a liar and coverup artist for his and others incompetence and inadequacies

Jan 12, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

im1dc , January 08, 2019 at 08:52 AM

No reason to believe anything retired Gen Kelly says ever, S. Harris nails the incompetent lying BS'er in her book

imo, he's a typical US Marine, a liar and coverup artist for his and others incompetence and inadequacies

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-john-kelly-got-mad-that-i-called-him-at-home-about-the-travel-ban

"Kamala Harris: John Kelly Got Mad That I Called Him at Home About the Travel Ban"

by Gideon Resnick...01.08.19... 5:16 AM ET

"In the early days of President's Trump first term, when he signed an executive order to ban travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority nations, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) decided to get more information about the chaos occurring at airports across the country.

"So I called [then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary] John Kelly," Harris writes in her new book, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.

Senators talking to Cabinet members is not rare, especially when it involves a pressing legal and political matter. But Harris hadn't called Kelly at his office. She had dialed him at home. And the soon-to-be chief of staff was not exactly pleased.

"There were a lot of ways Secretary Kelly could have shown responsiveness, a lot of information he could have provided," Harris writes. "Indeed the American people had a right to this information, and, given my oversight role on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, I intended to get it. Instead, he said gruffly, "Why are you calling me at home with this?" That was his chief concern. By the time we got off the phone, it was clear that he didn't understand the depth of what was going on. He said he'd get back to me, but he never did."...

[Jan 12, 2019] In the news: NBC and MSNBC have been officially merged with the CIA

May be not yet, but talks talks are under way and hiring of former CIA officials commenced :-). What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak.
Jan 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is enjoying global capitalism except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other "populist" measures (not because they had suddenly transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were slow jamming the TPP with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).

The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the "populist" revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton's coronation, or the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but well, weird things happen, and here we are.

... ... ...

And then there's the battle for hearts and minds, which they've been furiously waging for the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like Integrity Initiative , Internet-censoring apps like NewsGuard , ShareBlue and other David Brock outfits , and a legion of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity, disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course, in case you thought that they were any alternative). It's going to get extremely zany.

The good news is

[Jan 12, 2019] Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment by Diana Johnstone

A mind is a terrible thing to lose
Any unbiased observer would suspect that considerable part of US Congress consists of senile gerantocrats...
Notable quotes:
"... You can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery you have to be alive. ..."
"... They tricked us the last time, I hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore. ..."
"... Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous financial resources and access to the entire legacy media ..."
"... Let's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them "oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc. ..."
"... This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational, breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else besides. ..."
"... It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them. ..."
Jan 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Where to begin to analyze the madness of mainstream media in reaction to the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki? By focusing on the individual, psychology has neglected the problem of mass insanity, which has now overwhelmed the United States establishment, its mass media and most of its copycat European subsidiaries. The individuals may be sane, but as a herd they are ready to leap off the cliff.

For the past two years, a particular power group has sought to explain away its loss of power – or rather, its loss of the Presidency, as it still holds a predominance of institutional power – by creation of a myth. Mainstream media is known for its herd behavior, and in this case the editors, commentators, journalists have talked themselves into a story that initially they themselves could hardly take seriously.

Donald Trump was elected by Russia ?

On the face of it, this is preposterous. Okay, the United States can manage to rig elections in Honduras, or Serbia, or even Ukraine, but the United States is a bit too big and complex to leave the choice of the Presidency to a barrage of electronic messages totally unread by most voters. If this were so, Russia wouldn't need to try to "undermine our democracy". It would mean that our democracy was already undermined, in tatters, dead. A standing corpse ready to be knocked over by a tweet.

Even if, as is alleged without evidence, an army of Russian bots (even bigger than the notorious Israeli army of bots) was besieging social media with its nefarious slanders against poor innocent Hillary Clinton, this could determine an election only in a vacuum, with no other influences in the field. But there was a lot of other stuff going on in the 2016 election, some for Trump and some for Hillary, and Hillary herself scored a crucial own goal by denigrating millions of Americans as "deplorables" because they didn't fit into her identity politics constituencies.

The Russians could do nothing to build support for Trump, and there is not a hint of evidence that they tried. They might have done something to harm Hillary, because there was so much there: the private server emails, the Clinton foundation, the murder of Moammer Gaddafi, the call for a no-fly zone in Syria they didn't have to invent it. It was there. So was the hanky panky at the Democratic National Committee, on which the Clintonite accusations focus, perhaps to cause everyone to forget much worse things.

When you come to think of it, the DNC scandal focused on Debbie Wasserman Schultz, not on Hillary herself. Screaming about "Russian hacking the DNC" has been a distraction from much more serious accusations against Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders supporters didn't need those "revelations" to make them stop loving Hillary or even to discover that the DNC was working against Bernie. It was always perfectly obvious.

So at worst, "the Russians" are accused of revealing some relatively minor facts concerning the Hillary Clinton campaign. Big deal.

But that is enough, after two years of fakery, to send the establishment into a frenzy of accusations of "treason" when Trump does what he said he would do while campaigning, try to normalize relations with Russia.

This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. They have based their careers on the illusion of sharing the world empire by following U.S. whims in the Middle East and transforming the mission of their armed forces from defense into foreign intervention units of NATO under U.S. command. Having not thought seriously about the implications of this for over half a century, they panic at the suggestion of being left to themselves.

The Western elite is now suffering from self-inflicted dementia.

Donald Trump is not particularly articulate, navigating through the language with a small repetitive vocabulary, but what he said at his Helsinki press conference was honest and even brave. As the hounds bay for his blood, he quite correctly refused to endorse the "findings" of US intelligence agencies, fourteen years after the same agencies "found" that Iraq was bursting with weapons of mass destruction. How in the world could anyone expect anything else?

But for the mainstream media, "the story" at the Helsinki summit, even the only story, was Trump's reaction to the, er, trumped up charges of Russian interference in our democracy. Were you or were you not elected thanks to Russian hackers? All they wanted was a yes or no answer. Which could not possibly be yes. So they could write their reports in advance.

Anyone who has frequented mainstream journalists, especially those who cover the "big stories" on international affairs, is aware of their obligatory conformism, with few exceptions. To get the job, one must have important "sources", meaning government spokesmen who are willing to tell you what "the story" is, often without being identified. Once they know what "the story" is, competition sets in: competition as to how to tell it. That leads to an escalation of rhetoric, variations on the theme: "The President has betrayed our great country to the Russian enemy. Treason!"

This demented chorus on "Russian hacking" prevented mainstream media from even doing their job. Not even mentioning, much less analyzing, any of the real issues at the summit. To find analysis, one must go on line, away from the official fake news to independent reporting. For example, "the Moon of Alabama" site offers an intelligent interpretation of the Trump strategy , which sounds infinitely more plausible than "the story". In short, Trump is trying to woo Russia away from China, in a reverse version of Kissinger's strategy forty years ago to woo China away from Russia, thus avoiding a continental alliance against the United States. This may not work because the United States has proven so untrustworthy that the cautious Russians are highly unlikely to abandon their alliance with China for shadows. But it makes perfect sense as an explanation of Trump's policy, unlike the caterwauling we've been hearing from Senators and talking heads on CNN.

Those people seem to have no idea of what diplomacy is about. They cannot conceive of agreements that would be beneficial to both sides. No, it's got to be a zero sum game, winner take all. If they win, we lose, and vice versa.

They also have no idea of the harm to both sides if they do not agree. They have no project, no strategy. Just hate Trump.

He seems totally isolated, and every morning I look at the news to see if he has been assassinated yet.

It is unimaginable for our Manichean moralists that Putin might also be under fire at home for failing to chide the American president for U.S. violations of human rights in Guantanamo, murderous drone strikes against defenseless citizens throughout the Middle East, the destruction of Libya in violation of the UN mandate, interference in the elections of countless countries by government-financed "non-governmental organizations" (the National Endowment of Democracy), worldwide electronic spying, invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the world's greatest prison population and regular massacres of school children. But the diplomatic Russians know how to be polite.

Still, if Trump actually makes a "deal", there may be losers – neither the U.S. nor Russia but third parties. When two great powers reach agreement, it is often at somebody else's expense. The West Europeans are afraid it will be them, but such fears are groundless. All Putin wants is normal relations with the West, which is not much to ask.

Rather, candidate number one for paying the price are the Palestinians, or even Iran, in marginal ways. At the press conference, asked about possible areas of cooperation between the two nuclear powers, Trump suggested that the two could agree on helping Israel:

"We both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu. They would like to do certain things with respect to Syria, having to do with the safety of Israel. In that respect, we absolutely would like to work in order to help Israel. Israel will be working with us. So both countries would work jointly."

In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising influence of Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he does not have much choice.

On another subject, Trump said that "our militaries" get along with the Russians "better than our politicians". This is another daring bet, on military realism that could somehow neutralize military industrial congressional complex lobbying for more and more weapons.

In short, the only chance to end the nuclear war threat may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!

The hysterical neoliberal globalists seem to have ruled out any other possibility – and perhaps this one too.

"Constructive dialogue between the United States and Russia forwards the opportunity to open new pathways toward peace and stability in our world" Trump declared "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics."

That is more than his political enemies can claim.

Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment

exiled off mainstreet , says: July 20, 2018 at 7:02 am GMT

This is a frightening, accurate commentary on what we face as a result of an unaccountable power structure resorting to any and all means to retain power which, if this structure continues to exercise it, will lead to our extinction.
Donatella , says: July 21, 2018 at 2:08 pm GMT
Thanks to say things that make me feel not alone.
AnonFromTN , says: July 22, 2018 at 3:30 am GMT
In the establishment, it's not dementia as such, it's just serving the highest bidder. You can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery you have to be alive. If only they die, it would be a great service to the humanity. Unfortunately, the way things go, they might take us all with them.
Cyrano , says: July 22, 2018 at 8:42 am GMT
This mass hysteria over a country hostile to both democracy and gay rights (it's hard to tell which one is worse) has been seen in the west before.

It's very reminiscent of the lead-up to Iraq war in 2003. I mean what's next? Are they gonna accuse Russia of having WMD's too?

They are pretty good at providing false evidence of WMD's, I wouldn't be surprised if they stage another presentation of evidence of Russian WMD's at UN, complete with satellite images of mobile trucks equipped with Uranium enrichment technology and all that.

That Nikki Halley can be quite persuasive, you know. I just hope that the world doesn't buy that BS again. Russia having WMD's? That's preposterous. They tricked us the last time, I hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore.

Cagey Beast , says: July 22, 2018 at 11:18 am GMT
Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous financial resources and access to the entire legacy media but seem to have almost no real base of support. Remember how the Never Trumpers had no one more prominent and well-known than Evan McMullan (!!) to run as their candidate? Note too the tiny number of views the YouTube videos of the Aspen Institute get: https://www.youtube.com/user/AspenInstitute/videos .

On its own, these things aren't conclusive proof but together they add up. The Aspen Institute crowd is an almost entirely self-contained subculture. They seem to have no base of support, beyond their stacks of money, job titles and the power that come with the various offices they hold. That's probably why they can never stop calling their opponents "populists" or why Bill Kristol keeps tweeting about encountering scrappy shoeshine boys who shout "give Trump hell, Mr Kristol!" as he goes about his urban peregrinations.

Anonymous [115] Disclaimer , says: July 22, 2018 at 11:54 am GMT
OT

Diana Johnstone is not alone. Others on the alt-Left are starting to wake up, too. This is Joaquín Flores:

People are seeing through dishonesty, and the old language traps are used up and done for. If reconquista is the goal, then we need to have an honest conversation about that. If there's a Latino nation with self determination in the south-west US, or rights 'back' to the south-west US, then let's speak of it in such terms. Because then we'd be looking at a Euro-American nation also. Now of course there's issues of interpenetrated peoples, and identities we carry in our minds in diverse urban centers. But the point here is that we have to have an honest discourse, and stop hiding reconquista sentiments under the rubric of 'human rights'. Because European-Americans don't have right of return to Europe, so the left is promoting what will ultimately be a race war, full scale, if they don't chill the fuck out and back off this disingenuous approach to policy-wonkism on immigration.

The paradigmatic question today is, how is wealth made, and where does wealth come from? What is the balance of trade and debts, and how is that is no longer manageable? The US empire and NATO is no longer manageable. Trump is unwinding NATO. That can't be a bad thing.

https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/07/explaining-trump-to-socialist-liberals-flores/

Fort Russ News is really turning out to be a leading voice of the Third Way movement.

Tulips , says: July 22, 2018 at 7:31 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN Let's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them "oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc.
AnonFromTN , says: July 22, 2018 at 9:44 pm GMT
@Tulips You are right, of course, the word "elites" has too many positive connotations. In fact, they are oligarchs, mega-thieves, or something on those lines. Functionally, in our society they are puppet masters of all the venal puppets (politicians, journos, etc.).
TG , says: July 23, 2018 at 4:56 am GMT
I hear you, and I sympathize, but this is not mass dementia. The oligarchy that runs the United States was worried that Donald Trump might actually (!!) take some consideration for the national interest of the people of the United States of America. That will never do.

This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational, breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else besides.

It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them.

peterAUS , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:48 am GMT
@TG Agree.

Having a title "Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment" and approaching this effort as "mass insanity", "demented chorus" etc. is simply delusional.

They know exactly what they are doing and, it appears, they are doing it well. The are able to create their own reality. What puzzles me a bit isn't "them" or their servants (media etc.). It's people in general. They appear to be buying that manufactured reality with ease. In this era of instant communications it's .sobering. This constant shitting on "them" and their servants is fine and dandy but feels as just a feel good exercise. Perhaps some effort could be spared in trying to analyze and explain common people approach to all this. The buying, hook and sinker, that manufacture.

Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how false all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online can't, for SOME reason, figure all that out.

Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever. Maybe it's time to start passing a bit of blame to people in general.

Not holding my breath.

jilles dykstra , says: July 23, 2018 at 7:31 am GMT
@Tulips I suggest 'ruling class'
Anon [122] Disclaimer , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:07 am GMT
@Daniel Rich The Russians are by nature cautious. They are a conglomerate of individuals, many of whom remember times when they would be sent by communist tyrants to a gulag for Wrongthink. Of course they're cautious.
Daniel Rich , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:13 am GMT
H.E. Mr. Putin clearly knows what the USA/West is about – Link to Youtube [03:42]
nagra , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:34 am GMT
How Hillary Clinton could even run for presidency after the murder of Moammer Gaddafi and Libya destruction, in any decent civilisation and society.
That's planetary shame and the most important question, not DNC hack or anything else, which just trace in wrong direction.

So, Trump should grow some balls and arrest not just her but Barack Obama as well on the same charges, as war criminals as they are, and prove that he really deserves to be trusted. And sacrifice himself in the process if needed as that would do any honest true US president, and he knew what to expect from such position from the start.

It's not TV reality show, as still it is. All he cares about is his ego and popularity, and he is loosing both.

Israel lobby finally see that they put their money in the wrong bank. I intend to believe more that West, namely USA and UK the most, keeps them more hostage in uncertainty for decades than in some Jewish conspiracy. Also, I also believe that only Russia can guaranty Israel security and peace in the region.

Sean , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:12 am GMT

In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising influence of Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he does not have much choice.

Saudi Arabia spent 40 billion dollars helping Saddam's Iraq in its war against Iran, the cost of US efforts in the Syria civil war have largely been met by the Saudis. The coming attack on Iran will be as much to please the Saudis as to lock Israel into West Bank Arab expulsion mode. The Israel Lobby will is not pushing Donald Trump, they are playing catch up with him. Trump has already shown with the Jerusalem recognition that he is encouraging Israel in unilateral courses of action.

Cagey Beast , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:42 am GMT
@TG No, I agree with the assessment in this article and its title: the establishment is dangerously detached from reality right now. Our stagnant and locked-down political culture in the West allowed the "elite" to develop a false sense of security and and certainty. They thought they had things pretty much figured out a few years ago but now they're genuinely panicked.
yurivku , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:43 am GMT
Looking to this circus from Russia, to those insane speaches, insulting caricatures in MSM, I understand the huge amount of rotteness of Western society, mainly its high top part, but not only. Even here in comments (not in this particularly article) the percentage of trolls and brainwashed idiots exceeds all I could've imagined. So I stopped writing here – no sense, I beleive that something can change only after the dramatic changes in US/West society and that is possible only after a big war/revolution.
So, I'm afraid our future is vague

[Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project

The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US.

A bombshell domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert UK state military-intelligence psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting "Russian disinformation."

The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of a group called "Integrity Initiative" to shape domestic opinion -- and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government, including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the US. Hacked documents reveal that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top DC think tanks, the FBI and the DHS, where it has gained access to Katharine Gorka and her husband, the fascist-linked cable news pundit Sebastian Gorka .

The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the US, meddling in American politics and recruiting "a new generation of Russia watchers" behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the most notorious American "perception management" specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships with the media.

Back in the UK, Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative's abuse of public money.

In a recent editorial , Williamson drew a direct parallel between the group's collaboration with journalists and surreptitious payments the CIA made to reporters during the Cold War.

"These tactics resemble those deployed by the CIA in Operation Mockingbird that was launched at the height of the cold war in the early 1950s. Its aims included using the mainstream news media as a propaganda tool," Williamson wrote.

"They manipulated the news agenda by recruiting leading journalists to write stories with the express purpose of influencing public opinion in a particular way," the Labour parliamentarian continued. "Now it seems the British Establishment have dusted off the CIA's old playbook and is intent on giving it another outing on this side of the Atlantic."

Unmasking a British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine

The existence of the Integrity Initiative was virtually unknown until this November, when the email servers of a previously obscure British think tank called the Institute for Statecraft were hacked, prompting allegations of Russian intrusion. When the group's internal documents appeared at a website hosted by Anonymous Europe, the public learned of a covert propaganda network seed-funded to the tune of over $2 million dollars by the Tory-controlled UK Foreign Office, and run largely by military-intelligence officers.

Through a series of cash inducements, off the record briefings and all-day conferences, the Integrity Initiative has sought to organize journalists across the West into an international echo chamber hyping up the supposed threat of Russian disinformation -- and to defame politicians and journalists critical of this new Cold War campaign.

A bid for funding submitted by the Integrity Initiative in 2017 to the British Ministry of Defense promised to deliver a "tougher stance on Russia" by arranging for "more information published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures."

The Integrity Initiative has also worked through its fronts in the media to smear political figures perceived as a threat to its militaristic agenda. Its targets have included a Spanish Department of Homeland Security appointee, Pedro Banos, whose nomination was scuttled thanks a media blitz it secretly orchestrated; Jeremy Corbyn, whom the outfit and its media cutouts painted as a useful idiot of Russia; and a Scottish member of parliament, Neil Findlay, whom one of its closest media allies accused of adopting "Kremlin messaging" for daring to protest the official visit of the far-right Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy -- the founder of two neo-Nazi parties and author of a white nationalist memoir, "View From The Right."

These smear campaigns and many more surreptitiously orchestrated by the Integrity Initiative offer a disturbing preview of the reactionary politics it plans to inject into an already toxic American political environment.

Lessons from "The Man Who Sold the War"

A newly released Integrity Initiative document reveals that the outfit plans an aggressive expansion across the US.

The Integrity Initiative claims to have already established a "simple office" in Washington DC, though it does not say where. It also boasts of partnerships with top DC think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, CNA, and close relationships with US officials.

A major hub of Integrity Initiative influence is the State Department's Global Engagement Center, a de facto US government propaganda operation that was established by President Barack Obama to battle online ISIS recruitment, but which was rapidly repurposed to counter Russian disinformation following the election of Trump.

The Integrity Initiative has also recruited one of the most infamous American PR men to organize its clusters of journalists and political figures.

He is John Rendon, best known as "The Man Who Sold The War" -- several wars, in fact, but most notoriously the Iraq invasion. Rendon was the self-described "information warrior" who planted fake news in the major US-UK media about non-existent WMD threats. With deep ties to the CIA and other military-intelligence agencies, his PR firm was paid $100 million to organize and sell Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. In 2002, the New York Times exposed a Pentagon program using Rendon to plant "disinformation" -- including "false stories" and "the blackest of black PR" -- in media outlets around the world, in order to shape public opinion and sell the Iraq invasion.

John Rendon (left) with Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, US Africa Command Chief of Staff (photo by US Africom Public Affairs)

Journalist James Bamford outlined a catalogue of disinformation feats Rendon performed for the Pentagon, such as identifying "the biases of specific journalists and potentially obtain an understanding of their allegiances, including the possibility of specific relationships and sponsorships." Bamford also found proposals and programs Rendon was involved in that aimed to "'coerce' foreign journalists and plant false information overseas [and] find ways to 'punish' those who convey the 'wrong message.'"

These tactics seem particularly relevant to his work with the Integrity Initiative, especially considering the internal documents that reveal further Rendon-style plans to produce reports and studies to be "fed anonymously into local media." (Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily.)

Keeping Up with the Gorkas

Internal documents also refer to interactions between Integrity Initiative Director Chris Donnelly and top Trump officials like Katharine Gorka , a vehemently anti-Muslim Department of Homeland Security official, as well as her husband, Sebastian, who earned right-wing fame during his brief tenure in Trump's White House.

The latter Gorka is an open supporter of the Hungarian Vitezi Rend, a proto-fascist order that collaborated with Nazi Germany during its occupation of Hungary. Following Trump's election victory in 2016, Gorka appeared for televised interviews in a black Vitezi Rend uniform.

Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb, with his wife, Katharine, on Election Night

Gorka was among the first figures listed on an itinerary for Donnelly to Washington this September 18 to 22. The itinerary indicates that the two had breakfast before Donnelly delivered a presentation on "Mapping Russian Influence Activities" at the federally funded military research center, CNA .

According to the itinerary, Donnelly was granted access to Pentagon officials like Mara Karlin , an up-and-coming neoconservative cadre , and John McCain Institute executive director Kurt Volker , another neoconservative operative who also serves as the US Special Representative for Ukraine. Numerous meetings with staffers inside the State Department's Office of Global Engagement were also detailed.

A Foreign Agent in the State Department?

Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal. Leventhal has been a staffer at the State Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative memo, he is listed as a current team member:

Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with "counter-propaganda," the State Department's Global Engagement Center has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My old job at the State Department was as chief propagandist," confessed former Global Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and I don't necessarily think it's that awful."

Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world. Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the messenger.

Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract.

While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.

As a cut-out of the British Foreign Office and Defense Ministry, the Integrity Initiative's work with current and former US officials and members of the media raises certain legal questions. For one, there is no indication that the group has registered under the Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act, as most foreign agents of influence are required to do.

Grants from the Neocons' Favorite Foundation

An Integrity Initiative memo states that the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation has also committed to ponying up funding for its US network as soon as the group receives 501 c-3 non-profit status. The foundation has already provided it with about $56,000 for covert propaganda activities across Europe.

The Smith Richardson Foundation has old ties to the US intelligence community and controversial cold war influence operations. According to reporter Russ Bellant , the foundation was secretly bankrolling radical right-wing "indoctrination campaigns for the American public on cold war and foreign policy issues" -- programs that got the attention of Senator William Fulbright, who warned then-President Kennedy of their dangers. At one of these indoctrination seminars, a Smith Richardson Foundation director "told attendees that 'it is within the capacity of the people in this room to literally turn the State of Georgia into a civil war college,' in order to overcome their opponents."

Smith Richardson has funded a who's who of the neoconservative movement, from hyper-militaristic think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War. "To say the [Smith Richardson] foundation was involved at every level in the lobbying for and crafting of the so-called global war on terror after 9/11 would be an understatement," wrote journalist Kelley Vlahos.

Besides Smith Richardson, the Integrity Initiative has stated its intention to apply for grants from the State Department "to expand the Integrity Initiative activities both within and outside of the USA." This is yet another indicator that the US government is paying for propaganda targeting its own citizens.

The "Main Event" in Seattle

An Integrity Initiative internal document argues that because "DC is well served by existing US institutions, such as those with which the Institute [for Statecraft] already collaborates," the organization should "concentrate on extending the work of the Integrity Initiative into major cities and key State capitals [sic] across the USA."

This December 10, the Integrity Initiative organized what it called its "main event" in the US. It was a conference on disinformation held in Seattle, Washington under the auspices of a data firm called Adventium Labs. Together with the Technical Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Integrity Initiative listed Adventium Labs as one of its "first partners outside DC."

Adventium is Minneapolis-based research and development firm that has reaped contracts from the US military, including a recent $5.4 million cyber-security grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Inside a modest-sized hotel conference room, the Adventium/Integrity event began with a speech by the Integrity Initiative's Simon Bracey-Lane. Two years prior, Bracey-Lane appeared on the American political scene as a field worker for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential primary run, earning media write-ups as the "Brit for Bernie." Now, the young operator was back in the US as the advance man for a military-intelligence cut-out that specialized in smearing left-wing political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader widely regarded as the British version of Sanders.

Bracey-Lane opened his address by explaining that Integrity Initiative director Chris Donnelly had been unable to appear at the event, possibly because he was bogged down in the scandal back home. He proceeded to read remarks prepared by Donnelly that offered a window into the frighteningly militaristic mindset the Integrity Initiative aims to impose on the public through their media and political allies.

According to Donnelly's comments, the West was no longer in a "peace time, rules based environment." From the halls of government to corporate boardrooms to even the UK's National Health System, "the conclusion is that we have to look for people who suit a wartime environment rather than peacetime."

During Q&A, Bracey-Lane remarked that "we have to change the definition of war to encompass everything that war now encompasses," referring vaguely to various forms of "hybrid warfare."

"There is a great deal to be done in communicating that to young people," he continued. "When we mean being at war we don't mean sending our boys off to fight. It's right here in our homes."

The emphasis on restructuring society along martial lines mirrored the disturbing thinking also on display in notes of a private meeting between Donnelly and Gen. Richard Barrons in 2016. During that chat, the two officers decided that the British military should be removed from democratic supervision and be able to operate as "an independent body outside politics."

While Bracey-Lane's presentation perfectly captured the military mindset of the Integrity Initiative, the speakers that followed him offered a diverse array of perspectives on the concept of disinformation, some more nuanced than others. But one talk stood out from the rest -- not because of its quality, but because of its complete lack thereof.

Reanimating the "Red-Brown" Grifter

Alexander Reid Ross (left) and Emmi Bevensee at the Integrity Initiative's "main event" in Seattle

The presentation was delivered by Alexander Reid Ross, a half-baked political researcher who peddles computer-generated spiderweb relationship charts to prove the existence of a vast hidden network of "red-brown" alliances and "syncretic media" conspiracies controlled by puppeteers in Moscow.

Ross is a lecturer on geography at Portland State University with no scholarly or journalistic credentials on Russia. His students have given him dismal marks at Rate My Professors, complaining about his "terrible monotone lectures" and his penchant for "insert[ing] his own ideologies into our class." But with a book, "Against the Fascist Creep," distributed by the well-known anarchist publishing house, AK Press, the middling academic has tried to make his name as a maverick analyst.

Before the Integrity Initiative was exposed as a military-intelligence front operation, Ross was among a small coterie of pundits and self-styled disinformation experts that followed the group's Twitter account. The Integrity Initiative even retweeted his smear of War Nerd podcast co-host John Dolan.

In a series of articles for the Southern Poverty Law Center last year, Ross attempted to bring his warmed-over Cold War theories to the broader public. He wound up trashing everyone from the co-author of this piece, Max Blumenthal, to Nation magazine publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel to Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen Walt as hidden shadow-fascists secretly controlled by the Kremlin.

The articles ultimately generated an embarrassing scandal and a series of public retractions by the editor-in-chief of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen. And then, like some Dr. Frankenstein for discredited and buried journalism careers, the British Ministry of Defense-backed Integrity Initiative moved in to reanimate Ross as a sought-after public intellectual.

Before the Integrity Initiative-organized crowd, Ross offered a rambling recitation of his theory of a syncretic fascist alliance puppeteered by Russians: "The alt right takes from both this 'red-brown,' it's called, or like left-right syncretic highly international national of nationalisms, and from the United States' own paleoconservative movement, and it's sort of percolated down through college organizing, um, and anti-interventionism meets anti-imperialism. Right?"

In a strange twist, Ross appeared on stage at the Integrity Initiative's Seattle event alongside Emmi Bevensee , a contributor to the left-libertarian Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) think tank, whose tagline, "a left market anarchist think-tank" expresses its core aim of uniting far-left anarchists with free-market right-libertarians.

Bevensee , a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona and self-described "Borderlands anarcho into tech and crypto," concluded her presentation by asserting a linkage between the alternative news site, Zero Hedge, and the "physical militarized presence in the borderlands" of anti-immigrant vigilantes. Like Bevensee, Ross has written for C4SS in the past.

The irony of contributors to an anarchist group called the "Center for a Stateless Society" auditioning before The State – the most jackbooted element of it, in fact – for more opportunities to attack anti-war politicians and journalists, can hardly be overstated.

But closer examination of the history of C4SS veers from irony into something much darker and more unsettling.

Pedophile Co-Founder, White Nationalist Associates

C4SS was co-founded in 2006 by a confessed child rapist and libertarian activist, Brad Spangler, who set the group up to promote "Market anarchism" to "replace Marxism on the left."

When Spangler's child rape confessions emerged in 2015, the Center for Stateless Society founder was finally drummed out by his colleagues.

There's more: Spangler's understudy and deputy in the C4SS, Kevin Carson -- currently listed as the group's "Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory" -- turned out to be a longtime friend and defender of white nationalist Keith Preston. Preston's name is prominently plastered on the back of Kevin Carson's book, hailing the C4SS man as "the Proudhon of our time" -- a loaded compliment, given Proudhon's unhinged anti-Semitism . Carson only disowned Preston in 2009, shortly before Preston helped white nationalist leader Richard Spencer launch his alt-right webzine, Alternative Right.

The C4SS group currently participates in the annual Koch-backed International Students For Liberty conference in Washington DC, LibertyCon, a who's who of libertarian think-tank hacks and Republican Party semi-celebrities like Steve Forbes, FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and Alan Dershowitz.

In 2013, C4SS's Kevin Carson tweeted out his dream fantasy that four Jewish leftists -- Mark Ames, Yasha Levine, Corey Robin, and Mark Potok -- would die in a plane crash while struggling over a single parachute. Potok was an executive editor at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which last year retracted every one of the crank articles that Alexander Reid Ross published with them and formally apologized for having run them.

For some reason, the super-sleuth Ross conveniently failed to investigate the libertarian group, C4SS, that he has chosen to partner with and publish in. That ability to shamelessly smear and denounce leftists over the most crudely manufactured links to the far-right -- while cozying up to groups as sleazy as C4SS and authoritarian as the Integrity Initiative -- is the sort of adaptive trait that MI6 spies and the Rendon Group would find useful in a covert domestic influence operation.

Ross did not respond to our request for comment on his involvement with the Integrity Initiative and C4SS.

Disinformation for Democracy

As it spans out across the US, the Integrity Initiative has stated its desire to "build a younger generation of Russia watchers." Toward this goal, it is supplementing its coterie of elite journalists, think tank hacks, spooks and State Department info-warriors with certifiable cranks like Ross.

Less than 24 hours after Ross's appearance at the Integrity Initiative event in Seattle, he sent a menacing email to the co-author of this article, Ames, announcing his intention to recycle an old and discredited smear against him and publish it in the Daily Beast -- a publication that appears to enjoy a special relationship with Integrity Initiative personnel.

Despite the threat of investigation in the UK, the Integrity Initiative's "network of networks" appears to be escalating its covert, government-funded influence operation, trashing the political left and assailing anyone that gets in its way -- all in the name of fighting foreign disinformation.

"We have to win this one," Integrity Initiative founder Col. Chris Donnelly said , "because if we don't, democracy will be undermined."

Disturbed Voter , January 10, 2019 at 4:26 am

This is why you don't put spooks in charge. They are paid to be paranoid.

pretzelattack , January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am

making up lies to get paid. james angleton was paranoid (not that it seemed to make him more effective in counterintelligence)–these people are just con artists, paid to be con artists.
i'm just waiting for "we have to undermine democracy in order to save it".

Pym of Nantucket , January 10, 2019 at 5:46 pm

Agreed. Not only are they paid to make things up, but they have an ingenious scheme for paying themselves from narcotics and arms dealing.

The most amazing feat of confidence artistry (apart from maybe the TARP bailout (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program ) is their remarkable ability to convince the population they are needed and working on our behalf instead of being in jail where they belong.

nobody , January 10, 2019 at 6:06 am

I first heard about this enterprise/outfit from 21st Century Wire .

Peter , January 10, 2019 at 6:40 am

hat story has been around since at least December 17. https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/12/17/inside-the-temple-of-covert-propaganda-the-integrity-initiative-and-the-uks-scandalous-information-war/
maybe you should change your sources

Richard H Caldwell , January 10, 2019 at 6:52 am

Gotta love Mark Ames

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 6:55 am

b at Moon of Alabama posted on this on the 4th.

David , January 10, 2019 at 7:01 am

I submitted a long comment on this about an hour ago, which seems to have been eaten by the system. I won't repost it now, but I'll do so later if it doesn't surface.

PlutoniumKun , January 10, 2019 at 7:58 am

This is something that has repeatedly happened to me too recently – it often takes 2 or more hours for most of my recent posting to surface on the site. It rarely disappears altogether, so I would assume your post will eventually arrive.

hemeantwell , January 10, 2019 at 9:25 am

Same here on the delays. Keep a copy.
But anyway, very glad you posted this piece. Whatever we make of Patreon, it's one way to support Mark Ames' work.

flora , January 10, 2019 at 9:13 pm

Me, too. Though not on this post. Me thinks much sp@m and tr0llery happening behind the scenes that the mods have to wade through comment by comment.

jCandlish , January 10, 2019 at 7:50 am

Sir Alan Duncan, responding on behalf of the Government to Emily Thornberry's urgent question (Dec 12) on recent allegations that the Foreign Office funded a company which carried out a smear campaign against the official Opposition.

Chilling indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBOwO-MAPKI

RBHoughton , January 10, 2019 at 10:06 pm

What a frightful fellow that Alan Duncan is eh? Talks like a Mafia lawyer and he's supposed to be a national leader. He reminds that other MP, the POS who interrogated David Kelly on TV, they both use the same style. Is it a qualification for legislator?

The Rev Kev , January 10, 2019 at 8:23 am

Just a minor note to start off. That image of "Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb". I think that Vitezi Rend actually refers to the medal he wears on the left. The jacket itself more resembles the patrol jacket that British officers wore in the 19th century. Moving on! Notice how the same players keep on coming up again and again in all these stories of skulduggery? John Rendon, the Atlantic Council, Ajit Pai and Alan Dershowitz – the same scum-bags with a few new wannabe players. As an example.
The penchant that Brad Spangler, C4SS co-founder, has for under-age girls is disgusting of course but you have to put it into the context of the people that you are talking about. If Spengler was more rich or more powerful, you might see his name on a manifest for the "Lolita Express" but his activities would not be splashed about in an article like this one. That sort of activity is given a level of protection if you are in the right group. And it is a good thing that that British General Richard Barrons is retired as his comments are deserving of being cashiered.
Funny how a group that claims to be about protecting democracy wants to push it aside and install propaganda on a "1984" level in the pursuit of their aims. I cannot decide if their target of Russia is a means or an end. If it is a means, that means using the boogy-man of Russia to radically restructure western society to their tastes. If it is an end, well, it is true that Russia has about $75 trillion in resources, mostly in Siberia and the east, so if it was broken up eventually, that would be a bonanza of wealth appropriation.
I was thinking about the activities of this group and how they go about their activities, especially the smearing of anybody that talks truth to power. I wonder if anybody here made the connection with this story and the PropOrNot website that came out of nowhere about two years ago and that had the stamp of approval of the Washington Post. I would not be surprised if it turns out to be that PropOrNot was a trial balloon in the United States for the Integrity Initiative to establish what it was capable of. Just a thought.

Martin Finnucane , January 10, 2019 at 9:39 am

Vitezi Rend garb

He looks like an extra from Star Wars – one of those nazi guys working the bridge of the Death Star. The "look and feel" of a lot of pre-war fascism strikes us as silly in retrospect, though it really wasn't at the time.

EoH , January 10, 2019 at 10:35 am

That tailored black jacket Sebastian wears looks like something Winston Churchill would have changed out of before that last cavalry charge at Omdurman. It seems intentionally designed to mimic 19th century great power imperial army officer garb. Nostalgia for the good times, apparently. Goes with his fascist priorities.

bob , January 10, 2019 at 11:36 am

" my father was Moonraker and that is part of my origin story "

NSFW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbQx0NTV4TU

Tomonthebeach , January 10, 2019 at 9:25 pm

Let us not get carried away with the exuberance of discovering skulduggery among fascist elements of the media and politics. This does not mean that the conspiracy means Russia is thereby a Goodie Twoshoes. It also does not mean that Russia is any less a pain in the ass than it has heretorfore be characterized.

It does mean that there is less reason (any?) than ever to put much faith in FoxNews (already a mere propaganda machine) or other orgs. I am uncomfortable hearing CNA is caught up in this as they are a pseudo government thinktank with some Pentagon influence.

If true, the story should be used to clear out some journalists and analyst riffraff. However, this story is surely not going to restore, much less create, any integrity among the Beltway Punditry.

Off The Street , January 10, 2019 at 8:56 am

The article and related matters may also shed more light on the abrupt resignation of Robert Hannigan from the leadership of GCHQ in January 2017 a few days after Trump's inauguration. Given previous revelations about GCHQ and NSA spying on each other's citizens, what else is next in the UK and in the US and elsewhere?

After reading about that Carson character and others I am ready for a shower to try to wash off the disgust.

DJG , January 10, 2019 at 9:01 am

Yves Smith: Thanks for this. I am wondering about two stories that have been flapping around here for a few days: That odd New Knowledge company that produced the report about Russian influence on the elections as well as the story about the case before the Supreme Court of the US in which a company is invoking claims of sovereign immunity.

I have a feeling that New Knowledge definitely fits into the framework outlined by Ames above. A contractor that appears out of nowhere with a "distinguished" board of concerned semi-liberals (at the trough)?

But what do I know? Some guy named Volodya showed up at my house and bought my vote in 2016 for two bottles of pickled mushrooms

diptherio , January 10, 2019 at 9:32 am

Kevin Carson is always showing up in my twitter feed. I knew there was something I didn't like about that guy, anarchist or no.

jfleni , January 10, 2019 at 9:38 am

Perfideus Albion is not just a neat saying, but a truth that the Irish, French and
Germans (etc.) have known forever, the people don't deserve it, but the
jumped up Tories do in spades.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 9:48 am

Thank you for highlighting this article! It names names and connects some dots, including some connections reaching into the U.S. It also describes propaganda mechanisms that have been around forever but have become pervasive today. A few protruding tips of a massive iceberg, in my view. I'm sure *this* "bombshell" story will get the massive coverage it deserves in the MSM -- not!

diptherio , January 10, 2019 at 10:43 am

Here's the response from C4SS, if anyone is interested:
https://c4ss.org/content/51563

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 1:11 pm

That was interesting. Well argued all the way through I thought, but they could take a closer look at the unwinding of Yugoslavia; what Serbia and Syria have in common is having been targeted by outside state powers for dissolution, responses did vary.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 2:27 pm

Thank you diptherio for posting the C4SS response. Such responses are helpful in evaluating issues like this, and we should always be open to the other side when they take the time to reply. However, I can't agree that the response was "well argued." The author does make some valid points, but mainly she resorts to ad hominem attacks on Ames (based on some juvenile antics at eXile that are often used to smear him), or on both authors because they may have agreed with "Assadists" like Ambassador Peter Ford or "9/11 Truthers" like Piers Robinson, whose claims about Syria or the White Helmets are, of course, Kremlin propaganda. Which brings up why Blumenthal would have changed his position on Syria; it was not because of his gradual understanding of what was really happening there. Rather, while he had once grasp the truth of the "revolution," he made the mistake of going to a Kremlin gala and the Rooskies (and RT) got to him. Now he is just another propagandist. Nowhere that I can see does the author discuss the major claims made in Ames and Blumenthal's article, or the evidence cited (except to say that if it was in RT or Sputnik, we can ignore it anyway as propaganda). Nor does she address the actual defamation made by Alexander Ross-Reid through the SPLC that pissed off Blumenthal in the first place. There are other problems (don't get me started on the "red-brown" smear), but that's enough.

Having said all that, I do think that in their criticism of C4SS, Ames and Blumenthal perhaps did some unnecessary punching down. They could have made clearer the distinction between organizations like the Integrity Initiative, that are pretty clearly intelligence operatives or cut-outs, versus groups like C4SS that function more like "useful idiots" because of their ideological position (e.g. equating U.S. and Russian imperialism in this case in their "anarchist" appeal). The latter are in no way as evil as the former, in my mind.

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 3:18 pm

You are clearly much more engaged with the related debates than I. I read the piece as a response to the punching down you mention in your last paragraph and felt like I got a respectable read on someone still developing their arguments. I'm not informed enough to argue with much of it, but having read Diana Johnstone's "Fools Crusade", the Syria/Serbia bit stuck in my craw.

I had thought about commenting on the ad hominems directed at Ames, but didn't want to get into the whole identity argument embedded in much of the language of the post. While I disagree with many of her positions and attitudes on the state actions she criticizes without, in my opinion, adequate grounding, I judged it a mostly good faith effort trying to find solid footing in a world increasingly thick with distorted narratives.

It's hard to argue now, from anywhere with out power, without being someone's "useful idiot": trust has decayed to the point where language impedes communication in the political sphere.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 5:01 pm

It's funny you should mention Johnstone's book. I normally would not use the derogatory term "useful idiot" for the very reason you imply; most such people are acting in good faith. I admit that her comments on Syria irritated me. But the reason I sometimes overreact to that sort of narrative is because of my own experiences as a useful idiot, starting with Yugoslavia. I fell for the liberal "humanitarian" argument hook, line, and sinker in the 1990s, even though I considered myself a knowledgeable progressive at the time. It wouldn't be the last time I was duped, but I'd like to think I'm a little wiser today.

I appreciate your comment. We definitely need to distinguish empire propagandists from the beliefs of people honestly trying to find their way.

rojo , January 10, 2019 at 6:41 pm

I thought the later part of Ames' piece was unnecessary. It's kind of the same sort of guilt-by-attending-same-conference thing that I find annoying about the Russophobes.

Keep focused on government malfeasance, not basement brown-shirts.

Ignacio , January 10, 2019 at 11:00 am

Oh well, there would be a lot to argue here. In one side it is nice to see that the "Initiative" is being exposed although it doesn't appear yet to trigger any significant response from supposedly democratic institutions like, let's say the english parliament (at ransom by brexit).

Just to demonstrate how this article is well focused and pointed I wanted to comment on this bit:

(Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily .)

YES! iIt is so true that the former "center-left" –if you wish– daily that years ago was a must read but has been degraded to levels that I wouldn't have imagined, in a case that makes the Guardian as the "guardian of reporting-as-it should-be". One has to bear in mind that the current most important shareholder of Grupo Prisa (owner of El Pais) is an english hedge fund Amber Capital whose CEO, Joseph Oughorlian is chairman at Grupo Prisa and probably responsible for the Russia!Russia!Russia! campaign observed in this medium that surprised me so much. You don't find nothing similar in Spain even in rigth and rigth of the rigth news outlets.

I believe this UK-based shareholder is clearly associated with the peculiar Russia!Russia!Russia! stance of the supposedly centre-left daily.

juliania , January 10, 2019 at 12:24 pm

For those of us from way back way back, these kooks relate to offshoots of the Watergate scandal, the original one, where people working on those burglaries of psychiatrist's offices and Democratic headquarters got their start organizing small gangs of crooks to infiltrate what was then a porous but trustable system of government – on they went to propose surveillance and collection of data that was at first publicly laughed about but on they went. On they went. Technology with all its pluses has these minuses we at first were able to counter (Church hearings) but the rats have scurried into all the back alleys and secretive pathways that need a thorough cleanup. It can be done, but it needs to be done periodically. Hopefully this is finally the year when that will happen.

Thank you, Yves. I believe these folk don't end up in a good place, but meanwhile they are wreaking havoc. The place to start, after the brooms and mops, is to get money OUT of politics and restore a verifiable voting system that happens methodically and is trustworthy. The citizenry will be behind this. We the people don't care how long it takes to vote or to find out who won. We don't! Haste makes waste in more ways than we know.

Let's do this. And please, judges, do your duty or go to jail yourselves.

Andrew Watts , January 10, 2019 at 1:37 pm

It's obvious that neither Ames or Blumenthal read the actual documents they're quoting from. Which is a shame considering the relevant one involving the CIA's Operation Mockingbird comparison was only seven pages long. The CIA were merely imitating British intelligence during the war and it is clearly stated as such when one of the replies involving General Sir Richard Barrons states that they've done this before during the 1930s. The US didn't possess a foreign intelligence agency at the time and I'd fervently argue that we still don't to this day.

but I've already commented about British Security Coordination in the aftermath of PropOrNot though and I'm reluctant to beat a dead horse.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/links-12312016.html#comment-2736471
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/100755.html#comment-2737564
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/links-11217.html#comment-2742827
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/05/links-5-21-18.html#comment-2971759

It's hard to be modest when you're this good.

Roady , January 10, 2019 at 4:02 pm

I wish I could be like Andrew Watts

Chauncey Gardiner , January 10, 2019 at 3:27 pm

Ah, the smell (or should we say stench) of domestic propaganda in the morning, ironically by some of the same individuals who brought us Iraq WMDs. While First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and other civil rights must be protected, it seems to me that a careful balance can be drawn under new legislation that insulates us from such government-sponsored propaganda. We should be able to rely on our government's representations. Instead, as with a former president who openly acknowledged, "My job is to catapult the propaganda," the reverse, together with a related loss of trust, unfortunately seems to be increasingly the case. Stop lying! What part of "of the People, by the People, for the People," is difficult to understand?

[Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior. ..."
"... That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did. ..."
"... So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether. ..."
"... Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:

"Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a glorious end!"

The tweet was warmly received and celebrated by Trump's supporters, despite the fact that it says essentially nothing since "eventually" could mean anything.

Indeed, it's looking increasingly possible that nothing will come of the president's stated agenda to withdraw troops from Syria other than a bunch of words which allow his anti-interventionist base to feel nice feelings inside. Yet everyone laps it up, on both ends of the political aisle, just like they always do:

How are such wildly different pictures being painted about the same non-event? By the fact that both sides of the Trump-Syria debate have thus far been reacting solely to narrative.

This has consistently been the story throughout Trump's presidency: a heavy emphasis on words and narratives and a disinterest in facts and actions. A rude tweet can dominate headlines for days, while the actual behaviors of this administration can go almost completely ignored. Trump continues to more or less advance the same warmongering Orwellian globalist policies and agendas as his predecessors along more or less the same trajectory, but frantic mass media narratives are churned out every day painting him as some unprecedented deviation from the norm. Trump himself, seemingly aware that he's interacting entirely with perceptions and narratives instead of facts and reality, routinely makes things up whole cloth and often claims he's "never said" things he most certainly has said. And why not? Facts don't matter in this media environment, only narrative does.

Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior.

That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did.

So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. With the nuclear brinkmanship this administration has been playing with its only nuclear rival on the planet, it would be so incredibly easy for Trump's opposition to attack him on his insanely hawkish escalation of a conflict which could easily end all life on earth if any little thing goes wrong, but they don't. Because this is all about narrative and not facts, Democrats have been paced into supporting even more sanctioning, proxy conflicts and nuclear posturing while loudly objecting to any sign of communication between the two nuclear superpowers, while Republicans are happy to see Trump increase tensions with Moscow because it combats the collusion narrative. Now both parties are supporting an anti-Russia agenda which existed in secretive US government agencies long before the 2016 election .

And this to me is the most significant thing about Trump's presidency. Not any of the things people tell me I'm supposed to care about, but the fact that the age of Trump has been highlighting in a very clear way how we're all being manipulated by manufactured narratives all the time.

Humanity lives in a world of mental narrative . We have a deeply conditioned societal habit of heaping a massive overlay of mental labels and stories on top of the raw data we take in through our senses, and those labels and stories tend to consume far more interest and attention than the actual data itself. We use labels and stories for a reason: without them it would be impossible to share abstract ideas and information with each other about what's going on in our world. But those labels and stories get imbued with an intense amount of belief and identification; we form tight, rigid belief structures about our world, our society, and our very selves that can generate a lot of fear, hatred and suffering. Which is why it feels so nice to go out into nature and relax in an environment that isn't shaped by human mental narrative.

This problem is exponentially exacerbated by the fact that these stories and labels are wildly subjective and very easily manipulated. Powerful people have learned that they can control the way everyone else thinks, acts and votes by controlling the stories they tell themselves about what's going on in the world using mass media control and financial political influence, allowing ostensible democracies to be conducted in a way which serves power far more efficiently than any dictatorship.

So now America has a president who is escalating a dangerous cold war against Russia , who is working to prosecute Julian Assange and shut down WikiLeaks , who is expanding the same war on whistleblowers and Orwellian surveillance network that was expanded by Bush and Obama before him, who has expanded existing wars and made no tangible move as yet to scale them back, who is advancing the longstanding neocon agenda of regime change in Iran with starvation sanctions and CIA covert ops , and yet the two prevailing narratives about him are that he's either (A) a swamp-draining, establishment-fighting hero of peace or that he's (B) a treasonous Putin lackey who isn't nearly hawkish enough toward Russia.

See how both A and B herd the public away from opposing the dangerous pro-establishment agendas being advanced by this administration? The dominant narratives could not possibly be more different from what's actually going on, and the only reason they're the dominant narratives is because an alliance of plutocrats and secretive government agencies exerts an immense amount of influence over the stories that are told by the political/media class.

The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether.

Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. It is possible that this is what it looks like when a thinking species evolves into a sane and healthy relationship with thought. Perhaps the cracks that are appearing all over official narratives today are like the first cracks appearing in an eggshell as a bird begins to hatch into the world.

* * *

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .

[Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project

The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US.

A bombshell domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert UK state military-intelligence psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting "Russian disinformation."

The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of a group called "Integrity Initiative" to shape domestic opinion -- and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government, including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the US. Hacked documents reveal that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top DC think tanks, the FBI and the DHS, where it has gained access to Katharine Gorka and her husband, the fascist-linked cable news pundit Sebastian Gorka .

The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the US, meddling in American politics and recruiting "a new generation of Russia watchers" behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the most notorious American "perception management" specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships with the media.

Back in the UK, Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative's abuse of public money.

In a recent editorial , Williamson drew a direct parallel between the group's collaboration with journalists and surreptitious payments the CIA made to reporters during the Cold War.

"These tactics resemble those deployed by the CIA in Operation Mockingbird that was launched at the height of the cold war in the early 1950s. Its aims included using the mainstream news media as a propaganda tool," Williamson wrote.

"They manipulated the news agenda by recruiting leading journalists to write stories with the express purpose of influencing public opinion in a particular way," the Labour parliamentarian continued. "Now it seems the British Establishment have dusted off the CIA's old playbook and is intent on giving it another outing on this side of the Atlantic."

Unmasking a British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine

The existence of the Integrity Initiative was virtually unknown until this November, when the email servers of a previously obscure British think tank called the Institute for Statecraft were hacked, prompting allegations of Russian intrusion. When the group's internal documents appeared at a website hosted by Anonymous Europe, the public learned of a covert propaganda network seed-funded to the tune of over $2 million dollars by the Tory-controlled UK Foreign Office, and run largely by military-intelligence officers.

Through a series of cash inducements, off the record briefings and all-day conferences, the Integrity Initiative has sought to organize journalists across the West into an international echo chamber hyping up the supposed threat of Russian disinformation -- and to defame politicians and journalists critical of this new Cold War campaign.

A bid for funding submitted by the Integrity Initiative in 2017 to the British Ministry of Defense promised to deliver a "tougher stance on Russia" by arranging for "more information published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures."

The Integrity Initiative has also worked through its fronts in the media to smear political figures perceived as a threat to its militaristic agenda. Its targets have included a Spanish Department of Homeland Security appointee, Pedro Banos, whose nomination was scuttled thanks a media blitz it secretly orchestrated; Jeremy Corbyn, whom the outfit and its media cutouts painted as a useful idiot of Russia; and a Scottish member of parliament, Neil Findlay, whom one of its closest media allies accused of adopting "Kremlin messaging" for daring to protest the official visit of the far-right Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy -- the founder of two neo-Nazi parties and author of a white nationalist memoir, "View From The Right."

These smear campaigns and many more surreptitiously orchestrated by the Integrity Initiative offer a disturbing preview of the reactionary politics it plans to inject into an already toxic American political environment.

Lessons from "The Man Who Sold the War"

A newly released Integrity Initiative document reveals that the outfit plans an aggressive expansion across the US.

The Integrity Initiative claims to have already established a "simple office" in Washington DC, though it does not say where. It also boasts of partnerships with top DC think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, CNA, and close relationships with US officials.

A major hub of Integrity Initiative influence is the State Department's Global Engagement Center, a de facto US government propaganda operation that was established by President Barack Obama to battle online ISIS recruitment, but which was rapidly repurposed to counter Russian disinformation following the election of Trump.

The Integrity Initiative has also recruited one of the most infamous American PR men to organize its clusters of journalists and political figures.

He is John Rendon, best known as "The Man Who Sold The War" -- several wars, in fact, but most notoriously the Iraq invasion. Rendon was the self-described "information warrior" who planted fake news in the major US-UK media about non-existent WMD threats. With deep ties to the CIA and other military-intelligence agencies, his PR firm was paid $100 million to organize and sell Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. In 2002, the New York Times exposed a Pentagon program using Rendon to plant "disinformation" -- including "false stories" and "the blackest of black PR" -- in media outlets around the world, in order to shape public opinion and sell the Iraq invasion.

John Rendon (left) with Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, US Africa Command Chief of Staff (photo by US Africom Public Affairs)

Journalist James Bamford outlined a catalogue of disinformation feats Rendon performed for the Pentagon, such as identifying "the biases of specific journalists and potentially obtain an understanding of their allegiances, including the possibility of specific relationships and sponsorships." Bamford also found proposals and programs Rendon was involved in that aimed to "'coerce' foreign journalists and plant false information overseas [and] find ways to 'punish' those who convey the 'wrong message.'"

These tactics seem particularly relevant to his work with the Integrity Initiative, especially considering the internal documents that reveal further Rendon-style plans to produce reports and studies to be "fed anonymously into local media." (Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily.)

Keeping Up with the Gorkas

Internal documents also refer to interactions between Integrity Initiative Director Chris Donnelly and top Trump officials like Katharine Gorka , a vehemently anti-Muslim Department of Homeland Security official, as well as her husband, Sebastian, who earned right-wing fame during his brief tenure in Trump's White House.

The latter Gorka is an open supporter of the Hungarian Vitezi Rend, a proto-fascist order that collaborated with Nazi Germany during its occupation of Hungary. Following Trump's election victory in 2016, Gorka appeared for televised interviews in a black Vitezi Rend uniform.

Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb, with his wife, Katharine, on Election Night

Gorka was among the first figures listed on an itinerary for Donnelly to Washington this September 18 to 22. The itinerary indicates that the two had breakfast before Donnelly delivered a presentation on "Mapping Russian Influence Activities" at the federally funded military research center, CNA .

According to the itinerary, Donnelly was granted access to Pentagon officials like Mara Karlin , an up-and-coming neoconservative cadre , and John McCain Institute executive director Kurt Volker , another neoconservative operative who also serves as the US Special Representative for Ukraine. Numerous meetings with staffers inside the State Department's Office of Global Engagement were also detailed.

A Foreign Agent in the State Department?

Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal. Leventhal has been a staffer at the State Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative memo, he is listed as a current team member:

Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with "counter-propaganda," the State Department's Global Engagement Center has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My old job at the State Department was as chief propagandist," confessed former Global Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and I don't necessarily think it's that awful."

Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world. Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the messenger.

Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract.

While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.

As a cut-out of the British Foreign Office and Defense Ministry, the Integrity Initiative's work with current and former US officials and members of the media raises certain legal questions. For one, there is no indication that the group has registered under the Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act, as most foreign agents of influence are required to do.

Grants from the Neocons' Favorite Foundation

An Integrity Initiative memo states that the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation has also committed to ponying up funding for its US network as soon as the group receives 501 c-3 non-profit status. The foundation has already provided it with about $56,000 for covert propaganda activities across Europe.

The Smith Richardson Foundation has old ties to the US intelligence community and controversial cold war influence operations. According to reporter Russ Bellant , the foundation was secretly bankrolling radical right-wing "indoctrination campaigns for the American public on cold war and foreign policy issues" -- programs that got the attention of Senator William Fulbright, who warned then-President Kennedy of their dangers. At one of these indoctrination seminars, a Smith Richardson Foundation director "told attendees that 'it is within the capacity of the people in this room to literally turn the State of Georgia into a civil war college,' in order to overcome their opponents."

Smith Richardson has funded a who's who of the neoconservative movement, from hyper-militaristic think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War. "To say the [Smith Richardson] foundation was involved at every level in the lobbying for and crafting of the so-called global war on terror after 9/11 would be an understatement," wrote journalist Kelley Vlahos.

Besides Smith Richardson, the Integrity Initiative has stated its intention to apply for grants from the State Department "to expand the Integrity Initiative activities both within and outside of the USA." This is yet another indicator that the US government is paying for propaganda targeting its own citizens.

The "Main Event" in Seattle

An Integrity Initiative internal document argues that because "DC is well served by existing US institutions, such as those with which the Institute [for Statecraft] already collaborates," the organization should "concentrate on extending the work of the Integrity Initiative into major cities and key State capitals [sic] across the USA."

This December 10, the Integrity Initiative organized what it called its "main event" in the US. It was a conference on disinformation held in Seattle, Washington under the auspices of a data firm called Adventium Labs. Together with the Technical Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Integrity Initiative listed Adventium Labs as one of its "first partners outside DC."

Adventium is Minneapolis-based research and development firm that has reaped contracts from the US military, including a recent $5.4 million cyber-security grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Inside a modest-sized hotel conference room, the Adventium/Integrity event began with a speech by the Integrity Initiative's Simon Bracey-Lane. Two years prior, Bracey-Lane appeared on the American political scene as a field worker for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential primary run, earning media write-ups as the "Brit for Bernie." Now, the young operator was back in the US as the advance man for a military-intelligence cut-out that specialized in smearing left-wing political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader widely regarded as the British version of Sanders.

Bracey-Lane opened his address by explaining that Integrity Initiative director Chris Donnelly had been unable to appear at the event, possibly because he was bogged down in the scandal back home. He proceeded to read remarks prepared by Donnelly that offered a window into the frighteningly militaristic mindset the Integrity Initiative aims to impose on the public through their media and political allies.

According to Donnelly's comments, the West was no longer in a "peace time, rules based environment." From the halls of government to corporate boardrooms to even the UK's National Health System, "the conclusion is that we have to look for people who suit a wartime environment rather than peacetime."

During Q&A, Bracey-Lane remarked that "we have to change the definition of war to encompass everything that war now encompasses," referring vaguely to various forms of "hybrid warfare."

"There is a great deal to be done in communicating that to young people," he continued. "When we mean being at war we don't mean sending our boys off to fight. It's right here in our homes."

The emphasis on restructuring society along martial lines mirrored the disturbing thinking also on display in notes of a private meeting between Donnelly and Gen. Richard Barrons in 2016. During that chat, the two officers decided that the British military should be removed from democratic supervision and be able to operate as "an independent body outside politics."

While Bracey-Lane's presentation perfectly captured the military mindset of the Integrity Initiative, the speakers that followed him offered a diverse array of perspectives on the concept of disinformation, some more nuanced than others. But one talk stood out from the rest -- not because of its quality, but because of its complete lack thereof.

Reanimating the "Red-Brown" Grifter

Alexander Reid Ross (left) and Emmi Bevensee at the Integrity Initiative's "main event" in Seattle

The presentation was delivered by Alexander Reid Ross, a half-baked political researcher who peddles computer-generated spiderweb relationship charts to prove the existence of a vast hidden network of "red-brown" alliances and "syncretic media" conspiracies controlled by puppeteers in Moscow.

Ross is a lecturer on geography at Portland State University with no scholarly or journalistic credentials on Russia. His students have given him dismal marks at Rate My Professors, complaining about his "terrible monotone lectures" and his penchant for "insert[ing] his own ideologies into our class." But with a book, "Against the Fascist Creep," distributed by the well-known anarchist publishing house, AK Press, the middling academic has tried to make his name as a maverick analyst.

Before the Integrity Initiative was exposed as a military-intelligence front operation, Ross was among a small coterie of pundits and self-styled disinformation experts that followed the group's Twitter account. The Integrity Initiative even retweeted his smear of War Nerd podcast co-host John Dolan.

In a series of articles for the Southern Poverty Law Center last year, Ross attempted to bring his warmed-over Cold War theories to the broader public. He wound up trashing everyone from the co-author of this piece, Max Blumenthal, to Nation magazine publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel to Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen Walt as hidden shadow-fascists secretly controlled by the Kremlin.

The articles ultimately generated an embarrassing scandal and a series of public retractions by the editor-in-chief of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen. And then, like some Dr. Frankenstein for discredited and buried journalism careers, the British Ministry of Defense-backed Integrity Initiative moved in to reanimate Ross as a sought-after public intellectual.

Before the Integrity Initiative-organized crowd, Ross offered a rambling recitation of his theory of a syncretic fascist alliance puppeteered by Russians: "The alt right takes from both this 'red-brown,' it's called, or like left-right syncretic highly international national of nationalisms, and from the United States' own paleoconservative movement, and it's sort of percolated down through college organizing, um, and anti-interventionism meets anti-imperialism. Right?"

In a strange twist, Ross appeared on stage at the Integrity Initiative's Seattle event alongside Emmi Bevensee , a contributor to the left-libertarian Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) think tank, whose tagline, "a left market anarchist think-tank" expresses its core aim of uniting far-left anarchists with free-market right-libertarians.

Bevensee , a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona and self-described "Borderlands anarcho into tech and crypto," concluded her presentation by asserting a linkage between the alternative news site, Zero Hedge, and the "physical militarized presence in the borderlands" of anti-immigrant vigilantes. Like Bevensee, Ross has written for C4SS in the past.

The irony of contributors to an anarchist group called the "Center for a Stateless Society" auditioning before The State – the most jackbooted element of it, in fact – for more opportunities to attack anti-war politicians and journalists, can hardly be overstated.

But closer examination of the history of C4SS veers from irony into something much darker and more unsettling.

Pedophile Co-Founder, White Nationalist Associates

C4SS was co-founded in 2006 by a confessed child rapist and libertarian activist, Brad Spangler, who set the group up to promote "Market anarchism" to "replace Marxism on the left."

When Spangler's child rape confessions emerged in 2015, the Center for Stateless Society founder was finally drummed out by his colleagues.

There's more: Spangler's understudy and deputy in the C4SS, Kevin Carson -- currently listed as the group's "Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory" -- turned out to be a longtime friend and defender of white nationalist Keith Preston. Preston's name is prominently plastered on the back of Kevin Carson's book, hailing the C4SS man as "the Proudhon of our time" -- a loaded compliment, given Proudhon's unhinged anti-Semitism . Carson only disowned Preston in 2009, shortly before Preston helped white nationalist leader Richard Spencer launch his alt-right webzine, Alternative Right.

The C4SS group currently participates in the annual Koch-backed International Students For Liberty conference in Washington DC, LibertyCon, a who's who of libertarian think-tank hacks and Republican Party semi-celebrities like Steve Forbes, FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and Alan Dershowitz.

In 2013, C4SS's Kevin Carson tweeted out his dream fantasy that four Jewish leftists -- Mark Ames, Yasha Levine, Corey Robin, and Mark Potok -- would die in a plane crash while struggling over a single parachute. Potok was an executive editor at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which last year retracted every one of the crank articles that Alexander Reid Ross published with them and formally apologized for having run them.

For some reason, the super-sleuth Ross conveniently failed to investigate the libertarian group, C4SS, that he has chosen to partner with and publish in. That ability to shamelessly smear and denounce leftists over the most crudely manufactured links to the far-right -- while cozying up to groups as sleazy as C4SS and authoritarian as the Integrity Initiative -- is the sort of adaptive trait that MI6 spies and the Rendon Group would find useful in a covert domestic influence operation.

Ross did not respond to our request for comment on his involvement with the Integrity Initiative and C4SS.

Disinformation for Democracy

As it spans out across the US, the Integrity Initiative has stated its desire to "build a younger generation of Russia watchers." Toward this goal, it is supplementing its coterie of elite journalists, think tank hacks, spooks and State Department info-warriors with certifiable cranks like Ross.

Less than 24 hours after Ross's appearance at the Integrity Initiative event in Seattle, he sent a menacing email to the co-author of this article, Ames, announcing his intention to recycle an old and discredited smear against him and publish it in the Daily Beast -- a publication that appears to enjoy a special relationship with Integrity Initiative personnel.

Despite the threat of investigation in the UK, the Integrity Initiative's "network of networks" appears to be escalating its covert, government-funded influence operation, trashing the political left and assailing anyone that gets in its way -- all in the name of fighting foreign disinformation.

"We have to win this one," Integrity Initiative founder Col. Chris Donnelly said , "because if we don't, democracy will be undermined."

Disturbed Voter , January 10, 2019 at 4:26 am

This is why you don't put spooks in charge. They are paid to be paranoid.

pretzelattack , January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am

making up lies to get paid. james angleton was paranoid (not that it seemed to make him more effective in counterintelligence)–these people are just con artists, paid to be con artists.
i'm just waiting for "we have to undermine democracy in order to save it".

Pym of Nantucket , January 10, 2019 at 5:46 pm

Agreed. Not only are they paid to make things up, but they have an ingenious scheme for paying themselves from narcotics and arms dealing.

The most amazing feat of confidence artistry (apart from maybe the TARP bailout (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program ) is their remarkable ability to convince the population they are needed and working on our behalf instead of being in jail where they belong.

nobody , January 10, 2019 at 6:06 am

I first heard about this enterprise/outfit from 21st Century Wire .

Peter , January 10, 2019 at 6:40 am

hat story has been around since at least December 17. https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/12/17/inside-the-temple-of-covert-propaganda-the-integrity-initiative-and-the-uks-scandalous-information-war/
maybe you should change your sources

Richard H Caldwell , January 10, 2019 at 6:52 am

Gotta love Mark Ames

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 6:55 am

b at Moon of Alabama posted on this on the 4th.

David , January 10, 2019 at 7:01 am

I submitted a long comment on this about an hour ago, which seems to have been eaten by the system. I won't repost it now, but I'll do so later if it doesn't surface.

PlutoniumKun , January 10, 2019 at 7:58 am

This is something that has repeatedly happened to me too recently – it often takes 2 or more hours for most of my recent posting to surface on the site. It rarely disappears altogether, so I would assume your post will eventually arrive.

hemeantwell , January 10, 2019 at 9:25 am

Same here on the delays. Keep a copy.
But anyway, very glad you posted this piece. Whatever we make of Patreon, it's one way to support Mark Ames' work.

flora , January 10, 2019 at 9:13 pm

Me, too. Though not on this post. Me thinks much sp@m and tr0llery happening behind the scenes that the mods have to wade through comment by comment.

jCandlish , January 10, 2019 at 7:50 am

Sir Alan Duncan, responding on behalf of the Government to Emily Thornberry's urgent question (Dec 12) on recent allegations that the Foreign Office funded a company which carried out a smear campaign against the official Opposition.

Chilling indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBOwO-MAPKI

RBHoughton , January 10, 2019 at 10:06 pm

What a frightful fellow that Alan Duncan is eh? Talks like a Mafia lawyer and he's supposed to be a national leader. He reminds that other MP, the POS who interrogated David Kelly on TV, they both use the same style. Is it a qualification for legislator?

The Rev Kev , January 10, 2019 at 8:23 am

Just a minor note to start off. That image of "Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb". I think that Vitezi Rend actually refers to the medal he wears on the left. The jacket itself more resembles the patrol jacket that British officers wore in the 19th century. Moving on! Notice how the same players keep on coming up again and again in all these stories of skulduggery? John Rendon, the Atlantic Council, Ajit Pai and Alan Dershowitz – the same scum-bags with a few new wannabe players. As an example.
The penchant that Brad Spangler, C4SS co-founder, has for under-age girls is disgusting of course but you have to put it into the context of the people that you are talking about. If Spengler was more rich or more powerful, you might see his name on a manifest for the "Lolita Express" but his activities would not be splashed about in an article like this one. That sort of activity is given a level of protection if you are in the right group. And it is a good thing that that British General Richard Barrons is retired as his comments are deserving of being cashiered.
Funny how a group that claims to be about protecting democracy wants to push it aside and install propaganda on a "1984" level in the pursuit of their aims. I cannot decide if their target of Russia is a means or an end. If it is a means, that means using the boogy-man of Russia to radically restructure western society to their tastes. If it is an end, well, it is true that Russia has about $75 trillion in resources, mostly in Siberia and the east, so if it was broken up eventually, that would be a bonanza of wealth appropriation.
I was thinking about the activities of this group and how they go about their activities, especially the smearing of anybody that talks truth to power. I wonder if anybody here made the connection with this story and the PropOrNot website that came out of nowhere about two years ago and that had the stamp of approval of the Washington Post. I would not be surprised if it turns out to be that PropOrNot was a trial balloon in the United States for the Integrity Initiative to establish what it was capable of. Just a thought.

Martin Finnucane , January 10, 2019 at 9:39 am

Vitezi Rend garb

He looks like an extra from Star Wars – one of those nazi guys working the bridge of the Death Star. The "look and feel" of a lot of pre-war fascism strikes us as silly in retrospect, though it really wasn't at the time.

EoH , January 10, 2019 at 10:35 am

That tailored black jacket Sebastian wears looks like something Winston Churchill would have changed out of before that last cavalry charge at Omdurman. It seems intentionally designed to mimic 19th century great power imperial army officer garb. Nostalgia for the good times, apparently. Goes with his fascist priorities.

bob , January 10, 2019 at 11:36 am

" my father was Moonraker and that is part of my origin story "

NSFW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbQx0NTV4TU

Tomonthebeach , January 10, 2019 at 9:25 pm

Let us not get carried away with the exuberance of discovering skulduggery among fascist elements of the media and politics. This does not mean that the conspiracy means Russia is thereby a Goodie Twoshoes. It also does not mean that Russia is any less a pain in the ass than it has heretorfore be characterized.

It does mean that there is less reason (any?) than ever to put much faith in FoxNews (already a mere propaganda machine) or other orgs. I am uncomfortable hearing CNA is caught up in this as they are a pseudo government thinktank with some Pentagon influence.

If true, the story should be used to clear out some journalists and analyst riffraff. However, this story is surely not going to restore, much less create, any integrity among the Beltway Punditry.

Off The Street , January 10, 2019 at 8:56 am

The article and related matters may also shed more light on the abrupt resignation of Robert Hannigan from the leadership of GCHQ in January 2017 a few days after Trump's inauguration. Given previous revelations about GCHQ and NSA spying on each other's citizens, what else is next in the UK and in the US and elsewhere?

After reading about that Carson character and others I am ready for a shower to try to wash off the disgust.

DJG , January 10, 2019 at 9:01 am

Yves Smith: Thanks for this. I am wondering about two stories that have been flapping around here for a few days: That odd New Knowledge company that produced the report about Russian influence on the elections as well as the story about the case before the Supreme Court of the US in which a company is invoking claims of sovereign immunity.

I have a feeling that New Knowledge definitely fits into the framework outlined by Ames above. A contractor that appears out of nowhere with a "distinguished" board of concerned semi-liberals (at the trough)?

But what do I know? Some guy named Volodya showed up at my house and bought my vote in 2016 for two bottles of pickled mushrooms

diptherio , January 10, 2019 at 9:32 am

Kevin Carson is always showing up in my twitter feed. I knew there was something I didn't like about that guy, anarchist or no.

jfleni , January 10, 2019 at 9:38 am

Perfideus Albion is not just a neat saying, but a truth that the Irish, French and
Germans (etc.) have known forever, the people don't deserve it, but the
jumped up Tories do in spades.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 9:48 am

Thank you for highlighting this article! It names names and connects some dots, including some connections reaching into the U.S. It also describes propaganda mechanisms that have been around forever but have become pervasive today. A few protruding tips of a massive iceberg, in my view. I'm sure *this* "bombshell" story will get the massive coverage it deserves in the MSM -- not!

diptherio , January 10, 2019 at 10:43 am

Here's the response from C4SS, if anyone is interested:
https://c4ss.org/content/51563

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 1:11 pm

That was interesting. Well argued all the way through I thought, but they could take a closer look at the unwinding of Yugoslavia; what Serbia and Syria have in common is having been targeted by outside state powers for dissolution, responses did vary.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 2:27 pm

Thank you diptherio for posting the C4SS response. Such responses are helpful in evaluating issues like this, and we should always be open to the other side when they take the time to reply. However, I can't agree that the response was "well argued." The author does make some valid points, but mainly she resorts to ad hominem attacks on Ames (based on some juvenile antics at eXile that are often used to smear him), or on both authors because they may have agreed with "Assadists" like Ambassador Peter Ford or "9/11 Truthers" like Piers Robinson, whose claims about Syria or the White Helmets are, of course, Kremlin propaganda. Which brings up why Blumenthal would have changed his position on Syria; it was not because of his gradual understanding of what was really happening there. Rather, while he had once grasp the truth of the "revolution," he made the mistake of going to a Kremlin gala and the Rooskies (and RT) got to him. Now he is just another propagandist. Nowhere that I can see does the author discuss the major claims made in Ames and Blumenthal's article, or the evidence cited (except to say that if it was in RT or Sputnik, we can ignore it anyway as propaganda). Nor does she address the actual defamation made by Alexander Ross-Reid through the SPLC that pissed off Blumenthal in the first place. There are other problems (don't get me started on the "red-brown" smear), but that's enough.

Having said all that, I do think that in their criticism of C4SS, Ames and Blumenthal perhaps did some unnecessary punching down. They could have made clearer the distinction between organizations like the Integrity Initiative, that are pretty clearly intelligence operatives or cut-outs, versus groups like C4SS that function more like "useful idiots" because of their ideological position (e.g. equating U.S. and Russian imperialism in this case in their "anarchist" appeal). The latter are in no way as evil as the former, in my mind.

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 3:18 pm

You are clearly much more engaged with the related debates than I. I read the piece as a response to the punching down you mention in your last paragraph and felt like I got a respectable read on someone still developing their arguments. I'm not informed enough to argue with much of it, but having read Diana Johnstone's "Fools Crusade", the Syria/Serbia bit stuck in my craw.

I had thought about commenting on the ad hominems directed at Ames, but didn't want to get into the whole identity argument embedded in much of the language of the post. While I disagree with many of her positions and attitudes on the state actions she criticizes without, in my opinion, adequate grounding, I judged it a mostly good faith effort trying to find solid footing in a world increasingly thick with distorted narratives.

It's hard to argue now, from anywhere with out power, without being someone's "useful idiot": trust has decayed to the point where language impedes communication in the political sphere.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 5:01 pm

It's funny you should mention Johnstone's book. I normally would not use the derogatory term "useful idiot" for the very reason you imply; most such people are acting in good faith. I admit that her comments on Syria irritated me. But the reason I sometimes overreact to that sort of narrative is because of my own experiences as a useful idiot, starting with Yugoslavia. I fell for the liberal "humanitarian" argument hook, line, and sinker in the 1990s, even though I considered myself a knowledgeable progressive at the time. It wouldn't be the last time I was duped, but I'd like to think I'm a little wiser today.

I appreciate your comment. We definitely need to distinguish empire propagandists from the beliefs of people honestly trying to find their way.

rojo , January 10, 2019 at 6:41 pm

I thought the later part of Ames' piece was unnecessary. It's kind of the same sort of guilt-by-attending-same-conference thing that I find annoying about the Russophobes.

Keep focused on government malfeasance, not basement brown-shirts.

Ignacio , January 10, 2019 at 11:00 am

Oh well, there would be a lot to argue here. In one side it is nice to see that the "Initiative" is being exposed although it doesn't appear yet to trigger any significant response from supposedly democratic institutions like, let's say the english parliament (at ransom by brexit).

Just to demonstrate how this article is well focused and pointed I wanted to comment on this bit:

(Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily .)

YES! iIt is so true that the former "center-left" –if you wish– daily that years ago was a must read but has been degraded to levels that I wouldn't have imagined, in a case that makes the Guardian as the "guardian of reporting-as-it should-be". One has to bear in mind that the current most important shareholder of Grupo Prisa (owner of El Pais) is an english hedge fund Amber Capital whose CEO, Joseph Oughorlian is chairman at Grupo Prisa and probably responsible for the Russia!Russia!Russia! campaign observed in this medium that surprised me so much. You don't find nothing similar in Spain even in rigth and rigth of the rigth news outlets.

I believe this UK-based shareholder is clearly associated with the peculiar Russia!Russia!Russia! stance of the supposedly centre-left daily.

juliania , January 10, 2019 at 12:24 pm

For those of us from way back way back, these kooks relate to offshoots of the Watergate scandal, the original one, where people working on those burglaries of psychiatrist's offices and Democratic headquarters got their start organizing small gangs of crooks to infiltrate what was then a porous but trustable system of government – on they went to propose surveillance and collection of data that was at first publicly laughed about but on they went. On they went. Technology with all its pluses has these minuses we at first were able to counter (Church hearings) but the rats have scurried into all the back alleys and secretive pathways that need a thorough cleanup. It can be done, but it needs to be done periodically. Hopefully this is finally the year when that will happen.

Thank you, Yves. I believe these folk don't end up in a good place, but meanwhile they are wreaking havoc. The place to start, after the brooms and mops, is to get money OUT of politics and restore a verifiable voting system that happens methodically and is trustworthy. The citizenry will be behind this. We the people don't care how long it takes to vote or to find out who won. We don't! Haste makes waste in more ways than we know.

Let's do this. And please, judges, do your duty or go to jail yourselves.

Andrew Watts , January 10, 2019 at 1:37 pm

It's obvious that neither Ames or Blumenthal read the actual documents they're quoting from. Which is a shame considering the relevant one involving the CIA's Operation Mockingbird comparison was only seven pages long. The CIA were merely imitating British intelligence during the war and it is clearly stated as such when one of the replies involving General Sir Richard Barrons states that they've done this before during the 1930s. The US didn't possess a foreign intelligence agency at the time and I'd fervently argue that we still don't to this day.

but I've already commented about British Security Coordination in the aftermath of PropOrNot though and I'm reluctant to beat a dead horse.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/links-12312016.html#comment-2736471
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/100755.html#comment-2737564
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/links-11217.html#comment-2742827
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/05/links-5-21-18.html#comment-2971759

It's hard to be modest when you're this good.

Roady , January 10, 2019 at 4:02 pm

I wish I could be like Andrew Watts

Chauncey Gardiner , January 10, 2019 at 3:27 pm

Ah, the smell (or should we say stench) of domestic propaganda in the morning, ironically by some of the same individuals who brought us Iraq WMDs. While First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and other civil rights must be protected, it seems to me that a careful balance can be drawn under new legislation that insulates us from such government-sponsored propaganda. We should be able to rely on our government's representations. Instead, as with a former president who openly acknowledged, "My job is to catapult the propaganda," the reverse, together with a related loss of trust, unfortunately seems to be increasingly the case. Stop lying! What part of "of the People, by the People, for the People," is difficult to understand?

[Jan 11, 2019] The ticking time bomb is because a large part of young people working now are working on non – permanent contracts that don t pay benefits. These people won t have any pension at all and there are a lot of them

Naomi Klein's book "Shock Doctrine", encapsulated by this post as "global elites used periods of crisis around the world to force damaging neoliberal policies derived from the Chicago School and Washington Consensus upon unhappy populations that suffered greatly as a result."
Notable quotes:
"... Eventually, Poland emerged as the major US agent of influence within the EU (along with GB) with the adamant anti-Russian stance. Which taking into account the real state of Polish manufacturing deprived of the major market is very questionable. Later by joining sanctions, they lost Russian agricultural market (including all apple market in which they have a prominent position). ..."
"... Gowan's book, Global Gamble, is also good on the details of shock therapy in the former Warsaw Pact nations. One key problem was that shock therapy partly rested on he assumption that western European buyers would want to invest in modernizing plant and equipment in industries they acquired, but it quickly turned out that the German and other western buyers were really interested only in acquiring new MARKETS for their own products. ..."
"... I remember a couple of paragraphs about Poland in my Economics 101 course, some 20 years ago. Was it in in Mankiw's book? or Lipsey-Chrystal? I do not remember anymore. One of those vicious neoliberal propaganda mouthpieces, anyway. The textbook pitched Poland's success story against Russia's abject failure, claiming that the former had dismantled and shut down all its inefficient state-run companies, while the latter still kept its unprofitable heavy industry on life support. ..."
"... Somehow neoclassical economists always distort history into a cartoonish parody that confirms their models. ..."
"... If you looked carefully, you could still find older books, barely touched, that touted Albania as a neoliberal success story along the same lines as Poland. Albania almost collapsed in civil war in 1998. ..."
"... The author's criticism doesn't really address Klein's central points at all, which would be that the crisis was used as leverage to ram through otherwise politically unpalatable change, and that a great deal of the constraint forcing that was provided by actors both undemocratic and external. He seems to be of the school that regards such niceties as beside the point, as long as various macroaggregates eventually rose. ..."
"... Any discussion of the Polish economy that completely ignores this massive level of economic outmigration, and it's continued rise among the young, misses a great deal. In a vibrant economy, it seems unlikely that so many educated Poles would find, for example, lower tier jobs in Britain to be their best path forward. ..."
"... Out-migration is a huge factor in eastern and central Europe and without it, the picture would look entirely different. The Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania are even more affected. ..."
"... Inter-war Poland is celebrated a lot in Poland these days, conveniently ignoring the facts it was really a totalitarian state – when Czechoslovakia was Muniched in 1938, Poles (and Hugarians) were quick to grab bits of territory right after that. ..."
"... Poland has taken around a million Ukrainians over the past ten years so while many Poles are emigrating to Europe, they are being replaced by Ukrainians, who are ethnically and linguistically fairly similar to Poles. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The argument largely seems to hold for the original poster boy example in Chile with the Pinochet coup against the socialist Allende regime. A military coup replaced a democratically government. Whiole Chlle was experiencing a serious inflation, it was not in a full-blown economic collapse. The coup was supported by US leaders Nixon and Kissinger, who saw themselves preventing the emergence of pro-Soviet regime resembling Castro's Cuba. Thousands were killed, and a sweeping set of laisssez faire policies were imposed with the active participation of "Chicago Boys" associated with Milton Friedman. In fact, aside from bringing down inflation these rreforms did not initially improve economic performance, even as foreign capital flowed in, especially into the copper industry, although the core of that industry remained nationalized. After several years the Chicago Boys were sent away and more moderate policies, including a reimposition of controls on foreign capital flows, the economy did grow quite rapidly. But this left a deeply unequal income distribution in place, which would largely remain the case even after Pinochet was removed from power and parliamentary democracy returned.

This scenario was argued to happen in many other narions, especially those in the former Sovit bloc as the soviet Union disintegrated and its successor states and the former members of the Soviet bloc in the CMEA and Warsaw Pact also moved to some sort of market capitalism imposed from outside with policies funded by the IMF and following the Washington Consensus. Although he has since expressed regret for this role in this, a key player linking what was done in several Latin American nations and what went down after 1989 in Eastern and Central Europe was Jeffrey Sachs. Klein's discussion especially of what went down in Russia also looks pretty sound by and large, wtthout dragging through the details, although in these cases the political shift was from dictatorships run by Communist parties dominated out of Moscow to at least somewhat more democratic governments, although not in all of the former Soviet republics such as in Central Asia and with many of these later backsliding towards more authoritarian governments later. In Russia and in many oothers large numbers of people were thrown into poverty from which they have not recovered. Klein has also extended this argument to other nations, including South Africa after the end of apartheid.

likbez

The level of the naivety of Barkley Rosser is astounding.

Poland was a political project, the showcase for the neoliberal project in Eastern Europe and the USSR. EU was pressed to provide large subsidies, and that marionette complied. The commenter ilpalazzo (above) is right that there has been " a tremendous development in real estate and infrastructure mostly funded by the EU that has been a serious engine of growth." Like in Baltics and Ukraine, German, French, Swedish and other Western buyers were most interested in opening market for their products and getting rid of local and xUSSR competitors (and this supported and promoted Russophobia). With very few exceptions. University education system also was partially destroyed, but still fared better than most manufacturing industries.

I remember talking to one of the Polish professors of economics when I was in Poland around 1992. He said that no matter how things will develop, the Polish economy will never be allowed to fail as the USA is interested in propelling it at all costs. That means that there was no CIA activity to undermine the financial system, deindustrialize the country, and possibly to partition the county like it was in Russia with Harvard mafia (Summers, Shleifer, etc.)

Still, they lost quite a bit of manufacturing: for example all shipbuilding, which is ironic as Lech Wałęsa and Solidarity emerged in this industry.

Eventually, Poland emerged as the major US agent of influence within the EU (along with GB) with the adamant anti-Russian stance. Which taking into account the real state of Polish manufacturing deprived of the major market is very questionable. Later by joining sanctions, they lost Russian agricultural market (including all apple market in which they have a prominent position).

But they have a large gas pipeline on their territory, so I suspect that like Ukraine they make a lot of money via transit fees simply due to geographic. So they parochially live off rent -- that why they bark so much at North Stream 2.

Polish elite is a real horror show, almost beyond redemption, and not only in economics. I do not remember, but I think it was Churchill who said " Poland is a greedy hyena of Europe." This is as true now as it was before WWII.

Now they are propelled by cheap labor from Ukraine, which they helped to destroy (along with Sweden and Germany)

ilpalazzo , , January 10, 2019 at 3:04 pm

My post seem to have vanished into oblivion so I'm pasting from the clipboard.

I am a Pole and have been a daily reader here since 2008. I hope a better versed compatriot will come out of the closet and give a better picture (I know there are a few).

Let's just say the shock was pretty bad. In terms of amount of human suffering the worst was dissolving state owned farms. Hundreds of thousands of people were just let go without any help, although many farms were profitable and others could be restructured or converted into collectives etc. I live in a small town where there was a huge state farm and I can see former employees started to recover and get by just recently judging by the looks of their dwellings.

Most of the manufacturing and heavy industry was sold off and extinguished. We used to have pretty decent capital producing capabilities like tooling etc. Not a trace of that now. There is a lot being manufactured now here but mostly simple components for german industry to assemble.

Pension system was thoroughly looted by you know who and is a ticking time bomb. Most of it was quasi privatized – that is managed by western companies but still part of the state system. There were supposed to be individual saving accounts managed by sophisticated investment specialists but the money ended up invested in state bonds, issued to subsidize it. Managing fee 7 – 10 percent charge on every payment into the system, regardless of performance, anyone? It was a heist of the century.

The ticking time bomb is because a large part of young people working now are working on non – permanent contracts that don't pay benefits. These people won't have any pension at all and there are a lot of them.

Healthcare is single payer fund but heavily underfunded. Private practice and hospitals are allowed and skim most profitable procedures leaving the rest to public fund. There are unrealistic limits on number of procedures so if you need to see a specialist in July or later prepare to pay cash or wait till January.

Municipal service companies, at least the most lucrative ones have ben sold off to foreign investment funds. A few of our cities' municipal companies, like central heating or energy have been sold off to german municipal companies (!). State telecom has been sold off to french state telecom (and one of the biggest and most famous fortunes made).

Local printed press is 90% german corps owned.

This is a map of state rail company railways in 1988 and 2009 . It has been a meme here for some time. It is true. Cancelled lines are the subsidized ones workers relied on to get to job. I closely know a thousand years old town that had rail built in 1860 by germans and liquidated right in 1990. The populace is now halved, all young emigrated, businesses dead. There have been a huge investment in freeways and other kind of roads so every one has to own a car to get to her job. Most cars are used 10+ year old german imports. Polish car mechanic and body shops are the best in the world specialists of german automotive produce.

I live in a small contry town that was a home to a wealthy aristocrat. There is a beautiful baroque palace and huge park, the complex is literally a third part of town. After the war it was nationalized, there were sporting facilities built in the park for locals and school pupils to use. The palace was re-purposed as medical facility and office complex for state farm management. In the nineties the whole thing was given back to aristocrat descendants – a shady bunch hiding in Argentina AFAIR. They couldn't afford to keep it so they sold it to a nouveau – riche real estate developer. He fenced the whole thing off and refurbished into a sort of conference complex – it is underway and still not clear what's gonna happen with it. The effect is that a third of my town that used to be public space is fenced off and off limits now.

To conclude, there has been a tremendous development in real estate and infrastructure mostly funded by the EU that has been a serious engine of growth. Lot of people got mortgage and financed homes or flats and there has been a whole industry created around it. A few crown jewel companies (copper mining, petroleum and other chemistry) are state owned. But most of the sophisticated furnishings used in real estate are german made (there is german made nat gas furnace in 95% of newly built homes) etc. Two million young people emigrated to work mostly to UK and Ireland. I'd lived in Dublin for a year in 2003 and there were Chinese people as salespersons in groceries and seven – elevens everywhere, now there are Poles instead.

Recommended reading about the transformation years dealing is this book:

https://monthlyreview.org/product/from_solidarity_to_sellout/

The author is Kalecki's pupil.

Darthbobber , , January 10, 2019 at 5:21 pm

Thanks for this. Gowan's book, Global Gamble, is also good on the details of shock therapy in the former Warsaw Pact nations. One key problem was that shock therapy partly rested on he assumption that western European buyers would want to invest in modernizing plant and equipment in industries they acquired, but it quickly turned out that the German and other western buyers were really interested only in acquiring new MARKETS for their own products.

And in agriculture, they both insisted on the elimination of subsidies within the eastern nations, and proceeded to use the area as a dumping ground for their own (often subsidized) agricultural surpluses.

JTMcPhee , , January 10, 2019 at 6:51 pm

All this gets back, in my minuscule view, to failure to have a decent answer to one little question:

What kind of political economy do "we, the mopes" want to live within?

And related to that, what steps can and must "we, the mopes" take to get to that hopefully wiser, more decent, more homeostatic and sustainable, political economy?

And it likely doesn't matter for us old folks (obligatory blast at Boomers as cause of all problems and distresses, dismissing the roots and branches of "civilization," current patterns of consumption, and millennia of Progress), given what is "baked in" and the current distribution of weatlhandpower. But maybe "we, the mopes" can at least go down fighting. Gilets Jaunes, 150 million Indians, all that

But without an answer to the first question, though, not much chance of "better," is there? Except maybe locally, for the tiny set of us mopes who know how to do community and commensalism and some other "C" words

"We, the mopes" could make some important and effective changes. Enough of us, and soon enough, to avoid or mitigate the Jackpot?

Unna , , January 10, 2019 at 4:09 pm

Thanks very much for this. Very graphic. So, if you would, could you explain who the Law and Justice Party is, and why they won the election, and what exactly are they doing to make themselves popular? Are they in fact enacting certain social programs that we can read about or are they primarily relying on something else, like mainly Catholic traditionalism, for their political power?

disc_writes , , January 10, 2019 at 4:33 pm

I remember a couple of paragraphs about Poland in my Economics 101 course, some 20 years ago. Was it in in Mankiw's book? or Lipsey-Chrystal? I do not remember anymore. One of those vicious neoliberal propaganda mouthpieces, anyway. The textbook pitched Poland's success story against Russia's abject failure, claiming that the former had dismantled and shut down all its inefficient state-run companies, while the latter still kept its unprofitable heavy industry on life support.

It is unsurprising to read that Poland followed a more nuanced approach. Somehow neoclassical economists always distort history into a cartoonish parody that confirms their models.

That was in the early 2000s. The university was then brand new and was still filling the shelves of the library. If you looked carefully, you could still find older books, barely touched, that touted Albania as a neoliberal success story along the same lines as Poland. Albania almost collapsed in civil war in 1998.

todde , , January 10, 2019 at 5:08 pm

Yellow Vests knock out 60% of traffic cameras

smart move. Or at least I would say so.

Darthbobber , , January 10, 2019 at 5:08 pm

Klein at least provided footnotes, and sources for her claims. Which are conspicuously absent from this piece.

The World Bank, (World Development Indicators, 2006), one of Klein's sources, has a nationwide poverty rate only for 1993, and has it at 23% at that point, or between 2.3 times and more than 4 time the most common estimate he cites under the ancient regime.

The same source has unemployment averaging 19.9% in 1990-92, and 19% in 2000-2004.

As to the later poverty rate, Klein's source is Przemyslaw Wielgosz, then editor of the Polish edition of le Monde Diplomatique, who gives this: " Poles living below the 'social minimum' (defined as a living standard of £130 (192,4 EUR) per person and £297 (440,4 EUR) for a three person family per month) affecting 15% of the population in 1989 to 47% in 1996, and 59% in 2003." but whence he obtains these figures he does not say. Given that it falls in a period when unemployment was pushing 20% for a prolonged period, and that both the EU's subsidies and outmigration to the EU as an escape valve only start to kick in in 2003, the figure seems not wildly implausible.

The author's criticism doesn't really address Klein's central points at all, which would be that the crisis was used as leverage to ram through otherwise politically unpalatable change, and that a great deal of the constraint forcing that was provided by actors both undemocratic and external. He seems to be of the school that regards such niceties as beside the point, as long as various macroaggregates eventually rose.

The contrast between what was done, and what Solidarnosc had claimed to be all about when in opposition is incredibly striking, basically the difference between libertarian Communism and uber Dirigisme style capitalism.

Darthbobber , January 10, 2019 at 10:27 am

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrations_from_Poland_since_EU_accession

Any discussion of the Polish economy that completely ignores this massive level of economic outmigration, and it's continued rise among the young, misses a great deal. In a vibrant economy, it seems unlikely that so many educated Poles would find, for example, lower tier jobs in Britain to be their best path forward.

Yes, your unemployment and poverty rates are lower if a significant fraction of the population works elsewhere in the EU, and reatriates the money. Though the pattern may cause a few other problems. (while many nations like to export their unemployment, not everybody wants to import it.)

upstater , January 10, 2019 at 11:28 am

You beat me to the punch

Out-migration is a huge factor in eastern and central Europe and without it, the picture would look entirely different. The Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania are even more affected.

vlade , January 10, 2019 at 2:01 pm

The migration from Poland does not have only economic reasons. A lot of Poles migrate because they find the polish society (especially small towns and rural) very stiffling.

A friend of mine left Poland the moment she got her MSc – literally, the same day she was on a bus to Germany. She's now a sucessfull woman, director level at a large consultancy. Yet her father calls her "old spinster" (this is the polite version), as she wasn't maried by 30, and she basically avoids going to Poland.

She says she could never be as sucessfull in Poland, being a woman, and not being keen on marrying. I've heard similar stories from young Poles, not just women.

Inter-war Poland is celebrated a lot in Poland these days, conveniently ignoring the facts it was really a totalitarian state – when Czechoslovakia was Muniched in 1938, Poles (and Hugarians) were quick to grab bits of territory right after that.

Kasia, January 10, 2019 at 5:17 pm

Poland has taken around a million Ukrainians over the past ten years so while many Poles are emigrating to Europe, they are being replaced by Ukrainians, who are ethnically and linguistically fairly similar to Poles.

So Poland is proof that nationalist, populist policies can indeed work. Poland has had to taken rough measures with our judicial system and media to ensure globalist forces do not undermine our successes. No one, I mean no one, in Poland mouths the words, "diversity is our strength". Internationalist, liberal minded people who are so susceptible to globalist propaganda, are generally the ones leaving the nation. Indigenous Western Europeans who are suffering the joys of cultural enrichment and vibrant diversity are starting to buy property in Eastern Europe - more Hungary than Poland - but as the globalists push even more multiculturalism and continue to impoverish indigenous Europeans, Eastern Europe will become a shining beacon on the hill free of many of the evils of globalisation.

[Jan 11, 2019] That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on everyone but themselves

Jan 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

jacques sheete , says: Next New Comment January 11, 2019 at 1:04 pm GMT

That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on [everyone but themselves].

Another sign of degeneracy is that masses of people put their faith in such human garbage and fantasize that the essentially effortless task of casting ballots every few years will somehow, perhaps magically, improve their situations. Even more telling is the infantilism demonstrated by the attitude that they're special and "da gweatist" and that the world should cater to their every whim just like mommy and daddy did.

Dream on, darlings!

macilrae , says: Next New Comment January 11, 2019 at 3:29 pm GMT

Unlike the Titanic, most collapsed regimes don't fully sink. They remain about half under water, and half above, possibly with an orchestra still playing joyful music. And in the most expensive top deck cabins, a pretty luxurious lifestyle can be maintained by the elites.

A clever metaphor.

incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians") factors.

Just so.

Dmitry Orlov's assessment rings dead true to me. The most terrifying factor is that a doomed and demented US administration may resort to the use of its vast air and missile power to save itself.

[Jan 11, 2019] There is a cancer in the entire west, and it is leading to great inequality.

Dec 18, 2018 | www.unz.com

Cyrano says: December 14, 2018 at 7:44 pm GMT 100 Words

If I could pinpoint where the things went wrong for the west – I would say it happened when they invented the idiocy of multiculturalism. It was supposed to prevent socialist revolution and on the face of it, it seemed pretty clever, but it's actually a moronic idea.

The thing that you are supposed to prevent should be the absolute worst case scenario, replaced with more benign idea. With multiculturalism – its' actually the opposite.

The remedy is worse than the malady. Multiculturalism is going to destroy the western civilization.

With that in mind and in the spirit of public service, I propose to replace the propaganda slogan: Diversity is our strength (which doesn't make sense to anybody), with a more logical and understandable propaganda slogan:

Diversity is our perversity. What Lies Behind the Malaise of the West?

Pat the rat , says: December 14, 2018 at 11:10 pm GMT

Feminism has been the cancer, pat.

Elite double income families have enjoyed great prosperity and influence and required many desk jobs for their wives and daughters, preferably in government. They have been fine, had a kid or two now and again and are very keen on their own self perceived virtue. Deep down they know the two incomes they enjoy comes at the expense of working class men who might aspire to better but are now rarely satisfied.

Further down the ladder poor men and women can rarely form bond and form stable families. They have little money and their women would rather use Uncle Sam as a partner.

They are harassed by one do-gooding government department after another.

The same do-Gooders have no problem with poor communities being flooded with porn and smut, nor do they seem overly concerned about rising house prices and rent. Wonder why?

There is a cancer in the entire west, and it is leading to great inequality.

MEN MUST STOP CHASING SEX AND THINK OF THEIR NEIGHBOR PARTICULARLY THEIR POOR NEIGHBOR.

Corvinus , says: December 14, 2018 at 11:20 pm GMT
@Ace "All if this combines to ensure that America is the go-to place for clowns everywhere. Nothing will be able to correct this cavalcade of lunacy, chaos, depravity, and destruction except economic catastrophe, coming soon to a neighborhood on top of you. Then to be followed immediately by dictatorship and years of statist and racial excess until, with luck, we reduscover what we have now uf we'd but lift a finger to protect it."

Congratulations, you are a doormat to the decline. So, what are you prepared to do about this dire situation other than lament and complain?

[Jan 11, 2019] It is already safe to declare Trump's plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure

Notable quotes:
"... If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. ..."
"... To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. ..."
"... I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm ..."
"... The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

I emailed Dmitry Orlov and asked him the following question:

In your recent article " The Year the Planet Flipped Over " you paint a devastating picture of the state of the Empire:

It is already safe to declare Trump's plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure. Beneath the rosy statistics of US economic growth hides the hideous fact that it is the result of a tax holiday granted to transnational corporations to entice them to repatriate their profits. While this hasn't helped them (their stocks are currently cratering) it has been a disaster for the US government as well as for the economic system as whole. Tax receipts have shrunk. The budget deficit for 2018 exceeds $779 billion.

Meanwhile, the trade wars which Trump initiated have caused the trade deficit to increase by 17% from the year before. Plans to repatriate industrial production from low-cost countries remain vaporous because the three key elements which China had as it industrialized (cheap energy, cheap labor and low cost of doing business) are altogether missing. Government debt is already beyond reasonable and its expansion is still accelerating, with just the interest payments set to exceed half a trillion a year within a decade.

This trajectory does not bode well for the continued existence of the United States as a going concern. Nobody, either in the United States or beyond, has the power to significantly alter this trajectory. Trump's thrashing about may have moved things along faster than they otherwise would have, at least in the sense of helping convince the entire world that the US is selfish, feckless, ultimately self-destructive and generally unreliable as a partner. In the end it won't matter who was president of the US -- it never has. Among those the US president has succeeded in hurting most are his European allies. His attacks on Russian energy exports to Europe, on European car manufacturers and on Europe's trade with Iran have caused a fair amount of damage, both political and economic, without compensating for it with any perceived or actual benefits.

Meanwhile, as the globalist world order, which much of Europe's population appears ready to declare a failure, begins to unravel, the European Union is rapidly becoming ungovernable, with established political parties unable to form coalitions with ever-more-numerous populist upstarts. It is too early to say that the EU has already failed altogether, but it already seems safe to predict that within a decade it will no longer remain as a serious international factor.

Although the disastrous quality and the ruinous mistakes of Europe's own leadership deserve a lot of the blame, some of it should rest with the erratic, destructive behavior of their transoceanic Big Brother. The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the world.

The departure from Syria is inevitable whether Trump, under relentless pressure from his bipartisan warmongers, backtracks on this commitment or not. Now that Syria has been armed with Russia's up-to-date air defense weapons the US no longer maintains air superiority there, and without air superiority the US military is unable to do anything. Afghanistan is next; there, it seems outlandish to think that the Washingtonians will be able to achieve any sort of reasonable accommodation with the Taliban.

Their departure will spell the end of Kabul as a center of corruption where foreigners steal humanitarian aid and other resources. Somewhere along the way the remaining US troops will also be pulled out of Iraq, where the parliament, angered by Trump's impromptu visit to a US base, recently voted to expel them. And that will put paid to the entire US adventure in the Middle East since 9/11: $4,704,439,588,308 has been squandered, to be precise , or $14,444 for every man, woman and child in the US.

The biggest winners in all of this are, obviously, the people of the entire region, because they will no longer be subjected to indiscriminate US harassment and bombardment, followed by Russia, China and Iran, with Russia solidifying its position as the ultimate arbiter of international security arrangements thanks to its unmatched military capabilities and demonstrated knowhow for coercion to peace. Syria's fate will be decided by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the US not even invited to the talks. Afghanistan will fall into the sphere of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And the biggest losers will be former US regional allies, first and foremost Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia.

My question for you is this: where would you place the US (or the Empire) on your 5 stages of decline and do you believe that the US (or the Empire) can reverse that trend?

Here is Dmitry's reply:

Collapse, at each stage, is a historical process that takes time to run its course as the system adapts to changing circumstances, compensates for its weaknesses and finds ways to continue functioning at some level. But what changes rather suddenly is faith or, to put it in more businesslike terms, sentiment. A large segment of the population or an entire political class within a country or the entire world can function based on a certain set of assumptions for much longer than the situation warrants but then over a very short period of time switch to a different set of assumptions. All that sustains the status quo beyond that point is institutional inertia. It imposes limits on how fast systems can change without collapsing entirely. Beyond that point, people will tolerate the older practices only until replacements for them can be found.

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.

Internationally, the major change in sentiment in the world has to do with the role of the US dollar (and, to a lesser extent, the Euro and the Yen -- the other two reserve currencies of the three-legged globalist central banker stool). The world is transitioning to the use of local currencies, currency swaps and commodities markets backed by gold. The catalyst for this change of sentiment was provided by the US administration itself which sawed through its own perch by its use of unilateral sanctions. By using its control over dollar-based transactions to block international transactions it doesn't happen to like it forced other countries to start looking for alternatives. Now a growing list of countries sees throwing off the shackles of the US dollar as a strategic goal. Russia and China use the ruble and the yuan for their expanding trade; Iran sells oil to India for rupees. Saudi Arabia has started to accept the yuan for its oil.

This change has many knock-on effects. If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. Consequently, there is no longer a need to buy up large quantities of US Treasury notes. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to run large trade surpluses with the US, essentially conducting trade at a loss. Further, the attractiveness of the US as an export market drops and the cost of imports to the US rises, thereby driving up cost inflation. A vicious spiral ensues in which the ability of the US government to borrow internationally to finance the gaping chasm of its various deficits becomes impaired. Sovereign default of the US government and national bankruptcy then follow.

The US may still look mighty, but its dire fiscal predicament coupled with its denial of the inevitability of bankruptcy, makes it into something of a Blanche DuBois from the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire." She was "always dependent on the kindness of strangers" but was tragically unable to tell the difference between kindness and desire. In this case, the desire is for national advantage and security, and to minimize risk by getting rid of an unreliable trading partner.

How quickly or slowly this comes to pass is difficult to guess at and impossible to calculate. It is possible to think of the financial system in terms of a physical analogue, with masses of funds traveling at some velocity having a certain inertia (p = mv) and with forces acting on that mass to accelerate it along a different trajectory (F = ma). It is also possible to think of it in terms of hordes of stampeding animals who can change course abruptly when panicked. The recent abrupt moves in the financial markets, where trillions of dollars of notional, purely speculative value have been wiped out within weeks, are more in line with the latter model.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.

Within the US there is really no other alternative than the market. There are a few rustic enclaves, mostly religious communities, that can feed themselves, but that's a rarity. For everyone else there is no choice but to be a consumer. Consumers who are broke are called "bums," but they are still consumers. To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. Such a culture can die by becoming irrelevant (when everyone is dead broke) but by then most of the carriers of this culture are likely to be dead too. Alternatively, it can be replaced by a more humane culture that isn't entirely based on the cult of Mammon -- perhaps, dare I think, through a return to a pre-Protestant, pre-Catholic Christian ethic that values people's souls above objects of value?

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost.

All is very murky at the moment, but I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm . Of the ones they do pay attention, a fair number of them seem clued in to the fact that the US is not a democracy at all but an elites-only sandbox in which transnational corporate and oligarchic interests build and knock down each others' sandcastles.

The extreme political polarization, where two virtually identical pro-capitalist, pro-war parties pretend to wage battle by virtue-signaling may be a symptom of the extremely decrepit state of the entire political arrangement: people are made to watch the billowing smoke and to listen to the deafening noise in the hopes that they won't notice that the wheels are no longer turning.

The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses , such as the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis XVI. The fact that Trump, like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilettes Jaunes movement (just as an example) are definitely not.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.

I have been saying for some years now that within the US social collapse has largely run its course, although whether people actually believe that is an entire matter entirely. Defining "your people" is rather difficult. The symbols are still there -- the flag, the Statue of Liberty and a predilection for iced drinks and heaping plates of greasy fried foods -- but the melting pot seems to have suffered a meltdown and melted all the way to China. At present half the households within the US speak a language other than English at home, and a fair share of the rest speak dialects of English that are not mutually intelligible with the standard North American English dialect of broadcast television and university lecturers.

Throughout its history as a British colony and as a nation the US has been dominated by the Anglo ethnos. The designation "ethnos" is not an ethnic label. It is not strictly based on genealogy, language, culture, habitat, form of government or any other single factor or group of factors. These may all be important to one extent or another, but the viability of an ethnos is based solely on its cohesion and the mutual inclusivity and common purpose of its members. The Anglo ethnos reached its zenith in the wake of World War II, during which many social groups were intermixed in the military and their more intelligent members.

Fantastic potential was unleashed when privilege -- the curse of the Anglo ethnos since its inception -- was temporarily replaced with merit and the more talented demobilized men, of whatever extraction, were given a chance at education and social advancement by the GI Bill. Speaking a new sort of American English based on the Ohio dialect as a Lingua Franca, these Yanks -- male, racist, sexist and chauvinistic and, at least in their own minds, victorious -- were ready to remake the entire world in their own image.

They proceeded to flood the entire world with oil (US oil production was in full flush then) and with machines that burned it. Such passionate acts of ethnogenesis are rare but not unusual: the Romans who conquered the entire Mediterranean basin, the barbarians who then sacked Rome, the Mongols who later conquered most of Eurasia and the Germans who for a very brief moment possessed an outsized Lebensraum are other examples.

And now it is time to ask: what remains of this proud conquering Anglo ethnos today? We hear shrill feminist cries about "toxic masculinity" and minorities of every stripe railing against "whitesplaining" and in response we hear a few whimpers but mostly silence. Those proud, conquering, virile Yanks who met and fraternized with the Red Army at the River Elbe on April 25, 1945 -- where are they? Haven't they devolved into a sad little subethnos of effeminate, porn-addicted overgrown boys who shave their pubic hair and need written permission to have sex without fear of being charged with rape?

Will the Anglo ethnos persist as a relict, similar to how the English have managed to hold onto their royals (who are technically no longer even aristocrats since they now practice exogamy with commoners)? Or will it get wiped out in a wave of depression, mental illness and opiate abuse, its glorious history of rapine, plunder and genocide erased and the statues of its war heros/criminals knocked down? Only time will tell.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.

The term "culture" means many things to many people, but it is more productive to observe cultures than to argue about them. Cultures are expressed through people's stereotypical behaviors that are readily observable in public. These are not the negative stereotypes often used to identify and reject outsiders but the positive stereotypes -- cultural standards of behavior, really -- that serve as requirements for social adequacy and inclusion. We can readily assess the viability of a culture by observing the stereotypical behaviors of its members.

It is possible to quote statistics or to provide anecdotal evidence to assess the state and the viability of a culture, but your own eyes and other senses can provide all the evidence you need to make that determination for yourself and to decide how much faith to put in "the goodness of humanity" that is evident in the people around you.

Dmity concluded his reply by summarizing his view like this:

Cultural and social collapse are very far along. Financial collapse is waiting for a trigger. Commercial collapse will happen in stages some of which -- food deserts, for instance -- have already happened in many places. Political collapse will only become visible once the political class gives up. It's not as simple as saying which stage we are at. They are all happening in parallel, to one extent or another.

My own (totally subjective) opinion is that the US has already reached stages 1 through 4, and that there are signs that stage 5 has begun; mainly in big cities as US small towns and rural areas (Trump's power base

Don't expect these two losers to fix anything, they will only make things worse

In the meantime, the US ruling elites are locked into an ugly internal struggle which only further weakens the US. What is so telling is that the Democrats are still stuck with their same clueless, incompetent and infinitely arrogant leadership, in spite of the fact that everybody knows that the Democratic Party is in deep crisis and that new faces are desperately needed. But no, they are still completely stuck in their old ways and the same gang of gerontocrats continues to rule the party apparatus.

That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians") factors. Again, think of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, the Apartheid regime in South Africa under F. W. de Klerk, or the Kerensky regime in 1917 Russia.

As for the Republicans, they are basically a subsidiary of the Israeli Likud Party. Just take a look at the long list of losers the Likud produced at home, and you will get a sense of what they can do in its US colony.

Eventually the US will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to it's territory. But that can only happen after a real regime change (as opposed to a change in Presidential Administration) which, itself, is only going to happen after an "E2 catastrophe" collapse.

Until then, we will all be waiting for Godot.

peterAUS , says: January 11, 2019 at 5:13 am GMT

Stopped reading at:

The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the world.

Well, it's O.K. to have online therapy with that brief dopamine rush every now and then. Does help, I guess.

But, looks like, in order to keep having the "fix" the blathering is becoming ludicrous. Starting to feel desperate.

Like: " unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington .".

Some "analysts". Not even funny.

[Jan 10, 2019] How the Hawks Prevailed on Syria by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... Behind the candidate's rhetoric there never was enough strategic sense, necessary knowledge, or even caring about foreign affairs to ward off the maneuvers of a determined hawk like Bolton once he was in position to do damage. ..."
Jan 09, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Pillar comments on Bolton's maneuvers to keep us at war in Syria:

The episode involving withdrawal and non-withdrawal of U.S. troops in Syria should be a lesson for those who mistakenly placed hopes in Trump for a more restrained and less militaristic U.S. foreign policy. Applause lines on the campaign trail have been mistaken for deeper thought. Behind the candidate's rhetoric there never was enough strategic sense, necessary knowledge, or even caring about foreign affairs to ward off the maneuvers of a determined hawk like Bolton once he was in position to do damage.

If the first two years of Trump's presidency didn't already make it clear, the last few weeks should have laid to rest any suspicions that the Trump administration is going to put an end to unnecessary foreign wars. It isn't happening. For one thing, everyone around Trump doesn't want those wars to end and will go to considerable lengths to ensure that they continue. That is a result of Trump's own poor personnel choices and bad judgment. It isn't possible to have a "more restrained and less militaristic U.S. foreign policy" when the president's national security team is dominated by reflexive hawks that have never seen a military intervention they didn't want to support. Trump put Bolton in the position he now occupies, and unless he wants to start in on his fourth National Security Advisor within two years we are going to be stuck with the unfortunate consequences of that bad decision for a while longer.

Pillar writes:

The de facto reversal of Trump's withdrawal decision is a victory only for those who -- like Bolton, who still avers that the Iraq War was a good idea -- never met a U.S. military intervention in the Middle East they didn't like and never stop seeing regimes they would like to change with force.

One big problem with the Trump administration is that it is filled with the people who never met an intervention they didn't like. People like that have been the ones shaping administration policies in the region for the last two years, and on Syria they have prevailed once again. It could scarcely be otherwise when there is essentially no one willing or able to make the arguments for the other side of these issues. It is extremely difficult for hawks to lose an internal administration debate when there is no one in the administration that opposes hawkish policies.

SteveJ January 9, 2019 at 10:41 pm

I'm going to give Trump until the end of the year to get us out of these places.

If he doesn't have the backbone for it, like the previous 2 Presidents, then screw him.

[Jan 10, 2019] Chickens coming home to roost for Trump

Jan 10, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Foreign Affairs.

Middle East. Bolton had his ass kicked on this trip. The Turks made it clear that my view of them as neo-Ottomans unwilling to kow-tow to the US or anyone else is correct. The manner of Turkish dismissal of Bolton's neocon decrees was wonderfully reminiscent of an Ottoman sultan leaving envoys waiting for weeks for an audience. Now Dunford has run off to Ankara to try his luck. IMO he will not do much better. The Turks have rejected US pressure to cancel the S-400 deal with Russia and make it clear that they are going to butcher the SDF people as soon as we get out of the way. At the same time Bolton, Pompeo and Jeffrey are telling the SDF that they better not make a deal with Damascus!

They better not! This behavior is like children forming cliques in a school yard. The mere fact that only the Syrian government and its allies can save the SDF from the Turks evidently means nothing to the neocons. And, the Jordanian foreign minister made an unequivocal statement, presumably on behalf of his sovereign that under no circumstance would Jordan accept Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, a territory undoubtedly a de jure territory of Syria. Iraq and Egypt have made similar statements.

The neocons have always made a great show of respect for a world order based on post Westphalia conceptions of state sovereignty. Their willingness to accept Israeli piracy and theft of other peoples' territory makes a mockery of that. IMO neocon policy in the ME is collapsing under its own weight of delusion. That Trump allows this indicates to me that he is compromised to some special interest and that the depth of his ignorance of the region remains appalling.

... ... ...

[Jan 10, 2019] Stuff To Read Integrity Initiative, Skripal, Kaspersky ...

Notable quotes:
"... Neither Rob nor I have a sound theory of what really happened in Salisbury. There are many possible explanations, but none for which there is sufficient evidence. What we do know is that the British government lied and lies about the case from A to Z. ..."
"... This wasn't an accident blamed on Putin but a planned semi-assassination in which at least one of the victims was unaware of the plan designed from the beginning to be used in the rolling anti-Putin regime change operation. ..."
Jan 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Stuff To Read: Integrity Initiative, Skripal, Kaspersky ...

The is no original piece ready to post today, but here are some interesting links:

There are several new stories about the Integrity Initiative though still none in any mainstream media.

Apropos Skripal

Use as open thread ...

Posted by b at 12:58 PM | Comments (55)


bevin | Jan 9, 2019 1:19:20 PM | 1

Comments I posted this comment at Off Guardian. There are a couple of points that may be of interest:

The essential feature of this "Integrity Initiative" is that it is purportedly a charity or an NGO. Like Atlantic Council, or Bellingcat, it is funded by government(s) but it has, as this video demonstrates, the capacity to distance itself from government, Deniability.

Deniability is the central feature of all British regime change operations since 1945. The UK takes (took?) the UN Charter and Nuremberg seriously. Not in the sense that it follows the rules but in so far as it tries not to get caught waging aggressive wars and interfering in sovereign states by carrying out regime change operations.

Britain has become very good not just at keeping its secret operations secret and deniable. But, through its controls over the media, stopping leaks by ensuring that whistle blowers are not heard.

What this case indicates is that people like Donnelly, contemptible careerists playing games with humanity's very existence, have prevailed over the more cautious and sensible Civil Servants in the Foreign Office, who used to keep a lid on the irrepressible folly of psychopaths like Christopher Nigel, and have been given license not only to kill but to do so without reference to 'M' and Whitehall.

In this case, thanks to the weakness and demoralised state of the current government what has happened is that Donnelly has improved on the rolling regime change operation against Russia, (consisting of taking advantage of opportunities to castigate the Kremlin and blaming Putin for everything that goes wrong, every Russian expatriate's death, every botched poison gas gambit by the White Helmets (another one of these NGOs run by 'retired MI types),).. improved on it to the extent that, now, rather than waiting to comment on, and build frames around such events as Litvinenko's death, they are constructing them out of whole cloth.
The key word here is bricolage, as used by Levi Strauss to describe one of the characteristic reactions of traditional societies to the irruption of western imperialism.

Donnelly, his acolytes and his dupes in the media are taking whatever they find lying around in the world and twisting it together to form apparent events. The White Helmets, for example, attempt a chlorine gas attack on Syrian forces. It fails but rather than deny that it ever happened British Intelligence convinces the media that, in fact the attack was not by the Jihadists but upon them. The media dutifully takes its cues, from the clusters and, almost before you know it, the US is bombing Damascus on the ground that Assad is carrying out poison gas attacks.

The MH17 affair is another instance: an airliner gets shot down, whether deliberately or not doesn't matter, and Russia is blamed. All manner of phony 'evidence' is publicised. The real evidence such as Air Traffic Control records is suppressed. Sanctions are imposed. Russia further isolated etc. Then we had the DNC emails, again, a leak probably by a decent person disgruntled by the utter cynicism and criminality of the DNC's tactics in the primary elections. Twisted into something resembling a Russian conspiracy against Clinton. Not one that anyone with enough brain to tie his shoelaces would credit but just enough to set the media lynch mobs, led by their clusters, into operation.

All of which leads inexorably to Salisbury and the Skripals.

And here perhaps there is more than bricolage: rather than picking up what providence has delivered and making a passably plausible story of it, here, one suspects, the matter was put together in advance. This wasn't an accident blamed on Putin but a planned semi-assassination in which at least one of the victims was unaware of the plan designed from the beginning to be used in the rolling anti-Putin regime change operation..

Which, and this is something that the old FO mandarins knew would happen if policy were left in the hands of Donnelly and Co, (straight out of schoolboy comics like Magnet or Hotspur), has proved to be exactly what Russia needed: a series of kicks at the Kremlin which drove it into the arms of Beijing and forced it to form an iron alliance which will lead not to regime change in Moscow but to the destruction of the Atlantic empire.

George Lane , Jan 9, 2019 1:30:15 PM | link
Just would like to point out a small, interesting parallel between these Integrity Initiative documents and some of the mainstream academic literature in the US about democracy, namely the use of the phrase "malign influence" to describe the influence of Russia (and China). If one reads the latest issue of the Journal of Democracy (which names the NED as a partner or some such) or the latest Freedom House report, one will find the academic version of the language used by mainstream journalism, warning of the threat that Russia and China pose to the Western liberal democratic way of life.
Hausmeister , Jan 9, 2019 4:38:00 PM | link
james | Jan 9, 2019 4:12:38 PM | 14

Sorry for that.

I would call them a country run fully by intel agencies. I made a game today. Google research results are personalized. I asked several friends to search Google for „Integrity Iniative". All the screenshots showed the same. One sputnik-Link, one to Nachdenkseiten, the rest international. Not one single main stream medium was mentioned. Since November! There has been even a debate in the British parliament. If this is no top-down organized consulting machine what is such a machine then?

james , Jan 9, 2019 4:49:08 PM | link
@19 russ.. thanks.. here is a link to their site.. http://www.medialens.org/

... ... ...

somebody , Jan 9, 2019 5:16:32 PM | link
The Guardian now has an obituary on the Integrity Initiative . They seem to have decided that they cannot silence the case.
Tony_0pmoc , Jan 9, 2019 5:48:51 PM | link
@26 Ross Stanford. I had been posting on Craig Murray's website for nearly 10 years since I read his book Murder in Samarkand, and very nearly turned up at the House of Commons as a witness - but he asked can anyone record this - which I did. I have never actually met him. bevin posted for maybe a couple of years a couple of years ago. bevin wrote about The French political situation, before it kicked off.

He is a very clever man, and to delete someone so intelligent who was almost literally predicting what was likely to happen with yellow vests etc, seems a little bit both arrogant and immature in my my view. However all of us regardless of our political views accept the Craig Murray is a Man of Great Integrity and Courage, even though on a lot of political issues I disagree with him. Surely thats O.K. disagreeing about politics?

"Craig Murray - Torture 1 of 7" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF9spgagSHI

Tony

dh , Jan 9, 2019 5:59:56 PM | link
@30 The basic line seems to be that the West is vulnerable to Russian attacks because we have a free press. So why did it take the free press such a long time to come up with a response? James Ball does admit that a secretive organization using government funding to slander Jeremy Corbyn might not have been a great idea.
Jen , Jan 9, 2019 6:12:15 PM | link
Posted this over at Mark Chapman's The New Kremlin Stooge blog:

The latest news from Salisbury: first, the park bench and the dining table walked the Path of Fire, then the guinea pigs and a cat followed, a house may soon do so as well, and the latest perhaps to join the queue

"Amesbury ambulance station may never reopen after nerve agent attack": https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/17343540.amesbury-ambulance-station-may-never-reopen-after-nerve-agent-attack/

and then at some point in the future: "Revised plan to redevelop Salisbury's Maltings unveiled"
https://www.spirefm.co.uk/news/local-news/2707454/revised-plan-to-redevelop-salisburys-maltings-unveiled/

"Salisbury's shopping centre to be given £69million makeover and major rebrand after infamous Novichok poisonings": https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6275651/Salisburys-shopping-centre-given-69million-makeover-infamous-Novichok-poisonings.html

Several comments attached to that post are of "wish we had Novichok in our shopping centre" or "they planned this all along" type. It seems that Salisbury shopping centre as it is has not been doing well because of high rents previously imposed by Wiltshire Council and it desperately needs a makeover. Call me cynical but maybe Wiltshire Council is using the poisoning incident to bring forward its redevelopment plans for the Salisbury shopping centre that will all but kill off local businesses.

Blooming Barricade , Jan 9, 2019 6:17:08 PM | link
@3
The irony is that, with a genuinely free press, RT would cease to have any appeal. The corporate media is hopelessly biased against Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, as well as pro-war, opposed to anarchism, openly pro-capitalism, and fails to report on issues like fracking, oligarchic trade deals Palestinian struggles, police state brutality against left, and almost every other topic the public would want to know about.

Projects like PropOrNot and the Intgerity Initiative exist solely to prevent the public from knowing about those things by locking down the information sphere against independent media (today they claimed that "neoliberalism" and "neoconservatism" aren't real concepts but Russian-invented insults against the rules-based liberal world order.

karlof1 , Jan 9, 2019 6:35:16 PM | link
George Galloway weighs in on the chaos engulfing the Empire in Washington, London and Paris. The Neoliberal ship is foundering while the uplifting of people-based policies of Russia and China keep them on track to reach their aims. Soon, if Trump keeps the government shutdown, those idled federal workers just might be seen in the streets. George has a penchant for connecting things, and had this to say about Macron:

"The very conditions Macron strove so very hard to bring about in Damascus and that France DID help bring about in Kiev are now rocking the very foundations of the French Republic."

The false flag of Austerity--Neoliberalism preying on its own as was predicted at its beginnings is what we're witnessing, while the actors that created the situation cling with bloody hands to the ship of state unwilling to surrender the wheel to those who might salvage the situation. Metaphorically, Rome burns while Nero and his Senators fiddle.

Peter Schmidt , Jan 9, 2019 6:50:14 PM | link
The Guardian has produced an article about Integrity Initiative. It was so poorly written that they had to close the comment section after 138 comments. People do know a lot more than the Guardian thinks.
pretzelattack , Jan 9, 2019 6:57:42 PM | link
the guardian never keeps comment sections open long if too many posters start disagreeing with their preferred line. their other tactic is simply never to open comments on posts where they think this is likely to happen. and of course they haven't even acknowledged the luke harding travesty, as they continue to beg for donations to support their fearless independent journalism.
dh , Jan 9, 2019 7:15:58 PM | link
I thought James Ball made a gallant effort to exonerate Western media considering he probably had a team of editors breathing down his neck. It's the lack of transparency that seems to upset him most. Perhaps his next article will be an in depth look at how Integrity Initiative got government funding.

[Jan 09, 2019] What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21 with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5

Jan 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Taras77 says: January 7, 2019 at 4:49 am GMT 100 Words

What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21 with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5.

Absolutely remarkable, again, but it is reflective of the brain dead sheeple currently doing any reading at all of books by the rabid neo cons. I hesitate to guess what some extreme alarm sounding diatribe by Wolfowitz or the current "main man," max boot would register. Maybe Romney can lead us out of the wilderness (sarc)>

I know that this is Amazon and when it comes to the standards of what passes as accurate reporting and journalistic standards,"wapo and bezos leads the pack into the sewer. REPLY AGREE/DISAGREE/ETC. THIS COMMENTER


Sean , says: January 7, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT

@eah

While secretary of state Hillary actually compared Putin to Hitler.

Sean , says: January 7, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
@El Dato an American puppet inasmuch as he had Americans masterminding his political PR campaigns) start giving ground that the situation becomes fluid.

Albright (and Nuland) had no idea what Russia as a normal nation state could be expected to put up with, because all they had to go on was Yelstyn who was drunk most days. So the US was slowly but surely drawn into the power vacuum in the territories the USSR withdrew from and Albright thought that was the way things were going to continue to be. The domestic situation in America was also one where the elite had things their own way to an unsustainable extent. What Albright does not like is the facts of life.

nickels , says: January 7, 2019 at 4:48 pm GMT

The whole discussion is so asinine.
Facism is not a form of government that can just be inserted or deleted.
It is a very specific reaction to the communist takeover of a nation.
At that point, other forms of government are no longer viable: totalitarianism of one kind of another becomes an absolute necessity to rule.
We see western governments coming to this point-the moral law is lost, corruption reigns, and only pure force has currency.
So at this point you only have one of two choices, there simply are no alternatives:
communism or facism.
And it is quite clear that facism is a more reasonable and less murderous choice.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website January 7, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@Taras77

for as long as neo con history is a subject for study (she has plenty of competition for that recognition).

Most "history" taught in the US (and combined West) is one or another iteration (sometimes extreme, sometimes less so) of US exceptionalism. Even American so called "realism" is built around exceptionalism. American military doctrines are written primarily on exceptionalism basis. Results are easily observable.

[Jan 09, 2019] Trump Foreign Policy for 2019 by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what they claimed to be humanitarian principles. ..."
"... More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe. ..."
"... Hotel California ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East cauldron, using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has thereby gone up exponentially. ..."
"... Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S. responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf, the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War. ..."
"... All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. ..."
Jan 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Never before has any presidential administration been as all over the place in terms of national security and foreign policy as is that of Donald J. Trump. Indeed, one might well argue that there is no overriding policy at all in terms of a rational doctrine arrived at through risk versus gain analysis of developing international situations. Instead, there has been a pattern of emotional reactions fueled by media disinformation supplemented by "gut feelings" about a series of ultimately bilateral relationships that frequently have little or nothing to do with American national interests.

This is not to suggest that the "gut feelings" are always wrong. Established wisdom in Washington has long reflected the view that the United States must exercise leadership in establishing and maintaining the neoliberal consensus that gained currency after the devastation of the Second World War. Elections, free trade and a free media were to be the benchmarks of the New World Order but they also came packaged with U.S. hegemony to confront those who resisted the development. And it turned out that those "benefits" were frequently difficult to achieve as elections sometimes produced bad results while trade agreements and an uncontrolled media often worked against broader U.S. objectives. All too often the United States found itself going to war against nations that it disapproves of for reasons unrelated to any actual interests, routinely claiming inaccurately that dissident regimes were both "threatening" and disruptive of the universal values that Washington claimed to be promoting.

To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what they claimed to be humanitarian principles. Or Obama, who demanded regime change in Damascus and was prepared to launch a large-scale attack on Syria before he realized that there was no public support for such a move and backed down.

More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe.

But hope springs eternal, even in 2019. There have recently been some encouraging signs that change is in the air. Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers out of Syria and half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have slipped somewhat and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back. That Trump may have chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he succeeds in doing so, is certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California , "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."

There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3 rd , Trump offhandedly commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated shock waves through the neoconnish Washington Post 's coverage of the remarks. To be sure, other Administration officials have continued to send different signals, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisting that the U.S. will stay in Syria as long as Iran remains there.

Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East cauldron, using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has thereby gone up exponentially.

To be sure, there are some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is essentially fraudulent. They cite the unrelenting hostility coming out of the White House regarding Iran, which is vilified on a nearly daily basis for its alleged threats not only to the Middle East region but also to Western Europe and the United States. That the Administration's fulminations have little basis in reality is beside the point as it would seem that Trump, Pompeo, John Bolton and the now departed Nikki Haley all believe that the case for disarming Iran and bringing about regime change has been made effectively. Indeed, warfare directed against the Iranian economy has already begun by virtue of a punitive series of targeted sanctions with much more to come when a complete ban on oil exports kicks in in May.

Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S. responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf, the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Much of what happens in the Middle East will ultimately depend on the extent to which America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what is going on in the region. Trump, uncharacteristically, seems to be standing firm, telling a journalist that concerns about the Syria pullout are misplaced because "We give Israel $4.5 billion a year. And we give them, frankly, a lot more money than that, if you look at the books -- a lot more money than that. And they've been doing a very good job for themselves." Likewise, the much more important relationship, with Russia, will depend on the ability to ignore congressional hostility towards the Kremlin as well as the media bias that continues to promote Russiagate as a national security threat.

There is also North Korea, which has now indicated clearly that it is willing to talk to the U.S. but will revert to its nuclear development program unless sanctions are removed. And anyone for Latin America? Bolton has dubbed Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as a "troika of tyranny," though fortunately suggestions that Venezuela might be invaded by the U.S. to restore order appear to have faded.

If one reads the neocon press one cannot help but notice that China is the anointed over the horizon threat, but it is also a major trading partner and the drive to somehow renegotiate the terms whereby the two nations are linked economically will be complicated. Care must be taken lest what now appears to be an aggravated sense of great power competition becomes something more dangerous. The detention of Weng Manzhou in Canada one month ago together with the implication that the United States can and will enforce U.S. imposed sanctions globally could easily develop into a major problem with China as well as with others, including some NATO allies. The arrest has already disappeared from the media but several Canadians have been detained by Beijing and the U.S. government has warned American businessmen about traveling to China at the present time.

All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. There is admittedly a long way to go and it is very much a work in progress, but Trump actually has the ability to overrule the hawks in his administration and change the entire conversation about America's place in the world.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Trump Foreign Policy for 2019

renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:26 am GMT

Oh for Gawds sake.
The reason the public cant figure out what the hell is up with Trump and his first pulling out of Syria forthwith and then back pedaling.
Is because no one will tell them about Bolton/Adelson and Bolton being in Israel yesterday telling Netanyahu the US will stay in Syria and wont tell them about the Kushner Jewish cabal deal with Saudi prince MBS.
And wont tell them about the neo General toddies who use war like a carpenter uses a hammer just cause that's all they know until they retire and get cushy jobs with the weapons industry.

Trump has run out of excuses for his many policy contradictions, even his supporters aren't buying them any more. A few are hanging in for the Wall, which they wont get either.

Trump is being taken down by the Dems and their liberal Jewish media and at the same time being taken down by his own installed Zionist Jews and their errand boy Bolton who every time Trump makes an announcement rushes out to contradict him.

Trump has one chance. There is no black mailable material on Trump that hasn't already come out since the NY AG is already looking into money laundering in Trumps businesses.
So Trump needs to blow every thing up .Fire Bolton, fire his son on law, fire all the zios and neos -- totally clean house and shock the shit out of everyone by bringing in some familiar names like realist Chas Freeman for the ME, Webb for Defense, etc that will have the zios, neos, deep state, the establishment and both parties pissing in their special interest bought and paid for pants.

Or he's done.

renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:30 am GMT
And then .

The Myth of the Russian Crime Boss, Semion Mogilevich, He's Israeli by Larry Johnson
(excerpts)

'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters. Only one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual evidence and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of Israel. Not a Russian.
One of the best recent examples of building the Mogilevich myth is Craig Unger's 2017 article in the New Republic, Trump's Russian Laundromat. Unger wrote:
In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City. . . . he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower. . . .
The Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury condos. The big check apparently caught the attention of the owner. According to Wayne Barrett, who investigated the deal for the Village Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along with Bogatin. . . .
In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin pleaded guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased them to "launder money, to shelter and hide assets." A Senate investigation into organized crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the "boss of bosses" of the Russian mafia. At the time, Mogilevich -- feared even by his fellow gangsters as "the most powerful mobster in the world" -- was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America.
I have spent the last twenty years of my life working on money laundering cases and carrying out international financial investigations. I had never heard of Semion Mogilevich. Unger's claim piqued my interest. So I started digging.
I do not know if Semion is a genuine mobster. He certainly is portrayed that way in this very flawed FBI report. And that report has become ground truth for a host of writers who mindlessly repeat the fantastical claims and allegations without insisting on corroboration. Going back to my discussion about the busted gangster summit in Prague in May of 1995, I keep wondering if Mogilevich is actually an FBI asset or working for one of our friends, such as Israel. For a guy who is supposedly engaged in a broad swath of illegal activities that encompasses the gamut of bad behavior, Semion has enjoyed a relatively peaceful life. If he actually had such a record I would expect him to face a mountain of extradition requests. But that is not the case.
The final issue of relevance concerns Semion's ethnicity and citizenship status. He is not a Russian. Never has been. He is Ukrainian and a citizen of Israel. So why are media types so eager to claim Semion as proof that Donald Trump is under the thumb of the Russian mob? It does not compute."

Realist , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:38 am GMT
Excellent article. Things are coming to a head (it's about time). Here is another excellent article along the same lines.

Predators and Saprophytes, by Robert Gore

anon [196] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:00 am GMT
Trump is essentially trying to have the cake and eat it too.
anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:30 am GMT
Remember Helsinki? And then that creepy presser back home in Exceptionalia days later where, with Mr. Bolton dropping moustache dandruff down the President's collar, the talk of peace was walked back, and the lights literally went out?

So I'm afraid that the real answer to Dr. Giraldi's well put, real question is that in 2019 Donald J. Trump will lack both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia.

I hope I'm wrong, but this is nothing new and was foreseen by another of this website's best columnists:

"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."

Linh Dinh, as published at The Unz Review, June 12, 2016 ("Orlando Shooting Means Trump For President")

Bolteric , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:02 am GMT
Great article as usual.
New World Order is usually capitalized.
George , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:22 am GMT
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises "

Gumption? He has ordered things, and his orders are disregarded. Tweeting his disregarded orders is gumption. Any thoughts on what more than gumption is needed?

Trump's Neocons Reverse His Syria Withdrawal Plan

Trump's Neocons Reverse His Syria Withdrawal Plan

jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:24 am GMT
@renfro

Or he's done.

He's done.

Anon [255] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:46 am GMT
@Bolteric Unless you are referring to a new world order.
jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:57 am GMT
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/2996129/russen-wij-leveren-goedkoper-gas-dan-vs
USA ambassador in the Netherlands and the Russian ambassador in a row about which country is going to sell us gas.
The Russian gas is cheaper.
Less dangerous too, maybe, liquid gas tankers are great objects for terrorist attacks.
As long as countries compete with each other about gas sales war does not seem imminent to me.
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT
Go, Chuck!

one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California, "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."

mike k , says: January 8, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT
If Giraldi is thinking Trump is going to show some kind of intelligence, or moral sense, or simply backbone against his numerous enemies – then he is indulging in a fruitless and foolish daydream. Get real. Remember who you are dealing with.
Wally Streeter , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:18 pm GMT
Why Bolton hasn't been fired yet is a mystery. It's as if his real job is Presedential Minder and his appointment to that position was made by an unknown party. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Trump does try to fire him. It might even reveal who has the real power in this country.
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
@mike k

If Giraldi is thinking Trump is going to show some kind of intelligence, or moral sense, or simply backbone

Rest easy, sir!

Fed up Goy , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:50 pm GMT
@Mike G Actually AIPAC, Adelson, Kushner, and other assorted khazarian mafia slime are his boss. Chumps promises made are only kept if they're in line with AIPAC and HELL Aviv
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT

Why Bolton hasn't been fired yet is a mystery.

Why he was ever put in a position of power to begin with is an even bigger mystery than it is a disaster.

Fun quote borrowed from another good article over at LRC.:

"May God save the country for it is evident the people will not."

-- Millard Fillmore, 13th [purportedly in a Letter to Henry Clay (11 November 1844)]

A Farewell to 'Bargain Shopping'

EliteCommInc. , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:56 pm GMT
we'll see.
Johnny Walker Read , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:02 pm GMT
Trump is just another puppet for the moneyed powers of America and the western world. He is there to give the restless "deplorable's" the impression they have someone who is finally speaking for them and actually cares for them. The minute Trump steps to far off the reservation he is hauled back in. If he manages to get out of lasso range, other more deadly and final measures will be instituted.

If you have any doubt's about what I say, you can ask Sen. Paul Wellstone. Oh wait, no you can't, He's dead.

The Assassination of US Sen. Paul Wellstone, One of the Last Anti-War Populist Progressives

Harold Smith , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:10 pm GMT
"Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers out of Syria and half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have slipped somewhat and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back."

Didn't he also declare that he wants better relations with Russia? Yet he sees determined to take the world back to the darkest, most dangerous days of the cold war. So I guess we can't put any faith in the things he "declares."

"That Trump may have chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he succeeds in doing so, is certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California, "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."

According to his pre-election rhetoric (e.g. tweets from 2013), he broke with the "interventionist model" a long time ago; so why did he expand the illegal, immoral and unconstitutional U.S. military footprint in Syria in the first place? Of course he can leave Syria whenever he "wants" to.

"There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3rd, Trump offhandedly commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated shock waves through the neoconnish Washington Post's coverage of the remarks."

The problem is, as we see, nothing that he says or does can be taken at face value. Among other things, he's an ignorant, arrogant, stupid, shallow, incurious, feckless, malignantly narcissistic, completely morally bankrupt pathological liar – whose strings are apparently being pulled by a coterie of jewish-supremacist madmen. This is why I variously refer to him as "teflon-don-the-con-man", "orange clown", "perfidious presidential poseur"; etc.

"To be sure, there are some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is essentially fraudulent."

Why wouldn't they when it's clear that his whole presidential campaign was obviously a fraud?

"All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia."

Orange clown having "vision and necessary gumption"? Seriously? He's an unrepentant mass-murdering psychopath who "hears voices" and takes action. He's "Son of Sam" or the Zodiac killer in a suit and tie. He's leading us to planetary extinction, IMO.

Ahoy , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:14 pm GMT
They took away from him his advisors Banon and General Flyn. What happens to them will be the litmus test if he has any power at all.
renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:32 pm GMT
The Zionist have neutered Trump. He'll keep floundering claiming he gonna do something but its clear Sheldon Adelson's boy Bolton is running the country and bringing in more zio jews to plan war, hot or cold, for Iran
Trump is finished.

John Bolton, national security advisor, is tapping Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) for a key post.

FDD President Mark Dubowitz confirmed the hire on Twitter late Monday: "Couldn't think of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC to maximize the maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." The White House has not yet publicly commented.

The story was first reported in Jewish Insider . Goldberg has locked his previously-public Twitter page, following the course taken by other NSC hires, such as Fred Fleitz (who has since departed) and Anthony Ruggiero, formerly of FDD, who swiftly locked their Twitter pages upon ascension to the White House.

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
What the U.S. has is a Zionist foreign policy driven by Zionist dual citizens who have as their number one agenda the goals of the Zionist satanic NWO! Zionists control every facet of the U.S. government and the so called congress might just as well be called the lower house of the Knesset as it grovels to kiss the hand that smites them continually in some type of Stockholm syndrome!

On 911 the Zionist controlled deep state and Israel destroyed the WTC and murdered some 3000 Americans and they got away with it and every American who has the ability to think for themselves knows that Israel and the deep state did 911! The Zionists not only got away with it but forced America into 17 years and counting of war and war crimes in the Mideast in support of the Zionist satanic goal of their NWO and in the process murdered untold millions of innocent civilians , men and women and children all for their Zionist masters who rule America!

America is under the control of the Satanist Zionists who have turned America into a nation that invades and bombs the hell out of countries and commits war crimes of the worst king and all this under the command of Zionist controlled U.S. government!

I do not know this government that is in control of America it is a foreign to me as if it came from Mars, and Trump is just another puppet in a long line of puppets going back to JFK , who was the last patriot POTUS and was shot in full view of America by the same ones who rule America today!

Zionists are going to destroy America , just as a parasite destroys its host!

anon [143] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
As long as Bolton and Pompeo are still in his cabinet, Trump has zero chance of pulling out of Syria. He needs to grow a pair and fire both of those clowns. He's gone this far, firing Haley, Kelly and Mattis, now he needs to finish the job so he can finally run the non-interventionist foreign policy that he promised his voters on the campaign trail.

Rod Rosenstein also needs to be fired, and Pence needs to be iced.

The first step to showing us he's serious is to replace John Bolton with Tulsi Gabbard.

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
Zionists control every facet of the U.S. government and every POTUS since JFK who they could not control so they shot him in front of America to show the people who was really in charge!

911 was done by the zionists and the zionist controlled deep state and every thinking American knows that the zionists did 911 and used this false flag to push America into illegal uncontitutional wars in the mideast for 17 years and counting all for the zionist goal of a zionist satanic NWO!

Trump is just another zionist puppet in a long line of zionist puppets and congress is the lower house of the knesset and the zionists are going to destroy America just as a parasite destroys its host.

jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:09 pm GMT
My idea is that quite a few of the commenters here do not understand that no dictator anywhere ever had absolute power.
Not Stalin, not Atatürk, not Hitler.
This is not to suggest Trump is a dictator, but to make clear that a USA president does not have absolute power.
Not even FDR had absolute power, as the diaries of Harold L Ickes make abundantly clear.
In my opinion Kennedy underestimated the forces against him.

Trump, again in my opinion, does not want suicide, not politically, not bodyly.
As long as he can handle fool Bolton, when he was at the UN staff had great difficulty not to laugh about his stupidities, why send the man away, escalate the conflict, and maybe has to accept a far more dangerous opponent ?
FDR's Bolton in my opinion was Henry L Stimson.
FDR fooled him with regard to the negotiations with Japan.
The saying is 'keep your enemies close', this was what all three dictators mentioned above did.
Trump won the elections, but he still has to annihilate Deep State.

Reuben Kaspate , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT
Maybe he wants to "Manzhou" her
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
Ron Paul asks,

Will President Trump stand by and watch this coup taking place under his nose?

Trump's Neocons Reverse His Syria Withdrawal Plan
By Ron Paul
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/01/ron-paul/trumps-neocons-reverse-his-syria-withdrawal-plan/

Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an active participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around bully-and-exhibition-queen fashion spouting off like an adolescent.

I wonder what the dolt is tweeting now.

jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
Anyone else having trouble reviewing and editing posts?
Che Guava , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:17 pm GMT
Dear Doc. Giraldi,

It seems that Trump is trying, that at least is a small good. The next thing he is needing to do is to dismiss Walrus Bolton, perhaps decapitation would be a richly deserved fate?

If you were to be offered the job, would you take it? Most of readers here who are sane would love to see you have a stronger influence, but I am supposing it is never to be.

GamecockJerry , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT
Trump may be POTUS but he is just one man but he is continually beating on the door and moving the Overton window. Who was the last President – as President – who made these statements about getting out of these various 'wars' we are in. Generals and congress critters are now having to produce proof, arguments and RESULTS on why we should stay. I have seen very little of that before Trump. He certainly has a growing population behind this direction.
Obviously not much has moved in this direction, but I feel confident he will continue to batter this door and eventually it will fall. The sooner the better.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT
@jacques sheete My advise! Do not bet on it. Trump will finish his term, and he will win another one.
Harold Smith , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:29 pm GMT
@jacques sheete "Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an active participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around bully-and-exhibition-queen fashion spouting off like an adolescent.

I wonder what the dolt is tweeting now."

LOL! I couldn't have said it any better myself.

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT
@chris Regarding my use of the hit Eagles song "Hotel California" lyrics, as metaphor for ZUS war policy in Syria, Brother Chris noted & wrote, "PS BTW: awesome, Chuck for getting honorable mention in Phil's column via your Hotel California comment! ," and Brother Jacques Sheete also encouraged, said, "Go, Chuck!"

First off, I thank Phil Giraldi for using the noun "wit" to describe me, instead of the alternative "nitwit," which doubtless several U.R. commenters would have preferred.

One talent where Donald Trump is either equal to, or > 1930's FDR on-the-campaign-stump, is his being expert at the Zio art of "baiting" voters with vows to avoid war, & then executing a "switch."

There is nothing that exhausts serious American voters confidence more than ambitious politicians' campaign 'bait & switch" tactics.

Tonight, it appears President Trump shall address the "Homeland" from Oval Office.
Doubtless, he'll try to reestablish communication with his adoring voter base, silence Democrats, and in the name of a decades-long (Soros?) engineered & foreseeable "National Security Emergency," determine to build his border wall at all taxpayer cost, including permanency of a ltd. government "shut down."

What American TV viewers shall not learn about is the president's virulent pro-Greater Israel foreign policy, and Trump's silent construction of an impenetrable WALL, consisting of freak war building block-personages, namely, Steve Mnuchin, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo as a united cornerstone.
(Note: Absent in our Zio Corporate Media's vast conspiracy spin-machine is a voice which demands, "Tear down the F.P. wall!"

Regrettably, above, 'Merkins can not tear down that peace-prohibitive wall.

Thanks Phil Giraldi, Chris, and Jacques. Er , Welcome to Hotel California Discomfort Inns, D.C./Tel Aviv!

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:32 pm GMT
@jilles dykstra Trump is under Zionist control and the Zionist bankers who hold the paper on all of his properties and so even if he wanted to, can not and will not go against the Zionist control of the U.S. government.
jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Yes
anonymous [204] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:36 pm GMT
America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what is going on in the region.]

This is very laughable and only the propagandists make it.

Only the propagandists are making fake news to confuse the ignorant and illiterate people.
Trump is a war monger with different style, like criminal Obama had different style from mass murderers like Clinton family and the Zionist criminals in the different American regimes, especially since 911 staged as false flag operation by USG and Zionist Neocons to implement the plan they had against the Muslims and the region for hegemony and 'greater Israel'.

All evidence since 9/11 and before that proves that these wars are designed and carried out by the criminal and terrorist USG, its 'intellectuals', CIA, FBI and the rest of criminals in the American regime.
The 'nationalist' propagandists do not refer to 9/11 as FALSE FLAG OPERATION to protect the handas of the criminal and terrorists in American regimes to fool the public

Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia member, is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them.

Saudi Arabia and its terrorists army is US proxy army which Saudi Arabia follishly is fuding because USG terrorist state WANTS ITS COLONY TO DO THAT. Saudi Arabia cannot exist if does not OBEY THE ODER. The terrorist American regime is using the wealth of the Saudis (muslims) to kill and rob muslims. The dumb MBS must know that after they fund destruction of other states, then it would be their turn, is mbs that stupid? Then let them go down the tube. The west is milking Saudi Arabia for its geopolitical interest, staging false flag operation, to bring its dumb population on board. Is This so difficult to understand? USG has killed millions, millions, millions of people around the world. Every day is a new 'enemy', in Asia, Afria, even Europe. They construct enemy with the help of the criminal and fake media.
Now, people of the region know more than ever than NO one can trust US and their propagandists.
People of the region cannot trust the lies coming from the mouth of a Jewish Mafia member. They are not going to be fooled like American ignorant people who have been molded to be one.

The people of the region know that 'troop out of Syria' is NOTHING BUT A LIE. Because they see the activities of the criminal American and their mass murderer 'soldiers' and 'advisors' all around them.

The criminal US and jewish neocons' plan in Syria did not go according to plan. The mass murderer Obama DID EVERYTHING to implement accordingly, but were not successful due to sacrifices of Syrian people and army, Hizbullah and Iran. Russia a pro Zionist entity entered later in 2015 to fill 'a void' for its own interest and jewish mafia interest that Putin, like trump, is a member of.
Now, the jewish mafia stooge at the WH is changing the plan, but has NOT ABANDONED it. Now, the plan is to focus on Iraq as a base to weaken Iran more than ever.

To do that Trump is playing with Iraqi government, is trying to weaken its government to make it MORE dependent on Washington to follow orders with the help of TRAITOR KURDS and Turkey.

All evidence show that Trump has smuggled the terrorist MEK members, where have no influence in Iran, into Iraq to BE USED, ALONG WITH TRAITOR KURDS, for terrorist plot against Iranian people to put pressure on Iranian government.

But Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim said:

"These sanctions, the siege, or what is called the embargo," imposed by the US is "unilateral, not international," and Iraq is "not obliged [to follow] them."

So, the plan is going to be continued by Trump, the war monger, but the propagandists tell you that IT IS THE 'DEEP STATE' DOES NOT ALLOW PEACE LOVING IDIOT TO DO ITS WORK.

They are lying to you. Trump is as criminal as the former American regimes.

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:50 pm GMT
@renfro Thanks for the information. Verrry interesting.
Rurik , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
Excellent article as usual.

the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House.

accepted as bogus, but the fraud is nevertheless enforced across the zio-fiefdom.

Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe.

Not to split hairs, but the fake news of 'Russian collusion' in the election, is and always has been a laughable farce. Just as any threats to Eastern Europe by Putin's Russia is a preposterous absurdity.

The real reasons for the hostility towards Russia is Russia's unwillingness to go along with ((the unilateral power's)) agenda.

https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Republican-senators-call-to-recognize-Israeli-rule-over-Golan-Heights-576675

Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in Syria.

So all their hysterical lies notwithstanding, our media and politicians are all hostile to Russia for Putin's intransigence in Syria. Not for 'hacking our democracy' or arresting Pussy Riot, or menacing Latvia or Poland. These are just more media turds for forced public consumption.

Also glad to see Brother Chuck get his mention!

c matt , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:10 pm GMT
@mike k To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array of forces facing Trump. The best intelligence he could show is to survive, and the most I would hope for is for him to bring the whole mess crashing down on his way out.
ariadna , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia."

I would put it differently and, I daresay, with more precision:
"If pigs had wings, AND if they were slender enough to enable the take-off, AND their flatulence did not create an outsize Coandă effect in flight, AND if and only if they had a strong desire to fly, then they might fly just as likely as Trump might do what Mr. Giraldi hopes he would."

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:24 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Hey Desert Fox!

Below fyr, is a curious Daily Beast report on how 2016 candidate, Trump, accepted money from Mr. Open Borders Man, Except For Israel, George Soros.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-took-liberal-icon-george-soross-money

One characteristic of a ZUS president is to capitalize on both the engineered successes and failures of their predecessors.

Hence, tonight, 'Merkins will hear President Trump speak accurately about how illegal immigration constitutes a present "National Emergency" threat; a western crisis which was promoted & established by cohort billionaire international Jew "Open Borders" engineers, & who Trump might chastise later on, but not by name.

Deus ex machina , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:24 pm GMT
QUESTION: Is Adam Schiff, head, House Intelligence, a dual citizen?
anon [538] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:26 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski You go Chuck!

Must have been the Hail Marys.

--

btw -- re edit problems:
Problems on WP Software Upgrade?
RON UNZ • JANUARY 7, 2019

Problems on WP Software Upgrade?

--

also: Interesting post on SicSemperTyrannis: Cotton & Cruz are in Israel lobbying for recognition of Israeli annexation of Golan Hts

Don't Cheney & Biden & Kushner have financial interest in gas from Golan?

jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT
@anonymous

Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia member, is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them

.
Alas not obvious to me.
If you're fooling me, I do not know, what I do know is that a lot of assertions is not proof.

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:57 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Trump, who I voted for , has been a disappointment and I have given up all hope for him, and with his being surrounded by Zionists, it is going to take a grass roots awakening of the American people to the Zionist control of the government and that I think will not happen.

Soros , when 14 years old in Budapest Hungary lived with the Nazi commander who was charged with rounding up jews and Soros went out with the Nazis and pointed out where the jews lived and thus helped betray and send these jews to the death camps, this is true, and anyone can check this out, and not a peep out of the Zionists, they betrayed their own!

Soros and the Zionists are Satanists!

AnonFromTN , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:07 pm GMT
Trump is always for real. Problem is, he is for real for the next 15 minutes or so.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT
@Rurik Knowingly, Rurik said: "Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in Syria."

Above, I totally agree, Brother Rurik.

Have not done a search/study, but I would wager Russian representatives stood tall & mighty at past globalist assemblies, for example, Davos.

Fyi, I still think Putin and Xi are to some extent acceptable to Globalist control designs, but the ZUS & western European Zionist zealots insist that an Israeli personage must sit at the right-hand of the coming (globalist) Mes$iah.

One rather purposely forgotten thing, Rurik? At Davos, January 2017, populist-President Trump's business pal, Anthony Scaramucci, delivered a curious address.

"Mooch" assured the Davos assembly that Donald Trump is "the globalists last good chance for success."

Why? Well , if Putin's and the very powerful Xi's rule happens to weaken to international Jewry's applied internal & external financial pressure, the poor world must (regrettably) suck-it-up and, in reverse, & sing together the old song lyric, "Jesus will not be just right with me."

Thanks, Brother Rurik! And no doubt, P.G. reads the comments to his articles, & he may deploy them

Moi , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:36 pm GMT
Loathed the man from the start and don't pay any attention to what he says.
Winston2 , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:38 pm GMT
@renfro Very blackmailable sadly.
Mueller has not even started,contrary to popular opinion.
Not sure what Trump won't do when his kids and biz are under threat of RICO charges and
confiscation.
Mueller will flip Alexander Slater the conduit for billions of Russian(Jewish)mafia money
laundered thru' the Trump organization.Cohen already flipped on Slater.
Mueller is involved in parallel construction of what the deep state organs already gave him.
He isn't looking for a crime,he already knows exactly what they are,he is looking for corroboration.
Charles Pewitt , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.

Trump proposes some thing in regards to foreign policy and the globalizer Deep State ghouls in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire throw Trumpy some 97 mph chin music and Trumpy steps in the bucket out of fear of getting beaned in the coconut.

The Israel Firist globalizer goons in the GOP such as John Bolton and Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton do the bidding of the government of Israel and they do the bidding of wealthy Jew billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson. Jared Kushner, the money-grubbing Jewish real estate shyster, is also telling Trump to put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States.

Trump is doing good work on China, but he is not going far enough. The treasonous rat whores in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the United States sold out the sovereignty and security of the United States by allowing China to use cheap labor to crush American manufacturing. Greedy shyster rats such as Robert Rubin wanted to fully expand financialization and globalization and mass immigration to concentrate wealth and power in the United States.

Greedy dirtbags in academia fully supported the flooding of Chinese students into the United States. This has allowed Chinese intelligence assets and other Chinese elements to infiltrate themselves into areas of operation that should have been disallowed to them.

Trump should immediately put into place a 95 percent prohibitive tariff on all goods or services coming from China. Trump should begin mass deportations of as many Chinese interlopers as possible, and he should ban the entrance of any other Chinese people from entering the United States.

China and the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire are enemies of the American people.

George HW Bush and George W Bush did everything in their power to flood the United States with Chinese interlopers and Chinese manufactured products and goods. China boy George HW Bush is now rotting in Hell for pushing mass immigration and for colluding with the Communist Chinese against the best interests of the American people.

The disgusting, treasonous rats in the WASP/JEW ruling class have sold out the American people for cash and Trumpy is just now getting the American people to think in terms of US national interests when it comes to US foreign policy instead of some vague, nebulous "global economy" or some other abstraction.

In short, that German and Scottish and Irish guy named Patrick Joseph Buchanan has been right about US foreign policy and the WASP/JEW ruling class has been treasonously wrong.

RobinG , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:07 pm GMT
@renfro

'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters. Only one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual evidence and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of Israel. Not a Russian.

Thanks, renfro.

Charles Pewitt , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:22 pm GMT
@Wally Streeter John Bolton is a treasonous baby boomer globalizer rat who puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. That is treason.

John Bolton was a big backer of the Iraq War debacle.

John Bolton pushes nation-wrecking mass immigration and multicultural mayhem.

President Trump should fire John Bolton immediately.

Tweets from 2014:

RobinG , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:33 pm GMT
@RobinG The Myth of the Russian Crime Boss, Semion Mogilevich, He's Israeli
by Larry Johnson

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/01/the-russian-myth-of-semion-mogilevich-hes-israeli-by-larry-johnson.html

Ahoy , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:33 pm GMT
This man fought for humanity to reach high ground.

This man wants humanity (the goyim part only) to burn in hell.

Americans are immersed in an existencial war for their values and beliefs. For starters start thinking what to do with poisonous Hollywood.

MEexpert , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:39 pm GMT
@jacques sheete

I wonder what the dolt is tweeting now.

Trump: Jamal Al-Badawi, Leader In USS Cole Attack, Killed: "Our GREAT MILITARY has delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole," Trump tweeted Sunday.

Mr. President, now let us ask our GREAT MILITARY to deliver justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Liberty.

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:55 pm GMT
@renfro Great post on N.S.A. Bolton's hiring of Richard Goldberg! Below, fyr, is followup information from National Interest.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/john-bolton-taps-iran-regime-change-advocate-40917

Unless the Islamic Republic of Iran is resisting ZUS demands, & has covert nuclear weapon & delivery systems, I am afraid that the post-WW2 (carved up) Germany landscape will become its terrible fate.

Thanks a lot for delivering such solid Gold(berg) information, renfro.

SolontoCroesus , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:24 pm GMT
@Ahoy

Americans are immersed in an existencial war for their values and beliefs. For starters start thinking what to do with poisonous Hollywood.

Hollywood is one cesspit; another is the public library that you, Mr & Mrs Taxpayer support.

I'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction writes. Among those interviewed:
David Ignatius
Brad Thor
Brad Meltzer
David Baldacci
Jodi Piccoult
Geraldine Brooks

Rabbi Manis Friedman's declaration triggered this rant:
Early in Meltzer's The Book of Lies , his main character asserts:

"If there was one constant in history it was that victors torched property, salted the earth, destroyed all the old idols. No sense warehousing the past when you could obliterate it entirely."

In, The Increment , David Ignatius praises: "The young Iranian scientist did the right thing: he betrayed his country and sold out to CIA."

Jodi Piccoult's "The Storyteller" is so full of holocaust propaganda she might as well be ghost writing for Simon Wiesenthal.

Baldacci is a hack sell-out. His writing -- as most of the others -- is two steps removed from Stratemeyer Syndicate / Hardy Boys – Nancy Drew. But be sure to mention Nazis in a bad light and Jews/Israel in a favorable light, and you're golden.

Meltzer is forthright enough to discuss his close relationship with CIA, Secret Service, and other US agencies that most of us do not have access to. What are the chances US government is subsidizing these authors to produce fiction to shape the minds of the American people?

There are non-profit organizations that work with publishing houses to send these books by the truckload to military service members in MENA and elsewhere.

Public libraries spend tens- if not hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring these books, in print, large print, and CD. Writers in this grouping construct their stories to make them readily adaptable to Hollywood movies.

The networking is extraordinary: C Span, "sponsored as a public service by your cable companies," provides a platform for these writers to promote their work.

Cable companies are owned by interests that also own newspapers as well as the publishing houses that market these books.

Hollywood is incestuously related to all of the above.

The American people are screwed every which way: their tax dollars are used to fund public libraries that peddle propaganda; they pay for cable services that propagandize them; they pay to see movies that degrade and propagandize them.

While their tormentors collect fat paychecks and laugh at them.

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
The fever pitch of Trump decent is off the charts.

Trump saying. he was going to pull out the troops from Syria – is a cultural and diplomatic earthquake. The possibility of that happening, has shaken the Jews to the core.

Look at Drudge today – things are going crazy – the Jew media is fighting him on virtually everything that is going on in America. They are attacking him on every pronouncement. It is 24/7 get Trump.

Hmm -- just who owns and controls the US MSM – JEWS.

Sorry folks – it is all Jew intimidation – they are saying to Trump "screw with Israel's security, and we Jews will kill your presidency."

Think Peace -- Do No Harm -- Art

jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT
@Ahoy Crazy religious people are not just among jews
Dutch politician vd Staay is under fire here because of his ideas about homosexuality, the Nashville declaration.
Why anyone bothers about such nonsense is beyond my comprehension
Probably the Torah forbids homosexuality in order to get maximum population growth
Ideas resembling what I read here, because the Chinese population grows the USA must welcome migrants
Idiots
anonymous [538] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:19 pm GMT
@Art
"ISTANBUL -- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced the White House national security adviser John R. Bolton for comments he made ahead of his arrival in the Turkish capital and refused to meet him on Tuesday, making any agreement between the two NATO partners over a United States withdrawal from Syria increasingly difficult.

Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.

"It is not possible for us to swallow the message Bolton gave from Israel," Mr. Erdogan said in a speech to political party members in Parliament. Turkey was only opposed to Kurdish militant groups and not ordinary Kurds, he insisted."

-- -- --
Erdogan Cancels Meeting With Bolton, As U.S. Seeks To Reassure Allies On Syria
NPR January 8, 2019

"Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apparently snubbed U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, canceling a planned meeting to discuss the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria as well as the fate of a U.S.-allied Kurdish militia fighting ISIS in Syria.

Bolton's meeting with Erdogan was canceled moments before it was to begin, reflecting Turkish anger at Bolton's insistence that those Kurdish forces be protected after more than 2,000 American troops exit northeastern Syria."

Harold Smith , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:21 pm GMT
@Art And then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate the Sandy Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."

And then I woke up.

Wally , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova I agree.
Hell, Trump wasn't even supposed to get this far per 'the polls' and the pre-election media onslaught, but here we are.
Strict immigration control is something way too may Americans want, even Hispanics & blacks are figuring it out, (1.3 of Hispanics actually voted for Trump in 2016), They see their wages taking a hit because of the cheap, illegal labor who pay no taxes, but access free stuff like they do.

And who will the ne0-Communists run against him? Airhead Ocasio-Cortez, Hillary? LOL
Trump would slaughter them.

The neo-Communists only chance is to get Trump out before the 2020 election with the fake Mueller thing, and that's not going to happen. Too many have seen through that scam, and Mueller has nothing or we would have seen it.

bluedog , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova Your probably right and nothing will have changed,as Putin said presidents come and go but policy remains the same .
Greg Bacon , says: Website January 8, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
Trump will do whatever the REAL bosses, the FED, those corrupt Wall Street casinos and Israel tells him to do. He's nothing more than a carny barker, a fool that keeps the gullible marks occupied so they won't bitch about never-ending war; endless monetary support for Israel and our nation's infrastructure turning into 3rd world status while the MIC gets a bigger share each year.

Trump went bankrupt four different times, yet he's still a multi-billionaire? The ones who backed him thru that are now calling in their chits.

As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks For Corruption Charges -- Who He Owes Millions January 2018

While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the amount of money he owes them.

Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, a source told the Times that the actual number is likely much larger at $300 million.

Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years. http://thefreethoughtproject.com/trump-pardoned-megabanks-owes-millions-rampant-fraud-corruption/

Steal a couple hundred from a liquor store and you'll do ten years. Steal trillions and you'll get a pass, some money from Congress and the green light to steal again.

Wally , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:35 pm GMT
@renfro The alternative was Hillary.

I'll take my chances with Trump over the likes of Hillary, Ocasio-Cortez and the other Communists who are waiting in the wings any day.

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:40 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus I'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction writes.

S2C – Great comment – Thanks!

I love C-Span's weekend Book TV. It is the best programing on the tube.

They do all non-fiction except for this last year with the 3 hour long fiction writers. Most of them I turned off.

Art

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:19 pm GMT
@anonymous Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.

Bolton and Pompeo are living in the last century when America was respected.

The aftermath of 9/11 has destroyed our credibility. The world correctly views the US government as being controlled by the Jews.

Clearly, fighting terrorist wars for the Jews, has diminished our moral standing and place in the world. Our military is weakened and dissipated – we are falling behind in new tech – we are losing out in the cyber conflicts. America is getting dangerously behind in a thousand ways.

Bolton and Pompeo are bad guys working for the Jews – and the world knows it. Those two think, that all they have to do is say "Iran" and everyone will fall in place – it is not happening! (The world has no respect for our killing the Iran nuke deal.)

Think Peace -- Art

renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:21 pm GMT
@Winston2

He isn't looking for a crime,he already knows exactly what they are,he is looking for corroboration

I agree with that.

Wally , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus Let's not forget the fake Diary of Anne Frank and the ridiculous & easily debunked Destruction of European Jewry</i,. by Zionist Raul Hilberg*, to name just a few of the witchcraft equivalent books on the "holocaust" that plaque our libraries.

" it is questionable whether one should accept improbable figures supplied by a not overly friendly source."
– American Jewish Year Book, , 1972, Vol. 73, p. 536

* Raul Hilberg quotes no less than 20 times as a source in his standard work about the "Holocaust" ,Filip Mueller, who described how he ate cake in an alleged cyanide-saturated gas chamber. : https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10426

Fraudulent "historian" Hilberg exposed in court : http://www.ihr.org/books/kulaszka/09hilberg.html

http://www.codoh.com

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:40 pm GMT
@anonymous Your opinion is really nice. So tell me please. Which next country US will be destroying?
Fatima Manoubia , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT
Oh, I really would like to share this author´s New Year optimism with respect to the "US withdrawing from useless wars" , but, as far as I read over there, it seems quite certain the while possibly withdrawing ( in case this is going to happen anytime, or just they decide to remain so as to waste other´s victory ) from what has become useless wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, if not because of the presence of formidable opponents there, the US seems to not loose a minute to engage in others which could result much more usefull, mainly, if we remember Trump´s reproach on "we should had grabbed the oil" , and so, we have that preparations to disrupt countries in the Caribbean Sea , or intends to grabb portions of Africa even if necessary by usual method of kicking the door are next in the eternal list of unending agressions by the US and its "allies" .

After all, "it´s the oil" ..and other resources .

But I even do not discard extending IS/AQ jihad to European soil .now that the European "allies" have resulted so stubborn .

Thus, it is crystal clear to me that what we will have with Trump and the masters who put them in charge in the first place and move the strips behind him, is more of the same elevated to the nth potence .

I wonder what more is needed to have you all in the streets doing the only thing you can do to obligue them to do what you gratutiously affirm Trump is going to do ( whenever that is going to happen )
The information about what your country has always done, continue doing to date, and is all the way planning to do, is all out there for everybody to find and assess.
That you deny acknowledgment of this can only be for two reasons, willing blindness and deafness, so that your way of life does not change a bit, or willing collaboration with the so called "deep state"/"the borg" through taking part in disinformation operations, being the latter the highly likely case of, former or current, intelligence operatives/journalists/analysts .

May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake news", "fake success", "fake victories" ..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more people increasingly miserable, but, that all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and, consequently, you will end rotten in hell believe me, that is a fact .

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:55 pm GMT
@Wally Wally said: 'Too many have seen through that ("fake Mueller thing") scam, and Mueller has nothing, or we would have seen it."

Hey Wally!

Speaking respectfully, "we" see what Zionist's want us to see, and they have no problem with 'Merkins' presumed capability to see through "fake" special prosecutor stuff.

I liken ZUS citizens' bizarre & engineered political situation to that which Simon & Garfunkel described in peppy song, "A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest."

The Zio Corporate Media, including the often gripping DrudgeReport, feasts upon what appears to be a (combined) left & right flogging of what appears to be the wounded political carcass of President Trump.

But tonight, when the contentious & divisive border-wall address is completed, Oval Office lights out, and Trump tucks-in, the ruling darkness never sleeps.

Fyi, Wally, earlier and while in-between Scranton school bus runs, I indulged "Head- Start Program, 101; No Dumb Goyim Left Behind," by reading Andrew Bacevich's mind expanding & new U.R. article, below, subtitle, "Abizaid of Arabia."

Try Bacevich? For nothing "is" as to what Zio spinners appear to tell what it is "is."

Our Man in Riyadh

Nonetheless, I greatly appreciate all your Continued Education comments & the linked coda tomes, Wally!

onebornfree , says: Website January 8, 2019 at 11:00 pm GMT
This just in!: The Wall Will Not Stop Illegal Immigration !

Even if built according "to plan" [an impossibility, of course, given the nature of governments], the border wall would not prevent illegal immigrants, except maybe in the very short term, until people found various ways around its presence.

A border wall would be just another government scam, a worthless boondoggle that would only benefit the contractors and the politicians, just like every other government program throughout history.

Why? Because so-called government "solutions" cannot work.

All one has to do to reach this conclusion is to look at the world around us with a cold, unbiased eye, and observe the massive failure of other government "solutions" to date such as:

1] the war on drugs.

2] government- run healthcare

3] government- run education

4] government environmental regulation

5] the government war on poverty via welfare programs

6] government racial integration policies

The list of failures is endless , and at the present time- ever expanding into new areas supposedly 'begging" for government "solutions" that will not work either, because , tah dah! : government "solutions " cannot ever work, [for reasons I will not get into here], although admittedly, in the very short term they might appear to work. but it never takes long for "the rot to set in"

Regards, onebornfree

RobinG , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:19 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus Do I remember correctly that perhaps David Baldacci was the ghost writer of Bill Browder's fiction-posing-as-fact, Red Notice ?
Talha , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:44 pm GMT
Who's gonna be our guy in Pakistan, Musharraf? Potential tax dollars at work:

If you see Trump shaking hands with the old general, then get set for what's coming

Peace.

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:48 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

And then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate the Sandy Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."

And then I woke up.

Is Trump going to wake up and smell the Jews destroying him?

Will he call out the editors and CEO's of the media by name?

Hmm -- we will see what he is really made of!

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:05 am GMT
@Fatima Manoubia Hey Fatima Manoubia!

WOW! What outstanding, let me say, poetic (prophet-like) following paragraph, which addresses the doomed soul of real evildoers: "May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake news", "fake success", "fake victories" ..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more people increasingly miserable, but, that all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and, consequently, you will end rotten in hell believe me, that is a fact ."

Go, go, (Lady?) Fatima! Fyi, the sick U.S. Zio Corporate Media-directors and ZUS "Long War" practitioners cannot bear the reality of your warning. Thanks very much!

P.S.: During 1960's, Bob Dylan sang the pulsating "Masters of War" which for me, & decades later, rings to your tune.

peterAUS , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:08 am GMT
@anonymous

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home.

and, overall, simply continue with the plan.
Change of demographics, as one element of it, will, probably, accelerate.

renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski Here's another one for you.

Last year Trump Named Sigal Mandelker, a Former Israeli, as Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

She devotes all her time now trying to destroy Iran and Hezbollah for Israel.

Israeli Born Deputy Treasury Secretary: Iran Tripled Hezbollah's Annual Pay to $700 Million

Israeli Born Deputy Treasury Secretary: Iran Tripled Hezbollah's Annual Pay to $700 Million

One reason I keep pointing out the Zios now in government is that they can use their positions to create fake reports on Israel's enemies leading the US into even more actions against our own interest.
I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is. Too much of the talk about Jewish crimes and deceptions is ancient history and no one is going to punish or end Jewish manipulations over ancient history. ((They)) are only going to be stopped by exposing what they are doing TODAY.

John Doe doesn't give a shit about whatever Jews did 100, 1000 years ago. Joe Doe might give a shit about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and are sending all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY.

SolontoCroesus , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT
@RobinG RobinG -- most pertinent information I came across is that a British writer, William Nicholson, was working on a screenplay for a movie version of Red Notice.

I've never heard of the book. From a New York Times review, it appears there's a great deal of insider financial/ Wall Street information, which is not Baldacci's strength -- James Grippando specializes in that arena. The NYTimes review mentions Browder's "grating self-regard." Would a ghost writer allow something like that to remain unedited? (Why did an editor allow it to remain unedited?)

SolontoCroesus , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:01 am GMT
@renfro The office of Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence was created by uber Jew Stuart Levey, now legal counsel at HSBC.

When he left the post a few years ago, his former law partner, David Cohen, took his place.

Jews-who-hate-Iran created and have occupied the position at Treasury since they created it, specific ally for the purpose of bankrupting Iran.

You're right, renfro: people SHOULD know these things and SHOULD be outraged.

Thanks for putting it out there.

--

btw: Richie Goldberg has made a career of hating Iran. He was a student at a Chicago area Solomon Schechter school, whose website carried a front-page banner proclaiming their mission to "instill in students an undying devotion to Israel."

While still in his 30s, Goldberg became assistant to Illinois governor Bruce Rauner. He leveraged that position to make Illinois the first state to pass legislation divesting state pension funds from Iran-linked corporations.

Rich Goldberg is a proud defender of Israel and the United States, and that's not hyperbole; as Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs for Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and former Deputy COS to Senator Mark Kirk, Goldberg has helped advanced a number of initiatives to protect and benefit Israel and serves as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

In 2008, Goldberg spearheaded the deployment of X-Band missile defense radar to Israel and later played an integral role in the passage of economic sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran. This spring he helped Illinois become the first state to pass binding legislation countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Goldberg is a board member of AJC Chicago and a regional governor of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, for which he serves as the representative on Iran to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. http://www.juf.org/YLD/WYLD.ASPX (2015)

--

btw again: the Jodi Picoult book mentioned above focuses on the work of one Leo Stein, who occupies a US government office that searches out and prosecutes "Nazi war criminals," -- this novel revolves around a 93 year old "former SS" member that the main character ultimately kills. Jews use US institutions & tax $ to carry out their psychopathology

renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:33 am GMT
@SolontoCroesus Excellent additional information SC thanks.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@anon Thanks! Thanks to jiles too.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:46 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski

Great post on N.S.A. Bolton's hiring of Richard Goldberg!

I second that.

RobinG , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:47 am GMT
@SolontoCroesus "Grating self-regard" is the lesser fault with Red Notice . it's a tissue of lies. Anyway, ghost writers don't need their own depth of research, like biographers. They just take their subject's story and spin it well. His job was puffing up Browder as a hero.
renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:50 am GMT
'Morning Joe' anchor wants network TV to keep Trump's Oval Office

Fox News-3 hours ago

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski said Tuesday that television networks –including her own – should refuse to air President Trump's prime-time Oval

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:56 am GMT
@renfro renfro said: "I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is."

Hey renfro!

Pitifully, Jews count on millions of curiously alert American people who are trained & predisposed to "pay attention" to that which the TV tells them, and count on all to believe it, and obediently follow Judas Goat-herd authority.

At present, am a lot like you.

Average "John Does" today would let Jews slide if he/she learned that the stilted Holocaust education served as the state of Israel's launch pad, a reason to be criminal.

Now there's fascinating excitement about America getting a real 9/11 terror attack investigation, the one then FBI Director Robert Mueller missed. Am saddened to say that the Al Qaeda-perp "whopper" fantasy is more entertaining, and legions of dumb goyim (Bible-thumping) believers would persist to agree with Netanyahu's incredible assessment, "9/11 was good for Israel."

So, renfro, the great proposition is, & as you put it: "Joe Doe might give a shit about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and are sending all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY."

Big problem for me is the Protocols of Zion world takeover-plan, and how Jews will never let a bad (stinky) "taxpayer" finding fester out of control, for example, the facts you wrote, directly above.

As a pessimistic-optimist, here's how I see things: Contemporary Americans must dismount couches, reconcile to wear "do-rags" with bird feathers, fashion Anti-Zio War Paint instead of belly tattoos, and regain their stolen "Homeland."

Really hope/pray I'm nuts, renfro, but no Western Wall visit and yarmulke for me. Thank you!

DESERT FOX , says: January 9, 2019 at 2:25 am GMT
@renfro In 2001 a woman intern was found dead in then congressman Joes office with a gash on her head, and not one thing was done about this, who benefits?
Rabbitnexus , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:52 am GMT
I'd say they are getting out of Syria. If for no other reason than they lost and have nothing to do there, which is increasingly obvious despite the media held curtain of lies. I'm convinced Trump genuinely does want to withdraw US troops from some theatres but he is facing tremendous pushback from the bloated MIC and all it's little minions. Probably learning as he goes the real reasons for some of them, such as the minerals and opium in Afghanistan. I can't see them letting go of those goodies easily though replacing the troops with contractors is a likely option.
Al Moanee , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:52 am GMT
@chris "This is one crazy caper with us as 'the muscle,' Israel as 'the brain' and KSA is 'Mr. moneybags."

Indeed. I like to refer to US/SA/IS as "the Axis of upheaval", with their (respective) moto: "Force, Fund and Finagle!"

Rabbitnexus , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:12 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski People's capacity to ignore an uncomfortable reality is unlimited. I once had a shocking example of it when I and my 2 kids were witness to a massive triangle UFO, which moved silently, very low and slowly near a major road in the city I live in. My daughter hid under the dashboard and wouldn't even look. Even so that is how nearly everyone else from numerous cars reacted and even a bus which stopped and I tried to get a dozen people on-board to look at this thing. My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was absolutely ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads! I could see some of them staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under any circumstances to look. They seemed angry at me for trying to make them look even. They all either laughed at me as they passed or gave me a nasty look. This is NOT how people treat others in Perth, Western Australia usually, indeed several would normally have stopped to see if we were OK.

The people on the bus giggled and made fun of me, yet would not no matter how much I implored them simply look out that window and acknowledge a freaking massive aircraft carrier sized black aircraft no more than a couple of hundred meters off the ground. It was dusk but still somewhat light and it had three lights on it also. Eventually ONE guy did stop and look but it was a long way away by then. He could see the odd light configuration and noticed even at that distance it was not making the sound a jet would but that was it. I was astounded not by the UFO so much as by the weird reaction of most people who should have seen it yet something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they even saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have shattered their world view too much I guess.

That is why the truth of 9/11, Kennedy's slaying, the Holocaust [TM] and virtually all the wars which is so easy to access, will never become common currency so long as their acknowledgement will have a major impact on people's paradigms. The media of course do their part in feeding into this cognitive dissonance for their sheeple but in the end it is what the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they want to be validated and amused.

anon [119] Disclaimer , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:23 am GMT
John Bolton is the biggest piece of shite and no one is going to take Trump seriously as long as that traitor is still part of his cabinet.
Rabbitnexus , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:30 am GMT
More truths that people will not acknowledge, even if they were shown widely to them via their usual information swill bucket. ETs as my example directly demonstrates, MH-17, the USS Liberty. The nuclear 'Energy' lie. (Nuclear "Power stations" are really just part of the nuclear weapons process) The medical swindle around most "incurable diseases". The true history of almost any nation, they're almost all based on great founding myths which would not stand the light of examination but nobody wants to know except those for whom knowing might bring some benefit. An excuse to reclaim something supposedly lost and which loss itself is more often then not another invented myth. I despair of the human race becoming enlightened or exalting the virtues inherent in mankind. It will only happen on an individual basis, there's no 100th monkey situation that is another myth anyway.
peterAUS , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT

They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads! I could see some of them staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under any circumstances to look. They seemed angry at me for trying to make them look even. They all either laughed at me as they passed or gave me a nasty look.

. something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they even saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have shattered their world view too much I guess.

.will never become common currency so long as their acknowledgement will have a major impact on people's paradigms.

and, the most important:

.in the end it is what the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they want to be validated and amused.

Actually, the only important when dealing with average person.

I've had plenty related experiences. Nothing such extraordinary; just the usual stuff about power, politics, social issues, even health. Always willful, derogatory, even hostile reaction to simple common sense.

And, TPTBs do know that. That's why they are where they are.
They know the truth and act upon it. Realists.

And idealists, no matter what type, stick to their delusions. "If we could just inform and educate people" and similar bullshit.
Feels good, though.

Wally , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:58 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski Chuck:
Speaking of CODOH, coming soon from 'Holocaust Handbooks'
Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, An Introduction and Update to Jean-Claude Pressac's Magnum Opus , By Germar Rudolf
http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=42

http://www.codoh.com

Art , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:04 am GMT
Oh my oh dear – surprise surprise' – Senator Marco Rubio pays back Jew sugar daddies with first bill of the 2019 Senate – killing free speech for BDS movement against Israel.

Heavens to Betsy – can you believe it – go figure' – the darling of American conservatism FOX JEWS defends the bill.

p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.

anon [128] Disclaimer , says: January 9, 2019 at 9:31 am GMT

Bolton Threatens Syria: US Troop Withdrawal "On Hold". Permanent US Military Base on Syria-Iraqi border

"On Friday, a State Department official said "(w)e have no timeline for our military forces to withdraw from" the country. Delay may turn out to be not at all.

On Sunday, a senior Iraqi parliamentarian said

"(t)he Americans have built a military base in Erbil (in) the Iraqi Kurdistan region to use against Iraq's neighboring countries, in particular Iran and Syria."

Iraqi media said the Pentagon has 14 military bases in the country – along with a reported 18 in Syria. The US is highly unlikely to abandon them, especially ones considered most strategically important.

An earlier report indicated the Pentagon intends establishing a permanent base along the Iraqi border with Syria. Turkey reportedly established one or more military bases in northwestern Aleppo.

On Saturday, a senior Trump regime official said US forces may remain indefinitely at the (illegally established) al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders "

-- -- -- -- -- –

There has been a major change in US propaganda. In its earlier versions , US has always downplayed whats it's interest are, what it is trying to achieve, how it is trying to achieve – whether the case was in Soviet or Iraq or Vietnam or Libya few years ago. Now the neocons declare what they plan how they plan and whats the objectives are . With that differences between former and current, one can see also so called victory before and the absolute defeat now.

Anon [413] Disclaimer , says: January 9, 2019 at 11:10 am GMT
@Rabbitnexus I was going to say that you had better make sure of your St Paul before taking the decisive trip on your donkey But then I see he is there ready to go in the shape of PeterAus. So now you needn't wait: get yourself crucified after alerting all the media, mainstream and alternative. Pruning the gospels for some semblance of consistency you will, I'm afraid, just have to trust Your Father will look after.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 11:30 am GMT
@Rabbitnexus

My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was absolutely ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads!

While I've never seen such a thing as a UFO, I've had similar responses from people when I've tried to warn them of potentially dangerous situations while driving on the freeway such as unlatched hoods on their cars to wobbling wheels on their trailers, to unsecured loads that were bouncing around.

Now as to the assertion that history is useless or foolish, I do agree with the idea that for most people a knowledge of history is wasted on them, but there are a significant few, I think, who see the light after understanding that what's being detailed today is largely the fruit of past efforts. I also am a proponent of exposing past crimes so that people are not surprised when they see how the methods are very similar to those being used at the present and will likely be used in the future. A further benefit is that people will begin to understand what is not effective and that it's imperative to look for ways to undermine the parasite classes.

Another reason why knowledge of history is important is that it helps immunize people against being lied to by the purveyors of fake news and fake history. Such knowledge really seems to help in assessing the verity, or lack thereof, of those who make excuses for bad behavior or try to downplay the seriousness of unacceptable and irresponsible behavior.

I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.

It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.

Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 14 June 1807

jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 11:40 am GMT
@Art

p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.

Mere theater, I suspect.

Can there be any doubt that the Senator, Diane Feinstein, merely pretends to oppose the bill?

Most of what the clowns say is meant to be laughed at, not believed, and almost all are clowns. Furthermore history shows that in that respect nothing's changed over the millennia.

RVBlake , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Cheney does.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt

Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.

My take is that it's the good cop, bad cop routine. It's just another version of The Shrub's promises of implementing compassionate conservatism and a humble foreign policy or O-bomb-a's hope and change

Trump says something that the ever hopeful Trumpettes want to hear, then does exactly as his bosses desire. This allows The Trumpster to appear like the good guy while maintaining hope and simultaneously enabling his supporters to claim that da devil would't let him do it. The Boltons of the world no doubt enjoy their roles as devils.

And I agree that The Cackling Hyena would have been exponentially worse, but that's small consolation and no denying that the masses are being played, again.

RVBlake , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
@jacques sheete This would explain Trump's heartening announcement of U.S. withdrawal from Syria, immediately followed by Pompeo and Bolton hustling and bustling amongst our valued Mid East allies, issuing consolations and moderations. Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S. now "coordinating" its withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original immediate withdrawal, then 4-month withdrawal.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Hey Jacques!

Our Zio Media never tells us that John Bolton is a Neoconservative and is establishing presidential foreign policy geared to Israeli requirements and in fact against NATO ally, Turkey.

Israel likes the Kurds due to only an obsession to divide & conquer neighboring Islamic countries. As a ZUS-approved "good" terror state, the Kurds want territory spanning Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

A very shitty & transparent deception, please refer to article, below, Jacques? (Zigh)

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/01/08/585215/Erdogan-rebukes-Boltons-unacceptable-comment-on-Syrian-Kurdish-YPG-forces

Johnny Walker Read , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one world government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president, including Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one possible exception, Andrew Jackson.
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/un/do.htm

You be the judge

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT
@RVBlake RVBlake wrote: "Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S. now "coordinating" its withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original immediate withdrawal,"

Hey Blake!

Re above; a question.

Why doesn't our Zio Media report on how Bolton managed to overturn Trump's 2016 presidential election, and how he easily managed to tweak & assume the role as US Commander in Chief of the armed forces?

Thank you. Please let me know what you think?

RVBlake , says: January 9, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski The MSM is part of the narrative, the septic tank melange of Pentagon, neocons, liberal interventionists No way they're turning on one of their own. They most likely sneer at his past political associations, i. e. Bush/Cheney, but they publicly endorse him as less evil than Trump.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
@RVBlake Hey RVBlake,

About my major point, re; the Kurds, their leaders know they have ZUS and Israeli miliary support, and such stuff can end up causing a major war, and US troops who remain in Syria are most regrettably in danger of becoming ritualistic & unnecessary "sacrificial lambs."

Thanks.

Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
@Fed up Goy Hell Aviv, I like that ..and I will use it, lol.
Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Ahoy Flynn was a NEOCON stooge and rabid anti Iran war hawk.
Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:10 pm GMT
@renfro Good find 'renfro', thanks.
Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:21 pm GMT
@c matt

To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array of forces facing Trump.

Great line.
Yeah at least he can blow the whole thing up as he leaves.

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMT
Appears evident that Commander in Chief Trump is fighting to secure the US southern border (with Mexico), and his NSA Director Bolton has the job of securing Israeli expansion into Lebanon and Syria.
bjondo , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@anonymous Note to Erdogan:

invite bolton and pompeo
for tea and baklava.
arrest.
some amount of torture ok.
neither will hold out past 2 seconds.

America will bless you.

bjondo , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:15 pm GMT
@Winston2 according to tea leaves,

mueller down and out before 90 days;

ruth ginsberg out before May ends;

bolton, pompeo gone before Dec.

THE WALL available for pics.

expansion by the yid toxic garbage dump is over.

death is waiting.

5ds

renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one world government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president, including Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one possible exception, Andrew Jackson

Getting your information from gun owner rights nut case sites is not a good idea.

Public Law 87-297 had nothing to do with the 2nd ammendment. It was a reaction to the arms race with Russia , nuclear fears and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Basically a brain fart of the times but one that led to the eventual reduction of nuclear weapons in Russia.

Further, it was Eisenhower that was the biggest champion of the UN and international law after WWII.

Further you need to read Washington's Farewell Address if you think he was a 'globalist' -- he was the exact opposite.
Washington's Farewell Address 1796
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp

Fatima Manoubia , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:46 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Comrade ChuckOrloski, you are really very kind, and generous, to consider that anything I could write with my scarce command of English language could be anytime qualified as "poetic", but I am glad if, in any way, it served you, or any other person, as inspiration or, at least, to be moved a bit from the wide conformism in front of what we are witnessing and are being directed to.

I thank you for the reference to Dylan´s song ( which I am not worthy of being compared to..), which I did not know so far, since not so heard at my country, and even at my times, which became a bit more cynic, despaired and self-destructive than yours ( when the anti-war movement was at its full heights of plenitude and strenght .Although they managed to fully disintegrate it be it through generalized introduction of drugs amongst the youth and hopeful ..or directly cutting the tongues of the troubadours ..), but, still, we had our bards too .

In this vein, you remind me of the fact that perhaps the lack of inspiration of these times lays in part, apart from in the general alienation by electronic devices, in the lack of bards .To kill the bards has always been one of their priorities as ancient leyends tell us .

But we will prevail .and will return to the streets . again .

Enjoy!

roberthstiver , says: January 9, 2019 at 7:59 pm GMT
Great work as always, Phil -- with the exceptions that you should have devoted due attention to (i) the nefarious, always-lurking Zionist presence/influence of Sheldon Adelson on Trump and our body politic and (ii) the neocon/Zionist/Israel-first (near) unanimity of our legislative branch in affairs of the Middle East and beyond that makes a mockery of any use of the term "US national [security] interests." Other areas: the MIC, the MSM, Ziothinktankdom, the Palestinians' fading hopes of justice and liberation .

(I can't find time and energy to review the comments; I'm sure there are some great ones.)

Harold Smith , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Its not China's fault that the jews and their loyal puppets targeted the American middle class for destruction.

China is not an "enemy of the American people".

Harold Smith , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:18 pm GMT
@Wally Being that our jewish-supremacist masters apparently wanted the perfidious orange clown over clinton, I have to assume that the orange clown is even more evil than clinton.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:34 pm GMT
@Fatima Manoubia Fatima Manoubia wisely noted: "To kill the bards has always been one of their priorities as ancient legends tell us,"

Greetings from Scranton, Pa, Fatima!

Am in complete agreement with your insight above.

US social engineers have accomplished insidious modification of the great art of poetry. Shall brand the hostile takeover as Zionist Infirmity in Art.

You are too kind to me, and no doubt, U.R. commenters, for example RobinG, shall second my motion. Nonetheless, thanks & I dig your enthusiasm for noble non-conformism!

Loved Bowie's performance of "Life on Mars." Will share it with dear friends.

And, maybe you will like Peter Gabriel, linked below, and his performing a classical version of David Bowie's great "Heroes," live in Verona.

P.S.: A bit disappointed, am not expecting the great Peter Gabriel to produce other tribute-songs in memory of real national heroes, as he did the stirring one for Stephen Biko, martyr. And Jewish Bob Dylan, has-been radical? He's doing Tony Bennett covers.

Harold Smith , says: January 9, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@c matt

To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array of forces facing Trump.

To be even more fair, in order to succeed against the evil forces, orange clown would at least have to try to oppose them which means he would first have to stop being their willing agent.

Ace , says: January 9, 2019 at 10:19 pm GMT
@anon My lifelong ambition.

[Jan 09, 2019] What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21 with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5

Jan 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Taras77 says: January 7, 2019 at 4:49 am GMT 100 Words

What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21 with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5.

Absolutely remarkable, again, but it is reflective of the brain dead sheeple currently doing any reading at all of books by the rabid neo cons. I hesitate to guess what some extreme alarm sounding diatribe by Wolfowitz or the current "main man," max boot would register. Maybe Romney can lead us out of the wilderness (sarc)>

I know that this is Amazon and when it comes to the standards of what passes as accurate reporting and journalistic standards,"wapo and bezos leads the pack into the sewer. REPLY AGREE/DISAGREE/ETC. THIS COMMENTER


Sean , says: January 7, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT

@eah

While secretary of state Hillary actually compared Putin to Hitler.

Sean , says: January 7, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
@El Dato an American puppet inasmuch as he had Americans masterminding his political PR campaigns) start giving ground that the situation becomes fluid.

Albright (and Nuland) had no idea what Russia as a normal nation state could be expected to put up with, because all they had to go on was Yelstyn who was drunk most days. So the US was slowly but surely drawn into the power vacuum in the territories the USSR withdrew from and Albright thought that was the way things were going to continue to be. The domestic situation in America was also one where the elite had things their own way to an unsustainable extent. What Albright does not like is the facts of life.

nickels , says: January 7, 2019 at 4:48 pm GMT

The whole discussion is so asinine.
Facism is not a form of government that can just be inserted or deleted.
It is a very specific reaction to the communist takeover of a nation.
At that point, other forms of government are no longer viable: totalitarianism of one kind of another becomes an absolute necessity to rule.
We see western governments coming to this point-the moral law is lost, corruption reigns, and only pure force has currency.
So at this point you only have one of two choices, there simply are no alternatives:
communism or facism.
And it is quite clear that facism is a more reasonable and less murderous choice.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website January 7, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@Taras77

for as long as neo con history is a subject for study (she has plenty of competition for that recognition).

Most "history" taught in the US (and combined West) is one or another iteration (sometimes extreme, sometimes less so) of US exceptionalism. Even American so called "realism" is built around exceptionalism. American military doctrines are written primarily on exceptionalism basis. Results are easily observable.

[Jan 09, 2019] Mattis One More General For The Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

Jan 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Mattis: One More General For The "Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone"

by Tyler Durden Wed, 01/09/2019 - 21:55 20 SHARES Authored by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos via The American Conservative,

Big brass and government executives play both sides of the military revolving door, including "the only adult in the room."

Before he became lionized as the "only adult in the room" capable of standing up to President Trump, General James Mattis was quite like any other brass scoping out a lucrative second career in the defense industry. And as with other military giants parlaying their four stars into a cushy boardroom chair or executive suite, he pushed and defended a sub-par product while on both sides of the revolving door. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that contract turned out to be an expensive fraud and a potential health hazard to the troops.

According to a recent report by the Project on Government Oversight, 25 generals, nine admirals, 43 lieutenant generals, and 23 vice admirals retired to become lobbyists, board members, executives, or consultants for the defense industry between 2008 and 2018. They are part of a much larger group of 380 high-ranking government officials and congressional staff who shifted into the industry in that time.

To get a sense of the demand, according to POGO, which had to compile all of this information through Freedom of Information requests, there were 625 instances in 2018 alone in which the top 20 defense contractors (think Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin) hired senior DoD officials for high-paying jobs -- 90 percent of which could be described as "influence peddling."

Back to Mattis. In 2012, while he was head of Central Command, the Marine General pressed the Army to procure and deploy blood testing equipment from a Silicon Valley company called Theranos. He communicated that he was having success with this effort directly to Theranos's chief executive officer. Even though an Army health unit tried to terminate the contract due to it's not meeting requirements, according to POGO, Mattis kept the pressure up. Luckily, it was never used on the battlefield.

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise but upon retirement in 2013, Mattis asked a DoD counsel about the ethics guiding future employment with Theranos. They advised against it. So Mattis went to serve on its board instead for a $100,000 salary. Two years after Mattis quit to serve as Trump's Pentagon chief in 2016, the two Theranos executives he worked with were indicted for "massive" fraud , perpetuating a "multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and patients," and misrepresenting their product entirely. It was a fake.

But assuming this was Mattis's only foray into the private sector would be naive. When he was tapped for defense secretary -- just three years after he left the military -- he was worth upwards of $10 million . In addition to his retirement pay, which was close to $15,000 a month at the time, he received $242,000 as a board member, plus as much as $1.2 million in stock options in General Dynamics, the Pentagon's fourth largest contractor. He also disclosed payments from other corporate boards, speech honorariums -- including $20,000 from defense heavyweight Northrop Grumman -- and a whopping $410,000 from Stanford University's public policy think tank the Hoover Institution for serving as a "distinguished visiting fellow."

Never for a moment think that Mattis won't land softly after he leaves Washington -- if he leaves at all. Given his past record, he will likely follow a very long line, as illustrated by POGO's explosive report, of DoD officials who have used their positions while inside the government to represent the biggest recipients of federal funding on the outside. They then join ex-congressional staffers and lawmakers on powerful committees who grease the skids on Capitol Hill. And then they go to work for the very companies they've helped, fleshing out a small army of executives, lobbyists, and board members with direct access to the power brokers with the purse strings back on the inside.

Welcome to the Swamp

"[Mattis's' career course] is emblematic of how systemic the problem is," said Mandy Smithberger, POGO's lead on the report and the director of its Center for Defense Information.

"Private companies know how to protect their interests. We just wish there were more protections for taxpayers."

When everything is engineered to get more business for the same select few, "when you have a Department of Defense who sees it as their job to promote arms sales does this really serve the interest of national security?"

That is something to chew on. If a system is so motivated by personal gain (civil servants always mindful of campaign contributions and private sector job prospects) on one hand, and big business profits on the other, is there room for merit or innovation? One need only look at Lockheed's F-35 joint strike fighter, the most expensive weapon system in history, which was relentlessly promoted over other programs by members of Congress and within the Pentagon despite years of test failures and cost overruns , to see what this gets you: planes that don't fly, weapons that don't work, and shortfalls in other parts of the budget that don't matter to contractors like pilot training and maintenance of existing systems.

"It comes down to two questions," Smithberger noted in an interview with TAC.

" Are we approving weapons systems that are safe or not? And are we putting [servicemembers'] lives on the line" to benefit the interests of industry?

All of this is legal, she points out. Sure, there are rules -- "cooling off" periods before government officials and members of Congress can lobby, consult, or work on contracts after they leave their federal positions, or when industry people come in through the other side to take positions in government. But Smithberger said they are "riddled with loopholes" and lack of enforcement.

Case in point: current acting DoD Secretary Patrick Shanahan spent 31 years working for Boeing , which gets about $24 billion a year as the Pentagon's second largest contractor. He was Boeing's senior vice president in 2016 just before he was confirmed as Trump's deputy secretary of defense in 2017. Last week he recused himself from all matters Boeing, but he wasn't always so hands off. At one point, he "prodded" for the purchase of 12 $1.2 billion Boeing F-15X fighter planes, according to Bloomberg.

But the revolving door is so much more pervasive and insidious than POGO could possibly catalogue. So says Franklin "Chuck" Spinney , who worked as a civilian and military officer in the Pentagon for 31 years, beginning in 1968. He calls the military industrial complex a "quasi-isolated political economy" that is in many ways independent from the larger domestic economy. It has its own rules, norms, and culture, and unlike the real world, it is self-sustaining -- not by healthy competition and efficiency, but by keeping the system on a permanent war footing, with money always pumping from Capitol Hill to the Pentagon to the private sector and then back again. Left out are basic laws of supply and demand, geopolitical realities, and the greater interest of society.

"That's why we call it a self-licking ice cream cone," Spinney explained to TAC.

" [This report] is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more subtle stuff going on. When you are in weapons development like I was at the beginning of my career, you learn about this on day one, that having cozy relationships with contractors is openly encouraged. And then you get desensitized. I was fortunate because I worked for people who did not like it and I caught on quickly."

While the culture has evolved, basic realities have persisted since the massive build-up of the military and weapons systems during the Cold War. The odds of young officers in the Pentagon making colonel or higher are slim. They typically retire out in their 40s. They know implicitly that their best chance for having a well-paid second career is in the only industry they know -- defense. Most take this calculation seriously, moderating their decisions on program work and procurement and communicating with members of Congress as a matter of course.

" Let's just say there's a problem [with a program]. Are you going to come down hard on a contractor and try to hold his feet to the fire? Are you going to risk getting blackballed when you are out there looking for a job ? Sometimes there is no word communicated, you just don't want to be unacceptable to anyone," said Spinney. It's ingrained, from the rank of lieutenant colonel all the way up to general.

So the top five and their subsidiaries continue to get the vast majority of work, usually in no-bid contracts ($100 billion worth in 2016 alone) , and with cost-plus structures that critics say encourage waste and never-ending timetables, like the $1.5 trillion F-35. "The whole system is wired to get money out the door," said Spinney. "That is where the revolving door is most pernicious. It's everywhere."

The real danger is that under this pressure, parties work to keep bad contracts alive even if they have to cook the books. "Essentially from the standpoint of Pentagon contracting you are not going to have people writing reports saying this product is a piece of shit," said Spinney. Worse, evaluations are designed to deflect criticism if not oversell success in order to keep the spigot open. The most infamous example of this was the rigged tests that kept the ill-fated "Star Wars" missile defense program going in the 1980s.

* * *

Everyone talks about generals like Mattis as though they're warrior-gods. But for decades, many of them have turned out to be different creatures altogether - creatures of a semi-independent ecosystem that operates outside of the normal rules and benefits only a powerful minority subset: the military elite, defense contractors, and Congress. More recently, the defense-funded think tank world has become part of this ecology, providing the ideological grist for more spending and serving as a way-station for operators moving in and out of government and industry.

Call it the Swamp, the Borg, or even the Blob, but attempting to measure or quantify the revolving door in the military-industrial complex can feel like a fool's errand. Groups like POGO have attempted to shine light on this dark planet for years. Unfortunately, there is little incentive in Capitol Hill or at the Pentagon to do the very least: pull the purse strings, close loopholes, encourage real competition, and end cost-plus practices.

"We generally need to see more (political) championing on this issue," Smithberger said. Until then, all outside efforts "can't result in any meaningful change."


Son of Captain Nemo , 4 minutes ago link

So tell me again how "Mad Pedo" evaded Obama's axing of all the non-compliant General(s) and Admiral(s) in charge of the U.S. strategic command?!!!

Answered my own question. He's like the rest of them since the Balkans that just does counter insurgencies!...

"SUCCESS" in every direction on the weather vane you look!!!

Or... Another way of saying it.

How to build your successful U.S. military career turning $8 trillion in unfunded liability debt into $200 trillion in unfunded liability debt in less than 20 years!

Who wants to line up for that 'self help book"?!!!

MusicIsYou , 9 minutes ago link

Mattis is just another self serving cockroach in a U.S uniform.

__name___3O4jF">Realname Wild tree , 31 minutes ago link

It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the blood of our nation.

It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations security. Follow the money.

As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry. Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he knew.......

Wild tree , 31 minutes ago link

It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the blood of our nation.

It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations security. Follow the money.

As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry. Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he knew.......

hotrod , 39 minutes ago link

All this corruption in so nauseating. Yet Americans do nothing

peippe , 39 minutes ago link

These generals have been in the military a long time.

Not long enough to remember winning a real war....

Mr. Kwikky , 25 minutes ago link

It was and is never about winning, but keeping the US in perpetual war state (report from iron moutain). Cui bono? the mic

[Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the Skripal attack? -- ..."
"... The Skripal Files ..."
Jan 08, 2019 | sputniknews.com

Hacking syndicate Anonymous has just released its fourth tranche of documents hacked from the internal servers of the Institute for Statecraft and its subsidiary, the Integrity Initiative. Several explosive files raise serious questions about the shadowy British state and NATO-funded 'think tank' and its connections with the Skripal affair.

The files were released just after 2:30pm GMT on January 4 -- I've barely scratched the surface of the content, but what I've seen so far contains a panoply of bombshell revelations -- to say the least, the organization(s) now have serious questions to answer about what role they played in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in March, and its aftermath both nationally and internationally.

Sinister Timeline

One file apparently dating to "early 2015" -- "Russian Federation Sanctions" -- written by the Institute's Victor Madeira outlines "potential levers" to achieve Russian "behaviour change", "peace with Ukraine", "return [of] Crimea", "regime change" or "other?". The suggested "levers" span almost every conceivable area, including "civil society", "sports", "finance" and "technology".

In the section marked "intelligence", Madeira suggests simultaneously expelling "every RF [Russian Federation] intelligence officer and air/defense/naval attache from as many countries as possible". In parentheses, it references 'Operation Foot' , the expulsion of over 1000 Soviet officials from the UK in September 1971, the largest expulsion of intelligence officials by any government in history.

The section on sports also suggests "advocating the view [Russia] is unworthy of hosting [sporting] events" -- and the section marked "information" recommends the sanctioning of 'Russian' media "in West for not complying with regulators' standards".

2015 File Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions 2015 File Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions

In April that year, Institute for Statecraft chief Chris Donnelly was promoted to Honorary Colonel of SGMI (Specialist Group Military Intelligence), and in October he met with General Sir Richard Barrons. Notes from the meeting don't make clear who said what, but one despaired that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political space."

"We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. We did this in the 1930s. My conclusion is it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside government. We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right? Do we have the national capabilities [and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is not a moment to be lost," they said.

Operation IRIS Begins

On 4 March 2018, former Russian military officer and double agent for MI6 Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England.

Within days, the Institute had submitted a proposal to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, "to study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.

The bid was accepted, and the Initiative's 'Operation Iris' was launched. Under its auspices, the Institute employed 'global investigative solutions' firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity related to Skripal the world over.

It also conducted media monitoring of its own, with Institute 'research fellow' Simon Bracey-Lane producing regular 'roundups' of media coverage overseas, based on insights submitted by individuals connected to the Initiative living in several countries. One submission, from an unnamed source in Moldova, says they "cannot firmly say" whether the country's media had its "own point of view" on the issue, or whether news organizations had taken "an obvious pro-Russian or pro-Western position", strongly suggesting these were key questions for the Initiative.

Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal Incident Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal Incident

Moreover though, there are clear indications the Institute sought to shape the news narrative on the attack -- and indeed the UK government's response. One file dated March 11 appears to be a briefing document on the affair to date, with key messages bolded throughout.

It opens by setting out "The Narrative" of the incident -- namely "Russia has carried out yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in Britain".

"Use of the nerve agent posed a threat to innocent British subjects, affecting 21 people and seriously affecting a police officer. This is not the first time such an attack has been carried out in the UK 14 deaths are believed to be attributable to the Kremlin Russia has poisoned its enemies abroad on other occasions, most notably then-candidate for the Presidency of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2004. Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been poisoned twice; and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also poisoned and later shot dead. Since Putin has been running Russia, the Kremlin has a history of poisoning its opponents in a gruesome way," the "narrative" reads.

The file goes on to declare the British response has been "far too weak it's essential the government makes a much stronger response this time" -- and then lists "possible, realistic, first actions", including banning RT and Sputnik from operating in the UK, boycotting the 2018 World Cup, withdrawing the UK ambassador from Moscow and expelling the Russian ambassador to the UK, and refusing/revoking visas to leading Russians within Vladimir Putin's "circle", and their families.

Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative

It's not clear who the document was distributed to -- but it may have been given to journalists within the Initiative's UK 'cluster', if not others. This may explain why the Institute's "narrative", and its various recommended "responses" utterly dominated mainstream media reporting of the affair for months afterwards, despite the glaring lack of evidence of Russian state involvement in the attack.

It's extremely curious so many of the briefing document's recommendations almost exactly -- if not exactly -- echo several of the suggested "levers" outlined in the 2015 document. It's also somewhat troubling the "Global Operation Foot" spoken of in that file duly came to pass on March 28 2018, with over 20 countries expelling over 100 Russian diplomats.

Likewise, it's striking Victor Madeira, the Institute staffer who made the recommendations in 2015, made many media appearances discussing the poisoning following the incident routinely documented by the Institute. Security consultant Dan Kaszeta also wrote a number of articles for the Integrity Initiative website about chemical weapons following the attack -- including a July 14 article, How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the Skripal attack? -- receiving 40 pence per word .

Invoice submitted to Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Invoice submitted to Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections

The Institute's bizarrely intimate connections with the incident don't end there. Another document apparently dating to July 2018 contains the contact details of Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and -- unbelievably -- neighbor in Salisbury. Anonymous claims the document is an invitee list for a meeting the Institute convened between a number of individuals and Syria's highly controversial White Helmets group, but this is yet to be verified.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the latest document dump raises yet further questions about how and why it was BBC Diplomatic and Defense Editor Mark Urban -- who was in the same tank regiment as Miller after leaving University -- came to meet with Skripal in the year before his poisoning. When I attended the launch of his book on the affair in October -- The Skripal Files -- he was evasive on whether he played a role in connecting him with Skripal, and denied Miller was Skripal's recruiter.

The latest trove also raises yet further questions about the activities of the Institute for Statecraft and Integrity Initiative. In light of these revelations, reading the record of Donnelly's meeting with General Barrons takes on an acutely chilling quality. It may be that purely serendipitously the pair got their "catastrophe", their "something dreadful", which "[woke] people up" and made the government "realise the problem" posed by Russia -- or it could be they one way or another played a facilitative role of some kind.

After months of refusing to answer the vast number of questions I and thousands of others have submitted to the paired organizations, it's high time for them to break cover, and be honest with the public.

[Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative

Highly recommended!
Images removed. Please brose the original to view them.
Notable quotes:
"... "Russian disinformation." ..."
"... "network of networks" ..."
"... It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence. ..."
"... "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" ..."
"... "global investigative solutions" ..."
"... What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow.... ..."
"... "pro-Russia troll accounts" ..."
"... "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case." ..."
"... Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" ..."
"... These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK." ..."
"... "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" ..."
"... "threat Russia poses." ..."
"... This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning ..."
"... One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot. ..."
"... "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history." ..."
"... "Makes you think " ..."
"... The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute. ..."
"... It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair. ..."
"... £2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019 ..."
"... It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance. ..."
Jan 05, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

The Integrity Initiative, a UK-funded group exposed in leaked files as psyop network, played a key role in monitoring and molding media narratives after the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, newly-dumped documents reveal. Created by the NATO-affiliated, UK-funded Institute for Statecraft in 2015, the Integrity Initiative was unmasked in November after hackers released documents detailing a web of politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics involved in purportedly fighting "Russian disinformation."

The secretive, government-bankrolled "network of networks" has found itself under scrutiny for smearing UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a Kremlin stooge – ostensibly as part of its noble crusade against anti-Russian disinformation. Now, new leaks show that the organization played a central role in shaping media narratives after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were mysteriously poisoned in Salisbury last March.

It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence.

Operation Iris

Days after the Skripals were poisoned, the Institute solicited its services to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, offering to "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.

After receiving the government's blessing, the Integrity Initiative (II) launched 'Operation Iris,' enlisting "global investigative solutions" firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity related to Skripal.

Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg

What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow....

264 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

However, Harod's confidential report did more than just parse social media reactions to the Skripal affair: It compiled a list of alleged "pro-Russia troll accounts" accused of "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case."

Among those who found themselves listed as nefarious thought-criminals were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and a gentleman from Kent who goes by Ian56 on Twitter.

Ian56 @Ian56789 · Jan 4, 2019 # IntegrityInitiative "

Top Kremlin Trolls" aka Truth Tellers. Congratulations if you made the list.

https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring/appendix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring.pdf

Neocon Fascist, al-Qaeda Supporting Treasonous Scumbag @ Benimmo is having a laugh with £2m of Taxpayers money. Nimmo should be IN JAIL for Fraud & Treason

Ian56 @Ian56789 # IntegrityInitiative

examples of Logical, Critical Thinking & Objective Analysis by yours truly Ian56.

https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-r---ian56789-example-tweets/appendix-r---ian56789-example-tweets.pdf

They didn't even include my best ones and they didn't show the pic that went with each tweet. I wonder why?

# Skripal # Novichok # FalseFlag pic.twitter.com/Zq8W9iJshk 41 1:39 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

34 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy
Moon of Alabama @MoonofA · Jan 4, 2019 @ Ian56789 @ MarkSleboda1 @ Malinka1102 @ ValLisitsa @ NinaByzantina

Folks, you are all noted as "trolls" in some of the files of the new # IntegrityInitiative release

https://www. cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation -integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all-part-4/ https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring/appendix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring.pdf https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-p---troll-accounts-mutual-connections-graph/appendix-p---troll-accounts-mutual-connections-graph.pdf https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-q---troll-geolocation-graph/appendix-q---troll-geolocation-graph.pdf

Operation 'Integrity Initiative': British informational war against all. Part 4

Greetings! We are Anonymous.We have warned the UK government that it must conduct an honest and transparent investigation into the activity of the Integrity Initiative and the Institute for Statec cyberguerrilla.org

Ruslana Boshirova @ValLisitsa

Wanna see something funny?

"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and Petrovas GRU agents" - has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French yellow jackets. I kid you not.

https:// twitter.com/Antifake_Russi a/status/1073112488072437760?s=19 Antifake @Antifake_Russia СМИ выдали за манифест "желтых жилетов" твиты украинской пианистки с ником "Руслана Боширова" https:// theins.ru/antifake/131804 116 3:21 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

94 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

Pushing a narrative

Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" of the Skripal incident, which blames Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally, as well as containing a number of recommended actions.

These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK."

Other suggestions included propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" and getting members of parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses." It's not clear who the document was drawn up for, but it may have been provided to II-affiliated journalists in the UK and other countries.

This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning – which the UK and its allies unanimously blamed on Moscow.

Ahead of its time?

One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot.

Coincidentally, more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from 20 Western countries in an apparently show of solidarity with the UK following the Skripal attack. At the time, UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed what she said was "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history."

Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents, written long before the Salisbury events, also call for the arrest of RT and Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding: "Makes you think "

George Galloway @georgegalloway

So: # IntegrityInitiative funded by the British Govt called for the arrest of people like me like @ afshinrattansi @ JohnWight1 @ NeilClark66 et al in the event of an "incident" like the # Skripal affair.

Written incidentally before the # Salisbury events. Makes you think...

@ RT_com 688 12:53 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

606 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

A curious connection

The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute.

Moon of Alabama @MoonofA

It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair.

# SergeiSkripal # Disinformation # Propaganda # InformationWar 283 2:38 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

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Fvnk @WhatTheFvnk

EXPLOSIVE: @ DanKaszeta of @ Strongpoint_UK invoiced @ InitIntegrity # IntegrityInitiative

£2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019

188 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance.

Read also:

[Jan 07, 2019] Our Man in Riyadh by Andrew J. Bacevich

Jan 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Monkhouse , says: November 27, 2018 at 9:55 pm GMT

Agreed that the House of Saud and the salafist jihadis are to blame for so much that has happened in the ME since long before 9/11. And that the Long War is always projected as "defense" against the nefarious "terrorists" who are objects of the GWOT. But, dude, all the terrorists in the world still don't have anything that amounts to a real army, navy, and – how ridiculous can it be? – an air force. The Long War has never really amounted to anything more than a cover story and a smoke screen.

That's because, as we have been informed of late, the real enemy is Russia. And China. And everything else that counts in the Long Great Game of four-dimensional chess must necessarily conform to the strategy that ultimately is about "containment" of those two competitors for global power. This is not just my own opinion. It has come down from on-high, in statements conveyed by the highest ranks of military authority. News flash: The "enemy" is no longer the "terrorists" – if it ever was. The plan's best advocate may have been Paul Wolfowitz, whose "doctrine" was "no peer competitors" – forever. That's the Long War for ya.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website January 7, 2019 at 5:40 am GMT

To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the USA, per the FBI:

From my blog:

Jul 17, 2016 – The 28 Pages

After years of controversy, the House Intelligence Committee declassified part of their December 2002 report on the 9-11 attacks, which shows direct Saudi involvement in supporting the 9-11 attackers. This major story has been ignored by most of our corporate media. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said: "This information does not change the assessment of the US government that there's no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi individuals funded al-Qaida." The BBC reported the story, but assures us it proves no high level links to the Saudi government.

The House Committee report states that Saudi Ambassador to the USA and a close friend of the Bush family, Prince Bandar, and his wife sent the 9-11 attackers thousands of dollars on several occasions; but I guess the BBC does not consider him high-level, or their reporters didn't bother to read the 28 pages. BBC readers will not know these facts because the BBC report failed to provide a link to the 28 pages.

____________________

My blog has a link to the us.gov hard evidence:

https://intelligence.house.gov/committee-report/intel-committee-publishes-declassified-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%9328-pages%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D

But I now see it has been scrubbed:

Bad Request – Invalid URL

HTTP Error 400. The request URL is invalid.

This can be found elsewhere on the internet. His wife wired them money directly, but not news in the USA.

Gene , says: January 7, 2019 at 8:18 am GMT

Bacevich should rewrite: After 9/11, the Israeli envoy made the most of those connections, deflecting attention away from the role The Israelis had played in the events of that day while fingering Saddam Hussein's Iraq as the true font of Islamist terrorism.

The hard evidence to substantiate the role played by Israel is overwhelming.

Wizard of Oz , says: January 7, 2019 at 8:22 am GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Unless you are saying that Prince Bandar may have been deliberatey involved in setting up the events of 9/11 you are just waffling to get attention. And if you are saying that you are spouting obvious BS.

onebornfree , says: Website January 7, 2019 at 10:33 am GMT

Andrew J. Bacevich says:

" .General, can you describe this Long War of ours? What is its nature? What is it all about?

Are we winning? How can we tell?

How much longer should Americans expect it to last?

What are we up against? ."

" ..What would be the criteria for removing our remaining troops from the Iraqi, Syrian, and more general Middle Eastern conflicts? Or, for that matter, from Afghanistan, where we have been trapped for more than 17 long years of still open-ended occupation?

If the answer to that question is that only when each of these countries is a healthy pro-American democracy, and Islamist terrorism has ceased to be an "enduring" threat to the West, then the answer, as the old Bob Mankoff joke has it, is "How about never -- is never good for you?" ":

See: " The Pentagon's "Never Ending War" Scam ":
http://onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com/2019/01/onebornfrees-special-scam-alerts-no-82.html

Regards, onebornfree

jacques sheete , says: January 7, 2019 at 11:29 am GMT

Recall that was a Saudi. So, too, were 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001.

Gimme a break.

When I saw Bacevich's name, I wasted no time reading. However, with that one statement, his credibility just dropped to zero. Just another unthinking garbage peddler, (I'm in a gnerous mood this AM), it seems.

jacques sheete , says: January 7, 2019 at 11:36 am GMT

To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the US.

While I have no hard evidence to either confirm or deny any of that, I commend you for the likely accurate use of the term,"patsies." I highly suspect that they were little more than actors in a false flag drama and think it would be more accurate to label them "alleged terrorists." No?

dimples , says: January 7, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

That is what Mr Meyer is saying. Bandar was deliberately involved in setting up the events of 911. Unless you are a follower of the absurd belief that 'Saudi Arabia did 911', then the most rational explanation is that he was doing it on behalf of the deep state US/Israeli plotters. The Saudis were effectively the handlers for the fake hijackers. Bandar blundered somewhat by not having enough cutouts to make US govt claims that he was innocent totally believable.

MLK , says: January 7, 2019 at 2:19 pm GMT

With MBS in charge, is Saudi Arabia part of the solution or part of the problem?

This is exactly the wrong question to ask. It's a testament to how thoroughly a Regime Change mindset has disastrously taken hold that even seeming critics like you are captured by it.

The Real Enemy . . . militant Salafism

Your use "enemy," let alone "The Real Enemy" is depressingly telling. Particularly for pissant jihadis who we've variously funded and armed over the years.

Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a generational shift in its ruling factions.

How did our Regime Change Libya work out? Or Obama/Hillary's Morsi/MB gambit in Egypt?

The American foreign policy establishment is highly selective in who it deems beyond the pale (e.g. assassin in chief; perpetrator of atrocities).

What does President Trump's recent nomination of retired Army General John Abizaid to become the next U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia signify? That the President is focused on stabilizing the Middle East and our position in it. It means that the Saudis must reverse their military and strategic openings to Russia/China.

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: January 7, 2019 at 4:58 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

Prince Bandar's wife did send several thousand dollars to the terrorists who arrived in Los Angeles airport, went directly to nearby Culver City and met s contact st the big Culver City mosque and then to San Diego where they stayed a while.

The Saudi's claimed that the money sent to the terrorists was just the standard diplomat's duty to help their nationals in foreign countries Most countries aren't that generous to their traveling nationals. But most countries don't have the money that Saudi does.

Her sending the money was widely reported at the time.

jilles dykstra , says: January 7, 2019 at 5:03 pm GMT
@wagelaborer

Harold L Ickes at the end of 1944 made Saudi Arabia a USA colony.
Saudi Arabia somehow resembles Israel, without USA support it cannot exist.
But there is, still is, a big difference, the Saudi kings are just USA puppets, jews still have enormous influence in the USA.
The other difference, Saudi Arabia has oil, Israel is just a nuisance.

[Jan 07, 2019] How the BBC Manufactured 'Hate' by Jack Krak

Notable quotes:
"... Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one of the most respected names in journalism. ..."
"... The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it just days later, dubbed in Polish. ..."
"... Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that within a week or so, every single person ..."
"... Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring racism in Poland, says the program was one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure it was outrageous. ..."
"... The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister complained. Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual step of publicly responding to criticism ..."
"... Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news. ..."
"... the BBC seems to have taken pains to get copies off the internet. ..."
"... Panorama ..."
"... Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC. ..."
"... The Grauniad is in the same business. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/raheem-sterling-newspapers-fuelling-racism-alleged-abuse-chelsea ..."
Jan 07, 2019 | www.unz.com
JACK KRAK DECEMBER 28, 2018 4,500 WORDS

Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one of the most respected names in journalism.

In May of 2012, the BBC Panorama program broadcast a documentary about "racism" in the host countries of the 2012 European soccer championship: Poland and Ukraine. Those two countries were about to stage the second biggest event in the sport after the World Cup, and legions of journalists had arrived to cover it. The purpose of the BBC program -- aired strategically one week before the opening match -- was to argue that neither country was qualified to host the tournament because of their "hateful" soccer cultures. The message: All-white countries are hotbeds of violent racism, and non-white fans and players would be in danger.

I know a lot about the Panorama program because I helped produce it. I saw what is arguably the world's most famous and trusted media organization fabricate a false, sensationalist story. Through outright distortion -- and by using only those pieces that fit its predetermined views -- the BBC "documented" the vicious attitudes of people who live in countries that are not sufficiently "diverse." The program had a scripted conclusion before a single camera was turned on.

Panorama is the BBC's flagship investigative program. It is the longest-running such production in the world, having been on the air since 1953. The closest thing to it on American television is probably 60 Minutes . Panorama enjoys a reputation for hard-hitting and serious investigative journalism.

About three months before the tournament began, a BBC journalist got in touch with me through mutual media contacts and asked me to help with the part to be filmed in Poland. He said the program would be about aspects of the football culture -- hooliganism, trouble at stadiums, etc. -- that could cause problems for players and fans alike. This topic is something of a hobby of mine, and I have followed it carefully during my time in Poland. The BBC wanted me to be a "fixer" -- the person on the ground who arranges things in advance for the production team. That meant setting up interviews, scouting filming locations, getting press passes and access to events, arranging transport, and a hundred other odds and ends. I was also expected to contribute ideas based on my knowledge.

I suspected right from the start that they wanted things that make for good television rather than a true investigation -- conflict, tension, etc. -- but I was somewhat reassured because this was the BBC. Despite my reservations, I never thought they would make the television equivalent of sensationalist trashy tabloid headlines.

The producer and a cameraman made their first trip to Poland in March 2012. They had asked me to arrange an interview with Aviram Baruchian, an Israeli who played with Polonia Warsaw. They said the interview was supposed to be about "his experience as a football player in Poland," but the fact that they asked for him by name suggested they assumed he would have horror stories about being mistreated by fans because he is Jewish.

The press officer for Polonia was very accommodating, something I found again and again when dealing with officials from football clubs. People automatically trusted the BBC and went to extraordinary lengths to give them what they wanted.

I met the production crew for the first time the day after the interview. When I asked how it went, they joked about how useless it was. I was confused by their dismissive attitude and felt a bit responsible, but they told me not to worry. I learned later from the Polonia media spokesman that Mr. Baruchian had nothing but appreciative things to say about the fans and his experience in Warsaw -- which is exactly why he isn't in the final program.

There is a curious "Jewish" angle to Polish football that is easily misunderstood. Fans chant nasty things about Jews, but, strange as it may seem, it's not accurate to call it serious anti-Semitism.

Many of the older clubs originally had or are thought to have had Jewish financial backing. This is almost certainly true of the team in Lodz -- called Widzew Łódź -- since that city had a large Jewish population before the Second World War. These origins have become a source of cheap name calling for people who seize on any excuse to trade insults. When fans chant "death to the Jews," it sounds shocking -- and it certainly is brutish -- but this is mainly a way of attacking the other team rather than Jews.

There has been a similar situation with the London football club Tottenham Hotspur, which has had Jewish owners. Fans of rival clubs started chanting about the "Jewish" team. Tottenham supporters eventually embraced this and some even call themselves the " Yid Army ." The fans of one Polish club, Cracovia, were in the same position and did the same thing, now proudly calling themselves the "Jewish Sons of Bitches." When I told the BBC about that, they weren't interested.

Needless to say, there is a lot of anti-Jewish chanting in the final Panorama program, but it is presented without explanation. It falsely makes the fans look as though they want to send Jews to the ovens.

The Star of David is now used so much in soccer graffiti that a Polish teacher I met told me that the children in his class associate it with the sport. He also had a friend from Israel, so this seemed like gold for the BBC: a poignant combination of children, the star of David, racism, and a chance to talk to another Israeli and get what they missed from Aviram Baruchian.

I set up the interview, but it was another disaster. Both the teacher and his Israeli friend said that, yes, while there certainly are boorish people, just as there are in every country, most Poles are very nice etc. Again and again, the Israeli put a positive spin on things, even when asked melodramatic questions about the Second World War. It was another "useless" interview that didn't make the final cut. I remember that when we got back to the van everyone burst out laughing about what a complete waste of time it had been.

The first actual match we went to film was Legia Warsaw vs. Polonia Warsaw. This contest had an excellent chance of including all the things that make for great television, and it was before I understood what the real focus of the program was, so I was sure the BBC crew would not be disappointed. For about five hours, they filmed an army of police in full riot gear, flares and firecrackers being thrown around the stands and onto the field, an enormous banner unfurled by the home Legia fans declaring that Warsaw belonged to them, and a reply spelled out by the small but brave contingent of visiting Polonia supporters, who held up cards to form one big reply: "FUCK LEGIA." There was a hooligan with a bullhorn on an elevated platform and countless examples of a well-known hand gesture delivered straight into the camera. A section of the stadium was burned black by a flare that set fire to a banner.

The entire contingent of Polonia fans was still in that blackened section after the match, surrounded by hundreds of security guards who would escort them out of the stadium perhaps an hour or two later. This was to minimize the chance of contact with Legia hooligans who might be waiting for them. It was easy to capture the violent atmosphere of the game, and I was confident the production team was happy. As we made our way back to the van, I asked the assistant producer if he was pleased. He made a face that said "not really," and then out of nowhere asked, "Did you hear any racist or anti-Semitic chants?" He was visibly disappointed when I said I hadn't.

Boring

The lead producer said he was more or less satisfied with the "visuals" but was disappointed with the "substance." He asked again about something I had been unable to do: get one of the more committed hooligan types to go on camera. This time he explicitly said he wanted someone involved in "right-wing politics" as well as hooliganism.

I said it wasn't easy to get inside a violent crime syndicate. The higher-ups in any hooligan organization are wanted by the police, and anyone further down is too scared to speak to the media for fear of the "leaders." Believe me, anyone who goes on camera and says he's a hooligan is either a wannabe or gets a very personal lesson in media relations from his former friends. I did the best I could, striking up awkward and even dangerous conversations on dark streets, and I visited dodgy clubs in four different cities, but I never delivered. The closest I got was a conversation with the head of one club's "supporters organization," who demanded a "fee" for "security." To its credit, the BBC refused to pay.

Time to get serious

The team went back to London, and I continued to look into leads. I began to realize that what they wanted was bananas thrown at black players, Nazi salutes from the stands, and maybe some brutal beatings to add color.

In a phone conversation with the assistant producer at the end of March, I detected a note of urgency and in April, I got an e-mail message from him that said, "Our Executive Producer, Karen Wightman [who was in charge of the entire Panorama series], wants us to film black players and their experience of racism in Poland as a priority."

The BBC had dropped all pretense about what they were after -- at least with me -- though they kept up the charade of a neutral investigation with others.

The crew decided to come see a match in the city of Łódź between ŁKS Łódź and Widzew Łódź. Like the previous game in Warsaw, this was a derby, that is to say, a contest between two clubs in the same city. Derbies typically have the most intense atmosphere, and thus an elevated chance of the kind of incident the BBC was looking for.

Widzew had two Nigerian players, Princewill Okachi and Ugo Ukah, and the BBC wanted first-hand accounts of mistreatment. Mr. Ukah was of particular interest because he had played for Queens Park Rangers in London and could compare his treatment in diverse, tolerant, multicultural England with that of all-white, wicked Poland. Also, there would be two black men on the visiting team in a contest famous for its wild fans. Everything was lined up perfectly to provide the missing "substance."

I asked the BBC specifically what they wanted me to tell the press officer of Widzew and they told me to say we were interested in Poland's preparation for the Euro 2012 tournament. Someone else on the production team, who had also been in contact with Widzew by e-mail, sent me this note:

They don't know at this stage we want to specifically talk about racism in Polish football and their [the black players'] own personal experiences of abuse, so be prepared to schmuz [sic] and impress.

"At this stage" was after the club had agreed to make the players available -- on Easter Sunday, no less, to fit our tight schedule. We were supposed to "schmuz and impress" rather than be forthright about the reason for the interview. I remember wondering how often the BBC gets access and interviews under false pretenses. To my shame, I was helping set the trap.

Łódź was the BBC's last chance to find anti-black "racism." The broadcast date for the final program was already booked and Panorama was fully committed to a headline-grabbing account of the dark, racist side of what was soon to be Europe's biggest sporting stage. But they had no racism.

It was in Łódź that the host, Chris Rogers , finally parachuted into his own program. He was the one who had sold the BBC on the idea months earlier, and the entire Panorama episode is presented as "his" investigation. Mr. Rogers made something of a name for himself in 2007 with an undercover investigation of Romania's orphanages, and he has been dining out on it ever since.

He flew in to interview the two Nigerian players and to do PTC's (pieces to camera) the following day at the match to add to footage shot in Warsaw without him. He came across as a typical media type who was good at fake sincerity and spent a little too much time on his hair.

We went to the Widzew Łódź office to interview Mr. Okachi and Mr. Ukah. Mr. Rogers started with softball questions, such as how long the players had been in Poland, where else they had played professionally, etc. He turned things up a notch by asking about the reception they had received in Poland. Both players gave positive answers. Time and again Rogers dangled the carrot and time and again no one reached for it. Suddenly Rogers put on his best journalist Serious Face, turned to Mr. Ukah, and said "Why has Polish football been hijacked by racism?"

There was nothing in the interview up to that point to justify that question. It was so unexpected that Mr. Ukah was taken aback for a moment before he was finally able to give a suitably noncommittal answer. The next few minutes consisted of both Mr. Ukah and Mr. Okachi repeatedly stating that though they had heard of things happening to other people, they had never heard or seen anything that could be interpreted as racist abuse in Poland.

This went on for a few more minutes until both players had run out of nice ways to say "no" to the same question. Mr. Rogers had no choice but to wrap it up.

"For the hundredth time: No."

The players left quickly to enjoy what was left of Easter. I distinctly remember Mr. Rogers and the producer agreeing that they had "material to work with."

If you watch the final version of the program , you will see how they "worked" with it. They made it sound as though the players were talking about horrible things that happened to them . I was in the room the whole time, paying careful attention, and those bits were taken from rambling answers they gave about things they had heard happened to others . I was amazed at how editing and voice-overs transformed the interview into something I couldn't recognize. Needless to say, those were the only parts of the interview that were used.

I heard it. Trust me. Let's go.

The next day was the match. After filming the police using water cannons on fans, we went inside the stadium. We set up a camera behind one of the goals and a microphone at midfield in front the home fans. Mr. Rogers instructed me to be on the lookout for "anything good," and by then I knew what he meant. He also told me to keep an eye on the Nigerian players and look for any nastiness from the crowd. He constantly disappeared to sneak cigarettes and text his friends in England. He wasn't even there for the kickoff. When he finally reappeared he asked if I had seen or heard anything useful. When I said I hadn't, he disappeared again.

About 30 minutes in to the first half, we were still waiting for "something good," and Mr. Rogers was visibly anxious. He paced back and forth, checking his phone more than he watched the crowd or the match. Once, just to break the silence between us as we stood on the sidelines or maybe to vent his frustration, he actually said out loud "Come on! Sing some Jewish songs!"

At halftime, the five of us who were there got together to trade notes and suggestions, and we decided to switch places to maybe improve our "luck." I was with the producer and one cameraman; the other cameraman was high above the crowd on the opposite stand. Chris Rogers was . . . somewhere.

The second half kicked off and we went back to work. There was plenty of thuggishness in the stands -- you see a lot of it in the final version -- but still not what they wanted. There was a palpable feeling of frustration and hopelessness as another 30 or so minutes passed.

That's when Chris Rogers walked up and said he had heard monkey sounds coming from the crowd. No one knew quite what to say, but this certainly wasn't greeted with the kind of relief and interest you would have expected. For a moment it seemed as though we were just waiting for someone to say "Um . . . really?" but we just waited for Mr. Rogers to tell us exactly what happened. All he said was that the microphone at midfield had probably picked it up, and he told the producer to get ready to do a PTC about it. Thirty second later he was in Serious Face mode, intoning that he had just heard monkey sounds directed at a black player. I kept waiting for him to tell our cameramen what part of the stands the sounds came from so they could zoom in on it. Surely he wanted to watch those fans in the hopes that they would do it again, this time on camera?

No. Chris Rogers made no effort to get visual material for what was to be a key moment in a television program. And it wasn't as if we were in a massive stadium with 60,000 people, where it would be hard to pinpoint where sounds came from. The photo below is of the stadium, and the picture captures about 80 percent of the length of the stand from which the monkey sounds allegedly came. The banner says "This is how we have fun in Łódź." Not one of the BBC crew said, "OK, Chris, where should we look?"

The recording from the microphone is in the final version of the program, and I challenge anyone to detect what Chris Rogers claims to have heard. You might be at a loss to describe exactly what the noise is, but "monkey sounds" is way, way down on the list of possibilities.

In the broadcast version, this part of the recording is played over a shot they had taken earlier in the match of Ugo Ukah attacking the ball. However, the audio is from a microphone planted at the edge of the field. When they went back and "found" those sounds, they had no idea what was going on in the match at that moment. But in the program, the sounds start the moment Mr. Ukah is on the ball. The BBC took the audio from one moment and played it over a video from another moment. I would expect that from the North Korean press, not the BBC.

When we packed up to leave, we had to walk through the part of the stadium where the post-match press conference was to be held. It hadn't started, but print and video journalists were waiting. The BBC producer saw this, and asked Mr. Rogers if we should stop and ask about what he had heard at the match. What more perfect, made-for-television scene could there be? He could have walked into the after-match press conference and announced dramatically, "I'm Chris Rogers from the BBC and I want to know how it's possible that a black player was racially abused in a country that will be hosting the European Championships." That would be the dramatic moment they were looking for. But no, Mr. Rogers said we needn't waste the time. He wanted to go back to the hotel for dinner. He did not speak with Ugo Ukah after the match or the following day while we were still in Lodz.

Mr. Ukah never said anything about hearing monkey noises. No player from either team ever did. Nor did any of the many journalists from the Polish media, nor did a German television crew that was there.

I cannot say what Chris Rogers did or did not hear. However, I do know that in a stadium of around 5,000 people the only person who claims to have heard monkey sounds was the one person who flew to Poland for three days with the sole purpose of finding "racism."

The final version of the program stretches the truth in other ways. For example, Mr. Rogers says he has spent months on location studying local football culture, whereas he spent just a few days in the country. There is also a scene in which a British "anti-racist" named Nick Lowles is shown scanning the crowd with binoculars, looking for "hate." The voiceover says that "he has flown out to see what British fans can expect in Poland," and he obligingly gives an interview. The program makes it look as though the camera crew just stumbled onto him in the stands. In fact, the BBC flew him in just for that scene.

The team certainly didn't mind spending money. I was with the producer when he got a message from London telling him that they were well over budget. He said they had spent around £150,000 pounds (about $230,000). They stayed in expensive hotels and never thought about costs. I was amazed by how much they spent in restaurants and hotel bars. Remember: This is the BBC, to which mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a television set in Britain. It is a criminal offense not to pay.

The results

Just days before the broadcast, the BBC showed some of the footage to Sol Campbell, son of Jamaican immigrants and former captain of the English national football team. They happily filmed him claiming -- predictably -- to be shocked. He said it was enough to convince him not to go to the tournament and to warn other non-whites not to go.

This was brilliant publicity for Panorama . Polish and Ukrainian media picked up Mr. Campbell's comments, which pushed "racism" to the forefront of any British discussion of the tournament. The program cast a pall over the tournament before the first match was even played, and put a small army of journalists on alert, scanning the stands for "hate."

I watched the show when it first aired at the end of May. I had been dreading it, but my dread turned to shock when I heard what the episode was called: "Stadiums of Hate ." They had come up with a suitably provocative title for their contrived, deliberately misleading fairy tale about a football culture permeated with vile racism.

The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it just days later, dubbed in Polish.

Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that within a week or so, every single person who appeared on camera in the Polish part of the program claimed publicly to have been misrepresented. This includes Jonathan Ornstein, the director of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow. I was present for the interview with him, and he gave thoughtful answers to all of Chris Rogers' questions, always emphasizing that ugly graffiti and idiots making trouble at stadiums do not represent larger Polish attitudes. In the program, however, he seems to be leading the charge against horrible, hateful, anti-Semitic Poland. Mr. Ornstein told me personally how disgusted he was by how his interview was cut apart and stitched back together.

Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring racism in Poland, says the program was one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure it was outrageous.

The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister complained. Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual step of publicly responding to criticism .

Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news.

Today, criticism of the "Stadiums of Hate" episode takes up more space on the Wikipedia page for Panorama than any other episode in its history. As the doubts and questions mounted, the BBC seems to have taken pains to get copies off the internet. There are any number of other full episodes of Panorama on YouTube , but not this one.

I was the least important man on the production crew and had no editorial influence, but I still felt responsible the episode that millions of people ultimately watched. At the height of the furor I got in touch with the Polish and foreign press. Their reaction was always the same: intense initial interest that quickly faded after a better understanding of what was involved. The explanation I heard over and over was that attacking a program that attacked racism looks like you're defending racism.

One editor of a major UK newspaper told me it was hard to attack Panorama without a smoking gun. When I asked for an example, he said one would be someone who admitted he was paid by the BBC to pretend to be a "racist" hooligan. The man seemed jaded and not at all surprised by what I told him; he also said he simply could not risk coming across as defending "racism."

As time goes by, doubts about the program's credibility fade. All anyone will remember is that the great Chris Rogers exposed horrible racists in Poland and Ukraine. You will have to dig pretty deep to get the real story. That is the power of the biggest name in news.

Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC.


Tyrion 2 , says: January 7, 2019 at 8:08 am GMT

The documentary was called Stadiums of Hate. I think the quote below, by itself, is enough to rename it a Documentary of Hate.

Ornstein:

As an American-born Jew living happily and safely in Poland and working diligently to build Jewish life in that country, I am furious at the way the BBC has exploited me as a source. The organization used me and others to manipulate the serious subject of anti-Semitism for its own sensationalist agenda; in doing so, the BBC has insulted all Polish people and done a disservice to the growing, thriving Jewish community of Poland.

I have reason to believe the BBC similarly misrepresented the black African football players it used as sources in the same programme.

Moreover, the BBC knowingly cheated its own audience – the British people – by concocting a false horror story about Poland. In doing so, the BBC has spread fear, ignorance, prejudice and hatred.

I would urge the BBC to become more aware of its own negative stereotyping of Poles, before it goes pointing the finger of judgment.

Philip Smeeton , says: January 7, 2019 at 9:32 am GMT

Only causing physical harm to someone that you hate could be termed a hate crime. Hating someone or something and saying so is not a crime. Hate is a natural emotion and reaction to something that is unacceptable. Islam and what it teaches is unacceptable, therefore I hate Islam and I hate the followers of Islam that commit hate-crimes.

Simon Tugmutton , says: January 7, 2019 at 9:33 am GMT

The same dishonesty taints nearly everything the BBC puts out. Even drama is hijacked to carry the globalist message. Whatever is devoid of politics is mindless pap about baking or dance, etc., to keep the proletariat in a state of goodthink docility.

The author errs when he says

mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a television set in Britain

You need only buy a TV 'licence' if you watch TV as it is broadcast , on any equipment belonging to you. Licences are issued to households; a 'household' may also comprise a student's room or a communal area such as is found in retirement homes. The BBC, through agents, maintains a spotty database of every address in the UK. Any unlicensed address is targeted with letters threatening criminal prosecution. It is legal to own a set if you just use it for watching DVDs or videos from the net.

There are plenty of ways to thwart the BBC's bagmen, the simplest, healthiest and most time-efficient being to stop watching television of any description. I did this in 2005. Since then I have withheld from them the inflation-adjusted equivalent of about £2,000, plus interest, been blessed with many hours of more interesting, lucrative and enjoyable pursuits, and saved myself innumerable episodes of anger and disgust. Moreover I have no idea who any of these 'celebrities' are who grace the tabloids, and have been spared the pontifications of the assorted arseholes and big-heads whose cretinous and toxic opinions the BBC daily spews on the British public and, indeed, on the hapless citizens of the rest of the globe via a propaganda outlet called the BBC World Service.

I commend going TV-free to all. It does wonders for the capacity to think clearly, not to mention the blood-pressure.

jilles dykstra , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:23 am GMT

BBC's neutrality ended when the BBC exposed Tony B-liar's lies about Saddam's 45 minutes WMD's.
The director was fired, replaced by a jew.

As to Polish antisemitism, it existed, still existed around 1967 when Polish jews were given the opportunity to leave. And of course, since Israel tries to make Poland responsible for a part of the holocaust, the gas chamber camps were on Polish territory, Poland responds, they have no desire whatsoever to be the next victim of the holocaust industry.

As to the why of Polish anti-Semitism, suppose it was in Poland more or less the same as in Lithuania in the thirties, Jews controlling the economy. Of course also Polish Catholicism may have played a role. Jews responsible for the death of the son of god.

Descriptions of Polish antisemitism one finds in

Jan T. Gross, 'Neighbours, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, 1941', 2003, London
Bogdan Musial, ´Sowjetische Partisanen 1941 – 1944, Mythos und Wirklichkeit', Paderborn 2009

The book describes antisemitism among all E European resistance fighters. Jews were not or hardly allowed among these resistance fighters.

The novel

André Schwartz-Bart, 'Le Dernier des Justes', 1959, 1980 Paris seems to have been to some extent autobiographical, with as country of origin Poland.
Described is on the one hand how jews resisted assimilation, wanted to remain jews, even, or especially, in clothing, on the other hand how non jews did not accept jews, even trying to prevent they visited the synagogue, or jewish children being insulted in schools.

As nearly always, one wonders why the antagonism., no explanation.

Stan d Mute , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:45 am GMT

The program had a scripted conclusion before a single camera was turned on.

This seems self-evident and yet it's rarely or never said. Cameras and word processors don't operate autonomously. Somebody begins with a story, a narrative, they wish to convey. They then point their camera at things they choose, or cherrypick, to illustrate their narrative. Afterwards, they carefully edit, or censor, what they've recorded making sure that only that most sympathetic to their narrative is shown. It is ALL propaganda. And it is ubiquitous.

It is up to the viewer or reader to filter the information presented, to sift through it for specks of unbiased Truth that may have somehow survived their unlikely journey past the narrative writer, his editors, their advertisers and lawyers, to the end product. Thus we see a "News Report" about "a fight that broke out among a group of youths" where the amateur video shows us a pack of feral young negroes, without provocation, attacks a lone white and after knocking him unconscious rifles through his pockets removing his phone and wallet before running off in jubilation.

And yet, despite this being shown to us time and again, incessantly, most people still trust their "News" sources!

And, as Ron Unz has so often shown us on this very site, History is nothing more than yesterday's "News."

The open question, really, is whether or not it is even possible to obtain information assembled and presented by an organization that does not fit the paradigm described above. And, considering the amount of time and cognition required for one to even attempt to find Truth in media, what are the chances that an average viewer or reader (bear in mind illiteracy rates) of average intelligence (bear in mind the left side of the bell curve) can obtain anything resembling a sense of Reality on which he may inform his opinions and beliefs? How often do we hear older people say things like, "I remember when you used to be able to get straight News from Walter Cronkite.." oblivious to the Truth above?

forgottenpseudonym , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:54 am GMT

The BBC twists the truth!? Having also worked in the UK tv industry, the only proper response is "do bears etc?" But thank you, Mr Krak, for having recorded your experiences.

Heros , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:56 am GMT

The truth is that the Cultural Marxism movement was about the take over of all institutions of white european culture and turning them against white europeans.

Professional sports was subverted almost a century ago. The racist anti-German propaganda of WWI and WWII was already strongly "semitic". The ascendence of Hollywood really marks the heeb takeover of American entertainment industry and the beach head for the conquest of the entire culture.

So as we enter 2019, I cannot think of one aspect of western European culture that is not heavily influenced by heebs, under their control or outright under their ownership. Even the alt-right "nazi's" are really just a bunch of jew cut-outs like Breitbard, Savage and Shapiro. Then there are all the crypto jews like Alex Jones or even Jordan Peterson. Many white Europeans are talmudists without having even a drop of jewish blood.

The BBC has been a Tavistock propaganda organ since its inception. After the Armistice and Versailles in 1919, the masonic-zionist propaganda war against the planet never stopped. Every new technology was first weaponized for use in mind control before release to the general population. Even the internet itself was also conceived at Darpa as a mind control tool and is closely linked to the trans-humanist and cultural marxist agenda.

So if you want to successfully attack the BBC, you also have to attack MI5, MI6, CIA, NSA, MIC, the entire 5 eyes spy network, the Queen of England, the Catholic Church, the US deep state, Israel, and ultimately their jewish god who in reality is Satan.

So to me it seems that obsessing about football hooligans is rather pointless, any movement to try to deal with any of the symptoms of our take over will quickly be subsumed. Like the occupy movement. Or the alt-right. Or the yellow-vests.

To kill this snake you will have to cut off its head.

Bill Jones , says: January 7, 2019 at 11:03 am GMT

The Grauniad is in the same business. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/raheem-sterling-newspapers-fuelling-racism-alleged-abuse-chelsea

[Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another. ..."
"... The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.' ..."
"... There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech. ..."
"... I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome. ..."
Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Pat Lang Mod -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago

After contemplating the likely intelligence and propaganda efforts of HMG over the last 15 years or so I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little to do with the welfare of Britain. Why? I suppose that the same question can be asked for the US and I have.

In re "Our man in Havana" I think there are many issues raised in the work that apply directly to the trade of espionage.

David Habakkuk -> Pat Lang , 2 months ago
Colonel Lang,

The question why? is a very interesting but also very dispiriting one, but also one which it is quite hard to get one's head round. I hope to have something more coherent to say about it.

Among many reasons, however, there has been a kind of intellectual disintegration.

If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another.

The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.'

Subsequently, of course, he set about colluding in the process. And, sixteen years later, Dearlove is still at it, with 'Russiagate' -- and the product being actually accepted much more uncritically by the MSM than it was then.

And that is one of the problems -- nobody any longer pays any penalty for failure, or indeed feels any sense of shame about it..

johnf -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago
DH

I agree with this.

There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech.

As the Colonel eloquently asks:

"I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little todo with the welfare of Britain. Why?"

I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome.

(I don't include the Maurice Cowling-ites in this fandango because they strike me as more Little Englanders. Though Peterhouse is of course, shamefully, the HQ of the Henry Jackson Society).

[Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another. ..."
"... The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.' ..."
"... There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech. ..."
"... I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome. ..."
Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Pat Lang Mod -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago

After contemplating the likely intelligence and propaganda efforts of HMG over the last 15 years or so I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little to do with the welfare of Britain. Why? I suppose that the same question can be asked for the US and I have.

In re "Our man in Havana" I think there are many issues raised in the work that apply directly to the trade of espionage.

David Habakkuk -> Pat Lang , 2 months ago
Colonel Lang,

The question why? is a very interesting but also very dispiriting one, but also one which it is quite hard to get one's head round. I hope to have something more coherent to say about it.

Among many reasons, however, there has been a kind of intellectual disintegration.

If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another.

The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.'

Subsequently, of course, he set about colluding in the process. And, sixteen years later, Dearlove is still at it, with 'Russiagate' -- and the product being actually accepted much more uncritically by the MSM than it was then.

And that is one of the problems -- nobody any longer pays any penalty for failure, or indeed feels any sense of shame about it..

johnf -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago
DH

I agree with this.

There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech.

As the Colonel eloquently asks:

"I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little todo with the welfare of Britain. Why?"

I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome.

(I don't include the Maurice Cowling-ites in this fandango because they strike me as more Little Englanders. Though Peterhouse is of course, shamefully, the HQ of the Henry Jackson Society).

[Jan 06, 2019] Integrity Initiative - New Documents From Shady NGO Released

Notable quotes:
"... The British Private Eye finds a relation between the Integrity Initiative and the Rendon Group which drove the propaganda for the Iraq invasion. ..."
Jan 04, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Forgot to link this: The Briefing note on the Integrity Initiative by Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason and Piers Robinson is the most complete analysis of the Integrity Initiative papers.

The British Private Eye finds a relation between the Integrity Initiative and the Rendon Group which drove the propaganda for the Iraq invasion.

I'll have to say more on the issue. For some fun, check the attachment to this tweet. (Klarenberg writes for Sputnik.)

Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg - 19:51 utc - 5 Jan 2019

Head of @InitIntegrity's German cluster says he's going to bring criminal charges against me for accessing II internal files.

In the process helpfully confirming many of the people I contacted in the cluster for comment ARE collaborating with the organization!!

Cheers pal!

[Jan 06, 2019] Intelligence stooges dominate Western MSM or How Putin s Russia Weaponizes Everything

"Jornos for hire" are now mainstream. Much like escort services.
Again, it's pure projection. These vermin are literally incapable of looking at anything except in terms of how it can be used as a weapon (or how it can be destroyed), so they automatically attribute that fundamentalist way of looking at things to everyone else, and especially to the "enemy". So by definition anything Putin and the Russians do is some kind of "weaponization".
Notable quotes:
"... Yes! All true! But I weaponised Vladimir Putin to make media profits, newspapers (Guardian!), radio (BBC), internet (Bellingcat). Evidently only the Brits understand me. The US does the same in a different style. ..."
"... Here is what Americans really think about the anti-Russia hysteria coming from Washington: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/08/americans-on-russia-will-of-people.html Washington has completely lost touch with what Main Street America really believes. ..."
"... And besides humor I am sure Putin is also weaponizing calendars, at least in Japan. Maybe in exchange for keeping the Kuril islands: Putin calendar sales surpassing those of Japanese stars in Japan What I am wondering is, if the socalled "Western Elite" maybe actually believe what they are saying and are not aware that it is a self-created illusion they are chaught in. Otherwise I can not understand why they are again and again surprised if Russia is not behaving they way they expected. ..."
"... Yes, these are projections, and they tell us the final world war, a war of aggression by the US against China and Russia, will be a total war beyond our imaginations. (Unless real leftists and real lovers of peace can stop it.) ..."
"... I think this insane epidemic illustrates the degree to which the Western propaganda system has completely decoupled the population from reality. ..."
"... The underlying problem: Russia has weaponized telling the truth. ..."
"... Yes, I'd agree that's part of its purpose -- to prevent the unification of Eurasia, which as I wrote last week's proceeding apace. They're trying to wall off Japan too, so I wonder if Japanese media's as flush with the same garbage as BigLie Media. ..."
"... Although likely covered by weaponizing incompetence and stupidity, Putin has certainly weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's appalling lack of a professional diplomatic corp--just look at who he gets Trump to nominate to key diplomatic positions. ..."
"... Hey guys, guys, you are not getting the point man. There is something really creepy about this Russia place, like Midas. Everything they touch turns to weapons. ..."
"... But since the fall of Communism in Russia, I have lost all belief in anything like a new Cold War. After all, when I was in parochial school, we prayed for the conversion of Russia. Now, that has been accomplished. Russia's government is more Christian than Western governments ..."
"... Truth weaponized. Five eyes pulling out all stops in its propaganda campaign to defeat it. ..."
Dec 17, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Russ , Dec 17, 2018 9:26:23 AM | link

Q: What do humor, health information, giant squids, robotic cockroaches, tedium and postmodernism have in common?

A: Russia weaponized them.

Back in March 2016 we created a list of news items that accused Russia and its bear riding president Vladimir Putin of weaponizing things.

Others have since copied the idea .

Several of the pieces listed in it are products of the recently uncovered British government financed disinformation campaign , or of similar efforts by other governments. But these are only a part of the general anti-Russian reflex that is ingrained in our 'western' culture. Nothing else can explain the craziness of these 'weaponizing' claims.

The updated list with some 65 issues, ideas and things that Russia allegedly 'weaponizes' will hopefully help to convince people that most of what is said or written about Russia is likewise blatant nonsense.

Posted by b on December 17, 2018 at 09:20 AM | Permalink

Comments next page "


Quentin , Dec 17, 2018 9:40:02 AM | link

Yes! All true! But I weaponised Vladimir Putin to make media profits, newspapers (Guardian!), radio (BBC), internet (Bellingcat). Evidently only the Brits understand me. The US does the same in a different style.
Sally Snyder , Dec 17, 2018 9:44:29 AM | link
Here is what Americans really think about the anti-Russia hysteria coming from Washington: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/08/americans-on-russia-will-of-people.html Washington has completely lost touch with what Main Street America really believes.
old Bill , Dec 17, 2018 9:47:49 AM | link
until the US actually incorporates term limits the same corruption will continue unabated
TJ , Dec 17, 2018 10:01:04 AM | link
The BBC has become Monty Python I await the BBC report on Putins weaponizzation of silly walks.
Fran , Dec 17, 2018 10:20:44 AM | link

And besides humor I am sure Putin is also weaponizing calendars, at least in Japan. Maybe in exchange for keeping the Kuril islands: Putin calendar sales surpassing those of Japanese stars in Japan What I am wondering is, if the socalled "Western Elite" maybe actually believe what they are saying and are not aware that it is a self-created illusion they are chaught in. Otherwise I can not understand why they are again and again surprised if Russia is not behaving they way they expected.

fairleft , Dec 17, 2018 10:28:53 AM | link

Yes, these are projections, and they tell us the final world war, a war of aggression by the US against China and Russia, will be a total war beyond our imaginations. (Unless real leftists and real lovers of peace can stop it.)

William Bowles , Dec 17, 2018 10:48:39 AM | link

I think this insane epidemic illustrates the degree to which the Western propaganda system has completely decoupled the population from reality. Now whether it's believed or not is neither here nor there as it's built upon decades of anti-communism and the inherent racism of the Anglo-Saxon Empire that has demonized the Russians as essentially backward peasants who cannot be trusted. Worse still, the Russkies have ginormous weapons!

It would be ludicrous if it wasn't so dangerous.

Peter VE , Dec 17, 2018 10:59:02 AM | link
The underlying problem: Russia has weaponized telling the truth.
BRF , Dec 17, 2018 11:04:59 AM | link
I agree that both 'sides' in a phony cold war 2.0 weaponize just about anything of a controversial nature or event in civilization. Both sides are advancing agenda that are leading humanity in the same direction even as they create a false adversarial paradigm.

This has been termed non linear psychological warfare under which such a confusing array of created realities leaves the greater public unable to define what is real or a fabrication. It takes at least two or more to create the illusions and the 'other' can simply be created/funded as controlled opposition and then even this can be published to further create more confusion within the confusion. Carl Rove told us this. He just didn't tell us that the 'Empire' also includes Russia, China and any number of other corporate national jurisdictions.

vk , Dec 17, 2018 11:19:06 AM | link
It seems Russia has weaponized the African-Americans too: Russian Effort to Influence 2016 Election Targeted African-Americans
Putin , Dec 17, 2018 11:23:05 AM | link
More seriously, this is not "stupidity" of the political class, as some pundits would have you believe. It is a well thought-out retrenchment plan of attempting to institute a new "iron curtain" to separate Europe from Asia after the demise of unipolarity.
Jackrabbit , Dec 17, 2018 11:58:37 AM | link
Putin | Dec 17, 2018 11:23:05 AM | 23: new "iron curtain"
  • Iron Curtain ==> Psyop Cage
  • Secret police and snitches ==> Channel thought via media echo-chamber
  • McCarthyist smear: "Russian agent" ==> McCarthyist smear: "Putinbot" / "useful idiot"
  • Capitalism vs Communism ==> Unipolar (NWO) vs Multi-polar (United Nations)
  • Containment ==> Attack via Color revolution / Proxy Armies / Propaganda / Sanctions
karlof1 , Dec 17, 2018 12:16:12 PM | link
Putin @23--

Yes, I'd agree that's part of its purpose -- to prevent the unification of Eurasia, which as I wrote last week's proceeding apace. They're trying to wall off Japan too, so I wonder if Japanese media's as flush with the same garbage as BigLie Media.

Russia's weaponized Arctic Ocean or perhaps Russia's weaponized the lack of proper marine maintenance. Russia's also weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's lack of naval or other Arctic Ocean land-based infrastructure -- there's zip to support any off-shore drilling from Alaska's coastline. IOW, Russia's weaponizing a plethora of Outlaw US Empire weaknesses.

jrkrideau , Dec 17, 2018 12:56:26 PM | link
@ 27 karlof1

And what the Sputnik article refers to as the heavy US icebreaker Polar Star is more roughly one half the size of the nuclear powered Russian icebreaker 50 Years of Victory, 50 лет Победы . I suspect the Russians would call the Polar Star a light icebreaker. Sputnik probably probably being polite.

GeorgeV , Dec 17, 2018 1:00:57 PM | link
Way back in the 1950s the Pentagon (specifically the Air Force) was all atwitter over unsubstantiated reports (again leaked by the Air Force) that the Soviets (read: the Russians) were building a nuclear powered strategic bomber that would have unlimited range and flight time. Well now. You know what that means? We gotta have one too! So guess what. The Air Force dutifully volunteered to save the US and Western civilization from being bombed back to the stone age and godless communism all at the same time by building a nuclear powered bomber of our own. To make a long story short the effort failed miserably. The project managed to last into the Kennedy administration but was cancelled in favor of developing submarine launched ICBMs. While the nuclear bomber program died it's spirit lived on. During the Carter administration the then chief of Air Force intelligence (yes I know there's no such thing) became convinced that the russkies were building ground-based and orbiting death ray machines to use against US satellites and ICBMs. Thus was born "Star Wars." Of course this fit in perfectly with the Reagan administration's defense views even though the engineering and science simply didn't exist then of now. Well as the french say the "more things change the more they remain the same"
snake , Dec 17, 2018 1:15:43 PM | link
Some people get weaponized on business trips to Moscow. This video shows how they do it... https://youtu.be/8cs4tKdiiI4 Posted by: dh | Dec 17, 2018 10:36:48 AM | 15

Move over Russia make room for the Chinese weapon program.. its much more dangerous than the Russian disinformation program, unlike Russia, the Chinese circumvent the USA Senate, the President, and the SCOUS and go directly to the poor, innocent governed humans, lending them money, creating for them jobs and developing infra structure to make life easier; such will be the end of us all. WE MUST REMEMBER Aake news and made up fictions are produced by the six entities that own 92 of the media. Without the Internet and other public infra structure, the media could not smear you with its dirty tricks. Someone please pass the soap.

the pair , Dec 17, 2018 1:17:03 PM | link
"weaponizing terrorism "? because until Putin all "terrorists" sat around talking and sipping tea like the goddamn mclaughlin group? then again, given the outsize influence of objectively insane think tanks in DC, maybe they were onto something.

funny how this can also be seen as what psychology types call "projection". in a culture like the west's (especially the states) where the economies are built on warfare and financial voodoo, everything is either "weaponized" or collateralized. look at anything on that list and it's something from which someone "atlantic" has tried or will try to make money. of course, many things start out weaponized and are then collateralized . weaponized taxes? weaponized corporate welfare?

the pair , Dec 17, 2018 1:28:55 PM | link
@#33 see also : https://www.voanews.com/a/putin-rap-must-be-controlled-not-banned/4702678.html

hey, if a bunch of white/israeli suburbanite music executives in LA can control rap, it should be pretty easy. side note: rap is officially banned in iran. some say it's been deemed "satanic". Years ago when i was grooving to das efx or public enemy i'd have disagreed but now that the big names are drake, minaj and meek mill...only malevolent supernatural evil can explain that.

Glenn Brown , Dec 17, 2018 2:08:07 PM | link
I'm shocked to learn that "Russia is weaponizing its Coast Guard", https://warisboring.com/russia-is-weaponizing-its-coast-guard/ The author seems quite angry the Russians are using their "Coast Guard" of all things, to defend their coast. He thinks they should have used their Navy instead!

"The use of the Russian Federation Navy to close the strait would have been more likely to escalate because it would have been a military-on-military clash. In contrast, using the Russian coast guard made it a law enforcement issue rather than a military-sanctioned act of war. Russia is adept at using legal channels to pursue violations of justice. It now appears willing to use its coast guard for this purpose.

Onshore, the situation in eastern Ukraine has been stuck in a rut. Perhaps the escalation in the Sea of Azov was seen by the Russians as a means to break the impasse, using the flimsy legal cover provided by the coast guard. No similar terrestrial options exist, as the Russians have exhausted their plausible deniability for operations by police, volunteers and undercover "little green men."

While Russian seizure of the Azov coast was anticipated, it was not expected to use its coast guard. Utilizing the Russian coast guard in this way opens a new range of options for Moscow, in the Sea of Azov and beyond."

lysias , Dec 17, 2018 2:34:37 PM | link
Easy way for an author to get an article published.
karlof1 , Dec 17, 2018 2:38:03 PM | link
Although likely covered by weaponizing incompetence and stupidity, Putin has certainly weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's appalling lack of a professional diplomatic corp--just look at who he gets Trump to nominate to key diplomatic positions. Indeed, perhaps this ought to be enlarged to include weaponizing mediocrity as portrayed by Trump's entire Cabinet. We can also see the great strides Putin's made in making the Outlaw US Empire appear as the Ogre it is by weaponizing Anglo-American Exceptionalism. It seems, given the above list and its additions via comments, that the Outlaw US Empire is most exceptional at being incapable of weaponizing anything aside from its #1 go-to--The BigLie.
dh , Dec 17, 2018 3:00:26 PM | link
@45 They look like happy smiley people untroubled by any ethical issues... https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/
Strategic Message Code One , Dec 17, 2018 3:04:33 PM | link
Hey guys, guys, you are not getting the point man. There is something really creepy about this Russia place, like Midas. Everything they touch turns to weapons. I seen it here as well, every Russia thing is trouble of some kind, like there is nothing else that comes from there. I seen Russian people and they ok, but now I'm frightened to get close to them in case I turn into a weapon. Aan here too guys, Russia touches the west an the west as consequence are all buying weapons an using them everywhere, they cant do nothing cause Russia makes them weaponators too. Oh my, we are doomed man and waponized press freakin me out aaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bjd , Dec 17, 2018 3:48:24 PM | link
A quote from the report mentioned in (50): "Although the NDS generally reflects the right priorities and objectives, it is not supported by adequate investments. It is beyond the scope of this Commission's work to identify the exact dollar amount required to fully fund the military's needs, but the available means are clearly insufficient to fulfill the strategy's ends. This is true despite the two-year funding increase for FY2018 and FY2019 provided by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018."
john , Dec 17, 2018 4:14:53 PM | link
weaponize this .
Zanon , Dec 17, 2018 4:19:22 PM | link
The Russia "did it" is part of The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49060.htm
Zanon , Dec 17, 2018 4:24:15 PM | link

Seems like the renewed anti Russian psyops is a cover for the possible Ukrainian false flag/war coming weeks:

"Russia deploys ten fighter jets to Crimea amid rising tensions with Ukraine "
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/12/17/583233/Russia-fighter-jets-Crimea-armed-provocation

Josh , Dec 17, 2018 4:26:27 PM | link
What would be particularly interesting is also to see how the money flow is helping the (we all know it) struggling news organizations. I believe many of these quasi-journalists are going hat in hand to various agencies that have some of that propaganda money. Most of them would need to work for weeks getting paid a measly amount, but doing a couple of these anti-Russia pieces gets them paid well. I certainly think the Guardian has such an arrangement with MI5/6.

The recipe is using the wonderwords like Putin, Russia, 'weaponizing', hackers, cyber, fake news...

jrkrideau , Dec 17, 2018 4:31:02 PM | link
40 Glenn Brown

I'm shocked to learn that "Russia is weaponizing its Coast Guard", https://warisboring.com/russia-is-weaponizing-its-coast-guard/

I believe the Saker was pointing out a few days ago that the Border Guards were often more like spetsnaz than what we in the west think of as a border patrol. The Russian Coast Guard has probably maintained the tradition.

karlof1 , Dec 17, 2018 4:47:55 PM | link
I see culture's already been deemed weaponized, but here's Putin's actual plan he laid out in his speech to a meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art in St Petersburg two days ago. Introductory remarks:

"... global competition in creating best conditions for self-fulfilment and revealing the potential of each individual is growing, and the world's leading powers including Russia, rightly see it as a key to the future. Of course, a significant role here will belong to establishing a vibrant, rich cultural space, which will be interesting and attractive not only for the citizens of our country but also for the whole world."

Meanwhile within the Outlaw US Empire, Boy Scouts of America is about to file for bankruptcy thanks to the many sexual abuse lawsuits it now faces. This leads me to declare yet another Russian accomplishment: Putin has weaponized Machiavellian divide and rule by enticing the Outlaw US Empire's Deep State -- years prior to his birth! -- to promote and escalate what's known as the Culture Wars used to ensure a continuing inability to achieve solidarity by the USA's polity.

William Bowles , Dec 17, 2018 5:04:28 PM | link
Posted by: Anaya | Dec 17, 2018 2:52:00 PM | 45

Anaya, I take it you took a look-see at its staff and there's a lot of them! Yeah, that's what prompted my own feelings about it. The report has apparently been published but I've not yet seen it.

The '150 million' influenced by those scheming Russkies, has been floating for awhie. I first saw it used in a Euro-based setup, funded by NATO I think. I'll try and dig it out as I remember writing something about.

Babyl-on , Dec 17, 2018 5:12:15 PM | link
This kind of "Weaponization" is far less expensive than say an F35 or a 13bn Ford class Aircraft carrier, but the more of them you build the safer you will be from the "Weaponization" of coloring books. Nuke crayons now! The state of the US and its military in my view is that they can't win a war against anyone, all they can do is blow up the world with nukes - the only question is will they deny the world to everyone if they can't own it.
karlof1 , Dec 17, 2018 5:15:00 PM | link
It's a shame we can't massively disseminate our weaponization of ridicule contained in b's article and our commentary. I wonder how many comedians are making good money ridiculing the entire weaponization meme, and not just in English.

What I'd like to see at all US government pressers is for uncontrollable laughter to break out amongst the press when the spokesperson begins speaking and continue until it leaves the podium, followed by the press exiting the room.

Jen , Dec 17, 2018 6:05:03 PM | link
Karlof1 @ 69:

In case you haven't yet heard, Heather Nauert replaces Nutty Nikki as US ambassador to the UN so 'tis there that Matt Lee and his fellow journos must trek (it's gonna be a long way to NYC) to get their regular dose of laughter.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-d-day-america-germany-strong-relationship-state-department-spokeswoman-heather-nauert-a8387221.html

Bart Hansen , Dec 17, 2018 6:12:43 PM | link
Here in my exceptional country it is customary at the end of each year to declare a "word of the year", some from past years were truthiness, Y2K and hashtag.

For 2018 will it be "weaponize"?

Curtis , Dec 17, 2018 6:28:52 PM | link
and then today I hit ZH and this headline: Soviet Dissidents, America's Academia, & The Weaponization Of Psychiatry https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-16/soviet-dissidents-americas-academia-weaponization-psychiatry

but it didn't go after the current Russian govt. It pointed out how the US imitates the Soviets in weaponizing psychiatry by declaring dissidents crazy. You have to be insane to disagree with TPTB.

Curtis , Dec 17, 2018 6:30:11 PM | link
It looks like our media has weaponized their obsession with all things Putin and Russia.
Curtis , Dec 17, 2018 6:33:53 PM | link
and last but not least, Russia is blamed for inflaming the protests in France: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-14/france-turmoil-blame-russia

It reminds me of the meme taken from The Brady Bunch instead of "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" it's "Russia, Russia, Russia."

Zanon , Dec 17, 2018 6:55:47 PM | link
France: No signs of russian involvement found. https://sptnkne.ws/kq53
karlof1 , Dec 17, 2018 6:57:54 PM | link
Jen @71--

I'm sure the comedian replacing Nauert will be just as distracting and of similar character.

Did you happen to read Caitlin Johnstone's Twenty-One Thoughts On The Persecution Of Julian Assange , particularly #s 8-10 as they relate to her essay about narratives? All our rather witty ridicule is almost totally wasted on us--we don't need to hear it; it's those people Caitlin refers to in her 8-10 that require the deep pin-prick of ridicule to snap them from their torpor and return them to reality and to rational thinking.

Lozion , Dec 17, 2018 7:08:38 PM | link
@18 Best comment so far! Truth as the Weapon of Choice..
Cyril , Dec 17, 2018 7:10:06 PM | link
@Peter VE | Dec 17, 2018 10:59:02 AM | 18

The underlying problem: Russia has weaponized telling the truth.

That's the truth!

time2wakeup , Dec 17, 2018 7:43:08 PM | link
Next thing you know, the media will be weaponizing all their available weapons of mass distraction

Oh wait.....bit late for that.

psychohistorian , Dec 17, 2018 8:41:27 PM | link
The biggest weapon in the West arsenal is private finance. Private finance is the jackboot that keep nations/governments/individuals in line. Private finance has been the primary weapon of control for centuries. China/Russia are trying to weaponize alternative finance......and succeeding......which is why the world is all in a tither.
lysias , Dec 17, 2018 10:36:33 PM | link
@ Jen 82

I think it has to do with what one has studied. I have four university degrees: B.A. in Classics from Princeton, A.B. in Classics from Oxford, Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard, and a J.D. from Yale. I spent a lot of time in the U.S. military: four years in the active duty U.S. Air Force, plus something like 15 years in the reserves, largely of the U.S. Navy. For as long as the original Cold War lasted and Communism ruled Russia, I was a true believer in the Cold War. It now looks to me as if I was misguided at the time, but that is what I believed, whether despite or because of my education, I don't know which.

But since the fall of Communism in Russia, I have lost all belief in anything like a new Cold War. After all, when I was in parochial school, we prayed for the conversion of Russia. Now, that has been accomplished. Russia's government is more Christian than Western governments. I think someone with a classical education like the one I got is more capable of thinking for himself. I don't think my education disabled me from thinking critically and independently.

Peter AU 1 , Dec 18, 2018 3:11:59 AM | link

BB 93 Truth weaponized. Five eyes pulling out all stops in its propaganda campaign to defeat it.

Hoarsewhisperer 95 He may well be, but with the passing of several years and his actions in that time appear to be ardent zionist. The swamp to him are those that frittered away US unilateral power and those that did not sufficiently support Israel. What Trump views as the swamp is not what most of us view as the swamp. Kissinger was not forced upon Trump, rather his thinking is in line with that of Kissinger.

[Jan 06, 2019] Integrity initiative is Gladio 2.0 in disguise

Notable quotes:
"... To get an idea of how Gladio 2.0 is now investing each corner of our lives, including art and education, I saw recently on the flyer of a sculpture exhibition in a 5-eyes country that two artists, one born in 1901 and one in 1914 were "famous Cold War artists". Of course, there was nothing political in their work, the first died in 1966 and the other in 2003... ..."
Jan 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Mina , Dec 17, 2018 1:19:30 PM | link

To get an idea of how Gladio 2.0 is now investing each corner of our lives, including art and education, I saw recently on the flyer of a sculpture exhibition in a 5-eyes country that two artists, one born in 1901 and one in 1914 were "famous Cold War artists". Of course, there was nothing political in their work, the first died in 1966 and the other in 2003...

In EU universities you now see all sorts of "labs" popping out, with EU funding from the "digital" budget. They are trying to recruit people with a very odd profile: ambitious, ONG oriented, IT familiar. The reason why these labs insist on the ONG type activities is dubious. An example of US/EU sponsored project involving refugees in Greece, neurosciences and mobile phones (check Harvard/Data&Society: Refugee Connectivity)

Jackrabbit , Dec 17, 2018 11:58:37 AM | link
Putin | Dec 17, 2018 11:23:05 AM | 23: new "iron curtain"
  • Iron Curtain ==> Psyop Cage
  • Secret police and snitches ==> Channel thought via media echo-chamber
  • McCarthyist smear: "Russian agent" ==> McCarthyist smear: "Putinbot" / "useful idiot"
  • Capitalism vs Communism ==> Unipolar (NWO) vs Multi-polar (United Nations)
  • Containment ==> Attack via Color revolution / Proxy Armies / Propaganda / Sanctions

[Jan 06, 2019] Turkey Fails In Idleb, Is Unwilling To Take The Northeast

Notable quotes:
"... The neoconservatives in the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and the Syria envoy James Jeffery, are scrambling to save their plans for Syria that President Trump disposed of when he ordered a complete retreat. ..."
"... Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' all right wing populists are. That is what fascism is, empty promises to the people while promoting the interests of the 1% and violently dismantling the democratic structures that might be used to control the state. ..."
"... The real wolves in sheep's clothing were the ascendance of Clinton, Blair, and the like in the early 1990s ..."
Jan 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Uncoy , Jan 5, 2019 2:38:46 PM | link

The neoconservatives in the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and the Syria envoy James Jeffery, are scrambling to save their plans for Syria that President Trump disposed of when he ordered a complete retreat.

Those plans were for a permanent U.S. occupation of northeast Syria, the reduction of Iranian influence within the government held parts of Syria and an eventual disposal of the Syrian government under President Assad through negotiations. These were unicorn aims that had no chance to ever be achieved.

Moreover Trump had never signed off on these ideas. Back in April he had announced that he wanted U.S. troops out of Syria. He gave his staff six month to achieve that. But instead of following those orders Pompeo and Bolton tried to implement their own plans:

Late last year, some of the president's hawkish advisers drafted a memo committing the United States to a longer-term presence in Syria that included goals of an enduring defeat of the Islamic State, a political transition and the expulsion of Iran, officials said. The president has not signed the memo, which was presented to him weeks ago.

In fact, Trump had warned his aides for months that he wanted out of Syria in short order.
...
Bolton's Iran plan never really took effect at the Pentagon, where officials were not officially tasked with any new mission in addition to the operation against the Islamic State. Military officials likewise viewed Iran's expansion into Syria as problematic, but they were skeptical about the lack of a clear legal justification that would be required for offensive military action against Iranian-backed forces.

Trump recognized that those plans were nonsense and ordered to end them. In that process he came up with a likewise unicorn idea - to hand northeast Syria to Turkey to fight the already defeated Islamic State. Turkey does not want northeast Syria. It does not want to risk a bloody war against the Kurds that would be required to sustain such an occupation. It looks like the US advisors like Bolton are really circling around looking for another way to get into the fight. Air support for the Turks in an ongoing massacre might suit them. Will the Russian allow it though?

You mentioned Sykes-Picot. The whole situation reminds me of the late great Yugoslavia and the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity or religion (Croats are Catholics, Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about) and set them at each other's throats.

Time for the Russians to remind the Americans they said they were leaving and if they don't leave now, the door will hit them on the way out. The clock is ticking.

Peter AU 1 , Jan 5, 2019 2:45:41 PM | link

The situation in Syria is coming along nicely. Kurds negotiating with Damascus, Turk proxies all out of Idlib and AQ takeover of Idlib. Much harder now for the US and UK to stand up for the 'people' of Idlib when the offensive goes ahead. Be interesting to see what the color coded map of Syria looks like at this time next year.
Ross , Jan 5, 2019 2:53:21 PM | link
With apologies to b

I know people get a bit touchy about pointing out typos, but there is a certain mordant humor to:

"Implementing the idea would lead to ethic cleansing "

When as we know the neo-con thinkophobes underwent 'ethic cleansing' a long time ago!

laguerre , Jan 5, 2019 3:05:34 PM | link
It looks like Bolton and Pompeo are making last attempts to turn things around, presumably with Netanyahu's involvement in the conspiracy. I wonder whether they, and Trump, even understood what an irreversible decision announcing the pull-out was. Once Trump had told the Kurds to piss off, they were bound to go and make a deal with Asad. I said this on here weeks ago immediately after the announcement; it was obvious. Trump telling them not to is not going to have any effect. I really don't think they understood the political consequences. There you are, the leaders of the most powerful nation on earth, and they don't even bother to consult advisors (mind you, Washington advisors are pretty idiotic too).
Jackrabbit , Jan 5, 2019 4:14:07 PM | link
I am much more skeptical.

Trump claims Mattis' resignation as a 'win' but allows Bolton to continue his neocon machinations?

Numerous MSM articles appear about Trump's standing up to the Generals: Mattis, Kelly, Dunford, etc. Yet Bolton feels free to conspire against the President's agenda?

The narrative that Trump is fighting for his campaign promises but allows Bolton and Pompeo to scheme against him is nonsensical.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <>

My view (which I've repeated numerous times at MoA) is that Trump is a faux populist . He is the Republican Obama - pretending to be a populist peacemaker while working for the establishment. The "populist hero" is a gimmick that reinforces people's belief in USA democracy and the righteousness of USA actions. The Trump/Deep-State conflict is a propaganda psy-op.

The Israeli Christmas attack was likely an attempted false flag (trying to get SAA to shoot down a civilian airliner like they did weeks before to a Russian military plane). It was likely coordinated with USA because Trump's "pull out" announcement and Mattis' resignation occurred only days before .

Trump leads the political wing of the US Deep State. They know that they don't have public support for stepped up military operations in the Middle East. But they have an agenda (anti-Iran, pro-Israel) that requires that they re-commit to ME. They need a false flag.

ADKC , Jan 5, 2019 4:37:34 PM | link
For the US to withdraw like this will prove to the region and the world that the US has been defeated and is just a paper tiger. Next, Iraq will be wanting the US to get out. Attacking Iran will become a fantasy. And this could just spread and spread.

This could well be the start of an incredible diminishment of US influence in the region (and then the rest of the world). Negotiations with Syria and Russia could mitigate at least the look of what is happening, but no effort is made in this regard.

For these reasons it just feels over-optimistic (to me) that the US will just pull-out like this.

bevin , Jan 5, 2019 4:40:54 PM | link
Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' all right wing populists are. That is what fascism is, empty promises to the people while promoting the interests of the 1% and violently dismantling the democratic structures that might be used to control the state.

Trump is all about attacking democracy, making voting tough, promoting the Courts over the legislatures, dismantling regulations and silencing critics.
We all knew that.

But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each other, is bizarre.

There is collusion alright: all involved want to rip off the taxpayers and cram the people back into their box. But there is a genuine struggle going on within the ruling class over how best to run the scam in a changing world- whether to attack Russia and/or China, whether to settle for cheap gains in Latin America and Africa, for example, and wait until things swing in Uncle Sam's way again, whether to push the Europeans into full Cold War brinkmanship mode, whether to calm down Israel or whip it up into a frenzy...

The world's a complex place and Washington's influence is declining quickly, people are panicking. And it is all real.

Cynica , Jan 5, 2019 5:12:10 PM | link
Trump is a businessman, first and foremost. His view of the presidency is essentially being CEO of United States, Inc. His policies are aimed at removing what he sees as bad deals for the employees and shareholders of that corporation. Basically it's about profit and loss. He sees border security (building the wall) as necessary to stop the outflow of money and lives as the result of illegal immigrants. He sees businesses moving operations back to the US as necessary to reduce the US's economic dependence on the rest of the world. He sees maintaining and strengthening US military might as necessary for providing a service to the rest of the world that they will pay a fair price for. The tariffs and trade deals are also about the US being paid fair prices (in his eyes). Thus Trump is essentially mercantilist in his outlook.

Of course, a businessman is not the same thing as an economist, and Trump is no economist. He seems to focus entirely on what Frederic Bastiat called "the seen" and thus to ignore "the unseen" (i.e. the bigger picture). This is entirely in line with being a businessman. Businessmen typically concentrate on their own narrow interests. Under free enterprise, the interplay among their various narrow interests results in the common good being served regardless - but it almost goes without saying that we certainly don't live under free enterprise today.

Trump is a populist in the sense of wanting economic benefits to be enjoyed more broadly by the American people, instead of primarily benefiting an increasingly tiny elite. He doesn't seem to understand that US economic benefits are primarily the result of the US dollar being the world reserve currency (which is, of course, enforced by US military might) - or, at least, he doesn't seem to understand that his policies could well bring an end to that situation. This is why the aforementioned elite is trying to steer him away from his own policies and outright opposing him when it can't.

None of the above is a justification of Trump and his policies, just an observation.

jayc , Jan 5, 2019 5:26:59 PM | link
The real wolves in sheep's clothing were the ascendance of Clinton, Blair, and the like in the early 1990s - as the populations of the West had grown weary of the Cold War establishment and largely favoured, if not a progressive agenda, then certainly a reallocation of resources away from national security towards serious environmental issues etc. Such faux progressive figures never faced anything like the extreme pressure focussed on Trump. I certainly wouldn't endorse Trump, but he has faced the treatment one would expect for any unvetted person who approaches actual position (as with Corbyn).

The neo-cons may hold appointed office under Trump, but little of their policy initiatives gain any traction. A year ago, their plan was to move into a full military confrontation with North Korea. The propaganda trail had been well laid, and a major conference with an "allied coalition" had been set for Vancouver to unveil the strategy - but it was quietly cancelled and effectively dropped for unknown reasons. Now there is utter incoherence in Middle East strategy. The only effective foreign policy for the US right now is the hawkish stance on China, which is being lead by economic wonks not neo-cons. And this plan is running into serious complications regarding the global economy. I think the rise of Clinton and Blair heralded a generation of rather mediocre political figures whose legacy will be the abrupt decline of the Anglo-Euro geo-political position, which is being realized right now and there is indeed a sense of panic.

[Jan 06, 2019] Is Integrity Initiative controls the USA media as well ?

Jan 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

alaff , Dec 17, 2018 8:20:19 PM | link

Check it out & add to your nice collection, if you want.

Russia is:

* Weaponizing 'technology':
https://www.axios.com/russia-misinformation-campaigns-us-elections-83428979-b184-4ed6-b153-25ed72d2f993.html

* Weaponizing 'the continent / Venezuela':
https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2018/12/11/russia-places-nuclear-capable-bombers-venezuela/
https://www.krediblepolitics.com/cs/article/breitbart-russia-places-nuclear-capable-bombers-in-venezuela
(December 11, 2018)

* Weaponizing 'Interpol red notices':
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-interpol-president-putting-fox-charge-hen-house-experts-say-1224160
(November 20, 2018)

* Weaponizing 'Heather Nauert':
https://qz.com/1468983/russian-hackers-are-weaponizing-heather-nauert-a-trump-pick-for-un-ambassador/
(November 18, 2018)

* Weaponizing 'Social media hate':
https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/10/02/the-last-jedi-study-blames-russian-trolls-for-weaponizing-social-media-hate
(October 2, 2018)

* Weaponizing 'Debt':
https://sputniknews.com/us/201806191065559610-us-debt-dollar/
(June 19, 2018)
https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/30/investing/russia-us-debt-treasury/index.html
(July 30, 2018)

* Weaponizing 'leaks':
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/russian-hackers-using-tainted-leaks-sow-disinformation/
(May 25, 2017)

* Weaponizing 'History':
https://codastory.com/disinformation-crisis/information-war/weaponizing-history-world-war-ii-memorial-attackers-aim-to-divide-poland-and-ukraine
(February 27, 2017)

[Jan 06, 2019] Is BBC a part of Integrity Initiative ?

Jan 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Dec 17, 2018 5:57:48 PM | link

News that the BBC is trying to tie the Gilets Jaunes movement to the Kremlin reaches the Russian Foreign Ministry. Betting that Lavrov, Zakharova and company are all having a laugh as well.

"Russia to turn to OSCE over reports on BBC's trying to prove Moscow behind 'Yellow Vests'"
http://tass.com/politics/1036309

"BBC Seeks To Link 'Yellow Vests' To Kremlin"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YknwBSjJZWc

Just when you think British news media couldn't fall any deeper into their rabbit hole ... down, down farther they go into the abyss ... aaarrgghhh ...

[Jan 06, 2019] "Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project" might well be tied to "Integrity Initiative".

Notable quotes:
"... Some of the people at the Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are banal presstitutes ready to oblige the top clients (management) for a modest pay, whereas others are real criminals whose ideas and orders have been endangering the western civilization -- and humankind at large. ..."
"... People are building their careers on this garbage! ..."
Jan 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Anaya , Dec 17, 2018 2:52:00 PM | link
The Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are run by people.

These people display a stunning level of immorality by lying and war-mongering.

Some of the people at the Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are banal presstitutes ready to oblige the top clients (management) for a modest pay, whereas others are real criminals whose ideas and orders have been endangering the western civilization -- and humankind at large.

It would be proper to publish a roster of the presstitutes and their idiotic managers working at the Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project

bjd , Dec 17, 2018 3:43:06 PM | link
Bipartisan panel: US must prepare for "horrendous," "devastating" war with Russia and China:
https://off-guardian.org/2018/12/17/bipartisan-panel-us-must-prepare-for-horrendous-devastating-war-with-russia-and-china/

librul , Dec 17, 2018 11:12:26 AM | link

About half an hour ago I opened News.Google.Com these are some of their major headlines:
  • Russians sought to recruit 'assets' through social media, Senate told - CNN . one hour ago
  • Russua favored Trump, targeted African-Americans with election meddling, reports say - NBC News . one hour ago
  • New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation's scale and sweep - The Washington Post . today
  • Senate report finds millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump, GOP - USA TODAY . 2 hours ago
  • Silicon Valley may have done 'bare minimum' to help Russia investigation, Senate Intel Committee told - CNN . one hour ago

I opened the one from the Washington Post:

  • Headline: "New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation's scale and sweep"
  • Subtext: "The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the first to analyze the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee."

The headline is meant to give the impression that the report was prepared at *The Behest* of the Senate. If you read the article it would have you believe that it *was* written at the behest of the Senate but does not say that specifically.

Well? Was it? I have tried to track it down and could use some assistance.

Buried in a CBS NEWS version of the article is this sentence: "The Committee welcomed the research effort without endorsing either report's findings."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-reports-detail-sophistication-of-russian-influence-efforts-in-u-s/

USA TODAY says it *was* "Senate Reports". The lead paragraph is this: "WASHINGTON – The Senate released Monday a pair of reports that found Russia engaged in an all-out social media campaign on Donald Trump's behalf during the 2016 election and continued to support him after he took office."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/17/russia-social-media-senate-report/2334382002/

All these articles reference some of the authors as: "Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project"

My question is whether "Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project" is tied to "Integrity Initiative".

William Bowles , Dec 17, 2018 11:35:31 AM | link
And the BBC, had this to say today:
  • Russia 'meddled in all big social media' in US election, says report
  • Russia allegedly used every major social media platform to influence the 2016 US election, a report claims .
  • Research is expected to say https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46590890 (my emph. WB)
  • The report was put together by University of Oxford's Computational Propaganda Project and the social network analysis firm Graphika.

https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/

https://www.graphika.com/solutions/

People are building their careers on this garbage!

Zanon , Dec 17, 2018 3:49:51 PM | link
"Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project" is funded by European union!

See last block of text here: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-11-03-top-democracy-award-fake-news-research-project.

Zanon , Dec 17, 2018 5:03:20 PM | link
This is what it is all about: Money :

William Bowles said at #16

"People are building their careers on this garbage!"

Josh said at #60

"What would be particularly interesting is also to see how the money flow is helping the (we all know it) struggling news organizations. I believe many of these quasi-journalists are going hat in hand to various agencies that have some of that propaganda money. Most of them would need to work for weeks getting paid a measly amount, but doing a couple of these anti-Russia pieces gets them paid well. I certainly think the Guardian has such an arrangement with MI5/6.
The recipe is using the wonderwords like Putin, Russia, 'weaponizing', hackers, cyber, fake news..."

[Jan 05, 2019] Obama as the agent of the Deep State consciously deciving his voters with faux populism promises which he never intended to follow

Obama strategy in Syria was replica of Clinton strategy in Yugoslavia during the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity or religion (Croats are Catholics, Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about), arm them, create false flags to set them at each other's throats. Enjoy the results.
Obama like Clinton before him was a real wolve in sheep's clothing
Notable quotes:
"... Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving US imperialism a pleasing face. ..."
"... Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump. ..."
Jan 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Jan 5, 2019 6:10:33 PM | 17

bevin @10:

But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each other, is bizarre.
I would've agreed with you before Obama. I followed the criticisms of Obama from true progressives closely. It was clear within 2 or 3 years that Obama was betraying his 'base'.

His lofty rhetoric didn't match his actions. His Nobel Peace Prize can only be viewed today as a ruse. He talked of peace and fairness but worked behind the scenes to further the establishment.

Fast forward to the 2016 election where Sanders was a sheepdog and Hillary ran a terrible campaign. It's difficult to look back and not be at least somewhat suspicious of the 2016 election. A populist nationalist was what the Deep State NEEDED to face the threat from Russia and China to their NWO project. And that is what they got. After recognizing the threat in 2013-14 (when Russia countered the Empire in Syria and Ukraine).

Similar excuses are made for both Obama and Trump. We are told that they were FORCED to succumb to Deep State scheming and political power. But a much more logical view is that these "populists" know exactly what they are doing: they know what their 'job' is to serve the establishment and act as the leader of the Deep State's political arm. In return they get financial gain, social standing, and life long protection. Sweet.

Obama 'turned the page' on the Bush Administration's warmongering. He promised a more peaceful USA. But he conducted covert wars and bragged of his drone targeting.

Trump 'turned the page' on Obama's deceitfulness. He promised to put 'America First' but within months attacked Syria with missiles "for the babies". Evidence that his first attack was prompted by a false flag didn't deter him from attacking AGAIN - also based on a false flag. Trump is still helping the Saudis in Yemen. And he's not doing what's necessary to get peace in Korea.

Obama promised 'transparency' ("Sunlight is the best disinfectant") but 'no drama' Obama protected CIA torturers, NSA spies, and bankers. Trump promised to "drain the swamp" but has welcomed oligarchs and neocons into his Administration.

How much sly BS do we have to see before people connect the dots? A real populist will NEVER be elected in USA unless there is a revolution; USA political elites are fully committed to a neoliberal economics that make society neofeudal, and a neoconservative-driven foreign policy that demands full spectrum dominance that brooks no opposition to its NWO goals.

Anyone who believes otherwise has drunk the Kool-Aid, an addictive, saccharine concoction, provided without charge and in abundance.

Glenn Brown | Jan 5, 2019 10:27:14 PM |

39@ 10 17

Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving US imperialism a pleasing face.

Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump.

Yes, their public rejection of Trump is partly motivated by the need to be able to claim that Trump is an aberration from all previous US Presidents, as opposed to Trump and his policies being just a particularly explicit continuation of the same underlying trends.

But I see no reason to doubt that the US elites really wish they had someone as President who was better at supplying the right propaganda and less obviously an incompetent fool. So I don't understand why you think the US oligarchy and deep state would have thought they needed someone like Trump, or would have greatly preferred him to Hillary Clinton.

[Jan 05, 2019] Are Trump's senior people going rogue?

Numerous MSM articles appear about Trump's standing up to the Generals: Mattis, Kelly, Dunford, etc. Yet Bolton feels free to conspire against the President's agenda? The narrative that Trump is fighting for his campaign promises, but allows Bolton and Pompeo to scheme against him does not make any sense.
A more realistic take is that rump is a faux populist. He is the Republican Obama - pretending to be a populist peacemaker while working for the establishment. The "populist hero" is a gimmick that reinforces people's belief in USA democracy and the righteousness of USA actions. The Trump/Deep-State conflict is a propaganda psy-op.
The major inconsistency here is why the Deep State is hell bent of deposing him. Is The Trump/Deep-State conflict is a propaganda psy-op? I do no not think so.
Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' as all right wing populists are: promises to the people while promoting the interests of the 1%. But there is a genuine struggle going on within the ruling class due to the crisis of neoliberal governance. The world is a complex place and Washington's influence is declining. No surprise that parts of the US elite that got used to "full spectrum dominance" are panicking. And it is all real.
Notable quotes:
"... "The president's statement offered the latest illustration of the dramatic gyrations that have characterized his foreign policy and fueled questions about whether his senior advisers are implementing his policies or pursuing their own agendas." ..."
"... Here we have the question asked, in effect: Are Trump's senior people going rogue? Does the master of spin Washington Post, by putting the question in a manner sympathetic to Trump and unsympathetic to Bolton and Pompeo, and by extension the hordes denouncing Trump's decision to reduce US involvement in Syria suggest a new orientation in the Mockingbird media? ..."
Jan 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Robert Snefjella , Jan 5, 2019 10:21:56 PM | link

The Washington Post article that b links to ("never signed off") has the headline " 'They can do what they want' Trump's Iran comments defy his top aids"

The "They" in the quote in the headline is a reference to Iran in Syria. "President Trump stuck a dagger in a major initiative advanced by his foreign policy team:
Iran's leaders, the president said, "can do what they want" in Syria.

With a stray remark, Trump snuffed out a plan from his national security adviser, John Bolton, who this fall vowed that the United States would not leave Syria
"as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders." Pompeo has of course also obsessed over Iran.

Now the next paragraph in the WP piece is I think quite remarkable: "The president's statement offered the latest illustration of the dramatic gyrations that have characterized his foreign policy and fueled questions about whether his senior advisers are implementing his policies or pursuing their own agendas."

Here we have the question asked, in effect: Are Trump's senior people going rogue? Does the master of spin Washington Post, by putting the question in a manner sympathetic to Trump and unsympathetic to Bolton and Pompeo, and by extension the hordes denouncing Trump's decision to reduce US involvement in Syria suggest a new orientation in the Mockingbird media?

Also note that acting Defense Sec Patrick Shanahan, who was injected immediately into his position when Trump gave Mattis the boot, is becoming part of the strategic scene.

From the NYT: "He is the brightest and smartest guy I worked with at Boeing," said Carolyn Corvi, a former executive at the company. "He has the ability to see over the horizon and {implement needed change]."

"Ana Mari Cauce, the president of University of Washington, worked with Mr. Shanahan .... She said his outsider perspective was helpful in questioning old practices, forcing people to look at problems in different ways."

[Jan 05, 2019] 'Operation Iris' more New documents tie Integrity Initiative to spin of Skripal affair

Notable quotes:
"... "Institute for Statecraft," ..."
"... "mainstream & social media analysis" ..."
"... "Operation Iris." ..."
"... "Russian trolls" ..."
"... "ban RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK." ..."
"... "threat Russia poses." ..."
"... "good sources of further information" ..."
"... "Makes you think " ..."
"... Like this story? Share it with a friend! ..."
Jan 05, 2019 | www.rt.com

Hackers who leaked documents from the Integrity Initiative, a shadowy outfit funded by the UK government, claim they show its connections to the March 2018 alleged poisoning attack in Salisbury and proposed actions against Russia. The Integrity Initiative (II) was set up in 2015 by the equally shadowy "Institute for Statecraft," according to the documents published online in November by hackers calling themselves a part of the Anonymous collective. While Anonymous has denied the group was behind the leak, the Institute confirmed the authenticity of the first batch of documents.

The hackers posted a fresh batch of documents purportedly from the Initiative and the Institute on Friday, hinting that both outfits had connections with Western media coverage of the March 2018 alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergey Skripal, and the actions against Russia taken subsequently by the UK government and its allies.

What role did #IntegrityInitiative play in the #Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow.... https://t.co/cH2gXItRy7 #SergeiSkripal #Disinformation #Propaganda #InformationWar

-- Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg) January 4, 2019

One of the documents is the confidential report by Harod Associates, a company hired by the Initiative to conduct "mainstream & social media analysis" of the Skripal scandal coverage. The entire undertaking was dubbed "Operation Iris."

Among those who found themselves named "Russian trolls" and Kremlin agents in the report were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa and a gentleman from Kent who goes by Ian56 on Twitter.

#IntegrityInitiative examples of Logical, Critical Thinking & Objective Analysis by yours truly Ian56. https://t.co/mwGEOUBjaX

They didn't even include my best ones and they didn't show the pic that went with each tweet.
I wonder why? #Skripal #Novichok #FalseFlag pic.twitter.com/Zq8W9iJshk

-- Ian56 (@Ian56789) January 4, 2019

Wanna see something funny? 🤣
"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and Petrovas GRU agents" - has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French yellow jackets. I kid you not. https://t.co/I3X4ypylAP

-- Ruslana Boshirova (@ValLisitsa) January 4, 2019

Another document , dated March 11, 2018, contains a "Narrative" of the Skripal incident, blaming Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally and containing a number of recommended actions, such as boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and block Russian access to SWIFT international banking system, but also to "ban RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK."

Other suggestions include propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicise what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion" (sic) and getting members of Parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses."

Also on rt.com Was 'Institute for Statecraft' behind Ofcom's targeting of RT? Sleuths point to yes

The document dump also contains the April 14, 2018 email from Andy Pryce, whom the hackers describe as "chief propaganda man" at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, containing the official government narrative of the Skripal affair and the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria. Pryce ends the email by recommending "good sources of further information" on alleged Russian propaganda, including the Atlantic Council's DFR Lab, Bellingcat and Stopfake.

Documents obtained and published by the hackers also show connections between Skripal's recruiter and neighbor Pablo Miller, the Institute for Statecraft, and the so-called rescue group White Helmets, created in militant-held areas of Syria by a former British official in 2013.

It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended #IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair. https://t.co/Xv29Uk9z3e

-- Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) January 4, 2019

There are also several invoices from Dan Kaszeta of the Institute for Statecraft, for articles he wrote as supposedly a chemical weapons expert advancing the Institute's narrative on both the Skripals and Syria.

EXPLOSIVE: @DanKaszeta of @Strongpoint_UK invoiced @InitIntegrity #IntegrityInitiative £2,276.80 in July 2018 during the #Skripal #Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & #PortonDown @RTUKproducer pic.twitter.com/V35PemrN9E

-- Fvnk (@WhatTheFvnk) January 4, 2019

The most intriguing, however, is a document from 2015 , in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot. One of the actions by the UK, US and several other NATO countries in the wake of claims that Russia used a nerve agent against Skripal was a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats.

Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents written long before the Salisbury events call for arrests of RT and Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding, "Makes you think "

So: #IntegrityInitiative funded by the British Govt called for the arrest of people like me like @afshinrattansi @JohnWight1 @NeilClark66 et al in the event of an "incident" like the #Skripal affair. Written incidentally before the #Salisbury events. Makes you think... @RT_com

-- George Galloway (@georgegalloway) January 4, 2019

Previously published documents have revealed the Initiative and the Institute as being involved in widespread propaganda operations targeting not only foreign countries and media outlets – as one might expect from someone doing the bidding of the Foreign Office – but also domestic political figures , such as Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

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[Jan 04, 2019] Veteran NBC-MSNBC Journalist Blasts Network in Resignation

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism, always embraced war. ..."
"... Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American media is the enemy of the people. ..."
"... That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. ..."
"... Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the "reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid. ..."
"... We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs! ..."
"... Democratic Party leadership has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within the rank and file. ..."
"... But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing,.... ..."
"... We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC "have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." ..."
"... The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy). ..."
"... It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html ..."
"... Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge and understanding have been all but banished. ..."
"... Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first, get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest Trump tweet, bla bla bla. ..."
"... Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial complex. ..."
"... And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me." Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here) sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker, as long as they get their daily ration of manna. ..."
"... What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word ..."
"... Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal." ..."
"... Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations. ..."
"... . . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. ..."
"... This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the march toward nuclear war with Russia. ..."
"... Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians. ..."
"... Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly from the MSM koolaid bowl. ..."
"... It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist' ..."
"... I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics ..."
"... State Department has become another branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the Cold War. ..."
Jan 04, 2019 | theintercept.com

Veteran NBC/MSNBC Journalist Blasts the Network for Being Captive to the National Security State and Reflexively Pro-War to Stop Trump

A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism.

As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."

The NBC/MSNBC reporter, William Arkin, is a longtime prominent war and military reporter, perhaps best known for his groundbreaking, three-part Washington Post series in 2010, co-reported with two-time Pulitzer winner Dana Priest, on how sprawling, unaccountable, and omnipotent the national security state has become in the post-9/11 era. When that three-part investigative series, titled "Top Secret America," was published, I hailed it as one of the most important pieces of reporting of the war on terror, because while "we chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization."

Arkin has worked with NBC and MSNBC over the years and continuously since 2016. But yesterday, he announced that he was leaving the network in a long, emphatic email denouncing the networks for their superficial and reactionary coverage of national security, for becoming fixated on trivial Trump outbursts of the day to chase profit and ratings, and -- most incriminating of all -- for becoming the central propaganda arm of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI in the name of #Resistance, thus inculcating an entire new generation of liberals, paying attention to politics for the first time in the Trump era, to "lionize" those agencies and their policies of imperialism and militarism.

That MSNBC and NBC have become Security State Central has been obvious for quite some time. The network consists of little more than former CIA, NSA, and Pentagon officials as news "analysts"; ex-Bush-Cheney national security and communications officials as hosts and commentators; and the most extremists pro-war neocons constantly bashing Trump (and critics of Democrats generally) from the right, using the Cheney-Rove playbook on which they built their careers to accuse Democratic Party critics and enemies of being insufficiently patriotic, traitors for America's official enemies , and abandoning America's hegemonic role in the world.

MSNBC's star national security reporter Ken Dilanian was widely mocked by media outlets for years for being an uncritical CIA stenographer before he became a beloved NBC/MSNBC reporter (where his mindless servitude to his CIA masters has produced some of the network's most humiliating debacles ). The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization, but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors .

Some of the most beloved and frequently featured MSNBC commentators are the most bloodthirsty pro-war militarists from the war on terror: David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, Ralph Peters, and Bill Kristol (who was just giddily and affectionately celebrated with a playful nickname bestowed on him: "Lil Bill"). In early 2018, NBC hired former CIA chief John Brennan to serve as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst," where the rendition and torture advocate joined -- as Politico's Jack Shafer noted -- a long litany of former security state officials at the network, including "Chuck Rosenberg, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III; Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of FBI counterintelligence; Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser under Bush."

As Shafer noted, filling your news and analyst slots with former security state officials as MSNBC and NBC have done is tantamount to becoming state TV, since "their first loyalty -- and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail." As he put it: "Imagine a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin to appreciate the current peculiarities."

All of this led Arkin to publish a remarkable denunciation of NBC and MSNBC in the form of an email he sent to various outlets, including The Intercept. Its key passages are scathing and unflinching in their depiction of those networks as pro-war propaganda outlets that exist to do little more than amplify and serve the security state agencies most devoted to opposing Trump, including their mindless opposition to Trump's attempts (with whatever motives) to roll back some of the excesses of imperialism, aggression, and U.S. involvement in endless war, as well as to sacrifice all journalistic standards and skepticism about generals and the U.S war machine if doing so advances their monomaniacal mission of denouncing Trump. As Arkin wrote (emphasis added):

My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus.

To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested . Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.

Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play.

I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars.

In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.

For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?

That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-patriotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. These toxins will endure far beyond Trump, particularly given the now full-scale unity between the Democratic establishment and neocons .


photosymbiosis1 hour ago

Just remembered something about Arkin. This book: Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World January 25, 2005 by William M. Arkin https://books.google.com/books/about/Code_Names.html?id=KXLfAAAAMAAJ In particular there was this one exercise called Vigilant Guardian, run by NORAD, simulating terrorist attacks by hijackers which, curiously enough, happened to be in operation on the very day the Saudi hijackers were actually conducting such attacks:

NORAD's next Vigilant Guardian exercise, in 2001, will actually be several days underway on 9/11 (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). It will include a number of scenarios based around plane hijackings, with the fictitious hijackers targeting New York in at least one of those scenarios (see September 6, 2001, September 9, 2001, September 10, 2001, and (9:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 2004; VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006]

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=vigilant_guardian However, what's interesting from Arkin's book, as I recall, is that this operation name was then reused in Afghanistan (a very rare practice, apparently, to reuse an operation name, but perhaps if you wanted to hide the original program, etc...), in 2003 or so - here's a NYT article about Vigilant Guardian in Afghanistan: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/magazine/where-the-enemy-is-everywhere-and-nowhere.html It's just one of many stories that makes one wonder exactly how much pre-warning the Bush Administration had about the 9/11 attacks, and whether there was a deliberate decision to allow the hijackers to seize control of the planes without any interference. It did save the Bush presidency, it did open the door to the Iraq invasion, and the Saudi intelligence services were involved with helping the hijackers. All very suspicious, really. Point being, Arkin's book is one of the few sources that lay out all those covert/overt program names, and is a real treasure for anyone interested in the history of that era.

bobhope1: 2 hours ago

This has been clearly obvious for several years. Goebbels would be proud.

Dysnomia 3 hours ago

If there were some kind of political realignment (similar to the realignment that took place in the 60s and 70s where racist white Democrats became racist white Republicans) where neoconservatives and warmongers become Democrats, and the Republican Party becomes the party of, surely not peace, but at least moderation in foreign military intervention, that might not be too bad, or at least not too much worse than the earlier post-9/11 status quo.

But I'm afraid this shift in discourse heralds something worse than that. So-called "liberal" media's embrace of neoconservatism and imperialism is likely to have the effect of narrowing the Overton window on issues of war and peace, making genuine anti-war positions even more unthinkable and beyond the pale. There will increasingly be no place for public anti-war discourse.

The single greatest threat to human freedom in the world today is the U.S. national security state. Inculcating public reverence for the state is perhaps the most dangerous thing that a media organization could do.

open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago

Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism, always embraced war.

... ... ...

Tom_Collins 2 hours ago ( Edited )

...America as the single biggest threat to world peace, right? https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/07/polls-us-greatest-threat-to-peace-world-today.html

AtheistInChief 3 hours ago

Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American media is the enemy of the people.

Lawrence_Hill 4 hours ago ( Edited )

Do we remember way back in the 80's/Reagan admin war involvement in the El Salvador civil war when NBC anchor Tom Brokaw openly questioned the US's support for death squad leader D' Auboissan's terror regime on the air? Shocking! A Walter Cronkite-Vietnam War moment Brokaw supposed, maybe?

I remember that in all the hullabaloo that followed one of our ruling class commented that Brokaw was being $5 million a year not to say such subversive things. Lesson learned, Brokaw nor any other gainfully employed MSM tool has made the same mistake again, and now Brokaw has emeritus status in the NBC "News" hierarchy.

That comment opened my eyes for the first time to the reality of American MSM...

Michael_Wilk 4 hours ago
That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing.

I have to take issue with your use of the word 'formerly' in describing Cold War values. They are still very much right-wing. They never stopped being right-wing, nor did the current and former government and security state apparatchiks polluting the airwaves with their lies.

TimN 5 hours ago

The neo-con and neo-lib argument against this unfortunate reveal of things present, and things to come: "But Trump! Trump!" I didn't think I'd see things unravel so quickly, but Goddamn. Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the "reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid.

haugeneder 6 hours ago

Great piece. America is on the precipice and there are few who care -- very few. Time for an great economic depression -- not recession -- to shift the ground or open it to swallow us whole.

Tlaloc 7 hours ago

Interesting that we might be seeing a shift on both parties, the republicans finally embracing their libertarian side (long being a part of the republican party) and the neocons trying to find a new home on the democratic party. I wonder where the progressive side of the DNC will go, they might be the ones pushed out of any national party :(

Art 6 hours ago
[...] the progressive side of the DNC [...] might be the ones pushed out of any national party

Fuck that! They're headed for permanent electoral failure on every occasion they put forward neocons on any ballot. We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs!

Dysnomia 3 hours ago

Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that we'll see a shift only on the Democratic side. Democratic Party leadership has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within the rank and file. The narrowing of the Overton window we're seeing will make such resistance increasingly beyond the pale.

But I don't think the Republican Party, in terms of leadership or rank and file, will become more "libertarian" (in the American sense of that word) or less pro-war. I think there's likely to be greater consensus among the political class in favor of U.S. imperialism generally, and Trump, to the extent he occasionally makes moves in the opposite direction, is a convenient foil to bring that about.

johnanderson 7 hours ago ( Edited )

There is no "means test" for the empire military spending supports energy supplies supports international banking supports global corporatism but the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing, and social security cutbacks because they are playing the same elite economic game against the majority true the democratic leadership has a better stance on abortion and a generally more rainbow-flavored social agenda. Because they want this stuff for their own social class however economic policy will be at our expense ... just watch Pelosi and Company

open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago
But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing,....

Those costs rise for one reason...

Mona 7 hours ago

...And here's Joe Biden: ""Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code, what was the first thing we have to go after, Social Security and Medicare. Now we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare. It's the only way to find room to pay for it." Biden is after means testing and other "adjustments" slashing SS, as endorsed by his pal. Paul Ryan. (This is called Republican Lite.)

And then there's Nancy Pelosi with her neoliberal austerity economics; her budget rules that would preemptively block a #GreenNewDeal & #MedicareForAll : https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/nancy-pelosi-pay-go-rule/

trailgrub 7 hours ago ( Edited )

Thanks for publishing this story, Glenn, and putting your perspective on it. We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC "have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." Before Comcast purchased them, General Electric owned these networks for many years. The public's interests are the last thing on their minds when they do "news reporting."

Have you watched when MSNBC's "prime time" talk shows are doing live sports-like camera angles, moves, and shots in their studio, trying to make it look all-the-more sensational on your TV screen? I mean, they're doing these intricate camera shots, rapid switching between cameras, zooming, panning, trying to make it look like a high-production-value shoot, and it looks like they've hired some live sports producers and technical directors to make this pathetic illusion on the air. All this shit for talking heads. Rotf-lmao.

What's next? Slow-motion HDTV instant replays of Rachel Maddow, utilizing zoomed-in camera shots of her mouth, when she's spraying spittle into her guests' faces? That's what happens when she launches into her infamous hissy fits.

The round table MSNBC uses in their cheap studio is only 4 feet in diameter. In other words, they're shooting these live action shots of people talking around an itty-bitty little table, and they're doing all this intricate camera work with approximately 8 cameras to make it look 'sensational', action-packed, and thrilling. Instead, it's extremely ugly, stupid, idiotic, disgusting, and ridiculous. It's not sensational. It's a disgusting cocktail of vomit, puss, and diarrhea.

I need reliable sources of news and weather so I can live my life sustainably with dignity while I maintain my values. My pride and dignity are invaluable to me. All these a-holes are doing for me is raising my blood pressure and pissing me off. That's why I read The Intercept. I'd like to have the option to just sit back and watch TI's reporting on a news channel someday SOON, if possible.

Again, what's our msm network news alternatives, besides Fox news, and why are they so pathetic? CBS news: Les Moonves in particular has cheered the Trump phenomenon, telling investors in 2016 that the Trump campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." -- https://theintercept.com/2017/02/24/cbs-fcc-trump/ -- Moonves got fired and lost his pension -- The longtime chairman-CEO was forced out Sept. 9, 2018 amid a cascade of sexual assault and misconduct allegations. "The CBS board of directors has denied former chairman-CEO Leslie Moonves any of the $120 million severance he was due under his employment contract after conducting a five-month internal probe of his conduct and the corporate culture at CBS Corp." -- https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-ent-les-moonves-denied-severance-20181217-story.html ABC news: Who owns ABC? Walt Disney bought ABC 22 years ago. Exactly, we're in Disneyland.

photosymbiosis 8 hours ago ( Edited )

Some basic facts:

The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy).

It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html
"CENTRAL THESIS, BASED ON BELIEF THAT THERE IS NO EARLY PROSPECT OF BREAKING OIL CARTEL, IS THAT WE SHOULD SEEK EARLY DIALOGUE WITH PRODUCERS TO WORK OUT ARRANGEMENTS WITH ALL OR SOME OF THEM TO (A) INDEX PRICE OF OIL AND (B) BRING THEM INTO RECYCLING MECHANISM IN ORDER TO SHARE THE RISK. SECOND PAPER LARGELY DUPLICATES FIRST, THOUGH IT DOES ADD SOME STRESS ON LONGER RANGE PROBLEM OF MASSIVE SURPLUS OF OPEC COUNTRIES, ESTIMATED AT $400 BILLION BY 1980, FOR WHICH NO SOLUTION IS PROPOSED OTHER THAN NEW INTERNATIONAL RECYCLING AGENCY PROPOSED IN BOTH PAPERS."

One key point is that the proponents of this scheme in the United States, be they Democrats or Republicans, have zero interest in replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar and battery storage. That would sour the whole deal; nobody would buy Saudi oil. Of course the Russkies, the stated enemy, don't want to see Europe go 100% renewable either, any more than the Clinton-Bush-Obama-Trump Administrations did. The Russia-US conflict is mostly over who gets to sell gas to Europe, and neither dealer wants the addict to kick the habit, right?

This is a very consistent policy, year-to-year.

Now, why can't the corporate media honestly discuss this? Because they are the corporate establishment's propaganda monkeys, little more, regardless of whether they work at MSNBC or at FOX.

Oh, and this is why #Resist Trump is so nonsensical, when those supporting that them want to install a Joe Biden or Kamela Harris, who would continue right on with this status quo, i.e. blocking the development of renewable energy and continuing the idiotic military entanglements in the Middle East.

Fred_Cowan 8 hours ago

Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge and understanding have been all but banished.

Mona 8 hours ago

@Tom Collins & Art

"Yeah one wonders if [Snowden's] cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks"

No need to wonder! Snowden made clear -- explicitly stated-- he wanted Greenwald and Poitras, and not Wikileaks. He deeply desired journalists to exercise judgment over what should be released to the public and did not want a data dump.

Further, he insisted on outing himself , and did so several days after the first document was published. At his behest, Poitras videotaped a 20-minute video of him taking responsibility, which was then posted at The Guardian. He did this, among other reasons, to spare his co-workers from suspicion and investigation.

Mona 1 hour ago

Citizen 4 won the Oscar for best documentary in 2013 or '14. It's all Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, and other real players.

DC_Reade 8 hours ago

If the only way someone can manage to frame any of these issues is as "Fox vs. MSNBC" or "Trump Corruption vs. Washington Establishment Defenders of Democracy", they've assented to a two-valued action-reaction Pavlovian conditioned response loop.

No way should that be confused with a process of independent thought.

Unsurprisingly, I don't read one mention in the above post to any of the specifics of the content in Glenn Greenwald's remarks, or to any of the observations made by Arkin in his email resignation.

You're too busy fitting everyone with Team Jerseys tailored to your preconceived ideas.

Mona 6 hours ago

"This article does not inform."

Oh, it does lots of informing, you just don't like what it informs us of, to wit, the first paragraph:

A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism . As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."

Any substantive response, Milton?

MiltonWiltmellow 6 hours ago ( Edited )
Any substantive response, Milton?

As always, Mr. Greenwald's description is hyperbolic and bordering on unhinged. As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. You should too. It seemed more like a Montaigne Essaiy or a reflective note for posterity than a thundering repudiation of MSNBC.

Mr. Greenwald turns it into a typical Greenwald crie du guerre™ against the evil Deep State (a term which he appears to have mercifully discarded. Too Foxy I suppose.) Here's his problem. Crying "wolf" only works for awhile. Eventually it becomes part of the information flood drowning everyone. Any bit of flotsam is as good as another.

Tom_Collins 5 hours ago

What's your point again? Do you even know?

DC_Reade 4 hours ago ( Edited )

Excerpts from Arkin's email:

"Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs. the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops and number of deaths, and even then Obama vs. the Congress, poor Obama who couldn't close Guantanamo or reduce nuclear weapons or stand up to Putin because it was just so difficult. We have contributed to turning the world of national security into this sort of political story. I find it disheartening that we do not report the failures of the generals and national security leaders. I find it shocking that we essentially condone continued American bumbling in the Middle East and now Africa through our ho-hum reporting..."

"...I argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years, doing the daily blah, blah, blah in Secaucus, but also poking at the conventional wisdom of everyone from Matthews to Hockenberry. And yet I feel like I've failed to convey this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system..."

"...For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?..."

https://medium.com/@ggreenwald/full-email-from-william-arkin-leaving-nbc-and-msnbc-1fb0d1dc692b

Yes, William Arkin does go on to be gracious and complimentary of some of his (former) colleagues at NBC. Arkin mantains his professional composure. His critique of the focus and practices of NBC/MSNBC News is tempered and reasoned. But the critique is scathing, nonetheless.

Tom_Collins 4 hours ago ( Edited )

You are missing Milton's point altogether. Like "Craig Summers", MW expects that his word alone is enough to dismiss the editorial/investigative/analytical work put in by Greenwald, Arkin or anyone else on the topics considered most important by the U.S. State Department.

When MW or CS weigh in on these things to dismiss or diminish these stories/opinions/facts with the wave of a hand or incorrect reading (and absolutely nothing of substance), we are supposed to defer to them respectfully and re-consider the respect we have developed for the professionalism, dedication and personal/career risks taken on by the people who bring us these stories that are inconvenient to the establishment government and media actors.

Mona 3 hours ago

"As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. "

Cool, Milton, and what are your substantive comments on this part:

My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous. Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play. I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars. In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?
OftenWrongSeldomInDoubt 9 hours ago

This is SO validating to read! Surely no other ruler in history with a cute butt and polite voice ordered killings in 56 countries in one year. I want someone to discuss this without accusing me of being pro-Rump. I guess, the Rachel Maddows of the world cannot criticize Hillary/Obama for expanding every awful thing for which the good people of the world hated Bush.

There are two giant problems in the world today-
1. the scale of people who lost their homes and countries because of the good guy's wars and
2. climate change which the good guy's 27,600 odd bombs of 2016 might or might not have exacerbated. After all, each bomb costs upward of $10,000,000. Who is measuring the greenhouse gases released by them?

The media needs to be equally adversarial to 'liberal' governments as they are to 'conservative' ones, so that majority parties cannot take credit for granting me bathroom and bedroom permissions that are surely my personal domain! The media must shed light on whether it is bad to tell 'aliens' not to cross a border or it is bad to win a Nobel Peace prize before raining bombs on brown people in other countries, never separating children from families, when blowing up ten civilians for every 'target' we extra-judicially decided to label as militant.

So thank you for this article!!

bluecurl3 9 hours ago

Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first, get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest Trump tweet, bla bla bla.

Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial complex. Now, lots of Americans have skin in the game, as long as the lobbyists, politicians, government and the military can provide a pipeline of endless wars and conflicts. Of course, in order to provide and maintain the patina of morality and righteousness, a subservient and corporate controlled media is vital.

And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me." Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here) sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker, as long as they get their daily ration of manna.

Xavi 8 hours ago

Orwellian times.

firstpersoninfinite 9 hours ago

No, it's not rocket science. Otherwise you couldn't have proven Greenwald's point with your own views about "supporting" the security state so easily. You missed the entire point of the article, which is that the neocons and the neoliberals support the same cast of nefarious personalities that got us into the Middle East, over and over again. Why is NBC/MSNBC normalizing right-wing radicalism? Because they've joined hands with neocons and neoliberals to support the military/industrial complex. Your argument is akin to someone claiming that their Communion wafer is more holy than anyone else's because it has the Pope's imprint on it.

firstpersoninfinite 8 hours ago

Neocons, like Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol's father, were leftists in the 1930's. It's not a difficult term to come to terms with, historically. I don't wonder why anyone questions what Trump is doing. I never said such a thing.

What Trump has done during his first two years in office has not been questioned by the mainstream press at all. Only the imbecile tweets and the gaffes are of any interest to the citizens of such a redoubtable empire as our own. A friend of mine who fights anti-wolf and anti-bear laws in Montana, laws sent down by the Trump administration, says that these are the same laws they fought during 8 years of Obama. The mainstream of both parties are the two sides of the same coin. So I agree with the "role reversal."

Dysnomia 2 hours ago

I think the problem is not that supporting the "deep state" is becoming a convenient excuse to oppose Trump, but that opposing Trump is becoming a convenient excuse to support the deep state.

DC_Reade 10 hours ago

Bravo, William Arkin. I only wish that you could have found some way for you to resign on the air in the middle of a broadcast. (I've been wishing such a scenario for decades. Preferably featuring one or more news anchors.)

Incredible that the USA has spent trillions of dollars in a game of whack-a-mole that's been extended over the entire globe with no time limitations, occasionally interspersed with declarations of surprise that the nation faces more emergent terror threats than ever. We spend more money on the military and warfare than we spent during the Cold War. And all that was required to trigger this spiral into perpetual militarism was a single special operation carried out 17 years ago by a small team of not-particularly-elite commandos who hijacked four airliners, thereby obtaining the one-time ability to repurpose three of them into cruise missiles.

By now, it should be no surprise that other large nations have taken notice of the American assumption of entitlement to police the world and begun their own rearmament campaigns. Also worth noting that the focus on the Terror Threat has served as the rationale for massive investment in a level of surveillance technology that's unknown in human history. As for the norms and values that international law was supposedly intended to provide for governments everywhere, all of that went out the window in 2003, with the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the Benevolent Hegemon Hyperpower. American scolding of other nations for their armed territorial incursions and imperial designs has rung awfully hollow, ever since.

The emphasis on massive military escalation to deal with terrorism outbreaks is reminiscent of the War on Drugs- which, it should be noted, also remains largely in effect, notwithstanding occasional feints toward de-escalation. And we all know what the War on Drugs did in terms of empowering the criminal elite that it was supposed to eliminate.

What's that all about? The leaders of this country- and for that matter, the supposed leaders of the rest of the world- aren't leading. To me, almost all of them look like they're running from something: they're running from fossil fuels addiction and its toxic blowback, looming climate catastrophe, natural resource depletion, maldistribution of wealth and neglect of the commons.

photosymbiosis 11 hours ago

What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word:

Comcast, a large cable operator, completed its purchase of a majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric in January 2011. The cable giant bought the rest of NBCUniversal in February 2013. NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC, as well as NBC, Bravo, USA and other channels.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-asks-who-owns-msnbc_us_572e3d0fe4b0bc9cb0471df1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CMCSA/holders/

Comcast major holders, $US:

  • Vanguard Group, Inc. 10,965,964,846
  • Blackrock Inc. 10,179,872,652
  • State Street Corporation 5,785,488,229
  • Capital World Investors 5,427,547,692
  • Massachusetts Financial Services Co. 4,787,803,825

Lockheed Martin major holders, $US:

  • State Street Corporation 13,394,660,471 Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 6,210,096,924
  • Capital World Investors 5,098,130,465
  • Blackrock Inc. 5,084,573,828
  • Bank of America Corporation 2,826,426,091

ExxonMobil major holders, $US:

  • Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 26,661,034,588
  • Blackrock Inc. 21,669,998,686
  • State Street Corporation 16,964,902,104
  • Northern Trust Corporation 4,566,789,988
  • Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation 4,420,622,076

It pretty obvious once you look at the value of an outfit like Blackrock's investments in media, arms, and oil - they don't want any stories told on MSNBC that would threaten the profit margins of Exxon, Lockheed or Comcast.

The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legisation which would require the likes of Comcast, TimeWarner(CNN) and NewsCorp(FOX) to divest their media holdings, creating dozens of independently owned outfits not beholden to some corporate master who won't let them discuss important topics like, say NAFTA....

Benito_Mussolini 10 hours ago
The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legislation

Hopefully, MSNBC will be smart enough to provide a friendly platform for ex-government officials. It means a great deal to government officials to know their influence, public visibility (and associated appearance fees) will continue into their retirement. I don't watch MSNBC, so I don't know if they have implemented this strategy, but the pictures in the article seem encouraging.

johnnyred 11 hours ago

War is touted exclusively by those who've never experienced it. Get rid of the generals, put in some infantry casualties, those who've lost a limb or two.
Then we can have some informed comment.

Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours ago

Meanwhile, over at The Guardian, "In these critical times..." their "editorial independence" is in sincere need of your donation. They're just 80K away from their million dollar goal! Pardon me while I retch. Julian Assange is still being robbed of his freedom. In these critical times indeed. Thank you Glenn.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

The Guardian can get its funding from the organizations for whom they carry water. Not a damn cent from me. After they caved in on the Snowden files, I was done with them for good.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/04/surreal-moment-guardian-destroyed-snowden-files

Yeah one wonders if his cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks, but I think they were onto him anyway. Ultimately the information got out, and media orgs like The Guardian were exposed for their fealty to the national security state(s).

Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours ago

Speaking of leaks, whenever I hear "water carrier," this inevitably comes to mind https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JGfXiIXTpE0

Orville 6 hours ago

Cryptome wouldn't have censored the releases, as WikiLeaks has. Still WikiLeaks continues to be one of the world's premier journalistic outlets.

MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago

Was anyone else surprised by how long it took them to get to a million? I've seen Kickstarters for video games that got to a million faster. The slow pace of the fundraising seemed like a rebuke. I was hoping they'd never hit a million.

And I say all of that as someone who has recurring donations set up for about a dozen podcasts and blogs. The nonprofit/fundraiser model is the way to go, but I also think that publicly owned media outlets, or privately owned but public-interest-minded news organizations, while editorially independent, can't be totally contemptuous of their reader/donors.

I would never donate to the Guardian for a million reasons, but to pick just one: they have played the lead role in smearing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as dangerous radicals and anti-Semites.

And I would never donate to The Intercept, for instance, because of the crucial role it has played in promoting Russiagate and amplifying voices like Mattathias Schwartz's. (I'll never stop reminding people that Schwartz non-jokingly advocated here for what would essentially be a coup -- Obama "putting a hold on the transfer of power" -- after the most recent presidential election. The Intercept published that. Amazing.) And the face of the Intercept, arguably, is no longer Greenwald but Mehdi Hasan, who publishes rank propaganda smearing peace activists as "Bashar al-Assad Apologists" who revere human rights abusers as "heroes." (Again: the Intercept published that. Amazing.)

My favorite line from that Arkin email is the one about the tension between worship of "officialdom" and respect for "public yearnings." To political elites and reporters (including the experts at the Intercept who spent a week running PR for Nancy Pelosi's speaker bid, and who constantly write off the 2016 election as a consequence either of sinister foreign interference or of the squalid bigotry, stupidity and ugliness of non-coastal Americans), officialdom always wins, and "public yearnings" are just the bleatings of deplorables.

If Glenn's excellent reporting was removed from this site, The Intercept would be as deserving of Arkin's critique as NBC and the Guardian are.

tigertiger 8 hours ago

They didn't hit their million, which they wanted before the end of the year, but they're still begging. Not for lack of trying, that 'give us money!' pop up has to be about the loudest, most intrusive of it's kind I've ever seen.

And yes, TI is only marginally less repulsive (thanks to Glenn, Lee Fang, and Jon Schwartz). It amazes me that an outlet owned by a bajillionaire constantly begs for money. I guess they think it makes them more 'populist' or something- 'look, the peons are sacrificing their pennies to help us!'.

TravisTea 11 hours ago

As an American author (and journalist) once wrote:

"Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the 'universal brotherhood of man' -- with his mouth."

-- Mark Twain, Man's Place in the Animal World (1896)

P.S. As always, thank you very much, Mr. Greenwald (and thank you, Mr. Arkin).

Carlaly 11 hours ago

Just vindicates what you have been saying all along. Although I expect the denialists will dismiss Arkin as some anti-American, anti-troop stooge of Putin.

Mona 11 hours ago

"The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization, but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors."

She's just coming home. Liberals have long been dominated by hawks (after all, Vietnam was a Democrats' war, albeit Nixon/Kissinger took the war crimes up to 11.)

Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal."

Which leads to yet another element of Ms. Maddow's portfolio: the daughter of an Air Force captain who served stateside during the Vietnam War, she is an admitted defense-policy wonk. "I'm a national security liberal, which I tell people because it's meant to sound absurd," she said. "I'm all about counterterrorism. I'm all about the G.I. Bill."

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/arts/television/17madd.html

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

Madcow would like nothing more than to see open war with Russia.

brer_rabbit 11 hours ago ( Edited )

maddcow . . my laugh of the day.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

It's a common refrain in far-right reaches of the Internet. I almost felt bad for saying it, but that's what she's become on the topic of Russia.

brer_rabbit 11 hours ago

Yes, whenever is see her, or Anderson Cooper, or any of these guys for that matter (which is rare . . usually for a few minutes to catch a glimpse of the latest environmental disaster, mass shooting, or whatever) my first thought always goes to question the kind of upbringing that could have produced such vapid people, who enthusiastically shame themselves on a daily basis for money. What must they think of their audience?

open_hearted_jade 11 hours ago

Maddow is less respected by an awakening public -- therefore she must be a conservative right winger. Didn't you learn anything after 1945?

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

You've made made totally missing the point into a trolling form of art. Bravo.

endlesswar 11 hours ago

Attacking an extreme right wing president from the right, while lauding unrepentant war criminals like Bush and McCain. Just about sums up what it means to be a liberal in this day and age.

PatrickShaw 6 hours ago

MSNBC and their national security contributors do not speak for liberals. They never invite liberal voices on who are anti-war/pro diplomacy.

xochtl 12 hours ago
Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations.

perfect summary

brer_rabbit 12 hours ago ( Edited )
. . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.

bingo

clawhammerjake 13 hours ago

War is a business decision.

Steeeve 13 hours ago ( Edited )

I've been consistently surprised that anyone is still watching these things. Personally, I've already divested from special-interest funded media outlets and the DNC for that matter. It's always interesting when I run across someone parrotting their viewpoints though.

TheManj 13 hours ago ( Edited )

The greatest scam of the millennium, after cruptocurrency, was the use of Trump Derangement Syndrome to pervert "progressives" into acolytes of the security establishment.

pedinska2 13 hours ago

Actually, TDS wasn't used in the original perversion so much as it was used as the cement to keep it firmly in place.

I lay blame for much of the greatest scam of the millenium on Obama with his drone policies, expansion of our involvement in the ME, retention of the same Smartest Guys in the Room who tanked our economy and wholesale conversion of liberals into acceptance of further erosion of our Constitutional rights with his warm embrace of the same criminals running the security state when torture became de rigueur. He was just so darn pretty and eloquent they had no choice but to believe all the lies dripping from those sexy lips. And have you seen Michelle's arms???!? /s

Benito_Mussolini 13 hours ago

To herd people, it's more effective to use both the carrot (Obama) and the stick (TDS). The fact that progressives needed to be herded is a testament to their numbers and success.

Erelis 13 hours ago

This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the march toward nuclear war with Russia. Every day, step by step, brick by brick, they are laying the foundation for the justification of war--in fact, for needing and demanding war, almost any war, but more particularly with Russia. Let's remember that when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, 72% of Americans supported it to according to Gallup. That didn't happen overnight with some big propaganda event.

bluecurl3 4 hours ago

Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians. I'm all for pulling our troops out of Syria, but mark my word, Bibi and his zionist war-hawks will seize the opportunity to bomb the hell out of Syria, and use it as a pretext to launch attacks against Iran.

Mike5000 13 hours ago

Maddow is not really pro-war or anti-war. She is just pro whatever Clinton and Pelosi happen to be pushing this week. It's a shame. She's a good presenter but hopelessly biased.

PresumptuousInsect 13 hours ago

I think she is more enthralled to the people who are paying her.

Erelis 13 hours ago

Maddows rhetoric and reporting is pro-war regardless of her motivations. She uses the language of aggression and conspiracy and accusation in describing the Russians and other Americans such as Jill Stein. She without exception imputes malevolent motives on "the enemy" which is Russia leading to a truly a bizarre clip telling Americans in somber and concerned tones that Russia and N. Korea share a border. The conspiracy has been exposed.

Bill_Owen 10 hours ago

What is it, exactly, about Hillary Clinton that enthralls Rachel Maddow so much that she now pretty much spends her days building a case (in-the-sky) for war on Russia? Seems pathological somehow.

MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago

Look at how her ratings and salary have been affected by her transformation. She's gone from "cable news anchor" to "superstar." The Russiagate scam has also given dozens of mediocrities like Seth Abramson a chance to be noticed and to feel important. Even the writers on the Intercept's "intelligence" beat have been doing some sort of Tom Clancy cosplay for the last two years. It's profitable and fun to be one of these people, as long as you don't have a nagging sense of shame.

William 13 hours ago

Indeed, none of this is new. I read Norman Solomon's and Martin Lee's UNRELIABLE SOURCES: A GUIDE TO DETECTING BIAS IN NEWS MEDIA back when I was in college in the late 80s and they cite General Electric's ownership of NBC (before there was an "MSNBC") uncritically:

General Electric's Influence on NBC GE is by no means a hands off owner of NBC. Lee and Solomon in their book Unreliable Sources have detailed how GE insisted on the removal of references to itself in an NBC programme on substandard products. They also point out that NBC journalists have not been particularly keen to expose GE's environmental record and that TV commercials by a group called INFACT, urging a boycott of GE products, were banned by NBC as well as other television stations. NBC did however briefly report GE's indictment for cheating the Department of Defense which was reported more extensively in other media outlets. (Lee and Solomon 1990, pp. 77-81) Former NBC News Chief, Lawrence Grossman, claims that the head of GE, Jack Welch made it clear to him that he worked for GE and told him not to use terms such as 'Black Monday' to describe the stock market crash in 1987 because it depressed share prices such as GE's (Cited in Naureckas 1995). Todd Putnam, editor of National Boycott News, tells of how he was approached by the NBC's Today Show to do an interview about consumer boycotts. Their biggest boycott at the time was against General Electric and its nuclear defense contracts but the show wouldn't let him talk about that and was reluctant to have him mention boycotts against any large corporation preferring him to talk about "a boycott that was 'small,' 'local' and 'sexy'." (1991) Mark Gunther writing in American Journalism Review claims that references to General Electric's use of the bolts in an NBC Today Show on defective bolts in planes, bridges and nuclear plants, were edited out and only mentioned in a follow-up segment after criticism of the omission (1995, p. 40). In 1990 NBC Nightly News ran 14 minutes of coverage over three days of a breast cancer detection machine produced by GE, without mentioning that it was made by NBC's owners. The other two major television networks didn't bother to cover it at all. (FAIR 1991) Helen Caldicott who had been featured on the Today Show previously found that when she wrote her book If You Love This Planet, which used GE as a case study of an environmentally damaging company, her scheduled appearance was mysteriously cancelled (Anon. 1992). In 1987, one year after GE took over NBC, NBC broadcast a special documentary promoting nuclear power using France as a model. The promotion for the programme proclaimed that "French townspeople welcome each new reactor with open arms". The documentary won a Westinghouse sponsored prize for science journalism. (Westinghouse Electric Company also builds nuclear power stations.) Shortly after the documentary was screened, when there were a couple of accidents at French power stations and there was significant opposition to nuclear power amongst the French population (polls showed about one third opposed it), NBC did not report the story although some US newspapers did. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 78) Karl Grossman documents in Extra! (1993) how the programme What Happened? broadcast on NBC in 1993 gave a one sided account of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and its aftermath. It showed local resident Debbie Baker saying that she was not as afraid of the nuclear plant as she used to be. However, according to Grossman, Baker, whose son was born with Down's syndrome 9 months after the accident and who has received $1.1 million in a settlement arising from the accident, was shocked at how the programme had been edited to imply her acceptance of the plant. She said she was still extremely uncomfortable with the plant and that what she had said was she felt safer since her groups set up a network of radiation monitors around the plant. Neither Baker's settlement nor the 200 or so others "made to families who have suffered injury, birth defects and death because of the 1979 accident" were mentioned. Instead a nuclear power industry expert was featured who said the plant's back-up safety systems worked successfully. When EXTRA! pointed out that no scientists critical of nuclear power appeared in the program, Jaffe [executive producer of the show] responded, 'That is correct. Maybe there is some misunderstanding. That show is not a journalistic show but an entertainment show to look into and to find out the reason and cause of various accidents and incidents.' (Grossman 1993, p. 6) NBC has not been alone in putting a positive spin on the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. On the tenth anniversary of the accident, the New York Times ran an anniversary article opposite the editorial page headlined "Three Mile Island: The Good News" which argued that the accident had been good for the nuclear power industry prompting better management and emergency planning. The paper did not report the fact that 2000 residents living near the plant had filed claims for cancer and other health problems they blamed on the accident, nor the 280 personal-injury settlements paid out to such claimants, nor the unusual clusters of leukemia, birth defects and hypothyroidism around the plant. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 210) This was not the first time Times reporting had fitted with General Electric's views. In 1986 the Times reported on the use of humans as subjects in tritium absorption experiments. Tritium is routinely handled by nuclear power plant workers. An early edition of the paper said: "The tritium study was financed by the Atomic Energy Commission and conducted by the General Electric Company at Richland, which abuts the Hanford [nuclear weapons] reservation." In the late edition the sentence ended after Commission and no longer named General Electric. (Tenenbaum 1990)

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

Sure, but the question then becomes: Why didn't the corporate networks and newspapers with whom NBC competed point these things out?

Art 11 hours ago

That's what my father always said about media - that it was self-correcting. But he was wrong. They're all influenced by the same thing, namely the ultra-rich and their money.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

But wouldn't another network stand to gain more clout from the ultra-rich, corporations, and their money from NBC's losing viewers/ratings due to exposure for their corrupt unwillingness to report negatively on their parent corporation's actions?

Art 11 hours ago

They share a huge fraction of investors, that's the problem.

Midwest 14 hours ago

Nothing has changed except that there is an outsider independent president. NBC was just as bad 20 years ago.

TheManj 13 hours ago

Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly from the MSM koolaid bowl.

Phil 14 hours ago

William Arkin is right on point with his email to MSNBC, especially when he says:

"And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. "

In that same vein I have problems with MSNBC et al also covering the farewell speeches of outgoing Senators and Representatives which are full of warnings as to how the current system is "broken" [Paul Ryan, ClaireMcCaskill, Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake, among many] and not calling them out.

It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist's.

Orrin Hatch was a Senator for 42 years but last week he woke up one morning to find the Senate needs fixing? Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House and fiercely defended Trump but now as he leaves he's suddenly discovers that things aren't right in Washington? And what about all those who are still in office now – where are their warnings and concern? The answer is it's difficult to talk while you're in office stuffing your mouths at the trough.

Sadly, MSNBC and the media carry these farewell speeches with no comment except that they are all great public servants and their viewers soak it all up because to do otherwise would be unpatriotic. And the march of the lemmings to the voting booths continues.

PresumptuousInsect 14 hours ago

I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics, and "support the troops!"--however hypocritical that slogan might be--has been a rallying cry as well as an accusation of treason/unAmericanism/communism, etc., for those who have had doubts. But finally we are starting to see signs of dissatisfaction with the status quo among the political class, and even antiwar bullet points listed on some platforms. There are even calls for diplomacy, a word that seemed to have been deleted from all U.S. dictionaries. I hope that Arkin's outcry serves to move this agitation forward.

shenebraskan 14 hours ago

Dunno if you noticed (I did because I watch State Department briefings), but when Brett McGurk resigned as Syria envoy, in a similar huff to McMaster, he bemoaned the loss of his colleagues at State and Pentagon. State Department has become another branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the Cold War.

[Jan 04, 2019] There is no political left in US. There are only 2 right wing parties and it's only a matter of degree

Jan 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: January 4, 2019 at 7:22 am GMT

There is no political left in US. There are only 2 right wing parties and it's only a matter of degrees. Policies define a party, not what they call themselves. You can call yourself whatever you want. It's not like it's against the Geneva convention or something.

Examples of mismatch between the official name and reality are: North Korea calling itself DPRK – where D stands for democracy and yet they have never had elections, not that it matters, the whole thing about "democracy" is a sham anyway. Also East Germany used to call themselves DDR – which of course stands for Deutsche Demokratische Republikische (I couldn't ressist making fun of the German language). Anyway, they called themselves"Democratic" with no elections ever taking place there.

Same thing with the Democratic party in US. Calling yourself Democratic doesn't make you a left wing automatically. After all, the Nazis used to call themselves "Socialists", which would imply leftist orientation, yet they were as far right as you can get.

In order for a party to qualify as left wing, they have to look after the interests of the working class. US has no such party, they probably never did. So, both Democrats and Republicans are right wing, but not as far right as the Nazis used to be. Yet, the Nazis were way smarter because they saw foreigners as the main threat to their country. Both domestic born and foreign born foreigners.

The 2 right wing US parties see their native born population as their main threat. Their "instincts" tell them that even after decades long propaganda, they haven't succeeded in completely lobotomizing the native born citizens, and that there is still some "revolutionary" potential left in them, who might one day reach for their pockets.

That's where the degeneracy of the elites comes into clear focus. Seeing the working class as a potential threat to them and their pockets. When it's actually the opposite. The degenerate elites are a threat to the working class (and frankly to themselves, but they are too degenerate to see that). They are threat because they off-shored millions of jobs of the working class, and if that wasn't enough, they imported millions of third world individuals to fill in jobs that are not even there anymore.

Who is a threat to whom? Multiculturalism is not a left wing policy. It's a fascist policy. The only difference is that the intended victims are domestic, rather than foreign. It's inward oriented fascism. The only hope for US is that under Trump, the republicans are starting to flip-flop between seeing the Americans and foreigners as a threat. Where the other right wing party – the "Democrats" are firm in their belief that the Americans are the threat.

I guess it's just a matter of perspective – who is Nazi to whom. The democrats think that the deplorables are potential Nazis towards the foreigners, while actually it's them – the Democrats that are currently Nazis towards the "deplorables".

[Jan 04, 2019] There's only one thing necessary to maintain the respect and affection of DC's ruling political and media class: affirm standard precepts of US imperialism and militarism

Jan 04, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , January 02, 2019 at 07:05 AM

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1080434469167906816

Glenn Greenwald‏ @ggreenwald

There's only one thing necessary to maintain the respect and affection of DC's ruling political and media class: affirm standard precepts of US imperialism & militarism. You can work for Trump, or cheer menacing authoritarians, and you'll still be revered as long as you do that:

Nikki Haley @NikkiHaley

Congratulations to Brazil's new President Bolsonaro. It's great to have another U.S.-friendly leader in South America, who will join the fight against dictatorships in Venezuela and Cuba, and who clearly understands the danger of China's expanding influence in the region.

4:03 AM - 2 Jan 2019

[Jan 04, 2019] The unified command responsible for the United States' nuclear strike capabilities drew attention on Monday when it tweeted a message and video that threatened the possibility of dropping a bomb

Jan 04, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , December 31, 2018 at 08:42 PM

(Previous comments from me that Pentagon officers
are not *necessarily* militarists not withstanding...)

Military Deletes New Year's Eve Tweet Saying It's
'Ready to Drop Something' https://nyti.ms/2RvcZwi
NYT - Matt Stevens and Thomas Gibbons-Neff - Dec. 31, 2018

The unified command responsible for the United States' nuclear strike capabilities drew attention on Monday when it tweeted a message and video that threatened the possibility of dropping a bomb.

In the tweet, which was posted as Americans prepared to celebrate New Year's Eve and was deleted about three hours later, the United States Strategic Command said the nation was "ready to drop something." A video that was part of the tweet showed a B-2 stealth bomber soaring across the sky before releasing two GPS-guided bombs that exploded into a giant ball of fire after hitting the ground below.

In the video, which was viewed more than 120,000 times, pulsing music beats in the background as the words "STEALTH," "READY" and "LETHAL" flash across the screen in white block letters.

"#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger," the tweet said, adding the hashtags: "#Deterrence #Assurance #CombatReadyForce #PeaceIsOurProfession." ...

A spokeswoman for the Strategic Command said the post "was part of our Year in Review series meant to feature our command priorities: strategic deterrence, decisive response and combat-ready force."

"It was a repost from earlier in the year, dropping a pair of conventional Massive Ordnance Penetrators at a test range in the United States," she said in a statement that did not elaborate.

About 30 minutes after the statement was issued, Stratcom apologized on Twitter, saying that its "previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values."

"We are dedicated to the security of America & allies," the new tweet added. ...


ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , January 02, 2019 at 01:30 PM
Test run on twitter sort of likely it will not be run during the super bowl.

Why not brag: the B-2 cost $2B, and is broke 56% of the time. Somewhere around $300K per flying hour.

The clip shows it dropping bombs that cost about $3M a piece, and are so complex they fail often.

Clip tweeted was an ad for the B-21 which will look just like B-2 and cost 70% more.

"Dedicated" to the security of the trough!

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to ilsm... , January 03, 2019 at 06:39 AM
The new Boeing 'flying fortress'
should be called the B-2.1, but
I guess they don't do that, eh?
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , January 03, 2019 at 06:42 AM
Anyway, the Boeing B-2.1 is
actually from Northrup-Grumman.

[Jan 04, 2019] Obama was MIC and possibly CIA stooge

Jan 04, 2019 | theintercept.com

open_hearted_jade 12 hours ago ( Edited )

Obama was concocted in the darkest recesses of the elite. He was a deep-state test tube presidential candidate.

BIC, Kissinger Associates, an occulted provenance, two comprehensively CIA connected maternal grandparents, a June 8, 2008 meeting with HRC at a Bilderberg conference at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, VA, while his press plane was ordered flown out of town with all aboard except Barack Obama.

A ring on his wedding finger inscribed in Arabic. Tarmac reading material: "The Post American World."

He was molded to do his level best to demolish the U.S., to deindustrialize it, strip mine it, extinguish the middle class, serve it garnished to the People's Republic of China.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

Don't forget the fact that he refused to even investigate, much less prosecute both war criminals and financial criminals. That effectively made those people and policies de-facto above-the-law. As Glenn has written before, including in his book, we are now a nation of men, not a nation of laws, and Obama is as much to blame for that as Bush, Cheney, their lawyers and the Congress.

dkwilson 8 hours ago

I've always wondered why everyone forgets(?), or maybe no one knows... or maybe it's convenient to omit the fact that Obama's first meaningful move as president was to attempt to extract soldiers from the morass that is Syria. He sent Biden to the Pentagon to talk with the corporate warlords there to take the overall temperature and find out how he could achieve the pullout. But suddenly, that bell cow CIA media member, Bob Woodward, leaped off the toilet on his yacht and "exposed" Obama's wants with a withering how could he, pro-war attack (and some slick, "is Obama really a Muslim and, therefore, "anti Semite" rhetoric).

It was as if someone took Obama into the WH's cinema room and showed him the untouched version of the JFK assassination from every angle from which it was filmed. From that moment forward, Barack Obama was never the same... in fact, he quickly became the Pentagon's "main boy" water carrier. (It also seemed, Joe, I might be a Jesuit but I'm Jewish as hell, Biden may have played a YUGE part in the play.)

But hey, why allow that little incident to get in the way of a tread worn, wholly uniformed but somehow still effective anti-Obama narrative?

[Jan 04, 2019] Trump Fought For His Withdrawal For a Year by Willy B

Notable quotes:
"... Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. ..."
"... Trump had lunch with Lindsay Graham who has allegedly said that Trump is "reconsidering ". The Neocons haven't given up.. ..."
Jan 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Gareth Porter, in an article published in the American Conservative, definitively shows that Trump's Dec. 19 announcement of the US withdrawal from Syria was, in fact, the end of a fight of at least a year, between Trump on the one side and his national security team, lead by Mattis and Dunford on the other. Published accounts of the policy process over the past year "show that senior national security officials and self-interested institutions have been playing a complicated political game for months aimed at keeping Trump from wavering on our indefinite presence on the ground in Syria ," Porter writes. "The entire episode thus represents a new variant of a familiar pattern dating back to Vietnam in which national security advisors put pressure on reluctant presidents to go along with existing or proposed military deployments in a war zone . The difference here is that Trump, by publicly choosing a different policy, has blown up their transparent schemes and offered the country a new course, one that does not involve a permanent war state."

Porter cites an April 2018 Associated Press account of an NSC meeting at which Trump's impatience with his national security team boiled over. At that meeting, Trump ordered them unequivocally to accept a fundamentally different Syria deployment policy. Instead, they framed the options as a binary choice -- either an immediate pullout or an indefinite presence in order to ensure the complete and permanent defeat of Islamic State. Mattis and Dunford, Porter continues, were consciously exploiting Trump's own defensiveness about a timeline–he had attacked Obama during the 2016 campaign for imposing a timeline in Afghanistan–"to press ahead with their own strategy unless and until Trump publicly called them on it."

"The Syria withdrawal affair is a dramatic illustration of the fundamental quandary of the Trump presidency in regard to ending the state of permanent war that previous administrations created. Although a solid majority of Americans want to rein in U.S. military deployments in the Middle East and Africa, Trump's national security team is committed to doing the opposite, " Porter concludes. "Trump is now well aware that it is virtually impossible to carry out the foreign policy that he wants without advisors who are committed to the same objective. That means that he must find people who have remained outside the system during the permanent war years while being highly critical of its whole ideology and culture. If he can fill key positions with truly dissident figures, the last two years of this term in office could decisively clip the wings of the bureaucrats and generals who have created the permanent war state we find ourselves in today."

Trump has called the bluff of the permanent warfare crowd and now has his decision, but the possibility of sabotage by that crowd's assets inside the Pentagon cannot yet be discounted. This is indicated by an exclusive Reuters report claiming that planners at the Pentagon are proposing that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with, though Reuters' sources stress that the planning is still at an early stage and nothing's been decided yet. And yet, there must be a reason why this is being reported now. It obviously would throw a monkey wrench in the arrangements that Trump is trying to make with Erdogan to keep eastern Syria stable in the wake of the US withdrawal. It would also represent a back down from US promises made earlier to the Turks to retrieve the weapons and Erdogan would throw a fit. Certainly, the idea that the U.S. military can retrieve all of the weapons that it handed over is a dubious one, at best , and there are legitimate questions about whether or not Turkish troops could really operate in the Middle Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border, hundreds of kilometers from the Turkish border.

But the key to the proposal is this: The recommendation "is a rejection of Trump's policy to withdraw from Syria," a person familiar with the discussions told Reuters. So, really, it is an attempt at sabotage.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-scores-breaks-generals-50-year-war-record-syria-mattis-dunford/

https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-commanders-recommend-letting-kurdish-fighters-syria-233235271.html


Barbara Ann , 6 days ago

Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. The Syrian war that matters is clearly now being fought within the USG and Trump has won the latest battle. As Porter says, this war will only be won if Trump can successfully replace key Borg positions with people of his own.

If the pullout can be completed without being sabotaged, Russia ought to be able to seamlessly step in guarantor of peace - and the SAG and Iraq between then can finish IS. The permanent war crowd with then just have to vent their frustrations elsewhere. A good outcome for all.

Pat Lang Mod -> Barbara Ann , 6 days ago
He was IMO suckered into taking a lot of these people because he didn't know anyone in government. His problem will be to find people not already working for the other side.
Walrus , 5 days ago
Trump had lunch with Lindsay Graham who has allegedly said that Trump is "reconsidering ". The Neocons haven't given up..
John Waddell , 5 days ago
"that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with"

I would love to find out what those "heavy weapons" were exactly. I have been putting up comments all over the place saying that as far as I have been able to find out the US has not supplied anything with a barrel bigger than an 80mm mortar or a vehicle heavier than a MRAP. Up to now no-one has contradicted me. The reason the US did this was precisely this situation, not to upset the Turks if gear was left behind.

Am I wrong? Is this equipment now regarded as "heavy weapons"?

Taras77 , 5 days ago
I have looked as to where I might post my comment on this important site; this article seems to be the best fit for my comment on another site about the retirement of Gen Kelly and a link to an interview with Gen Kelly (I hope Col Lang will be lenient in allowing a secondary posting of my comment from another site):

__________________________________________________________

My original comment follows:

On the subject of trump this AM, zerohedge has a summary of an interview with Gen Kelly which occurred just prior to his departure-to say that it was "bone crushing hard" probably is a long way from describing the difficulty of that Chief of Staff job in a chaotic white house working for a chaotic individual.

I have just a ton of respect for Gen Kelly-even in this totally mucked up country with all of its unending flustercucks, there are individuals still willing to step up and try, emphasis on try, to restore some sanity to the situations. God speed, Gen Kelly!!

https://www.zerohedge.com/n...

English Outsider -> Taras77 , 3 days ago
Should he not have resigned earlier, or even not taken the job, if he was so opposed to his boss's policy?
Stumpy , 6 days ago
Two factors not mentioned are the SAA and support from Russia. Turkey may be somewhat off the hook for a deep thrust if Syrian forces move in and convince the YPG to stand down, by force or otherwise. As Col. Lang points out, starving the YPG of ammunition is a practical approach. If the PMU links up with Syrian forces to secure the eastern border areas, the Kurdish interests should be balanced out. My point being that the so-called vacuum left for Iran to fill is an overplayed shadow puppet.

[Jan 04, 2019] Is Trump an indepent outsider?

Jan 04, 2019 | theintercept.com

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago ( Edited )

Outsider independent....LMAO - only according to the very narrowly limited range of allowed speech that Chomsky references in his famous quote. Trump may not be a D.C. insider in the recent traditional sense, but he's no outsider and he's no independent. His three-letter agency actions and judicial nominations clearly point to longstanding Republican/corporate/Wall Street/Israeli wish lists.

I'm happy about the Syria decision, but I have a suspicion that it's not as positive a development as many of his supporters are touting.

[Jan 03, 2019] There is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries

Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:51 am GMT

... there is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries. After all that the elites have done in the past 40-50 years to demonstrate their humanity – basically bringing a big chunk of the third world and resettling them in the west, the greedy underclass still demands proof from the elites that they are humanists.

Unfortunately the way they envision that the elites should prove their humanity is by opening their wallets and sharing their wealth with the poor in order to satisfy their ever increasing demands for better life by the undeserving poor.

Someone has to put a stop to it. Because if the poor underclasses succeed in draining the wealth from the innocent elites – the whole society will collapse. Why? Because there is no way that anyone can have respect for poor elites – which is where all this business with the yellow wests in France is going.

If the elites become poor – how can they maintain that magic aura of "we are better than you" that they project on the poor and which allows to govern them? No one can have a respect for poor elites. That's why I think it's time to step up the tried and trusted method – thankfully invented by US – that when somebody doubts the generosity of the elites – just import few hundred thousand fresh new faces from the 3rd world – to prove how much the elites care and that we are all equal – not with them, but among ourselves, which is where it really counts.

[Jan 03, 2019] In Syria, Kurdish Fighters Face Trump Pullout, Own Mistakes

Notable quotes:
"... Turkey, which views the PKK as an existential threat, says that it will go on the offensive against fighters from the PKK and its Syrian affiliate, the YPG, in key areas of its border with Syria. ..."
"... he Assad regime will no doubt try to regain control of lands the Kurds now control. A bigger foe may be Syrian Arabs from areas formerly controlled by ISIS, who bitterly resent the Kurdish militia bossing them around. ..."
"... the U.S. military has refused to discuss PKK practices, insisting that its partner is the Syrian Democratic Forces, not the PKK or the YPG ..."
"... My overall conclusion is stark: U.S. reliance on the PKK and its Syrian affiliate has driven these militias to conscript at gunpoint and stirred ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds. The PKK may be sorry to see the Americans go, but a lot of Arabs are not. ..."
"... The U.S., the Brits, the French, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf kleptocracies financed and armed all of the jihadist gangs that descended on Syria after 2011, and although the Islamic State decided that it had plans of its own, the American "coalition" never tried to militarily defeat ISIS in Syria or Iraq. ISIS was still useful, to wear down the Syrian army and keep the Iraqi government off balance and dependent on the United States . ..."
"... The kurds (the pkk/ ypg ) are the US mercenaries. Just trying to divide Iraq and Syria and expand Israel. (Look at Odin Yinan plan)" ..."
"... I support the Kurds but agree that is accurate. The Kurds are playing the hand they were dealt. ..."
"... Beyond the issue of this particular situation with the Kurds, this is truly a broken record in terms of the American war machine and imperialism - yet again, regardless of what war-hungry administration has been in power for the last 200-plus years in the Oval Office our military is more than willing to side with terrorists and pathological inhumane groups for the sake of their own continued imperialism. This scenario is a dime-a-dozen story in the history of America. ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | theintercept.com

KHALIL WAS SHOPPING in the Hasakah marketplace in Syria when Kurdish military police arrested him last March. He was 19 and had papers that showed he was in high school, but that didn't matter. The Kurdish militia, which feeds troops to the U.S.-led war in Syria, was way short of volunteers. They ordered him into a minibus and drove through the northeast Syrian city, abducting others along the way.

The force that conscripted Khalil calls itself the People's Protection Units, or YPG in Kurdish. The militia it supplies calls itself the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, a mixed Kurdish-Arab formation. But conscripts quickly learn who is really in charge in the proxy war against Islamic State extremists. It's the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Marxist guerrilla movement that's been at war with neighboring Turkey for 35 years.

Khalil's boot camp lasted six weeks, one-third of which was political indoctrination about the Kurds -- including the works of Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the PKK, which is the Kurdish acronym for the Kurdistan Workers' Party -- and the rest was weapons familiarization. His cohort was 15 Kurds and about 350 Arabs, all conscripted at gunpoint, he told me. The course was taught in Kurdish with translators for the Arabs. (Khalil, who's from Syria's Yazidi minority, speaks Kurdish).

When the training ended in May, Khalil received orders to deploy to Deir Ezzor on the frontline near an ISIS-held pocket of territory. Instead, he fled with his sister to Kurdish territory in Iraq. He was lucky, for his parents are refugees in Europe -- if his family had lived in the area, he wouldn't have been able to quit, knowing that military police would seize a brother, a cousin, or even their father in his place.

U.S. reliance on the PKK and its Syrian affiliate has driven these militias to conscript at gunpoint and stirred ethnic tensions. The PKK may be sorry to see the Americans go, but a lot of Arabs are not.

This is everyday reality for the force that the U.S. military, politicians, and pundits have lionized as the most capable and reliable ground partner the U.S. could find in Syria. It's run by a group that the State Department has declared to be terrorists; it conscripts at gunpoint and utilizes police state methods in its operations and governance that are completely antithetical to U.S. values, according to deserters interviewed by The Intercept.

This is also the force that will soon be left hanging and exposed to retribution if President Donald Trump carries out his apparently impulsive decision last week to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria as fast as possible. Turkey, which views the PKK as an existential threat, says that it will go on the offensive against fighters from the PKK and its Syrian affiliate, the YPG, in key areas of its border with Syria. ISIS may also target them, and the Assad regime will no doubt try to regain control of lands the Kurds now control. A bigger foe may be Syrian Arabs from areas formerly controlled by ISIS, who bitterly resent the Kurdish militia bossing them around.

"They are not able to do anything today," Khalil said of the Arabs who constitute the majority of the population in the provincial capital. "But if they come to power in the future, they will do everything they can against the YPG." Also, a large number of Kurds have fled north Syria rather than live under the YPG and the economic hardship of war, and more will leave with the YPG, especially in Manbij , where they've been given special privileges by the YPG.

THE U.S. MILITARY first linked up with the Kurdish militia in Syria in late 2014 when ISIS was attacking the town of Kobani, but the U.S. ground partner has not had close scrutiny until now, just as U.S. presence is about to end. In part, it's because the Kurds run what a State Department official told me is a "mini-totalitarian state," where criticism isn't allowed; in part, it's because the U.S. military has refused to discuss PKK practices, insisting that its partner is the Syrian Democratic Forces, not the PKK or the YPG. One way to circumvent this closed circuit is by seeking out deserters, who've been fleeing to territory controlled by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government for several years. With KRG assistance, I interviewed four deserters in the northern Iraqi town of Dohuk last month. I have changed their names to protect them from PKK retribution.

My overall conclusion is stark: U.S. reliance on the PKK and its Syrian affiliate has driven these militias to conscript at gunpoint and stirred ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds. The PKK may be sorry to see the Americans go, but a lot of Arabs are not.

... .... ...


xochtl 2 days ago (Edited)

Haven't we seen this picture before? Soon as u.s./western powers strong-arm people who are struggling to survive and self-defend, there are suddenly allegations of "human rights violations", when it did not exist before u.s. "support"and ally development. We have them serve us as slaves doing our dirty work to pit brother against brother, and simultaneously claim moral superiority if they "misbehave" because we claim we don't do bad things. The old "divide and conquer", weaken and crumble under our thumb. centuries of practice have given us great skill in knowing how to exploit and fk-up people to our benefit.

Aside from the remaining head-hunters, Washington's only indigenous ally in Syria is an army of Marxist Kurds who were among the prime victims -- and fiercest resisters -- of the American-sponsored jihadist onslaught. For years they were tacit allies of Syria's government -- whose secularism they share -- in the struggle against the U.S.-sponsored barbarians. But Don Uncle Sam made them an offer of protection-or-else that they believed could not be refused, and the Kurds are now pawns -- as is the whole planet, in a sense -- to Washington's quandary : How does the world's sole Superpower remain in a region where it is despised, after its proxy forces have been defeated?

https://blackagendareport.com/white-lies-and-black-disbelief-fading-empire

The United States will claim it's against the Islamic State. These days, the U.S. claims everything it does in Syria and in Iraq is part of the fight against the Islamic State. But, of course, there never was a U.S. war against the Islamic State, which spread like wildfire until the Russian air force intervened in late September.

The U.S., the Brits, the French, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf kleptocracies financed and armed all of the jihadist gangs that descended on Syria after 2011, and although the Islamic State decided that it had plans of its own, the American "coalition" never tried to militarily defeat ISIS in Syria or Iraq. ISIS was still useful, to wear down the Syrian army and keep the Iraqi government off balance and dependent on the United States .

However, the Turks have their own agenda. Turkish President Recep Erdogan has staked his political life on defeating and humiliating the Kurds, in his own country and in Syria.

But, the United States has made a huge investment in acting as the "protector" of the Iraqi Kurds, in order to dismember and control Iraq, and the Americans are trying to play the same game with the Syrian Kurds . That's why the U.S. is providing air cover to some Syrian Kurdish units, while the Turks are shelling other Kurds who operate under Russian air cover, 60 miles away.

The Turks don't like the game the Americans are playing, and are threatening to invade Syria, confront the Russians, and force the U.S. to choose between Turkey, or the Kurds, or World War Three. This is a very dangerous moment for the planet. https://www.blackagendareport.com/syria_war_out_of_control

Great_White 3 days ago

The kurds (the pkk/ ypg ) are the US mercenaries. Just trying to divide Iraq and Syria and expand Israel. (Look at Odin Yinan plan) Its a US plan that creating ethnic hatred in the countries of the ME and support Israel.

  • The US did this in Yugoslavia. CIA agent: We created ethnic hatred in Yugoslavia
    http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc1405/ciayugo.htm
  • The US and the US backed kurdish terrorist organizations are hand in hand with Israel. The Kurdish Connection: Israel, ISIS And U.S. Efforts To Destabilize Iran http://www.voltairenet.org/article197439.html
  • The US is the biggest threat against to world peace and humanity. EXCLUSIVE: US has killed over 20 million in 37 countries since end of World War II – Prof. Galtung http://dailypost.ng/2017/02/06/exclusive-us-killed-13-million-people-since-end-world-war-ii-prof-galtung/
  • If Turkey is clever enough they should never trust to the US. I know the Turks saved thousands of American lives in the Korean war but they still didn't realized the US is a backstabber and its not the first time. I wonder what if Turkey supports Mexican cartels and funding and arming them ?
  • What if the Turks supports North Korea ? Support them in any way and develop long range missiles ? The US media is full of lies, hoax and the fake news. The US and the US backed kurdish terrorist organizations never fought against ISIS.
  • The Kurds: Washington's Weapon Of Mass Destabilization In The Middle East http://www.voltairenet.org/article197437.html
    The US has 800 terrorist nest around the world. As long as the US military stay in the ME, terror, chaos and the terrorist organizations will never end.
DHorse 3 days ago

@Great_White I will read the links thanks they are additional sources.

"The kurds (the pkk/ ypg ) are the US mercenaries. Just trying to divide Iraq and Syria and expand Israel. (Look at Odin Yinan plan)"

I support the Kurds but agree that is accurate. The Kurds are playing the hand they were dealt. That plan though? Lacking more time I see its authenticity as irrelevant. Particularly when the behavior mimics the plan.

Global fascism seemed a higher priority and applies here as well.

Great_White 2 days ago

I strongly suggest you should believe to the plan. Let me provide you more link. https://www.haaretz.com/1.5460712

I support Turkey and hope they will clean all the US backed terrorists.. The Military industry wants war that's how they make money and expand Israel..
Happy new year mate.

Keith 4 days ago

A few things come to mind here...

1. Beyond the issue of this particular situation with the Kurds, this is truly a broken record in terms of the American war machine and imperialism - yet again, regardless of what war-hungry administration has been in power for the last 200-plus years in the Oval Office our military is more than willing to side with terrorists and pathological inhumane groups for the sake of their own continued imperialism. This scenario is a dime-a-dozen story in the history of America.

2. Without The Intercept to settle the reality here for those of us (too few) who consume it, Americans are reduced to being told by CNN and MSNBC how innocent and desperate these poor Kurdish groups are now - or even more insane - they're told by FOX how whatever the inhumane baffoon currently in the Oval Office thinks about the Kurds (he's not thinking about the Kurds) needs to be the fascist narrative for a fascist America, no matter how many times it changes.

3. Once again, this is an issue like so many others that goes beyond blaming/praising presidents of the past or present. Getting into a debate here over Hillary Clinton needs to be moved to the CNN comments section.

4. Thank-you The Intercept for an amazing 2018 of actual journalism.

[Jan 03, 2019] How the War Party Lost the Middle East by Pat Buchanan

Notable quotes:
"... Seven years and 500,000 dead Syrians later, it is Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron who are gone. Assad still rules in Damascus, and the 2,000 Americans in Syria are coming home. Soon, says President Donald Trump. ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

"Assad must go, Obama says."

So read the headline in The Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2011.

The story quoted President Barack Obama directly: "The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. the time has come for President Assad to step aside."

France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's David Cameron signed on to the Obama ultimatum: Assad must go!

Seven years and 500,000 dead Syrians later, it is Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron who are gone. Assad still rules in Damascus, and the 2,000 Americans in Syria are coming home. Soon, says President Donald Trump.

But we cannot "leave now," insists Sen. Lindsey Graham, or "the Kurds are going to get slaughtered."

Question: Who plunged us into a Syrian civil war, and so managed our intervention that were we to go home after seven years our enemies will be victorious and our allies will "get slaughtered"?


WorkingClass , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:05 am GMT

War profiteers. The dregs of humanity.
Realist , says: January 1, 2019 at 10:33 am GMT
Buchanan writes this article as if our government is legitimate. The fact is the important parts of our government are controlled by the elite. The important parts are any asspect of the government that can gain and maintain power and wealth for the Deep State/Elite. The petty internecine squabbles between parties or factions are of no concern to the elite and they provide confusion of the electorate and cover for the true power center.
Achmed E. Newman , says: Website January 1, 2019 at 1:10 pm GMT
That was a most excellent column and summation of the reality of American Neocon Middle Eastern foreign policy, Mr. Buchanan. This is in contrast to many columns written by supposedly conservative pundits, including yourself, in which the questions asked are "what should WE do about Mr. ____ of _____?" "Who should WE support in this or this other conflict?", etc.

No, WE need to just get the hell out of their business. We don't need to care about who's taking over which country, what minorities are getting pushed out of one portion of one shithole to another, or who's allied with whom. Just GET OUT, STAY OUT, and maybe leave a couple of diplomats earning hazard pay in a small consulate or office there for communications, the way it's supposed to be (you know your history, Pat).

BTW, I also like the headline, as the column reads that the "War Party" includes both squads of The Party, the blue and the red. I agree with this assessment.

RVBlake , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:14 pm GMT
Guess I'm behind, didn't know we had 5,000 troops still in Iraq. I though Obama pulled them out in 2011, which caused much angst and wailing from the usual suspects. The Iraqi parliament should expel us, we haven't the brains to leave on our own.
anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:00 pm GMT
@RVBlake "Us"? "We"?

It's tough to break the habit, but Americans who still fall for this pronoun propaganda need to wake up. Identifying with the Establishment is what keeps them voting like sheep every two years, letting a Beltway fixture fret on their behalf while they await the next Most Important Election Ever.

MEexpert , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:19 pm GMT
Trump's backtracking has already started. First it was immediate pull out. Now it will take four months. A week later, it will be six months and then a year and so it will go on.
Realist , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:22 pm GMT
@RVBlake

He and the Chairman of JCS are now talking about the more "reasonable" withdrawal of American troops from Syria over a period of 4 months.

Then 4 years then 4 decades.

Anonymous [354] Disclaimer , says: January 2, 2019 at 3:20 pm GMT
@WorkingClass War and destruction is what makes our species homo rapiens so very human; war is the force that gives us meaning.

The destruction of the natural world [including incessant war] is not the result of global capitalism, industrialisation, "Western civilisation" or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. -- John Gray, STRAW DOGS

Source: War Socialism

Colin Wright , says: Website January 2, 2019 at 5:32 pm GMT
'How has all this invading, bombing and killing made the Middle East a better place or Americans more secure? '

Nu? This is only evidence of failure if one assumes making the Middle East a better place or Americans more secure was the goal in the first place.

Do all go in fear of provoking Israel's wrath? Will American largess continue to flow to her in an ever-widening and deepening stream? Has increased Islamophobia on our part and hatred of America on the part of the Muslim world helped to ensure the Forever War will indeed continue forever? Is Europe swiftly being destabilized and brought into the arena of conflict?

Like anything else, our policy should be analyzed in terms of its goals. I think it's all been a rousing success.

rok53 , says: January 3, 2019 at 12:59 am GMT
Obama and Hillary turned the middle east over to the Muslim Brotherhood.
With the exception of Syria and Egypt(military trained by Americans)
Before this Christians any homosexuals were fairly safe. Now homos are
tossed off tall buildings and Christians done away with using many methods.
tac , says: January 3, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
@APilgrim

Who got us into this debacle?

Cui Bono . over the last 17 years of ME interventions?

Clue:

SYRIA: ISRAEL'S INVISIBLE HAND
Ry Dawson:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/qMbXJzvniqPe/

Colin Wright , says: Website January 3, 2019 at 8:44 am GMT
@RVBlake ' He and the Chairman of JCS are now talking about the more "reasonable" withdrawal of American troops from Syria over a period of 4 months.'

Israel needs to dream up and implement the appropriate black flag operation. Outraged, we will then stay.

Hence the delay. These things take time.

[Jan 03, 2019] By standard of Nuremberg trials Obama is a war criminal.

Notable quotes:
"... wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

likbez 01.03.19 at 1:54 pm 90 (no link)

The key fact about Syria situation is that Obama administration conducted criminal actions against a sovereign state.

Which by standard of Nuremberg trials makes Obama a war criminal.

Trump inherited (and actually aggravated) this mess. Two ancient Syrian cities were wiped from the face of the Earth by US strikes ("wanton destruction of cities" is a war crime). The US forces operated in Syria outside any norm of international law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_principles

Principle VI

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes:Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

likbez 01.03.19 at 2:12 pm ( 91 )

From Pat Buchanan
http://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/how-the-war-party-lost-the-middle-east/

"Assad must go, Obama says."

So read the headline in The Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2011.

The story quoted President Barack Obama directly:

"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. the time has come for President Assad to step aside."

France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's David Cameron signed on to the Obama ultimatum: Assad must go!

Seven years and 500,000 dead Syrians later, it is Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron who are gone. Assad still rules in Damascus, and the 2,000 Americans in Syria are coming home. Soon, says President Donald Trump.

But we cannot "leave now," insists Sen. Lindsey Graham, or "the Kurds are going to get slaughtered."

Question: Who plunged us into a Syrian civil war, and so managed our intervention that were we to go home after seven years our enemies will be victorious and our allies will "get slaughtered"?

[Jan 03, 2019] Most Americans are simply struck dumb by the horror of recognizing that American foreign policy was conducted by and for self-interested sociopaths long before Trump came along

Not all neocons are sociopaths. most are simply MIC lobbyists, kind of intellectual prostitutes.
Notable quotes:
"... U.S. foreign policy has always been subject to hijack by interested parties. There are not strong institutions in the U.S. that could define and discipline the pursuit of a foreign policy focused an American public interest. ..."
"... the majority of intellectuals in the American (and British, and Australasian) intellectual elite (be they 'liberal' or 'conservative') are intellectually and emotionally committed to the continuance of American (and Western, more generally) imperialism. But we knew that anyway. ..."
"... Does anyone care that many legal experts – regardless of how evil Assad or Isis was and is – think sending troops into Syria was illegal, given that Congress never debated or approved sending troops there? Should we fight in Syria forever, just because Russia also thinks we should leave? What percentage of the American public even knew to begin with over 2,000 troops have been on the ground in Syria occupying a third of the country for years? ..."
"... Maybe if Congress has not used the last decade to totally abdicate its constitutional responsibility to debate and approve of wars the US is involved in, and if they were actually up front to the American people about the extreme costs of fighting yet another war, they would have a leg to stand on. But their stance seems to now be: we only get upset when troops get to come home without our approval, not when they are deployed in yet another war zone. ..."
"... there is no pt having illusions about the degree to which the current Iranian govt is meeting the aspirations/needs of most of its pop. (not well, from the admittedly limited amt I follow this) or the degree to which Iran's foreign policy is promoting anything resembling regional peace, "stability," and "security." ..."
"... Bourgeois nationalism may be outmoded but replacing it with Islamic State is simply obscene. That's why the sometime tacit US support for IS is criminal. Yes, it is quite likely that the US will covertly assist a revival of ISIS. ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

bruce wilder 12.22.18 at 4:46 am (no link)

Whether acting for good or ill, the history of US involvement in the Middle East has been one of consistent failure at least for the last 40 years.

Cui bono?

U.S. foreign policy has always been subject to hijack by interested parties. There are not strong institutions in the U.S. that could define and discipline the pursuit of a foreign policy focused an American public interest.

And, unfortunately, few critics are willing to come out plainly calling this what it is, deep corruption. Most Americans are simply struck dumb by the horror of recognizing that American foreign policy was conducted by and for self-interested sociopaths long before Trump came along. As a people, we are not willing to even acknowledge that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger down to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were war criminals. I proposed to a group of well-informed observers of foreign policy once that Colin Powell had ended his career shaming his country by lying to the Security Council about the gravest matters and ought to be shunned from polite company. They looked at me like I was insane. We were lied into Vietnam and we were lied into Iraq. I guess it is some credit to us as a people that they feel the need to tell lies that appeal to our better impulses, but why don't our better impulses extend to punish the liars and the sociopaths?

Hidari 12.22.18 at 10:58 am (no link)
If anyone cares, here's a link to an article by one of the few Western journalists who actually knows what he is talking about: Patrick Cockburn. Worth reading.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-syria-russia-foreign-policy-jim-mattis-kurds-vladimir-putin-saudi-arabia-a8694881.html

@3 'Trump folded or traded. If a trade what did he trade, if he folded, why?'

The answer, sadly, is not difficult to discover. There are 2 million Kurds. There are 80 million Turks. Turkey (under Erdogan) is increasingly an economic powerhouse. 'Kurdistan', insofar as it exists .isn't. Trump is a businessman first, and a politician second. What more do you need to know?

A few other things that need to be pointed out: despite the fact that liberals have (correctly) been screaming that Trump is a liar since he became President, everyone seems to be acting as if Trump is now telling the truth and this 'withdrawal' will actually happen. Of course, it might. But equally it might not. What progressives need to be particularly careful of are 'withdrawals' that aren't. E.g. how many American 'special forces' will be left in Syria? How many 'advisers'? How many mercenaries working for American companies like Blackwater? And so on.

In any case, the idea that there will be a long term withdrawal from Syria seems unlikely. As a number of commentators above have pointed out, presumably, in the next 5 years or so, Turkey (which is still a 'US aligned' power, although relations have been strained recently) will invade Syria/Kurdistan. Thus bringing the area back under (de facto) American control, although of course, the Turks are unlikely to stay for prolonged periods of time. But the threat of another Turkish invasion may well work to keep the Kurds 'on message', put paid to their 'revolutionary idealism' and stop them having silly ideas about spreading their new socialist/anarchist polity to other countries.

In any case, as other commentators (not on this thread, but on Democracy Now and other, so-called 'alternative' media) have also pointed out, this 'withdrawal' may well mean 'amping up' the 'drone war' (the 'liberal' media has barely reported this, but Trump has significantly increased and expanded Obama's 'drone campaign', especially, of course, in Arab countries).

Moreover, Syria remains a victim of Obama's/Trump's sanctions (sanctions by states always, of course, being a weapon of war).

So it seems unlikely that Trump will genuinely allow Syria to pursue a genuinely independent foreign or domestic policy. Of course the idea that Trump (and the West generally) should formally apologise and pay reparations to the Syrian people for the chaos they have helped to inflict in Syria remains an idea from science fiction.

This is not to argue against the position of the OP, which merely points out that the majority of intellectuals in the American (and British, and Australasian) intellectual elite (be they 'liberal' or 'conservative') are intellectually and emotionally committed to the continuance of American (and Western, more generally) imperialism. But we knew that anyway.

john c. halasz 12.22.18 at 8:11 pm (no link)
christian h. @8:

I find it hard to fathom how any leftist could conclude that the Assad regime is the worst evil in the Syrian civil war, let alone imply that U.S. forces should have conducted a regime change illegally. While, in fact ,the U.S. and its unsavory allies have poured $10's bn worth of weapons into the conflict arming jihadi extremists and prolonging the agony, not to mention the vast hoard of weapons the U.S. gifted to IS due to the collapse of the Iraqi army that was supposed to defend Mosul

As to what is likely to happen if U.S. forces are really withdrawn completely, the Kurds, who have been betrayed repeatedly by the U.S. before, would have to make a deal with the Assad gov. and the Russians would then forestall any Turkish invasion. That offer was made in the case of Afrin province and the Kurds foolishly rejected it. (Putin's aim clearly has been to get the U.S. out of Syrian, where their presence is illegal anyway and re-unify the country.) But thus far the Kurdish delegation recently sent to Damascus has stuck to their maximalist demands. Vut if they fail to make a deal and Turkey does invade, the Turks will only seek to occupy a 10 mile strip alone the border. An attempt to occupy all of Syrian Kurdish territory would take 100,000's of troops and result in huge Turkish casualties, as the Kurds among others would resist fiercely and asymmetrically.

novakant 12.22.18 at 8:28 pm (no link)
Trevor Timm makes good points here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/21/trump-syria-withdrawal-us-troops

Does anyone care that many legal experts – regardless of how evil Assad or Isis was and is – think sending troops into Syria was illegal, given that Congress never debated or approved sending troops there? Should we fight in Syria forever, just because Russia also thinks we should leave? What percentage of the American public even knew to begin with over 2,000 troops have been on the ground in Syria occupying a third of the country for years?

Maybe if Congress has not used the last decade to totally abdicate its constitutional responsibility to debate and approve of wars the US is involved in, and if they were actually up front to the American people about the extreme costs of fighting yet another war, they would have a leg to stand on. But their stance seems to now be: we only get upset when troops get to come home without our approval, not when they are deployed in yet another war zone.

I agree with this, but also think there's a responsibility to minimize the fallout.

Much more important than all this is ending the war in Yemen, though.

bak 12.22.18 at 8:35 pm ( 23 )
Hidari @10 But the threat of another Turkish invasion may well work to keep the Kurds 'on message', put paid to their 'revolutionary idealism' and stop them having silly ideas about spreading their new socialist/anarchist polity to other countries."

Funny business how long (100+ years) those setting up exclusionary ethno-nationalist "homelands" (that seamlessly morph into armed to the teeth ethnostates once their imperial patron signs on to their project) have been conning ignorant Westerners with fantasies of egalitarian/anarchist utopian communities:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110613133745/http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_receiving_end_of_our_dreams

David Graeber, resident anarchist at BBC, seems to have fallen hard for fairy tales of formerly cult-of-personality based Marxist-Leninists (esp. comely women in fatigues brandishing AK-47s) who now spout soundbites upon request from the playbook of Murray Bookchin's "social ecology":

https://www.voanews.com/a/writings-of-obscure-american-leftist-drive-kurdish-forces-to-syria/3678233.html

LFC 12.22.18 at 8:56 pm ( 24 )
1) David L. @6 says that most of Iran's foreign-policy goals are aligned w the US's. I don't think so. That doesn't mean the US shd be so close to Saudi Arabia (it definitely shouldn't), but I don't think either the character of the Iranian domestic system or most of Iran's regional activities are things the US shd be aligning with. Trump shd not have withdrawn from the nuclear deal, but beyond that there is no pt having illusions about the degree to which the current Iranian govt is meeting the aspirations/needs of most of its pop. (not well, from the admittedly limited amt I follow this) or the degree to which Iran's foreign policy is promoting anything resembling regional peace, "stability," and "security."

2) The OP says that the First Gulf War "created" Al Qaeda. No: Al Qaeda was created in 1988, before the first Gulf War; a formal organizational meeting was held August 1988 in Peshawar. (Source: Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower , pp. 150ff.) The aftermath(s) of the first Gulf War, notably the stationing of more US soldiers in SA, strengthened Al Qaeda by putting another significant item on its list of grievances, but the first Gulf War did not create it.

TM 12.22.18 at 9:31 pm ( 25 )
"There are 2 million Kurds. There are 80 million Turks."

The question what is Kurd and how many Kurds are there is highly contentious but realistic estimates put the number at 20 to 40 million. For that reason alone, the Kurdish question isn't likely to be going anywhere.

As to the OP, it is puzzling. Turning against one of very few progressive secular forces in the Middle East while increasing support for the anti-secular Saudi and Turkish autocracies is far from my definition of "getting it half right". And whatever the reason, sudden and unpredictable changes in foreign policy are not to be taken lightly. That US foreign policy is a mess is easy to agree to. But it doesn't follow that any partial change of course is a move in the right direction.

Gregory J. McKenzie 12.22.18 at 10:23 pm ( 26 )
Once the dogs of war are unleashed anywhere it becomes difficult to chain them up again. Poor Syria has a civil war that has been hijacked by regional powers. One less superpower dropping bombs is a good thing for such an oppressed population.
Tom Hurka 12.23.18 at 12:00 am ( 27 )
JQ: "The first Gulf War looked like a success at the time, but created both Al Qaeda and the conditions for the disastrous second war."

1. Are you saying the second war was inevitable given the first, so Bush II had no choice? He had lots of choice. He could easily have avoided the second war, or managed the occupation that followed less utterly incompetently (Paul Bremer, anyone?).

2. I'd be interested to hear how the Middle East would have been all peace and harmony if Saddam had been left in occupation of Kuwait. No dangers whatever there!

Lots of failures in US Middle East policy, sure, but you're stretching on this one. And on Israel-Palestine, how much of the ultimate failure of the Clinton Camp David effort was due to US and how much to the Israelis and Palestinians?

Peter T 12.23.18 at 1:01 am (no link)
Cranky Observer (and others)

As the largest single agglomeration of power on the planet, the US cannot hope to escape influence or manipulation – everyone wants to tap into and use US power (economic, military or cultural). Just by existing it exerts a distorting force. So the question is not whether but how it acts, and to what purposes. The US has more choices than "bomb" or "leave". It has locked itself into a set of incoherent, contradictory policies (oppose terrorism but support Saudi Arabia, fight al-Qaeda/ISIS but replace Assad, enable Israeli expansion but deplore the results, fight the Taliban but support Pakistan and oppose Iran ). This is not a new story – the same could be said of US policy in SE Asia from the 50s through to the 80s, which saw the US end up in bed with the Khmer Rouge.

A coherent policy would decide on a small set of achievable aims and then stick to them. If defeating ISIS is the key aim, then Assad and Iran are on the US side, and Saudi an obstacle (this does not mean alliance or enmity – it means avoiding hostility on the one hand, and making clear the limits of support on the other). A deal whereby Damascus regains formal control of the north-east in return for some level of Kurdish autonomy is probably do-able, and would at least avoid another round of ethnic cleansing/guerilla war and the prospect of an ISIS revival or an Islamist pocket under Turkish protection.

novakant 12.23.18 at 2:58 pm (no link)
there is no pt having illusions about the degree to which the current Iranian govt is meeting the aspirations/needs of most of its pop. (not well, from the admittedly limited amt I follow this) or the degree to which Iran's foreign policy is promoting anything resembling regional peace, "stability," and "security."

If you're really concerned about the needs and aspirations of the Iranian population you should lift all sanctions immediately and bring the country back into the international community. Iran has been under sanctions and ostracized for nearly 30 years for no good reason except US spitefulness and the people have suffered greatly as a result (and I'm leaving out the Iran-Iraq war for reasons of brevity).

The regime is a bit shit, but they're rational actors and the Iranian people can very well figure out the way ahead themselves without hypocritical Westerners shedding crocodile tears over human rights abuses.

And it takes some chutzpah for an American (or a Brit) to accuse Iran of insufficiently promoting regional peace, "stability," and "security", after all the havoc the US/UK has wrought in the Middle East over the past century – are fucking serious?

steven t johnson 12.23.18 at 3:07 pm ( 35 )
Trump may be withdrawing from Syria in the same way he made peace with North Korea.

Al-Qaeda was a product of the war against the socialist government in Kabul. US support for their sectarian war provoked Soviet intervention, just as Brzezinsky hoped.

Saddam Hussein's seizure of Kuwait was a consequence of his defeat in the war with Iran, which left his finances in shambles. It's not clear the continued existence of another "oil company with a flag" is a blessing to humanity.

Islamic State began as ISIL or ISIS in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq. This is not an accident. The US deliberately divvied up Iraq on sectarian lines.

Bashar Assad is terrible, just like his father. But Bashar Assad does stand for a secular national state. The Louis Proyect-type socialists who want sectarian ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide of the Alawite base they say is Assad's only support seem hell-bent on demonstrating there *can* be social-fascism. Bourgeois nationalism may be outmoded but replacing it with Islamic State is simply obscene. That's why the sometime tacit US support for IS is criminal. Yes, it is quite likely that the US will covertly assist a revival of ISIS. This is why it is premature to claim Trump is half-right I think.

Erdogan has been engaged in the Zia-fication of Turkey. Like Pakistan, the end result will be a nightmare society. The US simply withdrawing is not making peace with Damascus. Therefore this is giving Erdogan a greenlight. Partition of Syria and/or endless war has been an acceptable goal for the US at all times.

... ... ...

Hidari 12.24.18 at 4:49 pm (no link)
To all those who have ('dialectically', one might say) decided, on the basis of very little evidence, that a drawback of US power will somehow make a situation (any situation) worse .

one should always remember that there are very few, if any, geopolitical situations on planet Earth which would not be radically improved by following the simple injunction 'Yankee Go Home' (as well as following the order of its, so to speak, semantic cousin, 'Brits out').

The problem is that Trump's ramblings are unlikely to presage anything of the sort happening. The Americans arrive, but they rarely leave. Ask the Japanese about that.

But in the highly unlikely event that Trump is telling the truth, this would be a wholly and unarguably positive development in the region. Which, I think, was the point of the OP.

David L. 12.25.18 at 7:41 am ( 44 )
"Ask the Japanese about that."

Hmm. I get the impression that the Japanese overall are not unhappy about the US presence and are generally pretty pro-American. The Okinawans would like less of the burden falling on them, but between the LDP being heavy-handed, insensitive, and in complete power, and NIMBY-ism being strong everywhere in Japan, this problem isn't getting fixed any time soon. For a while, a lot of the Japanese were of the opinion that Obama was to blame for North Korea's nuclear craziness (or for not doing anything about said craziness), and thought The Orange Monster was fixing the problem. They seem to have figured out that hoping for good work from said monster isn't a good idea, though.

Anyway, US policy in Syria was dizzy from the start. We don't like Assad, but failed to notice that the opposition quickly became Salafi jihadists friendly to ISIS, al Qaida and the like. When we finally figured that latter bit out, we (including lots of lefty commentators, sigh) were still committed to being anti-Assad. Stupid. Beyond. Words.

abd 12.26.18 at 4:53 am ( 45 )
Hidari @23. But in the highly unlikely event that Trump is telling the truth, this would be a wholly and unarguably positive development in the region.

I'm reminded of a book that didn't receive much attention when it came out 10 years ago, but which was written by a man who had a penchant for unsentimental analysis (of the Soviet Union, but then to the consternation of some he turned those analytic tools upon his country of birth after the former disappeared):

In general, Hough argues, Republican Administrations during the Cold War were more open to the détente policies favored by the German-American component of their constituency, while Democratic presidents were more aggressively anti-Communist: Truman in Korea, Kennedy planting missiles in Turkey, invading Cuba and sending US troops to Vietnam, while Nixon negotiated with Mao and Reagan with Gorbachev. He admits that the picture is blurred, however, by the fact that each side compensates by proclaiming an ideological stance that is the opposite of its actions.

A former British diplomat concurs that what Trump just announced would have been inconceivable under a Hillary (or for that matter, almost any postwar Democratic) administration:

I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now. For a non-American, the choice between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East and the launching of a full on, unreserved new Cold War, against on the other side of the scale poorer Americans having very bad healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist immigration policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today arguing for more American troops in the Middle East, will help people remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side of the equation.

Peter T 12.26.18 at 7:15 am ( 46 )
The US had at least two policies in Syria. One was conducted by the CIA in alliance with the Gulf State, using ex-East European arms stocks, which aimed to overthrow Assad. This worked with various Islamist groups, including some explicitly tied to al-qaeda. The other was run by Defense, and worked with the PKK against ISIS. State ran around providing diplomatic cover, and also fostered talking shops for the miniscule and ineffectual "moderate opposition".

The first was quietly wound down under Obama. While Hillary's job at State was to provide the talking points, there is no reason to believe that she opposed Obama's policy of withdrawal. Trump has, if anything, stepped up the rhetoric against Assad and also loosened the restrictions on Defense, resulting in more civilian casualties. The Defense effort was always on borrowed time, in that the rationale disappeared with victory over ISIS, and it had to operate against Turkish pressure.

On my point about others seeking to use US power – the US' system of dispersed governance provides multiple entry points for outside influence (foreign relations committees and staff, different arms of the administration, influential outsiders – see China Lobby, the career of Ahmad Chalabi, the MEK, the Israeli grip, the Saudi nexus ). So foreign entanglements are a fact of life, short of wholesale reform of the US state. Isolation was possible when the US was a bit player; it's not now.

Dipper 12.26.18 at 1:56 pm ( 47 )
All these nations and groupings intervening, what are their tag-lines?

By which I mean the British Empire stated it brought for "Christianity, Commerce, and Civilisation", and the American post-war hegemony brought "Freedom and Democracy". We can argue lots about how much they stood by their slogans, but nevertheless these slogans gave the nations that were being brought under control a sense of what, nominally, they were entitled to. But what of other participants? What is Russia's tag-line when it intervenes in the middle east? For that matter, what is China's tag-line when it buys up influence all over the world? What is Saudi Arabia's tag line? What do these nations stand for?

Hidari 12.26.18 at 3:12 pm ( 48 )
@45
My only point is to remind everyone of the Americans' long tradition of withdrawals that aren't. Remember, it was Obama who first 'withdrew' from Iraq, in December 2011 (December being a popular time for 'withdrawals' apparently) before 'unwithdrawing' in 2014 because of the 'threat' of ISIS, which 'required' American troops to fight it .and American troops continue to fight (and die) in Iraq to this day.

Stephen Gowans has written a book entitled 'Washington's Long War on Syria'. Whatever one might think of Gowans, the title is surely accurate. The Americans have been interfering in Syrian internal affairs since the CIA backed coup of 1949 (and of course 'Western' imperialistic control of Syria goes back to 1918). The idea that the Americans are simply going to back up and go home (as they have never done before) is simply science fictional: the Americans never give up or go home.

Let's not forget that American Imperial Troops are currently deployed in more than 150 countries worldwide ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments ). The 'withdrawal' of 2,000 troops here or there is not going to fundamentally alter an imperialist foreign policy.

@46 ' So foreign entanglements are a fact of life.' Why?

'short of wholesale reform of the US state.' Let's do that then.

'Isolation was possible when the US was a bit player; it's not now.'

And yet other countries seem to manage it just fine.

I continue to be amazed by well educated historically aware people who consider American imperialism an objective and unalterable fact of life, like the laws of physics. The US has only been a global world dominating hegemon since about 1948, and it already looks highly unstable (the Roman Empire for contrast lasted roughly from 700BC to the 15th century AD. The various Egyptian Empires lasted much longer). It is by no means unalterable or unstoppable.

A 'progressivism' that doesn't take a simple, elementary, moral stand against American imperialism in general, and Western imperialism more generally, isn't really worth much, at the end of the day, and will inevitably founder on its own contradictions.

Patrick 12.26.18 at 6:09 pm ( 49 )
Hidari no doubt has excellent evidence of both of the following:

1. That the Russian sphere of influence is more beneficial than the American one, and

2. That leaving the Middle East today will somehow inhibit the next militarily adventuristic US President with bad ideas from just going back.

Because without the former you've no reason to expect any immediate benefit, and without the latter you've no reason to think that we can avoid greater future harms by allowing present ones.

erica23 12.26.18 at 11:27 pm ( 50 )
@45. Dennis Perrin is also good on the Democrats' weakness for bombing brown peoples:

Not surprised by the countless liberals opposed to #SyriaWithdrawal. Liberals love war and imperialism, and it's extra exciting to see warmongering covered in rainbow flags and peace signs. Again: I wrote SAVAGE MULES far too soon.

https://twitter.com/DennisThePerrin/status/1075743435787853824

roger gathmann 12.27.18 at 3:13 am ( 51 )
The argument that Trump has proven to be crazy and incompetent for withdrawing those troops, and that instead, we should have the crazy and incompetent president directing those troops, is an argument of considerable madness. It reminds me of the liberal interventionist argument about invading Iraq, which conceded that Bush and his people were total incompetents and then turned about and urged a fantasy war for fantasy reasons. It makes me think that there is an intellectual deficit in the foreign policy establishment that requires wholesale de-legitimation.
William Berry 12.27.18 at 4:48 am ( 52 )

I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now.

This is perfect (as epitome of "leftist" commentary on Trump/ Clinton). Shrill, angry bitch might not be a Nazi like our boy, but she would have started a war, and don't you doubt it, because, somehow or other, we just know she would have.

Hidari 12.27.18 at 2:24 pm ( 53 )
'(Trump) said he had no plans to withdraw American forces from Iraq, which he said the United States could use as a staging ground in the heart of the Middle East from which to combat Iran, or someday reenter Syria' .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-visits-us-troops-in-iraq-for-first-trip-to-a-conflict-zone/2018/12/26/d3f7d272-055e-11e9-b5df-5d3874f1ac36_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ae91d977d7ab

Despite what some people are projecting onto him, Trump is just as much of a warmonger and an imperialist as Clinton, Obama, Bush and the rest. It's just that he has a (slightly) clearer view of the limits of American power and (slightly) more insight into how much ordinary working class Americans hate the forever wars.

But the basic lineaments of his worldview are imperial. That this in no way distinguishes him from the majority of American intellectuals, be they 'conservative' or 'liberal', is not an excuse.

nastywoman 12.27.18 at 4:35 pm ( 54 )
For any self described "liberal progressive" who wholeheartedly agrees with:
"military intervention in foreign disputes is almost always harmful and hardly ever preferable to civil aid" @50 is really "annoying"?

As it is highly doubtful that the "countless liberals opposed to #SyriaWithdrawal" are really "liberals" – as it is highly doubtful that the "Shrill, angry bitch would have started a war – as she for sure is NOT "like our boy" – Baron von Clownstick – who never ever will get anything "even half right" – as "random" never can be "right" or "wrong" – it's just as random as naming "Paradise" – "Pleasure" and not "Papperlapapp"!

abd 12.27.18 at 4:43 pm ( 55 )
@45. Hillary–"We Came, We Saw, He Died"–asks for more War on Syria:

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

--

[William Appleman] Williams' most important contribution was to identify foreign relations as the arena where competing moral ideas concerning how best to organize society got worked out. Over the long course of US history, Williams argued, liberalism's prime contradictions–between, for instance, the general good and self-interest, or society and private property–were harmonized through constant expansion, first territorially, then economically. Empire, he wrote, "was the only way to honor avarice and morality. The only way to be good and wealthy." (Williams was well ahead of his time: it has only been in the last decade that intellectual historians have begun to look at liberalism's relationship to empire.)

Williams taught that domestic reform in America has always been paid for with imperial expansion. In the mid-1800s, the federal fight against slavery went hand in hand with the fight against Native Americans and the final drive west. Progressives and New Dealers could use the government to distribute wealth a bit more equitably only if they also used it to open the world's markets to American corporations. And in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson couldn't get the congressional votes for the Great Society unless he stood "firm on the frontier" in Vietnam.

https://www.thenation.com/article/150

novakant 12.28.18 at 11:54 am (no link)
Raven, here is Richard Engel 4 years earlier:

"Bush tore open iraq. Obama encouraged revolts in syria, but never backed them. Now both nations in chaos"

https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/514554020078166016?s=19

Maybe both could be right – just a thought.

Donald 12.28.18 at 2:12 pm ( 62 )
One thing wrong with that Engel quote, novakant -- Obama did back the Syrian rebels. Some of the weapons he sent quickly ended up in the hands of ISIS.

http://www.conflictarm.com/download-file/?report_id=2568&file_id=2574

Roger Gathmann 12.28.18 at 2:16 pm ( 63 )
53, anybody who says Trump is not a warmonger should look at the increase in the military budget that he advocated. He's a warmonger. Which is why having a small force of soldiers in Syria is a hugely bad idea. It is not enough to confront Turkey, which just went ahead and incursed in Kurdish Syria recently – and it is not enough to confront Isis – but it is certainly enough to draw us into another badly planned, ill advised larger conflict. So what is the point?
I do love how suddenly the Kurds are these romantic exotics. I'm a fan of the Kurds, in a way, but I recognize that the Kurdish establishment in Northern Iraq profitted hugely from selling oil they got at a rock bottom price from ISIS in 2014 to Turkey. I realize this not because of Russian propaganda, but because Obama's undersecretary for the Treasury, David Cohen, said this way back in 2012. https://www.ft.com/content/6c269c4e-5ace-11e4-b449-00144feab7de It is also important to realize that the Kurdish parties who rule Northern Iraq are incredibly corrupt, and have crushed protests against them. Those parties have a history of fighting each other for the spoils, and have no hesitation about calling in their supposed "natural" enemies – as happened when the PUK allied itself with Saddam Hussein in the mini civil war of the late nineties.
Turkey has no right whatsoever to go into Syria. That's cause James Madison was not Turkish. Luckily for the U.S., he was American, and he gave America carte blanche to invade anywhere in its sphere in the Americas. Lucky America! Trump will never do anything right for the right reasons – but sometimes he does things right for the wrong reasons. Withdrawal from Afghanistan is certainly an excellent thing to get going. And it is also true that the Generals will continually ask for more time – no skin off their nose if it costs another hundred billion dollars. The discussion, in my opinion, should be about how to withdraw better, not how to stay.
Hidari 12.28.18 at 6:42 pm ( 64 )
'Syria's most powerful Kurdish militia has called on President Bashar al-Assad's government to send forces to protect it against an attack by Turkey, the first sign of shifting political alliances in eastern Syria since President Trump announced that he would withdraw American troops.

At issue is an expanse of territory in the country's north and east that the United States, in partnership with local Kurdish-led militias, took from the Islamic State. That put about one-quarter of Syria's territory, including valuable agricultural land and oil reserves, under the control of those militias backed by the United States and supported by about 2,000 American soldiers .

The Kurds said that the Syrian army would only take over border areas to protect against a Turkish attack but would not deploy inside the city itself.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/world/middleeast/syria-kurds-turkey-manbij.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

abd 12.29.18 at 1:48 am (no link)
@63. I do love how suddenly the Kurds are these romantic exotics.

Yes, it's interesting how in some folks' feverish imagination they might as well be a feminist, vegan, pro-LGBT, environmentally friendly, counter-cultural band of merry pranksters. Reality is a little more complicated (esp. as the cultural gap is vastly greater than, say, that between an Englishman like Orwell and Catalans in Barcelona):

https://theintercept.com/2018/12/28/syria-withdrawal-kurds-pkk

Speaking of Catalans–who, incidentally had a 60 year track record of anarchist practice by the time the Spanish Civil War broke out–here's an article that compares their predicament with that of Kurds:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/europe/independence-movements-catalans-kurds.html

faustusnotes 12.29.18 at 5:04 am ( 67 )
I actually think Dipper has a good point here. Every major international power has or should have a slogan or a set of principles which describes what its subjects and tributaries can expect from engagement with it. The reality doesn't match the slogan of course but it tells us something about how the imperial nation sees itself and its own activities, and what rhetoric people need to deploy against and in favour of it.

I think it's notable that post-Soviet Russia doesn't have any slogan. It's just "me and mine". But fortunately China has a very clear set of principles driving everything it does, with their origin in Mao and their latest expression in Xi Jinping Thought. I haven't read his thought (I guess it's a bunch of anodyne principles like "freedom is good"). But you can find Chinese scholars interpreting it with Chinese government support. For example here is a collection of positions on international affairs . Some examples:

Xi also said that diplomacy should continuously contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. It should be noted that a community of shared future for mankind is not a design or product exclusive to China, but a concept that can help resolve global issues, and thus should be shared by more countries and needs the concerted efforts of all to succeed.

(I assume that the use of "mankind" here is a translation error, since I expect it is not a gendered word in Mandarin).
Or here:

And sixth, the idea of fairness and justice should be promoted in global governance, especially as the United States has thrown the world order into chaos from time to time. In an ideal world, major powers should not harm others and destabilize the world order for the sake of their own interests.

So Xi Jinping thought proposes China as a responsible member of the global order, promoting a shared future for humanity through peaceful cooperation.
And finally, about the One Belt One Road initiative:

The steady advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative attests to the great importance of upholding justice and friendship while pursuing shared interests in diplomatic work. Upholding the principle of wide consultations, joint contributions and shared benefits, the initiative is not a one-way promotion of the China model. So, in the future, reasonable goals should be set to gradually promote the development of the initiative, in order to safeguard national interests and bring benefits to the economies involved in the initiative.

There's a new paper out by a scholar on colonialism that shows the UK stole resources from India equal to 17 times the total current UK GDP over the period of the colonial era. But you can bet that a bunch of idiots like BoJo and pretty much everyone in the US centrist press are going to try and present the One Belt One Road initiative as worse than colonialism. In any case, by Dipper's lights, it has a much better set of goals.

I also agree that maybe abd is a new incarnation of ph. If so, that's sock-puppeting, and completely unacceptable.

nastywoman 12.29.18 at 6:37 am ( 68 )
BUT as there is this rumor that Baron von Clownstick – in this case – did what he did in order to just get Turkey to order a Patriot System from our weapon manufacturers –
and that would be a YUUUUGE winning for US –

What are we discussing here?

Hidari 12.31.18 at 6:59 pm (no link)
As I predicted, Trump's 'withdrawal' turns out not to be quite as reported.

'A top Republican has said US President Donald Trump remains committed to defeating Islamic State (IS) in Syria, despite his plan to withdraw US troops.
Senator Lindsey Graham suggested the withdrawal had been slowed and he was now reassured of the president's commitment after meeting him on Sunday.
Mr Trump's troop pullout plan met strong criticism from major allies, and senior Republicans like Mr Graham.
The White House has yet to comment on Mr Graham's remarks.
"I think we're in a pause situation where we are re-evaluating what's the best way to achieve the president's objective of having people pay more and do more," Mr. Graham said.
He did not explain this, but The New York Times reports that he may be referring to assurances given to military officials that they can have longer than 30 days to ensure an orderly withdrawal of troops.'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46718397

J-D 12.31.18 at 8:37 pm ( 80 )
Orange Watch

Clinton would have escalated in Syria by her own admission, and as other commenters pointed out above, would have been less willing than Trump to de-escalate because she and her backers place a premium on an appearance "pragmatic centerism" which requires unwavering posturing towards vague right-wing ideals that they'll never actually satisfy and that will never exempt them from right-wing criticism.

'Clinton would have escalated in Syria' is not synonymous with 'Clinton would have initiated a major war', which is the statement that William Berry was reacting to.

J-D 12.31.18 at 11:34 pm ( 81 )
Dipper

So, I understand how Faustusnotes's information about Xi Jinping Thought might be interesting to you, but I still don't get how the whole question of 'Who is China's David Livingstone?' was supposed to be relevant to this discussion.

Patrick 01.01.19 at 2:43 pm ( 82 )
I think its too early to say whether the withdrawal will or will not be as initially declared.

Trump is a nihilistic narcissist with a lazy absence of follow through, but with strong impulsive tendencies. I think the most likely reason for the changed announcements about what withdrawal will or will not happen is that Congressional Republicans like Lindsay Graham don't want the withdrawal to happen, and are trying to chart a course where something happens to mollify Trump, but the withdrawal doesn't really take place. It is NOT guaranteed that they will succeed in that aim. They are not the first set of Trump flunkies to try to achieve this sort of redirection of the Presidency, and the success rate of other people's efforts is maybe 50/50 over the long term.

JimV 01.01.19 at 5:35 pm ( 83 )
Re: J-D's question to Dipper and Dipper's follow-up question to J-D (the three C's)

This will be an exercise in attempted mind-reading, which will probably fail, but,

Since the answer to "who first mentioned the three C's" takes less than a minute to google and find David Livingstone of "Dr. Livingston, I presume" fame (i.e., the missionary who probably was sincere in the sentiment he expressed with the three C's), and one would like to think that comments are relevant to the posts they are submitted to, I think Dipper assumed that you already knew the answer and were trying to make a subtle Socratic point (relevant to the discussion) that the three C's were not and are not necessarily insincere. So he responded to the effect of, okay, Dr. Livingston may he been sincere but who today is being similarly sincere in their imperialism?

Based on J-D's responses I further mind-read that he actually was asking for information, tangential to the discussion, as to who authored the three C's, not trying to make any point relevant to the discussion with that question. I'm less sure of that reading than the previous one, though.

I offer this with no dog in the barking contest, just trying, and probably failing, to clear up a misunderstanding on the Internet.

Orange Watch 01.01.19 at 7:36 pm (no link)
J-D@80:

Clinton would have escalated in Syria' is not synonymous with 'Clinton would have initiated a major war', which is the statement that William Berry was reacting to.

It's also not even vaguely mutually exclusive with initiating a major war. Syria "enjoyed" certain aspects of a proxy war with Russia, and Clinton's call for imposing a no-fly zone and escalating our direct involvement showed a fair amount of disregard for that. (Incidentally, this is one of the reasons that the #resistance crowd don't sound entirely insane when they wildly overstate the evidence of the extent of Trump-Russia collusion, but like the above admission that Clinton was flawed, they want us to not think about the implied consequences of have these intentions, because that would spoil the illusion that "centerist" liberals become hawks have only when their unwilling hand is forced by evolving circumstances.)

Pointing out that calls for escalating something bordering on proxy war with Russia does not guarantee a new major war does nothing to contradict the fact that a major war was a very possible outcome of those enthusiastic intentions. Clinton expressed a desire to greatly increase the risk of a new major war (although frankly, if anything can be broadly objected to here, it's the new; this would have been a new major theater, not a new war). Scoffing "that's ridiculous" on the basis of "she didn't actually SAY 'I want to start a new major war'" is generally unhelpful, and it's flat-out disingenuous when your faction's preferred rhetorical ploy is to say that you don't ever WANT the predictable negative consequences of your policy positions to occur, but the situation unfortunately forced your hand (exactly as your slanderous, scurrilous, naive critics predicted, time and again).

[Jan 03, 2019] After Syria, Trump Should Clean Out His National Security Bureaucracy by Doug Bandow

Notable quotes:
"... The president's own appointees, the "adult" foreign policy advisors he surrounded himself with, disagreed with him on almost all of this -- not just micromanaging the Middle East, but subsidizing Europeans in NATO, underwriting South Korea, and negotiating with North Korea. His aides played him at every turn, adding allies, sending more men and materiel to defend foreign states, and expanding commitments in the Middle East. ..."
"... Equally important, though somewhat less urgent, is finding a new secretary of state. Although Pompeo has not so ostentatiously undermined his boss, he appears to oppose every effort by the president to end a war, drop a security commitment, or ease a conflict. Pompeo's enthusiasm for negotiation with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin is clearly lagging. While the secretary might not engage in open sabotage, his determination to take a confrontational approach everywhere except when explicitly ordered to do otherwise badly undermines Trump's policies. ..."
"... Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of ..."
"... Those of us who want to see Bolton gone should first ask why he was chosen in the first place. Clearly Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make that appointment because he depends on his campaign donations. What makes anyone think that the situation has changed in such a way as to permit Trump more autonomy in his choice of his cabinet? ..."
"... It astonishes me how people, in particular Bolton, can continue to get these jobs, particularly under Trump. Who pushed him and supported him for this position? Pompeo is disappointing and he just appointed a anti-Trump neocon for a high level position at State. ..."
"... Trump has made many very bad personnel decisions, with some very horrible political advisor appointments, foreign affairs appointments, and domestic policy appointments. And, he has decidedly left out of his administration many people who worked very hard to get him elected, shared his views on the world, and who would be loyal supporters in office. He appointed many people who were against him and probably did not vote for him, much less support him. There was and perhaps still is a better chance of a high level appointment if one opposed and still oppose Trump's promises to the American people. ..."
"... He needs to turn this around now. Bolton is a piece of crap, a devoted coward, and a fraud with a track record of disastrous judgment and failure. I was astonished when Trump appointed him he needs to go now. Clean house. ..."
Dec 27, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com

After Syria, Trump Should Clean Out His National Security Bureaucracy They're undermining his positions and pursuing their own agendas. John Bolton should be the first to go.

President Donald Trump has at last rediscovered his core foreign policy beliefs and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. Right on cue, official Washington had a collective mental breakdown. Neocons committed to war, progressives targeting Trump, and centrists determined to dominate the world unleashed an orgy of shrieking and caterwauling. The horrifying collective scream, a la artist Edvard Munch, continued for days.

Trump's decision should have surprised no one. As a candidate, he shocked the Republican Party establishment by criticizing George W. Bush's disastrous decision to invade Iraq and urging a quick exit from Afghanistan. As president, he inflamed the bipartisan War Party's fears by denouncing America's costly alliances with wealthy industrialized states. And to almost everyone's consternation, he said he wanted U.S. personnel out of Syria. Once the Islamic State was defeated, he explained, Americans should come home.

How shocking. How naïve. How outrageous.

The president's own appointees, the "adult" foreign policy advisors he surrounded himself with, disagreed with him on almost all of this -- not just micromanaging the Middle East, but subsidizing Europeans in NATO, underwriting South Korea, and negotiating with North Korea. His aides played him at every turn, adding allies, sending more men and materiel to defend foreign states, and expanding commitments in the Middle East.

Last spring, the president talked of leaving Syria "very soon." But the American military stayed. Indeed, three months ago, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced an entirely new mission: "We're not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders and that includes Iranian proxies and militias."

That was chutzpah on a breathtaking scale. It meant effectively that the U.S. was entitled to invade and dismember nations, back aggressive wars begun by others, and scatter bases and deployments around the world. Since Damascus and Tehran have no reason to stop cooperating -- indeed, America's presence makes outside support even more important for the Assad regime -- Bolton was effectively planning a permanent presence, one that could bring American forces into contact with Russian, Syrian, and Turkish forces, as well as Iranians. As the Assad government consolidates its victory in the civil war, it inevitably will push into Kurdish territories in the north. That would have forced the small American garrison there to either yield ground or become a formal combatant in another Middle Eastern civil war.

The latter could have turned into a major confrontation. Damascus is backed by Russia and might be supported by Ankara, which would prefer to see the border controlled by Syrian than Kurdish forces. Moreover, the Kurds, under threat from Turkey, are not likely to divert forces to contain Iranians moving with the permission of the Damascus government. Better to cut a deal with Assad that minimizes the Turks than be Washington's catspaw.

The Pentagon initially appeared reluctant to accept this new objective. At the time, Brigadier General Scott Benedict told the House Armed Services Committee: "In Syria, our role is to defeat ISIS. That's it." However, the State Department envoy on Syria, Jim Jeffrey, began adding Iran to his sales pitch. So did Brian Hook, State's representative handling the undeclared diplomatic war on Iran, who said the goal was "to remove all forces under Iranian control from Syria."

Washington Melts Down Over Trump's Syria Withdrawal Mattis Marks the End of the Global War on Terror

Apparently this direct insubordination came to a head in a phone call between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "Why are you still there?" the latter asked Trump, who turned to Bolton. The national security advisor was on the call, but could offer no satisfactory explanation.

Perhaps at that moment, the president realized that only a direct order could enforce his policy. Otherwise his staffers would continue to pursue their militaristic ends. That determination apparently triggered the long-expected resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who deserves respect but was a charter member of the hawkish cabal around the president. He dissented from them only on ending the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Still in place is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who so far has proven to be a bit more malleable though still hostile to the president's agenda. He is an inveterate hawk, including toward Tehran, which he insists must surrender to both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as part of any negotiation. He's adopted the anti-Iran agenda in Syria as his own. His department offered no new approach to Russia over Ukraine, instead steadily increasing sanctions, without effect, on Moscow. At least Pompeo attempted to pursue discussions with North Korea, though he was certainly reluctant about it.

Most dangerous is Bolton. He publicly advocated war with both Iran and North Korea before his appointment, and his strategy in Syria risked conflict with several nations. He's demonstrated that he has no compunctions about defying the president, crafting policies that contradict the latter's directives. Indeed, Bolton is well-positioned to undermine even obvious successes, such as the peaceful opening with North Korea.

Supporting appointments to State and the National Security Council have been equally problematic. Candidate Trump criticized the bipartisan War Party, thereby appealing to heartland patriots who wonder why their relatives, friends, and neighbors have been dying in endless wars that have begotten nothing but more wars. Yet President Trump has surrounded himself with neocons, inveterate hawks, and ivory tower warriors. With virtually no aides around him who believe in his policies or were even willing to implement them, he looked like a George Bush/Barack Obama retread. The only certainty, beyond his stream of dramatic tweets, appeared to be that Americans would continue dying in wars throughout his presidency.

However, Trump took charge when he insisted on holding the summit with North Korea's Kim Jong-un. Now U.S. forces are set to come home from Syria, and it appears that he may reduce or even eliminate the garrison in Afghanistan, where Americans have been fighting for more than 17 years. Perhaps he also will reconsider U.S. support for the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen.

Trump should use Secretary Mattis's departure as an opportunity to refashion his national security team. Who is to succeed Mattis at the Pentagon? Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan appears to have the inside track. But former Navy secretary and senator Jim Webb deserves consideration. Or perhaps it's time for a second round for former senator Chuck Hagel, who opposed the Gulf war and backed dialog with Iran. Defense needs someone willing to challenge the Pentagon's thinking and practices. Best would be a civilian who won't be captured by the bureaucracy, one who understands that he or she faces a tough fight against advocates of perpetual war.

Next to go should be Bolton. There are many potential replacements who believe in a more restrained role for America. One who has been mentioned as a potential national security advisor in the past is retired Army colonel and respected security analyst Douglas Macgregor.

Equally important, though somewhat less urgent, is finding a new secretary of state. Although Pompeo has not so ostentatiously undermined his boss, he appears to oppose every effort by the president to end a war, drop a security commitment, or ease a conflict. Pompeo's enthusiasm for negotiation with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin is clearly lagging. While the secretary might not engage in open sabotage, his determination to take a confrontational approach everywhere except when explicitly ordered to do otherwise badly undermines Trump's policies.

Who to appoint? Perhaps Tennessee's John Duncan, the last Republican congressman who opposed the Iraq war and who retired this year after decades of patriotic service. There are a handful of active legislators who could serve with distinction as well, though their departures would be a significant loss on Capitol Hill: Senator Rand Paul and Representatives Justin Amash and Walter Jones, for instance.

Once the top officials have been replaced, the process should continue downwards. Those appointed don't need to be thoroughgoing Trumpists, of whom there are few. Rather, the president needs people generally supportive of his vision of a less embattled and entangled America: subordinates, not insubordinates. Then he will be less likely to find himself in embarrassing positions where his appointees create their own aggressive policies contrary to his expressed desires.

Trump has finally insisted on being Trump, but Syria must only be the start. He needs to fill his administration with allies, not adversaries. Only then will his "America First" policy actually put America first.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .



Michael Kaiser December 26, 2018 at 10:57 pm

Talk about "Ivory Tower" know-nothings. Does this writer, Doug Bandow of the Cata Institute amazingly, have any idea what he is talking about? Justin Amish? In a discussion of the most virulent anti-Trumper in Congress Amish would have to be included in the discussion. Chuck Hagel? Are you kidding? Let us just bring back Obama and let him do some national security. And Hagel is loyal to no one. And, sorry, like John Bolton or not, he basically just started. He is not going anywhere and he should not. It would look ridiculous to replace him so soon.
Not Sanguine , , December 26, 2018 at 11:12 pm
Gosh, that would be great (Bolton and Pompeo out) but I don't see it happening anytime soon. They're in it for the power and the money they'll make afterward, not for principle, and will bob and weave with the caprices of their boss.
Clyde Schechter , , December 26, 2018 at 11:47 pm
After two years in office, I am utterly flabbergasted that there are still people out there who take seriously the notion that Trump wants to extricate us from our wars around the globe and refrain from starting new ones. Virtually every foreign policy decision he has made has been contrary to that.

Finally, for once, he decides to pull out of Syria (a mere few weeks after he announced we would stay there indefinitely) and somehow this one, as yet unimplemented decision represents "Trump being Trump?" Seriously? He's proven through his actions and his appointments that he's a full-blown neocon. Maybe I'll rescind the "full-blown" part of that judgment if he actually does withdraw from Syria. But it would still be a pretty tiny exception to his thoroughly neocon actions up to this point.

If nothing else, appointing Bolton as national security advisor speaks volumes. Personnel is policy, as they say. And you'd have have spent the last two decades in a coma living on another planet not to know that Bolton is the biggest warmonger around. He makes most of the neocons look like pacifists by comparison. Even the people who think Trump a complete idiot can't really imagine that Trump didn't know what he was getting when he hired Bolton.

Let's get real here. It'll be great if he withdraws from Syria. It'd be even better if he replaces his national security team along the lines suggested in this article. But don't hold your breath. It would go against nearly everything he has done since taking office.

It's time to come to grips with the non-existence of the tooth fairy.

sglover , , December 27, 2018 at 12:12 am
Before we credit Trump with stumbling on something sensible for once, it might be wise to remember that we're still talking about -- Trump. Who now says that American troops still in Iraq can still raid into Syria as necessary, and by the way, they'll be staying in Iraq . So already it's shaping up as not so much a withdrawal as a reshuffling. After a minor adjustment to the game board, play can continue as necessary, such as whenever Bolton or Fox media whispers into the casino bankrupt's ear.

Always always always a swindle, with Trump. It's an iron law.

Fran Macadam , , December 27, 2018 at 6:25 am
" heartland patriots who wonder why their relatives, friends, and neighbors have been dying in endless wars that have begotten nothing but more wars."

Nothing to wonder at, war is the most lucrative racket going, for those who profit mightily from supplying weapons. It's become so important to an otherwise shrunken manufacturing base, that downsizing would affect employment, and there's nowhere domestic to absorb the overseas demobilized.

The downside of this, therefore, is it may only be redirection and consolidation, to be able to concentrate forces on Iran instead. The budget's not getting any smaller, so there's going to be warmaking somewhere.

Fran Macadam , , December 27, 2018 at 6:26 am
" heartland patriots who wonder why their relatives, friends, and neighbors have been dying in endless wars that have begotten nothing but more wars."

Nothing to wonder at, war is the most lucrative racket going, for those who profit mightily from supplying weapons. It's become so important to an otherwise shrunken manufacturing base, that downsizing would affect employment, and there's nowhere domestic to absorb the overseas demobilized.

The downside of this, therefore, is it may only be redirection and consolidation, to be able to concentrate forces on Iran instead. The budget's not getting any smaller, so there's got to be compensatory warmaking somewhere.

Trump got one right , , December 27, 2018 at 8:21 am
Bolton is a national disgrace. This vile piece of trash is desperate to get the USA into a disasterous war with Iran. The quicker Bolton is removed the better. Any stooge who supported the Iraq invasion should be precluded from consideration.
Mark Thomason , , December 27, 2018 at 9:35 am
"Yet President Trump has surrounded himself with neocons, inveterate hawks, and ivory tower warriors."

In fairness to Trump, there just was nobody else. He had nobody lined up to be an administration that believed what he did. Republicans were all hawks. Democrats wouldn't think of helping, and were also all hawks anyway.

Trump's first effort to break out of that with second or third-line people went bust with the likes of Gen. Flynn, and he was left with going back to the very people he'd defeated.

Fred Bowman , , December 27, 2018 at 9:43 am
At this point in time I don't think Trump will be able to win a second term, such is the chaos he's brought about to his Presidency. So that leaves to question which of the men you have suggested to help lead Trump to a less warlike America would choose to serve? Perhaps first, we need an "Adult" as POTUS and maybe then, we can get "men of wisdom" who can help America get out of it's "Miltary Misadventures" in the Middle East.
pax , , December 27, 2018 at 9:57 am
There is no problem replacing someone who should never have been tapped in the first place. John Bolton. Never too soon to right a wrong. Get rid of neocon Bolton and his types now. Not later. He marches to another drummer not to USA interests. I doubt Trump can even beat Kamila Harris (darling of the illiberal left) in 2020 if he keeps Bolton and Co. around.
Steve Naidamast , , December 27, 2018 at 10:52 am
I wouldn't get overly excited about this. Trump has habitually initiated all levels of chaos throughout his incompetent administration. This is nothing new but more of the same.

If anyone believes Trump actually found his brain, they are smoking something

CLW , , December 27, 2018 at 12:19 pm
What a joke. Trump has no "foreign policy vision," just a series of boisterous, bellicose talking points that to his isolationist base and his own desire to be the strongman.
Kurt Gayle , , December 27, 2018 at 12:48 pm
sglover says (Dec 27, 12:12 am): "Before we credit Trump with stumbling on something sensible for once, it might be wise to remember that we're still talking about -- Trump. Who now says that American troops still in Iraq can still raid into Syria as necessary, and by the way, they'll be staying in Iraq. So already it's shaping up as not so much a withdrawal as a reshuffling. After a minor adjustment to the game board, play can continue as necessary, such as whenever Bolton or Fox media whispers into the casino bankrupt's ear. Always always always a swindle, with Trump. It's an iron law."

However, just 6 days ago sglover said on another thread ("Washington Melts Down Over Trump's Syria Withdrawal" -- Dec 21, 3:26 pm):

"I despise Trump, but if he's managed to stumble on doing something sensible, and actually does it (never a certainty with the casino swindler) -- great! There's no sane reason for us to muck about in Syria. However it comes about, we should welcome a withdrawal there. If the move gives Trump some of the approval that he plainly craves, maybe he'll repeat the performance and end our purposeless wallow in Afghanistan. It doesn't say anything good about the nominal opposition party, the Dems, that half or more of them -- and apparently *all* of their dinosaur 'leadership' -- can't stifle the kneejerking and let him do it. Of course many of them are "troubled" because their Israeli & Saudi owners, er, 'donors' expect it. But some of them seem to have developed a sudden deep attachment to 'our mission in Syria' for no better reason than, Trump is for it, therefore I must shout against it. And then, of course, there's the Russia hysteria. Oh yeah, what a huge win for Moscow if it scores the 'prize' of occupying Syria! If that's Putin's idea of a big score, how exactly does it harm any American to let him have it? I wonder if the Democratic Party will ever be capable of doing anything other than snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?"

FL Transplant , , December 27, 2018 at 1:24 pm
The problem with they article begins with it's first sentence "President Donald Trump has at last rediscovered his core foreign policy beliefs " I can't find any core foreign policy beliefs. What I have seen is a mosh-mosh of sound bites that resound well with his audiences at rallies, and various people attempt to link those together and fill in the white space between with what they WANT his foreign policy beliefs to be. But to go so far as to say he has any consistent beliefs that combine to form a foreign policy is going way too far.
DeusIrae , , December 27, 2018 at 1:47 pm
Replace Bolton with Mike Flynn after all charges are dropped against him. Then have Robert Mueller et al. arrested to be tried and put to death for High Treason. Then liberate Britain, Bomb the Vatican, and put a naval blockade on China.
Bruceb , , December 27, 2018 at 2:21 pm
You do know that Trump wants to increase the military budget. Yet you maintain that he wanted to pull us out of foreign wars. Curious. Where would all that extra money go? I'd look for it at the top of Trump Tower. Certainly not in the pockets of ordinary citizens.
Shawn F , , December 27, 2018 at 3:08 pm
Hmm This article makes it seem like there's these renegades who have somehow held onto power and are charting America's course on their own. But doesn't the President hand pick the members of his cabinet? Wasn't every single one of them given their authority *by Donald Trump*?

Only an incompetent imbecile with no experience in leadership or government could be so dim-witted as to appoint people who would willfully defy and disregard his agenda. Surely our country would never put give such an incompetent so much authority.

Oh wait sorry, never mind.

Jeeves , , December 27, 2018 at 3:13 pm
We have a "peaceful opening" with North Korea? How many months ago did Mr. Bandow last read about the NoKos counter-proposal to unconditional nuclear disarmament? And what about all the Trump saber-rattling that preceded this so-called opening? If Trump was "played" by his own advisers on Afghanistan, he was equally duped by the mirage offered by Kim.
WRW , , December 27, 2018 at 3:22 pm
Trump had no lofty notions underpinning this decision. He did it in an impetuous, chaotic manner in which he obtained nothing in return from Russia or Turkey or Iran to address our broader strategic interest in the region, such as ending the war in Yemen.

Like everything he does, it reeks of corruption and no doubt will be added to Mueller's investigation.

Contrary to Bandows libertarian take, it is an expression of Trumps imperial presidency. The Syrian involvement has strong bipartisan support even if lacking a resolution in support (and the Libertarian Sen. Paul never got anywhere with a resolution against.) Leaving Syria was the correct long term strategic decision. I'm sure 99% of democrats in Congress supported the action. Only Trump, with his narcissistic incompetence could take an action that his opponents would overwhelmingly support if done in a credible manner and turn it into controversy. Trump looks like the servant of Russians and Turks in his conduct. Jan 2021 can't come soon enough.

The Other Sands , , December 27, 2018 at 4:32 pm
I find it interesting that so many people (the author apparently included) are still so slow to understand that Trump can't afford to get rid of people, because he literally can't find new cabinet members.

He started with mostly C-listers, and most of them are gone. He is on to hiring TV hosts, bloggers, professional political grifters, his family, or just being stuck with straight-up vacant posts.

Only the worst sorts would voluntarily work for such an angry, undisciplined, chaotic boss in the smoking shambles of an organization like this administration.

You just go ahead and ask Chuck Hagel if he would join this train wreck.

sglover , , December 27, 2018 at 5:47 pm
The article itself is a joke, of course, but this is TAC, so one shouldn't expect much.

Besides, it's always amusing (in a gallows humor kind of way) to watch the right-wingers cling to and puff up everything, anything, that might keep them from confronting the product of their dime store "philosophy". In every way that counts, Trump is the true heir of the sainted Reagan.

Brendan Sexton , , December 27, 2018 at 7:53 pm
FL Transplant is correct. Whatever 'core beliefs' Trump may have, they will prove hard to find and if found will turn out to be political expediency, ego inflation, or gibberish -- often all three at once.

Still, I welcome the withdrawal from Syria, but even supporting the result, i am amazed at how ineptly this was decided and how abruptly it was announced . This question of 'process' is in fact what so many critics are pointing to -- the abruptness, the lack of consultation (of course) or even warning to our allies -- including the exposed and vulnerable Kurds, and so on. Considering these errors of process, it seems certain that he will manage to produce awfulness from what should have been a correct policy intention.

Everything he touches turns to crap.

This includes every person he appoints to any office -- each waits in turn to have his or her reputation destroyed.

It is sort of remarkable that any Americans still support him at all. But if they do, they are advised to do so from a distance -- from someplace he cannot touch, leaving his stink behind.

Hideo Watanabe , , December 27, 2018 at 9:19 pm
I blogged on December 22 when I read a similar article like this;

"Every time I read such article as this about Mr. Trump's decisions of any sort, I always wonder if the authors believe that he has solid political philosophy or consolidated policy agenda.

I took his decision of withdrawal from Syria and seemingly from Afghanistan is his survival strategy for 2020 presidential election to appeal to war weariness American voters because Mr. Cohen's plea deal and the revelation of Trump signature on the license agreement for Moscow Trump Tower project would kill his 2020 chance. It is a good strategy but over the last two days his approval rating has not been improved."

Mr. Trump seems to have delivered a speech in Iraq saying that the withdrawal from Syria would not give any adverse effect on Israel security because the US government gives more than $45 billion every year according to a local newspaper of Middle East.

This is another tactic to appeal to AIPAC to make sure his own security for 2020 candidacy, isn't it?

usmc0846 , , December 27, 2018 at 9:52 pm
First 2000 troops is not much more than a reinforced battalion the USMC shuffles that many warriors and more around the Mediterranean every six months. I think the issue with Trump is, as it's always been, his gut seat of his pants way of handling virtually everything he does. There's no control or consideration apparent in any action other than to pitch chum at his largely illiterate followers. In this case he's handed a huge victory to Putin (my my what a surprise that is) and essentially screwed the Kurds. If nothing else those 2000 troops were at least keeping a cap on things to some small degree. That's out the door now and I can't help but think that ISIS (aka the enemy here) will have a vote on what happens next.
Trump Voter , , December 27, 2018 at 10:43 pm
"President Donald Trump has at last rediscovered his core foreign policy beliefs and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. "

Too hopeful, at this point, I think. But I hope so, too.

Cloak And Dagger , , December 27, 2018 at 11:27 pm
Those of us who want to see Bolton gone should first ask why he was chosen in the first place. Clearly Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make that appointment because he depends on his campaign donations. What makes anyone think that the situation has changed in such a way as to permit Trump more autonomy in his choice of his cabinet?
NEexpert , , December 28, 2018 at 1:54 am
"Or perhaps it's time for a second round for former senator Chuck Hagel, who opposed the Gulf war and backed dialog with Iran."

I think it is an excellent idea to bring back Senator Hagel. He is a man of integrity. But most importantly, he hasn't sold out his soul to Israel.

SteveK9 , , December 28, 2018 at 12:00 pm
To those who say Trump has no foreign policy vision, you are wrong. His vision is simple, dismantle parts of the Empire, become a little more isolationist, and focus on 'America First'. Trump is not very intelligent, but he has the right instincts. He is up against the War Party, the most influential power center in the US, and that is not easy. Obama is more intelligent than Trump, but the results were very bad add one more destroyed country, Libya to his credit, and almost another, Syria (although thankfully the Russians stopped that).

What is mysterious is the following from the article:

'Yet President Trump has surrounded himself with neocons, inveterate hawks, and ivory tower warriors. With virtually no aides around him who believe in his policies or were even willing to implement them, he looked like a George Bush/Barack Obama retread.'

Why he does this, I don't know.

Pulling out of Syria will be a good thing for everyone. The reason is largely nonsense, as it was Russia/Syria that destroyed Isis (we did manage to destroy another city, Raqqa), but I don't care, and neither will the American Public, who understand nothing of Syria.

The Kurds will make an arrangement for limited autonomy with Damascus (already happening as they just asked for protection from Turkey in Manbij). Turkey will not invade Syria as long as they feel Damascus can control the border. Syria, Russia, and maybe even the Kurds will wipe out the last of Isis and those militants in Idlib that would rather die than give up the fight (the fanatics), will be killed.

Then, the reconstruction of Syria can begin in earnest, and it is to be hoped that the Chinese will get off their butt and provide some assistance.

Israel is probably unhappy, which pleases me no end, and I hope this is an indication that there is some limit to the number of people we are willing to murder on their behalf.

Guy St Hilaire , , December 28, 2018 at 2:55 pm
@ NEexpert. Integrity is a quality severely lacking in many politicians in the US. Not being American , but watching closely, if Senator Hagel is such a man , it would do American politics much good, not only for the US but the US standing in the world. Gods speed in changing the likes of Bolton and Pompeo to begin with.
sglover , , December 28, 2018 at 5:03 pm
@ Kurt Gayle -- I don't think you'll find any contradiction between my two remarks.

All I'm saying is that in all the ways that really matter the sudden "withdrawal" from Syria is already shaping up to be a typical Trump bait-and-switch. Sure, troops won't be bivouacing in Syria. Instead, they'll be stationed next door in Iraq, so they can continue to muck around in Syria. And Trump emphasized that as far as he's concerned we'll be staying in Iraq.

(Of course, that "strategic doctrine" is only valid until his next Fox media wallow in front of the idiot box. I.e., maybe until tomorrow afternoon)

William Dalton , , December 28, 2018 at 8:12 pm
I wouldn't hesitate to appoint Walter Jones to the Trump Cabinet. He is entering his last term in Congress and will have virtually no influence in that position. Not only is he a minority of a minority, he is given no respect by his own Republican caucus, which parcels out chairmanships to fundraisers -- not to members with seniority. Seniority, i.e., experience and knowledge, is exactly what the North Carolina Congressman has -- on the Armed Services Committee, and as the representative of a district top heavy with active duty Marines and Airmen and retired military. He should be appointed Secretary of Defense to replace Gen. Mattis.

Jim Webb would be a great pick to become a new National Security Adviser or Secretary of State.

Taras 77 , , December 28, 2018 at 8:15 pm
Cloak And Dagger
December 27, 2018 at 11:27 pm

"want to see Bolton gone should first ask why he was chosen in the first place. Clearly Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make that appointment because he depends on his campaign donations."

Very much agree with the thrust of that comment-adelson is still around, indeed so is his wife, who may be even more rabid than her husband. Do not see this pressure and bolton support going away.

Pompeo??? the day I heard that he wanted to put the "swagger" back into the state dept was the day I knew we were in trouble.

TAC published an article a couple of years ago that romney was instrumental in loading the admin with rabid neo cons-now he will enter the senate, keep any eye on which committee he lands on-graham, menendez, dual citizen cardin, other browder lap dogs will still be active in keeping the heat on for moar neo cons appointees, moar rabid support for wars, moar anti-russian risk taking, etc

Janwaar Bibi , , December 28, 2018 at 10:13 pm
I can't help but think that ISIS (aka the enemy here) will have a vote on what happens next.

As far as I know, a grand total of 2 US soldiers have been killed in this heroic fight by US troops against ISIS in Syria.

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/britain-names-special-air-service-soldier-killed-fighting-isis-in-syria

Even if the number is ten times that, it is nothing compared to what the Syrians, Iranians and Kurds, who actually fought ISIS, suffered.

Even after the US leaves, you have Syria, Russia, Iran and the Kurds fighting ISIS. The 2000 US troops in Syria were there to prevent Assad from defeating ISIS completely since ISIS is a creation of our pals the Saudis and Emiratis, and is supported by our other pal, Israel.

With the US out of the way, ISIS vermin will be exterminated. This will make the Saudis, Emiratis and Israelis sad, which is an added bonus.

RonPaulForSecDef , , December 28, 2018 at 11:16 pm
Senator Rand Paul for Secretary of Defense!
thought bubbles , , December 29, 2018 at 1:15 am
@Cloak and Dagger : "Clearly Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make [the Bolton] appointment because he depends on his campaign donations. What makes anyone think that the situation has changed in such a way as to permit Trump more autonomy in his choice of his cabinet?"

Maybe the Syria withdrawal is Trump's way of saying to Adelson something like this:

"Look, you got more than your $80 million worth with the embassy move, cutting off the Palestinians, Haley at the UN supporting Israel killing and maiming unarmed protesters, and me standing by Israel's only regional friend, Saudi Arabia's MBS. It didn't have to be that way, Sheldon. See? I just pulled out of Syria. I hired Bolton like you wanted, but I don't have to do what Bolton says. Do I?

The bottom line, Sheldon, is that if you want more favors for Israel, and particularly if you want me to put Americans at risk standing between Israel and its enemies, you've got to hand over more money. A lot more money."

Joseph Chiara , , December 30, 2018 at 6:12 am
It astonishes me how people, in particular Bolton, can continue to get these jobs, particularly under Trump. Who pushed him and supported him for this position? Pompeo is disappointing and he just appointed a anti-Trump neocon for a high level position at State.

Trump has made many very bad personnel decisions, with some very horrible political advisor appointments, foreign affairs appointments, and domestic policy appointments. And, he has decidedly left out of his administration many people who worked very hard to get him elected, shared his views on the world, and who would be loyal supporters in office. He appointed many people who were against him and probably did not vote for him, much less support him. There was and perhaps still is a better chance of a high level appointment if one opposed and still oppose Trump's promises to the American people.

He needs to turn this around now. Bolton is a piece of crap, a devoted coward, and a fraud with a track record of disastrous judgment and failure. I was astonished when Trump appointed him he needs to go now. Clean house.

william chandler , , December 30, 2018 at 12:22 pm
Every American should spit on John Bolton anytime they encounter the coward. Bolton loves war as long as HE does not have to go to it. The Draft Dodger has no shame and should be placed in the Front Lines for the duration.

[Jan 03, 2019] When 'Trashing Our Allies' Was All the Rage

Notable quotes:
"... I do not believe the neocons are credible. But the mainstream media and purchased politicians treat them as supernovas when it comes to issues of war and peace; especially in the Middle East. ..."
"... Look at those photos, the superior smirks on Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's faces. And then reflect on their recklessness and incompetence. I will never forgive what these people did to America. And I'm only one of a great many Americans who feel that way. ..."
"... Tillerson, Mattis, Bolton, Pompeo -- all are poor hires to a candidate that wanted to reign in foreign intervention. Trump's greatest failing is one of Management 101. He can't seem to staff a team without drawing from the swamp he claimed to want to drain. ..."
"... The American Conservative was onto something brave and noble when it was founded. I don't recall that it called GWB a fool but its pages redounded with criticism of his administration's folly in prosecuting its wars, ruinous at home and more ruinous abroad. And it recognized the cancer of neo-conservativism, a neologism coined to camouflage the pseudo-religion of American exceptionalism uber alles. ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

When 'Trashing Our Allies' Was All the Rage The same neocons who gush about alliances today were telling anyone not on board with the Iraq invasion to 'go to hell.' By Andrew J. Bacevich December 28, 2018

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The newly confirmed Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz emphasizes a point as he talks to reporters in the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on March 1, 2001. (DoD photo by R. D. Ward)

Is it blatant dishonesty or a convenient bout of amnesia? It's hard to tell. What I do know is this: t he supposed American devotion to alliances, now being celebrated by those who deem the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis as heralding the end of Western civilization, is a load of malarkey.

The canonization of Mattis as a secular saint was underway in record time. In The New York Times , David Sanger describes Mattis as "the last senior official in the administration deeply invested in the world order that the United States has led for the 73 years since World War II, and the global footprint needed to keep that order together." Here the tradition of Marshall, Acheson, and Kennan ostensibly ends and the precipice beckons.

To the wise and seasoned defense secretary, Sanger writes, "alliances were a force-multiplier." To the foolish and impetuous commander-in-chief, "they are mostly a burden." To drive the point home, Sanger recruits Robert Kagan, who obligingly chides President Donald Trump for treating allies as "freeloaders who can go to hell if they don't get on board."

Treating allies with disrespect is no doubt a terrible thing. Yet not so very long ago it was Kagan and his fellow neoconservatives who were telling allies unwilling to get onboard to go to hell. The moment was the run up to the Iraq war. The George W. Bush administration was urging American allies to join our mission. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein would initiate a great crusade to democratize the Middle East. What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently failing to appreciate that Washington's operative definition of ally is "we decide, you agree, photo op to follow," the Krauts and the Frogs refused to go along.

To which Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld replied: s o what? In their view, allies were window dressing -- nice to have if convenient, but utterly expendable if they dared to interfere with the exercise of American global leadership. Regarding Iraq, the Bush administration did not hide the fact that the United States would go it alone if necessary. "Coalition of the willing" was the phrase devised to gussy up what was little more than a policy of naked unilateralism.

The Germans? Ingrates who had managed to forget their debt to the United States, dating from 1945 and continuing through the Cold War. And the French? "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys." Together the two European nations formed an "axis of weasel." They could both go to hell.

As it actually took shape, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld coalition of the willing consisted mostly of the United Kingdom, led into war by a prime minister subsequently derided by his own countrymen as George Bush's "poodle." Tagging along were various other military contingents, together mustering firepower roughly equivalent to that of the Joplin, Missouri Police Department. Not a lot of capability, but since the war was sure to end up as a great romp -- or so its proponents believed -- none of this was expected to matter. The mighty forces of the United States would make short work of anyone foolish enough to resist. The favored term was "cakewalk."

Robert Kagan's Jungle Book of Forever War Mattis Marks the End of the Global War on Terror

As is so often the case in war, things did not go as expected, to put it mildly. The reckless U.S. invasion of Iraq set in train a sequence of events leading -- wouldn't you know it -- to the election of a president promising to put "America First."

Donald Trump is a fool. Let there be no doubt on that score. But let there also be no confusion about how the United States got into the mess in which it finds itself today. Back in 2002 and 2003, various warmongers decided that noncompliant allies could "go to hell." They got their wish and we live with the consequences.

Andrew Bacevich is TAC's writer-at-large.



foxhuntingman December 27, 2018 at 8:44 pm

Donald Trump is no fool.
PAX , , December 27, 2018 at 8:44 pm
I think a lot of countries and their dead and wounded would resent your comment about the Joplin PD. The Israelis actually asked the Australian SAS to go in before the invasion and eliminate the scuds. This appeared in the Jerusalem Post but not the LA Times. Many countries agreed with Pat Buchanan's "Whose war?" in TAC ( https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whose-war/ )and felt it was propelled by one group for their interests and that it was none of their business to commit their lives, limbs, and treasure. Seems the facts agree with them.

I do not believe the neocons are credible. But the mainstream media and purchased politicians treat them as supernovas when it comes to issues of war and peace; especially in the Middle East.

Andover , , December 27, 2018 at 10:40 pm
Let 'em have it, Professor. God knows they earned it. Look at those photos, the superior smirks on Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's faces. And then reflect on their recklessness and incompetence. I will never forgive what these people did to America. And I'm only one of a great many Americans who feel that way.
Kurt Gayle , , December 27, 2018 at 11:04 pm
Andrew Bacevich "Donald Trump is a fool. Let there be no doubt on that score."

Yet the "fool" Donald Trump managed to get himself elected President of the United States on a platform of no new wars in the Middle East and -- after the defeat of ISIS -- getting the US out of Syria, and also Afghanistan.

The "fool" Donald Trump has just announced that he is pulling all remaining US troops out of Syria and withdrawing half of the remaining US troops from Afghanistan.

The "fool" Donald Trump could have done these things a lot more quickly but for the uniform opposition of the Deep State, the Republican Party Establishment, the Democratic Party Establishment, the neocons, the mainstream media, and the endless sniping of retired non-interventionist academics like Mr. Bacevich who would rather snipe and call Trump a "fool" than applaud his worthy efforts and work to help him.

Stephen J. , , December 28, 2018 at 12:07 am
The writer states: "Back in 2002 and 2003, various warmongers decided that noncompliant allies could "go to hell." They got their wish and we live with the consequences." I believe the "warmongers" and their "consequences" have spread like a deadly disease throughout the Middle East. Millions dead, millions of refugees, countries reduced to rubble and the fires were lit by the warmongers in the "Iraq invasion." Which spread to other countries by those addicted to war.

Therefore, one has to ask: "Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is Justice Dead and Buried"?

It has been said that: "The wheels of justice turn slowly " but based on the evidence available the "justice" wagon appears to have been deliberately crashed, and it is dead and buried by war criminals in positions of power. These people (are they really people?) are getting away with murdering millions of people in a number of countries. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries too are suffering from the depredations and illegal wars planned by them.

The past and present ruling scum
Are getting away with what they have done
Their wars on Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen too
Caused millions of deaths and refugees anew
[much more info on this at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/will-war-criminals-be-brought-to.html

you go on ahead ... I'll catch up with you later , , December 28, 2018 at 1:56 am
"The Israelis actually asked the Australian SAS to go in before the invasion and eliminate the scuds. "

Israel regards Australia as populated by dumb colonials chafing at the bit for another Gallipoli, especially if that were the heart's desire of Uncle Sam's very special "no daylight" friends.

Interestingly, judging by their contribution to the last seventeen years of American-led wars in the Middle East, the Israelis themselves appear to be pacifists. Extraordinarily well-armed ones, of course, thanks to US taxpayer largesse.

Bryan , , December 28, 2018 at 9:31 am
You don't have to go back that far to see neocons trashing American allies. Just look at the things they've been saying about Turkey, the only country in the region that we have a treaty with, and which has fought alongside us more than any other country in the region.
DIH , , December 28, 2018 at 11:28 am
Andrew Bacevich, it's a good article, but you ruined it with "Donald Trump is a fool." It's the only thing anyone who read it will remember, especially when it has nothing to do with your point that Trump is right about something.
Jeeves , , December 28, 2018 at 2:53 pm
Bad neocons! Bad! Neocons are the new racists. Did one of these neocons (did I mention that they are bad?) actually tell France and Germany to "go to hell"? Please provide citation (the epithets you do cite, e.g., "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," were not to my knowledge uttered by Bush & Co.)

Donald, on the other hand, was pretty frank about a singular issue: the failure of NATO allies to pay their fair share of GDP on defense, i.e., free-riding. Trump's not wrong, but his America-first disdain for allies is more targeted than any issue raised by the (bad) neocons. To my knowledge, there were no reprisals visited on France or Germany on account of their being "unwilling." That kind of threat came from Trump.

Yes, Mr. Bacevich, I think we all (even some bad neocons) agree Iraq was a terrible idea, America's worst foreign policy blunder -- ever. Wash, rinse, spin dry. That topic's done.

fabian , , December 28, 2018 at 3:29 pm
Trump is a fool who, so far, hasn't got 70,000 of our soldiers killed or wounded. So, this "fool" apart, whom would you have voted for? Because all the other "non fool" would have already sent to Syria, or somewhere else, what's left of the army.
Ed , , December 28, 2018 at 4:06 pm
The fool is the person who tells the king the truth when the wise men are too afraid.

Still, it's uncontestable that Donald Trump doesn't have expertise or experience with foreign policy or other areas of government operations.

The gamble was that Trump would have the right instincts to deal with whatever came up. It's quite a gamble, but if you thought that the other candidate had precisely the wrong instincts and the wrong policies, you might have been willing to take the gamble.

Jeeves , , December 28, 2018 at 4:43 pm
@Bryan
Turkey, the only country in the region that we have a treaty with, and which has fought alongside us more than any other country in the region.

"More than any other country in the region"? That's not saying much, since some of these countries are of relatively recent origin. The Ottomans were allied with Germany in WWI, and the Turks were neutral for most of WWII. But they did send soldiers to Korea. I'm not sure that's enough of a reason not to badmouth their authoritarian, quasi-theocratic regime.

Ken Zaretzke , , December 28, 2018 at 5:22 pm
"Donald Trump is a fool. Let there be no doubt on that score." Maybe you should ask your Nation magazine fellow contributor, Stephen F. Cohen, if he agrees with you that Trump has no statesmanlike qualities. Why don't you tell us what you think about amnesty and open borders? I'm 95% sure you favor those things, and that the moral feelings you have about migrants is what propels your contempt for Trump, which mysteriously exceeds your disdain for George W. Bush. Prove me wrong, Mr. Bacevich.
Joseph T. , , December 28, 2018 at 6:25 pm
Nice article, but I could have done without the "fool" comment. Better to leave such gratuitous remarks out in the future. You have too much that is important to say.
PAX , , December 28, 2018 at 6:35 pm
You go ahead
That was one point that the local neocons missed. Another is that Australia's greatest general was General Monash (WW1), who was Jewish and is a national hero. Some historians argue that he should have been in charge of all allied forces on the Western Front in WW1, but bigotry was a deterrent. Another point is that the 2003 Iraq invasion (see Patrick's "Whose war?") was illogical and unjustified from the perspective of nearly everyone in the world but the selfish and self-absorbed neocons and their bought for local (on the cheap) politicians.
Cassander , , December 28, 2018 at 7:52 pm
To Prof Bacevich

Your constant ridiculing of the President undermines your credibility. I am inclined to believe you adopt this position in order to curry favor with old line academic elites who also hate the President. You need to be more honest with yourself.

Janwaar Bibi , , December 28, 2018 at 10:32 pm
Another point is that the 2003 Iraq invasion (see Patrick's "Whose war?") was illogical and unjustified from the perspective of nearly everyone in the world but the selfish and self-absorbed neocons and their bought for local (on the cheap) politicians.

This is nonsense. The Iraq war was in the interest of the Saudis and the Israelis, which is why "Bandar Bush" and the Israel lobby in the US promoted the war. The only clueless people were ordinary Americans, and some of them seem to be clueless even today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan

Dardan , , December 29, 2018 at 12:31 am
@Jeeves : "But they did send soldiers to Korea. I'm not sure that's enough of a reason not to badmouth their authoritarian, quasi-theocratic regime."

Turkey is housing several million refugees from our disastrous Mideast wars, keeping them from flooding into and further destabilizing Europe.

Turkey controls some of the most strategically important real estate in the world, including the Black Sea cork. For decades it has exercised that control in ways that conduced to US interests, and it is doing so right now.

Two reasons to remember that Turkey is one thing and its current leadership is another. And that its "authoritarian, quasi-theocratic" regime is certainly no worse, and in some ways more palatable, than Saudi Arabia's. Or Egypt's. Or Israel's.

Josep , , December 29, 2018 at 4:51 am
Ah yes, the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" cliché. Where do I begin. What brought me to TAC in early 2017, aside from a 2008 article on WALL-E , was reading of how the US government began a slew of French-bashing in 2003 when France refused to fight in Iraq. Let me think of some examples:

I'm rather surprised that the neocons (both American and British), while rejecting everything French, continued to drink pasteurized milk, use the Braille system, use words such as bureau and platoon , and/or fly hot-air balloons, most (if not all) of which were of French origin. For them to crap on the French is to bite the hand that feeds them.

At the time, I was only four years old and my family was living in China at the time. My American dad, who I remember frequenting sites like lucianne.com back then (he still does today), doesn't seem to remember such a boycott.

I don't know about you guys, but as an American citizen of French descent myself, I'll go on a limb and say that 2003 would've been a bad time to be American. Had I known about it back then, I'd be eager to learn Russian and possibly "seek asylum" in Russia.

This is just my two rubles worth.

Josep , , December 29, 2018 at 5:05 am
One thing I forgot to mention was that John Kerry, the Democratic 2004 presidential candidate, was smeared by Bush for his ability to speak French. For all his flaws, I'd like to know how differently the Iraq War would've turned out had Kerry won.

Another thing to note is that, back when Bush was president, so-called "Freepers" (members of the forum Free Republic) would go to German news websites such as Der Spiegel and gerrymander opinion polls regarding Bush by selecting and submitting the "Most Favorable" option, clearing their browser's site cookies, and repeating the process until it appears as if more and more people support Bush than oppose him. If I recall correctly, this despicable act of gerrymandering was called "Freeping".

TomG , , December 29, 2018 at 9:45 am
One of the most foretelling things about reality TV Trump was the weekly climax, "You're fired!" I learned from Peter Drucker decades ago that if your 'go to' solution is firing people you are a poor manager. Hire well and find employees strengths. That served me extremely well over my 40 years of management.

Tillerson, Mattis, Bolton, Pompeo -- all are poor hires to a candidate that wanted to reign in foreign intervention. Trump's greatest failing is one of Management 101. He can't seem to staff a team without drawing from the swamp he claimed to want to drain.

Flavius , , December 29, 2018 at 11:29 am
The American Conservative was onto something brave and noble when it was founded. I don't recall that it called GWB a fool but its pages redounded with criticism of his administration's folly in prosecuting its wars, ruinous at home and more ruinous abroad. And it recognized the cancer of neo-conservativism, a neologism coined to camouflage the pseudo-religion of American exceptionalism uber alles.

But alas, the American Conservative lost its way almost entirely during the Obama Administration because it continued to nurture the greater part of its contempt, just contempt I would add, for the neo-conservatives who had lost executive power, Republicans, while largely giving a pass to the neo-conseervatives who had assumed it, Democrats. When it came to the disastrous policies that were being implemented, nothing much had changed; but when it came where American Conservative had reserved its fervor, it for some reason had forgotten where it was that the noxious powers were resident.

Well, now that a Republican is exercising the executive power, if Trump can be called a Republican (he calls himself a Republican at any rate), Bacevich slurs Trump as a fool, even as he exercises his office in a manner that Bacevich himself might have scripted. The criticism is beneath Bacevich and it undercuts the authority of his policy prescriptions which are generally well wrought.

Bacevich knows policy because he has been there. What does he know about Trump that anyone should care that at the moment Trump does something he considers wise, he still thinks him a fool. Bacevich would serve himself and his topic better if he would just stick to it.

EliteCommInc. , , December 29, 2018 at 3:56 pm
I am not inclined to believe the president is a "fool."

Nor do I think Gen. Mattis is a fool or a warmonger. His position is fairly clear. A withdrawal requires some responsible manner. Afterall, we once again emboldened and encouraged a revolution that resulted in death and all manner of mayhem.

We leave behind others who will pay a stiff price, if we don't take steps to ensure some reconciliation. Though it is my read, that a peace process has already been put in place. Minus much input from the US. That perspective of his concern makes some sense, an immediate withdrawal, leaving those we encouraged in the wake is irresponsible.

And no, my comments are not an invite them to the US. Though many wish as much for all manner of reasons than their safety.

David , , December 29, 2018 at 7:17 pm
It appears that Bacevich included the somewhat gratuitous "fool" remark to ensure that his article not be viewed as an endorsement of Trump. He does not say that Trump has not done some things that are not foolish (how's that for a triple negative?). In any case, Trump has clearly done some foolish things, e.g, after campaigning on a platform of non-interventionism, appointing the extreme neocon John Bolton as his national security adviser. Whether that makes him a fool I leave it to others to debate.
Bryan , , December 30, 2018 at 10:35 am
@Jeeves
"I'm not sure that's enough of a reason not to badmouth their authoritarian, quasi-theocratic regime."

Turkey fought with us in WWII, Korea, Desert Storm and in Afghanistan after 9/11. Does any other nation the Mideast even come close to them? Furthermore, Erdogan came to power in a free and fair election in which all Turkey's subject were free to vote, unlike the de facto theocracy Israel and the naked theocracy Saudi Arabia. Just because Turkey doesn't kowtow to the American whims and wishes doesn't make Erdogan a theocratic dictator. And remember, he actually served time in prison for praying in public, which makes Turkey more secular than the U.S. in this respect.

sanitation worker , , December 30, 2018 at 11:22 am
Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld didn't just trash America's allies. They trashed America itself.

[Jan 03, 2019] Is Orwell's Big Brother Here Bezos Amazon Team up With Defense, CIA ICE by Yves Smith

Oct 27, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Yves here. In case you hadn't noticed, more and more pervasive personal data collection is a wet dream for police. This Real News Network interview describes how it is being used in "predictive policing" or what Philip K. Dick called "pre-crime". And if you haven't stopped or greatly reduced your use of Amazon, this piece makes clear why that would be in your best interest.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gh2fcog-vn4

MARC STEINER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Marc Steiner. Great to have you with us.

Amazon CEO chief Jeff Bezos has been in the news for quite a while now for many reasons: becoming the world's richest man, giving a $2 billion gift to build schools and help the homeless, buying the Washington Post. Most recently we saw the result of his being hounded by Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna over working conditions and salaries of Amazon employees, which prompted Bezos to give his workers a raise to $15 an hour.

Most these stories are important and vital, but there's one story that seems to have fallen through the cracks and has not been given the same kind of media attention. And that's the close working relationship between Amazon, the Department of Defense, CIA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or as we know it, ICE, local law enforcement, and the secretive datamining firm Palantir. It appears that the intertwined relationship ominously involves the intersection of mass surveillance and military contracts. At Wired's 25th anniversary celebration last week, Jeff Bezos defended Amazon's contracting with the Department of Defense, being very clear that he won't be intimidated like other Silicon Valley tech companies whose employees are protesting their company's involvement in the advancement of war and their role in increased mass surveillance.

My guest today is Robert Scheer, who wrote the book They Know Everything About You: How Data Collection Operations and Snooping Government Agencies are Destroying Democracy. He's also the host of the podcast Scheer Intelligence, hosted by the local NPR station KCRW in LA, and is the editor of Truthdig.com . And once again, great to have you with us. Thank you for joining us, Bob.

So let's just begin here. Your book seems a little prescient, almost, really prescient, about discussing the relationship we're talking about today. So let's start- let's go back. Let's talk about Palantir. Who are they? What do we know about them? I mean, it seems like it was founded with the help of the CIA, and Amazon's $600 million contract several years back, with the CIA's cloud-based computing system, and more. But just who are they? And why are they so important in this equation?

BOB SCHEER: Well, first of all, understand that the key, as George Orwel pointed out, and others have, that our own Constitution points out, if you don't have private space, if you can't be alone with your thoughts, your associations, your books and so forth, you can't have freedom. That's the bottom line. The American Revolution was fought over that. And the Internet represents, yes, the best and the worst of worlds. We are connected. We offer a lot of ourselves. We learn a lot from it. But it's also the worst in terms of individual space and privacy. This has come to be recognized particularly after Edward Snowden revealed the extent of cooperation between companies like Facebook and Google and Apple, and others, and the intelligence agencies and government. The Defense Department, the CIA, the NSA, and so forth.

So before Snowden's revelations, it was possible to minimize all of that. And these companies would say, hey, we're private enterprises. You're voluntarily giving over your data. And this is no threat to your freedom, we're just helping you be better shoppers. Well, what Snowden revealed is this data was given or stolen by- when Apple and Google didn't cooperate, the NSA and CIA just cut into their cables, went through backdoor access to their computers, and gathered up the most intimate details of your life. In the case of Amazon, for example, not only what books you bought, but how far you read in that book. What you wrote to friends about what you thought about that, or the movie you saw, or what have you. Your most private thoughts.

So then you have the 1984 world, where a government anywhere- and by the way, they service governments all over the world. Other governments can do it, can get information about what you are thinking, who you are associating with. And you end up in, basically, an unfree, untenable situation from a point of view of freedom.

Now, the key to all this is that these businesses primarily- certainly in the case of Google and Facebook, but very much so with Amazon- are making their money not from servicing the clients as the customers. Amazon really didn't make, in terms of its sales, most of his profit does not come from supplying you with detergent, or books, or music, or videos, or anything else. It comes from being able to mine that data, to advertise you. That's why in Google you don't even pay for the service. Facebook you don't pay. The key thing here is your data. The most detailed, personal, intimate data is the thing really being sought and marketed. It's being mined, OK.

Now, as long as that stays in the private sector, you can argue that's not the business of our Constitution. But when the government gets access to that information, and when the government and the private sector are commingled, as they are very intimately with Amazon, for example, then you have a situation that fundamentally threatens a free society. And when I say intimately connected- and I think that's why Jeff Bezos made that outrageous statement that, you know, I'm just being a patriotic person, and Amazon is going to help the government be strong. Well, that's hogwash. Because really what he is is a major defense contractor. The very kind of person that General Eisenhower warned against when he talked about the military-industrial complex. You now have to add intelligence agencies.

And Amazon, one of their sources of profit, main sources, is building the cloud and doing Amazon Web Services. If you look at the profit picture, just today they're announcing yet another billion-plus quarter; four times greater than it was last year. That's not coming from selling you products on Amazon. What they're gathering is your data. That's coming from their building this whole web infrastructure of data seeking. And Amazon has been building the main cloud for the intelligence agencies. All right? They are collecting it. All this data that the government gets access to and so forth, most of that is going through Amazon-run enterprises. So no wonder Jeff Bezos is nervous about people focusing on that, because he's in fact primarily, at this point, a military contractor.

MARC STEINER: So let me ask you a question, Bob. How does this group Palantir, founded by Peter Thiel, a close ally of Trump's, fit into all of this? I mean, this is a man who named his company after the all-seeing eye in the Lord of the Rings that was being done by the evil wizard Saruman. I mean, so who is he, and how does he fit into this? How does his company fit into this? What's their role in all this?

BOB SCHEER: First of all, it's very interesting this connection between the private and the public, OK. They all claim to be public companies with just brilliant Silicon Valley software engineers, and we develop these great products. But you know, we know that Google itself, the whole Internet itself, came out of a DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Project. You know, the Defense Department was developing communication in the event of a nuclear war. That's where we got the web from, as a side product of defense spending. The association with many of these companies, most of them in the defense industry, the intelligence community, is long-standing.

But in the case of Palantir, that's a company that during its first three years, started by venture capitalists and others in Silicon Valley, including Peter Thiel from PayPal and so forth, using the technology of PayPal, learning so much about how we manage our data and our finances. Their only client- first of all, one of their investors was the CIA, through a dummy CIA corporation called In-Q-Tel. And In-Q-Tel was created by the CIA in order to get the brains of Silicon Valley to help them figure out the Internet and everything, and how to use it for their purposes.

Now, the CIA is still under congressional restriction not to be spying on American citizens, Americans. They're supposed to be doing this internationally. It's the FBI that's supposed to be monitoring us. But not the CIA. Nonetheless, the CIA developed a company called In-Q-Tel and invested in a plethora of Silicon Valley companies. One of the companies they invested in was Palantir, a really mysterious, still-private organization. A huge company, incredibly profitable. And Palantir, like Amazon, has been involved in advising the government and working with the government during their first three years of existence. The CIA was their only client. Now Palantir is tied into all of the intelligence agencies. And Palantir is even more blatant than what Amazon is involved with. Palantir is actively involved in police activity, domestic police activity, throughout the country in about 70 different police outfits.

And here in Los Angeles, for example, we have a very active coalition, community coalition, Stop Police Spying. And what they've been able to discover is that there is this ominous predictive policing program that is nationwide, which came out of 9/11. It came out of supposedly finding terrorists. But the terrorists they're finding are ordinary people who live in our community. And they're finding, predicting that they're going to be criminal even if they haven't. Even a past record of being criminal. They find them.

Palantir is working within these police stations. They're not alone developing these models of predictive policing, which is a way of defining who among us are likely to commit crimes, and based on the data they've collected about us. That data and the algorithms are not made public to us. They are not subject to discussion. The city council, people who control their activities, are really not privy to how they do this. And yet the police target certain neighborhoods, certain individuals, based on those algorithms. Based on the data that Palantir supplies to them.

So what Palantir is an example of, and the same thing at Amazon, is the wedding of a domestic police agency, domestic police force, with a notion of international power and our defense contractors, our CIA, our NSA, and so forth. So we have the brave new world that Huxley and the 1984 world that Huxley and Orwell warned us about. We have this constant observation of our people, and we have some who are part of big corporations making this enormous amount of money. As you know, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is now the richest man in the world. And they are making money by being in bed with with our intelligence agencies.

MARC STEINER: Describe for us what's happening now. What is this latest news coming out that we're not covering very much in the media about Bezos, Amazon, the Department of Defense? I mean, his employees himself have been trying to get him to to not put Palantir in that cloud. He won't listen to them. He's going to do what he wants to do. But what is this latest revelation about?

BOB SCHEER: Well, one of the big revelations is about facial recognition technology and their use of it. And again, it goes back to the basic point. A company like Amazon has much more information on us, our face, the pupils of our eyes, everything about us. Our most intimate habits, our travel, everything. And all this information that no secret police agency in the world could ever fantasize about; ever fantasize. When our own FBI went out to destroy Martin Luther King, something they don't teach about much in the schools, when they went out to destroy Martin Luther King they had to use crude, old-fashioned measures. They had to actually follow him, or get a hotel room next to his hotel, and then tap into his old-fashioned phone line, or so forth.

None of that is necessary now. Anywhere in the world, any dictator, any government in the world can now use our marketing services, our commercial- Facebook, Google, and Amazon to gather an incredible amount of detail about everything you do in your life. When that information is made available to the government, and when they are partners- mind you, Amazon is a partner with NSA, CIA, the FBI. All of these organizations are developing their data storage area. OK? And when they're partners with them, and they themselves, these groups like Amazon have all this information, you have a violation basically of the constitutional protection and our Fourth Amendment to our privacy. Our right to not have our effects, our books, everything, our papers surveilled. They can't come through your door. They must have a specific warrant. All thrown out by this new technology.

And that is really a fundamental violation of our Constitution. And there's almost no examination of it. And what Bezos is saying is trust us, give us a pass. We're always going to go after the bad guys, we're never going to go after the good guys. And that is the basis of a totalitarian society.

MARC STEINER: So as we conclude here, Amazon's developed this recognition, which we can talk about here, what it does. You've covered this on your podcast. And given what is really at foot here and moving, which is the relationship between Silicon Valley, Amazon, Palantir and the rest, with a deal with the Department of Defense, the CIA, ICE, the FBI, all this surveillance, I'm curious. In all your years as a political activist and journalist, what should be the- how do you respond to that? I mean, it's one thing for us to talk about this, which we need to do to give people an awareness of what's going on. But there also has to be a response, and not just throw up our hands and, oh, we're done.

BOB SCHEER: Well, the response that I could- you can take the leadership from the European Union, because there's a lot more pushback in Europe than there's been here. And all of these high tech people- Tim Cook went there from Apple and pledged just this week that he would be concerned more about privacy, and that Apple cares, Google, and so forth. And the only reason these companies might do the right thing at times is when they're worried that their business model will be hurt. If consumers don't trust them, if they think they're being spied on, if they're aware. That could hurt, you know. Facebook could be less popular. After all, Facebook has been accused of having given 50 million accounts to a questionable group that was gaming the last election- without any Russian interference, I might point out.

So then people stop using, are wary of these services. So that has happened more. And we're much more gullible in this country. I know, I teach in a university. And my students think, well, this is just for their convenience. Oh, I was looking at shoes. I talked to a friend and suddenly shoe ads appear all around me. OK, well, the same people who can target you for you are shoe ads can also target you for your politics, your reading habits, what movies you like, what political organization you belong to, your free speech. They could put you on a predictive policing list, to say watch that person, OK. Let's check them out even more closely. And then you have a surveillance society.

Now, the defense some of my students will say, and the defense given by Silicon Valley before Mark Zuckerberg and others don't do anything, Eric Schmidt from Google, don't do anything that will give government reason to go after you. But most people in the world know that governments cannot be trusted. After all, the assumption of the American Constitution is that the government is potentially your most dangerous enemy. That's what George Washington, Madison, Jefferson, all of them warned us against. You know, George Washington warned about the impostures of pretended patriotism. He was a general, just like Eisenhower. So the whole construction of the American Constitution is to protect us against our own government.

Now we have a situation where private corporations, ostensibly, gather your most intimate data that no secret police would have ever been able to get- everything about you. Your eye scan, your facial recognition, where you've been, where you shop. You know, you give your location all the time, right. And so they can spot you be there, be there. What do you read, what did you write to your friends, what are you thinking, and so forth. And they develop a profile of you, and then you become a target of the surveillance society. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So maybe you're a critic of Amazon, as I'm being right now. Or you're a critic of Palantir. Do I end up here- I'm in Los Angeles. Palantir is advising my local police department. Do they then say, hey, watch this guy Bob Scheer? You know, put a special check on him?

MARC STEINER: They might.

BOB SCHEER: That's what's built into this. That's what's predictive policing is about. And you know, first they go after people that have a little bit different idea, a little bit critical. And then you suddenly find everyone in the society that's concerned. You know, it's it's a fundamental issue.

Now, I'll tell you the great contradiction. As the great singer-poet Leonard Cohen said, there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets through. If you want to be optimistic, and you talked about organizing, the big problem for these multinational corporations is they have to have customers all over the world. If they're in bed with their own local government, their own government- the U.S. government- believe it or not, most people in the world recognize that's a separate government. It's not a world government. It's not universally trusted. So you have, you know, should people in China be demanding that Google, which has been blocked in China, come in now? Well, they've got four huge Internet-related companies of their own. And people might say, hey, better the devil we know than the devil we don't.

And so the whole problem is if you want to be a multinational corporation, you have to protect the interest of your customers, or your people you're dealing with all over the world. And when this stuff gets known, is exposed- that's why Bezos is pushing back. Because other people might say, hey, if Amazon is locked in with the American defense industry, do we want Amazon in Europe? Do we want Amazon in China? Do we want Amazon elsewhere? They'll push back. And maybe people in the United States say, wait a minute. I'm buying, you know, 50 Shades of Grey, this movie. Do I really want people and the government and everywhere else to know that I bought that book, and how far I read in that book, and what I wrote to my friend?

Suddenly privacy is what it is. This becomes very personal. And why is this guy Jeff Bezos, who's making this enormous amount of money, so sanguine about selling and giving my privacy away? Which is why he's in the business of doing, with targeted advertising, and then this intense cooperation with government. It's very suspicious that he should now say, you know, get over it. If my employees or anybody else wants to raise questions about my relation with the government, they're out of here. Well, that's not what the Constitution is about. Our Constitution says we're supposed to be suspicious of our government. We're supposed to be worrying about power corrupting, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We're supposed to be- that's why we have a First Amendment, OK. We're supposed to be guarding against government overreach, government excess, government surveillance. That's what the American Revolution was fought about against the Brits; you know, breaking into your homes.

And here's Jeff Bezos saying, hey, get over it. I sell you products, they deliver every day. And the other issue is he doesn't want people in the community raising questions, as Bernie Sanders did very effectively, about who's delivering these goods. You know, what's replaced brick and mortar stores? What are the working conditions? Well then, do you get branded as a suspicious person if you are organizing against Amazon? Are you, then, the enemy? Do they then tell their friends in the NSA, FBI and everything, watch those folks over there, they fit our predictive policing profile of a terrorist or a criminal? That's the danger.

MARC STEINER: Well, Bob Scheer, it's always a pleasure to talk with you, and getting your insightful analysis on the air here with us. I deeply appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Bob Scheer has been our guest, and I'm Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Thanks for being with us. Take care.

[Jan 03, 2019] Russia-mania takes over the world

Russophobia is the standard deflection trick, designed to cement cracks in neoliberal society facade. And deep distrust of common people toward neoliberal elite. With neoliberal elite completely immersed in its own groupthink, which reaches the level "Let them eat cakes".
Notable quotes:
"... We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave. ..."
"... It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that Trump or Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises. ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | theduran.com

While Russia-mania is widespread among today's political and cultural elites, it is not uniform.

For an older, right-wing section of the Western political and media class, otherwise known as the Cold War Re-Enactment Society, Russia looms large principally as a military, quasi-imperial threat. Jim Mattis, the former US marine and general, and now US defence secretary, said Russia was responsible for 'the biggest attack [on the world order] since World War Two'. Whether this is true or not is beside the point. What matters is that Russia appears as a military aggressor. What matters is that Russia's actions in Ukraine – which were arguably a defensive reaction to NATO and the EU's expansion into Russia's traditional ally – are grasped as an act of territorial aggrandisement. What matters is that Russia's military operations in Syria – which, again, were arguably a pragmatic intervention to stabilise the West-stoked chaos – are rendered as an expression of imperial aggression. What matters is that Russian state involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury – which, given its failure, proved Russian incompetence – is presented as 'part of a pattern of Russian aggression against Europe and its near neighbours, from the western Balkans to the Middle East', to quote Theresa May.

And it matters because, if Russia is dressed up as the West's old Cold War adversary, just with a new McMafia logo, then the crumbling, illegitimate and increasingly pointless postwar institutions through which Western elites have long ordered the world, suddenly look just that little bit more solid, legitimate and purposeful. And none more so than NATO.

This is why NATO has this year been accompanying its statements warning Russia to 'stop its reckless pattern of behaviour' with some of the largest military exercises since the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly three decades ago. Including one in November in Norway, involving 50,000 troops, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft and 60 warships.

Then there is the newer form of Russia-mania. This has emerged from within the political and cultural elite that came to power after the Cold War, ploughing an uninspiring third way between the seeming extremes of the 20th century's great ideologies. Broadly social democratic in sentiment, and elitist and aloof in practice, this band of merry technocrats and their middle-class supporters have found in 'Russia' a way to avoid having to face up to what the populist revolt reveals – that the majority of Western citizens share neither their worldview nor their wealth. Instead, they use 'Russia' to displace the people as the source of discontent and political revolt.

We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave.

It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that Trump or Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises.

No, they were the result, as one Tory MP put it , of 'the covert and overt forms of malign influence used by Moscow'.

Or, in the words of an Observer columnist, 'a campaign that purported to be for the "left behind" was organised and funded by men with links across the global network of far-right American demagogues and kleptomaniac dictators such as Putin'.

Such has been the determination to blame 'Russia' or 'Putin' for the political class's struggles, that in August Tom Watson, Labour's conspiracy-theory-peddling deputy leader, called for a public inquiry into an alleged Russian Brexit plot. '[Voters] need to know whether that referendum was stolen or not', he said.

Such a call ought to be mocked. After all, it is absurd to think 'Russia', 'Putin' and the trolls are the power behind every populist throne. But the claims aren't mocked – they're taken as calls to action. Think of anything viewed as a threat to our quaking political and cultural elites in the West, and you can bet your bottom ruble that some state agency or columnist is busy identifying Putin or one of his legion of bots and trolls as the source. The gilet jaunes protests in France? Check . Climate change? Check . Italy's Five Star Movement? Check .

And all this from a nation with a GDP equivalent to Spain, an ageing, declining population, and a failing infrastructure. The reality of Russia is not that of a global threat, but of a struggling state. Russia is weak. Yet in the minds of those clinging desperately to the status quo, 'Russia' has never been more powerful.

[Jan 03, 2019] John Helmer- Lunatic Russia-Hating in Washington Is 70 Years Old. It Started with Joseph Alsop, George Kennan and the Washington Post

The USA is treating Russia the same way it treated the USSR and run all kind of subversive operations against it.
Notable quotes:
"... This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1440 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page , which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser, what we've accomplished in the last year and our current goal, more original reporting . ..."
"... By John Helmer , the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears ..."
"... In June 1933, he bought the Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction, for $825,000 ..."
"... It [USA] has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence against a lawful sovereign. ..."
"... This Vast Southern Empire ..."
"... A mentor in shamelessness: the man who taught Trump the power of publicity Roy Cohn, the lawyer who embraced infamy during the McCarthy hearings and Rosenberg trial, influenced Donald Trump to turn the tabloids into a soapbox ..."
"... Angels in America ..."
"... For the life of me, I still cannot figure out why people are in an absolute panic over Russian "agents" buying $100,000.00, or whatever, worth of advertising promoting either or both sides of the election when U.S.citizens and Political Parties spent over $1.6 billion. ..."
"... Are American citizens really so stupid as to fall for the amazingly, brilliantly conceived and placed $100K worth of Russian advertising, so clever that it superseded $1.6 billion worth of U.S. citizen ads? ..."
"... Or (to misquote Shakespeare/Macbeth) is it a tale told by propagandists, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? ..."
"... Don't confuses them with the facts. ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

John Helmer: Lunatic Russia-Hating in Washington Is 70 Years Old. It Started with Joseph Alsop, George Kennan and the Washington Post Posted on October 12, 2017 by Yves Smith

This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1440 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page , which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser, what we've accomplished in the last year and our current goal, more original reporting .

Yves here. An important bit of history that can't be repeated too often: when the Clinton Administration decided to move NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries, violating a understanding made as part of the peaceful dissolution, George Kennan said it would prove to be the worst geopolitical mistake the US ever made.

By John Helmer , the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

Joseph Alsop and George Kennan started the kind of Russia-hating in Washington which, today, President Vladimir Putin, like the businessmen around him, think of as a novelty that cannot last for long.

Alsop was a fake news fabricator, and such a narcissist as to give the bow-ties he wore a bad name. Kennan was a psychopath who alternated bouts of aggression to prove himself with bouts of depression over his cowardice. For them, Russia was a suitable target. The Washington Post was the newspaper which gave their lunacy public asylum. This, according to a fresh history by a university professor from California, started in 1947, long before the arrival in Washington of the anti-communist phobia known after the name of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Russia-hating was an American upper-class phenomenon, cultivated in the offices, cocktail parties, clubs, and mansions of the deep state, as it emerged out of World War II. It needed a new enemy to thrive; it fastened on Russia (aka the Soviet Union) as the enemy.

McCarthyism was an American lower-class phenomenon. It focused on the loyalty or disloyalty of the upper-class deep-staters. That wasn't the same thing as Russia-hating; Wall Street bankers, Boston lawyers, homosexuals, Jews, communists, were all the enemy. As the Senator from Wisconsin characterized it himself in 1952, "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled." He implied – without a middle-class tie; certainly not an upper-class bow-tie.

Russia was not an enemy which united the two American lunacies, for they hated each other much more than they hated the Russians. The Soviet Politburo understood this better then than the Kremlin does now.

Gregg Herken's The Georgetown Set , is so named because it records the activities of Alsop, Kennan and several other State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and White House officials who lived as neighbours in the Georgetown district of the capital city, together with Katharine (Kay) and Philip Graham, proprietor managers of the Washington Post. The district – once a chartered city of Maryland and river port, which was absorbed into the federal District of Columbia in 1871 -- was expensive, relatively speaking then; more so now. The richest of the set, including Alsop, had town houses in Georgetown, and rural retreats in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.

They were a set because because, as Herken said succinctly to an interviewer , "they got together every Sunday for supper and, basically, they ran the country from those meetings." As the book elaborates, they thought they were running the world. With a longer time lapse in which to view the evidence, they were also losing it.

Newspapers exposed in the book for collaborating in all the deceits, failures and war crimes of the history have reacted by calling Herken's effort a "provincial corner". The New Yorker opined that the Russia-hating and Russia war-making which Herken retells are dead and gone. "The guests at the Sunday soirées no doubt felt that they were in the cockpit of history. But the United States is a democracy, not a Wasp Ascendancy There was once an atmosphere of willingness that made a system of bribes and information exchanges seem, to the people involved, simply a way of working together for a common cause in a climate of public opinion that, unfortunately, required secrecy. No one got rich from the arrangement. People just lost track of what was inside their bubble and what was outside, as people tend to do. Vietnam was the reality check. 'I've Seen the Best of It' was the title Alsop gave to his memoirs. Things hadn't been the same since, he felt. He was right about that, and we should be thankful." In the New York media business these days it's possible to publish a selfie of pulling your own leg.

The Washington Post has deflected the indictment against itself by describing Herken's work as "a very strange book (A) a rehash of the history of the Cold War as experienced in certain Washington circles and (B) an almost obsessive recapitulation of the life and journalism of Joseph Alsop." Alsop is dismissed as unworthy of a history at all because he was "utterly repellent: arrogant, patronizing, imperious, uninterested in anyone except himself."

That's the truth about Alsop. The truth about the Washington Post is buried in this line by the Post's books editor about the hand that fed him: "it must be very hard for people who did not live through the '50s and '60s to understand how obsessed the American people were with the threat from Moscow." That line appeared in print on November 7, 2014. It was already history, that's to say, a misjudgement. How monumentally mistaken is obvious now.

In covering the period from 1946 to 1975, Herken's research does repeat much of the history of the Cold War which has been told elsewhere. It starts on February 22, 1946, the date of the "Long Telegram", No. 511 -- Kennan's despatch from the US Embassy in Moscow to the State Department, setting out his strategy of so-called containment and much more besides. Read it in the declassified original . Most of the war-fighting and other war crimes which the telegram set in motion under Kennan's 1948 rubrics, "organized political warfare" and "preventive direct action", are reported in Herken's book; so too are Kennan's frequent funks, failures of conviction, reversals of judgement, and pleas for help.

The book ends on December 30, 1974, the date of Alsop's last column. Alsop concluded with the line: "I have never known the American people to be really badly wrong, if only they were correctly and fully informed."

Herken shows how self-deluded and professionally delusional that was -- not because of Alsop's character but because of his sources. Herken documents that they ran upwards from foot-soldiers (also lubricious sailors) to presidents and cabinet secretaries. Herken doesn't think the same of Kennan, who gets to walk off stage, aged 101, sounding more sceptical of overthrowing Saddam Hussein than he ever was in his prime and in power to direct schemes of what we call state terrorism today.


Left to right: Kennan died in 2005, aged 101; Alsop died in 1989 aged 78; Frank Wisner died in 1965 aged 56. The deeper Herken gets into the private papers, the more he refers to his subjects by their diminutives and nicknames – Joe, Oppie, Beetle, Dickie, the Crocodile, Wig, Jack, Wiz, Soozle, Vangie, et al.

What is fresh about the sources is that Herken has had access to the private notes, letters and diaries of the Alsop family; the Kennan diaries and letters; and the private papers of Frank Wisner, the first director of covert operations against Russia. Wisner went mad and killed himself, as did Graham. There's no doubt about the suicide outcome of their madness.

In the case of the mad ex-Defence Secretary James Forrestal his fatal jump from the window of the Navy hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, in May 1949 might have been a homicidal push. Herken concludes that Forrestal's death was "the first senior-ranking American casualty of the Cold War." Herken thinks of their madness as anomalies. The history shows they were normalities.

Missing from this history is any reference to official documents, now declassified; press reporting of the time; or interviews with veterans of the same events but on other sides – Russian and Soviet; British; German; French; Polish; Vietnamese; Chinese. This isn't so much a fatal flaw in Herken's (right) book as the reason why his history is repeating itself today. Call this a variation on Karl's Marx's apothegm that history starts as tragedy and repeats itself as farce. Herken's blindness to this is as revealing as the Washington Post's madness, not yet as suicidal as its former proprietor's, today.

So mesmerized is Herken by the moneyed backgrounds of his subjects and sources, and by the amount of black cash from the US Government they spent on operations, he forgets to report what they did to fill their own pockets. The claim by the New Yorker that "no one got rich from the arrangement" – Alsop's fake news fabrications – is false, but Herken touches only in passing on how they made (or kept) their money. Alsop's column, for example, was sold to 200 newspapers, and at one time claimed a readership of 25 million. His family inheritance is recorded, but not its annual revenue value. Alsop's payola included silk shirts from Alfred Kohlberg, a textile importer from China who backed Chiang Kai-shek against Mao Tse-tung, as did Alsop. Alsop's patrons included Convair (General Dynamics), the company building the US Air Force Atlas missile for procurement of which Alsop reported fictions about Soviet missile strength.

In the US power which Alsop, Kennan and Wisner believed without hesitation, Herken is not less a believer. "Anything could be achieved", Herken quotes a New York Times reporter quoting Wisner. When the US force multiple changed, however, and US allies or agents were outgunned, outspent, outnumbered, or outwitted, they were unable to acknowledge miscalculation, attributing defeat instead to the superior force or guile of their adversaries, especially the Russians.

This is madness, and there is good reason for recognizing the symptoms again. In 1958, when Herken says Wisner's paranoid manias were becoming obvious to his friends and colleagues, "Frank put forward a theory that the careless comment which had gotten George Kennan kicked out of the Soviet Union was evidence the Soviets had succeeded in an area where the CIA's own scientists had failed: mind control. Some agency hands alleged that Wisner attributed his own increasingly bizarre behaviour to the Kremlin's sly manipulation."


A cell from the comic "Is This Tomorrow? America Under Communism"(1947). Test your mind, read more: https://archive.org/details/IsThisTomorrowAmericaUnderCommunismCatecheticalGuild

From Washington in 1958, fast forward to Washington in 2017; for mind control and sly manipulation, read Russian hacking and cyber warfare. From Wisner's and Kennan's balloon drops of leaflets and broadcasts by Radio Free Europe, fast forward to Russia Today Television and Russian infiltrations of Twitter, Google, the Democratic National Committee, and the Trump organization.

It stands to reason (ahem!) that if you think what the US Government and its journalists were doing then was mad, you are might conclude that what they is doing now is just as mad – and not very different. When the incumbent president and his Secretary of State publicly call for IQ tests on each other, all reason has failed. "The nation," as Alsop had written, "had simply taken leave of all sense of proportion." That was in March 1954.

If you fast forward to now, there's one difference. Today the lunatic Russia warfighters don't retire. They also don't fade away. Today's sleek successors to mad Wisner and mad Graham sleep easily in their beds a-nights. For what they've done and do, they wouldn't dream of taking shotguns to their heads.

Herken retells the story of the campaign Alsop waged against McCarthyism at the State Department, against McCarthy himself, and the vulnerability Alsop himself presented until the Boston lawyer Joseph Welch put an end to McCarthy on June 9, 1954 : "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" Welch famously said. "Have you left no sense of decency?" The recurring history reveals why, even if there are plenty of people to say the same thing today to the Washington Post, New York Times, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the madness will continue repeating itself.


Colonel Smithers , October 12, 2017 at 10:42 am

Thank you, Yves.

A couple of tidbits:

Wisner's son married the stepmother of Nicolas Sarkozy. This facilitated the Sarkozy family's links with Wall Street (Guillaume at Credit Suisse and Carlyle and Nicolas' stepdaughter Judith Martin (daughter of France's Bruce Forsyth and Cecilia Albeniz) at Morgan Stanley, the latter at Canary Wharf).

A year ago, before his elimination in the Republicain primary, Sarko met executives from Goldman Sachs to discuss a move from London to Paris due to Brexit. Sarko promised bespoke personal and corporate tax arrangements in return for a relocation and fanfare. Sarko was keen on the fanfare and planned to exploit that, thinking it would be a PR coup soon between his election and the August shut down.

Kay Graham was the daughter of a former partner at Lazard Freres. Her father bought the WaPo after his retirement. The family and its plaything rag formed part of Operation Mockingbird.

djrichard , October 12, 2017 at 12:51 pm

Also worth mentioning that he purchased the WaPo in 1933. Per wikipedia, " In June 1933, he bought the Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction, for $825,000 ".

Pre-sages Bezos buying the WaPo on the cheap too. Can't say I would have thought of Bezos as being a Russia scare-monger. I guess it's the flip-side of regime change. If you're in the regime preservation business, perhaps that means regime changing your enemies. In which case, never let a good crisis go to waste. And if a crisis isn't available well if a newspaper can't figure out how to manufacture a crisis out of the available pool of evil-doers, then really why even have a newspaper?

Bezos to Russia, "It's nothing personal, it's just business". Bezos to Trump, "It's personal."

funemployed , October 13, 2017 at 7:00 am

The CIA did give jeff 600 million dollars shortly after his acquisition of wapo

Scott , October 13, 2017 at 12:39 pm

Seems like that is the under the radar amount of supposed funding for Fronts.

Slowly it dawned on me, or I simply put two and two together realizing I was working for a CIA/MI6 Front. Explained why mediocrities, liars & thieves had secure jobs.

American Airlines is most probably the inheritor of Air America's freight operations, station agents, & to pilots a great system for overt & covert operations gets 685 million a year.

IN-Q-TEL the CIA retirement benefits fund for agents gets 685 million as well.

I don't remember where I read the figures. See what you find out?
When I worked the independent movie scene in NYC all the budgets were 100 thousand dollars.

Now how you know, or the commentators know what they are saying here, I don't know. We are aware that the US power structure found it convenient to blame, or imply the blame for all that was stupid and violent in politics in the US on the Russians who as a secretive organization by habit made the picture plausible.

If oligarchs money fleeing Russia came to America and was a source of Industrial Service Banking it would be a victory. As it is the working classes in the US and Russia end up with the same leaders only different.

As it is the game is the same with it being real estate and art.
If there is one thing about Russians, they lust to possess beauty.
Otherwise from my experience they are difficult to do business with and you get more respect when you up front don't trust them so they can act like Russians.

I pitched to the Atlantic "Statehood for Russia" when the Cold War supposedly ended.
With the propaganda going into what Americans look at and voter system hacking it is evident they want to be a state.

sgt_doom , October 12, 2017 at 1:42 pm

Outstanding article and excellent commentary points and to elaborate just on several facts stated: ("Wisner went mad and killed himself, as did Graham.") -- this might have been the case, but most curiously, both Wisner and Graham were first treated at Chestnut Lodge Sanitarium in Rockville, MD at the CIA's MK ULTRA wing, then they both would return home and commit suicide?! This was also the facility where the CIA would send a research nutritionist (do not know whether they connived her, or it was against her will, etc., but she did not work for the Agency) who was researching an Amazonian plant with unique properties, and after her treatment, she never mentioned said plant or research ever again?!.

Also, this is where Richard Helms, then CIA director, had his famous auto accident right before giving testimony before the Church Committee (when he perjured himself and later was officially censured by Congress). Helms claimed he was seeing a psychoanalyst (basis for a simpleton movie from Hollywood called "The President's Analyst" -- probably involved Harry Weinstein) -- but it was because Helms was shredding all the MK ULTRA files kept there prior to appearing before the Church Committee.

And Joe Alsop was cousin to several CIA dudes, Kermit Roosevelt and Archibald Roosevelt, whereupon he received his "tips" or misinformation.

And the Colonel explains Sarkozy's familial background quite nicely, but to further add it was Wisner and John Negroponte, working through the Franco-American Foundation, who were supposed to be behind the concocted false scandals against Sarkozy's presidential opponent which allowed Sarkozy to win the election the first time. (The second time, Sarkozy was behind that NYC airport "incident" which blow up in his face, resulting in a Hollande victory.)

Vatch , October 12, 2017 at 1:55 pm

"The President's Analyst" is an outstanding satire from 1967. The Church committee hearings were in 1975.

Enquiring Mind , October 12, 2017 at 3:12 pm

There are further Wall Street links in the Sarkozy family. Olivier, half-brother of Nicolas, was at CS First Boston and worked briefly with our company on an engagement some years ago. His colleagues remarked on his pedigree and ability to open doors where others couldn't.

Patrick Donnelly , October 12, 2017 at 10:53 am

So the USA had no hand in arming Japan and encouraging them to attack Russia, successfully in 1904? Who stirred up Japan, forcing them with battleships to trade, actually firing on Japan. USA has always had war plans for the invasion of every country on Earth, since the Civil War, if not before.

It has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence against a lawful sovereign. Except for 20 years!!!

WWII was a result of rearmament of Germany, by USA and its banker allies. They wanted USSR in ashes. In the end they had to rescue Germany, failing in that and losing half of Europe. That must be smart!

Vatch , October 12, 2017 at 12:05 pm

It [USA] has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence against a lawful sovereign.

The monarchy of George III? Lawful sovereign? Who elected George III? Nobody. Who elected the members of Parliament? Nobody in America, and only adult males who could meet stringent properly requirements in Britain. Britain in 1775/1776 was definitely not a lawful sovereign over any territory in the North American continent.

Carolinian , October 12, 2017 at 12:57 pm

Don't forget Woody Wilson sending the troops to Vladivostok after WW1. Communism was always regarded as an existential threat by the then WASPy, now not so WASPy elites.

And re Kennan, the recent Ken Burns Vietnam documentary shows him casting doubts on the Vietnam intervention at a Congressional hearing. Kennan said the policy was like the elephant being terrified of the mouse. So his Russia obsession does seem to have been more about power rivalry than ideological apostasy.

David , October 12, 2017 at 1:40 pm

They wanted USSR in ashes.

If this is true, why did the US send 17.5 M tons of material to the USSR, through Lend Lease , during WW2?

Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945.

One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about eleven billion dollars.

Wasn't Henry Ford supposed to be a Na*i?

While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. The U.S. received $2M in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. This was mostly in the form of landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare minerals were sent to the U.S. The U.S. asked for $1.3B at the cessation of hostilities to settle the debt, but was only offered $170M by the USSR. The dispute remained unresolved until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722M linked to grain shipments from the U.S., with the remainder being written off.

So $722M in 1972 dollars for $11B in 1947 dollars?

hemeantwell , October 12, 2017 at 4:09 pm

They wanted USSR in ashes.

If this is true, why did the US send 17.5 M tons of material to the USSR, through Lend Lease, during WW2?

They suspended their death wish because without the USSR they could very well have lost to the Nazis. Short of a successful invasion of Britain, the availability to the Nazis of a small portion of the tank and aerial forces that were getting chewed up in the Soviet Union would have led to the easy conquest of North Africa and the loss of the Suez canal. That would have been hard for the Allies to recover from. Once the war was won it was time to shift back into playing the innocent party responding to Soviet aggression.

Vatch , October 12, 2017 at 4:27 pm

The U.S. also sent $20 million in food aid to the Soviets during the famine of 1921-1922. The U.S. attitude towards Russia / Soviet Union is complex and contradictory. Members of the U.S. establishment mostly opposed the Soviets, but future President Herbert Hoover's role in the famine relief project shows that there were exceptions.

By the 1930s, the behavior of Stalin justified opposition to the Soviets, although I think that for a long time, many (perhaps most) of the Americans who opposed them did so for the wrong reasons.

Bigfoot , October 13, 2017 at 10:59 am

Did he send food aid to the Soviets?

Hoover's role in famine relief was about more than food distribution. By 1911-1912 or so he was director of the Russo-Asiatic Corporation and had extensive oil, mining, and timber interests in Russia, all of which made him very, very wealthy. These interests were relinquished prior to the Revolution, which Hoover vehemently opposed. According to Sayers and Kahn in The Great Conspiracy Against Russia, "He was to remain one of the world's bitterest foes of the Soviet Government for the rest of his life. It is a fact, whatever his personal motive may have been, that American food sustained the White Russians and fed the storm troops of the most reactionary regimes in Europe which were engaged in suppressing the upsurge of democracy after the First World War. Thus American relief became a weapon against the peoples' movements in Europe."

This is Disaster Capitalism 100 years ago.

The quote is footnoted. The footnote reads: "Herbert Hoover's activities as Food Relief Administrator were directed toward giving aid to the White Russians and withholding all supplies to the Soviets. Hundreds of thousands starved in Soviet territory. When, finally, Hoover bowed to public pressure and sent some food to the Soviets he continued according to a statement by a Near East Relief official in the New York World in April, 1922 -- to 'interfere with the collection of funds for famine-stricken Russia.' In February, 1992, when Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, the New York Globe made this editorial comment: 'Bureaucrats centered throughout the Department of Justice, the Department of State and the Department of Commerce for purposes of publicity are carrying on a private war with the Bolshevist Government Washington propaganda has grown to menacing proportions Messrs. Hughes and Hoover and Dougherty will do well to clean their houses before public irritation reaches too high a point. The American people will not long endure a presumptuous bureaucracy which for its own wretched purposes is willing to let millions of innocent people die."

Pages 36-37 of Sayers and Kahn:

https://www.scribd.com/document/239748857/Herbert-Hoovers-Billion-Dollars-in-Russia?ad_group=725X175Xd393bbb985be6bbdd9f1080622142345&campaign=Skimbit%2C+Ltd.&content=10079&irgwc=1&keyword=ft750noi&medium=affiliate&source=impactradius

Vatch , October 13, 2017 at 12:54 pm

In 1919, when the American Relief Administration first offered to help Russia, it's very plausible that they only wanted to help the regions under White control. But the Soviets refused foreign assistance at that time. In 1921, when the famine was worse, the Whites didn't control much outside of portions of Siberia. I think the worst areas of famine were in eastern Ukraine and the nearby parts of Russia. I don't think the Whites controlled any of that territory any longer, but I could be wrong. I think that Hoover's aid helped a lot of people in Soviet areas. And yes, he was anti-communist.

ex-PFC Chuck , October 12, 2017 at 7:18 pm

Also there was considerable sympathy towards Germany among the Latin American elites. Several countries, such as Paraguay and Argentina, would likely have jumped aboard the Axis bandwagon if it began to look like they'd come out on top.

ex-PFC Chuck , October 12, 2017 at 7:40 pm

The percentage of battle deaths incurred by the Germans on the Eastern front was at a minimum 70%, and by some counts over 90%. If Operation Barbarosa had not been launched in 1941 and a truce had held on that front it is unlikely that the Anglo-American alliance could have sustained a a landing on continental Europe in the west. This would have especially been the case if the Germans, instead of putting their chips on Barbarosa, had been able to successfully shut off British use of the Suez Canal, and thus deprive them of ready access to the resources from India and especially the oil from Iran. Given British naval dominance of the Mediterranean, however, this would have been difficult unless they were able to negotiate passage to the Levant by land through Turkey and the Balkans.

Bigfoot , October 13, 2017 at 11:07 am

Jacob Schiff was instrumental in this as he helped raise hundreds of millions for Japan. http://jewishcurrents.org/august-10-jacob-schiff-russo-japanese-war/

Lambert Strether , October 13, 2017 at 2:38 pm

> every country on Earth, since the Civil War, if not before

Every country? Surely not. See This Vast Southern Empire , pre-Civil War. We had designs on "our own" hemisphere, but every country? No.

Vatch , October 12, 2017 at 11:54 am

"Kennan was a psychopath who alternated bouts of aggression to prove himself with bouts of depression over his cowardice."

A little evidence would be nice. This appears to be one of those violations of Naked Capitalism policy: making stuff up.

hemeantwell , October 12, 2017 at 4:20 pm

Agreed. Instead of peddling diagnoses he would do well to stick with the attacking the crudity of Kennan's view of world affairs. Kennan saw the Soviets as akin to "windup toys" that were somehow driven to expand. In this he completely failed to account for the fact that the Soviets were potentially autarchic, while the capitalist West was governed by accumulation imperatives that pushed for market expansion. He doesn't bother himself with the problem but jumps right into rationalizing base construction and an arms race. That Kennan is seen as a kind of geostrategic genius speaks volumes regarding the self-deluded mindlessness of US foreign policy.

Andrew Watts , October 12, 2017 at 4:52 pm

This article sounds more like an angry emotional outburst from Helmer. It wouldn't surprise me if he's one of the people taking a lot of crap in all this Russian propaganda hysteria.

Lambert Strether , October 13, 2017 at 2:43 pm

Kennan certainly suffered from bouts of depression . I have never read a Kennan biography, so I can't vouch for the rest. Perhaps some other reader has.

Vatch , October 14, 2017 at 12:41 pm

Yes, I know about his depression. But the claim that he was a psychopath? That stretches believability. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy were examples of psychopaths. I don't think that George Kennan was like them.

EmilianoZ , October 12, 2017 at 12:14 pm

Russia-phobia is actually 100 years old. Strangely, I haven't seen any commemoration of the centenary of 1917 Revolution. Nobody can deny that it was a world-changing event.

Disturbed Voter , October 12, 2017 at 12:25 pm

The Bolshevik Revolution, that overtook the Kerensky Revolution shocked the world to the core, particularly the Church. It quickly alienated even syndicalists and anarchists, because it developed into a strong centralized state, not the bottom up movement that Lenin found when he entered Petrograd.

The last 4 years of Nato intervention in the Baltics, Poland and the Ukraine have shown that the world has never recovered from that shock. British opposition to Russia goes even deeper, back to the Great Game and the Crimean War. Without Churchill vehemently opposing Russia in general and Stalin in particular would there even be a Nato? History is more about continuity than discontinuity.

justanotherprogressive , October 12, 2017 at 1:33 pm

I'm glad you mentioned Churchill. Since the first Directors of the OSS and the CIA were complete Anglophiles and modeled their collection techniques on Britian's SIS (MI-6) (until, of course, those famous British spies were uncovered), it is not surprising that our first after the war "enemies" were the same as Churchill's enemies

Norb , October 12, 2017 at 2:06 pm

I have a sneaking suspicion that the troubles of the world have such a basic foundation that if they are ever solved, people will look back, marveling at the simplicity of the answers.

Humans have always faced the dilemma of how to organize society. The main sticking points being how to control personal ambition in ones own group and how to get the work done that needs doing- including protecting oneself form ones neighbors who are dealing with the same issues.

Capitalism, and the west in general, seem to turn personal ambition loose. It takes a persons personal confrontation and experience with the universe and makes that the primary motivator for organization. It serves to reward the aggressive while insulating failure as a personal shortcoming, not a flaw in the system. The Catholic religion, which underpins such a system by giving it a spiritual legitimacy. The individual can have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe- with the moderating teaching of caring for the poor to curb excessive personal ambition or too close a connection. That hasn't worked out so well as the poor are with us still and the argument is given that the poor will be with us forever. The Divine right of Kings and all that.

Godless Communists challenged all that and the results still haven't worked themselves out.

Endless wars seem to be an excuse to justify recurring cycles of hate. Love your God, and spite your enemies.

The promise of Socialism is that the tools of science and reason can be used to relieve human suffering and provide for a meaningful life. That vision remains unborn because those sentiments are always snuffed out as quickly as they take hold.

Jeff W , October 12, 2017 at 5:53 pm

I have a sneaking suspicion that the troubles of the world have such a basic foundation that if they are ever solved, people will look back, marveling at the simplicity of the answers.

I have the exact same suspicion. We might, in fact, understand the basic foundation and already have the solutions but, to use your words, they are always snuffed out as quickly as they take hold -- which is itself its own intractable problem.

JTMcPhee , October 12, 2017 at 12:35 pm

Interesting observation about McCarthyism as a feature of the lower classes. Particularly about what the hate and fear was directed against: bankers, lawyers, Jews, homosexuals, communists One of the big actors in that great national drama was a fella named Roy Cohn, who kind of fell into almost all of those categories (except maybe "communist", though with Cohn, who was also a mob lawyer and buddy of J. Edgar Hoover, who knows?).

And for Trump haters, or those who are trying to "understand" the guy, there's even a great big Cohn Connection, which is fun to read about here: " A mentor in shamelessness: the man who taught Trump the power of publicity
Roy Cohn, the lawyer who embraced infamy during the McCarthy hearings and Rosenberg trial, influenced Donald Trump to turn the tabloids into a soapbox
" , https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/20/roy-cohn-donald-trump-joseph-mccarthy-rosenberg-trial

H.Alexander Ivey , October 12, 2017 at 7:01 pm

Interesting observation about McCarthyism as a feature of the lower classes.

I noted that too. It gives credence to Matt Stoller's observation that the elites / 1%ers are not monolithic but are fractions that can and do fight each other.

Lambert Strether , October 13, 2017 at 2:50 pm

Tangentially, I saw the Angels in America in London, which includes a vivid portrait of Roy Cohn. On his deathbed, watched over by Ethel Rosenberg, Cohn dekes Rosenberg into singing him off to his last sleep out of pity A touching moment until Cohn sits up and yells "Fooled ya!" (paraphrasing).

Norb , October 12, 2017 at 1:12 pm

America was born of conquest. The North American continent is/was vast in scale and resources. The vision was never to live in such a place as more to conquer it and extract its resources. That mentality is still prominent as the resource base has not been depleted yet and energies are directed to further exploitation- fracking and the opening of the arctic regions. Even now, an argument can be made that American corporations are more concerned about exploiting their customers for profit, than the health of the citizenry. That is the motivational force behind our governing elite, not some attachment to the land and its people and the desire to make the world a better place.

American Exceptionalism is based on conquest and the right for individuals to exploit those resources to their own end. By that standard it continues to be a success. Communism, in principle, was an ideology opposed to that vision. Under no circumstances can such an ideology be allowed to exist, so was set for extermination by force and disinformation. Once that process takes hold, you live in a world devoid of reality. It is fantasy.

Naked greed cannot be justified for long without some form of damage taking place in the human psyche. Reflection is not prevalent in the American creed. The rise of American Corporations to the detriment of the nations citizens is a confirmation of that fact. For how can a nation be "Great" if its citizens are driven into poverty?

You become a Nation of crazy people.

Greed and misuse of Power lead to crazy. Instead of trying to talk sense to crazy people, sanity lies in the opposite direction. Less greed and an articulation of the proper use of power. Implementation is another matter.

Chris , October 12, 2017 at 4:50 pm

Yes, well said, Norb.

The fact that our corporations' only social responsibility is to make money says heaps

Juliania , October 12, 2017 at 2:49 pm

Many thanks,Yves and especially to you, sgt_doom.

Truth has a clarity no conspiracy theory can emulate

ex-PFC Chuck , October 12, 2017 at 8:36 pm

Thanks for the reading suggestions, and I especially second the the mention of Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable. TTBOMK although it's nearly ten years old it's the best analysis out there of the John Kennedy assassination.

clarky90 , October 12, 2017 at 4:56 pm

Saying "Russia (aka the Soviet Union)" (as Helmer does) is akin to saying "California (aka The United States". It is a false statement.

The Soviet Union (1917-1991) was a materialist anti-christian, anti religious totalitarian State. Godlessness was the ruling precept of Soviet society.

In 1923, Lenin created the first Soviet Concentration Camp, at the "re-purposed", Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery. Solovetsky was used as the prototype for the Gulag network of camps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solovki_prison_camp

Ultimately the Gulag would grow to 30,000 concentration camps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gulag_camps

IMO, today, the USA is the World Epicenter of materialism, internationalism, greed and godlessness.

Conversely, Russia (2017) is a Nationalist, Orthodox Christian Democracy. No wonder our materialistic rulers are so "hysterically", (The APA says, "conversion disorder". Casual psychiatric diagnosis of opponents is a breeze now!), fearful of Russia, and the Biblical, little David, with his sling and stone (Putin).

Yves Smith , October 12, 2017 at 6:36 pm

I agree Helmer should have been clearer. Helmer is saying that the US is treating Russia in the same way it treated the USSR, at least messaging-wise.

MarkE , October 12, 2017 at 7:27 pm

There is a vast body of scholarly work on the origins of the Cold War from many different perspectives, into which context this analysis is trivial and downright loopy. The Georgetown Set got us into it? It was "mad" to oppose the Soviet Union and now Russia? Oh, please.

Western opposition to Russian communism pre-dates Joe Alsop and his bowties by decades. The revolutionary regime that weakened the WWI alliance and prolonged that bloody war by making a separate peace with Germany wasn't going to be well-liked by its former allies in the first place. The same regime preached the violent overthrow of democratically-elected western governments, who reacted as one might expect, including the (poorly-considered) intervention of 1918-1920.

Stalin then gave the world many, many reasons not to trust Russia – brutal repression on a hitherto unheard of scale, mass murder, disastrous economic policies leading to mass famine, show trials and active promotion of Soviet-style take-overs elsewhere. Even before WWII and the start of the Cold War there was plenty not to like. During the war, Western governments bowed to geopolitical reality and allied with the USSR, despite Stalin's cynical deal with Hitler to divide Poland just before, but Poland provides one of the best samplings of why opposing the USSR/Russia after geopolitical realities changed at the end of the war was not only understandable but a very good idea. Shortly after Russia took over in eastern Poland the NKVD rounded up and brutally murdered 22,000 military officers, police officers, public officials and assorted intellectuals, i.e. anyone who could think independently and oppose Russian rule, and threw the bodies into pits dug in the Katyn Forest. The Soviets denied this for decades, blaming it on the Nazi's, but finally fessed up in 1990 during perestroika, now best understood as a brief twinkling of light in Russia's dark history. Reports had leaked out of the massacre and other Soviet atrocities during the war, which played a large role in mobilizing another major force in U.S. politics that was deeply skeptical of the USSR after the war – ethnic Eastern Europeans.

The West and Russia did do deals at Yalta and Tehran on spheres of influence, but there was ambiguity as to what that meant and words were thrown in about national self-determination and free elections. After the war the West (mostly) promoted democratic government, at least in Europe, while the Soviets laughed at the joke and imposed their brutal regimes anywhere they could. Stalin's last living legacy is the horror show in North Korea, where he installed a Soviet agent as head of the regime, now a dynasty. Kennan's Long Cable/Article X, which is still well worth reading, dealt with the causes of Soviet expansionism as part of Russia's long, troubled history and urged containment as an alternative to more active opposition ("roll-back"), which largely worked in Europe. As the counterpoint to containment, when Sec State Dean Acheson omitted Korea from the U.S. "defensive perimeter" in his January 1950 speech, the North invaded the South with Soviet support five months later. It was after that experience that containment went global.

With the exception of Kennan, the people mentioned may have had influence but were not the real policy makers. Truman, George Marshall and Dean Acheson were the primary architects of U.S postwar policy. Only Acheson lived in Georgetown, and he thought Alsop was a "pest." Acheson took on Kennan as his staff chief because he had deep expertise on Russia and largely made sense. The off-hand comments in the article about Kennan being a psychopath and coward were made with no support and are at odds with his reputation as a pragmatist and traditionalist in foreign policy. He was recently most well known for his quaint view that the U.S. should declare wars as required by the Constitution before getting into them. Alsop was a commentator not a policy maker and was regarded as somewhat of a fringe character, not least because he was gay in the 1950s. As for the rest of the U.S. elite at the time, far more of them had been sympathetic to Russia in their youths than rabid anti-communists. The typical Cold Warrior was made that way not by bowtie-wearing but by sober, mature observation of what the Soviet regime was all about.

So let's do fast-forward to the present day. No one with an objective understanding of Russian history is at all surprised that a regime headed by one of their former secret policemen is tampering with elections, fomenting political divisions and trying to disrupt the western alliance. All the evidence supports those conclusions and more comes out every day. Facebook, Google, the scope is astounding. In Helmer's piece we see the birth of a new phenomenon, on the same intellectual level as climate-change denial. It's electing-tampering denial.

olga , October 13, 2017 at 9:18 pm

I think if NC-ers wanted to read official propaganda, they could just subscribe to NYT. The only thing that your comment demonstrates is that you've no idea what "objective understanding of Russian history" could possibly be.

MarkE , October 14, 2017 at 9:56 am

Was that an argument? The problem Russian apologists have is that periodically, after years or decades of denial, the truth finally comes out from a Russian source, usually when it's convenient to blame their predecessor. Khrushchev finally admitted Stalin's "mistakes", like anyone really needed confirmation that his regime had murdered millions. Gorbachev finally had the guts to admit the NKVD liquidated the Polish elite, which everyone else (except the "useful idiots") had known for a long time, etc. That was the context of the Cold War and the original posting. U.S. containment policy responded to real actions and constant lying by the USSR as it imposed totalitarian regimes throughout Eastern Europe and elsewhere, not some goofy chatter at Georgetown cocktail parties. Every one of those countries, as soon as they had freedom to choose, bolted for the West and NATO.

As for election-tampering denial, sure looks like it's real. This was a new twist – deny something simply because it's been reported in the NYT (Russian sources, and Donald Trump, being so much more credible). But some other historical truth-telling pertains here. If you want to understand what Vladimir Putin and his fellow secret policemen did in East Germany, despite decades of denial, you can now go to the Stasi archives. It's a museum that documents 44 years of soul-crushing repression, cynical manipulation of neighbor against neighbor and systematic subversion of anyone or any group that might speak up against the state. It's not hard at all to believe that someone who came of age with that background would take advantage of such an easy way to undermine their U.S. adversaries. In fact, it's hard to believe they wouldn't.

Adams , October 12, 2017 at 9:22 pm

Well said. Thank you. My comment was much shorter, but said many of the same things. It was censored. Much shorter version: Asserting that George Kennan was a lunatic is lunacy.

JCC , October 13, 2017 at 9:35 am

For the life of me, I still cannot figure out why people are in an absolute panic over Russian "agents" buying $100,000.00, or whatever, worth of advertising promoting either or both sides of the election when U.S.citizens and Political Parties spent over $1.6 billion.

Are American citizens really so stupid as to fall for the amazingly, brilliantly conceived and placed $100K worth of Russian advertising, so clever that it superseded $1.6 billion worth of U.S. citizen ads?

Or (to misquote Shakespeare/Macbeth) is it a tale told by propagandists, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

Donald , October 12, 2017 at 11:37 pm

"After the war the West (mostly) promoted democratic government, at least in Europe, "

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

I am surprised no one else responded to this screed. I agree that the Soviet Union had a horrific human rights record, but that little snippet I quote above is like a relic from the silliest days of Cold War propaganda. As for Russian meddling, the evidence is that probably something happened, in my opinion, but if people were serious they would keep some sense of proportion. I read the NYT articles and melodramatic language is doing an awful lot of work with regards to the Facebook claims.

If I accepted everything I have read at face value our democracy was so fragile literally anyone willing to hire some hackers and spend a minuscule amount of money could have destroyed it. Heck, if I and a few friends were willing to mortgage our homes and cash in our retirement funds we could fund its destruction ourselves.

Bigfoot , October 13, 2017 at 11:52 am

Richard Spence, professor of history at the University of Idaho, has just published "Wall Street and the Russian Revolution: 1905 – 1925." This is a fascinating book that I would think at least some of the above commenters would be interested in. Spence has updated Anthony Sutton's earlier work with new/more archival research and access to new/more recently declassified documents.

I haven't finished it as it came in the mail yesterday, but it does have a few interesting comments about George Kennan not the above George Kennan but his distant cousin who in 1891 published a book entitled "Siberia and the Exile System." So it seems that Russia-hating ran in the family. The cousin Kennan claimed to have assisted in the distribution of a ton and a half of literature to Russian POWs in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. This, according to Kennan, was financed by Jacob Schiff and caused many of the POWs to become liberals and revolutionaries opposed to the Tsar.

Fleshing out the role of capitalist/financial interests in the Revolution is certainly important. These were the deep state actors of 100 years ago. The names of the people and the interests they represent may have changed, but the chicanery hasn't.

Jamie , October 13, 2017 at 1:09 pm

"It's important that Americans understand that Putin wants to bring us down. He was an old KGB agent."

– Crooked Hillary

Olaf Lukk , October 13, 2017 at 5:37 pm

" the Clinton administration decided to move NATO into former Warsaw Pact nations, violating a understanding made as part of the peaceful dissolution". The "peaceful dissolution" of the Soviet "union", I presume?

NATO was formed in 1948 in response to the Soviet refusal to withdraw from the Eastern European nations it continued to control with puppet governments and Soviet troops after WWll. The Soviets responded by forming the Warsaw Pact -- consisting of those very same nations: (East) Germany, Poland, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. The only time Warsaw Pact troops were used militarily was against its own members -- Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslavakia in 1968.

The collapse of the USSR started in 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and culminated in 1991 with the failed coup by hardliners against Gorbachev in August of 1991, though the official end did not come until the formal dissolution on December 26, 1991.

In the following years, all of the Warsaw Pact nations, plus the illegally annexed and occupied Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, having regained their sovereignty, all made a point of joining NATO -- to make sure that the Russian bear did not return to do even more damage.

What "understanding" was violated? It is a popular myth that the Russians were "promised" that NATO would not expand to the east. Who made this promise to who, and under what authority? Did the nations of Eastern Europe, after half a century of Russian control, voluntarily cede the power to determine their future alliances to the Clinton Administration? The premise is absurd on its face. In any case, how do you keep a "promise" to a political entity- the USSR- which no longer exists?

Russian interference in Ukraine, and the forced annexation of Crimea (reminiscent of Stalin's annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940), has validated the pragmatism of its former vassal states in joining NATO. Russia is not being threatened by its neighbor's membership in NATO; to them, Russia is the threat.

olga , October 13, 2017 at 9:28 pm

You should ask Jim Baker, who had confirmed that an agreement regarding NATO was made. In addition to many other people present at the time Why try at revisionist history now ?

And FIY, Estonia, Latvia, and Litva were a part of the czarist Russia for more than 300 yrs. Soviet Union gave up the territories in the terrible peace it had to sign with Germany before the end of WWI. After the next war, which it won, it simply took back the areas – kinda like the French took back Alsace-Lorraine, after victory over German in WWI. Knowing history is really a good thing

BoycottAmazon , October 13, 2017 at 10:50 pm

+1

Don't confuses them with the facts.

More Russians troops are buried in the soil of the Crimea than the US lost in Europe during WWI &WWII as well. The West or it's proxies have been after it for nearly as long as The Great Game has been in play. But that's what Russia gets for helping Lincoln by keeping France and Britain from actively coming in on the side of the Confederates. Never help an ingrate.

MarkE , October 14, 2017 at 10:00 am

That's two misreadings of history. There was no agreement not to expand NATO, which is confirmed by both Jim Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev, the other guy there at the table. The only agreement made was that NATO would not put nuclear weapons or non-German troops in the former GDR. That agreement has been kept.

The Baltic states had all declared their independence from Russia before the Russian peace with Germany, so they weren't anyone's to give. If they were ever "transferred" to Germany they didn't stay German for long – in fact a couple of them defeated German armies in battle towards the end of WWI. They were all independent by 1920, part of the wave of national self-determination after WWI that saw the liberation of lots of smaller countries that had been dominated by one of the defunct empires. Lithuania, of course, hadn't always been so small – at one point it was the largest country in Europe and included parts of what became Russia. Comparisons with Alsace are absurd on several levels.

[Jan 03, 2019] The Great Myth Of The Anti-War Left Exposed

If [neoliberal] left is understood as Clinton DemoRats, then it's just a second war party. Just look at Hillary. Such an anti-war hero.
Notable quotes:
"... For decades, a common myth pervading the American political arena has been that the left is anti-war. ..."
"... But they are as much opposed to war as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – at least he is honest about his appetite for blood and desire for perpetual regime change, no matter who occupies the Oval Office. So, from where did this mendacity come? ..."
"... In 2008, the United States was entrenched in an election battle and two major wars – Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats portrayed themselves as the anti-war party, promising to correct the foreign disasters of the incumbent administration. Since then, it's as if former President George W. Bush never departed. The Democrats have championed military interventions, twiddled their thumbs under President Barack Obama, and nominated a hawk to lead the party in 2016. ..."
"... Today, the [neoliberla] left has united with the neoconservatives in opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to bring 2,000 troops home from Syria and potential plans to withdraw from Afghanistan. Because they loathe Trump so much and don't want him to be portrayed as a more peaceful president than his predecessor, leftists demand that U.S. forces permanently stay in the region, facing death or serious injury. ..."
"... Attempting to locate a handful of consistent anti-war Democrats is like trying to spot Vice President Mike Pence with a woman other than his wife at a restaurant: It's never going to happen. ..."
"... For the last century, virtually every war, invasion, and occupation have been given the stamp of approval by Democrats. President Woodrow Wilson dragged the U.S. into one of those wars-to-end-all- wars fiascos. President Harry Truman sent thousands of young men to their deaths in Korea, setting the stage for perpetual global interventionism. President Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. The Democratic leadership approved of the Iraq War, and Obama destabilized an entire region, killed American citizens, and intensified the drone bombing campaign. ..."
"... Outside of Capitol Hill, the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media have never seen a war it didn't like. In the last two years alone, the vacuous TV commentators have employed the same two strategies: Demand action against Russia (eh, Paul Begala ?) and oppose President Trump for using diplomacy and other tactics to institute peace ..."
Jan 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Otto von Bismarck once said, "People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election." For decades, a common myth pervading the American political arena has been that the left is anti-war.

But they are as much opposed to war as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – at least he is honest about his appetite for blood and desire for perpetual regime change, no matter who occupies the Oval Office. So, from where did this mendacity come?

In 2008, the United States was entrenched in an election battle and two major wars – Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats portrayed themselves as the anti-war party, promising to correct the foreign disasters of the incumbent administration. Since then, it's as if former President George W. Bush never departed. The Democrats have championed military interventions, twiddled their thumbs under President Barack Obama, and nominated a hawk to lead the party in 2016.

Progressives, the same ones who, under Republican administrations, routinely held massive anti-war rallies on days that ended in "y," have been eerily silent for the last ten years.

Today, the [neoliberla] left has united with the neoconservatives in opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to bring 2,000 troops home from Syria and potential plans to withdraw from Afghanistan. Because they loathe Trump so much and don't want him to be portrayed as a more peaceful president than his predecessor, leftists demand that U.S. forces permanently stay in the region, facing death or serious injury.

Is this a case of Freaky Friday politics, or has the left always been pro-war?

Anti-War Democrats, Please Stand Up

Attempting to locate a handful of consistent anti-war Democrats is like trying to spot Vice President Mike Pence with a woman other than his wife at a restaurant: It's never going to happen.

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the man who switches from Independent to Democrat when it suits the occasion, has come out of the closet on occasion as a hawk. In addition to supporting the so-called Little War in Kosovo in the 1990s, Sanders revealed to ABC News in September 2015 that the U.S. could use its military forces when not attacked and apply sanctions on adversaries.

For the last century, virtually every war, invasion, and occupation have been given the stamp of approval by Democrats. President Woodrow Wilson dragged the U.S. into one of those wars-to-end-all- wars fiascos. President Harry Truman sent thousands of young men to their deaths in Korea, setting the stage for perpetual global interventionism. President Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. The Democratic leadership approved of the Iraq War, and Obama destabilized an entire region, killed American citizens, and intensified the drone bombing campaign.

Outside of Capitol Hill, the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media have never seen a war it didn't like. In the last two years alone, the vacuous TV commentators have employed the same two strategies: Demand action against Russia (eh, Paul Begala ?) and oppose President Trump for using diplomacy and other tactics to institute peace.

So, how exactly is the left anti-war?

The Born-Again Right

When it comes to foreign policy, there are now three wings of the GOP: hawks, doves, and those who realize the doctrine of the last 20 years has failed.

One of the biggest surprises since Trump's election is that the right has become increasingly more cautious about seeking dragons to slay and erecting Old Glory on every plot of land in the world. House Republicans have slashed foreign aid in the billions, Senate Republicans have voted to end America's role in Yemen's humanitarian crisis, and prominent figures in the White House have asked one simple question: Why should the United States be the policeman of the world?

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president, recently dismantled the hawkish Counterfeit News Network when he told Wolf Blitzer:

"What I'm talking about, Wolf, is the big picture of a country that through several administrations had an absolutely catastrophic foreign policy that cost trillions and trillions of dollars and thousands and thousands of lives and made the Middle East more unstable and more dangerous. And let's talk about Syria. Let's talk about the fact -- ISIS is the enemy of Russia. ISIS is the enemy of Assad. ISIS is the enemy of Turkey. Are we supposed to stay in Syria generation after generation, spilling American blood to fight the enemies of all those countries?"

Had Obama uttered these fiery remarks in '08, they would have been the headline for many outlets that covered the interview. Instead, The Washington Post reported, " Wolf Blitzer tells Stephen Miller to 'calm down' during heated interview ." The Huffington Post ran with this headline: " CNN's Wolf Blitzer Tells Stephen Miller to 'Calm Down.' "

Comments that should draw praise from the left have been met with mockery and scorn.

US Foreign Policy

H.L. Mencken was right when he said that "every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." There is no other area in government that should instill more shame in the population than foreign policy.

The political theater of sending young men and women overseas to fight in wars is a tragicomedy: a comedy for those who don't have to wield a weapon and a tragedy for those who do. It is easy and comfortable for politicians and pundits, a paltry few of whom have ever done any of the fighting, to shout platitudes as if they were reincarnated John Waynes.

It's clear that politicians of all stripes have blood on their hands. The only difference is that some policymakers showcase this human flesh with pride, while others pretend to be benevolent. Trump's foreign policy has not been perfect, but it has been far superior to what has transpired over the years. To rebuke the president's withdrawal of soldiers in an NPC-like manner makes you complicit to atrocity.

[Jan 03, 2019] Graham and Our Confused Syria Policy by DANIEL LARISON

Notable quotes:
"... Graham is an interventionist fanatic, so it should raise red flags about the supposed Syria withdrawal that he is no longer concerned about it. ..."
"... If U.S. forces are still supposed to remain in Syria long enough to make sure that "Iran doesn't fill in the back end," that is essentially indistinguishable from the earlier Bolton position of an indefinite military presence until Iranian forces leave. It makes no difference to U.S. security whether or not Iran keeps some of its forces in Syria or "fills in the back end" after our withdrawal, and it is not our government's responsibility to police any part of Syria for any length of time. ..."
"... It's no secret that Netanyahu doesn't and never has cared about legality or the US Constitution. Our Constitution and laws are just a goddamned inconvenience as far as he's concerned. They're in the way , and to make matters worse, Adelson's complaining that the cost of US politicians like Durbin, Cotton, and Rubio is going through the roof. ..."
"... Congress is supposed to authorize use of military force. Not agitate to prevent it from ending. ..."
"... If those neocons and "humanitarian" interventionist set on US hegemony can't hem in Trump politically to stay in Syria do expect another 'false flag' to force Trump. ..."
"... I'm not saying I agree with Mattis' military advice, quite the contrary. But to project onto Trump some sort of principled and thoughtful policy here would be just that a projection. ..."
December 31, 2018

Adam Taylor comments on Lindsey Graham's recent claims about Syria policy:

What explains Graham's newfound optimism about Trump's plan to leave Syria?

Well, there is one big but rather confusing reason. In Graham's retelling, Trump's plan to leave Syria sounds suspiciously like a plan to stay in Syria -- one that could be extended indefinitely, too. Speaking to reporters Sunday, Graham described Trump's Syria plan as a "pause situation" rather than a withdrawal.

Graham is an interventionist fanatic, so it should raise red flags about the supposed Syria withdrawal that he is no longer concerned about it. It is possible that Graham is spinning what Trump told him and trying to box the president in with these public statements, but if that were the case Trump would presumably reject Graham's interpretation in a series of angry tweets. The fact that Trump hasn't done that suggests that Syria withdrawal isn't happening or will happen so slowly as to make little difference. Graham describes Trump's Syria policy this way:

Lindsey Graham @LindseyGrahamSC

I learned a lot from President @ realDonaldTrump about our efforts in Syria that was reassuring. (1/3)

16K 6:08 PM - Dec 30, 2018 Twitter Ads info and privacy
6,960 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

Taylor observes:

Considering these three elements, a full withdrawal would not be possible in the immediate future.

If U.S. forces are still supposed to remain in Syria long enough to make sure that "Iran doesn't fill in the back end," that is essentially indistinguishable from the earlier Bolton position of an indefinite military presence until Iranian forces leave. It makes no difference to U.S. security whether or not Iran keeps some of its forces in Syria or "fills in the back end" after our withdrawal, and it is not our government's responsibility to police any part of Syria for any length of time.

It can't be stressed enough how unnecessary and illegal an American military presence in Syria is. Keeping troops there has nothing to do with U.S. or allied security, and the most vocal advocates of keeping them there indefinitely are driven by an obsessive hostility to Iran that blinds them to the costs and risks of further involvement in Syria. Congress never authorized any U.S. mission in Syria against anyone, and no president had the authority to order U.S. forces into harm's way in that country. Our Syria policy for at least the last four years has been in flagrant violation of the Constitution and international law, and it has been divorced from U.S. interests from the very beginning.


Ashdown MD December 31, 2018 at 1:43 pm

Graham's playing him from the outside, Pompeo and Bolton are playing him from the inside, and Netanyahu's calling the shots.

It's no secret that Netanyahu doesn't and never has cared about legality or the US Constitution. Our Constitution and laws are just a goddamned inconvenience as far as he's concerned. They're in the way , and to make matters worse, Adelson's complaining that the cost of US politicians like Durbin, Cotton, and Rubio is going through the roof.

Orange Co. , says: January 1, 2019 at 12:19 am

Graham has lost his way. He should wake up and start doing his duty. Congress is supposed to authorize use of military force. Not agitate to prevent it from ending.

In this respect at least, Trump is starting to look like the only adult in the room, the only one capable of restraint.

JR , says: January 1, 2019 at 4:30 am

If those neocons and "humanitarian" interventionist set on US hegemony can't hem in Trump politically to stay in Syria do expect another 'false flag' to force Trump.

rayray , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:10 pm

@Orange Co.

I think you're projecting meaning onto Trump's actions that aren't there. Trump has no problem at all with military action in Syria and actions to contain Iran; he's even ordered such action before.

His recent withdrawal order, (and this is likely to come out when Mattis writes his memoirs if he does) was from animus towards Mattis whose notions of service and native intelligence were starting to make Trump feel insecure and maybe dumb.

I'm not saying I agree with Mattis' military advice, quite the contrary. But to project onto Trump some sort of principled and thoughtful policy here would be just that a projection.

[Jan 03, 2019] There is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries

Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:51 am GMT

... there is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries. After all that the elites have done in the past 40-50 years to demonstrate their humanity – basically bringing a big chunk of the third world and resettling them in the west, the greedy underclass still demands proof from the elites that they are humanists.

Unfortunately the way they envision that the elites should prove their humanity is by opening their wallets and sharing their wealth with the poor in order to satisfy their ever increasing demands for better life by the undeserving poor.

Someone has to put a stop to it. Because if the poor underclasses succeed in draining the wealth from the innocent elites – the whole society will collapse. Why? Because there is no way that anyone can have respect for poor elites – which is where all this business with the yellow wests in France is going.

If the elites become poor – how can they maintain that magic aura of "we are better than you" that they project on the poor and which allows to govern them? No one can have a respect for poor elites. That's why I think it's time to step up the tried and trusted method – thankfully invented by US – that when somebody doubts the generosity of the elites – just import few hundred thousand fresh new faces from the 3rd world – to prove how much the elites care and that we are all equal – not with them, but among ourselves, which is where it really counts.

[Jan 03, 2019] Is EU sustainable in its current form

Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

jilles dykstra , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:56 am GMT

I miss two things.

First, in just three EU member states referenda were held in 2005 on what was called European constitution. All three two thirds negative, with, especially compared with elections now, a high % of voting. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Lisbon was signed unanimously, a treaty in essence the same as the rejected 'consitution'.
According to Farrage it was said in EP 'they do not know what they're doing'.
And so the disappearance of the nation states continued, elections in the member states, hogwash, what still is called government is no more than errand boys of Brussels.

Second capitalism. It is a great pity that this word now is used to hide what the problem is, the disappearance of the nation state. Capitalism is as old as the world, as is global trading. Thousands of years BCE traders from what is now Indonesia sailed yearly to E Africa for trade, on regulated markets, regulated informally, even without any verbal communication. What is called capitalism now, the evil capitalism, has as only cause that nation states gave their sovereignty away.

As to the ideological basis of the EU, mainly the fairy tale of the evil Germans, two world wars and the holocaust.
I must admit that until say fifteen years ago I also believed these fairy tales.
One does not expect to be lied to consistently by nearly anyone and anything.
If spreading these fairy tales was lying, can even be discussed.
I'm inclined to see just concious lying as lying.

Anyhow, these fairy tales prevented common sense to understand that culturally there is no such thing as Europe.
Culturally, thus also not economically and socially.
The Brussels love of mass immigration, forcing member states to accept in fact any migrant, is caused, I fear, by the realisation that the European Reich can only exist if the 28 or so different cultures have been destroyed, even the probablity of civil war seems acceptable to Brussels, I fear.

[Jan 03, 2019] Why France's Yellow Vest protests have been ignored by "The Resistance" in the U.S. by Max Parry

US "resistance" is as fake as it can be. It consists mainly of Clinton wing of DemoRats (in pocket of Wall Street) and neoliberal presstitutes in MSM.
Macron is seen as a former Rothschild banker who had the idea that he could 'modernise' France in the neoliberal Brussels way. According to the latest poll 61% of the French reject Macron's policies.
Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

In less than two months, the yellow vests (" gilets jaunes " ) movement in France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week, demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowed President Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium and the Netherlands. Just as el uture EU designer was fortunate enough to have friends in high places. Schuman's clemency was granted by none other than General Charles de Gaulle himself, the leader of the resistance during the war and future French President. Instantly, Schuman's turncoat reputation was rehabilitated and his wartime activity whitewashed. Even though he had knowingly voted full authority to Pétain, the retention of his post in the Vichy government was veneered to have occurred somehow without his knowledge or consent.

... ... ...

Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His work has appeared in Counterpunch, Global Research, Dissident Voice, Greanville Post, OffGuardian, and more. Max may be reached at [email protected]


JLK , says: January 2, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT

Thierry Meyssan is reporting that Macron is more of a stooge for Henry Kravis (of the KKR corporate raider firm) than for the Rothschilds. He also alleges that Kravis has been funding ISIS/Daesh.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article204303.html

Rothschild made a comment the other day about the Italian government debt problem. French banks have heavy exposure. France has troops in Syria; has the French army been leveraged into a mercenary force for wealthy Zionists?

OMG , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:44 am GMT

Not a bad article 'though I have read more profound philosophical discussions about the underlying historical underpinnings to this movement. [see eg. http://www.defenddemocracy.press/the-ghost-of-1789-looms-over-france-and-europe/ .

The article by Angela Nagle which is linked to is, however, absolutely excellent and I thoroughly recommend reading it as a very powerful argument against unfettered immigration.

Justsaying , says: January 2, 2019 at 10:54 am GMT

Very perceptive to place "Resistance" between quotes. Resistance is non-existent in the US. True resistance requires an educated working class; instead the US has a amassed one of the most stupefied and brainwashed workers on the planet.

Alfred Barnes , says: January 2, 2019 at 11:17 am GMT

The Yellow Jackets movement isn't lost in the US, nor among those who support DJT. In fact, until the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement, both grass roots organized, recognize they have a common enemy in the status quo, they will continue to conquered by it.

The merge of fiscal and social responsibility is something the NWO wants to avoid at all costs while they implement their global currency and totalitarian rule. Globalists want to replace God with the state.

Paul C. , says: January 2, 2019 at 12:28 pm GMT
@Jeff Stryker

France and the US, like most nations, are controlled by the parasitical zionist central bankers and their deep state apparatchiks. They continue to squeeze the native populations into poverty and servitude, while destroying their culture with open borders, facilitating 3rd world immigration. The zionist controlled MSM won't cover the Yellow Vest movement in hopes to keep awareness low. Many would like to see it gain a foothold in the US. Unfortunately, Americans have been subject to fluoridation of their water supply, unlike France, and thus are docile. The pharmaceuticals and vaccines have rendered them zombies.

[Jan 02, 2019] Russian bots - How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Atlantic Council ..."
"... Alliance for Securing Democracy. ..."
"... Alliance for Securing Democracy ..."
"... That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the clearest cases. ..."
"... For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity. ..."
"... American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources" to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. ..."
"... In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public. ..."
"... The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how poor their deceptions are. ..."
"... The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing. ..."
"... I've always put it down to the Washington Establishment having a severe case of psychological projection. ..."
"... The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own emotions or other people's emotions. ..."
"... Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. ..."
"... The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the "security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure evil (TPTB contend). ..."
"... Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be dealt with. ..."
"... Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft (actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I am not alone after all. ..."
"... That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all those think tanks and media. ..."
"... Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists one. ..."
"... War or the threat of war is needed to distract attention from rapidly devolving societal bonds and immense economic inequality. ..."
"... The US is progressing toward a fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin. The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of "aggression." And so on ..."
"... The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth. An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated, highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys." ..."
"... Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest). ..."
"... Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and paranoia. ..."
"... Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and the United States. ..."
"... One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs. Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion of secure employment. Hugh Stretton, Economics: A New Introduction ..."
"... The anti-russian think tanks, msm, bellingcat etc push this too much, making them look stupid. ..."
"... Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the other forces at play." ..."
Feb 20, 2018J | www.moonofalabama.org

The U.S. mainstream media are going nuts. They now make up and report stories based on the uncritical acceptance of an algorithm they do not want to understand and which is known to produce fake results.

See for example these three stories:

From the last link:

SAN FRANCISCO -- One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week, Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate.

The accounts addressed the news with the speed of a cable news network. Some adopted the hashtag #guncontrolnow. Others used #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting. Earlier on Wednesday, before the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., many of those accounts had been focused on the investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

In other words - the "Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia" were following the current news just as cable news networks do. When a new sensational event happened they immediately jumped onto it. But the NYT authors go to length to claim that there is some nefarious Russian scheme behind this that uses automated accounts to spread divisive issues.

Those claims are based on this propaganda project:

Last year, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in conjunction with the German Marshall Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, created a website that tracks hundreds of Twitter accounts of human users and suspected bots that they have linked to a Russian influence campaign.

The "Alliance for Securing Democracy" is run by military lobbyists, CIA minions and neo-conservative propagandists. Its claimed task is:

... to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe.

There is no evidence that Vladimir Putin ever made or makes such efforts.

The ASD "Hamilton 68" website shows graphics with rankings of "top items" and "trending items" allegedly used by Russian bots or influence agents. There is nothing complicate behind it. It simply tracks the tweets of 600 Twitter users and aggregates the hashtags they use. It does not say which Twitter accounts its algorithms follows. It claims that the 600 were selected by one of three criteria: 1. People who often tweet news that also appears on RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik News, two general news sites sponsored by the Russian government; 2. People who "openly profess to be pro-Russian"; 3. accounts that "appear to use automation" to boost the same themes that people in group 1 and 2 tweet about.

Nowhere does the group say how many of the 600 accounts it claims to track belong to which group. Are their 10 assumed bots or 590 in the surveyed 600 accounts? And how please does one "openly profess" to be pro-Russian? We don't know and the ASD won't say.

On December 25 2017 the "Russian influence" agents or bots who - according to NYT - want to sow divisiveness and subvert democracy, wished everyone a #MerryChristmas.


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The real method the Hamilton 68 group used to select the 600 accounts it tracks is unknown. The group does not say or show how it made it up. Despite that the NYT reporters, Sheera Frenkel and Daisuke Wakabayashi, continue with the false assumptions that most or all of these accounts are automated, have something to do with Russia and are presumably nefarious:

Russian-linked bots have rallied around other divisive issues, often ones that President Trump has tweeted about. They promoted Twitter hashtags like #boycottnfl, #standforouranthem and #takeaknee after some National Football League players started kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.

The automated Twitter accounts helped popularize the #releasethememo hashtag , ...

The Daily Beast reported earlier that the last claim is definitely false :

Twitter's internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American accounts, and not Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo . There are no preliminary indications that the Twitter activity either driving the hashtag or engaging with it is either predominantly Russian.

The same is presumably true for the other hashtags.

The Dutch IT expert and blogger Marcel van den Berg was wondering how Dutch keywords and hashtags showed up on the Hamilton 68 "Russian bots" dashboard. He found ( Dutch , English auto translation) that the dashboard is a total fraud:

In recent weeks, I have been keeping a close eye on Hamilton 68. Every time a Dutch hashtag was shown on the website, I made a screenshot. Then I noted what was playing at that moment and I watched the Tweets with this hashtag. Again I could not find any Tweet that seemed to be from a Russian troll.

In all cases, the hash tags that Hamilton 68 reported were trending topics in the Netherlands . In all cases there was much to do around the subject of the hashtag in the Netherlands. Many people were angry or shared their opinion on the subject on Twitter. And even if there were a few tweets with Russian connections between them, the effect is zero. Because they do not stand out among the many other, authentic Tweets.

Van den Berg lists a dozen examples he analyzed in depth.

The anti-Russian Bellingcat group around couch blogger Eliot Higgins is sponsored by the NATO propaganda shop Atlantic Council . It sniffs through open source stuff to blame Russia or Syria wherever possible. Bellingcat was recently a victim of the "Russian bots" - or rather of the ASD website. On February 10 the hashtag #bellingcat trended to rank 2 of the dashboard.


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Bellingcat was thus, according to the Hamilton 68 claims, under assault by hordes of nefarious Russian government sponsored bots.

The Bellingcat folks looked into the issue and found that only six people on Twitter, none of them an automated account , had used the #bellingcat hashtag in the last 48 hours. Some of the six may have opinions that may be "pro-Russian", but as Higgins himself says :

[I]n my opinion, it's extremely unlikely the people listed are Russian agents

The pro-NATO propaganda shop Bellingcat thus debunked the pro-NATO propaganda shop Alliance for Securing Democracy.

The fraudsters who created the Hamilton 68 crap seem to have filled their database with rather normal people from all over the world who's opinions they personally dislike. Those then are the "Russian bots" who spread "Russian influence" and divisiveness.

Moreover - what is the value of its information when six normal people out of millions of active Twitter users can push a hashtag with a handful of tweets to the top of the dashboard?

But the U.S. media writes long gushing stories about the dashboard and how it somehow shows automated Russian propaganda. They go to length to explain that this shows "Russian influence" and a "Russian" attempt to sow "divisiveness" into people's minds.

This is nuts.

Last August, when the Hamilton 68 project was first released, the Nation was the only site critical of it. It predicted :

The import of GMF's project is clear: Reporting on anything that might put the US in a bad light is now tantamount to spreading Russian propaganda.

It is now even worse than that. The top ranking of the #merrychristmas hashtag shows that the algorithm does not even care about good or bad news. The tracked twitter accounts are normal people.

The whole project is just a means to push fake stories about alleged "Russian influence" into U.S. media. Whenever some issue creeps up on its dashboard that somehow fits its false "Russian bots" and "divisiveness" narrative the Alliance for Securing Democracy contacts the media to spread its poison. The U.S. media, - CNN, Wired, the New York Times - are by now obviously devoid of thinking journalists and fact checkers. They simple re-package the venom and spread it to the public.

How long will it take until people die from it?

Posted by b on February 20, 2018 at 03:15 PM | Permalink

Comments next page " It's all too reminiscent of Duck Soup:


Clueless Joe , Feb 20, 2018 3:45:14 PM | link

"to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe."

That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the clearest cases.

ken , Feb 20, 2018 3:46:05 PM | link
For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity.
xor , Feb 20, 2018 4:11:10 PM | link
The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing.
karlof1 , Feb 20, 2018 4:30:11 PM | link
Gee, what could go wrong formulating policy founded upon a series of Big Lies? Kim Dotcom says he has important info the FBI refuses to hear. At the Munich Security Conference , neocon Nicholas Burns, former US Ambassador to NATO, details my assertion's factual basis that current policy is being formed on a series of Big Lies: "Will NATO strengthen itself to contain Russian power in Eastern Europe giving what Russian [sic] has done illegally in Crimea, in the Donbass, and in Georgia ?" [Bolded text are the Big Lies.]

Clearly, this entire psyop was premeditated and its design was hastily done contemporaneously with Russia's Syria intervention. NSA/CIA/FBI knew of HRC's security breeches and rightly assumed their contents would find their way into the election, so the general plan was ready to go prior to WikiLeaks publications. b has uncovered much, and I hope he's planning to publish a book about the entire affair.

Jen , Feb 20, 2018 4:54:59 PM | link
Ken @ 4: There doesn't necessarily need to be One Major Reason for going to war. There may be several reasons all feeding and reinforcing one another and creating a psychological climate in which Going To War is seen as the only solution and is inevitable. The reasons are not just economic and political but cultural and historical.

In some countries allied with the US, the politicians in power are the ideological descendants of those who collaborated with Nazi Germany - so in a sense they are committed to "correcting" what they see as wrong. In the case of current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he is the grandson of a former prime minister who once served in General Tojo's World War II cabinet.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/12/26/national/formed-in-childhood-roots-of-abes-conservatism-go-deep/#.WoyZCG9uaUk

That's why pinning down the reason for wanting a war against Russia is so difficult.

Partisan , Feb 20, 2018 5:06:58 PM | link
The whole piece is just hilarious and I laughed out loud all time while reading it.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/16/nyts-really-weird-russiagate-story/

Since the FBI never inspected the DNC's computers first-hand, the only evidence comes from an Irvine, California, cyber-security firm known as CrowdStrike whose chief technical officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, a well-known Putin-phobe, is a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that is also vehemently anti-Russian as well as a close Hillary Clinton ally.

Thus, Putin-basher Clinton hired Putin-basher Alperovitch to investigate an alleged electronic heist, and to absolutely no one's surprise, his company concluded that guilty party was Vladimir Putin. Amazing! Since then, a small army of internet critics has chipped away at CrowdStrike for praising the hackers as among the best in the business yet declaring in the same breath that they gave themselves away by uploading a document in the name of "Felix Edmundovich," i.e. Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police.

As noted cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr observed with regard to Russia's two main intelligence agencies: "Raise your hand if you think that a GRU or FSB officer would add Iron Felix's name to the metadata of a stolen document before he released it to the world while pretending to be a Romanian hacker. Someone clearly had a wicked sense of humor."

james , Feb 20, 2018 5:17:19 PM | link
thanks b!

muddy waters.. paid for propaganda.... look at all the russian bots, lol... cold war 2 / mccarthyism 2 is in effect... the historic parallels are marked. thank you neo cons! it's working... the ordinary person in the usa can't be this stupid can they?

when does ww3 kick in? is that really what these idiots want? or is it just to prolong the huge defense budget?

Mike Maloney , Feb 20, 2018 5:24:03 PM | link
This is about conditioning voters in Europe and the United States for a long war with Russia and China. In other words, a return to the 1950s. It is not working and becoming increasingly hysterical because societies are not nearly as cohesive as they once were, and the mainstream political parties, while better funded and more top-down organized, are basically hollow. The collapse is coming. Four years or ten, take your pick.
dh , Feb 20, 2018 5:32:10 PM | link
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia."

Most Americans probably don't. Just the chosen few with the deepest fall-out shelters. The idea is to keep piling the pressure on to countries like Iran and Russia in the hope that their populations will rise up and demand the freedoms that we enjoy in the West....things like uncensored wardrobe malfunctions and transgender washrooms.

Partisan , Feb 20, 2018 6:02:58 PM | link
"Most Americans probably don't."

not true.

let's imagine that we have the pyramid of evilness, by which we measure bestiality of one regime and its constituency. my firm belief is that us would be on the top of that pyramid. Only dilemma would be between Zionist entity and the US.

"How could the masses be made to desire their own repression?" was the question Wilhelm Reich famously asked in the wake of the Reichstagsbrandverordnung (Reichstag Fire Decree, February 28, 1933), which suspended the civil rights protections afforded by the Weimar Republic's democratic constitution.

Hitler had been appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933 and Reich was trying to grapple with the fact that the German people had apparently chosen the authoritarian politics promoted by National Socialism against their own political interests.

Ever since, the question of fascism, or rather the question of why might people vote for their own oppression, has never ceased to haunt political philosophy.2 With Trump openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the continued electoral success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question has again become a pressing one.

An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime.

CarlD , Feb 20, 2018 6:06:06 PM | link
Remember the "USS MAINE"! Media have long agitated for War in US History. Nothing sells newspapers like a good ole war! Demonizing is a way to achieve it. What is sure is that this is a one way street. Once over the cliff, there is no turning back.

How do you tell people that, at the flick of your magic switch, Putin is in fact a swell guy and wonderful human being? Once love is gone who goes back to the filthy, abhorrent and estranged spouse?

Surely the US establishment is playing with fire thinking they will successfully ride out any conflict and come out on top secure in their newly reestablished hegemony on the smoldering ruins of Humanity.

Make no mistake, we are all on the road to hell. Better enjoy todays peace as tomorrow word will be filled with the sweet music of cemeteries.

"Freedom of speech"...

dh , Feb 20, 2018 6:14:14 PM | link
@15 "An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime."

I'm not so sure. I think there are many Americans who deeply distrust their government. But of course they don't want to appear unpatriotic. There are also many who are apathetic and many simply don't know how to change things.

SteveK9 , Feb 20, 2018 6:35:58 PM | link
It's horrible I know to quote a Nazi, but Goring had this right:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

WorldBLee , Feb 20, 2018 6:36:51 PM | link
American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources" to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. The skills required to repeat the text verbatim serve them well in both cases. Skepticism is only reserved to anyone who tries to introduce logic or facts into the equation--such as when Jill Stein was interviewed on MSNBC recently. How dare Ms. Stein try to bring FACTS into the discussion!
chet380 , Feb 20, 2018 6:41:04 PM | link
In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public.
Sinc , Feb 20, 2018 6:41:57 PM | link
See info on US 'Twitter' manipulation campaign
Sinc , Feb 20, 2018 6:44:16 PM | link
Sorry, link here
ken , Feb 20, 2018 6:59:01 PM | link
Thanks Jen. It still makes no sense. As a veteran of the Vietnam fiasco, I was pretty much government oriented until McNamara outed the whole thing whining about haw sorry he was. 59,000 dead and he's sorry. They were able to hide the Gulf of Tonkin BS until then. After that I researched the reasons for each war/conflict the USA started and could find no logical reasons except hunger for power. But the little sandbox wars won't destroy the world like a major war/conflict with Russia and it goes nuclear. Almost every politician, and major news organizations are pushing for a war/conflict with Russia. This is insanity as no one will win a war like this and I am sure they know that,,, but they keep the war drums beating anyhow. It simply doesn't make sense. But Thanks again.

Same for dh, #14. Things are soooo stupid, your joking may be closer to the truth than you know. :-)

Skip , Feb 20, 2018 6:59:35 PM | link
@SteveK9 #19

Thank you for the post. I will save it and use it liberally, with proper attributions. When one challenges the tribe on places like Twitter, it is hard to tell who is a real idiot and who is a bot. How do you know? Maybe that the bots go away fairly quickly and the idiots hang around to argue ad infinitum.

oldenyoung , Feb 20, 2018 7:06:23 PM | link
The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how poor their deceptions are. The public perception that "russia did it!!" continues to rise. I wonder what the public acceptance level needs to be for them to execute a MAJOR false flag event. They seem to think they are still on target, and its just a short matter or time...

They are going to do this when the perception management is complete... We really do not need another one of their disasters

Grieved , Feb 20, 2018 7:37:47 PM | link
The bully pushes and pushes until stopped by the first serious push back. The dynamic of the west and the neocon/Zionists at the core is essentially that of the bully. Nations like Venezuela and the Philippines have started to push back, and I hope and feel fairly confident that they will both survive the rage of the US. In some part, they have begun to show the actual powerlessness of the bully.

But the really killer nations - Russia and China - are holding their water as they strengthen their force. I believe that one very serious push back from either of them in the right circumstances will stop the bully. And yet, as they bide their time, we see a curious phenomenon wherein the US is destroying itself from the inside.

It's as if all of the forces that exist to control the country - the lockstep media, the fully rigged markets, the hysterical military, the bought legislature and the crooked courts - are all acting far more strongly than should be necessary. The entire system is over-reacting, over-reaching, over-boiling. And in the course of this, the US is actually shedding power, and at an amazing rate. But not from the action of Russia but from its non-action, the empty space that that allows the bully's dynamic to over-reach, all the way to complete failure.

Is it possible that deep in the security states of Russia and China there's even a study and a model for this? Is the collapse of the US actually being gamed by Russia and China - and through the totally counter-intuitive action of non-action?

Just a thought.

Ghost Ship , Feb 20, 2018 7:51:03 PM | link
>>>> xor | Feb 20, 2018 4:11:10 PM | 6
The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing.

I've always put it down to the Washington Establishment having a severe case of psychological projection.

WG , Feb 20, 2018 7:52:38 PM | link
Hey b,
Just wanted to let you know that Joe Lauria mentioned your blog and the article you wrote on the indictment of the 13 Russians. He was on Loud and Clear (Sputnik Radio, Washington DC) today and brought you up at the start of the program.
Glad to see you get some recognition for all the great work you've been doing :)
Mike , Feb 20, 2018 7:53:24 PM | link
Meanwhile, back in 2010:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/11/when-campaigns-manipulate-social-media/66351/
Jen , Feb 20, 2018 7:53:43 PM | link
Ken @ 24: The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own emotions or other people's emotions.

Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. https://archive.org/details/EdwardL.BernaysPropaganda

Bernays' books influenced Nazi and Soviet propaganda and Bernays himself was hired by the US government to justify in the public mind the 1954 US invasion of Guatemala.

You may be aware that Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation which owns the Wall Street Journal, FOX News and 20th Century Fox studios, is also on the Board of Directors of Genie Energy which owns a subsidiary firm that was granted a licence by an Israeli court to explore and drill for oil and natural gas in Syria's (and Israeli-occupied) Golan Heights.

simjam , Feb 20, 2018 7:59:21 PM | link
The national media speaks as one -with one consistent melody day after day. Who is the conductor? When will one representative of the mainstream media sing solo? There must be a Ray McGovern somewhere among the flock.
V. Arnold , Feb 20, 2018 8:05:33 PM | link
Grieved | Feb 20, 2018 7:37:47 PM | 27

Many of my thoughts as well. The U.S.'s greatest fault is its tacit misunderstanding of just what russia is in fact. They utterly fail to understand the Russian character; forged over 800 years culminating with the defeat of Nazi Germany, absorbing horrific losses; the U.S. fails to understand the effect upon the then Soviets, become todays Russians. Even the god's have abandoned the west...

Debsisdead , Feb 20, 2018 8:53:42 PM | link
I watched bbc news this am in the hope that I would get to see the most awful creature at the 2018 olympics cry her croc tears (long story - a speed skater who cuts off the opposition but has been found out so now when she swoops in front of the others they either skate over her leading to tearful whines from perp about having been 'pushed', or gets disqualified for barging. Last night she got disqualified so as part of my study on whether types like this believe their own bullshit I thought I'd tune in but didn't get that far into the beebs lies)

The bulk of the bulletin was devoted to a 'lets hate Russia' session which featured a quisling who works for the russian arm of BBC (prolly just like cold war days staffed exclusively by MI6/SIS types). This chap, using almost unintelligible english, claimed he had proof at least 50 Russian Mercenaries (question - why are amerikan guns for hire called contractors [remember the Fallujah massacre of 100,000 civilians because amerikan contractors were stupid] yet Russian contractors are called mercenaries by the media?) had been killed in Syria last week. The bloke had evidence of one contractor's death not 50 - the proof was a letter from the Russian government to the guy's mother telling her he didn't qualify for any honours because he wasn't in the Russian military.

The quisling (likely a Ukranian I would say) went on to rabbit about the bloke having also fought in Donbass under contract - to which the 'interviewer (don't ya love it when media 'interview' their own journos - a sure sign that a snippet of toxic nonsense is being delivered) led about how the deceitful Russians had claimed the only Russians fighting in Donbass were contractors - yeah well this bloke was a contractor surely that proves the Russians were telling the truth.

It's not what these propagandists say; they adopt a tone and the audience is meant to hate based on that even when the facts as stated conflict with the media outlet's point of view. Remember the childhood trick of saying "bad dog" ter yer mutt in loving tones - the dog comes to ya tail wagging & licks yer hand. This is that.

The next item was more Syria lies - white helmets footage (altho the beeb is now mostly giving them an alternative name to dodge the facts about white helmets) of bandaged children with flour tipped on their heads.

The evil Syrians and Russians are bombarding Gouta - nary a word about the continuous artillery barrage Gouta has subjected the citizens of Damascus to for the past 4 years, or that the Syrians have repeatedly offered truces and safe passage for civilians. Any injured children need to ask their parents why they weren't allowed to take advantage of the frequent offers of transport out. Maybe the parents are worried 'the resistance' will do its usual and blow up the busloads of children after luring them over with candy.

Anyway I switched off after that so never did learn if little miss cheat had a cry.

ben , Feb 20, 2018 9:17:54 PM | link
Reposting from TRNN: http://therealnews.com/t2/story:21178:Why-is-a-Russian-Troll-Farm-Being-Compared-to-911%3F
integer , Feb 20, 2018 9:23:42 PM | link
Thank you for reporting on this. The people behind the so-called Alliance for Securing Democracy need to be exposed for the warmongering frauds that they are. Regardless of what one thinks of him, Trump was correct when he said that NATO is obsolete.
Don Bacon , Feb 20, 2018 10:12:52 PM | link
The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the "security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure evil (TPTB contend).

So the whole scenario makes perfect sense from that standpoint.

Petri Krohn , Feb 20, 2018 10:17:36 PM | link
The news stories become far easier to understand if you replace the word " Russia " with the word " truth ".
bevin , Feb 20, 2018 11:45:45 PM | link
re Felix E. Dzerzhinsky: Ukrainian fascists have a particular hatred of Felix because he was both a Bolshevik and a Pole.

I hate to do this but I just posted this elsewhere, at Off Guardian, where the Guardian is back into its highest gears promoting war.

"The wardrums are beating in a way not heard since 1914-there is no reason for war except the best reason of all: an imperial ruling class sees its grip slipping and will chance everything rather than endure the humiliation of adjusting to reality.

"China is in the position that the US was in 1914-it can prevent the war or wait until the combatants are too exhausted to defend their paltry gains.

Given the realities of nuclear warfare-which seem not to have sunk in among the Americans, perhaps because they mistake a bubble for a bomb shelter- the wise option is to prevent war by publicly warning against it. In the hope that brought face to face with reality the masses will besiege their governments, as we can easily do, and prevent war.'

See also http://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/02/20/the-coming-wars-to-end-all-wars/

V. Arnold , Feb 21, 2018 12:32:43 AM | link
Debsisdead | Feb 20, 2018 8:53:42 PM | 35

I have no idea who you are talking about; care to say?

Jeff Kaye , Feb 21, 2018 12:36:59 AM | link
Great analysis! Can't imagine how you continue to put out quality work day after day! Your question at the close speaks to stakes involved in this.
foo , Feb 21, 2018 1:53:45 AM | link
@ 10 - 4

Resources boils down to money. Of course. I don't think any power would lose from tapping a source of resource.

DidierF , Feb 21, 2018 2:03:08 AM | link
Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be dealt with.

The horrible thing with the US attitude is that you do a white thing, you're attacking them and if you do a black thing, you're attacking them too. This attitude is building hostility against Russia. It's like programming a pet to be afraid of something. The western people are being programmed into hating Russia, dehumanizing her people, cutting every tie with Russia and transforming any information from Russia into life threatening propaganda. A war for our hearts is running. The US population is being coerced into believing that war against Russia is a vital necessity.

It will be a war of choice from the US "elites". Clinton announced it and the population had chosen Trump for that reason.

You're wondering why they're doing it. I suppose that their narrative is losing its grip on the western populations. They're also conscious of it. If they lose it, they'll have to face very angry mobs and face the void of their lives. Everything they did was either useless or poisonous. It means to be in a very bad spot. They're are therefore under an existential threat.

Russia proved time and again that it's possible to get out of their narrative. Remember their situation when Eltsin was reelected with the western help.

The Chicago boys were telling the Russian authorities how to run the economy and they made out of the word democrat a synonym of thief. They were in the narrative and the result was a disaster. Then, they woke up and started to clean the house. I remember the "hero" of democracy whose name was "Khodorovsky (?)". In the west he was a freedom fighter and in Russia he stole something like Rosneft. This guy and others of the same sort were described in the west as heroes, pionniers and so on. They were put back into submission to the law. The western silence about their stealings, lies and cheating is still deafening me.

It was the first Russian crime. The second one was to survive the first batch of sanctions against them (I forgot the reason of the sanctions). They not only survived they thrived. It was against the western leading economic ideology. A third crime was to push back Saakachvili and his troops with success.

The fourth was to put back into order the Tchechen. Russia was back into the world politics and history. They were not following the script written for them in Washington and Brussels. They were having a political system putting limits to the big companies. And, worst of it, it works.
Everybody in the west who can read and listen would have noticed that they are making it.

More, with RT and Sputnik giving info outside the allowed ones or asking annoying questions (western journalists lost that habit with their new formation in the schools of journalism - remember the revolution in their education was criticised and I missed why - very curious to discover why), they were exposing weaknesses of the western narrative. On the other side their narrative became so poor and so limited that any regular reader would feel bored reading the same things time and again and being asked to pay for it at a time his salary was decreased in the name of competitivity. The threat to their narrative was ready. They had to fight it.

It's becoming a crime to think outside their marks. It's becoming a crime to read outside their marks. I don't even talk about any act outside their marks. Now, it's going to be a crime of treason to them in war time.

I do feel sadness because many will die from their fear of losing their grip on our minds. I do feel sadness because they have lost and are in denial about it. I do feel sadness because those death aren't necessary. I do feel sadness because those people can't face the consequences of their actions. They don't have the necessary spine. Their lives were useless and even toxic. They could start repairing or mitigating their damages but it would need a very different worldview, a complete conversion to another meaning of life outside the immediate and maximal profit.

V. Arnold , Feb 21, 2018 2:13:54 AM | link
DidierF | Feb 21, 2018 2:03:08 AM | 46

You have aptly described the most dangerous country on this planet. That country must not be appeased, at any cost, because it would surely end us forever...

Fran , Feb 21, 2018 2:53:24 AM | link
I wonder if this is true: STUNNING: Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. It would give the entire story a whole new touch. I wanted to write a new smell, but it would be rather stink.
Partisan , Feb 21, 2018 3:38:27 AM | link
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/12/russia-malware-ip-hack/

Conclusion regarding IP address data: What we're seeing in this IP data is a wide range of countries and hosting providers. 15% of the IP addresses are Tor exit nodes. These exit nodes are used by anyone who wants to be anonymous online, including malicious actors.

Overall Conclusion: The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don't appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor exit nodes.

The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website.

fairleft , Feb 21, 2018 5:28:09 AM | link
Partisan @15: "With Trump openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the continued electoral success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question has again become a pressing one."

The above is entirely backwards. The bottom 2/3rds is frustrated by the LACK of democracy in the US and that's a major reason many voted against the (in fact anti-democratic) elite's desired candidate, Hillary.

70% of the voting age public was dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with both candidates, and 40% of Americans didn't vote, so that means whichever of Clinton/Trump won, she/he would win with approval of only 10% of the electorate. That's the best example possible of our anti-democratic reality (it's not a worry or a threat, it's already here).

In the case of both Europe and the US, many people are generally very dissatisfied with the anti-democratic response by the elite to 'the will of the people' that there be much less immigration into countries with high unemployment and 'race to the bottom' labor conditions. That's nearly the entire basis of what the corporate media calls 'the move right'... When in fact restricting immigration is a pro-labor and therefore 'left' policy ... Except in the confused and deliberately stupid political discourse the elite media pushes so hard.

Lea , Feb 21, 2018 6:16:53 AM | link
Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft (actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I am not alone after all.

That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all those think tanks and media.

One could argue that they are not going mad, that they know full well they are lying, but I beg to differ: they don't see anymore how ridiculous or how dumb or smart their arguments are. That would be congruent with a real loss of touch with reality. One wonders what they see when they look at themselves in a mirror, a garden variety propagandist or a fearless anti-Putin crusader?

Another example of the narrative gone mad: they are sending CNN journos to meet pro-Trump folks who "have been influenced by Russian trolls on social media". https://twitter.com/yashalevine/status/966177091875168256

Partisan , Feb 21, 2018 6:20:19 AM | link
"The above is entirely backwards."

Well, it is not...if you are believer in "democracy". Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists one.

One way or other result is the same, it is: Barbarism.

ralphieboy , Feb 21, 2018 6:27:23 AM | link
When "trending on Twitter" became a news item in and of itself, I began to despair for the future of reporting, political discourse and ultimately, democracy in America. Twitter and FB are at best a source of information for news reporting, but not a source of news in themselves.

We made ourselves vulnerable to any and every sort of pernicious manipulation and in the end, we just about deserve everything we get.

WJ , Feb 21, 2018 6:38:11 AM | link
War or the threat of war is needed to distract attention from rapidly devolving societal bonds and immense economic inequality.
Partisan , Feb 21, 2018 6:41:09 AM | link
there is something illogical in your comment.

but one should never forget:

The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships.

Karl Marx

Ger , Feb 21, 2018 7:52:44 AM | link
Dan @ 4

It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia. They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the looting .........connect the dots.

Anon , Feb 21, 2018 8:08:35 AM | link
Media and its politicians have lost it completely, and if you criticize them, well then of course you are a... "russian bot". Unfortunately 90% of westerners buy this western MSM influence propaganda campaign, WW3 with Russia will come easy.
Florin , Feb 21, 2018 9:00:03 AM | link
News "Meet The Cabal That Are Framing Domestic American Activism As "Russian Influence" and "Fake News"
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/01/meet-the-cabal-that-are-framing-domestic-american-activism-as-russian-influence-and-fake-news/

At risk of being censored and/or convicted of Thought Crime - it is *remarkable* how very highly disproportionate the number of Jewish Zionists is who are in the media and in Congress and in ThinkTankistan and shouting about Russian meddling, 'aggression,' and the like.

It's too bad it is forbidden to examine this phenomena as one part of the matrix of power and lies leading the US into conflict with Russia, no?

I don't think Bill Kristol and David Frum and Jeff Goldberg are either honest nor primarily concerned with American national security, nor the lives of MENA civilians. I think they care only about using American blood and treasure to facilitate Israeli lebensraum, however bloody and expensive.

Trump survives only if he dances for the Deep State *and* Likud.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/12/us-caught-faking-it-in-syria/

ex-SA , Feb 21, 2018 9:17:53 AM | link
Chris Hedges has an article on the similar situation in Germany almost 100 years ago. "In 1923 the radical socialist and feminist Clara Zetkin gave a report at the Communist International about the emergence of a political movement called fascism. ...." https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-we-fight-fascism/
fairleft , Feb 21, 2018 10:26:45 AM | link
Partisan @54: The facts contradict the statement in the quote that Trump was "openly campaigning for less democracy." He wasn't. He in fact campaigned in part as a populist who would oust (or at least repeatedly ridicule) an anti-democratic elite. If you've overlooked that and believe more or less the opposite, you can't understand the 2016 election or the elite's virulently anti-democratic reaction to it.
Oui , Feb 21, 2018 11:18:34 AM | link
NEW CENSORSHIP - HAMILTON68 DASHBOARD

From the website of Hamilton68 :: Tracking Russian influence operations on Twitter

So easy to signal this group as a fraud, I wrote an article recently

G W F and McCarthyism In A Digital Age - Part 2

[G W F – German Marshall Fund]

Earlier I wrote about the following relationship: Khodorkovsky - The Interpreter - Henry Jackson Society (UK) .

With Bush and the Iraq War, Dutch PM Balkenende and FM de Hoop Scheffer were seen as the poodle of the White House. In recent years PM Mark Rutte [of MH-17 crash fame] can be considered its puppy. Perhaps a parrot would suit better.

I noticed a former journalist Hubert Smeets hs partnered with some people to found a "knowledge center" Window on Russia [Raam op Rusland]. Laughable, funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry and a Dutch-Russia cultural exchange Fund. Preposturous in its simplicity and harm for honest reporting.

Noirette , Feb 21, 2018 11:38:52 AM | link
US media has gone bonkers. The original claim was Russian meddling and Russian interference in the election. Then, a sort of bridging meme showed up (see also b above), undermining democracy or subverting it. This in turn then morphed into promoting divisive issues which is new (circa 2018, not before?)

Imho. US pols make it their business to create divisive issues, diviusses (neologism), to the point of inventing rubbish ones. Part of the US public embraces that sh*t as well, > tribalism and religious economics in lieu of policy politics. So such actions should be viewed as gloriously democratic, ;) - ok easy to make fun.

The emphasis on 'divisive' is curious, it signals that some managers are calling for 'union' - 'cohesion' - 'group soldering' facing the outside enemy, threat.

Russia has really become the all-purpose épouvantail scarecrow, specter of doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled -> massive social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.

Heh, or the whole storm is just fluff that distracts, occupies the pixels, airwaves, a jamboree of knee-jerk reactions irrelevant to the present World Situation, with practically no important body - faction of the PTB, Trump, the MIC, lame outsiders like the EU, etc. having any clue.

james , Feb 21, 2018 1:03:45 PM | link
i got a kick out of cluborlov's post from yesterday.. -
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2018/02/make-russia-great-again-through.html

The accusation is a lot like accusing somebody of despoiling an outhouse by crapping in it, along with everyone else, but the outhouse in question had a sign on its door that read "No Russians!" and the 13 Russians just ignored it and crapped in it anyway.

The reason the Outhouse of American Democracy is posted "No Russians!" is because Russia is the enemy. There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy, and treating it as such is incredibly foolish and dangerous, but that's beside the point. Painting Russia as the enemy serves a psychological need rather than a rational one: Americans desperately need some entity onto which they can project their own faults.

The US is progressing toward a fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin. The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of "aggression." And so on

Don Bacon , Feb 21, 2018 6:35:10 PM | link
@Noirette 70
Yes, claiming that Russians are promoting polical division is silly -- the divisions were already there.
gizmodo , Jun 12, 2014:
It's Been 150 Years Since the U.S. Was This Politically Polarized

Nevertheless, now in WIRED magazine: Their [Agency] goal was to enflame "political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation, and oppositional social movements."

OJS , Feb 21, 2018 8:27:10 PM | link

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-21/they-had-more-information-us-sanders-blames-clinton-not-exposing-russian-meddling

"They Had More Information Than Us" - Sanders Blames Clinton For Not Exposing Russian Meddling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=WRnBPKFcAKo

Bernie Sanders said he on Wednesday, "felt compelled to address Russian interference during the US election. Sunday.... he was not aware and believes Russian bot promoting him and went as far to said WikiLeaks published Hillary's email stolen by the Russia....."

Can you really trust that lying basted? I'm probably one of the few MoA refused to believe and trust Bernie Sanders and the fuckup Democrats .

ben , Feb 21, 2018 9:24:01 PM | link
Anti-Russia Think Tanks in US: Who Funds Them? By Bryan MacDonald http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48755.htm
daffyDuct , Feb 21, 2018 9:46:49 PM | link
Excellent article summarizing much of what B has posted and more.

"Finally, and as long was we are on the topic, here is what a real troll farm looks like. [Picture of NSA] Yet this vast suite of offices in Fort Meade, Maryland, where 20,000 SIGINT spies and technicians work for the NSA, is only the tip of the iceberg.

The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth. An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated, highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys."

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/muellers-comic-book-indictment-how-to-prosecute-a-great-big-nothingburger/

Daniel , Feb 22, 2018 12:47:29 AM | link
Great article. Great comments. I LOVE MoA! And it's great to see b getting recognition.

james wrote: "There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy"

You know the following; I think you're just too decent a human being to understand how psychopaths operate. Russia is a huge area with enormous natural resources as well as a large, educated populace. Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest).

Ziggy also noted that once Russia was incorporated, China is the next, and largely last target.

Jen: NICE JOB putting together a big picture, from Bernays' control of the masses all the way to Genie Energy. Add in Oded Yinon and PNAC and the "foreign policy blunders" that led to the present situation in MENA look like a carefully-constructed, long-game being played "by the book."

Fairleft. Any leftist/socialist movement which is not global is doomed to failure. This has always been true, but with "offshoring" of manufacturing jobs and the internet untethering many "white collar" jobs from any given geological location(s), workers must see ourselves as a global entity rather than national or regional players - because that is certainly how the 0.01% see us (and themselves).

"Workers of the world UNITE" is more true today than a century and a half ago.

Ghost Ship , Feb 22, 2018 5:28:36 AM | link
Did the Titanic just sink Bild ?
Partisan , Feb 22, 2018 6:20:18 AM | link
https://youtu.be/GN-tf3HM9ao New Yorker Reporter Debunks Russia Twitter Panic
ralphieboy , Feb 22, 2018 7:31:36 AM | link
@fairleft 85

nations that do not have to face costs arising from environmental, health or safety legislation will almost always prevail in the world market over those that have some concern for the environment and the workers.

That is the main issue I have with globalization.

Competing on wages is one thing; that can be a great impetus to become more efficient and productive, but if we do nothing to force other countries to clean up their act, they will have no impetus to do so and we will continue to lose jobs to the international competition, no matter how efficiently we work.

test , Feb 22, 2018 7:32:53 AM | link
Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and paranoia.
Partisan , Feb 22, 2018 9:02:22 AM | link
"....borderless globalization has been a catastrophe for most of the underdeveloped world's businesses and workers."

it is always annoying when I see the 'globalization" argument is used whether from the right or left. The globalization has started by the moment when us humans begin to roaming on this planet. there are millions of examples yet somehow globalization is of recent phenomenon. Lapis Lazuli mineral used in making blue color and paint is found on clay pottery in Mesopotamia's ancient city of Ur. That city is also place where many legend originated which were taken by major religion and can be found in their holy books. See even the myth are globalizied from very early on.

Most of the people do not even know what it is, not those who are writing about it.

Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and the United States.

One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs. Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion of secure employment.

Hugh Stretton, Economics: A New Introduction

test , Feb 22, 2018 10:02:35 AM | link
The anti-russian think tanks, msm, bellingcat etc push this too much, making them look stupid.
john , Feb 22, 2018 10:30:32 AM | link
Tannenhouser

the observable and demonstrable attempts are clearly futile, and have been pretty much reduced to spasms and tantrums, largely devoid of cognizance, not to mention legality, but certainly dangerous nonetheless.

no sir ree bob, we get our multipolar world or we scavenge a dead landscape of Alamogordo glass .

Tannenhouser , Feb 22, 2018 11:23:44 AM | link
John@96. We are on the same page then. I see it more like this. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1991370.The_Cool_War
karlof1 , Feb 22, 2018 4:18:56 PM | link
Really enjoyed Julian Assange's explanation of Mueller's nothingburger.

Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the other forces at play."

[Jan 02, 2019] The Only Meddling "Russian Bots" Were Actually Democrat-Led "Experts" by Mac Slavo

Highly recommended!
Jan 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Cybersecurity "experts" in the United States have long alleged that "Russian bots" were used to meddle in the 2016 elections.

But, as it turns out, the authors of a Senate report on "Russian election meddling" actually ran the false flag meddling operation themselves.

A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors , New Knowledge , quickly became a household name. Described by the New York Times as a group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the U.S. military and the intelligence agencies.

The CEO and co-founder of New Knowledge, Jonathon Morgan, had previously worked for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) , the U.S. military's advanced research agency known for horrific ideas on how to control humanity . Morgan's partner, Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the NSA (National Security Agency) who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of authoritarian investors, who pumped $11 million into the company in 2018 alone, according to a report by RT .

Morgan and Fox have both struck gold in the " Russiagate " scheme, which sprung into being after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trump's presidential victory in 2016. Morgan, for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. And also worth mentioning, that dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy – a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by NATO (North AtTreaty Tready Organization) and USAID (United States Agency for International Development).

It is worth noting that the 600 " Russia-linked " Twitter accounts monitored by the dashboard is not disclosed to the public either, making it impossible to verify these claims. This inconvenience has not stopped Hamilton 68 from becoming a go-to source for hysteria-hungry journalists, however. Yet on December 19, a New York Times story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created the fake army of Russian bots, as well as several fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama's 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate.

Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake Twitter accounts with Russian names, and had them follow Moore. They also operated several Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded voters to support a write-in candidate instead . In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had " orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet ." – RT

This scandal is being perpetrated by the United States media and has so far deceived millions, if not more. The botnet claim made a splash on social media and was further amplified by Mother Jones , which based its story on "expert opinion" from Morgan's dubious creation, Hamilton 68.

Things got even weirder when it turned out that Scott Shane, the author of the Tim es piece, had known about the meddling for months because he spoke at an event where the organizers boasted about it!

Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement Technologies, a group run by Mikey Dickerson, President Barack Obama's former tech czar. Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge's campaign to suppress Republican votes, "enrage " Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a " false flag " to hurt Moore. He dubbed it " Project Birmingham ." -RT

There really was meddling in American democracy by " Russian bots. " Except those bots weren't run from Moscow or St. Petersburg but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly responsible for creating and amplifying the " Russiagate " hysteria over the past two years in a textbook case of psychological projection , brainwashing, and Nazi-style propaganda campaigns.

[Jan 02, 2019] Did Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article ?

Highly recommended!
Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Fran , Feb 21, 2018 2:53:24 AM | link

I wonder if this is true: STUNNING: Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article I wouldn't be surprised if it is true.

It would give the entire story a whole new touch. I wanted to write a new smell, but it would be rather stink.

[Jan 02, 2019] Viable Opposition How the U.S. Senate is Instigating a Hot War With Russia

Notable quotes:
"... Senate Resolution on December 19, 2019 which calls for "a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline ..."
"... Calling for a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

Senator Ron Johnson (R- Wis) and Richard Durban (D-Ill) and 39 of their colleagues introduced a Senate Resolution on December 19, 2019 which calls for "a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline" as shown here :

Here is a list of co-sponsors of the resolution:

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation; and Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).
Here is the resolution (currently unnumbered) in its entirety:

Calling for a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

... ... ...

  • Whereas the United States has important national interests in the Black Sea region, including the security of three NATO littoral states, the promotion of European energy market diversification by ensuring unfettered European access to energy exporters in the Caucuses and central Asia, and combatting use of the region by smugglers as a conduit for trafficking in persons, narcotics, and arms;

  • Whereas the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a proposed underwater natural gas pipeline project that would provide an additional 55,000,000,000 cubic meters of pipeline capacity from the Russian Federation to the Federal Republic of Germany through the Baltic Sea;

  • Whereas the Russian Federation's state-owned oil and gas company, Gazprom, is the sole shareholder of the Nord Stream 2 project;

  • Whereas, in 2017, there was spare capacity of approximately 55,000,000,000 cubic meters in the Ukrainian gas transit system;

  • Whereas Gazprom cut off natural gas exports to Europe via Ukraine in 2006, and again in 2009, over supply and pricing disputes with Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz;

  • Whereas transit of Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine declined precipitously after the completion of Nord Stream 1 in 2011, falling from 80 percent to between 40 and 50 percent of Russia's total exports to Europe;

  • Whereas, in 2017, Russian gas accounted for 37 percent of Europe's natural gas imports, an increase of 5 percent over 2016;

  • Whereas, on December 12, 2018, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning both the Russian Federation's aggression in the Kerch Strait and the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; and

  • Whereas, on December 11, 2018, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution calling upon the European
    Union to reject the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and urging the President to use all available means to promote energy policies in Europe that reduce European reliance on Russian energy exports:

... ... ...

(9) applauds and concurs with the European 2 Parliament's December 12, 2018, resolution condemning Russian aggression in the Kerch Strait and
the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, calling for the pipeline's cancellation due to its threat to European energy security, and calling on the Russian Federation to
7 guarantee freedom of navigation in the Kerch Strait;

and

(10) urges the President to continue working with Congress and our allies to ensure the appropriate policies to deter the Russian Federation from further aggression.

Anonymous December 26, 2018 at 4:47 PM

Fortunately, these two neocons can make all the proclamations they want but without President Trump's support it's all just words; neocon virtue signalling. And of course President Trump won't support what they're doing because he campaigned on and governs as an anti-war president.

Ron Johnson is a Bushie neocon who actively supported the neocon ¡Jebe! (Please Clap) Bush while Durbin is a Hillary Clinton neocon who actively supported that drunken, corrupt, warmongering shrew.

Thank all that's holy that we have a genuine anti-war POTUS in office and not either of those two neocons, both of whom were utterly in the pockets of defense contractors.

Unknown January 1, 2019 at 10:02 PM

Thanks for your research on relevant naval law. The Ukrainian vessel is reported to have violated the ongoing protocol by failing to take on a Russian pilot as it transited the strait and an important bridge could potentially have been attacked by those vessels. This was a provocation by Ukraine that seems to have its desired effect on the U.S. Senate. For essential background on the Ukrainian civil war, I recommend reading Stephen F. Cohen's article in the Nation in 2014, titled "Kiev's atrocities and the Silence of the Hawks." https://www.thenation.com/article/kievs-atrocities-and-silence-hawks/

[Jan 02, 2019] situation ion Syria remains complex even if we assume that the US forces leave

Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Red Ryder , Dec 31, 2018 1:01:06 PM | link

The Iraqis have done this before. In June this year, https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201805061064193623-iraq-syria-airstrike/
and in April this year.

And more recently, on Dec. 11th.

Some of the most recent strikes seems to be coordinated with US attacks on ISIS in Hajin area of Deir ez Zor. Shoigu had warned that the US effort was weak. But the US won't work with Russian Aerospace, so they brought in Iraqi planes.

America's Exceptionalism is the sad joke of the war. They can kill civilians and bomb two huge cities into total rubble (Mosul and Raqqa) but don't know how to win a war.

Even Trump has just Tweeted his two four-star Generals couldn't defeat ISIS. They haven't won any war ever in their long careers. Trump knows. Most of all the, the enemy knows. Get ready for a long insurgency war in Syria as US actually stays (right across the border) and UK and France help created chaos inside Syria.


Don Bacon , Dec 31, 2018 1:19:49 PM | link

@ Red Ryder | Dec 31, 2018 1:01:06 PM | 7
They can kill civilians and bomb two huge cities into total rubble (Mosul and Raqqa) but don't know how to win a war.

Yes, and they also used indirect fire including 155mm howitzers on Raqqa.

A small Marine artillery battalion fired more rounds than any artillery battalion since Vietnam.
"They fired more rounds in five months in Raqqa, Syria, than any other Marine artillery battalion, or any Marine or Army battalion, since the Vietnam war," said Army Sgt. Major. John Wayne Troxell, the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"In five months they fired 35,000 artillery rounds on ISIS targets, killing ISIS fighters by the dozens," Troxell told Marine Corps Times during a roundtable discussion Jan. 23. "We needed them to put pressure on ISIS and we needed them to kill ISIS." . . here
That's a world-class war crime.
bevin , Dec 31, 2018 1:30:24 PM | link
There have been periods, during the past six years, in which it sometimes seemed that there were very few places, apart from this blog, in which accurate information and honest analysis of the war in Syria, which is the most active front in the Empire's war to achieve global hegemony.

No doubt there are many in Syria today who offer particularly sincere good wishes to Bernhard, and the stalwarts who support his efforts and refine his analyses, for the New Year.

Here is a toast, fill your own glasses, to free speech and independent minds!

Rob , Dec 31, 2018 1:35:03 PM | link
I don't know, but nearly 20,000 people killed and many more injured or turned into refugees does not sound like a very good year to me. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the facts that the Syrian civil war is drawing to a conclusion and the jihadists are nearly destroyed. In that sense, the trend is good. Let us hope that Trump, whom in every other way I detest, will follow through on his plan to disengage from the destructive and immoral wars that the U.S. is fighting and sponsoring.
charles , Dec 31, 2018 2:01:21 PM | link
Actually it is naive to think that the ashkanazi owned Americans are ever going to leave Syria or the region unless forced to. The British planted Zionist cancer in the region as soon as OIL was discovered in Iran at Masjid e Soleiman in 1901 followed by the Balfour declaration a couple decades later and then the Americunts discovered oil in Saudi pimpdom followed by revolt against the Ottomans. The Americunts and their NATO stooges have two goals in the region:

1. Plunder and control of Arab oil as long as the west is dependent upon fossil fuels.
2. The preservation of the Zionist cancer in Palestine and its expansion by dividing the Arabs and fanning sectarianism. The support for corrupt puppet regimes is key pillar of the plan.

Anyone who thinks that without the destruction of the Zionist cancer there will be peace in the region or the world is smoking some really strong CIA grown Afghan red stuff.

Jen , Dec 31, 2018 2:42:42 PM | link
Rob @ 12:

Most of the nearly 20,000 people killed in Syria in 2018 will have been jihadists allied with ISIS or Tahrir al Sham (the rebranded Jabhat al Nusra and friends aka al Qaeda in Syria) and most of the people made refugees will also be jihadists and their families.

So I don't think there will be very much mourning here at MoA for those dead, save for their wives and girlfriends (who, on second thoughts, are probably as fanatical as the men if not more so and therefore just as undeserving of sympathy) and their children.

There was news recently that Canada resettled a group of former White Helmets members in Nova Scotia. The source of the news was Guardian writer Kareem Shaheen, who is based in Istanbul. Shaheen holds the dubious distinction of being the first reporter on the scene (within half an hour, apparently, though I could be wrong) of the supposed CW attack in Khan Sheykhoun in April 2017.

I'd have preferred to see these terrorists settled in Canadian FM Chrystia Freeland's Toronto electorate or in the prairie provinces among Ukrainian-Canadian supporters of the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.

Ort , Dec 31, 2018 5:17:38 PM | link
Yesterday's 21st Century Wire interview (courtesy of an ICIT Digital Library YouTube video) is worth a listen:

Vanessa Beeley: Syria, Looking Back and Ahead .

If I were the child of Vanessa Beeley and John Pilger, what a journalist I might have been! ;)

ben , Dec 31, 2018 10:49:48 PM | link
"Trump 'orders US troops to slow down Syria withdrawal"

https://news.sky.com/story/trump-orders-us-troops-to-slow-down-syria-withdrawal-11595441

Full withdrawal huh? We'll see..

Don Bacon , Jan 1, 2019 10:11:56 AM | link
Iraq is taking over the air fight against US-supported ISIS.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi warplanes hit a meeting of Islamic State leaders near Deir al-Zor in Syria on Monday, destroying the building they were gathered in, the military said in a statement, without giving further details about the militants targeted.
The statement said F-16 fighter jets carried out the raid around al-Sousa village in eastern Syria, as "30 leaders from Daesh (Islamic State) gangs" met in the building. . . . here
xLemming , Jan 1, 2019 12:24:58 PM | link
@29 ritzl

Good point! And same goes with the slow-down (reversal?) of US troop withdrawal from Syria. Kinda hard to go back after you've trumpeted "mission accomplished" in both countries

Which brings to mind that famous quote by that philosopher and paragon of intellect and past president of the Outlaw US Empire (tm)(karlof1), GW:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Let's hope & pray the US public hold their feet to the fire in 2019

Jackrabbit , Jan 1, 2019 1:13:14 PM | link
Smells like denial

Laguerre:

It's Graham saying that "Trump 'orders US troops to slow down Syria withdrawal", not Trump himself.

Don Bacon:

it's hard to say "goodbye" so they draw it out like it's a difficult decision ...

=
Trump already back-tracked in his speech to the troops in Syria , saying:

There will be a strong, deliberate, and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria -- very deliberate, very orderly -- while maintaining the U.S. presence in Iraq to prevent an ISIS resurgence and to protect U.S. interests, and also to always watch very closely over any potential reformation of ISIS and also to watch over Iran. We'll be watching.
The change to "very deliberate, very orderly" withdrawal came after reports that the withdrawal would be completed in 60-90 days (and before that, it had been reported to be within 30 days) .

In this speech, Trump also contradicted his own determination that ISIS was defeated as stated in a Dec. 19th tweet:

We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.

Graham says that Trump "told me some things I didn't know" but he hasn't said what those things are. In a Dec. 30th tweet, he described the reasons for Trump's "pause" as:

The President will make sure any withdrawal from Syria will be done in a fashion to ensure:

1) ISIS is permanently destroyed.

2) Iran doesn't fill in the back end , and

3) our Kurdish allies are protected.

This deserves some unpacking:
- "permanently" essentially makes US occupation indefinite ;

- "fill in the back end" is anti-Iran BS but hints at the real purpose of remaining: to continue to split the "Shia Crescent";

- Kurds are pawns as was underscored by Trump's willingness to sell them out to Erdogan; Israeli, Saudi, and Turkish NATO allies are much more important to USA.

Saudis and Israelis want USA to continue to split the "Shia Crescent", and Turks want to smash Kurds and keep parts of Northern Syria.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Graham spoke for Trump simply because it was politically inconvenient for Trump to backtrack any further than "very deliberate, very orderly" .

anonymous , Jan 1, 2019 2:50:23 PM | link
SANA reported no such thing regarding authorizing Iraq to strike into Syria. You, b, should have checked the source but didn't.
Because Fox news implied this was true doesn't mean it is.

https://sana.sy/en/?p=154547
that's the article covering Iraq/Syria's cooperative talk and it say's nothing about allowing free reign airstrikes

b "With the U.S. on its way out"
They aren't going anywhere. And why this is being claimed as a fact is very questionable

Zanon , Jan 1, 2019 4:09:06 PM | link
anonymous

They aren't going anywhere. And why this is being claimed as a fact is very questionable

Indeed, people are too quick - again, also another regime wont move out of Syria...,

Turkish media reveals half of France's military bases in Syria
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/turkish-media-reveals-half-of-frances-military-bases-in-syria/

arby , Jan 1, 2019 4:15:11 PM | link
I noticed the same news here--no idea about the source though--
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/iraqi-jets-strike-isis-target-in-syria-a-day-after-damascus-carte-blanche-1.808058
Sasha , Jan 1, 2019 6:02:07 PM | link
In spite of "coordinated efforts", Syria will be the country with the highest economic growth rate in 2019, according to The Economist , which, along with the exemplar leadership president Assad has demonstrated through this war, will push the support of the Syrians for him, already high, to stratospheric percentage...No wonder some have started a new campaign on discrediting him...
The Economist magazine confirmed that 2019 will be a year of notable growth for some leading nations among which will be Syria, which will become the country with the highest rate of economic growth in 2019, according to predictions.

"The fastest growing country in 2019 is probably Syria, which is trying to recover from the war years," the publication said in a report. "The Syrian economy is expected to grow by 10 percent, which will be the highest growth rate in the world."


arby , Jan 2, 2019 8:29:11 AM | link
US Army Continues Sending Military Hardware to Eastern Syria After Pullout Call

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13971011000421

[Jan 02, 2019] IOW time is running out for the neo-cons, and they're only going to get Iran destroyed and hold onto power in the US through an outright Bolshevik style coup against the public (some kind of fabricated National Emergency)

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:28 pm GMT

@Miro23

IOW time is running out for the neo-cons, and they're only going to get Iran destroyed and hold onto power in the US through an outright Bolshevik style coup against the public (some kind of fabricated National Emergency).

Well, we already had one "fabricated national emergency" -- the 9/11 false flag. Do you think there'll be yet another? I mean something big, not like the Skripal thing.

[Jan 02, 2019] T>he NY Times exposes how aligned the globalist leftist elite is with the NEOCON globalist elite.

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Danielson , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:17 am GMT

As usual Philip Giraldi out writes the NYT hacks. Stephens and his cohorts at the Times are constantly kvetching about Israel then they scream anti-Semitism if it's pointed out. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted with neocons.
wayfarer , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:46 am GMT

Trotskyism : the political, economic, and social principles advocated by Trotsky especially the theory and practice of communism developed by or associated with Trotsky and usually including adherence to the concept of worldwide revolution as opposed to socialism in one country.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism

Wally , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT
Excellent timing as I just found this at http://www.antiwar.com

!! American Legion Joins VFW in Calling for Congressional Investigation of Israel's Attack on USS Liberty !!

Contains significant text, images, &videos:
ex.:

https://hubpages.com/politics/American-Legion-Joins-VFW-in-Calling-for-Congressional-USS-Liberty-Investigation

Paul , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:40 am GMT
Pro-Zionist liberals such as those at the New York Times have the dilemma of how to oppose President Trump, who pursues pro-Zionist policies. A solution seems to be to argue that Trump is not really that pro-Zionist.
Low Voltage , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:52 am GMT

American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and out-and-out lies.

When was it ever any different?

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website January 1, 2019 at 10:35 am GMT
Israel Is Bad for America

Inspired by the Scofield Bible, it is, regrettably, a fundamental belief of millions of voters that Israel is good for America. In John Hagee's words , '50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel.'

The linked article concludes: 'Not least among the many victims of the Scofield Bible are 5 million Palestinian refugees whose right to return is fervently opposed by America's Zionized Christians. Thanks to their indoctrination by Scofield's unholy book, they believe that Palestine belongs not to the Palestinians -- many of whom are fellow Christians -- but exclusively to "God's chosen people".'

Mark James , says: January 1, 2019 at 11:05 am GMT
I'm pleased to say I was not for moving the embassy and as for the Iran deal it was better than the alternative, with the potential for further talks down the road. Stephens didn't approve but both aspects of US foreign policy were good for the US. So why would we expect him to?

Where the clash is going to come is the Democratic party is not going to put up with this rubbish anymore. Yes there will be some holdovers (Schumer, Cardin et al.) but blanket support is not going to play with the next congress. They will lose donor support as well as media acceptance –from the Times– but Christian Zionism isn't a factor for Dem's and constituents see that a brutal Israeli government that is focusing on attaching itself to kindred spirit states led by strongman types, doesn't deserve support.

Franz , says: January 1, 2019 at 11:10 am GMT
Try "bad for the world."

"Israel is the sputtering fuse of World War III"

– Wilmot Robertson, December, 1981, The Dispossessed Majority

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
Johnny Walker Read , says: January 1, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
Does anyone else remember when liberal's were anti-war and despised the military?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=170&v=gv1KEF8Uw2k

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
JC , says: January 1, 2019 at 1:41 pm GMT
when we here about israel as the problem it is really not israel the country but israel the people. they are spread out over many countries but all still believe in their cult of israel i have read many times how the majority of them are not even ancestors of israel but are instead converts form centuries ago there are lawsutis in the US against the government aid to israel which vilotlates US law on providing aid to an undeclares nuke power,,,and against aipac for not registering FARA,,,they have gone nowhere In my opinion, their whole power comes from media control when the media goes on and on about bogus Russian influence and says nothing of israel influence you know you have a problem
Hamed Ghashghavi , says: Website January 1, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
The World will never be free and peaceful until we can liberate AMERICAN & European politcal, economic, military, intelligentsia, educational & cultural DECISION MAKING CENTERS from destructive & inhuman ZIONIST lobby. As Stephen Walt & John Mearsheimr wrote in their unique & worldwide known "US FOREIGN POLICY AND ISRAEL LOBBY" not only these lobbying organizations are anti US interests but they are as well against the long term interests of ISRAEL itself.

Briefly we should free mind of American people before all to have a ideal and productive world.

Hamed from Tehran

AkumalJack , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand, there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid "ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
AkumalJack , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand, there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid "ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
Z-man , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:25 pm GMT
This is what I said on Pat Buchanan's page about a comment, very apropos to this article, also from the NY Times "That comment from the NY Times exposes how aligned the globalist leftist elite is with the NEOCON globalist elite. There's 'no daylight' between characters like 'Linda' Graham and 'Up Chuck' Schumer when it comes to globalist hegemony. Thank God for Donald and keep America First!" The comment that Pat made his point on was this: 'In Monday's editorial celebrating major figures of foreign policy in the past half-century, The New York Times wrote', "As these leaders pass from the scene, it will be left to a new generation to find a way forward from the wreckage Mr. Trump has already created." This is what Pat attacked in his column.

Correct me if I'm wrong but America still has NO formal alliance treaty with the Jewish State, no?

And finally 'Bret Stephens'; How clever they are with their names.

Z-man , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@Hamed Ghashghavi The problem 'Hamed from Tehran' is that the Main Stream Media and the political class in the USA is almost completely owned by the rich 'Zionist Lobby'.
bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@anon It is a lot more than 4 billion a year.

For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.

Aid to Palestinians: another $500 million.

Tax deductible funds going towards settlement expansion: several hundreds of million if not billion.

Aid to Jordan. Aid to Lebanon.

Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.

Carroll Price , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
I wish the hell Trump was "bad for Israel", but unfortunately, he's not.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
@Mark James New Year greetings, Mark James.

I predict proactive Jewish Lobby Stink-Think Tanks have engineered plans to dramatically influence Democrat Congress & presidential candidate elections, and which are underway now.

Elections come and go but the Zio stump-song remains the same.

First, and as you should well understand Mark, particular campaigns for US Senate cost $millions simply to get a candidate's mere "name" in front of ever longing & frustrated American voters.

Of course, such efforts are enhanced by manifold "special interests" and billionaire campaign contributions.

Regrettably, U.S. election campaign "donor support" (uh, speech?) trumps the will of the paltry amount of Americans who indulge voting, and our Zionist Corporate Media obliges the biggest beneficiary winner$, and can finagle ideologically blind & typically GOP-Christian Zionist's to bloc vote for, i.e., brand-name & repackaged Zio Democrats, Pocahontas, Bloomberg, Biden, Bob Casey, etcetera.

In short, Mark, the "brutal Israeli government" expertly followed Protocols of Zion by neutering U.S. Congressional & Presidential democratic elections, and the Zionist Corporate Media entertainingly promotes the THEATER.

National rejection of the great "rubbish" work of, for one little example, NYT's Bret Stephens, is a giant step toward how America could become gallant/noble again, and afterward repent & focus upon strivation to "greatness."

Thanks, M.J., uh, not Jordan sneaker Nikes!

bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.

A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining Palestinians.

This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:36 pm GMT
Just what US interests in Syria justify the risk of war with Russia? Absolutely none! Bret is an israel Firster thru and thru.
bike-anarkist , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
"I still say that US and Russia should come to Israels help in hour of need.
But Israel also should stop behaving like rotten spoiled child."

Russia can provide the "Jewish Autonomous Oblast" (already exists), and the U$A can provide the means to move them there. Of course the FORMER Israel will have to pay for everything.

JLK , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

I support Great Britain and France, that does not mean I approve of colonial behavior or trouncing British or French identity. I can certainly support the existence of Is areal and chagrin their attacks and encroachments onto Palestine uninvited and without compensation or shooting protectors for the matter.

I tend to agree with you on this. No matter what one thinks of the morality of the events of 1948, most of today's Israeli Jews were born on the land and have a right to live there. They're no more responsible for the sins of their grandfathers than a modern German, except to the extent that they help perpetuate continued injustice.

With that said, what frightens me is the extent to which some of them have been emboldened by a combination of unchecked ethnocentrism and a sense of immunity from scrutiny and criticism. Particularly in the realm of ethnic bioweapons. Most of the leading DNA analysis companies seem to be Jewish-owned. It seems to be an area of emphasis with them. It was reported 20 years ago that Israel has an anti-Arab virus. Who else might be a target?

Israeli participation in spyware and their access to raw NSA data is also concerning. How do we know that the data isn't be used to intimidate Americans from speaking out, or to siphon money from ordinary investors by insider trading?

[Jan 02, 2019] Israel is hardly a normal country. It is an Apartheid Colony

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ron T , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:37 pm GMT

@polistra Israel is hardly a normal country. It is an Apartheid Colony. That's why it needs American support and will need it for the foreseeable future. It uses its co-religionists in the US to maintain an iron grip on US mideast policy, making sure that it is at the heart of it and that almost no dissenting voices can ever be elected in the US or get any mainstream media access. If that sounds like a normal country to you, I have a bridge for sale.

[Jan 02, 2019] Israel is not interested in fighting this fight alone. It has dragged others into it, including the US.

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [119] Disclaimer , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:44 pm GMT

Bret Stephens and all his fellow Israel loving Zionists are foreign agents who should be stripped of their US citizenship.
geokat62 , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Adir

but as far your critisisms of Israel policy and 'undemocratic' and 'illiberal' stances and actions.
well guess what

You're missing the thrust of Giraldi's position. Israel can do whatever it likes as long as it doesn't entangle the US in their fight. But, as you well know, Israel is not interested in fighting this fight alone. It has dragged others into it, including the US. As long as the American taxpayer is forced to pay an annual tribute of ~$4B, they have every right to condemn Israeli policies that clearly don't align with their values. So, get used to it.

DESERT FOX , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
Israel is no friend of America , never was , never has been and never will be, and just a few examples, JFK was shot and killed in full view of Americans for his executive order 11110 which would have restored America to constitutional money bypassing the FED, who benefits?

The USS Liberty was attacked by Israel killing 34 and wounding 174 in an attempt to blame the attack on Egypt and bring the U.S. into the war against Egypt and of course Israel lied about the attack and got away with it!

... ... ...

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
The Alarmist , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:51 pm GMT
You have to hand it to the Israelis for conquering like Romans.

As for the US in Syria, it has always had the potential for handing us a "Charge of the Light Brigade" moment where, like in the Crimean War, we manage to keep the Russians and the Iranians checked in the region for a few years, but at a cost where even the dulled senses of the US voter can't escape the toll taken to achieve this fleeting "strategic objective."

ChuckOrloski , says: January 1, 2019 at 4:10 pm GMT
@bucky Aware, Bucky said: "This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran."

Appreciate your posting of the wise sentences, above, bucky. Thanks.

Israel will never allow their territory expansion/M.E. hegemon goals to get interrupted by mere U.S. elections.

The will and desires of American voters are easily manageable, manipulated, & another major & fear-provoking "Homeland" False Flag attack, and voila, it's Fire & Fury upon Syria and Iran.

Esaka , says: January 1, 2019 at 4:40 pm GMT
@polistra

Well, Israel itself isn't bad for us. Israel is a normal country defending its own interests fiercely. Every country SHOULD defend its own interests fiercely

But it is HOW they defend those interests that is problematic. Hungary has insisted that they will never tolerate a large number of migrants in their country. Hungary will be for Hungarians. They do not wage wars, they do not commit ethnic cleansing in other people's lands. They have merely closed their borders and that is a peaceful way in which they fiercely protect their interests. The same goes for Japan. Despite a stagnating economy caused by plummeting birth rates, the Japanese insist on a strict no immigrant policy. That is a peaceful way of fiercely protecting their interests.

Israel on the other hand is anything but peaceful. They engage in ethnic cleansing and drag the US (and whoever else they can con) into their conflicts. If we are looking for a foreign example to emulate, there's no question about it – we should emulate Japan and not Israel. Japan is a civilized nation where the people genuinely love their country. Israel is a thuggish and fascist state that justly deserves all the opprobrium they shamelessly whine about.

[Jan 02, 2019] The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire

The level of alienation of Palestians probably reached that stage at which reconciliation is impossible.
Notable quotes:
"... This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT

The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.

A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining Palestinians.

This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created.

Israel is Bad for America

bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT

@anon It is a lot more than 4 billion a year.

For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.

  • Aid to Palestinians: another $500 million.
  • Tax deductible funds going towards settlement expansion: several hundreds of million if not billion.
  • Aid to Jordan. Aid to Lebanon.
  • Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.
Z-man , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@bucky It's more that that, specifically to Izruel . If you include 'Non Governmental Agencies', the 'Charaties' and hedge funds funneling unknown amounts of ZOG bucks to the land of Zion plus other underhanded methods of getting money to their Zionist bretheren, it's in the tens of billions .
Carroll Price , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:20 pm GMT
@anon

Other than brain-dead Christian fundamentalist, it come's as no surprise that Jews who wrote the Old and New Testament, granted themselves special permission to violate virtually every moral law and restriction known to mankind, including the right to steal land and resources belonging to others. While, at the same time, giving themselves the right to condemn anyone daring to point-out their lying and deceptive ways.

Realist, January 1, 2019 at 7:44 pm GMT

@bucky

Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.

Middle East involvement costs trillions of dollars.

[Jan 02, 2019] Britain must surely be in the running for the Wooden Spoon award doe 2018

Notable quotes:
"... Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military establishment. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Dec 31, 2018 3:36:34 PM | link

If Syria wins the award for Country of the Year 2018, I'd hate to see who gets the Wooden Spoon for 2018. There must be quite a few serious contenders for that prize!

Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military establishment.

[Jan 02, 2019] In these times, the real political debate is centered around the issues of migration and national identity. It's what Brexit was all about.

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

geokat62 , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT

@wayfarer

How the Globalists Stole Our Home

Great video. I especially enjoyed these remarks:

In these times, the real political debate is centered around the issues of migration and national identity. It's what Brexit was all about. It's the reason the one thing all Trump supporters really want him to do, is to build the wall. It would be an international symbol of our longing for and right to nationhood a billion dollar monument to nationalism and a trigger for nationalist revival.

This is why the forces of globalism will throw everything at stopping it's construction. If Trump leaves office and that wall is not built, his presidency will have been for naught.

[Jan 02, 2019] The demonization of Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela might be connected with oil depletion

Notable quotes:
"... Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some point the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and borrowing capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they would become bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics manufacture, herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial Civilisation. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Palloy , Feb 20, 2018 8:52:02 PM | link

@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia."

Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some point the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and borrowing capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they would become bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics manufacture, herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial Civilisation.

In anticipation of increasing Crude Oil imports, Nixon stopped the convertibility of Dollars into Gold, thus making the Dollar entirely fiat, allowing them to print as much of the currency as they needed.

They also began a system of obscuring oil production data, involving the DoE's EIA and the OECD's IEA, by inventing an ever-increasing category of Undiscovered Oilfields in their predictions, and combining Crude Oil and Condensate (from gas fields) into one category (C+C) as if they were the same thing. As well the support of the ethanol-from-corn industry began, even though it was uneconomic. The Global Warming problem had to be debunked, despite its sound scientific basis. Energy-intensive manufacturing work was off-shored to cheap labour+energy countries, and Just-in-Time delivery systems were honed.

In 2004 the price of Crude Oil rose from $28 /barrel up to $143 /b in mid-2008. This demonstrated that there is a limit to how much business can pay for oil (around $100 /b). Fracking became marginally economic at these prices, but the frackers never made a profit as over-production meant prices fell to about $60 /b. The Government encourages this destructive industry despite the fact it doesn't make any money, because the alternative is the end of Industrial Civilisation.

Eventually though, there must come a time when there is not enough oil to power all the cars and trucks, bulldozers, farm tractors, airplanes and ships, as well as manufacture all the wind turbines and solar panels and electric vehicles, as well as the upgraded transmission grid. At that point, the game will be up, and it will be time for WW3. So we need to line up some really big enemies, and develop lots of reasons to hate them.

Thus you see the demonisation of Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela for reasons that don't make sense from a normal perspective.

Ger , Feb 21, 2018 7:52:44 AM | link
Dan @ 4

It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia. They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the looting .........connect the dots.

[Jan 02, 2019] The US did not have and coherent policy except to destroy Syria for the US' own benefit.

Notable quotes:
"... The Kurd alliance enraged Erdogan enough to invade Afrin. Russia allowed this partly to punish the Kurds for allying with the US and pointing out to them that the US would not have their backs. The Kurds would be better off to be part of Syria rather than independent. When the Kurds realize this, Russian and Syria will get Turkey to back off. ..."
"... The US is also being exposed as protecting ISIS along the Iraq border and also likely in Yarmouk camp as well as Al-qaeda in East Ghouta. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

financial matters , Feb 21, 2018 7:44:35 AM | link

Elijah Magnier has another good article out, Magnier

He takes up what is going on in Afrin with the Syrian Army now poised to move in.

This seems to be another sound move by Russia to expose and dislodge the US.

This is a problem of the US not having a coherent policy except to destroy Syria for the US' own benefit.

This sees the US forming illegitimate alliances with whoever will serve this purpose at the time such as ISIS, Al-qaeda, and the Kurds.

The Kurd alliance enraged Erdogan enough to invade Afrin. Russia allowed this partly to punish the Kurds for allying with the US and pointing out to them that the US would not have their backs. The Kurds would be better off to be part of Syria rather than independent. When the Kurds realize this, Russian and Syria will get Turkey to back off.

The US is also being exposed as protecting ISIS along the Iraq border and also likely in Yarmouk camp as well as Al-qaeda in East Ghouta.

[Jan 02, 2019] The snipers that executed the Maidan massacre in Kiev have come forward and have made sworn testimony

Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

oldenyoung , Feb 21, 2018 9:17:01 AM | link

Off topic...but of interest to many here at MoA....The snipers that executed the Maidan massacre in Kiev have come forward and have made sworn testimony///

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/02/20/shocking-new-evidence-maidan-snipers-confess-they-were-under-orders-from-coup-leaders-to-shoot-police-and-protesters/

I have not verified any of this story...so, use your own best judgement

Regards

OY

Ps sounds like Sputnik it trying to chase this down and get it verified...

oldenyoung , Feb 21, 2018 9:27:55 AM | link
And here is the Sputnik story...

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201802201061840515-maidan-snipers-testimony-detailed-crucial/

regards

Peter AU 1 , Feb 21, 2018 10:41:51 AM | link
63
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201802151061669056-georgian-snipers-maidan-evidence
"Adding a new twist to the story about the 2014 Maidan shootings, a Sputnik correspondent has met with the purported snipers. The agency has obtained the records of interrogation of Koba Nergadze and Aleksandre Revazishvili. Both Georgian nationals, they are ready to testify in a Ukrainian court."
Oui , Feb 21, 2018 2:52:52 PM | link
It was a matter of time when the participants in the Maidan Massacre would surface the coup d'état didn't stop the carnage of Ukrainians nor corruption of people in power. The witness accounts were described in the hours as the events unfolded. Only the faces were not known ...

How the Events of Sniper Fire In Instytutska Street Unfolded

Maidan Massacre Bombshell: #Georgian snipers reportedly confess to massacring along with Lithuanian snipers both #Police and #maidan protesters in #Ukraine in Italian #documentary just broadcast by most popular #Italian #TV channel [h/t Ivan Katchanovski]

Hromadske TV

Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev

[Jan 02, 2019] Russia has really become the all-purpose pouvantail scarecrow, specter of doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled - massive social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.

Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Noirette , Feb 21, 2018 11:38:52 AM | link

US media has gone bonkers. The original claim was Russian meddling and Russian interference in the election. Then, a sort of bridging meme showed up (see also b above), undermining democracy or subverting it. This in turn then morphed into promoting divisive issues which is new (circa 2018, not before?)

Imho. US pols make it their business to create divisive issues, diviusses (neologism), to the point of inventing rubbish ones. Part of the US public embraces that sh*t as well, > tribalism and religious economics in lieu of policy politics. So such actions should be viewed as gloriously democratic, ;) - ok easy to make fun.

The emphasis on 'divisive' is curious, it signals that some managers are calling for 'union' - 'cohesion' - 'group soldering' facing the outside enemy, threat.

Russia has really become the all-purpose épouvantail scarecrow, specter of doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled -> massive social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.

Heh, or the whole storm is just fluff that distracts, occupies the pixels, airwaves, a jamboree of knee-jerk reactions irrelevant to the present World Situation, with practically no important body - faction of the PTB, Trump, the MIC, lame outsiders like the EU, etc. having any clue.

[Jan 01, 2019] Gorbachov role in the collapse of the USSR

YouTube
Jan 01, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Why Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee on March 11, 1985? Was there a will of Yuri Andropov? What was the cause of the sudden death of defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov, who could be the first person in the country? Was the Secretary General Konstantin Chernenko really poisoned by low-quality fish? And why did Victor Grishin lose his chance to become the Secretary General of the "master of Moscow"?


Дима Горный , 1 year ago (edited)

Gorbachev was recruited in 1976-77 years when he visited Europe, then eliminate Kulakov and promote the Central Committee Gorbachev. I am sure that the KGB had their own people recruited by the CIA and pursued a policy of promoting their candidacy for the post of first person of the USSR.

valentina Валентина , 2 years ago (edited)

The stupidest commentaries are here. This rotten system has outlived its usefulness.........and no leader was able to save her. There is no progressive Communist state in the world and can not be!

Ацеховская Татьяна , 1 year ago

Not Gorbachev, so someone else.The USSR was naive and doomed.What, one Gorbachev did everything? Full of vultures sat and waited for the corpse. My uncle, being the mayor of Tikhvin, in the late 70s, said that the country is doomed because we are engaged in self-eating.Huge funds went to support the Communist parties around the world.

Oberst , 1 week ago

@Asenovska Tatiana uncle rasskazyval, as mayor....What the University taught me.....

And I , being the senior officer, after 4 wounds the write-off on the ground, the pilot....Past Afghan, and not only.....

I saw our planes to be cur in peaces on orders from Gorbachev.... .And submarines, costing hundreds millions. Payed by people who save on everyting to secure indepence of the country.

And this creature, was given Nobel Peace Prize for selling everthing to the USA for pennies on the dollar...

The West praised him, and he DESTROYED noth the ARMY AND NAVY and then the USSR ... He gave up our victory in WWII without and fight's...

After Gorbachov the USA was able to bomb Belgrade, and Iraq, and Livia without any fear for retribution. He should be executed . And the body of this traitor should be disposed in manure...

And if not Putin, we would be the colony of the USA much like Latin american countries. .And the USA would bomb Syria into stone age, kill the President and grap all the oil

Only Putin is not GORBACHEV!!!!! And the Big Uncle blew up in Syria and they did not risk thier place to test Russia anti-aircraft missile systems.

Tamara G , 3 years ago

Gorbachev first created a deceptive impression of a young, wise, business-like head of state. In fact, he was a banal traitor of his country, sold the sovereignty of a great country for perdpnal fortume and villa in Germany. While Wewst grbbed all opur natiural resourses and large part of iundustry. YELTSIN destroyed completely the economica, and high technolgy ijndurites in the country, sold everything to oligarchs for pennies. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin are enemies of the Fatherland .

Высоковольтный Сыр , 1 year ago (edited)

Gorbachev came to the sinking ship and it was too late to patch the holes in it. The cold war and the arms race sucked the last currency reserves from the USSR. The Kremlin Party bonzes forgot about the economy, forgot about the people. They were obsessed with matching the weaponry of the phantom enemy (Americans), and as a result of the cold war the USSR disintegrated and broke up into 15 independent States.

While we can blame the weakling and traitor Gorbachev, even before him the agriculture was in deep and irreversible decline. We were forced to buy grad for abroad. After the US has imposed sanctions that have artificially reduced oil prices to such a low level that game was over. Currency flow from oil sales seizes and there was no alternative then to take loans from the West.

The Treasury started printed too much rubles, inflation started and with it nationalist feeling that finished off the country. Add to this Chernobyl disaster. When in Armenia in December 1988 there was the major earthquake, the Kremlin requested the "decadent West" about the humanitarian aid.

Economy of the Soviet Union fell through the floor and no wonder Gorbachev was tilted towards the West, toward privatization of the industries.

Of course he was a fool and allowed West to plunder the country, but essentially he have no choice, reforms were needed and he lost control of them, tried to stage a fake coup to regain control and was deposed as the result. Because he was very weak, incompetent politician, not fit for such a grave moment in the history of the country, he destroyed the country.

The socialist camp collapsed, and Gorbachov refused to help the socialist countries, it was necessary to save his own ass. He also finished stupid and unnecessary war in Afghanistan. That was the only positive step he made. And that was too little too late.

Fartoviy 777 , 4 months ago

Instead of that asshole, Heydar Aliyev should have been elected by Politburo. The only person who was really able to pull the country out of the crisis, it was Aliyev G. in any other scenario, the country was doomed to collapse . And about Gorbachev , you can say so in Russian history , no traitor is worse and higher rank than this pederast!!!, All pleasant viewing!

Caucasus man , 5 days ago

And why the interior Ministry, KGB were inactive. As well as Party Control? How could this hump with foreign help and some special color revolution technology to destroy all the obstacles. How he managed to subdue the Politburo power structure ( including the axis of the Gromyko-Primakov and Yakovlev) ? As he had no trouble to expel from the Central Committee able and less corrupted members of the Central Committee (V. Sherbitsky , V. Grishin, G. V. Romanov, G. A. Aliyev, D, Kuhn...)? 

BValeri52 , 1 week ago

Gorbachev - zero as the head of state, but the soil he has prepared Khrushchev and Brezhnev (Moskva), they let the country drift, theft, drunkenness, took away people's faith.

YURY RUDY , 5 days ago (edited)

А хули дебилам объяснять. Горбачев открыл окно в мир. Живите уроды ,работайте развивайтесь. Но началась элементарная борьба за власть. Так как в этой стране на протяжении всей истории ничего путного создать не умели. Что с татар взять. Страна не могла не развалится. Если бы не Беловежское соглашение, крови было бы немерянно. В каждой республики были свои лидеры которые тупо хотели быть президентами и якобы независимыми.. Кто виноват ,что страна наводнена ублюдками у власти. которые вместо того что бы создавать могучую страну напичканную всей таблицей Менделеева, начали ее растаскивать.И грабят по сей день, под руководством Единой россии. Вспомните как все визжали, когда страна стала открываться. Когда народ перестал поклонятся импортным одноразовым зажигалкам и фантикам от жвачек. Думать надо, прежде чем повторять кремлевские методички. Теперь катаетесь на Порше кайене, живете в особняках и хотите назад в СССР. Я с вас хуею..


Володимир Завірюха
, 1 week ago

Хорошо помню 1985 год когда вьібрали Горбачева .То у нас в Тернополе наш учитель политекономии тогда говорил нам студентам что старьіе партейцьі говорят что Горбачев будет изменик .А почему мьі спрашивали .А потому что он не любит наши отечественьіе костюмьі а любит английские ....Сколько лет прошло а только времья показало кто прав а кто нет .Китай например посмотрел на нашу историческую ошибку и принимает все необходимьіе мерьі чтобьі подобньіх Горбачевьіх там у руля власти не оказалось ....Все большие Иудьі бьіли меченьіе ,как и бьіл мечен Горбачев ...Горбачева можна сравнить из Нероном которьій розвалил большое ....

Низами Мамедов , 3 days ago

У господина Млечина с аналитикой большие проблемы, а ведь журналист должен знать всё о своём герое. В отношении Горбачёва он так и не понял, почему Семи- частный отверг кандидатуру Горбачёва. Семичастный знал, что Горбачёв не чист на руку, короче говоря один из первых советских мафиози в г. Ставрополе по производству алкоголя. Мне лично рассказал об этом брат убитого по приказу Горбачёва следователя (по пути из Краснодара в Невинномысск), который напал на след этого упыря, но ему была устроена автомобильная катастрофа, в которой погиб этот следователь. А почему Брежнев убрал Семичастного, потому что Семичастный знал всю кухню правительственного переворота по смещению Хрущёва, поэтому Брежнев, по словам самого Семичастного убрал его из Москвы подальше, и в Киеве устроил третьим замом председателя правительства Украинской ССР, выступая Семичастный сказал, я так и не понял, кем я стал работать, работы практически не было, он просто отсиживался на этой высокой должности до пенсии.


Mihrutka Mikhail
, 2 weeks ago

Слушаю и все время одна мысль в голову лезет - как же надо было руководить страной , до какого идиотизма довести ситуацию с продуктами питания , если академики и композиторы с мировым именем и даже дочь генсека !!!! искали знакомства и расположения директора магазина !!! . О чем думают люди , пишущие вечные сентенции - "какую страну мы потеряли " - а ведь в провинции было все гораздо хуже и японцы создали анекдот - "Самая лучшая система снабжения создана в СССР - все товары завозятся в Москву - а благодарный народ САМ развозит по стране..." Не могла быть жизнеспособной страна при таком маразме..


Slava Boyka
, 1 week ago

Лично мне похуй!!! Если сравнить СССР ,где все было нельзя и под запретом, под наблюдением людей в плащах и шляпах,то при Горбачеве, народ вздохнул глоток свежего,опьяняющего,долгожданного и запретного воздуха из вне... Первые кооперативы, джинсы, машины, кафе, иномарки,музыка, фильмы!!! Что то новое принес! Нельзя так,было больше жить.. Виновен он во многом,но есть и плюсы его политики. Предали его, а он предал нас....


джек машкин
, 5 months ago

Горбачёв был типичный южный дурачок . Они умеют 3 вещи -выглядеть выгодно(лучше чем есть на самом деле ,подмазать где надо , и болтать .... А ЛЮБОЕ дело которое им поручишь -ОБГАДЯТ . СИСТЕМА СССР была уже слаба тем ,что потеряла ЖЁСТКОСТЬ и ЗАЩИТУ от Дурака . При Хрущёве -она сработала и дурачка убрали ,при Горби - ЕМУ ДАЛИ РУЛИТЬ ,и ВСЁ развалилось .

Zigmas Kreipavičius , 3 days ago

Михаил Сергеевич разрушил империю зла

Vanjka Vstanjka , 1 year ago

Престарелый Черненко - это плохо. А не престарелые Горбачёв, Яковлев, Шеварднадзе и Лигачёв - это жутко хорошо? Дело, похоже, не только и не столько в возрасте, сколько в деловых и моральных качествах его носителей. Все члены названнй компашки реально вредили и реально (и крепко) навредили стране. А ведь престарелыми они отнюдь не были!


Евгений Карандашев
, 1 week ago (edited)

Поражаюсь туполобости некоторых "демократов-капиталистов" в комментариях. Почти тридцать лет мы живём в капиталистическом обществе, имеем полный доступ к любой информации - изучай сколько влезет, называется... И вы за эти тридцать лет так и не смогли впихнуть в свой мозг информацию о происходящих в мире тенденциях, её систематизировать и сделать из неё вывод - вы безнадёжны.

Никто из вас не удосужился изучать источники разной направленности по теме капитализма и социализма, вы лишь прочли/услышали что-то одно, и приняли это за аксиому. Это совершенно ненаучный и не конструктивный подход к изучению проблемы! К сожалению, некоторые люди просто не способны думать объёмно, для них существует только плоскость или даже прямая линия, что есть признак ужасно узкого кругозора.

Я увидел в комментариях одно выражение, которое просто повергло меня в шок: "Нет на свете ни одного прогрессивного коммунистического государства и быть не может!" - здрасте! :D Вы хоть историю-то изучали? То есть СССР не был мировой сверхдержавой? А, ну да, это же была "страшная, отсталая, грязная и бедная страна-недоразумение, которая возникла по ужасной ошибке", как же я мог забыть современных историков) А как-же нынешний Китай? Он официально считается экономической сверхдержавой, кандидатом в мировые сверхдержавы, и темпы развития в нём имеют наивысший показатель на данный момент.

Плоскость и однонаправленность вашего мышления меня просто поразила, вы имеете радикальные взгляды, а радикализм - это всегда ошибочно. Кто-то написал: "Китай только официально коммунистический, на деле в нём другое устройство!" - ну это просто апогей идиотизма) Вы разве не понимаете, что человеческие взгляды могут совершенствоваться и изменяться, а система реформироваться? В Китае именно социалистический строй, который претерпел реформацию, в которой безусловно нуждался. Советский социализм также нуждался в реформации, и никто не говорит, что он был идеальным социализмом.

Совершенствование системы - это неотъемлемая часть прогресса, и если вы считаете, что социализм может быть только таким, каким он был в СССР - то вы глубоко ошибаетесь, и совершенно не понимаете значение слова "прогресс". Китай построил такой социализм, который даёт ему возможность делать поистине чудеса экономики, Китай богатеет и уровень жизни в нём растёт - если это не прогресс, то что тогда? Также хочу упомянуть КНДР. Да-да, США на неё повесили ярлык "отсталого голодающего тоталитарного государства", и скорее всего вы, радикальные капиталисты, даже не думали с ними спорить и что-то дополнительно про КНДР узнавать, что, опять-же, говорит о плоскости и некритичности, я бы даже сказал суеверности вашего мышления. КНДР - страна очень маленькая, в основном с горной местностью, и природных ресурсов в ней очень мало. "Демократы" из ООН и НАТО обложили КНДР санкциями со всех сторон, из-за которых она не может развивать внешнюю торговлю, что губительно для маленькой страны с худым запасом ресурсов. Поддерживать экономику, снабжать людей достатком товаров и в целом держать страну на современном уровне в условиях торговой изоляции и недостатка ресурсов - это неподъёмная задача для капитализма. Но корейский социализм умудрился, при всех этих условиях, победить голод, поддерживать бесплатное образование, медицину и т.д., обеспечивать людей местом жительства, работой и доходом, сохранить суверенность своего государства и идеологию, и, ВНИМАНИЕ, создать с нуля ядерную бомбу . Это чудеса, северокорейский строй решает задачи, которые поистине неподъёмные в её условиях.

Конечно, в КНДР жесткий тоталитаризм, ведь когда страна изолирована от внешнего мира во всех аспектах, соседние страны настроены враждебно (а со стороны США вообще идёт угроза прямого вторжения, или даже ядерного удара), со страной ведут жёсткую идеологическую информационную войну, сохранить существующий строй - задача крайне сложная, и выполнить её можно только при жёсткой дисциплине и контрпропаганде. Я уважаю Северную Корею, она наглядно показывает, что социализм может творить чудеса. Конечно же, я вас переубедить не смог, радикальные вы капиталисты, но тем из вас, кои способны хоть немножко думать своей черепушкой, я, возможно, поселил мысль о том, что социализм - это далеко не только плановая экономика, что он может меняться и прогрессировать, что именно к нему идут все развитые страны, и что утопический коммунизм - это строй, который мы ещё представить себе не можем, но который обязательно наступит через многие годы, или столетия прогресса. Избавляйтесь от своих радикальных взглядов, и старайтесь думать объективно - это очень полезно для кругозора. Спасибо.


Asus Z370
, 1 year ago

По Млечину : хорошо разработанная и осуществлённая операция по устранению конкурентов и внедрению "своего". Возникают вопросы: кто проводил операцию? Где была организация отвечающая за государственную безопасность (КГБ)? В 2017м демпартия США подняла вой о,якобы,вмешательстве России в избирательный процесс в США. Кто ответит:было ли вмешательство заграницы в процессы, о которых поведал Млечин? Если было,то России так же, по образу и подобию, надо поднимать вой. Это серьёзно.Кто ответит?


Вин Лу
, 3 years ago

ЦРУ того времени было значительно круче чем КГБ. К тому же против КГБ действовала и МИ6 и израильская разведка!


MUZZY BUZZY
, 2 days ago

Горбачев попал в Политбюро на место убитого Мащерова, которого убили за 2 недели до преступления к обязанностям в Политбюро.


Александр Скрыбель
, 3 days ago

Горбачев Родину продал, а Ельцин её пропил. Горбачев виноградники повырубал, а Ельцин травил народ не качественным спиртом. В итоге, если бы не Путин, то развязка была бы давным давно, хотя он тоже не подарок, отдал страну на разграбление олигархам.


болельщик Тотенхэм Хотспур
, 2 weeks ago

Горбачёв типичный номенклатурщик. Послушный, мягкий, ну может и прогибался ради своей высокой карьеры, но наверняка не чаял президентом стать. Но потом когда всё случилось, стал входить во вкус, то есть жена стала проникаться важностью своего положения при таком муженьке. А когда пришлось отказаться от власти он НИСКОЛЬКО не скорбел о потерянном кресле и стране. Его посдили "на мягкую подушечку" и он стал жить поживать в Америке, даже не понимая, что его бездарность, как политика, послужила развалу СССР. Он не понимает этого и сейчас. А может НЕ желает признавать. Может на смертном одре передумает строить из себя униженного и оскорблённого и в чём-нибудь признается, хотя бы самому себе. Правда, для этого смелость нужна.


KainTanatos
, 3 weeks ago

Горбачев не увлекался горячительными напитками???? Ну ну!!! Я родственник председателя крайкома СК в бытность Горбачева...Его из машин вытаскивали лежа


Борис Павлов
, 1 month ago

Это был заговор партийной элиты о разрушении системы они уже зажратые были СССР побоку им был


DOGRU OLAN
, 2 months ago

Нечего горбачева обеливать!Он виноват,да еще как!Будь он трижды проклят!Этот человек не руководитель,разве не видно было из его речей,что за он скоморох?!Как может шут руководить огромной страной и как вообще можно было доверить легкомысленному человеку руководить государством,он же не "А ни Б,НИ КУКАРЕКУ"?!Полный идиот!!!!!


Kamtayak Abdr
, 5 months ago

Перед развалом Союза ,этот придурок начал обсирать КАЗАКСТАН,я тогда ушёл в запас,и было обидно за академика Кунаева,За родину мою,а на флоте мы гордились ,когда перед строем кораблей Старший офицер Азаров говорил казакстанцы ,мы едим хлеб из каз-й муки тушёнка из kz,балык и икра,одеты мы в KZ канадки и свитера из Кызыл орды,А вот атомные ПЛ из казакстанского титана- и мы были горды за казакстан И вот ОН наносит обсирающий удар?а дальше нам все стало ясно.


pavel pavel
, 2 weeks ago

Млечный как всегда врет , не умного Горбатого плохо говорящего по русски двигала ЦРУ и как я понимаю сейчас многие советские парта геносе знали об этом , почему , ???почему они продали все советское в котором жили ???за деньги или разочарование произошло от этого марксизма и ленинизма, ,,,мы простые люди не когда не узнаем...но я уверен , что Брежнев уже был не руководитель что Путин ,,,,почему ???что то им мешает , а то и наоборот они и есть гарантия чтоб страна не развивалась ,

Boris Petrovich , 5 months ago

Пшеницу покупали в Канаде,Союз изжил себя,,,вина Горбача только в одном,,,первое Крым хохлам не отдавать,,и русских в Прибалтике не трогать,все это надо было говорить Бушу,,ставить условия

Ravil Aitov , 5 years ago

Похоже ЦРУ круче КГБ.

[Jan 01, 2019] Israel is Bad for America by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Donald Trump is Bad for Israel ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Jan 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and out-and-out lies. The public, though poorly informed on most issues as a result, has generally figured out that it is being hoodwinked and trust in the Fourth Estate has plummeted over the past twenty years. The skepticism about what is being reported has enabled President Donald Trump and other politicians to evade serious questions about policy by claiming that what is being reported is little more than "fake news."

No news is more fake than the reporting in the U.S. media that relates to the state of Israel. Former Illinois congressman Paul Findley in his seminal book They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby observed that nearly all the foreign press correspondents working out of Israel are Jewish while most of the editors that they report to at news desks are also Jews, guaranteeing that the articles that eventually surface in the newspapers will be carefully constructed to minimize any criticism of the Jewish state. The same goes for television news, particularly on cable news stations like CNN.

A particularly galling aspect of the sanitization of news reports regarding Israel is the underlying assumption that Israelis share American values and interests, to include freedom and democracy. This leads to the perception that Israelis are just like Americans with Israel's enemies being America's enemies. Given that, it is natural to believe that the United States and Israel are permanent allies and friends and that it is in the U.S. interest to do whatever is necessary to support Israel, including providing billions of dollars in aid to a country that is already wealthy as well as unlimited political cover in international bodies like the United Nations.

That bogus but nevertheless seemingly eternal bond is essentially the point from which a December 26 th op-ed in The New York Times departs. The piece is by one of the Times' resident opinion writers Bret Stephens and is entitled Donald Trump is Bad for Israel .

Stephens gets to the point rather quickly, claiming that "The president has abruptly undermined Israel's security following a phone call with an Islamist strongman in Turkey. So much for the idea, common on the right, that this is the most pro-Israel administration ever. I write this as someone who supported Trump moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who praised his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as courageous and correct . I also would have opposed the president's decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria under nearly any circumstances. Contrary to the invidious myth that neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds, maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on the Levant."

The beauty of Stephens overwrought prose is that the careful reader might realize from the git-go that the argument being promoted makes no sense. Bret has a big heart for the Kurds but the Palestinians are invisible in his piece while his knowledge of other developments in the Middle East is superficial. First of all, the phone call with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had nothing to do with "undermining Israel's security." It concerned the northern border of Syria, which Turkey shares, and arrangements for working with the Kurds, which is a vital interest for both Ankara and Washington. And it might be added that from a U.S. national security point of view Turkey is an essential partner for the United States in the region while Israel is not, no matter what it pretends to be.

Stephens then goes on to demonstrate what he claims to be a libel, that for him and other neocons Israel always comes first, an odd assertion given the fact that he spends 80% of his article discussing what is or isn't good for Israel. He supports the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem, the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which were applauded in Israel but which are extremely damaging to American interests. He attacks the planned withdrawal from Syria because it is a "core interest" for the U.S., which is complete nonsense.

Contrary to Stephens' no evidence assertion, Russia and Iran have neither the resources nor the desire to "consolidate[e] their grip on the Levant" while it is the United States has no right and no real interest to "maintain leverage" on Syria by invading and occupying the country. But, of course, invading and occupying are practices that Israel is good at, so Stephens' brain fart on the issue can perhaps be attributed to confusion over whose bad policies he was defending. Stephens also demonstrate confusion over his insistence that the U.S. must "resist foreign aggressors the Russians and Iranians in Syria in this decade," suggesting that he is unaware that both nations are providing assistance at the request of the legitimate government in Damascus. It is the U.S. and Israel that are the aggressors in Syria.

Stephens then looks at the situation from the "Israeli standpoint," which is presumably is easy for him to do as that is how he looks at everything given the fact that he is far more concerned about Israel's interests than those of the United States. Indeed, all of his opinions are based on the assumption that U.S. policy should be supportive of a rightwing Israeli government, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has recently been indicted for corruption and has called for an early election to subvert the process.

Bret finally comes to the point, writing that "What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a president."

Stephens then expands on what it means to be liberal-international: "It means we should oppose militant religious fundamentalism, whether it is Wahhabis in Riyadh or Khomeinists in Tehran or Muslim Brothers in Cairo and Ankara. It means we should advocate human rights, civil liberties, and democratic institutions, in that order."

Bret also throws America's two most recent presidents under the bus in his jeremiad, saying "During the eight years of the Obama presidency, I thought U.S. policy toward Israel -- the hectoring , the incompetent diplomatic interventions , the moral equivocations , the Iran deal , the backstabbing at the U.N. -- couldn't get worse. As with so much else, Donald Trump succeeds in making his predecessors look good." He then asks "Is any of this good for Israel?" and he answers "no."

Bret Stephens in his complaining reveals himself to be undeniably all about Israel, but consider what he is actually saying. He claims to be against "militant religious fundamentalism," but isn't that what Israeli Zionism is all about, with more than a dash of racism and fanaticism thrown in for good measure? One Israeli Chief Rabbi has called black people "monkeys" while another has declared that gentiles cannot live in Israel. Right-wing religious fundamentalist parties currently are in power with Netanyahu and are policy making for the Israeli Government: Shas, Jewish Home, and United Torah Judaism. None of them could be regarded as a moderating influence on their thuggish serial financial lawbreaker Prime Minister.

And isn't Israel's record on human rights and civil liberties among the worst in the world? Here is the Human Rights Watch's assessment of Israel :

"Israel maintains entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally. Its 50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza involves systematic rights abuses, including collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force, and prolonged administrative detention without charge or trial for hundreds. It builds and supports illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, expropriating Palestinian land and imposing burdens on Palestinians but not on settlers, restricting their access to basic services and making it nearly impossible for them to build in much of the West Bank without risking demolition. Israel's decade-long closure of Gaza, supported by Egypt, severely restricts the movement of people and goods, with devastating humanitarian impact."

Israel, if one is considering the entire population under its rule, is among the most undemocratic states that chooses to call itself democratic. Much of the population living in lands that Israel claims cannot vote, they have no freedom of movement in their homeland, and they have no right of return to homes that they were forced to abandon. Israeli army snipers blithely shoot unarmed demonstrators while Netanyahu's government kills, beats and imprisons children. And the Jewish state does not even operate very democratically even inside Israel itself, with special rights for Jewish citizens and areas and whole towns where Muslims or Christians are not allowed to buy property or reside.

It is time for American Jews like Bret Stephens to come to the realization that not everything that is good for Israel is good for the U.S. The strategic interests of the two countries, if they were openly discussed in either the media or in congress, would be seen to be often in direct conflict. Somehow in Stephens' twisted mind the 1948 theft of Palestinian lands and the imposition of an apartheid system to control the people is in some way representative of a liberal world order.

If one were to suggest that Stephens should move to Israel since his primary loyalty clearly lies there, there would be accusations of anti-Semitism, but in a sense, it is far better to have him stick around blathering from the pulpit of The New York Times . When he writes so ineptly about how Donald Trump Is Bad for Israel the real message that comes through loud and clear is how bad Israel is for America.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Continued

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[Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen Published on Aug 17, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis Published on Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen Published on Jul 29, 2019 | www.thenation.com

[Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson Published on Feb 01, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone Published on Jul 28, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Jul 28, 2019] Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians Published on Jul 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson Published on Jul 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 23, 2019] Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution Published on Jul 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jul 17, 2019] Oil Is Driving the Iran Crisis by Michael T. Klare Published on Jan 11, 2019 | thenation.com

[Jul 06, 2019] Why is Iran such a high priority for US elite? Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then Published on Jul 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jul 06, 2019] In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy Published on Jul 03, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com

[Jul 05, 2019] Globalisation- the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world - World news by Nikil Saval Published on Jul 14, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

[Jul 05, 2019] The World Bank and IMF 2019 by Michael Hudson and Bonnie Faulkner Published on Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Jun 29, 2019] Latest Weapon Of US Imperialism Liquified Natural Gas Published on Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jun 28, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard vs Bolton Published on Jun 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman Published on Jun 25, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

[Jun 27, 2019] 'The Ugly Americans' From Kermit Roosevelt to John Bolton Iran Al Jazeera Published on Jun 27, 2019 | www.aljazeera.com

[Jun 27, 2019] The Ongoing Restructuring of the Greater Middle East by C.J. Hopkins Published on Jun 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression Published on Jun 22, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

[Jun 22, 2019] Why a U.S.-Iran War Could End Up Being a Historic Disaster by Doug Bandow Published on Jun 22, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

[Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran' Published on Jun 20, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

[Jun 20, 2019] The Trump regime wants another pointless war by Ryan Cooper Published on Jun 18, 2019 | theweek.com

[Jun 09, 2019] The looming 100-year US-China conflict by Martin Wolf Published on Jun 04, 2019 | archive.fo

[Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir Published on May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion Published on May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[May 25, 2019] The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan Published on May 23, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

[May 22, 2019] On War With Iran, It's Trump Versus the Founding Fathers Published on May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 22, 2019] NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries Published on May 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 20, 2019] "Us" Versus "Them" Published on May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 18, 2019] Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning Published on May 15, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[May 14, 2019] The Propaganda Multiplier How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics Published on Jun 01, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

[May 14, 2019] iJews and the Left-i by Philip Mendes A Review, by Brenton Sanderson - The Unz Review Published on May 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 14, 2019] Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan Published on Apr 10, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

[May 13, 2019] Not Just Ukraine; Biden May Have A Serious China Problem As Schweizer Exposes Hunter s $1bn Deal Published on May 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi Published on May 10, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

[May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time Published on May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 12, 2019] Charting a Progressive Foreign Policy for the Trump Era and Beyond Published on May 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson Published on May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson Published on May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors Published on Apr 05, 2019 | dandelionsalad.wordpress.com

[May 06, 2019] Trump's top three donors Published on May 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report Published on May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions Published on Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor Published on Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky Published on Jun 16, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

[Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté Published on Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

[Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed Published on Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Apr 28, 2019] Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine Published on Apr 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi Published on Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Apr 21, 2019] Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond Published on Apr 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA Published on Oct 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

[Apr 21, 2019] Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares Published on Oct 28, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Apr 21, 2019] Whenever someone inconveniences the neoliberal oligarchy, the entire neoliberal MSM mafia tells us 24 x7 how evil and disgusting that person is. It's true of the leader of every nation which rejects neoliberal globalization as well as for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Published on Apr 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 17, 2019] Haspel is not the "underling". Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. Published on Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 17, 2019] The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status Published on Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 16, 2019] The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they re angling for war with Iran. Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump Published on Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning. Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Apr 15, 2019] I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Apr 14, 2019] Pro-Israeli groups defining the US foreign policy: Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business Published on Sep 19, 2017 | www.unz.com

[Apr 13, 2019] America as a Myth of good life is a powerful tool of color revolutions Published on Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times Published on Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

[Apr 08, 2019] Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization Published on Apr 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 06, 2019] The Magnitsky Act-Behind the Scenes ASEEES Published on Apr 06, 2019 | www.aseees.org

[Apr 04, 2019] How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney Published on Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader Published on Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 04, 2019] Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For by Willy B Published on Apr 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Apr 02, 2019] 'Yats' Is No Longer the Guy by Robert Parry Published on Apr 11, 2016 | consortiumnews.com

[Apr 01, 2019] Amazon.com War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate (9781510745810) Stephen F. Cohen Books Published on Apr 01, 2019 | www.amazon.com

[Mar 31, 2019] Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual Published on Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Mar 31, 2019] What is the purpose of Russiagate hysteria? Published on Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 30, 2019] The US desperately needs Venezuelan oil Published on Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate Published on Mar 30, 2019 | www.thenation.com

[Mar 29, 2019] I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans Published on Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Mar 26, 2019] Jared Kushner accused of using WhatsApp and personal email for state business by Bob Fredericks Published on Mar 21, 2019 | nypost.com

[Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political hit job by Bob Fredericks Published on Jan 15, 2019 | nypost.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson Published on Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate Published on Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner Is Beating Heart of Corrupt and Deeply Evil Trump Administration, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe Says by Jason Lemon Published on Mar 10, 2019 | www.newsweek.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ... Published on Feb 28, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report Published on Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr. Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Mar 20, 2019] In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts Published on Mar 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies Published on Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

[Mar 18, 2019] FULL CNN TOWN HALL WITH TULSI GABBARD 3-10-19 Published on Mar 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[Mar 18, 2019] The Why are the media playing lapdog and not watchdog – again – on war in Iraq? Published on Oct 10, 2014 | The Guardian

[Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings Published on Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings Published on Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

[Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk by Jack Hunter Published on Mar 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Mar 06, 2019] Disinformation destroys reality Published on Mar 02, 2018 | www.nytimes.com

[Feb 21, 2019] The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed Published on Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 19, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds Published on Feb 19, 2019 | www.veteranstoday.com

[Feb 19, 2019] Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube Published on Feb 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[Feb 19, 2019] Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class Published on Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest? Published on Mar 23, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Feb 17, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives Published on Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Feb 13, 2019] MoA - Russiagate Is Finished Published on Feb 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Feb 13, 2019] Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins Published on Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber Published on Feb 12, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed Published on Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library Published on Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 04, 2019] Trump s Revised and Rereleased Foreign Policy: The World Policeman is Back Published on Aug 09, 2017 | zeroanthropology.net

[Jan 30, 2019] The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance Published on Jan 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jan 29, 2019] Guardian became Deep State Guardian Published on Dec 22, 2018 | off-guardian.org

[Jan 26, 2019] Can the current US neoliberal/neoconservative elite be considered suicidal? Published on Jan 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Jan 22, 2019] War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate Published on Jan 22, 2019 | www.amazon.com

[Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald Published on Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 19, 2019] According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks Published on Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke Published on Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames Published on Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything Published on Jan 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International Published on Jan 08, 2019 | sputniknews.com

[Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative Published on Jan 05, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

[Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. Published on Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jan 04, 2019] Veteran NBC-MSNBC Journalist Blasts Network in Resignation Published on Jan 04, 2019 | theintercept.com

[Jan 02, 2019] Russian bots - How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News Published on Feb 20, 2018J | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jan 02, 2019] The Only Meddling "Russian Bots" Were Actually Democrat-Led "Experts" by Mac Slavo Published on Jan 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 02, 2019] Did Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article ? Published on Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Nov 01, 2019] Viable Opposition The Legal Connection Between Washington and Kiev Published on October 15, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

[Oct 28, 2019] Expert Panel Finds Gaping Plot-Holes In OPCW Report On Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack by Caitlin Johnstone Published on Oct 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Oct 24, 2019] Empire Interventionism Versus Republic Noninterventionism by Jacob Hornberger Published on Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Oct 24, 2019] Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil by Colonel Patrick Lang Published on Oct 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Oct 24, 2019] Trump is now proven war criminal: WikiLeaks Releases New Documents Questioning Syria Chemical Attack Narrative Published on Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Oct 23, 2019] The treason of the intellectuals The Undoing of Thought by Roger Kimball Published on Dec 01, 1992 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Oct 23, 2019] Neoconservatism Is An Omnicidal Death Cult, And It Must Be Stopped by Caitlin Johnstone Published on Jul 18, 2017 | medium.com

[Oct 10, 2019] There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect: he is a war criminal, who escaped justice Published on Oct 09, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

[Oct 02, 2019] The Self-Set Impeachment Trap naked capitalism Published on Oct 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Sep 23, 2019] Giuliani Hits Bidens With New $3 Million Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus Money Laundering Accusation Published on Sep 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Sep 23, 2019] Apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact Published on Sep 23, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

[Sep 22, 2019] Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states Published on Sep 22, 2019 | tass.com

[Sep 15, 2019] Demythologizing the Roots of the New Cold War by Ted Snider Published on Sep 09, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

[Sep 22, 2019] US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim Published on Oct 01, 2025 | tass.com

[Sep 22, 2019] Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states Published on Sep 22, 2019 | tass.com

[Sep 22, 2019] It was neoliberalism that won the cold war Published on Sep 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

[Sep 20, 2019] Trump Whistleblower Drama Puts Biden In The Hot Seat Over Ukraine Published on Sep 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Sep 18, 2019] To End Endless Wars, We Must Give Up Hegemony by Daniel Larison Published on Sep 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Sep 17, 2019] The Devolution of US-Russia Relations by Tony Kevin Published on Sep 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Sep 15, 2019] Demythologizing the Roots of the New Cold War by Ted Snider Published on Sep 09, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

[Sep 12, 2019] The Brain-Dead Maximalism of [neocon] Hard-liners by Daniel Larison Published on Sep 12, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Sep 11, 2019] Video Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 The Bamboozle Has Captured Us Published on Sep 11, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

[Sep 10, 2019] Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik Published on Aug 25, 2019 | portside.org

[Sep 10, 2019] The idea tha the USA won the Cold War is questionable Published on Sep 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

[Sep 10, 2019] It s all about Gene Sharp and seeping neoliberal regime change using Western logistical support, money, NGO and intelligence agencies and MSM as the leverage Published on Aug 31, 2019 | Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison Published on Aug 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson Published on Aug 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen Published on Aug 17, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis Published on Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen Published on Jul 29, 2019 | www.thenation.com

[Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson Published on Feb 01, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone Published on Jul 28, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Jul 28, 2019] Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians Published on Jul 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson Published on Jul 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 23, 2019] Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution Published on Jul 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jul 17, 2019] Oil Is Driving the Iran Crisis by Michael T. Klare Published on Jan 11, 2019 | thenation.com

[Jul 06, 2019] Why is Iran such a high priority for US elite? Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then Published on Jul 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jul 06, 2019] In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy Published on Jul 03, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com

[Jul 05, 2019] Globalisation- the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world - World news by Nikil Saval Published on Jul 14, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

[Jul 05, 2019] The World Bank and IMF 2019 by Michael Hudson and Bonnie Faulkner Published on Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Dec 02, 2019] A Think Tank Dedicated to Peace and Restraint Published on Jul 01, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Jun 29, 2019] Latest Weapon Of US Imperialism Liquified Natural Gas Published on Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman Published on Jun 25, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

[Jun 03, 2020] The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable Published on Jun 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Jun 27, 2019] 'The Ugly Americans' From Kermit Roosevelt to John Bolton Iran Al Jazeera Published on Jun 27, 2019 | www.aljazeera.com

[Jun 27, 2019] The Ongoing Restructuring of the Greater Middle East by C.J. Hopkins Published on Jun 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Jun 26, 2019] Pompeo is a MIC lobbyist, not a diplomat Published on Jun 26, 2019 | www.globaltimes.cn

[Jun 26, 2019] Pompeo is a MIC lobbyist, not a diplomat Published on Jun 26, 2019 | www.globaltimes.cn

[Jun 03, 2020] The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable Published on Jun 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Jun 22, 2019] Why The Empire Is Failing The Horrid Hubris Of The Albright Doctrine by Doug Bandow Published on Jun 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jun 25, 2019] It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR. Published on Jun 25, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran' Published on Jun 20, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

[Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression Published on Jun 22, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

[Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran' Published on Jun 20, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

[Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression Published on Jun 22, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

[Jun 22, 2019] Why a U.S.-Iran War Could End Up Being a Historic Disaster by Doug Bandow Published on Jun 22, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

[Jun 22, 2019] Why The Empire Is Failing The Horrid Hubris Of The Albright Doctrine by Doug Bandow Published on Jun 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jun 20, 2019] The Trump regime wants another pointless war by Ryan Cooper Published on Jun 18, 2019 | theweek.com

[Jun 09, 2019] The looming 100-year US-China conflict by Martin Wolf Published on Jun 04, 2019 | archive.fo

[Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir Published on May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion Published on May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion Published on May 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[May 25, 2019] The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan Published on May 23, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

[May 22, 2019] On War With Iran, It's Trump Versus the Founding Fathers Published on May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 22, 2019] NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries Published on May 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 20, 2019] "Us" Versus "Them" Published on May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 18, 2019] Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning Published on May 15, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[May 14, 2019] The Propaganda Multiplier How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics Published on Jun 01, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

[May 14, 2019] iJews and the Left-i by Philip Mendes A Review, by Brenton Sanderson - The Unz Review Published on May 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 14, 2019] Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan Published on Apr 10, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

[May 13, 2019] Not Just Ukraine; Biden May Have A Serious China Problem As Schweizer Exposes Hunter s $1bn Deal Published on May 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time Published on May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 05, 2019] The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi Published on May 10, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

[May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time Published on May 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 12, 2019] Charting a Progressive Foreign Policy for the Trump Era and Beyond Published on May 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson Published on May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson Published on May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors Published on Apr 05, 2019 | dandelionsalad.wordpress.com

[May 06, 2019] Trump's top three donors Published on May 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 05, 2019] The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report Published on May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions Published on Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor Published on Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky Published on Jun 16, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca

[Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté Published on Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

[Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed Published on Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Apr 28, 2019] Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine Published on Apr 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi Published on Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Apr 21, 2019] Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond Published on Apr 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA Published on Oct 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

[Apr 21, 2019] Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares Published on Oct 28, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Apr 21, 2019] Whenever someone inconveniences the neoliberal oligarchy, the entire neoliberal MSM mafia tells us 24 x7 how evil and disgusting that person is. It's true of the leader of every nation which rejects neoliberal globalization as well as for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Published on Apr 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 17, 2019] Haspel is not the "underling". Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. Published on Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 17, 2019] The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status Published on Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 16, 2019] The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they re angling for war with Iran. Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump Published on Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning. Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Apr 15, 2019] I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Apr 14, 2019] Pro-Israeli groups defining the US foreign policy: Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business Published on Sep 19, 2017 | www.unz.com

[Apr 13, 2019] America as a Myth of good life is a powerful tool of color revolutions Published on Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times Published on Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

[Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century Published on Apr 09, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

[Apr 08, 2019] Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization Published on Apr 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 06, 2019] The Magnitsky Act-Behind the Scenes ASEEES Published on Apr 06, 2019 | www.aseees.org

[Apr 04, 2019] How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney Published on Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader Published on Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 04, 2019] Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For by Willy B Published on Apr 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Apr 02, 2019] 'Yats' Is No Longer the Guy by Robert Parry Published on Apr 11, 2016 | consortiumnews.com

[Apr 01, 2019] Amazon.com War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate (9781510745810) Stephen F. Cohen Books Published on Apr 01, 2019 | www.amazon.com

[Mar 31, 2019] Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual Published on Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Mar 31, 2019] What is the purpose of Russiagate hysteria? Published on Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 30, 2019] The US desperately needs Venezuelan oil Published on Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate Published on Mar 30, 2019 | www.thenation.com

[Mar 29, 2019] I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans Published on Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Mar 26, 2019] Jared Kushner accused of using WhatsApp and personal email for state business by Bob Fredericks Published on Mar 21, 2019 | nypost.com

[Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political hit job by Bob Fredericks Published on Jan 15, 2019 | nypost.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson Published on Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate Published on Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner Is Beating Heart of Corrupt and Deeply Evil Trump Administration, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe Says by Jason Lemon Published on Mar 10, 2019 | www.newsweek.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ... Published on Feb 28, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report Published on Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr. Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Mar 20, 2019] In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts Published on Mar 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies Published on Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

[Mar 18, 2019] FULL CNN TOWN HALL WITH TULSI GABBARD 3-10-19 Published on Mar 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[Mar 18, 2019] The Why are the media playing lapdog and not watchdog – again – on war in Iraq? Published on Oct 10, 2014 | The Guardian

[Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings Published on Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings Published on Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

[Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk by Jack Hunter Published on Mar 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Mar 06, 2019] Disinformation destroys reality Published on Mar 02, 2018 | www.nytimes.com

[Feb 21, 2019] The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed Published on Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 19, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds Published on Feb 19, 2019 | www.veteranstoday.com

[Feb 19, 2019] Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube Published on Feb 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[Feb 19, 2019] Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class Published on Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest? Published on Mar 23, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Feb 17, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives Published on Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Feb 13, 2019] MoA - Russiagate Is Finished Published on Feb 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Feb 13, 2019] Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins Published on Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber Published on Feb 12, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed Published on Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library Published on Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Feb 05, 2019] The neocon s strategy Published on Dec 28, 2018 | www.rightweb.irc-online.org

[Jan 30, 2019] The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance Published on Jan 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson Published on Feb 01, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jan 22, 2019] War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate Published on Jan 22, 2019 | www.amazon.com

[Jan 19, 2019] According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks Published on Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames Published on Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. Published on Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Oldies But Goodies

  • [Dec 10, 2016] Why the US elite loves so much to demonise Russia
  • [Sep 26, 2016] War as a Business Opportunity
  • [Oct 29, 2017] Whose Bright Idea Was RussiaGate by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Oct 29, 2017] In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War
  • [Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 28, 2017] How CrowdStrike placed malware in DNC hacked servers by Alex Christoforou
  • [Dec 28, 2017] On your surmise that Putin prefers Trump to Hillary and would thus have incentive to influence the election, I beg to differ. Putin is one smart statesman; he knows very well it makes no difference which candidates gets elected in US elections.
  • [Dec 27, 2017] Putin is one smart statesman; he knows very well it makes no difference which candidates gets elected in US elections. Any candidate that WOULD make a difference would NEVER see the daylight of nomination, especially at the presidential level. I myself believe all the talk of Russia interfering the 2016 Election is no more than a witch hunt
  • [Dec 03, 2017] Stephen Kotkin How Vladimir Putin Rules
  • [Dec 22, 2017] When Sanity Fails - The Mindset of the Ideological Drone by The Saker
  • [Dec 22, 2017] When Sanity Fails - The Mindset of the Ideological Drone by The Saker
  • [Dec 22, 2017] When Sanity Fails - The Mindset of the Ideological Drone by The Saker
  • [Dec 21, 2017] The RussiaGate Witch-Hunt Stockman Names Names In The Deep State's Insurance Policy by David Stockman
  • [Dec 18, 2017] The Scary Void Inside Russia-gate by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Dec 15, 2017] Rise and Decline of the Welfare State, by James Petras
  • [Dec 14, 2017] Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan?
  • [Dec 14, 2017] The Foundering Russia-gate 'Scandal' Consortiumnews
  • [Dec 14, 2017] The 1970's was in many ways the watershed decade for the neoliberal transformation of the American economy and society
  • [Dec 13, 2017] All the signs in the Russia probe point to Jared Kushner. Who next?
  • [Dec 12, 2017] When a weaker neoliberal state fights the dominant neoliberal state, the center of neoliberal empire, it faces economic sanctions and can t retaliate using principle eye for eye
  • [Dec 12, 2017] Bad Moon Rising, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
  • [Dec 12, 2017] We are all just hapless passengers on the Neocon Titanic, unable to influence what is playing out on the bridge
  • [Dec 11, 2017] How Russia-gate Met the Magnitsky Myth by Robert Parry
  • [Dec 10, 2017] blamePutin continues to be the media s dominant hashtag. Vladimir Putin finally confesses his entire responsibility for everything bad that has ever happened since the beginning of time
  • [Dec 10, 2017] When Washington Cheered the Jihadists Consortiumnews
  • [Dec 10, 2017] Russia-gate s Reach into Journalism by Dennis J Bernstein
  • [Dec 09, 2017] Hyping the Russian Threat to Undermine Free Speech by Max Blumenthal
  • [Dec 03, 2017] Islamic Mindset Akin to Bolshevism by Srdja Trifkovic
  • [Nov 29, 2017] The Russian Question by Niall Ferguson
  • [Dec 02, 2017] America s Darwinian Nationalism by Robert Kaplan
  • [Dec 01, 2017] Neocon Chaos Promotion in the Mideast
  • [Dec 01, 2017] JFK The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L. Fletcher Prouty, Oliver Stone, Jesse Ventura
  • [Nov 30, 2017] Heritage Foundation + the War Industry What a Pair by Paul Gottfried
  • [Nov 30, 2017] Money Imperialism by Michael Hudson
  • [Nov 28, 2017] The Duplicitous Superpower by Ted Galen Carpenter
  • [Nov 08, 2017] The Plot to Scapegoat Russia How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin by Dan Kovalik
  • [Nov 08, 2017] Learning to Love McCarthyism by Robert Parry
  • [Sep 17, 2017] The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus
  • [Aug 30, 2017] Weather Underground Members Speak Out on the Media, Imperialism and Solidarity in the Age of Trump
  • [Jun 24, 2017] The Criminal Laws of Counterinsurgency by Todd E. Pierce
  • [May 05, 2017] Jared Kushner A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House by Wayne MADSEN
  • [May 04, 2017] Jared Kushner fired me over Israel ten years ago by Philip Weiss
  • [Nov 04, 2017] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Leads US President Trump to War with Iran by Prof. James Petras
  • [Nov 04, 2017] Who's Afraid of Corporate COINTELPRO by C. J. Hopkins
  • [Oct 31, 2017] Above All - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power
  • [Sep 17, 2017] The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus
  • [Oct 25, 2017] Tomorrow Belongs to the Corporatocracy by C.J. Hopkins
  • [Oct 13, 2017] Sympathy for the Corporatocracy by C. J. Hopkins
  • [Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA
  • [Oct 11, 2017] Russia witch hunt is a tactic used by the ruling elite, and in particular the Democratic Party, to avoid facing a very unpleasant reality: that their unpopularity is the outcome of their policies of deindustrialization and the assault against working class
  • [Oct 09, 2017] US Missile Defense Not as Effective As We Think by Scott Ritter
  • [Oct 09, 2017] After Nine Months, Only Stale Crumbs in Russia Inquiry by Scott Ritter
  • [Oct 09, 2017] Autopilot Wars by Andrew J. Bacevich
  • [Oct 09, 2017] Dennis Kucinich We Must Challenge the Two-Party Duopoly Committed to War by Adam Dick
  • [Oct 03, 2017] The Vietnam Nightmare -- Again by Eric Margolis
  • [Oct 03, 2017] Russian Ads On Facebook A Click-Bait Campaign
  • [Sep 30, 2017] Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet by Glenn Greenwald
  • [Sep 27, 2017] Come You Masters of War by Matthew Harwood
  • [Sep 26, 2017] US-Saudi Alliance Fragments the Middle East (2-2) by RANIA KHALEK
  • [Sep 26, 2017] Is Foreign Propaganda Even Effective by Leon Hadar
  • [Sep 25, 2017] I am presently reading the book JFK and the Unspeakable by James W.Douglass and it is exactly why Kennedy was assassinated by the very same group that desperately wants to see Trump gone and the rapprochement with Russia squashed
  • [Sep 24, 2017] How Sony, Obama, Seth Rogen and the CIA Secretly Planned to Force Regime Change in North Korea by Tim Shorrock
  • [Sep 24, 2017] Mark Ames When Mother Jones Was Investigated for Spreading Kremlin Disinformation by Mark Ames
  • [Sep 23, 2017] The Exit Strategy of Empire by Wendy McElro
  • [Sep 20, 2017] The Politics of Military Ascendancy by James Petras
  • [Sep 19, 2017] The Glaring Omissions in Trumps U.N. Speech by Daniel Larison
  • [Sep 19, 2017] Trump behaviour at UN and Nixon's "madman gambit" against Soviets
  • [Sep 18, 2017] How The Military Defeated Trumps Insurgency
  • [Sep 18, 2017] Looks like Trump initially has a four point platform that was anti-neoliberal in its essence: non-interventionism, no to neoliberal globalization, no to outsourcing of jobs, and no to multiculturism. All were betrayed very soon
  • [Sep 18, 2017] Its always bizarre who easily neoliberals turn into hawkish and warmongering jerks
  • [Sep 18, 2017] The NYT's Yellow Journalism on Russia by Rober Parry
  • [Sep 16, 2017] Empire of Capital by George Monbiot
  • [Sep 13, 2017] A despot in disguise: one mans mission to rip up democracy by George Monbiot
  • [Aug 27, 2017] Manipulated minorities represent a major danger for democratic states>
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The Pentagon s New Map War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The Pentagon s New Map War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century
  • [Dec 21, 2019] We are all Palestinians: possible connection between neocons and Pentagon
  • [Dec 21, 2019] We are all Palestinians: possible connection between neocons and Pentagon
  • [Feb 04, 2019] Trump s Revised and Rereleased Foreign Policy: The World Policeman is Back
  • [Aug 09, 2017] Force Multipliers and 21st Century Imperial Warfare Practice and Propaganda by Maximilian C. Forte
  • [Jun 24, 2017] The Criminal Laws of Counterinsurgency by Todd E. Pierce
  • [Jul 29, 2017] Ray McGovern The Deep State Assault on Elected Government Must Be Stopped
  • [Jul 26, 2017] US Provocation and North Korea Pretext for War with China by James Petras
  • [Jul 25, 2017] The Coup against Trump and His Military by James Petras
  • [Jul 17, 2017] Tucker Carlson Goes to War Against the Neocons by Curt Mills
  • [Jul 13, 2017] Progressive Democrats Resist and Submit, Retreat and Surrender by James Petras
  • [Jun 26, 2017] The Soft Coup Under Way In Washington by David Stockman
  • [Jun 24, 2017] The United States and Iran Two Tracks to Establish Hegemony by James Petras
  • [Jun 24, 2017] The Saudi-Qatar spat - the reconciliation offer to be refused>. Qater will move closer to Turkey
  • [Jun 17, 2017] The Collapsing Social Contract by Gaius Publius
  • [Jun 15, 2017] Comeys Lies of Omission by Mike Whitney
  • [Jun 13, 2017] Donald has morphed. He is now part neocon and part Wall St. errand-boy.
  • [May 05, 2017] Jared Kushner A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House by Wayne MADSEN
  • [May 04, 2017] Jared Kushner fired me over Israel ten years ago by Philip Weiss
  • [May 23, 2017] Are they really out to get Trump by Philip Girald
  • [May 21, 2017] What Obsessing About Trump Causes Us To Miss by Andrew Bacevich
  • [May 21, 2017] WhateverGate -- The Crazed Quest To Find Some Reason (Any Reason!) To Dump Trump by John Derbyshire
  • [May 21, 2017] Speech of Lavrov at the Military Academy of the General Staff
  • [May 20, 2017] Invasion of the Putin-Nazis by C.J. Hopkins
  • [Jan 11, 2020] Atomization of workforce as a part of atomization of society under neoliberalism
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Trump comes clean from world s policeman to thug running a global protection racket by Finian Cunningham
  • [Nov 10, 2018] US Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Killed 500,000 by Jason Ditz
  • [Nov 10, 2018] US Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Killed 500,000 by Jason Ditz
  • [Oct 25, 2018] Putin jokes with Bolton: Did the eagle eaten all the olives
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern
  • [May 09, 2018] Trotskyist Delusions, by Diana Johnstone
  • [Mar 17, 2018] How the gas was administred in a place which was under surveillance and why passersby were not affected
  • [Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater
  • [Dec 28, 2017] How CrowdStrike placed malware in DNC hacked servers by Alex Christoforou
  • [Dec 22, 2017] When Sanity Fails - The Mindset of the Ideological Drone by The Saker
  • [Sep 17, 2017] The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus
  • [Aug 30, 2017] Weather Underground Members Speak Out on the Media, Imperialism and Solidarity in the Age of Trump
  • [Jun 24, 2017] The Criminal Laws of Counterinsurgency by Todd E. Pierce
  • [May 05, 2017] Jared Kushner A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House by Wayne MADSEN
  • [May 04, 2017] Jared Kushner fired me over Israel ten years ago by Philip Weiss
  • [Sep 26, 2016] War as a Business Opportunity
  • [Nov 10, 2018] US Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Killed 500,000 by Jason Ditz
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern
  • [May 09, 2018] Trotskyist Delusions, by Diana Johnstone
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer
  • [Jul 03, 2018] Russia has a lot of information about Lybia that could dig a political grave for Hillary. They did not release it
  • [Jul 03, 2018] Musings II The "Intelligence Community," "Russian Interference," and Due Diligence
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern
  • [Jun 19, 2018] How The Last Superpower Was Unchained by Tom Engelhardt
  • [Jun 17, 2018] Mattis Putin Is Trying To Undermine America s Moral Authority by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Jun 17, 2018] the dominant political forces in EU are anti-Russia
  • [Jun 12, 2018] The real reason for which 'information apocalypse' terrifies the mainstream media
  • [Jun 06, 2018] Why Foreign Policy Realism Isn't Enough by William S. Smith
  • [Jun 06, 2018] Trump Voters, Your Savior Is Betraying You by Nicholas Kristof
  • [May 31, 2018] Journalists and academics expose UK's criminal actions in the Middle East by Julie Hyland
  • [May 27, 2018] Northwestern University roundtable discusses regime change in Russia Defend Democracy Press
  • [May 24, 2018] The diversion of Russia Gate is a continuation of former diversions such as the Tea Party which was invented by the banksters to turn public anger over the big banking collapse and the resulting recession into a movement to gain more deregulation for tax breaks for the wealthy
  • [May 23, 2018] If the Trump-Russia set up began in spring 2016 or earlier, presumably it was undertaken on the assumption that HRC would win the election. (I say "presumably" because you never can tell..) If so, then the operation would have been an MI6 / Ukrainian / CIA coordinated op intended to frame Putin, not Trump
  • [May 22, 2018] Cat fight within the US elite getting more intense
  • [May 22, 2018] Can the majority of the USA be made to see that neocons will ruin the USA, and that their power must be liquidated ?
  • [May 09, 2018] Trotskyist Delusions, by Diana Johnstone
  • [May 04, 2018] Media Use Disinformation To Accuse Russia Of Spreading Such by b
  • [May 03, 2018] Despite all the propaganda, all the hysterical headlines, all the blatantly biased coverage, the British haven't bought it
  • [May 03, 2018] The 'Libya model' Trump's top bloodthirsty neocon indirectly admits that N. Korea will be invaded and destroyed as soon as it gives up its nukes by system failure
  • [Apr 27, 2018] A Most Sordid Profession by Fred Reed
  • [Apr 24, 2018] America's Men Without Chests by Paul Grenier
  • [Apr 22, 2018] The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite
  • [Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater
  • [Dec 28, 2017] How CrowdStrike placed malware in DNC hacked servers by Alex Christoforou
  • [Dec 22, 2017] When Sanity Fails - The Mindset of the Ideological Drone by The Saker
  • [Apr 22, 2018] The Crisis Is Only In Its Beginning Stages by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Apr 21, 2018] On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al by Ray McGovern
  • [Apr 20, 2018] Stench of hypocrisy British 'war on terror' strategic ties with radical Islam by John Wight
  • [Apr 19, 2018] The Neocons Are Selling Koolaid Again! by W. Patrick Lang
  • [Apr 17, 2018] Poor Alex
  • [Apr 15, 2018] The Trump Regime Is Insane by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Apr 11, 2018] Female neocon warmongers from Fox look like plastered brick walls – heartless and brainless.
  • [Apr 09, 2018] When Military Leaders Have Reckless Disregard for the Truth by Bruce Fein
  • [Apr 09, 2018] Trump Is He Stupid or Dangerously Crazy by Justin Raimondo
  • [Apr 05, 2018] An Interview with Retired Russian General Evgeny Buzhinsky The National Interest
  • [Apr 02, 2018] Russophobia Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy by A. Tsygankov
  • [Mar 27, 2018] Let's Investigate John Brennan, by Philip Giraldi
  • [Mar 25, 2018] A truly historical month for the future of our planet by The Saker
  • [Mar 25, 2018] Cambridge Analytica Scandal Rockets to Watergate Proportions and Beyond by Adam Garrie
  • [Mar 24, 2018] Why the UK, the EU and the US Gang-Up on Russia by James Petras
  • [Mar 23, 2018] Inglorious end of career of neocon McMaster
  • [Mar 22, 2018] If it's correct, the Brits made a very nasty error that shows the true nature of their establishment.
  • [Mar 17, 2018] How the gas was administred in a place which was under surveillance and why passersby were not affected
  • [Mar 21, 2018] Washington's Invasion of Iraq at Fifteen
  • [Mar 21, 2018] Whataboutism Is A Nonsensical Propaganda Term Used To Defend The Failed Status Quo by Mike Krieger
  • [Feb 07, 2020] How They Sold the Iraq War by Jeffrey St. Clair
  • [Mar 16, 2018] Corbyn Calls for Evidence in Escalating Poison Row
  • [Mar 16, 2018] The French philosopher Alain Soral is quite right when he says that modern "journalists are either unemployed or prostitutes"
  • [Mar 16, 2018] Will the State Department Become a Subsidiary of the CIA
  • [Mar 14, 2018] UNSC holds urgent meeting over Salisbury attack
  • [Mar 12, 2018] Obama's has continued his neoliberal ways after leaving office. Obama was NOT forced into neoliberal positions by terrible Repugs like his Obamabot apologists claimed repeatedly
  • [Mar 11, 2018] Washington s Century-long War on Russia by Mike Whitney
  • [Mar 11, 2018] Reality Check: The Guardian Restarts Push for Regime Change in Russia by Kit
  • [Mar 10, 2018] Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in Obama policy and HRC campaign long before any Steele s Dossier. This was a program ofunleashing cold War II
  • [Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
  • [Mar 08, 2018] In recent years, there has been ample evidence that US policy-makers and, equally important, mainstream media commentators do not bother to read what Putin says, or at least not more than snatches from click-bait wire-service reports.
  • [Mar 08, 2018] A key piece of evidence pointing to 'Guccifer 2.0' being a fake personality created by the conspirators in their attempt to disguise the fact that the materials from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' were obtained by a leak rather than a hack had to do with the involvement of the former GCHQ person Matt Tait.
  • [Mar 06, 2018] The U.S. Returns to 'Great Power Competition,' With a Dangerous New Edge
  • [Mar 06, 2018] The current anti-Russian sentiment in the West as hysterical. But this hysteria is concentrated at the top level of media elite and neocons. Behind it is no deep sense of unity or national resolve. In fact we see the reverse - most Western countries are deeply divided within themselves due to the crisis of neolineralism.
  • [Mar 04, 2018] Generals who now are running the USA foreign policy represents a great danger. These men seem incapable of rising above the Russophobia that grew in the atmosphere of the Cold War. They yearn for world hegemony for the US and to see Russia and to a lesser extent China and Iran as obstacles to that dominion for the "city on a hill
  • [Mar 02, 2018] The main reason much of the highest echelons of American power are united against Trump might be that they're terrified that -- unlike Obama -- he's a really bad salesman for the US led neoliberal empire. This threatens the continuance of their well oiled and exceedingly corrupt gravy train
  • [Feb 26, 2018] Democrat Memo Lays Egg by Publius Tacitus
  • [Feb 26, 2018] Why one war when we can heve two! by Eric Margolis
  • [Feb 20, 2018] For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia
  • [Feb 20, 2018] Russophobia is a futile bid to conceal US, European demise by Finian Cunningham
  • [Feb 19, 2018] Nunes FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial by Ray McGovern
  • [Feb 19, 2018] The Russiagate Intelligence Wars What We Do and Don't Know
  • [Feb 19, 2018] Russian Meddling Was a Drop in an Ocean of American-made Discord by AMANDA TAUB and MAX FISHER
  • [Feb 18, 2018] This dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia is extremely lucrative for the war profiteers, the retired generals intelligence members who prostitute themselves as media pundits, the members of Congress who get $$$ from the war profiteers, and the corporate media which thrives on links to the war profiteers as well as on war reporting
  • [Feb 18, 2018] Had Hillary Won What Now by Andrew Levine
  • [Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater
  • [Dec 28, 2017] How CrowdStrike placed malware in DNC hacked servers by Alex Christoforou
  • [Feb 16, 2018] A Dangerous Turn in U.S. Foreign Policy
  • [Feb 14, 2018] Recused Judge in Flynn Prosecution Served on FISA Court
  • [Feb 14, 2018] The FBI and the President – Mutual Manipulation by James Petras
  • [Feb 12, 2018] The Age of Lunacy: The Doomsday Machine
  • [Feb 12, 2018] Ike's Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex Is Alive and Very Well by William J. Astore
  • [Feb 10, 2018] The generals are not Borgists. They are something worse ...
  • [Feb 10, 2018] More on neoliberal newspeak of US propaganda machine
  • [Feb 08, 2018] Control of narrative means that creation of the simplistic picture in which the complexities of the world are elided in favor of 'good guys' vs. 'bad guys' dichotomy
  • [Jan 30, 2018] Washington Reaches New Heights of Insanity with the "Kremlin Report" by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Jan 30, 2018] The Unseen Wars of America the Empire The American Conservative
  • [Jan 29, 2018] It is OK for an empire to be hated and feared, it doesn t work so good when Glory slowly fades and he empire instead becomes hated and despised
  • [Jan 28, 2018] Russiagate Isn t About Trump, And It Isn t Even Ultimately About Russia by Caitlyn Johnstone
  • [Jan 27, 2018] The Rich Also Cry by Israel Shamir
  • [Jan 27, 2018] As of January 2018 Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner.
  • [Jan 26, 2018] Warns The Russiagate Stakes Are Extreme by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Jan 25, 2018] Russiagate as Kafka 2.0
  • [Jan 24, 2018] Brazen Plot To Exonerate Hillary Clinton And Frame Trump Unraveling, Says Former Fed Prosecutor
  • [Jan 22, 2018] Pentagon Unveils Strategy for Military Confrontation With Russia and China by Bill Van Auken
  • [Jan 22, 2018] Trump s Illegal War in Syria by Daniel Larison
  • [Jan 21, 2018] America Sleepwalks Towards a Clash With the Turks in Syria by Patrick J. Buchanan
  • [Jan 19, 2018] #ReleaseTheMemo Extensive FISA abuse memo could destroy the entire Mueller Russia investigation by Alex Christoforou
  • [Jan 19, 2018] No Foreign Bases Challenging the Footprint of US Empire by Kevin B. Zeese and Margaret Flowers
  • [Jan 17, 2018] Neoconning the Trump White House by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
  • [Jan 12, 2018] The DOJ and FBI Worked With Fusion GPS on Operation Trump
  • [Jan 10, 2018] Surrounded by Neocons by Philip Giraldi
  • [Jan 06, 2018] Russia-gate Breeds Establishment McCarthyism by Robert Parry
  • [Dec 31, 2017] Maybe Trump was the deep state candidate of choice? Maybe that s why they ran Clinton against him rather than the more electable Sanders? Maybe that s why Obama started ramping up tensions with Russia in the early fall of 2016 – to swing the election to Trump (by giving the disgruntled anti-war Sanders voters a false choice between Trump or war with Russia?
  • [Jan 02, 2018] The Still-Missing Evidence of Russia-gate by Dennis J. Bernstein
  • [Jan 02, 2018] Neocon warmongers should be treated as rapists by Andrew J. Bacevich
  • [Jan 02, 2018] What We Don t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking by Jackson Lears
  • [Jan 02, 2018] Jill Stein in the Cross-hairs by Mike Whitney
  • [Jan 02, 2018] Who Is the Real Enemy by Philip Giraldi
  • [Jan 02, 2018] American exceptionalism extracts a price from common citizens
  • [Dec 22, 2017] When Sanity Fails - The Mindset of the Ideological Drone by The Saker
  • [Sep 17, 2017] The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus
  • [Aug 30, 2017] Weather Underground Members Speak Out on the Media, Imperialism and Solidarity in the Age of Trump
  • [Jun 24, 2017] The Criminal Laws of Counterinsurgency by Todd E. Pierce
  • [May 05, 2017] Jared Kushner A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House by Wayne MADSEN
  • [May 04, 2017] Jared Kushner fired me over Israel ten years ago by Philip Weiss
  • [Sep 26, 2016] War as a Business Opportunity
  • [Dec 28, 2019] Senior OPCW Official Busted Leaked Email Exposes Orders To Delete All Traces Of Dissent On Douma
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Trump administration sanction companies involved in laying the remaining pipe, and also companies involved in the infrastructure around the arrival point.
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Lessons of the past: all changed in 1999 with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Trump comes clean from world s policeman to thug running a global protection racket by Finian Cunningham
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Time to Terminate Washington's Defense Welfare
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The Pentagon s New Map War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century
  • [Dec 21, 2019] We are all Palestinians: possible connection between neocons and Pentagon
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives
  • [Jun 23, 2020] Identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ( soft neoliberals ) to counter the defection of trade union members from the party
  • [Dec 19, 2019] MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels
  • [Dec 19, 2019] A the core of color revolution against Trump is Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine
  • [Dec 17, 2019] Neocons like car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking credibility because ther profession is to lie in order to sell weapons to the publin, much like used car saleme lie to sell cars
  • [Dec 15, 2019] The infinity war - The Washington Post by Samuel Moyn, Stephen Wertheim
  • [Dec 14, 2019] Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation
  • [Dec 10, 2019] Donald Trump Is Bad for the Jews: There are things more important than your tax rate by Paul Krugman
  • [Dec 07, 2019] Why the foreign policy establishment consensus is neocon by default.
  • [Dec 06, 2019] Who Is Making US Foreign Policy by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon Reports
  • [Dec 04, 2019] America's War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet by William Astore
  • [Dec 02, 2019] The cost of militarism cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame
  • [Dec 02, 2019] A Think Tank Dedicated to Peace and Restraint
  • [Nov 27, 2019] Obama Admits He Would Speak Up Only To Stop Bernie Sanders Nomination
  • [Nov 27, 2019] Could your county use some extra money?
  • [Nov 26, 2019] John Solomon Everything Changes In The Ukraine Scandal If Trump Releases These Documents
  • [Nov 21, 2019] The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters, the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests
  • [Nov 09, 2019] Donald Trump s Only Crime Is Defending Himself by Daniel McCarthy
  • [Nov 03, 2019] How Controlling Syria s Oil Serves Washington s Strategic Objectives by Nauman Sadiq
  • [Nov 01, 2019] Viable Opposition The Legal Connection Between Washington and Kiev
  • [Oct 28, 2019] Expert Panel Finds Gaping Plot-Holes In OPCW Report On Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Oct 24, 2019] Empire Interventionism Versus Republic Noninterventionism by Jacob Hornberger
  • [Oct 24, 2019] Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil by Colonel Patrick Lang
  • [Oct 24, 2019] Trump is now proven war criminal: WikiLeaks Releases New Documents Questioning Syria Chemical Attack Narrative
  • [Oct 23, 2019] The treason of the intellectuals The Undoing of Thought by Roger Kimball
  • [Oct 23, 2019] Neoconservatism Is An Omnicidal Death Cult, And It Must Be Stopped by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Oct 20, 2019] How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion
  • [Oct 10, 2019] There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect: he is a war criminal, who escaped justice
  • [Oct 02, 2019] The Self-Set Impeachment Trap naked capitalism
  • [Sep 23, 2019] Giuliani Hits Bidens With New $3 Million Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus Money Laundering Accusation
  • [Sep 23, 2019] Apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact
  • [Sep 22, 2019] US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim
  • [Sep 22, 2019] It was neoliberalism that won the cold war
  • [Sep 20, 2019] Trump Whistleblower Drama Puts Biden In The Hot Seat Over Ukraine
  • [Sep 18, 2019] To End Endless Wars, We Must Give Up Hegemony by Daniel Larison
  • [Sep 17, 2019] The Devolution of US-Russia Relations by Tony Kevin
  • [Sep 12, 2019] The Brain-Dead Maximalism of [neocon] Hard-liners by Daniel Larison
  • [Sep 11, 2019] Video Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 The Bamboozle Has Captured Us
  • [Sep 10, 2019] Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik
  • [Sep 10, 2019] The idea tha the USA won the Cold War is questionable
  • [Sep 10, 2019] It s all about Gene Sharp and seeping neoliberal regime change using Western logistical support, money, NGO and intelligence agencies and MSM as the leverage
  • [Aug 22, 2019] Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison
  • [Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson
  • [Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson
  • [Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Jul 28, 2019] Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians
  • [Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jul 23, 2019] Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution
  • [Jul 17, 2019] Oil Is Driving the Iran Crisis by Michael T. Klare
  • [Jul 06, 2019] Why is Iran such a high priority for US elite? Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then
  • [Jul 06, 2019] In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy
  • [Jul 05, 2019] Globalisation- the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world - World news by Nikil Saval
  • [Jul 05, 2019] The World Bank and IMF 2019 by Michael Hudson and Bonnie Faulkner
  • [Jun 29, 2019] Latest Weapon Of US Imperialism Liquified Natural Gas
  • [Jun 28, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard vs Bolton
  • [Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman
  • [Jun 27, 2019] 'The Ugly Americans' From Kermit Roosevelt to John Bolton Iran Al Jazeera
  • [Jun 27, 2019] The Ongoing Restructuring of the Greater Middle East by C.J. Hopkins
  • [Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression
  • [Jun 22, 2019] Why a U.S.-Iran War Could End Up Being a Historic Disaster by Doug Bandow
  • [Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran'
  • [Jun 20, 2019] The Trump regime wants another pointless war by Ryan Cooper
  • [Jun 09, 2019] The looming 100-year US-China conflict by Martin Wolf
  • [Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir
  • [May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion
  • [May 25, 2019] The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan
  • [May 22, 2019] On War With Iran, It's Trump Versus the Founding Fathers
  • [May 22, 2019] NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries
  • [May 20, 2019] "Us" Versus "Them"
  • [May 18, 2019] Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning
  • [May 14, 2019] The Propaganda Multiplier How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics
  • [May 14, 2019] iJews and the Left-i by Philip Mendes A Review, by Brenton Sanderson - The Unz Review
  • [May 14, 2019] Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan
  • [May 13, 2019] Not Just Ukraine; Biden May Have A Serious China Problem As Schweizer Exposes Hunter s $1bn Deal
  • [May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi
  • [May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time
  • [May 12, 2019] Charting a Progressive Foreign Policy for the Trump Era and Beyond
  • [May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson
  • [May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation
  • [May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page
  • [May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe
  • [May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson
  • [May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors
  • [May 06, 2019] Trump's top three donors
  • [May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report
  • [May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions
  • [May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor
  • [May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky
  • [Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté
  • [Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed
  • [Apr 28, 2019] Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine
  • [Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond
  • [Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Whenever someone inconveniences the neoliberal oligarchy, the entire neoliberal MSM mafia tells us 24 x7 how evil and disgusting that person is. It's true of the leader of every nation which rejects neoliberal globalization as well as for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Haspel is not the "underling". Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.
  • [Apr 17, 2019] The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status
  • [Apr 16, 2019] The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they re angling for war with Iran.
  • [Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump
  • [Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.
  • [Apr 15, 2019] I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military
  • [Apr 14, 2019] Pro-Israeli groups defining the US foreign policy: Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business
  • [Apr 13, 2019] America as a Myth of good life is a powerful tool of color revolutions
  • [Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times
  • [Apr 08, 2019] Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization
  • [Apr 06, 2019] The Magnitsky Act-Behind the Scenes ASEEES
  • [Apr 04, 2019] How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney
  • [Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader
  • [Apr 04, 2019] Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For by Willy B
  • [Apr 02, 2019] 'Yats' Is No Longer the Guy by Robert Parry
  • [Apr 01, 2019] Amazon.com War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate (9781510745810) Stephen F. Cohen Books
  • [Mar 31, 2019] Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual
  • [Mar 31, 2019] What is the purpose of Russiagate hysteria?
  • [Mar 30, 2019] The US desperately needs Venezuelan oil
  • [Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate
  • [Mar 29, 2019] I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans
  • [Mar 26, 2019] Jared Kushner accused of using WhatsApp and personal email for state business by Bob Fredericks
  • [Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political hit job by Bob Fredericks
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner Is Beating Heart of Corrupt and Deeply Evil Trump Administration, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe Says by Jason Lemon
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ...
  • [Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report
  • [Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.
  • [Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary
  • [Mar 20, 2019] In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts
  • [Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies
  • [Mar 18, 2019] FULL CNN TOWN HALL WITH TULSI GABBARD 3-10-19
  • [Mar 18, 2019] The Why are the media playing lapdog and not watchdog – again – on war in Iraq?
  • [Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings
  • [Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings
  • [Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk by Jack Hunter
  • [Mar 06, 2019] Disinformation destroys reality
  • [Feb 21, 2019] The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed
  • [Feb 19, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds
  • [Feb 19, 2019] Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube
  • [Feb 19, 2019] Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class
  • [Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest?
  • [Feb 17, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives
  • [Feb 13, 2019] MoA - Russiagate Is Finished
  • [Feb 13, 2019] Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins
  • [Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber
  • [Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed
  • [Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library
  • [Feb 04, 2019] Trump s Revised and Rereleased Foreign Policy: The World Policeman is Back
  • [Jan 30, 2019] The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance
  • [Jan 29, 2019] Guardian became Deep State Guardian
  • [Jan 26, 2019] Can the current US neoliberal/neoconservative elite be considered suicidal?
  • [Jan 22, 2019] War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate
  • [Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald
  • [Jan 19, 2019] According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks
  • [Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke
  • [Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames
  • [Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything
  • [Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International
  • [Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative
  • [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.
  • [Jan 04, 2019] Veteran NBC-MSNBC Journalist Blasts Network in Resignation
  • [Jan 02, 2019] Russian bots - How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News
  • [Jan 02, 2019] The Only Meddling "Russian Bots" Were Actually Democrat-Led "Experts" by Mac Slavo
  • [Jan 02, 2019] Did Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article ?
  • [Nov 01, 2019] Viable Opposition The Legal Connection Between Washington and Kiev
  • [Oct 28, 2019] Expert Panel Finds Gaping Plot-Holes In OPCW Report On Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Oct 24, 2019] Empire Interventionism Versus Republic Noninterventionism by Jacob Hornberger
  • [Oct 24, 2019] Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil by Colonel Patrick Lang
  • [Oct 24, 2019] Trump is now proven war criminal: WikiLeaks Releases New Documents Questioning Syria Chemical Attack Narrative
  • [Oct 23, 2019] The treason of the intellectuals The Undoing of Thought by Roger Kimball
  • [Oct 23, 2019] Neoconservatism Is An Omnicidal Death Cult, And It Must Be Stopped by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Oct 10, 2019] There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect: he is a war criminal, who escaped justice
  • [Oct 02, 2019] The Self-Set Impeachment Trap naked capitalism
  • [Sep 23, 2019] Giuliani Hits Bidens With New $3 Million Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus Money Laundering Accusation
  • [Sep 23, 2019] Apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as established fact
  • [Sep 22, 2019] Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states
  • [Sep 15, 2019] Demythologizing the Roots of the New Cold War by Ted Snider
  • [Sep 22, 2019] US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim
  • [Sep 22, 2019] Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states
  • [Sep 22, 2019] It was neoliberalism that won the cold war
  • [Sep 20, 2019] Trump Whistleblower Drama Puts Biden In The Hot Seat Over Ukraine
  • [Sep 18, 2019] To End Endless Wars, We Must Give Up Hegemony by Daniel Larison
  • [Sep 17, 2019] The Devolution of US-Russia Relations by Tony Kevin
  • [Sep 15, 2019] Demythologizing the Roots of the New Cold War by Ted Snider
  • [Sep 12, 2019] The Brain-Dead Maximalism of [neocon] Hard-liners by Daniel Larison
  • [Sep 11, 2019] Video Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 The Bamboozle Has Captured Us
  • [Sep 10, 2019] Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik
  • [Sep 10, 2019] The idea tha the USA won the Cold War is questionable
  • [Sep 10, 2019] It s all about Gene Sharp and seeping neoliberal regime change using Western logistical support, money, NGO and intelligence agencies and MSM as the leverage
  • [Aug 22, 2019] Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison
  • [Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson
  • [Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson
  • [Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Jul 28, 2019] Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians
  • [Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jul 23, 2019] Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution
  • [Jul 17, 2019] Oil Is Driving the Iran Crisis by Michael T. Klare
  • [Jul 06, 2019] Why is Iran such a high priority for US elite? Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then
  • [Jul 06, 2019] In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy
  • [Jul 05, 2019] Globalisation- the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world - World news by Nikil Saval
  • [Jul 05, 2019] The World Bank and IMF 2019 by Michael Hudson and Bonnie Faulkner
  • [Dec 02, 2019] A Think Tank Dedicated to Peace and Restraint
  • [Jun 29, 2019] Latest Weapon Of US Imperialism Liquified Natural Gas
  • [Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman
  • [Jun 03, 2020] The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable
  • [Jun 27, 2019] 'The Ugly Americans' From Kermit Roosevelt to John Bolton Iran Al Jazeera
  • [Jun 27, 2019] The Ongoing Restructuring of the Greater Middle East by C.J. Hopkins
  • [Jun 26, 2019] Pompeo is a MIC lobbyist, not a diplomat
  • [Jun 26, 2019] Pompeo is a MIC lobbyist, not a diplomat
  • [Jun 03, 2020] The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable
  • [Jun 22, 2019] Why The Empire Is Failing The Horrid Hubris Of The Albright Doctrine by Doug Bandow
  • [Jun 25, 2019] It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR.
  • [Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran'
  • [Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression
  • [Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran'
  • [Jun 22, 2019] Bolton Calls For Forceful Iranian Response To Continuing US Aggression
  • [Jun 22, 2019] Why a U.S.-Iran War Could End Up Being a Historic Disaster by Doug Bandow
  • [Jun 22, 2019] Why The Empire Is Failing The Horrid Hubris Of The Albright Doctrine by Doug Bandow
  • [Jun 20, 2019] The Trump regime wants another pointless war by Ryan Cooper
  • [Jun 09, 2019] The looming 100-year US-China conflict by Martin Wolf
  • [Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir
  • [May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion
  • [May 31, 2019] US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'...and this is in The Guardian and not The Onion
  • [May 25, 2019] The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan
  • [May 22, 2019] On War With Iran, It's Trump Versus the Founding Fathers
  • [May 22, 2019] NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries
  • [May 20, 2019] "Us" Versus "Them"
  • [May 18, 2019] Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning
  • [May 14, 2019] The Propaganda Multiplier How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics
  • [May 14, 2019] iJews and the Left-i by Philip Mendes A Review, by Brenton Sanderson - The Unz Review
  • [May 14, 2019] Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan
  • [May 13, 2019] Not Just Ukraine; Biden May Have A Serious China Problem As Schweizer Exposes Hunter s $1bn Deal
  • [May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time
  • [May 05, 2019] The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen
  • [May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi
  • [May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time
  • [May 12, 2019] Charting a Progressive Foreign Policy for the Trump Era and Beyond
  • [May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson
  • [May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation
  • [May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page
  • [May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe
  • [May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson
  • [May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors
  • [May 06, 2019] Trump's top three donors
  • [May 05, 2019] The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen
  • [May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report
  • [May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions
  • [May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor
  • [May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky
  • [Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté
  • [Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed
  • [Apr 28, 2019] Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine
  • [Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond
  • [Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Whenever someone inconveniences the neoliberal oligarchy, the entire neoliberal MSM mafia tells us 24 x7 how evil and disgusting that person is. It's true of the leader of every nation which rejects neoliberal globalization as well as for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Haspel is not the "underling". Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.
  • [Apr 17, 2019] The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status
  • [Apr 16, 2019] The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they re angling for war with Iran.
  • [Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump
  • [Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.
  • [Apr 15, 2019] I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military
  • [Apr 14, 2019] Pro-Israeli groups defining the US foreign policy: Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business
  • [Apr 13, 2019] America as a Myth of good life is a powerful tool of color revolutions
  • [Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century
  • [Apr 08, 2019] Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization
  • [Apr 06, 2019] The Magnitsky Act-Behind the Scenes ASEEES
  • [Apr 04, 2019] How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney
  • [Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader
  • [Apr 04, 2019] Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For by Willy B
  • [Apr 02, 2019] 'Yats' Is No Longer the Guy by Robert Parry
  • [Apr 01, 2019] Amazon.com War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate (9781510745810) Stephen F. Cohen Books
  • [Mar 31, 2019] Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual
  • [Mar 31, 2019] What is the purpose of Russiagate hysteria?
  • [Mar 30, 2019] The US desperately needs Venezuelan oil
  • [Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate
  • [Mar 29, 2019] I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans
  • [Mar 26, 2019] Jared Kushner accused of using WhatsApp and personal email for state business by Bob Fredericks
  • [Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political hit job by Bob Fredericks
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner Is Beating Heart of Corrupt and Deeply Evil Trump Administration, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe Says by Jason Lemon
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ...
  • [Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report
  • [Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.
  • [Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary
  • [Mar 20, 2019] In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts
  • [Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies
  • [Mar 18, 2019] FULL CNN TOWN HALL WITH TULSI GABBARD 3-10-19
  • [Mar 18, 2019] The Why are the media playing lapdog and not watchdog – again – on war in Iraq?
  • [Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings
  • [Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings
  • [Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk by Jack Hunter
  • [Mar 06, 2019] Disinformation destroys reality
  • [Feb 21, 2019] The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed
  • [Feb 19, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds
  • [Feb 19, 2019] Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube
  • [Feb 19, 2019] Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class
  • [Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest?
  • [Feb 17, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives
  • [Feb 13, 2019] MoA - Russiagate Is Finished
  • [Feb 13, 2019] Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins
  • [Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber
  • [Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed
  • [Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library
  • [Feb 05, 2019] The neocon s strategy
  • [Jan 30, 2019] The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Michael Hudson Trump s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember US Dollar Hegemony by Michael Hudson
  • [Jan 22, 2019] War with Russia From Putin Ukraine to Trump Russiagate
  • [Jan 19, 2019] According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks
  • [Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames
  • [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.
  • [Oct 28, 2020] Wall Street Banks, And Their Employees, Now Officially Lean Democrat
  • [Oct 26, 2020] Politicians books as a subtle form of corruption
  • [Oct 24, 2020] The USA foreign policy establishment, including Joe Biden, as vulgar bullies
  • [Oct 21, 2020] How Trump Got Played By The Military-Industrial Complex by Akbar Shahid Ahmed
  • [Oct 21, 2020] This Is Not A Russian Hoax 'Nonpublic Information' Debunks Letter From '50 Former Intel Officials'
  • [Oct 19, 2020] The Emails Are Russian- Will Be The Narrative, Regardless Of Facts Or Evidence by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Oct 19, 2020] New report shows more than $1B from war industry and govt. going to top 50 think tanks
  • [Oct 01, 2020] Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations cost him -- but he never gave up by Lev Golinkin
  • [Sep 28, 2020] No wonder Pompey and his friend Jeffries won't give up on Syria! No wonder
  • [Sep 28, 2020] Ziocon Trump is a master of deception: has not delivered on any of his promises, hired neocons, assholes, and morons
  • [Sep 26, 2020] What is predatory capitalism
  • [Sep 26, 2020] Galloway- Lying industry may be the only sector of Western economies still in full production TAXPAYERS pay for it
  • [Sep 25, 2020] US standard "negotiating" techniques
  • [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen F. Cohen- The Ukrainian Crisis - It s not All Putin s Fault
  • [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen Cohen at the AJC 2017 Forum, about Russia and Terrorism
  • [Sep 20, 2020] Darren Beattie Tucker Carlson Discuss Color Revolutions The Plot To Oust President Trump
  • [Sep 17, 2020] Why the Blob Needs an Enemy by ARTA MOEINI
  • [Sep 17, 2020] Military desperados and Mattis "military messiah syndrome" by Scott Ritter
  • [Sep 09, 2020] Proof of collusion at last! - IRRUSSIANALITY
  • [Sep 01, 2020] Are We Deliberately Trying to Provoke a Military Crisis With Russia by Ted Galen Carpenter
  • [Aug 22, 2020] Kamala is a MIC marionette
  • [Aug 19, 2020] American imperialism vs. EU imperialism: Pushed into the Ukrainian adventure by the US? Rubbish. The EU and its constituent members were attempting to play their own hand and were not merely following the US lead submissively.
  • [Aug 16, 2020] CIA Behind Guccifer Russiagate A Plausible Scenario
  • [Aug 02, 2020] Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA by ROB URIE
  • [Aug 01, 2020] Executed Turkish general exposed misuse of Qatari funds for Syria extremists- Report - Al Arabiya English
  • [Jul 31, 2020] Tucker Carlson calls Obama 'one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures' in US political history
  • [Jul 26, 2020] Former Poroshenko Ally Admits Euromaidan In 2014 Was Entirely Funded By "Organized Criminal Group" - Defend Democracy Press
  • [Jul 23, 2020] Opinion - Defund the Pentagon- The Liberal Case - POLITICO
  • [Jul 23, 2020] Demorats defeat amedment ot cut Defence by 10%
  • [Jul 23, 2020] This is a biggie: Egypt's parliament approves troop deployment to Libya
  • [Jul 13, 2020] George Washington Tried To Warn Americans About Foreign Policy Today by Doug Bandow
  • [Jul 07, 2020] Mutiny on the Bounties by RAY McGOVERN
  • [Jul 06, 2020] US claim of 'Russian Bounty' plot in Afghanistan is dubious and dangerous - The Grayzone
  • [Jul 03, 2020] I don't think we can assume that even now Trump actually has control of the FBI; it is still in hands of Obama faction
  • [Jul 01, 2020] Three Glaring Problems with the Russian Taliban Bounty Story by Barbara Boland
  • [Jul 01, 2020] Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses!
  • [Jun 28, 2020] Russian position for Start talks: "We don't believe the US in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever".
  • [Jun 24, 2020] Russia heavily subsidised Ukrainian energy imports for decades gas and oil; the USA converted Ukraine into a debt slave, sells Ukraine expensive weapons and cornered their energy industry; The level of fleecing Ukraine by the USA after Euromaidan can be compared only with fleecing of Libya.
  • [Jun 23, 2020] Identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ( soft neoliberals ) to counter the defection of trade union members from the party
  • [Jun 21, 2020] Paul R. Pillar who pointed out that U.S. sanctions are frequently peddled as a peaceful alternative to war fit the definition of 'crimes against peace'.
  • [Jun 19, 2020] The USG' s definition of Dictator
  • [Jun 14, 2020] Jeane J. Kirkpatrick 30 Years Unheeded
  • [Jun 13, 2020] Korea is just another distraction: false conflicts with China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are needed to keep support for MIC and Security State which cost 1.2 trillion a year
  • [Jun 12, 2020] Flynn Case 85 Lies, Contradictions, Oddities, Unusual Occurrences by Petr Svab
  • [Jun 03, 2020] The first rule of political hypocrisy: Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable
  • [Jun 03, 2020] Internet Users Who Call For Attacking Other Countries Will Now Be Enlisted In The Military Automatically
  • [Jun 01, 2020] This is one war party -- war party, imperial party of militarism, conquest and killing of civilians
  • [May 31, 2020] We Are Combat Vets, and We Want America to Reboot Memorial Day by Matthew Hoh and Danny Sjursen
  • [May 30, 2020] More On "Obamagate!"
  • [May 26, 2020] News Stories Avoid Naming Israel by Philip Giraldi
  • [May 24, 2020] FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election
  • [May 24, 2020] Unable to communicate in Arabic and with no relevant experience or appropriate educational training
  • [May 22, 2020] No US president who can withdraw the USA from the Forever Wars
  • [May 21, 2020] The 'Clean Break' Doctrine OffGuardian
  • [May 20, 2020] The American Mission and the Evil Empire The Crusade for a Free Russia Since 1881 by Foglesong
  • [May 20, 2020] Newly Revealed Texts Show Strzok, Page Altered Flynn Interview Notes
  • [May 20, 2020] McGovern Turn Out The Lights, Russiagate Is Over by Ray McGovern
  • [May 19, 2020] America: "We demand an coronavirus origin investigation, but the investigators must agree on the outcome that we specify before they begin investigating!"
  • [May 19, 2020] Russophobia in the Age of Donald Trump
  • [May 16, 2020] A model democrat
  • [May 13, 2020] Dramatic change of direction for Syrian envoy
  • [May 13, 2020] From RussiaGate To ObamaGate The End Of Boomerville by Tom Luongo
  • [May 11, 2020] Lee Zeldin Adam Schiff 'should resign today' for role in Russia investigation by Dominick Mastrangelo
  • [May 11, 2020] McCarthy: It would be 'profoundly crazy if Obama wasn't in on Flynn case'
  • [May 10, 2020] Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security by Kevin R. Brock
  • [May 10, 2020] Does Obama now feels his potential liability for staging coup d' tat and gaslighting the whole nation?
  • [May 07, 2020] Media Malpractice Is Criminalizing Better Relations With Russia by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [May 07, 2020] Angry Bear " "cannot remember a single International Crisis in which the United States had no global presence at all"
  • [May 05, 2020] UK government experince with the White Helmets and the Skripal affair definitly halps in anti-china propaganda.
  • [Apr 29, 2020] Trump, despite pretty slick deception during his election campaign, is an typical imperialist and rabid militarist. His administration continuredand in some areas exceeded the hostility of Obama couse against Russia
  • [Apr 25, 2020] Did This Virus Come From a Lab? Maybe Not But It Exposes the Threat of a Biowarfare Arms Race by Sam Husseini
  • [Apr 24, 2020] Please Tell the Establishment That U.S. Hegemony is Over by Daniel Larison
  • [Apr 22, 2020] Especially as the insane neoliberal economy we live in, we are ruled by a group of kleptocrats and vicious stooges. Which make allegations against Biden deserving a closer look but that does not make them automatically credible
  • [Apr 11, 2020] 'Never in my country': COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by Jeanne Morefield
  • [Apr 08, 2020] Feudal Japan Edo and the US Empire by Hiroyuki Hamada
  • [Apr 05, 2020] Esper tone deafness: a sad illustration of wildly misplaced priorities of military industrial complex
  • [Mar 21, 2020] When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply
  • [Mar 13, 2020] Daffy Duck. cartoon was made in 1953 and like many Looney Tune cartoon's, they are an extreme parody of life. It dawned on me that this cartoon is an almost perfect description of US Military policy and action.
  • [Mar 04, 2020] Why Are We Being Charged? Surprise Bills From Coronavirus Testing Spark Calls for Government to Cover All Costs by Jake Johnson
  • [Mar 03, 2020] "Predatory capitalism", which clearly describes what neoliberalism is.
  • [Feb 29, 2020] A very interesting and though provoking presentation by Ambassador Chas Freeman "America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change"
  • [Feb 29, 2020] Secret Wars, Forgotten Betrayals, Global Tyranny. Who s Really In Charge Of The US Military by Cynthia Chung
  • [Feb 28, 2020] Chas Freeman America in Distress The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change
  • [Feb 28, 2020] Chas Freeman America in Distress The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change
  • [Feb 26, 2020] A serious US politician has to demonstrate a large capacity for betrayal.
  • [Feb 23, 2020] Welcome to the American Regime
  • [Feb 23, 2020] Where Have You Gone, Smedley Butler The Last General To Criticize US Imperialism by Danny Sjursen
  • [Feb 22, 2020] The Red Thread A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy by Diana West
  • [Feb 28, 2020] Russia s Relationship With China Is Growing Despite Setbacks by Lyle J. Goldstein ,
  • [Feb 14, 2020] Is Apartheid the Inevitable Outcome of Zionism? by Henry Siegman
  • [Feb 09, 2020] The Deeper Story Behind The Assassination Of Soleimani
  • [Feb 08, 2020] Is Iraq About To Switch From US to Russia
  • [Feb 07, 2020] How They Sold the Iraq War by Jeffrey St. Clair
  • [Feb 03, 2020] White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War
  • [Feb 02, 2020] The most interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story
  • [Jan 31, 2020] Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning
  • [Jan 27, 2020] The end of Trump? Trump betrayed all major promises of his 2016 election campaign. Trump needs to go...
  • [Jan 26, 2020] The Collapse of Neoliberalism by Ganesh Sitaraman
  • [Jan 24, 2020] How Are Iran and the "Axis of the Resistance" Affected by the US Assassination of Soleimani by Elijah J. Magnier
  • [Jan 24, 2020] Lawrence Wilkerson Lambasts 'the Beast of the National Security State' by Adam Dick
  • [Jan 19, 2020] Anyone who has studied the history of the Third Reich would note a curious similarity between Germany s behaviour under Hitler and the current behaviour of the US both internally and externally
  • [Jan 19, 2020] The frantic attempt to deflect attention from US foreign wars and mainly derisive media coverage of Tulsi Gabbard is a case in point. Is she the harbinger of a growing political movement aiming to dismantle the military empire project?
  • [Jan 18, 2020] The joke is on us: Without the USSR the USA oligarchy resorted to cannibalism and devour the American people
  • [Jan 17, 2020] Ukraine is a deeply sick patient. The destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic. Diaspora is greedy and want a piece of cake immediately
  • [Jan 12, 2020] MIC along with Wall Street controls the government and the country
  • [Jan 12, 2020] US has been preaching human rights while mounting wars and lying.
  • [Jan 12, 2020] Luongo Fears "An Abyss Of Losses" As Iraq Becomes MidEast Battleground
  • [Jan 11, 2020] Sheldon Adelson the casino mogul driving Trump's Middle East policy by Chris McGreal
  • [Jan 10, 2020] The Saker interviews Michael Hudson
  • [Jan 09, 2020] Opposing War With Iran: Three Reasons by Anthony DiMaggio
  • [Jan 08, 2020] I can't quite understand how gratuitous US piracy and adventurism in places on the globe beyond the knowledge and reach of most Americans could possibly be compared to Iranian actions securing their immediate regional borders and interests.
  • [Jan 08, 2020] Iraqi Journalist: Killing Soleimani "Ended An Era In Which Iran And The United States Coexisted In Iraq" by Tim Hains
  • [Jan 08, 2020] Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge?
  • [Jan 08, 2020] If we assume that Pompeo persuaded Trump to order to kill a diplomatic envoy, Trump is now a dead man walking as after Iran responce Pelosi impeachment gambit now have legs
  • [Jan 06, 2020] Diplomacy Trump-style. Al Capone probably would be allow himself to fall that low
  • [Jan 06, 2020] I am tired of giving Trump a free pass, just because Hillary would have been worse. Trump needs to go.
  • [Jan 06, 2020] How To Avoid Swallowing War Propaganda by Nathan J. Robinson
  • [Jan 06, 2020] Neocon Pompeo pushed Trump to kill Soleimani; Looks like West Point educated military contactor mafia to which Pompeo and Esper belongs controls the President, although Trump malleability and recklessness are inexcusable
  • [Jan 06, 2020] The Soleimani Assassination by Philip Giraldi
  • [Jan 06, 2020] The threat of General Soleimani - TTG
  • [Jan 05, 2020] The USA is now at war, de-facto and de-jure, with BOTH Iraq and Iran (UPDATED 6X) The Vineyard of the Saker
  • [Jan 05, 2020] Trump is wholly responsible for his own actions, but he -- just like the Ayatollah -- is being pushed in a direction where it's impossible to back down and still "save face". Neither men can afford to do so by Andrew Korybko
  • [Jan 04, 2020] American Meddling in the Ukraine by Publius Tacitus
  • [Jan 04, 2020] Trump Is Doing the Bidding of Washington's Most Vile Cabal
  • [Jan 04, 2020] Will Trump welcome the ejection of the US from Iraq - He should by Colonel Lang
  • [Jan 04, 2020] Talking about revenge is stupid and juvenile: Iran needs to pull back and focus on making themselves stronger in economy and technology and for strong ties with other responsible players
  • [Dec 28, 2019] Senior OPCW Official Busted Leaked Email Exposes Orders To Delete All Traces Of Dissent On Douma
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Trump administration sanction companies involved in laying the remaining pipe, and also companies involved in the infrastructure around the arrival point.
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Lessons of the past: all changed in 1999 with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Trump comes clean from world s policeman to thug running a global protection racket by Finian Cunningham
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Time to Terminate Washington's Defense Welfare
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The Pentagon s New Map War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century
  • [Dec 21, 2019] We are all Palestinians: possible connection between neocons and Pentagon
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives
  • [Dec 19, 2019] MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels
  • [Dec 19, 2019] A the core of color revolution against Trump is Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine
  • [Dec 17, 2019] Neocons like car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking credibility because ther profession is to lie in order to sell weapons to the publin, much like used car saleme lie to sell cars
  • [Dec 15, 2019] The infinity war - The Washington Post by Samuel Moyn, Stephen Wertheim
  • [Dec 14, 2019] Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation
  • [Dec 10, 2019] Donald Trump Is Bad for the Jews: There are things more important than your tax rate by Paul Krugman
  • [Dec 07, 2019] Why the foreign policy establishment consensus is neocon by default.
  • [Dec 06, 2019] Who Is Making US Foreign Policy by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon Reports
  • [Dec 04, 2019] America's War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet by William Astore
  • [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen F. Cohen- The Ukrainian Crisis - It s not All Putin s Fault
  • [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen Cohen at the AJC 2017 Forum, about Russia and Terrorism
  • [Sep 20, 2020] Darren Beattie Tucker Carlson Discuss Color Revolutions The Plot To Oust President Trump
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    War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

    Bulletin:

    Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

    History:

    Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

    Classic books:

    The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

    Most popular humor pages:

    Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

    The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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    Last modified: January, 20, 2021